Ray Cummings Read online

  Tama held onto me. Rowena flung herself into my arms. “Jack! Jack, dear—you should not have come into this!” I kissed her, then pushed her away.

  "Rowena!"

  What words could tell what was in my heart? This—my wife—again with her arms around me. But it was no time for words, nor were they needed. She stood aside, her gaze clinging to me.

  I gave Tama the message from Guy: that he would give his life to come to her.

  The Mercurian said abruptly, “Sit down, all of you."

  There was a low metal settee, and cushions on the floor. Roc stood over us, weapon in hand.

  "You are Jack Dean, husband of Rowena here?"

  "Yes."

  "And you have come to rescue her?” He said it without sarcasm.

  "Yes,” I retorted. “But not with bloodshed. I promise that the Cube will not attack."

  "I know that it will not attack so long as I hold all of you here."

  Jimmy interrupted impatiently, “What's the use of sparring, Roc? Let me tell him our situation—” In a burst Jimmy told me with lowered voice. And he ended, “You, Roc, can't you see that Dean is a help? We've got to get out of this—not all get murdered."

  Roc said abruptly, “I believe I can trust you, Jack Dean."

  Yes,” I agreed.

  "He only wants Rowena out of this,” Jimmy added. He flung a significant glance at me.

  "And Tama?” Roc said. He was smiling again. A strange fellow this: I could not make him out. “You think I will release Tama? Is that what you came for, Dean? Your ship off there, threatening me."

  "And meanwhile Dorrek will murder us all,” Jimmy put in. “I'm not armed, nor is Jack—” I could have snapped that revolver out within a second, but I thought it best not to say so.

  "If Dorrek knew I had given you a weapon,” said Roc, “it would bring trouble."

  "Then I'll keep it bidden,” Jimmy insisted. “What weapons have you? What have Dorrek and his men? See here, Roc, you're a fool if you don't come out in the open now. Let us stand with you. Man, we're all shut up here! You're only holding Dorrek off by the grace of the Almighty—I saw his look when you crossed him as we came up here. And his men—every one of them waiting for his signal."

  "True,” said Roc calmly. “But they would not dare attack me now. They can handle the controls only as long as they do what I tell them. I chart our course, the navigating. Without me they would be helpless. When we get to Mercury—"

  "The danger will come then,” finished Jimmy. “But that doesn't help me now. Or these girls. Or Dean."

  "Dorrek will obey my orders."

  "Maybe he will, maybe not. Roc, you used a lot of weapons on me. That ray-weapon,"—Jimmy indicated the cylinder Roc was holding—and that light-bomb in my plane, that blinded me. And gas fumes—where are they all? Has Dorrek got them?"

  "No.” The Mercurian had been gazing thoughtfully at Tama. He turned abruptly to the wall of the room, pressed a hidden mechanism. A small slide opened. In a compartment like a little closet we saw an array of hidden weapons.

  Roc moved the slide closed again. “Dorrek does not know this locker is here. Nor could you open it, even though you have seen me."

  "All right,” said Jimmy. “What weapons has Dorrek?"

  "A cylinder like this. His men have knives."

  "That's enough. Roc, if you'll give me and Dean each a cylinder, we'll keep them hidden, watch ourselves until we get to Mercury. Then you order a landing. That's when Dorrek will make a play to kill you. But we'll be prepared to break away—force a passage for you out of this—"

  Roc was again staring fixedly at Tama. He said abruptly to Jimmy, “You spoke truth a while ago, Turk. My affairs on Mercury are none of yours. This Rowena—I wish her no harm, except that I am glad to have her as hostage so that your Earthship is not firing at me now. But there is Tama whom I love. I think I will speak to Tama a moment."

  He stood with Tama across the room. We could not bear what they were saying, nor could we have understood it, since it was in their native tongue; but later Tama told me.

  She began quietly, “You heard this fellow, Turk. He speaks with wisdom sometimes. He and I have talked much of you. He knows I love you."

  He waited but she was silent.

  "You have nothing to say?"

  "No."

  "I am planning a conquest of all Mercury. I want you to rule with me, and keep the virgins from rebellion."

  "You want many things, Roc."

  "Most of all, I want your love. This Turk has the wisdom of Earth. He says I should not use force against you. Perhaps now I realize I should try to earn your love."

  She measured him, wondering if he were sincere. “How, Roc? By warring on my country? By playing the traitor? By mutilating the wings of the virgins so that they might not fly, and then to—"

  "That was your own country's law."

  "You tricked them into passing it!"

  He waved that away. “I want not to quarrel, Tama. I am thinking of joining with these Earthmen. Perhaps hoping to win your love.” His calm voice turned suddenly vehement, intense, and he seemed wholly sincere.

  "Perhaps I did play the traitor. Taught by my father. I was only a boy, did you never think of that? I grew up, with my father planning a conquest of the Light Country, which had banished him ... These last months, Tama, while you were taken from me to Earth, I had time to think. And now I know that to win your love, to have you, is what I want more than any conquest.” Again he paused.

  "You talk very strangely, Roc."

  "I talk truth.” He smiled. “You are not a fool but a very wise girl. I will tell you more truth: My father assembled a Cold Country army. It is waiting now. Weapons, every scientific device of war. And even in the Fire Country, the savages are ready. Do not shudder, Tama. It is ready now, everything for the conquest.

  "With my father's death, I should be in command of it. And now, because you are a wise girl, I will hide nothing from you. I say I will give up all this to win your love. I will join these Earthmen, get them to help us in the Light Country to repel the invasion. It will start very shortly.” He paused again.

  "Go on, Roc."

  "You are charitable, Tama. You avoid saying the sharp things which are in your mind. You know—and therefore I am not trying to hide it from you—that I realize now I cannot lead the invasion. My father had all these forces under his control, but I have not. This Dorrek and his men—they are only waiting to murder me. If I escape them, and try to lead the invasion, it will be the same."

  She said sarcastically, “And so, failing in villainy, you will try heroics?"

  "Yes. But you must give me credit—I tell you frankly my reasons. And that I love you, as I always have, and that I regret the wrongs I have done."

  She touched him. “I wish I thought you were truthful. But I have learned to fear your trickery."

  "Tama, this time you are unjust. This time I will not change. And I think perhaps you might love me. Someday—"

  They were startled as Jimmy darted suddenly away with a gesture of silence; he crossed the room on tiptoe and jerked at the door-slide which Roc had left unfastened. Behind the door aperture the woman Muta was standing, bending down as though listening. She started backward with surprise, recovering herself and said in her guttural, broken English:

  "To the Master Roc, say food is ready."

  Her gaze swept the room. And abruptly she whispered to Jimmy, “I talk you alone, maybe, sometime."

  "What in—"

  Her face was inscrutable. She turned and left the room. Jimmy gazed after her with his jaw dropping in astonishment. “What in—now what in the devil does she mean by that?"

  CHAPTER VII

  MERCURY

  "I TELL YOU, Jimmy, I'll trust Roc just as much as I have to. No more."

  "Reasonable enough. But, Jack, we have to trust him. He's as frightened as I am. If we ever get out of this—"

  Jimmy's smile was lugubrious. Five days had pass
ed. They had worn our nerves ragged. The situation was the same within the Mercurian ball, save that every hour as we approached Mercury the critical moment when we must make our escape, or be murdered by Dorrek and his fellows, came closer.

  And with it all, I could not bring myself to trust Roc. He had been allied to us these days by a common desire for safety. Yet, for all his words and his actions, I was mistrustful. Here in the narrow confines of these enclosing walls, he was with us right enough. But outside, free upon Mercury—I wondered. And I knew that Tama mistrusted him also.

  The passing days seemed interminable. We were allowed apparent liberty of movement on the vehicle. Roc had given Jimmy and me each a small cylinder of the heat-ray and shown us how to operate it. We kept them hidden, and I still had my revolver, which even Roc did not know.

  Outwardly we were Roc's prisoners. Dorrek and his men were subordinates. But it was all thinly disguised. The mutinous Dorrek obeyed Roc—but always with a sneering confident smile.

  There were times when Jimmy, Roc and I thought that it would be best to rush Dorrek and his men at once. Kill them and have done with it.

  We had for instance, little bombs of blinding light and fragile bombs with fumes which would have stricken Dorrek and all his men into catalepsy. But to release one of them here would have endangered or killed us, as well as our enemies.

  Both Jimmy and Rowena tried to find out from Muta what she had meant by her queer hints that she had something to say. But her face was blank—exasperating. She had changed her mind; she only shook her head and would not answer.

  The days passed. It was now March 22nd by Earth time. The earth had dwindled to a star, a dot of white tinged with yellow. The moon, to the naked eye, was invisible. To one side, Venus hung with dazzling glory, a trifle larger than she appears as the brilliant evening star from Earth. The sun had expanded to a great round pot of fire with flames leaping from it, slow streamers of flaming gas-tongues licking into space with a reach the distance from the earth to the moon!

  Ahead of us hung Mercury—larger now, even, than the sun. We had swung in a line almost between the two. The bronze-red Mercurian disk was nearly full-round. Expanding hourly: becoming convex.

  Other hours, and Mercury was a disk spread well across the firmament. Cloud areas bid the sharply convex surface. The Fire Country, facing us, was hidden beneath grayblack vapor masses. The great celestial ball here in space, was waiting to receive us.

  By Earth time, March 23rd. We swung lower, with the Mercurian atmosphere in its heavy layers close beneath us. The world here under us now half filled the firmament. The sense of falling and traveling sideways was soon distinct—real movement now, to which our human senses are accustomed.

  Gazing down at the great spread of vapor masses, I saw a gray-black tumbling sea, with rifts of fire in it—electrical storms tossing the clouds. Gigantic whirlpools of vapor appeared sucking huge circular holes with tossing flames edging them. Leaping bolts of jagged lightning slit the atmosphere.

  And then, a sea of mist, shining opalescent with the sunlight on it; and a chasm in the clouds, with rain beating across it, and the sunlight catching the raindrops, spreading them with great shafts of prismatic color.

  There was a vast area where the sea of clouds hung lower to the fiery surface—a boiling, bubbling sea, the spread of a giant caldron with red-green volatile liquid boiling up its crimson sediment.

  The surface of the Fire Country was seldom visible; but once, through a great rift, I saw a spread of rocks, peaks and spires. As the blistering sun-rays went down, diffused and radiated by the heavy air, it seemed that one of the mountain peaks burst with a jet of steam, edged with green burning gases. And then the clouds closed the rift.

  We swept on, still above the upper atmosphere levels, heading toward the Light Country.

  Grenfell had made sure that Mercury was his destination. And as we fell into position over the planet, the Cube drew again into sight above us, following us down. And then we plunged into the cloud masses. The Cube was lost to our sight.

  Descending the atmosphere, a rush of new problems came to the interior of our tiny falling world. Roc was tensely active, giving orders for the handling of the controls, which Dorrek and his men anxiously obeyed. Jimmy and I, and the two girls were for a time, ignored. We made plans for escape, and watching the activity around us.

  This plunge from the cold of interplanetary space to the friction-heat of the atmosphere brought the temperature controls of the vehicle into constant operation. And with the swift-changing temperatures, for all Roc could do to keep them equalized, came pressure changes of our interior air. This required skillful manipulation.

  Dorrek and the others did Roc's bidding with an eager desire to make no errors. It was obvious that the safety of the ball depended now on Roc's skill—and Dorrek had not dared cross him. Roc had told us so with his cynical smile. But once into the lower atmosphere, with the door and windowports open, Roc would no longer be needed. Dorrek and his men could then safely fly the vehicle.

  I whispered to Jimmy and to the girls, “Be careful, now! We'll land in an hour or so—make the rush. Don't turn your back on anyone for a second!"

  We were in the largest room in the lower tier of the ball. Most of the Mercurians were dispersed elsewhere at the various controls. Dorrek was in and out of the room, relaying his orders. In a corner angle, Muta sat on a low settee—a shapeless lump with her deformed wings spread out behind her. Her eyes clung to us with that expressionless, fathomless gaze.

  I had my cylinder in a trouser pocket, and the revolver in the flap of my boot. Jimmy, in his tight-fitting trousers, puttees, and thin gray shirt, with sleeves rolled up and collar wide, sat dejectedly beside me and mopped his forehead in the beat.

  "Hot, Jack! My heavens—” I knew that he was tense, with his hidden cylinder ready for instant action. In outward aspect, to the gaze of Dorrek and Muta, we were docile prisoners.

  We had found an opportunity of purloining a small knife for each of the girls. Even Roc did not know they had them. For use if the worst should come. I prayed that it might not.

  We burst presently through the clouds. The landscape of Mercury lay spread in the half-light of day beneath the ball.

  We crowded to one of the window ovals, and in a moment Roc joined us. Dorrek, in command of the ball now, had momentarily left the room; but Muta did not move.

  "I will open the door soon,” Roc whispered. He gazed down through the window. “We are not far from the Water City."

  I glanced out, but at once turned back. “Roc, is that woman armed?"

  "No, I do not think so. A knife, perhaps.” I strode across the room.

  "Muta!"

  She lifted her dark gaze. “What you want?"

  "Roc says, go to another room.” I gestured. “You go and make food for us. For me—hungry—"

  She did not move. It seemed that the shadow of a smile plucked at her heavy, shapeless mouth. Her eyes, like vacant dark pools, gazed at me. Then she looked away. But she did not move.

  "Do you understand me, Muta?"

  "Yes."

  Roc joined me and gave her a brusque command in Mercurian. She gazed at him sullenly.

  Dorrek came in. I saw Roc hesitate. Then evidently he told Dorrek that she was to go. My breath stopped; my hand went to my hidden weapon. Across the room Jimmy took a tense forward step. It seemed in that breathless instant that the conflict we feared was upon us. I saw in the inner doorway three Mercurians crowding forward.

  Then Roc laughed, waved at Dorrek and pulled me away. Muta sat motionless. The giant Dorrek's gaze swept us all. But he did not speak, and turning, he pushed his fellows back and left the room.

  Roc whispered, “They will no longer obey me. You saw it?"

  We went back to the window.

  "God, I thought it had started!” Jimmy exclaimed.

  To fire these ray cylinders here in these tiny rooms was doubtless as terrifying to Dorrek as to any of us. r />
  "Open the door,” Jimmy whispered. “Let's get out of this. Order us to land."

  Roc nodded. “Our interior air pressure is a little low. In a moment."

  Beneath my window I saw a great spread of naked landscape—the Light Country, fairest region of the planet! The daylight glistened on the naked surface of bleak, metallic hills. There had recently been a storm; the burnished hillsides were wet with moisture, and little rills and pools of water filled the rock depressions.

  Desolate spread of landscaper, no soil, no blade of vegetation. The convexity of this small world was obvious. An undulating metallic plain, and off to one side a range of naked little hills, with buttes, square-sided, flat-topped, and spires like pointed minarets rising against the flat monochrome background of the sky.

  We fell lower, swept on at an altitude of not over fifteen hundred feet. Tama stood beside me. She gestured. “The Hill City is not far. And the Water City is ahead of us. They have had a black storm not long ago. See the water on the rocks."

  We passed almost over a valley. Soil was there. Porous looking trees, suggesting a mushroom growth, fringed a little lake. There were small areas with a red soil plowed up. And set in a long strip at the bottom of one of the enclosing hillsides was a collection of little huts—crude habitations built of the porous tree trunks, thatched with huge, dried leaves.

  A deserted camp. There seemed a litter of equipment lying abandoned. Agricultural implements stood in the fields where a vegetation growth had come up, unharvested, and died again ... We passed on in a moment once more over the metallic desert.

  "That was one of our girls’ camps,” Tama said. “Abandoned when we returned to the Hill City. You remember it, Roc? You ought to—you drove us there."

  The camp of the flying virgins. Guy had told us of those events. Only the women of Mercury were endowed with wings, and the men, by instinct, were jealous. Man-made laws decreed that at marriage the wings of a virgin should be clipped.