to work in the narrow space, and each had independently arrived at the decision that it was time to start while the others were still taking inventory to see how much remained to be done.
The sheets of met?! still stood by the lock. Chuck examined the size of the air lock; then they used the doorframe of the inner entrance to bend the sheets into rough shape. They would not stand any great pressure, but they might keep the sand from drifting back down. The U-shape would serve as both roof and walls.
He was drawing heavily on his father’s accounts, which the elder Svensen had heard from the miners, of the hard time the Moon pioneers had suffered.
The sand was finer than any he had ever seen—as fine as the pulverized pumice he had come across in some of the Moon craters. It drifted off his shovel almost like water, as he lifted it into the air lock.
Lew watched him working on it for awhile, and then left abruptly. Chuck couldn’t blame him; it looked pretty hopeless. But the radar operator was back a few minutes later with a pair of smaller sheets of the thin metal He caught them in the doorframe as he had seen Chuck do. With considerable prying and worry over the comers, he finally had a bigger scoop shaped so that it would hold water if necessary.
“Earth tools for Mars,” he snorted, pointing to the shovels. “The trouble with you. Chuck, is that you’re too used to a light gravity—you forget how much of this stuff we can move.”
He shoved the big scoop into the soft sand, waggling it through until it was full. There was no handle, but he lifted it easily enough and carried it back into the empty passageway.
Chuck grinned at him, and began fashioning another scoop of the same sort for himself. It was true—people carried their Earth habits with them and grew too quickly used to the lightness of the Moon and Mars. Once the novelty of being on a light planet wore off, they settled back to the old ways of doing things. They were heavier here than on the Moon, but they still weighed only three-eighths of what they would on Earth.
They began to make progress. Chuck shoved one of the U-shaped supports through the lock, pushing it into the sand as far as it would go. After each scoopful, he shoved it again on the way back for another. It began moving forward, opening a clear space beyond the door. Now the softness of the sand was proving an advantage.
It required no reaching to the ceiling, or digging, it drifted down, well within easy reach.
Vance must have heard of their work. He came down, just as they were moving
Their arms were aching, but Chuck knew that there was no other work they could do better. He’d tried the radar and found that it was out of order from the crash, so there was no way to notify Earth.
They angled the second U-piece upward, scraping it along against the side of the ship. Vance returned to the others and Lew went with him to get more metal that they could use for flooring, since they were sinking ankle-deep in the soft sand at each step. With the metal, the tunnel was beginning to take on an air of solidity.
Ginger brought out their food to them, and Vance’s suggestion that they’d better take it easy. Later she collected their plates and brought a warning that they’d have to watch not to let the air escape. They’d been too busy to think of that
“Bring us our suits then. Ginger. And lock both doors to the passage.”
“How about the sand there—it’s getting out of hand. We could use a man to shove it along as we bring it back,” Lew suggested.
Ginger nodded, and they could hear him closing the distant doors. He was back a few minutes later with their suits, a rude form of their scoops, and his camera. His own space suit was on his back.
“Give me a picture of our return, and I’ll take care of this myself,” he grinned at them.
Now sand began to funnel and blow under the force of the air that was pressing out from the lock through the thin remaining layers of the ashy stuff. Chuck leaned; down to draw up the third U-piece, then pressed it forward. It resisted, and gave suddenly, going all the way to the surface. A hole appeared, and sand began running down the tunnel.
It was night outside. Chuck motioned Lew to come up beside .him, and they stared out through the hole that was now barely big enough for one man to pass. Chuck opened his radio to the common channel which would also be passed through loud-speakers aboard the ship.
“Captain!” Lew called.
Vance’s acknowledgment came at once.
“We’re through,” Lew announced. “We can see the surface. If you want to send a couple of men to carry the sand we spilled in the passage back up here, and weld down the passage braces, you’ll have a way out.”
“Good men. Didn’t expect anything so soon. Come on back, and we’ll take over.” Vance’s approval was too hearty to be anything but surprised relief.
But Chuck had other ideas. “How about letting us go for a little exploration? We’ve got most of our oxygen, and our lights are fully charged.”
“How about weapons?” Sokolsky’s voice asked. “No, wait—they’re not likely to find anything moving around up there at night—it must be fifty below zero.”
“Go ahead, then,” Vance agreed. “But not over a mile from the ship—or at least, be sensible. Get back in time to get some sleep for tomorrow.”
Tomorrow, Chuck realized, would be a real day. Mars had a day that-was only 37 minutes longer than that of Earth; after the fictional nights and noons on the Moon and aboard the
Steele’s voice reached him. “Keep your radio on, kid—we’ll be listening. And don’t forget the proper ceremony. There’s a flag just inside the air lock just for that.”
Ginger brought it up to them, his homely face grinning at them through his helmet. “Look pretty when you plant it, boys, because I’ve got my flashbulbs ready. ‘First men to step onto Mars—first alien planet claimed by Earth.’ These shots will make heroes out of you guys.”
Chuck stuck out his tongue, to express his opinion of being a hero, but he took the flag. Lew had been enlarging the opening, and now they went out together, onto the cold, chill surface of Earth’s neighbor. Behind them, the flashbulb flashed hotly.
It flashed again as Chuck bent down and inserted the tiny flag into the ground. “I claim this planet as a trusteeship of the United States under the laws and regulations of Earth.”
It was a historic moment, and a very solemn ceremony, but he felt a little foolish. It would make more sense for Vance to claim it. Anyhow, there would be no one to jump their claim.
Then it hit him, for the first time. This was Mars! This was the world that held life that never developed on Earth. He cut on his light suddenly, staring at the ground around him. It was nothing but arid, barren sandy waste, useless for anything that he could imagine. Even with the outer temperature far below the freezing point of water, there was no trace of frost on the ground.
He started to turn back to the ship in disgust and fatigue, but Lew had wandered on a few steps farther; he moved after the other mechanically. If there had been one little green shoot, it would have been all he asked. But the Sahara was paradise compared to this.
He tried shouting at Lew, but the air was too thin to carry more than a high-pitched squeak for a few feet.
Lew stooped over and held out something. It was a short object, perhaps two inches long, that looked like a piece of string. Chuck took it listlessly—and then straightened. It wasn’t mineral, certainly—it could only be a part of some plant, unless he could believe the impossibility of its being a piece of paper twine; it even had the twists that twine had.’
Under his helmet light it showed no real details. He tried to crumble it in his hands, but it was too hard for that, though it bent a little. Then he noticed that there were several small hairlike strands sticking out from it. It must have been the root of a plant once.
He stared about the landscape, while Lew’s voice muttered beside him, high-pitched and far away. It wasn’t until the other tapped his helmet he realized his radio hadn’t been turned on for several minutes, though he couldn’t remember turning it off. He
“…plant,” Lew was saying. “Hey, Chuck. What do you make of it?”
