Chapter 2
Kroger is busy in his cramped lab space trying to classify the little moss he was able to gather, and Jones and Pat are up front watching the white specks revolve on that black velvet again.
Guess I'll take a nap.
* * * * *
_June 26, 1961_
Hell's bells. Kroger says there are two baby Martians loose on board ship. Pat told him he was nuts, but there are certain signs he's right. Like the missing charcoal in the air-filtration-and-reclaiming (AFAR) system. And the water gauges are going down. But the clincher is those two sugar crystals Lloyd had grabbed up when we were in that zoo. They're gone.
Pat has declared a state of emergency. Quick thinking, that's Pat. Lloyd, before he remembered and turned scarlet, suggested we radio Earth for instructions. We can't.
Here we are, somewhere in a void headed for Earth, with enough air and water left for maybe three days--if the Martians don't take any more.
Kroger is thrilled that he is learning something, maybe, about Martian reproductive processes. When he told Pat, Pat put it to a vote whether or not to jettison Kroger through the airlock. However, it was decided that responsibility was pretty well divided. Lloyd had gotten the crystals, Kroger had only studied them, and Jones had brought them aboard.
So Kroger stays, but meanwhile the air is getting worse. Pat suggested Kroger put us all into a state of suspended animation till landing time, eight months away. Kroger said, "How?"
* * * * *
_June 27, 1961_
Air is foul and I'm very thirsty. Kroger says that at least--when the Martians get bigger--they'll have to show themselves. Pat says what do we do _then_? We can't afford the water we need to melt them down. Besides, the melted crystals might _all_ turn into little Martians.
Jones says he'll go down spitting.
Pat says why not dismantle interior of rocket to find out where they're holing up? Fine idea.
How do you dismantle riveted metal plates?
* * * * *
_June 28, 1961_
The AFAR system is no more and the water gauges are still dropping. Kroger suggests baking bread, then slicing it, then toasting it till it turns to carbon, and we can use the carbon in the AFAR system.
We'll have to try it, I guess.
* * * * *
The Martians ate the bread. Jones came forward to tell us the loaves were cooling, and when he got back they were gone. However, he did find a few of the red crystals on the galley deck (floor). They're good-sized crystals, too. Which means so are the Martians.
Kroger says the Martians must be intelligent, otherwise they couldn't have guessed at the carbohydrates present in the bread after a lifelong diet of anthracite. Pat says let's jettison Kroger.
This time the vote went against Kroger, but he got a last-minute reprieve by suggesting the crystals be pulverized and mixed with sulphuric acid. He says this'll produce carbon.
I certainly hope so.
So does Kroger.
* * * * *
Brief reprieve for us. The acid-sugar combination not only produces carbon but water vapor, and the gauge has gone up a notch. That means that we have a quart of water in the tanks for drinking. However, the air's a bit better, and we voted to let Kroger stay inside the rocket.
Meantime, we have to catch those Martians.
* * * * *
_June 29, 1961_
Worse and worse. Lloyd caught one of the Martians in the firing chamber. We had to flood the chamber with acid to subdue the creature, which carbonized nicely. So now we have plenty of air and water again, but besides having another Martian still on the loose, we now don't have enough acid left in the fuel tanks to make a landing.
Pat says at least our vector will carry us to Earth and we can die on our home planet, which is better than perishing in space.
The hell it is.
* * * * *
_March 3, 1962_
Earth in sight. The other Martian is still with us. He's where we can't get at him without blow-torches, but he can't get at the carbon in the AFAR system, either, which is a help. However, his tail is prehensile, and now and then it snakes out through an air duct and yanks food right off the table from under our noses.
Kroger says watch out. _We_ are made of carbohydrates, too. I'd rather not have known.
* * * * *
_March 4, 1962_
Earth fills the screen in the control room. Pat says if we're lucky, he might be able to use the bit of fuel we have left to set us in a descending spiral into one of the oceans. The rocket is tighter than a submarine, he insists, and it will float till we're rescued, if the plates don't crack under the impact.
We all agreed to try it. Not that we thought it had a good chance of working, but none of us had a better idea.
* * * * *
I guess you know the rest of the story, about how that destroyer spotted us and got us and my diary aboard, and towed the rocket to San Francisco. News of the "captured Martian" leaked out, and we all became nine-day wonders until the dismantling of the rocket.
Kroger says he must have dissolved in the water, and wonders what _that_ would do. There are about a thousand of those crystal-scales on a Martian.
So last week we found out, when those red-scaled things began clambering out of the sea on every coastal region on Earth. Kroger tried to explain to me about salinity osmosis and hydrostatic pressure and crystalline life, but in no time at all he lost me.
The point is, bullets won't stop these things, and wherever a crystal falls, a new Martian springs up in a few weeks. It looks like the five of us have abetted an invasion from Mars.
Needless to say, we're no longer heroes.
I haven't heard from Pat or Lloyd for a week. Jones was picked up attacking a candy factory yesterday, and Kroger and I were allowed to sign on for the flight to Venus scheduled within the next few days--because of our experience.
Kroger says there's only enough fuel for a one-way trip. I don't care. I've always wanted to travel with the President.
--JACK SHARKEY
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Galaxy Magazine_ June 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Dope on Mars, by John Michael Sharkey