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

the desert.
    Nelson smiled suddenly, oddly, as he looked down. McQueen, near him, said, “What’s the joke, son?” Nelson looked up at the burly engineer. “It suddenly struck me,” he replied, “to wonder who else saw us leave.”
    “Nobody, I hope,” said McQueen. “Wouldn’t be a smart thing for them to know we’re still around.”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” said Gutman, glancing down. “Even if we were seen, they’d probably only suppose we were the last and going home also.”
    “Come to think of it,” said Nelson, “we are really the last. There’s nobody left on Mars at all. Nobody.” “Hmm,” said John Carson Parr, looking thoughtful, “in a way this represents a real defeat for humanity, our first retreat from space. This is the first time in a century that there hasn’t been a single Earthman on this world. Though we ourselves may return for a while, right now that world is empty again. As empty as it must have been for who knows how many thousands of our years.”
    “Ah, well,” said McQueen, “we’ll return. We’ve got to. You can’t keep an Earthman down for long!”
    The red planet receded slowly, its horizon spreading out as they penetrated the now black airless sky outside the atmosphere belt. Covering all the sky beneath them, it seemed like a dark flat surface blotting out the stars. Far to one edge, Nelson could see the rosy glow that was the line of the coming day. The surface of nighttime Mars was not black, seen as close as they were, but shone a dull blue-gray, broken with dark patches where its vegetation continents and canal streaks showed.
    The trip continued with little conversation, for every man seemed buried in his thoughts. Nelson watched the sky carefully until at long last he caught sight of the thin crescent that was their destination. He watched it, knowing that the ship and the moon were racing together, apparently to collide.
    Now Telders began navigating the ship, changing its speed, slowing it down, bringing it into an orbit nearly parallel with that of the little satellite. They raced along like a small moon themselves, with the larger body coming up fast behind them.
    After another half hour, the sphere of Phobos was filling their outer view. Now they had the illusion of gliding along just over it, and Telders skillfully brought the ship closer and closer, changing his speed delicately until at last they were skimming low over a flat rocky plain.
    The ship dropped steadily until it seemed to be hanging over the surface, and Nelson could see the small rocks and cracks that marked the surface of the satellite. Now, with ease, Telders brought the ship down and very gently it settled to a landing on Phobos.
    They got up from their seats and the sensation was as if they were still in deep space. They seemed to be without weight. “Easy does it,” called out John Parr. “Carry yourselves as if in weightlessness. This hunk of rock is only ten miles in diameter. Our weight is in fractions of a pound, don’t count on it.”
    They swung around the cabin, gathering their possessions.
    “Everybody know how to use spacesuits?” asked Parr. The question was merely academic. Without further ado, the six of them climbed into the new lightweight, completely pressurized and regulated suits that were a feature of this stage of space-flight history. Nelson had learned the use of these suits and had worn them in space chambers in training. He climbed into his own, tested its fitting, fitted the transparent bowl helmet over his head and heard it click tight to his neck and chest connections. The air clearance valves instantly opened, the helmet radio promptly snapped on, and it was as if he were standing amid his friends in normal surroundings.
    “No time to waste,” said Parr. “Everybody take a load with him the first time we go out. We’ll make this ship our home, but the observatory has got to be outside. Let’s get