We'll carry him just as he is, in the chair.'
With surprising ease, for by Earth standards he could not have weighed more than ten stone in spite of his height, which would be less than sixty pounds by Martian standards, the sick man was picked up and carried to the Spacemaster where he was made comfortable on a mattress while Toby set to work on him. He was still in some doubt as to the effects of Earthly medical treatment on a Martian, but there was no alternative.
The others stood outside, discussing the situation.
It's all to the good that the man isn't suffering from a virulent fever like malaria,' declared the Professor. 'It should be an easier matter than we supposed to get him on his feet.
Of course, the insects may not be mosquitoes in the strict sense of the word. We assumed that they were. They are probably a type of insect unknown on Earth. I will examine one at the first opportunity.'
One or two overgrown ants were seen in the distance, two of them fighting each other; but none came near the Space-master.
The doctor came out wiping his hands on a towel. 'He's doing fine,' he announced. 'I've given him an injection that should clean up his system, and he's managed to get down a little canned milk. He's resting now. What he needs most, I fancy, is nourishment. By the way, his name's Vargo.'
'How do you know that?' ejaculated the Professor.
Toby grinned.' He told me. He tried his own language, which of course I didn't understand; then he tried his thought transmission stunt. It worked fairly well; but I could see the effort was taking a lot out of him so I stopped him. After that we tried a spot of signs and signals. I pointed to myself and said Toby; whereupon he pointed to himself and said Vargo. Every word I said afterwards he repeated, and grasped the meaning instantly. That, coupled with the fact that his head is two inches bigger round than the average European head, makes me think that what you said, Professor, about an abnormally high degree of pure intelligence, is correct.'
'The first thing we must ask him is if he knows of any other survivors on the planet,'
insisted the Professor. 'We haven't time to make a house to house inspection, although, when we're satisfied that we are in no danger from the beasts in the canal, we might do a tour of the town.'
'Talking of the canal, something seems to be happening there,' put in Tiger, who was staring down one of the side streets. It looks different.'
Good gracious!' exclaimed the Professor, when they had moved their positions for a better view. Something certainly is happening.'
And what was happening was plain enough to see. What had been a broad strip of reedy marsh was now a jungle. Even as they watched it was possible to see vegetation growing. Branches, already breaking into leaf, were groping upwards like the tentacles of a school of octopus.
'What an incredible spectacle!' cried the Professor. 'What on earth could have caused that!'
'Nothing on Earth,' answered Toby dryly. Say, rather, what on Mars. It looks, Professor, as if we've got to be jolly careful what we spread about here, or we may start more than we bargained for - if we haven't already done so.'
'Yes, indeed.'
was thinking, if that jungle goes on growing and spreading at the rate it is now we're going to have a job to reach water. We were relying on the canals for water. You said, Professor, that once we had killed the mosquitoes we should have no difficulty in finding water, even if it meant digging a shallow well. What are the prospects now? Our tanks are getting low and we have an extra mouth.'
'I don't think we need worry about that yet,' answered the Professor. If necessary we can fly to one of the poles and melt some ice. Always supposing that it is ice - the sort of ice that will melt down to water that we can drink. We're not sure of that so it would be as well to confirm it. It might be salt. Indeed, it might be anything, perhaps nothing more than a mere skin of mineral deposit. In any case it will not be anything like the size of our ice-packs at home.'
The subject was not pursued, for at this juncture there occurred something even more startling than the one they had been discussing.
Rex saw them first. Clutching Tiger by the arm he yelled, 'Look!' and pointed at the sky.
Dropping in dead silence out of the black dome of heaven at fantastic speeds came three spaceships of the flying saucer type. They kept perfect formation as, a thousand feet from the ground they checked, tilted at an angle, and then swept down towards the town as if they intended landing on the square.
Indeed, the Professor afterwards said he felt sure that was their intention. He also gave it as his opinion, in a flash of understanding, that the great paved square had originally been constructed as a landing ground.
However, whatever their intention may have been the three ships did not land on this occasion. Their speed slowed almost to a stop over the Spacemaster. The Professor, who alone seemed capable of movement, waved.
There was no answering signal.
For perhaps a minute the spaceships remained, circling the Spacemaster slowly at a height of not more than a hundred feet, while those on the ground were aware that they were being subjected to a close inspection.
Then, as if controlled by a single switch, the ships soared away at an incredible velocity that took them out of sight in a matter of seconds.
Rex gasped his relief.
The Professor took a different view. The first to recover, brushing back his hair, he simply said: 'What a pity they didn't land.'
'They know we're here,' said Tiger grimly. 'The question is, what will they do next?'
'The answer to that will, I suspect, soon make itself apparent,' replied the Professor. '
They will return to their base and report our pi esence here. If my theory is correct it will not be long before we have more visitors. At least, I hope so. Certainly I see no cause for alarm. As soon as Vargo is well enough we'll ask him about the spaceships. He must know all about them. Anyway, as we are able to live in his atmosphere I hope he'll be able to live in ours, should we have to leave in a hurry. But it must be noon, so let us have something to eat. After lunch we'll run up to the pole and check that water is available. It would be foolish to wait until our tanks are dry before doing that. Would anyone like a caramel?'
6 Disturbing discoveries
As they neared the pole, following a canal that ran as straight as a railway track to the distant, curved horizon, the clear sunshine gave way to a cold, deep blue twilight, every bit as clear. It was as if plain glass spectacles had been changed for blue ones. Overhead, stars, some of them large, sparkled frostily - not spangled as it were on a dark ceiling but suspended in space; or rather, held there by the mighty forces that control the Universe.
Jupiter, unmistakable, fairly blazed with ever-changing colours; an awe-inspiring spectacle.
The Professor, boyishly enthusiastic, rattled off the names of some of the galaxies, and presently stopped the ship to make some observations through his powerful telescope. 'I have an idea,' he said, 'that some of those stars and planets are not as far away as we might imagine. They could well be the planetoids we see from Earth, for the majority move in that direction; and we are now much nearer to them. If I am right then the brightest must be comparatively close.'
At that moment, at a remote point, the sky was suddenly lit up with a strange bluish-white glare. For a minute it waxed, then slowly began to wane
'That,' said the Professor, 'is what astronomers call a Nova.' 'And what,' inquired Tiger, '
is a Nova?'
'In simple terms, a heavenly body exploding, or suddenly burning out.
Actually, we know little about Novae, but they happen constantly. As many as thirty a year have been observed in the Great Nebula in Andromeda.
Whether they are caused by two stars in collision, or nuclear fission started by forces unknown to us, nobody knows.' The Professor chuckled.
'Perhaps some absent-minded scientist working on atomic energy pushed the wrong button.'
'Which means that it could happe
n on Earth,' suggested Rex.
Of course,' answered the Professor calmly. He smiled. 'But don't let that worry you. If it does you'll know nothing about it.'
Rex felt something like a cold hand touch his heart. The idea of Earth and everything on it, the people, the things they had made and the knowledge that they had acquired, vanishing in a single flash of flame, was not to be contemplated without emotion.
The Spacemaster proceeded on its way.
The Professor did not take a direct course, but often made excursions to look at something of interest. For the town which they had fancifully named Utopia was not the only one on the planet, although they saw none larger. Most of those seen were ruins, in desert areas; but there were others, looking less dilapidated - which suggested they were not so old -
on the banks of the numerous canals. There appeared to be no connecting links for communication, one with the other. Indeed, the complete absence of roads, or even tracks, was perhaps the most puzzling feature of the landscape. This, naturally, called for some discussion.
Tiger's surmise was that before disaster overtook the planet aircraft alone had been used for transportation. Toby said he thought the canals, before they became choked with weeds or silted up with sand, might have been highways, as well as providing a water supply. The Professor was inclined to agree with Tiger. There must, he opined, have been roads at one time, in the earliest civilization. Later, these had fallen into disuse, eventually to be buried under wind-blown sand. All the evidence, he said, pointed to two distinct civilizations: one very old; the other much later. Both had been destroyed. What had destroyed the first was a matter for surmise, as was the period of time between that era and the later one, which had been overwhelmed by mosquitoes. He concluded: 'It was, I suspect, the disaster that overtook the first civilization that left the survivors defenceless against the insect peril. It was in the first disaster that the people lost most of their water, and their forests; obviously, without a rainfall there could be no regener-ation of the vegetation; which is why we see it as it is today.'
The brown and grey surface of the planet, without a tree, without a stream, certainly presented a melancholy picture, thought Rex. The only remaining signs of industry were quarries, or workings, where metal had been mined. Heaps of rubble alone showed where the workers had lived. It seemed remarkable that stone buildings could ever fall into such a state, and he said so.
'Nothing remarkable about that,' answered the Professor. 'Where, in Iraq, are the great cities of Biblical days - Babylon, Nimrod, Ninevah, and the rest? Some have disappeared so utterly that we cannot find them. No trace remains. At Ninevah all you will see are a few pieces of rock sticking out of the sand. Yet so great a city was it, we are told, that it took an army three days to march round it. So wide was its wall that six chariots could gallop round it abreast. If that is what a few thousand years can do it need not surprise us if the same thing happened here, perhaps over a longer period.'
Rex was silent.
Passing over some workings larger than usual the Professor announced his intention of going down to discover, if possible, the metal that had been mined - assuming it was a metal. Landing near what looked like an enormous bomb crater he got out and pottered about amongst the detritus, loose rock and shale. It seemed that he soon found what he wanted, for holding something aloft he came rushing back to the ship in a state of high excitement.
Said Toby, 'He must have found a lump of gold.' 'That wouldn't excite him,' disputed Rex.
'Diamonds, then.'
!Nor diamonds. We found some on Venus. He threw them away.'
They might have gone on guessing for a long time without getting the right answer.
'Here's something to make you open your eyes!' exclaimed the Professor, as he bustled up. `Do you know what this is?' The object, small but heavy, was passed round.
None of them knew what it was. To Rex it looked like a piece of metal in every respect except one, and that was its colour - red.
Orichalcum,' cried the Professor. 'It can't be anything else. What a find! Isn't that wonderful?'
'What's orichalcum?' inquired Tiger, not impressed.
The Professor looked pained at this confession of ignorance. Surely you've heard of the lost metal of Atlantis! Certain so-called experts have doubted its existence. Yet here it is.
It was always rare, even in the one place where it was found - the lost continent of Atlantis that sank in the Atlantic Ocean. Herodotus mentions it. So does Plato, who said it ranked higher than gold and was used by the Atlantes only to decorate their temples.
Plato, you remember, says the story was told to an ancestor of his who died about two hundred years before his time. Well - well. What shall we find next, I wonder. Would anyone like a caramel?'
The only other call they made, keeping a watchful eye on a nearby canal, was at a town of some size. But it was clear at a glance from the quantities of dust and the general dilapidation that life had long ago departed. The only point of interest was wooden doors to some of the houses, which, said the Professor, placed the town in the pre-disaster period. For, he believed, there were no trees after that. The wood had been scored by sand and dust, but in the dry atmosphere it showed no sign of rot. They could not identify the timber.
They were soon on their way again, leaving the cloud of dust stirred up by the Spacemaster still hanging in the air.
Rex was in a sombre mood. The thought had occurred to him, and he could not shake it off, that Earth might be like this some day. If it could happen to one planet, why not another? It struck him that if people on Earth could see Mars they would have a higher appreciation of their good fortune.
As the Spacemaster approached the flat, glistening top of the planet, interest was aroused by a broad fringe, sometimes brown and sometimes green, that bordered the ice cap. This of course, was nothing like the size of its equivalent on Earth, for one thing Mars was so much smaller, and another, there was little water available to form either ice or snow.
There had been some discussion as to what was under the white mantle. Was it land, as occurs under much of the South Polar ice on Earth, or water, as at the North Pole? But now the answer was exposed - at any rate, at their point of approach. It was land. The fringe could only be moist soil left by the receding ice. Different shades of green, if not metallic oxide, could only be vegetation.
Impossible though it may sound, that looks to me very much like cultivation,' declared the Professor, handing Tiger his glass. Some of those green areas have straight boundaries, and nature hates straight lines. But who would do the cultivating? I see no signs of life anywhere.
What a truly astonishing thing.'
If those are not cultivated plots of land then the vegetation here must have decided to grow in straight lines,' declared Tiger.
'Preposterous,' snorted the Professor.
Toby stepped in. There is this about it. It's hardly likely that we shall find mosquitoes here. It must be much too cold. In fact, it's perishing.'
I agree,' said the Professor. 'Mosquitoes or not, we haven't answered my question. Who has been at work here? Someone has, recently.'
What about the people in the spaceships we saw?' suggested Rex. Since obviously they don't live here they must come from another planet; and if they're short of room for agriculture they may have some market gardens here. The space crews might have allotments, so to speak. You said yourself, Professor, that Earth will have to do that one day, if the people are not to starve.'
This raised a smile, but the Professor took the suggestion seriously.
That may be the answer, Rex. Indeed, I can see no other possible solution.'
As the Spacemaster dropped towards it, it could be seen that for the most part the fringe of the ice cap was moss and a growth something like heather, in the manner of a Scottish moor; and it was on an area of this that the Professor landed, close to some patches of cultivation. There was no longer any doubt about this. There were squares of til
led soil and crops planted in straight drills.
Watch for mosquitoes,' cautioned the Professor, as he stepped out.
It turned out to be an unnecessary warning for there were none, although later, far away in the evening light, they saw the ominous red clouds darkening the sun. What concerned them more at the moment was the intense cold.
The Professor, striding up to the nearest cultivated patch, pulled out of the ground a vegetable that looked like an enormous purple radish. He did not sample it, but walked on to a tangle of green stuff that carried a pod like a pea. Some flat pods lying about on the ground suggested that the crop had recently been picked, a supposition that was supported by footmarks. 'It rather looks as if Rex was right when he called this a market garden,' said the Professor. 'No doubt Vargo will be able to tell us the facts when he is well enough to talk.'
He's recovering at a rate that I would have thought impossible,' said Toby. 'His constitution must be near perfect.'
Vargo was, in fact, sitting in the doorway of the Spacemaster, watching them.
I think we ought to examine the ice with a view to replenishing our water supply,' said the Professor, and made his way over to the nearest point of it.
Rex, who had picked one or two pea pods, ate the contents as he walked.
He found them somewhat bitter, and they left a hot taste in his mouth; but they were not unpalatable.
An examination of the ice revealed that it was, in fact, snow, and only a few inches thick.
Under it was damp, mossy ground.
'It's going to take us some time to melt down enough of this stuff to fill our tanks,'
observed Tiger.
'It will have to be put through a rough analysis before we mix it with what water we have,' asserted the Professor. It may look like our snow, but that is not to say it is. It may consist of frozen particles of hydrogen, carbon dioxide, or some other gas.'
A quantity was collected in the form of a ball and carried to the Spacemaster, where the Professor set to work on it. While they were waiting for his report Toby tried to get some information from Vargo, pointing out that the Martian clearly saw nothing remarkable in finding himself in a spaceship; from which it could be supposed that he was accustomed to such vehicles.
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