Guns of Mars 95
A Martian action-adventure by The Legend Chuck Dixon
CHAPTER 28.4
The bounty man and the thark then turned to one another, gazes locked hard on one another’s eyes.
“The water,” Kal said, lowering his gun hand. “Can we drink it?”
“Let’s find out.” The bounty man returned his pistols to their holsters
“What did you see? Is the lake corrupted?”
“I didn’t go that far,” the bounty man replied as he stripped the cloth from his face. “The air is still too foul. I only made it as far as the entry chamber.”
“Then how did you fill the skins?”
“Turns out, I was right. About the fascii keeping the water level down with their daily consumption. Without them drinking it, the waters filled the interior. I was in it up to my knees.”
“Poisoned water,” the thark snorted.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” the man shrugged. “It could be the fire burned away the taint.”
“Then test your theory. Take a swallow.”
“I’d rather test it on one of them.” The man nodded toward the thoats standing out on the sand bellowing softly.
The bounty man turned the spigot on a skin and let a stream of water splash out. The animals scented it and came at a gallop.
Kal caught and held one of the animals aside while the bounty man poured water onto the other’s greedily lapping tongue. They squatted to watch the thoat throughout the remains of the day and saw no ill effect. They each drank their fill and watered the other thoat.
“The fire’s nearly died,” the bounty man said, pouring the dregs of one of the skins over his head. “A day or two and the smoke will clear.”
“And the well is ours.” The thark’s mouth stretched in a grin that exposed his tusks to the gums.
“And growing,” the bounty man grinned back. “We could dig trenches, reservoirs. Grow food for ourselves. This place could make us both very rich.”
“For as long as we can hold it,” Kal said, rising to full height to shade his eyes and look northward.
The bounty man looked to the still form lying in a patch of white sand that had now turned black with blood. Swarms of the eyeless beetles had emerged from the desert to feed on its pale flesh.
The bounty man spat in the direction of what remained of Bhartee Bhar.
“Can you fly an airship?” Kal Keddaq said.
“How hard can it be?” the man answered.
The End
Special Note: GUNS OF MARS is now available in a hardcover edition. It is available at Amazon and at NDM Express.
