[Title here]

by Twin Worlds (epub)

  6W-438 felt the impact of many feet. The fire-dweller he held was being trampled to death. But what else was happening, he wondered? Where were his companions? Mentally, he grasped the fact that they were being driven backward toward the fiery cauldron. The fire-dwellers had planned well, yet their insignificant brains seemed devoid of such guile. More likely it was a mechanical instinct, something they had done many times before. The machine men had found it almost impossible to glean information from the minds of these inhabitants of the fire country.

  What might have happened to the machine men is problematical, yet it seemed almost inevitable. The machine men, now so close to the edge of the fiery furnace that they were aware of the terrific heat which surged up from below, were about to make another onslaught into the driving wall of fire-dwellers, ready to hurl themselves atop the living ranks, as had 41C-98, in an effort to gain less hopeless positions, when something happened. From above, a blast of power thundered into the close-packed multitude of fire-dwellers. Unnoticed by the desperate combatants below, a small dot had fallen rapidly from above to merge into a growing blot above the milling throng. The spaceship had come and unloosed a blast of destruction as it swooped past, 20R-654 unable to check the terrific momentum. The machine man might have checked the speed almost instantly, but the ship was not in free space; to have done so in the grip of gravity would have proved destructive to the occupants of the ship if not to the ship itself.

  Let it be said of the courage, obstinacy or sheer lack of realization on the part of the fire-dwellers, that this preliminary raking fire did not deter them in their fixed design. Many died and more were injured, yet on they surged. The machine men were near to the brink of flaming oblivion, and on came the fire-dwellers. The ship had plunged to the horizon in a terrific, sobbing burst of speed, playing a wailing, fantastic note in the air through which it raced. 20R-654 had the ship veering for a return to the smoking battlefield. Like a mighty, winged phoenix, the spaceship circled widely and returned.

  Professor Jameson and his metal companions could feel the terrific heat from beyond the crest to their rear. Smoke partly obscured what lay below, yet the wild, mental flash of 33F-65 had graphically portrayed for them a scene of hellish aspect more than a hundred feet at the bottom of a wide gulf. With 6W-438, 119M-5 and 8L-404, the professor found himself less than ten yards from the brink of this smoking hell. The ground, though hot, was cooler than the air, which would have proved instantly fatal to any organic creatures other than the fire-dwellers, and even they, the professor noticed, were a bit reluctant to pursue their quarry to the edge of the inferno, drawing back instinctively from the withering heat, yet forcing themselves onward through sheer vindictiveness and simple concentration of fixed purpose.

  The remaining machine men were mixed among the malignant creatures of the forward wall, fighting with the realization that the spaceship had come to their aid. Not all of the fire-dwellers were willing to brave the terrific heat which smote them so intensely at the edge of the inferno, so that it was no longer a compact wall which advanced upon the four Zoromes, whose companions were now the centers of mixed knots of fighting amid the more compact assemblage of brutes. At a mental instruction from the professor, the four Zoromes stood as if to brace themselves against the expected charge. The fire-dwellers were almost upon the machine men when the latter dodged, and more than half a dozen of the creatures plunged past unblocked, spending their gathered charge in a run and tumble which carried two of them to a flaming death, over the hot, rugged escarpment, into the blazing hell so far beneath. Lurid spray leaped up from the spots where their wildly twisting bodies had ended their long leap. A pall of smoke, swept by chance currents of air, veiled the bubbling, swirling grave of their instant cremations.

  As rapidly as they had dodged the charge of the burly fire-dwellers, just so quickly did the machine men follow up their advantage, leaping in upon the tough-skinned creatures and rolling, pushing or hurling them, as the circumstances might warrant, into the pit of fire where the glowing chaos reduced them to smoke and molten ash.

  But the fire-dwellers who made up the second and larger group to try to force the machine men off the precipice and into the raging conflagration had seen what ruse the four Zoromes had employed, and they had profited sufficiently to exercise caution. Facing the terrible heat, they came upon the four grouped machine men just as the spaceship returned and wailed past above, spreading another devastating path of death among the evil-tempered denizens of the volcanic country. Still unheedful of the havoc behind them, the fire-dwellers, nearly a dozen strong, threw their bulk upon the four Zoromes and pushed them to the edge of the vast cauldron. Desperately, the machine men gripped their foes. In a death grip, the professor wrestled with two fire-dwellers who were jointly attempting to perpetrate their hideous design. Step by step, they were forcing him backward. With sinking hope, he saw 8L-404 shaken loose from his hold and pushed over the brink of the chasm, the far side of which none of them had yet been able to perceive through the wandering vagaries of the smoke. 119M-5 rolled on the ground securely at grips with one of the fire-dwellers, while two more tried to pull the machine man away. 6W-438 had taken a hold on the first lumbering brute to close with him, turning deftly and pushing him over into the fate the other had meant for him.

  All this the professor saw as the two fire-dwellers half pushed, half lifted him to the edge of the flaming holocaust. He swung out over the smoke-veiled sea of fire, yet his hold was so secure as not to be shaken loose. The spaceship was circling above. 20R-654 had slackened the tremendous speed, and the artilleryman now picked off groups of the fire-dwellers where there would be least danger to the scattered machine men.

  With a desperate twist of his mechanical strength, Professor Jameson hurled one of his opponents to the ground, falling upon him, dragging the other with him. All three clung together tightly. One of the fire-dwellers, the one on the side away from the inferno below, saw the opportunity of rolling the machine man over the edge, disregarding the fact that his companion was well entangled in the metal tentacles. It may have been forgetfulness, or sacrifice occasioned by the alarming circumstances and the excitement, or it may have been because of the intense heat. No one ever knew. The crazed fire-dweller shoved both machine man and companion over the brink and into the smoke-filled hell beneath, but, as they rolled over, a desperate, grappling arm of the doomed fire-dweller chanced upon the leg of his companion, who was dragged after them, clawing and seizing frantically for pockets and projections where there was naught but slightly roughened rock. All three disappeared from sight.

  Meanwhile, the spaceship was taking wholesale toll of the fire-dwellers, forcing upon their sluggish sensibilities the realization that here lay only extermination and defeat. They finally recognized disaster in the circling hull overhead, and they strove to escape it. Fleeing in scattered directions, they sought the densest clouds of smoke, and those who remained in the open found burnt-out crevices in which to hide or else stopped suddenly quiet, their gray bodies merging harmoniously with the barren, desolate landscape and the scattered wisps of smoke.

  The machine men collected together beneath the protection of the spaceship overhead and quickly discovered the absence of Professor Jameson and 8L-404. In a body, they walked to the edge of the fiery pit where 6W-428 and 119M-5 had narrowly escaped being thrown to their doom over the precipice with 21MM392 and 8L-404.

  “Here was where they disappeared,” said 119M-5, once Zora of the Zoromes. “21MM392 took two of the fire-dwellers with him.”

  While they gazed over the brink, the smoke lifted, and scarcely thirty feet below they saw an inert fire-dweller stretched out upon a narrow, jutting ledge. Another of the dead brutes hung motionless, half over the edge. And then they saw a coned metal head, and a cry of glad recognition swelled up in their minds.

  “I am safe. Have the fire-dwellers gone?”

  It was 21MM392. He had apparently struck the ledge. Again the smoke obscured him,
but not before the machine men from above had noticed the crushed condition of the fire-dweller who lay in from the edge of the ledge. Before the machine men could make comment, the professor issued another startling and unexpected statement.

  “8L-404 is down here with me but is unconscious. He must have struck his head a bit. It is not damaged outwardly, however. One of the fire-dwellers broke my fall for me.”

  When the smoke lifted again, the professor stood alone upon the ledge. Evidently, he had thrown his late opponents to the molten jaws of the glowing fire pot. 8L-404 was propped out of sight against the receding wall of the precipice.

  From above in the spaceship, 744U-21 gained contact with those below, learning of what had happened. A length of cable was dropped so that the machine men were able to hoist the professor and the still unconscious 8L-404 out of the scorching hole into which they had nearly been thrown to their deaths.

  “There is no near place in this fire country where we dare to land,” said 744U-21, “but luckily you are not far from clear ground. You have nearly crossed the fire country. Follow the flight of the spaceship, and we will guide you out.”

  Though the trip had been a long and arduous one, the following of the stars at night had brought them in a straight line to a position not far from the edge of the volcanic region. They were soon to be rid of the eternal fires. Picking up their crippled companions―who had also taken part in the recent conflict through necessity of self-defense―and carrying the unconscious 8L-404, the machine men trudged on over this heated terrain of smoking crevices and molten rivulets.

  “I recollect seeing the land to the other side of the fire country from far above,” said the professor. “What is it like? Is it inhabited?”

  “It is inhabited,” replied 744U-21 from the spaceship. “That we already know. But we know nothing concerning the inhabitants. The land is much like that we explored before you entered the volcanic badlands. It is well wooded and given up almost entirely to dense vegetation. We could see no cities, so the inhabitants must be of a savage or a barbaric nature.”

  “I hope they are peaceful, or else not as hard to handle as are the fire-dwellers,” 6W-438 remarked. “I am tired of physical combat for the time being.”

  As the machine men progressed, they noticed that the molten lakes and crevices of fire became less numerous, and the smoke clouds became less. Finally they were able to glimpse occasional views of the country bordering the wastelands of fire, and they were gladdened to know that soon they would be free of the treacherous fire country where they had lost one of their number and had nearly been done for, one and all. It was still a long way to walk over arid desolation after they had left the last bit of smoking ground, but eventually an area of bush-growth and a forest in the background greeted them. Here the spaceship had landed. 8L-404 recovered shortly before they reached the spaceship. The last he had recollected was plunging over the edge of the precipice bordering the lake of fire. The smoky haze had enveloped him, and he had felt his tentacles clash against something just a split second before oblivion had enveloped him.

  At the spaceship, the crippled machine men were repaired, exchanging warped and misshapen legs, blued and partly melted by the heat, for new ones. A few tentacles needed replacement, but it was mostly the legs that were damaged from walking too often through the lava beds and molten pools.

  With ten companions, the professor started for the forest. The party of eleven was progressing through the semi-arid bush land, less than a quarter of a mile from the forest, when several indistinct flickers of motion appraised them that they had been seen and were being carefully watched. Bushes far ahead of them quivered perceptibly from time to time, and the vigilant eyesight of the Zoromes saw slinking forms darting in and out of the forest from time to time. More of them seemed to leave the forest than entered it, the professor observed.

  “What are they?”

  “We could see but little of them from above in the spaceship,” said 744U-21. “We caught no more glimpses of them than we do now.”

  “They are hiding, but not running from us.”

  “It looks as if they were trying to ambush us,” 29G-75 observed. “It is well that we brought along the ray ejectors from the spaceship.”

  “They are sneaking from bush to bush; they are coming nearer.”

  In truth, this was so. Yet the creatures skulked so close to the ground and moved so swiftly that the machine men could gain only an obscure idea of their shape and proportions. They were more than half the distance from the spaceship to the forest when faint sounds broke in upon their hearing. Flutelike notes they were, possessing a variance in scale. They apparently came from the forest. Following a moment’s extended silence, an aria of the musical notes burst forth again as in wild melody.

  As the machine men continued their walk in the direction of the forest, this simple melody was repeated again and again as if joined by many instruments of the same kind. It seemed a musical chant of sad warning. That was what the professor gathered from it, and he found that his metal bretheren were similarly affected by the haunting music. Still they continued. The weird harmony now assumed a new note, one of mingled defiance and warning. Plainly, the machine men were being warned to proceed no further. As they did not cease their stride, the music grew threatening and wildly exhilarating, and the harmony was broken by variant fancies of tone, merging into a martial phantasm of melody. In it there existed a questioning lilt, and, as if in reply, there broke forth from the scattered bushes, just ahead and to each side of the machine men, an astonishing volume of operatic reply.

  “They must carry musical instruments of a sort,” 744U-21 commented in surprise. “That is indeed strange.”

  “And they are a menace,” added the professor, “if we are to interpret their renditions correctly.”

  Chapter III

  The air rang with a combined symphony which reminded the professor of latter bars in the Poet and Peasant Overture. At a certain point in the warlike song, out from the concealing bushes sprang a representative horde of the things 744U-21 had said inhabited the vast forests stretching away from the fire country into the limitless back country beyond. Possessing long, angular bodies and long, pointed faces, they were supplied with many short legs running up the sides of their bodies. There were fully a dozen of these, the professor’s first glance estimated. They walked erect on the lowest pair of these legs, which were three times as long as the other legs. The machine men now understood how these creatures could move so rapidly along the ground and keep out of their sight. The professor visioned them as something like thousand-legged caterpillars standing erect on two legs longer than the others, their bodies surmounted by heads appearing much like a fox’s except for the absence of the long, pointed ears. On second sight, the upper legs were not entirely legs, even as the feet of a monkey are not entirely feet. They could be used for holding something, as was evident, for many of these monsters carried long, curved hooks of what appeared to be crudely hammered metal.

  Menacingly, they ran to meet the machine men, making the air ring with their fierce music. And now the machine men of Zor were in for another surprise. The melodious sounds did not issue from instruments but from the throats of the monsters themselves.

  Approaching nearer, the creatures paused suddenly, and their song changed, became garbled in disorderly chaos as if many of them had suddenly disagreed as to the proper selection. Reading their minds, which the machine men gratefully found to be not only of an open, orderly nature but also receptive to their mental attunement, they found that the strange things were stricken with awe and surprise. They had evidently just discovered that the machine men of Zor were not what they had expected them to be. In their minds, the machine men saw that they had been mistaken for a roving band of the fire-dwellers. The monsters from the forest hesitated uncertainly, giving the machine men an opportunity for conciliatory measures.

  “We, too, are enemies of the fire-dwellers,” the professor imp
ressed upon them. “We were attacked by them and fought them in the midst of the fire country.”

  Musical bits interposed upon the silence fallen among the many-legged creatures, and it was apparent that they were conversing, that they always talked to music. Penetrating their thought-train, the machine men found them to possess a crude, barbarous intelligence, far above that of the fire-dwellers. Surprise and greater awe were set to melody in the exchanges between the music monsters, and in it there was mingled respect, respect tinged, however, with suspicion and distrust. This the machine men promptly allayed.

  “We wish to be friendly with you,” 29G-75 offered.

  “Where are you from, and what are you?”

  This was the general, unuttered consensus of the attitude directed at the machine men, which, though unvoiced, lay naturally uppermost in the minds of the creatures.

  “We are things made of metal, like those weapons you carry for attack on the fire-dwellers,” said 744U-21, having already divined the purpose of the hooks. “We come from a world far beyond this one.”

  Although this information was mostly lost upon the restricted understanding of the music monsters, the simple, straightforward reply to their questions caused a better feeling and relaxation of suspicion. They approached, slowly and wondering, all eyes intent in observing these new, strange things, the machine men.

  The machine men engaged them in thought exchange, impressing upon them that, although their musical utterances were peculiarly expressive of their thoughts and attitude, the machine men found their thoughts much more legible.