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Title: The red planet
Author: Russ Winterbotham
Illustrator: Ralph Brillhart
Release Date: June 26, 2023 [eBook #71049]
Language: English
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from
images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED PLANET ***
THE RED PLANET
Russ Winterbotham
_A Science Fiction Novel_
MONARCH BOOKS, INC.
Derby, Connecticut
Published in August, 1962
Copyright © 1962 by Russ Winterbotham
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_Cover Painting by Ralph Brillhart_
Monarch Books are published by MONARCH BOOKS, INC.,
Capital Building, Derby, Connecticut, and represent the works
of outstanding novelists and writers of non-fiction especially
chosen for their literary merit and reading entertainment.
Printed in the United States of America
All Rights Reserved
* * * * *
REVENGE IN AN ALIEN WORLD
When Gail Loring chose Bill Drake to be her husband--in name only--for
the duration of the flight to Mars, she didn't know that she had just
signed his death warrant.
Jealous Dr. Spartan, leader of the expedition, swore to get revenge and
force Gail to share his maniacal plan for power.
Bound together in space, five men and a woman strained against the
powerful tug of twisted emotions and secret ambitions.
But all plans were forgotten when they landed on the Red Planet and
encountered the Martians--half animal, half vegetable--with acid for
blood and radar for sight.
When the Martians launched an assault against the spaceship, linking
their electrical energy in an awesome display of power, Spartan
realized that this was the perfect moment for personal revenge--and
touched off his own diabolical plan of destruction against his fellow
crewmen....
* * * * *
_Chapter 1_
I got no sleep that Thursday night. I tossed and dozed and tossed
again. Operation Jehad and Willy Zinder were on my mind. Operation
Jehad was the designation given to the proposed first manned flight to
Mars, and Willy was our last chance to fill the six-man crew.
If Willy didn't make it, Doc Spartan would be fit to be tied in a
hangman's knot. More than anything else, he had insisted on a six-man
crew and, if he couldn't get six qualified astronauts, including
himself, on the Jehad ship, he was as likely as not to postpone the
voyage for 26 months, when Mars would be in the right spot again and by
which time more men could be trained.
While I rolled and tossed in my bed sheets, Willy Zinder was playing
carousel in his Jupiter capsule three hundred miles above old Momma
Earth. And I hated to speculate about what had happened to him. When
I'd watched him get into the cherry-picker Thursday morning, he'd been
a poor, frightened kid. He'd probably been suffering ever since. And
now, after this dreadful night, re-entry was staring him in the face.
Feeling scared was natural and nothing to be ashamed of, because we all
got butterflies on our first solo orbit. But when I took my ASD tests,
I'd managed to keep my teeth from chattering. Willy hadn't and somehow
I got the feeling that he was suffering as much as all the rest of
us combined. He looked so ready to collapse that I wondered what was
holding him up.
Finally I gave up trying to sleep. It was daylight anyhow and I
dressed, hurried to a restaurant and had scrambled eggs and coffee.
Then I went over to the reservation to see how things were going. Dr.
Spartan probably had spent the night there, but the rest of us had
knocked off when the midnight operations shift came on duty. If they'd
all spent a night like I had, the other members of the Jehad crew
would be on hand almost as soon as me.
Besides Spartan, the others were Axel Ludkin, the big Swede from
Minnesota; Dr. Warner Joel, who probably would hide his feelings by
slapping people on the back and trying to joke about inconsequential
things; and Morrie Grover, who was a pink-cheeked kid. We, plus Dr.
Lewis Spartan, had already qualified for the first manned trip to Mars.
But plans had been made for six and Willy Zinder was our last
candidate. To say we were scraping the bottom of the barrel would be
selling Willy short. He was Number 12 out of 100 fine physical and
mental specimens who had been selected for astronaut training three
years before. Eighty-eight others had been washed out, one way or
another, before twelve were fingered for Operation Jehad--so named
because Jehad means holy war to Moslems. We were going to Mars, which
was named after the Roman war god, so that accounted for the war part
of the name, but I don't know what was holy about it except that going
to Mars would materialize an ancient dream of man to travel through
space to another world.
Willy was as healthy as a mountain and even if he looked scared I could
tell he had guts. By the time the lift-off date of the operation got a
few months away, Willy had climbed to position Number Six. Two higher
numbers had flunked the ASD--Aeronautical Systems Division--tests, Dr.
Spartan had said two others wouldn't do--the space boys in Washington
took Doc's word as gospel--one had been banged up in a car wreck and
was still in the hospital, and the sixth man had undergone an emergency
appendectomy which left him too weak to lift off for Mars at the
scheduled time.
There wasn't time now to train more men for the job, which meant that
Willy _had_ to pass and Doc Spartan was enough of a perfectionist to
insist that Willy get as thorough a testing as the others of the crew.
Sure, there were other astronauts. There were ten or twelve working on
other projects, but the plasma space engine isn't an ordinary spaceship
that anybody can take on a 150,000,000-mile round trip without rigorous
training.
I reached the gate that separated spacemen from mere Earthlings and
flashed my badge on the security guard.
"William Drake," he said, grinning. "Sure hope you have luck today, Mr.
Drake."
"Thanks," I said. "How's Zinder doing?"
"Very well, the last I heard. The boys coming off the last Operations
shift said he'd handled everything pretty well."
I went through the gate. Almost anybody can get through this one, but
there are other security officers, at other gates further on down,
to keep the place from being overrun by tourists, newspaper guys and
people looking for rest rooms. How far you got depended on the color of
your badge. Mine was blue, for the wild blue yonder, and I could walk
right into Dr. Spartan's office with it, provided I had business there.
And I wouldn't dare call on Dr. Spartan unless I did have it. He could
eat a man out better than acid.
Finally I reached the bunker. I glanced into the room filled with the
Operations staff which was keeping track of Willy--communicating with
him, tabulating his heartbeats, respiration and maybe his thoughts--and
checking the behavior of his capsule. I wasn't interested in them. I
went to the end of the hall, flashed my badge again, and entered the
room reserved for the panel that was going to pass or flunk Willy
Zinder.
Doc Spartan was the man in charge. He was the leader of our little
group, but that was no break for Willy Zinder. Doc Spartan was an old
space hand. He'd been to the moon and he had conducted the trial flight
of the plasma engine. First, last and middle, he was a perfectionist.
I hated him, so did everyone else, but there was one thing that we all
could say: if Doc stamped you okay, you were as good as he expected to
find. And there was another thing that could be said: Doc Spartan made
a top sergeant of the Marine Corps look like Peter Pan.
He was there, along with three other men who looked as if they'd been
without sleep for a week. Maybe they'd taken a few naps during the
twenty-four hours, but it didn't show. They were red-eyed, their hair
was uncombed and they each showed a day's growth of beard. Although
the room was air-conditioned, they looked sweaty and hot. Mugs full
of black coffee were on their desks and there were bread crusts and
half-eaten sandwiches on trays nearby.
Axel Ludson stood back against the rear wall. Like me, he had nothing
to do but watch and he had probably hurried over after eating
breakfast, just as I had, in order to be on hand when Willy made his
re-entry.
Axel was a big, raw-boned Swede, which is a description you could
give of a large portion of the male population of his home town in
Minnesota. He had light brown hair, blue eyes and a long straight nose.
His jaw looked big and solid enough to crush concrete. He winked at me
and I walked over to him.
"Willy is doing fine," he said, which was an accolade. Axel made his
words count. "Doc has thrown everything at him but a flock of asteroids
and Willy hasn't missed a pitch."
"Good!" I said. "Where is Willy now?"
Axel nodded toward a screen on the left wall. On it was projected a
portion of a globe showing Northern Siberia. A little spot of light
showed up in the middle of it.
"In thirty minutes he'll begin his last orbit."
"How did he do on the emergencies?" I asked.
Axel grinned. "He acted like they were the real thing."
The space capsule carrying Willy was the old-fashioned type, with
room enough for only one man. However, it had special controls which
made its manual operation similar to that used on the plasma craft.
Throughout the flight, Willy was in charge of the operation. Without
warning, certain simulated emergencies were signaled to instruments
aboard the capsule and Willy was expected to meet them.
Although space flight sounds dangerous, most of it isn't because space
is more empty than anything most of us ever saw. The only critical
times are usually at the lift-off, the re-entry and the landing.
However, other emergencies can arise. The worst would be the sudden
appearance of a large meteor, meaning a pebble a quarter of an inch in
diameter or bigger. Since about 95 per cent of the meteors in space are
less than that size, chances of meeting one, even on a trip lasting
two-and-a-half years, are remote. But it could happen.
The plasma ship was equipped with meteor bumpers which would vaporize
anything smaller than a quarter of an inch. Larger ones might puncture
the sides, but even then there was patching fluid in the walls of the
craft which would prevent too much air loss. A tremendously large
meteor can be detected by radar and avoided. Willy'd had to make the
right maneuver to avoid such a meteor.
Radiation in space also poses some problems. Space travel requires high
speed, and astronauts can pass through a radiation belt in so short a
time that the exposure isn't harmful. But a very large cloud might pose
problems and Willy would have to meet such an emergency by determining
the size of the cloud and the best way to pierce it.
Another hazard could be faulty astrogation. On a 75,000,000-mile
trip--the distance we were to travel to reach Mars--a small error
at the start might put the ship too far from Mars to be caught by
the planet's gravity at the end of the voyage. Willy had to make
observations throughout the test flight and go through operations
necessary to correct his trajectory. There might be other minor
emergencies, such as failure of equipment and instruments, but Willy
had demonstrated his ability to cope with them in tests conducted on
the ground.
Dr. Warner Joel entered the room. A few months ago he had been
overweight, but stringent diet had cut his weight down enough to allow
him to qualify for our crew. He was a short, stocky man, with a smooth
face and nervous manner. However, his knowledge of geology had made
him almost indispensable. Rarely do you find a man with his experience
in this particular field who can also qualify for the stringencies of
space flight.
There was one thing against Joel that I was determined to overlook and
this was his rather ingratiating manner, his eagerness to appear to be
more than he was, and his intense desire to win favor from Dr. Spartan.
As he entered he hailed everyone in a loud voice, speaking to no one
in particular. And no one in particular answered. Ignoring the rebuff,
and with a strict eye to protocol, he walked over to the control board
where Dr. Spartan was seated.
"Great show, Doctor! Brilliant show!" Joel exclaimed, extending his
hand as if he were congratulating a playwright on opening night.
Spartan, his dark eyes glued to the instruments in front of him,
ignored Joel.
"Yes, sir!" the geologist continued, putting his hand in his coat
pocket, probably to give it warmth after Spartan's coolness. "We've got
a good man in Willy Zinder. I always did say this boy was a sleeper.
Better than a lot of men in our group, in fact."
Axel nudged me in the ribs and, as I turned, he winked one of his
ice-blue eyes. "Meaning me or you, Bill?"
"You, you big Swede," I said, winking back. "But my opinion puts Willy
several notches above Joel, too."
Axel chuckled softly.
"I won't worry with Willy Zinder on the crew," Joel was saying loudly.
"No, sir--"
"Why don't you sit down?" snarled Spartan, still not turning his head.
"You drive me crazy."
"Uh--ah--why yes, of course! I didn't realize--"
"Then do it!" snapped Spartan.
Joel almost stumbled as he backed away. Now, as he spotted Axel and me,
he decided we were appropriate sympathizers. He walked over to us and
said, "He's understandably touchy."
"I never pet rattlesnakes," said Axel.
Willy's voice, surprisingly cheerful, came over the loud-speaker. He
was A-okay and was passing over the North Pole for the fifteenth time.
Communications responded and wished him good luck.
Dr. Spartan nodded. Then he turned his head and called out: "Miss
Loring!"
I turned my head. I hadn't seen Gail Loring when I entered the room.
She must have been in Operations and had entered through the door in
the other end of the room. Now I saw her fine-featured face as she
replied, "Yes, Dr. Spartan?"
"Come here!"
She came over to his control board briskly, holding her head high,
paying no attention to anyone but Dr. Spartan. She was all business.
It was a pitiful waste, because she was an attractive girl and so
untouchable. She wasn't beautiful in the sense that a stage or screen
star is. She was good-looking, the kind of girl who wore well. Without
lace or fancy trimmings, she was solid, durable, functional--and
feminine, in spite of herself. She'd made a successful landing on the
moon and had accompanied Dr. Spartan on the trial flight of the plasma
ship. Now she was preparing for some other project--only the NASA knew
what it was.
Surprisingly enough, I'd found out in the three or four times we'd
met that she had a pleasant disposition, in spite of her businesslike
manner. She liked to laugh and she was intelligent, which of course
she'd have to be as a woman astronaut. Up to the time I'd met her
informally, I'd classified her as a female Dr. Spartan.
"Please take over the control panel for a few minutes," Spartan said.
"I'm going to get some breakfast before the re-entry."
"Certainly, Doctor," she said. "Any special orders?"
"None," he said. "Operations has alerted the Navy carrier and it is
in position to pick up Zinder after the re-entry, on his next orbit.
All you have to do is be ready to switch over to ground control in the
event of an emergency."
I felt Axel's elbow shudder against my arm. Resorting to ground control
would wash Willy Zinder off the project because it was his job to
handle the capsule from beginning to end of his flight. Only during the
lift-off and re-entry was there automatic operation--Willy had to take
over again after re-entry.
Dr. Spartan rose and Gail took his seat. She glued her eyes on the
instruments with all the instinct of a good pointer flushing a covey of
quail.
I watched her. Even in slacks she looked good; a statement I could
make about no other women I've ever seen. She wore no make-up, except
lipstick, and that didn't hurt her. She had brown hair cut close,
almost mannish style, and still she looked like a woman.
The disappointing thing about her was that she would not allow a man to
become part of her life. Not that she was cold. No one could tell me
that a woman who tried so hard to forget she was feminine had nothing
to forget. It was simply that men were "out" until she'd got enough of
her career.
I turned my head and noticed that young Morrie Grover had come in and
was too busy watching Gail Loring to take much interest in what was
going on in space.
Morrie was the fifth man in our crew--Willy was qualifying as sixth.
Morrie was the youngest of our group, being a couple of years my junior
by the calendar. Actually I felt at least ten years older because
Morrie was one of those eager young lads who keep too busy learning
about the universe to understand what is going on in this world. No
doubt he'd grow up a lot on the Martian adventure. The fact that he was
looking hungrily at Gail didn't mean his thoughts were grown up. High
school boys have the same thoughts.
He watched her until he decided, apparently, that she was less likely
to move than the faces on Mt. Rushmore, then he took off his glasses,
began rubbing them with a clean white handkerchief and squinted at me.
"Hello, Bill," he said condescendingly. "Is Willy on his last lap yet?"
"He will be in about two minutes," I said, glancing at the clock on the
wall. I could have told him about the map and explained that he could
see for himself, but that would have been rude. I would have to live
with this guy for thirty months and it was best that I learn to get
along with him.
Dr. Spartan came in again, carrying a bacon-and-egg sandwich in his
left hand.
"Hello, Doctor Spartan," said Morrie.
"Wmpf!" replied Spartan, chomping on the sandwich. He didn't even give
Morrie a glance.
Morrie looked shook up.
"Don't mind him, kid," said Axel. "He hates everybody. Especially
today."
Morrie did not reply. He blew heavily on his glasses, wiped off the
moisture with his handkerchief and held them up to the light. He
squinted, nodded with satisfaction and put them on his nose. Then he
turned to resume watching Gail Loring.
Though Dr. Spartan had taken a position behind Gail so that he blocked
the view, Morrie wasn't going to miss the pleasure of ogling the
prettiest girl astronaut in the world. He moved over to the left for an
unobstructed view. Realizing there would be about ninety idle minutes
to kill, I moved to the right, deciding that I could get even more
pleasure out of watching her than Morrie could.
Axel and Dr. Joel remained where they were, Axel watching the little
light on the screen map and Dr. Joel bobbing his head, smiling and
waving at everyone who looked in his direction.
Gail turned her head and looked up at Dr. Spartan. "You want to take
over now, Dr. Spartan?" she asked.
"Go ahead," said Spartan. "I haven't finished breakfast, my dear."
She turned her head in a businesslike manner and glanced at the clock,
then at the instrument panel. Finally she picked up the microphone and
held it to her lips. She waited a moment, still watching the instrument
panel.
"Last orbit!" she said. Her words were echoed by the speaker in the
room. "We'll start our countdown for re-entry five minutes before
you've completed the turn, Zinder. At zero, set the automatic control
to take over."
"A-okay," said Willy's voice. He spoke calmly. Apparently he was no
longer frightened.
"Remember," she said, "precisely at zero."
"A-okay."
Gail put the microphone back on its hook. She watched the instruments.
Suddenly she tensed. Her voice rose as she spoke to Dr. Spartan.
"Doctor, look!"
She gestured excitedly at the panel.
"Good God in heaven!" Spartan reached out, snatched up the microphone.
"Zinder! Zinder, you fool! What have you done? Are you crazy?"
"Hey!" Willy's cry was full of fear, but he was not speaking
to Dr. Spartan. He was yelling to no one. "Help me! I'm
accelerating--decelerating! Something's gone haywire! I'm starting to
re-enter--"
The voice broke off as a crash came from the speaker.
"He hit something!" somebody yelled.
"Hell, he probably fell to the floor," said Axel. "He wouldn't have his
harness on now."
"He cut in the automatic," Spartan said. "Did you tell him this was the
last lap, Miss Loring?"
"Oh, no, Doctor! I told him it was the next to last!"
"He must have misunderstood."
I squirmed to catch a glimpse of the instrument panel, but Spartan's
bulk hid it from my eyes. Willy should have known he had another lap to
go. There was a clock in front of him. I shifted my position. I could
see Gail's hands flying to this button and that as if she were trying
desperately to check the fall with the ground controls. But she must
have known it was useless to try. Once the re-entry cycle is started,
nothing can shut it off till the parachute opens in the earth's
atmosphere. Willy Zinder was being returned to a world unready for his
arrival.
"Willy! Willy! Please answer!" Gail screamed above the excited voices
in the room.
No reply came from the speaker.
Then the intercom from Operations cut in. "The medical section says
Zinder may have been injured by sudden deceleration," said the voice.
"His heart action is very weak."
"Oh, dear God!" moaned Gail Loring. "It's all my fault!"
_Chapter 2_
Ordinary human reflexes, which respond to tangible, near-at-hand
crises, were woefully inadequate for the dozen or so men and women in
that room. What could anyone do to save Willy Zinder, so far away that
he could only be detected by instruments, and whose future and very
existence depended upon electronic gadgets which went about their task
more cold-bloodedly even than Dr. Spartan?
In fact, Spartan himself seemed to lose his poise for a moment. He
appeared to freeze as he stood directly behind Gail, staring at the
dials that told what was happening to Willy. At last he seemed to see
her hands, fluttering aimlessly from button to switch. He reached out,
swept them away.
"Stop it!" he said hoarsely. "Nothing you can do will stop the
automatic action of the capsule now!"
Gail seemed to wilt. Spartan released her hands and she sat there
helplessly. Behind her Spartan looked like some kind of understudy of
Satan, his black beard, dark eyes and sharp features blending into the
illusion. He was tall and gaunt to begin with--now he looked taller and
more gaunt. Was it a suspicion of a smile that I saw on his face for a
brief, fleeting instant? But surely he didn't want Willy to fail. He
had a greater stake in this operation than any of us. For him it would
mean immortality as the leader of the first manned flight to Mars.
Again the fleeting smile. I tried to tell myself that it was the result
of nervousness. I'd often seen men under stress grinning like fools,
because laughter is an emotional reflex. But I'd never suspected
Spartan of having emotions before. He'd had a wealth of experience and
had seen men die in space.
For ten years he'd been one of the top astronauts of the nation--ever
since he had risen to fame as the genius who had developed a certain
method of converting nuclear energy directly into electricity. In those
days he'd been a poorly paid instructor at some obscure mid-western
college. Now he was famous as a spaceman, and wealthy from his
discoveries.
His apparent nervousness lasted only an instant. Then he became his
cold self again. Not that it served to reassure anybody--we all knew
that northeast of where we stood, far out over the Atlantic, Willy's
capsule was screaming into the atmosphere. It mattered little that
the parachutes were open, since the men who had been watching the
instruments recording Willy's heartbeat said he had been hurt badly.
There was no button to push, no knob to turn, no switch to flip which
would make everything A-okay. And there certainly was no magic wand to
break the evil enchantment of the moment.
The loud-speaker squawked out a report from the Navy carrier. Its
helicopters were airborne, attempting to reach the place where Willy
would come down, but they were hundreds of miles west--at the place
where Willy would have come down after his next lap, not this one.
Then there was an awful silence, broken only by a sob from Gail.
Spartan looked down at her, his lips curling with displeasure. She
clasped her hands to her face and swayed in her chair. Spartan growled
with annoyance, then turned his head and saw me.
"Drake!" he bellowed. He gestured a slim finger toward Gail. "Get that
hysterical woman out of here!"
I didn't like the way he gave the order, but it made sense and I
started forward to obey. Gail jerked her hands away from her face and
turned toward him. She stopped her swaying, turned her eyes on Dr.
Spartan and tilted her chin upward with indignation.
"I'm _not_ hysterical! I've never been hysterical!"
"Take her outside, Drake," said Dr. Spartan, as if she'd never spoken.
It did seem like the best idea. Every dial in front of her was an
instrument of torture. Whatever happened to Willy Zinder, she believed
it to be her fault.
I stepped forward and took Gail by the arm. "Please come," I said.
"There's nothing you can do."
She jerked her arm out of my grip, then got up by herself. "Willy must
have misunderstood me," she said. Suddenly her shoulders sagged. "Yes,
Bill Drake, I'll go. You're right. There's nothing I can do."
Her eyes were moist but her voice was firm. She was not crying like a
hysterical woman. I believe that, at that moment, if there was anything
she could have done, she would have done it as efficiently as anyone in
that room, including Dr. Spartan.
She let me take her arm again as I guided her through the door, out of
the bunker and into the refreshing warmth of the outside air.
"I told him to switch on the automatic controls precisely at zero,"
she said. "Those were my words: 'Precisely at zero!' He must have
misunderstood. He thought I said it was precisely zero at that moment.
He lost track of time."
"Don't think about it," I said. "It wasn't your fault."
"It _was_ my fault. People under tension are in a highly suggestible
state. I should have chosen my words more carefully, so that he could
not possibly misunderstand--"
"If Willy was capable of such confusion, it's best that we know about
it now. In space that kind of a misunderstanding could cost lives."
"Willy may be dying," she said. "Even if he isn't, the Mars project is
down the drain for twenty-six months."
"Maybe," I said, "and maybe not. Spartan says he's gotta have a six-man
crew, but I don't follow him. It's better to try it short-handed than
to get there after the Commies."
"But I've heard him say a dozen times that there must be six men," she
said. "Dr. Spartan doesn't change his plans once he makes up his mind."
Certainly that was true, but Dr. Spartan was too intelligent to insist
on the impossible. Six men could operate the plasma ship efficiently:
two could be on watch, two could rest, two could care for the needs
of the others--prepare the meals, do cleaning, and operate the water
and air regeneration machinery, check the course and so on. But a
system could be worked out for five, four, three--even two or one. The
fewer the number, the greater the risk, but the important thing was
to achieve a successful mission. The risks could never deter him from
trying for a first landing on Mars.
We reached the pad which the big Jupiter rocket had carried Willy
Zinder into space twenty-four hours before. Gail stood there looking at
it, choking back a sob, and then turned around and started back toward
the bunker.
"I could take Willy's place, if he's--he's hurt," she said softly. She
probably had been thinking about this while we stood at the launching
pad.
I tried to smile at her. "That would cause complications."
"Why? I'm as qualified as you, Bill Drake. I made a test flight in the
plasma ship along with Dr. Spartan and Mr. Ludson. I've passed every
test you and the others passed and I've made a flight to the moon."
"You've already been assigned to a project," I told her, hoping it
would end the talk.
"That can wait," she insisted. "Besides, there are others who could be
trained for my job and there's time to train them, whereas Operation
Jehad begins its final phase in five days."
"I wasn't selling your qualifications short," I said. "What I meant
was--you're a woman."
"Good Lord! Would Dr. Spartan discriminate against me because I'm not a
man?"
"Dr. Spartan wouldn't care if you were an ape. But a lot of people
would wonder what one pretty girl was doing up in space with five men."
"Not really! You mean they'd think my honor and virtue would be--lost?"
For an instant there was the faintest trace of a smile on her face.
"Exactly," I said. "This world has some queer standards of
propriety--especially the good old U.S.A. with its puritan traditions.
A lot of people would take the stand that an unmarried young woman
could hardly expect to spend two-and-one-half years in close quarters
with five unmarried men and expect to come back chaste."
She laughed and I joined her.
"Ridiculous."
"Yes, but that's what they'd think," I insisted.
"Do you imagine I give a hoot about what people think?" she asked. "And
what does Victorian decorum have to do with going to Mars?"
"Nothing at all, but there are bureaucrats and politicians who could
spike Project Jehad on moral grounds. These hypocrites wouldn't give
you credit for being a virtuous young woman, nor us credit for being
gentlemen with restraint. No doubt they'd judge us all by their own
past behavior."
"There were no objections when I went on a test flight with _two_ men."
"You weren't gone overnight. At least, it wasn't night on the puritan
side of the earth," I explained. "These people think all sins occur
at night. Besides, you were in communication with the earth the whole
time. You had a radio chaperon."
"Holy cow!" she said. "Can't we make people see that it doesn't matter
if the world thinks I'm a fallen woman? The success of the project is
more important than my reputation, my morals, or even my life. I'm
going to offer to go in Willy's place."
"Good luck," I said, quite certain she wouldn't have any.
Axel Ludson was waiting for us outside the bunker with the bad news.
Although the Navy had been alert and had done everything possible to
reach the scene of the capsule's landing, it had been too far away to
arrive in time. Helicopters had been sent aloft immediately, but they
arrived at the capsule just in time to see it sink into the ocean, a
mile and a half deep at that point.
"How horrible!" said Gail.
"We're not sure he could have survived his injuries," said Axel. "The
medical observers believe his neck was broken and that he was dying as
his capsule floated down to the sea."
Gail shuddered. "It was my fault."
"You mustn't say that, Miss Loring," said Axel. "The only way it could
have been your fault was if you had touched the automatic control
button yourself. Did you? Even by accident?"
"No. No, of course not," she said. "My hands were in my lap. I was
talking into the mike just a moment before. There was no reason to take
over control of the capsule."
Axel nodded. "I was watching you," he said. "That is my recollection.
That leaves only two ways for the accident to have happened. Either
Willy put the ship into automatic himself or there was a malfunctioning
that set it off spontaneously."
Neither theory seemed to fit. In the first place, Willy had
been drilled on what to do before re-entering. One of the first
things--something even a novice would realize--would have been to get
into his harness. Furthermore, Willy had instruments, including a
chronometer, in front of him and he should have known he had to spend
ninety more minutes in space.
Faulty mechanism might have accounted for the accident, but everything
had been tested, checked and double-checked. Dr. Spartan himself had
gone over everything.
"Dr. Spartan would like to talk to you, Miss Loring," Axel went on.
"There will be an inquiry, but he wants to hear your story as soon as
you feel up to it."
Gail moistened her lips. "I'd like to get it over with now," she said.
"Thanks for telling me--everything." She turned back to me. "And
thanks to you, Bill Drake. I feel much better after talking to you."
I remained outside the bunker while Axel took her in.
Later I made a statement, along with everyone else who had had an
official part in the test. Dr. Spartan announced that the fate of the
Martian expedition would be decided within a few days and if it was
decided to go ahead with a short crew, the lift-off would take place on
schedule.
I was not surprised, therefore, when I was called into his office the
next morning. Dr. Joel was there and so were Morrie Grover and Axel.
We sat down in straight-backed chairs opposite his desk to wait. About
five minutes later Dr. Spartan accompanied by Gail, came into the room.
My first thought was that he was extending the investigation of the
accident, and then I recalled Gail's decision to volunteer for the
Mars expedition in Willy's place. Dr. Spartan was as dedicated as Gail
and the idea of flaunting convention and risking a lot of condemnation
wouldn't have bothered him. But there were powers higher than Dr.
Spartan who would step in and halt the project if public pressure were
applied.
We greeted him formally. No one ever became informal with Dr. Spartan
in his office. In fact, I couldn't remember anyone but Axel who had
ever tried to kid Spartan. But Axel was a special case. Even Dr.
Spartan secretly admitted that Axel was the most reliable astronaut on
the project.
"Thanks for being here punctually, gentlemen," said Dr. Spartan,
sitting down behind his desk. Again he looked like the Devil himself,
just as he had yesterday when Willy's capsule went out of control. "As
you know, the fate of the Martian operation is uncertain because of
yesterday's unfortunate accident. But there is an outside chance we can
go ahead with it, if an obstacle or two are removed."
He paused, letting his cold black eyes sweep our group, finally resting
on Gail Loring who was seated facing us in a chair at the end of Dr.
Spartan's desk. She smiled, showing her pretty dimples.
"Miss Loring is willing to fill the vacancy in our crew," Spartan said
quietly.
No one spoke. We all looked at Gail, every last man of us thinking
what a wonderful trip it would be with her aboard. And every last man
realized that with a woman aboard there would be complications.
"She's a fully qualified astronaut," Spartan went on. "No further tests
would be needed to prove that she could step into the vacant spot in
our crew and hold up as well as any of us during the long, tedious trip
through space. However, she is a woman."
"I guess we can all see that," said Dr. Joel, in a feeble attempt to be
funny. No one laughed but Joel. Spartan's hard eyes cut him short.
"I wasn't so sure you could, Warner," said Spartan, his voice full of
sarcasm. "But your half-witted wisecrack brings the big objection into
full focus. A woman, especially an attractive woman--" Spartan bowed
toward Gail and permitted himself to smile with all the graciousness he
could muster. "--well, it complicates matters."
Again we held our silence. Joel choked back whatever comment he'd been
about to make as Spartan glanced at him again.
"A woman, alone with a large group of men, would bring dissension and
emotional factors into the situation which would not arise if all our
crew were men. Besides, there is convention to worry about. Certain
prudish individuals, of which there are far too many on earth, would
accuse us of promoting some sort of Saturnalia in space--free love,
even licentiousness."
"It would be a lie," said Gail. "I have nothing to fear from any of you
in that respect."
"Not here and now, perhaps," Spartan replied, "but two-and-one-half
years in space might have a cumulative effect. None of us are properly
called _old_ men, my dear. Besides, we'll be making history, and we'll
have to _appear_ to be, as well as be, above reproach."
"Oh, come on," said Gail, resenting the trend of the conversation.
"History has never been that pure--"
Spartan scowled. He resented her remark. "I know that, Miss Loring,"
he replied. "But the fact that we are making history will cause
politicians and bureaucrats, who have the power to call off the
project, to fear the loss of public support. Votes are what they want,
more than scientific achievement. All of you know our plans call for
a six-man crew. Fewer than six would require a revision of plans,
redistribution of duties, and a slighting of many important aims. In
order to justify the expenditure of billions of dollars of taxpayer
money we must show results."
"That's the first time I ever heard of a taxpayer being considered in a
space operation," said Joel, once more trying to be funny.
"But it's a point," said Axel, nodding his head and glancing around
first at me and then at Morrie Grover, who had sat through the session
watching Gail as if he were hypnotized.
"Does anyone have a constructive idea?" Spartan asked coldly. He was
trying to keep the discussion from getting out of hand and, from this,
I suspected he had his own plans fully worked out.
"It's your show," I said. "What's your idea?"
Spartan did not like to have anyone reading his mind and he honored me
with one of his stern glances. "In the interest of science," he said,
"I'm proposing marriage to Miss Loring."
I expected almost anything but that. My mouth flew open.
"In the interest of science? Good Lord!" said Morrie Grover.
Gail half rose from her seat, then settled down. "Doctor!" she
exclaimed. "Why didn't you discuss this with me beforehand? That's the
least I would expect--"
"This, as I said, is a proposal made purely in the interest of our
mission," Spartan said.
"Well, I resent it," she said. I rather guessed that she was showing a
natural, female resistance to so cold and unfeeling a proposition.
"You shouldn't," said Spartan. "There's nothing wrong with the idea. I
have much to offer you--or any other woman. I have substantial wealth.
I have a long list of accomplishments. I am famous and will be even
more so at the end of this trip. And certainly I'm not repulsive."
His chin tilted upward slightly as he displayed his profile. I'm
sure he didn't pose intentionally; his conceit was subconscious, but
nevertheless amazing.
Gail pressed her lips tightly together. For an instant I had a terrible
fear that she was going to laugh. Then I was even more frightened at
the thought that she might possibly accept this proposal. It would be
a waste of such a beautiful, attractive young woman.
"Actually, Doctor," she said after some deliberation, "you're
suggesting I prostitute myself for science. If I ever decide to do
that, I'll do it on my own terms."
Spartan seemed to stagger mentally, as if she'd landed an uppercut on
his subconscious conceit. "But, Miss Loring," he said, "if you were
married to me, it would erase whatever objections there'd be to the
idea of a woman going to Mars with five men. The unconventionality
would become respectability. The puritans would have no reason to
object to the space trip and the men in Washington wouldn't need to
fear the loss of votes."
"Couldn't we make the trip with a five-man crew?" I asked.
Spartan glared at me as if I'd suggested we organize a Communist cell.
"I told you I want to get maximum results from our trip," he said.
"I won't be satisfied with less." He turned to the others to amplify
his statement. "There must be a full crew and Miss Loring is the only
qualified astronaut available. And the only way she can go with us is
as a married woman." Now he turned to Miss Loring. "Certainly you'll
not refuse?" he demanded.
"I understand the problem thoroughly, Dr. Spartan," Gail told him. "But
I won't consider marriage in the generally accepted sense. If we must
conform to convention, we can have a ceremony; everything and anything
that may follow a normal wedding will be of my own choosing."
"I'm not sure I understand," said Spartan.
"I mean it will be a marriage in name only. I won't even share quarters
with my husband. I've been aboard the plasma ship. As spaceships go,
it's a palace. There's room for six men, provisions and equipment for
two-and-a-half years. At each end there are observation cabins used in
getting the parallax in astrogation. I'll use one of them for living
quarters. The rest of you will bunk in the main cabin of the ship.
Furthermore, the marriage will end when we return to the earth. A quiet
divorce or, possibly, annulment will be arranged. Do you object to
divorce, Dr. Spartan?"
"No," said Spartan with ill-concealed temper.
"Does anyone else object to divorce on religious or other grounds?"
She paused, awaiting an answer. Axel finally spoke. "I do not object to
divorce," he said. "However, I do not believe in this kind of marriage,
either."
"What about you, Bill Drake?"
"Anything for science," I said. But deep in my heart I knew that if I
was ever fortunate enough to go through a marriage ceremony with Gail,
I'd move heaven and earth, and all the planets between, to make the
union a permanent one.
"And you, Dr. Joel?"
Joel cleared his throat. "I'd take you under any conditions, Miss
Loring."
"Morrie Grover?"
"I have no objections." He looked at her hungrily.
"Am I to understand that you intend to pick one of the others?" asked
Dr. Spartan. "I've already asked you to be _my_ bride. I suppose your
conditions are reasonable. I will accept them."
"That's very generous of you, Doctor," said Gail. "And my reason for
turning you down is not to be taken as a criticism of you as a man or
as a lover-in-name-only. It's simply that as leader of the expedition
you must have disciplinary control over all members of the crew. As
your wife, I'd be tempted to ask for privileges, even though I am not
a believer in favoritism--especially in space where the line between
life and death is as thin as a quarter-inch meteor. It would not be to
the best interests of this expedition for you to have a wife. However,
I have proposals for marriage from Bill Drake, Dr. Joel and Morrie
Grover. Am I right? Any of you is free to back out."
"I won't back out," said Morrie breathlessly.
"I won't either," I said quickly.
Joel cleared his throat. "I said I'd take you under any conditions."
"I feel honored, gentlemen." Gail smiled at us, showing her dimples. I
decided that, under different circumstances, I could have proposed to
her on my own initiative and been as conventional as hell about it. But
this was like a political convention.
"Which?" asked Morrie.
"Not you," she said. "You're younger than I am. And not Dr. Joel--he's
at least ten years older." She paused, stared at me and then went on.
"Because this marriage is one of convenience--a propaganda wedding
to satisfy propriety--we ought to be convincing. Bill Drake is the
pin-up boy to millions of panting secretaries and shopgirls who see his
picture in newspapers and on television. Would this public believe in
a marriage between us? I think so. For no one could possibly imagine I
could resist such a prize."
She paused and waited for comments. None came. Five astronauts,
including Dr. Spartan, sat tensely waiting for her inevitable decision.
"Believe me," Gail went on, "I could resist this handsome young
astronaut very well. He's somewhat conceited, you know, and he is too
much aware that he's the answer to a maiden's prayer. But millions of
man-hungry women wouldn't see it that way. I'm not panting over Bill
Drake, and that's why he's the logical choice. It'll look like a love
match and who'll know the difference?"
She paused once more, then turned to me. "Forgive the insults, Bill.
Will you marry me? Or do you want to back out?"
It was the first time she had ever called me Bill without adding my
last name. I sat there for a moment, somewhat dazed by the outcome.
Should I take her in my arms and kiss her tenderly, passionately?
Hardly. My ears still burned from her statement that I considered
myself the answer to a maiden's prayer, and that I was a conceited
pin-up boy. Considering her attitude, should I back out? Or should
I cold-bloodedly allow her the use of my last name for the sake of
science? My male ego told me she cared a little, secretly, or at the
very least, would learn to care before Operation Jehad ended. I began
to feel happy about the whole deal.
Dr. Spartan's voice came through my thoughts. "You're not acting very
enthusiastic, Drake."
"I was thinking of the conditions," I said.
"I won't sue for breach of promise if you want to back out," said Gail.
That decided me. "When's the wedding?" I asked.
As I spoke, Joel and Morrie looked at me with ill-concealed
disappointment. They'd hoped, down to the wire, that something would
happen which would turn the scales in their favor. Even now, I noticed
that Morrie hadn't quite given up. He turned his eyes toward Gail. You
could practically see him hoping that, in reality, it would turn out to
be a marriage in name only, that he'd have a chance to win her before
we returned.
"Just before the lift-off," said Gail.
"Humph," said Dr. Spartan. "That settles it, I suppose." He didn't like
it, but he couldn't back out now.
He turned his eyes toward me.
They were full of hatred.
_Chapter 3_
Some unscrupulous public relations genius attached to Operation Jehad
was informed of Gail Loring's betrothal and, in the remaining four
days before the lift-off, the entire world was told the most romantic
story since Romeo and Juliet--and it was lies, mostly.
Only the marriage was a fact. But the world was informed that William
Drake and Gail Loring, high ranking astronauts, had fallen deeply in
love some months before. They had secretly agreed to be married after
the completion of Operation Jehad. Drake, brave man that he was, and
Gail, self-sacrificing young woman that she was, had pushed their
personal desires into the background for science; the cruel, tragic
death of Willy Zinder had left a vacancy in the Jehad crew and Gail and
Bill had agreed to marry immediately so that both could further this
important expedition into the unknown. The fact that inadvertently the
trip would also serve as a honeymoon cruise, put the whole project on a
more romantic note.
Space officials in Washington, fully apprised of the reasons for the
wedding, and sold on the idea by Dr. Spartan, were not only gratified
by the world-wide acceptance of these lies, but they announced that
the ceremony would be included as part of the countdown proceedings
prior to the launching of the big Saturn that would carry us all to the
plasma ship, already in orbit around the earth.
The bride and groom and all of the members of the wedding party, with
the exception of a federal judge who was to perform the rites, would be
wearing spacesuits. The only charitable thing the officials did was to
forbid interviews with either the bride-to-be or her intended. There
just wasn't time, they said. Actually they didn't trust us to conceal
the real reason behind the marriage. The project's publicity team,
however, issued handouts of purported interviews, a fictional history
of our love affair, and pictures.
On the day before the launching, I received two mail sacks full of
letters from the panting shopgirls mentioned by Gail and a United
States post-office truck delivered a full cargo of gifts to Gail.
I didn't read the mail, and the gifts were stored in a government
warehouse, pending our return from Mars. I don't know how much mail and
parcel post came the fourth day. We were too busy to find out.
I developed a monumental guilty feeling when I realized the magnitude
of our deception. I was sick of the whole business. There had been many
marriages of convenience, of course, and some had turned out better
than marriages for love, but this was pure fraud. The only consolation
was that through it we had acquired a full crew. Still, I couldn't help
feeling that a quiet, secret ceremony would have accomplished the same
purpose. Why compound a fraud with a spectacle?
Twelve precious minutes were squeezed out of the countdown for the
ceremony. We marched in spacesuits, sans helmets, to the launching
pad--five male astronauts and one female, accompanied by a federal
judge named Lockhart who had no part in the conspiracy but who had been
asked to perform the rites because he was a friend of some governor.
No ring was used, since it would have been impossible to slip it
over the spacesuit glove Gail wore. We joined hands while the judge
spoke into a microphone and the words were carried, via radio and
television, to the far reaches of our planet, even to the fur-clad
outposts at Thule and Antarctica.
Nearby were photographers to record the lie for posterity.
A conventional bridegroom is in a state of shock and he scarcely
realizes what is going on. I heard everything, realizing I was
perjuring myself every step of the way. I accepted Gail as my lawful,
wedded wife, knowing we would not really be married. She accepted me as
her lawful, wedded husband, knowing it was all a lie.
Finally it ended. Judge Lockhart said, "You may kiss the bride."
This I could do without faking. I took her in my arms and drew her
close. As she turned her face to mine, I thought for a moment that
this, at least, would be real. But when I started to meet her lips with
mine, she quickly turned her cheek.
The kiss, too, turned out to be a fraud.
My four companions also kissed her--on the cheek. Then we stepped into
the cherry-picker which would lift us to the nose capsule of the Saturn.
Two technicians rode with us to help adjust our harnesses and to make
sure we were snug in our seats before the lift-off.
The seats were backed against the wall in a hexagonal arrangement, with
a small instrument panel directly in front of Spartan's position.
"Sit on my left, Ludson," said Spartan. "Joel, you sit on my right. I
think we can allow the bride and groom to sit side-by-side, since this
is to be their honeymoon ride."
Morrie Grover snickered.
"There's no cause for mirth," said Spartan sharply. "There's going to
be nothing funny about this trip."
Morrie sobered and grew red-faced. I felt sorry for the kid. The laugh
had been caused by nervousness. All of us had been in space, of course,
but this trip was anything but routine. The lift-off and the re-entry
are the most dangerous phases of space flight, any way you look at it.
We put on our helmets and the technicians adjusted them. There was a
microphone in each so that we could communicate, but no one, not even
Spartan, said anything.
"Sixty minutes!" came the voice from the countdown.
Sixty long minutes of sitting. I wondered how I could stand the strain.
Turning my head, I looked at Gail Loring beside me. She stared straight
ahead, her lips pressed tight and her eyes glistening. She must have
seen my head move, for she turned and looked at me.
"Good luck, Mrs. Drake," I said.
"The name is Gail Loring, and don't forget that, Bill Drake," she said.
I could have slapped her.
But after a time I was glad she had said it. My angry thoughts kept
me occupied and that helped pass the time. Almost before I knew it, I
heard the voice outside say:
"Fifteen minutes!"
I am a congenital heathen. This is not to say that I'm an atheist or
anything of the sort. It's simply that I've never accepted religion the
way most people do. In a way, I think I've missed something and I envy
those who can accept their faiths without question or doubt, and mold
their lives accordingly. For the first time, I wished I knew how to
pray.
"Ten minutes!" said the voice of doom.
It seemed as if the words were still echoing in my ears when I heard:
"Five minutes--four--three--two--sixty seconds--"
And then came the final ten seconds, ticked off one by one, ending in:
"_Zero!_"
The huge Saturn shuddered as the fuel ignited. It seemed to hesitate,
as if unwilling to leave the earth. I held my breath. Then I felt the
seat pressing against my buttocks and I knew we were on our way.
With each second the acceleration increased, the pressure grew greater.
I heard Morrie groan, but I knew he was all right. He was merely
expressing his reaction to the tension. Out of the corner of my eye I
saw Gail, her face contorted, her jaw firmly set. Spartan's eyes were
on the instruments, although his face revealed that he, too, was under
strain. Axel Ludson seemed to bear up best, probably because his body
was the strongest of all and his rugged frame could absorb the shock.
Dr. Warner Joel looked the most frightened and his eyes were fixed
on Dr. Spartan as if that man represented all of the security in the
universe at that instant.
Although the long wait before the lift-off had seemed unbelievably
short--just as the last hour would seem to a condemned criminal in his
death cell--the flight to the plasma ship, which had been nicknamed
the Jehad, after our own code name, was interminably long. We felt the
momentary halt and resurgence of acceleration as each successive stage
of the rocket was dropped. Then, after the third stage had burned out,
Spartan's hands grasped the controls, his eyes on a small television
screen in front of him.
"Right on the nose," he said, as if talking to himself. "At least,
Operations has done one thing right."
It was a typical remark, because as a perfectionist, Dr. Spartan was
aware of and magnified each minor imperfection in everyone else. So far
as I knew the entire operation had gone smoothly and without a hitch.
Spartan continued to operate the controls. I felt slight pressures as
the ship adjusted its orbit. We were moving alongside and close to the
plasma ship.
Six years, and as many billions of dollars, had been spent to build the
Jehad, which was the most revolutionary space craft ever to be put in
orbit.
To be accurate, the Jehad never had been put in orbit in one piece.
Each part, and all of the equipment needed to put those parts together,
had been rocketed into orbit from the ground. A team of highly skilled
scientists and construction workers had pieced it together, an amazing
job considering they had done this in a state of weightlessness. Eight
men had lost their lives as a result of punctured spacesuits.
The strange thing about the Jehad was that it could never have lifted
off the earth under its own power. Although the twelve generators which
would drive the Jehad to Mars produced fantastic voltage, their force
would not have knocked down a child--in fact, the push from a single
motor was about equal to the power exerted by a pigeon in flight.
However, it was the most efficient and most economical motor man could
use to travel ninety million miles to Mars--which is not the shortest
route, but the most practical since it makes use of the earth's motion
and the sun's gravitational power.
The plasma motor, more correctly the traveling-wave plasma motor, was
developed after several years of research at the NASA laboratories near
Cleveland, expressly for space propulsion. The first big breakthroughs,
which led to the eventual perfection of the machine, were made in 1961.
Because the machine was so complicated, involving principles laymen
found hard to understand, it had received very little publicity.
In the simplest terms, the plasma engine, like the rocket, makes use
of Newton's law on the conservation of energy--for every action there
is a corresponding and opposite reaction. But here the similarity with
rockets ends.
In effect, it means that if you throw a ball, as much pressure and
force is backward thrust on the hand as forward thrust on the ball.
Since the ball has smaller mass, it sails through the air while your
hand and body stay put because you are anchored by your weight and
gravity. But in space you would go back in proportion to your mass,
just as the ball goes forward. And if you continued to throw balls you
would accelerate with each toss.
The plasma motor is an electric generator, "spread out." That is, the
rotor--the part that revolves--is removed, the motor opened up and
flattened. Then it is coiled into a tube so that the field travels at
right angles to its normal direction. This makes the electrical field
run down the tube in waves, instead of in a circular motion.
Instead of a rotor, some lightweight element is ionized--heated and
vaporized until the electrons and protons of the atoms are torn
apart--and the resulting plasma rides down the tube on the waves as
circulating systems of positive (protons) and negative (electrons)
charges. When they are expelled there is a good-sized kick--kinetic
energy. In space, any kick, no matter how small, results in motion,
which will continue unless another force is applied to stop it. But in
this case the only applied force is more kicks forward, thus there is
acceleration.
The chief advantage of the plasma motor is that it can give a very good
thrust with a very small amount of fuel. Even the earliest calculations
disclosed that the amount of fuel needed to accelerate and decelerate
the ship amounted to practically nothing compared to the payload it
could push through space. A one-hundred-pound thrust would suffice to
drive a 150-ton spaceship to Mars. Compare this with the one thousand
pounds of thrust necessary to lift one pound of payload by rocket from
the surface of the earth.
The fuel used on the Jehad was lithium, the third-lightest element.
It had been used in the first experiments with the plasma engine but,
since it had to be heated to 2500 degrees in order to vaporize it,
argon--which was a gas to begin with--was experimented with. However,
it had been decided to use lithium, for two reasons: one, heat to
vaporize it could easily be obtained through high frequency heaters
powered by solar batteries; two, lithium is lighter than argon. Thus
was gained double advantage.
In theory, the Jehad could travel five-ninth's the speed of light, or
about one hundred thousand miles _per second_. As yet the Jehad had
never attained this velocity, because building up to that speed would
take months. In the 12-hour test flight, Spartan, Ludson and Gail
Loring reported that the craft behaved according to expectations and
there was reason to believe that, in practice, it would not fall short
of its theoretical speed.
However, speed was not important, since a good part of the time on
the trip would be spent in waiting for the earth and Mars to get into
proper positions. It was necessary only to be fairly close to schedule
in arriving on Mars.
I had been trained in the operation of the plasma ship and to me it
represented the summit of safety in space. That's why the trip to the
Jehad seemed so long. I didn't feel secure in the Saturn capsule and I
knew I'd be much safer on the Jehad.
We were weightless now as we orbited close to the plasma-powered ship.
Spartan, Joel and Ludson could see the craft on a small television
screen near the control panel. I couldn't see it from where I sat,
but I was familiar with its appearance. It looked something like an
elongated sausage with a small glass knob on each end. It was 185
meters long from the center of its forward cabin--an astrogation
observatory--to the center of the rear. This base line had been
measured to compute distances by parallax during the flight to Mars.
The center section was partitioned to contain motors, control and
communications room, storage and living quarters for the crew. There
was a difference, however, inasmuch as the entire interior could be
utilized as floor. Small rockets in the side would start the cylinder
spinning to give a weak but effective artificial gravity so that we
could walk, rather than float, during our weightless voyage. This
pressure would be equal on all walls, so it was possible for us to be
suspended from what earthbound people call the "ceiling," or to stand
out at right angles from the walls, without fear of falling. No matter
where we stood, the centrifugal force would always be outward.
"We're less than fifty yards from the Jehad," Dr. Spartan announced.
"This is about as close as I dare bring us. Drake, you'll carry a line
to the Jehad--make it fast to the door of the locks. We'll follow you
across."
"Yes, sir," I said.
I unbuckled the straps to my harness, taking a great deal of care
with my movements. I was weightless, and the slightest exertion might
send me spinning away in another demonstration of Newton's law on the
conservation of energy.
Grasping a grab rail, I pulled myself upward to the escape hatch. In a
rack were six aluminum tanks filled with oxygen. I slipped the straps
over my shoulders, tightened them, brought the flexible tube around
to my chest and fastened it into the fitting. Then I disconnected the
long air hose that fed oxygen to my helmet from the Saturn's supply and
opened the hatch. A gentle push of my toes on the grab rail sent me
floating into the air lock.
A reel of thin, stout copper wire was fastened to the wall near the
outside hatch. I slipped the end of this through a ring on my spacesuit
and ran out about a dozen feet, leaving a loose end, twice my height,
trailing.
Then I opened the hatch. A small amount of air in the locks escaped,
sucking me with it into outer space. For the first time I had a glimpse
of the universe, unshielded by atmosphere or clouds.
At my feet lay the earth, looking up with a bluish-white countenance.
To my left was the half moon, peeking over the dark blue horizon, its
craters plainly visible. Above was the sun, too dazzling to look at,
and all around were brilliant stars and planets, although I had no
time to pick them out, much as I would have liked to spot Mars, our
destination.
I was aimed toward the long sausage-shaped Jehad, but my trajectory
would take me above it and I had to make immediate adjustment. To do
this, I used a petcock on the belt of my spacesuit, which released a
very tiny jet of oxygen from the tank on my back. I twisted my body so
the force would send me in the right direction.
One little push was all I needed and now I had to somersault quickly,
and, at the same time, push out the long loose end of copper wire so
that it would strike the side of the Jehad before I did. This was very
important, for the electrical potential of the Jehad must be adjusted
to that of the Saturn capsule to guard against being struck by a bolt
of lightning as I contacted the sides of the craft. Apparently there
was not much of a differential for I saw no sparks against the black
sky.
My feet struck the sides of the Jehad gently, and magnetic strips in my
boots held me fast.
Walking with soft footfalls, because even a slightly heavy push might
tear me loose and send me out into space, making it necessary for me to
maneuver my way back to ship again, I approached the locks. I opened
the outer door and then made my line of copper wire fast to an eye just
above the opening.
"A-okay, Dr. Spartan!" I announced into my helmet microphone. "The
line's fast. I'll stand by to assist you folks aboard."
"Roger!" Spartan's voice echoed in my ears.
They came one by one, hand over hand, with safety hasps fastened over
the wire. First Morrie, then Gail, then Axel, Joel and Dr. Spartan,
playing his role of captain to the hilt, being the last to leave the
ship.
I pulled them into the locks. There had been a little danger from
meteors, of course, but the experts had figured that the chance of a
meteor large enough to penetrate a spacesuit hitting an individual was
one in 241 years. So far the estimate had been holding up. The nineteen
men who built the Jehad had worked six years in space--a total of 114
man years. We had yet to experience a meteor casualty.
None of my companions seemed afraid. All were a little glad to be
aboard the Jehad.
As Spartan came into the locks, he unfastened the wire line that held
us to the Saturn capsule. Then he closed the door. He turned a valve,
filling the chamber with air, and after a few seconds he opened the
inside locks and we all walked into the large, roomy interior of the
little planet of our own.
_Chapter 4_
You could call those five days aboard the Jehad a honeymoon, although
the usual definition did not apply to Mr. and Mrs. William Drake. Not
only had I promised to keep the marriage on a purely platonic level,
but Gail, by her actions and formality, gave me to understand that I
was not expected to even go through the motions of playing the newlywed
husband.
However, it was a happy time for all of us, and I include Dr. Spartan,
even though he might never again be described as being in sympathetic
rapport with the rest of us.
As soon as we had cut loose from the capsule and filled the plasma
craft with air, we got the artificial gravity in operation by starting
some auxiliary rockets which made the ship rotate slowly. The gravity
was only ten per cent, but it was sufficient to keep us from floating
around the room. We took off our spacesuits and laughed uproariously
at our costumes--shorts, T-shirts and lightweight sandals which had
magnetic strips in the soles to assist the artificial gravity in
holding us to the floor.
Axel relayed our messages back to the earth, telling of our safe
arrival, and Dr. Spartan and Warner Joel got the plasma motors going.
There were four banks of three motors each encircling the ship.
Although we had twelve engines, we planned to use only eight at a
time. Four were for emergencies and extra power, when needed.
There were no portholes except in the control room and even here the
outside view was partially blocked by a huge nuclear reactor, well
shielded and stuck out in front of the ship. This supplied all our
electrical power. However, there were video cameras on the outside--in
the front and rear of the craft--so that we could always see the
heavens about us on the monitor screens. There were four of these
in the control room and four more in the main cabin, which was the
middle segment of the ship. There were six sections, not counting the
rear cupola where Gail was quartered. The control dome was in front.
Dr. Spartan's private cabin, which was partitioned for sleeping and
working, was second.
The large main cabin was where we did most of our living, if you can
call it that. Directly behind it was a small galley and storeroom for
our food supplies. Next was the lavatory and shower room, and the rear
segment was filled with machinery--air and water-cycling equipment,
laundry, and some electrical tools for repairing the ship.
There wasn't much to see outside after we got in space but, during
those early days when we circled the earth and gained momentum, we
had a beautiful view of our world. There was also a procession of
multicolored and unwinking stars. The sun, too, was beautiful because
the corona could always be seen.
Probably it was because we were so busy in those first days that we got
along so well. Or maybe it was the excitement of finding everything
so new and different. From the moment we boarded the ship, we were in
another world, an independent planet, no longer associated with the
earth.
We had to learn to walk in diminished gravity; we had to accustom
ourselves to looking up and finding a companion sleeping on the ceiling
as if he were stuck there. Even the day was changed. Because there were
five of us, we had a 25-hour day, each man, with the exception of Dr.
Spartan, taking a five-hour control-room shift. The terrestrial day no
longer had any meaning, since our little planet rotated once every 30
seconds.
We had a garden--two trays, one above and one below the tube that
carried electrical wiring the length of the ship. We planted hybrid
vegetables in the garden--plants using a minimum of water and
converting a maximum of carbon dioxide into oxygen. However, the
air-cycling machinery was sufficient for most purposes.
Our biggest problem was water. Due to its weight and bulk, we carried
as little water as possible, since a great deal of it was already being
used to shield the nuclear reactor. For all other purposes--drinking,
preparation of dehydrated foods, laundry, sanitation and irrigation
of the garden--there was a tank containing 35 gallons. Excess water,
removed from the air and extracted from all waste products, was
purified and distilled twice, then used again.
At first, Gail Loring made the trip pleasant by her very presence. She
was pretty and cheerful, and the fact that she revealed so much in
the way of feminine charm in her space clothing caused the usual male
response. Not that we were a pack of wolves. There is nothing wrong
with looking, or even giving a mental whistle. I think Gail read our
minds and I'm sure she enjoyed it.
Axel's face mirrored his thoughts in a slow grin. Dr. Joel, who was
acting with the vigor of a sales manager at a customers' convention,
treated her to adoring, but not necessarily fatherly, witticisms.
Morrie Grover positively drooled when she was around and made a great
thing of helping her out with various tasks, even though I think Gail
would have preferred not to have the help. Spartan watched her, too,
but it was impossible to read his thoughts. As I said, everything was
milk and honey in those days.
But after we had the ship functioning, the garden growing, and our
schedules perfected, we suddenly found that there was not enough to
do. The looks that had been innocently male, began slowly to change to
something else.
Gail, who had usually shown me less attention than the others,
apparently because I had a greater legal right to claim more attention,
spoke of it one day when she came through the machinery room while I
was washing out the dirty uniforms.
I'd brought a projector and a microfilm of a book on astrogation and
was reading when she paused beside the washer. "Need help, Bill Drake?"
she asked in a friendly tone.
I looked up and smiled. "Now that was a nice, wifely thing to say." I
told her. "Unfortunately it's my turn to do the laundry so you don't
have to help."
"But you wouldn't throw me out if I did?" she asked.
"There's really nothing to do," I said, nodding toward the automatic
washer which was halfway through its cycle. "But if you'd like to join
in a little small talk about the universe at large, I'll be thankful
for company. You realize, don't you, that this is the first time
the bride and groom have really been alone together since they were
married?"
She frowned. "Let's not talk about that, Bill Drake," she said.
"Why not? Afraid that if we mention it too often we might suddenly
realize we're married?"
She nodded her head slowly. "Something like that."
I shut off the projector. I had no interest in astrogation at the
moment. "Is that why you avoid me?"
"I don't avoid you."
"You always find time to horse around with Morrie," I said.
Now she smiled. "Are you by any chance jealous?" she asked. "If you
are, you have no right."
"Damnit, I'm not. I just want equal time," I said. "I should have the
right to want as much time with my legal wife as those other bums."
"I'm doing the laundry with you," she said teasingly. "That's the first
time I've done that with anybody on this ship."
"I'm in your debt, gracious lady," I said. There was a trace of
sarcasm, less than I felt, in my voice.
She heard it, too, and gave me a sharp glance. "I do want to talk to
you about something, Bill Drake," she said.
"Sure. The laundry doesn't need attention. Let's talk."
"You've noticed that we're not the jolly little group we started out to
be when we first boarded the ship, haven't you?"
"Yes, but it's because we're getting bored. We've been going around the
earth in a spiral, like a merry-go-round. We don't seem to be getting
anyplace."
"That's not what I mean," she said. "We are getting someplace. The
spiral widens a little more each turn. Very soon now--perhaps within
hours--we'll break away from the earth. We all realize it. And the
farther away from earth we go, the less we'll feel bound by standards
of the earth."
I frowned. "I don't see what you're driving at, Gail."
She glanced toward the bulkhead door at the end of the room. It led to
the shower room and lavatory. She glided toward it, using the familiar
"space walk" we all had learned in order to conform to the very light,
artificial gravity. She opened the door, peered in, then closed it and
returned. "Just wanted to be sure we really were alone," she said.
"What I wanted to talk about was Dr. Spartan. It--it's the way he looks
at me."
"We all look at you," I said. "I thought most girls liked it and felt
like they were slipping when men stopped looking."
"That's right, when you speak of a normal male look," she said. "But
the bearded monster frightens me."
"Relax," I said. "He won't get out of hand. That old boy is no fool and
he won't pull any raw deals. The one I'd look out for is Morrie. He
acts like a crazy kid sometimes. You can't always figure him."
"Morrie!" she exclaimed. "Bill Drake, you _are_ jealous! He's just a
kid."
"That's what I said, a crazy kid."
"And I'm two years older than he is." The washer stopped spinning and I
went over and began removing the duds and putting them in the dryer.
She started to get up to help me. She'd been sitting cross-legged
on the floor, as we all did because we had no chairs aboard. "Don't
bother," I told her. "This isn't hard work."
She sat down again. "Do you realize, Bill Drake, that there are no laws
here in space excepting those laid down by Spartan?"
"I can think of a few of Newton's laws that he has no control over."
"I'm not talking about physical laws. Spartan is more powerful than any
nabob who ever lived on earth--he is a greater despot than Caesar, than
the Pharaohs. That's why he's stand-offish with everyone. He has the
power of life and death over us all."
I closed the dryer and set the timer. "Forget it, Gail," I told her,
dropping down beside her. "Spartan's like a military commander. Not
only our lives, but the success of this mission are his responsibility.
He can't very well get chummy with buck privates." I didn't
particularly love the guy, but I thought--then--that I understood him.
"We're not buck privates," she said, with a woman's logic and hatred of
metaphor.
"Okay. We're second looeys. Now, what shall I do? Go to Spartan
and say, 'Listen, you old goat, stop looking lecherously at my
wife-in-name-only'?"
"This is no joking matter, Bill Drake. I may be your wife-in-name-only
but there was a good sound reason for our marriage. You have to keep me
from--uh--well, getting involved. You're a sort of chaperon."
I groaned.
"Let me tell you something," she went on. "During my first trick
in the control room--not long after we started our routine on this
ship--Spartan came in and spent almost the five hours with me. He
talked to me as I'd never been talked to before, Bill Drake. He told me
to move my sleeping bag into his compartment and live there. He made it
sound as if it were my duty and that I'd be shirking if I didn't."
I gaped at her. "The hell he did!" I just couldn't believe it. "You
must have misunderstood him--"
"I most certainly did not!" she said. "Don't you believe me?"
"Well, the guy isn't any tin god," I said. "But he didn't force you to
do what he'd suggested."
"Do you know why?" she asked. When I didn't answer she went on.
"Because I told him that if he did, he'd have to explain to the whole
crew. He'd wind up with a red-hot mutiny on his hands. And when we
returned from Mars, I'd nail his hide to the Pentagon, or some other
conspicuous place."
I whistled. "And he took it?"
"Not meekly. He said that if he wished, he could "take care" of the
whole crew. And if I repeated what he said to me, to anyone, he'd brand
it as a pack of lies. He particularly cautioned me against telling you.
He said he didn't want to be forced into "taking care" of you."
"But you told me," I said.
"I'm warning you, Bill Drake. Watch out for Spartan. He doesn't intend
for you to return alive--or anyone else who opposes him."
I no longer understood Spartan. Would he kill to have his way? I had
suspected his hatred since the day the wedding was agreed upon. "He
wanted to marry you," I said, "but you changed the plan. Why didn't he
object then?"
"Because he couldn't on the earth. And when I made a point of platonic
marriage he thought he could fit it into his plan."
My heart bounded hopefully. "It wasn't a platonic marriage you wanted?"
I asked softly. I tried to take her hand but she pulled it away.
"No, Bill!" It was the first time since we'd left the earth, that she
used my first name alone. "I really meant it when I suggested it. I
knew Spartan. I'd been in space with him before, but I managed him.
This is different. I wanted you to protect me--but not as a husband."
My heart sank and I felt helpless. I walked over to the dryer. "Lots of
dirty laundry today," I said.
"You can say that again," she replied.
Spartan's voice came over the intercom as I started to take the laundry
from the dryer.
"Attention, please. Just fifteen seconds ago, the Jehad reached the
escape velocity for this distance from the earth. We have broken away
from terrestrial gravity. Mr. Ludson and I are now computing the
necessary corrections to put us on the proper orbit to reach Mars."
Gail looked at me and I stared back at her. We had gone beyond the
point of no return.
_Chapter 5_
After that talk with Gail, I had my first thoughts of mutiny. But I'd
been raised with a good, healthy respect for authority and, because
most persons I'd come in contact with who had it, used judgment in
administering it, I had seen no reason for changing my attitude. Even
Spartan, when he was drilling us for this trip, had seemed to be right,
in spite of his toughness. But as the earth grew smaller behind us, I
began to look for allies, in case we were ever forced into a showdown
with Spartan.
I wondered if Gail had been right when she said the others wouldn't
stand for any nonsense. I doubted if they would. Not all of them
anyhow. Dr. Joel had suddenly seemed to discover that Dr. Spartan was
a great man. Spartan fawned on Joel and Joel became Spartan's slave,
carrying his meals to him, posting Spartan's orders, and acting as a
self-appointed second-in-command.
Morrie might defend Gail, but he certainly wouldn't raise a hand to
keep Spartan from tossing me into the great out-yonder, if it came
right down to it. Morrie was in the throes of puppy love for Gail. It
showed in every move he made. Besides, the kid was upset. Homesick
maybe. Or afraid. Everything was strange here and he longed for
something familiar. He turned to Gail for comfort. And if Morrie were
told of Spartan's actions toward Gail, the young fellow was hot-headed
enough to march into Spartan's cabin and get himself--and me--in a jam.
Axel was steady, staunch and level-headed. But I hesitated about
confiding in him. Like me, Axel had a respect for authority. He
couldn't take my unsupported word that Spartan meant to kill me and
take Gail. Furthermore, I remembered that Axel had refused to accept
Gail because he did not believe in the kind of marriage she proposed.
Was that the real reason? Or did he know Spartan's plans? Perhaps Axel
was Spartan's real second-in-command, ready to do the muscle work when
the time came.
We were still in radio communication with the earth and I considered
sending a message back. But what could I say? Spartan would claim I was
space crazy. And the next message would tell the earth that in a fit
of madness I'd jumped overboard. What proof could I offer in a message
that Spartan had ever made his proposition to her? He'd just say she'd
dreamed it. It was his word against hers.
Gail agreed when I told her this. "Perhaps he didn't mean it the way it
sounded," she said.
"How else could he mean it?" I asked.
"Well, maybe he intended for me to take his cabin and he'd sleep
somewhere else."
"What about the bit where he said he had the power of life and death
over us?"
"Well, he did mention that, but he might not have been serious. I don't
know what to think any more." She sighed heavily. "And he does have the
power of life and death, you know."
We'd been talking together in the galley, alone over cups of instant
coffee. Now the door opened and Morrie Grover came in. He gave Gail one
of his looks, then turned to me.
"Pretty soft," he said. "You got the only girl in umpteen million
miles."
I thought he was kidding and I replied in kind. "Yeah. We're
honeymooners. Can't you leave us alone?"
"That wasn't in the agreement," he snapped. I knew then he wasn't
kidding.
Come to think of it, we'd all been a little edgy lately--ever since the
earth had lost its grip on us. The pleasant feeling within our little
group was no more. The honeymoon of the adventurers in space was just
as phony as the honeymoon of Gail and me.
"What's the matter, Morrie?" I asked. "Got an upset stomach, or do you
just need a cup of coffee? We've got the coffee. Help yourself."
"You're a jerk," said Morrie.
There was no doubt that I was as edgy as anyone. Otherwise, Morrie's
attitude would not have set me off. "You're a punk," I replied.
"Come off it, you two," said Gail. "You're acting like a couple of
schoolboys."
Morrie turned on Gail. "Are you in love with him?"
"Why--"
"What I mean is, why did you marry him?"
I grabbed him by the arm and swung him around. "It's none of your
business," I said. "Now, do you lay off and behave like a grown-up man
or do I belt you all the way through the main cabin?"
He swung at me. I ducked but, before I could do anything about it, Gail
stepped between us. "Get out, Morrie!" she said, and then turned to me.
"Bill Drake, you go back to the machinery room and find something to do
there. We can't afford a fight right now."
As usual she was right. We calmed down and, out of respect for her,
followed her advice.
As I said, I'd noticed that we all were edgy. Joel had sort of pulled
his head into his shell like a turtle, and was having nothing to do
with any of us, except Dr. Spartan, whom he followed around like a
hound.
And Axel seemed preoccupied. I couldn't put my finger on what had
happened to him. I thought it was the same sort of space madness that
was gripping us all.
"What we ought to do, Axel," I said one day, in an effort to draw him
out, "is to tell each other what's bugging us, rather than to bottle it
up inside."
"Meaning me?" he asked.
"Meaning you," I said. "You've been acting like the ghost at the
banquet. I don't even know whether I can call you a friend any more.
What's the trouble?"
Axel shook his head. "I'm not sure," he said.
"Psychological? Depression?"
He gave me a crooked grin. "I wish it were something like that," he
replied. "Trouble is, I know what does it, but I'm damned if I know
what it is."
"Animal, vegetable or mineral?" I asked.
He started to get halfway cheerful. "I tried to tell Spartan about it
and he accused me of imagining things," he said. "I guess it won't hurt
to tell you. I'm getting some stuff on the radio I can't explain."
"Signals? From the earth?"
"Not from the earth. From the general direction of Mars."
The way he said it, it sent chills up my spine and down again.
"Somebody's trying to signal us?"
"Sometimes I think so, sometimes not," he replied with a heavy sigh.
"The signals--if that's what they are--are still very weak."
"Damn it, Axel," I said, "it's ridiculous. If anybody were trying to
signal us from Mars, it would mean they knew we were on our way."
"Maybe they do," he said tersely.
It was so damned fantastic, I hardly knew what to say. "But how?" I
asked.
"I don't know," he said, "but they could have radio, even radar--and
they could be a million times better than ours."
We talked about it for about an hour and Axel couldn't add anything to
what he'd already told me, which wasn't much.
During the next few days Gail exerted herself trying to restore a
friendly relationship between Morrie and me. I think it was more
because Morrie wanted to win her approval than for any other reason
that she succeeded, partially.
When we were off duty at the same time, she'd bring us together and try
to engage us in conversation. The only trouble was, we'd run out of
anything to talk about.
"If we could only invent a game!" she exclaimed in one of her desperate
moods.
"Charades?" I asked.
"They make me sick," said Morrie in his usual disagreeable manner.
"We don't even have extra paper and pencil," she went on. "All writing
materials are under lock and key, being conserved for taking notes when
we reach Mars."
Suddenly Morrie smiled. "You know, I'm a little stupid," he said. "I
brought along a deck of cards."
"You what?" Gail exclaimed.
And I gave him a look of surprise. Regulations had forbidden us to
bring anything aboard--not even a toothbrush--because all personal
items, excepting the one uniform we wore at the time, had already
been stored on the Jehad. Spartan had announced, with his usual
correctness, that every ounce we carried would require extra fuel to
lift us off the earth.
Morrie got up and shuffled over to his locker at the end of the cabin.
He opened it, unzipped the pocket of his spacesuit hanging there, and
brought out a brand-new pack of cards.
"Morrie! You darling!" said Gail.
"Forgot I had 'em," Morrie said, flushing with pleasure at Gail's
words. "I figured things were apt to get boring up here and Doc had
mentioned we'd have very little to do. So I stuck them in my pocket
when I came down to the pad and, when Doc wasn't looking, put them in
the pocket of my spacesuit."
I glanced nervously toward the front of the ship. Spartan probably was
in his cabin, or making sure Warner Joel was awake in the control room.
Axel was directly above us, snoring gently in his sleeping bag.
"Anyone for gin rummy?" I asked.
Morrie sat down and broke the seal on the deck. At that instant Axel's
buzzer went off. The chronometer in the control room was attached
to the buzzer which notified us five minutes before the end of each
watch. Axel, who was to relieve Joel, stirred in his sleeping bag as he
stopped snoring.
"Darn!" said Gail. "I'm next, and if I don't get a little rest, I'll go
to sleep on duty and Doc Spartan will shoot me at sunrise." Naturally,
Spartan had made no such threat, but he did make sure no one slept on
duty by bobbing in and out of the control room at irregular intervals.
No one knew when he slept, but I supposed he took many short naps
instead of a single, long sleep.
"Good morning, folks," said Axel from the ceiling.
"You're the only person who thinks it's morning," I said.
"Any time I wake up, it's morning," said Axel. "Miss Loring, do you
mind getting out of here? I have to get into my clothes."
Axel, like all of us, slept barefooted up to the ears and his clothing
was in his locker at the end of the cabin.
"Next time think of the cards sooner, Morrie," said Gail. "I guess
there'll be no gin rummy for me today." She got up, went to the rear of
the cabin and out the door toward her own quarters.
Axel wriggled out of his sleeping bag, put on his sandals and went to
his locker. He noticed the cards Morrie was shuffling. "Where in hell
did you find those?" he asked.
"It doesn't matter," said Morrie. "We got 'em. Two-handed, Bill?"
"Sure. Deal 'em."
Morrie and I were seated lengthwise with the ship, and the first card
he dealt sailed clear to the partition at the far end. The artificial
gravity didn't pull the card to the deck as it would on earth. "Guess
we'd better sit crosswise," he said, retrieving the card.
We shifted so that no matter which way Morrie sailed the card it would
be "down." Axel dressed and then went into the control room. A few
minutes later Dr. Joel came in. He saw us playing gin rummy.
"Good Lord! Interplanetary Las Vegas?"
"Want to join us, Warner?" I asked.
"Not for all the gold dust on the moon," he said. "If Spartan ever sees
you playing cards, he'll hang you to an asteroid."
He watched us play, glancing apprehensively toward the forward bulkhead
as if he expected Spartan to burst in on us at any moment. Then, at
last, he got up and went through the door. I was facing the bulkhead
but I didn't notice him leaving because I was trying to decide whether
to gin or not. It was Morrie who heard the door open, whirling his head
so suddenly it almost displaced him from his sitting position. "Hey!"
he exclaimed, "Joel's gone. Do you suppose he intends to rat on us?"
"Let him," I said. "These cards are worth the powder it took to shoot
'em into space. They probably will preserve our sanity. That's why
Spartan can't object."
Morrie looked at me as if he didn't know what to believe. I shrugged
off his doubt, certain that Spartan was intelligent enough to see the
cards weren't hurting anything, even though they'd been brought aboard
illegally.
I ginned and won. Morrie was reshuffling the cards to deal again when
the door opened and Dr. Spartan, followed by Warner Joel, came into the
cabin.
"Stop this immediately!" Spartan barked.
We turned our heads and looked at Spartan's angry face. Then I noticed
that he was wearing something new--a holster, holding a nickel-plated
air pistol. A kid's toy.
"Stand up!" Spartan said, his hand on the pistol butt.
For a moment I wondered if Gail had been right, that Spartan was
capable of going in for a little capital punishment to pass the boring
hours in space. Morrie and I got to our feet.
"Those things--" Spartan nodded his head toward the cards. "--are
strictly against regulations. If you have time on your hands, you
should use the projector and study the scientific works aboard. We
can't allow foolishness."
"Damnit, Doctor," I said, "all work and no play is going to turn this
crew into a dull bunch of astronauts."
"Nonsense," said Spartan. "I forbid card playing. We're not on the
earth any more. We're in space. Beyond terrestrial law. Beyond any
standards and regulations that exist on our planet. We are, in effect,
another world--and I rule this world. What I say is law and must be
obeyed."
Morrie stared at him, open-mouthed. But I had been warned about what to
expect from Spartan. After all, he'd said about the same thing to Gail.
"We're not questioning your authority, sir," I said. "And what we were
doing was very innocent."
"I'm the best judge of that. Give me the cards, Grover."
Morrie hesitated, his face registering uncertainty.
Spartan drew the gun. "This is an air pistol," he said, his manner
imperious, his tone hard and relentless. "You understand the danger of
a pistol aboard this craft. A bullet might puncture the walls or damage
machinery. So I shoot a small dart which is impregnated with a mild,
but very effective, poison. It will paralyze a man in a few seconds.
Even a scratch on the skin will make you harmless. I can quell any sort
of mutiny."
"This isn't mutiny!" I said, speaking with all the deference I could
muster. "Sure, I'll admit the cards aren't supposed to be here, but
they are. And they're causing no harm. The capsule was lifted into
orbit and the flight of this ship has been A-okay from the beginning.
Now these cards are helping our morale, which needs a hell of a lot of
help right now."
Spartan pointed the gun at me. His jaw was set; his eyes were lifeless
marble. "I have the power of life and death over every living thing on
this ship," he said.
When a man is threatened with a weapon, he sometimes gives up, but
this puny little air gun pointed at me seemed harmless. Besides, I
was angry. I took a step toward Spartan. I don't believe I would have
touched him. The step was just to prove I wasn't afraid of him or the
gun and I thought he was making too big an issue out of something very
small.
_Ping._
The gun went off and I felt a stinging sensation in my left arm. I
raised it, plucked a tiny dart from the flesh. Suddenly my knees
buckled and I collapsed on the deck.
I was not unconscious. I could hear Spartan telling Morrie to give him
the cards. Morrie was too frightened to disobey.
"Put the cards in the waste disposal, Dr. Joel," said Spartan.
"Yes, sir." Warner Joel's voice had a tremor in it.
I tried to call him a stool pigeon, but my vocal chords wouldn't work.
"For this disobedience, Bill Drake will have twenty extra tours of
duty in the next twenty days," said Spartan. "For wasting time, Morrie
Grover will have ten extra tours. We need two men in the control room
now, so each of you will take his extra turns in company with another
member of the crew."
Five hours later, when Gail came through the cabin to relieve Axel at
the controls, I was just regaining use of my muscles. Morrie explained
to her what had happened.
"Get some antiseptic," she said, examining my wound.
"No need," I said hoarsely. "Ship's been sterilized. No germs aboard."
She examined the wound. "It's sort of deep," she said. "The beast! He
just wanted to throw his weight around."
"He'll be tough to get along with from now on, Gail," I said. "Mind if
I take my extra duty with you?"
Morrie scowled and said nothing.
"No, Bill. Some of the time anyhow. Part of the watch I'll share with
Morrie." I heard him release his breath. "Now listen, Bill. I know
you're angry with Spartan, but you've got to be careful. I think you
understand why. We've got to keep him from doing anything more rash
than this."
I was able to nod my head. I had to get along with the bastard. Not
only my life, but her safety depended on it.
_Chapter 6_
In the end, Spartan himself arranged a schedule for Morrie and me, so
we had no choice when we would serve our extra shifts. However, I spent
equal time with Gail, Axel and Joel, as did Morrie.
Gail and I had no opportunity to talk over our personal
problems--concerning, mainly, Dr. Spartan--because he was always
joining us in the control cabin. Axel was always engaged in radio
astronomy, or trying to intercept terrestrial broadcasts, which were
growing more feeble each day. Joel was uneasy in my presence.
"I'm sorry about causing you all this trouble," he said. "But if I
hadn't reported that infraction of rules to Dr. Spartan, he might have
punished me."
"Axel didn't report it and he wasn't punished," I said.
"Dr. Spartan didn't suspect that Axel knew anything about it." Joel
sighed. "I'm afraid my act has made me very unpopular with the rest of
you."
"Forget it," I said, "a trip to Mars isn't a popularity contest. If we
return with good results, it won't matter. We'll all be fair-haired
boys."
But the incident had helped me decide that Joel would not be
trustworthy if it came to a showdown against Spartan. On the other
hand, it also helped prove that Axel was not a confidential aide to our
chief.
On the fourth extra tour of duty, I was in the control room with Axel.
He was concentrating on the sounds he was picking up with our ultrahigh
frequency receiver. Finally he ran the sounds he was getting through an
oscilloscope.
"Look at that, Bill!" he exclaimed, pointing to the strange wave
pattern.
"Pretty," I commented. All I saw was that it was something different.
"That signal," said Axel, "was made by intelligent beings. It's not a
natural radio pattern--the kind you'd get from a star or a nebula."
I took my eyes off the instruments and looked at the pattern again.
"Are you trying to tell me the Russians have invented a new kind of
radio?"
"The signal's coming from Mars," said Axel.
"You're space crazy," I said. "There's nothing intelligent on Mars.
Just a few plants."
"We don't really know," said Axel. "I've been picking up these
signals for several days. They're traveling twice the distance of the
terrestrial signals. And the volume is greater. That would mean at
least four or more times the power."
"You've reported it to Spartan?" I asked.
"I've entered it in the log book," said Axel. "I've also made a
recording. It's not a voice signal, but it has an artificial wave
pattern. It's some kind of radar wave--"
"The Martians have spotted us?" I couldn't quite believe it. "They're
gonna send out a fleet of spaceships and blast us before we land."
"If they had spaceships they would have visited the earth," said Axel.
"Then we're more advanced than they are. And if they're intelligent,
we've nothing to fear. We'll probably get the keys to all the Martian
cities."
"We may not be ahead of them," said Axel. "And even if they're
intelligent, we might have things to fear. How would we receive
Martians if they landed on the earth?"
"We'd probably give 'em television contracts," I said.
"Not at first," said Axel. "We'd take pains to contain them
somehow--prevent them from causing us any harm. We'd make sure they
had come to the earth with peaceful intent. And we'd be pretty slow to
trust them even if they came unarmed."
"Martians may be different," I said. "Why don't you tell Spartan? You
know how he is. If he thought we held out anything on him, he might use
his popgun on us."
"That's what I've been going to do," said Axel. "But I wanted to make
sure these signals came from Mars. Now I'm positive." He touched the
buzzer signal on the big globe in the center of the room where all the
ship's controls were located.
Spartan's voice came over the intercom. "What's the matter now?"
"We've picked up signals from Mars, sir," said Axel.
"Nonsense." There was a click. A moment later Spartan came in through
the bulkhead door. His eyes darted about suspiciously, as if expecting
some trick.
"It's sort of a carrier wave," said Axel as Spartan anchored himself on
the floor. "Seems to be a kind of radar--as if we're being watched." It
was obvious that Axel was awed by the new phenomenon.
"It's utterly ridiculous," said Spartan. "Radar would indicate
intelligent life. Mars is a dying world. The age of intelligent life
ended there long ago." There was still that wary look about him and his
lips curled into a sneer.
"Perhaps it's a different kind of intelligence," I suggested.
"What other kinds are there?" Spartan snorted. "Intelligence is knowing
what is true and what isn't. A thing can either be true or false.
There's not much difference between intelligences."
I'd learned you couldn't argue with Spartan, who refused to recognize
that truth is relative and that there are at least two sides to any
question; that, more often, there are an infinite number of points of
view, all true in a sense, none altogether false.
"Anyhow, we've got signals," I said meekly, seeing the utter futility
of arguing.
"Signals. Bah!" He was almost snarling now, unwilling to admit any
possibility which might interfere with his preconceived notions.
"Doc, there are millions of stars and even if only a fraction of
one per cent of them has conditions suitable to life, we might find
intelligent beings there."
"Granted. But Mars isn't a planet with the right conditions. Why,
you're even inferring that these Martians might be more intelligent
than we are. We on earth couldn't pick out an object the size of this
ship so far away from our planet. Let me check these signals--"
Spartan began twisting the dials controlling the directional antennae
at the front and rear of the craft. "Might be something else; different
from radar--"
Axel's voice cut in. "Doctor! Look at _our_ radarscope!"
I turned my head quickly toward the screen. There was just the flimsy
outline of something there; something barely perceptible to the waves
that scanned the path ahead of the ship. But whatever it was, it was in
our path and it was very large. A cloud, maybe--only clouds don't show
on radar.
"Meteors!" screamed Spartan. "Heaven help us! It's a meteor cloud!"
He pushed me aside and sprang to the controls. At the same time, he
touched the emergency button, setting off a shrieking siren alarm.
_Chapter 7_
Except for two or three meteor clouds which the earth plows through on
its annual turn around the sun, the number and location of these in
the solar system are unknown. They are not clouds in the sense that
they hang like a heavy mist and obscure objects behind them. They are
so thin and tenuous that if thousands of meteors did not shower on the
earth when it goes through their midst, we would be unaware of their
presence in space.
The cloud ahead of us was, possibly, half a million miles in diameter,
making it rather small. The Perseids and Leonids, for example, may
extend completely around the sun in the orbit of a disintegrated comet.
Very few of the meteors are larger than a grain of sand and they are so
widely scattered that all of the meteors in a cubic mile of space might
be packed into a teacup. However, a few of them might be as large as a
teacup and, very rarely, one might be as big as a house.
For a planet like the earth to plow through a cloud of meteors, there
is little danger. For one thing, most of the meteors are vaporized as
they strike the upper atmosphere. Only a few ever reach the earth and
there have been only a couple of cases on record where a human being
has been harmed by a meteorite.
But the Jehad had no atmosphere to shield it from meteors. True, we
were equipped with double walls capable of vaporizing a meteor up to
a quarter of an inch in diameter. And we had methods of minimizing
the danger of larger meteors--leakproof fluid in the walls, airtight
bulkheads dividing the ship into segments, spacesuits, and a reserve
supply of oxygen. But there was always that extreme chance of striking
a big fellow, which would cancel out all our defenses. This cloud ahead
of us certainly held a few that size.
Had Axel and I not been so interested in the signals from Mars, we
might have spotted the meteors several minutes sooner. Our ship was now
traveling close to 30,000 miles an hour, however, and those minutes had
eaten up precious distance in which we might have maneuvered the craft
out of danger.
We were less than an hour's run from the fringe of the cloud. The
Jehad, using a very small amount of power to accelerate its huge mass,
could not be turned in time to avoid it.
As Spartan sounded the alarm, he spoke tersely into the intercom mike,
warning of the danger ahead and telling the crew to scatter to separate
compartments, to minimize the loss in the event that a large meteor
crashed into one segment of the ship. We had all been drilled on this
procedure, which included the donning of spacesuits.
While Spartan remained in the control room, Axel and I put on our
suits, zipped them, and then I carried one to Spartan, who put it on
while Axel continued to manipulate the controls. The manipulation
simply included increasing the power of the plasma motors.
All twelve were now operating, and auxiliary jets on the sides of the
ship were being fired in order to curve the ship from its trajectory
so that it would pass as near the extreme rear fringe of the cloud as
possible. Here the meteors would be the smallest, driven back from the
central mass by the pressure of sunlight, which would have less effect
on the larger masses.
Wearing a space helmet aboard ship had one major disadvantage. In order
to talk, it was necessary to use the radio transmitters located in the
helmets. All were on the same wave length and since all of us were
talking at the same time, there was a babble of voices in our ears.
"Silence!" Spartan's voice rose above the others. "Keep quiet! You
distract me!"
The sounds subsided. Spartan took over the controls from Axel and
continued to increase the power of the ship. Suddenly he seemed to be
aware that Axel and I were still in the control room. "Go back to my
compartment! Both of you! You know the regulations for an emergency
like this."
Dr. Spartan's compartment, like the shower room and lavatory farther
to the rear of the ship, was divided in half by a corridor. On one
side were his living quarters and on the other was the chartroom which
contained a small but adequate electronic computer, astronomic tables
on microfilm, a projector for the film, and our entire supply of
writing materials.
Axel stationed himself in the chartroom, and I went to Spartan's
sleeping quarters. I felt helpless and trapped. The room, for a
captain's quarters, was bleak. His sleeping bag was lashed to the
bulkhead and there was a private lavatory and shaving mirror, for he
did not share the one the rest of us used. A small chest--like the ones
the rest of us had for our personal belongings--was near the bed roll.
I remembered suddenly that the male members of the crew had been
clean-shaven and had sported butch hair-cuts when they'd come aboard.
Even Gail wore a mannish bob. But Dr. Spartan had kept his beard. If,
in order to cut down on weight, we'd been ordered to trim our hair, why
hadn't Spartan made a sacrifice in that direction?
I thought about these things, perhaps, to turn my mind away from the
approaching danger. This was also the reason I gave myself for looking
into his space chest. I'm not naturally a snooper. Was he the kind of
man who would murder me in order to possess Gail? Would a clue be in
his chest? I looked inside.
I found a toothbrush, soap, extra clothing and shoes, electric razor
for trimming his beard. There was also a locked box which probably
contained poisoned darts. I had an urge to steal it, but I knew his gun
was loaded and I'd never get away with the theft.
Next I found a small square of paper on which were written the names of
the crew. Morrie Grover's name was first. Mine was second. Joel's had
been third, but now it was crossed out and written below Axel's. Gail's
name was followed by a question mark. There was no notation to indicate
the reason for the names. He did not need a roster of the crew--that
was in the log book.
I replaced the paper and closed the chest. I waited for meteors to
strike, and wondered if any would damage the ship. But I knew the only
sound I would hear would be when one struck the ship. The greater the
sound, the larger the meteor.
I put my head to the floor. I was wearing my helmet, of course, but the
vibrations of striking meteors would be transmitted to the helmet and
I would hear them. We had often talked to each other this way without
using our helmet radios.
For several minutes I waited and heard nothing. Then came a sound.
_Ping._
It was faint, but I knew a meteor had made that sound as it hit the
craft.
Then _ping, ping, crump!_
Two small, one much larger. But there had been no holes made in the
ship. At least, there was no alarm from Dr. Spartan who would know from
the air gauges if any compartment had been punctured.
The ringing sounds, singly and in twos and threes, continued. This was
a dense cloud, although we were striking them only a dozen or so to a
minute. That is density in space. Then I heard a loud _thud_. A tiny
bump raised itself in the metal floor not two feet from my helmet. A
large meteor had pierced the outer hide of our ship and dented the
inside wall before vaporizing. But the fluid in the walls was now
closing the hole and we had lost no air.
Another thud. I didn't know where this one had hit.
The ship's acceleration, which had increased when Dr. Spartan started
the emergency motors, suddenly seemed to decrease. Spartan's gruff
voice came through my helmet radio. "A motor has been hit."
He had cut down the power, of course. A single motor conking out would
put more thrust on the other three sides of the ship, resulting in a
curved trajectory for the craft. Therefore three other motors would
have to be cut in order to keep the ship in a straight line.
There were more pings and thumps in my ears as I continued to press my
helmet to the floor. An hour passed. Then another. Two hours of terror.
Then the noise stopped.
"I think we're out of danger," Spartan's voice came through my helmet
radio. "We penetrated a thin segment of the cloud."
"Any leaks, Doctor?" Axel asked.
"The air pressure gauges show no loss. But the motor will have to be
repaired. Who's on duty now?"
"Miss Loring follows me into the control room," said Axel, "but this
has been a tough experience for her. I won't mind working overtime."
"I can't permit it," said Spartan. "Everyone must do his share. Fetch
her, Drake."
"Yes, sir," I said.
I went back to the main cabin where I found Joel slipping out of his
spacesuit. I removed mine.
"Where's Gail?" I asked him.
He nodded to the rear of the ship. "She went to the machinery room," he
said. "Morrie's in the kitchen."
I shuffled back to the kitchen. Morrie's spacesuit lay in a heap on the
floor, but there was no sign of him.
He wasn't in the lavatory, either. I pushed open the door to the
machinery room just in time to hear Gail scream.
I stood there a moment, hardly believing what I saw. Morrie had forced
her to the floor. He had almost torn her uniform from her body. She was
trying to fight him off, but his arms held her tight.
I pushed myself away from the bulkhead. In the center of the ship there
is very little centrifugal force and I literally sailed across the room
to drop lightly on my feet beside the struggling pair.
I reached down, caught Morrie savagely around the neck with my arm, and
pulled him back, away from Gail.
He squirmed out of my grasp and threw a savage punch which struck me in
the shoulder. But he hadn't been set to deliver the blow and I hardly
felt it. I was angry now and I lunged forward, grabbing his arm with
both hands. His feet left the floor and I literally hurled him across
the cabin into the water purifier on the far side of the room.
He hit with a crash.
I turned to Gail. "Are you all right?"
"I--I'm--fine," she choked. Then her eyes focused on Morrie across the
room. "Look out, Bill!" she screamed.
I turned. Morrie had wrenched a pipe from the water purifier and was
getting set to dive at me.
_Chapter 8_
Crouching, I awaited Morrie's onslaught. He held the aluminum
pipe--about a three-foot length--biding his time, his mouth twisting
in bitter frustration. I remember thinking how lucky I was that the
improvised weapon was aluminum and not heavy iron. _Small consolation_,
I thought. _He can certainly knock me out with it._
But Morrie's angry face showed more than a desire to make me
unconscious. He had the wild eyes of a madman, and there was murder in
his movements.
He swung the pipe. I ducked and it passed so close to my skull that I
could feel it brush through my hair. The force of the blow tore his
feet from the floor and he sailed upward, glancing off the garden trays
so that he turned a somersault and came down on his feet above my head.
I sprang at him. He stepped aside and swung the pipe, catching me a
glancing blow on the shoulder and knocking me across the ship and
against the water purifier. The machine was already a shambles, both of
us having hit it. The steam spurted into the room--water dripped on the
floor.
Bruised and cautious, I shuffled around the ship toward him. He stood
waving the pipe like a batter in a baseball game, determined not to
miss again. I could see it in his eyes.
I moved within reach and he struck. But this time I didn't dodge. I
caught the blow on my arm. Pain shot through it, but I'd caught the
blow soon enough to prevent the full force from breaking the bone. As
it hit, I seized the pipe with my other hand and twisted it sharply. It
came out of Morrie's grasp.
He lunged toward me. I threw him back with a punch aimed at his chin,
landing on his chest instead. He crouched to attack and I threw the
pipe at him. Once more I didn't figure on the ten per cent gravity. The
pipe went over his head and crashed into the bulkhead at the other end
of the ship.
He sprang and I caught him. We stood with our magnetized shoes anchored
to the floor, swinging, ducking, punching, each now angry enough to
kill. We were about evenly matched as far as muscles and weight were
concerned, but Morrie was showing the strength of a maniac. My punch
staggered him but did no real damage. He came back and feinted. I
suckered and he brought two punches against my chin and belly that sent
me to the floor. Only the fact that I rolled with the punches kept
me from being kayoed. He tried to dive on me, but I scrambled out of
the way. We were both beginning to show some signs of damage. I had a
soreness in the belly where he'd landed his blow, and his cheek had
been cut by my knuckles. He dived at me again. I scored on his chin but
he managed to get me in a clinch.
We wrestled, partly on the floor, partly floating near the garden trays
and the cable housing in the center of the compartment. Suddenly he
grasped my shoulders and brought up his knee.
It caught me in the groin and I screamed with pain.
Somehow I caught one of the trays and hurled myself out of reach, but
as I hit the floor I could hardly move. All the fight left me with that
blow. Somewhere, I heard Gail calling: "Bill! Get up!"
It was no use. I couldn't move my arms or legs.
Morrie hesitated a moment. Then, deciding that I was helpless, he
pushed himself to the bulkhead where the length of pipe lay. He meant
to use it in an attempt to beat me to death. He reached the weapon,
picked it up and held it a moment in his hand as he turned a savage
look toward me.
He came toward me, certain that I was no longer able to defend myself.
I rolled away, the pain nearly killing me. Then I wrapped my legs
around his and tripped him, in spite of the pain in my groin. He
dropped the pipe as he fell.
Holding him tightly with a scissors grip, I lay there, inhaling deeply,
trying to rid my body of pain. Morrie turned and twisted, trying to
break free. With each movement he was sliding, until finally he was
free.
I rolled over and got to my knees, waiting for his next rush. I needed
all the time I could get to regain my strength. Knowing this, Morrie
wasted no time. He got ready to leap again.
Then I saw Gail. She had picked up the pipe Morrie had dropped. She
moved toward him, holding it high, ready to strike. My eyes, watching
her, gave her away. Morrie saw my glance and turned just as she was
ready to strike. He warded off the blow with his left arm, just as I'd
done early in the fight, then he swung hard with his right. The punch
landed solidly on Gail's jaw. She gave a startled moan of pain as she
went down to the floor.
That did more than all the resting in the world for me. The pain seemed
to leave my body for a moment. At least I didn't feel it any more. All
that was left was a desire to pound Morrie Grover into a shapeless pulp
because he had struck Gail with his fist. I hit him like a truck.
He went down and I fell on top of him. Holding him with my knees on his
stomach I punched his face, his nose, his mouth, his jaw. Left, right.
Left, right. One, two and again one, two. Morrie's head lolled with the
punches and he was out. And then my strength left me. I fell over his
unconscious body in a faint.
* * * * *
The darkness seemed to float away as I felt a cooling moisture on my
face. I opened my eyes and saw Gail bending over me. Her clothing was
in so many rags she looked naked. She had taken a strip of torn cloth,
moistened it under the leaking water purifier, and was bathing my
battered face.
I turned my head and saw Axel and Dr. Spartan coming through the
bulkhead door.
"What in the devil happened here?" Spartan snarled.
"Grover," said Gail, nodding toward Morrie, who was trying to lift
himself off the floor.
"He's hurt!" said Axel.
"Attend to him," said Spartan. Then he turned to Gail. "And Drake? Were
they fighting? Over you?"
Gail stopped bathing my face. She began to sob. I sat up straight now.
"Stop tormenting her!" I said, my anger rising to choke me.
"Sir!" said Spartan. He always insisted we call him _sir_. Now that bit
of rank pulling seemed more important to him than ever. His eyes showed
steel-hard determination to force me into submission; his lips were
tight with hatred.
"I said 'Stop tormenting her!' and I didn't say _sir_!" I shouted.
"Morrie tried to rape her. Can't you figure that out?"
"Sir!" Spartan snapped. "And how do I know you weren't the one who
tried it?"
"Because, damn you, _SIR_, I'm her husband!"
Spartan's face flushed angrily. "That's no way to talk to your superior
officer!" he snapped. "For this impertinence--"
He stopped in the middle of pronouncing sentence as his eyes fell on
the water-purifying apparatus.
"You've wrecked it!" he shouted and sprang to examine it.
Axel was holding Morrie upright now and Gail resumed bathing my bruised
face with refreshing water. "Let me have some of that water," said
Axel, ripping out a torn piece of Morrie's T-shirt.
Spartan swung around. "Stop wasting that water!" he roared. "Do
you realize we're dangerously short of water as a result of this
foolishness?"
Gail continued to bathe my face with the damp cloth.
"Stop it!" thundered Spartan.
"Bill's hurt," she replied calmly.
"By his own idiocy."
"Idiocy!" Gail stood up and faced Spartan. "If there's an idiot aboard
this ship, it's you--you interplanetary Captain Bligh!"
Spartan didn't move a muscle. His face was frozen into a mask of
contempt and resentment. "Miss Loring," he said, "just because you are
a woman gives you no special privileges. I'm the captain of this ship,
and I _must_ be treated with respect."
"Why don't you do something to earn respect then?" she demanded,
looking as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
"Ten days extra duty for you, Miss Loring," he said. He turned and went
to the bulkhead door. When he reached it, he turned to Axel. "As soon
as these men are able, bring them into the main cabin. We'll hold the
court-martial there."
He disappeared through the door. Axel got up and went over to the water
purifier. He spent three or four minutes examining it. When he finished
he looked very grim.
"Two of the four units are wrecked," he said. "We may be on half
rations of water for the next two years."
* * * * *
When Morrie and I were able to get on our feet, we went into the
main cabin, where Spartan was arranging Morrie's spacesuit beside
his sleeping bag. He gave us a frowning glance and beckoned to Axel,
who went to where he was standing. They talked for a few minutes,
discussing the damage to our water system. Only Joel was absent, being
in the control room.
Finally Spartan turned to the rest of us. "Sit down," he said.
He waited until we had arranged ourselves in front of him, Axel, Gail
and I sitting cross-legged on the floor behind Morrie, who reclined on
his elbows facing Spartan.
"Mr. Ludson has just told me that our water-cycling equipment is badly
damaged," Spartan said, seating himself. "Therefore, we will have to
use less water, unless we can make repairs. The present outlook is very
bad. The cycling units can now distill only half the amount we have
been using.
"We can't cut down on the amount of water we use to irrigate our
garden. And we can't prepare meals without water because we have
to depend on dehydrated food. So we'll have to use less water for
drinking, washing and laundry."
"Good heavens, Dr. Spartan! We can't live in filth!" said Gail.
"Perhaps not," said Spartan, "but when we wash, or do laundry, that
water must come from our drinking supply. That will force us to hold
unnecessary cleanliness to a minimum."
It was obvious that we would be the dirtiest group of spacemen who ever
made an interplanetary voyage.
"In addition," Spartan went on, "No. Five motor is not functioning
because it was hit by a meteor. We have yet to determine how badly it
is damaged, but since it is important that we have that extra margin
of safety, we must make every attempt to repair it. And if that isn't
enough trouble for us, two of our crew have engaged in a disgraceful
brawl."
"It was _not_ a brawl!" said Gail.
"Miss Loring, I've warned you. I will increase your punishment if you
continue with these remarks. I've called you together here to hold a
court-martial to decide where to fix the blame for the damage to the
water machinery. Now, Miss Loring, if you want to talk, you can tell me
what happened."
Gail, who had found time to put on another uniform, bowed her head.
"It is very embarrassing, Dr. Spartan--"
"It is necessary," said Spartan.
Gail hesitated, collecting her thoughts. "When the meteor alarm was
given I went to my station in the machinery room, which is nearest my
quarters in the rear cupola of the ship--"
"We all know that. It is unnecessary to give these details," said
Spartan.
"After you gave the all-clear signal, Morrie--Mr. Grover--who had been
in the kitchen, came in through the bulkhead and asked me if I was all
right. After I told him I was, he broke down and began to cry. I felt
sorry for him and went over and put my arm on his shoulders to cheer
him up."
"Are you sure, Miss Loring, that was the only reason you put your arm
around him?" Spartan asked.
"I did _not_ put my arm around him, Doctor," Gail said succinctly. "Mr.
Grover apparently had been under tremendous strain. As you know, he's
the youngest member of the crew."
"He's old enough to have mature emotions."
"He has shown that his emotions are definitely _not_ mature," Gail
replied. "As I said before, I tried to cheer him up, but he--like other
people I could name--put a different interpretation on an innocent
gesture. He threw his arms around me and kissed me. He said some
wild things about being in love with me. I tried to push him away,
explaining that I was a married woman--"
"We all understand about that marriage," Morrie broke in.
"Nevertheless, I made promises at that ceremony and I intend to keep
them until Bill Drake is no longer my husband," she replied. "I thought
Morrie was out of his head. Then, before I knew it, he began to tear
off my clothing. I tried to struggle but he held me so tightly I
couldn't. Then Bill Drake appeared. He threw Mr. Grover across the
room, and Morrie tore a piece of pipe from the condenser and they--they
fought."
"Then it was Drake who threw Grover into the machinery?" Spartan asked.
"Yes," replied Gail. "But it wasn't intentional."
"It may not have been intentional!" Spartan snarled, "but it has
endangered the success of this expedition."
"Morrie also knocked Bill Drake into the machinery," she said. She was
calling Morrie by a single name and me by my full name. Suddenly I
sensed that in using my complete name she was not being formal. On the
contrary, she had turned it into a term of endearment. It was as if she
savored the full name, rather than any kind of abbreviation.
"Humph! And are you sure you never, at any time, encouraged Mr. Grover
to make these--uh--advances?"
"Of course not!"
Spartan turned to Morrie. "What do you have to say?" It was obvious
that he hoped Morrie could successfully refute the story told by Gail.
Morrie shrugged, his whole manner noncommittal.
"I want an answer," said Spartan. "Is she telling the truth?" He was
driving for the answer he wanted.
Morrie breathed deeply. "What is the truth, Dr. Spartan?" he asked.
"Surely you know the truth." An incredulous look sprang to his face.
"Don't act so damned dogmatic. The truth can be a dozen different
things. Right now I don't know what's real and what isn't. Nothing
is the same out here as it was on the earth. Everything familiar is
millions of miles away. Even the earth looks like a star in the sky and
it takes a telescope to see the moon. Stars whirl like a merry-go-round
and the sun is smaller and has a corona, which we never see at home
except during an eclipse. We travel in something different from any
vehicle ever dreamed of, powered by something nothing else runs by. We
don't wear clothes, we wear gym suits. Our meals are dehydrated food
and hybrid vegetables. And our drinking water is distilled from urine!
We have centrifugal force for gravity and we even have a marriage that
isn't real."
"The rest of us have adjusted ourselves to these conditions," said
Spartan sternly, obviously disappointed at the turn the conversation
had taken.
"Do you really think so?" Morrie asked. "I'm not so sure. We're living
under conditions that are decidedly upsetting. It wouldn't take much
to push any of us over the edge into a psychosis. Nothing is real, not
even our thoughts, because our world is totally different."
Spartan's lips pressed together. Then he asked: "Is this your excuse?"
"Gail Loring is the only real thing aboard. That's because she's a
woman and I'm a man. The only thing traveling with us that we knew on
earth is sex." Having had his say, he took on a hangdog look, as if
putting himself on the mercy of the court.
"Bah! A flimsy defense." Spartan's tone was not convincing. He was too
much aware of sex himself.
"Then if it's not a defense or an excuse, it's a reason why I went mad
for a few minutes," Grover said. "Perhaps I'm not justified by earth
standards, but those standards don't exist here. You said so yourself.
All I thought of was that she was a woman. I didn't think of the
consequences. I thought of myself."
I was still angry and could never forgive Morrie, but I also felt sorry
for him. Out of frustration, I'd nursed some pretty weird thoughts
myself. Fortunately, I'd been able to control them.
Spartan seemed immune to understanding. "I take it that you plead
guilty."
Gail cleared her throat. "There are extenuating circumstances, Doctor,"
she said. "As the injured party, I ask you not to be too hard on Mr.
Grover."
Spartan turned cold, hard eyes on her. "Is this an admission that _you_
may be more guilty than you admit?"
Gail flushed. "All I asked was a little human understanding for Mr.
Grover."
"Humph." Spartan bit his lip beneath his beard. "It is necessary to
make Mr. Grover understand that he must control himself in the future.
He is not well adjusted. Certainly our examiners are at fault. They
were supposed to perceive signs of instability and weakness. If they
failed in this case, how do we know they did a better job of judging
the rest of you?"
"And _you_, Doctor?" Gail asked.
He ignored her. "We can't send Grover to prison. There is none. But he
is unstable," he mused, almost as if he were talking to himself. "The
simplest way out would be to execute him--"
"Doctor!" exclaimed Gail.
"What in the hell, sir?" Axel said. "Don't be as crazy as Grover."
For a moment Spartan's eyes flared with indignation, then he waved his
hand for silence. "I had not finished. I was just pointing out the
simple solution. With Grover out of the way, we'd have less of a water
problem, which he caused. If he did not exist, we would not have to
worry about his psychotic violence, which might recur. On the other
hand, the loss of one able-bodied crewman would certainly show itself
in the results of our expedition. We must think of the expedition.
However, some disciplinary action is needed." He paused.
"I agree with you," said Morrie. "And as for my being crazy, I'm
not, really. I was under a strain. I was afraid. I just forgot to be
civilized."
"I'm glad you see it in that light," said Spartan, "because I'm
assigning you to a task that might be somewhat dangerous. You will make
the necessary repairs to engine No. Five."
I felt a sense of relief. I'd been afraid of what Spartan might do,
especially when he talked of capital punishment. And even though making
the repairs to the plasma motors would be perilous, the danger wasn't
excessive and the job was one that someone would have to do anyhow.
"You'll begin at once," said Dr. Spartan.
"Thank you, sir," said Morrie.
He rose, went over to his bed roll and began to put on his spacesuit.
Dr. Spartan watched him with a curious glint in his eyes. Then he
turned to me. "Stand by the locks till he returns, Drake."
I nodded.
Turning abruptly, Dr. Spartan went back into his ivory tower.
_Chapter 9_
Gail and Axel went aft to see what could be done about fixing the
water-cycling machinery. I helped Morrie adjust his spacesuit in
silence.
Although I felt that he had not been sane when he attacked Gail, I
couldn't forgive his actions. I don't suppose he felt forgiving toward
me. I was sure he hated me for stopping him from taking Gail, even
though he appeared to be remorseful over his actions.
Before I put the helmet over his head, he said, "I--I wasn't myself,
Bill. I want you to realize that. And try to make Gail see it that way."
"She'll accept your apology later," I said, "but get one thing
straight, Grover. If you ever make another pass at her, whether you're
sane or not, I'll kill you in spite of hell and Doc Spartan."
He bit his lip. "Can't blame you for feeling that way. You do love her,
don't you?"
"You're damn right," I said. "Even before we were married I loved her."
His helmet was fastened and he stepped into the locks. I closed the
door, ready to use the walkie-talkie transmitter for any messages. Dr.
Spartan reappeared. "Grover will need welding equipment to fix that
motor," he said. "Did he take it with him?"
"No, sir," I said.
"Then get it and take it out to him," said Spartan, turning and going
back to his cabin.
I shrugged. I hadn't been sentenced to repair the tubes, as Morrie had,
but I still had to obey orders. I got the equipment and a tool bag from
the storage compartment of the machine room. When I told Gail and Axel
I was taking welding equipment out to Morrie, Axel gave me a worried
look. "Don't start anything, Bill," he said.
"We have an understanding," I replied.
Returning to the main cabin, I found Dr. Spartan waiting again, an
oxygen tank in his hands.
"Here's the tank I want you to use, Drake," he said. "There's just a
small amount of oxygen in it, but to use a new tank for such a short
errand would be wasteful. We don't know when we might have another
accident."
"Okay. I mean--yes, sir," I said.
"I trust you and Grover won't resume--uh--hostilities."
"No, sir. I'm sure he wasn't himself, sir."
While I put on my helmet, Spartan put the tank on my shoulders. I
checked the connections, then I went into the locks. I started the
pumps to exhaust the air and called to Morrie on my helmet transmitter.
"I'm bringing some welding equipment, Morrie."
He didn't answer.
"Do you read me, Morrie?" I called.
Still no answer. I called a third time and when Morrie didn't seem to
hear, I grew apprehensive.
"Morrie!"
I knew something was wrong now. He should have heard me. Sometimes a
man will switch off his transmitter, but he always keeps his receiver
on. The locks were emptied of air and I swung open the outer door. I
fastened a lifeline to my belt and fitted the hasp of the other end to
a ring just outside the door.
Then I pivoted around the door frame and planted my magnetized boots
against the metal side of the ship. They stuck, and I started to walk
around the craft toward motor No. Five.
I found Morrie Grover beside the engine, standing like a statue, his
hands raised--thrown out by centrifugal force--as if some unseen bandit
had ordered him to stick 'em up.
His unnatural position and his failure to answer my calls was enough
to convince me that something was radically wrong. He was unconscious
or--I tried not to think of the alternative.
What was wrong? Only a meteor could have hurt him here and we'd long
since passed through that cloud. I knew the chance of being hit by one
was so remote that it wasn't likely to occur in a couple of hundred
years.
I stepped over the metal housing of the bank of motors between myself
and Morrie. His body looked weird in the sunlight, going into phases
like a man-shaped moon, with each revolution of the ship. Half his
figure was black, half gleaming like a star. And then, as the sun
peeped through the glass of his helmet, I saw a contorted face, open
mouth, and staring, sightless eyes.
Sure that he was dead, I stepped to his side and peered down at the
oxygen gauge on his chest, worn upside down so that it would be visible
to Morrie. The tank was nearly full, but the needle didn't wiggle as it
would have done if Morrie had been breathing. He was dead, all right.
"Dr. Spartan!" I called.
No answer came through my earphones. I called again. Apparently, Dr.
Spartan wasn't listening, nor was anyone else. I felt the urge to walk
to the nearest video camera and wave my arms so that Joel would see me
in the control room. Instead, I decided to take Morrie's body to the
locks--quickly, in case there was still some spark of life in the man.
The tool kit I'd brought topside wasn't magnetized and would be thrown
into space by the rotation of the ship. I opened the bag, took the
pliers and cut two short lengths from Morrie's life line. One I used
to lash the tools to the motor housings, and the other I fastened from
Morrie's belt to mine, leaving about eight feet of slack between us.
Then I replaced the pliers, closed the tool kit and was ready to move.
Dragging Morrie and his magnetized boots back to the locks would be
hard work, especially since I'd have to pull myself the same distance.
So I lifted him off the deck and then, holding his weightless body over
my shoulder, doubled my knees and jumped upward.
I sailed outward--or, if you choose, upward--for the ship, myself and
Morrie, and the sun, formed a right angle, if you're interested in the
geometry of our positions. The sun was toward the rear of the ship and
about thirty degrees to the right, when you looked toward the tail of
the craft. This geometry was presently going to become very important
to my future existence.
It seemed as if I were sailing a great distance, although distance is
difficult to judge in space when there's nothing to mark it. I had
perhaps fifty feet of life line and it wasn't until I was certain I'd
gone much further that I began to grow worried.
Then I looked down. The thin copper wire which had secured me to the
ship was no longer fastened to the ring just outside the locks. It was
being pulled upward and Morrie and I were swinging around each other
like twin stars around a common center of gravity. The centrifugal
force of our motion was swinging the wire with it.
I just couldn't explain it. There was a hasp at the end of the line
which shouldn't have come unfastened. The line could hardly have
broken. It was meant to stand a great deal of strain and there had been
none. Not only were we weightless, but I hadn't to my knowledge, put
any strain on the wire during the entire time.
My push outward--or upward--had been translated into a motion away from
the ship and I would continue in that direction forever unless some
force were applied to stop me. The only force I was subject to was the
gravitational pull of the sun, which meant I'd revolve around the sun
forever, never to return to the Jehad.
But there was another motion, too, and this was the velocity of
the ship at the moment I had broken away from it. This carried me
forward--which to me was in the general direction of the orbit of Mars.
However, my relationship to the ship was not permanent. The ship was
being constantly accelerated, second by second, by the thrust of the
plasma motors. Even as I looked down, my heart freezing with horror at
the thought of never being able to return to the Jehad, I could see the
ship inching forward. The right triangle had become acute and presently
I'd be behind the ship.
Even in this tense moment my mind was demanding explanations, even
fantastic ones. What had happened? If the hasp couldn't unfasten
itself, if the line couldn't have broken, something must have broken
it or unfastened the hasp. What? Morrie's ghost, vowing vengeance for
whatever fancied wrong I'd done to him in the machinery cabin? Or
Spartan? Or something else?
These thoughts occupied only a second because I had to get busy and,
as Morrie and I whirled around in our ghostly dance in space, I
reached for the petcock of my oxygen flask. Just as I touched it, a
warning shot through my mind: Spartan had given me a tank with only a
small amount of oxygen in it, therefore he had to be the one who was
trying to get rid of me. He had released my line, knowing I'd take the
quickest way back to the locks, rather than to clamber over the sides.
Small comfort, this sudden discovery. I realized that since I had a
minimum supply of oxygen to breathe, it would be suicidal to use any
part of it for jetting back to the ship, which was pulling farther and
farther ahead.
Across from me, sailing round and round like a devil's carousel, Morrie
seemed to grin as the sunlight struck his helmet again. He was dead and
had plenty of air, he seemed to say. I was alive and hadn't enough.
And that grin was what did it. I realized he had enough to get us both
back--if I acted quickly.
I pulled him toward me. It was difficult to twist him around, more
difficult to turn him toward the ship. Finally I succeeded in pointing
him right and I thumbed open the jet petcock at the base of his oxygen
equipment.
He shot forward, but the line attached to both our belts made him
somersault, and there was a tug on the thin strand that tied us
together. He was pulling me _away_ from the ship, putting more distance
between me and safety. For him, it didn't matter.
Quickly I pulled him back. I grabbed both his legs, like the handles of
a wheelbarrow, and pointed him toward the ship, which with each second
was getting farther and farther away. How far I had no idea because, as
I said, distances are hard to judge in space.
Now the air jet was shoving us forward, accelerating us toward the
ship. I hoped it would match the ship's acceleration but I couldn't
tell at first. Then I laughed out loud. My voice made a hollow sound in
my ears. We _were_ gaining. Just a tiny bit, but the ship was getting
larger. Now the question was, did I have enough air on Morrie's back to
carry us to the ship? The air jet was intended for only short bursts,
such as I'd used when I crossed from the Saturn capsule to the Jehad.
Now I needed continued acceleration.
The thin vapor stream from the flask continued and now we were above
the stern of the ship, where Gail's quarters had been established. Then
the rush of air didn't seem quite as strong--we weren't creeping up as
fast.
The air locks weren't far ahead, but we were above the ship, maybe two
hundred yards away. Morrie's life line, the part still attached to the
ship after I cut him loose, was whirling around with the ship, thrown
out to its full length by the rotation. Whoever had released my line
hadn't bothered Morrie's. Maybe the killer knew Morrie was dead--or
maybe his object was only to kill _me_.
I steered down, hoping to get close enough to grab the line. Then the
oxygen fizzled out. No more vapor came from the tank. It was empty and
I couldn't quite reach the line. It was just a foot or two beyond me.
In desperation I gave Morrie a push and then praised God for Isaac
Newton's action and reaction. The shove I gave Morrie was sufficient
to push me back so that my free hand caught the line. I grabbed it and
held on.
A couple of moments later I was pulling myself hand over hand toward
the locks.
Just as I reached the locks, they opened. A hand stretched out, grasped
my arm and pulled Morrie and me inside. I detached the life lines.
It was Axel Ludson, standing there in a spacesuit.
Instantly, all the suspicions I'd had in space crystallized. Axel had
unfastened the life line!
I watched him close the locks and turn the valve that would presently
fill the locks with air. "How long have you been here, Axel?" I
demanded.
He turned, but didn't answer. His eyes focused, from within the helmet,
on Morrie's body, planted to the floor of the locks by magnetic boots,
swaying lifelessly as the ship rotated on its axis. "What's wrong with
him? Did he pass out?"
"Dead." I said.
Axel gave me the same kind of a look I must have given him when I
wondered about the life line. He was thinking of the fight between
Morrie and me. "How'd it happen?" he asked quietly.
"Your guess is as good as mine," I said. "I found him that way. And
somebody tried to kill me, Axel. Didn't you see how my line was loose
and how I was drifting in space?"
He shook his head, then reached down and examined my life line on the
floor. The hasp was on the end. Someone had unfastened it. "I looked
out the port and saw you pulling yourself in. I thought it was _your_
life line," he said.
"It was Morrie's. I had to cut it to lash the tools topside."
Axel didn't seem to believe me. Now he examined the section of line I'd
used to tie Morrie and me together. Apparently satisfied, he went to
look at the air gauge. A breathable amount of air was in the locks--we
took off our helmets. Then we worked Morrie's loose. He was dead, all
right. Dead and cold.
Axel examined Morrie's helmet. His fingers probed inside where the
valve from the air supply enters.
"Stuck valve," he said.
I looked relieved. "I thought somebody had killed him," I said.
"Somebody did," said Axel. He pulled his fingers from the valve. They
held a tiny piece of paper.
"But it could have been an accident," I said.
"There could have been enough air in the suit to keep him alive for
some minutes," Axel said. "What killed him was stale air--carbon
dioxide he'd exhaled. Somebody put that paper there to keep him from
getting air. Probably didn't know what was happening till too late."
I was no longer as suspicious of Axel. A murderer wouldn't be likely
to explain how he killed his victim but I had to be sure. "You didn't
answer me, Axel, when I asked how long you'd been in the locks."
He gave me a strange look. "You think I took your life line off the
ring?"
I avoided his eyes.
"Well, I guess I'd feel the same way. But I just came into the locks a
few minutes ago. I'd just pumped the air out of the locks and was ready
to go topside to help you and Morrie when I saw you outside. I didn't
have time to cut your life line loose. You ought to know that if I had
murder in mind, I could have pushed you back into space again."
"I'm sorry, Axel," I said. "But things get screwed up in my mind.
Nothing seems right out here in high space."
"There was nobody around the locks when I entered them," Axel went on.
"Gail and I were working in the machinery cabin till she got worried
and asked me to check up on you. I figured I'd give you a hand. Joel's
in the control cabin."
He paused and I said nothing. We both knew who'd tried to kill me and
who probably was responsible for Morrie's death. That piece of paper
didn't get in Morrie's helmet by accident. The entire paper supply was
in Spartan's chartroom.
"Why?" Axel asked slowly, a trace of accent creeping into his voice. It
sounded like _vy_. He stared at me in utter perplexity. "Is Dr. Spartan
crazy, too?"
I remembered something that had happened--ages ago, it seemed,
although it had been less than two hours before. "I was in Spartan's
cabin during the time we went through the meteor cloud, Axel. I found
something there."
"Yes?"
"Yes. A piece of paper--with our names on it. Morrie's was at the top
of the list. Then mine. Warner Joel's name had been crossed out and
written in again after yours. At the bottom there was Gail's name with
a question mark after it."
"A roster of the crew?"
"Perhaps. But the question mark puzzled me. Now I believe he had listed
us in the order of execution--in the order of expendability, so to
speak."
"It is a ridiculous idea," said Axel.
"He killed Morrie and tried to kill me," I said. "We were Numbers One
and Two on the list."
Axel blinked his eyes. Then he looked at Morrie swaying upright, held
in place by his magnetic boots. "First we must take the dead man into
the ship," he said. "Later we talk about it, Bill. Yust you and I."
We dragged Morrie into the main cabin. Gail was still in the machinery
room, and we called Spartan on the intercom. When he came through the
door and saw Morrie stretched out on his sleeping bag, he glanced at
him as he might have at a soiled spot on the rug.
"What happened?" he asked.
I told him just what I'd found, purposely omitting my narrow escape
from death. I figured that if he wasn't told about this he might give
himself away. But he had shown no surprise at my being alive and he
didn't ask how I'd gotten Morrie inside.
Spartan dropped to his knee beside the body. He picked up Morrie's
helmet and probed the valve with his fingers as Axel had done. "Stuck
valve," he announced. "Inefficiency on the part of the manufacturer.
I'll make a full report of this when I get back to the earth." I noted
he said "when _I_ get back." I sensed he didn't expect much company on
the return trip. Today's events had proved it.
"What do we do now, sir?" Axel asked respectfully.
"Give him a space burial, of course," said Spartan. He turned to me.
"Within the next few days, you can make an oral report on the incident
and I'll transcribe it on the tape recorder. We'll need it for the
officials when we get back to earth." He paused and looked down at
Morrie. "Our young friend has discovered a second great reality in
space, I fear. The reality of death."
He turned on his heel and went back to his ivory tower.
I reached down and picked up Morrie's helmet. I felt inside the valve.
The piece of paper which Axel had replaced was gone now. Dr. Spartan
had removed the evidence of murder.
We put Morrie's helmet on his head and carried his body into the locks.
After we put on our own helmets, we emptied the locks of air and pushed
the body out into space. Then we went to tell Gail.
_Chapter 10_
Axel and I did not get a chance to have our talk immediately. For one
thing, I was completing my disciplinary tours of duty imposed by Dr.
Spartan and, for another, I was faced with the extra duties imposed on
me by the death of Morrie.
Spartan had not attempted again to take my life, a fact that seemed
very strange to me. He continued to thrive on his hatred for all of us,
particularly Axel and me. Understandably, he wasn't quite as harsh with
Gail. Toward Joel he seemed to have adopted a special manner. On the
surface he was as curt toward him as toward the others, but I noticed
that Joel was given light duties, while the rest of us got the menial
tasks and the tough ones. Not that this mattered, because to be busy
was not to be bored. But Joel was Spartan's fair-haired boy, there was
no doubt about that. Perhaps Spartan saw need for an ally, or maybe he
planned to use him for things that were to come.
Joel was elated because his chief often invited him into the chartroom
for a meal, or to discuss adjustments in our orbit. And I am sure Joel
reported every slip of the tongue Axel and I made which showed our true
feelings toward Spartan.
Before my extra duty--and Gail's--ended, we reached the middle part
of our voyage. At this point we had achieved the maximum speed for
the trip, which was 40,000 miles per _hour_. This was far short of the
ship's theoretical speed of 100,000 miles per _second_, but Mars was
too near the earth for that kind of travel.
Planners of the trip had computed several possible routes to Mars. The
shortest, a mere 40 million miles, would be undertaken when our earth
and Mars were nearest each other. Such a route would be like cutting
across a vacant lot from one street to the next parallel street.
However, there would be fences to climb in the form of the sun's pull
of gravity. The ship would have to use power from the first day till
the last, and much pay load would have to be sacrificed.
The second route would use a minimum of fuel and maximum time. We would
accelerate to an orbit intersecting the paths of the earth and Mars.
Then the motors would be cut and we would coast in free flight to our
destination, where we would decelerate. But such a trip would take from
five to seven years.
Our actual path was a compromise between the two. We would use a
minimum of fuel and a minimum of time. It was faster than plan 2, but
more economical than plan 1. We would accelerate to a good speed, coast
awhile on the planned orbit, then decelerate. Had we enough supplies,
we might have remained on Mars about three months. However, every
ounce of supplies we would use on Mars had to be shipped separately on
conventional, unmanned rocket ships which were now orbiting Mars. Three
ships of this type had been fired from the earth two years before. One
of these would take us from the Jehad and back again, just as we had
boarded the Jehad from the earth. The other two would be left on Mars.
But only three weeks of supplies could be shipped. After our return to
the Jehad, we would orbit for about 75 days, when Mars and the earth
would be in position for our return trip.
Even though we had more work than usual, the trip grew boring after
Gail and I completed our disciplinary duty. Then we changed our "day"
from 25 to 24 hours, replacing the five-hour shifts, which had included
a shift for Morrie, to six-hour shifts. Following through on our dull
routines, we realized why Morrie had cracked up. But the rest of
us showed no signs of this, and even Joel bore up well. Perhaps the
headshrinkers who passed on us were entitled to one mistake. We figured
_one_ despite the fact that Dr. Spartan could not be considered a
direct hit on the psychological target. However, Spartan was a good
spaceman, just as Nero had been good at his job, though more than
slightly cracked.
Then, as we neared the end of the middle stage of the trip, we picked
up a new kind of signal from Mars on our electronic equipment. The
first, undoubtedly a radar beam, continued as before. But the second
was on a longer wave length and was undoubtedly a radio transmission.
It came to us as a deep chirping sound, and Axel suggested the Martians
were trying to communicate with us.
"Maybe words of welcome," he said, adding, "or warning against
trespassing."
Then the middle portion of our voyage ended. Mars was now a discernible
disc and the gyroscope twisted the ship around so that its tail was
headed toward our destination. The motors were fired and the long
period of deceleration began.
While this was being done by Spartan, with Joel assisting him in the
control room, Gail, Axel and I were together in the main cabin, and we
had our first full discussion on what might lie ahead.
"Spartan might have had a change of heart," Gail said, always hopeful.
"He really hasn't done anything out of line since he tried to take
Bill's life."
"At that time," said Axel, "we believed--and he did, too--that there
would be suffering from lack of water. However, we have been able to
distill water for irrigating the garden by using the vacuum of the air
locks. There is plenty to drink--if we're careful not to waste it--and
for our dehydrated food. We can even do a washing once in a while."
He smiled and rubbed his hands over his dirty T-shirt. "Now it is not
necessary to reduce the size of the crew because of lack of water."
"Why didn't he wait before trying it in the first place?" I asked.
"Morrie Grover had to be eliminated," Axel explained. "Spartan gave
his reasons. He said there was no prison aboard the ship, hinting that
Morrie should be confined. He figured that what had happened once
could happen again; that Morrie might very well flip under further
pressure."
"And was I dangerous or unstable?" I demanded.
"Neither," Gail broke in to answer for Axel, "but he considered you
expendable and in his way."
"You fought for Gail," Axel said. "Spartan wants no interference when
he tries to have his way."
"He's as crazy as poor Morrie," said Gail.
"In a different way," said Axel, "I've known Doc a long time. Went to
the moon with him. He's pushed by ambition and the dislike of sharing
credit for a job well done. He was very disturbed when the newspapers
gave a bigger play to the Loring-Drake wedding than to the objectives
of the Mars flight. Spartan wanted to be the only hero."
"Isn't that why we're all making this trip? To win credit, fame,
glory--or whatever else you want to call it?"
"Partly. There is also something else," said Axel.
"The old college try," I said. "Just what is the reason for going to
Mars? It's costing six billion dollars. We couldn't bring back anything
worth that much."
"Knowledge," said Gail.
"Is it knowledge that'll do any good?" I asked.
"We don't know," said Gail. "Remember Columbus? He was tossed into
prison. People accused him of ruining the Spanish government through
his crazy trips to far-off lands. There wasn't much gold, people said,
without realizing that wasn't what really mattered; that the value of
the discovery of the new world couldn't be figured in terms of dollars
and cents. So will it prove it be, I'm sure, with Mars."
"Okay," I said, "suppose the trip is worth it. Why are _we_ going?
Particularly if there's no real money in it."
"Soldiers don't get rich," said Axel. "And how many of them risk their
lives to win wars, or even to save a comrade, or perform other acts of
bravery."
"Couldn't you call that glory seeking? Selfishness, in other words?"
"Do you call martyrs glory seekers because they die for principles and
beliefs?"
"Not many men--sane ones, that is--become martyrs intentionally," I
said.
"There are two kinds of selfishness that rule our lives, Bill Drake,"
said Gail. "One is self-preservation, which makes a man kill to defend
himself. The other is race-preservation, which includes preservation of
ideals and beliefs necessary for race progress. Men will die and become
martyrs for that."
"One kind of preservation makes you kill, another makes you get
killed," I said. "It doesn't make sense."
"No," said Axel. "But Gail is right. That is the way it works out.
Would you call Willy Zinder a martyr?"
"No," I told him. "Willy took a chance and got killed. I suppose he was
a hero, though."
"Willy Zinder was murdered," Axel said bluntly.
"He was _what_?"
"Murdered, I said. Spartan didn't intend for Willie to be killed. He
only wanted Willy washed out, but he planned the accident."
Gail gasped.
"He wanted Gail to go to Mars," Axel added.
"But I thought it was my idea," said Gail. Then she paused. "But he did
fall in with the idea rather suddenly when I suggested it. Maybe he did
plan it all along. But how--what makes you think it was murder?"
"Spartan was the last man to inspect the controls on Willy's capsule.
They had been inspected by others before him and called okay. But it
would have been easy for Spartan to gimmick the re-entry controls so
that Willy would return to the atmosphere ninety minutes too soon. Such
an event would make it appear that Willie had become confused, or had
panicked. You remember he put Gail Loring on the control board just
before the accident? He wanted her to believe she'd been responsible.
And for a time, she felt she had been."
"But you have no real proof, Axel," said Gail.
He shook his head. "I did not suspect it was anything but an accident
until I learned that Spartan killed Morrie Grover and then tried to
kill Bill. Also, Bill told me of that little death list Spartan had.
Only then did I know that Spartan had killed Willy Zinder."
"Just to get me aboard!" Gail said. Her voice was almost a whisper.
"He wanted to marry you, of course, but you changed his plans. His
objections to your plans would have looked suspect and he did not
have unlimited power on the earth to force you into marriage against
your will. Besides, the platonic marriage finally decided on did not
interfere with his plan. He'd decided Bill would die before the return
to earth."
"He'd made such a big thing of a six-man crew so he could take you
along," I told Gail. "We're doing okay now with five--" I stopped. Dr.
Spartan had entered the room.
He surveyed the group with angry eyes. I wondered how long he had been
listening and how much he had heard.
"Relieve Warner Joel in the control room, Ludson," he said.
Joel had another hour to go before his relief was due, but Axel rose.
"Yes, sir," he said.
"Miss Loring, it is time you started preparing our next meal, isn't it?"
"It's Bill Drake's turn in the galley, sir," she said.
"You will take it this time. Drake will take over the duty the next
time it is yours. I wish to talk to him." He turned to me. "Will you
come into my cabin, Drake?"
"Yes, sir," I said.
I followed him through the door and we entered the chartroom. You don't
walk into that room, you drop into it. The corridor which separates
the two parts of Spartan's cabin is equipped with small doors opposite
each other and in the approximate center of the craft. You must pull
yourself up to the opening and slide through by aid of centrifugal
force.
Spartan was standing opposite the door when I came through. I dropped
to the floor beside him and he gestured for me to sit down on the floor.
"Drake," he said, "I understand you had some difficulty bringing
Grover's body into the ship after you found it."
This was the first time he mentioned what I knew he knew. "A very minor
difficulty, sir," I said.
"For your information, Warner Joel saw the entire episode on the
television screens in the control room. You were in view most of the
time. It looked as if your safety line broke."
"It became disengaged, sir," I replied.
"Disengaged? How did that happen?"
"I don't know," I said. "And, as you recall, I had a short supply of
oxygen in my tank. I used Grover's tank to jet to the ship."
He scowled at me in disapproval. "You call that a minor difficulty?"
His hand, I noticed, was on the butt of the dart pistol, but he made no
move to draw it.
"I survived," I said, keeping my face noncommittal.
"Then you wouldn't consider a difficulty serious unless you did not
survive it?" Was it my imagination or was he deliberately toying with
me?
"Most serious, sir,"
He thought for a moment. "From now on, Drake, you will avoid dangerous
tasks. You are slightly accident prone and you might get into serious
difficulties, which would not be in the best interests of our mission.
I need a full crew to do our work on Mars."
"Thank you, sir," I said.
"You may go."
I returned to the main cabin, realizing that Spartan had spoken plainly
enough. He knew that I knew he'd tried to kill me and he was now
granting me a reprieve, probably because he figured he might need an
extra pair of hands on Mars. However, he had warned me--if I wasn't a
good boy, he might change his mind and decide I was expendable.
_Chapter 11_
We were a mere million miles from Mars, traveling at the comparatively
snail-like speed of 12,000 miles an hour--a shade over the escape
velocity on Mars' surface--when Spartan made his next move.
He announced over the intercom that a serious accident had occurred.
The air-lock doors had become unfastened in some mysterious fashion
and ten previous gallons of waste water which was being distilled for
irrigation purposes for the garden had escaped as steam.
"It will be absolutely necessary for us to find water on Mars," he
added. "Otherwise only half our crew, maybe only two of us, will be
able to return to the earth. That is all."
It was too damned much, if you ask me. Later, when Axel and I were
alone, I voiced my concern and suspicions.
"It was no accident," said Axel bluntly.
"Right," I said. No one had been in the main cabin at the time, about
an hour before, when the water escaped. Gail had been asleep in her
compartment. I'd been in the machinery room checking the air and
water-cycling equipment. Axel had been in the control room, and Joel
had been in the galley preparing food for the rest of us. "Maybe he
thinks we're stupid," I added. "Anybody could figure out he did it."
"On the log it will look just as Spartan says," Axel told us. "You and
I may never live to contradict it. For that matter, neither may Joel."
"Murder?"
Axel nodded his head. "I think he has been planning for a long time to
return alone."
"But surely--surely not without Gail?"
"If you were Spartan and thought as he did, what would you do? Gail is
the one witness who could endanger him by contradicting his story."
"You think even Gail is in danger?"
Axel shrugged again. "As we mentioned once before, Dr. Spartan is not a
man who likes to share glory," he said. "Besides there are two murders
which would need some explaining."
It seemed incredible, and yet there was a logical order of events
that made Axel's theory plausible. First, Spartan wanted Gail. He had
arranged an accident for Willy Zinder and this accident became murder.
Second, there had been the accidental damaging of the water-cycling
equipment, an incident which had served Dr. Spartan's scheme to cut
down the crew--assuming of course that Spartan never intended any of
us to return, with the possible exception of Gail. This had resulted
in the second murder. Thirdly, he had planned to eliminate me but, for
good reason, had changed his mind: I would be needed when the base was
set up on Mars. Once that was accomplished I could be disposed of. Or,
possibly, Spartan feared hostile creatures on Mars and could not afford
to reduce the size of his crew if fighting could be expected. Now he
had produced a water shortage.
"Supposing you're right, Axel," I said after these thoughts ran through
my mind. "What can we do about it?"
"Nothing--now."
"Later?"
"If we are to live, something must be done," said Axel. "One thing we
must decide, Bill, is just how far we are willing to go."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked. "If it comes to defending my life,
I'll go all out--as far as necessary."
"It isn't that simple," said Axel. "As Spartan said, without
exaggeration, there is water enough for only two--three at the most.
That means two of us, at least, must die--unless we find water on Mars.
Suppose we were to make Spartan a prisoner? What then?"
I realized now what the real problem was. Even as a prisoner, we
would not have the right to execute Spartan just because there was
insufficient water. And how would we choose the other person to be
sacrificed?
"It's a terrible problem, Axel," I said. "Must we decide it now?"
"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.
There were two kinds of clouds on Mars. Fleecy white ones which
probably were water vapor, and yellowish clouds strongly suggestive of
dust clouds, whipped up by violent storms. Although Mars had thin air,
it could have strong winds.
We could now see the two Martian moons. The furthermost of the two,
Deimos, is only 15,000 miles from the surface of the planet. Its
diameter is about 20 miles, and it revolves around Mars once every
sixteen hours. Since the Martian day is about the same length as the
earth's, being only 37 minutes longer, Deimos would rise in the west
and sink in the east about three days later, being visible and moving
slowly eastward through the entire time. The larger moon, Phobos,
is about thirty miles in diameter, and only 6,000 miles from the
surface of Mars. Even though it is extremely small it would be seen
as a tiny, bright disc from the surface of Mars. Its period is six
hours, therefore it rises in the west three times every Martian day.
It actually circles Mars four times daily but Mars turns once so that
Phobos would appear, to Martian eyes, to circle only three times.
Our problem was not to hit Mars, but to score a near miss. We would
come close enough to be captured by Martian gravity. Then we would
spiral as a satellite, decelerating and tightening our orbit till
we were as close as possible to the group of rockets that had been
fired from the earth with our supplies. We would board one of these,
and then, using electronic controls, would land the three rockets
comparatively close together at a spot in the desert near an oasis that
looked fruitful for exploration.
The most interesting of these oases, of which there were many, were
two oval-shaped greenish brown areas marked on Percival Lowell's maps
as Solis Lacus Minor and Solis Lacus Major--generally called Solis
Lacus. These were about halfway between the equator and the pole in the
northern hemisphere. In 1924 Solis Lacus showed a startling expansion,
growing to almost twice its size and extending northward. Undoubtedly
vegetation existed in profusion in this area. Furthermore, the two
areas were connected by a short canal, which frequently doubled,
forming two canals. Between the oases was desert. Thus, by landing
between the two Solis Lacuses we could learn a great deal about the
physical characteristics of Mars.
At a distance of one million miles, we had to aim carefully at Mars.
The planet was speeding along its orbit at about fifteen miles per
second, in comparison with our speed which was slightly more than
three. If we missed we couldn't catch up because our acceleration was
too slow. We'd have to go home empty-handed.
Our electronic computer worked out the corrections to our line of
flight so that we would be caught by Mars' gravitational field. We
had already located the three unmanned rockets by radar and we had a
small telescope in the control room, plus telescopic lens on the video
cameras to help us. This was lucky, because as we approached Phobos,
Axel called excitedly from the control room.
"We're having trouble with the Martians, Dr. Spartan!"
There was nothing on the television screens to indicate an attack by
spaceship, but we did see an unusual amount of "snow," as if there were
interference. It wasn't until I took my turn in the control room that
I found out the trouble. Axel was there then, having remained to check
out what he was certain was the truth.
"They're jamming our radar," he explained. "It's so fogged up we can't
locate the unmanned rockets."
"Then they're not friendly," I said. I'd suspected they wouldn't
welcome us with open arms, and I think the others had felt the same way.
"Maybe playing safe," he said.
"If we could only find a way to communicate with them," I said. "Maybe
we could make them understand that we're friendly."
Axel shook his head. "Would you believe everything a man from outer
space told you?" he asked. "With three rocket ships circling their
planet, they must expect an invasion, now that a bigger one is
approaching."
"At least they don't have missiles," I said. Then a sudden thought
struck me. "This fogging of the radar may prove something. Maybe they
don't have eyes."
He gave me a blank look. "How do you figure it?"
"They have radar and they must know we'll contact the rest of the
'fleet.' They figure it'll be by radar. Since they don't seem to
suspect that we can _see_ the rockets, maybe radar is their only method
of seeing."
"Even if you brought that in from left field, you're thinking, boy,"
said Axel.
But the fogged radar had given us a distinct message: _Earthmen, you're
not welcome because we don't know your reasons for coming here. We
don't want you to land._ The message was as plain as if it had been
sent in English.
There was no thought of turning back. What the hell? We'd come this
far, hadn't we?
We got a good look at Phobos, a jagged, uneven rock. It wasn't even
round. It looked like a chunk of basalt, but Dr. Joel, the geologist,
pointed out black streaks which, he said, were outcroppings of meteoric
iron. It hadn't originally been a part of Mars, as our moon was once a
part of the earth. Phobos was a captured asteroid, and so probably was
Deimos.
The unmanned rockets were in a group, all within ten miles of each
other. They were circling Mars in two hours, inside the orbit of
Phobos. We approached them without radar because they were easily seen
as bright moving specks in the sky.
There was nothing to pack, not even instruments, because these unmanned
rockets were supposed to contain every item we would need. We just put
on our spacesuits, strung a line between the Jehad and the largest of
the three rockets--after stopping the Jehad's rotation--and crossed
over.
Although I'd been treated to some very pretty sights of the earth and
the moon, Mars was on a par with any of them. It's a small planet, only
4,200 miles in diameter, but it didn't look so small now. It filled
half the sky, big, red and angry. In the northern hemisphere, where it
was late spring, the polar ice cap had all but disappeared. Brownish
green vegetation swept southward. Here and there over the surface was
a fleecy cloud and the mysterious canals were as straight as if they'd
been drawn by ruler. All those in the north had doubled and looked
like parallel lines. There was a suggestion of mountains in the area
known as Mare Erithraeum, which was not a sea as the early astronomers
thought, but an oasis.
Once aboard the rocket, I took a seat next to Gail. Unlike the Saturn
capsule, this one had portholes, to be used for observing Mars once we
landed. And through them we could see Mars as we orbited toward our
landing site.
We had entered through locks just above the rocket chambers. A large
storeroom was packed with equipment, and a ladder ran through it to
the nose cone. I noted with a great deal of relief that there was a
huge tank marked _WATER_. It contained enough for all uses on Mars.
Three weeks of "luxury" as far as water was concerned and if we found
drinkable water on Mars, we could replenish our supply on the Jehad.
This, of course, did not take into consideration Dr. Spartan's plans.
Dr. Spartan came aboard last. He sat down.
"Don't remove your helmets," he warned. "I haven't released the oxygen
supply yet and it's best that we land in spacesuits. We don't know what
kind of terrain we'll strike and it's possible we may wind up with a
punctured ship which could cost us our air supply." He paused, then
added: "And, of course, we don't know what weapons the Martians have."
There was a sharp intake of breath in my earphones. It was not only
Gail but others who made the sound.
"In a short time," Spartan went on, "we'll be the first men to set
foot on Martian soil. We've had a long trip, beset by--ah--serious
difficulties." He was using my terminology. "Perhaps you have disliked
me, or even hated me. However, there is more to be thought of than
personalities. The earth expects us to complete a mission on Mars.
I am the leader. I give the orders. And whether you like me or not,
you'll obey. We are going into a strange world, where a strange form of
life--hostile life--exists.
"The Martians will meet us on their own soil, undoubtedly with superior
numbers and, possibly, with weapons we will not comprehend. But on
the earth there are many glorious tales of small, determined groups
who have defended themselves against vastly superior forces. In the
interest of self-preservation we must stick together. In the interest
of the faith of our world in us, the expedition must succeed. We must
stick together until our last day on Mars."
Paying close heed to Spartan's words, his phrase, "until our last
day on Mars," did not escape me. I was certain he intended no group
cohesion after that time.
"Now," he continued after a slight pause, "the planners of this
trip had considerable foresight. In spite of the opinions of many
men who have studied Mars, that intelligent--and hence, possibly,
belligerent--life cannot exist here, the men who selected our equipment
saw to it that we could defend ourselves should the need arise."
Dr. Spartan reached up and pulled open the door of a cabinet behind
him. There, in racks, were two rifles. Six pistols, in holsters, were
on shelves. He pulled out five of the pistols and strapped one on
himself before passing out the others.
"We will keep Grover's pistol in reserve," Spartan said, nodding toward
the one left. "There are clips in all of them and extra ammunition
aboard. We have regular and explosive bullets for the rifles, which are
automatic. You'll note that all the trigger guards are large enough to
accommodate your space gloves."
As we strapped on the pistols, Spartan reached down and held up one of
the rifles. It, too, had a modified trigger guard.
"These are M-14 weapons," he continued. "It's a modern military weapon
using a 7.62 mm. slug. It can be fired automatic or semi-automatic and
it is simple in its operation. However, besides myself, only William
Drake has had experience with these weapons. He was in the army for a
short time. Therefore Drake and I will be the riflemen of the group."
At least, I thought, Spartan and I will be armed equally.
I looked around at the group. Gail was rubbing her hand gingerly over
her weapon. "I don't know how to fire this thing, Dr. Spartan," she
said.
"There's nothing to know," said Spartan. "You point the gun and pull
the trigger. It's very simple if you aim it accurately."
Axel cleared his throat. "Don't you think it would be wiser, sir, if
we made our first appearance on Mars without arms? If we meet the
intelligent life of the planet, or if they should detect us through
spotting devices, it might convince these creatures that we are not
hostile invaders, but peaceful scientists."
"Whoever said we were peaceful?" Spartan asked. "Eventually Mars will
become a colony of the earth."
"That's the same mistake Spain made when Columbus discovered America,"
said Axel. "A lot of blood could have been spared if the nations of
the earth hadn't thought of land grabbing."
"Idealistic motives become you, Ludson," said Spartan, "but they never
got anybody anywhere. Man is the highest form of intelligent life in
the solar universe--"
"How do you know?" Gail asked.
"Because I am a man. We will be doing the Martians a favor by giving
them the benefits of our civilization. I mean to claim Mars for the
earth. And don't worry about these Martian monsters taking offense at
our guns. They may not recognize them as weapons." He paused and then
his voice grew harsh. "Wear your guns at all times. Keep them near at
hand when you sleep. This is an order."
We knew he was right about guns, as he had been right about many
things. No one sold Spartan short on his ability as an astronaut. The
Martians would not recognize guns. Anything we carried in our hands, a
scientific instrument, even a flag of truce, might be mistaken for a
weapon. Just as Mars was new, different and incomprehensible to us, the
earth would be to them, and so would the people of the earth.
"Fasten your seat belts," Spartan snapped.
As I adjusted my straps, I had the same feeling I'd had the first
time I orbited. I was half afraid and half eager. At the time I took
my first solo, I'd asked a ground crewman: "What'll I do if something
goes wrong?" And he replied: "Just sit there. You won't have time to do
anything else."
We'd land on Mars, all right. Chances were good that we'd land alive.
Leaving Mars alive would be a different matter. I found myself
thinking: _If the Martians don't get me, Dr. Spartan will._
Spartan touched a switch. A green light flashed on in the control room.
Everything was ready for the entry into Mars atmosphere. The light
blinked once. The electronic controls were working. At the proper
moment the rockets would slow us down and Mars' gravity would do the
rest.
Then the whole ship shook. Our rockets were blasting. I felt pressure
in the seat of my spacesuit. After living for eighteen months with
gravity so lean that a man could hardly fall down, I had G's in my
pants. I felt as if I'd returned to earth again. I was no longer
afraid. We were on our way down to Mars.
The deceleration began to push up the gravity inside the capsule.
But it was nothing like the force a man felt when re-entering the
earth's atmosphere. Mars is only one tenth the mass of the earth and
its gravity is something like forty per cent. We were falling in
slow motion, and carefully calculated rocket bursts, all handled by
automatic controls, would set us down more gently than a parachute. In
fact, a parachute on Mars would only be slightly more effective than on
the moon. Mars has some atmosphere, though very thin, while the moon
has none at all.
The scenery was beautiful. Perhaps the colors were not as blatant as
those seen approaching the earth. There were no deep blues of the sea,
greens of the fields and forests, yellow of deserts and the snow-tipped
majesty of great mountain ranges. The Martian polar caps were not the
same as ours either, for they were almost perfect circles. The ice
which caps the terrestrial poles is irregular because of continents and
seas.
But Mars was spectacular. Nearly everything had a tint of red. Even the
areas the early astronomers called seas, because they had a greenish
shade, showed a brownish red base. The mountains, which soon became
visible as we approached the planet, were massive but eroded, far less
impressive than the Rockies, the Alps, the Andes or Himalayas. We saw
nothing that looked like bodies of water.
As we approached the planet, our orbital momentum carried us forward
more rapidly than the planet revolved on its axis. Mare Erithraeum
swung beneath us and extending eastward was a broad double-canal called
Nectar, flowing through a wide expanse of reddish desert.
Then I sensed a trembling in the capsule and I knew we had hit the top
of the Martian atmosphere. I could not see anything directly beneath us
now, because the capsule base cut off the view, but turning my head I
saw the brownish green of the Martian pampas far to the north, desert
to the south, Mare Erithraeum to the west, and then two smaller, oval
patches of vegetation to the east.
The latter were Solis Lacus Minor and Solis Lacus Major, between which
two areas we planned to land.
No friction heat was noticeable in the cabin and it was not unexpected.
Although there was air enough to cause some friction on the outside of
the ship, our velocity was far less than any we would have encountered
on re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.
I watched the twin ovals which marked our landing site. The larger
oasis, Lacus Major, was in full view. In the center was a shiny dark
spot which glinted like polished ebony in the sunlight. And southward,
a short distance north of the equator, was another spot just as dark
and just as glinting. Cities, perhaps?
"What do you make of those things, Dr. Joel?" I asked, pointing out the
spots.
Joel shook his head. "Our astronomers have noticed them," he said. "The
one in Lacus Major is called Umbra. The other is Pnyx, at the junction
of two canals. Certain people have suggested they are cities."
"Circular cities?" asked Gail, who also watched the screen.
"With a dome over them," I said. For now I saw why they glinted. That
shiny surface was some transparent substance which covered the city
like an inverted bowl. Beneath were blackened buildings.
"Since you're so interested in these things, Drake," said Spartan, "you
can have the privilege of finding out what they are."
I caught a glimpse of Gail's frightened eyes as she looked toward me,
then turned her head so I could not see her fear. But I knew what Dr.
Spartan had in mind. He wanted me dead, and by sending me to the very
doors of a Martian city, he might save himself the disagreeable task of
committing murder.
Very, very slowly we came down toward the Martian desert. Through the
windows I saw one of our companion rockets land near the rim of the
double canal on our north. The ground was uneven there, being churned
by furrows and crevasses, and for an instant the rocket teetered, then
fell on its side.
Fortunately all of the fuel had been used up or jettisoned before it
touched the ground, consequently there was no fire.
Turning my head I could see the second rocket, standing upright to the
west.
Then there was a solid but jarring bump--about what you'd feel if
you jumped off a ten-foot wall. Our ship rocked with the impact, but
remained upright.
The motors were cut, but the fuel was not jettisoned, because this ship
had to take us back to the Jehad.
"We're on Mars," Gail breathed into her microphone. Her hand reached
out and grasped my arm with a reassuring squeeze.
"Yes, we made it," I said, and wondered if we would ever leave this
planet.
_Chapter 12_
I longed for something on Mars that was definitely of the earth, so
I could say, "This is like home." But the similarities, if any, were
vague. While the rockets settled down on the desert, I heard faintly
the roar of the blasts, like the murmur of a distant waterfall. The air
was so thin that sounds were dampened; still, they were sounds, not the
deathly silence of outer space.
Now that the rockets were stilled, I was held fast in my seat by
gravity--real gravity, not centrifugal force. But it was a very light
tug, not at all like earth's.
"Unfasten your harnesses," said Spartan. "But please remain here in
this cabin till I test the atmosphere."
So saying, he unfastened his own belt and climbed down the ladder. As
he disappeared through the trap door in the floor I caught a glimpse of
his peculiar, pleased smile. Was he responding to the familiarity of
gravity, or was he gloating over some particularly satisfying thought
of future glory?
I heard him open the doors of the locks. Gail squeezed my arm as a
small cloud of dust swept up through the opening to the lower part of
the ship. "Air!" she said. Martian air had rushed into the ship.
Looking out of the porthole, I saw Spartan in his spacesuit, standing
in the red sand, the first human being to set a booted foot on Mars. He
walked gingerly a few paces, then set up a small instrument, pressed
buttons and read dials. Then he reached down, picked up a handful of
sand and tossed it in the air. A playful gesture for Dr. Spartan. But
why shouldn't he be elated? He had led the first voyage from earth to
Mars. The sand he threw seemed to drift down ever so slowly--a little
pebble taking fully a second to fall five feet. On earth it would have
fallen 16 feet in that short space of time.
Spartan stood erect and silent, his helmeted eyes fastened on the
oasis to the east. For a moment I forgot his arrogance, his murderous
heart, and his determination to kill me and to take Gail. He was a
representative of the earth, not an individual now. Then he marched
back to the ship, his evil manner suddenly accentuated. Every move,
every gesture showed his utter contempt for others. He was the kind of
man who was able to make you mad by merely saying, "Good morning."
He entered the ship and closed the locks. Then he came up the ladder to
the control room and twisted a valve which released the air in the ship.
Not until that moment did he address us over his helmet transmitter.
"The Martian atmosphere is much like the earth's," he said. "It has
oxygen, nitrogen, a small amount of carbon dioxide and minute traces of
water vapor. Possibly it also contains inert gases--the heavier ones.
I doubt if there's much helium here. It is not poisonous, although it
does contain a small amount of ammonium vapor. However, it is too thin
to breathe. We may be able to pump air into our ship to replenish our
air supplies, should they get low, but we can't go out of the ship
without spacesuits."
Talk of ammonia in the atmosphere led to new avenues of speculation.
Scientists have suspected for many years that a kind of life might
exist on compounds of ammonia, instead of water. There are indications
that the first life on earth may have absorbed ammonia from sea
water, instead of oxygen, for some such compounds are still present
in proteins. As oxygen grew more plentiful on the earth, life adapted
itself to water and oxygen. On Mars this stage may not have been
reached, although it seemed rather unlikely. As rare as the oxygen
was, Dr. Spartan said, the amount of ammonium vapor in the air was
small.
Soon the cabin was filled with air. We descended the ladder and began
to unpack the materials.
Axel remained in the control room, alert for Martians, listening to the
radio which now was filled with a variety of weird whistles, chirping
noises and rattles.
"They know we've landed," said Axel. "I can't understand these
Martians, but I have a feeling a lot of this is about us."
"We can defend ourselves," said Spartan.
"What if they have nuclear weapons?" I asked.
Dr. Spartan shrugged. "It's not impossible," he said.
* * * * *
That first day on Mars was all work. We went to the nearest rocket ship
that had landed with us, the one that remained upright, and unpacked
its cargo. Since this rocket was not going to leave Mars there was much
more gear aboard because no extra fuel had been carried. Most valuable
of the equipment were two Mars-cars, self-propelled vehicles which were
similar to those used in exploring the moon.
They were four-wheeled, with a cabin swung in the middle. Each wheel
was equipped with tires sixteen feet in diameter. Although the machine
itself was almost as large as a freight car, it was constructed of
aluminum and lightweight alloys and even on earth it would not weigh as
much as an ordinary motorcar. The Mars-cars were electrically driven,
powered by specially built storage batteries which could be charged
from solar cells built into our main rocket.
Also aboard the rocket was ore sampling equipment, which we expected
to use in studying the geology of Mars. Dr. Spartan put Warner Joel to
work with the digging tools to construct a moat around our headquarters
ship. Instead of a drawbridge, a causeway was left to the north of
the ship, running diagonally across the moat. Rocks were piled in the
middle of the causeway so that two paths were left for the tires of the
Mars-cars. A hostile force attempting to cross the causeway could be
enfiladed by pistol and rifle fire from behind a small breastworks at
the base of the ship, or from the locks of the ship itself.
It was while digging this moat that Dr. Joel found rubies. The soil was
full of them. They were more plentiful than pebbles on the earth.
"Possibly a lot of the color of the Martian sand is due to aluminum
oxide tinctured with chromium," Joel explained. He assumed we all knew
this was the chemical composition of rubies.
"I suspected the Martians used lidar," said Axel.
And, of course, he assumed we all knew that lidar was light radar,
which physicists on the earth were just learning how to use. It's a
method of amplifying light through a special tube of artificial rubies.
The light excites the chromium in the rubies and causes the atoms to
give off a red glow. The resulting red beam can be focused to pencil
thinness and sent vast distances. Scientists believe that some of the
nearer stars--meaning stars within the range of ten light years distant
from the sun--can be explored by lidar.
We had unpacked most of the gear from the two ships and had assembled
the Mars-cars by noon the next day.
"Ludson," said Spartan, "take Drake over to the No. three ship and
bring back all the supplies you can carry. The rest of us will make our
living quarters habitable."
"Yes, sir," said Axel. He turned to me. "Come on, Bill. Let's get
started."
"If you see signs of life," Spartan said, "shoot first."
"But, sir," Axel protested, "wouldn't it be best for us not to do
anything unless we're attacked?"
"We must show them that we're more powerful than they are. The best way
to defend is to attack," said Spartan.
"They might be better equipped to shoot than we are, sir," said Axel.
"Ludson, whatever gave you the idea that we're inferior to Martians?
This is a dying, decadent world. We are young, strong and in our
prime--in terms of our planet. Just because the Martians have
intelligence, doesn't mean they are superior."
"But--"
"You have your orders," said Spartan. "Carry them out."
We climbed into the car through tiny locks. The interior was
pressurized and full of air, so that we were able to take off our
helmets. There were large windows on all sides from which we were able
to look out on the red sandy plain.
Our ship had landed in the neck of desert between Solis Lacus Major and
Solis Lacus Minor, which we now shortened to Major and Minor. We were
on a ridge, possibly the highest point between the two oases, although
we could not see Minor to our west, since it was over the horizon.
To the east, the ground sloped downward and on the horizon we could
see the dark green of vegetation that marked the edge of Major. To the
north was the first of the two canals connecting the double oasis. To
the south there was only desert, stretching several hundred miles to
the canal junction at Pnyx.
It was about three miles to the fallen spaceship. It had toppled in the
soft sand, narrowly missing an outcropping of rock. Perhaps the base of
the craft had struck the rock, causing the ship to fall over. I noticed
the rocks were highly polished, without any sign of stratification.
Probably they were igneous. Sandstorms must have given them that fine
polish--there was no water around to erode them and the polar glaciers
didn't come this far south.
A little ridge prevented us from looking down into the canal, and we
drove over it for our first close glimpse of this Martian phenomenon.
We weren't quite prepared for the grandeur of the view. The canal
was at least five miles wide, possibly three miles deep. The walls
were sometimes sheer, dropping thousands of feet, leveling off, then
dropping again to form a series of gigantic terraces. In other spots
landslides had crumbled the walls and a slope had been formed, rather
steep, but not too precipitous for a Mars-car to negotiate.
"Let's go down!" I said.
I wanted to see the bottom of this majestic ditch. It was
awe-inspiring, like the Grand Canyon, which it resembled in color,
except that the walls were unstratified. These rocks had never been
formed at the bottom of the sea, but had been baked by the internal
fires of the planet. The last sea had dried before the canals had been
cut. Although they were red, the color shaded from a brilliant scarlet
to a brownish green at the bottom. There was vegetation down there,
and something else, as precious as anything we'd seen thus far--water!
There wasn't too much of it; merely a tiny stream flowing in the center
of the canal, its path straight, like the canal itself. "I hope it's
fit to drink," I told Axel. "But it's gotta be. This canal wasn't made
by forces of nature. Nor could it have been built by hands, beaks
or paws. Only tools could have done it. And tools are used only by
intelligent life."
Axel knew it. I didn't have to tell him. He was already reaching for
the microphone. He snapped on the transmitter. "Dr. Spartan!" he called.
There was no immediate answer. Then Joel's voice came over the radio.
"Spartan's not here, Axel. He's checking some of the scientific
equipment. Anything important?"
"There's water down here in the canal," Axel said. "Does he want us to
bring some?"
"Stand by," said Joel. "I'll ask."
We waited several minutes. Then Spartan's gruff voice came to us. "Of
course bring water, you stupid fool. Is it fit to drink?"
"We don't know, sir," Axel said. His face flushed with the anger
brought on by Spartan's words. "It's at the bottom of the canal."
"How long will it take to find out?"
"Thirty minutes to an hour," said Axel. "There's a steep incline to the
bottom of the canal."
"Drake can do it," said Spartan. "You unload the rocket ship. Both of
you can stow it aboard the Mars-car when Drake returns."
"Yes, sir." Axel switched off the radio. He turned to me and shook his
head. "That guy doesn't know how to be civil, does he?"
"No," I said, "but what worries me is why he's letting me fetch the
water. It must be because he thinks I'm more expendable than you and he
figures there's danger down there."
"Martians?"
"Yes," I said. I checked my pistol. It was loaded.
Axel put on his helmet and got out of the locks. He disappeared into
the rocket and presently reappeared with a five-gallon can, which he
stowed in the locks. Then I started down one of the less steep inclines
toward the canal.
It was rough and bumpy all the way down. Long before I reached the
bottom, I noted that the vegetation which had looked so small from the
top of the canal, was big and, in some cases, twenty or thirty feet
tall.
There was a sort of timberline, about fifty feet above the level of the
stream. Beyond that no vegetation grew. Below, the ground was covered
with all kinds of plants. That is the best name I could give them. They
really were vegetable, but they weren't like any plants I'd ever seen.
Some were tall, like trees. Others were round, hugging the ground
and looking like brownish cabbages. There were some that looked like
toadstools, except that they were branched and had several caps. Nearly
all the plants were branched, and a few had flowers ranging from
delicate pink to deep purple. None seemed to have leaves.
The largest looked like the Giant Cactus--the saguaro--of Arizona,
although it was not spined.
I found a place where none of the plants looked big enough and tough
enough to impede the Mars-car and headed for the stream, which now
appeared to be about twenty feet wide and very stagnant. I picked up my
mike to tell Axel what I saw.
Then my wheels touched the stem of a Martian saguaro shoot. I heard a
whiplike crack and the whole car was enveloped in blue flame.
I pressed my foot down on the accelerator and rolled over the plant.
Looking back, I saw that it had fallen across another plant, a woody,
slender type that was jointed like bamboo. Both of the plants were
smoking. Sparks were flying from the saguaro with all the deadliness of
a high power line.
"What's the matter, Bill?" Axel called back.
I realized that I must have shouted with surprise at the display.
"These damned plants are charged with electricity, Axel. At least, one
of 'em is. It just unloosed a bolt of lightning."
"The hell you say! Are you hurt?"
"No, the car grounded the charge," I said, "but it gave me one big
scare."
"Think you can bring in a sample?" he asked.
"What the devil, Axel! Do you want me to be electrocuted?"
"It's just an idea I had. Remember, you'll be safe in your spacesuit.
It'll ground the charge, just like the Mars-car did."
"Well, I'll try."
I put on my helmet and got out of the car. First I walked carefully
toward the banks of the stream. I avoided the saguaro-type plants,
but I noticed that when my boots struck shoots and stalks of some of
the other plants, sparks flew. More than half of the plants had the
characteristics of an electric eel.
The stream, while stagnant, was steaming. It wasn't hot water, for the
temperature must have been in the low forties, but the atmospheric
pressure was so light that water was evaporating in great quantities.
It was difficult to see how the stream was supplied with water, since
it extended between two oases, both apparently fed by the same stream.
And there didn't seem to be very much flow, although after watching the
stream for a few minutes I decided it was moving in the direction of
Major.
Then I saw tiny springs along the bank, sending little rivulets of
water into the canal. It was so simple that I should have guessed where
the water came from. It all came from the polar caps, of course, but
the water flowed underground. The Martians had simply cut their canals
to feed on the artesian supply from the North Pole.
I took the can Axel had put in the locks and filled it. Then I lugged
it back to the Mars-car. After I stowed the water in the locks I walked
gingerly back to the saguaro I had knocked down a few minutes before.
It was somewhat charred, but the fire had gone out. Apparently the air
would not support much combustion. Using my knife I gingerly cut off
one of the branches. No sparks flew, but I noticed that instead of
sap, there was a thick, pasty pulp inside. It was acid, because before
I could wipe my knife on the ground, the substance had etched itself
slightly into the surface.
I carried the stalk back to the car and tossed it into the locks. I'd
stepped inside myself and had just closed the door when I saw movement
to my right--on my side of the canal, in the direction of Solis Lacus
Major.
A small creature, a little larger than a St. Bernard, was approaching
the Mars-car. It looked like a dwarf camel, except that it was
headless. And the hump wasn't a hump, but a shiny bump with a metallic
luster.
I said it had no head, but it did have a mouth--gaping, grinning and
full of pointed teeth. It had four legs and many arms--long, sinuous,
many-jointed, with two fingers at the end--growing like a fringe around
that bump in the middle of the creature's back.
Then I saw that the vegetation in its path was smoldering. The animal
had only to move a small black thing that sprouted on a stem from the
top of its hump, and whatever lay in front of it started to smoke.
"Axel!" I screamed into my helmet transmitter. "There's a Martian down
here!"
No one had told me what it was and none of its acts had shown that
it had intelligence, but some instinct told me this creature was the
highest form of life on Mars.
_Chapter 13_
The machine in which I traveled made no distinction between forward and
reverse. You set a hand throttle in one direction to go forward, and in
another to go back. It went just as fast one way as the other and there
was no need to turn it around. I started back up the incline without
turning anything but my seat, so anxious was I to get away from that
Martian.
I'd started up the incline before I glanced back in my rear-vision
mirror and saw that this creature had been joined by a companion,
identical in every detail to my indiscriminating eyes, although I
suppose their mothers could have told them apart.
Axel's voice jabbered in my ears but I wasn't listening. I wanted to
get out of this canal and away from these horrible creatures. I didn't
like their teeth, I didn't like their black humps or radar antennae,
or even their padded feet. That destroying heat ray was radar.
"What's that about radar, Bill?" came Axel's voice. I knew I'd spoken
aloud.
"They've got built-in radar instead of eyes!" I said. "It's so powerful
it sets fire to things." Radar could do that. Strong stations on
earth could literally cook a man unfortunate enough to get within
close range. Even weak stations could set off flashlight bulbs in a
photographer's camera. The walls of the car had protected me. Even my
spacesuit probably would have been sufficient protection. But I didn't
like all this power in a living body.
The Martians, apparently startled as much by me as I had been by them,
hesitated before starting in pursuit. I was hitting the steep grade
up the wall of the canal before they came after me. But they ran
slowly and gracefully, in no hurry to catch me. They kept a reasonable
distance.
"Did they do anything to you, Bill?" Axel asked. "Are you all right?"
There was a worried note in his voice.
"I'm okay," I assured him, "but these--these monsters are following me.
Two of them. They look awful. No eyes, not even a head, just a hump on
their backs like a camel and a fringe of arms on each side--" I glanced
back. "Eight arms," I told him, counting them. "Stay where you are and
I'll pick you up. Main thing is to get back to the ship. They don't run
very fast and I think I can outdistance 'em on level ground."
Then Dr. Spartan, who had heard our radio conversation, interrupted.
"Why didn't you shoot them, Drake?"
"I was in the car," I told him. "And they're two to one."
He hesitated, then said, "Don't try to outrun them. Lead them slowly.
Give me a chance to get there."
"Yes, sir," I said.
You don't argue with Spartan and I was too busy guiding the car
over the rocky slope to answer anyhow. I don't think I could have
outdistanced the Martians going uphill as I was. On level ground
though, it would be different.
My radio suddenly started to chatter with a series of strange noises.
The Martians seemed to have discovered my wave length. It was a sound
the like of which I'd never heard before. It's hard to describe it.
The nearest comparison would be a cricket singing bass. Or perhaps
the _dah_ of dit-dah Morse on a code transmitter. But the Martians had
demonstrated that they could change frequencies, and vaguely I wondered
how they'd do on television and FM channels.
Suddenly they seemed to be trying to imitate my voice.
"Yessir--yessir--yessir--"
They were like talking crows.
Finally I reached the lip of the canal and, rolling over the ridge, saw
Axel standing beside a pile of light crates he'd stacked up beside the
rocket ship. He waved his hands and I steered toward him.
Beyond him came Spartan, in the other Mars-car, hitting high speed on
the sand. I thought of the garrison rushing to rescue the besieged
wagon train in the woolly frontier days.
"Bill Drake!" Axel called, his voice wedging into the chattering
Martian voices.
"Billdrake--billdrake--" mocked the Martians.
I braked the car and Axel scrambled toward the locks as the Martians
appeared on the rim of the canal behind me.
Axel took one apprehensive glance in that direction before he climbed
aboard.
"Tain't human!" he gasped, which was the understatement of the solar
system.
Dr. Spartan's Mars-car halted about two hundred yards south of us. I
saw him climbing out of the locks, his rifle in his hand.
"Tanetooman," chanted the Martians.
"This way, Drake!" Spartan signaled with his arms that I was to pass to
his left.
"Thiswaydrake--" screamed my earphones in raucous echo.
"Billdrake--tanetooman--yessir--"
"Aw, shuddup," said Axel to the Martians.
"Shuddup--"
Axel looked at me and shook his head at the Martian reply.
I wheeled the Mars-car around behind Spartan's, halting in a position
which would allow me to watch.
The Martians were loping casually toward the two cars, seemingly in
no rush to get there. And it was then I suddenly realized that their
actions weren't hostile. I'd been frightened when they'd set fire to
the Martian saguaro in the canal, but I realized that this had been
defensive. They had been as afraid of me as I had been of them. Nothing
in the world panics a man as does a situation he's never encountered
before and does not know how to handle. And I suppose, in this respect,
the Martians were human.
In fact, I was soon to learn that although physical bodies were apt
to assume strangely different shapes, the psychology of the Martians
was as human as intelligence. And it was a logical thing, too. After
all, most of life's actions, possibly all, are aimed toward a double
purpose--preservation of the individual and of the race. This fact
is as basic as Newton's laws governing the physical actions of the
universe.
In fact, the two kinds of matter in space, animate and inanimate, may
not be so different, after all. The energy that is in all matter, may
be seeking to control its destiny, and life may be a basic property of
the power that exists in every atom.
But it was no time for philosophy. I didn't think these thoughts
then--it was not until long afterwards that they occurred to me.
I was watching the Martians who now had slowed to a lazy canter,
focusing their biological radar on the two similar objects parked in
the desert.
As they came abreast of the spaceship, they looked at that too. I
expected to see the pile of supplies Axel had stacked near the ship to
go up in smoke--flames being highly unlikely in thin air like this. But
the Martians were no longer frightened. The enemy had fled at their
approach. They assumed, no doubt, that we were no match for them. And
this is another trait that has proved the undoing of many a human
being--to suspect weakness where it does not exist.
Dr. Spartan dropped to a prone position and raised his rifle.
Apparently the Martians had not noticed him because they were too busy
examining the rocket ship, the supplies and the two Mars-cars. Perhaps
they mistook the cars for earthlings. They'd never seen us before.
As they looked, their chattering ceased, so engrossed had they become
in the sights before their antennae.
"Don't shoot, Dr. Spartan," said Axel. "They're not acting hostile."
The Martians picked up the last words, "Nottacking hossile."
"Bah!" said Spartan. And he fired.
An explosive bullet struck the Martian on the right. We didn't hear the
crack of the rifle or the blast of the bullet as it struck the poor
creature. But we saw the smoke and flying flesh. What remained of the
beast collapsed in a heap on the sand.
The second Martian, not having seen Spartan, seemed to freeze in terror
for an instant. Possibly there had been some sort of a dying scream
from his companion--one that could not be heard on the wave length of
our helmet receivers. At any rate, it took only a split second for
Martian No. 2 to realize we were neither weak nor harmless, as we had
seemed. He turned and fled toward the canal at full gallop.
His speed was astonishing.
Dr. Spartan fired again. His shot missed and sent a geyser of sand
skyward, ahead of the fleet monster. He swore and fired again. But the
next shot was not an explosive bullet. It missed, too, and he switched
his weapon to automatic and emptied the magazine with rapid fire. I saw
the path cut across the sand and intercept the Martian. The creature
staggered, then sank to the ground.
"Hah!" Spartan exclaimed triumphantly. "Let's take the dead creature to
the ship! I'd like to see how he's constructed."
It was a gruesome business, but we loaded the scaly body into the locks
of our car. The one Spartan had shot first was too torn and shattered
to be worth transporting. Besides, the fluid that might be called
blood, or sap, looked like acid and I was afraid it might damage the
floor of the locks. My judgment turned out to be correct, for when
Gail, our biologist, examined the beast we brought back, she announced
that he was a mass of deadly poison and so were the plant samples I'd
brought back from the canals.
"What kind of poison?" Spartan asked.
"I'm not sure, but Bill Drake can tell with a few tests," she said.
Spartan gestured to me. "Go ahead, Drake."
I got chemicals from the supplies Axel brought from the overturned ship
and set to work.
It was fortunate that I made these tests. The Martian plants and the
dead Martian were very similar chemically, giving rise to speculation
that the evolution of life on Mars had taken place about the time the
planet had stabilized into its present state. On earth, life began
while the planet was evolving from an earlier form and the changes
continued while life developed. The changes probably brought about
the division of the animal and vegetable kingdoms and they might have
continued until sixty million years ago when the giant reptiles were
wiped out, or even later through the glacial ages.
But on Mars there was only one kingdom. It wasn't wholly animal, or
wholly vegetable, although it was more the latter than anything else.
And the tissues were formed from a very deadly series of molecules
which had cyanide as their base. In other words, Martians were poison
to us, and very likely we were poison to the Martians.
Furthermore, the water we had brought from the Martian canal was
impregnated with ammonium hydroxide, in large enough quantities
to cause serious illness should we be foolish enough to drink it.
However, it was very useful for washing the cyanide from our gloves and
spacesuits after we performed the autopsy.
And the autopsy, beyond determining that the Martians probably obtained
chemicals and oxygen by chewing up the soil, which contained many
oxides, was bewildering. Spartan made pictures and microscope slides
which could be studied if or when we got back on the earth.
All we know was that on Mars, life was a sort of mobile vegetable which
wasn't really a vegetable; and it was decidedly poisonous. We didn't
know how these creatures reproduced, but Gail expressed the opinion
that some of the "arms," all of which seemed to have different uses,
might be sex organs and that Martians gave birth to their young by a
kind of "budding," which exists among lower forms of life on earth.
"Probably every Martian is both male and female," she said, "like some
worms."
Like the electric eel, they had organs which produced a strong electric
current. But their radar equipment--the metallic hump and the black
spot on top of it--baffled us all. Nature had done the job compactly
and bewilderingly, with cells.
"Those teeth look vicious," said Gail.
"I wonder if their owners are," said Joel. "They spied on us during
the entire trip from earth. They clouded our scope so we couldn't use
radar. They chased Drake. That's an indication that they might be
vicious."
Axel shook his head. "They were just cautious," he said. "We'd have
been just as cautious if Martians had come to the earth. And they
didn't really seem to be chasing Bill. He was frightened and ran.
They saw no reason to fear him, so they followed, possibly trying to
establish communication."
"Yes," I said. "They tried to imitate our language. Did a pretty good
job, too." There had been nothing vicious or hostile in that.
"But one thing we can be sure of," said Axel, "is that the next time
they see us, they will attack us. We have lost our chance to be friends
of the Martians. I'm sure the two who saw Bill had seen sent to spy on
us and they must have notified others, by radio, that they had made
contact. Now they are missing. Only one conclusion could be drawn. We
killed them. And this is an act they'll demand revenge for."
"Bah!" said Spartan. "There's nothing to worry about. We've shown them
we are the ones to fear. We have strength. These lower forms of life
understand strength--they'll leave us alone."
"Lower forms of life?" said Axel. "And what makes a creature a higher
form? I'd say we're the lower forms on Mars, because we have difficulty
living here. We're not successful in this environment. We'd become
extinct in a short time if we were transplanted here permanently."
Dr. Spartan's face grew dark inside his helmet. His words were spoken
in a manner implying threat.
"You're forgetting, Ludson," he said, "that I'm the commander here. I'm
not to be contradicted or spoken to in the way you've just done. I'll
do all the thinking for this group."
He rinsed off his gloves with the water from the canal and went into
the ship.
_Chapter 14_
If Spartan was doing all the thinking, his mental processes were
similar to Axel's, or perhaps Axel's stated ideas had taken root. He
ordered Joel and me to get the ship ready for a lift-off, in the event
of a Martian attack. This would cut down our exploration time on Mars,
but we already had made a successful landing, and we had determined a
few facts about life on Mars. Naturally, we still would try to push
forward with our mission until the Martians drove us off. This would
include the exploration of a considerable area of the planet in our
vicinity. Later, while the Jehad was circling Mars, we would be able to
take pictures of the rest of the surface features. Later expeditions,
which would follow someday, could do the rest.
All of our supplies had been piled inside the moat and those we needed
were taken into the headquarters rocket. Spartan and Axel dismantled
the overturned rocket and obtained enough metal to construct a scaffold
and ramp from the ground to the locks, eliminating the necessity of
using a ladder to enter and leave the ship.
During the time we prepared our living quarters and defenses, all of us
were engaged in the task of learning as much as we could about Mars.
We made analysis of the soil and rocks, studied the weather and took
countless photographs. Gail made a trip to the canal, unmolested by
Martians, and brought back additional samples of Martian vegetation.
The water problem still confronted us. There were many things in the
Martian water that could not be removed by distillation. However,
the water was an excellent solvent and was used for our cleaning and
sanitary purposes.
Spartan and Axel made a short trip to Lacus Minor, which was 150 miles
west of our ship. Gail and I were left behind to analyze the plants
she had found, while Dr. Joel was picking up rock samples along the rim
of the canal.
We finished our analysis and when we'd cleaned up and disposed of
the poisonous substances we had examined, I said, "It's time to do
something about Spartan, Gail."
She gave me a sharp look. "I thought we decided the expedition came
first, Bill Drake."
"It's a matter of survival now," I said. "We all know we're in a worse
situation than before as far as the water is concerned. There's only
enough for three. Spartan needed a six-man crew mainly to get things
organized here on Mars. Now the worst is over. Even if he gets a chance
to do some more exploring, four can do it all. There are only two cars
anyway. Come to think of, two people would be enough--one to a car.
There's no reason for Spartan to delay his plans any longer. He'll
start expending the expendables."
"What of the Martians?"
I shrugged. "We've made enemies of the Martians by killing two of them.
I doubt if they'll forgive us for that. They've shown too many human
qualities--curiosity, fear, bravado, for example. They probably have
the ability to be angry and to extract an eye for an eye. So we're
fighting a whole planet. Whether there are five of us or three wouldn't
make much difference. But Spartan has us prepared for a lift-off and I
don't think he intends to wait for an attack to trim down our numbers."
She looked thoughtful, then said, "Bill, are you suggesting we murder
Dr. Spartan?"
I hadn't suggested it. All I was thinking of was saving my life and
hers. Self-protection. But that included killing in self-defense.
Possibly I'd had murder in the back of my mind. But when she said it in
so many words, I was revolted.
"Not if we can avoid it," I said.
"But there isn't enough water for five, you said. That means--" She
stopped.
"I'm willing to try it on rations," I said. And I was. "Spartan isn't.
Spartan planned to get rid of us anyhow."
Slowly she shook her head. "No, I don't believe even Spartan could be
like that. I'll admit I did think it once. But he'd have too much to
explain when he got home. Still, if he could arrange an accident--"
"He's arranged two of them. Willy and Morrie. What's to stop him from
getting rid of Axel and me? Perhaps you, if you were likely to be a
witness against him."
"We can't be a party to murder, Bill Drake," she said.
She was right. I knew that even if I had carried the idea around in my
head, I couldn't kill in cold blood. If Spartan tried to kill me and I
had to stop him, it would be a different matter. But even though I knew
he had no intention of letting me live, had already tried to kill me
once, I couldn't deliberately plan his death.
"But we can restrain him," I said. "Take him prisoner."
"That would be mutiny," she said.
"No. We have evidence that he murdered Morrie Grover," I said. "We'd be
putting him under arrest."
"But the mission!"
"The rest of us could do what has to be done. The main thing is to
prevent more killings. Arrest would make it unnecessary to kill
Spartan."
She sighed and said nothing.
"Axel will help," I said. "Joel won't interfere, either way; there's
even a possibility that he might join us once he's made to understand
what's been going on."
She sank down on a packing case we'd been using as a chair. "All right,
Bill Drake. But please be careful," she said.
That night Spartan called us by radio. He and Axel had run into a
terrific storm just as they left Lacus Minor. Red dust had practically
overwhelmed them, and winds up to 75 miles an hour had thrown the
Mars-car into a marsh. However, there had been no serious damage and
they'd return the following day.
When Joel came in, and after we had eaten our evening meal, I told him
bluntly what we'd found out about Spartan.
"He murdered Zinder and Morrie Grover," I said in conclusion. "He means
to kill two more of our party in order to insure enough water for the
return trip. You could easily be a candidate."
Joel listened, bewildered, to all I said, about finding the paper in
Morrie's helmet air valve, about Axel knowing he had tampered with the
machinery in Willy's capsule, and how Spartan had unfastened my safety
line when I brought Morrie's body from the top of the Jehad.
"I--I can't believe it," he said. "You're making it up."
"Why should I?" I asked.
"For the same reasons you're attributing to Dr. Spartan," he said. "You
want to kill him so there'll be enough water. Maybe you want to kill
me, too."
"Damnit," I said, "we don't want to kill anybody. There may not be
enough water to keep us from being thirsty, but there's enough to keep
us from dying. I'm willing to suffer to avoid murder. That's why I'm
planning to arrest Spartan."
"Arrest! It's mutiny! When you get back to the earth there'll be a lot
to answer for, Drake."
"Then we'll have to arrest you, too," I said. "The rest of us--Axel,
Gail and I--know the score, Warner. I've tried to explain it to you. If
we can't trust you--"
"Now just a minute! I didn't say that."
"Not in so many words," I told him. I put my hand on the butt of my
automatic pistol.
His eyes followed the move. There was fear in his face. "I don't know
what to do," he confessed.
"Do nothing," I said. "That's all I ask."
He gulped. He seemed a little relieved. "I don't see how I _can_ do
anything," he replied.
"Stand up!" I said.
He looked frightened again. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm taking your gun," I said. "Just to make sure you won't try
anything."
He stood up and I made him turn around. Then I took his gun. "You'll
sleep in the lower cabin tonight," I told him. "Gail and I will take
turns doing guard duty."
* * * * *
The next morning, Dr. Joel was a very subdued man. He ate breakfast
silently and then volunteered to tidy up the cabin. He went about his
tasks eagerly, anxious to please. All of the truckling he had done for
Dr. Spartan now seemed to be transferred to Gail and me.
About noon the Mars-car rolled in. I had been waiting for the arrival
in my spacesuit and, as soon as it came within view, I slipped my
helmet over my shoulders, sealed it and went out to meet them.
The car bumped over the causeway and came to a stop at the base of
the ramp. Spartan, holding the rifle in his hand, was standing in the
locks. Axel was at the controls, putting on his helmet.
Presently Axel entered the locks. Then both men jumped out to the
ground.
"Help Ludson with the samples, Drake," Spartan ordered.
As he turned his head to gesture, I brought my automatic into view.
"You're under arrest, Dr. Spartan," I said.
Axel's mouth, which I could see through the glass of his helmet, gaped
with surprise as he heard my words in his earphones.
"What's the meaning of this?" Spartan cried.
"Just what I said, Dr. Spartan," I told him. "You're under arrest for
the murder of Morrie Grover. And if that isn't enough, for killing
Willie Zinder and trying to kill me."
"You're talking nonsense, Drake. This is mutiny, punishable by death,
Axel!"
I don't know what he expected Axel to do. I think he wanted me to turn
my head so he could attack, or draw his own pistol, but I refused to be
taken in by that old dodge.
"He's right, sir," said Axel. His habit of addressing Spartan by the
title "sir" couldn't be shaken in a moment. "I found the paper in the
valve of Morrie's helmet before you removed it."
"Lies!" said Spartan. "Now listen. If you put away that gun, Drake,
I'll forget this. It's just another case of over-wrought nerves--the
same thing that affected Grover--"
"And cause you to kill him because that was the easiest way to handle
him?"
This seemed to hit Spartan because he didn't realize how well we knew
his motives. He seemed to quiver. "I'm to be killed so you'll have
enough water--"
"That's one reason you would have killed me, probably," I said, "but
we're a different sort, Spartan. We're taking you back to the earth.
And you'll share our rationed water all the way. We won't kill you.
What happens to you after your trial on earth is not up to us."
His shoulders seemed to sag. "And I was the first man to walk on Mars!"
He seemed to think that ought to atone for everything. "Now you're
gutting the whole expedition."
"You're wrong on that score, Spartan," I said. "We'll complete the
mission. You'll be under guard, but the rest of us can carry it out.
We're doing this now to defend ourselves."
I heard Axel's sigh in my earphones. "I'm glad you said that, Bill," he
said. "I didn't quite know what was coming off."
We took Spartan into the ship after disarming him. We removed his
helmet and spacesuit and tied his hands. He said nothing, showed no
emotion except anger.
Dr. Joel came into the room. He saw Spartan and avoided his eyes.
"You're in on this too, Warner?" Spartan asked. "You, the one man I
believed was my friend?"
Joel turned to me without answering his former chief. "There's quite a
bit of Martian chatter over the radio, Drake. I got a directional fix.
It's coming from the south."
"South?"
"Yes, and it's strange, too. There's nothing but sand in that
direction."
"There's Pnyx," said Axel.
"We thought Umbra was the nearest city," I said. "That's east, in Lacus
Major."
Joel shook his head. "I tried to pick up the jargon from Major. Not
much sound there."
Axel stared at the floor for a moment. "Doc and I saw some things at
Minor that may be the answer. There was a big area where the vegetation
had been cut away. We decided that the Martians had been there and
harvested a crop. If that's true, Umbra might be a farming town and,
like most farming communities, a peaceful place. Pnyx, on the other
hand, is larger and might be a place where troops could be assembled. A
sort of military base. See what it means?"
He didn't have to draw a picture. Mars was mobilizing to defend itself
against the invaders from Earth.
"Ah!" said Spartan. "What you need is an astute leader. Release me.
I'll take charge in this emergency and we'll forget these silly things
you've been saying--"
"Shuddup," said Axel. He turned to me. "What does a good commander do
in a case like this, Bill?"
Even though I'd been in the Army, the generals had never confided their
methods to me. But you do pick up a few military principles, even as a
buck private. "Send out a patrol," I said.
"What good does that do?"
"Well, if we sit here like lame ducks, we won't know when they're
coming, how many, and we certainly won't find out what they have in
mind," I said. "But if we scout them, and view their potential, maybe
we could figure out some way of defending ourselves."
"You don't think we could fight a whole planet? Or even a small company
of armed soldiers, do you?" Joel asked nervously.
"If it looks like they're coming to get us real quick, we can lift
off," I said. "Maybe they figure they'll need a pretty big force which
will take a couple of weeks to organize. If that's the case, we can do
a lot of scientific work before we leave."
"Okay, Bill," said Axel. "You're the patrol."
"Now?"
"The sooner the better," said Axel.
I got my helmet. Then I picked up the rifle Spartan had carried on his
trip. It was loaded with two rounds of explosive shells and eighteen
rounds of ordinary bullets. I slipped a couple of spare clips for my
automatic into my pocket. Then I went into the locks.
Axel followed me. "Just a minute before you put on your helmet, Bill,"
he said.
I gave him a curious look. "Okay. What's on your mind?"
"Take Gail with you," he said.
"But this will be a dangerous mission," I told him.
"Not half as dangerous for all of us if you leave her behind."
"Why?"
"I don't trust Joel," said Axel. "If he turned the tables and got the
drop on Gail and me, nothing could keep Spartan from blasting off,
leaving you behind and probably me, too, if I lived that long. But
Spartan has his plans for Gail. He won't leave without her. If she's
with you, he won't do anything till you get back."
"And if he's in control, what chance would we have?"
Axel shrugged. "As long as there's life there's some kind of chance,"
he replied. "But if Gail were aboard the ship, you wouldn't have any
chance. Spartan could go back to earth, report a mutiny and subsequent
casualties that occurred in quelling it. Nobody could prove anything
different. But with Gail gone, I think Spartan will postpone any moves
he might make until she returns."
I thought it over. Gail, being one of us, would never live to reach the
earth, that was certain.
The thought decided me. She would be safer with me, facing all of the
Martians on Mars, than in Spartan's hands.
"Tell her she's on this patrol, too," I told Axel. "I'll get some grub
and water aboard the Mars-car."
_Chapter 15_
Our chart which was very spare of detail since it was made from the
maps drawn by Percival Lowell many years ago, showed Pnyx as the
junction point of two large canals. One, called Agathedaemon, ran
southeast from Oasis Erithraeum to another junction point, Messeis
Fons. The other ran southwest from Lacus Major and ended at Pnyx, which
seemed to be at the edge of a small oasis.
I set my compass due south, deciding to travel in that direction until
I reached the canal from Lacus Major, which Lowell called Chalus.
Gail was happy to be making the extensive land trip over the surface of
Mars. Pnyx was at least three times as far as Lacus Minor, but since
the Mars-cars could easily maintain a speed of 150 miles an hour over
the desert, we expected to reach it in a little over three hours, if
nothing interfered.
"If there were only some way of communicating with the Martians," she
said. "If we could only explain to them that the man who murdered the
other two is in custody and will be punished and that the people of the
earth didn't come to this planet to kill Martians!"
"It would solve everything but I'm afraid it's impossible," I said.
"There was a big gulf between Martians and earthmen to start with. Now
this thing has spread them farther apart."
"You mean they're poison to us and all that? We've demonstrated that we
have some things in common, psychologically speaking."
"That could turn out to be the main stumbling block," I said. "Remember
when you, Axel and I talked about personal selfishness and race
selfishness? How a person would kill to save himself and die for an
ideal that was important to the race?"
"Yes. Are you suggesting the Martians want to become martyrs?"
"No. Race-preservation or race-selfishness exhibits itself in other
ways besides that of dying for principles. One manifestation is
intolerance. There's a hatred for anything that is different or
nonconformist. Martians and earthmen seem to have the same psychology,
but we're different in looks so we repel each other, just as do
certain elements. Maybe intolerance and hatred have their roots in the
chemistry of an atom. Be that as it may, most creatures of the earth
tend to destroy what they don't understand."
"But we don't hate Martians!" Gail insisted.
"Maybe hatred is too strong a word. However, for want of a more
accurate one, let's considered the difference between the hatred we
feel for, say, a Dr. Spartan, and the kind we feel for Martians. One
stems from self-preservation, and one from race-preservation. This
scouting trip, for example, is hate motivated. We're trying to get the
best of the Martians without getting hurt ourselves. And they want to
destroy us with a minimum of casualties."
"I suppose, as you've hinted, this hatred of differences is the
foundation of racial intolerance?"
"Basically," I said. "Racial differences on earth--between men, I
mean--are so slight they don't actually matter. Some people are a
little darker or lighter, with maybe a few differences in features. But
the Martians are so different that you can hardly find any resemblance
except in psychology. The gulf is just too big to cross."
"Even if we're intelligent?"
"Perhaps intelligence can cross the barrier, but there are bound to be
different levels of Martian intelligence. The ignorant Martians would
heap indignities on us because we're a _different_ minority."
"You have it all figured out, haven't you, Bill Drake?" she asked,
leaning back in her seat. We had removed our helmets--they weren't
necessary in the car--and her hair, beautiful and now grown out from
the mannish bob she'd worn when she left the earth, fell nearly to her
shoulders. "I suppose you are insecure because we're in an environment
so utterly strange and unreal that we can hardly convince ourselves
we're living in it."
"I'll admit that sometimes I think I'm in a dream world," I said, "and
I'd like to be surrounded by things I'm used to. But I have confidence
in myself to pull through. I like self-confidence. It's something you
can have in yourself, which nobody else may have in you."
"But some things are the same," she said quietly. "The very things I
didn't want to bring along with us. And I don't mean self-confidence."
I glanced in her direction. Her eyes were closed, her lips looked soft
and her body yielding. "Such as?" I asked.
"Morrie mentioned it," she said.
Now I knew what she was talking about. I took a mental grip on myself.
Morrie went off his rocker. I'd stay sane. It'd be a tough fight but--
"Did you say something, Bill?" she said, opening her eyes.
I hadn't said anything. She went on:
"Morrie said he was a man and I was a woman. That's something that
exists on earth and it existed in space. You are a man and I am a woman
here, Bill."
"Damnit, we agreed--"
"Bill Drake," she said. "Let's just say the agreement was made years
ago and the statute of limitations has caught up with it. To hell with
the agreement. In those bygone days I thought a trip to Mars was a
career. I'm a woman, Bill Drake. That's my real career."
I braked the car, stopping in the middle of the big, red desert. There,
millions upon millions of miles from that little planet where we had
been married, I took her in my arms. My lips tasted hers and we clung
to each other.
The damned spacesuits bothered us. I fumbled with hers and then with my
own, and finally we shed them.
A long time later, we remembered we still had a job to do and we went
on our way again. We reached Chalus, as deep as the Lacus canal, but
containing more water--it was half as wide as the Hudson.
As we paused on the rim, looking toward the deep channel, Gail seized
my arm and pointed. I'd seen it, too, about the same time--a long, flat
barge, heaped with what looked like hay. It wasn't hay, of course, but
Martian vegetation, cut and stacked on the barge. It was being taken by
canal in the direction of Pnyx. And Martians, pulling ropes tied to the
barge, were the motive power. There were slaves on Mars.
"Martian commerce," I said.
We rolled on, paralleling the canal until suddenly, ahead of us, lay
another deep cut, branching out from Chalus and running almost directly
west.
We had no idea how long it was, for there was no sign of it on maps.
And when we decided to try to cross it in our machine we saw the reason
why. The canal was empty. It was half-filled with sand from countless
dust storms, and there was not a blade of Martian grass in the bottom.
It was an abandoned canal.
And on the other side was an ancient road.
It was paved with some kind of material that resembled concrete,
although it was cracked and looked as if it had not been used for years.
"Do you suppose the Martians had cars?" Gail asked as we stopped on the
road.
I shook my head. "I have some ideas about the Martians," I said.
"They're probably far ahead of us in some ways--they are built for
radar and they may have other senses we know nothing about--but that
barge we saw was the first actual tool I've seen. If you can call a
boat a tool."
"They must have had machines to build the canals," she said.
"Yes, but not a wheeled machine," I replied. "I don't think they have
wheels on Mars. You see, the wheel was an invention man stumbled onto
when he noticed that logs roll. The plants which grow on Mars, unlike
our trees, have some sides that are flat. Consequently, Martians never
got onto the idea of wheels."
"Then what's this road doing out here?" Gail asked.
"The material is pretty smooth, even though it's been etched by
sandstorms," I said. "Possibly it was used to drag things over. It
would be easier than dragging things over the sand."
The road angled south, in the direction we were going. I hoped that all
roads led to Pnyx and followed it, even though it led away from the
canal.
Beyond the canal we saw a round, symmetrical mound on the horizon,
looking like half an overripe tomato sticking out of the sand.
It was the dome of some Martian city stuck out here by a dry canal. But
it wasn't Pnyx and we saw no sign of life around the town.
We approached the city apprehensively. Possibly we would have avoided
it altogether had we seen some sign of life, but the city looked as if
there was no one at home. And the highway showed no signs of travel. In
places where it was covered with sand, there were no tracks of padded
Martian feet.
I saw that the road led through a large arched door.
"A ghost town!" Gail whispered. "An ancient, abandoned city!"
"I hope it's abandoned," I said.
We rode on. We had to find out, even at the risk of our lives.
The archway was just wide enough for the car. Still seeing no signs of
life, we drove through it. Then we found that it had not been necessary
to go through the arch at all. Above us was only half a dome. Beyond
the gate we could see where it had been smashed and broken. Overhead,
the cover ended with a jagged edge, as if some giant hammer had struck
it with a terrific, shattering blow.
Before whatever disaster had struck the city, it had been a thriving
community, at least a square mile in area. There were ruins of
buildings, columns, monuments and narrow streets. The buildings were
not like those on earth; they had ramps for entering and leaving the
upper floors. The structures had no spires or architectural flourishes,
but were strictly utilitarian--plain walls, narrow windows, and doors.
Whatever had been used for glass was gone now, probably shattered when
the city met its fate.
"Wonder how they raised that dome," said Gail.
"It might have been blown, like a bottle," I said.
We crossed the city and resumed our southward trip. Looking back at the
dome, I noted that it was constructed of a shiny, glasslike substance
which probably had been transparent at one time. But now it was coated
with a fine layer of reddish dust. Centuries had passed since Martians
lived here.
At the edge of the city stood a monument--a headless camel, a Martian,
with his eight arms raised proudly above his spine.
"Glory wasn't unknown to the Martians, either," I said.
"A trait that springs from the urge to self-preservation," said Gail.
"An individual, seeing a glorified image of himself, feels more secure."
We left the city after taking photographs. A minute or two later our
Geiger counter began buzzing wildly. I slammed on the brakes just as we
approached a terrific crater.
And now I knew why the city was no longer lived in, why there was no
water in the canal, and why the road wasn't used.
"The bomb!" I said, almost in a whisper.
Mars had its own nuclear war! How long ago, I didn't know. Had I the
time I might have measured the amount of radiation and determined
approximately when the explosion had occurred. The radiation was not
dangerously strong now and I knew the blast had taken place many, many
years ago.
"You know," said Gail quietly, "maybe this is why the Martians were
afraid of us."
"They knew we had the bomb and might use it on Mars?" I asked.
She nodded her head soberly. "I think the Martians must know a great
deal about the earth. More than we ever knew about Mars."
"The question is," I told her, "whether they still have the bomb and if
they're likely to use it on us."
"Maybe they've outlawed it," she said.
"If so, they're more civilized than we are."
"Maybe the Martians have had more time in which to become civilized,"
she replied.
"Civilization has a way of turning back," I said. "If they had the bomb
once, they can build it again."
As we continued southward, we saw another domed city raise above the
horizon. This was no ghost town. The dome was whole, larger than the
one we had seen by the dried-up canal. It stretched across the horizon
for five miles, at least, for the horizons of Mars seemed to be shorter
than those of the earth.
I flipped the switch of the transmitter and called our base. Axel
answered.
"We're not far from Pnyx," I told him.
"Have they spotted you yet?"
"No, but I haven't seen anything to report, either," I said. I squinted
toward the city for a couple of minutes before I saw there was movement
on what seemed to be an east-west highway running past the dome. A
cloud of dust hung there and I thought I saw figures moving.
"It's too far off to see clearly," I said, "but there seems to be a lot
of traffic on the main highway."
"Highways yet? You got money for toll?"
"Not funny, Ax," I said. "They got paved roads, but no cars that I've
seen. We followed an old road part of the way. It's worn out and
unused. I'll tell you about it later."
"See what's going on, if you can, Bill," said Axel. "We're still
getting a lot of radio from Pnyx."
"I came here for information and I'll find something to report," I
said. "Keep listening."
I slipped on my helmet, picked up my rifle and went through the locks.
I could feel the city as I stepped from the Mars-car. There's a kind
of sensation you get when you're approaching a large metropolis, and
it holds true on earth as well as on Mars. It's much different from
the way you feel in the wide open spaces--on the prairie or in the
mountains. Maybe it's extrasensory perception. Or maybe the soles of
our feet transmit seismic vibrations of living people to our nerves. I
had the feeling now.
Gripping my rifle I moved toward a little ridge just ahead of where
I'd stopped the car. This ridge, I'd hoped, would protect the car from
radar detection on the part of the Martians, but I believed I could
risk a glance at the highway over the top of it without exposing our
location.
I was about a half mile from the road and, from the ridge, I could see
it, crowded with Martians, trotting in formation eastward toward the
canal. They walked five abreast and there must have been hundreds of
them.
I didn't have to be a Martian to recognize that this was a military
group. Soldiers. Ants march to war like humans do. It's another
fundamental that may have its roots in atomic energy, or in the nuclear
intelligence that has formed all life so that atoms can control their
destiny.
No local war was to be fought by these troops. They were off to meet
the earthlings, in the first interplanetary war of the solar system.
So interested was I in watching the Martians that I didn't realize I
was standing in full view; and I'd been seen, but not by the marching
Martians, of which there were at least fifteen hundred.
A small patrol probably had been put out to protect the flanks of the
main army, or even to look for us, since my approach probably hadn't
been as concealed as I'd thought.
Three Martians of this patrol had started toward me, joining "hands" as
they charged. And behind them were a dozen others.
_Chapter 16_
The Martians came galloping toward me, each grasping the extended
trunklike appendages of the creatures on either side. I didn't notice
now, but when I saw them in this kind of formation later, I noted that
it was the second pair of appendages used for this particular business,
the reason for which soon was to become apparent.
They were about sixty feet from me when the Martian on the extreme left
raised his second appendage, which of course was unattached to any
other Martian. From the end flashed long, crackling flame, the nearest
thing I'd seen to lightning since my last thunderstorm on the earth.
It wasn't quite as good as a lightning bolt, however, because it fell
short of my position by about six or eight feet.
Now I knew why they grasped "hands." Each Martian was, for all
practical purposes, an electrical cell, and the three of them joined
together were in series. If one Martian could produce a hundred volts,
three Martians could produce three hundred. This voltage is for
illustration purposes, of course. I don't know how much they produced
and quite probably it was more than one hundred volts, in view of what
happened later. It may have been a thousand.
But, although I knew the Martians were trying to electrocute me, I felt
safe. My spacesuit had enough metal in it to carry a pretty good size
charge to the ground and, since I was inside it, I could suffer no harm.
I raised the rifle to fire and they flashed another jarring charge
at me. This time it hit. The blue flame licked down the barrel of my
rifle, shot to my suit and, as I expected, grounded itself through my
boots. I felt no shock, but I noticed with alarm that my rifle was
suddenly so hot that I felt it burn through my gloves. Then I realized
the danger. They could, literally, cook me inside my spacesuit by
making it red-hot.
Before they could use their bizarre natural weapon again, I fired. The
bullet hit the center Martian when he was less than thirty feet from
me. He exploded as if he'd had dynamite for lunch and that broke the
circuit.
The other two Martians dug their feet into the ground and slid to a
stop. As I lifted the gun again, their radar apparently detected the
motion. They broke and fled, unashamed, back to their flanking patrol.
I didn't shoot after them. I had only one explosive shell left, plus
eighteen nonexplosive standard rifle shells. I might need 'em, I
thought.
And I was thinking right for a change. The two survivors were screaming
in _AM_ or _FM_, whatever they used for private conversation and cuss
words. I could see their antennae waggle, but I wasn't tuned in on
their network. The other twelve seemed to understand. They all joined
appendages and started toward me.
It looked like the camel corps storming Khartoum, except that these
weren't camels and they were slinging enough electricity to light a
small city. I hated to think of the heat that would be generated if a
bolt hit me. Even if they didn't get enough of a charge into me, my
Achilles heel would be obvious once they saw that voltage, continually
applied to a resistance unit, will make it rosy red-hot.
On came the Martians. Their soft, padded feet, looking so much like
those of camels, sent a dust cloud rolling behind them. I lifted my
rifle and aimed carefully at the middle of the line. This was my last
explosive bullet and it had to produce spectacular results. I pressed
the trigger and a flash of flame marked the spot where one of their
number had ended his last charge.
The line was broken, the others hesitated. But six or seven Martians
could swing heavy lightning and I had to break the two segments again.
Had they attacked in two groups they could have fried me where I stood,
but they didn't realize it.
I flipped my gun to automatic while the two groups consolidated. Now I
cut loose. I didn't aim. Who knows what's a vital spot in a Martian? I
just held down the trigger and swept the line from left to right. Half
the Martians fell thrashing to the ground.
But my magazine was empty. I transferred the rifle to my left hand and
pawed at the automatic in the holster at my side. The seven or eight
uninjured Martians were trying to consolidate, and I wasn't having any
of it.
Again I aimed at the center, to cut the voltage in half. The Martians
had just managed to form a series again and flame lashed into the
ground at my feet, but they were crazy with fear or rage or some
Martian version of a terrestrial emotion and they didn't aim true. Then
I banged at them until my pistol was empty. The line was chopped in
three places but there were still five Martians left.
They were game creatures, for they came on desperately.
Self-preservation, race-preservation, all the things we talked about
including heroes and martyrs, were in this final charge. My pistol was
empty, my rifle was empty and I was a sitting duck with no time to
reload.
But I worked at it and as I did I heard a faint puffing sound, like the
pop of popcorn. Mars is almost silent, but not quite. There is enough
air to transmit the sound of a loud noise near at hand. Even though
every split instant was precious, I glanced quickly to my right.
Gail Loring was there, clad in a spacesuit, holding her automatic
pistol with both hands. The gun was bucking and kicking and making that
puffing noise.
I glanced back. Two of the five Martians were on the ground. It wasn't
luck, it wasn't good shooting, it was a goddamn miracle.
Gail broke up the party.
The three surviving Martians had had enough and, as Gail emptied that
enormous .45 without hitting anything, they broke and ran in all
directions, waving their trunklike arms in sheer terror. My earphones
gave the cricket-burp. Martian cuss words, no doubt.
Still holding my rifle in my left hand and my pistol in my right, I
clasped Gail in my arms, yelling things like "sweetheart, darling,
angel."
"Sweetheart--darling--angel!" screamed the Martians.
I tried to kiss Gail through my helmet and hers, too. And we laughed
and cried as we ran back to the Mars-car. Tears were streaming down her
cheeks as I helped her into the locks.
As we entered the car again, we stopped laughing. A half mile away
fifteen hundred Martians were leaving the highway and advancing toward
us with joined arms.
My earphones screeched with Mars talk: "Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Sweetheart!"
They'd interpreted our cries of relief as battle cries.
Without removing my helmet, I put the car into high speed, away from
the advancing Martians, and headed northward. The desert lay ahead of
us, rolling and vacant, its wide expanse broken only by outcroppings
of smooth rocks. I advanced the throttle till the car was traveling as
fast as it would go. But as I worked up to that speed, the Martians had
gained a little. Now they galloped in pursuit like race horses, except
that they were faster than any Derby winner I ever saw. The gravity had
something to do with that.
But it wasn't fast enough to catch us, although I knew now that the
Martians Spartan had shot hadn't been really pursuing me. They'd been
loping along, believing I was frightened and harmless, and they'd
assumed they had nothing to fear from me. Possibly, if Spartan had not
fired, Mars men and earthmen might have co-existed, in spite of their
basic differences and the fact that they were deadly poison to one
another.
Then the radio crackled with Axel's voice. "What's your trouble, Bill?"
Our helmet radios, being short wave, don't carry very far on a
spherical planet, the signals tending to shoot over the horizon into
space. However, Mars must have some kind of a heavy side that caused
freak reception just as the same thing happens on the earth. Axel
had heard the gist of our cries and laughter in the Battle of Pnyx.
I switched on our transmitter to reply, since the Mars-car radio was
powerful enough to carry quite a distance and, besides, its wave length
was longer.
"We just won the first battle of an interplanetary war, Axel," I said,
"but a million Martians are chasing me. They've just begun to fight."
"You must have found a bar at Pnyx. Talk sense, will you?"
"Fifteen hundred Martians, anyway, Axel, and I'm not kidding. They're
running, really running, and they've shown no signs of tiring after
more than twenty miles of it, even though they're not catching me."
"Where are you headed?"
"North. Toward you."
"Tell me what happened, Bill, and talk sense."
I told him briefly of my encounter with the patrol and how the main
body of Martians was on my trail. I was miles ahead of the Martians
who were on the horizon back of me. I even explained how the Martians
fought, and how I was a nasty little circuit breaker. Axel listened
without interrupting. When I finished, he said, "I guess you can beat
'em here. Once you get aboard the ship, we can blast off if we can't
handle 'em with guns."
"Good heavens, Axel," I said, "you don't expect to fight 'em, do you?
You've no idea how big a wallop these Martians carry. You and Warner
Joel couldn't possibly battle fifteen hundred Martians. Even if Gail
and I were there to help."
"We've got another rifle, plenty of explosive bullets and pistols to go
around," said Axel.
"They might use the bomb," I said.
"What bomb?"
"The atom bomb. Mars had it once," I said. "Gail and I found evidence
that it destroyed a city north of Pnyx."
"You don't make an atom bomb like you bake a cake," said Axel. "And I
doubt if they've got one. If we can't lick 'em, we'll just leave this
stinkin' planet--begging your pardon, Miss Loring." He paused. "And
we've got Spartan--he'll fight with us."
"Don't turn him loose, Axel. Don't give him a gun."
"This is us against Mars, Bill. Spartan has to help out. He's got no
choice. And if he helps, we'll go less hard on him when we get home."
"We'll talk it over when I see you," I said.
I glanced back. The Martians were not in sight. I slowed and waited.
They did not reappear over the horizon. And then I saw the reason.
Ahead of us was the bomb crater. These Martians, so sensitive to
radiation, could not stand the radioactive ground of the area, even
though it was harmless to Gail and me who came from a planet which is
continuously bathed in radiation of all kinds, from gamma rays to
radio. No Martian would come to the bombed-out city. This explained
why it was desolate, why it was a ghost town, and why the canal which
brought water to the place was dry and half-filled with sand.
I brought the car to a halt and let the motors cool and the batteries
charge.
Gail brought out some food and water from the locker and we had a
little lunch. In the west, the Martian sun was sinking toward the
horizon. Soon it would be night and we would have to make the rest of
the trip in darkness. Mars had the blackest nights I'd ever seen. The
moons are not large enough to cast much of a glow--in fact Jupiter was
brighter than Phobos and Jupiter was millions of miles away. Earth and
Saturn were not visible at this season, but I have a hunch that Earth
was much brighter to Mars than any other object in the sky. Venus could
be seen occasionally, but Mercury was never visible because it is too
close to the sun.
We finished our meal and Gail slept while I watched. Then she roused
up, told me to get a couple of hours sleep and sat by the radio.
Shortly after midnight I was awakened by Gail.
"I've just been talking to Axel," she said. "He believes there are
Martians near the spaceship."
I was wide awake instantly. I turned some switches and checked our
power. The sun hadn't been up very long after we stopped for the night,
but the solar cells had recharged the battery sufficiently for us to
resume our trip, providing we conserved our power.
I took my position at the controls. "Axel," I called. "Have you seen
'em?"
Axel's voice came over the radio. "No but I hear them. They're using
some English words. _Thiswaydrake. Tanetooman._ The things you yelled
that day when you flushed Martians in the canal. Some of them must have
overheard you."
If that was the case, this wasn't the bunch that had been chasing me.
Another attacking force must have come down from the north--or possibly
from Umbra. They were closing in from two directions and if fifteen
hundred were behind me, heaven knows how many were on the other side of
the ship.
I started the Mars-car forward. "We're on our way, Axel. It's dark but
there shouldn't be any trouble, if we keep from running into a large
rock in the desert. If you can't hold 'em, blast off. Forget about us."
"Don't talk like a lunatic, Bill."
"Don't think about me!"
"Hell, I'm not thinking of you. I'm thinking of Gail. And I don't want
a year-long ride in space with Doc Spartan and only Joel to help keep
him from killing me."
"All right," I said, "I'll try to make it--"
"Tend to your driving," said Axel.
I laughed without humor. It was ironic that after all our talk about
cowards, selfish men, heroes and martyrs, not one of us--not even Dr.
Spartan--had a choice in the matter now. We all had to be heroes and,
perhaps, martyrs. We were going to be attacked by a whole planet and
the only course open was to fight for our lives.
The starlight was hardly any help but I was able to make out the vague
shapes of rocks in the desert after we had crossed the abandoned canal.
I couldn't go fast, but I was making time.
The radio was not silent. There were explosive, bass cricket noises of
Martian talk from time to time. Nothing further was heard from Axel,
even though his transmitter had been left open. And I had nothing to
say--I was too busy driving.
The first streaks of dawn were appearing in the east when at last I
heard a shout in the squawk box. It was Dr. Joel yelling at the top of
his lungs.
"Ludson! Wake up! Martians are attacking."
I heard a startled grunt. Then Axel's voice came to my ears.
"Untie Dr. Spartan and give him a gun."
It was light enough to see now, and I pushed the Mars-car's throttle to
its peak.
_Chapter 17_
I had no idea how far we were from the spaceship. But it certainly
wasn't more than a ninety-minute run if I held the machine at top
speed. But battles can be won or lost in considerably less time, and
there was a battle being fought in the Solis Lacus area.
They were outside the ship--Axel, Joel and Spartan. I heard them
shouting in their helmet radios. I couldn't hear the sound of firing,
but Spartan--unwilling to relinquish his authority even though he was a
prisoner--was shouting orders. "Get that group to the left, Axel! About
nine o'clock--"
Axel must have the rifle, I thought.
Dr. Warner Joel was hysterical. His voice choked sobs. He prayed. He
swore. He moaned.
Axel mumbled incoherently. For all I knew he might have been talking
in Swedish. Maybe he was--I don't know. He was born in Minnesota of
Swedish parents and might have learned it in his childhood. Ordinarily,
he spoke good English, except that occasionally his phrasing took on a
foreign flavor, a throwback to something he'd learned from his parents
and neighbors.
Joel was sobbing. "My gun's empty! They're still coming."
Then he laughed hysterically.
"Look at them run! The fools didn't know my gun wasn't loaded!"
Apparently the radar eyes of the Martians could distinguish objects as
small as a .45 automatic.
Gail sat tense as she listened to the sounds of battle. Her lips
pressed tight, her eyes staring straight ahead.
And then we saw the brownish green depression to our right. We had
reached Solis Lacus Major, and the spaceship was not far north and only
about a dozen miles west.
Even minutes seemed like hours as we sped along. The Martian voices
were plain now and we could still hear our three companions talking.
At least, none had been baked in his spacesuit yet. As long as they
kept the Martians from forming into long lines their spacesuits would
protect them.
Then Gail screamed and pointed. To our left we saw the spire of the
spaceship.
Swerving, I saw hordes of Martians closing in from the south. To the
north were more of them. I was steering the Mars-car into the jaws of a
trap that would close on us the minute we entered.
But not to enter the trap meant surer death. There was a chance for us
if we could reach the ship.
Those Martians from the south were chanting: "Ha-ha! Ha-ha!"
It was the same group that had pursued me near Pnyx. Although they had
shied at approaching the ruined city, they apparently had traveled all
night, going around it, and now were helping to encircle the spaceship.
I stopped the car and fastened on my helmet. "Put yours on too, Gail,"
I said.
She did and when she was finished, I said: "Take the controls of the
car. Try to break through any Martians that are in your path and reach
the causeway. Pay no attention to me." I got out of my seat and went to
the locks. My rifle was there and I picked it up. I ejected shells from
the magazine and filled it with explosive bullets.
"What are you going to do?" she asked, her eyes wide with fear.
"I'm going topside," I said. "I'll fasten myself to the top of the car
with my spacesuit belt. Then I'll raise a little hell with these men
from Mars." I tapped the gun for emphasis. She opened her mouth to
protest, then closed it. It had to be done. She might hate it, just as
I did, but it was the only thing to do. I couldn't shoot Martians from
inside this four-wheeled boxcar.
She waited till I called to her that I was securely fastened, then she
started forward.
Ahead I could see the Martians. They had encircled the ship at a
distance of about a quarter of a mile. I could tell that Axel was on
the north side, where the largest group of Martians was assembling
for a frontal assault. I could see explosive bullets from his rifle
tearing gaping holes in the ranks. But they were preparing to charge
onto the causeway.
Joel and Spartan were stationed on either side, the three of them
forming a triangle. They had only pistols and were not firing because
the range was too great. I couldn't tell which was which, but I saw
their figures standing behind heaps of rocks which they used as
breastworks. Apparently the moat, shallow and makeshift as it was,
presented an obstacle to the Martians because the sides were difficult
for the four-footed creatures to descend and to climb.
The Martians were starting to move toward the causeway when they first
perceived our car rolling toward them. The line wavered, hesitated and
then started to wheel to face the earthling reinforcements.
"Drake!" I was startled by Spartan's voice over the helmet radio.
"Yes?" I said, omitting the sir.
"I want you to know that whatever our differences were in the past,
they are forgotten for the moment. We are all earthmen. We are being
attacked by an entirely different form of life. I remain your enemy,
and you have reason to hate me as much as any human being alive. But
what matters is that the earth and the scientists of our planet are
waiting for us to bring back information about Mars. Therefore we
must survive. We will fight together now. What happens afterwards is
something different."
"That's damned white of you, Spartan," I said. "But I had this all
figured out and you have no more choice in the matter than I."
"Dam-white, dam-white. Ha-ha! Ha-ha!" chirped Martian voices in my
ear. Looking to the south I saw the plain crowded with the creatures,
galloping arm in arm, their trunklike limbs waving. The group from Pnyx
had joined the attack and was assaulting the ship from the rear.
Warner Joel screamed and I knew he was facing them all alone.
The Martian horde was coming at full speed.
Joel stood up, holding an automatic pistol as they came within range.
I saw flame jet from the muzzle. A Martian in the middle of the line
stumbled and fell. Instantly the men on either side joined arms.
I raised my rifle and leveled it at the attackers. The jouncing of the
car made it hard to aim and I held my fire for an instant too long.
A lightning-like bolt swept from the end of the line toward Joel who
was firing wildly and hitting nothing. A scream rang out in my helmet.
I watched with horror as his spacesuit turned cherry red and actually
melted in front of my eyes.
Then I fired.
The explosive shell blasted two Martians in the line. I fired again,
splitting one half of the broken line into quarters. A third shot split
the other half. One great thing about these explosive bullets, you
didn't have to hit a target dead center. The fourth shot didn't even
hit a Martian, but the ground at his feet, and he went the way of all
cyanogenic plant men.
The Martians at the causeway were now getting ready to give me some of
the medicine that had ended the career of Warner Joel. But I swung my
gun in their direction and blasted again.
Before I could fire once more, Axel, who apparently had stopped to
reload his rifle, began to bombard them from the rear.
The Martians couldn't stand being blasted from two directions at once.
The line broke and they dashed to the north.
My car swept to the entrance of the causeway and across. Axel's
helmeted figure rose from behind his barricade of rocks. He didn't
even take time to wave, but I saw his eyes, full of deep appreciation
because I'd arrived at a most critical time.
Then he dashed to the spot where the remains of Warner Joel lay
steaming.
The Martians who had killed Joel were pouring across the moat at the
rear of the spaceship.
"Watch the front, Bill!" Axel cried as he leveled his rifle.
There was nothing to watch. The Martians had been routed.
I fumbled with my belt and unfastened myself while Axel aimed his gun
at the Pnyx Martians. His semi-automatic fire was sending geysers of
poisonous Martian flesh out of the ditch when I jumped off the car.
The bass-chirps of the Martian voices were screaming panic now. It
wasn't necessary to know their language to realize all the fight was
gone from their hearts--or whatever they used for a heart--as Axel
pumped explosive shots into their midst.
Part of them was trying to scale the back wall of the ditch. Others
were stampeding, like cattle, in all directions. Those that came my way
were halted by the causeway and now I opened fire on these.
Gail had emerged from the car and now she stood without cover at the
edge of the moat, shooting at the Martians with her pistol.
"Get back, Gail!" I screamed.
A single Martian sent a flash of flame toward her. It sparked off
her helmet. Then she realized she was exposed and jumped behind the
barricade Axel had used.
Axel's gun had stopped firing now and he was starting to reload. I
shifted my aim, pouring the rest of my magazine into the group nearest
him. They had no way of knowing it was not his gun. Even their radar
senses could not follow the path of a bullet.
It was a massacre, but the kind of slaughter that saved lives.
The panic of the Martians in the moat communicated itself to those on
the desert. Instead of joining hands to try again to overwhelm us, they
broke their ranks and fled as the straggling remains of their allies
from the south scrambled out of the pit around the spaceship and fled
in all directions.
"After them!" cried Spartan, who still believed he was our commander.
But I paid no attention to him. Following a routed and disordered enemy
and cutting him to pieces may be a sound military precept, but we were
no army and we were outnumbered hundreds to one. It would have been
plain stupidity to pursue.
Axel's gun was reloaded now and he emptied it again at the retreating
foe. Each bullet, whether it hit a Martian or a rock or the desert
sand, increased the terror of the retreating host.
Then his gun was empty.
To my surprise I saw Axel half turn. Then his knees seemed to give way
and he fell to the ground, clutching his side.
Turning my head, I saw Spartan with an automatic in his hand, starting
to level his gun at me. There was an ugly grin on his lips. He had shot
Axel.
As he fired, I dodged behind the barricade, on the opposite side of
which Gail crouched. She had not heard the shots, of course, and had
not seen Axel fall. I shouted, "Gail! Come here! Around on this side!"
She couldn't understand me. She was puzzled, thought I was crazy,
because her side was safe from Martians.
I raised my rifle and aimed at Spartan as he came running toward Gail.
I pulled the trigger, but it didn't fire. The rifle was empty. I'd sent
my last bullet after the retreating Martians.
As I tried to jerk my unused pistol from its holster, Spartan reached
Gail with a single thirty-foot bound. He swept her from behind the
barricade and held her as a shield as he turned the gun on me.
I couldn't use my pistol without hitting Gail.
A bullet struck the ramp to the spaceship, just beside Spartan's head,
knocking a piece of metal against his arm. He didn't hear the shot, but
he felt the splinter strike. He turned his head. Axel was lying on the
ground, still clutching his side with his left hand, but holding his
pistol in his right.
Spartan lifted his gun to fire at Axel, and I, taking advantage of the
instant in which he turned to defend himself, leaped.
Martian gravity, being what it is, permits a man to make prodigious
jumps. I sailed like a man in slow motion over the rocks and I struck
Spartan, still clutching Gail, in a football tackle, bowling them over.
I grabbed his gun, twisted it from his hand.
Gail struggled and wriggled out of his arms.
But the gravity that had aided me, now worked against me. Somehow,
Spartan managed to throw himself upward and I was literally bumped into
the air. He rolled out from under and dived for the gun.
I came down, grabbed his foot and pulled him away, but he twisted free.
We were both encased in spacesuits and it would have taken a battering
ram to hurt either of us. Fists were useless, even though Spartan
didn't realize this. Nor did I until I felt him hit me. The blow, I
scarcely felt, but the force behind it sent me staggering back.
I struck the rocks and bounded, like a boxer off the ropes in an arena,
back at him. I tried to wrap my arms around him, to hold him securely,
but he was a big man, in splendid physical condition, even though he
was a few years older than I. We clinched, struggling to throw each
other off balance, flailing helplessly with our fists.
Suddenly I stepped back. Spartan, crazy with anger and rage, swung
his fist toward me. I didn't try to dodge or block. I knew the fist
wouldn't hurt me. As it struck me I grabbed his arm with both hands. I
hung on as he tried to wrench free. Then I pulled back and started to
turn.
His weight, without the spacesuit, would have been in the neighborhood
of 180 pounds, perhaps more. The spacesuit weighed at least twenty
pounds. But all two hundred pounds of him was a mere eighty pounds on
Mars.
As I swung, his feet left the ground--and on Mars you don't drop very
fast. His feet stayed off the ground as I heaved and turned and then
let loose.
His body sailed in an arc, over the rocks, and thudded in the moat,
onto a heap of Martians, not all of them dead. A number of them must
have had enough consciousness left to respond to contact with an
earthling's body.
As I sprang to the edge of the moat, I saw Spartan's spacesuit turn a
cherry red. Then it glowed white. Little rivulets of metal poured over
the Martian bodies, but still that current--it must have been thousands
of volts--kept surging through.
I heard a long, drawn-out scream. Then Dr. Spartan was dead.
_Chapter 18_
Gail screamed as she came running to the edge of the moat. I seized the
pistol which she held in her hand--later I learned it was Spartan's own
gun that she picked up off the ground. I fired into the mass of bodies.
It was too late. I killed the Martians but there was nothing I could
do to save Spartan. Turning, I rushed to Axel's side. He was weak,
but still alive. "Punctured spacesuit," he murmured, nodding to his
left hand which clutched the garment. I understood. Axel's suit had
been punctured by Spartan's bullet, but he had closed the hole with
his hand. Fortunately the bullet had lodged in Axel's body and had not
pierced the suit on the other side.
"Hang on!" I said.
I picked him up. He groaned as I lifted him and carried him up the ramp
and into the ship. Inside, Gail and I stripped the suit away from the
wound. The bullet had struck a rib in the suit, glanced to a rib bone
and then lodged in the muscles of his shoulders. It was a nasty wound,
made by a flattened bullet, but it was not the kind of an injury that
would prove to be fatal. We applied antiseptics and removed the bullet.
While Axel rested, I took the digging machinery which we had used
to construct the moat and covered Spartan's and Joel's remains
and the bodies of dead Martians. I found many large rubies and
sapphires--unusual stones, but not six billion dollars' worth. Whatever
profit came from the trip would be in scientific knowledge.
Gail and I erected a small cairn over the spot where Spartan lay. It
was not to Spartan alone, but to four men, including Willy Zinder, who
had died in order that our trip to Mars might succeed. I objected to
Spartan's being listed as a hero, but Gail said, "It's not really him,
Bill Drake. It's what he stood for."
"Murder, egotism, selfishness?"
"He was a human being," she replied. "The monument is to humanity.
There are good human beings, bad ones and the strong."
"It's hard to swallow," I said. "But including him doesn't detract from
the others."
People, I decided, shouldn't be judged by specific, isolated acts, but
by the sum of their contributions. Besides, not many folks will go to
Mars to see the cairn--at least, not for a long, long time--even if the
Martians leave it standing.
We didn't stay long on Mars because we didn't know for sure if we'd put
a big enough scare into the Martians to keep them away permanently.
Besides, as I told Axel, "They might bring the bomb next time."
We never learned if Mars still had the bomb. They'd had it once, but
they were now decadent, far below what they had been in ages probably
long before the first ape man came down from a tree to walk on his hind
legs. Those cities were evidence of past glories. But except for the
barges on Chalus, we saw no means of locomotion. They must have had
tools, but we never saw them. And the only art we saw was a statue in a
ruined city. Had man come to Mars a million years ago, who knows what
might have been here to greet him?
I found a small animal on Mars before we left. It was hiding in the
vegetation on Lacus canal and proved that there were other forms of
mobile life besides the Martians. The creature was rabbit-size and
had the same general construction as a Martian. The hump was poorly
developed, however. The animal died and since it was poisonous, as were
all Martian beings, we did not try to bring it back for examination.
However, I made a thorough study of the chemical content of its tissues
and took several photographs of its dissected organs. Earth scientists
can do a lot with very little evidence.
In spite of our harrowing experiences with the Martians we had
a treasure of scientific data, material that could never have
been obtained by telescope. And we hoped that someday a basis of
communication with Mars could be established--after the soreness of
the wounds had gone away--and perhaps the two planets could understand
their differences.
Getting Axel back aboard the Jehad was not as much of a task as we had
expected. After we blasted to the Jehad's orbit, we slid him across
space between the rocket and the plasma ship without hurting him. After
all, what is there in space to hurt anyone?
Axel computed our route home on the electronic calculator, and we
blasted off exactly twenty-one months from the day we left the earth.
"How about our duty shifts on the way home?" Gail asked as we were at
last in space again.
"Whatever you say, my dear," I told her.
"Me? I'm not in charge."
"Axel's injured," I said, "and you're my wife. That makes you top
banana."
"You fool!" she laughed. "But it'll be nicer going home than it was
going away."
"Yes," said Axel. "There is enough water for all, Miss Loring."
"I wasn't thinking of the water. And you can either call me Gail or
Mrs. Drake from now on. I'll never be Miss Loring again."
Axel threw back his head and laughed. "I was sure it would happen this
way," he said.
The End
* * * * *
_A Destroyer From Another Planet--Bent
On Mastery Of The World_
ENCOUNTER
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Author of THE GREEN PLANET
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deaths, all the victims found with their heads crushed as if their
skulls had exploded outward.
The trail of victims lead from Arkansas to Tennessee, to Kentucky,
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THE RED PLANET
When the spaceship Jehad blasted off for Mars, millions of miles from
earth, four men and one woman placed themselves under the rule of Dr.
Lewis Spartan, sadistic, power-mad leader of the expedition. Only after
they were well on their way did they learn that Spartan planned to
return to Earth alone!
By the time the ship reached Mars, jealous rivalry over the love of
Gail Loring had turned the Jehad into a crucible of tension and strife.
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grotesque Martians who used electrical energy as a weapon of war.
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if won, meant bucking Spartan's demonic schemes.
Published By
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AUTHOR'S PROFILE
A Kansan by birth, Russ Winterbotham took a pre-med course at the
University of Kansas and eventually got a B.A. degree. He has spent
most of his lifetime in the newspaper writing and publishing fields
except for a brief period of acting as a gunsmith helper and as a clerk
in a variety store.
The author's son-in-law is a member of the team developing the plasma
space motor which is planned to carry men to Mars within the next 10
years. He is the author of 10 adult novels, more than 60 juvenile book
and several hundred short stories and newspaper articles.
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