Criminals -- Fiction; Mars (Planet) -- Fiction; Revenge -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
"But I can't," Jocco whined. "The dust almost drove me crazy with them
on. What will I do this way?"
"That's your problem," Rick said callously. "Come or stay here alone.
It's up to you." He turned to Leeda, "Glad to see you look so lousy
this morning. At least you are suffering some, too. If you're telling
the truth, we'll be at the pool tomorrow."
They were on the way about a half hour when the sand around Jocco's
feet began to boil. Almost immediately his voice rose shrilly and then
disappeared except for twitchings on his cheeks and lips.
"What's wrong, Jocco?" Rick asked.
"His feet," Leeda said laconically.
It looked as though Jocco was sinking into the sand. Then the red
stains spreading into the sand told a different story.
"Razor-back Lizards," Leeda informed Rick. "They're all over the place.
Come to life during the day when it's a little warmer. Our footwear
keeps them off. But Jocco's feet haven't any protection so they can get
at him. They'll slice away at him a fraction of an inch at a time.
In fifteen minutes there won't be anything left but his suit and a
skeleton. Pleasant death, eh Rick? But after all, they do have to eat,
as you have said."
Jocco toppled and lay twitching on his side; the legs of his
Protecto-suit apparently buried in the sand. The pants legs were
strangely deflated except for the twisting and squirming of the unseen
Lizards as they ate their way into the upper part of the suit. It took
less than fifteen minutes. At the end, Leeda looked away. Once, long
ago, she had watched in horror as the blood-colored tide burst into the
helmet of a prospector friend of Terry's and hers. It was a sight that
she had seen many times later in nightmares. Now as she imagined it,
she heard Rick suck in his breath sharply and say hoarsely, "No! No!"
"Shall we be moving on?" she asked at last. The suit filled only with
fleshless skeleton, lay deflated on the ground.
Rick's face was a dull sandy yellowish hue. He nodded and turned off
into the desert without a word.
That third day was shooting pains, a chest that protested with every
step, legs that could not be felt but somehow magically functioned.
Many times Leeda was ready to quit. She began to stagger and weave
erratically across the sand. The only thing that kept her going was
the obsession of revenge that seemed to provide a limitless source of
power whenever she seemed weakest. And Rick was getting bad; he seemed
about finished. How he managed to keep moving, Leeda could not imagine.
He fell repeatedly; but pulled himself doggedly back to his feet and
stumbled after her.
When she flopped to the sand toward nightfall, he gestured her to her
feet. And when she failed to get up, he came over and dragged her
roughly erect. "Can't stop--never get up--gotta keep moving--until we
die--or get there. Move!"
But the Martian night accomplished what she could not. Landmarks became
indistinguishable; they soon would have been lost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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