Part 1

City of The Living Flame

By HENRY HASSE

The legendary city of M'Tonak lay hidden beneath Mar's Polar cap, its heart a pulsing flame from outer space. Jim Landor found the fabulous green flame, found it sentiently, evilly alive--and that its living meant death for all mankind.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Startled into action, Jim Landor straightened in his seat. He peered eagerly through the forward visiplate of the tiny rocket-plane.

From the Martian metropolis that nestled in the opposite hemisphere, thirteen hundred miles away, he had taken the poorly-mapped, wearisome, rocket-course of the Polar route in order to save time. Thus he avoided being hampered by the magnetic storms raging over the Red Desert at this season. At least, so he'd told his friends.

But the real, the all-important reason he had kept to himself. It was not only that they would have laughed at him, that mattered little; but that a growing, nameless dread made him even more reserved than usual. He smiled thinly now as he visualized their reactions had he dared mention the mythical city of M'Tonak. M'Tonak, city of forgotten men, where reposed the fabulous emerald large enough to ransom a world!

Yes, Jim thought without bitterness; at last he had joined the fatal number of men, usually Earthmen, who had searched for M'Tonak. He was persuaded against all reason that it did exist somewhere among the polar wastes, and it was most imperative that he find it! He was sure that then he would find his brother too, who had disappeared scarcely a month before. In his perilous passage above the Cap, Jim had zig-zagged the rocket-plane dangerously off its course, searching the limitless white wastes with the intentness of desperation. But in vain.

"Well," he murmured now, "no M'Tonak, so I'll settle for Riida--for the time being."

The tiny Martian town was beneath him, its crazy conical structures reaching up like pointing forefingers. Jim's hand came down on the descent lever. A ghostly whirr disturbed the stillness as the plane's stubby wings sliced the atmosphere on its downward glide. It contacted gently, plowing a shallow furrow in the powdery sand that rose cloud-fine to engulf him as he climbed out. Already he saw two men hurrying toward him from the town.

"One of them must be Conley," he decided and went forward to meet the mine superintendent.

* * * * *

"Hello, Jim Landor, welcome to Riida!" Conley shook hands with a quiet, unobtrusive pleasure that seemed sincere. Jim liked him immediately. He noted his straight-forward eyes, the faint burr of his booming Irish voice and the little mannerism of thoughtfully rubbing his hand across his massive chin.

The other Earthman, Conley introduced as Wessel, the newly arrived surveying engineer for "Tri-Planetary Mining." As Jim glanced at the thin features and small wiry frame, he sensed something hard behind the man's clouded eyes. Wessel remained silent, smiling inscrutably as he listened to their conversation.

"So you came across the Cap, eh Landor?" Conley said friendily, taking Jim's arm as they trudged toward the town. "Any sign of M'Tonak?" And as Jim looked at him sharply he hastened to add: "Not that I'm poking fun at you, lad. But you're news now, you know, same as anyone who goes seeking for M'Tonak. Heard a news-story about you on the Trans-telector not more'n a couple hours ago."

"I thought my flight was a secret."

"Ah, no! No man's flight is secret who comes over the Martian Cap. That can mean but one thing. Yep, the legend of M'Tonak is rife once more, first time in two years. You're supposed to be searching for the lost city ... now, what would ye be wanting with an emerald that big?" Conley half joked, lapsing into his Irish brogue. "Faith an' it makes a man's head swim to think of such riches."

Jim Landor did not smile. He looked at Conley seriously. "I've only been on Mars a year, but naturally I'd heard stories of M'Tonak long before that. _You_ called it a legend just now. Tell me, what is your honest opinion?"

"Well, lad. Certainly there's _something_ up there to cause these stories to persist." Conley rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe it's an ancient city called M'Tonak and maybe it ain't. But men in search for it have disappeared too regularly, hardly men who wouldn't ordinarily fail to return from the Polar wastes. And--and if there is a M'Tonak, your brother may have reached it."

"I shall find my brother," Jim said with a soft certainty. "That's why I'm here. What about that Martian, the one you said accompanied Frank into the Cap? Is he here now?"

"He is, and you shall talk to him. But, lad, I'm afraid he can't tell you any more than I did in the letter."

"I want to hear it first hand."

"Sure," Conley nodded understandingly.

They walked in silence through the powdery sand, nearing the town. Jim glanced at Wessel, silent still, his hieratic smile barely perceptible. There was an uncanny aura to the man as if he were immersed in a world of his own where Jim and Conley had no part.

"There's Frank's mine," Conley pointed beyond the town toward a low line of hills. "If you look close you can see his shack over there. As you probably know, he was--well, the independent type. Refused to sell out to Tri-Planetary Mining. That's why he went on north when his claim petered out, in an effort to find the source of the radite veins. Want to go over there and look around?"

"Later," Jim said shortly.

They entered the sprawling town with its curious Martian dwellings. Jim had never ceased to marvel at them. They were conical and glistening, built of a reddish manufactured silica. They were surrounded by an ascending spiral dotted with entrances to the very top. Jim sometimes wondered, too, at the manner in which Martians tolerated so much from the Earthmen. But then, it was well known that activity to a Martian was the final degradation. They looked upon the exertions of the Earthman in a mixture of uncomprehending wonder and supercilious amusement, much as a human might watch the eternal hustle of a colony of ants. Theirs was a world of philosophic contemplation, peace and indolence.

Now, as they proceeded along the straggling main street of Riida, Jim wondered about them even more. From various ramps of the conical buildings residents watched them silently. Tall, wasp-waisted Martians, dark and leathery, passed them leisurely on the street without a word. They weren't sullen, it was as though they didn't care. Jim peered into their heavy-lidden eyes. Colorless eyes, always. He was startled at the somnolence he saw there. It struck a vague disturbing note in his brain that was dashed away by Conley's booming voice:

"Here we are!"

* * * * *

They had reached a squat, basaltic building which bore the legend TRI-PLANETARY MINING CORPORATION.

"Enter the lair of the Octopus," Conley laughed, glancing at the gilded sign above him.

Wessel frowned at the words, and by that token Jim knew that he was a Corporation man to the hilt.

Within, Jim found himself in an atmosphere as far removed from Mars as day is from night. The office was plain and unpretentious. There was an old-fashioned desk, a few chairs and some iron lockers against the wall. On the walls, in curious contrast, were pictures of cinema stars several years out of date, and a few yellowed maps of the company's workings.

"Not only has Frank's claim petered out," Conley explained, "but Tri-Planet is beginning to. That's the reason Wessel's here, to try and trace these radite veins to their source. We think they must stem from somewhere up in the Cap."

Jim nodded. "You haven't many Earthmen here now, have you?"

"About a dozen," Conley shrugged. "More than enough to handle what little radite's left."

"And we wouldn't even need them," Wessel spoke for the first time, "if we could get these damn lazy Martians to stir themselves."

Jim turned his gaze on the man with slowly dawning wonderment, and would have spoken, but was interrupted by Conley:

"Jim, we thought we'd head up into the Cap in the morning, four or five of us. Wessel wanted to leave several days ago, but I insisted on waiting for you. However, I can't say how far north we'll be going. It all depends on the radite traces."

"Thanks, Conley, I really appreciate it. All I know about this Polar Cap is what I saw flying over it. What do we do, make the trek afoot?"

"Afoot, he says!" Wessel scoffed before Conley could answer. "Man, what a lot you've got to learn yet about that country up there!"

"No," Conley answered, with a distasteful glance at Wessel. "Most men who've tried it afoot have not come back. We're trying it with a couple of sleds. Motor-driven, of course, of very little metal alloy. Furnished benignantly by Tri-Planet Mining, since it's to their advantage that we find new radite deposits." The slight scorn in his voice was not lost on Wessel. "We figure it'll be a two or three day trip each way."

"But of course," Wessel said suavely, "if we find M'Tonak or any other cities up there with big fabulous emeralds, we'll forget about the radite."

Jim was fast learning to dislike this man; he turned to Conley. "I think I'll see this Martian you were telling me about, the one who accompanied my brother."

"Kaarji? Sure. I'll go fetch him."

"Better take me to him instead, I'd rather talk to him alone."

* * * * *

As Conley had said, Kaarji wasn't of much help. The tall, leathery, heavy-chested Martian was even more taciturn than the usual members of his race. He seemed to show a distrust of Jim.

However, he did agree to accompany Jim across the mile strip of desert to Frank Landor's mine nestled against the hills. As they trudged through the sand in silence, Jim glanced occasionally at Kaarji. He was sure he had made it plain that he was Frank Landor's brother. The Martian wasn't dumb, he knew why Jim was here.

With a friendly and almost instinctive gesture Jim offered the Martian a cigarette. Kaarji accepted it, looked at it with distaste as though he had tried them before and abhorred them; but he placed it clumsily in his lips nevertheless and smoked it valiantly. At the same time he reached into his pocket and handed Jim a few tiny purplish objects. Jim accepted them, looked at them and shuddered. He had heard of Martian _tsith_ stems and knew that they made almost all Earthmen violently ill. Nevertheless he plopped them into his mouth and began chewing.

Kaarji looked at him approvingly and gave a grotesque smile. As though the Earthman's act were a signal, he began talking.

"I don't like it in town," Kaarji said. "Too many Earthmen. I like it over here."

"At Frank's mine, you mean?"

"Yes. Frank Landor was a fine man. I am sorry he did not come back."

"Perhaps he will come back," Jim suggested.

But Kaarji shook his head.

It took very little effort then to get the entire story. It seemed that Frank Landor and Kaarji had trekked four days into the Martian Cap. Only Kaarji had ever gone that far before. Late on the fourth day, as they camped, Kaarji was awakened by a shout from Frank. He had leaped up and glimpsed Frank Landor running toward a vehicle that rested at the bottom of an icy decline....

Here Kaarji faltered slightly in his story. He had not seen the vehicle plainly enough nor long enough to describe it as other than a car, seemingly unlike any he had ever seen before. It was simply round and grayish and metallic, and completely enclosed. It had a bluish beam of light in the front of it. Frank Landor had seemed to enter the car--and then it sped away with him.

"Kaarji, try to remember," Jim said to the Martian now. "Frank entered the car of his own volition? You saw no one else, no other person?"

"No one else." Kaarji seemed sure of it.

Jim shook his head in puzzlement. This was the same story Kaarji had told Conley, there were no discrepancies.

They walked on to the mine in silence. Jim examined several tunnels leading back into the hills and saw that Frank's claim had indeed petered out. In his iron-walled cabin, everything was left as though Frank had merely gone and intended to return in a few days.

"Let's go back," Jim said finally. "Nothing we can do here."

On the walk back to Riida, Jim thought that Kaarji looked at him several times as though he were going to speak. But when Jim questioned him, the Martian shook his head negatively. He offered Kaarji another cigarette but this time it was declined.

It was not until then that Jim realized he was still chewing on the Martian _tsith_ stems, and that Kaarji was grinning at him.

It was not until he reached the edge of town that he became violently ill.

II

The sun rose on a crystal clear morning and glanced beckoningly from the white expanse that capped the cliffs a few miles distant. Five men were making the trip: Jim and Kaarji, Conley, Wessel and Lewis, the latter, one of the workmen who had had some Polar experience.

The motor-sled parts were light but bulky, and it took a dozen men to transport them across to the cliffs and up into the Cap, where they would be assembled.

"I want to tell you something about Kaarji," Conley said, walking beside Jim as the trek began. "He's not like other Martians, not philosophic and indolent. On the contrary he seems--well, _restless_."

"I know the type," Jim nodded. "I've seen a few of them myself, even in the Capitol City; amazingly energetic for Martians, restless and perpetually wandering as though seeking for--for something vague and unknown even to them."

"That describes Kaarji, all right," Conley nodded emphatically. "Jim, three times in the past year he's left here abruptly and trekked alone up into those Polar wastes. He'd be gone for days and then show up here again, exhausted and brooding, as if he'd just missed his goal. And the last time was with Frank Landor. That mean anything to you?"

Jim shook his head puzzledly.

"Now I wonder," Conley murmured, "what he always finds so interesting up there in that wilderness?"

"Probably doesn't find anything. Maybe he's only--seeking. Perpetually seeking."

"Seeking M'Tonak?"

"Maybe."

Conley scoffed. "Now what would Kaarji do with the emerald of M'Tonak if he did find it? Of what value would it be to _any_ Martian, to the whole dying Martian race?"

"Maybe it isn't the emerald the Martians are interested in."

Conley was startled, glanced sharply at him, but Jim kept his eyes on the huge bulk of Kaarji ahead.

They reached the black cliffs and entered a narrow defile that led gradually upward, tortuously. The rock was a soft, igneous basalt which at times made footing extremely hazardous. After an hour of this Kaarji stopped abruptly in a level place.

They leaned thankfully against the cliff wall, and stared out upon the curving gleam of the Red Desert far below. There the hazes of pinkish dust were beginning to drift and the sun was beginning to bite.

They continued when Kaarji continued. An hour later the air had become a chilling blast sweeping down the widening ravine. Luckily the ascent was becoming less steep as they neared the top. It levelled off into a shallow little gorge, then they were beyond that, emerging out onto the plateau.

Scattered patches of dark rocky terrain showed here, where green growing things struggled pitifully to maintain a meagre existence. Less than a mile away the real Cap began, dazzling white and forbidding.

Reaching there, the two sleds were assembled in a few minutes. The five who were to make the trip now readjusted their packs and put on the priceless coats of Praaka fur, unbelievably light and cold repelling. They also painstakingly tightened the high fabricord leggings Conley had insisted they wear. Jim wondered why, but asked no questions as he followed suit.

The supplies were on the sleds, but each man carried a fully charged electro-pistol and a small, light metal tank strapped to his side.

"Acid spray," Conley explained laconically. "Don't worry, you'll realize the use for it before long."

* * * * *

Now the real trip began.

"Kaarji, you and Lewis take the first sled," Conley instructed. "We'll follow."

The Martian nodded. The motors purred and the sleds moved slowly away.

"Yes, we'll follow him," Wessel murmured. "Just as long as he sticks fairly close to the radite veins, we will. _This_ is what I'm going by." And he touched the little metallic device at his wrist, which Jim knew was susceptible through super-sensitive coils to all radite emanations within a radius of several miles.

Conley frowned but nodded mute agreement. And now for the first time it really dawned on Jim that he and Kaarji were apart from these other men. He and the Martian were up here seeking, not radite deposits, but something else. The same thing but for different reasons. Jim determined to try, at the first opportunity, to probe into that big Martian's mind.

Now they were speeding into the real Polar vastness. Kaarji's sled ahead of them dipped and rose across long icy undulations. The terrain was wide and white and peaceful as far as Jim could see. He began to wonder why men had never been able to penetrate very far up here. Even afoot it ought not to be hard, but this was ridiculously easy! As he huddled there in his place on the sled he was very warm and cozy beneath his coat of Praaka fur. He began to get drowsy....

* * * * *

Jim awoke with a start from the deep, firm depths of somnolence. He was aware that they had been moving for a long time, probably many hours. Now the sky was dark above him and he could see a few stars. But _something_ had shattered his drowsiness to jerk him back to reality, and he wondered what it was.

Then he knew, as it came again. There was a sudden movement beneath them. The sled lurched crazily. Conley was shouting something, as their sled pulled up beside Kaarji's, which was lying half on its side.

The men stepped down. Again there came that sudden movement, and Jim nearly fell! Startled, he looked down and saw that the very ice cap was moving beneath their feet, or rather it was expanding! Long lines began to appear in every direction. As far as he could see, the surface was a vast mosaic pattern.

Conley stood there with his hands on his hips, staring around. Wessel was cursing softly and looked angry.

"This wouldn't have happened," Wessel said, "if you'd taken my advice and left two days ago! Tomorrow it'll be worse. It'll slow us to a walk. We may as well not have brought along any sleds."

"It would've happened anyway!" Conley snapped testily. "It's just our damnable luck that it had to come early this year. I didn't expect this to start for another month yet. Well, we may as well camp here and get a good start in the morning."

Jim looked at the mosaic pattern across the ice and was relieved to see that it had stopped moving. He peered down into a crack an inch wide, where a billowing powdery stuff exuded to spread thinly over the surface. He touched the stuff with his bare hand. It was uncannily different from snow, being infinitely more powdery yet dazzling white and deadly cold.

"You're witnessing the start of the Polar Cap's receding," Conley explained with a wry smile. "It does that twice a year, you know, getting smaller to about half its present size.

"Receding!" Jim exclaimed. "The damn stuff's expanding, you mean."

"It only looks that way. This is just the preliminary. Soon the extreme edges will vanish away and then the entire Cap will begin receding, for some strange reason. When that starts to happen, too bad for any man caught up here. Frankly, Jim, I should say that, if this continues tomorrow, we ought to head back."

That struck an ominous note in Jim's heart, but he said nothing. To return now would mean they must wait several months before making another attempt.

It was while helping to unroll the wide fabricoid mats that Jim felt the sharp, biting pain just above his knee. He ignored it at first. Then it came again, and he looked down. He saw a pale blue, tubular thing about four inches long. It had bitten through his clothing and into his flesh above the knee. Quiescent now, it clung there, and its transparent bluish tint was taking on a crimson flush as it fed upon his blood.

* * * * *

With a loathing horror Jim reached down and pulled the thing from him. It did not come away easily. He flung it to the ice and tried to crush it with his heel. It seemed amazingly rubbery, resilient, as it darted away from under his foot. Then he saw that others had attached to his fabricoid leggings, and were inching their way upward.

Desperately he tried to brush them off, but they clung tenaciously. Another one bit through his trouser leg and into the flesh. It was cold and loathesome to the touch, but he tore it away with his fingers. Then he staggered back, as he saw that the ice was swarming with the things.

"Your acid tube, man, use it!" he heard Conley cry. "That's all that'll stop 'em!"

Already the men were up-ending the sleds, using them as a barricade from behind which they swept the ice with a thin misty spray. Not wishing to chance that acid on his own person, Jim tore the things from his legs one at a time and flung them out into the spray. They writhed and shrivelled and curled upon themselves, lifeless and blackened.

Others were coming up from the crevices now. The ice was a thick, bluish writhing mass of them. Jim added his spray to the others, sweeping it low across the ice. The acid misted and clung there close to the surface, until gradually the greater mass of the bluish things retreated back into the depths.

Kaarji opened a pouch he carried always with him, took out some _tsith_ stems and placed them in his mouth. He arose and stood gazing out to the north. Jim watched him.

"Whew!" Conley gasped, wiping beads of cold perspiration from his brow. "Just in time! Let those things once get a foothold up here and there's no stopping them. I guess we've settled for most of them, though, they won't come again."

"But what the devil are they?" Jim asked. "And how can they subsist in this barren country?"

"It's not so barren. Far below the ice are green growing things, at least this far south there is. Those blue tube-things ride down with the ice twice a year, feed, and then migrate back to the north.

"Vegetarians, eh?" Jim grunted. "Then what were those two chewing on me for?"

"Blood's something comparatively new to them, and it seems to drive them wild. They can sense it for amazing distances. They come flocking beneath the ice to wherever anyone stops. There's a story of an Earthman who was lost up here once, and--Well, never mind. Anyway we'll take turns on guard tonight."

* * * * *

Jim slept fitfully. There were fragmentary nightmares of the ice opening to spew hordes of bluish tube creatures up at him. He was glad when Kaarji awakened him for his turn at guard.

But Kaarji did not return to sleep either. He seemed restless and brooding. He sat beside Jim against one of the sleds, and for a long time there was silence as he stared far out to the north with troubled eyes.

"Jim Landor," he broke the silence at last, "there is one thing I did not tell you."

"I thought there was."

"Frank Landor and I found something. The body of a man in the ice far to the north of here. It had been there a long time."

Jim merely waited for him to go on.

"In his clothing we found some of these." Kaarji fumbled in his pocket, and handed something to Jim.