The Incredible Melting Man (14 page)

“ ’Corse if you prefer to stay there where it’s cold, and where there’s nothing to eat, it’s all right by us.”

He threw himself down by the side of his friend and took another swig from the bottle. He handed it to his friend but again got no response.

The sound of another train ripped through the night. The hobo watched it, mesmerised by the flickering carriage lights. When the train had passed and the night had grown still again a shadow crouched at the opposite side of the fire.

The hobo didn’t bother to look up but began prodding the sausages with the stick. “What kept you, then?” he asked.

The fire had nearly gone out. The beans were no longer cooking and the drips had stopped sizzling. Only a few dying embers remained, glowing like tiny red eyes in the blackness. The stranger stared at them and let out a strange whimper.

The hobo looked up, peering hard at the shadowy figure who’d joined him. But he was having difficulty focusing.

“Here,” he said, passing across the bottle. “Have a drink of this if you’re feeling cold.”

The thing’s stump came out to meet the bottle and knocked it out of the drunkard’s grasp. Some of it spilt into the embers of the fire and flared up. The drunkard stared into the crumbling skull and the alcohol suddenly froze in his veins.

“Mother!” he cried and fell face downwards into the rekindled fire.

Screaming as the flames burned his face he struggled wildly amongst the hot ashes to try and get a grip and push himself away. His face was coated with the beans and the hot ashes stuck to them like glue. As he tried to scrape the burning stuff off he was engulfed with foul-smelling breath. A crushing thud to the back of the neck and he was back amongst the ashes screaming for his life.

The screams brought the other hobo from out of his coma. He jumped to his feet and began dancing round the fire like a punch-drunk prize-fighter, brain and muscle a mile out of concert. With a single blow from his severed arm the thing brought him down like a fly.

Another train roared out of the night and passed through the orange haze of the power plant. Steel hit steel in an echoing shudder as the wheels spun across the points, and in an ecstasy of release the locomotive shrilled and plunged back into the darkness.

When the sound had subsided all was silent around the camp fire. Apart from the lapping sound and the slow drip, drip of blood on to hot ashes.

The blood could not slake his raging thirst. As he sucked and slobbered on the warm meat the cells clamoured insatiably. The time was coming when his ailing body could no longer provide for its rapacious guests. Nothing short of total destruction would appease them. He’d confronted the principle of anti-life, and he knew.

They’d grown very withdrawn that last night in the descent module. The experts would have put it down to nerves about lift-off and the success of the docking. No one wanted to be marooned on the red planet. But they were experts in terrestrial psychology and they were wrong. Up here everything was different. The mind rapidly acquired new habits.

The others had been lucky enough to miss the storm, yet they were just as anxious as he was. When one of them spoke, which was rarely, the others would turn expectantly, waiting for him to let something slip, something they wanted to know which hadn’t been vouchsafed to them. They’d become aware that they were on an errand, but they were still waiting to know what it was.

Fulfilment drew imperceptibly closer. They sat looking out of the cabin windows at the setting sun. Dark blue shadows crept towards them across the red dusty floor of the planet. Night spread like a bruise across the sky to where the distant sun hung bleeding slowly to death in the thin Martian air. It was a death without sorrow because no life mourned it.

As the fallen rim of the sun burnt out on the jagged edge of the horizon, the planet exhaled in a shudder of expectation. Out of nowhere a wind sprang up, bearing the frost like a knife which, with no life to slash at, contented itself with sawing away at the rocks, making an ounce of dust a millenium to toss at the empty sky. But aeons of dust covered the ground and they felt the invisible hand stirring it, impious fingers unmaking the grave that hid the planet’s secret.

They waited impatiently to know.

It knew they were there. Out there in the lifeless cold it sensed their warm bodies, heard their heartbeats, smelt the whiff of the fear glands. And like a dog at the hearth who feels the wolf at the door, they stirred uneasily, for they knew too.

It had a whole planet to itself, millions of barren acres, but the huddled human cells in the tiny module sang nervously in the huge silence, and like a relentless bird of prey it homed in on them, sweeping the black sky with vast red wings in tightening circles of fear.

The familiar scrape on the hull heralded the arrival of the first flurry of sand: like a tongue that licks gently, tentatively exploring, tickling the juices that will be the signal to the teeth. Then more arrived, squads of the advance party rattling the skin of the module, growing in intensity as they were baulked by the resistance of metal. Then the claws bit, scratching away at the hull in mounting fury, running all over it, probing for a weakness.

Through the window they watched the cloud thicken, blotting out the white light of the stars in a red night. The sand expended its fury on the tough laminated glass, lodging in the corners and growing as it got a hold, like snow in a blizzard. Steve watched it in fascination. It glinted in the light of the cabin and he became conscious of movement—grains flowing across the glass in exploratory sweeps. Movement with a purpose.

As he watched, the red grains at the edges began to fall in towards the middle, as though something was pulling them, making them coalesce into a crude round stain in the centre of the glass. It was thick and dense and deep red, making the flurrying clouds behind pale in comparison. Then the edges of the stain began to spread out again in probing tendrils. He counted five, like a giant red hand plucking at the window, its movements growing more frenzied as its frustration seemed to mount. Then the whole thing detached itself from the glass and hurled itself against it until they felt the window shake with the impact. Again and again it tried. It was pounding against the glass in a red rage.

Other drumming sounds erupted in different quarters of the module. It was trying to force its way in elsewhere, beating a tattoo on the thin alloy hull of the craft.

They stood in fear in the centre of the module. The Geiger counter on the control panel began to click dangerously. They were besieged and could do nothing in their own defence but pray that their frail craft could withstand the attack.

The bangings began to alter. Instead of an unconcerted volley, the sound began to take on a rhythm, coordinating its efforts so that the attacks were in time, beating like a heavy pulse, a heart-beat, against the sides and top of the module. The craft began to shake.

They didn’t know whether it was the effect of the banging, but the specimen jars they’d collected began to rattle. Nothing else was affected. They were stored in racks to one side of the bunks. Steve watched spellbound as a flask crept towards the edge of the rack and fell to the floor. The seal broke and a thick red substance oozed out. It didn’t flow but seemed to gather itself. Then it began to flex to the rhythm of the drumming on the hull.

Steve panicked. “Get it out of here,” he shouted. “It’ll grow.”

It seemed to sense his fear and take advantage of it. A soft red foot of jelly bled outwards in his direction. It stopped, steadied itself, and then drew the bulk of the jelly after it. It was walking towards him.

Mike was the first to act. He picked up a scoop they’d used for collecting dust samples and slid it under the jelly. He whipped it up and turned towards the airlock.

“Open the hatch!” he shouted. But it was too late. It had jerked off the shovel on to the bare skin of the back of his hand.

“Christ! It burns!” he screamed. “The door!”

McManus worked furiously at the screw. As he swung open the door Mike pushed past him into the lock, wildly shaking his arm as he tried to dislodge the thing. It came loose and hit the floor with a splat. In an instant it was gathering in the dispersed tendrils and rounding itself into a defensive ball.

“Look!” yelled Steve. Round the seam of the outside hatch more of the stuff was seeping into the module.

They slammed the airlock door and screwed it up tightly. Mike’s arm was unmarked but he complained of a burning sensation as if it had been splashed with acid. Steve treated it with an antiseptic ointment.

The drumming had stopped, as if outside they’d been witness to the drama in the module and had been awaiting the outcome. The silence grew into minutes.

Suddenly there was a creaking sound and they felt the floor shift beneath their feet. Outside against the window the stains had gathered into long lines stretching across the glass. The grains of the substance began to tighten as they watched. Somewhere in the roof there was a thud as a plate of the hull began to buckle. They were being squeezed like a pea-pod.

“Get the suits,” shouted McManus. “It’s going to burst the skin.”

Again they struggled to open the airlock. The outside hatch was covered now and it was creeping rapidly across the roof in a series of exploratory waves. Steve grabbed the suits and was turning back into the cabin when a piece dislodged itself from the roof and dropped like a spider on a red thread on to his head. He pushed the suits through the door and tore at his hair. He could feel the heat on his skull and his hands stung as he touched it. It was like a huge blob of warm glue.

He managed to pluck it off, squeeze it together in his hands so that it pulped through his fingers, and hurl it at the airlock wall. It splashed outwards on contact and he watched with horror as each separate part began to convulse with an independent animation.

He shook with revulsion as he leaned heavily on the airlock door trying to regain his breath after the effort of getting back into the cabin. His hands felt as though they’d been plunged inside a bed of nettles.

“What can we do?” he gasped desperately.

“Prepare for lift-off,” shouted McManus, taking control of the situation. “But get those suits on first.”

As he spoke, another plate thudded as it began to buckle with the strain from outside. They struggled into the suits in the confined space of the cabin. Takeoff was going to be difficult in them. It demanded much more freedom of movement to check the instrumentation. But it was their only chance.

Countdown seemed to take an eternity. But everything had to be checked. One mistake and they’d topple over into the Martian dust for ever.

As Mike began to check out the readings on his panel, Steve glanced at the hatch door. The wheel was slowly turning.

He leapt from his seat and grabbed a rock sample probe. He wedged the steel shaft through the spokes of the wheel and hard up against the corner of the cabin. He felt the shaft strain, but it held and the handle was still. A series of thuds echoed against the panel as something hurled itself furiously at the door. The airlock sounded to be heaving with the stuff.

Back in his seat and they were on the last leg of the countdown. It hadn’t penetrated the main bulk-head because cabin pressure was still normal. But it could have bent the docking joints. If that was the case they were wasting their time. If they ever did get back into orbit they’d never get into the ship again.

“Three, two, one, zero.”

McManus punched the fire button and the rockets roared into life. Instead of lifting, the module began to shake violently.

“We’re bloody stuck!” he shouted in dismay. “It won’t let go of us.”

Steve twisted round in his seat so that he could see through the nearest window. The flames from the rockets lit up the dust storm, revealing a maelstrom of orange sand. Red eyes gleamed balefully through the chaos before launching themselves at the ship and battening against the glass. Above the roar of the engines they could hear the impact as they hurled themselves at the hull from all sides. The strands that crossed the window and tethered the ship were growing thicker as more and more of the red glue arrived.

“More throttle,” screamed Steve. “Damn the computer. Take over on manual.”

The rockets whined in response to the extra fuel and they felt the thrust begin to take them away from the ground. But again they were held and the module began to wobble violently.

“We’re going over,” yelled McManus.

But Steve had seen something in the corner of his helmet.

“More power,” he screeched. “More!”

Where the red tentacles disappeared from sight towards the base of the module, flames were rising. As they came into contact with the alien growth it began to stiffen and shrivel, falling to the ground in bright red flakes. The bonds were disintegrating like rotten hawsers.

As they broke free at one side the module began to keel over as the starboard rocket delivered full thrust. Only quick thinking by McManus saved them. He swiftly cut the motors of the starboard rocket and they felt the craft lurch back and begin to fall to earth. It was swinging crazily like a pendulum. By a series of deft boosts of the rocket motor he had to try and keep them up while the port engines burnt their way through the stuff that was still holding them.

Another sickening lurch and they thought they’d had it, but by a miracle McManus managed to stabilise them again. They’d broken free and as the module steadied herself they felt the full boost of the engines lifting them upwards. Above the roar of the rockets a sudden tearing sound rent the hull. Steve jerked up, expecting to see the plates ripped open and the stars exposed, but it was the last despairing bid of the planet to hold on to them. In a rush of grating metal the module slipped through the giant claws and outside the window he watched red skeins of melting jelly slithering past earthwards.

They rose to meet the sun again.

As they climbed above the surface of the red planet the sun reappeared, smaller and whiter. Her light still lit the far side of the planet and a jagged arc of shadow marked the encroaching night. When the module tilted into orbit they could see the launch site. Dimly they saw a huge red stain lying motionless on the desert floor, waiting.

But now a new danger confronted them. A battery of red warning lights was signalling fuel problems. The fuel level was critical and it was touch and go whether they had enough to get them to the docking point. Burning themselves free had cost them dearly in valuable propellants, and they were carrying extra weight which they could only assume was the remains of the stuff that still clung to the module. How much there was they didn’t know; their outside cameras were useless. The lenses must have been smothered to judge from the bright red featureless pictures they were getting.

They managed a ragged cheer of relief when the orbiting ship came into view. They watched its pristine silver hull glinting against the deep black velvet background of space. It had nothing to do with the squalid red nightmare of the planet but was an escape into the clean empty world of the remote stars.

The rendezvous was difficult. They had to rely on the computer to send data to the ship instructing her to modify her orbit. They hadn’t enough fuel to risk doing it themselves, every ounce was needed for the actual docking operation. Their emergency take-off had meant a rapid recalculation of all their data. Nothing now could run to plan and that meant everything could go wrong. They knew their chances of survival were small, but their escape from the planet gave them a will to fight on.

Yet despite the difficulties it was as if some hidden hand was guiding them, making sure they’d get back to earth. The fuel held out while they made the tricky manoeuvres that brought them level with the ship, and by some miracle the docking mechanism was undamaged. Less than two hours after quitting the surface of the planet they were ready to crawl back into the mother ship in preparation for the journey back home.

They had to leave the module by the same means as they did on Mars: through the airlock and out of the hatch which was now locked on to the ship. None of them had given any thought to the stuff that had crawled into the airlock. Since take-off they’d heard no noises so they’d assumed it had left in the same mysterious way it had arrived.

They’d been so busy with the docking arrangements they hadn’t got round to removing their suits. Only when they were ready to open the airlock door to crawl through to the ship did any doubts trouble them. They all agreed they’d be better with the suits on in case any of the stuff was still about. In the event they were wise.

Steve removed the shaft of the rock probe and began to unscrew the lock. Nothing stirred beyond the door and he felt no pressure on the panel. But when he tried to pull back the door it was stuck. Could the buckled bulk-head plates have caused the exits to jam? Had they got so far to find themselves imprisoned in the module only feet from the lifeline that would take them safely back to Earth?