XPost: alt.usage.english, rec.arts.books, rec.arts.sf.misc   
   From: rja.carnegie@gmail.com   
      
   On 02/02/2026 23:57, Peter Moylan wrote:   
   > On 03/02/26 10:01, John Ames wrote:   
   >   
   >> (Also reminds me of a children's book from the '50s - '60s that I   
   >> found once upon a time; that had Earth colonists landing on an   
   >> inhospitable and seemingly-deserted Mars, only for their children to   
   >> meet a couple Martian children, who along with the rest of their   
   >> civilization have retreated to underground cavern-cities or something   
   >> to that effect. I've never managed to track it down since...)   
   >   
   > I've re-read that in the not-so-distant past, but I can't identify it. I   
   > remember that the Earth explorers sending out exploration vehicles, and   
   > the Martian children had fun riding on top of them, in a game that   
   > anticipated cats riding on vacuum cleaners.   
   >   
   > Perhaps some more details will come to mind in the next few days.   
      
   That may be in a different story, I want   
   to say Larry Niven - a robotic probe on   
   wheels lands on Mars from Earth, and the   
   adult Martians, who are very different   
   from Warth life, allow their children   
   to play with it, ride on it, herd it   
   around, while reflecting that when Earth   
   astronauts foreseeably come, the Martian   
   adults should keep their children away   
   from that encounter.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)