Or perhaps they weren't even aware that we were from the neighboring
planet. But it would be obvious that we were from another world;
nothing from their own planet could be so strange.
Our own reactions to the situation differed a little. Craig gasped
curses through his helmet phones. Miller said, "Easy, men! Easy!" It
was as if he were trying to build up his own morale, too. I couldn't
utter a sound.
It wasn't hard for our captors to recognize our weapons. We were
disarmed. They carried us out into the night and around a hill. We
were piled onto a flat metallic surface. A vehicle under us began to
throb and move; you could have called it a truck. The nature of its
mechanism was hinted at only by a small, frosty wisp of steam or vapor
up front. Perhaps it came from a leak. The Martians continued to hold
us down as savagely as ever. Now and then a pair of them would join
the nerve-ends of tendrils, perhaps to converse. Others would chirp or
hoot for no reason that I could understand.
The highway rolled away behind us, under the light of Phobos.
Buildings passed, vague as buildings along a road usually are at
night. It was the same with the clumps of vegetation. Lights, which
might have been electrical, flashed into my eyes and passed by. In a
deep valley through which we moved in part of our short trip, a dense,
stratified fog arose between the lights and me. I noticed with an odd
detachment that the fog was composed of minute ice crystals, which
glinted in the glow of the strange lamps. I tried to remember our
course. I knew that it was generally east. Off in the night there were
clangings and hisses that might have been factory noises.
Once Miller asked, "Is everybody okay?"
Klein's and Craig's responses were gruff and unsteady in the phones.
"Sure...."
"More or less--if heart-failure doesn't get me."
"I guess our skins are still intact," I said.
We didn't talk after that.
* * * * *
At last we entered a long, downward-slanting tunnel, full of soft
luminescence that seemed to come out of the white-tiled walls
themselves. My attention grew a little vague. It could be that my mind
turned in on itself, like a turtle drawing in its head for protection.
In that state of semiconsciousness, I experienced a phantasm. I
imagined I was a helpless grub being dragged down into the depths of
an ant-hill.
But such a grub belongs in an ant-hill a lot more than a man belonged
where I was going. This became plainer when the large tunnel ended,
and we were dragged and carried along winding burrows, never more than
three feet in diameter. Mostly they were tiled, but often their walls
were of bare rock or soil. Twice we passed through air-locks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account