And, it was hot. It might have been about 95 to 105 degrees, and dry. It was surprising that there was vegetation at all, especially this unending sea of it. I looked at the two compasses from the bag at my belt and identified the one that should point toward a settlement. It was indicating a direction off to the left of the direction I was facing and I turned that way. And I started walking.
I went very carefully at first. I was very light on my feet and didn’t feel a need to start by jumping into the air and landing in a heap the way that the stories described in Carter’s first encounter with the planet’s much lower gravity. I went by degrees, shuffling small steps that took me only a foot or two at each tiny step, gradually working my way up to where I easily took six to eight feet at a stride. I varied my pace often. If I was going to survive here, and I had every intention of doing so, I would need to be agile and quick on my feet. My practice was deliberate: walking, walking quickly, moving quietly and slowly, running, sprinting, jumping over imagined obstacles, and leaping high in the air from imagined foes. I practiced dodges, somersaults, and rolls in all directions.
I had no way of telling time, but I may have spent several hours at this. In my previous martial arts practice, I had developed an appreciation for long hours of tedious practice while building muscle memory, and this was building skills that I hoped would save my life. The deliberate nature of the exercise made the time pass easily, even if I had no idea how long it actually took.
Always moving in the same direction, I covered a lot of distance, but the scenery stayed essentially the same. Always the endless plain of greenish-yellow moss. Always the slightly rolling flatness unbroken by hill, mountain, or even tree. I was surprised at how little I was sweating, despite the heat. Perhaps it was because of the lack of clothing. I did start to get thirsty after several hours of constant motion. My expectation was that I would see evidence of a town or city of some kind in the distance at any moment, but I still hadn’t seen anything but the plain and the moss.
As the daylight began to fade, I was becoming increasingly tired and thirsty and decided that I had made a mistake in not reading the instructions that Carter had left for me about finding something to eat and drink. Sitting down in the middle of the mossy sea, I took the pages from my bag and read what I probably should have read hours before.
“Traveler, Barsoom is a dry planet. Since you are here, I know that you must have read my manuscripts, or you would not have found the cave and come this far. Again, I do not know how much time may have passed between me and you, but I assume no more than perhaps 10 or 20 years. Barsoom changes slowly, and the information I leave for you should be accurate enough to be useful.
The settlement that you pursue is about four days journey, but for an earth man, unencumbered, perhaps only two or three at most. I would hurry if I were you. Your concern is water. I regret that I was unable to leave you a supply in the cave, but it would have evaporated within a short time due to the extreme dryness regardless of the skin or container that it was placed in.
There are three ways in which you should look for moisture:
First, at first light, most mosses will have gathered dew overnight. It will dry very quickly as the sun rises, but just before dawn, you should scoop the moss between your hands and then lick the moisture from your skin. This is tedious, but it will replenish a bit of the water that you have lost on the previous day.
Second, if you watch the moss carefully, you will occasionally find a patch slightly more green than yellow. If you can find this, you will upon close examination, determine that the vegetation contains berries, green and blue, the size of peas. This is the flowering phase of the moss. Picking these berries and chewing upon them will release stored moisture that will sustain you. The berries may be collected in a pouch or bag to be consumed throughout the day. Concerning both the moss and the berries, it has a very bitter taste and may cause discomfort if swallowed and digested. I advise against it◦– chew the berries to release the juice, ignore the bitter taste, and spit the pulp. If you collect sufficient amounts and have the leisure to do so, the berries may be crushed, filtered, and the liquid boiled to remove the bitter taste and make the resultant drinkable by the cup.
Third, and most preferable, is to find a spring. These are rare on Barsoom, but because water is so scarce, they become easy to spot if you are near one. Look for the formation of a haze in the air◦– signs of free evaporation. Look for a deeper coloring to the vegetation running through the ground and follow it to its source. Look for a gathering of animal life, but be aware that almost all of it will be dangerous, as they may be lodging near a source of water.
For food, you may have to go without until you reach either a settlement where ground crops are cultivated or a small forest where certain edible plants my grow. The plant life used for food is highly nourishing and you will find that you need not nearly as much as you would expect. In extreme need, it is possible to eat almost any small mammal or large mammary that you may find. Certainly, the latter is much preferred to the former. Skin, gut, and cook the small prey if possible. If not, you can bite from it raw and though the taste may be unpleasant, in dire circumstances, you will appreciate it nonetheless. The second option, on the other hand, is most pleasant and if you are fortunate in that area, you will find that your way becomes much easier and sweet in all respects. I wish you every success in that arena.
This is all I have to offer on the subject. Remember to procure a weapon at your first opportunity and pray that it comes not too late. Let us meet someday in Helium.”
Well, the light was now too low to search for the berries described. I would have to wait for near dawn and collect dew from the moss. For tonight, I would sleep in the open. I checked that my knife was at my side, and lay down on my back to sleep. I hadn’t seen any animals all day long, but I couldn’t be sure that there wouldn’t be any. There was nothing that I could do though. There wasn’t anywhere to shelter or get off the ground, so it was in the open or nothing.
As I relaxed, I chuckled at Carter’s puns about finding a large mammary to drink from. Yeah, that would be more pleasant by far than chewing on bitter tasting berries. What would it be like when I did come to a settlement populated by nudists? I was comfortable enough by myself today, but among others, what would that be like? I really hoped that it wouldn’t be overly embarrassing; that my body didn’t betray me with an erection at the wrong times. People in other countries were much more comfortable with nudity than westerners, and they did fine. Maybe I would be fine as well. All I could do was wait and see. This moment called for sleep. First thing in the morning called for collecting dew.
When I woke up, it was just turning light. It was my second day on the ‘Red Planet’. Today I had better find water. Food would be good too. Food could wait though.
Carter was right, the moss around me was wet with dew. I got on my knees and scooped my hands across it and collected the moisture on my palms and fingers. There wasn’t enough in a scoop to actually drink, but as suggested, I could lick the wetness from my skin. It really was tedious. Just a drop or two with each pass over the moss. It took probably 30 minutes for me to get even a few ounces, even working as quickly as I could. By the time it was fully light, the ground had dried.