Lester del Rey - Marooned on Mars

He knew he wasn’t going to leave the old Martian without granting the request that had been in those big eyes. He’d never be able to sleep nights. From Sptz-Rrll’s view, there had been no destruction or thievery; it had been a blinding hope for a rebirth of some of the culture they had once known, and the creature would have been a fool not to do anything he could to gain his ends. At least, there’d been no murdering involved.

Chuck found the right rod and adjusted his flame. He hadn’t worked too much with copper, and he didn’t like the idea. His experience had been with the hardest, toughest allows known. But the equipment would braze copper, and he’d had some training. He spread the housing section on the floor and began depositing metal on it, smoothing it out as best he could. When it was done, he knew it was probably better than the original. One of the impeller blades was cracked off, and he found it among the broken bits Sptz-Rrll had been saving. It was a little more work to braze it back on, but it left the compressor as useful as it had been when it was first finished.

He felt better as he reassembled it and put it on the bench where the creature would be sure to find it. It had taken only a little time.

He glanced down at the indicator on the blower, at the thought of time. It should have been fully charged, but it wasn’t The Martians must have been fascinated by electrical equipment, judging by his burned-out helmet light and these batteries; probably they shorted them to watch the spark.

He had only an hour’s current left. But it should be enough.

He turned to go, getting the welder ready to tackle the door, if it gave him trouble.

The door swung inward as he started toward it, and the Martians began trooping back!

Chuck lifted the torch and let the flame leap out They halted at the sight, and he pointed it at the floor which steamed faintly, dry as it must have been. He pointed it toward them again and started forward.

They gave ground slightly, studying the situation out of their huge eyes, but without any sign of real fear. Here, on their home ground, the grab and run tactics they used on the surface were not even considered.

They drew backward, keeping as far to the side as they could, so that he had to watch every move they made. They were out of the workshop now, backing down the tunnel. Here the only light was from the torch, and it was a poor one. He’d been staring at it too intently—the plastic of his helmet could save him from the dangerous ultra-violet radiation of the torch, but it couldn’t help his eyes adjust to both the bright spot of light and the shadows around.

The torch sputtered. It came on again, and again it sputtered. This time it went out, leaving him in darkness. He’d forgotten to check the tanks and it had simply run out of fuel.

Knowing the reason didn’t help him any. Knowing that whatever the Martians pilfered seemed to be about to stop working hadn’t helped him, either.

He leaped backward toward the workshop, then reversed field, and plunged forward blindly into them. But it was a useless trick. Hands shot out toward him with the sureness of certain vision, and equally certain knowledge that he couldn’t see. They piled onto him in a mad scramble, avoiding his flailing arms, and always beyond reach of his kicking legs.

A sudden shortness of breath warned him that they had found his vulnerable point. He stopped moving, before they shut off the blower intake completely. There was no use fighting when the other side had all the trumps.

Chuck let them walk him back into the workshop without any attempt to resist them. They chirped busily over the broken cords he had left, and reached a quick decision. Two of them began unfastening the straps of the welder harness, while-three more came up with the unpleasant-looking weapon they had used to threaten him before.

He held out his hands without protest. The straps tightened on his wrists and were gathered neatly into a knot that he could not hope to work loose. Others took care of his legs.

This time there would be no breaking away. He’d played his best trick, and they’d beaten him.

Sptz-Rrll appeared finally, staring mournfully at the empty welder. His eyes were accusing, but the shrug he gave was the same as it had been before. The little Martian turned back to his bench.

He stopped, staring at the compressor, and a torrent of chirps came from his vocal cords, or whatever he used. Chuck’s eyes narrowed as the Martians gathered around, examining the repaired mechanism. If they felt gratitude…

Sptz-Rrll put the compressor back on the table while the others returned to their work. The creature moved over to stare at the dial that indicated the charge remaining in Chuck’s battery. A small hand came up over a round mouth, while the chest heaved and contorted, showing every symptom of strangling.

Then he shrugged and walked casually out the entrance.

Chuck pulled his knees up and dropped his helmet against them. In his ears, the faint whir of the blower made a background to his thoughts, reminding him of the minutes ticking away. It seemed that his whole life had been made up of minutes ticking away and reprieves that came to nothing. But this one hurt more than all the others.

Sptz-Rrll was only a Martian, and Chuck had been wrong in expecting human motivation of him; he knew that now. He’d read too much into mannerisms which might have had nothing to do with the emotions he’d believed them to mean. He’d been almost certain that the Martian would show gratitude in some way; he’d even begun to like the creature, even though he was a captive. To have his death dramatized and then shrugged off as unimportant…

Rule for understanding alien races: Don’t read human feelings into nonhuman actions!

Sokolsky could probably have saved him the trouble of learning it the hard way. Sokolsky would have gone off on a long lecture on the subject.

Sptz-Rrll came back as casually as he had left, carrying a heavy porcelain plate in his hands. The others immediately dropped what they were doing to cluster around, with soft twitting and chirping noises. Then the old Martian came over toward Chuck and bent down to begin unfastening his bonds!

For the second time in one minute, Chuck cursed his own foolishness. He’d been making up a rule—which he violated while he thought of it; he’d been taking it for granted that the first interpretation of Sptz-Rrll’s shrugging gesture had been the only possible one, because it seemed completely human.

Or was he still misinterpreting, and not being freed, after all?

The Martian put an end to that worry almost at once. He squatted on the floor and drew a square, waving his hand around the workshop to indicate that it was being symbolized. A series of zigzag lines followed. At the other end, there was a crude sketch of the space ship.

Sptz-Rrll stood up then and reached for one of Chuck’s hands. Without more ceremony, he headed for the entrance which opened at once. Five of the other Martians followed as they moved into the darkened tunnels; each of them carried one of the illuminating squares Chuck had seen on the walls.

The squares gave off only a dim, weak light, but it was enough for him to see. The way was twisting, as they struck down side passages, through straight sections and curves, and seemed to wander aimlessly. It was probably exactly as Sptz-Rrll had drawn it, and he had no reason to doubt that it was the shortest route to the ship.

He wondered whether they had known of his wanderings around the tunnels before? If they had, why hadn’t they made an earlier effort to capture him? He tried to find some way to ask it of the Martian, but it was too complicated.