Guns of Mars 56
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 15.2
By main strength, mostly the thark’s, they urged the thoat up the graveled slope and in through the gap of the lock doors. The hooded man retrieved a rod of some kind from within his robe and, twisting its base, caused it to light up with a bluish glow. He now led the way, leaving Kal to bring along the mount by the reins. The animal protested, nostrils flaring and ears flattened, all eight feet dug into the fine powder on the floor of the great duct. Kal secured a cloth over its eyes trading one brand of dark for another and the thoat, docile now, was led along after the hooded man.
The azure light bounced off the walls of the tunnel. The duct had been bored into the rock by some forgotten science. No evidence of tool work was apparent on the glass-smooth surface.
The glow of white eyes gathered for moment in the blackness ahead before skittering away, deeper into the recesses of the tunnel. The hooded man drew a pistol and fired a shot down the span. The blast lit the tunnel for a fraction of a second.
The thoat, startled by the explosion, bucked back to kick its forelegs in the air. Kal was nearly brained by the whirling hooves and pulled the reins taut to draw the blowing beast back down with soothing words. These were drowned out by the echoes of the gun fire. In the end, the thark struck the thoat in the soft tissue at the tip of its snout to bring it to heel.
“Do not do that again without warning me first,” the thark growled once he’d settled the animal.
The hooded man ignored him to step closer to the tunnel wall. He held his lantern close and ran long spindly fingers up and down the surface. Curious, Kal came up behind him. The wall was striped in various hues, horizontal strips of crusted discoloration that ran parallel as far as the glow of the rod could illuminate.
“These striations mark the various levels of the water,” the hooded man said to himself. “They are a history of the great drought, the legacy of a dying world.”
Kal sniffed at that. “It is our present that concerns me.”
The other only responded with a grim smile before turning to proceed into the dark.
The tunnel was a timeless place. Their world shrank to the pool of blue light that surrounded them as they marched eastward. The trek’s miseries increased as more evidence of the tunnel’s invisible dwellers became apparent. Scattered piles of dried scat led to piles of fresher droppings until the tunnel took on a musty stink that made breathing unpleasant. Reeking pools of urine roiled with the presence of parasites. All the while the inhabitants of this dark world remained out of sight but for the glow of their eyes watching from fissures and scant ledges high on the curved walls.
Kal and the hooded man wrapped lengths of muslin cloth about nose and mouth in a vain attempt to reduce the effects of the stench. After an interminable time, they appeared to have passed the worst of it. Kal hoped aloud that this meant they had reached a halfway point in the pipeline.
A pale luminance, little more than a speck of grayish light, seemed to confirm this. It grew in size and intensity as they walked, like a white eye opening before them until they eventually exited the far mouth of the tunnel into the first light of a new day. They had walked the entire night.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
