Mm hmm coddom for blast off X minus five four three two x minus one.
Fire from the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions
in time and space. These are stories of the future adventures in which you'll
live in a million, could be years, on a thousand, maybe worlds.
The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of
Astounding Science Fiction, presents he minus minus minus The Martian Death March. I've
always been interested in lost causes, the revolt of the Scottish Jacobites against England,
the last stand of the Cherokee and Sioux Indians, and the death March
of the Martian Highlanders in nineteen ninety seven. There has been a lot written
about that march. The UN Commission report covers four volumes, but the whole
story isn't down on paper yet. I know it because I was on that
march from the beginning to the end. There's one part of the story that
no one ever mentions. The Martian Death March of ninety seven was led by
an earthman. Maybe you've been over the root of the marsh. There wasn't
any highway there thirty years ago. In ninety seven, there was desert,
hot, burning desert. I lived at the edge of a Kalmac canal then
with my father. He was a prospector searching the surrounding desert with sonar probe
and Geiger counter, scratching just enough or from under the Martian sands to pay
for our grub steak. The next year. I remember he was in the
Adamson digger in the north quadrant when I came running out that day. God,
Dad, Dad, there's somebody coming, Dad, across the desert.
You sure I saw them. There are a couple of miles out, or
how many cars they're on foot, on foot across the desert. Honest,
Dad, I saw them. Are you sure it wasn't a light reflection off
the canal, No, it was dark against the sand. You don't like
that. You run back and get the rifles out. I've got to pull
a digger into the shed. Is they're gonna be fighting, Dad, I
don't know. I got a whole year's or piled out back in the bins,
and I ain't gonna lose it. No claim, jumpers. You go
back the shack and break out those rifles and see their lord you hear and
jump Dad had three surplus army rifles and a couple of homemade grenades made out
of or cans stuffed with adamson A explosives. We crouched inside the shack waiting.
The shadow of the water tower in the doorway grew longer as the quick
Martian dust settled down over the desert. And there they come. Al,
there's two of them. What's that on the first one's back? Why?
I haven't seen one of those in twenty years? What is it? A
one man desert tank? They used to carry water that way before Adamson put
out the air still units. There's something funny about that second one. Look
he's all spinley and it's funny. He's funny, all right. Hell,
that's a Martian. I never saw one off the reservation before, hasn't been,
not in ten years. I don't like this. Here they come into
the dooryard. You remember what I told you. Wind up the sights and
just squeeze the trigger. Hello, Hello now dove, Hello, Wait a
minute, what do you want water? I need water? WHI My name
is John Johannah. What are you doing with that spider? His name is
cantal Car. I don't care what his name is. What's a human doing
with a Martian? I found him in the dry bed of CalMac Canal.
Neil he did? He probably ran off from the reservation. When our brothers
are cage, they seek freedom. Brothers. Those spiders all living creatures out
our brothers on mars as Honay, wait a minute, bird Ulstrom at false
whe told me there was a screwball heads preacher over there hollering about letting the
spiders loose off the reservations. Let no man call his own, no man,
no tribe, no nation. I guess that's you, all right,
Britt told me they called you're crazy, John. I don't suppose any harmony.
Fill your tank up at the air still, and you can even have
supper with us. We would be happy to we What do you mean we
can tell car and my sulit that spider. Oh no, I ain't having
a Martian sitting down and eat with me. You come on, no,
thank you, sir. No where my brother is not welcome, I cannot
go. Well, suit yourself. I'll get the key to the water tarer.
Come out here and put away the guns. We won't have any trouble
from these two. The old man filled his tank at the air still tower,
and the Martian went through the ashpile for half earned fueled brick. When
we went to the house for supper, I could see them dis silhouetted against
the fire, the old man with his wild hair and beard, and the
thin spidery arms and legs of the Martian. Dad, what are all the
Martians on the reservation? Yeah? Oh, but a couple of wild ones
in the mountains up north. The patrol catches a couple every year. Why
they murder people? No? I mean why are they on the reservation because
it's the safest place to keep them and past us off. How many are
there? Oh, I don't know, a few thousand. They keep dying
off. Why they catch earth diseases? Chicken pox almost wiped out the whole
gang of them two years ago. Chicken pox. I had that. It
didn't wipe me out. You ain't a Martian. I was born on Mars.
Well, I mean, you ain't one of those spiders. Now eat
your food, it'll get cold, okay, dad? Oh what now?
Were the Martians always on the reservation, Well, since the Outpost three massacre
they have been that. But before you were born, they lived wild in
the mountains up north. Were they fierce? Fierce enough? Only place for
them spiders behind wire? Yeah, it sure is. Out in the dooryard,
the campfire flickered at the base of the water tower. The first of
the Martian moons had set. The other wouldn't rise for several hours. I
could hear the sand peepers out of the desert as I stood there. The
old man and the Martians were sitting on the ground, huddled close to the
fire. It gets cold fast on the desert when the sun goes down.
Is that you, boy? You can come up to the fire if you
like. My dad wouldn't like it, all right, But I'm not afraid
of no spider. No, there is nothing to be afraid of. How
come his arms are all skinny? Ask him? Does he talk? Yes?
His name is Cantalca. It is huh hello, hello, boy.
He talks funny. It is not my language. Why isn't he on the
reservation. You can get in trouble helping spiders to escape. No man has
the right to imprison the innocent. They that are enslaved will be freed.
They that are in sickness and misery will be comforted. They that are exiled
in a strange place will be restored. My dad says, the spiders are
treacherous, cowardly, murdering savages. That's what he says. Boy. There
was a time on this world when there were no earthmen, when the ships
and the machinery of Earth were unknown. Then the people of the highlands lived
in peace. But today they are a handful, starving, dying behind the
wire. But the reservation isn't so bad. Our home is in the mountains
of the north, not the desert. I heard a voice cry it out
to me in the desert. Go to your brothers. Did they really call
you crazy? John? I have been called manything. You really think we
ought to let those old spiders off the reservation? Why we die here in
the desert. We die in the sun, and of the sicknesses you have
brought from Earth. That's cause Martians are just weak. I'll bet I could
knock you down myself. You could. We are a different people. We
have not the strength of muscle of earthmen. But we will not stay here
to die. You won't get off the reservation. The patrol takes care of
all that. They won't let any stinking old spiders out. Ah, even
in the minds of children splanted the poison of evil? How long that night?
Through the window I could see the flicker of the old man's campfire.
He was walking up and down now, shopping, singing hymns verse after verse,
his white beard catching the light as he passed behind the fire. The
Martians sat slumped over his thin, spindly arms folded across the huge barrel chest
that had developed over the sentries. As the air of Mars thinned and escaped
into space in the morning, I looked out and they were gone. Looking
back now, we wonder how they did it. The high voltage wire around
the reservation carried a fatal charge. The patrolman in the tower had fifty caliber
machine guns. The desert around the camp was mined heavily, yet at dawn
on August seventh, nineteen ninety seven, they broke out. I was down
at the dried up canal bed hunting sandpeepers when my father came running after me.
Hell oh, here I am. Come on back to the house.
What's the matter? Dare and shut up and run? What is it?
The spiders busted boots, burdles from radioed inn They come in here they're headed
this way, the murdering devils. They kill anybody. Six patrolmen. When
I busted through the wire, What are you gonna do? Dad? Why
are a peg of adamson A across the gate? You get in there and
get the guns out. I got the rifles and shoved the full clip in
each one. Then I slipped the primer fuse on the homemade grenades and lugged
them out to the porch. Dad was running lead wires back to a detonator
from a half keg of adamson A he'd set across the gate there, and
that said, now, give me one of those rifles. Will they be
here soon? You can see the dust over the rise litering spiders. What'll
they do? I don't know. Now make sure you get a good side,
Al, don't waste any bullets. There they are, Dad, There
they come. Wait a minute, hold up now, I want to get
a good shot. Let him get closer, Dad, that's crazy John up
in front there. He's taller than the spiders. You can see his beard.
You're right, and that run a gave rat. He probably helped him
break out of the reservation. Listen now, if anything happens to me,
you ride out back to the shed. You can hide out in the empty
orbins till they go away. And you got that, all right, Dad.
The spider's shouting something, Dad, probably a trick. Get down,
a little leavel you're in the way. I got him, clear now,
right in my head. Up a little now, got him? Got him?
Hell, Dad, look out, they've got good down. Get down,
Get out out, Get out to the shed. Yeah, your here,
go on. Spiders are going to rush. Don't get gory. No,
no, I can't up and get out of here. You're here,
get out. I ran back through the heart to the shed. Behind me,
I could hear the Martians sweeping up to the dooryard. Then suddenly the
ground shook and I could feel the dull concussion waves hit my ears as the
adamson A exploded. I could hear the high, whispered screams of the Martians
and the rattle of fragments on the metal roof of the shed. I dived
into the empty orbit and slammed the hatch, almost chucked. I sat there
waiting. Then suddenly a shadow fell across the edge of light and the hat
slid open on top of me. You leave me alone, I'll kill you,
boy. I've been looking for you. Where's my dad? What did
you do to my dad? He's dead? You kill him? You and
those spiders, I'll kill you. I'll kill all those thinking, murdering spiders.
They are our brother's boy. Your father shot without warning, and the
fire was returned against my orders. You mean you weren't gonna attack us.
Our brothers came in peace. They are going home to their mountains. We
came to get water for the journey. You mean you just wanted water?
Yeah, Dad deadn The Earth Patrol will be following us soon. We must
go and the boy. We have to leave him here with water and supplies.
The Earth Patrol would question him. We need the time he goes with
us. They tore the Adamson air still from the top and mounted it on
poles. They piled our supplies in the yard and loaded them on their backs,
and then they started. I marched with the old man of the head
and the columns stretched out behind us on the desert. I turned to look
back at our house, but the sun was behind it, blinding red.
The old man pulled me around as he marched, his eyes fixed on the
horizon, where far to the north rose the cool mountains that were the ancient
home of the Highlanders. Fourteen of the martians died the first day. They
dropped to the side of the colum where they could go no farther, and
died, but the march went on. On the fifth day, we swung
wide to avoid a mining settlement, but not wide enough. The miners were
in ambush behind a pile of rocks. O boy, reservation horse. I
shall lead them home to the promised rest, home to the mountains. March
forward, march how wold, and the march went on. We wound across
the desert in wild zigzags, following the paths the old man had traveled through
the years. Only once a patrol plane hovered on the horizon and then shot
away. The days went on, the weeks, and the martians died.
They died of exhaustion, They died of the diseases we had given, and
they died of thirst. The Adamson still could produce twenty seven units of water
an hour, no more, and on that they died of thirst. Here,
boy, here's your water. But that's more than the others. God
take it, it's yours. You're giving me your water it will be provided
to me. He that brings justice to his brothers will drink deep of the
water of righteousness. Eat it, drink, drink your water. Boy.
Across the desert, from the CalMac Canal to Fever dep past the towering mass
of the Higgins bad Lands, across the dry sea bottoms, they marched on
the fifty fourth day of the march. We halted at evening. The air
was thinner, colder, now the rations had long since been exhausted. I
lay down to sleep, wrapped in the old man's coat. Early in the
morning, before sunrise, I awoke. Suddenly the ground mist that had covered
the desert the night before was lifting. Slowly. I saw the old man
standing by the burned out fire, the vapor swirling around his legs in the
cold light of the false dawn, edging his wild beard. Go back to
sleep, Boy, I can't. The end is near. I have led
them through the wilderness, drive shod across the seas, and before us lie
the mountains. You mean we're almost there. When the mist is taken from
the eyes of man, the place of refuge can be seen. You mean
the mountains. It's over where there. I have led them to their home,
and I must go back to the desert. You mean alone now now,
even now I hear a voice in the wind, carry the message to
the men of Earth. Bring to this new world, the message of the
old. All beings created in the universe are my brothers. And he that
hums my brother hums me. Goodbye, goodbye boy, you will be safe
now. Goodbye, joh, goodbye. The Martians found him five hundred yards
from the camp dead. Now the mist rose and before us towered the highlands,
the tall green mountains in the cool sky. The march was over.
Of the seven thousand Martians who started, nine hundred were alive. They gathered
now on the rise of ground and faced the hills. Their thin bodies wavered
as they stood, and some dropped to the ground as they stood there,
but there was a light of hope in their large, staring eyes. Most
of them had died, but they had died on their way home, And
now the march was over. Then the patrol planes were spotted on the horizon,
and within ten minutes they had landed. The Martians stood silently as the
squads piled out and set up the fifty caliber machine guns and the petroleum jee
flamethrower. All right, you spiders, hands up and stay together. Gather
in a bunch and don't try anything. Sergeant, Yes, sir, shoot
the first spider that moves and shoot to kill. Alright, where's that boy?
There was a boy reported here? Oh are you all right? Kid?
They hurt you. No, I'm all right. John gave me his
water rash the leader. Uh well, I've got a warren for him.
Where is he there? He's dead? Oh well, just as well.
I hate to be him in front of a settler's jury. What are you
gonna do to them? The spiders see those transport planes coming in. We're
going to ship them all back to the reservation where they belong. You can't.
I can't do that. What are you talking about, kid, You
can't take them back. They're home. John said they were home. You
can't take them back. It isn't there. I won't let I won't sag.
Yes, peel this crazy kid off me? All right now, kid,
take it. I must be shot. Can't believe safety. Yeah,
I guess that's it. All right, You spiders, step it up,
move along to those transport planes. It's all over now you're headed right back
to the reservation. They separated them in groups of fifty and loaded them on
the plains, nine hundred out of seven thousand, and soon the first big
bellied ships waddled out on the hard sands and lifted slowly into the air.
Headed back to the south, flying over the trail of dead and dying,
and started on the march to the highlands, the march to home. Don't
worry about them spiders, kid, We'll take care of them. Come on
out, kid, you'll feel better as soon as you get back. It's
civilization. I looked once more at the green mountains towering through the mist,
and then just before the motor raced, I saw John Crazy John propped up
against a dognut bush where the Martians had placed him. The wind from the
south gave the wild hair and beard a rippling life. He faced the hills,
the home and rest he had promised his brothers as he led them through
the wilderness of Mars. You have just heard X minus one presented by the
Night Broadcasting Company in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of Astounding science fiction.
Your announcer, Fred Cowens. X minus one was an NBC Radio Network production