Five miles farther on we turned in to the opposite bank. My head was toward that side and I didn’t get a view of the buildings until the greenies tossed me out of my hammock, released me from the thing and stood me on my feet. I promptly lost balance and sat down. Temporarily, my dogs were dead. Rubbing them to restore the circulation, my curious eyes examined this dump that might have been anything from a one-horse hamlet to a veritable metropolis.
Its cylindrical buildings were of light green wood, of uniform height and diameter, and each had a big tree growing through its middle. The foliage of each tree extended farther than the radius of each house, thus effectively hiding it from overhead view. Nothing could have been better calculated to conceal the place from the air, though there wasn’t any reason to suppose that the inhabitants had cause to fear a menace from above.
Still, the way in which trees and buildings shared the same sites made it quite impossible to estimate the size of the place, for beyond the nearer screen of round houses were trees, trees and still more trees, each one of which may have shielded an alien edifice.
I couldn’t tell whether I was looking at a mere kraal or at the riverside suburb of a supercity extending right over the horizon. Little wonder that the exploring lifeboat had observed nothing but forest. Its crew could have scouted over an area holding many millions and thought it nothing but jungle.
Weapons ready, eyes alert, a horde of green ones clustered around us while others finished the task of untying prisoners. The fact that we’d arrived in a miraculous contraption like the Marathon didn’t seem to impress them one little bit. My feet had become obedient by now. I lugged on my jackboots, stood up and stared around. It was then that I got two shocks.
The first hit me as I made a mental list of my companions in misery. It consisted of little more than half the complement of the Marathon. The others weren’t there. One hammock held a pale, lax figure I recognised as the body of the guy who’d caught that load of darts soon after we landed. Why the greenies had seen fit to drag a cadaver along I just don’t know.
Upon a pair of linked-together hammocks reposed the awake but dreamy and disinterested form of Sug Farn. But he was the only Martian present. None of the rest of the Red Planet mob were there. Neither were Chief Douglas, Bannister, Kane, Richards, Kelly, Jay Score, Steve Gregory, young Wilson and a dozen more.
Were they dead? It didn’t seem so, else why should the greenies have transported one body but not the others? Had they escaped? Or did they form a second party of prisoners that had been taken somewhere else? There was no way of determining their fate, yet it was strange that they should be missing.
I nudged Jepson. “Hey, have you noticed-?”
A sudden roar over the river cut me off in mid-sentence. All the green ones gaped upward and gesticulated with their weapons. They were making mouth motions but couldn’t be heard because the noise drowned what they were saying. Whirling around to take a look, I could feel my own eyes bug out on stalks as the Marathon’s sleek pinnace dived within a few feet of the river’s surface, soared upward again. It vanished over the treetops and bellowed into the distance.
But one could still follow the sound of it sweeping round in a great circle. The note screamed higher as it accelerated and went into another dive. Next instant it shot again into view, swooped so low that it touched the water, whisked a shower of green droplets behind it and sent a small wash lapping up the bank. For the second time it disappeared in a swift and ear-racking soar, bulleting past and away at such a pace that it was impossible to tell who was spotting us from the pilot’s cabin.
Spitting on his knuckles, Jepson gave the greenies a sour eye. “They’ve got it coming to them, the lice!” “Tut!” I chided.
“As for you,” he went on. He didn’t add more because at that moment a tall, thin, mean-looking greenie picked on him. This one gave him a contemptuous shove in the chest and piped something on a rising note of interrogation. “Don’t you do that to me!” snarled Jepson, giving him an answering shove.
The green one staggered backward, taken by surprise. He kicked out his right leg. I thought he was trying to give Jepson a hearty crack on the shins, but he wasn’t. The gesture was a good deal deadlier. He was throwing something with his foot and what he threw was alive, superfast and vicious. All I could see of it was a thing that may or may not have been a tiny snake. It had no more length and thickness than a pencil and-for a change-wasn’t green, but a bright orange colour relieved by small black spots. It landed on Jepson’s chest, bit him, then flicked down his front with such rapidity that I could hardly follow its motion. Reaching the ground, it made the grass fairly whip aside as it streaked back to its master. Curling around the green one’s ankle, it went supine, looking exactly like a harmless leg ornament. A very small number of other natives wore similar objects all of which were black and orange except one that was yellow and black.
The attacked Jepson bulged his eyes, opened his mouth but produced no sound though obviously trying. He teetered. The native wearing the yellow and black lump of wickedness stood right by my side studying Jepson with academic interest.
I broke his neck.
The way it snapped reminded me of a rotten broomstick.
This thing on his leg deserted him the moment he became mutton, but fast as it moved it was too late. I was ready for it this time. Jepson fell on his face just as my jackboot crunched the pseudosnake into the turf.
A prime hullabaloo was going on all aroumd. I could hear McNulty’s anxious voice shouting, “Men! Men!” Even at a time like this the overly conscientious crackpot could dwell on visions of himself being demoted for tolerating ill-treatment of natives.
Armstrong kept bawling, “One more!” and each time there had followed a loud splash in the river. Blowguns were going phut-phut and spheres breaking right and left. Jepson lay like one dead while combatants milled over his body. Brennand barged up against me. He breathed in long, laboured gasps and was doing his utmost to gouge the eyes out of a green face.
By this time I’d helped myself to another aborigine and proceeded to take him apart. I tried to imagine that he was a fried chicken of which I never seem to get any more than the piece that goes last over a fence. He was hard to hold, this greenie, and bounced around like a rubber ball. Over his swaying shoulders I caught a glimpse of Sug Farn juggling five at once and envied him the bunch of anacondas he used for limbs. My opponent stabbed hostile fingers into the chrysanthemum I didn’t possess, looked surprised at his own forgetfulness, was still trying to think up some alternative method of incapacitating me as he went into the river.
Now several spheres cracked open at my feet and the last I remember hearing was Armstrong releasing a bellow of triumph just before a big splash. The last I remember seeing was Sug Farn suddenly shooting out a spare tentacle he’d temporarily overlooked and using it to arrange that of the six greenies who were jumping on me only five landed. The other one was still going up as I went down. For some reason I didn’t pass out as completely as I’d done before. Maybe I got only a half-dose of whatever the spheres gave forth, or perhaps they contained a different and less positive mixture. All that I know is that I dropped with five natives astride my ribs, the skies spun crazily, my brains turned to cold and lumpy porridge. Then, astonishingly, I was wide awake, my upper limbs again tightly bound.
Over to the left a group of natives formed a heaving pile atop some forms that I couldn’t see but could easily hear. Armstrong did some champion hog-calling underneath that bunch which-after a couple of hectic minutes -broke apart to reveal his pinioned body along with those of Blaine and Sug Farn. On my right lay Jepson, his limbs quite free but the lower ones apparently helpless. There was now no sign of the pinnace, no faraway moaning to show that it was still airborne.
Without further ado the greenies whisked us across the sward and five miles deep into the forest, or city, or whatever it ought to be called. Two of them bore Jepson in a wicker hamper. Even at this inland point t
here were still as many houses as trees. Here and there a few impassive citizens came to the doors of their abodes and watched us dragging along our way. You’d have thought we were the sole surviving specimens of the dodo from the manner in which they weighed us up.
Minshull and McNulty walked right behind me in this death parade. I hear the latter give forth pontifically, “I shall speak to their leader about this. I’ll point out to him that all these unfortunate struggles are the inevitable result of his own people’s irrational bellicosity.”
“Without a doubt,” endorsed Minshull, heartily sardonic.
“Making every possible allowance for mutual difficulty in understanding,” McNulty continued, “I still think we are entitled to be received with a modicum of courtesy.”
“Oh, quite,” said Minshull. His voice was now solemn, like that of the president of a morticians’ convention. “And we consider that our reception leaves much to be desired.”
“Precisely my point,” approved the skipper.
“Therefore any further hostilities would be most deplorable,” added Minshull, with a perfectly dead pan.
“Of course,” McNulty enthused.
“Not to mention that they’d compel us to tear the guts out of every green-skinned critter on this stinking planet.”
“Eh?” McNulty missed a step, his features horrified. “What was that you just said?”
Minshull looked innocently surprised. “Why, nothing, skipper. I didn’t even open my mouth. You must be dreaming things.”
What the outraged shipmaster intended to retort to that remained a mystery for at this point a greenie noticed him lagging and prodded him on. With an angry snort he speeded up, moving in introspective silence thereafter.
Presently we emerged from a long, orderly line of tree-shrouded homes and entered a glade fully twice as large as that in which the missing Marathon had made its landing. It was roughly circular, its surface level and carpeted with close-growing moss of a rich emerald-green. The sun, now well up in the sky, poured a flood of pale green beams into this alien amphitheatre around the fringes of which clustered a horde of silent, expectant natives, watching us with a thousand eyes.
The middle of the glade captured our attention. Here, as outstanding as the biggest skyscraper in the old home town, towered a veritable monster among trees. How high it went was quite impossible to estimate but it was plenty large enough to make Terra’s giant redwoods look puny by comparison. Its bole was nothing less than forty feet in diameter and the spread of its oaklike branches looked immense even though greatly shrunk in perspective way, way up there. So enormous was this mighty growth that we couldn’t keep our eyes off it. If these transcosmic Zulus intended to hang us, well, it’d be done high and handsome. Our kicking bodies wouldn’t look more than a few struggling bugs suspended between earth and heaven.
Minshull must have been afflicted with similar thoughts, for I heard him say to McNulty, “There’s the Christmas tree. We’ll be the ornaments. Probably they’ll draw lots for us and the boob who gets the ace of spades will select the fairy at the top.”
“Don’t be morbid,” snapped McNulty. “They’ll do nothing so illegal.”
Then a big, wrinkled-faced native pointed at the positive skipper and six pounced on him before he could dilate further on the subject of interstellar law. With complete disregard for all the customs and rules that the victim held holy, they bore him toward the waiting tree.
Up to that moment we’d failed to notice the drumming sound which thundered dully from all around the glade. It was very strong now, and held a sinister quality in its muffled but insistent beat. The weird, elusive sound had been with us from the start; we’d become used to it, had grown unconscious of it in the same way that one fails to notice the ticking of a familiar clock. But now, perhaps because it lent emphasis to the dramatic scene, we were keenly aware of that deadly throb-throb-throb.
The green light made the skipper’s face ghastly as he was led forward unresisting. All the same, he still managed to lend importance to his characteristic strut and his features had the ridiculous air of one who nurses unshakable faith in the virtue of sweet reasonableness. I have never encountered a man with more misplaced confidence in written law. As he went forward I know he was supported by the profound conviction that these poor, benighted people were impotent to do anything drastic to him without first filling in the necessary forms and getting them properly stamped and countersigned. Whenever McNulty died, it was going to be with official approval and after all official formalities had been satisfied.
Halfway to the tree the skipper and his escort were met by nine tall natives. Dressed in no way differently from their fellows, these managed to convey in some vague manner that they were beings apart from the common herd. Witch-doctors, decided my agitated mind.
Those holding McNulty promptly handed him over to the newcomers and beat it toward the fringe of the glade as if the devil himself were due to appear in the middle. There wasn’t any devil; only that monstrous tree. But knowing what some growths could and did do in this green-wrapped world it was highly probable that this one-the grandpappy of all trees-was capable of some unique and formidable kind of wickedness. Of that statuesque lump of timber one thing was certain: it possessed more than its fair share of garnish.
Briskly the nine stripped McNulty to the waist. He continued talking to them all the time but he was too far away for us to get the gist of his authoritative lecture of which his undressers took not the slightest notice. Again they made close examination of his chest, conferred among themselves, started dragging him nearer to the tree. McNulty resisted with appropriate dignity. They didn’t stand on ceremony when he pulled back; picking him up bodily they carried him forward.
Armstrong said in tight tones, “We’ve still got legs, haven’t we?” and forthwith kicked the nearest guard’s feet from under him.
But before any of us could follow his example and start another useless fracas an interruption came from the sky. Upon the forest’s steady drumming was superimposed another fiercer, more penetrating moan that built up to a rising howl. The howl then changed to an explosive roar as, swift and silvery, the pinnace swooped low over the fateful tree.
Something dropped from the belly of the bulleting boat, blew out to umbrella shape, hesitated in its fall, lowered gently into the head of the tree. A parachute! I could see a figure dangling in the harness just before it was swallowed in the thickness of elevated foliage, but distance made it impossible to identify this arrival from above.
The nine who were carrying McNulty unceremoniously dumped him on the moss, gazed at the tree. Strangely enough, aerial manifestations filled these natives more with curiosity than fear. The tree posed unmoving. Suddenly amid its top branches a needle-ray lanced forth, touched a large branch at its junction with the trunk, severed it. The amputated limb plunged to ground.
At once a thousand budlike protuberances that lay hidden between the leaves of the tree swelled up like blown toy balloons, reached the size of giant pumpkins and burst with a fusillade of dull plops. From them exploded a yellow mist which massed at such a rate and in such quantity that the entire tree became clouded with it in less than a minute.
All the natives within sight hooted like a flock of scared owls, turned and ran. McNulty’s nine guardians also abandoned whatever they had in mind and dashed after their fellows. The needler caught two of them before they’d gone ten steps; the other seven doubled their pace. McNulty was left struggling with the bonds around his wrists while slowly the mist crawled toward him.
Again the beam speared high up in the tree. Again a huge branch tumbled earthward. Already the tree had grown dim within the envelope of its own fog. The last native had faded from sight. The creeping yellow vapour had come within thirty yards of the skipper who was standing and staring at it tike a man fascinated. His wrists remained tied to his sides. Deep inside the mist the popping sounds continued, though not as rapidly.
Yelling at the
witless McNulty to make use of his nether limbs, we struggled furiously with our own and each other’s bonds. McNulty’s only response was to shuffle backward a few yards. By a superhuman effort, Armstrong burst free, snatched a jacknife from his pants pocket, started cutting our arms loose. Minshull and Blaine, the first two thus relieved, immediately raced to McNulty who was posing within ten yards of the mist like a portly Ajax defying the power of alien gods. They brought him back.
Just as we’d all got rid of our bonds the pinnace came round in another wide sweep, vanished behind the column of yellow cloud and thundered into the distance. We gave it a hoarse cheer. Then from the base of the mist strode a great figure dragging a body by each hand. It was Jay Score. He had a tiny two-way radio clamped on his back.
He came toward us, big, powerful, his eyes shining with their everlasting fires, released his grip on the cadavers, said, “Look-this is what the vapour will do to you unless you move out mighty fast!”
We looked. These bodies belonged to the two natives he’d needled but the needlers had not caused that awful rotting of the flesh. Both leprous objects were too far gone to be corpses, not far enough to be skeletons. Mere rags of flesh and half-dissolved organs on frames of festering bone. It was easy to see what would have happened to Jay had he been composed of the same stuff as ourselves, or had he been an air-breather.
“Back to the river,” advised Jay, “even if we have to fight our way through. The Marathon is going to land in the glade alongside it. We must reach her at all costs.”
“And remember, men,” put in McNulty officiously, “I want no unnecessary slaughter.”
That was a laugh! Our sole weapons now consisted of Jay’s needler, Armstrong’s jacknife, and our fists. Behind us, already very near and creeping steadily nearer, was the mist of death. Between us and the river lay the greenie metropolis with its unknown number of inhabitants armed with unknown devices. Veritably we were between a yellow devil and a green sea.
Adventures in Time and Space Page 32
