by Don Wilcox
Bruce had made sport of the idea. “Fancy these potato giants working in a porcelain plant. They’d make a game of breaking crockery over each other’s heads.”
It had been a rather difficult decision to reach; but Bruce and Mary had at last agreed that they must cooperate with Major Vickering. Whatever his business mission might be, or however much his comings and goings intruded upon their honeymoon, they would cancel their earlier suspicions of him and try to rely upon him as a friend.
And so, on the night that Vickering returned, a trifle too enthusiastic over his brainstorm, they listened with willing ears.
“If these monster beetles were hitched together,” said the Major, “they could pull a space ship out of Hell itself. All right, we’re going to fix things so the potato giants will want that stranded ship for their own use.”
“Fair enough. But how?”
“By upsetting the peace between them and the snail-eaters across the divide. You’re aware of the long-standing enmity between these two groups? Well, I’ve seen these so-called snail-eaters, and they’re a mean lot. Freaks of nature. I gather that they’re an offshoot from a Mercury derelict colony of a few generations ago. Well, an open war between them and our potato giants would create a demand for our space ship.”
“Interesting if true,” said Bruce. “Why would it?” said Mary. “Because of a certain curious peace agreement involving a treasure house at the uppermost point of the ridge.”
“The treasure kwazz,” Bruce echoed. “What about it? Have you seen it?”
“No, but I’ve heard dozens of echoes of the arrangement. In case of an outbreak of violence, both sides would race up the ridge to try to take possession of this treasure. As long as there is peace, both sides own it in common, but neither side touches it. And so there it sits on some distant mountain pinnacle waiting to be seized as the prize of war.”
“I wouldn’t advise you to set off a war, Major,” said Bruce.
“It’s in the cards. I’ll spring the war. You put it across with your captors that your ship could cart them up to the summit before their beetle caravan could finish breakfast. Can you put that factor over with them?”
“I suppose so.”
“All right. Then if there’s any gratitude in their leatherbound souls they’ll owe it to you for helping them beat their enemy to the punch. And as soon as they’ve done it we’ll all three shake the dew of this unholy swamp land off our feet.”
“There might be four of us,” said Bruce. “There’s a young man living here with the potato giants. His memory is gone, but he speaks our language as well as theirs and his face lights up at the mention of the Earth.”
“So that’s how you’ve been learning their native language so fast,” said the Major. “Well, let your conscience be your guide.”
“I won’t say anything about a war being started,” said Bruce. “That’s strictly your end of the deal.”
It was dawn a day later when they got their first sight of the snail-eaters.
Two of the hideous creatures were sneaking along toward the village. Mary heard the rustle of brush. She woke Bruce. He was instantly alert. The shadowy forms were passing along the opposite wall trying to peer in.
“Pretend you’re asleep,” Bruce whispered.
Mary watched through half-closed eyes. Then her head suddenly bobbed up, her eyes wide open. There was the smell of smoke in the air.
“They’re going on to the village,” Bruce said, and he and Mary crept along the walls to watch.
The two shadowy forms moved cunningly from rock to rock, on to a protecting clump of bushes; with great caution they slipped back to the shelter of a heap of debris. This hiding-place had once been a kwazz before some clumsy beetle broke it down.
As they came back to this position the pink dawn caught their savage faces. Mary and Bruce saw them for what they were—inhuman creatures that were a mockery to true men. Green and yellow scales covered their almost naked bodies. Antennae reached up from their foreheads, sensitive to dangers. Evil gleamed in their grotesque faces.
“Yellow eyes,” Mary whispered, “yellow feet—only they aren’t real feet. The toes are more like eagles’ talons.”
“Not the sort of people you’d care to meet on a dark night,” Bruce muttered. “I wonder what they’re carrying in their buckets.”
“Fire,” said Mary. “I can see the hazy blue smoke.”
The two snail-eaters made a dash for it. They headed for the nearest kwazz, one that Bruce remembered as Vammerick’s.
“And Vammerick is away!” Bruce said with an angry breath. “That fire will spread to half a dozen kwazzes before anyone can stop it—anyone but me!”
“Where are you going, Bruce?”
“Come on if you want to chase the fire-wagon!”
The two snail-eaters were scampering away by this time, and Bruce knew they would put a safe distance between themselves and the village before they stopped to watch the show.
He crouched to put his shoulder to the chosen pole, forced it with all his strength. The short section at the base snapped and thudded to the ground.
He glanced upward. The rest of the pole stood solid, held by the horizontal stringers. The home-made gateway was open before him, and he lost no time plunging through.
Mary was right behind him. Whatever was to be done, she was bound to help.
The blazes licked up over the front of the tower-like dwelling. A draft through the open doors carried them fluttering into the interior. Bruce guessed that Vammerick would have to build himself another house, all right.
“Help me with this toadstool, Mary.”
They threw their weight against the pulpy stalk, once, twice, three times —and down it went. The wide, top-heavy umbrella crushed down over the flames like wet mush. The whole kwazz shuddered under the impact, and the fire slackened.
Then Bruce and Mary snatched some whips of fleshy green leaves and went into battle. They made a daring rush through the interior. They slapped faster than the flames could climb. Vammerick’s house might be saved, after all—the frame-work at least.
The first was quickly beaten down to charred and smoking sticks at the base of the kwazz.
“It’s not all out,” Bruce said, panting, “but here come the native women to take over. That’s our cue.”
He caught Mary’s hand and they raced away. They took a roundabout course so as not to be seen. Then, watching for the right opportunity, they crept back to the prison wall, drew the section of pole back in place, wedged it and sealed it with clay.
Before that day was over the party of stock-searchers returned.
Excitement ran high through the jungle village as the travelers and the stay-at-homes exchanged their news.
Bruce and Mary waited silently until that night, knowing their patience would be rewarded. Sure enough, Red Mouth came to them at dark and told them everything.
There was much to be told about lost livestock and the mounting accusations of thievery and counter-thievery. The big news, however, concerned the wave of fire-setting.
“The snail-eaters sent a messenger to us, serving notice that they would burn our village to the ground if we didn’t pay them seventy-seven snails as damages for the fires we set.”
“So the potato giants started it,” said Bruce.
“No, they didn’t,” said Red Mouth. “They’ve already held a council. Not one of the potato giants was found guilty. But you can’t tell those savage snail-eaters anything. They claim they’ve had a burn-out and they swear we’re going to pay for it.”
“All things considered,” said Mary, “it looks like war.”
“It is war,” said Red Mouth. “If things aren’t settled to our satisfaction by morning, the march is on.”
CHAPTER VI
Red Mouth at the Crossroads
The whole tribe of potato giants was on the move. There were no fires that night nor the next, for no slippery snail-eater could have sneaked into the village un
noticed. Everyone was stirring, and even the sleepiest beetles seemed to sense the excitement in the air.
Moving day was nothing new to these creatures. In certain warm seasons of the past they had lived high up on the ridge trail. The shells of their former villages dotted the trail for a distance of several days’ journey. Migrating was a natural part of their existence.
However, migrating down grade was much easier than journeying upward. And more promising, too; for in the past the tribe had encountered some privations in the uplands.
Accordingly, as the potato giants bustled around getting everything loaded, the shiny tan back of every
zwouffer was doubly important.
The snail-eaters who had stolen and eaten some of the younger beetles were doubly damned. And so were Bruce and Mary for having killed one.
Naturally there was some renewed clamor for executions, so that the tribe wouldn’t have the bother of taking prisoners along. Red Mouth didn’t relay all of this perilous talk to his two fellow humans, but he guessed that they read between the lines.
The consensus of opinion was that the prisoners should be taken on the march. Sooner or later some potato giant, scouting along the ridge, might get into a tight spot with the enemy. Then it would be handy to have some valuables to bargain with, even if they had to be turned at one or two snails apiece.
If the two prisoners fully realized their predicament, Red Mouth thought, it was remarkable that they should continue to be so cooperative.
Yes, here they were making an offer, and a most miraculous one. They boasted that what they had to give might bring a swift victory to the potato giants.
The rumor of this offer echoed through the gathering caravan. These zwouffer-killing strangers were in some respects decent and honorable creatures, like their jumping pet, Red Mouth.’
Some of the women added their bit to this rising sentiment by swearing that the prisoners were also to be credited with stopping the fire. No one could explain how they had gotten out of prison and back in again. But they had definitely been seen fire-fighting.
Red Mouth rejoiced to see these growing sentiments. He wanted Bruce and Mary for friends. Everything was so wonderful since they had come. He was remembering so many forgotten words and ideas. Feelings of love had returned to his heart, causing him to dance and turn handsprings whenever he thought of this beautiful girl; causing him to stand and talk through the prison walls with her, to try to reach through and touch her hand, and to call her—for reasons he couldn’t remember—“Lena.”
When Mary would say to him, “Remember, Red Mouth, I’m married to Bruce Devoe. I have taken his name. I am his wife. Don’t you remember about love and marriage?” Red Mouth would shake his head stubbornly. He didn’t want to remember anything that would make him admit she belonged to Bruce.
“Maybe you will escape to go back home,” Red Mouth would say. “And maybe I will go, too. And maybe Bruce won’t escape.”
This was something that Red Mouth never said the second time because it brought such a horrified expression to Mary’s pretty face. It even made her cry, and that left Red Mouth very much ashamed and quite lonely.
He tried to make amends for that remark by saying, “I only said maybe. We never know who will escape and who will die.”
This helped not at all, and so, henceforth, he weighed his words more carefully.
The honeymooners’ popularity was not so great that anyone considered setting them free. In fact, there were those who disparaged the rumored acts of favor.
Rippyick, for example, had no good words to say for their fire-fighting. He observed gruffly that that rickety old kwazz of Vammerick’s deserved to be burned down, and several other kwazzes with it. He also voiced strong arguments against accepting the couple’s offer to help win a quick victory.
“We can spare no beasts of burden to lift sunken kwazzes out of the swamps. It’s easier to build new kwazzes.”
Vammerick and Red Mouth and several others argued the point with him. Vammerick declared that this kwazz in the swamp was not just an ordinary dwelling place but one that could travel.
“Any kwazz will travel if enough zwouffers pull it,” said Rippyick with authority.
“But this one,” Red Mouth said, “will travel with its own strength. It will go much faster than the fastest beetle.”
“If it can travel from its own strength,” said Rippyick, “why doesn’t it crawl out of the swamp by itself? Why must it have zwouffers to pull it out?”
“It is so strong,” said Red Mouth, “that it would break in two if it jumped out of the swamp by itself!”
“Then it has no judgment,” said Rippyick, gazing solemnly through his projecting owl eyes. “The stupidest beetle knows better than to break itself in two.”
The whole caravan was delayed while the debate ensued. All points of comparison between the slow but dependable beetle and the speedy but senseless space ship were duly considered. When it was insisted that all the space ship needed was a smooth track for starting, Rippyick and his friends grew more doubtful than ever. The ridge trails were even rougher than those of the swamp.
As for the claim that this ship, once given a chance to start, would move through the air without even touching the ground, that was simply unbelievable. Even Red Mouth, with all his jumping antics, had to keep bouncing back to the ground. And this ship was sure to be much heavier.
The talk stopped short when a young potato giant came racing down the ridge trail on a swift young beetle bearing fearful news.
“The snail-eaters are already a halfday’s journey ahead of us!”
The cry rang out from one end of the caravan Jo the other.
“They are ahead of us. And they are crossing to our side and felling trees across our trail!”
The caravan went into motion, full speed ahead. Rippyick made his two prisoners fast among his packs on the back of a husky beetle.
However, a few members of the tribe chose another direction. Red Mouth smeared a fresh stripe of red clay around his lips and bounded up on Vammerick’s shoulders, aboard a trusty zwouffer. They and a few others headed for the swamps.
Hours later they arrived there. But they didn’t find any space ship nosing up out of the mud. Instead, they found another human being, a rather pompous-looking individual, who was standing on the bank looking dolefully at the water.
Red Mouth succeeded in getting a few unhappy words out of this stranger. His name was Major Vickering. He had come to Mercury with Bruce and Mary. In recent hours he had completed the hike down to this mud bank to see about recovering the space ship.
He had found the ship beyond recovery.
“She has just sunk from sight,” said Major Vickering. “If you’ll look beyond that patch of marsh grass you’ll see the last ten inches of her nose under five feet of water. The rest of her is down in a couple hundred feet of mud. And she’s still sinking.”
CHAPTER VII
Vision of a Colony
“So this is Mercury as the tourist sees it,” said Bruce, rolling his eyes at Mary.
She blew him a kiss. It was the only way she could deliver it, though he was only three feet away. For both she and her husband were tied hand and foot. They were lying on their backs among the luggage that Rippyick had stacked and bound to this beast of burden.
The Mercury scenery that they could see from this angle was sky, sky, and more sky. Occasionally they passed under overhanging branches. But the trees were becoming fewer and scrubbier. The trail was gathering altitude.
Some of the scenery they couldn’t see, but could hear in the exclamations of the potato giants, consisted of logs and rocks that the enemy had thrown across their trail. Sometimes a small avalanche would block the way, and there would be a brief delay while the drivers tried for some more effective profanity to keep the beasts moving.
“I think this is our initiation into the tribe,” said Bruce. “They’re making mashed potatoes out of us.”
“Baked
, if you ask me,” said Mary, “the way that sun is cooking us.”
“Enjoying the ride otherwise? Remind me that I won’t have to take you to Coney Island.”
“I’m not sure” said Mary, “whether you’re cracking wise or you’re just feverish with the heat.”
“Seasickness,” said Bruce, “aboard the good ship Zwouffer.”
Rippyick didn’t like to have them saying things he couldn’t understand. He rode his mount alongside and shouted angrily. Bruce commented that any steamboat had to whistle now and then. Mary smiled and they fell silent.
With the darkness came a night of camping in one of the old empty villages. To the honeymooners’ intense relief there was a high-walled prison. Nothing could have been more welcome after the long, torturing hours in bonds.
With the darkness came Red Mouth, also.
The news which he bore, however, was so bad that they couldn’t talk about it. It would seem that all hope was at an end. The ship was gone.
“I also met your friend, Major Vickering,” said Red Mouth. “He is following us at a safe distance. He says there is nothing else for him to do. But he still hopes he might find a way back to civilization.”
“Hope and I are no longer on speaking terms,” Mary murmured.
“Hope is dead,” said Bruce.
“I will tell you more tomorrow,” said Red Mouth.
The following night brought a conference of the four. Major Vickering, with Red Mouth’s assistance, had dared to venture into the camp to the darkest corner of the makeshift prison. The Major was in a mood to talk, for once, and what he had to say caused Mary’s cheeks to burn.
“Your father did send me,” Vickering admitted. “He planned for me to stow away on your ship. He wanted to know whether the resources of some of these unexplored regions would be good investments.”
