The Nyctalope on Mars 2: The Triumph of Love
Page 16
“Martians! Martians!” Verneuil shouted. The two men became anxious. Fortunately, the photographic apparatus, on the pedal of which Damprich still had his left foot, was recording everything.
Were they Martians?
Down below, on a patch of bare ground, shapes were moving around circular holes—in the depths of which, as in the first, incomprehensible objects were gleaming.
“Verneuil!” cried Damprich. “The grenades!”
The other understood. While the fly hovered, he let fall one, two, three grenades…
There were three flashes, three muffled detonations—things scattered on the ground; there was a landslide in the hole…
“Kites ahead!” howled Verneuil.
More danger—there were at least 30 of the automatically-impelled machines.
“And behind! Behind!” screeched Verneuil, extremely excited.
“They’re flies—ours!” said Damprich, more calmly. “Doubtless the Master sent them, so we wouldn’t be alone.”
“Avoid the kites!”
“Of course!” He made a gesture, and 106 leapt 300 meters higher. The kites also ascended, diagonally.
“Oh, no!” said Verneuil. “Go sideways.”
“Yes, we’re quicker than them.”
106 veered abruptly, then climbed higher still. It soon left the kites behind. After exhausting their automotive force, they glided downwards again. The fly was soon joined by four others, each manned by a crew of two. Damprich and Verneuil read their numbers: 90, 16, 37 and 41.
“What orders?” cried one of the eight new arrivals.
“Who sent you?” Damprich asked.
“The Master.”
“Good. 90, follow me. 16 and 37, maintain a course parallel to mine and observe the ground while operating the photographic apparatus. 41, bring up the rear—and if we’re all destroyed, take the news back to the Master. Understood?”
“Understood,” replied four voices, blurred by the microtelephone.
“Let’s start again, Verneuil!”
“Yes.”
And 106 went down towards the ground again. 90 followed. 16 and 37 moved horizontally to a distance of a kilometer, and copied 106’s movements in parallel. They were scarcely 200 meters above the large island on to which Verneuil had just thrown the grenades. Nothing was moving there. The was nothing, animate or inanimate, around the hole that had been partly filled in by the landslide, but there was a second group of Martians nearby, beside a second dark shaft pierced with inexplicable points of light.
“The Martians!” said Verneuil.
“Yes.”
“They’re talking to one another. Funny creatures!”
“Let’s be on our guard!”
The Martians were much as the historian Wells had described them: a large round head, about 1.20 meters in diameter, formed the entire body. It was provided with a face of sorts, and on that face two large dark eye-sockets were hollowed out, immediately beneath which was a sort of cartilaginous beak. Behind that head, or body—for I hardly know which of the two terms to employ—was a single extended tympanic surface; which is to say, an ear. Finally, around the cartilaginous beak, 16 slender tentacles, reminiscent of whips, were disposed in two clusters of eight.12
At that moment, the group consisted of exactly 24 Martians, all of them in the same position. Eight tentacles, four from each cluster, sustained them above the ground, as a man’s legs do, and the other eight, evidently making gestures, moved around their heads like arms and hands.
“That’s neat!” said Damprich. “No true body. A head, an intelligence and tentacles for transporting the head and providing its nourishment. A head, feet and hands—that’s all!”
“Funny creatures!” Verneuil repeated.
“Let’s go further—these don’t seem to want to attack us…”
106 climbed, passed over the island, crossed a strait, and arrived at a third island even larger than the second. The other machines followed.
“Oh!” cried Verneuil. “16 and 37—done for!”
“What?”
“Yes—to starboard!”
Indeed, in the distance, 16 and 37 were going down, their wings broken and twisted. Above an arm of the sea, beneath the magnificent sky, the two broken flies were falling. One by one they splashed into the water, followed by an eddy, some foam… and then nothing!
“What did that?”
“There! The tripod!”
“Where?”
“Behind the trees. See—the dome! Hold on—it’s rounding the trees, coming…”
In the middle of the island, near a wood that seemed high and dense, a tripod appeared.
These Martian tripods are fairly well-known on Earth, by virtue of the numerous descriptions that had been made and the two incomplete specimens that have been on display in the London Planetarium since the Martian invasion: three immense jointed feet supporting a sort of aerial turret. In this turret, mobile on an axis independent of the movement of the three feet, a Martian resides, which commands the various arms, pincers and articulated hands with which it is equipped. The engine, whose nature and mechanism no one has been able to understand, is not located behind the turret, as Wells appears to have believed, but immediately beneath it, between the feet.
The tripod that had destroyed flies 16 and 37 held a gleaming tube in two of its pincers. It had stopped…
It aimed the tube.
“It’s after us… After us!” said Verneuil. He spoke in a low voice, as if the metallic monster animated by a Martian might have been able to hear him.
“I’d very much like to know what that tube projects…”
“It’s a new invention for use against us… The Fifteen’ records make no mention of it.”
“It’s aimed at us!”
“Of course!”
“We’ll be smashed, like…”
“Verneuil, where’s 90? I don’t see him any longer…”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Oh! He’s down!”
“What?”
“Yes, over there… Look to starboard! Another tripod!”
“Their projectile makes no noise, no smoke, no light…”
“We’re doomed!”
“Eh? Calm down, Verneuil. We’ll pass overhead. You’ll launch the grenades—all those that remain. Here we go!”
106 was already far away. A consummate aviator, Damprich made it descend, climb, turn, slide to the right, bound to the left—all in order to offer the tripods nothing but a moving target, at which it was impossible to aim—and by progressing thus, in leaps and bounds, at top speed, Damprich made it impossible for the tripods to fire the mysterious tubes they were aiming.
“Ready, Verneuil?”
“Yes, sir!”
“The grenades?”
“All set!”
“Here goes! Release them!”
106 was directly above a tripod. In a whirl of air, it made an abrupt turn. Three grenades fell, one on the ground, between the two feet, the other two on the turret. There was a single detonation, flashes in mid-air… A metallic tower collapsed.
“One gone, Verneuil, at least!”
“Yes, sir!”
They both sniggered inside their helmets.
“On to the other!”
They looked around. The second tripod had disappeared.
“Let’s get back, Verneuil. We know enough, for the time being.”
106 went up again, passed over the three islands, relocated 47—which, according to orders, was standing aside, in reserve—and the two flies went back to the Franc.
Saint-Clair, Xavière, Klepton, Flammarion and Reclus were waiting on the platform of the aeronef. 47 went back to its position. Damprich and Verneuil jumped out. Simultaneously, they removed their helmets.
“Well?” said the Nyctalope.
“Three flies destroyed, six men dead.”
Saint-Clair paled slightly and Xavière looked at Verneuil, who was as calm and pink as if
he had just climbed out of a warm bath.
“And?” said the Nyctalope.
“The Martian are alert. They’ve invented a new device—a tube that projects something or other, without noise, without smoke, without a visible flash. I was only able to avoid my companions’ fate by performing acrobatics in the sky—but that’s a dangerous expedient, only possible for flies, impracticable for larger aircraft and hydroplanes.
“This tube…” Saint-Clair said.
“It’s held by a tripod.”
“We have electro-mirrors, aerial grenades, marine torpedoes, shells…”
“Yes, but 100 tripods, hidden in the forests or in trenches, could destroy our entire aerial fleet in five minutes.” Damprich fell silent. There was a long pause.
“That’s war!” murmured Klepton.
“Have you seen any Martians?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill any?”
“Undoubtedly. I was obliged to hurl several grenades.”
Flammarion came forward and said, quite simply: “Monsieur Saint-Clair, why not attempt negotiations? Take a Martian prisoner. Employ the rudiments of the Martian language that Oxus was able to discover and assimilate, and which he passed on to me. As soon as can make ourselves understood, send the prisoner back as an intermediary…”
“Yes,” said the Nyctalope, “but the Fifteen have never been able to capture a Martian! Do you think it’s possible, Damprich?”
“It’s possible, if chance lends a hand. It’s necessary to find an isolated Martian. Without their machines and their tripods, these intelligent heads are at the mercy of any determined man—but we don’t know the means of attack and defense that…”
“Damprich,” Saint-Clair interrupted, “have you brought back photographs?”
“Verneuil, the apparatus!”
The soldier turned on his heel, went straight to the moored 106 and took out a sort of square box.
“Have the film developed, Damprich,” the Nyctalope continued, “and bring it to me immediately. Klepton, give the signal to make camp. The three armies will remain in place until further orders—but have the scouts and the mobile guards reinforced. We must beware a surprise attack. As for capturing a Martian, I’ll make the attempt myself tonight.”
“You?” cried Xavière.
“Yes, me. Am I not the Nyctalope?”
And while Damprich, Klepton and Verneuil went into the aeronef, Saint-Clair and Xavière, left alone with Flammarion and Maurice Reclus, leaned on the forward guard-rail and let their eyes wander over the lands and seas of Mars.
It was now 5 p.m. The Sun was setting in the west, into the horizon of the Erythrean Sea. The whole sky was alight with its last rays, while the east, with the land of Hellas to the right, the Iapygian Archipelago ahead and Great Syria to the left, was already imprinted with the first shadows of dusk. Here and there, above the trees on the islands, plumes of smoke rose straight into the calm sky. They came from tasks that the invisible Martians were carrying out in their mysterious wells.
A monotonous and continuous hum filled the air; the combined voices of the rotating airscrews and trembling wings of the XV’s aerial fleet, whose aircraft and flies were lined up as far as the eyes could see behind the aeronef, the undersides of their wings gilded by the last rays of sunlight. Below, on the water, was a checkerboard of motionless hydroplanes. As for the submarines, their conning-towers alone, hatches open to take advantage of the cool evening air, projected above sea-level, and they could not be distinguished from the Franc.
Saint-Clair, Xavière, Flammarion and Reclus gazed at the islands, menacing and yet so idyllically lovely in their calmness.
“You’re determined?” said Xavière, softly. They understood one another. “You might die there!”
“I’m the only Nyctalope. Others would die there—but I alone am the master of all, in the darkness!”
“The Martians have powerful searchlights, unknown means. They might hear the noise of your footfalls, your breath, the beating of your heart. They might discover you and kill you, Leo!”
“It has to be done, Xavière. I alone might succeed. The fate of the entire army is in my hands. Should I put all of it at risk, including you and me, and all our glory, without trying to take a Martian by surprise in the dark?”
“Take some men with you.”
“One alone.”
“Who?”
“You, Xavière!”
She started, embraced him, and kissed him on the lips, madly. “Ah—I knew that you wouldn’t want to leave me behind. Oh, you and me! When do we leave?”
“In an hour when the darkness is complete.”
“How?”
“A fly will deposit us on a hydroplane, which will carry us silently to the shore of the nearest island…”
“What weapons shall we take?”
“A little electro-mirror, a sack and a knife with a large, cutting blade.”
They fell silent.
Flammarion and Reclus were still talking, and their words, in the calm of the Martian night, were as amiable as they were instructive.
“Wells was mistaken about so many things,” said the savant astronomer. “To his historical narrative, whose exactitude I am trying to determine, he often added astronomical affirmations. Now, my earlier hypotheses and observations contradict Wells…”
“I don’t remember what he said very clearly,” said Reclus.
“The first chapter of The War of the Worlds is teeming with errors. Look! Wells says that the light and heat that Mars receives from the Sun is exactly half of that received by our globe, and he concludes that even here, in the equatorial region, the mid-day temperature scarcely attains that of our coldest winters. Now, as you observe, we are in the Martian mid-winter, at about 25 degrees of latitude, at about 6 p.m., and the temperature is scarcely cold…”
“A rather pleasant coolness, actually…”
“It hardly matters whether it’s pleasant or not! It confirms my theory, summarized in the ninth chapter of the second part of my book on the planet Mars.”
“Yes, I know!” said Maurice Reclus, with a smile. And he quoted: “The facts observed on the surface of Mars establish that the world enjoys a medium temperature, its climate and seasons differing very little from terrestrial climates, and similarly variable. At least, its thermometry determines events there analogous to those of terrestrial meteorology…”
“That’s right, my young friend!” said Flammarion, with satisfaction. “And that’s not all. Wells seems to believe that the planet Mars is in a final phase of exhaustion, that two-thirds of its surface are uninhabitable, and that snow and ice, piling up at each of it poles, periodically inundate its temperate zones. Wrong! Mars is, indeed, an older Earth, but it is rather comfortable all the same. And if the Martians once attempted to invade the Earth, it’s not by virtue of vital necessity, as Wells claims, but because of a simple desire for scientific exploration and a thirst for military conquest. They are, in general, undoubtedly more knowledgeable than we are, but in the mathematical and mechanical sciences that they all possess, a few men are just as powerful. Look at the Fifteen!” The astronomer mopped his brow. He had become excited.
“Wells,” said Reclus, gently, “didn’t only say that. He spoke of Martian water, plants…”
“We shall explore, we shall see, we shall study, we shall observe…”
“First, it’s necessary to be victorious!” said the Nyctalope. “To be victorious, it’s necessary to be strong, and to be strong, it’s necessary to eat. Gentlemen, scientists, the siren is telling us that dinner is served…”
He went down first with Xavière. Flammarion and Reclus followed, and in the dining-room they met up again with Klepton and Damprich. The latter held the roll of film in his hand.
“Ah! Let’s see!” The Nyctalope took the delicate ribbon. Unrolling it gradually, he looked at it attentively, and his severely handsome face took on a strange hardness.
Leaning ag
ainst him, looking over his shoulder, Xavière followed the slow sequence of strange and prodigious images with slightly frightened eyes. Minuscule, they took on a bizarre extraterrestrial significance, monstrous by virtue of the swarm of bizarre creatures and inexplicable things. Xavière shivered, and her shiver had an immediate effect on the Nyctalope. He unrolled the film more rapidly and gave it to Flammarion.
“This is your business, Monsieur Flammarion… I’ll have a reasonably good knowledge of the enemy’s territory, but the knowledge won’t be much help, given my almost total ignorance of their means of attack and defense. The inventive genius of the Martians is evidently unimaginable. In the interval of rest granted to them by the Fifteen, they’ve obviously renewed their armaments, modified their tactics and created unfamiliar machines against which we might be powerless. It’s necessary to have a Martian, to succeed in conversing with him and, through him, the leaders of the species. Everything depends on it. To attack before knowing would be folly, and we must, above all, beware of being attacked…” He paused. Then, in his irresistible voice of command, he continued: “Damprich, don’t sleep tonight. Take command of the flies and have them rotate incessantly around the army, in order to warn of us any surprise attack by water or air. Now, let’s eat!”
The dinner did not last long. Aboard the Franc, the meal was composed of dishes that were substantial, but not numerous. They ate as soldiers have to eat before a battle—which is to say, without thinking about gastronomical delights. Immediately after the dessert, which consisted of fruits and conserves, the Nyctalope got up, went to his cabin, and gave Klepton all the necessary orders in writing. They were summarized thus: not to attack; in the event of a Martian attack, to flee, avoiding battle if possible, and then to resume the initial positions.
“And you?” said Klepton.
“Xavière and I will have a hydroplane hidden under the trees on the shore and a submarine nearby. That’s enough for us to save ourselves. Neither you nor the army should worry about me. Don’t forget that I can see in the dark. I have, therefore, every chance of escaping the Martians in case of misfortune.”
“My dear friend, it’s just…” Klepton stammered, hesitantly.
Saint-Clair raised his head and looked the engineer in the face. “Come on, spit it out!” he said, affectionately.