Chapter 11. _Martians Don't Care_

"I don't like the looks of this at all," said Lockhart finally. "I

suspect a trap. Yet we've got to land and get at that base. I'm going to

take the ship out into the desert beyond the city and let a scouting

squad go in first."

The _Magellan_ lifted back into the sky, then moved out over the ocher

wasteland that was the barren desert of the red planet. Slowly the ship

dropped again until its pointed nether end hung about twenty feet above

the cold shale and time-worn sand.

Captain Boulton and Ferrati were selected to do the initial survey. Burl

and Haines helped them climb through the packed spaces of the outer

hold. The jeep was swung out to the lowermost cargo port, and the

spaceship's cargo derrick lowered the compact army vehicle to the

ground.

The two scouts then put on altitude suits with oxygen masks, slung

walkie-talkies about their chests, took light carbines in hand and

pistols in belts and went down the rope ladder from the cargo port. They

climbed into the sturdy jeep with its specially-designed carburetor and

pressurized engine. The vehicle had been prepared to operate in the

light atmosphere of Mars, as thin as the air on a Himalayan mountaintop,

and low in free oxygen.

Burl and Haines, clad in pressure suits themselves, sat in the open port

and watched the jeep set off. The engine kicked over and barked a few

times in the strange air. Then Boulton at the wheel threw in the clutch,

stepped on the gas, and the squat little car, painted in Air Force blue,

rolled off over the flat rocky surface, kicking up a light cloud of sand

as it went.

On Haines's lap sat a walkie-talkie. Boulton and Ferrati kept up a

running commentary as they approached the city. Ferrati described the

ground and the appearance of the oncoming city.

The jeep was now a small object merging with the dark mounds of the

city's outermost buildings. "We haven't met any Martians yet," came

Ferrari's voice. "Apparently they aren't interested in investigating us

even now. And here we are rolling right up to the city limits." There

was a pause.

The walkie-talkie emitted a series of squeaks and squawks, and Ferrati's

voice came through now with distortion. "We're crossing the city

limits--there's a sort of hard, plastic pavement that begins at the very

edge. Now we're going down an intersection between the buildings."

The squawks became increasingly louder. They could hear only a word or

two. Haines asked whether he was getting through to them, but he could

not make out an answer because of the racket.

"It's the Sun-tap station. It's generating distortion. We'll have to

wait until they return," said Burl.

Haines nodded and turned off the set which had begun to utter

ear-piercing howls. The two men waited quietly for about half an hour.

Only a phone call from the curious men in the control room interrupted

their vigil.

Then finally Burl spotted a little cloud of dust on the horizon. "There

they are!"

The two men stood up as the little jeep made its way back over the

desert to the ship. As it drew closer, they saw a third occupant sitting

in the back with Ferrati. Haines opened the walkie-talkie. "Wait till

you see this fellow," Ferrati's comment came through.

The jeep drew up to the ship and stopped. Ferrati waved them down. A few

seconds later they were joined by Lockhart and Clyde, also in pressure

suits.

The creature in the back of the jeep was a Martian. They stared in

fascination. It was about three feet long with a small, oval-shaped head

and two very large, many-faceted eyes. A small, beaklike mouth and

short, stubby antennae completed its face. The head was attached by a

short neck to a body that consisted of three oval masses joined together

by narrow belts, much like the joints of an insect. A pair of arms,

ending in long three-fingered hands, grew from the first segment. A set

of long, thin legs grew out of each of the two other segments. A

glistening grayish-blue shell, its skin, covered it from head to foot.

At the moment, this particular Martian was tightly restrained by a

strong nylon net, and was obviously the captive of the two explorers.

"Why, it looks like a giant insect!" exclaimed Burl.

"More like a kind of lobster," was Ferrati's answer. "But this is it.

This is one of the city dwellers."

Lockhart shook his head. "I don't like this. We shouldn't do anything to

antagonize the Martians. Taking one prisoner like this may be a bad

first move."

Boulton stepped out of the jeep. "There wasn't anything else we could

do. Besides, who said that Martians were ever our friends?"

"We got into the city," he went on, "and drove around the streets. There

were plenty of these fellows around, going about their business.

Hundreds of 'em. Do you think they stopped to look at us? Do you think

they were curious? Do you think they talked to us? Called the police?

Did anything at all?

"No," he answered himself. "They just walked around us as if we were a

stick of something in the way. They don't say anything to each other.

They just go on about their affairs, dragging things, carrying food,

herding young ones, and not a darn word.

"They looked at us, and didn't even act as if they saw us. When we

stopped one, it squirmed out of our grasp and walked away. Finally we

took this fellow, simply grabbed him off the street, tied him up,

stuffed him in the jeep and kidnaped him. And do you think anybody cared

or turned in an alarm or tried to help him? No!"

Lockhart looked at the prisoner a moment. The Martian stared at him out

of his unwinking multiple eyes. "Are you sure these are the engineers of

the canals, the builders?"

Boulton nodded. "Definitely. We saw some of them at work. They were

repairing a house and they used tools and fire. They have machines, and

they use them. They've got their city working and well laid out, but I

don't know how they do it. They must communicate in some way, but they

act as if they had been drilled in their jobs and were going through an

elaborate and complicated pantomime. Even the young don't utter a peep."

Lockhart stepped back a bit. "Untie this fellow. Let's see what he

does."

When the Martian had been released from the enveloping net, it made no

effort to communicate. It turned slowly around, a little wobbly at

first, and wandered off, paying no attention to the men, the ship, or

the jeep. Then it started walking at a rapid pace. The men watched as it

trotted into the desert--away from the city!

It seemed to wander around as if lost, and then set out in another

direction, but still one that would not take it to the city which was

quite plainly in view.

The Martian disappeared from view behind a series of small hummocks,

still bound for nowhere.

The men were lost in amazement. Russell Clyde uttered a low whistle.

"Burl's right. It must be a sort of insect."

"This whole civilization seems to be insectlike, if you ask me," said

Burl. "It's like a huge anthill, or a big bee-hive. It seems

complicated, and the creatures go through complex activities, and all

the time it's something they were born with."

Ferrati nodded. "Now that you mention it, that's exactly what the city

was like. Nobody gave orders--everybody just did what they were supposed

to do. Nobody was curious about us because it wasn't their business."

"And, individually, they haven't intelligence," Clyde added. "That

one--the one you took away from his work--plainly is lost. He doesn't

know how to go about getting back. He has no curiosity about us ... he

may not even have much of a brain. Individual ants have no brain--only a

sort of central nerve center. Collectively, they perform wonders;

individually, they are quite helpless."

Lockhart interrupted the discussion. "Well, then, let's get on with it.

Obviously, the Sun-tap builders placed their station in this city

because it was a safe spot, protected by the Martians themselves, and

because the Martians would never think to interfere with them. So you

men can go back, take your stuff, dig out the station and put it out of

commission. Get going."

Haines and Burl climbed into the jeep with Boulton and Ferrati. Russell

Clyde insisted on joining them, and Lockhart gave his consent. Off they

went, rumbling over the sand toward the city of instinct.

Burl was excited and curious about the Martians. They presented a

strange mixture of contradictions. "How," he asked Russ, "could they

have built a world-wide network of canals, set up pumping stations, laid

out plantations, mastered hydraulic and power engineering, if they are

mere creatures of instinct? Surely there must be brainy ones somewhere?

A thinker species?"

"Not necessarily," said Russ. "Remember, these creatures are operating

without opposition--they are really the highest type of life here. The

need to conserve water and continue their hive life forced them to learn

a practical kind of engineering. Nobody knows how the ants and bees

formed their complex societies--there are none among them with any

larger brains than the rest, and they do not talk. But somehow ants and

bees communicate and somehow they act as a mass. Figure it on a

world-wide scale, driven by the threat of their world drying up, and

these creatures built up a mechanical civilization to meet it. But it

also accounts for why they have never flown, not through the air and not

through space, why they haven't attempted radio communication with

Earth, and why they don't understand what the Sun-tap station is doing

to them. Their world is being killed, and they literally haven't the

brains to understand it."

They reached the city. All about was a silent hustle and bustle of

enigmatic, shining, shelled creatures. Superficially, it looked like an

intelligent civilization. There were wheeled carts driven by some sort

of steam generator. Steam-driven engines ran factories.

The Martians made way for the jeep with unconcern. Never had they seen

creatures as large as themselves that were not of their own kind on hive

business. Hence, none such could exist. This was a world totally without

individualism, a civilization without a spoken language, without names,

without banners. Wherever or however the mass knowledge was located or

transmitted, no individual of another species could ever hope to know.

It would be forever as remote from human explorers as the farthest star

on the farthest galaxy.

They drove to where the Sun-tap masts rose from the ground. The men

parked the jeep out of the way of the silent traffic, climbed out and

walked into the rounded door of a building. Its architecture was not

like that of the other buildings. Inside the chambers were dark.

"These creatures have no lights," remarked Boulton. "They must use their

feelers indoors."

"Ah, but look," said Burl, reaching out a hand to a little globe set on

a pole in the floor. He touched it and the globe lighted up. "The

Sun-tap builders needed light and put in their own fixtures here. I

recognize their style."

The five men followed a hallway that sloped down into the ground, and

came out into a large underground cellar--several hundred feet wide. It

was the Sun-tap station. There were the now-familiar globes and rods,

the force fields, the controls, the pedestals and the ends of the

rotating masts.

They made their recordings, and Burl got ready to turn off the station.

Ferrati and Haines uncrated a small, tactical atomic bomb they had

carried with them--one of the smallest perfected by the Army during the

past half dozen years. They laid it down in the center of the equipment

and set the timer for a half hour away.

Boulton found the alarm globe and prepared to blow it up. Then Burl took

the control panel and switched off the station. They heard the thud of a

crumbling mast. Boulton fired a shot into the alarm globe which had

begun to turn red. It smashed.

"All right, men," snapped Haines, "let's go!"

As they moved toward the exit, Boulton hesitated. "Hey," he said,

"there's one globe still in action!"

The others turned in time to see Boulton stride over to a very small

globe which was glowing pale yellow against the wall near the doorway.

The Marine captain drew his pistol, aimed and fired. The globe burst,

but as it did so, a level bolt of yellow light shot back along the path

of the bullet. For a split second, Boulton was outlined in yellow fire.

There was a flash like lightning.

Each man reached for his weapons, but the underground station remained

dark and dead. Their flashlights turned on Boulton. The stocky Marine

was lying on the ground.

They ran to him. "He's alive!" cried Haines, as he saw that Boulton was

still breathing, his breath whistling back and forth through the oxygen

mask. Quickly Haines examined him. "His heart's all right. He's just

been knocked unconscious."

Ferrati and Haines picked up the captain by his arms and legs. Though he

would have been heavy on Earth, his weight on Mars was very slight, and

each man knew he was capable of carrying great loads with his

Earth-attuned muscles. Then, in single file, they left the cellar and

came out of the doorway of the building.

As they emerged they were stopped short. Surrounding them was a

tremendous and growing crowd of Martians. A solid wall of shell-like

faces stared at them, and a small forest of short antennae waved and

flickered in great agitation.

As they pushed their way with great difficulty toward the jeep, the

crowd began to sway, as if in anger. Now, for the first time, they heard

the creatures make a noise--a sort of humming and buzzing like angered

bees.

"They see us now," muttered Haines. "I don't like it."

"The Sun-tap builders did it," said Burl. "They must have booby-trapped

the place against intruders. The globe that got Boulton must have set

off some sort of vibration that enrages these creatures. And it looks

as if we're the victims."

As they reached their jeep, the encircling mass of Martians moved

forward. The humming rose to a higher pitch, and then the mob, with the

berserk ferocity of a swarm of bees, lunged toward them.