Xanadu. Not the Xanadu of Coleridge’s poem, but—to the half-forgotten space drifter who discovered the place thirty years ago—a reasonable facsimile. It was a cloistered nun of a city, hidden behind a wide skirt of the most impassable mountains on Mars. And the city was more impassable than the mountains. No human being had ever entered it—yet.
They’d tried. Two expeditions, twelve years apart, had vanished without trace, without explanation other than the dusty notebook Andrew had unearthed, today, from the rotted shreds of a skeleton’s clothing.
Archaeological expeditions., on Mars, all start the same way. You argue, wheedle, beg, borrow and steal until you have the necessary authority and a little less than the necessary funds. Earth, torn with internecine wars and slammed down under currency restrictions, does not send much money to Mars at any time. All but the barest lifeline of supplies was choked off when it was finally verified that Mars had no heavy metals, very little worth mining. The chronically-bankrupt Geographical Society had abandoned Mars even before Xanadu was discovered. The thronging ruins of Venus, the strange surviving culture of subterranean men on Titan, the odd temples of the inner moons of Jupiter, are more rewarding than the desert barrens of Mars and its inaccessible Xanadu—the solitary remnant of a Martian society which must have vanished before mankind, on Earth, had discovered fire.
For all practical purposes, Mars is a military frontier, patrolled by the U.N. to keep any one country from using it as a base for developing secret weapons. It’s also a good place to test new atomic engines, since there isn’t much of a fallout problem and no worry about a large population getting fallout jitters. John Reade, retired Major in the Space Service, had good military contacts, and had managed to get a clearance for the third—only the third—attempt to conquer Xanadu.
Private expeditions on Mars are simple to the point of being primitive. No private citizen or foundation could possibly pay freight charges for machinery to Mars. Private citizens travel on foot, taking with them only what they can carry on their backs. Besides, no one could take a car, a plane or a rocketship over the mountains and still find a safe place to land. Pack animals are out of the question; horses and burros cannot adapt to the thin air—thicker than pre-space theorists had dared to hope, but still pretty thin—and dogs and chimpanzees, which can, aren’t—much good for pack-work. The Geographic Society is still debating about importing yaks and llamas from high-altitude Peru and Tibet; meanwhile, it’s a good thing that gravity on Mars is low enough to permit tremendous packloads of necessities.
The prime necessity is good lungs and a sackful of guts, while you scramble, scratch and curse your way over the mountains. Then a long, open valley, treacherously lined with needles of rock, and Xanadu lying—the bait in the mouth of the trap—at the top.
And then—what?
Kater and Hansen and the rest were grumbling over the cards again. “This place is jinxed,” Mike complained, turning up a deuce. “We’ll be lucky if we get a cent out of it Now if we were working on Venus—but Mars, nyaahl Even if we find something, which I doubt, and live to tell about it—who cares?”
“Yeah,” Spade muttered. “Reade, how much did you spend for dynamite to blast the walls?”
“You didn’t pay for it,” Reade said cheerfully.
Andrew stooped, shrugging on his leather jacket; thumbed the inside heating-units. “I’m going for a walk.”
“Alone?” Reade asked sharply.
“Sure, unless someone wants to come along,” Andrew said, then suddenly understood. He pulled his pistol from his pocket, and handed it, butt-first, to Reade. “Sorry, I should have remembered. This is about where the shooting started, with the others.”
Reade laughed, but he didn’t return the gun.
“Don’t go too far.”
It was one of the rare, clear nights which sometimes did penance for the usual sandstorms. Andrew drew down the tent flap behind him, walked away into the darkness. At his foot he felt a little scurrying, stooped and caught up one of the blunt-nosed sand-mice. It squirmed on his palm, kicking hard with all six puny legs; then felt the comforting heat of his hand and yeep-yeeped with pleasure; he walked on, idly scratching the scaly little beast.
The two small moons were high overhead, and there was a purplish, shimmery light over the valley, with its grotesque floor of rock spires, fuzzed between with blackish patches of prickle-bushes—spinosa martts—matted in a close tangle between each little peak.
Downwind he heard the long screaming of a banshee; then he saw it, running blindly, a huge bird with its head down between trailing, functionless wings. Andrew held his breath and stood still. The banshees had no intelligence to speak of, but by some peculiar tropism, they would rush toward anything that moved; the very heat of his body might attract them, and their huge clawed feet could disembowel a man at one stroke. And he had no pistol!
This one failed to sense him; it ran, trailing its wings and screaming eerily, like a cloaked girl, blindly into the dusk. Andrew let out his breath violently in relief. Suddenly he realized that he was not sure just which way the tent lay. He turned, crowding against “one of the rockspires. A little hollow gleamed pallidly in the moonlight. He remembered climbing a rise; he must have come this way—
He slid down roughly, a trailing pricker raking his hand. The sand-mouse leaped from his palm with a squeal and scuffled away. Andrew, sucking his bleeding palm, looked up and saw the walls of Xanadu lifting serried edges just over his head. How could he possibly have come so near in just a few minutes? Everything looked different—
He spun around, trying to scramble up the way he had come. He fell. His head struck rock, and the universe went dark.
“Take it easy.” John Reade’s voice sounded disembodied over his head, “Just lie still. You’ve got a bad bump, Andy.”
He opened his eyes to the glare of stars and a bitter wind on his face. Reade caught at his hand ~as he moved it exploringly toward his face. “Let it alone, the bleeding’s stopped. What happened? The banshee get you?”
“No, I fell. I lost my way, and I must have hit my head.” Andrew let his eyes fall shut again. “I’m sorry, sir; I know you told us not to go near the city alone. But I didn’t realize I’d come so close.”
Reade frowned and leaned closer. “Lost your way? What
are you talking about? I followed you—brought your pistol. I was afraid you’d meet a banshee. You hadn’t gone two hundred yards from the tent, Andy. When I caught up with you, you were stumbling around, and then you rolled down on the ground into that little hollow. You kept muttering No, no, no—I thought the banshee had got you.”
Andrew pushed himself upright. “I don’t think so, sir. I looked up and saw the city right over my head. That’s what made me fall. That’s when it started.”
“When what started?”
“I—don’t know.” Andrew put up his hand to rub his forehead, wincing as he touched the bruise. Suddenly he asked “John, did you ever wonder what the old Martians—the ones who built Xanadu—called the place?”
“Who hasn’t?” The old man nodded, impatiently. “I guess we’ll never know, though. That’s a fool question to ask me right now!”
“It’s something I felt,” Andrew said, groping for words. “When I got up, after I stumbled, everything looked different. It was like seeing double; one part was just rocks, and bushes, and ruins, and the other part was—well, it wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before. I felt—” he hesitated, searching for words to define something strange, then said with an air of surprise, “Homesick. Yes, that’s it. And the most awful—desolation. The way I’d feel, I guess, if I went back to Mount Denver and found it burned down flat. And then for just a second I knew what the city was called, and why it was dead, and why we couldn’t get into it, and why tie other men went crazy. And it scared me, and I started to run—and that’s when I slipped, and hit my head.”
Reade’s worried face relaxed in a grin.
“Rubbi
sh! The bump on your head mixed up your timesense a little, that’s all. Your hallucination, or whatever it was, came after the bump, not before.”
“No,” Andrew said quietly, but with absolute conviction. “I wasn’t hurt that bad, John.”
Reade’s face changed; held concern again, “All right,” he said gently, “Tell me what you think you know.”
Andrew dropped his face in his hands. “Whatever it was, it’s gone! The bump knocked it right out of my head. I remember that I knew—” he raised a drawn face, “but I can’t remember what!”
Reade put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Let’s get back to the tent, Andy, I’m freezing out here. Look, son, the whole thing is just your mind working overtime from that bump you got. Or—”
Andrew said bitterly, “You think I’m going crazy.”
“I didn’t say that, son. Come on. We can talk it over in the morning.” He hoisted Andrew to his feet. “I told Spade that if we weren’t back in half an hour, he’d better come looking for us.”
The men looked up from their cards, staring at the blood on Andrew’s face, but the set of Reade’s mouth silenced any comments. Andrew didn’t want to talk. He quickly shucked jacket and trousers, crawled into his sleeping bag, thumbed the heat-unit and immediately fell asleep.
When he woke, the tent was empty. Wondering why he had been allowed to sleep—Spade usually meted out rough treatment to blanket-huggers—Andrew dressed quickly, gulped a mug of the bitter coffee that stood on the hot-box, and went out to look for the others.
He had to walk some distance to find them. Armed with shovels, the four roughnecks were digging up the thorny prickle-bushes near the hollow where Andrew had fallen, while Reade, in the lee of a rock, was scowling over the fine print of an Army manual of Martio-biology.
“Sorry I overslept, John. Where do I go to work?”
“You don’t. I’ve got another job for you.” Reade turned to bark a command at Fairbanks. “Careful with the damned plant! I told you to wear gloves! Now get them on, and don’t touch those things with your bare hands.” He glanced back at Andrew. “I had an idea overnight,” he said. “What do we really know about spinosa martis? And this doesn’t quite look like the species that grows around Mount Denver. I think maybe this variety gives off some kind of gas—or poison.” He pointed at the long scratch on Andrew’s hand. “Your trouble started after you grabbed one of them. You know, there’s locoweed on Earth that drives cattle crazy-mushrooms and other plants that secrete hallucinogens. If these things give off some sort of volatile mist, it could have dispersed in that little hollow down there—there wasn’t much wind last night.”
“What shall I do?” he asked.
“I’d rather not discuss that here. Come on, 111 walk back to the tent with you.” He scrambled stiffly to his feet. “I want you to go back to Mount Denver, Andy.”
Andrew stopped; turned to Reade accusingly.
“You do think I’ve gone crazy!”
Reade shook his head. “I just think you’ll be better off in Mount Denver. —I’ve got a job for you there—one man would have to go, anyhow, and you’ve had one—well, call it a hallucination—already. If it’s a poison, the stuff might be cumulative. We may just wind up having to wear gas masks.” He put a hand on the thick leather of Andrew’s jacket sleeve. “I know how you feel about this place, Andy. But personal feelings aren’t important in this kind of work.”
“John—” half hesitant, Andrew looked back at him, “I had an idea overnight, too.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“It sounds crazy, I guess,” Andrew said diffidently, “but it just came to me. Suppose the old Martians were beings without bodies—discarnate intelligences? And they’re trying to make contact with us? Men aren’t used to that kind of contact, and it drives them insane.”
Reade scowled. “Ingenious,” he admitted,, “as a theory, but there’s a hole in it. If they’re discarnate, how did they build—” he jerked his thumb at the squat, fortress-like mass of Xanadu behind them.
“I don’t know, sir. I don’t know how the drive units of a spaceship work, either. But I’m here.” He looked up. “I think one of them was trying to get in touch with me, last night. And maybe if I was trying, too—maybe if I understood, and tried to open my mind to it, too—”
Reade looked disturbed. “Andy, do you realize what you’re suggesting? Suppose this is all your imagination—”
“It isn’t, John.”
“Wait, now. Just suppose, for a minute; try to see it my way.”
“Well?” Andrew was impatient.
“By trying to ‘open your mind’, as you put it, you’d just be surrendering your sane consciousness to a brooding insanity. The human mind is pretty complex, son. About nine-tenths of your brain is dark, shadowy, all animal instinct. Only the conscious fraction can evaluate—use logic. The balance between the two is pretty tricky at best. I wouldn’t fool around with it, if I were you. Listen, Andy, I know you were born on Mars, I know how you feel. You feel at home here, don’t you?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean—”
“You resent men like Spade and Kater, coming here for the money that’s in it, don’t you?”
“Not really. Well, yes, but—”
There was a Mars-born kid with Kingslander, Andy. Remember the log? He was the first to go. In a place like this, imagination is worse than smallpox. You’re the focal point where trouble would start, if it started. That’s why I picked men like Spade and Kater—insensitive, unimaginative—for the first groundwork here. I’ve had my eye on you from the beginning, Andy, and you reacted just about the way I expected. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go.”
Andrew clenched his fists in his pocket, speaking dry-mouthed. “But if I was right—wouldn’t it be easier for them to contact someone like me? Won’t you try to see it my way?” He made a final, hopeless appeal. “Won’t you let me stay? I know I’m safe here—I know they won’t hurt me, whatever happens to the others. Take my gun if you want to—keep me in handcuffs, even—but don’t send me back!”
Reade’s voice was flat and final. “If I had any doubts, I wouldn’t have them after that. Every word you say is just making it worse. Leave while you still can, Andy.”
Andrew gave up. “All right. I’ll start back now, if you insist.”
“I do.” Reade turned away and hurried back toward the crew, and Andrew went into the tent and started packing rations in his blanket-roll for the march. The pack was clumsy, but not a tenth as heavy as the load he’d packed on the way up here. He jerked the straps angrily tight, hoisted the roll to his shoulder, and went out.
Reade was waiting for him. He had Andrew’s pistol.
“You’ll need this.” He gave it to him; hauled out his notebook and stabbed a finger at the sketchy map he had drawn on their way over the mountains. “You’ve got your compass? Okay, look; this is the place where our route crossed the mailcar track from Mount Denver to the South Encampment. If you camp there for a few hours, you can hitch a ride on the mail-car—there’s one every other day—into Mount Denver. When you get there, look up Montray. He’s getting the expedition together back there.” Reade tore the leaf from his notebook, scribbling the address on the back. Andrew lifted an eyebrow; he knew Reade had planned the expedition
in two sections, to prevent the possibility that they, trap would vanish without even a search-party sent after them.
“He won’t have things ready, of course, but tell him to hurry it up, and give him all the help you can. Tell him what we’re up against.”
“You mean what you’re up against. Are you sure you can trust me to run your errands in Mount Denver?”
“Don’t be so grim about it,” Reade said gently. “I know you want to stay, but I’m only doing my duty the way I see it. I have to think of everybody, not just you—or myself.” He gripped Andrew’s shoulder. “If things turn out all right, you can come back when they’re all under control. Good luck, And
y.”
“And if they don’t?” Andrew asked, but Reade had turned away.
It had been a rough day. Andrew sat with his back against a boulder, watching the sun drop swiftly toward the reddish range of rock he had climbed that afternoon. Around him the night wind was beginning to build up, but he had found a sheltered spot between two boulders; and in his heated sleeping-bag, could spend a comfortable night even at sixty-below temperatures.
He thought ahead while he chewed the tasteless Mar-beef—Reade had outfitted the expedition with Space Service surplus—and swallowed hot coffee made from ice painstakingly scraped from the rocks. It had taken Reade, and five men, four days to cross the ridge. Travelling light, Andrew hoped to do it in three. The distance was less than thirty miles by air, but the only practicable trail wound in and out over ninety miles, mostly perpendicular. If a bad sandstorm built up, he might not make it at all, but anyone who spent more than one season on Mars took that kind of risk for granted.
The sun dropped, and all at once the sky was ablaze with stars. Andrew swallowed the last of his coffee, looking up to pick out the Heavenly Twins on the horizon—the topaz glimmer of Venus, the blue star-sapphire that was Earth. Andrew had lived on Earth for a few years in his teens, and hated it; the thick moist air, the dragging feel of too much gravity. The close-packed cities nauseated him with their smell of smoke and grease and human sweat. Mars air was thin and cold and scentless. His parents had hated Mars the same way he had hated Earth—they were biologists in the Xenozoology division, long since transferred to Venus. He had never felt quite at home anywhere, except for the few days he had spent at Xanadu. Now he was being kicked out of that too.
Suddenly, he swore. The hell with it, sitting here, feeling sorry for himself! He’d have a long day tomorrow, and a rough climb. As he unrolled his sleeping-bag, waiting for the blankets to warm, he wondered; how old was Xanadu?
Marion Zimmer Bradley Super Pack Page 11
