“We better not rile them, son,” said Charley softly. “They’re a hell’s brood and that’s for sure.”
He handed the rifle back to Kent and started backing up the slope, slow step by slow step.
Together the three of them backed slowly away, guns held at ready. In front of them, between them and the squatting monstrosities, a single Ghost suddenly materialized. A Ghost that did not waver but held straight and true, like a candle flame burning in the stillness of the night. Another Ghost appeared beside the first, and suddenly there were several more. The Ghosts floated slowly down the slope toward the death-head things, and as they moved they took on a deeper color, more substantiality, until they burned a deep and steady blue, solid columns of flame against the lighter blue of the eternal shadow.
Staring, scarcely believing, the three saw the gaping ghouls that had crept up the slope, turn and shuffle swiftly back, back into the mystery of the lower reaches of Mad-Man’s.
Kent laughed nervously. “Saved by a Ghost,” he said.
“Why, maybe they aren’t so bad after all,” said Ann and her voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “I wonder why they did it?”
“And how they did it,” said Kent.
“Principally,” said Charley, “why they did it. I never heard of any Ghost ever takin’ any interest in a man, and I have trod these canals for twenty Martian years.”
Kent expelled his breath. “And now,” he said, “for Lord’s sake, let’s turn back. We won’t find any hermit here. No man could live out a week here unless he had some specially trained Ghosts to guard him all the time. There isn’t any use of going on and asking for trouble.”
Charley looked at Ann. “It’s your expedition, ma’am,” he said.
She looked from one to the other and there was fear upon her face.
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “No one could live here. We won’t find anyone here. I guess it must just have been a myth, after all.” Her shoulders seemed to sag.
“We’ll go on if you say the word,” said Charley.
“Hell, yes,” declared Kent, “but we’re crazy to do it. I understand now why men came out of here stark crazy. A few more things like these we just seen and I’ll be nuts myself.”
“Look!” cried Ann. “Look at the Ghosts. They are trying to tell us something!”
It was true. The Ghosts, still flaming with their deep-blue color, had formed into a semicircle before them. One of them floated forward. His color flowed and changed until he took on a human form. His right hand pointed at them and then waved down the slope. They stared incredulously as the motion was repeated.
“Why,” said Ann, “I do believe he’s trying to tell us to go on.”
“Dim my sight,” shrieked Charley, “if that ain’t what the critter is tryin’ to tell us.”
The other Ghosts spread out, encircled the three. The one with the manlike form floated down the slope, beckoning. The others closed in, as if to urge them forward.
“I guess,” said Kent, “we go whether we want to or not.”
Guarded by the circle of Ghosts they went down the slope. From outside the circle came strange and terrible noises, yammerings and hissings and other sounds that hinted at shambling obscenities, strange and terrible life forms which lived and fought and died here in the lower reaches of Mad-Man’s.
The shadows deepened almost to darkness. The air became denser. The temperature rose swiftly.
They seemed to be walking on level ground.
“Maybe we’ve reached the bottom,” suggested Kent.
The circle of Ghosts parted, spread out and the three stood by themselves. A wall of rock rose abruptly before them, and from a cave in its side streamed light, light originating in a half-dozen radium bulbs. A short distance to one side squatted a shadowy shape.
“A rocket ship!” exclaimed Kent.
The figure of a man, outlined against the light, appeared in the mouth of the cave.
“The hermit,” cried Charley. “Harry, the Hermit. Blast my hindsight, if it ain’t old Harry, himself.”
Kent heard the girl’s voice, beside him. “I was right! I was right! I knew he had to be here somewhere!”
The man walked toward them. He was a huge man, his shoulders square and his face was fringed in a golden-yellow beard. His jovial voice thundered a welcome to them.
At the sound of that voice Ann cried out, a cry that was half gladness, half disbelief. She took a slow step forward and then suddenly she was running toward the hermit.
She flung herself at him. “Uncle Howard!” she cried. “Uncle Howard!”
He flung his brawny arms around the space-armored girl, lifted her off the ground and set her down.
Ann turned to them. “This is my uncle, Howard Carter,” she said. “You’ve heard of him. His best friends call him Mad-Man Carter, because of the things he does. But you aren’t mad, really, are you, uncle?”
“Just at times,” Carter boomed.
“He’s always going off on expeditions,” said the girl. “Always turning up in unexpected places. But he’s a scientist for all of that, a really good scientist.”
“I’ve heard of you, Dr. Carter,” said Kent. “I’m glad to find you down here.”
“You might have found worse,” said Carter.
“Dim my sights,” said Charley. “A human being living at the bottom of Mad-Man’s!”
“Come on in,” invited Carter. “I’ll have you a cup of hot coffee in a minute.”
Kent stretched out his legs, glad to get out of his spacesuit. He glanced around the room. It was huge and appeared to be a large cave chamber. Perhaps the cliffs that rimmed in Mad-Man’s were honeycombed with caves and labyrinths, an ideal place in which to set up camp.
But this was something more than a camp. The room was well furnished, but its furnishings were a mad hodge-podge. Tables and chairs and heating grids, laboratory equipment and queer-appearing machines. One machine, standing in one corner, kept up an incessant chattering and clucking. In another corner, a mighty ball hung suspended in mid-air, halfway between the ceiling and the floor, and within it glowed a blaze of incandescence which it was impossible to gaze directly upon. Piled haphazardly about the room were bales and boxes of supplies.
Kent waved his hand at a pile of boxes. “Looks like you’re planning on staying here for a while, Dr. Carter,” he said.
The man with the fearsome yellow beard lifted a coffee pot off the stove and chuckled. His chuckle thundered in the room. “I may have to stay quite a while longer,” he said, “although I doubt it. My work here is just about done.” He poured steaming coffee into the cups. “Draw up your chairs,” he invited.
He took his place at the end of the small table. “I imagine you are hungry,” he said. “It’s tiring work coming down into Mad-Man’s. Almost five miles.”
Charley lifted his cup to his mouth, drank deeply, wiped his whiskers carefully. “It’s quite a little walk, I’ll admit,” he said. “For twenty Martian years I’ve trapped the canals and I never saw the like of it. What made it, Doc?”
Dr. Carter looked puzzled. “Oh,” he said, “you mean what made Mad-Man’s.”
Charley nodded.
“I really don’t know,” said Carter. “I’ve been too busy on other things since I came here to try to find out. It’s a unique depression in the surface of the planet, but as to why or how it came to be, I don’t know. Although I could find out for you in a minute if you want to know. Funny I never thought of finding out for myself.”
He glanced around the table and his eyes came to rest on Ann. “But there’s something I do want to know,” he said, “and that is how this precious niece of mine ferreted me out.”