"You talk like a man I could like," said Broward. "Tell me, what is the situation on Mars?"
"I don't know what use the information will be to you," said the commandant. "But I will do almost anything to keep that bomb—if there is such a bomb—from being delivered. I..."
"There is such a bomb. Believe me."
"I can't afford not to believe you. The situation on Mars? It is not what anyone would expect."
Saavedra paused, and Broward said, eagerly, "What do you mean?"
Saavedra took a deep breath, then exploded it. "Rats!" For a moment, Broward misunderstood him. "Who are rats?"
"Rats. The rats themselves. The rats on Mars."
Broward said that he did not understand.
"There are rats on Mars," Saavedra said slowly. "Rats from Earth. They are in our bases in every conceivable hiding place. And they are thriving in that complex of caverns that exists beneath the base of Osorno. Perhaps you do not know it, but Osorno was built about a tangle of caverns that must run for hundreds of miles under the surface. It was discovered when the base was first established, about twenty years ago. It had an atmosphere, although not as thick as Earth's, of course."
Broward said, "You Argentineans kept quiet about it, but we heard of it. You pumped more air into it, didn't you?"
"Yes. We found the first indigenous life of Mars. Several species of plants that flourished without sunlight. And some very small creatures unlike anything on Earth. Blind and brainless.
"Anyway, the rats that stowed away on the ships, though how they did it, I don't know, adapted there and bred mightily. We have known for some time about them; occasionally, we found one in Osorno. Not only there but the other bases, too, though how they traveled to there is another mystery."
"There were some rats on the Chinese base," Broward "But these were exterminated. I believe that rats have Journeyed across space with us because they are like us in many ways. Intelligent, highly adaptable, omnivorous, curious, ! vicious."
"Perhaps so," said Saavedra. "In any event, they did not constitute a direct threat. But something happened to them ; in the caverns below Osorno. They must have caught and eaten the little creatures that thrive there. And, in so doing, must have been bitten now and then and become infected with a disease that afflicts the creatures. This was a mild among the animals of Mars, but, in the bloodstream of the rats, the microbes mutated.
"That is the theory of our scientists. The first we of it, we found a few dying rats in our store-rooms and occasionally in the corridors. Then, a man became sick with an undiagnosable malady. He had intense headaches and backaches, his kidneys felt as if they were on fire, he vomited, he alternately suffered from high fevers and raging chills. His tearducts became inflamed, and he wept. "When the second man fell sick, we named the disease el fuego de Iagrimas—the 'fire of tears.' Since the rats were suspected, we made a campaign to exterminate them. We killed thousands, but I doubt we got all of them. They are such cunning creatures; they want so hard to live. By that time, one man was spreading the sickness to another. It appeared in all the bases. I think that the disease grows slowly, that many must have been infected before the violent symptoms became present"
"Is it fatal?"
"One person out of twenty has died so far," replied Saavedra. "And the rest are immobilized. Those who have recovered are very weak. It is true that two people out of ten do not seem to be affected. But these are very busy and overworked taking care of the sick."
"Then Mars is prostrate?"
"As if the hand of God had struck," said Quiroga. "Why should He strike us?" said Saavedra angrily. "We are not atheists. If He wished to strike anybody, it would be the godless Soviets." "I would say that He—if He did it—has struck mostly at Earth," replied Broward. "And He hasn't spared the Soviets on the Moon, either, although He did his damage by causing them to slay each other. That is, if He thought it necessary to intervene."
"How many personnel do you have here?"
"Ten. The Soviet and South African attacks took many. And after the sickness, all but ten were transferred back to Mars."
"Has Quiroga told you of my offer?"
"Yes. I thought he was mad, but he convinced me. Rather, the fact that you saved his life when you did not have to and that you had no need to ask for help to carry out your mission, convinced me. You must hate your leader and the ideology of the Soviets as much as I hate that madman, Howards, and his anti-Christian policies." Broward's eyebrows rose.
Saavedra said, "Yes, Howards has always posed as a Christian. But he has cooperated with the Church only when it suited him. Where the Church resisted, Howards has always managed to get rid of the opposition. Of course, always in a subtle or underhanded manner. But my brother, a priest, was one of those who were killed—accidentally— when be spoke out against Howards' confinement of the Pope to his house."
"You are ready to go ahead?" asked Broward. "It seems to be our only salvation. But what guarantee do I have that your commander will not enslave or kill us?"
"No more guarantee than I have that you will not betray me," said Broward. "But I plan to get rid of my chief just as you plan to get rid of yours. To do that, I may need your help. First, will you swear on your honor and to your God?"
"I will swear. I do swear."
"Then here is what we must do."
Several hours later, the scout returned the two Argentineans to the port. Broward then lifted the little ship from the moonlet and hurled it at top speed towards the area to which the navigational computer directed it. This took an hour and a half. Then, automatically, the radio broadcast the pretaped code call.
For the minutes that it took the waves to get to the area where a robot relay vessel should be located, Broward chafed. Then, he became even more impatient while counting the minutes it would take for the waves to travel back to his ship with the message that the code had been detected, amplifed, and was being sent on to the vessel supposedly waiting near the Moon.
Since Broward had arrived in the neighborhood of Mars, Earth had slid around the great curve of the sun and was barred from straight-line communication with the red planet. the relay ship had been following Broward—he hoped— had established a position where it could receive and transmit messages both from the scout ship and the Moon. On schedule, Broward's receiver came to life. His call had been picked up and was sent on its way. Broward, not wanting to wait any longer, then gave his report in the code-form he had prepared on the flight out. This would be passed on, and Scone could digest it, then ask his questions.
The slow torturing moments twisted him. What if there was do one on the Moon to receive? Or what if the Axe had triumphed and were now trying to decipher the code? "Broward!" Scone's voice said, speaking in English. Broward almost whooped with joy. The fact that Scone was not using code indicated that the menace of the Axe fleet no longer existed.
"Broward! We received your report. So Mars is dead! Well done. But are you sure that the bomb did the damage it was supposed to? You said that you had delivered the bomb and that it had created the expected havoc in Mars' crust and that the bases on the surface appear to be destroyed. But what about any ships that the Axe might have had in flight at the time the bomb struck? What about Deimos and Phobos? Are they still occupied by the enemy?
"You will investigate them first. Then, you will land on Mars and examine the base of Osorno. Afterwards, return to a point where you can contact the relay and send us a report. We must make sure.