Marooned on Mars

CHAPTER 16 Lost in the Caverns

Chuck stood for a moment, looking at the useless lamp. It left him without any real choice. He would have to turn around and follow his footprints out of the tunnels, go back to the ship, and get help. With enough light and a few extra men, it shouldn’t take long to track down the creatures and locate the missing tools.

He switched on his *** Hide light again briefly, trying to estimate how much burning time was left in the battery. He could see no evidence to indicate the charge was running down, but he realized that his eyes might have grown accustomed to a change.

Again, it didn’t matter too much. He would simply have to flash it on in the briefest possible intervals and make sure his tracks led ahead. Once each fifty steps should be about right. With such intermittent use, even a well-used battery would last for a long time. The way out shouldn’t be hard to follow.

Another of the weird cries ran through the tunnel. He wondered if it might be some kind of signal concerning his presence. Well, let them come for him. It would save the trouble of trying to find them later.

The bravado was his first sign of fear. He stopped sharply, and tried to analyze it, but there was no reason behind it. He just knew that he was afraid again—not greatly, but at least unpleasantly.

He looked briefly at the ground for his footprints and headed down the tunnel at a quick trot, counting the steps to fifty. Again he flicked on the light, and checked his course. He was making better speed than he had coming down. The footprints led on plainly, without even a blurriness to indicate that other feet had used the path since he passed.

He had rechecked the path for the twentieth time and made the satisfactory round number of a thousand steps that finally lifted the little cloud of fear. After all, he was a civilized man with a background that had led man across space to another planet. These were only primitives—little humanoids that had gone down the long road from a medium cultural level to a lower one.

Again he reached the figure one thousand. This time he stopped to rest. He should have kept counting his steps on the way down, so that he’d have some way of knowing how far he still had to go.

He looked at his watch; it still pointed to midnight. It had stopped, and there was no way to get inside the plastic cuff of the space suit to wind it again. Look but don’t touch! He’d been getting careless about winding it when he went to bed, and now his carelessness was catching up with him.

Abruptly, at the end of his next sprint, his footprints came to a dead end!

He flashed the light longer this time, until something behind him caught his attention. It was the battered can of corned beef. He knew he hadn’t turned any corners near here. Yet the trail ended, and the tunnel turned left sharply. The wall looked continuous, yet his prints went up to it and stopped.

He threw his weight against the lying wall; there was no resiliency, and no breaking through. It seemed as solid as the rest of the walls.

He dropped to his hands and knees, trying to find some crack under it with his fingers—still it seemed solid.

The fear came back to him, washing over him more strongly than ever. Now he wanted light—no more than a glimpse of light, but enough to dispel the fears that were rising in him. He pressed the switch tightly, holding it on. The vanishing-footprints still stared up at him.

A sudden chirping sound that seemed to come from beyond the wall brought him to his feet. As he watched, the part that had been a wall folded backward, while another panel came out to close off the branch to the left. The chirpings also turned left and faded away.

Ahead of him was the way he must have traveled, since it ran on without curves or branches, as his memory of this section indicated it should. The footprints, however, were missing from it.

He went down it steadily, nevertheless; it was obviously the path he had followed. Soon he was on an upward incline, and he was again sure he had followed the right trail. Soon the steps would appear ahead, and he’d be out of this rat’s nest, with its odd revolving doors.

It went on without a break, and he began to worry about the absence of the side trails he had seen before. They were probably closed off by more of those trick doorways.

Then the trail took a sharp downward incline.

Chuck stopped and backtracked, but there was no other way he could have gone. He had come—or had he made a turn somewhere in the early part of his trip? He’d *** tamed right—no, he’d turned left, because that would carry him under the ruins of the city. That meant that on the way out he should have taken a right turn.

He backtracked farther, pounding on the right wall in the hope that some sound difference would show him where the opening was. He moved slowly now, placing the helmet against the wall and tapping. He could find no difference in any section. They were all dull and muffled, as if the sound were reflected from a great thickness of solid earth.

Thirst was bothering him, more so now that he could do nothing about it. He hadn’t meant to be away so long, and he had forgotten to fill the tube after he removed the blower unit. He sucked on it without any hope, and was delighted to find that there was still some water left— perhaps half a cup.

Again he began tapping, although he had less faith in it now. The incline must have been longer than he had come up, at this location.

Dim light came from behind him—not a brief flicker this time but a steady glow. He moved toward it happy for anything to take him toward something definite. There were probably a hundred exits from this place, and it might very well be daylight from the surface, shining down through a crack. It certainly seemed long enough to be day again.

But the crack was on the wall, not from the ceiling. He put his eyes to it and looked through. It was barely wide enough to show him the room beyond.

The dim light was coming from a number of sources. It wasn’t fire, of course, but appeared to be something painted onto the walls which made them glow. Dim as it was, he could still see the details with fair clarity.

The first thing that caught his attention were two of the missing welders. About twenty of the furry creatures were grouped around them seemingly arguing vehemently about something, since their chirping was coming at a rapid rate. Another was making motions with the torch of one of the machines, apparently trying to show how the Earthmen used it.

One, who somehow gave the impression of age, though there was no change in the color of his coat, was beating on the ground and clicking his sharp teeth, together. It might have been either agreement or contradiction.

It was the one in the center of the group that interested Chuck the most. That creature was gesturing upward, and toward the welders. He made another gesture which was too complicated for any good interpretation; it seemed to indicate that he was searching rapidly.

The old one clicked his teeth together, beat on the ground, and stood up. It seemed to break up the meeting, and they all began separating. One of them moved to the walls and did something to the glowing sections; the glow faded, and the room was in darkness.

Chuck tensed. Before the final glow died, he had seen the creature who had been doing all the gesturing heading straight toward him. Now he waited, moving cautiously back toward the long tunnel, where he couldn’t be caught in any of their doors. He pressed his helmet against the wall. There was a stirring sound, and a soft patter that could only be footsteps.

The creature moved directly past him, making little chirping sounds to itself. Chuck began to bless his good fortune as he dropped behind, trying to be silent while he stayed within range of the chirping. He could only interpret the gestures as an offer to go up to the surface and bring back more of the things which had suddenly turned up within easy reach.

When a man doesn’t know his way around, it’s better to follow someone who does. Chuck decided. He strained his ears, trying to be sure that the chirper wouldn’t be able to turn down some other passage and throw him off the trail.

The creature moved ahead steadily though, at an easy pace. Chuck began to expect daylight at any moment. Presently there was a growing touch of light ahead, but it didn’t look like daylight.

It wasn’t. The creature suddenly appeared against a rectangular opening of the light which swung shut behind him. Another of the cracks, air vents, perhaps, lay near the doorway.

Again, there were two of the welders in the large room, but this was an entirely different scene. There was no idle chirping and beating on the floor here. About twenty of the creatures were busy at various duties—most of them meaningless—near the center of the cavern. Over in the far corner, a compact little group stood around one of the older ones who was scratching on the floor. There was another watching intently, and it was obvious that the older one was trying to draw something and having a hard time getting his meaning across.

Other treasures from the ship stood about the room, along with some strange structures which were of native make. It seemed to be some sort of workshop.

Chuck kept the chirping creature he had followed carefully within his view, even while he watched the others. It might be only a stop before he went on about the errand he had seemed to be bound on. Chuck couldn’t do any better at this stage. He watched as the creature moved about the room until it came to a blower unit hanging on the wall, and began preening itself.

There had been no missing blowers when Chuck had left the ship! That was a recent addition to their collection and hardly in keeping with their usual policy. It touched on unpleasant subjects—the suit he was wearing was now equipped only with tanks of oxygen, which wouldn’t last as long as one set of batteries for a blower. He must be running low!

The chirper was still preening in front of the blower, but now it began to settle down on its haunches, leaning back against the wall. The huge eyes closed, as if it were sleeping.

It hadn’t been planning a trip up—it had been bragging about one already made. Chuck had been led on another fool’s chase around the maze, and he was no nearer out than before—probably farther, if their working quarters were located away from the entrances, as seemed to be the case.

He moved back out of the light from the slit, and touched the switch. This time there was no denying that the little bulb was glowing much more dimly than before. However, it gave enough illumination for him to read the dial on his oxygen tank. There were between fifteen and twenty minutes more to go on one tank—and the other was already empty.

He remembered the classical adage which advised a man who was faced with the inevitable to accept his fate gracefully; but he could also remember his father’s comment on it:

“When you’re at the end of your rope, you’ll be a wise man to sit down and wait for the rope’s end to hit you; but you’ll live a lot longer if you grab it and start trying to climb up it, even if you don’t know where it’s tied.”

There were three passages here. One led to the room where he’d first seen the chirper; the second was the one in which he was standing. Both were dead-end streets. The third went off into nowhere—it might be the nowhere that led but of the maze. He probably couldn’t make the ship unless it was the right exit, but he could get close enough to scratch a warning in the sand, with luck.

He turned down the third passage, no longer caring about saving light or avoiding anything. His legs pumped under him. The fear of dying came late, as if the act of running had brought it out. It caught at his chest, and made the air seem stale and re-used already. His stomach wanted to turn over, but he had no time. It was now or never.

The passage went on at a slow curve, and ended in a double intersection. He chose one of the tunnels at random and went racing down. It seemed to be going upward slightly, although he couldn’t be sure. His fingers on the wall were already necessary to aid the dying light of the little-bulb, but he only tried to run harder.

This time, when he saw the light, he knew better than to hope; the hope came anyway, together with another wave of fear—a mixture that left him no room for reason. He dashed toward it frantically and came to a stop beside another of the slits through the wall.

A bit of the scene inside told him he’d made a circle right back to the workshop!

His mind was a crazy mixture of feelings. Part of him was glad; it would mean that he would no longer be a burden on the crew of the Eros. Part was worrying about his family and what they would have to suffer because of his stowaway antics. But most of it was shrieking against the idea of dying here uselessly, without even one friend to know what happened to him.

Then, as suddenly as the desperation of fear had hit him, it was gone. The relief left him weak and shakes, but he was master of himself again. He leaned against the slitted wall, breathing hard.

The valve on the tanks began to click back and forth, trying to turn on a new supply when there was none. He still had two or three minutes of air left—perhaps he could live on the stale air in his suit for a couple of minutes more.

“All right,” he decided aloud. “Here goes nothing.”

He brought his fist up against the slit and kicked at the door where the chirper had entered. He saw the creatures inside stir suddenly, but without any move toward the entrances. He kicked again, harder.

This time he got results. One of them got up and went to the entrance. He did something with his hands and it was open.

Chuck walked in, pushing the Martian aside, before its small round mouth could utter a sound. He stomped across the floor, heading toward the blower that was hanging on the wall. There was a chorus of chirps and shrieks around him, but he paid no attention to that. First things had to come first.

His hand was on the blower before they made a move toward him. Then it was the chirper who stood up and let out one of the soul-jarring shrieks that could tear the nerves out of anyone hearing it for the first time. Chuck shoved him aside and reached for the blower. His other hand was already on the slide that attached the oxygen tanks. He took one deep breath, and started to make the changeover.

The creatures hit him in a single wave that knocked the blower out of his hands and sent him tumbling to the floor. They couldn’t hold him. On hands and knees, he crawled after the source of the oxygen his system demanded. The loosened tanks on his back came off under the pull of the Martians’ hands and the air in the suit whooshed out suddenly.

He reached the blower in spite of them. He jerked to his feet, tossing several of them topsy-turvy. Everything was turning black, but he could feel the blower unit slide home and lock in place.

He pressed the switch and heard the welcome hum of the little unit at work. Then the second assault wave of Martians hit him.