"Kill all Martians," the orders read. "They
are savages, and have no rights." But Special
Investigator Barry Williams and Princess
Deisanocta had other plans—plans that would
bring destruction to the despoilers by
releasing an age-old justice from the Crypts.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Barry Williams watched the last sunshine lance across the red sands ofthe Martian Desert. The sun dropped abruptly behind the flat horizon.With the black curtain of night, the usual sharp chill came to the thinMartian atmosphere.
The cold bit into Williams through the warm ore-seeker's outfit he'dadopted for this venture. He laughed suddenly, realizing why he noticedthe cold. His body was tense, rigid. Unconsciously he was crouching,waiting, eyes narrowed, one heavily-gloved hand on his ray gun.
With the laugh, Barry relaxed, although his sharp blue eyes neverceased their wary sweep over the rolling sands. His hand dropped fromthe weapon. It would be useless anyway against the deadly white mist,for which he waited.
That it would come, Barry never doubted. It was known and dreaded byEarthmen in every Terrestrial Center on the red planet. In the past fewweeks, Earthmen had disappeared, vanishing for the last time into theMartian night. Whispers said the white mist, the pale nemesis, suckedthe life from them.
Only once had Earthmen seen the mist and lived to tell of it. Aspaceship, beating toward one of the Centers on a night flight froma desert camp, had passed over a pale patch on the red sand. Itsoccupants, in their haste did not stop to investigate. Only later,telling of the strange sight, did they realize it had been mist—on aplanet too arid for water vapor. Only then did they remember seeingan Earthman making his way on foot toward the same Center, within thepatch.
Barry Williams' searching glance covered the terrain once more. Deimos,the smaller moon, was already high. The larger, swifter Phobos wasrapidly overhauling its companion. Under their light, the scene wasclear. But it was so every night on Mars, yet Earthmen who venturedinto the desert at night died! Barry waited.
He waited as had the occupants of that Center for the man to come inand tell the story of that strange light patch against the red sand.In the morning a searching party brought in his body. The story wouldnever be told by him.
Nor by any other Earthman, it seemed. Later, a spaceship again sightedthe mist, and radioed that it was landing to investigate. Again,Earthmen, now frightened and grim, waited through the Martian night.Once more, a daylight searching party found only the dead.
"Ain't fer human understandin'," one superstitious miner whispered inawed tones. "Twenty year I bin on this cursed planet—nor ever heerdthe like o' this."
"It's clear enough for me," answered a pink-cheeked youngster up toMars to make a fortune in rich ore dust. "I stay off the desert atnight. Only the miserable Martians can live out there then."
"Justice from the Crypt," a third muttered, quoting the threat of anold Martian, dying from wounds he'd received fighting Earthmen. "It'slike from the grave—this mist, the way it creeps from the sand whiteand ghosty!"
That was the spirit Barry Williams, special investigator for theTerrestrial Bureau of Martian Affairs, found when he arrived. Behindthe fear were rumors, dead bodies, nothing more. At first, he'd blamedsuperstition and the natural hazards of work in the desert. But now hewas here in the desert at night, waiting.