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Title: The Radio Planet
Author: Farley, Ralph Milne
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Radio Planet" ***
THE
RADIO
PLANET
Ralph Milne Farley
ACE BOOKS, INC.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10036
THE RADIO PLANET
_Argosy All-Story Weekly_.
_Cover by John Schoenherr. Illustration by Jack Gaughan._
_Ralph Milne Farley is also the author of_
The Radio Beasts
_available now from Ace Books_ (F-304)
Printed in U. S. A.
Author’s Foreword
Could _you_ make a radio set? Don’t answer rashly. Don’t say that you
have already built several. For note that we did not ask whether you
could assemble a set from parts already manufactured by others, but
rather whether you could build the entire set yourself—from the ground
up. That means making every part you require, including the vacuum
tubes, the acid in the batteries, the wires, the insulation.
If you think that you could do this, let us ask you one further
question. Put yourself in the place of the hero of the following story,
and imagine yourself stranded amid intelligent savages who have not
progressed beyond the wood age. Under such circumstances, with nothing
to guide you but your scientific memory, with no tools except those of
your own creation, and with no materials save those furnished by nature,
could you, though the lives and happiness of your dear ones depended
upon it—could _you_ make a radio set?
—_R. M. F._, 1926.
Contents
I (untitled) 5
II Too Much Static 8
III Yuri or Formis? 14
IV The Coup D’etat 18
V Lost Amid the Rocks 27
VI The Vairkings 36
VII Radio Once More 42
VIII But Why Radio? 49
IX A Prisoner 60
X The Siege of Sur 69
XI Att the Terrible 80
XII Companions in Misery 85
XIII Further Progress 93
XIV Old Friends 101
XV Plans for Escape 108
XVI Afterthoughts 117
XVII The Battle for Vairkingi 124
XVIII The Fall of Vairkingi 133
XIX The Battle in the Air 142
XX The Whoomangs 149
XXI Souls? 160
XXII Flight 169
XXIII Luno and Beyond 180
XXIV The Lobsteroid Circuit 189
XXV All Kinds of Trouble 199
XXVI The Debacle 206
XXVII Peace on Poros 217
[Illustration: Venusian Ant]
I
“It’s too bad that Myles Cabot can’t see this!” I exclaimed, as my eye
fell on the following item:
_SIGNALS FROM MARS FAIL TO REACH HARVARD_
_Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wednesday. The Harvard College Radio
Station has for several weeks been in receipt of fragmentary signals
of extraordinarily long wave-length, Professor Hammond announced
yesterday. So far as it has been possible to test the direction of the
source of these waves, it appears that the direction has a twenty-four
hour cycle, thus indicating that the origin of these waves is some
point outside the earth._
_The university authorities will express no opinion as to whether or
not these messages come from Mars._
Myles, alone of all the radio engineers of my acquaintance, was
competent to surmount these difficulties, and thus enable the Cambridge
savants to receive with clearness the message from another planet.
Twelve months ago he would have been available, for he was then quietly
visiting at my farm, after five earth-years spent on the planet Venus,
where, by the aid of radio, he had led the Cupians to victory over their
oppressors, a human-brained race of gigantic black ants. He had driven
the last ant from the face of continental Poros, and had won and wed the
Princess Lilla, who had borne him a son to occupy the throne of Cupia.
While at my farm Cabot had rigged up a huge radio set and a
matter-transmitting apparatus, with which he had (presumably) shot
himself back to Poros on the night of the big October storm which had
wrecked his installation.
I showed the newspaper item to Mrs. Farley, and lamented on Cabot’s
absence. Her response opened up an entirely new line of thought.
Said she: “Doesn’t the very fact that Mr. Cabot isn’t here suggest to
you that this may be a message, not from Mars, but from him? Or perhaps
from the Princess Lilla, inquiring about him in case he has failed in
his attempted return?”
That had never occurred to me! How stupid!
“What had I better do about it, if anything?” I asked. “Drop Professor
Hammond a line?”
But Mrs. Farley was afraid that I would be taken for a crank.
That evening, when I was over in town, the clerk in the drug store
waylaid me to say that there had been a long-distance phone call for me,
and would I please call a certain Cambridge number.
So, after waiting an interminable time in the stuffy booth with my hands
full of dimes, nickels, and quarters, I finally got my party.
“Mr. Farley?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Professor Kellogg, O. D. Kellogg,” the voice replied.
It was my friend of the Harvard math faculty, the man who had analyzed
the measurements of the streamline projectile in which Myles Cabot had
shot to earth the account of the first part of his adventures on Venus.
Some further adventures Myles had told me in person during his stay on
my farm.
“Professor Hammond thinks that he is getting Mars on the air,” the voice
continued.
“Yes,” I replied. “I judged as much from what I read in this morning’s
paper. But what do _you_ think?”
Kellogg’s reply gave my sluggish mind the second jolt which it had
received that day.
“Well,” he said, “in view of the fact that I am one of the few people
among your readers who take your radio stories seriously, I think that
Hammond is getting Venus. Can you run up here and help me try and
convince him?”
And so it was that I took the early boat next morning for Boston, and
had lunch with the two professors.
As a result of our conference, a small committee of engineers returned
with me to Edgartown that evening for the purpose of trying to repair
the wrecked radio set which Myles Cabot had left on my farm.
They utterly failed to comprehend the matter-transmitting apparatus, and
so—after the fallen tower had been reerected and the rubbish cleared
away—they had devoted their attention to the restoration of the
conversational part of the set.
To make a long story short, we finally restored it, with the aid of some
old blue prints of Cabot’s which Mrs. Farley, like Swiss Family
Robinson’s wife, produced from somewhere. I was the first to try the
earphones, and was rewarded by a faint “bzt-bzt” like the song of a
north woods blackfly.
In conventional radioese, I repeated the sounds to the Harvard group:
“Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah.
Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah. Dah-dit-dit dit. Dah-dit-dah-dit
dit-dah dah-dit dit dit dah-dah-dah dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dit-dah
dah-dit-dit-dit dah-dah-dah dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dit-dah
dah-dit-dit-dit-dah dah-dah-dah.”
A look of incredulity spread over their faces. Again came the same
message, and again I repeated it.
“You’re spoofing us!” one of them shouted. “Give _me_ the earphones.”
And he snatched them from my head. Adjusting them on his own head, he
spelled out to us, “C-Q C-Q C-Q D-E C-A-B-O-T C-A-B-O-T C-A-B-O-T—”
Seizing the big leaf-switch, he threw it over. The motor-generator began
to hum. Grasping the key, the Harvard engineer ticked off into space:
“Cabot Cabot Cabot D-E—”
“Has this station a call letter?” he hurriedly asked me.
“Yes,” I answered quickly, “One-X-X-B.”
“One-X-X-B,” he continued the ticking “K.”
Interplanetary communication was an established fact at last! And not
with Mars after all these years of scientific speculations. But what
meant more to me was that I was again in touch with my classmate Myles
Standish Cabot, the radio man.
The next day a party of prominent scientists, accompanied by a
telegrapher and two stenographers, arrived at my farm.
During the weeks that followed there was recorded Myles’s own account of
the amazing adventures on the planet Venus (or Poros, as its own
inhabitants call it,) which befell him upon his return there after his
brief visit to the earth. I have edited those notes into the following
coherent story.
II
TOO MUCH STATIC
Myles Cabot had returned to the earth to study the latest developments
of modern terrestrial science for the benefit of the Cupian nation. He
was the regent of Cupia during the minority of his baby son, King Kew
the Thirteenth. The loyal Prince Toron occupied the throne in his
absence. The last of the ant-men and their ally, the renegade Cupian
Prince Yuri, had presumably perished in an attempt to escape by flying
through the steam-clouds which completely hem in continental Poros. What
lay beyond the boiling seas no man knew.
During his stay on my farm, Cabot had built the matter-transmitting
apparatus, with which he had shot himself off into space on that October
night on which he had received the message from the skies: “S O S,
Lilla.” A thunderstorm had been brewing all that evening, and just as
Myles had placed himself between the coordinate axes of his machine and
had gathered up the strings which ran from his control levers to within
the apparatus, there had come a blinding flash. Lightning had struck his
aerial.
How long his unconsciousness lasted he knew not. He was some time in
regaining his senses. But when he had finally and fully recovered, he
found himself lying on a sandy beach beside a calm and placid lake
beneath a silver sky.
He fell to wondering, vaguely and pleasantly, where he was and how he
had got here.
Suddenly, however, his ears were jarred by a familiar sound. At once his
senses cleared, and he listened intently to the distant purring of a
motor. Yes, there could be no mistake; an airplane was approaching. Now
he could see it, a speck in the sky, far down the beach.
Nearer and nearer it came.
Myles sprang to his feet. To his intense surprise, he found that the
effort threw him quite a distance into the air. Instantly the idea
flashed through his mind: “I must be on Mars! Or some other strange
planet.” This idea was vaguely reminiscent of something.
But while he was trying to catch this vaguely elusive train of thought,
his attention was diverted by the fact that, for some unaccountable
reason, his belt buckle and most of the buttons which had held his
clothes together were missing, so that his clothing came to pieces as he
rose, and that he had to shed it rapidly in order to avoid impeding his
movements. He wondered at the cause of this.
But his speculations were cut short by the alighting of the plane a
hundred yards down the beach.
What was his horror when out of it clambered, not men but ants! Ants,
six-footed, and six feet high. Huge ants, four of them, running toward
him over the glistening sands.
Gone was all his languor, as he seized a piece of driftwood and prepared
to defend himself.
As he stood thus expectant, Myles realized that his present position and
condition, the surrounding scenery, and the advance of the ant-men were
exactly, item for item, like the opening events of his first arrival on
the planet Poros. He even recognized one of the ant-men as old Doggo,
who had befriended him on his previous visit.
Could it be that all his adventures in Cupia had been naught but a
dream; a recurring dream, in fact? Were his dear wife Lilla and his
little son Kew merely figments of his imagination? Horrible thought!
And then events began to differ from those of the past; for the three
other Formians halted, and Doggo advanced alone. By the agitation of the
beast’s antennae the earth man could see that it was talking to him. But
Myles no longer possessed the wonderful electrical headset which he had
contrived and built during his previous visit to that planet, so as to
talk with Cupians and Formians, both of which races are earless and
converse by means of radiations from their antennae.
So he picked up two sticks from the beach, and held them projecting from
his forehead; then threw them to the ground with a grimace of disgust
and pointed to his ears.
Doggo understood, and scratched with his paw in Cupian shorthand on the
silver sands the message: “Myles Cabot, you are our prisoner.”
“What, again?” scratched Myles, then made a sign of submission.
He dreaded the paralyzing bite which Formians usually administer to
their victims, and which he had twice experienced in the past; but,
fortunately, it was not now forthcoming.
The other three ants kept away from him as Doggo led him to the beached
airplane, and soon they were scudding along beneath silver skies,
northward as it later turned out.
Far below them were silver-green fields and tangled tropical woods,
interspersed with rivulets and little ponds.
This was Cupia, his Cupia. He was home once more, back again upon the
planet which held all that was dear to him in two worlds.
His heart glowed with the warmth of homecoming. What mattered it that he
was now a prisoner, in the hands (or, rather, claws) of his old enemies,
the Formians? He had been their prisoner before, and had escaped. Once
more he could escape, and rescue the Princess Lilla.
Poor girl! How eager he was to reach her side, and save her from that
peril, whatever it was, which had caused her to flash that “S O S” a
hundred million miles across the solar system from Poros to the earth.
He wondered what could have happened in Cupia since his departure, only
a few sangths ago. How was it that the ant-men had survived their
airplane journey across the boiling seas? What had led them to return?
Or perhaps these ants were a group who had hidden somewhere and thus had
escaped the general extermination of their race. In either event, how
had they been able to reconquer Cupia? And where was their former
leader, Yuri, the renegade Cupian prince?
These and a hundred other similar questions flooded in upon the
earth-man, as the Formian airship carried him, a captive, through the
skies.
He gazed again at the scene below, and now noted one difference from the
accustomed Porovian landscape, for nowhere ran the smooth concrete roads
which bear the swift two-wheeled kerkools of the Cupians to all parts of
their continent. What uninhabited portion of Cupia could this be, over
which they were now passing?
Turning to Doggo, Myles extended his left palm, and made a motion as
though writing on it with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.
But the ant-man waved a negative with one of his forepaws. It was
evident that there were no writing materials aboard the ship. Myles
would have to wait until they reached their landing place; for doubtless
they would soon hover down in some city or town, though just which one
he could not guess, as the country below was wholly unfamiliar.
Finally a small settlement loomed ahead. It was of the familiar style of
toy-building-block architecture affected by the ant-men, and, from its
appearance, was very new. On its outskirts further building operations
were actively in progress. Apparently a few survivors of the accursed
race of Formians were consolidating their position and attempting to
build up a new empire in some out-of-the-way portion of the continent.
As the earth-man was turning these thoughts over in his mind the plane
softly settled down upon one of the flat roofs, and its occupants
disembarked. Three of the ants advanced menacingly toward Myles, but
Doggo held them off. Then all of the party descended down one of the
ramps to the lower levels of the building.
Narrow slitlike window openings gave onto courtyards, where fountains
played and masses of blue and yellow flowers bloomed, amid gray-branched
lichens with red and purple twig-knobs. It was in just such a garden,
through just such a window, that he had first looked upon the lovely
blue-eyed, golden-haired Lilla, Crown Princess of Cupia.
The earth-man sighed. Where was his beloved wife now? That she needed
his help was certain. He must therefore get busy. So once again he made
motions of writing on the palm of his left hand with the thumb and
forefinger of his right; and this time the sign language produced
results, for Doggo halted the procession and led Cabot into a room.
It was a plain bare room, devoid of any furniture except a small table,
for ant-men have no use for chairs and couches. The sky outside was
already beginning to pinken with the unseen sun.
With a sweep of his paw, Doggo indicated that this was to be Cabot’s
quarters. Then, with another wave, he pointed to the table, where lay a
pad of paper and stylus, not a pencil-like stylus as employed by the
Cupians, but rather one equipped with straps for attaching it to the
claw of a Formian.
Even so, it was better than nothing. The earth-man seized it eagerly,
but before he could begin writing an ant entered bearing a Cupian toga,
short-sleeved and bordered with Grecian wave designs in blue. Myles put
on this garment, and then quickly filled a sheet with questions:
“How is my princess and my son, the baby king? Whence come all you
Formians, whose race I thought had been exterminated? What part of Cupia
is this? What is this city? Where is Prince Yuri? And what do you intend
to do with me _this_ time?”
Then he passed the paper and stylus over to his old friend Doggo. They
were alone together at last.
The ant-man’s reply consumed sheet after sheet of paper; but, owning to
the rapidity of Porovian shorthand, did not take so very much more time
than speaking would have required. As he completed each sheet he passed
it over to Myles, who read as follows:
“As to your princess and your son, I know not, for this is not Cupia. Do
you remember how, when your victorious army and air navy swept to the
southern extremity of what had been Formia, a few of our survivors rose
in planes from the ruins of our last stronghold and braved the dangers
of the steam clouds which overhang the boiling seas? Our leader was
Prince Yuri, erstwhile contender for the throne of Cupia, splendid even
in defeat.
“It was his brain that conceived our daring plan of escape. If there
were other lands beyond the boiling seas, the lands which tradition
taught were the origin of the Cupian race, then there we might prosper
and raise up a new empire. At the worst we should merely meet death in
another form, rather than at your hands. So we essayed.
“Your planes followed us, but turned back as we neared the area of
terrific heat. Soon the vapor closed over us, blotting our enemies and
our native land from view.”
For page after page Doggo, the ant-man, related the harrowing details of
that perilous flight across the boiling seas, ending with the words:
“Here we are, and here are you, in Yuriana, capitol of New Formia. But
how is it that you, Myles Cabot, have arrived here on this continent in
exactly the same manner and condition in which I discovered you in _old_
Formia eight years ago?”
When Myles reached the end of reading this narrative, he in turn took
the pad and stylus and related how he had gone to the planet Minos
(which we call the Earth) to learn the latest discoveries and inventions
there, and how his calculations for his return to Poros had been upset
by some static conditions just as he had been about to transmit himself
back. Oh, if only he had landed by chance upon the same beach as on his
first journey through the skies!
Wisely he refrained from mentioning the “S O S” message from Lilla. But
his recollection of her predicament spurred him to be anxious about her
rescue.
His immediate problem was to learn what the ant-men planned for him; so
the concluding words which he wrote upon the pad were: “And, now that
you have me in your power, what shall you do with me?”
“Old friend,” Doggo wrote in reply, “that depends entirely upon Yuri,
our king, whose toga you now have on.”
III
YURI OR FORMIS?
The earth-man grimaced, but then smiled. Perhaps, his succeeding to the
toga of King Yuri might prove to be an omen.
“So Yuri is king of the ants?” he asked.
“Yes,” his captor replied, “for Queen Formis did not survive the trip
across the boiling seas.”
“Then what of your empire?” Myles inquired. “No queen. No eggs. How can
your race continue? For you Formians are like the ants on my own planet
Minos.”
Doggo’s reply astounded him.
“Do you remember back at Wautoosa, I told you that some of us lesser
Formians had occasionally laid eggs? So now behold before you Doggo,
Admiral of the Formian Air Navy, and mother of a new Queen Formis.”
This was truly a surprise! All along Cabot had always regarded the
Formians as mannish. And rightly so, for they performed in their own
country the duties assigned to men among the Cupians. Furthermore, all
Formians, save only the reigning Formis herself, were called by the
Porovian pronoun, which corresponds to “he” in English.
When Myles had somewhat recovered from his astonishment, he warmly
congratulated his friend by patting him on the side of the head, as is
the Porovian custom.
“Doggo,” he wrote, “this ought to constitute you a person of some
importance among the Formians.”
“It _ought_ to,” the ant-man replied, “but as a matter of fact, it
merely intensifies Yuri’s mistrust and hatred of me. Now that I am
mother of the queen, he fears that I may turn against him and establish
Formis in his place as the head of an empire of the Formians, by the
Formians, and for the Formians exclusively.”
“Why don’t you?” Myles wrote. It seemed to him to be a bully good idea,
and incidentally a solution of his own difficulties.
But Doggo wrote in horror, “It would be treason!” Then tore up all the
correspondence. It is difficult to inculcate the thought of independence
in the mind of one reared in an autocracy.
The earth-man, however, persisted.
“How many of the council can you count on, if the interests of Yuri
should clash with those of Formis?”
“Only one—myself.”
And again Doggo tore up the correspondence.
Myles tactfully changed the subject.
“Where is the arch-fiend now?” he asked.
“We know not,” the Formian wrote in reply. “Six days ago he left us in
his airship and flew westward. When he failed to return, we sent out
scout planes to search for him, and we have been hunting ever since.
When we sighted you on the beach this morning we thought that you might
be our lost leader, and that is why we landed and approached you.”
At about this point the conversation was interrupted by a worker ant who
brought food: roast alta and green aphid milk. With what relish did the
earth-man plunge into the feast, his first taste of Porovian delicacies
in many months.
During the meal conversation lagged, owing to the difficulty of writing
and eating at the same time. But now Myles Cabot seized his pad and
stylus and wrote:
“Have you ever known me to fail in any undertaking on the planet Poros?”
“No,” the ant-man wrote in reply.
“Have you ever known me to be untrue to a principle, a cause, or a
friend?”
“No,” Doggo replied.
“Then,” Myles wrote, “let us make your daughter queen in fact as well as
in name.”
“It is treason,” Doggo wrote in reply, but this time he did not tear up
the correspondence.
“Treason?” Myles asked. If he had spoken the word, he would have spoken
it with scorn and derision. “Treason? Is it treason to support your own
queen? What has become of the national pride of the once great Formians?
Look! I pledge myself to the cause of Formis, rightful Queen of Formia.
Formis, daughter of Doggo! What say you?”
This time, as he tore up the correspondence, Doggo signified an
affirmative. And thus there resulted further correspondence.
“Doggo,” Myles wrote, “can you get to the antenna of the queen?”
The ant-man indicated that he could.
“If she has inherited any of your character,” Myles continued, “she will
assert herself, if given half a chance.”
So the Pitmanesque conversation continued. Long since had the pink light
of Porovian evening faded from the western sky. The ceiling vapor-lamps
were lit. The night showed velvet-black through the slit-like windows.
And still the two old friends wrote on, Myles Standish Cabot, the
Bostonian, and Doggo, No. 334-2-18, the only really humanlike ant-man
whom Myles had ever known among the once dominant race of Poros.
Finally, as the dials indicated midnight, the two conspirators ceased
their labors. All was arranged for the _coup d’ etat_.
They tore into shreds every scrap of used paper, leaving extant merely
the ant-man’s concluding words: “Meanwhile you are my prisoner.”
Doggo then rang a soundless bell, which was answered by a worker ant,
whom he inaudibly directed to bring sufficient draperies to form a bed
for the earth-man. These brought, the two friends patted each other a
fond good night, and the tired earth-man lay down for the first sleep
which he had had in over forty earth hours.
It hardly seemed possible! Night before last he had slept peacefully on
a conventional feather-bed in a little New England farmhouse. Then had
come the S O S message from the skies; and here he was now, millions of
miles away through space retiring on matted silver felting on the
concrete floor of a Porovian ant-house. Such are the mutations of
fortune!
With these thoughts the returned wanderer lapsed into a deep and
dreamless sleep.
When he awakened in the morning there was a guard posted at the door.
Doggo did not show up until nearly noon, when he rattled in, bristling
with excitement.
Seizing the pad he wrote: “A stormy session of the Council of Twelve! We
are all agreed that you must be indicted for high crimes and
misdemeanors. But the great question is as to just what we can charge
you with.”
“Sorry I can’t assist you,” the earth-man wrote. “How would it be if I
were to slap your daughter’s face, or something? Or why not try me for
general cussedness?”
“That is just what we finally decided to do,” the ant-man wrote in
reply. “We shall try you on general principles, and let the proper
accusation develop from the evidence.
“At some stage of the proceedings it will inevitably occur to some
member of the council to suggest that you be charged with treason to
Yuri, whereupon two members of the council, whom I have won over to the
cause of my daughter, will raise the objection that Yuri is not our
king. This will be the signal for the proclaiming of Queen Formis. If
you will waive counsel the trial can take place to-morrow.”
“I will waive anything,” Myles replied, “counsel, immunity, extradition,
anything in order to speed up my return to Cupia, where Lilla awaits in
some dire extremity.”
“All right,” Doggo wrote, and the conference was at an end. The morrow
would decide the ascendancy of Myles Cabot or the Prince Yuri over the
new continent.
IV
THE COUP D’ETAT
The next morning Myles Cabot was led under guard to the council chamber
of the dread thirteen: Formis and her twelve advisers. The accused was
placed in a wicker cage, from which he surveyed his surroundings as the
proceedings opened.
On a raised platform stood the ant queen, surmounted by a scarlet
canopy, which set off the perfect proportions of her jet-black body. On
each side of her stood six refined and intelligent ant-men, her
councillors. One of the twelve was Doggo.
Messenger ants hurried hither and thither.
First the accusation was read, Myles being furnished with a written
copy.
The witnesses were then called. They were veterans who had served in the
wars in which Cabot had twice freed Cupia from the domination of its
Formian oppressors. They spoke with bitterness of the downfall of their
beloved Formia. Their testimony was brief.
Then the accused was asked if he wished to say anything in his own
behalf. Myles rose, then shrugged his shoulders, sat down again, and
wrote: “I fully realize the futility of making an argument through the
antennae of another.”
Whereupon the queen and the council went into executive session. Their
remarks were not intended for the eyes of the prisoner, but he soon
observed that some kind of a dispute was on between Doggo, supported by
two councillors named Emu and Fum on one side, and a councillor named
Barth on the other.
As this dispute reached its height, a messenger ant rushed in and held
up one paw. Cabot’s interpreter, not deeming this a part of the
executive session, obligingly translated the following into writing:
The messenger: “Yuri lives and reigns over Cupia. It is his command that
Cabot die.”
Barth: “It is the radio. Know then, O Queen, and ye, members of the
council, that when we fled across the boiling seas under the gallant
leadership of Prince Yuri, the man with the heart of a Formian, he
brought with him one of those powerful radio sets invented by the beast
who is our prisoner here to-day.
“Supporters of Yuri still remained among the Cupians, and he has been in
constant communication with these ever since shortly after our arrival
here. From them he learned of the return of Myles Cabot to the planet
Minos.
“Then Yuri disappeared. Those of us who were closest to him suspected
that he had gone back across the boiling seas to claim as his own the
throne of Cupia. But we hesitated to announce this until we were sure,
for we feared that some of our own people would regard his departure as
desertion. Yet who can blame him for returning to his father-land and to
the throne which is his by rights?”
To which the messenger added: “And he offers to give us back our own old
country, if we too will return across the boiling seas again.”
“It is a lie!” Doggo shouted.
“Yuri, usurper of the thrones of two continents. Bah!” shouted Emu.
“Yuri, our rightful leader,” shouted Barth.
“Give us a queen of our own race,” shouted Fum.
“Release the prisoner,” shouted the Queen.
And that is all that Myles learned of the conversation, for his
interpreter at this juncture stopped writing and obeyed the queen. The
earth-man was free!
With one bound he gained the throne, where fighting was already in
progress between the two factions. Barth and Doggo were rolling over and
over on the floor in a death grapple, while the ant-queen had backed to
the rear of the stage, closely guarded by Emu and Fum.
Seizing one of the pikes which supported the scarlet canopy, Myles
wrenched it loose and drove it into the thorax of Barth. In another
instant the earth-man and Doggo stood beside the queen.
Ant-men now came pouring into the chamber through all the entrances,
taking sides as they entered and sized up the situation. If it had still
been in vogue among the Formians to be known by numbers rather than
names, and to have these identifying numbers painted on the backs of
their abdomens followed by the numbers of those whom they had defeated
in the duels so common among them, then many a Formian would have “got
the number” of many another, that day.
As Myles battled with his pike beside Formis, queen of the ants, he
could well imagine the conflicting shouts of “Death to the usurper!”
“Formia for the Formians!” “Long Live Queen Formis!” “Long live Prince
Yuri!” which must have resounded throughout the chamber; but to him all
was silence, for he was without the antennae wherewith to pick up the
radiated speech of the contenders.
So as he wielded the pike in silence, he had opportunity to reflect on
the incongruity of his position. Here was he, Myles Cabot regent of
Cupia, the man who had driven the ants forever from their dominion over
his people, and yet now fighting side by side with their leaders
defending the life of their queen.
Yet was she not the daughter of Doggo his only friend among the ants?
And would not her victory mean the speedy return of Myles to his own
continent?
As the earth-man jabbed to right and left among the supporters of his
enemy Yuri there came to his human ears the sound of rifle fire. It
might prove a godsend or an added menace, according to whose paw held
the rifle. But no chances must be taken on the life of the queen. So
Myles made frantic signs to Doggo of impending danger.
The queen and her supporters, outnumbered, were fighting with their
backs to one of the walls of the room. A short distance along this wall
on the side where Cabot stood was a door; so he now began edging his way
along the wall to this door. This was not difficult, as the ant-men,
having only their mandibles to fight with, greatly respected his pike.
He gained the door and passed by, but not through it. The shots came
nearer and nearer. Then Doggo opened the door and slipped through with
Formis and the rest of her immediate supporters; the door closed, and
Myles Cabot stood guarding the exit with his pike—alone against the
hordes of antdom.
He had no difficulty in defending himself from those in front of him,
but the ants who began to close in on him from each side were a
different matter.
He received several bad scratches on his shoulders and hips, and his
toga was ripped and torn; but fortunately he was able to ward off their
paralyzing bites. Nevertheless, his enemies pressed so close that it was
difficult for him to manipulate his long weapon. In fact, it was only
the jamming of the ants upon one another and upon the dead bodies of
their slain comrades that kept them from him.
He now was holding his pike by the middle, with both hands, using one
end as a club and the other as a dagger. The black circle of the ants
was steadily closing in on him. A pair of mandibles from the left
snapped angrily within a few inches of his throat. Instantly he drove
the point of his lance home between horrid jaws. But at the same instant
its butt was seized by a pair of jaws to his right. He could not pull it
free.
At last he was weaponless, and not only that, but pinned to the wall by
the shaft of his own pike as well.
And then to his surprise the ants before him separated as at a command.
The butt of his lance was dropped. As Myles wrenched the point loose
from the dead body of the Formian in which it had been stuck, and gazed
expectant down the long aisle which had opened before him, he saw
confronting him at the other end an ant-man armed with the peculiar type
of claw-operated rifle which the Formians had adapted from those which
Myles himself had built for Cupian use in the first war of liberation.
Briefly the two surveyed each other. Then slowly the rifle was raised
until its aim settled squarely upon the earth-man’s chest.
Instantaneously the glance of Myles Cabot swept the black hordes which
hemmed him in on each side. There was no escape!
Yet how can man die better,
Than facing fearful odds?
With a wild warwhoop, which was utterly lost on the radio-sense of the
assembled Formians, Myles charged down the narrow way, straight into the
muzzle of the rifle of his antagonist. The astonished ant-man hastily
pulled the trigger. A shot rang out. But still the impetuous rush of
Myles continued, and before the rifle could be discharged a second time,
Myles had driven his spear deep into the leering insect face.
The Formian staggered back. The rifle clattered to the floor. The
earth-man, not waiting to withdraw his own weapon, stooped, seized the
fallen firearm, and wheeled to confront his enemies, who fell back in a
snarling arc before this new menace.
Myles stood now in one of the entranceways of the council chamber, and
thus was secure against flank attack. But not against an assault from
the rear. In fact, even as he stood thus irresolute, a rattling noise
behind him in the hallways revealed to his human ears the approach of a
new enemy. What was he to do? To remain as he was meant _carte blanche_
to this newcomer, whereas to turn about would mean that those within the
chamber would undoubtedly rush him.
In this predicament Myles grasped his gun firmly, and wheeled backward
to the left until he was flattened against the wall of the corridor in
which he was standing. From this position he could turn his head
slightly to the left and see into the council chamber, or to the right
and look down the long hall.
Directly opposite him was one of those narrow, slitlike windows, so
typical of Porovian architecture. It was too narrow for the passage of
the huge body of an ant-man, but a human being could conceivably squeeze
through. Thus it offered a means out, a way of escape.
The lone ant in the corridor was joined by the others. They and their
compatriots within the chamber slowly closed in on the cornered
earth-man.
There was no time to speculate upon the depth of the drop outside. With
a suddenness which caused his aggressors to recoil momentarily, Myles
dashed across to the window, forced his way through, and, still grasping
his rifle, plunged headlong two stories into a clump of gray lichens in
the courtyard below.
Hastily extricating himself, he looked up at the window which he had
just quitted. There, framed by the masonry, was the head of an ant-man.
A quick shot, and the head stared at him no more.
Before another Formian could take post at the window to observe the
direction of Cabot’s departure, the latter ran quickly from the
courtyard garden into the interior of the building again.
His first thought was to join Doggo, Queen Formis, and their faction;
so, taking a firm hold on his rifle, he hurried in the direction in
which they had made their escape.
The first ant-man whom he met within the building was Emu, one of the
three members of the council who had been a party to the original
conspiracy. This ant was fleeing from something in very evident terror,
so that it was all Cabot could do to stop him, but the threat of
rifle-shooting was finally effective.
Then, extracting a cartridge from the magazine of his firearm, Cabot
scratched upon the smooth wall the brief question: “What of Doggo and
Formis?”
Emu snatched the cartridge and quickly wrote the reply: “Dead, both
dead. The revolution has collapsed. Flee for your life!”
Then the ant-man clattered rapidly off down the corridor, taking the
precious cartridge with him. He had not been too flustered to think of
that.
Myles heaved a sigh of self-reproach at having brought his friends to
this sad end. But then, he reflected, Doggo had been in a situation in
which conflict with the authorities and then execution would have been
inevitable sooner or later. The revolution had been his one best bet,
and it was no one’s fault that it had failed.
Now that Doggo and Formis were dead, there was no longer any obligation
binding Myles to stay and fight. In fact, he owed it to his loved ones
in Cupia to preserve his own life until he could find some way of
rejoining them. So he set out to escape from the city.
For some time he threaded the corridors without meeting any ants,
although occasionally there drifted down to him the sounds of fighting
on the upper levels. But at last, as he rounded a turn, he saw before
him a Formian, and it was one whom he recognized, namely the messenger
ant who had brought to the trial the radiogram from Prince Yuri. The
ant’s back was toward him. Cabot cautiously withdrew a step; then
raising his rifle, he again advanced and fired full at his enemy.
But the hammer merely clicked. There was no explosion. The magazine was
empty.
Cabot’s first impulse was to throw the weapon away. Then he reflected
that even an unloaded gun might well serve to awe his enemies and hold
them at a distance; so he retained it.
By this time the messenger ant had disappeared around a turn farther
down the corridor, so Cabot hastened after him; for it had suddenly
occurred to the earth-man that this ant was undoubtedly returning to the
hidden radio set, whence he had come.
Radio! Means of a communication with his own continent, if he could but
reach the instruments!
The messenger had announced at the trial that Yuri was in Cupia and knew
of Cabot’s presence in this new land. Thus it was certain that complete
wireless communication had been established between the two continents.
But, equally, undoubtedly, this communication had been established at a
wave-length which kept the knowledge of Cabot’s return pretty much a
secret of Prince Yuri and his own followers. This information would
probably induce the renegade prince to speed up whatever nefarious
schemes he had afoot in Cupia.
But if Cabot could once get on the air and adjust the Formian sending
set to the wave-length of Luno Castle, or run it through all its
available wave-lengths, he could broadcast to the Cupian nation the fact
that he was alive and well, and would return again—though he knew not
how—to lead them. Such news should strengthen the hearts of the loyal
Cupians to rally to the cause of his wife, the Princess Lilla, and his
son, the baby king.
So he quickened his pace, and soon caught sight again of the messenger
ant. From, then on he stealthily stalked his quarry, who led him through
many a winding passage-way, before finally they emerged from the city
into the open fields.
Beyond the fields lay the rocky foothills of a mountain range. Caution
dictated that Cabot remain under the shelter of the city walls until the
Formian disappeared among the rocks. Then he ran lightly across the
plain to take up the trail once more.
As he, too, gained the rocks, he glanced back to see if his departure
had been noted. No, there was no sign of life. Evidently the fighting
had drawn all the inhabitants to the interior of the city. So, with a
sigh of relief, Myles hurried after the messenger ant.
At the place where Myles had noticed the Formian enter the rocks there
was the well-defined beginning of a trail; so up this winding trail he
sped, and soon caught sight of his quarry. From that time on more
caution was necessary, but nevertheless the pursuer was able to keep the
pursued always in sight until, just after a turn in the road had
obscured his view, Myles came upon a place where the way forked.
Pausing, he scratched his head in dismay, then carefully examined the
ground for evidences of claw marks; but none were apparent. Dropping to
his hands and knees, the earth-man scrutinized the dirt with even more
care; and at last, imagining that he observed some slight scratches to
the right, he took the right-hand branch.
It was necessary for him to proceed with great rapidity, if he would
catch up with the messenger ant, so Myles broke into a dog trot. On and
on he ran; up, into the rocky mountains.
At last he sat down exhausted on a large boulder, just as the silvery
sky turned crimson in the west, and darkness crept up out of the east.
It was quite evident that he had taken the wrong road at the fork, and
also that he must now spend the night, half clad and alone amid the
rocks of the mountains of this strange new continent.
V
LOST AMID THE ROCKS
But although Myles Cabot was lost, he was free for the first time since
his return to Poros.
So not disheartened he arose and proceeded along the trail, looking for
food and a place to spend the night; and presently came upon a “green
cow,” as he was wont to call the aphids which are kept both by Cupians
and Formians for the honey-dew which they produce.
It made no objection to Cabot’s approach, nor to his manipulating the
two horns which projected from its back, with the result that the tired
man was presently regaling himself with a satisfying drafts of green
“milk” from a leafy cup.
The bush, which furnished the leaf to fashion the cup, closely resembled
the tartan bushes of Cupia, whose heart-shaped leaves are put to so many
uses in that country. Myles Cabot accordingly stripped off a
considerable portion of the foliage, and lay down in a bed of warm,
thick green for the night.
The morning dawned silver bright. Myles drew another meal from the
grazing aphid and then pressed on up the rocky defile. He did not dare
return for fear of meeting ant-men; and besides, now that a night’s rest
had to some extent tempered his chagrin at not catching up with the
particular ant-man whom he had been pursuing, he could not be sure he
had taken the wrong road after all. So on he went, up the rocky path.
Around noon the path petered out at the top of an eminence which gave
Cabot an opportunity to survey the surrounding scenery. To the westward
lay the city from which he had fled. What had become, he wondered, of
the supporters of his friend Doggo and of Formis, the ant-queen, whose
cause he had espoused? According to Emu, Doggo and Formis were both
dead, or Cabot would never have deserted them.
Cabot turned his attention next to the northward. To his great joy, on
the next peak to the one where he sat, there stood two rough wooden
towers, spanned by an aerial.
He decided to cut across country and attempt to approach the
installation by stealth. So he started scrambling down into the
intervening valley.
Never before had the earth-man traveled through such difficult country.
As soon as he had gone a short distance below the summit he encountered
a continuous expanse of boulders, ranging in size from a man’s head to
twenty feet or more in diameter, and piled aimlessly together. Lying
crossways in every direction, upon and between the rocks, were the gaunt
skeletons of fallen trees in all stages of decay.
The sharp edges of the rocks cut and tore the bare feet of the
earth-man, while the splinters of the fallen trees jabbed his body. Time
and again he slipped and nearly fell into one of the chasms which yawned
between the boulders, and on one of these occasions he must have
inadvertently let go the ant-rifle which he had treasured so far so
carefully, for presently he noticed that it was gone.
But to all this there was one extenuating feature, although Myles did
not realize it at the time, namely that his physical pain and the need
for constant vigilance on his part so occupied his mind as to spare him
from the mental pain which had been his almost constant companion since
his return to Poros. The attention necessary to avoid misjudging a jump,
or slipping into a dark deep hole, or being impaled by a tree-branch,
crowded out of his mind even his great love and anxiety for Princess
Lilla and Baby Kew.
Through the maze of obstacles Cabot toiled all day long.
Oh, to reach the radio station established by his enemy Yuri, and get
into touch with his own continent. Thus he could learn what was
happening in Cupia, and also give word of his own safe arrival on the
planet. Safe, hm! He smiled grimly at the word.
“I _must_ reach that station,” he thought, “and then, when I have talked
with Cupia, I must secure a Formian plane by hook or by crook, and brave
the boiling seas. If ants have crossed those seas safely, if Yuri has
safely crossed them twice, then why cannot I, the Minorian?”
As he communed thus with himself, a faint pink flush appeared in the
sky. Slowly, painfully he continued his way. Gradually the pink light
turned to crimson in the west and then darkened to a royal purple.
Gradually the black night crept up out of the east. But also gradually
the boulders became smaller and smaller as he clambered upward, until
just as darkness finally enveloped the planet, the tired man gained the
smooth rocks of the summit, and lay down amid some leaves.
He had had nothing to eat or drink since his breakfast of green milk
that morning. He had undergone an exhausting journey. His feet were
bruised and cut, his body covered with innumerable scratches, and he was
weary, thirsty and hungry. But he had almost reached the point which he
had been seeking, and this thought comforted him as his eyes closed in
healthy and dreamless sleep.
Next morning early he was up, rested, parched and ravenous. As the first
faint pink tinged the eastern sky Myles Cabot shook off the leaves and
completed the ascent.
It only required a few moments for him to reach the top, a narrow
plateau, about a mile in length, near the farther end of which there
stood a small cabin with its two towers and aerial.
With a cry of joy—which he knew the earless Formians could not hear—he
raced toward it. The huge chain and lock, which secured its door on the
outside, indicated that it was unoccupied, and a glance through the
narrow slitlike windows confirmed this.
The glance through the window also revealed the presence of a complete
radio sending and receiving set of the same general hook-up which he
himself had adapted for the use of Cupians and Formians on the other
continent.
“Imitation is the most insulting form of flattery,” as Poblath, the
Cupian philosopher, used to say. Yet Cabot was willing to brook the
insult, until suddenly it dawned on him that the set had no earphones
nor microphone!
Of course not, since it was designed for use by creatures who possessed
neither ears nor vocal speech! Gone then was all hope of news from home,
even if he could succeed in breaking in. At the most, he would merely be
able, by interposing an interrupter in the primary or secondary of that
aerial circuit, to send a dot-dash message across the boiling seas—I use
the term “aerial circuit,” because “antenna circuit” would be ambiguous,
as the latter term might have either its conventional earth
significance, or might mean the circuit in which the Formian operator
would place _his_ living antennae in sending and receiving.
Well, even a chance to send to Cupia a message to the effect that he was
free and safe, would be worth something. Myles Cabot tried the slitlike
windows, and finding them too narrow, slid quickly down the near-by
slope, soon to return laboriously with a twenty-pound rock, which he
heaved against the door.
Again and again he heaved the rock, until he had the satisfaction of
seeing the door crack and then give. Finally a large enough opening was
effected to afford passage for a man, although not for a Formian; and
through this breach Myles Cabot squeezed into the station.
A few minutes’ scrutiny familiarized him with the details of the
hook-up, the generator set, and the trophil-engine. Everything was in
running order and the fuel tank was full. So he fashioned a rude sending
key, broke one of the circuits and tied in the key. Then he warmed-up
and cranked the trophil-engine, clutched-in the generator, threw the
main switch, and sat down to flash across the seas the message which was
to hold firm his partisans in Cupia until he could join them.
But at that instant an arrow hummed through the hole in the door, and
struck quivering in the bench beside him.
Cabot sprang to his feet and slid home the huge beam which barred the
door on the inside. This was a precaution which he had neglected to take
before. Next he filled the hole in the door with some boards hastily
wrenched from the work-bench. Then picking up a Formian rifle and
bandolier which hung on the wall, he made his way to one of the slit
windows on the same side as the door and peeped cautiously out.
The result was immediate; an arrow sped through the window and passed
just above his head. But even as he ducked instinctively, he saw a dark
form moving behind a bush at some distance outside; so quickly rising
again, he discharged the rifle square at the bush.
There came a cry of pain, followed by silence. And there were no more
feathered incursions.
Not knowing whether his enemy had been disposed of, or whether the
cessation of the stream of arrows was merely a ruse to entice him from
his shelter, Myles did not dare venture forth to investigate.
From the first time the arrow had struck the work-bench until this final
squelching of the unknown enemy, Myles had been engrossed in action. Now
came the reaction, as he realized how narrowly he had twice escaped from
death in the last few minutes. He shuddered at the thought, and turned
pale; not, however, at the danger to himself, but rather at the danger
to his loved ones in Cupia. He must keep himself alive until he could
reach and save them from whatever peril it was that had caused Lilla to
send the SOS which had recalled him to Poros.
But being ever the inquisitive scientist, his attention was soon
distracted by the arrow which stood sticking to the bench.
Its shaft was of some hard and very springy wood. Its tip was of chipped
stone resembling flint, and bound to the shaft by vegetable fibers. Its
“feathers” were thin laminae of wood, doubtless because birds, and hence
true feathers, are unknown on Poros.
Why on earth—or rather, on Poros—were the ant-men employing such crude
weapons? Rifles they had aplenty, and powder was easy to manufacture.
Besides what did they know of bows and arrows, which had never been used
by them, even in the days before Cabot the Minorian introduced firearms
upon the planet?
Thus these arrows presented a perplexing problem. But a practical job
remained to be performed before Myles was to have any time for abstract
questions. The message to Cupia must be sent off.
The earth-man returned to the radio set. The trophil-engine and the
generator were still running. The whole apparatus appeared to be
functioning properly. And so Myles ticked off into space the following
message:
CQ, CQ, CQ, DE, Cabot, Cabot, Cabot. I have returned to Poros from
Minos. I am on the continent of the Formians. I am in complete control
there.
That was a lie, but it would serve to hearten his supporters, or throw
the fear of the Supreme Builder into the partisans of Yuri, whichever it
reached. The message continued:
Do not expect me soon, for first I must consolidate what I have gained
here. But when I do come, Yuri beware! My friends, hold out until
then. I have spoken.
DE, Cabot.
This message he sent again and again, at every wavelength of which the
installation was capable. He repeated and repeated it until he was
tired.
And then, for the first time, he remembered his thirst and his hunger.
Fortunately there was both food and drink in the shack; so Cabot
satisfied his wants, and then went at his message again.
When at last he paused once more for a rest, and shut off the
trophil-engine, his human ears caught a familiar rattling sound.
Instantly he realized the situation; one or more ant-men were
approaching. Sure enough, as he looked out of a window in the direction
of the sound, he saw two of these creatures trotting toward him across
the plateau.
Both carried rifles slung at their backs; so without waiting for their
nearer approach Myles opened fire. One of the Formians dropped, but the
other turned and fled; and in spite of the hail of bullets which the
earth-man sent after it, reached the crest in apparent safety, and
disappeared from view.
Cabot knew what that meant to him. It portended the early return of the
fugitive ant with scores of his fellows, to lay siege to the radio
station. Then a doubt occurred to him. What if these ants were members
of Doggo’s faction, and he had killed a friend?
And so at the risk of his life, he unbarred the door and rushed out to
inspect the dead body. But it was no ant whom he knew. Time would tell
whether the surviving ant would return with friends or foes. Meanwhile
Cabot must get busy with his message. So at it again he went, first
barring the door again.
From time to time he rested and listened for the approach of Formians.
Occasionally he ate and drank. During his longer rests, he carted the
rifle, the ammunition and some provisions to a point quite a distance
down the mountainside, and cached them there; for he had formulated a
plan of escape. But mostly he stuck to his signaling. All Cupia, or such
of it as might still possess long-distance radio sets in spite of the
renewed dominion of Yuri, must be made to know of the return of Myles
Cabot from the earth.
Night fell, and with it came a respite from the danger of Formian
attack; for these creatures would never venture forth in the darkness
without lights, and lights would betray them. Myles spent part of the
night in sending his message, part in watching for approaching lights,
and part in dozing.
Finally along toward morning he set about wrecking the set, for he did
not wish the Formians to get into communication with Cupia and undo the
effect of his own message by pointing out its falsity. Accordingly he
smashed the tubes, unwound the inductances and transformers, cut all the
wiring into little bits, bent the plates of the condensers, chiseled
through the coils of the generator, pounded the trophil-engine to
pieces, and drained the trophil tank. It would be many sangths before a
new radio set could be built, if indeed these Formians knew enough of
the art to ever build another.
His work of destruction completed, he sat down to wait; but the inaction
palled on him, and before he knew it he had fallen sound asleep.
He awakened with a start. It was broad daylight. He listened. There was
much rattling outside. So he walked to the door, unbarred it, and
stepped out.
He was not afraid; for on the evening before he had nailed above the
door two crossed sticks, the Porovian equivalent of a flag of truce.
At a short distance stood a band of thirty or forty ant-men, their
leader holding a pair of crossed sticks. Accordingly the ragged
earth-man advanced. Not one of them did he recognize, but this was no
indication of their identity.
Were these members of the Yuri faction, he wondered, or of the faction
recently captained by the now deceased Doggo? If the former, they were
conquerors intent on adding him to their list of conquests; but if the
latter, then they might be fugitives like himself. It behooved him to
find out.
So he proceeded to a slight depression in the mountain-top, very near
the group of Formians. This depression contained soil, and in it he
scratched in Porovian shorthand the words: “Yuri or Doggo?” Then pointed
to his message and withdrew for a slight distance.
One of the ant-men advanced alone to the depression, stared at the
words, rubbed one part of them, and returned to his comrades, at which
Cabot in turn advanced.
The one word remaining written in the dirt was “Yuri!”
So these were victorious enemies, rather than fugitive friends.
Waving a signal that the interview was at an end, Myles Cabot returned
with dignity to the shack and pulled down his crossed sticks.
But then, instead of entering, he suddenly dashed around the house and
slid down the mountainside amid a shower of pebbles.
Instantly the Formian pack rushed after him, but they were too late; for
by the time they had gained the crest he was safely under cover of the
bushes, making his way down the slope with his rifle, ammunition, and
provision. The ant-men evidently feared an ambush, for they did not
follow.
This side of the mountain (the eastern) was wooded, instead of the
almost impassable boulders over which he had climbed up the other side
two days ago. Accordingly the descent was easy, almost pleasant. Soon he
struck a path beside a little brook, and followed it until it led out
onto the fertile eastern plains which he had observed when first he had
topped this range of hills.
Beneath a large tree beside the brook, at the edge of the plain, Myles
Cabot stopped and sat down for lunch; and it was while seated thus, with
his back against the tree trunk, that an arrow suddenly whistled through
the woods and imbedded itself in the bark just above his head.
Startled, he sprang to his feet, seized his rifle, and looked around.
A second arrow sped through the air, and this one did not miss him.
In due course of time, Myles regained consciousness. He was lying on the
ground beneath the same tree. There was an ugly gash in his head. His
rifle, ammunition, and food were gone. His face and body were covered
with clotted blood, and he felt very faint.
With difficulty he dragged himself to the stream, tore off a piece of
his ragged toga, and washed away some of the gore. But it required an
almost superhuman effort. He lay on the bank and panted. His head swam.
His surroundings began to blur and dance about. And then he swooned
again.
After what seemed an interminable time he became dimly conscious that he
was lying on something less hard than the ground. Soft arms were around
him. Some one was crooning to him sweet words and low.
Was this a dream? Or was he back once more in Cupia with his loved ones?
VI
THE VAIRKINGS
Myles Cabot opened his weary eyes. Around him hung barbaric tapestries.
He was lying on a couch covered by the same materials.
Seated on the couch beside him was a creature human in form, but covered
with short golden-brown fur. It seemed to be a young woman of some
species. But of what species?
Myles threw back his head and studied the creature’s face, expecting to
see the prognathous features of some anthropoid ape. But no; for eyes,
nose, mouth, ears, and all were human, distinctly human, and of high
type. They might have been the features of an earth-girl, except for the
fact that the short brown fur persisted on the face as on the rest of
the body. The general effect reminded Cabot for all the world of a teddy
bear. Yes, that is what this creature was, an animated human teddy bear.
Seeing Cabot looking at her, the creature smiled down at him, and
murmured some strange words in a soothing musical voice. Also she
stroked his cheek with one of her furry paws.
At this moment the hangings parted, and there stepped into their
presence a man of the species, wearing a leather tunic and leather
helmet, and carrying a wooden spear. Bowing low before the furry lady,
he spoke to her in the same soft tongue which she had employed in
addressing Myles.
Not a single syllable was familiar to the earth-man, but he caught the
words “Roy” and “Vairking” repeated a number of times, and also made out
that the furry man had addressed the furry lady as “Arkilu.”
Arkilu now arose from the couch and, taking a tablet and a stick of
charcoal from a near-by stand, wrote some characters upon a sheet of
paper and handed it to the man, who bowed and withdrew.
The pad and charcoal gave Myles an idea. If he was to stay any length of
time with these creatures he had better start in at once learning both
their written and their spoken language.
And perhaps, when he had mastered it, he could persuade these kindly yet
warlike folk to assist him against the Formians. He judged that they
were kindly, because of the actions of the furry lady; and they were
warlike, because of the habiliments of the furry man.
Putting his idea into action, Myles sat up, gathering a gaudy blanket
about his shoulders, and pointed to the writing materials. With a furry
smile Arkilu brought them to him.
Having been through this game once before, he knew just where to begin.
He pointed to the couch, and handed her the pad and charcoal.
Whereupon the lady spoke some absolutely unintelligible sound, and wrote
upon the pad, in unmistakable Cupian shorthand, the familiar Cupian word
for couch!
Myles could hardly believe his senses. He stared at the paper, rubbed
his eyes, and then stared again. How was it that this creature employed
a written character identical with the word used by another race, far
across the impassable boiling seas, to designate the same thing? But
perhaps this was merely a coincidence.
So he pointed to another object. Again there came a strange sound,
coupled with the familiar Cupian symbol.
The experiment was repeated and repeated, always with the same result.
Then Cabot himself took the writing materials and inscribed a number of
words which sounded somewhat alike in Porovian antenna speech. To these
words Arkilu gave an entirely different set of similar sounds.
“Aha,” said Cabot to himself, “this language employs exactly the same
words as are used on our continent, but translates the sound-symbols of
these words into entirely different sounds!”
Cabot’s interpretation of the situation proved correct in the main,
which fact made it extremely easy for him to master the new language.
Already he could carry on a written conversation with his benefactress;
and before long it became possible, by dint of great care, for him to
talk aloud in simple sentences.
Of course, all this progress was not made at one sitting, for Arkilu
insisted that her patient take frequent rests. From time to time meals
were served by female attendants, meals abounding in strange meats,
mostly lobsterlike, but some resembling fish and flesh. Each night
Arkilu departed, leaving a furry man-creature on guard, with leather
armor and wooden spear.
As he mastered the language, Myles learned the following facts from
Arkilu. Her people were called the Vairkings, and she was the eldest
daughter of Theoph, their ruler. The Vairkings were a primitive race.
Apparently they knew nothing of any of the metals, but had made
considerable progress in the arts of tanning, weaving and carpentry.
The fact that they had made cloth accounted for the fact that they had
paper. Their leather they had obtained from the hides of a large variety
of nocturnal reptiles, known indiscriminately as “gnoopers,” and ranging
in size from that of a cat to that of an elephant, though all possessed
the common characteristics of small heads, long necks, stumpy legs, and
long heavy tails.
She explained as follows to her guest how he had been rescued: “Our home
is in the city of Vairkingi, far away, a little east of north from here.
We Vairkings stick pretty close to the cities, for the great open spaces
of our land are inhabited by predatory tribes of wild creatures very
like ourselves, called Roies. The leader of one of the largest tribes of
these, Att the Terrible, sought alliance with my father, and, as the
price of this alliance, a union between Att and myself. But I spurned
him.
“His hordes then attacked Vairkingi, but we repulsed them and drove them
to the southward. At present we are on a punitive expedition into their
territory. Our warriors are under the command of Jud the Excuse-Maker;
and my father (Theoph the Grim) and I have accompanied the headquarters,
so as to witness the downfall of Att the Terrible.
“It was undoubtedly one of the Roies who wounded you, but the approach
of our men drove them off before they had time to do you further harm.
It was I myself who found you lying beside the brook, and I would fain
possess you as my own, you who are unlike any man whom I have ever seen.
Whence come you?”
“I am from the planet Minos, O Arkilu the Beautiful,” replied Cabot.
But the princess incredulously shook her head, saying, “I know not
whereof you speak, nor know I the meaning of the word ‘planet.’ There
are no other worlds than this continent which we inhabit, surrounded by
boiling seas on all sides; though rumor says that strange beasts from
somewhere have landed and are building a city to the eastward of the
mountains.”
“Rumor has it right,” Myles laconically interjected, “for I had just
escaped from those beasts when I was wounded by the arrow of the Roies.”
Arkilu opened her eyes in wonder.
“Tell me about them,” she breathed.
So the earth-man sat up, swathed in the gaudy tapestries of the
Vairkings, and related to the furry princess the story of his adventures
on the planet Poros. It was difficult to put it all into words within
her comprehension, for neither she nor her people could know anything of
radio, of the solar system, of airplanes, or of rifles. Accordingly his
account ran about as follows:
“Know, O Princess, that there is another land called ‘Minos’, or in our
own language ‘the earth’, far above those silver clouds, one million
times the distance from here to your capital city, Vairkingi. Also there
is, beyond the boiling seas, another land much like this, where dwell
hairless men called ‘Cupians’, and also the black beasts to whom you
have referred. These beasts are called ‘Formians’.
“Cupians and Formians cannot talk with their mouths as you and I. Nor do
they have ears to hear with. Instead, they communicate by a kind of
soundless magic, called ‘radio’. But they write the same language as do
you Vairkings.
“On the earth I was master of this magic, radio. But one day my own
magic proved too strong for me, and shot me through the skies to Formia,
where the Formians captured me. I found that the Cupians were the slaves
of the Formians.
“By means of radio I was able to talk with both races. I escaped from
the Formians. By other magic, which could throw small black stones
faster than arrows and with more deadly results, I led the Cupians to
victory over their oppressors. Their princess, Lilla, became my bride,
and our son, Kew, now sits on the throne of Cupia. But Prince Yuri, a
renegade Cupian, rebelled against us, for he too loved Lilla!”
Myles continued: “Yuri and his allies possessed magic wagons which could
fly through the air—”
“What is ‘fly’?” Arkilu interrupted. “If you mean ‘swim’ it is
impossible, for no creature ever lived which could swim in air.”
“Ah, but this is magic, you must remember,” he assured her. “Have you
Vairkings never seen any peculiar black objects sailing through the sky
since the rumored arrival of the Formians on your continent?”
Arkilu pursed her lips in thought. “Yes,” she admitted, “there have been
rumors of that too.”
“Well,” he continued, “those were the flying wagons of the Formians.
When we finally defeated them and drove them across the boiling seas in
these wagons, I revisited the planet earth by means of the radio magic
of which I have told you. But on my attempted return to Cupia I landed
on your continent instead, by mistake, and was again captured by my
Formian enemies. Of my escape from them, my wounding by the Roy arrow,
and my rescue by you, you already know.”
Arkilu smiled ingratiatingly. “You are a pretty spinner of tales.
Therefore I shall keep you to amuse me. Methinks that even Theoph the
Grim will revel in your fantasies.”
And she leaned over and caressed Cabot’s cheek with one furry hand. He
cringed at the touch, yet strove not to offend her, whose continued
friendship might mean so much toward his return to his own country.
He wanted her good will and her influence; but, out of loyalty to Lilla,
he dreaded her love.
To change the subject he inquired: “When shall I be well enough to get
up?”
“You are well enough now,” she replied “Try to stand.”
At Myles’s insistence, a leather suit was sent for; he soon found
himself dressed like a soldier of the Vairkings. Thus arrayed he stood
and walked about a little inside the tent, but Arkilu would not permit
him to venture outside until he should be stronger.
Before leaving for the night Arkilu announced: “Tomorrow our expedition
starts back for Vairkingi. When we reach the city I shall marry you, for
I have decided that I love you.”
VII
RADIO ONCE MORE
So ARKILU, the furry beauty, planned to marry Myles Cabot, the
earth-man, he who already loved and was wed to Lilla of Cupia! A happy
prospect indeed! Yet he dared not repulse the Vairkingian maiden, lest
thereby he lose his chance of returning to his home and family.
For at last he had formulated a plan of action, namely to arm the hordes
of Vairkingia, lead them against the ant-men, seize an ant-plane and
with it fly back to Cupia. So, for the present, he appeared to fall in
with the matrimonial whim of the princess.
Early the next morning, however, as he was prowling around inside the
tent, testing his weak legs, he overheard a conversation on the outside,
which changed the situation considerably.
“But, father,” remonstrated a voice which Myles recognized as that of
Arkilu, “I found him, and therefore he is mine. I want him. He is
beautiful!”
“Beautiful? Humph!” a stern male voice sarcastically replied. “He _must_
be, without any fur! Oh, to think that my royal daughter would wish to
wed a freak of nature, and a common soldier at that!”
“He’s _not_ a common soldier!” asserted the voice of Arkilu. “He wears
clothes merely so as to preserve his health for my sake.”
“Well, a sickly cripple then,” answered her father’s voice, “which is
just as bad. At all events, Jud is the leader of this expedition, and
therefore this captive belongs to him. You can have him only if Jud so
wills. It is the law.”
Myles Cabot stealthily crossed the tent and put his eye to an opening
between the curtains at the tent opening. There stood the familiar
figure of Arkilu, and confronting her was a massive male Vairking. _His_
fur, however, was snow white, so that his general appearance resembled
that of a polar bear. His face was appropriately harsh and cold. This
was Theoph the Grim, ruler of the Vairkings!
The dispute continued. And then there approached another man of the
species. The newcomer, black-furred, was short, squat, and gnarled, yet
possessed of unquestionable intelligence and a certain dignity which
clearly indicated that he was of noble rank. He wore a leather helmet
and carried a wooden lance.
Theoph the Grim hailed him with: “Ho, Jud, what brings you here?”
Jud raised his spear diagonally across his chest as a salute, and
replied: “A change of plans, excellency. Upon reaching the river, I
decided that it would be wiser not to return to Vairkingi by that
route.”
“Really meaning,” Arkilu interposed, with, a laugh, “that you found it
impossible to throw a bridge across at that point.”
“Why do you always doubt the reasons for my actions?” Jud asked in an
aggrieved tone.
“You wrong me,” she replied, “I never doubt your reasons. Your _reasons_
are always of the best. What I doubt is your _excuses_.”
“Enough, enough!” the king shouted. “For I wish to discuss more
immediate matters than nice distinctions of language. Jud’s reasons or
excuses, or whatever, are good enough for me. Jud, I wish to inform you
that my daughter has recently captured a strange furless being, whom it
is my pleasure to turn over to you. I have not yet seen this oddity—”
“Father, please!” Arkilu begged, but at this juncture, Myles,
exasperated by Theoph’s remarks, parted the tent curtains and stepped
out.
“Look well, oh, king!” he shouted. “Here stands Myles Cabot, the
Minorian, beast from another world, freak of nature, sickly cripple,
common soldier, and all that. Look well, O king!”
“A bit loud mouthed, I should say,” Theoph the Grim sniffed, not one
whit abashed.
“Watch him crumple at the presence of a real man,” added Jud the
Excuse-Maker.
Suiting the action to the word, the latter stepped over to Myles and
suddenly slapped him on the face.
As a boy, the earth-man had often seen larger boys point to their cheek
or shoulder, with the words: “There is an electric button there. Touch
it and something will fly out and hit you.” But never as a boy had he
dared to press the magic button, for he could well imagine the result.
Such a result now occurred to Jud; for, the instant his fingers touched
Cabot’s cheek, out flew Cabot’s clenched fist smack to the point of
Jud’s jaw, and tumbled him in the dust.
Jud picked himself up snarling, shook himself, and then rushed bull-like
at the earth-man, who stood his ground, ducked the flying arms of his
antagonist, and tackled him as in the old football days at college. Jud
was thrown for a four-yard loss with much of the breath knocked out of
his body.
Theoph the Grim, with a worried frown, and Arkilu the Beautiful, with an
entranced smile, stood by and watched the contest.
The Vairking noble lay motionless on his back as Myles scrambled to his
knees astride the other’s body and placed his hands on the other’s
shoulders. But suddenly, the underdog threw up his left leg, caught
Myles on the right shoulder and pushed him backward. In an instant both
men were on their feet again, glaring at each other.
Then they clinched and went down once more, this time with Jud on top.
Theoph’s look changed to a smile, and Arkilu became worried. But before
Jud had time to follow up his advantage, Cabot secured a hammerlock
around his neck and shoulders, and then slowly forced him to one side
until their positions were reversed, and the shoulders and hips of the
furry one were squarely touching the ground.
In a wrestling match, this would have constituted a victory for Myles
Cabot, but this was a fight and not a mere wrestling match; so the
earth-man secured a hammerlock again and turned Jud the Excuse-Maker
over until he lay prone, whereupon the victor rubbed the nose of the
vanquished back and forth in the dirt, until he heard a muffled sound
which he took to be the Vairkingian equivalent of the “’nuff” so
familiar to every pugnacious American schoolboy.
His honor satisfied, Cabot arose, brushed himself off, and bowed to the
two spectators. Jud sheepishly got to his feet as well, all the fight
knocked out of him. Theoph stared at the victor with displeasure and at
his own countryman with disgust, but Arkilu rushed over to Cabot with a
little cry, flung her arms around him, and drew him within the tent.
As they passed through the curtains, Myles heard Jud the Excuse-Maker
explaining to the king: “I decided to let him beat me, so that thereby I
might give pleasure to her whom I love.”
Inside the tent, Arkilu bathed the scratches and bruises of the
earth-man, and hovered around him and fussed over him as though he had
accomplished something much more wonderful than merely to have come out
on top in a schoolboy rough-and-tumble fight.
Myles was very sorry that it all had happened. In the first place, he
had lost his temper, which was to his discredit. In the second place, he
had made a hero of himself in the eyes of the lady whose love he was
most anxious to avoid. And in the third place, he had fought the man who
was best calculated to protect him from that undesired love. Altogether,
he had made a mess of things, and all he could do about it was meekly
submit to the ministrations of the furry princess. What a life!
Finally Arkilu departed, leaving Cabot alone with recriminations for his
rashness, longings for his own Princess Lilla, and worries for her
safety.
The next day the expedition took up its delayed start homeward, Jud
having found a route which required no alibis. The tents were struck,
and were piled with the other impedimenta on two-wheeled carts, which
the common soldiers pulled with long ropes.
In spite of Arkilu’s pleadings, Myles was assigned to one of these
gangs, Theoph grimly remarking: “If the hairless one is well enough to
vanquish Jud, he is well enough to do his share of the work.”
Jud explained to Arkilu that the real reason why he had suggested this
was that he sincerely believed that the exercise would be good for
Cabot’s health.
During one of the halts, when Jud happened to be near Cabot’s gang, the
earth-man strode over to the commander, who instinctively cringed at his
approach.
“I’m not fighting to-day,” Myles assured the Vairking with an engaging
smile, “but may I have a word with you?”
So the two withdrew a short distance out of earshot of the rest, and
Myles continued: “I do not love Arkilu the Beautiful. You do. Let us
understand one another, and help one another. You assist me _to_ keep
away from the princess, and I shall assist you _by_ keeping away from
the princess. Later I shall make further suggestions as to how we can
cooperate to mutual advantage. I have spoken.”
Jud stared at him with perplexed admiration.
“Who are you?” he asked, “who stands unabashed in the presence of kings
and nobles, who addresses a superior without permission, and yet without
offensive familiarity?”
“I am Cabot the Minorian,” the other replied, “ruler over Cupia, a
nation larger and more powerful than yours. A race of fearsome beasts
have landed on the western shores of your continent. They are enemies of
mine, and will become enemies of yours as they extend their civilization
and run counter to yours.”
“Impossible!” Jud exclaimed. “For how could these mythical creatures
cross the boiling seas to land on our shores?”
“By magic,” answered Myles, “magic which they stole from me. And they
held me prisoner until I overthrew their magic and escaped, to be found
by your expedition.”
“Then you are a magician?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, that explains how you defeated me in combat yesterday,” Jud
asserted with a relieved sigh.
“We will let it go at that,” Myles agreed, smiling. “But to continue,
let me frankly warn you that unless you destroy these Formians, they
will eventually destroy you.
“They now possess magic against which you Vairkings would be powerless;
magic methods of soundless speech; magic devices for transmitting that
speech as far as from here to Vairkingi; magic wagons which can travel
through the air and at such a speed that they could go from here to
Vairkingi and back in a twelfth part of a day; and magic bows which
shoot death-dealing pellets faster than the speed of sound, and which
can outrange your bows and arrows ten to one.
“But if you will give a workroom and materials—and keep Arkilu away from
me—I can devise magic which will overcome _their_ magic, and which will
make Vairkingi the unquestioned master of this whole continent, in spite
of the Roies and the Formians. Then I shall seize one of the Formian
magic wagons, fly back in it to my own country, and leave you in
peaceful dominion over this continent. What do you say?”
“I say,” the Vairking replied, “that you are an amusing fellow, and an
able spinner of yarns. But you talk with evident earnestness and
sincerity. Therefore I shall give you your workshop and your materials;
but on one condition, namely, that you entertain us likewise. I have
spoken.”
And thus it came to pass that Jud the Excuse-Maker attached the
earth-man to his personal retinue, and placed a laboratory at his
disposal upon the return arrival of the expedition at Vairkingi.
This city was built entirely of wood. It was surrounded by a high
stockade, and was divided by stockades into sections, each presided over
by a noble, save only the central section which housed the retinue of
Theoph himself. Within the sections, each family had its own walled-off
enclosure. All streets and alleys passed between high wooded walls. The
buildings and fences were carved and gaudily colored.
As the returning expedition approached the great wall, they were met by
blasts of trumpet music from the parapets. Then a huge gate opened, and
they passed inside. Here they quickly separated, and each detachment
hastened to the quarter of the nobleman from whom they had been drawn.
Jud and his detachment proceeded down many a high-walled street until
they came to a gate bearing the insignia of Jud himself.
Inside there were more streets of the same character through which Jud’s
retinue dispersed to the gates of their own little inclosures until Jud
and Myles Cabot were left alone.
The noble led his new acquisition to a gate.
“This inclosure is vacant,” Jud explained. “It will be yours. Enter and
take possession. Within, you will find a small house and a shop. Serving
maids will be sent from my own household to make you comfortable. Repair
to my palace to-night and tell me some more stories. Meanwhile good-by
for the present.”
And he strode off and disappeared around a bend in the street.
Cabot passed in through the gate.
He found a well, from which he drew water to fill a carefully fashioned
wooden pool. Scarce had he finished bathing, when a group of furry girls
arrived from the house of his patron bearing brooms and blankets and
food.
One of them also bore a note which read as follows:
If you love me you will find a way to reach me.
Arkilu.
“And if not, what?” said Myles to himself.
After he had rested and dined, and the place had been made thoroughly
neat, all the girls withdrew save the one who had brought the note. She
informed him that her name was “Quivven” and that she had been ordered
to remain in the inclosure as his servant.
She was small and lithe. Her hair was a brilliant yellow-gold, and her
eyes were blue. If it had not been for her fur, she would have passed
for a twin to his own Lilla. This fact brought an intense pang to him
and caused such a wave of homesickness that he sat down on a couch and
hid his face in his hands.
But the pretty creature made no attempt to comfort him. Instead, she
merely remarked half aloud to herself: “I wonder what Arkilu can
possibly see in him. Even Att the Terrible is much more handsome.”
Finally, Myles arose with more determination and courage than he had
felt at any time since his return to Poros.
Guided by Quivven, he set out for Jud’s dwelling, firmly resolved to
take steps that very night, which should result eventually in his
reaching Cupia, and rescuing his family from the renegade Yuri.
Jud’s palace was elaborate and barbaric. Jud himself was seated on a
divan surrounded by Vairkingian beauties. They all were frankly
inquisitive to see this hairless creature from another world, yet they
rather turned up their pretty noses at him when they found him dressed
like a common soldier.
Cabot regaled the gathering with an account of his first arrival on
Poros and of the two wars of liberation which had freed Cupia from the
domination of the ants. All the while he was most eager to get down to
business with the noble; yet he realized that he had been employed for a
definite purpose, namely story-telling, and that his first duty was to
please his patron.
Finally, the ladies withdrew, and Myles Cabot, the radio man, began the
first discussion of radio that he had undertaken since his return to
Poros.
VIII
BUT WHY RADIO?
Three fields of “_magic_” were open to him, rifle-fire, aviation, and
radio. The opportunity for building a workable airplane among people who
knew no metal arts was obviously slight. To make a radio set should be
possible, if he could find certain minerals and other natural products,
which ought to be available in almost any country. But easiest of all
would be to extract iron from the ore which he had observed on his
journey across the mountains, forge rifle barrels and simple breech
mechanisms, and make gunpowder and bullets.
Therefore it is plain why he did not attempt to build airships, but it
is hard to see why he did not make firearms rather than a radio set.
Firearms would have enabled him to equip the Vairkings for battle
against the Formians, whereas radio could serve no useful purpose at the
moment.
Yet, he took up radio. I think the explanation lies in two facts: first,
he wanted above all to get in touch with his home in Cupia, find out the
status of affairs there, and give courage to his wife and his
supporters, if any of them remained; and secondly, he was primarily a
radio engineer, and so his thoughts naturally turned to radio and
minimized its difficulties. There would be plenty of time to arm the
Vairkings after he found out how affairs stood at home.
So he broached to Jud his project of constructing a radio set, which
would necessitate extended journeys in search of materials. But the
Vairking noble was singularly uninterested.
“I know that you can spin interesting yarns,” he said, “but I do not
know whether you can do magic. Why, then, should I deprive myself of the
pleasure of listening to your stories, just for the sake of letting you
amuse yourself in a probably impossible pursuit? First, you must
convince me that you are a magician; then perhaps I may consent to your
attempting further magic.”
“Very well,” the earth-man replied. “Tomorrow evening I shall display to
you some of the more simple examples of my art. Meanwhile, I shall spend
my time concocting mystic spells in preparation for the occasion.”
Then he bowed and withdrew, thanking his lucky stars that he had learned
a few tricks of sleight-of-hand while at college.
Myles now recalled several of these, and devoted most of the succeeding
day to preparing a few simple bits of apparatus. Then he practiced his
tricks before the golden-furred Quivven, to her complete mystification.
That evening, he went again to the quarters of Jud the Excuse-Maker. The
same group was there as on the evening before, and in addition, several
other Vairking men and their wives.
After an introduction by his host, the earth-man started in. First he
did, in rapid succession, some simple variations of sleight-of-hand.
He had wanted to perform the well-known “restoration of the cut
handkerchief,” but unfortunately the Vairkings possessed neither
handkerchiefs nor scissors, and he was forced to improvise a variant.
Taking a piece of stick, which he had brought with him for a wand, he
stuffed a small part of one of the gaudy hangings through his closed
left fist between the thumb and forefinger, so that it projected in a
gathered-up point about two inches beyond his hand. Then pulling the
curtain over toward one of the stone open-wick lamps which illuminated
the chamber, he completely burned off the projecting bit of doth.
Evidently, this was one of Jud’s choicest tapestries, for the noble
emitted a howl of grief and rage, and leaped from his divan, scattering
the reclining beauties in both directions. If he had interfered in time
to prevent the burning, it would have spoiled the trick, but as it was,
the confusion caused by his onrush played right into Cabot’s hands.
Myles stepped back in apparent terror as Jud seized his precious curtain
and hunted for the scorched hole. But there was no hole there; the
curtain was intact.
Jud looked up sheepishly into the triumphant face of his protégé, who
thereupon stated: “You did not need to worry about your property in the
hands of a true magician.”
“Oh, I was not afraid,” Jud the Excuse-Maker explained. “I merely
pretended fear, so as to try and confuse your magic.”
“Please do not do it again,” the earth-man sternly admonished him.
The Vairking noble seated himself again.
His guests were enthralled.
This was a fitting climax for the evening. The amateur conjurer bowed
low and withdrew.
Quivven was waiting for him at his house, and reported that some one had
torn a small piece out of one of the tapestries. Several days later she
found the piece, but alas, there was a hole burnt in the middle of it.
The next morning Jud the Excuse-Maker called at the quarters of Cabot,
the furless. It was a rare honor, so Cabot answered the door in person.
Jud expressed his conviction that the earth-man really was a magician,
after all, and that therefore he—Jud—was agreeable to an expedition to
the mountains in search of rocks whose mystical properties would enable
the performing of even greater magic. It was soon arranged that Cabot,
with a bodyguard of some twenty Vairking soldiers and a low-ranking
officer, should start on the morrow.
Myles was thrilled. Now he was getting somewhere at last! The rest of
the day he devoted to preparing a list of the materials for which he
must hunt.
To make a radio-telephone sending and receiving set, he would need
dielectrics, copper wire, batteries, tubes, and iron. For dielectrics,
wood and mica would suffice. Wood was common, and the Vairkings were
skilled carpenters and carvers. For fine insulation, mica would be
ideal; and this mineral ought to be procurable somewhere in the
mountains, whose general nature he had observed to be granitic.
To make copper wire, he would need copper ore—preferably pyrites—quartz,
limestone, and fuel. The necessary furnaces he would built of brick; any
one can bake clay into bricks.
For cement, Myles finally hit upon using a baked and ground mixture of
limestone and clay, both of which ingredients he would have at hand for
other purposes.
The Vairkings used charcoal in their open fires, and this would do
nicely for his fuel.
For the wire-drawing dies he would use steel. This disposed of the
copper questions, and brought him to a consideration of iron, which he
would need at various places in his apparatus. This metal could be
smelted from the slag of the copper furnaces, using an appropriate flux,
such as fluorspar.
Cabot next turned his attention to his power source. For some time he
debated the question of whether or not to build a dynamo. But how about
the storage batteries? He wasn’t quite sure how to find or make the
necessary red and yellow lead salts for the packing plates.
Thus by the time that Cabot reached the contemplation of having either
to find or make his lead compounds he decided to turn his attention to
primary cells. The jars could be made of pottery, or from the glass
which was going to be necessary for his tubes anyhow. Charcoal would
furnish the carbon elements. Zinc could easily be distilled from
zincspar, if that particular form of ore were found. Sal ammoniac
solution could be made from the ammonia of animal refuse, common salt,
and sulphuric acid.
Mass production of zinc carbon batteries should thus be an easy matter,
and they would serve perfectly satisfactorily, as neither compactness
nor portability was a requisite. The radio man accordingly abandoned the
idea of dynamos and accumulators in favor of large quantities of wet
cells.
The tubes, it appeared to Myles, would present the greatest problem.
Platinum for the filaments, grids, and plates had been fairly common in
nugget form in Cupia, and so presumably could be found in Vairkingia.
Glass, of course, would be easy to make.
Alcohol for laboratory burners could be distilled from decayed fruit.
But the chief stumbling block was how to exhaust the air from his tubes,
and how to secure magnesium to use in completing the vacuum. These
matters he would have to leave to the future in the hope of a chance
idea. For the present there were enough elements to be collected so that
he would be kept busy for a great many days. Accordingly he copied off
the following two lists:
Materials readily available:
Wood
Wood ashes
Charcoal
Clay
Common salt
White sand
Animal refuse
Decayed fruit
Materials to hunt for:
Mica
Copper ore
Quartz
Limestone
Fluorspar
Galena
Zinc ore
Platinum
Chalk
Magnesium
But that afternoon all his plans were disrupted by a message reading:
To The Furless One:
You are directed to appear for my amusement at my palace to-morrow.
Fail not.
Theoph The Grim.
“That puts an end to my trip,” he said to Quivven. “How do you suppose
his majesty got wind that I am a conjurer?”
“One of the guests at the show last night must have told him,” she
replied.
But something in her tone of voice caused Myles to look at her intently,
and something in her expression caused him to say, “You know more than
you tell. Out with it!”
Whereat Quivven shrugged her pretty golden shoulders, and replied, “Why
deceive you? Though you are so stupid that it is very easy. Who brought
you the note from Arkilu the night of your arrival here?”
“You did,” Cabot answered. “Why didn’t I put two and two together
before? Then you are connected in some way with Arkilu?”
She laughed contemptuously. “How did you guess it?” she taunted. “Yes,
one would rather say I am connected in some way with Arkilu; for I am
her sister, set here to spy on you by connivance with the chief woman of
Jud’s servants, who is an old nurse of ours. I am Quivven the Golden
Flame, daughter of Theoph the Grim, and it is from _me_ that he learned
of your mystic abilities. What do you think of _that_, beast?”
“I think,” Myles said noncommittally, “that although you truly are a
golden flame, you ought to have been named ‘Quivven the Pepper Pot’.”
Whereat she suddenly burst into tears and rushed out of the room.
“Funny girl,” Myles commented to himself, as he laid aside the list
prepared for his prospecting trip, and set about the concoction of some
stage properties for his forthcoming command performance before the
King.
It was a sulky Quivven who served his meal that evening, so much so that
Cabot playfully accused her of putting poison in his stew. This did not
render her any more gracious, however.
“If I did not love my sister very much,” she asserted, “I would not
stand for you for one moment.”
The rest of the meal was eaten in silence during which Cabot had an
idea.
So when the food had been cleared away he asked the aureate maiden, “Can
you smuggle a note to your sister for me?”
“Yes,” she assented gloomily, “and I shall tell her how you are treating
me.”
At which he could not refrain from remarking, “Do you know, Quivven, I
believe that you are falling in love with me.”
“You beast!” she cried at him. “Oh, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
And she turned her face to the wall.
“Come, come!” said Cabot soothingly. “I don’t mean to tease you, and we
must both think of your sister. The note. How long will it take you to
deliver it and return?”
“Shall I hurry?” she asked guardedly.
“Yes.”
“Then it will take me less than one-twelfth of a day.”
That would be quite sufficient for his plans. Accordingly he wrote:
Arkilu The Beautiful:
Send word how I can see you after the performance. But beware of Jud.
Cabot The Magician.
This note he folded up, placed it in the palm of Quivven, and closed her
golden fingers over it.
Whereat she sprang back with, “Don’t you dare touch me like that!” and
rushed out of the house, sobbing angrily.
Really, he must be more careful with this delicate creature; for
although her intense hatred furnished him considerable amusement, yet it
was possible to go too far. He must at least be polite to the sister of
his benefactress.
But there was no time to be given over to worrying about Quivven’s
sensitive feelings; for the note had been sent merely to give him a
slight respite from her prying eyes, in order that he might sneak out
for a conference with Jud; of course he had no intention of any secret
tryst with Arkilu. Heaven forbid, when he loved his own distant Lilla so
intensely!
So he hurried to the quarters of the Vairkingian noble, who received him
gladly, being most interested in learning whether there was any rational
explanation to be given to the various magic tricks of the evening
before. But Myles blocked his inquisitiveness by the flat assertion that
all were due to mystic spells and talismans alone, and then got rapidly
down to business, for there was no time to be lost.
Myles told Jud of the note from Theoph the Grim requiring his presence
at the royal palace, and how he suspected that Princess Arkilu was
responsible. Also, he related his discovery that his maidservant was
Quivven the Golden Flame; but he had the decency to refrain from
implicating the head of Jud’s ménage.
“I shall have her removed at once,” the Vairking asserted.
“No, no,” Myles hastily interposed, “that would never do; for now that
we know she is a spy, it will be easy to outwit her. But a new one we
never could be sure of.”
Then he told how he had gotten rid of Quivven for the evening by sending
her with a note to Arkilu. Jud’s brow darkened.
“But,” Myles insisted, “that note will serve a three-fold purpose;
first, it has enabled me undetected to pay this visit to you; secondly,
it will allay Arkilu’s suspicions; and thirdly, it will stir you to
block my appearance before Theoph to-morrow.”
“Oh, I would have done that anyhow,” Jud insisted. “My plans are all
made. I shall send a runner to Theoph, and warn him to search Arkilu’s
room for your note. When he finds the note he will certainly cancel the
arrangements for your performance. Thus will the note serve a _fourth
purpose_.
“Return now to your quarters, and I will send you word of the outcome.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Myles admonished. “For a message from you
would reveal to our fair young spy the fact of my secret interview with
you this evening. Let Theoph himself send the word.”
“So be it. You may count on starting on your expedition to-morrow as
planned. Good luck to you.”
“Good luck to _you_, Jud the Great, and may you win Arkilu the
Beautiful.”
So the earth-man hastened back to his quarters, where Quivven, on her
return, found him placidly reclining on a divan.
For a few minutes they chatted playfully together, and then she suddenly
narrowed her eyelids, looked at him with a peculiar expression, and
asked: “Aren’t you the least bit anxious to know what answer Arkilu made
to your note?”
That was so; he _had_ written Arkilu a note; but now that it had served
its purpose he had completely forgotten about it. How could he square
himself with little Quivven? By flattery?
“Of course I’m anxious to know,” he asserted, “but I was so glad to have
you come back again that for the moment I neglected to ask you.”
Quivven the Golden Flame pouted.
“Now you’re teasing me again,” she said, “and I won’t stand for it.”
“But I really want to know,” he continued with mock eagerness. “Please
do tell me about your sister.”
“I gave her the note—”
Just then there came a loud pounding on the gate outside; so loud, in
fact, that the sound penetrated within the house. Quivven stopped
talking. She and Myles listened intently. The pounding continued.
“Evidently we are to have company this evening,” he remarked, glad to
change the subject.
Quivven replied, “Such a racket at this time of night can mean naught
but ill. Let us approach the gate with care, and question the
intruders.”
So saying, she took down one of the hanging stone lamps and opened the
outside door. It was a typical dark, silent, fragrant Porovian evening,
except for the fact that the darkness was broken by the glare of the
torches beyond the wall, and that the silence was broken by the pounding
on the gate, and that the fragrance was marred by the smoke of Quivven’s
lamp.
“Who is there?” Quivven called.
To this there came back the peremptory shout: “Open quickly, in the name
of Theoph the Grim!”
The golden girl recoiled. Even Cabot himself shuddered as he realized
the evident cause of the disturbance; his plot with Jud had produced
results beyond what they had planned; and Theoph upon seizing the note,
had decided not merely to cancel the sleight-of-hand performance, but
also to place his daughter’s supposed sweetheart under arrest.
“I am afraid your father has intercepted my letter to your sister,”
Cabot explained. “I tell you what! _You_ leave by the rear door, make
your way quickly to Arkilu, and see if the two of you can intercede for
me with your stern parent.”
So saying, he released her. The slim princess handed him the light, and
sped into the interior of the house.
“Cease your noise!” he shouted. “For I, Myles Cabot the Minorian, come
to unbar the gate in person!”
He strode down the path. Quickly he slid the huge wooden bolts, swung
the gate open, and stepped outside, shielding the lamp with one hand to
get a view of the disturbers. But his lamp was instantly dashed from him
and his arms bound behind him.
His captors were about a dozen Vairking soldiers in leather tunics and
helmets, some carrying wooden spears and some holding torches, while
their evident leader was similarly clothed but armed with a sharp wooden
rapier.
As soon as the prisoner was securely bound the guard hustled him roughly
off down the street.
Thus were his plans rudely dashed to the ground. On the preceding night
all had been arranged for his trip to secure the elements for the
construction of a radio set with which to communicate with Cupia and his
Lilla. That morning he had been forced to postpone his trip, in order to
perform before Theoph the Grim. And this evening he was Theoph’s
prisoner, slated for—what?
IX
A PRISONER
The squad of Vairking soldiers, with Myles Cabot as their prisoner, had
traversed nowhere near the distance to the palace, when they turned from
the street through a gate.
“Where are they going to take me now?” Myles wondered.
This question was soon answered, for the party entered a building which
was evidently a dwelling of the better class. The hall was well lighted,
so that Miles blinked at the sudden glare.
The leader of the party placed himself squarely in front of his
prisoner, with hands on his hips, and remarked with apparent
irrelevance: “Well, we fooled Quivven, didn’t we?”
The prisoner stared at him in surprise. It was Jud! Jud, disguised as a
common soldier.
Cabot laughed with relief.
“You certainly gave me a bad hundred-and-forty-fourth part of a day,” he
asserted. “I didn’t recognize you in your street clothes. What is the
great idea?”
“‘The great idea’,” the noble replied, “to quote your phrase, is that I
did truly represent Theoph the Grim. He authorized me to arrest you in
his name. The pretty little spy will report your capture to Arkilu, and
her father will stonily refuse to reveal where you are imprisoned.
“Meanwhile I shall give the golden one time to escape, and shall then
send a second squad to seize your effects. Your expedition will start
immediately. Come, unbind the prisoner.”
As soon as his bonds were loosed, Myles warmly grasped the hand of his
benefactor.
“You are all right!” he exclaimed. “You have completely succeeded
without leaving anything to explain.”
“I _always_ succeed, and never have to explain anything!” Jud replied a
bit coldly.
And so, late that night, the Radio Man, dressed in leather tunic and
helmet, and armed with a tempered wood rapier, set out with his
bodyguard for the western mountains. In silence, and with the minimum of
lights, they threaded the streets of Jud’s compound and then the streets
of the city until they came to the west gate, where a pass signed by
Theoph the Grim gave them free exit. Thence they moved due westward
across the plain, with scouts thrown out to guard against contact with
any roving Roies.
By daybreak they had reached the cover of the wooded foothills, and
there they camped for a full day of much needed rest. Finally, on the
second morning following their stealthy departure from Vairkingi, their
journey really started.
The commander of the bodyguard was an intelligent youth named Crota.
During the meals at the first encampment, Myles described to Crota in
considerable detail the particular form of copper pyrites which furnish
the bulk of the copper used for electrical purposes on the continent of
Cupia.
After listening intently to this description for about the fifth time,
Crota smiled and said, “We Vairkings place no stock in pretty stones,
except as playthings for our children, but I do recall the little golden
cubes with which the children of one of the hill villages are accustomed
to play tum-tum. This village, Sur by name, is only a day’s journey to
the southward. Let us turn our steps thither and learn from the children
where they get their toys.”
“‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,’” the earth-man quoted to
himself.
And so they set out to the southward, following a trail which wound in
and out between the fertile silver-green hills, which were for the most
part scantily wooded.
Toward the close of the day, Crota’s scouts established contact with the
outposts of the village which they were seeking; and after an exchange
of communications by runner, the expedition was given free passage to
proceed. Shortly thereafter they came in sight of the village itself.
From among the surrounding verdant rolling terrain there arose one rocky
eminence with precipitous sides, and with a flat summit on which stood
the village of Sur surrounded by a strong wooden palisade.
Up the face of the cliff there ran a narrow zigzag path, cut in the
living rock, and overhung by many a bastion from which huge stones could
be tumbled or molten pitch poured on any invaders so rash as to attempt
the ascent.
Along this path the expedition crawled in single file with many pauses
to draw their breath; and before they reached the summit Cabot realized
full well how it was that Sur, the southernmost outpost of Vairkingian
civilization, had so long and so successfully withstood the onslaughts
of the wild and savage Roies.
The inhabitants, furry Vairkings, turned out in large numbers to greet
the visitors and especially to inspect the furless body and the much
overfurred chin of the earth-man. Guides led the expedition to a large
public hall where, after a speech of welcome by the headman of the
village, they were fed and quartered for the night.
Between the meal and bedtime the visiting soldiers strolled out to see
the sights by the pale pink light of the unseen setting sun. Cabot and
Crota together walked to the west wall to observe the sunset.
As the two of them leaned on the parapet, a rattling noise on the rocky
walk beside them disturbed their reverie. Looking down, they saw three
furry children rolling some small objects along the ground. With a
slight exclamation of surprise and pleasure, the Vairking soldier
swooped down upon the youngsters, scooped up one of the toys, and handed
it to the earth-man.
“Tum-tum,” Crota laconically announced, and sure enough it was one of
the small game-cubes, which he had described to his companion.
But before the latter had had the slightest opportunity to examine it,
the bespoiled infant let out a howl of childish rage, and commenced to
assail Myles with fists and teeth and feet.
“Stop that!” Crota shouted, grabbing him by one arm and pulling him
away. “We don’t want to keep your tum-tum; we merely want to look at it.
This gentleman has never seen a tum-tum.”
“Gentleman?” the boy replied from a safe distance. “Common soldier!
Bah!”
But Myles Cabot was too engrossed to notice the insult. The small cube
in his hand was undoubtedly a metallic crystal, but whether chalcopyrite
or not he could not tell in the fading light. In fact, it might be the
sunset which gave the stone its coppery tinge.
Taking a small flint knife from a leather sheath that hung from his
belt, Myles offered it to the child in exchange for the toy, in spite of
Crota’s gasping protest at the extravagance.
The boy eagerly accepted the offer, remarking: “Thank you, sir. You
should take off those clothes.”
It was a very neat and subtle compliment. Gentlemen Vairkings never wore
clothes. Cabot was impressed.
“Your name, my son?” he asked, patting the furry little creature on the
head.
“Tomo the Brief,” was the reply.
“I shall remember it.”
Then he hurried back to the public hall, eager to examine his purchase
by the light of the oil flares.
Sure enough, it turned out to be really pyrites, and by its deep color
probably a pyrites rich in copper. To the Radio Man it meant the first
tangible step toward the accomplishment of the greatest radio feat ever
undertaken on two worlds; namely the construction of a complete sending
and receiving set out of nothing but basic materials in their natural
state without the aid of a single previously fabricated man-made tool,
utensil, or chemical. To this day Myles wears this cube as a pendant
charm in commemoration of that momentous occasion.
As he lay on the floor of the public building that night the earth-man
reviewed the events of the day until he came to the episode of the
purchase of the cubical pyrite crystal from little Tomo.
“Your name, my son?” Cabot had asked him.
“‘My son’,” thought Cabot. “I have a son of my own across the boiling
seas on the continent of Cupia, and a wife, the most beautiful and
sweetest lady in Poros. They are in dire danger, or were many months ago
when I received the S O S which led me to return through the skies to
this planet. Oh, how I wish that I could learn what that danger was, and
what has happened to them since then!”
Thus he mused; and yet when he came to figure up the time since his
capture he was able to account for less than three weeks of earth time.
Perhaps there was still a chance of rescue, if he would but hurry.
The danger which had inspired his Lilla’s call for help was undoubtedly
due to the return of Prince Yuri across the boiling seas. For all that
Myles knew, Princess Lilla and the loyal Cupians were still holding out
against their renegade prince.
The message which Cabot had ticked out into the ether from the radio
station of the ants had been sent only a few days after the S O S. If
received by Lilla or any of her friends, it had undoubtedly served to
encourage them to stiffen their resistance to the usurper; and if
received by Yuri, it had undoubtedly thrown into him the fear of the
Great Builder.
Musing and hoping thus, the earth-man fell into a troubled sleep,
through which there swirled a tangled phantasmagoria of ant-men,
Cupians, whistling bees, and Vairkings, with occasional glimpses of a
little blue-eyed blond head, sometimes surmounted by golden curls and
two dainty antennae, but sometimes completely covered with golden fur.
Shortly after sunrise he awoke, and aroused Crota. No time must be lost!
The Princess Lilla must be saved!
But there was nothing they could do until their hosts brought the food
for the morning meal. From the bearers they now ascertained that the
tum-tum cubes were gathered in a cleft in the rocks only a short
distance from the village; and that, although the perfect cubes were
rare and quite highly prized, the imperfect specimens were present in
great quantities. In fact, hundreds of cartloads had been mined and
picked over in search of perfect cubes, and thus all this ore would be
available in return for the mere trouble of shoveling it into carts.
As soon as arrangements could be made with the headman of Sur, Cabot and
his party, accompanied by guides, crept down the narrow zigzag path to
the plain below the village, and proceeded up a ravine to the quarry,
where they verified all that had been told them.
It was a beautiful sight; a rocky wall out of a cleft in which there
seemed to pour a waterfall of gold.
But on close inspection, every cube was seen to be nicked or bent or out
of proportion, or jammed part way through or into some other cube.
The soldiers, both those from Vairkingi and those from Sur, scrambled up
the golden cascade and started hacking the crystals out of the solid
formation, in search for perfect cubes, while their two leaders watched
them with amusement from below.
All at once there came a shriek, and one of the Vairkings toppled the
whole length of the pile, almost at Cabot’s feet, where he lay perfectly
still, the wooden shaft of an arrow projecting from one eyeball.
“Roies!” Crota shouted.
Instantly every member of the party took cover with military precision
behind some rock or tree.
They had not long to wait, for a shower of missiles from up the valley
soon apprised them of the location of the enemy. So the Vairkings
thereafter remained alert. Those who had bows drew them and discharged a
flint-tipped arrow at every stir of grass or bush in the locality whence
the missiles of the enemy had come.
“We know not their number,” Crota whispered to Cabot. “And since we have
accomplished our mission let us return to Sur as speedily as possible.”
“Agreed,” the earth-man replied.
The withdrawal was accomplished as follows. Crota first dispatched
runners to the village to inform the inhabitants of the situation. Then,
leaving a small rear guard of archers and slingers to cover their
retreat, he formed the remainder of the expedition in open order, and
set out for Sur as rapidly as the cover would permit.
The enemy kept pretty well hidden, but it was evident from the increase
of arrows and pebbles that their numbers were steadily augmenting.
Noting this, Crota sent another runner ahead with this information.
It now became necessary to replenish and relieve the rear guard, of
which several were dead, several more wounded and the rest tired and out
of ammunition. This done, Crota ordered the main body of his force to
leave cover and take up the double quick.
The result was unexpected. A hundred or more Roies charged yelling down
the ravine through the Vairking rear guard, and straight at Cabot’s men,
who at once ran to cover again and took deadly toll of the oncoming
enemy.
But the Roies so greatly outnumbered the Vairkings that the tide could
not be stemmed, and soon the two groups were mingled together in a
seething mass. The first rush was met, spear on spear. Then the sharp
wooden swords were drawn, and Cabot found himself lunging and parrying
against three naked furry warriors.
The neck was the vulnerable spot of the Vairkings, and it was this point
which the Roies strove to reach, as Cabot soon noted. That simplified
matters, for guarding one’s neck against such crude swordsmen as these
furry aborigines was easy for a skilled fencer such as he. Accordingly,
one by one, he ran three antagonists through the body.
Just as he was withdrawing his blade from his last victim, he noted that
Crota was being hard pressed by a burly Roy swordsman; so he hastened to
his friend’s assistance. And he was just in time, for even as Cabot
approached, the naked Roy knocked the leather-clad Vairking’s weapon
from his hand with a particularly dexterous sideswipe, and thus had
Crota at his mercy.
But before the naked one could follow up his advantage, the earth-man
hurled his own sword like a spear, and down went the Roy, impaled
through the back, carrying Crota with him as he fell.
Cabot paused to draw breath, and was just viewing with satisfaction the
lucky results of his chance throw, when a peremptory command of “Yield!”
behind him caused him to wheel about and confront a new enemy. The
author of the shout was a massive furry warrior with a placid, almost
bovine, face, which nevertheless betokened considerable intellect.
“And to whom would I yield, if I did yield?” Myles asked, facing unarmed
the poised sword of his new enemy.
“Grod the Silent, King of the Roies,” was the dignified reply.
“I thought that Att the Terrible was king of your people,” the earth-man
returned, sparring for time.
“That is what Att thinks too,” the other answered with a slight smile.
But the smile was short-lived, for Myles Cabot, having momentarily
distracted his opponent’s attention by this conversation, stepped
suddenly under the guard of the furry Grod, and planted his fist square
on Grod’s fat chin. Down crashed the king, his sword clattering from his
nerveless hand. In an instant Myles snatched up the blade and bestrode
his prostrate foe.
Just as he was about to plunge its point into Grod’s vitals, there
occurred to him the proverb of Poblath: “While enemies dispute, the
realm is at peace.”
With Grod the Silent and Att the Terrible both contending for the
leadership of the Roies, Vairkingia might enjoy a respite from the
depredations of this wild and lawless race. He would leave the fallen
Roy for dead, rather than put him actually in that condition.
Accordingly, he sprang to the aid of his companions.
Crota was already back in the fray, his own sword in his hands once
more, and the sword of his late burly opponent slung at his side. Quite
evidently he did not intend to be disarmed again.
Three Vairking common soldiers and Crota and Myles now confronted seven
Roies. This constituted a fairly even match, for the superior
intelligence and the leather armor of the men of Vairkingi and Sur,
offset the greater numbers of their aboriginal antagonists. What the
outcome would have been can never be known, for at that moment, the
reinforcements from the village came charging up the ravine; and at the
same instant, the tops of the cliffs were lined with Roies, who sent a
shower of arrows upon those below.
The contending twelve immediately separated. Cabot and his followers
passed within the protection of his rescuers and the return to Sur was
renewed. The commander of the rescue party threw out a strong rear
guard, and the Vairking archers on both flanks peppered the cliff tops
with sling shots and arrows, but the marauding Roies harassed every step
of the retreat.
There was some respite when Cabot’s party reached the plain where stood
the rocky peak with the village of Sur on its summit, for arrows could
not carry from the cover of the surrounding woods to the foot of the
rocks. But, as the tired party began the ascent of the narrow path on
the face of the cliff, they noted that the Roies were forming solid
banks of wooden shields and were advancing across the plain.
Arrows now began to fly from below at the ascending Vairking party,
several of whom toppled and fell down the face of the cliff. And then
the warrior just above Myles on the narrow path clutched his breast with
a gasp and dropped square upon the earth-man, who braced himself and
caught the body, thus preventing it from being dashed to pieces at the
foot of the rocks.
Whether or not the furry soldier was dead could not be ascertained until
Myles should have reached the summit, so up he toiled with his burden
until he gained the protection of the palisade, where he laid the
Vairking gently on the ground and tore open his leather tunic to see if
any life were present.
The wounded man still breathed, though hoarsely, and his heart still
beat; but there was a gaping hole in one side of his chest.
No arrow protruding from this hole. Myles tenderly turned the man over
to see if the wound extended clear through. It did—almost. And from the
man’s side there projected the tip of a bullet, the steel-sheathed tip
of a leaden rifle bullet!
X
THE SIEGE OF SUR
Myles quickly extracted the bullet from the back of the wounded
Vairking. Then tender furry female hands bore the victim away, as the
earth-man stood in thoughtful contemplation of his find.
There could be no doubt of it. This was a steel-jacketed bullet,
identical with those used in the rifles of the ant-men. How came such a
weapon in the hands of the savage and untrained Roies?
It was inconceivable that these uncultured brutes had overwhelmed New
Formia and captured the weapons of the ant-men. No, the only possible
explanation was that the Formians had formed an alliance with the Roies,
and were either fighting beside them or at least had furnished them with
a few firearms, the use of which they had taught them.
But this last idea was improbable, due to the well-known shortage of
rifles and ammunition at Yuriana, capital of the new ant empire. No, if
the ant-men were in alliance with these furry savages, there must be
ant-men present with the besiegers, and the shot in question must have
been fired by the claw of a Formian.
This opened up new terrors for the village of Sur and its inhabitants.
Myles glanced apprehensively at the southern sky, half expecting to see
and hear the approach of a Formian plane, but the radiant silver expanse
was unmarred by any black speck. Sur was safe for the moment.
His musings thus completed, Myles hurried to the public hall to
communicate this discovery to Crota and the village authorities. He
found the headman already there in conference with Crota.
Said Myles, exhibiting the bullet: “Here is one of the magic stones
thrown by one of my own magic sling-shots, which is capable of shooting
from the ground to the top of your cliffs and even penetrating your
palisade. It is big magic! With its aid, the Roies can overcome us.
Without it, I am powerless. Therefore, we must secure possession of it.
What do you suggest?”
Crota replied: “It is now sunset. Let us select a squad of picked scouts
and try to stalk the camp of the enemy.”
“No, no!” the headman of Sur exclaimed in horror. “Never have our men
dared to attack the Roies by dark.”
“Do the Roies know this?” Myles asked with interest.
“Most certainly,” was the reply.
“Then,” he said, “all the more reason for attempting it They will be
unprepared.”
The magistrate shrugged his furry shoulders with: “If you can persuade
any men of Sur to attempt anything so foolhardy, I shall interpose no
objection.”
Within a twelfth of a day, Crota had enrolled twenty scouts, and with
Myles Cabot, they had all begun the stealthy descent of the narrow
winding path down the face of the cliff. Before starting, they had
observed the direction of the Roy camp-fires on one of the surrounding
hills; so now they crept quietly toward that hill, and then slowly up to
its crest.
In spite of the dense blackness of the Porovian night, they were able to
find their way, first by starting in the correct direction and then by
keeping the lights of their own village always behind them.
As Cabot had expected from the remarks of the headman, there were no
sentinels on post, for the enemy were quite evidently relying on the
well-known Vairking fear of the unknown terrors of the dark. Indeed, it
spoke volumes for the individual courage of the twenty-one members of
this venture, and for their confidence in their earth-man leader, that
they had dared to come.
Finally, the party emerged from the underbrush at the top of the hill, a
few score of feet from the tents and camp-fires of the Roies. There,
motioning the others to remain where they were until he gave a signal,
Myles crawled forward, always keeping in the shadow of some tent, until
he was able to peek through a small bush beside one of the tents,
directly at the group around one of the camp-fires.
Just as Cabot arrived at this observation post, a Roy warrior was
declaiming: “I told you it would work, for had I not seen it
demonstrated fully to me? You yourselves saw it kill. Now will you not
believe me?”
Another spoke: “I cannot understand its principle. How can a weapon kill
afar, and yet not resemble either a sling or a bow?”
And another: “Show us how it works, friend. Then perhaps we may be
persuaded.”
And a third: “I do not believe that he has it.”
Whereat, the original speaker, nettled, spoke again: “It is in my tent
there, you doubters,” indicating the one beside which Cabot crouched.
Quick as a flash, Cabot wriggled beneath the back of the tent into its
interior. The campfire light, penetrating through the slit opening in
front, revealed nothing but rumpled blankets on the floor, and ordinary
weapons slung to the tent pole; so the intruder commenced rummaging
among the bedding. The conversation outside continued.
“Prove, or be silent!” said a voice.
“You saw the Vairking fall, did you not?” the original speaker replied.
“True, but I did not see you sling any pebble.”
Meanwhile, Cabot continued his frantic search. At last, it was rewarded.
In one corner of the tent, his groping fingers closed upon a Formian
rifle and a bandolier of cartridges. A thrill ran through him at the
touch.
“To prove it to you,” the voice outside was saying, angrily, “I will get
it for you; and if you do not believe me, I shall slingshot you with it.
_That_ ought to be proof enough even for a stupid one like you. I have
said it!”
“The signal for my exit,” Myles said to himself, as he hastened to crawl
out through the back of the tent, but then he reflected: “No, I want
more than this gun and ammunition; I want information.”
So he remained.
As the Roy entered the tent and felt for the rifle, the crouching
earth-man flung himself upon him; and before the startled furry one
could utter even a gasp, strong fingers closed upon his windpipe,
throttling off all sound. The struggle was over in a few moments.
When Myles Cabot finally crept out of the enemy tent, it was with a limp
form under one arm, and a bandolier and a rifle slung across his
shoulders.
The conversation at the camp fire continued.
One of the warriors was saying: “Our friend takes long to find his
wonderful sling-shot. Methinks he was lying and does not dare to face
us.”
Said another voice: “Let us pull him from his tent and confront him with
his perfidy.”
At this, Myles sprang to his feet and ran to the cover which concealed
his followers.
“Rush in among them as we planned,” he urged, “while you two come with
me.”
Then on he sped down the hillside towards the lights of Sur with his
captive and trophies and two previously-picked members of the band,
while Crota and the remaining eighteen charged yelling into the midst of
the Roy camp, upsetting tents, scattering camp fires, and laying about
them with their swords. Straight through the camp they charged,
shouting: “Make way for Att the Terrible!” Then they circled the hill
under cover of the darkness and rejoined Myles.
The startled Roies were taken completely by surprise. From the cries of
Crota and his followers, they assumed that the intruders were Roies,
partisans of Att the Terrible, attacking them for being partisans of
Grod the Silent. As they came rushing out of their standing tents, or
crawled from beneath such tents as had been wrecked, they met others of
their own camp, similarly rushing or crawling, and mistaking them for
enemies, started to fight.
The confusion was complete, and never for a moment did the naked furry
savages suspect that the whole trouble had been caused by a mere handful
of Vairkings.
Truly, as Poblath the Philosopher has said, “While enemies dispute, the
realm is at peace.”
While the Roy followers of Grod the Silent fought among themselves until
they gradually discovered that there was no one there except themselves,
Myles Cabot and his Vairkings safely regained the Village of Sur with
the rifle, the ammunition, and the still unconscious Roy warrior.
In the public hall, under the tender ministrations of Vairking
maidens—who would far rather have plunged a flint knife into him—the
captive finally regained his senses and looked around him in
bewilderment.
“Where am I?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
“In Sur,” some one replied.
“Then are we victorious? For never before has a Roy set foot in Sur.”
“No, your forces are not victorious,” Crota answered. “You are a
prisoner. And it is only by the grace of Cabot the Minorian that you are
permitted to come here even as a prisoner. For the men of Sur take no
prisoners, and give no quarter.”
In reply, Myles himself stepped forward.
“I myself, am Cabot the Minorian,” he said.
To which Crota added impressively: “The greatest magician of two
worlds!”
The prisoner shook his head.
“I know of only one world,” he asserted, “and this man before me is
dressed as a mere common soldier, as are all of you.”
“Know then, O scum of Poros,” the earth-man admonished, “that there are
other worlds beyond the silver skies, and that in the world from which I
come, all soldiers are gentlemen.”
But the Roy warrior was not to be subdued by language. “How did I come
here?” he asked.
“You did not come here,” Myles answered. “You were brought. I brought
you.”
“But how?”
“By magic.”
“What magic?”
“My magic cart which swims through the air as a reptile swims through
the waters of a lake.”
“True,” the Roy mused, “there be such aerial wagons, for I have seen
them near the city of the beasts of the south.”
“Mark well!” Myles interjected to the assembled Vairkings, then to the
prisoner again: “I captured you because you possessed the magic
sling-shot, and presumed to use it on one of my own men. This effrontery
could not be permitted to go unpunished; hence your capture. The
offending weapon is now mine, and you are my prisoner.”
“What do you propose to do with me?” the captive asked. “I propose to
ask you some questions,” Myles evaded. “First where did you get the
magic sling-shot?”
“The great magician knows everything,” the Roy replied, with a sneer.
“Why, then, should I presume to tell him anything?”
But the earth-man remained unruffled. “You are correct,” he countered.
“I ask, not because I do not already know, but because I wish to test
whether it is possible for one of your degraded race to tell the truth.”
“Why test that?” came back the brazen Roy, “for doubtless you, who know
everything, know that, too.”
Myles could not help admiring the insulting calm with which this furry
man of inferior race confronted his relentless captors.
“Who are you, rash one?” he asked.
The prisoner drew himself up proudly, with folded arms, and answered: “I
am Otto the Bold, son of Grod the Silent.”
“Ah,” Myles said, “the son of a king. And I am the father of a king.
Well, then, as one man to another, tell me where you got this gun.”
“Gun?” Otto queried. “Is that the name of this weapon of bad omen? Know
then that I got it from you yourself when I wounded you beneath the tree
beside the brook at the foot of the mountains, before the Vairkings of
Jud the Excuse-Maker drove me off. I have spoken!”
“And spoken truly,” Cabot replied, concealing his surprise with
difficulty. Of course. Why had he not guessed it before? But there were
still some more points to clear up, so he continued: “Why did you shoot
those two arrows at me in the house at the top of the mountains?”
“Because we wished to explore the house. But you killed my companion,
whereupon I resolved to kill you in revenge, and to capture the noisy
‘gun’—and is that the right word? So I trailed you. The rest you know.”
“Remember, I know _everything_,” Myles said, grinning. “But did you ever
see any one but me shoot the gun?”
“You know I never did,” was the reply. “No one on Poros, save Cabot the
Magician and Otto the Bold, has ever done this big magic. I saw the
results, but not the means, when you killed my companion; so I
experimented for myself after I had stolen your gun, and soon I learned
how, after which I carefully conserved the magic stones until last night
when I shot one of the Vairkings of Sur, so as to give visible proof of
my magic powers to my doubting comrades.”
The earth-man heaved a sigh of relief. There existed as yet no alliance
between the Formians and the Roies. Pray Heaven that such a calamity
would never suggest itself to the minds of either race; for if so, then
woe to Vairkingia!
“Son of a king,” he said, “return to your people and your father. Give
him my greetings, and tell them that you are the friend of a great
magician, who lent you his ‘gun’, who transported you through the air
within the walls of Sur, where no Roy has ever stood or will ever stand,
and who last night caused phantom warriors to attack your camp under the
guise of followers of Att the Terrible. Go now. My men will give you
safe conduct to the plain below.”
“And what is the price of this freedom?” Otto disdainfully inquired.
“The friendship of a king’s father for a king’s son,” Myles Cabot
replied with dignity.
The two drew themselves up proudly and regarded each other eye-to-eye
for a moment.
“It is well,” Otto the Bold declared. “Good-by.” And he departed under
the escort of a Vairking guard.
“The master knows best,” Crota remarked, sadly shaking his head, “but I
should have run the wretch through the body.”
The next morning Cabot thanked the headman of Sur for his hospitality,
and took up the return trail for Vairkingi, the vacancies in his ranks
being filled by the loan of soldiers from Sur. The party had gone but a
short distance when they found the way barred by a formidable body of
Roies. But before these came within bow-shot a bullet from Cabot’s rifle
brought two of them to the ground, whereupon the rest turned and fled
precipitately.
Later in the day a bend in the road brought them suddenly upon a furry
warrior. Myles fired, and the man instantly fell to the ground. But when
they reached the body there was not even a scratch to be found on it;
the bullet had missed.
“Dead of fright,” Myles thought; but no, for the heart was still
beating, although faintly, and the lungs were still functioning.
“Sit up there!” Myles ordered.
“Can’t,” The Roy replied. “I’m dead.”
“Then I’ll make you alive again,” his captor declared, placing his hands
on the head of the Roy. “_Abra cadabra camunya._”
Thereat the soldier sat up with a sigh of relief, and opened his eyes.
“Stand up!” Myles ordered.
For reply the Roy jumped to his feet and started running for cover.
“Halt!” the earth-man commanded. “Halt, or I’ll kill you again!”
The man stopped.
“Return!”
The man returned, like a sleep walker.
“What do you mean by running away? Now listen intently. Are you one of
the men of Grod?”
“Yes.”
“Then go to Otto, the son of Grod, and tell him that it is the order of
Cabot the Magician that Vairking expeditions into these mountains, in
search of golden cubes and other minerals, be unmolested. Tell Otto that
he can recognize my expedition by the blue flags which they will carry
hereafter. Now go. I have spoken.”
The Roy warrior ran up the trail and this time was not halted.
“Another mistake,” Crota remarked, half to himself.
The rest of the return to Vairkingi was without event. On the way the
radio man made notes of the best deposits of quartz, limestone, and
fluorspar. Also he carried with him a few large sheets of mica. But he
found no traces of galena, zinc ore, or platinum. These would require at
least one further expedition.
Crota spared no extravagant language in relating to Jud the exploits of
Cabot the Minorian in raising the siege of the village of Sur; and Jud
repeated the story with embellishments to Theoph the Grim. Also the long
deferred sleight-of-hand performance was held at the palace, to the
great mystification of the white-furred king.
Arkilu did not show up to mar the occasion. In fact, little Quivven
reported that her sister was very indignant at the earth-man for
trifling with her affections, and had turned to Jud in her pique.
Needless to say, Jud had taken every possible advantage of Cabot’s
absence to reinstate himself with the chestnut-furred princess. But
neither Myles nor Quivven appeared to exhibit any very great sorrow at
this turn of affairs.
So long as Arkilu’s hostility did not become active, the support of Jud
and Theoph ought to prove quite sufficient.
The standing of Cabot the Minorian as a magician was now well
established, and accordingly Jud the Excuse-Maker and even Theoph the
Grim were willing to accord him all possible assistance in the gathering
of the materials with which he was to perform his further magic, namely
radio.
Theoph made a levy upon all the nobles, and turned over to the earth-man
upward of five hundred soldiers with their proper carts and equipment.
Jud (himself,) Quivven (still unknown to her father), and Crota (the
soldier who had demonstrated on the expedition an intelligence far above
his social class), were enrolled as laboratory assistants. Several
inclosures adjoining Cabot’s yard were vacated and converted into
factories, in one of which were mounted a pair of huge millstones such
as the Vairkings use in grinding certain of their food.
Myles divided his men roughly into three groups. One group, under Crota,
he established at the clay deposits to the northeast of the city, to
make bricks and charcoal.
The second group, under Jud, were engaged in the mining operations,
digging copper ore, quartz rock, fluorspar, limestone, and sand, at
various points in the mountains, and carting some of the limestone to
the brickyard, and the rest with the other products to Vairkingi. The
carters carried back with them to the mountains all the necessary
supplies for the expeditions.
The third group, under Quivven, were engaged in setting up the grist
mill, and in other building and preparatory operations.
At the claypits the first operation was to scrape off the surface clay
and spread it out thin in the open air, so it would age fast.
The limestone, upon its arrival at the brickyard, was burned in raw
brick ovens, and then carted to Vairkingi, to be ground at the mill. It
was then shipped back to the brick plant, where it was mixed with the
aged clay—first screened—molded into bricks, baked, burned, and carted
to Vairkingi, to be ground into cement.
Some of the ground limestone was retained at Vairkingi for use in later
glass-making, and some of the unground for smelting purposes.
Other aged clay was screened, moistened, molded, and baked to form
ordinary brick. Fire-brick was similarly made by the addition of white
sand finely ground at Vairkingi, but this kind of brick had to be baked
much more slowly.
Thus only a week or two after this whole huge industrial undertaking had
begun, the radio man was in possession of fire-brick and fire-clay with
which to start the building of the smelting furnaces.
Meanwhile Myles Cabot, with a small bodyguard, kept traveling from one
job to another, giving general superintendence to the work. And when
everything was well under way he set out on another exploring expedition
in search of galena, zinc ore, and platinum.
Quivven had furnished the inspiration for this trip by suggesting that
the sparkling sands of a large river, which ran from west to east, about
a day’s journey north of Vairkingi, might contain the silver grains
which he sought. So thither he set out one morning, with camping
equipment and a detachment of soldiers.
All day they marched northward across the level plains. Toward evening
they reached a small estuary of the main stream, and there they camped.
As the silver sky pinkened in the west Myles Cabot ran quickly down this
brook to inspect the sands of the river, which lay but a short distance
away.
The pink turned to crimson, and then purple. The darkness crept up out
of the east, and plunged the whole face of the planet into velvet and
impenetrable black. But Myles Cabot did not return to the camping place.
XI
ATT THE TERRIBLE
When Myles Cabot left his encampment beside the little brook, he
hastened down stream to where the brook joined the big river, along the
edge of which there stretched a sandy beach. Falling on his knees, he
picked up handful after handful of the silver sands.
There was still plenty of daylight left for him to examine the multitude
of shiny metallic particles.
There could be no doubt of it, these sands held some metal which could
be separated out in much the same manner as that in which the California
gold miners of 1849 used to wash for gold, but only time would tell
whether or not this metal was the much-to-be-desired platinum which the
radio man needed for the grids, filaments, plates, and wires of his
vacuum tubes.
On the morrow he would wash for this metal, using the wooden pans which
he had brought for that purpose. The precious dust he would carry back
to Vairkingi, melt it into small lumps if possible, and then try to
analyze its composition in his laboratory.
As he sat on the sandy beach and thus laid his plans, his thoughts
gradually wandered away from scientific lines, and he began again to
worry about Lilla.
It was many days since she had sent the S O S which had recalled him
from earth to Poros. Whatever she had feared must have happened by now.
It was possible that he would never be able to effect a return to Cupia.
Why not then accept the inevitable, settle down permanently among the
Vairkings, and solace himself as best he could?
Even an ordinarily stalwart soul would have done his best and have been
satisfied with that. But Myles Standish Cabot possessed that indomitable
will which had given rise to the Porovian proverb: “You cannot kill a
Minorian.”
To such a man, defeat was impossible. He _would_ rescue the Princess
Lilla in the end; that was all there was to it.
So he laid his plans with precision, as he sat on the sandy shore of the
Porovian river in the crimsoning twilight.
Before the velvet darkness completely enveloped the planet, the
earth-man arose from the sands, and began his return up the valley of
the little estuary. But, as he was hurrying along, and was passing
through a small grove of trees, a dark form noiselessly dropped on him
from above.
The creature lit squarely upon his back, wrapping its furry legs around
his abdomen and its furry arms around his neck. Although taken
completely by surprise, Cabot wrenched the creature’s feet apart and
then threw it over his head as a bucking broncho would throw a rider, a
jiujitsu trick which he had learned from one of the Jap gymnasts at
college.
The Roy, for that is what Cabot’s assailant proved to be, scrambled
quickly to his feet, although a bit stunned, and crouched, ready to
spring at him again. The earth-man planted his feet firmly apart,
clenched his fists, and awaited the onslaught; then, when the creature
charged, he met him on the point of the jaw with a well-aimed blow. Down
crashed the furry one!
Cabot was rubbing his bruised knuckles and viewing his fallen antagonist
with some satisfaction, when suddenly he was seized around the knees
from behind, and was hurled prone by one of the neatest football tackles
he had ever experienced.
Squirming quickly to a sitting position, he dealt the Roy who held his
legs a stinging blow beside the ear. The grip on his knees loosened, and
he was just about to scramble erect, when a third assailant caught him
around the throat and pulled him over backward. Then scores of these
furry savages swarmed upon him from every side. Yet still he fought,
until his elbows were pinioned behind his back, his eyes were
blindfolded, and a gag was placed between his teeth.
Thereupon, he ceased struggling, not because there was no fight left in
him, but rather because he wisely decided to save his strength for some
time when he might really need it. So he offered no further resistance
when he was picked up and thrown across a pair of brawny shoulders, and
carried off, he knew not whither.
Finally, after what seemed many hours, he was unceremoniously dumped
onto the ground, and then jerked roughly to his feet.
His bandage was snatched off, and he found himself standing in the
center of a circle of flares, confronting a large, squat, and
particularly repulsive gray-furred Roy, who sat with some pretense of
dignity upon a round boulder in front of him. Beside him stood another
Roy, evidently the one who had brought him thither.
This one now spoke. “See the pretty Vairking which I have brought you.”
“If that’s a Vairking,” the fat one remarked, “then I’m my own father.”
“If he _isn’t_ a Vairking,” the other countered, “then why does he wear
Vairking leather armor? Answer me that.”
“Vairking or not,” the fat one declared, “he will do very nicely to
string up by the heels and shoot arrows at. For quite evidently, he is
no Roy. What say you to that, my fine target?”
The guard removed the gag.
“I say,” Myles evenly replied, “that you had better not take any such
liberties with me.”
“And why not, furless?” the seated Roy sneered.
“First, let me ask _you_ a question,” Myles said. “Who is King of the
Roies, Grod the Silent or Att the Terrible?”
“Grod the Silent, most assuredly. Why do you ask?”
“And do you know Prince Otto, his son?”
“Otto the Bold? Most assuredly.”
“Know then,” the captive asserted, “that I am no Vairking, but rather a
Minorian, which is a sort of creature I venture you have never met
before. Furthermore, I am a particular personal friend of Otto the Bold.
He will not thank you to string up Cabot the Minorian by the heels, and
shoot arrows into him. I demand that I be taken before Prince Otto.”
Thereat the fat Roy smiled a crafty smile. “I shall take you before Att
the Terrible,” he said.
It thus became evident that this fat chieftain had falsely asserted his
belief in the kingship of Grod for the purpose of securing from Myles an
admission as to which side the earth-man favored.
The rest of the night Myles spent on a pile of smelly bedding in a tent.
He was still bound, and was kept under constant surveillance by a
frequently changing guard. By morning, his arms below the elbows had
become completely numb, in spite of his having loosened his bonds
somewhat by straining against them.
When the velvet night had given place to silver day, the guard brought
some coarse porridge in a rough stone bowl, which he held to the
prisoner’s lips until it was all consumed. Myles thanked him politely,
and then asked if he would mind chafing the numbed arms.
For reply, the soldier kicked him savagely.
“Get up!” he ordered. “The time is here to start the march. You’ll wish
the rest of you were numb, too, when Att the Terrible starts shooting
arrows into your inverted carcass.”
Presently, Myles was driven into the open, the tents were struck and
loaded onto carts—probably stolen from the Vairkings—and the furry
warriors took up the march, with their prisoner in their midst. The fat
chief alone rode in a cart; all the others walked.
By straining at the thongs which bound his arms, Myles further loosened
them sufficiently to relieve the pressure on his blood vessels, and then
by wiggling his fingers, he managed finally to restore the circulation.
After that he began to take some interest in his surroundings.
His captors were a coarse-looking lot of brutes, with long gangling
arms, thickset necks, low foreheads, and prognathous jaws. In general,
they more closely resembled the anthropoid apes of the earth than they
resembled the really human, although furred Vairkings.
Their weapons—wooden spears and swords, and flint knives—were like those
of the Vairkings, only cruder. They marched without any particular order
or discipline, and jested coarsely with each other as they ambled along.
After taking in all this, Myles next turned his attention to the country
through which they were passing. The trail led upward into mountains.
This at once aroused his interest. Here and there he noted what he felt
sure must be zinc-blende. Yes, and cropping out of the rocks on the left
was an unmistakable rosette of galena crystal!
The radio man was sincerely glad that he had been captured. And so he
even joked jovially with the soldiers around him, until they became
quite friendly.
At one point, their route lay across a foaming mountain stream, by means
of a log bridge. As they were crossing over, one of the furry soldiers
had the misfortune to stumble, and in another instant completely lost
his footing and plunged headlong into the stream below. He happened to
be one who had recently become particularly chummy with the captive.
“Poor fellow,” one of the guard casually remarked. “It’s too bad he
can’t swim.”
“_I_ can,” Myles shouted. “Quick, some one cut my cords!”
And, before any one could interfere, a young and impetuous Roy had drawn
his knife and severed the earth-man’s bonds, thus permitting him to dive
after the poor creature who was rapidly being washed down stream by the
swift current.
It had all happened in an instant. A few swift strokes brought Myles up
to the other. But it became no easy matter to reach the shore. However,
the troop of Roies showed much more interest in regaining their captive,
than they had shown in rescuing their comrade; and thus, by the aid of
their spears, finally dragged the two ashore.
Then Cabot was bound again, and the march resumed. The carts had
detoured, and so the fat chief had not seen the episode.
“Better not tell him, any one,” one of the guard admonished, “or it will
go hard with the youngster. Our leader would not relish any chance of
not being able to present this furless Vairking to Att the Terrible.”
“And will Att shoot arrows into me?” Myles asked.
“Most assuredly.”
Myles thought to himself: “I guess they are right, especially if Att
knows how I was befriended by Arkilu, whom he covets!” Then he asked:
“And when am I to see the Terrible One?”
“To-morrow morning,” was the reply.
However, Myles Cabot fell asleep at the encampment that night wondering
when he would get that radio set finished for a talk with Lilla and
wondering whether that really was galena crystal which he had passed on
the road.
But galena crystal wasn’t going to help him any with Att the Terrible.
XII
COMPANIONS IN MISERY
In the morning Myles Cabot was to be brought before Att the Terrible,
king of the Roies—for execution in the diabolical manner common to these
furry aborigines, namely by being strung up by the heels and then used
as a target for the archery of the king.
In spite of this, he slept soundly and dreamed of radio sets and blast
furnaces and galena mines, until he was awakened by a soft furry paw
shaking his shoulder.
A voice spoke close to his ear: “A life for a life.”
“So you have that proverb on this continent as well as in Cupia?” was
his reply. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
“I am the soldier whom you saved from the raging mountain torrent, and
what I want is to repay that favor. It is really true that you are a
friend of Otto the Bold?”
“Yes.”
“Then come. The forces of Grod the Silent, Prince Otto’s father, are
encamped but a short distance from here. I am on guard over you for the
moment. Come, while there is yet time.”
Cabot arose in haste. The other promptly severed the cords which bound
his elbows. Oh, how good it felt to have his arms free once more! He
held them aloft, and flexed and reflexed the lame and bloodless muscles.
Excruciating pain shot through the nerves of his forearm, but it was
pleasant pain, easy to bear, for it portended peace and rest to his
tired members.
He wiggled all his fingers rapidly, and the pain gave way to a prickly
tingling, which in turn gradually faded off as the blood coursed freely
through his veins and arteries once more. He drew a deep sigh of relief.
“Come!” the guard commanded.
Together the two left the tent, and threaded their way among the other
tents out of the camp, and down a rocky hillside path, the Roy in
advance, with Myles following, holding the other’s hand for guidance.
Myles lost all sense of direction in the jet black starless night, but
the other, born and reared on Poros, and hence used to the daily
recurrences of twelve hours of absolute darkness, walked sure-footedly
ahead, and seemed to know where he was going.
Finally, after about two hours of this groping treadmill progress lights
appeared ahead, and presently there came the sentry’s challenge: “Halt!
Who is there?”
“Two messengers with word for Grod the Silent,” Cabot’s conductor
replied.
In an aside, Cabot interestedly inquired: “How does it happen that this
camp is guarded, whereas the camp which besieged the village of Sur was
not?”
“There is no need to post sentinels when fighting against the Vairkings,
for Vairkings never go out in the dark, but we Roies are different.”
“Why, then, did we meet no sentinels when leaving your camp?”
“Because we were going _out_. We passed one but he did not challenge us.
Coming _back_ would be different.”
At this point the hostile guard interposed: “Stop that whispering among
yourselves. Ho there, a light!”
Whereat a small detachment arrived on the double quick, with torches.
The leader shaded his eyes with one palm, and inspected Myles and his
companion carefully.
“This is a Vairking,” he said in surprise, noting the leather trappings
of the earth-man. “You are spies. Seize them!”
In an instant they were seized and bound, and thrown into separate tents
under guard.
When morning came, Myles was fed and then led before Grod the Silent.
The earth-man smiled ingratiatingly as he entered, but there was no sign
of recognition on the stern face of the King of the Roies.
“Who are you?” the latter asked, “and what are you doing here?”
“I am Cabot the Minorian,” was the reply, “a recently escaped prisoner
of Att the Terrible.”
“Do not mention that accursed name in my presence!” thundered the king;
then: “I do not seem to recall your name, but your face looks familiar.
Where have I seen you before?”
“In the ravine near Sur.”
Grod’s brow clouded.
“I remember. You felled me with your fist,” said he, darkly; then
brightening a bit: “But you spared me. Why?”
“Because your death would please the Roy whose name you do not permit me
to mention.”
“You improve,” Grod declared, smiling. “Know, then, that we Roies hold
to the maxim, ‘A life for a life.’ Accordingly, I shall set you free,
and shall content myself with shooting arrows into merely the soldier
who brought you here.”
“You give me a life for a life unconditionally?” asked Myles.
“Yes.”
“Then give me the life of the poor soldier who saved me from the
unmentionable one. Shoot your arrows into my body instead.”
“Very magnanimous of you,” Grod said. “And really, it makes but little
difference to me just whom I practice archery upon. Ho guard! Bring the
other prisoner in.”
One of the soldiery accordingly withdrew, and presently returned
with—Quivven! Quivven, of all persons!
Cabot gasped, and so did the golden-furred Vairking maiden; then both
uttered simultaneously the single word, “You!”
The savage chief smiled. Said he, “A slight mistake, guard; I meant you
to bring the Roy soldier who was captured with this furless one early
this morning. But evidently it has turned out to be a fortunate mistake,
for it has brought to my attention the fact that this common Vairking
man and this noble Vairking lady are acquainted.”
While the Roy was speaking an idea occurred to Cabot: He was entitled by
the code of honor of this savage race to save a life. Chivalry demanded
that he save the life of this maiden rather than that of himself, or
even the soldier who had rescued him from Att the Terrible. Yet what
would Lilla think?
Did he not owe it to Lilla to save his own life in order that he might
some day return across the boiling seas to save _her_ from the unknown
peril which menaced her? For him to sacrifice himself and her, or even
merely himself, for the sake of some strange woman, would fill Lilla
with consuming jealousy.
Luckily Lilla was not here to see him make his choice. He was an officer
and a gentleman, to whom but one course lay open. And if he decided in
the way that would displease Lilla, then that very decision would
forever prevent Lilla from knowing.
So, his mind made up, he spoke: “O king, you still owe me a life.
Inasmuch as your guard has made the mistake of substituting this young
lady for the Roy warrior, whose life I had elected to save, I now accept
the substitution, and elect that you shall spare her life in place of
mine.”
Quivven the Golden Flame stared at him with tears of gratitude and
appreciation in her azure eyes. Grod the Silent smiled knowingly in a
manner which infuriated Myles, but fortunately Quivven did not notice
this, so Myles let it pass.
Then the Roy king spoke: “We shall see about that later. Meanwhile,
guard, bring in the _right_ prisoner.”
The guard sheepishly withdrew, and soon returned with the soldier who
had befriended Myles.
“Why did you rescue this furless Vairking, who was a prisoner of your
forces?” Grod asked the newcomer.
“Because he rescued me from a mountain torrent, O king,” was the reply.
“A life for a life.”
“Quite true,” Grod admitted, nodding his head contemplatively. “But was
it altogether necessary to that end that you leave your own forces?”
“No, O king,” the soldier replied, “but I fain would battle on your
side. I have had quite enough of the fat one who commands our outfit.”
“Good!” cried Grod, clapping his hands. “We shall need every man we can
muster. Thus have you bought your own life and freedom. Unbind him,
guards, and give him weapons, so that he may fight for us. As for you,
you yellow minx, the quicker you get out of here the better it will suit
me. We are at war, and women have no place in warfare. Therefore I
gladly give you your life, which this furless one had purchased.
“Do not think,” he continued, “that I do not know who you are, or that I
do not realize that I could hold you for high ransom. But for the
present it suits my purposes to release you; for my mind is a one-cart
road, and at present I am engaged in an important and highly personal
war.
“Besides, if I were to keep you, my enemy might get hold of you and
collect the ransom himself, which would never do. Twelve days from now,
if I should be in need of carts, a messenger from me will call at the
palace of Theoph the Grim; and if you are at all grateful, you will make
me a present of about twenty sturdy wagons.
“As for you,” turning to Myles, “your life is mine, since you failed to
redeem it. Some day I may call upon you for it, but for the present I
wish to use it. You are detailed, as my personal representative, to
escort this lady safely to Vairkingi. Now both of you get out of here,
for I have more important things to do. I must put my army on the
march.”
One of the guards stepped up to Myles and cut his bonds. Quivven had not
been bound.
“May I have arms, O king, so that I can fulfill your mission with credit
to you?” Myles asked, with a twinkle in his gray eyes.
“You keep on improving,” Grod replied. “Yes, you may. Here, take my own
sword. You are a brave man and an able warrior, as my chin well
remembers. May the Builder grant that some day we shall fight side by
side.”
This gave Cabot an idea. “Why can that not be now?” he suggested. “Why
not form an alliance with Vairkingi against the unmentionable one?”
But Grod the Silent shook his head. “No,” he said positively, “it cannot
be. In the first place, the unmentionable one is himself seeking to make
such an alliance against me; and in the second place, this is my own
private fight. I have spoken.”
Then Cabot had a further idea. “About the wagons,” he said, “would you
mind sending for them to my brickyard north of Vairkingi? That would be
more convenient.”
“Very well,” Grod replied.
Roy warriors then supplied the two prisoners with portable rations, and
escorted them for quite a distance from the camp, until they struck a
mountain trail. This, the escort informed them, led to Vairkingi. There
the Roies left Myles and Quivven alone.
The first thing that she asked was, “With all these mountains full of
warring Roies, do you believe that we shall be safe?”
“I think so,” Myles replied. “The very fact that they are at war will
keep them much too busy to bother about us. Come on.”
As they hurried down the trail, each related his or her adventures to
the other. Cabot’s have already been set down. As for Quivven, she had
gone with a few soldiers to hunt for Myles after his prospecting party
had returned and reported his disappearance by the river; but her party
had been killed, and she had been taken prisoner.
“Did Grod treat you with respect?” Myles asked, with clenched fists.
“Absolutely,” she replied, tossing her pretty head. “I never knew a man
so impersonal. I am accustomed to have men recognize my presence and pay
some attention to my existence. But this brute—why, I might just as well
have been a piece of furniture or one of his servants. I don’t believe
he knows now what color my eyes are, or whether I’m pretty or not. And
you’re just as bad as he is,” she added somewhat irrelevantly.
“Your eyes are blue, and you are very pretty,” Cabot replied. “In fact,
you closely resemble my own wife, the beautiful Princess Lilla, who
waits for me far across the boiling seas.”
“Which reminds me to ask,” Quivven said abruptly. “How successful was
your expedition, apart from your being captured and getting yourself
into all kinds of trouble?”
So he told her about the glistening metallic particles in the sands of
the river. Also how he had found what were probably zinc-blende and
galena. Then they discussed in detail his plans for his various
factories. From time to time they munched some of the food which had
been given them.
The day quickly sped, and evening drew near, yet still they were upon
the mountain road with no sight of Vairkingi or of any landmark familiar
to either of them. Quivven was for stopping and resting, but Myles urged
her on.
“No matter how tired you are,” he said, “it is not safe to stop in this
strange country.”
So still she struggled on. The sky darkened without the usual pinkening
of the west. All too well they knew what that portended—one of the
heaven-splitting tropical storms so common on Poros. And they were
right. The storm broke, the thunder roared in one continuous volume of
sound, the lightning and the rain alike poured down in continuous
sheets. The trail became a mountain torrent, so that they had to cease
their journey and crawl upon a huge boulder, in order to avoid being
engulfed by the water.
The rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Again the silver sky
appeared overhead. The extempore brook rapidly disappeared, but left in
its wake a wet, muddy, and slippery trail, down which the two took up
their journey once more.
Several times Quivven stumbled and fell, until at last her companion had
to help her in order to keep her going at all. But, in spite of this
assistance, she finally broke down and cried.
“I shall not go one step farther,” she asserted.
Myles seated himself beside her and talked to her as one would soothe a
child. And that was what she was, a tired little child.
“You can’t stay here,” he urged, “the ground is damp, the night is
coming on, and your fur is sopping wet.”
“I don’t care anything about anything,” she sobbed. “All that I know is
that I positively cannot go on.”
So he decided that it would be necessary to change his tactics. “I am
ashamed of you,” he replied, “You, the daughter of a king, and can’t
stand a little exercise! Why, I believe you are just plain lazy.”
For reply she jumped to her feet in a sudden rage. “Oh, you beast!” she
cried. “You insulting beast! You common soldier, you! I’ll show you that
I can stand as much hardship as the pampered womenfolk of your Cupia,
though the men of my country, even our common soldiers, would be
gentlemanly enough not to force a lady to endure any more than is
absolutely necessary. Oh, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
“You are not being forced to endure more than is necessary,” her escort
harshly replied. “In the first place it _is_ necessary to go on; and, in
the second place, I am not forcing you. _You_ can go on or not, just as
you see fit, but as for me, I don’t intend to spend the night here in
this wet valley. Good-by!”
For reply Quivven raced ahead of him with, “Oh, how I hate you!” and
disappeared around a turn in the trail.
XIII
FURTHER PROGRESS
His change of tactics had worked, although it made him feel like a
brute. But only by arousing Quivven’s anger could he stir her to
continue the journey; and to remain would have menaced her safety and
her health.
She had a good head start of him. The silver sky was turning crimson in
the west. Night was coming on. So he hurried after her down the wet and
slippery trail.
At last it became so dark that he had to slow down and walk; and finally
merely grope his way, shoving his feet ahead, one after the other, in
order to be sure to keep to the trail and not to stumble.
Time and again his foot would touch something soft, which he would
picture as some strange and weird Porovian animal, a gnooper for
instance. Quickly he would withdraw the foot. Then waiting in suspense
for the creature either to go away or to spring upon him, at last he
would cautiously push his foot forward, touch the object again, kick it
slightly, and find that it was only a clump of Porovian grass or a
rotted piece of lichen log.
Poor Quivven! How terrified _she_ must be at such encounters!
After a while he got a bit used to these occurrences, and accordingly
each succeeding one of them delayed him less than the preceding.
“You know,” he said to himself, “this will keep on until finally one of
these obstacles will actually turn out to be a gnooper, and it will eat
me alive before I can get out of the way.”
Just then his groping foot touched another of these soft objects.
“Get out of my way,” Cabot shouted, and gave it a kick. But this time it
was not attached to the soil. It yielded and wriggled a bit. Then it
gave a peculiar groaning sound.
Myles leaped backward and waited. But nothing happened; so he tried to
circle the creature. Again the groan. His scientific curiosity got the
better of his caution. He approached once more and investigated more
closely, reaching down with his hand. The animal was covered with wet
and muddy fur.
It was Quivven!
Tenderly he raised the crumpled form in his arms, and groped on down the
treacherous trail.
Myles wondered how long he could bear up with this dead weight in his
arms. But just as he was beginning to stagger, the road gave a turn and
flattened out, and there before him were lights, the flares and bonfires
of a city! They had reached the plain.
“Quivven!” he cried joyfully. “This is home! There ahead lies
Vairkingi!”
But she made no reply. Her body was cold and still.
Quickly he laid her on the ground and placed one ear to her chest. Thank
the Great Builder! Her heart still beat. So he chafed her hands and
feet, and worked her arms violently back and forth until she began to
groan protestingly.
“Quivven!” he cried. “Wake up! We are home!”
“Are you here, Myles?” she murmured faintly,
“Yes.”
“And you won’t make me walk any more?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll wake up for you,” she murmured cheerfully, and promptly fell
fast asleep.
Again lifting her tenderly in his arms, he resumed the journey.
On reaching the city he circled the wall until he came to one of the
gates, where he stood the girl on the ground and shook her gently into
consciousness.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“At the gates of Vairkingi,” Myles answered.
She ran her hands rapidly over her mud-caked fur.
“Oh, but I can’t go in like this,” she wailed, “I’m covered with mud
from head to foot! Think how I must look! No, I refuse to go in.”
“If you stay here,” he urged mildly, “then when morning comes every one
will see you, the Princess Quivven, bedraggled with mud, hanging around
outside the city gates. Better far to go in now, and take a chance of
being seen by only one sentinel.”
“Oh, you beast, you beast!” she sobbed, beating him futilely with her
tiny paws.
For reply he seized her in his arms, swung her across one hip, and
shouted: “Open wide the gates of Vairkingi for Cabot the Minorian,
magician to Jud the Excuse-Maker, and to his Excellency Theoph the
Grim!”
The gates swung open, and the sentinel stared at them with surprise and
some amusement. Myles whipped out his sword, and the smile froze on the
soldier’s face.
“Thus do I teach men not to laugh at Myles Cabot,” the earth-man
growled. “Remember that you have seen nothing.”
And he handed the soldier the choice blade of Grod the Silent. The
soldier smiled again.
“I have seen nothing but a Roy, whom I robbed of his sword and drove off
into the darkness. It is a fine sword, and I will remember that I have
seen nothing. May the Great Builder bless Myles Cabot the Minorian.”
Cabot glanced at his burden, Quivven, the beautiful. No wonder she did
not want to be seen. It always humiliates a lady not to look her best in
public. But by the same token, no one could possibly recognize her. He
might perfectly well have saved the sword.
So he passed on through the city streets. Finally he had to put the girl
down, and ask her to help him find the way, which she did grudgingly. At
the gate of Jud’s compound, Myles again swung her across his hip, before
he demanded entrance. No swords this time, for diplomacy would take the
place of payment.
“Myles Cabot demanding entrance,” he cried.
The local guard inspected them carefully by the light of his torch.
“It is Cabot all right,” he replied, “and you look as though you had
seen some hard fighting. But who is this with you?”
“A girl of the Roies,” answered Myles. “That is what the fighting was
about.”
“Not for mine!” the soldier asserted, grimacing. “Though there is no
accounting for tastes. They are filthy little beasts, and spitfires as
well, so I’m told. My advice to you, sir, is to throw it down a well.”
Quivven wriggled protestingly.
“Perhaps I will,” Myles laughed.
At their own gate at last, he placed her once more on her feet, whereat
she shook herself free, raced into the house, slammed the door of her
room.
Cabot himself went right to bed, without waiting to wash or anything,
and dropped instantly to sleep the moment he touched his pile of
bedding; yet, so intent was he on wasting no time in getting Cupia on
the air that he was up early the next morning.
He found his laboratory force sadly demoralized, owing to the absence of
Quivven and himself, but he quickly brought order out of chaos, and set
the men to work on their first real construction job, to which all the
other work had been mere preliminary steps.
Quivven kept to her rooms, but one of the other maids roguishly informed
him: “The Golden One says she hates you.”
Now that his fire-bricks were ready, Myles Cabot laid out on paper the
plans for his smelting plant, all the units of which were to be lined
with fire-brick.
First he designed a furnace for roasting his ore. This furnace was to be
in two sections, one above the other, the lower holding the charcoal
fire, and the upper holding the ore. Later he planned to use the sulphur
fumes of this roaster to make sulphuric acid, which in turn he would use
to make sal ammoniac for his batteries. But at present he had not yet
figured out this process in detail.
The smelting furnace, for smelting the roasted ore into copper-matter,
was to consist of a chimney about two feet in diameter, sloping sharply
outward for about two feet, and thence sloping gradually inward again
for a height of about ten feet. Near the bottom were to be a number of
small holes leading from an air passage.
This air passage and the vent for the hot flames from the top of the
smelter were to run in parallel pipes made of hollow brick tile, to two
chambers containing a checkerwork design of fire-brick. The two pipes
were to be interchangeable; so that, when the exhaust had heated one of
the checkerwork grids to a red heat, the pipes could be switched, and
the incoming air would be warmed by passing through the heated grid.
From gnooper hide and wood he could easily construct bellows to pump in
the air for the blast.
Molten copper-matte and slag would be separately run off through two
separate openings at different levels near the bottom of the blast
furnace.
To further refine the matte, he designed a Bessemer converter, that is
to say, a barrel-shaped box of layers of fire clay, the inner layer
being very rich in quartz sand. This barrel, when filled with molten
matte, would be laid on its side; and a hot blast introduced through
holes near this side would convert the matte into pure copper in about
two hours.
The first converter which he made was rather small, as he expected that
it would not last very well without metal reinforcements, and of course
he would have no metal for reenforcing purposes until after he had run
off at least one heat.
For the extraction of iron, he made crucibles of fireclay, which he set
in deep holes in the ground.
On the second morning after the unpleasant homecoming, Quivven appeared.
All her rage had burned out, and she was meek and subdued.
With downcast eyes she reported to Myles: “I am ready to go to work
now.”
With a welcoming smile he patted her golden-furred shoulder, whereat her
old anger started to flare again, but this one remaining ember merely
flickered and died out, and she submitted with a shrug of resignation.
So the Radio Man explained to her his plans for the furnaces; then,
leaving her in charge of the work, he set out once more to the river of
the silver sands, this time accompanied by a heavy guard of Vairking
soldiers, and flying a blue flag, as agreed on with Prince Otto of the
Roies.
As he was departing, Quivven flung her arms around him and begged him
not to go to certain destruction, but he gently disengaged himself,
smiling indulgently at this show of childish affection.
“My dear little girl,” he admonished, “most of our troubles last time
came from your following me. This time I warn you that I shall be very
displeased if you fail to stick closely to home and complete my two
magic furnaces for me. Promise me that you will.”
So, with tears of dread in her blue eyes, she promised; and the
expedition set forth. They were gone about five days. The trip proved
uneventful from any except a scientific viewpoint. They returned,
bearing several pounds of silvery grains, placermined from the river
sands; also some large lumps of galena crystal, and nearly a ton of
zinc-blende. They found that, under the skillful direction of little
Quivven, the furnaces were nearly completed.
Quivven the Golden Flame was overjoyed at Cabot’s safe return, while
even he had to confess considerable relief. He complimented her warmly
on the progress of the furnaces, and noted her pleasure at his
expressions of approval.
A few details which had perplexed her were quickly straightened out, and
the work was rushed to completion.
He next tested the silver grains which he had brought from the river.
His method was a very simple one, invented by himself. It consisted in
filling a clay cup with water and weighing it, then weighing a quantity
of the metal, and then putting this metal in the water and weighing the
whole. A simple mathematical calculation from these three weights gave
him the specific gravity of the metal. This process was repeated a
number of times to avoid error, and gave as an average the figure 21.5,
which he remembered to be the specific gravity of pure platinum.
As a further test he hammered some of the supposed platinum into a thin
sheet, and attempted, without success, to melt it. Then he laid a sliver
of one of his lead bullets on it, and tried again, with the result that
the lead melted and burned a hole through the metal sheet. This test
convinced him that he truly had found platinum.
Cabot next turned his attention to glass making. For ordinary glass he
would need quartz, soda, potash, and limestone.
The reason for his employing both soda and potash instead of merely one
or the other, was that together they would have a lower fusing point,
and thus be easier for him to handle with his crude equipment. For glass
for his tubes he would use litharge in place of the limestone.
The quartz and the limestone were already available. Soda would be a
byproduct of his sal ammoniac when he got around to making it, but this
would not be until he had made sulphuric acid from his copper ore, which
was a most complicated process as he remembered it.
Potash could be got simply by dripping water through wood-ashes,
evaporating the water, roasting the sediment, dissolving again in water,
letting the impurities settle, and then evaporating the clear liquid,
and roasting again. He started this process at once.
But he had no idea how to make litharge. Furthermore, he could not blow
his glass until he had metal tubes, so he abandoned further steps for
the present.
While he was pondering over these problems a messenger arrived,
demanding his immediate presence at the quarters of Jud the
Excuse-Maker.
Jud was in a state of great excitement when the earth-man arrived.
Said Jud: “Do you remember what you told me about the beasts of the
south, who swim through the air, talk soundless speech, and use magic
slingshots like yours which you captured from the Roies near Sur?”
“Yes,” Cabot replied. “I hope that by this time I have given sufficient
demonstration of my truthfulness so that you now believe the story.”
“Oh, I believed it at the time,” Jud hastily explained, “But now I have
proof of it, for we have captured one of these beasts. That is, we
_think_ it is one of them. I want you to see and identify it, before we
present it to Theoph the Grim.”
“Thereby displaying commendable foresight,” Myles commented. “Where is
this Formian?”
“In a cage in the zoo,” the Vairking noble replied. “Come; I will take
you there.”
So together the two threaded the streets of Vairkingi to the zoo. This
was part of the city which the earth-man had never before visited. Its
denizens fascinated him.
There were huge water snakes with humanlike hands. There were spherical
beasts with a row of legs around the equator, a row of eyes around the
tropic of cancer, and a circular mouth rimmed with teeth at the north
pole. There were—
But at this point Jud urged him on into another room, where he promptly
forgot all the other creatures in the sight which met his eyes.
In a large wooden cage in the center of the room was an enraged ant-man
gnawing at the bars, while a score or so of Vairking warriors stood
around and prodded him with spears.
“Stop!” Jud shouted at the soldiery, whereat they all fell back
obediently.
This called the attention of the imprisoned beast to the newcomers, so
he looked up and stared at them. Cabot stared back.
Then he rushed forward to the cage!
XIV
OLD FRIENDS
“Doggo!” he cried. “Doggo! They told me you were dead!”
But of course all this was lost on the radio speech sense of the
prisoner. Vairking soldiers interposed their spears between Myles Cabot
and what they believed was sure destruction at the jaws of the black
beast. Cabot recoiled.
“Jud,” he called out, “order off your henchmen! I am not crazy, nor do I
court death. This creature is the only one of the Formians whom I can
control. He will prove a valuable ally for us, if I can persuade him to
forgive the indignities which your men have already heaped upon him.”
“I do not believe you,” Jud replied, “for how can men communicate with
beasts, especially with strange beasts such as this, the like of which
man ne’er set eyes on before?”
“Remember that I am a magician,” Myles returned somewhat testily. Then
seeing that Jud was still obdurate, he addressed the guards. “You know
me for a magician?”
“Yes,” they sullenly admitted.
“And you know the magic on which I am now engaged, and to which all of
my recent expeditions relate?”
“Yes,” one replied. “You seek to call down the lightnings of heaven, and
harness them to transport your words across the boiling seas.”
“Rightly spoken!” the Radio Man asserted. “Therefore, if you do not
stand aside, I shall call those lightnings down for another purpose,
namely, to blast you. Stand aside!”
One of the guards spoke to another, “Why should we risk our lives to
save his? Let the magician save himself!”
So they stood aside. Myles stepped up to the cage, and he and Doggo each
patted the other’s cheek through the bars.
Jud the Excuse-Maker sheepishly explained, “I knew that you were
speaking the truth, but I wished to learn what method you would use to
handle the soldiers. You did nobly.”
“Bunk!” the earth-man ejaculated, well knowing that the Vairking would
not understand him.
“What means that word?” Jud inquired, much interested.
“That,” Myles replied, grinning, “is a complimentary term often applied
on my own planet, the earth, to the remarks of our great leaders.”
Jud, highly complimented, let it go at that. Myles now ordered paper and
a charcoal pencil, and began a conversation with his ant friend.
“They told me you were dead,” he wrote. “Or I never would have left the
city of Yuriana or deserted your cause.”
“My cause died with my daughter, the queen,” Doggo replied. “I alone
survive. I escaped by plane, and have been flitting around the country
ever since, until my alcohol gave out. Then these furry Cupians captured
me. They got me with a net so that I could not fight back.
“Also, I was distant from my airship at the time, or it would have gone
hard with them for the ship is well stocked with bombs, and rifle
cartridges, and one rifle. Now tell me of yourself. How do you stand
with these furry Cupians?”
“They are not Cupians.” Myles wrote. “They are Vairkings, a race much
like myself, who send messages with their mouths and with their ears,
instead of using their antennae for both, as the Cupians and you
Formians do. Do you remember the old legend of Cupia, that creatures
like me dwell beyond the boiling seas? Well, it appears to have been
true, though how any one could have known or even suspected it, is a
mystery to me.”
“You have not yet told me how you stand,” the ant-man reminded him.
“They recognize me as a great magician,” Myles answered, “and I have
promised to build them a radio set, and to lead them to victory over the
Formians.”
“Just as you did for the Cupians,” Doggo mused. “But you will have a
harder task here, for these furry creatures appear to know no metals,
nor any of the arts save woodcarving.”
They patted each other’s cheeks again. Then, before any one could
interfere, Myles Cabot unbolted the door of the cage, and out walked
Doggo, a free ant once more.
The soldiery, and Jud with them, promptly scattered to the four walls of
the room.
“Come over here, Jud,” Myles invited, “and meet my friend—that is,
unless you are afraid.”
“Oh, no, I do not fear him,” Jud the Excuse-Maker replied, “but I do not
consider it consistent with the dignity of my position to be seen
fraternizing with a wild beast.”
It was typical. Myles laughed. Then he led the huge ant home with him to
his quarters.
Quivven was amazed, but not at all frightened, at the great black
creature; and when an introduction had been effected on paper, she and
Doggo developed quite a strong liking for each other.
As soon as the Formian had been fed and assigned to a room in the
ménage—some improvement over the menagerie, by the way—his host and
hostess took him on a tour of inspection of their laboratory.
With the true scientific spirit so characteristic of the cultured but
warlike race which once dominated Cupia, Doggo plunged at once into the
spirit of the almost super-Porovian task which Myles had undertaken; and
it soon became evident that the new comer would prove to be an
invaluable accession. His scientific training would dovetail exactly
with that of the earth-man, and would supplement it at every point.
Almost at the very start he suggested a solution of the problems which
had been puzzling Myles.
Cabot’s recollection of the process of sulphuric acid manufacture had
been that it required a complicated roasting furnace, two filtering
towers, and a tunnel about two hundred feet long made of lead, and into
which nitric acid fumes had to be injected. His recollection of nitric
acid manufacture was that it required sulphuric acid among other
ingredients. So how was he to make either acid without first having the
other? And furthermore, where was he to procure enough lead to build a
two-hundred-foot tunnel?
Doggo solved these problems very nicely—by avoiding them.
“What do you need sulphuric add for?” he wrote.
“Merely to use in making hydrochloric acid,” wrote the earth-man in
reply.
“And that?”
“To use in making sal ammoniac for my batteries.”
“Do you need nitric acid for anything except the manufacture of
sulphuric?”
“No.”
“Then,” Doggo suggested, “let us make our sal ammoniac directly from its
elements. We shall build a series of about twenty vertical cast-iron
retorts, as soon as you have smelted your iron. These we shall fill with
damp salt, pressed into blocks and dried. We shall heat these retorts
with charcoal fires, and through them we shall pass then, air, and the
sulphur fumes of your ore-roasting.
“After about fifteen days we shall daily cut out the first retort, dump
out the soda which has formed in it, refill it, and place it at the
farther end of the series. The liquid, which condenses at the end of the
series, will be diluted hydrochloric acid. By passing the fumes of roast
animal-refuse through it we shall convert it into sal ammoniac
solution.”
Accordingly, the quicker they started their foundry operations, the
better.
By this time chalcopyrite, quartz, and charcoal were present at
Vairkingi in large quantities. The ore was first roasted, and then was
piled into the smelter with the quartz and charcoal; the air-bellows
were started, fire was inserted through the slaghole, and soon a raging
pillar of flame served notice on all Vairkingi that the devil-furnace of
the great magician was in full blast. By this time it was night, but no
one thought of stopping.
Of course, there were complications. The furry soldiers deserted the
pumps at the first roar of green-tinged flame, but Doggo instantly
stepped into the breach and operated all of the bellows with his various
legs. Finally the warriors, on seeing that Myles and Quivven had
survived the ordeal of fire, sheepishly returned to their posts, and
were soon loudly boasting of their own bravery and of how their fellows
would envy them on the morrow when they should relate their experiences.
Along toward morning Cabot drew his first heat of molten matter into a
brick ladle and poured it into the converter. It was an impressive
sight. The shadowy wooden-walled inclosure, lit by the waving greenish
flare of a pillar of fire, which metamorphosed the white skin of the
earth-man into that of a jaundiced Oriental, tinged Quivven with
green-gold, and glinted off the shiny carapace of Doggo as off the
facets of a bloodstone. In the darkness of the background, toiled the
workers at their pumps.
Then there came a change. The fires died down, the pumping ceased, oil
lamps were lit, and the ghostly glare gave place to a faint but healthy
light, although over all hung the ominous silence of expectancy.
The ladle was brought up, a hand-hole-cover removed, and out flowed a
crimson liquid, tinting all the eager surrounding faces with a sinister
ruddiness.
Again the red glare, as the ladle was poured into the barrel-shaped
converter. Then the pumps were started again, and the blast from the
converter replaced that of the furnace with its ghostly light. Two hours
later the converter was tipped, and pure molten copper was poured out
into the ladle. Once more the sinister ruddiness.
Quickly the molds were filled, the red light was gone, the spell was
broken, conversation was resumed. The first metallurgy of Vairkingi was
an accomplished fact.
Day came, and with it loud pounding on the gate. Cabot answered it,
carelessly and abstractedly sliding back the bolt before inquiring who
was outside. The gate swung open with a bang, almost knocking Myles into
a flower bed, and in rushed a Vairking youth with drawn sword and
panting heavily.
“You beast!” he cried, lunging at the earth-man as he spoke.
But in his haste and anger he lunged too hard and too far; so that
Cabot, although unarmed, was able to step under his guard and grasp him
by the wrist before he recovered. Quick as lightning the boy’s sword arm
was bent up behind his back, and he was “in chancery”, to use the
wrestling term.
Slowly, grimly, Cabot forced the imprisoned hand upward between the
shoulder-blades of his opponent, until with a groan the latter
relinquished the sword, and it fell clattering to the ground.
Smiling, Cabot stooped down and picked it up, and forced the young
intruder against the wall.
“Now,” said the earth-man, “explain yourself.”
The boy faced Myles like a cornered panther.
“It’s Quivven,” he snarled. “You have stolen my Quivven.”
“Nonsense!” Myles exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
“I am Tipi the Steadfast,” the youth replied. “Long have I loved the
Golden Flame, and she me, until you came to this city. When you arrived
I was away on a military expedition, winning distinctions to lay at the
tiny feet of my fair one. Last night I returned to find her working at
your laboratory. One or the other, you or I, must die.”
“You are absurd!”
“In _my_ country,” Tipi returned, looking the earth-man straight in the
eye, “no common soldier is permitted to dictate manners to a gentleman.
I repeat that Quivven—”
But at this point, Myles cuffed the young Vairking over one ear,
knocking him flat upon the walk; and, as he scrambled sputtering to his
feet, dealt him another blow which sent him reeling into the street.
Then Myles barred the gate, and turned toward the house.
In the doorway stood Quivven, shaking with laughter. Myles was
immediately embarrassed. He hadn’t known that his encounter had been
observed. He hated to show off, and was afraid that his actions had
appeared very melodramatic.
“Isn’t Tipi silly?” she asked.
“But he may make trouble with your father,” Myles said, with a worried
frown.
“Oh, I’m not afraid of father.”
“But he will put an end to my experiments.”
So Quivven went home to chat with her father before young Tipi could get
there to stir up possible trouble. She returned later in the day to
resume her work. While she was gone, Cabot conferred with Doggo.
“Why are you building this radio set?” the ant-man wrote. “I did not ask
you before in the presence of the lady, for I felt that perhaps you did
not wish her to know your plans.”
“Doggo, you show remarkable intuition,” Myles wrote in reply. “It is
true that I do not wish any of the Vairkings to know. My idea is to
communicate with Cupia, learn how Lilla is getting along, and encourage
my supporters there to hold out until in some way I can secure a Formian
airship and return across the boiling seas.”
“Then cease your work,” Doggo wrote, “for my plane, in perfect
condition, lies carefully hidden in a wood not a full day’s journey from
this city. All that we need is alcohol for the trophil-engines.”
XV
PLANS FOR ESCAPE
“We can make the alcohol in a few days in my laboratory,” Cabot wrote,
“but it will not do for us to escape too precipitately, lest our plans
be discovered and blocked. The Vairkings like sleight-of-hand, and wish
to keep me with them as their court magician. Let us bide our time until
they become sufficiently accustomed to you, so that they will not
question your accompanying me on an expedition. Then, away to the plane,
and off to Cupia!”
The ant-man assented. It seemed logical. And yet I wonder if this logic
would not have done credit to Jud the Excuse-Maker. I wonder if Cabot
was not subconsciously influenced by a scientific desire to complete his
radio set in this land of people who used only wood and flint. I wonder.
At all events, the work proceeded.
He had planned to use the slag from the copper furnace as the “ore” for
his iron, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that
its high sulphur content would probably ruin any steel which he
produced. Fortunately, however, he ran across a deposit of magnetic iron
ore near Vairkingi.
This he ground and placed in his crucibles with charcoal, and they built
charcoal fires in the pits around them. The slag he slammed off with
copper—later iron—ladles. The melting had to be repeated many times in
order to purify the iron sufficiently, and further in order to secure
just the right carbon content for cast-iron, steel, or wrought-iron,
according to which he needed for any particular purpose. This securing
the proper carbon content was largely a matter of cut-and-try.
With iron and steel available, he now made pots, retorts, hammers,
anvils, drills, wire-drawing dies, and a decent Bessemer converter.
Copper tubes for glass-blowing, and copper wire were drawn. A simple
wooden lathe was made for winding thread around the wires. This thread,
by the way, was the only Vairkingian product which the earth-man found
ready to his hand.
As soon as the iron retorts were available, the joint manufacture of sal
ammoniac and soda was started, as already outlined by Doggo.
In iron pots, Cabot melted together finely ground white sand, with lime,
soda, and potash, and blew the resulting glass into bottles, retorts,
test tubes, and other laboratory apparatus; also jars for his electric
batteries. He used both soda and potash, as this would render the glass
more fusible than if made with either alone.
Lead was melted from galena crystal in small quantities for solder. Thus
was suggested to Doggo, the manufacture, on the side, of bullets,
gunpowder, and cartridges, for the rifle which Myles had in his
quarters, and for the one which lay in the concealed airplane.
Tales of the copper-smelting had spread among the populace, who evinced
such great interest that double guards had to be placed and maintained
about the laboratory inclosure. And every returning military expedition
brought with it samples of unusual minerals.
Meanwhile, Cabot instituted a regular campaign of getting Vairkingi
accustomed to Doggo. Every day, Doggo would parade the high-walled
streets, with Quivven the Golden Flame perched upon his back. The
ten-foot ant inspired great interest and considerable fear.
She enjoyed her rides thoroughly, not only for the novelty of the thing,
but also because her seat on his six-foot-high back brought her head
above the level of the fence palings, and thus enabled her to survey the
private yards of everyone.
Tipi had not been seen or heard from.
Arkilu the Beautiful thoroughly made up with the earth-man, and even
admitted that her love for him had been a mistake. Plans for her wedding
with Jud proceeded rapidly. When this coming marriage was publicly
announced, Att the Terrible sent in a Roy runner with the message that
he didn’t in the least care.
Quivven now lived in the palace, so as to be near her father, but came
to work regularly each day. Theoph the Grim interposed no objection to
this, and, in fact, frequently accompanied his daughter to the
laboratory. He loved to mess around the bottles and retorts, and lost
much of the grimness when engaged in this childish meddlesomeness.
So every one was happy except Tipi the Steadfast and Att the Terrible.
Jud continued the operation of the brickyard, even though Cabot had no
more need of bricks, for Jud planned to build himself a brick palace
which would outshine even the palace of King Theoph.
Melting the platinum for the wires presented a problem, until Myles
thought of electrolizing some ordinary water into its constituent
hydrogen and oxygen, and then burning these two materials together in a
double blow-pipe, much like that used in oxyacetylene welding.
But to do this he had to make batteries. To this end he already had sal
ammoniac and jars. He needed carbon and zinc. For carbon he pressed
charcoal into compact blocks. To extract zinc from the blend ore he made
long cylindrical retorts of clay, with a long clay pipe for a vent. The
ore, after being thoroughly roasted in the copper-roasting furnace to
remove all sulphur, was ground, mixed with half its weight of powered
charcoal, and then charged into the retorts, where it was baked. The
result was to distill the pure zinc, which condensed on the walls of the
tubes.
Cabot now at last had all the elements for his batteries, and so was
able, by employing about seventy cells in multiple, to get the two
volts, three hundred fifty amperes, necessary to electrolize the oxygen
and hydrogen for melting his platinum.
The platinum proved to be quite free of iridium, and so was easily drawn
into wires.
Needless to state, the distilling of alcohol in large quantities,
ostensibly for the laboratory burners, but actually for Doggo’s
airplane, was commenced as soon as they had blown their first glass
retorts.
Myles was going strong!
One day, in the midst of all this technical progress, as Myles was
passing through one of the streets of Vairkingi on some errand or other,
and admiring the quaint and brightly colored wood carvings on the high
walls which lined the way, his attention was arrested by the design over
one of the gateways.
It was a crimson swastika within a crimson triangle, the insignia of the
priests of the lost religion of Cupia, the priests who had befriended
him in their hidden refuge of the Caves of Kar, when he was a fugitive
during the dark days of his second war against the ant-men.
Could it be that the lost religion was also implanted upon _this_
continent? Myles had never discussed religion with Arkilu, or Jud, or
Quivven, or Crota, or any of his Vairking friends. Somehow the subject
had never come up. Full of curiosity, Cabot knocked in the door.
Immediately a small round aperture opened and a voice from within
inquired “Whence come you?”
For reply, the earth-man gave one of the passwords of the Cupian
religion. To his surprise, the gate swung open, and he was admitted into
the presence of a long-robed priest, clad exactly like his friends of
the Caves of Kar.
“What do you wish?” asked the guardian of the gate.
Having made his way so far, Myles decided to continue, on the analogy of
the religion of his own continent. Accordingly, he boldly replied, “I
wish to speak with the Holy Leader.”
“Very well,” said the guard; and closing the gate and barring it, he led
Myles through many winding passages, to a door on which he knocked three
times.
The knock was repeated from within, the door opened, and Myles entered
to gaze upon a strangely familiar scene. The room was richly carved and
colored. On three sides hung the stone lamps of the Vairkings. Around
the walls sat a score or more of long-robed priests, some on the level
and some on slightly raised platforms. On the highest platform of all,
directly opposite the point where Cabot had entered, sat the only hooded
figure in the chamber, quite evidently the leader of the faith.
Him the earth-man approached, and bowed low.
Whereat, there came the unexpected words: “Welcome to Vairkingi, Myles
Cabot.”
Then the priest descended, took the visitor by the hand, and led him to
a seat at his own left. A few minutes later, the assembly had been
temporarily suspended, and Myles and his host were chatting together
like old friends.
Myles told the venerable prelate the complete history of all his
adventures on both continents of the planet Poros, not omitting to dwell
with considerable detail upon the vicissitudes of the lost religion of
Cupia. This interested the priest greatly, and he asked numerous
questions in that connection.
“Strange! Strange!” he ruminated. “It is undoubtedly the same religion
as ours. So there must at some time have been some connection between
the two continents.”
“Yes, there must have been,” the earth-man assented, “for the written
language of both Cupia and Vairkingi is the same. Yet the totally
different flora and fauna of the two continents negatives this history.”
“Where did the Cupians originate, if you know?” the priest inquired.
“We do not know,” Myles replied, “but there are two conflicting legends.
One is that the forerunners of the race came from across the boiling
seas. The other is that they sprang, fully formed, from the soil. There
is also a legend that creatures like me dwell beyond the boiling seas;
and _this_ legend, at least, appears to be borne out by the existence of
your Vairkings.”
“Strange! Still more strange!” the prelate declared. “For we have but
_one_ story of _our_ origin. The race of Vairkings descended from
another world above the skies. Who knows but that we, like you, came
from that place which you call the planet—Minos, I think, you said?”
After some further conversation, the conclave was called to order again,
and Myles took this as the signal for his departure. He was given a warm
invitation to return.
Truly, a new avenue of speculation had been opened up to him by his
chance meeting with the Holy Leader. Myles firmly resolved to return
again at the earliest opportunity. But, from this time on, events moved
with such rapidity that never again did he enter the sacred precincts.
First, he was stumped by his radio tubes. How was he to make a
vacuum-pump which would exhaust the air?
The solution, when it finally occurred to him, was absurdly simple; he
utilized atmospheric pressure.
He made a glass tube thirty feet long, and sealed his grid, his plates
and his lead-wires into one end, closing that end off hermetically. Then
he fashioned a piston of waterproof cloth fiber so as to fit into the
closed end, almost touching these elements and yet free to move away
from them without tearing them. Then he filled the tube with water, and
inverted it. But the water did not drop away to a height of about
twenty-eight feet, as it would have done on Earth.
Of course not, for this was Venus—Venus of an atmospheric pressure
practically equal to that of earth, holding the water up; and yet with a
gravity much less than that of Earth, tending to pull, the water down!
But, by lengthning the pipe sufficiently, Cabot finally got the proper
balance, the fiber piston was pulled down, and a partial vacuum,
practically free of water-vapor had been created. He then sealed off the
upper portion of the glass tube with his blow-torch, and had his radio
triad.
For these radio tubes, the glass was made according to a special
formula. Of this same glass, Cabot fashioned lenses for the goggles
which he and Doggo planned to wear on their trip home across the boiling
seas.
One of the constituents of this special glass is lead monoxide, commonly
known as litharge. This gave the Radio Man some concern, until Doggo
suggested melting lead in a rotating cylindrical iron drum with spiral
ribs. By pumping cold air in one end of this drum, fine particles of
litharge were driven out through the other, where they accumulated in a
stationary container.
About this time the king and Jud began clamoring for results, so Cabot
made a few electric lights with platinum filaments. And entirely apart
from pacifying his two patrons it was well that he did this, for the
speedy burning out of these lights showed him that he had a new problem
to face, namely: the elimination of all traces of oxygen in his tubes.
He got rid of considerable by placing tubes in a strong magnetic field
while exhausting, but this was not quite enough.
It looked as though his experiments would have to end at this point; for
with an immense quantity of alcohol completed, and with pyrex glass for
their goggles, everything was all set for the conspirators to locate
Doggo’s hidden plane and fly across the boiling seas to Cupia.
The Vairkings were by now sufficiently used to the huge ant-man and to
his participation in Cabot’s scientific experiments, so that no
objection would be raised to his accompanying the radio man on one of
the latter’s expeditions in search of certain minerals which he believed
could be found in the country.
Two carts, laden with tents, food and bedding, were taken along, and
beneath these supplies he placed the alcohol and goggles. There was no
need to conceal them, for none of the Vairkings, except Quivven, ever
had any very distinct knowledge of what he was about, and to her he
explained that the alcohol was for the purpose of loosening certain
materials from the solid rocks, and that the goggles were to protect his
and Doggo’s eyes from the fumes.
A squad of soldiers pulled the carts. Doggo had demurred at this,
suggesting that the soldiers be left behind, and offering to pull them
himself, but Myles pointed out how easily he could scatter the Vairkings
when the time came, by threatening them with his “magic sling-shot” (i.
e., rifle).
Early in the morning they set forth, just as the unseen rising sun began
to tint the eastern sky with purple. When the time came to say farewell
to Quivven Myles found to his surprise that his voice was positively
choked with emotion.
“Good-by, Golden Flame,” he said. “Please wish me a safe journey.”
“Of course I do,” she said, “But why so sad? You sound as though you
never expected to see me again.”
“One never can tell,” he replied.
“Your food has disagreed with you,” she bantered. “I feel confident that
you will return. For have you not often quoted to me: ‘They cannot kill
a Minorian?’ Run along now, and come back safely.”
Thus he left her, a smile on her face and a tear in his eye. He hated to
deceive Quivven, who had been a good little pal, in spite of her
occasional flare-ups of temper. He looked back and waved to her where
she stood like a golden statue upon the city wall; it would be his last
glimpse of a true friend. Then he set his face resolutely to the
eastward.
Not only did he feel a pang at leaving Quivven, but he felt even more of
a pang at leaving his radio-set half finished. The scientist always
predominated in his makeup; and besides, like the good workman that he
was, he hated an unfinished job.
But he realized that his radio project had been only a means to an
end—the end being to get in touch with his friends and family in
Cupia—and that this end was about to be accomplished more directly. Just
think, to-morrow night he would be home, ready to do battle for his
loved ones against the usurper Yuri! The thought thrilled him, and all
regrets passed away.
Lilla! He was to see his beautiful dainty Lilla once more; and his baby
son, Kew, rightful ruler of Cupia! He resolved that, once back with them
again, he would never more leave them. Lilla had been right; his return
to Earth had been a foolhardy venture; results had proved it. As
Poblath, the Cupian philosopher, used to say, “The test of a plan is how
it works out.”
Cabot was eager, even impatient, to see the ant-plane which was to carry
him home. He was bubbling over with questions to ask his ant-man
companion; the condition of the plane, its exact location, how well it
had been concealed, and so forth. But his only means of communication
with Doggo was in writing, and it would never do to delay the expedition
for the purpose of indulging in a written conversation. So he merely
fretted and fumed, and urged the Vairking pullers of the carts to
greater speed.
But along toward evening a calm settled over him, a joyous calm. He was
going home, going home! The words sang in his ears. He was going to
Cupia, to baby Kew, and Princess Lilla. A nervous warmth flooded through
his being, and tingled at his fingertips. He felt the strength to
overcome any obstacles which might confront him. He was going home!
Just before sunset the party encamped on the outskirts of a small grove
of trees, which Doggo indicated as the hiding-place of his plane and
other supplies. It had already been agreed that they should not inspect
the machine before morning for they did not wish to give even the slow
brains of Vairking soldiers a chance to figure out their ulterior
purpose, and perhaps to dispatch a runner to Vairkingi with a warning to
Theoph and Jud.
So Myles was forced to possess his soul in patience, and await the dawn.
To keep his mind off his troubles he sat with the furry warriors about
their camp fire, and told them tales of Cupia and the planet Earth.
Never before, in their experience, had this strange furless leader of
theirs been so graciously condescending or so sociable. It was an
evening which they would long remember.
Finally they all turned in for the night. The earth-man slept fitfully,
and dreamed of encounters in which, with his back to the wall, he fought
with a wooden sword alone against Prince Yuri, and ant-men, and
Vairkings, and Cupians, and whistling bees, in defense of Lilla and her
son.
Yet such is the strange alchemy of dreams that sometimes Lilla’s face
seemed to be covered with golden fur.
With the first red flush of morning Cabot and Doggo bestirred
themselves, and informed their campmates that they intended to do a bit
of prospecting before breakfast. Then they set out into the interior of
the wood, the ant-man leading the way. At last they came to a small
clearing and beyond it a thicket, which Doggo indicated with one paw as
being the spot which they sought. There was to be the plane!
Parting the foliage, they looked inside. But the thicket was empty!
On the farther side the bushes had been recently chopped down, and
thence there lay a wide swath of cut trees clear out of the woods. It
was only too evident that the precious plane had been stolen!
XVI
AFTERTHOUGHTS
There could be no doubt of it. Doggo’s plane was gone, and with it had
vanished all hopes of a speedy return to Cupia. Sadly the two returned
to camp, and gave directions to start back to Vairkingi.
But Myles Cabot was not a man to despair or he would have yielded to
fate many times in the past during his radio adventures on the silver
planet. Already, as the porters were loading the carts, his agile mind
was busy seeking some way whereby to snatch victory from defeat.
So when the expedition was ready to start he led it around the woods
until he picked up the trail of the stolen airship. Quite evidently the
theft had not been made by ant-men, for they would have _flown_ the
machine away, upon clearing the woods. No, it had obviously been taken
by either Roies or Vairkings, who had wheeled or dragged it away. If he
and Doggo could follow its path, they might yet be able to locate and
recover the stolen property.
The trail led north until it struck, at right angles, a broad and
much-rutted road which ran from Vairkingi to the northeast territory of
the Vairkings. And at this point the trail completely vanished.
Myles held a written conference with Doggo, at which it was decided to
return at once to the city and make inquiries there as to the stolen
plane. If no one there knew of it, Doggo was to be dispatched on a new
expedition into the northeast territory, and in the meantime Cabot was
to rush the completion of his radio set. So they turned to the left and
took up the march to Vairkingi.
It was a tired and disgusted human who returned that evening to the
quarters which he had never expected to set eyes on again. Myles Cabot
gave himself up to a few moments of unrestrained grief.
As he sat thus a soft, sympathetic voice said: “Didn’t you succeed in
finding that which you sought? I am so sorry! At least you came back
safely to me.”
But the blandishments of little Quivven, his pal, failed to comfort him.
That evening when Jud returned from the brickyard, Myles sought an
audience with him and demanded news of the plane. Said Myles: “This
beast friend of mine came near here in a magic wagon which travels
through the air. Possession of this magic wagon would mean much to
Vairkingi in your wars, and especially if the beasts ever take it into
their heads to attack you, as they undoubtedly will do sooner or later.
“Yesterday Doggo and I embarked on a secret expedition to bring this
magic wagon as a surprise to you and Theoph. But we find that it has
been stolen. We have traced it to the northeast road, and there the
trail ends. It must be either in this city or in the northeast
territory. Will you help me to find it?”
But Jud smiled a crafty smile, and said: “It is not in Vairkingi—of that
I am certain. Nor will I send into the northeast territory to find it
for you; for I well know that you would use it to return to your own
land beyond the boiling seas. We wish you to stay with us and do wonders
for us. We believe that we can make your lot among us a happy one.
“But remember that, although you are treated with great honors, you are
nevertheless still my slave. Any attempt on your part to locate the
magic wagon will be met with severe punishment, and an end will be put
to your experiments. I have spoken.”
Myles Cabot met the other’s eye squarely. “You have spoken, Jud,” he
said.
Myles was now convinced that Jud knew more about the missing plane than
he was willing to admit; so the only thing to do was to lie low, bide
his time, keep an ear out for news of the plane, and continue the
manufacture of the radio set. Thus the earth-man ruminated as he walked
slowly back to his quarters.
And then the linking of radio and airplanes in his mind gave him an
idea. He had felt all along that he was doing the correct thing in
building a radio set rather than in manufacturing firearms with which to
attack the Formians, or in trying to fabricate an airplane for a flight
across the boiling seas.
His intuition had been correct; his subconscious mind must have guided
him to make the radio _in order to phone Cupia for a plane to come over
to Vairkingi and get him_. Why hadn’t he realized this before? It gave
him new heart.
With a laugh he reflected that this afterthought was pretty much like
those so characteristic of the man whom he had just left. Jud the
Excuse-Maker, always bungling, and always with a perfectly good excuse
or alibi, thought up afterward to explain why he did something which,
when he did it, was absolutely pointless. Myles had always looked down
on the Vairking noble because of this failing.
But now what he found himself going through exactly the same mental
processes, he began to wonder if perhaps Jud were not guided by a fairly
high-grade intuition. Perhaps Jud’s afterthoughts and excuses were but
the breaking through of a realization of some real forethoughts on the
part of Jud’s subconscious mind. Myles wondered. He was still wondering
when he fell asleep that night.
The next morning he plunged into his work with renewed vigor. He now had
copper wire, copper plates, wood, mica, solder, platinum, glass, and
batteries—everything that he needed for his radio set except a better
vacuum for his tubes; but without that he was as far from success as
when he started.
Of course he knew what he needed—magnesium. But it was one thing to step
into a drug store on the earth, or into a chemical laboratory in Cupia,
and take magnesium off the shelves, and quite another matter to pick
this elusive element out of thin air in Vairkingi.
Nevertheless, in spite of this lack, Myles kept on working. He wound his
inductances, transformers, earphones, and rheostats. He assembled his
variable condensers and microphones. He fashioned his sockets and lamp
bases. He strung his antennae. He wired up his baseboard and panel.
Small sets were installed in Quivven’s rooms at the palace, at Jud’s
house, and at the brickyard. Each of these was equipped with a
transformer-coupling for Doggo’s antennae, as well as with mouthpieces
for the others, so that now at last oral conversation was possible with
his Formian friend. Later he would prepare a portable head-set such as
he had worn in Cupia.
Laboratory experiments demonstrated the success of his sets in
everything except durability of tubes. Yet in spite of this drawback he
was able to communicate across his laboratory, and even with Jud’s
house, and under favorable conditions with Quivven at the palace by
using a cold-tube hookup. But this was not powerful enough to send as
far as the brickyard, let alone Cupia.
At this juncture there appeared one morning at his gate a Vairking
soldier in leather tunic and helmet, requesting entrance with important
secret news. Myles grudgingly left his work-bench and gave audience. The
fellow had a strangely familiar appearance and smiled in a quizzical
manner; yet Myles could not place him.
“Who are you?” Myles asked.
“Do you not know me?” the other asked in reply.
“No.”
The soldier doffed his leather cap. “Do you know me now?”
“No.”
“A life for a life?”
“Now I know you!” Cabot exclaimed. “You are Otto the Bold, son of Grod
the Silent, who is King of the Roies. To paraphrase one of the proverbs
of my own country, ‘A face that is familiar in Sur is oft a stranger in
Vairkingi.’ I did not recognize you away from the surroundings in which
we met. What good fortune brings you here?”
“Not _good_ fortune, but _bad_,” the Roy replied. “It is true that Grod,
my father, is our king, but it is also true that Att the Terrible
likewise claims the kingship. Att loves Arkilu, and is even at this
moment on the march against Vairkingi with the largest army of Roies
ever gathered.”
Myles smiled. “We are grateful for the information,” he said. “With this
forewarning we are secure against attack.”
“If you will pardon me,” Otto continued, “I think that you are _not_
secure. For one of your own Vairkings, Tipi by name, marches with Att.
Att has promised Tipi the glorious golden Quivven in return for Tipi’s
support. And Tipi has many partisans within this city.”
Myles continued to smile. “We can deal with traitors,” he asserted
smugly. “There are many lamp-posts in our city.”
But Otto kept on: “Sur has fallen.”
“What!” the earth-man shouted, at last shocked out of his complacency.
“The rock-bound impregnable fortress of Sur fallen? Impossible!”
“Not impossible to those who travel through the skies and drop black
stones which fly to pieces with a loud noise,” Otto calmly replied. “The
beasts of the south have made alliance with Att the Terrible, and Tipi
the Steadfast, and are marching with them. Good Builder! They are upon
us even now. Quick, the beasts enter this very room. Come, draw, defend
yourself!”
Wheeling quickly, Cabot confronted Doggo standing in the doorway. Much
relieved, he explained to Otto who this newcomer was; then, seizing a
pad and a lead stylus of his own manufacture, he hurriedly sketched the
situation to his Formian friend.
In reply Doggo wrote: “At last I have magnesium ore. Some soldiers
brought it in, attracted by its pretty red color. There is no time to be
lost. To the laboratory. You must complete our set and summon aid from
Cupia. Meanwhile I will get Jud on the air, and call him here for a
conference. We have no time to wait upon him, or even Theoph, in this
emergency.”
Myles read the message aloud to Otto.
“It is well,” the latter commented. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must
be running along. My disguise as a Vairking soldier will get me safely
out of your city, and I must join my father, who is planning to
counter-attack, if a fit opportunity presents itself. Till we meet
again.”
“Till we meet again, in this life or beyond the waves,” the earth-man
replied. “And may the Builder bless you for your help this day.” Then he
rushed to the laboratory.
Doggo was already tuning the set. “Jud is not at home,” he wrote. “Shall
I waste a tube on the brickyard?”
“No,” Myles signified with a shake of his head; then seizing the pad and
stylus again, he wrote: “I will try and get Jud. You meanwhile attempt
to extract magnesium from this piece of carnallite.”
The ant-man knew exactly how to proceed. Grinding the ore, he mixed it
with salt and melted the mass in an iron pot, which he connected
electrically with the carbon terminal of a line of electric batteries.
In the boiling pot he placed a copper plate connected with the zinc
elements of his cells.
By the time the earth-man returned from calling Jud on the radio, a
coating of pure magnesium had begun to form on the copper anode.
An hour or so later he scraped off his first yield of the precious
metal, the final necessity of his projected radio set.
At this stage Jud appeared. “Pardon the delay,” he started to explain.
“You see, I—”
But Myles cut him short with: “Never mind explanations now. It is enough
that you are here. Sur has fallen. The beasts of the south and Att the
Terrible are on the warpath. They seek to rob you of your Arkilu. With
their aerial wagons they will drop magic rocks upon this city and
destroy it. Give Doggo back his plane, and he will try to combat them.”
But Jud shook his head. “You would merely escape,” he replied, “and then
we would be worse off than now.”
“Then you admit that you know the whereabouts of Doggo’s plane?” Myles
eagerly asked.
“Not at all, not at all,” the Vairking suavely replied. “I was merely
stating that, even if I knew where this ‘plane,’ as you call it, is—”
“For Builder’s sake, man!” Cabot cut in. “This is no time to quibble
over words! Give us the plane, if you would save Theoph, yourself, and
Arkilu.”
“It’s hardly necessary,” Jud asserted, unruffled. “Don’t get so excited!
If Att wants Arkilu, he certainly won’t drop things on the palace. And
we can defend the palace against all the Roies in Vairkingi.”
“But not against magic slingshots,” replied the earth-man.
“Perhaps not,” the noble said with a crafty smile; “but we shall see.
Now I go to prepare the defense. You are at liberty to come with us, if
you will, or putter around your tubes if you had rather. Good-by.”
“Shift for yourselves then!” Myles shouted after him, and frantically
resumed his work. His attempt to get the plane by stratagem had failed.
Perhaps Jud did not know anything about the plane after all. It would be
typical of him.
Myles had plenty of sets of grids, plates, and filaments all prepared.
Also plenty of long tubes of pyrex glass. All that remained necessary
was to coat the platinum elements with magnesium, fuse them into the
tube, exhaust the air by the water method as before, seal the tube, and
his radio set would be complete.
“Where is Quivven?” he wrote to Doggo. “She ought to be here helping
with this.”
“On her way from the palace,” the ant-man replied. “I radio-phoned her
there.”
Presently she entered, and jauntily inquired what all the excitement was
about. Myles explained as briefly as possible.
Her only answer was to shrug her golden shoulders and remark, “Tipi is a
little fool. He can have me if he can get me.”
Then she took her seat at the workbench.
After a while she inquired, “Why the rush with the radio set, when
Vairkingi is in peril?”
Myles replied, “Our only hope now is to get Cupia on the air, and
persuade my followers there to send across the boiling seas enough
aerial wagons to defeat the beasts of the south, or ‘Formians,’ as we
call them.”
“And will you talk with your Lilla?” she asked innocently.
“Yes, if the Builder wills,” he eagerly and reverently replied.
To his surprise, Quivven jumped to her feet with flashing eyes, and,
seizing a small iron anvil from the workbench, she held it over the
precious pile of platinum elements.
“And if I drop this anvil, you will _not_ talk to her. Is not that so?”
Myles, horrified, sat rooted to his seat, unable to move.
XVII
THE BATTLE FOR VAIRKINGI
But the flaming Quivven did not drop the anvil on the precious tube
elements. Instead she flung it from her to the floor and sank limply
into her seat, her golden head on her arms on the workbench.
“I couldn’t do it,” she moaned between sobs, “for I too know what it is
to love. Talk to her, Myles, and I will help you.”
He gasped with relief. “You wouldn’t spoil all our days and days of
labor, I am sure,” he said. “What was the matter? I don’t understand
you.”
“_You_ wouldn’t,” was her reply, as she shook herself together and
resumed work.
After a while one of the soldiers attached to the laboratory brought in
word that the Roies and Formians were attacking the walls, and that
“planes” were sailing around in the sky overhead. Cabot gave word to
mass his men to defend the laboratory at all costs and went on working.
One by one the tubes were completed and tested.
From time to time Quivven would step into the yard, glance at the sky,
and then report back to Myles. The Formian planes were scouting low, but
were not dropping bombs. Jud had apparently been right in one thing—that
the beasts would not risk injuring the expected prizes of war, namely
Arkilu and Quivven.
From time to time runners brought word of the fighting at the outer wall
of the city. It would have been an easy matter for the ant-men to bomb
the gates, and thus let in their Roy allies, but evidently they were
playing safe even there. At last, however, word came that
traitors—presumably friends of Tipi—had opened one of the gates, and
that the enemy was now within the city.
Still Myles worked steadily on.
Suddenly Quivven returned from one of her scouting trips in the yard
with the cry, “One of the air wagons has seen me, and is coming down!”
At that the Radio Man permitted himself to leave his bench for a few
moments and go to the door. True, the plane was hovering down, eagerly
awaited by a score or so of Cabot’s Vairking soldiers armed with swords,
spears and bows. As the Formians came within bowshot they were met with
a shower of arrows, most of which, however, glanced harmlessly off the
metallic bottom of the fuselage.
The ant-men at once retaliated with a shower of bullets. Two Vairkings
dropped to the ground, and the others frantically rushed to cover within
the buildings, forcing back Myles and his two companions, as the
fugitives crowded through the door.
“Where is _your_ magic slingshot?” one of them taunted him as they swept
by.
The earth-man shook himself and passed the back of one hand across his
tired brow, then hurried to his living room. Seizing his rifle, he
cautiously approached one of the slit windows which overlooked the yard,
and peeked out. The plane was on the ground. Four ants were
disembarking.
Here at last was a chance to secure transportation!
Myles opened fire.
The Formians were taken completely by surprise. Oh, how it did Cabot’s
heart good to see those ancient enemies drop and squirm as he pumped
lead into them! They made no attempt to return his fire, but scuttled
toward their beached plane.
Only one of them reached it; but one was enough to deprive the earth-man
of his booty. Up shot the craft, followed by a parting bullet from
Myles. Then he proceeded to the yard once more. His furry soldiers,
brave now that all danger was over, were already there before him,
putting an end to the three wounded ant-men, with swords and spears.
A strong and pungent odor filled the air. Myles sniffed. It was alcohol
in large quantities. The plane could not last long, for he had punctured
its fuel tank.
Each of the dead enemies had been fully armed, so that, although Myles
failed in his plan to secure the airship, the encounter had at least
netted him three rifles and three bandoleers of cartridges. These he
bestowed on Doggo, Quivven, and the captain of his guards, saying, “You
three, with four or five others, had better go at once to Jud’s compound
before the fighting reaches here; for, now that the Formians have
located Quivven, they are sure to attack again, sooner or later.”
But the golden-furred princess remonstrated with him: “Let us stay
together, fight together, and, if need be, die together.”
“For the Builder’s sake, run along,” he replied testily. “We are wasting
valuable time. I will join you if the fighting gets too thick
hereabouts.”
“But how can you?”
“By the back way which you taught me.”
“But you need the help of Doggo and myself.”
“No longer, for the set is complete. All that remains to be done is to
tune in and either get Cupia on the air or not. Now, as you are my true
friends, please run along!”
So, with a shrug and a pout; she left him. And with her went Doggo, and
the captain, and five of the guard. Much relieved, the Radio Man
returned to his workbench. Although the move truly was wise for the
safety of Quivven, the real motive which actuated Myles was a desire to
have her absent, when and if he should talk to his Lilla.
He leaned his rifle against the bench, hung the bandoleer handily near
by, and set to work. A few more connections and his hookup was complete.
He surveyed the assembled set with a great deal of satisfaction; for,
although it really was a means to an end, yet it was a considerable end
in itself after all, as any radio fan can appreciate.
Once more Myles Standish Cabot, electrical engineer, had demonstrated
his premiership on two worlds. He had made a complete radio set out of
basic natural elements, without the assistance of a single previously
fabricated tool, or material! It was an unbelievable feat. Yet it had
been completed successfully.
With trembling hands, he adjusted the controls, and listened. Gradually
he tuned in a station. It seemed a nearby station.
A voice was saying: “We could not report before, O master, for we have
only just repaired the set which this Cabot wrecked. The Minorian lied
when he told you that he had affairs well in hand, for even at that
moment he was a fugitive.
“He is now with the furry Cupians who live to the north of New Formia.
Today our forces are attacking their city. It is only a matter of a few
parths before he will be in our hands. I have spoken, and shall now
stand by to receive.”
This was the supreme test. Could Myles Cabot hear the reply? Adjusting
his set to the extreme limit of its sensitivity, he waited, his hands on
the wave-length dials.
Faintly but distinctly came the answer in the well-known voice of Yuri
the usurper: “You have done well. Now I will hand the antenna-phones to
the Princess Lilla, and I wish you to repeat to her what you have just
told me, so that she may hear it with her own antennae and believe.”
A pause and then Cabot heard the ant-man stationed at the shack on the
mountains near Yuriana recount the tale of Doggo’s abortive revolution
and flight, of Cabot’s wrecking the radio set and disappearing, of the
Formian alliance with Att the Terrible, of the fall of Sur, and of the
attack on Vairkingi, ending with the words which he had already caught.
As he listened to this narration, the earth-man was rapidly making up
his mind what to do, and, as soon as the ant-man signed off, Cabot cut
in with: “Lilla, dearest, do not show any sign of surprise, but listen
intently, as though the Formian were still speaking. This is your own
Myles. I am sending from a station which I have only just completed
after many sangths of intensive work.
“It is true that the Formians are now attacking our city but they cannot
win. Sur fell because we were taken by surprise, but we were warned in
time to defend Vairkingi. Already I, myself, have driven off one plane
and killed three Formians.
“As yet I have been unable to secure an airship, or I should have flown
back to you. Please get in touch with Toron, or some other of my
friends, and persuade them to fly across the boiling seas and bring me
back.
“Yuri has made it twice, and ‘what man has done, that can man do.’ Now I
am about to finish. When I sign off, please request Yuri for permission
to talk to the Formian at Yuriana, to ask him some questions. Then tell
me as much as you can of yourself, our baby, and the situation in Cupia,
before Yuri shuts you off. I have spoken, dearest.”
And Myles stood by to receive.
With what a thrill did he hear his own Lilla’s voice answer: “Oh,
Formian, I have Prince Yuri’s permission to speak to you. You may answer
what I ask you, and reply to what I tell you, but he himself will
receive, lest I hear something which I ought not. This leads me to
believe that affairs are not so bad with Cabot as you report.”
“She is doing fine,” Myles remarked to himself, admiringly. “So far,
Yuri will not suspect that she is talking to me.”
Lilla’s voice continued: “You and the other Formians may be interested
to know that Prince Yuri is in complete control here. Baby Kew and I are
well, and are being respectfully treated by Prince Yuri as his guests in
the palace at Kuana. He has promised me that if I will marry him, Kew
can have the succession after his death. And this I might have accepted
for the baby’s sake, but now that I know that you still live, this
cannot be.”
“She has made a slip,” Cabot moaned.
Evidently she realized it herself, for her voice hurried on: “You see,
the whistling bees—”
Then Yuri’s voice cut in abruptly with: “Congratulations, Cabot. I don’t
see how you did it. Your ex-wife would have gotten across a lot more
information to you if she hadn’t inadvertently let me know to whom she
was talking by her careless use of the word ‘you’. I don’t know what you
said to her, but I shall be on my guard. No more radio for the Princess
Lilla, until my henchmen in New Formia report your death, which I hope
will be soon. Good-by, you cursed spot of sunshine. Yuri, king of Cupia,
signing off for the night.”
So that was that. Myles switched off the set, and sat submerged in
thought. Lilla and his baby were safe. He doubted not that she would
sooner or later find means to send him a plane. He had given Yuri cause
to doubt the glorious story told by the Formian radio operator. The new
set had fulfilled its mission.
But how had Yuri succeeded in climbing into power again in Cupia,
nine-tenths of the inhabitants of which were loyal to Princess Lilla and
the baby king?
Then Myles remembered her closing words: “The whistling bees—” It was as
little Jacqueline Farley had prophesied on her father’s New England
farm, during Cabot’s brief revisit to the earth. Cabot had stated:
“There can be no peace on any continent which is inhabited by more than
one race of intelligent beings”; whereat little Jacqueline had pointed
out that the whistling bees were intelligent beings.
Doubtless, Yuri had stirred up trouble between the bees and their Cupian
allies, and had ridden to the throne on the crest of this trouble.
Portheris, king of the bees, had undoubtedly been deposed; for he was
too loyal to Myles to stand for this.
The earth-man’s reverie was rudely interrupted at this point by one of
his soldiers who rushed into the laboratory shouting: “Sir, there is
fighting in your very yard!”
Cabot slipped the bandoleer over his shoulders, adjusted the straps,
picked up his rifle, and hurried to the door. In the yard, his guards
were struggling in hand-to-hand combat with a superior force of Roies.
He could tell them apart, not only by the contrast between the fine
features of his own men and apelike faces of the intruders, but more
easily by the contrast between the leather tunics of the Vairkings and
the nakedness of the Roies. So, standing calmly in the doorway, Myles
began picking off the enemy, one by one, with his rifle. It was too
easy; almost like trap-shooting.
But it didn’t last long, for the Roies soon learned what was up, and,
breaking away from their opponents, crowded out through the gate,
followed by a shower of missiles and maledictions.
Cabot’s Vairkings were for following, but their master peremptorily
called them back, and directed them to barricade the laboratory. It was
well that he did so, for presently the heads of the enemy began to
appear above the top of the fence. Evidently they had built a platform
in the street.
Soon arrows and pebbles began to fly at the windows of the house. The
Vairkings replied with a volley, but Cabot cautioned them to conserve
their ammunition, and watch him pick off with his rifle, one by one, the
heads which showed themselves above the paling.
This soon ceased to be interesting. So, giving the rifle and bandoleer
to one of the more intelligent of his men, and instructing them to hold
the laboratory at all costs, the earth-man set out, sword in hand, by
the back way to rejoin Doggo and Quivven.
The alleys which he threaded were deserted. He reached the rear of Jud’s
compound without event, and passed in to one of the inclosures through a
small and well concealed gate in the face of the wall. Quivven had
pointed this route out to him before, but never had he traversed it
farther than this point. He looked cautiously around him. Then he rubbed
his eyes, and looked again! He could hardly believe his senses!
There stood a Formian airplane in apparently perfect condition.
Approaching it gingerly with drawn sword, he circled it carefully to
make sure that it contained no enemies. But it was deserted. A hasty
inspection disclosed that everything was in working order, except that
the fuel tank was empty.
Probably then, this was the plane at which he had fired. But no, for
this plane did not even _smell_ of alcohol. The tank had evidently been
dry for some time, and there was no sign of any bullet hole in it.
Gradually the fact dawned on him that this was Doggo’s plane, which Jud
had concealed from them for so long. He must reach Doggo and tell him.
At the farther side of the inclosure from the side at which he had
entered, there was a door. Myles raced toward it, and flung it open.
Beyond it there was a second inclosure similar to the first. Myles raced
across this one as well, and flung open another door, whereupon out
poured a crowd of Roies, upsetting him and throwing him sprawling upon
the ground.
But they were as surprised as he was at the encounter, and this fact
enabled him to regain his sword and scramble to his feet before they
were upon him again, with parry and thrust.
Good swordsman as he was, they had soon forced him, his back against the
wall, to defend his life with his trusty wooden blade. Time and again
one of their points would reach his tunic, but he kept his neck well
guarded, and so was able to stand them off.
When he had drawn his breath and got his bearings, and his defense had
become slightly a matter of routine, he recognized the leader of the
enemy as none other than the traitor Tipi. His first thought was to run
Tipi through for his treachery. But then he reflected that quite likely
Quivven really loved Tipi after all. It would be a shame to kill this
boy merely because his unrequited love had caused him to lose his head.
From then on, Myles had no time to reflect on anything, for he was
engaged in the difficult task of trying to defend himself without
hurting Tipi.
The young Vairking had recognized the earth-man, and was hurling
vituperations at him, but Myles saved his breath for his sword-play.
Even so, he gradually tired. His sword hand no longer instantly
responded to every command of his agile brain, and even his brain itself
became less agile. It was only a matter of time when he would be certain
to make a misplay, and go down before his opponents. Yet, still he
struggled on.
And then suddenly a new complication entered the game, for he was seized
from behind the arms and was lifted struggling and kicking off the
ground.
XVIII
THE FALL OF VAIRKINGI
As Miles was lifted from the ground by the unknown force behind which
had seized him beneath the armpits, his Roy opponents fell back away
from him in surprise. But immediately their expressions changed to
intense pleasure. Quite evidently they regarded this mysterious new
power as an ally.
Myles could not squirm around to see what was holding him; so still
grasping his sword in his right hand, he felt with his left hand under
his right armpit, and found there—the claw of a Formian! In another
moment he would be within reach of its horrid jaws, and then would came
the paralyzing bite which he knew so well from past experience.
Nevertheless he could die fighting.
Shifting his sword quickly, so that he held it point upward, he struck
backward with it across his shoulder, and had the satisfaction of
hearing and feeling it glint on the carapace of his captor. A few more
strokes, and by lucky chance his blade might find a joint in the black
shell of the ant-man.
But just as he was about to strike again a familiar voice behind him
called out, “Stop, Myles, for Builder’s sake, stop! It is Doggo who
holds you, and is rescuing you from your enemies.”
It was the voice of Quivven. Tipi and the Roies instantly understood and
made a rush at their late victim; but they were too late, for Doggo had
lifted the earth-man safely over the wall. There stood Quivven and the
members of their guard.
“Quick, Doggo, the rifles!” Myles shouted. “Your missing plane is in the
next inclosure. We must reach it before the enemy does.”
Of course, this was all lost on the radio-sense of the Formian, but the
other members of the party acted at once. On their side of the wall
there was a platform near the top. Springing lightly onto this, the
furry maid and the captain of the guard covered the Roies with their
rifles.
“You!” exclaimed Tipi in surprise.
“What did you expect?” Quivven taunted. “You attacked this city in
search of me. Here I am. You can have me, if you can catch me. But you
had better not try it just now, for I and my friends have these magic
sling-shots, which can kill at almost any distance. Go quickly before I
try it on you. For old times’ sake, go!”
But Tipi and his Roies stood steadfast. The captain and Quivven fired;
two Roies dropped, and the others fled precipitately out through the
gates by which they entered. Tipi the Steadfast was left alone
confronting Cabot and his companions. But he never budged.
Over the fence vaulted the five Vairking guardsmen in their leather
armor, and attacked their renegade countryman, who, being a noble, wore
only a leather helmet. The unequal contest could have but one result.
Yet Quivven looked on complacently at the impending downfall of her
former sweetheart.
Cabot, however, had more heart. Running along the platform within the
wall, he vaulted over at a point distant from the contest, sneaked
steadily up on Tipi, and suddenly throttled him from behind, at the same
time shouting to his own henchmen to desist. The five Vairkings
obediently dropped their swords, and then trussed up the young noble
with his own leather belt and sword-sling by placing him in a sitting
posture, tying his ankles together, slipping a piece of stick beneath
his knees, placing his elbows under the ends of this stick, and tying
his wrists together in front of his shins. Also they gagged him. And
thus they left the traitor, rolled ignominiously into a corner, his eyes
blazing with a piteous hate.
Meanwhile Doggo, exploring the exits, had seen his plane! He returned to
the group, bristling with excitement, and made signs to them to follow
him. Out of respect for his joy, none of the party let on that Cabot had
been the first to find the airship and had already informed them of it.
So they followed Doggo and gave every indication of being much
impressed.
With loving touch the huge black ant-man caressed each strut and brace,
and guy, and joint, and lever, as he made a thorough inspection of his
long-lost craft. All appeared to be in perfect condition. Even the
bombs, the rifle, and the ammunition were intact.
From somewhere in the interior of the fusilage Doggo produced a pad of
paper and a Formian stylus, and wrote: “Alcohol. We must have alcohol.
Then away from these accursed shores forever.”
Seizing the writing materials Myles replied, “You have four rifles. Let
me take one of them. Protect this plane with the other three, while I
return alone by the back way and bring the alcohol here under convoy of
the entire laboratory guard.”
Then, giving no time for dissent, he seized the rifle and bandoleer from
the plane, and was gone. Out through the next inclosure he went, slid
open the secret door in the wall, and peered cautiously out. One lone
ant-man with rifle and bandoleer was parading the alley.
Myles fired, but missed. The Formian promptly took cover behind a pile
of rubbish, and fired back. Myles hastily withdrew, then cautiously put
his head through the opening again in order to take a shot at his enemy.
But the enemy fired first, the bullet grazing the leather helmet of the
earth-man and stunning him considerably. So he sat on the ground within
the inclosure, and rubbed his sore head for a few minutes. What a narrow
escape!
Then he had an idea. He propped his hat on a stick, so that it would
sway gently in the breeze, its rim just projecting through the opening
in the wall giving every indication of life. Then he ran quickly along
inside the wall until he came to a corner, which he judged must be about
opposite the rubbish heap which sheltered the Formian. Climbing quietly
up the studding at this point, he peered carefully over. There lay his
black enemy, only a few feet away, steadily watching the bobbing edge of
the helmet.
Two shots from Cabot’s rifle, and the vigil was over; and soon the
earth-man, his helmet regained, and with an extra rifle and cartridge
belt flung across his shoulders, was proceeding unmolested down the
alley.
He reached the laboratory without further adventure, and found
everything as he had left it. The guard, however, reported that they had
had to repulse three assaults by Roies, the last of which had been led
by a Formian armed with a rifle.
“If it had not been for this magic sling-shot which you left with us,”
said the guardsman, “we should have been beaten. But the surprise of the
savage ones at finding us thus armed was so great that even their leader
could not rally them, though the beast did kill several of our men
before he finally fled with his Roy henchmen.”
The Radio Man then informed them of his intention to cart the alcohol to
Jud’s inclosure, where new wonders would be performed. Accordingly, all
except a few sentinels withdrew into the laboratory to load up.
First Myles sorted out the bottles which were small enough to carry
conveniently, and then filled these bottles with alcohol from the large
carboys in which it was stored. This left a dozen or so carboys still
unemptied. It would be a pity to leave these behind, but it would be
impossible to get a cart out by the back way.
So the Radio Man gave hasty directions to take an empty cart through his
front gate under guard, and attempt to get it around by the various
winding streets into the alley without its being captured by the enemy.
Meanwhile all the alcohol was moved to the alley gate, and heavily
guarded there.
While this was being done Myles Cabot took a few minutes time for a
farewell glance around his laboratory, which he was about to quit for
the last time. He had enjoyed working here, for there is no human
pleasure greater than the joy of accomplishment, and here he had
accomplished the almost superhuman task of building up a complete
sending and receiving radio set out of its basic elements. Even though
he was at last about to journey home to his Lilla and his baby son in
Cupia, he hated to leave this precious set.
An irresistible impulse drew him to it, as a loadstone draws a magnet.
He placed his fingers on the controls. He tuned to the same wave length
in which he had talked and received earlier in the day.
A voice was speaking in the language of Formia and Cupia: “Vairkingi is
about to fall, O master, and with it the Minorian must certainly get
into our hands, for our scout fliers are circling the outer walls to the
city to prevent his escape.”
So that was why the ant planes hadn’t bothered them recently.
“But O master,” the voice of the ant-man continued. “I have bad news to
report along with the good; for while practically our entire populace
was engaged with the hordes of our ally, Att the Terrible, in besieging
Vairkingi, other hordes of furry savages under Grod the Silent have
attacked and captured our own city of Yuriana, and with it have seized
our reserve planes and supplies of ammunition. I have—”
But before the Formian could complete his signing off, Myles slammed
over the leaf switch, and cut in with: “Cabot speaking. Cabot speaking.
Know then, O Yuri, that Vairkingi will not fall. My arms are victorious
here as at your ant city of Yuriana. Presently you will cease to receive
any further messages from either here or your own mountain station, and
then you will know that the last of your Formians has perished off the
face of this continent.
“Soon you may expect me and my furry allies to fly across the boiling
seas to redeem Cupia, but of our coming we shall give you no further
warning. Tremble and await us. Meanwhile believe none of the stories
which your henchmen will falsely send you to keep up your courage.
Answer me now, and tell me that you have received my message. I have
spoken.”
Then he set the switches to receive.
Back came the answer, but it was from the mountain station to the south,
and it came from Prince Yuri in Cupia: “It is a lie. The Minorian lies.”
Of course it was a lie, but it was war; and Yuri would not know which
version to credit. If anything should happen to the sending set near the
city of the ants, Yuri certainly would believe the worst from that time
on. Cabot smiled to himself. The Formian continued denying, and
explaining, and apologizing. Finally he signed off, and then Prince Yuri
got on the air. “Listen, O Formian,” he said, “and you, O Cabot. I
received both of your messages. Naturally, I believe my own man. Call me
again when you have something further to report. I have spoken.”
“He may believe his own henchman _now_,” Cabot muttered to himself, “but
later he will begin to doubt.”
Then, shutting off his set, he penned a hurried note in duplicate to
Otto the Bold.
Congratulations on the capture of the city of the black beasts.
Destroy their hut in the mountains, where you first shot arrows at me,
and first saw me use the magic slingshot. Destroy it at all costs, for
with it ends the power of the beasts.
Cabot the Minorian.
One copy he gave to each of two of the most trusted of his laboratory
guards, and adjured them at all costs to break through the lines
separately and get the message to the prince of the friendly faction of
the Roies.
“If either of my Vairkings succeeds in reaching Prince Otto,” Myles said
to himself, “it will mean the end of Yuri’s reports from this
continent.”
Then with a sigh the Radio Man picked up an iron mallet and demolished
his own radio set, the work of so many hours of care. When he had
finished, there was not a fragment left intact.
“This, too, must pass,” he quoted sadly.
At this point one of his Vairkings rushed in upon him with a shout: “A
party of Roies is attacking the alley gate.”
Shaking himself together, the Radio Man bade farewell to his beloved
laboratory, picked up his two rifles and his ammunition, and hastened to
take command of his forces. He found that his cart had safely got around
to the gate, but that a hand-to-hand conflict for its possession was now
in progress between the guard and a large force of Roies. So
inter-mingled were the contestants that the leader of the Vairkings had
not dared to use the rifle.
Cabot, however, had the confidence of greater experience. A few well
placed shots fired by him from the gate, and the enemy broke away and
retreated down the alley. Myles handed out one of his own two rifles,
thus raising the number of his riflemen to two. These, with several
bowmen, took cover down the alley to hold off any counter-attack by the
enemy.
The carboys of alcohol were then quickly loaded into the cart, along
with all the reserve ammunition which Doggo had manufactured, and the
expedition set forth. Cabot with his rifle in the lead, the other two
riflemen and the archers forming a rear guard, closely followed by the
hostile band of Roies. But, in spite of this pursuit, all went well
until the party turned into the alley of the secret door to Jud’s
enclosure.
Here they found the way blocked by a formidable body of the furry
savages, led by half a dozen ant-men armed with rifles. Luckily there
was plenty of rubbish in the alley behind which to take cover from those
ahead. Those behind were not much of a problem, not having any firearms
other than bows and arrows.
But it was aggravating to be stopped within sight of one’s goal.
Furthermore, three of the rifle-armed ants promptly departed, doubtless
for the purpose either of bringing up reenforcements, or of joining the
Roies who were on the other side of Cabot’s party.
There was no time to be lost. The rifles were now three to three.
Accordingly the earth-man called his archers from the rear and ordered a
charge. Of course, his porters could not fight while carrying a bottle
of alcohol under each arm, so all the bottles were piled around the cart
and left with a small guard.
The attack proved temporarily successful. Step by step the three ants
and their Roy allies were driven back. But, just as Cabot and his
Vairkings were about to gain the secret opening in the wall, word was
brought that the Roies in the rear were attacking the cart; so Cabot had
to order a speedy retreat to save his precious alcohol, thus giving up
in an instant the ground which it had taken so long to gain.
The Roies were readily repulsed from the cart and retreated down the
alley in disorder, but the party with whom Cabot and his Vairkings had
just been fighting formed at once for a counter-attack.
At this juncture a row of heads suddenly and unexpectedly appeared over
the top of the wall, Quivven the Golden Flame, Doggo the ant-man, and
six Vairking guardsmen. Quivven and two guardsmen held rifles with which
they promptly covered the approaches to the alley, while Doggo started
hurling airplane bombs into the group of Roies led by his three
countrymen.
When the smoke cleared the alley was cleared as well. Here and there
were arms and legs and other anatomical sections of Roies and Formians.
All the survivors had fled. Myles picked up two ant rifles and the
twisted remains of a third, and hurriedly passed what was left of his
precious liquid fuel in through the little gate in the wall.
Nearly half the bottles and carboys had been broken during the fighting.
The Vairking dead numbered about a dozen, with several more wounded.
These were brought within the inclosure and ministered to by Quivven.
By this time the pink twilight had begun to settle over the planet
Poros. Departure that day was now out of the question. Accordingly
guards were posted, and the rest of the party prepared to spend the
night close to the plane, on tapestries filched from the palace of Jud
the Excuse-Maker.
The Radio Man himself was nearly exhausted, having worked steadily for
thirty-six hours on the completion of his set and the subsequent
fighting. Yet before he turned in he inquired about the state of the
battle.
It appeared that little was known, save that the city was overrun by
ant-men and the furry savages of Att the Terrible, and that isolated
groups of Vairkings were defending as best they could their respective
inclosures against the invaders. Cabot reported the capture of the ant
city by Grod the Silent, which news served to hearten his own little
band considerably.
The mention of the radio set, whereby he had obtained this information,
suggested to him to ask: “Have you tried to get the palace of Theoph the
Grim with the small set in Jud’s quarters?”
“Yes,” Quivven replied, “repeatedly, but no one answers. You see, the
palace set is in my own rooms, and it has probably not occurred to
anyone to go there.”
Then they lay down for a fitful night of shouts and shots and flares.
But no one attacked the inclosure which they occupied.
Along toward morning the earth-man fell into a soundless sleep, only to
be awakened by one of his Vairking soldiers shaking him roughly by the
shoulders.
“Awake!” the leather-clad warrior shouted. “Awake! Vairkingi is in
flames. The fire is rapidly eating its way toward us.”
It was true. All around them was the uncanny red of the conflagration.
Overhead there sped flocks of sparks against a background of billowy
clouds of smoke, and a further background of jet-black sky. Immediate
steps were necessary to protect their airship from the flying embers.
Accordingly the bottles and carboys of alcohol were emptied into the
fuel tank of the craft, and then filled with water. Brooms of brush were
brought and used to beat out such sparks as endangered the plane. Doggo
tested the motors, and found them in good order.
The tapestries were loaded on board. Then there remained nothing they
could do except keep watch, guard the plane, and await the dawn;
although, of course, if the holocaust should approach too near it would
become necessary for them to fly, night or no night.
Meanwhile it occurred to Myles to try once more to get the palace on the
air; so, with rifle and ammunition slung over his shoulders, and
carrying a torch, he proceeded to Jud’s quarters.
On the way he espied a dark form crouching in a corner of the fence of
one of the inclosures.
XIX
THE BATTLE IN THE AIR
Cabot unslung his rifle, held his torch high above him, and approached
the crouching figure.
The crouching figure groaned. It was Tipi, still trussed up, forgotten
by all. Myles cut his bonds and helped him to his feet, but he collapsed
again with a groan. So, leaving him lying there, the earth-man hastened
back to the plane, and then returned with one of his Vairkings, whom he
instructed to take charge of the young noble until he was able to walk,
and then turn him loose through the secret gate into the alley. There
was no point in leaving even an enemy to be burned to death, trussed up
in a corner.
Tipi attended to, Myles proceeded to Jud’s quarters, where he tuned in
the palace. The result was immediate.
“Jud speaking,” said a voice. “Answer, Cabot. For Builder’s sake,
answer!”
“Cabot speaking,” he replied. “I am at your quarters, O Jud. With me are
Quivven, Doggo, and about two dozen of the laboratory guards. We have
eight magic slingshots now, and also the magic aerial wagon, which you
have so long concealed from me. As soon as day breaks we shall rise in
the air and do battle with the beasts. If you had let me have this wagon
before, I could have prevented the fall of Vairkingi. Now it may be too
late. How are things with you?”
Back came the answer. “Theoph the Grim, Arkilu the Beautiful, and I are
safe in the palace, with most of the army of the Vairkings. So far we
have repulsed every assault of the beasts and their Roy allies, but
their magic slingshots do frightful havoc. Come and rescue us, O
magician.”
To which Cabot replied: “With daylight I shall come.”
As he came out of the house he looked up at the sky. The background,
against which swirled the smoke clouds, now showed faintly purple. By
the time he rejoined his party by the plane, day had come. And it was
well, for the buildings in the next inclosure had started to burn.
Cabot gave his parting instructions to the captain of the guard: “Take
six of these eight rifles. Convoy the Princess Quivven to her father’s
palace.”
“But am I not going with you?” she interrupted in surprise.
“I am afraid not, my dear,” Myles sadly replied. “You have been a good
little pal, and I hate to leave you, but you would be entirely out of
place among the Cupians. Besides there is every chance of our perishing
in crossing the boiling seas.”
“Then you are going home?” she wailed. “You are planning to desert us in
our extremity?”
“No,” he answered, “I shall first fight the ant-men, and do all that I
can to save Vairkingi. When I am done, you will be safer here than you
would be with me.”
But she sank to the ground by his side and buried her head on her arms,
sobbing: “Myles, Myles, I love you. Can’t you see that I loved you all
this time? Oh, you are so blind. You _must_ take me with you. Your
Quivven. Your own little Golden Flame.”
The earth-man sternly put her in the care of one of the guards, saying
grimly: “This makes it more impossible for you to go with me, Quivven,
for I have a wife and child in that other land across the seas. I am
sorry, sorrier than I can say, that you have come to love me. Can’t you
see, Quivven, that this effectually seals the question? If it had not
been for this, I might have yielded to your entreaties, but now it is
impossible.”
Then to the captain of the guards: “With these six rifles, march to the
palace and join the forces of Theoph and Jud. I will endeavor to destroy
as many of the beasts as possible before I finally leave you and depart
for my own country. Start at once, leaving only two or three of your
number to help us.”
So the guard marched away, dragging a reproachful and tear-stained
Quivven with them. Three leather-clad Vairkings remained, and these
shortly were joined by a fourth. Cabot half consciously noticed this new
arrival, but paid little attention in the bustle of his preparations.
The tapestries which were to serve in place of fire-worm fur to swathe
himself and Doggo in their flight across the boiling seas were
rearranged so as to take up less room. The goggles, which he had brought
from the laboratory, were packed with them. The bombs and rifle
ammunition were placed in handy positions. A small quantity of
provisions were added. Everything was lashed down.
Then Myles drew Doggo to one side for a conference and wrote: “I plan
first to attack those Formians and Roies who are besieging Theoph’s
palace; then to dispose of as many as possible of the scout planes. How
many of these are there?”
“We had seven airships in our city in the south,” wrote Doggo in reply.
“This is one of them here. One is probably temporarily disabled by the
shots which you fired in the laboratory yard. That should leave five.”
“Can we fight five?”
“Most assuredly,” Doggo wrote, agitating his antennae eagerly.
“Then let’s go!” wrote Cabot.
With a quick take-off diagonally down the inclosure, the huge bombing
plane rose slowly into the air amid shouts from the Vairking soldiers
below. It was now broad daylight. Myles glanced over the rail, and noted
that there were now only three leather-clad warriors. He vaguely
wondered what had become of the fourth, but it was too late to inquire.
Up through the swirling sparks and smoke they rose, up, up, until they
could get a bird’s-eye view of the whole city of Vairkingi. There, on a
slight eminence in the center, stood the palace and inclosures of the
white-furred king, its walls manned by leather-clad Vairking warriors,
surrounded by savage besiegers. The flames had not yet reached that part
of the city, and with a change in the wind, appeared to be sweeping past
it.
As Myles and Doggo circled the palace they noted that practically all
the ant-men within sight were massing in a side street, evidently
preparing for an assault. How convenient! Myles took the levers and
swooped low, while Doggo deluged his fellow countrymen with bombs. When
their sudden attack was over, fully half of the Formian menace to the
city had been wiped out.
Now for the scout planes. These, five in number, could be seen circling
the outskirts of the city. The two friends were able to approach one of
these without being suspected of being an enemy. Before its flyers
realized the peril it had gone down in flames from one well-placed bomb.
The other four scout planes at once realized that their own countryman,
Doggo, had returned to do them battle, and accordingly converged upon
him. Again the two friends exchanged places. And then there took place
one of the finest examples of aerial warfare which the earth-man had
ever witnessed.
This was not like the battles with the whistling bees before the advent
of Cabot-made rifles on the planet Poros, when the fighting tail of the
plane was pitted against the sting of the bee. For now it was rifle
against rifle, bomb against bomb.
One by one the enemy planes crashed to the ground, as Doggo spiraled,
looped, tailspun, and side-slipped. At last there was only one Formian
opponent left.
Doggo maneuvered to a position just above it, and Cabot reached for a
bomb to give it the _coup de grâce_.
But the bombs were all gone! And the ant-men in the plane below were
raising their rifles, watching for a good opening.
What was to be done? With Doggo’s deafness to sound waves, it would be
impossible to explain the situation to him in time for him to veer away.
He naturally assumed that, as he maneuvered the ship into this position
of advantage, Cabot would at once put an end to the fight.
In this extremity the earth-man suddenly thought of the obsolete
fighting tail. Its levers were there. Was it still in operation? He
would see.
Grasping its levers, he manipulated them swiftly, and drove the tip of
the tail through the fuel tank of the enemy. Two bullets zipped by him.
Then the machine below careened and soared to earth—or rather,
Poros—followed by a stream of shots from the earth-man’s rifle. The
battle was over.
Cabot relieved Doggo at the controls, and circled the palace once more.
His own squad of laboratory guards were just entering one of the palace
gates. The captain waved to him. But he noted that Quivven was not among
them. Poor girl! What could have become of the poor little golden
creature?
But there was no time to ask. With so many of the ants killed, all their
aircraft disabled and the Vairkings firmly entrenched in the palace and
supplied with at least six ant-rifles, Quivven’s people were in as good
a position as possible.
For Cabot to stop now might mean not only renewed complications with the
golden maid, but also possibly the confiscation of his plane by Jud. It
would not pay to take any chances; he must hasten home to Lilla, leaving
the ants, the Roies, and the Vairkings to contend for the possession of
the burning city.
As he turned the nose of the airship upward and began the ascent
preparatory to flying across the western mountains to the sea, he
observed a large marching body of troops far to the south. These might
change his responsibility with respect to his late hosts; it would only
take a few minutes to investigate; so southward he turned the plane.
The marching troops were Roies, as he judged by their absence of leather
armor. Swooping low he picked out the face of their leader. It was Otto
the Bold, son of Grod the Silent, the leader of the friendly faction of
the furry wild-men of the hills. Having captured and sacked the city of
the ants, they were now evidently on their way to relieve Vairkingi.
The last feeling of obligation passed from the earth-man, as, waving to
his savage friend, he turned the nose of his plane upward once more.
Then it occurred to him that, having flown so far south, he might just
as well take a final look at the ant-city. Besides, this would place him
in exactly the location where the ant-men had landed when they flew east
across the boiling seas from Cupia to found New Formia, and thus would
be a good point for him to take off in his flight westward.
Accordingly, he turned to the right until he topped the mountain range,
then turned to the left again, and followed the range southward.
But a tropical thunderstorm forced him to descend in a cleft of hills.
Myles hoped that this rain extended to Vairkingi, and would serve to
quench its fires.
After several hours, the weather cleared once more. The two companions
compared notes on the adventures which had befallen them since their
first hop-off that morning. Then they embarked once more, and continued
their course southward. Soon they passed over the smoking ruins of the
once-impregnable Sur, and at last came to the little radio hut of the
Formians.
This, too, was in ruins; Otto had received his note. Wireless
communication between Cupia, and Vairkingia and New Formia was at an
end. Yuri would now believe the worst that Cabot had told him over the
air. And that worst was likely to prove to be the truth after all.
Swinging to the westward, Myles passed over the deserted city of the
ants, patrolled by a handful of Otto’s Roies; and thence on and on until
there loomed before him a solid wall of steam. It was the boiling sea,
over which he must pass in order to rejoin his loved ones.
Hovering gently down on a little silver-green meadow about five miles
inland, the two fugitives prepared for the trip. First they pulled off
some of the tapestries to pad the fuel tank.
And there before them lay a figure in leather Vairking armor, a golden
figure smiling up at them, little Quivven, whom they thought they had
left behind.
“You!” Myles exclaimed, scowling.
“Yes,” she replied. “I usually accomplish what I set out to do. When you
sent me away, I persuaded one of the guards to lend me his suit. Then I
returned, helped with the loading, and hid myself while you and Doggo
were writing notes to each other. But I nearly died of fright when you
were turning me over and over, up there in the sky.”
Myles sighed resignedly. “I can’t send you back now,” he said, “though
what I shall do with you in Cupia, the Builders only knows!”
So the three friends completed the preparations, and then sat down
together for a meal.
It was too late to start their flight that day and, besides, a rest
would do them all good; so they encamped for the remainder of the
afternoon and the night.
The next morning, as the first faint flush of pink tinged the eastern
sky, they took their farewell meal on Vairkingian soil. Then, swathed in
tapestries and with goggles in place, they took their stations in the
plane, and headed straight for the bank of steam.
As they passed within its clouds, all sight was blotted out.
They had decked the fusilage over like an Eskimo kayack, only Cabot’s
well-wrapped head protruding. Within, Doggo manipulated the levers and
watched the altimeter and gyro-compass by the light of a Vairking stone
lamp; strange mingling of modernity and archaism. Cabot’s vigil was for
the purpose of guarding against flying too high, and thus piercing the
cloud envelope and exposing them to the fatal glare of the sun.
On and on they went. Cabot could see nothing. The hot vapor condensed on
his wrappings, seeped through, and scalded his head and shoulders
unbearably. Finally, he could stand it no longer. He pulled in his head
and tore off the bandages. The relief was instantaneous. He seized the
levers, and Doggo took his place at the opening.
But at last even Doggo succumbed. Having braved the heat too long, he
collapsed weakly on the floor of the cockpit.
“It’s my turn,” Quivven shouted, above the noise of the motors. “Now
aren’t you glad you brought me along?”
And in spite of Cabot’s remonstrances, she swathed her golden head and
stuck it through the opening.
By this time, scalding water was leaking through all the covering of the
cockpit. It was only a question of minutes before it would soak through
the body-coverings of those within.
But just then the girl cried out, “Land. Land, once more; and clear
silver sky.”
Doggo revived and tore off the covers. True, the steam bank of the
boiling seas lay behind them. Below them was the silver-green land.
What did it hold in store?
XX
THE WHOOMANGS
Thoroughly exhausted by their flight across the boiling seas, the Radio
Man and his two strange companions—the huge ant-man, Doggo, and the
beautiful, golden-furred Vairking maiden, Quivven—wished to land at
once, without waiting to ascertain what particular section of Cupia lay
beneath them. But the entire area below appeared to be thickly wooded.
Accordingly the fugitives hovered down to a short distance above the
ground and then just skimmed the treetops at a slow rate of speed,
keeping a careful watch for a landing place. They had not long to wait,
for presently they espied a road running beneath the trees; and, after
putting on more speed and following this road for a couple of stads,
they finally came to a sufficiently large clearing a short distance from
the road, to enable them to settle down quietly to the ground.
The party quickly disembarked upon the silver-green sward, and the three
companions then broke through the bushes to the road, which proved to be
of dirt, although well-traveled.
Myles remarked, “This must be some very out-of-the-way part of my
country; for practically all of our roads are built of concrete, a
material similar to the cement with which I fastened the bricks together
in making our furnaces in Vairkingi.”
Quivven shuddered. “Please don’t remind me of my poor city,” she begged
piteously; then in a more resigned tone: “But that is behind us. Let us
forget it and face the future. You were speaking of cement roads?”
“Yes,” Myles replied. “The fact, that this road is not made of concrete
indicates that it is not a main highway, but the fact that it is
well-worn shows that it is traveled considerably. Let us therefore wait
for some passer-by who can tell us where we are.”
At this point Doggo produced a pad and stylus, and wrote, “Let me in on
this.”
Cabot obligingly transcribed, in Porovian short-hand, an account of the
conversation. Meanwhile the golden girl abstractedly examined the
foliage beside the road.
While Doggo was reading the manuscript, Quivven called Cabot’s attention
to the trees and shrubs. “How different they are from those in
Vairkingia,” she remarked.
“That is to be expected,” Myles answered, “for your land and mine are
separated by boiling seas across which no seeds or spores could pass and
live. Thus it is surprising that the two continents support even the
same general classes of life. Come, I will point out to you some of the
more common forms of our flora.”
He had in mind to show her the red-knobbed gray lichen-tree; and the
tartan bush, the heart-shaped leaves of which are put to so many uses by
the Cupians; and the saffra herb, the roots of which are used for
anaesthesia; and the blue and yellow dandelionlike wild flowers. But
although he searched for a hundred paces or so along the road, he was
unable to locate a single specimen of these very common bits of Porovian
vegetation.
“It is strange,” he muttered half to himself. “When I want to show the
common plants of Cupia, I find nothing but unfamiliar plants, and yet
I’ll bet that if I were to go out in search of rare specimens for my
castle garden at Lake Luno, I should find nothing but tartan, saffra,
lichen-trees, and blue dandelions.”
The mention of Luno Castle turned his thoughts homeward with a jerk.
Here he was at last, after many adventures, on the same continent with
his Lilla and his baby Kew. He had come here to rescue them, if it were
not too late, from Yuri the usurper and his whistling bees. Now that he
was apparently within reach of his loved ones, he began to worry about
their safety a great deal more than ever before.
But this fear _for_ Lilla was completely out-weighed by a growing fear
_of_ Lilla. What would she say to his two allies? Doggo, the ant-man,
was a representative of a race which Cabot had vowed to exterminate from
the face of Poros; for, as he had repeatedly asserted, there can be no
lasting peace on any continent, which is inhabited by more than one race
of intelligent beings.
And Quivven, the golden-furred Vairking maiden, would be even more
difficult to explain. She was beautiful, even by Cupian standards. She
was more nearly the same race as Myles than was his own wife, Lilla. She
and Myles could talk together, unheard by the radio-sense of Lilla. In
these circumstances, it was hardly possible that the Princess Lilla
would receive Quivven with open arms, or even be passably decent to her.
At this point, his reveries was interrupted by Doggo handing him the
following note:
If we are to await passers-by, do you not think it would be well to
return to the plane and secure our rifles, so as to protect ourselves
in case the passers-by should prove to be hostile?
Myles nodded his assent, and informed Quivven of their intentions. She,
being nearer to the point where they had entered the road, plunged
through the bushes at once, and they hastened after her.
Just as Myles and Doggo were breaking through the bushes in the wake of
the golden one, they heard an agonized scream ahead. Redoubling their
efforts, they reached the clearing in an instant, and beheld a most
unexpected sight!
Perched upon the airship, like a flock of enormous vultures, were about
a dozen huge, bat-winged, pale green reptiles, each with a wing-spread
of fully ten-feet; and one of these loathsome creatures held the
writhing form of Quivven tight in its claws.
Without a moment’s thought for his own safety, the intrepid earth-man
drew the Vairkingian sword which hung at his side, and rushed straight
at the beast which held the girl. Doggo followed close behind, clicking
his mandibles angrily.
But before they could reach the plane, the noisome flock flapped heavily
into the air and disappeared over the trees to the northward, Quivven’s
childish face an agony of despair, and one little furry paw waving a
forlorn farewell.
The next move was obvious. Myles and Doggo sprang to their places in the
aircraft and soared after. It was an easy matter to overtake the
clumsy-winged saurians, but not so easy to decide what to do after
reaching them. The reptiles flew so close together their pursuers were
afraid to fire on them for fear of hitting Quivven. The girl was as yet
apparently unharmed, so the only thing to do seemed to be to follow and
watch for some opportunity to effect a rescue.
Thus the chase continued for several stads without event. Myles was in
an agony for the safety of his little friend, but even his deep concern
did not keep his scientific mind from speculating about the pale green
dragons which he was following. He had read about such beasts in books
on paleontology as a child. These were undoubtedly pterodactyls.
He had seen somewhat similar stuffed specimens in the imperial museum at
Kuana, capital of Cupia. He had encountered swarms of tiny pterosaurs,
the size of sparrows, in the caves of Kar. But he had been informed by
Cupian scientists that the larger species had long since become extinct
on Poros.
Whence then these captors of Quivven?
While engaged thus in speculations, he flew a bit closer to the flock,
whereat two of them suddenly turned and simultaneously attacked the
plane from both sides. Doggo instantly dispatched _his_ assailant with a
rifle shot; but Myles did not dare let go of the control levers, as he
was flying too close to the tree tops for safety as it was. Accordingly
_his_ assailant got a clawhold on the side of the fusilage, furled its
wings and started to crawl in.
But the earth-man steered the machine high into the air, as his
companion swung around and fired at the intruder, which promptly let go
its hold, and, falling with a shriek of pain, crashed through the tree
tops and disappeared from view.
Myles drew a deep breath of relief, and once more swooped down on the
flock of pterosaurs. But this time he kept at a safe distance from them;
and they, warned by the fate of their two comrades, did not attempt any
further sallies at the plane.
So the pursuit continued. Occasionally, between the green wings, the two
in the airship could catch a glimpse of the form of Quivven, held fast
in the talons of her captor. She was still alive. She did not seem to be
in pain. Once she waved feebly to her friends above. What would those
beasts do with her?
The question was soon to be answered. But first it was to be succeeded
by many other questions, for a large and prosperous looking city loomed
ahead. Its appearance was unfamiliar to Cabot. Strange, he thought that
he knew all the principal settlements of Cupia! Its architecture was of
an unknown type, not the pueblolike piles of exaggerated toy building
blocks affected by the Formians, nor the red-tiled spires and minarets
of the Cupians, but rather a style somewhat resembling classical Greek
or Roman.
The architecture was immaterial, however, compared with the fact that
this was a city of some sort, a city of a high degree of civilization.
The beasts were apparently headed straight for it, and thus there was
every prospect of the inhabitants—presumably Cupians—rescuing Quivven.
Suppose, however, it was a deserted city. Its unfamiliar style and
remote location suggested as much. Perhaps this was the long forgotten
court of some Cupian Jamshyd, now kept by lion and lizard, or rather by
woofus and pterodactyl.
This was not so, however; for, as Cabot drew nearer, he could clearly
see that the buildings were in an excellent state of repair, with not a
crumbling ruin among them. No, this was an _inhabited_ city, to which
the green dragons were bringing their prey. Could it be that the Cupian
inhabitants kept these creatures as pets, and that this fact was unknown
to the scientists at the Cupian metropolis?
Cabot’s cogitations were again cut short by his arrival over the city.
The dragons made straight for an imposing centrally-located domed
edifice, which they entered by one of the upper windows. The plane
promptly dropped into a near-by plaza. Making a sign to the ant-man to
guard the ship, Myles seized a rifle and cartridges, and rushed down a
street which led toward the building which the green beasts had entered.
On the way he met several pterosaurs, four or five four-legged
slate-colored reptiles ranging in size from that of a small dog to that
of a horse, one large snake about thirty feet in length, various sorts
of insects, and a few cat-like furry creatures; but not a single Cupian.
If these were the pets of the city, where were their masters?
The strange creatures did not offer to molest him. In fact, they gave
way to him with every indication of respect and not a little fear. This
seemed to indicate that they were all thoroughly domesticated, so he
made no effort to hurt them.
At last he arrived at the building which he sought. A wide incline led
from the street up to its arched doorway. This smacked of Formia, for
the ant-men before they were driven off the continent had used ramps
everywhere instead of the flight of stairs employed by the Cupians.
Over the door was an inscription in unmistakable Porovian characters:
“The Palace of the City of Yat.”
This must be Cupia, or old Formia—now occupied by the Cupians—for this
was the language of those two races. But then, he reflected, it had also
been the _written_ language of the Vairkings, far across the boiling
seas.
Putting an end to his speculations, he rushed up the ramp and entered
the building.
The splendidly arched and vaulted interior was crowded with the
strangest assortment of animals the earth-man had ever set eyes upon.
Picture to yourself Frank Buck’s circus, the New York zoo, and the
gr-ool of Kuana, all turned loose in one hall, and then you wouldn’t
imagine one-half of it; for very few of these assembled beasts bore the
slightest resemblance to anything which you, or even Myles Cabot, had
ever seen. He paused aghast and surveyed the assemblage. There was not a
human or Cupian present, not even an ant-man!
At the farther side of the chamber, on a raised platform, there sat—or,
rather, squatted—a gigantic pterosaur, whose wingspread must have been
at least twenty feet from tip to tip. This beast, unlike those which had
kidnapped Quivven, was pale slate-blue rather than green. His head was
square, with a sharp crested beak, large circular lidless eyes, and
earholes, but no ears.
Four legs he had, very much like those of a toad, except that the fifth
finger of each hand, the finger which should have been the “little”
finger, extended backward over his hips to a distance of about six feet,
and served as the other supporting edge of his leathery wings, which now
lay furled at his side.
In front of this creature stood Quivven the Golden Flame, guarded by two
of the smaller pterodactyls, and seemingly unhurt and unafraid. None of
the animals appeared to have noticed Cabot’s entrance, so he decided to
wait a few moments and size up the situation before doing anything rash.
As he watched the scene, a huge snake some thirty feet in length and at
least half a yard in diameter squirmed on to the platform beside the
slate-colored dragon. This snake had two rudimentary legs and two small
arms, none of which it used to help its progression; but in one hand it
carried what appeared to be a sheet of paper, which it handed with a
hiss to the dragon, who hissed in reply, and taking the paper appeared
to read it.
This called the attention of the earth-man to the fact that each of the
Alice-in-Wonderland animals about him was equipped with a pad and
stylus. Occasionally one would scratch something on its pad, and then
make two sharp clicks with its mouth, at which a small winged lizard
would take the missive and fly with it to some other part of the
chamber.
Standing very near Myles there was a small and particularly
inoffensive-looking furry animal somewhat resembling a beaver. In Cupia
Myles would have assumed that it was some species of mathlab, except for
its lack of antennae.
This looked like a good safe specimen to experiment upon, so he reached
for its pad, which, to his great surprise, the creature promptly handed
him without demur, together with its stylus.
Remembering the inscription above the arched doorway, Myles wrote in
Porovian shorthand: “Most Excellent King—Myles Cabot, a weary sojourner,
craves protection for himself and the golden one who now stands before
you. We are from Cupia and Vairkingi respectively. What country is
this?”
Then he folded the paper and clicked twice with his tongue against the
roof of his mouth. Instantly a fluttering messenger was at his side.
Indicating the platform with a gesture, he handed the note to the little
winged reptile, who flew away with it. Myles passed the pad and stylus
back to the furry creature from whom he had borrowed it, and then
watched the great dragon to whom he had written.
This beast received and read the note, while the messenger hovered nigh.
Then, steadying a pad against the floor with one front claw, he wrote on
it with a stylus held in the other. What he had written he showed to the
snake which lay coiled beside him, and upon obtaining a hiss of
approval, folded the note and gave it to the little bat, who flew back
with it to Myles.
On the paper, written in unmistakable Porovian characters, were the
words: “Welcome to Yat, Myles Cabot. You and your mate are our guests.
We know of no country of either Cupia or Vairkingi. This is the land of
the Whoomangs, and I am Boomalayla, their king. You have permission to
approach the throne.”
So _that_ explained the strange plants, the dirt roads, the unfamiliar
architecture, and the absence of Cupians and Vairkings! This must be a
_third_ continent intermediate between the other two. Well, the plane
was intact, and King Boomalayla had assured him that they were guests,
so that it was just as well that they had landed on this Azores of the
boiling seas. Reassured, the earth-man made his way through the strange
throng to the foot of the throne where he bowed low before the hideous
reptile monarch.
Little Quivven, with a cry of glad surprise, rushed over to him and
nestled confidingly by his side. Placing one arm protectingly around
her, he boldly confronted the winged king.
This beast, after some penciled conversation with his serpent adviser,
handed Myles a note reading as follows: “Our nation was founded many
years ago by a creature closely resembling yourself. Therefore you are
an honored guest among us. We have long awaited this day. It is true
that you have killed the bodies of two of my subjects, and thereby
subjected their souls to a premature birth. The penalty for this would
ordinarily be to have a similar death imposed upon your own body. But
because of your resemblance to our great originator, Namllup, I shall
spare your body. Furthermore, I fear that, like him, you may perhaps
have no soul, although this deficiency can easily be supplied.”
Myles read the note and handed it to Quivven, then pointed to the
writing materials of the saurian. Instantly two of the tiny winged
messengers brought him a pad and stylus.
Thus supplied, he asked the king: “Great ruler, does your offer of
protection include my wings and the black creature who guards them in
the public square outside?”
“And how about little me?” asked Quivven, reading over his shoulder.
“He has already pledged his friendship to both of us,” replied Myles,
handing the note to one of the tiny pterosaurs.
Back came the answer from the king: “You and yours shall all be
protected. I will now send guards to relieve your guard at the wings,
and to summon him into my presence.”
But the earth-man held up one hand in a gesture of protest, and
hurriedly wrote: “Better not, your majesty, unless you wish a fight. I
will send a note, explaining all. You can then follow it in a few
paraparths with your detachment of guards.”
To this proposal the huge saurian assented, so Myles dispatched to Doggo
by one of the tiny pterosaurs a long written explanation of the
situation. A few minutes later, under orders from the reptile king, the
flock of green pterodactyls who had been the original captors of Quivven
departed with much leathery flapping through one of the windows
overhead, and presently one of them returned on foot with Doggo.
“What kind of a gr-ool is this we have got into?” were the ant-man’s
first words, as Cabot handed him the pad and stylus.
“The Great Builder only knows,” his friend replied. “Anyhow they claim
to possess souls, and have offered us protection.”
Doggo looked skeptical. Just then a messenger flitted over with a note
from Boomalayla, reading: “The session is at an end. You will please
follow me to the royal apartments for a conference.”
The king clicked sharply. Instantly all was silence in the huge hall.
Solemnly the king clicked three times. In unison the assembled Whoomangs
clicked back a triple answer. Then all was bustle and confusion as those
without wings crowded through the doors and those with wings departed
through the windows in the dome above.
Boomalayla and his snake adviser, and the three travelers from Vairkingi
were the only persons—if you can call them all “persons”—left in the
vaulted chamber. Whereupon the snake, gliding ahead, led the way to an
anteroom, gorgeously jeweled and draped. There the five reclined on soft
tapestries, attended by a swarm of little messengers and engaged in the
following written conversation. Due to the speed of Porovian shorthand,
the “talk” progressed practically as rapidly as if it had been spoken,
although Doggo was somewhat handicapped by not having a stylus which was
properly adapted to his claw.
“Who are your companions?” the king asked.
So Myles introduced Quivven the Vairking maiden, and Doggo the Formian.
Boomalayla explained that the snake was Queekle Mukki, prime minister of
the Whoomangs, and wise beyond all his countrymen.
“His soul is brother to my soul, although our bodies are unrelated,” the
king wrote.
Myles was much perplexed. “How is it,” he inquired, “that such
diversified animals as you Whoomangs are able to live at peace with each
other?”
“It was not so before the days of Namllup,” the huge pterosaur replied,
“but he gave us souls and made us one people. Our bodies may be
unrelated, but our souls are the same. You and your two companions are
as unalike as any of us; perhaps the three of _you_ have a common type
of soul.”
Myles was even more perplexed. “Who was Namllup?” he asked. “And what
means all this talk of souls?”
XXI
SOULS?
In reply to Cabot’s question, the huge winged saurian, Boomalayla, King
of the Whoomangs, wrote the following reply, “All that I am about to
tell you of the traditional beginning of our race is shrouded in the
mists of antiquity. The legend is as follows:
“Many hundreds of years ago this fertile continent was inhabited by
warring beasts of every conceivable size and form; and they were but
brute creatures, for they had no souls. Souls existed, it is true, but
inasmuch as they inhabited no bodies, they had no learning, experience,
or background. They were of but little use to themselves, each other, or
the planet.
“Then one day there was born out of the ground a creature much like
yourself. His name was Namllup. He it was who discovered how to
introduce souls into bodies by making a slight incision at the base of
the brain and inserting there a young soul.
“First he captured some very tame wild creatures and gave them souls.
With their aid he captured others, more fierce, and so on, until there
was hardly a beast left soulless on this continent. Thus did he make of
one race all the creatures of Poros to dwell together on the face of the
continent. This industry we have kept up to this day.
“It is reported, however, that Namllup himself had no soul. There was no
scar at the back of his head, and no soul issued from his body after
death. Others he gave soul to, himself he could not. This is the general
belief.”
All this was as clear as mud to Myles Cabot. He could not make head nor
tail out of it. Boomalayla appeared to be talking in riddles, or
allegories.
Nevertheless, Myles determined to try and make a beginning somewhere in
order to understand what this mass of verbiage was all about, so he
wrote, “How can you tell? Surely you cannot _see_ souls!”
“Surely we _can_,” the reptile king replied, “for souls are creatures
just as real as we are, and have an independent existence from the day
they hatch until they are inserted in the brain of somebody. From the
way you talk, I cannot believe that _you_ have any soul.”
“Of course I have,” Myles remonstrated.
“Prove it to me,” Boomalayla demanded. “Let me see the back of your
head.”
Myles complied.
“No,” the winged king continued, “you have no soul. There is no scar.”
This conversation was irritating in the extreme. It led nowhere. Quivven
and Doggo read all the correspondence, and were equally perplexed.
The huge pterosaur continued writing. “I can see that you do not believe
me,” he wrote.
“This is not to be wondered at, since you yourself are soulless. Though
I cannot understand how a beast like you, without a soul, can be as
intelligent as you seem to be. Come to our temple, and I will show you
souls.”
So saying, Boomalayla, accompanied by Queekle Mukki, the serpent, led
Cabot and his two companions out of the buildings and through the
streets of the city to another edifice, which they entered.
What a travesty on the lost religion of Cupia!
Within the temple there moved about a score or more of assorted
beasts—pterodactyls, reptiles, huge insects, furry creatures, and so
forth—bearing absolutely no resemblance to each other except the fact
that each and every one of them wore a long robe emblazoned with a
crimson triangle and swastika, emblem of the true religion of Poros.
Among them was one enormous slate-colored pterosaur, almost the exact
counterpart of Boomalayla, the king, who introduced this beast to his
guests by means of the following note: “This is the chief priest of the
true religion. She is my mate. But come, let me show you some souls.”
The chief priest then led the party into an adjoining room, the walls of
which were lined with tiny cages, most of which contained pairs of
moths.
The dragon king explained as follows: “When a Whoomang dies, his body is
brought to the temple and is watched day and night by a priest, net in
hand, to catch the soul when it emerges.”
What it had to do with _souls_ Cabot couldn’t see for the life of him.
Neither could Quivven nor Doggo.
Having made a complete tour of inspection the party then returned to the
palace, where they discussed the glories of Vairkingi and Cupia with the
king and Queekle Mukki, and then dined on cereal cakes and a flesh
resembling fish.
“Be not afraid to eat this,” Boomalayla urged. “It is fresh flesh. We
breed these water reptiles especially for food.”
After the meal the three travelers were assigned rooms in the palace.
At Cabot’s request, tapestries were brought from the plane, and the
party severally retired for the night.
The next morning they were up early, and assembled in Cabot’s room. The
night had proved uneventful, but Doggo wrote in great excitement that he
had talked with the green guards, who had refused to disclose the
whereabouts of the plane, and had said that this was the king’s order.
Immediately after breakfast, which consisted of cakes and sweetened
water, they requested an audience with the king—and, when it was
granted, demanded news of the plane. But Boomalayla waved them off with
an evasive answer.
“Tarry but a day or so,” he wrote, “and then your wings shall be
returned to you, and you shall be permitted to depart. I promise it, on
the word of honor of a king.”
So there was nothing but to wait, for it would not do to antagonize this
powerful beast, and thus perhaps lose forever the chance to return which
he had promised them.
The day was spent in a personally-conducted tour of the city, with
Boomalayla as a most courteous and attentive guide and host. The
Whoomangs appeared to be a highly cultivated race, if you can call them
a “race”—a “congeries” would perhaps be the most accurate term. Objects
of all the arts abounded, and the tour would have been most pleasurable
if the three travelers had not been so anxious to be on their way once
more to Cupia.
The night was spent as before, uneventfully, but the next day Doggo was
missing. In reply to all inquiries, the Whoomangs returned evasive
answers.
“He is gone on business of his own,” was all they would say.
This day Queekle Mukki, the serpent, was their host and guide. He used
every effort to outdo Boomalayla in courtesy, but his two guests were
strangely uneasy. Some impending calamity seemed to hang over them.
Late that evening, when they were in their quarters, Doggo rushed in
bristling with excitement. He had something to tell them, and wanted to
tell it quickly, but had mislaid his pad and stylus. Strange to relate,
Cabot could not find his own writing materials either. Quivven finally
found her stylus but no pad.
Seizing the lead-tipped stick, Doggo scratched on the pavement of the
room, “Quick, give me paper! Quick! Your lives depend upon it! Quick,
before it is too late!”
Cabot rushed into the hall and clicked twice with his tongue against the
roof of his mouth, but nothing happened. Again and again he repeated the
call, until finally one of the little winged messengers flitted into
sight. To him the earth-man indicated his wants by going through the
motions of writing with the index finger of his right hand upon the palm
of his left. The little creature flitted away, and after what seemed an
interminable wait returned with pad and stylus.
Myles snatched them and rushed back to Doggo. “What is the matter?” he
wrote.
But Doggo replied, “Nothing. It was just a joke, to frighten you. We are
all perfectly safe here, and Boomalayla has a wonderful plan to
facilitate our departure three days from now.”
It was not like Doggo, or any other member of the serious minded race of
ant-men, to play a practical joke like this. Myles could swear that his
friend had been genuinely agitated a few moments ago. What could have
happened in the meantime to change him?
The earth-man looked at the Formian steadily through narrowed lids. His
friend appeared to act strangely. Could this, in truth, be Doggo?
If they had been on any other continent Myles would have sworn that some
other ant-man, closely resembling his friend, was attempting an
impersonation, but that could not be the case here, for Doggo was
certainly the only Formian on this continent.
It was Doggo’s body, all right, yet it did not act or look like Doggo.
Even Quivven noticed that something was wrong. Nervously she said good
night, and Cabot followed shortly after.
Instead of retiring he went to Quivven’s room, where the two puzzled
together for some time, trying to guess what had come over their friend.
What at last they parted for the night the mystery was no nearer
solution than before. In fact, they had practically made up their minds
that no mystery existed, after all; and that the strange surroundings,
and strange events, and strange talk of souls, had merely cast an aura
of strangeness even over their friend.
The next morning Doggo was on hand bright and early, but this time it
was Quivven who was missing.
“My turn next,” thought Myles, “and then perhaps I shall find out what
it is all about.”
As before, the Whoomangs were evasive as to the whereabouts of the
golden one, and even Doggo was singularly unresponsive and devoid of
ideas on the subject.
This day the she-dragon high-priestess was their guide, but although she
outdid both Boomalayla and Queekle Mukki, Cabot fretted, and worried,
and merely put on an external show of interest.
Late that afternoon—the fourth—of their stay among the Whoomangs—as soon
as the tour was over, Cabot left Doggo and withdrew to his own room.
Where was Quivven all this time, he wondered.
His question was answered by the Golden Flame herself bursting into the
room full of excitement.
“Thank the Builder I can talk to you with my mouth, and do not have to
wait for pencil and paper,” she exclaimed. “The Whoomangs overlooked our
powers of vocal speech when they hid our writing materials as before.”
It was true; their pads and styluses had miraculously disappeared again.
“Where have you been?” Cabot asked, somewhat testily. “I suppose that in
a few moments you will say that all _your_ excitement has been a mere
practical joke on me, the same as Doggo’s was.”
“Yes,” she replied seriously. “I shall—undoubtedly. And therefore listen
while there is yet time—while I am still Quivven.”
“What do you mean?” Myles exclaimed, staring at her.
“This,” she said. “In a few moments I shall be Whoomang.”
He started to interrupt, but she stopped him with a peremptory gesture,
and continued; “Know, then, the secret of all this talk of souls. The
grubs which they breed from their moths are strong personalities,
potential devils, needing only a highly-developed body in order to
become devils incarnate. Namllup, whoever he was, discovered this, ages
ago.
“By a simple operation, the Whoomangs can insert one of these larvae at
the base of a creature’s brain, where in a few hours the personality of
the larva overcomes the proper personality of the creature, and
henceforth rules the creature until the creature dies. The larva then
flutters free, a moth, to propagate other devil-souls for this nefarious
usage.
“Yesterday these fiends operated upon Doggo. For a time, his own soul
and this brain-maggot struggled for supremacy. While his own personality
remained ascendant, and yet had imbibed sufficient knowledge to
understand the situation, he tried to warn us of our danger. Would that
he had been in time! But when the pad of paper had arrived, dear old
Doggo was dead. His body had become a Whoomang, dominated by one of
their moth-grubs, ‘souls’ as they call them.
“This afternoon they operated on me!”
Myles shuddered, but Quivven went relentlessly on: “Two personalities
are now contending within me for mastery. There can be but one outcome.
Quivven must die, and her brain and body must become the vehicle for the
thoughts and schemes of an alien mind. My will is strong. At present it
is in control. But any moment now, it may snap. So I adjure you, by the
Great Builder and your loved ones, refuse stonily and absolutely to
listen to any denial which my mouth may give you.
“Now, while there is yet time, I must tell you their plans. Boomalayla
sighs for more worlds to conquer. He was captivated by your tales of
your country. To-morrow he will operate on you. Then, when the bodies of
you and Doggo and I are all Whoomangs, and yet retain a certain amount
of our own knowledge and skill, he plans to send us on to Cupia with a
plane-load of moths, to operate on your countrymen, and build up a
second empire of Whoomangs there.”
Myles gasped at the dastardliness of the plan, a plan which might yet
succeed; for, even if he escaped, Doggo’s body might still carry the
plan into execution.
“Where is our plane?” he asked.
“Yes,” Quivven sadly replied, “I must lead you to the plane, while I am
yet me. Come quickly.”
“But can we leave Doggo?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Not only must you leave Doggo, but you must leave
me, too; for Doggo is no longer Doggo, and I shall not be Quivven in a
few minutes from now, for I feel the Whoomang-soul struggling for
ascendency within me. Come!”
Quickly she led him out of the room, and down several hallways to a
courtyard of the palace, where stood the plane, guarded by a green
dragon. This beast interposed no objection to their approach. Quivven
smiled wanly.
“He will not stop you,” she said, “for already they regard me as one of
them, and count on me to inveigle you. And now, Myles, good-by. I feel
myself slipping. In a minute or two your Quivven will be no more.
Whether my own soul will then go to the happy land, as though I had
normally died, or whether it will simply be blotted out, I know not; but
one thing I _do_ know, and that is that I love you with all my heart.”
She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Then suddenly she cried, “I’ve won! I made you love me. It was all a
scheme, cooked up by Doggo and myself to trap you out of your
complacency and force you to admit your love. The story of the
moth-grubs souls is a lie, woven out of the weird philosophizing of
Boomalayla. From now on, I know that you love me. From now on, I am
confident that I can compete with that Lilla of yours.”
He stood aghast. Could this be so? He was half inclined to believe. Then
he remembered her words: “_Refuse stonily and absolutely to listen to
any denial which my mouth may give you._” Also he reflected that Doggo
certainly would never have been a party to a trick to betray Lilla.
So he thrust the golden maid to one side, and strode toward the plane.
But she rushed after him and clung to him, wailing piteously, “Myles,
Myles, surely you aren’t going to desert us just because of this trick
which we played on you. Surely you don’t intend to leave us to the mercy
of these terrible beasts.”
He did not know what to believe. There was a possibility that her story
about the souls was the truth. If so, then the safety of the whole
continent of Cupia was at stake. And yet, if not, what an awful country
to leave her and Doggo in!
He vaulted into the plane, then stood irresolute at the levers. He
looked intently at the golden maid, who clung to the side of the car.
There was something strange about her face, something clearly
un-Quivven. And yet, as he gazed, he became certain that it was Quivven
after all. And he was right.
“Myles,” she shouted, letting go the plane, “Quick! By the grace of the
Builder, my own spirit is again in the ascendency for an instant. The
story I told you is true! Flee, before it is too late.” Then suddenly
she changed again and shouted to the guardian pterosaur, “Quick, stop
him!”
Her expression altered as she spoke, but Myles slammed on the power, and
the machine rose quickly, leaving behind the frantic golden form of
little Quivven.
After him trailed a swarm of winged creatures of all sorts, but his fast
airship soon outdistanced them as it sped due west toward a sky that had
already begun to turn pink with the unseen setting sun. On and on he
sped until his pursuers dropped from view. Then he turned northward to
throw them off the trail; and then, after a while, due west again,
until, as night was about to fall, the steam-bank of the boiling sea
loomed ahead.
Whereupon he landed. He must wait until morning before attempting the
passage. But as he prepared to spend the night he noticed that all the
tapestries were gone from the cockpit.
How could he brave the steam clouds without wrappings of some sort? And
was he certain, after all, that he was not leaving two perfectly good
friends in the lurch?
XXII
FLIGHT
There must be _something_ in the airship in which he could swathe
himself for the trip across the boiling seas. With this in view he made
a frantic search of the entire cockpit. Doggo’s rifle and the ammunition
were still there, but his own he had left in his room on his hurried
departure. Here, too, was the little stone lamp, by the light of which
they had watched their instruments beneath the kayack covering. Even
some of their provisions were left.
Finally he came upon some boxes which he did not recognize. A rank smell
became evident upon closer examination. Gingerly he opened one of those
boxes.
It contained flesh, finely ground and putrid. And in this carrion there
wriggled and swarmed scores of small white grubs! The last of Cabot’s
doubts vanished. These were the devil-souls which he and Doggo and
Quivven had been expected to carry to Cupia, to found there a new empire
of Whoomangs. Evidently his hosts had expected some possible trouble
from him, and therefore had prepared the plane for a quick get-away by
Doggo and Quivven.
Indignantly the lonely earth-man emptied out box after box onto the
ground, and mashed the contents into the dirt with his sandaled feet.
By this time it was nearly pitch dark, but of course, this would make no
difference while flying through steam clouds, for visibility under such
circumstances would be impossible even in daylight. If he only had some
covering for the cockpit to keep out the steam, he could fly just as
well at night as by day, except for one danger; how could he be warned
of flying too high, passing through the circumambient cloud envelope,
and being shriveled to a crisp by the close proximity of the sun.
In despair the earth-man sat beside his beached airship, as the velvet
blackness crept out of the east and enveloped the planet. So near, and
yet so far! He had successfully transmitted himself through millions of
miles of space from the earth to Poros. He had escaped the clutches of
the Formians and the Roies.
He had built a complete radio set out of nothing, and had talked with
Cupia across the boiling seas. He had traversed those seas once without
accident. He had eluded the machinations of the Whoomangs, with their
moth grub “souls”. And yet here he was, with only a few miles of ocean
separating him from his loved ones, and, nevertheless, blocked
effectually by the lack of a few yards of cloth. What fate!
As the last purple flush died on the western horizon, Myles suddenly
jumped to his feet, and laughed aloud. The solution was so obvious that
it had completely escaped him until now. It was the setting sun that had
suggested the escape from his dilemma.
There is no sun at night!
Of course not!
Therefore why not soar straight up, pierce the cloud envelope and fly
above it to Cupia, letting the clouds protect him from the heat of the
boiling seas, as they normally protect the planet from the light and
heat of the sun? At any rate, it was worth trying. To remain where he
was would mean either eventual starvation, or recapture by the terrible
Whoomangs.
So, by the light of his little Vairking stone lamp, he made a hasty
lunch from his few remaining provisions, and then took his stand at the
levers for a new experiment in Porovian navigation.
Up, up, he shot through the dense blackness, up to a height which in
earth would have filled his blood with air bubbles, and have suffocated
his lungs. But on Poros, with its thicker atmospheric shell and its
lesser gravity, the change was not so evident.
Far to the eastward he saw the lights of Yat, the city of the beasts;
but this was his only landmark. There was nothing but his gyro-compass
to tell him exactly which was north, and south, and east, and west;
nothing but his clinometer to indicate whether he was going up or down;
nothing but his altimeter to indicate his approximate height above the
surface of the planet. And these instruments he must read by the
flickering light of a primitive open wick stone lamp on the floor of the
cockpit.
What if this faint illuminator should become extinguished? He certainly
could not leave the controls for long enough to use flint and steel to
rekindle it.
During the early part of his stay in Vairkingi he had always gone to
some one of the constantly burning lamps which were the primitive fire
source of the furry Vairkings. Later he had found several pieces of
flint, when investigating a small chalk deposit as a possible
alternative for limestone in his smelting operations. After the
manufacture of steel had begun he had practiced striking a light in this
more modern method, and thereafter had always carried flint and steel
and tinder with him in one of the pouch pockets of his leather tunic. It
was with these crude implements that he had kindled his oil lamp for the
present flight.
But this fire source would avail him little if a gust of wind should
extinguish his primitive lamp. In such event, what could he do?
This question was immediately put to the test, for his ship struck a
small air pocket and dipped. Out went the light! Now he could no longer
read his compass nor his altimeter, but—happy thought—he could determine
the inclination of the plane from time to time by _touching_ his
clinometer. So, on upward he kept.
Presently he found it difficult to breath, and this difficulty was soon
increased by a damp fog, which choked his nostrils and windpipe, causing
him to cough and sneeze. The water condensed on the airship, and dropped
off the rigging onto the matted hair and beard of the earth-man. Yet
still he kept on up.
Finally he breathed clear air once more. He pushed back the dripping
locks from his forehead, and wiped out his water-filled eyes with the
back of one wrist. All was still jet darkness, yet in front of him and
above him there glowed some tiny points of light. Rubbing his eyes, he
looked again. Stars! The first stars he had ever seen on Poros—a sky
full of stars!
With some surprise Myles Cabot noted that above him were swung the same
constellations with which he had been familiar on earth, among them the
two dippers, Orion and Cassiopea.
He strove to recall the inclination of the axis of Venus to the
ecliptic, but all that he could remember was that it did not differ
appreciably from that of the earth. This information was enough for his
present purposes, however, for it meant that the star which we call the
pole star on earth was approximately north on Poros, and that its
altitude above the northern horizon would give approximately the
latitude of the location of the observer.
The pole star, which he readily identified by means of the two pointers
of the great dipper, now hung about twenty degrees above the horizon,
thus showing that Cabot was opposite the southern tip of that part of
the continent of Cupia which formerly was Formia; so he leveled out the
plane and, turning its nose northwest by the stars, scudded along above
the cloud envelope of the planet.
It was not long before he noticed a quite appreciable increase of
temperature. Gusts and swirls of hot vapor assailed him from below; so
that if it had not been for the gyroscopic steadying apparatus, he must
surely have foundered. Even as it was, it took all his efforts to
control the ship. He suffered fearfully from the heat, but it was not
absolutely unbearable.
Navigation so compelled his entire attention that he lost all track of
time; he struggled on as in a dream, and had not the slightest idea
whether he had been flying for hours or only for minutes.
On and on he drove through the terrific heat until at last he got so
used to it that it actually seemed cooler. By Jove, he could almost
believe that the air really was cooler!
So cautiously he tipped the nose of the plane downward, and entered the
clouds below him. Feeling his way at a low rate of speed, and ever ready
to slam on the full force of his trophil engines and shoot upward once
more, he gradually penetrated the cloud envelope which surrounds the
planet. Yet the heat did not increase.
At last he was through. And below him twinkled lights, the lights of a
small city or town. Throwing the plane level once more, he hovered down
in true Porovian fashion.
The light of the town showed closer. Cabot’s heart beat fast, there was
a lump in his throat, and his hands trembled at the controls. Was this
Cupia, his own kingdom of Cupia at last? Was he home?
Or—and his heart sank within him—was this some still new continent, with
other nightmare beasts, and horrible adventures?
Whichever it was, he ought not to land too near the town. His
trophil-motor was making a loud racket, but he was not afraid of being
heard, for Cupians have no ears, and their antennae can receive only
radio waves. So he skimmed low over the houses, straining his eyes to
try and make out their style of architecture. But it was no use; the jet
blackness of Porovian night obscured all below. Accordingly he planned
to land about half a stad from the village, and then reconnoiter at
daybreak.
This was to be accomplished as follows. His distance from the ground he
could gauge from the lights of the houses. Therefore he would hold his
craft as nearly as possible level, and hover softly down, taking a
chance of landing on some bush or tree.
The plan worked to perfection. After just about the expected drop, he
felt the skids grate on solid ground. Land once more, after his
sensational flight above the clouds! Exhausted and relaxed, he shut off
his motor, and proceeded to crawl over the edge of the cockpit.
Of course he could not even see his own machine in the intense darkness.
As he started to clamber out the plane suddenly tilted a bit under his
weight, then gave a lurch, and slid out from under him, dislodging him
as it did so.
He struck the ground, but it crumbled beneath him, and he felt himself
slipping and sliding down a steep gravel bank until finally some sort of
a projection stopped his descent. To this projection he frantically
clung. During his slide he had heard the loud splash of the airplane
below him, so he knew that there was water there.
As he hung to the projection on the side of the steep sand bank, he
looked about him in the jet black night; and, as he looked, he noticed
the edge of the bank above him, just showing against the sky. The edge
became more and more distinct. The sky above turned to slate, then
purple, then red, then pink, then silver. Day had come once more.
Cabot found himself clinging to a sharp spur of rock which stuck out
from the bank. So he hauled himself into a comfortable position upon it
and stared around at his surroundings.
His location was halfway down the precipitous side of a craterlike hole
about a quarter of a stad in diameter and three parastads deep, the
banks of which were of coarse black sand. At the bottom a clear pool of
water reflected the silver sky. There was no sign of either his rifle,
his cartridge belt, or his plane. He possessed nothing save his leather
tunic, his wooden Vairking sword, a steel sheath knife which he had made
in his foundries at Vairkingi, and the contents of his pockets.
Even his leather helmet was gone. He espied it, floating like a little
boat, far out upon the pond; but even as he looked, some denizen of the
deep snapped at it, and it disappeared beneath the surface. This was a
forewarning of what might happen to Myles if he should have the
misfortune to slip into the pool below.
Well, he must risk it in an attempt to get out, for even a sudden death
beneath the waters was preferable to starvation on a rocky perch. So,
carefully and laboriously, he attempted the ascent. Many times he
slipped back, losing nearly all that he had gained; but fortunately the
bank was rather firm in spots and was dotted with large jagged rocks
which afforded a good handhold, so that eventually Myles reached the
top.
Here he found a flat plateau, flanked by a continuous hedge of bushes
about thirty paces from the edge. These bushes were too high to see
over, and grew so thickly together that Myles was unable to penetrate
them. Round and round the top of the pit he walked, repeatedly trying to
force his way out, but with no success.
The day wore on. Myles became tired, and hungry, and thirsty, and
disgusted. By placing a small pebble in his mouth, he relieved the
thirst for awhile, but this had no effect on his other symptoms. Finally
even his thirst returned.
The thirst was aggravated by the presence, almost at his feet, of the
clear pool of water within the pit. He almost decided to slide down and
try it, until he remembered what had happened to his leather hat.
So instead he began systematically to hack at the bushes with his knife
and tear them up by the roots at one given spot. At the end of an hour
he had progressed only about a yard, so he gave this up, too. He sat
down, wrapped his arms around his knees, gazed at the silver sky, and
thought of nothing for a while.
Then he thought of Lilla and the Baby Kew. Here he was, presumably in
Cupia, perhaps within a few stads of them; and yet what good did it do
him?
It seemed to him as though the nearer he got to his loved ones, the more
effectually he was separated from them. On the Farley farm, in
Edgartown, Massachusetts, when he had received the S O S message from
the skies, it had appeared but a simple matter to step within the
coordinate axes of his matter-transmitting apparatus, and throw a lever,
in order to materialize on Poros.
In Vairkingi there had been the more difficult task of securing an ant
plane, before essaying to cross the boiling seas. In the land of the
Whoomangs, he had been confronted with the almost insuperable lack of
swathing materials for such a flight. And now, in Cupia at last, he was
hemmed in by an impenetrable wall of trees.
Yet, he reflected, he had surmounted in turn each of these successively
more difficult difficulties; so why not this? With renewed determination
he arose, and resumed his grubbing operations. Another hour passed and
another yard of path had been completed. This was encouraging, and yet
he had no means of knowing how much farther there still remained for him
to go.
As he paused for breath, he heard a crashing noise almost directly
across the pit. Concealing himself as well as he could in the recess
which he had formed in the bushes, he watched expectantly. Presently the
thick growth on the other side parted neatly, and the sharp edge of a
wedge appeared. This wedge continued to divide the bushes until finally
it came completely through. All curiosity to see what was pushing the
wedge, Myles craned forward, but there was _nothing_ behind it; it had
been pushing itself.
As the bushes slowly closed together again, the wedge stood up on six
sturdy legs and trotted around the top of the pit, until it came to a
stop directly opposite the hiding place of the earth-man. This gave him
a good opportunity to observe it.
Apparently it was some sort of insect. Its head came to a sharp cutting
edge in the front about five feet high; and lateral projections extended
diagonally backward from the edge, like the wings on a snow-plow, to a
point well beyond the rear end of the animal.
These two sides were covered with stiff backward-pointing bristles,
which evidently served to catch on the bushes through which the creature
passed, and thus to hold whatever gains it made. Its eyes, like those of
a crab, were located on long jointed arms, which it could raise whenever
it wanted to look around. The lower edge of the sides of the wedge were
serrated, and Myles soon learned what this was for. After wiggling its
eyes about for a while, the creature walked to the edge of the bank,
thus giving the watcher a good view of the body and legs within the
projecting wedge, and slid off into the pit, where a splashing sound
indicated that it was probably drinking.
Soon it reappeared over the top of the pit. Evidently the saw teeth on
its sides were to hold its progress up the face of the sand bank in much
the same way as its spines held its progress through the bushes.
The wedge insect, upon topping the bank, made a beeline for the edge of
the clearing, thrust its nose between two saplings, furled its eyes,
braced it feet against the ground, and started forcing its way through.
Quick as a flash, Myles Cabot darted from his hiding place and followed.
The creature, rolling its eyes to the rear, saw him and tried to back
out; for what purpose he could not tell, but probably either to attack
him or at least to prevent him from attacking its vulnerable body. But
it was already in too far, and its spines held it securely.
It tried to kick at him, whereat he followed not quite so close. Then it
stubbornly stopped moving, pulled in its eyes and its legs and lay down
within its projecting head-piece, whereat he gave it a prick in the tail
with his Vairking sword. The effect was immediate and sudden. The
creature leaped to its feet and tore its way through the trees like a
cyclone, plunging high in air like a frantic horse. This left such an
erratic and only partially spread path that the earth-man had difficulty
in following, and soon fell far behind.
But just as he was about to despair, the branches which he parted ahead
of him revealed a meadow of silver-green sward. He had reached the end
of the wood.
Beyond the field was a grove of gray-branched lichen trees, through
which he could see the steep red-tiled roofs of a village. Just short of
the grove there grazed a herd of those pale-green aphids, the size of
sheep, which the Cupians call “anks,” and which Myles was wont to call
“green cows.” Close by his right hand was a large shrub with
heart-shaped leaves, unmistakably a tartan bush.
Steep red roofs, gray lichen trees, anks and tartans! This must be
Cupia! He was home!
Myles quoted aloud:
“Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself has said
‘This is my own, my native land’?”
Cupia might not be his _native_ land, but it was his _own_, the land of
his wife and child, the land of which his son was rightful king, the
land whose armies he had twice led to victory. And now he had returned
to lead them yet again.
Drawing a deep breath of Cupian air into his lungs, Myles raced across
the meadow to the shelter of the grove of trees. From that point of
vantage he inspected the village. The architecture was undoubtedly
Cupian. In fact, its character was so clear he was even able to judge by
it just what part of Cupia he was in, for this architecture was typical
of the southeastern foothills of the Okarze Mountains, a thousand stads
or so north of Kuana, the capital city.
These foothills held, among other spots of interest, Lake Luno, on an
island of which he and Lilla had built their country home. And the
inhabitants of these mountains had always been intensely loyal to the
earth-man, his golden-haired wife, and royal son.
On the outskirts of the village Cabot could see figures moving—figures
in white togas with colored edges, figures with tiny vestigial wings
projecting from their backs, figures with butterflylike antennae rising
from their foreheads. These were Cupians, his own adopted countrymen.
Yet they never would recognize him in his present condition, with shaggy
hair, massive beard, and leather tunic, and without the artificial wings
and antennae which he had been accustomed to wear among them. Therefore
he could not yet reveal himself. He must first restore his appearance to
normal and also find and put on one of the small portable radio sets
which he had contrived years ago in his laboratories of Mooni, in order
to talk with these folk who have neither ears nor voice.
So, turning his back on the alluring village, he made a meal of the
green milk of the grazing anks, and then set out to circle the
settlement and find a road.
When he did reach the road he recognized it. And now he knew exactly
what village that was. For the moment he could not recall its name; but
he knew it to be a little town which he and Lilla had often visited,
scarcely twenty stads from Luno Castle.
As he strode on toward Luno Castle, his thoughts raced ahead of him,
sometimes picturing a happy homecoming with Lilla and Baby Kew standing
in the great arched doorway to greet him, and sometimes desolation and
destruction with Prince Yuri, the murderer of the baby king, and the
kidnaper of Princess Lilla.
What would Myles Cabot find on the beautiful island in Lake Luno?
XXIII
LUNO AND BEYOND
With no weapons except a steel knife and wooden rapier, the unkempt and
bearded earth-man set out resolutely along the twenty-stad road which
led to Lake Luno. All the rest of the afternoon he tramped along,
avoiding the towns, and taking cover whenever a kerkool approached.
Night fell—the velvet, fragrant, tropic-scented night of Poros; yet,
still he kept on, for he knew the road.
As he trudged along he tried to picture to himself the state of affairs
in Cupia. Back in Vairkingi, when at last he had succeeded in getting
the Princess Lilla on the air, she had mentioned the whistling bees,
just before Prince Yuri had cut her off.
These bees were called “whistling” because of the heterodyne squeal with
which they appeared to converse; but Myles had discovered, by means of
the greater range and selectivity of his own artificial radio
speech-organs, that this whistle was due to the bees sending
simultaneously on two interfering wave lengths, for signal purposes.
When simply talking they used a wave length beyond the range of Cupian
speech!
Cabot had been able to adjust his portable set to this wave length, and
had talked with the bees. As a result of this conversation an alliance
had been formed between Cupia and the Hymernians—as the bee-people
called themselves—which had driven Yuri and his ants from the continent.
Thereafter the bees had lived at peace with the Cupians, a special
ration of green cows being bred for their benefit.
What, wondered Cabot, had the returned Yuri done to disturb this state
of affairs? If Portheris, the king of the bees, still lived, Cabot could
not imagine him siding with Yuri.
But, whatever had happened, it was clear that the bees were at the
bottom of it. Time would tell very speedily.
Traveling on foot at night on the planet Poros is necessarily slow and
tedious, for the blackness of the Porovian night is dense beyond
anything conceivable on earth. On earth even the light of a few stars
would enable a man to distinguish between a concrete road and the
adjoining fields and woods and bushes, but on Poros no stars are
visible. Accordingly Myles had to feel his way with his feet, and fell
off the road many times before he reached his destination. Due to the
mountainous character of the country, most of these falls were extremely
painful, and some were positively dangerous.
Yet on he kept, and before long the lights of Luno village loomed ahead.
Even here it would not do to reveal himself in his present state of
appearance, so he skirted the town and made his way down the steep path
which led to the shore of the lake.
If his island dwelling had been disturbed, he half expected to find that
his boats were gone from this landing place; but upon groping about in
the dark he came across several of them, tied up just where they ought
to be. This cheered him immensely.
But when he stared across toward the island and saw no sign of any light
there, his spirits fell again. It was not the custom at Luno Castle to
go through the night totally unillumined.
He would soon find out what the trouble was. So stepping into one of the
boats he cast off, and paddled vigorously toward the middle of the lake.
Keeping his bearings was difficult in the jet-black darkness, but he was
guided somewhat by the faint illumination sent skyward by the little
village.
Finally he bumped against the rocky and precipitous sides of the island,
but misjudging his location he had to paddle nearly clear around the
island before he came to the landing beach. This gained, he pulled his
craft ashore, and groped his way up the narrow path to the summit,
thence across the lawns, which sloped gently down toward the center of
the island, where lay a little pond with Luno Castle standing beside it.
Myles ran into several shrubs, got completely mixed up as to his
directions, and finally fell into the pond. This gave him a new starting
point from which to orient himself. Walking around its edge, with one
foot in the water, he would diverge outward from time to time, until at
last his groping hand touched a wall of masonry. It was his castle! He
was home! But what did that home hold? His heart beat tumultuously with
anticipation.
Feeling his way along the wall, he came to the steps, and crawled up
them to the great arched doorway. The door was closed, but not locked.
Myles flung it open softly, and entered, closing it behind him. Then
closing his eyes, he turned an electric switch, flooding the hall with
the light of many vapor-lamps.
Gradually opening his eyelids, he glanced around him. Everywhere was the
musty odor of unoccupancy. He had expected either his family or a sacked
and ruined castle; he had found neither.
It would not do for the surrounding populace to discover his return
until he was ready; so he hastily found a flashlight, and then switched
off the vapor-lamps again.
Flash-light in hand, he made a tour of the castle. Everything was in
perfect order. Lilla was a good housekeeper, and had evidently been
given plenty of time by Yuri to prepare for her departure. This spoke
volumes for her safety and that of the baby king.
Myles even found his own rooms undisturbed. This surprised him greatly.
He had not expected this much consideration from Yuri. But then he
reflected that Yuri must have been pretty sure that he would not return
from the earth, and had wanted to do nothing to antagonize Lilla any
more than absolutely necessary. This time Yuri had been playing the game
of love-and-empire with a little more finesse than usual.
Myles, in his own dressing room, switched on the light; this was safe,
as its windows opened only onto the courtyard. Then he bathed, shaved,
trimmed his hair, and donned a blue-bordered toga, in place of his
leather Vairking tunic. On his head he placed a radio headset of the
sort which he had devised shortly after his first advent on Poros, to
enable him to talk with the earless and voiceless Cupians and Formians.
Artificial antennae projected from his forehead. His earphones and ears
were concealed by locks of hair, his tiny microphone—between his
collar-bones—by a fold of his toga. Artificial wings strapped to his
back protruded through slits in his garment. Around his waist, beneath
his gown, was the belt which carried his batteries, tubes, and the
sending and receiving apparatus itself.
Thus equipped, he surveyed himself complacently in the glass. Barring
the absence of a sixth finger on each hand and a sixth toe on each foot,
he looked a Cupian of the Cupians.
Then he proceeded to the radio room. The long distance radio-set was in
perfect condition, but there was nothing on the air. One of the
three-dialed Porovian clocks showed the time to be 1025; that is, a half
hour after midnight, earth time. There was nothing further he could do
before morning; so he lay down for a few hours of much needed rest.
When he awoke it was broad daylight, 310 o’clock. The pink flush of
sunrise was just fading from the eastern sky. Less than three parths—six
hours—of sleep! And then he realized that he must have slept the clock
around, and more. A day’s growth of beard confirmed this. It was now the
beginning of his _third_ day in Cupia. He had been dead to Poros for
fifteen parths.
So he shaved, bathed, and breakfasted on some dried twig knobs—which was
all he could find in the house. The courtyard garden was full of weeds.
The lawns which surrounded the castle and the pond were uncut.
Everything bespoke an abandonment many sangths ago.
After a complete tour of the premises Myles hastened to the radio room,
and tuned-in the palace at Kuana. The result was the voice of the
usurper Yuri, testily calling the ant-station in New Formia, far across
the boiling seas. From time to time there would be silence, during which
the prince was evidently waiting for a reply; but none came. Otto the
Bold had done his work of destruction too well.
Myles chuckled. Yuri’s frantic voice, coming in over the air, was a
radio program much to Cabot’s liking. Even the best earth-station of
Columbia, National or Mutual could not surpass it. The only thing he
would rather hear would be his own sweet Lilla.
His recollection of Otto the Bold led him to wonder how the battle for
Vairkingi had progressed. Roies and Vairkings on one side against Roies
and ants on the other. It was a toss-up.
It seemed years since he had left the land of the furry ones—Otto, Grod,
Att, Jud, Theoph, Crota, Arkilu. They all resembled mere shadows of a
dream. The only real feature that stood out in his memory was the radio
set which he had fabricated.
Then his thoughts flew to Yat, the city of the Whoomangs, with its
strange assortment of creatures, including Boomalayla, the winged
dragon, and Queekle Mukki, the serpent. Cabot shed a tear for Doggo and
little golden furred Quivven, and then came down to the present with a
jerk.
He was back in Cupia, clean, clothed, shaved, equipped, fed, and rested.
It was now up to him to rescue the Princess Lilla from her traitor
cousin. First he must find firearms. But of these the castle had been
looted; for not a trace of a rifle, an automatic, or even a single
cartridge could he find, though he searched high and low. So reluctantly
he strapped on merely his Vairking sword and knife, and ran down the
path to the beach.
In the boat once more, he paddled rapidly toward the shore. At the
landing place, sitting on one of the boats was a Cupian, but as this man
seemed to be unarmed, Cabot approached him without fear. As he came
within antennae-shot the man sang out: “Welcome back to Cupia, Myles
Cabot, defender of the faith!”
Myles shaded his eyes from the silver glare of the sky. “Nan-nan!” he
exclaimed; for the Cupian before him was none other than the young
cleric of the lost religion who had helped rebuild his radio head-set in
the Caves of Kar during the Second War of Liberation.
As the boat grated on the beach the earth-man leaped out, and the two
friends were soon warmly patting each other’s cheek.
These greetings over, Cabot asked: “What good fortune brings you here?”
He found it easy to slip back again into the language of this continent.
“The Holy Leader detailed two of us,” Nan-nan replied, “to watch Luno
Castle, for you know he must be kept informed of everything, as he waits
within his caves for the promised day. Night before last my colleague
saw lights for a night, so this morning I decided to reconnoiter.”
“Is Owva still Holy Leader?” Myles asked politely.
“Yes,” the cleric replied. “The grand old man still lives.”
“The Builder be praised! But,” changing the subject, “how are my
family?”
“Both well,” Nan-nan answered, “though for the past six or nine days the
princess has not been permitted to communicate with anyone.”
Myles smiled. “Why?” he innocently asked.
“I know not,” the young cleric admitted.
Myles laughed. “I thought that the Holy Leader knew everything,” he
said. “Well, as it happens, _I_ can tell _you_. It is because I
communicated with her a few days ago and informed her that I was about
to return. Has no news of this got out from the palace?”
“No,” Nan-nan replied, “but it explains why Yuri has kept a large
squadron of whistling bees patrolling the eastern coast all day long
every day. How did you get by them?”
“Came over at night,” the earth-man answered. “But what about the bees?”
“I’ll tell you,” Nan-nan said. “Shortly after you left on your visit to
your own planet Minos, Prince Yuri flew back alone from his exile with
the Formians beyond the boiling seas. This was the first that we of
Cupia had known that any of them survived.
“Yuri kept his return a secret for some time, but got in touch with some
old supporters of his. First he contrived to cut off the allowance of
anks which are doled out to the bees for food. Then he stirred up
trouble among the bees because of this.
“The bees imprisoned Portheris, their king, and, under promise of an
increased allowance of food, seized the arsenal at Kuana, the air base
at Wautoosa, and Luno Castle. As you know, the air navy has been
practically disbanded, because there was nothing for it to fight. The
rifles of the marching clubs had fallen into disuse because other newer
games had superseded archery. Most of the rifles were stored at various
central places, which the bees succeeded in seizing.
“Some of the hill towns still had arms, but they surrendered these under
threat of Yuri to kill the Princess Lilla and the little king.
“All the arms are now stored in the arsenal at the capital under guard
of Yuri’s most trusted henchmen. A new treaty was made with the bees,
giving them an increase in food. But even so they are restive and are
held in check merely by fear of the anti-aircraft guns at Kuana.
“The general belief of the populace is that you are dead. Yuri is ruling
strictly, and has dissolved the Popular Assembly. The pinquis everywhere
are his personal appointees. These facts and the burden of supplying
anks to the Hymernians irk the people; but they are impotent. ‘Can a
mathlab struggle in the jaws of a woofus?”
“Lilla he treated well. If he had not done so, the populace would rise
against him, bees or no bees. And he has promised the succession to
little Kew, if Lilla will marry him. But your dot-dash message many
sangths ago stopped that, for it showed that you still lived and had
returned to Poros, although not to this continent.
“That is all. Now tell me of your adventures.”
But before complying with this request, the earth-man asked: “What has
become of the loyal Prince Toron and my chief of staff, Hah Babbuh, and
Poblath the Philosopher, and all my other friends and supporters?”
“Every one of them, so far as I know, is safe,” the young cleric
replied. “Most of than are hiding in the hill towns. Yuri has not risked
the wrath of the populace by molesting them, and in fact has given
notice that so long as they behave they will be let alone.”
Then Cabot related all that had occurred to him from the time he
transmitted himself earthward through Poros down to the present date.
When he concluded he remarked: “That will be an antenna-full for the
Holy Leader. But now to get to work. On whom can I best depend in this
vicinity?”
“On Emsul, the veterinary,” Nan-nan replied. “He lives in the village
now. Return to the island, and I will bring him to you.”
Myles did so, and in a short time the three were in conference in the
castle. It seemed to Myles that the first thing to do was to recover his
airplane, rifle, and ammunition from the waters of the pit, but Emsul
demurred.
Said he: “Huge dark-green water-insects inhabit the pool. They are very
like the red parasites which cling to the sides of the anks, and which
we roast for food, but they are much larger and the bite of their claws
means death.”
The parasites to which the veterinary alluded had always tasted to Cabot
exactly like earth-born lobsters. The description of these new beasts
were further suggestive of lobsters. He asked Emsul for a more detailed
description, and found that this tallied still further with the earthly
prototype.
This reminded Myles of an interesting experiment which he had seen tried
in the Harvard zoological laboratory, and which he now hoped to put to a
practical use.
So he asked: “Have these creatures a gravitational sense organ?”
“Yes,” the Cupian veterinary replied, “although it is unlike ours. We
Cupians, and I suppose you Minorians, have inside the skull on each side
of the head, a group of three tubes like the spirit levels of a
carpenter.
“The corresponding organ of the scissor-clawed beast is different,
although serving the same end. On each side of the thorax of these
creatures there is a spherical cavity, with a small opening to the
outside. This opening is just large enough to admit a grain of sand at a
time.
“The membrane which lines the cavity, exudes a liquid cement which
unites into a little ball the grains of sand which enter. The cavity is
lined with nerve ends; and, as the ball always rolls to the bottom side
of the cavity, the beast is able to tell which direction is up, and
which is down.”
Cabot clapped his hands in glee. This was exactly as in the case of
earth-born lobsters.
“They won’t know which is up and which is down when I get through with
them,” he exclaimed cryptically.
It was quickly arranged that Nan-nan should go at once to the village
near the lobster pool, and engage a gang of Cupian men to cut a swath
through the thick woods which hem in the pool. When this was completed,
he was to send a messenger to Luno Castle to summon Cabot, who,
meanwhile, would be engaged in preparing certain mysterious electrical
apparatus. For the present, the earth-man’s return was a secret.
The plan worked to perfection. Only one day was consumed in chopping the
path through the woods. On the second day after his meeting with Nan-nan
and Emsul, Myles proceeded to the lobster pool by the kerkool, with his
electrical equipment and several boats.
XXIV
THE LOBSTEROID CIRCUIT
Myles could not help comparing his present ease of passage down the
swath cut by the Cupians with his difficult grubbing through the shrubs
a few feet an hour, or even with forcing his way behind the wedge-faced
insect.
Upon his arrival at the brink of the abyss, his first act was to test
the black sand with an electric coil. As he had expected, it was
magnetite, the only iron ore which will respond to a magnet. It was the
same ore as he had used in his crucibles while making his radio set in
Vairkingi.
This preliminary disposed of, cables were quickly stretched back and
forth across the pit, and from these cables large electro-magnets were
hung close to the surface of the water. Wires were run from the lighting
system of the near-by town to a master controller at the top of the
cliff.
When all was in readiness, the earth-man threw the current into all the
circuits. The result was immediate. To the surface of the water there
floated bottom side up, a score or more of lobsterlike creatures, each
the size of a freight car. Poor beasts!
The pellets of sand and cement, in the cavities of their gravity-sense
organs, were composed of magnetite; and this being attracted upwardly by
the suspended electro-magnets, gave the poor creatures the impression
that up was down, and down was up. Consequently, reversing their
position and floating to the surface, they imagined—with what little
imagination their primitive brains were capable of—that they were
resting peacefully at the bottom of the lake.
Next there were turned on, in place of the suspended magnets, a number
of magnets lying against the steep side of the pit near the surface of
the water; and instantly all the lobsteroids rolled over, with their
bellies toward that side of the pit. The experiment was a complete
success.
Grappling hooks and blocks and tackle were then brought, and dragging
was begun for the airplane, the ant-rifle, and the bandoleer of
cartridges which Myles had lost on the night of his landing in Cupia.
The radio man himself, stationed at his switchboard, manipulated the
instruments. Presumably all three of the sought articles were near the
bank where Cabot had landed, so fishing was begun at that point, while
energized magnets, across the pond, drew the huge crustaceans away. Even
so, several of them swam back and snapped at the grappling hooks.
This gave Myles an opportunity to practice his controls. Whenever one of
the monsters of the deep would approach any of the dredging apparatus,
the radio man would close the switch which controlled some near-by
magnet, whereat the bewildered beast would be thrown completely off his
balance, and would require several paraparths before he could orient
himself to the new lines of force. By the time that this had been
accomplished, Cabot would have switched on some other magnet, thus again
upsetting the beast’s equilibrium.
It was truly a weird and novel tune which this electrical genius of two
worlds played upon his keyboard, while huge green shapes moved at his
command.
Finally Myles got so expert at this strange game, that it became safe
for his workmen to descend into the pit without fear of the denizens of
the deep. At last the ropes were securely fastened to the ant-plane, and
it was drawn up the bank to safety. The fire-arm and ammunition followed
shortly thereafter.
The forces of the true king—Baby Kew—were now armed with one small
airship, one rifle, and one bandoleer of cartridges.
“You must attack at once!” Nan-nan asserted.
The earth-man looked at the Cupian in surprise.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because,” the young cleric explained, “if you don’t some one of this
village is going to get word to Prince Yuri of your return. Although no
announcement has yet been made of your identity, this feat of yours of
overcoming the scissor-beasts is as good as a verbal introduction.
Runners will soon be notifying the usurper.”
“Why runners?” Myles asked. “Why not radio?”
“Because,” Nan-nan replied. “I took the precaution to throw an
adjusting-tool into the local motor-generator set early this morning.
One of the solenoids is hopelessly jammed, and it will take several days
and nights of steady work to restore it.”
“Great are the ramifications of the lost religion,” Cabot murmured
approvingly.
But the young cleric pouted, in spite of the tone of approval. Said he:
“There were no ramifications to _this_ accomplishment. I did it all
myself.”
“Have it your own way,” Myles returned conciliatorily. “But to get back
to what we were discussing, how am I to attack the usurper with no
troops, and only one plane, and one rifle?”
“But you _must_ attack!” Nan-nan objected. “As for planes, every plane
in the kingdom, save only yours, is under lock and key at Wautoosa, the
old naval air base, which now is the headquarters of the whistling bees.
Every firearm, save two, your rifle and Prince Yuri’s automatic, is
under heavy guard at the Kuana arsenal. Only the pretender himself and
the arsenal guards—who are trusted henchmen of his—are permitted to be
armed.”
“And I suppose,” the earth-man interjected, with a shrug, “that you
expect me, alone and single-handed, to seize the Kuana arsenal, and
distribute arms to my people.”
“Not exactly,” the priest replied. “You see—”
At which point the conversation was interrupted by a body of troops,
four abreast, which came marching toward them down the aisle which had
been cut through the trees.
Cabot stepped back aghast. Trapped! The soldiers swung along in the
perfect cadence which had been taught them by generations spent in the
marching clubs—or “hundreds”—of Cupia. True, they were unarmed, but what
could one armed human do against such numbers? Cabot glanced down the
path, and saw hundred after hundred turn into it at the farther end.
There was only one possibility of escape, his plane. But the plane was
still dripping from its submergence in the pond. Would its
trophil-engine start while wet? Had enough water leaked into the alcohol
tanks to damage the fuel? He would see.
Shouting to Nan-nan and Emsul to follow, he started toward his craft;
but the young cleric blocked his way. Treachery.
No. For the young priest cried: “Fear not, defender of the faith. These
be friends! They are the armies which you are to lead against Yuri. They
are marching clubs of the loyal hill towns, which have been called
together here, ostensibly for an athletic tournament.”
Cabot stopped his mad scramble of retreat, and smiled. With such men he
would reconquer Cupia, Yuri or no Yuri, bees or no bees!
The foremost hundred debouched and formed in company-front. Then from
the ranks there stepped a Cupian, who snatched off his blond wig,
revealing ruddy locks beneath. Onto his own right breast he pinned a red
circle, the insignia of Field Marshal. It was Hah Babbuh, Chief of Staff
of the Armies of Cupia, who had been Cabot’s right-hand man in the two
wars of liberation.
Facing the troops he gave a crisp command. Up shot every left hand.
Then, wheeling about, he held his own hand aloft and shouted: “Yahoo,
Myles Cabot! We are ready to follow where you lead!”
“Yahoo!” the troops echoed in unison.
Then, giving his men the order “at ease,” Hah strode up to the
earth-man. Warmly, the two friends patted each other on the cheek. It
was many sangths since they had seen each other, and much had happened
in the meantime.
A council of war was immediately held between Myles, Hah, Nan-nan, and
Emsul, at the plane.
“Won’t this gathering come to the attention of Yuri?” Myles asked. “And
won’t he at once suspect its cause, in view of its nearness to Luno
Castle, and in view of my recent radio announcements from Vairkingi?”
“I doubt it,” the Babbuh replied, “for we have wrecked every radio set
in the vicinity.”
But, this did not reassure the earth-man as much as it might.
“It would seem to me,” he asserted, “that this very fact would put
Prince Yuri on his guard.”
“Possibly so,” Nan-nan ruefully admitted, “but it will take four days
for investigators to cover the thousand stads from Kuana to here by
kerkool, two days by bee.”
“And in the meantime,” Myles countered, “it will take our plane two days
to reach Kuana, and our kerkools four.”
“Then,” Emsul suggested, “had we not better march openly and at once?”
This suggestion was accepted, with the reservation, however, that the
return of Cabot and the existence of their plane were to be kept as
secret as possible.
Accordingly the main body of the troops were put on the march toward
Kuana, under Emsul, with instructions to requisition every available
kerkool, wreck every radio set, and place every settlement under martial
law. The kerkools, as fast as seized, were to be manned by the best
sharpshooters, and sent ahead.
The local village and the lobster pond were placed under heavy guard,
and the earth-man with his plane and rifle remained under cover.
That night, just at sunset, he started forth. The airship had been
stripped to its lightest, and in it were crowded Myles Cabot, Hah
Babbuh, Nan-nan, and half a dozen sharpshooters. Long before morning,
they came up with the lights of the foremost kerkools, and so were
forced to cease their advance, whereupon they landed, and encamped for
the rest of the night and the following day.
All day long, kerkools passed them on the road, stopping to report as
they passed. Apparently a surprising number of these swift two-wheeled
Porovian autos had been captured.
The following night the plane again took wing, and continued until it
caught up once more with the advance guard of the “taxi-cab army.” These
men reported that, at the last radio station seized, they had learned
that Prince Yuri had put censorship on the air, thus showing
conclusively that the usurper had learned something of what was going
on. Then the kerkools swept ahead, and Cabot encamped as before. He was
now halfway to Kuana, his loved ones, and Prince Yuri.
Toward the end of the day which followed, the advancing kerkools met a
bombing squadron of whistling bees, and were forced to halt and take
cover as best they could. Most of the men escaped, but many of the
machines had to be left on the road, where they were demolished by the
bombs of the enemy.
During all this confusion, a kerkool from the capital, bearing crossed
sticks as a flag of truce, drew up at the vanguard, with the following
message: “King Yuri cannot but regard the steady procession of kerkools
toward Kuana as a menace directed against him. If it is not so intended,
then let a delegation in one kerkool proceed under crossed sticks to
convince him of your sincerity. From now on, if more than one kerkool
advances, it will be taken as a hostile act, and Prince Kew, the heir to
the throne, will be sacrificed as a hostage.”
Upon receiving this message, Emsul at once directed his followers to
stay where they were until Myles Cabot should catch up with them. Then,
with a picked body of men, in one kerkool, under crossed sticks, he took
up the road toward Kuana, preceded by the delegation which had brought
the message from Yuri.
Not a word would he give them as to the purpose of the advance.
“Your message was from Prince Yuri,” he said, “and therefore to Prince
Yuri shall be the reply. But it does seem a bit thoughtless of the
Hymernians to drop bombs on our men, before even attempting to ascertain
whether or not our advance was intended to be peaceful.”
To this, they in turn made no answer.
About midnight, Myles Cabot, in his airplane, reached the point where
the kerkools had halted. He found the Cupians confused and more or less
leaderless. He, as they, was horrified at the threat which the usurper
Yuri held over the head of the little king.
But while he and Nan-nan and Hah Babbuh were conferring on the
situation, word was brought in, by a party who had just demolished a
near-by radio set, that they had picked the following unaddressed and
unsigned message out of the air:
Fear not. Baby Kew has been kidnaped from the palace, and is safe.
Somehow this news carried conviction. The longer they considered it, the
more authentic it appeared. Certainly, it could not have emanated from
Yuri, for he could have no possible object in deceiving them into
thinking that the little king was safe, and thus encouraging them to
proceed with whatever they might have afoot.
But they could not imagine who was their informant. It might be any one
of a number of the leaders in Cabot’s two wars of liberation, Poblath
the Philosopher, mango of the Kuana jail; Ja Babbuh, Oya Buh, and Buh
Tedn, professors at the Royal University; Count Kamel of Ktuh, the
ex-radical; or even the loyal Prince Toron, Yuri’s younger brother, whom
Cabot had left in charge as regent, upon embarking on his ill-fated
visit to the earth.
All these loyal Cupians had been driven into hiding, when the renegade
Yuri had returned across the boiling seas and had usurped the throne
with the aid of the Hymernians. Where they now were, no one knew. This
message might be from any one of them—or it might not.
Anyhow, it served to hearten Cabot and his two companions.
Said Myles: “Undoubtedly there were some of Yuri’s Cupian henchmen on
the backs of the bees which bombed our kerkools. These have probably
reported by wireless that our advance has stopped. I do not believe that
Yuri yet knows that we have a plane; accordingly, he will not expect
immediate trouble, so long as our vanguard remains here, four hundred
stads from Kuana.
“You, Hah Babbuh, remain here in charge of our troops. I seriously doubt
if the usurper will attack you, for he does not dare trust enough
Cupians with rifles for that purpose. Nan-nan and I and our
sharpshooters will proceed as rapidly as possible in the plane, until
daybreak, when we will encamp as usual.
“To-morrow afternoon, send scouts ahead to destroy the wireless and
start your whole kerkool army on the move at sunset. Bend every effort
to join me as soon as possible at the capital, where I expect to arrive
some time to-morrow night. Beyond that, I have no definite plans. May
the Great Builder speed our cause.”
Then he said good-night, and took off once more in his plane. As he
soared aloft with his noisy trophil-motor, earth-men would have heard it
for stads in every direction, but these Cupians were earless and hence
possessed no sense of hearing as we know it. The noisy plane could make
no impression upon their antenna-sense, for its engines being of the
trophil variety—or Diesel, as we call a somewhat similar device on
earth—had no electrical ignition.
Throughout the remainder of the night the plane sped southward,
deviating from its course only when whistling sounds warned them of the
presence of bees. With the first faint tinge of pink in the east, they
landed and hid their airship at the edge of a wood, two hundred and
sixty stads from Kuana.
A small town lay near by. To it went several of the crew in search of
food and information, while the rest took turns guarding the plane and
sleeping.
During Cabot’s turn at watch, he noted a figure slinking across a
neighboring field. There was something strangely familiar about this
figure, so Myles hid himself in a tartan bush and awaited its approach.
It walked with a peculiar limp, very much like that which had
characterized Buh Tedn, ever since he recovered from the shell wound
which he had received in the Second War of Liberation. But the face and
the hair of the approaching Cupian bore no resemblance to that of
Professor Tedn. Nevertheless, Cabot took a chance.
Stepping suddenly from his place of concealment, he shouted: “Buh Tedn!”
Thereat, the Cupian emitted a shriek of terror from his antennae, and
started running away across the fields.
“Stop!” the earth-man called. “I am Myles Cabot.”
The fleeing man halted abruptly and peered at Myles inquisitively; then
he smiled and snatched off his wig, and straightened out his expression.
It was none other than Buh Tedn!
“So you are the cause of all the rumpus,” he ejaculated, returning and
patting his friend warmly on the cheek.
“What rumpus?” Miles inquired with interest.
“Wireless won’t work,” the other replied, “and no messages on the air
anyhow. Nothing but bees; the air is full of _them_ anyhow—also full of
vague rumors of all sorts. As Poblath would say: ‘Where there’s wind,
there’s a storm’.”
“Speaking of Poblath,” Myles said, “where _is_ the philosopher?”
“Kuana, the last I heard,” Buh Tedn replied. “Ja Babbuh and Oya Buh are
somewhere in the west. Prince Toron has disappeared completely. Hah
Babbuh and Emsul are supposed to be in the northern part of the Okarze
Mountains. Kamel Bar-Sarkar has gone over to Yuri. I am here. That about
completes the list of our former leaders.”
“Hah Babbuh is in charge of my unarmed forces one hundred and sixty
stads north of here,” Cabot answered. “Emsul is on his way to Yuri under
crossed sticks. I am here in a plane, with one rifle, Nan-nan the
cleric, and six unarmed sharpshooters.”
“What is the idea?” Tedn asked.
“The idea is to fly to Kuana to-night,” the earth-man replied, “and
raise as much rough-house as possible for Prince Yuri. Will you come
with us? There is one vacant place in the plane.”
The Cupian looked at him admiringly, and said: “You are still the same
old Myles Cabot! You propose to capture Kuana practically without arms
and single-handed. And the joke is that you will probably succeed. How
_do_ you do it?”
“It’s a gift!” Myles laughed. “But ‘trees have antennae’, as Poblath
would say. Let us proceed to the plane and wait for evening.”
At the plane, Cabot awakened one of the Cupians to take his place on
guard. Then, in low tones, he and Buh Tedn each related to the other all
that had occurred since the matter-transmitting apparatus had shot the
radio man earthward.
Along toward night the absentees returned from the village, bringing
provision, but scarcely any news except that the place was seething with
suppressed excitement, and that they had succeeded in getting into the
radio station and “pying” the apparatus.
“Let us start then at once,” Buh Tedn counseled. “No one can now get
word to Yuri, and perhaps they will mistake us for a Hymernian, anyhow.”
But impatient as he was, Myles would hear none of this.
“They could easily dispatch a runner to some near-by town to send the
message from there,” he said. “Furthermore, a plane looks very little
like a whistling bee.”
So the group feasted, and waited until the last streaks of red had died
in the west, before they shot into the air and southward. The plane was
driven to its utmost, but it was later than 1:00 o’clock before the
lights of Kuana loomed ahead.
Turning to the right, Cabot skirted the city and landed near the
arsenal.
Nan-nan promptly left them.
“I have church affairs to attend to,” he explained.
“Great are the ramifications of the lost religion,” the earth-man
replied, laughing, “and I hope that you pick up some useful
information.”
After the young cleric had gone Buh Tedn asked:
“Surely you don’t plan for us to attack the arsenal? It is heavily
guarded by the only men whom Yuri permits to carry fire-arms in this
entire kingdom.”
XXV
ALL KINDS OF TROUBLE
“We must reconnoiter first,” Cabot replied, “for as yet I have no
definite plans.”
Accordingly they made their way to a grove of trees near the arsenal.
Where they stood they were completely enveloped by foliage and tropical
darkness, but the arsenal was in a flood of light which emanated from
large floodlights on poles a short distance outside the surrounding
wall. Along the top of the high wall walked sentinels armed with rifles.
Cabot quickly formed his plans.
Turning his rifle and bandoleer over to the best shot in the party, he
instructed the sharpshooter as follows: “When I raise my hand so, then
shoot the sentinel to whom I am talking. Follow that by a shot at the
nearest light. Then, under cover of the darkness, slink across the plain
and join me at the wall.”
Without any further explanation he walked boldly out into the light.
As he approached the arsenal there rang out the cry of “Halt!”
He halted.
“Who is there?”
“Not so loud!” he cautioned. “You see I am unarmed. Let me approach near
the wall so that I may explain my mission, which is for your antennae
alone.”
The sentinel signified his assent, and Cabot drew nearer.
“Halt!” The Cupian on the wall repeated, but this time in a low tone.
Cabot halted again, this time almost directly under the light.
“Stand where you are,” said the soldier, “while I let down a ladder.
Make any attempt to flee, and I shall fire.”
Myles remained where he was, with every indication of extreme terror, as
the Cupian let down a rope ladder from the top of the wall, and
descended.
“Hold up your hands!”
Up shot Cabot’s right hand. It was the signal agreed on with the
concealed sharpshooter. _Ping!_ The sentinel dropped to the ground
without a sound. _Ping!_ The light went out. Hastily the earth-man
exchanged his white toga for the black toga of his fallen enemy, and
picked up the latter’s rifle and cartridge-belt. It felt good to have a
real rifle-shaped rifle in his hands once more in place of the buttless
firearms of the ants.
Just then a voice hailed him from the top of the wall. “What’s the
trouble?”
Out of the dim twilight below Myles called back:
“I shot a sutler, and just as I was about to search his body the light
went out. Have you your flash light with you?”
“Yes.”
“Then come on down and help me search.”
The second sentinel, eager for a taste of sutler’s food after weeks of
garrison rations, started to scramble down the rope ladder; but as he
neared the ground Cabot stepped to his side and put a single bullet
through his brain.
Out of the semidarkness around him there arose seven forms. They were
Buh Tedn and the six Cupian marksmen from the hills. Buh Tedn started to
change clothes with the fallen guard, but Cabot stopped him, saying,
“No; your limp would give you away. Let one of the others assume the
personality of this sentry.”
One of the others made the exchange.
Then said their leader: “Two of the posts of the guard are now cleared.
Do you, marksman, ascend the ladder and walk this beat, impersonating
Yuri’s guardsman.”
The man did so, while those below cowered close to the wall. Soon Cabot
heard a shot to the extreme right of the beat. Then a voice from above
called softly:
“One less guard, O Cabot. Three sections of the wall are now cleared. I
have the body up here.”
Myles and one more sharpshooter mounted the parapet; soon all three were
walking post with the precision of old war-time practice, while the
other five members of the party clung to the rope ladder under the
shadow of the wall. Cabot himself walked the leftermost post, and took
pains never to meet the adjoining sentry. Thus nearly half a parth of
time passed.
Finally an officer with a squad approached along the top of the wall to
the left. Cabot promptly crowded to the extreme right-hand end of his
beat, and cautioned his own adjoining sentinel to remain close at hand.
As the squad drew near he sang out, “Halt!”
The squad halted.
“Who is there?” the earth-man demanded.
“Relief.”
“Advance one and be recognized.”
The officer stepped forward.
“Advance relief.”
The officer brought the relief forward, halted it again, and called out,
“Number four!”
Thereat one of the squad stepped from the ranks at port-arms. Cabot
himself came to port in unison.
At this point the routine ended. Tilting his gun slightly from its
position, Myles suddenly fired two shots, and the officer and the new
Number Four sank down upon the parapet.
Instantly the whole squad was in confusion, but before they could raise
their rifles to reply Myles and his companions riddled them with
bullets.
One of them, more quick-thinking than the rest, dropped prone without
being hit, and then cautiously drew a bead on Myles Cabot, who, seeing
his enemies all down, had just paused to breathe. Neither he nor his
companion saw his hostile move, and Myles’s other man was walking his
post, far to the right, in a military manner, so as to attract no
attention from the guardsmen farther on.
Everything was all set for the tragedy which would forever put an end to
the hope of the redemption of Cupia from the renegade Yuri and his bee
allies.
But just as the soldier was about to pull the trigger, a brawny arm
slipped across his throat and yanked him backward, so that his gun went
off in the air. It was Buh Tedn, who had crawled to the top of the wall
in the rear of the squad. A shot from Cabot’s companion promptly put an
end to this last enemy.
Then the seven conspirators searched the bodies and equipped themselves,
Cabot pinning on the insignia of the officer. There were eight bodies,
but some had undoubtedly fallen from the wall in the struggle. No time
could be spared to hunt for these, and eight was more than enough for
the present purposes.
Myles formed his men in two ranks, counted them off, faced them to the
right, and proceeded along the parapet, picking up his one already
posted man as he went.
Number Six was relieved in true military form. He was too glad of
getting off duty to notice the unfamiliarity of the officer who relieved
him. Similarly with Numbers Seven, Eight, Nine, and so on.
As he came to Number Eleven, Cabot began to worry for fear that his
supply of new sentinels might run out. Why hadn’t he made some
arrangement to have his own men rejoin him after being posted? But then
he reflected that that would never do, for it certainly would have been
noticed by the others. He was in a fix.
Number Twelve was relieved, all seven of his own men were gone, and
Myles Cabot found himself at the head of a squad composed entirely of
the enemy. What could he do at Number Thirteen?
But just as he was frantically turning this question over in his mind,
he came to a long ramp leading inward from the wall, down to a small
building between the wall and the main arsenal. He stepped back as
though to inspect the squad; and they, without command, marched past
him, turned, and proceeded past Number One down the ramp. This was the
guard-quarters; there were no more sentinels to relieve.
Inside the buildings he gave the commands: “Relief—halt! Left—face!
Port—arms! Open—chambers! Close—chambers! Dismissed! Hands up!”
The last was not in the Manual. The tired men, on their way to the gun
rack, stopped in surprise. Up shot their hands, some first dropping
their rifles, but some retaining them.
“It is Cabot the Minorian!” one of them shouted.
The situation was ticklish in the extreme. The Cupians were scattered
throughout the room, so that it was impossible for Myles to cover them
all simultaneously with his rifle. They were desperate characters, thugs
of the worst type, typical henchmen of Prince Yuri. If they started any
trouble, Myles could expect to get one, or at most two, of the seven
before the rest would get him. Furthermore, they knew it.
“Back up, all of you, into that corner! Quickly!” he directed.
But they did not budge. Gradually smiles began to break over their ugly
visages. They realized that they had him at bay, rather than he them.
And what a prize he would be for presentation to King Yuri! Why, the
king might even blow them to a beefsteak party.
The earth-man confronted them, unafraid. He still had the drop on them,
and he intended to press his advantage to the limit.
“You fat one over by the rack, back into the corner,” he ordered, “or
I’ll shoot you first.”
The Cupian addressed obeyed with alacrity.
“You with the scar! Lay down your gun! Now you back into the corner!”
The second soldier did so. Things were progressing nicely. One by one he
could subdue the Cupians confronting him. But, just as he was exulting
in his triumph, his gun was seized from behind. Turning, he saw Number
One leering at him.
One blow from his fist in that leering face and the newcomer crashed to
the floor. But before Myles could wheel to confront those in the
guardroom, they had rushed him and borne him to the ground.
“Capture him alive!” some one shouted, and that was the last that he
heard, for something snapped in his portable radio set, and from then on
he was deaf to antennae-emanations. All that he could hear was an
occasional rifle shot.
In spite of the overwhelming numbers upon him, he fought with feet and
fists, until at last, the weight seemed to lessen. Finally he struggled
to his feet and confronted his tormentors. Could it be that
single-handed, he had vanquished eight brawny Cupians?
But no, for the figures he confronted were Buh Tedn and his own men. The
eight enemies lay dead on the floor.
The mutual congratulations were silently given. A quick inspection
showed that the head-set and the apparatus-belt were hopelessly damaged,
so the radio man found a stylus and paper and wrote: “My artificial
antennae and the accompanying apparatus were ruined during the fight.
Luckily there is another set in the airplane. One of you go quickly and
fetch it.”
One of the party accordingly withdrew. The others, rifle in hand,
proceeded to search the building, but not a soul did they find, although
the couches had evidently been recently occupied.
It seemed likely that, during the struggle in the guardroom, the rest of
the guard, being unable to reach the arms racks, had stealthily left the
building.
So Myles and his party hurried on to the door which led from the
building into the arsenal yard. As they emerged they were met with a
volley from the arsenal, and three of their number went down. The rest
beat a hasty retreat and barred the door.
Then they made their way to the windows which faced the main arsenal,
but two more of them were picked off before they realized how perfectly
they were silhouetted by the lighted rooms within. One of these two was
Buh Tedn. Myles Cabot and one Cupian sharpshooter were all that were
left of the party.
As rapidly as possible the two survivors extinguished all the lights in
the guardhouse, and then mounted to the roof, which was flat and
surrounded by a low parapet which protected them from showing themselves
against the illumination of the surrounding vapor lamps.
Crawling along the roof to the edge nearest the arsenal, they peered
cautiously over. The whistle of a bullet caused Myles to duck his head,
and he pulled his companion to cover as well. With his artificial
antennae gone, he could not explain orally and it was too dark to write.
But the other followed him to the opposite edge, where they succeeded in
potting the sentinels at Posts Two and Three, which were the only
occupied posts within sight.
There appearing to be nothing further to be accomplished up there, they
crawled down into the building and took up their station at windows of
the upper story, from which they fired at every sign of movement in the
direction of the arsenal, taking care to drop to the floor and then
change windows after each shot.
Finally their ammunition gave out, and Cabot went down to the guardroom
for more. But a long and careful search revealed only a few rounds.
Myles returned to the upper story and groped through the rooms to find
his friend. But it was his foot, rather than his out-stretched hand,
which finally found him. The Cupian sharpshooter lay dead.
Myles Cabot alone, with only about a dozen cartridges, was the sole
remaining defense of the captured building. No life seemed to be
stirring on the arsenal side, so he crossed the building and looked out
at the wall.
Dark figures were stealthily creeping along where Post No. 12 should
have been. The earth-man let them have it with rapid fire, and they
quickly disappeared.
He now heard firing in that direction, and then the lights there went
out, so that the wall no longer showed against the sky. From time to
time he fired where he judged the wall was, so as to keep back the
invaders, and thus soon entirely exhausted his ammunition.
“Thank heaven,” he said to himself, “the downstairs door is barred!”
But as he said this he realized that he had omitted to bar the door
which opened toward the wall; and even as he realized this there came a
rush of many feet down the ramp which led from the wall to this door.
XXVI
THE DEBACLE
Myles drew his knife, crouched in a corner of the dark room, and
prepared to sell his life dearly. He was ready for searchers who might
come groping through the room, but he was wholly unprepared for the
sudden switching on of the electric lights. As he sprang to his feet and
rubbed his eyes, he saw before him Nan-nan and the sharpshooter whom he
had sent back to the plane to get his second radio set. Behind them in
the doorway were a score or more of Cupians.
Snatching the new set he fastened it in place, while the others waited.
Then, articulate once more, “You have come in the nick of time. How did
it happen?”
The young priest replied, “Through spies of our religion I located Oya
Buh; he rounded up a number of his followers, and we hastened hither.
The wall we found unguarded, with a rope ladder hanging down, and at its
foot six dead soldiers in black togas. We took their arms and mounted
the wall, only to be driven back by shots.”
“My shots,” Myles interjected.
“Not all,” Nan-nan replied, “for some came from the arsenal; we could
tell by the flashes. Several of our party were hit—although not by you,
so your conscience may feel clear—before we put a stop to this by
shooting out all the outside lights. Then we rushed the guardhouse, and
here we are. But where are _your_ men?”
“Dead—all dead,” the earth-man sadly replied. “Even Buh Tedn.”
Oya Buh then stepped forward and greeted his former chief.
“Yahoo, Cabot!” he cried. “May the dead rest beyond the waves. We, the
living, have work to do. Look—the sky turns pink and silver in the east!
Morning has come. What do you propose?”
“Morning means that the whistling bees will soon be upon us,” Myles
answered. “We must capture the arsenal before they arrive.”
The party then took inventory of their supplies. There were thirty-eight
rifles, forty Cupians, and Myles Cabot. One man was promptly sent to the
roof with crossed sticks. When these were recognized, thirty-eight men
under arms were marched up onto the roof as well. It was considered
advisable for Cabot himself to keep under cover. Then Oya Buh unbarred
the door and stepped out. An officer from the arsenal advanced to meet
him. The two gravely patted each other’s cheek.
The officer, whose rank was that of pootah, inquired:
“What is the idea of defying your king, professor?”
“The idea,” Oya replied, “is that we have come to restore Kew XIII to
the throne and the Cupians to their proper dominion over the bees. The
guardhouse, as you see, is manned by sharpshooters, fully armed. A vast
force, unarmed but determined, awaits outside the walls. If you
surrender, we shall spare your lives. If not, we shall rush the gates
while our sharpshooters pick off any one who opposes, and shall kill all
whom we find within. What say you?”
The pootah shrugged his shoulders. “What is there to say?” he replied.
“We surrender, provided we are given safe conduct.”
“Safe conduct without arms?”
“Agreed.”
So the guard, about a hundred in number, in their black togas, filed out
of the arsenal, through the guardhouse, onto the wall, along it, and
down the rope ladder. The ladder was then hauled up again. The pootah
looked around him.
“Where is your vast army?” he asked.
“On the other side of the wall,” Oya Buh replied, with a smile. “Now run
along away from here, like a good little boy.”
But the officer and his followers started circling the wall to
investigate. Before he gained the main gate, however, it had been opened
and, for all he could tell, the “vast army” had passed inside. A guard
stationed there advised him to get out of rifle range as speedily as
possible, and twelve sentinels, who by now had manned the wall, bore out
this menace; so, grumbling somewhat the pootah led his men off toward
the city.
Thus did Myles Cabot and forty-seven practically unarmed followers
capture the Kuana arsenal from its hundred defenders.
Straggling Cupians now began to drift in from the city. These were put
to work carting arms and ammunition out of the arsenal and stacking it
up in widely separated piles wherever cover could be found. Every Cupian
who reported was issued a rifle and a full bandoleer of cartridges.
“We may perhaps thus arm some enemies,” Myles admitted, “but we must
take the risk. The majority will be friends.”
It was well that they removed all the ammunition which they could. It
would have been better if they could have removed more. They all worked
feverishly for half the morning, even taking the guards off the wall for
this purpose, but they had scarcely made a dent in the supplies stored
in the arsenal when a fleet of bees appeared on the southern horizon.
In spite of the approaching menace, Myles and his men continued to work.
The Hymernians flew low straight at the arsenal, until a volley from
Cabot’s men brought down two of them and caused the rest to soar into
the sky. Whereupon they started dropping bombs on the arsenal, and on
the men carting materials therefrom.
Naturally, this put an abrupt end to Cabot’s operations. His men
scattered as rapidly as possible; and individually made for the city
with small quantities of arms, keeping to cover as well as they could.
Cupians from Kuana helped themselves to the rest, and by nightfall the
captured supplies were pretty well distributed. The arsenal was a
smoking ruin.
All through the afternoon the bees, flying low, harassed whoever they
saw moving on the streets, especially such as were carrying rifles; but
these retaliated by firing at all bees that came within range, in spite
of which very few bees were killed. Night brought a cessation of this
sort of warfare.
Emsul arrived and of course at once gave up the idea of his projected
peace mission to Yuri. He and Cabot and Nan-nan and Oya Buh spent the
night under heavy guard at separated points throughout the city,
securing much-needed sleep. Under cover of the darkness, many of their
followers foraged in the ruins of the arsenal and secured a surprising
quantity of undamaged material, being joined in the morning by the army
in kerkools from the north.
Before daybreak a resolute band of several thousand loyal Cupians had
gathered in the streets and houses surrounding the palace, and promptly
at sunrise they launched an attack. They had expected to find the palace
guard unarmed; but evidently a large quantity of the rifles and
ammunition, which had been distributed throughout the city, had found
their way to the palace, for the assault was at once repulsed by heavy
fire from the palace guards.
As Cabot’s forces reformed for a second attack, they were deluged with
explosives from above. The bee-people had evidently not returned to
their base at Wautoosa, but had spent the night near by, so as to be on
hand to protect the palace.
Whenever they sighted even a small group of Cupians, or wherever they
had reason to suspect that some building was hostilely occupied, there
they would drop one of their devastating bombs. Cabot’s forces were
completely at the mercy of the Hymernians. There was but one thing to
do—flee.
In vain, the earth-man and his able lieutenants tried to rally their
troops. What was the use in assembling, when assembly was the signal for
a bomb from above? What was the use of attacking the invincible bees?
Myles Cabot stood irresolute in one of the public squares. He was as
near to despairing as he had ever been in his many vicissitudes on the
planet Poros, since his first arrival there five earth-years ago. Oh, if
only he had airplanes with which to subdue the Hymernians as in the days
of old! Almost was he tempted to return to the vicinity of the arsenal,
ascertain whether his one plane was intact, and if so fly alone in a
last desperate attempt to give battle to his winged enemies.
The more he thought of the plan, the more it appealed to him. There
seemed to be no other way out. His bravely engineered revolution had
crumbled. If he stayed where he was, he would undoubtedly be tracked
down, and put to some ignominious end by the usurper. How much better,
then, to die bravely fighting for his Lilla and his adopted country.
And his baby? He wondered where the little darling had disappeared to.
At least the infant king was out of Yuri’s clutches.
So, his mind made up, Myles set out on a run for the wood overlooking
the arsenal. After a few paraparths he reached it. There stood his
plane. Rapidly he went over all the struts, and stays, and engine parts.
Everything appeared to be in first class order. The fuel tanks contained
plenty of alcohol. How this machine had escaped capture or destruction
was a marvel, but probably the bees had been too busy bombing groups of
Cupians, to take the time to explore the apparently deserted grove.
Myles sprang aboard and was just about to start the trophil engine, when
a familiar sound, smiting upon his earthborn ears, caused him to delay
for a moment. From the southward came the purr of many motors.
Was the wish the father to the thought? His longing for an air fleet,
with which to vanquish the bees, had been so intense; had it affected
his mind and caused him to hear things which did not exist? Impossible,
for the purr of the motors was unmistakable.
He strained his eyes toward the southern horizon, so that they might see
what his ears heard; but there was nothing there. The radiant silver sky
was untouched save by an occasional small cloud.
The bees still kept up their bombing of the city. He could see them
flying low over the housetops, and up and down the principal
thoroughfares, ferreting out any groups of Cupians who dared to gather
in Cabot’s cause, dropping bombs on any houses which presumed to fly the
blue pennant of the Kew dynasty in place of the yellow of Yuri.
The bees did not heed the approaching planes from the south. Of course
not! For the whistling bees of Poros had no ears. They heard with their
antennae, and heard only radio waves at that, in fact only short-length
radio waves.
The noise of a large fleet of airships swept on out of the south. Nearer
and nearer it came, until it was right over the city, and still not a
single plane appeared in sight. Meanwhile the bees continued their
depredations, and the earth-man sat in his own plane and watched and
waited.
As he watched, he saw one of the bees who happened to be flying higher
than the rest, suddenly vanish in a puff of smoke. And then another and
another.
The Hymernians, too, saw this and rose to investigate, whereat there
came the shut-off whir of descending planes.
Fascinated, Myles stared into the sky, whence came these sounds, and saw
occasionally, against gathering clouds, a glint of silver light.
Several more of the ascending bees exploded. And now Myles was able to
see from time to time, silhouetted on a background of cloud, the ghostly
form of an airship. The bees, too, saw, and flew to the attack. What was
this shadow fleet? Had the spirits of the brave Cupian aviators of the
past returned to free their beloved country from Hymernian domination?
The two fleets, bees and ghostly planes, had now completely joined
battle, and were drifting slowly to the southeast. Myles came out of his
trance, started his engine, and rose into the air, intent on joining the
fray.
On his way, he circled over the city, and gave it a glance in passing.
Then he gave it a second glance, for the Cupians, relieved of the menace
of the bees, were forming for a second attack on the palace.
Instantly his plans changed. What business had he running off to watch
however interesting a sky battle when right here before him lay a chance
to do what he had braved so many misfortunes to accomplish, namely free
his Lilla from the unspeakable Yuri! Veering sharply, he landed on one
of the upper terraces of the palace.
He still wore his bandoleer of cartridges, and still carried his rifle.
Filling the magazine, he boldly descended into the building. No one
guarded the approaches from the air, for they depended on their aerial
allies to do that for them. The upper rooms were deserted, doubtless
because the womenfolk were cowering in the basements and because the
palace guards and Yuri’s other henchmen were resisting the attack of
Cabot’s Cupians at the ground levels.
Cabot himself explored the place unimpeded and unchallenged. Here he was
at last at his journey’s end, but where was Lilla? Lilla the blue-eyed
princess, Lilla of the golden curls, his Lilla!
The rooms which he and she had occupied showed every sign of continued
and present occupancy, even to the crib of the baby king, emblazoned
with the arms of the House of Kew. Cabot looked reverently around the
living rooms of his wife and child, and then swept on into the lower
levels of the palace.
Occasionally he would come upon groups of defenders; but they, naturally
assuming that he was one of them—especially as he still wore the black
toga of the arsenal guard—gave him but little heed. Whenever the group
was not too numerous he would shoot them. He hated to do this, but he
knew he had to in order to save his loved ones.
Thus he traversed practically the whole of the upper reaches of the
palace without encountering his arch enemy Yuri, or any of the
womenfolk. Yuri was no coward. However much of a scoundrel he might be,
no one would ever accuse him of that. Therefore he was not in hiding. He
was apparently not in command of the defense. Therefore he must be
either away from the palace, or concocting some devilment.
Figuring thus, Cabot continued to descend to levels below the ground
floor. While treading these subterranean passages, searching, ever
searching for either Lilla or Yuri, he came upon one of the palace
guards. The fellow was unarmed, so Cabot did not shoot.
Instead he ordered, “Up with your hands.”
The guard promptly obeyed.
“Now,” said his captor, “the price of your life is to lead me to your
king.”
“Indeed, I will with pleasure,” the soldier replied with a sneer, “for
King Yuri will make short work of one who turns traitor to his black
garb.”
The earth-man smiled. “I am no traitor,” he announced, “and this black
toga is mere borrowed fur. Do you not know Cabot the Minorian?”
The other blanched. “Good Builder!” he exclaimed. “We did not believe
the story that you had returned from the planet Minos. But I am at your
orders, for I am one of the old guard who served under King Kew the
Twelfth, the father of Princess Lilla, may he rest beyond the waves.”
“Lead on, and no treachery,” Myles curtly replied. “I trust no one who
has ever worn the livery of Prince Yuri.”
So the guard led the way through many winding passages, down into the
very bowels of the subterranean labyrinths of the palace. What could
Prince Yuri be doing way down here unless he was hiding, which seemed
unlikely? Cabot became very suspicious, and, rifle in hand and finger on
trigger, watched his guide with eagle eye.
Finally they came upon a form in an elaborate yellow toga, huddled in a
corner.
“King Yuri,” said the soldier laconically.
At the sound of the voice the usurper looked around; and now it became
evident that he was crouching there not for fear, but rather because he
was engaged in repairing something with a set of typical Porovian
queer-looking tools.
Apparently not at all surprised, he hailed his deadliest enemy and rival
as though the latter were a long lost friend, “Yahoo, Cabot the
Minorian. I rather expected you would turn up sooner or later. Just a
minute until I fix this wire, and then I will be at your service. You
see, one of my mines wouldn’t explode; no one else seemed able to get at
the cause of the trouble, and so I had to come down here in person.”
And so saying he turned back to his work. Myles stepped forward to see
what Prince Yuri was doing. For a brief moment the earth-man’s
scientific curiosity got the better of his caution. But that moment,
brief as it was, proved long enough for the watchful soldier, who had
led him hither, to snatch Myles’ rifle from his hand, and cover him with
its muzzle.
“Up with your hands!” the soldier peremptorily commanded.
Cabot obeyed. Not to do so would have been suicide.
Yuri, still unperturbed, remarked, “Well done, Tobo; you shall be
promoted for this.”
“Shall I shoot him, sire?” Tobo eagerly asked.
“N-no,” the usurper ruminated, waving his antennae thoughtfully, “not
just now. Wait until I finish with this wire. In the meantime you might
let the Minorian lean against the wall, so that he will be more
comfortable.”
So Myles leaned against the wall and waited, his hands still held high,
while the prince puttered around in the corner. Finally, after a
seemingly interminable period, Yuri arose, slung his tools together,
brushed one hand against the other, and looked at his victim with a
cruel smile.
“Shall I kill him now?” asked Tobo.
“No. I am reserving that pleasure for myself,” the prince replied. Then
to Cabot: “At last, you are in my power. I intend to shoot you myself. I
intend to shoot you down, unarmed.”
Turning to Tobo, the prince asked, “How is our battle going?”
“Very well, sire,” the soldier replied. “We are repulsing all assaults,
in spite of the departure of the bees to the southward.”
A momentary cloud of doubt spread over the sinister handsome visage of
Prince Yuri. Then he smiled and said, “Doubtless the bees know what they
are about, and will soon return to the fray. So let us proceed with the
execution. Follow me!”
Myles followed. Almost was he tempted to spring upon his enemy and
attempt to throttle him before the inevitable bullet from Tobo could do
its work. It would be well worth the sacrifice of his own life to rid
Cupia of this incubus. But what if Yuri should survive? No, it would
never do to risk this. So he meekly followed.
The prince led the way up several levels, until they came to a small
circular chamber hung with curtains. At one side was a dais. An electric
vapor-lamp on the ceiling furnished the light.
Prince Yuri took the rifle from the guard, stood Myles in the center of
the room, and sat down himself on the dais.
Then he directed Tobo, “Go and summon the Princess Lilla hither, for I
wish her to see me kill this lover of hers, this beast from another
world.”
Myles winced at the mention of his beloved, and thereat his tormentors
smiled.
The soldier departed on his errand. Yuri toyed with the weapon, and
watched his victim, with a sneer on his handsome lips. Myles returned
his stare without flinching.
“You can put down your hands now, if you wish, you fur-faced mathlab,”
the prince remarked.
Cabot did so, and instinctively felt of his face. The insult was
unwarranted, for he had shaved only that morning.
“Don’t go too far!” he admonished his captor. “Remember Poblath’s
proverb: ‘You cannot kill a Minorian’.”
“I’ve a mind to kill you right now,” the prince replied, “just to prove
to you that your friend is wrong.”
“Go ahead and try it,” Myles challenged, half hoping that Yuri would
take him at his word, and thus spare Lilla the pain of attending the
execution.
A grim look settled on the usurper’s face as he slowly raised the rifle
and pointed it at the earth-man’s right side.
“Left side,” Myles admonished. “Remember that my heart is on the other
side than is the case with you Cupians.”
“My, but you are a cool one!” Yuri admired, shifting his arm as
directed. “Now, are you prepared to die?”
“Yes,” Myles replied.
It all seemed like a dream. It couldn’t be possible that he was really
going to die on the far-away planet Venus. Perhaps all his adventures in
the skies had been a mere dream, and he was now about to be awakened.
“Thus do I bring peace to Poros!” the Cupian sententiously declaimed.
His finger closed upon the trigger.
The rifle spat fire.
XXVII
PEACE ON POROS
Myles felt a sharp warm pain in his shoulder. But he still stood erect.
He was not dead. Could it be that Yuri had missed? Shaking himself
together and blinking his eyes, Myles stared at the prince.
The prince stared back with an open-mouthed expression of surprise. His
eyes were fishlike. His body was no longer erect. The rifle lay in his
lap, and he seemed to be feebly trying to raise it and point it at
Cabot.
Then, with a gurgle, some blood welled from the prince’s mouth and
trickled down his chin.
With one supreme effort his antennae radiated the words, “Curse you!”
Then the rifle dropped clattering from his nerveless hands, and his body
slouched forward prone on the floor at the foot of the dais. From the
right side of his back there protruded the jewelled hilt of a dagger.
Behind the couch, between parted curtains, stood a wild-eyed Cupian
woman, her face hideous with pent-up hate and triumph.
For a moment Myles stood rooted to the spot; then, tearing his feet
free, he rushed to his fallen enemy and plucked out the dagger. From the
wound there gushed bright cerise-colored blood, foamy with white
bubbles. Myles turned the body over, and listened at the right side of
the chest. Not a sound. Then, the Prince’s chest collapsed, with a sigh,
a little more blood welled out of the mouth, and all was still once
more.
Prince Yuri, the most highly developed specimen of Cupian manhood—but a
renegade, traitor, rejected wooer of the Princess Lilla, pretender to
the throne of Cupia—Prince Yuri was dead!
And such an ignominious death for one of his high spirit to die! Stabbed
in the back by a woman.
Cabot rose and faced her, the jeweled dagger still in his hand. “Who are
you?” he asked. “And why did you do it?”
“I am Okapa,” she replied in a strained voice—“Okapa from the mountain
village of Pronth. Do you remember how in the Second War of Liberation
you found Luno Castle deserted and a slain infant lying on the royal
bier?”
“Can I ever forget it?” he answered, his mind going back into the past.
“Naturally I thought it was my baby son, whom I had never seen.
Therefore I fought all the harder against the usurper Yuri until I drove
him and his ant allies southward, rejoined Lilla in Kuana, and learned
that little Kew was safe, and that the dead child was but an orphan baby
whom Lilla had substituted for our own baby for fear of just such an
outcome.”
“It was no orphan!” Okapa shrieked. “It was mine—mine! The dead child
was mine! Yuri stabbed my child and now I have stabbed him with the
selfsame dagger. Yuri killed my baby, and I have slain him, and now I
must die myself for killing a king.”
So saying, her anger spent, she flung herself upon the couch and wept
silently, as is the habit of Cupians.
Just then the Princess Lilla in a black gown swept into the room.
“They told me the king wished to see me here,” she said. “Where is the
king?”
She stopped abruptly as she saw the body on the floor. Then her eyes
rose until they rested on Myles Cabot. With a glad cry she rushed toward
his outstretched arms.
But a peremptory shout of “Hands up!” from the doorway caused her to
halt. She was between Myles and the door. He still held the jeweled
dagger in his hand. Stepping quickly to one side, he cast it straight at
Tobo who stood by the entrance, a rifle in his hands; and before the
Cupian soldier could raise his weapon to fire, the missile had
penetrated his heart. Down he went with a crash.
While this had been going on, Okapa, the madwoman, had crept stealthily
toward Yuri’s body with a view to securing the rifle which he had
dropped. Seizing it, she leaped to her feet with a shriek.
“You too!” she cried, pointing at Lilla with one skinny finger. “For it
was you who took my babe from the orphanage and exposed him to danger.
You are joint murderer with Yuri. Him I have slain, and now it is your
turn.”
But Myles stepped between her and the princess and wrenched the gun from
her poor mad hands, whereat she flung herself upon him, clawing and
biting like a demon. It was only the work of a few minutes, however, to
get both her wrists behind her back.
Lilla, sensing the need, ripped some strips from the hanging draperies;
together they tied the woman and seated her to one side. Then once more
the long separated earth-man and his Cupian beloved started to embrace,
while Okapa glared at them with baleful eyes.
This was too much for Myles.
“Just one paraparth!” he said; and, stepping over to Okapa, he spun her
around until she faced the wall.
Then he clasped his princess to him in a long embrace.
But at last a pang intruded in his bliss. “Lilla dearest,” he asked,
“where is our little son?”
She shook herself together.
“I know not,” she replied, “They would not let me know, for fear that
the usurper—may he rest beyond the waves—might force the secret from me.
But our country is more important than our child. While we tarry here
the battle rages. Quick, to the upper levels, and let us take control.”
“We cannot do so without a message from their king,” her husband
asserted. “Let us therefore bring them one.”
Stooping down, he picked up the dead body of Prince Yuri and flung it
across his shoulder.
“Lead on!” he said.
As they emerged up a flight of stairs into the main hall of the palace
they saw a frantic throng of palace guards piling tables, chairs, and
other furniture into a barricade across one of the doorways. Evidently
the troops of Emsul and Hah Babbuh had penetrated the palace and had
driven the defenders back to this point.
The golden-curled Lilla, standing straight and slim in her black gown,
stopped all this work of fortification with an imperious gesture.
“Desist!” she cried. “I, your princess, command it. The war is over.
Yuri, the usurper, is dead.”
“Prove it,” snarled back the guards like a pack at bay, recoiling from
her regal presence.
“Here is your proof!” Myles Cabot shouted, stepping forward and casting
Yuri’s body down before them. “Your king is dead.”
“’Tis true,” one replied. “The king is dead.”
“Yuri is dead,” another echoed. “Long live King Kew!”
“Long live King Kew!” shouted all the palace thugs, just as the
besiegers stormed over the barricade with leveled rifles.
But at the shouts within, and at the sight of their princess and their
intrepid earth-man leader, they grounded their arms and, holding their
left hands aloft, gave the Porovian greetings:
“Yahoo, Myles Cabot! Our regent has returned from Minos to rule over
us!”
Then one guardsman had an idea. “Come,” he said, “let us mount to the
upper terraces, haul down the yellow pennant of King Yuri, and restore
the red banner of the Kew dynasty.”
From one of the balconies above came a boyish voice: “It has already
been done, Myles Cabot.”
Every one looked up, and there stood Yuri’s younger brother, the loyal
Prince Toron, wearing the insignia of admiral of the Cupian Air Navy.
“I hope you don’t mind, Myles,” he said as he descended. “I made myself
admiral on my own hook. You see, while all the bees were here at Kuana
bombing your men, I captured the air base at Wautoosa with a crowd of
ex-aviators whom I had assembled for that purpose.
“We had been hiding in the woods for several sangths, with spies at
Wautoosa to inform us when there was an opening. When the time came we
walked right in, killed a few old bees who were on guard, reconditioned
the planes which have lain in storage ever since my brother seized the
throne, painted them with silver paint, flew up here to Kuana, and put
the bees out of business.
“The silver paint was my own idea, and I must say it seemed to work. The
bees couldn’t see us at all against the silver sky. The plaza and the
fields beyond are strewn with dead and dying Hymernians, and my men are
tracking down the survivors.”
And he would have chattered on in his boyish excitement, had not one of
the soldiers brutally interrupted with:
“Thy brother lies dead, O Toron.”
The young prince followed the pointing finger of the guard until his
eyes rested on the crumpled body in its blood-stained yellow toga. Then
he flung his arm across his face to blot out the sight. For a few
moments he stood thus, while all respectfully kept silent. At last he
uncovered his eyes and addressed the earth-man.
“May he rest beyond the waves!” he said. “I crave the corpse so that I
can give my brother a decent funeral.”
“He shall be buried with full royal honors,” Myles Cabot replied, “for
he was a brave and regal Cupian who would have served his country well
if his inordinate ambition had not blinded his judgment.”
“My cousin shall have royal burial,” echoed the Princess Lilla. “It
would be due you, Toron, for your share in the victory, if for no other
reason.”
“I appreciate this courtesy more than words can express,” Toron replied.
The news of the capitulation had rapidly spread, and the huge hall was
filling with Cupians from without. Among them came Emsul, Nan-nan, Hah
Babbuh, Oya Buh, and even Poblath the Philosopher. Warm were the
greetings between the friends.
“But where is our king?” Myles asked, as soon as he could free himself
from all the congratulation.
“Now it can be told,” Poblath replied. “He is safe in the care of my
wife Bthuh, in our villa at Lai.”
“The darling! I shall go to him at once,” Lilla announced.
“And I too,” Myles added.
“But no,” Hah Babbuh interposed, “for the populace are already gathering
in the stadium and are demanding a speech from the great liberator.”
“So be it,” Myles said with a shrug of resignation. “Affairs of state
cannot wait even the presence of the king, it seems.”
“But shall these black-togaed guards be permitted to retain their arms?”
Emsul asked.
“Why not?” the earth-man replied. “Their only crime is that they fought
loyally for their leader. Besides, this is a free country. One of our
grievances against the usurper was that he deprived us of our rifles.”
Then, to the palace soldiery: “Care tenderly for the body of Prince
Yuri, and lay it out in state pending our return. Oh, and I almost
forgot—there is a crazy woman bound in one of the cellar rooms. Turn her
over to the mango of Kuana for incarceration in the mangool, and under
peril of your lives do not permit her to escape.”
“All hail our regent! And our most beautiful and beloved princess!”
shouted the guards, as Myles and Lilla left the palace.
A kerkool awaited them at the gate. Getting into this, they proceeded at
a slow rate through the city and across the plaza toward the stadium
through lanes of cheering Cupians. Prince Toron, Emsul, Hah Babbuh, Oya
Buh, and others of their retinue followed them.
The plaza and the fields beyond were strewn with bodies—mostly in
fragments—of the once great race of the Hymernians. One of these bees,
as they passed it, gave sign of still possessing some life. A faint
whistling noise assailed the antennae of the passing procession.
Cabot gave one look in the direction of the sound, then signed the
kerkools to stop, dismounted, and approached the dying creature.
Adjusting his control to the wave length of bee speech, he sadly said,
“Portheris, once my friend, whom I made king of the bees, it grieves me
to see you lying thus, struck down in a war against my people.”
Raising himself feebly, the dying Portheris replied, “I bear you no
malice, Myles Cabot, and I pray that you will bear me none. Although I
opposed the war, yet when it came to a fight of race against race I was
loyal to my own, as any honorable individual would have been under like
circumstances. Perhaps it is just as well; for do you not remember that
when you were driving the ant-men off the face of Cupia, you said:
‘There is no room on any given planet for more than one race of
intelligent beings?’ Now the last Formian is gone, and the last of my
own people is gone. May Cupia be at peace. It is the sincere wish of
your old friend.”
The huge bee fell back, quivered a moment, and lay still. Thus died
Portheris, the last of the Hymernians.
“May you rest beyond the waves, dear friend,” the earth-man murmured as
he returned sadly to his car.
They found the stadium packed with cheering throngs in gala attire.
Everywhere fluttered flags of the Kew dynasty.
After Lilla had been comfortably seated and Marshal Hah and the others
had arrived, Myles stepped to the transmitter and was about to broadcast
some appropriate remarks to the assembled multitude, when an airplane
arrived overhead and settled softly into the arena.
From the plane there stepped Poblath the Philosopher, followed by Bthuh,
his dark and beautiful wife. Both were smiling, and Bthuh held in her
arms a baby Cupian.
Then Cabot spoke into the microphone: “Behold your king!”
It was the shortest speech he had ever made—and the best.
Thus came Kew XIII into his own.
There is not much more to tell.
Prince Toron retained his self-given title of Admiral of the Air Navy.
Hah Babbuh was restored to his professorship at the Royal University.
Oya Buh was promoted to full professorship. Poblath the Philosopher
again became mangool of Kuana, and his wife was made governess of the
infant king. Emsul, the veterinary, was given the title of court
physician.
Owva, the Holy Leader, died shortly after this, and Nan-nan was selected
by the Great White Lodge as the fit person to reestablish the lost
religion publicly throughout Cupia.
Myles and Lilla, leaving their friends to reconstruct the capital,
departed for a vacation at Luno Castle.
Thus end the story of the adventure of Myles Cabot, the radio man, on
his return to the silver planet Venus, as received by the Harvard
scientists and myself over the long distance radio-set at my farm on
Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts.
Ralph Milne Farley.
THE RADIO PLANET
When Myles Cabot, inventor of radio transmission of matter, returned to
Venus he found himself alone on an unknown continent on that alien
planet. To get back to his old headquarters and his loved ones presented
some apparently impossible problems.
He’d have to settle a war between the near-primitive natives and an
unholy alliance of monsters, dinosaurs, and giant insects. He’d have to
build an electronic device from raw rocks and untapped resources. And if
he could succeed in all that, he’d still have to find his way home and
fight off a usurper’s diabolic conspiracy.
But Myles Cabot didn’t know the meaning of the word impossible!
ON THE WRONG SIDE OF VENUS
On Venus, the Radio Planet, nothing was impossible, it seemed to Myles
Cabot. He was beginning to get used to the dangerous monsters that
inhabited the planet, to know how to deal with them and the even
stranger intelligent insects among whom he found himself.
But the insects were his enemies, a race of creatures Cabot had driven
from their dominion over Cabot’s own people—yet here he was, fighting
side by side with the insect leaders in a desperate attempt to defend
their queen!
It was strange, unexpected ... but it was the only hope he had of
getting back to his own land and rescuing the beautiful Lilla, his young
son and his throne.
Transcriber’s Notes
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--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
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