by Ray Cummings
11
"But when do we eat?" Snap demanded.
"Soon," said Molo.
"I hope so."
We were leaving the great room as we had come. Walking? I can onlycall it that, though the word is futile to describe our progress as wemade our way to the lighted esplanade, across its side and into whatmight have been called a street. Globular houses, single, or one setupon another, or half a dozen swaying on a stick, gardens ofvegetables and flowers. I saw what seemed to be a round patch ofhundred-foot tree-stalks, like a thick batch of bamboo. It was lacedand latticed thick with vines.
"A house," Snap murmured. "That's a house."
Another type of dwelling. This patch of vegetable growth, so flimsy itwas all stirring with the movement of the night breeze, was woven intocircular thatched rooms, birds' nests of little dwellings. Staring up,I seemed to see a hundred of them. Rope-vine ladders; flimsy vineplatforms; tiny lights winking up there in the trees.
On a platform twenty feet above us a group of tiny infant brains satin a gruesome row, goggling down on us.
We passed the tree patch; again the city seemed all a thin, flexiblemetal. The ground was like a smooth rock surface, alternating withsmall patches of soil where things were growing.
We walked in a slow, unsteady line. Molo led. Behind Snap and me camethe girls, ignoring us; and at the rear, the brown-shelled giant guardstalked after us.
Molo stopped at a large globe-dwelling. "We rest here. I will go seethat our rooms are ready." He gestured to his sister. "Meka, you comewith me. Wyk will guard them."
We stood at an oval doorway. A worker came out, stared at us, thenwent back. On an upper balcony, a brain was gazing down at us.
I caught Molo's brawny arm. "Won't you tell us what's going on?"
"Rest here with Wyk."
"What are you going to do?" asked Snap.
"I am going to select my men for battle."
"When do you go?"
"In a few hours, Earth-time."
"And you're taking us on the ship, Molo? Where is your _Star-Streak_?"
"That I must find out." He, gazed at us with a slow, faint smile. "Notfar. Nothing is far on Wandl. I do not know if I will take you on myship. You might be of help, or you might be troublesome. The GreatMaster wants prisoners, or I would have killed you long ago."
He took his sister and left us. There was a brief moment when Wyk,standing aside incuriously, gave us opportunity for swift whispers.
Again Anita clutched me. "Gregg, we'll be separated now. But with Mologone, Venza and I can get away from Meka."
Venza whirled on us. "Gregg, listen! Snap, be quiet! If we're evergoing to escape, now is the time. You get away from Wyk. We'll handleMeka."
"And do what?" Snap demanded.
"The control station! We'll find it!"
Anita whispered, "We've got to wreck it, Gregg. Stop those contacts.It'll mean the end of Earth if we don't."
I protested. "Better try for Molo's vessel. We might be able tonavigate it, escape from this world."
"The control station first," Anita insisted. "Gregg, we know somethingabout it. You and Snap, with your strength, can demolish it. And then,if we can locate the _Star-Streak_...."
It was a desperate, mad plan, but there seemed nothing better. Thegirls insisted now that though they did not know where the controlstation was located, they knew the details of its interior; itsphysical layout; its human operators.
"In an hour," whispered Snap. "Have you got a timer? Is it going?"
The little timers we still had with us were undoubtedly operatingdifferently from on Earth; but they were in agreement.
"An hour by our timers," I whispered. "We'll make the break then, tryto find you inside. Anita, if you get free of Meka, don't come out."
"All right."
We had only a moment to try and plan it. "Anita, in an hour, with Mologone...."
He came suddenly with a driving leap from the doorway and droppedamong us. "All is ready. Come."
We ignored the girls. Snap again protested that he was hungry, whichindeed, for me at least, was certainly the truth. And I was parchedwith thirst. I felt that this vaunted strength of my Earth body wouldnot last long without food and drink.
We entered the globular interior. There were narrow corridors;triangular rooms; a slatted, ladder-like incline leading upward to ahigher level.
The girls followed Meka up the incline. Molo and Wyk herded us into anearby room. "You will have your food and drink here. Cause Wyk notrouble and you will be quite safe."
He turned, but Snap plucked at him. "When are you coming back?"
"Not too long."
I said, "We will cause you no trouble. Take us on the ship."
"I will see."
He murmured to Wyk in Martian, then left us.
* * * * *
The small triangular room had no windows and only the single door. Wyktouched a mechanism and it slid closed. The place was a queerapartment indeed. The floor was convex, curving upward to the walls.The light radiance dimly glowed, as though inherent to the metalceiling. There was strange metal furniture: a table and chairs, highand large; bunks of a size evidently for the ten-foot workers.
The door opened, and a worker brought us food and drink. Wyk sat apartand watched us while we consumed the meal. I noticed that he seldomlet himself get close to us. He sat stiffly upright, with his jointedlegs bent double under him, his many arms and pincers hanging inert,save the one short shoulder-arm with flexible fingers gripping hisweapon. At his waist, and upon several hook-like protuberances of hischest, other weapons and devices were hanging.
Snap gazed up from where, on the floor, we were ravenously eating anddrinking. "Aren't you hungry?" he asked Wyk.
"No."
"You eat often?"
"No."
An incurious, taciturn creature, this insect-like being. Snapwhispered, "Got to talk to him; make him let us get close. Thatweapon...."
How the weapon operated, we did not know; but that a flash from itwould bring instant death we well imagined.
Half of that hour of waiting was past.
I said to Wyk, "You would call this night on your world; the sunobviously is on the other hemisphere. When will it be day?"
His gaze swung on me. His hollow voice, deep from the capacious shellof chest, echoed and blurred in the room.
"I think Wandl has no rotation now. Or almost none."
He was not as taciturn, as he had seemed, and presently we had himtalking. We learned several things regarding the gravity-controls ofWandl, by which at will the planet could be rotated on its axis; andby which also it could navigate space. We learned that the greatcontrol station contained these gravitational mechanisms, as well asthe mechanism by which the Earth had been attacked. But we could notdiscover where on Wandl that station was located.
Then, with our meal finished, Snap rose to his feet. "Those arms ofyours, seem very strange to us. But they must be mighty useful."
Snap had taken a cautious, shoving step. It wafted him directly towardthe guard.
The weird, brown-scaled face of Wyk, with its popping eyes upon stemsand its upended mouth, contorted with surprise.
"Back! Don't come near me!"
He flung himself back, but struck the wall of the room. All his armswere writhing. Alarm was in his voice. It was the first time eitherSnap or I had made an unexpected move, and it startled Wyk.
"Wait! Let me go!" Snap cried.
Wyk's longest arms were around Snap, like the tentacles of an octopus,and Snap was struggling, fighting. We had not intended this at thistime, but the opportunity was here.
I scrambled from the floor. Now, with the need for powerful action,the lack of gravity was a tremendous handicap. I went up withflailing arms into the air. Wyk fired his weapon, but it missed me, asoundless, dimly-white bolt. It hissed along the curving wall of theroom. The smell of it was a stench in my nostrils.
I hit the concave ce
iling, shoved down, and like a swimmer in waterstruck against the struggling bodies of Snap and the guard. The wavinglittle shoulder arm with the weapon came at me.
Snap shouted, "Gregg, look out!"
I seized the little arm; it felt like the shell of a huge crab. For amoment we were all three entangled, floundering, unable to find afoothold. Then suddenly I felt Snap pulling me loose.
"We've got him!"
The brown-shelled body of Wyk sank away from us, hit the floor and laystill. I felt the floor under me, and Snap clutching at me.
In my hand I was clutching Wyk's little shoulder arm, with fingersstill gripping the weapon. I had jerked it out of his shoulder socket.With a shudder I cast the noisome thing away. Whether Wyk was dead ornot we did not know. He lay on his back; the hideous face staredupward.
"I cracked the shell," Snap gasped. "We've got to get out of here.Better try and get the girls loose now."
We wasted no further time on Wyk. Snap snatched several of his weaponsand mechanical devices. We stowed them hastily in our pockets. One waslike another to us; we could only guess at their uses.
"His shoes, Gregg. I can't get the damn things off him."
"Here are shoes."
A small pile of shoes was in a corner of the room; wide, resilientsuction soles, built like sandals. They were very large, but thethings were so placed that it seemed we could fasten them to ourboots.
"But not now, Snap."
We snatched up four pairs of the shoes.
There seemed nothing else to do. Could we get the door open? Snap wasalready fumbling at it. "Accursed thing! It won't give."
Then it slid open. The dim corridor was visible. No one, nothing, outthere. "Come on, Gregg! In a rush!"
We went like bouncing rubber figures up the incline ladder.
"Snap, watch out!" He all but cracked his head with an upward leap.Every instant we expected to be set upon. There was a terraced upperhall, black with shadow; dark ovals of doorways led into rooms.
No one here. As yet we were not discovered.
We stood at the intersection of two corridors. One went almostvertically up, like a chimney extending into the dome peak of theglobe. Its sides were latticed; we could go up it hand over hand, likemonkeys. The other sloped at an angle downward.
"Which way?" Snap whispered. "What do you think? Got to find them."
It still lacked about five minutes of our designated time, but itwould not do to burst in upon the girls, perhaps to find Molo andguards there.
"Let's wait a minute, listen, see if we can't get some idea."
We were backed against the corridor wall, almost in darkness. From thedark length of the descending corridor came a thump, the sound of astruggle, and then a muffled scream. Venza! And we heard her words:"Anita! Look out for her! She's got a knife!"
As though diving into water, Snap and I plunged head first into theblackness of the corridor.