Читать книгу The Martians Strike Back! - Robert Reginald - Страница 8

CHAPTER FOUR

THE ZERO ZOMBIES

But never meet this Fellow,

Attended or alone

Without a tighter breathing

And Zero at the Bone—

—Emily Dickinson

Alex Smith, 17 Bi-October, Mars Year viii

Isis Station, Planet Mars

The answer came at midnight. I was yanked from a wild dream by the sound of a klaxon, and an order for all Council members to report to HQ immediately.

I threw on the same clothes I’d been wearing this last week, and hurried off to war. My drowsiness was banished immediately upon entering the room.

“A hit!” said the anonymous voice.

On the wallscreen I could see the Indefatigable being struck by…something, and the silent explosion that followed.

“Phobos Base, power down your weapons!” someone screamed.

And then I realized what was happening: one of the batteries on the moon was attacking the flagship of the fleet!

I saw another laser beam or missile strike the vessel, visibly knocking a large hole in its side. Atmosphere was obviously venting, along with several crewmen and debris.

“He’s barricaded himself in the bunker,” Commodore Wanders said. “We have to blow it, but we can’t do anything until we evacuate the section first.”

“Blow it!” the Admiral’s voice said.

“Aye, sir.”

But it was too late. The next hit must have struck something vital, because the Indefatigable abruptly exploded into several large and many small pieces, at least one of which must have struck the settlement and destroyed part of its infrastructure. We immediately lost visual contact with the base.

“Switching…,” we heard.

“This is Captain Edsel,” the com finally said. “We’ve dispatched rescue ships to the remains of the flagship, but we don’t expect to find many survivors. I assume Vice Admiral Bruce is dead. That leaves you in command as the senior officer, sir.”

“Where’s Commodore Wanders?” Burgess asked.

“Not sure, sir. He was directing operations against the rogue bunker. When communications were disrupted, we lost contact. He may still be all right.”

“Do you know what happened?”

“No, sir, not really. Lieutenant Francis was in charge of Bunker 35. Half an hour ago, we had a message from him saying the aliens were attacking, and he was taking action to defend the base. He then cut his com line and barricaded the door. Before we could react, he was powering up his station and shooting at the flagship. He must have thought it was an enemy vessel.”

“Why didn’t you cut power to that section?”

“We tried, sir, but nothing worked. I don’t know why.”

“Very well, keep me informed of the developments.”

But only ten of the Indefatigable’s crew survived, out of over two hundred fifty, and the Admiral was not among them—indeed, her body was never recovered. Wanders was found dazed and wandering near the ruined rogue bunker on Phobos Station. Over a hundred people had been killed when a third of the damaged spaceship had cartwheeled into the Moonbase—and only the automatic release of airtight doors had kept the casualty figures from going much higher.

“What happened?” Burgess asked at our meeting on the following day.

But no one had any answers. Insanity was discussed, but without evidence, no conclusions could be reached.

Meanwhile, the second and third ships of Expedition IV appeared on schedule later in the afternoon, together with a dozen supply vessels, with several hundred more transports expected during the ensuing weeks.

Burgess decided that offloading the vessels now had priority, and so shifted our efforts from war to supply.

The second “accident” happened a week after the first.

One of the modular space ferries was maneuvering near the Van Dine, when it suddenly veered off course and plowed right into the larger warship, destroying both vessels before anyone could react.

The follow-up investigation of the wreckage managed to locate the automatic data and voice recorder for the Alver, which, when deciphered, revealed the following exchange among the cockpit crew:

“What’s that?” the Captain said.

“Where, sir?”

“There’s something right in front of us!”

“You’re right, sir!”

“Taking emergency action.”

The data showed that the Alver had then suddenly jerked to port, right into the side of the Van Dine, which barely had time to issue a warning before being smashed amidships.

The third incident happened in our own backyard, so to speak. About 0200 on the following day, one of the guards standing duty at Outpost 4 on the northern perimeter of Isis Station suddenly started shooting at his companions, killing them all. He then calmly took off his environmental suit and opened the airlock. The bite of the Martian night and the absence of almost any atmosphere quickly (I hope) eliminated the possibility of the soldier ever being interrogated concerning his intentions.

The string of seemingly insane acts by our troops continued to mount, day by day. And nothing that Burgess tried seemed to have any affect on the situation. We didn’t lose any more capital ships, but the negative impact on morale was tremendous. How do you fight a foe that isn’t there? Or, to paraphrase Pogo, “We have met the enemy—and he is us!”

The shriveling shrinks speculated that the aliens were somehow influencing our people mentally into believing that they were being attacked by the Martians—and so they responded to preserve (they thought) their own lives and those of their comrades, while doing exactly the opposite. But no one really knew for sure. We started calling the berserkers the “zombie men”—or just plain “zombies”—because they seemed to have no will of their own.

And all through this horrible week of losses I felt a tremendous anxiety over the fate of my loved ones. Had they survived the bombardment? Where were they now? I’d asked Madame Stavroula for help again, but she wasn’t able to make contact with Becky or Mellie—or even with Big Guy. It was as if someone had pulled an iron curtain over the Martian hives. Somehow I had to find a way back.

The final straw was something completely unexpected. We were called again to the Council Chamber a week after the destruction of the Indefatigable.

The General had asked one of the com folks to report on a strange new anomaly that had just been discovered.

“Tell us about this transmission you’re receiving,” he ordered.

“Well, sir,” Corpsman Robinson said, “It’s actually a simple carrier code. I cracked it right away. Shall I play it for you?”

When the officer agreed, the soldier put it on speaker. It went: “Ooh-lah” over and over and over again.

“That’s the alien song I heard in San Francisco!” I said. “Towards the end, all of the fighting-machines were broadcasting that same sad lament. It sounded to me then like a distress call.”

“Where’s it coming from?” Burgess asked.

“Dunno, sir,” Robinson said. “Can’t pin it down to a specific location. So far as I can tell, the whole planet’s generating the signal.”

“So where’s it being sent?”

“That’s why I called you, sir. It’s, well, it’s being transmitted to Earth!”

“Earth? Why Earth?”

But all the King’s horses and all the King’s men still hadn’t a clue as to what the Martians were actually doing. I didn’t say so, but I thought that the only reason that the aliens had to broadcast a message anywhere was to apprise their fellow squid-folk of the awful crap we were dishing out to them on their homeworld. And that, boys and girls, did not bode well at all. It implied very strongly that there was someone or something on Earth that could receive their message.

The meeting was adjourned without us reaching any conclusions.

Afterwards, I met my friend Min in his cubicle in Barrack 22.

“I’ve got to find a way out of this place,” I whispered. The ever-present gendarme was posted just outside.

“How?” he hissed. Then somewhat louder: “Pawn takes pawn!” He pulled his chessboard onto a small table between his knees.

“King’s knight to bishop three,” I said. Sotto voce: “They watch me all the time.”

“Queen’s pawn to Queen 4. Hmm. I think I know a way.” And then he leaned over and whispered something in my ear.

The next day a dozen of us—Min, myself, Stavroula, Andrews, Scott, Markus, Reynnells, and others—requested an excursion to the ruined guardhouse “to examine the site of the recent incident on the camp perimeter.” We wanted to conduct tests to see if we could find any evidence of the nearby presence of the enemy.

Permission was granted almost immediately. No one else had any answers.

Each of us suited up, and we boarded one of the half-tracks at the main HQ lock.

I haven’t previously described the environmental suits. These were lime green in color, deliberately tinted to create as much of a contrast as possible with the standard ochre terrain of the Red Planet (we also had ruby-tinged camouflage suits available). They came in three sizes, were made of some flexible plastic stuff, and included a separate mask/helmet with water tube, built-in radio, several lightweight air and water bottles, and a heater, the latter implements being located in a backpack.

They weren’t particularly heavy, but they were awkward; if you fell over while walking, it was the devil to get up again without the help of your comrades. Also, you had to be careful about accidentally ripping the fabric, which, depending on the circumstances and where the suit tore, could prove fatal. You could spend about three and one-half hours in the Martian environment without changing the air bottle, depending on your exertion level.

The major officers were given individually contoured suits, but all the others were generic, without markings of any kind—and since the masks were reflective, once you’d put the damned thing on and joined a group of others of a similar height, you became, in essence, the invisible man. You couldn’t normally tell a bunch of excursionists apart. You could radio one of them, but unless he or she raised an arm in acknowledgment, you’d never know precisely who it was.

So how do you lose someone? You join a crowd—and that was Mindon’s plan. What I did with it after that was my problem.

After debarking at the ruined guard station, we examined it very carefully inside and out—the Seabees hadn’t had a chance yet to reconstruct the site—and then began taking soundings outside the station to see if the aliens had tunneled close enough to delude the poor bugger who’d gone crazy with his AK-47 or laser gun or whatever it was he used (they’d all wound up dead just the same).

I walked towards an outcrop of rocks a quarter-mile distant, and Mindon said over the com: “Hey, look here! I’m getting some interesting readings.”

I waved the end of my sensor wand at the ground. Naturally, my shadow-meister thought that it was Mindon leading the charge, and that I was still part of the pack that followed.

“Nah, never mind,” he said. “Looks like a false reading. I’ll keep checking the area, though, just to make sure.”

I kept taking my non-existent surveys of the terrain while Min wandered around with the rest of the slobs back near the guard post.

“Another fluctuation,” Mindon said. “Nope, it’s gone. Anyone else having any luck?”

“Yeah,” said Markus, “I’ve got a real prospect off to the east a bit.”

So everyone focused their attention on him, while I walked just a bit further, until I reached a ten-foot-high jumble of stones and sand. Then I ducked behind them.

“All right, Big Guy,” I said to myself. “If you’re going to do anything, now would be a very good time!”

And, lo and behold, the ground opened up before me, and there was a Martian digging-machine. It popped its hatch, and I squeezed in next to the operator, a small alien with dark gray skin mottled in white.

“You took your own sweet siesta,” I mumbled.

It swiveled its head and looked at me with its big eyes. Then it turned to its business again, and soon we were backing down into the small tunnel, and the machine was pushing up soil to cover the entrance. It swiveled around and headed down a sharply declining spiral hole. Perhaps a hundred yards further on we reached a cross-tunnel, and there I boarded one of the traveling-machines.

I looked over at Spotty.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Mah-goo,” I think it replied. I don’t know if that was an answer of sorts, or its name, or…whatever.

Then we went our separate ways, and I never met this fellow, attended or alone, again.