The Martian Part 2

CHAPTER III.

In Confinement

He awakened in shivering terror. His entire body was wet. Water was falling on him. It was falling on the ground all around and on the trees--thousands, millions of drops. He choked, as he tried to breathe the damp, saturated air. Desperately he looked around for some protection, but there was none. He covered his face as best he could with his folded arms, and cried out in fear.

There came a shout; and he heard something moving toward him, but he did not care. Horror of the falling water crowded all other emotions from his mind.

One of the creatures was standing over him. He heard others approaching.

They were shouting loudly back and forth to one another. In a moment, there was a circle of them, all around him.

He was too distressed to pay them any attention. After a time one of them bent down and grasped him under the armpits. He felt himself lifted into the air. He did not struggle, even when their faces were all around him--very close.

Now they were walking through the trees, one of them carrying him in its huge arms, quite gently. He was scarcely conscious of his surroundings.

It was becoming more and more difficult to breathe.

Then he felt himself laid down on something soft and dry. The water was not falling on him now. He opened his eyes.

They had placed him under a shelter. He could hear the water on the black covering above him. There was one of them on each side of him, where he lay on what seemed to be a cushioned seat....

Suddenly there came a rumble, and the seat beneath him quivered and shook. He struggled to sit up. One of the creatures aided him, and wrapped a dry cloth about his body. He was grateful.

The seat was b.u.mping up and down violently. On each side, he could see the trees moving slowly backward. He realized that he was in a vehicle.

It jolted constantly, and he imagined that it must run directly on the rough ground. It made a continuous and tremendous noise. But it was a machine of transportation, however crude; and he quickly forgot his bodily discomfort, as the implications of this fact crowded through his mind.

He looked with a new interest at his captors. They were talking together excitedly--evidently about him, for they never removed their eyes from him. In spite of their strangeness and savagery, they must have reasoning minds. He could be pretty sure of that, now....

The vehicle came to rest, and to either side he saw structures, made, evidently, of cut trees. Then his heart leaped again, as he saw that they had gla.s.s. So they knew how to make that! There were only a few pieces of it let into the walls--but it was certainly gla.s.s, and his hopes rose a bit higher.

They carried him into one of the houses. It was quite dark. They set him down upon a large table. They were increasing rapidly in numbers, jostling in through the door and crowding around the table.

In the wall near him there was one of the pieces of gla.s.s. Abashed by the dozens of staring eyes, he looked through this, and saw a broad field, its soil turned up in long, straight rows--evidently for planting. Near the center of the field were two creatures, which immediately commanded his attention.

They were not alike. One was similar to those he had already seen, but the other was even larger and of a different shape. Four legs carried the great, bulky body, which rested in a horizontal position, as did the thick neck and long, tapering head. It was dragging the tool which turned up the furrows of soil, while the other followed behind, governing its directions.

Clearly, he thought, there were many types of creatures on Toon. He would have to try to understand their relations to one another....

Inside the room there was much noise, and the air was hot, damp, and very unpleasant to breathe. He was not afraid of the creatures now; and instinctively he realized that it was curiosity that brought them here, and that they meant him no harm. A few were trying to speak to him, looking directly into his eyes and making monosyllabic sounds. This amused him at first. They would not be quite so hopeful if they understood from where he had come.

But in another moment his amus.e.m.e.nt had vanished. One of the creatures, standing near, placed a finger close to where he sat, at the same time uttering a short disyllabic sound:

"Table!"

A thrill shot through him. He had expected no such intelligence on the part of his captors. A new wave of hope surged up within him....

Carefully, he repeated the gesture and the word.

His action was followed by a burst of excited conversation in the room.

Several made sharp, guttural noises which he guessed meant gratification or amus.e.m.e.nt.

Immediately a number of them took up the game; and he eagerly did his part, repeating the sounds they made and identifying them with objects.

With every possible gesture he tried to indicate to them his pleasure and gratification.

He was sorry when they began to go away.

It had been getting steadily darker for some time, when, suddenly, the room was brilliantly illuminated; and, looking quickly around, he saw a number of bright globes. This event brought him to a high pitch of elation. The character of the vehicle in which he had ridden had made him fear that they knew nothing of electricity, but here was tangible evidence that they did. His dream of a return to Loten seemed less like a wild imagining at every moment.

He was beginning to think of these creatures as people, almost human beings.

Now, only two of them remained. From their glances he knew that they were talking about him. Finally, one of them lifted him from the table; and, walking swiftly, carried him through the door, across a short stretch of open ground, and into a smaller and darker structure, there laying him down upon a bed of cloths and cushions in one corner of the single room. The other followed them in, carrying a china dish and cup.

Setting these beside him, they both pointed with their fingers to their open mouths. He understood immediately, and was glad. He needed nourishment badly.

But when he looked into the dish his pleasure abated. It contained an a.s.sortment of what appeared to be parts of plants and--he tried to conceal his horror--animal flesh.

Looking up, he nodded--a gesture that he had quickly learned; and to his great relief they turned and left the room, closing the door. He heard a sharp click.

The flesh he immediately put aside. He did not like to think what its origin might be. He studied the plants. They had evidently been subjected to a heat process, but had not been chemically refined in any way. The percentage of nourishment in them must be very low, and it would be necessary for him to eat great quant.i.ties to sustain his strength. He wondered how long his stomach could stand it.

These people must eat almost daily to sustain themselves on such fare, he reasoned, marvelling.

With a p.r.o.nged implement that they had given him, he set to work to mash the food into as soft a ma.s.s as possible. This process they accomplished easily with their fangs, he knew.

The taste was anything but pleasing, and he had great difficulty in swallowing; but he finally managed to a.s.suage his hunger, and felt better. He drank a little water from the cup, which contained enough to supply him for at least five days.

This done, he stretched himself out upon the bed, and gave himself over to pleasant reflection. A far cry, he thought, from the man lying helpless in the desert, devoid of all hope, to the one who had established contact with a race of intelligent beings who would doubtless be willing to help him return to his own native world. He reflected that if the flying ship had hot happened to come near him, he would most certainly have perished by now--perished in a foreign world, far away from those he loved, never knowing there was a chance for his salvation. But now he had taken the first step.... Anything was possible now.

His attention returned to his surroundings. The bare room was lighted by a bulb hanging from wires in the center. From it dangled a cord, the purpose of which he quickly guessed. The walls and floor were bare wood, and rough. Along the whole length of one wall extended a low, narrow table, or bench, strewn with a miscellaneous collection of objects which aroused his curiosity.

He crawled to the bench, and pulled himself erect by grasping its edge.

He was just tall enough to see along its surface. Near him rested a large roll of what he first thought was cord; but on closer examination he decided that it was metal wire covered with a fibre insulation.

Obviously it was for the conduction of electricity. Scattered around it were a number of cylinders of varying sizes, which he saw were wound closely with very fine wires. Clearly, these people did more with electricity than make light, he thought, encouraged.

There was nothing else in the room except a pile of rusty metal in one corner. The whole place was depressingly dirty and dreary. He thought that he would feel better without the light. He made his way to the center of the room, and stretched upwards. Finding that he could just reach the cord, he jerked it; and returned in the darkness to his cot.

He lay there quietly, trying to calm his nerves. He wondered what they would do with him....

He was still wondering the same thing at the end of four days. They did not move him. They did nothing except come and look at him--a great many of them at first, but less and less as time went on. They came in the daytime--never at night. They fed him; and a few still tried to talk to him. This pleased him, and he strove eagerly to understand and imitate; but they soon got tired and stopped.

He learned to distinguish the males and females among the people that came, by differences in stature, length of hair, and clothing. He observed, with complete bewilderment, that the males often carried in their hands burning cylinders which they raised regularly to their mouths, blowing out smoke into the air. He guessed, finally, that this must be some sort of sanitary precaution.

Now, however, he was left alone most of the time. They brought him food, and then went away. He was uneasy. Physically, he felt far from well.

The damp air made his throat and chest ache; and he feared that the long deprivation of sunlight was hurting him. He could not understand.

Gathering his courage one day, he attempted to open the door. He reached up and turned the k.n.o.b the way he had seen the people do. But it would not move when he pushed. He remembered the clicking sound he had heard every time after they went out.