by Harl Vincent
ultimate fate of his kind. The protectiveinsulation, it appeared, was not permanent; sooner or later, all of themwould become barbarians like the others.
The savages out there were their fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers,gone mad; their skins darkened by continued action of the vibrationsafter they fled their insulated homes. His pictures of the family lifewere meticulously drawn. His people never warred upon these savage kinof theirs--naturally--though the reverse was not always true. However,Nazu pointed to the ovoid and showed his willingness to help thestrangers. But he shook his head sadly as he counted the barbarians onhis fingers, multiplying the number endlessly by clapping his hands.There were too many of them; the thing was impossible.
"Good Lord!" Carr exclaimed. "He's a marvel at communicating histhoughts without words. But I'd think his people would beat it for thehills without waiting. Might as well have it over with."
"But, they're still working on the problem," Ora objected. "With theirwisdom, they'll finally get the thing under control. And they probablyhope to discover a way of restoring their maddened relatives."
She was doing something with the red sand; wetting her fingers in atrickle of water that oozed from the wall and making a red paste whichshe smeared on her white forearm and then rubbed off.
"I guess you're right," Carr admitted. Then, watching her strangeperformance, he asked, "What are you doing?"
She looked up with sparkling eyes and stretched forth her arm. "Itstains, Carr, see!" she exclaimed excitedly. "We can fix up Nazu toresemble one of the savages. It is the exact color of their skin."
"Mado!" he called, sensing at once the possibilities of her discovery.They could make up Nazu to perfection. Mingling with the barbariansunsuspected, he might get possession of the ovoid.
* * * * *
The Titanese lad fell in with the idea at once and the two men startedwork on him with water and the powdery stuff they had taken for redsand. They stripped him of his silken garment and smeared him from headto foot, Carr taking especial care to see that his upper body and facewere thoroughly covered. Then, after using his own clothing to swab offthe coating, they stepped back to view the result. He was exactly likeone of the red men in color now, and he stood there twisting his face ina wicked grin to heighten the similarity.
"The little devil!" Mado chuckled. "He gets the idea perfectly. We'llhave to muss his hair now and fix him up with a kirtle like theirs."
Removing his suede jacket and turning it inside out, he draped it aboutthe slim hips of Nazu, then slapped his chest approvingly. "There youare, lad," he told the grinning youngster. "A tough-looking kid we'vemade of you, too."
The words were lost on the young Titanese, but his bright eyes showedthat he fully comprehended the humor as well as the gravity of thesituation. The improvised covering would pass without question as one ofthe untanned hides the barbarians wore dangling from their waists. Thedisguise was faultless.
Ora had been watching at the mouth of the cave. Now she called out inlow-voiced warning, "Hurry! One of them is coming."
Carr moved forward swiftly to face the opening, while Mado stood withhis great bulk hiding the now unrecognizable Nazu. The savage entered,proceeding directly to where Carr was standing. He bent over the fruitbasket and then the Earth-man was upon him.
The wiry red man struggled furiously, but Carr had a grip on hiswindpipe that stopped his attempts to cry out and quickly reduced him toa state of flabby subjection. Then he bound and gagged his captive,tearing strips of linen from his own shirt to provide the necessarymaterial. In a moment they had bundled the trussed-up dwarf into a darkcorner of the cavern, and Nazu stepped forth blithely to lift the basketto his shoulder.
* * * * *
Everything seemed to happen at once after that. Nazu stalked boldly outamong the savages, who paid him no attention whatsoever. He passed outof their field of vision for a moment, and then they saw him at thecircular door of the ovoid. In a flash he was inside and the thingsoared speedily into the air and out of sight. The red men broke forthin a babel of excited jabbering and then they were crowding into thecave, hundreds of them it seemed, shrieking their rage as they attackedthe hapless prisoners.
Carr went down fighting madly but to no avail. He hadn't counted onthis; he should have known better. A crushing weight of them was uponhim, clawing and beating at him as he struggled to rise. They weresuffocating him with their rank animal odors.
And then he was dragged into the open air. Battered and dazed, he sawthey had found their fellow, the one he had bound and gagged. Ora wasconsiderably mussed up, but unharmed, he observed with relief; but Madolay there inert. This was the first time Carr had ever seen him take thecount at the hands of man.
When they had untied the one whose place had been taken by Nazu, he camestraight for the Earth-man and would have brained him with a huge stonehad not his fellows interfered. He objected strenuously, his eyes redwith hate and a torrent of harsh gutturals pouring from his lips. Butthe others held him off; this strange white giant from the machine ofthe skies was to be saved for the embrace of the fire-god.
* * * * *
With the entire blame for Nazu's escape thus placed upon theTerrestrial, Ora and Mado were returned to the cavern and leftunmolested. But Carr was prodded into moving over against a boulder andwas surrounded by a semi-circle of the dwarfs who squatted calmly towatch him, blow-guns in their hands and stone hatchets on the groundwithin easy reach. They were taking no more chances with this one.
The long day of Titan dragged interminably but the watchful eyes of hisguards never strayed from their prisoner. At any moment the fire-godmight make an appearance and the rite of sacrifice take place. Carrsupposed that the thing made more or less regular appearances, like ageyser of Earth. And, next time, there would be no escape.
Night fell, and still those eyes watched intently in the light reflectedagainst the low-flung clouds from the seething crater nearby. Nothinghad been seen of Nazu or any of the ovoids. Probably it was useless toexpect them; they could not bring themselves to do battle against thesesavage kin of theirs. Anyway, he was glad the little fellow had gottenaway; he hoped he was safely in bed--if they had beds in those insulateddwellings.
He could not sleep. All through the night he sat with bowed head,alternately planning rescue attempts and cursing himself for bringingOra to this horrible end. Detis was dead; the _Nomad_ was hopelesslybeyond repair for many days, even if they could make their escape andlocate it; Nazu had saved his own skin, and they were left to the mercyof these vibration-crazed brutes who waited there in the flickering redtwilight all around him. It was a revolting ending for an adventure thathad started so auspiciously.
* * * * *
With the first faint light of dawn came the roaring of the pillar offlame from out the crater. Instantly there rose the hollow booming ofthe drums and the chanting of thousands of the barbarous worshippers.The place was swarming with them almost instantly, and Carr's guardsclosed in on him with evil glee.
Ora was brought out into the open, her arms held fast by two of the reddevils who yanked her roughly along between them. Carr roared out inblind rage and in awful fear for the girl. He struck out viciously intothe first grinning face that pressed near. Something in his brain seemedto snap then, and he became a snarling, fighting animal, battlingagainst overwhelming odds in defence of his mate. A dart buried itselfin his arm and a stone hatchet bit into his shoulder, but he scarcelyfelt the hurts. All that mattered now was Ora; they were taking heraway--taking her to the folds of that incredible hot thing that flappedthere at the crater's rim. An arm snapped like a pipestem in his fingersand he heard the squeal of pain from somewhere in the tangled mass ofsavages around him.
And then they were falling back; easing up on him. The din wasincreasing, but it seemed that a note of fear had crept in to replacethe exultant frenzy of those chanting voices. The drums were sti
lled.
Wiping the blood from his eyes with the back of his hand, he saw thebarbarians running everywhere; they were screaming in superstitiousterror and fighting one another in their desperate anxiety to escape thevicinity of their precious fire-god. A tremendous voice boomed out overthe hubbub, a voice that came from the crater in vast commandinggutturals that struck terror into the souls of the panicky barbarians.Yet somehow that mightily sonorous voice carried a familiar ring.
Carr raised astonished eyes to the pillar of blue flame and was seizedwith a well-nigh uncontrollable impulse to flee with the red men. For amonstrous image of Detis swayed there in the hot vapors, a massive armraised menacingly and an equally Brobdingnagian voice issuing from hislips in fierce syllables of the red man's tongue!
"Detis!" Carr shouted. "Detis! Ora--Mado!"
* * * * *
And then he was running toward the crater's edge in bounding stridesthat carried him twenty feet at a leap. He understood now. Detis hadrecovered from his wound and was reversing the rulden's energy. He wasprojecting his own image and voice, many times amplified, into thecolumn of fire to terrify the savages!
Ora was lying there, on the rim of the pit. She had fainted at sight ofthe ghost-shape, whose white-hot folds flapped there, reaching to engulfher in their all-consuming embrace. Carr babbled like a madman as hepulled her away from the horrible thing that pulsated with eagerflutterings not three feet away, its hot breath singeing her silkenlashes and brows.
Mado was there, encouraging him and yelling something else he couldn'tunderstand; pointing skyward. And then he saw it; the _Nomad_, with itssleek, tapered cylinder of a body nosing down toward them with thesilvery aura of its propulsive energy gleaming like a beacon of hopeagainst the dull clouds of the satellite of terror. And there wassomething else: one of the ovoids of Titan, clinging there to thevessel's hull plates, alongside the open manhole. Nazu had not failedthem after all. His mind refused to question the miracle further.
Somehow, when the vessel landed, he managed to reach the manhole withhis precious burden. He staggered through the passageway and into theirstateroom, tenderly stretching Ora on her own bed. In the next instanthe was rummaging in the medicine closet. He found ointment for herburns; smelling salts; damp cloths. With trembling fingers he ministeredto her, a great joy welling up within him as he saw she was recovering.Another minute, back there at the crater, and he'd have lost herforever. He swallowed hard at the thought, his eyes misty as he lookeddown at her and remembered.
Impatiently he jerked the barbed dart from his arm and poured a powerfulantiseptic into the open wound, unmindful of the pain. As best he could,he disinfected his other cuts and bandaged them. Ora had raised herselfand now sat there, swaying weakly and regarding him with anxious gaze.
* * * * *
A little later they made their way forward to the control room. The_Nomad_ had taken off and was drifting slowly higher. At the controlssat a strange, bedaubed figure. Nazu!
Mado was peering through the coils of a helix of silver ribbon that hadbeen erected beside the rulden.
"Father!" Ora darted past him and dropped to her knees on thefloor-plates at the Martian's side. The body of Detis was slumped therea ghastly corpse within those gleaming coils. But his kind features werefixed in a serene smile. He had gone to his reward with content in hisheart.
Only then did Carr remember. One could not subject his body to thereversed energies of the rulden without certain expectation of death. Afew short seconds with those terrible oscillations surging through hisbeing, carrying the amplified visual and oral reproduction through theether, and the Europan scientist had perished. Knowingly, willingly,Detis had given his life that the rest of them might live! Recoveredmiraculously from his first serious injury, he had done this magnificentthing deliberately and gladly....
A great lump rose in Carr's throat as Ora's sobbing came to his ears.With his vision blurred by tears, he turned to the pilot's seat, whereNazu faced him with solemn eyes.
"Nazu go now," the amazing young Titanese stated. He spoke in haltingsyllables of Cos, the language of the inner planets!
* * * * *
Carr stared agape, scarcely believing his ears.
"Detis great man," Nazu continued, relinquishing his seat to the dazedEarthman. "Nazu find him in ship. My people already there with him. Theywant to help when you come. Return after capture and heal dart wound ofDetis. Bring wire and help him fix motors. Work very quick, my people.Detis have brain machine. Talk with Nazu; teach him words, also veryquick. Nazu tell where you are and we come to help. Then he scare awayred men--and die. That is all. Now I go--and you go also. Quickly."
"So that's how it happened," Carr muttered, slowly mulling over theamazing things he had heard. He watched the Titanese lad keenly as hiseyes wandered in Mado's direction. He saw the admiring light that cameinto them as the big Martian removed the body of Detis from the helixand carried it gently away.
"Wait a minute," he interposed, as Nazu made as if to leave. "Mado wouldlike to talk to you."
"Must go soon." The youngster drew himself up proudly. "Nazu is princeof his people. They need him. And you--you must go at once. Vibrationsof mother planet's rings work on you too long already. Must be quick.Else you be wild men--like those down there."
He waved his arm in a gesture that embraced all Titan. Anxiety waswritten large on his countenance and his gaze traveled nervously to thedoor through which Mado must return.
The big Martian was not long in coming. He had carried the body of Detisaft, leaving Ora there with her dead. Carr's heart ached for her; heknew how silently and terribly she suffered. Knowing that her father hadbeen healed of his deadly wound by the friendly Titanese, only to betaken from her afterwards by his own heroic act, made the blow doublyhard.
Later they would give Detis a decent burial, sending him through theairlock to drift aimlessly in space, preserved through the ages by theintense cold and the absence of air. A fitting tomb for the noblest ofthe vagabonds!
* * * * *
Mado chattered endlessly with Nazu, who was impatient to be off. Seeingthat it was impossible to detain him, and realizing at last the sternnecessity of hastening their own departure, he finally let him go. Theyoungster bid Carr a sober, friendly farewell and followed Mado to theairlock.
Carr heard the clang of the manhole cover as it swung home, and wasbolted to its seat. The ovoid drifted away from the vessel and droppedtoward the forest beneath them. Nazu had gone to rejoin his people.
His fingers strayed to the controls. They must get away from the evilinfluence of those vibrations; he had felt something of their degradingpower in the fighting down there. He had almost become a savage himself,he remembered with a revulsion of feeling.
The feel of the levers brought to him a renewed sense of confidence andresponsibility. A while back he thought he'd never perform such simpleduties again. The _Nomad_ responded instantly and rose swiftly to hoverover the pit of the fire-god. The flame had partly subsided and theghost-shape wabbled there, changing form rapidly with darkening colors.Some weird phenomenon of nature that those brutes had set up as a deity.
Carr increased the repulsion energy once more and the _Nomad_ shotskyward like a rocket. Through the floor port he saw Nazu's tiny ovoidscudding over the treetops. Then it had vanished.
"We're getting away none too soon," said Mado, rejoining him.
"Right." Carr watched the temperature indicator as he increased speed tothe maximum they could withstand in the atmosphere.
They were out above the cloud layer then and he cast apprehensive eyeson the enormous flat disks encircling the great globe that was Saturn.Something like a hundred and seventy thousand miles across them, heremembered. But the astronomers of the inner planets had little actualknowledge of their composition; they knew nothing at all of theirterrible power or their strange inhabitants.
> * * * * *
The _Nomad_ left Titan with tremendous acceleration now, as he increasedthe speed of the rejuvenated generators. They'd go on, on toward Uranus,Neptune--anywhere, away from this ringed planet that was responsible forthe death of one of their number; away from the region that was soon tobecome the tomb of Detis.
There was silence then as the _Nomad_ raced on through the blackness.Mado gripped the rail of the port and peered long and earnestly at thetiny pinpoint of light that now was Titan.
"Great kid, that Nazu," the Martian said, after a while. "Too bad hecouldn't come along with us."
"Yes." Carr was thinking of the different life there would be on boardthe _Nomad_; and well he knew that Mado was thinking of the same thing.The Martian had missed the close companionship of his Terrestrial friendsince his marriage to Ora; missed it more than he would admit, even tohimself. And the lad, Nazu, had appealed to him; he would have fatheredhim as only a lonely bachelor can. Suddenly Carr's own friendship forthe big fellow seemed a wonderful thing.
"Never mind, old man," he whispered, reaching over and gripping Mado'shand mightily, "We'll be a three-cornered family, Ora and you and I.And, who knows but that you'll find the one and only girl yourself, somefine day?"
"Oh, shut up!" Mado grunted.
But a big hand closed down hard on Carr's fingers, and the Earthman knewthat their friendship was more firmly cemented than ever before.
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Astounding Stories_ January 1932.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyrighton this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errorshave been corrected without note.
