"No," I said, "but what worries me is why he's letting me fetch the water. It must be because he thinks I'm more expendable than you and he figures there's danger down there."
"Martians?"
"Yes," I said. I checked my pistol. It was loaded.
Axel put on his helmet and got out of the locks. He disappeared into the rocket and presently reappeared with a five-gallon can, which he stowed in the locks. Then I started down one of the less steep inclines toward the canal.
It was rough and bumpy all the way down. Long before I reached the bottom, I noted that the vegetation which had looked so small from the top of the canal, was big and, in some cases, twenty or thirty feet tall.
There was a sort of timberline, about fifty feet above the level of the stream. Beyond that no vegetation grew. Below, the ground was covered with all kinds of plants. That is the best name I could give them. They really were vegetable, but they weren't like any plants I'd ever seen.
Some were tall, like trees. Others were round, hugging the ground and looking like brownish cabbages. There were some that looked like toadstools, except that they were branched and had several caps. Nearly all the plants were branched, and a few had flowers ranging from delicate pink to deep purple. None seemed to have leaves.
The largest looked like the Giant Cactus—the saguaro—of Arizona, although it was not spined.
I found a place where none of the plants looked big enough and tough enough to impede the Mars-car and headed for the stream, which now appeared to be about twenty feet wide and very stagnant. I picked up my mike to tell Axel what I saw.
Then my wheels touched the stem of a Martian saguaro shoot. I heard a whiplike crack and the whole car was enveloped in blue flame.