1899- Journey to Mars

“He ain’t on the Moon anymore.”

“On Mars, then,” Pat said, “since that’s where you said you were going.”

“Right. On Mars. Like I told you, I had time to think after we got back. I got to studying on it, and I wanted to know what was left of that alien base on the Moon. So I got me a little telescope. I had to figure out where we had landed from charts and things, and I found it, but I couldn’t make out heads or tails. They don’t make telescopes for the common people that can see well enough to make out any detail. And I wanted detail, Pat. I wanted detail badly. That fellow...Koothrappally. He laid down his life—or so we all thought—so that the rest of us could escape. At the time he was in the hands of those four-armed aliens. So, I got me a bigger telescope.”

The car crested a hill and Pat Garret saw something large and rust-colored in the distance. He tried to make out what it was, but it disappeared from view too quickly.

“I’ll bet that took some doing.”

“Billy had help,” Ekka said.

“Tesla,” Pat said. “Right?”

“That’s right. His money, his robots.”

“And your ingenuity,” Pat said.

“I don’t know what you’d call it. My...somethin’. Anyway, so I got me an eight- inch telescope and looked at where we landed on the Moon. Mare Tranquilitatis—the Sea of Tranquility. There wasn’t much to see, other than those little alien ships coming and going from time to time. I knew they were there. I watched them for awhile and began laying my plans to build another spaceship.”

“Like the Arcadia,” Pat said.

“Oh. Better than the Arcadia. Better by miles.”

“So how did you find Koothrappally on Mars?”

Billy laughed. “I got to looking at the night sky and trying to figure. There’s only two or three places to go and disappear from the Moon. O

ne’s the other side of the Moon. Well, you can’t look there, no matter what. The other is here on Earth. So I started getting newspapers mailed to me from all over the world. I about gave the local postmaster fits.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Something. Anything. Strange things seen in the sky. Any tales of four-armed or four-legged men. Anything weird.”

“What’d you find?”

“Nothing,” Billy said. “Nothing of note. So I got to looking at the only other place besides the other side of the Moon and the Earth.”

“Ah. I see. Mars.”

“I spent about a year on it,” Billy said.

“Damned right he did,” Ekka said. “Every clear night. I didn’t sleep much that year.”

“And you saw something,” Pat said. “You saw a light.”

“I did. My friend, Dr. Lowell helped me with getting maps and charts and the right kind of telescope. Otherwise I may never have found him.”

“Lowell, you say?” Pat asked. “You mean, Percival Lowell? The Percival Lowell?”

“That’s the fellow. Anyway, I saw flashes of light on Mars. The flashes kept repeating themselves every so often. It was Morse. Once I did and got the message, I knew it was my friend and where he was. That’s when I got the spotlights delivered. They came all the way from the Chicago Worlds Fair.”

“Well I’ll be damned. You are one resourceful son of a bitch,” Pat said. He turned to the back seat. “Guthrie, is there any chance those two are going to follow us?”

“Not until they get their heads straightened out. That may take awhile.”

Pat nodded, then turned back to the front.

The Argent hove into view.