The Best of Fritz Leiber by Fritz Leiber

Author:Fritz Leiber [Leiber, Fritz]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-12-29T21:09:55+00:00

The Foxholes of Mars

EVER inward from the jagged horizon, the machines of death crept, edged, scurried, rocketed and tunneled towards him. It seemed as if all this purple-sunned creation had conspired to isolate and smash him. To the west—for all planets share a west, if nothing else—the nuclear bombs bloomed, meaningless giant fungi. While invisibly overhead the space ships roared as they dipped into the atmosphere —distant as gods, yet shaking the yellow sky. Even the soil was treacherous, nauseated by artificial earthquakes—nobody’s mother, least of all an Earthman’s.

“Why don’t you cheer up?” the others said to him. “It’s a mad planet.” But he would not cheer up, for he knew what they said was literally true.

He ducked and compressed himself as objects many times shattered, spurted up and cascaded. Soon they would fall back and the enemy would retake the mangled thing they called an objective. Was it the sixth time? The seventh? And did the soldiers on the other side have six legs, or eight? The enemy was pretty haphazard as to what troops he used In this sector.

Worst was the noise. Meaningless, mechanical screeches tore at his skull, until thoughts rattled around in it like dry seeds in a dry pod. How could anyone ever love the various shock-transmitting mixtures of gases humorously called air? Even the vacuum of space was less hateful—it was silent and clean. He started to lift his hands to his ears, then checked the gesture, convulsed in soundless laughter and tearless weeping. There had been a galactic society—a galactic empire—once. He had played an unnoticed part on one of its nice quiet planets. But now? Galactic empire? Galactic horse-dung! Perhaps he had always hated his fellow men as much. But in the prewar days his hatred had been closely bound and meticulously repressed. It was still bound, tighter than ever, but it was no longer repressed from his thoughts.

The deadly engine he tended, silent for a moment, began again to chatter to those of the enemy, although its voice was mostly drowned by their booming ones, like a spiteful child in a crush of complacent adults.

It turned out they had been covering a withdrawal of Martian sappers and must now escape as best they might. The officer running beside him fell. He hesitated. The officer cursed a new, useless joint that had appeared in his leg. All the others—including the black-shelled Martians—were ahead. He glanced around fearfully and tor-mentedly, as if he were about to commit a hideous crime. Then he lifted the officer and staggered on, reeling like a top at the end of its spin. He was still grinning in a spasmic way when they reached the security of lesser danger; and even when the officer thanked him with curt sincerity he couldn’t stop. Nevertheless, they gave him the Order of Planetary Merit for that.

He stared at the watery soup and meat shreds in his mess tin. The cellar was cool, and its seats—though built for creatures with four legs and two arms—were comfortable.

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