Then we waited patiently for the space-ship and Usulor’s guards to arrive. About an hour later a score or so of men arrived. Wimpolo, anticipating events, tactfully hid herself.
The guards reported to King Usulor, trying not to laugh at the spectacle of him in tin singlet and shorts or of the featherless, wingless space-birds all around. But when their own clothes fell off bit by bit, leaving them stark naked, they permitted themselves to make exclamations of surprise.
“Don’t worry, gentlemen,” said Usulor, soothingly. “The only lady in Deimos is my daughter, and she has carefully shut herself away. We will soon get tin suits for all of you.”
Just then a lady walked in. It was Olla, in human form again.
There was a mad scamper to get behind pillars, statues, space-birds, anywhere.
“Where is Vans?” demanded Olla, smiling serenely. “Bommelsmeth has completely mastered the evolution ray now. He has changed me back into a woman again, more beautiful than ever. Where is Vans?”
Then a magnificent flamingo stalked in, only just beginning to moult. At the sight of Olla he gave a great squawk and a fluttering of wings.
“I’m Vans!” he wrote on a slate. “I used the Evolution Machine to change me, too, into a flamingo so that we could be together again. And now you are a girl once more. Come! Let us find Bommelsmeth again!”
They dashed off, hand in hand, greatly to the relief of Usulor’s guards.
And I’m writing this in a terrible hurry, because the mail leaves for Earth very soon. Usulor has promised to reform the administration of justice in Mars, to change back and to release all space-birds who have been unjustly sentenced and not to use the Evolution Machine any more except by the consent of the subject. Our space-ship has halted on the surface of Mars for a thorough fumigation before we go in. Those immodest beetles are not wanted inside Mars.
Wimpolo says we are going to take another space-ship and finish our interrupted honeymoon on Phobos, the other moon of Mars.
Did you ever know such a girl?
[1] The Imperial Palace, Mars
Dear Festus:
I’ve certainly set things moving here in Mars. There has not been so much excitement in the planet since the draining of the seas and air into its enormous caverns forced the giant human race that occupies that world to follow the air and water and live underground. Here, away from the light of the sun and out of reach of the progress-stimulating cosmic rays, Mars has stagnated. Evolution came to a halt. Scientific progress, which had been enormous, went no further.
The arrival of men from Earth on the surface of Mare in search of rare metals ended this stagnation. A few men and women from the mines blundered accidentally into the deep, inhabited caverns. They were well received and called “Earthlings” because they were so small compared to the gigantic Martians. Martian ladies adopted Earthlings as pets, just as Princess Wimpolo, daughter of the fierce Usulor, King, Emperor and Overlord of the entire planet, adopted me, Don Hargreaves.
As a tittle yeast sets a great mass of dough bubbling, so the presence of we few Earthlings set all Mars in a ferment. Jealousies were aroused, especially when Wimpolo let the rumor spread that she intended to marry me and make me Emperor and Overlord of Mars one day in succession to Usulor.
Lesser Kings of Mars, many of whom had eligible sons or personal ambitions, fumed. Two of them, Sommalu and Bommelsmeth, and perhaps others, overhauled their rusting war weapons and set their scientists inventing new ones. Sommalu had a particularly horrible weapon, a species of Fighting Flies. But they proved to be uncontrollable in war and liable to turn on their users. Otherwise Sommalu might have usurped Usulor’s throne.
Bommelsmeth was far cleverer and more dangerous than Sommalu had been. His resources seemed unlimited, the surprises he sprang endless. But in the end he was overcome. Mars settled down to recover after devastation many times worse than that you tell me air-raids haw made in the cities of Britain.
But Bommelsmeth was not done with. With spies and fifth columnists he set out to murder and kidnap influential people in Usulor’s court. And he kidnaped me. But he caught a Tartar. These Martians are immensely strong and clever, but slow. They never seem to understand how very much quicker than theirs are the muscles and brains of we tiny Earthlings. I gave them the slip, and in the mix-up of the chase after me I managed to upset Bommelsmeth’s own Evolution Machine. And that Evolution Machine, Festus, beat any machine you ever set eyes on in your dull life. Why don’t you come and live with me in Mars and have some fun? Stagnating back there on Earth! That’s no life for a man.
With Bommelsmeth trying his best to chop my head off with his heavy sword, that Evolution Hastening Machine got busy on him and his men. In a few minutes they sprouted fur, feathers, wings, scales and claws, Bommelsmeth becoming a sort of sea-lion.
As I think I explained in my last letter, Bommelsmeth’s scientists had succeeded in isolating and reproducing those constituents of the cosmic rays that control evolution. Lack of these rays caused the evolution of the Martians in their underground cities to come to a halt. Bommelsmeth could either speed up or reverse evolution at will. His evolution-reversing ray turned men into sub-human apes. The evolution-hastening ray was much more uncertain and unpredictable in its actions.
There was absolutely no limit to the changes that might occur in a human being who was subjected to the influence of the evolution-speeding ray. A nose might develop into the trunk of an elephant, feet into fish’s tails, tails might sprout from the body anywhere. In fact, anything might happen. Amusing himself by turning the ray on his prisoners, Bommelsmeth could produce nothing but extraordinary freaks. No super-capable creatures likely to be of use to him in his efforts to depose Usulor and murder his daughter appeared.
Bommelsmeth’s scientists explained that to their disappointed boss like this: All evolution in Mars had come to a halt thousands of years ago. Trying to start it up again was like starting up an automobile that had not been used for hundreds of years. It would be choked with dust and rust, parts would have perished. It might backfire, move in the wrong direction, blow up, catch fire, anything. To produce the highly evolved creatures he wanted Bommelsmeth should try his ray on an Earthling.
He did, on me. At first the only effect of the ray was to make me smaller. I was never very big, as you know, Festus, but I am still smaller now. But that experiment was never completed. The subject escaped. My reduced hands slipped out of the rings that held them, I jumped over the heads of Bommelsmeth and his men and led them a merry dance. But it takes a lot of doing for a Martian to catch an Earthling. They are so slow. I dodged them, doubled back and created a deuce of an uproar.
Lively times, Festus.
[2] Here, with practically no gravity at all, that tendency had gone to extremes. Imagine the carved neck of a swan in repose, and, resting on the very tip of the beak, a house. Imagine a very lavish use of bright paints and pigments in a dust-free, windless, rainless atmosphere. Imagine a huge statue of a fisherman gazing in amazement at an ornate house that nests on his protruding tongue. Imagine houses perched dizzily thousands of feet in the air. With no stairs or ladders, because a light spring will carry you right up to them. And warnings everywhere against throwing stones or other heavy objects. “Remember! One thrown stone may cost a thousand lives!”
THINK I’m lucky, do you Festus? Being married to Princess Wimpolo, daughter of King Usulor, Emperor and Overlord of the underground world of Mars. Yes, I know it sounds good to you. You ought to try it, Festus, and see how you like having a wife who is ten feet tall and weighs half a ton. She can pick me up in one hand.
If I didn’t assert myself sometimes I’d have no more say in matters than a little pet dog. Sometimes I have to put my foot down. I did over the question of the onions for instance.
It. was her habit, when she was dressing, lo have beside her an enormous jar of pickled onions, and from time to time she would take one out and pop it in her mouth. It made her breath like a gale in
an onion farm.
“Look here. Wimp,” I said, “you’ve got to stop it.”
“What’s biting you now?” she asked. “Eating so many onions,” I told her. “That’s no trick for a fine lady.”
“And who told you I wanted to be a fine lady?”
“I know you don’t,” I said. “But your father wants you to uphold the dignity of your position. The people expect it, too. And I think you might at least try to meet them half way.” She took no notice, just went on dressing. When she had finished and got her hair right, she took the last of the onions out of the huge jar and poured away the remaining vinegar. She threw onions and vinegar away. “Good,” I said.
“What’s good?”
“I’m glad to see you are giving up this nasty onion-eating habit. I knew your love of me would be enough to persuade you to make this small sacrifice.”
She picked me up, put me in the empty jar, put the lid on, called to her zekolo and went out.
That’s the sort of thing you get because of being married to the first lady in Mars, Festus. Corked up in a pickle jar like an onion! She had never even thought of the possibility I might suffocate!
I drew my sword and tried to get the stopper off the jar, but it was a screw-on stopper and very tough. I could not shift it. So I shouted for help and banged on the glass.
It was a long time before anybody took any notice. Then somebody stopped outside the door.
“Is anything wrong in there?”
IT was Vans Holors, wrestling champion of Mars and one of the best of Martians.
“Vans, Vans!” I called. “Get me out of here!”
“That you, Don? I can’t hear what you are saying.”
Being shut up in the jar, my voice didn’t carry so well, and Vans was naturally shy of barging into the Princess’s dressing-room. Still, in the end he made up his mind that something was wrong and came in.
“Why, where are you?” he asked, looking round.
I banged some more, and he saw me. “How did you get in there, little Earthling?” he asked, picking me out between his finger and thumb.
“The Princess’s idea of a joke,” I growled, wiping my streaming eyes on his handkerchief, which was like a blanket to me. My own handkerchief was so impregnated with onion smell that it only made matters worse.
“Eh,” he said, “don’t stand so close to me. You smell so strong of onions you make my eyes water too. Ah, these women, Don! Even my own wife, Olla. See!” He pointed to long scratches on his cheek. “I told her she was going to too many balls with that man Bommelsmeth, and this is what she did to me.”
Poor Vans, most powerful man of Mars though he is, is absolutely ruled by his tartar of a wife.
“Women!” I said, bitterly.
“Ah!”
“Women are a plague.”
“Too true!”
“How happy the planets might be without women!”
“You said it.”
“Vans, let us run away!”
“What?”
“Let’s both get divorced!”
“Ugh?”
It takes a long time for an idea to sink into Van’s brain, unless it is anything to do with fighting. But in the end he got it. We would both get divorces on grounds of persistent cruelty and go to live in some distant Martian cavern, far away from the Imperial Palace, its glitter, its pomp and its domineering women.
“We will be dowmtrodden no longer,” I said. “Come Vans, let us be free.”
“Think it’s wise, Don?” he rumbled, doubtfully.
“Of course it’s wise. We Earth men never allow our wives to walk on us like this. It is time to assert ourselves.”
“I know a good attorney.”
“Then what are you hesitating for?”
“I’ll go to him with you. But I’m a bit doubtful . . .”
“Pshaw!”
So we went, right away.
THE Martian attorney rubbed his hands together.
“You want two especially rapid divorces. Of course, it will be rather expensive.”
“How long will it take?”
“Seven days. Your name please. Don Hargreaves, Earthling—What?” he screamed, suddenly. “You are Prince Don and you want a divorce from Princess Wimpolo? Why, the Princess would have my head chopped off if I dared! And you, Vans Holors, live in the palace too? You must both bring me applications signed by King Usulor himself before I can consider it for a moment. Till then, get out of my office. Get out!”
So that was that.
“We’ve been in many jams together, Vans old chap,” I said.
“We have.”
“But this looks like being the worst of all.”
“Too true.”
“But we are not beaten yet.”
“How come?”
“We can run away.”
He hemmed and hawed, he rumbled, he scratched his head, but in the end he agreed.
“Right you are, little sparring partner. I’m with you. We’ll run away together.”
And I was glad, because of all men on Earth or in the underground world of Mars, Vans is the best to have with you if you are going into strange and dangerous places.
SO, we traveled. We traveled in those transparent rolling traffic spheres of Mars. We traveled in vast air lines through gigantic caverns. We traveled on the shelly backs of spidery zekolos.
I had no idea at all where we were going. I was never much good at geography. And the geography of Mars is a matter of three dimensions with its upper caverns, middle caverns and inner caverns. I have not been able to get the beginnings of an understanding of it yet, and I do not think I ever shall.
Vans said he knew where he was going. I trusted him. Who wouldn’t? You would think a Martian would know his way about his native planet. I might have known, though, that the only thing Vans really understands is fighting.
I began to get uneasy as we pushed on into wilder and wilder caverns.
“Are you sure this is the way to your home cave?” I asked him.
“Of course it is. All this country looks different because it was over-run by Bommelsmeth and his ape-men armies in the war. That’s why it’s got so neglected.”
Which argument might satisfy him, but I was getting gradually more and more certain that no human being had ever been this way before. There was never a sign of a road, again and again we had to cross nasty swamps. If I had been able to see even a tree cut down, or a footprint, I would have been a little happier. Because then I would have known that somehow, at some time, some human being had been here before. But I did not find either, nor any trace of humanity at all.
“Vans,” I said at last, “this can’t be the way.”
“I hope it is,” he said, grinning foolishly.
“Why do you?”
“Because I couldn’t find my way back now.”
I stared at him, and wished for once that that silly vague grin would fade off his face. Because, his wife apart, nothing ever worries Vans, not even the prospect of certain death.
“You mean, we’re lost?” I demanded.
“Guess I must have gone into the wrong cave,” he mumbled.
Then I knew for certain that we were lost. And being lost in the unexplored caverns of Mars is no joke. There are not even stars to guide you. Compasses are useless when they lead you into blind caverns, volcanic areas or underground rivers.
“How are we going to get out?”
“Ask the zekolos,” he suggested. Our zekolos, the crablike creatures the Martians use as horses, have uncanny instincts and, I sometimes think, some sixth sense we Earthlings know nothing about. If we were lost it was much better to trust to the zekolos than try to find our own way.
So we said to the zekolos, using one of the few words that the semi-intelligent creatures understand, “Go home!”
THEY stopped and looked at us, their stalked eyes waving as though wondering whether they had heard us properly. “Go home?” they seemed to be asking. “How i
n Mars do you expect us to find the way home from here? You take us thousands of miles into unexplored caverns, and then say, ‘Go home!’ as though we had merely gone on an afternoon visit. Do you mean it?”
We repeated, “Go home!”
They raised their heads, or rather, the front ends of their serrated shells, looking all around with their natural searchlights. Then they put out their lights, but I could still feel their movements, and hear the dry scraping of their shells and pincers. I knew they were peering everywhere with their stalked eyes, peering into the darkness that was lit only by the natural lights of Martian plants and animals.
If even the zekolos did not know which way to go it really would be awkward. Too bad, in fact.
They lit up again. Their stalked eyes waved at each other. They seemed almost to be discussing the problem. Then they lifted us down from their shelly backs and climbed to the tops of two nearby trees. Here they stretched their long, elastic legs till they stood dozens of feet above the ground, smelling the air perhaps, or using that queer sixth sense of theirs.
At last they came down, nodded to each other, lifted us again on their backs and started off in different directions.
My zekolo stopped, looked round, made some queer noise, then turned and followed the one that carried my gigantic companion.
We were going some place, but I wished I knew where.
I THINK you said once that you would like me to tell you more about the scenery of Mars. But I never was much good at that sort of thing. Scenery does not appeal to me somehow. You know what I mean. When the guide-books say, “The beautiful snow-capped mountains rising majestically beside the land-locked bay,” it looks to me just like a bigger heap of stone than most, dumped there. And, everything in Mars being underground, there is precious little scenery to be seen, once you get away from habited places, anyway. Just a lot of darkness, like the inside of a soup-can before it’s opened; apart from bits of phosphorescence from plants and natural searchlights carried by animals and birds. Sort of like millions of fireflies of gigantic size. You know what I mean. Many-colored, of course. The distant volcanoes you can usually see spout up red, blue, yellow and purple flames, flickering through their own smoke.
The Complete Saga of Don Hargreaves Page 23
