Guns of Mars 75
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 22.3
It also resolved the mystery of how the lake’s level remained constant. The plant men consumed their share each night. The volume of the Eye’s issue went to create the sap that passed for blood in these beings.
And the absence of vermin. These carnivores would prey on anything with blood in its veins no matter if it were the size of a lice or as big as a thoat. As well, it revealed how this source of water had been lost to memory. Any creature lured to drink of the water would fall prey to the fascii. Soon, even the lowest of beasts would know this is to be a place of death.
The bounty man was careful to make no noise as he withdrew from the edge of the terrace. He had only the scantest knowledge of these things and no idea of the measure of their senses. The safest course was to assume that their sense of hearing, their sight and even a sense of smell were keen enough to make them able hunters. They had no cause to climb the stairs to where he was but could were he to give them a reason.
He spent a cold night in the confines of one of the chambers, wary of building a fire so as not to arouse the horde of vegetation below. He sat up facing a narrow opening to the room, his back to a wall and his handguns at his side. Little good firearms would do him if the plant men came for him in the night. Creatures without a heart or lungs could absorb every bullet he had and keep on coming. One of them could finish him. A gang of them would consume him in seconds.
When day came, and the fascii returned to their sunlit crater as he supposed they would, he would fashion some kind of barricade for this room. For the moment, all he could do is watch the dim outline of the doorframe for anything that interrupted its bounds.
Except in brief fits, he did not sleep that night.
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
