Chapter I: Front Matter

MISTS OF MARS

By GEORGE A. WHITTINGTON

"Kill all Martians," the orders read. "They
are savages, and have no rights." But Special
Investigator Barry Williams and Princess
Deisanocta had other plans--plans that would
bring destruction to the despoilers by
releasing an age-old justice from the Crypts.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Barry Williams watched the last sunshine lance across the red sands of the Martian Desert. The sun dropped abruptly behind the flat horizon. With the black curtain of night, the usual sharp chill came to the thin Martian atmosphere.

The cold bit into Williams through the warm ore-seeker's outfit he'd adopted for this venture. He laughed suddenly, realizing why he noticed the cold. His body was tense, rigid. Unconsciously he was crouching, waiting, eyes narrowed, one heavily-gloved hand on his ray gun.

With the laugh, Barry relaxed, although his sharp blue eyes never ceased their wary sweep over the rolling sands. His hand dropped from the weapon. It would be useless anyway against the deadly white mist, for which he waited.

That it would come, Barry never doubted. It was known and dreaded by Earthmen in every Terrestrial Center on the red planet. In the past few weeks, Earthmen had disappeared, vanishing for the last time into the Martian night. Whispers said the white mist, the pale nemesis, sucked the life from them.

Only once had Earthmen seen the mist and lived to tell of it. A spaceship, beating toward one of the Centers on a night flight from a desert camp, had passed over a pale patch on the red sand. Its occupants, in their haste did not stop to investigate. Only later, telling of the strange sight, did they realize it had been mist--on a planet too arid for water vapor. Only then did they remember seeing an Earthman making his way on foot toward the same Center, within the patch.

Barry Williams' searching glance covered the terrain once more. Deimos, the smaller moon, was already high. The larger, swifter Phobos was rapidly overhauling its companion. Under their light, the scene was clear. But it was so every night on Mars, yet Earthmen who ventured into the desert at night died! Barry waited.

He waited as had the occupants of that Center for the man to come in and tell the story of that strange light patch against the red sand. In the morning a searching party brought in his body. The story would never be told by him.

Nor by any other Earthman, it seemed. Later, a spaceship again sighted the mist, and radioed that it was landing to investigate. Again, Earthmen, now frightened and grim, waited through the Martian night. Once more, a daylight searching party found only the dead.

"Ain't fer human understandin'," one superstitious miner whispered in awed tones. "Twenty year I bin on this cursed planet--nor ever heerd the like o' this."

"It's clear enough for me," answered a pink-cheeked youngster up to Mars to make a fortune in rich ore dust. "I stay off the desert at night. Only the miserable Martians can live out there then."

"Justice from the Crypt," a third muttered, quoting the threat of an old Martian, dying from wounds he'd received fighting Earthmen. "It's like from the grave--this mist, the way it creeps from the sand white and ghosty!"

That was the spirit Barry Williams, special investigator for the Terrestrial Bureau of Martian Affairs, found when he arrived. Behind the fear were rumors, dead bodies, nothing more. At first, he'd blamed superstition and the natural hazards of work in the desert. But now he was here in the desert at night, waiting.

* * * * *

It wasn't for this he'd been sent to Mars, Barry told himself half-angrily. His mission here was important. But this threat to all Terrestrials on Mars was ominous. There were no government agencies to deal with the threat here. Mars was just a frontier where untold riches lay for the taking beneath some of the red sand.

The sullen, cowed Martians, working at the bigger mines, or following their nomadic courses across the desert no longer attempted an organized government. Despite their great majority in numbers, the Martians played no part in running the planet. How they must be rejoicing now, Barry thought, as death stalked their conquerors, death striking from the desert in the night.

Suddenly, Williams felt an icy tingle course through his blood. His hand dropped again to his ray gun, tore it from the holster. He stood erect, fighting an urge to crouch low against the danger.

Along the crest of the sand-swell before him, something was rising. Bright moonlight shimmered as the rays broke against a pale barrier.

To the right, the left, behind him, it was the same. The white mist was rising, surrounding him. Escape was cut off. Even to reach his nearby spaceship was impossible without cutting through. Barry tried to relax. There was nothing to do but wait.

He remembered the words of the old Martian desert wanderer to whom he'd spoken. This man had once been a chieftain, before the conquest of Mars by Earth. His keen black eyes had bored into Barry.

"If you wish the answer," he'd advised, "go into the desert at night. _You_ are different--_you_ may return. I can tell you no more."

Thicker grew the mist. A silver blanket, wrapping closer and closer about Barry Williams. The moons and the barren landscape were blotted out. All perspective vanished. High above, a tiny patch of stars was visible--perhaps for the last time to Williams.

He gripped the ray gun tighter. The strange white blanket touched his skin now--seemed to press against him with a great weight. He raised the gun grimly, then a picture flashed into his mind.

One of the bodies that had come out of the desert had been shown him. The dead fingers still gripped a ray gun. They had crushed against the trigger for a long time--until the badly overheated weapon had at last burned out, charring the unfeeling hand that had held it. But the power that had brought oblivion had stood up against the ray.

With a grim smile, Barry replaced his weapon. The blanket was tight around him now. He could see nothing. His limbs grew numb under overpowering lethargy. His lungs labored, sucking in the mist. Consciousness wavered. He reeled, stiffly. His muscles hardened, his braced feet sinking deep into the sand.

Before his glazing eyes, a strange picture formed in the mist. A beautiful Martian maiden, tall, slim, majestic--veiled in silver mesh. On her lovely features was a look of stern judgment.

* * * * *

Was it fancy, or did the chanting of voices ring in his ears, muffled weirdly by the shroud about him? "Day--ees--a--nocta----Day--ees--a--nocta."

The picture, the sounds faded. At last his knees sagged. He pitched face downward into the red sand.

For what seemed a long time, Barry Williams floated in darkness. Then, to a tiny corner of his mind, consciousness returned. He fought to retain it. The mist, he realized dimly, did not harm the body--it paralyzed. While he could think, the battle was not lost. He called upon the deep reserves of his mind.

Suddenly he was aware of sand digging painfully into the skin of his face--the first physical sensation he'd know since he slumped forward into oblivion. Hands tugged at his body, and the sting of the sand was gone from his nostrils. He had been rolled over onto his back.

Wild hope surged through Barry. He struggled against the leaden weight on his eyelids--without success. His muscles did not respond. He tried to move an arm--a leg--a finger. It was no use. Slowly, he realized what had happened.

Some power ruled his mind--had overcome it while he was unconscious. For some reason, he had been _allowed_ to regain a very limited consciousness--just so much and no more! Perhaps he would learn the answer to this mystery. Why had the white mist not destroyed him?

A murmur of voices beat against his ears. He'd been given back his hearing! The voices were low, soft. They spoke in a language foreign to him--Martian he guessed. Words faded away. There was a moment's silence, then the chant he had heard before.

Above Barry, a voice spoke to him in inter-planetary Esperanto:

"Son of Earth, you are not as the other Earthmen who come here to rob this unhappy planet, and slay its children."

The voice was that of a woman, clear, musical, unutterably sweet--pathetically sad. It paused; spoke again. A new note crept into the words, ringing, thrilling:

"Go your way--leave in peace, but travel far from this planet. The Mist of Mars will destroy all those who remain to despoil and murder here."

Williams felt consciousness slipping from him once more. He struggled to speak. He must speak! These people must be told of his mission here!

But his lips would not move. Struggle was useless. Feeling was gone from his body. The last sound he heard was the voice of a man, deep and full:

"Heed the warning of the Mother of Mist. This once you have been spared."