“Mars Minus Bisha”
Originally published in Planet Stories, January 1954

Today, December 7, marks the birth of Leigh Brackett (1915-1978). As has become customary in these here parts, we observed that day by reading one of her works. This year it’s the story “Mars Minus Bisha”.

The was collected in the long out of print book The Coming of the Terrans. It’s set in the year 2016. Fraser is a doctor doing research on viruses outside a remote Martian village. He lives in a Quonset hut juts past the edge of town. He’s not exactly welcome there.

As the story opens, he’s standing outside one night, admiring the brilliance of the stars. The thin Martian atmosphere doesn’t dim them as much as the atmosphere of Earth.  He’s walking along, looking up, when he hears a rider coming from the north. Fearing its a raid by one of the wild tribes, he returns to his hut. But its only a Martian woman.

Illustration by Emsh

She gives him a child, telling him the child is sick. He takes the child, a girl, and expects the woman to dismount. Instead the woman rides off into the night. Fraser takes the girl inside. There he discovers that she’s not sick.  She’s been drugged.

When the drug wears off, the girl is able to tell Fraser her name is Bisha and that a sickness had come to her village. The elders blamed her for it and ordered her death. Bisha’s mother claimed the right to abandon her daughter in the desert. Instead she brought the girl to Fraser in an attempt to save her.

Fraser attributes the story to superstition and tries to convince the girl there is nothing to it. He tells her of his tree shaded home on Earth.

At first, Bisha believes him, or at least tries to. But then Fraser begins to have blackout spells. They start with him going to bed and simply not waking up when he should. Then he just passes out without warning.

Leigh Brackett

Bisha claims she is responsible. He tries save both himself and Bisha. What exactly unfolds from that point on, you’ll have to read the story yourself. It’s available in Martian Quest directly from Baen Books in ebook only ($4 at this writing).

“Mars Minus Bisha” isn’t a major Mars story by Brackett, but it still has all her trademarks. the ancient world, fallen empires and remnants of lost races, an overarching tone of sadness. And a killer last line.

Check it out. And read some more Brackett while you’re at it. She was one of a kind and one of the best writers of adventure science fiction.