The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 03

by Anthology

  "Tao has it, indeed, but he is not so great a monster that he would use it against us."

  I was not so sure of that, and I said so. "You don't mean to tell me, Miela, that your government has allowed Tao to prepare all this destructive armament without itself arming?"

  Again she shook her head. "We have been preparing, too, and all our young men can be called if occasion comes. But that must never be. It would be too terrible."

  * * * * *

  Miela and I occupied, that first night on Mercury, a broad wooden bed built low to the floor, with a mattress of palm fiber. At first I could not sleep, but lay thinking over the many things she had told me. The light in the room, too, was strange. Lattice covered the windows, but it was like trying to sleep at midday; and the heat and heaviness of the air oppressed me. I dropped off finally, to be awakened by Miela's voice calling me to breakfast.

  We sat down to the morning meal at a low table set with shining plates and goblets of copper, or whatever the metal was, and napery of silk. The rice formed our main article of food, with sugar, milk, and a beverage not unlike coffee. There was also a meat like beef, although more highly flavored, and a number of sickish sweet fruits of a kind entirely new to me, which I could do no more than taste.

  We were served by a little maid whose darker skin and heavier features proclaimed her of another race--a native of the Fire Country, Miela told me. She was dressed in a brown tunic of heavy silk, reaching from waist to knee. Her thick black hair was cut to her shoulders.

  On her left arm above the elbow was welded a broad band of copper inscribed with a mark to identify Lua as her owner, for she was a slave. Her torso was bare, except for a cloak like Lua's which hung from her shoulders in the back to cover her wings. By this I knew she could not fly.

  It was not until some time afterward that I learned the reason for this covering of the clipped wings. The wing joints were severed just above the waist line. The feathers on the remaining upper portions were clipped, but through disuse these feathers gradually dropped out entirely.

  The flesh and muscle underneath was repulsive in appearance--for which reason it was always kept covered. Lua showed me her wings once--mere shrunken stumps of what had once been her most glorious possession. I did not wonder then that the women were ready to fight, almost, rather than part with them.

  Difficulties of language made our conversation during the meal somewhat halting, although Miela acted as interpreter. Lua and Anina both expressed their immediate determination to learn English, and, with the same persistence that Miela had shown, they set aside nearly everything else to accomplish it.

  We decided that we should see the king and arrange our future course of action. Whatever was to be done should be done at once--that we all agreed--for Tao's men were steadily gaining favor with a portion of the people, and we had no means of knowing what they would attempt to do.

  "What will your people think of me?" I suddenly asked Miela.

  "We have sent our king word that you are here," she answered, "and we have asked that he send a guard to take you to the castle this morning."

  "A guard?"

  She smiled. "It is better that the people see you first as a man of importance. You will go to the king under guard. Few will notice you. Then will he, our ruler, arrange that you are shown to the people as a great man--one who has come here to help us--one who is trusted and respected by our king. You see, my husband, the difference?"

  I did, indeed, though I wondered a little how I should justify this exalted position which was being thrust upon me. After breakfast Lua and Anina busied themselves about the house, while Miela and I went to the rooftop to wait for the king's summons. From here I had my first really good view of the city at close range.

  Miela's home sat upon a terrace, leveled off on the steep hillside; all the houses in the vicinity were similarly situated. Behind us the mountain rose steeply; in front it dropped away, affording an extended view of the level, palm-dotted country below.

  The slope of hillside rising abruptly behind us held another house just above the level of the rooftop we were on. As I sat there looking idly about I thought I saw a figure lurking near this higher building. I called Miela's attention to it--the obscure figure of a man standing against a huge palm trunk.

  As we watched the figure stepped into plainer view. I saw then it was a man, evidently looking down at us. I stood up. There was no one else in sight except a woman on the roof of the other house holding an infant.

  Something about the man's figure seemed vaguely familiar; my heart leaped suddenly.

  "Miela," I whispered, "surely that--that is no one of your world."

  Her hand clutched my arm tightly as the man stepped forward again and waved at us. I crossed the rooftop, Miela following. At my sudden motion the man hesitated, then seemed about to run. I hardly know what thoughts impelled me, but suddenly I shouted: "Wait!"

  At the sound of my voice he whirled around, stopped dead an instant, and then, with an answering call, came running down the hillside.

  "The earth-man!" cried Miela. "The earth-man of Tao it must be."

  We hurried down through the house and arrived at its back entrance. Coming toward us at a run across the garden was the man--unmistakably one of my own world.

  My hurried glance showed me he was younger than I--a short, stocky, red-headed chap, dressed in dirty white duck trousers and a torn white linen shirt.

  He came on at full speed.

  "Hello!" I called.

  He stopped abruptly. For an instant we stared at each other; then he grinned broadly.

  "Well, I don't know who you are," he ejaculated, "but I want to say it certainly does me good to see you."

  CHAPTER XIV.

  THE RULER OF THE LIGHT COUNTRY.

  However pleased the newcomer was to see me, I had no difficulty in assuring him with equal truth that my feelings matched his. The first surprise of the meeting over, we took him to the living room, where Lua greeted him with dignified courtesy, and we all gathered around to hear his story.

  He was, I saw now, not more than twenty years old, rather short--perhaps five feet six or seven inches--and powerfully built, with a shock of tousled red hair and a handsome, rough-hewn face essentially masculine.

  He seemed to be an extraordinarily good-humored chap, with the ready wit of an Irishman. I liked him at once--I think we all did.

  He began, characteristically, near the end rather than the beginning of the events I knew he must have to tell us.

  "I got away," he chuckled, grinning more broadly than ever. "But where I was going to, search me. And who the deuce are you, if you don't mind my asking? How did you ever get to this God-forsaken place?"

  I smiled. "You tell us about yourself first; then I'll tell you about myself. You are the earth-man we've been hearing about, aren't you--the man Tao captured in Wyoming and brought here with him?"

  "They caught me in Wyoming all right. Who's Tao?"

  "He's the leader of them all."

  "Oh. Well, they brought me here, as you say, and I guess they've had me about all over this little earth since. They stuck me in a boat, and Lord knows how far we went. We got here last night, and when my guard went to sleep I beat it." He scratched his head lugubriously. "Though what good I thought it was going to do me I don't know. That's about all, I guess. Who the deuce are you?"

  I laughed.

  "Wait a minute--don't go so fast. Start at the beginning. What's your name?"

  "Oliver Mercer."

  His face grew suddenly grave. "My brother was killed up there in Wyoming--that's how I happened to go there in the first place."

  "Mercer!" I exclaimed.

  He started. "Yes--why? You don't think you know me, by any chance, do you?"

  "No, but I knew your brother--that is, I know Bob Trevor, who was with him when he was killed. He's one of my best friends."

  The young fellow extended his hand. "A friend of Bob Trevor's--away off here! Don't it
get you, just?"

  Miela interrupted us here to translate to her mother and Anina what he said.

  Mercer went on: "The assumption is, you people here are not working with this gang of crooks I got away from--this Tao? Am I right in thinking so?"

  "You're certainly right, that far," I laughed.

  I felt, more than I can say, a great sense of relief, a lessening of the tension, the unconscious strain I had been under, at this swift, jovial conversation with another human of my own kind.

  "Yes, you're right on that. This Tao and I are not exactly on the same side. I'll tell you all about it in a minute."

  "Then, we're working together?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, all I'm working for is to get back home where I came from."

  "You won't be when you hear all I've got to say."

  He started at that; then, with sudden change of thought, his eyes turned to Anina. The girl blushed under his admiring gaze.

  "Say, she's a little beauty, isn't she? Who is she?"

  "She's my sister," I said, smiling.

  For once he was too dumfounded to reply.

  Miela had finished her translation now, and, as she turned back to us, spoke in English for the first time during the conversation.

  "Do you know why it is they brought you here from the Twilight Country?" she asked Mercer.

  This gave him another shock. "Why, I--no. That is--say, how do you happen to talk English? Is it one of your languages here, by any chance?"

  Miela laughed gayly.

  "Only we three, in all this world, speak English. I know it because--"

  I interrupted her.

  "Suppose I tell him our whole story, Miela? Then--"

  "That's certainly what I want to hear," said Mercer emphatically. "And especially why it is that I'm not supposed to want to get back to where I belong."

  My explanation must have lasted nearly an hour, punctuated by many questions and exclamations of wonder from young Mercer. I told him the whole affair in detail, and ended with a statement of exactly how matters stood now on Mercury.

  "Do you want to hurry back home to earth now?" I finished.

  "Duck out of this? I should say not. Why, we've got a million things to do here."

  His eyes turned again toward Anina.

  "And, say--about letting those girls keep their wings. I'm strong for that. Let's be sure and fix that up before we leave."

  It was not more than half an hour later when the king's guards arrived to conduct us to the castle. Meanwhile young Mercer had discovered he was hungry and thirsty. As soon as he had finished eating we started off--he and I, with Lua and Miela. The guards led us away as though we were prisoners, forming a hollow square--there were some thirty of them--with us in the center. We attracted little attention from passersby; the few who stopped to stare at us, or who attempted to follow, were briskly ordered away.

  Occasionally a few girls would hover overhead, but when the guards shouted up at them they flew away obediently.

  The king's castle was constructed of metal and stone--a long, low, rambling structure, flanked by two spires or minarets, giving it somewhat an Oriental appearance. Each of these minarets was girdled, halfway up, by a narrow balcony.

  The first room into which we passed was small, seemingly an antechamber. From it, announced by two other guards who stood at the entrance, we entered directly into the main hall of the building. At one end of it there was a raised platform. On this, seated about a large table, were some ten or twelve dignitaries--the king's advisers. They were, I saw, all aged men, with beardless, seamed faces, long snowy-white hair to their shoulders, and dressed in flowing silk robes.

  The king was a man of seventy-odd, kindly faced, gentle in demeanor. He bore himself with the dignity of a born ruler, and yet his very kindliness of aspect and the doddering gravity of his aged councilors, seemed to explain at once most of the trouble that now confronted him.

  We stood beside this table--they courteously made way for Lua to sit among them--and all its occupants immediately turned to face us.

  Our audience lasted perhaps an hour and a half altogether. I need not go into details. I was right in assuming that the king desired to help us prevent Tao from his attempted conquest of the earth. This was so, but only in so far as his actions would not jeopardize the peace of his own nation. He sadly admitted his error in allowing Tao's emissaries into the Light Country. But now they were there, he did not see how to get them out.

  His people were daily listening to them more eagerly; and, what was worse, the police guards themselves seemed rather more in sympathy with them than otherwise. A slight disturbance had occurred in the streets the day before, and the guards had stood apathetically by, taking no part. Above all else, the king stoutly protested, he would have no bloodshed in his country if he could prevent it.

  In the neighboring towns of the Light Country--the nearest of which was some forty miles away from the Great City--the situation was almost the same. Reports brought by young women flying between the cities said that to many Tao also had sent emissaries who were fast winning converts to his cause.

  "Do all these people who believe in Tao expect to go to our earth when it is conquered?" I asked Miela. "How can they--so many of them--hope to benefit in that way? Aren't they satisfied here?"

  Miela smiled sadly.

  "No people can ever be satisfied--all of them. That you must know, my husband. They have many grievances against our ruler. Many things they want which he cannot give. Tao may promise these things--and if they believe his promise it is very bad."

  "He might come over here and try to make himself king," Mercer said suddenly. "If it's like that maybe he could do it, too, with this grand earth-conquest getting ready. Tell the king that--see what he says."

  "He says that he realizes and fears it," Miela answered. "But he thinks that first Tao will go to your earth, and he may never come back. So much may happen--"

  "So he's just going to wait," I explained. "Well, we're not just going to wait. Ask the king what our status is."

  "Ask him about me," Mercer put in. "Are those Tao men going to grab me the minute I show my face on the street, or will he protect me?"

  Miela translated this to the king, adding something of her own to which he evidently agreed.

  "It is as I thought," she said. "He believes he can present you to the people as men of earth who are our guests, and that they will accept you in friendly spirit, most of them."

  The king spoke to one of his advisers, who abruptly left the room.

  "He will call the people now," Miela went on, "and will speak to them from the tower--all who can leave their tasks to come. You will stand there with him. He will ask that we of the Light Country allow you to remain here in peace among us. And this captive earth man of Tao's"--she laid her hand lightly on Mercer's shoulder--"he will ask, too, that he be given sanctuary among us. Our people still are kindly--most of them--and they will see the justice of what he asks."

  I suggested then that Miela tell the king that we had determined, if we could, to frustrate Tao in his plans; and showed her how to point out to him that such an outcome would, if successful, make his throne secure and insure peace for his nation.

  He asked me bluntly what it was I thought I could do. The vague beginnings of a plan were forming in my mind. "Tell him, Miela, I think we can rid the Light Country of Tao's emissaries--send them back--without causing any disturbances among the people. Ask him if that would not be a good thing."

  The king nodded gravely as this was translated.

  "He asks you how?" Miela said next.

  "Tell him, Miela, that there are some things that might happen of which he would be very glad, but which it might be better he did not know. You understand. Make him see that we will be responsible for this--that he needn't have anything to do with it or know anything about it. Then, if we do anything wrong against your laws, he will be perfectly safe in stopping and punishing us."

 
Miela nodded, and began swiftly telling this to the king. As she spoke I saw his eyes twinkle and a swift little series of nods from the aged men about the table made me know that I had carried my point. During the latter part of this talk I had noticed the growing murmur of voices outside the castle. The old man who had left the room at the king's order came back.

  "The people now are gathering," Miela said. "In a moment we shall go up into the tower."

  The king's councilors now rose and withdrew, and a few moments later the king, without formality, led the four of us through the castle and up into the tower.

  We climbed a little stone staircase in the tower and came into a circular room some sixty feet above the ground. A small doorway from this room gave access to the narrow balcony which girdled the tower. The sounds of the gathering crowd came up plainly from the gardens below. We waited for a time, and then, at a sign from the king, stepped together upon the balcony.

  The gardens below were full of people--gathered among the palms and moving about for points of vantage from which to obtain a view of the balcony. Most of them were men and older women. The girls were, nearly all of them, in the air, flying about the tower and hovering near the balcony, staring at us curiously. The women were, for the most part, dressed as I have described Lua.

  The men wore knee-length trousers of fabric or leather, and sometimes a shirt or leather jacket, although a difference of costume that made evident the rank of the wearer was noticeable in both sexes. All were bareheaded, with the exception of the king's guards, who were thus plainly distinguishable, standing idly about among the crowd.

  As we stepped out into view of the people a louder murmur arose, mingled with a ripple of applause. Three or four girls, hovering only a few feet in front of us, clapped their hands and laughed. The king placed Mercer and me on either side of him, and, standing with his hands on our shoulders, leaned over the balcony rail and began to speak.

  A silence fell over the crowd; they listened quietly, but with none of that respect and awe with which a people usually faces its king.

  Miela whispered to me. "He is telling them about your earth, and that you came here to visit us in friendly spirit."