Directly he mentioned Bommelsmeth I understood. So the rebel king was still alive, and plotting. I remembered now that he had boasted of having his spies in influential positions at the Court of Usulor, his enemy.
Soon the paralyzing drug had gripped all the motor nerves that carry impulses to the muscles, but the sensory nerves were still active, bringing me a sensation of sight and hearing. Involuntary muscles still kept my heart and lungs going, slowly. There was no intention that I should die, or that I should be saved from seeing or hearing anything that would cause me distress. But I could not blink an eyelid.
Four Martians were busy at some task I could not see, for my eyes were fixed on the distant ceiling. At ead knock of the door they hastily covered their work.
Princess Wimpolo came. I heard her enter, supported by two ladies in waiting. That pig of a doctor jumped up to meet her.
“Your Highness! This is not wise! You are ill.”
“They tell me,” Wimpolo said weakly, “that Don Hargreaves, my Earthling, is dead.”
“Yes,” she was told, “the science of Mars could not save him.”
She wept as they helped her away. Professor Winterton came, the Earthling who first persuaded me to live among the Martians, and Vans Holors, wrestling champion of Mars.
“Hard luck, boy,” said Winterton, patting my shoulder.
“So you took the count, Don,” said Vans. “But the end isn’t yet. The championship isn’t won yet.”
They went out. I was alone with my enemies. I turned the words of Vans and the professor over and over in my mind. Dared I hope that they suspected the truth?
A messenger came.
“The King has ordered that a State Funeral and Cremation take place in two hours.”
“But this is an unseemly rush,” protested the sham doctor.
“The King has resolved on drastic measures to prevent the spread of infection,” answered the messenger.
CHAPTER II
Troubles of a Corpse
MORE than once I have been congratulated on my ingenuity in finding my way out of awkward fixes. But this time I had no chance of using any ingenuity at all. I was stuck right where I was. Until the effects of the drug wore off or were neutralized, there I would remain.
The only part of me fully active was my brain. If there was anything in telepathy, now was the time to use it. I tried. I tried hard. I concentrated first on Wimpolo, then on the Professor, and then on Vans Holors. But whether there is no such thing as telepathy, or whether I didn’t know how to transmit or they how to receive, I achieved no result that I know of except to give myself a headache.
The five Martian workmen kept busy. A large machine lurched from the wall. It had two arms and branching feathery fingers. The fingers of one arm felt all over my face, head and neck.
“Making a statue of you, Hargreaves,” I was told.
I understood. The robotlike affair was a Martian copying machine.[1]
I wanted to know what the object of making the statue was, but of course I could not ask.
“Usulor has not given us much time,” one Martian grumbled.
“No, but we can do it.”
Presently they were satisfied with their work.
“A perfect likeness.”
“Can’t tell them apart.”
“Say, wouldn’t it be easy to send the wrong one to be cooked? Roast the statue and keep the real Earthling as a statue.”
“Yes, that is exactly what we are going to do,” said the Martian in charge, briskly. “Now, quickly! Time is short. Lift the Earthling out and put him on one side. Put the statue in the bed. Now, into this box with the Earthling. Cover him up. Ah! Just in time.”
A blanket was thrown over me just as the door began to open. I heard the voices of Vans and of the Professor and of others. They had come to take me to my funeral.
The dummy was taken away. Then the six Martians came back. Still in darkness I was lifted, carried. I felt the smooth motion of a Martian rolling traffic sphere under me. I seemed to travel for many miles.
* * *
NOW, this is what happened at my “funeral.” Princess Wimpolo was sitting, sadly watching the proceedings, when one of her ladies-in-waiting came to her and whispered.
“One of the Earthlings wishes to speak to you, your Highness.”
Wimpolo stirred.
“After the funeral,” she said.
“He says it is very urgent.”
“Who is it?”
“The one they call Winterton.”
“Don’s friend,” murmured the Princess. “Let him come.”
The tiny form of the white-haired professor stood beside the giant princess.
“What is it?”
“It’s about Don.”
“In my opinion, Princess Wimpolo,” said the Professor, “Don did not die. He was murdered.”
Wimpolo sat still, thinking.
“What reason have you for saying this?” she asked, presently.
“Two reasons, Princess. In the first place Don’s death was too sudden. Earthlings do not die of sickness as quickly as that. In the second place Don does not look ill. See those red lips and cheeks and the firm, rounded arms and legs? Even through the glass sides of the coffin you can see. That is the body of a man who died suddenly, while he was in perfect health. Martians may be deceived, but not an Earthling.
“You delayed in telling me this,” said she. “Ten minutes more and he would have been cremated and his ashes thrown into the sea beneath us.”
She beckoned a lady-in-waiting.
“Tell my father to stop the funeral.” The Martian woman looked amazed. “Quick!” Wimpolo ordered. “Tell my father to stop the funeral.”
The lady-in-waiting hurried away. King Usulor started in his seat when the Martian woman approached him. He frowned impatiently across at his daughter, then gave the order to halt the ceremony. Slowly he came to where his daughter waited on her couch, while thousands of Martians wondered what had happened.
“What new foolishness is this, girl? he demanded. “Haven’t you caused me enough trouble with your wildness? Your Earthling, through no fault of his own, I suppose, has made you ill and me unwell. Let us get rid of the infection.”
“Father, Don was murdered!”
“What?” Usulor thundered. “Have I not rid myself of all my enemies yet? Are they still around me?”
Turning to two guards he commanded, “Bring the coffin here!”
THE royal party was upon a sort of natural platform of rock, where all the assembled people could see them. On one side of the platform was a sheer drop to the sea. Down this precipice my ashes were to be shot into the water, after I had been cremated.
The glass coffin was brought and placed in front of King Usulor. What was supposed to be my body was clearly seen inside, such a perfect representation that even Winterton was deceived.
“Open the—” began Usulor, but got no further. His mouth fell open in amazement. A horrified startled cry came from all the people who were near enough to see. Wimpolo and Winterton cried out in incredulous delight.
For the body in the coffin was moving. Its head turned. It looked first at Usulor, then at his daughter, then at the crowd. It lifted an arm and rapped three times on the side of its glass coffin.
It was, of course, an automaton, or robot, operated by distant control by means of television.
Guards and servants sprang to release me from my premature coffin. But the robot shaped in my likeness, or its distant operator, was too impatient to wait for them. The arm swung again strongly. The glass cover of the coffin splintered to fragments. The robot climbed stiffly out. As a dead man coming to life, its mechanical movements were grimly realistic.
The robot’s head turned, and it looked about it woodenly. Its face was not shaped to express any feelings.
“I thank your Majesty,” it said, suddenly and harshly, “for these preparations for me. But as you see I am not dead.”
Wimpo
lo, first of all those present to recover her wits, moaned.
“That’s not his proper voice. And that queer look on his face! He must be very ill. Attendants! Look to him.”
A dozen Martians, men and women, jumped to obey. But the robot’s attitude changed. A queer pistol was suddenly in its hand. It was one of Bommelsmeth’s dissolving rays, the most dangerous weapon known to Mars.
“Stand back,” came the harsh voice.
Wimpolo leaned back in her couch.
“It isn’t Don!” she whispered to those about her. “See how my pet snake is hissing at him! That snake would never hiss at Don. It knows him too well.”
“Listen to me,” snarled the robot’s radio voice. “I did not die of sickness.
I only went into a coma, from which I have now recovered. But all the Martians who take the sickness will die. It is too late to stop it. All you Martians, heed my words! Earth will destroy you all. We Earthlings need your planet, and we shall take it. If the sickness does not destroy you, our weapons will. As now I destroy your Princess!”
And the deadly ray came up to aim straight at Wimpolo’s bosom.
HAD I been there I am sure I could have reached the metal monster in time to knock his arm up. The Princess’ snake or her zekolo could have done it too, but they waited for the word of command before going into action. In all Mars there was probably only one native quick enough in thought and movement to save the Princess. That man was Vans Holors. Holors made a wild plunge. Even for him it looked impossible to cross the space without being shot down, but it took a small fraction of time for the distant operator to see what was happening and to move the controls accordingly.
Taking the only certain way, Vans made a flying leap at the animated dummy. His enormous weight caught the robot squarely. It was impossible for Vans to stop his rush in time to save himself. Vans and the little robot vanished over the edge of the precipice together, to plunge into and sink beneath the waves.
The crowd thought that Vans had given his life, that the deadly ray had caught him full in the chest; but as a matter of fact the discharge expended itself harmlessly on the rocks.
Bommelsmeth’s devilish scheme had been, of course, that the robot should murder Princess Wimpolo and then dive into the sea and get away. I would, of course, get the blame for the crime, and a nasty popular demand to rid Mars of all Earthlings would arise.
By the courage and promptitude of Holors, Wimpolo was saved. But the damage had been done, all the same. Plenty of it! The robot’s words, threatening all Mars, had been heard by thousands of Martians. They had also seen the dummy’s attempted assassination of Wimpolo. Everywhere where Earthlings were in Mars, they felt a change in the atmosphere. Their gigantic hosts were turning against them.
Meanwhile Usulor, purple with rage, was spouting orders as fast as he could get the necessary breath out of his lungs.
“Cancel the funeral! Arrest Don Hargreaves! Arrest the Princess’ doctor for telling us that Hargreaves was dead! What are you waiting for? Hargreaves is in the sea? Well, dive in after him! Hunt him with snakes and zekolos. Find him, find him, I say! And arrest every Earthling in Mars. See that they do no more mischief.”
He stopped to sneeze. The Earthlings were the cause of that too, he reflected.
“And to think,” he said to himself. “If I had only fixed things for a few minutes earlier I’d have had him safely cremated before he came round.”
CHAPTER III
Bommelsmeth Again
I KNEW nothing about the tumult caused by the funeral of my dummy. I supposed that the dummy had been duly cremated, and that the court and the Earth colony of Mars mourned me as dead. That I was being hunted as an assassin, while the Earthlings on Mars, thrown into prison, blamed me as the cause of their troubles, I had no idea.
I felt the traffic tunnel that I was in going up and up. Suddenly I was taken out of my box and could look around once more. We were on the surface of Mars, in the full glare of the sunlight, which harmful to the Earthly eyes, was tinted grey to tone down the harsh light which, harmful to the Earthy eyes, was even more dangerous to the Martians.
We rolled across a wide, saucer-shaped plain that had once been an ocean-bed. Many miles on we came to a mountain range, and here the sphere plunged into a hole that proved to be the entrance to a system of minor caverns. Even out here the Martians could not get out of their habit of boring themselves tunnels and caves to live in.
We went in through air-locks. We passed armed sentries, heard shouted words of command. These were obviously the secret headquarters of an army. It was cunning. Of all places where Usulor, with his television, might search for a hideout of his enemy, the one place where he would not look was on the surface of the planet. For it was supposed that no Martian could live long on the surface owing to chemical changes that take place in their blood there.
Presently a Martian picked me up with one hand and carried me out of the sphere. I found myself before a lean, sardonic Martian with red, inflamed eyes. It was Bommelsmeth. The resplendent uniforms and the luxury with which he had formerly surrounded himself were gone. Now he had ordinary clothes and a single badge. The furniture was plain. He was thinner now. Before he had been overbearingly confident. Now he was desperately ferocious.
I was carried in, stiff as a poker, and dropped in front of him.
“What’s this?” he growled.
“Don Hargreaves, Earthling, in a cataleptic state, but conscious, as you directed, chief.”
The elaborate court etiquette that Bommelsmeth had once insisted on was gone. His men called him shortly, “Chief.”
A slow smile of triumph came over the face of the former King.
“Ah yes, I remember. I have a memento from him.” He pulled up his left trouser-leg. “See that?” It was a long scar. “You did that, with your sword, when we fought in the cabin of my submarine. Then, I was a great King. Now, I am a fugitive, with but a handful of followers. You did that too. I wanted to see you to thank you for all these favors.”
He stirred me with his foot.
“Is he alive?”
“The drug produces the appearance of death very convincingly chief. He hears what you say and understands it.”
“Then bring him round,” directed Bommelsmeth, “but first chain him to a ring in the wall by his neck. I know him. He moves very fast. Once you let go of him you’ll never get hold of him again.”
“Bring him round and he will die, chief. The Krypton in the atmosphere.”
“Ah, yes, I forgot. Not that it matters much. Give him the treatment I discovered to dissolve the krypton out of his blood safely.”
A cloth soaked with some sweet smelling liquid was held to my nose. I felt strangely light-headed. Then the cloth was taken away. Somebody grunted to somebody else. The end of a tube was forced down my throat, and something warm squirted directly into my stomach.
SLOWLY, very slowly, my frozen body began to thaw out. I was racked with pain, cramp, stiffness. My eyes were very sore, but I would not let Bommelsmeth see that I was hurt.
“You took a lot of trouble to rid yourself of one small Earthling, Bommelsmeth,” I said.
“True,” he said, considering the point carefully. “Possibly true. But still the process, or, should I say, the experiment? has been worth the trouble. I have got you here, and everybody thinks you dead. Next, I shall do the same with Wimpolo, then with Usulor, and then with all the officials and army generals of Usulor who are opposed to me.”
He took a drink. I must have let him see that I was thirsty by the way my eyes followed his glass, for he called for another, and ordered that all his men present should drink. But none was offered to me.
“Now,” he said in pretended affability,” let’s get together. Let’s understand each other. There are several points on which Usulor and I do not agree. The chief one is Earthlings. My slogan is, “Kill all Earthlings! That right, my men?”
The Martians roared their approval. “Right! Kill al
l Earthlings!”
“You hear Hargreaves? But I’ve got a special treat first. Men! Wheel in the transformation box!”
My heart jumped painfully when I saw what was being wheeled in. It was Bommelsmeth’s big invention, his evolution controlling ray.[2]
“Cheer up Hargreaves!” gloated Bommelsmeth. “You are going to take part in a great scientific experiment!”
* * *
WHEN Vans Holors, realizing more quickly than anybody else the danger to Princess Wimpolo, threw his own life instantly into the balance to save her, he had not realized that he was attacking a metal dummy. He understood that it was not me, but thought it was another Earthling who was my double. If it had been Vans would certainly have been cut down.
Now the dummy was about the same weight as myself, and Vans I would say at a guess to be about thirteen feet tall and well over a ton in weight. He swung his left arm to knock up the ray-pistol that menaced him and his right to the side of the dummy’s head. The dummy’s arm was stiff, not being on a universal joint like a human ball and socket shoulder-joint, which can move in any direction. Instead of knocking the dummy’s arm up Vans knocked the dummy itself high up in the air, spinning like a fly wheel. The melting-ray was still in action, while the distant operator of the dummy vainly tried to guess from the amazing blur that reached him from the dummy’s radio television eyes what in Mars had happened.
Fortunately, the ray whirled around too rapidly to do any damage. Vans’ right arm, meeting no obstruction, threw him off his balance, and Vans, unable to stop himself, rushed headlong over the precipice into the water.
To the stoutest and strongest man in Mars that was nothing. Vans took no more notice of falling in the sea than a healthy Earthling does of being caught in a light shower or rain. Provided, that is, that he hit no rocks.
This was Funeral Rock. From it the ashes of thousands upon thousands of Martian Kings, Queens, Princess and Princesses had been shot into the water after cremation. The spot had been chosen because of its clean drop into very deep water.
The Complete Saga of Don Hargreaves Page 15
