'I reckon I am - Gannie.'
The sun had been up some two hours before the sand-truck's engine whirred into life, but outside, the murk had become, if anything, thicker.
The main driveway within the caverns was ahum with activity. Grotesque figures with eyes peering through the thick glass of improvised air-helmets stepped back as the truck's broad, sand-adapted wheels began their slow turn. The three cars behind had been piled high with purple blooms, canvas covers had been thrown over them and bound down tightly - and now the signal was given to open the doors.
The lever was jerked downwards and the double doors separated with sand-clogged protests. Through a gray whirl of inblown sand, the truck made its way outwards, and behind it sand-coated figures brushed at their air-helmets and closed the doors again.
George Carter, inured by long Ganymedan custom, met the sudden gravity change as they left the protective Gravitor fields of the caverns, with a single long-drawn breath. His hands held steady upon the wheels. His Terrestrial brother, however, was in far different condition. The hard nauseating knot into which his stomach tied itself loosened only very gradually, and it was a long time before his irregular stertorous breathing approached anything like normality again.
And throughout, the Earthman was conscious of the other's side-long glance and of just a trace of a smile about the other's lips.
It was enough to keep the slightest moan from issuing forth, though his abdominal muscles cramped and icy perspiration bathed his face.
The miles clicked off slowly, but the illusion of motionless-ness was almost as complete as that in space. The surroundings were gray - uniform, monotonous and unvarying. The noise of the engine was a harsh purr and the clicking of the air-purifier behind like a drowsy tick. Occasionally, there was an especially strong gust of wind, and a patter of sand dashed against the window with a million tiny, separate pings.
George kept his eye strictly upon the compass before him. The silence was almost oppressive.
And then the Ganymedan swivelled his head, and growled, 'What's wrong with the domned vent'lator?'
Allen squeezed upward, head against the low top, and then turned back, pale-faced, 'It's stopped.'
'It'll be hours 'fore the storm's over. We've got t' have air till then. Crawl in back there and start it again.' His voice was flat and final.
'Here,' he said, as the other crawled over his shoulder into the back of the car. 'Here's the tool-kit. Y've got 'bout twenty minutes 'fore the air gets too foul t' breathe. 'Tis pretty bad now.'
The clouds of sand hemmed in closer and the dim yellow light above George's head dispelled only partially the darkness within.
There was the sound of scrambling from behind him and then Allen's voice, 'Damn this rope. What's it doing here?' There was a hammering and then a disgusted curse.
This thing is choked with rust.'
'Anything else wrong?' called out the Ganymedan.
'Don't know. Wait till I clear it out.' More hammering and an almost continuous harsh, scraping sound followed.
Allen backed into his seat once more. His face dripped rusty perspiration and a swab with the back of an equally damp, rust-covered hand did it no good.
'The pump is leaking like a punctured kettle, now that the rust's been knocked loose. I've got it going at top speed, but the only thing between it and a total breakdown is a prayer.'
'Start praying,' said George, bruskly. 'Pray for a button to push.'
The Earthman frowned, and stared ahead in sullen silence.
At four in the afternoon, the Ganymedan drawed, 'Air's beginning t' thin out, looks like.'
Allen snapped to alertness. The air was foul and humid within. The ventilator behind swished sibilantly between each click and the clicks were spacing themselves further apart. It wouldn't hold out much longer now.
'How much ground have we covered?'
' 'Bout a thaird o' the distance,' was the reply. 'How 'r y' holding out?'
'Well enough,' Allen snapped back. He retired once more into his shell.
Night came and the first brilliant stars of a Martian night peeped out when with a last futile and long-sustained swi-i-is-s-sh, the ventilator died.
'Domn!' said George. 'I can't breathe this soup any longer, anyway. Open the windows.'
The keenly cold Martian wind swept in and with it the last traces of sand. George coughed as he pulled his woolen cap over his ears and turned on the heaters.
'Y' can still taste the grit.'
Allen looked wistfully up into the skies, 'There's Earth -with the moon hanging right onto her tail.'
'Airth?' repeated George with fine contempt. His finger pointed horizonwards, 'There's good old Jupe for y'.'
And throwing back his head, he sang in a full-throated baritone:
When the golden orb o' love Shines down from the skies above, Then my spirit longs to go To that happy land I know, Back f good, old Ganyme-e-e-e-e-ede.'
The last note quavered and broke, and quavered and broke again and still again in an ever increasing rapidity of tempo until its vibrating ululation pierced the air about ear-shatter-ingly.
Allen stared at his brother wide-eyed, 'How did you do that?'
George grinned, 'That's the Gannie quaver. Didn't y' ever hear it before?'
The Earthman shook his head, 'I've heard of it, but that's all.'
The other became a bit more cordial, 'Well, o' course y' can only do it in a thin atmosphere. Y' should hear me on Gannie. I c'd shake y' right off y'r chair when I'm going good. Here! Wait till I gulp down some coffee, and then I'll sing y' vairse twenty-four o' the "Ballad o' Ganymede."'
He took a deep breath:
'There's a fair-haired maid I love
Standing in the light o' Jove And she's waiting there for me-e-e-e-e.
Then-'
Allen grasped him by the arm and shook him. The Gany-medan choked into silence.
'What's the matter?' he asked sharply.
'There was a thumping sound on the roof just a second ago. There's something up there.'
George stared upwards, 'Grab the wheel. I'll go up.' Allen shook his head, 'I'm going myself. I wouldn't trust myself running this primitive contraption.'
He was out on the running board the next instant.
'Keep her going,' he shouted, and threw one foot.up onto the roof.
He froze in that position when he became aware of two yellow slits of eyes staring hard into his. It took not more than a second for him to realize that he was face to face with a keazel, a situation which for discomfort is about on a par with the discovery of a rattlesnake in one's bed back on Earth.
There was little time for mental comparisons of his position with Earth predicaments, however, for the keazel lunged forward, its poisonous fangs agleam in the starlight.
Allen ducked desperately and lost his grip. He hit the sand with a slow-motion thud and the cold, scaly body of the Martian reptile was upon him.
The Earthman's reaction was almost instinctive. His hand shot out and clamped down hard upon the creature's narrow muzzle.
In that position, beast and man stiffened into breathless statuary. The man was trembling and within him his heart pounded away with hard rapidity. He scarcely dared move. In the unaccustomed Martian gravity, he found he could not judge the movements of his limbs. Muscles knotted almost of their own accord and legs swung when they ought not to.
He tried to lie still - and think.
The keazel squirmed, and from its lips, clamped shut by earth muscles, issued a tremendous whine. Allen's hand grew slick with perspiration and he could feel the beast's muzzle turn a bit within his palm. He clamped harder, panic-stricken. Physically, the keazel was no match for an Earthman, even a tired, frightened, gravity-unaccustomed Earthman - but one bite, anywhere, was all that was needed.
The keazel jerked suddenly; its back humped and its legs threshed. Allen held on with both hands and could not let go. He had neither gun or knife. There was no rock on the level desert sands to crack its skull against. The sand-truck had long since disappeared into the Martian night, and he was alone -alone with a keazel.