Guns of Mars 34
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 9.4
The bounty man’s bonds were cut and his pistols restored to him. His boots were gone, left where the thark had tossed them aside at the mouth of the tunnel. After a meal and a long drink of the sweet water from the tanks, he climbed atop the hulk of the wreck to search for further evidence.
“These words, what do they tell you?” Kal called up, pointing to the inscription across the stern of the vessel.
“Only this ship’s name and origin city,” the man said as he pulled aside a heap of rock debris that covered a hatchway.
“Does that not tell us the source of the water?”
“Only where the ship was built.”
“And, if this ship lay here since before either of us were born, how can the water still be drinkable?” The thark slapped a palm on the metal shell of the nacelle.
“They were water traders. They knew their business. These tanks are probably lined with gold or silver so as not to react to their contents.”
“But any water goes rancid over time.”
“Not this water, partner,” the man said, leaning over the gunwale to speak to Kal. “This is water drawn from deep within the rock. No animal has spawned or swam or shat in it. Not even the tiny, invisible animals that inhabit everything. Its purity is absolute.”
“I see,” the thark said, nodding in faux understanding.
“Now that you ‘see’, maybe you’d like to come up here and help me clear away some of these rocks.”
Kal climbed up to the main deck and, together, they moved debris until darkness overtook them.
The next morning they cleared an opening large enough for the man to crawl down into the hold of the ship. He rooted around in the musty interior until he found the opening to the engine housing. Here he found evidence of what brought the craft down. A ragged hole was torn in the bottom of the hull from some kind of weapon either skyborne or fired from the ground. It had wreaked calamitous damage on the engine, with a strike to the 8th ray generator, the technology that was a basis of all flight on Barsoom. With the anti-gravity effect of the generator hampered, the pilot must have done the best he could to steer the vessel on a glide path into the canal before the lifting force of the engine died altogether.
He moved forward from there along the passage that led from the stern to the bow where he found the command deck, the bridge. Here he found moldering cabinets set against the bulkhead. The drawers came open with some effort, falling apart as he removed them. Inside of each were contents that had long ago succumbed to age. What might have been fine clothing or perhaps banners was now little more than dust. There was a rather complex timepiece, its workings now a solid clump of corrosion. A carved onyx box of coins. The man retrieved the gold specimens out of it and stuck them in a pouch on his belt.
“What are you seeing?” Kal called down through the hatch. The opening they’d made was far too small for the thark to follow him into the interior.
“Nothing of interest to you,” the man called back. He saw no reason that he and the thark should have equal shares of all things.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
