Chapter 15
Our chart which was very spare of detail since it was made from the maps drawn by Percival Lowell many years ago, showed Pnyx as the junction point of two large canals. One, called Agathedaemon, ran southeast from Oasis Erithraeum to another junction point, Messeis Fons. The other ran southwest from Lacus Major and ended at Pnyx, which seemed to be at the edge of a small oasis.
I set my compass due south, deciding to travel in that direction until I reached the canal from Lacus Major, which Lowell called Chalus.
Gail was happy to be making the extensive land trip over the surface of Mars. Pnyx was at least three times as far as Lacus Minor, but since the Mars-cars could easily maintain a speed of 150 miles an hour over the desert, we expected to reach it in a little over three hours, if nothing interfered.
“If there were only some way of communicating with the Martians,” she said. “If we could only explain to them that the man who murdered the other two is in custody and will be punished and that the people of the earth didn’t come to this planet to kill Martians!”
“It would solve everything but I’m afraid it’s impossible,” I said. “There was a big gulf between Martians and earthmen to start with. Now this thing has spread them farther apart.”
“You mean they’re poison to us and all that? We’ve demonstrated that we have some things in common, psychologically speaking.”
“That could turn out to be the main stumbling block,” I said. “Remember when you, Axel and I talked about personal selfishness and race selfishness? How a person would kill to save himself and die for an ideal that was important to the race?”
“Yes. Are you suggesting the Martians want to become martyrs?”
“No. Race-preservation or race-selfishness exhibits itself in other ways besides that of dying for principles. One manifestation is intolerance. There’s a hatred for anything that is different or nonconformist. Martians and earthmen seem to have the same psychology, but we’re different in looks so we repel each other, just as do certain elements. Maybe intolerance and hatred have their roots in the chemistry of an atom. Be that as it may, most creatures of the earth tend to destroy what they don’t understand.”
“But we don’t hate Martians!” Gail insisted.
“Maybe hatred is too strong a word. However, for want of a more accurate one, let’s considered the difference between the hatred we feel for, say, a Dr. Spartan, and the kind we feel for Martians. One stems from self-preservation, and one from race-preservation. This scouting trip, for example, is hate motivated. We’re trying to get the best of the Martians without getting hurt ourselves. And they want to destroy us with a minimum of casualties.”
“I suppose, as you’ve hinted, this hatred of differences is the foundation of racial intolerance?”
“Basically,” I said. “Racial differences on earth—between men, I mean—are so slight they don’t actually matter. Some people are a little darker or lighter, with maybe a few differences in features. But the Martians are so different that you can hardly find any resemblance except in psychology. The gulf is just too big to cross.”
“Even if we’re intelligent?”
“Perhaps intelligence can cross the barrier, but there are bound to be different levels of Martian intelligence. The ignorant Martians would heap indignities on us because we’re a different minority.”
“You have it all figured out, haven’t you, Bill Drake?” she asked, leaning back in her seat. We had removed our helmets—they weren’t necessary in the car—and her hair, beautiful and now grown out from the mannish bob she’d worn when she left the earth, fell nearly to her shoulders. “I suppose you are insecure because we’re in an environment so utterly strange and unreal that we can hardly convince ourselves we’re living in it.”
“I’ll admit that sometimes I think I’m in a dream world,” I said, “and I’d like to be surrounded by things I’m used to. But I have confidence in myself to pull through. I like self-confidence. It’s something you can have in yourself, which nobody else may have in you.”
“But some things are the same,” she said quietly. “The very things I didn’t want to bring along with us. And I don’t mean self-confidence.”
I glanced in her direction. Her eyes were closed, her lips looked soft and her body yielding. “Such as?” I asked.
“Morrie mentioned it,” she said.
Now I knew what she was talking about. I took a mental grip on myself. Morrie went off his rocker. I’d stay sane. It’d be a tough fight but—
“Did you say something, Bill?” she said, opening her eyes.
I hadn’t said anything. She went on:
“Morrie said he was a man and I was a woman. That’s something that exists on earth and it existed in space. You are a man and I am a woman here, Bill.”
“Damnit, we agreed—”
“Bill Drake,” she said. “Let’s just say the agreement was made years ago and the statute of limitations has caught up with it. To hell with the agreement. In those bygone days I thought a trip to Mars was a career. I’m a woman, Bill Drake. That’s my real career.”
I braked the car, stopping in the middle of the big, red desert. There, millions upon millions of miles from that little planet where we had been married, I took her in my arms. My lips tasted hers and we clung to each other.
The damned spacesuits bothered us. I fumbled with hers and then with my own, and finally we shed them.
A long time later, we remembered we still had a job to do and we went on our way again. We reached Chalus, as deep as the Lacus canal, but containing more water—it was half as wide as the Hudson.
As we paused on the rim, looking toward the deep channel, Gail seized my arm and pointed. I’d seen it, too, about the same time—a long, flat barge, heaped with what looked like hay. It wasn’t hay, of course, but Martian vegetation, cut and stacked on the barge. It was being taken by canal in the direction of Pnyx. And Martians, pulling ropes tied to the barge, were the motive power. There were slaves on Mars.
“Martian commerce,” I said.
We rolled on, paralleling the canal until suddenly, ahead of us, lay another deep cut, branching out from Chalus and running almost directly west.
We had no idea how long it was, for there was no sign of it on maps. And when we decided to try to cross it in our machine we saw the reason why. The canal was empty. It was half-filled with sand from countless dust storms, and there was not a blade of Martian grass in the bottom.
It was an abandoned canal.
And on the other side was an ancient road.
It was paved with some kind of material that resembled concrete, although it was cracked and looked as if it had not been used for years.
“Do you suppose the Martians had cars?” Gail asked as we stopped on the road.
I shook my head. “I have some ideas about the Martians,” I said. “They’re probably far ahead of us in some ways—they are built for radar and they may have other senses we know nothing about—but that barge we saw was the first actual tool I’ve seen. If you can call a boat a tool.”
“They must have had machines to build the canals,” she said.
“Yes, but not a wheeled machine,” I replied. “I don’t think they have wheels on Mars. You see, the wheel was an invention man stumbled onto when he noticed that logs roll. The plants which grow on Mars, unlike our trees, have some sides that are flat. Consequently, Martians never got onto the idea of wheels.”
“Then what’s this road doing out here?” Gail asked.
“The material is pretty smooth, even though it’s been etched by sandstorms,” I said. “Possibly it was used to drag things over. It would be easier than dragging things over the sand.”
The road angled south, in the direction we were going. I hoped that all roads led to Pnyx and followed it, even though it led away from the canal.
Beyond the canal we saw a round, symmetrical mound on the horizon, looking like half an overripe tomato sticking out of the sand.
It was the dome of some Martian city stuck out here by a dry canal. But it wasn’t Pnyx and we saw no sign of life around the town.
We approached the city apprehensively. Possibly we would have avoided it altogether had we seen some sign of life, but the city looked as if there was no one at home. And the highway showed no signs of travel. In places where it was covered with sand, there were no tracks of padded Martian feet.
I saw that the road led through a large arched door.
“A ghost town!” Gail whispered. “An ancient, abandoned city!”
“I hope it’s abandoned,” I said.
We rode on. We had to find out, even at the risk of our lives.
The archway was just wide enough for the car. Still seeing no signs of life, we drove through it. Then we found that it had not been necessary to go through the arch at all. Above us was only half a dome. Beyond the gate we could see where it had been smashed and broken. Overhead, the cover ended with a jagged edge, as if some giant hammer had struck it with a terrific, shattering blow.
Before whatever disaster had struck the city, it had been a thriving community, at least a square mile in area. There were ruins of buildings, columns, monuments and narrow streets. The buildings were not like those on earth; they had ramps for entering and leaving the upper floors. The structures had no spires or architectural flourishes, but were strictly utilitarian—plain walls, narrow windows, and doors. Whatever had been used for glass was gone now, probably shattered when the city met its fate.
“Wonder how they raised that dome,” said Gail.
“It might have been blown, like a bottle,” I said.
We crossed the city and resumed our southward trip. Looking back at the dome, I noted that it was constructed of a shiny, glasslike substance which probably had been transparent at one time. But now it was coated with a fine layer of reddish dust. Centuries had passed since Martians lived here.
At the edge of the city stood a monument—a headless camel, a Martian, with his eight arms raised proudly above his spine.
“Glory wasn’t unknown to the Martians, either,” I said.
“A trait that springs from the urge to self-preservation,” said Gail. “An individual, seeing a glorified image of himself, feels more secure.”
We left the city after taking photographs. A minute or two later our Geiger counter began buzzing wildly. I slammed on the brakes just as we approached a terrific crater.
And now I knew why the city was no longer lived in, why there was no water in the canal, and why the road wasn’t used.
“The bomb!” I said, almost in a whisper.
Mars had its own nuclear war! How long ago, I didn’t know. Had I the time I might have measured the amount of radiation and determined approximately when the explosion had occurred. The radiation was not dangerously strong now and I knew the blast had taken place many, many years ago.
“You know,” said Gail quietly, “maybe this is why the Martians were afraid of us.”
“They knew we had the bomb and might use it on Mars?” I asked.
She nodded her head soberly. “I think the Martians must know a great deal about the earth. More than we ever knew about Mars.”
“The question is,” I told her, “whether they still have the bomb and if they’re likely to use it on us.”
“Maybe they’ve outlawed it,” she said.
“If so, they’re more civilized than we are.”
“Maybe the Martians have had more time in which to become civilized,” she replied.
“Civilization has a way of turning back,” I said. “If they had the bomb once, they can build it again.”
As we continued southward, we saw another domed city raise above the horizon. This was no ghost town. The dome was whole, larger than the one we had seen by the dried-up canal. It stretched across the horizon for five miles, at least, for the horizons of Mars seemed to be shorter than those of the earth.
I flipped the switch of the transmitter and called our base. Axel answered.
“We’re not far from Pnyx,” I told him.
“Have they spotted you yet?”
“No, but I haven’t seen anything to report, either,” I said. I squinted toward the city for a couple of minutes before I saw there was movement on what seemed to be an east-west highway running past the dome. A cloud of dust hung there and I thought I saw figures moving.
“It’s too far off to see clearly,” I said, “but there seems to be a lot of traffic on the main highway.”
“Highways yet? You got money for toll?”
“Not funny, Ax,” I said. “They got paved roads, but no cars that I’ve seen. We followed an old road part of the way. It’s worn out and unused. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“See what’s going on, if you can, Bill,” said Axel. “We’re still getting a lot of radio from Pnyx.”
“I came here for information and I’ll find something to report,” I said. “Keep listening.”
I slipped on my helmet, picked up my rifle and went through the locks.
I could feel the city as I stepped from the Mars-car. There’s a kind of sensation you get when you’re approaching a large metropolis, and it holds true on earth as well as on Mars. It’s much different from the way you feel in the wide open spaces—on the prairie or in the mountains. Maybe it’s extrasensory perception. Or maybe the soles of our feet transmit seismic vibrations of living people to our nerves. I had the feeling now.
Gripping my rifle I moved toward a little ridge just ahead of where I’d stopped the car. This ridge, I’d hoped, would protect the car from radar detection on the part of the Martians, but I believed I could risk a glance at the highway over the top of it without exposing our location.
I was about a half mile from the road and, from the ridge, I could see it, crowded with Martians, trotting in formation eastward toward the canal. They walked five abreast and there must have been hundreds of them.
I didn’t have to be a Martian to recognize that this was a military group. Soldiers. Ants march to war like humans do. It’s another fundamental that may have its roots in atomic energy, or in the nuclear intelligence that has formed all life so that atoms can control their destiny.
No local war was to be fought by these troops. They were off to meet the earthlings, in the first interplanetary war of the solar system.
So interested was I in watching the Martians that I didn’t realize I was standing in full view; and I’d been seen, but not by the marching Martians, of which there were at least fifteen hundred.
A small patrol probably had been put out to protect the flanks of the main army, or even to look for us, since my approach probably hadn’t been as concealed as I’d thought.
Three Martians of this patrol had started toward me, joining “hands” as they charged. And behind them were a dozen others.