The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  "You know," said Tom quietly, "I've been thinking. As far back as the twentieth century, Earthmen have wanted to get to Mars. And finally they did. And what have they found? Nothing but a planet full of dry sand, a few canals and dwarf mountains."

  "That's exactly what I've been saying!" said Roger. "The only man who ever got anything out of all this was the first man to make it to Mars and return. He got the name, the glory, and a paragraph in a history book! And after that, nothing!" He got up and climbed the ladder to the radar deck, leaving Astro and Tom alone.

  Suddenly the ship lurched to one side.

  "What's that?" cried Tom.

  A bell began to ring. Then another--and then three more. Finally the entire ship was vibrating with the clanging of emergency bells.

  Astro made a diving leap for the ladder leading down to the power deck, with Tom lunging for the control board.

  Quickly Tom glanced about the huge board with its many different gauges and dials, searching for the one that would indicate the trouble. His eye spotted a huge gauge. A small light beside it flashed off and on. "By the moons of Jupiter, we've run out of reactant fuel!"

  "Tom!--Tom!" shouted Astro from the power deck. "We're smack out of reactant feed!"

  "Isn't there any left at all?" asked Tom. "Not even enough to get us into Marsopolis?"

  "We haven't enough left to keep the generator going!" said Astro. "Everything, including the lights and the teleceiver, will go any minute!"

  "Then we can't change course!"

  "Right," drawled Roger. "And if we can't change course, the one we're on now will take us straight into Mars's gravity and we crash!"

  "Send out an emergency call right away, Roger," said Tom.

  "Can't, spaceboy," replied Roger in his lazy drawl. "Not enough juice to call for help. Or haven't you noticed you're standing in the dark?"

  "But how--how could this happen?" asked Tom, puzzled. "We were only going at half speed and using just three rockets!"

  "When we got rid of that hot tube back in space," explained Astro grimly, "we dumped the main reactant mass. There isn't a thing we can do!"

  "We've got one choice," said Tom hollowly. "We can either pile out now, in space suits and use the jet boat, and hope for someone to pick us up before the oxygen gives out, or we can ride this space wagon right on in. Make up your minds quick, we're already inside Mars's gravity pull!"

  There was a pause, then Astro's voice filled the control deck. "I'll ride this baby right to the bottom. If I'm going to splash in, I'll take it on solid ground, even if it is Mars and not Venus. I don't want to wash out in space!"

  "That goes for me, too," said Roger.

  "O.K.," said Tom. "Here we go. Just keep your fingers crossed that we hit the desert instead of the mountains, or we'll be smeared across those rocks like applesauce. Spaceman's luck, fellas!"

  "Spaceman's luck, both of you," said Astro.

  "Just plain ordinary luck," commented Roger, "and plenty of it!"

  The three boys quickly strapped themselves into acceleration seats, with Tom hooking up an emergency relay switch that he could hold in his hand. He hoped he would remain conscious long enough to throw the switch and start the water sprinkler in case the ship caught fire.

  The Lady Venus flashed into the thin atmosphere from the void of space and the three cadets imagined that they could hear the shriek of the ship as it cut through the thin air. Tom figured his speed rapidly, and counting on the thinness of the atmosphere, he estimated that it would take eleven seconds for the ship to crash. He began to count.

  " ... One--two--three--four--five--" he thought briefly of his family and how nice they had been to him " ... six--seven--eight--nine--ten--"

  The ship crashed.

  [Illustration]

  CHAPTER 17

  "Astro! Roger!" yelled Tom. He opened his eyes and then felt the weight on his chest. A section of the control board had fallen across him pinning his left arm to his side. He reached for the railing around the acceleration chair with his right and discovered he still held the switch for the water sprinkler. He started to flip it on, then sniffed the air, and smelling no trace of smoke, dropped the switch. He unstrapped himself from the acceleration chair with his right hand and then slowly, with great effort, pushed the section of the control board off him. He stood up rubbing his left arm.

  "Astro? Roger?!" he called again, and scrambled over the broken equipment that was strewn over the deck. He stumbled over more rubble that was once a precision instrument panel and climbed the ladder leading to the radar deck.

  "Roger!" he yelled. "Roger, are you all right?" He pushed several shattered instruments out of the way and looked around the shambles that once had been a room. He didn't see Roger.

  He began to scramble through the litter on the deck, kicking aside instruments that were nearly priceless, so delicately were they made. Suddenly a wave of cold fear gripped him and he began tearing through the rubble desperately. From beneath a heavy tube casing, he could see the outstretched arm of Roger.

  He squatted down, bending his legs and keeping his back straight. Then gripping the heavy casing on one side, he tried to stand up. It was too much for him. He lifted it three inches and then had to let go.

  "Tom! Roger!" Tom heard the bull-like roar of Astro below him and stumbled over to the head of the ladder.

  "Up here, Astro," he yelled, "on the radar deck. Roger's pinned under the radar scanner casing!"

  Tom turned back to the casing, and looking around the littered deck desperately, grabbed an eight-foot length of steel pipe that had been snapped off like a twig by the force of the crash.

  Barely able to lift it, he shoved it with all his strength to get the end of the pipe beneath the casing.

  "Here, let me get at that thing," growled Astro from behind. Tom stepped back, half falling out of the Venusian's way, and watched as Astro got down on his hands and knees, putting his shoulder against the case. He lifted it about three inches, then slowly, still balancing the weight on his shoulder, shifted his position, braced it with his hands and began to straighten up. The casing came up from the floor as the huge cadet strained against it.

  "All--right--Tom--" he gasped, "see if you can get a hold on Roger and pull him out!"

  Tom scrambled back and grabbed Roger's uniform. He pulled, and slowly the cadet's form slid from beneath the casing.

  "All right, Astro," said Tom, "I've got 'im."

  Astro began to lower the casing in the same manner in which he had lifted it. He eased it back down to the floor on his knees and dropped it the last few inches. He sat on the floor beside it and hung his head between his knees.

  "Are you all right, Astro?" asked Tom.

  "Never mind me," panted Astro between deep gasps for breath, "just see if hot-shot is O.K."

  Tom quickly ran his hands up and down Roger's arms and legs, his chest, collarbone and at last, with gently probing fingers, his head.

  "No broken bones," he said, still looking at Roger, "but I don't know about internal injuries."

  "He wasn't pinned under that thing," said Astro at last. "It was resting on a beam. No weight was on him."

  "Uh--huh--ahhh--uhhhh," moaned Roger.

  "Roger," said Tom gently, "Roger, are you all right?"

  "Uh--huh?--Ohhhh! My head!"

  "Take it easy, hot-shot," said Astro, "that head of yours is O.K. Nothing--but nothing could hurt it!"

  "Ooohhhh!" groaned Roger, sitting up. "I don't know which is worse, feeling the way I do, or waking up and listening to you again!"

  Tom sat back with a smile. Roger's remark clinched it. No one was hurt.

  "Well," said Astro at last, "where do we go from here?"

  "First thing I suggest we do is take a survey and see what's left," said Tom.

  "I came up from the power deck," said Astro, "all the way through the ship. You see this radar deck?" He made a sweeping gesture around the room that looked like a junk heap. "Well, it's in good shape, co
mpared to the rest of the ship. The power deck has the rocket motors where the master panel should be and the panel is ready to go into what's left of the reactant chamber. The jet boat is nothing but a worthless piece of junk!"

  The three boys considered the fate of the jet boat soberly. Finally Astro broke the silence with a question. "Where do you think we are?"

  "Somewhere in the New Sahara desert," answered Tom. "I had the chart projector on just before we splashed in, but I can't tell you any more than that."

  "Well, at least we have plenty of water," sighed Roger.

  "You had plenty of water. The tanks were smashed when we came in. Not even a puddle left in a corner."

  "Of course it might rain," said Roger.

  Tom gave a short laugh. "The last time it rained in this place dinosaurs were roaming around on Earth!"

  "How about food?" asked Roger.

  "Plenty of that," answered Astro. "This is a passenger ship, remember! They have everything you could ask for, including smoked Venusian fatfish!"

  "Then let's get out of here and take a look," said Tom.

  The three bruised but otherwise healthy cadets climbed slowly down to the control deck and headed for the galley, where Tom found six plastic containers of Martian water.

  "Spaceman, this is the biggest hunk of luck we've had in the last two hours," said Roger, taking one of the containers.

  "Why two hours, Roger?" asked Astro, puzzled.

  "Two hours ago we were still in space expecting to splash in," said Tom. He opened one of the containers and offered it to Astro. "Take it easy, Astro," said Tom. "Unless we find something else to drink, this might have to last a long time."

  "Yeah," said Roger, "a long time. I've been thinking about our chances of getting out of this mess."

  "Well," asked Astro, "what has the great Manning brain figured out?"

  "There's no chance at all," said Roger slowly. "You're wrong, Corbett, about this being midday. It's early morning!" He pointed to a chronometer on the bulkhead behind Astro. "It's still running. I made a mental note before we splashed in, it was eight-O-seven. That clock says nine-O-three. It doesn't begin to get hot here until three o'clock in the afternoon."

  "I think you're wrong two ways," said Tom. "In the first place, Captain Strong probably has a unit out looking for us right now. And in the second place, as long as we stay with the ship, we've got shade. That sun is only bad because the atmosphere is thinner here on Mars, and easier to burn through. But if we stay out of the sun, we're O.K. Just sit back and wait for Strong!"

  Roger shrugged his shoulders.

  "Well," commented Astro with a grin, "I'm not going to sit around waiting for Strong without eating!" He tore open a plastic package of roast-beef sandwiches and began eating. Tom measured out three small cups of Martian water.

  "After we eat," suggested Roger, "I think we ought to take a look around outside and try to set up an identification signal."

  "That's a good idea," said Tom, "but don't you think the ship itself is big enough for that?"

  "Yeah," answered Roger, "I guess you're right."

  "Boy!" said Astro. "We sure are lucky to still be able to argue."

  "That's about all you can call it. Luck! Spaceman's luck!" said Tom. "The only reason I can figure why we didn't wind up as permanent part of the scenery around here is because of the course we were on."

  "How do you figure that?" asked Astro.

  "Luckily--and I mean luckily, we were on a course that took us smack onto the surface of Mars. And our speed was great enough to resist the gravity pull of the planet, keeping us horizontal with the surface of the desert. We skidded in like a kid does on a sled, instead of coming in on our nose!"

  "Well, blast my jets!" said Astro softly.

  "In that case," said Roger, "we must have left a pretty long skid mark in back of us!"

  "That should be easy to see when the jet scouts come looking for us," commented Astro.

  "I wonder if we could rig up some sort of emergency signal so we could send out a relative position?"

  "How are you going to get the position?" asked Astro.

  "I can give you some sort of position as soon as I get outside and take a sight on the sun," replied Roger.

  "Can you do it without your astrogation prism?" asked Astro.

  "Navigation, not astrogation, Astro," said Roger. "Like the ancient sailors used on the oceans back on Earth hundreds of years ago. Only thing is, I'll have to work up the logarithms by hand, instead of using the computer. Might be a little rough, but it'll be close enough for what we want."

  The three cadets finished the remaining sandwiches and then picked their way back through the ship to the control deck. There, they rummaged through the pile of broken and shattered instruments.

  "If we could find just one tube that hasn't been damaged, I think I might be able to rig up some sort of one-lung communications set," said Roger. "It might have enough range to get a message to the nearest atmosphere booster station."

  "Nothing but a pile of junk here, Roger," said Tom. "We might find something on the radar deck."

  The three members of the Polaris unit climbed over the rubble and made their way to the radar deck, and started their search for an undamaged tube. After forty-five minutes of searching, Roger stood up in disgust.

  "Nothing!" he said sourly.

  "That kills any hope of getting a message out," said Tom.

  "By the craters of Luna," said Astro, wiping his forehead. "I didn't notice it before, but it's getting hotter here than on the power deck on a trip to Mercury!"

  "Do we have any flares?" asked Roger.

  "Naw. Al James used them all," answered Tom.

  "That does it," said Roger. "In another couple of hours, when and if anyone shows up, all they'll find is three space cadets fried on the half shell of a spaceship!"

  "Listen, Roger," said Tom, "as soon as we fail to check in, the whole Mars Solar Guard fleet will be out looking for us. Our last report will show them we were heading in this direction. It won't take Captain Strong long to figure out that we might have run out of fuel, and, with that skid mark in the sand trailing back for twenty miles, all we have to do is stick with the ship and wait for them to show up!"

  "What's that?" asked Astro sharply.

  From a distance, the three cadets could hear a low moaning and wailing. They rushed to the crystal port and looked out on the endless miles of brown sand, stretching as far as the horizon and meeting the cloudless blue sky. Shimmering in the heat, the New Sahara desert of Mars was just beginning to warm up for the day under the bleaching sun. The thin atmosphere offered little protection against the blazing heat rays.

  "Nothing but sand," said Tom. "Maybe something is still hot on the power deck." He looked at Astro.

  "I checked it before I came topside," said Astro. "I've heard that noise before. It can only mean one thing."

  "What's that?" asked Roger.

  Astro turned quickly and walked to the opposite side of the littered control deck. He pushed a pile of junk out of the way for a clear view of the outside.

  "There's your answer," said Astro, pointing at the port.

  "By the rings of Saturn, look at that!" cried Tom.

  "Yeah," said Roger, "black as the fingernails of a Titan miner!"

  "That's a sandstorm," Astro said finally. "It blows as long as a week and can pile up sand for two hundred feet. Sometimes the velocity reaches as much as a hundred and sixty miles an hour. Once, in the south, we got caught in one, and it was so bad we had to blast off. And it took all the power we had to do it!"

  The three cadets stood transfixed as they gazed through the crystal port at the oncoming storm. The tremendous black cloud rolled toward the spaceship in huge folds that billowed upward and back in three-thousand-foot waves. The roar and wail of the wind grew louder, rising in pitch until it was a shrill scream.

  "We'd better get down to the power deck," said Tom, "and take some oxygen bottles along with us, j
ust in case. Astro, bring the rest of the Martian water and you grab several of those containers of food, Roger. We might be holed in for a long time."

  "Why go down to the power deck?" asked Roger.

  "There's a huge hole in the upper part of the ship's hull. That sand will come in here by the ton and there's nothing to stop it," Tom answered Roger, but kept his eyes on the churning black cloud. Already, the first gusts of wind were lashing at the stricken Lady Venus.