I stood up, with an audible exclamation.
Raymonde had disappeared. I was alone: alone with the Andean flower with scarlet petals, which I picked up pensively, and from which I breathed in the intoxicating scent of vanilla.
But the ringing of bells, the noise of footsteps…I barely had time to make it vanish into my pocket. The inevitable Leduc, followed by my general staff, had come to bring me the news, with expressions of false pity.
“Condolences, R’rdô. Why, there’s a funny smell in here! It reeks of perfume…oh, no one has telephoned the message yet? I thought you would be up to date. Well, the Humans went to ground on Cotopaxi, abandoning their stolen aircraft, and went deep into one of the volcano’s craters. Our men followed them in—but an eruption occurred, and it’s certain that the Humans have perished under the lava, their prisoners too. Condolences, R’rdô.”
“Condolences, Majesty!” mumbled the leaders, in order of rank.
I had some trouble retaining my joy and simulating grief, in the face of such complete disrespect—and my hand, within my coat pocket, gently caressed the marvelous flower that testified to the salvation of my beloved.
“I presume,” Leduc went on, “that you’re going to cancel this evening’s banquet?”
The banquet in honor of “the first 100,000 maki-mokoko priests of the Sun!” I had forgotten that I was to preside over it in my capacity as Sovereign Pontiff.
An impulse overtook me. The Venusian Master ordered me…ah yes, in my new situation, alone and without fear of exposing Raymonde to danger…to risk everything to gain everything, to take advantage of the opportunity. How, I don’t know yet, but I shall find out! To shake the Mechanist tyranny…
And I raise my head, heroically.
“Festivals are few and far between at present; I don’t want R’rdô’s private mourning to prevent the Sovereign Pontiff giving the people the opportunity to hear the voice of our glorious Magi. The banquet will take place.
Leduc is astonished. “You’re going to talk to them!”
“I shall try,” I say, modestly.
The appointed setting for the ceremony that was to bring the entire unoccupied population of Mars Central together in a few hours was the construction-site of the Cylinders, The mounds of debris extracted from the molds had been formed into a superficially-vitrified amphitheater, from which the banquet’s guests would be able to see the means of their future ascension lined up, extending into the infinite. All the apparatus of the feast—tables, benches, trays, plates, spoons, forks and so on—had been replicated thousands of times over, with a minimum of effort, thanks to impressions of moist sand, and several cubic meters of cast-iron appropriated from the fountain of core iron.
Formidable culinary preparations, in which I feigned interest while mulling over my idea, kept the shaggy cooks busy all day. Hippopotamuses boiled in their hide, elephants cooked whole in an autoclave, spit-roasted sharks, crocodile ragout, fricassees of vultures and boa constrictors, were set out on the tables, as far as the eye could see, as soon as the Sun set, alternating with fruits and vegetables of every kind, mainly intended for he simians: coconuts, bananas, dates, oranges, pineapples, lemons, guavas, carrots, potatoes, sugar-cane, and so on. To drink, enormous casks of red wine and white wine—especially champagne—dispatched their thirst-quenching floods to every table by means of branching conduits which provided a tap for each individual guest, who also had a big can of condensed milk at his disposal.
Terromartians and shaggies alike were sniggering as they took their places at this Pantagruelian feast. The guests of honor, the maki-mokokos, in the grip of their corporeal instincts, were gamboling gaily, grimacing as they saw themselves reflected in polished plates, spoons or goblets.
For the occasion, males and females were eating together. An even more lively hilarity was not long in developing once the first mouthfuls had been taken, in the glare of the recently-illuminated floodlights. At the imperial table, which overlooked the assembly, even the chiefs of the general staff promptly forsook the reserve that they believed they owed to my putative mourning, and set about guzzling and tippling shamelessly. I poured them floods of gin, kummel, whisky, cognac, chartreuse, Benedictine; I encouraged their coarse jokes. Leduc, belching and swearing immoderately all the while, declared me “a bloody smart fellow.” With every glass emptied in my vicinity—needless to say, I had to imitate them—and every hiccup, I felt my plan ripening, and the moment drawing nearer.
The nights are cool in December, even at the latitude of Cairo. I am inclined to think that this circumstance—along with the metal seats, which had no cushions—must have contributed to giving birth, amid the Martians’ Bacchic pandemonium, to the cry that propagated itself like a trail of gunpowder to become a sort of unanimous chant: “The Sun! The Sun!”
That is how I see it now, from a distance. At the time, though, it came as a revelation, a psychic trigger. “Eureka!” I proclaimed, thumping my fist on the table with all my strength.
Was I drunk? I don’t know. In any case, I was resolved to undermine the authority of “the Boss,” finally to use my prestige in a good cause: to hold that crowd of mystic brutes who saw me as a sort of sub-God in the palm of my hand—to be their Emperor in truth!
“Silence!” I roared into a megaphone, standing up in all my majesty.
They all fell silent, as if by enchantment.
Extemporizing eloquently, I proclaimed: “Martians! In the name of the Sun, the origin and end of our destiny, I, the humble successor of your Magi, the Sovereign Pontiff and Empreor of you all, Terromartians, shaggies and maki-mokokos, I tell you that we have taken a false path!” General sensation. “We are too timid!” The chiefs exchange glances; Leduc’s drink catches in his throat, almost choking him. “Martians! What good does it do to destroy a step in the path of reincarnation, if we do not go on to the end—if we call a halt on such an open road!” Brouhaha of astonishment. Stupor among the chiefs. “The Sun, Martians! The Sun, distant paradise of our souls, must be the next paradise of our bodies! Yes, the Sun, not Venus! The Sun burns, you say? Only on the surface! Beneath that splendid ceiling…warm, maki-mokokos!...flamboyant, shaggies!...the paradise, Martians, promised by my infallible predecessors, the Magi, is lodged! And to arrive there without being roasted by its sublime rays…nothing is more simple…we shall pass…through the sunspots! Martians, straight to the Sun!”
Oh, I have struck a chord! The Sun! A magic word, charged with a magnetism accumulated over 1000 generations! The effect on which I was counting is produced, exceeding my hopes. The entire assembly rises up as a single Martian, repeating in an immense clamor: “The Sun! Hurrah! Yes, yes, we want the Sun!” And the frenetic repetition, in chorus. of “The Sun! The Sun! The Sun!” howled with all their might, rhythmically intoned by 500,000 drunken Martian madmen, precipitates a thunderous drum-roll of bare feet, hob-nailed boots, goblets, spoons and trays upon the metal tables: an indescribable din.
“Heresy!” cries Leduc, his eyes bulging and his face purple, apoplectic.
“Heresy!” repeat the shaggies faithful to “the Boss,” the Mechanist part of their souls in revolt—for if they go straight to the Sun, it will be the end of Mechanization and their technical role.
A stir of hesitation among the rest…
Coincidence, miraculous for the Martians: a volvite, charged with distributing the dessert as a “surprise,” releases upon the tables a continuous cataract of pumpkins, melons and gourds of every variety.
“The Sun! The Sun! The Sun is ours!” And everyone, hallucinated, takes possession of these thousands of solar symbols, juggling with them, clutching hem to their hearts kissing them, devouring them. A few maki-mokokos even throw them at Leduc, while bombarding the shaggies—who, unconvinced, gather together, surrounding their leader, protecting him…
And Leduc, his megaphone at full volume, launches this formidable challenge to the partisans of the Sun: “Piss off, then! You’ll never get past me and my
faithful shaggies!”
His gaze scans the ranks of the chiefs who are grouped around me, who have quickly judged the crushing force of my new stratagem. Four paces bring him face to face with me…I draw my blaster…but he only whispers a single word in my ear:
“Terran!”
But we are separated, dragged apart; the clamorous storm is redoubled: “The Sun! Hurrah! Long live the Emperor!” Melons, pumpkins and gourds fly from every direction. An irresistible ovation disperses my guard; I am subject to an avalanche of female maki-mokokos, who plaster me with 1000 kisses, winding their long gripping tails around my arms and legs…
A delirious battalion of Terromartians gets involved; I am grabbed, hoisted on to a bulwark of shoulders, and borne away in triumph over a vertiginous ocean of heads howling at the top of their voices: “The Sun! The Sun! The Sun is ours! Long live, live, li-i-i-ve the Emperor!”
….And without knowing how, I finally find myself back home, released from the nightmare that continues to fill the city with its insane clamor. In my office, strewn with hundreds of pumpkins and other solar Cucurbitae, brought with me by my frantic worshippers! Poor Raymonde! How she would have laughed if she were with me! Alas…!
It doesn’t matter. I haven’t wasted my day. The Venusian Master must be content with me!
XI. The Revolt of the “Pumpkins”
The howls of sirens and public loudspeakers woke me up, not without difficulty, from an opaque sleep. It was 3 p.m.!
I leapt out of bed and ran to the window. On the Esplanade, a few scattered Martians were still mechanically obeying the summons to the workshops—abandoned since the banquet—and lending their ears to the giant voice of the Monument of the Shell:
“Martians! Take care! There are false brothers and hidden enemies among us: Terrans! The Technical Director is aware of it. In consequence, for the sake of communal safety, he orders that a truce be called in religious quarrels, that the entire population of Mars Central, without any exception of origin, form, sex, or even of rank, must submit to a soul inspection by competent experts, and that everyone must pass through the solenoid again! Operations will commence today at 16:00 hours, with serial numbers beginning with Z. Alphabetical order will be followed!”
Despite the Sun’s heat caressing my shoulders, I broke out in a cold sweat.
Infernal Leduc! He had found his response to my attack of the previous day. His hatred had heightened into divination; it had lifted my mask and recognized my true Human nature. To be sure, I now had three quarters of the people and all the overseers on my side, and a direct accusation would not have had the slightest chance of success. He had, therefore, adopted the only means of annihilating my power and having me condemned to death. If I refused to submit to this absolutely general inspection—and Landru, the chief examiner, was still one of the Boss’s fanatical supporters—I would lose the confidence of the people and all authority over him at a stroke. I did not even have the resource of forbidding it in the name of religion. The idea that there might be Terrans hidden among them generated enormous emotion in the Martians.
A glance at the periscope screen showed me the streets of the city filling up with Terromartians, maki-mokokos and shaggies in a matter of minutes, marching confusedly to the Hall of Reincarnation. As the badge of their faith, the new sectarians of the Straight-to-the-Sun movement were wearing large slices of pumpkin, or even entire specimens of other Cucurbita, suspended on cords around their necks. They were exchanging challenging stares with the shaggies—but the quarrel was temporarily forgotten in the face of the public danger.
The crowd came out into the Esplanade of the Pyramids, which was gradually covered by its variegated fleece, and the bearers of the registration letter Z, contained by the barriers, marched bravely to the solenoid.
I turned around like a rat in a trap. My registration-of-honor was A. A telephone call told me that the chiefs were asking for an audience.
“I’ll be with you in two minutes.”
Seized by an inspiration, I went straight to the wall and found a dozen meters of flexible cable among the electric wires, which I disconnected from the apparatus in order to wind it around my body, underneath my cape. A Ruhmkorff coil and a small pocket accumulator completed the protective device, with the aid of which I hoped to neutralize the current of the fatal solenoid.
I had just finished sealing the contacts when a clamor went up. The crowd massed in the vicinity of the Hall of Reincarnation was crying out in protest and indignation, with increasing violence.
“Assassin! Treason! Vengeance!”
The Z series flooded back out of the doorways, gesticulating madly, and loudspeakers proclaimed the sinister news: as soon as they had been introduced into the solenoids, the first five “examinees” had dropped dead on the spot! 41 With one voice, the entire crowd accused the operator of having replaced the psychometric currents, on Leduc’s secret orders, with an electrocuting voltage. The operator was torn into pieces. Landru and his acolytes barely escaped, protected by a battalion of shaggies, who beat a retreat through the exasperated crowd in a wedge-formation. The official loudspeakers replied to the accusations that the solenoid’s victims must be the hidden Terrans, but in vain—the “pumpkins” were paying no attention.
Leaning on the balcony of the Red Palace with my senior staff, whom I had allowed in, I followed the progress of the riot with a mixture of joy and anxiety. By suppressing the examination, it had saved me from a danger that my improvised counter-solenoid might perhaps have been powerless to avert. But what consequences would follow from this popular ferment? Only non-commissioned officers and aircraft crews were armed with blasters, but there were the stores of weapons and explosives, and the carnage might commence at any moment!
The situation took shape. The howling of loudspeakers—some operated by the shaggies, others by the “pumpkins”—dominated the tumultuous clamors of the city and brought us scraps of news, confirmed by what we saw on the periscope screens. Leduc and his partisans had installed heir general quarters in the steelyards. They held control of the helicopters and the cylinders. The Terromartians had the volvites in their possession and the maki-mokokos had taken possession of the explosives and the cracterite factory. They were threatening to blow everything up at the first hostile move—to which the shaggies responded that they would not dare, and that they, in their turn, would unleash the Jet of core-iron, which an improvised device would rapidly transform into a flame-lance…
However, neither of these boastful threats was followed through. The Martians, as they had already proved, were fundamentally cowardly, and neither party dared attack, fearful of reprisals. Shaggy-manned helicopters and “pumpkin”-manned volvites circled around, confronting one another incessantly, but it was all limited to salvoes of Homeric insults and blasters brandished at arm’s length. In the Camp of the Cylinders, as in the cracterite factory, everyone lounged around filling their bellies, and finished up forgetting civil discord in the delights of idleness.
The sole result of a week of loud-mouthed rioting was, in sum, the stoppage of work on all sites save that of the Tunnel. The planetary perforation continued, obstinately and uninterruptedly, beyond the horizon, hurling into the sky its continuous tornado of volatilized slag, which fell back as black dust upon the surrounding country, now extending as far as Mars Central the kind of funereal shroud once imposed on coal-mining regions.
The hunting volvites similarly continued their customary flights to America, bringing back cargoes of “volunteers” every day, which accumulated in improvised holding-cells until the solenoids were returned to action.
Outside of these scattered activities, however, the strike was general, and if the Aswan accumulators had not been functioning automatically, even the lights would have failed.
The prospect of a battle seemed attractive to me at first. Since my propaganda had not been able to obtain the assent of the shaggies—without whom nothing could be done—and send all the Martians stra
ight to the Sun together, the chance remained of seeing them destroy one another to the last one, thus purging the Earth of its invaders. That means was not repugnant to me. Had I been required to share their fate, I would have sacrificed my life willingly. It did not take me long, however, to understand that Martian cowardice set aside any hope of that sort. On the contrary, the stoppage of work, if it carried on, would become calamitous. If the cylinders were not ready, the Martians would remain on Earth for two more years…
Jupiter’s Thunderbolt would surprise them there—but not, perhaps, without sweeping the surface of my unfortunate planet and reducing it, like Mars, to a ball of ash.
I would have been able to order a return to work; the partisans of the Sun, weary of ineffective bravado, would have obeyed me—but, as Leduc, “the Boss” had said, only too accurately, we would not have been able to get past him and his faithful shaggies, who had control not merely of the Cylinders but the power-supply—and they would never consent to an exodus direct to the Sun.
Never mind—I would find another way! For the moment, it was necessary to compromise—so I sent Nazir Bey to Leduc as an ambassador. The latter was not interested. He was too well aware of the strength of his position, and he made inadmissible demands. Out of rancor against the maki-mokokos—his creatures, which had left him for me at the Banquet and whose desertion had secured my success—he did not want to admit them aboard the Cylinders, and insisted as the first condition of peace that they should be abandoned on Earth.
Naturally, I refused. Any weakness on that point would have killed my popularity; I had to conserve that at all costs, for it was my sole safeguard against Leduc, and my very life depended on it.
The negotiations were suspended, but a muted unease was manifest among the popular masses. Both sides were subjected to propaganda, which recruited new adherents to each party—at the other’s expense, of course. A baroque dance of change-your-partners took shape: some Terromartians who exposed themselves on the edge of the shaggy camp did not return; on the other hand, numerous shaggies mingled with the crowds on the Esplanade of the Pyramids, and did not take long to join in the solar hymn of the “pumpkins.” Some of them even consented to operate the projection apparatus, and the cinema screen on the Monument began to parade the threat of the Jovian preparations before all our eyes again.
The Martian Epic Page 38