T2 Return To Mars

by Captain W E Johns

  'That's the main thing. At least, I hope I'm right. They seem to have lost the use of their wings.'

  'If they haven't, and decided to take flight, we should have something to worry about. I'd rather be a bit farther away from that unholy mess.'

  That was Toby's view of the situation.

  'If their wings haven't kept pace with the growth of their bodies they wouldn't be able to get off the ground,' asserted Tiger confidently.

  'They'd be hopelessly overloaded.'

  'Am I going crazy or can I see the grass and the reeds growing,' cried Rex. 'Are they feeling the effect too?'

  The Professor dropped the Spacemaster a little lower and stared down through his spyglass. 'It isn't only the grass that's growing,' he stated, in a startled voice. 'There are other forms of plant life breaking through the surface. The seeds must have been dormant in the ground; either that, or insects kept the vegetation down by feeding on it, like rabbits in a cornfield. I can see some disgusting-looking fungi pushing their way up. Dear - dear. What have I done? You see what can happen when a man tries to be too clever and puts his puny wits against nature.'

  'I don't see that you've any cause to reproach yourself,' said Tiger. 'If you've started into life things that we thought were dead, surely that's all to the good.'

  'Provided that by destroying the mosquitoes I haven't destroyed everything else. It may be some time before we know the ultimate result.

  I wonder what's the best thing to do.'

  'If you're asking me,' replied Toby, 'I'd suggest we look for a live Martian without further loss of time; because if those beasts in the swamps, mad with hunger, having finished off the mosquitoes decide to invade the town, our chances of finding anyone alive will be pretty remote.'

  'I think you're right,' agreed the Professor. 'It occurred to me that by spraying the canals farther away we might cause the pests to move in that direction. It will have to be done sometime. We've only treated the minute fraction near the town. But we'd better see what the result is here before we risk doing further mischief. We'll go on to the town.

  Forgive me if my head is in a whirl. You must admit that this horrid picture of everything dying and being eaten by something else is disconcerting, to say the least of it.'

  'I'd call it disgusting,' murmured Rex, wondering if the water in the canal would ever again be fit to drink.

  The Spacemaster moved on, and presently put down its landing legs on the dusty flagstones of the main square. The door was opened, and the Professor, leading the way, made a cautious exit. Rex, Tiger and Toby followed him and then stopped to look about.

  To Rex the place looked no different from when they were last there. The buildings on all four sides, plain in design and grey with age, wore the same melancholy, abandoned look. The stone seats were there at intervals, but none was occupied. Dust lay in heaps where it had drifted against the walls. Nothing moved. Not an insect, not a bird. Nothing. Not a speck of colour, not a flower, not even a weed or a blade of grass, caught the eye to relieve the dreary monotony of the scene. Over all hung an awful silence. The silence of death.

  'I'm afraid we've come too late,' said the Professor sadly. He spoke in a low voice, as at a funeral; but even so the words seemed to be an intrusion. Suddenly, as if making up his mind, he set off at a brisk pace towards the house from which, on their last visit, just before they had been compelled to retreat before the pink blight, they had seen a man emerge.

  Tiger was filling his pipe, and Toby was lighting a cigarette, so a few seconds elapsed before they started to follow. But by that time the Professor had stopped, staring down one of the dark, narrow lanes between the houses that gave access to the canal, and so to the water supply. He did not stand still for very long. He started to walk backwards.

  Then, turning, he ran towards the ship crying: 'Back! Back! Go back!'

  Actually, the warning was unnecessary, for by this time the cause of the Professor's behaviour had appeared, moving in short rushes into the open.

  It was a spider; or a monstrous creature in the shape of a spider. Before the arrival of the Spacemaster it may have been an ordinary spider. But it had evidently been to the canal, or had encountered and eaten something that had, for it was now a loathsome, hairy-legged beast with a body twice the size of a football. The creature stopped to look around.

  Then the movement near the Spacemaster caught its eye and it darted forward in a series of zigzag spurts, making a brittle clicking sound. No one waited for a closer view of it, but dashed into the ship. Toby, the last man in, slammed the door. Which was certainly just as well, for the spider did not stop until it reached the steps. It circled the machine as if looking for a way in. Finding

  none it took up a position a few yards away, and with light glinting on its multiple eyes stared at the portholes. Rex shuddered, for in them, he thought, glowed a frightening expression not only of malevolence but of intelligence.

  The Professor, panting, dropped into a chair, and fanning his face with his notebook kept muttering: 'This is really frightful.'

  'Everything seems to have developed a temper in proportion to its size,'

  observed Toby calmly.

  'Which, I imagine, is in proportion to the amount of my mixture that it has consumed,'

  answered the Professor. 'In destroying the mosquito plague I seem to have set an even more difficult problem.'

  Tiger appeared with his rifle, slipping cartridges in the magazine.

  'What are you going to do?' cried the Professor, with fresh alarm.

  'I'm going to shoot the thing,' returned Tiger. 'It may look abnormal, but I'll wager it behaves normally when a piece of nickel makes a hole through it.'

  'Is that really necessary?'

  'Obviously we can't go out while the brute's there! At least, I'm not going out. Lions and tigers are nice clean beasts, but that horror is something out of a madman's nightmare.'

  'Yes - yes. I suppose it's the only thing to do,' agreed the Professor.

  'I had hoped to avoid bloodshed of any sort.'

  'I doubt if it has any blood, in which case none will be shed,' put in Toby.

  Slowly and quietly Tiger opened the door a few inches - enough to permit him to use the rifle. The spider looked up at him. Its eyes, full of hate, suddenly glowed red. Tiger took aim. The rifle spat. The spider reared up, legs waving, and went over on its back. Tiger gave it another shot. The waving became feeble, then stopped. Under the creature began to form a little yellow pool.

  'I see I was wrong about the blood,' said Toby, in a strained voice.

  'It's yellow. That's about the last straw. We have only to meet a rat, or a cat, that's been eating mosquitoes and I shall vote for a move to a more respectable planet - good old Earth for preference.'

  'Yes, indeed, sir,' murmured Judkins.

  They looked at each other. All were pale. But Judkins' remark broke the tension and they all smiled.

  Toby opened the door wide. 'I'm going to find a Martian, alive or dead,'

  he announced purposefully. 'With monsters like this on the prowl' - he pointed at the spider - 'there soon won't be any. Come on, Tiger. Bring your musket. You like big game shooting so this should be just your cup of tea.'

  'I'm coming,' said the Professor. 'We shall soon get used to shocks of this sort.'

  Rex doubted it - at all events as far as he was concerned. But he followed the others, keeping well clear of the beast still lying where it had fallen.

  Judkins stayed in the ship, with orders to keep watch and be ready for a quick take-off should an emergency arise.

  Keeping together, with Tiger holding his rifle prepared for instant use, they strode on towards the houses.

  The furniture in the first room they entered - there was no door - was as simple as could be imagined. Most of it was of woven basketwork, presumably made from rushes brought from the canal; but a table was of wood and appeared to be of great age; how old, it was impossible to guess. The general keynote of eve
rything was utility, without ornament.

  'They must have had timber here at one time,' remarked the Professor, pointing at the table, as they passed on into a small anteroom. It turned out to be a bedroom. A man, identical with the men they had seen on Phobos, lay on the couch. He was dead. It took Toby only a second to confirm it.

  'No use wasting time here,' he said briefly. 'Our main purpose is to find a survivor - if there is one. If there isn't - well, we might as well go home ... unless anyone wants to go bug hunting.'

  'Let us go on,' said the Professor. 'One live man, just one, could give us the history of the planet. If there isn't one we shall never know the truth.'

  From what we've seen so far I don't think the Martian civilization could have been very far advanced,' opined Tiger.

  'On the other hand they might have been so far ahead of us that they long ago abandoned the trouble-making devices by which we are pleased to judge civilization - so-called. One day in the dim future Earth may return to a more simple code of existence; particularly if it has to pass through a period of major disasters, such as must have happened here even before the mosquitoes took control. As I have said, one survivor may be able to tell about these things.'

  They left the house and went on to the next one.

  They visited several, most of them empty but some containing corpses, before they found what they sought. In a room like all those they had seen, a man was sitting in a chair. He looked dreadfully ill. But as they entered his eyes moved.

  'Ah! This is better,' said Toby softly. 5 The man of Mars For the first time Rex was able to make a really close study of a living Martian. In physical appearance he was much like themselves, and dressed differently could have walked down a London street without attracting attention. He was tall by Earthly standards, and of a finer, slighter build. His skin, cream rather than white, looked dry, and had a peculiar metallic sheen; the result, Rex supposed, of a thin atmosphere with practically no humidity. His hair, pale gold and silky as a girl's, reached to his shoulders.

  A short, curly beard, of the same colour and texture, covered a chin that had obviously never known a razor.

  But his most outstanding feature was his eyes, which were large and of a colour not easy to determine. There was a hint of deep red in them. This, and a queer luminous quality, made them seem unnatural and hard to meet.

  Indeed, Rex found them rather frightening.

  They were, he felt, looking right into him, as if searching out his thoughts.

  In the matter of clothes, those worn by the planetarian were similar in style to those seen on Phobos, comprising an open-necked robe caught in at the waist to form a tunic, with two pockets, and a short skirt, or kilt, leaving the lower half of the legs bare. There was nothing remarkable about this. Rex was reminded vaguely of a picture he had seen of ancient Greeks - or it might have been Romans, or Egyptians. He couldn't remember.

  He could not have named the material. It was rather coarse stuff, closely woven, and had a sheen that gave it a hard, glassy finish. Nevertheless, it hung in soft folds. The colour was an indefinite shade of blue.

  Sandals, with cross-lacing straps of the same material, protected the feet. It was clear that in the entire get-up simple utility had been the factor foremost in design.

  It may as well be said here that later on Rex was to learn that these garments were not only standard on the planet but were practically indestructible, so that one outfit would last a lifetime. They could be repaired or reconditioned by simply dipping them in a certain solution, when they came out like new.

  Some small sacks, or bags, of this same material, lay in a corner; for what purpose was not apparent.

  On the table within reach of the sick man were several pots and jars of a semi-transparent plastic-like substance. One contained meal, or flour; presumably food of some sort; another held tablets - or, more correctly, lozenges. There was also a carafe of water with a beaker beside it.

  Where, Rex wondered, had the food come from?

  It is not to be supposed that he merely stood and regarded the man as he might have looked at a Zulu or an Eskimo; or even a freak at a circus.

  Far from it. This was altogether different; an event so tremendous, so deeply moving that it awoke in him sensations not to be described in words. For there were no words to fit the case. He felt it was not true.

  He wanted to tell himself that this simply wasn't true. But he knew it was true. And he knew he wasn't dreaming. Here before him was the answer to the age-old question: were the people of Earth alone in the Universe?

  They were not. What would be the effect of those three simple words on Earth when the people knew what he knew?

  The limitless fields of speculation opened up made his brain reel.

  Toby, naturally, had moved forward with a clinical thermometer in his hand. Then, as if realizing that temperatures here were not to be judged by Earthly standards, he put it away, with an apologetic smile to the Professor, saying, 'What am I doing?'

  At that precise moment a strange thing happened, something which, for a while, defied explanation.

  Rex, speaking in the flat, trancelike tone of a sleepwalker found himself saying: 'Who are you and where have you come from?' He started violently, looking bewildered.

  The Professor looked at him. Tiger looked at him. Toby, turning over his shoulder, also looked.

  'Who said that?' asked the Professor, sharply.

  'Not me,' denied Rex, in his normal speaking voice.

  'But it was you,' asserted the Professor. 'I saw your lips move.'

  'But why would I say it?' protested Rex, trying to make up his mind whether he had, or had not, spoken.

  'That's what we were wondering,' said Tiger, looking at him suspiciously.

  'Who are you and what are you doing here?' said Rex, again in the dreamlike voice.

  'What are you talking about?' snapped Tiger.

  'I - I didn't say anything,' stammered Rex, looking really scared.

  There was a short, embarrassing silence. Then Tiger said, speaking sharply. 'What's the idea? This is no time to joke!'

  Rex didn't know what to say. He was convinced that he hadn't spoken yet he knew his lips had moved. Something's happening to me!' he exclaimed, helplessly. 'I didn't want to speak. I must be going queer in the head.'

  Tiger looked at the Martian, then at Toby. 'Did that chap speak?' he asked, pointing at the sick man.

  'He certainly did not,' retorted Toby. If he had I'd have seen his lips move. In any case,'

  he went on sarcastically, 'it's hardly likely that he'd speak in English.'

  Tiger looked back at Rex. 'Are you sure it wasn't you who spoke?'

  `No, I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything any more.' There was now a sort of resignation in Rex's voice.

  Tiger frowned. 'But surely to goodness you know whether you're talking or not?'

  'I am very ill,' said Rex, again in the flat voice. 'My friends are dead.

  Go away or you will die, too.'

  As the words died on his lips he clapped his hands to his face, for this tune he knew he had spoken. But he had not said what he was thinking. The sensation thus produced drained all the colour from his face. It was terrifying. Then, in a flash, inspiration struck him almost like a physical blow. It's him speaking,' he cried, pointing at the Martian. 'He's talking through my mouth!'

  The others stared.

  I'm hypnotised. He's making me say what he thinks,' said Rex. Look at his eyes. They've been on me all the time. I can feel them doing something inside my head.'

  The boy's right,' rapped out the Professor. 'That's the answer. The only possible answer.

  This poor fellow is conveying his thoughts by telepathy, which is something we are only just beginning to understand. He thinks, and his thoughts are translated into the language of the person to whom they are addressed.'

  'What a wonderful gift,' said Tiger admiringly.

  'Call it rather an art, a science, or a faculty that m
ay have been ages developing,'

  contended the Professor. 'We may reach that stage in time. In my opinion, for what it is worth, this accomplishment was as common on Mars as is ordinary speech on Earth.'

  If that's the explanation it's going to save us a great deal of time and trouble,' put in Toby, warmly. I was wondering how long it was going to take us to learn his language, or he ours.'

  'Unless I am mistaken he will learn our language before we learn his,'

  said the Professor.

  If these people have reached the stage of being able to converse merely by conveying their thoughts then their degree of pure intelligence must have reached a point far beyond ours.'

  I suppose he can talk,' said Tiger. Let's test him.' Tapping his chest with a forefinger he said, distinctly, Tiger.'

  The Martian's lips moved. Tiger,' he echoed, without a trace of accent, but in a thin, precise voice.

  Then Rex found himself saying, in the flat, even tone: Because I am ill and weak I speak through the one who, being young, receives me most easily.'

  Now Rex had seen some remarkable things, and had had many incredible experiences, but of them all, this saying what another man was thinking was the most disturbing. Did the man know what he was thinking? he wondered.

  It was Toby who put an end to this uncanny situation. I suggest we carry him to the Spacemaster where I can get to work on him. If there was another mosquito attack we might still lose him. I only hope my drugs don't have any peculiar effect on him, Professor, as yours did on the insect population. I have an idea that the patient has not been so much poisoned by the mosquitoes as weakened to the point of collapse by the constant drain on his blood. And, no doubt, shortage of food. We'll soon see.'

  'The first thing we must ask him is if, as far as he knows, there are any more of his people left alive,' said the Professor.

  'Let's get some strength into him before we overtax what little he has,'

  answered Toby.

  'Why not leave him where he is and bring the ship nearer?' suggested Tiger.

  I'd rather have him in the ship,' answered Toby. 'We know he'd be safe then, whatever happened. Otherwise it would mean mounting a permanent guard over him to make sure he wasn't attacked by one of those overgrown beasts. Besides, we might want to move in a hurry. Give me a hand, Tiger.