The Space Trilogy (35 page)

Norden, looking rather harassed, met him at the airlock. Dr. Scott, also dressed for departure, was with him. He was carrying, with extreme care, a bulky metal case.

“Hope you two have a nice trip down,” said Norden. “We’ll be seeing you in a couple of days, when we’ve got the cargo out. So until then—oh, I almost forgot! I’m supposed to get you to sign this.”

“What is it?” asked Gibson suspiciously. “I never sign anything until my agent’s vetted it.”

“Read it and see,” grinned Norden. “It’s quite an historic document.”

The parchment which Norden had handed him bore these words:

THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT MARTIN M. GIBSON, AUTHOR, WAS THE FIRST PASSENGER TO TRAVEL IN THE LINER ARES, OF EARTH, ON HER MAIDEN VOYAGE FROM EARTH TO MARS.

Then followed the date, and space for the signatures of Gibson and the rest of the crew. Gibson wrote his autograph with a flourish.

“I suppose this will end up in the museum of Astronautics, when they decide where they’re going to build it,” he remarked.

“So will the
Ares,
I expect,” said Scott.

“That’s a fine thing to say at the end of her first trip!” protested Norden. “But I guess you’re right. Well, I must be off. The others are outside in their suits—shout to them as you go across. See you on Mars!”

For the second time, Gibson climbed into a spacesuit, now feeling quite a veteran at this sort of thing.

“Of course, you’ll understand,” explained Scott, “that when the service is properly organized the passengers will go across to the ferry through a connecting tube. That will cut out all this business.”

“They’ll miss a lot of fun,” Gibson replied as he quickly checked the gauges on the little panel beneath his chin.

The outer door opened before them, and they jetted themselves slowly out across the surface of Deimos. The
Ares,
supported in the cradle of ropes (which must have been hastily prepared within the last week) looked as if a wrecking party had been at work on her. Gibson understood now the cause of the bangings and thumpings that had awakened him. Most of the plating from the Southern Hemisphere had been removed to get at the hold, and the spacesuited members of the crew were bringing out the cargo, which was now being piled on the rocks around the ship. It looked, Gibson thought, a very haphazard sort of operation. He hoped that no one would accidentally give his luggage a push which would send it off irretrievably into space, to become a third and still tinier satellite of Mars.

Lying fifty meters from the
Ares,
and quite dwarfed by her bulk, were the two winged rockets that had come up from Mars during the night. One was already having cargo ferried into it; the other, a much smaller vessel, was obviously intended for passengers only. As Gibson slowly and cautiously followed Scott towards it, he switched over to the general wavelength of his suit and called good-bye to his crewmates. Their envious replies came back promptly, interspersed with much puffing and blowing—for the loads they were shifting, though practically weightless, possessed their normal inertia and so were just as hard to set moving as on Earth.

“That’s right!” came Bradley’s voice. “Leave us to do all the work!”

“You’ve one compensation,” laughed Gibson. “You must be the highest-paid stevedores in the Solar System!” He could sympathize with Bradley’s point of view; this was not the sort of work for which the highly trained technicians of the
Ares
had signed on. But the mysterious diversion of the ship from the tiny though well-equipped port on Phobos had made such improvisations unavoidable.

One couldn’t very well make individual good-byes on open circuit with half a dozen people listening, and in any case Gibson would be seeing everyone again in a few days. He would like to have had an extra word with Jimmy, but that would have to wait.

It was quite an experience seeing a new human face again. The rocket pilot came into the airlock to help them with their suits, which were gently deposited back on Deimos for future use simply by opening the outer door again and letting the air current do the rest. Then he led them into the tiny cabin and told them to relax in the padded seats.

“Since you’ve had no gravity for a couple of months,” he said, “I’m taking you down as gently as I can. I won’t use more than a normal Earth gravity—but even that may make you feel as if you weigh a ton. Ready?”

“Yes,” said Gibson, trying valiantly to forget his last experience of this nature.

There was a gentle, far-away roar and something thrust him firmly down into the depths of his seat. The crags and mountains of Deimos sank swiftly behind; he caught a last glimpse of the
Ares
—a bright silver dumb-bell against that nightmare jumble of rocks.

Only a second’s burst of power had liberated them from the tiny moon; they were now floating round Mars in a free orbit. For several minutes the pilot studied his instruments, receiving radio checks from the planet beneath, and swinging the ship round its gyros. Then he punched the firing key again, and the rockets thundered for a few seconds more. The ship had broken free from the orbit of Deimos, and was falling towards Mars. The whole operation was an exact replica, in miniature, of a true interplanetary voyage. Only the times and durations were changed; it would take them three hours, not months, to reach their goal, and they had only thousands instead of millions of kilometres to travel.

“Well,” said the pilot, locking his controls and swinging round in his seat. “Had a good trip?”

“Quite pleasant, thanks,” said Gibson. “Not much excitement, of course. Everything went very smoothly.”

“How’s Mars these days?” asked Scott.

“Oh, just the same as usual. All work and not much play. The big thing at the moment is the new dome we’re building at Lowell. Three hundred meters clear span—you’ll be able to think you’re back on earth. We’re wondering if we can arrange clouds and rain inside it.”

“What’s all this Phobos business?” said Gibson, with a nose for news. “It caused us a lot of trouble.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s anything important. No one seems to know exactly, but there are quite a lot of people up there building a big lab. My guess is that Phobos is going to be a pure research station, and they don’t want liners coming and going—and messing up their instruments with just about every form of radiation known to science.”

Gibson felt disappointed at the collapse of several interesting theories. Perhaps if he had not been so intent on the approaching planet he might have considered this explanation a little more critically, but for the moment it satisfied him and he gave the matter no further thought.

When Mars seemed in no great hurry to come closer, Gibson decided to learn all he could about the practical details of life on the planet, now that he had a genuine colonist to question. He had a morbid fear of making a fool of himself, either by ignorance or tactlessness, and for the next couple of hours the pilot was kept busy alternating between Gibson and his instruments.

Mars was less than a thousand kilometres away when Gibson released his victim and devoted his whole attention to the expanding landscape beneath. They were passing swiftly over the equator, coming down into the outer fringes of the planet’s extremely deep yet very tenuous atmosphere. Presently—and it was impossible to tell when the moment arrived—Mars ceased to be a planet floating in space, and became instead a landscape far below. Deserts and oases fled beneath; the Syrtis Major came and passed before Gibson had time to recognize it. They were fifty kilometres up when there came the first hint that the air was thickening around them. A faint and distant sighing, seeming to come from nowhere, began to fill the cabin. The thin air was tugging at their hurtling projectile with feeble fingers, but its strength would grow swiftly—too swiftly, if their navigation had been at fault. Gibson could feel the deceleration mounting as the ship slackened its speed; the whistle of air was now so loud, even through the insulation of the walls, that normal speech would have been difficult.

This seemed to last for a very long time, though it could only have been a few minutes. At last the wail of the wind died slowly away. The rocket had shed all its surplus speed against air resistance; the refractory material of its nose and knife-edged wings would be swiftly cooling from cherry-red. No longer a spaceship now, but simply a high-speed glider, the little ship was racing across the desert at less than a thousand kilometres an hour, riding down the radio beam into Port Lowell.

Gibson first glimpsed the settlement as a tiny white patch on the horizon, against the dark background of the Aurorae Sinus. The pilot swung the ship round in a great whistling arc to the south, losing altitude and shedding his surplus speed. As the rocket banked, Gibson had a momentary picture of half a dozen large, circular domes, clustered closely together. Then the ground was rushing up to meet him, there was a series of gentle bumps, and the machine rolled slowly to a standstill.

He was on Mars. He had reached what to ancient man had been a moving red light among the stars, what to the men of only a century ago had been a mysterious and utterly unattainable world—and what was now the frontier of the human race.

“There’s quite a reception committee,” remarked the pilot. “All the transport fleet’s come out to see us. I didn’t know they had so many vehicles serviceable!”

Two small, squat machines with very wide balloon tires had come racing up to meet them. Each had a pressurized driving cab, large enough to hold two people, but a dozen passengers had managed to crowd on to the little vehicles by grabbing convenient hand-holds. Behind them came two large half-tracked buses, also full of spectators. Gibson had not expected quite such a crowd, and began to compose a short speech.

“I don’t suppose you know how to use these things yet,” said the pilot, producing two breathing masks. “But you’ve only got to wear them for a minute while you get over to the Fleas.” (The
what?
thought Gibson. Oh, of course, those little vehicles would be the famous Martian “Sand Fleas,” the planet’s universal transports.) “I’ll fix them on for you. Oxygen, O.K.? Right—here we go. It may feel a bit queer at first.”

The air slowly hissed from the cabin until the pressure inside and out had been equalized. Gibson felt his exposed skin tingling uncomfortably; the atmosphere around him was now thinner than above the peak of Everest. It had taken three months of slow acclimatization on the
Ares
, and all the resources of modern medical science, to enable him to step out on to the surface of Mars with no more protection than a simple oxygen mask.

It was flattering that so many people had come to meet him. Of course, it wasn’t often that Mars could expect so distinguished a visitor, but he knew that the busy little colony had no time for ceremonial.

Dr. Scott emerged beside him, still carrying the large metal case he had nursed so carefully through the whole of the trip. At his appearance a group of the colonists came rushing forward, completely ignored Gibson, and crowded round Scott. Gibson could hear their voices, so distorted in this thin air as to be almost incomprehensible.

“Glad to see you again, Doc! Here—let us carry it!”

“We’ve got everything ready, and there are ten cases waiting in hospital now. We should know how good it is in a week.”

“Come on—get into the bus and talk later!”

Before Gibson had realized what was happening, Scott and his impediments had been swept away. There was a shrill whine of a powerful motor and the bus tore off towards Port Lowell, leaving Gibson feeling as foolish as he had ever been in his life.

He had completely forgotten the serum. To Mars, its arrival was of infinitely greater importance than a visit by any novelist, however distinguished he might be on his own planet. It was a lesson he would not forget in a hurry.

Luckily, he had not been completely deserted—the Sand Fleas were still left. One of the passengers disembarked and hurried up to him.

“Mr. Gibson? I’m Westerman of the
Times
—the
Martian Times
, that is. Very pleased to meet you. This is—”

“Henderson, in charge of port facilities,” interrupted a tall, hatchet-faced man, obviously annoyed that the other had got in first. “I’ve seen that your luggage will be collected. Jump aboard.”

It was quite obvious that Westerman would have much preferred Gibson as his own passenger, but he was forced to submit with as good grace as he could manage. Gibson climbed into Henderson’s Flea through the flexible plastic bag that was the vehicle’s simple but effective airlock, and the other joined him a minute later in the driving cab. It was a relief to discard the breathing mask; the few minutes he had spent in the open had been quite a strain. He also felt very heavy and sluggish—the exact reverse of the sensation one would have expected on reaching Mars. But for three months he had known no gravity at all, and it would take him some time to grow accustomed to even a third of his terrestrial weight.

The vehicle began to race across the landing strip towards the domes of the Port, a couple of kilometres away. For the first time, Gibson noticed that all around him was the brilliant mottled green of the hardy plants that were the commonest life-form on Mars. Overhead the sky was no longer jet black, but a deep and glorious blue. The sun was not far from the zenith, and its rays struck with surprising warmth through the plastic dome of the cabin.