IV

In two days the whole underground city was buzzing with activity. Mark

Hemingway had improvised a laboratory and was isolating the various

minerals of the corridor walls, seeking materials for ammunition.

Major Mattson drilled all the able-bodied men and organized them under

group officers. The crippled men and women were soon co-operating in

a central factory unit, where hand forges, and smelting pits, were

producing crude weapons of war. There were many women working, even at

the heavier tasks. The enfeebled patients lay on their cots and rolled

bandages, or did other light tasks.

Great stores of cooked food were being prepared against the day when

every cook would be in the fighting lines. The able-bodied soldiers

divided their time between drilling under Major Mattson, and erecting

barriers as directed by old Jake, whose practical ingenuity used the

abundant supply of cheap blasting powder to skillfully crumble corridor

walls. Their one power crane heaped the rubble into thick barriers,

each with a narrow defensible slit. Huge boulders were balanced, ready

to fall into the opening when a flash match should be applied to a

cloth fuse.

They had been working a few minutes, on the third morning, when, the

radio outpost at the farthest entrance announced, "The beasts are

coming!"

There were no television screens, but the announcer's description was

horrible enough.

"They've got walking snakes in front--with triangular heads like

rattlers--probably poisonous--but a bite from one of those babies would

be enough anyway, they're twenty feet long. Now they are nearer--I

wondered how they could come so fast--_They're running._ Every damned

one of them has a row of little short legs, that hustle them along....

Their hissing sounds like steam from hundreds of locomotives, even in

this atmosphere."

The announcer quieted down to a sense of awe--"Off to the side, there's

a group of big things ... big as six elephants, with long, heavy tails

dragging, and small heads. They seem to be covered with some kind of

scales.

"Up in the air is a flight of flying lizards, about six feet long I

should guess, and I can see their teeth flashing when a ship gets near.

They keep trying to turn back, but the ships herd them in the air like

a flock of flying sheep. Probably only dangerous when cornered. I

wonder if they are poisonous.

"There's a space of several miles of clear desert behind, and beyond

there is a dark wave of beasts clear to the sky line. I can't see them,

because it is still too dark.... It looks like a black ocean rolling at

us!" The announcer's voice stopped and the silence was oppressive.

"Hell, I've seen worse than that in the D.T.'s," cracked one of the

alcoholics, but his hands trembled as he picked up the largest of the

crude stone throwers. "This pop gun might stop one of the birds, but it

wouldn't do much to the giant elephants."

Major Mattson roared into a megaphone in the huge drill room. "Well,

boys, this is it--We've got plenty to fight and damned little to fight

with. If we can get all the big beasts with the disintegrators before

they break down the barriers, we'll be O.K. The Mars Colony expects

every man to shoot his damndest--_Let's go!_"

The cheering mob, in loose order, ran down the corridors with their

pathetic little guns, Major Mattson and Jake in the lead. Jake leaped

on his new legs like a man of twenty, and roared as if he had found a

new hold on life. The buzz and hum of activity behind them continued.

Forges flared, hammers clanged, and in the distance some of the

patients were singing a martial hymn.

* * * * *

John watched the dark tide approaching the cliff entrance, from his

observation slit high overhead. He leaned as close to it as his oxygen

helmet would allow and spoke quietly into the transmitter.

"They're bringing up the Magnadons. I can see that there is a strange

ape-like creature riding each one and steering it with some kind of a

burning rod. These are about the size of men but they look small in

comparison. I wonder if those apes are in communication with the ships,

or just ordinary desert anthropoids."

He left the explanation to Zingar, back in headquarters, and continued

to report the dawn approach. Overhead, almost a hundred ships hovered

close above the seething flow of animal and reptile life. Several were

near the entrance, and the defenders experimentally tried out their

weapons.

The first barrage was from old explosive shell weapons. But as each

shell flashed and roared toward the ships it seemed to hit an invisible

wall of force about fifty feet from the hull where it exploded in empty

air. The ships were not even rocked, but the Magnadons squealed in

terror. Vibrations of the explosions jarred the door frame, even the

cliff itself.

The disintegrator artillery scarred the thick hulls slightly but the

invisible rays failed to penetrate far, even in a direct hit, and the

weaving ships took most of these shots at glancing angles with no

damage.

The defenders tried their thunder-spreading atomic cannon once.

Its lightning flash struck one of the tiny ships full center and a

gaping hole burst inward and out the rear section of the hull, so

that the morning sky showed through. The defenders cheered when this

was reported. The little ship lurched up into the air, and others

drew near, grappling it with more tractor rays. John, could see the

unconscious forms of old men carried past the ragged hole by helmeted

figures and into another ship, through joined hulls. When the crippled

craft was released it crashed quickly on the still frozen desert sand.

Then it rolled over and lay still. But one shot from the atomic cannon

took the force of one power jacket--and there were only nine jackets

left!

Dr. Henderson ordered the atomic cannon withdrawn to the central

defense area, against that time when the Martian ships would be flying

down the high corridors, directing a river of snakes and flying lizards.

The battle went on with disintegrator rays dropping scores of the

air-screaming, twisting Mars snakes, and one or two of the smaller

group of Magnadons. But the Martian ships, finding that the atomic

cannon was no longer in operation shielded one of the Magnadons with

their hulls as the great beast approached and put its shoulders against

the copper door. The locks held until the doors buckled in the center,

as if hit by a giant battering ram. Air hissed out, and a moment later

the gigantic beast burst through, only to fall trumpeting to the ground

under a disintegrator ray. In thirty seconds it was dead.

But behind it slithered and ran the great snakes, with their gaping

jaws and long dripping fangs. They seemed as numerous as the white

flashing waves of an angry ocean shore. Overhead, the roof was black

with flying lizards, bumping and crowding in the dim shadows, with

ridiculous faint mewing sounds. Stone throwers dropped hundreds of

these, and disintegrators stopped dozens more of the running snakes,

until a wall of dead flesh protected the second defensive barrier.

* * * * *

Major Mattson gave the order, and a flash and roar of blasting powder

dropped a great boulder into place. The corridor seemed almost still,

shut off from the jungle sounds of their inhuman enemies. The men

retreated in good order to the next defense wall. They realized that

their ammunition must be conserved against the real menace, the

thundering herd of Magnadons, with their guiding, sheltering ships....

The first corridor entrance was burst through after ten minutes by one

of the great beasts, which fell in the gap and had to be pulled back by

the ships. Boulders rolled out like pebbles from further blows, until

the opening was wide enough for a protecting ship to fly through, low

over the sandy floor, with a Magnadon nosing behind it. The great feet

thumped deliberately down toward the Earthmen, plunging ten inch tracks

into the packed sand, each as large as a small round table. Shooting

the apes from their backs did not stop them.

John had withdrawn from the lookout post just as the first entrance

door crashed. He then operated one of the disintegrator batteries,

until recalled to the council chamber. From there he learned that

the same battle scene was being repeated at each barrier. Sometimes

a Magnadon was killed before it broke through, sometimes after. The

Martians protected the great beasts as well as they could, hoarding

their supply. Zingar said it would take two months to bring a new herd

from the swamp lands, as there was no way to transport them except on

slow surface sleds.

Because of the strange nature of this combat the defenders suffered no

casualties. The snakes and flying lizards were killed and piled up in

front of each barrier. After each firing slit was sealed there was a

brief rest.

At last the defenders attempted strategy. Seeing that under the present

conditions it was only a matter of time, Major Mattson called for

volunteers to attempt the capture of a shipload of the Martians to

hold as hostages. About a dozen men made a sortie against the snakes,

knowing it was futile, but succeeding in drawing the ship down over

them. They were sucked up by the tractor rays, and pulled into the

little hull but every man's pockets had been filled with gas capsules,

and, as they fell unconscious under the paralysis mirrors, yellow

clouds of gas filled the ship's cabin until the white bearded old

Martians were unconscious too.

The battle had proceeded nearly to the central defense area, and now

the atomic cannon flashed a hole through the Mars ship, high up in the

hull, causing it to crash. A desperate charge of all the defenders kept

the Mars snakes back long enough to allow the unconscious enemies and

volunteers to be brought back behind the last and strongest barrier.

They made it just before the first of the rescuing ships reached the

spot. Several of the battered and atom shocked men never recovered

consciousness. All were carried to the hospital behind the fighting

front.

Then came a lull in the battle. The Magnadons and ships withdrew,

leaving only the hissing and twisting snakes in the corridor, and a

small observation ship down the tunnel out of range. The flying lizards

took this opportunity to escape. A few snakes that had crawled through

were disintegrated. This was the situation faced by the council of war,

at noon.

Dr. Henderson's white coat was now spattered with blood, where he had

carried and treated some of the wounded. His face seemed old and drawn,

as he addressed the Council.

"It looks bad--If we had a hundred atomic power jackets left, instead

of eight, we might make it. I wonder if they know how limited our

supply is."

* * * * *

Under the emotional situation, Zingar's accent was more pronounced

but intelligible, "Every word we speak is amplified by their distance

receivers. A race that can faintly hear train whistles on earth, and

can see the surface of your planet as if with a large telescope from

the moon, doesn't have much trouble to know what our situation is.

But we have one bargaining point. Old Senegar was in that first ship,

and his intelligence is in ratio to that of the other Martians as one

hundred to one. They would concede almost anything to preserve his

safety."

"But how can we bargain, since we have no way to escape the planet?"

asked John.

"We might hold the old man as a permanent hostage until the time when

Mars is in proximity to Earth again, a year from next August, and the

colony supply ship comes," suggested Mark Hemingway.

"The old man wouldn't live that long," said Zingar quietly. "This

atmosphere would be fatal to him--Let me talk to my father."

"_Your father!_" cried Mary. Quickly adjusting the headphone of the

Mind Sounder she poured out her unconscious sympathy to her lover's

receiving mind. He drew her to him gently, and then turned and faced

the others, still holding her.

"Let me talk to him," he said, "I think I have an idea."

The group walked hurriedly behind Zingar and Dr. Henderson toward the

field hospital area.

There was a silent drama of sympathy in the expression of these two

Martians, as Zingar stood near his father's hospital cot. They spoke

rapidly but quietly in their own language.

"What's he sayin'?" growled Jake. "Can we trust the young squirt?"

"I don't understand," said John. "I only know a few of their words. But

they keep repeating one word which means 'cripples,' or 'sick'."

At last the young Martian turned and spoke to them, but mostly to

Mary--"How much do you love your native planet? Would you be willing

to stay with us--all of you to be healed and made well, and serve to

invigorate the stock of the Mars men?"

There was a buzz of excitement and argument. Most of the Earthmen who

had not seen the hidden Martian city were violently opposed, but a few

were too sick to care--and many remembered that they were lost anyway,

when the atomic power jackets should be exhausted. John stood close to

Molaee and looked at her questioningly.

"Don't stay for my sake, John," she said sadly, "our instincts draw us

to each other, but our minds are a whole generation apart. We would

have constant misunderstandings. Remember, I am as old as Zingar."

He hesitated a moment, then wrote, "But Mary and Zingar are planning to

be married."

"That is their business," she replied looking at Mary. "Perhaps it is

a reasonable chance to take when the husband is the older mentality,

but I don't want a mental child for a husband. Besides I--I have been

remembering Nogar, my former lover--before I saw you."

Their isolated dialogue was only a small murmur in the vocal excitement

of the throng of Earth people, which suddenly quieted as Major Mattson

boomed over the crowd with his megaphone--"Well, shall we vote on it?"

But Zingar raised his hand and cried, "Wait!--My father should speak

first."

The old man sat painfully up in his bed and spoke into the microphone

of the old amplifying set so that his sibilant whispering voice echoed

the broken accents down the high vaulted ceilings of the great cave

space.

"Listen to me well, O selected people of a youthful race--This violence

has been a vast folly. I should have realized before.... My sense of

the aesthetic was offended by your ugliness, especially by the sick and

crippled among you, so that I did not realize your one great virtue

which cancels all the rest. I have observed the co-operative efficiency

of your defenses, especially the strange spirit of sacrifice in the

little band who came out to trick us. We were not ready for that,

for we have no such spirit of unselfishness among us. It is a virtue

that Mars needs. Your very handicaps have taught you a lesson of group

action--a lesson of inestimable worth. We need every one of your unique

personalities in our community life. It will be a simple thing to heal

you of your diseases, and to prolong your lives. The memory of your

sufferings will give new youth and a new spirit to Mars--life, perhaps

even prove a biological salvation. Stay with us--we wish you well...."

The old man fell back exhausted--and closed his eyes. John leaped to

the platform, and cried to the several hundred men and women before

him, "That settles it! I'm for staying...."

He made an impassioned speech and stepped down. Others followed, but he

was not very attentive to their words. Hilda crept to him, unobserved

in the excitement. She said, "Oh, John, my hand can be healed--Now I

will be proud to marry you--as you asked me three years ago, if you

still want me...."

"Why, you dumb Bunny! As if a bum flipper had anything to do with

that...." He took her in his arms. They did not even vote when the

hands were called for--or know that the decision had been made....

* * * * *

When the supply ship arrived, a year and a half later, there were

no signs of the colony left. Spread around on the sand were various

artificial limbs, crutches, spectacles, hearing devices, and bits

of clothing, scattered in between many bleached and weather beaten

bones....

The ship's crew gathered up these medical relics as proof and sadly

turned away. The captain thought it rather a pity since the ship

had been sent to bring the sick ones home, in response to a wave of

indignation aroused two years before by Hilda's broadcast from the

District Hospital.

They carried a few of the bones back, carelessly scooped up by the

electric shovel that gathered the crutches and other paraphernalia.

An obscure scientist's assistant at Johns Hopkins tried to arouse

excitement by claiming that these were not human bones, but from

anthropoid apes--However, there was another war brewing, and nobody

would listen to him.