As he spoke hot tears had sprung into my eyes, and without answering I tore myself from his grip and fled frantically from the room. Oh, how hurt and angry I was, but this time it was Ubca who bore the brunt of my temper. I thought that he had, in a moment of mischief, thrust me into this predicament, knowing what the flower portended and knowing what its presence in my mind would confess to another. I should have realized that it was an accident that led him to pick up the flower to illustrate his words, forgetting I did not know its meaning, not thinking I would take him literally and fasten my thoughts on that single blossom. Only I was too frenzied to reason that such might be the case.
All I wanted then was to be back on Earth, away from these horrible Abruians.
Hours passed, in which I flatly refused to leave my room. Urto came with food and tried to draw me out. He, too, I knew could read my thoughts, and never before had I been so humiliated. How I needed the comfort of a woman’s arms at that moment. What I might have done during those long, dark hours that followed I do not know, but the spectre of death had boarded the Yodverl unrecognized by any of us, and when Ubca came to tell me that Uncle Ezra was dying I could think of nothing else but him.
While I had sat there alone, hating the power of the Abruian mind, he had gone to sleep, never to be aroused any more. For several hours the breath of life still remained in the old scientist, and the four of us sat beside him hoping he would awake again. He died as he had wanted to—sleeping.
Somehow I could not cry, for I knew he was happy at last, completely so, more than I alone could ever have made him. He had gone gladly, willingly, and he would be hurt to know that I mourned for him, wanted to give him back to life. But in my heart was a deep pain of longing for the man who had been both mother and father to me, and who later in life had in turn drawn from me the mother instinct to care for him above all else. I sat by him for hours, recalling the years we had passed together, until at last Moura came and gently led me away. But before I left him I said a prayer for the newly freed soul wandering toward eternity.
I did not know when they carried the body to the airlock, and with the powerful radium ray of Abrui which incorporated all the dread power of the element carried out the professor’s last wish, opening the door so that he became one with the Void. So he passed from sight of man.
CHAPTER XI
Installing the Meteorite Deflectors
WE were now in full view of Mars. It practically filled our whole “sky,” and we could easily make out the contour of the ground “beneath,” great reddish plains over which a sand-storm was sweeping, erasing everything else from sight. However, we no longer moved any closer to the planet, for no one felt the urge to land there when the man who had wanted so much to explore the planet was gone. For a whole day we hung there in space in honor of the professor. Far of! we could see the light that marked Earth, and now was a lamp lighted there for me. The world seemed reaching out for me, calling me home. So I went to Moura, who knew why I had come to him.
He looked strangely down upon me when I stated that I wanted to go home. If you wish it, Elsie Rollins, but I had hoped you were going to go onward with us, out of the confines of the solar system, on to the world that lies ready waiting our coming! Do you hate us so much that you wish to return to that small globe of yours yonder?”
“Yes, I wish to return. I am lonesome for home. You know I came here only because my uncle wished it, and now that he has left me I shall go back to my own people. I shall never forget what you have given me, but I know I could not be content to go farther.”
“And you will be happy on your own world? Why?”
“Because I will be with my people in a world that is familiar to me. . . . Because it is where I was born, and it is all that I have ever known.”
“Yet I repeat, will you be happy? Can you be contented within the limitations of land, water, sky? Will you not long for the immenseness of all this, the adventure of it, the wonder of it? And won’t you miss those who have gone with you into this adventure, Elsie Rollins?” How vibrant was his voice, how strong his personality!
“I shall remember you,” I answered.
“Is that all?” softly.
I shrugged my shoulders. “What else could there be?” Why did he insist upon questioning me, I wondered, he who knew my mind as well . . . or perhaps better than I.
“Then,” said he, “you shall return to Earth!” and with that he left me.
We did not start back immediately, for Moura had just completed a new apparatus, the one whereby he hoped to deflect meteors and aerolites from the Yodverl’s path. It took a day for Ubca and him to place it. It meant that they had to don the air-pressure suits and to climb out of the ship to set the four metallic deflectors at both the prow and the stern of the ship. These plates were circular, two concave, and two convex with an invisible wiring running down the length of the ship on either side to connect the four together. But then you are familiar with those fixtures with their small hermetically sealed radium motors no larger than an ordinary watch. Perforce the wiring of these discs ran into the ship by the way of the airlock and were connected again with the machine set below the living quarters but were controlled by dials in the pilot room.
It was the first time I had seen work performed on the outside of the flyer, and standing in the pilot room I watched the pair with heart in my mouth as they, like two lumbering beasts in their queer outfits, made their way over the shell. Because of the ship’s own center of gravity, the men had no difficulty in keeping their feet, although if we had had no magnetic force of our own they would have had no trouble that way, since being away from gravity they could not “fall.” Had the ship been in motion they would have stayed alongside because of the self-same law.
The reason it took them so long to install the new paraphernalia was because of the awkwardness of their dress. Nor could they stay outside longer than an hour and a half or so at a time, for the bitter cold of the Void ate quickly through the insulation of the suits, so that they had to make repeated trips indoors. Later Moura was going to install heating units in the suits, so that henceforth the “space-stroller” could stay out as long as he desired to do so. As it was their adventures outside the Yodverl were definitely limited.
At last the two finished their grueling work and the Yodverl carried the plates pressed closely against the body. When they came in for the last time Moura asked if I would not enjoy the experience of climbing outside, so I in turn dressed in one of the tremendously heavy suits. The ship’s inner door was closed and the air was pumped out of the lock. I felt a sickening nausea creep over me. That quickly passed and I found the weighted suit was without weight, for the magnetized motors did not affect this chamber. I was unaccustomed to breathing the heavy air in the suit, but Moura showed me how to regulate its flow and to open the valve for the escape of carbon dioxide. Then he opened the outer door.
WHAT a sensation it was to look out into Space with nothing but the insulated suit between me and that awful emptiness. Moura fastened a long cable to my belt, although he did not bother to take that precaution himself. Then he motioned for me to jump (we could not communicate orally) and showed me how to keep the cable in my gloved hands, paying out as I desired it.
Closing my eyes, I did as I was told and jumped. When I opened my eyes you can picture my fright when, looking back, I saw the Yodverl a good thousand feet behind! I had jumped to the very length of my cable! Realizing what distance separated me from the ship, I became panicky. I did not know what to do I forgot all that Moura had told me of the cable. I could scarcely see in the darkness, and only because the Yodverl was illuminated from within could I have made it out. I felt as if the darkness were something tangible, something with substance that could be cut with a knife.
Frantically I tried to peer through it, to make out Moura’s welcome form, but as far as I could see the void was empty around me. Then I heard Moura’s laugh, or rather his thought vibration, against my brain.
“You took me too literally, Elsie Rollins. When I told you to jump you jumped too hard. And you neglected to switch on your light, so that I cannot see you.” I reached up and switched on the light torch that was fastened just above the eyes like a miner’s torch. “There, that’s better,” continued Moura. “If the cord were longer there is no saying where you might be now, eh? Just give a pull on it as hard as you can. That should bring you all the way back!”
How stupid of me not to have thought of that simple thing, and how chagrined I was at the thought that Moura was laughing at me. My anger gave me double strength, and one backward pull on the cable sent me flying back to the Yodverl so quickly that I lost my breath.
Then I saw that Moura had never left the door of the ship, and he motioned for me to place my hand against the glass wall at my side. As I did so I received a slight shock that ran through me as of electricity, and I found my hand stayed where I put it. It was easy then to pull the rest of my body to the surface and gain my feet. Looking at Moura, I saw him reach around from the airlock. Without having to jump, he climbed up beside me.
“I wanted you to jump for the experience it gave you,” he advised me mentally, “only I did not wish you to become frightened. But you’ve enjoyed it, and so you forgive me?”
He had the answer in my brain, and I saw why the suits were not provided with speaking apparatus—it wasn’t necessary to the Abruians. Looking down at my feet I felt that I was upright, but a glance told me I was actually standing in a horizontal position on the Yodverl’s side. It was as easy for me to walk around it as for a fly to walk on a vertical wall This was because we were outside the field created by the gravitational motors inside. It was a novel experience. We walked all over the ship, but could not see within because of the peculiarity of the construction of the glass that permitted one to look out from within, but made it appear opaquely white from without. And because of this oddity we were never really sure whether we were standing “up or down”; direction seemed all alike. Moura went to the front of the ship to look again at his deflectors, and he seemed to walk “upward” away from me. Then we returned to the airlock and climbed in. The outer door was closed, the air pumped in around us, and we removed our suits.
Moura went directly to the pilot room and the Yodverl turned toward Earth once again.
CHAPTER XII
Moura Speaks
IT would be three days before we arrived on Earth, but I began packing immediately, like a child unable to wait until we had arrived. Then I went into the room Uncle Ezra had occupied. His clothing was gone, but there were all his personal effects—his watch, a charm made from a meteorite that he had worn all his life, a lion’s tooth, his Masonic emblem, a pocket compass, a gold knife, his fountain pen, and all the odds and ends a man carries with him. There were also his notebooks and his specimens taken from Mercury and Venus. Crying over each object, I carefully wrapped them up and put them away. Each night before I fell asleep I gave a little prayer for the old man and knew that he was content. Perhaps the Great Scientist was explaining to him all His secrets.
Many of the long hours I spent in the pilot room with my eyes glued upon our globe, and my nostalgia grew hourly as we neared it. At last we were abreast the moon, that seemed winking at me and we came nearer and nearer and hovered over the dark side of the Earth, whose feeble luminosity diminished as we came closer. A velvet pall seemed hanging over Earth except along its rim, where the atmosphere was reflecting a corona of light from the sun.
For the first time since our trip on the outside of the Yodverl, Moura approached me now. He seemed to have been avoiding me all the while, leaving Ubca-tor at the controls whenever I happened to enter the pilot room—hardly noticing my presence during meal times, and in our daily swims in the pool.
Ubca was guiding the ship Earthward, and with my home so near, I turned from the pilot room for a last excursion around the wonder ship, considering whether or not I should go back to the stable of the mitu to bid the pretty little creatures goodbye. They had always been friendly with me, and I had learned the simple throaty words of their language. It was in the atol that I met Moura, who seemed expecting me. What surprised me most was the intensity of his eyes at the moment. So dark had they grown, they looked violet.
“Do you really wish to go down there, Elsie,” he said, omitting the use of my surname for the first time since I had known him.
“Yes, I do.”
“And are you sure that you will always want to stay there? Are you not going to recall these pleasant hours aboard the Yodverl and long to be out where nothing but the stars limit your horizon?”
“Some of the hours have not been happy ones for me, Moura-weit, and the distant stars, can only recall home to me.”
“Do you not think this is a phase you are passing through, that when you are satisfied with finding things as you left them, you will wish to be out here again?”
“Why do you think I shall not be contented on the planet of my birth? It is home and there are people of my own kind there. Do you think I do not know my own mind?”
“I ask only because I must be sure for you . . . and, Elsie, I am not sure. Several days before the professor passed away, he asked me to watch over you for him. He knew his going left you entirely alone in the universe. He left you his worldly goods but that is all. He was fearful for your future, as I am fearful, and he trusted me to look after you. I must fullfill his trust, but there is more to it than that. . . .
“You say you will be happy with your kind, but will you? Are they your kind anymore? Haven’t you progressed farther than they? Are you not out of their reach? You have climbed to heights they can never attain. . . . Then, again . . . you tell me you know your own mind. Do you?
“During these few weeks aboard this flyer you have been putting thoughts in your mind that do not belong there; you have not listened accurately to the messages from your heart. You have resented the fact that I am aware of this, but you do not know that I am aware of the truths that you yourself have not allowed your mind to realize. . . . Wait, I want you to allow me to finish. . . .” The last was because I had started to protest.
“You have played with certain beliefs that are alien to you, that actually do not exist . . . your belief that you hate me . . . that you hate us all! . . . You’ve played with that childish thought until you believed it yourself, interpreting your reactions to mean one thing when they mean another. Don’t you understand, Elsie Rollins, that in resenting us, resenting me . . . you have lied to yourself . . . that in truth . . . your feeling for me is of different timbre than that of hate . . . instead of hating me you have loved me since that night I came to your bungalow in Africa?
“Once, I too, thought I understood my heart, thought I could never love a living creature, nor did any woman of Abrui ever stir my heart. Then there was a woman I wanted only to further my own selfish ambitions, but I lost her, and thereafter deluded myself into believing that it was love after all. You have done the same thing with me . . . pretended you hated me because of my ugly past, trumped up charges against me, and all the while down in your heart you were loving me! Come now, can’t you realize as I have that there is no other fate for us, that we love each other and belong to each other? I have been hoping you would learn the truth for yourself, but I can’t allow you to return to Earth without knowing how I feel toward you . . . and you toward me!
“You have disliked the idea that I know all that was passing through your brain, but believe me I did it as lovingly as another man follows the form of his loved one with his eyes, reading from her face her emotions so that he can know her wish and fulfill it, and that has been my only motive in allying my brain to yours. I was more than pleased when first I detected the symbol of the tula blossom in your mind for I thought you had purposely meant it for me—women of Abrui do that—and I thought you had learned it from Ubca-tor. When I spoke of it to you I learned the truth and I was downcast . . . He paused, and then seemed una
ble to speak further. He hesitated as if to take a step toward me, but instead he turned, and stood looking with unseeing gyes into the pool.
As for me, as he had spoken, one emotion after another swept through my being, all thought seemed to have deserted me, so that I was a vessel drained of its contents. So this was the way of it. Was he right? Did I love this man instead of despise him? I was in a whirl; I did not know what was happening to me. And I was ashamed, so ashamed of my petty thoughts. Perhaps if instead of using words Moura had swept me into his arms, prevented me from trying to think, and had forced me to his will I would have submitted, carried away by the very power of his personality and his love. Only there Moura was wise. He knew that to do that would have later left me open to think again and to wonder if it had merely been the magnetism of his personality that had forced me to him; then I would have commenced truly to hate him.
Turning back from his scrutiny of the pool he said. “I appreciate the effect all these revelations have upon you and I understand your reactions. I am taking you to Earth now, but in a year’s time I shall return. In that space of time you should know whether I am right or wrong, and if then you are ready to accompany me across the Void I will be glad; otherwise we shall say farewell for all time. You are willing?”
I nodded, unable to bring forth my voice. I was grasping something of this man’s greatness, and his goodness. Already my brain was casting off its doubts, I felt humble before him. The thought that I had gained the love of such a man as Moura-weit overpowered me. I wanted to call out to him, to tell him what I knew now, but he had left me there alone in the room.
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