“Very glad you came by when you did, Lord Aubrey.”
“Happy to be of assistance,” the grinning man said, extending his hand. “Please call me Rollo, Professor.”
“And please call me Zaidie – everyone does.”
“I have taken the liberty of readying the Astronef for flight, M’Lord,” said a short muscular man impeccably garbed for a day in the City and carrying a rifle of strange design. “I did not anticipate we would be lingering here.”
“Right you are, Murgatroyd!”
“Murgatroyd, this is Professor Challenger, the famous naturalist,” Zaidie said. “He will be our guest.”
“Very good, Madam.”
“Murgatroyd is my indispensable right-hand man,” Rollo explained. “Without his inestimable skills we would be hopelessly adrift in the aether.”
“How do you do?” Challenger replied. “What is this marvellous craft? It is certainly no government aethership.”
“I am quite proud of the Astronef,” Rollo began. “It was…”
“I suggest we wait until we’re airborne, M’Lord, and can discuss this over tea,” the manservant said as he moved toward an opening in the deck. “Those wogs’ll be back soon as they regroup.”
“Quite right, Murgatroyd,” Rollo agreed. He looked to Challenger. “Murgatroyd does set the best tea, no matter what planet we’re on.” To his man again: “Very well, Murgatroyd, up ship; make for Port Victoria.”
“As you wish, M’Lord.” And he vanished within the craft.
A spear suddenly clanged against the hull. It was followed by a dozen others, none hitting a victim, thrown as they were from a distance and at a run. The savage lizard warriors poured out of the jungle as if from a disturbed serpent den. Rollo and Zaidie fired their weapons while the unarmed Professor Challenger plucked spears from the air and chucked them back at the onrushing reptilian hoards. The reinforcements Challenger had dreaded had arrived. The Astronef lifted away from the ground, but slowly, too slowly.
Abruptly the armed lizard warriors halted in their surge, standing momentarily as if they had been turned to jade. Then they turned tail, so to speak, and fled.
“Well, I’ll…” Rollo started to say.
He was interrupted by a bellowing roar from the opposite side of the rising aerial craft, and its upward progress came to a shuddering halt. Tentacles grasped the Astronef’s hull and superstructure from the seaward side of the swamp. Challenger, Rollo and Zaidie rushed along the promenade to appraise the nature of this new threat.
“Hellfire and damnation!” Rollo exclaimed.
“Your language, Rollo!”
“Apologies, my dear.”
Viewing the beast rising from the Venusian Sea, a vast creature part octopus, part baboon, part shark, and all savagery, Challenger reflected that Old Nick might have the last laugh after all. Even Rollo’s elephant rifle was no match for this monster, not even with the explosive ordinance that had frightened the natives so thoroughly, and Zaidie’s revolvers were but bean-shooters to it. The beast shook the mighty airship as if naught but a lad’s toy, part of a lead army and air-force.
Zaidie dropped her revolvers and pulled the brass-and-crystal weapons from the holsters at her side. Abruptly, lightning leaped outward, striking the creature full in the torso, ripping and searing and blasting. The air smelled heavily of ozone. The sea-creature, either dead or grossly wounded, fell back into the wine-dark sea, its tentacles loosing their retarding grip on the Astronef, allowing it to continue its journey toward Venus’ eternal cloud cover.
Challenger looked toward Rollo and his wife.
“Doctor Grordbort’s Infallible Aether Oscillators,” she explained, beaming proudly. “Don’t leave Earth without them!”
“Full speed for Port Victoria, Murgatroyd!” Rollo commanded into a speaking tube.
“No, we must head for the Shining Mountains!” Challenger exclaimed. “The lives of my friends depend upon us!”
The Earl of Redgrave paused but a moment, then shouted into the speaking tube: “Set course for the Shining Mountains region, Murgatroyd.” Once the tinny voice acknowledged the change in orders, Rollo closed off the tube and turned back to Challenger. “You’ll be able to guide us once we sight the Shining Mountains?”
“Certainly!”
“Very well then,” Rollo said cheerfully. “We will see them in less than six hours.”
“Six hours?” Challenger questioned. “Surely your craft is capable of much greater velocity than that.”
“The true home of the Astronef is the aether between the planets, where it courses like a greyhound,” Rollo explained. “In a planetary atmosphere, especially one as thick as that which surrounds Venus, it possesses a speed only slightly faster than that of a conventional steam airship. We have time for tea, and a chance for you to tell us how you came to be in the predicament in which we so propitiously found you. My dear, would you please conduct the Professor to his cabin?”
“Delighted!” she replied. “This way, Professor Challenger.”
Less than an hour later, Challenger felt like a new man, washed and dressed in clean clothes for high tea, his wounds tended to by the Earl’s man who stopped by with a doctor’s bag.
“Who are you people?” Challenger demanded of the versatile manservant.
Murgatroyd glanced up. “British citizens, sir.” He paused. “Except Miss Zaidie, of course, who is American by birth, but British by right of marriage and now a member of the peerage.”
“No, I mean, this private airship, travelling between the planets, flitting about Venus…”
“You should save your questions for M’Lord, sir,” the man replied. “And I am sure His Lordship will have questions of his own, sir.” He glanced to the knapsack at Challenger’s side. “Many questions.”
Challenger nodded. “Yes, I suppose he will.”
And, of course, when Professor Challenger appeared at tea on the observation deck, Rollo’s first question was: “What the devil were you doing in the midst of the Venusian swamps fighting off a hoard of reptilian savages?”
“Allow me to pour out,” Zaidie offered as she filled the bone china cups with steaming oolong.
“Thank you, Lady…”
“Zaidie, please.”
“Kind of you…Zaidie.” He sipped the invigorating brew and looked to his host. ”Before I tell you how I came to such desperate straits, please tell me about this…the Astronef, you called it. It’s yours? Privately?”
“Ours,” Rollo corrected. “I financed Zaidie’s late father in its construction. As you can tell, it is of totally different design than any of the government aethercraft currently lumbering between the planets. The Astronef is a greyhound compared to their hedgehogs. Believe me, Professor, any number of world governments – including, unfortunately, my own – would love to take command of the Astronef, but it will not happen.”
“Then, the purpose of the Astronef?”
“Well, its first mission was to abduct Zaidie Rettick and her companion from an ocean liner under American flag, then go upon a honeymoon in space.”
Zaidie touched her husband’s arm. “Dear, you did save the St. Louis from disaster. Without your intervention, Captain Hawkins would not have changed course and avoided the French cruisers and torpedo-destroyers swarming the Channel.”
“Oh I suppose so!” Rollo grumbled.
“Filthy French!” Challenger spat.
“And now you, Professor Challenger,” Rollo urged. “A famous naturalist in a life-and-death struggle with lizard warriors?”
“Two weeks ago, I journeyed to Venus in search of the Lost City of Shamballa,” Challenger explained. “I was accompanied by Dr John Bell and…”
“The occult detective?” Zaidie exclaimed.
Challenger winced, but said politely: “Just so.” Then continued: “Also in the company of Lieutenant Edward Blake, Royal Navy, retired, and Mr. Henry Cavor.”
“Ah,” Rollo said, “Blake of the Rattles
nake. Now there’s a man who knows what to do when confronted with French torpedo-destroyers. They call him ‘The Man Who Saved England’.”
“Yes, they do,” Challenger admitted. “Lurid journalism, but a well-deserved appellation.”
“The other man you mentioned,” Zaidie mused. “Cavor? Is he the same Henry Cavor, the inventor, who was rescued from captivity on the Moon by First British Lunar Expeditionary Force.”
“Yes, the very same.”
“You said the four of you came in search of Shamballa,” Rollo said, frowning. “But, surely, Shamballa is located in Tibet, if it is located anywhere at all; I’ve heard of it, certainly, but assumed it was just another legend whispered among the lamas.”
“The old lamas in Tibet are a secretive lot, and what they keep to themselves is much more important than what they allow others to know, or think they know,” Challenger explained. “An acquaintance of mine who sojourned through the mountain vastness of Tibet in 1893, a man whose perceptiveness and powers of observation are almost preternatural, told me that if the Tibetans allowed something to be known to outsiders it is most certainly untrue.”
“So the idea that Shamballa is merely a legend…” Rollo ventured.
“Untrue.”
“Those who believe it a reality, Theosophians such as Blavatsky and Olcott, and the members of the Golden Order assert it is located in chambers beneath the Himalayan Mountains,” Zaidie said. “Also untrue, Professor? It is indeed located on Venus?”
“Yes, it is, Madam,” Professor Challenger replied.
“But how is that possible?”
“Because the lamas of Tibet originated on Venus.” Before his hosts could protest, Challenger explained: “Shortly before the Fall of Atlantis, a humanoid band of priests fled Venus in craft said to be powered by coloured lights and spinning mercury.”
“Spinning mercury,” Rollo mused. “It seems I’ve heard that term somewhere before, but I can’t quite…”
“Vimanas, my dear,” Zaidie interjected. “The flying chariots of the ancient rulers of India, as detailed in the Vedas.”
“Ah, yes, I recall it now, I think.”
“It was during a lecture I dragged you to at the Egyptian Lodge in London, Rollo,” Zaidie continued. “That awful man, Crowley, attempted to convince us that great energies were held in a small piece of matter, which, once released, could be used to destroy an entire metropolis with a single bomb or projectile.”
“Ah, yes.” Rollo nodded. “A fool!”
“But quite entertaining.”
“The ancestors of the Tibetan lamas came to Earth to escape a wave of destruction on Venus,” Challenger continued. “What that disaster was is unknown to even the lamas today, but it may have been war or pestilence; however, I believe there was an uprising against the theocratic rule of the lamas by the lizard men and other Venusian races of the time, as they must have surely held those creatures in thrall, exacting tribute and servitude, as they did of the Tibetans before the coming of Buddhism.”
“Surely the lamas rule today as they have for centuries,” Rollo ventured.
“Not quite,” Challenger answered. “When they came to Earth, the Lamas of Venus sought to re-establish their theocratic empire. The earliest records concerning Tibet reveal a religion markedly different from that which is practiced now. Lamaism, once purely Venusian in nature, encountered the gentling force of Buddhism and was changed forever. Now, the lamas recall their home world in stories they speak of only to each other; and in only ceremonies that no human can truly understand does their lost city in the Shining Mountains again attain life.”
“But, Professor Challenger,” Zaidie said, “how certain are you of what you are telling us?”
“Entirely certain!” Challenger avowed.
“But a lost city in the Shining Mountains of Venus?” Rollo continued, smiling a little indulgently.
“Of that I swear with absolute veracity.”
“How can you?” Rollo demanded.
“Because I have been there,” Challenger asserted. “I departed the lost city of Shamballa two days ago for the swamplands in which you found me. In Shamballa I left my comrades, and it is to lost Shamballa that we are now bound!”
“I’ll be damned!”
“Rollo! Your language!”
“Sorry, my love.” The Earl looked hard at their guest, and murmured: “But I will be damned.”
“And that is why we must attain the Shining Mountains with all due haste,” Challenger continued. “If we do not reach my companions in time, they shall surely die.”
“Oh dear!” Zaidie exclaimed.
“They are being held captive in Shamballa by a branch of the reptilian people that broke off long ago from the swamp-dwelling savages from whom I was rescued,” the professor explained. “We were captured shortly after penetrating the city and coming upon a vault that held elder secrets of Venus.”
“What secrets, Professor?” Zaidie asked.
“I cannot quite say,” Challenger admitted, “but the wall glyphs and paintings, created by the original Shamballans before they became a decayed race and fled to Earth seemed to depict a Venus quite unlike the world with which we are familiar, as well as a solar system quite different than that which our aetherships now traverse.”
“How did you come to escape the fate which overtook your companions, Professor Challenger?” Rollo asked.
“We had become separated, I lingering to study the strange signs and symbols while they started for our craft for equipment we would require in order to penetrate deeper into the mysteries of Shamballa,” Challenger explained. “It was during their return trip that they were set upon. Until then, Shamballa seemed deserted, but clearly we were watched. Weaponless and alone, there was nothing I could do but follow them back to their temple and observe.”
“And what caused you to quit the city and seek the swamps?”
“To obtain this, perhaps the key to their release.” Professor Challenger opened the knapsack to which he had clung through his battle with the lizard men and his ensuing rescue. He withdrew a crystalline object of intricate design, a shape so complex that its form seemed to somehow exceed the limits of our normal Euclidian geometry.
Zaidie gasped, and Rollo rubbed his eyes as if by doing so he could somehow alter its shape into something less perplexing, less maddening.
“When I was examining the glyphs before the attack, I found much cruder paintings which recounted a raid on Shamballa centuries before, during which this object was taken and removed to a swampland temple,” Challenger said. “It appeared to be an object of intense desire amongst the current Shamballans. When I saw it depicted upon the walls, I recognized it from an article published three years ago in the journal of the Venusian Exploration Society.”
“So, they might be willing to release your companions in trade?” Rollo said.
“I have hopes.”
“It was a desperate and noble quest, Professor Challenger,” Rollo acknowledged. “Should your plan not come to fruition, however, we shall not allow British subjects to remain in captivity. By parlay or by force, they shall be free.”
Challenger fought back a show of emotion, for it would not be seemly. “I appreciate that, Rollo; I truly do.”
The Astronef held its course beneath the roiling cloud cover that would have otherwise blinded its pilot, soaring majestically over the luxurious Venusian landscape, the dangerous jungles and swamps, the seas that harboured pirates and vast primeval beasts, the highlands where the nations of Earth had established colonies to acquire the riches of the savage planet. It was while passing over one of those outposts of progress that Murgatroyd sounded an alarm.
“A missile has been launched toward us, M’Lord,” he reported.
“Evasive manoeuvres, Murgatroyd.”
“Yes, M’Lord.”
The Astronef moved swiftly but gracefully, and Professor Challenger, standing upon the promenade near the bow, gripped the railing with musc
led hands like corded steel. He watched as a projectile trailing smoke and sparks went wide abeam of the airship, then exploded harmlessly.
“Blasted Huns!” Rollo exclaimed. “They have been a damned…” He looked about for his wife. “…a damned nuisance ever since Willy became Kaiser! One day there will be war!”
Challenger nodded. “They will be no more successful than were the French.”
“Damned sausage-stuffers!”
“Rollo!”
“Another projectile has been launched, M’Lord,” Murgatroyd reported. “Shall I make the appropriate course changes.”
“No, blast if from the sky.”
“Yes, M’Lord.”
“And if they fire another, do not hesitate.”
“Yes, M’Lord.”
A bolt of energy shot downward from the underside of the airship. Far below, an explosive warhead detonated above the German colony of Neu Berlin. Almost immediately, another lightning-like blast leaped between the Astronef and the ground.
“Did they launch another, Murgatroyd?”
“My apologies, M’Lord,” replied the tinny voice through the speaking tube. “There was a speck of dust on the crystal screen of the televisor.”
Rollo laughed and closed the brass speaking tube. “Good old Murgatroyd!”
“The Germans will likely lodge a complaint with the British Consulate,” Challenger observed.
“Very likely,” Rollo agreed.
“To hell with them!” Zaidie exclaimed spontaneously.
Rollo’s eyebrows shot up.
“What a lovely day it is,” Zaidie mentioned.
Challenger and Rollo nodded as she ambled back into the observation deck of the Astronef.
“Professor Challenger, why did you and your friends journey to Venus in search of Shamballa?” Rollo asked. “Was it a purely scientific expedition?”
“For me, it was,” Challenger said, nodding slightly, keeping his eyes trained ahead as the smoke of the German colony was lost swiftly to the rear. “And Henry Cavor, also, I would say, since he was unconcerned with anything but the performance of the gravity-defying ship he constructed for the voyage. Blake and Bell have their scientific interests, certainly, but Blake would not be averse to discovering the treasure trove abandoned by the ancient Venusians.”
Beneath Strange Stars Page 27