"Well, I guess I'd feel the same way. But I just came into the locks a
few minutes ago. I'd just pumped the air out of the locks and was ready
to go topside to help you and Morrie when I saw you outside. I didn't
have time to cut your life line loose. You ought to know that if I had
murder in mind, I could have pushed you back into space again."
"I'm sorry, Axel," I said. "But things get screwed up in my mind.
Nothing seems right out here in high space."
"There was nobody around the locks when I entered them," Axel went on.
"Gail and I were working in the machinery cabin till she got worried
and asked me to check up on you. I figured I'd give you a hand. Joel's
in the control cabin."
He paused and I said nothing. We both knew who'd tried to kill me and
who probably was responsible for Morrie's death. That piece of paper
didn't get in Morrie's helmet by accident. The entire paper supply was
in Spartan's chartroom.
"Why?" Axel asked slowly, a trace of accent creeping into his voice. It
sounded like _vy_. He stared at me in utter perplexity. "Is Dr. Spartan
crazy, too?"
I remembered something that had happened--ages ago, it seemed,
although it had been less than two hours before. "I was in Spartan's
cabin during the time we went through the meteor cloud, Axel. I found
something there."
"Yes?"
"Yes. A piece of paper--with our names on it. Morrie's was at the top
of the list. Then mine. Warner Joel's name had been crossed out and
written in again after yours. At the bottom there was Gail's name with
a question mark after it."
"A roster of the crew?"
"Perhaps. But the question mark puzzled me. Now I believe he had listed
us in the order of execution--in the order of expendability, so to
speak."
"It is a ridiculous idea," said Axel.
"He killed Morrie and tried to kill me," I said. "We were Numbers One
and Two on the list."
Axel blinked his eyes. Then he looked at Morrie swaying upright, held
in place by his magnetic boots. "First we must take the dead man into
the ship," he said. "Later we talk about it, Bill. Yust you and I."
We dragged Morrie into the main cabin. Gail was still in the machinery
room, and we called Spartan on the intercom. When he came through the
door and saw Morrie stretched out on his sleeping bag, he glanced at
him as he might have at a soiled spot on the rug.
"What happened?" he asked.
I told him just what I'd found, purposely omitting my narrow escape
from death. I figured that if he wasn't told about this he might give
himself away. But he had shown no surprise at my being alive and he
didn't ask how I'd gotten Morrie inside.
Spartan dropped to his knee beside the body. He picked up Morrie's
helmet and probed the valve with his fingers as Axel had done. "Stuck
valve," he announced. "Inefficiency on the part of the manufacturer.
I'll make a full report of this when I get back to the earth." I noted
he said "when _I_ get back." I sensed he didn't expect much company on
the return trip. Today's events had proved it.
"What do we do now, sir?" Axel asked respectfully.
"Give him a space burial, of course," said Spartan. He turned to me.
"Within the next few days, you can make an oral report on the incident
and I'll transcribe it on the tape recorder. We'll need it for the
officials when we get back to earth." He paused and looked down at
Morrie. "Our young friend has discovered a second great reality in
space, I fear. The reality of death."
He turned on his heel and went back to his ivory tower.
I reached down and picked up Morrie's helmet. I felt inside the valve.
The piece of paper which Axel had replaced was gone now. Dr. Spartan
had removed the evidence of murder.
We put Morrie's helmet on his head and carried his body into the locks.
After we put on our own helmets, we emptied the locks of air and pushed
the body out into space. Then we went to tell Gail.
_Chapter 10_
Axel and I did not get a chance to have our talk immediately. For one
thing, I was completing my disciplinary tours of duty imposed by Dr.
Spartan and, for another, I was faced with the extra duties imposed on
me by the death of Morrie.
Spartan had not attempted again to take my life, a fact that seemed
very strange to me. He continued to thrive on his hatred for all of us,
particularly Axel and me. Understandably, he wasn't quite as harsh with
Gail. Toward Joel he seemed to have adopted a special manner. On the
surface he was as curt toward him as toward the others, but I noticed
that Joel was given light duties, while the rest of us got the menial
tasks and the tough ones. Not that this mattered, because to be busy
was not to be bored. But Joel was Spartan's fair-haired boy, there was
no doubt about that. Perhaps Spartan saw need for an ally, or maybe he
planned to use him for things that were to come.
Joel was elated because his chief often invited him into the chartroom
for a meal, or to discuss adjustments in our orbit. And I am sure Joel
reported every slip of the tongue Axel and I made which showed our true
feelings toward Spartan.
Before my extra duty--and Gail's--ended, we reached the middle part
of our voyage. At this point we had achieved the maximum speed for
the trip, which was 40,000 miles per _hour_. This was far short of the
ship's theoretical speed of 100,000 miles per _second_, but Mars was
too near the earth for that kind of travel.
Planners of the trip had computed several possible routes to Mars. The
shortest, a mere 40 million miles, would be undertaken when our earth
and Mars were nearest each other. Such a route would be like cutting
across a vacant lot from one street to the next parallel street.
However, there would be fences to climb in the form of the sun's pull
of gravity. The ship would have to use power from the first day till
the last, and much pay load would have to be sacrificed.
The second route would use a minimum of fuel and maximum time. We would
accelerate to an orbit intersecting the paths of the earth and Mars.
Then the motors would be cut and we would coast in free flight to our
destination, where we would decelerate. But such a trip would take from
five to seven years.
Our actual path was a compromise between the two. We would use a
minimum of fuel and a minimum of time. It was faster than plan 2, but
more economical than plan 1. We would accelerate to a good speed, coast
awhile on the planned orbit, then decelerate. Had we enough supplies,
we might have remained on Mars about three months. However, every
ounce of supplies we would use on Mars had to be shipped separately on
conventional, unmanned rocket ships which were now orbiting Mars. Three
ships of this type had been fired from the earth two years before. One
of these would take us from the Jehad and back again, just as we had
boarded the Jehad from the earth. The other two would be left on Mars.
But only three weeks of supplies could be shipped. After our return to
the Jehad, we would orbit for about 75 days, when Mars and the earth
would be in position for our return trip.
Even though we had more work than usual, the trip grew boring after
Gail and I completed our disciplinary duty. Then we changed our "day"
from 25 to 24 hours, replacing the five-hour shifts, which had included
a shift for Morrie, to six-hour shifts. Following through on our dull
routines, we realized why Morrie had cracked up. But the rest of
us showed no signs of this, and even Joel bore up well. Perhaps the
headshrinkers who passed on us were entitled to one mistake. We figured
_one_ despite the fact that Dr. Spartan could not be considered a
direct hit on the psychological target. However, Spartan was a good
spaceman, just as Nero had been good at his job, though more than
slightly cracked.
Then, as we neared the end of the middle stage of the trip, we picked
up a new kind of signal from Mars on our electronic equipment. The
first, undoubtedly a radar beam, continued as before. But the second
was on a longer wave length and was undoubtedly a radio transmission.
It came to us as a deep chirping sound, and Axel suggested the Martians
were trying to communicate with us.
"Maybe words of welcome," he said, adding, "or warning against
trespassing."
Then the middle portion of our voyage ended. Mars was now a discernible
disc and the gyroscope twisted the ship around so that its tail was
headed toward our destination. The motors were fired and the long
period of deceleration began.
While this was being done by Spartan, with Joel assisting him in the
control room, Gail, Axel and I were together in the main cabin, and we
had our first full discussion on what might lie ahead.
"Spartan might have had a change of heart," Gail said, always hopeful.
"He really hasn't done anything out of line since he tried to take
Bill's life."
"At that time," said Axel, "we believed--and he did, too--that there
would be suffering from lack of water. However, we have been able to
distill water for irrigating the garden by using the vacuum of the air
locks. There is plenty to drink--if we're careful not to waste it--and
for our dehydrated food. We can even do a washing once in a while."
He smiled and rubbed his hands over his dirty T-shirt. "Now it is not
necessary to reduce the size of the crew because of lack of water."
"Why didn't he wait before trying it in the first place?" I asked.
"Morrie Grover had to be eliminated," Axel explained. "Spartan gave
his reasons. He said there was no prison aboard the ship, hinting that
Morrie should be confined. He figured that what had happened once
could happen again; that Morrie might very well flip under further
pressure."
"And was I dangerous or unstable?" I demanded.
"Neither," Gail broke in to answer for Axel, "but he considered you
expendable and in his way."
"You fought for Gail," Axel said. "Spartan wants no interference when
he tries to have his way."
"He's as crazy as poor Morrie," said Gail.
"In a different way," said Axel, "I've known Doc a long time. Went to
the moon with him. He's pushed by ambition and the dislike of sharing
credit for a job well done. He was very disturbed when the newspapers
gave a bigger play to the Loring-Drake wedding than to the objectives
of the Mars flight. Spartan wanted to be the only hero."
"Isn't that why we're all making this trip? To win credit, fame,
glory--or whatever else you want to call it?"
"Partly. There is also something else," said Axel.
"The old college try," I said. "Just what is the reason for going to
Mars? It's costing six billion dollars. We couldn't bring back anything
worth that much."
"Knowledge," said Gail.
"Is it knowledge that'll do any good?" I asked.
"We don't know," said Gail. "Remember Columbus? He was tossed into
prison. People accused him of ruining the Spanish government through
his crazy trips to far-off lands. There wasn't much gold, people said,
without realizing that wasn't what really mattered; that the value of
the discovery of the new world couldn't be figured in terms of dollars
and cents. So will it prove it be, I'm sure, with Mars."
"Okay," I said, "suppose the trip is worth it. Why are _we_ going?
Particularly if there's no real money in it."
"Soldiers don't get rich," said Axel. "And how many of them risk their
lives to win wars, or even to save a comrade, or perform other acts of
bravery."
"Couldn't you call that glory seeking? Selfishness, in other words?"
"Do you call martyrs glory seekers because they die for principles and
beliefs?"
"Not many men--sane ones, that is--become martyrs intentionally," I
said.
"There are two kinds of selfishness that rule our lives, Bill Drake,"
said Gail. "One is self-preservation, which makes a man kill to defend
himself. The other is race-preservation, which includes preservation of
ideals and beliefs necessary for race progress. Men will die and become
martyrs for that."
"One kind of preservation makes you kill, another makes you get
killed," I said. "It doesn't make sense."
"No," said Axel. "But Gail is right. That is the way it works out.
Would you call Willy Zinder a martyr?"
"No," I told him. "Willy took a chance and got killed. I suppose he was
a hero, though."
"Willy Zinder was murdered," Axel said bluntly.
"He was _what_?"
"Murdered, I said. Spartan didn't intend for Willie to be killed. He
only wanted Willy washed out, but he planned the accident."
Gail gasped.
"He wanted Gail to go to Mars," Axel added.
"But I thought it was my idea," said Gail. Then she paused. "But he did
fall in with the idea rather suddenly when I suggested it. Maybe he did
plan it all along. But how--what makes you think it was murder?"
"Spartan was the last man to inspect the controls on Willy's capsule.
They had been inspected by others before him and called okay. But it
would have been easy for Spartan to gimmick the re-entry controls so
that Willy would return to the atmosphere ninety minutes too soon. Such
an event would make it appear that Willie had become confused, or had
panicked. You remember he put Gail Loring on the control board just
before the accident? He wanted her to believe she'd been responsible.
And for a time, she felt she had been."
"But you have no real proof, Axel," said Gail.
He shook his head. "I did not suspect it was anything but an accident
until I learned that Spartan killed Morrie Grover and then tried to
kill Bill. Also, Bill told me of that little death list Spartan had.
Only then did I know that Spartan had killed Willy Zinder."
"Just to get me aboard!" Gail said. Her voice was almost a whisper.
"He wanted to marry you, of course, but you changed his plans. His
objections to your plans would have looked suspect and he did not
have unlimited power on the earth to force you into marriage against
your will. Besides, the platonic marriage finally decided on did not
interfere with his plan. He'd decided Bill would die before the return
to earth."
"He'd made such a big thing of a six-man crew so he could take you
along," I told Gail. "We're doing okay now with five--" I stopped. Dr.
Spartan had entered the room.
He surveyed the group with angry eyes. I wondered how long he had been
listening and how much he had heard.
"Relieve Warner Joel in the control room, Ludson," he said.
Joel had another hour to go before his relief was due, but Axel rose.
"Yes, sir," he said.
"Miss Loring, it is time you started preparing our next meal, isn't it?"
"It's Bill Drake's turn in the galley, sir," she said.
"You will take it this time. Drake will take over the duty the next
time it is yours. I wish to talk to him." He turned to me. "Will you
come into my cabin, Drake?"
"Yes, sir," I said.
I followed him through the door and we entered the chartroom. You don't
walk into that room, you drop into it. The corridor which separates
the two parts of Spartan's cabin is equipped with small doors opposite
each other and in the approximate center of the craft. You must pull
yourself up to the opening and slide through by aid of centrifugal
force.
Spartan was standing opposite the door when I came through. I dropped
to the floor beside him and he gestured for me to sit down on the floor.
"Drake," he said, "I understand you had some difficulty bringing
Grover's body into the ship after you found it."
This was the first time he mentioned what I knew he knew. "A very minor
difficulty, sir," I said.
"For your information, Warner Joel saw the entire episode on the
television screens in the control room. You were in view most of the
time. It looked as if your safety line broke."
"It became disengaged, sir," I replied.
"Disengaged? How did that happen?"
"I don't know," I said. "And, as you recall, I had a short supply of
oxygen in my tank. I used Grover's tank to jet to the ship."
He scowled at me in disapproval. "You call that a minor difficulty?"
His hand, I noticed, was on the butt of the dart pistol, but he made no
move to draw it.
"I survived," I said, keeping my face noncommittal.
"Then you wouldn't consider a difficulty serious unless you did not
survive it?" Was it my imagination or was he deliberately toying with
me?
"Most serious, sir,"
He thought for a moment. "From now on, Drake, you will avoid dangerous
tasks. You are slightly accident prone and you might get into serious
difficulties, which would not be in the best interests of our mission.
I need a full crew to do our work on Mars."
"Thank you, sir," I said.
"You may go."
I returned to the main cabin, realizing that Spartan had spoken plainly
enough. He knew that I knew he'd tried to kill me and he was now
granting me a reprieve, probably because he figured he might need an
extra pair of hands on Mars. However, he had warned me--if I wasn't a
good boy, he might change his mind and decide I was expendable.
_Chapter 11_
We were a mere million miles from Mars, traveling at the comparatively
snail-like speed of 12,000 miles an hour--a shade over the escape
velocity on Mars' surface--when Spartan made his next move.
He announced over the intercom that a serious accident had occurred.
The air-lock doors had become unfastened in some mysterious fashion
and ten previous gallons of waste water which was being distilled for
irrigation purposes for the garden had escaped as steam.
"It will be absolutely necessary for us to find water on Mars," he
added. "Otherwise only half our crew, maybe only two of us, will be
able to return to the earth. That is all."
It was too damned much, if you ask me. Later, when Axel and I were
alone, I voiced my concern and suspicions.
"It was no accident," said Axel bluntly.
"Right," I said. No one had been in the main cabin at the time, about
an hour before, when the water escaped. Gail had been asleep in her
compartment. I'd been in the machinery room checking the air and
water-cycling equipment. Axel had been in the control room, and Joel
had been in the galley preparing food for the rest of us. "Maybe he
thinks we're stupid," I added. "Anybody could figure out he did it."
"On the log it will look just as Spartan says," Axel told us. "You and
I may never live to contradict it. For that matter, neither may Joel."
"Murder?"
Axel nodded his head. "I think he has been planning for a long time to
return alone."
"But surely--surely not without Gail?"
"If you were Spartan and thought as he did, what would you do? Gail is
the one witness who could endanger him by contradicting his story."
"You think even Gail is in danger?"
Axel shrugged again. "As we mentioned once before, Dr. Spartan is not a
man who likes to share glory," he said. "Besides there are two murders
which would need some explaining."
It seemed incredible, and yet there was a logical order of events
that made Axel's theory plausible. First, Spartan wanted Gail. He had
arranged an accident for Willy Zinder and this accident became murder.
Second, there had been the accidental damaging of the water-cycling
equipment, an incident which had served Dr. Spartan's scheme to cut
down the crew--assuming of course that Spartan never intended any of
us to return, with the possible exception of Gail. This had resulted
in the second murder. Thirdly, he had planned to eliminate me but, for
good reason, had changed his mind: I would be needed when the base was
set up on Mars. Once that was accomplished I could be disposed of. Or,
possibly, Spartan feared hostile creatures on Mars and could not afford
to reduce the size of his crew if fighting could be expected. Now he
had produced a water shortage.
"Supposing you're right, Axel," I said after these thoughts ran through
my mind. "What can we do about it?"
"Nothing--now."
"Later?"
"If we are to live, something must be done," said Axel. "One thing we
must decide, Bill, is just how far we are willing to go."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked. "If it comes to defending my life,
I'll go all out--as far as necessary."
"It isn't that simple," said Axel. "As Spartan said, without
exaggeration, there is water enough for only two--three at the most.
That means two of us, at least, must die--unless we find water on Mars.
Suppose we were to make Spartan a prisoner? What then?"
I realized now what the real problem was. Even as a prisoner, we
would not have the right to execute Spartan just because there was
insufficient water. And how would we choose the other person to be
sacrificed?
"It's a terrible problem, Axel," I said. "Must we decide it now?"
"We must decide it before we leave Mars," he replied. And I agreed. But
I also agreed that we could do nothing now unless we wanted to scuttle
the entire expedition. In spite of Dr. Spartan, in spite of everything,
success of the expedition came first. And ahead of us was Mars--which
could mean death to some of us.
The planet loomed like a red giant on the television screens. The
signals, which we believed to be ominous, were now signals of hope.
If there was life on Mars, there might be water. True, scientists had
pointed out that life, different from ours, might exist without water,
using ammonia, perhaps. For our sakes, we hoped this wasn't so.
We looked thirstily at the polar caps, the northern one diminishing
rapidly, because it was nearly summer in that hemisphere. The southern
cap was growing as winter set in.
But we were still uncertain of our reception. "They're uneasy about
us," Gail told me. "Just think how you'd feel if a fleet of spaceships
from Mars was closing in."
"A fleet? This is only one ship."
"Three rocket ships are already circling Mars," she reminded me. "If
the inhabitants spotted us when we were less than halfway here, they
certainly would know all about those smaller rockets."
"It shouldn't take them long to see we intend no harm," said Joel.
"Unless they're the type who shoot first and ask questions afterwards."
"There may be no common ground for communication at all," Gail said.
"Martians may not be life as we know it."
We'd all read everything we could about Mars before we left the earth.
The question of life on Mars wasn't debatable. There was life, but
whether it amounted to anything more than the vegetation observed by
photo and telescope, was another matter. We tried to imagine plants
using radar and sending messages--the idea seemed absurd.
The canals--originally named by Schiaparelli, who called them _canali_,
the Italian word for _channels_, erroneously translated to read
canals--were so geometrically straight that many people thought they
could not be natural phenomena and were, actually, man-made canals.
There was some oxygen, but how much was an open question. It was hard
to determine because all the tests had to be made through the sea of
oxygen that surrounds the earth. They were not conclusive. There was
water, but the amount could not be determined because the earth's air
is full of water vapor. The climate could be studied. Mars was cold,
but not too cold. At the equator a very warm day was possible, with,
perhaps, temperatures as high as 60 or 70 degrees. Nights could be very
cold, below freezing, even in summer. The ice caps were thin because
they melted rapidly. Generally they were believed to be ice, but a few
scholars thought they might be of carbon dioxide--dry ice. The poles
were cold enough to precipitate carbon dioxide in winter.
There were two kinds of clouds on Mars. Fleecy white ones which
probably were water vapor, and yellowish clouds strongly suggestive of
dust clouds, whipped up by violent storms. Although Mars had thin air,
it could have strong winds.
We could now see the two Martian moons. The furthermost of the two,
Deimos, is only 15,000 miles from the surface of the planet. Its
diameter is about 20 miles, and it revolves around Mars once every
sixteen hours. Since the Martian day is about the same length as the
earth's, being only 37 minutes longer, Deimos would rise in the west
and sink in the east about three days later, being visible and moving
slowly eastward through the entire time. The larger moon, Phobos,
is about thirty miles in diameter, and only 6,000 miles from the
surface of Mars. Even though it is extremely small it would be seen
as a tiny, bright disc from the surface of Mars. Its period is six
hours, therefore it rises in the west three times every Martian day.
It actually circles Mars four times daily but Mars turns once so that
Phobos would appear, to Martian eyes, to circle only three times.
Our problem was not to hit Mars, but to score a near miss. We would
come close enough to be captured by Martian gravity. Then we would
spiral as a satellite, decelerating and tightening our orbit till
we were as close as possible to the group of rockets that had been
fired from the earth with our supplies. We would board one of these,
and then, using electronic controls, would land the three rockets
comparatively close together at a spot in the desert near an oasis that
looked fruitful for exploration.
The most interesting of these oases, of which there were many, were
two oval-shaped greenish brown areas marked on Percival Lowell's maps
as Solis Lacus Minor and Solis Lacus Major--generally called Solis
Lacus. These were about halfway between the equator and the pole in the
northern hemisphere. In 1924 Solis Lacus showed a startling expansion,
growing to almost twice its size and extending northward. Undoubtedly
vegetation existed in profusion in this area. Furthermore, the two
areas were connected by a short canal, which frequently doubled,
forming two canals. Between the oases was desert. Thus, by landing
between the two Solis Lacuses we could learn a great deal about the
physical characteristics of Mars.
At a distance of one million miles, we had to aim carefully at Mars.
The planet was speeding along its orbit at about fifteen miles per
second, in comparison with our speed which was slightly more than
three. If we missed we couldn't catch up because our acceleration was
too slow. We'd have to go home empty-handed.
Our electronic computer worked out the corrections to our line of
flight so that we would be caught by Mars' gravitational field. We
had already located the three unmanned rockets by radar and we had a
small telescope in the control room, plus telescopic lens on the video
cameras to help us. This was lucky, because as we approached Phobos,
Axel called excitedly from the control room.
"We're having trouble with the Martians, Dr. Spartan!"
There was nothing on the television screens to indicate an attack by
spaceship, but we did see an unusual amount of "snow," as if there were
interference. It wasn't until I took my turn in the control room that
I found out the trouble. Axel was there then, having remained to check
out what he was certain was the truth.
"They're jamming our radar," he explained. "It's so fogged up we can't
locate the unmanned rockets."
"Then they're not friendly," I said. I'd suspected they wouldn't
welcome us with open arms, and I think the others had felt the same way.
"Maybe playing safe," he said.
"If we could only find a way to communicate with them," I said. "Maybe
we could make them understand that we're friendly."
Axel shook his head. "Would you believe everything a man from outer
space told you?" he asked. "With three rocket ships circling their
planet, they must expect an invasion, now that a bigger one is
approaching."
"At least they don't have missiles," I said. Then a sudden thought
struck me. "This fogging of the radar may prove something. Maybe they
don't have eyes."