The Nyctalope on Mars 2: The Triumph of Love

by Jean de La Hire

“Yes, but the hydroplane and the submarine are waiting for us. That’s enough.”

  “So you don’t want the Franc to carry off the tripod?”

  “No. We’d need to make a thousand, and we don’t have time to construct them. Any further delay, and the Martians will become invincible. Knowledge! I have to know or die, Xavière. Let’s capture a Martian. In Cosmopolis, within 24 hours, we’ll talk to it—and we’ll know whether it’s necessary to exterminate this strange society or be exterminated by it, or whether we can co-exist with it peacefully! Verneuil!”

  “Master?”

  “Switch off the searchlight and let me take your place!”

  Never, since she had found her lover again, had Xavière seen Saint-Clair so excited—but it was a purely superficial excitement, a mere nervous irritation. The Nyctalope’s mind, heart and eyes were calm and absolutely lucid.

  Wit the searchlight switched off, he started the tripod marching towards the shaft.

  Xavière’s heart was beating madly. Verneuil, his hand on the switch controlling the searchlight, shivered twice. Through the loopholes, their eyes stared at the shaft and the circle of mechanical hands, on which the beams of the other eight searchlights were focused.

  “Bravo!” said Saint-Clair.

  What was happening? Xavière and Verneuil were no longer able to see; the eight searchlights had suddenly gone out, all at once, as if in response to a signal. Had the kephales in the eight tripods taken the extinction of the ninth searchlight as an order for a general extinction?

  “Bravo!” said Verneuil, following the Master’s train of thought.

  Xavière breathed more easily and her heartbeat slowed.

  After that, it was very simple. Slowly, the Nyctalope maneuvered his tripod between to mechanical hands. He could see the kephale technicians, utterly astonished by the sudden extinction of the searchlights. He operated the control-levers and the switches. In the darkness two arms were lowered to the right and the left of the tripod. Delicately, two sets of pincers each seized a gesticulating Martian.

  “Verneuil!”

  “Master?”

  “The interior light!”

  “There!” A semicircle of light, surrounded by the shade, brightened on the pivot of the ventilator.

  “Verneuil, Xavière, get ready! The cords, the gags…”

  “They’re ready!”

  “I’m waiting!”

  “Two Martians.”

  One, then two lugubrious cries: “Ulla! Ulla!”

  “Quickly!” breathed Saint-Clair.

  A mass tumbled into the turret, then another, followed by two dull thuds. Ah! Verneuil and Xavière hurled themselves upon the agitated kephales, while Saint-Clair turned the tripod around and set off at top speed into the darkness, towards the gap in the forest, the hydroplane and the submarine!

  There was a chaos of tentacles, arms legs, rags and cords, with sighs, curses, blows and stifled cries of “Ulla! Ulla!” Saint-Clair had to take care; the conflict was continuing between his legs.

  “That’s it!” said Verneuil.

  “Finally!” sighed Xavière.

  Their beaks gagged with rags, their tentacles tied to one another, palpitating like the bellows of a forge in action, the two kephales were lying on their tympanic membranes, their wide eyes staring—without any expression analogous to those of human eyes—at Saint-Clair, who was operating the controls.

  First, there was a rapid flight through the cleared path, then a contest against the dense forest. It was necessary to open a path, with the trenchant chains cutting, the pincers seizing and tearing, and the arms swinging back and forth in rapid sweeps, like the oars of a dinghy racing over a stormy sea.

  “Master! A tripod, behind us!”

  “Two tripods, Leo! The searchlights have us…”

  “Blast them with the electro-mirror, Verneuil. Climb up the parrot-ladder.”

  Verneuil climbed up and stuck his head and shoulders out of the turret. He aimed the electro-mirror.

  “One!”

  Detonation, uproar, explosion, disintegration.

  “Two!” said Verneuil, laughing.

  “A third!” cried Xavière.

  “Right!”

  A pause—then a cataclysmic din.

  “And three!”

  “We’re nearly there!” said the Nyctalope.

  “A fourth!”

  Another searchlight had just sprung forth in the distance.

  “Bah!” said Verneuil. It was the brave fellow’s last word.

  An invisible projectile passed by. Aimed at the tripod’s turret, it missed its target, but it carried away Verneuil’s neatly-severed head. The decapitated body fell into the turret and a gush of blood from the neck splashed Xavière’s face.

  “Oh, no!” She had an indescribable horror in her eyes, and fell upon the bloody corpse, whose hand still clutched the useless electro-mirror.

  “Leo! Leo!” She gagged, clenching her teeth between the cries, shaken by a terrible nervous fit.

  Pale and stiff, all his muscles taut, his mouth tightly shut, Saint-Clair maneuvered his tripod. I’m there! I’m there! I must be! he thought.

  The forest and the darkness came to an end. In front of him was daylight, and the calm sea, to the right, the hydroplane, scarcely a hundred meters away. Saint-Clair launched his tripod into the water—but behind him, the fourth pursuer accelerated.

  No, no! They won’t get me!

  He saw men on the hydroplane’s deck, aiming electro-mirrors.

  “Eh!” cried Saint-Clair. “Are they going to blast me? That’s right! They don’t know!”

  With one bond, he reached the parrot-ladder and stuck out his head and shoulders.

  “Ahoy!” he howled, waving his arms.

  They saw him, and realized. The Nyctalope in a tripod! Why not? Wasn’t he capable of anything?

  Then, briskly, he came back down. He operated the controls, lowering the turret. The engine-platform descended to the water.

  “Halt!”

  Saint-Clair climbed up again. Rapidly, the hydroplane drew alongside.

  “Four men, quickly! The others form a chain! Commandant—the submarine!”

  Again, they understood. While four sailors launched themselves into the turret, and the others formed a chain to receive the two Martian prisoners, one after the other, the Commander used the telephone to summon the submarine.

  Xavière, who had fainted, was transported in her turn from the turret to the hydroplane, and from the hydroplane to the submarine, whose conning-tower had opened almost at the level of the calm sea.

  Suddenly, during that minute of precipitate movement, there was a loud splash and a cry: “Flee, submarine—save those you can!”

  It was the voice of the Master…

  The hydroplane leapt into the air, smashed, its crew blasted to bloody smithereens. An enormous wave engulfed the tripod, from which Saint-Clair was just emerging, and capsized it, tearing away the Nyctalope, who was lost in the foam…

  The submarine, with its conning-tower sealed, dived at the same instant.

  On the shore, the fourth tripod came to a halt, hollowing out frightful grooves in the sea, unleashing tempests, by means of invisible projectiles launched by the black tube its pincers held.

  Beneath the surface, already distant, the submarine drew away.

  In a narrow cabin lit by a single electric bulb, Xavière was lying in a stiffly-extended hammock. She sighed. She opened her eyes. She saw three men standing there. “Leo?” she cried.

  The men did not reply. They lowered their heads. And Xavière, sitting up, saw that all three were weeping.

  “Leooo!” she howled, prolonging the cry.

  She fell back, as if dead.

  XI. Among The Martians

  The impression created among the kephales by the adventure of the tripod occupied by Terrans, and the events that followed, only became known in Cosmopolis later, but the interests of the story oblige us to relate the facts
chronologically.

  As Saint-Clair had deduced, the Martians in the eight tripods thought that an order from their leader had been received when the ninth tripod switched off its searchlight. On the other hand, the kephales in the mechanical hands, and those working in the shaft, were disorientated by the abrupt cessation of illumination, which was indispensable to them at that moment. Then, when they heard the “Ulla! Ulla!” of the two kephales abducted by the ninth tripod, they understood that the abnormal occurrence posed a danger to them, so they switched on the searchlights of the mechanical hands and the serpent. They saw a tripod moving away, and a few even perceived one of the two kidnapped kephales beating the air with its tentacles as it disappeared into the turret.

  A few minutes went by. The Martians were in disarray. The Commander, in the shaft, was apprised of the extraordinary event. He immediately sent up a signal-beacon and ordered four tripods to pursue the strange fugitive—and the Martians waited while the formidable chase took place.

  Of the four tripods, it was the last to leave that returned. It stopped beside the shaft, in the midst of the mechanical hands and serpents. It sank down, and the kephale came out of the turret. In the Martian language, its eyes rapidly expressed its horrified surprise, its prodigious astonishment and its humiliation.

  While the subordinate kephales remained in the mechanical hands, inactive and asking one another futile questions, the Commander summoned the kephale from the tripod into the shaft, and gathered its lieutenants around it. All of them read the record of the facts in the eyes of the witness. They could not believe it, but the witness repeated it insistently.

  It was indisputable. Terrans—three of them, to be exact—had been in the turret of the tripod that had abducted two kephales. And the eyes of the witness said: “An extraordinary thing was revealed to me during the pursuit. I saw the upper half of a Terran’s body protruding from the turret of the fugitive. You know that they bear some resemblance to our bipeds. It’s impossible for there to be any mistake. We have seen enough of them around Argyre to know what we are dealing with. This Terran aimed a small device at the three tripods preceding me, and our machines were annihilated, as they might have been by our heat ray. I immediately launched a column of compressed air at the fugitive, but aiming was difficult, with both the cannon and the target in motion. The column only grazed the turret, but it carried away the Terran’s head.”

  It recounted the conclusion of the chase, and its bewilderment at seeing the Terrans transfer the two kephale prisoners, and then another body—not the decapitated one. Again, it had launched columns of compressed air. Had it destroyed everything? Perhaps—but it had had the impression that a submarine, such as had been seen in the vicinity of Argyre, had disappeared safely under water.

  The fugitive tripod had sunk. The kephale had brought it up and explored it; the body of the decapitated Terran had still been inside. All of it was on the shore; they could go to look at the headless body and the tripod…

  Such was the witness’s story.

  While 20 serpents and one mechanical hand left, on the Commander’s orders, for the shore, the kephales lost themselves in conjectures.

  When and how had he Terrans taken possession of the tripod? An insoluble and extremely annoying question! For what had been done once might be done again. Terrans having learned how to operate a tripod, others might construct one and operate it similarly.

  “Let’s wait for the serpents and mechanical hands to return,” said the Commander. “In an hour, we’ll convene the Council of Leaders, but give the order for all the detachments to cover the islands—the entire archipelago—with protective cloud.”

  This was done; throughout the Iapygian Archipelago, the towers that created the artificial night rose up, and the islands, with the channels that separated them and a circular ribbon of the surrounding sea, were covered with a thick black artificial cloud. At the same time, the news of the capture of a tripod by the Terrans and the abduction and conflict that had ensued, was communicated to all the leaders of the detachments disseminated among the islands. For the first time, the Martians understood that the terrestrial bipeds possessed an advanced intelligence and that they were not merely an improved species analogous, in essence, to the food-bipeds that the kephales had domesticated centuries before.

  And the Martians—as Maurice Reclus notes in the very precise account that he made of all the events of that memorable day—repented of having previously allowed the Terrans to establish themselves on Argyre Island. They had considered them as an exotic curiosity worth acclimatizing, in order that they might one day be possessed and studied, but now the Terrans had revealed themselves, in a terrible manner, to be very dangerous conquerors!

  XII. The Martian Speaks

  Xavière remained in a death-like state of unconsciousness for several hours. She did not recover consciousness and the use of her senses until she was aboard the Franc, to which an aircraft, summoned by the Commander of the submarine, had transported her and the two kephale prisoners.

  The triple Terran army, in its simulated retreat, had stopped in the Strait of Pandora at the mouth of the Hyllus canal, which crosses the entirety of the vast region of Nouchis, east of Argyre. There, it awaited the Master’s orders.

  To Klepton and Damprich alone, the Commander of the submarine recounted the drama of which he had been a powerless spectator.

  What had become of the Nyctalope? Was he dead? A prisoner? Hiding in the red grass that bordered the shore of the fateful isle?

  “Tonight,” said Klepton, “we’ll go on reconnaissance—but it’s necessary that the army remains ignorant of all this. Commander, before rejoining your vessel, circulate around the Franc and let it be known that the Master is still on the island, lying in ambush, safe and sound, the possessor of a tripod. It’s already public knowledge that Saint-Clair has captured two Martians. That will work to his glory and increase confidence…”

  Lying on a bed close to the group of three men, Xavière, who had woken up a few minutes before, had heard these orders. She raised herself up on her elbow and, in a voiced that was still weak, said: “Commander!”

  They turned around.

  “Madame Saint-Clair!” cried Damprich.

  “Let me be—I’m revising the orders. Commander, issue a citation with regard to aviator Verneuil. He’s dead—he died after annihilating two tripods. Issue another citation regarding the Captain and crew of hydroplane 602. That’s all, Commander. You can go.”

  He went out, after saluting.

  Xavière got to her feet. She was so weak that she had to lean on Damprich’s shoulder. “Klepton,” she said. “Cognac, if you please.” They were in the captain’s own cabin. Klepton opened a cupboard and took out a bottle and a glass. She drank a mouthful of liquor. A little color returned to her cheeks. “I feel better. Let’s go to the chart-room. We must make a decision quickly, and act on it. We must find out immediately whether Leo is dead or alive… To avenge him or find and save him. Summon Flammarion and Reclus too—and have someone fetch the two kephales.”

  “Kephales?” said Damprich.

  “Yes, the Martians.” She smiled sadly. “It was Verneuil who christened them thus—brave fellow! Oh, I’m suffering…!”

  She pressed both hands to her heart and let herself fall on to the edge of the bed. The young woman’s renewed weakness did not last long; she got up again unaided, and, with all her will-power being dedicated to one sole end, she said in a more assured voice: “Let’s go!”

  She went out first, opening the door, went along a corridor and went into the chart-room. Her gestures and bearing were firm. Saint-Clair having disappeared, Xavière laid claim to the authority that had been his. Mute, docile and respectful, with an immense sadness inside, Klepton and Damprich followed her.

  Damprich did not pause in the chart-room; he went straight through and out by another door. Five minutes later he came back, accompanied by Flammarion, Reclus and four men carrying the two Martian
s—ungagged but still tied up—on an improvised litter. Xavière, Flammarion, Reclus, Damprich and Klepton remained standing in a single line at one end of the room. With a gesture, the young woman ordered that the large table in the middle of the room should be set to one side; this was done. The men deposited the litter on the floor, where the table had been.

  “Monsieur Flammarion,” said Xavière, “Leo told me that he had seen the Martians, or kephales, speaking to one another. In the middle of those large black expressionless eyes that are fixed upon us, he saw tiny symbols inscribed in white, rapid and successive, affecting geometrical shapes. I shall give the order to release these kephales’ tentacles from their bonds. Observe their eyes—they’ll undoubtedly talk to one another…”

  A violent emotion disturbed the astronomer’s mind. Alongside him, Reclus, Klepton and Damprich, very pale, did not hide their anxiety.

  “Wait! Wait!” stammered Flammarion. “I need a blackboard, in order to reproduce the symbols in chalk as they…”

  “Damprich” Xavière interrupted. “Get Monsieur Flammarion what he needs.”

  A blackboard was brought from a corner and suspended directly in front of the two Martians. Klepton brought the chalk. The astronomer took a piece with a trembling hand. Standing in front of the litter, impassively, the four men waited.

  “Cut the cords!” ordered Xavière. This was done, with three thrusts of a knife. And then a marvelous scene unfolded: the point of departure of a new era in the universe of thought.

  The two kephales, whose limbs were evidently swollen, shook their tentacles, at first painfully, then more easily. Meanwhile, Maurice Reclus observed aloud that one of the Martians was yellowish in color, while the other was black. It was the yellow one that got up first, supporting itself on the floor by means of eight of its tentacles. Its eyes slid from left to right in their orbits. Its cartilaginous mouth opened slowly, and a muffled sound emerged, strangely modulated.

  “Ulla!” The first syllable was clear and curt, the double l heavily emphasized, the a prolonged, grating and abruptly cut off.