Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

40 mock, released me from the thing, stood me on my feet. I promptly lost balance and sat down. Temporarily, my dogs were dead. Rubbing them to restore the circulation, my curious eyes examined this dump that might have been anything from a one-horse hamlet to a veritable metropolis. The buildings were made of light green wood, all cylindrical, of uniform height and. diameter, and each had a big tree growing through its middle. The foliage of each tree extended farther than the radius of each house, thus effectively hiding it from over- ‘head view. Nothing could have been better calculated to conceal the place from the air, though there wasn’t any reason to suppose that the inhabitants feared any menace from above. Still, the way in which trees and buildings shared the same sites made it quite impos- sible to estimate the size of the place, for beyond the nearer screen of buildings were trees, trees and more trees, each of which may have shielded a house. I couldn’t tell whether I was looking at a kraal or at the riverside suburb of some place running right over the horizon. It was little wonder that the exploring lifeboat had observed nothing but forest. Its crew could have scouted over an area holding a population of many millions and have thought it nothing but jungle. Their weapons ready, their eyes alert, a horde of the green ones clustered around us while some of them finished the task of releasing the prisoners. The fact that we'd arrived in a thing like the Marathon didn’t awe them one little bit. My feet were obedient now, so I lugged on my jackboots, stood up and looked around. It was then that I got two shocks. The first hit me as I scanned my com- panions in misery. They consisted of little more than half the complement of the Marathon. The rest weren’t there. One ham- mock held a still, lax figure that I recognized as the body of the guy who’d caught the darts soon after we landed. Upon another reposed the awake but dreamy, disinterested form of Sug Farn. But he was the only Martian present. None of the others were there. Neither were Chief Douglas, Ban- nister, Kane, Richards, Kelly, Jay Score, Steve Gregory, young Wilson and a dozen others. Were they dead? It didn’t seem so—else why should the greenies have transported one body: and not the others? Had they rs ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION escaped, or did they form a second party of prisoners that had been taken’ elsewhere? There was no way of determining their fate, yet it was strange that they should be missing. I nudged Jepson. noticed—” Came a sudden roar over that river and all the green ones stared upward and ges- ticulated with their weapons. They made mouth motions, but the roar drowned them out. Whirling around, I could feel my eyes bugging as the Marathon’s sleek pinnace dived within a few feet of the surface of the river, soared upward again. It vanished over the treetops, drummed into the dis- tance. Then I could hear it sweeping round in a wide circle. Its note accelerated as it went into another dive, it shot back into view, swooped so low that it touched the surface of the water, whisked a shower of green droplets behind it and sent a small wash “Hey, have you lapping into the bank. Then it was gone in another swift and: uproarious soar, bulleting past at such a rate that it was impossible to see the pilot’s cabin. Jepson spat on his fist, gave the greenies a sour eye, and said, ““They’ve got it coming to them, the lice!” “Tut? I chided. “As for you,” he went on. He didn’t get a chance to say more because a tall, thin, mean-looking greenie suddenly picked on him. This one gave him a contemptuous shove in the chest and piped something on a rising note of interrogation. “Don’t you do that to me!” snarled Jep- son, giving an answering shove. The green one staggered backward, re- covered his balance, kicked out with his right leg. I thought he was trying to give Jepson a crack on the shins, but he wasn’t. He was throwing something with his foot. and what he threw was alive. All I could see of it was something that- may or may not have been a tiny snake. It had no more length and thickness than a pencil and, for a change, it wasn’t green but a bright orange color relieved by small, black spots. It landed on Jepson’s chest, bit him, then flicked down his front so fast that I could hardly follow it. Reaching the ground, it made the grass fairly whip aside as it streaked back to its owner. Curling around the green one’s ankle, it went supine, looking exactly like a harmless leg ornament. A very smal] number of the comiclooks CO