“What is that huge bird that flew down out of the sky?” one of the music monsters asked.
“It is our spaceship in which we travel. Like our bodies, it is mechanical.
Part of this was understood. The creatures seemed satisfied.
“You fought our enemies, the fire-dwellers?” came the next query. “Did they try to push you into the fires or break your bones with their powerful, crushing arms?”
“They tried to push us into their lakes of fire,” Professor Jameson replied. “We are too strong for them to crush, and even should they accomplish this and reduce our bodies to junk, our heads would live on as long as they remained undamaged.”
“They are our natural enemies,” were the thoughts of the music monsters reduced to words. “We fight each other continually. Sometimes they conduct raiding parties up out of their natural element, coming into the forest after us. Then again, we sometimes penetrate the fire country for a distance and war upon them. Neither of us can enter the other’s domain for long. We cannot stand the heat; they cannot exist very long without it.”
“Nor without the sulphurous fumes they breathe,” added 41C-98 in an aside to his companions.
“Of the two factions, they have the advantage of greater security, for they can go into parts of the fire country where we cannot go even though we are garbed in the heavy pelts of slain fire-dwellers. They can come anywhere in our country until the prolonged lack of heat drives them back again. We, however, overwhelm this advantage of theirs in this respect: that we are a superior race and know how to do things they cannot think to do.”
The music monsters proudly exhibited their weapons.
“We also live in communities; the fire-dwellers do not. They wander aimlessly without homes. We move from place to place occasionally, it is true, but we always build. We do not live in the open as they do!”
While the music monsters were eager to demonstrate their superiority over the fire-dwellers, it struck 6W-438 as strange that since it had been the belief among them that the fire-dwellers lived on the fumes of the fire country and did not derive gastronomic sustenance form organic sources, why should they battle the music monsters other than in self-defense? 6W-438 asked as much, although in his mind the suspicion of the truth lurked in his recollection of the attack on the machine men by the fire-dwellers, but he was not yet positive.
“Why do the fire-dwellers come out of their country to fight you?”
“To kill us.”
“But why should they? What is there for them to gain?”
“It has always been so.”
One of the more astute among the creatures afforded a more satisfactory answer.
“They are of a perverse, cross-grained nature. They would not leave us in peace, even were we to do so by them. It is their nature.”
“And why do you enter their country to fight them?” 744U-21 asked. “What, besides vengeance, prompts you to endure the discomforts and hazards of the fire country?”
“We value their pelts. We have many uses for them, principally as a method of barter. Then, we too like to fight, and the fire-dwellers furnish a worthy excuse.”
The machine men, though admiring the various qualities of the music monsters, felt that less worthy excuses might suffice them were it not because of defense that they fought the fire-dwellers. It struck the professor that the main reason why the fire-dwellers could not stay out of their fire country for too long a time was not because of the eventual penetration of cold through their thick pelts, though this may have been a secondary reason, but the fact that the fire-dwellers grew hungry for the dense clouds of sulphurous smoke in their natural environment.
Sending back a messenger to acquaint those at the spaceship with the fact that the inhabitants of this new territory were friendly to them, the machine men proceeded onward into the forest with the music monsters. They found the forest aisles neatly kept, and here they learned that the music monsters were strict vegetarians, living on the smaller growth, eating certain kinds of soft wood and various kinds of bark. Their domiciles were found to be small constructions of baked mud held together with twigs, an occasional branch being used, especially in the arched ceilings. They were much more orderly and better made than those of the Ooaurs.
The machine men were struck with the novelty of musical discourse among the barbaric creatures. Always were their musical utterances, even the most commonplace, harmonious. It surprised the professor how many types of Earth’s instruments the sounds resembled. The commonest resemblance was to the notes of a flute; then there were many whose utterances sounded as if drawn from quick manipulations of a violin bow. Deeper voiced specimens among the music monsters imitated unwittingly the tones of an oboe or bass viol. Rarer specimens of sound duplicated the harp, guitar, trombone and piccolo. Clarinet voices were common, though nowhere could the professor find any voice resembling a piano, organ or cornet. Strange to say, the music monsters placed no value on their various abilities nor did they seek to cultivate or exercise them in any manner. Familiarity had bred contempt.
Instead, a ludicrous paradox existed in the fact that the only sounds the music monsters made for musical enjoyment were dull, rhythmic sounds on hollow trees accompanied by a maddening, monotonous drone, all in one key.
Strange memories often leaped into the professor’s mind across the gap of forty million years, as various couplets of musical conversation accidentally struck a passage of music familiar to him in the long, long ago. Once there had come a fleeting bar of “Lohengrin,” then again an incongruous portion of “Turkey in the Straw.” Often he was reminded of some old air the title of which he had long forgotten. In discoursing on how the pelts of the fire-dwellers were cured after a raid and cut up into medium of exchange, a music monster had hit accidentally upon a bar of “God Save the King.” 119M-5, not so far removed from the prime of an organic existence, recognized passages of music similar to those which had been heard or sung on the planet Zor. The passages, of course, were incomprehensible and unconnected with the rest, as far as the professor was concerned, even as to 119M-5 were the similarities detected by the professor.
* * *
The machine men had decided to stay among their new acquaintances for a short time. The spaceship had been moved up to the edge of the forest, where several of the machine men were always stationed with it, having a good number of the curious music monsters for company. The latter stood in awe of this great flying thing, into which they were allowed to enter. Several of them possessed the life-long boast of having ridden in it as it was moved up from the edge of the fire country to the forest.
One intelligent music monster the professor had dubbed Arminia in his own mind and recognized him as such through the fact that when his companions spoke, or rather sang, his name, the notes duplicated perfectly the opening bars of a song the professor had known by that title.
The music monsters possessed one characteristic which struck the professor as singular: they were inveterate gamblers, employing a number of ways to play games. Not only did they gamble the valuable squares of thick hide they used as common barter, but also gambled freely with their weapons, mates, offspring and even their own services, gambling themselves into virtual slavery for certain periods of time. Often this gambling was diverted from chance to skill in the uncanny casting of their hooks into trees at a considerable distance, but generally they employed a numeric hazard, or guessing. Their chief means of chancing consisted of dice or else the old method of heads or tails, using one or several pieces of metal with distinguishing characteristics, symbols, or crude attempts at illustrative art on either side. Strangely enough, they never employed these pieces of metal as a medium of exchange. The dice were very large and crudely wrought of metal, the music monsters usually employing but one at a time.
On the dice were various symbols, including a poorly sketched fire-dweller, the sun, the jagged-edged moon of the planet fragment, a tree, a prominent constellation of stars peculiar to
this perspective of the universe, and the sketch of a music monster. Characteristic of the ego in the music monsters, the representative of their own race on the metal dice signified the fullest value, while the other five illustrations and symbols decreased in value down to the fire-dweller, whose likeness was roundly cursed in musical blasphemy by whoever’s misfortune it was to turn up that particular side. Obviously, these crudely constructed dice were imperfectly balanced and played heavy favorites. Closely associated with this uncertainty and fervor of gambling were the accompanying brawls, for many of the music monsters were not loath to cheat. Such differences, however, rarely led to fatality, for the creatures were constrained by accepted law not to use their hooks on each other; they employed instead a rough and tumble mode of fighting, and featured a grappling and pummeling of each other with their many feet.
The villages of the music monsters were open parks amid the dense forests; the various communities were located within a few miles of each other. Comparatively, the extensive forests were quite populated, and clear, wide avenues of parkland stretched like highways, linking up the villages as ways of travel back and forth. The machine men spent most of their time close to the frontier bordering the wastelands. Those in the interior rarely saw the fire-dwellers unless they visited a border village close to the fire country. Therefore, the border villages contained the more adventuresome types to be found among the music monsters.
One night, Professor Jameson and three companions and several of the music monsters were gathered close by the spaceship in the dim light of the rugged moon. From the fire country came a lurid yet less illuminative glare. In the spaceship were three more of the machine men. All seven consisted of the inevitable watch left with the ship. The rest of the Zoromes were scattered about the neighborhood of the forest, most of them in the nearest village.
The music monsters were gambling. Looking on, and furnishing an aura of illumination with their body lights, were the professor, 4F-686, 41C-98 and 12W-62. Arminia and four companions were the gamesters, and the large dice had not done so well by Arminia. He had lost his squares of hide, and now he was risking something he did not yet possess, but which had been promised him. The music monster had been desirous of a ride in the spaceship clear across the fire country. This had been the height of his ambitions, and the machine men had promised that he would be one of the villagers to be taken aloft the next time the spaceship rose. Secretly, the machine men had something better in store for the music monsters than a mere ride over the fire country and back. They would keep on going all the way around the planet fragment, coming back by circumnavigation.
Now, Arminia was gambling his chances of the coveted ride with a companion who had willingly massed a recently acquired pile of hide barter, some of it having previously been in the possession of Arminia, as a stake. The dice rolled. Up came the tree. This was arbitrary in the fact that it called for a further side bet, holding the original stake in suspension. Arminia had nothing left to bet. The cast was disregarded, and now it was Arminia’s turn to roll the cube. He hesitated, juggling the dice preliminary to throwing, and then with fatalistic resignation twirled and let roll. The dice stopped, and the poorly executed likeness of the fire-dweller stared mockingly at Arminia. He had lost, and the stake set up by the other gamesters was being returned to a huge pouch carried by the music monster. Just then a commotion in the direction of the spaceship attracted the attention of them all, players and spectators.
Simultaneously, there flashed into the minds of the machine men an electrifying communication from the spaceship. Already they were cognizant of the circumstances of which the music monsters were soon to know.
“Fire-dwellers! In the spaceship!”
“A raid of the fire-dwellers!” the professor attuned his thoughts to the perceptibilities of the five music monsters. “Come quick!”
Machine men and their allies raced to the dark-looming hull between them and the volcanic region. Limned against the lurid background of the fire country were the dark bodies of the fire-dwellers, surging in large numbers toward the spaceship. The machine men headed for the entrance and found a closely-packed mass of the fire-dwellers before them. Inside, the professor knew, were 29G-75, 948D-21 and 454ZQ2. Shining their body lights upon the milling throng and beyond to the side of the ship, the machine men were appalled by the large number of attacking brutes. In the dim light of the moon, and against the red glare of the fire country, they saw many bobbing forms and knew that more of the dread creatures were racing across the barren plain.
“Get to the doorway and enter the ship!” the professor told his companions and allies. “We must hold it in defense until reinforcements come from the village!”
Many of the fire-dwellers were stamping on in the direction of the forest, but most of them were gathering around the ship. Already, the machine men and music monsters were hemmed in by the increasing numbers of the raiding masses from out of the infernal region. Silent and grim they were, intent only on death and destruction. The music monsters fought madly, ripping and tearing with their hooks, fighting even nearer the ship in company with the machine men. Fire-dwellers were pouring into the spaceship when the professor fought his way to the open doorway. Immediately behind him, Arminia raised a gleaming hook and sank it expertly into the diminutive brain of a fire-dweller who sought to block the machine man. All four of the Zoromes were flailing with their tentacles.
Chapter IV
The professor urged Arminia into the ship ahead of him and turned to find that only two other music monsters were still alive in the press of fighting. The last two had succumbed beneath overwhelming waves of their enemies. Had the fighting been more open and in less restricted quarters, doubtless the surviving three would have been killed, but in the pressing multitude only a few of the brutes from the volcanic country could reach them at once, and these were hampered by lack of room. With their wicked hooks, the two music monsters were viciously slashing to right and left.
Holding the doorway with his intense heat ray, Professor Jameson covered the rear of the two music monsters, who made their way to the entrance and leaped inside. Far back, three machine men were battling closer to the ship. The professor now directed his heat ray upon those who blocked their way.
With a lunge, the nearest one, 4F-686, stumbled and caught the edge of the doorway―and then many things happened. Rough, asbestos-skinned arms closed around the professor’s body from inside the spaceship, just as the ship gave a jolt and leaped upward violently. 4F-686 was lifted high above the ground as his grappling tentacles slid over the edges of the doorway and he fell downward upon the heads of the milling fire-dwellers whose pressing ranks closed involuntarily upon the opening left by the ship. As the spaceship rose crazily, and the professor tried to throw off the encumbering bodies which held him to the floor, from out of the forest raced a mixed throng of music monsters and machine men in answer to the call of those aboard the ship. Only momentarily did they pause to consider the receding spaceship, and then they threw themselves into the belligerent fire-dwellers, whose profuse numbers now threatened the villages.
From the open doorway of the ship, Professor Jameson’s apex eye caught a reeling panorama of fire country. Rough, groping paws with long, horny claws felt for a hold, lifting him up. Wildly, he struck out with his tentacles, as he realized they were trying to throw him out through the doorway to the ground a thousand feet below. The ship was now rising faster. His heat ray found a rough body and a bit of concentration penetrated the thick hide, causing muffled snorts of pain from the tiny apertures all over the creature’s body. Broken away from the insidious grip, the professor quickly closed the door, knowing full well that the limited intelligence of the great, dumb brutes would not be able to fathom its operation. Again the heat ray played out, bringing whistling noises from the many victims. The fire-dwellers withdrew, the professor moving slowly along behind them. They made a quick charge at him, and, realizing that he must form some plan of action a
t once, the professor leaped nimbly past them and clanged shut another door, sealing them in the compartment.
The fight which ensued was a monotonous yet grim combat. Knowing that the ship was overrun with the fire-dwellers against four machine men and three music monsters, the professor had closed off all further interruption by shutting the door leading into the depths of the ship. Knowing that the huge, strong creatures could do him no lasting harm, and intent upon slowly beating them down, the professor charged in and grappled with one, while the remaining two, as he had anticipated, flung themselves upon him. It became a tiresome contest of trying to get his heat ray directed against a vital portion of one of the things and killing the creature, thus cutting down the opposition of two. Had they been ordinary organisms, the heat ray would have accomplished swift work, but these Lucifers had lived close to fire all their lives. Pulled off and flung down, the professor was making little headway. Occasionally, when the opportunity offered, he picked up one of them and hurled the brute against the wall head foremost. This induced a dazed condition, but it also gave the fire-dwellers the same idea, and the professor had to cling to them desperately to frustrate their design. How he wished he had one of the music monsters’ hooks that were so peculiarly adapted to killing fire-dwellers. He had already flailed their outer hide to ribbons, and it looked as if that were the only effective way, other than getting in intensive work with the heat ray, which was difficult, opposed as he was to the three of them. During grappling deadlocks with the three beasts, he had exchanged mental communication with the other Zoromes, acquainting them with his own dilemma and learning of theirs.
“The spaceship is alive with the fire-dwellers!” 29G-75 exclaimed. “There are at least twenty of them aboard!”
“The ship is still rising!”
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