Marooned on Mars

by Lester Del Rey

  They moved back to the gardens, leaving the equipment beside the useless air lock. Vance stopped to close the inner seal since the air would gradually seep out, even through the bone-dry sand.

  The tent cloth covering looked thin and transparent over die sprung seam, but it was holding the pressure. It was designed to be used in the Martian deserts, and to keep an atmosphere during twenty-four hours. But it hadn’t pressed itself down smoothly—it couldn’t, against the uneven tear. And there was a current in the air that showed a continual loss.

  Chuck tried to imagine how Dick had managed to get it up, light and manageable as it was. The poles he used had been normal aluminum pipes, hastily tied together to a length of some fifty feet. Probably the man couldn’t tell himself how he’d done it; it had been strictly an emergency reaction.

  “Have we still got any power?” he asked the engineer. The big man nodded, and Chuck studied the cloth again. “And we have a good supply of paint that’s supposed to dry in five minutes. How about pumping it through the hoses and squirting it up?”

  “Might work,” Vance agreed.

  The hose and pump arrived quickly, and the others began dragging up five-gallon cans of paint. Some was trick plastic, and some had an acetone base. “What’s the tent cloth made of?” Chuck asked. “Will acetone soften it?”

  “I don’t know—it may dissolve it completely. But we’ll have to try.”

  They poured the acetone-base lacquer into the pump tank first, and tested the motor. It was working. Dick and Nat took the nozzle of the pump in their hands, aimed it, and nodded. Chuck opened the valve.

  A thin stream leaped upward to wash against the metal overhead. The two men directed it carefully against the edge of the tent cloth, until a gray smear appeared. Then

  Chuck closed the valve. They watched, holding their breaths.

  At first, nothing happened. Then the cloth that had been wrinkled at the edges seemed to sag upward, tighter against the metal. It was working—if only it didn’t work too well, and simply eat a hole through the cloth. Another five minutes passed, and Vance sighed.

  “Good idea Chuck. It’s working. Stuff dries before it hurts the cloth, and it still softens the cloth enough to let the pressure seal it. Go ahead.”

  They were almost out of lacquer when they came to the last section of seam. But the cloth behind them was smooth against the metal and the draft was slowing down to a faint whisper of air movement.

  They repeated the maneuver with the plastic paint, but it seemed to have no effect on the cloth. It obviously wasn’t a solvent for tent cloth. It didn’t matter. They were using it to dose the pores in the cloth completely, and it was effective for that. Little by little, they sprayed over it until the last bit of clear cloth was covered.

  “Should hold for at least a week,” Dick approved. Then he glanced down at the plant tanks along the deck. “The paint isn’t helping them any.”

  “They’ll grow back—or new ones will replace them. We’re lucky none of the food plants caught the spray.” Rothman’s voice was approving. “I feel a little better about the mess I got you fellows in now.”

  Doc Sokolsky finally caught up with Steele long enough to begin dressing the cut. He nodded his agreement with Rothman, but showed little approval.

  “Fine. If we have to live here the rest of our lives, I guess it’s better to have air. But I’m not sure. Did any of you notice that we’ve cracked one of the main girders that run down the ship?”

  Pain that was almost physical showed in Steele’s eyes. “We couldn’t—those things carry the entire rocket thrust.”

  “Sidewise?”

  “No-o. No, I suppose they buckle better when they’re slapped down on their side. But we can weld and reinforce it somehow.”

  They turned to Vance, looking for his opinion, as they followed Sokolsky back to where the big girder lay almost in two pieces. But the captain hardly looked at it He went on toward the control room to come back a moment later with the course chart in his hands.

  Everyone was assembled by then. He addressed them all: “We can get off Mars all right. It may take time, but apparently we’ve got enough supplies—we’ll check later—and I haven’t seen any damage that can’t be fixed; there may be some we don’t know of, but let’s say there isn’t. The real question is, how soon can it all be fixed?”

  Steele looked at the others, trying to figure the damage. “Five, six months. Captain.”

  “Exactly.” Vance held out the course toward them. “And we used extra fuel in landing. Once Mars and Earth get out of step, we keep losing ground—we’ll need more fuel to return for every month we stay. Either we get off here within ninety days—or we’ll have to wait a few years until the two planets decide to get into a favorable position again!”

  He passed the course chart to them. “It’s up to you. You’d better work a miracle, because nobody ever needed one more.”

  CHAPTER 9

  A New World

  There would be no thrill to setting foot on the soil of another planet for the first time. Chuck realized, as he carried the small shovel toward the air lock. The sand in the lock was soil, all right—but this wasn’t the classical picture of an explorer claiming new ground.

  Lew called after him, and came bringing another shovel. Both boys were solidly muscular, yet not too large to work in the narrow space, and each had independently arrived at the decision that it was time to start while the others were still taking inventory to see how much remained to be done.

  The sheets of met?! still stood by the lock. Chuck examined the size of the air lock; then they used the doorframe of the inner entrance to bend the sheets into rough shape. They would not stand any great pressure, but they might keep the sand from drifting back down. The U-shape would serve as both roof and walls.

  He was drawing heavily on his father’s accounts, which the elder Svensen had heard from the miners, of the hard time the Moon pioneers had suffered.

  The sand was finer than any he had ever seen—as fine as the pulverized pumice he had come across in some of the Moon craters. It drifted off his shovel almost like water, as he lifted it into the air lock.

  Lew watched him working on it for awhile, and then left abruptly. Chuck couldn’t blame him; it looked pretty hopeless. But the radar operator was back a few minutes later with a pair of smaller sheets of the thin metal He caught them in the doorframe as he had seen Chuck do. With considerable prying and worry over the comers, he finally had a bigger scoop shaped so that it would hold water if necessary.

  “Earth tools for Mars,” he snorted, pointing to the shovels. “The trouble with you. Chuck, is that you’re too used to a light gravity—you forget how much of this stuff we can move.”

  He shoved the big scoop into the soft sand, waggling it through until it was full. There was no handle, but he lifted it easily enough and carried it back into the empty passageway.

  Chuck grinned at him, and began fashioning another scoop of the same sort for himself. It was true—people carried their Earth habits with them and grew too quickly used to the lightness of the Moon and Mars. Once the novelty of being on a light planet wore off, they settled back to the old ways of doing things. They were heavier here than on the Moon, but they still weighed only three-eighths of what they would on Earth.

  They began to make progress. Chuck shoved one of the U-shaped supports through the lock, pushing it into the sand as far as it would go. After each scoopful, he shoved it again on the way back for another. It began moving forward, opening a clear space beyond the door. Now the softness of the sand was proving an advantage.

  It required no reaching to the ceiling, or digging, it drifted down, well within easy reach.

  Vance must have heard of their work. He came down, just as they were moving the second U-shaped piece out under the first, and whistled. “Good world You’re making fast progress. Want any relief?”

  Their arms were aching, but Chuck knew that there was no other work they cou
ld do better. He’d tried the radar and found that it was out of order from the crash, so there was no way to notify Earth.

  They angled the second U-piece upward, scraping it along against the side of the ship. Vance returned to the others and Lew went with him to get more metal that they could use for flooring, since they were sinking ankle-deep in the soft sand at each step. With the metal, the tunnel was beginning to take on an air of solidity.

  Ginger brought out their food to them, and Vance’s suggestion that they’d better take it easy. Later she collected their plates and brought a warning that they’d have to watch not to let the air escape. They’d been too busy to think of that

  “Bring us our suits then. Ginger. And lock both doors to the passage.”

  “How about the sand there—it’s getting out of hand. We could use a man to shove it along as we bring it back,” Lew suggested.

  Ginger nodded, and they could hear him closing the distant doors. He was back a few minutes later with their suits, a rude form of their scoops, and his camera. His own space suit was on his back.

  “Give me a picture of our return, and I’ll take care of this myself,” he grinned at them.

  Now sand began to funnel and blow under the force of the air that was pressing out from the lock through the thin remaining layers of the ashy stuff. Chuck leaned; down to draw up the third U-piece, then pressed it forward. It resisted, and gave suddenly, going all the way to the surface. A hole appeared, and sand began running down the tunnel.

  It was night outside. Chuck motioned Lew to come up beside .him, and they stared out through the hole that was now barely big enough for one man to pass. Chuck opened his radio to the common channel which would also be passed through loud-speakers aboard the ship.

  “Captain!” Lew called.

  Vance’s acknowledgment came at once.

  “We’re through,” Lew announced. “We can see the surface. If you want to send a couple of men to carry the sand we spilled in the passage back up here, and weld down the passage braces, you’ll have a way out.”

  “Good men. Didn’t expect anything so soon. Come on back, and we’ll take over.” Vance’s approval was too hearty to be anything but surprised relief.

  But Chuck had other ideas. “How about letting us go for a little exploration? We’ve got most of our oxygen, and our lights are fully charged.”

  “How about weapons?” Sokolsky’s voice asked. “No, wait—they’re not likely to find anything moving around up there at night—it must be fifty below zero.”

  “Go ahead, then,” Vance agreed. “But not over a mile from the ship—or at least, be sensible. Get back in time to get some sleep for tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow, Chuck realized, would be a real day. Mars had a day that-was only 37 minutes longer than that of Earth; after the fictional nights and noons on the Moon and aboard the Eros, it would seem strange to go back to a real night and day. He thanked Vance briefly, and reached for his radio switch.

  Steele’s voice reached him. “Keep your radio on, kid—we’ll be listening. And don’t forget the proper ceremony. There’s a flag just inside the air lock just for that.”

  Ginger brought it up to them, his homely face grinning at them through his helmet. “Look pretty when you plant it, boys, because I’ve got my flashbulbs ready. ‘First men to step onto Mars—first alien planet claimed by Earth.’ These shots will make heroes out of you guys.”

  Chuck stuck out his tongue, to express his opinion of being a hero, but he took the flag. Lew had been enlarging the opening, and now they went out together, onto the cold, chill surface of Earth’s neighbor. Behind them, the flashbulb flashed hotly.

  It flashed again as Chuck bent down and inserted the tiny flag into the ground. “I claim this planet as a trusteeship of the United States under the laws and regulations of Earth.”

  It was a historic moment, and a very solemn ceremony, but he felt a little foolish. It would make more sense for Vance to claim it. Anyhow, there would be no one to jump their claim.

  Then it hit him, for the first time. This was Mars! This was the world that held life that never developed on Earth. He cut on his light suddenly, staring at the ground around him. It was nothing but arid, barren sandy waste, useless for anything that he could imagine. Even with the outer temperature far below the freezing point of water, there was no trace of frost on the ground.

  He started to turn back to the ship in disgust and fatigue, but Lew had wandered on a few steps farther; he moved after the other mechanically. If there had been one little green shoot, it would have been all he asked. But the Sahara was paradise compared to this.

  He tried shouting at Lew, but the air was too thin to carry more than a high-pitched squeak for a few feet.

  Lew stooped over and held out something. It was a short object, perhaps two inches long, that looked like a piece of string. Chuck took it listlessly—and then straightened. It wasn’t mineral, certainly—it could only be a part of some plant, unless he could believe the impossibility of its being a piece of paper twine; it even had the twists that twine had.’

  Under his helmet light it showed no real details. He tried to crumble it in his hands, but it was too hard for that, though it bent a little. Then he noticed that there were several small hairlike strands sticking out from it. It must have been the root of a plant once.

  He stared about the landscape, while Lew’s voice muttered beside him, high-pitched and far away. It wasn’t until the other tapped his helmet he realized his radio hadn’t been turned on for several minutes, though he couldn’t remember turning it off. He must have been disgusted, if he’d cut himself off without thinking. His finger quickly flicked the switch in his glove.

  “…plant,” Lew was saying. “Hey, Chuck. What do you make of it?”

  “It must have been a plant once,” Chuck admitted.

  There was a sudden shout in their ears, and Sokolsky*s voice came rattling in, a torrent of sound. “Wait boys, wait for me. Don’t lose it. It may be the only evidence of plant life; maybe we’re surrounded by plants, but maybe this was ten million years ago, preserved by the dryness. Hang onto it, I’m coming with you!”

  He was coming too—bursting out of the little entrance, his helmet on, but the snaps only half-fastened. His hands were working on them, while he came bounding toward the boys in frenzied leaps. “I heard your description. Lew, it must be a plant, let’s see it Ah!”

  Sokolsky was all biologist now. He crooned over the little rootlet, caressing it in gentle hands. From a string around his neck, he produced one of the little forty-power microscopes and began examining it more closely.

  “Well?” Chuck asked, finally.

  Sokolsky looked up, and there was reverence on his face. “Cells. Real cells—mummified, of course. But this is what was once alive. Are there more? Where was it?”

  Lew pointed ahead a few steps, and Sokolsky bounded forward, his light bobbing on the surface. He didn’t stop, but went running on until his figure began to vanish over a rise in the sand and into a hollow beyond.

  A sudden shriek sounded in their headphones, followed by silence.

  They leaped after him, while all the visions of bug-eyed monsters that were ever imagined on alien planets ran through Chuck’s mind. And their first sight of him did nothing to make them feel better. Sokolsky was stretched out flat on the ground, motionless.

  Lew yelled at him, and they went rushing forward. But the doctor came to his feet calmly, holding something else out

  It was curled up into a tight ball, with a hard, waxy surface exposed, but beginning to open in the light And there was no question about it The bright green color was the familiar hue of plant life. .

  “There’s more—millions more—and dozens of lands,” Sokolsky said. His voice sounded ecstatic, but hushed. “We landed in a little barren spot but look…”

  They followed his gaze, and he hadn’t exaggerated. AH the vegetation seemed to be balled up into a compact form, probably to avoid any loss
of heat during the freezing night. Some of it was largely buried in the sandy ground. But unfamiliar as it was in form, there was at least an acre of ground covered thickly with green objects.

  “See,” Sokolsky pointed out to them, “the surface is hard, like glass. The plant secretes some kind of wax that keeps it from drying out And notice how thick the leaves are—they must store water and air—very little as we know it, but a lot for Mars. This will give us a whole new science of life—comparative evolution!”

  Chuck found one of the tiny cabbage-like things, and pulled it up. At least forty feet of thin root came up before it finally broke off. He looked at it, and noticed that this one also was opening slowly in the glare of his light “Do they all move like that. Doc?”

  ‘They have to—they need every bit of light, but they can’t stay open when the sun goes down. A lot of Earth plants open and close too—but these have to be better at it. Look at that beautiful root—it probably goes down to some tiny bit of moisture we wouldn’t even believe was around!”

  Vance’s voice cut through their admiration of the tiny plant “Break it up, boys. It’s time to come back now.”

  “Ten minutes more,’” Sokolsky asked. “There’s one more thing I have to see. Captain!”

  “Five, then. No more,” Vance agreed. “You can get all the plants you want later.”

  Sokolsky turned the plant over carefully. “Ten minutes, and I’ll find you a Martian city,” he suggested quickly.

  ‘Take ten minutes and you’d better produce a city.” Vance’s voice was sick with irritation, as if one more trouble would snap the tight control and break his mask of agreeableness.

  Sokolsky chuckled. “Thanks, Captain.”

  “He means it,” Lew said. “We’d better get back.”

  The little man shook the red hair inside his helmet, and chuckled again. “I know. And if you’ll point your lights over there you’ll see the city. You’ve got ten minutes to look at it—and I’ve got to find out whether these plants show signs of being male and female.”