by Various
CHAPTER XX
_Sarka Commands Again_
Ahead, through the storms which still hung tenaciously to the roof ofthe world, flashed those dozen aircars of the Moon. Now Sarka couldplainly see the dome of his laboratory, and from the depths of himwelled up that strange glow which Earthlings recognize as the joy ofreturning home, than which there is none, save the love for a woman,greater.
Now he could see the effect of those flares, or lights, from Mars, whichimpinged on the face of the Earth, though he could see no purpose inthem, no reason for their being, since they seemed to do no damage atall, though the effect of them was weird in the extreme.
Outer darkness, rent with ripping, roaring storms, flurries of ice, snowand sleet, shot through and through by balls of lambent flames inunguessable numbers. Eery lights which struck the surface of the Earth,bounded away and, half a mile or so from the surface again, burst intoflaming pin-wheels, like skyrockets of ancient times. Strange lights,causing weird effects, but producing no damage at all, save to lessen tosome extent the courage of Earthlings, because they did not understandthese things. And always, down the ages, man had stood most in fear ofthe Unknown.
* * * * *
Sarka peered off across the heavens where a ball of flame now seemed tobe rising over the horizon, and was amazed at the size of this planet.Mars was close to Earth, so close that, had they possessed aircars likethose of the Moon-people--which remained to be seen--they could easilyhave attacked the Earth.
Across the face of the Earth flashed those fiery will-o'-the-wisps fromMars, without rhyme or reason; yet Sarka knew positively that theypossessed some meaning, and that the Earth had been forced thus close toMars for a purpose. What that purpose was must yet be discovered.
Then, under the aircars, the laboratory of Sarka.
Down dropped the aircars to a landing near the laboratory, and to thecubes in the forepeak of each Sarka sent the mental command:
"Assure yourselves that the aircars will remain where they are! Musterinside the laboratory, keeping well away from the Master Beryl!"
Then to the people who had returned, clothed in strange radiance, fromthe Moon with Sarka and with Jaska he spoke:
"Leave the cars and enter my laboratory, where further orders will begiven you!"
With Jaska still by his side, Sarka entered the laboratory through theExit Dome. Inside, clothing was swiftly brought for the rebels, forSarka and for Jaska. But, even when they were clothed, these people whohad come back seemed to glow with an inner radiance which transfiguredthem.
Sarka the Second, his face drawn and pale, came from the Observatory tomeet his son, and the two were clasped in each other's arms for amoment. Sarka the Second, who had looked no older than his son, seemedto have aged a dozen centuries in the time Sarka had been gone.
But it was not of the threatened attack by Martians that Sarka theSecond spoke. He made no statement. He merely asked a question:
"Was Lunar very beautiful, and just a bit unearthly in appearance?"
* * * * *
Sarka started.
"Yes. Beautiful! Wondrously, fearfully beautiful: but I had the feelingthat she had no heart or soul, no conscience: that she wassomehow--well, bestial!"
A moan of anguish escaped Sarka the Second.
"Dalis again!" he ejaculated. "But much of the fault was mine! Beforeyou were born, we scientists of Earth had already several times realizedthe necessity of expansion for the children of Earth if they were tocontinue. Dalis' proposal to my father was discarded, because itinvolved the wholesale taking of life. But after the oceans had beenobliterated, and the human family still outgrew its bounds, Dalis cameto my father and me with still another proposal. It involved a strange,other-worldly young woman whom he called Lunar! Her family--well,nothing was known about her, for her family could not be traced. Wipedout, I presume, in some inter-family quarrel, leaving her alone. Dalisfound her, took an interest in her, and the very strangeness of her gavehim his idea, which he brought to my father and me.
"His proposal was somewhat like that which you made when we sent theEarth out of its orbit into outer space, save that Dalis' schemeinvolved no such program. His was simply a proposal to somehowcommunicate with the Moon by the use of an interplanetary rocket thatshould carry a human passenger.
"He put the idea up to this girl, Lunar, and she did not seem to careone way or another. Dalis was all wrapped up in his ideas, and gave thegirl the name of Lunar, as being symbolical of his plans for her. Hecoached and trained her against the consummation of his plan. We knewsomething, theoretically at least, about the conditions on the Moon, andeverything possible was done for her, to make it feasible for her toexist on the Moon. My error was in ever permitting the experiment to bemade, since if I had negatived the idea. Dalis would have gone nofurther!
"But I, too, was curious, and Lunar did not care. Well, the rocket wasconstructed, and shot outward into space by a series of explosions. Noword was ever received from Lunar, though it was known that she landedon the Moon!
* * * * *
"I say no word was ever received, yet what you have intimated provesthat Dalis has either been in mental communication with her, hoping toinduce her to send a force against the Earth, and assist him inmastering the Earth, overthrowing we Sarkas--or has been biding histime against something of the thing we have now accomplished."
This seemed to clear up many things for Sarka, though it piled higherupon his shoulders the weight of his responsibilities. Theother-worldliness of Lunar, called now Luar, explained her mastery ofthe Gnomes, and through them the cubes, and her knowledge of theomnipotent qualities of the white flames of the Moon's core, which mighthave been, it came to Sarka in a flash, the source of all life on theMoon in the beginning!
"But father," went on Sarka, "I don't see any sense in this aerialbombardment by Mars!"
"I believe," said Sarka the Second sadly, "that before another ten hourspass we shall know the worst there is to be known: but now, son, insteadof going into attack against the Moon, we go into battle against thecombined forces of Mars and of the Moon!"
* * * * *
Sarka now took command of the forces of the Earth. Swiftly he turned tothe people of the Gens of Dalis who had come back with him.
"You will be divided into eleven equal groups, as nearly as possible.Father, will you please arrange the division? Each group will beattached to the staff of one of the Spokesman of the Gens, so that eachSpokesman will have the benefit of your knowledge with reference toconditions on the Moon. Each group will re-enter its particular aircar,retaining control of the cube in each case, of course, and will at oncerepair to his proper station. Telepathy is the mode of communicationwith the cubes, and you rule them by your will. Each group, whenassembled by my father, will choose a leader before quitting thislaboratory, and such leader will remain in command of his group, underthe overlordship of the Spokesman to whom he reports with his group. Youunderstand!
"Your loyalty is unquestioned. You will consecrate your lives to thewelfare of the Gens to which you are going, since you no longer have aGens of your own!"
Sarka turned to the cubes, which had formed in a line just inside theExit Dome, and issued a mental command to the cube that had piloted hisaircar from the Moon. The cube faded out instantly, appearingimmediately afterward on the table of the vari-colored lights.
"Father," said Sarka, "while I am issuing orders to the Spokesmen,please see if you can discover the secret of these cubes: how they areactuated, the real extent of their intelligence! The rest of you, withyour cubes, depart immediately and report to your new Gens!"
* * * * *
Within ten minutes the divisions had been made, and the Radiant Peoplehad entered the aircars and, outside the laboratory, risen free of theEarth, and turned, each in its proper direction, for the Gens of itsassignment. The
Sarkas and Jaska watched them go.
There remained but one aircar, standing outside on half a dozen of thosegrim tentacles, with two tentacles swinging free, undulating to and frolike serpents. Harnessed electricity actuating the tentacles--cars andtentacles subservient to the cubes.
The aircars safely on their way, Sarka stepped to the Master Beryl,tuned it down to normal speed, and signalled the Spokesmen of the Gens.
"The Moon and Mars are in alliance against us, and Dalis has alliedhimself and his Gens with the ruler of the Moon! I don't know yet whatform the attack will take, but know this: that the safety of the world,of all its people, rests in your hands, and that the war into which weare going is potentially more vast than expected when this venturebegan, and more devastating than the fight with the aircars of the Moon!Coming to you, in aircars which we managed to take from theMoon-people, are such of the people of the Gens of Dalis as were able toreturn with me. Question them, gather all the information you can aboutthem, and through them keep control of the cubes which pilot theaircars, for in the cubes, I believe, lies the secret of our possiblevictory in the fight to come!"
* * * * *
Sarka scarcely knew why he had spoken the last sentence. It was asthough something deep within him had risen up, commanded him to speak,and deeper yet, far back in his consciousness, was a mental picture ofthe devastation he had witnessed on his flight above the area that hadonce housed the Gens of Dalis.
For in that ghastly area, he believed, was embodied an idea greater thanmere wanton destruction, just as there was an idea back of the fierylights from Mars greater than mere display. Somehow the two were allied,and Sarka believed that, between the blue column, and the fiery lightsfrom Mars, the fate of the world rested.
He could, he believed, by manipulation of the Beryls that yet remained,maneuver the world away from that blue column--which on the Earth wasinvisible. But to have done so would have thwarted the very purpose forwhich this mad voyage had been begun. The world had been started on itsmad journey into space for the purpose of attacking and colonizing theMoon and Mars.
The Moon had been colonized by the Gens of Dalis, already in potentialrevolt against the Earth. Mars was next, and by forcing the Earth intoclose proximity to Mars the people of the Moon had played into the handsof Earth-people--if the people of Earth were capable of carrying out theprogram of expansion originally proposed by Sarka!
If they were not ... well, Sarka thought somewhat grimly, the resultantcataclysmic war would at least solve the problem of over-population!Inasmuch as the Earth was already committed to whatever might transpire,Sarka believed he should take a philosophic view of the matter!
* * * * *
Sarka turned to an examination of the Master Beryl, and even as hepeered into the depths of it, he thought gratefully how nice it was tobe home again, in his own laboratory, upon the world of his nativity. Heeven found it within his heart to feel somewhat sorry for Dalis, and tofeel ashamed that he had, even in his heart, mistreated him.
Then he thought, with a tightening of his jaw muscles, of the casual wayin which Dalis had destroyed Sarka the First, of his forcing his peopleto undergo the terrors of the lake of white flames without telling themthe simple secret; of his betrayal of the Earth in his swift alliancewith Luar; or Luar herself when, as Lunar, a strange waif of Earth,Dalis had sent her out as the first human passenger aboard a rocket tothe Moon. All his pity vanished, though he still believed he had doneright in sparing Dalis' life.
Suddenly there came an ominous humming in the Beryl, and simultaneouslysignals from the vari-colored lights on the table. Sarka whirled to thelights, noting their color, and mentally repeating the names of theSpokesmen who signalled him.
Even before he gave the signal that placed him in position to conversewith them, he noted the strange coincidence. The Spokesmen who desiredspeech with him were tutelary heads of Gens whose borders touched thedevasted area where Dalis had but recently been overlord!
An icy chill caressed his spine as he signalled the Spokesmen to speak.
"Yes, Vardee? Prull? Klaser? Cleric?"
* * * * *
The report of each of them was substantially the same, though couched indifferent words, words freighted heavily with strange terror.
"The devasted area has suddenly broken into movement! Throughout thatportion of it visible from my Gens area, the fused mass of debris isbubbling, fermenting, walking into life! An aura of unearthly menaceseems to flow outward from this heaving mass, and the whole is assuminga most peculiar radiance--cold gleaming, like distant starshine!"
"Wait!" replied Sarka swiftly. "Wait until the people I have sent youhave arrived! Report to me instantly if the movement of the mass isnoticeably augmented, and especially so if it seems to be breaking up,or coagulating into any sort of form whatever!"
Then he dimmed the lights, indicating that for the moment there wasnothing more to be said. Just then his father, face very gray and veryold, entered the room of the Master Beryl from the laboratory.
"Son!" he said. "The crisis is almost upon us! The Martians are coming!"