“Gee!” Ted murmured sympathetically, remembering how enthusiastic his father had been before he had left. Now the greatest mystery on Mars—that of the disappearing Martians—was just as baffling as before.
“Because of this,” Mrs. Kenton said, “they’re ending the expedition ahead of time and coming home.”
“That’s why he said he’d be seeing us shortly,” Randy said.
“I’m glad to hear that, anyway,” Jill murmured.
“When will he be back?” Ted asked.
“Within two or three days, he said,” his mother replied.
“That will be before the class goes on the ...” Jill burst out, then covered her mouth with her hand as she caught herself.
“Before the class goes on what?” Mrs. Kenton asked.
“We’ll have to tell her now,” Jill said lamely to the boys.
“The class is going on a sight-seeing rocket-plane tour of Mars next week,” Ted explained.
His mother looked at Jill curiously. “But why such a secret about it?”
“We just thought you wouldn’t be especially interested,” Jill said, “since we weren’t going.”
“Don’t you want to?” Mrs. Kenton asked.
“Oh, yes!” Jill said. “Only....”
A knowing look came into Mrs. Kenton’s eyes. “I see! You didn’t tell me about it and show your interest because you didn’t want to leave me here alone! That’s it, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Kenton threw an arm around each of her children. “That was a very unselfish thing for you to do,” she said. “But now that Father will be back sooner than he expected, you’ll be able to go after all.”
“Can we really, Mother?” Jill asked enthusiastically, her eyes full of stars.
“Will it be dangerous?” Mrs. Kenton asked cautiously.
“There have been lots of these trips made already,” Randy volunteered. “There hasn’t been any trouble yet.”
“Well, you have my permission,” Mrs. Kenton said, “but your Father will have to agree too.”
“But tomorrow’s the last day we can make reservations!” Jill protested. “If we wait until he comes, we can’t make it!”
“Go ahead and make your reservations then,” her mother said. “I don’t believe your father will object if I don’t. But if he does, you can cancel your seats.”
“We’ll lose our money if we do that,” Ted said, “but I guess that can’t be helped.” Suddenly Ted looked fearful. “Dad did leave the check-book, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he left it,” his mother assured him with a smile.
“Pops is coming out here tonight for a visit,” Randy said. “Now that you and Jill are going on the trip, Ted, I think I’ll ask Pops to let me go along too!”
“That’ll be great!” Ted said. “All three of us will go together.”
The next morning the children got Yank up at an early hour so that he could go off to school with them.
“You’d better be on your good behavior today,” Jill warned the color bear as they climbed into the boat. “If you cut up like you do in the house, Mr. Garland may flunk us!”
Yank looked at her solemnly as though he understood. But then his broad mouth widened in a grin as if he were telling the girl that he had no intention of taking her remarks seriously! As soon as the boat moved down the waterway, Yank stood up.
“Sit down, Yank,” Randy told him. “You’re rocking the boat!”
Yank paid no attention to this reproof. He was enjoying himself.
“Stop him!” Jill squealed. “He’ll turn us over!”
Randy rose unsteadily to his feet and moved toward the rear. He made a lurch at him, but Yank leaned out of his reach and looked back, grinning merrily.
“You naughty bear!” Jill cried, half in fear and half in anger.
Randy leaned forward again and pulled Yank back on top of himself with a fierce jerk. As Randy went down, the bear rolled off him and up on the edge of the boat.
Yank went over the side with a splash.
Yank went over the side with a splash.
Randy lunged at him, but Yank’s fur slipped from the boy’s fingers. Yank went over the side with a splash into the frigid water. As soon as Yank touched the water, Randy made a grab at him and caught one of his forepaws. Yank screeched in shock and fear at the sudden freezing plunge.
Ted slowed the boat down and turned the wheel over to Jill while he helped Randy pull the Martian animal aboard again. Yank looked thoroughly beaten as he flopped, dripping and cold, into the bottom of the boat. His round little ears were drooping sadly, and the corners of his mouth were turned down. He looked more like a polar bear now, because crystals of frost were growing all over him.
In spite of themselves, the children had to laugh at their little pet’s predicament. As the shiny spikes of frost popped out on his face, Yank would brush at them furiously with his paws. Even his eyebrows were growing icy. This further increased the laughter of the children.
“I guess that’ll teach you to behave, Yank!” Ted chuckled, and offered to take the wheel back.
“Let me drive the rest of the way,” Jill said.
Ted yielded to her, and he was pleased at the skill with which she drove and docked at the science building.
The children were a little ahead of time, and this gave them a chance before class to tell Mr. Garland about their wish to make the trip with the others. Randy had gotten his father’s permission the night before.
Mr. Garland frowned as he looked over his list, and Ted had a sinking feeling.
The teacher looked up. “Two of you can go, but not all three, I’m afraid. Yesterday I thought that quite a few more could go, but I found out last night I had omitted several names from my list. Which one of you wants to drop out?”
At this surprising remark from their teacher, the young folks’ faces drooped with disappointment. For several seconds none of the three had anything to say. Mr. Garland idly fingered the two checks they had handed him.
Finally Randy spoke up. “I’ll drop out,” he said. “I’ve been on a trip like this before with my father, but Ted and Jill haven’t.”
“That’s a fine decision, Randy,” Mr. Garland said. He handed one of the checks back and added the Kenton children’s names to his list.
For the moment, all interest in the trip was gone for Ted. He knew Randy must be keenly disappointed. Although until late yesterday none of them had expected to go, they had talked a long time last night with Mr. Matthews over the exciting things they would see. Randy had been quite as interested as Ted and Jill about the coming adventure.
Suddenly Ted said: “Take Jill’s and my name off the list too, Mr. Garland. I don’t think two of us should go if the third one can’t.”
“That’s right,” Jill agreed.
“That doesn’t make sense, you two,” Randy protested.
Mr. Garland looked up. “There’s no sense both of you missing the trip for the sake of one. It’s the educational opportunity of a lifetime.”
Ted then gave in, although he knew it was not going to be nearly so much fun without Randy along.
The discussion ended abruptly when Ted heard a shriek from one of the incoming pupils. He turned and was shocked to see Yank chasing one of the girls toward the back of the room.
“Yank, come back here!” Jill called, when she saw what was going on.
But Yank was once more enjoying himself. He was grunting happily as he pursued the girl around the back of the room, and along the side toward the front. The bear’s three owners caught the little fellow as he was coming around again.
“I just patted him and he took out after me!” gasped the girl who had been chased.
“He was just playing,” Ted told her. “He couldn’t hurt you if he tried. His teeth are only made for chewing soft flowers.”
Mr. Garland restored order and announced that zoology would be the first subject of the day so that the active Yank could then be taken outside. First Mr. Garland stood Yank on the platform at the head of the class with Ted to help keep him still.
The teacher pointed out the physical characteristics of the Martian animal, touching Yank’s paws, head, jaws, and other parts with a pointer. Yank followed the movement of the stick with his eyes. Then the whole class started giggling. The bear was looking at the stick cross-eyed.
Ted had to force down a grin. He could see that Mr. Garland was having the same trouble. When Yank got tired of following the stick with his eyes, he seized it in his mouth and began gnawing on it. This brought a burst of laughter from the pupils.
Ted took the stick from Yank, and the bear thought this was a signal for them to wrestle. At home, this was the way Ted usually got him to play.
“Get off me, Yank,” Ted muttered in a low, angry voice. “We’re at school, not home! I thought we warned you to behave yourself here! You’re just trying to show off!”
Yank seemed to get the tone of Ted’s outburst, even if he could not understand the words. He stopped his foolishness and actually kept as still as a little gentleman for the next few minutes as Mr. Garland continued to demonstrate.
But then he could hold off no longer. As the instructor was leaning over close to him to point out the peculiar upsweep of his blue-tipped eyebrows, Yank’s big red tongue came out of his mouth and scraped along Mr. Garland’s cheek.
The teacher blushed at the renewed laughter as he wiped his face with his handkerchief. Ted was worried lest Mr. Garland hold Yank’s behavior against him. But the teacher was a good sport and said, with a grin, “You win, Yank. Better take him outside, Ted. This will have to conclude our study of Martian color bears for a while!”
Ted took Yank outside and tied him beneath the classroom window so that he could watch him every now and then. Ted knew what the animal must be thinking: “Please let me in! I’ll behave myself.”
When Ted returned, the class was quiet again. Mr. Garland set up the projector for a color movie on American history. But this was not merely a history lesson. The children were told to study the costumes and architecture. It was actually several studies in one.
When the picture was over an hour later, Ted was blinking his eyes to accommodate them to the harsh daylight again when one of the children cried out, “Look!”
Every eye in the room did look. Following the pointing finger, they turned their gaze to one of the transparent side walls. There was Yank standing with his button nose pressed flat against the plastic, just like a small child looking out a glass window. This brought another round of laughter from the class. On this note, Mr. Garland dismissed the class for lunch.
That afternoon, as Ted, Jill, and Randy were about to leave for the day, Mr. Garland called them back just as they reached the door.
“Oh-oh,” Ted murmured with dread. “He’s going to give it to us now for bringing that little cutup to school!”
Meekly the three of them stood in front of the teacher’s desk. He looked up at them and smiled. “I don’t think that little bit of fun hurt us this morning. But please don’t bring Yank back again! I’m afraid one day of him is all I can stand.” He looked outside where they could see Yank seated on the ground.
He smiled again, and the relieved children grinned back. They had started toward the door, when Ted, who was looking back, pulled Randy and Jill to a stop.
“Listen,” he said. He turned them around and they heard part of a conversation Mr. Garland was having with one of the other pupils that might very well work to their benefit.
“Did I hear that boy say he couldn’t make the trip?” Jill whispered excitedly.
“I thought he did,” Ted replied.
They waited expectantly, hoping that the teacher would look up and call them back. Ted felt a new surge of hope rise in him when Mr. Garland finally motioned to them. The boy, meanwhile, had left.
“I’ve just had a cancellation,” Mr. Garland told them. “Randy, you can make that trip after all, if you want to.”
“Do I?” Randy burst out, his face beaming. He fumbled around in his pocket for the check his father had given him. Then he pulled out the rumpled slip of paper.
The instructor smoothed it out and wrote Randy’s name on the list. The children left the room and walked happily down the hall.
“That was a swell thing you did, Randy,” Jill said, “giving up your place to one of us. I’m so glad that you really can go!”
“Please don’t bring Yank back.”
“Please don’t bring Yank back.”
“I’m glad too,” Randy admitted. “After all we talked about last night, I sure wanted to go badly!”
Yank hopped around excitedly as he saw his friends coming up to release him.
“You’ll never see this place again, Yank,” Ted said to him sternly, as he untied him. “I guess you’re just not cut out to be a school pupil.”
For this remark, Ted got a juicy lick on the side of his helmet.
Dr. Kenton arrived home the following afternoon. Ted could see that he was a very different person from the one who had set out. His father looked tired and beaten. Even the special meal of fresh fruits and vegetables from their garden failed to interest him very much.
As they were eating supper, his wife asked him, “Why was this expedition so important to you, John?”
“I suppose I had counted too much on its being a huge success,” the scientist replied. “Then too, I thought it would solve that all-important question of the disappearing ancient Martians that’s been puzzling us ever since the first landing was made here ten years ago.”
“There’ll be other expeditions,” Mrs. Kenton said encouragingly. “Some day you’ll find the answer, I’m sure.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Dr. Kenton said. But Ted could see that his father was very downcast because of the expedition’s failure.
“I wish I had known you were coming when you did,” Mrs. Kenton said to her husband. “I would have invited Mr. Matthews to eat with us. You knew that Randy had found his father, didn’t you?”
Ted was glad to see his father smile as he turned to Randy. “Yes, we got the news,” Dr. Kenton said. “I’m sure glad for you, Randy. You see, it never pays to give up hope. I’ll be pleased to meet your father.”
Just then Yank came bounding in from the living room. The bear had taken to the taste of lettuce leaves, and Ted would occasionally slip him a leaf from the table. Yank sidled up to Ted, where he sat next to his father, eyeing the crisp leaves on the boy’s plate. Yank’s other eye was cast warily at Dr. Kenton, whom he still appeared not to regard as a close friend.
“When are you and I going to be friends, Yank?” the scientist said as Ted handed the bear a green leaf. He reached out to pet the little Martian animal, but Yank drew back. “I can’t understand your attitude, young fellow.”
Ted thought this the proper moment to bring up a very important matter. “Dad,” he began, “Jill and Randy and I have signed up for a sight-seeing plane tour of Mars with our school class. Mom says it’s all right for us to go if you agree.”
Dr. Kenton thought a moment, and Ted felt doubtful. Then his father said, “I think it would be a grand thing for you. You can get a lot better picture of this planet from the air than you ever can from the ground.”
“Goody, we can go!” Jill cried out.
Ted felt like shouting himself, for now the last barrier had been removed and they were going for sure.
The next week found twenty-five eager students stepping into a sleek jet craft from the roll-away ladder at Lowell Harbor. Randy and Ted found a double seat together, and Jill sat with a girl friend. When all the passengers were in, Mr. Garland said that they could remove their space helmets.
When all were seated, they waved to their parents and relatives who stood on the ground.
“I’m as excited as if I’d never made a trip like this!” Randy said.
“I’m excited too!” Ted admitted. He didn’t add that he had scarcely slept the night before because he was in such a dither of anticipation.
Mr. Garland told the children to fasten their safety belts, as they were almost ready to take off. In a few minutes they felt the ship moving beneath them. Ted waved a final farewell to his parents and Mr. Matthews, for he had a seat beside the window. When they waved back, Ted felt a little uneasy. It was the first time he had ever been away from his folks. He wondered fearfully if something would happen on the flight so that he would never see them again.
Swiftly the rocket plane picked up speed. Then, with a whoosh of jets, it launched itself into the air.
“We’re off!” one of the boys shouted gaily.
Soon Lowell Harbor was only a small circle in the red desert behind them, and the vast stretches of wilderness began to come into view. Mr. Garland pointed out the important natural formations as they cruised along. By now almost all of Mars had been accurately mapped. There were miles and miles of wind-ribbed sand dunes with rows of furrows like a farmer’s carefully seeded fields.
Ted had never before realized the wonder of the canals until he saw them from this height. They were straight as arrows, and some were tremendous in size, even dwarfing the majesty of the Grand Canyon of Arizona. It caused him to wonder again about those very accomplished engineers of the ancient past who had built them and had since so mysteriously disappeared.
Ted recognized much of the landscape from their geography study. Some of the ocher-red deserts and forests had been named far back in the past before the twenty-first century. They passed over the great oasis of Solis Lacus and the dense woodland of Mare Sirenum. But always there were canals, and more canals, draining the great icecaps and supplying the entire planet.
“Isn’t the sky pretty?” Jill said to Ted and Randy who were sitting behind her. “It seems we’re closer to the stars when we’re off the ground.”
Ted had to agree with her. The heavens were a deep gorgeous violet, with the starlight pulsing softly through. They traced the slow movement of Phobos, the timeteller, and they could also pick out the distant tiny moon, Deimos, that resembled a white arc light.
The hours passed all too quickly for the eager sight-seers.
“We’re over the Great Martian Forest,” Mr. Garland told them late that afternoon. “It’s the end of the line. After we’ve covered this, we’ll start back.”
Ted looked groundward, seeing what resembled a colossal, sprawling beast spread out in all directions. Ted shuddered at the sight. Many explorers had been trapped in this terrible wilderness and had never come out alive. Wild animals, blind trails, and carnivorous whip plants were thought to have destroyed them.
Suddenly someone called out as he pointed down, “Look, what’s that moving?”
All stared where he pointed. In an open space inside the forest, numerous creatures were rolling along like a tide.
“They’re blue rovers,” Mr. Garland said. “They’re something like the old American bison that roamed the plains of the United States.”
More strange animals were seen, and still the plane was not out of the huge forest. If anything, the jungle grew even more densely, and now rocky cliffs and shallow gorges could be seen among the thick vegetation. Mars had no extremely deep or high natural formations such as the Earth had.
“Most of the forest turns brown in the winter,” Mr. Garland addressed his students, “but when the polar cap melts in the spring, everything pops out green again.”
Ted knew that the seasons were twice as long on Mars as they were on Earth, even though the days and nights were just about the same. How frightfully cold must be the winters, he thought. But on the other hand, what a long, nice summer to enjoy!
Finally the dense growth began thinning out again as the outer fringe of the forest was reached. Suddenly, without warning, the plane careened sharply on its side. Some of the students were flung out of their seats, and they screamed in terror. Mr. Garland, who had been standing by a window, was thrown backward onto the floor. When the ship had righted itself, Mr. Garland climbed slowly to his feet.
“Anybody hurt?” the teacher asked.
No one else appeared to be, but Ted saw Mr. Garland grimace in pain. He seemed to have injured his ankle.
“Mr. Garland,you’rehurt!” Ted said.
“Never mind me!” the instructor said. “Put your safety belts on—quickly!”
His students did so, and then the plane started bucking again. Poor Mr. Garland was flung against the wall this time, but he recovered himself and hobbled into the pilot’s cabin to see what was wrong. Ted heard his classmates babbling in fright all around him. He and Randy tried to quiet Jill’s mounting terror.
“Take it easy,” Ted said to her. “It may not be anything serious.”
Mr. Garland was back in a few minutes, and Ted could see that his face was grave.
“We’ve got to bail out, kids,” he told the class grimly.
“Into that?” cried one of the boys, pointing to the forest below.
“We’ve no other choice, the pilot tells me,” Mr. Garland replied, his voice shaky. “There’s a fire in the jets, and we can’t crash-land without wrecking the plane.”
Terrified, the students stared at him, as though they still could not believe what he was saying.
“He says there’s an open space ahead of us where we can parachute down,” Mr. Garland went on. “He’s sending a message for help now. We’ve got enough supplies and air to last us until a search party comes from Lowell Harbor. There’s no cause for alarm.”
There was no more time for talk. Despite his obviously painful injury, the teacher quickly distributed chutes and showed the children how to put them on. The chutes were specially designed for use in Mars’s rare atmosphere. Next, space helmets were donned. Then Mr. Garland lined the children up with their rip cords fastened to an overhead cord for automatic opening of the chutes when they jumped. Ted, his sister, and Randy had stayed together, and they found themselves the first three in line to jump.
Chutes with supplies had been shoved out first by hand, and then Mr. Garland signaled to Ted for the first jump. Things had moved so swiftly that Ted hardly had time to become scared. Randy and Jill seemed to feel the same way. The ship was still jerking erratically and plumes of smoke swirled about. The oval door was open, and Ted saw yawning space beneath him. At Mr. Garland’s word, he took a deep breath and sprang out. He felt the straps on his back yank him sharply as the chute popped open.
Down, down he went.
Down, down he went.
Down, down he went. Finally he glanced upward and saw two other parachutes above him. They would be Jill and Randy, he thought. He looked groundward again to see where he was heading. Just as Mr. Garland had said, a flat open space lay beneath.
Once more he glanced upward. There were still only two other chutes above. Where were the others? Hadn’t they jumped too? Then he spied the ship at a considerable distance away. It was careening downward as though heading for a crash!
Ted felt a sick tug in his stomach. It looked as though the three of them were the only ones who were going to escape alive. The ship must have gone out of control before the others could jump!
As soon as Ted reached the ground, he made for the spot where he had seen the supply chutes land. If these were lost, especially the one with the spare air cartridges, Randy and Jill and he could never survive until help came.
Ted ran down a dusty ravine. His eyes searched clumps of bushes and spiky cactus, and a momentary panic came over him. The chutes were not in sight. Just then he was aware that a strong wind was blowing. The chutes had probably carried farther than he had thought. He searched some more, and his heart quickened with joy when he found the two parachutes within yards of each other, half buried in the sand beyond a big boulder.
As soon as he had found these, he thought immediately of Randy and Jill. He should have seen them by now. He returned to the spot where he had come down, but they were nowhere around. A new terror crept into his breast. Could the wind have carried them farther up into the forest, possibly into the dangerous part where the brush grew dense as jungle and deadly whip plants thrived? The wind was stronger than ever now, but he ducked into it and renewed his search.
He made a thorough examination of the territory all around, but after a half hour’s time he still had not located Jill and Randy. For the sixth time he returned to his original spot where he had left the parachutes of supplies. By now the blood red of approaching sunset was filling the sky, and grotesque shadows were creeping over the ground.
Ted could not remember when he had felt any more depressed and lonely than he did at this moment. He could imagine all sorts of terrible things happening to his sister and friend. By now, the wind had died down. Thank goodness the blow had not brought on one of those violent dust storms, he thought.
Suddenly he heard a noise overhead that quickened hope in him. It had sounded like the drone of a plane! He leaped to his feet from where he had been slumped on the ground and searched the darkening starry sky. Yes, there was a plane! He could hardly believe it when he saw that the number on the wedge-shaped wing was the same as that of the ship from which he had bailed out. That meant that the plane had not crashed after all!
As the plane roared overhead, he ran back and forth and waved his hands frantically to get the attention of someone in it. To his dismay the plane kept on going and presently was lost in the approaching twilight.
He thought the world had ended for him now. Jill and Randy were gone, and hopes of rescue too. But then he heard a crashing of bushes near by. His heart thudded against his ribs in fear. He was remembering that wild animals inhabited this district, and he was totally unarmed.
Then he heard his name called. A moment later Randy and Jill came running up! He was never so glad to see two people in his life as he was then.
“What happened to you?” he asked them.
“The wind carried us down into the forest a little way,” Jill answered. “Oh, Ted, I was scared to death! Those whip plants throw out arms like an octopus at anything that comes near them! I almost got caught by one!”
Ted showed them the chutes that held spare air cartridges and food. Unfortunately, Mr. Garland had thrown out only a few supply chutes, not all of them.
They had never eaten with space helmets on, but they had learned about the tiny air-lock opening in the facepiece of the helmet that made this possible.
“These will last us through the night,” Ted said. “I don’t know what we’ll do after that. A search party probably won’t get here that quick.”
Just then Jill heard the plane returning. Ted hurriedly explained that this was the one they had been on and that it had not crashed after all. He said that all three of them should run back and forth and wave like everything to try to attract their attention this time.
Ted thought that the plane had missed them again, but then he saw it bank and head back toward them. The ship circled overhead for several minutes, and the children saw a parachute drop out. They followed the chute to the ground with their eyes and ran over to it.
“Here’s a note,” Ted said, untying an envelope from the chute. He opened it. “It says: ‘Open the long case and you will find a walkie-talkie radio in it. Turn it on, and we’ll speak with you.’”
They did this. Then Ted spoke into the mike, “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” came Mr. Garland’s voice. “We had just about given up hope of sighting you. The ship went out of control just after you three jumped. But the fire in the engine burned out soon after, and the pilot regained control. We should be able to get back to Lowell Harbor all right, even though we’re crippled. Are you three hurt?”
“No, sir, just scared,” Ted answered.
“We’ll send you down all the rest of our air cartridges and more food and water,” the teacher went on. “They’ll last you through tomorrow, and by that time a search party should be back in a helicopter. We can’t possibly land, ourselves, because of the terrain and our damaged engine. I’d come down myself to stay with you, but my ankle is broken and I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much help. However, if you want me to....”
“I think we’ll be all right,” Ted said bravely, yet feeling an encroaching dread even as he said it.
“There’s an electron rifle and flashlights in with the other stuff,” Mr. Garland said. “I don’t think anything will bother you, though; otherwise I wouldn’t leave you alone. Most of the animals stay back in the thickest part of the forest.”
“Will you be going now?” Ted asked.
“Yes, there’s no way else we can help you except send rescuers as quickly as possible,” Mr. Garland declared. “Whatever you do, don’t leave that spot.”
That ended their conversation. Presently the other supply chutes filled the air, and Randy and the two young Kentons retrieved them. Then, lonesomely, the three watched the plane disappear into the sunset.
“I’m afraid,” Jill murmured, casting an anxious glance around her at the forbidding woodland.
“I am too, Sis,” Ted confessed. He looked at Randy, and his eyes were enough to tell that he was frightened too.
They looked around for some place of protection overnight. As the sun disappeared behind a distant ridge, they found a shallow opening under a clump of rocks that would shield them on three sides at least. Then they ate from a food packet, and after this they admitted that they felt better.
“If we get through this night safely,” Ted said, “we’ll probably make it all right.”
At last darkness set in. Phobos was making one of his frequent trips across the heavens, but his light was weaker than moonglow on Earth. However, it seemed to Ted that it wasn’t quite so lonely now, with the sky burning with its millions of cold lights. Yet it was still frightening to know that the three of them were off by themselves in probably the most perilous region of Mars.
They decided it was best not to use their flashlights unnecessarily, lest they attract wild beasts. They kept the atomic rifle handy in case it was needed in a hurry. Ted suggested that two of them sleep while one stood watch. Jill said she’d like to take the first watch because she was too nervous to sleep anyhow.
Ted was just about to doze off some minutes later when Jill’s scream blasted into his radio and brought him springing to his feet.
“There!” Jill said, pointing.
Randy too was wide awake now, and the three of them stared, fear-stricken, across the dark drifts at a giant creature which stood at a distance looking at them. The light of Phobos and the stars was bright enough to show his awesome outline.
“What is it?” Ted whispered to Randy.
“It’s an elephant ant,” Randy whispered softly. “See that trunklike sucker on its head? Get the gun, Ted. These things are mean.”
Ted caught up the atomic rifle and set it for fire, thinking all the while how Mr. Garland had missed his guess about their not being troubled by animals. Slowly the enormous insect approached the opening in the rocks. It was indeed the height of an elephant. Ted could hear the rustle of its hard-shelled body as it walked nearer.
The Martian animal’s slowness up until now deceived Ted, for, without warning, the insect broke into a rapid run. Bravely Ted tried to take careful aim and protect the two unarmed ones with him. But even as he fired the gun, Jill bumped him in her mad dash to escape the oncoming horror.
Ted saw a blinding glare that lit up the scene for a moment as brightly as noonday. In that shocking instant Ted got a vivid view of the elephant ant, its brown spindly legs and antenna shining glossily, its curling trunk out-thrust at them menacingly. But as the blast of the rifle died out and the ant continued to charge, Ted knew he had missed his mark.
There was no time to fire again. Ted couldn’t carry much, but he dropped his useless weapon and gathered up the spare air cartridges. Then swiftly he darted after Jill and Randy, who seemed to have found a way of escape. He saw them disappearing through a narrow passage beside the rock. He was glad to see that Randy had managed to hang onto one of the flashlights and was leading the way with it.
Ted didn’t know how long they ran up and down rocky inclines and gullies. But they seemed to be leaving their enemy behind. They ducked in and out of clutching vines and creepers. More than once, Ted dropped one of the bulky air tanks, but he retrieved them, for they were the most precious things they possessed. Finally he caught up with Randy.
“Help me take these!” he urged Randy.
The boy took some and they hurried on after Jill, whose fear seemed to have given her unusual speed. At last they reached the point where they could punish themselves no longer. Jill had fallen exhausted to the ground, and Ted felt as if he were ready to drop too. If the ant reached them now, it simply couldn’t be helped. Ted had sacrificed the rifle for the precious air cartridges, but he was not sorry he had done so.
They sprawled breathlessly on the ground, their chests heaving, their eyes staring fearfully in the direction they had come. Any instant they expected to see the horrible creature bearing down on them again. But after several minutes, during which time the animal had not appeared, Ted felt they had eluded it. For the first time since the terrifying adventure, he felt that he could relax.
And yet he could not relax, really, even now. For the balance of the night still lay before them.
The three of them decided it was not safe to go back to the open area tonight. After waiting a while longer still in the dark to see that their attacker was not coming, they searched the gloom around for a place to spend the rest of the night.
Randy found an opening in the dense underbrush ahead of them. Jill and Ted followed him and his flashlight beam along the trail. Suddenly they saw him stop dead in his tracks. Ted walked abreast of him.
“What do you see?” Ted asked.
Randy did not reply but instead shot his light ahead into the darkness. Ted saw before them a huge cave entrance.
“Gosh, do you suppose that’s the den of some wild animal?” Ted asked.
“I don’t know,” Randy answered in a quivery voice. “It seems like a good place to stay if it isn’t.”
Jill had joined them by now. She too had taken some of the load of the spare oxygen cartridges.
“Are we going into that spooky place?” Jill asked.
“We can go up to it carefully and shine our light in,” Ted said. “But we’d better be ready to run if something comes charging out! I wish I had that gun now!”
Jill hung back as Randy and Ted moved stealthily forward toward the black cavern entrance. Randy had his light shining directly into it all the time they were moving. When they were at the threshold of the cave, they got a good view of the interior.
“It’s not deep at all!” Ted said. “It just goes back a little way.”
“It looks deserted too,” Randy added. “Seems safe to me. What do you think, Ted?”
“Let’s go inside and see if there’s anything lying around,” Ted suggested. “If it’s a den, there ought to be bones and things.”
Cautiously they entered the cavern. Its ceiling reached high over their heads and the opening was festooned with trailing vines and creepers. Even the jungle growth seemed to have taken over, weeds and thick grass choking the floor. Boulders of all sizes were scattered around.
“It looks like it hasn’t been used for years and years,” Ted commented.
They flashed the light over the whole interior, but there was no sign of recent use. There was one other exit—a narrow passage at the rear.
“If we close up that rear opening with a big stone, it ought to be safe for us to stay here,” Randy said.
Ted agreed with him. They called Jill, and the three shoved a large red boulder in front of the narrow passage. They divided watches again, but before relaxing for the night, they replaced their air cartridges with new ones.
Randy took first watch this time. Ted was very tired from their exhausting race and had trouble falling asleep, but the next thing he knew, Randy was shaking him to change watch.
The rest of the night passed without further disturbance. The boys got softhearted about calling on Jill for her turn, and rather than wake her, they stood her duty. Another change of air cylinders had to be made before morning. Ted was able to change Jill’s while she slept.
The orange glow of dawn was a welcome sight to the children. Things did not seem half so grim in the dawn as they had the night before. The sun’s feeble rays shone directly into the cave mouth. The boulder covering the rear opening was still in place.
Ted caught Randy’s eyes staring thoughtfully at the boulder. He wondered if Randy was thinking the same thing that he was:What was on the other side of that mysterious opening?
“Hadn’t we better be getting back to the open place?” Jill asked, as they were putting on fresh air tanks again.