The Nocturnals still had the initiative in determining their direction. Fageat limited himself to getting his own bearings, making use of easily-discernible reference points in such a manner as to have a good enough grasp of the topography of the places between the Olb.-I’s clearing and the entrance to the Rhean caverns.
They did not start to climb the hill but to go around it, at least in part, for, after half an hour, they went through the opening of a narrow and short valley in order to skirt another hill, much wilder, rockier and steeper, with fewer trees, which was reminiscent of the terrain of the Corsican scrubland, save for its color, which was uniformly yellow with regard to the vegetation and gray with regard to the soil and the rocks.
Suddenly, the base of that hill was subject to a fracture, a retreat analogous to the acute angle made in a cake or round cheese when a triangular slice is cut and removed. The Nocturnals went into that angle, whose steep edges extended to an abrupt cliff-top.
At the back, which was about a kilometer from the periphery, an enormous arch offered an entrance to an exceedingly spacious cavern to all-comers.
“Good! Here we are at last!” said Fageat. “No trace of masonry, nor any construction or consolidation whatsoever. At the first sight of their habitat, the Nocturnals seem to me to be completely ignorant of architecture and masonry.”
They went through the cavern from end to end in a straight line. A second arch appeared, much lower and narrower than the first. All the same, it gave easy access to the three entrants, still walking abreast. After twenty paces, however, the corridor, relatively high and wide for a natural subterranean tunnel, made an abrupt turn, and Fageat found himself in total darkness.
“Uh oh!” he said. “Time to light up. I’m neither the Nyctalope who can see clearly by day that Saint-Clair is, nor the kind of night-dwelling animal that the Rhean Nocturnals are.” And he pronounced, imperiously: “Ma! Ma!”
His companions’ halt was immediate, as was his own.
“Good!”
During the many hours he had spent in the Olb.-I in the sole company of Ggo and Rrou, the engineer had anticipated many things, including the fact that in the subterranean world of the Nocturnals he would need a means of lighting that was adequate for him but tolerable by the Nocturnals’ eyes, which all light wounded seriously save for the phosphorescence used by the Diurnals and pale moonlight or starlight. He had therefore carried out trials, putting increasingly thick layers of blue paint on the convex glass of one of the powerful portable electric lamps equipped with hooks that permitted them to be attached to any part of a man’s garment or to his belt. He had soon arrived at the point at which the electric light, tinted and muted by the paint, did not offend the sensitive eyes of the Nocturnals, while providing an illumination sufficient for him to have an adequate visual range.
In addition, he was furnished with a powerful electric torch, uncamouflaged, which he could use if he were in danger and if it were in his interest to blind the Nocturnals painfully.
Thus, with his lamp suspended in the middle of his torso, Ariste Fageat switched it on, and a beam of pale blue light sprang forth in front of him, spreading out. He resumed marching immediately; the two Nocturnals immediately did likewise. The tunnel was still wide enough for the here marchers to remain side-by-side in single line.
The corridor was very sinuous, its height and width varying in dimension; it showed no sign of human—or, rather, Rhean—intervention or labor. Nothing, as yet indicated that the Nocturnal race made any kind of effort to ameliorate the conditions of its natural existence, but the evenness of the ground and the smoothness of the slightly-porous rock of which it was comprised provoked a thought in Fageat’s mind.
For hundred of thousands of years, no doubt, multitudes of Nocturnals have passed this way, and the tread of their bare feet, almost as solid and rough as the hoof of a wild horse, has transformed the ground to the extent of making it a velvet carpet! No dust; the rock never crumbles.
As he made these reflections, Fageat began to hear sounds other than that of his own footfalls and the more muffled tread of his companions—and that changed the course of his thoughts.
We’re getting close to the inhabited grottoes, he said to himself.
While continuing to walk, he listened harder, trying to identify the sounds that were reaching his ears—but it was only a dull murmur, like that produced by a high, broad waterfall.
A subterranean river? he wondered.
It occurred to him to study his companions. Alternatively, he looked at Rrou and Ggo, immediately observing that the Nocturnals were animated by a similar curiosity in his regard, and clearly distinguished in their eyes a kind of excitement, suggestive of a greater animation in their attitude and gait.
The creatures are jubilant at the prospect of the success they’ll enjoy with their tribe, he thought, by virtue of returning in my company, one of them carrying a unknown biped.
Suddenly, however, as thy rounded a sharp bend in the subterranean tunnel, the sound of falling water became deafening; for paces further ahead Fageat stopped dead, crying out in an imperious voice: “Ma!”
Docile I spite of their increasing overexcitement, Ggo and Rrou stopped.
Then, searching the darkness with the pale beam of his electric lamp, which went from one side to the other as he moved his torso, the Terran tried to take account of the place.
He found that he was on the threshold of a grotto that he judged to be immense, for its walls and vault extended into darkness. To his right, at the limit of the range of the muted electric light, was the waterfall, a enormous mass emerging from a high orifice, too narrow for the light too reach it, and falling into a huge basin, doubtless very deep, from which the excess flowed away in a natural channel, the water running at floor level twenty paces in front of Fageat. To the right the rock-face rose vertically until it formed a parapet at the top of the cascade. To the left, however, there was a sort of quay about 15 meters wide.
Having seen all that, the Terran made a gesture.
“A!” replied Ggo and Rrou, in unison—which meant “yes.”
Fageat’s gesture had simply pointed at the quay.
“Well then, let’s go!” he said—and all three of them set out along the broad ledge, equidistant from the rocky wall and the channel.
Immediately, however, the Terran perceived that the Nocturnals were accelerating their pace, lengthening their stride and tending to draw away from him. The prudent and adventurous Fageat did not want to tire himself out—he wanted to arrive in perfect physical shape and total mental lucidity before the Nocturnal people. He therefore took hold of Ggo’s arm and Rrou’s shoulder, to either side, and held them back, breaking their progress.
They understood, and meekly remained thereafter in a straight line with the Woo, who continued to advance at what had become for him, an ordinary pace, given the lightness and increased strength that the plant Rhea conferred upon him.
It was not for long, though. Five minutes had not yet gone by when Ariste Fageat said to himself: Here we are, at last!
And he made sure that his two principal weapons, the powerful electric torch to his left and the automatic pistol to his right, could move freely in the open holsters attached to his belt, and could be ready and aimed in his hands within three seconds.
Chapter IX
The Ambush
However well a criminal calculates, his solutions are rarely exact, because he is almost never in possession of all the facts of the problems he wants to solve.
Fageat estimated that the effect of the soporific administered to Saint-Clair, Véronique and their companions would last at least 15 hours—but he did not know that the Nyctalope, in the course of his travels through the countries of the Earth, had accustomed himself to a certain number of poisons, as Mithridates the Great had once done, and he also did not know that His Excellency Gno Mitang, exposed to many assassination attempts in the Asiatic style, had applied the same immunization process
to himself while young. Even so, the narcotic employed by Fageat, a product of modern chemistry, was not without effect on the Nyctalope and the Japanese—but that effect, brutal at first, did not last as long as the criminal had expected.
Indeed, why was Fageat not a criminal through and through—which is to say, a poisoner? It would have been as easy for him to kill his victims as to put them to sleep. It was doubtless because his conscience was not yet completely corrupted, and perhaps also because his temperament, as an adventurer, wanted to have what is known as “the pleasure of risk.” Then again, he was courageous and proud; he enjoyed a contest. To allow Saint-Clair and his companions to live, while betraying them and abducting their Mademoiselle d’Olbans, was to run a risk, to leave an enemy a chance. At that price, Ariste Fageat avoided despising himself, and gave himself a reason to admire himself.
At any rate, Gno Mitang was the first to wake up, long before the minimum of 15 hours had elapsed.
At first, he was astonished; his aching head felt heavy and his tongue rough. He thought: But we only ate and drank perfectly healthy foodstuffs and beverages.
He sat up and let himself slide out of his bunk. When he was standing, he had to put his hand on the wall of his cabin to support himself, for his legs were tremulous.
Uh oh! That’s not normal…why?
He clicked his tongue against his palate, salivated, and tasted the saliva.
Bizarre! It reminds me of what I felt in my mouth when I came round after the operation on my wound. I didn’t eat or drink anything different from Saint-Clair, Mademoiselle d’Olbans and everyone else. Let’s see…?
Using both hands to prop himself up, Gno went first to the Nyctalope’s cabin. Drawing aside the heavy curtain, he heard:
“Ah, Gno! Why are you here? What’s happening? I don’t feel well. Ah! You too…?”
“Me too,” replied the Japanese, letting himself fall on to the bunk at the head of which Saint-Clair was sitting up, vigorously rubbing his forehead, temples and neck with a washing-glove steeped in ether.
“Here,” said the Nyctalope. “Do as I’m doing. Nothing like it to dissipate the fuliginous vapors of bad sleep.” And he put the washing-glove in his friend’s hand, with the flask of ether. Then, almost immediately, he added: “But why that bad sleep, Gno? And me and you, my old friend, both so robust? Why? And why the two of us?”
“Perhaps the others too,” risked the subtle Japanese, wiping his face, his forehead, his temples and his neck with the odorant, volatile and benevolent ether.
“Yes, I thought of that when I saw you,” Sat-Clair replied, swiftly. “Let’s go see Véronique!”
Sufficiently reanimated and invigorated no longer to be at risk of losing equilibrium, the two friends stood up and went at the same pace to Mademoiselle d’Olbans’ cabin.
In a loud voice, Saint-Clair pronounced, in an almost-imperious tone:
“Véronique! Véronique!”
Absolute silence.
After 30 seconds, Saint-Clair drew the curtain with an abrupt gesture. The bunk was empty.
“Uh oh!” groaned the Nyctalope.
From then on, everything moved rapidly and abruptly.
Ariste Fageat’s cabin was also empty. In the crew quarters, the hammocks to which the two gorilloid Nocturnals had been tied were similarly empty. As for Vitto, Soca and Jean Margot, they were sleeping like healthy brutes stunned by alcohol… or by a powerful soporific.
Oh, they were wide awake now and very lucid, Gno Mitang and LeoSaint-Clair! And they understood what they needed to understand—which was quite straightforward, made manifest by a hundred obvious clues.
“Abducted! He’s abducted her, with the complicity of the two Nocturnals!” said Gno, in a dull voice, tremulous with anger.
As for Saint-Clair, he was in such a state of furious agony and tortuous rage that he could not pronounce a word to begin with, as rigid as a bar of iron from head to toe, his eyes fixed like enamel, his teeth clenched, his jaws so taut that his entire face was unrecognizable.
They were standing there, face to face, in the middle of the crew quarters, violently lit by all the electric lamps in the ceiling, between the three hammocks in which Soca, Vitto and Margot were asleep and the two empty hammocks from which the ropes that had secured the Nocturnals were hanging down.
For two, three or perhaps five minutes they remained there, immobile and mute.
Less sensitive than Saint-Clair, and less afflicted in the heart, Gno Mitang was the first to make a gesture and resume speaking.
“Leo,” he said, tapping his friend’s left wrist with a firm but gentle hand, “I don’t want you to go after them alone. I’ll go with you. You can leave a brief explanatory note for Vitto, Soca and Margot, with your instructions—your orders. They’ll wake up, read it, and obey. And the two of us can leave, can go.”
Saint-Clair shivered. His body relaxed; his eyes became human again; his face became his own face again.
“Yes, we’ll leave right away!” he said, in a contained, menacing and terrible voice. Oh, the last vapors of the soporific drug had been thoroughly dissipated!
It took them a full hour however, to dress lightly, and to equip and arm themselves completely. Given what they had learned from the Diurnals in their city with regard to the Nocturnals, they believed that they needed to find Fageat and save Véronique without waiting for Vitto, Soca and Margot, who would receive orders to follow them and help them to reduce the savage tribes of Nocturnals to impotence, at least in that region of Rhea.
After writing his instructions for the three sleepers on a large sheet of paper that as pinned up beneath the only electric light they left on in the crew quarters, Saint-Clair and Mitang made a careful check of everything that they were carrying, either in their pockets, buckled or fastened to their clothing, or in cartridge-belts and knapsacks.
“Nothing missing,” said the Nyctalope.
“No, nothing,” confirmed the Japanese.
“Let’s go!”
They went out of the Olb.-I, having made sure that all the portholes were tightly closed inside and out, as well as the doors. In their absence, the interplanetary vehicle would be inviolable, save by Fageat and with his key—but the traitor’s return was the most improbable thing in the world, at leas for a few days.
The Diurnals of the city had never entered the subterranean domains of the Nocturnals willingly. Those who had been taken there as captives had never emerged again; none of them had ever reappeared. The Rheans of the day were therefore entirely ignorant with regard to the existence of the Rheans of the night, their enemies and their abductors since time immemorial.
Often, however, after an attack on their city, the Diurnals had followed the retreating savage hordes at a distance, so the location of the entrance—unique, they thought—to the subterranean habitations was well-known.
During their sojourn in the city, Saint-Clair and Mitang had drawn a map of the region according to the precise information given by the Diurnals. Not only did they consult that map before leaving the Olb.-I, but the Japanese brought it with them, carefully folded and enclosed in one of the four cartridge-cases fixed to his belt.
It was, therefore, without difficulty and after several hours of rapid march, but at a pace calculated to avoid fatigue, that the two friends arrived at the large arch hollowed out by nature in the base of a hill in the wildest part of that mountainous region.
It was not yet daylight, but bright gleams in the east were advertising the imminent dawn. Turning his back on that auroral enchantment, Saint-Clair and Mitang went into the first cave without hesitation.
“Wait!” said Saint-Clair, suddenly.
“What can you see?” asked Gno.
“Look.”
Saint-Clair pointed at the ground with his index finger.
There, the ground was covered with a kind of fine sand, doubtless falling from the vault, which was crumbling imperceptibly. On that sand thousands of traces were visible—the impri
nts of huge bare feet. Precisely because of their number, however, they formed a kind of continuity, over which imprints other than those of Nocturnal feet had been strongly marked.
“Fageat’s boots!” murmured Gno Mitang.
“Yes.”
“I was sure that we were on the right track.”
“And that, my dear Gno, legitimates our certainty. If the subterranean tunnel beginning over there is unique, we only have to follow it, without consulting the ground—but if there’s a bifurcation, and even if the ground doesn’t remain uniformly dusty, we’ll find Fageat’s footprints. Good. Let’s go!”
Being a nyctalope, Saint-Clair did not have to use any light at all when he went into the dark region of the subterranean tunnel. Gno, on he other hand, was blind from then on. Nevertheless, as the light of a torch-beam might have revealed their presence prematurely, the Japanese did not switch one on. He was content to grip Saint-Clair’s right hand with his left hand, and the two friends continued to walk at the same rapid pace, accustomed as they were to move in that fashion, one guiding the other. They had done it so often before in the course of their numerous adventures!
They did not stop once, having not encountered any difficulty, before reaching the vast grotto with the waterfall, the pool, the natural channel and the quay continuing to the left.
The darkness was absolute; Gno Mitang could hear the rumble of the cascade, but he could not see anything. The Nyctalope described the place to him in a few words, concluding:
“There’s no other route than the quay extending to our left, alongside the water, between the channel and the all of the immense cave. There’s no dust here; the rock in the vault isn’t the sort that crumbles—but I have no need, here, to see footprints. I repeat: there’s no other route.”
“Good,” said Gno. “Onwards?”
“Yes.”
The Nyctalope glanced at his wristwatch from time to time, to measure distances; his stride and that of his friend, equal and constant in rhythm, served as secondary data for the calculation of the decameters, hectometers and kilometers they covered. That knowledge of matters of space and time might be useful for the return journey.
The Return of the Nyctalope Page 14
