Message from Mars - (2)

I hope he doesn't make any trouble, Scott told himself. It was bad enough just to have him along. Bad enough to have this added responsibility.
    For space flight was a dangerous job. Ever since the International Mars Communication Center had been formed, with Alexander in charge, space had flung men aside. Ship after ship, pilot after pilot. The task, alone, of reaching the Moon had taken terrible toll.
    Men had died. Some had died before they reached the Moon, some had died on the Moon but mostly they had died heading back for Earth. For landing on Earth, jockeying a rocket through Earth's dense atmosphere, is a tricky job. Others had died enroute to Mars, ships flaring in space or simply disappearing, going on and on, never coming back. That was the way it had been with Hugh.
    And now his brother, Scott, was following the trail that Hugh had blazed, the trail to the Moon and out beyond. Following in a bomb of potential death, with a blank-faced stowaway in the chair beside him.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Half way to Mars and the ship was still intact. Running true to course, running on schedule, flashing through space under the thrust of momentum built up during the blast-out from the Moon.
    Half way to Mars and still alive! But too early yet to hope. Perhaps other men had gotten as far as this and then something had happened.
    Scott watched the depths of space, the leering, jeering emptiness of star-studded velvet that stretched on and on.
    There had been days of waiting and of watching. More days of waiting and of watching loomed ahead.
    Waiting for that warning flicker on the instrument panel, that split second warning before red ruin struck as cranky fuel went haywire.
    Waiting for the "tick" of a tiny meteor against the ship's steel wall ... the tiny, ringing sound that would be the prelude to disaster.
    Waiting for something else ... for that unknown factor of accident that would spatter the ship and the two men in it through many empty miles.
    Endless hours of watching and of waiting, hastily snatched cat-naps in the chair, hastily snatched meals. Listening to the babbling Jimmy Baldwin who wondered how his flowers were getting on, speculated on what the boys were doing back in the rocket camp on Earth.
    One thing hammered at Scott Nixon's brain ... the message of the Martian radio, the message that had been coming now for many years. "No. No. No come. Danger." Always that and little else. No explanation of what the danger was. No suggestion for circumventing or correcting that danger. No helpfulness in Earthmen's struggle to cross the miles of space between two neighboring planets.
    Almost as if the Martians didn't want Earthmen to come. Almost as if they were trying to discourage space travel. But that would hardly be the case, for the Martians had readily co-operated in establishing communications, had exhibited real intelligence and earnestness in working out the code that flashed words and thoughts across millions of miles.
    Without a doubt, had they wished, the Martians could have helped. For it was with seemingly little effort that they sent their own rockets to earth.
    And why had each Martian rocket carried the same load each time? Could there be some significance in those Martian lily seeds? Some hidden meaning the Earth had failed to grasp? Some meaning that the things from Mars hoped would be read with each new rocket-load?
    Why hadn't the Martians come themselves? If they could shoot automatic rockets across the miles of space, certainly they could navigate rockets carrying themselves.
    The Martian rockets had been closely studied back on Earth but had yielded no secrets. The fuel always was exhausted. More than likely the Martians knew, to the last drop, how much was needed. The construction was not unlike Earth rockets, but fashioned of a steel that was hardened and toughened beyond anything Earth could produce.
    So for ten years Earthmen had worked unaided to cross the bridge of space, launching ships from the Earth's most favored take-off point, from the top of Mt. Kenya, heading out eastward into space, taking advantage of the mountain's three mile height, the Earth's rotation speed of 500 yards per second at the equator.
    Scott reviewed his flight, checked the clocklike routine he had followed. Blast-off from Earth. Landing in the drear, desolate Mare Serenitatis on the Moon, refueling the ship from the buried storage tanks, using the caterpillar tractor from the underground garage to haul the rocket onto the great turn-table cradle. Setting the cradle at the correct angle and direction, blasting off again at the precise second, carrying a full load of fuel, something impossible to do and still take off from Earth. Taking advantage of the Moon's lower gravity, its lack of atmosphere. Using the Moon as a stepping stone to outer space.
    Now he was headed for Mars. If he landed there safely, he could spend two days, no more, no less, before he blasted off for Earth again.
    But probably he wouldn't reach Mars. Probably he and Jimmy Baldwin, in the end, would be just a few more bones to pave the road to Mars.
    III
    A gigantic building, rising to several hundred feet in height, domed, without door or window, stood lonely in the vastness of the red plain that stretched to the far-off black horizon.
    The building and nothing more. No other single sign of habitation. No other evidence of intelligent life.
    The Martian lilies were everywhere, great fields of them, bright scarlet against the redness of the sand. But in its native soil the Martian lily was a sorry thing, a poor apology for the kind of flower that grew on Earth. Stunted, low-growing, with smaller and less brilliant flowers.
    The sand gritted under Scott's boots as he took a slow step forward.
    So this was Mars! Here, at the North pole ... the single building ... the only evidence of intelligence on the entire planet. As the ship had circled the planet, cutting down its tremendous speed, he had studied the surface in the telescopic glass and this building had been the only habitation he had seen.
    It stood there, made of shimmering metal, glinting in the pale sunlight.
    "Bugs," said Jimmy, at Scott's elbow.
    "What do you mean, bugs?" asked Scott.
    "Bugs in the air," said Jimmy. "Flying bugs."
    Scott saw them then. Things that looked like streaks of light in the feeble sunshine. Swarms of them hovered about the great building and others darted busily about.
    "Bees," suggested Jimmy.
    But Scott shook his head. They weren't bees. They glinted and flashed when the sun's light struck them and they seemed more mechanical than life-like.
    "Where are the Martians?" Jimmy demanded.
    "I don't know, Jimmy," declared Scott. "Damned if I do."
    He had envisioned the first Earthmen reaching Mars as receiving thunderous ovation, a mighty welcome from the Martians. But there weren't any Martians. Nothing stirred except the shining bugs and the lilies that nodded in a thin, cold breeze.
    There was no sound, no movement. Like a quiet summer afternoon back on Earth, with a veil of quietness drawn over the flaming desert and the shimmering building.
    He took another step, walking toward the great building. The sand grated protestingly beneath his boot-heels.
    Slowly he approached the building, alert, watching, ready for some evidence that he and Jimmy had been seen. But no sign came. The bugs droned overhead, the lilies nodded sleepily. That was all.
    Scott looked at the thermometer strapped to the wrist of his oxygen suit. The needle registered 10 above, Centigrade. Warm enough, but the suits were necessary, for the air was far too thin for human consumption.
    Deep shadow lay at the base of the building and as he neared it, Scott made out something that gleamed whitely in the shadow. Something that struck a chord of remembrance in his brain, something he had seen back on Earth.
    As he hurried forward he saw it was a cross. A white cross thrust into the sand.
    With a cry he broke into a run.
    Before the cross he dropped to his knees and read the crudely carved inscription on the wood. Just two words. The name of a man, carven with a jack-knife:
    HARRY DECKER
    Harry Decker! Scott felt his brain swimming crazily.
    Harry Decker here! Harry Decker under the red sand of Mars! But that couldn't be. Harry Decker's name couldn't be here. It was back on Earth, graven on that scroll of bronze. Graven there directly beneath the name of Hugh Nixon.
    He staggered to his feet and stood swaying for a moment.
    From somewhere far away he heard a shout and swinging around, ran toward the corner of the building.
    Rounding it, he stopped in amazement.
    There, in the shelter of the building, lay a rusted space ship and running across the sand toward him was a space-suited figure, a figure that yelled as it ran and carried a bag over its shoulder, the bag bouncing at every leap.
    "Hugh!" yelled Scott.
    And the grotesque figure bellowed back.
    "Scott, you old devil! I knew you'd do it! I knew it was you the minute I heard the rocket blasts!"
    *       *       *       *       *
    "It's nice and warm here now," said Hugh, "but you'd ought to spend a winter here. An Arctic blizzard is a gentle breeze compared with the Martian pole in winter time. You don't see the Sun for almost ten months and the mercury goes down to 100 below, Centigrade. Hoar frost piles up three and four feet thick and a man can't stir out of the ship."
    He gestured at the bag.
    "I was getting ready for another winter. Just like a squirrel. My supplies got low before this spring and I had to find something to store up against another season. I found a half dozen different kinds of bulbs and roots and some berries. I've been gathering them all summer, storing them away."
    "But the Martians?" protested Scott. "Wouldn't the Martians help you?"
    His brother looked at him curiously.
    "The Martians?" he asked.
    "Yes, the Martians."
    "Scott," Hugh said, "I haven't found the Martians."
    Scott stared at him. "Let's get this straight now. You mean you don't know who the Martians are?"
    Hugh nodded. "That's exactly it. I tried to find them hard enough. I did all sorts of screwy things to contact that intelligence which talked with the Earth and sent the rockets full of seed, but I've gotten exactly nowhere. I've finally given up."
    "Those bugs," suggested Scott. "The shining bugs."
    Hugh shook his head. "No soap. I got the same idea and managed to bat down a couple of them. But they're mechanical. That's all. Just machines. Operated by radium.
    "It almost drove me nuts at first. Those bugs flying around and the building standing there and the Martian lilies all around, but no signs of any intelligence. I tried to get into the building but there aren't any doors or windows. Just little holes the bugs fly in and out of.
    "I couldn't understand a thing. Nothing seemed right. No purpose to any of it. No apparent reason. Only one thing I could understand. Over on the other side of the building I found the cradle that is used to shoot the rockets to Earth. I've watched that done."
    "But what happened?" asked Scott. "Why didn't you come back? What happened to the ship?"
    "We had no fuel," said Hugh.
    Scott nodded his head.
    "A meteor in space."
    "Not that," Hugh told him, "Harry simply turned the petcocks, let our gasoline run into the sand."
    "Good Lord! Was he crazy?"
    "That's exactly what he was," Hugh declared. "Batty as a bedbug. Touch of space madness. I felt sorry for him. He cowered like a mad animal, beaten by the sense of loneliness and space. He was afraid of shadows. He got so he didn't act like a man. I was glad for him when he died."
    "But even a crazy man would want to get back to Earth!" protested Scott.
    "It wasn't Harry," Hugh explained. "It was the Martians, I am sure. Whatever or wherever they are, they probably have intelligences greater than ours. It would be no feat for them, perhaps, to gain control of the brain of a demented man. They might not be able to dominate us, but a man whose thought processes were all tangled up by space madness would be an easy mark for them. They could make him do and think whatever they wanted him to think or do. It wasn't Harry who opened those petcocks, Scott. It was the Martians."
    He leaned against the pitted side of the ship and stared up at the massive building.
    "I was plenty sore at him when I caught him at it," he said. "I gave him one hell of a beating. I've always been sorry for that."
    "What finally happened to him?" asked Scott.
    "He ran out of the airlock without his suit," Hugh explained. "It took me half an hour to run him down and bring him back. He took pneumonia. You have to be careful here. Exposure to the Martian atmosphere plays hell with a man's lung tissues. You can breathe it all right ... might even be able to live in it for a few hours, but it's deadly just the same."
    "Well, it's all over now," declared Scott. "We'll get my ship squared around and we'll blast off for Earth. We made it here and we can make it back. And you'll be the first man who ever set his foot on Mars."
    Hugh grinned. "That will be something, won't it, Scott? But somehow I'm not satisfied. I haven't accomplished a thing. I haven't even found the Martians. I know they're here. An intelligance that's at least capable of thinking along parallel lines with us although its thought processes may not be parallel with ours."
    "We'll talk it over later," said Scott. "After we get a cup of coffee into you. I bet you haven't had one in weeks."
    "Weeks," jeered Hugh. "Man, it's been ten months."
    "Okay, then," said Scott. "Let's round up Jimmy. He must be around here somewhere. I don't like to let him get out of my sight too much."
    *       *       *       *       *
    The silence of the dreaming red deserts was shattered by a smashing report that drummed with a mighty clap against the sky above. A gush of red flame spouted over the domed top of the mighty building and metal shards hammered spitefully against the sides, setting up a metallic undertone to the ear-shattering explosion.
    Sick with dread, Scott plunged to the corner of the building and felt the sick dread deepen.
    Where his space ship had lain a mighty hole was blasted in the sand. The ship was gone. No part of it was left. It had been torn into tiny fragments and hurled across the desert. Wisps of smoke crept slowly from the pit in the sand, twisting in the air currents that still swirled from the blast.
    Scott knew what had happened. There was no need to guess. Only one thing could have happened. The liquid oxygen had united with the gasoline, making an explosive that was sheer death itself. A single tremor, a thrown stone, a vibration ... anything would set it off.
    Across the space between himself and the ship came the tattered figure of a man. A man whose clothes were torn. A man covered with blood, weaving, head down, feet dragging.
    "Jimmy!" yelled Scott.
    He sprinted forward but before he could reach his side, Jimmy had collapsed.
    Kneeling beside him, Scott lifted the man's head.
    The eyes rolled open and the lips twitched. Slow, tortured words oozed out.
    "I'm sorry ... Scott. I don't know why...."
    The eyes closed but opened again, a faint flutter, and more words bubbled from the bloody lips.
    "I wonder why I did it!"
    Scott looked up and saw his brother standing in front of him.
    Hugh nodded. "The Martians again, Scott. They could use Jimmy's mind. They could get hold of him. That blasted brain of his...."
    Scott looked down at the man in his arms. The head had fallen back, the eyes were staring, blood was dripping on the sand.
    "Hugh," he whispered, "Jimmy's dead."
    Hugh stared across the sand at the little glimmer of white in the shadow of the building.
    "We'll make another cross," he said.
    IV
    The Martians hadn't wanted them to to come. That much, at least, was clear. But having gotten here, the Martians had no intention of letting them return to Earth again. They didn't want them to carry back the word that it was possible to navigate across space to the outer planet.
    Maybe the Martians were committed to a policy of isolation. Maybe there was a "Hands Off" sign set up on Mars. Maybe a "No trespassing" sign.
    But if that had been the case, why had the Martians answered the radio calls from Earth? Why had they co-operated with Dr. Alexander in working out the code that made communication possible? And why did they continue sending messages and rockets to the Earth? Why didn't they sever diplomatic relationship entirely, retire into their isolation?
    If they didn't want Earthmen to come to Mars why hadn't they trained guns on the two ships as they came down to the scarlet sand, wiped them out without compunction? Why did they resort to the expedient of forcing Earthmen to bring about their own destruction? And why, now that Harry Decker and Jimmy Baldwin were dead, didn't the Martians wipe out the remaining two of the unwanted race?
    Perhaps the Martians were merely efficient, not vindictive. Maybe they realized that the remaining two Earthmen constituted no menace? And maybe, on the other hand, the Martians had no weapons. Perhaps they never had held a need for weapons. It might be they had never had to fight for self preservation.
    And above and beyond all ... what and where were the Martians? In that huge building? Invisible? In caverns beneath the surface? At some point far away?
    Maybe ... perhaps ... why? Speculation and wonderment.
    But there was no answer. Not even the slightest hint. Just the building shimmering in the unsetting Sun, the metallic bugs buzzing in the air, the lilies nodding in the breeze that blew across the desert.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Scott Nixon reached the rim of the plateau and lowered the bag of roots from his shoulder, resting and waiting for Hugh to toil up the remaining few yards of the slope.
    Before him, slightly over four miles across the plain, loomed the Martian building. Squatting at its base was the battered, pitted space ship. There was too much ozone in the atmosphere here for the steel in the ship to stand up. Before many years had passed it would fall to pieces, would rust away. But that made little difference, for by that time they probably wouldn't need it. By that time another ship would have arrived or they would be dead.
    Scott grinned grimly. A hard way to look at things. But the only way. One had to be realistic here. Hard-headed planning was the only thing that would carry them through. The food supply was short and while they'd probably be able to gather enough for the coming winter, there was always the possibility that the next season would find them short.
    But there was hope to cling to. Always hope. Hope that the summer would bring another ship winging out of space ... that this time, armed by past experience, they could prevent its destruction.