Space Cat Meets Mars Read online

  Flyball, very much on his dignity, stalked off among the lichens and mushrooms, his fine bushy tail standing up like a flagpole. He was certain that he had not put on all that weight during the voyage. All the same, he had to admit that it was difficult to tell when he had felt so delightfully light. It was just the right kind of lightness after the weightlessness of free-fall.

  As he went, he wondered whether the Martian plants had any sense, and bumped against them rudely. But they showed no more feeling than a cauliflower would have done on Earth.

  When he patted a long tendril of lichen out of his way, something, about the size of a sparrow, rose in the air and fluttered round him. Sitting up on his haunches, Flyball batted at it. It really was flying too close to him. In fact, it was almost getting in his whiskers, a thing no bird on Earth would have done.

  He caught it a glancing blow, and obediently it came to the ground in front of him. There it sat, looking at him gravely out of big staring blue eyes which, instead of being round and smooth as his own, were many-faced, like crystals.

  He stared back at the creature, which had four legs and sat up on the long back pair. He knew he had seen something rather like it before. He sat down more comfortably and examined it thoughtfully, combing his whiskers as he did so. The thing—for it certainly was not a bird, if he knew birds as he was sure he did—did not appear to be the least bit frightened.

  Even when Flyball pushed out a paw and prodded it, it did not fly away. There was no fun in birds, or whatever this thing was, which would not fly away when he threatened them. An Earth bird would have perched just out of reach and mocked at him, until he jumped at it, only to find it being impudent from another place.

  He went on glaring at the thing, trying to recall what it was that it looked like. At last he had it. It was really something like a grasshopper, though much bigger and with fewer legs.

  “Bah!” said Flyball to himself, “I’m not a kitten any more, to go chasing after grasshoppers—even Martian ones!”

  He rose and moved to one side to pass the thing. But, pop, there it stood in front of him again. Try as he would to pass it, the thing jumped in front of him. It was examining him, too, he suddenly realized, and it had not got through with its inspection as quickly as he had. He felt just a little put-out at being stared at by an insect.

  Sitting down again, he tried to outstare the thing, but that was not easy, for while he had only two eyes, it seemed to have thousands fitted into the space where it should have had two. At last, however, it seemed to have finished. It dropped one lemon yellow eyelid in a kind of wink and took off with a dry flutter of its hard wings. It buzzed round Flyball’s head a couple of times and then flew away.

  Flyball lay for a moment, purring quietly to himself. If there were things like grasshoppers, there might well be birds on Mars. He started back toward the ship, forgetting that he had left with his tail up. He wanted to see how Fred was getting on.

  Back at the Halley he found a great ring of the grasshopper things gathered round the ship watching Fred, who was wearing overalls, working away with a hammer and a cold chisel.

  Flyball took a leap right over the spectators, which did not disturb them in the least, and strolled toward his friend.

  Fred looked up and smiled.

  “Good to see you, pal,” he said. “I wish, however, that our friends here could lend me a hand instead of just sitting and staring. It makes me nervous.”

  Flyball twitched a whisker in agreement and looked down at the ground, which was covered with bright clear blue chips, like broken glass.

  “Oh, yes,” Fred went on, “I’ve found the trouble. The tubes are almost closed with the blue sand of Venus, which must have fused under the heat of our take-off. The stuff is terribly hard and I want to get the tubes absolutely clear before we leave. We don’t want to risk their clogging up out in space again.”

  Flyball whisked his fine sleek tail, showing that he agreed.

  The grasshopper things went on watching them, without showing much real curiosity. It made Flyball feel funny to be watched by so many millions of eyes. A cat, he had heard, could look at a king, but nobody had ever said that grasshoppers could look at a cat. He decided that he had to escape from the inspection. There was nothing he could do to help Fred. He could not swing a sledgehammer or wield a cold chisel.

  He turned away. Fred looked up at the sun which, although Mars is farther away from it than the Earth, looked just as big, if not bigger, because of the thin atmosphere.

  “Be sure to get back before the sun sets, Flyball,” he warned. “It isn’t very warm now, and after dark it will become horribly cold—colder than any place on Earth.”

  Flyball pounced over the grasshoppers and jumped up on top of a huge mushroom. He paused there to wash his face, and looked at Fred working on the tubes, watched by all those strange eyes.

  He glanced around him, with the mildly bored air of an experienced space cat. Away to one side he could see the dark green gutter of one of the Martian canals.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  His sleek tail waving gently on high, Flyball went in search of adventure. He picked his way carefully round vast crumpled lichens, with thick, many-branched trunks topped with scarlet caps. Every now and again he would jump up on one of the giant mushrooms, or climb the enormous steps of a shelf-fungus, to check that he was going in the right direction.

  When he did this, he realized that Fred had not been talking nonsense. When he was perched high upon one of these fungi, he noticed how thin the air was. It was as thin as it might have been flying five miles up, or on top of Mount Everest on Earth. That would explain why Fred had looked a little tired while he, Flyball, felt as fresh and frisky as a kitten.

  The sun was well past its peak and Flyball kept one wary eye upon it. He had no wish to be turned into a deep-frozen space cat, as would happen if he stayed out for the night, for the temperature of Mars would get down to about a hundred and fifty degrees below freezing.

  Crawling on a slowly rotting mushroom was a most beautiful creature. It was rather like a ladybug on Earth, but was nearly as big as Flyball. It was a brilliant green with bright orange spots, as big as oranges.

  Flyball arched his back and put his bristling tail straight up, strong and erect as an iron fence post. His whiskers stood out straight and quivered. The ladybug looked at him solemnly out of deep brown eyes. Flyball bared his sharp teeth, and flexed his claws in their sheaths. The ladybug did not seem in the least frightened. Flyball put out a paw and slapped it gently. The ladybug did not mind a bit. He gave it a little push, but it would not budge an inch.

  Then it looked down at the fungus again and paid no more attention to Flyball.

  He was a little disgusted. What was the use of creatures that would not even play, and that did not seem interested in the things they saw?

  He went on his way, quietly ignored by the ladybug, who really was more interested in the mushroom.

  On Earth, Flyball thought, insects were of a decent size and even a self-respecting cat could occasionally get a little fun out of them, pretending to jump like a grasshopper, or sitting on a window sill swatting flies on the pane. But here they were too big and did not even try to run away from him. It really was too bad. After being shut up in a spaceship for all that time, and after the plant life of Venus, he really might have expected some fun with the creatures on Mars.

  He plodded on toward the canal, feeling just a little depressed. Then he cheered up. At least, while Fred was busy working on the tubes, he could do the exploring for the expedition. His steps became brisker.

  He was an explorer now, a fully qualified space cat, and no longer a kitten, to fritter away his time chasing insignificant insects.

  “Poo on all insects,” he thought. Now birds—ah, birds, these were a different matter! They were warm-blooded, as he himself was warm-blooded, and not cold as snakes and crabs. He had to admit to himself that crab, removed from its horny shell, m
ade a very acceptable meal, but live crabs were cold as insects. But, most of all, there were these wonderful creatures called mice! He sighed as he thought longingly of mice.

  As if the very thought of mice had suddenly called one into being, he was shocked to see a mouse just ahead of him. Its back was turned toward him and it did not see him, but he was too experienced a mouser to be mistaken. He flattened himself on the ground, hidden by a crinkled fold of lichen, and examined the mouse doubtfully.

  At least it looked like a mouse, for the ears and tail were in the right places. But, where an Earth mouse was furry, this one was as shiny as if it had been chromium-plated. The lichens and mushrooms were reflected in its bright skin.

  Flyball began squirming his way toward it, keeping hidden under the furled and cockled lichens.

  The mouse paid no attention. It was busy licking up the sweet juice that was trickling down the stem of a mushroom.

  Flyball wriggled a little closer to the shining mouse and gathered himself for a spring. Then he snarled softly. It would not be fair to pounce on a mouse when its back was turned.

  The mouse put its head round and looked at him out of gleaming ruby eyes. When it had taken in Flyball, its gleaming round ears perked up. Then it darted a little to one side, but Flyball, with an easy spring, was there in front of it.

  The mouse ran the other way, but again, helped by the fact that he could jump two and a half times as far as on Earth, Flyball was there first.

  “Ah, ha,” said Flyball, softly to himself. “This is the life! Mice at last! I knew we’d catch up with them sooner or later!”

  The mouse ran this way and that, but Flyball, taking tremendous leaps, was always ahead of it. He was enjoying himself. This was the sort of exercise he needed to take away that faint suggestion of a bulge on his tummy, which just might have developed during the voyage.

  At last, the mouse sat still between his paws. Flyball was not ready to give up yet. He gave it a soft pat, to start it running again, and got the surprise of his life. Instead of being soft, as he had expected in spite of its glittering skin, the mouse was just as hard as the outside of the spaceship, and that was very hard indeed.

  Flyball put his mouth gently to it, but the mouse made no attempt to run away. He picked it up tenderly, as he would have done with a mouse on Earth. Not only was it hard—it was heavy too. He held it for a moment, till he thought the weight would damage his needle-sharp teeth. Then he laid it down again.

  The mouse looked at him for a moment with round eyes and then it made a run. Flyball realized that instead of his playing with the mouse, it was playing with him. Very well, if that was the way it wanted it, he would go along. He could play too.

  He had to admit that even if he could not bite it and his swats made no impression, this hard, heavy mouse gave him as much sport as any soft, furry, lightweight mouse had ever done on Earth. In fact, it was much cleverer than any Earth mouse. It dodged much better and it sometimes seemed to be on the point of escaping him altogether, though it always came back for more. It would run behind a feathery lichen and peer out at him and then, quick as a streak, it would be somewhere else entirely.

  It did not seem to be the least frightened of him, but would often jump between his paws, cock its head and look up at him in a cheeky manner. Flyball would bat it and it would roll away, head-over-heels, and still it would come back toward him. It took Flyball all his time to keep up with its tricks, and he was convinced that no ordinary Earth cat could have managed as well as he did. He certainly had plenty of exercise.

  At last, however, the armor-plated mouse, as Flyball thought of it, got tired of the game. It returned to its leaking fungus and went on supping up the sweet juice that dribbled down the stalk.

  Nothing that Flyball could do would make it go on playing. He rolled it over once or twice and it did not seem the least frightened or annoyed. It just picked itself up and went on eating. As far as it was concerned, the game was over. At least for the time being.

  Feeling ever so much better, Flyball jumped up on top of a big red mushroom, dotted with rough whitish warts which helped him clamber up to the umbrella-shaped peak. He looked back at the Halley. Fred was still working away at the rocket tubes. Then Flyball glanced at the sun. There was still time for him to get to the canal and back before it got too cold, if he did not dawdle with mice on the way.

  His tail once more stuck in the air like a private flag. Flyball, ignoring peculiar insects, made his way toward the dark green streak which stood out so clearly against the more milky green of the lichens. It was, Flyball reminded himself, quite a time since he had seen plain old water. There was none on the Moon, and on Venus it had all tasted of ammonia. So there had been no fish and Flyball liked fish, particularly fresh fish. He was getting just a little tired of fish out of cans. Perhaps, once he had the rocket tubes fixed, Fred would go fishing!

  Along the banks of the canal, when he finally reached it, Flyball found that the lichens gave way to other plants. There were enormous-leaved vegetables, like vast rhubarb plants, and among them grew giant vines, bearing many-colored pea-like flowers.

  Flyball had to push his way through this vegetation as it did not, obligingly, get out of his way as the thinking plants on Venus had done. Though in some ways these plants were somewhat like Earth plants, they could never have been mistaken for them. But when Flyball reached the very edge of the canal, he found that, at least, was ordinary water.

  Flyball sat and gazed into the still water, not moving at all, though he rather admired the reflection of his handsome face and would have liked to groom his elegant whiskers.

  He sat as still as a statue, and several times he thought he saw something moving in the water. But it was not until the sun was sending long slanting rays across the unrippled surface that his patience was properly rewarded and he caught sight of his first Martian fish. It was long and thin and pale gold in color.

  It swam up toward him unafraid, pouting its mouth toward the surface, almost as if it wanted to speak to him. He wiggled his whiskers at it and it blew a bubble back at him.

  Flyball had never had a fish blow bubbles at him before, so he stood up and arched his back and hissed at it. The fish paid no attention but merely blew another bubble.

  At that moment there was a splash on the other side of the canal, and a ring of ripples spread rapidly across it. Flyball, occupied with his fish, was a moment late in looking up, but he caught a glimpse of a red figure sliding away among the rhubarb plants.

  Of course it could not be what it looked like. A red cat, a fire-engine red cat!

  “Miaow!” said Flyball loudly. If it was a cat it surely would understand that. He looked hard but there was no sign of the figure he thought he had seen.

  Flyball tickled his ear thoughtfully. He could not really believe that he had seen a cat. He must have been imagining things in the failing light of the sun.

  “The failing light of the sun!” He repeated his thought. The sun was almost down and he remembered what Fred had said. “Be sure to get back before the sun sets, Flyball.”

  Without stopping to make a good-bye face at the fish, which was still blowing bubbles, he turned and, after pushing his way through the thick plants, bounded off in the direction of the Halley. The only pause he made was once when he pranced up the steps of a giant shelf-fungus to see that he was still going the right way.

  He had no time to think. All he wanted to do was to get to the ship before the sun set, taking with it the oxygen which he needed to breathe. Besides, he had no wish to become a frozen space cat.

  Already it was getting cold. He had been so occupied at the side of the canal that he had not noticed it. He bounded and swerved over and around the lichen and fungi which grew between him and the ship.

  As he ran, he noticed a difference in the quality of the air his lungs were getting. But as he was travelling as fast as he could, and had not run so hard for a long time, it was difficult to say whether it was a change
in the atmosphere or merely shortness of breath after all that exercise!

  He was pretty exhausted when, rounding the edge of a lichen, he saw the Halley just ahead of him. Fred was standing at the top of the steps, in the door of the air lock, with his binoculars in his hands, raising them for another sweep around the wrinkled landscape.

  “Where have you been, Flyball?” he asked anxiously, as his friend bounded up the steps to join him. “I was beginning to be afraid you’d be caught by the night—and I didn’t know where to find you.”

  Flyball, recovering his breath, tilted his head in the direction of the canal. He wished he could tell Fred about his adventures of the afternoon, about the other insects, the mouse and the fish. But not about the cat. He still was not sure about that.

  Safely inside the ship, Fred opened the special deep-space refrigerator and took out a can.

  Flyball had not realized how hungry he was. Even with the memory of that fine fresh golden fish still in his mind, he found his platter of tuna most pleasing. But he did not eat too much, as he did not want to undo all the good that might have been done during his chase of the armored mouse and his mad dash for the ship.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  With the glaring sun shining down on them, although not nearly as hotly as it would have done on Earth, Fred and Flyball ate their breakfast at one of the great shelf-fungi outside the Halley. Flyball, of course, ate on top of the one that served as a table, but there was a smaller shelf at just the right height to make a chair for Fred.

  “Well,” said Fred, after he had cleared up. “I’ve still got a lot of work ahead of me.” He struggled into his overalls and picked up his tools—hammers, chisels and scrapers. “You might as well see what you can, but don’t get into trouble.”