The Nyctalope on Mars 2: The Triumph of Love

by Jean de La Hire

  He leaned over, picked up four black boxes that were attached, by means of a strap, to the underside of the same seat, and gave them to Klepton. “Hold on—these are the electro-mirrors. Alpha will explain them to you, since that was Koynos’ order. By the way, my friend, when I’m gone, read the piece of paper that I dropped over there—it’s a letter from Koynos. Au revoir! Your hands, my friends!”

  Not one of them, except for Klepton, had yet recovered from his astonishment when Saint-Clair, sitting in the cockpit, turned a wheel, pressed a switch and was borne away by the aircraft’s beating wings, disappearing in rapid flight above the trees of the forest, towards the south.

  Beneath his feigned impassivity, Saint-Clair was hiding a formidable joy—the happiness of an all-powerful man—for he was going, alone, through the atmosphere of Mars, towards Koynos, towards Oxus, and towards Xavière!

  Finally! he cried, from the depths of his soul.

  IV. The Enigma of Passion

  Immediately after the Council of XV, Koynos was thanked and congratulated by all the Brothers. Only Kipper abstained from speaking to Koynos. Indifferent and icy, he went through the group and went back into his house, where the lovely Félicie Jolivet ought to be waiting for him with a suitably-stuffed pipe.

  Oxus had returned to his own study, where he remained immobile and pensive for a long time in front of the automatic register, whose needle was still at 150. Then he sat down at a desk and murmured: “Kipper will be here to give the Terrans an appropriate reception, if they come. Personally, I shall organize an expedition against the Martians. In a week’s time, the Fifteen will be at war, far from the women thanks to whom they dared, almost unanimously, to oppose my will and betray their oath by vain subterfuges…”

  Pressing an electric button, he summoned Miniok, the Commander of the submarine fleet currently under construction.

  As for Koynos, after separating from his comrades, he went back home and presented himself to Xavière. He did not find her alone; Yvonne was there. The two sisters had not been apart since Alkeus’ departure. On seeing Yvonne, Koynos remembered that the delicate blonde would now become the companion of Alpha, since Alpha had inherited the rights and prerogatives of Alkeus—but he did not linger long over that thought, which was of scant interest to him.

  In response to Xavière’s invitation, he sat down in front of her, and told her everything that had happened in the Council of XV.

  Xavière listened with increasing emotion, and Yvonne stared at him in astonishment. When he had finished, Xavière offered him both her hands in a spontaneous gesture; he took them and kissed them with a mournful passion. “You’re noble and good!” she said. “In spite of everything—all your sins, your crimes.”

  “Please, I beg you…” he implored.

  “All right—let’s put the past behind us. Koynos, you’ve done what you promised. Since our father is dead, you shall take us to my fiancé, who will be a veritable brother for my sister. Will you take us to him?”

  “Alas!”

  “I understand your pain, my friend. You love me—I know that now—but my heart is not free. You know that too.”

  She fell silent, blushed, then, withdrawing her hands, she murmured: “Koynos, if I did not love Leo, you would be worthy…”

  He smiled with dolorous pride. “Xavière,” he said, “Don’t try to console me with vain words…”

  “I say what I think.”

  “And I thank you for that—but if you did not think it, you could say it without my unhappiness being diminished. Xavière, before Oxus, who is so great, so strong and so beloved by us all, I have suffered by virtue of my treasons. They have filled me with shame, and I want to rehabilitate myself in my own eyes, and in yours, by making a sacrifice of my hopes—oh, I know, they were insane! You would never have loved me. But in the final analysis, I am the master here! I would have been able to satisfy my passion by taking revenge on you, possessing you, martyrizing you—for that too is a kind of happiness, though doubtless terrible and desperate!”

  “Koynos!”

  “Let it go! Don’t say anything!” sobbed Koynos, in a tragically passionate tone. “Your soul would have escaped me, would have cursed me—but I would have possessed that body, which… Xavière! You would have been mine, mine like this marble I’m smashing!” He had risen to his feet; with a violent gesture, he had seized a white statuette and he hurled it against the wall, where—despite the hangings—it shattered. Immediately, though, he fell to his knees in front of Xavière and, hiding his face in the impassive young woman’s two open hands, sobbed uncontrollably. “Forgive me!” he begged. “Forgive me!”

  Throughout this ardent scene, Yvonne had not budged from the pouf on which she was sitting. She had not said a word. Long tremors were traveling the length of her body. Suddenly, though, a dull exclamation escaped from her lips. She got up. She leaned over the kneeling man, the collapsed colossus. With trembling hands, burning with fever, she touched his forehead, made him raise his head…

  Before Xavière, who was smiling enigmatically, Koynos’s eyes and Yvonne’s eyes met, penetratingly, for a long time—and in a strange voice, a profound voice that had never been heard before, Yvonne simply said: “Come, Koynos.”

  He got up. Flinging both arms around the man’s neck, she pressed herself against him, and said, with a sort of violence: “Take me away!”

  He seized her, lifted her up like a little girl, hugged her to his broad chest…

  And Xavière, no longer smiling but thoughtful, remained alone…

  V. Saint-Clair, Koynos, Oxus

  During that 29th day of the 20th month, Cosmopolis seemed deserted. None of the XV, no companion and no slave showed himself in the central roadway or any of the side-streets, nor on the circular esplanade that separated the dwellings from the ramparts. Evidently, all activity within the strange city was concentrated in the immense subterranean workings where the workshops, storehouses, machine-rooms and arsenals were.

  At sunset, as usual, all the dwellings sank down together, and their balustrade-less terraces settled at the level of the streets, the main road and the esplanade. Then night fell. It was an exquisite and gentle night, in spite of winter’s approach. Phobos and Deimos, sprang up from two opposite points of the horizon and rose into a clear sky thronged with stars. The two moons moved slowly towards their meeting—and, in their mingled light, Cosmopolis, within the somber girdle of its ramparts, was nothing but a large open space bathed in green light.

  Hours passed, in the silence and immobility of nature.

  It must have been a little after midnight when a black hole suddenly opened up in the middle of the immense arena, at the place where Koynos’ dwelling was embedded in the ground like all the rest, and from that hole, a man emerged. He took a few steps along the uniform concrete of the terrace; then, with a deep sigh, he let himself down gently and lay on his back, resting the nape of his neck in his conjoined hands—and he gazed at the two moons, momentarily juxtaposed, with unseeing eyes. The man sighed often, and murmurs frequently rose to his lips. It was Koynos. He had come up to daydream, while Xavière, alone in her chamber, was deep in thought and Yvonne slept, exhaustedly, in the bed of the Commander of the XV. That too, Oxus, the Master, had not foreseen…

  And Koynos, whose lips were still boiling with Yvonne’s mad kisses, desperately weighed up his thoughts regarding the inviolable Xavière. What bizarre zigzags the passions were subjected to by human destiny! Up above, Phobos and Deimos gradually fused, one eclipsing the other; then they were juxtaposed again, gradually moving apart to continue in their eternal and regular courses, the distance separating them increasing incessantly. And Koynos dreamed—but all of a sudden, the shadow of a bird in full flight caught and held the gaze that had been lost in the infinity of the starry night.

  “Alpha!” he said—and he got up abruptly.

  The bird was more than 100 meters up, immense, with its wings beating.

  “What’s up wi
th him?” asked Koynos.

  And, indeed, the mechanical bird was behaving oddly. It went back and forth, circling. The pilot of the craft, disorientated, was evidently looking for his landing-point.

  He must have become drowsy, Koynos thought. Now he no longer knows what he’s doing. Perhaps he’s afraid that someone not of the XV is here—from that height, he can’t make out my face.

  And, in a voice that was to some extent restrained but quite clear, Koynos called: “Hey there! Alpha! Hey!”

  “Hey there!” replied a muffled voice from on high. And a minute later, the aircraft settled gently on the terrace. A man leapt out of the cockpit, marched up to him, stopped, and said, softly: “Koynos?”

  “The Nyctalope!” exclaimed the Commander. For an instant, he was a stupefied living stature; then he suddenly recovered his presence of mind. “Where’s Alpha?”

  “A prisoner of my companions.”

  “You’re an exceedingly admirable fighter.”

  There was a silence between the two men. They studied one another curiously with their keen eyes. The Nyctalope could see; Koynos had to guess. Suddenly, with a similar spontaneous gesture, they put out their hands—and each one felt that the other’s hand was trembling. What a formidable emotion, that could make these two men tremble!

  Saint-Clair’s voice also gave evidence of that emotion when he said: “Thank you, Koynos.”

  “No, don’t thank me,” stammered the Commander of the XV.

  Their hands fell back. Again, there was silence. And as Saint-Clair, his strange nocturnal bird’s eyes fixed on the slightly dazzled eyes of Koynos, opened his mouth, hesitating before speaking, Koynos made a curt gesture and said, in a breathless voice: “Don’t say her name. She’s here. Come!”

  He ran, disappearing into the black hole that had opened in the terrace two hours earlier, when he had emerged into the moonlight.

  The Nyctalope, who followed him, saw him descending a spiral staircase, very rapidly. He threw himself on to it too. For two minutes, he could not make out anything but the back of Koynos’ neck and his shoulders, but a door suddenly opened, and Saint-Clair no longer saw the neck and the shoulders.

  There was a blaze of electric light in a sumptuous bedroom, and a muffled voice, which said: “There she is! Go in! Be happy!” And Saint-Clair, more emotional than he had ever been in all his extraordinary life, found himself alone with a young woman who, at the sight of him, released a loud cry and swooned, collapsing on to the profound divan on which she was sitting.

  How can the minutes be described that ran by so rapidly, tumultuous in thought, impulsive in speech, unreflective, instinctive and passionate in action? Xavière, reanimated by the Nyctalope’s kisses, was tender, amorous, and then triumphant in the carefully-guarded certainty that this was her doing. It was the skillful work of her eyes, her lips and all the seduction that emanated from her; of all the valiant guile intrinsic to the character of a conquering woman; the work of Koynos, whom she had made her slave; of Saint-Clair’s rival, transformed by her into Saint-Clair’s savior! And by means of insidious reflections, disguised advice and calculated acclamations, she had thrown the bewildered Yvonne into Koynos’ arms, making her sister the ransom for Saint-Clair’s salvation!

  She had the right to be triumphant, that young woman! But Leo did not read the expression of that triumph in his fiancée’s ardent eyes; he read nothing there by faithful love, happy to be able to affirm itself intact and exalted still, after so many extraordinary trials. And the two lovers—for the word is certainly appropriate!—forgetful of everything, forgetful of the distant Earth, their present situation, past perils and dangers yet to come, wrapped their arms around one another, and showered one another with hectic words and kisses. Neither one perceived the insanity of spending that moment thinking of nothing but love—and both abandoned themselves to a weakness that neither Xavière nor the Nyctalope had known before…

  A fatal weakness!

  A door opened. A man appeared, and then another. The first was Oxus, the second, Kipper. They took up positions to either side of the door.

  Oxus made a sign, and 20 black slaves, nude and gigantic, poured out and leapt forward.

  In the blink of an eye, the Nyctalope was torn from Xavière’s arms, lifted up and borne away.

  “Now, the other!” said Oxus. And, closing the bronze door again on the prostrate young woman, the Master and Kipper went into a neighboring room.

  There, extended on the divan with his head on Yvonne’s knees, Koynos seemed to be asleep. Childishly, the young woman was caressing the pale forehead of the colossus with her slender hand.

  “Koynos!” said a voice.

  He stood up. He saw Oxus and Kipper. He had a shattering intuition of what had happened nearby a minute earlier, and a in a fit of frightful anger, he launched himself at Oxus, fists forward—but he was stopped by a rampart of ten broad black chests, bare and unbreakable, and he was seized in his turn, lifted up and borne away.

  Like Xavière, Yvonne remained alone.

  A few minutes later, by a rather banal phenomenon of telepathy, the idea and desire to be reunited emerged simultaneously in the minds of both sisters. Without being able to see one another, since they were separated by a wall, they got up at the same moment, made the same gestures and took he same steps—but at the door, which they opened without difficulty, each of them found a black slave, who barred her passage with a powerful arm.

  Yvonne furiously clawed the arm of her guard—who smiled and gently but forcefully pushed the young woman back into the middle of her bedroom.

  Xavière, on the other hand, stopped dead before the extended arm. She experienced a nervous tremor of wrath and chagrin, but she felt her guard’s eyes upon her. She raised her head and, smiling and authoritative at the same time, standing up straight in the close-fitting white flannel peplum in which she was scarcely clad, she plunged the gaze of her admirable eyes into the eyes of her black Cerberus.

  The latter quivered, tried to resist, and, defeated, closed his eyes. His extended arm trembled.

  Xavière did not insist. She took a step back and closed the door again—and the guard did not see her again.

  VI. The Tribunal of XV

  At 8 a.m. of the 30th day of the 20th month, a special bell informed the Brothers that they were to go to the Hall of Judgment. They were all astonished and slightly anxious. Since they had been on Mars, the XV had not once assembled as a tribunal. The purpose of that institution was to pass judgment on a Brother who had attempted, always unsuccessfully, to foment a conspiracy against Oxus—and was then condemned to death, immediately executed and replaced in his rank and attributions by a companion.

  The Society’s statutes stated that the XV only constituted a tribunal to judge a Brother, the judgment being devoid of initiative since the Code of XV anticipated all punishable offences and the consequent penalties. The accusation alone was submitted to deliberation; if found to be exact and true, it was followed ipso facto by the punishment corresponding to the crime or misdemeanor. When it was a matter of a companion or a slave, Oxus examined, judged, absolved or condemned by himself, without audit or appeal. Thus, that morning’s sounding of a bell so rarely heard produced a violent sensation. The only ones who were not surprised were Oxus and Kipper; the former had ordered it, the second knew the reason for it.

  At 8:10 a.m., therefore, the Hall of Judgment was occupied by the Brothers; Native Africans from Oxus’ personal guard, electro-mirrors in hand, were stationed at the doors, inside and out. The room was the same one that served as a Council chamber, but it was arranged differently.

  On a platform, alone and isolated, seated on an armchair with a high back, placed in front of the wall-hangings, Oxus presided. Two black guards stood to his right and his left, each leaning on the hilt of an immense naked scimitar whose point was digging into the floor. In front of him, ten paces away, were three sellettes,10 separated by spaces in which a man might stand. To the right and
the left were rows of six armchairs facing the center of the room, where the sellettes were situated. Beside Oxus, between the end of the right-hand row and Oxus himself, was an isolated seat on a high podium. This was the accuser’s station. The regulations dictated that Oxus alone had his face uncovered; each of the Brothers was masked by a sort of square cowl, pierced by two eye-holes.

  As the Brothers had to go to the Hall of Judgment as soon as the bell sounded by way of separate corridors, which led from each dwelling to the Hall itself, they were unable to see one another or confer; thus, none of them knew who the accused was until he was actually introduced into the Hall.

  Oxus was seated, impassively. Standing still, their faces invisible, the 12 judges waited, their eyes turned towards the door by which the accuser would enter, followed by the accused—but what was a great cause of astonishment among the Brothers was that there were to be three accused, since there were three sellettes. They were, however, only lacking one Brother. They soon remembered that, when a companion served as an accomplice to his guilty commander, he was judged with him. That explained two sellettes—but what about the third? If several companions were accomplices, the only one included was the one who belonged to the accused brother; the others were judged by Oxus alone. For whom, then, was that third sellette?

  The mystery, which the 12 found extremely puzzling, was soon clarified. At a gesture from Oxus, a door was opened by the slave stationed there, and a hooded man came in. This was the prosecutor; he went to sit down in his armchair. Immediately, according to the ritual, the 12 sat down. Then Koynos came in; a black man armed with a naked scimitar followed him.

  Pale, calm, standing up straight with a bold gaze and a resolute attitude, Koynos went to sit down in the middle interrogation-chair. The guard took up a position standing to his right. Koynos’ appearance did not surprise anyone, but it was greeted by a muffled murmur of an ambiguous quality.