The Pygmy Planet
Page 5
him considerably before it occurred to him that theymust be the red and violet rays.
"So you wait till evening, and then fly up into the red ray, to gohome," he muttered. "But I may not need that information," he addedgrimly. "Seems to be a pretty big job to search a planet on foot, forone person. And I'm not going back without Agnes!"
In the afternoon of the second day, he came within view of a city. Hecould discern vast, imposing walls and towers of dark stone. It stoodin the barren red desert, far back from the green line of the oldcanal. Larry left the canal and started wearily across toward it. Hehad covered several miles of the distance before he saw that the loftytowers were falling, the magnificent walls crumbling. The city wasruined, dead, deserted!
The realization brought him a great flood of despair. He had hoped tofind people--friends, from whom he might get food, and informationabout this unfamiliar planet. But the city was dead.
Larry was standing there, in the midst of the vast red plain betweenruined city and ruined canal. Tired, hungry, lonely and hopeless. Hewas looking up at the white "sun," trying to comfort himself with thethought that the brilliant luminary was merely a queer blue lamp, thathe was upon a tiny experimental world in a laboratory. But the thoughtbrought him no relief; only confusion and a sense of incredulity.
* * * * *
Then he saw the machine-monster.
A glittering, winged thing of crystal and green metal, identical withthe one he had encountered in the laboratory. It must already haveseen him, for it was dropping swiftly toward him.
Larry started to run, took a few staggering steps. Then he recalledthe heavy rifle slung over his shoulder. Moving with desperate haste,he got it into his hands and raised it just as the monster dropped tothe red sand a dozen yards away from him.
Steadily he covered the crystal cylinder within which the thing'sbrain floated in luminous violet liquid. His finger tightened on thetrigger, ready to send a heavy bullet crashing into it. Then hepaused, swore softly, lowered the gun.
"If I kill it," he murmured, "I may never find Agnes. And if I let itcarry me off, it may take me where she is."
He walked toward the monster, across the red sand.
It stood uncertainly upon green metal legs, seeming to stare at himstrangely with eye-like lenses. Its wings of thin green metal plates,were folded; its four green tentacles were twitching oddly.
Abruptly, it sprang upon him.
A green tentacle seized the rifle and snatched it from his hands. Hefelt the automatic pistol and the ammunition being removed from hispockets.
Then, firmly held in the flexible arms of green metal, he was liftedagainst the cylinder of violet liquid. The monster spread its broademerald wings, and Larry was swiftly borne into the air.
In a few moments the wide ruins of the ancient city were spread below,with the green line of the choked canal cutting the infinite red wasteof the desert beyond it.
The monster flew westward.
* * * * *
For a considerable time, nothing save barren, ocherous desert was inview. Then Larry's weird captor flew near a strange city. A city ofgreen metal. The buildings were most fantastic--pyramids of green,crowned with enormous, glistening spheres of emerald metal. Animpassable wall surrounding the city.
Larry had expected the monster to drop into the city. But it carriedhim on, and finally settled to the ground several miles beyond. Thegreen tentacles released him, as the thing landed, and he sprawledbeside it, dizzy after his strange flight.
As Larry staggered uncertainly to his feet, he saw that the monsterhad released him in an open pen. It was a square area, nearly fiftyyards on each side, and fenced with thin posts or rods of green metal,perhaps twenty feet high. Set very close together, and sharply pointedat the top, they formed a barrier apparently insurmountable.
In the center of the pen was a huge and strange machine, built ofgreen metal. It looked very worn and ancient; it was covered withpatches of bluish rust or corrosion. At first it looked quite strangeto Larry; then he was struck by a vaguely familiar quality about it.Looking closer, he realized that it was a colossal steam hammer!
Its design, of course, was unfamiliar. But in the vast, corroded framehe quickly picked out a steam chest, cylinder, and the great hammer,weighing many tons.
He gasped when his eyes went to the anvil.
A man was chained across it.
A man in torn, grimy clothing, fastened with fetters of green metalupon wrists and ankles, so that his body was stretched beneath themassive hammer. He seemed to be unconscious; upon his head, which wasturned toward Larry, was a red and swollen bruise.
The monster which had dropped Larry within the pen rose again into theair. And Larry started forward, trying to remember just what Agnes hadtold him of a machine to which the monsters sacrificed.
This must be the machine--this ancient steam hammer!
As he moved forward, Agnes came into view.
* * * * *
She walked around the massive base of the great machine, carrying abowl filled with a fragrant brown liquid. She stopped at sight ofLarry, and uttered a little cry. The bowl fell from her hands, and thefragrant liquid splashed out on the ground. Her brown eyes went widewith delighted surprise; then a look of pain came into them.
"Larry, Larry!" she cried. "Why did you come?"
"To get you," he answered, trying to speak as lightly as he could."And the best way I knew to find you was to let one of the monstersbring me. Cheer up!" But even to himself, his voice had a tone ofdiscouragement.
She smiled wanly. "I don't see anything to be cheerful about." Hersmall face was set and a little white. "Dr. Whiting is going to besmashed under the hammer of this dreadful machine, whenever the steamis up. Then it is my turn. And yours. That's nothing to laugh about."
"But we aren't smashed yet!" Larry insisted.
"By the way, what was that in the bowl?" he went on, glancing down. "Iforgot to bring lunch." He grinned.
She looked down, startled.
"Oh. Dr. Whiting's soup. Poor fellow, I'm afraid he'll never awake toeat it. There's plenty more. Come around here."
She picked up the bowl and led him around the base of the machine;then she filled the bowl again with the fragrant, red-brown liquid,from a tall urn of green metal. Larry took the dish eagerly and gulpeddown the rather insipid and tasteless food.
"And the monsters worship this old steam hammer?" he inquired, whenhis hunger was appeased.
"Yes. I think the thing is worked by steam generated by volcanic heat.Anyhow, there isn't any boiler, and the steam pipe comes up out of theground. You can see that. So it runs on, without any attention--thoughI guess the heat is dying down, since it is several days between blowsof the hammer.
"And I guess the monsters have forgotten how they used to rulemachines. They seem to have depended upon machines, even giving uptheir own bodies for mechanical ones, until the machine rules them.
"And when this old hammer kept pounding on through the ages, usingvolcanic steam, I guess they got to considering it alive. They beganto regard it as a sort of god. And when they got the idea of giving itsacrifices, it was natural enough to place the victims under thehammer."
* * * * *
They went back to Dr. Whiting who was chained across the anvil. He wasstill breathing, but unconscious. He had been injured in a strugglewith the monsters, and his body was much emaciated. Agnes explainedthat he had been a prisoner in the pen for many months of the time ofthis world, waiting his turn to die; she said that the monsters hadjust completed the extermination of another race upon the PygmyPlanet, and were just turning to the greater world for victims.
Larry noticed that the great hammer was slowly rising in its guides,as the pressure of the steam from the planet's interior increased. Ina few hours--just at sunset--it reached the top of its stroke.
The air above the pen was suddenly fil
led with glittering swarms ofthe green-winged monsters, sweeping slowly about, in measured flight,with strange order in their masses. They had come to witness thesacrifice!
With an explosive rush of steam, the hammer came down!
The ground trembled beneath the terrific blow; the roaring of escapingsteam and the crash of the impact were almost deafening. A heavy whitecloud shrouded the corroded green machine.
When the hammer slowly lifted, only a red smear was left....
Agnes had shrunk, trembling, against Larry's shoulder. He had put hisarms about her and was holding her almost fiercely.
"My turn next," she whispered. "And don't try to fight them. It willonly make them hurt you!"
"I can't let them take you, Agnes!" Larry cried, in an agonized tone.And the words seemed to leap out, of themselves, "Because I love you!"
"You do?" Agnes cried, in a thin, choking voice,