I noticed that the sky had a sickly, greenish-yellow tint, due to the presence of the chlorine; but because of the atmosphere’s tenuosity the color was vague, wraith-like. The sun was a great yellowish globe resting on the horizon; bilious-yellow, rather. Its light but faintly illuminated this portion of the planet. Opposite the sun the blackness was tinged with yellow, the stars were dim and faded. Only high above were there any features of note. One was the blue-white light of Venus likewise yellowed—a lamp hung there to give light to this morose land. The other feature was Tellus, smaller, more distant, a golden luminary vying with Venus for beauty.
It was the landscape that held most of my attention. There was just light enough to make out the bleak, dirty-white terrain of broken, rough-pitted rock in which there was nothing to break the utter monotony of ugliness. Hills, valleys, plains were all tumbled together in a hodge-podge—colorless, uninviting. For the first time since our embarkment from New York I felt a let-down. After all, wasn’t I a fool to believe Mercury worth a call, when the whole system agreed the planet was nothing but waste land? Where was my hunch that Mercury held something of interest now? Forrest was right. The trip was useless. And the motors’ acting-up was just faulty recording. Surely no power from Mercury had pulled us out of the Pool. I shrugged my shoulders, ready to accept defeat.
Had Forrest said one word I might have turned about right then and headed for home, but he was silent. My pride back to the Victory, two hundred feet to make some show of interest. I sighted a spot more level and smoother than the surrounding territory, overshadowed by a grotesque cliff that rose out of the plain without apparent reason for its being there. With scarcely a jar I brought our brave little flyer down on Mercury, snapped fast all levers and climbed down from my seat. I stretched my arms and strolled to the nearest port. Forrest came to my side.
“Nice little world, eh? You don’t appear over-anxious to explore it, my fine buckaroo?”
Irritated though I was, I didn’t intend to show it. I forced a grin. “At least it’s the most quiet place I’ve ever seen. Ideal for sleeping!”
“That’s the best suggestion you’ve made since we left home. Only I intend to eat first.” So spake the fat man.
I WELCOMED food, realizing I had not eaten in ten hours. I would very much have liked to sleep, only appearances had to be maintained. I must show some interest in my find. I invited Forrest to accompany me on an exploration trip; but the landscape did not whet his scientific appetite. He declared he preferred my first suggestion, so I was left to climb into my airsuit alone. I took the precaution to add lead weights to my person, saw to it that my oxygen tank was charged and my heating units in good order. The difference in Mercury’s surface gravity was not felt in the Victory because of its electro-magnets. Outside, I found that by shuffling my feet as I walked I offset some of the change. Naturally enough I headed toward that strange towering cliff that had attracted me in the first place to this spot, fascinated by its unique situation in the comparaatively level plain.
But the plane was not as level as I at first had supposed. It had a tendency to fall away on the approach to the base; the peculiar lighting effect of this portion of the globe having hidden this fact from me before. And when I stood by the cliff I noticed that it really sat in a great bowl-like setting, its far edge almost on a level with the cliff’s top, which was some three hundred feet high. The bluff was black, and seemed of different formation than that of the ground upon which it stood. It was of harder quality, less broken and pitted, though there was a long irregular crack across its face, as if some space-giant had flung a meteor against it. I found the fragments of the meteor lying about, fused to the ground; but the fragments did not appear large enough on the whole to have forced that crack. It was not until I had made my first astounding discovery that I found the heap of rubble that corresponded to the substance of the meteor lying some distance away. The neatness of the stack struck me as being too neat; as if the exploded pieces had been gathered together out of the way by thinking creatures!
More from habit than from curiosity I worked a few moments with hammer and chisel (part of my suit’s equipment) and pared off a chip of the black stone of the cliff with some difficulty. The stuff looked more like concrete to me than any rock I had ever seen; but I wasn’t scientist enough to catalogue it at a glance. That was the sort of thing Forrest loved. True, my mind was stirred by the thought of what that would mean if the stuff were really manufactured. My original hunch that I would find men or their equivalent on Mercury came back to me. However, a look about that grim-visaged land brought certainty that there was no longer life to be found. The cliff was age-old! With that conviction I turned back to the Victory, two hundred feet or so upon the slope of the depression.
I had only gone about twenty feet when the impulse to re-estimate the size of the cliff forced me to look back. It was then I saw something on its far side to call my attention. It was the glitter of something blue! And in a world devoid of color this was a phenomenon worthy of inspection. I retraced my steps. Imagine my wonder to find the bit of blue nothing less than a Venerian water-flask!
I turned my torch on it before I dared pick it up. It was a pretty little thing, enameled and embossed, the sort Venerian nobles always carry. A strange thing indeed to find on this bleak, drear world. I stood there turning it over in my hand, trying to estimate how long it had been here. I turned it upside down and felt its weight change in my hand. I opened it. It was three-quarters’ full of water!
THE outside had not begun to weather; it looked new. But how had it come here? Had it been dropped accidentally from a space-ship, and on being attracted to Mercury, fallen by the cliff’s foot? There was only a tiny dent on its enameled side, otherwise it was as fresh as if just from the shop. Surely it could not have dropped very far, no farther than from a man’s pocket! Had its owner come to investigate the strange cliff as I had come? Who was he? Where was he now? Why had he dropped the flask? Was it merely an accident? Was his coming so recent that we had not heard of his trip to this wild land?
Then I saw the rubble heap lying against one side of the cliff. It extended well above the height of my head. The fragments were fused, and on one particularly large piece was a mark I was almost certain had come from a pick! Another fragment showed a smooth, flat plane that was too unusual to be accidental. I bent over with my torch to examine it closer. I drew back in surprise. Only a heat ray could have made that cut. It had been sheared from another surface!
With that thought in mind I went back to the front of the cliff. And I was rewarded by finding the very spot from which that fragment had come. It had been a large rock which, hot from its transit through the Mercurian atmosphere, had forced its way partially into the ground, just below the cracked face of the cliff. And something had come later, when it had cooled. Unable to lift the entire rock out it had simply sheared its top off, leaving the ground level as before! A chill went through me at the thought. I even glanced about me warily; and there it was I noticed the great bowl-like depression in which the cliff stood. How even was that distant edge! Nature never worked with such precision; it was too unnaturally perfect. It was man-made—or what?
I was inclined to run back to the Victory. I needed Forrest’s support; to hear him pooh-pooh my opinions. But wait! What is this? I had left the Victory a good quarter of a mile from the cliff, well up on the side of the artificial bowl, its nose facing the promontory. And I had locked the controls myself. But now it was no longer stationary. It was coming toward me!
WHAT madness was this? What had come over Forrest? Had something happened that he wanted me immediately? Why didn’t the fellow slacken his speed? At the rate he was coming he would crash headlong into the cliff’s face. Yet he was gaining speed as he came along.
For a moment I was paralyzed, unable to move, and on came the ship. . . . A moment of tortured wonder, and I regained control of myself. I started in a run for the ship. Running was difficult on Mercury. I
cannot remember that race now, but it was short with the Victory bearing down upon the cliff and me. I caught the half-open door of the lock (I had left it so on departing), and miraculously swung aboard. A minute and a half of waiting is necessary before the automatic controls inside permit the inner door of the lock to open, but I could not wait for the air in the lock to reach its full level. I let some bad air get into the ship, I had to get within. It took all my strength to wrench the door open. A single glance showed me Forrest. He was asleep in his bunk—as I had left him!
AND the Victory was moving forward! Was this magic, or had the incline upon which the ship landed been too precipitous for its brakes? I was through the ship, up in the turret control. A glance showed that the motors were still, but I had realized their silence on entering the ship. I dropped my hand to the brake of the caterpillar treads praying I was soon enough. A touch on the pneumatic lever was ordinarily sufficient to bring the ship to a dead stop, but we still moved, we still moved! And the cliff loomed large before my eyes. Less than a half dozen feet separated the Victory’s nose from the cliff’s front. A scream rose in my throat as I pulled frantically upon the brakes, but my cry was never uttered; instead with mouth agape I forgot everything as I stared. . . .
CHAPTER III
Into the Cliff!
THE crash I expected never came—simply because there was nothing into which to crash! The cliff was still there, a high forbidding menace in that livid white world, but its face was no longer blank. It was a yawning cavern, and the cracked expanse that was evidently a door was gone. I did not know if it had slid upwards, downwards, or to the side. Later we learned about that.
Now the Victory, as if expertly guided, was gliding smoothly into the exposed cavern, through its opening on a smooth surface. Then it came to a full halt on the black floor. Bereft of thought I could only stare out of the turret ports. A backward glance revealed the fact that the doorway through which we had come was closed again. Nor was there anything to show it was a door. It was merely a rough, cracked continuation of the wall of which it was a part. We were in a great subterranean chamber with a sloping floor. No wonder the cliff had stood unique against the plane since it was no less than a ponderous doorway into the inner world of Mercury, a man-made entrance, time-worn and weather-beaten; but still serviceable. Yet was it man-made? That was still to be discovered.
A soft gray light tinged with yellow from what source I could not determine diffused itself evenly upon everything, on the smooth black walls, the floor, the flyer and on a dozen strangely familiar shapes some distance from the Victory. Space-ships! I recognized a Martian Patrol with its fantastic figurehead representing the three demons that are the triad of Martian worship. There was a diminutive flyer from diminutive Ceres, a small though efficient cargo boat, such as those that ply between Venus and Tellus, and a pleasure yacht from Venus. The other ships lay beyond these first, so that I could not make out their design. But the pleasure boat. I knew it. I had made a trip on it no less than four months ago! It was the pleasure yacht of Tica Burno, a wealthy noble of Venus. And a month since, the yacht had been reported missing; believed to be a victim of the Whirlpool! Yet here it was on Mercury. We also had been caught by the Whirlpool: and here we were safe on Mercury. Safe?
AH, yes, that blue flask. Had Tica Burno gone to explore the cliff even as I had? Had he, too, been startled to see his ship lunging for the bleak side of the black cliff? Where had he gone? Was I to find him alive? Somewhere in the “innards” of Mercury?
With a suddenness that almost startled me out of myself a voice barked at my back. It was the waking tones of Morton Forrest, who had so calmly been sleeping through this awful ordeal. “Oh ho!” he was yawning, “I’ve never slept better in my life. My vote for Mercury as the best place for a thoroughly successful night’s sleep!”
“Well,” I observed in an attempt to be jocose in the face of everything, “I hope a night’s sleep is the worst Mercury has to offer us. I feel as if I . . .” My voice broke; I was unable to go on.
Forrest was up. “Why, Bruce, old man, you sound melancholy. Don’t tell me this place strikes one so. Well, a day’s exploration’ll fix you up; then we’ll be heading for home. What a laugh we’ll get. . . .”
“I’m afraid the laugh’s on us, Mori. Come here . . .” I said weakly.
He was aroused at last. Padding over the floor in his bare feet he came to the turret. Wordless he stared at the strange chamber enfolding us, looking to me for explanation, then back to the scene around us. In as few words as possible I told him all that had taken place. As I talked a new brightness came into his round blue eyes; slowly a smile spread over his face. He smote me heavily on the shoulder.
“Bruce Warren! You’ve done it. The discovery of the century. Life on Mercury. A new race. You’ve . . . why . . .”
I shook my head. “Rather looks as if they’ve discovered us, Mort. That force that brought us out of the Spot is the, same force that dragged the Victory into this cave; and I don’t like it, not at all!”
“Bosh! You need some sleep. Next you’ll be saying ‘They mean us no good.’ Why, man, they’re waiting for our coming. They’re killing the fatted calf right now I’ll wager!”
“Yeah? Well, suppose we’re not the first? What then? Evidently you’ve not looked at those things over there!” And I pointed at the ships huddled together a hundred yards from us, their empty portholes staring at us like the eyes of a dead fish.
Forrest was really startled for the first time. His first glance about had not taken into account those mute, deserted ships. A frown etched itself across his serene brow. “I’ll get dressed and into my air-suit. Better look about a bit,” he agreed drily.
I had not removed my outer air-suit, had merely shut off the air-purifiers and opened the front of my helmet on entering the Victory. Forrest dressed quicker than ever before. But for some reason I was not over-anxious to leave the Victory. Perhaps it was merely another hunch, still I dared not show myself the coward in front of my phlegmatic, fat friend. We were into this thing up to the hilt, whatever it was, and I, afraid already!
I followed Forrest from the lock slowly, stopping to close the door behind me carefully, more to delay our inspection, than to make sure of the ship’s safety. Forrest was ahead of me a pace or two, headed for Tica Burno’s yacht; but we never reached our destination. Something came to halt us in our tracks. The same giant hand that had drawn us from the Spot, had dragged the Victory into the cavern. It was invisible, but its bonds were as convincing as ropes, more so, as suddenly we found ourselves gripped solidly, incapable of movement either backwards or forward; not so much as a finger! Only our eyes and respiratory organs were alive. We were prisoners.
I was caught in a ludicrous position with one foot slightly raised, knee bent, about to take a forward step, and in that posture I remained albeit I tried to fight the thing binding me. Unable to move a muscle I sought to break the will that held me, reasoning it was a strong mind that had me in thrall. It was far stronger than I. I was powerless to do anything but use my eyes. My vision was reduced to that which lay directly before me. I could just manage to see Forrest held in the same powerful grip. Then I saw the floor at our feet opening. . . .
The floor was smooth, of stone or perhaps some sort of time-resisting metal. There was no crack in its whole expanse, as if it had been laid in a single piece; yet a pit opened to us, a circular hole dropping into depths far below. As for the portion of the floor where the pit was now it was gone; dissolved into nothingness. . . .
Something odd happened as we stared wonderingly at this phenomenon. It was the light about us—it was flowing toward the pit, illuminating it!
We waited, expecting to see our hosts appear from the hole, but in that we were disappointed. Instead, the force that held us bound was gently propelling us, nay carrying us, forward. We were to be dashed to the bottom of that seemingly bottomless pit! Not even given the comfort of being able to scream, we were shov
ed closer to the brink of the chasm—which seemed to grow deeper as we neared it!
Now our feet were close to the pit, on its very edge, and still we continued moving forward. Now we were over it, dangling, expecting the end, wondering that it did not come. But we were not to die—yet. The pit was coming up to meet us, engulfing us, gently, slowly. It was as if we were cushioned on a pillow of air wafting us softly to a haven somewhere below. And with us went the light, flowing from the chamber above, making the curved, black walls of the well visible about us; flowing like water, lighting the darkness as it came to meet us. There was just enough clearance on either side for our shoulders. Had we been free we could have touched both walls by moving them but a few inches.
I was first, but knew that Forrest was above me. His feet dangled within line of my eyes. The fall seemed endless. In a point of time it scarcely took more than three minutes in all, but it was the longest three minutes I have ever known. Still everything has an end, even space, they say. The shaft suddenly widened, was no more. Instead we were in a room into which the light had flowed ahead of us. We came to a halt on a second black floor. The room was a square, bare cell, well-lighted but bare of furnishings, bare of everything, even of an entrance; for as soon as our feet came in contact with the floor the shaft overhead closed as quietly as it had opened to us in the chamber far above. Nor was there the finest seam line to tell where it had been!
WITH the closing of the shaft the paralysis that had gripped us was removed; we were free to inspect our cell, meagre as it was. Silence was upon us, a silence that aggravated. Forrest broke it. “Nice reception, this.
Lord, I thought we’d fall and break our necks in that shaft. I’m getting too old for such shenanegans, Bruce. I hope your friends don’t have many more surprise like that for us! Wonder what sort of creatures they are . . .?
Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks) Page 79
