The Outward Urge

I shall not deal here with the journey itself. All technical information concerning it has been entered by Raul in the official log, which I shall enclose, with this supplementary account, in a metal box.

  What I have written so far has two purposes. One is, as I have said, to cover the possibility that it may not be found for a very long time; the other is to provide factual material by which any more imminent finder may check my mental condition. I have read carefully through it myself, and to me it appears to offer sufficient evidence that I am sane and coherent, and I trust that that will be the opinion of others who may read it, and that they may therefore consider what follows to be equally valid.

  The final entry in the log will be seen to record that we were approaching Mars on a spiral. The last message we sent before landing will be found on the file: ‘About to attempt landing area Isidis-Syrtis Major. Intended location : Long., 275: Lat., 48.’

  When Camilo had dispatched that message, he swung the transmitter across on its bracket to lock it safely against the wall, and then lay back on his couch. Raul and I were already in position on ours. My work was finished, and I had nothing to do but wait. Raul had the extension control panel clamped across his couch in a position where he would still be able to operate it against a pressure of several gravities, if necessary. Everything had gone according to expectations except that our outer surface temperature was somewhat higher than had been calculated - suggesting that the atmosphere is a trifle denser than has been assumed - but the error was small, and of little practical significance.

  Raul set about adjusting the angle of the ship, tilting her to preserve the inclination in relation to the braking thrust as we slowed. Our couches turned on their gimbals as the speed decreased and the braking thrust of the main tubes gradually became our vertical support. Finally, when the speed was virtually zero, and we were standing balanced on our discharge, his job, too, was over. He switched in the landing-control, and lay back, watching the progress of our descent, on the dials.

  Beneath us, there now splayed downwards eight narrow radar beams matched for proximity, and each controlling a small lateral firing-tube. The least degree of tilt was registered by one or more of the beams, and corrected by a short blast which restored the ship to balance on the point of the main drive. Another beam directed vertically downwards controlled the force of the main drive itself, relating it to the distance of the surface below, and thus regulating the speed of descent.

  The arrangement lowered us, smoothly, and there was only the slightest of lurches as our supporting tripod set down. Then the drive cut out, vibration ceased, and an almost uncanny peace set in.

  No one spoke. The completeness of the silence began to be broken by the ticking and clicking of metal cooling off. Presently Raul sat up, and loosed his safety straps.

  ‘Well, we’re there. Your old man did a good job,’ he said to me.

  He got off his couch carefully, cautious of the unfamiliar feeling of gravity, and made for the nearest port. I did the same, and started to unscrew its cover. Camilo swung the radio over on its bracket, and transmitted: ‘Figurão landed safely Mars 0343 R.M.T. 18.4.94. Location believed as stated. Will observe and verify.’ Then he, too, reached for the nearest port-cover.

  The view, when I had my port uncovered, was much what I had expected; an expanse of hummocky, rust-red desert sand reaching away to the horizon. Anywhere else, it would have been the least exciting of all possible views. But it was not anywhere else: it was Mars, seen as no one had ever seen it before ... We did not cheer, we did not slap one another on the back....We just went on staring at it....

  At last Raul said, rather flatly:

  ‘There it is, then. Miles and miles of nothing; and all of it ours.’

  He turned away, and went over to a row of dials.

  ‘Atmosphere about fifteen per cent denser than predicted; that accounts for the overheating,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to wait for the hull to cool down a bit before we can go out. Oxygen content very low indeed - by the look of things, most of it has been tied up in oxidizing these deserts.’ He went over to a locker, and started pulling out space-suits and gear. He did it clumsily; after weeks of weightlessness it is difficult to remember that things will drop if you let go of them.

  ‘Funny that error about atmosphere density,’ said Camilo.

  ‘Not so very,’ Raul replied. ‘Just that someone’s crackpot theory about air leaking away into space got written into the assumptions, I reckon. Why the devil should it leak away unless there is a large body around to attract it? Might as well suggest that our own atmosphere is leaking to the moon, and then back again. Beats me how these loony propositions get a foot in, but I expect we’ll find plenty more of them.’

  ‘Were they wrong about gravity, too?’ I asked. ‘I seem to feel a lot heavier than I expected.’

  ‘No. That’s as calculated. Just a matter of getting used to weight itself,’ he said.

  I crossed the floor, and looked through the port that he had uncovered. The view was almost the same as through mine - though not quite, for in that direction the meeting of sand and sky was marked by a thin dark line. I wondered what it was. At that distance I could see no detail - nor, indeed, judge how far away the horizon was. I turned back, intending to find the eyepiece that would adapt the telescope, but at that moment the floor shifted under my feet....

  The whole room canted over suddenly, sliding me across the floor. The heavy port cover swung over. It just missed me, but it caught Raul, and sent him slamming against the main control-board. The room tilted more. I was flung back on the couch I had just left, and I clung to it. Camilo came sliding past, trying to grab at the couch supports to stop himself.

  There were several thuds, a clatter, and finally a kind of crunching crash which set me bouncing on the couch springs.

  When I looked round I found that what had, for the brief period since our landing; been the floor, had become a vertical wall. Obviously the Figurão had toppled over, and now lay on its side. Camilo was huddled in the angle made by the erstwhile floor and the curved wall, all mixed up with the space-suits and their accessories. Raul was spread-eagled over the control-board, and I could see blood trickling across it.

  I dropped off the couch, and approached Raul. I started to lift his head, but it did not come easily. Then I found out why. It had crashed down on one of the control levers, and the handle had gone in at the temple. There was nothing to be done for him. I scrambled across, and looked at Camilo. He was unconscious, but there was no visible damage. His pulse was strong enough, and I set about trying to bring him round. Several minutes went by before his eyes opened, then they looked at me, screwed up, with lids fluttering, and closed again. I found some brandy. Presently he sighed, and his eyes opened again. They looked at me, wandered about the control room, and came back to me again.

  ‘Mars,’ he said. ‘Mars, the bloody planet. Is this Mars?’

  There was a silly look about him that made my spirits sink.

  ‘Yes, this is Mars,’ I told him.

  I lifted him on to one of the couches, and made him comfortable there. His eyes closed, and he went off again.

  I looked round. The only part of the equipment, other than the space-suits, that had been loose was the radio transmitter. Camilo, after using it had pushed it aside, leaving it free to swing on its bracket; it had done just that, and been stove-in when it met one of the couches turning in its gimbals. It looked suitable for writing-off.

  I couldn’t just sit there, doing nothing but look at the other two, so I disentangled one suit, and coupled it up with its air-supply and batteries, and tested it. It worked perfectly. The thermometer giving the outside hull reading was down quite a bit from what it had been, and I decided to go outside to find the trouble.

  Fortunately, as the ship lay, the airlock was at the side, the right side as one faced forward; had it been underneath, it would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get out at all. Even as we lay, it was
awkward enough, for the lock had been built to accommodate two men standing, and now one had to sit doubled up inside it. It worked, however - though when the outer door opened, the telescopic ladder could not be made to project at a suitable angle. I had to get out by jumping down six feet or so, and my first contact with the surface of Mars was undignified.

  To stand there at last was, in the event, depressing. Not just because the only view was arid miles of red sand, but even more because I was alone.

  It was the moment we had thought and talked of for so long, worked so hard for, risked so much for - and this was all. Anti-climax there would surely have been, but it would have been less dreary with someone to share it, with a little ceremony to mark the occasion. Instead, I just stood there, alone. Under the small, weak sun in the purplish sky I was dwindled to a tiny living mote with the barren wilderness pressing all about me....

  Not that it was different from my expectations - in fact, it looked only too like them - and yet I knew now that in all my imaginings I had never remotely touched its real quality. I had thought of it as empty and neutral; never suspected its implicit hostility....

  Yet there was nothing there, nothing to be afraid of - except the worst thing of all: fear itself. The fear that has no cause, shape, or centre; that same amorphous fear that used to come creeping out of the dark, massing to invade the safety of one’s childish bed....

  I could feel the old panic, forgotten for so many years, rising up again. I was back in my infant self; all that I had learnt in the years between seemed to vanish; once more, I was the defenceless, beset by the incomprehensible. I wanted to run back to the ship, as to my mother, for safety. I all but did that....

  Yet not quite. ... A vestige of my rational mind held me there. It kept on telling me that if I gave in to panic now, it would be far worse the next time, and the time after. ... And gradually, while I stood, the vestige gathered the strength to push the panic back. Soon I could feel it winning, like warm blood flowing in. Then I felt better. I was able to force some objectivity.

  I looked carefully round. From this low viewpoint there was no trace anywhere of the dark line that I had seen through the port when the Figurão was vertical. All the way round, red sand met purple sky in an endless, even line. There was nothing, nothing at all, on the face of the desert but the ship and myself under the centre of a vast, upturned bowl.

  Then I made myself pay attention to the ship. It was easy to see what had happened. Below the light dust of the surface, the sand had formed a crust. Our weight had caused the pediment plate on one of the tripod legs to break through the crust, and we had toppled over. I wondered for a moment if Raul would be able to contrive some way of getting us vertical again - and then suddenly recollected why he would not....

  I went back into the ship, and looked for something to dig with. Camilo had not moved, and appeared to have fallen into a natural sleep. Luckily, someone had thought of equipping the ship with a sort of entrenching tool. It was small, but it would have to do. Getting Raul outside was unpleasant, and far from easy, but I managed it, and laid him on the sand while I dug. That was not easy work, either, in a space-suit, and I thought it might take me several shifts. But at about twelve inches down I suddenly broke through, and found myself looking into a black hole. Considering the misadventure to the ship, it seemed possible that the place was honeycombed with such cavities. I enlarged the hole a little until I was able to slide poor Raul into it. Then I blocked the opening with a slab of caked sand, covered it as best I could, and went back to the ship again.

  I came out of the airlock to find that Camilo was now awake - not only awake, but sitting up on his couch, regarding me with nervous intensity.

  ‘I don’t like Martians,’ he said.

  I looked at him more carefully. His expression was serious, and not at all friendly.

  ‘I don’t suppose I would, either,’ I admitted, keeping my tone matter-of-fact.

  His expression became puzzled, then wary. He shook his head.

  ‘Very cunning lot, you Martians,’ he remarked.

  After we had had a meal he seemed a little better, though from time to time I caught him watching me carefully out of the corner of his eye. Indeed, he was paying so much attention to me that it was some time before it occurred to him that there should be three of us.

  ‘Where’s Raul?’ he asked.

  I explained what had happened to Raul, showed him the switch lever that had done the fatal damage, and pointed out through the port the place where Raul now lay. He listened closely, and nodded several times, though not always where a nod seemed appropriate. It was difficult to know whether he was not quite grasping the situation, or whether he was making reservations of his own. He did not show distress about Raul, only a quiet thoughtfulness, and after he had sat in silent rumination on the matter for a quarter of an hour, it began to get on my nerves.

  To break it up, I showed him the radio transmitter.

  ‘It’s taken a pretty nasty bash,’ I said, somewhat unnecessarily. ‘Do you think you can get it going again?’

  Camilo looked it over for some minutes.

  ‘It certainly has,’ he agreed.

  ‘Yes,’ I said impatiently, ‘but the point is, can you fix it?’

  He turned his head, and looked at me steadily.

  ‘You want to get into touch with Earth,’ he announced.

  ‘Of course we do. They’ll be expecting reports from us right now. They know our time of landing, but that’s all, so far. We’ve got to put in an immediate report about Raul, and about the state of the ship. Tell them the mess we’re in....

  He considered that in an unhurried way, and then shook his head, doubtfully.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You’re so cunning, you Martians.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake - !‘ I began, but then made a quick decision that it might be unwise to antagonize him. Rather than drive him into obstinacy, I tried to put across a calmly persuasive line.

  He listened patiently, with a slight frown, as one taking into consideration every possible angle. At the end, still without committing himself on whether he thought he could make the radio work or not, he said that it was an important matter that required thinking over. I could only hold my temper for fear of setting up a worse conflict in his mind.

  He retreated to his couch and lay on it, presumably to do his important thinking. I stood looking out of the port a while, and then, realizing that the day would soon be coming to an end, got out the colour camera and busied myself with making the first records ever of the stages of a Martian sunset.

  This was not a spectacular affair. The small sun grew somewhat redder as it dropped towards the horizon. As it disappeared from sight, the sky turned immediately from purple to black - all except a wispy stretch of cloud, quite surprising to me, which still caught the rays, glowing pinkly for a minute or two, and then vanished. Looking through another port I could see a small bright disc just above the rim, and climbing almost visibly up the spangled blackness. I took it to be Phobos, and turned the telescope on to it. It does not appear to be of any great interest; not unlike our own moon, but less mountainous, and much less cratered.

  All the time I was uneasily conscious of Camilo. Whenever I took a look in his direction I found his head turned my way, and his eyes watching me in a speculative fashion that was difficult to disregard. I did my best, however, and busied myself with fixing the camera to the telescope. The speed of the satellite rendered it none too easy to keep it centred in the field of view, but I made a number of exposures. Camilo had fallen asleep again by the time I had finished, and I was tired enough to be glad to get on my own couch.

  Once I had dropped off I slept heavily. When I woke, there was daylight outside the ports, and Camilo standing beside one of them looking out. He must have heard me move for he said, without turning:

  ‘I don’t like Mars.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ I agreed. ‘But then, I never expected to.’


  ‘Funny thing,’ he said. ‘I got it into my head last night that you were a Martian. Sorry.’

  ‘You had a nasty knock,’ I told him. ‘Must have shaken you up quite a bit. How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Oh, all right - bit of a muzzy headache. It’ll pass. Damn silly of me thinking you were a Martian. You’re not a bit like one, really.’

  I was in the middle of a yawn, and failed to finish it properly.

  ’What,’ I inquired, with some caution, ‘what are Martians like?’

  ‘That’s the trouble,’ he said, still looking Out of the port. ‘It’s so hard to see them properly. They’re so quick. When you’re looking at one place, you see a flicker of them moving in another, just out of the corner of your eye, and by the time you look there they’re somewhere else.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘But, you know, I never noticed any when I was outside yesterday.’

  ‘But you weren’t looking for them,’ Camilo pointed out, and truly.

  I swung my feet off the couch.

  ‘What about some breakfast,’ I suggested.

  He agreed, but remained by the window while I set about getting things ready - an awkward job with a curved wall for a floor, and everything at right angles from its intended position. Now and then he would glance quickly from one side of the view to the other, often with a little sound of exasperation as though he had just missed something again. It was irritating, but on the whole a slight improvement on being taken for a Martian myself.

  ‘Come and eat,’ I told him when I had the food ready. ‘They’ll keep.’

  He left the port with some reluctance, but started in on the food with a good appetite.

  ‘Do you think you’ll be able to fix the radio?’ I inquired presently.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but is it wise?’

  ‘Why the devil shouldn’t it be?’ I demanded, with some restraint.

  ‘Well,’ he explained, ‘they might intercept our messages. And if they learn what a mess we’re in it could very likely encourage them to attack.’