Rebels of the Red Planet | Page 5

Goat cogitated. If Adam had shown, symptoms of oxygen starvation....
The big canal cacti were hollow, and in their interiors they maintained
reserves of oxygen for their own use. More than once, such a cactus
had saved a Martian traveler's life when his oxygen supply ran short.
He turned to Adam.
"Well, Adam?" he asked.
"I tell you, father, it is lies! I do not fall. Brute does not put me in the
cactus."
"And why should he lie?" asked Goat blandly.
This stumped Adam for a minute. Then he brightened.
"Brute wants to be bigger and stronger than Adam," he said. "Brute
knows Adam is bigger and stronger than Brute, Brute does not like this.
He tells you lies so you will think Brute is bigger and stronger than
Adam."
"I know you are bigger brother, Adam," objected Brute, almost
plaintively. "I not try to be bigger. Why you say you do not fall?"
"I do not fall!" howled Adam. "I do not fall, you stupid Brute!"
Goat held up a stern hand, enforcing silence.
"I can't certainly settle this disagreement, but I'd be inclined to accept
what Brute says," said Goat thoughtfully. "You're smart enough to lie,
Adam. Brute isn't. The only thing I can do is to run the experiment over.
You shall go out again tomorrow, and this time I'll go with you."
"You'll see, father," said Adam confidently. "Adam will not fall."

"Perhaps not. But I must be sure. As much as I prefer your more human
characteristics, Adam, it's entirely possible that Brute has some survival
qualities that you lack."
"Is true, father," said Brute eagerly. "Some things kill Adam, they not
kill Brute."
"You lie!" cried Adam again, turning on him. "Why do you lie, Brute?"
"No lie," insisted Brute. "You know, is true."
"Lie! Lie!" shouted Adam. "Adam is bigger and stronger! What do you
say can kill Adam that does not kill Brute?"
"This," replied Brute calmly.
With an unhurried lunge, he picked up a heavy knife from Goat's desk.
In a single easy movement, he turned and slashed Adam's throat neatly.
Choking and gurgling, Adam sank to his knees, bright blood spouting
from his neck, while Goat stood frozen in horror. Adam fell prone, he
kicked and threshed convulsively like a beheaded chicken, then
twitched and lay still in a spreading pool of blood.
Brute calmly wiped the knife on his naked thigh and laid it back on the
desk.
"Adam dead," he said without emotion. "Brute not lie."
Dismayed fury erupted through Goat's veins and a red haze swept over
his eyes.
"You idiot!" he squawked. "So that won't kill you?"
Goaded beyond endurance, Goat seized the knife and swung it as hard
as he could against Brute's neck. It thunked like an ax biting into a tree
trunk, biting halfway through the flesh. Brute recoiled at the impact,
tearing the handle from Goat's feeble hands and leaving the knife blade
stuck in his throat.

Brute staggered momentarily. Then he reached up and jerked the knife
away. Blood spurted through his severed throat. Brute clapped a hand
to the wound, tightly.
For a moment, blood oozed through his fingers. Then, pale but steady,
Brute dropped his hand.
The wound had closed! Its edges already were sealed, leaving a raw,
red scar that no longer bled.
"Brute not lie," said Brute, the words forced out with some difficulty.
"It not kill Brute."
Stunned by astonishment and disbelief, Goat stared at him, his mouth
moving soundlessly.
"Go away," he whispered hoarsely at last. "Go out of here, monster!"
Obediently, Brute shambled out of the study. As he passed through the
door, Goat regained his voice and called after him:
"Tell the children to come and take away Adam's body."
* * * * *
Kilometers away, Maya Cara Nome and S. Nuwell Eli rode a groundcar
that moved swiftly across the interminable waves of the red sand. It
swayed through hollows and jounced over multiple ridges, Nuwell
steering it with some difficulty. In the steely sky, the small sun moved
downward, its brightness unimpaired by the occasional thin clouds
which moved before it.
The sun touched the western horizon, seemed to hesitate, dropped with
breathtaking suddenness, and the stars immediately began to appear in
the deepening twilight sky.
They stopped and had a compact meal, heated in the groundcar's
short-wave cooker. Then Nuwell switched on the headlights and they
went on again.

Soon afterward, a faint spot of light appeared in the desert far ahead of
them. As they approached it, it became a yellow-lighted window in a
huge black mass rearing up against the night sky. They had reached
Ultra Vires.
Nuwell announced their arrival over the groundcar radio and swung the
groundcar up beside the building's main entrance. He sealed the
groundcar's