The Martian Viking

by Tim Sullivan

  Its final shape coalesced. The darkness at its bottom became green, its top half gray. A long shadow cut the gray in two. Suddenly it became clear to Johnsmith just what he was seeing.

  It was indeed a huge bubble, just as Frankie had described. Inside it was a large volume of sloshing sea water, and a foggy atmosphere swirled just above the waves.

  But it was the thing bisecting the fog that made Johnsmith stare, without blinking, while the battle raged around him.

  It was a long ship. In fact, it was the Ship, the one he had seen while under the influence of onees. Bearded men pulled at oars, and their triskelion shields hung from the gunwales. They were Vikings.

  And the entire spectacle floated not fifteen feet overhead!

  The surviving Arkies were following the disjunctive node, gazing up at it fervently. That meant that their attackers were coming nearer to Johnsmith and the vulnerable, little group around him. In a few seconds, they would turn their weapons on those gathered by the hijacked carrier. Smitty might be killed!

  There was no time to get aboard the carrier and take off, even if Johnsmith had known how to pilot it. Beam fire was already scorching the sand near them. Prudy was hit in the shoulder. She went down screaming in pain.

  Johnsmith grabbed Smitty by the wrist, and yanked him toward the Viking Monument. He leaped, and the Martian gravity enabled him to reach the height of the transparent dome housing the antique lander. Knees bent, he landed squarely on top, but Smitty couldn't keep his footing.

  "Dad!" Smitty was dangling by one hand, but Johnsmith pulled him up.

  A moment later, they stood together on the monument. A piece of the clear plastic flew away, hit by a bullet. They couldn't stand here any longer.

  The disjunctive node was directly overhead.

  "Jump, Smitty!" Johnsmith shouted. "Now!"

  Together, they leaped upward into the water. Colors shifted prismatically as they entered the disjunctive node, the beam fire's glow distorted by its powerful forces. Their pressure suits were as good as diving gear, and they quickly floated toward the rippling shadow of the long ship above.

  Johnsmith never let go of his son, and together they bobbed to the surface.

  Men were shouting in a strange language, their voices muffled by Johnsmith's helmet. Did they recognize him and Smitty as humans, dressed as they were in their pressure suits?

  Apparently they did, because they extended oars into the water to fish them out.

  "Grab hold of that oar, son!" Johnsmith shouted.

  Smitty did so, and he was drawn through the foam to the long ship and hauled out of the water by two burly men with yellow beards and braided hair.

  A few seconds later, Johnsmith felt powerful hands under his arms, lifting him aboard and setting him on deck.

  He unfastened his helmet, tossed it onto the rough planks, threw back his head, and laughed more heartily than he ever had in his life. Helping Smitty with the smaller helmet the tour had provided, he continued laughing as the dour Norsemen eyed him warily.

  A huge man stepped forward, like some great, golden bear. Johnsmith put an arm around Smitty's shoulders protectively, so intimidating was the man's sheer physical presence.

  But the chief, or king, or whatever he was, clapped his hands onto his enormous belly and laughed even more heartily than Johnsmith and his son had laughed. At that, the other Vikings gathered around them, all laughing. One of them slapped Johnsmith on the back, nearly knocking him over.

  They all chattered away in a sing-song, ancient Scandinavian tongue. Johnsmith couldn't understand a word of it. He was relieved that they were friendly, though, and that was enough communication for now.

  "Johnsmith Biberkopf," a voice said from behind the Vikings.

  "Who's that?" Johnsmith said, incredulous to hear someone speaking his name in this of all places.

  The crowd parted as a man dressed in a helmetless pressure suit and metal Viking helmet joined them. Johnsmith couldn't believe his eyes.

  "Don't you recognize me? It's Hi—Captain Hi Malker, from North Tel Aviv."

  And indeed it was. His beard had grown out, and his hair was long and unkempt, but it was Hi, all right. Johnsmith was speechless for a moment, and then managed to sputter: "Hi . . .how did . . .?"

  "It's a heck of of a story," Hi Malker said. "But it all started that night we had the firefight with the Arkies."

  "And you fell right into the disjunctive node?"

  "Oh, no." Hi laughed. "I was captured."

  "But how did you get here?"

  "The bunch that captured me got separated from the main attack force. We wandered around out on the desert for days. We were going to die, and then all of a sudden this incredible thing happened. I don't know what became of the Arkies, but I managed to climb up on a rise and jump into the water, and here I am."

  "So the Ship has been seen before," Johnsmith said. "No wonder the Arkies were so sure it would happen."

  "Yeah, it's been popping up on Mars every now and then," Hi said. "There's a rhythm to it, and you can sort of tell when it's going to happen."

  "I know. The Arkies and the Conglom both figured it out."

  Hi sobered. "So that's what all that fuss was about."

  "It was pretty bad," Johnsmith said. "A lot of people were dying down there."

  Hi shook his head. "I got to know those Arkies," he said. "They weren't such bad people. Could have shot me or left me to die out on the desert, but they didn't."

  Johnsmith suddenly thought of Frankie, and Felicia, and Alderdice, and even Ronindella. He was overcome with grief to think of them all dying at the hands of the Conglom troopers. They were lost forever, as invisible as the surface of Mars was through the mist and sea water filling the inside of the disjunctive node.

  "When are we going to be back on Mars?" Smitty II asked, perhaps thinking of his mother for the first time since they had escaped.

  "Not for awhile," Hi said. "We'll probably pop up in this other place next."

  "What place is that?" Smitty asked.

  "The place where all the monsters are."

  TWENTY-ONE

  SOMETIMES, AS THEY sailed through a sea of time and space, Johnsmith wondered if the chieftain was actually a cousin of Beowulf. The watery disjunctive node certainly could have passed for the lake where Grendel's mother dwelled. Suppose that these really were the Geats, a tribe of Norsemen who had, after all, vanished from the face of the Earth a thousand years ago, give or take a century or two.

  As he strained at an oar, he decided that this might indeed have been what became of the Geats, or at least some of them. He said as much to Hi Malker and Smitty. Hi was at the oar across from Johnsmith, and Smitty was standing on the deck between them.

  "I wouldn't know about any of that," said Hi. "But I see no reason why it can't be true."

  "Yeah," Smitty agreed. "The fantastic part is that we're here at all, Dad."

  Johnsmith laughed. He was happier than he'd been in a long time. If only he knew what had become of Frankie and the others. Poor Alderdice was probably dead or in solitary confinement by now, unless he could convince them that he'd been taken as a hostage—which was what had really happened, when you got right down to it.

  The Geats (as Johnsmith now thought of them, whether his theory was correct or not) were taciturn most of the time. Every once in a while their chieftain, Hygelac, would bellow orders at his gangers, and they would silently obey. Angel Torquemada had never been nearly so commanding a presence. Even so, Johnsmith suspected that Hygelac had not been born with so prestigious a name, the same as the giant Geatish king who had lived in the time before Beowulf and the nasty business at Hrothgar's mead hall, Heorot. If you wanted to be a leader, a bit of showmanship never hurt. Why not name yourself after a hero?

  "When are we gonna see the monsters, Hi?" Smitty asked.

  Hi grinned. "Well, I don't know much about them. Just what I've picked up from the guys here."

  "You understand what they're sa
ying, don't you?"

  "A little bit, after all this time. They talk about the place where the monsters are quite often."

  "Well, Hi, maybe they're speaking symbolically," Johnsmith said. "Here there be tigers—that sort of thing."

  "I guess they could be," Hi allowed. "But they seem pretty serious about it."

  "Do you think we'll ever get back to Mars?" Johnsmith asked.

  "Maybe. I know these guys have been there several times."

  "How about Earth?"

  "They haven't got back there yet. It's as if Earth is a little out of the loop most of the time, and can only be reached rarely, whereas they pop up on Mars fairly often."

  Johnsmith nodded. He stared off into the foggy darkness surrounding them on all sides, and remembered Ronindella's preacher talking about Limbo. At the moment, there was nothing beyond the few thousand gallons of water and the canopy of misty oxygen overhead, nothing at all. "I wish that the node would pop into existence somewhere," he said. "Anywhere."

  "Yes, it does tend to get on your nerves after awhile," Hi agreed. "It's such a tenuous life."

  "Where does the air come from, Dad?" Smitty asked.

  "I haven't the faintest idea," Johnsmith admitted. "But it never seems to run out."

  "See that scum floating on the water?" Hi said. "Maybe it's photosynthesizing."

  "There's no sunlight," Smitty said.

  Hi shrugged.

  "I think this disjunctive node is in stasis," Johnsmith said. "It never changes in here, a little piece of Earth as it was hundreds and hundreds of years ago."

  "It's not part of Earth anymore," Hi said.

  The Norseman in front of Johnsmith turned and offered a half-eaten bowl of lutfisk to eat. He grinned, revealing his missing front teeth without self-consciousness. Johnsmith still couldn't understand what he was saying, but had figured out that the guy's name was Snorri.

  The lutfisk wasn't very appetizing. Not only had Snorri eaten half of it, but it didn't smell very fresh, either. Nevertheless, Johnsmith ate some of it. The only food they could get was the flesh of unknown fish that the Geats provided. At least they shared their food.

  In fact, the Geats were generous in many respects. They had given Smitty a helmet, which fit awkwardly over his head, obscuring all but his chin and mouth. He looked comical, but he seemed to enjoy wearing it. He thought he was the terror of the seven seas, no doubt. Well, it was a healthy life for a boy here. In spite of the mystery surrounding the atmosphere they breathed, the air seemed clean and fresh.

  "Dad," Smitty asked, peering off into the mist, "I've been wondering about something."

  "What's that, son?"

  "Why do you have to row this boat?"

  "Well, from what I can gather, there's a danger we might slip right out of the node if we don't. Fortunately, the node's not moving very fast, but it is always moving."

  "What would happen if we slipped out?"

  "I don't know . . .and I don't think I want to know."

  "There's nothing out there," Hi Malker said. "Not even the vacuum of space. I don't see how we could exist outside the node, except when we pop up on some other world that'll support our kind of life."

  "Oh." Smitty ran off, down the deck and back again, playing as children will do even in the strangest of circumstances.

  When Johnsmith thought about what Hi had just said, he saw a logical flaw. If they didn't know what was outside the bubble, how could they be sure that it wouldn't support human life? Admittedly, he wasn't about to dive down and find out, but it was an intriguing question. Rowing gave him plenty of time for rumination, much more than he had ever managed while sitting in his cubicle at the University. It was good exercise, too, something that he had come to appreciate since he'd been sentenced to Elysium . . .whenever and wherever the disjunctive node existed in relation to that time and place.

  "Aoogah!" a startled warning cry sounded. The Geats grabbed their spears and shields, while Hygelac stood near the dragon prow, gazing into the fog with broadsword in hand.

  "What is it, Dad?" Smitty said.

  There was no time to answer him. The ugliest creature Johnsmith had ever seen in his entire life had emerged from the surf, foam streaming down its squamous neck.

  "It's a monster!" Smitty cried, answering his own question.

  The Geats were stabbing at the thing with their spears while shouting Nordic oaths, and Hygelac hacked away at it with powerful swipes of his sword. The monster's eyes, which ringed its huge maw in a most unsightly fashion, shifted from one man to another, as if it were trying to decide which one to eat first. As its long neck leaned forward, the head actually slithered aboard the long ship, its dozens of eyes peering about curiously.

  With one mighty stroke, Hygelac decapitated it. Or nearly so—the head hung by a thin string of tissue as black fluid gouted out of the neck stump.

  The monster's hideous mouth worked, but no sound came forth. Apparently, the vocal chords had been severed. As the neck began to sink back into the water, Hygelac sliced off the string connecting head and body.

  The huge head thudded onto the rough planks of the deck. The mouth and eyes quivered for a few seconds, and then were still. Hygelac stood astride his trophy, shouting his war cry to any other monsters who might be about.

  "Wow!" Smitty said. "Did you see that?"

  Johnsmith nodded, unable to speak. It had all happened so quickly that he wouldn't have believed it, were the monster's head not lying in plain sight, still oozing some foul fluid. It smelled very bad. The Geats impaled the still quivering head with three spears and proudly propped it up near the dragon head.

  "Smitty," Hi Malker said, "do you remember what you asked me? About when we'd be getting to the monster place?"

  "Yeah."

  "We're there now. That's why they're displaying the head, I think. As a kind of challenge to the other monsters."

  Through the mist, an alien world appeared. In it were dripping stone warrens, where twisted shapes crawled or pulsated; and bubbling pools with sinuous shapes moved just beneath the surface. The entire spectacle was dimly lit by some pale, wet fire.

  The long ship's keel almost skimmed the surface of this strange place, or so it seemed to Johnsmith. He was very frightened of what he saw: the hellish environment went on for as far as the eye could see; hundreds of monsters thrived here, perhaps thousands. They were of every imaginable shape and size, and many of them were lifting misshapen heads to watch the disjunctive node pass over. Some of the larger ones, able to reach the node's watery bottom curve, moved toward the Ship.

  "God, I wish I had a weapon," Hi said.

  "Maybe there are some in the hold," Smitty said. "Hygelac got my helmet down there."

  "Smart," Johnsmith said.

  While the Geats leaned over the side and made threatening gestures at the monsters with their spears, Hi and Johnsmith were tugging at the heavy wooden cover of the hold. They threw it aside, and Smitty jumped down to see what was stored there.

  After a moment, he hollered something indistinguishable over the Geatish shouts.

  "What did you say, son?" Johnsmith could see him faintly, as Smitty bent to uncover something wrapped in furs.

  "I said, wait'll you see what's down here, Dad!"

  "Can you hand it up to us?"

  "I think so."

  Smitty struggled with something that looked as if it were made of metal. A harpoon of some kind? Johnsmith reached down to take it, finding it much lighter than he expected.

  "Jesus," said Hi Malker. His eyes were open wider than Johnsmith had ever seen them.

  There was good reason for Hi's amazement. Johnsmith was cradling a particle beam cannon.

  "Where do you suppose they got that?" Hi said. "Come on, let's see if it works."

  "It couldn't possibly," Johnsmith said. "Could it? I mean, the power supply has got to be worn down."

  "What about these?" Smitty's grinning face appeared in the hold. He was brandishing three power packs. />
  "Let's slap one of those babies on," Hi said. "And then we'll see if any of those ugly bastards comes near this boat."

  It was only a matter of seconds before the power pack was fastened to the cannon. Johnsmith switched it on, and an azure light appeared on the stock, indicating that it was ready for firing.

  "All right!" Smitty exulted.

  "Clear a path, you Vikings!" Hi shouted.

  Johnsmith carried the particle beam cannon toward the bow. He stood next to the puzzled Hygelac, whose leathery face frowned down at him from a lordly seven foot height.

  "Maybe I should let him shoot the damn thing," Johnsmith said. "After all, he's the boss around here."

  But it was clear that Hygelac didn't think it would work. He must have known what it could do, though, because he pointed to the monsters and shook his head. Perhaps he had used it until the power supply wore down, not understanding why it no longer worked.

  Several of the monsters had now swum into the disjunctive node and were surrounding the ship.

  "He doesn't understand that you've fired it up," Hi said. "Let one of those monsters out there have it, and then old Hygelac'll get the idea."

  Johnsmith carefully balanced the particle beam cannon next to the dragon prow, letting it rest on the curving wood of the gunwale. The creatures in the water were bolder now, many of them circling and showing their hideous, otherworldly selves. Bracing his right foot against a futtock, Johnsmith fired the cannon.

  "Neat, Dad!" Smitty said, jumping up and down in his excitement.

  The Geats gasped as the crimson, pencil-thin beam cut through the fog, searing a bristling appendage off a creature that looked part insect, part seal. It howled in pain—a sibilant, piercing noise—and dropped back into the water.

  Feeling a high degree of excitement, Johnsmith swung the cannon around, burning through the flabby, tentacled body of a cephalopodesque thing with malevolently intelligent eyes. It made no sound, but Johnsmith saw the life go out of its eyes as it sank out of sight.

  Hygelac slapped him on the back, knocking the wind out of him. The Geatish chieftain gestured at the cannon with his immense right hand, and Johnsmith reluctantly turned it over to him. Killing the aliens had been a good deal more pleasurable than Johnsmith wanted it to be.