The Martian War (29 page)

When Lowell turned the crystal egg, a new image astounded us into speechlessness. There on a vast open field, we saw row upon row of silver cylinders ready for launch. Newly constructed ships, all of them outfitted and ready to launch en masse toward Earth.

To me it was readily apparent that these ships were not designed to deliver Martian delegates and scientists to mankind. No, this was a massive invasion fleet, hundreds of ships, all of them filled with Martian conquerors. I felt my face grow hot with disbelief and then anger.

The Martian cylinders would fall like rain from the skies, descending upon an unsuspecting blue planet. The crashed ships would crack open, and the Martian invaders would build towering war machines. What we saw in the image was an incredible armada that would easily engulf the British, German, and Russian navies combined.

Lowell’s eyes went wide, then hardened into ice chips. “It is a full-scale invasion fleet. There can be no doubt of it, Moreau! With such a force, they could conquer the whole Earth.”

“But … but the one cylinder that crashed in the Sahara—” I stammered, then realized. “Of course! Our captive Martian is a scout sent to study our defenses and our weaknesses.”

I imagined it being launched on what was sure to be a suicide mission, with no possibility of return to Mars—at least not until the rest of the invasion fleet arrived. Our Martian had been packed aboard with a comrade and numerous white drones—for food? Yes, the bodies had all been drained and desiccated, just as the Martian had drained the hapless redheaded crewman on the Atlantic steamer, and like poor Douglass.

But the voyage had been longer than anticipated, and so the drones had all been consumed. Our Martian had killed his comrade to drain it of its lifeblood, sustenance for its own survival, until it could complete its reconnaissance mission of Earth. Had the two superior Martians drawn lots, deciding the survivor in a civilized fashion? Or had our Martian attacked its companion unawares, murdering it and then drinking its blood?

My fists knotted. “It has come to study us, and we have told it everything. It has sent its report through the crystal egg to its superiors back on Mars. Even now they must be planning their attack! What naive fools we have been, Lowell!”

Lowell set the transparent ovoid on the desktop, his face flushed. “The villain has deceived us with all it has said. While we listened entranced to the propaganda about its venerable civilization, the Martians were completing their invasion ships.”

I wanted to disbelieve him, but could find no evidence to the contrary, no better explanation. Our Martian specimen was evil, an enemy of mankind.

Lowell’s brow furrowed, as if he were doing mental calculations. “We still have time. It is months until the opposition. The Martians will surely launch their ships then.” He marched to the door and flung it open with murderous intent. Lowell was always bullish once he made up his mind. Heedless of the cold rain, or the possible danger our alien spy might pose, he stepped out into the dusk. “We’ll see what the Martian has to say about this.” I ran after him.

Heavy rain came down like wet gunshots. With a splash of lightning, white light flickered across the construction site, illuminating the empty buildings. Behind us, the only light on Mars Hill came from the lamps in the main house. Thunder boomed like a cannonade, and we splashed through the mud together. Lowell ignored the weather entirely and strode ahead, ready to accuse our specimen.

But when we reached the locked shed, the Martian was gone. The door had been smashed open again, cast aside
like kindling, discarded and useless. The chains and lock were removed, all metal gone.

“Damn him!” Lowell peered into the musty building, but we knew it would be empty. I did not doubt that it could have escaped us at any time … possibly even from the moment we took it prisoner out in the Sahara. The creature had played us for fools.

Another lightning flash illuminated our surroundings, and I could see that many things seemed to be missing. Construction tools had vanished, as well as equipment left lying around the observatory buildings, scrap metal and pipes, all stolen. “The Martian is doing something, Lowell.”

“It’s been planning this all along. We would be well advised to prevent whatever mischief that creature intends.” When he frowned, his moustache formed a bridge over his lips. “No one will make a fool out of me, Moreau—not even a creature from another planet.”

The rain pounded harder, and I shielded my head, wishing I had brought a hat or an umbrella. Water streamed down my face. I turned around, searching for any movement. “Martian! Where are you?” I shouted into the night. We could hear no sounds other than the fury of the storm.

When lightning flashed again, accompanied by an almost immediate crack of thunder, I turned to where Lowell had parked his Benz motorcar only an hour earlier. To my astonishment, the vehicle lay
disassembled
—not torn apart in fury, but carefully dismantled, components removed, resources stripped.

Lowell looked angrier than I had ever seen him. “Come with me, Moreau.” He stalked off.

The roaring storm fell into a lull, as if the rain and wind were taking a momentary rest before returning with redoubled strength. I heard the clanking sounds of labor: metal upon metal, heavy objects clattering against each other. Then the sounds were drowned out again by the thunder and downpour.

“Over here!” Lowell switched direction, striding off with determination.

We arrived at the observatory dome to see the Martian busy at work out in the open in the pouring rain. I instantly saw why the alien had ransacked the construction site for materials and torn apart the motorcar’s engine. It had used the scavenged components to construct an ominous device of its own, taller even than the observatory dome.

“What is that ghastly thing?” Lowell said. “A … tripod?”

Crawling up on the structure like a bloated spider, the Martian worked its tentacles, pulling together girders and struts, pipes and wires. I realized with horror that I had seen this awful thing before, back in the Sahara.

Ingeniously resourceful with construction equipment around the observatory site, the Martian had built another ray weapon.

W
hile Wells wrestled with the battle tripod’s controls, whispering to himself to keep calm, Professor Huxley bent over to peer through the low rear windows of the control turret. “Those other war machines are still coming, Mr. Wells. Four tripods. As near as I can tell by marking off the seconds as we pass landmarks, our pursuers are gaining on us.”

Wells grabbed the wrong lever and lost the rhythm of his lurching walk. “These blasted controls were designed for a dozen Martian tentacles, not two simple hands!” The tripod reeled like a spinning stool, then caught its balance again. “And as you’re so fond of reminding us, Professor, the Martians have superior brains to my small primate organ.”

“Don’t get discouraged, H.G.,” Jane said. “Besides, if those others come any closer, I’ll be able to use the heat ray.”

“Unfortunately, Miss Robbins, when those tripods are in range of our weapon, then the converse is also true.”

The tripod legs pumped up and down like pistons and slammed into the rusty sands with pile-driver blows. “At the moment, I’m just trying to get away. But I would appreciate any guidance in getting us to the south pole, where the Martians are holding our cavorite sphere.”

“Ah, I have just the thing!” Huxley spread out the rolled documents he had stolen from the laboratory spire. “These detailed topographical maps may be of some use, if we can decipher them and determine our current location.”

“Show them to Jane,” he said, then lurched the stilt legs to dodge a field of loose boulders. “She’s always good with maps.”

Jane fiddled with the weapon controls. “A minute, H.G.” With a grim set to her jaw like a lioness protecting her cubs, she pinpointed the nearest pursuer and sprayed the heat ray like water from a fireman’s pump. The throbbing blast melted and bent one of the war machine’s legs; before the tripod could tumble, she refocused her aim and exploded the turret. “I got it!”

“If you can manage any greater speed, Mr. Wells, now would be the time to use it. I expect the Martians to retaliate at any moment.”

The remaining three battle tripods raised their jointed arms in unison and directed the rotating lenses. Fortunately, by virtue of Wells’s uncoordinated gait, he reeled and lurched, accidentally dodging a direct hit from the converging heat rays. The red sands turned molten around them, and Wells staggered away from the target zone. Without caution or care, he raced
ahead at a frantic pace, fearful of missing a single step. The pursuing Martians increased their own speed.

As he ran headlong, the southern sky grew dark and murky, a brewing cauldron of dire weather. Wells would have been more concerned about the storm if he hadn’t been so intent on simply fleeing for their lives. From behind, the heat rays lanced out again, but struck wide, catching them with only a fringe of thermal energy.

The three tripods chased after them in a three-legged gallop. The terrain became more rugged, cracked with canyons carved long ago by rivers that had fallen into arid extinction. Along the rim of a wide gorge, one of the artificial canals that carried clear water from the polar excavation sites turned west over the flat terrain.

“Ah, a good landmark.” Huxley studied his unrolled maps. “In theory, we can follow the canal network southward until we reach its antarctic terminus.”

“We have to outrun the tripods first.” Jane scanned the charts and diagrams, trying to match what she saw outside. Finally, she pointed to a canal line running in the right direction, along the rim of a labyrinth of gorges and canyonlands. “I think that’s it, Professor. See if you can match the details any more clearly.” She ran back to the heat-ray controls, hoping for a chance to take another shot.

Wells hunched over to peer through the turret windows as he worked the controls. “Maybe we can hide in that maze.” He struck out toward the sloping paths into the deep ravines, while Huxley continued to study his maps.

“I will do my best to navigate you through them, Mr. Wells.”

As she looked toward the edge of the gorge, Jane grinned with
an idea. “H.G., take us close to the canal. I’ll create a … a smokescreen to hide us before we drop into the canyons. It might buy us some time.”

Wells didn’t debate with her. Jane often had unorthodox and quite admirable ideas. Huxley’s eyes were bright with amusement. “I believe you mean
steam
instead of smoke, Miss Robbins—but the concept is an excellent one.”

Rushing along with first one leg in front and then two stretching to take its place like a freakish pole-vaulter, the battle tripod made for the canyons. The three pursuing war machines gained ground with every step.

Wells mentally marked the best place to descend unseen into the tangled maze of deep ravines. Behind him, the Martians came into firing range and raised their terrible heat rays. Jane was ready with her own targeting systems. Instead of shooting at the pursuing tripods, though, she unleashed an intense blast of heat into the channel of water, playing the beam across its chill surface.

The result was like a boiler explosion. Gouts of steam blasted into roiling clouds that billowed all around, engulfing them in an impenetrable white fog. Wells lost all sight of his surroundings—as did the Martians. Jane drew the incinerating knife back and forth along the canal. Water continued to evaporate in a boiling storm that would expand and spread across the bleak landscape.

“Thank you, Jane.” Wells grinned at her.

“Don’t lose our advantage, Mr. Wells,” Huxley said. “Move forward with the proper balance of caution and panicked haste.”

Wells set off, searching intently for the shadows of land forms, relying on his mental map of the best path to take. Finally, as steam curdled around them, he found a sloping descent into the canyons and soon ducked out of sight, before the pursuers could find them again.

Manipulating the three legs, he could negotiate rubble and boulders. He was wary of tilting too far on the slope, for fear that the ungainly battle tripod would tumble over.

As their tripod moved deeper into the tangled canyons, they passed beneath the thick steam bank, and Wells could see their way ahead again. When he could dodge the worst of the obstacles, he moved off with all the speed and practice he had acquired, leaving the pursuing tripods to muddle their way out of the blinding hot fog.

* * *

Hours later, after playing a cat-and-mouse game through the canyons, they faced the onset of the cold Martian night. Wells was forced to find shelter in a narrow cul-de-sac and wait out the darkness, hoping the hunting tripods would not find them.

He had guided their stilt-legged walker on a meandering path through the twisting canyon labyrinth, taking random turns but careful not to blunder into dead ends or slots too narrow to pass. The now-barren watercourses tended generally south toward the ice caps, but with many blind and confusing turns. Huxley diligently marked each direction on his charts to keep them from getting entirely lost. Jane studied the terrain maps to find a viable course to their destination.

They had seen no sign of the pursuing Martian tripods since foiling them with the canal smokescreen. Releasing the controls at last, Wells felt his extraordinary weariness. He and Jane
snuggled together for warmth, resting for the first time in what seemed like weeks; they began to feel momentarily safe, though they wished they had something to eat.

Overhead, the stars came out, then dimmed and faded as if a blanket of dirty mist had been drawn over the sky. A pattering sound like birdshot struck the metal turret. Before Wells could even ask a question, a blast of wind charged through the canyon like a steam locomotive.

“Dust storm!” Huxley cried.

The wind shoved against them like a flood surging from a broken dam. A hail of rocks and sand scoured the outside of the hull, scratching the low turret windows. When shutting down for the night, Wells had stopped the great walker in the sheltered corner of a canyon. Now, the blunt rocks deflected the dust storm’s fury, and the three splayed legs of the battle tripod kept them anchored, though the machine rocked and swayed as if it was about to be knocked over.