The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 04

by Anthology

  Chet had seen none of the crimson buds, nor threatening tendrils since entering the valley. And Towahg confirmed his estimate of the valley's safety. He waved one naked arm in an all-inclusive gesture, and he drew upon his limited vocabulary to tell them of this place.

  "Good!" he said, and waved his arm again. "Good! Good!"

  "Towahg, you're a silver-tongued orator," Chet told him: "no one could have described it better. You're darned right; it's good."

  He raised his head to take a deep breath of the fragrant air; it was intoxicating with its blending of spicy odors. At his feet the water made emerald waves, where the clear, deep blue of the reflected sky merged with yellow sand. Fish darted through the deeper pools where the beach shelved off, and above them the air held flashing colorful things that circled and skimmed above the waves.

  The rippling grass was so green, the sky and lake so intense a blue, and one mountainous mass of cloud shone in a white too blinding to be borne. And over it all flowed the warm, soft air that seemed vibrant with a life-force pulsing strongly through this virgin world.

  Diane called from where she and Harkness had wandered through the lush grass. Kreiss had thrown himself upon a strip of warm sand and was oblivious to the beauties that surrounded him. Towahg was squatted like a half-human frog, binding new heads on his arrows.

  "Chet," she called, "come over here and help me to exclaim over this beautiful place. Walter talks only of building a house and arranging a place that we can defend. He is so very practical."

  "Practical!" exclaimed Chet. "Why, Walt's a dreamer and a poet compared to me. I'm thinking of food. Hey, Towahg," he called to the black, "let's eat!" He amplified this with unmistakable pointings at his mouth and suggestive rubbing of his stomach, and Towahg started off at a run toward trees that were heavy with strange fruit.

  * * * * *

  By night there were unmistakable signs that the hand of man had been at work. A band of savages would have accepted the place as they found it; for them the shelter of a rock would have sufficed. They would have passed on to other hunting grounds and only a handful of ashes and a broken branch, perhaps, would have marked where they had been. But your civilized man is never satisfied.

  Along the mile of shore was open ground. Here the trees approached the water: again their solid rampart of ghostly trunks was held back some hundreds of yards. And the open ground was vividly green where the soft grass waved; and it was matted, too, with crimson and gold of countless flowers. A beautiful carpet, flung down by the edge of a crystal lake, and the flowered covering swept up and over the one high knoll that touched the shore…. And on the knoll, near an outcrop of limestone rocks, was a house.

  "Not exactly pretentious," Chet had admitted, "but we'll do better later on."

  "It will keep Diane under cover," argued Harkness; "these leaves are like leather."

  He helped Diane put another strip of leaf in place on the roof; a twist of green vine tied around the stem held it loosely.

  The leaves were huge, as much as ten feet in diameter: great circles of leathery green that they cut with a pocket knife and "tailored" as Diane called it to fit the rough framework of the hut. Towahg had found them and had given them a name that they did not trouble to learn. "Towahg's grunts sound so much alike," Diane complained smilingly. "He seems to know his natural history, but he is difficult to understand."

  * * * * *

  But Towahg proved a valuable man. He cracked two round stones together, and cleaved off one to a rounded edge. He bound this with withes to a short stick and in a few minutes had a serviceable stone ax that bit into slender saplings that were needed for a framework.

  Chet nodded his head to call Kreiss' attention to that. "Herr Doktor," he said, "it isn't every scientist who has the chance to see a close-up of the stone age."

  But Herr Kreiss, as Chet told Harkness later, did not seem to "snuggle up nice and friendly" to the grinning savage. "He is armed better than we," Kreiss complained. "I do not trust him. It is an impossible situation, this, that civilized men should be dependent upon one so savage. For what is our kultur, our great advancement in all lines of mental endeavor, if at the last, when tested by nature, we must rely upon such assistance?"

  Chet saw Herr Doktor Kreiss draw himself aloof with meticulous care as Towahg dashed by, and it occurred to him that perhaps it was as well for Kreiss that the black one knew so little of what was said.

  But aloud he merely said: "You'll have lots of chances to use that mental endeavor stuff later on, Doctor. But right now what we need to know is how to get by without any of your laboratories, without text books or tools, with just our bare hands and with brains that are geared up to the civilization you mention and don't do us a whole lot of good here. Better let Towahg show us what he knows."

  But Herr Kreiss only shrugged his thin shoulders and wandered off through this research-man's paradise, where every flower and insect and stone were calling to him. Chet envied the equanimity with which the man had accepted his lot, had come to this place and was prepared to spend his remaining years collecting scientific data that were to him all-important.

  * * * * *

  Again the sun sank swiftly. But this time, Chet stretched himself luxuriously upon the matted grass and turned to stare at the little fire that burned before the entrance of Diane's shelter. His pocket fireflash had kindled some dry sticks that burned without smoke.

  "We will be a little careful about smoke," Harkness had warned them all. "No use of broadcasting the news of our being here. We have come a long way and I think there is small chance of Schwartzmann's party or the savages finding us in this spot."

  Beyond the fire, Harkness raised himself now to sit erect and glance about the circle of fire-lit faces. "There's plenty of planning to be done," he said. "There is the matter of defense; we must build a barricade of some sort. As for shelter, we must remember that we will be here a long time and that we might as well face it. We will need to build some serviceable shelters. Then, what about clothes? These we are wearing are none the better for the trip through the jungle: they won't last forever. We've got to learn—Lord! we've got to learn so many things!"

  And the first of many councils was begun.

  Chapter XIV

  A Bag of Green Gas

  Under a tree on the edge of the open ground a notched stick hung. Six sharply cut V's showed red through the white bark, then one that was deeper; another six and another deeper cut; more of them until the stick was full: so passed the little days.

  "Some time," Herr Kreiss had promised, "I shall determine with accuracy the length of our Dark Moon days; then we will convert these crude records into Earth time. It is good that we should not lose our knowledge of the days on Earth." He made a ceremony each morning of the cutting of another notch.

  Chet, too, had a bit of daily routine that was never neglected. Each sunrise found him on the high divide; each morning he watched for the glint and sparkle of sunlight as it flashed from a metal ship; and each morning the reflected light came to him tinged with green, until he knew at last that it might never be different. The poisonous fumes filled the pocket at the end of the valley where the great ship rested. She was indeed at the bottom of a sea.

  Back at camp were other signs of the passing days. Around the top of the knoll a palisade had sprung up. Stakes buried in the ground, with sharpened ends pointing up and outward, were interwoven with tough vines to make a barricade that would check any direct assault. And, within the enclosure, near the little hut that had been built for Diane, were other shelters. One black night of tropic rainstorm had taught the necessity for roofs that would protect them from torrential downpours.

  These did well enough for the present, these temporary shelters and defenses, and they had kept Diane and the two men working like mad when it was essential that they have something to do, something to think of, that they might not brood too long and deeply on their situation and the life of exile they were facing.

 
* * * * *

  For Kreiss this was not necessary. In Herr Kreiss, it seemed, were the qualities of the stoic. They were exiled—that was a fact; Herr Kreiss accepted it and put it aside. For, about him, were countless things animate and inanimate of this new world, things which must be taken into his thin hands, examined, classified and catalogued in his mind.

  In the rocky outcrop at the top of their knoll he had found a cave with which this rock seemed honeycombed. Here, within the shelter of the barricade, he had established what he called very seriously his "laboratory." And here he brought strange animals from the jungle—flying things that were more like bats than birds, yet colored gorgeously. Chet found him one day quietly exultant over a wrinkled piece of parchment. He was sharpening a quill into a pen, and a cup-shaped stone held some dark liquid that was evidently ink.

  "So much data to record," he said. "There will be others who will follow us some day. Perhaps not during our lifetime, but they will come. These discoveries are mine; I must have the records for them…. And later I will make paper," he added as an afterthought; "there is papyrus growing in the lake."

  But on the whole, Kreiss kept strictly to himself. "He's a lone wolf," Chet told the others, "and now that he is bringing in those heavy loads of metals he is more exclusive than ever: won't let me into the back end of his cave."

  "Does he think we will steal his gold?" Harkness asked moodily. "What good is gold to us here?"

  "He may have gold," Chet informed him, "but he has something more valuable too. I saw some chunks that glowed in the dark. Rotten with radium, he told me. But even so, he is welcome to it: we can't use it. No, I don't think he suspects us of wanting his trophies; he's merely the kind that flocks by himself. He was having a wonderful time today pounding out some of his metals with a stone hammer; I heard him at it all day. He seems to have settled down in that cave for keeps."

  * * * * *

  Harkness threw another stick across the fire; its warmth was unneeded, but its dancing flames were cheering.

  "And that is something we must make up our minds about," he said slowly: "are we to stay here, or should we move on?"

  He dropped to the ground near where Diane was sitting, and took one of her hands in his.

  "Diane and I plan to 'set up housekeeping,'" he told Chet, and Chet saw him smile whimsically at the words. Housekeeping on the Dark Moon would be primitive indeed. "We are lacking in some of the customary features of a wedding; we seem to be just out of ministers or civil officials to tie the knot."

  "Elect me Mayor of Dianeville," Chet suggested with a grin, "and I'll marry you—if you think those formalities are necessary here."

  Diane broke in. "It's foolish of me, Chet, I know it; but don't laugh at me." He saw her lips tremble for an instant. "You see, we're so far away from—from everything, and it seems that that if Walter and I could just start our lives with a really and truly marriage—oh, I know it is foolish—"

  This time Chet interrupted. "After all you have been through, and after the bravery you've shown, I think you are entitled to a little 'foolishness.' And you shall be married with as good a knot as any minister could tie: you see, that is one of the advantages of being a Master Pilot. My warrant permits me to perform a marriage service in any level above the surface of the Earth. A left-over from the time when ship's captains had the same right. And although we are grounded for keeps, if we are not above the surface of the Earth right now I don't know anything about altitudes. But," he added as if it were an afterthought, "my fee, although I hate to mention it, is five dollars."

  * * * * *

  Harkness gravely reached into the pocket of his ragged coat and brought out a wallet. He tendered a five dollar bill to Chet. "I think you're robbing me," he complained, "but that's what happens when there is no competition. And we'll start building a house to-morrow."

  "Will we?" Chet inquired. "Is this the best place? For my part I would feel safer if there were more miles between us and that pyramid. What was down in there, God knows. But there was something back of that hypnotized ape—something that knocked us for a crash landing with one look from those eyes."

  The night air was warm, where he lay before their huts, but a shiver of apprehension gripped him at the thought of a mysterious Something that was beyond the power of his imagination, and that was an enemy they would never want to face. Something inhuman in its cold brutality, yet superhuman too, if this mental force were an indication. A something different from anything the people of Earth had ever known, bestial and damnable!

  "I am with you on that," Harkness agreed, "but what about the ship? You have had your eye on it every day; do we want to go where we could not see it? If the gas cleared, if there was ever a season when the wind changed, think of what that would mean. Ammunition, food, supplies of all kinds, and the ship as a place of refuge, too, would be lost. No, we can't turn that over to Schwartzmann, Chet; we've got to stick around."

  "I still wish we were farther away," Chet acknowledged, "but you are right, Walt; we could never be satisfied a single day if we thought the ship could be reached. Then, too, Towahg seems to think this is O. K.

  "As near as I can learn from his sign language and a dozen words, this is about as good a spot as we can find. He says the ape-men never cross the big divide; something spooky about it I judged. However, we must remember this: the fact that Towahg came across shows that the rest of them would if they found it could be done."

  "That was why he led us so far while we waded up that stream," offered Diane. "Trailing Towahg would be like trying to follow the wake of an airship."

  "And I asked him about the red vampires that jumped us down by the ship," Chet continued. "He gave me the clear sign on that, too."

  * * * * *

  Diane was not anxious for more wanderings, as Chet could see. "There is game here," she suggested, "and the edge of the jungle is simply an orchard of fruit, as you know. And having a lake to bathe in is important—oh, I must not try to influence you. We must do what is best."

  "No," said Chet, "our own wishes don't count; the ship's the deciding factor. You had better build your house here, Walt. Happy Valley will be headquarters for the expedition; we've got a whale of a lot of country to explore. And, of course, we will slip back and check up on Schwartzmann; find out where he went to—"

  "Count me out;" Harkness interrupted; "count me out. You go and hunt trouble if you want to; Diane and I will have our hands full right here. Great heavens, man! We've got to learn to make clothes; and, by the way, that uniform you're wearing is no credit to your tailor. If we are to call this home, we must do better than the savages. I intend to find some bamboo, split it, make some troughs, and bring water down here from the spring. I've got to learn where Kreiss is getting his metal and find some soft enough to hammer into dishes. We can't call the department store by radiophone, you know, and have them shoot a bunch of stuff out by pneumatic tube."

  "That's all right," Chet mocked; "by the time you have built a house with only a stone ax in your tool kit, you'll think the rest of it is simple."

  * * * * *

  The barricade, or chevaux de frise as Chet insisted upon calling it, to show his deep study of the wars of earlier days, was built in the form of a U. The knoll itself sloped on one side directly to the water's edge: they had left that side open and carried their line of sharp stakes down to the water, that in the event of a siege they would not be conquered by thirst.

  On the highest point of the knoll, some few weeks later, a house was being built—a more pretentious structure, this, than the other little huts. The aerial roots that the white trees dropped from their high-flung branches were not impossible to cut with their crude implements; they made good building material for a house whose framework must be tied together with vines and tough roots. This would be the home of Harkness and Diane.

  The two had been insistent that this structure would be incomplete without a room for Chet, but the pilot only laughed at that suggestion. />
  "It's an old saying," he told them, "that one house isn't big enough for two families. I think the remark is as old as the institution of marriage, just about. And it's as true on the Dark Moon as it is on Earth. And, besides, I intend to build some bachelor apartments that will make this place of yours look pretty cheap, that is, if I ever find time. I am going to be pretty busy just roaming around this little world seeing what I can see. Even Herr Kreiss has got the wanderlust, you will notice."

  "He has been gone four days," said Diane. Her tone was frankly worried. Chet finished tying a sapling to a row of uprights and slid to the ground.

  * * * * *

  "Don't be alarmed about Kreiss," he reassured her. "He has been all-fired mysterious for the past several weeks. He's been working on something in that cave of his, and visitors have not been admitted. When he left he told me he would be gone for some time, and he looked at me like an owl when he said it: his mysterious secret was making his eyes pop out. He has a surprise up his sleeve."

  "Wedding present for Diane," Harkness suggested.

  "Well, he showed me some darn nice sapphires," Chet agreed. "Probably found some way to cut them and he's setting them in a bracelet of soft gold: that's my guess."

  "I wish he were here," Diane insisted.

  And Chet nodded across the clearing as he said fervently: "I wish I could get all my wishes as quickly as that. There he comes now with his bow in one hand and a bag of something in the other."

  The tall figure moved wearily across the open ground, but straightened and came briskly toward them as he drew near. He seemed more gaunt than usual, as if he had finished a long journey and had slept but little. But his eyes behind their heavy spectacles were big with pride.

  "You have—what do you Americans say?—'poked fun' at my helplessness in the forest," he told Chet. "And now see. Alone and without help I have made a great journey, a most important journey." He held up a bladder, translucent, filled with something palely green.