The Red Planet

by Charles Chilton

  “And how many miles do we cover on this trip?” asked Lemmy.

  “Oh, about seven thousand,” said Mitch, unconcerned.

  “Well, let’s hope the trucks stand up to it,” said the Cockney. “What do we do if we have a breakdown? Ring up a garage and ask them to tow us in?”

  Mitch laughed. “Frank and his mechanics will be only a couple of days behind us, Lemmy,” he said. “If we have a breakdown we just sit tight until they roll up.”

  And so we set out, across the great, glaring white wastelands of the south polar ice cap towards the warmer climes of the temperate zones near the equator. The transport trucks, looking almost black against the gleaming white of the ice, resembled two lines of beetles slowly wending their way across a barrel of flour. Each caravan comprised three trucks. In the lead was the tractor with its roomy, airtight cabin in which sat the driver and navigator. In tow was the living quarters vehicle, a huge, tank-like machine which, in its base, carried food, water, surveying tools, spare clothing and other personal equipment. On its upper deck, hermetically sealed to an oblong platform, were the living quarters, looking like transportable Eskimo igloos. Then came the cargo truck, carrying fuel, oxygen tanks and other equipment too bulky to be stored beneath the living quarters.

  Soon the great spaceship had been left far behind. Finally it disappeared from view over the horizon and all contact with the rest of the Fleet, except by radio, was gone. We were alone, just the four of us, two in each caravan, slowly ploughing our way across the great white desert.

  We covered one hundred and fifty miles that first day. At sunset we stopped the trucks and camped for the night. Darkness fell and with it came the bitter cold. It was so cold outside that the heaters had to be turned on at full pressure to keep us from freezing, even within our double-skinned living quarters. While the two caravans stood under the black, diamond-studded sky, we slept. Next morning we were on our way again and by noon had covered another seventy miles. We ate our mid-day meal, checked with the Fleet and heard that Frank was already on his way down to Polar Base with his newly-loaded freighter.

  After lunch, Jet and I went outside and dug up some more samples of the soil below the ice. We put these in little boxes, stowed them in the rear of the caravan and then climbed aboard the tractor to continue our journey northwards. We made another hundred miles by sunset and a further eighty by the following noon. Frank told us now that he was ready to follow in our tracks just as soon as Freighter Number Two, the third and last ship to make the descent, had touched down with the remainder of the necessary supplies.

  On the third day we were still travelling across ice but were anxiously scanning the horizon. We knew it could not be long before the limit of the cap was reached and we sighted the drier soil of the Mare Australis.

  Towards the middle of the afternoon, we noticed that the horizon directly in front of us was covered with a long range of low hills. This was rather a surprise to us as we had expected the ground to be perfectly flat up to the Mare Australis at least. Yet the hills appeared to be at least one hundred miles in length and approximately two thousand feet tall at their highest point. We estimated that we would reach them about sunset, and would almost certainly have to camp on their summits. However, this did not worry us unduly as we did not expect to find a precipice on the other side. Also, of course, the added height would give us an extended view of the terrain beyond and, with luck, we might well be able to take a good look at the Mare Australis before we descended to the plain and began to make our way across it.

  It was just after we had sighted the hills that we received an urgent call from Frank Rogers back at Polar Base. “It’s Number Two, skipper,” said Frank anxiously. “She’s in trouble.”

  “We were thinking it was about time she passed over us,” said Jet. “What’s wrong?”

  “I wish I knew. I was in radio contact with her on the ship-to-ship system until five minutes ago, but now I can’t get any reply to my calls.”

  “What was her position when last you heard from her?”

  “Fifty miles directly north of you.”

  “Then keep calling her. Meanwhile we’ll see if we can pick her up.”

  We switched over to Number Two’s frequency and heard Frank calling her. Suddenly we heard McLean, Number Two’s pilot, saying, very faintly: “Hullo, Base--Number Two calling. Trying to contact you. Please answer me.”

  It was obvious that Frank was not hearing him. Jet called up Number Two himself and received a reply immediately. For some unknown reason Number Two’s radio was not carrying as far as Polar Base.

  “Hullo, Land Fleet,” the pilot was saying, his voice strained and nervous. “I can’t control the ship. I’ll have to make a forced landing.”

  “What’s the matter with the ship?” demanded Jet.

  “Nothing, Captain, it’s us.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  McLean seemed to find it difficult to speak. “There’s a-- weird noise. Seems to be right inside my head. I--can’t keep awake. It’s--it’s so cold--I--I--don’t think we’ll ever make Base. I’m going to put the ship down. It’s the only way I can hope to save her. I--I--feel--so--sleepy. . .”

  “Listen, McLean,” said Jet urgently, “you must not go to sleep. You must stay awake, do you hear?”

  “We’re almost on the deck now,” came the weak reply. “About to land, but the ship--is--difficult--to . .”

  Then there was silence. Jet called McLean again. “Hullo, Number Two--hullo,” he said desperately. He called a second time and a third. Then, turning to me, he asked: “How far north of us did Frank estimate she was?”

  “Fifty miles,” I replied.

  “Then if we increase speed to twenty miles an hour we should cover that distance before sunset.”

  “That doesn’t mean we’ll find her. Not before dark, anyway.”

  “But there’s a chance.”

  “Yes, and there’s a chance of burning up the motors, too,” came Mitch’s voice in my ear, “the load we’re dragging behind us.”

  “That’s a risk we’ll have to take,” said Jet curtly. “If that ship is wrecked, her crew will be in dire need of help.”

  “OK.”

  “All right, then, turn on the juice.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Both caravans ploughed steadily on through the powdery ice, leaving two black lines of caterpillar tracks behind them. We had, for our own safety, to proceed with caution and, at the same time, we had to find the wreck of Number Two--before nightfall, if possible.

  Jet called up Frank at Polar Base and told him that, in view of the situation, he was to start out after us immediately. “You’ll be quite safe if you follow our tracks,” Jet said. “Now, how soon can you leave?”

  “Within the hour.”

  “Good. Then we hope to see you sometime tomorrow. Keep in radio contact all the way--and good luck.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  For the next hour we rode in silence, our eyes glued to the horizon for any sign of Number Two. But there was no sign of life at all; not a blade of grass, no trace of moss and certainly no suggestion of anything like an animal. To all appearances Mars, in this region at any rate, was a dead, deserted world.

  It was already growing dark when we reached the lower slopes of the hills and began a steady climb upwards. Fortunately the gradient was not steep. When we reached the summit, both trucks together, only a faint trace of daylight remained in the sky. Even so, there was enough light to enable us to survey the scene. And what a scene it was.

  Stretched out, thousands of feet below us, was a great, purple plain. The hills rolled gently down towards the flat land and, at their feet, the ice gave way to the purple soil. We had reached the limit of the ice.

  “Blimey,” came Lemmy’s voice over the radio, “talk about the heights of Abraham!”

  “Never mind the scenery,” said Jet impatiently; “look for the ship.”

  But the light was fading so rapidly
that even had the freighter been within visible distance I doubt very much whether we would have seen her. Soon it was completely dark.

  “Well,” said Mitch at last, “we arrived too late. Had we got here half an hour earlier, we might have stood a chance of locating her.”

  “Maybe she’s not even down there,” I suggested.

  “But she must be, Doc,” said Jet. “According to Frank she was fifty miles directly north of us before she crashed.”

  “But that was several minutes before she crashed, Jet. She could have drifted miles off the course in that time.”

  “All we can do,” said the Captain, “is go down there and search.”

  “In the dark--and with absolutely no clue as to the direction in which she lies?” I protested. “We don’t even know whether the ground down there will support the trucks.”

  “But what about the ship and her crew? Every minute we waste might mean the difference between life and death.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but there’s no point in throwing our own lives away. Had we seen her I’d agree to make an attempt to reach her. But to wander down there in the dark might be suicide.”

  “Doc’s right,” came Mitch’s voice. “We can start out again in the morning as soon as it’s light. We can’t even see the plain any more. Nothing but pitch darkness and the stars and ...”

  He was interrupted by an excited cry from Lemmy. “Hey, Doc, Mitch, Jet--look!” he exclaimed. “A light!”

  “What?”

  “Yes, down there--see it?”

  A couple of minutes later we could all see it but, as Mitch observed, it was no bigger than a pinpoint.

  “That must be the ship,” said Jet. “At least one of the men must be all right and he’s switched on the landing light in the hope of guiding us to his position. We must let him know we’ve seen him. Let’s put on our light, Doc.”

  “No--wait, Jet,” I told him. “That light. It’s moving.”

  “What!”

  Almost immediately Mitch’s voice came over the radio to confirm my opinion. “It’s distinctly travelling towards the west,” he said.

  “Good grief,” said Jet, “then that can’t be the ship. And if it isn’t, then who is it? What is it?”

  We watched the light for about fifteen minutes during which time it diminished in brightness and finally disappeared. We waited for ten minutes in the hope that it would reappear--but it didn’t.

  “It seems to have gone for good,” said Jet. “What could it have been?”

  “Goodness knows,” I replied. Then a sudden thought struck me. “It might have been the boys of Number Two,” I suggested. “Maybe they’ve taken the land truck out of her and have put on their headlight and are trying to find their way to Polar Base.”

  “Maybe,” said Jet thoughtfully. “In that case, the place where we first saw the light must be where the wreck of the ship is. So all we have to do now is head straight for that point.”

  “You mean to go down there in the dark after all?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he answered. “If we find the ship it will be easy to pick up the tracks left by her land truck and we should overtake her crew by morning.”

  “Very well, if you say so,” I told him. “But I think we’re taking a great risk.”

  “We’ll reduce speed to ten miles an hour and keep our headlights on all the way,” Jet continued, as though I had not spoken. “With luck, Number Two’s land truck might even see them and find us before we find them.”

  Jet called up Mitch and told him of his plan. And then, with our headlights blazing, we switched on the motors and slowly began the descent down the ice-covered slopes towards the plain below.

  Half an hour later we had reached the base of the hills, and great, irregular patches of black began to appear in the ice-covered ground.

  “The ice is giving out fast,” remarked Jet. “Shouldn’t be long before we leave it behind entirely.”

  We continued on our course for two hours but no sign of the ship was seen. By now we estimated that we must have reached the point where we had first seen the light and that to go on -any farther might mean going too far. Jet ordered the trucks to halt while we swung our headlights in every direction, hoping to pick out the ship in the inky darkness. But there was still no sign of it.

  “Well, it looks as though we’ve drawn a blank,” said Mitch. “What do we do now?”

  “There’s nothing for it but to camp here for the night and wait until morning,” replied Jet despondently.

  “If you ask me, we’d have done better to have stayed up in those hills,” said Lemmy. “Then at least we would have had the advantage of height when we make the search in the daylight.”

  I was of the same opinion but, for Jet’s sake, did not say so.

  It was agreed that Jet would take first watch so Mitch and Lemmy went back into their living quarters to get some sleep, leaving their radio on so that they might be called when their turn came.

  It hardly seemed worth my going back into living quarters to sleep for only two hours, so I stayed up with Jet and snoozed in my driving seat. When Jet woke me, he had nothing to report, and neither had I when the time came to call Mitch.

  I was woken in the morning by the excited voice of Lemmy coming through the intercom speaker and saying that he had sighted the wreck. Jet and I rushed out into the driving cabin to look for ourselves and there it was, about two miles ahead of us, tipped up on its nose. The port wing, which was badly crumpled, was touching the ground.

  Jet ordered the trucks to be started up immediately and we drove to within a few yards of where the ship was standing. There seemed to be no sign of life aboard her and, even though we called many times, we could get no reply on the radio.

  As soon as the sun was high enough in the sky to raise the temperature outside to a safe level, we donned our suits and let ourselves out. The first thing we did was to walk round the ship and inspect it for damage. With the exception of the crumpled wing she seemed to be quite intact but, much to our surprise, the cargo doors in the belly of the ship were open.

  “She’s a bit of a mess, isn’t she?” said Mitch. “She must have hit the deck pretty hard.”

  “Yes,” said Jet. “It’s a miracle that any of her crew were still alive and able to leave her.”

  “What makes you so sure that they did?” asked the engineer. “There are no tracks of any land trucks round here that I can see, except our own.”

  “Then how can you account for the cargo flaps being open?” asked Jet.

  “The impact might have done it. Might have set the mechanism off and they just opened automatically.”

  “I think we’d better go inside, Jet,” I suggested. “Her crew must be in there after all.”

  The easiest way into the ship in its present position was through the open cargo hatch, but as this was some twelve feet above the ground, we could only reach it by standing on the roof of one of our trucks. From there, Jet led the way, taking a flashlight with him in case the ship’s lights didn’t function.

  Before actually entering the hold, Jet shone his torch round. The beam fell upon the outer door of the airlock leading into the cabin. Jet gave an involuntary exclamation of surprise when he saw that the inner door was open, too.

  “That means there can be no air in the cabin,” said Mitch.

  “Oh, blimey,” said Lemmy. “No wonder they don’t answer our calls.”

  “Come on,” said Jet, “keep close to me.” And with that he entered the freighter.

  Within a few minutes we were all in the cabin. It was empty.

  “Well,” said Jet, with finality, “they must have left the ship. What else could they have done? Probably the main airlock is out of action and, when they discovered that, they decided to go out through the cargo hatch. Though why they should leave the airlock open beats me. Now let’s make a thorough search. Doc and I will stay here. Lemmy and Mitch, you go back into the cargo hold and see what you can find there.�
�

  We split up to do as Jet directed, but after only a few minutes Mitch came running back.

  “Well,” he said, as he entered the cabin with Lemmy close on his heels, “it’s as I thought. The land truck is still in its stowage so wherever the crew of this ship went, they must have walked.”

  “But they wouldn’t be crazy enough to go outside without a land truck,” said Jet. “Certainly not at night. They’d be frozen to death/”

  “It was still daylight when they crashed,” Mitch reminded us, “and if they left then they could have walked quite a way before nightfall.”

  “The ground outside would have been soft and wet from the melting ice,” I said. “Anybody walking out there would be bound to leave footprints. Let’s see if we can find any.”

  “Yes, come on,” said Jet.

  Once outside we searched the area round the cargo hatch, but the only footprints we could find were our own.

  Our task was made more difficult by the fact that much of the ground had been churned up by our land trucks. It then occurred to me that, except for their size, all the boots worn by crew members were identical in construction.

  “We’d better look over parts of the ground we’re sure we haven’t walked on,” I suggested, “and then if we find any prints we’ll know they aren’t ours.”

  They all agreed that that made sense, so again we split up and began our search anew.

  It was Lemmy who first found something. He called us over to his side of the ship in great excitement. “Come on,” he yelled, “I’ve found ‘em.”

  We all hurried over to where the radio operator was standing, gazing down at some footprints that led away from below the cargo flaps towards where the ship’s tail would have been had the craft not been standing up on her nose.

  We followed them, and about half a mile from the wreck they disappeared. In their place we found three deep circular impressions of some four feet in diameter. They marked out the corners of an equilateral triangle, the sides of which would be about twenty feet in length.

  We all gazed in puzzled silence for a few minutes and then Jet said: “Well, gentlemen, I think we all know what this is--it’s the light.”