Under Two Moons

IV

The warbling wheep-wheep of alarm signals blended with a confused shouting from the steerage holds below. The cabin lighting flickered, went out, tried once more, failed and was replaced by the purplish argon glow of the standby system. A racking, shuddering crash announced the destruction of the nuclear reactor that fed the hydro-jets; somewhere, water was pouring in.

“ ‘Urry, Meesta Gull!” cried the girl.

“Of course,” said Gull, courteously assisting her with the warmsuit. He patted her shoulder. “Not to worry, my dear. I owe you an apology, I expect. At a more propitious time—”

“Meesta Gull! The bulkheads ‘ave been sabotaged!” Gull smiled confidently and turned to his escape procedures. Now that it was a matter of instant action he was all right. His momentary uncertainty was behind him.

Coolly he reached into his pocket, unsnapped the little packet of microthin Standing Orders and scanned their titles. “Let me see, now. Checklist for air evacuation— no. Checklist for enemy attack, artillery. Checklist for enemy attack, ICBM. Checklist for—”

“Meesta Gull,” she cried, with real fear in her voice. “ ‘Ave you forgotten that these waters are the ‘abitat of the Martian piranha? You must’urry!”

“Well, what the devil do you think I’m doing? Now be still; I have it here.” And crossly Gull began to check off the items under Submarine torpedoing, Martian canals: Secret papers, maps, halazone tablets, passports, poison capsule, toothbrush, American Express card… with metronome precision he stowed them away and instantly donned his own SCUBA gear. “That’s the lot,” he announced, glancing distastefully at the dirty froth of water that was seeping under the door. “We might as well be off, then.” He lowered the SCUBA mask over his face—and raised it again at once, to fish out a packet of Kleenex in its waterproof packet and add it to his stores. “Sorry. Always get a sniffly nose when I’m torpedoed,” he apologized, and flung open the door to the passageway.

A three-foot wall of water broke into the cabin, bearing with it a short-circuited purser-robot that hummed and crackled and twitched helplessly in a shower of golden sparks. “Outside, quick!” cried Gull, and led the way through the roiled, tumbling waters.

The brave old T Coronae Borealis had taken a mortal wound. Half wading, half swimming, they fought strongly against the fierce drive of inwelling waters towards an escape hatch. In the dim purple gleam of the standby circuits they could see little. But they could hear much —shouts, distant screams, the horrid sounds of a great ship breaking up.

There was nothing they could do. They were lucky to be able to escape themselves.

And then it was nothing; a few strong strokes upward, a minute of clawing through the gelid, fungal mass that prevented the canals’ evaporation and had concealed their water from earthly telescopes for a hundred years —and they were safe. Armed and armored in their SCUBA gear, they had no trouble with the piranhas.

Gull and the girl dragged themselves out on the bank of the sludgy canal and stared back at the waters, gasping for breath. There were ominous silent ripples and whorls. They watched for long minutes. But no other head appeared to break the surface.

Gull’s face was set in a mask of anger. “Poor devils,” he allowed himself, no more.

But in his heart he was resolved. A hundred men, women and robots had perished in the torpedoing of the T Coronae. Someone would pay for it.

Across the burning ochre sands they marched… then trudged… then stumbled. The pitiless sun poured down on them.

“Meesta Gull,” sobbed the girl. “It is ‘ot.”

“Courage,” he said absently, concentrating on making one foot move, and then the other. They had many miles to go. Gull’s maps had indicated a nearly direct route from the canal along the Sinus Sabaeus where the submarine was slowly beginning to rust, straight across the great hot sweep of Syrtis Major to Heliopolis. A direct route. But it was not an easy one.

Step, and step. Gull thought sardonically of the two prospectors who had come out of this desert to start all the trouble. When they entered Heliopolis it had been on a magic carpet that slid through Mars’s thin air like a knife. Nice to have one now, he thought—though exhaustive tests had shown the carpet itself to be a discontinued Sears, Roebuck model from the looms of Grand Rapids. But somehow they had made it work—

He sighed and called a halt. The girl fell exhausted to the sands.

“Meesta Gull,” she whispered. “I cannot go much farther.”

“You must,” he said simply. He fell to studying his maps, checking the line of sight to the distant hillocks that passed, on Mars, for mountains. “Right on,” he murmured with satisfaction. “See here. Seven more miles west and we’re in the Split Cliffs. Then bear left, and—”

“You are not ‘uman! I must ‘ave rest—water!”

Gull only shrugged. “Can’t be helped, my dear. But at least the sun will be behind us, now. We can do it.”

“No, no!”

“Yes,” said Gull sharply. “Good God, woman! Do you want to be caught out here after dark?” He sneezed.

“Excuse me,” he said, fumbling a Kleenex out of the packet and wiping his nose.

“Five minutes,” she begged.

Johan Gull looked at her thoughtfully, dabbing at his nose. He had not solved the mystery she presented. There was every reason to be on guard. Yet she had truly warned him of the torpedoing of the submarine, and surely she could be no threat to him out here, as piteously weakened as she was. He replaced his breathing guard and dropped the Kleenex to the ground. A moment later the empty pack followed. It had been the last.

But Gull merely scuffed sand over it with his foot and said nothing; no sense adding to her worries. He said chivalrously, “Oh, all right. And by the way, what’s your name?”

She summoned up enough reserves of strength to smile coquettishly. “Alessandra,” she murmured.

Gull grinned and nudged her with his elbow. “Under the circumstances,” he chuckled, “I think I’ll call you Sandy, eh?”

“Don’t jest, Meesta Gull! Even if we survive this trip, you ‘ave still the Black ‘Ats to face in ‘Eliopolis.”

“I’ve faced them before, my dear. Not to worry.”

“ ‘Ave you seen what they can do now? With their creatures from outer space?”

“Well, no. But I’ll think of something.”

She looked at him for a long and thoughtful minute. Then she said, “I know you will, Meesta Gull. It is love that tells me so.”