The Complete Saga of Don Hargreaves

by Festus Pragnell

  But to stretch that neck again and fix it on back to front was the best idea I’ve ever seen in any fight I’ve ever known. Blow me down if I would ever have thought of it. Vans’ fight generalship was always super. Sap, bone-head, nitwit and all the rest of it, but not when it was a question of a fight.

  Then, by a terrific exertion, Vans picked up that twisted giant by one foot and swung him round his head.

  But just before that you know, Festus, I saw something. As I have said, from the beginning of that fight I had had an idea that dirty work was afoot. Something fishy was in the air. I could smell it. And I watched carefully.

  Now, just after Vans had turned the giant’s head the wrong way round and it began to look as though Vans would win the scrap, somebody among the fight fans whistled a curious whistle. And I saw the snakes that did duty for ringside ropes here open their scaly eyes and prick up their ears. That whistle was a command they had been trained to respond to.

  Then came another, a different whistle. And the snake whose head was nearest to Vans unhooked itself and slid its head across the floor of the ring. Then, slyly pretending to stroke Vans’ calf as though begging for food, it bit him a little bite.

  Vans was too busy to notice. Probably he would not have noticed it anyway. One or two fans called out, “Make that thing get out of the way!” Somebody called, and the snake obediently slid back to its duties.

  But it worried me. Some of these Martian snakes are poisonous. Of course, it would be against the laws of Mars to have poisonous snakes loose among all these people, but you never know. And it seemed to me that Vans’ leg was swelling and turning blue just where he had been bitten. And Vans seemed to weaken and shiver.

  Vans was just making his supreme effort to hurl his gigantic opponent right through the wall of the great arena, just as he had done with the almost equally gigantic Martian, Hudells, years before. In no other way, it seemed, could this almost invulnerable fighter be beaten.

  But he could not make it. I saw his face whiten. I saw him gasp and reel with pain. Galento slipped out of his hands. A mighty crash there was, but not enough to stop Galento. He came back. And all the strength was gone out of Vans, who leaned weakly against the snakes and waited for him.

  I jumped to my feet, shouting. But amid so much noise from giant Martian throats my little voice was lost.

  Then I jumped into the ring.

  Vans had just vanished through the roof.

  “That’s the way to do it!” Galento bellowed, drumming his chest like a gorilla.

  THE official judge began to pronounce him the winner, when I pushed my way to where the radio commentator sat, snatched the mike from him and shouted into it, “Galento won this fight by cheating! Holors was bitten by a snake!”

  Everybody heard me. All at once everything was still and quiet. All those thousands of giant Martians stared at me in amazement. Lots of them had seen the snake bite Vans, but had not thought it mattered.

  “I demand that that snake be examined!” I shouted. “You will find that it is poisonous.”

  “You worm!” gritted Galento.

  I had forgotten him. But he had just had time enough to recover from the surprise he got when I started broadcasting, and he grabbed hold of me.

  I felt myself lifted. Everything spun round. I heard officials shouting that I was the son-in-law of the Emperor of Mars and must not be touched, but Galento either did not hear or did not care.

  The whole universe spun around me. I felt myself shooting through the air. Galento had whirled me round his head and then flung me at the ceiling.

  Just as I thought I was going to crash against the roof and have the life knocked out of me I found myself going through a hole. It was the hole Vans had made as he went through.

  And on I went up.

  “YES, sir! I did the daring young man on the flying trapeze act all right. The only trouble was, I hadn’t any trapeze.

  I seemed to keep on going up for hours. That fellow Galento could throw, believe me. Actually, I don’t suppose for a moment that the upward journey really occupied longer than about twenty minutes. It only seemed longer.

  The great hall with its thousands of excited Martians looked like a postage stamp far below.

  Then I began to come down.

  “This is the end of Don Hargreaves, who thought he was going to be Emperor of Mars,” I thought to myself, and closed my eyes. I felt quite sad about it. Who would remember me?

  Presently I opened my eyes again. It was taking me such a time to fall to annihilation. In the light gravity of Mars, falling from a great height is such a slow business. I had plenty of time for last thoughts.

  The air whistled about me faster and faster. I looked at the great hall again and wished it wasn’t coming up quite so quick.

  A great bird was swooping down towards me. It had leathery wings with a spread of about forty feet. A great beak with rows of teeth clove the air before it as it power-dived at me.

  Can’t say which I was most afraid of. The fall, the sudden stop at the bottom or this thing. This Pterodactyl. This prehistoric monstrosity. Because that is what it was. Leatherywinged reptile that flew about before feathers were invented.

  This ridiculous thing grabbed me by one ankle and put on his air-brakes.

  It was rescuing me!

  To cap it all, I had just spotted my guards down below. Stout fellows, they had come out of the hall and had a big thing like a blanket spread out to catch me in. One of them stood apart and gave orders, but I could not see who it was.

  “Look here, Ptero,” I said. “Thanks all the same, but I don’t want to be rescued just now. Not by you, anyway. Just let me fall into that blanket, will you? There’s a good Ptero.”

  One gets into the habit of talking to animals and birds on Mars, because many of them are amazingly intelligent and it is surprising how often they understand. But this Ptero took no notice at all.

  It stopped my fall and then began to fly away with me, hauling me by the ankle.

  Holy mackerel, I thought, it’s a snatch!

  BUT though it all seems so funny now, looking back on it, it did not seem at all funny at the time, believe me. I turned plenty of somersaults as I went up through that roof, but they were nothing to the somersaults my heart turned.

  And when that Ptero started to take me home to see his missus and kids, well, I hadn’t got any heart any more. It just melted away.

  Of course, I still had my little sword, but this Ptero had teeth blooming near as big as that was.

  The Ptero flew high in the mighty cavern, among the great pillars, some natural, some artificial, that supported the roof. Searchlights on the ground glared towards us. They seemed to be trying to see what was happening to me and leathery wings.

  Leather wings just kept straight on.

  We came to where several mighty supports met at the vast roof. Upside-down as I hung, I craned my neck and tried to pick out the black hole that would contain the Ptero’s nest, if Pteros have nests. But things look deceptive upside down. Rocks look like men’s faces. Other rocks seemed to walk about.

  “He’s got something. Another catch I think,” said a voice.

  “You’re dreaming! Why no! I see it now. Something very tiny. Why it’s one of those little men from Earth.”

  “You don’t say! Why, I haven’t ever seen one of them before.”

  A whistle of command to the Ptero, and I was brought to a shelf of rock and dropped. For a moment or so I thought I was being dropped to the ground far below.

  “Gee! It sure is. A little man less than half as tall as real people. What’ll we do with him?”

  “Feed him to the baby Pteros, I reckon.”

  I got up, brushed dust off me, and said, “Do you know who I am?”

  They laughed.

  “Sure. You are one of those little men we see on the pictures. From Earth.”

  “That’s right. But I also happen to be Prince Don, son-in-law of Emperor Usulor. Your tame
reptile rescued me from what might have been a nasty fall. Help me to get back to the palace, and I will see that you are well rewarded.”

  I was just a wee bit worried.

  They laughed again.

  “Say? Did you hear that? It says it’s Prince Don! It’s going to reward us! Ho, ho, ho! Funny catches we do get. First Vans Holors then Prince Don. The big and little. Go tell the boss.”

  One of the Martians disappeared, to come back a minute later saying, “Boss says to bring him in.”

  Inside a small doorway were several caverns very simply furnished. I glimpsed a large laboratory further in the rock, smelled cooking and heard the whine of air-changing pumps. Quite a small settlement was hidden away here.

  These Martians had deathrays slung over their shoulders. They had huge swords, too, and delighted in pricking me with the points of them. I did not like the look of things. This place, so well hidden, had all the marks of the hide-out of a band of brigands. Apart from the laboratory.

  We came upon several Martians, half drunk, playing a gambling game. One of them inspected me drunkenly. “It’s him all right. It’s Prince Don.”

  “You don’t say?”

  A FAT young Martian, wearing what had once been very expensive clothes, got up and staggered towards me. He blinked at me owlishly, then turned to the others.

  “Can you understand it? Princess Wimpolo turned me down to marry that!”

  “The girl must be blind,” said someone near, soothingly.

  “I’ll say she’s blind. Blind and daft,” agreed the fat young Martian, swaying.

  He turned to me.

  “Know who I am? My father was Sommalu, King of Ossalandok. He was killed in a war with Usulor. You killed him, with your sword.”

  “He tried to kill me,” I said.

  “Yes. I wish he had succeeded. But what my father did not succeed in doing perhaps I shall.”

  “After that war, Prince Grumbold,” I reminded, “you swore an oath of loyalty to Emperor Usulor, to Princess Wimpolo and to me.”

  “I know I did. It was swear or else have my head sliced off.”

  He turned away and spoke to his companion.

  “Wouldn’t it be best if we got a Ptero to take this thing back and drop it again? Then Wimpolo would be a widow and able to marry again.”

  The man considered me carefully. “Yes, but would she marry you?” he asked Grumbold.

  “Surely you don’t suggest that she would still be so blind as to fail to see—Impudent fellow! I’ve half a mind to put you through the mincing machine!” raved Gtumbold.

  “But, your Highness! We know already that the Princess Wimpolo is most amazingly blind to your obvious qualities. And these afflictions in women are often most obstinate.”

  “Well, what do you suggest?”

  “I suggest, your Highness, that we listen to the news from the ground.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No. But the capture of Prince Don by the Ptero will probably have been seen by many people. If so, then Princess Wimpolo will presently be searching for her husband, in an airplane.”

  “And then?”

  “We mighty possibly persuade her to share our hospitality here. And you would then have an opportunity of impressing her with your charms at close quarters. Nothing works so well with women as close quarter work. Or so they tell me. And if she should still prove obstinate—”

  “Oh, she wouldn’t. I’m sure she wouldn’t. No woman breathing could long resist me at close quarters. Still, as you say, if.”

  Then he caught sight of me again. “Put that thing in the cooler!” he ordered.

  I might have started trouble then, but I thought it better not to, just yet. I f these fellows planned to snatch Wimp it would be better for me to be around to help her.

  I wanted to find Vans, too.

  CHAPTER V

  Synthetic Warrior

  T HE little caves up here burrowed into the rock of the vast cavern like ratholes in the roof of a great cathedral. Prince Grumbold’s jail, or “cooler,” was a small cave reached by a narrow path overhanging a drop of several miles. With the big words and deathrays carried by Grumbold’s men, chances of escape did not look too rosy. And, so far as I could see, the only way out of this place, apart from falling, was on the back of one of the Pteros.

  One of the Martians with me, looking over the edge, said, “Here he comes at last,-the general.”

  “What, Hudells?” another asked, and they all looked over the edge, but still with one eye and a deathray covering me.

  I, pretending indifference, looked over too.

  It was a Ptero “train.”

  Ever seen a train with two engines, both pulling as hard as they can go? Well, here were three Pteros all pulling together. Each reptile was a real giant with a wing-spread of nearly one hundred feet. The first hauled the second and the second hauled the third by gripping his beak in his claws. And all three thrashed the air with their mighty wings with the perfect unison of crack oarsmen from an expert rowing team. And the cause of all this mighty and really beautiful effort sat on the back of the last Ptero, his body facing forwards but with his head strangely twisted around so that it faced backwards over his steed’s leathery tail.

  “It is General Hudells all right,” said a Martian beside me. “But what is wrong with his neck?”

  It was, of course, the man whom Vans had fought his great fight with down below. He had been supposed to be Tony Galento from Earth. According to these Martians he was Hudells. Hudells was the name of the three-ton Martian Vans had beaten some years ago. I began to understand. A daring fraud had somehow been carried out. The real Tony Galento had never come to Mars at all. Probably he had not even received Vans’ message. Plastic surgery had no doubt so altered the appearance of Hudells that he was not recognized. And nobody here knew what the real Galento looked like.

  Yes, that answered a lot of questions. But not all.

  The bat-wing reptiles lowered the three ton giant on to the wide shelf, where he got awkwardly off, body facing one way and head the other.

  “Here, you!” he roared, “fetch me the boss! And the professor. I want them both, quick!”

  Only, you know, when Hudells tried to point out the Martian he was speaking to he pointed the wrong way, out into the space behind him. And when he tried to take a step towards the cavern that was Grumbold’s headquarters he actually stepped backwards, towards that great drop of at least three miles.

  The effect was most curious.

  At any rate the Martians who were taking me away to the “cooler” found it so strange that they just stood and stared.

  PRESENTLY a squeaky, bored voice told me that Prince Grumbold was coming.

  “Must I be continually worried like this?”

  The diplomatic Martian who had advised him before was still there.

  “Your Highness, the rank and importance of General Hudells—”

  But Hudells himself cut him short.

  “Hey, you! Professor!” he bellowed, and took a step, the wrong way, as before. A puzzled look came into his face, then he cautiously shuffled the right way, which to his legs was backwards.

  “We heard the account of your fight on the radio, General,” began the professor, “and we congratulate you on the magnificent show you put up and on the splendid result.”

  “Stow that stuff in an ash-can and bury it!” roared Hudells. “Look at me! You told me that with this synthetic, self-repairing body you made for me no ordinary weapons could hurt me. And look at me! Look what that man Holors did to me! When he stretched my neck he hurt me like hell. You forgot to make the nerves and blood vessels as elastic as the flesh. And you made the neck-bones such a damn fool way the head could get fixed the wrong way round, like this!”

  “Um, yes. That was unfortunate.”

  “Unfortunate! It’s painful. And it makes me look a fool. I’d have done better with my own body instead of with this thing you made for me.”

&
nbsp; “Still, you did win the fight, General. You are champion of Mars.”

  “Yes. With the help of your tame snakes and in another man’s name. I should have fought in my own body and under my own name.”

  “Perhaps,” purred Prince Grumbold, softly, “the general is not satisfied with our guidance and wishes to leave us.” I saw the crafty look in his halfclosed eyes, and knew that the quiet words carried a deadly threat for Hudells.

  “Oh no, Prince! No, no! Not that!” The giant sounded scared.

  “Are you prepared to serve me as your King, faithfully, and to do as I and my advisers direct, whatever that may be?”

  “Why, of course, your Highness!”

  “Very well then. But let me have no more complaints.”

  “We have to thank General Hudells,” put in the professor, soothingly, “for some very good work for our cause. He consented to have his brain housed in the very first synthetic body, and he has allowed that body to be put to a very searching test. To face Vans Holors in a Martian snake-ring is about the most thorough test any body could well be put to. Out of that test he has come with flying colors, save for one small flaw revealed in the body—”

  “Small flaw! I want it put right. And quick!”

  “Small flaw that can easily be put right in the army of synthetic men that will follow. Thousands of synthetic men all under the command of General Hudells, sworn to serve His Majesty, King Grumbold and restore him to his father’s throne, men immune to injury by all ordinary weapons—”

  “We have heard all that before, Professor,” interrupted Grumbold. “General Hudells is now champion of Mars. I don’t see how that fits into the scheme.”

  “Oh, that is a side-show. It may work and it may not. There will be a huge ceremony, and Usulor, Emperor of Mars, will present Hudells with the crown of champion. At the right moment Hudells leaps, he seizes the Emperor and hurls him up in the air where one of our tame Pteros is waiting to catch him and bring him here. If Princess Wimpolo can be captured in the same way so much the better.”