Chapter II

The sun rose on a crystal clear morning and glanced beckoningly from the white expanse that capped the cliffs a few miles distant. Five men were making the trip: Jim and Kaarji, Conley, Wessel and Lewis, the latter, one of the workmen who had had some Polar experience.

The motor-sled parts were light but bulky, and it took a dozen men to transport them across to the cliffs and up into the Cap, where they would be assembled.

"I want to tell you something about Kaarji," Conley said, walking beside Jim as the trek began. "He's not like other Martians, not philosophic and indolent. On the contrary he seems--well, _restless_."

"I know the type," Jim nodded. "I've seen a few of them myself, even in the Capitol City; amazingly energetic for Martians, restless and perpetually wandering as though seeking for--for something vague and unknown even to them."

"That describes Kaarji, all right," Conley nodded emphatically. "Jim, three times in the past year he's left here abruptly and trekked alone up into those Polar wastes. He'd be gone for days and then show up here again, exhausted and brooding, as if he'd just missed his goal. And the last time was with Frank Landor. That mean anything to you?"

Jim shook his head puzzledly.

"Now I wonder," Conley murmured, "what he always finds so interesting up there in that wilderness?"

"Probably doesn't find anything. Maybe he's only--seeking. Perpetually seeking."

"Seeking M'Tonak?"

"Maybe."

Conley scoffed. "Now what would Kaarji do with the emerald of M'Tonak if he did find it? Of what value would it be to _any_ Martian, to the whole dying Martian race?"

"Maybe it isn't the emerald the Martians are interested in."

Conley was startled, glanced sharply at him, but Jim kept his eyes on the huge bulk of Kaarji ahead.

They reached the black cliffs and entered a narrow defile that led gradually upward, tortuously. The rock was a soft, igneous basalt which at times made footing extremely hazardous. After an hour of this Kaarji stopped abruptly in a level place.

They leaned thankfully against the cliff wall, and stared out upon the curving gleam of the Red Desert far below. There the hazes of pinkish dust were beginning to drift and the sun was beginning to bite.

They continued when Kaarji continued. An hour later the air had become a chilling blast sweeping down the widening ravine. Luckily the ascent was becoming less steep as they neared the top. It levelled off into a shallow little gorge, then they were beyond that, emerging out onto the plateau.

Scattered patches of dark rocky terrain showed here, where green growing things struggled pitifully to maintain a meagre existence. Less than a mile away the real Cap began, dazzling white and forbidding.

Reaching there, the two sleds were assembled in a few minutes. The five who were to make the trip now readjusted their packs and put on the priceless coats of Praaka fur, unbelievably light and cold repelling. They also painstakingly tightened the high fabricord leggings Conley had insisted they wear. Jim wondered why, but asked no questions as he followed suit.

The supplies were on the sleds, but each man carried a fully charged electro-pistol and a small, light metal tank strapped to his side.

"Acid spray," Conley explained laconically. "Don't worry, you'll realize the use for it before long."

* * * * *

Now the real trip began.

"Kaarji, you and Lewis take the first sled," Conley instructed. "We'll follow."

The Martian nodded. The motors purred and the sleds moved slowly away.

"Yes, we'll follow him," Wessel murmured. "Just as long as he sticks fairly close to the radite veins, we will. _This_ is what I'm going by." And he touched the little metallic device at his wrist, which Jim knew was susceptible through super-sensitive coils to all radite emanations within a radius of several miles.

Conley frowned but nodded mute agreement. And now for the first time it really dawned on Jim that he and Kaarji were apart from these other men. He and the Martian were up here seeking, not radite deposits, but something else. The same thing but for different reasons. Jim determined to try, at the first opportunity, to probe into that big Martian's mind.

Now they were speeding into the real Polar vastness. Kaarji's sled ahead of them dipped and rose across long icy undulations. The terrain was wide and white and peaceful as far as Jim could see. He began to wonder why men had never been able to penetrate very far up here. Even afoot it ought not to be hard, but this was ridiculously easy! As he huddled there in his place on the sled he was very warm and cozy beneath his coat of Praaka fur. He began to get drowsy....

* * * * *

Jim awoke with a start from the deep, firm depths of somnolence. He was aware that they had been moving for a long time, probably many hours. Now the sky was dark above him and he could see a few stars. But _something_ had shattered his drowsiness to jerk him back to reality, and he wondered what it was.

Then he knew, as it came again. There was a sudden movement beneath them. The sled lurched crazily. Conley was shouting something, as their sled pulled up beside Kaarji's, which was lying half on its side.

The men stepped down. Again there came that sudden movement, and Jim nearly fell! Startled, he looked down and saw that the very ice cap was moving beneath their feet, or rather it was expanding! Long lines began to appear in every direction. As far as he could see, the surface was a vast mosaic pattern.

Conley stood there with his hands on his hips, staring around. Wessel was cursing softly and looked angry.

"This wouldn't have happened," Wessel said, "if you'd taken my advice and left two days ago! Tomorrow it'll be worse. It'll slow us to a walk. We may as well not have brought along any sleds."

"It would've happened anyway!" Conley snapped testily. "It's just our damnable luck that it had to come early this year. I didn't expect this to start for another month yet. Well, we may as well camp here and get a good start in the morning."

Jim looked at the mosaic pattern across the ice and was relieved to see that it had stopped moving. He peered down into a crack an inch wide, where a billowing powdery stuff exuded to spread thinly over the surface. He touched the stuff with his bare hand. It was uncannily different from snow, being infinitely more powdery yet dazzling white and deadly cold.

"You're witnessing the start of the Polar Cap's receding," Conley explained with a wry smile. "It does that twice a year, you know, getting smaller to about half its present size.

"Receding!" Jim exclaimed. "The damn stuff's expanding, you mean."

"It only looks that way. This is just the preliminary. Soon the extreme edges will vanish away and then the entire Cap will begin receding, for some strange reason. When that starts to happen, too bad for any man caught up here. Frankly, Jim, I should say that, if this continues tomorrow, we ought to head back."

That struck an ominous note in Jim's heart, but he said nothing. To return now would mean they must wait several months before making another attempt.

It was while helping to unroll the wide fabricoid mats that Jim felt the sharp, biting pain just above his knee. He ignored it at first. Then it came again, and he looked down. He saw a pale blue, tubular thing about four inches long. It had bitten through his clothing and into his flesh above the knee. Quiescent now, it clung there, and its transparent bluish tint was taking on a crimson flush as it fed upon his blood.

* * * * *

With a loathing horror Jim reached down and pulled the thing from him. It did not come away easily. He flung it to the ice and tried to crush it with his heel. It seemed amazingly rubbery, resilient, as it darted away from under his foot. Then he saw that others had attached to his fabricoid leggings, and were inching their way upward.

Desperately he tried to brush them off, but they clung tenaciously. Another one bit through his trouser leg and into the flesh. It was cold and loathesome to the touch, but he tore it away with his fingers. Then he staggered back, as he saw that the ice was swarming with the things.

"Your acid tube, man, use it!" he heard Conley cry. "That's all that'll stop 'em!"

Already the men were up-ending the sleds, using them as a barricade from behind which they swept the ice with a thin misty spray. Not wishing to chance that acid on his own person, Jim tore the things from his legs one at a time and flung them out into the spray. They writhed and shrivelled and curled upon themselves, lifeless and blackened.

Others were coming up from the crevices now. The ice was a thick, bluish writhing mass of them. Jim added his spray to the others, sweeping it low across the ice. The acid misted and clung there close to the surface, until gradually the greater mass of the bluish things retreated back into the depths.

Kaarji opened a pouch he carried always with him, took out some _tsith_ stems and placed them in his mouth. He arose and stood gazing out to the north. Jim watched him.

"Whew!" Conley gasped, wiping beads of cold perspiration from his brow. "Just in time! Let those things once get a foothold up here and there's no stopping them. I guess we've settled for most of them, though, they won't come again."

"But what the devil are they?" Jim asked. "And how can they subsist in this barren country?"

"It's not so barren. Far below the ice are green growing things, at least this far south there is. Those blue tube-things ride down with the ice twice a year, feed, and then migrate back to the north.

"Vegetarians, eh?" Jim grunted. "Then what were those two chewing on me for?"

"Blood's something comparatively new to them, and it seems to drive them wild. They can sense it for amazing distances. They come flocking beneath the ice to wherever anyone stops. There's a story of an Earthman who was lost up here once, and--Well, never mind. Anyway we'll take turns on guard tonight."

* * * * *

Jim slept fitfully. There were fragmentary nightmares of the ice opening to spew hordes of bluish tube creatures up at him. He was glad when Kaarji awakened him for his turn at guard.

But Kaarji did not return to sleep either. He seemed restless and brooding. He sat beside Jim against one of the sleds, and for a long time there was silence as he stared far out to the north with troubled eyes.

"Jim Landor," he broke the silence at last, "there is one thing I did not tell you."

"I thought there was."

"Frank Landor and I found something. The body of a man in the ice far to the north of here. It had been there a long time."

Jim merely waited for him to go on.

"In his clothing we found some of these." Kaarji fumbled in his pocket, and handed something to Jim.

It was a piece of metal, flat, round and amazingly light. It seemed to have once been part of some ornamentation. What interested Jim, however, was not what it might have been, but rather the metal itself. It was a dull greenish-gray in color and strangely different to the touch from any metal he had ever known. It was somehow reminiscent of radite, but only faintly. In it was a subtle suggestion of--yes, of fabulous strength and power!

In the dim grayness of that Polar night Jim looked at Kaarji and said in a voice he did not recognize as his own:

"Kaarji, do you realize what this means? Up here somewhere there is a city, a former civilization--a M'Tonak! That man you found dead--_he_ reached M'Tonak and was coming back with the news when disaster overtook him! But that might have been many years ago....

"Tell me something, Kaarji. Why have you come up here three times before? Are you seeking M'Tonak?"

"I do not know. Something calls me. Something inside. And I only know that I must go."

"Is that all, just something calling you?"

"That is all. Except that this time it is different. This time I know that I shall reach--whatever is calling me, and I shall not return. I am sure of it."

Jim sat there for a long time, pondering, watching Kaarji pace restlessly back and forth. The Martian was in a strange mood this night. A foreboding mood. Jim gave up puzzling about it, and examined again that strange piece of metal. Here at last was proof of M'Tonak, perhaps the first proof any man outside had ever had! He felt an exuberant hope rising in him.

"Anyway, Kaarji, thanks for telling me about this. Mind if I keep it a while?"

"I want you to have it, Jim Landor."