George Martin - Old Mars

The three of them stood, waiting, for twenty, thirty, forty minutes, then—

“Now!” cried Quedipai, pointing—and suddenly a shadow appeared, stretching from his feet to a previously unseen crevice in the wall of the Crater. “ There is where the entrance will be!”

He actually knew , thought Merlin. Who’d have guessed it?

They approached the crevice, and, as they did so, the sun glinted off something that clearly wasn’t part of the Crater wall.

“Looks like metal,” said Scorpio.

“The top of a railing,” confirmed the Martian.

Scorpio approached it and found himself looking down a long, spiral staircase, the bottom of which was lost in shadows.

“I have found it!” said Quedipai, more to himself than his companions. “They scoffed, and they laughed, and they disbelieved, but I have found it!”

“What you’ve found in the entrance to something ,” said Scorpio, shining a light down the stairs. “Let’s go find out what it is.”

“I will lead,” announced the Martian, beginning to descend the stairs.

Anything alive down there?

Nothing sentient. I think I sense some animals, but I can’t tell what kind .

Given the bad light, they’d better be cuddly .

Scorpio fell into step behind Quedipai. They descended some sixty feet, but to their surprise, they were not immersed in total darkness. The walls seemed to glow with some luminescent property. The light wasn’t bright, but at least they could see their way around, and Scorpio turned off his own light.

Suddenly, Scorpio reached forward and grabbed Quedipai by the shoulders, pulling him backward until the Martian was sitting awkwardly on the stairs.

“Why did you do that?” he demanded angrily. “I told you I would lead.”

“Yeah,” said Scorpio, “but I thought you’d like your head and your body to lead in concert.”

“What are you talking about?”

Scorpio pointed to a thin, knife-sharp, almost invisible metal fiber stretched across the stairway. “You walk into that at normal speed, moving down the stairs, you’ll be decapitated.”

“I apologize for my outburst of temper,” said Quedipai. He stared at the fiber. “How did you know to look for it?”

Scorpio pointed to a headless Martian body at the base of the stairway, which was finally visible. “You aren’t the first one to enter this place.”

Merlin edged past them, descended the stairs, and examined the body.

It’s mummified. It’s been here at least for centuries, possibly for millennia .

When they had reached the bottom of the stairs and walked around the body, Scorpio turned to Quedipai. “That’s probably not the only booby trap down here. You’d better let me go first. Merlin will guard the rear.”

“I consent,” replied the Martian.

Scorpio withdrew his burner and began walking along the corridor that led from the stairwell. The corridor twisted and turned but never branched off, so he had no trouble following it. He was just starting to relax, thinking that the metal fiber might have been the only hazard, when he received a sharp mental warning.

Stop!

He froze, and Quedipai bumped into him, but despite the collision, he stood his ground.

“What is it?” Scorpio said aloud.

Something I’ve never encountered. But it’s approaching .

From in front?

Kind of .

What the hell does that mean?

Above! It’s right over your head!

Scorpio looked up. There was nothing but the top of the corridor, composed of the same faintly glowing stone as the walls.

You’re wrong. There’s nothing there .

Here it comes!

And suddenly, an ugly head with huge, razor-sharp fangs and glowing red eyes burst through the ceiling exactly above Scorpio. He pushed Quedipai back, hurled himself against a wall, and fired at the head. It didn’t quite roar and didn’t quite hiss, but made a sound that was halfway between the two. The burner had blown one of its eyes out and melted a fang, but still it came at him, and as he backed away, firing his weapon, it stretched out to four, five, six, seven feet in length.

Finally, Scorpio extended his weapon and arm in the thing’s direction. It opened its mouth to bite or perhaps swallow both, and he pressed the firing mechanism one last time, burning the beast’s brain to a crisp and blowing a hole in the back of its head.

It hung, motionless, from the ceiling, almost touching the floor, while the trio stared at it.

“What the hell is it?” asked Scorpio.

“Even I cannot pronounce the ancients’ name for it,” answered Quedipai. “It is not quite a snake, because it has very small limbs and claws that are still above the ceiling, but I suppose the closest definition is a cave snake, a snakelike thing that lives within the walls of caves.”

This isn’t a cave , noted Merlin.

Same thing , responded Scorpio. Besides, what difference does it make? You want to call it a tomb snake, be my guest .

Do you get the feeling that these kings don’t want to be disturbed?

Scorpio began walking again, and after another hundred yards the corridor broadened out and the walls actually glowed a little brighter. They finally came to a fork in the corridor, and Scorpio paused, wondering which direction to go.

“This is too easy,” he said at last.

“Easy?” repeated Quedipai, surprised.

Scorpio nodded. “Keep alert and you don’t have a problem on the staircase. And I didn’t have to shoot the snake thing; I could have just run ahead. He can’t go through stone as fast as I can run. Whoever designed this had to know that most intruders would get this far.”

He stared at both corridors again and couldn’t make up his mind. Finally, he retraced his steps to where the dead creature still hung down from the ceiling. Reaching into his boot, he withdrew a wicked-looking knife and soon cut the thing’s head off.

“What are you going to do with that?” asked Quedipai, staring at the severed, mutilated head with horrified fascination.

“You’ll see,” said Scorpio.

He carried the head back to the fork, took a couple of steps into the left-hand corridor, then rolled the head down it like some nightmare bowling ball.

When it had rolled about forty feet there was an audible click! and the floor opened up. The head plunged down into a deep, seemingly bottomless pit.

Did you see where it stopped and started?

Yes. Let me go first, while I’ve still got it pinpointed .

Be my guest .

Merlin began trotting down the corridor. When he had gone just short of forty feet he reached a forepaw out and gently touched the floor.

Nothing happened.

He moved forward another foot and repeated the procedure, and this time the floor opened just as it had for the snake’s head.

Merlin leaped across the pit with ease.

It’s no more than four feet wide , he signaled back. Deep as hell, and the walls are absolutely smooth, so don’t trip .

Scorpio turned to Quedipai. “Can you jump?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” answered the Martian uneasily.

“How can you not know?” demanded Scorpio. “Either you can jump or you can’t.”

“I can jump. But I am very old. I don’t know if I can jump that far.”

“All right,” said Scorpio. “We’ll do it the hard way.”

“The hard way?” repeated Quedipai.

Scorpio scooped the Martian up in his arms, ran down the corridor, and measured his leap to begin a few inches before the pit began. It didn’t sense him and remained shut until he landed on the far edge. The floor dropped away from him, but his momentum carried him forward. As he released his grip on Quedipai, both of them rolled down the corridor behind the pit.