Andrew suddenly laughed aloud. Alien or human, there were correspondences; Kamellin was sulking. “For goodness sake,” he said aloud, “if we're going to share one body, let's not quarrel. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings; this is all new to me. But you don't have to sit in the corner and turn up your nose, either!"
The situation suddenly struck him as too ridiculous to take seriously; he laughed aloud, and like a slow, pleasant ripple, he felt Kamellin's slow amusement strike through his own.
FORGIVE ME IF I OFFENDED. I AM ACCUSTOMED TO DOING AS I PLEASE IN A BODY I INHABIT. I AM HERE AT YOUR SUFFERANCE, AND I OFFER APOLOGIES.
Andrew laughed again, in a curious doubled amusement, somehow eager to make amends. “Okay, Kamellin, take over. You know where I want to go—if you can get us there faster, hop to it."
* * * *
But for the rest of his life he remembered the next hour with terror. His only memory was of swaying darkness and dizziness, feeling his legs take steps he had not ordered, feeling his hands slide on rock and being unable to clutch and save himself, walking blind and deaf and a prisoner in his own skull; and ready to go mad with the horror of it. Curiously enough, the saving thought had been; Kamellin's able to stand it. He isn't going to hurt us.
When sight and sense and hearing came back, and full orientation with it, he found himself at the mouth of a long, low canyon which stretched away for about twelve miles, perfectly straight. It was narrow, less than fifteen feet wide. On either side, high dizzy cliffs were cut sharply away; he marveled at the technology that had built this turnpike road.
The entrances were narrow, concealed between rock, and deeply drifted with sand; the hardest part had been descending, and later ascending, the steep, worn-away steps that led down into the floor of the canyon. He had struggled and cursed his way down the two-foot steps, wishing that the old Martians had had shorter legs; but once down, he had walked the whole length in less than two hours—traveling a distance which Reade had covered in three weary days of rock-climbing.
And beside the steps was a ramp down which vehicles could be driven; had it been less covered with sand, Andrew could have slid down!
When he finally came to the end of the canyon road, the nearly-impassible double ridge of mountains lay behind him. From there it was a simple matter to strike due west and intersect the road from Mount Denver to the spaceport. There he camped overnight, awaiting the mail-car. He was awake with the first faint light, and lost no time in gulping a quick breakfast and strapping on his pack; for the mail-cars were rocket-driven (in the thin air of Mars, this was practical) and traveled at terrific velocities along the sandy barren flats. He'd have to be alert to flag it down.
He saw it long before it reached him, a tiny cloud of dust; he hauled off his jacket and, shivering in the freezing air, flagged furiously. The speck grew immensely, roared, braked to a stop; the driver thrust out a head that was only two goggled eyes over a heavy dustkerchief.
“Need a ride?"
Protocol on Mars demanded immediate identification.
“Andrew Slayton—I'm with the Geographic Society—Reade's outfit back in the mountains at Xanadu. Going back to Mount Denver for the rest of the expedition."
The driver gestured. “Climb on and hang on. I've heard about that gang. Reade's Folly, huh?"
“That's what they call it.” He settled himself on the seatless floor—like all Martian vehicles, the rocket-car was a bare chassis without doors, seats or sidebars, stripped to lower freight costs—and gripped the rail. The driver looked down at him, curiously.
“I heard about that place Xanadu. Jinxed, they say. You must be the first man since old Torchevsky, to go there and get back safe. Reade's men all right?"
“They were fine when I left,” Andrew said.
“Okay. Hang on,” the driver warned, and, at Andrew's nod, cut in the rockets. The sand-car leaped forward, eating up the desert.
* * * *
Mount Denver was dirty and smelly after the clean coldness of the mountains. Andrew found his way through the maze of army barracks and waited in the officer's Rec quarters while a call-system located Colonel Reese Montray.
He hadn't been surprised to find out that the head of the other half of the expedition was a Colonel in active service; after all, within the limits imposed by regulations, the Army was genuinely anxious for Reade to find something at Xanadu. A genuine discovery might make some impression on the bureaucrats back on Earth; they might be able to revive public interest in Mars, get some more money and supplies instead of seeing everything diverted to Venus and Europa.
Montray was a tall thin man with a heavy Lunar Colony accent, the tiny stars of the Space Service glimmering above the Army chevrons on his sleeve. He gestured Andrew into a private office and listened, with a bored look, up to the point where he left Reade; then began to shoot questions at him.
“Has he proper chemical testing equipment for the business? Protection against gas—chemicals?"
“I don't think so,” Andrew said. He'd half forgotten Reade's theory about hallucinogens in spinosa martis; so much had happened since that it didn't seem to make much difference.
“Maybe we'd better get it to him. I can wind things up here in an hour or so, if I have to, I've only got to tell the Commander what's going on. He'll put me on detached duty. You can attend to things here at the Geographic Society Headquarters, can't you, Slayton?"
Andrew said quietly “I'm going back with you, Captain Montray. And you won't need gas equipment. I did make contact with one of the old Martians."
Montray sighed and reached for the telephone. “You can tell Dr. Cranston all about it, over at the hospital."
“I knew you'd think I was crazy,” Andrew said in resignation, “but I can show you a pass that will take you through the Double Ridge in three hours, not three days—less, if you have a sand-car."
The Colonel's hand was actually on the telephone, but he didn't pick it up. He leaned back and looked at Andrew, curiously.
“You discovered this pass?"
“Well, yes and no, sir.” He told his story quickly, skipping over the parts about Kamellin, concentrating on the fact of the roadway. Montray heard him out in silence, then picked up the telephone, but he didn't call the hospital. Instead he called an employment bureau in the poorer part of Mount Denver. While he waited for the connection he looked uncertainly at Andrew and muttered “I'd have to go out there in a few weeks anyhow. They said, if Reade got well started, he could use Army equipment—” he broke off and spoke into the clicking phone.
“Montray here for the Geographic. I want twenty roughnecks for desert work. Have them here in two hours.” He held down the contact button, dialed again, this time to call DuPont, Mars Limited, and requisition a first-class staff chemist, top priority. The third call, while Andrew waited—admiring, yet resenting the smoothness with which Montray could pull strings, was to the Martian Geographic Society headquarters; then he heaved himself up out of his chair and said “So that's that. I'll buy your story, Slayton. You go down—” he scrawled on a pink form, “and commandeer an Army sand-bus that will hold twenty roughnecks and equipment. If you've told the truth, the Reade expedition is already a success and the Army will take over. And if you haven't—” he made a curt gesture of dismissal, and Andrew knew that if anything went wrong, he'd, be better off in the psycho ward than anywhere Montray could get at him.
* * * *
When Army wheels started to go round, they ran smoothly. Within five hours they were out of Mount Denver with an ease and speed which made Andrew—accustomed to the penny-pinching of Martian Geographic—gape in amazement. He wondered if this much string-pulling could have saved Kingslander. Crammed in the front seat of the sand-bus, between Montray and the DuPont chemist, Andrew reflected gloomily on the military mind and its effect on Reade. What would Reade say when he saw Andrew back again?
The wind was rising. A sandstorm on Mars makes the worst earthly wind look like a breeze to
fly kites; the Army driver swore helplessly as he tried to see through the blinding sand, and the roughnecks huddled under a tarpaulin, coarse bandannas over their eyes, swearing in seven languages. The chemist braced his kit on his knees—he'd refused to trust it to the baggage-bins slung under the chassis next to the turbines—and pulled his dustkerchief over his eyes as the hurricane wind buffeted the sand-bus. Montray shouted above the roar, “Doesn't that road of yours come out somewhere along here?"
Shielding his eyes, Andrew peered over the low windbreak and crouched again, wiping sand from his face. “Half a mile more."
Montray tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Here."
The bus roared to a stop and the wind, unchallenged by the turbine noise; took over in their ears.
Montray gripped his wrist. “Crawl back under the canvas and we'll look at the map."
Heads low, they crawled in among the roughnecks; Montray flashed a pocket light on the “map", which was no more than a rough aerial photo taken by a low flier over the ridge. At one edge were a group of black dots which might or might not have been Xanadu, and the ridge itself was a confusing series of blobs. Andrew rubbed a gritty finger over the photo.
“Look, this is the route we followed; Reade's Pass, we named it. Kingslander went this way; a thousand feet lower, but too much loose rock. The canyon is about here—that dark line could be it."
“Funny the flier who took the picture didn't see it.” Montray raised his voice. “All out—let's march!"
“In'a dees’ weather?” protested a gloomy voice, touching off a chorus of protest.
Montray was inflexible. “Reade might be in “bad trouble. Packs, everybody."
Grumbling, the roughnecks tumbled out and adjusted packs and dust-bandannas. Montray waved the map-photo at Andrew; “Want this?"
“I can find my way without it."
A straggling disorderly line, they began, Andrew leading. He felt strong and confident. In his mind Kamellin lay dormant and that pleased him too; he needed every scrap of his mind to fight the screaming torment of the wind. It sifted his way through his bandanna and ate into his skin, though he had greased his face heavily with lanolin before leaving the barracks. It worked, a gritty nuisance, through his jacket and his gloves. But it was his own kind of weather; Mars weather. It suited him, even though he swore as loud as anyone else.
Montray swore too, and spat grit from his throat.
“Where is this canyon of yours?"
A little break in the hillocky terrain led northward, then the trail angled sharply, turned into the lee of a bleak canyon wall. “Around there.” Andrew fell back, letting Montray lead, while he gave a hand to the old man from DuPont.
Montray's angry grip jerked at his elbow; Andrew's bandanna slid down and sailed away on the storm, and the chemist stumbled and fell to his knees. Andrew bent and helped the old fellow to his feet before he thrust his head around to Montray and demanded “What the hell is the big idea?"
“That's what I'm asking you!” Montray's furious voice shouted the storm down. Andrew half fell around the turn, hauled by Montray's grip; then gulped, swallowing sand, while the wind bit unheeded at his naked cheeks. For there was now no trail through the ridge. Only a steep slope of rock lay before them, blank and bare, every crevice filled to the brim with deep-drifted sand.
Andrew turned to Montray, his jaw dropping. “I don't understand this at all, sir,” he gulped, and went toward the edge. There was no sign of ramp or steps.
“I do.” Montray bit his words off and spat them at Andrew. “You're coming back to Mount Denver—under arrest!"
“Sir, I came through here yesterday! There was a wide track, a ramp, about eleven feet wide, and at one side there were steps, deep steps—” he moved toward the edge, seeking signs of the vanished trailway.
Montray's grip on his arm did not loosen. “Yeah, and a big lake full of pink lemonade down at the bottom. Okay, back to the bus."
The roughnecks crowded behind them, close to the deep-drifted sand near the spires of rock Andrew had sighted as landmarks on either side of the canyon. One of them stepped past Montray, glaring at the mountain of sand.
“All the way out here for a looney!” he said in disgust.
He took another step—then suddenly started sinking—stumbled, flailed and went up to his waist in the loose-piled dust.
“Careful—get back—” Andrew yelled, “You'll go in over your heads!” The words came without volition.
The man in the sand stopped in mid-yell, and his kicking arms stopped throwing up dust. He looked thoughtfully up at the other roughnecks. “Colonel,” he said slowly, “I don't think Slayton's so crazy. I'm standing on a step, and there's another one under my knee. Here, dig me out.” He began to brush sand away with his two hands. “Big steps—"
Andrew let out a yell of exultation, bending to haul the man free. “That's IT,” he shouted. “The sandstorm last night just blew a big drift into the mouth of the canyon, that's all! If we could get through this drift, the rest lies between rock walls and around the next angle, the sand can't blow!"
Montray pulled binoculars from his pocket and focused them carefully. “In farther, I do see a break in the slope that looks like a canyon,” he said. “If you look at it quick, it seems to be just a flat patch, but with the glasses, you can see that it goes down between walls ... but there's a hundred feet of sand, at least, drifted into the entrance, and it might as well be a hundred miles. We can't wade through that.” He frowned, looking around at the sand-bus. “How wide did you say this canyon was?"
“About fifteen feet. The ramp's about eleven feet wide."
Montray's brow ridged. “These busses are supposed to cross drifts up to eighty feet. We'll chance it. Though if I take an army sand-bus in there, and get it stuck in a drift, we might as well pack for space."
Andrew felt grim as they piled back into the bus. Montray displaced the driver and took the controls himself. He gave the main rocket high power; the bus shot forward, its quickly-extruded glider units sliding lightly, without traction, over the drifted sand. It skidded a little as Montray gunned it for the turn; the chassis hit the drift like a ton of lead. Swearing prayerfully, Montray slammed on the auxiliary rockets, and it roared—whined—sprayed up sand like a miniature sirocco, then, mercifully, the traction lessened, the gliders began to function, and the sand-bus skied lightly across the drift and down the surface of the monster ramp, into the canyon.
It seemed hours, but actually it was less than four minutes before the glider units scraped rock and Montray shut off the power and called two men to help him wind up the retractors. The gliders could be shot out at a moment's notice, because on Mars when they were needed, they were needed fast, but retracting them again was a long, slow business. He craned his neck over the windbreak, looking up at the towering walls, leaning at a dizzy angle over them. He whistled sharply. “This is no natural formation!"
“I told you it wasn't,” Andrew said.
The man from DuPont scowled. “Almost anything can be a natural formation, in rock,” he contradicted. “You say you discovered this pass, Slayton?"
Andrew caught Montray's eye and said meekly “Yes, sir."
The sand-bus cruised easily along the canyon floor, and up the great ramp at the other end. Montray drove stubbornly, his chin thrust out. Once he said “Well, at least the Double Ridge isn't a barricade any more,” and once he muttered “You could have discovered this by accident—delirious—and then rationalized it...."
The Martian night was hanging, ready to fall, when the squat towers of the city reared up, fat and brown, against the horizon. From that distance they could see nothing of Reade's camp except a thin trail of smoke, clear against the purplish twilight. Vague unease stirred Andrew's mind and for the first time in hours, Kamellin's thoughts flickered dimly alive in the corridors of his brain.
I AM FEARFUL. THERE IS TROUBLE.
Montray shouted, and Andrew jerked up his head in dismay, then l
eaped headlong from the still-moving sand-bus. He ran across the sand. Reade's tent lay in a smoking ruin on the red sand. His throat tight with dread, Andrew knelt and gently turned up the heavy form that lay, unmoving, beside the charred ruin.
Fat Kater had lost more than his shirt.
* * * *
Montray finally stood up and beckoned three of the roughnecks. “Better bury him here,” he said heavily, “and see if there's anything left unburned."
One of the men had turned aside and was noisily getting rid of everything he'd eaten for a week. Andrew felt like doing the same, but Montray's hand was heavy on his shoulder.
“Easy,” he said. “No, I don't suspect you. He hasn't been dead more than an hour. Reade sent you away before it started, evidently.” He gave commands; “No one else seems to have died in the fire. Spread out, two and two, and look for Reade's men.” He glanced at the sun, hovering too close to the horizon; half an hour of sunlight, and Phobos would give light for another couple of hours. He said grimly “After that, we get back to the bus and get out of here, fast. We can come back tomorrow, but we're not going to wander around here by Deimos-light.” He unholstered his pistol.
DON'T, said the eerie mentor in Andrew's brain, NO WEAPONS.
Andrew said urgently, “Colonel, have the roughnecks turn in their pistols! Kingslander's men killed each other pretty much like this!"
“And suppose someone meets a banshee? And Reade's men all have pistols and if they're wandering around, raving mad—"
The next hour was nightmarish, dark phantoms moving shoulder to shoulder across the rock-needled ground; muttered words, far away the distant screams of a banshee somewhere.
Once the crack of a pistol cut the night; it developed—after the roughnecks had all come running in, and half a dozen random shots had been fired, fortunately wounding no one—that one man had mistaken a rock-spire for a banshee. Montray cursed the man and sent him back to the sand-bus with blistered ears.
The sun dropped out of sight. Phobos, a vast purple balloon, sketched the towers of the city in faint shadows on the sand. The wind wailed and flung sand at the crags.
Measureless to Man Page 3