“The dirty rotten … they’re not going to answer the call.”
Hal barely breathed the words.
Then the speaker rasped to life and the cold voice of Colonel Stegham filled the tiny room.
“You know the conditions of this exercise — so your reasons for calling had better be pretty good. What are they?”
Hal grabbed the microphone, half-complaining, half pleading, the words poured out in a torrent. As soon as he started Tony knew it would not be any good. He knew just how Stegham would react to the complaints. While Hal was still pleading the speaker cut him off.
“That’s enough. Your explanation doesn’t warrant any change in the original plan. You are on your own and you’re going to have to stay that way. I’m cutting this emergency connection permanently. Don’t attempt to contact me again until the exercise is over.”
The click of the opening circuit was as final as death.
Hal sat dazed, tears on his cheeks. It wasn’t until he stood up that Tony realized they were tears of anger. With a single pull, Hal yanked the mike loose and heaved it through the speaker grille.
“Wait until this is over, Colonel, and I can get your pudgy neck between my hands.”
He whirled towards Tony. “Get out the medical kit. I’ll show that idiot he’s not the only one who can play boyscout with his damned exercises.”
There were four morphine styrettes in the kit; he grabbed one out, broke the seal and jabbed it against his arm. Tony didn’t try to stop him, in fact, he agreed with him completely. Within a few minutes, Hal was slumped over the table snoring deeply. Tony picked him up and dropped him onto his bunk.
Hal slept almost twenty hours and when he woke some of the madness and exhaustion was gone from his eyes. Neither of them mentioned what had happened. Hal marked the days remaining on the bulkhead and carefully rationed the remaining morphine. He was getting about one night’s sleep in three, but it seemed to be enough.
They had four days left to blast off when Tony found the first Martian life. It was something about the size of a cat that crouched in the lee of the ship. He called to Hal who came over and looked at it.
“That’s a beauty,” he said, “but nowhere near as good as the one I had on my second trip. I found this ropy thing that oozed a kind of glue. Contrary to regulations — I was curious as hell — I dissected the thing. It was a beauty, wheels and springs and gears, Stegham’s technicians do a good job. I really got chewed out for opening the thing, though. Why don’t we just leave this one where it is?”
For a moment Tony almost agreed — then changed his mind.
“That’s probably just what they want. So let’s finish the game their way. I’ll watch it, you get one of the empty ration cartons.”
Hal reluctantly agreed and climbed into the ship. The outer door swung slowly and ground into place. Disturbed by the vibration, the thing darted out towards Tony. He gasped and stepped back before he remembered it was only a robot.
“Those technicians really have exotic imaginations,” he mumbled.
The thing started to run by him and he put his foot on some of its legs to hold it. There were plenty of legs; it was like a small bodied spider surrounded by a thousand unarticulated legs. They moved in undulating waves like a millipede’s and dragged the misshapen body across the sand. Tony’s boot crunched on the legs, tearing some off. The rest held.
Being careful to keep his hand away from the churning legs, he bent over and picked up a dismembered limb. It was hard and covered with spines on the bottom side. A milky fluid was dripping from the torn end.
“Realism,” he said to himself. “Those techs sure believe in realism.”
And then the thought hit him. A horribly impossible thought that froze the breath in his throat. The thoughts whirled round and round and he knew they were wrong because they were so incredible. Yet he had to find out, even if it meant ruining their mechanical toy.
Keeping his foot carefully on the thing’s legs, he slipped the sharpened table knife out of his pouch and bent over. With a single, swift motion he stabbed.
“What the devil are you doing?”
Hal asked, coming up behind him. Tony couldn’t answer and he couldn’t move. Hal walked around him and looked down at the thing on the ground.
It took him a second to understand; then he screamed.
“It’s alive? It’s bleeding and there are no gears inside. It can’t be alive-if it is we’re not on Earth at all — we’re on Mars!”
He began to run, then fell down, screaming.
Tony thought and acted at the same time. He knew he only had one chance. If he missed they’d both be dead. Hal would kill them both in his madness. He rolled the sobbing man onto his back. Balling his fist, he let swing as hard as he could at the spot just under Hal’s breastplate. There was just the thin fabric of the suit here and that spot was right over the big nerve ganglion of the solar plexus. The thud of the blow hurt his hand — but Hal was silenced. Putting his hands under the other’s arms, he dragged him into the ship.
Hal started to come to after Tony had stripped him and laid him on the bunk. It was impossible to hold him down with one hand and press the freeze cycle button at the same time. He concentrated on holding Hal’s one leg still while he pushed the button. The crazed man had time to hit Tony three times before the needle lanced home into his ankle. He dropped back with a sigh and Tony got groggily to his feet. The manual actuator on the frozen sleep had been provided for any medical emergency so the patient could survive until the doctors could work on him back at base. It had proven its value.
Then the same unreasoning terror hit him.
If the beast were real then Mars was real.
This was no training exercise — this was it. That sky outside wasn’t a painted atmosphere, it was the real sky of Mars.
He was alone as no man had ever been alone before, on a planet millions of miles from his world.
He was shouting as he dogged home the outer airlock door, an animal-like howl of a lost beast. He had barely enough control left to get to his bunk and throw the switch above it. The hypodermic was made of good steel so it went right through the fabric of his pressure suit. He was just reaching for the hypo arm to break it off when he dropped off into the blackness.
This time, he was slow to open his eyes. He was afraid he would see the riveted hull of the ship above his head. It was the white ceiling of the hospital, though, and he let the captive air out of his lungs. When he turned his head he saw Colonel Stegham sitting by the bed.
“Did we make it?”
Tony asked. It was more of a statement than a question.
“You made it, Tony. Both of you made it. Hal is awake here in the other bed.”
There was something different about the colonel’s voice and it took Tony an instant to recognize it. It was the first time he had ever heard the colonel talk with any emotion other than anger.
“The first trip to Mars. You can imagine what the papers are saying about it. More important, Tech says the specimens and readouts you brought back are beyond price. When did you find out it wasn’t an exercise?”
“The twenty-fourth day. We found some kind of Martian animal. I suppose we were pretty stupid not to have stumbled onto it before that.”
Tony’s voice had an edge of bitterness.
“Not really. Every part of your training was designed to keep you from finding out. We were never certain if we would have to send the men without their knowledge, there was always that possibility. Psych was sure that the disorientation and separation from Earth would cause a breakdown. I could never agree with them.”
“They were right,” Tony said, trying to keep the memory of fear out of his voice.