‘We’ll take specimens – analyze, try to work out the life cycle.’ Feinberg’s tones seemed to come from far away.

  ‘The scientific team can do that,’ nodded Wayne. ‘Meanwhile the rest of you can be setting up camp. The sooner we get our base established, the better.’

  They went back to the ship. No question of taking the day off, it had to be work from the start if they were to live. But they did break out some special items for supper that night, including a few bottles of old wine, and had a little feast. In the reduced air pressure, they all got drunk. Wayne and O’Neill remained moody, but the others laughed and sang and clinked glasses again and again in the first toast, which Lois had given and which was still the only one for this proud evening.

  ‘Well, gentlemen – we made it.’

  X

  The days and the nights swept over them, pale frosty light over worn-out hills and scudding dust, flash and glitter of a hundred thousand stars in a high vault of dark crystal, and always the working and the hoping. There was so much to do, and so few tools to do it with, that men lurched back into the ship at sundown and swallowed a quick meal and tumbled into beds and uneasy dreams.

  It seemed to Collie that he had been forever cased in the clammy, stinking prison of his airsuit, it seemed that the tall mountains of Earth were themselves a dream he had had long ago, and that there was only the red dust and the shovel in his hands. Incredible that he had been merely weeks on Mars.

  The scientific team – Wayne, Arakelian, and Feinberg – were tackling the ecology, dissecting, analyzing, theorizing, slowly completing a picture of the chemistry and the multiple symbiosis which kept those woods and grasses in existence. Lois Grenfell was cook and housekeeper and girl-of-all-work. The rest of them were building their base, and even in Martian gravity that was an inhuman job.

  Slowly it grew. The ship herself had been designed so that much of her could be taken out and made into shelters, caches, and equipment, leaving only a skeletal minimum for the trip home; and her cargo held the knocked-down parts which were otherwise required. For lack of building materials, most of Port Drummond was underground, merely excavated and roofed over; but a junkyard of material littered the acres around the ship, and the ancient dun of Mars was interrupted by a fierce new gleam of naked metal.

  The next expedition could carry supplies to put in those vaults, and the one after that could leave a few men to carry on the work, and the one after that— God in Heaven! How long would it take to get even one tiny village going, fifty million miles from home?

  Collie and Ivanovitch suffered less from their working conditions than the other laborers. The Russian’s immense strength left him breathing easily, while the hillman’s peculiar lung and blood system made him less prone to stagger and claw for air. But Collie was the only one of those two who took a real interest in the work as a problem, rather than merely a job; and thus, gradually and unintentionally, he found himself a kind of foreman.

  Damn it, there was a challenge here. In their favor, they had the low gravity and the loose, friable earth; against them was that same crumbly texture, with its tendency to collapse, and the incredible dryness. Ordinary concrete wouldn’t set decently, before it had dried the ravenous dust had sucked half the water from it and you got a flimsy stuff which the erosion of temperature extremes would soon ruin. So you devised molds of plastic board which would act as a shield till the concrete was properly set. One of the furtive, tiny animals chewed the insulation off power lines, so you had to bury them in concrete too. Then you ran out of cement and had to scout around looking for some local substitute: a clay which mixed with water and baked into bricks.

  But you couldn’t spend water that lavishly, so you had to find it elsewhere, you had to extract it from the fluid-hoarding cells of certain trees. Quickly growing rootlets with some unknown dowsing sense would split open any pipe or container with moisture in it, so you had to eradicate all plants for miles around and lay the pipes in open tunnels where they could be inspected. And on, and on, and on.

  And slowly the base was growing. A score of interconnected cellars, Wayne’s sunpower accumulators on their roofs, a shielded excavation for the nuclear power-pile which the next expedition would install, greenhouses for plants to renew oxygen and supply a little food, adumbrations of laboratories and storehouses. It was a tiny thing, lost in rolling drab immensities, and it was bare and bleak and primitive, but it grew. It grew. Sometimes, straightening for a moment and casting his weary eyes over the litter, Collie felt a resurgence of that first pride when they landed. He thought he could see Port Drummond a hundred years from now, and it was a tall white city and the desert around it was becoming green.

  There was no warning of what followed. To them, Mars was enemy enough, and they had not thought the old hatreds of Earth would hunt them this far. But there came an evening.

  Collie glanced at the declining sun and called a halt. As soon as it was down, night and the stars would explode over them. ‘Dinner time, I reckon,’ he said.

  The dog, which had been hauling a girder, stopped in his harness and sat down, waiting to be untied. Collie often wondered just how intelligent the brute was. He labored with them taking simple orders and not needing to be driven, but still – something uncanny there. He wasn’t a dog you patted and called ‘nice fellow’ …

  The other men brought their tools to the chest and laid them inside, a precaution against dust storms that might cover them. Their grotesque suited forms were etched black against the sky, with long shadows pointing at the ship. Ivanovitch remained a moment on the job, tightening a last pipe joint, and then clumped after the others. Collie stood for a moment alone, glancing over the hills, wondering what lay beyond that barren horizon. More of the same, probably. No golden castles, no beautiful princesses, just Mars. This was a world to which man had to bring his own dreams.

  Something flashed out there, in the last sunlight, a hard metal gleam. He squinted, scowling into the glare, and thought he saw it move. What the devil?

  Imagination, I reckon, he told himself, and turned back toward the airlock. The hatefully familiar walls closed around him. He wrinkled his nose at the faint staleness inside the ship, they could never quite get rid of it.

  Shucking his suit and hanging it in the lock, he made his way to the tiny bathroom and waited his turn to sponge off some of the sweat. Feinberg was ahead of him, talking excitedly to an unresponsive O’Neill: ‘Yeah, the goddam plant gets oxygen out of rocks. Some organic catalyst, I don’t know what it is, but out the oxy comes in a loose chemical bond. With a little selective breeding, we might get something really efficient for our colony: plants that refine iron ore for us and give us air and have edible tubers into the bargain. But first we’ll have to work out the laws of heredity. The chromosome pattern doesn’t look like anything I ever saw on Earth, and we can’t assume that it’ll follow the same Mendelian laws we know.’

  Collie wiped himself halfway clean, donned his inboard clothes, and strolled down to the saloon. Most of the others were already seated, staring glumly at their plates, too weary to talk. What was the use of talking, anyway, when you knew exactly what the other fellow had to say on any imaginable subject?

  Lois came in from the tiny galley with a bowl of stew. Collie thought that she was the only good-looking object on the whole planet. Her thin straight face was flushed with the heat of the little stove, her eyes were bright and the soft brown hair curled down over her shoulders. Collie thought he’d like to run his hands through that hair. But it wouldn’t do, it wouldn’t do. Maybe later, sometime on the other side of eternity, when they got back to Earth.

  ‘M-m-m-m,’ he said. ‘Smells nice, that mulligan.’

  She checked off an imaginary number. ‘That makes ninety-seven times you’ve said that,’ she answered, but smiled at him.

  ‘Well,’ said Collie, ‘I gotta say something.’

  ‘Forty-three.’

  ‘Okay, okay, I give up. You’re beautiful.’

  ‘Fifty-one.’ She set the bowl down in front of him.

  O’Neill looked grayly at them. Collie felt a twinge of remorse. He had no business stirring up a fresh dispute.

  ‘I saw something which looked like metal today,’ Collie said, to change the subject. ‘Just a flash out in the west, as I was comin’ in.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Feinberg. ‘The Martians have found us.’

  ‘No, really.’ Lois looked interested. ‘What could it have been? A lake out there?’

  ‘No,’ said Gammony. ‘Not accordin’ to the maps we made, it can’t be. Mebbe a bright rock the dust just blew off of.’

  At another time, they might have speculated in great detail merely to talk about something. Tonight the matter died.

  Collie felt restless after dinner. Most of the others were off to their bunks; Wayne and Feinberg went back to the ship’s lab, Arakelian and O’Neill started a drowsy game of chess. The hillman yawned. ‘I’m goin’ out for a stroll,’ he said to nobody in particular.

  ‘Don’t you get enough of that damned desert?’ grumbled Arakelian.

  ‘It’s nice at night,’ said Collie defensively.

  Lois looked up from her book. They had taken a microviewer and a good-sized filmed library along, it was worth its weight in oxygen to them. ‘I’ll come along, if you don’t mind,’ she said.

  Collie’s heart sprang. ‘Sure,’ he said.

  O’Neill shoved the chessboard from him with a savage gesture. ‘I concede,’ he said. ‘I’m off to my bunk.’

  The worst of it for the poor guy, thought Collie, is that he can’t even keep his feelings private. He lost pity in a rush of his own emotions, not unmixed with a certain smugness.

  When he and Lois stepped out, the night was on them in one huge wintry blaze of stars. The desert lay dim under heaven, fading into illimitable immensities, nothing moving, nothing speaking. The sound of their own feet, scrunching on hard-packed sand, was loud in their ears. His hand stole out and took hers as they walked from the ship.

  ‘I wish,’ he said at last, clumsily, ‘we didn’t have to go around in these here suits.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘You know why,’ he said.

  ‘It’s just as well,’ she answered.

  ‘Lois—’

  ‘No, Collie,’ she said. ‘We can’t afford to have private lives. Not here. Don’t talk. Isn’t it a wonderful sight, that sky?’

  He bit his lip and felt his face grow hot. It was always like this. He’d tried to kiss her, once or twice when they were briefly alone, but she wouldn’t have it. She wouldn’t talk of that tomorrow when they were again on Earth. And the hell of it was, she was right.

  Her face was a pale highlighting against darkness. His eyes followed the curve of cheek and nose and lips, he saw the glimmer of starlight in hair and eyes, and he could only look. Damn it, he thought, damn it. I should never of come along. I should of stayed home.

  The stillness closed around them. They walked around the edge of the camp, looking at the high cold stars and the wolf-gray desert, not speaking, not even thinking much.

  Collie started when Lois’ free hand caught his arm. ‘Stop!’ she whispered.

  He paused, staring blankly at her. She was standing in a crouched position, her head cocked behind the helmet, and the starlight was a blind shimmer in her eyes. Listening.

  What—’

  ‘Quiet,’ she breathed. ‘Quiet – something out there.’

  He raised a hand to cup his ear, and felt it strike the helmet. There was nothing. No sound, no stir, only the small hiss of his own breathing. But she heard, and grasped his arm with a new urgency.

  ‘Something in the camp – some animal – come on!’

  ‘No!’ He pulled her back. ‘This’s my business.’

  He glided forward, slipping from shadow to shadow. The awkwardness of the suit didn’t hamper him too much, it was almost like stalking in the mountains again. But his heartbeat grew noisy within him, and he strained through the half-light and felt his gloves turn wet on the inside. What the devil – Mars didn’t have any big animals!

  No, wait, now he heard it too, the faintest mutter in the sound-deadening air, a clink and thump there among the skeleton forms of girders and machines. He went down on his belly and snaked forward, around the edge of a low wall.

  Men!

  Four men stood there, watching the ship from the shelter of a big packing case. Strangers! Even though they were only a dim flow of starlight along metal and plastic, he knew them for strangers. And he saw the gleam of a gun barrel.

  Something hard and cold knotted in his stomach. He crouched, wondering how long they had been here, wondering if they had seen him and Lois come out, wondering who they were and what they wished. Even as he lay staring, he saw them advance cautiously, around the case and toward the tall gray pillar of the ship.

  If they’re friends, he thought somewhere in his hammering brain, why’re they sneakin’ up on us like that? And if they’re enemies – Christ, but we’re alone out here!

  It was not courage, or even recklessness, but a cold, half-instinctive realization that he had nothing to lose, which drove him forward. He was up from the ground in one long leap, surging toward the four, and as he hit them he shouted to Lois that she must warn the others.

  The men whirled as he struck them. He thought blindly and wildly that he was unarmed, he had to mix it in with them and not give them a chance to shoot. But what good were fists and feet and teeth when everyone wore armor? Then he had his arms around one and was grappling him, bumping into the rest, kicking and cursing and yelling for help.

  In a brief lifting from shadow, his opponent’s face was flat and slant-eyes. Mongoloid, and he thought: Siberians! Then a pair of gigantic hands plucked him free and lifted him into the air.

  He hung threshing in a grip as immense as Ivanovitch’s beating his fists down on the helmet and the bearded face underneath. Guns must be swiveling on him now. He twisted about and kicked with both feet at the air pump on the giant’s back. Once, twice, three times with his abnormal leg muscles, and the casing broke open and the Siberian roared and flung him to the ground.

  He bounced up as a slug spirted past. With a huge leap, he butted his helmet into the rifleman’s belly. They went over together, and Collie got the rifle and rolled free.

  He snapped a shot at another shadow. A stream of bullets stitched fire in the night, reaching for him. He sprang backward, landing in an open pit. The Siberians plunged after him, halting on the edge and shooting blind into it, but he was out again. Crouching on the bank, he fired with better aim, and one of the men screamed. His moisture-laden air streamed from his punctured suit, ghost white in the savage cold, and he fell into the pit.

  Rolling behind the banked earth, Collie lay waiting for their next move. Wouldn’t the others ever come? Did it take them that long to get their suits on? They had a few guns aboard, not having been sure there were no wild beasts on Mars. What were the remaining Siberians up to now?

  A stream of lead hosed at him from one side. They’d circled about. Collie fired at the vague shape and scrambled up and ran for shelter. The bullets chewed after him as he zigzagged.

  Fire blazed from the ship. A dashing figure, a hammering tommy-gun, rescue! Suddenly the two living Siberians were in retreat. They sped over the desert, running and running, and the night drank them up.

  Collie fell to his hands and knees, sucking air into starved lungs. He couldn’t get enough, he was choking, horror seized him and his mind whirled into darkness.

  He must only have been out a minute or two. When he looked up, Lois was bending over him. There was a submachine-gun in her hand. ‘Collie,’ she breathed. ‘Collie, are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah – yeah.’ He sat up, aided by her. He was still alive. Incredibly, his suit had not been punctured, he still had breath and vision and motion. He felt utterly empty of strength. ‘I’m … okay. But where’s the rest?’

  ‘They’ll be along as soon as they can. It takes time to put on these damned suits. I went in and warned them, then took this gat and came out again.’

  ‘Good girl.’ A little energy was returning to him, though he still felt light-headed. ‘Help me up, huh?’

  He leaned on her and they walked slowly back toward the ship. A few good breaths, he thought, a couple lungfuls of air, that’s all I need. I’m still alive.

  They passed the giant. A seven-footer he was, lying stark on the sand with the starlight icy in his eyes. No air pump, no air, he must have strangled quickly. And the other one, the man in the pit, would also be dead, his blood freezing as the cold slid in through his torn suit. Neither of them would talk, not ever again.

  Collie bent over the giant. On his back was a massive bazooka tube and a rack of rocket shells. ‘What did they want?’ asked Lois. There was a sob in her voice, now that the immediate danger was past. ‘What were they after?’

  ‘To put a hole in our ship, I reckon,’ said Collie. ‘Quick way to kill us all off.’

  ‘But why?’ She clung to him, and he held her close through the stiff fabric. Why?’

  He shrugged, grinning lopsidedly to hide the terror that rose in him. ‘I reckon they just don’t like us,’ he said.

  XI

  Alaric Wayne stood facing them. The saloon was hot and close with the heavy breathing of men, it was full of the smell of fear. The dog bristled and showed his teeth at the sharp odor of their fright. They were very quiet, watching the captain. The overhead light glared on them, throwing eyes and cheeks and throats into pits of shadow, until it was like a rank of skulls watching him. And they waited.