The Martian Cabal Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  _Torture_

  When Sime awoke it was to the rattling of the door. Murray stirred.The light was even weaker than before.

  "If they offer you a drink, drink hearty!" Murray muttered, sittingup. "I've got an idea it's going to be a hard day."

  But they were not offered any water. Instead they were again conductedbefore Scar Balta, who looked at them morosely. At last he remarkedgruffly:

  "If you tin sojers weren't so cursed stubborn, you could get yourselfa nice berth in the Martian army. Ever consider that?"

  "Talk sense!" Sime said contemptously. "If I threw down the servicehow could you trust me?"

  "That'd be easy," Balta rejoined. "Once the I. F. P. finds out youjoined us you'd have to stick with us to save your skin."

  He laughed at his prisoners' look of surprise.

  "Come, come!" he bantered. "You didn't think that I was ignorant ofyour purpose here? You, Murray; your spying was excellent, I'll admit.You were the first to give away certain plans of ours. Well, well! Wedon't hold that against you. Wheels within wheels, eh? It wouldperhaps astonish certain braided gentleman of our high command tolearn that I, a mere colonel, control their destinies. As ourancestors would say, it's dog eat dog.

  "Now, how about it? I can make a place for you in my organization. Itseems to run to secret service, oddly enough. You will be rewarded farbeyond anything you could expect in your present career of chasingpetty crooks from Mercury to Pluto and back again."

  "Is that all?" Murray asked softly, with a bearded grin.

  "Oh no. You will turn over to me all the information you can about theI. F. P. helio code. You will name and describe to me each and everyplainclothes operative of the service--and you should have anextensive acquaintance."

  "Before you answer," Murray said quietly at Sime's side, "let mesuggest that you consider what's in store for us--or you--if you don'ttake up this offer."

  "Why, you--" Sime whirled in astonished fury upon his companion."Didn't you--"

  * * * * *

  But he did not complete his reference to last night's surreptitiousconversation. It seemed that he saw the merest ghost of a flicker inMurray's left eye.

  "--Didn't you say you'd stick no matter what they did?" he finishedlamely.

  Murray hung his head.

  "I'm getting along," he muttered. "Not as young as I used to be. Thislife is getting me nowhere. Why be a fool? Come along with me!"

  "Why, you dirty, double-crossing hound!" Sime's exasperation knew nobounds. For an instant he had believed that Murray was enacting alittle side-play in the pursuit of a suddenly conceived plan. But helooked so obviously hangdog--so guiltily defiant....

  _Crack!_ Sime's fist struck Murray's solid jaw, scraping the skin offhis knuckles, but Murray swayed to the blow, sapping its force, andcame in to clinch. They rolled on the floor. Murray twisted Sime'shead painfully, bit his ear. But in the next split second he waswhispering:

  "Keep your head, Sime. Can't you see I'm stringing him? Take that!"And he planted a vicious short hook to Sime's midriff.

  Balta had squalled orders, and now Martian soldiers were bursting thebuttons off their uniforms in the scrimmage to separate the battlers.Bruised and battered, they were dragged apart. Murray's one eye wasnow authentically closed, and rapidly coloring up. Unsteadily he gotto his feet. With mock delicacy he threw a kiss to his lateantagonist.

  "Farewell, Trueheart!" He bowed ironically, and the men all laughed.

  Balta grinned too. "Still the same mind, Hemingway? All right, men,take him up to the observation post. Here, Murray, have a drink."

  * * * * *

  Sime was led up a seemingly endless circular staircase. After aninterminable climb he saw the purplish Martian sky through the glassdoors of an airlock. Then they were outside, in the rarefiedatmosphere that sorely tried Sime's lungs, still laboring after thefight and long ascent. The Sun, smaller than on Earth but intenselybright, struck down vindictively.

  "A good place to see the country," laughed the corporal in charge."Off with his clothes!"

  It was but a matter of seconds to strip Sime's garment from him. Theydragged him to an upright post, one of several on the roof, and withhis back to the post, tied his wrists behind it with rawhide. Hisankles they also tied, and so left him.

  It was indeed an excellent point of vantage from which to see thecountry. The fortress was high enough to clear the nearby cliffs oflow elevation, and on all sides the Gray Mountains tumbled to thehorizon. To the north, beyond that sharply cut, ragged horizon, laythe big cities, the industrial heart of the planet. To the south, atSime's back, was the narrow agricultural belt, the region of smallseas, of bitter lakes, of controlled irrigation. Here the canals,natural fissures long observed by astronomers and at first believed tobe artificial, were actually put to the use specified by ancientconjecture, just as further north they had been preempted as causewaysof civilization. Sime painfully worked his way around the post so thathe could look south. But here too nothing met his eye but the orangecliffs with their patches of gray lichen. There was no comfort to behad in that desolate landscape. Nevertheless, Sime kept movingaround, to keep the post between himself and the Sun. Already it wasbeginning to scorch his skin uncomfortably.

  By the time it was directly overhead Sime had stopped sweating. Thedry atmosphere was sucking the moisture out of his body greedily, andhis skin was burned red. His suffering was acute.

  * * * * *

  The Martian day is only a little more than a day on Earth, but to Simethat afternoon seemed like an eternity. Small and vicious, with deadlydeliberation, the sun burned its way down a reluctant groove in thepurple heavens. Long before it reached the horizon, Sime was almostunconscious. He did not see its sudden dive into the saw-edge of thewestern mountains--knew only that night had come by the icy whistle ofthe sunset wind that stirred and moaned for a brief interval among therocks. The keen, thin wind that first brought relief and then newtortures, to be followed by freezing numbness.

  Above, in the blackness, the stars burned malignantly. Drug to hismisery they were, those familiar constellations, which are about theonly things that look the same on all planets of the solar system. Butthey were not friendly. They seemed to mock the motionless humanfigure, so tiny, so inconsequential, that stared at them, numeroustiny pinpricks of light, so remote.

  There was no dawn, but after aeons Sime saw the familiar green disk ofEarth coming up in the east, one of the brightest stars. Sime fanciedhe saw the tiny light flick of the moon. There would be a game ofblackjack going on somewhere there about now. He groaned. The Sunwould not be far behind now.

  But he must have slept. The Sun was up before he was aware of it. Aman with a caduceus on his blouse collar was holding his wrist,feeling his pulse. He seemed to be a medical officer of the Martianarmy. His smooth, coral face was serious as he prodded Sime'sshriveled tongue.

  "Water, quick!" he snapped,--"or he's done for."

  * * * * *

  His head was tipped back and water poured into his mouth, but Simecould not swallow. The soldier with the bucket poured dutifully,however, almost drowning the helpless man. It helped, anyway; and Simereturned to half-consciousness. A few minutes later, when Scar Baltacame to inquire if he had changed his mind, Sime was able to cursethickly. And around noon, when Murray, jauntily dressed in the uniformof a Martian captain, bid him a cheerful good-by, Sime was almostfluent.

  His torture had now reached the pitch of exquisite keenness that madeit something spiritual. Solicitously they kept him alive, and far backin his mind Sime wondered why they bothered to do that. Couldn't theybe satisfied with what they could learn from Murray?

  So passed the second day, and the third.

  On the fourth day Sime was able to drink water freely, and to eat thefood they placed into his mouth, a fact which the medical officernoted. The torture was w
earing itself out. Sime's body was emaciated,stringy, burnt black. But his extraordinary toughness was weatheringconditions that would kill most men. Balta shook his head inwonderment when this was reported to him.

  "Can't wait any longer for him. Must get back to Tarog. You might aswell put him out of his misery. By the way, I'm convinced that Murrayis double-timing me. But I'll attend to that personally."

  From his post of pain Sime saw the official car leave toward Tarog.Had he known of Balta's remark he would not have been puzzled so muchby what he saw.

  As the ship was about to disappear over the ragged northern horizon,Sime's bleared eyes saw, or he thought they saw, a human figuresilhouetted against the pitiless sky. It was a tiny-seeming figure atthat distance, but it was clear-cut in the rare atmosphere. Then itplunged from sight.

  "Somebody taken for a ride," he muttered, half grateful for the briefdistraction from his own misery.

  * * * * *

  The medical officer, to whom the long climb was arduous, delayed hismission to the roof, and that was why, several hours later, Sime wasstill alive to see another ship appear to the north. It was large,sumptuous, evidently a private yacht. Its course would bring it withina mile of the fortress, and with sudden wild hope Sime realized thatif he were seen he might expect relief. He began to tug at his bonds.They were tough, but they would stretch a little. His haphazardmovements had already worn them against the rough post, and now hebegan to struggle violently. If he could only get his hands loose, hecould wave....

  The thongs cut into his flesh, but his wrists were numb and swollen,and he did not mind the pain. His muscles stood out hard and sharp,and with a supreme effort, aided by the growing brittleness of therawhide in the dry atmosphere, he snapped his bonds.

  The ship was now quite near, and he waved frantically. He fancied hesaw movement back of the pilot ports. Faintly he heard the hum of thelevitators. Now it turned--no! It yawed, now toward him, now away,purposelessly, like a ship in distress. It made an abrupt downwardplunge that scraped a crag, and just missed a canyon wall.

  Again it twisted, came down with a long, twisting motion, struck arock upside down, slitting a long gash in its skin, clattered to therocks so close to the fortress that Sime could not see it. Nowdesperation gave the prisoner superhuman strength. Regardless of thepain, he burst the thongs about his ankles, tottered to the edge ofthe roof.

  There was a battle going on below. Men seemed to be running, shouting.Someone, using a massive plate of metal as a partial shield againstthe neuro-pistols, was creating havoc. Sime tried to focus his giddyeyes on the scene. It seemed always to be turning to the left, to becircling around him. With tottering steps he tried to follow it,keeping to the brink of that lofty tower--uselessly. Now it wasrocking, flying straight toward him, and, gratefully, Sime gave up thestruggle, closed his eyes.