I Fight for Mars

by E.C. Tubb

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

Synopsis

Fighting for Mars means a battle with the Lobants, a formidable enemy, robot yet human, whose origins are shrouded in a terrifying Martian mystery. Ace rocketship pilot John Delmar, on a dangerous and unlicensed space light to the fabulous planet, solves the answer to the swarming scourge of Mars in a story that possesses all the compulsion of a three-dimensional horrific...

Release date: April 30, 2014

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 126

Sample

The walls were of cadmium concrete, twenty feet thick, reinforced with steel and impregnated with lead. The lights were glowing fluorescents, aping the hidden sun with their blue-white glare, strung in long, evenly-spaced rows against the low roof. The floor was of seamless plastic, acid proof, rot and corrosion proof, dull grey in colour and curving slightly as it met the smoothed concrete of the dividing walls.

Once, a long time ago now, the place had been an arsenal, an underground store and assembly point for guided missiles and their atomic warheads.

Now it was a prison.

John Delmar rested wearily on his narrow cot and stared with burning eyes at the curving roof of his cell. The grey concrete glittered a little, reflecting the brilliant glare of the fluorescents from tiny flakes of silicone and still-bright lead. It required little imagination to transform the glitters of the roof into a half-forgotten memory of a night sky ablaze with stars, and he frowned a little, trying to remember the once-familiar constellations.

Ursa Major, of course, and Ursa Minor, both swinging about Polaris the North Star. Andromeda and Cassiopeia’s Chair. Cepheus and the distant glory of Bootes. Draco, Hercules, Cetus, and above all, the shimmering veil of the Milky Way.

He stirred a little on the bare wood of his cot, the pain of nostalgia stinging his eyes, while within his skull memories struggled like trapped birds.

How long? How long since he had stood on a windswept hill on a cool summer’s night and stared at the vast expanse of the heavens? How long since he had thrilled to the thundering surge of pulsing rockets as space ships lifted on wings of flame towards the distant stars? How long?

Three years? Five? Ten? He didn’t know. Time ceased to have meaning in this buried place where there was no night or day. Here was only the steady glare of the fluorescents, the spirit-crushing monotony of work and sleep, work and sleep, broken only by meals of tasteless pulp and too-brief periods of relaxation.

There were no clocks, no change, only the hard-faced guards, the silent lines of shuffling prisoners, the routine work at the benches. Here time stopped, seemed to hang suspended in an enormous vacuum, ready to start again when there was something to start for.

Until then——?

Memories and the pain of forgotten things.

“Asleep, Del?”

Reluctantly John swung his eyes from the semi-hypnotic fascination of the glittering roof and stared towards the second cot in the tiny cell. A man peered at him, a thin-faced man with rat-like features and little, shrewd eyes. Sparse hair hung in an untidy fringe over his forehead, and his skin was speckled with bluish pockmarks.

“No.”

“I thought not. Dreaming again?”

“Perhaps.” John sighed and turned on his side facing his cell mate. The little man grinned and dug at the seam of his coverall.

“Chew?” He held out a tiny shred of tobacco, then at John’s frown stuffed it into his mouth. “What’s the matter, Del? Getting you down?”

John didn’t answer, he just lay and stared at the little man, wishing that he would go to sleep, stay silent, anything so as not to disturb the precious stream of reawakened memory.

He didn’t.

“Look, Del,” he whispered. “I’ve got news, big news.” He looked expectantly at the silent man. “Know what it is?”

“No.”

“Don’t you want to hear it?”

“No.”

The little man looked curiously at John. “Aren’t you interested at all?”

John remained silent, staring with dull eyes at his pockmarked cell mate.

“I’ve never met a con like you before,” he complained. “You don’t act like a man should at all. Get wise, Del. Show some interest, if you don’t you’ll go pyscho.”

“Look,” said Del tightly. “I committed a crime, I admit it, but it was the first and it will be the last. I’m no ‘con’ as you call it, and I don’t want to be classed as one.”

“Sure,” sneered the little man, “I know. You were framed, we all were framed, every one of us.” Deliberately he spat, the thin stream of tobacco juice marring the sterile condition of the dull grey floor. “Bunk!”

“Shut up!”

“Sure. I’ll keep quiet, let you dream of the old days, the days when you were clean and decent.” The contempt in his voice brought a flush to John’s pale features. With one smooth action he slid from the bunk, crossed the cell in two long strides and grabbed at the little man’s throat.

“Listen, Slade,” he grated. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to listen to you. Remember that. Remember it, or——”

Deliberately he tightened his hands, squeezing the scrawny throat of the pock-marked man, his eyes bleak and as cold as outer space.

Slade twisted, jerking against the hard wood of his cot, his eyes bulging and his thin features darkening with congested blood. He kicked, his soft shoes thudding against the grey wall, and his hands clawed at the iron grip around his throat.

For a long moment Del held his grip, smiling down without humour at the glazing eyes of the struggling man, then with a sudden gesture he threw Slade from him and returned to his own bunk.

“You——” Slade rubbed his throat, his eyes burning pits of anger against the sudden whiteness of his face. “You fool! Do you want to keep us both in here for another two years?”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Surprisingly he grinned, his thin lips twisting over uneven teeth. “That was my news. Our time’s up, Del. Tomorrow we get out of here, both of us. Didn’t you know?”

“No.”

“I thought not, you haven’t been paying attention to anything since you came here. Sometimes I’ve even thought that you were psycho.” He looked understandingly at the tall figure sitting on the bunk. “What is it, Del? A woman?”

“Yes.”

“They’re murder,” said the little man feelingly. “They get a man to do anything for them, and when he does they’re the first to drop him overboard. What did you do, beat up her boy friend?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Del said tautly. “I’m talking about my wife.”

“Your wife?”

“Yes.” Abruptly Del began to stride about the narrow confines of the tiny cell, his long legs covering the space in three strides, his slender figure tense and quivering with repressed emotion.

“I was a rocket pilot, Tycho—New London, a ten-day double trip. My wife was sick and I needed money for medicine. I had money, the company owed me back pay, but I couldn’t get it, they tied me up with legal formalities, fines for breaking contract, non-appearance for scheduled flight, a dozen little things.”

He slammed one fist into the palm of his hand as he remembered his impotent fury at the bland refusal to give him what was his.

“Naturally I’d missed a flight, my wife was sick and she needed me. I argued with them, pleaded, but it was useless, and in the end I lost my temper.”

Slade nodded, his shrewd eyes bright as he rubbed at his sore throat.

“What did you do?”

Del shrugged, his broad shoulders sagging and little lines of weariness creasing his hard blue eyes.

“I hit the clerk, broke his jaw I think, and headed for the main office. The guards grabbed me before I’d got halfway, and they threw me in prison.” He began to stride about the cell again, his body trembling at the pain of aroused memory.

“They didn’t even let me see my wife, they wouldn’t even take a message, and I’ve been wondering ever since about her.” He stared at the pock-marked man, and his eyes blazed with pain and frustrated anger.

“Don’t you understand, Slade? I don’t even know if she’s still alive!”

“Take it easy,” warned the little man. He dug into the seam of his coverall again and slipped a fragment of tobacco between his thin lips. “If I know anything about women she’ll be waiting for you outside, or perhaps at home. Stop worrying, your wife is the least of your worries.”

“How do you mean?”

“Don’t you know?” Slade stared at the tall man with shrewd, glittering eyes, and slowly Del nodded as understanding came.

He was finished!

An ex-con, a criminal, a contract breaker. Without money, a job, friends or backers. He knew too well what that meant. On an overcrowded planet with five men eager to fill every situation and employers able to pick and choose, he didn’t stand a chance.

He had seen them, the beggars, the broken men, the great unwanted. He had cursed them, flung them coins, wondered vaguely why such things should be on a planet expanding to the stars. He had wondered, then dismissed them as something not of his concern—and now he had joined them.

“I’ll get work somehow,” he said weakly. “I’m a trained man, a rocket pilot, I’ll get a job somewhere.”

“Will you?” Slade stared at him, a thin smile on his twisted lips. Slowly he shook his head.

“Get wise to yourself, Del,” he said gently. “I know. I didn’t become a criminal for the fun of it, the penalties are too hard, the prisons too unhealthy, but I had no choice.” He gestured towards his face.

“See those marks? Burns from radiant engines, atomic seepage, blasting from poor shielding and pitting the skin. I’m like it all over. I did the same as you, co. . .