The Martian War

CHAPTER NINETEEN


AT THE MARTIAN ICE CAPS

During the long voyage to Mars, H.G. Wells, Thomas Huxley, and Jane Robbins occupied themselves by reading Dr. Moreau’s journal. Wells absorbed the information with cold fear and a hardening resolve. “These Martians are ruthless enemies, Professor.”

“All creatures have a mandate for survival, Mr. Wells, and the Martians’ dying environment drove them to take such desperate measures.” Huxley scratched his sideburns. “Unfortunately, since our race is to be the target of their depredations, I find it difficult to rouse sympathy for them.”

When at last the dusty orange sphere filled their view, Jane drew her finger across the transparent cavorite. “Look at the canals, H.G.”

Wells could make out the cat’s cradle of artificial lifelines that linked the population centers of a waning old civilization. “No telescope on Earth has the aperture to discern these details, but now that we are here, it all seems so plain.”

Huxley frowned. “No doubt the Martian astronomers have more sophisticated equipment to watch our lush green planet. They must covet all the things Earth has to offer.”

“They are not welcome to it.” Jane crossed her arms over her chest. “Not if we three have anything to say about the matter.”

They prepared themselves for landing. After they entered orbit at an extreme angle, which carried them in a near polar trajectory, they spun the sphere around, balanced on the fulcrum of gravity, and plunged toward the polar ice cap at the southern extreme of the Martian globe.

Huxley looked strangely amused. “I always imagined someone would conquer the south pole on Earth first.”

They tried to use the same techniques of opening and closing blinds over the cavorite segments in order to balance the pull of gravity. Because of their greater distance from the Earth and Sun and Moon, however, the opposing tug was not sufficient to assist them. Though they uncovered every cavorite pane on the opposite side of the sphere, hoping to stall their descent, the surface of Mars rushed toward them with extreme rapidity.

“Hang on!” Wells shouted at the last moment and grabbed for Jane.

Out of control, the armored globe struck the bleak fields of rubble near the outer edge of the ice cliffs. A blizzard of crates, bottles, and papers swirled around them. Huxley grabbed the padded case that contained the vials of cholera bacillus and shielded them with his body.

The sphere struck the ground and rolled, plowed through the loose ground, tumbled into the air again, and finally came to rest, with a slow grinding motion. While debris fluttered all around, the three of them blinked at each other, panting.

Rusty powder obscured the uppermost cavorite windows, blocking most of the dim sunlight. The sphere’s hatch was at shoulder height, thankfully not buried or inaccessible.

“I seem to be intact,” Huxley said, cinching his striped robe tight.

“We’re on Mars, H.G.” Despite their perilous situation, Jane’s eyes were bright with wonder as she peered through the rust-smeared porthole.

Wells smoothed his shirt and trousers, then helped to straighten Jane’s hair. “But there’s so incredibly much we don’t know about the Martians.”

“Like anything else, we must learn, Mr. Wells—and then apply what we have learned,” Huxley said. “If there are different political factions, perhaps we can turn one group of Martians against another and prevent the invasion.”

Jane stood next to Wells at the hatch, forceful and optimistic. “Then we have everything to discover, a veritable treasure-trove of science. We’d best get on with it if we mean to save our planet.”

Huxley joined them. “We know from Dr. Moreau that Martians can breathe our air. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the converse is true.” He reached forward and, without hesitation, broke the seal and pushed open the hatch.

When the three of them stood in the dim, cold light, the Martian wilderness spread out before them, cracked and bouldered, serrated with rugged mountain ranges. The thin and frigid air made Jane shiver, and Wells held her close. He wished he had a coat to give her. Although Huxley stood only in his thin lounging robe, he didn’t seem to mind the chill.

A grinding, clanking sound came toward them from the distance, like heavy industrial pistons pounding. Nine tall metal tripods strode across the ground, converging on the cavorite sphere. Turrets atop the moving legs spun, scanning the landscape. Jointed mechanical arms sprouted from the nine turrets, extending a complex apparatus made of lenses and generators. To Wells, the three-legged machines resembled nothing so much as nightmarish milk stools careening over the uneven ground.

“We won’t have much trouble finding the Martians, Professor,” Wells said. “It appears that they’ve found us.”

“Guard dogs coming to attack the intruders.” Jane swallowed hard.

From speakers in the turrets, the Martian drivers let loose a thunderous cry of “Ulla! Ulla!” The unearthly sound vibrated through Wells’s bones, striking in him an atavistic fear.

Towering several stories high, the ominous tripods clanked into position around the cavorite sphere. They had no possibility of escape. Jointed metal arms directed the complicated mirrored apparatus at the humans, as if it were a weapon. The tripods let out another titanic hooting cry. “Ulla! Ulla!”

Huxley stepped forward, waving his hands and directing his gaze up at the turret of the nearest tripod. His movement startled the alien operators, and several of the camera-like devices swung into position. One emitted a blast of blinding heat from the arrangement of lenses. The almost-invisible fire roared into the sand near where they stood, melting the iron-oxide dust into a smoking trough of hardening glass, like dark blood congealing on the ground.

Huxley did not flinch. The ominous battle tripods ratcheted and fidgeted, and the heat-ray projectors remained focused on the three visitors. Wells said out of the corner of his mouth, “Now what are we going to do, Professor?”

“I believe surrender is the most intelligent course of action.” Moving with extraordinary caution, Huxley raised both hands. Wells and Jane did likewise.

Cables spun down from the turrets like wiry metal tentacles, each tipped with a grasping mechanical claw. Remarkably adept, the claws snatched Wells by his shirt collar and yanked him into the air like a child grasping a kitten. Two other tentacles hoisted Huxley and Jane high above the stilt legs and plopped all three of them unceremoniously into a metal basket affixed to the bottom of the control turret.

“Now I know what it feels like to be snagged in a rat catcher’s net,” Jane said.

“Take heart that the Martians did not kill us outright, Miss Robbins. We must be quite a curiosity to them.”

“Considering that we are trying to save the Earth from a deadly invasion, I had hoped we’d be a bit more than a mere curiosity,” Wells grumbled. With lurching strides, the first battle tripod carried the captives away.

As they were jostled and bruised inside the carrier, Wells grasped the metal lattice and peered out. Behind them, the remaining three-legged contraptions stood as if scrutinizing the cavorite sphere. Using extended cable-like arms to manipulate chains, they hooked a grappling apparatus to the sphere. Like oxen pulling a plow, the battle tripods dragged the spacecraft with its open gravity-attracting panes to the ground. The machines lumbered with their prize toward the steaming ice cliffs.

The main tripod approached a large industrial center, like a mine in the polar cap. As if it were a broad chalk quarry, battle tripods stood with their stilt-like legs anchored on the frozen shelves, raising segmented arms and using their heat rays to blast free chunks of the ice walls. Heavy frozen blocks, each one the size of a house, tumbled down gracefully in the low Martian gravity to crash in a debris pile at the bottom of the pit, where other swarming machinery processed the chunks.

Below, in a great plume of escaping steam, heat rays further broke up the mounds of excavated ice. It seemed to be an enormous strip mine, scouring away the antarctic cap. The recovered water poured into the canals and spread like blood through an artificial circulatory system for a dying planet.

Even from far away, the thunderous noise of the complex sounded tinny in the thin air, clamorous explosions of collapsing cliffs, the buzz and roar of heat rays, the thudding and hissing of distillation factories. Huxley stared in wonder at the expanding spokes of the canal system that extended from the polar ice to the Martian cities. “No human endeavor could match this. I’ve seen the marble quarries of Italy. By comparison they are no more than a tiny anthill.”

The ratcheting tripod finally came to a halt. Metal tentacles quested out from the control turret, and claws dipped down to grasp the cage. With no apparent regard for the safety of the prisoners, the battle machine dumped the three of them on a high platform overlooking the immense ice quarry.

Wells brushed himself off and helped Jane to her feet; Huxley cinched his striped robe tighter around his waist to protect against the frigid breezes. Behind them, the guardian tripods loomed, raising their heat-ray projectors in a clear threat, but the professor could not contain his curiosity. Ignoring the threelegged machines, he walked eagerly to the edge to get a view of the sweeping operations.

“Their civilization must indeed be taking its last gasps if they must butcher their arctic regions for water.” He shook his gray head. “Here is the root cause for the Martians’ plans to invade Earth. They have no other choice. Their minds are at the end of the tether.”

Wells took Jane’s hand and they joined him, looking across at the Herculean project. Below them, under the mist and smoke, they could see swarms of workers manning the pumps and performing manual labor. Wells instantly recognized the creatures. “They’re Selenites!”

“I count more down there than we saw in all of the catacombs of the Moon,” Jane said.

Huxley nodded grimly. “And almost certainly, this is but a fraction of their captive Selenite population. They seem to have adapted well enough to their slavery here.”

Around the Selenite crews, ominous Martian battle tripods stood ready with their heat rays to destroy any unruly laborer. The white drones went about their tasks like mindless termites, showing neither resistance nor initiative. Without guidance from the Grand Lunar, the drones had no choice but to obey the evil Martians who had kidnapped them from their world.

Wells looked behind them to the open desert, where the group of tall tripods dragged the gravity-anchored cavorite sphere toward an expansive warehouse hangar at the ice quarry. While he watched with a sinking heart, the Martians took the spacecraft into the dark hangar. A heavy metal door rolled shut, sealing the cavorite sphere from view and cutting off their hope of returning home.