Breakfast was more of the same, since there was some hash left and Frank insisted that they not waste anything. Willis had no breakfast since he had eaten only two weeks before, but he absorbed nearly a quart of water. As they were about to leave Jim held up a flashlight. “Look what I found.”
“Well, put it back and let's go.”
“I think I'll keep it,” Jim answered, stuffing it in his bag. “We might have a use for it.”
“We won't and it's not yours.”
“For criminy's sake, I'm not swiping it; I'm just borrowing it. This is an emergency.”
Frank shrugged. “Okay, let's get moving.” A few minutes later they were on the ice and again headed south. It was a beautiful day, as Martian days almost always are; when the Sun was high enough to fill the slot of the canal it was almost balmy, despite the late season. Frank spotted the tell-tale hoisting beam of a Project shelter around midday and they were able to lunch inside, which saved them the tedious, messy, and unsatisfactory chore of trying to eat through the mouth valve of a respirator mask. The shelter was a twin of the first but no foundation for the plant had as yet been built near it.
As they were preparing to leave the shelter Jim said, “You look sort of flushed, Frank. Got a fever?”
“That's just the bloom of health,” Frank insisted. “I'm fine.” Nevertheless he coughed as he put on his mask. “Mars throat,” Jim thought but said nothing as there was nothing that he could do for Frank.
Mars throat is not a disease in itself; it is simply an extremely dry condition of the nose and throat which arises from direct exposure to Martian air. The humidity on Mars is usually effectively zero; a throat dehydrated by it is wide open to whatever disease organisms there may be present in the human throat at the time. The result is usually a virulent sore throat.
The afternoon passed without incident. As the Sun began to drop toward the skyline it seemed possible that home was not much more than five hundred miles away. Jim had watched Frank closely all afternoon. His chum seemed to be skating as strongly as ever; perhaps, he decided, the cough was just a false alarm. He skated up alongside Frank. “I guess we had better start watching for a shelter.”
“Suits me.”
Soon they passed another of the ramps built by long-dead Martians, but there was no hoisting beam above it nor any other sign of terrestrial activity. The banks, though somewhat lower now, were still too high to see over. Jim stepped up the stroke a bit; they hurried on.
They came to another ramp, but again there was nothing to suggest that a shelter might be above it. Jim stopped. “I vote we take a look up on the bank,” he said. “We know they build the shelters by the ramps and they may have taken the hoist down for some reason.”
“It would just be wasting valuable time,” Frank protested. “If we hurry, we can get to another ramp before dark.”
“Well, if you say so—”Jim shoved off and picked up speed.
The next ramp was the same story; Jim stopped again. “Let's take a look,” he pleaded. “We can't possibly reach the next one before sundown.”
“Okay.” Frank stooped over and tugged at his skates.
They hurried up the bank and reached the top. The slanting rays of the Sun showed nothing but the vegetation bordering the canal.
Jim felt ready to bawl through sheer weariness and disappointment. “Well, what do we do now?” he said.
“We go back down,” Frank answered, “and keep going until we find it.”
“I don't think we could spot one of those hoist beams in the dark.”
“Then we keep going,” Frank said grimly, “until we fall flat on our faces.”
“More likely we'll freeze.”
“Well, if you want my opinion,” Frank replied, “I think we're washed up. I, for one, can't keep going all night, even if we don't freeze.”
“You don't feel good?”
“That's putting it mildly. Come on.”
“All right.”
Willis had climbed out of the bag and up on Jim's shoulder, in order to see better. Now he bounced to the ground and rolled away. Jim snatched at him and missed. “Hey! Willis! Come back here!”
Willis did not answer. Jim started after him. His progress was difficult. Ordinarily he would have gone under the canal plants, but, late in the day as it was, most of them had lowered almost to knee height preparatory to withdrawing into the ground for the night. Some of the less hardy plants were already out of sight, leaving bare patches of ground.
The vegetation did not seem to slow up Willis but Jim found it troublesome; he could not catch the little scamp. Frank shouted, “ ‘Ware water-seekers! Watch where you put your feet!” Thus warned, Jim proceeded more carefully—and still more slowly. He stopped. “Willis! Oh, Willis! Come back! Come back, dawggone it, or we'll go away and leave you.” It was a completely empty threat.
Frank came crashing up and joined him. “We can't hang around up here, Jim.”
“I know it. Wouldn't you know that he would pull a stunt like this just at the wrong time?”
“He's a pest, that's what he is. Come on.”
Willis's voice—or, rather, Jim's voice as used by Willis— reached them from a distance. “Jim boy! Jim! Come here!”
Jim struggled through the shrinking vegetation with Frank after him. They found the bouncer resting at the edge of an enormous plant, a desert cabbage quite fifty yards across. The desert cabbage is not often found near the canals; it is a weed and not tolerated in the green sea bottoms of the lower latitudes, though it may be found in the deserts miles from any surface water.
The western half of this specimen was still spread out in a semicircular fan, flat to the ground, but the eastern half was tilted up almost vertically, its flat leaves still reaching greedily for the Sun's rays to fuel the photosynthesis by which plants live. A hardy plant, it would not curl up until the Sun was gone completely, and it would not withdraw into the ground at all. Instead it would curl into a tight ball, thus protecting itself from the cold and incidentally simulating, on giant scale, the Earth plant for which it was named.
Willis sat by the edge of the half that was flat to the ground. Jim reached for him.
Willis bounced up on the edge of the desert cabbage and rolled toward the heart of the plant. Jim stopped and said, “Oh, Willis, darn your eyes, come back here. Please come back.”
“Don't go after him,” warned Frank. “That thing might close up on you. The Sun is almost down.”
“I won't. Willis! Come back!”
Willis called back, “Come here, Jim boy.”
“You come here.”
“Jim boy come here. Frank come here. Cold there. Warm here.”
“Frank, what’111 do?”
Willis called again. “Come, Jim boy. Warm! Stay warm all night.”
Jim stared. “You know what, Frank? I think he means to let it close up on him. And he wants us to join him.”
“Sounds that way.”
“Come, Jim! Come, Frank!” Willis insisted. “Hurry!”
“Maybe he knows what he's doing,” Frank added. “Like Doc says, he's got instincts for Mars and we haven't.”
“But we can't go inside a cabbage. It would crush us.”
“I wonder.”
“Anyhow, we'd suffocate.”
“Probably.” Frank suddenly added, “Do as you like, Jim. I can't skate any farther.” He set one foot on a broad leaf—which flinched under the contact—and strode steadily toward the bouncer. Jim watched him for a moment and then ran after them.
Willis greeted them ecstatically. “Good boy, Frank! Good boy, Jim! Stay nice and warm all night.”
The Sun was slipping behind a distant dune; the sunset wind whipped coldly at them. The far edges of the plant lifted and began to curl toward them. “We still could get out if we jumped, Frank,” Jim said nervously.
“I'm staying.” Nevertheless Frank eyed the approaching leaves apprehensively.
“We'll smother.”
&n
bsp; “Maybe. That's better than freezing.”
The inner leaves were beginning to curl faster than the outer leaves. Such a leaf, four feet wide at its widest and at least ten feet long, raised up back of Jim and curved in until it touched his shoulder. Nervously he struck at it. The leaf snatched itself away, then slowly resumed its steady progress toward him. “Frank,” Jim said shrilly, “they'll smother us!”
Frank looked apprehensively at the broad leaves, now curling up all around them. “Jim,” he said, “sit down. Spread your legs wide. Then take my hands and make an arch.”
“What for?”
“So that we'll take up as much space as possible. Hurry!”
Jim hurried. With elbows and knees and hands the two managed to occupy a roughly spherical space about five feet across and a little less than that high. The leaves closed down on them, seemed to feel them out, then settled firmly against them, but not, however, with sufficient pressure to crush them. Soon the last open space was covered and they were in total darkness. “Frank,” Jim demanded, “we can move now, can't we?”
“No! give the outside leaves a chance to settle into place.”
Jim kept still for quite a long while. He knew that considerable time had passed for he spent the time counting up to one thousand. He was just starting on his second thousand when Willis stirred in the space between his legs. “Jim boy, Frank boy—nice and warm, huh?”
“Yeah, Willis,” he agreed. “Say, how about it, Frank?”
“I think we can relax now.” Frank lowered his arms; the inner leaf forming the ceiling immediately above him at once curled down and brushed him in the dark. He slapped at it instinctively; it retreated.
Jim said, “It's getting stuffy already.”
“Don't worry about it. Take it easy. Breathe shallowly Don't talk and don't move and you'll use up less oxygen.”
“What difference does it make whether we suffocate in ten minutes or an hour? This was a crazy thing to do, Frank; any way you figure it we can't last till morning.”
“Why can't we? I read in a book that back in India men have let themselves be buried alive for days and even weeks and were still alive when they were dug up. Fakers, they called them.”
“ ‘Fakers’ is right! I don't believe it.”
“I read it in a book, I tell you.”
“I suppose you think that anything that's printed in a book is true?”
Frank hesitated before replying, “It had better be true because it's the only chance we've got. Now will you shut up? If you keep yapping, you'll use up what air there is and kill us both off and it'll be your fault.”
Jim shut up. All that he could hear was Frank's breathing. He reached down and touched Willis; the bouncer had withdrawn all his stalks. He was a smooth ball, apparently asleep. Presently Frank's breathing changed to rasping snores.
Jim tried to sleep but could not. The utter darkness and the increasing deadness of the air pressed down on him like a great weight. He wished again for his watch, lost to Smythe's business talent; if he only knew what time it was, how long it was until sunrise, he felt that he could stand it.
He became convinced that the night had passed—or had almost passed. He began to expect the dawn and with it the unrolling of the giant plant. When he had been expecting it “any minute now” for a time that he estimated at two hours, at least, he became panicky. He knew how late in the season it was; he knew also that desert cabbages hibernated by the simple method of remaining closed through the winter. Apparently Frank and he had had the enormous bad luck to take shelter in a cabbage on the very night on which it started its hibernation.
Twelve long months from now, more than three hundred days in the future, the plant would open to the spring Sun and release them—dead. He was sure of it.
He remembered the flashlight he had picked up in the first Project shelter. The thought of it stimulated him, took his mind off his fears for the moment. He leaned forward, twisted around and tried to get at his bag, still strapped to his shoulders.
The leaves about him closed in; he struck at them and they shrank away. He was able to reach the torch, drag it out, and turn it on. Its rays brightly illuminated the cramped space. Frank stopped snoring, blinked, and said,”What's the matter?”
“I just remembered this. Good thing I brought it, huh?”
“Better put it out and go to sleep.”
“It doesn't use up any oxygen. I feel better with it on.”
“Maybe you do, but as long as you stay awake you use up more oxygen.”
“I suppose so.” Jim suddenly recalled what had been terrifying him before he got out the light. “It doesn't make any difference.” He explained to Frank his conviction that they were trapped forever in the plant.
“Nonsense!” said Frank.
“Nonsense yourself! Why didn't it open up at dawn?”
“Because,” Frank said, “we haven't been in here more than an hour.”
“What? Says you.”
“Says me. Now shut up and let me sleep. Better put out that light.” Frank settled his head again on his knees.
Jim shut up but did not turn out the light. It comforted him. Besides, the inner leaves which had shown an annoying tendency to close in on the tops of their heads now had retreated and flattened themselves firmly against the dense wall formed by the outer layers of leaves. Under the mindless reflex which controlled the movements of the plant they were doing their best to present maximum surface to the rays from the flashlight.
Jim did not analyze the matter; his knowledge of photosynthesis and of heliotropism was sketchy. He was simply aware that the place seemed roomier in the light and that he was having less trouble with the clinging leaves. He settled the torch against Willis, who had not stirred, and tried to relax.
It actually seemed less stuffy with the light on. He had the impression that the pressure was up a little. He considered trying to take off his mask but decided against it. Presently, without knowing it, he drifted off to sleep.
He dreamed and then dreamt that he was dreaming. Hiding in the desert cabbage had been only a fantastic, impossible dream; school and Headmaster Howe had merely been nightmares; he was home, asleep in his bed, with Willis cuddled against him. Tomorrow Frank and he would start for Syrtis Minor to enter school.
It had simply been a nightmare, caused by the suggestion that Willis be taken away from him. They were planning to take Willis away from him! They couldn't do that; he wouldn't let them!
Again his dream shifted; again he defied Headmaster Howe; again he rescued Willis and fled—and again they were locked away in the heart of a desert plant.
He knew with bitter certainty that it would always end like this. This was the reality, to be trapped and smothering in the core of a hibernating giant weed—to die there.
He choked and muttered, tried to wake up, then slipped into a less intolerable dream.
PURSUED
TINY PHOBOS, INNER MOON OF MARS, CAME OUT OF ECLIPSE and, at breakneck speed, flew west to east into the face of the rising Sun. The leisurely spin of its ruddy primary, twenty-four and a half hours for each rotation, presently brought the rays of that Sun to east Strymon, then across the bank of desert between the twin canals and to the banks of west Strymon. The rays struck a great ball perched near the eastern bank of that canal, a desert cabbage closed against the cold.
The plant stirred and unfolded. The sunward half of the plant opened flat to the ground; the other half fanned itself open like a spread peacock's tail to catch the almost horizontal rays. In so doing it spilled something out of its heart and onto the flat portion—two human bodies, twisted and stiff, clad garishly in elastic suits and grotesque helmets.
A tiny ball spilled out with them, rolled a few yards over the thick green leaves, and stopped. It extended eye stalks and little bumps of legs and waddled back to the sprawled bodies. It nuzzled up against one.
It hesitated, nuzzled again, then settled back and let out a thin wailing in which
was compounded inconsolable grief and an utter sense of loss.
Jim opened one bloodshot eye. “Cut out that infernal racket,” he said crossly.
Willis shrieked, “Jim boy!” and jumped upon his stomach, where he continued to bounce up and down in an ecstasy of greeting.
Jim brushed him off, then gathered him up in one arm. “Calm down. Behave yourself. Ouch!”
“What's the matter, Jim boy?”
“My arm's stiff. Ooo—ouch!” Further efforts had shown Jim that his legs were stiff as well. Also his back. And his neck.
“What's the matter with you?” demanded Frank.
“Stiff as board. Fd do better to skate on my hands today. Say—”
“Say what?”
“Maybe we don't skate. I wonder if the spring floods have started?”
“Huh? What are you gibbering about?” Frank sat up, slowly and carefully.
“Why, the spring floods, of course. Somehow we lasted through the winter, though I don't know how. Now we—”
“Don't be any sillier than you have to be. Fook where the Sun is rising.”
Jim looked. Martian colonials are more acutely aware of the apparent movements of the Sun than any Earthbound men, except, possibly, the Eskimos. All he said was, “Oh … ” then added, “I guess it was a dream.”
“Either that or you are even nuttier than usual. Fet's get going.” Frank struggled to his feet with a groan.
“How do you feel?”
“Like my own grandfather.”
“I mean, how's your throat?” Jim persisted.
“Oh, it's all right.” Frank promptly contradicted himself by a fit of coughing. By great effort he controlled it shortly; coughing while wearing a respirator is a bad idea. Sneezing is worse.
“Want some breakfast?”
“I'm not hungry now,” Frank answered. “Let's find a shelter first, so we can eat in comfort.”
“Okay.” Jim stuffed Willis back into the bag, discovered by experiment that he could stand and walk. Noticing the flashlight, he tucked it in with Willis and followed Frank toward the bank. The canal vegetation was beginning to show; even as they walked the footing grew more tangled. The green plants, still stiff with night cold, could not draw away quickly as they brushed through them.