by Earl
Suddenly he tensed and began to wheel the pinion madly, back and forth. When Phobos was out of sight, he turned to the rest of us who had been watching and laughing, and said:
“That’s no moon. It’s a big firefly out for a speed record!” Deimos, the other moon, is not in the sky these nights.
* * * * *
Fifty-fifth day.
Captain Atwell speaking. I wish to inform the Expedition’s home staff of scientists; who are patiently awaiting scientific reports from my men, that I consider it our duty to make our position as impregnable as possible before engaging in any concentrative research work. As soon as we have established a permanent camp and worked out-a routine of living, I will let the men get at their researches. For the present, however, and perhaps for another week, they will be under my orders. That is all.
Gillway speaking. Alado, Greaves and Markers made crude plans for an oxygen plant here at the pool. Alado promises unlimited electrical power from the seleno-cells. Greaves is working on the electrolysis setup. Markers is devising a collecting and pressure-pump system to store the oxygen in the tanks that have been emptied through use.
Captain Atwell and Swinerton went to the bush forest, a mile away, to get an idea of its outlay. They found it very similar to the bush wilds of our pool and caught glimpses of various forms of animal and bird life. Swinerton is more excited than ever. Mars seems to harbor more of life than Earth generally suspected.
PARLETTI made a momentous discovery today. He was digging in the reddish land near the pool, trying to get an idea of its composition, and noticed that the soil that clung to his shovel dried to a brick in the sunlight. In other words, it is a hard-drying brick clay. The captain was very thoughtful about the matter. I think he’s trying to figure out a possible use for the material.
Greaves and Markers started the building of the electrolysis plant at the edge of the pool.
Proosett speaking. Markers and I completed a survey for our geographical position on Mars. Using a meridian in the same plane as Earth’s meridian at 6:00 sharp today, Greenwich solar time, we are longitude 16° 17′ 54″, east to west. Latitude from the equator 5° 45′ 15″ to the south. The season here is the wane of summer and logically, then, we are in the warmest spot on Mars. What the temperatures are further from the equator, I shiver to guess.
* * * * *
Fifty-sixth day.
Captain Atwell thought of a use for the clay. Taking advantage of the warm spell we are having—ten to fifteen degrees above zero—he has decided to have a clay house built. The ship, all of us knew without saying, offers very cramped quarters. The captain plans a large, roomy house.
Hods were made and all of us dug and transported clay during the day except Greaves and Markers, who are setting up the oxygen plant. Using the automatic pump that formerly operated the ship’s air system, and with power furnished by the seleno-cell that Alado will install, they will compress oxygen as fast as it is formed. They assembled a conglomerate of tubs, glass tubing, platinum electrodes and batteries at the edge of the pool. Water in the form of ice will be dumped into the vats, melted in the sun, and then run into the electrolyzing chamber.
Most of these things are yet in the formative stage. There are difficult details that will have to be solved. When Greaves and Markers left their work at nightfall, they were surprised to see the foundation of the new clay house already installed. Captain Atwell is an efficient taskmaster, and did as much of the work as any of us.
Markers speaking. Made long observations of Jupiter last night and have discovered an eleventh moon. When the new house is finished, I plan to set up the four-inch ’scope on the roof and take photographs of Jupiter, Saturn and the asteroids. I think from this vantage point, Mars being so much nearer these planets than Earth, there will be other discoveries. I’m not positive, but I think I’ve spotted two new asteroids also. Further observations will bring them out if they’re there.
FIFTY-SEVENTH day.
Gillway speaking. Swinerton came down today with a severe case of bronchitis. Parletti, a first-class doctor as well as a great geologist, tended him and reports no danger.
Captain Atwell is going right ahead with the building of the house and even Greaves and Markers were conscripted to help. The captain says the oxygen plant can wait. He wants to get the clay house up as rapidly as possible, because, as we all realize, if below zero cold sets in again, we will be unable to use the frozen clay.
Atwell left us to ourselves in the afternoon and went hunting. He came back with several of the insect-legged rabbit creatures, which we had tried before and found edible. We were glad to vary our bill of fare with fresh food. Incidentally, it is not meat. In fact, we’re inclined to agree with Swinerton who maintains the creature is more insect than anything, and that its fleshy tissue is really insect steak. It tastes like lobster, though Dordeaux insists it tastes like turtle eggs. Anyway, it’s appetizing and most welcome.
We’ve had trouble with our ears, all of us. The diaphragms of our air-helmets, which enable us to project our voices out into the air, vibrate very strongly and our ears are constantly hammered by confined noises. As a result, we go to bed with ringing heads. Markers and I are going to stay up tonight and remedy the trouble. Sound carries well in this atmosphere and we ought to be able to regulate the diaphragm to less volume.
Bordeaux is quite impatient these days. When our ship was landing, he saw, or imagined he saw, a group of man-made habitations beside the line that marked a canal. Naturally, he wishes to scout around for some archeological studies. The captain is adamant, however. We must finish the house and get our oxygen apparatus working.
Those vultures are still flying around in the sun each day, a full score of them. Atwell doesn’t like their significance.
“Gillway,” he said to me once, “scavengers such as they are never hang around a place that is unlikely to be a hunting ground for some ferocious species of killer. I just wonder what those other creatures are.”
Well, so far we don’t know. Only sometimes I get premonitions and those wheeling vultures above don’t help to allay them.
* * * * *
Fifty-eighth day.
Swinerton is on his feet again, but the captain ordered him to stay in the ship. He watched the vultures through binoculars for hours and told us when we came in that the creatures were more insect than bird. Atwell verified his statement that they had membranaceous wings, although their bodies were feathered. Swinerton stated the creature’s beak was really a pair of mandibles like those of a warrior ant. All of which makes Martian animal life, as much as we can say at present, a curious admixture of mammalian and insectal attributes, with the insect traits predominating.
The walls of the house are now chest high. Cruishank, who is something of an architect on the side, planned a system of supports for the roof. They will be clay columns set up at strategic places to prevent collapse.
The air in the ship is rather hard to manage now that we’ve taken out the automatic pump. Every hour or so one of us has to open the oxygen tank and bring the pressure to normal. The carbon dioxide converters, not being 100% efficient, constantly lower the pressure. No real hardship, though.
FIFTY-NINTH day.
Captain Atwell called halt at noon today and set the rest of the day aside as a period of rest. Most of us are rather frost-bitten and worn, so we enjoyed the hours of pleasant conversation and leisure. Thanks for that special program dedicated to us—made us feel—well, very good.
We have set up two seleno-cells just outside the lock for charging the batteries, as one was incapable of doing the work. Alado plans to set the sunpower mirror on the roof of the house when it is completed, thus assuring us of plenty of current for a heating plant. But for the present, the much smaller and less troublesome seleno-cells will suffice, especially in this constant Martian sunshine. We have seen no cloud since landing. No doubt we would have to go to the poles to find them.
This pool we are using as
a water supply is evidently the remnant of a once much deeper and larger lake. The ages have evaporated it lower and lowey, until at present it is highly saline, barely able to support more life than a few acres of desert shrubbery.
We celebrated Armistice Day today by facing to the Martian east. The ties of Earth still bind us, though we are more than forty million miles away.
Your Earth message came in greatly distorted an hour. ago. If it is anything important, you will have to repeat.
Now for the last thing of today’s log. At sundown, Dordeaux saw three figures standing motionless at the back end of the ship, a few hundred feet away. He dashed in and told Atwell about it, saying that the way they stood and watched indicated some degree of intelligence.
We went out and barely caught a glimpse of the three figures racing away at high speed. The region to the back of the ship terminates in low hills many miles away. What is beyond those hills, we don’t know. And from the frown on the captain’s face, I’d say he is worried. We are on a strange, new world. We don’t know what unknown creatures may be lurking all about us, nor how dangerous they may be.
SIXTIETH day.
Work pushed rapidly on the house. It will be finished tomorrow and we will immediately install the oxygen plant. Once these things are done, we will begin to explore the mysteries of this Red Planet.
Dordeaux is eager to begin a jaunt away from this desert land, to search for lost civilizations. Swinerton is dying to begin a careful survey of fauna and flora. Markers wants to set up the big telescope outside so he won’t be limited by the small view from the ship’s ports. The same with the rest of us. Ten men eager to catalog Martian phenomena. Captain Atwell himself has a hankering to hike to the nearest canal and see what it looks like.
This evening again, in the light of Phobos, we spied a group of the mysterious creatures of the southland, a half mile away. They are squat figures and do act semi-intelligently in the way they stand motionless, peering at us until our attention scares them away. Their scuttling way of running reminds me of something I’ve seen before, and when Swinerton, dashing in and out of the ship to get binoculars, announced that they looked like huge ants, I knew he was right. “But insects half as high as a man! Somehow, they look ominous.
* * * * *
Sixty-first day.
We’ve had serious trouble, and the future is uncertain for us. This afternoon, while alone in the ship, I heard shouts from outside. I looked out the port. All I noticed in a quick glance was Proosett struggling with several horrible creatures whose powerful mandibles snapped at him viciously. I grabbed up a rifle and dashed out to find the rest of our men shooting into a mass of the attacking creatures. Our bullets won the battle and the attackers fled.
We picked up Proosett, bleeding and unconscious, horribly gashed about the legs. He died two hours later.
Shocked and saddened by this, the rest of us discussed the matter. Beyond a doubt the attackers had been fellows of the insect creatures that had been watching us for several nights. We had seen them closely. They were ants three feet tall, giant insects with the ferocity of tigers. And yet more dangerous than any carnivore because of their prodigious strength and powerful mandibles. We wondered, with fear, if they existed in as great numbers as the ants of Earth do.
We continued with our work, two of us on constant guard searching the horizon for possible attack.
We finished the clay house and set up the oxygen plant. We have several windows and one doorway, a double air-lock. We have moved our bedding and eating supplies from the ship and taken up quarters in the roomy house. The heating plant of the ship was removed en masse and, installed, operated by two seleno-cells on the roof. We worked far into the night.
We buried Proosett just an hour ago in the moonlight.
* * * * *
Sixty-third day.
Gillway speaking. I’ve skipped a day because last night a slight defect of the ether damping unit prevented broadcast. There is much to tell. Yesterday Swinerton came running up from his position at the south of our camp. The insects were coming! It was early morning and we had been engaged in refilling our oxygen tanks. Captain Atwell ordered us all into the house. Then he took a look at the oncoming enemy. When he joined us in the house, his face was grave. They were coming in orderly formation, in rank and file, whole regiments of them.
We watched them through the windows, as they came up. Breaking formation, they scattered about, clashing mandibles, looking for us. Finally, as if ordered by some higher authority, they advanced upon the house and attempted to batter it down. Group by group, they took short runs and tossed their hard-shelled bodies against the walls. Finding this useless, the creatures, seeming to know perfectly well that we were inside, set to work scraping at the walls with their hard-edged jaws.
We began to get worried. In time they would gnaw through the wall at some point, and if we weren’t asphyxiated first from lack of sufficient air, would cut us to pieces. It was a grave dilemma.
We had a spare seleno-cell in the ship. Alado explained how we could drive them away—if we could get that generator. From the house to the ship was a distance of thirty yards, swarming with ant creatures. It seemed like suicide, but Cruishank, with a courage as large as his burly body, volunteered to try it. Captain Atwell wanted to go himself, but we overruled him.
Atwell, Dordeaux and Greaves, being the three best shots, covered Cruishank with rifle fire from the outside lock as he made his mad dash to the ship. The ant creatures showed their utter ferocity, leaping at him and at the three marksmen, unmindful of the spitting rifle fire. Cruishank kept his two pistols going and plowed through the insects like a battering ram. The three riflemen held off the insects successfully until Cruishank appeared from the ship, lugging the heavy selenium generator. He could no longer protect himself, but pushed his way to the spot midway between ship and house.
He dropped the generator to the sand, set the rheostat as ripping mandibles tore him to ribbons. Then he jerked up, waving an arm to us, shouted something, and collapsed. Captain Atwell attempted to rush to his rescue but the other two held him back. It would have been sheer suicide.
We turned away from the sight of Cruishank’s body being torn to bits by the vicious enemy. We call it the same on Mars as on Earth—heroism!
Will continue tomorrow—batteries low.
SIXTY-FOURTH day.
The seleno-cell quickly became hot from the sunlight and began generating stored current. As Alado predicted, the immense current, having no outlet from the power terminal, began to send its high voltage sparks into the ground. Immediately the insects, taking this as a challenge perhaps, charged the generator. Then we saw the strangest sight we will ever see. As insect after insect came close to the cell, they took the full charge of the current and died instantaneously from electrocution.
It was fortunate for us that the insects were so utterly ferocious, for instead of avoiding the generator and letting its power dissipate into the ground, they insisted on attacking it in utter abandon until the ground became piled high with their dead. Then, being such good conductors of the current, these bodies absorbed the current and shot it out to their still living fellows.
It became an amphitheatre of blue bolts of electricity, maddened ant creatures, and twitching, burning bodies. Finally they saw the futility of further attack and fled, as many as were yet alive. We dared not go out until the sun set, for the seleno-cell was still operating and generating enough current to kill us all.
That night we heard the tearing of flesh and sinew and the sounds of scuffling. The vultures cleaned the place out for us, leaving not a shred to remind us of the army of dead ants there had been.
Today the ants came, again, in still greater hordes. Once more we watched the forces of nature fight our battle for us, heaping the creatures high in death. We are wondering how many more days they will come back. If they come at night, we will be forced to take refuge in the ship, without any heating equipment.
And again tonight the vultures are cleaning the place up for us. We can hear them at work now, with their cruel beaks. We are all a bit nervous. Swinerton has the strange theory that it is the vultures who want us; that if the ants routed us out, they would leave us for the great birds, who rule them.
SIXTY-FIFTH day.
Gillway speaking. Good-by, world! We are marooned here on Mars! Today our ship blew up. It is a ruined tangle. The ants came again in such legions that their dead filled the pool and heaped up against our ship. Electricity from our own seleno-cell must have worked through to the metal hull and touched off our fuel reserves. Our only salvation from the insect menace was also our undoing—cosmic irony! The explosion, besides very neatly wiping the place clean of marching insects, stove in one side of our clay house. We managed to repair the breach, working like demons in our air-helmets.
In accordance with our previous arrangement, this will be our last code contact. We have not picked up your Earth messages for a week, and doubt that our own are going through. I will continue, however, to send the click signal every day as per our schedule, at noon and midnight, Greenwich time.
We expect the insects tomorrow. And every day thereafter until either our seleno-cell gives out or the attackers give up. After that, supposing fate in our favor, we will do the exploring denied us so far.
But tomorrow will come the insects, and the next day.
All else is the same as ever. So good-by, world! If luck is with us, we will resume radio contact two years from now, at the next opposition.
Mars Expedition Number One signing off.
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
A city—holding within its power the destiny of an entire world——