The Red Planet

by Charles Chilton

  The sun was already nearing the horizon when, from the top of one dune, we saw something directly ahead of us. About a mile away was a collection of buildings. They were very simple in construction, consisting of no more than four walls and a flat roof, and, to the west of them, was a wire fence or corral.

  Jet, from his truck, had seen them, too, and we compared details, over the radio, of what we could make out through our binoculars.

  “We’ve got to get a closer look at that place,” said Jet at last. “We’ll use the dunes as cover and drive as near as we can without being seen. Then we’ll approach on foot.”

  We got to within about a third of a mile of the house before we deemed it necessary to park behind a high dune. Then Lemmy and I put on our suits and, after taking a quick look at McLean, went outside. “Is McLean OK?” Jet asked as I walked up to his truck. “Yes,” I told him. “I disconnected the airlock in the living quarters. He couldn’t possibly get out even if he wanted to--and we can only get in through the driving cabin now.”

  It took us fully five minutes to clamber to the top of the dune. Once at the summit we lay down and peered cautiously over the rim towards the ‘farm’ which lay just below us. We could see now that the pen or corral was full of peculiar animals. They were about half the size of pigs and were dark brown in colour. They had long snouts, like ant-eaters, and rather wide paws with three horny toes sticking from them. Their long ears flopped down over their foreheads but, whenever they heard a sound, one or both cocked straight up.

  “Blimey--what are they?” asked Lemmy. “I’ve never seen anything like that in the Zoo.”

  “Whatever they are,” I said, “they prove one thing: that there is, at least, animal life on Mars.”

  “And what animals,” said Lemmy. “Enough to drive a bloke on the wagon for the rest of his life. Do you think they’re dangerous?”

  I was about to reply when a low cry from Jet froze us all to the spot. “Hold it--lay still. There’s somebody on the other side of the large building.”

  “Hadn’t we better duck down out of sight?” asked Lemmy.

  “No,” said Jet. “There’s less chance of his noticing us if we don’t move.”

  I could see the figure clearly now. I don’t quite know why but it came as a great surprise to me to discover he was a normal man, about five foot seven in height, fairly well built and wearing clothes rather like those of the pioneers in American history books. They were, in fact, made of skins, probably the same skins as worn by the animals in the pen. He carried a rifle--quite a modern-looking weapon --in the crook of his arm.

  Like McLean, the man wore no space suit nor seemed to need any kind of breathing apparatus. Suddenly he put his hand to his mouth and whistled. A few moments later there came running round from the other side of the house another peculiar beast. It had a flat body and three pairs of legs. Two waving antennae protruded from its forehead.

  “Blimey, what’s that?” asked Lemmy. “Looks like an overgrown beetle.”

  “But it behaves just like a dog,” said Jet. “Look at the way it follows him.”

  It was true. When, to our surprise, the man bent down and patted the odd little creature on the head, it seemed to enjoy the fussing and rubbed itself against the man’s legs as a cat would. That over, the rifleman stood up, shaded his eyes from the sun and scanned the sky.

  “Oh no,” said Lemmy. “He’ll be turning in our direction in a minute. He’s bound to see us.”

  I didn’t see how he could help it but, at that moment, the man dropped his hand from his eyes and turned his head sharply towards the house.

  “Looks as though somebody called him,” I suggested.

  We all lay perfectly still as the skin-clad figure walked up to the door, gave it a push and disappeared inside with his ‘dog’.

  Lemmy breathed a sigh of relief. “Now let’s get back to the trucks,” he said. “I’ll feel a lot safer there.”

  “You can go back if you wish, Lemmy,” replied Jet, “but I’m going down there--to introduce myself, as you might say.”

  “Down there?” asked Lemmy.

  “We’ll never find out anything sitting up here and just watching from a distance.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, “but you’re not going down there alone, Jet. I’m coming with you.”

  “Me, too,” said Lemmy, changing his mind in the instant.

  So we stood up and slowly but determinedly walked down the sand dune towards the house. We had to pass quite close to the corral and, as we got up to the fence, the peculiar ant-eater-like creatures came running towards us. Lemmy instinctively shied away from them, but Jet remained at the fence and even rubbed his hand over their backs which they seemed to enjoy.

  “They must have thought we were going to feed them,” he said. “These animals are quite tame.”

  “Well, let’s not bother with the animals until we’re sure their owners are tame, too,” suggested Lemmy.

  We walked up to the house and stopped outside the door. It seemed to be woven from some kind of thick raffia and hung on leather-like hinges. A simple lift catch held it shut. Jet closed his fist and hammered on the door. To our ears, enclosed in our helmets, the knocking sounded very weak. We assumed that the noise was much louder outside in the Martian atmosphere and could easily have been heard by anyone within the house. But whether or not that was so, nobody came to the door.

  “Let’s go in, Jet,” I said at last. “I don’t think anybody intends to answer.”

  Jet lifted the catch and slowly pushed the door open. Lemmy blew through his lips and said: “This place feels so cold--like a tomb. What kind of people could possibly live in here?”

  “From what we saw up on the sand dunes, Lemmy,” I reminded him, “ordinary human beings like ourselves.”

  “Then for ordinary human beings they seem to have an extraordinary taste in furniture. What’s this contraption supposed to be?” Lemmy was standing by a very crudely-made table. It was fashioned from the same straw-like material as the door. I put my hand on it and tested its strength. It was a little rickety but seemed fairly solid otherwise.

  “And I suppose this is meant to be a chair?” said Lemmy. Here again was a rough seat woven from the same kind of material.

  “And just look at the state of those walls,” I said. “This place is virtually a ruin.”

  “And yet it seems clean,” Jet pointed out, “and tidy.”

  We moved across the room to another door and knocked on that. This time there was an answer immediately. We heard what sounded like the shrill piping of a cricket. The more we knocked the louder it became.

  “Sounds like they keep a canary,” said Lemmy. “Or is that Martian language for ‘come in’?”

  Jet put his hand to the latch and lifted it. He opened the door a little way and the shrill piping sound became louder. Then he pushed the door open wide and there, standing barring our path, was the strange, beetle-like creature we had seen outside.

  Jet took a step forward and at once the ‘beetle’ began to back away from him. “Come on,” he said, “I don’t think this creature will give us any trouble.”

  “In you go, Lemmy,” I said, giving him a push, “Let’s see where the door at the end of this passage leads to.”

  When we reached it, Jet knocked as before. And, as before, there was no reply. Jet tried again and this time we heard a strangely familiar voice say: “Who’s there?”

  “That sounded like Mitch,” said Jet, incredulously.

  “It can’t be,” I said. “How could he have got this far?”

  Jet tried the latch but found the door to be locked so he knocked again and yelled: “Mitch--Mitch--let us in.”

  “For Pete’s sake,” came the immediate reply, “cut out that banging.” The voice was unmistakably that of Mitch. “If you have anything to say,” he went on, “say it. If not, go away and leave me alone.”

  Jet rattled the latch violently. “We’ve got to get in there, Doc, and get
him out.”

  “If you ask me,” put in Lemmy, “it doesn’t sound as though he wants to come out.”

  Before I could prevent him, Jet put his shoulder to the door. I was afraid he might damage his suit, but the door gave way almost at once.

  It opened on to a dimly-lit room into which a small window allowed only a little daylight to enter. On the opposite wall was a crude bed with Mitch lying on it. He lay much as McLean had lain on the bunk of the living quarters truck, staring at the ceiling. He hardly seemed aware of our presence.

  “Land sakes, Jet,” I exclaimed, “I think we’re too late. Look at him--no helmet--no suit--and he doesn’t even recognise us.”

  Jet looked at the still form a moment and then said: “Mitch, don’t you know us?”

  Mitch turned his head in our direction. “You took you’re time coming, didn’t you?”

  “Took our time?” I protested. “We didn’t even know you were here.”

  “Did you bring the ambulance with you?”

  “Ambulance?” I asked.

  “You must have done. Well, if we’re going, let’s go. I won’t really be sorry. That sheep farmer and his wife are scared of me. They think a little sunstroke has driven me crazy.”

  “Sheep farmer?” I said. “What are you talking about, Mitch?”

  “‘That couple that took me in. They’re certainly sheep they have in the pens outside, aren’t they?”

  “No, Mitch,” said Jet, “they’re not sheep. They’re . . .”

  “I didn’t want to scare ‘em,” Mitch went on, as though Jet hadn’t spoken. “They were good enough to me. Made up this bed with nice clean sheets and . . .”

  By this time Lemmy was also standing by the couch and gazing down at his crew mate. “Sheets, did he say? That bed’s nothing but a heap of old furs--skins from those animals outside.”

  “Well,” Mitch continued, “why don’t you sit down? It’ll take me a couple of minutes to get dressed.”

  “And where do we sit?” asked Lemmy.

  “There are chairs enough, aren’t there? Two arm chairs by the fire and a sofa in the window.”

  We looked around the room and saw three objects which, with a lot of imagination, could perhaps have resembled the furniture Mitch had described.

  “Arm chairs yet,” said Lemmy under his breath. “I could make better myself out of an orange box.”

  “Yes, we will sit down, thank you,” I said to Mitch gently, “but over by the window. It’s rather warm in here.” I indicated to Jet and Lemmy to follow me and we seated ourselves as best we could on the long, plank-like object which Mitch believed to be a sofa.

  “What on earth has happened to him, Doc?” Jet whispered.

  “He must be crackers,” said Lemmy.

  “No, Lemmy,” I corrected him, “just changed.”

  “To what?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “He’s not another Whitaker, is he?” asked the Cockney.

  He had voiced my own fear, but I merely replied: “Whatever he is, he sees things quite differently from how they really are.”

  “But why did he think we might have brought an ambulance with us?“ asked Jet.

  “Because he believes he’s sick and we’ve come to take him away,” I replied. “And so long as he thinks that, that’s what we will do. We’ll take him to the trucks with us. At least we’ll have him back again, and then . . .”

  My suggestion was interrupted by the shrill barking of the dog-beetle at the door.

  “What’s worrying that dog?” called Mitch.

  “Dog!” said Lemmy. “He thinks it’s a dog, too.”

  “What’s he kicking up that row for?” went on the Australian. “Have you got somebody else out there?”

  “No, Mitch,” I said, “there’s only us.”

  “Well, something’s worrying him.”

  “Oh, blimey,” said Lemmy suddenly, “and no wonder.” He was gazing out of the window. “Look out there,” he said. “That ship we’ve been following--that sphere. It’s just landed outside.”

  Jet and I followed Lemmy’s gaze and saw that what he had said was true.

  “What was that?” asked Mitch from the other side of the room. “A plane just landed, did you say?”

  “Yes, Mitch,” said Jet, hardly knowing what to reply.

  “But didn’t you just land here?”

  “No, Mitch--we came in the trucks.”

  “But the farmer told me you’d be flying here.” Mitch was out of the bed now and was dressing himself in his crew suit--the undergarment which we all wore beneath our space suits.

  “How could he?” I called back. “That farmer, as you call him, couldn’t even have known we were coming.”

  “Who are you?” said Mitch approaching us. “Aren’t you the flying doctor?”

  “You might call me that,” I said cautiously.

  “From Alice Springs?”

  “Look, Mitch,” I said firmly, “finish dressing and come on.”

  “Where to?”

  “Back to the trucks, of course,” replied Jet, putting his hands on the engineer’s shoulder.

  “Take your hands off me,” said the Australian, pushing Jet away. “I’m not coming with anybody until I know just who you are.”

  “We are Doc, Jet and Lemmy,” I said, “of the Mars space fleet. You’re one of our crew.”

  “The Mars space fleet?” repeated Mitch dazedly.

  “Yes, Mitch. We landed here on Mars nine days ago in the Flagship Discovery--you, too.”

  Mitch took a couple of paces backwards and looked at us with fear in his eyes. “You’re crazy, the whole lot of you. This is Australia.”

  “Australia!” exclaimed Jet, taking a step towards the engineer.

  “Keep away,” said Mitch, his voice rising dangerously.

  “Mitch,” I pleaded, “you must believe us.”

  “Keep off--or I’ll hit you with this chair.”

  “Mitch,” said Jet, advancing towards the Australian, “we’re your friends. We want to help you.”

  “Come a step nearer and I’ll let you have it!”

  Jet came to a halt not a yard from Mitch. He dare not approach any closer for the Australian was standing with the chair poised above his head. If he brought it down on Jet’s helmet and broke it, Jet was liable to be suffocated by the Martian atmosphere which, for all we knew, might be poisonous to us, although, I must admit, Mitch seemed to be breathing it quite easily.

  “Mitch, for the last time,” begged Jet, “you must come with us. You belong to us. You are one of us.”

  “I’m not going with anybody,” said Mitch decisively, “until I know exactly who you are.”

  The dog-beetle was making more noise than ever now, and then, quite suddenly, we heard footsteps coming along the passage. My heart sank. Whoever had come out of the sphere which had just landed was now in the house and there was no escape for us.

  “The window,” said Jet urgently. “We can get out of there.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but what about Mitch?”

  “If he won’t come, there’s nothing we can do about it. Let’s get back to the trucks. Maybe we can think up a plan for rescuing Mitch later. What else can we do?” he said, turning to me in despair.

  “Very well,” I agreed, and headed for the window.

  But I had hardly reached it when a voice behind me said: “Stay where you are!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Five figures stood in the doorway. The man who had spoken was of moderate height and build, with a thin, leathery face, indicating that he spent much of his time outdoors in the sun. He wore an Australian-type bush hat, a loose shirt, trousers held up by a wide leather belt and tight-fitting boots which came halfway up his calves. Behind him were the farmer, a woman I took to be his wife and behind them, to my great surprise, were Dobson and Harding, two of the men missing from the crashed Freighter Number Two. None of these people wore space suits or breathing apparatus
of any kind. Dobson and Harding stood staring vacantly before them, and it was obvious that they, too, were in a conditioned state, similar to that of McLean and Mitch.

  The farmer pointed towards us. “That’s them, Doc. Appeared from nowhere. Frightened the wits out of my wife and then began to search the house without so much as by-your-leave.”

  The leathery-faced man stepped into the room. “Who are you?” he demanded in a strong Australian accent.

  “We might well ask you that,” replied Jet, shouting in his helmet to make himself heard.

  “That’s easily answered,” said leather face. “I’m the flying doctor in this part of the Territory. I received a report that there was a man here suffering from over exposure to the sun. So I came to pick him up.”

  So this was the man Mitch was expecting; indeed a Flying Doctor.

  “If I may say so, Doctor,” I said, as courteously as I could, “he’s not suffering from over exposure to the sun.”

  The Flying Doctor ignored my remark. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Matthews is my name. Doctor Matthews.”

  “A doctor of medicine?”

  “Yes. Of space medicine in particular.”

  “Of what?” “Space--astronautics.”

  “That’s a branch of medicine I’ve never heard of. What are you doing here? Where did you come from?”

  “We came looking for our Chief Engineer,” said Jet, “Stephen Mitchell--the man you say has had an overdose of the sun. But he was fit enough when he left us.”

  The Flying Doctor turned to Mitch and asked: “Have you ever seen these men before?”

  “Not that I can remember,” Mitch replied.

  “Mitch,” I said gently, “what do you remember? How did you get here?”