Red Planet (12 page)

Frank looked apprehensively at the broad leaves, now curling up all around them. ‘Jim,’ he said, ‘sit down. Spread your legs wide. Then take my hands and make an arch.’

'What for?’

'So that we'll take up as much space as possible. Hurry!’

Jim hurried. With elbows and knees and hands the two managed to occupy a roughly spherical space about five feet across and a little less than that high. The leaves closed down on them, seemed to feel them out, then settled firmly against them, but not, however, with sufficient pressure to crush them. Soon the last open space was covered and they were in total darkness. ‘Frank,’ Jim demanded, ‘we can move now, can't we?’

'No! Give the outside leaves a chance to settle into place.’

Jim kept still for quite a long while. He knew that considerable time had passed for he spent the time counting up to one thousand. He was just starting on his second thousand when Willis stirred in the space between his legs. ‘Jim boy, Frank boy—nice and warm, huh?’

'Yeah, Willis,’ he agreed. ‘Say, how about it, Frank?’

'I think we can relax now.’ Frank lowered his arms; the inner leaf forming the ceiling immediately above him at once curled down and brushed him in the dark. He slapped at it instinctively; it retreated.

Jim said, ‘It's getting stuffy already.’

'Don't worry about it. Take it easy. Breathe shallowly. Don't talk and don't move and you'll use up less oxygen.’

'What difference does it make whether we suffocate in ten minutes or an hour? This was a crazy thing to do, Frank; any way you figure it we can't last till morning.’

'Why can't we? I read in a book that back in India men have let themselves be buried alive for days and even weeks and were still alive when they were dug up. Fakirs, they called them.’

'Fakers is right! I don't believe it.’

'I read it in a book, I tell you.’

'I suppose you think that anything that's printed in a book is true?’

Frank hesitated before replying, ‘It had better be true because it's the only chance we've got. Now will you shut up? If you keep yapping, you'll use up what air there is and kill us both off and it'll be your fault.’

Jim shut up. All that he could hear was Frank's breathing. He reached down and touched Willis; the bouncer had withdrawn all his stalks. He was a smooth ball, apparently asleep. Presently Frank's breathing changed to rasping snores.

Jim tried to sleep but could not. The utter darkness and the increasing deadness of the air pressed down on him like a great weight. He wished again for his watch, lost to Smythe's business talent; if he only knew what time it was, how long it was until sunrise, he felt that he could stand it.

He became convinced that the night had passed—or had almost passed. He began to expect the dawn and with it the unrolling of the giant plant. When he had been expecting it ‘any minute now’ for a time he estimated at two hours, at least, be became panicky. He knew how late in the season it was; he knew also that desert cabbages hibernated by the simple method of remaining closed through the winter. Apparently Frank and he had had the enormous bad luck to take shelter in a cabbage on the very night on which it started its hibernation.

Twelve long months from now, more than three hundred days in the future, the plant would open to the spring Sun and release them—dead. He was sure of it.

He remembered the flashlight he had picked up in the first Project shelter. The thought of it stimulated him, took his mind off his fears for the moment. He leaned forward, twisted around and tried to get at his bag, still strapped to his shoulders.

The leaves above him closed in; he struck at them and they shrank away. He was able to reach the torch, drag it out, and turn it on. Its rays brightly illuminated the cramped space. Frank stopped snoring, blinked, and said, ‘What's the matter?’

'I just remembered this. Good thing I brought it, huh?’

'Better put it out and go to sleep.’

'It doesn't use up any oxygen. I feel better with it on.’

'Maybe you do, but as long as you stay awake you use up more oxygen.’

'I suppose so.’ Jim suddenly recalled what had been terrifying him before he got out the light. ‘It doesn't make any difference.’ He explained to Frank his conviction that they were trapped forever in the plant.

'Nonsense!’ said Frank.

'Nonsense yourself! Why didn't it open up at dawn?’

'Because,’ Frank said, ‘we haven't been in here more than an hour.’

'What?’

'Not more than an hour. Now shut up and let me sleep. Better put out that light.’ Frank settled his head again on his knees.

Jim shut up but did not turn out the light. It comforted him. Besides, the inner leaves which had shown an annoying tendency to close in on the tops of their heads now had retreated and flattened themselves firmly against the dense wall formed by the outer layers of leaves. Under the mindless reflex which controlled the movements of the plant they were doing their best to present maximum surface to the rays from the flashlight.

Jim did not analyse the matter; his knowledge of photosynthesis and of heliotropism was sketchy. He was simply aware that the place seemed roomier in the light and that he was having less trouble with the clinging leaves. He settled the torch against Willis, who had not stirred, and tried to relax.

It actually seemed less stuffy with the light on. He had the impression that the pressure was up a little. He considered trying to take off his mask but decided against it. Presently, without knowing it, he drifted off to sleep.

He dreamed and then dreamt that he was dreaming. Hiding in the desert cabbage had been only a fantastic, impossible dream; school and Headmaster Howe had merely been nightmares; he was home, asleep in his bed, with Willis cuddled against him. Tomorrow Frank and he would start for Syrtis Minor to enter school.

It had simply been a nightmare, caused by the suggestion that Willis be taken away from him. They were planning to take Willis away from him! They couldn't do that; he wouldn't let them!

Again his dream shifted; again he defied Headmaster Howe; again he rescued Willis and fled—and again they were locked away in the heart of a desert plant.

He knew with bitter certainty that it would always end like this. This was the reality, to be trapped and smothering in the core of a hibernating giant weed—to die there.

He choked and muttered, tried to wake up, then slipped into a less intolerable dream.

Tiny Phobos, inner moon of Mars, came out of eclipse and, at breakneck speed, flew west to east into the face of the rising Sun. The leisurely spin of its ruddy primary, twenty-four and a half hours for each rotation, presently brought the rays of that Sun to east Strymon, then across the band of desert between the twin canals and to the banks of west Strymon. The rays struck a great ball perched near the eastern bank of that canal, a desert cabbage closed against the cold.

The plant stirred and unfolded. The sunward half of the plant opened flat to the ground; the other half fanned itself open like a spread peacock's tail to catch the almost horizontal rays. In so doing it spilled something out of its heart and onto the flat portion—two human bodies, twisted and stiff, clad garishly in elastic suits and grotesque helmets.

A tiny ball spilled out with them, rolled a few yards over the thick green leaves, and stopped. It extended eye stalks and little bumps of legs and waddled back to the sprawled bodies. It nuzzled up against one.

It hesitated, nuzzled again, then settled back and let out a thin wailing in which was compounded inconsolable grief and an utter sense of loss.

Jim opened one bloodshot eye. ‘Cut out that infernal racket,’ he said crossly.

Willis shrieked, ‘Jim boy!’ and jumped upon his stomach, where he continued to bounce up and down in an ecstasy of greeting.

Jim brushed him off, then gathered him up in one arm. ‘Calm down. Behave yourself. Ouch!’

'What's the matter, Jim boy?’

'My arm's stiff. Ooo—ouch!’ Further efforts had shown Jim that his legs were stiff as well. Also his back. And his neck.

'What's the matter with you?’ demanded Frank.

'Stiff as board. I'd do better to skate on my hands today. Say —’

'Say what?’

'Maybe we don't skate. I wonder if the spring floods have started?’

'Huh? What are you gibbering about?’ Frank sat up, slowly and carefully.

'Why, the spring floods, of course. Somehow we lasted through the winter, though I don't know how. Now we —’

'Don't be any sillier than you have to be. Look where the Sun is rising.’

Jim looked. Martian colonials are more acutely aware of the apparent movements of the Sun than any Earthbound men, except, possibly, the Eskimos. All he said was, ‘Oh ... ,’ then added, ‘I guess it was a dream.’

'Either that or you are even nuttier than usual. Let's get going.’ Frank struggled to his feet with a groan.

'How do you feel?’

'Like my own grandfather.’

'I mean, how's your throat?’ Jim persisted.

'Oh, it's all right.’ Frank promptly contradicted himself by a fit of coughing. By great effort he controlled it shortly; coughing while wearing a respirator is a bad idea. Sneezing is worse.

'Want some breakfast?’

'I'm not hungry now,’ Frank answered. ‘Let's find a shelter first, so we can eat in comfort.’

'Okay.’ Jim stuffed Willis back into the bag; discovered by experiment that he could stand and walk. Noticing the flashlight, he tucked it in with Willis and followed Frank toward the bank. The canal vegetation was beginning to show; even as they walked the footing grew more tangled. The green plants, still stiff with night cold, could not draw away quickly as they brushed through them.

They reached the bank. ‘The ramp must be about a hundred yards off to the right,’ Frank decided. ‘Yep—I see it. Come on.’

Jim grabbed his arm and drew him back. ‘'Smatter?’ demanded Frank.

'Look on up the canal, north.’

'Huh? O!’ A scooter was proceeding toward them. Instead of the two hundred fifty miles per hour or more that such craft usually make, this one was throttled down to a minimum. Two men were seated on top of it, out in the open.

Frank drew back hastily. ‘Good boy, Jim,’ he approved. ‘I was just about to walk right into them. I guess we had better let them get well ahead.’

'Willis good boy, too,’ Willis put in smugly.

'Let them get ahead, my foot!’ Jim answered. ‘Can't you see what they're doing?’

'Huh?’

'They're following our tracks!'

Frank looked startled but did not answer. He peered cautiously out. ‘Look out!’ Jim snapped. ‘He's got binoculars.’ Frank ducked back. But he had seen enough; the scooter had stopped at approximately the spot where they had stopped the night before. One of the men on top was gesturing through the observation dome at the driver and pointing to the ramp.

Canal ice was, of course, never cleaned of skate marks; the surface was renewed from time to time by midday thaws until the dead freeze of winter set in. However, it was unlikely that anyone but the two boys had skated over this stretch of ice, so far from any settlement, any time in months. The ice held scooter tracks, to be sure, but, like all skaters, Jim and Frank had avoided them in favour of untouched ice.

Now their unmistakable spoor lay for any to read from Cynia station to the ramp near them.

'If we head back into the bushes,’ Jim whispered. ‘We can hide until they go away. They'll never find us in this stuff.’

'Suppose they don't go away. Do you want to spend another night in the cabbage?’

'They're bound to go away eventually.’

'Sure but not soon enough. They know we went up the ramp; they'll stay and they'll search, longer than we can hold out. They can afford to; they've got a base.’

'Well, what do we do?’

'We head south along the bank, on foot, at least as far as the next ramp.’

'Let's get going, then. They'll be up the ramp in no time.’

With Frank in the lead they dog-trotted to the south. The plants along the bank were high enough now to permit them to go under; Frank held a course about thirty feet in from the bank. The gloom under the spreading leaves and the stems of the plants themselves protected them from any distant observation.

Jim kept an eye out for snake worms and water-seekers and cautioned Willis to do likewise. They made fair time. After a few minutes Frank stopped, motioned for silence, and they both listened. All that Jim could hear was Frank's rasping breath; if they were being pursued, the pursuers were not close.

They were at least two miles south of the ramp when Frank stopped very suddenly. Jim bumped into him and the two almost tumbled into the thing that had caused Frank to stop—another canal. This one ran east and west and was a much narrower branch of the main canal. There were several such between Cynia and Charax. Some of them joined the east and west legs of Strymon canal; some merely carried water to local depressions in the desert plateau.

Jim stared down into the deep and narrow gash. ‘For the love of Mike! We nearly took a header.’

Frank did not answer. He sank down to his knees, then sat and held his head. Suddenly he was overcome by a spasm of coughing. When it was over, his shoulders still shook, as if he were racked by dry sobs.

Jim put a hand on his arm. ‘You're pretty sick, aren't you, fellow?’

Frank did not answer. Willis said, ‘Poor Frank boy,’ and tut-tutted.

Jim stared again at the canal, his forehead wrinkled. Presently Frank raised his head and said, ‘I'm all right. It just got me for a moment—running into the canal and all and realizing it had us stopped. I was so tired.’

Jim said, ‘Look here, Frank, I've got a new plan. I'm going to follow this ditch off to the east until I find some way to get down to it. You're going to go back and give yourself up —’

'No!'

'Wait till I finish! This makes sense. You're too sick to keep going. If you stay out here, you're going to die. You might as well admit it. Somebody's got to get the word to our folks—me. You go back, surrender, and then give them a song and dance about how I went that way—any way but this. If you make it good, you can stall them and keep them chasing their tails for a full day and give me that much head start. In the mean time you lie around in the scooter, warm and safe, and tonight you're in bed in the infirmary at school. There—doesn't that make sense?’