Read Ebook: The Frogs of Mars by Aycock Roger D

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Ebook has 604 lines and 27451 words, and 13 pages

The little man shrugged. "Teleport. They're good at it too."

Saxton let out a laugh. "That would make them more intelligent than us!" he said. "What do these Martians look like?"

The little man screwed up his face distastefully. "Frogs."

The reporter who had asked about natives got choked on his drink and had to be pounded on the back. On my left, Abe Marker leaned against the bar to look past me at the little guy.

"There are more frogs on Mars," the little man said, "than there are gnats and fish together, and they never stop croaking. You'd have to hear it to believe it."

The television screen lit up suddenly, chopping off conversation, and we were watching the first Marscast in history.

Colonel Sanderson himself was talking. He looked the way Stanley must have looked when he found Livingstone, gaunt and bearded and jumpy; and his crew, lined up behind him before the ship's pickup camera, were in no better shape. The lot of them stared hungrily out at us as if they had just found a peephole into Heaven and couldn't wait to see if there was a gate farther along the fence.

"... established conceptions of Martian areography are completely erroneous," the colonel was saying. "There are no drifting deserts of sand or howling typhoons of ferrous dust. We can show you actual conditions better by camera, I think, than they could be detailed in words."

The view jumped to another camera aimed from an outside port, and we saw Mars. Colonel Sanderson's voice kept up a running commentary behind the scene, but we only half heard him.

The ship rested in about two feet of water. Around it the whole world curved up to the horizon in a shallow concave sweep like the inside of a great rusty bowl, lined with knee-high reeds that grew as far as the eye could see out of a knee-deep marsh. A fist-sized sun hung low in the sky, its glare dulled to a muddy crimson by a shimmering cloud of gnats that whirled and danced to infinity. There was a sort of vast, featureless roaring in the background that sounded like Niagara at two hundred yards, not deafening but loud enough to force Colonel Sanderson to raise his voice.

"The frog noise is worst," he was saying. "It drives us to the point of insanity at times.... One member of our party has succumbed to it already, a machinist named Willkins who disappeared two weeks ago. Apparently the poor fellow drowned himself in the marsh, since no trace of him has been found since."

"So that's how you knew what it was like," I said. "You couldn't stick it out with the others, so you jumped ship. You deserted!"

He gave me a hangdog look. "It's not deserting unless the country is at war," he said. "It's just going over the hill, A.W.O.L."

The television roar got louder, and when I looked up the ship's cameraman was doing a close-up for our benefit. He panned the shot downward until we seemed to be standing ten feet above the marsh, and at that distance I could see plainly what it was that caused the uproar.

The water between the reddish-brown reeds was thick with huge frogs, all blinking and croaking like mad.

I remember thinking then that you couldn't really blame a man for jumping ship in a hole like that. It was bad enough to be stuck thirty-odd million miles from home, so far that light itself needed three minutes to--

I didn't find out.

The guy was gone. He had been standing there so close I could have touched him, but now he was gone. I looked around quick. Nobody else seemed to have noticed. All eyes were on the TV screen.

I felt my throat tighten at the thought. I shook my head. What was going through it was fantastic, impossible and downright lunacy. There was an intelligent life-form on Mars--beings that looked like frogs and could teleport. Could they also mimic human shape temporarily? Especially if they got hold of one for a model--say a missing crewman....

"Hey! Where are you going? Don't you want to see the Marscast?"

I was walking to the door. I looked back at the barkeep. "I've seen enough, Larry, I got things to do."

He shrugged. "Yeh, what?"

"Like hunting frogs," I told him as I shoved the door open. "I got a hunch we'll be doing a lot of that before very long...."

BERTRAND, LA CH?TELAINE, LE CHEVALIER.

LA CH?TELAINE. Quoi! le fils de ma soeur! Quel d?shonneur pour sa famille!

LE CHEVALIER. Oh! c'est toi, mon bon petit diable de neveu, toujours le m?me, toujours ferrailleur.

BERTRAND. Mon oncle, je viens vous demander asile.

LA CH?TELAINE. Asile, quand vous faites mourir voire m?re de douleur? Allez demander pardon ? vos parents.

BERTRAND. Vous voulez donc que j'aille m'h?berger chez des ?trangers?

LE CHEVALIER. Non, ma maison ne te sera pas ferm?e. Mais pourquoi et comment as-tu quitt? le ch?teau de ton p?re?

BERTRAND. Pourquoi? parce qu'on m'y retenait prisonnier depuis deux mois au pain et ? l'eau, que j'avais besoin de l'air du bon Dieu et d'une nourriture plus substantielle. Comment? cela va vous faire rire. Au lieu de m'envoyer mon pain et mon eau par ma bonne nourrice Rachel, qui m'aurait consol? en me contant des histoires de chevalerie, on me les faisait apporter par une vieille et m?chante sorci?re qui jamais ne manquait en entrant de fermer la porte du donjon, dont la clef ?tait suspendue ? sa ceinture. Un jour donc je r?solus de lui enlever cette clef. Je savais que mon p?re et ma m?re ?taient absents, et lorsque la vieille entra, je m'?lan?ai sur elle, je l'assis, sans lui faire de mal, sur la paille qui me servait de lit; je l'encha?nai avec mon drap contre un des barreaux de la fen?tre, et, pour l'emp?cher de crier, je lui mis, en guise de b?illon, ma ceinture sur la bouche. Puis, lui volant la clef, j'ouvris la porte, sautai l'escalier, et me voil?.

LA CH?TELAINE. Quel scandale!

BERTRAND. Ecoutez. Pour fuir il me fallait une monture: j'aper?ois dans la campagne un laboureur; je cours ? la charrue, j'en d?telle une jument, j'enfourche, je pique des deux, malgr? les cris et les lamentations du rustre ?bahi, auquel je r?ponds par des ?clats de rire, et, sans selle ni bride, j'ai galop? jusqu'? Rennes. Maintenant, h?bergez-moi, car j'ai grand app?tit et suis fort las.

LE CHEVALIER. Viens donc changer d'habits et te mettre ? table; puis nous parlerons de ce que tu as ? faire; je te donnerai des conseils.

BERTRAND. Merci, cher oncle! N'est-ce pas que vous m'apprendrez ? faire des armes?

LA CH?TELAINE. Votre indulgence ach?vera de le perdre.

Une place publique devant la maison du chevalier de La Motte.

BERTRAND, seul.

BERTRAND. Comme mon oncle est bon pour moi! Il m'a montr? ses chevaux et ses armes. Oh! ses armes, qu'elles sont belles! Je serai heureux ici! Ma tante me g?ne bien un peu; n'importe, je lui ob?irai pour vivre aupr?s de mon oncle. Mais quel est ce grand ?criteau qu'on a plant? l?? Si je savais lire.... Une ?p?e et un beau casque ? plumes le couronnent; c'est sans doute quelque prix d'armes. Voil? un enfant qui passe; il saura peut-?tre ce que cela veut dire. Mon ami, qu'y a-t-il sur cet ?criteau?

L'ENFANT. Il y a qu'aujourd'hui, dans une heure, commencera sur cette place une grande lutte, et que le prix du vainqueur sera cette belle ?p?e et ce beau casque ? plumes.

BERTRAND. Oh! si je pouvais les gagner!

L'ENFANT. Non, vous ?tes trop jeune.

BERTRAND. Trop jeune! je suis plus fort que tous les Rennois! Mais comment faire pour ?chapper ? ma tante? Elle va m'appeler pour l'accompagner ? v?pres, et avant une heure la lutte commence.... Je ne serai pas l?.... Un autre aura le prix!... Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! c'est bien cruel pourtant de renoncer ? cette ?p?e qui est l? brillante au-dessus de ma t?te.... Je l'aurais gagn?e, j'en suis s?r.

BERTRAND, la ch?telaine de LA MOTTE.

BERTRAND. Ma tante, je regardais cette ?p?e; voyez, on dirait qu'elle me regarde. Son acier poli brille comme des yeux.

LA CH?TELAINE. Vous ne pensez jamais qu'aux armes et aux combats. Bertrand, c'est aujourd'hui le saint jour du dimanche, venez ? l'?glise, et priez Dieu qu'il vous change.

LA CH?TELAINE. Portez mon livre, et suivez-moi.

LA CH?TELAINE. Non, venez vous agenouiller dans la chapelle.

BERTRAND. Comment prier en entendant ces cris?

LA FOULE. La lutte, la lutte commence; accourez, lutteurs!

BERTRAND. Je n'y tiens plus.... ma tante baisse la t?te.... Profitons....

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