Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 Part 2

Perhaps"--and Bori Tulber smiled faintly and terribly--"you would like to have that message direct from its bearer?"

"Is that possible, sir?" I asked eagerly, glancing around the room.

"How--"

"Come with me," said the Master of the Council gently. "Alone--for too many near him excites this terrible messenger. You have your menore?"

"No. I had not thought there would be need of it." The menores of those days, it should be remembered, were heavy, c.u.mbersome circlets that were worn upon the head like a sort of crown, and one did not go so equipped unless in real need of the device. To-day, of course, your menores are but jeweled trinkets that convey thought a score of times more effectively, and weigh but a tenth as much.

"It is a lack easily remedied." Bori Tulber excused himself with a little bow and hurried out into the great council chamber, to appear again in a moment with a menore in either hand.

"Now, if your companions and mine will excuse us for a moment...." He smiled around the seated group apologetically. There was a murmur of a.s.sent, and the old man opened a door in the other side of the room.

"It is not far," he said. "I will go first, and show you the way."

He led me quickly down a long, narrow corridor to a pair of steep stairs that circled far down into the very foundation of the building.

The walls of the corridor and the stairs were without windows, but were as bright as noonday from the ethon tubes which were set into both ceiling and walls.

Silently we circled our way down the spiral stairs, and silently the Master of the Council paused before a door at the bottom--a door of dull red metal.

"This is the keeping place of those who come before the Council charged with wrong doing," explained Bori Tulber. His fingers rested upon and pressed certain of a ring of small white b.u.t.tons in the face of the door, and it opened swiftly and noiselessly. We entered, and the door closed behind us with a soft thud.

"Behold one of those who live in the darkness," said the Master of the Council grimly. "Do not put on the menore until you have a grip upon yourself: I would not have him know how greatly he disturbs us."

I nodded, dumbly, holding the heavy menore dangling in my hand.

I have said that I have beheld strange worlds and strange people in my life, and it is true that I have. I have seen the headless people of that red world Iralo, the ant people, the dragon-fly people, the terrible carnivorous trees of L-472, and the pointed heads of a people who live upon a world which may not be named. But I have still to see a more terrible creature than that which lay before me now.

He--or it--was reclining upon the floor, for the reason that he could not have stood. No room save one with a vaulted ceiling such as the great council chamber, could offer room enough for this creature to walk erect.

He was, roughly, a shade better than twice my height, yet I believe he would have weighed but little more. You have seen rank weeds that have grown up in the darkness to reach the sun; if you can imagine a man who had done likewise, you can, perhaps, picture that which I saw before me.

His legs at the thigh were no larger than my arm, and his arms were but half the size of my wrist, and jointed twice instead of but once.

He wore a careless garment of some dirty yellow, s.h.a.ggy hide, and his skin, revealed on feet and arms and face, was a terrible, bloodless white; the dead white of a fish's belly. Maggot white. The white of something that had never known the sun.

The head was small and round, with features that were a caricature of man's. His ears were huge, and had the power of movement, for they c.o.c.ked forward as we entered the room. The nose was not prominently arched, but the nostrils were wide, and very thin, as was his mouth, which was faintly tinged with dusky blue, instead of healthy red. At one time his eyes had been nearly round, and, in proportion, very large. Now they were but shadowy pockets, mercifully covered by shrunken, wrinkled lids that twitched but did not lift.

He moved as we entered, and from a reclining position, propped up on the double elbows of one spidery arm, he changed to a sitting position that brought his head nearly to the ceiling. He smiled sickeningly, and a queer, sibilant whispering came from the bluish lips.

"That is his way of talking," explained Bori Tulber. "His eyes, you will note, have been gouged out. They cannot stand the light; they prepared their messenger carefully for his work, you'll see."

He placed his menore upon his head, and motioned me to do likewise.

The creature searched the floor with one white, leathery hand, and finally located his menore, which he adjusted clumsily.

"You will have to be very attentive," explained my companion. "He expresses himself in terms of pictures only, of course, and his is not a highly developed mind. I shall try to get him to go over the entire story for us again, if I can make him understand. Emanate nothing yourself; he is easily confused."

I nodded silently, my eyes fixed with a sort of fascination upon the creature from the darkness, and waited.

Back on the _Ertak_ again. I called all my officers together for a conference.

"Gentlemen," I said, "we are confronted with a problem of such gravity that I doubt my ability to describe it clearly.

"Briefly, this civilized, beautiful portion of Antri is menaced by a terrible fate. In the dark portion of this unhappy world there live a people who have the l.u.s.t of conquest in their hearts--and the means at hand with which to wreck this world of perpetual sunlight.

"I have the ultimatum of this people direct from their messenger. They want a terrible tribute in the form of slaves. These slaves would have to live in perpetual darkness, and wait upon the whims of the most monstrous beings these eyes of mine have ever seen. And the number of slaves demanded would--as nearly as I could gather, mean about a third of the entire population. Further tribute in the form of sufficient food to support these slaves is also demanded."

"But, in G.o.d's name, sir," burst forth Croy, his eyes blazing, "by what means do they, propose to inforce their infamous demands?"

"By the power of darkness--and a terrible cataclysm. Their wise men--and it would seem that some of them are not unversed in science--have discovered a way to unbalance this world, so that they can cause darkness to creep over this land that has never known it.

And as darkness advances, these people of the sun will be utterly helpless before a race that loves darkness, and can see in it like cats. That, gentlemen, is that fate which confronts this world of Antri!"

There was a ghastly silence for a moment, and then Croy, always impetuous, spoke up again.

"How do they propose to do this thing sir?", he asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"With devilish simplicity. They have a great ca.n.a.l dug nearly to the great polar cap of ice. Should they complete it, the hot waters of their seas will be liberated upon this vast ice field, and the warm waters will melt it quickly. If you have not forgotten your lessons, gentlemen, you will remember, since most of you are of Earth, that our scientists tell us our own world turned over in much this same fashion, from natural means, and established for itself new poles. Is that not true?"

Grave, almost frightened nods travelled around the little semicircle of white, thoughtful faces.

"And is there nothing, sir, that we can do?" asked Kincaide, my second officer, in an awed whisper.

"That is the purpose of this conclave: to determine what may be done.

We have our bombs and our rays, it is true, but what is the power of this one ship against the people of half a world? And such a people!"

I shuddered, despite myself, at the memory of that grinning creature in the cell far below the floor of the council chamber. "This city, and its thousands, we might save, it is true--but not the whole half of this world. And that is the task the Council and its Master have set before us."

"Would it be possible to frighten them?" asked Croy. "I gather that they are not an advanced race. Perhaps a show of power--the rays--the atomic pistol--bombs-- Call it strategy, sir, or just plain bluff. It seems the only chance."

"You have heard the suggestion, gentlemen," I said. "Has anyone a better?"

"How does Mr. Croy plan to frighten these people of the darkness?"

asked Kincaide, who was always practical.

"By going to their country, in this ship, and then letting events take their course," replied Croy promptly. "Details will have to be settled on the spot, as I see it."

"I believe Mr. Croy is right," I decided. "The messenger of these people must be returned to his own kind; the sooner the better. He has given me a mental map of his country; I believe that it will be possible for me to locate the princ.i.p.al city, in which his ruler lives. We will take him there, and then--may G.o.d aid us gentlemen."