Part 11

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.