Galactic Dreams

And then the thought hit him. A horribly impossible thought that froze the breath in his throat. The thoughts whirled round and round and he knew they were wrong because they were so incredible. Yet he had to find out, even if it meant ruining their mechanical toy.

Keeping his foot carefully on the thing’s legs, he slipped the sharpened table knife out of his pouch and bent over. With a single, swift motion he stabbed.

“What the devil are you doing?”

Hal asked, coming up behind him. Tony couldn’t answer and he couldn’t move. Hal walked around him and looked down at the thing on the ground.

It took him a second to understand; then he screamed.

“It’s alive? It’s bleeding and there are no gears inside. It can’t be alive-if it is we’re not on Earth at all — we’re on Mars!”

He began to run, then fell down, screaming.

Tony thought and acted at the same time. He knew he only had one chance. If he missed they’d both be dead. Hal would kill them both in his madness. He rolled the sobbing man onto his back. Balling his fist, he let swing as hard as he could at the spot just under Hal’s breastplate. There was just the thin fabric of the suit here and that spot was right over the big nerve ganglion of the solar plexus. The thud of the blow hurt his hand — but Hal was silenced. Putting his hands under the other’s arms, he dragged him into the ship.

Hal started to come to after Tony had stripped him and laid him on the bunk. It was impossible to hold him down with one hand and press the freeze cycle button at the same time. He concentrated on holding Hal’s one leg still while he pushed the button. The crazed man had time to hit Tony three times before the needle lanced home into his ankle. He dropped back with a sigh and Tony got groggily to his feet. The manual actuator on the frozen sleep had been provided for any medical emergency so the patient could survive until the doctors could work on him back at base. It had proven its value.

Then the same unreasoning terror hit him.

If the beast were real then Mars was real.

This was no training exercise — this was it. That sky outside wasn’t a painted atmosphere, it was the real sky of Mars.

He was alone as no man had ever been alone before, on a planet millions of miles from his world.

He was shouting as he dogged home the outer airlock door, an animal-like howl of a lost beast. He had barely enough control left to get to his bunk and throw the switch above it. The hypodermic was made of good steel so it went right through the fabric of his pressure suit. He was just reaching for the hypo arm to break it off when he dropped off into the blackness.

This time, he was slow to open his eyes. He was afraid he would see the riveted hull of the ship above his head. It was the white ceiling of the hospital, though, and he let the captive air out of his lungs. When he turned his head he saw Colonel Stegham sitting by the bed.

“Did we make it?”

Tony asked. It was more of a statement than a question.

“You made it, Tony. Both of you made it. Hal is awake here in the other bed.”

There was something different about the colonel’s voice and it took Tony an instant to recognize it. It was the first time he had ever heard the colonel talk with any emotion other than anger.

“The first trip to Mars. You can imagine what the papers are saying about it. More important, Tech says the specimens and readouts you brought back are beyond price. When did you find out it wasn’t an exercise?”

“The twenty-fourth day. We found some kind of Martian animal. I suppose we were pretty stupid not to have stumbled onto it before that.”

Tony’s voice had an edge of bitterness.

“Not really. Every part of your training was designed to keep you from finding out. We were never certain if we would have to send the men without their knowledge, there was always that possibility. Psych was sure that the disorientation and separation from Earth would cause a breakdown. I could never agree with them.”

“They were right,” Tony said, trying to keep the memory of fear out of his voice.

“We know now they were right, though I fought them at the time. Psych won the fight and we programmed the whole trip over on their say-so. I doubt if you appreciate it, but we went to a tremendous amount of work to convince you two that you were still in the training program.”

“Sorry to put you to all that trouble,” Hal said coldly. The colonel flushed a little, not at the words but at the loosely reined bitterness that rode behind them. He went on as if he hadn’t heard.