Chapter VI

"Up on your feet, every man of you! Test your oxygen tanks--quickly!" Her voice was tense with suppressed emotion.

Something in her tone seemed to cut a path through the heat-ridden lethargy of their minds, for the men staggered to their feet, hands fumbling for the testing buttons.

Mark found his, and his eyes darted to the tiny dial inside his helmet. The pointer swung and registered _one hour_. Frantically he pressed the button again; once more the pointer inexorably indicated the same period of time.

"One hour!" he breathed, stunned. That was barely a third of the time it would take to return to the Base! Out of the dancing mirage before him the alabaster face of Aladdian seemed to float and smile. With infinite, pain-laden regret Mark realized that unless a miracle happened he would never see her again, and now for the first time it dawned on him how much he wanted to.

Around him the men were milling in confusion, panic-stricken. Their few hours' stay at the Base had been like a brief taste of heaven, and life had become precious once more.

"All of us can't get back," the Commander was saying. "But there's enough oxygen among us to permit seven, at most eight, to do so. I'm willing to draw lots with the rest of you. But decide quickly! Every instant is precious!"

"No!" a man screamed hysterically, near the breaking point. "I'd rather take my chances...." His voice ended in a hoarse sob.

Then a strange thing happened. Ernest Carston, white-faced and unsteady, stepped forward.

"You can take my supply, Commander Cynthia," he offered. "You need not draw lots; let the men do that."

She waved him aside and shook her head, but her eyes softened gratefully. She glanced at the teletimer at her wrist. "I will give you men just thirty seconds to make your decision; otherwise I will be forced to make it."

But from the group came no decision, only sullen argument and frantic babbling. Some of them measured the distance between them and the girl, eying hungrily the atom-blast guns at either side of her wrist.

"What a woman!" Carston murmured to himself, lost in admiration. But Mark heard him.

"Yes, she is magnificent," he agreed in a dry croak. "A pity all that courage and...." He checked himself and fell dully silent again.

It was then that Mark saw something or thought he did, far away, shimmering through the dancing heat. He wiped the sparkling dust from his visiplate and strained his eyes desperately, praying that it was not a mirage. He clutched at Carston and pointed.

"The hills ... are those the hills? _Our hills?_"

Carston nodded dumbly. At last he managed to croak, "Yes, but the entrance is miles away ... at the other end."

"But there may be a chance! Remember Aladdian, the corridors--a honeycomb of caverns? Commander!" Mark turned up his radio-phone, his voice drowning out the babble of the men. "How far is that range of hills, Commander?"

She followed his pointing arm. "A little less than an hour, at its closest point."

"And the system of caverns--how far does it extend? Aren't those hills practically honeycombed their entire length? We might find--"

"Wait!" The word came explosively, as her mind darted into the past, down the corridor of years. "Yes, I remember ... some of the caverns did lead out to this side, and father sealed them to make the Base airtight...." She gazed at the distant hills as if trying to recapture a forgotten scene. And a bulky shape hurtled forward, clawing for the weapons at her waist.

But Carston had been watching. He thrust out a metal-shod foot and the convict went sprawling ludicrously into the swirling white dust.

"Thank you, again!" the Commander said in a whisper. "This trip has been a revelation--in so many ways." Her face was as white as the powdery soil underfoot, and she was near collapse; but from some unknown source she still drew from enough strength reserve to maintain her authority. Hands on her atom-blast guns, she faced the men.

"Into line as before. We've got to make the hills in less than one hour. Leave the sleds. It's the hills or your lives!"

The effect was miraculous. Suddenly they were docile, grasping at the slender hope she offered them and content to have her bear the burden. Quickly they fell into line, with Vulc leading the way again. The men needed no urging; the knowledge that they only had one more hour of oxygen was enough.

* * * * *

If their trek up to now had been a nightmare, this latter stage surpassed even the most secret refinements of a Martian torture-chamber. In an agony of slowness the minutes lengthened and seemed to stand still. The low range of hills seemed to dance mockingly and recede into the distance beyond the horizon's endless rim. In addition now to the heat in their brains and the glare in their eyes, their lungs were tortured as they regulated the oxygen intake-valves to the barest minimum.

After an eternity in which even memory seemed to have fled, they were walking on rock and the heat began imperceptibly to abate. Directly before them, the hills rose out of the torturing blaze. Cries that were little more than miserable croakings echoed through the radio-phones as the men broke ranks; they staggered on, holding to each other for support.

Mark looked around for the Commander, and saw her clutching at Carston's shoulder for support, while his arm was about her waist, half-holding her up. The girl disengaged herself and by sheer will-power drove toward the base of the low-lying cliffs before them.

"Wait!" she ordered.

She stopped, and the men halted behind her, weaving on their feet. She stared around us as if desperately trying to recall something deeply imbedded in the matrix of the past; then she veered to the right, waving for Vulc and the men to follow.

Mark tested his oxygen tank and glanced at the dial again. It read "ten minutes." It was a race with time which now, perversely, seemed to be rushing by on flying feet.

Thirty yards further, the cliffs curved in sharply. Rounding it, the Commander gave a glad cry. In the center was a gigantic metal door, hermetically sealing what had once been the entrance to a cave. The men staggered forward, some of them clawing feebly at the barrier. Others sank wordlessly to the rocky ground. They weren't even sure that beyond that metal wall they would find life-giving air.

The Commander had drawn both atom-pistols, and stood there surveying the barrier as if paralyzed.

"What are you waiting for?" Mark pressed forward. "In minutes, the men will be dying! Blast an opening!"

For the very first time, Mark saw her hesitant, indecisive, as if unable to think. "But the air ..." she managed to gasp. "It will escape from the caves, clear back to the Base! All those men there ... and father ... their lives are more important than ours!"

* * * * *

In those brief seconds Mark admired her. Despite the deadly threat to the Earth she embodied, he admired her for her humanity and loyalty to the men at the Base. But there was no time to lose. He made her decision superfluous.

"We've got to chance it!" With a swift, darting movement he wrested an atom-blast gun from her hand and discharged it steadily at the metal door, at a point just above the ground. A second later she was helping him with the other gun. Instantly the metal turned fiery red, then white, and finally a circular section fell outward with a hissing rush of air.

"Dive in, men!" With the dregs of a strength he didn't know he still possessed, Mark grasped the men and pushed them toward the aperture, helped shove them through. "Throw your helmets back!" he shouted. "In you go," he told the Commander, and despite her protests he lifted her off her feet, almost handing her through the blasted entrance.

Only Vulc and Mark were left. As the Earthman crawled through, he motioned for Vulc to follow. The metallic being dropped to all fours and pushed in his arms, his head, his massive shoulders. His sides scraped the still hot edges of the aperture. And there he stuck. The men inside grasped his arms and pulled, but in vain. Vulc gazed ludicrously from side to side and heaved prodigiously, but in vain. The Vulcanian seemed molded to the hole.

"Wait! Tell him not to struggle, not to move!" Mark was exultant as he turned to the girl. "The air's no longer rushing away; if he'll only remain there until we can get back with equipment to seal that hole, the danger's over!"

Vulc seemed to be pondering; his limbs sprawled like a distorted swastika, and on his usually blank, fluid face was something like surprise. In the dim recesses of his alien mind he could find no parallel to this.

The Commander spoke to him slowly, with desperate emphasis; reaching into a pocket of her suit, she brought out another package of powdered metal which Vulc promptly stuffed into his mouth. "He understands," she said at last. "But I'll leave one of you here with him, to be certain he does."

For a while they rested, lying prone, helmets thrown back, luxuriating in the comparative coolness and the draughts of pure air. All were thirsty, their throats parched and aching. But the nightmare was over. Presently the Commander rose to her feet and gave the order to march. She was almost her usual self again, detached, impersonal. But she was white to the lips and her eyes were electric as she said:

"Luhor will pay for this!"

She barely breathed it, but Mark heard her. And he knew what she meant. It was Luhor who had prepared the units of oxygen for the suits.