I glanced back. The Martians were not in sight. I slowed and waited. They did not reappear over the horizon. And then I saw the reason. Ahead of us was the bomb crater. These Martians, so sensitive to radiation, could not stand the radioactive ground of the area, even though it was harmless to Gail and me who came from a planet which is continuously bathed in radiation of all kinds, from gamma rays to radio. No Martian would come to the bombed-out city. This explained why it was desolate, why it was a ghost town, and why the canal which brought water to the place was dry and half-filled with sand.
I brought the car to a halt and let the motors cool and the batteries charge.
Gail brought out some food and water from the locker and we had a little lunch. In the west, the Martian sun was sinking toward the horizon. Soon it would be night and we would have to make the rest of the trip in darkness. Mars had the blackest nights I'd ever seen. The moons are not large enough to cast much of a glow—in fact Jupiter was brighter than Phobos and Jupiter was millions of miles away. Earth and Saturn were not visible at this season, but I have a hunch that Earth was much brighter to Mars than any other object in the sky. Venus could be seen occasionally, but Mercury was never visible because it is too close to the sun.
We finished our meal and Gail slept while I watched. Then she roused up, told me to get a couple of hours sleep and sat by the radio.
Shortly after midnight I was awakened by Gail.
"I've just been talking to Axel," she said. "He believes there are Martians near the spaceship."
I was wide awake instantly. I turned some switches and checked our power. The sun hadn't been up very long after we stopped for the night, but the solar cells had recharged the battery sufficiently for us to resume our trip, providing we conserved our power.
I took my position at the controls. "Axel," I called. "Have you seen 'em?"
Axel's voice came over the radio. "No but I hear them. They're using some English words. Thiswaydrake. Tanetooman. The things you yelled that day when you flushed Martians in the canal. Some of them must have overheard you."
If that was the case, this wasn't the bunch that had been chasing me. Another attacking force must have come down from the north—or possibly from Umbra. They were closing in from two directions and if fifteen hundred were behind me, heaven knows how many were on the other side of the ship.