New Lamps

A human traveler comes to Mars determined to locate a reclusive figure who trades strange new lamps for old ones—objects suggested to affect life itself—and to learn what is hidden deep in a polar granite mountain. He confronts the planet's harsh social order, suffers a violent street encounter with Martian locals and their apathetic leper, and is rescued by a rare human woman armed with a spring gun and a potent narcotic. The narrative follows his perilous quest amid cultural hostility, scavenging and barter, and an escalating mystery about the nature and value of the lamps.