The Martian War (26 page)

“Jane, my dear, we are attempting to overthrow a planet and save our race. One must hope for a bit of good fortune. Now, if only you could convince the Selenites to create some sort of massive distraction.”

Jane gestured to the nearest slave master clomping toward them in its squat walking machine. “We need to get away from the Martians. Do you know how we might break free?”

The silent drone turned its blank insect face at her, as if incapable of making a response. She asked another Selenite, and a third, but received the same silence.

“These are
drones,
Jane—docile, cooperative, and hardworking. They don’t know how to respond when you ask for suggestions. They need a master mind to command them, whether it’s the Grand Lunar or these Martian slave masters.” His blue eyes narrowed, and he clutched her arm. “Or
you,
Jane. They listen to you. So, give them instructions.”

Jane’s hard anger and disgust with what the Martians were doing found its focus; Wells saw it on her face. She raised her voice to rally the Selenites around her. “The Martian city
functions only because of your labor! I command you to ignore all instructions the Martians give you, for I bear the talisman of the Grand Lunar. Listen only to me.”

Though they still made no answer, the Selenites ceased their work and looked up at her. Disturbed by the odd restless behavior of the Selenites, the three slave masters strode about, slashing with static whips. From their walker domes, the Martians sent stern commands vibrating through the collars again. But the Selenites did not budge. They had received other orders from Jane.

“Now shut down the machinery. Cut power to the city.” Jane looked over at Wells, who nodded vigorously.

The Selenites threw themselves into their new task, falling to their uprising as if it were simply another job. The drone crew spread out and methodically began ripping free the conduit supports they had just installed and knocking down the heavy power channels. Sparks rained out in all directions. Shimmers of energy in the tall Martian turrets went dark.

The slave masters strode about in their ostrich-like walkers, vigorously trying to impose order with static whips. One of the gushing power conduits fell down upon the nearest slave master, and the machine jittered and sparked. Inside its now-darkening dome, the bloated Martian brain lay in a smoking heap. When the power surge died, the Selenites banded together and pushed until they toppled the walking contrivance to the ground.

The other two slave masters sounded a loud alarm of
“Ulla! Ulla!”
Wells ran toward the fallen walker. “Jane, if you use the communication device, you can send specific commands through the collars.” The Martian had opened the dome of
the small walker halfway in an attempt to escape before being electrocuted. Wells shoved the dome the rest of the way open and found the small apparatus with which he had seen the slave masters issue their hateful orders. He held it up. “It still appears to be functional. Here, try it.”

Jane held the device, saw how it was designed to resonate with all the slave collars, and then continued with the fervor of a syndicalist labor organizer. The Selenites around them finally understood precisely what she wanted them to do. “Destroy the generators and the atmosphere-pumping stations! Break down the water-distribution network, block the canals! You can all do it. Bring these evil masters to a standstill.”

Now the Selenites excelled in their methodical mayhem. Drones smashed through crystal sheets that formed large windows. They cracked open the streamlined canal, spilling water like cold, clear blood all down the Martian streets. Selenites splashed through the vital water as they moved to other targets.

While Wells and Jane cheered in delight, the lunar slaves raced about in diligent silence just like the ominously quiet Martians.

From the work tunnels beneath the metropolis, explosions rang out. Pistons and underground generators were sabotaged, their gears jammed, their couplings frozen. Geysers of steam poured out of hydrothermal vents, blasting the paving mosaics of the Martian streets.

Within minutes the alien city was caught up in a hurricane of rebellion. Wells had expected Jane’s command to affect only the drone workers around them, but he could see that the revolt was spreading with amazing rapidity throughout the
metropolis. Apparently, the signal had traveled among all the nearby slave collars, and the Selenites had spread the call.

“You certainly know how to create a diversion, Jane.”

She fixed her eyes on the huge tripod that had just returned to the cathedral of science. “Come on, H.G. Let’s get Professor Huxley.”

FROM THE JOURNAL OF DR. MOREAU

With problematic expediency, A.E. Douglass returned from Massachusetts. We had hoped he would tarry for many weeks inspecting the great lenses for the observatory’s largest refractor. Now we had to deal with the assistant’s irritating curiosity again.

“Old Mr. Clark and his sons are doing an admirable job. However, they work best—and faster—without meddlesome observers like myself.” Douglass pushed his glasses up on his nose, as if to gather courage. “Since you insisted that the telescope be completed with all possible speed, Mr. Lowell, I decided you would want me to return here.”

Lowell’s moustache bristled as he took umbrage at the
young astronomer’s attitude. “Please refresh yourself and unpack your things. I wish to speak with Dr. Moreau alone.”

I watched out the window of the main house as the thin young man hurried to unload his traveling trunk. Douglass scanned the observatory construction site to determine how well the work had progressed while he was gone. When he thought no one was looking, he furtively glanced at the shuttered outbuilding where we kept our Martian.

Lowell spoke in a cold and brittle voice. “I’m afraid that young man will cause trouble, Moreau.”

“Yes, he will. And it behooves us to deal with it in a manner of our
own
choosing, rather than let Douglass make a mess of things because of his persistent curiosity.” I poured myself a glass of brandy from a decanter. “It would have been best if he’d remained back east, but he is here now, and he knows we are hiding something from him—something of extreme importance.”

Lowell had turned his back to me and was staring out the window. “Then I will have to dispatch him on another errand.”

I shook my head. “If you send him away again, either he will not go, or he will quit. After which, he will certainly report your mystery to others.”

“All men talk.” Lowell declined the brandy I offered him. “All men pass rumors. There is enough gossip around here with the townspeople.”

“Think,
Lowell! When a drunken man in a Flagstaff saloon speaks of ghosts and monsters, no one of importance listens to him. But what if Douglass talks to Pickering at Harvard, or to the officials at Yerkes Observatory? The
news that you have a captive Martian hidden away would invite outright scorn for you.” I could see by his troubled expression that my words had an effect. “You are already viewed as eccentric in Boston society, but no one can fault you for your keen observations about Japan. You’ve earned a certain amount of respect, but that can vanish as swiftly as ice on a hot sidewalk if you are not careful. We cannot risk it, especially now that we are on the cusp of a great announcement.”

His voice was low, but no longer so antagonistic. “You obviously have some plan, Moreau.”

I came to stand beside him at the window. Douglass had retired to his rooms in the newly completed guest house. “You and I have had the Martian to ourselves here for a month. Three times that long, if you count from the date of the crash in the Sahara and the trip on the steamer. By dissecting the other specimens, I have learned much about alien physiology. We have made thorough inquiries about the Martian civilization. The time has come for us to announce our results—and, by God, receive the accolades we deserve from the scientific community!”

Thunderstruck, Lowell looked like a spoiled boy who did not wish to share his toys. “But … but we have so much more to learn from it.”

“There will be more to learn for the rest of our lives. Look at the size of its brain! However, even if we deliver our specimen to the London Zoo or the Smithsonian Institution, you and I will forever remain a dozen steps ahead of our competitors. No matter what else happens,
we
are the ones who rescued the Martian from the cylinder.
I
am the one
who performed the grafting surgery and cured it from its near-fatal illness.”

I took a sip of brandy and sighed, trying to sound conciliatory. “This is not the time, the place, or the method by which I would have chosen to reveal our prize specimen, but that cannot be helped. Let us enlist Douglass and turn him into an ally instead of an enemy.”

Lowell’s shoulders sagged, and he looked defeated. “Very well.”

* * *

The young astronomer’s owlish eyes were wide as he stared at the crystal egg. “Truly astonishing!”

“This is only a fraction of the amazing things we have,” Lowell said.

I was a bit gruffer. “Now perhaps you will understand our initial reluctance to let anyone else in on our secret. Observe.” I turned the crystal egg so that the fly-eye facets across its exterior showed the fantastic images of Martian landscape. Douglass saw canals and rust-laden sands, massive construction projects, and the dying cities of a once-glorious civilization.

The young man’s face was so full of excitement I was afraid he might have some sort of breakdown. “This crystal egg is the most astounding new observing device I have ever seen! A simple viewing ellipsoid that one can hold in the palm of a hand, is superior to … to everything!”

Lowell had been so engrossed in the Martian specimen that he had not considered the straightforward implications
of this subsidiary technology, how this crystal egg would revolutionize all of astronomy. Observing through the eyepiece of a telescope would become a quaint old custom.

But even as Douglass saw the possibilities of the observation device, I was more concerned about the suddenly inferior images in the crystal egg: the details were blurred and distances smeared. Perhaps a dust storm was sweeping across the Martian terrain. Or were the Martians—either our captive specimen or others on the red planet—directly distorting or blocking the signal? Were they trying to hide something from us?

Lowell sounded paternal instead of stern and testy. “Believe me when I say to you, Andrew, that this crystal egg is only one of the new things we will show you. But you must be patient. One cannot consume an enormous banquet all in one gulp.”

Douglass agreed—too quickly. To my everlasting shame, neither Lowell nor I saw fit to issue sterner warnings or keep a better eye on the young man. We should have known better. The worst thing one can possibly say to a man of obvious curiosity is to tell him to leave certain things alone.

* * *

Screams rang out in the dead of night, blood-curdling shrieks that woke me from a sound sleep. At first I thought I was having a nightmare about my unsuccessful vivisections, but as I sat up in the darkness listening to a breeze hiss through the pines on Mars Hill, the shrieks came again like the cry of a tortured soul … or a man being flayed alive.

I was up in a flash, throwing on trousers and a shirt and bursting out of the main house. Lowell appeared beside me, and we both ran into the night.

A final fading gurgle came from the shuttered outbuilding. Then we heard splintering wood and a scuffling, thudding sound as of something large and ungainly rushing about.

Afterward, piecing together the evidence, I determined that Douglass must have waited until we were fast asleep, then crept out of his room to approach the shed. Foiled by the padlock on the door, he had gone around the sides to peer through the high boarded-up windows. He had worked a small, flat pry-bar into the crack of the shutters, finally pulling the boards apart. He must have held the edge of the window, standing on tiptoe to squint into the gloom.

The Martian had grabbed Douglass’s arms and yanked him inside with superhuman force. The creature’s strength was surprisingly great—sufficient to splinter the wooden slats inward. The Martian had dragged Douglass into the darkened outbuilding. That was when the young astronomer had begun his terrified screams, but the alien was not finished with him.

When Lowell and I finally arrived at the scene, the shed door had been smashed outward, the padlock snapped. I was astounded to realize that the Martian must have been able to escape at any time, but had chosen not to. Until now.

Standing inside the empty chamber, we heard only a faint, quiet dripping. Nothing stirred. Lowell struck a match. The Martian was gone, as I had feared. So intent was I on the disappointing loss of our specimen that I did not immediately see the battered body of Andrew Douglass
lying on the packed dirt floor. But Lowell did.

In the fading light of the match, I recognized that Douglass had been strangled. When its victim stopped struggling, the Martian must have ripped open the young astronomer’s jugular vein and torn a gouge in the young man’s chest, attempting to drain as much fresh blood as it could, even without hypodermic syringes.

But the sinister creature must have known we were coming: it had fled. Therefore, it understood that it had committed some sort of crime. I was shocked. “Why would it do this? It makes no sense. We fed it as much blood as it needed.”

Lowell stared in horror at the corpse of his assistant. “This wasn’t done for food. This was just to demonstrate … power, malice. The Martian has been toying with us, stringing us along. It saw its chance, and it struck—”

“Don’t be so quick to judge what an alien thinks, Percival.”

“Perhaps not. We thought we were establishing trust with it—and now poor Douglass is dead.”

I looked to the door. “Worse yet, the Martian is out there loose right now.”

As he let fall the limp hand of his assistant, Lowell looked as he had when we’d come upon the dead crewman aboard the transatlantic steamer. That was a crime we had managed to hide, however. We had protected the Martian … only to let it kill again.