Part 27 (1/2)
The caravan he rode approached his destination no closer than ten million miles. Taking cautious note of radar data which indicated that s.p.a.ce all around was safely empty, he cast off in his Archer with a small, new, professional-type bubb packed across his hips. Inside his helmet he lighted a cigarette--quite an unusual luxury.
It took a long time to reach Phobos. They gave him shots there--new preventative medicine that was partially effective against the viruses of Mars. Descent in the winged rocket was rough. But then he was gliding with a sibilant whistle through a natural atmosphere, again. Within minutes he was at the Station--low, dusty domes, many of them deserted, now, at the edge of the airfield, a lazily-spinning wind gauge, tractors, auto-jeeps, several helicopters.
He stepped down with his gear. Mars was all around him: A few ground-clinging growths nearby--harmless, locally evolved vegetation.
Distant, coppery cliffs reflecting the setting sun. Ancient excavations notched them. Dun desert to the east, with little plumes of dust blowing. Through his Archer--a necessary garment here not only because the atmosphere was only one-tenth as dense as Earth-air and poor in oxygen, but because of the microscopic dangers it bore--Nelsen could hear the faint sough of the wind.
The thirty-eight percent of terrestrial gravity actually seemed strong to him now, and made him awkward, as he turned and looked west. Perhaps two miles off, past a barbed-wire fence and what must be an old tractor trail of the hopeful days of colonization, he saw the blue-green edge of Syrtis Major, the greatest of the thickets, with here and there a jutting spur of it projecting toward him along a gully. Nelsen's hide tingled. But his first glimpse was handicapped by distance. He saw only an expanse of low s.h.a.gginess that might have been scrub growths of any kind.
Dug into the salt-bearing ground at intervals, he knew, were the fire weapons ready to throw oxygen and synthetic napalm--jellied gasoline.
Never yet had they been discharged, along this defense line. But you could never be sure just what might be necessary here.
A man of about thirty had approached. ”I meet the new arrivals,” he said. ”If you'll come along with me, Mr. Nelsen...”
He was dark, and medium large, and he had a genial way. He looked like a hopper--an asteroid-miner--the tough, level-headed kind that adjusts to s.p.a.ce and keeps his balance.
”Name's Ed Huth,” he continued, as they walked to the reception dome.
”Canadian. Good, international crowd here--however long you mean to stay. Most interesting frontier in the solar system, too. Probably you've heard most of the rules and advice. But here's a paper. Refresh your memory by reading it over as soon as you can. There is one thing which I am required to show everybody who comes here. Inside this peek box. You are instructed to take a good look.”
Huth's geniality had vanished.
The metal box was a yard high, and twice as long and wide. It stood, like a memorial, before the reception dome entrance. A light shone beyond the gla.s.s-covered slot, as Nelsen bent to peer.
He had seen horror before now. He had seen a pink mist dissolve in the suns.h.i.+ne as a man in armor out in the Belt was. .h.i.t by an explosive missile, his blood spraying and boiling. Besides, he had read up on the thickets of Mars, watched motion pictures, heard Gimp Hines' stories of his brief visit here. So, at first, he could be almost casual about what he saw in the peek box. There were many ghastly ways for a man to die.
Even the thicket plant in the box seemed dead, though Nelsen knew that plant successors to the original Martians had the rugged power of revival. This one showed the usual paper-dry whorls or leaves, and the usual barrel-body, perhaps common to arid country growths, everywhere.
Scattered over the barrel, between the spines, were glinting specks--vegetable, light-sensitive cells developed into actual visual organs. The plant had the usual tympanic pods of its kind--a band of muscle-like tissue stretched across a hollow interior--by which it could make buzzing sounds. Nelsen knew that, like any Earthly green plant, it produced oxygen, but that, instead of releasing it, it stored the gas in spongy compartments within its h.o.r.n.y sh.e.l.l, using it to support an animal-like tissue combustion to keep its vitals from freezing during the bitterly frigid nights.
Nelsen also knew that deeper within the thing was a network of whitish pulp, expanded at intervals to form little k.n.o.bs. Sectioned, under a microscope, they would look like fibred ma.s.ses of animal or human nerve and brain cells, except that, chemically, they were starch and cellulose rather than protein.
Worst to see was the rigid clutch of monster's tactile organs, which grew from the barrel's crown. It was like a powerful man struggling to uproot a rock, or a bear or an octopus crus.h.i.+ng an enemy. It was dark-hole drama, like something from another galaxy. Like some horribly effective piece of sculpture, the tableau in the box preserved the last gasp of an incautious youth in armor.
The tendrils of the thicket plant were furred with erect spines of a s.h.i.+ny, russet color. They were so fine that they looked almost soft. But Nelsen was aware that they were sharper than the hypodermic needles they resembled--in another approach to science. Now, Nelsen felt the tingling revulsion and hatred.
”Of course you know that you don't have to get caught like that poor bloke did,” Huth said dryly. ”Just not to disinfect the outside of your Archer well enough and then leave it near you, indoors, is sufficient.
I was here before there was any trouble. When it came, it was a shambles...”
Huth eyed Nelsen for a moment, then continued on another tack.
”Biology... Given the whole universe to experiment in, I suppose you can never know what it will come up with--or what is possible. These devils--you get to hate them in your sleep. If their flesh--or their methods--were something like ours, as was the case with the original Martians or the people of the Asteroid Planet, it wouldn't seem so bad.
Still, they make you wonder: What would you do, if, in your own way, you could think and observe, but were rooted to the ground; if you were denied the animal ability of rapid motion, if you didn't have hands with which to fas.h.i.+on tools or build apparatus, if fire was something you could scarcely use?...”
Nelsen smiled. ”I _am_ wondering,” he said. ”I promise to do a lot more of it as soon as I get squared away. I could inflate my bubb, and sleep in the yard in it, if I had to. Then, as usual, off the Earth, you'll expect me to earn my breathing air and keep, after a couple of days, whether I can pay instead or not. That's fine with me, of course.
There's another matter which I'd like to discuss, but that can be later.”
”No sleeping out,” Huth laughed. ”That's just where people get careless.
There are plenty of quarters available since the retreat of settlers almost emptied this world of terrestrial intrusion--except for us here and the die-hard desert rats, and the new, screwball adventurers... By the way, if it ever becomes important, the deserts are safe--at least from what you just saw--as you probably know...”
Nelsen pa.s.sed through an airlock, where live steam and a special silicone oil accomplished the all-important disinfection of his Archer, his bubb, and the outside of his small, sealed baggage roll. Armor and bubb he left racked with rows of others.