III-1
647 Words
IIIA GIGANTIC BUILDING, rising to several hundred feet in height, domed, without door or window, stood lonely in the vastness of the red plain that stretched to the far-off black horizon.
The building and nothing more. No other single sign of habitation. No other evidence of intelligent life.
The Martian lilies were everywhere, great fields of them, bright scarlet against the redness of the sand. But in its native soil the Martian lily was a sorry thing, a poor apology for the kind of flower that grew on Earth. Stunted, low-growing, with smaller and less brilliant flowers.
The sand gritted under Scott’s boots as he took a slow step forward.
So this was Mars! Here, at the North pole ... the single building ... the only evidence of intelligence on the entire planet. As the ship had circled the planet, cutting down its tremendous speed, he had studied the surface in the telescopic glass and this building had been the only habitation he had seen.
It stood there, made of shimmering metal, glinting in the pale sunlight.
“Bugs,” said Jimmy, at Scott’s elbow.
“What do you mean, bugs?” asked Scott.
“Bugs in the air,” said Jimmy. “Flying bugs.”
Scott saw them then. Things that looked like streaks of light in the feeble sunshine. Swarms of them hovered about the great building and others darted busily about.
“Bees,” suggested Jimmy.
But Scott shook his head. They weren’t bees. They glinted and flashed when the sun’s light struck them and they seemed more mechanical than life-like.
“Where are the Martians?” Jimmy demanded.
“I don’t know, Jimmy,” declared Scott. “Damned if I do.”
He had envisioned the first Earthmen reaching Mars as receiving thunderous ovation, a mighty welcome from the Martians. But there weren’t any Martians. Nothing stirred except the shining bugs and the lilies that nodded in a thin, cold breeze.
There was no sound, no movement. Like a quiet summer afternoon back on Earth, with a veil of quietness drawn over the flaming desert and the shimmering building.
He took another step, walking toward the great building. The sand grated protestingly beneath his boot-heels.
Slowly he approached the building, alert, watching, ready for some evidence that he and Jimmy had been seen. But no sign came. The bugs droned overhead, the lilies nodded sleepily. That was all.
Scott looked at the thermometer strapped to the wrist of his oxygen suit. The needle registered 10 above, Centigrade. Warm enough, but the suits were necessary, for the air was far too thin for human consumption.
Deep shadow lay at the base of the building and as he neared it, Scott made out something that gleamed whitely in the shadow. Something that struck a chord of remembrance in his brain, something he had seen back on Earth.
As he hurried forward he saw it was a cross. A white cross thrust into the sand.
With a cry he broke into a run.
Before the cross he dropped to his knees and read the crudely carved inscription on the wood. Just two words. The name of a man, carven with a jack-knife:
HARRY DECKER
Harry Decker! Scott felt his brain swimming crazily.
Harry Decker here! Harry Decker under the red sand of Mars! But that couldn’t be. Harry Decker’s name couldn’t be here. It was back on Earth, graven on that scroll of bronze. Graven there directly beneath the name of Hugh Nixon.
He staggered to his feet and stood swaying for a moment.
From somewhere far away he heard a shout and swinging around, ran toward the corner of the building.
Rounding it, he stopped in amazement.
There, in the shelter of the building, lay a rusted space ship and running across the sand toward him was a space-suited figure, a figure that yelled as it ran and carried a bag over its shoulder, the bag bouncing at every leap.
“Hugh!” yelled Scott.
And the grotesque figure bellowed back.
“Scott, you old devil! I knew you’d do it! I knew it was you the minute I heard the rocket blasts!”
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- Writer
