A rueful smile from Vwil, as though he would like Lone Hunt to be friendly.
“Our world is poor, starving,” Vwil argued. “We have flown here in hopes of finding a place that will support life for ourselves, our comrades, and our children to come. Your world is larger than ours. It is rich, with much vegetation and water and air. There is room here for both your people and mine.”
“I cannot live as a neighbor of the Thunderer,” snapped Naku. “I have killed some of your people—two of the thin, red-faced ones like you, and one of the big shiny ones with a round light for a face.”
He stared at Vwil, and his young eyes were as hard and sharp as war-axes.
“If I was free this moment, I would kill you.”
“It is you who want to fight, not I,” Vwil replied with a sigh. “What is your name?” Naku told him, and Vwil continued: “You started the fight, Naku. Yet, I think we can be friends. This ray of light makes it possible for us to talk. Can we not touch hands and be helpful to each other?”
Naku wagged his head in fierce negation, “I used to know this valley,” he said. “It was peaceful, silent, green. Deer ate grass, and birds flew over it. Now you have built this fort and killed the grass. You swallow the very ground. Only the Thunderer spreads its wings—and the Thunderer is not alive, but a tool, a flying house,” he added, remembering what the girl Aria had told him. “You have fought my people once, and beaten them. But there are others, Vwil the Invader. Many others, more than you can count—tribes and nations of fighting warriors!”
His chest swelled, as for the first time in his life he considered all mankind as a single battling unit.
“You may beat others, but those who live will learn your secrets to use against you. Even I, a young man and a prisoner, have learned much in a little time. And in the end—”
“Wait!” came a new, cold voice.
Vwil rose from where he sat, and his attitude was respectful. A second Martian came and took the seat Vwil had quitted. His face was hard and full of ruthless wisdom.
“I have heard your soft words, Vwil,” said the newcomer. “I disapprove. As commander, I will finish this interview. You may go.”
VWIL departed from the chamber, but once he looked back. His brilliant eyes caught Naku’s, who saw that they were full of pleading. Then the Martian commander addressed the captive:
“Let me tell you the truth of your situation and that of your people. You have boasted to that weakling, Vwil, of your triumph—two of us, and one of our robots have fallen before you. Let me bolster your conceit further, and inform you that these are all our losses—inflicted by your hand alone. The rest of your race has not done us one bit of harm. And you, being a prisoner here—”
“I will escape,” Naku promised him.
The commander smiled, not like Vwil, but as fiercely as a hungry wolf. His skull-face was a mass of crinkles, as hard and set as dried leather.
“I think not. Our first specimen of your race, the fat one with red hair on his chin, disappointed my experiments. He could neither be made to understand our speech, nor to receive the impulses of my will. You, under this ray, are more receptive.”
So they had tried their tricks on Ipsar, and without success! Naku wondered about it. Was he not stronger of will, quicker of mind, than the pudgy priest? What shield, then, had Ipsar against the science of these invaders? If he, Naku, could get such a shield—
“Naku,” the Martian chief was saying, his eyes fixing the young man’s, “do you hear my words?”
“Of course I hear them,” replied Naku.
“Do you obey me?”
“Obey you?” repeated Naku wrathfully, and met the blazing eyes opposite. He was ready to fight against his bonds, to burst them and leap at the contemptuous thing who presumed to set himself up as master . . . but a new thought came. He was a captive. These were wiser, stronger beings. They must know best. Naku felt no surprise that his attitude changed so suddenly, under the green gaze of the spider-man with the lean red face.
“I obey you,” said Naku humbly.
“You know,” continued the inexorable voice, “that we, being desperate for life, are justified in coming from our poor world to your rich one—that it is our place to rule and yours to serve.”
Of course that was the truth, Naku realized. Just as man could conquer and exploit the animals, so could these Thunder Folk, being wiser and stronger, conquer and exploit man. It was a law of nature, said Naku to himself—he should be grateful that he was allowed to live. So completely had Naku’s attitude changed under the suggestive power of the Martian.
“It is your place to rule,” Naku repeated, “and mine to serve.”
“Good.” The commander rose, came to him, and unfastened his bonds with a deft flip of the buckles. Naku rose respectfully.
“I have hopes of your kind,” announced the commander. “Be good servants, recognize your subordinate position, and you shall live—prosper, even—under our rule. Now, return to your cage.”
Submissively, Naku did so.
“AND so,” the Martian commander finished his report to Vwil, “I succeeded. The exertion of my will-power, while the ray was turned on, conquered the creature’s primitive individuality on the instant. Henceforth he will understand and obey us. When one of us meets his eye and speaks his will, the creature will carry out the order. These natives who call themselves ‘men’ are slaves ready to our hand—physically strong and adroit, cheaper than robots, intelligent enough to receive thought-impulses and obey, but not to overthrow.”
“That is interesting,” said Vwil. “I am sorry that I cannot report so encouragingly on my own labor.”
“Your own labor?” repeated his chief. “What have you been doing?”
Vwil held out a chart, on which he had noted various chemical figures.
“It is the question of fuel. We have not enough to return to Mars.”
“We can manufacture more when the time is ripe,” snapped the commander. He was irritated once more with Vwil. This enigmatically gentle scientist, so brilliant and yet so weak from the Martian standpoint, was always a challenge. Just now the commander had recited his triumph over Lone Hunt, not as a leader informing a subordinate, but as a subordinate seeking the commendation of a leader. And Vwil, unimpressed, had only admitted his own failure in another field.
“This planet, however rich, lacks certain necessary elements,” Vwil was saying. “Also, the explosive power of metals seems subdued. I fear that we cannot manufacture proper fuel—we are stranded.”
“Let it be so,” growled the commander. Suddenly he felt more ruthless and determined than ever. “We shall make ourselves lords of this world. The men whom we capture shall serve us in a closer capacity than as slaves or robots.” His eyes glittered a brighter green. “Listen, Vwil, to what I plan.”
“Yes?”
“Our brains are great, but our bodies weak. These natives, less developed of mind than we, have yet strong bodies, well adapted to the particular life-struggle here. The inference is obvious.”
“Perhaps,” said Vwil. “Yet I do not approve—”
“Once more, I remind you that I command. We shall transplant our brains to their bodies. We will become immortal, even—as a body grows old, we can shift the Martian brain in it to a new, young body. Always we shall take the finest physiques for ourselves, and the rest of the human race shall serve as slaves. When more of our people come—”
“Will more come?”
“We cannot return, as you have shown,” said the commander. “Unless we do return, reporting this planet as unfit for habitation, others will follow to see what has become of us. We, the pioneers, will be also the chiefs and heroes of the new colony of Mars.”
His voice rose exultantly, his lean face was suffused with a darker red. It was as though he saw the enslavement and exploitation of all humanity achieved, the complete control of Mother Earth in the bony hands of his own invading race.
“Let the flying
detail go and seek for more good specimens,” he rasped. “Let them bring only the finest, killing all others. Meanwhile, we must experiment. Who is our dullest brain, the one with whom we can experiment most cheaply? Bring him to the surgery, also that fat fool among the prisoners, and make ready for an operation.”
CHAPTER VI
The Shell Cap
A DAY and a night had passed since Naku had been returned to the cage from his interview with Vwil and the Martian leader. Away from the influence of the Martian, he could once again think for himself. With the dawn, the flying machine—Naku no longer thought of it as the living Thunderer, but as what Aria had pronounced it, a complicated tool—came winging back from another expedition. It had swooped at night upon a camped hunting party, killed two men and captured a third. As robots led this hunter to the prison, Aria sprang up from where she lay asleep on soft sand.
“Lumbo!” she cried, in a voice that betrayed both happy surprise and concerned question. The young man in the grip of the robots was a blond-haired, blue-eyed specimen like herself, and his face—it was as handsome as her own, but with masculine strength of contour—lighted up in recognition. He was thrust in, and Aria seized him in welcoming embrace.
“They have not hurt you?” she demanded in tender concern.
Naku watched, with feelings he did not bother to diagnose, since they were strangely glum. He had known Aria only a few hours, and up to now had not had the time to consider whether she was desirable or not, until this stranger suddenly claimed her affectionate attention. He must be her husband or lover—and Naku suddenly disliked the idea.
He turned over in his mind thought of a sudden plan to provoke a quarrel with the blond youth, It would lead to a fight, with Aria as prize of victory. Naku gauged the other’s volume of muscle, his quickness of reaction. Probably here was a good fighter and ready, but Naku felt himself to be both stronger and fiercer . . .
The robots who had brought the man called Lumbo had also roused fat Ipsar from slumber and dragged him out. Ipsar struggled and protested, and the seashell cap fell from his tossing head and lay just inside the barred door as it slammed behind him. Aria turned toward Naku, her blue eyes filled with flecks of golden joy-light.
“Naku,” she said, “this is my brother, Lumbo—the son of my father and mother. He was surprised and captured by these Thunder Folk, but now he is here, with you and me. The three of us are wise and strong. We will find a way to escape.”
Her brother! Naku’s dark, square-jawed face glowed with a joy to match Aria’s own. His welcoming hand caught Lumbo’s and squeezed it until the other winced.
“I am glad to see you,” said Naku honestly. “Glad that you are Aria’s brother.” Aria bowed her head shyly—she, at least, understood the inference. Lumbo rejoined courteously, and added: “Aria is right. We three should win out of this trap. Tell me what you know of our captors.”
The trio of young people sat on the sand, Lumbo in the center. Aria and Naku alternated in setting forth both observation and theory. At the end, Lumbo summed up: “We are unarmed, and caught like fish in a net. But,” he added weightily, “from what I have seen and from what you tell me, I have it in mind that we are also like netted fish in that those who caught us must work clumsily with us, like fishermen wading and swimming in water. I mean that these stranger people, whom Naku calls the Thunder Folk, do not feel natural upon our world. Light weights are heavy to them, and the air is thick to their breathing. We, who are used to these things, have the advantage by at least that much.”
HE PAUSED to let the idea sink in, and picked up the shell cap that Ipsar had dropped.
“What is this thing?” he asked. “Does it belong to the Thunder Folk?”
“It was the cap worn by Ipsar,” Naku replied. “He wore it to show that he was a priest.” Taking it from Lumbo’s hands, Naku set it upon his own shaggy black hair to demonstrate. The thing fitted snugly, and weighed little. The three prisoners continued their talk, and Naku forgot that he wore the shell.
Meal time came, and it was Vwil who brought food in his own spidery hands—metal bowls, in which were contained sliced roast meats and several kinds of fruit. He spoke in friendly fashion to Naku, but his purring words were unintelligible. Naku shook his shell-capped head, and both he and Vwil stared uncomprehendingly. They had understood each other well the day before, in the space-ship. What was wrong now?
Naku, perplexed, lifted a hand to rumple his hair. That hand twitched back the shell cap, and at once he knew what Vwil was saying in the language of the Martians: “Answer me, Naku. I am still ready to be your friend, to help you if I can. Do not pretend to be deaf.”
“I am not deaf,” grumbled Naku, and Vwil also understood. “It seems that—”
He was about to say that the knowledge of Vwil’s language had seemed to escape him for a moment, but on impulse he broke off. Dropping his hand from his head, he let the shell settle back into place. At once he was unable to comprehend Vwil’s words, but the Martian’s manner suggested a friendly farewell. Left alone, the three began to eat, and Naku and something amazing to relate.
“I could understand him, and he could understand me, only when I pushed back this shell cap,” Naku informed the others. “When I have it on my head, he speaks strange words.”
“We did not understand him at any time,” contributed the girl Aria, sinking her white teeth into a big yellow plum.
That was an additional item to consider, pondered Naku. He remembered the orange ray, and how Vwil apparently used it to establish communication with him. Aria and Lumbo, who had never felt that ray, could not understand. The consideration extended itself; they would never understand the Martians until the ray was played upon them, Naku remembered something else. The Martian commander had spoken of Ipsar, had said: “He could neither be made to understand our speech, nor to receive the impulses of our will.” Naku took the shell from his head and gazed at it. Yes, Ipsar had worn that shell until his recent struggle with the robots. Naku, wearing it, had shut away the understanding of Vwil’s words, as a wall might shut away light—even the light of the orange ray. What did it portend?
FORGETTING to eat, Naku groped for a decision. Again he studied the shell. It was of unthinkable age, enamelled with the stony lime of petrification, and it hid his thoughts from the Martians. Naku, like all his people, believed that the heart, not the brain, was the seat of the reason and the emotions, and so the idea of an insulated brain-case was not easy to grasp. But the facts were before him, and he decided to accept them.
He considered, too, that the ray-induced ability to understand the Martians also bent one’s will to those strange and forbidding creatures. The commander had said so, and had demonstrated it. But he, Naku, had the shell-cap. Without it, he could understand the Martians, benefit by what they said. Wearing it, he could withstand their wills. Naku began to think that here was a chance for escape—even victory.
Lumbo was haranguing his sisters on that very subject.
“Without beating these Thunder Folk, destroying them, it makes no difference how far we run from them. What they say and do shows that they intend to rule the world, and us. We must fight—win.”
So they all talked. Naku kept the shell cap on his head lest a Martian, passing, overhear and understand him and report that the captives plotted. He also stared through the bars at the garrison, their buildings and equipment, and at the walls that seemed ever to grow and embrace more territory. Soon these walls would enclose the whole valley, encroach on the forest. Would the fortress eventually overflow all the world?
In the midst of this, figures approached. All three looked up. Two robots came, and the Martian commander, and Ipsar the priest.
But Ipsar no longer went in a prisoning grip—he walked beside the commander, who leaned for support on the fat shoulder. Ipsar’s cranium was swathed in white bandages, and seemed to have swelled beneath them. He spoke, and the voice was Ipsar’s, but the words—they were in the language of
the Martians!
Wondering, only half guessing, Naku whipped off the insulating cap. At once he made out the words, and they were addressed to himself:
“You with the black hair, prepare to go with this party.” With his own plump hand, Ipsar unfastened the barred doorway. “Come forward, I tell you.”
“Come out,” seconded the commander, catching Naku’s eyes, and Naku obediently emerged. “What do you hold in your hand that stony thing like a bowl?”
Ipsar closed the gates upon the staring Aria and Lumbo, and came close to Naku, “Yes,” he said curiously, “what is that?” His query saved Naku, saved mankind, saved the world. For the young man held by the will of the commander, would have replied truthfully and fully concerning the cap’s power to shut off thought-impulses. But Ipsar’s evident ignorance of the object he had worn so long and constantly made Naku turn toward him.
“Do you know what it is? You, as priest, had it always on your head.”
“Did I?” And Ipsar took the cap, lifting it to his bandaged pate. But the swathings and the enlargement made it impossible to fit the shell in place.
“I will wear it no more,” he announced. “Here, prisoner, it is yours.” Contemptuously he slapped it upon Naku’s head, and at once the next speech of the commander slid into unintelligible purrings and snortings. Naku could not understand them—and could not feel the impulse to obey in his heart.
When he did not act upon whatever order was given him, the commander fiercely repeated it, and pointed toward the center of the fortress, where the space-ship still lodged. Ipsar, on the other side of Naku, was also speaking in the Martian tongue, but, like the commander, was only astonished and not suspicious at all at the captive’s lagging. Sure of their psychic control over Naku, neither appealed to the robots.
NAKU made up his mind at once. He took a step toward the ship, and the robots also turned away, leading the party toward it. At once Naku went into action.
The Complete Hok the Mighty Page 13
