“Creatures of super-intelligence, Bruce,” he went on without giving me time to answer. “Do you know what the opening of the shaft means? Nothing less than fourth-dimensional translation! It couldn’t be anything else. They simply switch matter ahead in Time, rematerialize it, or else just wait for Time to catch up with it. And that descent—better than an elevator, eh? I reckon you were right after all, old man. It was they who saved us from the maelstrom. You didn’t imagine it as I thought you had.”
“Well, all I can say is I hope They will show up soon. I don’t like this suspense of waiting, and I don’t feel that we’re alone. Someone—or thing is spying on us!” I had that feeling of eyes at my back, and though I persisted in turning about several times I was not surprised to find the room unoccupied except for ourselves.
“Hum-huh—I feel that, too,” commented Forrest. “I suppose. They have some way of examining us here, ticketing us for future reference. But think of it, man. What a world this must be with gravity controlled, a complete supremacy over the physical and inorganic. It’s . . . why it’s too big for words!”
“Leave out the words, but speaking of the physical, Mort, I could eat a cow right now. Wonder what food is in their language? Hello, there, Hello! How ’bout some service.” I knew I was acting the fool, but I needed an outlet for my emotions. I wasn’t like Forrest. I couldn’t sum up the mysterious and get scientific equations for answers. My only answer now was the reverberation of my voice against the walls of our cell.
Forrest grinned at me. “Don’t be so dynamic, Bruce. Everything in its place. Be patient, fellow. All things come to him who waits.”
“Bah!” I cried, but I was as curious and as excited as Forrest, only I’m a man of action, and the mystery of the unknown sets my nerves on edge.
Whatever the reason for our detention, our patience was at last rewarded. Before us on one wall, where there had been no doorway before, there now opened to our eyes a circular opening. A corridor dropped away before us, inclining downward. We hesitated a moment before entering, and to hasten us came a slight push of indeterminable source at our backs that impelled us into the corridor. With us flowed the light that had been our companion, again lighting our way. Three hundred yards ahead the corridor ended abruptly, and we found ourselves on the edge of a vast chamber wherein we discovered our first Mercurians.
CHAPTER IV
Prisoners
THE room had the appearance of a laboratory with its vast array of various types of apparatus and queer machines. It was possibly a thousand feet in length and almost as wide with a ceiling fifty feet above. The most outstanding objects in the great chamber were the long rows of tremendous pear-shaped tubes, in which purple fires were at play. Not all the tubes, of which there were easily several hundred, were of the same height, but ranged from twenty to almost fifty feet tall. On the floor, apparently, without plan were set machines, some huge things reaching above our heads, some so tiny that their features were scarcely visible to us. And, in the midst of these giants of science, stood the small group of Mercurians who were our hosts, midgets dwarfed in the immensity of the room and of the machines.
There were five of them. Midgets, and strange though their appearance, strange the dead-white of their complexions, the square set of their bodies, their single eye and hunched doubleshoulders carrying two pair of arms to our one pair, it was not these features that were so astounding to Forrest and myself. It was their unusual size. The people of Ceres are termed Lilliputians by their larger neighbors since they are but three feet high as the general run; but they were giants beside the men of Mercury! Not one of the five was more than a foot high, and several were a few inches under. These mites our captors? Incredible!
With the first shock of seeing full-grown beings so tiny we gazed curiously upon them. That they were of the genus Homo was evident at first glance; at least, they were bipeds. I have already mentioned the fact of their plurality of arms; their single eye. The body was thick, almost drum-like while their legs were round and straight without shapeliness, their feet seemed toeless, clubbed. Certainly they were the most graceless creatures it had ever been our fortune to meet; and to add to their ungracefulness they wore a sleeveless, straight-line dress hanging awkwardly to the knee. The dead white hue of their skin added much to their repulsiveness, and no other word could fit them better than hideous. The head was long and oval; the eye, white like the rest of them, had only the black pupil to relieve the monotony of the face that seemed dull, expressionless to us. Yet there was intelligence in those high foreheads, the delicate mold of high-bridged noses, the sensitive outline of each feature that bespoke sensibilities developed to their highest degree. On the other hand, there was nothing about them to invite friendship. They had, to use a slang expression, a “deadpan.”
As we studied the Mercurians they in turn gave us the “once-over”; and there was no telling by their faces what they thought of us. But I don’t imagine their opinion was any more complimentary than our own. One of their number took upon himself the duty of spokesman for the group. And the language he spoke was the Esperanto of the Federation, delivered in a harsh voice, high and squeaky. Since he spoke without any show of emotion his tones were necessarily lifeless and monotonous; sing-songy. Forrest and I had to incline our heads to hear him clearly.
“Beings of Tellus,” he began, “know that without the Forces of the inner world of the First Planet you would even now be suffocating within the confines of the Venerian Whirlpool. Our force succored you, and brought you here to safety. We ask no gratitude of you: we wish only that as your saviours we have property right to your bodies and being to do with you as we see fit. We ask no allegiance, for we appreciate the fact that you would not give it. We tell you this only that you should know an attempt to escape our world will bring your immediate death. You understand?”
Understand? We understood only too well. And one can picture how flabbergasted we were at this strange speech. Was ever there a stranger welcome from one people to another? Certainly this was not the sort of reception to which we had looked forward. The very tone of that cold voice magnified the meaning of the words a thousand times. We were prisoners and were not to expect largess from our captors. Glancing about the strange laboratory I realized that we were in the tightest spot of our career. Escape? Through stone walls?
FORREST was first to regain his faculties and reproachfully addressed the tiny creature before us. “We duly appreciate your timely intervention in our behalf, Men of Mercury, but perhaps you misunderstand our motives in attempting to reach your world. In the first place we were merely explorers, adventuring for our own enjoyment, and in behalf of the Federation. You speak the code of our Federation; therefore, you must know something of its workings. We come in the spirit of true friendship, to offer to your world, if you will accept it, the fellowship of the Federation of the outer worlds, and to the . . .”
The little man would not allow Forrest to complete what he wished to say, but made a deprecating gesture as if what Forrest told him was not news; was, in fact, hardly more than the prattle of a child.
“What you say is of no interest here,” he observed. “We of Mercury, as you deign to call our world, are well acquainted with the precepts of the Federation. Your mind as well as the machinations of your Federation are as open books to us. We have studied the peoples of the outer worlds, watched them struggle into being from savagery to their present state of quasi-civilization. We have seen the establishment of interplanetary commerce among you. In fact, your meagre accomplishments affords us interest of a sort—amusement, rather—but we are content that your Federation believe Mercury a dead world, useless to explore or exploit. That is until the Time conies to change it all. We know the puny powers invested in your worlds, your lust for more worlds to conquer; but we prefer our own seclusion! Were it our desire to wipe your millions off your world’s face we could do so; but we have other plans—we—but, there, enough of this. You . . .”
I had listened to this tirade long enough. Every word the little beast had uttered stung me to the quick. “Say,” I cried belligerently, “ ‘enough, of this’ is right. What the devil are you getting at? I don’t like your innuendoes or your face, you runt, you. We’re free citizens of the Federation, and unless you release us immediately we’ll . . .”
An ugly smile slit the face of the Mercurian. “Just what do you intend to do, Bruce Warren?”
Yes, what could we do? My anger subsided like a pricked rubber bladder. I think it was the sound of my name on the lips of the midget that broke the back of my rage. It made me realize what we were up against. Beings with more than ordinary intelligence; beings who read a fellow’s mind by looking at him. The Whirlpool had taken us, and unless a star-gazer had actually seen us dragged from the Spot by our captors, our world would believe us gone. No doubt we were already reported among the dead. I grew ashamed of my outburst, suddenly feeling as if I hardly cared what was to happen to us. Let our captors do their worst!
With what followed it is surprising that the Mercurians had seen fit to acquaint us with our fate. I think it was merely their own arrogance, their desire to crow over men five and six times their own height, that had prompted them into giving us that audience. But they were through with us now. They had had their fun.
Paying us no more attention, our “host” turned to one of his compatriots and spoke a few words in their own language. In answer the tiny man strode over to a desk so small as to have escaped my notice before. It looked like a child’s play-block, only there were a number of small knobs and dials on its top. The Mercurian depressed a number of knobs and, what ho! Forrest and I were once more in the grip of the powers that had seized us on our strange entrance to this strange world. Again we were powerless to make a motion of our own.
No, I was wrong. We could move our legs, but only at the will of the power behind our backs, that propelled us across the wide room toward a circular opening facing us. It was the mouth of a short corridor, and at its end was a great, circular, bronze door that opened to our approach. I felt more than a fool to find myself expertly pushed about by people so tiny as to appear ludicrous in my eyes. But they proved their dominance over me, and I learned the bitter truth that size means naught when the brain is great.
Through the bronze door we found ourselves faced with its twin on the opposite side of a small square chamber completely bare. It seemed odd we should find rooms and doors built to our height in this world of midgets. There was no means with which to gage the age of the door, for their material may have been new that very day or age-old. It showed neither age nor an exacting newness. The first door had closed on our backs, but the second door had not moved. Now through our airsuit ear-phones we could hear the hiss of air in the chamber about us, as in an air-lock; then the second door before us flew open.
CHAPTER V
Our Prison
WE looked into a chamber of noble proportions, oval in shape, with walls painted a soft gray.
Two round doors broke the walls on either side, hung with colored draperies. On the floor were strewn rugs of various designs in different colors, and about the room were set chairs, tables, divans, all the appurtenances of physical comfort in many sizes and shapes, as if built to suit people of various physical proportions.
It was not the room, however, that drew our attention first-off, but the people occupying it. There were people of our own worlds—representing five of the planets, or rather two major planets, a planetoid and two of the moons of Jupiter. I counted three Venerians at a glance, blue-skinned and red-eyed, identical with us in stature and form; five ungainly leather-skinned, heavy-minded, monstrously tall, bladder-lunged, spindle-legged Martians; two Erosian dwarfs, purple-skinned with great round heads, small thick legs and narrow chests. Then there was a single Ioian, grayskinned with yellow eyes, as tall and slender as myself, with a face as beautiful as a god’s; and lastly there were two golden Ganymedians, with their odd lop-sided faces and roly-poly round bodies. We were the only representatives of our own home planet.
For the most part the company was seated in various chairs built to their own measurements, in groups or alone; and never have I seen a more apathetic crew. One would have thought our entrance would have attracted some attention, and though I saw eyes turn our way, there was no show of interest or welcome for us. Only one of the Venerians brightened for a moment at the sight of us. He even started to rise, thought better of it and dropped back to his former position, with hands clasped loosely in his lap. But his eyes did not leave my face. I started at the sight of him, thinking for a moment to have recognized my old friend, Tica Burno; but this man was grizzled and old, whereas Tica was younger than I, and I thought my eagerness to find my friend had deceived me. Yet it was he, as things turned out; but how changed!
On our entrance the heavy door behind us clanged shut and Forrest and I realized we had “arrived.”
“Not a very happy gathering,” commented Forrest drily.
“What can be the matter with them?”
Forrest shrugged his shoulders, but added, “Isn’t that your friend, Tica Burno?” bringing my attention back to the Venerian who had first taken my eye. I surveyed him again. Now the poor fellow was rising to his feet, extending a trembling hand toward me. It was Tica! I crossed to his side.
“Tica, Tica Burno, it is you, isn’t it?” I cried.
The man essayed a smile that wavered over his face; he started to speak, only to be halted midway by a sudden pealing of a bell, that sounded within the chamber. We looked up for the reason of the ringing, and I saw that the bronze door, through which we had come, was opening to admit one of the diminutive Mercurians. He was clothed in the ugly dress of his kind; his entire body was enveloped from head to toe in an odd suit that seemed as flexible as silk and having the transparency of glass.
For the first time it dawned on me that in this chamber was terrestrial atmosphere, or rather air having the same constituents of the atmospheres of our own worlds (Venus, Tellus, Mars and the moons of both Jupiter and Saturn have atmospheres differing but slightly in their percentage of oxygen; not so much difference as to make it noticeable to the many races of the Federation;) whereas the inner world of Mercury contained the same air such as we had discovered on the outer surface. This was the reason for the air-lock through which we had been propelled. We were the only ones among the prisoners wearing air-suits, which the new entrant likewise wore.
THE Mercurian took but a few steps into the room, and in the common language of the Federation called out, “Come with me. Geirur Ta, Vieru Ta, Jacl Sor and Cadam 01. Your time has come.” In answer to the summons the four named prisoners, who were all Martians, detached themselves from their single, unnamed companion. They went through one of the two tapestry-hung doorways we had noted on first entering this prison, and were gone a moment. When they returned they were wearing air-suits. Grouping themselves behind the Mercurians, they followed him through the bronze door. It was the last we saw of them.
From the moment of the Mercurian’s entry the expression on the faces around us showed no more change than our own entrance had produced. They were like so many automatons living merely at the will of their masters. Their lacklustre eyes and listless movements bespoke complete resignation. Only the man, who had been Tica Burno, exhibited any animation. His broken mind had awakened at the sight of my familiar face. With the clanking of the heavy door behind the Martians he said suddenly:
“They go, but do they return?”
“Where do they go, Tica Burno?” I wanted to know.
“Where but to the laboratories . . .” His strange tones filled his words with pregnant meaning. A knife-like fear clutched me. I was remembering the Mercurian’s dire warning: “We as your saviors have property right to your bodies, to do with them as we see fit!” Was this what he had meant? Were we to be victims for the laboratory knife for the erudition of our midget captors?
“To the laborato
ries for what?” I demanded of the remains of Tica Burno.
He shrugged shrunken shoulders. “For, what? But to see what we are made of! I have been there, as have all of us. Some return, some never return. We are put in baths; hot rods are laid upon our skins; they probe us; they dissect us; and they suffocate us. For; what? Do scientists tell the cavies, the guinea-pigs of Venus, for what?”
There was no answer to that. I was afraid. “Tica, Tica Burno,” I cried, “what have they done with you?”
“Huh? Why do you worry me so?” The quavering voice was suddenly querulous, puzzled. I looked into a blank face. What had they done to Tica Burno to make him—this?
Forrest spoke. I had forgotten him, “The strain is too much for the poor thing, Bruce. May as well leave him alone. See how they have tortured him.” He pointed to tiny scars all over the arms and throat of the victim. A newly healed welt showed above one ear. It was terrible.
“Come, we may as well explore the rest of this place. I’d like to get this heavy suit off.” Forrest drew me into the doorway through which the Martians had gone for their air-suits; and we found ourselves in a narrow corridor, wherein were set a dozen or more tapestried doors. Peering into one we saw a bedchamber furnished with two long, comfortable couches, a table, chairs, a mirror and beyond a small wash-room. Each room was identical. Five were occupied, for on hooks behind the doors hung air-suits, and a meagre array of personal belongings were on the tables. Two of the rooms had two air-suits apiece, the third and fourth and fifth only one. A sixth room seemed deserted; and we decided to “move in.” After removing our heavy suits and helmets we turned our pockets out, to find what they might contain for our comfort. Each had our light-torches, hammers and chisels naturally. Forrest had a collapsible razor, two packages of cigarettes, three cigars, matches, an automatic lighter, a fountain pen and some clean handkerchiefs. I had my pipe, a meager supply of tobacco, matches, and a bar of chocolate. I also had a knife, a nail-clip, a bunch of keys, a comb and a soiled handkerchief. Not a very expensive wardrobe to be sure.
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