The verdure covering the canals was explained in the same way, for the underground waterways could be pumped full only when the heat of Spring or Summer melted the polar snows. During such times, the huge pumping stations delivered water sufficient for the entire year to cities and industries, where it was stored against the future, as the waste water.
In view of the vast, straight-line distances, the Martians had forborne to install piping and had simply dug series of parallel ditches with enormous earth-movers. The ditches were covered over to prevent undue evaporation losses, and between them the moss tended to grow whenever they were full. This was in Spring when the pumping began, and the moss withered away when it ceased in the Autumn.
Woolf's research into the Martian water circulation did not impede the work of preparing the landing strip, and Holt radioed Goddard to launch her landing boat. An hour before it was due, the entire Earthling landing party stationed itself at the end of the runway. The three caterpillars, from which Hempstead had tactfully removed the ordnance, were manned by drivers and radio men, while a pressurized, transparent Martian vehicle loaded with journalists and television newsmen stood by to immortalize the epic-making landing of an interplanetary space vessel.
The usually imperturbable Holt showed signs of nervousness, for the success or failure of his expedition was at stake in the landings of the two boats. He suffered at the thought of being only a spectator at this decisive moment, and longed to be in the copilot's seat of Nordenskjold's craft, where he might perform a bit of discrete back seat driving.
It distressed him to know that his men were in danger that he could not share.
As they scanned the northwesterly sky through field glasses, a signal flare drifted down out of the somber, crystal blue. Soon they could see the wide sweep of the raked pinions centered by the pod-like hull. The great wing swept across them at 6,000 feet, made two descending spirals and a wide, left turn into the approach leg. Holt saw the two landing wheels drop into place before the start of the turn hid them under the wings.
An agitated voice came out of his helmet receiver. "Colonel Holt, this is Brooks in Panther. Reporting Mayday from Goddard. Lieutenant Nordenskjold reports nose wheel stuck. Minor fire in propulsion compartment caused a short circuit. Over."
"Damnation!" Holt exploded into his microphone. "Clear away the caterpillar fire equipment, Nordenskjold will have to work it out for himself. Transmit to me any further reports. Over."
"I had a hunch something would happen," he growled to himself. He could see the absence of the nose wheel between the extended main wheels as the boat leveled off.
"Full stall landing will be made. Over," now came through his receiver.
"That's the only thing he can do," said Holt, more to himself than to the radio man.
"Hope the tanks don't burst and the ship doesn't catch fire!"
With the nose high in the air, the wheels touched the landing strip. Holt crossed his fingers as well as he could in his clumsy gauntlets. The heavy boat rolled a hundred yards or more with the nose still high and a cloud of dust rising from the short, cruciform empennage, where the emergency tail-skid was tearing up the ground and tossing pebbles and sparks into the air. Slowly the nose dropped as the speed diminished until, in a cloud of dust and with a grinding of metal, the craft came to rest directly in front of the waiting group without sending up any fatal plume of fire.
Holt rushed to the stern, pale and trembling. Sure enough, the emergency skid had torn off! The diagonal cross of the stabilizing fins, which were so essential for the eventual relaunching, had been ground down to half their span by contact with the landing strip. The whole stern appeared to have suffered and the skin was torn away in places through which protruded bent and broken struts.
A repair job of the first magnitude would give John Wiegand a chance really to demonstrate his skill, and Holt experienced a moment of satisfaction in the knowledge that the invaluable John would rejoice in his visit to Mars, instead of remaining in the circling orbit as originally intended.
The door of the boat opened and the inflated, helmeted figures filed out upon the inclining wing and leapt down.
"Sorry about that," said Nordenskjold as Holt held out his hand. "It might have been far worse," answered Holt, "and it's mighty good to have you here. You did your part splendidly."
Twenty-four hours later, Ziolkowsky's boat descended from the orbit, and in the hands of the experienced Haynes landed as though on the home field of United Spacecraft. John Wiegand was with him, somewhat sketchily equipped with a toothbrush for the coming year on Mars. This lack of impedimenta did not disturb him, and he immediately crawled under the Goddard boat for an inspection.
"It shouldn't be too much of a job, if we can remove the stern from Oberth's boat and replace this damaged one," said he. "Do you think we can get that done?"
Chapter 27 — Body Repair and Brain Filling Stations
After the landings of Goddard's and Ziolkowsky's boats and when the various scientists were well started on their tasks of discovery, Holt and Hubbard decided to take advantage of Oraze's invitation to visit a Martian hospital. Dr. Barrett had arrived and, with Woolf and Billingsley, they made their way to the surgery clinic headed by Oraze's son, Imo.
Oraze's lamentations concerning the seedy side of their civilization had made a profound impression on his hearers, and Doctor Barret was consumed with curiosity as to medical and surgical procedures on the Red Planet. Notwithstanding his devotion to space medicine, he had retained a high degree of surgical skill and a good familiarity with internal medicine.
The group of Earthlings was greeted at the entrance to the municipal hospital where the clinic was located by the youthful, swarthy Imo, who promptly led them down a wide corridor behind whose transparent walls was displayed a grim collection of human organs preserved in glass containers. Livers, hearts, lungs, eyes, legs, hands and feet were stored in nutritive fluids or kept in states of activity by complicated glass pumping devices.
"Here you see our stock pile," commented Imo. "All these organs are willed to us by people who have died and who, in their lifetime, declared their willingness to devote any still usable parts of their bodies to the healing of the sick. You may be interested to know that it is socially good form so to specify in one's testament.
When such a person dies, we immediately remove surgically those organs for which there is the greatest demand. They are then made sterile and preserved against future use in the machines you see before you, under conditions which permit us to keep the organs usable for a considerable time."
"How horrible!" whispered Holt to Dr. Barrett. "Hyper-civilized cannibalism disguised as brotherly love and humanitarianism…"
Dr. Barrett chewed somewhat dubiously at his ragged mustache. "I'm not so sure," said he. "Our own medical science seems to be headed in the same direction. If blood banks, and eye banks, and bone and skin grafts are acceptable, why shouldn't a heart for which the owner has no more use, or an arm or leg fall into the same category?"
Imo ushered them into an elevator which descended to a circular gallery whence they could look down into a bright operating theater. On the table lay a patient completely enveloped in what seemed to be a white, celluloid skin. He was conversing freely with the masked surgeons and assistants through his transparent head enclosure. Ultraviolet lamps for sterilizing the air shone from the ceiling.
Imo began to describe the operation. "This patient is a musician and yesterday his arm was crashed in an accident. Fortunately for him, his accident coincided with the death of a noted violinist, so that his new arm will require little, if any training when he returns to practice his profession. It might even happen that his skill will improve measurable."