Stowaway to Mars by John Wyndham Read Free Book Online

lights of all colours, blinking and twinkling. It repeatedly told him that if he had the sense to get out of this steel room, he could be in such a place this very night . . .
    Froud looked across the Plain to the black line held in check by an army of police. Up on the Press tower were the small, dark figures of men he knew, fellow journalists to whom he had said goodbye a short while ago. They had all professed envy of him. He doubted whether one of them meant it or would have been willing to change places with him, given the chance. At the moment he himself would willingly have changed places with any one of them. He turned to look again at the closely packed crowds.
    'Thousands and thousands of them, all waiting for the big bang,' he murmured. 'They'll probably get a bigger earful than they want -- -- Hullo, there's someone with a heliograph.' He leaned forward, causing the characteristic sickle shaped lock of black hair to fall across his forehead.
    'G-O-O-D L-U-C-K,' he spelt out from the flashes. 'Hardly original, but kindly meant and that's better than a lot of them. I wouldn't mind betting that there's a whole crowd out there not excluding my professional brethren who'd consider it a better show if we blew up than if we went up.'
    'Aye, you're right there,' agreed Burns, his deep voice according well with his gloomy expression. 'They're the kind who don't feel they've had their money's worth unless some poor body crashes in an air race. But they're going to be disappointed with the Gloria Mundi. I helped to build her, and she's not going to blow up.'
    The doctor moved, irritably.
    'I wish you two wouldn't talk about blowing up. Isn't this waiting bad enough without imagining horrors?'
    Young Geoffrey Dugan agreed with him. His look of eager anticipation was becoming supplanted by a worried frown.
    'I'm with you, Doc. I wish we could get going now. This hanging about's getting me down. How much longer?' he added, turning back to Dale.
    'Quarter of an hour,' Dale told him. 'We better be getting ready, Dugan. What's it say on the weather tower?'
    Dugan crossed to one of the other windows.
    'Wind speed twelve miles an hour,' he said.
    'Good. Not much allowance necessary for that.' Dale turned back to the others. 'Put up the shutters now. It's time we got to the hammocks.'
    He switched on a small light set in the ceiling. The shutterplates, heavy pieces of steel alloy, were swung across and their rubber faced edges clamped into place. When the last had been screwed down to its utmost and made airtight, the men turned to their hammocks.
    These were couches slung by metal rods. Finely tempered steel and softest down had been used in an effort to produce the acme of comfort. No fairy tale princess ever rested upon a bed one half so luxuriously yielding as those provided for the five men.
    They climbed on to them without speaking, and felt for the safety straps. The doctor's pale face had gone yet whiter. Little beads of sweat were gathering beneath his lower lip. Dugan saw him fumbling clumsily with the straps, and leaned across.
    'Here, let me do it, Doc,' he suggested.
    The doctor nodded his thanks and lay back while Dugan's strong, steady hands slid the webbing into the buckles.
    'Five minutes,' said Dale.
    Dugan attended to his own straps, then all five lay waiting.
    The engineer rested motionless with all the graven solemnity of a stone knight upon his tomb. The journalist wriggled slightly to find the most comfortable position.
    'Good beds you give your guests, Dale,' he murmured. 'Makes one wonder why we're such damn' fools as ever to do anything but sleep.'
    Dale lay silent, his eyes fixed upon a flicking second hand. The fingers of his right hand already grasped the starting lever set into the side of his couch. His concentration left him without visible sign of fear, excitement or worry.
    'Two minutes.'
    The tension increased. Froud ceased to fidget. Dugan felt his heart begin to beat more quickly. The doctor