The Martian War

CHAPTER THIRTY


THE TRIPOD CHASE

While Wells wrestled with the battle tripod’s controls, whispering to himself to keep calm, Professor Huxley bent over to peer through the low rear windows of the control turret. “Those other war machines are still coming, Mr. Wells. Four tripods. As near as I can tell by marking off the seconds as we pass landmarks, our pursuers are gaining on us.”

Wells grabbed the wrong lever and lost the rhythm of his lurching walk. “These blasted controls were designed for a dozen Martian tentacles, not two simple hands!” The tripod reeled like a spinning stool, then caught its balance again. “And as you’re so fond of reminding us, Professor, the Martians have superior brains to my small primate organ.”

“Don’t get discouraged, H.G.,” Jane said. “Besides, if those others come any closer, I’ll be able to use the heat ray.”

“Unfortunately, Miss Robbins, when those tripods are in range of our weapon, then the converse is also true.”

The tripod legs pumped up and down like pistons and slammed into the rusty sands with pile-driver blows. “At the moment, I’m just trying to get away. But I would appreciate any guidance in getting us to the south pole, where the Martians are holding our cavorite sphere.”

“Ah, I have just the thing!” Huxley spread out the rolled documents he had stolen from the laboratory spire. “These detailed topographical maps may be of some use, if we can decipher them and determine our current location.”

“Show them to Jane,” he said, then lurched the stilt legs to dodge a field of loose boulders. “She’s always good with maps.”

Jane fiddled with the weapon controls. “A minute, H.G.” With a grim set to her jaw like a lioness protecting her cubs, she pinpointed the nearest pursuer and sprayed the heat ray like water from a fireman’s pump. The throbbing blast melted and bent one of the war machine’s legs; before the tripod could tumble, she refocused her aim and exploded the turret. “I got it!”

“If you can manage any greater speed, Mr. Wells, now would be the time to use it. I expect the Martians to retaliate at any moment.”

The remaining three battle tripods raised their jointed arms in unison and directed the rotating lenses. Fortunately, by virtue of Wells’s uncoordinated gait, he reeled and lurched, accidentally dodging a direct hit from the converging heat rays. The red sands turned molten around them, and Wells staggered away from the target zone. Without caution or care, he raced ahead at a frantic pace, fearful of missing a single step. The pursuing Martians increased their own speed.

As he ran headlong, the southern sky grew dark and murky, a brewing cauldron of dire weather. Wells would have been more concerned about the storm if he hadn’t been so intent on simply fleeing for their lives. From behind, the heat rays lanced out again, but struck wide, catching them with only a fringe of thermal energy.

The three tripods chased after them in a three-legged gallop. The terrain became more rugged, cracked with canyons carved long ago by rivers that had fallen into arid extinction. Along the rim of a wide gorge, one of the artificial canals that carried clear water from the polar excavation sites turned west over the flat terrain.

“Ah, a good landmark.” Huxley studied his unrolled maps. “In theory, we can follow the canal network southward until we reach its antarctic terminus.”

“We have to outrun the tripods first.” Jane scanned the charts and diagrams, trying to match what she saw outside. Finally, she pointed to a canal line running in the right direction, along the rim of a labyrinth of gorges and canyonlands. “I think that’s it, Professor. See if you can match the details any more clearly.” She ran back to the heat-ray controls, hoping for a chance to take another shot.

Wells hunched over to peer through the turret windows as he worked the controls. “Maybe we can hide in that maze.” He struck out toward the sloping paths into the deep ravines, while Huxley continued to study his maps.

“I will do my best to navigate you through them, Mr. Wells.”

As she looked toward the edge of the gorge, Jane grinned with an idea. “H.G., take us close to the canal. I’ll create a … a smokescreen to hide us before we drop into the canyons. It might buy us some time.”

Wells didn’t debate with her. Jane often had unorthodox and quite admirable ideas. Huxley’s eyes were bright with amusement. “I believe you mean steam instead of smoke, Miss Robbins—but the concept is an excellent one.”

Rushing along with first one leg in front and then two stretching to take its place like a freakish pole-vaulter, the battle tripod made for the canyons. The three pursuing war machines gained ground with every step.

Wells mentally marked the best place to descend unseen into the tangled maze of deep ravines. Behind him, the Martians came into firing range and raised their terrible heat rays. Jane was ready with her own targeting systems. Instead of shooting at the pursuing tripods, though, she unleashed an intense blast of heat into the channel of water, playing the beam across its chill surface.

The result was like a boiler explosion. Gouts of steam blasted into roiling clouds that billowed all around, engulfing them in an impenetrable white fog. Wells lost all sight of his surroundings—as did the Martians. Jane drew the incinerating knife back and forth along the canal. Water continued to evaporate in a boiling storm that would expand and spread across the bleak landscape.

“Thank you, Jane.” Wells grinned at her.

“Don’t lose our advantage, Mr. Wells,” Huxley said. “Move forward with the proper balance of caution and panicked haste.”

Wells set off, searching intently for the shadows of land forms, relying on his mental map of the best path to take. Finally, as steam curdled around them, he found a sloping descent into the canyons and soon ducked out of sight, before the pursuers could find them again.

Manipulating the three legs, he could negotiate rubble and boulders. He was wary of tilting too far on the slope, for fear that the ungainly battle tripod would tumble over.

As their tripod moved deeper into the tangled canyons, they passed beneath the thick steam bank, and Wells could see their way ahead again. When he could dodge the worst of the obstacles, he moved off with all the speed and practice he had acquired, leaving the pursuing tripods to muddle their way out of the blinding hot fog.

Hours later, after playing a cat-and-mouse game through the canyons, they faced the onset of the cold Martian night. Wells was forced to find shelter in a narrow cul-de-sac and wait out the darkness, hoping the hunting tripods would not find them.

He had guided their stilt-legged walker on a meandering path through the twisting canyon labyrinth, taking random turns but careful not to blunder into dead ends or slots too narrow to pass. The now-barren watercourses tended generally south toward the ice caps, but with many blind and confusing turns. Huxley diligently marked each direction on his charts to keep them from getting entirely lost. Jane studied the terrain maps to find a viable course to their destination.

They had seen no sign of the pursuing Martian tripods since foiling them with the canal smokescreen. Releasing the controls at last, Wells felt his extraordinary weariness. He and Jane snuggled together for warmth, resting for the first time in what seemed like weeks; they began to feel momentarily safe, though they wished they had something to eat.

Overhead, the stars came out, then dimmed and faded as if a blanket of dirty mist had been drawn over the sky. A pattering sound like birdshot struck the metal turret. Before Wells could even ask a question, a blast of wind charged through the canyon like a steam locomotive.

“Dust storm!” Huxley cried.

The wind shoved against them like a flood surging from a broken dam. A hail of rocks and sand scoured the outside of the hull, scratching the low turret windows. When shutting down for the night, Wells had stopped the great walker in the sheltered corner of a canyon. Now, the blunt rocks deflected the dust storm’s fury, and the three splayed legs of the battle tripod kept them anchored, though the machine rocked and swayed as if it was about to be knocked over.

Wells held onto Jane. There was nothing to do but wait and endure. Even in the howling gale, Huxley was intrigued and took meteorological notes on the back of one of the rolled maps. Mercifully, after less than an hour of the loud howling and scraping, the dry hurricane passed, racing away like a stampede in the night.

Wells finally said aloud, “I believe we can be confident now that our tracks have been erased.”

The next morning, as wan sunlight crept through the sheer-walled canyons, they set off again, picking their way southward. Huxley and Jane had spent hours scrutinizing the maps. Now, the professor directed Wells into convoluted channels that led toward the pole. With mechanical strides, the young man guided the tripod across a landscape that had been scrubbed clean by the high winds and rough dust.

As Wells lumbered down the bottom of the gorge, hoping their peace and safety would last, he suddenly saw the three pursuing tripods reappear out of a side canyon. Seeing the hijacked war machine, the Martians charged forward, bellowing a triumphant “Ulla!”

“They are certainly persistent,” Huxley said. “I would have hoped the rebellious Selenites were giving the Martians too many other things to do.”

Jane looked in frustration at the command apparatus they had taken with them in the battle tripod, sure they were out of range of the silver collars. She groaned, touching the device as she saw their chances slipping away. “We’re all isolated here. If only the Selenites could defend us now, distract the Martians.”

The heat rays blasted at them again, blackening the canyon walls. Wells dodged from side to side, staggering and wobbling, as Jane tried to fire their weapon back at the attackers. He ducked their tripod into tangential canyons to elude the pursuit. But the Martians were much more adept at running in their three-legged war machines, and Wells was trapped inside the confining canyons, racing down unknown channels. If he made a single mistake and ran into a closed gorge, the three hunters could disintegrate them.

Wells was astonished when the Selenites appeared, just as Jane had commanded.

Drone work crews had been dispatched all up and down the canal network, monitoring substations and maintaining the machinery that distributed fresh water across the Martian landscape. Now, sudden swarms of the white-skinned Selenites surged out of side canyons and over the rim, working together as if with a unified mind. They would die to defend the humans who carried the talisman of the Grand Lunar. Groups of drones lifted boulders in the low gravity and tossed huge stones into the paths of the enemy tripods, battering them from the cliffs above.

“I will personally thank the Grand Lunar next time we get to the Moon,” Wells said.

Under the sudden attack, the three Martian hunters reeled and turned their heat rays upon the unexpected rebels. The incinerating beams vaporized many valiant Selenite allies, but the delay and confusion gave Wells a chance to surge ahead.

Jane touched her collar, perplexed. “The Selenites are sending me a message! It’s so faint it’s nearly incomprehensible, but I think they have figured out how to communicate with me, just barely. H.G., they want you to get us out of the canyons as soon as you possibly can. Up over the rim and out into the open. They’ll help us.”

He hesitated, aware that on the plains above he would have less chance of hiding or finding shelter.

“H.G., hurry!”

He scrambled up a sloping boulder-strewn path on which he found purchase for the machine’s three legs. As he gained elevation, the pursuing Martians blasted aimlessly with their heat rays along the walls of the canyon.

When the Selenites saw that the three humans had climbed high enough for safety, they transmitted chittering messages to other lunar slaves upstream at the head of the canyons. Those drones began their sabotage work.

Responding, Jane delivered her commands for them to defend the humans. Continuing their precise mayhem, the Selenites destroyed a primary pumping station in the canal distribution network. The ruined grand canal diverted a surging wave, and all the water poured into the narrow canyons, funneled forward and picking up force.

Wells and Jane stood together, gazing out the turret’s low windows. From their higher vantage, they watched a furious wall of water gush through the canyons and sweep aside the three pursuing tripods, as if they were mere feathers in a cyclone. The giant metal contraptions crashed into each other and into the rocky walls, slammed about like toys, until they were dashed to bits.

Sadly, as the Martian war machines were knocked helter-skelter, hundreds of the Selenites were also sacrificed—just to give the three humans time to escape. Wells felt weak watching the destruction. He clasped Jane’s hand.

“An excellent solution to our predicament,” Huxley said. “Now we have a bit of breathing room. It should be safe enough for us on top of the plateau now.”

The tripod climbed out of the canyons, and the Martian morning spread out before them with a greenish sky and rusty-red landscape that extended to the horizon.

“Somehow,” Jane said, deeply disturbed, “we must find a way to show our appreciation to these Selenites. They have saved our lives. They fought to the death for us, for me.”

They traveled due south all day, homing in on the ice cap. Remembering how many Martian fighting machines and slave-master walkers kept the Selenite work crews in line, Wells knew they would be in for a fight as soon as they arrived. But the cavorite sphere—their only means of returning to Earth—had been hauled inside a hangar at the vast ice quarry. No matter how dangerous it might seem, they had to go there.

When they arrived at the ice quarry and water excavation industries, they found total destruction.

Only days ago, they had seen the enormous Martian labor pits here at the polar cap, the diligent work that created fresh water. Since then, a complete holocaust had taken place. All of the sophisticated Martian works had been utterly ruined.

Wells cried, “The uprising took place here, too!”

Jane stared, nodding slowly. “I told them to protect us, to help us get away. The Selenites knew we were coming here, and so they rebelled against their slave masters. They destroyed all the Martian walkers and tripods and took over the whole antarctic facility, just to make the way clear for us.”

“Have they risen up everywhere? Sacrificing themselves to destroy all Martians in all cities?” Wells wondered.

Jane looked at him aghast, thinking of the appalling bloodshed. “No! At least … I hope not.”

Huxley pursed his lips. “It seems that thanks to you, Miss Robbins, Mars itself is at war.”