Red Planet (14 page)

'Gekko!’ yelled Jim, echoed by Willis.

Gekko bent over him. ‘My friend,’ he boomed softly in his own tongue. ‘My little, crippled friend.’ He raised Jim up and carried him away, the other Martians retreating to make way.

Gekko moved rapidly through a series of tunnels. Jim, looking back, could see that K'boomch and the rest of his party were close behind, so he let matters drift. Gekko turned presently into a medium-sized chamber and put Jim down. Frank was deposited by him. Frank blinked his eyes and said, ‘Where are we?’

Jim looked around. The room held several resting frames, set in a circle. The ceiling was domed and simulated the sky. On one wall a canal flowed past, in convincing miniature. Elsewhere on the curved wall was the silhouette of a Martian city, feathery towers floating in the air. Jim knew those towers, knew of what city they were the signature; Jim knew this room.

It was the very room in which he had ‘grown together’ with Gekko and his friends.

'Oh, my gosh, Frank—we're back in Cynia.’

'Huh?’ Frank sat up suddenly, glared around him—then lay back down and shut his eyes tightly.

Jim did not know whether to laugh or to cry. All that effort! All their striving to escape and to get home, Frank's gallant refusal to give up in the face of sickness and body weariness, the night in the desert cabbage—and here they were not three miles from Cynia station.

Jim set up housekeeping—or hospital-keeping—in the smallest room that Gekko could find for him. There had been a ‘growing together’ immediately after their arrival. On its conclusion Jim had found, as before, that his command of the dominant tongue was improved. He had made Gekko understand that Frank was sick and needed quiet.

Gekko offered to take over Frank's care, but Jim refused. Martian therapy might cure Frank—or it might kill him. He asked instead for a plentiful supply of drinking water—his right, now that he was a ‘water friend', almost a tribal brother—and he asked for the colourful Martian silks that had been used by the boys in place of resting frames. From these silks Jim made a soft bed for Frank and a nest nearby for himself and Willis. He bedded Frank down, roused him enough to get him to drink deeply of water, and then waited for his friend to get well.

The room was quite comfortably warm; Jim took off his outdoors suit, stretched, and scratched. On second thought he peeled off Frank's elastic suit as well and covered him with a layer of flame-coloured cloth. After that he dug into Frank's travel bag and looked over the food supply. Up to now he had been too busy and too tired to worry about his stomach; now the very sight of the labels made him drool. He picked out a can of synthetic orange juice, vitamin fortified, and a can of simulated chicken fillet. The latter had started life in a yeast tank at North Colony, but Jim was used to yeast proteins and the flavour was every bit as tempting as white breast of chicken. Whistling, he got out his knife and got busy.

Willis had wandered off somewhere but he did not miss him. Subconsciously he was not disposed to worry about Willis while they were both in a native city; the place was filled with an atmosphere of peace and security. In fact Jim hardly thought about his patient until he had finished and wiped his mouth.

Frank was still sleeping but his breathing was noisy and his face still flushed. The air in the room, though warm and of satisfactory pressure, was Mars dry. Jim got a handkerchief from his bag, wet it, and put it over Frank's face, From time to time he moistened it again. Later he got another handkerchief, doused it, and tied it around his own face.

Gekko came in with Willis tagging along. ‘Jim-Marlowe,’ he stated and settled himself. ‘Gekko,’ Jim answered and went on with moistening Frank's face cloth. The Martian remained so quiet for so long that Jim decided that he must have retreated into his ‘other world’ but, when Jim looked at him, Gekko's eyes showed lively, alert interest.

After a long wait he asked Jim what he was doing and why.

Jim tried to explain that his kind must breathe water as well as air but his Martian vocabulary, despite the ‘growing together', was not up to the strain it placed on it. He gave up and there was another long silence. Eventually the Martian left, Willis with him.

Presently Jim noticed that the face cloths, both his and Frank's, were not drying out rapidly. Shortly they were hardly drying at all. He took off his, as it made him uncomfortable, and decided that it must be uncomfortable for Frank as well; he stopped using them entirely.

Gekko returned. After only ten minutes of silence he spoke, showing thereby almost frantic haste for his kind. He wanted to know if the water that flies with the air was now sufficient? Jim assured him that it was and thanked him. After twenty minutes or so of silence Gekko again left. Jim decided to go to bed. It had been a long, hard day and the previous night could hardly be called a night of rest. He looked around for some way to switch off the light but could find none. Giving up, he lay down, pulled a polychrome sheet up to his chin, and went to sleep.

'Hey, Jim—wake up.’

Blearily Jim opened his eyes, and closed them. ‘Go away.’

'Come on. Snap out of it. I've been awake the past two hours, while you snored. I want to know some things.’

'What do you want to know? Say—how do you feel?’

'Me?’ said Frank. ‘I feel fine. Why shouldn't I? Where are we?’

Jim looked him over. Frank's colour was certainly better and his voice sounded normal, the hoarseness all gone. ‘You were plenty sick yesterday,’ he informed him. ‘I think you were out of your head.’

Frank wrinkled his forehead. ‘Maybe I was. I've sure had the darnedest dreams. There was a crazy one about a desert cabbage —’

'That was no dream.’

'What?’

'I said that was no dream, the desert cabbage—nor any of the rest of it. Do you know where we are?’

'That's what I was asking you.’

'We're in Cynia, that's where we are. We —’

'In
Cynia?'

Jim tried to give Frank a coherent account of the preceding two days. He was somewhat hampered by the item of their sudden translation from far up the canal back to Cynia, because he did not understand it clearly himself. ‘I figure it's a sort of a subway paralleling the canal. You know—a subway, like you read about.’

'Martians don't do that sort of engineering.’

'Martians built the canals.’

'Yes, but that was a long, long time ago.’

'Maybe they built the subway a long time ago. What do you know about it?’

'Well—nothing, I guess. Never mind. I'm hungry. Anything left to eat?’

'Sure.’ Jim got up and looked around. Willis was still missing.

'I'd like to find Gekko and ask him where Willis is,’ he fretted.

'Nuts,’ said Frank. ‘Let's eat breakfast.’

'Well ... all right.’

Once the meal was over, Frank opened the larger question. ‘Okay, so we are in Cynia. We've still got to get home and fast. The question is: how do we go about it? Now as I see it, if these Martians could bring us back here so fast, they can turn around and put us back where they found us and then we can head home up the east leg of Strymon. How does that strike you?’

'It sounds all right, I guess,’ Jim answered, ‘but —’

'Then the first thing to do is to find Gekko and try to arrange it, without fiddling around.’

'The first thing to do,’ Jim contradicted, ‘is to find Willis.’

'Why? Hasn't he caused enough trouble? Leave him; he's happy here.’

'Frank, you take entirely the wrong attitude toward Willis. Didn't he get us out of a jam? If it hadn't been for Willis, you'd be coughing your lungs out in the desert.’

'If it hadn't been for Willis, we wouldn't have been in that jam in the first place.’

'Now that's not fair. The truth is —’

'Skip it, skip it. Okay, go find Willis.’

Jim left Frank to clean up the litter of breakfast and set out. Although he was never able thereafter to give a fully coherent account of just what happened to him on this errand, certain gross facts are clear. He started by looking for Gekko, asking for him of the first Martian he met in the corridors by the barbarous expedient of voicing the general inquiry followed by Gekko's name.

Jim was not and probably never would be a competent linguist, but his attempt worked. The first Martian he encountered took him to another, as an Earthly citizen might lead a foreigner to a policeman. This Martian took him to Gekko.

Jim had no great trouble in explaining to Gekko that he wanted Willis returned to him. Gekko listened, then explained gently that what Jim wanted was impossible.

Jim started over again, sure that his own poor command of the language had caused misunderstanding. Gekko let him finish, then made it quite clear that he understood correctly what it was that Jim wanted, but that Jim could not have it—could not have Willis. No. Gekko was sorrowful to have to refuse his friend with whom he had shared the pure water of life, but this thing could not be.

Under the direct influence of Gekko's powerful personality Jim understood most of what was said and guessed the rest. Gekko's refusal was unmistakable. It is not important that Jim did not have his gun with him; Gekko could not inspire the hatred in him that Howe did. For one thing Gekko's warm sympathy poured over him in flood; nevertheless Jim was thunderstruck, indignant, and quite unable to accept the verdict. He stared up at the Martian for a long moment. Then he walked away abruptly, not choosing his direction and shouting for Willis as he did so. ‘Willis! Oh, Willis! Here, Willis boy—come to Jim!’

The Martian started after him, each stride three of Jim's. Jim ran, still shouting. He turned a corner, came face to face with three natives and darted between their legs and beyond. Gekko got into a traffic jam with them which required time-wasting exercise of Martian protocol to straighten out. Jim got considerably ahead.

He stuck his head into every archway he came to and shouted. One such led into a chamber occupied by Martians frozen in that trancelike state they call visiting the ‘other world'. Jim would no more have disturbed a Martian in a trance, ordinarily, than an American western frontier child would have teased a grizzly—but he was in no shape to care or notice; he shouted in there, too, thereby causing an unheard-of and unthinkable disturbance. The least response was violent trembling; one poor creature was so disturbed that he lifted abruptly all of his legs and fell to the floor.

Jim did not notice; he was already gone, shouting into the next chamber.

Gekko caught up with him and scooped him up with two great hand flaps. ‘Jim-Marlowe!’ he said. ‘Jim-Marlowe, my friend —’

Jim sobbed and beat on the Martian's hard thorax with both his fists. Gekko endured it for a moment, then wrapped a third palm flap around Jim's arms, securing him. Jim looked wildly up at him. ‘Willis,’ he said in his own language, ‘I want Willis. You've got no right!’

Gekko cradled him and answered softly, ‘I have no power. This is beyond me. We must go to the other world.’ He moved away. Jim made no answer, tired by his own outburst. Gekko took a ramp downward, then another and another. Down and down he went, much deeper than Jim had ever been before, deeper perhaps than any terrestrial had ever been. On the upper levels they passed other Martians; farther down there were none.

At last Gekko halted in a small chamber far underground. It was exceptional in that it was totally without decoration; its plain, pearl-gray walls seemed almost unMartian. Gekko laid Jim on the floor here and said, ‘This is a gate to the other world,’

Jim picked himself up. ‘Huh?’ he said. ‘What do you mean?’ and then carefully rephrased the question in the dominant tongue. He need not have bothered; Gekko did not hear him.

Jim craned his neck and looked up. Gekko stood utterly motionless, all legs firmly planted. His eyes were open but lifeless. Gekko had crossed over into the ‘other world'.

'For the love of Mike,’ Jim fretted, ‘he sure picks a sweet time to pull a stunt like that.’ He wondered what he ought to do, try to find his way to the upper levels alone or wait for Gekko. Natives were reputed to be able to hold a trance for weeks at a time, but Doc MacRae had pooh-poohed such stories.

He decided to wait for a while at least and sat down on the floor, hands clasped around his knees. He felt considerably calmed down and in no special hurry, as if Gekko's boundless calm had flowed over into him while the native had carried him.

After a while, an indefinitely long while, the room grew darker. Jim was not disturbed; he was vastly content, feeling again the untroubled happiness that he had known in his two experiences of ‘growing together'.

A tiny light appeared at great distance in the darkness and grew. But it did not illuminate the small pearl-grey room; it built up an outdoor scene instead. It was as if a stereo-movie projector were being used to project New Hollywood's best work, in full, natural colour. That it was not an importation from Earth Jim knew, for the scene, while utterly realistic, had no slick commercial finish, no plot.

He seemed to be seeing a grove of canal plants from a viewpoint about a foot off the ground. The viewpoint shifted steadily and erratically as if the camera were being trucked on a very low dolly here and there through the stalks of the canal plants. The viewpoint would shift quickly for a few feet, stop, then change direction and move again, but it never got very far off the ground. Sometimes it would wheel in a full circle, a panorama of three hundred and sixty degrees.

It was during one of these full rotations that he caught sight of a water-seeker.

It would not have been strange if he had not recognized it as such, for it was enormously magnified. As it charged in, it filled the entire screen. But it was impossible not to recognize those curving scimitar claws, the grisly horror of the gaping sucker orifice, those pounding legs—and most particularly the stomach-clutching revulsion the thing inspired. Jim could almost smell it.

The viewpoint from which he saw it did not change; it was frozen to one spot while the foul horror rushed directly at him in the final death charge. At the last possible instant, when the thing filled the screen, something happened. The face—or where the face should have been—disappeared, went to pieces, and the creature collapsed in a blasted ruin.