Among the miserable Ghels of southern Mars
George Seeling ventured—ready to share his
fearless feats with all the world—but hardly
ready to share the grave of Solon Regh.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
George Seeling was one of the most personable ghouls you would evercare to meet. When he disappeared three years ago, somewhere in theunexplored wilderness of southern Mars, his loss was mourned not onlyby the Terran Museum of Natural History, for whom he worked, but by amultitude of lovers of adventure by proxy, as well, who kept up withhis astounding fortunes through their daily papers.
For George Seeling, who feared nothing that walked, crawled, flew, orpulsed, and who owned, moreover, a shining pair of seven league boots,in the form of an inexhaustible expense account, believed in sharinghimself with the public. He adored publicity.
There was the time, for instance, that he made off with the crownjewels of the Tsarn Princess of Ganymede. The people loved it. All ofthem excepting, of course, the Ganymedians. They were considerablyupset, but being a minority group, there was not much that they coulddo, once Seeling had escaped with the jewels.
Then there was the celebrated occasion of his robbing the crypts ofNakor, the Moon Goddess of Io. From Io he swiped several golden idolsof inestimable value, which was just as well, for they were not doingthe natives the least bit of good, despite their complaints. It almostcaused an international incident, but the Museum kept the treasure, andtheir procurer collected a fat commission.
This, as one can readily see, demonstrates graphically that GeorgeSeeling felt almost as much at home in tombs as he did in the publiceye.
The south of Mars is a rugged land of naked, red peaks and deep,impassable canyons; of reed-filled swamp lands and barren plateaus. Thepeople who live there are primitive, and thin as greyhounds, but of ashy, gentle nature, with huge, dark, melting eyes set deep in leathery,purplish skin, and nervous, splayed bare feet that can pad the sandsof the uplands at incredible speed.
To George Seeling the ghels were merely an incidental impression toadd to the menagerie of weird people from many worlds that alreadystuffed his brain and made him rather a cosmopolitan with regard toalien cultures. He had already spent several weeks on Mars; most of itin Parthena, the chief spaceport of southern Mars, where he haunted thebars of the native district, asking, seeking, wheedling, bribing, untilhe found what he sought—a man who could lead him to one of the oldcities that lay hidden back in the hills.
So it came about that he landed himself and his guide in a rented'copter on a certain, uncharted mountainside to the south and west ofParthena.
Through the field glasses, the minarets of the city were just visible,but it was impossible to get any closer for there was no place to land.The old Martians had been averse to flat roofs, a circumstance whichled Seeling to doubt, audibly, that they could have had the sense of anaddled eel.
After loading himself down with the paraphernalia that explorers aresupposed to carry, he went on alone, the guide declining an invitationto accompany him.
It was almost dark when he stumbled over the first bit of masonry—someprehistoric curbstone, perhaps. He had walked for hours in a tangledforest of giant reeds, and the suddenness of his discovery startled him.
He had wandered right into the midst of the abandoned city without even