Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks)

by Leslie F Stone

  Suddenly we looked at each other and laughed. It seemed funny that we were so concerned with our personal comfort at such a time, but that is man’s habit. Condemned men wish to die with a full stomach. We went so far as to try out the beds to determine the degree of comfort they afforded. They were soft and inviting, but neither of us felt like sleeping. Forrest, the ever-fastidious elected to shave; but I was satisfied with merely washing up. We were both hungry, yet we decided against the chocolate. An idiosyncrasy, I suppose, to retain the best thing for the last. Instead of eating we both lighted up.

  WE had just finished out ablutions when, for the second time since our arrival, the bell in the main chamber rang. Rushing to see what it announced we found dinner served in the main room. A table stood in the center of the floor set with a variety of steaming food. The assortment included the diets of all the races represented here. There was even fresh fruit. All the company were already seated, but on either side of Tica Burno were vacant chairs. He was more rational now than before. He spoke to me almost like old times, and pointed out which food he thought I would find most appetizing.

  I asked him how all these various foods were brought to Mercury, but he arched his brows in surprise. Where else but from the laboratories?

  Yet, when I asked more about that, he seemed to lose the thread of our discourse. I tried to pump him about his arrival on Mercury, but again I ran into a blank wall. His eyes stared at me uncomprehendingly. Forrest shook his head sadly, but he had guessed what the poor fellow meant about the food coming from the laboratories. More than likely they had only to inspect the Orders of the space-ships from which we had come, and build up the food artificially from chemicals. “It’s been done at home, so why not here?” he observed.

  I was dining on a slice of chicken, and it was difficult to believe that in had come from the laboratory and not off the bird.

  With the meal ended we got up from the table and saw the floor open to receive it. When it had disappeared completely from view the floor closed in again as before. But for our surroundings and the circumstances that had brought us here I might have felt quite content with myself, but a glance around at our companions spoiled the effect of a good meal. I saw myself growing despondent and resigned as they, unless something should happen. I eyed the heavy bronze door of our prison speculatively, but guessed at the impossibility of moving that without an explosive. We were prisoners pure and simple.

  I walked from one group to another of our fellow prisoners, trying to find one whose attention I could divert, but for all my trouble I received in return only blank stares. They just refused to be lifted out of their lethargy. Were their experiences in the laboratories so horrible as to have erased all memory, all self-consciousness?

  I went back to Forrest who had stayed beside Tica Burno. The Venerian was mumbling something about sleep, and! turning his back upon us, entered the doorway opposite the one opening into our chamber. Others were also rising and going through the doors, and Forrest and I realized the meaning of their concerted exit as slowly the light in the chamber began to fade away from around us, flowing from walls and ceiling, lingering more brightly around the exits by which our fellows were disappearing. We understood. It was an invitation to retire. The day of Mercury was at end.

  FOLLOWING suit we retired to our room. We were no sooner undressed and abed when the light about us began to die away. I tried to see where it went, but there “was simply a gradual wasting away until it was dark. I composed myself for sleep, not expecting to really close an eye, and I was surprised to find that I slept through the “night,” for I did not awaken until the room was bright with light again. Forrest was already up.

  Habit made us shave; then together we went into the common room to find “breakfast” served as before on the table in the middle of the chamber. The food, was scarcely different than what we had the night before. There was chicken again, the same vegetables, fruit and coffee for us. I could never stomach the gruels eaten by the Martians while the fish food of the Venerians is too reptilish for my taste. The Erosians seemed to subsist entirely on a hard yellow bread-cake wholly indigestible to other races. However, like us, the Ionians and Ganymedians enjoyed a diversified diet of meat, vegetable and fruit diet.

  Several hours after the table was removed the same Mercurian in his transparent air-suit of the previous night appeared after the ringing of the warning bell. This time he called forth the three Venerians, including Tica Burno, and the remaining Martian. Of the thirteen prisoners, whom we had found on entering the chamber, there were left only five beside ourselves. None of the four of the previous day had returned, although later a single Venerian came through the heavy door. He shook as from ague and blubbered softly, paying no attention to his fellows. Once more we dined, and still the food was the same; then the light faded and we knew another day was gone.

  The next day Forrest was among those called! With him went the remaining Venerian, the pair of Erosians and a single Ganymedian, leaving me alone with the Ionian and remaining Ganymedian. You can picture my feelings when Forrest went to get his airsuit. I went with him trying to insist that he should not go, that somehow the pair of us would fight off all of Mercury if necessary, but Forrest would not hear of such a thing. He pointed out what small chance we had for rebellion, and ended with the hope that perhaps he would be the one to return in a few hours. Even then I was ready to accompany him, but when we returned to the main chamber I found that an invisible net had been thrown about me and I was forced to stand by while my friend passed through the bronze door and out of my sight—perhaps forever.

  With the closing of the door my bonds released me and sadly I went back to our room to take off my airsuit once more. I flung myself on my bed, but was too restless to stay there. I approached the Ionian, tried to make him speak, to tell me of something that went on in the laboratories. A glimmer of understanding sprang to his eyes, then faded again. It was the same with the Ganymedian. There was nothing to take my mind off our plight; I could only picture what horrors Forrest must be facing at that moment.

  The hours passed, somehow, although I was close to a nervous breakdown; then the heavy door opened and Forrest in company with the Ganymedian returned!

  His face was white, and his hands trembling somewhat, but he told me they had not tortured him. That is not physically; but he had been put in a cabinet and forced to empty his mind to his captors. Evidently they were not quite so adept as reading the mind as they had tried to make us believe they were. They wanted to know everything worth knowing about earth. In fact, they had sought to drain his mind of all it held.

  “These little devils are planning something that does not bode well for the Federation, Bruce,” he told me thoughtfully. “I can’t say exactly what it is, but, while I was in that cabinet, I caught faint telepathic messages that they did not know were escaping them; and those messages told me that our worlds have much to fear from them. If only we could get out of here. This world is a beehive of industry, and that industry is being directed to harm our worlds. . . .”

  “Why should not the two of us escape when they open the door again. If we stand on either side of the door and . . .”

  Forrest laughed at the foolhardiness of my plan. “We couldn’t make two steps before they would apprehend us. Only a miracle can save us, Bruce.”

  We were both silent as we ate our evening meal; then we were retiring and the third day of our incarceration passed. The next day the Ionian and Ganymedians were removed from our prison, and we were left alone, certain that the fifth day would see our end. It was that night there came a break in the sameness of our existence. A new arrival.

  CHAPTER VI

  The Giant

  WE had just finished our dinner when the ringing of the bell to announce the opening of the heavy outer door startled us It had never opened at this hour before. We turned expectantly in its direction, thinking our turn had come; but we were unprepared for the apparition that appeared. Unlike o
urselves, who had been brought in by means of a compulsory force, the new arrival came under his own “steam” so to speak, bending down so that he could enter the doorway which was ten feet high, high enough to admit the tallest Martian. Yet this creature was even taller. When he had had appeared, his head touched the high ceiling fifteen feet from the floor, and his body bent slightly at the shoulders. I felt Forrest clutch my arm. The same thought came to me even as he voiced it. “It’s a Saturnian!”

  The planet Saturn is a mystery in itself to the Federation. Forrest and I were not the only explorers who have sought to contact it in the past without success. Though the inhabitants were far from savages they did not welcome visitors. Any ship to land upon the planet was duly invited to be gone as quickly as it had come. It appeared that the Saturnians were merely indifferent to their fellow-beings, realizing themselves incapable of meeting the people of the Federation on common ground. How different they were, we did not know even now as we faced the giant creature before us.

  Fifteen and a half feet tall he stood, a great hulk of a man, as black as coal. And I was suddenly struck by his similarity to our captors, the Mercurians, for like them He had double shoulders supporting two pairs of arms, a single eye and a barrel-like body. His thick legs reminded me instantly of an elephant’s leg with the round pad-like feet and four toes stuck close to the heavy foot. But there the resemblance to the little men of Mercury ceased. He was as black as they were white, and his single eye, which was overlarge, was green in color, set in a face that might have been termed handsome, were it of normal size. His brow was lofty, his cheek bones high, his mouth wide though pleasant, showing its tendency to smile easily, though actually it was toothless. His head was devoid of hair, exposing the broad well-shaped cranium.

  He was but lightly clad in a pair of short trunks that had broad . bands crossing the chest and ending at the waist band in the rear. But again, like the Mercurian, who each day appeared to call forth his allotment of laboratory specimens, he was completely enclosed in a flexible, transparent envelope. Only I noticed the material was heavier than worn by the Mercurian, it seemed to blur the Saturnian’s figure as if he were under water, or as if the stuff was of triple thickness. I recalled now that the thin, low-grade atmosphere of Saturn was almost a counterpart of Mercury’s atmosphere. Was there some connection between the little men of Mercury and the giants of Saturn?

  As we studied him the giant in turn stared at his new cell-mates, his face mobile, his form motionless against the wall. No, not motionless, for he swayed as if scarcely able to keep his feet, and it was only by effort that he maintained his upright position. I saw one monstrous hand clung to the top of the door panel to support him, and he had braced two more hands against the wall behind him. Then his swaying became more evident. He was growing weaker. His green eye closed for a moment, and he was toppling forward!

  IT was a horrible sight to see the giant form fall. Like a tree uprooted he came down. The room resounded to the crash. Luckily Forrest and I dodged in time as we saw it coming. Then we rushed to the giant’s side. He was face downward, his four arms a-sprawl in wild disorder about him, one heavy leg doubled under his thick torso. We had the intention of rolling him over if we could, to make him more comfortable. Forrest was first to lay a hand upon him. The flexible envelope was icy cold. The fat man drew back his hand as if stung.

  “That suit. We must get it off him. God, it’s cold!” We did not know the truth then, that the suit merely transferred the cold from the body of its wearer. I ran to our chamber to get my knife and the gauntlets of my outer-air suit. For ten minutes we worked, but the knife could not pierce the strange material enclosing the giant. It did not even scratch it!

  We stared in wonder at the strange body. There was no sign of life in it. We looked to see if the helmet of his suit was misted with his breath, and discovered there was no sign whatsoever of respiration! We concluded that his fall had killed him, if he had not been dead before his fall!

  Staring at the body we stood there wondering about him. Why had the Mercurians pushed him in here when they knew he was dying? And why was he here?

  There was a waning of the light around us. Night had come. Habit is strong. I wanted to retire, but Forrest wanted me to stay. “Bring my torch, will you, Bruce?” he asked of me, and I went for the required article, bringing my own as well. Forrest, as I have already; said, is first of all a man of science, and even though death faced him to-morrow or to-night he was deeply disappointed that the giant had died before he could have a single word with him. So many things might have been explained about Saturn.

  I came back to find my friend squatting in the obscurity, now that the light was gone, staring at the Saturnian with chin cupped in a hand. It was not entirely dark, however. With the going of the light the Saturnian glowed like phosphorus, emitting a bluish light that colored his features weirdly, making him something of a nightmare.

  Forrest took the torch, without a word, and for nothing better to do I drew a chair up to join in his meditations whatever they might be. I felt a chill coming from the prone form of the giant, and shivered slightly. Forrest was talking now, more to himself than to me. “I can’t understand it. A living creature, and yet he does not breathe. Still he lives—he lives.”

  I cried out in wonder. “Living . . . You mean . . .?”

  The fat man turned eyes upon me as if seeing me for the first time. He nodded his head. “He lives. He moved slightly when you were gone; and groaned . . .”

  “But he doesn’t breathe! We made sure of that!”

  “Do you forget those extra-terrestrial beings we discovered in the atmosphere of Pluto? They lived, but they did not breathe. Their physical structure was necessarily different of course. They weren’t blood and flesh exactly. We breathe to purify our blood with oxygen, plant-life breathes in carbon-dioxid, the Mercurians live on chlorine. I never thought though than any branch of Homo Sapiens could live without air. It’s against—but wait, he moved again . . .”

  TRUE, the giant was moving. It was ponderous movement, as if each effort cost him dearly. He floundered about a bit trying to sit up, giving sparks of blue light with every motion. He mumbled something in a strange tongue; and I saw his single eye, ice-green in the light his body threw off, turn toward the torch in Forrest’s hand. There was a pause as he studied it; then he did an odd thing; he brought his face down toward the beam!

  Divining what he wanted Forrest raised the light so that it covered his broad face. There was a minute’s pause as the creature basked in the light. After a while he shook his head, waving the torch away from his eye. There was a short silence in which he gazed at us. Now he spoke, and his words were those of the Interplanetary Code. “This suit—it refracts the rays. I must get out!”

  Forrest was on his feet. “What can we do?”

  The giant considered a moment, his eye traveling over our forms. “Get into your pressure suits, first. You would freeze otherwise. But hurry, hurry!” We obeyed with alacrity: and in a few short minutes were back clad in our suits with our helmets under our arms. The giant looked us over and approved. “Turn your light beam on my face,” he ordered motioning us as close as possible, for I was to use my torch as well as Forrest. The Saturnian lay still upon the floor, his body raised slightly on two elbows. I could see that he was blowing upon the front of his helmet, but for what reason I could not guess.

  For several moments he did this, but nothing happened. He was growing weaker now; he could hardly hold himself up. He shook his head, and his voice was weak, like that of a dying man. “Not enough. Need heat, a flame . . .”

  Forrest felt in his pockets for his lighter, but realized he wore his air suit. I was already headed for our room, having remembered the lighter and matches were in there. With my return a low whisper of relief came from the prone giant. He had lowered his body to the floor now, and was lying on his back. Forrest took the lighter to hold it against the front of the helmet. I crept close, ready wit
h matches if the fuel should give out. This time I saw perspiration forming on the inside of the glass-like helmet. The Saturnian’s eye seemed feverishly afire. The blue haze he emitted was brighter than ever as he blew hard against the inside of the headpiece.

  After a moment I saw that what I had taken for sweat was nothing more than the material of the helmet itself melting into drops. There was a popping, like fireworks, and a rent showed suddenly in the face of the helmet. Again the giant gave a low cry of relief, and lifting one mighty hand grasped the edge of the hole and ripped the remaining fabric away, next attacking the neckband so that the whole suit split wide open. He was free!

  Thereupon I felt a new chill in the air. Automatically my hand went to the valves of my suit to switch on its heating units. Forrest was unconsciously doing the same. I realized now that the cold was not from the suit as we first imagined, but from the body of the strange man himself. His body temperature must have been far below that of zero! Suddenly I was admiring him immensely, a man dying; yet he had had time to think of us, to warn us to prepare against his own chill!

  As soon as he was free of the suit the creature had taken Forrest’s light-torch from the floor, and now held the beam trained upon his face. I half understood.

  He needed light as we needed air!

  CHAPTER VII

  A Strange History

  A FEW moments of the light application, and the Saturnian showed improvement. He was able to sit up comfortably. I had picked up my torch, motioning that he was to use that too, but he waved it away. He spoke to us, not in the code now, but our own tongue, English.

  “Chen-Chak and all of Raxta owe you a monstrous debt. You have saved my life, my new friends, for without your aid I, the deathless, would have been dead shortly!”