01 Kings Of Space

by Captain W E Johns

  I refuse to believe that there never were animals, or edible vegetables, on a planet as well adapted for life as our own world. No.

  These people were overtaken by calamity, sudden or perhaps extended over years.

  Anyway, they appear to have gone.'

  Suppose we go down and have a closer look,' suggested Tiger. 'I must say it's all very mystifying.'

  Could the planet have passed through a belt of poisonous gas?' suggested Rex.

  'No. At present we are in a thin but not unhealthy atmosphere. Poison gas would have killed the vegetation, which, as we can see, is thriving. I will land in the big square.

  There is ample room. On the ground we may learn the answers to these perplexing questions.'

  Five minutes later the Spacemaster was standing in the middle of the square, with all eyes at the windows gazing at a sight that would have caused no surprise on Earth, but one which, in the circumstances, could only be regarded in astonishment.

  To start with, the square, which was literally a square with sides not less than a hundred yards in length, was paved. The Spacemaster's legs were resting on great slabs of hewn stone. All round the square ran a broad road, with stone seats at intervals. Beyond the road, and lining it, were buildings of a character that could only have been designed and executed by an advanced civilization. On one side, the houses, like the municipal buildings in a country town, were larger than the others. Dust lay everywhere. Drifts of it crossed the road and in some places was heaped high against the buildings.

  'This gives me a feeling of being in ancient Rome — without the Romans,'

  remarked Tiger.

  'It's very wonderful,' said the Professor, in a hushed voice. Words almost fail me. I can determine what the atmosphere is like now that we are at ground level.' Turning, he busied himself with his instruments, opening the pressure valve and taking a sample of air.

  He seemed doubtful about the result. Finally, making up his mind, he said: 'I believe we could manage for a little while without our cosmosuits, but as the sudden shock might have us gasping for breath it would be better not to risk it. One must remember that when the supply of oxygen fails one has little warning of approaching unconsciousness. A moment of uncertainty, then blackout. We will keep on our suits.'

  This, to Rex, was a great disappointment. He had hoped to be free to run about if he felt like it. However, he obeyed the order, of course, little guessing what failure to have done so would have meant.

  'You can empty the rubbish bins, Judkins, while we are absent,' ordered the Professor. '

  After that I would like you to close the door, or, at the slightest breeze, with all this dust about, the cabin is likely to be filled with grit. We don't want dust floating about in the air all the way home.'

  'I shall take care that doesn't happen, sir,' acknowledged Judkins.

  'Then let us take a little walk and see what this strange city in the sky has to offer for our inspection.' The Professor unscrewed the escape panel.

  Presently they all stepped out on to the paving and looked about them.

  'The trouble in this case is, there is too much to see,' said the Professor. 'The problem is to know where to start. At least we have no dinosaurs to make exploration uncomfortable,' he added cheerfully.

  Just a minute,' said Tiger, in a strange voice. 'I can see a man over there.'

  'A man? Where?' demanded the Professor tersely.

  'Outside that house on the right. Isn't that a man sitting on the ground with his back to the wall? I can see two or three more farther along.'

  'Indeed, I think you're right,' answered the Professor. 'The one you first mentioned appears to be looking at us. If he is, why doesn't he come over? They can't have visitors from other planets so often that they aren't worth standing up to look at. Unless, of course, the man is another corpse.'

  'He's alive,' asserted Tiger. I saw him move an arm.' Let's go over to him. He must be harmless, or helpless - I don't know which.'

  They started walking towards the sitting figure, which they soon saw was identical with the man they had seen on Phobos. But just before they reached him they stopped instinctively when a tall stooping figure appeared from another doorway. They watched him walk slowly with faltering steps to the nearest seat, on which he sank in an attitude of utter dejection.

  That man is ill,' said the Professor.

  'Or blind,' suggested Tiger.

  'Possibly both. But a blind man doesn't necessarily lack virility. That poor fellow walked as if every step was an effort.' The Professor began to move forward.

  'I don't like this,' murmured Tiger, a note of anxiety creeping into his voice. 'There's something wrong somewhere. I've learned to place reliance in my instinct, and it's warning me to watch my step. There's something here. I don't know what it is, but it's grim.'

  What can there be to fear?' asked the Professor, a trifle impatiently, still walking forward. 'I see no beasts, savage or otherwise. I took a sample of the air. It's weak, but not dangerously so, and it certainly isn't lethal.'

  'Have it your own way,' conceded Tiger, following.

  They reached the first man on the seat. Of middle age, as a type he was exactly the same as the corpse they had seen on Phobos; and he was nearly as emaciated. He may have heard them coming, for he half raised his head and gazed at them with lacklustre eyes.

  Rex noticed with disgust that there were several ants crawling on him, but he made no attempt to dislodge them.

  The Professor raised a hand in greeting, for as he was in his helmet, vocal sounds were of course impossible.

  The man took no notice. His head sank a little lower on his chest.

  'He's in a bad way,' said Tiger quietly. Ìf it isn't plain starvation, he's suffering from disease of some sort.'

  'There's nothing we can do for him,' stated the Professor. 'Apart from the fact that we are encased in canvas, I didn't come prepared for anything like this. I wonder what his ailment is. I don't recognize any symptoms.'

  'I can tell you what's the matter with him,' answered Tiger. 'What is it?'

  'He's suffering from sleepy sickness - or something of that nature. I've seen cases in Africa. The virus is carried by the tsetse-fly, which depends normally on the blood of animals for food. I see neither animals nor flies here. Nevertheless, that wretched man is rotten with a virus or an infection of some sort. The same with those other fellows over there.

  They're all suffering from the same disorder and they've got it pretty badly. If I'm any judge, none of them is long for this world. I wonder if that's what's wrong with the whole place? I mean, is this the thing that has wiped out the population with the exception of these few survivors we see here?'

  'But people subject constantly to a virus usually develop an immunity against it,' argued the Professor.

  'Not always. In parts of Africa the natives die like flies from sleepy sickness, and they've been exposed to it for goodness knows how long.'

  'What about ants?' asked Rex. 'I see plenty about. Could they carry disease?'

  'Ants may bite or sting, but they don't usually carry infection,'

  answered the Professor. '

  That, I admit, is the way of ants on Earth. These may be different, but I can't imagine ants wiping out an entire population. Mosquitoes might do it. I see some about.'

  Rex had already brushed from his helmet some that were obstructing his view. It so happened, too, that at this moment his eyes wandered on down a street that ended at the canal. He could see the green of it.

  He moved his position and looked again, for he had seen something else.

  Hanging over the canal was a curious brown mist. Was this, he wondered, one of the supposed desert storms that had been observed from Earth? Or locusts? He knew they moved in swarms of millions. For a moment longer he stared at the cloud, which seemed to be rising higher. Then the truth struck him. Good heavens!' he cried. 'Look at the mosquitoes rising from that bog! Did you ever see anything like that?' Even th
en he wasn't conscious of any immediate danger.

  'Where?' asked Tiger urgently.

  Rex pointed.

  Tiger looked. 'Unholy smoke!' he exclaimed. Then his voice rose sharply.

  'That's it!

  Mosquitoes! And by the billion by the look of it. They're coming this way. Let's get out of this. There are enough to swamp us, even if they can't eat us through our suits.'

  It may have been the inflection in Tiger's voice that convinced the Professor. 'Yes,' he agreed. 'What a nuisance! But I must see inside one of these houses.'

  If that swarm hits us, you'll be lucky to see the inside of the ship,'

  rapped out Tiger. 'Look at them! Over there - and over there. They're rising from every canal like brown smoke.

  Come on! Let's get back to the ship.'

  'Very well,' agreed the Professor reluctantly. 'I hope Judkins closed the door as I ordered.

  We don't want to take a load of these little beasts back home with us.'

  Ìf they did on Earth what I suspect they've done here you might find you'd been responsible for the very thing you've been so anxious to avoid,' said Tiger crisply.' These bugs might turn out to be more deadly than atom bombs.'

  They hurried on. Looking back Rex saw that the air was now so full of insects that the Sun was dimmed. An unnatural twilight had fallen. The Sun itself was an evil-looking brown ball. The leading swarms had reached the city and were dropping into it, apparently in search of food. A thrill of horror swept over him as he realized that against such an attack the few surviving Martians could do nothing. Day after day their strength was being sapped by an enemy they were powerless to resist.

  Knowing it, they had abandoned themselves to their fate.

  The party arrived at the ship just in time. Judkins must have seen them hurrying, and guessing that something was amiss stood ready to open the door and let them in. They bundled inside and Judkins slammed it behind them. Within a minute visibility had been reduced to zero by the hordes of insects that smothered the windows.

  Careful everybody!' said the Professor tersely. 'Let no one remove his suit. Some may have got in with us. Oxygen, Judkins. Full pressure. That should either poison them with an overdose of oxygen or crush them to death. If these little beasts can. kill people who must have developed some immunity think what they could do to us, who have no immunity at all. Bless my soul! What a spectacle! Who could have imagined such a thing? Thank goodness we were wearing our suits, or this could have had fatal results.

  Fever might have developed during our long journey home, in which case the ship would have arrived somewhere out of control. How very disappointing. I hadn't time to see inside a single house. What a tragedy!'

  'It's a bigger tragedy for those unfortunate people outside,' said Tiger soberly.

  'Dreadful. Poor creatures! It seems awful to leave them, but what can we do?'

  'Nothing,' answered Tiger.

  The Professor hesitated. 'You're quite right. We are helpless. I'll come back another day better equipped to deal with such a situation. The remarkable thing is, from Earth, through our telescopes we have often seen brown clouds on Mars. The general opinion was that they were sandstorms. And,

  indeed, there might well have been sandstorms here. But I am beginning to wonder if they were not insectstorms — swarms beyond imagination. But who in the name of everything that is incredible would have thought of that?'

  'No one,' replied Tiger. 'What strikes me as equally remarkable is the fact that these people, who had obviously reached a high state of civilization, and must have perceived their danger long ago; never discovered an insecticide.'

  'The substances we use may not be available on Mars,' the Professor pointed out. 'In that case their position would have been hopeless from the start. Nor apparently did they possess medicines, or other remedies.

  What we see here might well have happened in our own tropics had the natives not discovered the properties of quinine, for instance, which as you know is a derivative from the bark of a tree. There are no trees of any sort here. In losing their trees, assuming that there must have been some at one period, the Martians lost everything.'

  'Extraordinary!' murmured Tiger. Judging from the cities there must once have been a great and healthy population on Mars, and not so long ago. It seems fantastic that it could have been wiped out by so small a thing as a mosquito.'

  'That, no doubt, is what happened,' declared the Professor. It became a war of man versus insects, and the insects won. When the deserts began to overrun the land the people dug canals, either for irrigation purposes or to halt the advance of the encroaching sands. It must have been a tremendous undertaking, but it was done. Alas for them, the mosquitoes concentrated along the waterways. These conditions so suited them that they multiplied exceedingly and took possession. We can believe that the Martians put up a fight, but what could they do against such an army?

  Inoculated daily with poison by the mosquitoes, sickness overtook them uutil it became a plague, a pestilence. Once the people started to die faster than they could be born the end was a foregone conclusion.

  The fewer the number of living bodies, the faster would be the rate of mortality of the survivors; for there appears to be no alternative food supply for the insects. Dear dear, how dreadful! Mind you, this havoc isn't the work of a few years. The struggle for survival may have been going on for thousands of years, perhaps tens of thousands. But it is now nearing its inevitable end. The only survivors are the few who must have had a greater resistance than the majority, and even they, as we saw, appear to have lost the will to live. Which is no matter for wonder. In the end the mosquitoes will have destroyed themselves as well, for when the food supply gives out nothing awaits them but starvation. What a strange thing life is to be sure. Always something must die that something else may live.'

  If these mosquitoes could be exterminated Mars would once more become a habitable world, I imagine,' said Tiger.

  With cities and towns already built, waiting for the new population,'

  murmured Rex.

  The Professor looked at the mass of insects that blotted out his window.

  'Observe, my friends, how little it needs to destroy not merely a nation but a world. If only men on Earth could see what we have seen here, and learn that mighty lesson, perhaps they would spend less time trying to exterminate each other. But I think any invaders we took on board must now be dead. They wouldn't last long in this atmosphere. We'll take off our suits and have something to eat; then we'll start for home. I shall have plenty to think about on the way. It seems cowardly to abandon those unfortunate wretches outside, but there's nothing we can do about it today.'

  'Does that mean you're thinking of coming back?' asked Tiger.

  Certainly. But not in this ship. Something much larger will be required to carry the equipment that would be necessary to make Mars once more a healthy world.'

  You think it could be done?' asked Rex.

  'Why not? We have this great advautage. We know where the enemy hides. We can see plainly the narrow margins in which his forces are concentrated —

  a different matter from having great jungles to deal with. But we can discuss the whole question later.'

  The Professor went to his control table. The jets began to hum. In a flash the mosquitoes had been swept clear of the windows, but below the ship the great brown cloud persisted.

  A moment later it was evident to everyone that something was wrong. The jets changed their note. The ship faltered, and then went on, making a most extraordinary noise.

  'What is it?' asked Rex, in a strained voice.

  'The mosquitoes,' answered the Professor. 'They're being sucked into the intakes in such numbers that they're choking the exhaust nozzles.'

  As if to confirm his words there came a series of sharp pops from below.

  'She'll blow them out and clear herself, I think,' said the Professor calmly.

  Rex looked down, for the windows were now cle
ar. The cloud was still thick, but to his great relief it began to pale, and the jets, after a few more explosive pops, took up their normal note. Another minute and they were above the menace, at which he could only stare appalled, for nothing else could be seen. Somewhere below the cloud, now swirling where the exhausts struck it, was the lost city of the Martians. As the Spacemaster, picking up speed, rose higher, the haze of insects could be seen sweeping over the ground in waves. To Rex, the sight of these victorious armies was more unnerving than had been the monsters of Venus.

  The Professor spoke. 'Before we left the Earth, my colleagues, I warned you that we might encounter unexpected perils. But I must confess, and I do so frankly, that to be grounded by insects was something far outside the limits of my imagination. However, all is well.'

  The Spacemaster accelerated for its homeward passage.

  14 The last problem

  When, eight days later, in the afterglow of a fine sunset, the Spacemaster dropped gently into its nest at Glensalich Castle, Rex had no suspicion that his adventures had not ended.

  Their journeys into the realms of space were over, for the time being at any rate, and he was looking forward to getting his feet once more on the good earth of his own planet. It had all been a wonderful experience, but he felt that a rest in normal conditions, with some healthy exercise, would be welcome. This may have been reaction, due to some extent to the depression which they had all suffered from contemplation of the miserable fate fast overtaking the people of Mars. This had formed the chief topic of conversation all the way home. That the Professor's extraordinary brain was already busy on possible methods of relief was evident from remarks he made. To save a dying race of men, reflected Rex, would certainly be a great and humane undertaking, and one which, were he invited to join, he could not without shame decline. After all, the Martians were not monsters, or apemen. They were people like themselves, and the Professor was only expressing how they all felt about it when he said that something should be done.