Red Planet (11 page)

The desert plateau between Cynia and Charax is higher than the dead sea bottom between Cynia and the equator. This drop is used to move the waters of the southern polar cap across the desert to the great green belt near the equator. In midwinter the southern ice cap reaches to Charax; the double canal of Strymon, which starts at Charax, is one of the principal discharge points for the polar cap when it melts in the spring.

The boys were starting at the lower end of the canal's drop; the walls of the canal reached high above their heads. Furthermore the water level—or ice level—was low because the season was late autumn; the water level would be much higher during spring flood. There was nothing to see but the banks of the canal converging ahead of them, the blue sky beyond, and the purple-black sky overhead. The Sun was behind them and a bit west of meridian; it was moving north toward northern summer solstice. Seasons do not lag on Mars as much as they do on Earth; there are no oceans to hold the heat and the only ‘flywheel’ of the climate is the freezing and melting of the polar caps.

With nothing to see the boys concentrated on skating, heads down and shoulders swinging.

After many miles of monotonous speed Jim grew careless; the toe of his right runner caught on some minor obstruction in the ice. He went down. His suit saved him from ice burns and he knew how to fall safely, but Willis popped out of his bag like a cork from a bottle.

The bouncer, true to instinct, hauled in all excrescences at once. He hit as a ball and rolled; he travelled over the ice for several hundred yards. Frank threw himself into a hockey stop as soon as he saw Jim tumble. He stopped in a shower of ice particles and went back to help Jim up. ‘You all right?’

'Sure. Where's Willis?’

They skated on and recovered the bouncer who was now standing on his tiny legs and waited for them. ‘Whoopee!’ yelled Willis as they came up. ‘Do it again!’

'Not if I can help it,’ Jim assured him and stuffed him back in the bag. ‘Say, Frank, how long have we been travelling?’

'Not over three hours,’ Frank decided, after a glance at the Sun.

'I wish I had my watch,’ complained Jim. ‘We don't want to overrun the shelter.’

'Oh, we won't come to it for another couple of hours, at least.’

'But what's to keep us from passing right by it? We can't see over these banks.’

'Want to turn around and go back?’

'No.’

'Then quit worrying.’

Jim shut up but continued to worry. Perhaps that was why he noticed the only indication of the shelter when they came to it, for Frank skated on past it. It was merely a ramp down the bank. There were such ramps every few miles, as ancient as the canals themselves, but this one had set above it an overhanging beam, as if to support a hoist. Jim spotted it as terrestrial workmanship.

He stopped. Frank skated on ahead, noticed presently that Jim was not following him and came back. ‘What's up?’ he called out.

'I think this is it.’

'Hmm ... could be.’ They removed their skates and climbed the ramp. At the top, set back a short distance from the bank, was one of the bubble-shaped buildings which are the sign anywhere on Mars of the alien from Earth. Beyond it a foundation had been started for the reducing plant. Jim heaved a big sigh. Frank nodded and said, ‘Just about where we expected to find it.’

'And none too soon,’ added Jim. The Sun was close to the western horizon and dropping closer as they watched.

There was, of course, no one in the shelter; no further work would be done at this latitude until the following spring. The shelter was unpressurized; they simply unlatched the outer door, walked through the inner door without delay. Frank groped for the light switch, found it, and lighted up the place—the lighting circuit was powered by the building's atomic fuel power pack and did not require the presence of men,

It was a simple shelter, lined with bunks except for the space occupied by the kitchen unit. Frank looked around happily. ‘Looks like we've found a home from home, Jim.’

'Yep.’ Jim looked around, located the shelter's thermostat, and cut it in. Shortly the room became warmer and with it there was a soft sighing sound as the building's pressure regulator, hooked in with the thermostat, started the building's super-charger. In a few minutes the boys were able to remove their masks and finally their outdoor suits as well.

Jim poked around the kitchen unit, opening cupboards and peering into shelves. ‘Find anything?’ asked Frank.

'Nary a thing. Seems like they could have left at least a can of beans.’

'Now maybe you're glad I raided the kitchen before we left. Supper in five minutes.’

'Okay, so you've got a real talent for crime,’ acknowledged Jim. ‘I salute you.’ He tried the water tap. ‘Plenty of water in the tanks,’ he announced.

'Good!’ Frank answered. ‘That saves me having to go down and chip ice. I need to fill my mask. I was dry the last few miles.’ The high coxcomb structure on a Mars mask is not only a little supercharger with its power pack, needed to pressurize the mask; it is also a small water reservoir. A nipple in the mask permits the wearer to take a drink outdoors, but this is a secondary function. The prime need for water in a Mars mask is to wet a wick through which the air is forced before it reaches the wearer's nose.

'You were? Don't you know better than to drink yourself dry?’

'I forgot to fill it before we left.’

'Tourist!’

'Well, we left in kind of a hurry, you know.’

'How long were you dry?’

'I don't know exactly,’ Frank evaded.

'How's your throat?’

'All right. A little dry, maybe.’

'Let me see it,’ Jim persisted, coming closer.

Frank pushed him away. ‘I tell you it's all right. Let's eat.’

'Well—okay.’

They dined off canned corned beef hash and went promptly to bed. Willis snuggled up against Jim's stomach and imitated his snores.

Breakfast was more of the same, since there was some hash left and Frank insisted that they not waste anything. Willis had no breakfast since he had eaten only two weeks before, but he absorbed nearly a quart of water. As they were about to leave Jim held up a flashlight. ‘Look what I found.’

'Well, put it back and let's go.’

'I think I'll keep it,’ Jim answered, stuffing it in his bag. ‘We might have a use for it.’

'We won't and it's not yours.’

'For criminy's sake, I'm not swiping it; I'm just borrowing it. This is an emergency.’

Frank shrugged. ‘Okay, let's get moving.’ A few minutes later they were on the ice and again headed south. It was a beautiful day, as Martian days almost always are; when the Sun was high enough to fill the slot of the canal it was almost balmy, despite the late season. Frank spotted the tell-tale hoisting beam of a Project shelter around midday and they were able to lunch inside, which saved them the tedious, messy, and unsatisfactory chore of trying to eat through the mouth valve of a respirator mask. The shelter was a twin of the first but no foundation for the plant had as yet been built near it.

As they were preparing to leave the shelter Jim said, ‘You look sort of flushed, Frank. Got a fever?’

'That's just the bloom of health,’ Frank insisted. ‘I'm fine.’ Nevertheless he coughed as he put on his mask. ‘Mars throat,’ Jim thought but said nothing as there was nothing that he could do for Frank.

Mars throat is not a disease in itself; it is simply an extremely dry condition of the nose and throat which arises from direct exposure to Martian air. The humidity on Mars is usually effectively zero; a throat dehydrated by it is wide open to whatever disease organisms there may be present in the human throat at the time. The result is usually a virulent sore throat.

The afternoon passed without incident. As the Sun began to drop toward the skyline it seemed possible that home was not much more than five hundred miles away. Jim had watched Frank closely all afternoon. His chum seemed to be skating as strongly as ever; perhaps, he decided, the cough was just a false alarm. He skated up alongside Frank. ‘I guess we had better start watching for a shelter.’

'Suits me.’

Soon they passed another of the ramps built by long-dead Martians, but there was no hoisting beam above it nor any other sign of terrestrial activity. The banks, though somewhat lower now, were still too high to see over. Jim stepped up the stroke a bit; they hurried on.

They came to another ramp, but again there was nothing to suggest that a shelter might be above it. Jim stopped. ‘I vote we take a look up on the bank,’ he said. ‘We
know
they build the shelters by the ramps and they may have taken the hoist down for some reason.’

'It would just be wasting valuable time,’ Frank protested. ‘If we hurry, we can get to another ramp before dark.’

'Well, if you say so —’ Jim shoved off and picked up speed.

The next ramp was the same story; Jim stopped again. ‘Let's take a look,’ he pleaded. ‘We can't possibly reach the next one before sundown.’

'Okay.’ Frank stooped over and tugged at his skates.

They hurried up the bank and reached the top. The slanting rays of the Sun showed nothing but the vegetation bordering the canal.

Jim felt ready to bawl through sheer weariness and disappointment. ‘Well, what do we do now?’ he said.

'We go back down,’ Frank answered, ‘and keep going until we find it.’

'I don't think we could spot one of those hoist beams in the dark.’

'Then we keep going,’ Frank said grimly, ‘until we fall flat on our faces.’

'More likely we'll freeze.’

'Well, if you want my opinion,’ Frank replied, ‘I think we're washed up. I, for one, can't keep going all night, even if we don't freeze.’

'You don't feel good?’

'That's putting it mildly. Come on.’

'All right.’

Willis had climbed out of the bag and up on Jim's shoulder, in order to see better. Now he bounced to the ground and rolled away. Jim snatched at him and missed. ‘Hey! Willis! Come back here!’

Willis did not answer. Jim started after him. His progress was difficult. Ordinarily he would have gone under the canal plants, but, late in the day as it was, most of them had lowered almost to knee height preparatory to withdrawing into the ground for the night. Some of the less hardy plants were already out of sight, leaving bare patches of ground.

The vegetation did not seem to slow up Willis but Jim found it troublesome; he could not catch the little scamp. Frank shouted, ‘'Ware water-seekers! Watch where you put your feet!’ Thus warned, Jim proceeded more carefully—and still more slowly. He stopped. ‘Willis! Oh, Willis! Come back! Come back, doggone it, or we'll go away and leave you.’ It was a completely empty threat.

Frank came crashing up and joined him. ‘We can't hang around up here, Jim.’

'I know it. Wouldn't you know that he would pull a stunt like this just at the wrong time?’

'He's a pest, that's what he is. Come on.’

Willis's voice—or, rather, Jim's voice as used by Willis—reached them from a distance. ‘Jim boy! Jim! Come here!’

Jim struggled through the shrinking vegetation with Frank after him. They found the bouncer resting at the edge of an enormous plant, a desert cabbage quite fifty yards across. The desert cabbage is not often found near the canals; it is a weed and not tolerated in the green sea bottoms of the lower latitudes, though it may be found in the deserts miles from any surface water.

The western half of this specimen was still spread out in a semi-circular fan, flat to the ground, but the eastern half was tilted up almost vertically, its flat leaves still reaching greedily for the Sun's rays to fuel the photosynthesis by which plants live. A hardy plant, it would not curl up until the Sun was gone completely, and it would not withdraw into the ground at all. Instead it would curl into a tight ball, thus protecting itself from the cold and incidentally simulating, on giant scale, the Earth plant for which it was named.

Willis sat by the edge of the half that was flat to the ground. Jim reached for him.

Willis bounced up on the edge of the desert cabbage and rolled toward the heart of the plant. Jim stopped and said, ‘Oh, Willis, darn your eyes, come back here. Please come back.’

'Don't go after him,’ warned Frank. ‘That thing might close up on you. The Sun is almost down.’

'I won't. Willis! Come back!’

Willis called back, ‘Come here, Jim boy.’

'You
come
here.'

'Jim boy come here. Frank come here. Cold there. Warm here.’

'Frank, what'll I do?’

Willis called again. ‘Come, Jim boy. Warm! Stay warm all night.’

Jim stared. ‘You know what, Frank? I think he means to let it close up on him. And he wants us to join him.’

'Sounds that way.’

'Come, Jim! Come, Frank!’ Willis insisted. ‘Hurry!’

'Maybe he knows what he's doing,’ Frank added. ‘Like Doc says, he's got instincts for Mars and we haven't.’

'But we can't go inside a cabbage. It would crush us.’

'I wonder.’

'Anyhow, we'd suffocate.’

'Probably.’ Frank suddenly added, ‘Do as you like, Jim. I can't skate any further.’ He set foot on a broad leaf—which flinched under the contact—and strode steadily toward the bouncer. Jim watched for a moment and then ran after them.

Willis greeted them ecstatically. ‘Good boy, Frank! Good boy, Jim! Stay nice and warm all night.’

The Sun was slipping behind a distant dune; the sunset wind whipped coldly at them. The far edges of the plant lifted and began to curl toward them. ‘We still could get out if we jumped, Frank,’ Jim said nervously.

'I'm staying.’ Nevertheless Frank eyed the approaching leaves apprehensively.

'We'll smother.’

'Maybe. That's better than freezing.’

The inner leaves were beginning to curl faster than the outer leaves. Such a leaf, four feet wide at its widest and at least ten feet long, raised up back of Jim and curved in until it touched his shoulder. Nervously he struck at it. The leaf snatched itself away, then slowly resumed its steady progress toward him. ‘Frank,’ Jim said shrilly, ‘they'll smother us!’