The city was behind now, and the soft sand of the desert was making every step an effort. Sokolsky pointed ahead, muttering something. He apparently had some theory as to the distribution of the plants. If so, it was productive of results. They found another strip of plants where the interlacing roots had given the ground some stability, and trudged on. They were making no more than five miles an hour, which was slow here, but Sokolsky seemed content.
“We’ll march about halfway there, and then we’ll sleep. Ever sleep in a space suit? No? Well, it isn’t too bad. I did it on the Moon one night, just to see if it would work. I thought it might be useful. I don’t recommend it, but we can sleep anywhere, now that Vance is saving us from ourselves.”
He chuckled, to show there was no bitterness in his words. With a chance to explore, Sokolsky seemed incapable of being bitter about anything.
Far away, the hint of a thin, wailing cry cut through the air. Chuck had heard it twice more since the first night, but the hair on his neck still rose at the sound. “Do you still think it’s the wind?” he asked.
Sokolsky nodded vigorously. “What else? But not around some natural rock. It’s in the city—I’ve heard it there, closer. But I can’t find where. Those ancient people must have made themselves a wind trumpet of some kind that works with very little wind. I’ll find it yet. It has to be that”
Chuck wished he could be as certain. It reminded him of the stories Ginger knew of banshees. Nothing good could come of it, he was sure.
Again Sokolsky led across a narrow strip of desert and found another vegetation-covered way for their feet. About half an hour more, according to their progress, and they could sleep. Chuck had begun to wish that he had never come out with the strange, intense little man.
Something rustled across his legs! He jumped, landing with a weak cry, and began inspecting the ground. It was only a long creeper, running for perhaps a hundred feet. Then, as he watched it, it moved forward jerkily.
Chuck swung his light toward the other end. For a brief moment, he seemed to see something scuttle away quickly. He snapped his head around to follow it, but it was gone. The vine lay still now, its balled-up leaves trying to dig back into the sand from which it had been disturbed. “Did you see anything?” he asked Sokolsky. .The doctor denied it, casually. Chuck wondered. But he was tired and jumpy, and the sound in the distance had upset him again. He had to admit that it could have been his eyes playing tricks on him, and that the creeper had probably been disturbed by his own feet. Yet he seemed to remember standing perfectly still and looking back at the moment he had felt it.
Sokolsky went on a bit farther until he came to another barren patch. There he kicked about in the sand, digging a sort of trough. “This is it. Chuck,” he announced. “Well sleep here until the sun wakens us—I always waken when I see the sunlight. Then we can get a fresh start in the morning.”
Chuck studied the sand dubiously. “Suppose a sandstorm comes up and buries us during the night?”
“Piffle, as my old teacher used to say. If it kicks up that much fuss, the sound of the sand hitting our helmets will wake us and we’ll find a better place. Anyhow, I haven’t seen a good wind on Mars yet—fast, maybe, but not one with any strength to it I think those precious sandstorms are exaggerated. The wind just picks up the finest dust and blows it along. Somebody on the Moon looks down with a telescope and finds his seeing is cut off—as it is even with a fog. He knows it isn’t water, and he thinks of sand in the only way he knows—like the Sahara. So, presto, we have huge sandstorms. Dusty, yes—but buried in sand I won’t buy.”
When Chuck thought it over, he had to agree with him wholeheartedly. Even against the weak gravity of Mars, it would take a terrific force of wind to give the thin air any real carrying power.
He dropped into the sand beside the doctor, stretching out. The insulation of his suit would protect him from the sub-zero cold easily enough. Anyhow, from what he bad seen, the sand was a good insulating blanket. The plants seemed to find it wise to burrow down into it at night
He turned over on his side as he heard the doctor snap off the radio. It was an act of consideration, since Sokolsky snored rather loudly. Chuck cut his own off.
Something rustled near him. He sat up and the sound went away, but when his helmet touched the sand again, the rustling sound was stronger. It sounded like footsteps—slow, careful steps—in the sand.
He sat up, touching helmets with Sokolsky. “Doc—do you hear anything?”
“Surely—the sand settling under our bodies!”
Chuck remembered beds that had made regular noises until he found the springs jiggled with his breathing. It could be—but he didn’t believe it. He lay back, trying to hold his breath.
This time, the sounds were nearer.
He sat up again, and froze. Beyond Sokolsky, perhaps fifty feet away, two huge, luminous circles gleamed at him. This was no illusion. He’d seen cat’s eyes in the dark, and this was the same. Cautiously, he touched the doctor and tried to turn the man’s head toward the eyes.
There were four of them now, two pairs well apart.
Suddenly Sokolsky sat up with a jerk. The automatic came from his pouch, and the flash of a shot illuminated the night. It was a high, shrill explosion in Chuck’s ears.
The eyes vanished, and Sokolsky reached for Chuck, touching helmets. “Quite right. Chuck. They were eyes. I fired into the air of course—it wouldn’t do to kill anything as rare as Martian animals must be. If it had been a natural phenomenon, it would have remained; it ran at the sound of the shot, proving it was alive. Maybe you’re right about the cries you’ve been hearing. Hm-m-m. Wonder if it’s stalking us, or just curious?”
“What do you intend doing about it?” Chuck asked.
Sokolsky shrugged. “Nothing. We’re wearing space suits. I intend to go to sleep.”
A moment later, his regular breathing proved that he had lived up to his intentions. Chuck turned around carefully, to face three pairs of shining eyes.
They vanished as he looked, but it didn’t make him feel much happier.
CHAPTER 12
The Mysterious Canals
Sokolsky was as good as his word. At the first touch of the sun, he was up and waking Chuck. Even before the boy was fully awake, his eyes swung toward the place where the eyes had seemed to multiply during the night. But there was nothing there.
Chuck searched the sand for a sign of tracks, but there was no evidence. If there had been tracks, either the wind had covered them or they had been carefully destroyed.
Sokolsky was highly amused. “Of course I saw them. I agree that they were the eyes of some form of life. Fine. But we are not equipped to track them down, and all we can do is to report them. Of course, I’d like to study one— I wonder if they have three sexes, like the plants—but one must limit oneself to one’s abilities. Anyhow, as I said, they didn’t bother us. After they heard the shot from the automatic…”
His hand had gone to the pouch and now it came away empty. He stared at it in puzzlement, began searching hastily through his pouch, and then around the ground where he had slept There was no sign of the missing gun.
“But it’s impossible. I’m a light sleeper, Chuck. They couldn’t have sneaked it out of the pouch without my feeling it. Of course, if I dropped it on the ground…” ‘He nodded slowly. “That must be it. I dropped it. But why should an animal want a gun?”
Chuck could offer no help on these animals, or the general psychology of Martian beasts. All he knew was that the gun was obviously missing. On the other hand, the beasts had seemed to be harmless. He’d watched until there were over twenty pairs of eyes; they’d avoided him and disappeared when he looked at them, but by watching from the comer of his eyes, he had seen them increase. A pack of that number could easily have overpowered the two of them.