Red Planet Page 11

  They reached the bank. “The ramp must be about a hundred yards off to the right,” Frank decided. “Yep—I see it. Come on.”

  Jim grabbed his arm and drew him back. “ ‘Smatter?” demanded Frank.

  “Look on up the canal, north.”

  “Huh? Oh!”A scooter was proceeding toward them. Instead of the two hundred fifty miles per hour or more that such craft usually make, this one was throttled down to a minimum. Two men were seated on top of it, out in the open.

  Frank drew back hastily. “Good boy, Jim,” he approved. “I was just about to walk right into them. I guess we had better let them get well ahead.”

  “Willis good boy, too,” Willis put in smugly.

  “Let them get ahead, my foot!” Jim answered. “Can't you see what they're doing?”

  “Huh?”

  “They're following our tracks!”

  Frank looked startled but did not answer. He peered cautiously out.”Look out!” Jim snapped. “He's got binoculars.” Frank ducked back. But he had seen enough; the scooter had stopped at approximately the spot where they had stopped the night before. One of the men on top was gesturing through the observation dome at the driver and pointing to the ramp.

  Canal ice was, of course, never cleaned of skate marks; the surface was renewed from time to time by midday thaws until the dead freeze of winter set in. However, it was unlikely that anyone but the two boys had skated over this stretch of ice, so far from any settlement, any time in months. The ice held scooter tracks, to be sure, but, like all skaters, Jim and Frank had avoided them in favor of untouched ice.

  Now their unmistakable spoor lay for any to read from Cynia Station to the ramp near them.

  “If we head back into the bushes,” Jim whispered, “we can hide until they go away. They'll never find us in this stuff.”

  “Suppose they don't go away. Do you want to spend another night in the cabbage?”

  “They're bound to go away eventually.”

  “Sure but not soon enough. They know we went up the ramp; they'll stay and they'll search, longer than we can hold out. They can afford to; they've got a base.”

  “Well, what do we do?”

  “We head south along the bank, on foot, at least as far as the next ramp.”

  “Let's get going, then. They'll be up the ramp in no time.”

  With Frank in the lead they dog-trotted to the south. The plants along the bank were high enough now to permit them to go under; Frank held a course about thirty feet in from the bank. The gloom under the spreading leaves and the stems of the plants themselves protected them from any distant observation.

  Jim kept an eye out for snake worms and water-seekers and cautioned Willis to do likewise. They made fair time. After a few minutes Frank stopped, motioned for silence, and they both listened. All that Jim could hear was Frank's rasping breath; if they were being pursued, the pursuers were not close.

  They were at least two miles south of the ramp when Frank stopped very suddenly. Jim bumped into him and the two almost tumbled into the thing that had caused Frank to stop—another canal. This one ran east and west and was a much narrower branch of the main canal. There were several such between Cynia and Charax. Some of them joined the east and west legs of Strymon canal; some merely carried water to local depressions in the desert plateau.

  Jim stared down into the deep and narrow gash. “For the love of Mike! We nearly took a header.”

  Frank did not answer. He sank down to his knees, then sat and held his head. Suddenly he was overcome by a spasm of coughing. When it was over, his shoulders still shook, as if he were racked by dry sobs.

  Jim put a hand on his arm. “You're pretty sick, aren't you, fellow?”

  Frank did not answer. Willis said, “Poor Frank boy,” and tut-tutted.

  Jim stared again at the canal, his forehead wrinkled. Presently Frank raised his head and said, “I'm all right. It just got me for a moment—running into the canal and all and realizing it had us stopped. I was so tired.”

  Jim said, “Look here, Frank, Fve got a new plan. I'm going to follow this ditch off to the east until I find some way to get down into it. You're going to go back and give yourself up—”

  “No!”

  “Wait till I finish! This makes sense. You're too sick to keep going. If you stay out here, you're going to die. You might as well admit it. Somebody's got to get the word to our folks—me. You go back, surrender, and then give them a song and dance about how I went that way—any way but this way. If you make it good, you can stall them and keep them chasing their tails for a full day and give me that much head start. In the meantime you lay around in the scooter, warm and safe, and tonight you're in bed in the infirmary at school. There—doesn't that make sense?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? You're just being stubborn.”

  “No,” repeated Frank, “it's no good. In the first place I won't turn myself over to them. I'd rather die out here—”

  “Nuts!”

  “Nuts yourself. In the second place, a day's start will do you no good. Once they are sure you aren't where I say you are, they'll just go back to combing the canal, by scooter. They'll pick you up tomorrow.”

  “But—well, what is the answer then?”

  “I don't know, but it's not that.” He was seized again by coughing.

  Neither one of them said anything for several minutes. At last Jim said, “What kind of a scooter was that?”

  “The usual cargo sort, a Hudson Six Hundred I think. Why?”

  “Could it turn around on that ice down there?”

  Frank looked down into the small canal. Its sides sloped in toward the bottom; the water level was so low that the ice surface was barely twenty feet across. “Not a chance,” he answered.

  “Then they won't try to search this branch by scooter—at least not in that scooter.”

  “I'm way ahead of you,” put in Frank. “You figure we'll cross to east Strymon and go home that way. But how do you know this cut runs all the way through? You remember the map that well?”

  “No, I don't. But there is a good chance it does. If it doesn't, it will run most of the way across and we'll just have to hoof it the rest of the way.”

  “After we get to the east leg it will still be five hundred miles or so to Charax. This leg has shelters on it, even if we did miss the one last night.”

  “We've got just as good a chance of finding Project shelters on east leg as on west leg,” Jim answered. “The Project starts next spring on both sides. I know—Dad's talked about it enough. Anyhow, we can't use this leg any farther; they're searching it—so why beat your choppers about it? The real question is: can you skate? If you can't, I still say you ought to surrender.”

  Frank stood up. “I'll skate,” he said grimly. “Come on.”

  They went boldly along the stone embankment, convinced that their pursuers were still searching the neighborhood of the ramp. They were three or four miles farther east when they came to a ramp leading down to the ice. “Shall we chance it?” asked Jim.

  “Sure. Even if they send a man in on skates I doubt if he would come this far with no tracks to lead him on. I'm tired of walking.” They went down, put on their skates, and started. Most of the kinks from their uncomfortable night had been smoothed out by walking; it felt good to be on the ice again. Jim let Frank set the pace; despite his illness he stroked right into it and pushed the miles behind them.

  They had come perhaps forty miles when the banks began to be noticeably lower. Jim, seeing this, got a sick feeling that the little canal was not cross-connecting from west to east leg, but merely a feeder to a low spot in the desert. He kept his suspicion to himself. At the end of the next hour it was no longer necessary to spare his chum; the truth was evident to them both. The banks were now so low that they could see over them and the ice ahead no longer disappeared into the blue sky but dead-ended in some fashion.

  They came to the dead end presently, a frozen swamp. The ban
ks were gone; the rough ice spread out in all directions and was bordered in the distance by green plants. Here and there, canal grass, caught by the freeze, stuck up in dead tufts through the ice.

  They continued east, skating where they could and picking their way around bits of higher ground. At last Frank said, “All out! End of the line!” and sat down to take off his skates.

  “I'm sorry, Frank.”

  “About what? We'll leg it the rest of the way. It can't be so many miles.”

  They set out through the surrounding greenery, walking just fast enough to let the plants draw out of their way. The vegetation that surrounded the marsh was lower than the canal plants, hardly shoulder high, and showed smaller leaves. After a couple of miles of this they found themselves out on the sand dunes.

  The shifting, red, iron-oxide sands made hard walking and the dunes, to be climbed or skirted, made it worse. Jim usually elected to climb them even if Frank went around; he was looking for a dark green line against the horizon that would mark east Stry-mon. It continued to disappoint him.

  Willis insisted on getting down. First he gave himself a dust bath in the clean sand; thereafter he kept somewhat ahead of Jim, exploring this way and that and startling the spin bugs. Jim had sjust topped a dune and was starting down the other side when he heard an agonized squeak from Willis. He looked around.

  Frank was just coming around the end of the dune and Willis was with him, that is to say, Willis had skittered on ahead. Now the bouncer was standing dead still. Frank apparently had noticed nothing; he was dragging along in a listless fashion, his head down.

  Charging straight at them was a water-seeker.

  It was a long shot, even for a match marksman. The scene took on a curious unreality to Jim. It seemed as if Frank were frozen in his tracks and as if the water-seeker itself were strolling slowly toward his victims. Jim himself seemed to have all the time in the world to draw, take a steady, careful bead, and let go his first charge.

  It burned the first two pairs of legs off the creature; it kept coming.

  Jim sighted on it again, held the stud down. His beam, held steadily on the centerline of the varmint, sliced it in two as if it had run into a buzz saw. It kept coming until its two halves were no longer joined, until they fell two ways, twitching. The great scimitar claw on the left half stopped within inches of Willis.

  Jim ran down the dune. Frank, no longer a statue, actually had stopped. He was standing, blinking at what had been a moment before the incarnation of sudden and bloody death. He looked around as Jim came up. “Thanks,” he said.

  Jim did not answer but kicked at a trembling leg of the beast. “The filthy, filthy thing!” he said intensely. “Cripes, how I hate them. I wish I could burn every one on Mars, all at once.” He walked on up along the body, located the egg sac, and carefully blasted every bit of it.

  Willis had not moved. He was sobbing quietly. Jim came back, picked him up, and popped him in the travel bag. “Let's stick together from here on,” he said. “If you don't feel like climbing, I'll go around.” “Okay.”

  “FRANK!”

  “Uh? Yes, what is it, Jim?” Frank's voice was listless.

  “What do you see ahead?”

  “Ahead?” Frank tried manfully to make his eyes focus, to chase the fuzz from them. “Uhh, it's the canal, the green belt I mean. I guess we made it.”

  “And what else? Don't you see a tower?”

  “What? Where? Oh, there—Yes, I guess I do. It's a tower all right.”

  “Well, for heaven's sake, don't you know what that means? Martians!”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  “Well, show some enthusiasm!”

  “Why should I?”

  “They'll take us in, man! Martians are good people; you'll have a warm place to rest, before we go on.”

  Frank looked a bit more interested, but said nothing. “They might even know Gekko,” Jim went on. “This is a real break.”

  “Yeah, maybe so.”

  It took another hour of foot-slogging before the little Martian town was reached. It was so small that it boasted only one tower, but to Jim it was even more beautiful than Syrtis Major. They followed its wall and presently found a gate.

  They had not been inside more than a few minutes when Jim's hopes, so high, were almost as low as they could be. Even before he saw the weed-choked central garden, the empty walks and silent courts had told him the bad truth: the little town was deserted.

  Mars must once have held a larger native population than it does today. Ghost cities are not unknown and even the greater centers of population, such as Charax, Syrtis Major and Minor, and Hesperidum, have areas which are no longer used and through which tourists from Earth may sometimes be conducted. This little town, apparently never of great importance, might have been abandoned before Noah laid the keel of his ship.

  Jim paused in the plaza, unwilling to speak. Frank stopped and sat down on a metal slab, its burnished face bright with characters that an Earthly scholar would have given an arm to read. “Well,” said Jim, “rest a bit, then I guess we had better find a way to get down onto the canal.”

  Frank answered dully, “Not for me. Fve come as far as I can.”

  “Don't talk that way.”

  “I'm telling you, Jim, that's how it is.”

  Jim puzzled at it. “I tell you what—I'll search around. These places are always honeycombed underneath. I'll find a place for us to hole up overnight.”

  “Just as you like.”

  “You just stay here.” He started to leave, then suddenly became aware that Willis was not with him. He then recalled that the bouncer had jumped down when they entered the city. “Willis— where's Willis?”

  “How would I know?”

  “I've got to find him. Oh, Willis! Hey, Willis! Come, boy!” His voice echoed around the dead square.

  “Hi, Jim!”

  It was Willis, rightly enough, his voice reaching Jim from some distance. Presently he came into sight. But he was not alone; he was being carried by a Martian.

  THE MARTIAN CAME NEAR THEM, DROPPED HIS THIRD LEG, and leaned down. His voice boomed gently at Jim. “What's he saying, Frank?”

  “Huh? Oh, I don't know. Tell him to go away.”

  The Martian spoke again. Jim abandoned the attempt to use Frank as a translator and concentrated on trying to understand. He spotted the question symbol, in the inverted position; the remark was an invitation or a suggestion of some sort. Following it was the operator of motion coupled with some radical that meant nothing to Jim.

  He answered it with the question symbol alone, hoping that the native would repeat himself. Willis answered instead. “Come along, Jim boy—fine place!”

  Why not? he said to himself and answered, “Okay, Willis.” To the Martian he replied with the symbol of general assent, racking his throat to produce the unEarthly triple guttural required. The Martian repeated it, inverted, then picked up the leg closest to them and walked rapidly away without turning around. He had gone about twenty-five yards when he seemed to notice that he was not being followed. He backed up just as rapidly and used the general inquiry symbol in the sense of “What's wrong?”

  “Willis,” Jim said urgently, “I want him to carry Frank.”

  “Carry Frank boy?”

  “Yes, the way Gekko carried him.”

  “Gekko not here. This K'boomch.”

  “His name is K'boomk?”

  “Sure—K'boomch,” Willis agreed, correcting Jim's pronunciation.

  “Well, I want K'boomch to carry Frank like Gekko carried him.”

  Willis and the Martian mooed and croaked at each other for a moment, then Willis said, “K'boomch wants to know does Jim boy know Gekko.”

  “Tell him we are friends, water friends.”

  “Willis already tell him.”

  “How about Frank?” But it appeared that Willis had already told his new acquaintance about that, too, for K'boomch enclosed Frank in two palm flaps and lif
ted him up. Frank opened his eyes, then closed them. He seemed indifferent to what happened to him.

  Jim trotted after the Martian, stopping only to grab up Frank's skates from where he had abandoned them on the metal slab. The Martian led him into a huge building that seemed even larger inside than out, so richly illuminated in glowing lights were the walls. The Martian did not tarry but went directly into an archway in the far wall; it was a ramp tunnel entrance, leading down.

  The Martians appear never to have invented stair steps, or more likely never needed them. The low surface gravity of Mars, only 38 percent of that of Earth, permits the use of ramps which would be disastrously steep on Earth. The Martian led Jim down a long sequence of these rapid descents.

  Presently Jim discovered, as he had once before under Cynia city, that the air pressure had increased. He raised his mask with a feeling of great relief; he had not had it off for more than twenty-four hours. The change in pressure had come abruptly; he knew from this that it had not resulted from descent alone, nor had they come deep enough to make any great difference in pressure.

  Jim wondered how the trick was accomplished. He decided that it had pressure locks beat all hollow.

  They left the ramps and entered a large domed chamber, evenly lighted from the ceiling itself. Its walls were a continuous series of archways. K'boomch stopped and spoke again to Jim, another inquiry in which he used the name Gekko.

  Jim reached into his memory and carefully phrased a simple declaration: “Gekko and I have shared water. We are friends.”

  The Martian seemed satisfied; he led the way into one of the side rooms and placed Frank gently on the floor. The door closed behind them, sliding silently into place. It was a smallish room, for Martians, and contained several resting frames. K'boomch arranged his ungainly figure on one of them.

  Suddenly Jim felt heavy and sat down rather unexpectedly on the floor. The feeling persisted and with it a slight giddiness; he stayed seated. “Are you all right, Frank?” he asked.

  Frank muttered something. His breathing seemed labored and rough. Jim took off Frank's mask and touched his face; it was hot.