On Earth itself, warfare between nations had been successfully abolished for over a hundred years, and save for a few ceremonial guards of honor there were really no soldiers. There were police forces only, and there were some stores of old armaments in various government warehouses and vaults.
At least if Earth could be warned in time, the leaders might hastily equip some spaceships with guns, or with means of launching atomic torpedoes. They might at least arm the people so that any attempt by the Marauders to land would cost them plenty.
In any case, Earth had to be warned! But how? At the moment it was already on the other side of the sun, well over two hundred million miles away, out of sight of both Mars and the invading fleet. No radio, not even such super-radios as perhaps die Vegans might possess, could possibly reach Earth across the interference of the sun.
The only way to warn Earth would be to go there . . . and that seemed to be an impossible hope.
The Deimosians had recovered a little of their senses, though they were still white and shaking. On the Phobos side, a serious conference was already taking place. Kunosh walked over to the panel and switched it off. He rapped for order, yelled a command, repeated it, and finally got the attention of his men.
They slowly quieted down, gathered around him. Kunosh talked swiftly, heatedly. There was little debate as the stunned councilors listened to him. Nelson, sitting at one side, assumed that this was a hasty conference to discuss ways and means of saving themselves. He got up, went over, and broke in:
“I want to say something, Kunosh. If you are deciding what to do, I have a suggestion to make.”
The old man glanced at him sharply. “This is an important meeting. What can you have to say?” Nelson spoke swiftly. “Your only hope of fighting off the Marauders is to throw in your lot with Earth. Earth has a huge population, great factories, and plenty of courage. If you come to Earth, warn the people, they will welcome your aid, give you shelter. With the special information you can bring, Earth can find a way to build defenses. Even if they can’t, they can make it so hot for the pirates that they’ll go away. Earth needs your science; you can use it to bargain for a place to settle down, a permanent home.
“Take Deimos across space to Earth while there is still time to outrun the Marauders. You can’t hope to hide here forever, especially since they may have records of your two moons from the Vega days, may be looking for you!”
Kunosh listened to him, frowning and shaking his head. He spoke to the others in the room, apparently translating Nelson’s words. The councilors glanced at him with horror. Those nearest him drew away. The old man brushed a hand over his brow.
“No! No! That would be as unpleasant to us as being captured by the devils from the stars. You are as strange to us as they are! We are not going to break the stem traditions of our ancestors by trying to fight or by giving strangers our ancient secrets! There isn’t a true Vegan here who wouldn’t agree with me!”
The obvious fear and hatred reflected on the faces of those in the room made Nelson realize the futility of arguing with these incredible cowards. These rabbits were vicious, they were panicky, and beyond sane reason. “Then what can you do?” Nelson demanded truculently.
Kunosh paid no further attention to him while talking heatedly to the councilors. Then, as the meeting broke up with the room emptying as the others scurried from the chamber on urgent missions, he looked at Nelson.
“Were going to run for our lives! Were going to activate the engines of this starship world and race away from this solar system and away from the Marauders. Once we re in the deeps of space at full speed they’ll never locate us. We'll go on until we can find a star or planet somewhere where they can’t ever find us. Even if it takes thousands and thousands of years, we’ll keep on going!”
Nelson gasped, “But when are you starting? What about me? I don’t want to go along!”
Kunosh waved a hand indifferently. “Do what you want. Do you think we can be concerned about you now?”
Nelson grabbed him by the arm, swung him around. “I don’t give a rap if you don’t care, but I do. I want one of your spaceships! Now! Lead me to it, or I’ll break your arm!”
Kunosh winced in terror. “All right, all right! You still have an hour before we can start Deimos moving. Go ahead up to the hangar, take a ship, and go! Leave us alone! We don't want you!”
Nelson held on to his arm, brandished his weapon. “You'll come along with me until I get the ship! I’m taking no chances with a lying sneak like you! Come on!”
He dragged the squeaking old man out of the chamber and force-walked him back through the halls to the shaft scoops. Around him, in the mazes of the star-ship moon, there were wild scenes of panic. Men and women were scurrying back and forth frantically and wastefully. No one seemed to be in control, no one seemed to be able to keep his head. If men were busy at starting the actual preparations for running away, it was not evident.
Nelson and Kunosh reached the shaft, got on it, moved upward. “What will Phobos do?” the young man asked as they rose.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” snapped back the Deimosian. “This is a good opportunity to leave those degenerates to their own undoing. At least that’ll be some good coming out of this!”
They reached the hangar, passed through the locks. Inside the subsurface area there were several craft. To Nelson’s eyes all seemed small and designed only for short intermoon flights. As the old man seemed indifferent as to which one he took, he insisted on walking over to each and examining all of them. He ignored Kunosh’s protests of impatience and time lost.
He could reach Mars with these ships, but apparently they were not built for longer journeys. To strand himself on the red planet would be an escape for a short while but would be no help to Earth. Then in the comer he caught sight of the ship that was so oddly cubical. Hastily he closed in and walked around it.
It was visibly larger than the other craft, and now that he was so close, he could see that it was quite different in almost every respect. The metal was darker and slightly pitted as if from extensive flight. There were a few narrow squarish portholes, dark and glassy. And there were odd projecting bumps that looked suspiciously like guns!
“What's this?” he asked. “It doesn't look like one of your other ships at all!”
“It’s a ship from another Vega world. We . . . took it with us as a curiosity when we left Vega. It's a vile battle cruiser of the Malakarji people. We use it as a horror exhibit for our children.”
Nelson looked for the entrance, found it, a square doorway, set firm in the surface. “Open it!” He shoved Kunosh toward it.
The Vegan pushed down a plug set in the center. The door suddenly pushed outward like a cork, swung upward. “The entire ship has controls like that. We've kept it in working order,” he said. “You can take this one, if you want to, only be quick!” He stood aside and waited for Nelson to go in. But the young man was too smart to be caught.
“Oh no,” he said, “you go in first. You'll show me everything I need to know before I’ll trust you out of my sight!”
“Bah!” Kunosh stamped his foot, but he climbed into the airlock of the odd ship, with Nelson at his heels.
Inside, the structure was amazingly like a little house. The driving machinery, which was clearly not rockets but must be on the order of the advanced controls used by the starship moons, was apparently housed in the ground floor. The living and storage quarters were evidently on the second and top floor of the little cube.
Nelson found himself entering the chamber on the bottom floor and was in the midst of bright, gleaming, massive machines at whose nature he could not guess. There was a huge thick wheel circling the entire lower floor and that was probably a major part of the drive. Perhaps magnetic currents had something to do with it, or the paragravital flows which recent science had begun to detect. The two climbed a short ladder to the upper floor.
Here there were several oddly placed rooms.
The control room was in the exact center of the ship and looked out through a rounded transparent bull’s-eye directly overhead in the roof of the cube. Panels in the walls of the room gave views from all four directions, though the ship was apparently blind from its basement side. Evidently it flew directly upward, and probably caused a semblance of gravity down against its floors when in normal flight.
Around this central control room were about eight small chambers, obviously sleeping, eating, and storage quarters. On each side and above, there were what were quite obviously cannon emplacements.
Nelson made Kunosh explain the layout. The old man insisted that the ship was ready to fly, that apparently its source of power did not require fuels other than atomic piles which when once installed would supply power for countless thousands of years. The old man pushed in a plug on the tablelike main control board. Immediately a soft light glowed in the room, the wall panels lit up to show the outside walls of the cavern. Several lights glowed in various colors on the stud-covered table. Hastily Kunosh pointed to each, stating in turn, “Power, direction, acceleration, deceleration, heat, light, airflow,” and so on.
It was apparent to Nelson that the ship was indeed in working order. If it was atomically powered, then it ought to be able to make the trip to Earth! He didn’t know how fast it could go but it was at least a hope.
Kunosh was hopping up and down, anxious to leave. Satisfied, Nelson nodded, and the old man scurried down the ladder and out the door. Through one of the wall panels, Nelson could see him run out of the hangar. Nelson pushed the plug that closed the airlock door and sealed the curious ship.
Let’s see, he said to himself, reviewing the various controls. Where’s the communications—or isn’t there one? He looked about. Set against one wall was a circular glassy device, the typical viewplate. Several plugs set at its side were the obvious controls. He plugged one at random.
The screen flickered, steadied. A face looked out at Nelson. It was the face of his father, John Carson Parr!
Chapter 14 In the Cubeship
“Dad!” shouted Nelson joyfully. “You’re all right then!
You escaped the Phobos men!”
His father’s lined features stared back at Nelson in surprise and then with pleasure. “This is a surprise, son, a real surprise. I thought I would get through to the rulers of Deimos and instead I got you. Where in heaven’s name are you? That cabin behind you doesn’t look like Kunosh’s headquarters.”
“I’m still on Deimos, Dad, but I’m in a spaceship that I’m going to return back to Mars in ... or maybe try for Earth. What happened to you? Are you broadcasting from Phobos or from Mars or our ship?”
John Parr moved his head to one side and Nelson caught a glimpse of the same central control room of Phobos that he had seen before. Standing just behind the Earth expedition leader was the grim face of the chief of the Phobos natives. Nelson got a glimpse of men busy at charts and panels in the depths of the room—and among them he was sure he spotted the figures of Telders and McQueen, working shoulder to shoulder with the natives.
“I’m on Phobos as you see, deep in its center. I guess you know now what these two moons really are. We heard something about you from the men with whom you had that fight. They were quite angry here about your interference, you know. Apparently that old schemer Kunosh took you in completely.”
“Yes, yes,” Nelson nodded. “But tell me about you and the men. What happened to you?”
The elder Parr glanced down, presumably at his watch. Looking up he said, '“There isn't very much time, but 1 11 try. We weren't worried about your absence for about twenty hours, when it was about time for you and Jim to return. When you still failed to show up, we began to get uneasy. We tried radioing you when Deimos came into sight, but we got no answer at all.
“We were keeping an eye on Deimos for your return and were watching it by telescope when we saw a light appear on the surface and something take off. We supposed it was you two and tried to keep track of the object but lost it amid the stars. When you failed to make a landing here we got worried again, for the trip between the two moons at that point should not have taken long. We gathered to discuss whether we ought to take off and go to Deimos to see what had happened there, when we heard someone knocking on the outside of our space-lock door.
“Naturally we assumed it was you at last. We got the lock open and a bunch of men dashed in dressed in spacesuits and helmets. We hardly had a chance to make a fight of it when they were all over us and had us prisoner.
“They took us out of our ship and down underground. I suppose the insides of the two moons are pretty much alike. Anyway it's a huge spaceship here, a star-going spaceship ten miles in diameter capable of carrying tens of thousands of men, women and children and supporting a whole series of generations while the ship crossed between stars.
“The leader, Doldnan, talked with us after they had installed us in a fairly comfortable guarded room. He seemed a decent sort, explained that they were engaging in preparations for moving their whole population to Mars and making their home there. It seems they had been watching this world for centuries before getting up the nerve to do it.
“Doldnan told us that they had not intended touching us on the surface, figuring that they didn’t want to do anything to make Earth angry. But when their delegation returned from Deimos, one they had sent to try to persuade their people there to join in the colonization scheme, they heard what had happened to Worden and how Kunosh had put the blame on them. So Doldnan said they had to go upsurface and grab us before we got some sort of wrong report and try to take revenge.”
Nelson nodded. “Kunosh managed to make the Phobosians the bad ones all right. He said they had seized the moon by force.”
John Parr shook his head. “Actually he wasn’t telling the truth. The men from Phobos were only talking and arguing with Kunosh’s councilors when you burst in and hit them. If you hadn't been along, Kunosh and his men would have had to do the dirty work them-
selves—but they always prefer to have someone else risk their lives. They wanted to spread bad blood between Earth and the Phobos people.”
Nelson was puzzled. "I don’t quite understand. Kunosh claims the Phobosians are Vegans who deserted their old traditions of hatred against force, who have become desperate and vicious.”
John smiled a bit and cast a glance behind him. “To tell you the truth, to a certain extent Kunosh is right. Originally all the Vegans were like him, cowardly, slippery, and convinced of their own superiority. That’s why the Phobosians did nothing for so long about taking over Mars. But the last couple of generations here have been watching Earth and our Mars colony and taking heart. Doldnan told me their spies reported favorably of our scientific integrity and peaceful intent. They have been debating this matter for a long time, and only very recently has the anticowardice faction won control of Phobos. On Deimos, however, the most fanatical supporters of the old views clustered and prevented even the debate from reaching their populace. The two moons have barely been talking to each other for the last generation.
“Don’t get the idea, though,” the elderly space explorer hastened to add, “that the Phobosians are regular wildcats. Actually they’re almost as cautious as their smaller moon kin. They can’t quite get over the customs of ages of rabbitlike existence. They don’t like violence any more than Kunosh does, but they have enough sense to face up to a fight if they have to.” Nelson suddenly remembered his position and his father’s. Time was running out and he was still standing in the controls of this strange ship while danger was rushing on them all.
“Yes, Dad. But what are you going to do now? I tried to talk Kunosh into taking Deimos to Earth and helping us fight off the Marauders. Gosh, Dad, with the science they’ve got in this moon we might have a chance! But I couldn’t make him agree. They’re going to start the starship up and run away!”
John nodded. “When they discovered the Marauders coming, Doldnan managed to keep his p
eople from too much panic. They held a big conference, then called us in. After they’d explained the problem, they themselves asked us if Earth would give them protection and refuge in exchange for their scientific secrets. Of course we agreed, urged them to take their moon to Earth as fast as possible. I do have some authority as leader of the old Mars colony and as head of this expedition. And the stuff these people have here— well, some of their discoveries will give us a big boost! You should see their space drive alone! Imagine a drive, nonrocket in nature, that can move a ship this size across dozens of light-years!”
Nelson was thrilled. “Shall I join you? What do you think I ought to do? I’ve got this spaceship though I don’t know its powers.”
“Yes,” said Parr, and turning away from the screen, conferred briefly with Doldnan. He turned back hastily. “You’ll have to start at once, son. I’m told our moon has been in motion for the past half hour already, starting to swing out to make a race for the Earth. We’re on the sunward side and going to race in, cutting inside Mercury’s orbit to swing around and out again to join Earth on the other side of the sun. You’ll have to outrace us, because Deimos is on the outward side of Mars now and if Kunosh makes good his escape plans it will start outward at any moment.”
"Gosh, you’re right!” Nelson jumped to the tablelike control board of his strange ship. There were flickering lights on a curious panel there, but he could not decipher them. Doubtless the original designers of the ship had a code that told them what their ship’s detectors indicated, but the Earthling had no time to figure it out. He glanced through the windows of the ship. He was still inside the hangar, but glancing upward he saw that the open dome was showing a visible motion of stars.
He stared a few seconds at the visible sky and realized that the motion of the stars was different from what it should be in the normal orbital motion of the small moon. Kunosh had started the starship going! Every precious second wasted now would take him farther away from Earth, farther away from a rendezvous with Phobos.
The Secret of the Martian Moons Page 11