Vans went for a swim in the pool, and came ashore with a big blue swelling where some poisonous creature in the water had stung him. We looked at it and roared with laughter, and so did he.
Then we all went to sleep . . .
“Ho, ho, ho!”
Van’s mighty roar of laughter woke me up. He was standing before me stark naked, and laughing. I jumped to my feet, forgetting the light gravity, and soared high in the air before I came down in the branches of a tree-fern.
I looked down, and roared with laughter again.
The Emperor of Mars was stark naked, too. And when I looked at the flamingo, so was she. She appeared to have been plucked. Not a vestige of feather remained on her.
Then I found that I was naked, too. Not only that, but all the hair of my head was gone. I was bald, and so were Vans and Usulor.
“Some chemical in the air dissolved away our clothes and hair and her feathers,” chuckled Usulor, tears of merriment running from his eyes.
I looked for our space-suits. They too had been attacked. AH cloth, rubber, fur or leather parts were gone. Only the helmets remained usable.
Looking closely, I found that tiny beetles were devouring remnants of the leather parts of the suits. The green dome was full of tiny insects that devoured all dead animal and vegetable matter. Now I knew why not a single dead leaf or branch was to be seen amongst all this tropical vegetation. Lucky for us it was that they left all living substances alone. Otherwise we might have been eaten alive while we lay in the drugged sleep produced by the chemicals of radioactive Deimos.
We had had nothing to eat for a long while. It did not seem to matter. Our drugged brains did not know we were hungry. Everything seemed a huge joke.
I suppose we would have laughed until we died if that native curiosity of mine had not woke up. That inquisitiveness that used once upon a time to get me into so much trouble saved all four of us.
IT happened like this. I found a metal door almost hidden by the tropical vegetation. And, of course, I fiddled with handles and locks until I got it open. And, of course, I went in, found myself in a low metal building. Leaves nearly covered the windows, so I put the light on. I saw more handles to fiddle with, and I fiddled.
Presently I heard a hiss, and I was very amused.
This building happened to be the air-making plant of this particular dome. The actual air-making machinery had been mostly eaten away long before, but it happened that there was a store of air in metal containers under pressure. This was what I had tapped. It might just as easily have been something poisonous.
The building filled with clean air. The drug-laden air of the dome went out through the cracks. I sat and laughed, and slowly sanity came back to me.
What was I laughing at? I found I did not know. I discovered that I was extremely hungry, parched with thirst and stung all over by a million vicious insects. And, worst of all, I didn’t know what had happened to Wimpolo, my Martian bride.
The realization of the true position was so bitter that I almost went out to bury myself in that drugged oblivion again.
What was I to do?
I tried to think.
I had to get Vans and the other two in here to get the drug out of their brains too. That meant exposing myself to the poisonous air again.
I went out.
“Vans!” I cried, urgently. “We are all drugged. Poisoned! Come with me! I’ll get you right again.”
“What is the little Earthling talking about?” rumbled Vans, laughing. And grabbed at my bare shoulder to throw me in the air, starting some ridiculous game again.
I felt the drug getting hold of me again. It was useless trying to get those gigantic Martians into the air chamber by force. Dodging Vans, I ran back.
He did not try to follow.
What was I to do?
Trying to persuade them was useless. I shouted to them, but nothing seemed to make them understand. All they could understand were silly games and pranks. Only by showing them some new game could I interest them.
Was that the way? It was worth trying.
I began to roar with forced laughter.
“Ha, ha, ha! This is funny! Oh, come in here. You never saw anything so funny in your life! Come and see my new game! Ha, ha, ha!”
It was hard work. But presently I got Vans interested. He strolled over.
“Where! What’s this game, Earthling?”
“In here. Come inside and I’ll show you.”
He came in, sniffing as he detected the difference in the air.
“Where? What is it?” he demanded, all eagerness.
“There!” I pointed at the air-tap. “Put your head there.”
He did. I shot a jet of clean air right in his face.
He roared with pretended anger, and tried to catch me. I dodged him.
Presently he came more slowly. The silly grin faded off his face. A look of puzzlement came into it.
The drug was being worked out of his system.
“What has been happening, Don?” he asked.
“The air of this dome is poisonous,” I said. “Get King Usulor in here.”
VANS dashed out, picked up the lesser giant in his arms and carried him in. Usulor struggled, but Vans slapped his face as one might slap a naughty child. He nearly knocked the King out. Vans does not realize his own strength.
The question of the flamingo worried me, but, seeing us all in this metal building she presently followed of her own accord.
Presently we were all sitting very sober, looking at each other and wondering what to do next.
“How much more air is there in those tanks?”
“Not much.”
“Then we’ll have to get out of this dome.”
“We need space suits for that. Ours are done for.”
“Not completely. The helmets are all right, I think.”
“Get what’s left of them, and we’ll see what can be done.”
Vans dashed out and got them. The helmets were all right.
By wrapping a lot of large leaves bound with creepers round our necks the helmets could be made to supply air for perhaps fifteen minutes. Under Deimos conditions of feeble gravity one could go a long way in fifteen minutes.
“Our bodies would be exposed to very thin air, almost amounting to a vacuum,” I said.
“I understand,” Usulor said, “that perfectly healthy bodies can withstand exposure to a vacuum much better than is commonly supposed. At any rate, we have no choice. We have to take a chance.”
“And our feet on the rocks,” I said. “Those stones may be either frigidly cold or at furnace heat.”
“We shall have to wrap our feet round and round with big leaves.”
“Seems to me it would be best to wrap our entire bodies with leaves until we look like Egyptian mummies,” I said.
They did not know what Egyptian mummies were, but they understood what I meant. In a series of quick dashes, holding their breath, the two gathered huge supplies of leaves and creepers. We began to swathe ourselves.
“Where shall we go?”
Vans suggested a nearby dome. “Looks to me as though there is no air in it,” Usulor said.
“That one, then.”
“Full of fungus,” I said. “Doesn’t look wholesome to me.”
“What about that one?”
“Yeah! Bung full of snakes and wild cats.”
THERE wasn’t an attractive-looking dome in sight. We had to make up our minds beforehand and go straight to our objective. Once outside there would be no time to waste.
“What about Olla?” I suggested. “She can withstand exposure to an airless vacuum. Let her pick out a nice dome for us and lead us there.”
The flamingo was willing. Unable now to fly, she raced over the rocks on her long legs. Presently she was back, flapping her featherless wings and beckoning with one leg.
Three figures wrapped head to foot in leaves came out of the lock and ran in a series of long leaps across the surfac
e of almost airless Deimos. With each step we went about forty feet, came down slowly, kicked vigorously backwards, with both feet, soared again.
With great exertion we reached Olla’s dome. She had chosen well. There was not much vegetation. The air was not too rich in oxygen and had rather a lot of carbon-dioxide. Rather like a stuffy room. It made one feel tired. But it was safer like that. There was less likely to be dangerous animal life in such an atmosphere.
In another way we were just in time, too. The sun set. Abruptly, it was dark.
“Don!” called Vans. “See that light over there? It does not look like a star to me.”
I looked, and felt a thump at the heart.
“No, Vans. It is the light in the air-plant of the first dome. We forgot to put it out.”
“It shows up brilliantly in the dark. In the daylight it seemed to be completely obscured by the vegetation. Now, it shows up like a searchlight. If any space-birds are about they will be certain to see it.”
“It must be put out. Send Olla.”
Olla, good bird, went without a word of complaint. We could see many more lights now.
“Looks bad,” I said.
Vans grunted gloomily.
Presently Olla came back. Without surprise we read the report she wrote on her slate. The light of Mars, in the sky, was just enough to enable us to read her large writing.
She had been unable to get near our former dome. Space-birds were all around it. They did not go in, but shone searchlights into it from space. Others were going from dome to dome, examining each one with searchlights. Presently they would reach us.
Now we wished that Olla had not chosen the dome so carefully. She had picked out a dome with little vegetation. It was safer for several reasons. But now we wished she hadn’t. There was nowhere to hide.
“In the water,” said Vans.
It was an idea. I had often heard of men hiding in water, lying on their backs with just their nostrils and mouths above the surface. The Martians and Olla, able to hold their breath for a very long time, could go right under.
As the searchlights came near we slid into the clammy, slimy water. There was a coat of scum to it and the bottom was soft mud.
Searchlights played around the dome. My eyes, nose and mouth were full of scum. My head was slipping under the surface. I tried to raise myself, but could not.
I was sinking into the soft mud at the bottom of the little pool. Already my arms and legs were deeply embedded. I could not move them. I could not free myself.
Waves disturbed the water. Slight at first, they increased. I guessed that Vans and Usulor were trapped the same as I was. There didn’t seem to be so many searchlights now. Or perhaps I could not see them so well for the scum.
I got a mouthful of foul water.
A rounded grey boulder, so different from the jagged rocks of Deimos, reared itself up slowly out of the water and gazed at me with sad eyes.
Or was it a sea-lion?
CHAPTER VI
Wimpolo’s Escape
PRINCESS WIMPOLO gradually came to herself on an acceleration-resisting couch. Her space-suit had been taken away. A notice on the door said, “Do not open. No air outside.”
She pulled a plug out of a ventilation hole. An instant whistling of air out of the room told her that the notice spoke truthfully. She replaced the plug hastily.
Then she noticed the glass panel in the door, A parrot-like face was there, laughing soundlessly at her.
Somehow, Wimpolo could not get used to the space-birds. The sight of their weird animal faces close up gave her a shock every time.
The parrot-like face moved away, or was pushed away, and bear-like face took its place. That, in turn, was pushed away by a creature with the head of a horse. And all were laughing.
A whole crowd of space-birds was in the corridor outside, jostling one another out of the way to gape and laugh at her.
It must have been tough on Wimpolo, who is a good girl so long as she gets her own way. All these creatures were making fun of her, and she couldn’t get at them. She says she boiled with rage. I quite believe it. In the end she tried sitting with her back to them. Frequent peeps into her hand-mirror, pretending to put her nose or cheeks to rights, told her that the mocking space-birds were still there. Wimpolo was quite accustomed to gaping crowds, but not under these circumstances. And all these space-birds had been criminals in the jails before her father tried the Evolution Machine on them.
Princess Wimpolo is the bravest girl I have ever known. But this got her down. The poor girl was very worried as to what had happened to her dad and Vans and me. But she would not dream of asking those space-birds.
After an hour or so she discovered that the corridor was empty. Then she heard a voice, curiously squeaky. It was not a normal voice, but sounded more like a space-bird whose mouth and throat were still capable of human speech. There were some, particularly among the parrot-like creatures, who could talk fluently.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you the finest entertainment since we made our home on Deimos. Princess Wimpolo, daughter of the man who threw us into noisesome jails and who changed us into our present forms for his idle amusement, is, as you all know, a prisoner aboard this vessel. We show you her shut in her compartment. Some of you are watching her through the transparent panel in the door, but only one at a time can see her that way. She has turned her back on them. She doesn’t know that we have three movie cameras trained on her through holes in the wall. Watch her! See the proud tossing of her chin. See her biting her lips. See the tears in her eyes that she tries in vain to hide. This is the greatest entertainment . . .
WHEN her temper cooled down a bit she wondered how it was she was able to hear the words. The ship must be full of air again. She pulled out a plug. No sound of whistling air came to her. She passed her hand over the hole. No marked current of air could she feel. Air pressure outside was equal to that inside.
In a moment she moved furniture to cover up the three spy-holes of the cameras, busted open the door by hurling her half ton of beef against it until it broke, and went out.
Yes, Wimp is a hefty girl. When she moves she moves.
She had made rather a lot of noise. She heard space-birds coming. She dashed along the corridor and into another door.
Space-birds rushed along the corridor. She heard their cries of surprise at the broken door. She heard them begin to search for her.
She had to think quickly. No good hideout was near. I doubt if she looked for one. To a Martian, accustomed to living in everlasting night, the first idea in that sort of jam is always to put out the light. In a moment she had put out the lighting system of the ship. Pulling a light-bulb with one hand she dabbed a well-moistened finger of the other hand on the naked terminals. The lights fused at once. She says her finger was not hurt.
The side of the ship away from the sun was in darkness, apart from a pale glimmer from stars, Mars and Deimos. Wimpolo went boldly along the corridor.
She had gone some way when the lights suddenly came on again. The only space-bird near was a stork-like creature. It gaped at her in amazement.
Wimpolo grabbed it at once, one hand gripping its beak so that it couldn’t make a squawk and the other trying to hold its wings.
“Be good and I won’t hurt you,” Wimpolo panted.
The stork was quiet, Wimpolo hustled it into a nearby small compartment. The stork produced a slate and began to write.
“I am only a poor girl,” it wrote, in ungrammatical Martian, “I never stole the money. And my dad was dying and needed expensive treatment to save him. And they put me in jail. Then the King made me into one of these winged things that don’t have to breathe.”
“Poor thing,” Wimpolo sympathized. “I’ll see that you are pardoned as soon as I can manage to get back.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Take me to my room, where my wardrobe is. Have you seen it?”
“Oooh! Not half! All furs and
feather hats and dresses.”
“Can you get me there?”
“Oh no! I couldn’t!” She seemed frightened.
“Yes you can. If I took everything off, and then rode on your back, nestling well down into your feathers, you could fly me there without my being seen.”
“Oh I couldn’t! Tarbuss would have me plucked.”
“Who is Tarbuss?”
“The boss of us space-birds. The flying horse.”
Wimpolo remembered suddenly. Lemor Tarbuss had been a brigand and most dangerous criminal. So now he was the “big shot” among the space-birds. She should have foreseen it. But it made things look bad.
THREATENING to wring the stork’s slender neck, Wimpolo bullied it into agreeing to carry her. Wimpolo had judged right. The space-birds were of all shapes, kinds and sizes. What showed of Wimpolo’s pink flesh among the stork’s feathers was not noticed in the stork’s rapid flight to Wimpolo’s room. Wimpolo dashed into her wardrobe.
Furs and feathers of all kinds were here. How could she wrap herself in them so as to pass among the space-birds as one of themselves?
There was a loud noise outside. Loud squawks and a beating of wings. She pushed the door open and looked out.
The treacherous stork was calling to the other space-birds telling them where Princess Wimpolo was hidden.
The only heavy objects handy were two magnetic boots. Wimpolo picked them up and threw them hard. One crashed into the far wall, but the other hit the stork at the base of the neck, making her turn somersaults in the air.
Wimpolo set herself hastily at the job of disguising herself as a space-bird. A tigerskin provided two furry legs. Pulled over her own legs like stockings, they made her legs look like a tiger’s legs, as long as they did not fall off. Another skin round her shoulders gave her the front legs of a bear to cover her arms. A headdress of feathers, purposely disarranged so as to hide most of her face, a feathery cape, that could be held out in her arm to represent wings, there! that was the best she could do. At all events, she looked weird enough, in her full-length mirror. She grabbed a handful of fasteners, in case anything fell off, and dashed out.
The Complete Saga of Don Hargreaves Page 21