[Title here]

by Twin Worlds (epub)

  Jameson summed up the consensus of the machine men in a declaration of warning:

  “Somehow or other, they do not mean well by you, Kamunioleten. As you yourself have said, Bemencanla would have you killed if he dared, yet for matters of state he must keep you in exile. From our position where we could not observe them, it was a bit more difficult for us to probe their thoughts, especially as they were not directed at us as are your thoughts. Also, their mental designs were a bit garbled and mixed to our susceptibilities. A malign regard is borne you, and these Emites aboard the supply ship are a party to it.”

  “Which is little more than to be expected,” Kamunioleten added, “for Bemencanla would see that no friends or sympathizers of mine were put in contact with me.”

  “Bemencanla fears you, then, in spite of your seemingly impotent position,” said 6W-438. “This fear of his is your chief danger, for, if it were possible, he would have you done away with.”

  Chapter IV

  The next high tide allayed any fears of Kamunioleten that the old leak would cause further bother, for the Vosquentebs reported that no water had leaked into the castle. Meanwhile, the machine men were expecting the return of the spaceship from Dlasitap. Regardless of the fact that 744U-21 had set no specific time for his return, the professor felt that by this time those aboard the spaceship must have discovered what information they believed would be valuable to the exile on Selimemigre.

  Yet each lowering tide showed no return of the spaceship. The machine men commenced to suggest various possibilities.

  “Do you imagine that some mishap could have overtaken the spaceship?” 948D-21 offered.

  To this there was no direct reply, and the fearful speculations continued. Yet it was 6W-438 who spread a bit of optimism upon the subject.

  “They may have found something which calls for a longer stay than they had previously anticipated.”

  “Those aboard the spaceship may have forgotten the exact position of this island,” was 19K-59’s hopeful contribution to the general conjecture.

  “We can only wait and be patient,” Professor Jameson stated. “I recollect that I had a seven hundred year wait once in a wrecked spaceship.”

  Kamunioleten stared aghast at the professor’s matter-of-fact revelation, an episode in the system of the double suns.

  “While I waited that long at the bottom of a broad ocean pit,” 6W-438 added.

  “You had the company of fourteen companions, while I was alone,” the professor reminisced.

  Kamunioleten was curious and intensely interested in the adventures of the machine men, and while they awaited the return of the spaceship they related to the Emite many wonderful things, what they had seen and events which they considered outstanding among their cosmic travels. Kamunioleten listened in awe and rapt attention.

  During the time Kamunioleten found it necessary to sleep, the eight machine men were left to their own devices. The three Vosquentebs they found to be true representatives of a humble, dull-witted species, and they afforded the Zoromes little diversity in the performance of their duties. Several times the machine men went on a small tours of the surrounding island both at low tide and at high tide. The Emite was greatly astonished to see them moving about under water from his vantage point inside the castle.”

  It was during one night at high tide that a startling occurrence broke the monotony of ceaseless waiting. Kamunioleten lay asleep, and the Vosquentebs were either asleep or otherwise occupied in the upper reaches of the castle. On all sides and above, the water lay deep and unfathomable to the eyesight. Silence had replaced the washing and swishing sounds made by the water rising about the castle, for now the isolated pile lay buried in the green depths of the sea. The eight machine men were gathered on a middle level of the castle in preoccupation and idle conjecture as to what at that moment might be happening to those who had left in the spaceship. A gurgling, washing noise of water came to their mechanical senses of hearing.

  “What?” exclaimed 8L-404. “Is the tide commencing to drop so soon?”

  “It doesn’t seem early enough for it,” said 777Y-46.

  “Nor would I say that it was,” 6W-438 observed, peering through a transparent square of the castle’s outer wall into the black water. “But it is night outside, and the varying periods and heights of the tide in relation to the positions of Dlasitap and the sun still have me confused.”

  The faint sound of water persisted. It was not unlike the sound it usually made against the castle when the tides were rising or falling. 65G-849 walked out of the chamber to the stairway which spiraled up through the castle. He looked down, listening.

  “The water we hear is inside, not outside, the castle!” came his electrifying announcement.

  “The leak!” 6W-438 exclaimed. “The water pressure has reopened the breach!”

  “Awaken Kamunioleten!” Professor Jameson told them as he and 6W-438 clattered down the eccentrically arranged steps of the spiral stairway.

  Now the noise of bubbling, lapping water grew louder. It was caused by a formation of the ceiling on the lower floor where air first became trapped and then was forced out again under increased pressure, as more water flooded the gap.

  “This is bad!” the professor foreboded. “The leak is much worse than before!”

  “We must see if it can be stopped!” was 6W-438’s hurried decision as he plunged into the rising water which surged up the stairway.

  The threatening flood enveloped them as they continued on down the submerged stairs and into the cellar level. Darkness, as well as water, buried them in its mysterious folds, so that they had recourse to their body lights. Guided by the subdued beams through the murk of the flooding menace, they groped their way to where, not so many tides gone by, the visiting Emites had repaired the leak. What they saw put in their minds a common thought. Moreover, they recognized the futility of trying to stem the inrush of waters. It was only a question of time until the flood would prove a grave menace to Kamunioleten and his three Vosquentebs.

  The two machine men made their way back to the stairway where lights other than their own waved at them. 19K-59, 5ZQ-35 and 948D-21 had come to meet them. All five machine men hurried up the stairs and out of the rising flood. Professor Jameson noticed that the water had risen alarmingly since he and 6W-438 had descended.

  In the minds of both Zoromes lay a common conviction: this reoccurrence of the leak had been a set design rather than accident or carelessness of the Emites who had supposedly repaired it. The insidious influence and fear of Bemencanla was clearly revealed. This was evidently of his doing. As they rushed into the upper reaches of the castle, the professor told the startled and frightened Kamunioleten as much.

  “It is a design on your life and those of your servitors, an arranged accident! The waters are rising fast to drown every breathing creature in the castle!”

  “The leak has been enlarged!” cried 6W-438. “We found it packed with material which would wear away slowly through action of the water! Tonight it burst!”

  The color had drained from the exile’s face. The Vosquentebs, aroused and excited, piped in shrill nervousness and terror.

  “I had thought myself more secure!” the Emite exclaimed. “Is there no escape?”

  “We must climb to the highest position in the castle,” was Professor Jameson’s advice, “and hope that the flood will not reach there before the tide descends.”

  “We must turn off the air vents which force out old air during high tide!” cried Kamunioleten. “Then the water can only rise to a height where air pressure will be equalized with that of the water pressure!”

  Immediately, one of the machine men sprang to the task.

  “There will be no bad effects to your respiratory system, I hope,” 6W-438 reminded the Emite.

  “We can change the air when the tide descends.”

  Higher rose the water in the castle, compressing the air in the upper chambers, which remained unflooded. The tide reached
its maximum height, leaving only the top floor of the sunken castle unflooded. From then on the water receded as the tide fell and released its tremendous pressure. The professor said nothing to Kamunioleten on the matter, but he feared what the results might entail to the Emite after being subjected to so great an air pressure. Well did he realize how bubbles might be formed in the Emite’s blood from too rapid a reduction of atmospheric compression.

  The tide dropped slowly, and the compression became less. Finally, the level fell below the apex of the stone structure, and the pressure rapidly reached normal once more. The water flowed out of the castle as it had flowed in, and now an ingress of purified air was allowed.

  Misgivings assailed the professor as one of the Vosquentebs crumpled into a heap and rolled in agony on the floor, his limbs bent and constructed.

  “He, like you and your other servitors, was released from the air compression too soon,” Kamunioleten was told briefly. “You may suffer from it yet.”

  There seemed little under the circumstances that could be done for the Vosquenteb. They could only wait. In the meantime, Kamunioleten complained of dizziness and sharp pains in his head. He sat down and was seized with a strange, shivering spell.

  “It is a common ailment which I recollect in my past life on the planet Earth as afflicting deep-sea divers who came to the surface too soon and divested themsevles of their diving apparatus,” the professor related. “Kamunioleten and his servitors have nothing to fear unless their peculiarities of structure differ sufficiently from the human organism I once knew, so that their death from this source may be more easily contracted.”

  The Emite now complained of excruciating pains, especially in his joints. One Vosquenteb was affected badly, while the other two were afflicted to a lesser degree than their fellow, who rolled on the floor gasping at the sharp pains.

  “Is―is it dangerous?” flashed Kamunioleten fearfully. “Is there a chance of death from this?”

  “You must leave the castle before the next high tide,” the professor told him. “It is probable that you will emerge from this little the worse for wear other than a temporary weakness, but too many repetitions will prove fatal.”

  “Leave the castle!” the Emite cried in bewilderment. “Where? Your spaceship is absent―and there is nothing here with which to make a raft; thank Bemencanla for that! And a raft would be scarcely seaworthy, for at highest tide the waves are generally vicious!”

  “We must reach the higher end of the island,” 6W-438 stated.

  “The tides will never let us do it,” Kamunioleten replied wearily as a sudden wave of sharp pain racked his body and passed. “The distance is too far to be made between ebb and flow.”

  “It is your only chance if you would live,” said the professor. “I can truthfully tell you that a few more such experiences as this one will be the death of you.”

  “I can truly believe it!” the Emite exclaimed as he gripped his body at another spasm. “But I can never make it to the other end of the island, even were I feeling in the best of shape, which I am not.”

  The sorely afflicted Vosquenteb was still lying on the floor but was now more quiet. He groaned occasionally, but it was evident that the more evil effects of the too rapid decompression were wearing off. His companions, too, were a sickly pair, but not as bad as he, for they had not labored during the compression so intensively.

  “The time to act is soon,” the professor warned the Emite. “The waters are lowering.”

  “Soon the ground will be dry,” 5ZQ-35 added.

  “The next tide will soon return, too,” Kamunioleten countered gloomily. “Death either way, stay or go, but I would rather die drowning than stay here for another period, or several more periods, of compression and expire in such agony as this.”

  “The spaceship may return soon,” said 19K-59, “yet it seems a poor chance upon which to gamble.”

  “We shall carry you at our swiftest pace,” the professor assured the Emite and his three companions.

  Kamunioleten considered this hopefullly, while his three satellites did not think much on the matter at all, but more on their present discomfort and woe, ready to do almost anything that Kamunioleten bade them, especially if it were to escape the horrors occasioned by the leak in the castle.

  Once more the machine men plunged into the watery depths under the castle to ascertain for a certainty that there was no possibility of repairing the leak. Such a course appeared useless. As the water flowed away from the base of the castle, the professor rapidly made his plans. Of the eight machine men, three were to remain at the castle until the spaceship returned or until the professor and his four companions returned from the upper end of the island; 948D-21, 65G-849 and 777Y-46 were detailed to remain at the castle.

  Immediately, knowing that time and speed were precious, the professor and his four machine men set out for the higher end of the island at a rapid pace, carrying the three Vosquentebs and Kamunioleten. One of the Vosquentebs claimed that he could run as fast as the machine men carrying his companions, but with foresight the professor wisely bade him conserve his energies.

  Over the island’s perceptibly sloping surface, the machine men carried the four creatures of the twin worlds. They knew no exhaustion―only a ceaseless, mechanical toil of metal parts under the direction of an organic brain, a brain whose every need was supplied by synthetic application of material housed in the cone-shaped heads.

  They were glad to find an even and unobstructed terrain, being able to thank the leveling effects of the perennial tides for this. Farther away from the vicinity of the castle, after they had traveled what Kamunioleten told them was nearly half the distance to the high tide mark, they commenced to notice small vegetable growths and a strange kind of moss growing, luxuriant and plentiful.

  On they went, finding the footing in certain spots none too certain, for at this level queer little animals lived an amphibious life in the succession of ebb and flow tides, digging burrows in the ground, many of these holes being partly concealed by moss and other vegetable growths. Several times the hurrying machine men stepped in these and occasioned rough falls for their organic riders. Kamunioleten stated, however, that this uncertain progress would extend for little more than a borg, for the little water animals lived at only a certain depths of attained pressure. It seemed that their burrows remained partly filled with water at low tide, and several of the amphibians scurried out of sight from the rapid advance of the machine men and their riders, diving into their burrows from which a splash of water geysered as they disappeared from sight.

  The five machine men had passed this region of the treacherous burrows when Kamunioleten gave a startled exclamation and pointed off into the distance ahead of them and to their right. A round, curved slice of pale brilliance lay upon the horizon and was slowly gaining volume.

  “Dlasitap!”

  The discovery caused the machine men to redouble their efforts, for they had no longer the fear of stepping into the numerous holes of the amphibians. Always, one of them remained unburdened to proceed some distance ahead and pick out the best course in the general direction of the highlands. Dlasitap was commencing to rise, and machine men, Emite and Vosquentebs all realized what this meant. There is no large loss without some small gain, and Professor Jameson became well aware of this proverbial truth as he realized that a much straighter course might now be adhered to in their race against time and tide, for the sun was nearly overhead by now and of less use in the matter of calculated direction.

  Kamunioleten bewailed the fact that there was still a long distance to be covered. Far behind them they knew that the ocean level was commencing ro rise, that it would not be long before smooth, racing rollers skimmed along beneath their hurrying metal feet. The skyline now cut Dlasitap through the center, and the planet rose higher until it hung like a gigantic crescent over the thin-hazed highlands in the distance, its proportions conjuringly enhanced by the magical perspective of far-away hills. Pale
and inconspicuous against the sky, other than to the anxious fugitives who fled against its ominous ascension, Dlasitap rose steadily higher like the point of an otherwise invisible minute hand of a clock, rising to a zenith of doom.

  So it appeared to the Emite and the Vosquentebs. There existed no personal danger to the nigh invincible machine men, yet it sore beset them to lose their four charges on a matter of two points: a growing comradeship was primarily involved; and the machine men abhorred the prospects of failure, especially in so vital an issue as one of life and death.

  Chapter V

  It was one of the Vosquentebs who first gave rise to a shrill cry of alarm. Looking backward, the creature raised a limb and pointed to the rear. Far behind, a barely perceptible line of varying color grew denser and more distinguishable, as all three of the Vosquentebs echoed the first alarm, setting up a weird din of cacophonic woe.

  “The tide is overtaking us!” was Kamunioleten’s nervous information.

  From his position where he clung tightly to the cone-shaped head of 5ZQ-35, the Emite gazed at the rapidly approaching waters and then at the rising hills, within sight yet still dangerously distant.

  The professor now found the terrain rougher, here and there rock formations commencing to crop out of the ground. The first roll of waters broke against the machine men’s metal bodies in a much higher wave than they had expected. The professor changed their course slightly to one side and headed for a sloping ridge of rock.

  “It will not be high enough,” Kamunioleten warned. “There is no high water mark upon it.”

  “That is so,” the professor agreed, “but it is sufficiently long so that if we get it behind us, the force of the rollers will be broken and progress made easier.”

  This the machine men found to be true, yet the professor pondered over the wisdom of it after all, for in so doing they had lost a bit of precious distance, and an elongated depression lay for a considerable distance beyond the ridge, so that the machine men wallowed and splashed in deeper water than would have been the case had they held adamantly to their original course. But they soon splashed their way out of the hollow, yet to no degree did they find themselves once more in shallow water. The tide was rising much too swiftly, and Dlasitap lay far above the horizon. It behoved the machine men to know that although the castle they had left was many miles behind, and now beneath the horizon, the main rises in altitude lay within the last few borgs they were traveling. Only lately had the upward slope become distinctly noticeable.