Sleepers of Mars
In the Stowaway to Mars it is mentioned that while the British reached Earth safely, it was now several years later, and still there had been no sign of the Soviet vessel.
While on the planet in the previous story, the Soviet and British crews had explored part of Mars around their landing sites, discovering vegetation plant life, in the form of scrubby bushes growing along the banks of ancient canal works, with sluggish water still in them.
Due to fatal encounters with these robots, and ill planned gunfight with the British crew, the Soviets now number four crewmen.
The Russians speculate what would be the global reaction if the Gloria Mundi reaches Earth, and then the Soviets return, and claim that they were the first to land on Mars, not the British.
Both spaceships prepare to take off, with the Russians planning to boost their engines to achieve greater velocity than the smaller British craft.
He tells the Russians that they can remain as guests in the city while he will instruct the robots to repair their ship and refuel it for the voyage back to Earth.
Due to their earlier encounter with the British, the Martian is confident that the city can produce both atmosphere and food suitable for the humans.
They discover several interesting machines and devices, and their engineer believes that he can take several examples of advanced technology back to Earth that will give their country an advantage over the capitalist nations in the Cold War.
The chance to learn of the Martian civilisation far eclipses losing the race back to Earth (the Gloria Mundi will by now have had such a head-start that catching them up will be impossible).
Realising that all the capsules contain living Martians in some form of suspended animation, the ship's doctor attempts to revive a second one.
It seems that he was once part of a larger Martian population living many hundreds of years ago, at the time when the world was drying up.
They debate warning the current Martians, given that their return to Earth depends on their goodwill, compared to the injustice suffered by the sleepers.
Eventually they prevail upon the modified crewman to use the video link to contact the main Martian settlement and warn them.
As they prepare to leave the city, the doctor confronts the modified crewman, revealing that he knows that he lied to them, and did not actually warn the ruling Martians.
Before the four men can react, the sleeper they woke bursts into their quarters, and in an angry rage uses a raygun to kill the doctor.
While arguing what to do, the Soviets notice from the window that sleepers are attempting to board their spaceship, now fuelled and ready for launch.
