by Eric Brown
“Her claims are extreme indeed, Watson. But, if she does rescue us, as she promised, then I have no doubt that she will be eager to substantiate her dire warnings with hard evidence.”
We finished our singular breakfast, then descended to the forecourt to await the arrival of Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee.
No sooner had we had stepped outside than a bulky air-car descended and a hatch like the wing of an insect pivoted open and a Martian gestured from within.
In the capacious rear compartment of the vehicle, which was furnished with plushly upholstered benches like a Pullman carriage, sat Professor Challenger.
“Our first port of call,” Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee announced as we squeezed in beside Challenger, “is the Martian Institute of Science. Professor Challenger’s lecture is scheduled for this evening, and I thought he too might care to come along.”
I exchanged a glance with Holmes, who said, “Capital idea, my friend. I am more than a little curious about the many wonders of your nigh miraculous technologies.”
The air-car powered up with a roar of engines, and in a second we were airborne.
I watched the land slip away below us, my stomach turning at the thought of what might lie ahead. I recalled Hadfield-Bell’s words, and gazed with new hostility at our hideous host and his driver. The Martians were, at the best of times, ugly in the extreme, with their cockroach coloured tegument, their greasy bristles sprouting from the crater-like follicles that pitted their hides, and their great glaucous staring eyes. It had been some years, after the second wave of Martians arrived on Earth amid apologies for the behaviour of their more bellicose cousins, that mankind had been able to look upon the physicality of the extraterrestrials with anything like equanimity: it did not require much to cast them in the role, in my eyes at least, of the devils we had originally thought them to be.
Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee turned in his seat and eyed us. “I understand that you elected to take a stroll before dinner last night?”
“That’s right,” Holmes said. “We passed a pleasant hour or so taking in the market streets in the vicinity of the hotel.”
“And you were not… troubled by the disturbance in that district?”
I glanced at my friend. Was Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee referring to the distraction that had resulted in our minders losing sight of us?
“We did notice a commotion at one point,” Holmes said, “an altercation between the driver of a car and a pedestrian.”
“There have been instances of terrorist activity in the area,” said Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee.
“Terrorist activity?” Holmes raised an eyebrow.
Our guide waved a tentacle. “Hotheads from the northern deserts,” he said, “demanding greater access to water or some such.” He changed the subject. “I trust you found a suitable dining establishment during your sojourn?”
“A pleasant little restaurant not far from our hotel,” said Holmes.
“And you were not pestered by importuning individuals eager to speak to human beings?”
“Ah…” Holmes temporised, “we did speak to one or two individuals, but I hasten to add that their manners were impeccable. They were merely curious.”
“In future,” said Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee, “I would be wary of speaking to strangers…”
“Interesting,” Holmes murmured to himself as he settled back in his seat.
At length the air-car came down on the shoulder of another great ziggurat – the Institute of Martian Science itself – and we took an elevator plate down to the ground floor.
“I thought you might care to view the Hall of Technologies Past,” said Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee, leading us through a high archway to a gloomy chamber the size of an airship hangar. As ever with the interior design of public buildings on Mars, the walls were daubed a uniform taupe and had the pitted appearance of something decorated by insects: again we might have been inside a termite mound. I noticed that we were the only visitors present, and I wondered if Holmes had registered this fact.
More interesting than the lack of decoration, however, were the examples of Martian machinery on display to either side of a central aisle.
First came bulky black, wheeled vehicles, evidently steam-powered, with high cabs and cauldron-like devices set at their front-ends, not unlike the Frenchman, Cugnot’s, early steam-driven inventions. As we progressed along the aisle, our host providing a running commentary, it soon became obvious that on Mars, as on Earth, warfare had proved the mother of invention. Again and again we passed ground vehicles and fliers whose purpose was to deliver projectiles, missiles and bombs. Soon we came upon early examples of the kind so horribly familiar to every man, woman and child of Earth: the fearsome tripods. These early versions were smaller, on shorter legs, and with cabins large enough to admit just a single Martian driver.
As we moved from this chamber to the next, we came upon machines that, while they retained the basic shape of the tripod’s cowls, yet were without the eponymous three limbs. “And these,” Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee, “are the latest Martian war machines, which dispense with the rather clumsy tripod locomotion. These are flying machines, which can circumnavigate the globe in a matter of hours.”
We made noises to indicate that we were suitably impressed.
Holmes said, “And yet you chose to quell the nations of Earth with the antiquated, three-legged examples of the machine?”
Our guide was quick to correct him. “You refer, of course, to the accursed regime which initiated the unprovoked and unwarranted attack upon your world,” it said. “The regime which we have since overthrown...” Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee gestured with a tentacle back towards the tripods. “That regime,” he said, “judged that the tripods would be sufficient to subdue a race which had not yet developed aerial locomotion.”
“And were proved correct,” Challenger muttered into his beard.
We strolled on, examining what looked like artillery pieces and bulbous rockets. At one point Holmes asked, “How many races dwell upon your planet?”
“Just two, Mr Holmes. We of the equator, the Arkana; and the less populous race of the north, known as the Korchana people.”
“And you live in harmony?” Holmes persisted.
“For the most part, though occasional militants from the Korchana people attempt to cause trouble.”
“Ah,” I said, “the ‘terrorists’ you mentioned earlier?”
“Just so,” said Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee, hurrying us along.
We came then to a torpedo-shaped vessel. Unlike every other vehicle we had seen so far, which had been fashioned from pitted materials the hue of graphite, this sleek device was silver.
Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee said, “And here we have the prototype of what we call a deep space probe, which we hope to launch on missions to the outer planets of the solar system before too long.” He raised an inviting tentacle. “If you would care to step aboard.”
Challenger squeezed his considerable girth through the tiny hatch, followed by Holmes. I brought up the rear, glancing back into the grey saucer eyes of our host, who watched me inscrutably.
Within were three fold-down seats facing a console and a blank screen. No sooner had I taken the lead of my friends, and seated myself, than the hatch clanged shut behind me.
I leapt to my feet and searched for some kind of handle on the hatch, to no avail. I pummelled upon the metal surface, calling out, “What is this? Let us out at once, I say!”
Holmes was on his feet, his pistol drawn and his hawk eyes perusing the ceiling for I knew not what.
Challenger bellowed in rage and beat at the metal panels with fists the size of hams.
I fell silent when, seconds later, I heard a peculiar hissing sound, and whirled around to see a mist-like vapour billowing down from the ceiling. My friends, being closer to the source of the gas, had already succumbed and lay sprawled upon the floor. I turned in panic and recommenced my frantic pounding on the hatch.
Then the gas reached me and I, too, slipped into unconscio
usness.
I was aware of very little during the next few hours, though I regained my senses for brief, hallucinatory periods.
At one point I was aware of being manhandled, gripped by numerous tentacles and carried along a lighted corridor. Then I was lying on some kind of table, with a blinding light above me, soon occluded by the gargoyle face of a peering Martian. A period of oblivion succeeded this, and next I was aware of being moved at speed, not carried this time, but borne along on something wheeled. I felt tentacles gripping me, lifting me, and then I was deposited on to a shockingly cold surface.
I heard a deafening rumble, as of an engine, and I passed into oblivion and did not resurface for many an hour.
Eight
Imprisoned in the Desert
“Watson! Watson, wake up.”
“Wha… what? Where…?”
“Watson,” said Holmes. “It’s good to have you back in the land of the living.”
My friend knelt before me, a hand on my shoulder. I struggled into a sitting position. “Where the blazes are we, Holmes?”
“Where the blazes indeed!” came the bellow from Professor Challenger as he strode back and forth, having discarded his solar topee and his safari jacket. “It’s infernally hot in here!”
Holmes assisted me to my feet and I took in our surroundings – or rather, I suspected, our prison.
We were in a great chamber, some hundred yards long by thirty, constructed from the same adobe material as many of the other Martian buildings I had observed. Again the interior was undecorated, and the walls were daubed the usual uniform shade of grey.
There were no openings in the chamber, save one: at the far end of our prison was a semi-circular window as tall as a man at its apex, barred but otherwise open to the elements.
I made my way across to this, accompanied by my friends, and we stared out upon an unprepossessing scene. A red desert stretched away for as far as the eye could see, empty of other buildings and featureless save for the natural rills and ripples created by the ceaseless winds. In the far distance, on the horizon, rose a jagged series of mountains.
The bars were set perhaps nine inches apart, and though I turned myself sideways and attempted to squeeze through the gap, it was to no avail; likewise Holmes, thinner than myself, attempted to force himself between the bars, with the same result. Challenger made no such futile effort: the gap could have been a yard wide, and still not big enough to admit his bulk.
I pulled off my coat and unbuttoned my jacket, then mopped my drenched brow with my kerchief.
“At least out gaolers didn’t leave us without fluid,” Holmes said, pointing to a nearby stack of cannisters. “Water.”
The mere word made me realise how thirsty I was, and I crossed to the six containers, opened one and drank. The water was warm, but served to slake my thirst.
Holmes was pacing the breadth of the chamber before the barred opening, watched closely by Professor Challenger.
“The very fact that the Martians have supplied us with water, but not food,” Holmes said at length, “is interesting in itself, and tells me much.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“One,” said Holmes, “that they do not wish us to die of thirst. They wish to keep us alive, but have placed us here for a very specific reason. Also, we will remain here for a shortish duration only.”
“How the deuce do you work that out?” I said.
“If we were to be incarcerated here for any length of time,” said he, “then we would have been supplied with food as well as water.”
“Very well, but what do they want from us in the shortish time we might be here – and, confound it, where exactly are we?”
Holmes turned to the opening and peered out, frowning, then said, “We are situated on the Amazonis Planitia, perhaps two thousand miles north of the equator, as the mountain you see on the Eastern horizon is none other than Olympus Mons.”
“But why in Hell’s name have the critters abandoned us here?” Challenger wanted to know.
“I think we will find out,” Holmes said, “in due course.”
He resumed his pacing, and paused a minute later to ask, “What did you experience immediately after passing out in the silver vehicle back at the Institute of Science? Watson? Challenger?”
I recounted to Holmes the little I could recall; the bright light, the examination of the Martian; being lifted and then ferried on something wheeled; being deposited on a cold surface, and then my final memory: the sound of an engine.
“Evidently belonging to the vehicle that transported us here,” said Holmes. “Professor?”
Challenger shrugged his ox-like shoulders. “I was out for the count from the outset,” he said. “I do recollect a bright light, but it’s as if I dreamed it. I recall nothing else until I awoke in this confounded hole.”
“What about you, Holmes?” I asked.
“I recall coming briefly to my senses to find myself on an operating table, as I too was examined by a Martian – they divested me of my pistol, needless to say. I had sufficient wits about me to take in my surroundings, for a few seconds. I received the impression that I was in an operating theatre, and my last recollection is of being inserted, head first, into a vast machine not unlike a blast furnace… After that, nothing.”
“But what were the ungodly beasts doing to us, Holmes?” Challenger roared. “By Gad, if I could get my hands on one of the slimy creatures!” And, miming his intent, his huge hairy hands reached out and wrung the next of an imaginary alien.
“I take it that this is your first time on the Red Planet, Professor?” Holmes asked.
“That’s right.”
“And you were invited here by the diplomat Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee?”
Challenger nodded. “Yes.”
“For the express purpose of giving a lecture?”
“A couple of talks to the Martian Geographic Society on the subject of my more recent Arabian expeditions.”
Holmes stroked his chin. “And did the invitation strike you as… odd, shall I say?”
The big man frowned. “It did cross my mind to wonder how many common or garden Martians might be interested in such a lecture, yes. I might pack the Royal Geographic Society with folk eager to hear my talks, but here on Mars...?” He shrugged.
Holmes said, “I was asked by Gruvlax-Xenxa-Schmee to investigate the murder of a philosopher who, it turns out, does not exist. It appears that we were lured here for reasons other than those we were given. For what purpose, though, remains the question.”
“Something to do with… with this ‘scanning process’ that Hadfield-Bell mentioned?” I ventured.
Holmes nodded. “So it would appear. And it is my supposition that our incarceration, along with our scanning, can only be linked to the larger picture.”
“Which is?” Challenger asked.
“The eventual annihilation of the human race,” said Holmes.
“But...” I said, “How can that be? The Martians are far in advance of us, technologically. Couldn’t they merely wipe us out militarily, if that is their ultimate intent?”
Holmes’ brow was buckled in an intense frown of concentration. At last he said, “They could at that. But, perhaps, they do not wish to annihilate us immediately. Invading armies often utilise the subjugated citizens of a defeated nation as labour – slaves, in other words. Perhaps that is the ultimate fate of our kind, and what is happening on Earth now, with the Martians putting on a benign, even altruistic face, is part of a ‘softening up’ process...”
“And our kidnapping and scanning?” Challenger asked. “Where does that fit into the bigger picture?”
“I must admit, Professor, that on that sore question I am for the moment, though I am loath to admit it, as clueless as yourself.”
I moved to the opening and gripped the bars. With all my strength I pulled at them, hoping that the stone in which they were set might crumble – but it was a vain hope. The bars were immovable. And anyway, wh
at purpose might be served by our escape from this chamber? We were in the middle on an inimical desert, after all, a thousand miles from civilisation… And even if we were by some miracle to attain the city of Glench-Arkana, how might we find the means to leave Mars and return to Earth?
My spirit shrivelled at the hopelessness of our situation.
I sat with my back against the wall, sweat trickling down my exhausted face, and withdrew my fob-watch from my waist-coat. Therein I kept a photograph of my dear departed Mary, her sweet smile a boon to my senses in this time of need. I lost myself in a happy reverie of recollection, recalling our time together, our honeymoon in Brighton, and later holidays in the Scottish Highlands. Never had the memory of my country – even when serving in the sere plains of Afghanistan – provoked such a sense of sadness in my heart.
Holmes noticed my mood, and said, “Chin up, Watson. I will refrain from offering such platitudes as ‘Where there’s life...’ But the fact is that all is not yet hopeless. We must be vigilant, and grasp whatever opportunity comes our way.”
I was of a mind to say that that was all very well, but the fact remained that we were stranded in a prison in a desert on a planet sixty million miles from home… But I held my tongue and nodded. “You’re right, Holmes. There’s always hope.”
Professor Challenger looked up from where he was seated against the wall opposite me. He cocked his head and said, “Am I going mad, or do I hear the approach of an infernal Martian air-car?”
Holmes bent his ear towards the opening. “I do believe you’re right, Professor.”
I jumped to my feet and peered through the bars.
Faint at first, and then growing louder, I made out the throb of an engine. I scanned the skies for any sign of the vessel, but saw nothing other than the slow tumble of Phobos far to the north.
Holmes was beside me, and Challenger gripped bars and swore to himself as the engine noise swelled to a deafening volume and the vehicle passed directly overhead.