Fifty-five pioneers had died on the "bridge of
bones" that spanned the Void to the rusty plains
of Mars. Now the fifty-sixth stood on the red planet,
his only ship a total wreck--and knew that Earth
was doomed unless he could send a warning within hours.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1943.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"You're crazy, man," snapped Steven Alexander, "you can't take off for
Mars alone!"
Scott Nixon thumped the desk in sudden irritation.
"Why not?" he shouted. "One man can run a rocket. Jack Riley's sick and
there are no other pilots here. The rocket blasts in fifteen minutes
and we can't wait. This is the last chance. The only chance we'll have
for months."
Jerry Palmer, sitting in front of the massive radio, reached for a
bottle of Scotch and slopped a drink into the tumbler at his elbow.
"Hell, Doc," he said, "let him go. It won't make any difference. He
won't reach Mars. He's just going out in space to die like all the rest
of them."
Alexander snapped savagely at him. "You don't know what you're saying.
You drink too much."
"Forget it, Doc," said Scott. "He's telling the truth. I won't get to
Mars, of course. You know what they're saying down in the base camp,
don't you? About the bridge of bones. Walking to Mars over a bridge of
bones."
The old man stared at him. "You have lost faith? You don't think you'll
go to Mars?"
Scott shook his head. "I haven't lost my faith. Someone will get
there ... sometime. But it's too soon yet. Look at that tablet, will
you!"
He waved his hand at a bronze plate set into the wall.
"The roll of honor," said Scott, bitterly. "Look at the names. You'll
have to buy another soon. There won't be room enough."
One Nixon already was on that scroll of bronze. Hugh Nixon,
fifty-fourth from the top. And under that the name of Harry Decker,
the man who had gone out with him.
The radio blurted suddenly at them, jabbering, squealing, howling in
anguish.
Scott stiffened, ears tensed as the code sputtered across millions of
miles. But it was the same old routine. The same old message, repeated
over and over again ... the same old warning hurled out from the ruddy
planet.
"_No. No. No come. Danger._"
Scott turned toward the window, started up into the sky at the crimson
eye of Mars.
What was the use of keeping hope alive? Hope that Hugh might have
reached Mars, that someday the Martian code would bring some word of
him.
Hugh had died ... like all the rest of them. Like those whose names
were graven in the bronze there on the wall. The maw of space had
swallowed him. He had flown into the face of silence and the silence
was unbroken.
The door of the office creaked open, letting in a gust of chilly air.
Jimmy Baldwin shut the door behind him and looked at them vacantly.
"Nice night to go to Mars," he said.
"You shouldn't be up here, Jimmy," said Alexander gently. "You should
be down at the base, tending to your flowers."
"There're lots of flowers on Mars," said Jimmy. "Maybe someday I'll go
to Mars and see."
"Wait until somebody else goes first," said Palmer bitterly.
Jimmy turned about, hesitantly, like a man who had a purpose but had
forgotten what it was. He moved slowly toward the door and opened it.
"I got to go," he said.
The door closed heavily but the chill did not vanish from the room.
For it wasn't the chill of the mountain's peak, but another kind of
chill ... a chill that had walked in with Jimmy Baldwin and now refused
to leave.
Palmer tipped the bottle, sloshed the whiskey in the glass.
"The greatest pilot that ever lived," he said. "Now look at him!"
"He still holds the record," Alexander reminded the radio operator.
"Eight times to the Moon and still alive."
The accident had happened as Jimmy's ship was approaching Earth on
that eighth return trip. A tiny meteor had struck the hull, drilling a
sharp-cut hole. It had struck Andy Mason, Jimmy's best friend, squarely
between the eyes.
The cabin had been filled with the scream of escaping air, had turned
cold with the deadly breath of space and frost crystals had danced in
front of Jimmy's eyes.
Somehow Jimmy had patched the hole in the hull, had reached Earth in a
smashing rocket drive, knowing he had little air, that every minute was
a borrowed eternity.
Most pilots would have killed themselves or blown up their ships in
that reckless race for Earth, but Jimmy, ace of all the space-men of
his day, had made it.
But he had walked from the ship with a blank face and babbling lips. He
still lived at the rocket camp because it was home to him. He puttered
among his flowers. He watched the rockets come and go without a flutter
of expression. And everyone was kind to him, for in his face they read
a fate that might be theirs.
"All of us are crazy," said Scott. "Everyone of us. Myself included.
That's why I'm blasting off alone."
"I refuse to let you go," said Alexander firmly.
Scott rested his knuckles on the desk. "You can't stop me. I have my
orders to make the trip. Whether I go alone or with an assistant pilot
makes no difference. That rocket blasts on time, and I'm in it when it
goes."
"But it's foolishness," protested Alexander. "You'll go space-mad.
Think of the loneliness!"
"Think of the coordinates," snapped Scott. "Delay the blast-off and you
have to work out a set of new ones. Days of work and then it'll be too
late. Mars will be too far away."