Erik Fennel

“ It was sheer bad luck that brought Colonel Hammer around the corner of the building just as Nick prodded his captive out into the sea of mud, and more bad luck that the camp's commander was nervously fingering a night gun.
Nick felt the gun's light beam fall upon him, saw the red sighting spot, and felt a stunning tug at his shoulder just as he threw himself flat. Then Harmon's pistol rocked in his hand and Hammer's body vanished in a shower of coruscating orange sparks.
Groggily Nick pushed himself to a sitting position. He tried to move his arm and found it limp. ”

“ The overlord of the Martian Exploitation Company had come to investigate in person, bringing his own personal cruiser.
Nick tried to rest, falling at last into an uneasy sleep disturbed by dreams of rippling streams and drenching rainstorms. He slept until the rays of the sinking sun crept under the ledge to bring him back to the realization of his arid, deadly surroundings.
But somewhere amid his dreams an idea had been born.
"You can handle a spacer, can't you?" he asked.
"Certainly. You don't think Dad handled the Trailblazer alone?" ”

“ The exertion left him panting in the thin Martian air, so he took a breath of oxygen from his pocket sniffer bottle. Then, wanting to talk to the girl at once, he held the nosepiece to her face.
He knew when she recovered consciousness, for her head twisted suddenly and her teeth sank into his hand. He slapped her face hard, and she lay staring up at him with hatred and terror.
"You're Susan Jones," he declared.
"Murderer!" she spat, her face twisted with loathing. ”

“ High above the dark water the hull of the spaceship glowed in the starlight. Nick headed straight toward it, sometimes swimming, sometimes floundering through deep, sticky mud that sucked tenaciously at his feet. Even in the darkness and confusion he knew his way, for Central Camp had been his home for many months.
As suddenly as it had appeared the water began to recede, draining into the ground. Nick understood. The barrier had been breached, and Martians were not able to swim. ”

“ The barrier sparked as though some living creature had come into contact with it, and an alert sentry scoured that area with machine gun lead. Again the barrier sparked, hot blue and green stars shooting up in a great fountain.
And then Nick could see the water itself. He ran on toward the northwest border where the terrain was lowest, trying to keep his mind on the desperate business ahead. His spirits lifted slightly as he realized that Susan had reached Merlo. ”

“ The few hundred survivors of the Special Corps, Nick among them, roaming the face of Earth in a desperate, frustrating search for the few grams still in existence, ready to commit any crime to ease their torment, clinging with fanatical, drug-inculcated loyalty to a Cause that had died with the War's end, looking endlessly for a new Cause to which to fasten their drug-inflamed energies, shunned and avoided and feared and hated by those persons not in the grip of Gravinol. ”

“ Everything was normal as Nick drew near. Groups of men moved about under the floodlights. The revolving searchlights atop the guard towers swept remorselessly around the circle of the barrier, occasionally striking the two half-tracks that held secondary patrol inside the charged fence. The ports of the big spaceship squatting on the launching grounds were dark, its polished hull reflecting the unwinking stars. ”

“ Numbness raced through his body wherever it touched. His muscles refused to respond when he tried to squeeze the trigger and his struggles only brought part of the thing around his throat in a powerful, strangling grip.
Susan called out something in the same language she had used to the cajora and took the pistol from his helpless fingers. But to his dismay she did not raise it.
The Martian made a chirping, almost inaudible sound and the thing relaxed its throttling grasp. Feeling began to return to Nick's arms. ”

“ Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place in Nick's brain. During the last months of the War when governments were merely hunted groups of men blasted out of one underground shelter after another, when armies went on killing because there was no one to tell them to stop, when work and comfort and productive effort and all the normalities of life had vanished in the dust of ruined cities, the great masses of people who wished only to live out their lives in peace had at last learned their lesson. ”

“ The rocky backbone of the planet pierced the red sands here, and through the ages the wind-driven sand had carved the outcropping into caves and spires and overhanging ledges and gaunt pockmarked cliffs, all piled together in wildest confusion. They were left in a rough, rocky bowl deep within the outcropping, hidden from the desert by the surrounding cliffs and pinnacles.
The tunnel mouth was merely a black hole, almost indistinguishable from a multitude of shadowed cavities where sand-laden storm winds had found soft spots in the stone. ”

“ Nick saw he could never reach shelter before the patrol rocket sighted him. He leaped forward, seized the Martian in both arms and carried him bodily the few steps to the protecting nook, dropping him and throwing himself flat just as the silvery hull appeared over the rim of the bowl. Susan awakened with a startled outcry but had the presence of mind to remain motionless until the rocket had roared away.
"We'll have to watch out for them constantly," Nick warned. "They'll gun or bomb anything that moves."
"Klev, what happened to you?" Susan asked anxiously as she saw the Martian's condition. ”

“ The tunnel sloped downward, turning right and left so that within minutes Nick was hopelessly lost. Time and again his outstretched fingers, trailing along the wall, encountered the emptiness of side tunnels and branchings, but the cajora moved purposefully ahead. Several times Nick tried to talk, to ask the questions which were perplexing him, but each time the girl silenced him.
"You'll distract the cajora," she warned.
The animal stopped short as they rounded a turn and saw a glimmer of light ahead.
"They don't like light," she explained. "We'll have to go on alone." ”

“ She looked at him inquiringly.
"Might as well be killed by the Martians as die of thirst. Ask him."
Sue talked to the Martian, who nodded and began to trace a complicated diagram in the sand with one finger, hesitating before adding each line as though resurrecting old and almost forgotten memories.
Nick watched a while. Then a patrol rocket whistled over heading south, and after it had passed he climbed once more to the rim of the bowl. He watched it settle inside the barrier with a flare of braking jets and a cloud of red dust. And while he watched he thought. ”

“ Susan explained. "He was dying of the Plague when Dad's experiments saved him. He remained our friend even when most of the others turned against us because of the Exploiters."
"Who's Blueface?"
"That's Merlo. He has the Plague and will die soon, just as the Martian who lived here must have died recently."
"Voras? Plague? What's it all about?" Nick sank into one of the chairs, suddenly conscious of fatigue. Despite the light gravity the human body tired rapidly in the thin atmosphere of Mars.
"The Martians lived on the surface long ago, in those cities that are still there," Susan explained. ”

“ Susan's eyes gleamed as she sensed his idea.
"You mean if the Martians made their water-voras—?"
"A dozen voras and a dozen water caves. The barrier would short out and the Martians could get in. There'd be hell's very own confusion and no lights. You might make it."
"And you?"
"Merlo is a blue-faced, pigheaded, tradition-bound fool, and no general. He'd just beat his men's lives out against the charged barrier without thinking of the only weapon he has that's worth a damn. I'm going down and tell him, right now. The attack is tomorrow night." ”

“ A big man in a uniform like Nick's own lay sprawled on the floor of the adjoining room, a black circle between his eyes. Nick spared him just one glance. And then he understood the sticky-moist splotch he had encountered in the street. The man with the straggly beard had caused it, bleeding his life away through the gaping rent in his chest.
The girl ignored Nick's ready pistol and ran to the low couch on which the old man reclined. "Dad!" she called softly, shaking his shoulder. "Dad!"
Nick pulled her away and shook his head. Jackson Jones, the first man to reach Mars, was dead. ”

“ Floodlights were erected and the drilling went on day and night.
But the space beacon did not flame again with the news that the water had vanished. Power was too precious.
Nick counted the days as he doled out the water from the canteens they had refilled in the underground lake. His concentrated emergency rations, shared with Susan and Klev, gave out at last. The Martian did not drink, but finally the last trickle of water went down Susan's throat and the period of torture began. ”

“ The new drug, Gravinol, touted by the laboratories of the great Harmon Enterprises as the discovery that would win the War. Twisting, writhing rocket fights high above the atmosphere, pilots of the Corps immersed in hypnotic, Gravinol-induced blind loyalty to the Cause, immune to fatigue and pain and fear.
City after city crumbling to atomic dust. Rocket bases blasted out of existence and no more targets worth bombing. Complex weapons giving way to more primitive ones as industrial systems broke down. The Special Corps transferred from air to ground duty. ”

“ Without sunlight they die just as surely as though killed by the Plague. So for the last several hundred years they have barely existed in a precarious balance between the Plague and sunlight starvation.
"Nick, they're a doomed race. In the year Dad and I've been here we have seen only two Martian children."
"But Klev?"
"Yeast. Just plain yeast. I'd brought one package in the Trailblazer, for cooking. But there is no more yeast on Mars."
"About the water?" Nick asked. "How come your father didn't tell Harmon about that? Colonel Hammer had us drilling all over the planet." ”

“ The stairway was tilted to one side where its wheels had sunk deep into the soft mud, and the steps were slippery with slime. Nick started up, holding his gun ready.
Suddenly a mocking laugh came from the entry port above. "Stay where you are!" a voice said.
"Harmon!" Sue gasped.
The nozzle of a bulky flame gun appeared over the edge, followed by a head. The nozzle swung downward as they clung helpless on the slippery stairway. On the ground below Merlo made some involuntary motion and the weapon swung to include him in its range. ”

“ She seemed to understand them, and Nick began to understand now how she and her father had evaded the Mec patrols so long. The leaders of the Martian Exploitation Company did not even suspect the existence of this extensive underground labyrinth.
"We're a long way from Klev's home," the girl declared. "The faster we get there the better."
"Why? What's the danger? The Mecs won't follow us down here?"
"Martians."
"Huh? I thought you were friends with them."
She shook her head sadly.
"Only a few now. The rest have grown to hate us. Come on." ”

“ Nick kept his gun ready and swung toward the girl. She could feel him tense with suspicion. Indoctrination had impressed upon Nick's mind the story that Jackson Jones and his daughter had turned traitor to Earth, siding in with the dangerous and degenerate Marties.
"What'd you say?" he asked.
"That's Martian." Her answer was matter-of-fact. "I asked him where Klev is."
"Martian?" Nick was astonished. "Have they a real language? Then they're really intelligent?" He had suspected but hadn't known.
"Of course," she whispered. "Ssh! You're disturbing the cajora."
"What's Klev? What do you want?" ”

“ The Gravinol was given freely to any Mec, but its method of distribution was a clever psychological trick to emphasize the dependence of each individual upon the Martian Exploitation Company.
Automatically he dropped it inside his tattered shirt.
"To your ship, Harmon. Get moving!"
"But you can't—"
"I said move!"
The overlord gasped, more from the indignity than from pain, as Nick's water-soaked boot met his trousers.
"I am The Man!" he tried to bluster.
"I know." Nick's answer was coldly venomous. ”

“ Pure defense always meant eventual defeat.
He thought some more, then scrambled hurriedly down the rocks just as Klev completed the diagram.
"Sue," he panted, still out of breath. "Those creatures bred to tunnel and pump water. Are they still alive? Is there any way to make them work? Ask him!"
Sue hesitated, not understanding.
"Can they pump water up as well as down? Ask him!" Nick barked impatiently.
Suspicion showed in the Martian's manner as Sue made the request.
"He won't answer until he knows what you're planning," she reported. "If the Exploiters found water they'd never leave." ”

“ Quickly Nick ran his hands through the pockets. The oxygen sniffer bottle, half empty now, and the kit of emergency rations were still there, but everything which could conceivably be used as a weapon had been removed. He had only the knife at his belt. He started to don the jacket, but the girl stopped him with a quick gesture.
"Rip off the insignia first," she urged.
Nick saw the point, and sat in one of the peculiar chairs cutting out the stitches while Klev and Susan talked. Merlo stayed in the hallway, beyond the varlu, watching and listening. ”