Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 by Devil's Planet (v1.1) Page B

           Gerda,
whatever her shortcomings, had spoken the plain truth regarding this bit of
police equipment. At ten miles, she had warned, his body would be shaken as by
a heavy rush of current. The vibration now possessed his whole body, and Stover
felt sick.
                 The
car swayed and bucked under his ill-steadied controls, and he righted it with
an effort.
                 “This
can’t go on!” he muttered. “I’ll set her down on the sand—I’m well outside the
city—and see if I can’t squirm out of that bracelet.”
                 He
nosed down, but his run of bad luck was well in. In descending, he went still
farther from the police headquarters radio. In mid-flight, nausea possessed
him. His sight went black, his brain whirled and drummed.
                 With
one hand he strove to flatten out his flight for a landing, but the other—the
hand that wore the bracelet—refused to do its work. There was a shock, a crash
of sound, and Dillon Stover flew through the air like a football. He fell
sprawling in dry, powdery sand.
                 On
Earth, where his weight was more than double what it was on Mars, he probably
would not have risen from such a heavy fall. As it was, he rose very shakily.
The wrecked rocket was aflame. Overhead beamed the lights of other aircraft
speeding to investigate.
                 “Got
to get away from here,” he told himself groggily. “Get away—”
                 He
headed out into the desert. His feet sank into the dry sand as into fresh snow.
The vibrations from the bracelet still tingled in his arm and chest, made his
lungs pant and his heart race; but, on the ground and walking, they were more
endurable. The fall had made his nose bleed, and somehow this relieved his
distress for the time being. He walked on, on. His lesser Martian weight made
travel swift for his Earth-trained muscles, for all the binding sand around his
insteps and ankles.
                 Behind
him the lights of rocket craft were settling around the fire. He hoped that
their landings in the sand would obscure his footprints. Meanwhile, he wished
that he had a drink, about a two-quart swig of water,
such as Buckalew had given to the desert Martians.
                 Stover
had not taken a drink since before his trip to Malbrook’s. The liquid of his
prison meal had been used to disguise him. And this arid place, far away from
the city of Pulambar and its lake-evaporations, was drying,
dehydrating, even in the chilly Martian night.
                HE
made the best of two miles’ journey away from the investigators, then stopped. Overhead hurtled the disc of Phobos, giving
him light whereby to examine the bracelet that dealt him so much misery. It was
not too tight upon his wrist. He poked a finger under it, twiddled it, then tugged.
                 A
red-hot pain shot through his forearm, as though all his joints were being
dislocated. He hastily took his finger away. Again he remembered the baleful
words of Gerda: It will tear your arm off
at the shoulder. Better let bad enough alone. Meanwhile, what wouldn’t he
give for a drink?
                 Trudging
onward, he pondered, despite his efforts to turn his mind elsewhere, on
drinkables. Cold lemonade on the kitchen table at his grandfather’s home, a
stein of beer at college, water trickling down a rock-face at Rogers, Arkansas,
the multitudinous beverages at the Zaarr—even the acid drink he had used for
his disguise at the prison. He tried to curse such thoughts away, but his voice
was thick and his tongue swollen.
                 Stover
was scientist enough to understand all this. The atmosphere of Mars was light,
one-third that of Earth. Plenty of oxygen made it fairly breathable, but it was
hungry for water. Mars had so little water to give, and that little did not
stay long —the lesser gravity could
not