Russians And Martians

In Poul Anderson's Shield (New York, 1970), I found the cryptic passage about the Russians, on p. 46, and it was not quite what I thought. Apparently, they got hit in the war but had a bad experience before that. Martians will not cooperate with anyone not friendly with the human beings that they are already dealing with and they can tell. Further, they can detonate someone else's atomic weapons and this is what happened to a Russian Mars expedition. Thus, the Martians did not intervene on Earth but did deal very effectively with attempted deceit on Mars.

Cooperation was very close with the American expedition. Martian field theory and Terrestrial practical solid state physics combined to produce the force field "shield." The Martian Elkor communicated with an Earthman with coded vibrations in a palp laid on the man's neck and addressed him as "Sharer-of-Hopes..." (p. 11)