[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
February 1958
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
There was death above. The Martian Sand Vulture swooped and hissed and
twitched its barbed, poisonous tail in the thin air.
There was death below. The man lay cradled in the pebbly sand. Red sand
that matched the color of his hair and the color of the blood oozing
slowly from the hole in his forehead and trickling greasily along the
inside of his punctured head-bubble. The air whistled thinly through
the corresponding hole in the bubble as the oxygen converter tried
vainly to maintain the proper breathing mixture.
There was death in the muzzle of the gun dangling nonchalantly from
the tall man's gloved hand. It grinned from his face, etched in the
sardonic twist that the purple scar gave to his right cheek. It danced
in the emotionless distances of his eyes.
There was death in every beat of Leeda Carson's heart. With the
adaptability of a pioneer she accepted the fact of death; even that of
her husband's. The last two long Martian years had tested Terry's and
her love; refined it with hardships and discouragement. The menacing
gun was an easy way to rejoin him. But it was too easy; too soft a
response to unwarranted killing. With unrelenting determination, she
kindled and fanned to life a fierce resolve that the three men before
her would pay, as slowly and as painfully as possible, for what they
had done.
Through lips necessarily stiff with the effort of controlled emotion,
she asked, "Why did you kill him?"
"Didn't have anything against him, Ma'am. Had to do it. Showed we meant
business. Easier to handle one than two of you anyway." The eyes of the
tubby man who answered her kept flickering anxiously upward toward
the Sand Vulture. "That thing as dangerous as they say?"
Leeda turned to the third and youngest man. His glance was fixed
hypnotically on the death on the ground. His skin was pale and his
forehead beaded with sweat. She repeated, "What did you do it for?"
"Got into trouble at Canalport. Heard a rumor that you and your husband
had struck a pocket of Martian Sunbursts. Fixed up a deal with a ship's
cargo master to smuggle us back to Earth if we turned your stuff over
to him. He jetted us out here. Left a while ago." The fat man itched
frantically as he answered her. They all itched, Leeda noticed. It
took a long time on Mars before anyone became used to the dust that
penetrated even the Protecto-suits. It produced an agony that demanded
attention; followed by festering sores.
"You talk too much, Fatso," the tall one said angrily.
"What's the difference, Rick?" Fatso said philosophically. "Won't do
her any good."
Rick turned to Leeda. "At least you know the score. Do you want to tell
us where the stuff is, or are you going to make it tough on yourself?"
Eyes like a Razor-back Sand Lizard, Leeda thought. "Out by our
diggings," she answered readily. His eyes moved to the plastic
bubble-house that she and Terry had called home when they weren't
digging. "Search the place if you don't believe me," she suggested. "We
never brought any of them back here with us. We cached them in the cave
until we were ready to go home."
"Then you did strike it?" the young man interrupted eagerly.
She nodded.
Rick turned to the young man. "Search the house, Jocco. She may be
lying."
The Sand Vulture wheeled and made a few low exploratory swoops toward
them as they waited for Jocco. Leeda automatically checked her clothing
to be sure she was completely covered. If that barbed tail touched the
skin, death came--slow, agonizing, sure.