Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks)

by Leslie F Stone

  NANCY, who had all this time hung closely behind Elsie, now cowered on the floor whimpering and her mistress bent over her to soothe away her fears. It worried her that she had brought the girl, but she was to become a great comfort to her in later years. As soon as they were out in Space and the Yodverl rode the vacuum, she regained her good spirits, fell easily into the routine of the ship and became a great help to Urto after she had learned his ways. She was always to stand in awe of the man who was the color of the precious metal for which men of Earth fought so terrifically in her country and, of course, to him her childish mind was always a source of great delight. The muti were also a great wonder to her, and she was quick to learn their simple language. Secretly she venerated them as god-things, and in turn they appreciated her worship, and would follow her about like dogs whenever they were allowed to. She would roll her eyes wildly as she drank their milk, mumbling some of her outlandish mouthings over it.

  On leaving Earth, the motion of that tremendous feat was scarcely noticeable, for during the past six months, Moura had incorporated gravity nullifiers with his magnetic-electric gravitational motors so that Elsie did not feel the effects of space-sickness, as she had the first time she embarked on the Yodverl. Then they were in the Void again with the great sun brightly shining upon them, and the greater stars of space creeping closer and closer as though to see more clearly the pygmies that had dared invade their domain. They continued onward from Earth for several hours and Moura motioned to Ubca who locked the controls, and went into the adjoining room. He came back with a single sheet of Abruian “paper,” metal, that had been rolled to onion-skin thinness. He also brought a paint bottle and brush, substitutes for the Abruian pen and ink.

  Moura took the implements and at the top of the sheet he wrote first in English, then in Abruian: “Aboard the Yodverl, the ship of the Void, in presence of the stars of Space we, the undersigned, on this day take each unto the other forevermore, June 18th, 1930, A. D.” The only difference in the Abruian transcription was the date which read, Tradr Mut, 9, 11173, meaning that it was the third duit or month of Tradr, the satellite sun of Abrui, in the year 11173. The Abruians date their history directly from the first awakening of civilized mankind.

  Moura next held the brush out to Elsie who awkwardly inscribed her full name under which Moura signed his own. Ubca, Urto and Nancy were called upon to sign as witnesses. Elsie wrote Nancy’s name and held her hand as she made her “mark.”

  Moura thence turned to Elsie. “I take you, Elsie Rollins, for my wife in the sight of the Universe,” and she in turn repeated the same words substituting his name in place of her own and “husband” instead of “wife.” So was performed the first marriage of the Void.

  CHAPTER II

  Festival

  URTO now invited the party into the atol where he had already arranged a wedding supper. Ubca-tor fixed the ship’s controls upon Mars as they were heading out to Alpha Centauri in its direction, and he was free to join the others at the table.

  The table’s ware were all of Earthly origin, even to candles in lovely holders, and the food that was served by the golden man and Nancy, who was already pressed into service, had been cooked and garnished as any French chef might dream of doing. There began the rivalry of Nancy and Urto as they both sought to serve Elsie and Moura. All the dishes were front the supplies Elsie had brought aboard, antelope, chicken, vegetables, salad, pastry, cheese and crackers, with the exception of some fruits and nuts from Ganymede. The Abruians do not ordinarily eat meat, but the three did that night, and they relished the antelope above all.

  When they had eaten and Urto and Nancy had been forced to bring their own meal into the atol, Urto suddenly left the room to come back playing a strange instrument that Elsie had never seen. It looked somewhat like an accordion but instead of reeds had strings against which the air of the bellows breathed and gave exquisite tones.

  The music he played was as strange as the instrument, and was by far the loveliest Elsie had ever heard. Most of the composition was in minor chords, hut in a most delightful way they ran the entire gamut of the various keys. Then the notes commenced to climb the scale, becoming higher and higher until they were almost inaudible to the ear, so fast were their vibrations, and Elsie noticed a strange thing. A sweetish musk-like odor pervaded the room, to become more delicate and sweeter as the musician continued to play, until a perfume that was almost overpowering filled the air. That ceased and now a faint, though beautiful, indescribable shade of color filled the room, a color that seemed to be gathered from several of the colors of the spectrum. It changed and gave way to another admixture of hues, to be followed by a dozen different combinations that suddenly gave place to coral-pink, azure-blue, golden-yellow. Then they all disappeared and the faint far-away music was gone.

  Elsie exclaimed over the marvelous performance. It was the first time she had ever heard music aboard the Yodverl, unaware that the golden man could accomplish so much weird beauty. She learned that on Abrui music was kept by its people as an expression of great joy and was only employed for occasions thought to merit it, yet they were a race of musicians. Every youth learns to play the queer musical instrument, the calula, until he is its master. There is no written music, but each player improvises as he carries on, so that, held to no single set of notes, he can work his theme out as the spirit calls him. They had long ago discovered the secret of hypnotizing their audience into believing their nostrils breathed perfumes and their eyes saw color by combining certain notes and chords and all this was as much of their art as the bringing forth of their tones.

  As Urto finished his orchestration, Ubca rose from his chair and crossing to the opposite side of the room began to whistle softly. The music he brought forth was of different timbre than Urto’s. It was light and delicate and anyone listening was perforce lifted to the very heights by its glorious tones. Ubca’s song was one of love and the listener was made to feel the fears of the lover who questions if his love is understood and returned by the one it is bestowed upon. Then came the discovery that the other’s love is true and there followed such a marvelous creation that Elsie found tears welling up in her eyes.

  With the end of the song Nancy, who had been squatting on her heels beside Elsie, was aroused to movement. The negro race, as one knows, takes most naturally to music, and the wondrous tones of Urto and Ubca had brought response from the simple girl’s heart. She began crooning and swaying her body where she squatted and they were treated to one of the weird, mournful, wordless songs of her people, that carried in it all the longing and sorrow of a race that strives to find its expression. She worked herself into a frenzy so that she got to her feet and gave a dance that was as primitive as her soul. Only in her wild enthusiasm she was carried away to such heights that she inadvertently came too close to the pool that lay gleaming in the light from overhead, and losing her footing, she toppled ungracefully into the water. That broke the spell and they all had a great laugh as she was pulled from the water dripping wet, a much bedraggled darky. Her own sense of humour broke through its shell, and she joined in the fun she had created, showing her ivory white teeth in a great guffaw. Urto led her to the room he had fixed for her, and there she changed her simple dress.

  CHAPTER III

  Starting on the Long Journey

  UBCA-TOR, Moura and Elsie returned now to the pilot-room and, with Ubca taking the controls once more, they headed outward into Space. Earth with Venus, Mercury and Sol dropped behind them, and the red eye of Mars gleamed ahead once more in all his wonder. Far beyond they could see Jupiter against the constellation of Gemini on the zodiac. Moura pointed out the little aerolite, Eros, in the black sky.

  Elsie was curious to know something more of where they had been during the year she had spent on Earth, and he narrated all of their adventures to her. They had visited a number of the planetoids that lay between Mars and Jupiter and landed on several of the largest. On two they found life, animal and planet, but no hum
an beings, but on the third they discovered that a new species had developed, bear-like creatures of intelligence, with cities and a knowledge of astronomy and mechanics, but who were very warlike and hostile to the strangers, so that they left immediately. Traveling close to Jupiter, they had landed upon several of its moons. Three were found uninhabited, the fourth was peopled by a race strangely man-like, but they too were inhospitable so the travelers did not land there. On Ganymede they discovered a friendly race of fox-faced creatures who were lifting themselves out of savagery. They took the Space-travelers for Gods and laid all manner of gifts before them. They were as rich in precious gems as other worlds were in common metals and were skilled workers with them. To please Moura they fashioned Elsie’s bed-couch for him. He found the dressing-table hidden in a cave that appeared to be a treasure-cove and because he admired it, they gave it to him.

  On Callisto of Jupiter they discovered a dead world, the ruins of old cities, and there, in a building, they found the perfume bottles that Elsie saw on her dressing table also made from jewels although that world was not quite so rich in them as Ganymede.

  On Hyperion, one of the satellites of Saturn, there was a highly developed civilization of creatures evolved from plant-life. They recognized the Abruians for what they were, men from another planet and received them with due honor. Their world was entirely devoid of metallic ores, but they were most ingenious in their use of wood, chemicals and the fibrous rock. It was from them that Moura obtained the laces, the bed-coverings, rugs and pillow-chairs. They had also presented him a goodly amount of uncut material, which later was shown to Elsie, who made clothing of it for herself, and later for her baby. For these things Moura had given them a small supply of raw metal left over from what had been given him by the Venerians, also a metal chair, and some of the radium treated cooking dishes.

  Hyperion is only a small world, having a diameter of but five hundred miles, and its people were looking with longing at the nearest moon, Titian, which was three thousand miles in diameter. Moura recognized the fact that in his ship they saw the means of spanning that space, and so it was that immediately the two Abruians took their machine out of reach of the plant-men. On almost all the worlds they had visited they had found it possible for them to go about without their oxygen masks, since the air content was what they were accustomed to. Only on Hyperion there was too great a percentage of oxygen for their safety.

  They had been most interested in the rings of Saturn and drew as close to them as they dared. It was a terrific experience and for many hours they stood off to study them. As scientists had determined by observations from earth, the rings are made up of swarms of meteorites, and they were fortunate enough to see the effect the collisions of two or more bodies had upon the rings, as they caused small flares of light to glow for a short time.

  By that time the six months were almost up. Moura had a chronometer to allow him to keep terrestrial time, but he feared it may have gone astray and he had no wish to be late for his appointment, so they had arrived something like eight days ahead of schedule. These days were spent upon earth’s moon making many discoveries—one of which was that the satellite had, without a doubt, been inhabited at one time. In the sea of Mare Serenitatis, in its sandy surface, they found fossil remains of fish and sea life! Further, with sensitive instruments, they located deposits of radium below the surface, great deposits, and with it the element eldimun, the substance that causes instantaneous combustion upon uniting with radium; the same element that was believed to have caused Tradr of Abrui to change from a dead moon to a glowing miniature sun and so give life to the planet. Encircling all of the moon, Moura and Ubca had ascertained that the whole of the body was unusually rich in these elements, and now Moura predicted that in the far future the same thing that had happened to Tradr would occur on Luna so that even if Sol were ever to burn himself away, Earth would have its own captive “sun” to give it life and energy throughout the future ages!

  CHAPTER IV

  Out of the Solar System

  ELSIE and Nancy soon fitted themselves into the routine of the Yodverl. Elsie and Ubca-tor resumed their old friendship where it had been left off, and now they were mutually drawn together because of their love for Moura-weit. Elsie insisted now that she learn everything there was to know about the Yodverl since she was one of them, and she learned a great deal more of Abrui besides. She learned to control the ship almost as efficiently as the men and insisted that Moura allow her to write down notes of all his great discoveries. She became proficient in the Abruian tongue and in turn took Nancy’s education in hand, teaching her enough of the Abruian language so that Urto and she were not at so great a loss in understanding each other. The simple negro girl took to everything she was taught readily enough, for she was a good imitator. She insisted upon taking as much of the work of keeping the living quarters in order, and did as much in the kitchen as Urto would allow. And when the clothing of the travelers showed wear, she was ready with her needle to help repair and fashion new ones.

  So Elsie Rollins-weiti’s new life began and moved along in a smooth, well-oiled groove, that was to persist for the next eight years. More and more she learned of the wonderful mind of her husband, and their love for each other expanded with the years. Theirs was a love of understanding and never once did they find anything to quarrel over. Even when at work in his laboratories, or when after they had arrived on Kal and he was away from her, Moura was always thoughtful enough to send kindly messages to her through the medium of the brain. And he taught her how she might send him messages in like ways. She never did succeed in closing her mind to his, but after her return to the Yodverl she had no desire to do so. More than once they had a good laugh over the thought of the tula blossom she had carried for so many days at Ubca-tor’s instigation.

  Now Mars was passed at a distance of ten million miles and they swung into that area in which lay the vast number of planetoids. One of the men was always on the lookout for them, for, though the orbits of many of them have been plotted by astronomers on earth and Abrui, there were countless numbers of which many were unknown or which had not been observed closely enough to determine their exact position. Of course, the meteorite deflectors aided in avoiding them, but the voyagers did not relish coming too close, and there were sighs of relief when they knew that they had passed completely out of that region. The only fear they had of meteorites was that they might be falling too rapidly for the deflectors to act upon them in time, but Moura had added a bell to his equipment that rang in the pilot room during such an emergency.

  Jupiter lay far to the right of them as they passed his orbit, for at that time he was traveling toward his superior conjunction, i.e., to the far distant side of Sol, and therefore was not in their line of march. Saturn, however, was almost due ahead and they passed him with his rings edgewise to them. Uranus was in his apogee on the distant side of the sun, and they saw the light of Neptune far “below” them as it seemed. Abrui was behind the greater planet. The Abruians trained their telescope upon it and watched that little world that was their home until it lay far behind. Elsie had her first glimpse of Abrui there.

  On, on they continued, and now they saw a great dark planet that the Abruians knew lay beyond their own small world. It was believed by their astronomers that Abrui was actually once a moon of Neptune, but it had been pulled away from the planet by the force of this greater planet that was several times larger than Neptune, so that that planet lost its hold on Abrui, and Abrui in turn fell into a new orbit to encircle the sun for all time in its present position of 4,557,000,000 miles from Sol.

  Moura brought out his instruments and estimated that this giant globe, which was called by his people Tui (the Last One), was practically four billion miles from Sol! Parts of it seemed to glow with the light reflected from Sol, but for the most part it appeared dark, as if its black rough sides were incapable of reflecting the sun’s light.

  Using his delicate instrument, that felt out t
he magnetic vibratory impulses of the bodies of the Void. Moura swept it in every direction beyond Tui. Twice he thought he received response, but because their mission was taking them in the opposite direction they had not the time to follow out the quest, but Moura was certain now that at least one, if not two, worlds lay in the great black distances.

  The Yodverl was now moving at practically one-half the speed of light, with one day after another following each other in rapid succession. It was with a queer admixture of emotions that the voyagers realized that at last they were outside the confines of the solar system, although the delicate instruments registered the fact that the power of Sol was still to be felt. Looking backwards, they saw the sun as a globe no larger than a golf ball, and its light was subsequently dimmed to that proportion. Then came the day when the instruments recording Sol’s pull registered zero, with other parts of the instrument already noting the “pull” of those other great suns far across the black sea of Space, Sirius, Capella, Alpha Centauri, which were reaching out with a much greater span than Sol possessed.

  CHAPTER V

  In the Void’s Maw

  HOW wonderful the distant stars were now. The Milky Way shone in all its circular beauty, its clouds, nebulas and star clusters more magnificent and gigantic than could ever have been imagined when one is confined by terrestrial world and atmosphere. Stars of the first magnitude were becoming ever more brilliant, so that they vied with Sol in sending the travelers their light, stars, hundreds and thousands of times brighter than he had been these billions of years. As time went on some of the great stars were to be seen visibly receding into the greater distances beyond Sol, while those which lay ahead were glowing more brilliantly.