Part 10

"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."