CHAPTER 26

A few hours later we had crossed the Atlantic and were well into what would someday be Canada, when the the ship began to shudder. Carthan, who knew almost as much about the ship's operation as its crew, reared to his feet muttering, "atmosphere engine," and picked his way hastily through the people, animals and jumbled supplies littering the common room to the control room door. I did not follow, having no technological aptitude. Some time later he reappeared at the door, his face drawn with worry, beckoning me me to join him.

All three shifts of the engineering and piloting crew were in the control room, clearly waiting for me, all clearly worried. Carthan led me to the outsized oval computer screen which displayed a partial map of North America. A black line indicated our route; a moving red dot over Hudson Bay showed our present position.

"The radium engine is failing," Carthan said to me. "We believe the cause is a combination of our overloaded ship and diminishing capacity of the engine to cope with the gravity. We have asked far more of it than it was intended to give, and we have consumed nearly all our fuel."

"Is it possible to replenish it?" Knowing the answer, I feigned a composure I did not feel

"No," Carthan answered unequivocally, and my heart sank.

The ship had two engines: a nuclear engine for space, and the uniquely Barsoomian "radium" engine for atmospheric flight. Both operated in tandem to achieve escape velocity. Once in space, the radium engine was shut down.

"Then the ship cannot return to Barsoom," I said.

He shook his head, his expression unreadable, though he was undoubtedly thinking that he might never see his beloved planet again.

"How long before we are forced to land?" I asked.

One of the engineers replied, "I think we could continue for several days with much reduced speed at low altitude."

My mind raced ahead. "And when we reach the mountains?"

He shook his head. "Anything higher than 300 ads and we would rapidly lose what is left of our fuel."

Three hundred ads – about 2700 feet, and below the altitude of Alberta's foothills. The pass we needed to cross was over 4500.

"If we can reach the foothills of the mountains, we could walk from there," I mused, while taking a rough measurement on the map. The result stunned me.

Three hundred miles on foot through howling wilderness with 80 inexperienced men, women and children, several goats, brainless chickens, and a pregnant pig! I refused even to contemplate any further horrors.

"Issus!" I whispered, and then sniffed wryly, glancing at Carthan. "The old ulsio's not going to help much, is she!"

The crew glanced at each other, perhaps thinking I was going mad. As the only person present who understood my reference to Barsoom's long-deceased and reviled false goddess, Carthan chuckled, "No, she isn't."

They all stood in silence watching me, clearly awaiting a decision. We had no actual captain since Carthan and I were joint expedition leaders, but I was the only person on board with any real knowledge of my planet. At that moment I felt completely out of my depth, knowing that the fate of eighty people hinged on my decision.

I took a deep breath. "We have no choice but to continue. If we remain here in these northern latitudes, we would have neither the experience nor sufficient resources to survive the winter. We must go farther south and, if possible, endeavour to reach our destination." I looked at the engineer who had spoken. "Are you willing to try?"

"Of course," he said. "We will take the ship as far as she is able to go."

We were about fifteen hundred miles from the mountains – a flight that should have been accomplished in two or three hours. It took two days. The land rises incrementally from sea level at Hudson Bay to the highlands at the foot of the Rockies. As we crossed over Saskatchwan and into southern Alberta, we were nearly skimming the ground, the engine labouring to keep us airborne.

Occasionally we passed over aboriginal villages. When the inhabitants became aware of the incomprehensible object overhead, they invariably reacted with stark terror, dashing for their tepees or, if they were in the open, simply crouching with their arms over their heads. I have often wondered if our mysterious appearance might have contributed to some of their supernatural beliefs.

Several times we skimmed over miles-long herds of bison. Sometimes they would take exception to the strange object above them and charge off in panic. I will never forget the sight of hundreds of thousands of stampeding animals, like a vast living thing, trampling miles-wide devastation across the grasslands.

I spent hours in the control room bending over the map with my finger on our route, as if willing the ship to levitate, to stay aloft and take us ever farther.

As we neared my intended destination in the foothills, I stood glued to the windows, searching the shapes of the mountains for the familiar configuration I had seen repeatedly from automobile trips to Alberta. As the Rockies slid away to the north, I was beginning to think I had missed it . . . but no – there it was! The pass, perhaps a hundred miles away.

As if triggered by my joy at the sighting, the radium engine began to falter.

We were still over flat prairie. However, a sizable and distinctive river, flowing in great curves below us, had cut deep tree-filled coulees in the landscape. As to which river it was, one guess was a good an another. The pilot, sensing the end and knowing the ship needed cover, was able to find a dry gravel bar with space enough on which to land inside the coulee. With the last remaining engine power he eased the ship into concealment within a dense grove of mixed cottonwoods and willows.

While I did not know exactly where we were, the snowy Rockies stood sharply delineated on the western horizon. It would be a long walk, but at least we weren't lost.

. . . . .

When Carthan and I had tried to plan for every contingency for this expedition back in the Rift, not once had it occurred to us that our people would have to hike any great distance, and certainly not 400 miles! Now with that prospect a reality, we were faced with having to carry all our supplies – food, shelter, clothing, and irreplaceable equipment – on our backs. Compounding the problem was the gravity. While the Irish group would have no problem, it had been only two weeks since our ship had landed – too little time for the rest of us to fully acclimatize. Adding heavy packs to already overburdened bodies seemed too much to ask.

But what choice did we have? To judge by the types of spring flowers that were in bloom, I judged it was early April. The trek could take as long as two months. If we arrived in the valley any later than mid-June we would be too late to cultivate soil and plant crops in time for ripening before the September frosts. Our only recourse was to leave as soon as possible, strengthening ourselves as we went along.

Knowing there was nothing more we could do to conceal the ship from wandering natives, Carthan set the locater beacon, leaving a message about our intended destination. He sealed the hatch, and we walked away. Even if someone found the ship, there was no possible way it could be entered or damaged by stone-age tools,

Stripping the ship of anything useful, we distributed everything as equitably as possible. The hold contained sturdy sacks in varying sizes, intended for a multitude of agricultural uses. As travel packs with improvised shoulder straps, each could carry up to 80 pounds. Nearly half the weight of our packs comprised highly nutritious blocks of concentrated food from the ship's stores and were sufficient for weeks of travel.

With nothing left to do but go, I strove for balance under my own pack, and looked at Carthan after he hefted his oversized load onto his back. Shaking my head in sympathy, I said. "Another calot, my love?"

He gave me a crooked grin. "What matters another calot or two?"

Our settlers consisted almost evenly of men and women, with a few children. Nearly all were married couples or family groups. The exceptions were the crew, who had families back in the Rift and had planned to return to Barsoom with the ship. At first they were adamant that they remain with the ship, but we persuaded them that there was no way to know if they would ever be rescued. They agreed reluctantly to go with us. After the first exhausting day of packing their burdens, I wondered if they had second thoughts, but in the end they came all the way.

Trudging along at the speed of the slowest among us, we managed only a mile on that first day. But the human body is a wondrous thing. We daily grew stronger and within a week even the frailest of the children was managing several hours of hiking each day. The land was easily travelled, being flat and sparsely vegetated, and we soon discovered a well-worn native trail which followed the river. The trail saved us miles as it cut across loops that we might otherwise have followed.

Though at first we received the impression that we were alone in that vast wilderness, we soon learned that the prairie was far from empty. The well-used trail we followed was itself a certain indication of the presence of humans. Though we had not yet sighted anyone, that didn't mean they hadn't seen us.

Migratory waterfowl, honking and quacking, filled the spring sky in their millions, sometimes blocking out the sun with their flashing wings. Hunting hawks floated in great circles over the flatlands, meadowlarks courted ecstatically, and prairie dogs rose to their full height in astonishment before popping back into their burrows.

Eight days out from the ship, it was our turn to flee. Only one thing saved us that day – the fact that we happened to be walking within yards of the river bank.

One of the children heard it first – a distant thunder which grew in volume as the minutes passed. At her puzzled comment, those of us nearest had stopped to listen. I glanced around the cloudless horizon; there was no sign of one of the sudden prairie thunderstorms. Then one of the men pointed at a dust cloud in the east behind us. I recognized the threat instantly. Being among those in the lead, I spun about and ran back along the long line of hikers behind me, shouting at them in panic and pointing at the river, "Everyone – into the coulee!"