The Secret of the Martian Moons Page 6

  Next thing was the discovery by Gutman of a door in another part of the city that was unquestionably half open. They could see no sign of action near it, but there it was, not closed. By the time the next observation of the city occurred, about twenty hours later, that door was shut again.

  The six watchers were keyed up with excitement. Among themselves they were discussing who would be the lucky man to first spot the Martians. “It’s pretty obvious,” said Gutman, expressing the general opinion, “that they waited until Earth was entirely out of the sky to come out of their hiding places.”

  John Parr was not certain, however, that they would ever be able to actually make out the forms of the Martians if they did spot them. “We re still a little far away to see any definite shapes of creatures. If you saw a man from where we are, you would not see more than a blurry spot. We may have actually to make a trip down to Mars and sneak up on them.”

  Jim Worden laughed. “A fine chance we'd have! These Martians are the cagiest creatures anyone ever hunted. I'll bet they’ve got some sort of radar system that would tell them instantly the first time we even hit their atmosphere. Don’t forget how long they successfully hid from us.”

  A strange idea suddenly slipped into Nelson’s head. He debated with himself whether he should mention it, finally chancing it. “Do you suppose that perhaps these are not the Martians? Maybe they’re some other set of explorers from elsewhere in space taking a look around now that we’ve abandoned the place?”

  Jim Worden laughed. Bryan McQueen patted Nelse on the back. “It could be, but it’s highly unlikely. After all, how would these other explorers know we’d left unless they’d been watching us all along? Now the Martians might have been watching us, that I can believe. But why look for trouble elsewhere? One set of extra-Terrestrials is enough.”

  By the next period when their Martian Athens came into sight, it was early morning there on Mars. As the sun rose and its belt of light flooded into the streets of the ancient town, McQueen, who was on observation, let out a shout. Piled in plain sight in the area between two structures were several large objects exactly like boxes or crates. They all took turns looking but there was no doubt about it. They could see no motion around, but it was clear that now the unknowns had decided they could dispense with a certain amount of secrecy.

  “How many more hours of observation do we have?” asked the elder Parr anxiously.

  Telders glanced up, gave a quick calculation. “Not good. This sector isn’t going to be visible from here for more than another couple hours. Then it will be rotated away from us and we won’t see the city for— ummm—maybe thirty hours.”

  John Parr slammed one gloved hand angrily into the other. “Blast!” he groaned. “This is just the time we have to keep that place under constant watch. I’m sure, I’m as sure as I’m standing here, that something or someone is going to pick up those crates and take them somewhere. If we could only see how and who and where they take them to, we’ll be well on our way to solving this whole business.”

  “There’s no way we can watch that city all day,” said Worden. “Not from here.”

  “Then why can’t we find a better spot where we can see it?” urged Nelson. “Could we see the city all day from Deimos?”

  “Now that’s an idea!” said his father quickly. “Telders, will you check that and see?”

  Telders ran inside their cruiser and, after a few moments’ checking on their charts and calculators, called out on his helmet phone. “Yes, if we can get an observer on Deimos within the next two hours, we could watch that city from there during the broad daylight for at least the next ten hours.”

  John Parr called back to Telders, “Is the ship’s lifeboat in workable order?”

  “Of course,” came back the instant reply. “And it can make the trip easily.”

  “O.K.,” said Parr, “we'll do it.” He turned to the men. “Worden, you and Nelse were due to take the next shift, so you’ll be in best shape for the job. Take the lifeboat, load on the other scope and lenses, and get going. Telders will give you the figures for the trip.”

  Nelson’s heart gave a bound. Then he and Jim Worden raced back to the big cruiser, followed instructions, hastily loading the necessary equipment in the cruiser’s small lifeboat, itself a tiny spaceship capable of interplanetary flight on its own. There was no need to load up on food or water. The little craft always carried sufficient provisions in the event of an emergency and had its own water flask and regeneration system. When the two had the lenses and frame of their scope stowed safely into the tiny cramped cabin, they opened the emergency panel in the cruiser’s side and the little craft slipped out gently and bounced onto its own runners on the rocky surface of Phobos.

  Telders rushed out of the navigational comer of the bigger ship, handed them a sheet of paper. “Here’s the data on our various satellite speeds and positions. Mostly you can make the trip by eye, however. It’s only a short distance as they go! Take it easy when you come into Deimos though.”

  Worden and Nelson checked their own suits, hastily went over the lifeboat’s equipment as every good spaceman should and verified with their own eyes that it was all in working order. The little ship was only about fourteen feet long and its strong little engine and fuel space occupied fully half of that length. The two would have to cramp themselves into the forward seven feet along with their belongings.

  “Who’s going to drive?” asked Jim. “I know how, but it’s been quite a number of years since I piloted anything in space. Zipping through the air in explorer ramblers is about my pace today.”

  “I’ll take it up,” said Nelson, sounding more confident than he felt. “I handled these at the Space Academy only a few months ago and I’m fairly sure this will be no different.”

  His father nodded. “O.K., it’s probably better that way. The younger you are, the better your reactions and the faster your control. Just remember to keep your head and you’ll be all right.”

  So Nelson slipped into the driver’s seat and Jim piled into the space next to him, almost on his lap. They slid the transparent quarter-top closed over them, set the molecular seals. Jim spread out Telders’ notes on his lap, where he could call them off if needed to his companion.

  Nelson opened the throttle, felt the engine hum. He kicked the ground rockets into operation, felt the ship slide forward on its runners over the rocky plain. Boosting it quickly, he blasted his jump-off tubes and with a sharp jolt they were off the surface of Phobos and into space.

  “Watch that!” yelped Jim. “I almost banged my head on the top with that jackrabbit takeoff!”

  “Sorry,” Nelse murmured, busy at his controls. “I’ll get the feel of this in a moment. I forgot that we weren’t taking off against Earth’s gravity.”

  He set his teeth and flexed his fingers again. This was a test he had never really had. It was one thing to pilot this type of craft under Earth conditions in controlled testing spheres, quite another to be entrusted with it in real earnest under real space circumstances. He eased up his speed, took the little craft easily around in a wide half circle and headed it outward from the little moon.

  They could see their objective ahead of them, a tiny spot of white moving across the endless panorama of outer space. Mars’ second moon was half the size of Phobos, being only about five miles in diameter. It was nine thousand miles farther away from the red planet than the inner moon and took nearly three times as long to circle it once. As such it was even now moving slowly over the daylight hemisphere, and their mystery city objective would be in plain sight as Deimos moved through the Martian sky.

  Nelson Parr’s problem was simply to pilot the little boat outward and into the orbit of Deimos, bringing it into the same speed and cutting ahead of it as he did, so as to arrive at the little satellite at a proper landing tempo. He set up the various figures on the ship’s little automatic navigator and after it had clicked and chewed this data electronically he noted the times and alternate
speeds with which he was presented. He chose the alternate that would get him there fastest, although this was always a riskier course.

  He stepped up his rocket blasts and the two men felt themselves being pushed back in their seats as the little boat accelerated steadily. Nelson was determined to make the astronomically short trip in less than two hours. He piled on speed and boosted the craft up heavily, then let it coast for about half an hour at over twenty thousand miles an hour top speed. While they coasted, Jim and he speculated on the Martians.

  Nelson mentioned again the strange three-fingered handprint that he had found on the Congreve.

  Worden remarked, “I'm inclined to think now that these creatures were not the Martians. Your suggestion before sounds a little more likely now.”

  "Why do you say that?” asked Nelson, his eyes watching the steadily growing disk of Deimos, outlined against the star-strewn black of space.

  "Because I’ve figured out that the Martians must have had much the same kind of hand we have. I’ve studied their things, their machinery, their household stuff. It has always seemed to me that their handles and controls were designed to fit a hand like our own and not anything very different. Of course, I could be mistaken, but in things like this, the mechanics of everyday living can be a pretty reliable guide.” Nelson nodded briefly, switched on the engines and began his braking maneuvers. Again they were shoved into their seats, and conversation died as they fought to bring the craft into landing adjustment.

  Nelson was too busy at the controls to pay much attention to outside things, but Jim Worden was watching space. He was staring at a group of bright stars when suddenly one of them blinked out. He stared wide-eyed, then another next to it blinked off and the first came into sight. “Hey!” he said.

  Nelson looked up. “What?”

  Worden stared sharply. He could see nothing more. “Sorry, thought I saw something just then.” He explained what he’d seen. “Thought maybe it could have been another ship between us and that sector of the sky.”

  “Probably just a meteor,” said Nelson.

  Now they were rapidly approaching Deimos. The little moon, like its sister, was quite spherical and fairly smooth-surfaced. They winged around it a couple of times to brake their speed exactly, and then Nelson brought the ship down and skimmed the surface. It was apparent that Deimos also showed but one hemisphere to Mars; a curious circumstance was Nelson’s fleeting thought, as he jockeyed to find a good spot for their observations.

  Finally, he came down for his landing on a wide flat belt, shining ruddy in the daytime glow of Mars. They slid neatly to a perfect stop on a hard and smooth surface.

  “Good work,” said Jim glancing at the control dials. “Telders couldn’t have done it better. Now let’s get the junk out.”

  Adjusting their suits to space, they slid open the boat’s top and climbed carefully out. Outside of the fact that the horizon was even nearer their feet than before, this little world was not very different from the barren satellite they had left. Above them the globe of the red planet was visibly smaller but still quite large enough to see details with the naked eye.

  Without wasting words, they unstrapped the framework of their telescope. Then they looked around. “This isn’t as good a landing place as we thought,” said Nelson, now that he could see his whereabouts better. “You might have told me I was coming in on a slant.”

  “Didn’t want to upset you,” said Jim. “Fact is I was hoping I wouldn’t get another jolt.”

  Mars was not properly in the center of their sky, but down at one side. “I think we’ll just carry the frame and lens over about three miles and we’ll get a better view,” said Nelson. Suiting action to words, he hefted the framework and apparatus, and Worden loaded himself with other stuff. Then they started off in easy long bounds.

  In only a short time they had covered the space, so easy is it to travel without weight. The boat had fallen out of sight beneath the horizon after the first two or three such bounds. Almost a fifth of the satellite away, on the flattish plain, they set up their instruments.

  It was more than two hours since they had left Phobos and they were relieved when they finally put their eyes in turn to the eyepiece of their scope to see that the mysterious crates were still standing in plain sight exactly as they had been. By this time their friends on Phobos had lost sight of the objective. It was a relief to know that in the half hour that no one had been able to observe the spot, nothing had happened.

  There was one drawback though. At this distance from Mars, the lens which had been powerful enough to carry their vision to such a close range was weaker. Visually they seemed farther away and streets and objects in the ancient Martian city were therefore smaller in appearance.

  “Is this the strongest lens we have?” asked Nelson, bent over the instrument.

  “No,” said Jim. “There’s one stronger still.”

  “Got it here?” asked Nelson, still absorbed in the view.

  “No, it’s back on the ship, I’m afraid,” said Jim, after looking through the stuff they had brought.

  “Maybe one of us had better go back and get it,” Nelse suggested. “If we spot anything, were not going to get any decent details with this eyepiece.”

  “I’ll go,” said Jim. “You keep the watch.” He set off back to the ship without waiting for Nelson to object. In a few moments he had disappeared below the narrow horizon.

  Nelson Parr watched the pile of crates, but nothing happened. He casually swept the telescope back and forth over the city, checking its open areas and connecting viaducts. Then he drew in his breath sharply, stopped his sweep. Over a hitherto unnoticed old road, by the side of the green belt leading into the city, three shapes were moving!

  He watched them and was able to make out that they were vehicles of some sort, rather tear-shaped and moving swiftly without sign of wheels. If he had the stronger lens he could have made out their full detail, but as it was he could make out their dull metallic glint and nothing more.

  He fidgeted, wondering when Worden was coming back. He kept the teardrop shapes in sight, noticing that they were following a route that would bring them up to the crates fairly soon. Undoubtedly they were conveyances which would pick up the boxes and take them somewhere else, probably to the main hideaway of the Martians. He dared not take his eye off them and yet he longed to drop everything and go after Worden to hurry him up.

  It seemed to him that Jim was taking unusually long. He couldn’t call him on his helmet phone, for he knew that the limited direct beam transmission would work only when both senders were in sight, or at least on the same plane.

  Quickly he calculated mentally the speed of the teardrops and the distance and time it would take them to reach the crates. That should give him about twenty minutes. He decided to take the chance. He removed his eye from the view, glanced around. Worden was still not in sight.

  He turned back to where they had left the ship and went after it as fast as he dared in the nearly gravityless conditions of little Deimos. Leaping along he kept watching to spot Jim returning to him, but strangely he did not see him.

  Before long he spotted their spaceboat in the distance. He made it in three more giant leaps—and found Worden. His friend and companion was lying just outside the little rocket boat, lying flat on the ground, motionless.

  Nelson bent over him, turned him over. Jim Worden’s helmet was shattered, his air gone. One look at Jim’s face, and Nelson knew that his companion was dead. Nelson got to his feet, stunned. Then he looked at the rocket ship and got his second shock.

  Someone or something had gotten into it and smashed its controls! As if a madman with an ax had chopped away at it, the little craft had been ruined, its control board battered to a mass of broken wires and tubes, its engines hacked and bent.

  Chapter 8 Pursuit of Shadows

  For a moment Nelson simply stood there, too horrified to do anything, aware only of the loss of his friend, unthinking of his own da
nger. Why had this happened? Surely the Martians could not think of them as enemies? Then his horror was replaced by cold steely anger. This act, this ugly killing, was the act of cowards, of creatures that had not dared come face to face, had not dared show themselves. For it was obvious that Jim Worden had been struck from behind, struck probably while in the act of climbing into the little rocket boat to get the telescope lens. The cowards had crept up on him, struck when his back was turned, without a word of warning.

  Then, too, there was the deliberate destruction of the rocket. That was an act designed to block any further aid to Jim and Nelson. It was an act designed to leave Nelson stranded, helpless. He turned, looked into the ship, keeping a wary eye for motion behind him. He estimated the stock of supplies, the tanks of air.

  It wasn’t much. He and Jim hadn’t expected to stay on the smaller moon more than a dozen hours or so, hence very little food, scarcely more air. It was clear that Nelson’s own hours were seriously limited. He glanced at the radio in the ship, but that too had been ripped apart. He could not even call for help, though his chances of being heard even if it were working would have been slight.

  He searched for a weapon, wondering whether the ship had carried any among its regular lifeboat provisions. But there were no weapons, for what need would an interplanetary lifeboat have for such things in the lifeless reaches of space?

  So he turned back to the ship, standing before the crumpled body, and knew he was alone, unarmed on a moon stalked by the unknown. He realized that he himself must be their next target, that they must have him marked for death.

  Warily he glanced around. Low ridges of rocks bordered one side, on the other the horizon cut the plain very near to him. All a foe would have to do would be to stay just beyond the horizon, stalk, and when his back was turned long enough, a few flying leaps would be enough for the foe to land on his back. Who could tell who was waiting just out of sight?