It all happened so fast I was caught off balance. In the harsh Martian
sunlight human emotions can be as unstable as a wind-lashed dune.
A crazy thought flashed through my mind: Will Molly believe this too?
Will she join these madmen in their wild thirst for vengeance? My need
for her was suddenly overwhelming. Just seeing her face would have
helped, but now more men had emerged from the shacks and I couldn't see
beyond them. They were heading straight for me and I knew that even Bill
would be powerless to stop them.
You can't argue with an avalanche. It was rolling straight toward me,
gathering momentum as it came--not one man or a dozen, but a solid wall
of human hate and unreason.
Bill stood his ground. He had drawn his gun, and he started shouting
that the prints couldn't have been made by my shoes. I chalked that up
to his credit and resolved never to forget it.
I knew I'd have to make a dash for it. I ran as fast as I could, keeping
my eyes on the glimmer of sunlight on rising dunes, and deep hollows
which a carefully placed bullet could have quickly changed into a burial
mound.
A sudden crackling burst of gunfire ripped through the air. Directly in
my path the sand geysered up as the bullets ripped and tore at it.
Somebody wasn't a good marksman, or had let blind rage unnerve him and
spoil his aim. A lot of somebodies--for the firing increased and became
almost continuous for an instant, a dull crackling which drowned out the
whispering and the sighing of the wind.
Then abruptly all sound ceased. Utter stillness descended on the
desert--an unnatural, terrifying stillness, as if nature herself had
stopped breathing and was waiting for someone to scream.
I must have been mad to turn. A weaving target has a chance, but a
target standing motionless is a sitting duck and his life hangs by a
hair. But still I turned.
Something was happening between the well and the shacks which halted the
pursuit dead in its tracks. One of the shacks was wrapped in darting
tongues of flame, and a woman was screaming, and a man close to her was
grappling with something huge and misshapen which loomed starkly against
the dawn glow.
A human shape? I could not be sure. It seemed monstrous, with a bulge
between its shoulders which gave a grotesque and distorted aspect to the
shadow which its weaving bulk cast upon the sand. I could see the shadow
clearly across three hundred feet of sand. It lengthened and shortened,
as if an octopus-like ferocity had given it the power to distort itself
at will, lengthening its tentacles and then whipping them back again.
But it was not an octopus. It had legs and arms, and it was crushing the
man in a grip of steel. I could see that now. I stared as the others
were staring, their backs turned to me, their blind hatred for me
blotted out by that greater horror.
I suddenly realized that the shape was human. It had the head and
shoulders of a man, and a torso that could twist with muscular purpose,
and massive hands that could maul and maim. It threw the hapless man
from it with a sudden convulsive contraction of its entire bulk. I had
never seen a human being move in quite that way, but even as its
violence flared its manlike aspect became more pronounced.
A frightful thing happened then. The woman screamed and rushed toward
the brutish maniac with her fingers splayed. The swaying figure bent,
grabbed her about the waist, and lifted her high into the air. I thought
for a moment he was about to crush her as he had crushed the man. But I
was wrong. She was hurled to the sand, but with a violence so brutal
that she went instantly limp.
Then the brutal madman turned, and I saw his face. If ever monstrous
cruelty and malign cunning looked out of a human countenance it looked
out of the eyes that stared in my direction, remorseless in their hate.
I could not tear my gaze from his face. The hate in it could be sensed,
even across a blinding haze of sunlight that blotted out the sharp
contours of physical things. But more than hate could be sensed. There
was something tremendous about that face, as if the evil which had
ravaged it had left the searing brand of Lucifer himself!
For an instant the madman stood motionless, his ghastly brutality
unchallenged. Then Jeff Winters started for it. Jeff had come to Mars
alone and grown more solitary with every passing day. He was a brooding,
ingrown man, secretive and sullen, with a streak of wildness which he
usually managed to control. He went for the madman like a gigantic
terrier pup, shaggy and ferocious and contemptuous of death.
The big figure turned quickly, raised his arm, and brought his closed
fist down on Jeff's skull. Jeff collapsed like a shattered plaster cast.
His body seemed to break and splinter, and he sprawled forward on the
sand.
He did not get up.
Frank Anders had guns on both hips, and he drew them fast. No one knew
what kind of man Anders was. He hardly ever complained or made a
spectacle of himself. A little guy with sandy hair and cold blue eyes,
he had an accuracy of aim that did his talking for him.
His guns suddenly roared. For an instant the air between his hands and
the maniac was a crackling wall of flame. The brute swayed a little but
did not turn aside. He went straight for Anders with both arms spread
wide.
He caught Anders about the waist, lifted him up, and slammed his body
down against the sand. A sickness came over me as I stared. The madman
bashed Anders' head against the ground again and again. Then suddenly
the big arms relaxed and Anders sagged limply to the ground.
For an instant the madman swayed slowly back and forth, like a
blood-stained marionette on a wire. Then he moved forward with a
terrible, shambling gait, his head lowered, a dark, misshapen shadow
seeming to lengthen before him on the sand like a spindle of flame.
The clearing was abruptly tumultuous with sound. The fury which had been
unleashed against me turned upon the monster and became a closed circle
of deadly, intent purpose hemming him in--and he was caught in a
crossfire that hurled him backwards to the sand.
He jumped up and lunged straight for the well. What happened then was
like the awakening stages of some horrible dream. The madman shambled
past the well, the air at his back a crackling sheet of flame. The
barrage behind him was continuous and merciless. The men were organized
now, standing together in a solid wall, firing with deadly accuracy and
a grim purpose which transcended fear.
The madman went clumping on past me and climbed a dune with his
shoulders held straight. With a sunset glare deepening about him, he
went striding over the dune and out of sight.
* * * * *
I turned and stared back at the camp. The pursuit had passed the well
and was headed for me. But no one paid the slightest attention to me.
Twelve men passed me, walking three abreast. Bill came along in their
wake, his eyes stony hard. He reached out as he passed me, gripping my
shoulder, giving me a foot-of-the-gallows kind of smile.
"We know now who killed Ned," he whispered. "We know, fella. Take it
easy, relax."
My head was throbbing, but I could see the big prints from where I
stood--the prints of a murderer betrayed by his insatiable urge to slay.
I saw Kenny pass, and he gave me a contemptuous grin. He had done his
best to destroy me, but there was no longer any hate left in me.