The Martian War

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


THE MARKS OF PLANETARY DESTRUCTION


FROM THE JOURNAL OF DR. MOREAU

Though the Martian had told us of its race and its world, still I did not feel we understood it. This alien being was more exotic than anything either Marco Polo or Jonathan Swift ever described. Its words and images were comprehensible to us, but the deep thoughts within that immense brain remained a cipher.

I sensed the Martian was keeping secrets from us, but Lowell was so overjoyed by the marvels revealed in the crystal egg that he failed to consider all the information he did not know.

Attempting to become friendly with our interplanetary guest, he proposed an expedition out into the desert. Though I didn’t understand what Lowell had in mind, I had no objections, so long as the logistical details could be solved. He looked at me with his bright eyes. “We will take my new motorcar.”

Most travel in Arizona Territory is done on horseback or in carriages. The dirt roads are rutted wagon tracks; even Flagstaff’s Main Street, crossed by the railroad tracks, has no paving stones or gutters.

While we’d been in Boston visiting his family, Lowell had grown enamored with Karl Benz’s new vehicles. Rattlewheeled models with capricious engines had recently been shipped over from Europe. Lowell became determined that he must be the first to own one of the four-wheeled motorcars, as a mark of his superiority.

On the day the motorcar reached Flagstaff via the Santa Fe rail, a crowd of curious spectators gathered to see the contraption. They watched as Lowell assembled the components according to instructions, added the oil and gasoline, and, after several abortive tries, succeeded in starting the popping, fluttering engine. Wearing an immensely pleased smile, sitting straight and tall, Lowell drove the rattletrap vehicle out of town and up the steep road to Mars Hill.

Thus far, Lowell had had little opportunity to use the motorcar on expeditions. Being intent on our conversations with the Martian, he had not yet taken the mayor of Flagstaff for a ride, or the saucer-eyed Methodist minister, or the railway executive who had stopped on his way through town. Today, though, he proposed to take the Martian for a ride out into the dry Arizona desert.

In the coolness of dawn, with light just beginning to edge the San Francisco Peaks, Lowell started his motorcar while I unlocked the outbuilding. By now, the Martian understood that we were its friends and allies, that it would get no better treatment if it broke out of its confinement and ran loose across the wild countryside. But the lock kept curiosity seekers out.

Construction work continued at the observatory site and, knowing how tight the schedule was, the workers did not dare risk Lowell’s impatience. So close to dawn, however, the men had not yet come up from their camps, and we guided the cumbersome Martian to the humming motorcar without incident.

The creature perched in the vehicle’s back seat, its tentacles exploring the upholstery and framework. Lowell pulled up the fabric rain covering in order to hide the Martian, then engaged the clutch and put the car into gear, whereupon we rolled off downhill, clattering and popping.

No doubt the sounds woke many lumberjacks and train workers trying to sleep off hangovers in saloons and boarding houses. But Lowell never had a care for how his activities inconvenienced other people; the man wasn’t arrogant, so much as oblivious.

I looked through the thin windscreen, watching the dark pines rush by as we continued at a speed of well over twenty miles per hour. I feared my teeth would be jarred loose, but Lowell seemed confident in his vehicle. The Martian’s large eyes stared at the terrain with fascination. Perhaps the dry rocks and parched landscape reminded it of Mars … .

Flagstaff fell behind, as did the ponderosa forests. The rising sun cast long shadows across the flat scrubland, and Lowell followed wagon roads and horse tracks. He had put several rolled-up maps beside him on the seat, though he rarely consulted them.

As we drove along, Lowell was in high spirits. He had packed a picnic lunch, including some bottles of water and one of wine. I hoped the Martian would not require any nourishment during our journey, for I had not brought along the blood-drawing apparatus.

Lowell chattered at great length about human society, our various countries and governments, our industries and inventors and artists. With a detached sadness and scorn, he discussed human conflicts and the political disagreements that led to wars. The Martian listened intently, but did not communicate with us, as if such things were greatly beneath its intellect. To be fair, I doubted either Lowell or I would have been interested in, for example, the tribal dances of primitive people.

Lowell gestured out the left side of the Benz car. “North of Flagstaff, half a day’s journey away, is a canyon so grand and vast it is considered one of the wonders of the world.”

Our telescopes have studied your geography, and I have no interest in canyons, the Martian communicated. Mars has canyons far superior to any minor scratch on Earth.

Lowell frowned as if his hospitality had been rebuffed. “Nevertheless, we humans consider it quite magnificent.” He sounded deflated.

The Martian’s behavior had grown more confrontational of late. I wondered what made the creature so irritable. Of course, it was all alone on this planet, its cylinder crashed, its companion killed. It had been beaten, taken prisoner, hauled across the globe under less-than-pleasant circumstances. Though we had tried to be accommodating, surely this was not what the Martian explorers had expected.

The day grew warmer until I felt we would be broiled out in the open. At least the dry heat seemed less miserable than the humid, insect-infested miasmas of sweltering tropical islands where I had been forced to work after fleeing London. I searched the flat sands dotted with sage and mesquite, but could see no object that might be of interest to an extraterrestrial visitor. “So where are we going, Lowell?”

“You can just see it in the distance.” We hit a rut and bounced, but he pointed without slowing the vehicle. I discerned a distinct raised landmark, the lip of a symmetrical mesa. “It is known to the locals, a most perplexing and scientifically interesting landmark: a perfectly symmetrical depression, a strange crater. I thought our visitor might find it interesting.”

The dirt roads soon dwindled into mere paths used by Navajo shepherds or rugged white settlers. I reserved my own opinion about the crater. This seemed a long journey just to look at a hole in the ground, and I was about to say as much when the motor car broke down. The engine shuddered, coughed, and then hemorrhaged steam.

Lowell shifted his gears and attempted to start the engine again without bothering to ascertain the problem. When this proved unsuccessful, he hurled insults at the machine, as if he could command it just as he issued orders to his underlings. But the engine lay still.

We were far from commonly traveled roads, far from the rail line. In the past hour, we had seen no towns, encampments, or isolated homesteads. We couldn’t simply wait and hope for rescue. It would be a long time before someone found us.

“I didn’t plan for this part,” Lowell said petulantly.

I raised and rejected possible solutions in my mind. Perhaps I could find a shepherd or a prospector; another alternative would be to head straight north until I encountered the railroad tracks, where I could flag down the next train. But I would have to walk for untold miles across this rough terrain, which was filled with rattlesnakes and scorpions, during the most intense heat of the afternoon.

In the meantime, what if the Martian grew ill? What a pathetic end for such a priceless specimen.

For the moment, I withheld my recriminations, but if we escaped this predicament I intended to have words with Lowell in private.

The Martian stirred, as if understanding the problem. It raised tentacles to detach the weather covering and, with a mighty heave, crawled over the motorcar’s door. It dropped to the ground and began questing around with ungainly movements. Its every move seemed sinister and frightening. The Martian was an intimidating thing, as large as a bear, and its tentacles could easily snap our necks. We were all alone and defenseless if the beast should turn on us. However, the creature ignored us and used its tentacles to fold back the hood and probe inside the motorcar’s engine.

“What is it doing?” Lowell asked.

“It’s curious,” I said.

“What if it damages the engine?”

I pointed out that neither of us had any hope of fixing it. Though he took pride in his motorcar, Lowell himself knew very little about how the vehicle functioned. My own expertise lay in biology and surgery; I knew nothing about engines.

I had a sudden inspiration. “Lowell, don’t you have a small kit of tools in the rear of the motorcar? Give them to the Martian.”

Lowell resisted the idea, then realized that we had little to lose. Though it did not comment, the Martian accepted the tools with apparent scorn, as if we had just handed it stone knives and bear skins. But it quickly determined the purpose of each tool, then attacked the engine, dismantling pieces, rerouting hoses, connecting filters.

The Martian applied itself with amazing intensity, rebuilding and redesigning the Benz engine according to some incomprehensible plan. I was reminded of my own efforts in vivisection, grafting organs, stretching the plasticity of living creatures.

The Martian did the same with the engine. Lowell and I sat in the minimal shade of the car. The desert air was hot and oppressive. The whole idea of an alien acting as our road mechanic seemed ridiculous, but the creature displayed an extraordinary technical aptitude, and was able to use our tools to construct a functional, if unorthodox, propulsion system.

When the Martian finished its ministrations, the motorcar’s engine started easily. And although the pistons purred and vibrated at a higher pitch than before, it seemed smoother, faster.

“Bravo!” Lowell brushed dust from his jacket as he stood. He hesitated, as if considering whether he should pat the Martian’s back or somehow extend his appreciation. In our minds, the Martian said, We go again.

“Of course.” Lowell climbed behind the driver’s controls, and after the Martian had settled itself in the rear seat again, we were off toward the unusual landmark ahead.

My skepticism about the crater vanished as we approached the base of the rim’s sudden and steep uplift. Our faint, rocky road petered out into a scattered maze of trails and footpaths.

When we had driven as far as we could go, Lowell locked the brakes. Snatching our picnic basket, he set his hat firmly on his head. “We will have to walk the rest of the way to the top. I look forward to your opinions and your reactions.”

The Martian must have made a strange sight as it crawled out of the motorcar and followed us with an odd, lurching gait. We switchbacked right and left, ascending steeply. I could see the desert all around us, but I do not enjoy frivolous sightseeing. I hoped Lowell had not gotten it into his mind to convert our Martian ambassador into a simple tourist.

But when we finally reached the top of the crater, the sight robbed me of my breath. The change was abrupt and startling. The ground dropped away into a huge open bowl. I could see layers of strata like the rings of a cut-down tree, tan and reddish rock exposed as if a giant scoop had removed a perfectly round divot from the Earth’s skin. The interior was speckled with juniper and sage all the way to the bottom.

Lowell set down our picnic basket. “Speculators have called this the remnant of a long-extinct volcano, but I have seen Sunset Crater and others here in Arizona. Personally, I believe it is the scar left by a tremendous heavenly impact, similar to the craters visible on the Moon.”

The Martian remained on the rim, tentacles waving, its large round eyes studying the site. When the creature finally responded, its comment did nothing to dispel my uneasiness about its worsening mood and attitude. Greater dangers than this can come from space.

Lowell asked what it meant, but the Martian would say no more.