by Earl
“Give ’em hell, Sparky!” Paige shrieked again.
But the end was inevitable. The Martian ships spread, darted at him from all angles. Three Martian neutron-beams struck at the same time. The little Earth ship changed into a riddled, broken bit of debris that rained to the ground.
“That was Sparky?” gasped Aronson, horrified. “He’s dead.”
“Yes, but he died happy,” Paige said. “He got in his last lick at the Martians.”
“Brave little man,” murmured Reena. “But why did he do it?”
Paige knew why. His eyes glowed in anticipation.
Now the remaining five Martian ships circled, observing. Then suddenly a singing, iridescent beam stabbed down. Where it struck, a geyser of dirt and rock shot up. The beam ran along the edge of the Uldornian forces, plowing a furrow of destruction. It seemed like a warning, to discontinue whatever was being done below.
The battle between the albino forces died. Amazed at what the unknown third power had done, a temporary truce sprang into being. One of the Martian ships spiraled lower and landed, a hundred yards back of the Uldornians.
Paige trembled. For this Sparky had given his life. To bring the Martians here quickly, while they were still pondering the absence of the missing patrol ship. And before the albino battle had ended all chance of Martian interference.
Tal came running up from the battle-front, pausing beside Paige. They all watched as the cabin of the strange craft opened and figures emerged. They strode forward, a dozen forms with glinting weapons in their hands.
AS they drew near, the moonlight revealed them clearly. A concerted gasp arose from the throats of Tal and all the albino men who could see. Even Dr. Aronson gulped, for he had never seen the Martians before.
They were tall, thick-chested, thinlegged, built in the travesty of man. They were ridiculously like old men who had not exercised properly. But their faces inspired horror. They were not human, by any stretch of imagination. Large eyes with red irises, flat bestial noses, and lips from which protruded fang-like teeth, topped by a feathery wool of dank green hair. Evolution had given them a large brain-case, larger than man’s, but something had placed the stamp of utter pitilessness in their features. They carried with them, as they neared, an aura of merciless cruelty.
Paige shuddered, as well as the others, though the sight of these other-worldly creatures was nothing new to him.
The foremost Martian spoke, in a piping, precise English.
“You destroyed our patrol ship, this afternoon. You sent one of your own ships to raid our nearest base. Like other groups of earthlings, you have come down from the hills, most likely, and are armed. You have been hidden back there practicing battle tactics. You bravely but foolishly think of lighting against us to the last?”
It was a question. Paige thought rapidly. Whispering swiftly to Aronson to translate for the benefit of the albino men, he answered the Martian commander.
“Yes. What else would you have us do?”
The Martian made a magnanimous gesture.
“A few weeks ago we would have exterminated you without wasting time talking first. But our High Command has instituted a new order. All humans left are given the choice, if they surrender, to become slaves!”
Paige gave the air of one considering the offer. Back of him the albino men were utterly silent, hushed. Then Paige asked another question.
“We have been isolated from the rest of Earth. How many humans are left?”
It tore his soul to bring it out, but he had to know. And he wanted the albino men to hear.
“About one-half of the former Earth population,” returned the Martian expressionlessly. “We have killed off a billion of you humans. The remaining we offer life, as our slaves.”
TAL and the nearby albino men stood stunned, as Aronson’s whispered translation came to them. The whisper grew and rustled through all the ranks behind. It leaped the gap between the Uldornian and Dorthian forces, those that had lately been about to engage in hand-to-hand struggle.
A billion humans destroyed!
The crushing revelation seemed to sweep over the scene like a living force.
“Is there any resistance in other parts of Earth?” Paige pursued.
The Martian answered without hesitation, with the air of one who does not need to hide anything.
“Yes, in various sectors, your people hold out. It is almost admirable. But stupid. They are doomed. West of your Rockies, fifty million people battle us. We are daily bombing all their cities and pushing back their armies.”
He made a sharp gesture. “That is all. What is your decision?”
The answer did not come from Evan Paige. It came from Tal Rithor.
He had been standing like a statue, nostrils flaring, his breath coming in short, hard gasps. Deliberately, his arm flung up and then down.
The battle signal!
Almost in one volley, the weapons of the albino men spoke, as though only willpower had kept them before from shooting down the repulsive monsters at first sight. The attack was totally unexpected, to the confident Martians. Six of them fell corpses. The other six fired back, with their rustling kill-beams. In another moment they, too, fell dead.
Retaliation came instantly, from above. Broad beams of explosive neutrons hurtled down, cutting swaths of death among the albino men.
Paige leaned back against the rock, sick. He thought it was all over. But Tal was leaping back and forth, yelling commands. Cannon swiveled into the sky. A weapon spoke back at least the equal of the Martians’. The enemy, not given to night fighting, were aiming blind. The albino men, in their element under dim radiation, found their marks.
Four of the Martian ships crashed down in flames. One drummed away, to call for stronger forces. Soon a mighty fleet would wing back, to wipe out the defiant band of humans at the mouth of Mammoth Cave!
Paige imparted that knowledge to Tal. And he went on, explaining the truth of what Earth’s upper surface was. If Reena had finally understood, he must, too.
Tal stood listening.
The dawn of understanding came into his eyes. Pie said nothing. Quietly he came forward and struck off their chains himself. A vast hush had come over the albino men. Tal strode toward the mouth of Mammoth Cave, toward the Dorthian forces. Halfway there he stopped, threw down his weapons. Then he spoke, his voice ringing through the still night air.
“Soldiers of Dorthia and Uldorn! We can no longer fight each other. This is a strange, new world up here—one we didn’t know existed, inhabited by another part of the human race. But it belongs to the human race; not to monsters from another world! Where or what that other world is or can be, I’m not yet sure. I only know that people like us are threatened with extinction, up here. I will speak now for King Luth and say that all the army and forces of Uldorn pledge themselves to fight the alien invaders!”
As though it had been rehearsed, the Dorthian commander came forward, throwing his arms at Tal’s feet.
“I say the same in behalf of the Kal of Dorthia!”
And the cheer that rose from all the men’s throats was hurled out in defiance to the unspeakable enemy from another world.
Paige knew that the greatest moment in the history of the human race was enacting itself.
A buried portion of mankind grown great and strong, would take up the crusade. Would fight for a world they had never seen before, but which was theirs by heritage. Already, like on echo from the future, Paige could hear the tramp, tramp, tramp of marching feet, as the legions from below came into the light of the sun.
An army millions upon millions strong would arise out of the depths to confront and drive back the Martians who thought their bloody task done. The Martians would sneer at first, as they wiped out the first few regiments, till the albino army learned of the new conditions and warfare.
Tramp, tramp, tramp!
The Earth itself would shake with their heavy tread, as her sons from below stormed up, to win back a world.
Tramp, tramp, tramp!
And leading this army of revenge from below would be the ghost of Sparky Donovan. He had deserted again—deserted life. But in death itself he would be getting in his lick at the Martians again.
Tal Rithor now stood before Paige and Reena, in each other’s arms, and he smiled wanly, but sincerely. This was a new Tal, who had crawled out of the shell of the old. The Tal who had viewed the upper world and knew that it was good.
“You two will be a token, in marriage, of the union of mankind above and below,” he said.
He added simply, “We will win.”
“We will win,” agreed Evan Paige.
VIA CATACOMBS
The Valiant Ten Probe the Dead Mysteries of Mercury and Make a Choice Between Life and—Life!
GREETINGS from Mercury, Earth!
One hundred forty-fifth day—Mercury Expedition Number One resuming contact, via etherline code radio, after three months. Operator Gillway reporting.
Well, no lives lost! It was my sad duty, both on the Mars and Venus expeditions, to report lives lost after a period of stay. Five men on the Mars expedition, four at Venus. But none here—so far. It has become almost an obsession with us to keep up the record. We all ten intend to return.
Or we’ll all ten stay, if we fail to rescue our cached fuel. It is still buried under a lake of mercury metal, as when I signed off three months ago.
To recapitulate, eight men were stranded on the pyramid, surrounded by a sea of silvery mercury that had swept down, like a melted glacier, from near the Night Side. It had carried our ship, with Karsen and myself in it, out into the Day Side, beaching it finally.
There we were, separated by that dumbfounding event, with the eight men on short air-supplies for their breathing helmets.
I believe I reported that the ship’s engine had been damaged. Karsen examined it frantically. He has only one hand—one was lost on Venus. There had been some talk, before we left Earth, of substituting someone else for Karsen. But it is his mind and knowledge that count. He knows rocket engines from A to Z.
Once he located the trouble, he quickly did the work. I was little help, with my own broken arm. It was simply a short in the distributor system. Yet a two-handed man, without Karsen’s keen brain, might not have found that short in time to save the stranded men.
Karsen also took the controls, his one hand flying back and forth deftly. He raised the ship, rocketed along, and brought her down with a splash of mercury metal near the pyramid. The pyramid was the only thing that stuck out above that strange metal sea, for miles and miles.
Waving in joy, the eight marooned men climbed down to the mercury level and ran for the ship. That is, they tried to run. It was ludicrous, even to me with the pain of my broken arm. Von Zell, who was first, should have known better, with his chemical knowledge. His feet skidded under him, like a poor skater on ice. He fell on his chest, knocking his breath out. That was lesson two, that mercury is hard, even though a liquid. It was equivalent to falling flat on water, from a high springboard.
The others wisely watched Von Zell, learning from him. He came to his feet carefully, sinking to his lower ankles in the dense liquid. When he lifted one foot, in the walking motion, the other slid back. There was no traction, as on very smooth ice. Finally, in disgust, he dropped on all fours and inched his way toward the ship. Thinking of a better idea, he lay flat and rolled himself along. It was like rolling across a yielding cushion.
“At your age!” said Tarnay banteringly, through his helmet-radio. They were all laughing.
But they stopped laughing when they tried it. We threw Von Zell a rope, when he was near, and dragged him in. The others were likewise rescued from their floundering.
One by one they came in the airlock, then the cabin, and ripped off their air-helmets. They had been on their last breaths of oxygen from the depleted tanks.
Parletti, in fact, came in purplefaced, and collapsed. Just in time, for him. He came to quickly at a whiff of pure oxygen. Captain Atwell and Markers came in supporting Ling between them. Ling’s face and hands were blistered from his close encounter with the steam-breathing dragon. He was weak, but smiling gamely. Salves were applied to the burns immediately. Also Parletti set my broken arm.
We were all laughing, yelling, overjoyed at being together and safe again.
All except Swinerton. He looked sadly out of a port.
“Damn!” he grunted. “That dragon is buried under it. I wanted to dissect him. A new form of life—silicon base instead of carbon. Damn!” Biologist to the core.
“The dragon—and our reserve fuel,” reminded Captain Atwell.
At that we all sobered. Without the fuel we had no way of leaving the planet.
Hello, Mars Expedition Number Two! Glad to know you’ve had no trouble yet—due to our previous pioneering, as you put it. Thanks for giving us so much credit.
ONE Hundred Forty-Sixth Day. Still in recapitulation—
We talked over our situation the next day, after resting up. Somehow, we had to get our buried fuel out. We coasted the ship to the spot, ®n easy rocket-blasts. The ship skimmed along lightly, hardly denting the mercury lake’s surface. Luckily, in forethought, Captain Atwell had had Markers take position records, both by the Sun and by landmarks. We knew we were floating within fifty feet of the spot. But how to get down through perhaps thirty feet of mercury metal?
At first thought it might seem easy. Mercury metal isn’t solid. Simple to send a man down, either in a sort of “diving suit” or caisson. We tried it, of course. But remember how water pressure builds up to crushing force, even within thirty feet. Mercury metal has a pressure fourteen times greater, because of its density. Even cutting that to two-fifths, because of this planet’s light gravity, it’s tremendous.
We welded together a steel pressure-suit, tearing down the partition between our bunkroom and main cabin mar material. Tarnay volunteered. The problem was how to get the man and suit to sink! Even lead floats on mercury. We finally hooked together handrails, and pushed Tarnay down. Tarnay went down till the mercury bubbled over his head-piece, and then yelled in pain, through his helmet-radio.
When we hauled him back, we found his legs wedged in. The terrific pressure had squeezed the two sides of each leg-hollow together. Had the metal cracked, Tarnay would have “drowned” in a unique and horrible way—sucking mercury into his lungs.
Tarnay had bloody leg bruises, and has a limp now, permanently. We didn’t try that any more. We talked of making a diving bell, but Ling showed cold hard figures. The walls would have to be a foot thick. We would need the forge of a battleship plant to make it. It was out of the question.
We looked at each other then. Only thirty feet under us lay our cached fuel. Yet it might as well be at the center of the planet. Reaching it directly was impossible, we knew that now. It was comparable to diving through four-hundred feet of water, with no special equipment to start with. And yet we have to get it—or stay on Mercury.
I say “have” because we still haven’t solved the problem! And our date for departure, at this conjunction, is only nine days off. We may have to try a desperate measure we’ve thought of. It will cost a life.
Thanks for your sympathy, Earth. It counts more than you know.
ONE Hundred Forty-Seventh Day.
Our next step was to reconnoiter all around the mercury lake, to see what we were up against. It is about five miles in diameter, resting in a hollow between the Day Side mountains and the Night Side’s frozen ridges. At one end it laps against the valley crest, from which the dragon came. At the other end it stops against a plateau-cliff.
It is beautiful, and hateful—this mercury lake. Its constantly quivering surface shines like soft silver. There is a steady low thunder from all sides, as it throws a “surf” against its bounding edges.
Parletti says there is probably much free mercury metal on this unweathered planet. Lakes and pools of it. When libration brings heat, it evaporates.
When libration brings the Night-Side cold, it freezes into glaciers.
But unfortunately, in our Twilight Zone, it will neither evaporate or freeze. It will simply stay till some geologic disturbance opens a way and lets it drain to some other hollow.
And that was the hope we’d been living on, for the past three months—that perhaps on the edge of the Day Side a leaden mountain would melt away and let the mercury through. Now that hope is dim. And we can’t wait too long. We haven’t made a decision yet. It is a strangely hard decision to make. To clarify this, I’ll have to tell of our other activities in the past two months.
Captain Atwell, when we began our wait, suggested that we all continue our science studies. No need to sit and brood about the buried fuel.
An exploratory trip to the Day Side was organized, for a glimpse into that seething hell—Captain Atwell, Parletti, and Ling. They broke out seal-suits for the purpose, equipped with battery-operated cooling units.
We had parked the space ship near the pyramid. Anchored is the word—with a steel chain. They started from there, on a steel “raft.” We had devised that previously, when navigating the lake. Paddling sent the raft along at surprising speed, skimming like a cork over the oily-smooth liquid metal.
Beaching near the Day Side, the party climbed a ridge and penetrated thirty miles beyond, on foot. Strange exploration. They skirted bubbling pools of molten lead, bismuth, tin and cadmium. Out beyond, all was blinding brilliance, under the rays of a giant sun only thirty million miles away.
Metallic mountain peaks, plains and escarpments stretched ahead, burning hot, sparkling like factory-made trinkets. It looked like a model of a world, fashioned out of metal by some giant metal-worker. Steamy metallic vapors spiraled into a dazzling sky. It was as bright and hot as the inside of an electric furnace. Utterly dry, lifeless.
No, not lifeless, for they saw two of the frightful silicic dragon-creatures winging majestically in the distance. How they live and what they live on out in that corner of Hell is an appalling mystery. Future biologists will have a lifetime of study ahead of them on that point.
