[Title here]

by Twin Worlds (epub)

  “We shall wait and see if they disappear and become invisible in the daytime,” Professor Jameson said. “We must know more about them.”

  They had not very long to wait for dawn, and soon after came daylight, yet sunlight lagged much longer due to the immense heights to which the mountain range penetrated. Dawn had first shown its fingers from the direction of the far-off canyon. The machine men watched the Eiuks closely with the coming of dawn. At the first lessening of darkness, a curious unrest became noticeable among the shining spheres. Looking down from positions far up on the side of a towering cliff, the machine men saw the entire assemblage of Eiuks commence to bob up and down. This strange motion became more pronounced until suddenly several out of each hundred or more commenced to rise slowly. With the increase of light, more of them followed in that majestic, stately rise which was so characteristic of them. Their brilliant glow became less noticeable as dawn merged into daylight, and they rose like slow bubbles in a heavy liquid.

  With the coming of daylight, an awesome panorama of terrifying splendor thurst itself upon the mechanical vision of the Zoromes. So high up were they that seemingly at the foot of the peaks lay the awful abyss dropping into the Land of Exhaustion. Like a tiny square below them lay the city of Ui, while all about in colossal grandeur rose the mighty peaks, visible far up beyond the atmosphere only where the unveiled sunlight glared dazzling from their towering pinnaces.

  Like burnished, bronze bubbles, the Eiuks rose in a steady stream ever skyward. They reached the level of the waiting Zoromes and still they continued to ascend, gaining momentum as the daylight waxed brighter.

  “Follow,” was Professor Jameson’s one thought.

  And the mechanical-winged Zoromes, releasing their holds and positions among the niches and narrow ledges of the precipices, followed the upward flight of the Eiuks. No longer were they the shining, glorious objects of nightfall. Daylight had outrivaled their nocturnal splendors, reducing them to the orange balls they appeared to be. The machine men kept close to the mountains; the Eiuks kept going straight up, not pausing to rest on the higher altitudes they were passing. Occasionally, below them, an Eiuk would cling with tentacles to either a rough bit of rock or sparse vegetation. The creatures were pulled as with an invisible hand toward their rising companions; the vegetation then came away and the clinging Eiuks shot up more rapidly then their fellows. One, clinging to a rock, sluggishly carried the rock up with him.

  “I have an idea,” said the professor.

  “What is it, 21MM392?” 6W-438 inquired.

  Chapter IV

  Shooting through the air, the professor headed straight among the Eiuks who sprang away from him a bit, yet never ceased their upward course. The professor interwove a curling tentacle among the numerous tentacles of an Eiuk. Quickly he seized another of the creatures and still another, clinging tightly to all three. Releasing his power of repulsion, he felt his dead weight hang on the struggling Eiuks. Their ascent slowed to a standstill; then they commenced to drop slowly. The professor took the opportunity to examine his three live captives and nowhere could he discover any methods of flight. He only saw that the many tentacles of the things seemed harder than those of the dead creatures the machine men had previously examined on coming to the city of Ui.

  The rest of the Zoromes circled among the rising multitudes of Eiuks, confident that there was no longer any danger of frightening them from seeking their habitual haunts. They seemed unable to resist a strange, compelling call which drew them ever upward.

  Slowly but steadily, the three Eiuks to which Professor Jameson resolutely clung dropped in reluctant descent. The machine man could feel and sense some power’ which attracted them from above. Then that for which he had looked occurred: in a blaze of glory, a penetrating beam of light shot out from between two peaks and grew broader and brighter as the sun burst into view. The professor realized a subtle change. Their drop became slower, and finally they barely moved. The first thing he knew they were rising again. A few laggard Eiuks shot past them to join the main van far above. Several machine men hovered in the vicinity of the professor, while the large number of Zoromes flew steadily upward with the Eiuks. The professor released one of the creatures, which shot like a plummet into the rarified atmosphere above. Still their ascent continued, yet noticeably checked. Releasing the remaining tentacles, Professor Jameson allowed the other two Eiuks to join their companion, while he dropped with the speed of a falling object. Checking his accelerating momentum with an application of his mechanical repeller wings, he rose with his metal companions.

  “I believe I have cleared up several conjectures in our minds,” he said.

  “I can anticipate your discoveries,” offered 6W-438. “The secret of the phenomenal rise of the Eiuks is due to daylight, sunlight especially.”

  “Exactly,” the professor agreed.

  “And their domain in the daytime is the highest reaches of the upper atmosphere, while at night they descend to lower levels. What power to you suppose daylight exerts upon them?”

  “I would say that it generates a gas within them which they cannot release fast enough in the daytime to remain on lower levels. At night, they have more control over it. This would allow them to descend to lower levels and raid the Uum. We shall see if they do not rise to the outer limits of the atmosphere much like an object lighter than water rises to the surface of an ocean.”

  The ascent of the Eiuks became modified, a goodly number of them failing to rise any more. The professor perceived multitudinous fields of the floating, orange globes far above, now at rest on the outskirts of the atmosphere. They could rise no further. From above the edge of the world to the great mountains, their uncountable legions stretched away into waning perspective. Above this galaxy of sentient Eiuks rose the machine men of Zor, the belated professor and his two companions joining them.

  “At night,” opined the professor, “these creatures will be generating less gas and will drop to lower levels.”

  “They probably feed on the mountainside,” 12W-62 suggested.

  “Or on the Uum when they descend that low,” 6W-438 added. “Why is it they do not come oftener to Ui? There are such countless numbers of them.”

  “It is possible,” advanced 41C-98, “that only during certain phases of their lives are they able to descend into such dense atmospheric depths, perhaps some physical condition being responsible for it.”

  “Even as the eels in the oceans of my Earth,” mused Professor Jameson, his mind bridging the interminable abyss of time.

  “All of which destroys any relationship between the Eiuks and the Oaos we may have theoretically established,” 744U-21 reminded his metal companions as they sped swiftly above the bobbing assemblage of sun-tinted spheres. “We have it on word of the Uum that the Oaos have been seen during the daytime. They have also befriended the Uum against the Ooaurs and Eiuks, if these tendencies can be accepted as entirely altruistic.”

  “I believe the existence of the Oaos to be a myth,” affirmed 41C-98. “With all the dangers that beset them, the Uum certainly need a mythical means of hope and moral support.”

  Such were the divided opinions of the machine men as they penetrated through the suspended ranks of the Eiuks and fell toward Ui in a series of long drops. Back in the walled city they told of their adventures above the stratosphere of the odd-shaped world, how they had found the lair of the shining globes and had solved the mystery of their nocturnal raids. Of the Oaos, however, they had learned nothing. In fact, they knew less about them, for their previous theories had become discarded in the light of the ensuing discoveries. The machine men of Zor tried to learn more about the Oaos from the Disci, but all they could obtain were repetitions of the few scanty details previously told to them.

  The next day, several Uum came running and gabbling to the city gate. They had come from the borders of the Land of Exhaustion where a large band of Ooaurs had been sighted. The brutes were heading for the world’s edge. In fact
, a swift glance from the walls of the city aroused consternation and alarm, for the Ooaurs were to be seen in the distance, coming over the rim.

  Machine men suspended repair work on their spaceship, which they had moved to a convenient location within the city walls. All Disci outside the city scurried for the safety of Ui where the huge gates were being hurriedly closed. Comrades were allowing them entrance through small openings which were hastily closed and barred once the Uum had gained sanctuary.

  In the distance, halfway between Ui and the rim of the world, a single Disci rolled madly along his endless row of feet like a whirling cartwheel. A mingled roar was emitted from the foraging Ooaurs, and several of them set after him with rapidly increasing speed. It was a desperate run for life, but the finish was soon apparent. The Ooaurs thundered along at a terrific gain, and 284D-167, the machine man who ran futilely to intercept the dreaded creatures, was far too late to be of any help.

  Ferociously, the howling, triumphant Ooaurs raced down upon their fleeing quarry in a cloud of dust which partly veiled the vicious and competitive tearing apart of the luckless victim even as the echo of his one piercing shriek rolled back from the massive walls of Ui. Four machine men on vantage points of the protecting wall dropped to the ground and ran to where 284D-167 was now becoming the central object of the approaching Ooaurs, who sensed still another easy victim. All five were unarmed. Of these, 5ZQ-35 sent back a mental admonition to the machine men within the walls.

  “Bring ray ejectors! Their numbers are many!”

  While three of the Ooaurs hastily bolted down the remains of the Uum they had so easily caught, at least six of the huge creatures descended in a rush upon 284D-167 who went down beneath their thrashing bodies before the arrival of his hurrying companions. Herculean appendages tugged and tore at his metal parts. In the heat of competition, the Ooaurs were slow to realize that something was materially wrong with this thing they had selected as their prey. Their sluggish minds became first of all surprised, and then they became irritated to exasperation.

  Meanwhile, a tentacle had twined itself about a shaggy leg, and under pressure the tortured Ooaur bellowed in threshing pain and rage, blindly belaboring his companions and tugging madly at the metal cube beneath them.

  It was at this moment that 5ZQ-35, 7H-88, 168P-75 and 8L-404 rushed to the aid of their fallen comrade. Coming to grips with the gigantic Ooaurs, the machine men realized that there they had no easy adversaries despite their own advantages. Moreover, several more Ooaurs were coming to join the fray in the hopes of obtaining a part of the kill, the rest sweeping on to the walled city.

  The combat of the five machine men and their huge adversaries resolved itself into a strange battle of pulling, hauling, squeezing and ineffective biting. 168P-75 and 5ZQ-35 each felt a tentacle pulled from their bodies, while a leg had been bent beneath 284D-167 in the general rush.

  Ooaurs were beating and yelling at the walls. Upon each others’ backs they climbed, gathering pyramids for ascent. Uum, terrified but resolute, patrolled the walls with long, sharp pikes, ready to stab at the leaping, climbing beasts that came close enough for them to reach. The Ooaurs fell back in howling anguish when stabbed, madly beating the walls with fisted paws. Their ability to leap nearly to the top of the wall was both surprising and appalling. One savage leap resulted in the seizing of a threatening pike, pulling its wielder off the wall and into the anticipatory grasp of several Ooaurs.

  These were the sights which met the eye of Professor Jameson and seventeen companions as they sprang up onto the wall with ray ejectors ready. The professor was never without his, for it was built into the extremity of a fore-tentacle. A burning bath sprayed the Ooaurs, quickly turning the raid into a rout. Dead and wounded fell thick beneath the walls before the great brutes realized their danger and fled. The Uum, never having killed an Ooaur or having seen a dead one, marveled at the efficacy of the ray ejectors. To them, the conquest of the Ooaurs was vastly more amazing than the deaths and frustration of the Eiuks. The shining spheres on their night visits evoked a different sort of terror, something akin to supernatural dread. The machine men were such strange and unworldly creatures that it had not seemed so surprising that they should have conquered the Eiuks, but the Ooaurs were more tangible and physically adaptable to their restricted imaginations. The Disci understood the Ooaurs more readily. To the Uum, darkness and mystery lent the Eiuks imaginative terrors.

  Most wonderful and more sensational to the sight of the Uum were the individual combats outside of the walls between the five machine men and their adversaries outside of the walls. Outnumbered two to one, crippled but unconquered, the indomitable Zoromes were emerging victorious. The ripping tattoo of metal feet and the crushing power of serpentine tentacles were telling a tale of mastery over flesh and brute strength. In maddened pain, the Ooaurs occasionally flung a machine man into the air and made good their retreat, but most of those who had entered the fight with the machine men were strangled to death, battered to shreds by metal feet or otherwise torn and lacerated into expiring heaps. 5ZQ-35 waged a difficult combat with only one tentacle left. Under the tremendous pressure exerted on his metal legs, 8L-404 could no longer walk; he could only crawl on his bent, lower appendages. But victory was soon theirs.

  In the distance, the escaping Ooaurs disappeared rapidly over the world’s edge into the Land of Exhaustion, more than a dozen Zoromes pursuing them with the searing, burning death. No time had been taken to don the mechanical wings, and the machine men found the Ooaurs well equal to their pace over the terrain. The machine men found they did not gain on the Ooaurs, but it was their desire to keep pushing them deeper into their usual stamping grounds in order to discourage a further attack upon the walled city of Ui.

  Straight into the Land of Exhaustion the machine men followed the retreat of the monsters. Occasionally one fell behind because of some injury sustained in the raid on the Uum. In such instances the laggards were quickly dispatched, and the machine men thrust further on in pursuit, passing the first fringes of vegetation and spreading out widely to prevent even a temporary pause of the Ooaurs.

  The professor found himself next to 27E-24, who represented the extreme left flank. The Zoromes had now spread so far apart that the professor was no longer in mental contact with the machine man on his right. With this realization, the professor notified 27E-24, and they both swung to the right, yet kept straight on in a slanting line which would bring them nearer the main body of Zoromes.

  27E-24 and the professor pushed their way through a sparsely verdured forestland, possibly a half mile or more from each other, when a mental cry arrested the forward progress of Professor Jameson.

  “21MM392! Ooaurs! They are attacking me!”

  It was 27E-24, and he had stumbled upon the vicious creatures.

  “Use your ray ejector!” The professor advised him. “I am coming!”

  “There are many of them―and 21MM392―they are not the ones we were pursuing! They are a different species of Ooaurs!”

  The professor ran rapidly in the direction of the fray where 27E-24 was being beset by a large body of the Ooaurs.

  “They are too many for me, 21MM392! They know no fear, although I have killed at least three of them and injured more! My ray ejector has been knocked out of my grasp, and they are upon me by weight of numbers!”

  Professor Jameson dodged in and out among the bushes and strange giant plants. He came in sight of the Ooaurs who had risen from the overwhelmed machine man and were pulling him away. 27E-24 struggled valiantly, but his burly captors were several times his own size, and he was surrounded, his tentacles held firmly and at a respectful distance from his lower limbs.

  Rushing upon them, the professor blazed away with his built-in heat ray. An Ooaur dropped before they were aware of his swift and silent arrival, but once they had seen him they were not slow to act. A quick glance showed him that fully thirty Ooaurs comprised the party, several of them straggling behind in what might have
been described as a haphazard rear guard. It was this latter division that wheeled upon him so swiftly and viciously.

  The professor knew he would be better off if he kept free from their dexterous clutches of brute strength, especially since they were so overwhelming in numbers; he eluded their charge, therefore, waving his heat ray at them and turning to aid 27E-24 in escaping the many-legged monsters. Simultaneously, 27E-24 put up a herculean struggle; this caused his captors much concern and discomfort but failed its purpose. Professor Jameson had reckoned without consideration of the amazing speed the Ooaurs were capable of exhibiting. While he sprang clear of the first charge, his heat ray burning death among the Ooaurs who held his metal comrade pinioned, the rest of the creatures raced down upon him. Before he knew it, the professor, too, was a prisoner, even though his heat ray had claimed four of the monsters. He continued to blaze a path of havoc among the lower appendages of the brutes until one of them, exerting the power of three mighty arms and snarling horribly, jerked the dangerous foretentacle away from the professor’s cube.

  Life was cheap here. The Ooaurs paid no attention to their fallen brethren, the dead being left where they had succumbed, the wounded and disabled limping off in the rear of the now triumphant savage company. The necessity that was mother to the act of tearing away the tentacle with its damaging heat rat awakened a sluggish inspiration in the stupid mind of the beast who had performed it. With much growling and chattering, accompanied by obvious pantomine, he finally made it clear to his fellows that they would experience a great deal less trouble and hazardous inconvenience were they to pull away all of the tentacles of the things they had captured.