“Decidedly. I regard the capture of the Princess as more important than that of her father.”
“And what happens to me?” demanded Hudells.
“At the same moment a whole crowd of tame Pteros swoops down, a synthetic man, deathray in hand, on the back of each. Other synthetic men in the crowd attack Usulor’s soldiers, already bewildered by the loss of their Emperor—”
“Here, come on!” said a Martian, roughly, to me. And I had to resume my walk to the “cooler.”
VANS was sitting on a wooden seat, still looking a bit dazed.
“Oh, I’m glad to see you, Don boy,” he said. “But, say, I didn’t lose that fight fair.”
“I know you didn’t,” I said.
“There you are!” he said. “You saw. I had Galento whacked, didn’t I? Then something queer came over me. I don’t know what it was.”
“You were bitten by a snake, Vans,” I said. And I told him of everything that had happened and what a jam we were in.
“Then I didn’t fight Galento at all?” he said.
“No. It was Hudells. In a synthetic body.”
He frowned.
“I’m worried,” he said.
“Yes. If Prince Grumbold—”
“Oh, I’m not worrying about him. It’s Hudells. Don, do you reckon a synthetic man can be wrestling champion of Mars?”
“Why, of course not,” I said. “Only a natural man can be wrestling champion of any planet. Stands to reason,” I said.
Mind you, I didn’t know, not to be certain. I said what I did only to cheer Vans up.
“Oh, that’s great,” he said. “Then I’m still champion of Mars?”
“Of course you are.”
“And I still haven’t fought Two-ton Tony Galento?”
“Now look here, Vans, you saphead,” I said. “Let us attend to one thing at a time. This Prince Grumbold—”
“I’m listening, little man,” he said. Just then a terrific roar sounded through the rocks.
“Ahooooooo!”
Vans listened and grinned. It came again.
“Ahhhooooooooo!”
“The way I work it out,” I said.
“Princess Wimpolo will soon be along this way in an airplane, tracking down these Pteros to find us. Grumbold means to attack that plane with the idea of taking the Princess prisoner. We have to find some way of warning—”
“Hear that?” asked Vans, grinning some more.
“Ahhhhooooooooooooooo!”
“Yes. What do you reckon it is?”
“It is Hudells. The Synthetic man. They are trying to unfix his head from the way I put it and turn it round the right way again. Come and put your head to the wall here and you can hear.”
I did. Only a narrow rocky barrier separated us from another cavern.
“Must you make all that noise?”
“If you are being hurt as I am being,” growled Hudells, “you would make still more noise.”
“I couldn’t. But you didn’t holler when Holors stretched your neck in the first place,” said the Professor’s soothing voice.
“That was different. That was for a fight. Besides, it did not hurt so much then. It has got stiff,” said the booming voice of Hudells.
“A lot of blood has infiltrated into the flesh,” agreed the Professor. “Making it painful to touch. But if we leave it long the head will grow in this position. Come! Let us try once more.”
“Ahhhhhhhhooooooooooooooooo!”
“Has it moved any?” asked somebody, Grumbold, perhaps.
“No. It is exactly where it was before.”
“Look here!” roared Hudells. “Stop this fooling! There is one man who can put my head back again the way it was.”
“Who is that?”
“Why, the man who put it like it is! Holors! Send for him!”
There was a lot more talk too, but through all that rock it was not so easy to hear it all. The synthetic warrior, Hudells, was clearly not at all easy for the other two rogues to handle, but when he got too frisky Grumbold would say, in a silky voice, “Perhaps the general wishes to leave us,” and Hudells would calm down at once.
A lot of argument began about Holors.
“I’ve put up with a lot,” Hudells boomed. It was impossible to mistake his voice. “But I will not put up with a head stuck like this as a permanency.”
The professor said something diplomatic, then Grumbold said, in a resigned voice, “Oh, all right then. Fetch him.”
CHAPTER VI
I Make a Break
SO VANS and I worked it out. While we were being led along the rock passage he was to make a diversion and I was to slip away.
They came all right. The door of the cavern opened and Martians called to us, “Holors! You are wanted.”
“And supposing I will not come?” Vans asked.
“Then we shall use our deathrays on you at half-strength and carry you unconscious, on a stretcher.”
It was easy to see that, in spite of their big curved swords and deadly rays, they were all half afraid of the mighty Vans and his mightier reputation. For this man, but for the snake, would have whacked their three-ton synthetic champion, and that, to them, was a man-size miracle. Little me, dodging between Vans’ legs, didn’t get much attention.
“What’s this pesky little Earthling doing here?” snapped a Martian, as we filed out.
“Tread on it and squash it,” suggested another.
“The Earthling comes with me,” roared Holors. “If I come the Earthling comes.”
“What’s that? Do you want to be rayed?” snarled someone.
Vans made a dash. At once there was a mix-up. The Martians could not use their rays without bringing down their friends as well. I wanted to stay and help Vans in that fight, but I had to keep to our plan. I could perhaps get away from this place. He could not.
While their attention was all on Vans I jumped for a shelf I had spotted high up in the rock, ran along a natural ledge, jumped again.
It is amazing how one can climb in the light gravity of Mars. I bet you I could climb to the top of any skyscraper in New York or Chicago in ten minutes under Martian conditions. Grumbold’s men had never expected me to be able to climb like it. I don’t suppose they had ever seen anything like it before. “A human fly!”
I heard one gasp.
I was not feeling so good, at that. Because they were swinging deathrays into action. And I had several miles to fall, if I fell. Still, I had not far to go to be in the dark. That was a comfort. Although climbing about the face of a precipice in pitch darkness is a form of amusement that I do not recommend you to try.
Well, anyway, chiefly by luck, I made it. I got nicely behind a big, solid, outjutting boulder. And looked back.
Vans, stout fellow, had managed to jostle the aim of those Martians who had succeeded in getting deathrays lined on me. But he had taken some nasty wounds in the back from their swords. He was putting up a whale of a scrap. And when you remember that it was only an hour or so after his great fight with the synthetic giant, and that he was still dizzy from the effect of the snake-bite—well Vans was a great fellow, bone-head or not.
It made me feel bad to watch him and to do nothing to help. I wanted to yell to him to give in. What was the use of his fighting there and taking so much punishment? He couldn’t get away.
But once Vans started fighting he kept on until he either won or was unconscious. Vans was built that way. There’s a saying, “He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day.” Vans did not seem to have heard of it.
THEY got him finally but not before three of them had gone flying over the edge. Whether it was a sword that got him or a deathray, I could not quite see. He collapsed all at once.
“That’s a man! That’s what I call a man!” boomed an admiring voice. Hudells had come out of the cave. He was sitting in a wheeled chair, and a Martian was pushing it backwards so that Hudells could see where he was going.
“Oh,
you do, do you,” murmured Grumbold, softly menacing.
“I know a real man when I see one,” boomed Hudells. “Don’t forget that when I teamed up with you I never expected so many hanky-panky tricks. I like fighting on the level.”
The professor’s voice changed, becoming sort of dry and rasping.
“You are not forgetting, are you, Hudells?”
“Forgetting what?”
“That without regular supplies of my powder, which only I know the secret of, you would die a painful death in a few weeks.”
Hudells’ enormous fists clenched tightly and his eyes blazed.
“No. I am not forgetting,” he said, in a voice that sounded strained, as though it was all he could do to keep from leaping from the chair and dashing at the professor, “but remember, what I said. Try it on. Just try it on. And you will see how much damage I can do before I go under. I’ll make a mess of your lab. And you,” he ended, roaring.
He signalled to his attendants to wheel him forward. Vans, with several different kinds of powerful Martian drugs injected, or inhaled into him, was sitting up dizzily.
“Here you,” said Hudells. “You did this to me.”
“Did what?” muttered Vans dazed. “Turned my frontispiece into my back page.”
“Ah, yes, I see,” said Vans, grinning.
You look very funny.”
“I know. Just put it right again, will you?”
“Do you mind waiting till I get my wind back? I am nearly out,” Vans asked.
“Yes, I reckon you are,” Hudells agreed. “You don’t want to go on fighting when the other bloke has got you cold, see? And we got you cold now, see? Best give in, Mr. Holors. Else you only get hurt, see?”
“I see,” said Vans.
“All right. Well, I reckon you can fix this head of mine the right way without the help of these other fools.” He looked at the professor. “You and me will just put that right with no one else around. See?” he said to Vans.
“I see,” said Vans.
Vans and Hudells vanished into a small cave.
“Where’s that Earthling?” snapped the professor, remembering me.
“Got away, sir. Climbed the rocks and is hiding somewhere out there,” reported somebody.
“Impossible!” rasped the professor. “No human being could climb over that sheer rock face!”
“That Earthling did, sir.”
“Seems you have miscalculated,” purred Grumbold, sneeringly. “Now he’ll get right away, spill the beans, and we shall have Usulor’s air force up here to argue with.”
“Oh, no we won’t,” the other snapped. “Not even an Earthling can get away from here. I tell you again, I chose this as the most inaccessible spot in Mars. No matter which way you try to go from here, the overhang is terrific. Nothing larger than a spider could make it in full light. And you fear the Earthling may do it in darkness. Pffff! Besides. The Earthling cannot be far away. Get half a dozen men out, mounted on Pteros, carrying searchlights, and we’ll pick him up in a few minutes.”
“That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said for a long time,” said Grumbold. “You, you, you, you, you and you. You heard what Prof. said. Go to the cave of the Pteros and find that Earthling. If you find him in half an hour I might reconsider punishing you for letting him go. Otherwise, it will be bad for you. Get me?”
They did. They went, leaving the Prince and his scientist alone.
OF COURSE, I had been expecting these villains to get up to some trick of that sort. And I hadn’t been still. I had been quietly moving round in the darkness.
“How much longer have I to endure the insolence of Hudells?” wheezed Grumbold.
“Let your Highness wait but a little while. Then I will have another dozen or so synthetic men ready. We will soon be rid of Hudells.”
This snake-in-the-grass treachery did not surprise the fat Prince.
“Yes, that’s all right, I know,” he wheezed. “You are supposed to be the brains of this outfit. But until your synthetic men are ready I have to submit to indignity . . .”
The two disappeared into a large cavern. And as they did so I dropped to the ground behind them.
When people are looking for me I like to be just where they least expect to find me.
CHAPTER VII
Synthetic Men
“NOW see here,” said Hudells, as he wheeled his chair into the cave behind Vans, “there is no need for you and me to be enemies.”
“Huh?” said Vans.
“No,” urged the synthetic giant. “You are a great fighter. Turning my head round like this was a smart trick. Now, let us be friends. When the Prof. has made umpteen synthetic men like me, Usulor’s army won’t stand any chance at all, see?”
“That’s what you think.”
“Yes, that’s what I think. And I know. See?”
“And so what?”
“So you had better team up with us, see? And when Usulor is whipped I’ll see you are all right.”
“Thanks. But I don’t go back on my friends. See?” Vans snapped.
“Now that’s silly talk. Think over what I said. Perhaps you will change your mind.”
“I’ll think about it,” Vans said, “but—”
“That’s better. Now will you put my head the way it ought to be?”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’d rather not talk about that. It is not pleasant.”
“All right,” agreed Vans, helplessly. “You’ve got me cold, as you say.”
“That’s horse sense,” said Hudells. “Better get out of that chair.” Hudells got out.
“Now lie on your back.”
Hudells did. His face was to the ground. Vans thoughtfully put a cushion under it.
“Give me your arms.”
Hudells did.
Vans sat on the great chest of the synthetic giant. He took one arm under each armpit. His knees were on the other’s chest.
Suddenly he heaved upwards with his strength.
“Here! What is the game?” demanded the startled Hudells.
As Vans had guessed the arms of the synthetic body stretched exactly as the neck had done.
“What are you at?” roared Hudells. In a few moments Vans had tied the great arms in a knot at the elbows.
“If this is a trick!” hissed Hudells, breathing slaughter.
“Now sit up,” said Vans. “And I’ll see to your neck.”
Hudells tried to sit up, but, with his arms the way they were now, could not make it. Vans helped him. In a few moments the giant’s head was back to normal.
“Ah! That’s better,” breathed Hudells. “A neat, quick jerk. I hardly felt it. Now what about my arms?”
“Well,” said Vans, thoughtfully, “I promised to put your neck right, but I sort of can’t remember making any promise about your arms.”
Hudells jumped up, his face black with rage.
“See here, Mister, you think you are clever—”
“I am clever,” said Vans, modestly. “See what you can do about it with your arms like that.”
Hudells rushed at him. Vans dodged, seized an ankle. Unable to use his arms to save himself, Hudells fell with a crash.
“I am rather afraid,” Vans muttered, “that your friends will find it still more difficult to untie your arms than they did to put that other little matter right.”
“If you think you can get away with this, you are mad,” hissed the giant, trying to get up. With his mighty arms useless, he could only wriggle.
Vans watched his struggles for a few moments, then lifted him.
“Daddy help little man,” he said. “Diddums want to walkee-walkee?” Hudells launched a furious kick at him. But Vans was ready. He dodged, seized the heel. Hudells fell again. “Naughty, naughty!” chided Vans. Hudells opened his mouth to yell for help. But Vans hefted a big stone over his head.
“Little man had better be good. Not make a noise,” he said. “His brain is not synthetic, and it might get s
poiled.”
“Little man” was quiet.
“What do you aim to do?” he asked, in surly tones.
NOW, I have a confession to make.
I know you think me a smart guy. Resourceful, quick-witted, courageous and all the rest of the guff. I don’t know where you got those ideas. As for courage, I don’t believe in it. It is better to be artful than brave. “He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day.” As I tell that big sap, Vans. As for being clever, well, I can make some pretty big blunders sometimes.
And I made one then.
You see when Prince Grumbold and his tame scientist went into their cavern, leaving the coast clear for me for a moment, and I dropped to the ground behind them, my idea had been to go into the cavern where Vans was and somehow help him get the better of that moving mountain, Hudells. Beyond that I hadn’t much idea. When you are in a jam like Vans and me were it’s not much use thinking out plans beforehand. You never get a chance to carry them out. Watch, see what happens, and do whatever you get a chance to do.
Well, anyway, I know it was a dam-fool thing to do, but I mistook the cave. Instead of going into the cavern where Vans was, I went into another one.
As I closed the door the light came on. It was a small cavern but very long, with painted walls. I could not see the far end. A nasty place to get caught in. There was no furniture of any sort to hide behind.
I stopped, wondering if I had gone the wrong way. Vans did not seem to be here. I thought perhaps there might be a door or a turning further on. Then I heard voices and steps outside. If they came in now I would not stand the least chance against a deathray here. It was a trap.
I began running, very quietly and fast, along the tunnel.
It was a long tunnel, and gave off many branches. I took several turnings, just in case I was being followed. Soon I was quite lost.
The tunnel came to an end. Before me was a white door, just a little way open. I could see curious things beyond.
As I stepped up to it a bell began to ring suddenly.
It was one of those wretched alarms the Martians are so fond of, worked by an invisible light-ray and a photoelectric cell. Usually, being so much smaller than the Martians, I can pass under the rays, but not always. This one, worse luck, happened to be set low.
The Complete Saga of Don Hargreaves Page 29