Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (165 page)

He was thinking of a certain barren valley far out in the desert. In a thousand years, perhaps, no one had visited it except him. Aircraft hardly ever flew over that waterless sand pocket set amid the arid hills of Mars. There would be the ideal spot for the completion of his task, for here in his workshop he knew that he dared not stay.

Delicate electrical impulses transmitted his commands, and in response five giant shapes, paradoxically human travesties wrought in shining metal, rose from their resting places to do his bidding. Under his guidance they made preparation for the exodus, gathering instruments, tools, and other paraphernalia, and packing them in metal cases; binding long arms of metal into great sheafs that would be easy to carry. Meanwhile Number 774 busied himself with a complicated Martian calculating machine.

Thus the night passed. In the almost momentary twilight that preceded the dawn, the strange caravan set out. Number 774 had changed his identity; instead of being only a fragile lump of living protoplasm, he was now a giant of metal, like the five automatons that served him, for the powerful machine he rode was so versatile, and so quick and accurate in its responses to his every guiding gesture, that it was to all intents and purposes his body.

A pair of wings of metal fabric disengaged themselves from the intricacies of his machine and began to flap ponderously. Number 774 soared upward on them, over his servitors that plodded along on the ground, bearing their heavy burdens. His gaze darted back briefly toward the silvery dome of his workshop and at its dusty walls, matching the slightly ocher-tinged dun color of the desert.

But the fact that he had lived in that structure most of his life, and that he was now leaving it forever, aroused no sentiment in his mind. He had no time for sentiment now, for time was precious. Besides, he was looking forward to the trials and dangers that were certain to come soon and to the triumphs that might come with them.

He swung and turned in the air, scanning the terrain with wary watchfulness, on guard for any possible approaching aircraft. It would not be well if he were seen, and if a flier should appear he must take cover. But there was really little danger to face as far as his own people were concerned.

Avoidance of the death sentence imposed by the Rulers was practically without precedent. For thousands of years Martians had obeyed their Rulers’ commands so implicitly that now prisons for the detention of the condemned were unknown. When the order came, the people of Mars went to their deaths willingly and without a guard. And so it was unlikely that anyone would suspect that Number 774 had intentions of escaping execution now.

It is hardly likely that Number 774 felt triumphant over his revolt against ancient law—possibly he even felt guilty—but his earnest eagerness to learn things that he did not know, and to give himself to the cause to which his life had been pledged, was an urge that surpassed and defied even age-old code and tradition.

The stars, and leisurely Deimos, the farther moon, shone on an ashen haze that obscured the horizon in every direction. A mounting breeze, keen and cutting for all its thinness, blew out of the west. When the sun rose, it changed the haze of the dust-laden air to a tumultuous, fiery murk that flung long, ominous streamers of orange and red across the sky. Number 774 knew what was coming and knew the hazards that it brought.

The wind became more and more violent, increasing by puffs and gusts, and at last settling down to a steady powerful blast of the proportions of a terrestrial hurricane. If human ears had been there to hear, they would have detected the mounting whisper and rustle of millions of flying sand particles, rubbing and sliding over each other, making a blurred and soothing purr of sound.

As the streaming, flame-hued trains of sand thickened and mounted higher in the atmosphere, the sun dimmed to a red bubble floating in the murk, and only a bloody reminder of its normal brilliance reached the ground.

Number 774 had descended to join his robots in their march on the ground. He had seen many of these fierce dust storms of Mars, and he accepted them as a matter of course, just as an experienced old mariner of Earth accepts tempests at sea. He himself was safely incased in an air-tight glass cage atop the machine he rode; he was breathing pure filtered air.

The chief dangers were that the filtering equipment which fed oxygen to the engines of his automatons would become clogged, or that he would accidentally be engulfed in some newly formed bed of quicksand, hidden beneath the clouds of dust that swirled about him. But these were unavoidable dangers which must be faced.

Under the pressure of necessity, Number 774 urged his robots to the fastest pace they could attain in the shifting desert soil. The metal giants’ long, webby limbs swung on and on steadily, into the east, breasting sand and wind, and climbing several steep rocky ridges they encountered with agile ease, in spite of their great bulk and the weight of the burdens they carried.

Twice they crossed deep, twenty-mile-wide artificial gorges, which on Earth have earned the not entirely correct name of “canals.” Now and then during each crossing, the dry and lifeless stalks of some weird Martian vegetation would loom dimly through the storm like grotesque totem poles. The canals were as desolate as the desert itself, for it was very early in the spring, and the water from the melting polar snowcaps had not yet come down through the network of conduits and perforated pipettes buried beneath the canal bed.

When the water did appear, vegetation would spring up in rapid growth along the bottoms of the hundreds of straight scars that had been dredged across the barren desert ages before. But as yet there was no sign of the great Martian planting machines, for it was still too early in the season even for them.

Number 774’s wariness in crossing seemed completely unnecessary, for his eyes caught no sign of his own kind, or, in fact, of any living creature. He was as completely alone in the flat expanses of the canals as he was in the desert proper.

Late in the afternoon he arrived at his destination. By sunset the wind had subsided and the air was clearing. The work was already underway. Two of the robots, equipped now with great scooplike claws, had excavated a vast hole in the sand. Feverishly active, the other two were assisting Number 774 with other tasks. Rods were being arranged around the pit. Something of a strange, dark substance was taking form. A stream of molten metal was pouring from a broad, squat mechanism. A thin trickle of white vapor trailed up in the quiet air.

At dusk Number 774 paused to look up, over the rounded hills that ringed the valley, at Planet Three that hung in the western sky, gleaming regally amid its retinue of stars. The light on that distant world would flicker in vain tonight, calling eagerly to the Man of Mars. There would be no answer. Higher up, fainter and less conspicuous, was the silvery dart of the comet.

Perhaps Number 774 was trying to imagine what his unknown friend of the light would think when no replying flicker appeared on the disk of Mars. Perhaps he was trying to imagine, as he had done so often before, what his friend of the light was like. Maybe he was wondering whether he should soon know.

His pause was only momentary. There was much to do, for in effect he was racing with the comet. Martians need very little sleep, and it was certain that Number 774 would get no sleep this night, nor the next, nor the next.

IV

Young Jack Cantrill cast a brief glance at the big diesel engine he had been inspecting, and then, with an air of finality, wiped his grease-blackened hands on a fistful of cotton waste. The outfit was functioning perfectly. Ordinarily he might have paused for a moment to admire the easy strength and motion of the machinery to which he played nursemaid, but, lover of machines though he certainly was, he had no time now.

His eyes did not linger on the reflection of the glowing electric light bulbs mirrored on the polished circumference of the spinning flywheel, as they usually did; nor did his attention wander to the sparks that purred blue and steady on the brushes of the gigantic dynamo attached to the engine.

He had something far more interesting to occupy his mind, and besides, a rather astounding idea had just occurred to him. Old Doc Waters and Yvonne might laugh at the notion; and then again they might be struck by it just as he had been. He’d have to try it out on them right away.

He tossed the handful of waste carelessly into a metal box, then made a perfunctory reading of the meters and instruments banked close and bewilderingly on the switchboard. He adjusted a small rheostat and jotted something down on a chart on the wall with a red crayon. Then, heedless of his light clothing and his perspiring condition, he hurried out into the frosty desert night.

The breeze, cold and untainted by the smell of burning fuel oil, chilled his damp body uncomfortably, but he did not heed it. The steady thud of the exhaust of the high-compression motor in the iron shack receded rapidly behind him as he ran up a path which led to the summit of a low hill.

On the crest of a neighboring knoll, a broad patch of dazzling light winked on and off regularly, where scores of huge searchlights poured their billions of candlepower toward the twinkling stars, in systematically arranged long and short spurts. Jack Cantrill’s glance toward them was brief but intense. His lips moved as though he were counting to himself.

The door of the domed observatory building at the top of the hill opened at his touch. He passed through a small lean-to and entered the brick-lined circular chamber that housed the telescope. Here a single shaded lamp cast a subdued glow over a big desk on which various opened notebooks and papers were scattered. Amid the litter an astronomer’s chronometer ticked loudly in shadowed stillness. The gloom was eerie and soft and strange.

Jack Cantrill made his way quietly to the low platform under the eyepiece of the telescope, where the other two occupants of the room stood.

The girl was pretty in a blond, elfin sort of way. She smiled briefly at Jack’s approach.

“Any luck, folks?” he inquired.

He was trying to make his voice sound calm and casual, but a tense and excited huskiness crept into his words and spoiled his bluff.

Professor Waters looked up from the eye piece of the big instrument. The glow coming from the nearby lamp accentuated the tired lines of his face, making himlook almost haggard. He grinned wearily.

“Not yet, boy,” he said. “It seems as though Old Faithful has deserted us completely. It’s funny, too, when you remember that when conditions were at all favorable for observation, he hasn’t failed me once in nine years. And yet this is the second night that he hasn’t given us a sign. The shaded side of Mars hasn’t shown a single flicker that you can see, and even the photoelectric cell doesn’t detect anything.”

The young man glanced uncertainly at the girl and then back at her father. The fingers of one of his hands crept slowly through his curly red hair. With the air of a small schoolboy about to make his first public address, he was fumbling with a soiled sheet of paper he had taken from his pocket. He felt rather sheepish about that idea he had thought of.

“Yvonne— Doc—” he said almost plaintively, in an awkward attempt to get their undivided attention centered on what he was going to say. “I’m not much of a scientist, and maybe I’m a darned fool; but—well, this message—the final one we received the night before last—we thought it was just a jumble but, when you read it, it almost has meaning. Here, listen to it once.”

Clearing his throat he proceeded to read from the sheet of paper: “Comet coming. Yes. Comet coming. Yes. Comet coming of Man of Mars. Comet Man of Mars coming toward Earth. Comet coming Man of Mars. Man of Mars. Comet. Man of Mars. Comet. Man of Mars. Comet. Yes, yes, yes. Man of Earth. Yes, yes, yes. Signing off. Signing off.”

Jack Cantrill’s thin cheeks were flushed when he stopped reading.

“Get it?” he asked in a husky whisper. “Get any sense out of that?”

Yvonne Waters’ pretty face had paled slightly. “You mean, Jack—you mean that he wanted to say that he was coming
here,
across fifty million miles of emptiness? He can’t do that! He can’t! It’s too far and too impossible!”

Her concerned manner bolstered up the youth’s confidence in his idea. “You caught on to exactly what I thought of,” he said.

Professor Waters did not betray any outward excitement. His manner was musing, and he rubbed his cheek reflectively. “I thought of that, too,” he admitted after a moment. “But it seemed too wild for serious consideration. Still there’s a chance—that you are right.”

The thought put into words seemed suddenly to startle the old man. “Gad, boy!” he exploded suddenly. “Supposing it
is
the truth! Old Faithful signaled about the comet. If there’s anything to this at all, the comet must be tied up with his coming. And for all we know the comet might help. It passes close to both Earth and Mars. If in some way he could fall into its gravitation field, it would drag him almost all the way. That’s it! It would save an enormous energy. It would put his trip, otherwise still impossible, into the realm of possibility!”

“You get me at last, doc,” Jack said quickly. “And when you say, ‘Supposing it’s the truth,’ think of what it means! The navigation of interplanetary space, maybe! Commerce between Earth and Mars! A new and wonderful era, with the minds of one world exchanging ideas with the minds of another.”

Unconsciously Jack Cantrill had taken Yvonne Waters’ hand. Her eyes were starry.

“If it did happen we’d all be heroes, Jack,” she said. “Dad and you and I. We’d be the ones to get the credit.’’

“We would, Yvonne,” Jack admitted with a chuckle.

It was the professor’s turn to smile. “You two have got the whole business nicely ready-made, haven’t you?” he chided. Then his face sobered as he went on: “The gap is pretty wide between Earthman and Martian; and in consequence yours may be very far off, even if that guess of ours about the message is right.