“You are marvelous creatures,” was Kamunioleten’s admiring observation, “and I am truly thankful that of all systems in this vast universe you should pick this one to investigate at this particular time.”
“It is more of a coincidence that we should have picked this one spot on Selimemigre on which to land,” 6W-438 made mention, “though it is obvious that once in this system of worlds our attention would immediately be attracted by the twin worlds.”
The machine men filed into the castle over the long ramp, leaving six of the Zoromes to man the spaceship. 20R-654 had orders to float upon the surface of the ocean in the castle’s vicinity until the tide should have gone down.
“Come to the top of the castle,” offered the exile, as the last of the machine men stepped off the ramp. “From the topmost roof we shall see Dlasitap rise and pull the waters of Selimemigre so high that we shall no longer be able to see Dlasitap.”
Kamunioleten led the way to a broad, spiraled stairway which funneled its way to the topmost ramparts. And what a queer stairway the machine men found it to be. The professor had never seen its like before. All the stairways he had seen on the planet Earth had been a rising succession of steps. On Zor and its sister worlds, there had been no stairways. Sloping ways led from one level to another, much like the ramp on which they had walked into the castle, while the higher levels were always reached by mechanical means. This stairway, however, represented a seemingly haphazard, upward succession of blocks. Kamunioleten hopped up them nimbly, while the machine men picked their way carefully, lest they stumble along this unfamiliar path. It was a strange stairway, but a stairway to fit the mobile appendages of one like Kamunioleten to perfection.
On the way to the roof where Kamunioleten wished them to watch the inundation of the castle, they passed three or four levels. On one of these near the spiral stairway, they suddenly caught sight of one of the Vosquentabs. It was a slender creature standing, like Kamunioleten, on four legs, yet its body was long and slender, and its head was not so high nor as prominent a feature. The eyes were situated lower on the head, and, instead of being placed opposite each other; they were closer together. The mouth, though situated above the eyes, was not on top of the head, as in the case of Dlasitap’s inhabitants. The professor discovered in the Vosquentebs only a remote resemblance to their conquerors from the other world. Somewhere, in the remote past ages, there must have been some connection between the two species, for their body structures were not greatly dissimilar. An unintelligible talk was carried on between Kamunioleten and the Vosquenteb, the machine men sensing instructions given by the exile to the others.
Chapter III
In the exchange of enunciated syllables, the machine men observed that the Vosquenteb referred to the race of creatures from Dlasitap as Emites. Their syllables, coordinated with the accompanying thought impressions, referred to Kamunioleten in terms similar to “great Emite,” and in the minds of the Vosquentebs, as they later discovered, all of Kamunioleten’s species were classified as Emites.
The machine men, led by Kamunioleten, passed on upward to a flat roof of thin, stone slabs carefully cemented. Yet, when queried by the professor, Kamunioleten disproved the assumed supposition that the stonework was waterproof. The waterproofing was done on the inside, rather an intermediary layer of building material between the inner and outer walls.
When Zoromes and their host reached the square platform of the highest roof, they fairly crowded it. Dlasitap, now well above the horizon, climbed slowly toward its zenith, or, more correctly, the zenith of its rise represented by the island’s position on the surface of Selimemigre.
Kamunioleten pointed afar. “Look,” he said. “The tides are coming.”
And the tides were coming. Undulating waves rushed forward in the distance as upon a beach, yet they did not recede, the water level creeping ever nearer until the waves washed the base of the castle, swirling curiously about the spaceship of the Zoromes. More waves washed lazily about the castle, accompanied by a perceptible rise of the water level, as if subterranean aqueducts were quietly pouring their contents into the swelling ocean. As Dlasitap crept higher in the sky, the water came ever higher as if to meet it, which in itself was an actual truth.
“The highest tides are those with the sun behind Dlasitap,” said Kamunioleten, “yet this tide will inundate the castle completely, for it is always so.”
The water level rose rapidly now, the spaceship awash and bobbing about like a cork. The boundary where the gradually receding beach met the lapping waves hurried away iri the direction of the distant highlands. Like a sinking ship, the castle floundered deeper in water until the illusion would seem almost true were it not for the stabilizing sight of a hazy horizon of substantial ground. The water crept to the edge of the roof on which the Emite and the machine men stood. Kamunioleten looked longingly upon his home world rising in the sky above the far horizon formed by distant hills, but he roused himself suddenly.
“We must go below at once!” he urged them. “The castle will soon be completely submerged!”
On all sides, the rising ocean lapped the castle walls, while a little to one side towered the spaceship of Zor, floating and bobbing upon the watery expanse. The mellow glow of Dlasitap’s gibbous face yielded to one of more intense brightness as it rose higher in the sky. The machine men and Kamunioleten hurried into the little superstructure and down into the castle, two of the Vosquentebs closing the watertight door behind them. This was scarcely accomplished when a gentle ripple of water crept over the roof they had just quitted.
The professor, 744U-21 and Kamunioleten returned to the interior of the superstructure at the latter’s suggestion and gazed through the thick, transparent windows. Waves swirled above the castle, making the bright, gibbous face of Dlasitap seem indistinct and distorted, the twin world apparently dancing crazily about and changing its shape in quivering, shimmering movements. Blue sky yielded to gray translucence as Dlasitap became vague through the watery expanse overhead, gray deepening to dull green which grew steadily darker. The roving hemisphere of night was commencing to creep over that section of Selimemigre.
Kamunioleten gave what was equivalent to a sigh as the rising orb of Dlasitap grew indistinguishable through the surging, overwhelming flood. He led the way down into the castle once more, and behind him walked the two machine men. 744U-21 questioned the Emite concerning the lost ship of the five Administrators and its crew of three.
“And did you ever know what became of the lost projectile?”
“It is still traveling off into space at its initial rate of speed which it possessed when it left the attraction of Dlasitap, doubtless,” was Kamunioleten’s sad rejoinder. “Besides being aimed wrong, the projectile was given excess speed; otherwise it would have slowed to nearly zero beyond the attraction of Dlasitap. Eight bodies stiff and stark in death―yet maybe they are better off than I am; who knows? Yes, even as over seven years ago, the projectile and its passengers are still traveling through the endless space, headed for an endless destination.”
“Seven years?” 744U-21 echoed in query.
“Seven years,” and here Kamunioleten paused in thought. “Seven years and one hundred and six days, to be exact-that is, seven of Dlasitap’s years. You see, I have little else to do here in exile other than keeping track of such things, yet they brew morbid thoughts.”
“What difference is there in Dlasitap’s year from that of Selimemigre’s?” Professor Jameson inquired. “It must take both of the twin worlds the same length of time to circumnavigate their common orbit about the sun.”
“The difference is this,” the Emite explained. “Selimemigre turns faster upon its axis than does Dlasitap. Dlasitap’s year of one hundred and seventy-eight days has fewer days than has the year of the twin world. The day of Dlasitap is divided into eighteen whegs. It takes Selimemigre but eleven and five-sevenths whegs to make a full turn upon its axis; that is, estimated roughly. Of course, Dlasitap being the o
riginal home of our race, all calculations are based upon its unit of time.”
“Was there any estimate obtained concerning the speed of this lost projectile?” 744U-21 inquired curiously.
“Our astronomers lost sight of it long ago through their strongest glasses, and several years have passed since it dwindled from sight, but, from what word has been given me in my exile, I have learned that a nearly exact estimate of its speed was obtained. The ill-aimed projectile left Dlasitap’s gravitational attraction traveling at the rate of one thousand, three hundred and eighty-four borgs per wheg. There is no reason to believe that during the ensuing years this rate of speed has altered.”
“None indeed,” 744U-21 agreed.
“Unless a meteor impact should deflect the direction of flight, or change the speed,” the professor interpolated.
“Yes, that possibility does exist,” said Kamunioleten, though it seems remote.”
A long time the Emite and machine men remained in discussion, Kamunioleten sitting down at a broad table through weariness of physical structure from which the machine men were immune. They talked of the lost projectile in space, of space flight between the twin worlds, of Bemencanla’s perfidious treachery and of how best the machine men might reinstate Kamunioleten, for they had developed a genuine sympathy for the unfortunate exile.
Among other things, they came to conceive of Kamunioleten’s references to time and measurements. Reduced to Earthly terms, Professor Jameson learned that a borg measured 7.193 feet and some few inches; also that the day of Dlasitap divided into whegs equaled sixteen hours and forty-eight minutes, not measured to the exact second.
“The projectile traveled about two thousand, twenty-one of my Earth miles per hour,” was the professor’s final summation to 744U-21.
When the tides had receded, Kamunioleten once more opened the way leading out upon the roof. He and the machine men walked over the damp rock, where little pools of shallow water dotted the concavities. Both the sun and Dlasitap had gone to rest, the latter recently set, a luminous patch of sky marking its descent into the horizon. Kamunioleten pointed among the twinkling stars to a glimmering point of light near the zenith; then he designated another star barely distinguishable to the naked eye, not far from the first.
“Astronomers of Dlasitap could give you more accurate information of a nature better simplified than my own,” he told them, “but exactly forty-seven and six-eighths of the distance from that brightest star on a straight line to that faint one is the direction taken by the lost projectile. With the naked eye alone, I am told, it is the best way of computation.”
The machine men were fully agreed upon helping Kamunioleten in his misfortunes, and they were anxious to see the nearby world of Dlasitap and its civilization. 744U-21 was for an immediate embarkation with Kamunioleten in the spaceship of the Zoromes to Dlasitap, proclaiming the duplicity of Bemencanla and his minions with the return of Kamunioleten to his proper status once more.
At this vision conjured in the forceful mind of the machine man, a glow of enlivened hope shone in the eyes of the Emite, yet his countenance began to be troubled.
“No, that would not be the right way, at least not the best way,” he averred. “I not only want to win back my power, but the faith of the people as well. Too firmly has my supposed treachery been intrenched in the minds of the peoples of Dlasitap. I may thank Bemencanla for that. I would know what Owmitelverol thinks, if he lives, as well as my most loyal supporters, not to mention the general populace. I can return better prepared, if I know the situation that exists on Dlasitap and how the people take to the rule of Bemencanla and his officials.”
“And you want us first of all to go to Dlasitap and find out these things?” Professor Jameson anticipated for the Emite.
“Yes. Then you can return and tell me, after which we shall know best what to do.”
They returned to the ground level. Once more the tides were receding, and the spaceship of the Zoromes rested on dry ground close to the castle. One of the Vosquentebs had opened a way to the west ground surrounding the castle, and the machine men were walking about examining various forms of sea life left by the receding waters, many of these aquatic species struggling valiantly to return to the green depths which had so magically rolled away upon the horizon, a horizon which Professor Jameson had observed as less distant than upon worlds the size of, or larger than, his Earth.
Near the ground level, the professor and 744U-21 found two of the Vosquentebs bailing water from a lower portion of the castle, bringing it up to the ground level in large buckets and pouring it outside where it trickled into rivulets and pools.
“What are they doing?” the professor asked.
“There is a leak below the ground level of the castle,” Kamunioleten explained. “Of late, it has grown worse. Within the past few days, we have found it necessary to empty the lower keep of water. I spoke about this leak the last time I was visited by the supply ship which sails here on the high tide every eleventh day. It will come again, soon, and on it I expect suitable repairs for this growing leak.”
* * *
The machine men returned to the spaceship and held a consultation. It was decided that Kamunioleten’s advice concerning a more complete knowledge of the present situation on Dlasitap should be adopted as a plan of action. Professor Jameson thought it well for a few of the machine men to stay with Kamunioleten until the rest returned, if for no better reason than to keep him company, as well as to aid the Vosquentebs in keeping the lower regions of the castle dry after high tide. Kamunioleten was delighted to learn of this turn of affairs, especially when he learned that the professor and seven more of the machine men were going to stay at the castle with him while 744U-21 and the rest were crossing space to Dlasitap.
Once more the waters rolled up over the castle, burying it in the green, translucent depths where finny denizens of the deep ogled curiously at the moving forms in the castle seen dimly through stalwart, transparent windows. At low tide, the spaceship of Zor rose into the sky and headed for Dlasitap, leaving behind on the island the professor and seven metal companions, of these, there were 6W-438, one of the professor’s closest associates on his cosmic adventures, and 5ZQ-35, once on Triped on the planet of the double sun and known as Glrg, both of them from the old expedition. Then there were 777Y-46, 19K-59, 8L-404, 65G-849 and 948D-21.
Days passed uneventfully. There always came the inevitable tide on its restless journeying, regularly enveloping the castle as Dlasitap towered above the horizon and went through its various phases in relation to its twin world and the sun. The sun rose and set, and when the sun lay high in the sky with Dlasitap, the tides were higher, as was evidenced by the increased pressure. No better gauge of the pressure was needed than the leak in the cellar of the castle. As Dlasitap reached its zenith, and the waters buried the castle at its deepest, there spurted from the ruptured masonry a strong parobola of water.
As Kamunioletan had said, the leak was steadily growing worse. The machine men helped the Vosquentebs bail the water out of the lower level of the castle to keep the ground level dry. In fact, had it not been for the machine men, the Vosquentebs could never have bailed out all the water before the next tide rose. But as the professor pointed out, the worst Kamunioleten might expect from the leak would be a flooding of the ground level during the high tide, and this might easily be disposed of by opening the sealed doorways and letting it run out at low tide. In that case, it would be necessary to retire to one of the upper floors. Kamunioleten received this reassurance philosophically, yet with an uneasy bit of pessimism.
“So it might be if the leak in the wall grew no worse, yet daily it allows the entrance of more and more water. It is well that I soon expect the supply ship with the necessary repairs.”
Professor Jameson mentioned the probabilities of numerous eclipses due to the close position of the twin worlds, to which Kamunioleten made affirmative reply, asserting that the eclipses, though common, were unusu
ally impressive because of the sun being generally hidden entirely from sight, only its strong rays visible in a halo of atmosphere surrounding the opposite world. Eclipses were rarely seen from the castle, he told the machine men, because they usually occurred when Dlasitap was hidden from sight by the towering waters.
The supply ship which the Emite had been expecting came one day. As those upon it were more or less in the employ of Bemencanla, Kamunioleten thought it better that the machine men remain hidden and see, in the minds of those who came, as much as it was possible to ascertain. So from their vantage points the machine men saw the great, flat, steam-driven boat settled slowly with the tide and finally come to rest on the island not far from the castle.
The boat was manned with Vosquentebs as well as Emites. Many of the latter left the boat and came to the castle, Kamunioleten having already let down the long ramp to the main entrance. The Emites entered, and the machine men sensed much conversation between them and Kamunioleten. Later, both Emites and Vosquentebs were busy bearing large boxes and other supplies from the drydocked ship to the castle. Then came the high tide once more, rising slowly at first from out of the distance, then gaining proportions quite rapidly until the supply ship floated far above the sunken castle.
During the interim, the Emites from the boat repaired the break in the cellar of the castle, assuring Kamunioleten that he had nothing more to fear from leakage. On the next low tide they regained their ship, to lie in wait for the next high tide. When the waters lowered again, with Dlasitap slowly sinking below the distant skyline of water, the boat was gone, nor could it be seen anywhere in the distance.
All during the stay of the visiting Emites and Vosquentebs, the eight Zoromes had remained in hiding. Now they came forth once more, finding Kamunioleten eager to discover what, if anything, the machine men with their keen mental faculties had learned from the visitors. Professor
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