“This thing is choked with rust.”
“Anything else wrong?” called out the Ganymedan.
“Don’t know. Wait till I clear it out.” More hammering and an almost continuous harsh, scraping sound followed.
Allen backed into his seat once more. His face dripped rusty perspiration and a swab with the back of an equally damp, rust-covered hand did it no good.
“The pump is leaking like a punctured kettle, now that the rust’s been knocked loose. I’ve got it going at top speed, but the only thing between it and a total breakdown is a prayer.”
“Start praying,” said George, bruskly. “Pray for a button to push.”
The Earthman frowned, and stared ahead in sullen silence.
At four in the afternoon, the Ganymedan drawled, “Air’s beginning t’ thin out, looks like.”
Allen snapped to alertness. The air was foul and humid within. The ventilator behind swished sibilantly between each click and the clicks were spacing themselves further apart. It wouldn’t hold out much longer now.
“How much ground have we covered?”
“‘Bout a thaird o’ the distance,” was the reply. “How ‘r y* holding out?”
“Well enough,” Allen snapped back. He retired once more into his shelL
Night came and the first brilliant stars of a Martian night peeped out when with a last futile and long-sustained swi-i-i-s-s-sh, the ventilator died.
“Domn!” said George. “I can’t breathe this soup any longer, anyway. Open the windows.”
The keenly cold Martian wind swept in and with it the last traces of sand. George coughed as he pulled his woolen cap over his ears and turned on the heaters.
“Y’ can still taste the grit.”
Allen looked wistfully up into the skies, “There’s Earth- with the moon hanging right onto her tail.”
“Airth?” repeated George with fine contempt. His finger pointed horizonwards, “There’s good old Jupe for y’.”
And throwing back his head, he sang in a full throated baritone:
“When the golden orb o’ Jove
Shines down from the skies above,
Then my spirit longs to go
To that happy land I know, Back t’ good, old Ganyme-e-e-e-ede.”
The last note quavered and broke, and quavered and broke again and still again in an ever increasing rapidity of tempo until its vibrating ululation pierced the air about ear-shatteringly.
Allen stared at his brother wide-eyed, “How did you do that?”
George grinned, “That’s the Gannie quaver. Didn’t y’ ever hear it before?”
The Earthman shook his head, “I’ve head of it, but that’s all.”
The other became a bit more cordial, “Well, o’ course y’ can only do it in a thin atmosphere. Y’ should hear me on Gannie. I c’d shake y’ right off y’r chair when I’m going good. Here! Wait till I gulp down some coffee, and then I’ll sing y’ vairse twenty-four o’ the ‘Ballad o’ Ganymede.’ “
He took a deep breath:
“There’s a fair-haired maid I love
Standing in the light o’ Jove
And she’s waiting there for me-e-e-e-e.
Then-”
Allen grasped him by the arm and shook him. The Ganymedan choked into silence.
“What’s the matter?” he asked sharply.
“There was a thumping sound on the roof just a second ago. There’s something up there.”
George stared upwards, “Grab the wheel. I’ll go up.”
Allen shook his head, “I’m going myself. I wouldn’t trust myself running this primitive contraption.”
He was out on the running board the next instant.
“Keep her going,” he shouted, and threw one foot up onto the roof.
He froze in that position when he became aware of two yellow slits of eyes staring hard into his. It took not more than a second for him to realize that he was face to face with a keazel, a situation which for discomfort is about on a par with the discovery of a rattlesnake in one’s bed back on Earth.
There was little time for mental comparisons of his position with Earth predicaments, however, for the keazel lunged forward, its poisonous fangs agleam in the starlight.
Allen ducked desperately and lost his grip. He hit the sand with a slow-motion thud and the cold, scaly body of the Martian reptile was upon him.
The Earthman’s reaction was almost instinctive. His hand shot out and clamped down hard upon the creature’s narrow muzzle.
In that position, beast and man stiffened into breathless statuary. The man was trembling and within him his heart pounded away with hard rapidity. He scarcely dared move. In the unaccustomed Martian gravity, he found he could not judge movements of his limbs. Muscles knotted almost of their own accord and legs swung when they ought not to.
He tried to lie still-and think.
The keazel squirmed, and from its lips, clamped shut by Earth muscles, issued a tremulous whine. Allen’s hand grew slick with perspiration and he could feel the beast’s muzzle turn a bit within his palm. He clamped harder, panic-stricken. Physically, the keazel was no match for an Earthman, even a tired, frightened, gravity-unaccustomed Earthman-but one bite, anywhere, was all that was needed.
The keazel jerked suddenly; its back humped and its legs threshed. Allen held on with both hands and could not let go. He had neither gun nor knife. There was no rock on the level desert sands to crack its skull against. The sand-truck had long since disappeared into the Martian night, and he was alone-alone with a keazel.
In desperation, he twisted. The keazel’s head bent. He could hear its breath whistling forth harshly-and again there was that low whine.
Allen writhed above it and clamped knees down upon its cold, scaly abdomen. He twisted the head, further and further. The keazel fought desperately, but Allen’s Earthly biceps maintained their hold. He could almost sense the beast’s agony in the last stages, when he called up all his strength,-something snapped.
And the beast lay still.
He rose to his feet, half-sobbing. The Martian night wind knifed into him and the perspiration froze on his body. He was alone in the desert.
Reaction set in. There was an intense buzzing in his ears. He found it difficult to stand. The wind was biting-but somehow he didn’t feel it any more.
The buzzing in his ears resolved itself into a voice-a voice calling weirdly through the Martian wind.
“All’n, where are y’? Domn y’, y’ tanderfoot, where are y’? All’n! A ll’n!”
New life swept into the Earthman. He tossed the keazel’s carcass onto his shoulders and staggered on towards the voice.
“Here I am, G-Gannie. Right here.”
He stumbled blindly into his brother’s arms.
George began harshly, “Y’ blasted Airthman, can’t y’ even keep y’r footing on a sandtruck moving at ten miles per? Y’ might’ve-”
His voice died away in a semi-gurgle.
Allen said tiredly, “There was a keazel on the roof. He knocked me off. Here, put it somewhere. There’s a hundred dollar bonus for every keazel skin brought in to Aresopolis.”
He had no clear recollection of anything for the next half hour. When things straightened out, he was in the truck again with the taste of warm coffee in his mouth. The engine was rumbling once more and the pleasant warmth of the heaters surrounded him.
George sat next to him silently, eyes fixed on the desert ahead. But once in a while, he cleared his throat and shot a lightning glance at his brother. There was a queer look in his eyes.
Allen said, “Listen, I’ve got to keep awake,-and you look half dead yourself-so how about teaching me that ‘Gannie quaver’ of yours. That’s bound to wake the dead.”
The Ganymedan stared even harder and then said gruffly, “Sure, watch m’ Adam’s apple while I do ‘t again.”
The sun was half-way to zenith when they reached the canal.
An hour before dawn there had come th
e crackling sound of hoarfrost beneath the heavy wheels and that signified the end of the desert area and the approach of the canal oasis. With the rising of the sun, the crackling disappeared and the softening mud underneath slowed the sand-adapted truck. The pathetic clumps of gray-green scrub that dotted the flat landscape were the first variant to eternal red sand since the two had started on their journey.
And then Allen had leaned forward and grasped his brother by the arm, “Look, there’s the canal itself right ahead.”
The “canal”-a small tributary of the mighty Jefferson Canal-contained a mere trickle of water at this season of the year. A dirty winding line of dampness, it was, and little more. Surrounding it on both sides were the boggy areas of black mud that were to fill up into a rushing ice-cold current an Earth-year hence.
The sand-truck nosed gingerly down the gentle slope, weaving a tortuous path among the sparsely-strewn boulders brought down by the spring’s torrents and left there as the sinking waters receded.
It slopped through the mud and splashed clumsily through the puddles. It jounced noisily over rocks, muddied itself past the hubs as it made its way through the murky mid-stream channel and then settled itself for the upward pull out.
And then, with a suddenness that tossed the two drivers out of their seats, it side-slipped, made one futile effort to proceed onwards, and thereafter refused to budge.
The brothers scrambled out and surveyed the situation. George swore lustily, voice more thickly accented than ever.
“B’ Jupe ‘n’ domn, we’re in a pickled situation f’r fair. Tis wallowing in the mud there like a blasted pig.”
Allen shoved his hair back wearily, “Well, don’t stand there looking at it. We’re still a hundred miles or better from Aresopolis. We’ve got to get it out of there.”
“Sure, but how?” His imprecations dropped to sibilant breathings as he reached into the truck for the coil of rope in the back. He looked at it doubtfully.
“Y’ get in here, All’n, and when I pull, press down with y’r foot on that pedal.”
He was tying the rope to the front axle even as he spoke. He played it out behind him as he slogged out through ankle-deep mud, and stretched it taut.
“All right, now, give!” he yelled. His face turned purple with effort as his back muscles ridged. Allen, within the car, pressed the indicated pedal to the floor, heard a loud roar from the engine and a spinning whir from the back wheels. The truck heaved once, and then sank back.
“‘Tis no use,” George called. “I can’t get a footing. If the ground were dry, I c’d do it.”
“If the ground were dry, we wouldn’t be stuck,” retorted Allen. “Here, give me that rope.’
“D’ y’ think y’ can do it, if I can’t?” came the enraged cry, but the other had already left the car.
Allen had spied the large, deep-bedded boulder from the truck, and it was with relief that he found it to be within reaching distance of the rope. He pulled it taut and tossed its free end about the boulder. Knotting it clumsily, he pulled, and it held.
His brother leaned out of the car window, as he made his way, back, with one lumped Ganymedan fist agitating the air.
“Hi, y’ nitwit. What’re y’ doing? D’ y’ expect that overgrown rock t’ pull us out?”
“Shut up,” yelled back Allen, “and feed her the gas when I pull.”
He paused midway between boulder and truck and seized the rope.
“Give!” he shouted in his turn, and with a sudden jerk pulled the rope towards him with both hands.
The truck moved; its wheels caught hold. For a moment it hesitated with the engine blasting ahead full speed, and George’s hands trembling upon the wheel. And then it went over. And almost simultaneously, the boulder at the other end of the taut rope lifted out of the mud with a liquid smacking sound and went over on its side.
Allen slipped the noose off it and ran for the truck.
“Keep her going,” he shouted, and hopped onto the running board, rope trailing.
“How did y’ do that?” asked George, eyes round with awe.
“I haven’t got the energy to explain it now. When we get to Aresopolis and after we’ve had a good sleep, I’ll draw the triangle of forces for you, and show you what happened. No muscles were involved. Don’t look at me as if I were Hercules.”
George withdrew his gaze with an effort, “Triangle o’ forces, is it? I never heard o’ it, but if that’s what it c’n do, education’s a great thing.”
“Comet-gas! Is any coffee left?” He stared at the last thermos-bottle, shook it near his ear dolefully, and said, “Oh, well, let’s practice the quaver. It’s almost as good and I’ve practically got it perfected.”
He yawned prodigiously, “Will we make it by nightfall?”
“Maybe!”
The canal was behind them now.
The reddening sun was lowering itself slowly behind the Southern Range. The Southern Range is one of the two “mountain chains” left on Mars. It is a region of hills; ancient, time-worn, eroded hills behind which lies Aresopolis.
It possesses the only scenery worth mentioning on all Mars and also the golden attribute of being able, through the updrafts along its sides, to suck an occasional ram out of the desiccated Martian atmosphere.
Ordinarily, perhaps, a pair from Earth and Ganymede might have idled through this picturesque area, but this was definitely not the case with the Carter twins.
Eyes, puffed for lack of sleep, glistened once more at the sight of hills on the horizons. Bodies, almost broken for sheer weariness, tensed once more when they rose against the sky.
And the truck leaped ahead,-for just behind the hills lay Aresopolis. The road they travelled was no longer a rule-edge straight one, guided by the compass, over table-top-flat land. It followed narrow, twisting trails over rocky ground.
They had reached Twin Peaks, then, when there was a sudden sputter from the motor, a few halting coughs and then silence.
Allen sat up and there was weariness and utter disgust in his voice, “What’s wrong with this everlastingly-to-be-damned machine now?”
His brother shrugged, “Nothing that I haven’t been expecting for the last hour. We’re out o’ gas. Doesn’t matter at all. We’re at Twin Peaks-only ten miles fr’m the city. We c’n get there in an hour, and then they c’n send men out here for the blooms.”
“Ten miles in an hour!” protested Allen. “You’re crazy.” His face suddenly twisted at an agonizing thought, “My God! We can’t do it under three hours and it’s almost night. No one can last that long in a Martian night. George, we’re-”
George was pulling him out of the car by main force, “By Jupe ‘n’ domn, All’n, don’t let the tenderfoot show through now. We c’n do it in an hour, I tell y’. Didn’t y’ ever try running under sub-normal gravity? It’s like flying. Look at me.”
He was off, skimming the ground closely, and proceeding in ground-covering leaps that shrank him to a speck up the mountain side in a moment.
He waved, and his voice came thinly, “Come on!”
Allen started,-and sprawled at the third wide stride, arms nailing and legs straddled wide. The Ganymedan’s laughter drifted down in heartless gusts.
Allen rose angrily and dusted himself. At an ordinary walk, he made his way upwards.
“Don’t get sore, All’n,” said George. “It’s just a knack, and I’ve had practice on Gannie. Just pretend y’r running along a feather bed. Run rhythmically-a sort o’ very slow rhythm- and run close t’ the ground; don’t leap high. Like this. Watch me!”
The Earthman tried it, eyes on his brother. His first few uncertain strides became surer and longer. His legs stretched and his arms swung as he matched his brother, step for step.
George shouted encouragement and speeded his pace, “Keep lower t’ the ground, All’n. Don’t leap ‘fore y’r toes hit the ground.”
Allen’s eyes shone and, for the moment, weariness was forgotten, “This is great;
It is like flying-or like springs on your shoes.”
“Y’ ought t’ have lived on Gannie with me. We’ve got special fields f’r subgravity races. An expairt racer c’n do forty miles an hour at times-and I c’n do thirty-five myself. -0’ course, the gravity there’s a bit lower than here on Mars.”
Long hair streamed backwards in the wind and skin reddened at the bitter-cold air that blew past. The ruddy patches of sunlight travelled higher and higher up the slopes, lingered briefly upon the very summits and went out altogether. The short Martian twilight started upon its rapidly darkening career. The Evening Star-Earth-was already glimmering brightly, its attendant moon somewhat closer than the night previous.
The passing minutes went unheeded by Allen. He was too absorbed by the wonderful new sensation of sub-gravity running, to do anything more than follow his brother. Even the increasing chilliness scarcely registered upon his consciousness.
It was George, then, upon whose countenance a tiny, puckered uneasiness grew into a vast, panicky frown.
“Hi, All’n, hold up!” he called. Leaning backward, he brought himself to a short, hopping halt full of grace and ease. Allen tried to do likewise, broke his rhythm, and went forward upon his face. He rose with loud reproaches.
The Ganymedan turned a deaf ear to them. His gaze was sombre in the dusk, “D’ y’ know where we are, All’n?”
Allen felt a cold constriction about his windpipe as he stared about him quickly. Things looked different in semidarkness, but they looked more different than they ought. It was impossible for things to be so different.
“We should’ve sighted Old Baldy by now, shouldn’t we have?” he quavered.
“We sh’d’ve sighted him long ago,” came the hard answer. “‘Tis that domned quake. Landslides must’ve changed the trails. The peaks themselves must’ve been screwed up-” His voice was thin-edged, “Allen, ‘tisn’t any use making believe. We’re dead lost.”
For a moment, they stood silently-uncertainly. The sky was purple and the hills retreated into the night. Allen licked bluechilled Ups with a dry tongue.
“We can’t be but a few miles away. We’re bound to stumble on the city if we look.”
Beyond The End Of Time (v1.0) Page 6