Free Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 by Devil's Planet (v1.1)

frrom which you have fled.”
                 The
dial clicked, another scene showed itself. Stover saw a building with open
front before which huddled and crept a line of
wretched Martians. Each presented a document to an official. Each was
grudgingly handed a small container, no larger than a cup. Stover turned his
head away. With a sympathetic purr, his companion turned the radio off.
                 “Water-lines,”
muttered Stover. “Guarded reservoirs. Little camps
like this—and nobody has enough water. Malbrook, who held the monopoly, did
this to Mars.”
                 “You
sserrved uss well by killing him,” said the Martian.
“Come, I wissh to dampen yourr sskin again.”
                HE
would not take no for an answer. An application of the
                 plant-juice refreshed Stover’s thirsty body all over.
                 “Do
not thank uss,” deprecated the Martian. “We do thiss becausse, to rrepeat
mysself, you arre the hope of Marrss. By depriving ourr- sselvess of waterr
rrationss today, we arre prreparring you forr the tassk of winning uss plenty in the futurre.”
                 “You’re
trying not to be noble,” Stover smiled. “But what if I miss out? If I’m caught,
or killed, or if I try to develop the ray and can’t?”
                 “We
sshall have played forr high sstakess, and losst.”
                 Stover
found his clothing, neatly folded away, and began to struggle into it.
                 “When
nightfall comes, I go,” he announced.
                 “The
besst rrefuge among the nearr townss—” began his rescuer.
                 “I’m
going back to Pulambar,” said Stover grimly.
                 All
three Martians turned toward him silently. They had no human eyes, yet he had
the sense of being stared at.
                 “I
mean it,” he insisted. “Pulambar’s the place. The lights will guide me, and
this stuff on my skin will keep me from drying out too soon. I can get by the
outer guards, because I’m Terrestrial with money in my pocket. I’ve got to find
the real killer and first put myself in the clear.”
                 “Then?”
prompted the Martian with the voice-box.
                 “Then,”
and Stover’s voice rang like a bell inside the little dome, “I’m going to
perfect that condenser-ray. I was wrong to want to play around first. Buckalew
was right to keep after me. You’ve shown me a duty I can’t turn away from. That
killer in Pulambar had better hold onto his hat, because I’m going to smack him
right out from under it!”
                ONCE
more back on the bright streets of Pulambar, Stover skirted a building and came
to a canal crossing full of music and carnival. Entrance to the city had been
quite as easy as he had figured. No one had dreamed that the fugitive would
circle back. He halted now to consider his next step.
                 A
mortised gondola of the cabin type bore a yapping loud-speaker ur ging
all to join a sight-seeing tour. Stover joined the welter of honey- mooners,
space-hands, clerks on holiday and similar rubberneckers. A crowd like that
made good disguise, and the gondola would take him to a certain definite
jumping-off place for his newly chosen goal.
                 He
sat back in a shadowy corner of the vehicle. The guide lectured eloquently as
he clamped shut the ports and took them on a brief dive to show the underwater
foundations of Pulambar, fringed with the rare lakeweed that was to be seen
nowhere else on Mars. Stover remembered yet again how Buckalew had exhorted
him—it seemed centuries before—to work hard for the salvation of Mars by the
condenser ray.
                 Peering
from his port, he saw the enclosing water, only a saucerful compared to the
oceans of Earth, but here a curiosity and a luxury.