The Martian Shore
By CHARLES L. FONTENAY
Shaan made the longest
crawl in history—to avoid
crawling before tyrants!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity Science Fiction, April 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The lone figure trudged across the Hellas Desert toward Alpheus Canal.He moved fast in the low gravity of Mars, but the canal was miles awayand the afternoon was far gone.
Robbo Shaan turned his marsuit temperature unit down a degree. He stillperspired freely, but he didn't dare turn it any lower. Only a greenEarthand would ignore any survival factor when stranded on the Martiandesert.
Shaan had no map, no compass. But he remembered there was a privatedome in the middle of the canal, just about due east from him. Hedidn't have enough oxygen to reach it. They had seen to that. But he'dtry till he died.
The brand itched on his forehead, and scalded in the sweat thatpoured down from his close-cropped blond hair. With his marshelmet on,there was no way to scratch it. It throbbed.
Even if he reached the dome, or any dome, that brand guaranteed that hewould be shot on sight.
Soldiers of the Imperial Government of Mars had dropped the jetcopterto the sand hours before, and turned Robbo Shaan out to die. He hadstood on the red sand and watched the 'copter with the four-wingedeagles painted on its sides, as it rose and fled away from him in thedirection of Mars City.
He smiled grimly. The Imperial Constitution did not permit theGovernment to kill a man outright, no matter what his crime. This wasthe way they did it instead.
Robbo Shaan's crime was simple. He believed in the old democraticform of government the Martian dome-cities had had after the Martianpeople won their freedom from the Earth corporations in the CharaxUprising—and had recently lost. Shaan had talked democracy, and underthe new Imperial Government that was treason.
There was no appeal from his sentence. If he lived—and how could helive without food or oxygen?—he was an outcast. It was a peculiarlegal contradiction; the government was prohibited from executing himoutright, but, once he had been branded, it was the duty of every loyalcitizen to shoot him dead on sight.
Shaan checked his oxygen dial. There was only about an hour's supplyleft. He couldn't cut his use of it down.
Instinctively, his hand dropped to his belt, but the vial of suspensenehe'd carried so long was not there. They wouldn't leave him that.Suspensene was a drug that would put a man in suspended animation fortwenty-four hours. It was used in such emergencies when oxygen ran low,to preserve life until rescue came.
What good would it have done him, anyhow? There would be no rescue forhim. The radio equipment had been removed from his marshelmet. Even ifit hadn't, no one would help a branded man.
He saw the green expanse of the canal when he was still far away fromit. It was a thin line that broadened as he approached, panting,getting the best he could from his weary legs with long, floating leaps.
He reached the edge of the cliff. The canal was a hundred feet belowhim, too far to jump, even on Mars. He walked a mile southward alongthe rim, seeking a downward ledge.
There was no ledge. But Shaan found a roughness of projecting rocks,where the cliff was not entirely perpendicular. He scrambled down.
He jumped down the last twenty feet. He landed with a muffled