tonight. After waiting a while longer still in the dark to see that
their attacker was not coming, they searched the gloom around for a
place to spend the rest of the night.
Randy found an opening in the dense underbrush ahead of them. Jill and
Ted followed him and his flashlight beam along the trail. Suddenly they
saw him stop dead in his tracks. Ted walked abreast of him.
“What do you see?” Ted asked.
Randy did not reply but instead shot his light ahead into the darkness.
Ted saw before them a huge cave entrance.
“Gosh, do you suppose that’s the den of some wild animal?” Ted asked.
“I don’t know,” Randy answered in a quivery voice. “It seems like a good
place to stay if it isn’t.”
Jill had joined them by now. She too had taken some of the load of the
spare oxygen cartridges.
“Are we going into that spooky place?” Jill asked.
“We can go up to it carefully and shine our light in,” Ted said. “But
we’d better be ready to run if something comes charging out! I wish I
had that gun now!”
Jill hung back as Randy and Ted moved stealthily forward toward the
black cavern entrance. Randy had his light shining directly into it all
the time they were moving. When they were at the threshold of the cave,
they got a good view of the interior.
“It’s not deep at all!” Ted said. “It just goes back a little way.”
“It looks deserted too,” Randy added. “Seems safe to me. What do you
think, Ted?”
“Let’s go inside and see if there’s anything lying around,” Ted
suggested. “If it’s a den, there ought to be bones and things.”
Cautiously they entered the cavern. Its ceiling reached high over their
heads and the opening was festooned with trailing vines and creepers.
Even the jungle growth seemed to have taken over, weeds and thick grass
choking the floor. Boulders of all sizes were scattered around.
“It looks like it hasn’t been used for years and years,” Ted commented.
They flashed the light over the whole interior, but there was no sign of
recent use. There was one other exit—a narrow passage at the rear.
“If we close up that rear opening with a big stone, it ought to be safe
for us to stay here,” Randy said.
Ted agreed with him. They called Jill, and the three shoved a large red
boulder in front of the narrow passage. They divided watches again, but
before relaxing for the night, they replaced their air cartridges with
new ones.
Randy took first watch this time. Ted was very tired from their
exhausting race and had trouble falling asleep, but the next thing he
knew, Randy was shaking him to change watch.
The rest of the night passed without further disturbance. The boys got
softhearted about calling on Jill for her turn, and rather than wake
her, they stood her duty. Another change of air cylinders had to be made
before morning. Ted was able to change Jill’s while she slept.
The orange glow of dawn was a welcome sight to the children. Things did
not seem half so grim in the dawn as they had the night before. The
sun’s feeble rays shone directly into the cave mouth. The boulder
covering the rear opening was still in place.
Ted caught Randy’s eyes staring thoughtfully at the boulder. He wondered
if Randy was thinking the same thing that he was: _What was on the other
side of that mysterious opening?_
“Hadn’t we better be getting back to the open place?” Jill asked, as
they were putting on fresh air tanks again.
“The search party won’t be coming until a few hours yet,” Randy said.
“Besides, it’s not very far.”
Ted knew then that Randy, too, was curious about the opening. He was
stalling their return.
Ted then came right out with it. “I’d sure like to know what’s on the
other side of that rock.”
“Why don’t we go and see?” Randy said eagerly.
“We could go just a little way,” Ted added, glancing at Jill, whose face
showed doubt. “Just a few feet even.”
Jill gave in grudgingly, but she got the boys to promise that they
wouldn’t go far. “Don’t forget, we’ve got some food back there,” she
reminded them, “and I’m getting hungry.”
They left the air cartridges in the cave and walked through the enticing
opening, Ted in the lead. He flicked on his flashlight, for it was pitch
dark. Ahead of him he saw a narrow passageway. Slowly he moved along it,
Randy and Jill right behind him.
[Illustration: _They felt themselves tumbling downward._]
They were completely unprepared for the shock that next came to them.
Suddenly the ground dropped away under their feet, and they felt
themselves tumbling downward!
All three of them cried out in terror as they fell. Finally Ted felt his
body striking a cushioned surface. Then he was rolling down an incline
of the same soft material. Down, down, head over heels he went—deeper
and deeper into the core of the red planet, it seemed.
At last his body stopped turning. Something crashed into him from
behind. Then he heard heavy breathing and gasping and he knew that it
was either Randy or Jill who had collided with him.
“Jill? Randy?” he asked in a shuddery voice, still dazed by their rough
experience.
“Yes,” Randy’s voice came weakly.
“Jill!” Ted cried. “Where are you?”
“Here I am,” she answered, from a few feet away. “What happened to us?”
“I don’t know,” her brother answered dully. He felt around for broken
bones, but he appeared to be uninjured.
“Are you two all right?” he asked Jill and Randy.
They said they thought so. By now Ted could see their forms very
faintly. There was light coming from somewhere. Their next task was to
try to find a way out of this dismal place.
“I knew we should have gone back!” Jill complained bitterly. “Now we
probably never will!”
“I’m sorry, Sis,” Ted said lamely. “You were right. I’m sure glad we
changed our air tanks before we left!”
“Let’s start looking for a way to the top,” Randy said. “The search
party will never find us down here.”
They discovered that the flashlight had been smashed in the fall. They
would have to depend now on catlike vision to show them the way. As
nearly as Ted could make out, they were still in a corridor. It
stretched mysteriously ahead of them, turning a bend about fifty feet
away.
“That seems to be the only way we can go,” Ted said, looking forward.
“We certainly can’t climb back up the way we came down.” He looked
behind at the steep, rugged incline they had so unexpectedly tumbled
down. The slope was covered with a matting of lichens or moss that had
broken their fall.
They walked along the corridor. Finally the light at the far end began
to get brighter.
“It looks like daylight ahead!” Jill said hopefully.
They increased their pace in the hope of finding a way leading back to
the surface of the ground. They made a final turn in the winding
underground aisle. Then the corridor abruptly blossomed into a mammoth
open area, still underground.
The sight that faced them quickened their heartbeats and made their
mouths sag open in amazement. Before them stood a towering iron gate,
through which they could see evidence of one-time human habitation!
“What in the world have we found?” Ted exclaimed.
“It must be a city!” Randy burst out. “It is! We’ve found an underground
Martian city!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
_A Struggle Against Time_
“A Martian city!” Ted echoed. “Wouldn’t Dad like to be in on this!”
“I don’t care about an old city!” Jill complained. “I just want to get
out of here!”
“Maybe we can find a way to the top from in there,” Ted proposed.
“There’s no other place we can go.”
The three walked up to the towering gates and began tugging on them. At
first the gates would not budge, but after much struggling, the children
got one open wide enough on its creaking hinges so that they could
squeeze through. Once inside, they began walking along a rocky avenue
lined with small buildings and statues. The high dome of the city
gleamed with a light of its own, illuminating the entire grand
underground area like brilliant moonlight.
“The glow has probably been burning for thousands of years,” Randy
remarked, “ever since the first Martians built the city.”
“It’ll probably be thousands of years more before it’ll go out,” Ted
added. “It seems to have the natural light that Mr. Garland said some of
the Martian caves have.”
They paused before a statue, and all three of them felt chills race up
their backs as they realized they were the first Earth humans ever to
gaze on the true likeness of a Martian. The man was not very different
from Earthmen. He had the usual number of arms and legs, but he was
short and spindly and his head was bald. If the color of the statue was
correct, the extinct Martians had light-green skins.
“Dad and the other scientists will sure have the time of their lives
with this place!” Ted said. “It may even hold the answer to the biggest
riddle about what caused the Martians to disappear.”
“Father won’t find out anything about it if we don’t get out of here!”
Jill said anxiously.
“There must be a way to the top of the ground somewhere,” Randy
answered. “I don’t see how the Martians could have walked up that steep
incline we slid down.”
“Maybe the dirt has covered it over during the years,” Ted said. “Maybe
there are steps underneath. But I don’t see how we could expect to
uncover them. Let’s go on.”
[Illustration]
They moved along, searching the uneven rocky streets. It was not a large
city, and the three had no trouble keeping their bearings. A check on
their air supply showed only an hour and a half of oxygen left in each
of their suits. There would be even less were they to hurry and so
breathe faster. This time they had no spare cartridges. If they did not
find their way topside by that time, they were surely doomed.
After covering part of the city, the children found that the end of it
fanned out into five separate narrow streets.
“One of these streets may lead to ground level,” Ted said.
“The only thing to do is try them,” Randy came back.
“We’ll save time if each of us takes a different way,” Ted suggested.
But Jill would have none of this plan. She had no desire to follow a
lonely underground avenue by herself. They finally decided that Ted and
Jill would go together and Randy agreed to go alone.
“We’ve got to watch out that we don’t get lost,” Ted cautioned. “Don’t
go off down any alleyways, Randy. We won’t either.”
“We ought to set a time when we both meet back here,” Randy said.
“I’ve got it,” Ted said. “We’ll count off ten minutes and then start
heading back whether we’ve found anything or not. If neither of us has
found anything, we’ll try the other streets the same way.”
Ted and Jill took their leave of Randy and set off down the thorofare.
They had to hurry because of their dwindling time, and yet they dared
not go so fast that they were breathing heavily. The way they followed
carried them quite a distance down the deserted street, on both sides of
which were crumbling buildings of plaster set close together. By the
time the ten minutes was up, Ted and Jill had come to a dead end against
a stone wall.
“This way certainly can’t help us,” Ted muttered. “Let’s go back to
Randy.”
When they got back and Randy had not returned, Ted became worried. Time
was fleeting steadily, and they still were no better off than they had
been before. Finally Ted heard a scuffling along the street and saw
Randy hurrying his way.
“No luck!” he gasped. “I got sidetracked on the way back. Then I had to
run to get here in time.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Ted told him. “Now you’ve got less air
than we have. What does your gauge show?”
“Fifty-six minutes,” Randy answered, after checking.
Ted examined his own and asked Jill about hers. “We’ve got an hour and
five,” Ted said.
“We’ll have to hurry if we’re going to search the other three streets,”
Randy pointed out.
This time Jill agreed to help by going alone so as to save time. They
agreed to cut the search period to five minutes, at which time they
would come back to their meeting place. Ted had been gone about a minute
when he heard someone calling. His heart stirred with hope, and he
hustled back at moderate speed to the place from where they had started.
“I think I’ve found a way out!” Jill was crying excitedly.
Fortunately they were able to catch Randy before he got very far, and
the two boys followed Jill down the street where she had made her
discovery. After a hundred feet or so they came into a big open area and
at one side of it there rose a huge stone staircase leading upward.
“There!” Jill cried happily.
“Let’s go up!” Ted urged.
They started up the steps that slowly turned in a half spiral as they
ascended. After a long climb, the children found themselves in a large
gallery. In spite of their hurry, the three became as hypnotized by the
sight of many stone tables or altars arranged in orderly fashion
throughout the place. Lying on top of the altars were long oblong cases,
fancily decorated.
“These must be coffins!” Randy burst out.
“Let’s get out of here!” Jill pleaded.
Ted’s gaze had turned from the altars to the smooth, rounded walls of
the room that were covered with paintings from one end to the other.
“Look!” he exclaimed, running over to the wall. “The Martians had a
Michelangelo too! Those pictures seem to tell a story! Say, do you
suppose this mural shows the history of the Martian race and what
happened to them?”
“I don’t care what they show, Ted!” Jill retorted. “All I want to do is
get out of here before our air is gone!”
Ted saw the wisdom of her remark and gave up an impulse to look over the
exciting story in pictures. Another flight of stairs was the only way
out of the shrine, and without delay the three hurried up. They made a
final turn on the stairs and then the subdued glare of Martian sunlight
struck their faces. They were finally above ground.
They appeared to have walked into a sporting arena which was surrounded
by tiers of stone seats, much in the manner of the ancient Roman
Coliseum. As the three of them crossed it through deep powdery dust,
they found bones of strange animals scattered over the whole area. There
were also the remains of curved swords and scarred shields.
“Ugh!” Jill shuddered. “There’s no telling what terrible things took
place on this very spot we’re walking over!”
“There’s an opening over there on the other side,” Randy indicated.
“Let’s go to it,” Ted suggested. “I can’t wait to get off this gruesome
field either!”
They moved across the arena briskly, yet not too fast. They headed
directly for the opening in the high stone wall that encircled the
ancient field of contest. When they reached the entranceway, they passed
through and found themselves at the fringe of a forest. A few dozen
paces carried them through green corkscrew trees to an open plain.
“I guess the trees around here kept this place from being discovered
before now,” Ted said.
“Which way do we go now?” Jill moaned. “We’ve got to find that cave
where our air tanks are!”
Ted made a quick orientation of their position in relation to the arena
and underground city. “My guess is the cave ought to be in that
direction,” he said, pointing southward around the bend of the arena.
“What do you think, Randy?”
“It sounds right,” Randy agreed. “Let’s get started.”
They had no more than set out again when Ted suddenly pulled up sharply
in his tracks, nearly toppling over backward in the motion.
“Gee! Look what I almost stepped on!” he shouted, pointing in the dust
ahead of him.
It was a matlike object, lying flat in the red dust, with rows and rows
of fine hairs vibrating over its surface. Ted remembered the deadly
carpet plant from his study of Martian botany in school.
“Ted!” Jill screamed, as she saw the danger.
To study the action of the plant for himself, Ted picked up a broken
shard of pottery and tossed it onto the plant. Instantly the voracious
plant rolled up tightly, enveloping the shard in its sucking folds.
“That’s what would have happened to your foot if you’d stepped on it,
Ted,” Randy said in a shivery voice.
They carefully skirted the carpet plant and hurried on, bearing
southward in the direction they hoped would bring them to the mouth of
the cave that had been the original cause of their trouble.
“How much air time, Randy?” Ted asked, beginning to pant a little.
“Eighteen minutes,” Randy answered, and Ted could hear a nervous whimper
from Jill.
“You sure this is right, Ted?” Randy asked worriedly, a few minutes
later. “If you’re wrong we’ll die. I’ve only got seven minutes of air
left now. It’s really going fast with us hurrying so!”
Ted sighed heavily and felt a clutch of dread in his heart as he studied
Jill’s pinched, anxious expression. They _had_ to be headed right! They
just couldn’t lose the battle after being so close to salvation.
At last they rounded a huge face of rock that Ted thought he remembered.
The cave should be only a few feet away beyond that clump of vegetation,
he told himself. They pushed through the curling, tubelike leaves. To
their left lay the cave entrance!
Randy gave a cry of relief and dashed into the cave. Ted and his sister
entered more slowly; they had a little more time to waste than Randy.
When they entered, they found Randy hastily discarding his old oxygen
cartridge and replacing it with a new one. When he was through, he
helped Jill with hers while Ted attended to his own.
When they were done, they sat down on the floor of the cave and drank in
deep, refreshing draughts of the precious gas they had feared they would
never breathe again.
“Isn’t this great?” Ted remarked. “Just like a cold drink on a hot day!”
“Speaking of food, I could use some,” Jill said. “I’m starved after all
that!”
“Let’s go back and get it,” Randy proposed. “We dropped the food case
when the elephant ant was chasing us.”
“Do you think it’s safe?” Jill asked.
“If it’s the ant you’re afraid of, they do most of their hunting at
night,” Randy reassured her. “I don’t think there’s much chance of
meeting it.”
They started out over the trail they had followed in such haste the
night before. After a while they found their food case where they had
dropped it. All made a run for it at the same time. The sight of food
settled their nerves, and they ate nearly all of the supply in the case.
When they were through, Randy happened to look up into the distance and
jabbed Ted in the ribs.
“Look!” he exclaimed. “Somebody’s coming!”
Ted and Jill leaped to their feet. They shaded their eyes with their
gloved hands in order to see better.
“It’s the search party!” Ted burst out.
“Father’s with them!” Jill said joyfully.
“I can see Pops too!” came from Randy.
Ted uttered a deep, long sigh. Their frightening adventure was over at
last.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
_Of Days to Come_
The Kentons had just risen from the supper table after a wonderful meal
that had featured fresh fruits and vegetables from their own garden. Two
days had passed since the adventure in the Great Martian Forest. This
was a night of celebration, and Mr. Matthews was present.
“Now tell us the surprise you had for us, Father,” Jill begged, as they
all sat in the living room together. Mrs. Kenton had left cleaning up
until later in order to be in on the exciting talk of the evening.
“Not until I know for sure,” Dr. Kenton replied. “I’ll get a phone call
in a few minutes about it.”
“Can’t you even tell us what it’s _about_?” Jill went on.
“I wouldn’t want to build up false hopes for nothing, Jill,” her father
said. “You can wait a little while.”
“It was a privilege to eat in such celebrated company tonight,” Mr.
Matthews said, with a wink at the children. “You kids will even get your
name in the schoolbooks for finding that fabulous city.”
“It’s the pilot and Mr. Garland who got us to bail out that should get
the credit,” Ted said, with a grin. “If it weren’t for them, we’d never
have found the underground city.”
“The mural showing the great events in the lives of the ancient Martians
was the most important thing of all,” Dr. Kenton remarked. “I was
beginning to believe that the greatest riddle of Mars was never going to
be solved.” Dr. Kenton had gone to the underground city as soon as he
met the young explorers and had heard about their outstanding discovery.
Ted, Jill, and Randy knew the answer now, as did every other colonist on
the red planet. The paintings on the wall of the shrine had revealed the
baffling riddle. It was simply and clearly portrayed in pictures, just
as though the Martians had expected someone someday to know their story.
The revelation was that hundreds of years ago all Martians had left
their world in large space ships because of Mars’s disappearing oxygen.
Apparently there still existed somewhere the remains of a
supercivilization which had built these space craft.
“Do you think the animals on Mars will finally die out, Dad?” Ted asked,
“as the rest of the oxygen combines with the rocks?”
“Eventually, I would think,” Dr. Kenton replied.
“Where do you suppose the Martians went to find a new home?” Mr.
Matthews asked.
“They may still be looking,” the scientist replied. “It’s a long way to
the stars, remember, and we’re sure they didn’t land any place in our
solar system.”
Just then, Yank came bounding into the room. He too had been permitted
inside for the celebration. He had been eating his supper in the
kitchen. Ted was amazed to see the color bear run up to his father and
stand beside him while the scientist scratched his head.
“You and Yank are friends!” Ted exclaimed.
“We sure are,” Dr. Kenton said. “After you kids left, poor Yank was so
lonely he even turned to me. I guess he decided to bury the hatchet when
he found out I meant him no harm.”
“I wonder why he was so long making friends,” Jill remarked.
Dr. Kenton took one of Yank’s forepaws and rubbed back the fur,
revealing a scar. “Yank is the fellow I hurt accidentally a few years
ago,” the scientist said. “I just thought of checking his paw the day
you kids left on your trip.”
“He never forgot, did he?” Jill asked.
“Not until I’d convinced him I was sorry,” her father replied, rumpling
the soft hair of the bear’s head. “His injury was the reason he was
alone in the world. He couldn’t keep up with the pace of his friends.”
“Our family is so safe and cozy here,” Mrs. Kenton said, “I hate to
think of you going out into that cold wilderness again on a new
expedition, John.”
“Maybe I won’t be going,” Dr. Kenton said, with a mysterious smile.
“What do you mean?” his wife asked in surprise.
Just then the phone buzzed. Dr. Kenton went into the hall to answer it.
In a few moments he was back again, and he was smiling happily.
“Kids, how would you like to go back to Earth at the end of the school
term?” he asked the children.
“Gee, do you mean that?” Ted exclaimed.
“Oh, Father!” Jill cried out joyously.
“It’s true enough,” their father said. “That’s what the call was about
and the surprise I was hoping to have for you.”
“That’s the grandest surprise you could have had,” Mrs. Kenton murmured,
unspeakably happy herself.
“The Science Union has offered this trip to you, Jill, you, Randy, and
you, Ted, as a reward for your important discovery,” Dr. Kenton went on.
“They also want me to go back and give lectures all over the country on
our latest findings about Mars. It may keep me there a long time.”
[Illustration: _They grabbed Yank’s paws and began dancing._]
“That’s wonderful!” Mrs. Kenton said. “I was afraid you’d have to stay
behind here.”
Ted and Jill were so enthusiastic over the proposed trip that they
grabbed Yank’s paws and began dancing around with him. Randy stood
watching them, not quite sharing their high spirits. When Ted saw him,
he grabbed Randy’s hand and made him join in the celebration. A moment
later Randy was enjoying himself as much as the rest.
Dr. Kenton said to Randy’s father: “They are in need of some space-port
engineers back on Earth. If Randy would like to go with Ted and Jill,
would you consider a job like that?”
“You may not know it, John, but I’ve had my application in for such a
job for years,” Mr. Matthews answered, highly pleased. “I’ll say I’ll
take it!”
“If you kids will stop jumping around a minute,” Dr. Kenton said, “I’ve
got something else to say.”
They stopped and listened intently.
“If we go Earthward it may be a long time before we come back to Mars,”
he said. “We—or at least you—may never get back.”
“That’s all right with me,” Ted said. “I’ve seen enough of Mars to last
me a lifetime! It’s interesting here, but it’s nothing compared to good
old Earth.”
“That’s what I say!” Jill chimed in.