* *
I am sure that there was panic behind that wild Martian rush. To getus pinned down and helpless quickly, they drove themselves in spite oftheir own fear of the horrid human forms. For did I feel a tremor inthose tendrils, a tendency to recoil from me? I was trembling andsweating. Still, my impressions were vivid. Those monsters held usdown as if they were Malay beaters holding down trapped pythons. Maybethey had known beforehand what men looked like--from previous, secretexpeditions to Earth. Just as we had known about Martians from Etl.But it wouldn't have made any difference.
Or perhaps they weren't even aware that we were from the neighboringplanet. But it would be obvious that we were from another world;nothing from their own planet could be so strange.
Our own reactions to the situation differed a little. Craig gaspedcurses through his helmet phones. Miller said, "Easy, men! Easy!" Itwas as if he were trying to build up his own morale, too. I couldn'tutter a sound.
It wasn't hard for our captors to recognize our weapons. We weredisarmed. They carried us out into the night and around a hill. Wewere piled onto a flat metallic surface. A vehicle under us began tothrob and move; you could have called it a truck. The nature of itsmechanism was hinted at only by a small, frosty wisp of steam or vaporup front. Perhaps it came from a leak. The Martians continued to holdus down as savagely as ever. Now and then a pair of them would jointhe nerve-ends of tendrils, perhaps to converse. Others would chirp orhoot for no reason that I could understand.
The highway rolled away behind us, under the light of Phobos.Buildings passed, vague as buildings along a road usually are atnight. It was the same with the clumps of vegetation. Lights, whichmight have been electrical, flashed into my eyes and passed by. In adeep valley through which we moved in part of our short trip, a dense,stratified fog arose between the lights and me. I noticed with an odddetachment that the fog was composed of minute ice crystals, whichglinted in the glow of the strange lamps. I tried to remember ourcourse. I knew that it was generally east. Off in the night there wereclangings and hisses that might have been factory noises.
Once Miller asked, "Is everybody okay?"
Klein's and Craig's responses were gruff and unsteady in the phones.
"Sure...."
"More or less--if heart-failure doesn't get me."
"I guess our skins are still intact," I said.
We didn't talk after that.
* * * * *
At last we entered a long, downward-slanting tunnel, full of softluminescence that seemed to come out of the white-tiled wallsthemselves. My attention grew a little vague. It could be that my mindturned in on itself, like a turtle drawing in its head for protection.In that state of semiconsciousness, I experienced a phantasm. Iimagined I was a helpless grub being dragged down into the depths ofan ant-hill.
But such a grub belongs in an ant-hill a lot more than a man belongedwhere I was going. This became plainer when the large tunnel ended,and we were dragged and carried along winding burrows, never more thanthree feet in diameter. Mostly they were tiled, but often their wallswere of bare rock or soil. Twice we passed through air-locks.
I couldn't describe too much of what I saw or the noises I heard inthose warrens. In one place, incandescence glowed and wheels turned.In a great low-ceilinged chamber full of artificial sun-rays there wasa garden with strange blooms. The architecture of the city was notaltogether utilitarian and it was not unpleasing. I saw a lot more.But my mind was somewhat fuzzy, probably from shock and fatigue.
I know we traversed another chamber, where trays full of round lumpsof soil were set in frames. A Martian nursery, no doubt.
Some minutes later, my companions and I were left in a small room,high enough so that we could stand erect in it. Here the Martians letgo of us. We sprawled on the floor, faces down. We'd had a busy day.Our nerve-energy was burned out.
Hopelessness warped all of my thoughts. I must have slipped into thecoma of exhaustion. I had jangled dreams about Alice and the kids andhome, and almost imagined I was there.
Half awake again, I had a cursing spree, calling myself fifty kinds ofa numbskull. Be passive before the people of other worlds! Reassurethem! How did we ever think up that one? We'd been crazy. Why didn'twe at least use our guns when we'd had the chance? It wouldn't havemade any difference to be killed right away.
Now we were sacrificial lambs on the altar of a featherbrained ideathat the inhabitants of worlds that had always been separate from thebeginning should become friends, learn to swap and to benefit from thediverse phases of each other's cultures. How could Martians whohatched out of lumps of mud be like humans at all?
Klein, Craig, Miller and I were alone in that room. There werecrystal-glazed spy-windows in the walls. Perhaps we were still beingobserved.
* * * * *
While I was sleeping, the exit had been sealed with a circular pieceof glassy stuff. Near the floor there were vents through which air wasbeing forced into the room. Hidden pumps, which must have been hastilyrigged for our reception, throbbed steadily.
Miller, beside me, had removed his oxygen helmet. His grin wasslightly warped as he said to me: "Well, Nolan, here's anotherparallel with what we've known before. We had to keep Etl alive in acage. Now the same thing is being done to us."
This could be regarded as a service, a favor. Yet I was more inclinedto feel that I was like something locked up in a zoo. Maybe Etl'scase was a little different. For the first thing he had known in lifewas his cage.
I removed my oxygen helmet, too, mainly to conserve its air-purifierunit, which I hoped I might need sometime soon--in an escape.
"Don't look so glum, Nolan," Miller told me. "Here we have just whatwe need, a chance to observe and learn and know the Martians better.And it's the same for them in relation to us. It's the best situationpossible for both worlds."
I was thinking mostly--belatedly--of my wife and kids. Right then,Miller was a crackpot to me, a monomaniac, a guy whose philosophicalviewpoint went way beyond the healthy norm. And I soon found thatCraig and Klein agreed with me now. Something in our attitude hadshifted.
I don't know how long we were in that sealed room. A week, perhaps. Wecouldn't see the day-light. Our watches had vanished along with ourweapons. Sometimes there were sounds of much movement in the tunnelsaround us; sometimes little. But the variation was too irregular toindicate a change based on night and day.
Lots of things happened to us. The air we breathed had a chemicalsmell. And the Martians kept changing its composition and densityconstantly--experimenting, no doubt. Now it would be oppressivelyheavy and humid; now it would be so dry and thin that we began to feelfaint. They also varied the temperature, from below freezing toEarthly desert heat. And I suspected that at times there was a drug inthe air.
Food was lowered to us in metal containers from a circular airlock inthe ceiling. It was the same kind of gelatinous stuff that we hadfound in the wreck of the ship that had brought the infant Etl toEarth. We knew that it was nourishing. Its bland sweetishness was notto our taste, but we had to eat.
Various apparatus was also lowered to us. There were odd mechanicalpuzzles that made me think how grotesquely Earthly Martian scientificattitudes were. And there was s little globe on a wire, the purpose ofwhich we never figured out, though Miller got an electric shock fromit.
* * * * *
I kept looking for Etl among the Martians at the spy-windows, hopingthat he'd turn up again. I had noticed that Martians showed variationsof appearance, like humans--longer or shorter eye-stalks, lighter ordarker tendrils.... I figured I'd recognize Etl. But I didn't see him.
We were none of us quite ourselves. Not even Miller, whose scientificinterest in the things around him sustained him even in captivity.Mine had worn out. And Klein and Craig were no better off. I wasdesperately homesick, and I felt a little ill, besides.
I managed to loosen the metal heel-plate from one of my boots, andwith th
is, when I thought that no Martian was watching, I started todig the gummy cement from around the circular glassy disc with whichthe main exit of our quarters had been sealed. Craig, Klein and Iworked at it in brief and sporadic shifts. We didn't really hope thatwe could escape. It was just something to do.
"We're going to try to get to the ship, Miller, if it's still there,"I whispered once. "Probably it won't work. Want to join up with therest of us?"
I just didn't think of him as being in command now. And he seemed toagree, because he didn't protest against my high-handed way oftalking. Also, he didn't argue against a projected rashness that couldeasily get us killed. Apparently he understood that our lives weren'tworth much to us as things were.
He smiled a little. "I'll stick around, Nolan. If you do manage to getback to Earth, don't make the Martians sound too bad."
"I won't," I answered, troubled by an odd sense of regret.
Loosening that exit disc proved in the end to be no special trick.Then we just waited for a lull in the activity in the tunnels aroundus. We all put on our oxygen helmets, Miller included, for theair-pressure here in our "cage" would drop as soon as the looseneddisc was dislodged. We put our shoulders against it and pushed. Itpopped outward. Then the three of us, with Miller staying behind,scrambled on hands and knees through the tunnel that lay before us.
* * * * *
A crazy kind of luck seemed to be with us. For one thing, we didn'thave to retrace our way along the complicated route by which we hadbeen brought down to our prison. In a minute we reached a wide tunnelthat slanted upward. A glassy rotary airlock worked by a simplelever--for, of course, most of the city's air would be pressurized tosome extent for the Martians--led into it.
The main passage wasn't exactly deserted, but we traversed it in leapsand bounds, taking advantage of the weak Martian gravity. Shapesscattered before us, chirping and squeaking.
We reached the surface quickly. It was frigid night. We stumbled awayinto it, taking cover under some lichenous bushes, while we lookedfor the highway. It was there, plain to see, in the light of Phobos.We dashed on toward it, across what seemed to be a planted field. Awhite layer of ice-crystal mist flowed between and over those toughcold-endured growths. For a minute, just as two shots rang out behindus, we were concealed by it completely.
I thought to myself that, to the Martians, we were like escaped tigersor leopards--only worse. For a moment I felt that we had jumped fromthe frying pan into the fire. But, as we reached the highway, myspirits began to soar. Perhaps--only perhaps--I'd see my family againbefore too long. There was traffic on the road, trains of greatsoft-tired wagons, pulled by powered vehicles ahead. I wondered if,like on Earth, much freight was moved at night to avoid congestion.
"When I was a college kid, I used to hitchhike sometimes," Craigremarked.
"I don't guess we had better try that here," Klein said. "What we cando is more of a hobo stunt."
We found the westerly direction we needed easily enough from thestars. The constellations naturally looked the same as they did athome. We hid behind some rustling leaves, dry as paper, and waited forthe next truck train to pass. When one came, we used the agility whichMartian gravity gave us and rushed for the tail-end wagon andscrambled aboard. There we hid ourselves under a kind ofcoarse-fibered tarpaulin.
Peering past boxes and bales, we kept cautious watch of the road. Wesaw strange placques, which might have served as highway signs. Againwe saw buildings and passing lights.
We were dopes, of course, ever to think that we were going to get awaywith this. Our overwrought nerves had urged us to unreasoningrebellion, and we had yielded to them.
* * * * *
Our last hope was punctured when at last we saw the flood-lights thatbathed our ship. The taste on my tongue was suddenly bitter. Therewere roughly three things we could do now, and none of the choices wasespecially attractive.
We could go back where we had come from. We could try to keepconcealed in the countryside, until we were finally hunted down, oruntil our helmet air-purifiers wore out and we smothered. Or we couldproceed to our rocket, which was now surrounded by a horde ofMartians. Whichever one we chose, it looked as if the end would be thesame--death.
"I'm for going on to the ship," Klein said in a harsh whisper.
"The same with me," Craig agreed. "It's where we want to go. Ifthey're going to kill or capture us, it might as well be there."
Suddenly, for no good reason, I thought of something. No specialsafeguards had been set up around that sealed room in the city.
Escape had been easy. What did that mean?
"Okay," I said. "Maybe you've both got the same hunch I just got. Wewalk very slowly toward our rocket. We get into the light as soon aspossible. Does that sound right to you? We'd be going back to theplan. And, it could be, to common sense."
"All right," Klein answered.
"We'll give it a whirl," Craig agreed.
We jumped off that freight wagon at the proper moment and moved towardthe rocket. Nothing that we'd done on Mars--not even making our firstacquaintance with the inhabitants--was as ticklish an act.
* * * * *
Step after slow step, we approached the floodlighted area, keepingclose together before that horde which still looked horrible to us.One thing in our favor was that the Martians here had probably beenwarned of our escape by whatever means of communication they used. Andthey could certainly guess that our first objective would be our ship.Hence they would not be startled into violence by our suddenappearance.
One of them fired a shot which passed over our heads. But we kept ongoing, making our movements as unfrightening as we could to counteractthe dread of us that they must have still felt.
Panic and the instinctive fear of the strange were balanced in ourminds against reason. We got to the nose of our ship, then to the opendoors of its airlock. The horde kept moving back before us and weclambered inside. Martian eyes remained wary, but no more action wastaken against us.
Our cabin had been ransacked. Most of the loose stuff had been removed ...even my picture of Alice, and our two kids.
"Who cares about trifles?" I muttered. "Rap on wood, guys--I thinkwe've won. So have the local people."
"You're right," Klein breathed. "What other reason can there be fortheir not jumping us? Miller's passive strategy must've worked thefirst time. The story that we meant no harm must have gotten around.They don't want to make trouble, either. And who, with any sensedoes?"
I felt good--maybe too good. I wondered if the Martians felt the sameeager fascination for the enigmas of space that we felt, in spite ofthe same fear of the nameless that we too could feel. My guess wasthat they did. Undoubtedly they also wanted interplanetary relationsto be smooth. They could control their instinctive doubts to helpattain this objective. If they coveted Earth's resources, it was stillfar away, and could defend itself. Besides, they were not built tolive in comfort under the raw conditions of its strange environment.Commerce was the only answer.
Suddenly Mars was no longer a hostile region to me, out in the reachesof space. Again it was full of endless, intriguing mysteries. It wasbeautiful. And knowledge of that beauty and mystery had been won, inspite of some blundering. The scheme that we had practiced, and thatMiller had stuck to, had paid off. It had broken down that firstinevitable barrier of alienness between Earthmen and Martians enoughso that they now had a chance to start looking for the countlesssimilarities between us.
A fraction of our food stores aboard the rocket had been taken,probably for analysis. But there was plenty more. We closed theairlock, repressurized the cabin from air-tanks, and cooked ourselvesa meal. Then we slept in shifts, one of us always awake as guard.
At dawn, Miller hammered at a window. He'd been brought out from thecity. We weren't too surprised by then.
* * * * *
Etl turned up at noon. He came in a k
ind of plane, which landed rightbeside our rocket, making quite a noise. I recognized him easilyenough; I'd know those eye-stalks anywhere. Besides, as he came out ofthe plane, he was carrying the speech-tube that Klein had made forhim.
We let him into the cabin. "Hello, gang," he said, manipulating thetube with his tendrils. "I see you passed your tests almost as well asI did on those weird things you were always making me take on Earth."
"So they were tests," I said.
"Sure. Otherwise, why do you think I didn't come to you before? Theysaid you had to solve your own problems."
"How did they treat you?" Miller wanted to know.
"Mostly my people were nice to me. They took me to a great desertcity, far away. Sort of the capital of Mars. It's in an 'oasis' wherea network of 'canals' join. The canals fit an old theory of yourastronomers. They're ribbons of irrigated vegetation. But the water ispiped underground. I spoke to my people in the way that you oncethought I would, trying to convince them that you were okay. But Iguess that you did most of the job yourselves."
"In spite of a lot of blunders, maybe we did, Etl," I replied dryly."What are your plans? Going to stay here now? Or will you come backwith us?"
I sensed that he would stay. It was natural. Maybe I even sensed aremoteness in him, a kind of withdrawal. Not unfriendly, but ... weboth knew it was the parting of the ways.
"It's best for what we're trying to accomplish, Nolan," he said. "Ican tell my people about Earth; you can tell yours about Mars.Besides, I like it here. But I'll be back on Earth some time. Just soyou'll come here again.