He wanted to call it back, but knew no word of command for the purpose. It had gone. It was curious how helpless and alone he felt without it.
Cautiously, he made his way among the buildings, expecting ambush everywhere. But instead of the host of enemies he had expected the place was extraordinarily deserted. Nobody was to be seen. They had all bolted in terror at the sight of the zekolo.
He arrived at the big house, where Thorwaldson and some of the white people were locked up. He rang the bell.
The bolts drew back, and he pulled open the air-tight door. A feeble puff of air came out at him.
It occurred to him that if anybody inside chose they might keep him imprisoned as long as they cared to in these air locks. He would have to risk that.
The safety mechanism would not allow the second door to be opened until the outer one was fastened. If all the air rushed out of the building it might be fatal to anybody caught inside without an air-helmet and unable to shut himself or herself in an air-tight room in time.
The second door opened, and he went into the second air-lock. Then on to the third.
The fourth door was the last. Men might be waiting beyond that door, rifles or revolvers in hand. He played the ray through the door before he opened it.
It was well that he did so, for he found no fewer than six Asiatics lying in attitudes of repose on the floor, revolvers in their hands with which they had obviously been covering the door.
He strode through the building and went up in the elevator to the second floor. He knocked sharply on the door of Thorwaldson’s room.
An irritated voice demanded, weakly, “What the devil do you want now?”
The door was locked. He had to go back to the front door and take the keys off the unconscious men before he could open it and let Thorwaldson and his companions out.
John Thorwaldson looked a broken, deflated figure, not the loud-voiced blusterer he usually was.
“Are you in league with these fellows?” were his first words.
Donald told his story rapidly.
“Oh, now you’ve done it I Now you’ve done it!” moaned Thorwaldson, when Donald finished. He waved his arms in despair.
Donald had expected relief and gratitude; all he got was hysterical abuse.
“What have I done wrong?”
“Can’t you see what you’ve done, you fool? The leader of those follows is over there, in the building that controls the air-supply. He must have seen you come in here; he’ll cut off our air supply! They’ve taken away all the air-helmets. We shall all suffocate!”
The women moaned.
“Not if they think that I have been safely killed or captured by the six guards,” Donald reassured them.
“Six guards? There were eight. The other two must have slipped out while you were up here letting us out, you imbecile! They will tell him everything.”
Donald now remembered having heard somebody moving about, but had been in too big a hurry to release the resident manager to stop to hunt for whoever it was.
As though to emphasize Thorwaldson’s words a cloud of black smoke rose in the middle of the room, for no apparent reason.
Thorwaldson screamed.
“Oh, look what they’ve done! They’ve turned the exhaust of the power-plant into our air-pipe. Instead of air we shall get suffocating smoke! Instead of helping us you have killed us all!”
CHAPTER VIII
Donald Returns
“GET into an air-tight room as quickly as you can and block up the air-inlets,” ordered Donald curtly. “Leave everything to me.”
The others ran off. Thorwaldson glared at him then, seeming to realize that this was no time for argument, followed them in their search for temporary safety.
“And now what’s next?” muttered Hargreaves to himself.
A noise at the other door drew his attention.
“Coming to pay me a visit, are they?” he thought, grimly. “That suits me. I’ll give them a warm welcome.”
He worked the air-locks. As he pulled the switch to operate the last door he stood well away from it, using the leg of a chair. If his visitors started shooting through the door he wanted to be out of the way of the bullets.
But it was not a man that came through the door. It was the zekolo. By some means, probably by smelling his tracks, the creature had been able to trace him here. He patted its hard shell with pleasure.
“Good zeko,” he said. “Clever boy.” An explosion sounded outside. Immediately afterwards came another.
“What are they doing now, bombarding the place?” he muttered.
A roar sounded in the air-locks as a bomb burst in the doorway. The Asiatics were blowing up the airlocks so as to let the air out of the building. That meant death for the six unconscious men on the floor.
He tried playing his nerve-ray on the wall of the building in the general direction of his unseen attackers, in the hope of catching them by chance; but the bombardment went on.
Presently the last door was burst open, and a mighty wind swept through the building as the air streamed out. The unconscious men on the floor stirred as they began to suffocate, then lay still in death, the air drained out of their lungs. Their faces went red and their hands waxy white.
“We’ve got to get out of here somehow, zeko,” he said to the crustacean, who was feeling about the bodies, curiously. “And I think that if we tried to get out of the front door we wouldn’t get far. They’ve got it covered.”
He went up the stairs, as the elevator had stopped working. Through a window he could see Asiatics outside, surrounding the place.
“Why didn’t I think of it before?” he muttered, and began stretching them unconscious by playing his ray through the glass. They dropped one after another.
When those who were still conscious discovered him and began bombarding his window he moved to another window.
“Go to sleep, my lads, go to sleep. Daddy’s come to send you to bye-bye!”
It was a one-sided sort of fighting. He could stand well back inside a window, completely invisible from outside, and stretch unconscious, men who could not see what hit them.
Until presently the ray jammed. Either the charge was exhausted or else his inexperienced handling had made the mechanism go wrong. Whichever it was the lever refused to move. He struggled with it for a while, then gave it up as hopeless.
The house was full of smoke, and walls, floors and ceilings had a coating of soot. Many windows had been blown in by the explosive bullets. If the windows of the rooms where Thorwaldson or any of the others were hiding got broken that would be the end of them.
“We’ve got to do something, zeko,” he said.
He took revolvers from the dead men on the floor.
“Got to meet ’em on even terms now, zeko. And I’ve never handled firearms before in my life.”
It had been easy with the pink nerve-ray: he could see what that was playing on, but with an unaccustomed revolver he was sure he could not hit a barn door at ten yards.
“Got to do it, zeko,” he said. “If we wait here they’ll reduce the whole building to a heap of ruins. Perhaps there will not be many of them round the door now. We’ve got to make a dash for it. Grahlee!”
The beast needed nothing further. It rushed out of the ruined doorway, Donald behind it.
The nerve of the Asiatics had been badly shaken by seeing so many of their number fall, as they thought, dead, for no apparent reason. In the superstitious way of uncivilized peoples, they had thought it to be witchcraft. And the sight of the weird, incomprehensible zekolo charging at them put the finishing touch to their fears. They bolted. One fired at it, but the bullet exploded on the amazingly tough shell without doing any harm. They fled into the mine, into the power-station, anywhere.
Donald found himself in possession of the field.
“Zeko! Come back zeko!”
Zeko came back when he found that his quarry had all got away.
“Good zeko! But we hav
en’t finished our job yet. We’ve got plenty more to do yet. They still hold the air-plant. As long as the leaders of those fellows hold that building they control the settlement. We’ve got to get ’em out. We’ve got to capture the building, and without wrecking the air-plant. It’s got to be, ‘Grahlee!’ again. Eh, damn it, I didn’t expect the thing to dash away at once like that!”
For the fighting animal’s blood was aroused. At the word of command it dashed off and began scraping at the door of the building that housed the air plant.
Donald watched. He didn’t want to run into a trap. The creature would probably scrape for some time before anybody opened.
To his surprise, however, the door did open. He began to run, but it closed again before he reached it. The zekolo was inside, and he was outside.
He knocked on the door and rang, but there was no answer. From inside the building came the sound of several explosions.
He waited and wandered around, becoming gradually more and more reckless. Minutes passed.
He saw the zekolo at the window, but no other sign of life. Was there nobody inside?
But somebody must have been there to let the zekolo in. And, from what he saw, the creature wanted to get out again, but could not.
“Awkward,” he muttered.
He had to get in, but he must be careful not to do anything to damage the air-pumps or interfere with their working, for the life of the colony depended on them. It would not do to blow open a window and let the air out of the building.
But if he blew open a window of an air-tight room it might be all right. The mess-room at the back was airtight, he remembered. He went to it and smashed the three-inch glass of the window with explosive bullets, then climbed in.
The air-tight door had closed automatically as the air rushed out of the broken window. He pushed it open with a big effort against the air-pressure, and emerged into the passage. It slammed shut instantly again.
“If anybody had been waiting for me here I’d have had no chance at all,” he reflected.
He found the zekolo. Three of its tentacles had been blown off, but it seemed to take to notice of that. It waved its stumps and the sound tentacles as though to show how pleased it was to see him.
In various rooms and passages lay the leaders of the revolt, unconscious, knocked out by the zekolo.
DONALD slept better that night, after the feast that had celebrated the crushing of the mutiny. Most of the Asiatics were safely locked up, but a few had been allowed to go on with their work. Order, as the customary phrase goes, was restored. Earth had heard the whole story by radio, and the culprits were awaiting transport back to Earth by the next rocket-ship.
Congratulations had been showered on Donald Hargreaves. He was the hero of the hour. He had spent a happy night dreaming of his wonderful future as the husband of the beautiful Elsa and son-in-law of the wealthy and influential John Thorwaldson.
The morning bell roused him, warning him that it was time to dress for breakfast. He dressed happily, wondering whether he would be expected to keep on with his clerical job or not. Probably he would for a little while, seeing how short the establishment was of clerks.
Somebody knocked on the door.
“A message from the old man,” said the boy who entered, gazing at him in worship and handing him a strip of prepared zinc.
“Thanks,” he said, mechanically.
It was unusual to send messages to men in their private rooms like this, and when such a message came it was usually bad news. He had an unpleasant sense of coming shock as he gazed at the metal strip. He was almost afraid to put in into the machine to hear the manager’s voice.
Then he reassured himself. What had he to fear, after what he had done? This foreboding was absurd, and merely due to association of ideas, a long-standing habit of thought.
He put it in the reproducing machine, and listened to the harsh, abrupt voice of John Thorwaldson.
“Hargreaves, after hearing my daughter’s story I can only say that I am shocked and amazed that you should use the unfortunate chance that threw you together to force your attentions on her. If it had not been for your courageous behavior yesterday I should have no hesitation in charging you with criminal assault and having you sent to prison. Your employment here ends today, and you will return to Earth in the next rocket-ship. Think yourself lucky that I am being so lenient with you.”
He had to run the brutal message through the machine three times before he was sure that he had not misunderstood it. So that was the story Elsa had told? Forcing his attentions on her! Criminal assault!
He stared blankly before him. His world was in ruins. A man dismissed from a powerful organization like Martian Metals was bound to have a hard struggle to find other employment.
A bad time was before him.
And Elsa had told him that she loved him!
He dressed slowly like a man in a daze.
When he had dressed he decided he wanted no breakfast. Appetite for food had left him. Instead, he put on his fur clothes and air-helmet and went out.
He knocked at the door of the house where Elsa and her wealthy friends were staying after the wreck of the big house. He asked for Miss Thorwaldson, not expecting her to come. But she came, two armed footmen with her, two footmen who glared at him with open hostility.
“What is it?” she demanded, her manner bold and contemptuous.
In spite of himself he could not help admiring her brazen self-assurance. She showed no sign of shame or embarrassment.
“You know your father has dismissed me?”
She laughed.
“What else did you expect him to do?”
“You told him an untruthful story.”
I told him substantially the truth. You took an unfair advantage of me.” He stared, dumbly. Both she and the two men were alert, ready for some hostile action, but he did nothing. All energy seemed drained out of him, leaving him weary, sick and disgusted at what a base thing human nature can be, when men had no gratitude and women could pretend to love for selfish ends.
It was Elsa who spoke. “Hargreaves,” she said, and there was steel in her voice, “there is one quality that you do not possess. That is loyalty. You think only of rewards. I am loyal. I am loyal to my country and to my father. You forgot that.”
His answer when it came surprised her.
“Miss Thorwaldson, you told me once that I should have been a Martian. Perhaps you were right. After this example of how one who should be one of the best samples of humanity can behave, I want no more to do with Earth or mankind. Ill become a Martian.”
He went out through the air-locks. She stared after him, wondering what he meant; then understanding came to her, and she laughed, shortly.
DONALD HARGREAVES presented himself at the mine-head.
“Are there many men below?”
“About a score, I think, Mr. Hargreaves.”
They spoke respectfully, but he reflected that if they knew he had been dismissed their tone would be very different.
“Will there be enough to clear the obstructions from tunnel 57?”
“The obstructions have already been removed, sir.”
“Thanks.”
He went into the cage.
“Good-bye,” he said, as he began to go down.
And they wondered why he should say, “Good-bye!” not knowing that a man could decide to leave the Earth and her people forever; that, disgusted with the deceit and ingratitude of Earth he could walk with firm, unhurried step into the unknown, to live among aliens in the caverns around the sunken seas of another world.
[1] Here on Mars, probably due to the lesser gravity, many metals rare on Earth are found in veins and ores near the surface, and in the dead sea beds. Cerium, Praseodynium, Illium, Ytterbium and many more. Some of these are essential to the manufacture of the powerful modem explosives and with the exhaustion of Earth’s coal and oil resources these explosives have become the chief sources of power, forcing the p
rices of the rare metals to such high figures that it becomes profitable to send men all the way to Mars and to construct these great mining and refining works to exploit the planet’s resources.
[2] Martian Metals preferred small men to big men, as they weighed less and ate less, so that it cost much less to transport them and provisions for them through space.
[3] Due no doubt to the different structure of their brains from ours, Martians can talk and listen to each other at the same time. They do not speak, wait for a reply and then speak again. They go straight on without a pause, two or three or even four of them at the same time keeping up a continuous stream of sound.
[4] This is similar to the “bends” which divers get if they come up out of the water too quickly. Nitrogen is dissolved into the blood under pressure, and when the pressure is removed suddenly it is given up again, forming bubbles. The Krypton on Mars behaves in the same way. Krypton is a gaseous element (also found in Earth’s atmosphere, in a minute proportion of one part in twenty million) and appears to be very similar to argon, helium, etc. Its molecules are made up of single atoms, and its atomic weight is 82.9. Krypton samples have been liquefied and even solidified. The solid melted at—169° C. and the liquid boiled at—152° C. Its critical temperature (i.e., the highest temperature at which it can be liquefied) is—62.5° C.
[5] Owing to the light gravity and very slight wind-resistance on Mars bullets travel in a practically straight line for a very long way. A good markman can easily hit a small target, such as a rabbit, at seven hundred yards.
DON HARGREAVES shook his head as he sat beside Professor Winterton. “They are like children,” he said. “Always picking fights. Just look at King Usulor now. He’s bristling like a game-cock.”
Professor Winterton nodded, looking all around the great palace reception hall. “I don’t like it at all, Don. Things are pretty upset in Mars. There might even be a war.”
Hargreaves gripped Professor Winterton’s arm. “Look,” he whispered.
“The Princess Wimpolo is coming in.” He pointed to the ornate entrance to the palace.
The Complete Saga of Don Hargreaves Page 5