by Don Wilcox
Mary broke off short.
“What’s the matter?” Bruce whispered.
“More surprises. Listen!”
The animals were returning. They were coming back in a regular stampede, Bruce thought. The thuds of their galloping feet sent forth a low roar that made black dust shower down from the giant toadstools.
Bruce and his bride were within a stone’s throw of their grounded ship when the oncoming herd came rushing past them. They dropped down behind a rock for what protection it would offer. Bruce made ready with his gun.
Then came the greatest surprise of all. He and Mary both saw it at the same time. There were passengers riding on the backs of a few of these elephantine beetles—large, white, halfhuman giants with immense heads as large as their bodies. They were like the big skeleton, but in the flesh. Their huge eyes bugged out like telescopic instruments. Their tall, pointed ears brushed the leaves and branches overhead.
They had seen the space ship. One was pointing at it, others were shouting in shrill voices.
“Kwazz! . . . Kwazz! . . . Kwazz!”
CHAPTER II
Red Mouth, The Rider
When giant beetles sallied forth with giant passengers, a certain young man almost always jumped Aboard one of the beasts for a free ride. He was the ridingest denizen of the swamps of Mercury, this slim, clean-muscled young man.
He was nameless. That is to say, he had forgotten his real name. The giants called him Zee-Moop which, interpreted, meant “Red Mouth.” For it was this nameless young man’s habit to decorate his mouth with a wide ring of red clay.
He didn’t know why he did it. He couldn’t remember reasons for many of the things he did. And he wished—oh, how he wished—that he could remember.
Most of all he wondered how he happened to be the only person among all these giants—the only creature among them who was small and intricately featured. They treated him as a pet. He was, in fact, a favorite among some of these big fellows. Especially Vammerick and his friends.
And then, again, he was a thorn in the flesh of others. Rippyick, that soulless and humorless giant who never talked while he ate, was one who often tried to make trouble for Red Mouth. The fellow could never take a joke. He would never laugh when Red Mouth turned flipflops over the backs of the giant beetles.
But worst of all, Rippyick would take every opportunity to insult Red Mouth by insinuating that he resembled some of the terrible freaks who dwelt on the other side of the ridge.
Now any reasonable potato-eater with fully developed eyesight could see that Red Mouth did not wear a covering of green scales. Nor did his toes resemble the talons of a bird of prey. Nor did he have antennae growing out of his forehead, as some freaks did. He was certainly-not one of them. As a physical specimen he stood alone.
Red Mouth had a deep-rooted respect for his own body and was filled with savage anger when Rippyick or anyone else hurled insults. He, an outcast from the tribe of freaks? Why, he felt an instinctive revulsion whenever he had to look at one of them.
Of course, he was in no way related to these “potato giants.” (He called them that because they made potatoes their chief food. Moreover, they grew to be as shapeless as potatoes. Take a huge potato, give it two pointed ears, turn its eyes inside out so that they bugged forward like two camera lenses, give it dangling arms and stumpy legs of yellow clay, and you would have a fine comic statue of Rippyick! Red Mouth had a great attraction for comic things. He’d have to make a statue like that some lazy day.)
So, while Red Mouth wasn’t related to these big giants, somehow in the recent past that was all so foggy in his memory, he had come to live with them. He had learned their language and their ways, and sometimes with his lively wit or his physical agility he had helped them out of trouble.
And sometimes Vammerick, the potato giant with the broadest grin, would call him not simply Zee-Moop, but Zee-Moop-ick. Which was the same as saying, “Red Mouth, our brother.”
Today a few of the potato giants were riding.
Red Mouth bounded along over the tops of three or four toadstools where he had been stunting for his own amusement. He flipflopped through the air to land on his feet behind Vammerick. The back of the beetle shuddered a little under the impact and then moved along.
Who was riding today? Red Mouth looked over the herd of gleaming brown and yellow shells. Only a few were occupied. There were Pellick, Matterick, Ellonick, Rippyick, and a few others.
“Where are we all going?” Red Mouth called in the native language.
One of Vammerick’s sharp ears twitched, but he didn’t hear. Red Mouth leaped up and caught an arm over his giant friend’s shoulder. Then with another bound he was sitting on the giant’s head. He bent down to one of the huge ears.
“Where are we going, Vammerick?”
“Just gathering in the stock,” said Vammerick. “They’re feeding down by the swamps again. Too much danger they’ll find their way to the wrong side of the ridge.”
“Would they come back home in a few days?”
“Not if the snail-eaters found them first,” said Vammerick. “We’d have to buy them back. We’d have to dig around in the wet places for things to buy them with. I’d rather keep my feet dry.”
Red Mouth understood. He knew that the snail-eaters—that is, the tribe of freaks on the other side of the ridge —would be quick to take an advantage. Whatever they charged for the return of lost beetles would have to be paid in terms of snails.
A snail was the standard of values when it came to dealings between the potato giants and the snail-eaters. Not small snails, either, but full grown ones, almost as large as Red Mouth. Of course, the actual payment might be made with other goods—frogs, mice, worms, or even young, edible beetles. But the finest, fattest frog was hardly ever accepted at the full value of a snail; and it took ten well-fed earthworms to equal that value. The snail-eaters were hard customers to deal with.
“They’d like to see us have to grub for them,” said Red Mouth.
“They would like to see us dead,” said Vammerick, “but as long as we have this ridge between us, with a solid peace agreement planted at the pinnacle, we forget there is a war.”
“But there isn’t any war,” said Red Mouth. “I’ve been here for a long time. I don’t know how long because I can’t remember anything. But I’ve never seen any fighting between you and the snail-eaters.”
“Fighting, no. War, yes. It is always there, under the surface. If they show their scaled forms on the wrong side of the ridge, you will see murder. Nor do any of us dare ride beyond the boundary. That is the agreement that makes us seem at peace.”
Red Mouth thought these matters over as the beetle-bus jogged along the way. The jungle growth became thicker and deeper in color. The red blood-roots were too massive to be walked over. The beetles had to thread their way through a maze. They knew where they were going. Their sense of smell was as well developed as their masters’ telescopic eyesight. Errant beetles and kindred creatures were added to the procession along the way.
“If war ever broke out again,” said Red Mouth speculatively, “what would happen?”
“The agreement is that it won’t ever happen,” said Vammerick. His huge eyes glanced up curiously. Red Mouth was doing a graceful handstand on Vammerick’s head.
“But if?”
“The agreement is that the great treasure which appeared on the pinnacle of the ridge when we made our peace belongs to both of us in common —the snail-eaters and ourselves. But neither they nor we will touch it. However, if there should be an outbreak of war—”
“Well?”
“Our side would race for the pinnacle at the far end of the ridge to claim this treasure. If we could claim it we would know the war was won.”
Red Mouth caught his heels on an overhanging branch and swung free of Vammerick. He dropped down to the glistening back of the next beetlelike creature that passed under him. It looked back at him with its silly lavender gelatine eyes, not knowing
what to make of a passenger on its back. It happened not to be one of the bus-beetles, broken for riding, but a young and untrained creature. It gave a lurch and a shake. Red Mouth laughed. It flung its cactus-like antennae around to try to knock him off. He leaped over them as easily as jumping rope.
Jumping rope? There was something familiar in that thought. Where had he done it before? Why couldn’t he remember?
There had been a fall from some high place, he had reasoned, when this problem of lost memory was first discovered there in his vague, groping thoughts. The scar on the left side of his head was going away gradually. He had asked the potato giants about it when he had first found himself talking their language. But no one had been able to tell him anything about his past troubles. They only knew that they had found him, one day, riding beetles like an expert. He had helped them break in new ones. From the start he had been so cooperative and useful that Vammerick had said he must not be driven off.
And so the giants had made a place for him in their village, and he had been allowed to build himself a “kwazz” to live in.
Red Mouth could no more explain to himself why he liked living with them than he could explain why he liked to have a rim of red clay around his mouth. Perhaps it was because, in his eyes, there was so much of the comic about these big overgrown potatoes. Their lusty shouts, their attitude of daring when they rode their slow, clumsy beetles, their big serious eyes always on the lookout for trouble —all of these things made Red Mouth laugh to himself.
Even now, as he thought of the possible war that Vammerick had just described, he chuckled with amusement.
Imagine old Rippyick, as serious as a barn owl, having to race along with a caravan all the way up that tortuous ridge trail. Imagine how easy it would be for those diabolical freaks from the other side of the ridge to roll down a few boulders to test the crusty backs of the beetles.
But Red Mouth, for all his love of bizarre and spectacular things, would certainly not wish to see any harm come to Vammerick and his friends.
Crunch!
What was that? The sound came from somewhere up at the head of the procession. The foliage was so thick here that Red Mouth couldn’t see very far ahead. But that low crunching noise sounded very much as if a beetle bus had gone down.
The procession surged forward, for all at once there was a great shouting of potato giant voices up ahead.
“Hurry up, Vammerick!” Red Mouth yelled as he bounded along from one beetle back to another. “You’ll miss out on the excitement.”
The news echoed back from the shouts before Red Mouth could get there.
“Two snail-eaters! The beast saw them and fell!”
The next thing Red Mouth knew he was looking into two very frightened faces, not of snail-eaters, but of creatures exactly like himself.
One was a very beautiful female. The other, a strong-looking male.
The male had a gun in his hand, and instantly Red Mouth knew what had brought the beetle down in a crash of death.
Above the pandemonium of potato giant voices, Red Mouth called out his accusation in his own English tongue.
“You shot him!”
“Yes!” the girl answered in a shrill cry. “Just as he closed his jaws on us!” Then the man opened his mouth and added his defiant bark to the angry babble.
“You’d better call the others off or they’ll fall too. This gun is full of death.”
CHAPTER III
Ick Versus Ick
Red Mouth was a cunning pet, in the eyes of these giants. But at this moment he came near to taking command of the situation.
Not content to be in the center of the circle, he sprang upon Matterick’s shoulders and jumped to Rippyick’s head. There he waved his arms at the several potato giants, and they listened to him.
“They are not snail-eaters,” he called out in the giant tongue. “They are no more snail-eaters than I am.” The big, gray ears of Rippyick twitched against Red Mouth’s bare legs. There was a look of sarcasm turned up at him. Rippyick couldn’t miss a chance to show what he believed about Red Mouth.
“I can talk the language of these creatures,” Red Mouth hastened to say, just in time to silence the giant on whose head he was standing. “They will tell me what they are doing here.”
“Tell them,” said Vammerick, “to stand up on the back of the dead zwouffer.”
Red Mouth translated the order. “Climb up on the beetle, you two! The potato giants want to see you.”
“Potato giants!” The fierce-eyed young man echoed the words. Then he and the girl, in spite of their fear, exchanged glances of amusement.
Red Mouth scrambled down all the way to the ground to help the couple obey the order. Other orders were being called from all around. The giants were exceedingly curious over this encounter.
“They want to hear you talk again,” Red Mouth said.
“What shall we say?” said the man. “They want to know what you are doing here.”
“Our ship stalled, and we landed here by mistake. If they’ll help us get our ship out of the swamp we’ll go on our way.”
“Ship?” Red Mouth repeated. “I’d forgotten there were such things . . . Oh, I see. The big mass of silver over there in the bank. So you came here in that?”
All this had a familiar sound to it, and Red Mouth wanted to go on with questions of his own. But the potato giants were scowling out of their big eyes, wanting to know why they were being cut out of the conversation.
“This big fellow, Vammerick, says he wants to hear the smaller one talk again. He liked the sound of that female voice.”
The girl, laughing, said a few words. Then she looked up at the big white creature and knew her performance didn’t satisfy.
“He wants you to scream, the way you did before,” said Red Mouth. “And he wants to know your names.”
The procession started on a few minutes later, circling through the swamp trails in search of all the straggling swouffers that could be found.
It was a slower procession than any Red Mouth remembered, quieter as to giant voices, but ringing loud with this very weird voice of the girl named Mary. Hers was such a fascinating voice that they couldn’t get enough of it. For a while she accommodated with a variety of screams. Then she turned to singing.
When the man named Bruce began singing to give her a rest, the potato giants grumbled their discontent.
“Better keep silent,” Red Mouth warned. “They know what they like. And they’ve got some funny ideas about stopping things they don’t like.”
“What do you mean?” asked Bruce. “I’ll explain,” said Red Mouth. “That big giant with the very white ears—he’s Vammerick, my best friend. He’s very kind, as potato giants go.”
“Oh, I’m glad to know they’re kind,” Bruce said, with a premature glow of hope in his eyes.
“Wait till I finish,” said Red Mouth. “My kind friend has just mentioned that if you intrude upon the girl’s song with your squawk once more, he is in favor of killing you at once instead of waiting till we get back to the village.”
“Oh!” Mary’s vocalizing suddenly turned to a scream again, for she had kept an ear to this conversation.
“There’s a disagreement among them,” Red Mouth went on. “That other big fellow with the mouse-gray ears—that’s Rippyick—he’s in favor of killing you both right now. He says his ears hurt him.”
“What shall I do?” Mary wailed. “Keep singing,” said Red Mouth. “I’d rather please my friend Vammerick than my enemy Rippyick.”
Before they got back to their village they stopped for a fight.
It began with an argument between Rippyick and Vammerick over who was entitled to the prisoners. Vammerick had taken a whimsical notion that they were his.
“Just between us, I hope Vammerick gets you,” said Red Mouth. “Confidentially, he hasn’t any grounds for his claim, because he was bringing up the rear when they found you. But I hope he gets you. He won’t be so apt to torture
you when he kills you.”
“Must be a nice fellow,” said Bruce. “Or he might even sell you to the snail-eaters alive,” Red Mouth reflected.
“Would that be good?”
“Well, yes and no. It would be all right till the snail-eaters got hungry for a fancy dinner. What did you do with your gun?”
“That big giant with the gray ears—Rippyick—threw it in the swamp,” said Bruce. “He doesn’t know it, but I tried to swing the ray on him just before he grabbed me.”
“They aren’t used to guns,” said Red Mouth. “He had just enough instinct to be afraid of it. They’re not used to guns, or ships, or pretty girls . . . M-m-m.”
“Why are you staring at me?” Mary asked.
“I’m just remembering—but everything is so dim. Never mind,” said Red Mouth.
He turned their attention to the quarreling giants. They were getting set for the fight. The beetles were arranged in a circle, within which the combat would take place.
“See them take their stands. Whoever knocks the other off his feet is the winner.”
“Whoopee!” Bruce exclaimed. “It would take a thousand-pound punch—”
“What was that word you used?” Red Mouth asked. For a second everything in his mind was whirling. There was something in the sound of that expression. “I used to hear that—that whoo-oo. What does it mean?”
“Whoopee? It doesn’t mean anything . . . Look, there they go!”
For a few seconds Red Mouth was oblivious to the fight, for the wheels within his dusty memory were spinning. He couldn’t bring it back, whatever it was he had almost recalled. But all at once he felt a great bounding gladness that these two strangers had come along. Their words were like a fountain to a thirsty man.
“Look at them slug each other!” Bruce shouted. “They’ve drawn their eyes in so they can take it full in the face. Whoopee! My stars, what a wallop that Rippyick carries!”
The fight went round and round without a gong to stop it. Rippyick punched overhand like a rabbit. Poor Vammerick’s ears were no longer white, but pink. The points weren’t holding up so well, either. A lot of Rippyick’s head blows that missed came skidding down over the ears.
