Chapter 17

I had no idea how far we were from the spaceship. But it certainly wasn't more than a ninety-minute run if I held the machine at top speed. But battles can be won or lost in considerably less time, and there was a battle being fought in the Solis Lacus area.

They were outside the ship—Axel, Joel and Spartan. I heard them shouting in their helmet radios. I couldn't hear the sound of firing, but Spartan—unwilling to relinquish his authority even though he was a prisoner—was shouting orders. "Get that group to the left, Axel! About nine o'clock—"

Axel must have the rifle, I thought.

Dr. Warner Joel was hysterical. His voice choked sobs. He prayed. He swore. He moaned.

Axel mumbled incoherently. For all I knew he might have been talking in Swedish. Maybe he was—I don't know. He was born in Minnesota of Swedish parents and might have learned it in his childhood. Ordinarily, he spoke good English, except that occasionally his phrasing took on a foreign flavor, a throwback to something he'd learned from his parents and neighbors.

Joel was sobbing. "My gun's empty! They're still coming."

Then he laughed hysterically.

"Look at them run! The fools didn't know my gun wasn't loaded!"

Apparently the radar eyes of the Martians could distinguish objects as small as a .45 automatic.

Gail sat tense as she listened to the sounds of battle. Her lips pressed tight, her eyes staring straight ahead.

And then we saw the brownish green depression to our right. We had reached Solis Lacus Major, and the spaceship was not far north and only about a dozen miles west.

Even minutes seemed like hours as we sped along. The Martian voices were plain now and we could still hear our three companions talking. At least, none had been baked in his spacesuit yet. As long as they kept the Martians from forming into long lines their spacesuits would protect them.

Then Gail screamed and pointed. To our left we saw the spire of the spaceship.

Swerving, I saw hordes of Martians closing in from the south. To the north were more of them. I was steering the Mars-car into the jaws of a trap that would close on us the minute we entered.

But not to enter the trap meant surer death. There was a chance for us if we could reach the ship.

Those Martians from the south were chanting: "Ha-ha! Ha-ha!"

It was the same group that had pursued me near Pnyx. Although they had shied at approaching the ruined city, they apparently had traveled all night, going around it, and now were helping to encircle the spaceship.

I stopped the car and fastened on my helmet. "Put yours on too, Gail," I said.

She did and when she was finished, I said: "Take the controls of the car. Try to break through any Martians that are in your path and reach the causeway. Pay no attention to me." I got out of my seat and went to the locks. My rifle was there and I picked it up. I ejected shells from the magazine and filled it with explosive bullets.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, her eyes wide with fear.

"I'm going topside," I said. "I'll fasten myself to the top of the car with my spacesuit belt. Then I'll raise a little hell with these men from Mars." I tapped the gun for emphasis. She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. It had to be done. She might hate it, just as I did, but it was the only thing to do. I couldn't shoot Martians from inside this four-wheeled boxcar.

She waited till I called to her that I was securely fastened, then she started forward.

Ahead I could see the Martians. They had encircled the ship at a distance of about a quarter of a mile. I could tell that Axel was on the north side, where the largest group of Martians was assembling for a frontal assault. I could see explosive bullets from his rifle tearing gaping holes in the ranks. But they were preparing to charge onto the causeway.

Joel and Spartan were stationed on either side, the three of them forming a triangle. They had only pistols and were not firing because the range was too great. I couldn't tell which was which, but I saw their figures standing behind heaps of rocks which they used as breastworks. Apparently the moat, shallow and makeshift as it was, presented an obstacle to the Martians because the sides were difficult for the four-footed creatures to descend and to climb.

The Martians were starting to move toward the causeway when they first perceived our car rolling toward them. The line wavered, hesitated and then started to wheel to face the earthling reinforcements.

"Drake!" I was startled by Spartan's voice over the helmet radio.

"Yes?" I said, omitting the sir.

"I want you to know that whatever our differences were in the past, they are forgotten for the moment. We are all earthmen. We are being attacked by an entirely different form of life. I remain your enemy, and you have reason to hate me as much as any human being alive. But what matters is that the earth and the scientists of our planet are waiting for us to bring back information about Mars. Therefore we must survive. We will fight together now. What happens afterwards is something different."

"That's damned white of you, Spartan," I said. "But I had this all figured out and you have no more choice in the matter than I."

"Dam-white, dam-white. Ha-ha! Ha-ha!" chirped Martian voices in my ear. Looking to the south I saw the plain crowded with the creatures, galloping arm in arm, their trunklike limbs waving. The group from Pnyx had joined the attack and was assaulting the ship from the rear.

Warner Joel screamed and I knew he was facing them all alone.

The Martian horde was coming at full speed.

Joel stood up, holding an automatic pistol as they came within range. I saw flame jet from the muzzle. A Martian in the middle of the line stumbled and fell. Instantly the men on either side joined arms.

I raised my rifle and leveled it at the attackers. The jouncing of the car made it hard to aim and I held my fire for an instant too long.

A lightning-like bolt swept from the end of the line toward Joel who was firing wildly and hitting nothing. A scream rang out in my helmet.

I watched with horror as his spacesuit turned cherry red and actually melted in front of my eyes.

Then I fired.

The explosive shell blasted two Martians in the line. I fired again, splitting one half of the broken line into quarters. A third shot split the other half. One great thing about these explosive bullets, you didn't have to hit a target dead center. The fourth shot didn't even hit a Martian, but the ground at his feet, and he went the way of all cyanogenic plant men.

The Martians at the causeway were now getting ready to give me some of the medicine that had ended the career of Warner Joel. But I swung my gun in their direction and blasted again.

Before I could fire once more, Axel, who apparently had stopped to reload his rifle, began to bombard them from the rear.

The Martians couldn't stand being blasted from two directions at once. The line broke and they dashed to the north.

My car swept to the entrance of the causeway and across. Axel's helmeted figure rose from behind his barricade of rocks. He didn't even take time to wave, but I saw his eyes, full of deep appreciation because I'd arrived at a most critical time.

Then he dashed to the spot where the remains of Warner Joel lay steaming.

The Martians who had killed Joel were pouring across the moat at the rear of the spaceship.

"Watch the front, Bill!" Axel cried as he leveled his rifle.

There was nothing to watch. The Martians had been routed.

I fumbled with my belt and unfastened myself while Axel aimed his gun at the Pnyx Martians. His semi-automatic fire was sending geysers of poisonous Martian flesh out of the ditch when I jumped off the car.

The bass-chirps of the Martian voices were screaming panic now. It wasn't necessary to know their language to realize all the fight was gone from their hearts—or whatever they used for a heart—as Axel pumped explosive shots into their midst.

Part of them was trying to scale the back wall of the ditch. Others were stampeding, like cattle, in all directions. Those that came my way were halted by the causeway and now I opened fire on these.

Gail had emerged from the car and now she stood without cover at the edge of the moat, shooting at the Martians with her pistol.

"Get back, Gail!" I screamed.

A single Martian sent a flash of flame toward her. It sparked off her helmet. Then she realized she was exposed and jumped behind the barricade Axel had used.

Axel's gun had stopped firing now and he was starting to reload. I shifted my aim, pouring the rest of my magazine into the group nearest him. They had no way of knowing it was not his gun. Even their radar senses could not follow the path of a bullet.

It was a massacre, but the kind of slaughter that saved lives.

The panic of the Martians in the moat communicated itself to those on the desert. Instead of joining hands to try again to overwhelm us, they broke their ranks and fled as the straggling remains of their allies from the south scrambled out of the pit around the spaceship and fled in all directions.

"After them!" cried Spartan, who still believed he was our commander.

But I paid no attention to him. Following a routed and disordered enemy and cutting him to pieces may be a sound military precept, but we were no army and we were outnumbered hundreds to one. It would have been plain stupidity to pursue.

Axel's gun was reloaded now and he emptied it again at the retreating foe. Each bullet, whether it hit a Martian or a rock or the desert sand, increased the terror of the retreating host.

Then his gun was empty.

To my surprise I saw Axel half turn. Then his knees seemed to give way and he fell to the ground, clutching his side.

Turning my head, I saw Spartan with an automatic in his hand, starting to level his gun at me. There was an ugly grin on his lips. He had shot Axel.

As he fired, I dodged behind the barricade, on the opposite side of which Gail crouched. She had not heard the shots, of course, and had not seen Axel fall. I shouted, "Gail! Come here! Around on this side!"

She couldn't understand me. She was puzzled, thought I was crazy, because her side was safe from Martians.

I raised my rifle and aimed at Spartan as he came running toward Gail.

I pulled the trigger, but it didn't fire. The rifle was empty. I'd sent my last bullet after the retreating Martians.

As I tried to jerk my unused pistol from its holster, Spartan reached Gail with a single thirty-foot bound. He swept her from behind the barricade and held her as a shield as he turned the gun on me.

I couldn't use my pistol without hitting Gail.

A bullet struck the ramp to the spaceship, just beside Spartan's head, knocking a piece of metal against his arm. He didn't hear the shot, but he felt the splinter strike. He turned his head. Axel was lying on the ground, still clutching his side with his left hand, but holding his pistol in his right.

Spartan lifted his gun to fire at Axel, and I, taking advantage of the instant in which he turned to defend himself, leaped.

Martian gravity, being what it is, permits a man to make prodigious jumps. I sailed like a man in slow motion over the rocks and I struck Spartan, still clutching Gail, in a football tackle, bowling them over.

I grabbed his gun, twisted it from his hand.

Gail struggled and wriggled out of his arms.

But the gravity that had aided me, now worked against me. Somehow, Spartan managed to throw himself upward and I was literally bumped into the air. He rolled out from under and dived for the gun.

I came down, grabbed his foot and pulled him away, but he twisted free.

We were both encased in spacesuits and it would have taken a battering ram to hurt either of us. Fists were useless, even though Spartan didn't realize this. Nor did I until I felt him hit me. The blow, I scarcely felt, but the force behind it sent me staggering back.

I struck the rocks and bounded, like a boxer off the ropes in an arena, back at him. I tried to wrap my arms around him, to hold him securely, but he was a big man, in splendid physical condition, even though he was a few years older than I. We clinched, struggling to throw each other off balance, flailing helplessly with our fists.

Suddenly I stepped back. Spartan, crazy with anger and rage, swung his fist toward me. I didn't try to dodge or block. I knew the fist wouldn't hurt me. As it struck me I grabbed his arm with both hands. I hung on as he tried to wrench free. Then I pulled back and started to turn.

His weight, without the spacesuit, would have been in the neighborhood of 180 pounds, perhaps more. The spacesuit weighed at least twenty pounds. But all two hundred pounds of him was a mere eighty pounds on Mars.

As I swung, his feet left the ground—and on Mars you don't drop very fast. His feet stayed off the ground as I heaved and turned and then let loose.

His body sailed in an arc, over the rocks, and thudded in the moat, onto a heap of Martians, not all of them dead. A number of them must have had enough consciousness left to respond to contact with an earthling's body.

As I sprang to the edge of the moat, I saw Spartan's spacesuit turn a cherry red. Then it glowed white. Little rivulets of metal poured over the Martian bodies, but still that current—it must have been thousands of volts—kept surging through.

I heard a long, drawn-out scream. Then Dr. Spartan was dead.