The Martian War (27 page)

Unlike a rude and penniless crewman, however, the murder of a young Harvard astronomer would not go unnoticed. Douglass’s connection to Percival Lowell and
the Flagstaff Observatory was well known. My mind was already racing, wondering if we would be forced to announce prematurely our visitor from another world. If so, perhaps we could portray Douglass as a tragic victim of scientific curiosity … .

We heard the boom of a gunshot and angry shouts from the construction camp out among the pines. Some of the workmen must also have been roused by the screams. Unfortunately, they had found our escaped specimen first.

We ran from the outbuilding toward the shouts as a second loud shotgun blast erupted. “Hurry! We must get to the Martian before they kill it.”

Lowell set his jaw and hurried after me, though he now seemed willing just to let the workmen do what they would to the murderous creature.

We caught up with the scattered mob. Some workers carried kerosene lamps; others waved flaming brands they had grabbed from their campfires. Most held makeshift weapons: wooden boards, a pitchfork, a tree branch. A broad-shouldered man with a shotgun pushed his way to the front of the group, looking full of superstitious fear.

The workmen had cornered the Martian in a dense stand of ponderosa pines. The bloated alien backed against the rough sap-studded bark, raising its tentacles as if in surrender. Pale starbursts of splintered wood showed where a shotgun blast had struck the trunk. Scattered pellets had already injured its hide, and the burly man aimed his gun again.

I charged in like a bear on a rampage. “Stop! Not another shot, you fool! You’ll hurt it.”

“It’s a monster, sir!”

“Kill it before it kills us,” said someone else. “We heard the screams. It’s already done murdered three or four for sure.”

“If you harm my specimen, you will answer to
me
— and I promise you a more fearsome fate than anything this creature can do to you.”

The workers muttered, looking cowed. Showing no fear, I grabbed the shotgun out of the startled man’s hands. Seeing the wounded Martian helpless and trapped, Lowell reluctantly supported me. “Do as he says.”

I passed the shotgun to Lowell, and he clung to it in a daze while I stepped closer to the injured Martian. Having seen Douglass’s broken body, I knew full well that I was risking my own safety, but I needed to maintain my dominance over the creature.

I turned to the frightened workers, speaking for the Martian’s benefit as much as mine. “Yes, this creature was provoked into killing a man. Is it surprising when a circus lion rears up and turns upon a trainer who has been abusing it? Of course not! You know how dangerous a mother grizzly can be when she protects her cubs.” I lowered my voice, hoping to placate them. “Our friend Andrew Douglass was brash and unwise, and he paid for it with his life. This … animal is far too valuable to be killed for your petty vengeance.”

The men began muttering and grumbling. By morning, word of this story would spread, but Lowell and I could prepare our own documents, submit our discoveries to newspaper reporters and the scientific community. We had crossed the Rubicon, and there could be no turning back.

“Go! All of you,” Lowell said angrily, still gripping the
shotgun. “Dr. Moreau and I will handle this matter.”

After the men hesitantly drifted back to their camp, Lowell and I glowered at the cornered Martian. “Regardless of what I said, Moreau, it may be in our best interests to shoot that monster for what it has done.” I was disturbed by his expression of utter defeat.

Too many times I was reminded of the narrow-minded fools who tried to destroy me because of my unorthodox but necessary work. I turned and commanded the Martian. “Back into your building, where you will remain! We will face many difficulties because of what you have done tonight.”

As if recognizing that Lowell truly meant to kill it, the Martian scuttled back toward the outbuilding. I saw that its injuries were minor from the shotgun pellets, and decided not to waste the time or effort dressing them. Perhaps a bit of suffering would make the creature contemplate the outrages it had committed.

When we got back to the splintered door of the shed and somberly removed Douglass’s wretched body, I barricaded the opening as best I could, nailing board after board across the openings. I replaced the hasp and added several more chains to keep our captive securely inside.

I hoped the Martian—and all of us—would now be safe.

W
ild alarms continued to ring through the thin air, echoing off the curved buildings. A monotonous
“Ulla! Ulla!”
resounded from the turrets as the Martian city began to fall in the astonishing Selenite insurrection.

Wells and Jane couldn’t have been more pleased with the result.

Insistent messages from other slave masters continued to buzz through their communication collars, but the Selenites paid no attention to any of the commands; they heeded only the orders given by Jane, who carried the eye of the Grand Lunar.

The drones raced about in oddly coordinated and regimented confusion, like wind-up toys. Though they had no ultimate
commander, the Selenites acted in concert, all following a vague but consistent plan. Chittering now, they raced through central buildings and up sloping ramps. The white drones far outnumbered their bloated masters, despite the Martian walkers and weapons. They swarmed in a mad parade of sabotage.

They barged into the main complexes where Martian generals had developed plans for invading other worlds. Selenites uprooted projection apparatus, tore apart map displays. Fifteen of them wrestled with the huge, high-resolution telescopes through which the Martians had spied upon Earth. First they disconnected the support struts, broke the aiming gears, and then by brute force they shoved the telescope barrel through the crystal window of the high tower. Like an astronomer’s cannon, the telescope fell out of its yoke and toppled to the street far below, smashing with a tremendous clang. Then the drones destroyed everything else in the war room.

Heedless of their own safety, Selenites crawled over and then toppled the iron-ostrich walking contrivances of Martian master minds that attempted to flee the scientific cathedral. Rousted out of their squat machines, several lumbering creatures scuttled along the streets. A bloodthirsty mob on Earth would have chased after the large-brained slave masters and torn them limb from tentacled limb, but the lunar denizens thought differently. They went about their revolt with an efficient and intense swiftness, without unnecessary frenzy.

Knowing what the Martians had done to the utopia on the Moon and having seen their horrific method of feeding on the Selenites, Wells felt inclined to do a bit of smashing himself. Years ago, when that brutish student had kicked him in the kidneys, Wells had not understood what could provoke such
mindless fury. But now he himself felt a need for vengeful violence. Perhaps he was not after all the socially enlightened human being T.H. Huxley had always taught him to be. Perhaps he was a savage animal inside. Perhaps all men were.

Explosions continued to rumble through underground tunnels; tiled street intersections collapsed into deep sinkholes. A clamor of groaning machinery rose from below as heavy industries hammered to a stop. Tendrils of smoke and steam curled upward, like the last gasps of fetid breath rising from the dying in a plague ward.

Jane grabbed his arm, and they ran down the street, dodging swiftly methodical Selenites in the process of wrecking sophisticated machinery. The drones gave Jane a wide berth, as if she were visiting royalty.

Ahead loomed the immense cathedral of science, where Huxley was still being held. Beside the main laboratory spire stood the lone battle tripod that had recently returned with the professor from the desert. Through the cathedral’s transparent walls and faceted windows, Wells spotted groups of Martians splashing out of their nutrient pools and scrambling into walking contrivances or mechanical cars, evacuating. Others climbed down into enclosed bubble-dome boats and launched into the canal systems to escape, some raising their weapons to quell the revolt.

Even with their sophisticated technology, the Martians could not react swiftly enough. The Selenites were too widespread, too entrenched in all the nooks and crannies of the metropolis. Through their strange linked minds, the drones had risen up with unrestrained violence, and their attacks became coordinated.

Wells yanked Jane aside as crumbling shards from a broken
wall pattered onto the streets. They huddled under an overhang until it was safe again to run forward and pick their way toward the ornate complex.

A dozen more Martian battle tripods marched in from the red desert to impose swift order. Taller than the highest steeple, the majestic but frightening machines let out a resounding “
Ulla! Ulla!”
Segmented arms bent upward, tilting the rotating lenses of their heat rays. Jane cried out a warning into the communication collars, and just before terrible yellow waves of incineration smote the squealing drones.

The Selenites scattered, then regrouped, despite the flaming death carved by the heat rays. The drones had no interest in individual salvation; other lunar rebels congregated and struck the Martian facilities again and again, wrecking the ancient infrastructure. Striding like goliaths through the streets, the battle tripods continued their blazing retaliation, but even twelve of the huge machines could not root out every group of lunar saboteurs.

Amidst the terrible struggle, Wells looked up with alarm to see a bloated Martian scramble onto the balcony of the cathedral’s laboratory spire and work its way toward the standing tripod that had recently returned with the professor. Wells growled, “I intended to commandeer that tripod. Imagine how fast we could escape across the desert—if I can figure out how to make it work.”

He tugged Jane’s arm, and they ran with redoubled speed. When he reached the base of the stilt-like leg, Wells gazed upward, intimidated. This was much taller and more imposing than he had expected. The thick metal leg was studded with small grooves and depressions that served as steps for nimble
feet—probably so Selenite workers could polish and maintain the tripod.

Wells had no fondness for great heights, but after everything he and Jane had been through, this was a relatively minor fear. Taking her hand to help her up, he began to ascend the tripod’s leg.

“I hope the Martian doesn’t get this contraption moving while we’re still climbing,” Jane called. “It would shake us off like a beetle on a trouser leg.”

Wells tried to sound optimistic, for her sake. “We’re in the middle of a grand adventure, Jane! Such a fate would be much too embarrassing an end for intrepid heroes.”

“Life isn’t always like a story.”

“True enough. Life rarely offers neat resolutions to problems.”

The tripod began to vibrate as the Martian took its place inside the control turret. It activated the powerful engines to drive the war machine into the fray.

Wells scrambled higher. “Hang on, Jane! It’s going to take a step.”

“Just don’t fall and knock me down with you.”

Gritting his teeth, he held on as the tripod leg lifted up and clanged down; then the rear leg swept forward past them in a clockwork motion that pulled the giant walker along. The Martian was apparently unaware of its passengers.

Sweat dripped into his eyes, but he saw the bottom of the control turret immediately above him—with an access hatch offset from where the three stilt-like legs converged in the engines. With renewed determination and an increased sense of urgency, he pulled himself to the juncture where the three legs
fit into lubricated sockets. The trapdoor was now within reach.

Swaying sickeningly, Wells waited for the Martian to pause between its rhythmic steps, grasped the hatch and pushed hard. The cover flung open with surprising ease and smashed down onto the turret’s metal floor. Wells hauled himself up into the control chamber, afraid the tentacled Martian would rush over to defend itself. He turned to help Jane, but she shouted for him to go.

Seated amidst its levers, the alien master mind yanked the heavy control rods with a flurry of tentacles to keep the tripod moving. Noticing Wells as he climbed through the bottom of the turret, the creature spun about. It thrashed in agitation, huge yellow eyes glaring.

Wells stepped forward, squaring his shoulders, bunching his fists—and didn’t know what to do next. The master mind released its grip on the controls and raised itself, lashing its appendages like whips. Without the direct control of its driver, the tripod shuddered to a halt, and behind him, Jane climbed to safety inside the turret. The naked Martian scuttled away from the controls in full retreat but with nowhere to go. Without access to its armored protective machinery, its body was soft and vulnerable. Wells chased the creature, while Jane seized the opportunity to detach one of the heavy control rods from its socket.

As the Martian lurched backward in the confined space of the turret, Jane came up behind it and lifted the metal lever like a club. She set her face in a firm scowl and, without remorse or hesitation, swung the lever sideways like a cricket bat. She landed a blow across the front of the Martian’s head above its yellow eyes. “Superior race, indeed!” She sniffed.

A dark stain oozed across its brown, leathery cranium. As the stunned Martian fumbled about, disoriented, Wells and Jane kicked the alien master mind to the open hatch; then, with a united shove, they pushed it through. Its tentacles flailed to catch itself, but the bloated brain slid out of the dome. The Martian tumbled from a great height and struck the ground, where it broke open like a heavy, rotten fruit.

Jane wiped tangled hair away from her grimy face. “That was unpleasant.”

“But necessary. Now we must learn to control this machine ourselves.”

Jane replaced the control lever she had used as a club, snapping it back into place. Wells scrutinized the mechanisms, pulling rods and levers. He succeeded in lifting one of the tripod legs, and by pulling another lever he set it down a large step forward. Without coordinated balance, though, the tall walker wobbled and swayed like a drunken man balancing on top of a barrel.