The contents of the sled went hurtling down into the chasm! They were left with an empty sled and the oxygen and batteries they were wearing. Beyond that, everything lay thirty feet below them.
For a minute Dick stood staring down, and there were tears in his eyes. He wanted to sit down on the edge and begin crying. And he wanted to shout at the big joke the fates had played on him. But he could only stare at the stuff that had spilled from the sled, without moving.
Charlie pulled the sled all the way to his side and began unfastening the ropes that were left. “Should have guessed it was going to happen. Threw the rope across and looped it over a rock here. Went across it, swinging and swaying, until I could pull myself up. Then I just tossed it back. The rock was sharp, Dick, and the rope we have takes punishment fine, up to a point. But then it begins to give out.
We got real hotland rope, and it’s too cold for it here. Well, these look okay.”
Dick watched him move to the edge and stare down, before he realized that the old man had every intention of going down after the supplies. Then the stupor of the new trouble was gone from his mind in a quick moment, and he was himself again.
“My job,” he told Charlie.
Charlie sounded stubborn. “I should have checked that rope. And that makes it my fault.”
“We both should have checked it. But I’m still lighter than you are, Charlie. And here, even five pounds will make a difference. Maybe five ounces will. Toss me the rope, will you?”
Charlie hesitated for a moment. Then he threw it over, and Dick estimated it carefully. Long enough. He caught it close to the edge, while Charlie braced himself. Then he stepped over.
He hit the wall of the opposite side with a heavy thud, but he had been braced to take it up with his legs, and they had grown used to this type of passage across the cracks here. Charlie grunted, but he held on somehow. Dick began lowering himself into the crack. Ten feet from the bottom, he found that it was narrow enough for him to go the rest of the way by bracing his arms and legs against the two walls. And at the bottom, there was barely room to turn around.
The things from the sled were scattered everywhere, and most of them were going to be hard to tie to the rope. Dick went after them, chasing down the oxygen tanks. They had been designed to take rougher abuse than this, but he was worried about the batteries. lie examined them carefully. Most of them were seemingly all right, though one had a crack in it. It had landed right side up, and none of the fluid had spilled. He had no way of knowing whether it would still work, but he unhooked the fairly fresh battery on his suit and hooked the cracked one on.
The motor went on humming, and he nodded to himself. He’d have to be careful not to lie or sit down with it on, but it would be all right as long as he kept it upright. The thick liquid would eventually evaporate in the vacuum here, but not before he had most of the good out of its charge.
Above him, Charlie waited patiently, or moved along the edge of the chasm, trying to spot anything that Dick had missed. He reported two more batteries lying further down, and out of Dick’s sight. As far as they could remember, that accounted for everything.
Hauling the things up wasn’t hard, but it took forever. The rope barely reached, and there wasn’t enough to make a good hitch around more than one or two things at the same time. Charlie had to pull up and let down until it seemed to Dick that the old man’s arms must be ready to drop. Yet either one would have been delighted if there had been more to raise; it might have meant more hours margin before they found themselves faced with either no power or no air.
Johnny had darted upward, apparently trying to find a place where there was stronger sunlight to give him more badly needed energy. He was looking worse, now—enough to be seen. The swirling spots that formed a pattern on his surface seemed to be slower and less orderly.
At last the final load was raised, and the rope came down for Dick. He took a grip on it, wondering if it would hold his weight again, and whether Charlie would be able to take the strain if it did. But he finally worked his way up to the edge and Charlie’s reaching fist without further trouble.
Now, woodenly, they took up the march again, leaning together as they pulled the sled along. The sun was close to the horizon, but they had decided before that neither one of them could trust himself to guess how far from the middle of the twilight belt they were. All they knew was that they had to go on, regardless of fatigue or anything else.
Now Johnny came bobbing back from a scouting trip ahead, and his actions showed that something else had come to plague them. Dick watched him for a second. “More of the demons?”
Johnny twisted about in the manner that appeared to mean “No,” and swirled uncertainly. “Lost?” Dick tried, but with the same result. Charlie stared doubtfully ahead, and his voice was as tired as his eyes. “So something has happened to the trail since you saw it before, and it’s going to be tough. Think we can make it at all, Johnny?” This time the wispy bobbed a doubtful assent. Dick shrugged and bent forward against the tow- rope again. “Okay, Johnny, lead on. If we have a chance, we have to take it.”
They came to the trouble within five minutes— another chasm that seemed to have cracked open within the last few days. Here the solar storm going on was something that made much less difference than in the center of the hotlands, but it had probably upset the balance of the crust all over the planet. The opening before them looked like the product of some kind of an earthquake, though Dick was unfamiliar with such things except in pictures.
It was at least twenty-five feet wide, and seemed to be twice as deep, though the wall on this side had another crack that ran down at a steep angle, but one which might be traversed for half the distance down or more.
Dick stared into it, bothered by the feeling that it might snap closed on them at any minute. But he put that down as sheer wild imagination, and began getting the sled ready to carry down. Below, and within reach of the slanting crack they would have to climb down, was a little shelf. They examined the rope carefully this time and made sure everything was fastened on to the sled. Then they let it down gently, until it touched. Dick shrugged as he dropped the rope after it. Now they had to get down there.
Climbing down was rough, but not impossible. They reached their supplies, and lowered them the rest of the way to the bottom. This time, they had to trust themselves to a combination of falling and sliding, while they tried to hold themselves back with their hands. But they landed nearly on top of the supplies, with no bones broken, and with no real damage to their suits.
Johnny had come down part way into the narrow channel, and now started north along it, leading them to some place where he seemed to think they could climb out. But Charlie sat down, shaking his head. “This is good enough for me, Dick. We can stop here as well as anywhere else. And I don’t mind admitting I’m plumb beat.”
Dick felt the same. He dropped carefully onto the floor of the chasm, making sure the battery was still upright, and began to reach for the last of the food that was inside his suit. After that they’d have to get along without eating, unless they reached an outpost somewhere.
He glanced down, and then leaned closer for a look at the surface on which they sat. “Looks like we found one of those underground lead rivers, Charlie,” he said slowly. “This has been worn smooth, and it’s still coated with lead. It must have cracked right above the stream.”
Charlie stared at the thin layer of lead under him.
“Well,” he decided at last, “if the river is going to start flowing again while we sleep, it’ll just have to do its worst. I’m a-fixing to sleep no matter what happens. I betcha I do.”
“Lead’s a soft metal. It should make a good bed,” Dick agreed. He slipped his shoulder back against one of the walls, bent his head forward, and was asleep.
Chapter 12 The Impossible Trek
There was no sudden return of a river of lead during their sleep, though Dick was almost sorry about it as he awakened and realiz
ed what lay before them. Charlie was still sleeping, his face now sagging and gray, and no life left in him. With the pretense he had kept up while awake stripped away, he was suddenly old and gaunt.
Dick knew that he probably looked the same. It wasn’t age, but hopelessness that was working against Charlie, just as it was hitting at him. They’d practically lost all faith in their ability to get through. And yet they had to go on, as long as they had a breath of air left. Behind them lay seven hundred people, and their self-chosen responsibility was heavy on their shoulders.
Dick started to go over to the older man, and then shrugged. Another hour or so of sleep wouldn’t make that much difference. It might even help them. He squatted down by the sled and began replacing the oxygen tanks on both suits, and testing the batteries.
Then he started to reach for breakfast, until he remembered that all the food they had packed into the suits was gone. There were still the emergency lozenges—enriched candy that gave the greatest possible amount of energy for its weight, but which was supposed to be kept until the last possible moment. Dick shrugged off the faint touch of hunger that had come when he knew there was no food, and sat waiting for Charlie to awake.
But the reactions of Hotside Charlie surprised him when the older man did snap out of it. He looked up at the walls that rose above him, and shook his head.
“I guess I’m quitting, Dick,” he announced. “I’ve had enough. Too much, by golly. And I ain’t as young as I used to be. Rot has set in. And it’s time I quit play-acting I was still a real man. You take what you can and go on, and I’ll just sit here, waiting for that lead river to come back!”
It shocked Dick. Charlie was the one man he would have sworn couldn’t have said it. It wasn’t like him in any way. Doc Holmes had admitted that Charlie had the strongest will to live he’d seen. And he wasn’t in as bad shape as he had been when Dick had first found him.
Dick sat puzzling over it. His mind was still thick with fatigue, but he knew there must be an answer somewhere. And he finally pinned it down, after seeming to chase it through his whole mind and back again.
“All right, Charlie,” he said. “I guess you’re right. We might as well quit kidding ourselves. You’re an old man, and I’m just a kid. We can’t take it. And I’m glad you had the courage to admit it first, because I don’t think I could have done it … Well, I guess we might as well send Johnny home.” Charlie sighed, and leaned forward to study Dick’s face, but the boy knew nothing would show there but weariness. “Yeah. Yeah, Might as well send Johnny home, Dick. But I still think you could go on. I’m telling you how I feel, but you don’t have to do anything just because I do it.”
Dick shrugged, and sat quietly. Charlie fiddled with his finger in the soft lead of the floor, drawing ticktacktoe marks on it. Johnny darted down, and up again, but they paid no attention to him.
Finally Charlie sighed heavily. “I feel sorry for your mother, kid. She’s going to feel mighty bad, I guess. I’ll bet she’s a-thinking you’re all set to come back bringing help any minute. She knows you’re the kind who can do it, too, by golly. Guess she’s apt to hate me for dragging you off thisaway.”
Dick said nothing. He put his shoulder back against the wall, and bent his head down, closing his eyes. He heard Charlie stir impatiently and sigh again, but he didn’t look up.
“Wish I was young again. Sure do. You betcha.” There was a querulous note in the old man’s voice now. “In them days, nothing could have kept me here. I’d of been up and going up this thing so fast you couldn’t say Jack Robinson. Mighty spry I was, when I was young like you, Dick. Give me six hours sleep, and I could get so full of pep nothing could hold me down. And I didn’t have a mother and dad a-sitting home waiting for me. Nor a pretty little sister. But I couldn’t be tied, no sir. You betcha.”
“I guess you must have been quite a man,” Dick agreed. “You always were a lone wolf. Maybe it’s because I’ve always had a family that I just haven’t hardened up. I couldn’t have gone this far alone, and I suppose you could have done better if I hadn’t got in your way. But I’m stubborn. I always was stubborn, Charlie. I guess I just had to come along because I was stubborn.”
Charlie managed a heavier sigh this time. “Know just what you mean. Stubbornest man that ever lived, myself. Why I’d starve myself to death in a barrel of cheese iffen I’d said I wasn’t hungry. Some folks used to call me Old Stubborn.”
Dick’s head came further forward, and a faint snoring sound came from his mouth. Charlie squirmed on the lead, leaving marks with his mittens as he swung from side to side. He sighed, but this time it was more completely a part of himself.
He squirmed again, and finally began to heave himself to his feet.
“Doggone smart aleck,” he said accusingly. “And if there’s one thing I never could stand, it’s a smart- aleck brat who thinks he knows ten times as much as his elders. Can’t stand young fools who think they know all there is to know. Dick, you young whelp, you get up from there, or I’m not too old to tan the hide off you. Get, now!”
Dick grinned wearily, and climbed to his feet, staring at Hotside Charlie. “Old Stubborn,” he returned. “I should have made you sweat a lot longer for trying a dirty trick like that on me. Do you think I couldn’t figure out what was on your mind? I know. Half supplies for two are full supplies for one. So you were going to make me hate myself the rest of my life, just so you could feel noble about sending me alone.”
“Now see here, you . . Charlie began. Then he snorted faintly. “Doggone you, Dick, never had a better partner in my life. Not even your grandfather. Just like him, except you’re a real Mercury man. I betcha you’d of sat there till you did starve before you’d have given in. Stubborn, contrary, ornery young whelp. But by jingo, you almost make me feel young myself.”
“I’d have sat there until you came along, Charlie. And the truth is that I just couldn’t have gone on alone if I’d wanted to. I couldn’t take this by myself. I wasn’t lying about that.”
“It’s foolish, boy—but it sounds land of good,” Charlie said. “Well, where’s Johnny taking us?” For a while, the byplay had almost revived them. But their muscles remembered the day before, and the day before that, and the brief flair of high spirits sank down again as they hiked along the floor of the chasm, following Johnny Quicksilver.
It was nearly noon to them when Johnny finally led them to a section where part of the opposite wall had fallen in. It had Uttered the floor of the chasm with rubble and had knocked a great gouge out that led up at a steep, but climb able angle.
But it was unsure footing, and the sled held them back. Time after time they had to leave it and go searching for a place where they could find footing enough to drag it up after them by the rope. And each time required a long and careful search to be sure that their motions wouldn’t simply pitch them back down to the bottom again.
They went on through that day, dragging the sled behind, while it became lighter steadily as the oxygen tanks and batteries were removed. But there were no more cuts in the ground. It was rough, but Johnny now found a passable route for them. He was showing his own starvation more and more, but he kept on, with no hint of turning back. And the men couldn’t give up while an alien life form kept wasting away to save them. Their pride in being human would have driven them on, if nothing else had been involved.
They slept that night on the surface, making no effort to find shelter. Johnny apparently wasn’t worried. Probably the last demon had been left behind, since it was already cool enough here to make life uncomfortable for them, though it would have crisped the men in minutes without their suits.
Johnny woke them in the morning, and they went on. Now Dick was beginning to be aware that he was hungry. He kept imagining the dinner his mother would fix when he got back to Sigma.
He must have mentioned some of the food aloud, because Charlie grunted unhappily. “Com muffins. Corn muffins, and hog bacon, real cow butter, coffee from trees, and heavy
cream. And you start with a glass of juice from ripe oranges. That’s what I miss, Dick—real food, instead of this synthetic stuff, or those hydroponic things. Been a long time. Got so I used to dream about eating soya meal and vitamin pills when I thought about a feast! Well, some day we’ll both eat real food—and you probably won’t like it, never having had it. And I probably won’t eat it, because it has been too long. Forget it, just dream that we find a place where they’ve got some synthetics waiting for us. That’s all I ask.”
They threw away the last empty bottles of oxygen, and put on the reserve bottles from their suits. Those held more than the bottles they had been wearing, but the time limit was now fixed. They were surprised to find that they still had extra batteries.
“Something’s screwy here, Dick,” the older man said. “You know what I been figgering? We’re already in the twilight belt. We been in it for the last thirty miles. Because I remember that territory we went through now. And it’s a long ways from the Relay Station. Either Johnny’s lost, or some mighty funny business is going on.”
“Johnny wouldn’t try any tricks,” Dick protested.
“Who said he would? I just think something’s gone wrong. Maybe he had to change his map, because we couldn’t cross where he meant us to without the tractor. And maybe we still got three days’ walking to get to Relay Station. It’s about that, if I remember right.”
Battle on Mercury Page 10