The Martian Pendant

by Patrick Taylor

The men, following the trail the predator had taken, soon lost it in the jumble of rocks and boulders at the edge of the creek. There, the creek deepened just before it started its plunge into the depression and formed a deep pool. They all agreed that water was a classic way to lose anyone who was tracking quarry. They searched for another two hours for an exit on the other side, as well as upstream and downstream.

  “No dice,” Max breathed in disappointment, “Just disappeared into thin air.”

  “What about disappearing into the water?” Ballard asked.

  The professor replied, “I could go with that if we were near enough to a river sufficient to harbor crocodiles, but the closest one is twenty miles away. A lion or leopard would be more likely.”

  With the disappointment, the excitement of the chase gave way to frustrated anger and horror as each contemplated the demise of the poor woman.

  Ballard spoke first, “She was one of the nicest of the bunch. What a terrible fate.”

  Max could only agree. “Yep, we’ll all miss her terribly.”

  When they returned to the tent, they found Diana still investigating. “Judging from the looks on your faces, you came up short. What happened?”

  They described the trail ending at the creek, among the boulders around the pool.

  She exclaimed, “That’s it!” As they looked at her in surprise, she went on. “It was a monster crocodile. Look at this canvas from her cot. Don’t you see? It’s a bloody imprint of part of a huge reptilian foot. See the marks of webs between the claws?”

  The men were momentarily silent. Then Ballard responded, “That would explain the trail ending at the water’s edge of that pool. But the pool is much too small to conceal such a large reptile, and the water is fairly clear.”

  Max said, in unison with the other two, “Then there must be another outlet.”

  “Come to think of it,” she offered, “isn’t the flow out of that pond a little less than the flow in?” They all agreed that meant a connection with an underground system.

  Diana told them, “Ballard, you’re in charge of guarding us for now. Security will have to be tightened. Until the Pinkerton men arrive, post what people you can trust to stay awake at night among the tents. And figure out some sort of barrier to fence off that pool until we have the equipment to fill it in. Get Ron Olszewski, the blacksmith, to work on something sturdy enough to block a twenty-foot croc. In the meantime, everyone must be warned. I’ve even seen some people skinny-dipping there at night. It’s a wonder more haven’t met poor Joan’s fate.”

  Heavy Equipment

  Because of the crocodile attack, the base camp had already been organized by the time the main body of the expedition arrived. The boundaries were defined by stones, which encircled an inner lager to be filled out by the trucks. Enclosed within were the sleeping tents and other canvas shelters for the other operations of the party. A defensive circle of trucks and other vehicles could form an almost solid barrier, if necessary. At first the idea met with ridicule when only five trucks were available. The arrangement for the first weeks was known as “Max’s madness.” But when the circle was completed by the arrival of the main part of the expedition, even the doubters would see the advantages. First, there was Joan’s tragic and horrible death, and then the unsettling sounds of the hyenas that were venturing progressively closer to camp each night. Even with the prospect of reinforcements, doubts regarding individual safety were leading to thoughts of defection in the camp.

  The large caravan entered the area in a cloud of dust one afternoon. Malloy, their leader and the chief engineer, had used the size of his group and their weapons to push their way past the outstretched hands of the police outside Dodoma. The fact that his caravan brought twenty armed Pinkerton men helped. Hired by the Cartel, these men would make the base into a fortress. Led by a tough-looking Texan by the name of Chet Crowley, and armed with U.S. Army surplus Browning automatic rifles, known as BARs, plus Thompson submachine guns and .45 Caliber Colt Automatics, they were a formidable group.

  The next day, the first project, the filling of the little pond with earth and boulders dozed in by the heavy equipment, was completed. Most impressive were the two big brand-new Caterpillar D-8H bulldozers, along with the two large backhoes for digging. Construction of a road into the declivity with the bulldozers, which had been transported from Dar-es-Salaam on huge flatbed rigs, was completed. Next was construction of a dirt airstrip at the edge of camp, oriented to the prevailing winds. The Cartel had insisted on two of almost everything, in view of the logistical problems transporting replacement machines over the inadequate roads of the country.

  The oil-drilling crew and their specialized equipment arrived a few days later. After Diana had witched the best well location, they prepared for drilling. The equipment had come by sea to Dar, and had been loaded onto the Central Line Railroad, which connected the port city and capital with points west, all the way to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika. The heavy rigs previously used to transport the earthmoving equipment then shuttled back and forth from the railhead at Dodoma to haul the pipe and steel needed. It took three trips to deliver it all, but was finally accomplished without incident. The oil crew expanded the camp’s population by another dozen men, mostly engineers and roustabouts.

  After Diana had made sure they wouldn’t be in the flight path of the airstrip, the oilrig was noisily set up a half mile south. As soon as it was completed, drilling began. It wasn’t long before the drill penetrated to the underground stream that was recognized as the companion of the surface flow tangential to the camp. But water wasn’t what those men were seeking, and the drilling, ever deeper, continued.

  A certain resentment was created in the laborers about the Pinkertons, who spent the days sitting in their tents, idling or playing cards, while the workers sweated because of their toil, first drilling the water well, and then working on the oil rig. This situation was defused one night when the staccato barking of a BAR was heard, followed by the cries of a fleeing pack of hyenas that had come among the tents sniffing for food scraps. When a tent full of laborers emerged to find that tall Texan and his smoking automatic rifle, they decided then and there that the guards could loaf all they wanted during the day.

  Due to Max’s lack of foresight, the camp had no nurse or physician, although they had been supplied with generous amounts of antibiotics and anti-venom doses, in addition to the usual first-aid supplies. As she busily set up the lab facilities and directing the placement of the water drilling equipment, Diana drafted Max’s secretary Myra to serve as the nurse when the occasion arose. Max wasn’t too happy with that, but went along with it when Diana told him that she had too many duties already.

  Analysis

  When the lab was set up, adjoining the stone hut that had been built to house the repair shop, Diana attempted a preliminary analysis on the few reddish shards that had been gathered earlier. Again, she saw the similarity of that material to her pendant. It resisted all the usual acids and withstood the highest temperature their forge could generate. Ron Olszewski, the blacksmith-welder, a burly Pole from the steel mill town of Gary, Indiana, just south of Chicago, could neither dent nor shatter the shard with his twenty-pound sledgehammer. Even firing at a fragment with the armor-piercing .50 Caliber Anti-tank rifle the Pinkertons had brought along failed to make a dent.

  The English geologist Ballard, who was also a metallurgist, was stumped. He and Diana stood over the object on the anvil after Ron had exhausted himself swinging the hammer.

  Shaking his head, he exclaimed, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Hard like a diamond, but impossible to shatter, so far anyway, and far more resistant to heat than any metal.”

  Diana asked, “Doesn’t it remind you of a meteorite? Look at that sheen. The few fragments of them I’ve seen in museums all have that quality.”

  “Quite,” he responded. “They may look like that, but the resemblance is only superficial. Being mostly iron and nickel, meteorites certainly ca
n’t take super-high heat. When they break up, the edges are similar, but mostly they just melt and then vaporize when they enter our atmosphere.”

  Diana looked at the fragment. “This reminds me of that futuristic American comic strip ‘Buck Rogers,’ from the Thirties. They had a metal called ‘Impervium,’ I think, which was supposed to be almost indestructible. That name certainly fits this. My concern is, if it can’t be broken down by any of our methods, we’ll never know what it is.”

  Ballard shrugged. “We’ll just have to send it to the U.S., for the experts there to play with. I have to say that it looks like nothing I’ve ever seen on earth, except for that pendant you wear.”

  That night after supper, sitting out under the stars, she was enjoying the display overhead. Using the field glasses she had picked up at a bazaar in Dar, as they were calling the port city, she searched for the planets. She found Jupiter easily, and Venus too. Mercury was usually too close to the sun to make out. Where, she wondered, was Mars? Suddenly, an answer to an earlier question came to her.

  Her thoughts returned to the remains of the second spaceship. Fabricated of that material, how could such a strong structure, even in a high-speed impact, be reduced to a scant few fragments? It was a given that the ship would heat up during atmospheric re-entry to as much as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, but that heat, in itself, would hardly be sufficient to cause fragmentation. She asked herself, but what of the added heat of impact?

  “That’s it!” She exclaimed, “These little shards. Super-heat plus super force. Both at the same time.”

  In the morning, she could hardly eat her breakfast in anticipation. Sitting down next to Ballard, she blurted out her idea. She had to say it a second time before her message came across clearly, due to her excitement.

  “By Jove,” he said, “You may have something there. Let’s give it a go!” They yanked Olszewski away from his second helping of Spam and eggs; their enthusiasm at that moment trumped his hunger. Telling the cook to save his plate, he joined them at the smithy, where he fired up the forge to white heat. While the temperature was climbing, Diana and Ballard rigged up a stout protective barrier beside the anvil.

  “No telling,” she observed, “how the super-heated fragment, or even the anvil, will behave. There no doubt will also be hot fragments from the ceramic material that is needed to protect the anvil.” Reminded of the wide scattering of the fragments they had picked up in the field, she cautioned, “Things could indeed be shooting in all directions.”

  The crucial moment finally came, and with the brawn of the steelworker propelling the heavy hammer from behind the barrier, red-hot fragments did pelt the inside of the stone hut. But none of them were from the alien material.

  On close inspection, Diana shouted, “Look, there’s a dent! And are those tiny radiating cracks?”

  Ballard agreed, after scanning the cooling fragment with a large magnifying glass. “Good show! We’re on the right track now. The combination of white heat and sharp impact looks to be the solution.”

  “Olszewski,” Diana said, “Nice work. Now get that anti-tank rifle. I’ll wager the combination will do it.”

  The diesel generator running the blower for the propane furnace was restarted, and a second fragment heated. They set a steel plate in the stout vise, protected from melting by more ceramic tile. Covered by a welder’s mask and apron, Ballard extracted the test specimen from the furnace with long tongs, putting it against the plate. As all three sought refuge behind the barrier, the large rifle was aimed and fired by Olszewski.

  The resulting explosion startled them, being far greater than expected, even from a high-velocity missile striking armor plate. The air of the hut was momentarily pervaded by acrid smoke, and when it cleared, all that could be found were a few tiny fragments. There was no sign of melting, combustion or even any powdery residue that could be analyzed.

  Disappointed, despite the experiment exceeding all expectations, Diana said, “Aside from the fragmentation, it all just vaporized. Now if the people at home can analyze that in a vapor chamber, they’ll have something to start with.”

  * * *

  When it was inspected in the U.S. with an electron microscope, the Martian composite seemed as much fibrous as crystalline, unlike either metal or gemstone. The problem was that in the laboratory, attempts to further break down the material, even with super heat and massive impact, led to only slight surface cracks, just as with the original field technique used in Africa before the anti-tank rifle was employed. But at home, even with the impact of a 20mm armor-piercing shell delivering much greater force than the .50 Caliber antitank round used at the dig, only slight crazing was produced. Obviously, white heat and massive impact were necessary, but something was still missing.

  Diana was surprised when she received the news. Discussing it with Ballard, she said, “I can’t figure it out. We succeeded here, under the most primitive conditions, yet the experts in California failed to duplicate our results. What do you make of it, Jon?”

  “It baffles me,” Ballard replied, “but as with any scientific experiment, even a successful one, confirmation is essential.”

  She thought about that only a second or two, and then said, “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  Board Deliberations

  Those gathered around the big table in L.A. were silent. The results of vaporization of the samples, radioed in the week before, had created a sensation, but the enormity of the fact that the material was perhaps impossible to analyze had taken time to sink in. This special meeting had been called to consider the impact that the discovery might have on the oil interests. Short of the original dozen trustees because of the earlier defections, but still representing ninety percent of international oil outside the Communist Bloc, the members of the Board began to argue among themselves.

  Regardless of whether the fragments found were hitherto-unknown interplanetary debris or were the result of an explosion of some alien space vehicle, the majority agreed that the discovery had the potential for great profit. The three dissenting members represented the West: United of California, Texas Petroleum and Pemex, the Mexican Federal oil monopoly. These men were convinced that the mysterious material was manufactured, and that any technology that could produce such an impervious substance could also be light years ahead of us in energy for propulsion. That would render fossil fuel for engines obsolete.

  They had just heard a presentation by their nuclear consultant that the level of radiation from the exploration site was somewhat above the normal background activity of the surrounding terrain. Putting that evidence together with the unique character of the strange, virtually indestructible fragments, the concept of an alien spaceship or missile, powered by an advanced nuclear engine of some type, gained credence. It began to dawn on some that Diana’s story, far-fetched as it had seemed, might contain elements of truth. Perhaps it was more than coincidence that she was the one who had found the site in the first place.

  When it came time to decide, the Board President cautioned them. “Gentlemen, it has come down to whether, like ostriches, we bury our heads in the sand, or we face reality. If this evidence means we have uncovered an alien technology far greater than our own, only a fool would ignore it in order to realize more short-term gains in petroleum.”

  The vote passed. A motion was then proposed that any non-petroleum findings be kept under wraps, not leaked to anybody. In that way, a threat to the oil industry would be forestalled, and any advanced method of propulsion would remain secret until such time as the release of the facts would be profitable to their companies. This passed without dissent. Plans were proposed for research and development on any of the discoveries, with the aim of marketing them when the time came. It took three votes before a deadlock could be broken, because of the one representative who abstained at first. He was the same member who would leak the proceedings to the dissidents.

  TEN

  Digging Begins

  Max and Diana disagreed
about what shape their operation should take. Because of the depth of their objective, she expressed her eagerness to move in with the D-8’s. Max, as director of the expedition, insisted on a classical and methodical approach into the ground, in hopes of carefully uncovering artifacts in identifiable strata as they dug. He had been communicating by short-wave radio with the Cartel, receiving instructions to make everything look like a normal palaeoanthropological effort, in order to avoid suspicion. On his own, he might have agreed with Diana. But he was being paid by big oil to conduct a covert operation, and money talks. If the authorities at the University knew the truth of his involvement, only his tenure would keep him from being summarily sacked.

  What the hell, he thought. He was tired of all the academic work at the University anyway, for relatively low pay. He yearned for the luxuries enjoyed by those who now retained him, and a prolonged dig would give him more time to bed the women of the expedition, maybe even Diana. Actually, a compromise was reached between the two of them, partially because he wanted to win her, and because her argument did impress him.

  “Anything significant will be confirmed by that approach, because if it’s constructed of the same material as those bits and pieces, it’ll probably be intact. And any anthropologic specimens, if the ship was manned, will probably be inside. Their landing was a million years ago! You wouldn’t expect much in the way of human fossils outside after all that time, would you? Let’s hope some openings will allow entry. No way will we be able to blast our way in, and even if we could, we’d destroy everything inside.”

  Max finally decided that he would conduct a classical dig along one side, parallel to the buried object, sifting the soil carefully, looking for artifacts, while bulldozers and backhoes under Diana’s direction would excavate straight down to the area of interest, whatever it was, along the opposite side.

  The Cutting Torch

  While the heavy equipment was in the early stages of removing the rocky overburden covering the deeply buried object, Diana and Ballard set up their experiment once more with the help of Olszewski, and now Cavanagh, the nuclear physicist. Using the furnace at capacity and the antitank rifle, they again shattered their target easily.