Mars is My Destination

by Frank Belknap Long

When they did the pain was back, and this time it was excruciating. My whole shoulder was laced with fire, as if a red-hot iron had been laid against it. If right at that moment I'd smelled an odor of burning flesh I'd have been sure there could be no other explanation, despite its transparent absurdity.

Even then I kept right on walking. I staggered a little but I bit down hard on my underlip to avoid crying out. I didn't want to alarm Joan until I was sure. It could still have been just a very severe muscular spasm—the kind of agonizing cramp that can hit you in the leg sometimes in the middle of the night, so that you awake out of a deep sleep bathed in cold sweat, and with your teeth chattering.

That was what seemed to be happening now. My teeth started chattering and I could feel sweat oozing out all over me. There was only one difference. The pain was in my shoulder, not my leg, and it wasn't easing up the way spasm pain does after a minute or two. It couldn't have gotten worse, because it had been excruciating from the beginning. But other things started getting worse fast. The burning sensation spread to my lungs and my throat muscles started constricting, so that every breath I drew was an agony.

I couldn't pretend any longer, and I didn't try to. I went down on my knees, clutching at my chest and swaying back against the rail. I suppose I must have groaned or made some sort of sound, because Joan swung about and was kneeling beside me in an instant, her face ashen.

I must have looked terrible, or all of the color would not have drained out of her face so fast, or her eyes gone quite so wide with alarm.

I made a half-hearted try at straightening up, but only succeeded in bringing my collapse closer to zero-count by sagging more heavily back against the rail.

"Darling, what is it? Tell me!" Her voice was demanding, wildly insistent. "Please ... I've got to know. If it's your heart—"

I shook my head. I went through a kind of little death just trying to get a few words out. "Something struck me ... in the back. See ... what it is. Feel around with your hand."

"All right, darling. Just don't move. No—you'll have to lift yourself up a little more. Try, darling. Your back's right against the rail."

I did more than try. I helped her by gritting my teeth and flopping over on my stomach. But the pain that lanced through my chest made me almost black out for an instant.