THE AIRLOCK guard observed him indifferently. Dane came the rest of the way down the ladder with his pressure suit and helmet. When the man saw him start hooking in the radio equipment, his mouth line straightened.
“Not allowed to go outside,” he Georgia-drawled. “Nobody supposed to.”
“I am,” Dane told him. “I represent the almighty press. Amalgamated, that is.”
“Nobody allowed outside,” the guard reiterated. He shifted easily on his feet and peered out the port. “Fire party out there right now, besides.”
Dane pushed a leg into the heavy, articulated casing. I am on my master’s business. The public must be told. See all, hear all, tell all, know nothing. That’s us. Molders of public opinion. Have to be Johnny-on-the-spot, and all that.
“Mebbe so,” the man grunted. “You have to do your looking from here, though.” He brightened a little. “Unless you got a pass. You gotta pass?”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Dane said. “Why don’t you call the command post and tell them John Dane wants to go out with the fire party on press duty?”
The guard allowed he didn’t care, one way or the other, but he picked up the phone and spoke briefly. “Yeah,” he said “It’s Dr. Dane.” Out of the corner of his mouth he said, “They’re checkin’ with Major Noel. He’s outside” After a minute he said, “Yeah. I’ll tell him.”
He hung up. “Sergeant Peeney says the major says okay, but you gotta stay behind the fire party. That’s so you don’t get hurt,’” he threw in “Case they light up the flame throwers”
“You’re a pal,” Dane assured him. “How about helping me with this gear?”
He stepped down into the red sand. Mars, he thought. This is the planet Mars. He became freshly aware of the huge night Laden with what the old storytellers called menace. Maybe even now the Martians were fulfilling their promise to come to the spacecraft. From somewhere out in the dark From beyond the rim of the lighted landing site, where the brilliantly illumined circle tapered off into the solid dark that was periodically dealt a shallow wound by the beacon.
Once a minute the broad blade of the light swept around. A man should be visible in the observation-deck telescope at a thousand yards. The radar should pick him up at ten thousand. Only they were not looking for men.
Major Noel’s voice spoke into the ear set. “Come over here, Dane. Get behind me. Number two. The lichens are coming up fast. They’re at five hundred yards now.”
The men with the flame throwers had stretched their skirmish line to fifty-yard intervals all around the Far Venture Behind them waited the squat flame tanks. Suddenly Noel barked a command. One of the tanks wheeled abruptly and churned the dust to station beyond the southern arc of the perimeter. The other remained in place, facing the east.
“You want some pictures,” Noel’s voice rasped, “get ready. We’re going to burn hell out of them!”
A timbre of elation sang in the cry. Dane pressed the shutter-release button on his belt, snap-shooting the wide-legged stance Noel had taken against the east, the luminescent numeral 2 large on his back tank. He got one or two good ones of the waiting picket-line of outlandishly garbed men before a jumble of excitement rattled against his eardrums. Everyone was shouting into microphones at once.
Dane stared at the lichen clump that popped up a couple of hundred yards out in the light. A supplementary searchlight came on from the spacecraft and sought it out. More lights came on and shifted about, showing up one...two four...then more and more clumps standing along a broad front where only one had sprung into view an instant before.
Noel crackled orders on the command frequency. Dane saw the flame-bearers shift to meet the approach, like an elongated football scrimmage line.
The stuff pulsed forward in livid spurts, giving the appearance of impinging like bushy darts laterally across the sand. It was suddenly very close. So close that Dane saw the new plants erupt from the sand in front of the stands of plants that had themselves burst into existence in the van a second or two before.
He remembered once writing that a man caught in choking suspense can think or talk only in trite patterns and phrases. No epic speeches, like the epic heroes spout. Generally he says something like “God damn it,” and afterward he can’t remember that he thought anything except that things were not different as they should have been. To face great peril and have your surroundings look just about the same as always denies the rightness of things. It is inappropriate, Dane had written, for a man to endure the slow crisis of approaching death, then to escape in the nick of time and describe his feelings later with so puny a simile as “It was like a bad dream.” Now he had just caught himself thinking, It’s like a nightmare. One of those where you want to run pell-mell away and are rooted where you stand, while the menace stalks you, aware of you, closing in to take you.
He heard Noel say, “Light your pieces.”
Down the line and around the flanks spurts of bluish, chemical flame stabbed out shortly from the nozzles.
“What’s he waiting for!” Dane cried out.
Noel still stood broad-legged...immovable...bestriding his few inches of sand. Like the Colossus sadly dwindled in size, Dane thought.
“Let ‘em have it!” he ordered at last.
The lichens were barely fifty feet from the perimeter line when the heavy spurt of flame arched from the tank out across the sand and hosed back and forth. Four smaller flame thrusts stabbed at the flanks.
A miasma of oily smoke boiled thickly from the scorched plants, clinging to the ground and billowing under the dripping flame. It drifted slowly, coming in on the men holding the nozzles to hang a dense curtain over the fire tips and their targets. Then it piled in so close that it swallowed the fire lances in its creeping front.
“Cut your fires back,” Noel commanded.
The flame thrusts sucked back to their nozzles. The sortie stood intent while the searchlights played across the face of the smoke fog. Dane felt an impatience to brush off the confining helmet to see better.
Noel’s voice came on again. Quietly now. “I’m going into the smoke for a look. Seckinger, you advance your tank with me ten feet at my left. Hold your fire down unless I give the word.”
Seckinger, Airman First Class, said, “Yes, sir.” Dane visualized his square face set behind the port of the sealed tank. He was a quiet, chunky young man. His square shoulders suggested the blue, double-breasted sea coats his ancestors must have worn on the voyages he had told about. He was a good choice for a wing man.
Seckinger moved the tank up close, and Noel started forward. Before they got to the wall ahead, a cry came from the right flank. “They’re coming through the smoke over here. They’re coming through the smoke!” the man repeated.
Dane saw Noel turn ponderously. The tank halted at his upraised arm. Then his command came sharply. The other tank darted left in the dream scene, and the blue fire spurted ahead of its nose. A searchlight twisted from the towering bulk of the Far Venture and picked up the new attack.
Remembering his business to get pictures, Dane moved down the line. A great flash of light dazzled him. A roar of noise tore at him. He froze, stunned under another flash that seared his eyes, followed quickly by a third. “Spark-fire bolts!” he shouted into his microphone. “It’s a spark-fire storm!”
The tank belched its stream of fire in an undeviating line. One of its supporting flame bearers lay on the sand, his own fire jet spurting into the dust at right angles to his body. The bolts were aimed at them! Dane turned quickly, stumbling off balance in the clumsy gear.
“Noel!” he shouted. “The bolts! They struck one of the men!”
No time for answer. Lightning streaked out of the east and slammed the tank by Noel. Little balls of orange fire bounced briefly on its metal. Noel lay on the ground.
Something moved against his legs. Dane stood still, breathing hard. His helmet air tasted light and dry, like the stale atmosphere of a long-closed building. He looked down, knowing what he would see.
The lichens had sprung up all around him. Knee-deep.
The airmen shot out their small streams of fire, burning swaths back to the Far Venture, now aground in a sea of lichens. As the heavy smoke drifted from some of the burned areas, Dane saw with quick apprehension the lichens pop up again from the scorched sand, swallowing the remnants of the burned-out plants. They devoured sand and charred plants alike, burying the scours left by the flames in their leaden green.
Both tanks stood motionless. Their tongues licked ahead, but they made no movement in traverse nor gave any other indication that the operators inside were still alive.
A bright bolt spat over the east and lashed down another flame thrower.
Dane drew a deep lungful of his stuffy air. For a quick moment he imagined he could smell an acridity. Lichen acids eating against his suit? Frantically he trampled the plants down around him, playing his electric torch on his armored legs. His breath sighed out relief. Suddenly he shouted into the microphone. “Turn off your flames and get inside. You’re not doing any good. They’re coming up again where they’ve been burned off.”
His shouted words were drowned by the sharper tone of the Far Venture’s command set. “Turn off all fire. Return to the spacecraft.” The familiar voice named itself. “Colonel Cragg to Major Noel. Turn off all fires and return to the spacecraft. Immediately.”
Another spark bolt snapped home. Dane counted the same number of men still standing. He wondered if the few bolts that had fallen so far were prelude to a storm like yesterday’s. Maybe it was too late in the night for the bolts to build up in any profusion. The cold of the darkness must be rapidly deepening, if there was a real connection between the phenomenon of the dwindling spark fires and the oncoming night. Maybe whatever was directing the lightning weapon was short of ammunition.
It occurred to him to move himself. This was no time to linger. Not even for Amalgamated Press pictures.
He took a few steps, breasting the lichen stuff, wading it gingerly before he thought of Noel. If the bolt at the tank had not hit him directly, he could still be alive.
He turned back from the Far Venture, fuzzily amazed at the need to do it, and began plowing through the lichens toward the immobilized tank marked out for him in the smoke by its spouting flame. How much longer would it burn before its fuel was exhausted? He was not sure how the stuff burned anyway, except that some of its ingredients provided oxygen for combustion.
One of the Far Venture’s lights came circling around and picked him up. “Dane,” he heard Colonel Cragg’s voice in the ear set. “You’re going the wrong way, man. Turn around and follow the light. Just follow the light.”
It was an odd thing to say. He turned a moment and waved his arm against the light. When he thought of his radio, he switched to the liaison frequency of the spacecraft. “I’m going after Major Noel.” His heart began to pound at the declaration. Now there was no turning back.
“Come on inside. Right now,” Colonel Cragg said.
Dane took up his wading through the stand of lichens. Toward the tank. The throbbing of his heart resolved itself into a surge of power. The fine thrill of discovery that he too was able to make himself move.
“Noel will be picked up. It’s been provided for,” Colonel Cragg said.
Dane waved his arm again in the bright light and kept on wading. The lichen stuff was relatively widely spaced, sparse compared with the stands of the lichen forest.
The earphones crackled with Colonel Cragg’s voice. “Good luck, fellow!”
Dane approached the tank uneasily. If Seckinger was still alive, maybe dazed, he might move about in his confinement and inadvertently swivel the nozzle and its streaking flame around. In which event John Dane’s suit would quickly fry
As if he had divined his thought, Colonel Cragg came on, “We can’t raise Seckinger. Take a look at him, will you?” He switched off but came right on again. “Watch that flame nozzle. It’s on 360-degree swivel.”
“Roger, and thanks,” Dane answered. Fine. Swiveled for 360-degree coverage. All the way around the circle, and dodge that if you can.
He came cautiously up to the side of the midget armor. He couldn’t see Noel. The lichens were thick enough around the tank. After the metal, maybe. Better get the job done and get out of here fast. What the tank was made out of, he hadn’t the foggiest idea. Maybe the same double-alloyed timageel as the hull of the spacecraft. Certainly not the softer metal of the interior partitions. He spoured his light over the tank’s lower plates, in the lichen shadow. He could see no corrosion even where he pushed aside stems in direct contact with the metal.
He straightened and shot his light into the side port. Its metal shutter was not closed over the glassite.
Seckinger hung forward against his shoulder harness. His eyes were open. At least the one eye Dane could see was open, as if he were staring at his instrument panel. Dane could detect no movement of breathing. He rapped sharply on the rim of the port.
Colonel Cragg came in.
Dane said, “I think he’s dead.”
“You think you can make it in with Major Noel?”
“I can try.” Whatinhell did Cragg think he was here for if he didn’t think he could carry seventy-five pounds?
“I’ll send you out some help. Stand by. It will only take a few minutes.”
“Stand by hell,” Dane told him. “I’m getting out of this. I’ll bring him in. No use risking anybody else.”
To underscore his thinking about the spark bolts, a big one banged in. It must have struck the other tank. Its flame could have turned. It seemed to be pointing in a slightly different direction.
“See what I mean?” he demanded, arrogant that he was here and they were there, safe in the spacecraft.
The bolts were farther apart, but they were as sharp as ever. He guessed the next accumulation would be discharged against Seckinger’s tank. Or John Dane. Time to move, boy, he told himself. Time to go home.
He moved to the right and came on Noel face down. Lichens swarmed thick around him.
“Watch your suit,” Cragg admonished him.
He could pick Noel up easily enough, he knew. Probably carry him in his arms, with a few stops for rest. Might even get him over his shoulder. Also could very easily spring a joint in either Noel’s suit or his own. For a quick end. He rolled Noel over carefully and pointed his light through his visor. The mouth was moving. Slowly with heavy breathing.
“He’s alive!” he reported.
Now he had to make it.
With inspiration he remembered his Boy Scout tricks. He unhooked the shank of guard rope from his belt and cut a yard from it with his sheath knife. He lashed Noel’s wrists together as carefully as he could, binding around the heavy cuffs above the intricately articulated handpieces. It was a feat to tie the knot, but he managed it, flinching at the thought of the tank. If they were shooting at the fire.
When he had the job done, he got Noel under the armpits and brought him up on his knees and then to his feet, facing him and holding him against his chest. Next he managed to turn himself enough to support Noel’s chest against his back. He bent forward and pushed Noel’s arms up and over his head and slipped the loop of his lashed wrists under his own chin. When he straightened up, the smaller man’s feet swung clear in a kind of dangling piggy back. His own hands were left free to steady the weight and restrain Noel’s bound arms from jamming up against his neckpiece and helmet. Just pull down on the tag ends of the rope around his wrists. Simple. He walked a few steps and decided that it was going to work. “Be prepared!” he gloated.
“Nice work!” Colonel Cragg congratulated him.
“If you can get it,” Dane said.
“Save your breath, fellow.”
How did Colonel Cragg get in on this, anyway? he suddenly wondered.
It was hard to hold himself to a slow, level gait. He wanted to put distance between him and the metal of the tank in a hurry. Most of all he wanted to climb up the ladder and be inside the Far Venture. He made himself endure the slowest, most cautious movements and hunt around the denser lichen clumps.
Now it occurred to him that Noel was a heavy devil for his size. He was thankful for the smaller mass of Mars. The planet’s surface gravity was 38 per cent of Earth’s. That meant a 150-pound man on Earth would weigh only 57 pounds on Mars. He doubted that Noel weighed 150 pounds. His load should not be 75 pounds, even with the equipment. He caught up short. He had forgotten to remove the weights on Noel’s belt and shoulder harness. No wonder the guy was heavy. He had a good 150 pounds on his back, and then some.
All that weight could play hell with the pressure suits. They were rugged enough and made to withstand falls against hard surfaces, but still he ought to stop and get rid of all the weight he could. It was only being smart. Even if the putting down and picking up again were a dangerous strain, it was only smart to get rid of half his weight. He cursed gently and eased his burden down.
He cut away the four weights from Noel’s belt and shoulders and finally the anklet weights.
Two bolts struck hard, so close together their flashes blended. Dane straightened up and looked around. The fire was gone from the other tank. He couldn’t locate it. The flame of Seckinger’s tank had swung around more than 90 degrees. A little more and it would have reached them
Then he noticed that the line of fire was drifting, swinging closer. It was arcing slowly around. At them! He eyed the distance to the tank. The flame would easily reach where he stood over Noel. At its present angle he could see that clearly, shooting out the way it did, more than two hundred feet from its nozzle.
“Run for it, boy!” Colonel Cragg sounded off in his ears. “Save yourself! Run for it! That last bolt knocked it on traverse. Run!”
Fifteen or twenty yards would do it! “God damn you!’ he raged. “If you hadn’t forgotten the weights, we’d be out of range now!”
All the while he was busy. Automatically and desperately busy. Fighting for the calm to move smoothly, he pulled Noel up and eased him into position.
The earphones were ominously quiet. They’re keeping their mouths shut, he thought. So they won’t rattle me. He couldn’t have even a minute left, no matter how slow the traverse. Already the relentless second hand of flame was passing three o’clock to his six o’clock. Sobbing for breath, he thrust his head up into the loop of Noel’s arms and churned forward into an urgent shuffle.
No time for caution now. Decompression was the lesser of the evils. Stumble and fall, and it was over. He knew that, but still he did not curb his lunges against the lichens that thrust back against his legs.
He tried to look where he was placing his feet, at what the next step would bring to defeat or circumvent, but it was more than a human could do not to look back over his shoulder at the triggered fire.
It was lancing ahead of him, now practically at his side, so close that nothing but the insulated suit kept him from feeling its fierce heat. He was inside the peak of its range.
Doggedly he bent forward to the business of putting foot in front of foot. He had lost, but it was still going to be a good try!
They kept the searchlight directly on the path he trod. As long as he looked down, it could not blind him, and under its brilliance every detail of his footing stood clearly forth. Except for the tangling lichens. Except for the damned tangling lichens he would have made it.
Now he waited for the bite of the fire or the quick boiling death of decompression. The instant his suit leaked his air pressure, his blood would boil. How does it feel when your blood boils? How does it feel in the instant before consciousness blacks out forever? The next tick of the second hand on his watch might be the last He would not feel the fire when it first licked at him. Its first bite would momentarily be repelled by his suit insulation until the flame wrapped him in and scorched him to a crisp, as the phrase went. Time for one more step maybe. In a detached sort of way he knew his legs were fighting, but he seemed just to be standing there, waiting for the streaking pain. He was annoyed by somebody trying to talk to him, rasping and shouting in his ears. He ought to turn down the volume. Turn it off altogether.
Then he realized that words had meaning. “Take it easy boy. You’ve got it made. Take it easy!”
Dully he stopped and swung around. The fiery arm of the compass had already described its arc past where he stood. Already it pointed past! A great joy burst over him. You made it, boy. You made it!” he gurgled, feeling the smile ripple his face.
“Nice going!” Colonel Cragg was saying, and words to that effect.
“Well,” Dane said aloud, “I’ll be goddamned!”
“So will I,” Colonel Cragg agreed.
He had forgotten about the microphone, but he didn’t mind forgetting a great many things. He was happy. Just goddamned happy. Right now that’s what he was. Happy.
When he got his breath, he was entering in the shadow of the Far Venture. Well, that was to be expected. Seckinger’s tank could not have been two hundred yards out. The lichens were now against the base of the spacecraft’s tail cone where it stood upon the sand. A few more steps, and he came under the airlock. He eased Noel off on the cargo hoist that came down and climbed on himself. He did not know until later of the final spark bolt that came in and exploded Seckinger’s tank.
He was tired and happy. That was all he knew or cared about. So the lichens were in contact with the Far Venture. Tomorrow was a new day, and tomorrow they took off for the blessed Earth.