Leeda flopped to the sand without an answer. Her mouth was full of
tongue. The pebble she had been sucking feeling like a file against her
lips. Every muscle ached; every cell screamed for moisture.
After a long, wordless rest, Rick hauled himself to his feet and faced
Leeda. "Can't trust you now. You'll sneak off and leave us alone."
Leeda looked at him scornfully. "Don't worry about that. I meant what I
said. I want to see you die."
"Still got to watch you," Rick replied. He turned to Jocco. "You get
some sleep first. I'll watch her. Later I'll wake you to take over."
Leeda molded a hip hole in the sand and settled down. The night cold
had long descended when the two men changed shifts. All through his
trick, Rick had sat facing her. She lay quietly, simulating sleep.
At last Jocco began to nod and doze. For a while he managed to jerk
himself awake; but he finally fell over and slept.
Cautiously she crept over to him and shook his arm. He didn't stir.
Satisfaction touched with grim humor warmed her internally as she
bent over him and removed his boots. She moved with them off into the
desert. Satisfied at last that she was far enough from camp, she heaved
the boots into the desert darkness.
She wasn't gone long, but even so she had barely settled down again
when she heard Rick shake Jocco, "Wake up, you fool. I'd like to kill
you for this. The girl could have crept off and you wouldn't have known
it."
"I'm sorry, Rick. But I'm tired. I couldn't help it."
Rick began to cuss but stopped. "What's the use. Go back to sleep. I'll
finish your watch."
* * * * *
It wasn't until they were ready to move the next morning that Jocco
noticed that his boots were missing. He turned to Leeda. "You stole
them."
"Don't be a damned fool," Rick answered. "She was watched all night.
You probably had a nightmare and heaved them out into the desert. Let's
look."
Leeda watched them search in an ever widening circle. Limping and still
bootless, Jocco moved with Rick back to the camp.
"You'll have to try it as is," Rick was saying as they came close.
"But I can't," Jocco whined. "The dust almost drove me crazy with them
on. What will I do this way?"
"That's your problem," Rick said callously. "Come or stay here alone.
It's up to you." He turned to Leeda, "Glad to see you look so lousy
this morning. At least you are suffering some, too. If you're telling
the truth, we'll be at the pool tomorrow."
They were on the way about a half hour when the sand around Jocco's
feet began to boil. Almost immediately his voice rose shrilly and then
disappeared except for twitchings on his cheeks and lips.
"What's wrong, Jocco?" Rick asked.
"His feet," Leeda said laconically.
It looked as though Jocco was sinking into the sand. Then the red
stains spreading into the sand told a different story.
"Razor-back Lizards," Leeda informed Rick. "They're all over the place.
Come to life during the day when it's a little warmer. Our footwear
keeps them off. But Jocco's feet haven't any protection so they can get
at him. They'll slice away at him a fraction of an inch at a time.
In fifteen minutes there won't be anything left but his suit and a
skeleton. Pleasant death, eh Rick? But after all, they do have to eat,
as you have said."
Jocco toppled and lay twitching on his side; the legs of his
Protecto-suit apparently buried in the sand. The pants legs were
strangely deflated except for the twisting and squirming of the unseen
Lizards as they ate their way into the upper part of the suit. It took
less than fifteen minutes. At the end, Leeda looked away. Once, long
ago, she had watched in horror as the blood-colored tide burst into the
helmet of a prospector friend of Terry's and hers. It was a sight that
she had seen many times later in nightmares. Now as she imagined it,
she heard Rick suck in his breath sharply and say hoarsely, "No! No!"
"Shall we be moving on?" she asked at last. The suit filled only with
fleshless skeleton, lay deflated on the ground.
Rick's face was a dull sandy yellowish hue. He nodded and turned off
into the desert without a word.
That third day was shooting pains, a chest that protested with every
step, legs that could not be felt but somehow magically functioned.
Many times Leeda was ready to quit. She began to stagger and weave
erratically across the sand. The only thing that kept her going was
the obsession of revenge that seemed to provide a limitless source of
power whenever she seemed weakest. And Rick was getting bad; he seemed
about finished. How he managed to keep moving, Leeda could not imagine.
He fell repeatedly; but pulled himself doggedly back to his feet and
stumbled after her.
When she flopped to the sand toward nightfall, he gestured her to her
feet. And when she failed to get up, he came over and dragged her
roughly erect. "Can't stop--never get up--gotta keep moving--until we
die--or get there. Move!"
But the Martian night accomplished what she could not. Landmarks became
indistinguishable; they soon would have been lost.
Lying down, Leeda adjusted her head-bubble so that it became opaque;
conserving the warmth that leaked off so rapidly from a transparent
object.
At long intervals she tried to move away from Rick who had settled
right beside her. But each time his hand grabbed her firmly, forcing
her back to the sand. He apparently intended to stay awake all night so
she wouldn't sneak off.
* * * * *
When the morning of the fourth day arrived, they rose and once more
moved stiffly, without a word for one another, across the wastes on the
route that Leeda had selected.
Without quite knowing how it had happened, Leeda twice found herself
on her knees on the sand. She knew she had been staggering; that her
strength had long past left her; yet she was still amazed that her
legs would not do the bidding of her mind. Each time she fell, Rick
jerked her roughly to her feet and supported her until her legs moved
automatically again.
His eyes were red-rimmed; his lips a ghastly slash of scabs and sores.
About mid-morning he began to mumble incoherently, as though his voice
alone could keep him sane. The only recognizable word that slid through
his lips was, "Water! Water!"
It beat like the tone of a bass Callisto Satan Temple drum on Leeda's
strained mind until she began to vision waterfalls and huge cakes of
ice on the desert before her. Reality and imagination became mixed
until she wondered if there was a place called Mars and if the past few
days were real.
And it became noon; then mid-afternoon.
Suddenly the water-hole appeared as a dark spot on the featureless
landscape before them. Distinguishable only by the lichens that
surrounded it.
They both broke into a shuffling, jerky trot. Leeda was yards behind
Rick when he reached the mud-hole. Instead of flinging himself down
to the moisture, he stiffened, then his voice broke into a babbling
cackle. He pointed to the perma-metal sign staked in the watery mud. A
Death's Head stood embossed on its surface; the Interplanetary symbols
for DEATH etched into the age-resisting metal.
Then his hand moved like doom to the skeleton that lay, head touching
the red mud, on the edge of the hole.
Ignoring Leeda completely, his voice broke into a hideous sing-song
of wild laughter; and the word, "Poison," tumbled endlessly from his
throat.
He stopped abruptly and turned to the desert. The lines of agony on
his face smoothed out and the old sardonic grin twisted its way to his
cheeks. Only his eyes gleamed madly. With a tremendous effort, he said
loudly, "Water! There. Only a little way off."
And he staggered off into the desert, his arms extended eagerly, his
hands fluttering aimlessly.
Leeda watched him go. Watched him chase his mirage out into the Martian
wastes that extended for hundreds of miles without the slightest trace
of water. Watched him stagger into oblivion until he became small with
the distance.
Kneeling, she pushed the mud aside in the water-hole forming a small
trough into which the red water could seep. Then she advanced the
gauge on her head-bubble until she was breathing almost pure oxygen.
Patiently she breathed in the mixture. After fifteen minutes, she
removed the head-bubble and bent her lips to the accumulated water. Her
oxygen saturated system would easily permit her to go a full ten or
more minutes without having to take a breath.
Twice she lay back and let the water regain its level. Then drank.
Satisfied at last, she placed the head-bubble once more onto its
flange in the suit.
Rising, she pulled the poison sign from the mud and carried it over to
the skeleton. There she eased herself to the sand and gently placed her
hand on the head of the skeleton.
"We did it, Terry," she said gently. There was triumph in her voice; a
feeling of peace and wholeness once more inside her. "The fools thought
they could beat us. Four days to make an easy five hour walk. Circling;
around and around. Waiting. Waiting and planning, and killing. Now they
are dead and I can give you a decent burial.
"Forgive me, my Darling for moving you over here that first night. But
I needed the sign and you to get even. Thanks for your help."