The Secret of the Martian Moons by Donald A. Wollheim Read Free Book Online

where we can see all parts of this world regularly, check and recheck, without danger to ourselves.”
    Gutman raised his eyebrows. "And where would that be, John?”
    Telders spoke up. "I know. I can think of only one place—or rather two places—for that.”
    "And where would they be?” said McQueen, swiveling in his chair.
    Telders merely smiled and gestured a thumb upward. McQueen followed his gesture, puzzled. Nelson spoke up slowly, “Do you mean the moons? Phobos and Deimos?”
    His father nodded. "That’s it. We’re going to Phobos and set up our observation post there.”
    "But where’s the ship for that?” asked McQueen, still perplexed.
    “I’ve got it,” said Telders. “I’ve got a small space cruiser tucked away under the sands the other side of Solis Lacus. Perrault ordered it some time ago. It’s fueled and capable of making the trip. Phobos is only fifty-eight hundred miles up. Should be an easy trip. We’ve got the equipment for the observation post also. Space tents, telescopes, telephotos, etc.”
    “And enough food for a long stay,” added Parr. “After which we’ll have to raid the storage here some night.”
    “That’s really neat,” said Nelson. “When do we leave?”
    “We can take off any time. I suggest we rest the next few hours, and get ready to take off sometime late tonight,” was the reply. And so it was agreed.

Chapter 5  Phobos
    When the colonists had abandoned their homes, they had had to leave behind almost all of their property, and certainly all of their furnishings. They had room enough only for part of their personal belongings, such as could be carried in a couple of suitcases. So the Parr home was still as fully equipped for human habitation as it had been.
    Telders and McQueen bunked on the soft ruglike floor of the living room. Gutman curled up on the sofalike pallet which was a fixture in all Martian homes. Worden and John Parr used the beds in Nelson's parents’ room, and for the last time, Nelson closed his eyes in brief sleep on his own bed in his own bedroom.
    As he lay there, with the permanently operating atomic clock set for alarm at nightfall, he glanced around at his room. When he had left to embark on the evacuation ship, he had never expected to see his room again. Now, here he was, in his old familiar surroundings—yet how different the outside world was!
    Over his bureau he had stuck a paper-thin banner of the Institute for Space Engineering, the university to which his colonial training school back on Earth had been affiliated. Stuck on the wall in other places were relics of his Martian boyhood, a crudely hand-printed banner of the Solis Lacus General School—the only grammar school on all of Mars. There was a telepaper fix-photo of his father receiving an award for some special research on the desert flora— those queer gray stumpy plants that popped up unexpectedly in odd places of the iron-red barrens. There was a Martian root crawler, one of the few native “bugs,” which Nelse had caught and mounted himself in permanent stasis by means of perfect sterilization of its body cells under a light atomic beam such as was used for preserving meat. Other objects, such as his jumping rod; his spare respirator, too small for him now; his lacrosse stick; and so forth, all of which had been dear to him.
    Nelson turned over, closed his eyes.
    Before he knew it, the whistling of his alarm brought him to his feet. Outside, the sky had turned to a deep blue-black and the sharp bright stars that shone through the thinner Martian atmosphere were burning whitely, as they had never done on Earth. The bulbs in his room were glowing pleasantly as he pulled on his shoes. He caught a glimpse of a tiny crescent moving slowly through the dark sky. That would be Deimos, the smaller moon.
    He joined the others of the party. They raided the pantry left by Nelson's mother and had their last meal on the red planet. There