John Russell Fearn Omnibus

by John Russell Fearn

  In itself this was remarkable enough — but perhaps even more remarkable were the unmistakable remains of onetime Martian civilization in this same spot. For across the valley from where the spaceship lay, protruding out of the yellow wall of sand, were smashed and eroded stone columns undoubtedly molded at some time by intelligent minds and hands — and since then buried through incomputable centuries by the eternally shifting sand, blown in the thin arctic wind of the dying planet.

  Most fascinating of all — the thing that absorbed the attention of the three, even as it had done from the first moment — was a Martian inscription. It was hewn in the stone of an archway supported on two cracked pillars. It protruded from the waste like a forgotten signpost, or else a text or dedication of some kind.

  Believing that all hieroglyphics are capable of solution, and having a sound knowledge of Egyptology and Sanskrit, Clay Reynolds had worked ceaselessly on trying to solve the inscription for nearly three weeks. First he had ventured out in a space suit and cleaned away drifted sand from the arch; then with a flame gun he had scored the marks of erosion away and laid bare the text to the weak glimmer of the Martian sun. Then he had photographed it — normally, then with infra red and ultra violet, getting every sign pin-sharp.

  But, as his worried expression showed, he had given himself the devil of a task.

  “Maybe it isn’t anything worth bothering about at all,” Nancy smiled, turning from the port and coming over to him.

  “I don’t like being beaten, Nan,” he growled back, setting his square jaw. “Besides, I have got started. The first four words make me want to go on. They read — ‘To Him to Whom —’”

  “Sure that’s right?” Ron frowned, staring at him.

  “No, I’m not sure, but it’s as near as I can translate. A queer beginning, I know — but then think of some of our Earthly legal documents which begin — ‘To Him to Whom it May Concern.’ It is possible, you see.”

  Ron grinned even though his gray eyes were solemn. “Be a devil if it turns out to be a quotation like ‘Right is Might’ or ‘They Shall not Pass,’ won’t it?”

  “Anyway,” Nan said, “I don’t see that we need to spend anymore time here, Clay. You can work out that idea as we travel.” She glanced at Ron. “What do you think?”

  “You’re right. After all, the Science Institute financed and backed this expedition purely for research purposes, and we don’t want to be too long over getting back. We’ve got everything we need — specimens, photos, samples. Locker’s chock-full.”

  “Okay,” Clay growled. “But I don’t like deserting a dead Martian city without knowing all about it.” He got up. “Tell you what — while you make the arrangements for departure I’ll take one last look around.”

  “Right,” Ron nodded, and motioning Nan to help him he turned to a routine check up of the firing equipment.

  In a few minutes Clay heaved his heavy, powerful form into a spacesuit, strapped on camera equipment and one or two special instruments, then with a nod of his helmeted head he made for the airlock. When he had reached it he paused for a moment and switched on his audiophone.

  “Not this time, Bouncer!” his voice admonished. “This is no place for Scotch terriers. Be off with you. Shoo!”

  Bouncer, a long-backed, bandy legged Aberdeen, who bore the distinction of being the first dog to cross from Earth to Mars, gave Clay a disappointed glance of his red-brown eyes, then sat down disconsolately on his haunches.

  “Bouncer!” Nan called, glancing round from the rocket tubes. “Bouncer, come here, boy! Come on!”

  Clay grinned behind his visor, then turned to the airlock screws and twisted them. For a moment, as he tugged the lock open, Nan and Ron felt their hearts race as the air pressure dropped: then it became normal again a few moments after the lock had closed.

  So intent did they become on their work, cleaning out the firing cylinders and resetting the flash points of the electrical mechanism, they hardly noticed how the time passed, nor for that matter were they concerned about it. Clay had a habit of staying away for hours at a time when he got on a hunt. Since he was well able to take care of himself that didn’t matter so much.

  Then at last Nan threw down a wastecloth and rubbed a grease smudge from her tip-tilted nose.

  “Don’t know about you, Ron,” she said, “But I’m wondering if I wasn’t a bit hasty in suggesting we return home. Come to think it over, I’m not so sure I want to go.”

  Ron stared at her in surprise. “But why not? Space is interesting, I know — fascinating if you like — but there’s a limit. I can’t imagine anything worse than just wandering about in the void on constant expeditions. Besides, when we get back to Earth think of the acclaim we’ll get! We’re the first Earthlings to travel through space to Mars, both ways, in safety! Or we will be, anyway.”

  Ron stopped and took a deep breath. “Don’t you realize, Nan, that it means the Dawlish Space Corporation will become an established fact? And with me at the head of it because I’m the only one who knows the formula for the fuel … Wealth — power — success! Think of it! And then you stand there and say you’re not so keen on returning!”

  She shrugged, and he frowned at her pretty, troubled face.

  “What is it, Nan?” he smiled, hugging her to him.

  “Well, I know we’ll get the fame and the glory; but that is simply as a matter of course. What worries me is the danger of our success. The trials of this expedition will be as nothing compared to what we’ll face against the commercial moguls of Earth. Take Calver Doone for example.”

  “Him?” Ron looked grimly reflective. Calver Doone was head of StratAmerican Airways Corporation. The discovery of super-fast fuel and space travel by Ron had already made Doone pull sundry wires — ethical and otherwise — to learn the young inventor’s secret. What he would do when he knew space travel and commerce was to become an established fact was problematical.

  “Well, I’m not afraid of Doone,” Ron growled at last, shrugging. “I’ll have strong men behind me, just as he will. After all, one can’t be unreasonable enough to expect a gigantic project like space travel to be launched on a commercial basis without certain vested interests getting jittery — and tough.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Nan admitted, biting her lip uncertainly. “But Doone is so ruthless I feel afraid for you.”

  “Then don’t,” Ron smiled. “I’m pretty hard when I’m pushed, and Clay isn’t anybody’s fool — Ah, talk of the devil!” he broke off, as the airlock swung inwards momentarily and closed again. Clay came clumping in clad in his space-suit. Slowly the air pressure went up to normal.

  “Well, find anything?” Ron inquired.

  “Like hell!” Clay responded, when he’d tugged off his helmet. “I’m no nearer than I was to start with, and I still don’t know what the rest of those ciphers mean.” He shrugged. “Well, there it is. Seems to me the best thing we can do is go back home. Everything all set?”

  “I guess so,” Ron nodded, moving to the control board. Then just as his hands gripped the power switches Nan gave a sudden horrified shout.

  “No, no, Ron, wait a minute! There’s poor Bouncer out there!”

  “Bouncer!” Ron gasped, and turned to look through the port.

  Sure enough there was the terrier lying on his side amidst the cactus, his ribs heaving up and down painfully as he struggled to draw in the thin air.

  “The little devil!” Clay exploded. “Don’t you see? He must have skipped through the airlock when I came back — Hey, Nan, where are you going?” he demanded, as he saw her twirling the airlock screws.

  “Out to get him, of course,” she retorted.

  “But wait a minute!” Ron cried. “You can’t go out just as you are! You need a —”

  “Oh, I’ll be all right,” she said briefly. “It’s only a few yards and I can hold my breath … every second counts!” And with that she slipped through the opening and closed the airlock after her.

  C
lay, half in and half out of his space suit, glanced at Ron. Then they both swung to the port and watched anxiously. Nan came into view almost immediately, taking the long jumps only possible in the Martian gravity. But she over-pitched her last leap and went flying a couple of yards beyond Bouncer, finally crashing into the midst of the bristly cactus.

  “Ouch! I bet that stung,” Ron muttered, as he watched Nan get up and massage her arm and shoulder painfully. Then she turned quickly, picked up Bouncer, and came stumbling back.

  Clay swung open the airlock for her and she came staggering in, two little smears of blood under her nostrils. She reeled giddily, then Ron caught her and drew up a chair. Slowly her labored breathing became more natural and her blood-shot eyes cleared.

  “Phew, that was tougher than I expected,” she exclaimed. “I held my breath, only that fall into the cactus made me lose it in one grand puff.” She winced suddenly. “Still got some of those cactus needles in my shoulder unless I’m mistaken.”

  “Soon have them out,” Ron said, and reached into the cabinet for the surgical forceps. Clay, however, was already using them, pointed to half a dozen vicious needles on the bench beside the fast reviving Bouncer.

  “Um, how nice,” Ron said grimly.

  “What about him? Be okay?”

  “Sure,” Clay grinned. “He’s Scotch, isn’t he? Bad lad,” he added, as a wicked brown eye looked at him. “But I’ll give him a shot of antibiotics just in case.”

  Within five minutes Ron had extracted four needles from Nan’s shoulder. Then he administered antibiotics, bandaged her shoulder, and handed her a glass of foaming restorative.

  “Thanks,” she smiled. “You should have been a doctor, not an inventor.”

  “You feel no ill effects, Nan?” Clay asked, studying the needles under the binocular microscope.

  She glanced at him in some alarm. “Why, no. Should I?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, looking up and frowning thoughtfully. “The needles have traces of some sort of gummy substance on them. That’s no reason to suspect poison, though. I’m simply remembering that we’re on an alien world … Probably ordinary sap.”

  “It had better be!” Nan cried, getting up and coming to look at them. “I don’t want to start passing out now just when we’re due to collect the glory.”

  “We’ve specimens of the cactus in the locker,” Ron remarked. “Why not have a look at them, Clay, and —”

  “Not worth it,” he interrupted. “They’re at Martian temperature and pressure in that locker. Pulling them out for any length of time into these Earth-norm conditions might kill them off — In any case if there were anything wrong Bouncer would show it quickly enough and he isn’t doing it,” Clay finished with a grin, as the terrier got up and wagged his impudent tail.

  Then Clay turned to sweep up the needles, but Nan gave him pause and instead dropped them into a small vacuum jar and clamped down the lid.

  “What’s the idea?” Ron asked in surprise.

  “Souvenirs,” she shrugged. “Some day when I’m an old woman and feel like telling yarns I’ll produce these as evidence …”

  Ron smiled a little, but he thought he detected a vague light of fear in Nan’s blue eyes. Only her laughing mouth seemed to belie it.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” she demanded, as Ron and Clay both stood looking at her, still trying to interpret her action. “It is time we were on our way, isn’t it? Let’s go.”

  Ron nodded a silent acquiescence and settled at the switchboard, pulled over the power levers. With a blasting roar which sent tumbling sand in all directions the vessel lifted from the valley floor — climbed swiftly away from the enigma of a lost Martian civilization towards the eternal stars.

  Chapter II

  The journey back was monotonous insofar that it contained no new elements. There was none of the fascinating interest of the first trip into space. The view of the stars, the planets, the Moon and the Sun, had lost its attraction. The whole thing was boring, crossing a gulf of forty-five million miles.

  So Ron, leaving the robot pilot to eat up the distance, spent most of his time classifying the specimens they had brought from Mars. Most of the period Nan helped him, or else she attended to the essential domestic part of the trip. At other times she played with Bouncer, who seemed to have quite recovered from his Martian exploit. And Nan herself had apparently quite forgotten her painful acquaintance with the cactus. Nothing untoward had presented itself, except of course a dull headache, but this she put down to space strain increasing her blood pressure.

  Clay, as usual, spent every waking moment working on the Martian hieroglyphics, and little by little, as Mars waned to an orange globe and Earth increased from a green star he began to make headway, working out the root formations of the characters, their application as compared with the three words he had already solved, and so on — Until one “morning” he gave a sudden whoop.

  “I’ve got it!” he yelled, his eyes shining triumphantly. “It checks up. So it must be right.”

  Ron and Nan, busy with their cataloging, looked up in breathless interest. Bouncer twisted his big head on one side

  “It’s a bit paradoxical,” Clay went on, pondering his notebook. “Sort of silly thing to —”

  “Damn that! What does it say?” Ron yelled.

  “It says — ‘To Him to Whom Eternal Life is Given, He an Outcast Shall Become’.”

  “Huh?” Ron exclaimed, staring at him.

  “Say it again,” Nan ordered, puzzling.

  So Clay repeated it and looked apologetic. “I told you it was paradoxical. Anyway I believe it’s right, though I don’t pretend to gather the meaning. Unless the Martians perhaps somehow found the secret of eternal life and didn’t like it when they had found it. Personally, I see very few drawbacks to eternal life. Seems to me it ought to be grand to have all eternity to work in. Think of watching inventions come to full flower.”

  “But there’s another side,” Ron reflected. “I mean the tragedy of seeing those whom you love grow old and die while you remain young …” He paused and shrugged. “Well, it sounds sort of screwy to me. How eternal life could make anybody an outcast I’m damned if I can see. Seems to me that anybody with the gift of eternity should be able in time to rule the world, either wisely or ruthlessly according to temperament. What do you think, Nan?”

  “I don’t get it at all,” she said. “Sounds like a silly sort of inscription to leave on a city archway. And it tells us nothing after all. I had hoped it might explain away the mystery of Mars’ vanished civilizations or something. Too bad! Now we shall never know.”

  With a puzzled frown she turned back to the cataloging, then began to look around her.

  “What’s up?” Ron asked, watching her.

  “I’m looking for my pencil —”

  “Looking for it? It’s in your hand!”

  She stared at the pencil in her fingers blankly. “Well,” she whispered, “so it is!

  “What’s the matter?” Ron asked, grinning. “Forgotten where you are, or something?”

  Nan did not answer him. In fact she could not. She was too utterly shocked inwardly by the realization that her first and second fingers and thumb on her right hand had lost all sense of feeling. Even now, as she wrote stiffly, the pencil was making no pressure in her grip. She tossed it down, lowered her hand to her side. It felt like something dead hanging on her wrist. She looked at it with apparent casualness, but so far as color went it was unchanged. Only the skin seemed to have a shiny touch that was definitely unusual.

  “Something the matter?” Ron asked, as she stood pondering.

  Nan was not a girl to be easily frightened, so she shook her head slowly — but she was remembering that this was the arm and shoulder which had had the full force of the cactus needles — Ridiculous! Absurd! Just cramp from too much writing.

  “I’m getting sleepy again,” she announced presently. “I think I’ll turn in for a bit.”

/>   “Okay,” Ron acknowledged, pondering his list.

  “Uh-huh,” Clay agreed, immersed in his Martian ciphers.

  Nan turned and whistled Bouncer to her. He followed her along the passage. Immediately she had entered the tiny bedroom and closed the door her face settled into troubled lines. Her hand by now should have been normal but it wasn’t …

  “Bouncer,” she whispered, “I don’t feel too good. And I’m a bit scared too!”

  He cocked his head and protruded his pink tongue. Struck with a sudden thought Nan turned to the dressing table. In doing so she forgot Bouncer for a moment, felt his thick front paw crunch under her foot — but his usual complaining howl failed to come forth. Instead he merely moved to one side.

  Nan looked at him strangely, then squatted down and called him to her.

  “Bouncer, are you dead in parts too?” she breathed, and he licked her hand in reply. She thought for a moment, then tugging a pin from her blouse she pushed the point gently into the pad of Bouncer’s left foot, watching him keenly the while. He took no notice … With a deepening horror in her heart Nan drove the pin into her own numbed hand and saw it sticking firmly into the thumb surrounded by a tiny globule of blood. But reaction was totally dead. She had never even felt it.

  “Bouncer,” she said slowly, feeling the color drain out of her face, “something is terribly wrong with both of us! Maybe that cactus was poisoned, after all! But we’re not going to tell Ron or Clay — Not yet. The effect might go off, then think what fools we’d look! ’Sides, we don’t want anything to interfere with his happiness when he gets back to Earth, do we?”

  Bouncer jumped to the bunk beside her as she slowly sat upon it. She cuddled him up under her arm, smiled gravely into his big, solemn looking face …

  *

  All unaware of Nan’s private worries — for her queer ailment showed no signs of improvement as Earth swung nearer out of the void — Ron and Clay began to look forward eagerly to the arrival awaiting them.

  They were in radio and television contact with Earth and they had a pretty good idea of the welcome ahead of them. In New York City, apart from the civic authorities, there were gathered the scientific representatives of every land waiting to pay due homage to the pioneers …