Marooned on Mars

by Lester Del Rey

  He searched for something with which he could leave a sign for anyone who might have missed him in the ship. But even his pouch had been stripped away while he had played unconscious. It was up to him. Or, wait…

  It seemed like sheer foolishness, but he had to leave some sign. With a quick wrench of his hand, he tore the light from his helmet and threw it down, pointing at the swinging lid that gave entrance. If anyone came from the ship, they’d be sure to see the burning light.

  He still had the little bulb inside his helmet where it had served to warn him that the creature had attacked and how the attack was made. It was a new battery, he hoped. At best, the bulb was a dim thing, and there was no reflector for it. It was also located so that too much of its light spread out in the helmet and against his eyes. But it was better than nothing.

  The lid dropped down at once, when he let himself over the rim. It banged gently against his helmet, with no particular force, but a quiet insistence. It was thin, but he remembered that it had withstood them walking over it without a trace of weakness.

  He hesitated before letting it drop completely. Then he released his grasp, and it settled smoothly into place. When he pushed up against it, it lifted easily.

  Apparently he would be able to get out. He hadn’t felt at all sure of it.

  Now he was in pitch darkness, and he could imagine hundreds of them grouped around him to bring him down. His hand reached awkwardly to the air-tube, and he pinched it gently. The little bulb flashed on. He blinked, trying to keep it from shining directly in his eyes. By sticking his chin out as far as he could, he could just cover it.

  It gave a dim light that reached only a few feet clearly, but he could see that he was in a shaft that led downward by means of five-foot steps—probably ideal for such a lithe race on a light world. He dropped over the second one, and took a third, putting him fifteen feet under the ground. There he came to an inclined ramp that led gently downward into greater depths.

  He tried to listen for sounds, pressing his helmet against the hard-packed walls, but there was nothing except a confused whisper that could have been anything. The walls looked like clay, though he had seen no clay on Mars, except for the porcelain fragment.

  He wasn’t worried about trapdoors, or any of the other things that are supposed to be perils to the underground explorer. These creatures obviously had no major enemies, and their economy must have been both too simple and too meager to afford war among themselves. At any rate, they hadn’t known he was coming. He walked ahead confidently, keeping his right hand on the wall; most of the time he let the bulb remain off to save the little battery.

  He came to a right turn. When he switched the bulb on, he saw that the little tunnel forked, one section turning slightly to the left, the other to the right. He chose the left, since it seemed to remain under the city while the other would have led outside.

  Far ahead, light flickered, dimmer, than his own. He wouldn’t have seen it, if it hadn’t been for the fact he was in darkness at the time. It was gone almost at once, but it encouraged him to believe that he was on the right track.

  One thing worried him—none of the others that had fled from him had come down the passage. They should have followed the first—or come in behind him.

  He glanced at his wrist watch. It would be time for the others to be going to their hammocks. Probably Lew would notice that he was gone. It wouldn’t bother him for a while—but Lew had been sleeping poorly lately. In another hour at the most, they’d look for his suit, and realize he was gone.

  Would they know where to look? He thought it over, and decided they would have to—he’d talked about the city to them, he’d started to head for it when he found that the welder was missing; and they would realize that he had a legitimate grudge against the Martians he believed to be there. Sokolsky would guess, if none of the others did. The light would be burning long after that—and it wouldn’t take them long to break down the entrance, once they knew where to look.

  He should have marked his passage. Then he looked down and grinned. He had marked it. The heavy space boots with their cleats were leaving an unmistakable mark that only a blind man could have missed.

  He came to another side trail. Now he was less sure about the direction to take. But the light he had seen had been farther ahead, he was sure.

  He walked on, counting his steps now, as he tried to estimate where he was. He must be beyond the limits of the ruined city now.

  He was also deeper than he had expected to be. The incline was just beginning to level off. But that was all to the good. It meant he was finally coming to the real living quarters of the creatures. It would take caution then—though he doubted that they could hurt him in the suit.

  He tried listening again. By now he should have come to something that would show he was on the right track. The creatures must have had trouble with the oxygen tanks for the welding equipment they had stolen. They should have left signs on the floor—but he hadn’t seen any.

  Again, a light flashed briefly ahead, a bright, hot light. He blinked his eyes, and started forward at a run, but it disappeared almost immediately.

  He stumbled over something, and went head-over-heels. For a second, fear clutched at him, until he tried the little light and found that it still worked. He looked back. On the floor lay a can of corned beef, half the paper torn off. It had been partly crushed with something, but no opening had been made.

  They must have wondered about that. Or maybe the spies had managed to find out that humans put such things in their mouths. He kicked it aside, surer that he was on the right trail. .

  But the constant groping through darkness was beginning to get on his nerves. Maybe he should have let the creature get away and gone back to the ship for help. What difference would it have made, as long as he knew how to find the entrance?

  He could still go back, of course, but a streak of stubbornness refused to let him, now that he was so near.

  Again, light flickered ahead, nearer this time. It was a dull red glow now.

  The light was beginning to puzzle him. The air here wasn’t really any heavier than that on the surface, and no flame could burn in that low a level of oxygen. The creatures must have some form of chemical light, such as the glow of a firefly—but it would hardly be as bright as the one glimpse had shown.

  It came again, as he was thinking of it—the dull, red glow again. And something moved in front of it, apparently carrying whatever gave off the light across an intersecting branch of the tunnel. These underground caverns must widen out eventually, but he wasn’t as concerned with that as with finding any of the inhabitants. The light offered a clue there.

  He let out a shout, forgetting that it was nearly useless here, and went down the tunnel at a rapid rate, holding the switch closed to keep from stumbling over anything.

  There was a startled chirping ahead of him, and one of the ululating shrieks which had given him the whim-whams before. This time he knew what was producing it, and it was bearable.

  The light ahead was hard to see with his own bulb glowing, but he saw it as he turned the corner, darting around another corner. He leaped after it this time, disregarding the dangers that might lie on the floor of the tunnel. If he stumbled, he would have to stumble; if he was lucky, he’d find out what was going on.

  Now he hit another straight stretch, with the creature closer, and a pale, red radiance barely visible before it. He leaped forward, trying to avoid bumping against the seven-foot ceiling. The creature shrieked briefly, and dropped the source of light. It darted into a dark side trail and seemed to vanish.

  Chuck bent over for the light source and halted.

  In the light of this small bulb, his own helmet lamp stood out against the blackness of the floor! Its filament was barely glowing now, indicating a short-circuit of some kind. But it was his, without any question. The dent in the top identified it without any possibility of a mistake.

  The crew of the Eros would have a hard ti
me finding him now!

  CHAPTER 16

  Lost in the Caverns

  Chuck stood for a moment, looking at the useless lamp. It left him without any real choice. He would have to turn around and follow his footprints out of the tunnels, go back to the ship, and get help. With enough light and a few extra men, it shouldn’t take long to track down the creatures and locate the missing tools.

  He switched on his *** Hide light again briefly, trying to estimate how much burning time was left in the battery. He could see no evidence to indicate the charge was running down, but he realized that his eyes might have grown accustomed to a change.

  Again, it didn’t matter too much. He would simply have to flash it on in the briefest possible intervals and make sure his tracks led ahead. Once each fifty steps should be about right. With such intermittent use, even a well-used battery would last for a long time. The way out shouldn’t be hard to follow.

  Another of the weird cries ran through the tunnel. He wondered if it might be some kind of signal concerning his presence. Well, let them come for him. It would save the trouble of trying to find them later.

  The bravado was his first sign of fear. He stopped sharply, and tried to analyze it, but there was no reason behind it. He just knew that he was afraid again—not greatly, but at least unpleasantly.

  He looked briefly at the ground for his footprints and headed down the tunnel at a quick trot, counting the steps to fifty. Again he flicked on the light, and checked his course. He was making better speed than he had coming down. The footprints led on plainly, without even a blurriness to indicate that other feet had used the path since he passed.

  He had rechecked the path for the twentieth time and made the satisfactory round number of a thousand steps that finally lifted the little cloud of fear. After all, he was a civilized man with a background that had led man across space to another planet. These were only primitives—little humanoids that had gone down the long road from a medium cultural level to a lower one.

  Again he reached the figure one thousand. This time he stopped to rest. He should have kept counting his steps on the way down, so that he’d have some way of knowing how far he still had to go.

  He looked at his watch; it still pointed to midnight. It had stopped, and there was no way to get inside the plastic cuff of the space suit to wind it again. Look but don’t touch! He’d been getting careless about winding it when he went to bed, and now his carelessness was catching up with him.

  Abruptly, at the end of his next sprint, his footprints came to a dead end!

  He flashed the light longer this time, until something behind him caught his attention. It was the battered can of corned beef. He knew he hadn’t turned any corners near here. Yet the trail ended, and the tunnel turned left sharply. The wall looked continuous, yet his prints went up to it and stopped.

  He threw his weight against the lying wall; there was no resiliency, and no breaking through. It seemed as solid as the rest of the walls.

  He dropped to his hands and knees, trying to find some crack under it with his fingers—still it seemed solid.

  The fear came back to him, washing over him more strongly than ever. Now he wanted light—no more than a glimpse of light, but enough to dispel the fears that were rising in him. He pressed the switch tightly, holding it on. The vanishing-footprints still stared up at him.

  A sudden chirping sound that seemed to come from beyond the wall brought him to his feet. As he watched, the part that had been a wall folded backward, while another panel came out to close off the branch to the left. The chirpings also turned left and faded away.

  Ahead of him was the way he must have traveled, since it ran on without curves or branches, as his memory of this section indicated it should. The footprints, however, were missing from it.

  He went down it steadily, nevertheless; it was obviously the path he had followed. Soon he was on an upward incline, and he was again sure he had followed the right trail. Soon the steps would appear ahead, and he’d be out of this rat’s nest, with its odd revolving doors.

  It went on without a break, and he began to worry about the absence of the side trails he had seen before. They were probably closed off by more of those trick doorways.

  Then the trail took a sharp downward incline.

  Chuck stopped and backtracked, but there was no other way he could have gone. He had come—or had he made a turn somewhere in the early part of his trip? He’d *** tamed right—no, he’d turned left, because that would carry him under the ruins of the city. That meant that on the way out he should have taken a right turn.

  He backtracked farther, pounding on the right wall in the hope that some sound difference would show him where the opening was. He moved slowly now, placing the helmet against the wall and tapping. He could find no difference in any section. They were all dull and muffled, as if the sound were reflected from a great thickness of solid earth.

  Thirst was bothering him, more so now that he could do nothing about it. He hadn’t meant to be away so long, and he had forgotten to fill the tube after he removed the blower unit. He sucked on it without any hope, and was delighted to find that there was still some water left— perhaps half a cup.

  Again he began tapping, although he had less faith in it now. The incline must have been longer than he had come up, at this location.

  Dim light came from behind him—not a brief flicker this time but a steady glow. He moved toward it happy for anything to take him toward something definite. There were probably a hundred exits from this place, and it might very well be daylight from the surface, shining down through a crack. It certainly seemed long enough to be day again.

  But the crack was on the wall, not from the ceiling. He put his eyes to it and looked through. It was barely wide enough to show him the room beyond.

  The dim light was coming from a number of sources. It wasn’t fire, of course, but appeared to be something painted onto the walls which made them glow. Dim as it was, he could still see the details with fair clarity.

  The first thing that caught his attention were two of the missing welders. About twenty of the furry creatures were grouped around them seemingly arguing vehemently about something, since their chirping was coming at a rapid rate. Another was making motions with the torch of one of the machines, apparently trying to show how the Earthmen used it.

  One, who somehow gave the impression of age, though there was no change in the color of his coat, was beating on the ground and clicking his sharp teeth, together. It might have been either agreement or contradiction.

  It was the one in the center of the group that interested Chuck the most. That creature was gesturing upward, and toward the welders. He made another gesture which was too complicated for any good interpretation; it seemed to indicate that he was searching rapidly.

  The old one clicked his teeth together, beat on the ground, and stood up. It seemed to break up the meeting, and they all began separating. One of them moved to the walls and did something to the glowing sections; the glow faded, and the room was in darkness.

  Chuck tensed. Before the final glow died, he had seen the creature who had been doing all the gesturing heading straight toward him. Now he waited, moving cautiously back toward the long tunnel, where he couldn’t be caught in any of their doors. He pressed his helmet against the wall. There was a stirring sound, and a soft patter that could only be footsteps.

  The creature moved directly past him, making little chirping sounds to itself. Chuck began to bless his good fortune as he dropped behind, trying to be silent while he stayed within range of the chirping. He could only interpret the gestures as an offer to go up to the surface and bring back more of the things which had suddenly turned up within easy reach.

  When a man doesn’t know his way around, it’s better to follow someone who does. Chuck decided. He strained his ears, trying to be sure that the chirper wouldn’t be able to turn down some other passage and throw him off the trail.

  The creature
moved ahead steadily though, at an easy pace. Chuck began to expect daylight at any moment. Presently there was a growing touch of light ahead, but it didn’t look like daylight.

  It wasn’t. The creature suddenly appeared against a rectangular opening of the light which swung shut behind him. Another of the cracks, air vents, perhaps, lay near the doorway.

  Again, there were two of the welders in the large room, but this was an entirely different scene. There was no idle chirping and beating on the floor here. About twenty of the creatures were busy at various duties—most of them meaningless—near the center of the cavern. Over in the far corner, a compact little group stood around one of the older ones who was scratching on the floor. There was another watching intently, and it was obvious that the older one was trying to draw something and having a hard time getting his meaning across.

  Other treasures from the ship stood about the room, along with some strange structures which were of native make. It seemed to be some sort of workshop.

  Chuck kept the chirping creature he had followed carefully within his view, even while he watched the others. It might be only a stop before he went on about the errand he had seemed to be bound on. Chuck couldn’t do any better at this stage. He watched as the creature moved about the room until it came to a blower unit hanging on the wall, and began preening itself.

  There had been no missing blowers when Chuck had left the ship! That was a recent addition to their collection and hardly in keeping with their usual policy. It touched on unpleasant subjects—the suit he was wearing was now equipped only with tanks of oxygen, which wouldn’t last as long as one set of batteries for a blower. He must be running low!