The Complete Saga of Don Hargreaves

by Festus Pragnell

  “Yes, us again,” he said, feeling rather foolish.

  “I said, ‘Go!’ ” said the giant, speaking with difficulty but calmly. “Don’t you savvy? Go. Danger here.”

  Elsa beside him was breathless with amazement at this conversation with a ghost.

  “Danger there,” answered Donald, pointing back with his arm. “Can’t go.”

  “No savvy,” repeated the giant obstinately. “Danger here. Go.”

  “Can’t go,” repeated Donald, agitatedly. “Tunnel blocked. Can’t get back.”

  To his surprise the giant understood this at once. Apparently he had often heard miners talking of falls from the roofs and obstructions of tunnels.

  “Tunnel blocked?” he asked. “Roof fall? Obstruction?”

  Donald nodded. Now they were getting somewhere.

  “Good,” said the Martian. “Roof fall. Obstruct tunnel. You can’t go. I savvy. I remove obstruction. I clear tunnel. Then you go.”

  He flexed a mighty arm. Donald understood what he was offering to do: to walk into tunnel 57, remove the stones that he understood were in the way, and leave them free to return to their own kind.

  It was a generous offer. Plainly the Martian was willing to help them to a certain extent. Those huge arms and mighty torso obviously had the strength of many men, in spite of the slender hips and legs. But even so he would not be strong enough to move the heavy truck, weighted as it was with stones. And even if he did their problems would not be solved.

  “Oh, thanks awfully. That’s good of you. But you couldn’t do it. Obstruction too big. Stones too heavy. You could not move them.”

  “I get power,” was the reply. “I get machines. Our machines can move anything. Bore another tunnel if necessary.”

  When the Martian was talking about mining he could be almost fluent. Donald decided to try to tell this unexpectedly friendly giant all their troubles.

  “Thanks a whole heap. But we can’t go out. Bad men kill. They shoot. Danger.”

  “No savvy,” was the response. Having said which, the Martian proceeded to behave in a curious manner. He raised his arm, his right arm, to his face, and proceeded to make a long, curious noise at it, whistling, grunting and hooting for about a minute without stopping.[3]

  And, faintly, Don could hear the arm replying. What was happening was that the giant was carrying on a telephonic conversation with another of his kind by means of some instrument on his arm.

  “I savvy,” said the giant at last, when he lowered his arm. “Danger. Men shoot. Kill.”

  He raised an arm, pointed one finger as though it was a revolver. “Crack!” he said. And then, “Boom!”

  It was an exact imitation of the sound of shooting, followed by the roar of an explosive bullet.

  “I savvy. Follow me.”

  Something touched Donald’s leg, and he jumped convulsively. The hermit-crab-dog, forgotten all this while, had crawled up to him without being noticed, and was feeling inquisitively at the fur that covered his legs. It was exactly like being sniffed at by a friendly dog.

  Soon a glass ball came rolling along the tunnel, a hollow sphere some fifteen feet in diameter inside which a square compartment with seats for passengers hung on an axle, keeping always the right way up.

  The Martian beckoned to them to get in. After a little time spent in overcoming Elsa’s fears and persuading her to trust herself in the curious vehicle, they all climbed in with the help of the Martian. The seats were much too big for Elsa and himself, and their feet dangled far above the floor. The strange creature nestled contentedly by its master’s feet.

  HE sphere set off, rolling through the green-lined tunnel with rapidly mounting speed. Donald found himself wondering whether there were many more such round vehicles running through these tunnels, and how collisions were avoided. There was no room for two such spheres to pass each other, and they raced round bends at great speed. He decided that a system of one-way traffic must be the rule.

  They turned off at many forks, until it would have been impossible for them to find their way back alone. He felt glad they had not been left to wander these confusing tunnels by themselves, for they would have been lost in the maze very quickly, to say nothing of the chance of being crushed by a speeding sphere.

  Now and again the giant Martian would raise his right arm in front of him and make a long series of noises at it without stopping for breath. And now Don plainly heard the instrument on the arm replying in a similar manner. The driver was conversing with another of his kind away somewhere in the tunnels.

  At last the sphere ran off the road into a short but wide side tunnel where a number of other such spheres stood idle.

  The driver got out, and they jumped down, too.

  They went through a hole into a large, green-lined compartment where three other giants similar to the one who had driven them here sat on seats and looked at them with a sort of sadness but without surprise.

  No light came from the pale-blue clothes of these Martians, there were no lamps, but the whole of the flat white ceiling glowed luminously, filling the place with light. Their guide must have pressed a switch or something on his person, for the light shining from his own clothing went out.

  A babble of noise broke out, all four Martians talking rapidly in their nonstop, breathless manner, yet each paying full attention to the others. Donald knew that his companion and himself were being thoroughly discussed.

  Presently the noise stopped save for an occasional remark. One Martian went to an instrument on the wall and began playing with wires which he plugged into what looked like a complicated telephone keyboard. He then tapped at the keys of something rather like a typewriter keyboard, except that there were hundreds of keys.

  The Martians looked at them expectantly. Nothing seemed to happen.

  “See,” said their guide, pointing to a green sphere about eighteen inches in diameter resting on a short pedestal. But though they looked very carefully there was nothing to see.

  “Sorry,” said the Martian at the keyboard. “My mistake. Your eye and ear different to ours. Wave length not right.”

  AND then, suddenly without warning, Professor Winter ton appeared apparently inside the green sphere, sitting on a seat and frowning.

  CHAPTER V

  Professor Winterton

  “IS that you, Professor?” asked Donald, nervously.

  “Why, of course it’s me,” answered the whitehaired scientist, with a smile. “Can’t you see it’s me? Actually, of course, I am miles away from you, down in the bowels of the planet, and you are talking to my image, or projection, just as I am talking to yours.”

  “Are you all right? How did you get there? Are you there of your own free will, or are you held captive?”

  “I am here of my own free will, or at least I came here of my own free will. I could not go back to where you are now. But that’s not the fault of the Martians. It’s due to the composition of the air down here. There is a lot of krypton in it That krypton is gradually dissolved into the blood if one stays here for long: it does no harm so long as one remains here, but if I tried to return to the surface or to Earth the krypton would form into bubbles in my blood, stopping my arteries and causing death.[4] Once a man comes here, there is no return, Hargreaves. That is why I can never go back to Earth.

  “Sometimes I wish I could return; sometimes I feel I would like to see again the blue sky, the stars and the sun and moon as I saw them from Earth, for though I can see the sky and the sun and stars in the television any time I choose (they’ve got wonderful telescopes here, by the way) they look very different from Mars.

  “But on the whole I think it was worth it, coming here. There is such a wonderful lot to be learned. Such a lot of astronomical knowledge, knowledge of other worlds. I never dreamed it was possible. I only wish there was a first-class physicist here, and a biologist and a chemist. They’d be staggered at what a lot there is to be learned.

  “I might add that the natives
are troubled with the krypton difficulty also, although not so much as we people from Earth. Their blood does not part with the krypton so readily, but even they have to be careful.”

  “Professor!” It was Elsa Thorwaldson’s urgent voice. “We are in danger. My father is in danger, perhaps dead. Some revolutionaries are making trouble in the mine. They are shooting everybody. Can you help us?”

  The Professor’s delicately moulded face looked troubled.

  “Don’t distress yourself about that, Miss Thorwaldson. We know all about it. A number of Martians and myself were watching in the television machines through nearly all the trouble.”

  “Is it over yet? Is my father safe? What’s happened?” demanded the girl, impatiently.

  “Don’t distress yourself, young lady. Your father is unharmed at the moment, but he is confined to the big house, as are a lot of other people. There are really very few dead: the revolt was a complete surprise, so complete that there was practically no resistance, and the mutineers gained control of everything that mattered with practically no fighting. Most of the white men are prisoners. And, by the way, this is not a revolt by dissatisfied workmen or anything like that: it is a planned attack by the Asiatics on the white men, and seems to have been carried through on secret orders from the Asiatic Federation.

  “The Federation of Asiatic peoples wants control of the mines so as to corner the world’s supply of explosives and war-materials: they want to build up the armaments of Asia, to make Asia strong and end their exploitation by the whites. That is how they put it, which sounds as though an outbreak of war between white and yellow men will be the final outcome of this,” he concluded, sadly.

  “But what are we going to do about it?” cried Elsa.

  “Do? We must be patient, young lady. We cannot give orders to the Martians. Until they have considered the matter and decided on their attitude we must wait while the Supreme Council makes up its mind as to what can or cannot be done. Remember, young lady, this quarrel is no concern of Mars. They have no reason to favor either white or yellow man if the two sections of mankind should fight. They understood that a cowardly attack was being made on the white people here, and also I have made it clear to them that the Asiatics plan a disastrous war against the white nations.

  “I think, in fact I know, that they are humanitarian enough to be pained by the idea of great numbers of people being slaughtered. Even an alien people on a planet many millions of miles away; but if they decide that they cannot interfere, well, we shall just have to put up with it, however painful the idea may be to us.”

  “And if they decide to help us?” demanded Elsa, still more eagerly, “what can they do?”

  The Professor sighed.

  “I understand and appreciate your anxiety for your father, but really, how can you expect me to know that? I haven’t been here so awfully long, you know. My tongue is very slow and clumsy at that awfully difficult language of theirs, and they gabble it so rapidly. I really know very little about them as yet. They are a very peaceful people. I can’t see them fighting the Asiatics, who comprise about two-thirds of mankind, over a quarrel that is not theirs. All the justice in this question is not on the side of the whites, and they know it.” These last remarks the Professor made half to himself.

  Elsa looked angry. Her personal fears of the Martians were forgotten, and she seemed to find it hard to realize that here, for once, she could not give orders.

  “TELL me about the Martians,” said Donald quietly. “How do they live?”

  The Professor brightened.

  “Just what I was about to do. The inside of Mars is astonishing, Hargreaves. It is full of holes like one great sponge. I understand now why the specific gravity of Mars is so much less than that of Earth.

  “You know, Donald, that as the molten, or semi-molten, interior of a planet cools it shrinks. Some geologists think that earthquakes and mountain ranges are caused by that process. But in time the crust of the globe becomes so thick and strong that it refuses to cave in. Then tremendous holes are formed underground by the retreating magma. The oceans drain away to fill the great empty spaces. That is what happened on Mars, and on the Moon. As the holes become bigger and more numerous air, too, is sucked into the holes, until at last the whole surface of the planet or whatever it is becomes barren, airless and lifeless. No doubt a similar fate is in store for our own beautiful Earth, in some far-off age.”

  It took a little while for this stupendous new conception to sink into Donald’s mind.

  “Then the air and water do not seep away gradually into space?”

  “No. It disappears underground. These deeper strata are amazingly strong and solid when they cool. There are caverns here many hundreds of miles in extent. I’ll show you some.”

  The image of the Professor vanished, to be replaced by vast views of weird underground landscapes. There were great oceans, waveless and smooth as polished glass, white clouds drifting against lofty roofs, fields of blue grass and long-legged, big-chested cattle. There were great cities built of what seemed to be colored glass, vehicles of many strange designs and ships that ploughed the waters of smooth oceans and rivers.

  All was lit by a pale, phosphorescent glow that came from the rocks themselves, and the homes and persons of men were lit by the same pale blue glow that shone from the ceiling of the rocky room they sat in, the cold light so long unsuccessfully sought by scientists and industrialists of Earth.

  “Let me tell you the story of Mars, briefly,” went on the Professor’s voice, while they watched these astonishing views. “Those were sad days on Mars when the great oceans began to shrink. The process began quite suddenly, when some point of natural equilibrium was past, no doubt. The Martians can name the very year when it started, when the average level of the oceans dropped by an eighth of an inch, and nobody was able to account for it. Next year it was just over a quarter of an inch, then an eighth again, and half an inch the following year.

  “There were some tremendous earthquakes and tidal waves, due to the waters meeting highly heated strata and turning into steam.

  “Century after century it went on, the slow, inexorable drying-up of the planet, and none of their scientists was able to explain it. The waters shrank and shrank. They extended their harbors and docks to lower levels, following the retreating waters. They built vast systems of pumping works and canals to water their fertile lands, but gradually the dwindling seas beat all their efforts. Nearly all Mars became barren desert.

  “It puzzled them. The seas were not evaporating for the salt content did not increase. The waters were soaking away somewhere, but they did not know where.

  “It seemed that Martian mankind was doomed.

  “The great city near where you now are was for a long time thought to be the very last stand of human life on Mars. Their world, that had so long befriended them, had become a great thirsty sponge, sucking away their means of life. It had become hostile.

  “Then these great caverns were found, and they knew where the water had gone. They found it was possible to grow food and rear cattle in these caverns, and the human race of Mars took on a new lease of life. Slowly the air followed the waters, and mankind and all the life of Mars followed the oceans, the air and the food plants underground into the caverns, leaving the surface of a once fertile planet barren and lifeless, staring blankly up at the stars. Except for some of the smaller creatures and minor plants.

  “There was some trouble at the finish, some fighting and a terrible pestilence. It was difficult to establish human life in completely subterranean conditions. But in time science and the determination of the race to live won. After great hardships they adapted themselves successfully to the new order of affairs. They could not live in the open now, even if the air came back. Sunlight would blind them.”

  “And you, Professor, are you happy?”

  “Oh, I’m all right. Perfectly all right. There are eight of us here. We are all quite contented. They look after us, and we
are much better off than we’d be on Earth You’d be better off here than back on Earth, Donald. Earth has nothing to offer you but a low-paid job, insecurity and a poor home: Mars offers everything. You are a young man, and you’d find the Martian women very attractive, when you got used to their size and a certain elasticity of features. And games, pictures, music.

  “I mention this because the choice will in all likelihood be put before you as it was put before me: to return to Earth or to remain here. Or possibly you will have no option at all. Possibly you have already absorbed so much krypton into your systems that it will be impossible for you to go back.”

  “But the mutineers, the Asiatics,” exclaimed Elsa.

  “We must await the decision of the Council.”

  CHAPTER VI

  The Promise

  AS Professor Winterton went on with his description gradually the view became clear to Donald. He understood how many millions of tall Martians lived underground, bidden from the prying telescopes of Earth, and that, bottled up as they were, they were quite content.

  It seemed to him that if he lived in that way for long he would find being so shut up intolerable; but no such idea seemed to bother the Martians or the small group of Earthmen who had gone there voluntarily. Possibly in those vaster caverns, with white clouds floating high above one, one did not feel shut up at all. He could not quite get his mind used to the idea.

  The professor spoke, too, of tremendous, unforeseen falls of great masses of rock from the roofs. Of destructive tidal waves when such falls occurred over the seas. Of earthquakes, and sudden gushes of flame or suffocating gas from cracks in the floors. Of great snakes and nightmare monsters that rushed out of the dark labyrinths of small, unexplored caverns. Life in the interior of Mars was apparently much more exciting than on the surface of Earth.

  All the while the Professor was talking the four Martians sat watching and making not a sound. Elsa yawned from time to time, and shifted uneasily. She was bored. All she wanted was to know what was going to be done about the conspirators, and about getting her back to her father. The Martian women, she thought, looked dowdy. There was not the daring variety about the color and form of their clothing that she liked to see. Instead of beautifully-dressed people living in dull, drab homes, here were simply-dressed people living in beautiful homes. It was as though houses mattered more than persons. She did not like it.