Alien Dust

by E.C. Tubb

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

ALIEN DUST relates the first thirty-five years of the colonization of Mars. It is a poignant story of Man against Nature. No individual hero or heroine marches steadily through its pages. There is no triumphal ending-only faint hope. Instead, against a background of the shifting red sands of a planet unfit for human habitation, emerges the grim picture of pioneer men and women pitting their courage, wits and even lives against the biggest enemy in the Solar System-an alien planet. Rich and warm in human emotion, ALIEN DUST is one of those rare science fiction stories which presents Man in his true perspective-as the intruder.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 228

Sample

They landed like two dreams and a nightmare. Three of them, three ships, their hulls glistening with the reflected light of the distant sun, needle-pointed, wide-finned, looking like oddly shaped fish against the dark immensity of the star-shot sky. Two of them settled slowly and carefully towards the ochre sands of the desert below, balanced on the thrust of their flaring rockets, steadied by their spinning gyroscopes, landing in predicted safety at the climax of their fifty million mile journey. The third …

It fell like a crippled bird, like a crumpled ball of paper, like some alien beast yielding to death in some alien sea. Fire spurted from it, the intermittent flare of venturis, and the glistening hull jerked and twisted beneath their compelling thrust. Almost it regained stability. Almost it seemed that it would escape from the menace of the desert below as, with its pointed nose aimed towards the stars, the stabbing flame of its rockets lifted it towards safety. Almost—but not quite.

It shuddered, tilted, hung poised a moment between the thrust of rockets and the tug of gravity then, with a grim finality, plunged down towards the ochre sand. Flame spilled from its ripped hull, the bright, blue-white flame of burning rocket fuel and burning carbon edged the scene with a rising cloud of black smoke. For a moment it rested there, lying in a groove of its own making, the rolling surface of the desert reflecting the savage fury of the expanding flame. Then it exploded, an eye-searing gush of incandescence, and when the light had died the ship had gone and only fused sand and scattered fragments, a shallow crater and wispy cloud of smoke, showed where it had lain.

A tenuous cloud of black smoke was rising slowly into the thin Martian air.

Jim Hargraves stood at the edge of the seared area and thinned his lips with worry and sick realisation. “Ten men gone,” he said bitterly. “A ship and crew, stores and equipment, all essential to the expedition. Damn it, Doc. What could have happened?”

Professor Winter shrugged and stared sombrely at the utter ruin of what had once been a space ship. “Who knows? We didn’t carry radio and so we can only guess, but I’d say that their gyroscopes failed. Trying to land without them, balanced on a rocket exhaust and hoping to maintain stability by hand is trying to do the impossible. It would be easier to balance an egg on the point of a pin.”

“The fools!” Jim stared down at the scattered shards of hull. “Why did they try to land at all? They should have swung into an orbit, missed the planet altogether, and either waited for us to help them or, if they had enough fuel, returned to Earth. Instead of which they tried to play the hero—and look what happened!”

“They did what they could, Jim,” said Winter quietly. “They failed, but they’ve paid for their failure with their lives.”

“So what?” Anger and worry sharpened the commander’s voice. “They’re dead—but what about us? We needed that ship. We needed what it carried, the stores and men, but we needed the ship more. Without it the whole supply schedule will be thrown to hell.” He glared at the crater as if wishing that the dead and disintegrated pilot could hear, then shrugged. “Nothing we can do here now. Nothing we can salvage. We can’t even bury the dead. Let’s get back to the others.”

He turned, his slender body looking surprisingly boyish in the shapeless confines of his thick cover-all, and dust plumed from beneath his feet as he headed away from the crater. Slowly Winter followed, his eyes thoughtful as he took a final look at the resting place of the first men to die on Mars. He ran forward as Hargraves staggered and almost fell. “Anything wrong?”

“No.” The commander gulped at the thin air. “I feel giddy, that’s all, forget it.”

“Sit down for a while and rest.” Winter squatted down and pulled at the commander’s arm. “It’s the air, too thin and low in oxygen, we’ll have to take things easy until we get used to it.” He waited as Hargraves rested, sitting with his head lowered between his knees, his chest heaving as he re-oxygenated his blood. “Better now?”

“Yes.”

“Wait!” Winter caught at the commander’s arm and pulled him back on to the sand. “Rest a while longer.”

“I’m all right now,” snapped Jim impatiently. “Stop worrying.”

“That’s my job,” said Winter calmly. “It was the walk which made you feel giddy, you haven’t stopped moving about since we landed, and even with the low-pressure conditioning and weak gravity we need time to get used to this thin air.” He checked his pulse with clinical detachment. “Heart-beat a little high, respiration much faster and temperature above normal.” He shrugged. “Well, we expected it. The preliminary survey proved that we can live here without breathing apparatus providing we keep to the lower regions. It’s just a matter of getting acclimatised and avoiding too much heavy labour.” He stretched, savouring the tug of gravity again after the long weeks of free fall, and idly traced patterns in the sand. Beside him Hargraves stared across the rolling dunes of the alien desert.

Mars! Even now it seemed a dream, the culmination of a lifetime of hope and, staring at the ochre sand, the dark blue, almost black, bowl of the sky in which the faint stars shone in brave defiance of the distant sun, he felt again the surging tides of enthusiasm and conviction which had given him no rest until he had won the command of the Martian Expedition.

“It’s all true, Jim,” said Winter quietly, and turning, Hargraves saw the doctor staring at him with a gentle understanding. “This isn’t a dream, this is Mars and you’re here at last.”

“Yes,” said Jim and stared back at the pale blue eyes set in a thin, almost aesthetic face. Those eyes gave the lie to the cynical twist of the mouth and in that moment he felt a closer affinity to the tall, thin, stoop-shouldered doctor. Both had been tormented too long by the same dream. He sighed and rose to his feet, brushing the dust from his cover-all. “Let’s get back to the others.”

The camp was a primitive affair. A few flimsy tents had been set up in the shadow of one of the rocket ships and assorted bales and containers of stores and equipment lay on the sand in ordered confusion. Thirty men lounged on the dust in various attitudes, some resting flat on their backs staring at the sky, others propped on one elbow, a few sitting with their heads lowered between their knees. All gasped and panted as they struggled to accustom themselves to the thin air, recovering from the exertion of unloading and stacking the supplies. Several of them looked up as the two men entered the camp and Hargraves paused, looking around.

“Weeway?”

“Here.” A man struggled to his feet.

“Come into the tent. The rest of you take it easy and don’t get worried.” Jim raised his voice, almost shouting as he remembered the poor carrying power of the thin air. “We expected this and when you’ve recovered we’ll have something to eat. Just relax and don’t make any unnecessary movements, don’t talk either.” He looked at the dietician. “Ready?”

Weeway nodded and followed the two men into the tent.

“Number Two is a total loss,” said Hargraves curtly after they had seated themselves around an upturned crate which served as a table, “and we have a decision to make. I shouldn’t have to tell you what it is.”

“Number Two carried most of the food and water.” Weeway riffled a thin sheaf of onion-skin paper and frowned at the closely typed list of figures. “We spread the load as evenly as we could but most of the water tanks were in the wrecked ship.” He looked at the commander. “Over half the water and two-thirds of the food together with a lot of sugar and other staples. It’s quite a loss.”

“I know that.” Hargraves tried not to let his irritation and worry echo in his voice. “That’s why I’ve called this conference. In a way we are lucky, if a ship had to be lost, then Number Two is the one we can spare most.” He frowned at Weeway’s protesting gesture. “I’m not minimising the loss. I know that the food and water, the sugar and other supplies were important, but we still have the prefabricated machines, cables, yeast cultures, and enough water and food to get along. After all, most of what we lost was offset by the safety margin, and we allowed for waste and expendables.”

“I don’t agree.” Weeway fumbled with his papers. “The margin wasn’t so high to begin with and now that we’ve lost over half the supplies there is only one logical thing we can do.”

“Return to Earth?”

“Yes.”

“I was coming to that, Weeway, but I suggest that you reserve your decision until we have had time to consider the problem as a whole.” Hargraves glanced at Winter. “How do you feel about it?”

“I don’t know yet.” The doctor stared through the open flap of the tent to where the rolling dunes stretched to the near horizon. “Maybe we’d better hear all the data first?”

“I was coming to that.” Hargraves relaxed in his chair, warm with the comfort that he had an ally and trying not to let his own enthusiasm blind him to the obvious. “The original plan was for one ship to return to Earth, one to remain, and the other to be dismantled. When we had established the colony the waiting ship would have returned to Earth for supplies and men. In a way it was a form of insurance against anything going wrong—we would always have a means of escape should it be necessary.” He looked at the doctor. “The psychologists seemed to think that such a plan was essential to prevent breakdown of morale. Were they right?”

“Theoretically, yes,” said Winter grimly. “Obviously you don’t agree with them.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Your use of the past tense, as if the plan were something from the textbook instead of something happening at this very moment.” He shrugged. “Never mind that now, but to a psychologist, and I am a psychologist, you are rather transparent.”

“I see.” Hargraves was annoyed, then realising that the doctor was right, he forced himself to smile. “You haven’t answered my question, Winter.”

“About morale?”

“Naturally.”

“The psychologists are correct. To have an escape-medium can be a tremendous comfort. The mere fact that, at any time you choose, you can get to hell out of a sticky situation, enables you to put up with it. It’s all a part of the general adaptation syndrome.”

“The what?” Weeway blinked and the doctor smiled at his blank expression.

“You should know what I’m talking about, Weeway. It touches your field as regards to diet. Briefly, a man can adapt himself to tremendous stress and conditions far from his norm. Men can adapt themselves to strange diets, alien circumstances, low pressure, a thousand variations of mental and physical hardship—but they pay for it. If the adaptation needed isn’t too great, no harm is done. If conditions are a little too much for full adaptation, then a compromise is reached in which the mental and physical health will adjust for a time! Unless conditions are then altered breakdown will follow, loss of mental co-ordination and a general lowering of physical health. Here, on Mars, we are trying to adapt to an environment totally different from any on Earth. Coupled with this is the fear of being stranded—a man can imagine building a boat to cross an ocean or walking across a continent, but no man can visualise crossing space without a rocket ship. To know that you can’t get back home. To know that you are at the mercy of someone fifty million miles away and that unless they send for you, you are helpless, that can build up to quite a mental strain.” He stared at the commander. “Does that answer your question?”

“Thank you, yes.” Hargraves nodded towards the doctor. “But aren’t you overlooking the fact that we are dealing with intelligent men? They know that they won’t be stranded here, their own logic will tell them that, and they will accept the necessity of returning the ship to Earth.”

“Perhaps.” Winter seemed to have lost interest in the conversation. “I told you that it was just a theory.”

“The choice then is this. Either we return to Earth in one of the ships—we haven’t enough fuel for them both to make the journey under load—or we carry on with the original plan as far as possible. By that I mean we strip down one vessel and send the other back immediately for supplies and men. Before it returns to Mars we must set up the power pile, lay the pipeline to the north polar ice cap, and build shelters to house both the men and the yeast culture vats.” Hargraves smiled at the two men. “To me the choice is obvious.”

“I can’t agree.” Weeway fluttered his papers. “The figures are plain enough and I say that we won’t have enough food or water.” He stared at the commander. “How long will it be before the ship can return?”

“About a hundred and twenty days, maybe less, a lot depends on how fast they can service the ship at the other end.”

“Then that settles it!” The dietician didn’t trouble to hide his triumph. “We haven’t enough water.”

“We will have as soon as the pipeline reaches the ice cap.” Hargraves glared at the little man and, when he looked down at his hands, was surprised to find them trembling from the anger boiling within him. “Your argument isn’t valid, Weeway, but I take it that you suggest we return to Earth?”

“Yes.”

“Winter?”

The doctor sighed, turning reluctantly from the expanse of sand beyond the open flap of the tent, his pale blue eyes misted with an inner dream. “Would it make any difference what I suggested, Jim?”

“No.”

“Then I say we stay and chance it. Is that what you want?”

“Yes. Thank you, Doctor. I’ll give the orders and inform the men.” Hargraves smiled as he rose to his feet, feeling some of the anger fade away now that he had made the decision, and stepped outside the tent. He didn’t look at the little dietician.

The camp had been established a hundred miles from the edge of the north polar ice cap, at the junction of several canali—those strange markings discovered by Schiaparelli and popularly known as “canals”. They weren’t canals, they were what the Italian astronomer had called them, tremendous channels traversing the face of the planet, a hundred miles wide and several miles deep, and in them the air was just bearable to treated and conditioned lungs. Hargraves stood outside the tent and sucked at the thin, cold, peculiarly dry air. He glanced towards the setting sun and shivered a little as the faint wind, forerunner of the bitterly cold night, bit through his cover-all.

“Men,” he snapped. “Pay attention.” He waited until they gathered around him and, as he waited, he stared at the men of his command, the men who had travelled from distant Earth to turn the red planet into a place where human beings could live. Like himself they were small, light-boned, lithe-muscled, wearing thick cover-alls and hoods against the chill. They had been selected from the thousands who had clamoured to be allowed to battle with the great unknown.

Unlike him they were very young.

Twenty-five was the average age. Almost boys, with a man’s knowledge and a lad’s enthusiasm for a hopeless cause. Logic would have kept them at home. Sense would have weighed against security, adventure, unless, like Hargraves and Winter, they had been driven beyond prudence by an ancient and ambitious dream. Looking at them made the commander very conscious of his ten-year seniority and he wondered if Winter, who bested him by two years, ever felt the same.

“Ship Number Two is a total loss,” he said curtly. “The original plan will have to be changed. As ten men died in the wreck we shall all have to work harder than anticipated. No harm in that, we are here to work, but we have lost more than ten men.” He paused, staring at their intent faces, wondering again at the foolhardiness of youth which always bit off more than it could chew—then confounded logic by doing the impossible. “We lost supplies,” he continued evenly, “and that means we shall have to make do with short rations for a while. I want to impress on you all the necessity of drinking the absolute minimum. You will be rationed, but we can’t spare a man to guard the supplies and we must trust each other not to take more than a fair share.”
. . .