The Alternate Martians

by A Bertram Chandler

  “It is Mr. Billings, sir.”

  “Make a note of it. He is another candidate for the fattening pens.”

  And then the end of the tube had been inserted into the parrot-beak of the Overlord. The woman was still screaming curses, but it was obvious that she was weakening. The color was visibly draining from her skin. She was only whimpering now, and above her faint mewling could be heard the disgusting sucking noise made by the monster that was draining her blood.

  “Not much in her,” remarked Montgomery disparagingly. “And not much on her, either. Flavor is not everything. I prefer, myself, one of our own women, well fattened …”

  “You filthy cannibal!” snarled Titov. “You’re worse than your stinking Owners!”

  Montgomery shrugged. “A man must eat. And there is no decent meat on Mars apart from human flesh. Mind you, I am rather tired of having to play jackal to the Overlords’ tiger.” His manner hardened. “But you have seen, all of you, what awaits you. Will you work for me?”

  We have to play along, thought Wilkinson sickly. In his imagination he had seen and heard Vanessa, screaming, drained of blood and then dragged away to be dismembered and tossed into the cooking pot. We have to play along, if only for a little time. It’s our only hope of escape.

  And then, before he or any of the others could reply to Montgomery, there was a dull concussion, and another, and another. The third one rocked the building, and the balcony swayed dangerously. Faintly there came a confused uproar, the sound of shouting and screaming.

  “What was that?” demanded the fat man, all his smug self-assurance vanished.

  “Bombs,” replied Titov happily.

  XXII

  MONTGOMERY stared at the biologist, then snarled, “Your friends, I suppose. But I won’t have you killed … yet. You could still be valuable.” Then, to the guardsmen, “Get a move on, damn you. Drag these bastards back to my office.”

  “Mr. Montgomery, sir,” protested one of the guards. “What about the High Overlord?”

  “He can look after his stinking self, the same as we’re doing. Come on. Get moving!”

  The prisoners were jerked to their feet and dragged off the balcony. Wilkinson managed a backward glance at the scene below. The female slaves were clustered around the monster in the cradle, trying to lift it, but its tentacles, like whips, were slashing at their bare flesh. It had not finished its meal and it was resentful of the interruption. The almost drained body of the victim was still twitching feebly. Some of the spearmen were, even now, rigidly at attention; others were trying to help the girls. One of them raised his spear. Wilkinson saw no more, but it seemed to him that the point of the weapon was not directed against a human target.

  Outside, the bombing was still in progress. The very structure of the building was creaking and complaining; fully half the overhead lights were out. But so far there seemed to have been no direct hits. That made sense. If this were a rescue operation, the aim of the air raid would be to cause the maximum confusion without, if possible, the infliction of casualities, especially among those about to be rescued. Then too, it could be that the hastily home-made bombs would not be very effective against the metal buildings, but adequate enough to make a lot of noise and smoke in the streets. Even so, whoever had concocted the explosive had mixed a powerful brew.

  But how had Natalie (if it was Natalie) known where to find them?

  There was a lull in the bombardment, but the shouts and screams were louder now, closer, somewhere inside the building. When the party reached Montgomery’s office the noise of the riot seemed to be approaching rapidly. The Chief Slave strode to his desk, started to sit down, then thought better of it. He stood there, all the cold smugness wiped from his face, indecision flickering in his eyes. “One of you,” he said at last. “One of you had better run along to see what all the noise is about.”

  Nobody seemed at all anxious to obey the command. Wilkinson didn’t blame the men for their reluctance. Some of those screams sounded far too much like the screams he had heard in the prison pen when the guards had been massacred.

  “What are you waiting for?” bawled Montgomery. “That was an order!”

  And then a man staggered into the room. His whip was gone, his sword was broken, and he was bleeding from a score of wounds. He saw Montgomery by the desk, made a half-hearted attempt to stiffen to attention, then slumped, keeping himself on his feet with an obvious effort. He muttered, “You’d better do something, Sir. The Wild Ones have broken loose. They’re out for blood.”

  “Then get back to your post. They must be held, at all costs.”

  “Then you try to hold them. Sir. We can’t.”

  “You can’t?” The fat man’s voice was an incredulous squeak. “You can’t? When this is all over, my man, there will be an inquiry. I promise you that.” He stood for a moment in thought. Then, “The Citadel,” he said. “All forces will withdraw to the Citadel. The Overlord’s weapons will soon squash this uprising.”

  The wounded man permitted himself a smile — a smile that was more like a sneer. “But there isn’t any Citadel,” he whispered. “Not any more. There was this little airship, you see, and it came flying over, and nobody paid any attention to it. They must have thought it had come from one of the other cities, that it was some new design. But it dropped what must have been the father and mother of all grenades, and the Overlords in the Citadel must all be roasted by now, even those who weren’t blown to little pieces. And then it destroyed the Overlords’ airships before they could get off the ground. With a heat ray. Sir.”

  “But it must have dropped all its grenades….” said Montgomery thoughtfully. “It’s some time since we heard an explosion….” He seemed to be on the point of taking charge of the situation. “And we have enough men under arms to make short work of an unarmed mob.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Montgomery. Sir. But we haven’t. There are tribesmen in the city, with crossbows and swords and spears. And there are Green Martians, riding us down with their thoats, sticking us with their lances. And there are strangers in silver armor, with guns.”

  The uproar of the mob was louder, closer. The last vestiges of color drained from Montgomery’s face. He muttered, “We have to get out of here. There’s no time to lose.” He walked quickly to one of the blank walls, found and pressed a concealed button. A panel slid quietly to one side, revealing the mouth of a tunnel.

  “Kill them now, sir?” asked one of the guardsmen brightly, whipping out his sword and holding the point at Vanessa’s throat. Wilkinson, trying to interpose his own body, found his way blocked by two other weapons, one at his chest and one at his midsection.

  “No, you fool!” shouted the Chief Slave. “They are hostages. Get that through your thick skull. Hostages. We take them with us.”

  “You’d better let us go now,” Wilkinson told him.

  “What do you take me for? I shall be able to buy safety from your people, the men from your ship, but never from those animals out there. Into the escape way, all of you!”

  The wounded man tried to follow them, but stumbled and collapsed to the floor. His fellows left him there, to be torn to pieces by the mob.

  • • •

  The tunnel, obviously, was the work of human hands, had never been driven by one of the Martian working machines. In places its walls were covered with rough plating, scrap from some factory; in other places its roof was shored up with metal props. And the overhead lights were bright, to suit human vision, not dim, red-glowing tubes.

  Underfoot, the going was rough, especially for the prisoners, hampered as they were by their chains. One of the guards, irked by their slow pace, apprehensive about the sounds that were drifting into the tunnel through the closed panel, suggested, “Why not take off their leg-irons, sir?”

  “Because the damned keys are in my desk!” barked Montgomery. “Do you want to go back for them?”

  And so they stumbled on, over the uneven footing, Montgomery in the lead, followe
d by two of his guardsmen, then the captives, and then the two remaining guards, who did not hesitate to use their sword points to hasten their prisoners. Wilkinson heard Titov shout, “Stop that, you idiot! We can’t go any faster!” And then, raising his voice, “Montgomery! Tell these apes of yours to keep their damned skewers to themselves!”

  “But you must hurry,” the Chief Slave called back, his voice oddly plaintive. “If those animals back there find the secret panel, they will not discriminate when they catch up with us.”

  “And if our friends find us first,” growled Titov, “they won’t be at all well-disposed toward you if we look like a set of pin-cushions!”

  “Mr. Martin! Mr. Parkinson!” Montgomery’s voice was petulant. “Please try to be more careful.”

  “But, sir, we can hear the Wild Ones trying to break in the panel!”

  “Be careful, I said! Remember that these people are hostages!”

  “I’m remembering what the Wild Ones did to the guards in the prison pen.”

  “That’s enough from you, Martin!”

  “Is it?” Martin called to the men with Montgomery. “We’d have a chance of getting away if we didn’t have all this deadweight with us. What do you say?”

  “We might keep the prisoners — if we can make them get a move on. But as for this fat, arrogant swine …”

  “Yeoman! Lewisham! Put your swords down!” The Chief Slave’s voice crackled with authority — crackled, and … cracked. “No. No. Please….”

  Wilkinson moved in front of Vanessa. He didn’t want her to see what was happening. He didn’t want to watch it himself, but he had to look, had to remain alert to defend himself and the girl (if he could) when the swordsmen had finished with their leader. It wasn’t the actual killing that was so sickening. It was the viciousness of it, the hate, the frenzied reiteration of thrusting long after the gross carcass, streaming blood from its many wounds, had ceased to twitch.

  He heard Titov mutter, his voice carrying a hint of wry irony, “The Swordsmen of Mars…. Christ!”

  One of the killers pulled his blade from the body of the dead man. It did not come easily. He turned to face the prisoners, and called, over their heads, to the other two guards: “What do you say, mates? Shall we make a clean sweep?”

  “Yes. They’re only a hindrance!”

  Wilkinson managed to get his shackled hands up in front of his body, lifting them in spite of the heavy iron ball hanging from the chain. He parried the first thrust, somehow, and then lunged forward himself; he hoped that the other’s sword would be useless at really close quarters. And then he slipped, his foot skidding in a still-warm pool of the Chief Slave’s blood — and that saved his life. The guard’s blade slid harmlessly over his left shoulder.

  He was down, and he heard Vanessa cry out and, from a long way off, Titov shouting something.

  And then the roof fell in.

  XXIII

  A SHAFT OF daylight broke through the ragged hole overhead, illuminating the pile of rubble, making a glittering mist of the dust motes and the smoke. Wilkinson, from his prone position, stared ahead dazedly. Of the two swordsmen there was little to be seen — only a hand, still gripping the hilt of a bent and twisted blade, protruding from the debris and, some distance from it, a pair of limp feet. But there were still the other two men to be accounted for, the ones who had sparked off the mutiny against Montgomery.

  With a rattle of chains Vanessa fell down besides him, careless of the bruises that the rough stones inflicted on her skin. “Chris! Chris! Are you hurt?”

  “No,” he gasped. “I’m all right.” It was not altogether the truth. He had suffered additions to his already considerable stock of contusions and lacerations. But nothing seemed to be broken. He muttered urgently, “Don’t worry about me. Watch out for the other two bastards.”

  “They’ve run for their lives,” he heard Titov say. “Back along the tunnel — the bloody fools! I estimate that they’ll meet the mob just as they get to the first bend. I hope that will give us time to get clear.”

  “But why?” asked Wilkinson. “That mob is made up of tribesmen and tribeswomen, escaped prisoners. They’re our friends.”

  “I’d rather not chance it. The mood they must be in, they’ll tear us to pieces first and apologize afterwards.”

  Two pairs of hands — one rough, one comparatively gentle — pulled Wilkinson to his feet. And then, supported by Titov and Vanessa, he watched Farrell scramble up the slope of sand and broken rock and metal. Hampered as he was by his manacles, in Earth-normal gravity the man could never have made it. But make it he did, and even, as he teetered atop the crumbling summit, managed a desperate standing jump that brought his hands to within clutching range of the edge of the crater. Dislodged by his down-thrusting feet, a large block of stone shifted, began to roll, and became the nucleus of a rockslide. The three still in the tunnel staggered back to avoid being crushed. Then, when this fresh cloud of dust had cleared a little, they were able to watch Farrell, with much grunting and clattering of chains, pull himself up slowly and painfully and, at last, wriggle over the rim of the hole.

  But it was obvious that they could not follow. The pile of rubble had flattened, and from its peak the distance was now too great to jump. And, to judge by the screams-some exultant, some agonized — echoing through the tunnel, it would not be long before the mob was upon them.

  Farrell’s head reappeared, in sharp silhouette against the ragged circle of blue sky. “Come on!” he shouted. “Come on! It’s all clear!” And then he saw what had happened, and called, “Wait a second!”

  It was considerably more than a second before he came back; luckily, the mob seemed to be taking its time with whatever it was that it was doing. But he did come back at last, after Titov had essayed several hopeless leaps, and after Titov and Wilkinson had tried to lift Vanessa so that she could catch hold of the rim. “Here we are!” he shouted, and lowered to them what looked like a rope. It was woven from fine metal strands, and was flexible — but it was stubborn, resisting Wilkinson’s attempts to manipulate it. He finally succeeded in getting a secure bowline around the girl’s waist, and she was drawn upwards, slowly and jerkily, until she could grab hold of a projecting stone and help herself up for the remainder of the distance.

  The wire rope was lowered again and Wilkinson, ignoring Titov’s protests, got the end of it around the biologist’s body. With Vanessa to help Farrell he was drawn up fairly easily. And then it was Wilkinson’s turn. As he fumbled to adjust the loop — no easy task with his manacled hands; easier to do for the others than for himself — he saw the leaders of the mob rounding the bend of the tunnel. He heard the shouts, “There’s another o’ the swine! Come on, mates! Get the bleeder!”

  But when the frenzied, blood-spattered men and women reached the low pile of rubble there were only his dangling feet for them to clutch at, to slash at with the swords that they had taken from the massacred guards. He was already too high for them to reach him, and by the time they thought of throwing stones it was too late.

  • • •

  Where the bomb had fallen there had been some sort of a fight in progress, a stubborn knot of resistance that had been, in the end, wiped out by high explosive. There were dead bodies strewn over the street, flung by the blast against the low frontages of the black buildings, spattered against the scarred and pitted metal walls. They seemed to be mainly those of the Tame Humans, although there was one corpse that was unmistakably that of a Green Martian, and two more in the rough fur clothing of the Tribes. And, still stirring feebly, mechanically, there was the wreckage of a crablike machine, from whose domed carapace protruded the muzzles of weapons, while from a crack in its underside trickled a steadily widening scarlet pool. One long metal tentacle twitched spasmodically; the other had been broken off short. Wilkinson looked at Farrell with respect. It must have taken considerable courage to wrench from the thing the wire rope that had pulled them all out of danger back at the crater’s e
dge.

  But they were not safe yet. Already the heads of the mob leaders were emerging from the crater: already the apex of the human pyramid that had built itself in the tunnel was appearing above the ground.

  Wilkinson stared at the contorted faces, hoping to see one that he recognized. Where was that girl, the one who had befriended Vanessa and him in the prison pen? Where were the men and women from Bill Carter’s tribe?

  “We’re friends!” he shouted. “Friends!” He raised his manacled wrists, shaking his chains. “We’re friends! We were prisoners, too!”

  “Friends me left bleedin’ foot!” yelled one of the men. “Yer can’t fool us wiv them bleedin’ darbies! Lissen ter the w’y the bleeder’s talkin’! Gimme a boost up, ‘Arry, so’s I can git at the bastards!”

  “It’s no use, Chris!” Titov was saying. “We have to run!”

  And so, stumbling, hampered by their chains, they ran, with the howling of the mob growing louder and louder behind them. They could expect no mercy; they would be given no time to tell their story. Their appearance was against them — even now, battered, begrimed and exhausted as they were, they were too well nourished, their bodies too well cared for, to pass for Wild Ones. And their very accents would doom them.

  They ran, not daring to look back but knowing that they were losing ground all the time. They ran, drawing great, gulping breaths that seared their throats and lungs. There was a fire somewhere, somewhere close, and the air was scorching, its oxygen content depleted.

  And then …

  We’ve had it, thought Wilkinson, with dull resignation.

  We’ve had it.

  Dimly he saw movement ahead of them, great shapes plunging through the dust and the smoke, and heard the thunder of horny hooves on the metal pavement. The riders surged down upon them, horrendously tusked green-skinned giants astride scaly, six-legged monstrosities, ragged pennons streaming from uplifted lance heads, from points that were no longer bright, but dreadfully dulled.