"We must decide it before we leave Mars," he replied. And I agreed. But I also agreed that we could do nothing now unless we wanted to scuttle the entire expedition. In spite of Dr. Spartan, in spite of everything, success of the expedition came first. And ahead of us was Mars--which could mean death to some of us. The planet loomed like a red giant on the television screens. The signals, which we believed to be ominous, were now signals of hope. If there was life on Mars, there might be water. True, scientists had pointed out that life, different from ours, might exist without water, using ammonia, perhaps. For our sakes, we hoped this wasn't so. We looked thirstily at the polar caps, the northern one diminishing rapidly, because it was nearly summer in that hemisphere. The southern cap was growing as winter set in. But we were still uncertain of our reception. "They're uneasy about us," Gail told me. "Just think how you'd feel if a fleet of spaceships from Mars was closing in." "A fleet? This is only one ship." "Three rocket ships are already circling Mars," she reminded me. "If the inhabitants spotted us when we were less than halfway here, they certainly would know all about those smaller rockets." "It shouldn't take them long to see we intend no harm," said Joel. "Unless they're the type who shoot first and ask questions afterwards." "There may be no common ground for communication at all," Gail said. "Martians may not be life as we know it." We'd all read everything we could about Mars before we left the earth. The question of life on Mars wasn't debatable. There was life, but whether it amounted to anything more than the vegetation observed by photo and telescope, was another matter. We tried to imagine plants using radar and sending messages--the idea seemed absurd. The canals--originally named by Schiaparelli, who called them _canali_, the Italian word for _channels_, erroneously translated to read canals--were so geometrically straight that many people thought they could not be natural phenomena and were, actually, man-made canals. There was some oxygen, but how much was an open question. It was hard to determine because all the tests had to be made through the sea of oxygen that surrounds the earth. They were not conclusive. There was water, but the amount could not be determined because the earth's air is full of water vapor. The climate could be studied. Mars was cold, but not too cold. At the equator a very warm day was possible, with, perhaps, temperatures as high as 60 or 70 degrees. Nights could be very cold, below freezing, even in summer. The ice caps were thin because they melted rapidly. Generally they were believed to be ice, but a few scholars thought they might be of carbon dioxide--dry ice. The poles were cold enough to precipitate carbon dioxide in winter.