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Updated: July 24, 2025
What need had a spaceman of a groundcar? Still, it would be nice to drive one just once, he thought; it would be a new experience, certainly. Right now, though, he was looking for a Class Three bar; just a place to have a small, quiet drink and a bite to eat.
"That settles that," said Nuwell, more philosophically then Maya would have expected. "Our only hope is to find a groundcar." That necessitated another search, but at last they found the motor pool. And there were three groundcars, all in various stages of breakdown or dismantlement. "It looks like we'll have to walk, Nuwell," said Maya. Nuwell shook his head.
"This is another reason I wanted to take a copter," explained Nuwell, releasing the air from the copter's interior. "There aren't any roads to this place, and I didn't want to drive a groundcar across the desert to bring Kensington's body here." They emerged from the copter as the group from the building approached. Nuwell greeted the five of them and introduced them to Maya.
There had been three of them during the morning, two arriving by groundcar and one by copter, at three different chateaus. She had driven to each one and circumspectly inspected the new guest, but none had been anyone she recognized from the Childress Barber College. In a way, she wished she had yielded to Nuwell's importunities. There was much more of interest to do in Mars City.
They were able to discern a dark nucleus below and in front of it. Then Nuwell said: "In the name of space! It isn't a groundcar, Maya. It's a band of Martians! Let's get out of here!" He started to walk on swiftly, but Maya stood her ground. "Don't be silly," she said. "Martians won't hurt us. I was raised among them." Nuwell stopped and returned reluctantly to her side.
Dark reached over and set the groundcar's radio dial on the frequency which had been agreed on for emergency Phoenix broadcasts during this operation. If government monitors caught the broadcasts and jammed them, there were alternate channels chosen. With only about two dozen radio stations on all Mars, plus the official aircraft and groundcar band, there was plenty of free room in the air.
"One of them got me just outside Mars City and blasted the dome of my groundcar." "I noticed you were wearing a marsuit when you registered here, and Gren said you were having the dome repaired." "That's what's peculiar about it. I wasn't wearing the marsuit when the copter broke my dome. I didn't have any protection at all. The groundcar went off the road and overturned.
This was night, and the men at the landing-grid had set a pattern of hunger, so that the silence and the dark buildings did not seem a sign of tranquility and sleep, but of exhaustion and despair. The highway lamps were few, by comparison with other inhabited worlds, and the groundcar needed lights of its own to guide its driver over a paved surface that needed repair.
"What," he asked at last, "are you doing here, tinkering with a groundcar?" "Nuwell and I were on our way to Mars City by helicopter, when it failed and crashed," she explained. "This was the only place near enough for us to make it afoot, and the marsuit radios don't have the range to call for help. We've been here more than two weeks now, trying to repair these groundcars."
Those beyond dome without credentials, go to assigned emergency rendezvous spots outside dome cities. Repeat instructions: those...." Swearing under his breath, Dark pulled the groundcar to a stop beside the highway. It was so simple! They should have foreseen that the government would take such a step as soon as it was realized that the Phoenix men were leaving Mars City.
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