The Martian

by Allen Glasser and A. R. Hilliard

  CHAPTER III.

  In Confinement

  He awakened in shivering terror. His entire body was wet. Water wasfalling on him. It was falling on the ground all around and on thetrees--thousands, millions of drops. He choked, as he tried to breathethe damp, saturated air. Desperately he looked around for someprotection, but there was none. He covered his face as best he couldwith his folded arms, and cried out in fear.

  There came a shout; and he heard something moving toward him, but he didnot care. Horror of the falling water crowded all other emotions fromhis mind.

  One of the creatures was standing over him. He heard others approaching.They were shouting loudly back and forth to one another. In a moment,there was a circle of them, all around him.

  He was too distressed to pay them any attention. After a time one ofthem bent down and grasped him under the armpits. He felt himself liftedinto the air. He did not struggle, even when their faces were all aroundhim--very close.

  Now they were walking through the trees, one of them carrying him in itshuge arms, quite gently. He was scarcely conscious of his surroundings.It was becoming more and more difficult to breathe.

  Then he felt himself laid down on something soft and dry. The water wasnot falling on him now. He opened his eyes.

  They had placed him under a shelter. He could hear the water on theblack covering above him. There was one of them on each side of him,where he lay on what seemed to be a cushioned seat....

  Suddenly there came a rumble, and the seat beneath him quivered andshook. He struggled to sit up. One of the creatures aided him, andwrapped a dry cloth about his body. He was grateful.

  The seat was bumping up and down violently. On each side, he could seethe trees moving slowly backward. He realized that he was in a vehicle.It jolted constantly, and he imagined that it must run directly on therough ground. It made a continuous and tremendous noise. But it was amachine of transportation, however crude; and he quickly forgot hisbodily discomfort, as the implications of this fact crowded through hismind.

  He looked with a new interest at his captors. They were talkingtogether excitedly--evidently about him, for they never removed theireyes from him. In spite of their strangeness and savagery, they musthave reasoning minds. He could be pretty sure of that, now....

  The vehicle came to rest, and to either side he saw structures, made,evidently, of cut trees. Then his heart leaped again, as he saw thatthey had glass. So they knew how to make that! There were only a fewpieces of it let into the walls--but it was certainly glass, and hishopes rose a bit higher.

  They carried him into one of the houses. It was quite dark. They set himdown upon a large table. They were increasing rapidly in numbers,jostling in through the door and crowding around the table.

  In the wall near him there was one of the pieces of glass. Abashed bythe dozens of staring eyes, he looked through this, and saw a broadfield, its soil turned up in long, straight rows--evidently forplanting. Near the center of the field were two creatures, whichimmediately commanded his attention.

  They were not alike. One was similar to those he had already seen, butthe other was even larger and of a different shape. Four legs carriedthe great, bulky body, which rested in a horizontal position, as did thethick neck and long, tapering head. It was dragging the tool whichturned up the furrows of soil, while the other followed behind,governing its directions.

  Clearly, he thought, there were many types of creatures on Toon. Hewould have to try to understand their relations to one another....

  Inside the room there was much noise, and the air was hot, damp, andvery unpleasant to breathe. He was not afraid of the creatures now; andinstinctively he realized that it was curiosity that brought them here,and that they meant him no harm. A few were trying to speak to him,looking directly into his eyes and making monosyllabic sounds. Thisamused him at first. They would not be quite so hopeful if theyunderstood from where he had come.

  But in another moment his amusement had vanished. One of the creatures,standing near, placed a finger close to where he sat, at the same timeuttering a short disyllabic sound:

  "Table!"

  A thrill shot through him. He had expected no such intelligence on thepart of his captors. A new wave of hope surged up within him....Carefully, he repeated the gesture and the word.

  * * * * *

  His action was followed by a burst of excited conversation in the room.Several made sharp, guttural noises which he guessed meant gratificationor amusement.

  Immediately a number of them took up the game; and he eagerly did hispart, repeating the sounds they made and identifying them with objects.With every possible gesture he tried to indicate to them his pleasureand gratification.

  He was sorry when they began to go away.

  It had been getting steadily darker for some time, when, suddenly, theroom was brilliantly illuminated; and, looking quickly around, he saw anumber of bright globes. This event brought him to a high pitch ofelation. The character of the vehicle in which he had ridden had madehim fear that they knew nothing of electricity, but here was tangibleevidence that they did. His dream of a return to Loten seemed less likea wild imagining at every moment.

  He was beginning to think of these creatures as people, almost humanbeings.

  Now, only two of them remained. From their glances he knew that theywere talking about him. Finally, one of them lifted him from the table;and, walking swiftly, carried him through the door, across a shortstretch of open ground, and into a smaller and darker structure, therelaying him down upon a bed of cloths and cushions in one corner of thesingle room. The other followed them in, carrying a china dish and cup.Setting these beside him, they both pointed with their fingers to theiropen mouths. He understood immediately, and was glad. He needednourishment badly.

  But when he looked into the dish his pleasure abated. It contained anassortment of what appeared to be parts of plants and--he tried toconceal his horror--animal flesh.

  Looking up, he nodded--a gesture that he had quickly learned; and to hisgreat relief they turned and left the room, closing the door. He heard asharp click.

  The flesh he immediately put aside. He did not like to think what itsorigin might be. He studied the plants. They had evidently beensubjected to a heat process, but had not been chemically refined in anyway. The percentage of nourishment in them must be very low, and itwould be necessary for him to eat great quantities to sustain hisstrength. He wondered how long his stomach could stand it.

  These people must eat almost daily to sustain themselves on such fare,he reasoned, marvelling.

  With a pronged implement that they had given him, he set to work to mashthe food into as soft a mass as possible. This process they accomplishedeasily with their fangs, he knew.

  The taste was anything but pleasing, and he had great difficulty inswallowing; but he finally managed to assuage his hunger, and feltbetter. He drank a little water from the cup, which contained enough tosupply him for at least five days.

  This done, he stretched himself out upon the bed, and gave himself overto pleasant reflection. A far cry, he thought, from the man lyinghelpless in the desert, devoid of all hope, to the one who hadestablished contact with a race of intelligent beings who woulddoubtless be willing to help him return to his own native world. Hereflected that if the flying ship had hot happened to come near him, hewould most certainly have perished by now--perished in a foreign world,far away from those he loved, never knowing there was a chance for hissalvation. But now he had taken the first step.... Anything was possiblenow.

  His attention returned to his surroundings. The bare room was lighted bya bulb hanging from wires in the center. From it dangled a cord, thepurpose of which he quickly guessed. The walls and floor were bare wood,and rough. Along the whole length of one wall extended a low, narrowtable, or bench, strewn with a miscellaneous collection of objects whicharoused his curiosity.

  He crawled to the bench, and pulled himself erect by grasping
its edge.He was just tall enough to see along its surface. Near him rested alarge roll of what he first thought was cord; but on closer examinationhe decided that it was metal wire covered with a fibre insulation.Obviously it was for the conduction of electricity. Scattered around itwere a number of cylinders of varying sizes, which he saw were woundclosely with very fine wires. Clearly, these people did more withelectricity than make light, he thought, encouraged.

  * * * * *

  There was nothing else in the room except a pile of rusty metal in onecorner. The whole place was depressingly dirty and dreary. He thoughtthat he would feel better without the light. He made his way to thecenter of the room, and stretched upwards. Finding that he could justreach the cord, he jerked it; and returned in the darkness to his cot.

  He lay there quietly, trying to calm his nerves. He wondered what theywould do with him....

  He was still wondering the same thing at the end of four days. They didnot move him. They did nothing except come and look at him--a great manyof them at first, but less and less as time went on. They came in thedaytime--never at night. They fed him; and a few still tried to talk tohim. This pleased him, and he strove eagerly to understand and imitate;but they soon got tired and stopped.

  He learned to distinguish the males and females among the people thatcame, by differences in stature, length of hair, and clothing. Heobserved, with complete bewilderment, that the males often carried intheir hands burning cylinders which they raised regularly to theirmouths, blowing out smoke into the air. He guessed, finally, that thismust be some sort of sanitary precaution.

  Now, however, he was left alone most of the time. They brought him food,and then went away. He was uneasy. Physically, he felt far from well.The damp air made his throat and chest ache; and he feared that the longdeprivation of sunlight was hurting him. He could not understand.

  Gathering his courage one day, he attempted to open the door. He reachedup and turned the knob the way he had seen the people do. But it wouldnot move when he pushed. He remembered the clicking sound he had heardevery time after they went out.

  He became frightened. He did not understand this confinement. Why wouldthey not let him out?

  There passed another day, of mental torture. Would they let him die inthis dark, dreary place? Had all his efforts merely led to a lonely,purposeless death?

  He wondered what they would do if he went out of his own accord; andfinally decided that he must do it, even at the risk of offending them.Further inactivity he could not bear.

  Within five minutes he had formed a plan of action. It was night--thebest time to work; for he must work undisturbed for a time.

  He made his way to the bench, and collected three of the wound wirecoils, which he dropped to the floor. With a cutting tool that he foundhe managed to get a length of wire from the large roll. The tool wasvery heavy.

  Next, he crawled to the corner, and selected a number of small pieces ofmetal. He rested for a while, studying the light bulb which hung in thecenter of the room. From the light it gave and the size of the filament,he roughly estimated the power of the current.

  Then, with a graphite writing instrument that he had found, he drew adiagram on the floor. He took a very long time doing this, and labeledit carefully. When he had finished, the little window at the end of theroom showed that dawn was breaking outside.

  Hurriedly then, he set to work with the metal, the coils, and thewire,--twisting, winding, connecting and cross-connecting--constantlyglancing at his diagram and at the window. Finally, when it was broaddaylight outside, he gave a sigh of satisfaction.

  He had achieved an ugly, jumbled apparatus, vaguely cylindrical in shapewith a point of metal at one end. He laid it on the floor; and makinghis way to the bench, secured two more lengths of wire. He crawled underthe bench to where the power line for the light ran down the wall, andthere connected them. Then, securing his cup of water, he dipped into itthe ends of his two wires, and observed them for a moment. Satisfied, hecarried them to his cylindrical apparatus, and connected one of them atthe end opposite the metal point. The other he did not immediatelyconnect.