Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Astounding Stories May 1932.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
The Table of Contents is not part of the original magazine.
The pages have been renumbered.
The Martian Cabal
A Complete Novelette
By R. F. Starzl
* * * * *
Contents
Page
I Strange Intruder 2
II Scar Balta 10
III The Price of Monarchy 18
IV Torture 23
V The Wrath of Tolto 30
VI The Fight in the Fort 37
VII The Flight of a Princess 49
VIII In the Desert 57
IX Plot and Counter-Plot 71
X One Thousand to One 79
XI Giant Against Giant 86
XII "He Must Be a Man of Earth" 96
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Sime Hemingway, of the I. F. P., strikes at the insidious
interests that are lashing high the war feeling between Earth and
Mars.]
CHAPTER I
_Strange Intruder_
Sime Hemingway did not sleep well his first night on Mars. There was
no tangible reason why he shouldn't. His bed was soft. He had dined
sumptuously, for this hotel's cuisine offered not only Martian
delicacies, but drew on Earth and Venus as well.
Yet Sime did not sleep well. He tossed restlessly in the caressing
softness of his bed. He turned a knob in the head panel of his bed,
tried to yield to the soothing music that seemed to come from nowhere.
He turned another knob, watched the marching, playing, whirling of
somnolent colors on the domed ceiling of his room.
At last he gave it up. Some sixth sense had him all jumpy. It was not
usual for Sime Hemingway to be jumpy. He was one of the coolest heads
in the I. F. P., the Interplanetary Flying Police who patrolled the
lonely reaches of space and brought man's law to the outermost orbit
of the far-flung solar system.
Now he jumped out of bed and examined the fastening of his door, the
door to the hotel corridor. There was only one, and it was secure.
Windows there were none, and investigation showed that the small ports
were all covered with their pivoted safety plates. He extinguished the
light, swung aside one of the plates, and peered out into the Martian
night. It was moonlight--both Deimos and Phobos were racing across the
blue-black sky. The waters of Crystal Canal stretched out before him,
seemingly illimitable. Sime knew that the distance to the other side
was twenty miles or more. Clear-cut through the thin atmosphere of
Mars, he could see the jeweled lights of South Tarog, on the other
side.
* * * * *
The hotel grounds, too, were well lighted. Long, luminous tubes, part
of the architecture of the buildings, aided the moons, shedding their
serene glow on the gentle slope of the red lawns and terraces, the
geometrically trimmed shrubs and trees. They were reflected warmly in
the dancing waves of the canal, though Sime knew that even in this,
the height of the summer season, the outside temperature was very near
freezing.
Now a hotel guard came along. He carried at his belt a neuro-pistol, a
deadly weapon whose beam would destroy the nervous structure of any
living creature. He went past the port with measured stride, and Sime
slid back the safety plate with a puzzled frown.
Why was he so nervous? This wasn't the first dangerous mission on
which he had embarked in the course of his official duty. And danger
was the element that gave zest to his life.
[Illustration: Clinging like leeches to the wall, the two men resisted
the warped gravitational drag.]
He began a methodical examination of his room, peering under the bed,
into closets, a wardrobe. Yet there was no sign of danger. Carefully
he inspected his bed for signs of the deadly black mold from Venus
that would, once it found lodgment in the pores of a man's skin,
inexorably invade his body and in the space of a few hours reduce him
to a black, repulsive parody of humanity. But the sheets were
unsullied.
Then his gaze fell on the mist-bath. Travelers who have visited Mars
are, of course, familiar with this simple device, used to overcome to
some extent the exceeding dryness of the red planet's atmosphere.
Resembling the steam bath of the ancients, there was just enough room
in the cylindrical case for a man to sit inside while his skin was
sprayed with vivifying moisture. But his head would project, and there
was no head visible.
Nevertheless, so strong was Sime's intuition, he leveled his
neuro-pistol at the cabinet and approached. With a sweep of his
muscular arm he swung it open--and gasped!
* * * * *
The sight that greeted him was enough to make any man gasp, even one
less young and impressionable than Sime. In all of his twenty-five
years he had not seen a woman so lovely. Her complexion was the
delicate coral pink of the Martian colonials--descendants of the
original human settlers who had struggled with, and at last bent to
their will, this harsh and inhospitable planet. She was little over
five feet tall, although the average Martian is perhaps slightly
bigger than his terrestrial cousin. Her hair was dark, like that of
most Martians, drawn back from her forehead and fastened at the nape
of her neck, from there to fall in an abundant, rippling cascade down
her slim, straight back. Her figure was like those delicate and
ancient creations of Dresden china to be seen in museums, but
elastic, and full of strength. She was dressed in the two-piece
garment universally worn by both sexes on Mars--a garment, so
historians say, that was called "pyjamas" by our forebears.
And she was defiant. In her hand was a stiletto with long, slim blade.
Sime made a darting grasp for her wrist and wrung the weapon from her.
It fell to the metal floor with a tinkling clatter.
"And now tell me, young lady, what's the meaning of this?"
Suddenly she smiled.
"I came to warn you, Sime Hemingway." She spoke softly and sweetly,
and with effortless dignity.
"You came to warn me?"
"You are in grave danger. Your mission here is known, and powerful
enemies are preparing to destroy you."
"You talk like you knew something, kid," Sime admitted. "What is my
mission here?"
"You have been sent to Mars by the I. F. P. in the guise of a mining
engineer. You are to discover what you can about a suspected plot of
interplanetary financiers to plunge the Earth and Mars into a war."
"How so?" Sime asked enigmatically, concealing his dismay at the
girl's ready reply. Here was inside information with a vengeance!
"Several shiploads of gray industrial diamonds from Venus have been
seized by war vessels carrying the insignia of the Martian atmospheric
guard."
Sime nodded. "Go on!"
"Curiously enough, these raids were so timed that they were witnessed
by the news telecasters. All of the people on Earth were thus
eye-witnesses, and feeling ran high. Am I right?"
"Go on!"
"And of course you know about the raids on the Martian borium mines by
pirates armed with modern weapons. In the fights, some of the pirates'
weapons were captured. They bore the ordnance marks of the terrestrial
government."
"I'm way ahead of you, girlie!" Sime conceded. "Certain financial
interests would like to see a war. They're cookin' up these overt acts
to get the people all steamed up till they're ready to fight. I'll go
further, since you seem to know all about it anyway, and admit that
I'm here to find out just who's back of all this. And how does all
that tie up with you hiding in my mist-bath with a long and mean
lookin' knife?"
The girl dropped her dark lashes in a sidelong glance at the stiletto
on the floor. There was a little smile on her lips.
"My usual weapon. Don't you know most of us Martians go armed all the
time?"
"Yeh?" Sime grinned skeptically. "And is it a habit of yours to hide
in the bedroom of visiting policemen? Come on, kid. I'm going to turn
you over to the guard."
For a second it looked as if she would make a dash for the blade
glistening there on the floor. But she straightened up, and with a
look of infinite scorn said:
"So the mighty policeman of the Sun calls a hotel guard, does he?
Please! Believe me, I am myself working for the same object as
yourself--the prevention of a horrible war!"
She was pleading now.
"Believe me, you are against forces that you don't understand! I can
help you, if you will listen. Let me tell you, the Martian government
is itself corrupted. The planetary president, Wilcox, is in alliance
with the war party. You will have to fight the police. You will have
to fear poison. You will be set upon and killed in the first dark
passage. Yet if you help me you may accomplish your object. You must
help me!"
"What do you want of me?"
"Help me change our government!"
Sime laughed shortly. He began to suspect that this amazing girl was
demented. He thought of the powerfully entrenched rulers of this
theoretically republican government. For more than two hundred years,
if he remembered rightly, the Martians had been ruled by a small group
of rich politicians.
"You propose a revolution?" he asked curiously.
"I propose the return of Princess Sira to the throne!" she declared
vehemently. "But enough! Are you going to betray me--I, who have
risked much to warn you? Or are you going to let me go?"
* * * * *
Sime looked into her warm, earnest little face. Her lips were parted
softly, showing perfect little teeth, and she was breathing quickly,
anxiously. Sime was woman hungry, as men of the service often are on
the long, lonely trail. He seized her quickly, pressed her little
figure to him and kissed her.
For a thrilling instant it seemed that she relaxed. But she tore away,
furious, her eyes cold with anger.
"For that," she panted, raging, "you must die!"
She reached the door before he could stop her, and in a trice she was
out in the gallery. He raced after her, staring stupidly.
Surprisingly, when her escape was assured, she turned back. Her look
was still hurt, angry, as she called to him in low tones:
"Look out for Scar Balta, you brute!"
"Who is Scar Balta?" Sime asked himself after locking the door again.
The name was not unusual and did not bring any familiar associations
to his mind. The given name, Scar, once a nickname, had been in
general use for centuries. As for Balta--oh, well--
His mind reverted to the girl again. Her warm, palpitant presence
disturbed him.
He composed himself to sleep, strapping his dispatch belt around his
waist before crawling into bed. He did not believe that the girl had
hidden in his room with murderous intent; rather that she had hoped to
inspect and perhaps to steal any papers that he carried. But his last
conscious thought of her had nothing to do with her connection with
this planet of intrigue, but the soft curve of her throat.