Maza of the Moon (11 page)

Her eyes were closed and her head hung limply against the side of her glass helmet. Quickly opening her visor, he chafed her cheeks and forehead and blew on her eyelids, the faint flutter of which presently notified him that her consciousness was returning.

"Ted--Ted Dustin," she murmured, and snuggled more closely to him.

He held her thus for a few moments, his heart beats registering an acceleration that could not possibly have been due to his recent exertions. Then she opened her great blue eyes, looked up into his, and said:

"Karl na Ultu."

This, he interpreted to mean: "Go to Ultu," so he, not having sufficient lunar vocabulary to ask her in what direction, managed to convey his question by signs.

She sat up, looked at the instrument strapped to her wrist for a moment, then pointed in the direction in which they had been traveling.

"Ultu," she said.

For answer, he rose, still holding her in his arms, walked to the edge of the stalagmite, and stepped off, alighting at the end of the forty foot fall with no more of a jar than a similar step from a height of seven feet would have caused on earth.

Her little exclamation of alarm as they fell was changed to a cry of surprise and delight when she saw they had reached the ground unhurt. Then she signed that she wished to be put down.

He gently lowered her to her feet, and together they pressed on into the deepening gloom--their way now made easier by the light of the girl's head lamp, reflected with many weird effects by the spectral white columns.

For many miles they traveled through murk so black that it seemed almost to have solidity, their range of vision limited to the small area lighted by Maza's head lamp. Then a faint phosphorescent twilight tempered the thick darkness, and scattered tufts of luminous vegetation led into a mighty, tangled jungle, as well lighted by its own flora as the first one they had crossed.

Before they entered it, Ted unholstered one of his degravitors and, handing it to his companion, showed her how to fire it by pressing the trigger. She tested it, first on a clump of luminous toadstools and then on a small flying reptile, and he was delighted to see that her marksmanship was excellent, due, no doubt, to her proficiency with a red ray projector.

Then she extinguished her head lamp, and together they plunged into the riotous medley of sound and color, of strange smells and stranger sights that constituted a lunar subterranean forest.

After more than an hour of travel through the jungle without molestation from any of its queer creatures, they arrived at the bank of a swiftly flowing stream about sixty feet across.

The girl took a small drinking cup from a pocket of her armor, dipped it in the stream, and offered it to Ted, but he gallantly shook his head, indicating that she should drink first. She did so, sipping the water slowly as if it had been the last glass of some priceless wine of rare and ancient vintage. Ted filled his canteen in the meanwhile, and drank a deep draught, finding the water slightly alkaline, but quite palatable.

Having drunk her water, Maza opened two clasps which loosed her glass helmet, and lifted it from her head. Then she sat down on a low toadstool and began a minute examination of the fine wires on the crest which constituted the antennae of her radio set. She worked with them for some time, her white brow often wrinkled in puzzlement, but presently gave up with a shrug of disappointment.

Then Ted, who had been watching her intently, took the helmet from her hands and closely examined the broken head-set himself. His knowledge of radio, combined with his extraordinary inventive genius, stood him in such good stead that it was not long before he had located the source of the trouble.

While he set rapidly to work to repair the damage with tools from his pocket kit, his companion gathered some dried and broken ribs of tree fronds that had fallen nearby and ignited them with a tiny red ray from a small lighter she carried. Then, taking Ted's hunting knife from its sheath, she cut several slabs from a pear shaped mushroom that grew near the water's edge, spitted them on a green frond, and grilled them over the fire.

By the time Ted had finished his work of repairing her small radio set, she had spread the top of a toadstool with large flat leaves in lieu of a table cover, and placed thereon tastily grilled slabs of mushrooms, together with several varieties of small fruits which grew in abundance all around them.

Returning her helmet to her, Ted showed his admiration of her lunar woodcraft and culinary skill by seating himself opposite her and heartily falling to. The mushroom slabs were delicious, and the odd fruits exceptionally palatable.

When they had finished, Maza pressed the signal button connected to her head set, there was an answering voice, and she immediately began a conversation which lasted several minutes, but which Ted was, of course, unable to understand. Once he saw her glance at the instrument on her wrist, and judged that she was telling someone their location. Presently she ceased talking, walked to a bed of moss beneath some long, overhanging fronds, and lay down as if to sleep, motioning Ted to do likewise.

Tired as he was, Ted could not bring himself to even think of closing his eyes in so insecure a spot, so he sat down on the moss beside her, unholstered his degravitor, and patting it, indicated that he would guard her while she slept. She closed her eyes without protest, and presently the regular rise and fall of her small, shapely bosom indicated that she was asleep.

For several hours Ted amused himself by watching the strange creatures of the earth, air and water. Giant saurians, with necks gracefully arched, paddled lazily past, sometimes darting their heads with lightning like rapidity into the water, and usually bringing up fish or small amphibians in their powerful jaws. Small flying reptiles, soaring low, sometimes descended to the surface of the water, sometimes dived beneath it, triumphantly emerging with living, wriggling food morsels which they usually swallowed as they flew, with little or no mastication.

But tired nature gradually asserted itself, and Ted finally caught himself nodding. He shook himself awake, but eventually nodded again, and thinking to close his eyes for but a moment, slept.

His awakening, he knew not how long thereafter, was rude and startling, for a warrior clad in glittering silver armor was kneeling on his chest, holding the point of a keen sword to his throat while two others, similarly accoutred, held his arms against the ground. His first thought was for the safety of his girl companion, but a glance showed him that she was completely surrounded by a ring of the armored soldiers.

HAVING LEAPED from Ted's Blettendorf ahead of his companions, Professor Ederson was unable to see what had become of Roger and Bevans, for his parachute opened almost instantly, shutting out his view above.

What he did see, however, filled him with apprehension and horror, for he was falling directly onto one of the huge globes that had wrought such havoc with the Blettendorf and with the government patrol planes.

In vain, he endeavored to sway his body to one side as he hurtled downward toward the enemy craft. There was a sudden shock as he struck the curved bridge--then his parachute bellied out to a horizontal position. Badly shaken though he was, he tried to rise and leap over the railing, but at this moment a diamond shaped door opened, and a rotund figure clad in yellow fur and wearing a pagoda shaped helmet with a glass visor raised, leaped upon him. With a short, curved knife, his assailant slashed the ropes which bound him to his parachute--then dragged him inside the globe, slamming a door after him.

Despite his feeble struggles, for he had been weakened by the shock of his fall, his captor bound his wrists behind him and jerked him to his feet. Then he pushed him roughly along a narrow hall--opened a diamond shaped door, and flung him into a tiny cell. The door clanged behind him as he fell, bruised and half stunned, to the metal floor, and he was left alone in stuffy, inky darkness.

How long he lay in the black hole, suffering from a dozen bruises and the pain of his tightly bound wrists, the professor had no means of knowing, for his luminous chronometer was on his left wrist, and his hands were tied behind him.

He judged, however, that he had spent slightly more than an hour in the stuffy room when the door opened. He was jerked to his feet by the fellow who had captured him, and led down a narrow passageway into a commodious cabin where an extremely portly Lunite, whose pagoda-like helmet was taller than that of his fellows, sat cross-legged on a raised dais, examining a scroll which lay on a small, diamond-shaped table before him.

He looked up as the professor was dragged before him, disclosing a puffy, rotund countenance decorated by a long, thin moustache that drooped below the lowest fold of his enormous triple chin. His little, slanting eyes glittered triumphantly as they took in the figure of the professor.

"You have done well, Lin Ching--even better than I thought," he said, "for this is the worm who tried to communicate with our great lord, Pan-ku, after all diplomatic relations had been severed with Du Gong. I recognize him from the picture flashed on our screens when he tried to send a message to which we refused to respond. He is evidently a linguist--perhaps can even speak with us."

"If this be true, I will begin by teaching him manners," said Lin Ching. "Make obeisance, low and miserable creature of Du Gong, to the mighty Kwan Tsu Khan, commander in chief of the Imperial Navy of P'an-ku."

"I am an Am-Er-I-Khan, myself," replied the professor slowly, in order that he might properly use the unaccustomed language, "and make obeisance to none but the great God of my fathers."

The fat Kwan Tsu Khan rubbed his chubby hands together and actually beamed.

"Better and better, Lin Ching," he said "You have captured a great as well as a wise man." He turned to the professor. "How did you learn our language, Am-Er-I-Khan?" he asked.

"By studying the modern speech and ancient manuscripts of the descendants of that P'an-ku who, thousands of years ago, journeyed from your world to mine," replied the professor.

"Bring a cushion for the Khan from Du Gong, and cut his bonds," ordered Kwan Tsu Khan. "Then retire outside the door, that we may hold private converse."

Lin Ching drew his sharp knife and severed the bonds which held the professor's numbed wrists behind his back. Then he brought a great, thick cushion which he placed on the floor behind his captive, and assisted him to sit down. After a deep obeisance toward the dais, he retired to the passageway, closing the diamond-shaped door after him.

"Now, Am-Er-I-Khan," said Kwan Tsu Khan, "just how much do you know about the history of that great and worshipful P'an-ku who journeyed to your world so long ago? And what can you tell me of his descendants?"

"I have only conjectured that such a person existed and traveled to our world," replied the professor, chafing his numbed wrists. "Even his descendants, who are today numerous as the celestial stars, refer to him only as the first man, their first ancestor. It was by combining the statements in your message to us with the traditions of the descendants of P'an-ku and noting the easily recognized racial resemblance as well as the philological similarity, that I formed my theory."

"Your conjecture," said Kwan Tsu Khan, "must be correct, for our most ancient records tell of the journey of one of the mightiest of our P'an-kus to Du Gong, after our terrific battle with Lu Gong had vitiated our surface atmosphere to such an extent that life on Ma Gong was impossible except in the deepest caves. But nothing was ever heard from P'an-ku thereafter, and it was thought that he lost his life in the attempt to reach Du Gong."

"That is interesting," answered the professor. "I understand that you refer to your world as Ma Gong, and to mine as Du Gong, but may I ask what Lu Gong is?"

"Why, Lu Gong is the world which circles the great Lord Sun in an orbit just outside that of Du Gong--the world which appears red to your watchers of the sky."

"Then Lu Gong is the world we call Mars," said the professor. "And you have a tradition of a war with Mars?"

"We have more than a tradition. Our world carries the scars of that war, and will carry them to eternity."

"I should be interested in hearing about it."

"Very well, but I can only review it briefly, as time presses. Many thousands of years ago our world was a planet with its own orbit, which was midway between that of your world and Lu Gong, or Mars, as you call it. It rotated on its axis, even as do your planet and Lu Gong, and its days and nights were shorter and its years longer than your own are today.

"For millions of years my people had inhabited and dominated Ma Gong--developing a high civilization, and scientists who had explored the infinitely small and the infinitely great. Our interplanetary vehicles had traveled to and explored the other worlds that served the Great Lord Sun, as well as their numerous satellites, and on some of these we found human beings, but on none but Lu Gong did we find beings with a culture that even approached our own.

"Soon a regular freight and passenger line was in service between Ma Gong and Lu Gong, and we traded and visited with that accursed race of slim, white beings in all friendliness. Then they sent a colony of their pale people to live on Ma Gong, and we sent a colony of our own people to settle on Lu Gong. From the start these white colonists made trouble. Presently blood was shed, reprisals followed, and things went so far that war was eventually declared between the two worlds--a war which wiped out the people of Lu Gong, and most of the people of Ma Gong--destroying also, the culture of a million years on our world.

"The terrific weapons which the people of Lu Gong used were huge clusters of meteoroids which they hurled at us, after condensing them in interplanetary space by bringing into play certain magnetic lines of force which they were able to control. The face of our world still bears the hideous dents where these clusters fell. Many wiped out millions of helpless people, destroying the work of centuries. The interplanetary fleets, battling with their rays--ours green, those of Lu Gong red--practically destroyed each other.