Earth, the Marauder
PART TWO OF A THREE-PART NOVEL
_By Arthur J. Burks_
[Illustration: Closer and closer they came.]
[Sidenote: Deep in the gnome-infested tunnels of the Moon, Sarka and
Jaska are brought to Luar, the radiant goddess against whose minions
the marauding Earth had struck in vain.]
WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE
The Earth was dying. Ever since Sarka the First, king of scientists,
had given mankind the Secret of Life, which prolonged life
indefinitely, the Earthlings had multiplied beyond all count, and been
forced to burrow deep into the ground and high into the air in the
desperate search for the mere room in which to live. There was much
civil war. The plight of the children of men was desperate. Something
had to be done.
[Illustration]
Then Sarka the Third called the Spokesmen of the Gens of Earth around
him, and proposed to them a new scheme which had come to him in his
laboratory atop the Himalayas. He would swing the Earth from its
orbit!--send it careening through space toward the Moon!--there to
destroy its inhabitants and supplant them with a colony of Earthlings!
And then they would surge on to Mars!
One by one the twelve Spokesmen, each the head and representative of
the teeming trillions comprising his Gens, acceded. Even Dalis, the
jealous rival of Sarka, finally gave his sulky consent.
So, under Sarka's commands, the Earth's hordes were mobilized; and in
tune with the Master Beryl in Sarka's laboratory all the Beryls of the
Earth vibrated, freeing the Earth from her age-old orbit and swinging
her out towards the Moon.
The Gens of Dalis--the trillions of people who swore allegiance to
him--would lead the attack on the Moon. When within fifty thousand
miles, they darted out, clad only in their tight green clothing and
the helmets that held the anti-gravitational ovoids, which
neutralized gravity for them and enabled them to instantly fly where
they willed. Their only weapons were hand atom-disintegrators. And out
from the Moon came mysterious aircars, with long clutching
tentacles--the weapons of the Moon's minions! The war of the worlds
was begun!
Yet Dalis, leader of the Gens that now engaged the Moon's aircars, was
still in the laboratory with Sarka. For Dalis' treacherous mind
coveted control of the Earth, and though the urge to lead his Gens
into battle was tremendous, still he stayed, watching Sarka closely,
waiting for the moment when he could trick Sarka and assume control.
And at the head of the Gens of Dalis was a woman, Jaska, whom Sarka
loved. The Moon's aircars swept away the Gens of Dalis, and out from
Earth poured the Gens of Cleric, who was Jaska's father. The newcomers
fought desperately to save Jaska from the deadly clutches of the
aircars.
Dalis could stand it no longer. He sped forth from the laboratory, to
reorganize his beaten Gens. Jaska flew for home; but behind her a
single aircar, splashed with crimson, reached forth its tentacles to
clutch her--and Sarka groaned with the agony of his impotence to help
the woman he loved.
CHAPTER XI
_Escape--and Dalis' Laughter_
But Sarka was not to be so easily beaten. There still remained an
infinite number of possible changes of speed by manipulation of ovidum
by vibration set up by the Beryls, without which this flight from the
beginning would have been impossible. But for two hours, while the
white robed men of Cleric fought against the car of the crimson
splashes to prevent the capture of the daughter of their
Spokesman--and died by hundreds in the grip of those grim
tentacles--Sarka was forced to labor with the Beryls until
perspiration bathed his whole body and his heart was heavy as he
foresaw failure. And failure meant death or worse for Jaska.
But at the end of two hours, while the men of Cleric fought like men
inspired against the aircar of the crimson slashes, a cessation in the
outward speed of the earth could be noted. At the end of three hours
the body of Jaska, all this time fighting manfully to attain to
landing place on the Earth, was at last bulking larger; but the
tentacles of the aircar were groping after her, reaching for her,
striving to catch and clasp her to her death.
The two Sarkas watched and prayed while the might of the Beryls,
traveling at top speed, fought against the force of whatever was used
by the Moon-men to compel the Moon to withdraw. Still the men of
Cleric fought that single car, and died by hundreds in the fighting.
White robed figures which became shriveled and black in the grip of
those tentacles.
* * * * *
Countless of the men of Cleric deliberately cast themselves against
those tentacles, throwing their lives away to give Jaska more leeway
in her race for life.
"Will she make it, father?" queried Sarka in a whisper.
"If the courage and loyalty of her people stand for anything, she will
make it," he replied.
On she came at top speed, and now through the micro-telescopes the
Sarkas could see the agony of effort on her face, even through the
smooth mask used by the people of Earth for flight in space where
there was no atmosphere. Courage was there, and the will of
never-say-die; and Jaska, moreover, was coming back to the man she
loved. In a nebulous sort of way Sarka realized this, for though these
two had not mated there was a resonant inner sympathy between them
which had rounded into an emotion of overpowering force since Jaska
had proved to Sarka that she was to be trusted--that he had been
something less than a faithful lover when he had mistrusted her, ever
so little.
Closer now and closer, and at last the aircar of the crimson splashes
was drawing away, losing in the race for life. It was falling back, as
though minded to turn about and race back for the Moon, now a ball in
the sky, far away, the outlines of its craters growing dim and misty
with distance. Now the men of Cleric, those who remained, were
breaking contact with the aircar, and forming a valiant rear-guard for
the retreat of Jaska.
* * * * *
Throughout the Earth, as the Beryls fought with ever increasing speed
to lower the rate of the earth's outward race from the Moon, was such
a trembling, such a vibration induced by conflicting, alien forces as
there had not been even in that moment when back there in its orbit,
the Earth could have either been kept within its orbit, or hurled
outward into space at the touch of a finger.
Now Jaska, surrounded by her father's men, was almost close enough to
touch the Earth.
She made it, weak and weary, and rested for a moment while her
father's men steadied her. Then, thrusting them aside, with gestures
bidding them return to their Gens, she lifted into the air again, and
fled straight for the laboratory of Sarka.
She entered tiredly through the exit dome, and all but collapsed into the
arms of Sarka. Gently he removed her helmet of the anti-gravitational
ovoid, noting as she leaned against him the tumultuous beating of her
heart. Then her gentle eyes opened and she whispered to Sarka.
"You trust me now?"
For answer he bent and kissed her softly on the lips--for the kiss,
from the far distant time when the first baby was kissed by the first
mother, had been the favored caress of mankind. Her face was
transfigured as she read his answer in his eyes, and the touch of his
lips. Then, remembering, fear flashed across her face. She
straightened, and grasping Sarka by the hand, hurried with him into
the observatory.
* * * * *
She took the seat in which Dalis had sat before he had gone out to the
command of his Gens, studied for many minutes the battle in space
between the two alien worlds.
"Dalis is winning," said the Elder Sarka quietly, "apparently!"
"The qualification is a just one," said Jaska softly. "'Apparently,'
indeed! You will note now that, though men of the Gens of Dalis swarm
all about the aircars, and even clamber atop them, no more are dying
in the grasp of those tentacles? Is Dalis arranging a treacherous
truce with the Moon-men?"
"I have been wondering about that," said Sarka softly, "for it is my
belief that nothing not conducive to his own selfish interests would
have forced Dalis to leave this place and take command of his Gens, as
I had first ordered, unless he had schemes planned of which father and
I could know nothing. Now that I think of it, Jaska, how did Dalis
know our secret code of fingers?"
Jaska started, and turned a blanched face to Sarka.
"_Did_ he know?" she cried. "Did he? If he did that proves a suspicion
that I have entertained since the first moment when Dalis swept into
the fight, and I sensed that alien signals were being flashed back and
forth!"
"Flashed back and forth!" ejaculated Sarka. "How do you mean? That
Dalis was somehow able to communicate with the Moon-men in their own
language, or through their own signals?"
* * * * *
"Why not? He knew our secret code, did he not? I never gave it to him,
and I know that you did not. No, Dalis has some means, never
discovered or suspected by you Sarkas, whereby he is able to
understand alien tongues and alien sign manuals!"
"That means," said Sarka the Elder in a dead voice, "that by forcing
Dalis to go out at the head of his Gens...."
"We have," interrupted Sarka the Younger, "placed a new weapon of
treason in his hands! Dalis, at the very moment of contact with the
aircars, loaded with Moon-men, broke in on their signals--they must
have had some means of signalling one another--and communicated with
them in their own way! Do you think it possible that, with all his
Gens, he may go over to the Moon-men, form an alliance with them?"
For many moments no one dared to answer the question; yet, from what
the Sarkas knew of him, it was not impossible at all. For Dalis was
the master egotist always, and never overlooked opportunity to gain
something for himself.
It was Jaska who broke the silence.
"Did you note carefully," she said, "those aircars which were
partially destroyed by our ray directors and atom-disintegrators?"
The Sarkas nodded.
"Did you note that no men, formed like our own, no creatures of any
sort whatever, fell from the cars?"
* * * * *
Again the awesome silence, and the keen brains of the Sarkas wrestled
with this vague hint of the uncanny.
"You mean, Jaska ... you mean...."
"That the occupants of aircars are part of the cars, but--Beings of
the Moon! That they are either metal monsters endowed with brains or
tiny creatures irrevocably attached to the cars themselves!"
"But how," said Sarka at last, "are we to be sure? I can understand
what Dalis might do if the Moon-men granted his wish for an alliance
with them. It is easy to understand why his Gens would follow his
lead, for with the Moon forced outward from the Earth faster than his
Gens could retreat, there is but one direction for his Gens to
go--toward the Moon! They would go to the Moon as captives and trust
the keen brain of Dalis to gain the mastery, sooner or later, over the
Moon-men. And then...."
"And then--?" repeated Sarka the Elder.
"Then, Dalis has already been inspired by the speed with which those
aircars travel! You will remember that he did not take kindly to
leaving the Earth and making his abode on some other planet! But why
could he not do so, combine forces and knowledge with the people of
that planet--and then return to Earth in alliance with them?--after we
have depleted our forces by placing a large portion of our people on
Mars and Venus and Saturn?"
"Sarka, my son," said Sarka's father, "before we continue with our
flight to Mars, we must know the truth! We must somehow learn exactly
what is going on on the Moon! If you could reach the Moon, alone,
undetected, and bring back a report...."
* * * * *
For a moment he left it there, and the faces of all three were gray
with worry and abysmal fear.
"I can't go bodily, father," said Sarka at last, "but you remember my
secret exit dome, to the right of the observatory, from which I have
never yet dared exit from this place for fear that it might cost me my
life?"
Sarka the Elder nodded, while Jaska looked puzzled. Another evidence
of the fact that Sarka had not always trusted her, for she knew
nothing of a secret exit dome. Sarka's eyes, as he looked at Jaska,
mutely asked her forgiveness, which she gave him with her smile.
"I remember, son, and now?..."
"Surely it is worth risking one's life to know what new menace looms
over the children of men!"
"What is the use of this secret dome?" asked Jaska softly.
"It is merely an elaboration of the regular exit dome, combined with
certain phases of our atom-distintegrators, and the principle involved
in the anti-gravitational ovoids. I step into the secret exit dome,
garbed for flight Outside, and will myself to appear bodily in a
certain placed. It is instantaneous. I step into the dome, for
example, and will myself to appear whole upon the Moon, and there I
will appear!"
"You mean that during the period of transposition you are invisible?"
"Yes, invisible because non-existent, except for the essential
elements of me, broken down by the secret exit dome, reassembled at
the place willed in their entirety! I can't fly there, for a million
eyes would see me approach! I must go in secret, as a spy, and wearing
the clothing and insignia of a member of the Gens of Dalis!"
Silence in the observatory for a brief breathing space, and then Jaska
spoke that speech out of the books of antiquity, which remains the
classic expression of loyalty.
"Whithersoever thou goest, there will I go also!"
From the laboratory came a sudden burst of laughter, the laughter
which all three recognized as the laughter of Dalis; but when they
entered the place of the Revolving Beryl, there was no one there--and
a feeling of dread, all encompassing, held them thralled for the space
of several heart-beats. Dalis, they knew, was thousands of miles away,
upon the Moon; yet here in the place of the Master Beryl they all
three had just heard his sardonic laughter!
CHAPTER XII
_Ashes of the Moon_
Through the micro-telescopes it was possible to see what had happened
after Dalis had assumed command of the Gens of Dalis. For even though
the Moon, in spite of the speed of the Beryls, was being forced
further and further from the Earth, the eyes of the micro-telescopes
picked out and enlarged details to such an extent that the battle
seemed to be transpiring under the eyes of the beholders.
A terrific jumble, in which Earthlings and aircars were all tumbled
together in mad chaos, a great mass of writhing, green-garbed figures.
Infinite in number--in the midst of which were the gigantic aircars,
like monster beetles being beset by armies upon armies of ants.
Then, by the time Jaska had seated herself in the observatory atop the
Himalayas, to watch what developed, the battle seemed to be over, and
the Moon-men had won. For the huge cars swung around between the
myriads of the Gens of Dalis, and seemed to be herding them toward the
Moon, as though they were prisoners.
Telepathically, Sarka and his father had been able to catch some hint
of the thoughts of the Earthlings in the battle, and these thoughts
had been tinged with doubt, fear and horror, so that even thus to
receive them, by mental telepathy, was to feel the searing heat of
their fear.
* * * * *
Now, in the instant when the battle in Space seemed to be over and the
Gens of Dalis were prisoners, the thought waves were no more, and a
brooding silence took their place. Dalis, the Sarkas knew, possessed
the power to mask his thoughts, for it was a power possessed in common
by all the scientists of Earth. But the common people of his Gens did
not posses that power. However, for the moment Sarka had forgotten an
all important something: that, when people were outside the roof of
the world, they were subservient to the will of a common commander to
whom they had sworn allegiance.
If, therefore, Dalis could mask his own thoughts from the brains of
men, he could also mask the thoughts of the people of his Gens, merely
by willing it! So Sarka and his father and Jaska could not know
whether the Gens of Dalis had gone over in a body with him, in a truce
with the people of the Moon, or whether they were dual prisoners--of
Dalis and of the Moon-men!
More than ever was it necessary for someone to somehow reach the Moon
and make a thorough investigation, discover just what Dalis was doing,
what mischief he was hatching.
The secret exit dome seemed to be the answer.
"You can manage without me, father?" asked Sarka.
* * * * *
The elder Sarka nodded.
"Of the other Spokesmen of Earth," went on Sarka, "I trust Gerd the
most. Might I suggest that you bring him here, trust him in all
details, and let him take my place wherever possible? Or, better
still, keep Jaska here with you! I ... I may not be able to return!
I'll try to find a way, but--we can always communicate telepathically.
Jaska...."
"Jaska," said that young lady grimly, "goes with Sarka wherever Sarka
goes!"
"But it may mean death! We can only guess at the cunning of the Moon
dwellers! They may have been in secret communication with Dalis for
centuries! Dalis, who somehow discovered our secret finger code, may
also know of the secret exit dome, and the principle upon which it
operates! If he does, he may know how to combat it! Perhaps that
explains his laughter! Perhaps he heard and understood every word we
spoke, hears and understands every word we speak now! Who knows? He
may wait until I have passed through the secret exit dome, and then
make it impossible for me to be reincarnated on the Moon--or
elsewhere!"
"No matter," said Jaska softly, "wherever Sarka goes, there goes
Jaska! It is useless to attempt to dissuade me, and it is time you
learned that!"
In spite of himself Sarka smiled, and his father met his smile with a
quizzical one of his own. Both men had the same thought.
"The eternal woman!" said Sarka the Elder. "No man has ever understood
her--no man ever will! And all men are ruled by her!"
Sarka shrugged, and Jaska spoke again.
"Don't you think it is time we tried this new experiment?"
* * * * *
Sarka nodded, and his face was suddenly alight with the excitement
which burned within him.
"First," he said, "we need accoutrements of the Gens of Dalis for two
people!"
Jaska smiled.
"Forseeing that we might have need of such equipment, I had several
complete outfits sent here when I took charge of the Gens of Dalis as
its Spokesman!"
Two minutes later, arrayed in the green clothing of the House of
Dalis, swathed in it from neck to toe, wearing their belts and the
masks which were necessary to life in space where there was no
atmosphere, the whole topped by the gleaming helmets whose skull-pans
held the infinitesimally small anti-gravitational ovoids, Jaska and
Sarka entered the secret exit dome, side by-side.
On the breast and back of each showed the yellow stars of the Gens of
Dalis. There was no hiding their identity otherwise, and if any of the
Gens saw them, both would be immediately recognized--for Jaska had
commanded the Gens, and Sarka was the world's greatest scientist known
to every human being. But they planned on carrying out their
investigations by stealth.
"Father," said Sarka, "when the inner door is closed upon us, you have
but to press the button to the right of the door. Press it when the
light beside it glows red, which will indicate that we have willed
ourselves to go to a certain destination!"
* * * * *
The inner door closed upon Sarka and Jaska, and, hand in hand, side by
side, their bodies glowing with knowledge of warm, sympathetic
contact, they waited for a miracle which had never before been
attempted.
"Are you afraid, beloved?" queried Sarka.
"When I am with you," she said softly, "I have no fear."
"Then face the outer door, and will to go wherever I will to take
you!"
Side by side, hand-in-hand still, they faced the outer door, and Sarka
willed:
"Let us appear together in a deserted spot, within sight but unseen,
of the Moon crater from which those aircars were sent against us!"
A sudden blur, a cessation of all knowledge, and then....
Sarka and Jaska stood side by side in a desolate expanse surrounded by
bleak and appalling mountains of grotesque shape, in a light that was
weirdly, awesomely blue. Their feet were invisible, deeply rooted in
some soft, fine material which looked like snow.
After a swift glance around to see if anything lived or moved in this
awful desolation, Sarka stooped and dipped up some of the fine stuff
with his fingers, touched it to his lips.
* * * * *
The material seemed to be fine blue ashes and on his tongue it had a
soapy savor. He peered at Jaska, whose eyes were glowing with
excitement, whose lips were parted with anticipation, and instantly he
opened a mental conversation with her.
"We must speak with each other telepathically, but do not speak with
me until I have explained to you how to mask your thoughts from all
persons save the one with whom you hold converse! First, I love you!
Second, let us see if, searching the sky, we can find the Earth!"
In a few brief, highly technical words, Sarka told his beloved how to
talk with him in the manner which he had never before explained to
her. They had used telepathy before, countless times, but they had not
cared who heard--while now secrecy in all things was the prime
essential for success, even for life.
When he had told her, and she replied, "I understand perfectly, and it
seems quite easy," they turned and surveyed the heavens, out of which,
by this new miracle of the secret exit dome, they had dropped to the
face of the Moon.
Away across the space between worlds, its transfiguration plainly
visible to the two, they could make out and identify the world from
which they had come. Save that they knew themselves standing on the
Moon, they would have thought as far as appearances went, that the
place where they had come was the Moon, many times enlarged. It seemed
incredible that they had come so far in the twinkling of an eye; but
that they had was proved by the fact of their physical presence.
"Look, Jaska!" said Sarka suddenly. "See how our Earth glows, as
though it were afire inside!"
* * * * *
They stared at the great circular yellowish flame that he pointed out,
and Sarka, always the scientist whose science was one of exactness,
tried to estimate just where, on the Earth's surface, the glow was.
"Jaska," he said again, "that glow comes out of the heart of the Gens area
which Dalis ruled! And no one lives there, since Dalis' Gens flew out to do
battle! That's why we did not know of it before we left! That glow,
somehow, beloved, is the cause of the outward-from-the-Earth journey of the
Moon! First we must locate the Moon-source of the glow, and render it
incapable of further forcing itself away! For do you realize that, unless
we do so, we will never again see home?"
Jaska said nothing, but her eyes were troubled for a moment. Then she
smiled again.
"What care I if I become a prisoner on the Moon, if you are with me?"
Sarka was just now realizing the wonder of this raven-haired woman
whom, knowing her for half a century as he had, he had just known so
little after all.
"If we seem in danger of discovery, Jaska," he said to her, "drop down
instantly into the ashes, for if we are discovered by Dalis...."
He left it there and, with a deep intake of breath, started away for
the nearest and highest hill. They desired to walk, yet found walking
almost impossible, as they could not keep their feet on the ground
save by the exercise of a really incredible effort of will. So,
despairing of keeping their feet in contact with the ashes, they flew
just above them, heading for the nearest weird-looking ridge.
* * * * *
In the strange light, which was oddly like moonlight in some painted
desert of Earth, shapes were distorted and somehow menacing, colors
were raw, almost bleeding--and distances that seemed but a step
required hours to traverse.
Ever and anon, as they traveled they looked back up at the Earth which
was their home. It still was visible, though plainly smaller with
distance, and for a time Sarka's heart misgave him; but he only
clasped tighter the hand of Jaska and moved on.
They were just at the base of the first hill, which had now become a
mountain of gloomy, forbidding aspect, when the first sound they had
heard on the moon came to them. A sound that was a commingling of the
laughter of Dalis, the barking of jackals of the olden times, the
humming of a million Beryls revolving at top speed, and a strident
buzzing such as neither had ever heard.
Had they been discovered? Was the sound a warning? They could not
know; but as they stared at the crest of the hill, two long, snaky,
waving things appeared above the crest, undulating, waving to and
fro, as though questing for something. They crouched low in the white
ashes at the base of the mountain, and waited, scarcely breathing.
CHAPTER XIII
_The Lunar Cubes_
For a long time Sarka and Jaska remained still, like sentinels,
listening to the strange discord which seemed to emanate from behind
the hill at whose base they crouched.
"Look!" said Sarka at last. "There against the sky, beyond and between
those two waving tentacles! Note that column of light, scarcely
lighter than the light which surrounds it everywhere? It looks like a
massive column just lighter than everything around it, yet so little
lighter that you have to watch closely to see it at all?"
Jaska stared for all of a minute, before she thought back her answer.
"I see it," she said.
"Note now whether it goes, as it reaches outward into Space!"
Jaska followed the mighty height of the thing, outward and outward,
and then gasped.
"Sarka," she said, "its end touches the Earth in the very heart of
that strange glow we spoke about!"
"Exactly! And people of Earth know nothing about it, because it is
invisible to them! It is only from Outside that the glow it makes
against the Earth is visible! If we can divert its direction, or
render it useless in any way, the Moon will no longer be thrust away
by its force!"
A pause of indecision, then Sarka thought again:
"Let us go, Jaska! Keep behind me, right on my heels!"
Slowly, fighting against something that seemed determined to pull, or
hurl, them outward from the surface of the Moon with each forward
movement they made, they essayed the side of the hill, pausing at the
end of what seemed like hours in a sort of hollow just large enough
to mask their bodies and stared over its edge into one of the craters
of the Moon. Out of the depths of that crater came the discordant
sounds, which now were almost deafening, and out of that crater too
came the almost invisibly bluish column whose outer tip touched the
Earth.
* * * * *
Right before them, so close that they all but rested in its shadow,
was one of those monster aircars, its tentacles moving to and fro as
though wafted into motion by some vagrant breeze. But since neither
Sarka nor Jaska could feel the breeze, Sarka knew that it was life
which caused the waving motion of those tentacles of terror.
"Note," he said to Jaska, "that there is a tiny trap-door in the
bottom of the aircar, and that the thing rests on a half-dozen of
those tentacles!"
"I see," came Jaska's reply.
Jaska went on:
"Note the gleaming thing on the ground, right below the aircar? I
wonder what it is?"
They studied the thing there, which seemed to be a huge jewel of some
sort that glittered balefully in the eery light of the Moon. It was,
perhaps, twice the size of an average man's torso, and was almost
exactly cubical in shape. As Sarka studied the thing, he sensed that
feeling flowed out of it--that the cube, whatever it was, was alive!
He tore his glance away from it, and realized that he accomplished the
feat with a distinct effort of will--as though the cube had willed to
hold his gaze, knew he was there. His eyes, peering around the inner
slope of the crater--which dipped over, some hundreds of feet down,
and plunged downward to some unknown depth--noted a broad, flat stone,
off to his right; and around the rim of the crater he counted a full
hundred of the aircars, all with their tentacles waving as if they
belonged to sentient creatures.
* * * * *
Below each one, as he studied them and strained his eyes to make out
details, he caught the baleful gleam of other cubes like the first he
had seen. The aircars, it seemed, were either sentinels, at the lip of
the crater, or were the dwelling places of sentinels--and the cubes
were those sentinels!
It seemed absurd, but it came to Sarka in a flash that that was the
answer, and his eyes came back to the first cube, because it was
nearer and more easy to study.
"I will not be swayed by the will of the thing," Sarka told himself.
"Nor will I allow it to analyze me! Jaska, do you do likewise!"
Beside him, Jaska shivered. He turned to look at her. Her face was
coldly white, and her eyes were big with terror and fascination as she
stared at that first cube, resting so balefully there under the first
aircar.
He shook her, and she seemed to bring her eyes to his with a terrific,
will-straining effort.
"Look at me!" he told her, telepathically. "Keep your eyes on me, for
to look at the cube spells danger!"
But his own eyes went back to the thing, and he studied it closely. A
cold chill raced through his body as he noted that its gleam was
becoming dull, fading slowly out. It had gleamed brightly at first,
and now was losing its sheen, fading away to invisibility. He thought
he should be able, regardless of gleam or color, to see its outline;
but its outline, too, seemed to be becoming faint, indistinct.
* * * * *
Then, in a trice, it was gone, and a feeling of uneasiness, more
compelling than he had ever known before, coursed through the soul of
Sarka. Where had the cube gone? What was it? What was its purpose? He
tore his eyes away from the spot where he had last seen it, and stared
away to the shadow beneath the second nearest aircar, where he had
glimpsed another of the cubes.
The cube there, too, was fading out.
"Sarka! Sarka! Look!" came to his brain the thoughts of Jaska.
Sarka turned and stared at her, and a feeling of fear for which he
could not account at all took fast hold of him. The eyes of Jaska,
wide and staring as they had been when he commanded her to look away
from the cube under the aircar, were staring at that flat, table-like
rock, off to his right.
There, almost in the center of the rock, a gleaming something was
taking shape! Just a dull spot, in the center of the yellow glow; then
the beginning of the outline of a cube. Then, all at once, the cube
itself, gleaming and baleful!
Sarka gasped in terror. He had seen the cube vanish, its glow
disappear, and now here it was, almost close enough to touch, on a
rock beside him, gleaming and baleful as before! That it was the same
cube he had seen under the first aircar, he somehow knew without being
told. That it was a sentient _thing_ he also knew, for now there was
no mistaking the fact that, but for the presence in the little hollow
of Jaska and Sarka, the cube would not have moved.
* * * * *
Swift as light, Sarka's right hand darted to his belt, where his ray
director should be nestled against his need of it. And with his first
movement, the cube's brilliance vanished instantly, the cube
disappeared, and appeared again right before the face of Sarka, so
close he could touch it! Yet he did not turn the ray director against
it, nor did he extend his hand to touch the thing--because he was
afraid to do so!
Even as the cube appeared before his eyes, thrice baleful and menacing
in its close proximity, his eyes darted back to that broad flat rock,
where the second gleaming cube now appeared!
"Great God, Jaska!" he sent mentally, "what does it mean?"
"These," she answered bravely back, "are Moon-soldiers! And, unless
we manage not to appear furtive, we are undone!"
Still Sarka made no move, while other gleaming cubes appeared on the
flat rock. Five other cubes appeared beside the first, at the rim of
the hollow which held the forms of Jaska and Sarka. The cubes were
closing on them, oddly like a squad of Earthlings in the olden times,
advancing by rushes against an entrenched enemy!
The buzzing sound which they had first heard now seemed accentuated,
but, instead of being outside of the listeners, seemed inside them,
hammering against their very brains! Messages were being sent to them,
or passed back and forth between and among the cube-men about
them--and they hadn't the slightest idea how to make answer, know
whether an answer was expected of them, or what the cube-men thought
about them!
Since there was nothing else to do, they lay there, hands clasped, as
children in the dark clasp hands, and waited for what might transpire.
* * * * *
Suddenly the discord from the inside of the crater ceased, and all was
still, while it came to Sarka that the cube-men who stood before him
were in grim communication with something invisible to Sarka and
Jaska, somebody, perhaps, deep in the bowels of the Moon, over inside
the crater.
They knew, those two, that the cube-soldiers were reporting their
presence, and asking instructions; that the Moon had gone silent to
listen, and that within a few moments their fate would be decided.
What should they do?
In his hand Sarka held his ray director, with which he knew he could
blast one or all of the cubes into nothingness. But still he held his
hand, made no move.
Something, however, had to be done, for the discord was starting
again, growing in volume. It made Sarka think, oddly enough, of a deaf
mute fighting for speech! Then came the first intelligible sound....
A burst, from the depths of the crater, of sardonic laughter!
"Dalis!" said Sarka, and moved. While Sarka moved, Jaska held fast to
his arm. Casting her fear to the winds, furious because of the
laughter of Dalis, Sarka thrust his ray director back into his belt
and stood upright.
Bending over he seized the first of the gleaming cubes and hurled it
over the edge of the crater, saw it start plummeting down. But even
before it fell out of sight within the crater its gleam had dulled
until it was almost impossible to see the thing. Racing as though
racing against time, Sarka caught up cube after cube and hurled them
all after the first.
* * * * *
Out of the crater there came no sound of heavy objects striking,
though Sarka felt there should have, for the cubes were almost as
heavy as a man.
Then his hair almost stood on end under his helmet, for under that
first aircar, where he had first seen it, the initial cube was again
gleaming into life!
The thing had dissolved while being hurled over the rim, and reformed
in its proper place, its station as silent sentinel under the aircar!
These cubes then, were indeed sentinels--sentinels impossible to
injure. Though no force had been used against Sarka and Jaska, Sarka
had the feeling that they were powerless, and that here on the edge of
a crater of the Moon awful forces were being mustered against them.
Mustered slowly, sluggishly, yet surely, as though the mentality which
mustered them knew them helpless, and that there was no need to hurry!
As for Jaska, she merely clung to Sarka and waited--trusting him no
matter what might transpire.
On a blind chance, Sarka brought out his ray director again, turned
its muzzle toward that invisibly-blue column, pressed with his
fingers, moving the director back and forth.
Instantly the blue column seemed to break short off, while the broken
upper portion started racing outward toward the Earth. Sarka watched
it, and noted that the yellowish glow on the Earth, even as he
watched, was fading out--disappearing!
"If the ray will smash the blue column, Jaska," he said, "it will also
destroy its source! Come! We will go look for it!"
And, holding her hand tightly, he rose to his feet and strode boldly
down the inner slope of the vast crater.
CHAPTER XIV
_The Crater Gnomes_
It seemed to Sarka, as he moved down the inner slope of the crater,
that the cubes were somehow making sport of him, laughing at him,
though no hint of laughter or anything resembling laughter emanated
from them.
But, shutting his lips grimly, holding fast to Jaska's hand, he
proceeded on, reached the lower portion of the inner slope, where it
dropped off into a seeming black abyss, and dropped, keeping to a safe
speed because of the fact that both he and Jaska were attired for
movement in the air--though their manner of aerial transportation
could scarcely be called flying.
The anti-gravitational ovoids simply rendered ineffectual the law of
gravity.
Down they dropped, endlessly it seemed, while all about them, growing
gradually, a bluish glow began to make itself manifest. Sarka turned
and looked at the face of Jaska and noted that it--all her being--was
glowing with this strange radiance.
He smiled at her, and she smiled back.
Looking down now, to what seemed still a vast depth, they could see
figures moving, tiny, almost infinitesimal, about a great circular
cone, out of the depths of which came that strange bluish column whose
outer tip touched the Earth.
* * * * *
Some inner sense warned Sarka not to touch that column, or to permit
Jaska to do so. They dropped down beside it, while Sarka, for no
reason that he could assign, once more took his ray director in his
free hand and held it in readiness. It seemed so tiny and futile--so
foolish for two people, one of them a woman--to go into the very heart
of an alien world, against an unknown enemy, armed with such a tiny
weapon. Two people against unguessed myriads, whose very nature was an
enigma, even to Sarka.
Closer now appeared the bottom of the crater, whose floor seemed to be
covered with something that looked like blue sand, or rock. From this
bluish substance the glow which bathed the two Earthlings seemed to
emanate.
The funnel of the crater had now given away to the immensities of
space, in all directions, and the cold of outside was being replaced
by a warmth which promised soon to be even uncomfortable.
Then, without a jar, the two landed at the bottom of the crater, side
by side, close enough almost to that great cone to touch it. Out of
the cone came that bluish column, to shoot up through the funnel down
which the two had lightly dropped ... and the motion of the--whatever
it was--was accompanied by a muted moaning sound, like that of a
distant waterfall.
They paused there, in amazement, taking stock of their surroundings.
Huge tunnels, whose roofs were lost to invisibility in the bluish
haze, whose extremities could only be guessed at, reached off in all
directions. As far as the two could tell they were the only living
souls within the crater, though both knew better.
Sarka had the feeling, and he knew Jaska shared it with him, that
innumerable eyes were studying them, innumerable intellects were
cataloguing them. And somehow he sensed the presence, somewhere near,
of the traitor Dalis!
* * * * *
Then that discordant sound again, breaking so swiftly that it fell
upon the eardrums of Sarka and Jaska like the crack of doom. Out of
the many tunnels, from all directions, came hordes of beings which
would have made the nightmares of Paracelsus--first of the scientists
of Earth--pale to insignificance.
Paracelsus had written and illustrated his nightmares. Had hinted of
strange acts of flesh-grafting--as the grafting of legs on the head of
man. He had spoken, and written about, ghastly operations, from which
men came forth as part men, part spiders; part men, part scorpions,
dogs, cats, crocodiles....
Sarka thought, as his mind went back to those ancient books of his
people in which still remained vestiges of the theories of Paracelsus,
that somehow, in his dreams, Paracelsus must have visited the craters
of the Moon.
These people ... if they could be called people....
They had heads like the heads of Earthlings, broad-domed of brow,
lacking eyelashes or lids, so that their eyes were perpetually
staring. They possessed no bodies at all, and their legs, thin and
attenuated to the size of the wrists of average men, seemed to support
the massive heads with difficulty!
From all directions they came, looking like spiders such as Sarka the
First had described to Sarka, when Sarka had been a mere boy. They
came on the floor, out of the tunnels; they dropped from the walls of
the tunnels, and down from the invisible roofs, landing on the floor
as lightly as feathers--and all converged on Jaska and Sarka.
They seemed to have no fear at all, but only a vast curiosity.
Closer and closer they came.
* * * * *
Jaska's grip tightened on the hand of Sarka, for one of the creatures,
with a spiderish leap, had jumped upon her, fastening its legs in her
tight-fitting costume, where he hung, his face within an inch or two
of hers. His lidless eyes, unblinking, stared deeply into hers.
Others jumped up beside the first, and still others clambered over
Sarka, until both Sarka and Jaska were covered by them like beetles
attacked by ants. But these strange gnomelike creatures, who did not
fear these strangers, apparently meant them no harm.
Then, after a thorough scrutiny, began the strangest talking Sarka had
ever heard. The crater-Gnomes seemed to communicate by making strange
clucking sounds with their tongues, sounds which were unmusical and
discordant, and which, as the Gnomes who stood back from them, because
already the two were covered until no more could cling to Jaska or
Sarka, joined in the speech--mounted in the cavern to a vast crescendo
of sound.
Sarka knew then that this was the sound which had come out to them
while they crouched at the crater rim. These were people of the Moon:
but if these were Moon-men, what, or who, were those gleaming cubes?
"Stand perfectly still," Sarka mentally admonished Jaska, "they
apparently mean us no harm!"
He had not spoken aloud, had not allowed his thought to reach any but
Jaska; yet instantly the discordant clucking ceased, and the Gnomes
were quiet, as though they politely listened to someone who had
interrupted them, yet whose interruption they resented, or were
curious about.
* * * * *
Wondering how the creature would regard his action, Sarka reached
forth and plucked away the first Gnome which had jumped upon Jaska,
and placed him gently on the ground. The thing merely stared at Sarka
with his lidless eyes, as though wondering at Sarka's meaning. Then
his lips, which were triangular, rather than straight as those of
Earthlings, began again that strange clucking.
Immediately the Gnomes which clung to Jaska and Sarka dropped away,
and scuttled into the midst of the myriads that stood and watched.
They did not understand the speech of these Earthlings, but they were
unusually clever in comprehending the meaning of gestures.
"Hold fast to me, Jaska," thought Sarka toward her--and wondered anew
as the Gnomes instantly ceased their clucking sounds--"for I am going
to try an experiment."
Holding her hand still, he turned and strode straight toward the huge
cone out of which rose the bluish column.
Instantly the Gnomes broke into a frightful clucking of tongues, a
sound that mounted to ear-drum-breaking intensity, and in a trice,
climbing over one another to get into position, they moved in between
Sarka and the cone. So eager were they to bar his further progress
that they stood atop one another, until the depth of them was as tall
as Sarka standing upright.
Yet, though they plainly said to Sarka: "You must not approach the
cone," they did not seem to be angry with their visitors, but only
curious. Sarka looked at Jaska, noted how wanly she smiled.
Then he turned, and headed for the nearest of the monster tunnels.
* * * * *
Instantly he detected a surprising eagerness in the renewed clucking
of tongues, while the Gnomes raced ahead, behind, all about the two,
capering like pet animals, showing these strangers the way into the
tunnel.
As they entered it, Sarka tried to discover whence came the bluish
glow. The floor seemed to be of bluish sandstone, though its color,
too, might have been caused by the glow. It was warm, too, so warm
that perspiration was breaking out on the cheeks of Sarka.
Whence came the glow? Apparently from the very walls of the tunnel, or
its roof; but surely from somewhere, surely from some secret place,
whence it was diffused all over.
"And Jaska," said Sarka, "the Moon, according to my father's
researches, is literally honeycombed with craters like this one!"
Again, as he thought, that strange, sudden cessation of the clucking
of the Gnomes. Whither were they leading them? It was plain to be seen
that the Gnomes were heading for some destination, almost herding
Sarka and Jaska toward it. Capering creatures, who behaved witlessly,
yet were far from witless. If Sarka were not sadly mistaken, these
were Moon-men--and women, too, perhaps, since he could not tell the
sex of them--and those gleaming cubes were their outer guards, perhaps
slaves.
If the cubes were really of metal--they had felt warm to Sarka's
touch--then these Moon-men had gone further in science than
Earthlings, as they had imbued at least some metals, or stones, with
intelligence sufficiently advanced for them to perform actions
independently of their masters' wills.
* * * * *
Sarka, too, was remembering another thing: that he had touched one of
these Gnomes, to remove it from Jaska--and had felt a distinct shock
that was patently electrical!
The bluish glow was increasing, becoming more soft and mellow, shading
gradually into golden, as they advanced--shading still as they
preceded until it was almost white, almost blinding, in its radiance.
Then, of a sudden, the clucking of the Gnomes ended, and the creatures
ceased their capering, fell into something that might have been an
ordered military formation, and with Jaska and Sarka in the midst of
them, moved straight toward a broad expanse of the tunnel wall, in the
face of which appeared three long lines, deeply cut in the shape of a
triangle.
The Gnome who had first leaped upon Jaska advanced to the wall, paused
with his face almost against the lower line of the triangle, and
remained there, intently staring, while the other Gnomes remained
mute and unmoving.
Stronger and stronger appeared the blinding light. Slowly the inner
portion of the triangle began to give inward, like a door. And out of
the opening came that blinding radiance.
As the triangular door stood entirely open, Sarka and Jaska stood in
thunderstruck silence, staring like people bereft of their senses. For
there, standing in the opening, the now white radiance itself a mantle
to cover her, was a woman, unclothed save for the radiance, who might
have been of the Earth, save that she was more beautiful than any
woman of Earth.
Beside her the radiant beauty of Jaska paled, became wan and sickly.
But Sarka noted immediately her eyes, whose depths bewildered, amazed
him. For in them he could see no expression, no feeling, but only
abysmal cruelty. That she was Sarka's master, and Jaska's master, and
master of all these Gnomes, became instantly apparent for
telepathically she addressed Sarka.
"I am busy now. The Moon-people will hold you prisoners in the Place
of the Blue light, until I am ready to give you to the Cone!"
CHAPTER XV
_The Place of the Blue Light_
So the Gnomes were Moon-people, masters of the Moon cubes! And people
and cubes were ruled by a woman who resembled a woman of Earth!
The Gnomes took them back the way they had come.
Where, Sarka wondered, were the people of the Gens of Dalis? And where
was Dalis himself! Sarka was sure that, in those first discords which
had come out of the crater, he had heard at least a hint of the
laughter of Dalis.
And this woman clothed in radiance--who was she? And what? That she
was a creature of the Moon, and yet resembled in all ways a woman of
Earth, save that she was more beautiful than any woman Sarka had ever
seen, seemed almost impossible to believe. Yet he had seen her. So had
Jaska, and as Sarka and Jaska, with the capering Gnomes still about
them, were led away to a fate at which they could only guess, Sarka
wondered at Jaska's silence and at the strange lack of expression on
her face.
He pressed her hand, but somehow she failed to return the pressure,
mystifying more than ever. This sudden coldness was not like Jaska.
Back they went through the vast cavern where the cone of the bluish
column still moaned and murmured. Sarka moved as close to the cone as
the Gnomes would permit, and peered up along the mighty length of the
column. At its tip was still the Earth, like a star viewed from the
bottom of a deep well.
Smaller, too, it seemed, which proved that Sarka's breaking of the
blue column had been but momentary, that the column had almost
instantly regained its contact with the Earth. What was its source,
what the composition of the column?
* * * * *
At the moment there could be no answer to the question. Now the Gnomes
were escorting them into another tunnel, whose glow was even bluer
than that which the two had experienced in the other tunnels. And the
deeper they penetrated, the more distant from the cavern of the Cone,
the deeper in color became that light.
Finally the Gnome who had mentally asked permission of the Radiant
Woman to show her Jaska and Sarka passed before another expanse of
wall, identical in appearance with that of the wall of the triangle
from which the Radiant Woman had appeared.
This time the Gnome managed ingress by a strange clucking sound, with
his triangular lips held close to the base-line of the triangle.
Now the door swung open; but the radiance which now came out was not
clear white, as in the case of the outer door, but deeply, coldly
blue. For the first time the Gnomes used force with their prisoners,
thus proving to them that they were indeed prisoners. Their tiny feet
caught at Sarka and at Jaska, and forced them through the door, which
swung shut behind them.
Sarka looked at Jaska who, in this strange new light, had taken on the
color of indigo, and smiled at her. She did not return his smile, but
her eyes looked deeply, somewhat sorrowfully, into his. As though she
asked him a question he could not understand, to which he could
therefore give no answer.
* * * * *
Sarka was now conscious of the fact that the heat of their
prison-house--whose character they did not as yet know--was becoming
almost unbearable. They were alone, too, for the Gnomes had not
entered the door of triangle. Sarka partially removed his life mask,
and testing the atmosphere of the place, found it capable of being
breathed without the mask. He signalled mentally to Jaska to remove
her mask, and when the girl had done so he took her in his arms and
kissed her on the lips.
She accepted his caress, but did not return it, and her eyes still
peered deeply into his.
"Well, beloved," he said. "I am terribly sorry. But I did not want you
to come because I was afraid that something of this sort would
happen."
She did not answer.
"What is it, Jaska?" he said at last.
"What did you think of that woman?" she asked softly.
"Beautiful!" he said enthusiastically. "Fearfully beautiful! But did
you see her eyes? She had no more mercy in her heart than if she were
made of stone! And she hated us both the moment she saw us!"
"And you, Sarka--did you hate her, too?"
Sarka stared at her, not comprehending.
"I feel," he said, "that if we are ever to escape her, we must kill
her, or render her incapable of retaining us!"
Then, of her own accord, Jaska placed her arms around Sarka, and gave
him her lips. Her new behavior was as incomprehensible to Sarka as her
former enigmatic expression had been. Wise in the ways of science was
Sarka, but he knew nothing of women!
* * * * *
Now hand in hand again, they began a survey of their prison house. The
bluish glow was unbearable to the eyes, and tears came unbidden and
ran down the cheeks of the prisoners. In a minute or two, perspiration
was literally bathing the bodies of the two. After a questioning
exchange of glances, Sarka swiftly divested himself of his costume,
stripping down to the gray toga of Earth's manhood. With a shrug,
Jaska removed her clothing to her own toga, and the two suits Sarka
carried under his arm.
They started ahead, exploring, then sprang back with a cry of fright.
Sarka did not know whether it was Jaska or himself who had cried out;
for just as they moved forward, a rent opened in the floor at their
feet, and their eyes for a moment--they could stand no longer--peered
into a bluely flaming abyss which, save for the color, reminded Sarka
of the word pictures of Hell he had read in Earth's books of
antiquity!
As the two stepped back, the rent in the floor closed instantly. Sarka
had noted where the end of it had been, and started to detour, his
eyes on the floor.
Over to his left the bluely glowing wall reached up to invisible
immensity. But as he would have passed along the wall, the rent opened
again, effectually barring his way.
Beyond the rent he could see a vast continuation of the cavern, and he
felt that, could they only pass the rent, they might reach a place
where the heat was not so unbearable, and they could stay and talk in
comfort.
* * * * *
Releasing Jaska, he stepped back and prepared to leap the spot where
the rent had been. High he jumped, and far, surprised at the length of
his own leap. He landed lightly, far beyond the area where the rent
had been, and even as he landed, a rent opened again at his feet, thus
effectually barring further progress!
"It could just as easily," he told himself, "have opened under my
feet, and dropped me into the abyss!"
From behind him came the sudden sound of screaming. He whirled to look
back, to see Jaska standing there, arms outstretched toward him, her
eyes wide with fear and horror, and as he stood watching, she raced to
him, unmindful of abysses that might open under her feet, and flung
herself into his arms.
"Come back!" she moaned. "Come back! Don't you see? _They_ don't wish
you to explore further! We are in their power, and must simply await
their pleasure, whoever or whatever they are! They see all we do!"
So they turned back, and stood against the door which held them
prisoners; and the heat of the place seemed to enter into them, to
gnaw at their very vitals. After a time Sarka found himself almost
tearing at his throat, fighting for breath.
* * * * *
Gasping, the tears bathing their cheeks until even their tears and
their perspiration would flow no more, they huddled now just inside
the massive stone door, arms about each other, and almost prayed for
death. Sarka at least prayed for death for both of them; but Jaska
prayed for a way of deliverance, prayed that herself and Sarka might
somehow win free, and be together again.
Sarka, who knew little of women, marveled at the grandeur of her
courage, and wondered that he really knew this radiant woman so
little. He compared her in his mind with the unclothed woman who had
ordered them here as prisoners, and it came to him that Jaska was all
perfection, all tender womanhood, while the Radiant Woman was a
monster, without soul or compassion--a creature of horror who mocked
God with her outward seeming of perfection.
Jaska read his thoughts, and smiled wanly to herself, and Sarka
wondered how, suffering as he knew she must be suffering, she could
find the courage to smile.
Then, for a time, the two became comatose, mastered by the blue heat,
and in dreamlike imaginings wandered in strange fields which could
only, to these two, have been racial memories, since neither had ever
seen such fields. There were cool streams, all a-murmur, and breezes
which cooled their sun-tanned cheeks. Water touched their tongues, and
cooled their whole bodies as they gratefully imbibed it.
* * * * *
In their wanderings, in which Sarka was a faun and Jaska a nymph, they
talked together in a language which only these two comprehended--a
language which dealt in figures of speech, a language which depended
upon handclasps for periods, glances of the eyes for commas, and the
singing of their hearts for complete understanding.
Then a cool breeze, cool by comparison, caressed their pain-distorted
cheeks, and the Gnomes came in, found them lying there, and clucked
endlessly as though wondering what to do with them.
From hand to tiny hand, their feet serving as hands, the Gnomes passed
garments--garments of the Gens of Dalis, and clothed again the two
whom the Place of the Blue Light had all but slain. Of that ghastly
experiment Sarka retained but one real memory....
That bluish light, in the midst of the abyss, shifting and swaying
like blue serpents swimming in Hades ... that bluish light of the
Cone, which he had broken up for a brief moment by the use of his ray
director. Was this bluish light in the abyss the source of the light
in the Cone? If one were to destroy it at its source....
The two regained consciousness completely as the triangular door
closed behind Sarka and Jaska and the Gnomes, and they were taken into
the refreshing coolness of the tunnel, led back again in the direction
of the room where they had seen the Radiant Woman. Both Jaska and
Sarka noticed that they were clothed in new clothing, and a shy blush
tinged the cheeks of Jaska as her eyes met those of Sarka.
* * * * *
This time they entered the vast chamber of radiance behind the first
triangular door, and were forced to their knees to do obeisance to the
Radiant Woman, who sat on a gleaming yellow stone for dais! The guards
who forced Sarka and Jaska to their knees, were clothed in the green
of the Gens of Dalis, and Dalis himself, his face stern, but bearing
no sign of recognition of these two, stood at the right hand of the
Radiant Woman!
"You come to us as spies," the thought of the Radiant Woman impinged
upon the brains of Sarka and of Jaska, "and as spies you should be
given to the Cone. But if you swear eternal allegiance to me, to obey
me in all things, to forego your allegiance to Earth, your lives will
be spared! What say you?"
Boldly Sarka stared into the almost opaque eyes of the woman. Then his
glance went to the face of Dalis.
"What," he asked boldly, in the language of Earth, "does the traitor
Dalis say?"
"I have sworn allegiance to Luar, who addresses you, and am her ally
in all things! I have but one addition to make to what she says: Jaska
belongs to me!"
The sudden leering grin of Dalis was hideous.
Sarka peered at Jaska, framing his answer. But Jaska spoke first.
"For myself, O Dalis," she said swiftly, "I can answer in but one way.
Return me to the Place of the Blue Light, and forget me there!"
Sarka smiled, while his heart leaped with joy.
"And I, O Luar," he said mentally to the Radiant Woman, "prefer death
with Jaska, at the Place of the Blue Light, than life as a traitor to
the world of my nativity!"
Instantly Luar began the clucking sound which was the language of the
Gnomes, at the same time allowing her thoughts as she spoke to impress
themselves upon the brains of the prisoners.
"Take them away! Take them to the Cavern of the Cone, and when they
have suffered as much as such inferior beings are capable of
suffering, thrust them into the base of the Cone!"
CHAPTER XVI
_Cavern of the Cone_
The Gnomes had been bidden to take the prisoners to the Cavern of the
Cone, but to the surprise of Sarka and Jaska, they were taken back to
the Place of the Blue Light! This time the Gnomes entered the place
with them, closing and securing the door behind them.
But the Place of the Blue Light had changed!
Now it had no floor of blue, as it had had before, but only a corridor
perhaps wide enough to allow the passage of four grown men, walking
side by side, while the abyss of which the two had got but the merest
hint through the opening and closing rents filled all the center of
the place!
The Gnomes seemed impervious to the unendurable heat, and these,
moving together, one behind the other, one beside the other, one atop
the other, formed a living wall between Sarka and Jaska and the rim of
the flaming blue abyss, to protect them from the heat.
Yet through the bodies of this living wall of Gnomes, a wall which was
higher than the heads of Sarka and Jaska, the heat forced its way to
the prisoners, and burned them anew with its agony.
To what dread rendezvous were they going? Where, save for the few
guards at the house of Luar, were the people of the Gens of Dalis?
Sarka felt, somehow, that the answers to all these questions would
soon be made manifest, and a feeling of exaltation he could not
explain was possessing him as he advanced. Around the corridor, whose
one side was the wall reaching up to invisibility, whose other side
dropped off into the abyss, the Gnomes herded the prisoners.
* * * * *
The leader of the Gnomes was again the Gnome who had first leaped upon
Jaska to examine her curiously. Now, watching the lidless eyes of this
being, Sarka fancied he could detect a hint of some expression. The
Gnome was excited at some prospect, some climax which they were
approaching. What? On and on they moved. The blue flames from the
abyss, roaring in a way that neither of the prisoners had ever
experienced, reached upward in searing tongues toward the invisible
roof of this place.
Then, when they had progressed far from the door of entry, Sarka
gasped at a new manifestation. Out of the abyss, some distance ahead,
came a gleaming thing, something that had apparently evolved itself
out of the flames of the abyss. Blue of color it was, because of the
flames from the pit; but Sarka recognized it with a start which he
could not suppress nor understand.
It was one of those cubes, such as he and Jaska had seen at the lip of
the Moon-crater! As they approached, guided by the Gnomes, other cubes
appeared out of the abyss, others in numbers swiftly augmented, until
a veritable battalion of them had marshalled itself, there at the lip
of the abyss.
* * * * *
Straight toward these cubes the Gnomes led Sarka and Jaska, and when
they had reached the center of the group, they halted, forming a
circle, still a wall to mask the prisoners from the heat of the abyss.
The leader of the Gnomes stopped with his face, his lidless eyes,
close to one of the cubes.
For a moment he paused thus, and Sarka felt sure that somehow the
Gnome was holding thought converse with the cube; but, try as he
might, he could find no meaning in the weird conversation for himself.
It was oddly like listening to a conversation in a code beyond his
knowledge.
Then the Gnome turned back to Sarka and Jaska. By a pressure of tiny
feet, he tried to indicate that Sarka and Jaska should unclasp their
hands. But they only clung the tighter, and now threw their arms about
each other.
The Gnome desisted, much to the joy of the lovers, while Sarka studied
the cubes, wondering what their mission was with Jaska and himself.
Slowly, together, the cubes began to lose their bluish glow, their
cube shape--to vanish utterly.
In a trice, still locked in each other's arms, Sarka and Jaska saw the
Gnomes through what appeared to be an even bluer haze. Besides, the
heat of the abyss no longer tortured them, and their bodies were
cooling in a way that was unbelievably refreshing.
"What is it, beloved?" whispered Jaska. "What is it?"
* * * * *
Sarka stared at the Gnomes, now in retreat, capering as they had first
capered when the two had fallen into their hands, toward the door by
which all had entered. Mystified, Sarka put forth his hand. It came in
contact with something solid, and oddly warm, which stirred an
instantly responsive chord in the brain of Sarka.
This feeling was the same as he experienced when he had lifted those
cubes and hurled them into the crater--where they had dissolved in
falling, and instantly reappeared, each under its own aircar!
"Jaska!" he explained. "Jaska! The cubes have dissolved themselves,
and have reformed in the shape of a globe, as a protective covering
about us, to protect us from the heat of the abyss! Apparently we are
not to be killed at once! These cubes are slaves of the Gnomes, of
whom Luar is ruler!"
They were indeed locked inside a globe, a globe whose integral parts
were the cubes of their acquaintance; and the atmosphere of the
interior was not uncomfortable, but otherwise. Sarka and Jaska were
feeling normal for the first time since they had landed on the Moon.
But what was the meaning of this strange imprisonment?
They were soon to know!
For the globe which enclosed them, moved to the edge of the flaming
abyss, and dropped into the bluish glow! It did not drop heavily, like
a falling object on Earth, but rather floated downward, right into the
heart of the flames. At this new manifestation of the strangeness of
science on the Moon, Sarka was at once all scientist himself, striving
to find adequate answers for things which, from cause to effect, were
entirely new to him. With Jaska still clasped close against him, he
seated himself in the base of the globe and studied the area through
which they were passing.
Blue flames which seemed to be born somewhere, an infinite distance
below them; blue flames which he knew to be the element that, shot
outward from the great cone, had forced the Moon away from the Earth.
No sound of the roaring flames came through the globe, but every
movement of them was visible.
* * * * *
Sarka turned and peered through the bottom of the globe; but all he
could see below were the flames, a molten indigo lake of them. Now, as
they floated downward, the glow was giving away to lighter blue, to
white, almost pure white, like the radiance which covered Luar like a
mantle.
Sarka felt himself on the eve of vast important discoveries, and the
scientist in him made him, for the moment, almost forget the woman at
his side. Jaska, unbothered about anything, now that Sarka was at her
side, regarded his expression of deep concentration with a tolerant
smile.
Whiter now was the light, and faster fell the globe which held the
two.
The color of the globe, now fallen below the area of blue, had taken
on, chameleonlike, the color of the white flames that bathed it.
Then, apparently right in the center of a lake of white flames, though
Sarka could see no solid place on which the globe had landed, the
globe came to rest.
Now everything was plain to see, and Sarka studied his surroundings
with new interest. He felt a mounting sensation of scalp-prickling
horror.
For, scattered throughout the lake of white flames, in all directions,
as far as the eye could reach--standing alone, suffering untold
agonies, from the expressions on their faces--were people of the Gens
of Dalis!
* * * * *
No longer were they clothed in green and wearing on breast and back
the yellow stars of their Gens. Now they were nude as they had come
into the world and standing there, each was holding out hands in
horror, to hold back myriads of the Gnomes, who would have forced them
to submerge themselves in the white flames of the lake!
Was the Gens of Dalis being burned alive? What was the meaning of
this?
For a moment, filled with horror, Sarka looked away from the
spectacle. Off to his right, as he sat, he noted that the flames,
which here seemed lighter than they had in high levels, were
converging on a single spot toward the side of the lake of white
flames--as smoke converges on the base of a chimney leading outward to
the air!
He knew as he stared that he was gazing at the spot where the bluish
column of the cone was born!
Shaking his head, he turned back to the mighty spectacle of this
horrible thing that was being done to the people of the Gens of Dalis.
In his brain there suddenly crashed a thought whose source he could
only guess at, whose meaning mystified him more than anything yet
experienced. The thought might have emanated from Luar, or from Dalis.
But the more he thought of the matter, the more he thought how the
phrasing of the thought was like the telepathy of Sarka the Second,
now thousands of miles away, upon the Earth. And this was the thought:
"If they fight the flames, the flames will destroy them! If they go
into them freely, voluntarily, they will be rendered immune to heat
and to cold, to life and to death. But it is better that they die, for
Earth's sake!"
What did it mean?
* * * * *
Sarka thought of the radiant white light which perpetually bathed the
person of Luar, and thought that he had somehow been given a hint of
its source. If the Gens of Dalis were voluntarily bathed in the lake
of white flames, would they become as Luar?
Somehow, though he knew that such bathing would save their lives, the
idea filled him anew with horror. He found himself torn between two
duties. If he sent his thought out there to the Gens of Dalis, people
of Earth, his people, they would be saved, but might forever become
allies of the people of the Moon. If Sarka did not tell them, they
would die--and there were millions of them.
But his science had always been a science of Life, and it still was.
"Enter the flames!" he telepathically bade his people. "Enter the
flames!"
But they did not heed him, and for the first time the atmosphere of
the interior of the globe seemed filled with savage, abysmal menace!
Plain to Sarka was the meaning of that menace: The cubes which
composed this globe were loyal to their masters, the masters to a
mistress, Luar, and would countenance no meddling.
Likewise it was impossible, if the Gnomes willed it to the cubes, for
Sarka to transmit his thoughts to the Gens of Dalis through the
transparent walls of the globe!
They were prisoners, indeed, of Dalis and of Luar!
* * * * *
But could Sarka and Jaska turn their new-found knowledge to their own
use? Sarka was thinking back, back to one of the ancient tomes of his
people. It spoke, someplace, of a man who had got trapped in the heart
of a seething volcano, where the heat of it had cured him of his
illnesses, made him whole again, given him new youth and freshness.
But since the cubes could forestall his transmission of thought, and
perhaps could read and understand thoughts, how was he to tell Jaska?
How show her that a way of deliverance had been given into their
hands, if they only possessed the courage to use it!
Again came that thought, which Sarka recognized as the telepathy of
his father:
"Courage! You will win, and Jaska with you!"
Thoughts could come in to them then, but could not go out. Or did it
mean that the cubes, or the masters of the cubes, did not care if the
prisoners received messages from outside, because they knew themselves
capable of frustrating anything the prisoners planned? Perhaps. More
than likely that was it.
But, looking through the bottom of the globe, into the sea of white
flames below, Sarka gripped more tightly his ray director, and tried
to marshal the forces of his courage. There was surely some way of
escape. Some way out of their strange predicament.
CHAPTER XVII
_Casting the Die_
Somehow Sarka believed that this white radiance of the abyss held the
secret of the omnipotence of Luar, if omnipotence she possessed. That
she did seemed sure, else Dalis would not have been with her. Besides,
she had asked Sarka and Jaska to swear allegiance to her. Yes the
secret was here, in the heart of the lake of white flames.
It might have been the Moon Fountain of Youth, or of omnipotence.
There was no telling, unless Sarka tried an experiment.
His fury at Dalis now knew no bounds, and he was conscious of a
desire, too poignant almost to be borne, in some way to circumvent the
arch-traitor. For here in the craters of the Moon Dalis was working
out a strange amplification of the scheme which he had, centuries
before, proposed to Sarka the First. He was subjecting the people of
his Gens to the white flames.
If they immersed themselves voluntarily, they became as Luar was, but
still subservient to the will of Dalis--and, in his hands, invincible
instruments of war! Dalis had doubtless already been bathed in the
flames. Sarka was not sure, for in the home of Luar the white light
was so blinding it would have been impossible to make sure that the
white radiance clothed the others with Luar.
"That's it!" said Sarka to himself. "That's it! Dalis and those guards
at the dais of Luar have already been subjected to the white flames!
The rest who immerse themselves, voluntarily, come forth as Luar and
Dalis! Who do not, die. Dalis' manner of forcing the survival of the
fittest! His idea of the flood in grandfather's time, only now he
causes his selection by flames instead of flood! He believes that only
those worthy to survive, and to stand at his back in whatever he
conceives to be his need, will guess the secret of the immersion. The
others will die!"
* * * * *
What a terrible alternative, when Dalis could as easily have given the
secret to all his people! Could have told them how to save themselves!
But it was not Dalis' way. Here, in the beginning of what was to
become a dual sovereignty of the Moon, Dalis had already taken thought
on the matter of over-population, and was destroying the many that the
few--the strongest, most ruthless--might survive! Hundreds of
thousands, millions of the Gens of Dalis, stood at the door of life,
and did not know how to enter, merely because Dalis withheld the key!
And, pausing in terror before the flames, they died, when a step and a
plunge would have saved them all!
"If he lives to be a million, if he lives through everlasting life,"
said Sarka to himself, "and does penance through a thousand
reincarnations, Dalis can never atone for this wholesale destruction
of humanity! But I ... I wonder!"
Sarka realized the nicety of the revenge of Dalis upon Jaska and
himself. Dalis had not given the secret to the prisoners, but by his
use of the cubes, he had plunged them into the very heart of the
horror, where they could see the suffering of the people of the Gens.
Then, when they had seen and appreciated the horror of it all, they
would follow the people of the Gens to death!
But Luar had spoken of thrusting them into the base of the Cone!
* * * * *
Then they were not for the flames after all! How could it be done? The
globe composed of the cubes had but to transport the prisoners to the
base of the Cone, press against that base, and open to let the
prisoners free--and in the heart of the white-blue column they would
be hurled outward from the Moon, into space. The mere prospect of such
horror caused the perspiration to break forth anew on the body of
Sarka.
But there might be a way.
"I wonder," he asked himself, "if the Earth people in _this_ crater
could read my thoughts in spite of their agonies, if I could get my
thought to them through the globe? I wonder if, reading my thoughts,
they would obey?"
Bit by bit, as parts of a puzzle fall into place, he made his plan,
and his heart beat high with excitement. Jaska bent before him to look
into his eyes, and he knew that she was trying to read his face. She
knew, wise Jaska, that this brilliant lover of hers was making a plan,
and she believed in the sure success of it because it would be _his_!
She smiled at him, her courage high, and waited!
Holding the ray director between his body and that of Jaska, he took a
terrible, ghastly chance. Dalis had known the secret sign manual of
these two; but would the intelligence of the cubes comprehend it? He
must take the chance, slender as it seemed. His free hand began to
spell out, with all speed, the mad plan he had conceived.
"The white flames are harmless if one plunges into them voluntarily.
Are you afraid to attempt it? No? Then unfasten your clothing, and
have it so arranged that you can drop entirely out of it when I give
you the signal, which will be a mere widening of the eyes, like this!
You understand? We must go nude into the flames, so that they will
bathe our whole bodies! But, when you slip out of your clothing, tear
your anti-gravitational ovoid from the skull-pan of your helmet, and
hold it in your mouth! Then depend upon me, and have no fear!"
"I have no fear," replied the fingers of Jaska. "I go to death with
you if you wish--or to Life!"
* * * * *
Feeling the menace of the cubes almost gripping at his throat as he
got into action, Sarka unfastened his own clothing, ripped the ovoid
from his helmet, placed it in his mouth. Then, looking at Jaska, he
gave her the signal.
Instantly, at her nod, he brought forth the ray director, pressed it
with his fingers, directing its muzzle toward the curve of the globe,
swinging it around in a circle, cutting out the bottom of the globe of
cubes.
The action must have been one of untold surprise to the cubes which
made up the globe, for before anything could be done to stay the hand
of Sarka, his ray director had cut out the bottom of the globe, and
Jaska and himself, divested now of all clothing, had fallen from the
globe.
Unbearable heat slashed and tore at them. They still held hands, and
when their feet touched upon something solid, they were gasping with
the unbelievable heat; and it was ripping at their lungs like talons
of white hot steel. But, pausing not at all, Sarka raced ahead with
Jaska, and dived straight into the lake of white flames.
As he dived he directed his thoughts toward the people of the Gens who
stood, undecided, dying by slow inches, on their little oases in the
lake. And this was the thought, which was a command.
"Plunge into the flames! They will not hurt you! Plunge in, and obey
my commands, O people of the Gens of Dalis! I, Sarka, command that you
obey me! Jaska, who commanded you at the will of Dalis, also commands.
Gather with Jaska and me at the base of the Cone! You have but to
follow the converging of the flames!"
* * * * *
Together the two plunged in, and it seemed all at once as though the
fire had gone out of the white flames, for they were cool and soothing
to the touch. Sarka could feel new life being borne in him, could feel
himself revitalized, exalted, lifted to the heights. He suddenly
experienced the desire to run, and shout his joy for all to hear. But
reason held him. Not thus easily would Luar and Dalis, the traitor,
give over their designs against these two.
But in the heart of the flames, they dropped down, while they turned
their faces toward the base of the Cone, or where they thought the
base to be, even as Sarka gave another command to the now invisible
people of the Gens of Dalis.
"Hold your ovoids in your mouths and follow! Obey my will!"
They dropped now to what seemed to be cool flagstones, while above
them showed an orifice in a wall, into which those tongues of flame
were darting. They paused there, side by side, their faces radiant,
and looked back the way they had come.
Coming out of the white flames, like battalions on parade, were the
people of the Gens of Dalis--scores and hundreds of them, who had
sensed and heeded the mental commands of Sarka. Like genii appearing
out of the flames they came, to muster about Sarka and Jaska.
Then, when it seemed that no more were coming, Sarka turned to the
base of the Cone, his face high shining with courage and confidence,
and stepped straight into the flames that led into the Cone. Beside
him came Jaska, while behind him came the people of the Gens of Dalis
who dared to do as he had commanded.
They were sucked into the Cone like chips sucked into a whirlpool, and
Sarka willed a last command as they entered:
"Quit the column at the lip of the crater, and muster about the
aircars!"
CHAPTER XVIII
_The People of Radiance_
The exaltation of Sarka knew no bounds, and looking into the eyes of
Jaska, he knew she felt it, too. For her face was shining, and all of
her, the wondrous shining brilliance of her, was bathed in the white
radiance that mantled Luar. And now, since Jaska too knew that
radiance, her beauty was greater even than that of Luar. Sarka
thrilled anew at the glory of her.
But even as he stepped into the base of the Cone, he stepped out of
the blue column at the lip of the Moon-crater. Swift as light, and
swifter, had been the flight upward from the Cavern of the Cone; yet,
so keen were his perceptions, he knew when he had passed through the
chamber of the bluish glow, into which he and Jaska had first dropped
upon arrival.
Now they were on the lip of the crater, and the people of the Gens who
had followed him, were slipping out of the blue column, like insects
out of a flame, and converging on the aircars whose tentacles still
waved as they had when Sarka had last seen them.
Sarka looked at these people in amazement. To him there was a divinity
now about their nudeness which nudity never before had suggested to
him. For the people shone, and there was something glorious in those
divinely white bodies. They reminded Sarka of his people's books of
antiquity, and his childhood's pictures of angels....
But the effect of those white flames!...
* * * * *
There was no explaining it. But Sarka felt that whatever he willed to
do he could do; that whatever he wished for was his, whether it was
his by right or no. He felt that he could move mountains, with only
the aid of his hands. Looking at Jaska he conceived all sorts of new
beauty in her, for she was the brightest, to him, of all the people
who had passed through the lake of white flames, and been cleansed in
their heat.
"No wonder Luar has mastered the Moon!" he cried to Jaska. "For when
she was bathed in the white flames, her will is paramount!"
"But how, if she passes the people of the Gens of Dalis through the
flames, will she retain her sovereignty?"
"Because Dalis, too, has passed through, and his will is the will of
the Gens! They will obey him, and he has sworn allegiance to Luar, or
given some sort of oath of fealty!"
"How strange that but one person on the Moon has been bathed in the
white flames!"
"How do we know," Sarka almost whispered it, "that she is, originally,
of the Moon? Does she not look too much like our people, to be from
another world entirely?"
"I do not know, but ... you mean ... you mean...?"
"I scarcely know; but Dalis would swear allegiance to no man, much
less to a woman, unless he knew that man, or woman, far better than he
has had opportunity, in a matter of hours only, to know Luar!"
He left it there then, as he strode boldly, with Jaska by his side, to
the nearest of the aircars.
* * * * *
As he approached the car, the gleam cube beneath it seemed to gleam
brighter and brighter, as though it echoed the radiance of Sarka.
Sarka knew, studying this phenomenon, that he possessed at least a
hint of the secret of Luar's omnipotence. There had been a hint
before, but by now its meaning was clearer. The white flames, out of
the heart of the dying Moon, gave new life, exaltation, not only to
the bodies but to the brains of those who passed through it, and with
their brains quickened, they possessed such knowledge as men of Earth,
for ages, had wished to possess.
Transmutation of metals ... the ability, at will, to endow the higher,
more selective metals with intelligence ... and the ability to retain
command of the intelligences thus endowed. This explained the power of
Luar over the Gnomes, and the power of the Gnomes over the cubes--if
they possessed that power.
But the Gnomes, what of them? What were they?
But for a space Sarka must await the answer to that question, for
there was little time. Already he knew that the tale of his escape,
and his taking over of a portion of the Gens of Dalis, must have gone
like wildfire through all the crater, and from this crater, perhaps,
had been transmitted to all the craters of the Moon. All the
craters....
* * * * *
That explained to him the absence from the lake of white flames, where
he had seen so few, comparatively, of the people of Dalis' Gens. The
Moon was honeycombed by such craters, and perhaps the white flame
connected them all, made them all one. And Luar commanded all from her
dais in this crater Sarka and his people were escaping. The millions
of the Gens had been swallowed by the craters of the Moon, at command
of Luar, acceded to by Dalis--and all over the Moon the very things
which Sarka and Jaska had witnessed were taking place.
Even now, as Sarka raced for the aircar, and Jaska with him, he could
feel a backward pulling that was well-nigh invincible. Someone was
willing him to return, willing the Gnomes to pursue him, willing the
cubes to refuse obedience to him; but he laughed and stepped to the
aircar, passing by the nearest writhing tentacle as though he knew it
possessed no power to harm him. The tentacle swept aside, and did not
try to bar him, while he sent his will crashing against that brightly
gleaming cube. "Into the aircar! We enter with you!"
The cube vanished instantly, and it seemed to Sarka that invisible
hands caught at his feet, lifting him up through the trap-door in the
belly of the aircar, up and inside. The door swung shut, and in the
forward end of the vast aircar gleamed the cube which had obeyed his
command!
* * * * *
Sarka sent one thought careening outward from the aircar, a command to
the cubes which stood watch beneath the other aircars.
"Obey the Radiant People, and through them, _me_!"
The light of the cube made the interior of the aircar as light as day,
and Sarka was struck at once with another phenomenon. He could see
through the sides of the car in any direction.
And what he saw filled him with a sudden fear!
Out of the crater poured myriads of the Gnomes, and up the sides of it
came myriads of the gleaming cubes, all racing toward the cars.
"Get back! Get back!" he commanded the Gnomes and the cubes.
At the same time he issued his commands to the cube within his own
car, and to the cubes which by now were inside the other aircars,
realizing that the cubes themselves were the motive power of the
aircars--and that his will was the will of these individual cubes.
"Fly at once! Fly outward at top speed toward the Earth!"
Instantly, as though a single signal had started all the cars, a dozen
aircars rose majestically from the crater, while Sarka studied the
Gnomes and the cubes in turmoil on the rim. He noted then, a strange
circumstance: that when he commanded the Gnomes and the pursuing cubes
to keep back, they hesitated, dazedly, as though they did not know
whether to advance or to retreat; that when he merely watched them,
they came on.
He laughed aloud at this measuring of mental swords with Luar, and
with Dalis. For he could sense the conflict very plainly. She
commanded the Gnomes and the cubes to attack, he commanded them to
retreat, and they remained undecided, like people drawn between two
extremities, and uncertain which direction to take.
Upward, side by side now, floated the aircars of the Moon, and in the
forepeak of each, one of the gleaming cubes, like--like
anti-gravitational ovoids of the Moon! At the fast falling rim of the
crater boiled the Gnomes and the cubes, stirring and tumbling,
hampered by their very numbers, as they tried to attack at will of
Luar and retreated in confusion at the will of Sarka.
Then there was Jaska beside Sarka, her face fearful, as he pointed off
across the gloomy expanse of the Moon.
From all sides, from all directions, from other craters which these
two had not even seen, came scores and hundreds of the monster cars!
They had beaten Luar and Dalis but for a moment, then! Now, at her
command, the countless other aircars were coming in to head them off,
to fight them back to the surface of the Moon. It would be a race
against time, and against death. But of at least a dozen of the
aircars, Sarka was master, and he did not fear the issue. That strange
exaltation which the white flames had given him filled him with a
confidence that nothing could shake.
He shot a thought at the gleaming cube in the forepeak.
"Faster! Faster! There is no limit to your speed! Faster! Faster! Even
faster!"
Instantly the Moon seemed literally to drop away beneath the dozen
aircars which carried the Radiant People, while the aircars of Luar
and of Dalis fell hopelessly behind.
Sure that they would win in this race now, since he was just beginning
to realize the vastness of his power--the all-encompassing,
all-mastering power of the human mind and will, which the white flames
of the Moon had made almost god-like--Sarka turned his eyes toward a
coldly gleaming sphere in the star-spangled heavens ahead.
* * * * *
It was the Earth, and it seemed ringed in flames! From its edges there
seemed to shoot long streamers of yellow or golden flames, which broke
into sunlike pinwheels of radiance at their tips. Something, there on
the precious Earth, was decidedly wrong!
Instantly, telepathically, he sought to gain mental contact with his
father.
"Father, we are coming!" he said, across those countless miles. "What
is happening?"
For a full minute there was no answer. Then it came, feeble, broken,
weighted with fear; but it was a thought-message, unmistakably, of
Sarka the Second.
"Hurry, son! Hurry! For Dalis has indeed betrayed us! I could not
maintain control of the Earth with the Beryls, for some strange
catastrophe has destroyed all the Beryls in the area Dalis ruled! The
shifting of positions of the Earth and the Moon has so altered the
relative effects of the pull of gravity exerted by the planets that
Mars has been brought into dangerous proximity to us and is already so
close that her ether-lights are playing over us! Surely you must be
able to see them! We have received messages, but as yet I have only
been partially able to decode them! What I have decoded, however,
presages catastrophe--for I am sure that Mars and the Moon are in
confederation, and that the Moon-people have deliberately forced us
into contact with her ally!"
Cold fear clutched at the throat of Sarka as he caught the message. He
decided not to tell Jaska for the moment. He looked to right and left,
at the aircars on either side of him, then issued his commands.
"Faster! Faster! Be prepared to land in the area of the Gens of
Cleric, as close as possible to my laboratory!"
A strange, awesome sight, that flight of the rebels of Dalis' Gens
from the Moon to the Earth--like gleaming stars across the void. Far
out in Space they fled at terrific speed through almost utter
darkness, but their light was still blinding, lighting the way.
(_Concluded in the next issue_)
No comments:
Post a Comment