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In 1973, a nuclear-powered
spaceship blasts off from Mars for Earth, bringing with it the sole
survivor of the first mission, Col. Edward Carruthers. He is suspected of
having murdered the other nine members of his crew for their food and
water rations, on the premise that he had no way of knowing if or when an
Earth rescue mission would ever arrive. Carruthers denies this allegation,
attributing his crew's deaths to a hostile humanoid life form on the Red
Planet.
Commander Col. Van Heusen is unconvinced and makes sure that Carruthers is
constantly accompanied by another member of his crew. While the ship was
on the Martian surface, an emergency hatch had been left open, allowing
the creature easy access. The crew are at first skeptical that something
crawled aboard while they were on Mars. However, when Kienholz
investigates odd sounds coming from a lower level, he is killed and his
body hidden in an air duct. Next is Gino Finelli. He is found, barely
alive, but the creature attacks his would-be rescuer. Bullets have no
effect, forcing the crewman to leave Gino behind, much to the distress of
his brother Bob. An autopsy of Kienholz's body reveals that it has been
sucked dry of all fluids.
The crew use hand grenades and gas grenades, but the creature proves to be
immune to both. They next try electrocution, also with no effect. When
"It" is tricked into going into the spaceship's atomic reactor room, they
shut the heavily shielded door and expose the creature directly to the
ship's nuclear pile. It easily crashes through the door and escapes. The
creature is so strong that it can tear through the metal hatches
separating each of the ship's levels. The survivors (except for an injured
crewman, who is trapped below in a spot inaccessible to the creature)
retreat to the control room on the topmost deck. When Carruthers notices
the ship's higher-than-normal oxygen consumption rate, he surmises that
this is due to the creature's larger lung capacity, needed for the thin
Martian atmosphere. In a last desperate move, everyone puts on their
spacesuits, and Carruthers opens the command deck's hull airlock directly
to the vacuum of space. A violent decompression follows, and the plan
works: "It" suffocates and finally expires, stuck part way through the
final hatch.
A press conference is later held on Earth, revealing the details of what
happened aboard the rescue ship. The project director emphasizes that
Earth may now be forced to bypass the Red Planet "because another word for
Mars is Death". |
