[Title here]

by Twin Worlds (epub)

  “The cave-in evidently occurred long after the stream became extinct,” said 6W-438, “for the condition of the fallen ceiling debris does not correspond with the great age of the geological markings made on the walls of this channel by the rushing waters.”

  “And here is something to lend fact to your theory, 6W-438,” the professor remarked, pointing to several small white objects clustered and half buried amid the fallen rock.

  “These also give some credence to the superstitions of the Uum.”

  6W-438 picked up one of the white objects, which crumbled to dust in his tentacles.

  “Once these were bones.”

  “What would you say as to their age?”

  “That is a matter for conjecture. A great deal depends upon the atmosphere and climatic conditions on this world, especially in this section; also the conditions in this tunnel, 21MM392.”

  “I would venture several thousand of my Earthly years,” said the professor.

  “Then there is something to the legend of the Uum after all?”

  “Concerning the destroyed people, yes. The bones prove, or at least suggest, that, but as to the menacing spirits of these dead I believe the Uum have elaborated somewhat.”

  “There is nothing to do but for us to return,” said 6W-438. “We have seen what there was to be found.”

  The machine men retraced their way, and on quitting the cavern and entering the walled city they found that 744U-21 and his flying Zoromes had not yet flown down from the mountain peaks. They returned that night, reporting that nothing could be found of the Eiuks, but endless ranges to either side of the great valley beyond the nearer peaks might easily hide them. They had searched the mountains closely all day, and with the dropping of the sun beyond the world’s edge they had returned.

  The Uum were not surprised to see the professor and his seven metal companions emerge safely from the dreaded cavern, nor were they surprised when they were informed that it was a long tunnel which came to an end several miles into the heart of the mountain. When told of the bones, their beliefs became firmer than ever that malign spirits occupied the tunnel, although the machine men attested to the absence of the latter.

  744U-21 and those who had flown aloft equipped with mechanical wings and temperature equalizers told of rugged peaks rising high above the atmosphere. From their lofty summits, the machine men had looked down into the endless ocean of atmosphere and gazed off into the abyss beyond the “hill,” so called by the Disci. From the snow line to the rocky ramparts on the borderline of space and air, no living thing had they seen, the landscape as lonely and desolate as that upthrust beyond the ocean of air.

  With the sinking of the sun into the haze off the edge of the planet fragment, the Disci composed themselves for another night’s rest. Since the coming of the machine men, their nights had been peaceful ones. None of the Eiuks had returned following their disastrous clash with the Zoromes, but according to the Disci the raiders from above came only at sporadic intervals.

  The next day, the machine men turned their attention to the Land of Exhaustion where lived the frightful Ooaurs of Uum description. It was decided that the spaceship would accompany a party of Zoromes on foot, flying above to insure them against danger from the unexpected.

  Chapter III

  With eighteen comrades, Professor Jameson marched in the direction of the world’s edge. A bit of eagerness for the moment when he should step off possessed him. He knew he would not fall four thousand miles down the sheer side of the great fragment off into a sea of atmosphere and out into space, yet on approach there seemed to him the prospective illusion of doing so.

  The spaceship sailing some hundred feet or more above them neared the rim. Behind the Zoromes, a multitude of the Uum shrilled and squeaked excitedly. Though he knew better, the professor almost expected to stand on the edge of a dizzying depth of precipice, yielding himself momentarily to the illusion. Instead, there came a subtle change as he walked to the divide. It was difficult to explain. It was as if he had walked up a hill without the necessity of exertion or without the consciousness of incline. It almost seemed as if the ground had slowly risen with him as he had walked. There he stood―on the top of the hill. Down one endless slope lay the Land of Exhaustion, while from the direction of the gigantic mountain peaks towering nearly overhead the remainder of the machine men and the Disci walked up the hill to join him. Belying the mistaken impression of the nearby mountains, the dwindled walls of Ui lay far behind them like a toy setting of gnome land.

  Fearfully, the Uum peered down into the Land of Exhaustion, chattering in awed accents of the fearsome creatures who came out of this territory to pound at the strong walls of Ui and menace their lives.

  The spaceship was a half mile ahead of them over a distant fringe of verdure. Professor Jameson and his metal companions started into the Land of Exhaustion, heading to where the spaceship cruised slowly. At first they noticed no difference from their progress made on the other side of the rim, but as they neared the vicinity of the circling ship a subtle change forced itself upon their consciousness. They were becoming heavy-footed. As if on a denser planet, the machine men merely expanded a bit more energy and tramped onward, soon disregarding this increase of gravity after their interior adjustment of energy release. But with the Uum who dared to follow, lagging feet commenced to manifest their inability to proceed faster.

  This may have been partly mental, for the Uum knew that slower procedure would conserve their forces longer just as the mountain climber disdains to rush furiously up the slope. The Uum were occasionally mountain climbers, yet the machine men found that the altitude gained had been pitifully small, especially as compared with the enormous heights of the looming peaks. In the mountains, the cold grew successively for each high ascent, and this, coupled with the hopelessness of ever attaining the frowning, impregnable heights, discouraged the Disci from ever discovering what lay up there, much less what lay beyond.

  They were an imprisoned people, hemmed in by mountains which spread away interminably in one direction, while in the distance the mountains first paralleled, then converged with and entered the Land of Exhaustion. In but one direction did the Uum possess free access, and the machine men were already aware that in this direction deep, rugged canyons cut from the mountains into the Land of Exhaustion, and this latter country mockingly represented an avenue of death. If the Ooaurs did not get them, exhaustion did. Thus, the intrepidity displayed by those who followed the machine men into the forbidden land can well be appreciated. They straggled far in the rear of the metal vanguard, often stopping to rest, though this latter respite was scarcely the relaxation they might have expected on their own soil.

  At the spot amid some denser vegetation where the spaceship had designated something worth investigating, the machine men found several mounds of white bones, large bones which suggested gargantuan creatures.

  “Ooaurs!”

  “Presumably. They probably died in combat. The Uum claim that they fight with each other quite often.”

  “I would say that they were of varying species by the contrasting sizes and formations of their bones.”

  While the machine men wandered over a large extent of territory, the Uum who had accompanied them turned back to their own land, arriving there tired out. A few of them had difficulty in returning and gained the divide only through the help of fresh companions, waiting at the rim ready to rush forth and help them back again.

  The machine men found none of the Ooaurs. In fact, had it not been for the bones, they might have doubted their existence at all, regarding them as figments of Uum imagination, which they were coming to look upon as rather prolific. It was at the suggestion of 12W-62 that they all took to the spaceship.

  On the thus possible deeper penetration into this region of greater gravity, they found living specimens of the Ooaurs quite distant from the rim, all of which was well for the Uum. The machine men found variegated and contrasting species, which the Uum
evidently classified under a single indiscriminatory title. The Ooaurs were of a quasi-bestial type, showing a very low form of intelligence. Mostly, they were gigantic, towering fully three times as high as the machine men. Their general characteristic, like the Disci, was having many feet, one species boasting of as many as ten. Unlike the Uum, however, they were permanently stabilized, probably because they possessed anterior heads. They lived for the most part in the forests and brush. The machine men did not land, but from on high they occasionally distinguished evidence purporting the exestence of rudely constructed platforms in the trees, or hovels close to the ground. They did not live separately but clanned together in tribes.

  Their bodies were lean and angular, yet nonetheless suggestive of brute strength. Four jointed arms ended in barbed claws at the extremities of long, supple fingers. Hideous, wolfish faces were partly obscured by long, unkempt hair which also crept halfway down their backs in a bristling mane. There were variations of the species. Many possessed less appendages than the others, not able to cover ground so swiftly as did their cousins with more legs. One Ooaur tribe possessed little difference between upper and lower limbs except when they stood erect. Coloring, size, occasional absence of the hairy cape and other details varied to set off peculiar types. The separate communities often conducted wholesale battles. In fact, there were ocasional brawls in a single village, which, when considered, was not surprising.

  When the spaceship dropped low, the Ooaurs generally welcomed this closer investigation with raucous, bellowing challenges and fearsome gesticulations. At no time did any species seem frightened of the spaceship. The Zoromes disregarded them beyond a cursory examination and sailed on to some other community. At one time, they were on hand to witness a combat between two parties of contrasting Ooaurs. Both sides fought fiercely and without quarter until those surviving represented only one faction. Out of the carnage, the victors ate of their vanquished enemy, slung the remainder across their backs and returned to their village. Their own dead they left behind untouched and unburied.

  “Pleasant creatures,” 6W-438 observed. “No wonder the Uum have built such a high wall about Ui.”

  On the cruise back to Ui, the machine men noticed a difference of vegetation from that which they had previously seen at right angles to the Land of Exhaustion. Upon the planetary side of greater gravity similar species varied in growth, showing the altering tendency of gravity, while specimens of plant life seen in the neighborhood of Ui were not to be found at all on that side of the rim.

  A tribe of Ooaurs tried to follow the course of the spaceship along the ground but were soon lost from view, and no more of the formidable brutes were seen on the way back to the rim.

  Several days passed, and the machine men learned more about the Uum and the vicinity in which they resided. Once, there had been many small communities of the Uum, but the raids of the Eiuks and Ooaurs, so legend had told them, had reduced the Disci to their present numbers and forced them to seek the refuge of a strong, central city. The wandering Zoromes found the remnants of old villages scattered along the world’s rim. Running in one direction, the rim merged into the great mountains which flung their lofty parapets over the edge of the huge fragment, while in the other direction the rim became less sharply defined, the edge rounded, flattened and serrated with canyons. At this point it was difficult to define one’s position as on either side of the world. In comparison to the enormous bulk of the planet, this tiny facet represented nearly a hundred miles of uncertainty to the wanderer upon its surface. Strangest of all was the river which flowed over the edge of the world. The machine men discovered this beyond the region of the canyons, a river inaccessible to the Uum. The main difference evidenced by its change of location after flowing over the rim into the Land of Exhaustion was the deeper channel it dug, although the depth of water was no more or less, generally. Floating objects possessed less buoyancy too.

  The machine men had looked for the Euiks and the Oaos in vain, for they had not found the slightest evidence of them in their search among the mountains. Having witnessed startling proof of the Eiuks, they nevertheless still doubted the existence of the Oaos. The latter, it was understood, though resembling the Eiuks in spherical contour, seemed benevolently disposed to the Uum and were more rarely seen. Both comparison and contrast merged into one. The Uum possessed strange legends, the machine men already knew.

  Finally, the event for which they had waited so patiently and expectantly occurred. The glowing Eiuks descended one night upon a raid. A watch of the machine men first discovered them as tiny points of light sinking tranquilly, yet with sinister intent, like slowly detached stars from out of the studded heavens. The alarm was spread among the machine men who donned their mechanical wings in readiness.

  “Do not kill unless it is necessary,” the professor warned. “We must follow them back to their lair.”

  The city remained quiet, the Uum unaware of the creeping death from above. Only the machine men knew. There were more than twenty of the tentacled spheres this time, all white and glowing, ready for a raid upon the unsuspecting Disci. Patiently, twenty-three Zoromes waited until the shining globes were just above the city, slowing their descent. For rapid emergency, the machine men carried their deadly ray ejectors; the professor’s own weapon was ever ready, permanently installed in a foretentacle. When the first Eiuk dropped to a window the professor gave his signal, and into the horde of descending creatures the machine men swooped, circling the scintillating globes.

  Apparently unafraid, the Eiuks became only mildly surprised, perhaps momentarily disconcerted. Fearlessly, they sprang to attack this flying interruption of their intended feast. They were met with grinding coils of metal and deadly rays which matched their own peculiar brilliance, killing and maiming to right and left. So silent was the attack and its deadly counter thrust that the inhabitants of the city slept on, blissfully ignorant of the carnage so close above them. They might have remained unknowing until morning had not a falling Eiuk, its corpse devoid of all fiery life, struck the roof of a dwelling with considerable noise, arousing the inmates. Startled Disci ogled their huge eyes at the confused swarm of Eiuks, around which the flying Zoromes were twisting and turning in flight.

  A screech of alarm in turn aroused the sleeping Uum in the surrounding buildings until the din was such as it had been on that night when the machine men had first encountered the brilliant, spiny spheres from above. Let it be said, however, that in accordance with the immediate telepathic instructions of the circling Zoromes, the Disci did not emerge from their homes, and they kept the entrances closed.

  Baffled, defeated and reduced in numbers, the Eiuks abandoned their attack on the city of Ui and slowly rose into the sky. Those who still lived left the scene of their defeat like lifted lamps, unhurried and majestic, unhurried because the machine men did not feel prone to accelerate their departure, majestic because their flight was directly vertical like the ascent of a balloon in still air. Where more than twenty of the shining balls had dropped into the walled city, only eight glowing orbs ascended, and beneath these the machine men of Zor slowly rose in passive pursuit.

  “Where are they from?”

  Each Zorome pondered the question, and the suggestions were many.

  “The mountains.”

  “Above or below the atmosphere?”

  “Above―in space.”

  “What? On the frozen, desolate peaks where they cannot breathe?”

  “Why not?” 6W-438 asked. “Did not the creatures of the outer crust on the sunless world exist without respiration?”

  “But these things can only ascend where there is air upon which to ascend.”

  “That is more or less to be taken for granted,” the professor interposed. “We do not know for a certainty. Our mechanical wings are capable of carrying us into space.”

  “To be sure,” said 119M-5. “We carry repulsion charges, but what is their mode of ascent?”

  No one of them yet knew.
They could only resort to conjecture once more.

  “They live beyond the mountains.”

  “Then they possess acclimation and movement in space in order to cross over them.”

  “It is more likely that they live in the mountains below the air limit,” offered 6W-438. “There may be a defile somewhere, giving them access beyond the peaks, seeing that we have searched on this side of the range and have failed to find them.”

  The Eiuks rose in a straight line until air currents swept them closer to the towering mountains, yet they did not land but continued to rise. The machine men followed but made no manifestations of their pursuit. Whether or not the Eiuks possessed knowledge of their being followed the machine men did not know. What little intelligence the shining bodies held remained imperceptible to the mental prob-ings of the Zoromes.

  The drifting globes finally ceased to rise, floating along on a current of air straight for the dark, somber mountainside. They were far up in the rarified atmosphere. Approaching closer to the mountains, the machine men distinguished uncountable multitudes of the shining spheres either at rest on the ground or else slowly bobbing up and down like rubber balls under low gravitational attraction.

  “We searched this section of the mountains very carefully!” one of the machine men exclaimed. “Nowhere did we find even a trace of the Eiuks!”

  “They may not have been here at that time, especially if they are migratory,” 6W-438 ventured.

  “It is also possible that in daylight they are invisible,” Professor Jameson suggested.

  As far as they could see in every direction, the shining, animate globes dotted the mountains. The machine men soared far above in order to obtain a more composite view. There were literally millions of the things. Like the lights of a long, straggling city, they stretched away into the distance until black peaks and rugged escarpments blotted them from sight. One peculiarity, however, struck the machine men as significant. The Eiuks seemed generally confined to a definite strata of altitude. There were a scattered few who shone upon lower levels, but above the main, glowing band that stretched away over the rugged slopes, all was darkness. Below this darkness, the bobbing lights, fewer among their more stationary brethren, made a curious, changing pattern.