Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks)

by Leslie F Stone

  Unlike me, Jim lay on his back, and that was his reason for repeating: “Denny, where are you? I can’t see you!”

  “I’m right beside you,” I said after I had gotten over some of my astonishment.

  “What’s wrong? What’s happened? Why can’t I move?”

  “Well, for one thing, you’re tied to the ground, pegged by little wires. Your hair—gosh, you look funny!” I began to laugh, a high hysterical laughter. It was ludicrous to see a six-foot six man pegged to the ground by thin wires. The laugh, however, hurt my strained chest.

  “My head! Who the hell tied me up like this?” Small had attempted to lift his head with the same results that I had.

  “Your hands, try to free your hands first,” I gasped. “You’ll wrench every bit of hair out of your head that way . . .” As I spoke I tried to free my hands, astounded that such simple effort should cost so much. It was as if my every muscle weighed a hundred pounds, my hands were just heavy lumps of bone and flesh. I could not so much as free a single finger from the tiny wires. I tried concentrating all effort on that left hand of mine, and though I felt it move I was not strong enough to break the bonds that held me down. After that single try I was glad to rest. And Small, likewise, rested after a single effort.

  “For cripes sake, what’s happened? The ship? Where is it?”

  Again I did not answer Small, for something had stepped within my line of vision. As I struggled with my bonds it had come through the ferns and stood staring into my incredulous face. I thought of pixies and brownies of the story books of my kid days, for just such a creature was the Lilliputian Jovian. In colo,r it was grass green, and it had the widest mouth I ever saw, it slit the creature’s wide face from side to side so that I could see two rows of uneven yellow teeth and a flaccid purple tongue. It had round shoe-button eyes of vermilion red and long pointed ears that lay flat against the sides of its round bald head. Its nose was a round shapeless blob in the center of an incredibly ugly face, and it did not seem to have a chin at all. But these were not the most startling feature about the creature; it was its size that astounded me the most, for it stood just six inches high!

  l Six inches high! A man? But was it a man? It was a biped, for it stood erect on two short thick legs, and had two short arms and a round upright body, but I was unwilling to place it in the same category as man. It was only a caricature of the Genus Homo. Still, I quickly discovered that it possessed man’s fiendish appetite for torture! Drawing a tiny, though long bladed knife from its girdle, the little green man came forward, and although I drew back as far as my bound-down hair would allow, it pricked my chin with its knife!

  Darting back again that little travesty of a man shook its fat sides laughing at the ejaculation of pain it had drawn from my lips. The knife-prick was scarcely more painful than a pin-prick; it was really the tug I had given my hair that hurt. But I was seeing red after that, hating the little green thing with all my soul. Sticking a man that was down!

  The midget beast was not alone, for there came a dozen or so of his prototypes to stand before my face and laugh. Green things, round and fat with ugly faces and inch wide grins. Practically naked, they wore little aprons of red cloth strung from the hips. Pouches hung from the girdle holding the aprons in place, and they carried knives in sheaths on their belts. They did not stop with pricking my chin; my lips, nose and cheeks came in for their share of torture, and if I did not wince enough for their pleasure they stuck their knives deeper, so that blood came. And how they laughed, throwing back their heads in wide-mouthed glee, jumping up and down in delight because they could hurt a giant!

  A howl from Small told me he had come in for a share of the same treatment. Lifting my eyes a moment I saw that his body swarmed with little beasts, male and female alike, for the female of the Jovian species was just as fat and ugly as the male, and just as cruel.

  Again and again they pricked me, but I did not cry out any more. Tiring of their play they disappeared as quickly as they had come leaving Small and myself alone once more. Unable to get my hand free I decided to free my head. Gritting my teeth against the pain it would cost me I gave what seemed to me a mighty tug. All I got for it was pain; my hair remained fastened to the pegs. There was that inexplicable weakness my every effort brought me, and in desperation I made up my mind to lie quietly several minutes in hope that my normal strength would return. Time and time again I sought to pull away from my bonds without success. The little wires seemed forged from keil[2], and my strength would not return.

  Now I noticed a darkening of the sky. It did not grow altogether dark and because the clouds retained some of their luminosity the night of Jupiter was as bright as a brilliant moonlit night of Earth. Jupiter rotates on its axis every nine hours and fifty-four minutes, therefore, the night was short, less than four and a half hours long.

  Small had, likewise, given up the effort to get free. Fitfully we slept. Then it was growing lighter once more and our tormentors came to torture us again. I closed my eyes and tried not to flinch when tiny knives pricked me. I was horribly thirsty and wondered if some of my weakness might have arisen from a lack of nourishment.

  I had no way in knowing how long I had been “out,” how long it was since we had fallen on Jupiter.

  They did not prick me this time, however. I felt something plucking at my lower lip, raising a corner. I gritted my teeth against the momentary pain I expected, but instead of pain something hard pressed against my teeth, and there was a pungent odor in my nostrils. Opening my eyes a slit I saw that a half a dozen little people were attempting to shove something into my mouth. I focused my eyes carefully so that I saw, beside my nose, a pile of small brown pellets. One of the tiny monsters had pushed a pellet between the gap between my front teeth! At first, I thought it might contain poison, and started to shove it out of my mouth with my tongue. A delicious sweet taste filled my mouth. Whatever it was, it was good. Perhaps, after all, the little beasts actually intended to feed me. Had they not gone to the trouble of making Small and me prisoners? And prisoners are usually fed.

  Another pellet was shoved into my mouth, and this time I took it gladly, and at my voluntary action the little creatures danced up and down as if in joy. They were glad I was ready to eat. Well, thought I, let ’em bring it on, poison or not. I opened my mouth wide, wondering just how many of the brown pellets it would take to fill that growing maw that was my stomach. The green men seemed to have some idea of my capacity, for a long queue of them were winding up the path between Small’s body and mine, bearing on their backs little red bags filled with brown pellets.

  My mouth was just about on the level with the Lulliputians’ shoulders; they could just manage to pour a bag of pellets into it without the need of ladders. I allowed them to empty two bags into my mouth, then I closed it to chew and swallow the pellets. They were bread-like in texture, but seemed also to have a slight thirst-quenching quality. I realized that at the rate we were going it would take an hour to fill my stomach with the sweet tasting pellets. The green people thought differently, for after filling my mouth seven or eight times they ceased their ministrations, and now a new band approached me, carrying what looked like stuffed animal skins on their shoulders. They proved to be filled with liquid, and in design were like the wine-skins of the ancients of our world. These, however, contained the most tasteless liquid it has ever been my fortune to sample, but it cured my remaining thirst.

  CHAPTER III

  In Slavery

  l When I had drunk from about five of these skins the green people deserted the vicinity of my mouth, but they did not leave me. I could feel them crawling over my body, fiddling with my hair. Their weight was surprising for their size, for each must have weighed from three to five pounds. They were all over me, and I could feel them tugging at my clothing, hacking at it here and there. In fact, looking down at my chest, I saw two or three of the little creatures with knives in hand struggling to slit the heavy material of my tunic!

&n
bsp; I let out a roar of rage, but though they glanced at my face they paid my protestation no further attention as they continued their work upon my clothes. I could feel them down around my legs, ripping and tearing, at my waist, at my shoulders and my back. And in my rage over their sanguine mutilation of my uniform, I struggled to heave myself upright. This time I found that I managed to move somewhat. A finger of my left hand broken loose from its wires, and part of my hair came free, while a wire snapped across my chest. The little men did not like that, for the next thing I knew a dozen knives were pricking me in a dozen different places, in my neck, my shoulder, my hand. Again I tried to free myself, and again I was pricked here and there in punishment.

  Two or three little men appeared in the vicinity of my eyes, and I saw they were armed differently than the others. They carried a long wooden shaft, longer than their own body, and each shaft was topped with a mean weapon. There were two long prongs, each ending in a wicked hook! I was to feel the savage bite of those prongs, for the next time I tried to move against the will of the little people, a half a dozen of those things were plunged into my flesh, and twisted. Small though they were, they hurt horribly. After that I had more respect for the wishes of the green men.

  Small, who had also struggled to get up, had a taste of this new weapon. He was cursing and sputtering. “A hell of a way for full-grown men to be treated, the blankety, blank so-in-sos. I’ll crash every blasted one of them to a pulp when I get my hands on ’em.”

  Later, I had to laugh at that reservation of his “when I get my hands on ’em.” The Lilliputians proved worse than mosquitoes once they got started. After about an hour of working around us, they seemed ready for the next move. Suddenly I felt that a hundred bees had attacked me. From all sides they came with knives or hooks. Something gave my hair a terrible tug; then a dozen or so of them came racing up the lane between Small and me as if they were going to plunge their weapons deep into my face and neck. Others were at my legs, my back, my chest.

  A yell broke from my mouth, and I gave an upward surge. It brought me to a sitting position, but that single action cost me dearly. It was as if I had used every ounce of strength in my body, that hundreds of pounds weighed me down. I sank down to the support of my elbow. I felt that I, who had come to Jupiter a young man, was now a rheumatic ancient. I got myself to a sitting position once more, realizing that dozens of little fiends were pricking me from all sides, anxious for my rising now. Slowly the truth dawned on me.

  It wasn’t age, nor lack of strength that made of me this heavy, slow-moving animal; it was Jupiter, a world eleven times larger than my own natural globe, and my hundred and ninety pounds of flesh and bone weighed in the neighborhood of four hundred and seventy-eight pounds here. My muscles were not built to sustain that amount of weight!

  There was a remedy for this condition. In our ship were two portable gravity regulators. If we could only get hold of them we could nullify the gravity pull of Jupiter to Earth normal or even more if we wished. These machines had been developed on Earth even before space-navigation had come, and they had proved a great boon to mankind in his task of overcoming the worlds he conquered. Without them the settling of the smaller moons of Jupiter would have proved next to impossible because the low degree of gravitation made walking almost impossible. The gravity-nullifier plates of the space-ships are merely a later development of the small regulators.

  Groaning and grunting I got to my feet, stood as erect as I could, and looked around me. I was looking for the 354. I saw that we had been lying in a sort of low valley enclosed by low rises which must have been large hills to the Lilliputians. The floor of the valley was thick with vegetation, tiny ferns, bushes and copses of trees that scarcely reached the top of my knee. And about twenty feet from where Small and I had been lying was the badly smashed patrol ship.

  We must have hit the ground with a terrific thwack for one side was caved in, its blunt nose was half buried in a welter of torn-up trees and purple sand. There was a large ragged tear in the side facing us. Had it not been for the fact that the air. of this world, only slightly denser than that to which we were accustomed, was breathable, Small and I would have cashed in the moment our ship struck the ground. And I was certain we had not come out of the 354 under our own power. A glance showed me I was right. A wide swath of broken trees, crushed bushes and ferns showed where our captors had dragged us bodily from the wreck! It must have been a monumental task for those little creatures, but owing to the way we had been treated, so far, I realized that their humanitarianism, but one from which they expected to derive some profit.

  l The ship would never leave its berth under its own power, but in it were other worthwhile things to be salvaged beside the gravity-regulators—our guns, food, razors, a change of clothing, the first-aid kit. And I wondered if the radio still worked, if we could send out an SOS, to warn those ships that were to follow us, about the treachery of this monster world.

  In my contemplation of the patrol I had forgotten the little people, but as I took my first step toward the wreck they reminded me quickly enough. With what seemed like a hundred bees they attacked me driving their knives and hooked spears into my flesh, and I realized that my body was alive with tiny fiends. They were on my shoulders, my arms, my head, on my chest, my back and straddling my legs. Carefully they had built little slings here and there to provide safety for themselves, and from my neck and shoulders were hanging wires of varying lengths which gave them easy means of reaching any part of my body they wished. There had been method in the slitting of my garments, and it was at these slits, for the most part, that many of them had taken their places with ready weapons to plunge into the flesh thus exposed.

  One little chap, or maybe two, had places on my head, tied there safely with strands of hair and wire. Later when I got away from Jupiter I got a headache every time I thought of those little tormentors pulling on my hair, thumping my skull with little wood-shod feet. And seated on a sling a few inches from my chin was another green man. He did not carry a spear, but was armed simply with a knife. In the subsequent days, when his fellows had subdued me, he with pointing finger showed the way I was to go, what was expected of me. I named him THE BOSS. And since he was the only one of that whole demonical crew that did not at some time or other stab me I actually grew attached to the little fellow. He seemed less ugly to me, his grin less cruel.

  Finding, however, that the green men did not want me to go toward the 354 I determined to rid myself of those who had taken such complete tenancy of my body. As if it were something apart from myself I brought my hand up slowly, slowly to the level of my chest. I could feel straining cords in my neck as I did so, so great was that single effort as I sought to best Jupiter’s mastery over me.

  Up, up, came the hand, the fingers slowly bending forward so as to be ready to pluck away a green man, but as if they read my thoughts the little men were ready for me. Those who would come within reach of my hand swung themselves out of its way on their wires, while the two stationed on the cuff of my sleeve plied their cruel spiked spears, twisting them as they plunged them into the thin flesh of my wrist.

  They were not gentle, those little monsters of torment. They were aware that I was a creature out of my element, and that they had the power to hurt me. The response of my Jovian bound muscles was too slow to protect me from them, and by the time I could bring my other hand to the defense of the first they were stabbing me in other parts of my body. With a dozen hands I could not have protected myself. Besides, all this while, there were those beasts on my head, bringing tears to my eyes, with their hair-pulling activities, each time I dared make an action the whole party objected to.

  In less than two minutes after I had gotten to my feet I was completely subjected by them. Their movements were so swift it hurt the eye to follow them. Let me reach for one of them and by the time my hand neared him the little fellow had climbed out of reach while those everywhere else bedeviled me. Burning stabs of pain seared me,
crippled me, reduced me to a moaning mountain of quiescent flesh. I shivered at the thought of another stab. I did not need to look for Small to know he was being treated in same fashion. I could hear his heavy curses and cries of pain and rage as his tormentors evaded his groping hands. We certainly were in a fine predicament.

  It was not long before I was quite willing to do whatever my captors wanted of me. I was not even given the luxury of rubbing my wounds! You can talk of your great silent heroes of fiction who can laugh and joke at pain, but let them be subjugated to a hair-cloth straight-jacket and set them within a swarm of stinging bees and see how long they are great and silent, for that would be comparable to the horrors Small and I were experiencing. Man could not have bethought himself of such torture as we were subjected to by those midgets of Jupiter. Presently they had me moving lumberously forward, away from the wreck of the 354, shuffling my heavy feet through the tangle of jungle.

  l I realized now why Small and I had been deceived as to the height at which we had thought we were flying over the planet. The men of Jupiter were not only diminutive in size, but their country was, likewise, in miniature. Instead of having an altitude of eight or nine hundred feet we had actually been flying at a height of no more than one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet. The relative smallness of the landscape, together with that deceptiveness of the light, we had noticed, had caused our ruin. And that accounted for the fact that not one of the three scientific expeditions to Jupiter had ever returned. They too had been deceived and more than likely we would find their ships ruined like our own!