Collected short fiction, p.186
Collected Short Fiction, page 186
His amazing visitant from Lelural had told him that Space was but an illusion due to the weakness of the exploring mind. Had the priests of the Red One mastered that illusion, formed for their god a dwelling somewhere—Outside—yet capable of being brought back at their will into the limits of our familiar three dimensions? So Miles thought.
A cold and heavy silence yet hung upon the assemblage and all eyes were staring—with an intentness stamped with maddening horror—toward the black hideous columns. Again Miles heard Bak-Toreg’s voice; and from the myriad throats rose a solemn hymn, made deep with fanatic yearning and edged with a quivering note of fear.
Through the black pillars and across the white field came the Red One!
A scorpion it was, larger than scorpions should be in a world of sanity. Upon its eight thin hairy legs it scuttled swiftly forward from the squat dark temple, making a great rattling and crashing upon the field of bones.
It was red. Every armoring plate of its hideous body, which was heavy as the body of a horse, of its fearfully long, tapering, upcurved tail, was bright as vermilion enamel.
It was gigantic! The stinging tip of the thin tail was raised ten feet above its horn-plated back. The fearful scarlet pincers upon the foremost limbs looked large enough to cut a man in twain.
Indeed the faith of the Ryka was a cult of horror and death. As the monstrous scorpion came running with fearsome avidity to respond to its worshippers’ invocation, a fanatic roar of welcome, thunderous with insane exultation and shuddering with horror, rose to greet it.
Looking back for a moment, Miles saw three black-robed small men and one great scarlet Amazon leave their seats to run forward and hurl themselves into the pit, howling in frenzied ecstasy. They lay silent and broken on the hard clay. A second furious uproar filled the pit, in praise of this supreme act of self-annihilation.
Miles stood his ground in the middle of the pit while the great scorpion came running with frightful agility across the yard of bones. Its loathsome, scarlet-armored body, scuttling out upon eight hideously hairy legs, was incredibly huge. The slender, horn-plated sting, wickedly upcurved over its back, was many yards long. The terrible red pincers on its forelegs clattered upon the bones as it ran, and its black eyes glittered diabolically.
None the less, he was frightened. Xandulu had filled him from the first with dull and nameless awe, her archaic mystery, her slumbering power, the unguessed and unthinkable secrets of a science that had grown through a thousand centuries.
The scorpion was the embodiment of his ultimate terror—a nightmare become dread reality. Fashioned by unholy arts, to be the supreme object of adoration of a cult worshipping fear and destruction and death, the scorpion was the supernal pinnacle of horror.
Miles braced his feet and gripped the hilt of the invisible sword and waited, for he was thinking of a girl on a lonely rock in the purple sea, a girl with dark, anxious eyes in a pensive face, waiting for him to come back to her—a girl who would follow him to a frightful death, unless he destroyed this god of horror!
He knew that the deep voice of the thousands was hushed with wonder at his boldness. . . . and then he forgot about all but the scorpion, for it was upon him. Savage tearing pincers were grasping at him; the horror-barbed red sting was seeking him horribly.
With a quick slash at one of the pincers, Miles tried to leap back to temporary respite, but the encounter was not to be a graceful duel. His invisible blade slithered harmlessly from crimson, metal-hard plates. Then the opposite pincer caught him.
l Scarlet jaws, with torturing, lacerating force, closed upon his left arm and shoulder. Knife-like edges sank through clothing and skin; he felt a warm trickle of blood beneath his garments.
Immediately, the arched tail whipped down. In vain he writhed and twisted in that inexorable grasp; futilely he sough! to guard himself with the invisible blade in his free arm. The poisoned barb was not to be evaded.
It touched his left shoulder above the grasping pincer.
Liquid flame spread over his body from the sting. Razor-keen pain shot along his useless arm and down his side and up into his neck. The very shock of it made him dizzy, half blinded him.
Again he struck, desperately, with art arm half paralyzed. The blow was slow and awkward, but it caught the slender sting. The barbed end of it, sheared a wave cleanly, fell twitching at his feet—too late! The poison from its swollen glands had already been forced into his body. The great jaws of the pincer still held him in an agonizing grasp.
With the panic strength of terror, he hewed at the limb above it. Fire was throbbing along his veins, the swift venom from the sting in his shoulder. Alternate waves of heat and cold parched and chilled him. Retching sickness drained away his energy. Bright, wheeling flame raced amid dark mists before his eyes.
Still he hacked blindly, savagely, at the red, scaly limb that held him, while the now innocuous tail of the monster drove its bleeding stub repeatedly at him.
As if realizing the uselessness of its sting, the scorpion lifted him abruptly toward its frightful head toward the hideous fangs of its slavering, scarlet mouth. Desperately, but to no end, he struggled in the pincer—which he could hardly feel now, as the deadness of the poison spread.
Paralysis had numbed all the left side of his body. Throbbing waves of darkness beat upon him—the work of the venom was nearly done. Through haze of pain he saw the black, glittering eyes of the scorpion, baleful wells of supernal evil.
Fierce instinct of battle nerved him for one last effort. He did not strike for himself—he had no hope of surviving the effect of the monster’s venom. His blow was for Su-Ildra. He broke the bonds of icy paralysis, called upon his ultimate reserve of vitality, and drove the invisible sword hilt-deep into the nearer jet-black eye.
He was still grasped relentlessly in the scarlet pincer when darkness flooded him and all pain was mercifully extinguished.
Miles was standing abruptly on his feet again with an impression that strong, kindly arms had assisted him to rise. Flaming agony was gone from his body; upon his shoulder he felt a soothing coolness. The lacerations made by the great pincers—though he did not observe the fact at the moment—had been cleansed and closed; they were covered with a tough, transparent adhesive, under which they were to heal with rather surprising rapidity.
The squat black temple with its courtyard of bones faded and vanished in a grey haze, even as he saw it, and the polished obsidian wall of the mountain was suddenly back where it had been—but that astounding dwelling had gone unoccupied.
Beside Miles, upon the hard clay floor of the pit, the gigantic and hideous bulk of the scarlet scorpion lay lifeless, the hilt of the sword projecting from one eye, now made visible with blood.
A furious outcry of rage was ascending from the multitudes who had just witnessed the death of their god. An avenging avalanche, they were sweeping down the banks of seats to the edge of the pit, lowering themselves to the hard clay floor, surging across toward Miles.
But Miles was not alone.
Kind, powerful arms had helped him to rise. Now he felt a touch upon his side, and turned to see a form supernormally tall, shrouded mysteriously in bright-flecked vapor of white. A green-scaled hand, armed with delicate, needle-sharp claws, had reached out of the mist to touch him.
Once more the soundless voice of Alú the Youngest of the Flame Folk, penetrated his consciousness.
“Miles Kendon, you have done well. For a time, at least, the menace is at rest and Su-Ildra is unharmed. But you are not safe in Xandulu, with the wrath of the priests hot against you. Let us go. Surrender your mind to me.”
The van of the howling mob was but yards from him when swirling tentacles of the mist reached out, enwrapped him. Dense white fog enclosed him, shot with quivering motes of pure fire. He experienced a sudden dizziness, a confusion of his sense of direction, a sensation of headlong, plunging motion.
Then the mist was gone from him and he was alone.
l He was bewildered, terrified, on a sandy beach. Below him black waves were lapping. The sea that stretched away from him was dark—not the purple ocean of Xandulu. The sky was grey; it was dawn; a wan old moon burned cold in the east by the ghost of the morning star.
Inland from the beach, dark mystery hung beneath the clinging shadows of the night. He made out tufted crowns of palms near him, against the tarnished silver of the east, and knew the heap of darkness westward for a hill. The old, familiar scent of the desert reached his nostrils.
That morning he trudged into Algiers, bewildered, confused, heart-broken. Anticipation of such civilized comforts as the town afforded gave him no satisfaction, for his heart was crying out for a sky of argent-misted emerald, set with seven clustered suns, crying out for a sharp black rock in a waste of purple sea and the girl waiting there.
Without his knowledge or consent, the Flame Folk had restored him to his own world through their astounding mastery of Space, merely, he supposed, because his life had been in danger. He was not grateful as he walked into Algiers, barefoot, clad in the silken tunic that Su-Ildra had given him, penniless.
Meeting an astonished chance acquaintance—not one to whom he dared entrust his story—he obtained a small loan which kept him while he cabled San Francisco for funds. It was only a week later that the Gay Moth reached the harbor, and he came out to me.
Miles left me on the morning after his story was finished. Seeing nothing of him in the next three days, I sent Carlos out to find him. That afternoon he came aboard again, once more trimly neat in flying togs. His greenish eyes were restless, nervous; and his thin face had almost forgotten the old grin that is twisted so oddly by the scar on his temple and brow.
“I was about to set the gendarmes on your trail, Miles,” I greeted him. “You look worn out. Let’s make that cruise together, that I’ve been planning for us so long. A few months in the South Seas will help you forget—”
“I don’t want to forget, Brandy.” He grinned at me, wanly, and gave me a powerful hand. “Sorry, but I can’t make the trip. Just came aboard to say good-by, and tell you how much I appreciate—”
“You aren’t going back?” I was almost astonished—though, knowing Miles, I need not have been.
“Yes, Brandy—back to Xandulu—to Su-Ildra. I’ve just bought a new crate, a light sea plane. It’s ready to go.”
“A few weeks, anyhow,” I urged. “You need rest, Miles.”
“Nonsense!” he snapped. “I’m starting in the morning. Going to fly down the Well and land by Arnac Rock. With any luck, I can diddle Bak-Toreg and be back here with Sue in a week. Then, if you say, heave-ho for the South Seas.”
“I’ve a short-wave telephone set,” he told me before he left. “You may hear something, Brandy—say about eleven p.m.—” and he named a frequency.
That week passed, and others that have grown into two long years.
Miles has not come back. But there has come a message. . . .
(Concluded next month)
The Legion of Space
Part Two
UP TO NOW:
In the thirtieth century, John Star—then John Ulnar—receives his commission in the legion of space, with orders to join the guard of Aladoree Anthar, a lovely, mysterious girl, keeper of AKKA—the secret weapon of humanity, so terrific that its plans are intrusted to only one person in the system.
Under the command of Captain Eric Ulnar, a distant kinsman and hero of an expedition to the weird star Yarkand, he is sent to a strange old fortress on Mars, where the girl is hidden. For two hundred years, she tells him, AKKA has protected human liberty and peace, under the democratic Green Hall Council, from the plots of the “Purples,” who wish to restore the empire, place the despotic family of Ulnar on the throne. Eric Ulnar, she says, is the heir, scheming to dispose of her and her weapon, to clear his way to power.
But John Star is unable to believe her. When the old captain of the fort is mysteriously murdered, he obeys Eric Ulnar’s order to arrest and lock up the three remaining loyal men of the old guard, Jay Kalam, Hal Samdu, and Giles Habibula.
A strange, titanic space flier has landed near, and Eric Ulnar slips away to go to it. Following, John Star demands an explanation. Eric Ulnar insolently confesses that he is a traitor, that he is planning to abduct Aladoree to deprive the Green Hall of her weapon. The ship, he says, is from Yarkand; be brought back as allies the monstrous beings he found there to help him seize the throne.
From the ship a strange weapon wounds John Star; and the vessel departs while he is helpless, taking Eric Ulnar with the captured girl and the priceless secret of her weapon. He has betrayed the Green Hall and the legion of space!
John Star is faced with disgrace—and the system with disaster—unless he can recover the kidnaped girl.
VI.
“AH, LAD, it’s time you thought of us!” wheezed Giles Habibula plaintively from the darkness behind the bars of the old prison.
John Star was unlocking the rusty door. Here was one thing, at least, that he could do to repair the traitorous work of his kinsman—though the greater thing, the rescue of Aladoree and her secret, was all but hopeless.
“Can you bring us some broth?” the complaining voice went on.
“And a bottle of the old wine from the cellar? Something to revive us and give us strength for stronger victuals?”
“I’m going to turn you out,” said John Starr. Then he added bitterly: “That much I can do to make up for the fool I’ve been!”
“You must help us creep out and up to the blessed sun. Don’t forget we’re mortal weak. Ah, me, we’re starving! Not a bite to eat since the day you locked us up. Not a blessed morsel for all that mortal time. Though I cut off the uppers of my boots and chewed them for the bit of nourishment in the leather.”
“Ate your boots? Why, it was just this morning that I brought you here!”
“Don’t jest with old Giles Habibula! Don’t be so heartless, when he’s had nothing but his blessed boots to eat, rotting in a dungeon for mortal weeks.”
“Weeks? It wasn’t ten hours ago! And I let you eat all that breakfast in your room, just before—enough to provision a fleet!”
“Don’t torture me with your jokes, lad! I’m starved to a blessed bag of bones.”
The rusty bolt at last shot back, the door creaked open. Giles Habibula rushed out, Hal Samdu behind him, and Jay Kalam, walking deliberately.
“We are free?” asked the latter.
“Yes. The least I can do. I’ve been a fool, an utter idiot! I’ll never be able to undo the crime I helped Eric Ulnar carry out, though I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to!”
“What has happened?” Jay Kalam’s low voice was anxious.
“Eric Ulnar was a traitor, as Aladoree thought. After I had locked up you three, he had the way clear.
The ship—the one that landed last night—came from Yarkand. Monstrous creatures aboard, allies of Eric’s—it was one of them that murdered Captain Otan. He’s giving them a shipload of iron, to pay for their part. It’s precious to them. The ship took Eric away and Aladoree. I was—hit. Can just now walk again.”
“It’s the Purples?”
“Yes; as Aladoree thought. The plot is to restore the empire, with Eric on the throne.”
They entered the courtyard, bright with the afternoon sun. Giles Habibula stood with his thick hands stretched out in front of him, staring at them in amazement. He fingered his heavy-jowled face, slapped his bulging paunch.
“For life’s sake,” he gasped, “tell me, was that no joke? Is this the same mortal day? All that suffering! My boots!”
“Forget your belly, Giles!” shouted Hal Samdu, the giant, and turned to John Star with helpless anger on his broad red face.
“That Eric Ulnar——” he panted, incoherent in his rage. “Aladoree—he has taken her, you say?”
“Yes. I don’t know where.”
“We’ll find out where!” he promised savagely. “And bring her back.
And Eric Ulnar——”
“Of course!” It was the low, calm voice of Jay Kalam. “Of course we shall attempt her rescue. At any risk. The safety of the system demands it, if it were not our simple duty to Aladoree. The first thing, I suppose, is to find out where she is. And that may not be easy.”
“We must find a means of getting away from here,” added John Star. “I suppose there’s some way of communication?”
“Yes. A little ultra-wave radio transmitter, installed for emergencies. We must report to legion headquarters, at once.”
John Star winced, said bitterly: “Yes, of course. Report what a fool I was! How Eric Ulnar duped me!”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Jay Kalam urged him. “Others, higher up, were deceived, too, or he wouldn’t have been sent here. Don’t blame yourself—you could have done nothing alone. Your only guilt was obedience to your officer. Forget your regrets. And let’s undo the harm that’s been done!”
“Of course that’s the thing. But I can’t help feeling——”
“Come on! We’ll send a message to the base—if they didn’t smash the transmitter before they left.”
JAY KALAM’S apprehension was realized. The little transmitter, placed in a small tower room, had been systematically and utterly destroyed—tubes smashed, condensers hammered to shapeless metal, coil wires cut to bits, battery jars emptied and broken.
“Ruined!” he said.
“We must repair it!” cried John Star.
But with all his optimistic determination, he soon had to admit the impossibility of the task.
“Can’t be done. But there must be something. The supply ship?”
“Won’t be back for a year,” said Jay Kalam. “They came seldom, to avoid attracting attention.”
