T2 Return To Mars

by Captain W E Johns

  'What, then, are you going to do about it,' asked Tiger. I don't feel like sitting here waiting for doomsday.'

  'I shall have to think about it,' returned the Professor. 'Naturally, one's first reaction is to rush home and warn the government. But common sense counsels prudence.'

  Is there any alternative?'

  'Yes. First of all, I think, we might have a closer look at this unwelcome visitor, with the object of confirming what Vargo has told us.'

  'As, clearly, he's telling the truth, wouldn't that be a waste of time?'

  said Tiger.

  'Time is of no importance now. Ninety days or forty days, if doom is inevitable, what is the difference? We shall, moreover, have to consider our gallant guest, who was prepared to sacrifice his life for others. He should have some say in the matter, particularly as we owe this disturbing information to him. I suggest we go to bed and give the matter the thought it demands. In the morning I will give you my final decision.'

  This decision, whatever it may have been, was never to be given; for dawn was to bring such tragedy that even the impending fate of Earth was temporarily forgotten.

  It came about like this, as suddenly as it was unexpected.

  Rex had passed a restless night. He thought the others had, too, for he could hear them moving in their beds. With the imminent destruction of Earth on their minds this was no matter for wonder. Strange thoughts occurred to him. That the world would end like this, he recalled, had often been prophesied. Now the prophets were about to be proved right.

  Not that they were likely to get any credit or satisfaction from this, for they would perish with the rest. Of what would happen in the great cities when the truth was known, for known it would be when the invader approached, he dare not think. Aside from these uneasy speculations, although by this time he was acclimatized, the air seemed colder than usual. It was, therefore, with relief, that he saw the first pink glimmer of dawn come creeping through the portholes.

  It was for this, apparently, that Tiger had been waiting, for moving quietly - for the others were now asleep - he got up, took his towel and toilet things, and told Rex softly in passing that he was going to have a sponge down in the hole dug for the purpose.

  This hole was a little farther on than the one from which they drew their drinking water.

  The idea was to conserve the water in the tanks, and at the same time, for washing purposes only, use water that did not need filtering. Taking his rifle, for he never went near the jungle without it, Tiger went down the steps to the ground and disappeared from sight.

  Rex decided that he would do the same; but after his bad night he was drowsy and therefore did not hurry. It was about a quarter of an hour later, by which time the Professor had got up and was writing in his notebook, that he took his towel and soap, and telling the Professor what he intended to do, set off. The Professor said he would follow shortly.

  Judkins got up and started to prepare breakfast.

  The washing hole could not be seen from the ship. Being on the main square some buildings intervened. As a matter of detail Rex had to walk about fifty yards to bring the washing place into view.

  It should be said here that no form of life had ever been seen at this hour, due possibly to the fact that the temperature was below freezing point. It soon warmed up when the sun appeared, for so far they had not seen a cloud to temper its direct rays, which, with so thin an atmosphere, could be fierce.

  When Rex turned the corner which brought the washing hole into view, a trifle more than a hundred yards distant, Tiger was just finishing dressing. He threw his towel over a shoulder and was picking up the holdall that held his kit when something made him look up.

  Rex, glancing up to see what he was looking at, was somewhat excited but not in the least surprised to see a spaceship dropping like a stone towards the spot where Tiger was standing. It did not occur to him that it was going to land, possibly because of the speed it was travelling. He assumed that the crew had seen Tiger and were coming in for a closer look. They may have thought he was one of their own people. But that is surmise.

  What actually happened was, the machine suddenly slowed and touched down as lightly as a piece of fluff. It landed quite close to Tiger - a matter of not more than twenty paces.

  For a second or two Tiger stood watching. Then, rifle in hand, he started wanting slowly towards it. But when a door opened and three men, looking from where Rex stood very much like Vargo, jumped out, he stopped again. If words or signals were exchanged Rex did not hear or see them. Tiger started walking away, backwards, as if something had alarmed him. Then he turned as if to run, only to stumble and fall. The spacemen ran to him, helped him up, and without any show of force walked him to the machine, which they then all entered.

  By this time Rex was running as hard as he could to the spot, impelled more by curiosity than fear. It is true he was conscious of a twinge of alarm, but nothing more than that. It may seem curious, but he still had no suspicion of what was going to happen. It was not until the door was closed that the dreadful possibility struck him; and then it struck him all of a heap, as the saying is.

  He stopped dead. The ship began to rise, slowly at first, but with swiftly increasing speed. In ten seconds it was rocketing. In twenty it was a speck in the sky. In twenty-five it had disappeared from sight.

  How long Rex stood there staring at the empty sky he did not know. Time had ceased to exist. In the face of the awful thing that had happened he was incapable of thought or movement. He was stunned. His brain refused to function, or his legs to act. All he could do was stare.

  When at last he did realize what had happened a cry broke from his lips.

  He clapped his hands over his face, and thus, while a few more seconds ticked by, he remained. Then, with another cry that was something like a sob, he tore back to the Spacemaster.

  The Professor and Toby, with towels over their arms, were just leaving it. Vargo was behind them. When they saw him coming they stopped, aware from his manner that something had happened.

  They had some difficulty in finding out what it was, for all Rex could do, when he rushed up, was to babble incoherently over and over again:

  'He's gone - he's gone - he's gone.'

  'Calm yourself, boy,' ordered the Professor sternly. Who's gone?'

  Tiger.'

  'Gone where?'

  Rex pointed to the sky. 'A spaceship landed and captured him. They've taken him away with them,' he choked, and slumping on the bottom step of the ship buried his face in his hands, trying to stifle his sobs.

  It was some time before the others could get from him an exact account of all that had happened, Vargo listening intently to the questions and answers.

  'Didn't Tiger make any attempt to defend himself?' asked Toby.

  `No. That's what I don't understand,' answered Rex miserably.

  'He had his rifle?'

  'Yes.'

  'But he didn't use it?'

  No. He started to run and then fell down. When they picked him up he seemed to go willingly.'

  They willed him to go. He could not refuse,' put in Vargo. `Do you mean they mesmerised him?' questioned Toby. He had to explain what mesmerism was.

  'Yes,' said Vargo. We do much by the power of thought, which we learned long ago was more powerful than weapons.' 'But Tiger was a strong man,'

  protested Toby. 'He, too, had

  a will power.'

  It would not be strong enough if all those in the ship were willing against him,' explained Vargo.

  'You mean several wills are stronger than that of one man?' It must be so,' returned Vargo, simply.

  'They've taken him away,' cried Rex desperately. What does it matter now how they took him?'

  'Perhaps they'll bring him back,' said Toby comfortingly. 'What if they don't?'

  'We shall have to try to find him.'

  Rex laughed hysterically. With a million worlds to search?'

  'Vargo may be able to help us,' s
aid the Professor gently. 'Give the boy a bromide, doctor, to steady him. He's hada bad shake-up. So have we all.'

  Toby complied.

  Vargo then asked Rex to describe the ship.

  Rex did so to the best of his ability. 'It was flatter than ours,' he said, 'and of a different colour. The metal was like bronze, but more red. It had a band of blue stars painted round the middle.'

  'And the crew - the men you saw?'

  They looked very much like you. They all wore white helmets, like skull caps, except one who stood in the doorway, and his was blue. He also had blue things on his shoulders, I remember. They seemed to shine. He had a beard darker than yours; brown, I think, and pointed.'

  I thought it might be so,' said Vargo. I know this man. It is the sort of thing he would do without asking permission. His name is Rolto Mino, and he is the captain of the Remote Survey Fleet, now mapping the nearer outer-space bodies. He is a clever man, and important; but ambitious, often disputing with the High Council. He has followers, too, among the young men. He has often looked closely at your Earth.'

  So now we know the explanation of the flying saucers,' said Toby, softly.

  'Before Vontor appeared in the sky he wanted to take possession of Earth,' announced Vargo, calmly.

  'Why?'

  'Because, he states, it is the best of the worlds left in our system. A new world must be found, now it is known that we cannot come back here on account of the insects that cause death.'

  'But why don't your people stay where they are, if there are so few of them? You could cultivate more food on Mars.'

  Food is not all,' answered Vargo. Slowly the air is leaving the small worlds, attracted by the larger ones when they pass close in their orbits. Here, on what you call Mars, always there is a little more air, captured from space, or from small planetoids. It has captured the air from its own little moons, which you call Phobos and Deimos. This we know, so we must seek a new home, for always on planetoids we live in danger of losing our atmosphere, which would mean death for everyone.

  Rolto would go to Earth, but the High Council will not allow it.'

  'Because the Earth is going to be destroyed?' queried the Professor.

  This was before Vontor appeared. Now Rolto would take all the food from Earth, before it is destroyed. Thus he argues, for he is a warlike man.'

  'But how could he do that?' asked Toby, cynically. The people would fight. He would have to kill them.'

  That would be easy,' returned Vargo, casually. 'From your moon, by reflecting the sun, he could kill everyone with heat. Or he could put down bad air that is found on some dead worlds.'

  Everyone stared, aghast.

  'Why do you think he captured Tiger?' Rex asked the question.

  'To learn from him things about Earth. Your ship would tell him where you came from.

  He has wished to land and bring home a prisoner, but it was not allowed, for the High Council are men of peace. Now he has what he wanted.'

  This is all very well, but what's the drill?' broke in Toby impatiently.

  `Do we try to rescue Tiger or do we try to save Earth from being vaporized?'

  'We may be able to do both,' stated the Professor. He looked at Vargo over his glasses.

  Where do you think this man Rolto will have taken Tiger?'

  Vargo lifted his eyes and pointed to a tiny spark to one side of the fiery orb of Jupiter.

  There,' said he. That is Mino, the home of the High Council, and to it all ships must return. Rolto lives there.'

  'Very well,' said the Professor shortly. Then let us go to Mino. Will you stay here, Vargo, or will you come with us?'

  'I will go with you,' decided Vargo. 'I will tell the Council that you can destroy the mosquitoes.'

  Then let us prepare,' ordered the Professor. 10 Intercepted By the time the Spacemaster was ready for flight Rex had resigned himself to the loss of his father. According to Vargo there was hope for his recovery; but although Rex had now reached the stage of believing anything, however preposterous, he found that hard to accept. The project in which they were about to engage just about touched the limits even of fantasy, and he said so.

  Toby, ever cheerful, did not agree. If they could get to Mars, he contended, there was no reason why they shouldn't get to Mino, or any other planet within measurable distance in terms of time. Provided they could find food and water there seemed to be no reason why the Spacemaster shouldn't waffle round the Universe indefinitely. And as for fantasy, what they were doing was no more fantastic than the voyages of the early mariners, who set sail without a clue as to what lay beyond the horizon. 'We do at least know where we'

  re going,' he argued. 'In fact, we can see the blooming place.'

  Actually, in his heart Rex was convinced that none of them would ever set foot on Earth again. But such was his state of depression that he didn't worry about that. As well end his days on a distant star as return to Earth and be blown to atoms, he reflected morosely.

  Vargo, having no comparative standards of measurement in such things as time or distance, was unable to tell them how long the journey to Mino would take. He didn't know the velocity of the Spacemaster, which he obviously regarded as an obsolete type of vehicle, but in a Martian - or rather, Minoan - ship the time would be short. Their ships, he said casually, were operated by a power drawn from light, which was the fastest thing known.

  So it was in conditions that were more than a little vague that the Spacemaster took off.

  Vargo said he knew the way. As the objective could be seen this remark appeared pointless; but before long they were to realize what he meant.

  With time on their hands Vargo was able to tell them more about Minoan conditions generally. The mechanical age through which Earth was passing was with them a thing almost forgotten. It had been a dreadful era. The people had become slaves to machines, for ever toiling to feed them.

  Since the great disaster the pendulum had swung the other way, and life was now lived as simply as possible. Men were able to develop their natural faculties instead of making machines to think for them.

  Spaceships they had to have as the only means of transportation between the colonies on the planetoids, several of which were occupied.

  It was plain that Vargo thought space travel so commonplace that it called for no particular comment. He tried to explain the motive power employed, but failed to make the Professor understand how what they called Energy could be derived from light.

  Cosmic, solar, ultra violet, infra red and other rays were used for different purposes. On the other hand, the Professor's camera was just as marvellous to Vargo, who had never seen such an instrument, as were the Minoan wonders to his listeners.

  In the matter of explanations they were often at a loss, for there were things for which there was no equivalent word in one language or the other. A case in point was memory.

  Vargo had no word for it; for, as he eventually made them understand, his people had minds that never forgot anything. Memory, therefore, did not arise. It was a natural sense, like sight. To have to memorize a thing in order to retain it in the brain was something which Vargo seemed unable to grasp. He said he couldn't understand how life could go on like that.

  It was worse than having DO sense of hearing, of smell, or touch.

  Another word was industry. They had no industries. Everything they required was derived from Energy, which was everywhere. Disease being unknown they had no word for that, either. Unless people died by accident they could live for three hundred sun cycles. They had trained themselves to manage with very little food. Spaceship crews lived almost entirely on tablets, such as they had seen when they had found him. One was sufficient to maintain a man's strength for several days.

  Asked about the bodies on Phobos, Vargo said they were old men who had died. They did not bury their dead, but put them on unoccupied moons or planetoids.

  On the subject of administration Vargo said his people were ruled by a High Council of seven m
en of great age and experience. But there were no laws, no money, and therefore no crime. Work was voluntary, mostly for personal reasons. For instance, people made their own clothes, which had to be of the same pattern although colours could be different. Only the High Council could wear red.

  'What material is this?' asked the Professor, feeling Vargo's skirt.

  Vargo said it had been invented long ago. The scientists made it. It never wore out. When it became thin it was dipped in a liquid from which it came out like new. The material and liquid were supplied to all by the House of Science. Had not the scientists of Earth produced such a material?

  'They have,' informed the Professor, 'or something much like it. We call it Nylon.'

  Vargo went on to say that science and astronomy were hereditary professions. These men came next in importance to the Council. The scientists still carried out experiments, but remembering Kraka, anything touching upon the basic elements of the Universe was forbidden. The astronomers kept constant watch. They knew all the movements of the stars and planets. These were taught to the children.

  Their houses, went on Vargo, were built of a substance made by fusing certain sands with concentrated solar rays. He demonstrated what appeared to be large bricks. Gravity being

  slight one man could carry many. A substitute for wood was made the same way. They had no wood on Mino. With so little land every tree had to bear fruit, and these were not cut down. There were, however, places where wood could be obtained for the few things for which it was considered necessary.

  'It was natural that they should discover plastics before us,' put in the Professor.

  They had no animals, said Vargo; but one bird, which could not fly, was kept for its eggs.

  Sounds a pretty dull spot to me,' murmured Toby. The Professor asked if they ever had wars.

  Vargo said no. Who was there to fight? The people on the planetoids were all of the same race, speaking the same language, because they all came originally from Mars. They visited each other often. They had no weapons.

  But the scientists could destroy a planet if they wanted to.

  Rex, thinking of having to wear his space suit, asked about the atmospheric conditions on Mino.