Marooned on Mars Read online

  Marooned on Mars

  Lester Del Rey

  Determined to be on the first rocket flight from the moon to Mars, stowaway Chuck Svensen endangers the experiment by hiding on board the Eros.

  Lester del Rey

  MAROONED ON MARS

  To EVELYN

  Tomorrow’s World

  Most of us will live to see pictures of the Moon—pictures taken by men who actually walked on the surface of that round ball in the sky! Twenty years ago, a rocket weighing a few pounds could travel a few hundred feet at most; now, rockets weighing a few tons travel several hundred miles. From that it is only a short step to building rockets that weigh hundreds of tons and can travel 239,000 miles to the Moon. This will be in the world of tomorrow!

  Rocket-driven ships, of course, can travel where there is no air. We know that by actual proof; the less air around a rocket, the better it performs. We also know a great deal about how the ship must be designed and what will be found on the airless Moon when we get there. We’ve never seen the other side of the Moon, but we can be sure it’s about the same as the side we do see. We can even guess how the Moon will prove useful, scientifically and commercially. We will probably establish a permanent base there, even though it will be incredibly expensive.

  From there, we will move on. Once we’ve learned the secrets of the Moon and how to build even better rocket ships, we’ll look toward the other planets—Mars, Venus, and the moons around Jupiter.

  Mars will probably be the first planet explored. Venus is nearer, but Mars has always aroused more interest Unlike the Moon, Mars seems to have air, water, and life! In our telescopes, we’ve seen the icecaps around the poles melt with the coming of spring, and we’ve noticed that the red planet then begins to turn green. In the fall, this green turns to the shades of autumn leaves on Earth, behaving as if it were living vegetation.

  We don’t know whether there is animal life there. Bat it seems possible that the same conditions which produced plant life may also have produced animals of some sort, just as such conditions produced both plants and animals on Earth. There may be some form of strange insect life, for instance, or moving, crawling life of a type we can’t imagine—but we can’t know without going there. We can’t even say that intelligent life is impossible.

  Once, some scientists believed there was proof of intelligence on Mars. A lot of speculation was given to the mysterious “canals” of the planet (though the word “canals” is a bad translation of the Italian canal, which means “channels”). These can be seen as straight lines on a map of Mars, crisscrossing the surface. Unfortunately, we still don’t know much about them. We don’t even know they really are so straight, or that many of them aren’t simply tricks played on the tired eyes of the observers.

  For a long time it was believed that they were great trenches, dug by the Martians—and that would have indicated a high degree of intelligence there. Then doubts began to grow. Photographs didn’t show them, and the later, bigger telescopes showed them less plainly than the smaller ones. Some people, in fact, never had been able to see them. Hence, a few years ago, science began to believe that there were no canals after all.

  Today, this has changed. The latest photographs show some of them as mere fuzzy markings, hard to trace, but definitely there. Some of them seem to come and go; old ones disappear and new ones appear from time to time; modern maps don’t entirely agree with those made half a century ago. But the markings on Mars are real, even though there isn’t enough water on the whole planet to nil such “canals.”

  We still know very little about them. They may be evidence of intelligence, but certainly no intelligent life on Mars can have reached our stage of civilization. The thin air—thinner than the air” on top of the highest mountain on Earth—would make fire impossible. Without fire, men would never have come out of the caves to begin smelting metals. Fire was man’s first great tool and metals his second; without such tools for a start, a high level of civilization wouldn’t have a chance. Probably the canals are only some natural phenomena which have nothing to do with intelligent life.

  We can’t know for certain until we go there and see for ourselves. Since we’ve always been a highly curious form of life, we’ll make the long trip there to find the answers at the earliest possible moment.

  This is an account of such-a first trip as it might be made. The technical details are generally accurate and nothing here is really fantastic. We can already write about such a voyage across millions of miles of space without the need of too much wild imagination. When the accounts of the first real trip are made, sometime in the future, we can be sure they will read something like this fictional one. And it doubtless will be much sooner than many of us imagine.

  L.D.R.

  CHAPTER 1

  Return to Moon City

  For the last hour, the big helicopter had been climbing through the night and the thinning air toward the peaks of the Andes. Now, 18,000 feet above sea level, it straightened out and the sound of its motor settled down to a steady hum. Sunlight was already touching the mountain-tops, and the rocket field showed up plainly, only a mile ^ahead.

  “The stocky, blond boy in the passenger seat stirred suddenly and began rubbing sleep out of his blue eyes. Chuck Svensen was short for his age—not quite eighteen and only five-feet-seven—and there was no sign of hair on his face yet. He had always had trouble convincing people he was as old as he was, and the eagerness on his face as he saw the rocket field made him look even younger. But there was respect on the pilot’s face.

  “Must feel good to be going home to the Moon,” the man suggested with a touch of envy in his voice.

  Chuck grinned. “Great. After four years up there at one-sixth Earth weight, I feel like a ton of lead here. But it was worth it!”

  “Worth it!” The pilot snorted, and the envy was stronger -this time. “Kid, you’re one of the six luckiest guys alive. I’d give my right arm for a chance to go on that first rocket to Mars!”

  Chuck nodded. It still didn’t seem real to him. For four long years he’d watched the ship being built for the journey, without any hope. Even when the Governor at Moon City had won his request to have someone chosen from the Moon group as one of the crew. Chuck had hardly dared to dream. The age limit was set rigidly between eighteen and twenty-seven, and he would be barely eighteen when the date of the take-off came. When his experience with radar and his physical fitness finally won the chance for him, he’d been the most surprised person in all Moon City.

  Then had come long nights of study with almost no sleep, a special trip to Earth, and two weeks of grueling tests to prove his ability. Now he had passed, and was on his way back to the Moon—to leave almost at once for Mars!

  The helicopter was settling down on the rocket field-Chuck could see men moving about in the heavy clothing required by the bitter cold; the air was too thin for comfortable breathing, and all wore masks that supplied extra oxygen and made them look like inhuman monsters. He adjusted his own mask as the helicopter touched earth, hovered, then slipped onto the field.

  The special little rocket ship from the Moon had already landed and was being readied for the trip back. From the three fins at its base, which now served as legs, it stretched up about forty feet to a sharp tip; the whole looked something like a fat cigar equipped with stubby wings. Pumps were busy piping liquid into the fuel tanks and loading cranes were storing boxes of precision tools into the little freight compartment. One huge machine had pulled out the worn lining of the big rocket tube at its tail and was fitting another in place,” while a second was working on the ship’s compact atomic motor, replacing the original cans of plutonium with fresh ones.

  But Chuck had seen all that before. He shoved thr
ough the men who were guiding the machines at a safe distance from the opened atomic engine, and headed toward the canteen. In his clothes and mask, he looked like any of the others, and no one paid any attention to him. It was a welcome change after the publicity he had received when he had passed his tests.

  Inside the pressurized dining hall, Chuck found the little rocket pilot busily consuming coffee and watching the counterman make more. Jeff Foldingchair stood less than five feet tall, but his deep-tanned face and blue-black hair fitted his claim to being a full-blooded Cherokee Indian.

  The man had been on the second trip to reach the Moon, twenty-five years before, and he was still one of the best rocket pilots in the business.

  His black eyes met Chuck’s in the mirror behind the counter. He didn’t look around, but his white teeth flashed in a sudden smile. “Pull up, kid, and have a coffee. Sure is good to drink real Java after that concentrate stuff on the Moon. We’ve got ten minutes before we blast off… um-m, congratulations. Everybody in Moon City’s proud enough of you to bust!”

  “Banana cream pie,” Chuck ordered, dropping beside Jeff. On the Moon there was food enough, and plenty of fresh vegetables from the tank gardens; but this would be his last taste of the luxuries for a long time. “I’m lucky you’re here, Jeff. I thought I’d have to take one of those slow ships back—and nine hours beats four days any time!”

  Jeff shook his head, motioning for more coffee. “No hick to it, kid. Governor Braithwaite sent me down to pick you up. The tools I’m hauling back were just an excuse; they could have waited. Chuck, you never saw such a celebration…”

  He stopped as a uniformed attendant came through the tunnel that led to the. main offices. The man motioned to the pilot, and Jeff got up with a shrug and followed him out.

  Chuck smiled to himself as he attacked the pie. He could imagine the celebration in Moon City when they heard he had passed. No real nation could ever be more intensely patriotic than the little Lunar colony. It didn’t matter that he’d been born in the United States and had only been there four years; nationalities didn’t matter there—a year was enough to make a real Moon citizen. Esperanto, the artificial language which had been used at first to avoid the confusion of many languages, was now the normal language, even in the homes; nobody asked about a man’s birthplace—it was enough that he was now living on the Moon.

  There was even some talk of independence in the full

  tare, though everyone was well enough satisfied with Governor Braithwaite. He’d been appointed by the United Nations, which controlled the whole Moon, but he was as much of a Lunar citizen now as anyone else who lived there.

  The Mars Expedition, of course, was being run by the United States under special charter from the UN to use the Moon, and the Governor had no real authority over it. Yet his general popularity had led to a quick acceptance of his request for one crew member to be from the Moon;

  and nobody had questioned his choice of Chuck for the position. He’d exceeded his authority in sending the speedy little rocket for Chuck, but the ‘boy knew nobody would protest.

  Jeff came back, interrupting Chuck’s reflections. The sharp planes of the pilot’s face showed worry, though he grinned at Chuck. “Meteorites out in space—they may change the course to Mars a bit,” he reported; the worry was in his voice too. “Eat up, Chuck, we’re about ready to make the big jump.”

  “Dangerous meteorites?” Chuck asked. Most of the bits of rock and metal in space called meteorites were tiny things, but they traveled so rapidly that they could easily damage a ship.

  Jeff shrugged, “Hard to say. Um-m, I’ve been thinking, though. Maybe this business of going off to Mars now is all darned foolishness.-Ten years from now, it’ll be routine; maybe you’d be smarter to stick with your family, let some other fool go chasing after new planets.”

  “Jeff!” Chuck dropped his fork onto the half-finished pie and swung around. “What’s up? Is something wrong with my permit to go?”

  Jeff shook his head and banded over the radargram. “They’ve Just decided to move the take-off to Mars ahead two days. Forget it, I guess I’m just nursing a grouch today. Let’s get going.”

  Chuck knew better than to try to pump the man. He got up and put his mask on again. But the worry persisted. There was no reason for Jeff to start advising against his going, unless there was a good chance he couldn’t go. The pilot had been one of the men to recommend Chuck to I the Governor. Yet the radargram had said only what Jeff had indicated. Either there was another ‘gram, or he missed the obvious.

  On the field, the shields had been put back over the rocket ship’s atomic engine, making it safe to climb the ladder to the control room. Those shields had been developed slowly over the last quarter-century until they were nearly perfect. Half an inch of such shielding was better than fifty feet of solid concrete in holding back dangerous radiation. Without them, atomic-powered rockets would have been too dangerous to use. The old chemical rockets had needed a hundred tons of fuel to get two or three tons to the moon. Now the little six-ton rocket was powered by a mere two tons of liquid in her tanks.

  Chuck followed Jeff up the ladder and into the tiny air lock, waiting while Jeff locked the outer door. They went through the inner one, which Jeff also locked, and up through a small hatch into the pilot’s quarters. The pilot went through the routine of checking the valves which controlled their air supply. Then he dropped onto a soft sponge mattress on the floor and began fastening himself down with web straps.

  Chuck did the same. Lying down, the human body could take more acceleration pressure than in any other position, and all take-offs were made while they were stretched out at right angles to the direction of flight. All the control buttons and levers were set into the mattress directly under the pilot’s hands.

  On a panel overhead, needles told what was going on in the ship; a big chronometer measured out the passing seconds. “Ten seconds,” Jeff announced.

  Chuck forced himself to go limp on the foam rubber. Jeff nodded tautly and pressed a single button.

  The big rocket jet behind let out a sudden bellowing roar that rose to a screech and faded out a few seconds later, as they passed the speed of sound. The floor seemed to come up and slap at Chuck’s back. Under the pressure of four gravities of acceleration, his weight seemed-four times that on Earth. His chest labored under the effort of breathing, and the blood roared in his ears, trying to run back from the front of his body. His eyes pressed against their sockets, and everything blurred. Even Jeff was gasping, in spite of his long experience.

  They were adding 128 feet to their speed each second—going from zero to a full five thousand miles per hour is one minute, and adding the same amount to their speed with every minute that passed. They were already beyond Earth’s atmosphere, and still the rocket exhaust thundered out behind.

  If there had been heavy air around them, its resistance would have heated the ship to the melting point and wasted most of the thrust of the rocket. That was why the ships still took off from the highest possible point on Earth, where the air was thinnest.

  Mercifully, the pressure lasted only a few minutes. Jeff’s fingers tripped the switches, and the rocket-jet ceased. The ship had gained more than the seven-miles-a-second speed needed to carry them away from Earth and it would coast the rest of the way. Earth’s gravity still pulled at them weakly, but since it pulled against the ship-exactly as strongly as it did against the two men, there was no feeling of-weight or pressure against the ship’s floor.

  The rebound of the mattress threw Chuck up against the straps, and his stomach did a series of flip-flops under the change. For a few seconds, his head spun dizzily as he lost his sense of balance. He’d been sick for hours on the first trip to the Moon, but his body had learned to adjust. Nagging waves of sickness passed. It was almost like floating in clear water, without the wet sensation.

  For a moment, he was tempted to undo the straps and go floating about, bounding from walls and ceil
ing with a mere push of his finger. Then he remembered that he was ho longer a child, and relaxed back beside Jeff, watching out through the observation ports.

  There wasn’t much to see. The rear radar screen overhead showed the Earth shrinking behind, while the Moon was still a tiny, sharp ball of white in the black sky. The stars were mere pinpoints of bright, cold fire; there were more than could be imagined on Earth. The sun lay to one side, but an automatic filter protected their eyes, and made it seem only an irregular circle of leaping flame. It was the same view Chuck was used to seeing from the airless Moon.

  Jeff pointed to the side, and Chuck turned to look. A few miles away, one of the old doughnut-shaped orbital stations floated. It circled above the Earth in an orbit, like the Moon, but nearer, and might go on forever. Before the new fuels and improved shields bad made atomic-powered jets possible, men had used the stations as a step toward the moon; now they were abandoned, except for a few scientific uses.

  “Progress,” Jeff said. “Used to take twenty trips from Earth to a station before we could get enough fuel for a ship to “leave it for the Moon. Now we do it directly. They built them to use for atom-bombing enemies on Earth in case of war; but when too many countries got orbital stations up, everybody got scared, and they turned the whole thing over to the UN. Started out for war and they led to real world peace!”

  Chuck had studied it in school, though he found it hard to believe that the United Nations Council had ever been weaker than the countries it now ruled so easily.

  Jeff took one final look as the station shot out of view. Then he relaxed beside the automatic timer that would waken him, closed his eyes, and was soon snoring quietly. Chuck tried to do the same, but the feeling of weightlessness bothered him, reminding him of the first trip, and the four years that had passed since then.