Chapter 18
Gail screamed as she came running to the edge of the moat. I seized the pistol which she held in her hand—later I learned it was Spartan’s own gun that she picked up off the ground. I fired into the mass of bodies.
It was too late. I killed the Martians but there was nothing I could do to save Spartan. Turning, I rushed to Axel’s side. He was weak, but still alive. “Punctured spacesuit,” he murmured, nodding to his left hand which clutched the garment. I understood. Axel’s suit had been punctured by Spartan’s bullet, but he had closed the hole with his hand. Fortunately the bullet had lodged in Axel’s body and had not pierced the suit on the other side.
“Hang on!” I said.
I picked him up. He groaned as I lifted him and carried him up the ramp and into the ship. Inside, Gail and I stripped the suit away from the wound. The bullet had struck a rib in the suit, glanced to a rib bone and then lodged in the muscles of his shoulders. It was a nasty wound, made by a flattened bullet, but it was not the kind of an injury that would prove to be fatal. We applied antiseptics and removed the bullet.
While Axel rested, I took the digging machinery which we had used to construct the moat and covered Spartan’s and Joel’s remains and the bodies of dead Martians. I found many large rubies and sapphires—unusual stones, but not six billion dollars’ worth. Whatever profit came from the trip would be in scientific knowledge.
Gail and I erected a small cairn over the spot where Spartan lay. It was not to Spartan alone, but to four men, including Willy Zinder, who had died in order that our trip to Mars might succeed. I objected to Spartan’s being listed as a hero, but Gail said, “It’s not really him, Bill Drake. It’s what he stood for.”
“Murder, egotism, selfishness?”
“He was a human being,” she replied. “The monument is to humanity. There are good human beings, bad ones and the strong.”
“It’s hard to swallow,” I said. “But including him doesn’t detract from the others.”
People, I decided, shouldn’t be judged by specific, isolated acts, but by the sum of their contributions. Besides, not many folks will go to Mars to see the cairn—at least, not for a long, long time—even if the Martians leave it standing.
We didn’t stay long on Mars because we didn’t know for sure if we’d put a big enough scare into the Martians to keep them away permanently. Besides, as I told Axel, “They might bring the bomb next time.”
We never learned if Mars still had the bomb. They’d had it once, but they were now decadent, far below what they had been in ages probably long before the first ape man came down from a tree to walk on his hind legs. Those cities were evidence of past glories. But except for the barges on Chalus, we saw no means of locomotion. They must have had tools, but we never saw them. And the only art we saw was a statue in a ruined city. Had man come to Mars a million years ago, who knows what might have been here to greet him?
I found a small animal on Mars before we left. It was hiding in the vegetation on Lacus canal and proved that there were other forms of mobile life besides the Martians. The creature was rabbit-size and had the same general construction as a Martian. The hump was poorly developed, however. The animal died and since it was poisonous, as were all Martian beings, we did not try to bring it back for examination. However, I made a thorough study of the chemical content of its tissues and took several photographs of its dissected organs. Earth scientists can do a lot with very little evidence.
In spite of our harrowing experiences with the Martians we had a treasure of scientific data, material that could never have been obtained by telescope. And we hoped that someday a basis of communication with Mars could be established—after the soreness of the wounds had gone away—and perhaps the two planets could understand their differences.
Getting Axel back aboard the Jehad was not as much of a task as we had expected. After we blasted to the Jehad’s orbit, we slid him across space between the rocket and the plasma ship without hurting him. After all, what is there in space to hurt anyone?
Axel computed our route home on the electronic calculator, and we blasted off exactly twenty-one months from the day we left the earth.
“How about our duty shifts on the way home?” Gail asked as we were at last in space again.
“Whatever you say, my dear,” I told her.
“Me? I’m not in charge.”
“Axel’s injured,” I said, “and you’re my wife. That makes you top banana.”
“You fool!” she laughed. “But it’ll be nicer going home than it was going away.”
“Yes,” said Axel. “There is enough water for all, Miss Loring.”
“I wasn’t thinking of the water. And you can either call me Gail or Mrs. Drake from now on. I’ll never be Miss Loring again.”
Axel threw back his head and laughed. “I was sure it would happen this way,” he said.
The End