Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 (7 page)

 
          
Pulambar,
I mean.”

 
          
A
tentacle pointed away. “But you cannot travel by day, on foot and un- derr the
ssun. Wait until night. We sshall help you then.”

 
          
Once
again Stover took a look about. He saw whence had come the trickle into his
mouth. One of those drinking tubes had been thrust into the integument of a
great branch above him. Since he was awake, the tip of the tube had been
thriftily plugged. But he felt dry again, and as though reading that thought in
his mind, the Martian who did the talking removed the plug.

 
          
“Drrink,”
he bade Stover, and Stover drank.

 
          
He
pulled strongly on the tube, and a delicious spurt of plant-juice, free-
flowing and pleasantly tart-sweet, filled his mouth. What joy to drink! What
relief, what privilege.

 
          
He
stopped sucking all at once. “Plug that up,” he commanded. “Isn’t it very
precious, that juice? How
is
there enough for me and
for you others, too?”

           
Something like a deprecating chuckle
came from his attendant. “Do not ssay the worrd ‘enough’, Dillon Sstover.
On Marrss, therre iss no ssuch worrd ass ‘enough’.”

 
          
“You’ve
been depriving yourselves to take care of me!” Stover marveled, almost
accusingly. “Why? I’m a stranger, a vagabond, wanted by police, charged with
murder.”

 
         
HE
was suddenly aware that another dreadful pain was missing, the racking
vibration of the bracelet. He lifted his left hand. The skin of it was scraped,
broken in places, but the wrist was naked. The sinister metal ring was gone.

 
          
“How
did you get it off of me?” he asked. “It was due to explode if you tinkered
with it.”

 
          
“And
sso we did not tinkerr with it,” was the calm reply.
“Firrsst,
a grreasse to make yourr hand and wrrisst verry sslipperry—then carre- ful
prrying and tugging.
We got the brracelet off without injurring it. We
know how to deal with ssuch thingss. One of
uss
crrept
forrth and laid the brracelet on the ssand farr frrom herre. It was picked up
ass a clue by police ssearcherrs.”

 
          
Dillon
Stover sighed gratefully. Not only was he free of an awful agony* but there
would now be no following of him by those who hunted him.

 
          
“I
started to ask you,” he resumed, “why you helped a stranger, a Terrestrial
fugitive from the law, to so great an extent.”

 
          
“You
arre Dillon Sstoverr,” said the Martian simply. “Beforre you lost yourr
ssenssess, you told uss yourr name.”

 
         
STOVER
looked his mystification. “But what difference—”

 
          
A
tentacle pointed to a little niche across the dome-den. There nestled a shabby
old radio, near which the other two Martians sprawled. The thing only
whispered, but they were getting news of the universe.

 
          
“We
have communicationss,” the one with the voice-box told Stover. “We know what
befell you in Pulam- barr, what charrge iss made by the officialss. But we
know, alsso, why you
came
herre—to do the worrk begun
by yourr grrandfatherr.”

 
          
“The
work of my grandfather,” repeated Stover. He had almost forgotten it. “You mean
the condenser- ray?”

 
          
“Yess.
The hope of Marrss.”

 
          
Stover
had recovered enough to tell himself savagely that he had become short-sighted,
selfish,
craven
. The Martian was right. He, Dillon
Stover, meant the sole chance of a dying world for a new lease on life. He was
fleeing for more than his own life.

 
          
“I
know so little,” he pleaded. “I’ve been here only three days, and for most of
that time I’ve been running from both police and law-breakers. I have now a
better idea of what water means to this planet, but—”

 
          
“Come,
if you arre strrong enough,” bade his helper.

 
          
Stover
got up, having to stoop beneath the low dome, and made his way to the radio.
Quickly the Martian turned on the television power, and a small screen lighted
up. Tentacles turned dials.

 
          
Stover
saw a gently rolling plain, grown over with hardy, tufty scrub, the chief
vegetation of Mars. From it
rose
a vast and blocky
structure, acres in extent. The construction seemed to be of massive concrete
or plastic, reenforced by joinings and bands of metal. As the viewpoint of the
television made the building grow larger and nearer by degrees, Stover saw that
it had no visible doors or other apertures. Along walks at the top, and around
railed ways at the bottom, walked armed Martian guards in brace-harness to hold
them upright. The roof bristled with ray-throwers and electro-automatic guns.

 
          
“A
fort?” said Stover. “I thought Mars was at peace everywhere.” “Therre iss no
peace in the conflict with drrought,” his informant told him. “You ssee yonderr
a
rresser- voirr.
It holdss a
gatherring of the mosst prreciouss thing on thiss planet —waterr.”

 
          
“It
has to be guarded like that?”
“Ssurrely.
People would
rrisk anything to ssteal a little—only a little.
The only
frree waterr on all thiss worrld iss in the guarrded and rre- sstricted city of
Pulambar
, frrom which you have fled.”

 
          
The
dial clicked, another scene showed itself. Stover saw a building with open
front before which huddled and
crept
a line of
wretched Martians. Each presented a document to an official. Each was
grudgingly handed a small container, no larger than a cup. Stover turned his
head away. With a sympathetic purr, his companion turned the radio off.

 
          
“Water-lines,”
muttered Stover.
“Guarded reservoirs.
Little camps
like this—and nobody has enough water. Malbrook, who held the monopoly, did
this to Mars.”

 
          
“You
sserrved
uss
well by killing him,” said the Martian.
“Come, I wissh to dampen yourr sskin again.”

 
         
HE
would not take no for an answer. An application of the

 
          
plant-juice
refreshed Stover’s thirsty body all over.

 
          
“Do
not thank uss,” deprecated the Martian. “We do thiss becausse, to rrepeat
mysself, you arre the hope of Marrss. By depriving ourr- sselvess of waterr
rrationss today, we arre prreparring you forr the tassk of winning
uss
plenty in the futurre.”

 
          
“You’re
trying not to be noble,” Stover smiled. “But what if I miss out? If I’m caught,
or killed, or if I try to develop the ray and can’t?”

 
          
“We
sshall have played forr high sstakess, and losst.”

 
          
Stover
found his clothing, neatly folded away, and began to struggle into it.

 
          
“When
nightfall comes, I go,” he announced.

 
          
“The
besst rrefuge among the nearr townss—” began his rescuer.

 
          
“I’m
going back to Pulambar,” said Stover grimly.

 
          
All
three Martians turned toward him silently. They had no human eyes, yet he had
the sense of being stared at.

 
          
“I
mean it,” he insisted. “Pulambar’s the place. The lights will guide me, and
this stuff on my skin will keep me from drying out too soon. I can get by the
outer guards, because I’m Terrestrial with money in my pocket. I’ve got to find
the real killer and first put myself in the clear.”

 
          
“Then?”
prompted the Martian with the voice-box.

 
          
“Then,”
and Stover’s voice rang like a bell inside the little dome, “I’m going to
perfect that condenser-ray. I was wrong to want to play around first. Buckalew
was right to keep after me. You’ve shown me a duty I can’t turn away from. That
killer in Pulambar had better hold onto his hat, because I’m going to smack him
right out from under it!”

 
         
ONCE
more back on the bright streets of Pulambar, Stover skirted a building and came
to a canal crossing full of music and carnival. Entrance to the city had been
quite as easy as he had figured. No one had dreamed that the fugitive would
circle back. He halted now to consider his next step.

 
          
A
mortised gondola of the cabin type bore a yapping loud-speaker
^ur
ging
all to join a sight-seeing tour. Stover joined the welter of honey- mooners,
space-hands, clerks on holiday and similar rubberneckers. A crowd like that
made good disguise, and the gondola would take him to a certain definite
jumping-off place for his newly chosen goal.

 
          
He
sat back in a shadowy corner of the vehicle. The guide lectured eloquently as
he clamped shut the ports and took them on a brief dive to show the underwater
foundations of Pulambar, fringed with the rare lakeweed that was to be seen
nowhere else on Mars. Stover remembered yet again how Buckalew had exhorted
him—it seemed centuries before—to work hard for the salvation of Mars by the
condenser ray.

 
          
Peering
from his port, he saw the enclosing water, only a saucerful compared to the
oceans of Earth, but here a curiosity and a luxury. He remembered, too, how he
had seen in the television a desert where dammed and covered reservoirs were
guarded by armed Martian troops as the most precious treasure-vaults of the
planet.

 
          
He
brought back to mind the pitiful folk of other Martian communities, who must
deny themselves everything to pay the rates for only a tiny supervised trickle
of the fluid which was life to them. All this he could obviate if he finished
the ray mechanism—if he ever had a chance to finish it.

 
          
“I
may die from something worse than water shortage if I don’t look sharp,” he
told himself.

 
          
In
his role of tourist, he achieved an appearance of attention as a lens- window
in the roof was set so that the gaping tourists might look their fill upon the
magnified disk of crystal rock that was the hurtling moon Phobos. He did his
best to seem casual as they approached the sixth or seventh public building for
a supervised inspection.

 
          
“Architecture
bureau,” announced the guide, impressively as though it were something he
himself had planned and created. “Pulambar belongs as you know, to one great
group of interests. Every building, small and great, rich and simple, must be
maintained by that company. Pulambar being Pulambar, everything must stay at
its best and most beautiful. No repairs are skimped or delayed anywhere. Look
about you!”

 
         
LEAVING
the gondola, they entered a lofty room fitted as a main office. Around the
sides were desks at which workers mostly Martians, toiled at reports or
instruments. Tourist parties being frequent here, no attention was paid to the
intruders. The guide marshaled his charges around an alterlike stand in the
center of the floor, on which glowed something that at first glance seemed a
luminous birthday cake with myriad candles. A second look revealed an
exquisitely made miniature of a group of buildings. “A model of Pulambar,”
breathed someone, but the guide laughed in lofty negation.

 
          
‘‘It’s
a three-dimensional reflection, an image. Here, focused by an intricate system
of televiso rays, is an actual miniature image of the city. Observe the detail
of buildings and towers. Look closely and you will see actual movement of
gondolas on the little canals, and flying specks in the upper levels, denoting
aircraft.”

 
          
It
was so. The sightseers stared raptly. Even Stover, his mind filled with other
things, was impressed.

 
          
“If
we could see microscopically,” went on the guide, “we’d even make out ourselves
standing inside this building. And yet this is only an image, a concentration
of light rays.” To demonstrate, he passed his hand through the gleaming
structure. “This miniature keeps before the attention of the Bureau the city’s state
of affairs, showing if anything is wrong in building or service. For instance—”

 
          
His
forefinger hovered above one of the tiny towers, a jewel-delicate upward
thrust. Malbrook’s tower!

 
          
“See
that bright point of light? Something is wrong. And,” the guide’s voice shifted
to a dramatic bass, “it happens to be something of grim tragedy. That, my
friends, is the spot where the awful explosion-slaying of Mace Malbrook took
place recently. The speck of brilliance shows that repairs are needed there.
This is to be done right away—now that the police relinquish the place.”

 
          
The
tourists hung on his words. Stover glanced to a bulletin screen, where
work-details were posted. It was as he hoped. Halfway down were three words: