The Secret of the Martian Moons (10 page)

The old man stood there waiting for him to finish. When Nelson had swallowed the last piece and looked up at him inquiringly, he nodded to himself and said, “I don't want to harm you, so please just listen to me. I can help you a little, if you will do me an assistance.” “Can you lead me to Jim Worden's killers?” Nelson said. “That's who I came in here to find.”

“Who is Jim Worden?” the stranger asked, puzzled. "Jim was my friend,” Nelson said slowly. "He was struck from behind, his helmet shattered when your men wrecked our craft up on the surface.”

The old man seemed really startled at this, his hand shook visibly. “Killed? They really killed a man! Oh . . . this is very bad!” He repeated this to himself a few times, then suddenly paled and said very quickly, “Oh, you must not think I did it! Not me. Not my friends. I wouldn’t do such a thing, never.”

“If you didn't do it, who did? How can I find them and how can I get out of here afterward?” Nelson felt himself getting the uppermost for a moment as the old man showed genuine panic at the news of the slaying.

But the stranger recovered suddenly and his eyes narrowed. “Oh no, you can never get out of here. You must never leave here. Your friends on Earth must never know.”

Nelson sat back on his heels. “Oh? Well, then what’s your game?”

The old man paused a moment. “You don’t understand. But I want to make a bargain with you. I can’t let you go home, but I can lead you to the ones you seek if you will agree to help me also.”

Nelson thought a moment. Whatever could this stranger want? He decided to pretend agreement. After all, the more he knew, the more chance he had of escaping. He nodded. “O.K. What’s the problem?” Now the old man seemed, to be the uncertain one. It was as if, having gone this far, he had exhausted his limited stock of courage and didn’t know whether he could proceed. Finally he started to explain:

“My name is Kunosh. I am ... ah ... an official of . . . my people here in Deimos. Sort of like a . . . chairman or maybe a sheriff ... or something like both, I can’t quite explain here. We are a small group of people and we live here in the interior of this little moon. I can’t tell you how we came here because I am not allowed to and we don’t have time for it. You must take my word for it. There are several thousands of us living here.”

The old man stopped, groping for words. He twisted the weapon in his hands, forgetting entirely about keeping it pointed at Nelson. But the young man realized he had more to gain by listening now than by attempting to wrest it from him. Kunosh went on again:

“You must understand, young Earthling, that we don’t bear anyone any ill will. We never harmed a soul, we never want to hurt anybody. I must tell you so that you will know this, I must tell you again we are opposed to the use of force. We never want to fight anyone, we never want to hurt anyone. Certainly we cannot stand to kill anyone. None of us hurt your friend. We couldn’t, we just simply couldn’t, couldn’t! It’s what we believe, it’s what we feel!”

Nelson looked at the weapon in Kunosh’s hands. He thought to himself that not so long ago Kunosh was apparently willing to use it on him. The old man seemed to read his thoughts.

“My threatening you with this . . . ers-gun . . . was the most dreadful thing I ever had to do in my life, believe me. I think I would have died if you had made me shoot it!

“But now that you are listening to me, you must listen more. There are a few bad men among our people who have lost faith. They have slipped from the strict tenets of their ancestors and they will use force! From what you told me, they have already done so. They have become dangerous to us, to you. In our eyes they are turned monsters, degenerates!”

The old man stopped, overcome by the horror of his own thought. In a moment he continued, his eyes gleaming with the anger of a fanatic. “These bad men have slipped in among us and have seized control of our little moon. They have captured us all with their violence! We are all driven frantic with the thought of the dreadful things they are planning to do! And you are now the only one who could overcome these dreadful men!”

Nelson got to his feet. He wasn’t afraid of the old man now. He didn’t understand such a people as these who would not even defend themselves, but he saw that he had a chance. “Are these bad men the ones who just came down from the surface, the ones who were tracking me?”

Kunosh nodded. “They must be. I am sure they are the ones you are hunting. Here,” he said suddenly, thrusting the strange ers-gun into Nelson’s hand, “you take this. I don’t like even to hold it. My people have not touched such a thing as this since my ancestors put it into the museum of barbarian horrors—oh, it must be many thousands and thousands of your years ago.

“I know you will help us. Come with me, I will lead you to the bad men and you will get rid of them for us. Then you will have brought your friend justice and we will be freed of these dreadful throwbacks.”

The young man hefted the strange gun. It looked odd but it did look deadly. If it was indeed as old as Kunosh had said, what an amazing vista that opened for speculation! Then it must be that these moon-dwellers were the ancient Martians! Who else could have had a heritage from so far back that was obviously mechanically in advance of Earth?

In his eagerness Kunosh had not waited to hear whether Nelson agreed to his terms. The young man made no effort to remind him. Now that he had the weapon and a guide, he would follow through and see what could be seen. After that—well, he’d see about his get-away!

"It a signal from Kunosh, Nelson flicked on his helmet light and the old man, with a wave of his hand over a spot near the entranceway, turned off the glow in the room. Then, in the restricted rays of the helmet, the two left and started off down the corridor.

Nelson’s heart beat faster as they went on down through the deserted corridors near the surface of the little moon. At long last it seemed to him that he was going to see the ancient Martians at their occupations, to learn the mysteries of their civilization, to know what sort of secrets were tucked away in their vaults beneath the red world’s surface.

It was apparent to the young man that the entire moon of Deimos was honeycombed with rooms and tunnels. It must, he realized, be almost hollow. He turned and asked Kunosh, who was moving silently before him through the gloom of the corridors.

The old man quickly shook his head. “Not now. I haven’t time to answer questions. Wait, we are coming to places where there will be people.”

Now the lighting in the corridors was becoming brighter and the air seemed fresher. Nelson felt a breeze against his face, a breeze that came and went and he realized that an artificial air-circulation system . was in operation near the central depths of Deimos. The floors were no longer dusty and began to show the marks of feet and usage. Then at last they rounded a turn and came face to face with a group of people walking.

The strangers’ faces showed recognition and unconcern when they saw Kunosh, who was ahead, but as soon as they set eyes on Nelson Parr there was visible consternation. They shrank against the walls to let him pass with the widest of margins, their faces went pale, and they showed every sign of outright terror.

The people were of the same race as Kunosh and all were clad in very much the same sort of undistinctive garments. The women among them were distinguished only by a slightly smaller size, a delicate cast of features and somewhat more ornate clothing, generally of a lighter shade of blue, or in several cases even green. Nelson supposed that perhaps these differences indicated marital status or perhaps work relationships.

Now there were doors that were open and sometimes even open underground plazas. Nelson could see that they were passing through a busy community. He saw workshops where oddly shaped machinery worked unattended at unguessable tasks. He looked into doorways that led into homes, where two or three pale-faced and fragile children would look soberly at him and shrink back out of sight. He passed people carrying packages, women carrying babies. He saw open chambers at junctions in the network of tunneling where markets seemed to be in progress, and once they walked through a series of rooms wherein strange green-gray plants were growing under the glare of sun-type lamps. This was obviously one of their chemically operated farms, such as would have been necessary to sustain life in such a sunless world.

But wherever Kunosh and Nelson put in their appearance, there were fright and terror. On Earth, Nelson thought, if strangers appeared in some remote region of the world, they would be surrounded by inquiring, curious grownups and screaming, excited children. But these people were lacking in all that. They seemed terrified of anything strange, they seemed —he groped in his mind for the picture he sought— they seemed like rabbits or even pale frightened white mice.

None of the men questioned Kunosh, though plainly he was recognized by all. Whenever he and Nelson put in an appearance, there was silence and a scurrying away of all who dared flee.

Nelson was aware that they were nearing the heart of the little world. At last Kunosh stopped before a door, opened it, and they slipped into a narrow dark hall. Kunosh closed the door and they stood again in darkness.

“Be careful now,” the old man whispered. “We are right next door to the Central Control Hall, where . . . the monsters . . . are holding our leaders prisoners. This is the heart and brain of our world. This little hallway runs right next to it and I can lead you to an entrance that will take you right near these . . . usurpers. Follow me quietly.”

He started off in the narrow darkness and Nelson followed at his heels, holding the ers-gun and wondering desperately just what course he would follow. Now that he was close to the end of his mission, he became sharply aware of how little he knew, how little Kunosh had actually told him.

For instance, how many of the enemy were there? Were they armed? How would he know them when he saw them? And a last thought suddenly popped into his head—exactly what would the ers-gun do? Did it shoot a pellet as a pistol would? Was it a ray projector of some sort and if so, what sort of ray? Would things explode? If it was atomic in nature, it would be extremely dangerous to fire it in a closed room . . . deadly as well to the one who fired as to the one who got shot.

It occurred to him then that perhaps Kunosh knew that, knew the shooter would die also, and that accounted for his own reluctance to handle the gun. Nelson might thus be a convenient guinea pig. On the other hand, the obvious rabbit-nature of the people and Kunosh’s fanaticism argued against that theory.

Nelson's gloved hand felt sweaty as he held the strange weapon. He knew he would have to make up his mind in a matter of split seconds if he had to fire it. He didn’t know what he would do.

Kunosh came to a stop, and Nelson crowded up close to him. The Deimosian whispered, “I’m going to open the door now. You rush in. The fiends—the fiends wear stripes!”

Suddenly there was a crack of dull light which widened as a door silently rolled back into the wall. The room into which Nelson looked was dimly lit, long but narrow. There were various desks and platforms up and down its length. It looked like a combination business office, spaceship control room, and electronic communications relay station. There was a small group of men, perhaps a dozen in all, standing around a lighted panel in the wall opposite Nelson, apparently discussing the glowing sets of hieroglyphics and Deimos language notations showing there.

It was a marvelous stroke of luck that none of the men were looking their way. Nelson stepped softly inside the chamber. Now he saw that among the dozen figures were five wearing garments which were striped red and black up and down from neck to ankle. These, then, were enemy.

Nelson looked down at the weapon in his hand, estimating whether he should chance using it. He raised it but then was startled to realize that it had no indication of any directional finder. Its operating end seemed glassy and wide and there was no way of telling whether it would spray all in sight or only one small spot.

He could not aim it at any individual without taking the chance of hitting all. But the weapon seemed heavy and strong. He reversed it and, walking softly and swiftly up to the group, swung it back over his head and brought the heavy butt end down on the skull of the nearest striped man.

The man fell as if struck by lightning. The others turned with cries of consternation and fright.

Now suddenly feeling the flush of anger and remembering the vicious way Jim Worden had been killed, Nelson whirled upon the other four foemen.

There were screams of terror from everyone in the room. The blue-clad Deimosians dashed around in sheer panic. The red-and-black characters seemed equally alarmed, and in their confusion Nelson was able to knock down a second with a swing of his gun.

Then the other three launched themselves at him. He felt a fist crash against his face and was surprised to find it so light. Nelson waded into the three, realizing how big and strong he was in comparison. He grabbed two, disregarding their blows and banged their heads together. The third broke and tried to run.

“Stop him!” called Nelson, but not one of the blue-clad men moved. They were simply standing away from him, shaking, and white with terror. The man in the striped suit was nearing the farther door, clearly going to make a get-away, when the Earthling swung the ers-gun and threw it with all his might, just as he had learned to do when playing football at the Institute back on Earth.

His practice stood him well. The bulky weapon shot through the air and crashed against the running man. The enemy fell to the floor and lay there stunned.

Now Kunosh took charge. He called out orders to the Deimosians in the room, and they threw off some of their fright and hastily tied their recent conquerors hand and foot.

Nelson looked around. That was fast, he told himself. “Are there any more of them around?” he asked Kunosh. The old man nodded.

“There are several more, but when they hear about this, they will leave and go back where they came from.”