Guns of Mars 29
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 8.3
Kal allowed the mounts to graze on the stuff while he stood behind the bounty man to look down the length of the channel that lay before them. Its end was invisible beyond a horizon line far to the south of where they stood. Great shadows were forming in its depths as the sun passed to the west somewhere above. The man turned back to the thark who stood with the row of openings to the great tunnels behind him. He saw that the ends of some of the cyclopean pipes had collapsed with the weight of the years.
“We could still turn around,” he said to the thark.
Kal Keddaq did not respond.
“You know we’ll both die here,” the bounty man said.
“Not today. And perhaps not tomorrow,” the thark replied after a time, his eyes fixed on some distant point.
The bounty man gave up reasoning with his captor. His own fatalistic view of life was positively optimistic when compared to the bleak outlook shared by the thark race. Theirs was a culture based on taking what they wished and living as they liked until death came calling. They did not know sorrow nor mercy. They were closer to the beasts of the desert than they were to men. And yet he envied Kal Keddaq’s stoic outlook, the damnable will of the creature. The idiotic brand of courage required to risk all in a run from the most dogged of all Barsoom’s denizens. No thought about his future except to count the days, or hours, that remained as a gift.
And here he was, a plaything for this overgrown child, destined to die of deprivation or misadventure on the floor of an endless pit.
The thark climbed down from his mount and undid the saddles and pack frame of the others. Kal gathered dried lichen for a fire. He walked them in place and made them lie down to form a protective circle about him. From within his fortress of animal flesh, he began roasting a thick shank of meat.
The bounty man dropped to his side on the hard stone. He drew his knees to his chest to conserve warmth against the frigid night.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
