Clifford Simak - Grotto of the Dancing Deer - And Other Stories

For a moment Tom considered trying to reach and close the lock, but he knew, even as he thought of it, that it would prove an impossible feat. Evidently it was Lock Three, a good half mile to the east. It would take too much time to get there and even if he could reach it, he knew that the air currents would sweep him like a straw through the opening into the dread desert where the thin atmosphere made life impossible.

There remained one chance.

Stored in the cars were metal suits for both the Terrestrials and their underlings, the Martians and Moon men. The suits were equipped with a small oxygen generator. The air, as manufactured, was cooled by a miniature refrigerator, similar to the large refrigeration plant in connection with the atmosphere generators under the dome. The suit, supplied with cool air which somewhat offset the heat of the desert, served well enough for short excursions from the dome or a car, but it was doubtful if a man could cover even ten miles of burning desert sands in one of them.

While encased in one a man could neither eat nor drink. The thought of hours without water was appalling, but there was little that could be done about it. It was the one chance—if the mutineers had not thought to also destroy the suits. Luckily in a locker of one of the wrecked cars he discovered a number of the suits.

The atmosphere was already becoming rare and his heart was pounding savagely as he donned one of them and switched on the atmosphere generator.

About the suit he strapped his pistol and Jacobs’ sword, and stumbled awkwardly forth, making his way to Lock Three.

Buffeted by the wind which carried with it a shower of fine stones and a cloud of dust, he proceeded through the yard, threaded his way along the streets of the location and found himself on the outskirts of the settlement, having covered about half the distance to the lock.

Behind him he heard a crash as one of the shaft houses, its guys loosened by the pressure of the wind against the tower, toppled to the ground.

Turning to watch he saw the second shaft house tumble, hurling broken boards and splinters far into the air. Sheets of corrugated iron, ripped from the roof of the buildings, gyrated across the yard.

He groaned. Working for many years with the Universal Ore Mining Company, it had become a part of his life, a very personal association. A blow at it was a blow at him. Station Number Nine would probably be completely wrecked by the terrific wind which milled in the great dome. It was wrecked as completely as it would have been by the victorious mutineers, had enough of them been left to effect the destruction.

Gallant men had died defending the station. Men he had known for years. Old McGregor, with his everlasting quid of tobacco and his lion heart. Young Jacobs, a brilliant scientist, a fine young fellow, with his old sword, the sword which now hung at Clark’s side.

Eyes dimmed with tears, he faced about and plodded on.

The atmosphere machine was working well. He knew, however, that discomfort would be his in plenty before many miles had been covered. In the back of his mind lurked a persistent doubt of his ability to make those ten long miles of airless, scorching desert. But these thoughts he kept pushing back, realizing that any such doubts would only serve to minimize his chances of reaching Station Number Eight.

The wind was dying down now, but he walked slowly, knowing it would not be safe to approach the lock too soon, lest he be caught and dashed through the opening to his death.

Behind him the settlement was a mass of wreckage, only the stoutly built atmosphere plant standing.

The terrific air currents, in a few minutes, had decreased in ferocity, and Tom deemed it safe to make his way through the lock, which lay only a short distance ahead. He moved toward it. The air currents still tugged at him, but were steadily dying down.

Reaching the lock Tom noticed that the inner portal was intact, pressed tight against the air chamber, but the outer portal was ripped from its hinges and lay a hundred yards out in the desert, deeply embedded in the sand.

For a moment Tom stood in the air chamber, pondering. If he could close the inner door and the atmosphere plant was still working, he could again bring about a suitable atmospheric condition. He suspected it would take some time to restock the huge dome with life-sustaining air. Just how long, he did not know. He was a geologist, not an engineer. While the plant manufactured the air, he could live in the suit and await the coming of a rescue party.

He grasped the door and slowly pulled it back into its proper position. It came to with a hollow sound, but there was no resounding click as the automatic bolts shot home.

Inside the helmet, Tom’s face paled. The lock was broken, smashed in the course of a diabolic plot on the part of the mutineers to destroy the station. The last chance was gone. The desert was the only remaining hope.

Tom squared his shoulders. If only the desert remained, the desert it would be.

Stepping out of the air chamber, his eyes opened wide. To his left, several hundred yards distant, lying on its side, was the car which had apparently been stolen by the Martians and Selenites.

His heart thumping with excitement Tom hurried forward. Evidently something had happened. Ten to one the poor fools had forgotten that opening the two doors at the same time would be as disastrous to themselves as to those in the dome. The first blast had hurled the car and its occupants to destruction.

Upon reaching the machine he found that three of the ports had been smashed. Looking inside he saw the corpses of six Moon men and two Martians, their eyes wide with terror, their mouths stained with blood.

The hope which had risen in him at the sight of the car vanished as he noted the extent of the damage. Besides the three smashed ports, he saw that some of the machinery was also broken. A slight damage he might have repaired, and righting the car by means of jacks, used it in his enforced trip across the desert.

That hope also was now gone.

For a moment he considered remaining near or in the dome to await the coming of a rescue ship.

Little thought was needed, however, to convince him that it would be a foolhardy thing to do. If the rescue ship did not arrive in three hours they would find his corpse inside the suit, for it was beyond human endurance to remain in one longer. If nothing else, a man would go stark, raving mad from the discomfort and the heat, which, after a time, the miniature refrigerator could not mitigate.

He must tackle the desert. There was no alternative. Perhaps he would reach Shaft Number Eight—perhaps not.

With the sand sliding under his feet and the sun, forever hanging like a huge ball of fire over the eastern horizon, beating pitilessly upon his left side, he started the long trek.

He walked in a world where no living thing existed. On every hand was white and yellow sand as dry as dust, drained long ago of any moisture the surface of the planet may once have held. Here and there lay grotesque piles of boulders. There was no life, not a single tree, or a blade of grass. There was no appreciable atmosphere, no water. It was a dead planet, chained forever to its tyrant master, the sun, its rotation on its own axis slowed down so that one heat-tortured hemisphere eternally faced the sun, while the other, frozen solid and night-ridden forever, stared out into infinite space.

Here, on the twilight belt was the only spot on the planet where man, even with the aid of all the artificial protection at his beck and call, could exist at all. Here, on the rim of the planet, where the rays of the sun were always nearly horizontal, man could live if he had at hand means of creating oxygen and a protection from the semi-vacuum of the desert.