Author: Kirk Straughen

Synopsis: Eric Rutherford, in an attempt to prove his father's discovery, sets off for Mars in a backyard spaceship. But what begins as a voyage of discovery becomes more complicated as he is embroiled in a dangerous series of hair raising escapades. Monsters, mayhem and maidens abound in this exciting tale of daring do. Read this story only if you have the courage of our hero.

Edit history: Minor changes were made to this story on 23 June 2021.

Foreword

Mars as we know it today is a barren and seemingly dead world. However, in the remote past, possibly three billion years ago, it was a far more hospitable planet with a denser, warmer atmosphere and liquid water on its surface, perhaps in sufficient quantity to form seas, seas which may have possessed an environment conducive to the evolution of life.

Unfortunately, Mars is only slightly more than half the size of Earth and it is this difference in mass that appears to have played a critical role in preventing the emergence of life. Mars, with its smaller core, could not generate and sustain the kind of geomagnetic field that protects Earth from the destructive solar radiation that bombards the inner planets.

Without this magnetic shield the sun’s radiation, over billions of years, progressively dissipated the atmosphere and water of Mars, resulting in the desiccated and hostile world we see today. But what would Mars be like if it had been a larger world, say seven tenths the size of Earth instead of only a little over half? Perhaps in some alternative universe the story that follows is fact rather than science-fantasy. It would be nice to think that it was so.

Chapter 1: The Red World Beckons

Eric Rutherford stood back and ran his eyes over the Daedalus. The machine, which rested on sled-like runners, was a riveted and welded cylinder of burnished steel forty feet in length and ten in diameter, its forward end capped by a segmented dome pierced with five large bullseye windows of toughened glass. Just behind the dome was an open circular hatch, and at the tail of the machine a complex series of coils that ran in a double helix configuration about its stern.

The Daedalus, named after the legendary Greek who crafted wings on which he stormed the sky, was an ungainly looking contraption fabricated from junkyard scrap, but in Rutherford’s eyes it was a marvel to behold. But the young man’s joy at seeing its completion was mixed with sadness that his father hadn’t lived to witness the fruition of their work.

Thoughts of his father turned back the years until it seemed like yesterday that the senior Rutherford had made his remarkable discovery. John Rutherford, a widower, had been a teacher of mathematics at Oak Valley High, the local school of the small country town in which his family lived. “The Mad Scientist,” as his students had teasingly dubbed him, had an intense interest in Nikola Tesla, the brilliant but rather eccentric inventor, particularly with regard to Tesla’s "dynamic theory of gravity."

Physicists who had reviewed Tesla’s work considered it nonsense – both theory and the mathematics behind it made no sense at all, and they were right. But what they didn’t realise, what they didn’t understand was what John Rutherford had discovered – that Tesla’s maths were a form of code. It took the elder Rutherford two years to break that code, but when he did an amazing secret was revealed – knowledge that would place the planets within the reach of Man through the power of antigravity.

Naturally, he mailed his findings to the leading physicists of the day, only to receive rather dismissive replies – what would a high school maths teacher from some backwater know about things far beyond his ken? The responses weren’t as blunt as this of course, but if you read between the lines this was the general tenor of the opinion of experts.

Things may not have been so bad if Eric, who was only sixteen at the time and tremendously excited by his father’s discovery, hadn’t incautiously let things slip whilst at school. Henry Morrison, the son of the local rag’s editor who, fancying himself as a budding journalist, interviewed Eric and conveyed the story to his own father which resulted in reporters descending on the Rutherford household like a swarm of annoying flies.

The resulting article was more mockery than journalism: ‘MAD SCIENTIST’ TROUNCED BY EXPERTS ran the paper’s headlines. Nothing much happened in Oak Valley so the story was milked for all it was worth. John Rutherford was held up for ridicule. It wasn’t quite libellous, but it was as close as you could get without being charged. Eric, incensed by it all, gave Henry Morrison a black eye. The police became involved and he was charged with assault. The paper ran more inflammatory headlines and in the resulting furore Eric was expelled from school and his father nearly lost his job.

Although the dust eventually settled things were never quite the same again. In a small country town, with its vindictive gossip and rumours, father and son became, to a large degree, personae non gratae – screwballs to be avoided. Despite this, Eric was fortunate enough to gain an apprenticeship with the local garage and quickly discovered he had an aptitude for mechanics, electrics and metal fabrication.

Mastery of these skills got the young man thinking: the only way to prove his father wasn’t a crank was by concrete demonstration – to build a working antigravity engine based on Tesla’s theory. He put the idea to the elder Rutherford who embraced it with enthusiasm, and thus the Daedalus was born in secret to avoid the derision of the press and townsfolk’s mockery.

Every spare moment of five years had been spent in construction, which increased in ambition from a mere engine to an actual space ship. Five years of hard work and frustrating setbacks, but at last it was complete. Again, Eric thought of his father and his passing a month ago from a sudden heart attack. It had been a tragic loss and the young Rutherford had resolved to press on and wipe the stigma from his sire’s name by completing the Daedalus.

Eric turned his gaze to the heavens visible through the open doors of the large shed father and son had converted to a workshop. Mars, now at its closest to Earth, rode the night sky, a winking garnet against the velvet heavens. The red world beckoned. It was time to leave and prove his father was no fool.

Responsibility weighed heavily on the young man as he entered the ship. He sealed the hatch and sat at the controls. His hands moved deftly, determinedly pressing buttons and flicking switches. Generators whined to life, sparks arced from the coils of the Tesla drive. A sense of weightlessness came upon him. The ship lifted and glided from the shed. Its nose tilted and Rutherford centred the red planet in the crosshairs of the forward bullseye window. Again he touched the controls. The ship shot skyward in a silent rush, accelerated rapidly and vanished into the night, its passing marked by the barking of a solitary dog.

**********

Eight hours had passed and now the globe of Mars hung beneath the Daedalus’ keel observation window as she slowly descended into the planet’s atmosphere, her speed a minuscule fraction of her former stupendous velocity. Rutherford gazed upon the curving vista, a vast sense of awe pervading his entire being at the wondrous sight.

Of course Rutherford had had an idea of what to expect - Schiaparelli had mapped much of the planet, his crude cartography improved greatly when the 100-inch Hooker telescope at Mt Wilson was completed in 1917, but all the drawings and photographs were pale imitations of what the amazed Earthman’s eyes now looked upon.

The vast continent of the Northern Hemisphere curved about half of the globe. Like the hand of a cosmic titan, it rested on the world, the disc of polar ice its palm, its fingers the gigantic peninsulas that jutted into the immensity of the Southern Ocean as if pointing at the jewel-like scattering of islands and archipelagos that adorned the glittering sea.

White clouds scudded across the face of the planet’s landmass. Immense river systems flowed from mighty mountain ranges, tumbling and rushing down the heights in a foaming race towards the forested foothills. Then, their fury spent, winding snake-like and sedately across vast plains to merge in lush deltas bordering the azure sea.

Rutherford brought the ship lower, his tiredness and the strain of the journey swept away by the breathtaking vista. Soon he was beneath the clouds and over a savannah-like countryside of low hills. Lower and lower he descended until he saw beneath him what appeared to be the time worn ruins of an ancient city.

Excitement mounted in the Earthman as the Daedalus’ runners touched Martian soil. He wanted to rush from the ship, camera in one hand, specimen jar in the other, and commence exploring, but prudence made him curb his eagerness, for first some basic tests must be run – atmospheric composition and pressure to name just two.

What took an hour seemed like an eternity to the impatient man, but at last the analysis was complete and revealed a habitable environment – Martian air was Earth-like, but with a much higher concentration of carbon dioxide. This created a greenhouse effect that compensated for the planet’s greater distance from the sun and prevented it from freezing over. Atmospheric pressure was lower: about what one would expect in a village high in the Andes Mountains, and Rutherford knew he’d probably end up with a headache until his body adjusted to the decreased oxygen.

The tests completed and his equipment checked; Rutherford slowly equalised pressure, allowing the alien air to gradually cycle through his ship. He sat quietly by the port for two hours (seemingly a lifetime) until his dizziness and weakness passed and his breathing became steady. Then he stood and, finding his legs sound, opened the hatch and became the first man to set foot on Mars.

Rutherford stood quietly as he looked about, heart pounding with excitement. Words seemed banal at a time like this, overshadowed by the tremendous nature of the historic moment. Beneath his feet was strange vegetation – Martian grass, he supposed. The dense succulent-like growths were an inch in diameter, cylindrical in appearance and about a foot tall, mottled in red and yellow and covered in tiny transparent hairs.

Here and there were groves of strange trees. Their black trunks were narrow - blade-like twisting boles that rose to a height of fifty feet. The extraordinary growths were crowned with a mass of puffball leaves that, variegated in the manner of the grass, sprang from radial branches. Entranced, Rutherford gazed upon the strange scene, the sweep of his vision taking in the vast plain stretching to forested hills. His eyes climbed the hills, which mounted to the range of imposing mountains. These he scaled with his gaze and followed the march of their purple peaks that ran the length of the mighty peninsula on which he had set his ship.

Behind him was the sea to which a mighty river on his right flowed, and on the banks of this the ruins of the city. His eyes alighted on it and his heart quickened further at the sight. What strange minds, what strange hands had wrought this wonder? Sealing the ship Rutherford set out towards the ruins, afire with curiosity that demanded satisfaction.

But even so he was not blind to danger. Although the city appeared ages dead Rutherford knew wild animals may have made it their abode, and so he kept a steady hand on the hilt of the machete at his side – his only weapon, for a gun licence had been denied him due to his assault conviction.

Shortly, he came upon the mighty processional avenue of the city. It was lined with tall columns of a marble-like stone, now broken stained and fallen, but in their youth had borne aloft the statues of ancient kings and queens of misty antiquity.

Rutherford paused by one of the crumbling monuments. Like the rest it lay in the dust, half buried and forlorn as only such things can be. The body seemed human as did the face, but it was so worn by countless ages that he could not be sure. Even so, Rutherford could sense something of the sculptor’s intent: the kingly baring of its pose, the visage strong and fierce, like that of a hawk and the proud challenge: “Look upon my works,” it seemed to say, “And be in awe.”

But the worms of time had done their work: all about was mocking dust and desolation that struck the Earthman with an overwhelming sense of life’s futility. Rutherford stood silent, pondering the mystery of existence and the meaning of it all... The moment passed and he moved on down the broken avenue, taking photographs of the melancholy scene. Soon, he walked between the city’s crumbling gates which were adorned with mosaics that, in their youth, would have dazzled the eye with their rainbow splendour, but now were faded shadows of a long forgotten glory.

All about Rutherford were overgrown mounds of rubble. Here and there a wall or column still stood in defiant solitude, while in the centre of the ruins he could see the weather-beaten facades of more substantial buildings that had not yet wholly succumbed to the ravages of time. Towards these the Earthman made his way, and within fifteen minutes stood before the most intact of the remaining wonders.

It was a loggia – all graceful columns and leaping arches – the facade of a public building that had been constructed on a massive square platform. Even in its ruined state it had a certain grander that made Rutherford gasp in awe at its artistic impressiveness, which he duly photographed. Then he slowly mounted its imposing staircase and stepped within the deep shadows of the columns. Here, he sat on a piece of fallen masonry to rest and devise a plan of exploration, for the ruins encompassed a huge area and the time he had was fairly limited.

As Rutherford rested a flash of light in the distance caught his eye – a glimpse of something metallic and swiftly moving. The Earthman sat up straight and squinted, then shot to his feet. Three pewter hued objects were racing towards him, growing distinct with rapidly closing distance.

With swift prudence Rutherford stepped behind a sheltering pillar and then peered cautiously from concealment. The objects were now near enough to clearly identify – machines, but none like he had ever seen before: The body was a rectangular metal box about twenty feet in length and six in depth. Each was supported by four long articulated limbs that gave the strange devices the speed of a racehorse, and as the Earthman watched in amazement he saw that the machines were vehicles, for in their cockpit-like compartments he glimpsed humanoid figures.

Suddenly, a powerful crossbow mounted on the nose of one the rearmost machines flung a spinning saw-toothed disc at the legs of the lead vehicle in an attempt to disable it. But the uneven ground over which it swiftly fled made it a poor target - the whining missile, as large as a dinner plate, buried itself in a crumbling obelisk with a resounding clang that brought the monument crashing down, its booming impact throwing up a cloud of dust.

Then, from the pursued vehicle came a swift counter attack: Its rear ballista hurled a spinning missile which, either by luck or skill struck both occupants of an enemy machine, beheading them in one fell and bloody stroke. Rutherford watched in horror as the pilotless vehicle scuttled sideways and crashed into the remnants of a wall. It overturned, mechanical legs still pumping wildly, stopping only when the weakened masonry collapsed upon it in a crushing avalanche of stone.

But now Rutherford was no longer a mere spectator to the gory battle – the pursued was heading straight for his hiding place in a desperate bid to seek the shelter of the ruin. The machine mounted the steps, raced up them in a wild metallic clatter, the enemy vehicle hot upon its heels, and the sweating Earthman knew in mere seconds he’d be amidst the wild fray.

Chapter 2: The Green Girl

As the quadruped machine gained Rutherford’s hiding place the remaining pursuer flung its saw-toothed missile. The spinning disc struck the fleeing vehicle and sheared one leg away. It staggered unbalanced, crashed nose down to the floor. Its driver tumbled from the cockpit in a sprawling heap.

Rutherford gasped. The driver was a woman, her skin as green as finest jade, her hair metallic gold. Danger refocused the startled man’s attention. The girl’s vehicle tottered, began tipping dangerously. The sprawled woman cried in fear and raised her hand as tonnes of metal toppled. Instinctively, the Earthman dashed to her aid and dragged her clear as the unbalanced machine fell thunderously upon its side, missing both by the narrowest of margins.

But the danger wasn’t over. The enemy vehicle clattered to a halt. It knelt in the manner of a camel. Warriors of similar appearance to the girl leapt from its twin cockpits. For a second they hesitated in astonishment at the sight of Rutherford. But it was only for a second and then they dashed towards him, yelling wildly, their sabre-like basket hilt swords poised to deal bloody murder. Grimly, the Earthman drew his machete, for he saw by their wild looks his savage foes could not be reasoned with.

Rutherford leapt clear as the first attacker swung at him. He ducked the second’s hacking blow and chopped him in the side. The warrior howled, tumbled to the floor, golden blood gushing from his mortal injury.

The girl darted behind a fallen column as Rutherford’s remaining foeman came at him in a blur of swinging steel. Their blades slammed together in ringing strokes as they danced a deadly waltz across the dusty floor, and in but moments both protagonists were bleeding from half a dozen shallow cuts.

Although the lighter gravity gave Rutherford a slight advantage in terms of strength and speed it couldn’t fully compensate for skill. His opponent was a master swordsman and now he had the measure of the Earthman: As Rutherford swung he stepped in with swift timing, caught the Earthman by the wrist to jam is stroke, and slammed the pommel of his sword against his head.

The blow dropped Rutherford like a stone. He hit the floor in a sprawl, dazed and seeing stars. His triumphant and ruthless foe loomed above him, weapon swinging down in a life destroying arc. Too late the Earthman struggled to reach his fallen blade; but then, just as the whistling sword was about to cleave Rutherford’s skull, his foe pitched sideways and crashed face down upon the floor.

Rutherford slowly got to his feet. His head ached abominably and he was bleeding from a score of cuts. He was lucky to be alive and knew it. The Earthman looked at the lifeless body at his feet and the bloody baseball size chunk of masonry next to it. He swallowed his gorge, for the dead are not pretty to look upon, especially when their end is violent. Getting a grip upon himself he turned his attention to the girl whose well aimed throw had saved him from the fatal stroke.

Niona stood staring at him, uncertain. The girl was poised to flee should he, too, prove a threat, for never in her life had she heard of or seen so strange a man as the one that stood before her. Who he was or where he hailed from she could not fathom, except that he must be from a very distant land – perhaps an island in the Southern Sea, an area that was largely unexplored – a land of strangely coloured people, black haired with light brown skins.

Rutherford, like Niona, was fascinated to the point where, at least for the moment, the bloody fray was quite forgotten. Here, before his very eyes stood a living being of another world – humanity cast from a different mould to that of Earth. He gazed upon the girl, his eyes taking in her form: Her hair, long and unbound, was metallic gold in colour as were her eyes and lips, while her skin was as green as flawless jade.

The girl was clad in a single crimson garment that was wrapped about her figure in the manner a woman wraps a towel about her body. It fell to mid thigh in a fringe of tassels, and was held in place at her right breast by ornate fibulae and at her slim waist by a sash. Crimson sandals completed her apparel as did gold jewellery about her throat and wrists. She made an exotic picture of exquisite loveliness in the eyes of Rutherford.

But sadly one cannot be sustained by beauty alone: The affects of the long voyage, the exertions of the fray and his injuries broke rudely upon the gaping man. A sudden wave of dizziness made Rutherford stagger and he was forced to quickly sit upon the floor in a most unheroic manner that left him quite embarrassed, for no man likes to display weakness before a woman.

Niona, however, saw things differently: the stranger had aided her, had bravely risked his life to save her, and now he lay bleeding in the dust – a sight that roused compassion in her breast. Quickly, she salvaged medicines from her wrecked machine and approached Rutherford, who smiled reassuringly and let the girl cleanse his wounds, speaking to her as she went about her work.

“Who are you?” he asked, not expecting her to understand, but feeling the need to say something rather than sit passively like a dumb brute as she went about her ministrations. He pointed at the dead. “Who are those men, and why were they chasing you?”

Niona looked at him, a slight frown creasing her brow upon hearing, what to her, was a barbarous sounding language. Then she laughed at herself. Perhaps, when the stranger heard her speak he would think the same.

She touched her breast and said “Niona,” then touched Rutherford and looked at him inquisitively. The Earthman smiled his understanding and introduced himself, and thus the beginning of their language lessons commenced.

Her ministrations completed – the stinging fluid she’d used to cleanse his cuts having set to a flexible membrane - the girl pointed at the undamaged vehicle of her slain foes, and named it an ardu, or “strider” as the word would translate to in English. By sign language she made it known she desired Rutherford’s assistance with some task. The Earthman, now somewhat recovered, followed Niona to the machine and watched as she powered up the strider then walked it to her ruined vehicle. The girl touched another button and hooked chains rattled from the rear of the machine. These she gestured were to be fastened to the wreck. Rutherford complied and stood clear as Niona dragged the useless vehicle into the shadowed depths of the ruin in order to conceal it.

The Earthman had mixed feelings as he followed the towed wreck. On the one hand he was anxious to get back to the Daedalus and make sure it was safe from enemies, on the other hand Niona was obviously in some kind of trouble and he wasn’t one to abandon a woman to danger.

As the girl lowered her strider and dismounted Rutherford pointed at her, then at himself, then in the direction of his ship and made walking motions, for he was sure that the Daedalus, with its seel hull and lockable hatch, would be a far safer refuge than these crumbling ruins. Niona got the gist of what he meant and shook her head vigorously.

She beckoned him to the bodies and pointed at them, made an all encompassing motion with her hands, then crouched down and pointed to the hidden strider. It was obvious what she was saying: There were other search parties looking for her, and to go out on the plain would risk discovery.

Rutherford nodded his understanding and realised an attempt to reach his ship would have to wait until nightfall. As he was thinking about his course of action the girl gabbed one of the bodies by its legs and began to drag it to concealment. The Earthman followed her example, and soon both corpses were buried under mounds of rubble.

Twilight came, the hours filled in by language lessons, for despite the threat of danger man and girl were consumed by curiosity to know as much about each other as was possible and in the shortest time. Rutherford had an excellent memory and by now had a set of useful nouns, verbs and adjectives, but even so they were hardly enough to hold a complex conversation.

They had finished their evening meal, which consisted of rod shaped biscuit-like rations whose flavour was reminiscent of walnuts. Niona lay drowsily on a padded sleeping mat and would soon be slumbering. Like Rutherford, she had been running on a mixture of excitement and adrenalin throughout the day and her taxed body now demanded thorough rest.

The Earthman sought to stir himself to action. It was now dark enough to take the girl to the safety of his ship under night’s concealment. But he had left his move too late – lack of sleep and the exertions of the day came upon him fully with the passing of the light. He yawned mightily. Lethargy pressed insistently on his eyelids as lassitude relaxed his limbs.

“I’ll rest for just a moment,” he told himself as he lay back on the padded mat and closed his eyes. Sleep claimed him in an instant.

**********

A sound intruded on Rutherford’s pleasant dream in rude awakening. He opened his eyes and was shocked to find it was daylight. The noise came again – voices, disturbingly near. Quickly, he moved to Niona and placed a hand over her mouth. She awoke with a start. Rutherford placed a finger to his lips and pointed in the direction of the voices.

The couple, now armed with swords taken from the slain, rose stealthily and peered from concealment around the corner of a wall. Men had spotted the drag marks of the wrecked strider, but they were very different from the girl and her pursuers.

The twelve warriors were stocky in build and their hairless skin, decorated in spiral patterns of ritual scarification, was the colour of tortoiseshell. Their eyes and lips were ebony in hue and their features, like their bodies, were broad and solid. Each was clad in a black leather loincloth supported by a wide belt of the same material. They were armed with short broad-bladed spears and had spiked bucklers slung across their backs.

“Yakkan,” muttered the girl as she eyed the barbarians with a mixture of worry and contempt as they gazed at the drag marks, their brutal faces heavy with wary suspicion.

Niona beckoned Rutherford to stealthily withdraw towards the strider, but as the couple carefully retreated the girl stepped upon a shard of masonry. The grating noise was soft but the pointed ears of the Yakkan were very sensitive. In an instant their heads jerked in the sound’s direction and with wild yells like the baying of a hunting pack they raced towards their quarry.

Rutherford swore. Man and girl dashed towards the strider, the racing savages closing fast upon them. The couple vaulted within the vehicle’s cockpits. The girl stabbed a button. The barbarians flung themselves with reckless daring upon the strider as the machine rose to its feet, several swarming up its legs with swift agility, spears gripped between their teeth.

The Earthman swung his sword. One savage fell away, his skull split by the lusty blow. Niona set their vehicle into rapid motion. A foe lost his hold and toppled to the ground, screaming horribly as the strider’s hoof-like metal foot stomped upon him. But two Yakkan had gained a foothold on the vehicle’s upper surface and as it scuttled clear the foremost savage struck wildly at Rutherford.

Rutherford blocked the lunging spear, hacked at the legs of his yelling foe. The warrior leapt back and collided with the other who cursed and lost his balance. Screaming in horror the struck savage plunged to his death as the strider burst into the open at the ruin’s rear. Niona swore. The way was blocked by a tumble of rubble that forced her to a sudden stop.

The Earthman slashed at the remaining savage. Other barbarians on the ground swarmed around the strider like enraged hornets as Rutherford’s foe blocked his stroke and fiercely counterattacked. The wild and whirling blow tore the sword from Rutherford’s hand, sent it spinning. The Earthman cursed, frantically twisted to avoid the leaping spear of his grinning adversary.

Swiftly lunging forward, he caught the savage by the ankle and jerked his leg away. The warrior tumbled as Niona spun the strider round. She threw their conveyance forward as the cursing savage clawed for purchase on the vehicle’s upper surface. Yakkan scattered from the charging mechanism, howling out their rage. Rutherford slashed the clinging hands of his assailant. The savage screamed, fell. The way was clear for swift escape.

But cruel fate had other things to say – Four barbarians whirled grappling hooks and swiftly cast them at the racing mechanism. The flying grapples caught the strider’s legs. Warriors hauled on the ropes in a savage tug-o’-war. Some were jerked off their feet, others held their ground. The machine, unbalanced, crashed to earth and the Yakkan, with wild shouts of cruel triumph raced towards its tumbling crew with the fervour of a famished pack of wolves.

Chapter 3: Captives of the Savages

As the strider began to topple man and girl leapt clear and fell upon the spongy Martian grass. Rutherford struggled up, shaken but not badly injured. A howling barbarian came at him. There was no time to reach his fallen sword. He ducked the wild thrust, leapt in and clinched with his screaming adversary. The fellow sank his teeth into the Earthman’s ear. Rutherford howled. Niona leapt to his aid, slammed her fist against his opponent’s skull and dropped the savage to the earth.

Then half a dozen wild foemen leapt upon the pair and brought them to the ground in a crushing tackle that knocked the breath from both. Fists pounded Rutherford like pile drivers. Desperately, the Earthman tried to fight back, but it was utterly impossible. His foes swarmed over him, hammering him in a frenzy of vicious punches until he lay battered and bruised and bleeding at their feet.

Hard hands clamped viciously on Rutherford. He was hauled roughly to his feet. Sharp spears hovered inches from his flesh. The Earthman cursed, fought through his dizzying pain. He turned his head and saw Niona, who had been treated no more gently, hanging limply between two burly savages. Despite her mauling the girl still had a defiant glint in her eyes, and Rutherford could only admire her bravery.

The crowding, scowling savages parted and a man stepped forward. He was a little taller than the rest. A band of gold set with opalescent stones encircled his brow, marking him as the leader of the party. His baring was arrogant, his expression haughty and his gaze hard and cruel.

For a moment he looked at Rutherford, his eyes widening briefly in amazement at the strange sight of the Earthman. Then he focused his attention on Niona and grinned. The girl turned away from his arrogant and insolent stare. The Earthman tensed as the barbarian laughed mockingly. Spears pricked Rutherford in warning as the savage leader gripped Niona’s chin and jerked her face around.

“Ah, Niona I heard rumours that you had fled Valaya, and now I see they are true. I wonder how much Daru will pay for the return of his beautiful but unwilling bride.”

“What makes you think you can trust that treacherous usurper,” snapped the girl. “Your only payment would be in poisoned gold, Zalax. Surely, you realize this. Far better you help me regain my throne. There will be greater rewards for your people in doing this.”

“Rewards?” sneered Zalax. “Will you reward my people as your late father did – with contempt and a few scraps of trade?” Zalax grinned, his mood as changeable as the wind. “No, Niona, I think I’ll keep you for myself and show you what a real man is like.”

Niona gasped in shock. Then a look of utter outrage came upon her face. “I’d rather die,” she hissed with venom.

Zalax laughed. “Perhaps you will – of pleasure,” he elaborated; then grasped her face with both hands and kissed her full upon the mouth.

Niona wasn’t one to submit to the pawing of a brute. The girl sank her teeth into his lip. Zalax swore; then gasped in agony when she drove her knee into his groin. He stumbled back, his face an ugly mix of pain and rage at being rejected by the girl and humiliated before his men. With a roar of fury Zalax lunged at Niona. He struck the girl a vicious blow. She cried; then screamed again as he tore her clothes to expose her shapely breasts.

Rutherford had seen enough. He exploded from deceptive passivity, lashing out with a mighty kick. His heavy boot struck the girl’s assailant in the buttocks and sent him sprawling face down in the dirt. But before he could wreck further havoc the Earthman’s guards fell savagely upon him. They hurled him to the ground. Feet brutally kicked him in a wild flurry. Spears were poised to thrust and it seemed that in but moments the groaning man would become a human pincushion.

“Stop,” cried a voice that stilled the hovering spears and turned all heads.

Zalax rose painfully to his feet. His face was a rigid dirt-streaked mask of hate, and such was his rage that he could barely speak to Rutherford.

“You,” he panted ... “I’ll see you die ... Yes ... a horrible death in the arena.” Then, hobbling to the girl who was dazed and bleeding from the mouth where he’d struck her, he tore the remnants of her clothes away and hurled the ruined garment in Rutherford’s face. “There you are,” he sneered with insulting sarcasm. “Enjoy your victory.”

The Earthman was hauled to his feet at Zalax’s command and the party began its march out of the ruins. Rutherford gave the leader of the savage band a malefic look worthy of Medusa, but the barbarian pointedly ignored him, so he turned his attention worriedly to Niona. She gave him a weak smile, but before either could speak a spear prodded the limping Earthman in the back driving him ahead, and ending his hopes of conversing with the girl.

Prudence is said to be the better part of valour, reflected Rutherford as they picked their way through the tumbled ruins, but the Earthman wasn’t the type to stand idly by and watch a woman being molested. He hadn’t understood a word of what Zalax had said, but he didn’t really need to speak the language to know the fellow was a bastard and now his deadly enemy.

They emerged from the ruined city within the passing of about an hour and the amazing sight before Rutherford stopped, at least for the moment, the futile plans of escape he was formulating. A coppice of trees stood twenty yards away, but it was not these that made the Earthman gasp in amazement.

Before the grove stood the six mounts of his savage captors, and what strange beasts they were. Each creature was about the size and shape of an elephant. Their heads, though, resembled more closely those of an iguana than a pachyderm. The skin of the creatures – a mottle of orange and black - was covered in conical spikes on the flanks and outer parts of the legs. A canopied structure similar to a howdah was strapped to the spike free back of each beast, and from its railings hung large ceramic spheres of unknown purpose.

None of the animals possessed a trunk and the astonished Earthman wondered how they fed. His question was soon answered: An amazingly long tongue resembling a tentacle shot out from between one creature’s gaping maw. Its leaf shaped tip, covered in suckers, wrapped itself around one of the many fruits hanging from the tree, and tore it from the branch with a contracting snap that conveyed it to the behemoth’s mouth.

The uaat, as it was called, munched contentedly on the melon size fruit of the pani tree as they approached. A whistling command made the beast kneel. Rutherford and the girl were hauled aboard. The uaat rose and thus they commenced their long journey across the plains towards the homeland of their brutal captors, each mighty step taking the worried Earthman further and further from his only means of returning home.

**********

Two days had passed since their capture. It was mid morning and the caravan was skirting the flanks of a low hill when a cloud of dust in the distance caught the attention of a watchful and sharp eyed Yakkan warrior.

“Danger from the west,” he cried.

All heads turned to follow his pointing finger. Rutherford squinted and saw six striders racing towards them with the speed of a thoroughbred. It was one of the Valayan search parties looking for the girl. The leader of the squadron had spotted a green skinned prisoner through his telescope – a prisoner that could only be Niona. Zalax cursed; rapidly barked commands. The uaat lumbered towards the hill and laboured up its slope as the racing machines rapidly closed the distance. Niona looked back at the charging striders, not knowing which fate was worse - to be a captive of the brutish Yakkan or the unwilling bride of Daru the usurper.

A saw-toothed disc whined upwards like a monster hornet as the panting uaat gained the summit of the hill. The deadly missile arched down, missed one creature by a yard and buried itself deeply in the slope. Dirt spayed and the uaat grumbled as pebbles struck its hide. Rutherford looked back. The commander of the pursuing machines had divided his forces: Two striders charged wildly up the slope, their pounding metallic hooves sending clods of earth flying. The others streaked left and right around the hill, pumping legs hurtling them forward with the swiftness of a cheetah as they raced in a flanking manoeuvre to cut off all escape.

Zalax seemed unfazed. Again he cried commands. The uaat, having crested the tor lumbered about to face the enemy. Their bodies were now below the ridgeline with only their heads exposed. More whining discs whipped by in narrow misses as the charging machines closed rapidly upon their quarry. The Yakkan war leader shouted further orders. The uaat flicked out their tongues like living whips and grasped the spheres hanging from the railings of the howdahs. They jerked them free and hurled the globes at the charging striders in the manner of a pitched baseball.

Rutherford watched the machines as their desperate drivers tried to dodge the arcing spheres. But there were too many missiles to evade and the distance extremely close. In an instant the hurtling globes burst about the darting striders and erupted into roaring fireballs of blinding brilliance. Men screamed, died horribly. The burning mechanisms, wreathed in white hot flames, crashed to earth as the explosion’s searing heat struck the stunned Earthman in a fiery blow.

The savages cheered, but the battle wasn’t over: The four remaining striders had circled the hill and were firing vengefully upon them from the rear. Spinning discs whined passed angrily. One struck the mount carrying Rutherford and Niona – a risky shot, but a measure of Daru’s desperation to capture his unwilling bride. The uaat screamed like a sheet of ripped brass as blood gushed copiously from the severed artery in its neck. Quivering, it sank to earth, its panicked occupants jumping clear least the beast crush them in its death throes.

The remaining uaat re-crested the hill. But a laggard fell thunderously, its rear leg slashed to the bone by a streaking missile. Again, the survivors commenced hurling their deadly spheres at the enemy from the cover of the ridgeline. Below, the four striders sought the shelter of a rocky outcrop. Two machines were enveloped in raging fire before they could reach their goal. The screams of the occupants were the stuff of nightmares. Those that survived gained their objective in a wild dash and then commenced a deadly game of peek-a-boo: darting out to fire, and then racing back behind their rocky shield.

Rutherford and the girl crouched behind the uaat’s carcass as the battle raged. One of their guards lay groaning on the ground, his ankle twisted by the fall. The other was tending to his injured companion. The Earthman saw their chance, their only hope. He touched Niona’s shoulder, pointed. The girl nodded. The couple leapt up and sprinted wildly for freedom.

A warrior shouted. A flung spear grazed Rutherford’s arm but he kept going. Man and girl darted over the ridgeline and slipped between the massive beasts as flashing discs and arching spheres flew all about in a furious exchange. As the Earthman fled he caught a glimpse of several uaat lumbering down the slope in preparation to outflank the enemy. Rutherford grinned. Zalax was commencing his own manoeuvre, and the more occupied the savage leader was the greater their chance of escape.

Niona also threw a glance behind her as the sprinting couple reached level ground. Her sweat streaked body went cold with crawling fear – their escape had been spotted and one uaat was lumbering in pursuit. Rutherford also saw the looming threat. The couple put on a wild burst of speed and dashed out upon the plain. But it was hopeless for the striding beast could maintain a rapid pace despite its size, and had far more stamina than any man possessed.

Rutherford’s Earthly muscles kept him going, but he saw the girl was faltering fast and the gigantic beast ever closer. He swept Niona up, flung the panting sweat drenched girl across his shoulder and sprinted for a sheltering grove of thorny trees. Breathing hard he raced towards the coppice, the uaat and its shouting warriors closing speedy upon him.

In but moments the Uaat was within striking distance. Its tongue lashed out in an attempt to snare the grim faced Earthman. Niona gasped a warning. Rutherford dodged and the ropy member missed him by an inch. In one mad dash he gained the grove and shot among the trees. Gasping and trembling from his Olympian exertions, heart beating madly, he lowered Niona to the ground.

“Hide,” he managed to pant then turned to face their relentless enemies.

The warriors had dismounted. They came at him in a wild dash. He tried to fight but in his exhausted state it was impossible. They piled on him in an overwhelming rush and brought him crashing to the ground. The last thing he heard was Niona’s despairing cry. Then a fist crashed against his jaw like a sledgehammer boulder and knocked him into black oblivion.

Chapter 4: Queen of the Barbarians

Twenty four days had passed since the destruction to the last man of the Valayan search party. No further indignities had been inflicted on the couple, who were now tethered by their necks to the howdah’s railing, but it wasn’t mercy that restrained their captor’s cruelty. Zalax wanted Rutherford fit for his ordeal in the arena and, not willing to risk further humiliation before his men at Niona’s hand, was planning to force himself upon the girl when he had her bound and helpless within the privacy of his bedchamber.

Now Kalchal, the city of their captors, stood before them – a harbinger of their grim fate. The metropolis was of mud brick construction, the adobe walls waterproofed with plastered gypsum mined from the backdrop of forested hills. The conurbation shone whitely in the sun. The intensity of midday made Rutherford squint as he surveyed with dread the defences of its squat architecture from the rise the uaat were now descending.

A wide and deep stake lined ditch surrounded the city, with the excavated material having been thrown up behind the dry moat to form a rampart some thirty feet in height. Woody shrubs with long and evil looking thorns had been densely planted on the outer sloping face of the earthworks to stabilize the soil and further hinder an invading force of infantry. Tall mud brick watchtowers were paced at regular intervals along the perimeter, their height giving the lookouts a good view across the expansive landscape.

Within these defences lay the metropolis proper – a huddle of low mud brick buildings rendered with plaster, their cubical forms capped with domed roofs, the habitations set among a confusing rat’s maze of streets and alleys. In the centre of Kalchal lay a sprawling complex of buildings connected by courtyards and pillared walkways that could only be the seat of government.

All the buildings were decorated in bright frescos – broad bands of ribald scenes just beneath the eaves, with the owner of each house seemingly competing with their neighbours in a garish display of dynamic explicitness.

Surrounding the city were its agricultural fields, planted out with crops and crisscrossed by irrigation canals that conveyed water from the Hati – a river a half mile to the east. Sumjal was the primary crop – an herbaceous plant resembling a tree fern, but one that was mottled in crimson and purple, and grew from a rhizome to a height of about six feet. The plants produced prolific clusters of orange warty nuts the size and shape of grapefruit that were ground to make a kind of flour used in the making of unleavened bread.

A sight caught the Earthman’s eye and made him gape – an indigo teardrop shaped object was slowly rising up from the city’s administrative complex, an object that appeared to be an observation balloon. The sight left him amazed, for such technology seemed beyond the level of his savage captors.

Rutherford was now more fluent in Hyu, the Martian dialect of the region, and also the geography of his surrounds. The city states of the plains, ten in all, were widely spaced and their social structure largely medieval. Similarly, their industries were based on mills driven by wind and water power, the products thereof being traded via an extensive network of caravan routes between the major population centres.

The Earthman turned to Niona who sat next to him in the cramped howdah, her nudity concealed as best as was possible by his grimy leather jacket. The girl sat quietly beside him with alert guards before and behind her. She now knew of Rutherford’s Earthly origins. At first Niona had thought him the biggest liar she had ever met, and for several days had viewed him with disdain. But as time passed and she got to know him better he seemed neither an imposter nor a fool, which left her both puzzled and intrigued.

At the moment these mysteries were far from Niona’s mind, a hot bath being uppermost in her thoughts. She looked weary and dishevelled from their long and arduous ride and Rutherford’s heart went out to her. He wanted to speak, to offer some words of comfort, but felt anything he said would sound banal in the face of the fate he now knew awaited them, so instead he asked a simple question.

“What is that?” he queried, pointing at the rising teardrop, wishing to know the Martian word for balloon. But the fatigued girl misunderstood his question.

“Barbarian magic,” replied Niona tiredly, and then lapsed into despondent silence.

Rutherford was shocked, so much so that he didn’t press her to elaborate. How could Niona be so ignorant of basic science? The Earthman found it extraordinary. Her people had striders, which could only be the product of an advanced civilization. It was inconceivable that she could believe magic was responsible for lighter than air flight. But on the other hand her people fought with swords, apparently completely ignorant of firearms and the chemistry of explosives. The technological dichotomy had been puzzling him deeply for some time. Perhaps he’d find the answer when he was more familiar with the history of this world.

“If I live that long,”’ he thought, glumly.

A bellowing cry made the Earthman start. It was the cry of a horn being sounded from a watchtower of the city. Zalax made reply on a similar instrument and the four remaining uaat – the rest having been slain in defeating the Valayan search party - lumbered towards a massive drawbridge being slowly lowered in response to the war-leader’s identifying signal.

Shortly, the party crossed the creaking timbers, veered right and entered the warehouse size building that stabled a dozen of the mighty beasts. The prisoner’s restraints were cut. They were lowered from the howdah and hustled from the stables and onto the narrow crowded streets.

Sights, sounds and smells assaulted the Earthman: Languid and comely bare breasted woman in brightly dyed loincloths cast bold and curious eyes upon him, but the hard stares of their menfolk made him quickly look away. Then there was the babble of voices and the dry, dusty smell of unpaved streets mingling with the sweat of the pressing crowd. The city, with its narrow ways and the hostility of the menfolk was oppressive and, despite the ordeals of their journey, Rutherford now found himself yearning to be on the back of an uaat despite the unpleasantness of its swaying gait.

Zalax and his warriors forced a path through the crowd, whirling their spears with brutal arrogance that left some not swift enough to clear the way lying bleeding and unconscious in the dust. Shortly, they arrived at the central complex of sprawling buildings that served as a combination of palace and administrative hub for the metropolis.

Heavily armed guards were everywhere as they entered the wide portico of the rambling structure, and Rutherford despaired of escape as they were forced at spear point down a short pillared hallway, gaudily painted in shades of red and blue, and into the public audience chamber illuminated by louvered atriums.

At the far end of the chamber, which was ornamented with erotic frescoes, stood a dais; and on this dais rested an item of furniture more resembling an elaborate chaise lounge than a throne. As they drew near Rutherford saw upon it a woman lying in languid repose, one finger idly tracing patterns on the floor.

Her figure was voluptuous, with flaring hips and breasts as ripe as melons. Her skin, like those of the other Yakkan males was, except for eyebrows and eyelashes, completely hairless and the colour of tortoiseshell, but in her case unmarred by the ritual scarring of the warriors. Her eyes were large and as dark as onyx, her lips full with petulance and her jaw square with strength. About her narrow waist was a belt of gold links and from this her only garment hung – a crimson pennant-shaped loincloth of diaphanous material that did little to conceal her womanhood. She wasn’t beautiful in the conventional sense, but nonetheless she was striking to behold.

The captors and their captives halted at the foot of the dais and the warriors brutally forced the Earthman and his companion to their knees. The woman rose and gracefully stretched. Rutherford, despite the danger of their situation, stared. Niona, feeling every bit as dishevelled as she looked, poked the Earthman in the ribs, her despondency giving way to the fire of indignation, for she was incensed that her companion could find what, in her eyes was an uncultured barbarian, worthy of admiration.

“She’ll probably order your death,” hissed Niona. “And ... and I hope she does,” she added heatedly, and then instantly regretted the cruel rashness of her words, for she had developed a growing affection for the Earthman and her anger was born of jealousy.

“Silence,” commanded Zalax. Then, turning to the woman: “Queen Eyeusu, my expedition to the ruins of the Ancients yielded little in the way of artefacts. But the journey was not without profit. Behold Princess Niona, my captive and whom I claim as a prize of conquest, and the male prisoner whose fate must be the arena for having assaulted me. As a noble of the Yakkan I claim the victor’s rights.”

“Zalax,” replied the queen with exasperation. “You are my brother, but you are also a fool. Daru the usurper wishes the princess for a bride to consolidate his claim upon Valaya’s throne, a fact of which we are all aware. Should he discover her whereabouts he will demand her return, and should we refuse he will attack.”

Zalax, who had conceived a raging passion for the girl, replied contemptuously. “Valayans, bah; my men and I bested a patrol of them when they sought to wrest the princess from me. Their so called warriors are nothing but effete weaklings.”

“Weaklings?” replied Eyeusu, annoyed. “It seems you’ve lost half your men in the fray. No, brother; win we might, but at a price I deem far too high. I will send a messenger to Daru. In the meantime the princess will be my honoured guest. But I’ll appease you how I can. Condemn the male prisoner to the arena if you must.”

“I know your tastes,” snapped Zalax, not at all appeased. “Don’t feign concern over those Valayan fops who’d pass themselves off as doughty warriors. You want the girl for yourself. All the rest is cunning subterfuge.”

“It is none of your concern if I take her to my sleeping mat,” replied Eyeusu, dangerously. “At least my caress shall be gentle, unlike your brutal touch, but enough of this. Your stupidity, your arrogance and your lust blind you to the truth. My word is law, now get out and speak no more of this.”

Zalax ground his teeth together in impotent rage and looked darkly upon his royal sister for whom he had no true affection. If only he were ruler of the land! It was a pleasing thought and one that might become reality under certain circumstances. Then Niona would be his to do with as he pleased.

“As you command, my queen,” he said with false submission as he bowed low to hide his evil smile.

Having made his lying deference the prince barked orders at his warriors who seized Rutherford and roughly dragged the Earthman from the room in Zalax’s striding wake.

Niona, her heart filled with sorrow and regret watched them go. She feared next time she saw Rutherford he would be dead.

**********

Rutherford anxiously paced the confines of his prison cell, wondering what horror he’d have to face. Two days had passed and he knew from listening to the conversation of the guards outside his door that he would soon be thrust into the arena and more than likely the jaws of death as well.

His thoughts turned to Niona. They had parted badly and her anger had hurt him more deeply than he thought possible. He wondered what her fate would be. Most likely a forced marriage and rape on her wedding night. Fury at the thought welled up inside him, and for the thousandth time he spurred his wits in a frantic bid to formulate some plan of rescue, but without success, for he was devoid of weapons, having been stripped of all apparel and was locked securely in a heavily guarded prison.

The sound of a key grating in the lock made Rutherford jump. He tensed further as the door swung open. Six alert and brutish looking guards stood upon the threshold. One beckoned. The Earthman put on a brave front. He stepped forward and allowed them to surround him and march him from his prison and down a long corridor. If he was going to fight then he’d fight in the open air. Better to die under a blue sky than in a dank dungeon, or so he ruminated.

Shortly, Rutherford stood before an iron portcullis. The barrier was raised by a clanking windlass. A guard threw a bucket of foul smelling liquid over the Earthman. Spears prodded the cursing and humiliated prisoner into the arena and Rutherford blinked painfully as the glare from the white river sand struck harshly upon his eyes. Behind him the barrier rattled down, cutting off all hope of escape.

The arena, which was situated in one of the palace’s larger courtyards, was an oval pit about twenty feet in depth, two hundred in length and approximately a hundred at its widest point. Around its edge was an ornate railing upon which leaned the murmuring crowd comprised of Yakkan nobles, palace courtiers and assorted lackeys who are commonly associated with royalty.

Rutherford swept the expectant throng with a disdainful gaze, ignoring their insulting jeers and coarse remarks with silent contempt. His expression softened when his eyes came to rest on Niona. She stood at the far end of the arena, standing anxiously by the ornate chair on which Queen Eyeusu sat. The girl was now immaculate in cleanliness and attire. Like the queen she was clad in a brief loincloth, but had wrapped a length of fabric about her shapely breasts in keeping with Valayan custom. The light chains about her wrists and ankles, however, made a lie of the claim she was a “guest.”

A clanking sound made Rutherford shift his longing gaze. Another portcullis below Niona and the queen was rising, and from the dark interior of the pen behind it stepped a gray horror that made the shocked Earthman forget all about the girl.

The thing was a massive quadruped of bovine form, but that was where all similarity ended. It stood seven feet at the shoulder and was covered in a great bony carapace with conical spikes across its back and lateral ones along its flanks. The head, similarly protected, was broad and flat, the eyes deeply set and shielded by a heavy jutting brow.

The calax, for that was what it was, lumbered onto the sands, hissing venomously. Though herbivorous the beasts were extremely aggressive even at the best of times and the foul smelling liquid in which Rutherford had been drenched was the musk used by rival males to mark their territory.

The calax halted. Sniffing vigorously it swung its brutal head from side to side. The surly monster caught the rival male’s scent. Anger flared. Its beady eyes locked upon the Earthman and its tiny brain became a mass of burning rage. Niona sobbed and turned her face away as the frightful creature exploded into charge, its many horned skull lowered to gore the helpless man.

Chapter 5: Flight into Danger

As the enraged calax raced at Rutherford he glimpsed an object rising from the palace rooftop. A daring plan sprang to mind at its catalysing sight. The crowd gasped as the desperate Earthman charged the spiky monster. The queen leaned forward in disbelief. Despite herself Niona looked. She tensely clutched the seat Eyeusu sat upon as man and beast rushed furiously towards each other.

At the last moment Rutherford leapt, throwing all his Earthly strength into the mighty spring. To the crowd’s amazement he sailed a foot above the charging calax. The creature, unable to halt its headlong rush sped on for many yards before coming to a stop.

The Earthman, however, was still swiftly moving. Having landed well behind the beast he was now rushing towards the arena’s further end. The confused calax spun about, spotted its fleeing enemy. The creature hissed. Again it charged and swiftly gained upon the madly sprinting man.

“Please,” cried Niona as she clutched Eyeusu’s arm. “Stop this before he’s killed. I’ll do anything. I’ll even give myself to you as I did before.”

The queen, more interested at the moment in the spectacle, shook off Niona’s hand and rose to get a better view of the frightful drama. She saw the sprinting Earthman now mere yards away and the mad calax even closer to his racing heels, its brutish head lowered in preparation to toss him on its many brutal horns.

Rutherford could sense the charging monster closing in, could feel its snorting breath upon his sweating back. In a final burst of frantic speed he raced for the portcullis beneath the royal box and made another mighty leap. Unable to stop in time the charging calax crashed against the barrier. The entire structure shook with the massive impact. Rutherford nearly lost his hold. Several of the creature’s horns snapped off, while others wedged tightly in the grating just beneath the clinging man.

Before the stunned beast could free itself the Earthman dropped upon its shoulders, with his feet landing between its many spikes. The calax went mad at the unfamiliar weight. It jerked free with an explosive hiss and bucked like a deranged bronco. Rutherford, who had anticipated the beast’s manoeuvre, timed his leap to coincide.

Eyeusu gasped, jumped back as the Earthman was catapulted towards the railing by the raging beast. He grasped the balustrade. The crowd went wild with consternation as he swiftly hauled himself across. Guards charged towards him at the queen’s startled cry. Niona swung her chains and struck one racing warrior across the eyes. The man went down, blinded and howling as Rutherford dodged a spear thrust, kicked the second in the groin. The man screamed shrilly, crashed to earth.

Rutherford darted at the queen. Eyeusu snatched a dagger from her girdle and struck at him with the swiftness of a serpent. But Niona, slightly faster, caught her wrist as the Earthman flung himself upon her. Rutherford swore as she tried to bite him. He tore the weapon from her grasp. The queen struggled, cursed. The Earthman grimly pressed the blade to Eyeusu’s throat and stilled her violence as more guards poured madly into the royal box.

“Call them off,” he cried. Then, shouting at the rushing warriors: “Stop or I’ll kill her; that I swear.”

The guards halted in their tracks and looked questioningly at Eyeusu. Behind him Rutherford heard the shocked murmuring of the throng. His enemies were off balance, but he knew it wouldn’t last for long. Every second counted and he was quickly running out of time.

“Send your men away and take me to that,” ordered Rutherford as he pointed at the observation balloon he’d glimpsed from the arena’s sands. “Also order the floating thing brought to the ground. Do this and I’ll let you go unharmed.”

Eyeusu hesitated for a moment. Her eyes were wild with rage. Her breasts heaved with fury. A curse hovered on her lips. But the sting of the blade made her see reason. The queen stifled her anger. She was the captive of a desperate man. She had no choice.

“Go,” she cried bitterly. “Clear the way, and do not hinder their escape.”

Her men left with these instructions, and in but moments the path to freedom was free of threatening warriors.

“Lead on, Eyeusu” harshly ordered Rutherford after Niona had removed her chains using Eyeusu’s key and, with the Earthman’s help, placed them quickly upon the sullen queen.

The trio made their way through a deserted maze of halls and courtyards, for the queen’s orders had been swiftly spread throughout the palace by her retreating warriors, and within ten minutes they’d reached their goal unopposed by any savages. But as the escapees and their hostage neared the observation balloon in which Rutherford aimed to flee the city, a pair of cruel and cunning eyes gazed intently on them.

A cold and calculating smile broke out upon the face of Zalax as he peered around the corner of a wall. The wily noble had run ahead to lie in wait, and as the trio came closer still he drew a throwing knife - one of many thrust all about his belt. His plan was simple – he’d kill the Earthman and Eyeusu, and blame her death on Rutherford. Niona, under threat of torture, would confirm his lie – that he’d slain the Earthman to avenge his sister’s callous murder.

It was a mad scheme, but Zalax was mad with lust for the girl, and couldn’t bear the thought of Niona escaping his nefarious clutches. Greed and hate also added to the fire of his passions: His desire for the throne and his odium towards the woman who sat upon it had been brought to a head by the conflation of all these base yearnings.

Zalax tensed. He saw Rutherford assist Niona to board the balloon. The Earthman’s back was to him. One hand was steadying the girl as she climbed within the basket; the other was about his sister’s neck, pressing the blade against her throat. Zalax grinned, leapt from concealment. He hurled his throwing knife with all the vicious fury he possessed.

Niona, who by chance looked behind her at that fateful moment, cried a dire warning: “Down,” she shouted wildly.

Rutherford dropped, dragging down the startled queen. The flashing blade whipped above the Earthman’s head in a narrow miss. Zalax cursed. He darted forward flinging knives in a flurry of wild and savage throws.

The Earthman swore. He swept Eyeusu up and leapt aboard the craft. Three blades thudded into the basked where he’d been squatting. A fourth nicked his shoulder as he slashed the vehicle’s tether. The balloon shot aloft like an arrow and the thwarted prince could only curse and shake his fist as he watched it float away.

Rutherford was elated as he looked down on the shrinking city of the foe. His daring plan had worked and they were free, and when the balloon was far enough away he’d find a means to land it, but what then? His plan had been literally made up on the run, and he hadn’t thought things out much further than escape. To find the Daedalus was his main objective, true, but then there was Niona and his growing feelings for her and all the complications this entailed. The Earthman sighed in worry at the many problems to be overcome, and his mood was soured further by Eyeusu’s needling petulance.

“You promised to release me,” complained the queen with peevish sullenness. “I should have known better than to hope you’d keep your word,” she concluded furiously.

“Those blades were aimed at you just as much as they were aimed at me,” he informed her angrily as he wrapped the cloak he’d found within the gondola about his loins. “If I had left you there your own brother would have murdered you, and no doubt blamed me for the crime. Think about that before you criticise my actions.”

Abashed, the queen fell into thoughtful silence. The man she had allowed her brother to condemn to the arena had saved her life even though he had every reason not to. And as Eyeusu ruminated on the strangeness of fate - of how one’s enemies turned out to be one’s friends, and one’s friends one’s enemies - Rutherford took a deep breath, let his anger out, and then turned to Niona.

“Are you hurt in any way?” he asked the girl, worriedly.

“No,” she replied. “But I fear I have hurt you. My words were harsh and thoughtless when we parted. I’m ... I’m very sorry. I tried to save you. I let Eyeusu take me to her sleeping mat in the hope I could win your freedom. I ... You look shocked,” she observed with surprise. Do you disapprove?”

“Why ... Why no,” he replied diplomatically. “Your bravery amazes me, that’s all.”

The girl raised her eyebrows. “You make it sound as if I faced a torturous ordeal.” Then seeing his shocked expression deepen: “But truth be known I still prefer a man between my thighs.”

“I’d never have guessed, considering the way I made you cry with pleasure,” quipped Eyeusu who, despite her situation had the spunk to be mischievous.

The girl gave the queen a hard and dangerous look and Rutherford, desperate to change the subject asked a question: “What’s this thing we’re in called, and how does it work?”

“I don’t’ know its name,” said Niona. “But it must work by magic. There are reputed to be sorcerers among the Yakkan.”

Eyeusu laughed at the girl’s ignorance, an act that made Niona scowl. “It’s called a floater,” explained the queen. “There are no sorcerers among us, only wise men. The floater rises because of that device,” she continued, pointing at a mechanism hanging beneath the skirt surrounding the mouth of the balloon’s envelope.

Rutherford gazed at the silvery mechanism, which he hadn’t noticed before because it was well above his head. The device, attached to the suspension cables of the gondola, was disc-shaped with a faceted lens-like structure on its upper surface. Spaced evenly around its circumference were six short rods, each tipped with a cube the size of a baseball.

The Earthman moved closer for a better view, and as he stood beneath it he heard a faint hum coming from the mechanism, and saw a soft crimson beam shooting up from the faceted lens and into the balloon’s envelope.

“It’s some form of heat generator, probably infrared,” he said to himself in English. Then, turning to Eyeusu: “Where did you get this?”

“They looted it from one of the cities of the Ancients,” interjected Niona derisively, still nettled at being laughed at by the queen.

“Just as you looted your striders,” countered Eyeusu, calmly. “The Ancients are long gone, and the true cause of their destruction obscured by myths, but at least we are creative with what we find,” continued the queen, “whereas your people are content to accept the leavings of the past without innovation. We are not the uncultured savages you believe us to be, Niona.”

The girl opened her mouth to utter a hot reply, and then thought better of it. She’d already made herself look foolish. It would be best to say nothing further and let the matter quietly pass.

“But enough of this banter,” said Eyeusu, who was also tired of the verbal jousting and realised that it was in her best interests to extend the hand of friendship. “We are now far enough from Kalchal. Escape by all means, but let me land the floater so I can go back to my people. In return for my freedom I will instruct you in its operation so you can continue on your way. I swear this by the loins of the Goddess Isara. It is our most sacred oath.”

“It will be dangerous for you,” said Rutherford, for despite everything he found for some inexplicable reason he was starting to like the queen. “Zalax may now be in power. Why not come with us? Niona has relatives in the city of Ousu, which is where she was fleeing to when we met, and where I hope to take her if I can. I’m sure they will give you shelter for helping her.”

The queen glanced sideways at the girl and could see by her expression that she was not at all happy with the idea, or the fact that the Earthman had suggested it.

“Thank you,” said Eyeusu with a smile. “But you forget I sent an envoy by captured strider to Daru claiming Niona was in my hands. These machines are much faster than our uaat. In a few days the usurper will arrive at Kalchal demanding her release and will be furious when he hears of her escape. When this happens I don’t want my fool brother sitting on the throne. The situation will be delicate and his stupidity and arrogance could easily precipitate a war.”

“Don’t trust her,” hissed Niona. “She’ll find a way to wreck the floater when it lands. Then we can be easily recaptured. At least wait until we’re further from Kalchal.”

“By then it will be too far for her to walk. Besides, Eyeusu has given her word,” replied Rutherford gently as he freed the woman from her chains, “and I believe her.”

Niona stiffened. Her eyes narrowed dangerously. Then she turned and strode angrily to the far side of the gondola and began to brood in furious silence. Rutherford gazed at the girl and wondered if he should try and placate her, but the princess’s back was a rigid line of rage that warned him she was unapproachable at the moment. Besides, he really didn’t think he had anything to apologise for.

“Take us down,” he said to the queen in a vexed tone.

“Too late,” cried Eyeusu. “It seems all out plans have gone awry. Look.”

Rutherford followed the line of her pointing finger and gasped at what he saw. A mass of black clouds tinged with flaring lightening was boiling over the horizon in a roiling tumult of elemental fury. The storm, birthed by the Southern ocean and noted for its swiftness and violence, was called a zudrua. It rushed towards them with incredible speed, rolling down the sky in a tidal wave of darkness that blotted out the sun and plunged the world into eerie green tinged twilight.

A gust of chill wind caught the balloon, buffeting it furiously. Eyeusu stumbled. Niona screamed in terror. Rutherford caught the queen. Both fought their way to Niona’s side. Then the drenching rain stuck with all the driven rage of the tempest. The frail balloon was engulfed by roiling clouds. The jaws of the ferocious storm closed down upon them and the world was blotted out by impenetrable gloom.

Wild lightening flared. Thunder exploded with the force of a dozen bombs, and the cyclonic wind howled like a deranged beast. The trio crouched in terror of the tumult playing out around them. Niona trembled. She buried her head in Rutherford’s chest, her childhood terror of storms returning in all its horror as the dreadful gusts spun their craft with nauseating dizziness. Even Eyeusu welcomed the Earthman’s comforting embrace as the balloon became a hapless plaything of the raging elements.

Rutherford knew that to try and land in these conditions would prove fatal – the force of the gale would surely drive the balloon into the earth, hurling them against the ground with the remorseless and deadly strength only Nature can bring to bear. Their only chance was to ride out the storm and hope their frail vessel would survive.

The worried Earthman drew the two women closer to him, warming and sheltering the girls as best he could from the rage of the tempest. But the screaming wind, master of their dreadful plight, seemed to deride his puny efforts as it swept the helpless aeronauts into the unknown and all its dangers.

Chapter 6: The Tower of Vor

The storm raged for many hours before its fury began to dissipate, but at last the late afternoon sun broke through the scudding clouds and the howling wind abated to a gentle breeze. Rutherford, soaked and shivering but at least now washed clean of the foul liquid in which he’d been drenched, gently freed himself from his two companions who had fallen into an exhausted sleep.

Standing on shaking legs the Earthman rubbed his limbs vigorously as he surveyed the countryside over which they drifted, and discovered the storm had blown them into the mountainous regions of the giant peninsula. Towering peaks soared above him, their pinnacles capped by snow and ice that gleamed with crimson highlights from the light of sunset, which also set afire their lower slopes clad in trees vastly different from those found upon the plains.

Rutherford’s eyes fixed on one of the huge forest giants which, like its brothers, clung to the sheer flanks with clawing roots. Its trunk was bare and branched only at the crown in the manner of a stag’s antlers, these being clad in leaves resembling pine needles but of a violet hue. The bark was smooth and white and the trunk was densely covered in ebony fruit the size of golf balls which made the tree look as if it was weeping oily tears.

As the haze of sleep cleared from Rutherford’s mind he saw a danger that jolted him with fear. The balloon was dangerously near the treetops - the hot air in its envelope had been cooled by the chilly rain despite Eyeusu having set the mechanism’s thermal output to maximum. And in addition to this threat the wind, though gentile was driving their craft inexorably towards the rugged mountainside against which they’d surely crash to ruin in but minutes.

Rutherford quickly shook the girls awake and explained the danger: “We either crash into the trees or the mountainside. Either way it’s a sheer drop. Eyeusu, can we climb above the range in time?”

The queen stood and appraised the towering heights and the apprehensive look upon her face dashed the Earthman’s hopes.

“The air in the floater’s envelope is warming, lifting us higher, but not fast enough. Besides, this range is so high that we’d die of cold and lack of air well before we could climb above it. No,” she continued worriedly, “the only option is to descend, but even so the mountainside is so steep here that it might as well be vertical.”

“Look,” said Niona, pointing. “There to the left and above us. Is that a building of some kind?”

Rutherford gazed at the structure. It was an immense flat topped, square tower that thrust up from the mountainside. It must have stood at least four hundred feet in height and two hundred in width, and where building and natural stone ended was impossible to say, for the structure seemed to have been hewn from a massive protuberance of blue-gray rock projecting vertically from the densely forested slope.

“The wind is carrying us in that direction,” observed Rutherford excitedly. “If the breeze holds and we time our rise carefully we might just be able to land upon its roof. It’s either that or we tumble to our deaths.”

Eyeusu agreed. She quickly made adjustments to the thermal generator. Niona prayed to her gods. Rutherford fixed his gaze on the looming tower. The wind held and they crept closer to their goal. Nearer and nearer they came in breathless expectation: twenty feet, then ten, then five. But just as safety seemed assured the fickle wind cruelly shifted. The balloon slowed, began to veer away.

Rutherford cursed vehemently. They were so close and now cruel fate sought to rob them of their only chance at life.

“We’ll have to jump,” he cried in utter desperation.

The girls saw there was no choice. They gripped the suspension cables of the gondola and balanced on the basket’s rim with Rutherford’s assistance. The Earthman sweated. The gap was widening with every passing second and his companions’ position was precarious.

“Now,” he yelled.

Both women leapt, caught the tower’s crenulations with clawing fingers and began to haul themselves to safety. Eyeusu gained the roof with a tremendous effort, collapsed breathlessly upon the stone. But Niona, more enfeebled by the chilling storm, hung weakly by palsied limbs shaking from the strain.

Spurring fear drove the girl. Desperately, Niona struggled up, slid back. She screamed in dread as she felt strength draining from her arms like flowing water.

“I can’t hold on,” she cried as her feet kicked mindlessly in terror. Rutherford felt sick as her frantic cries lashed him like a whip.

“Hang on,” he yelled as he hurled himself from the gondola in a wild leap.

Rutherford grunted as he struck the wall, his flingers hooking on the stone like raptor talons. He was now clinging to the parapet beside the rapidly weakening girl. His arm shot out to grab her. Niona lost her grip. Rutherford missed, swore. Again she screamed in wild fear, dangling by a single arm as the depths beneath her beckoned hungrily.

The sweating Earthman lunged again. Too late – she lost her hold completely and would have plunged to her death had not Eyeusu, now recovered, grabbed her hand and held on with desperate strength. The Queen groaned under the strain of Noina’s weight, both hands wrapped about the younger woman’s wrist.

“Hurry,” gasped Eyeusu as Rutherford frantically hauled himself upon the roof. The Earthman leapt to aid the queen. He grabbed Niona’s arm, and with Eyeusu’s help pulled the trembling girl to safety and eased her to the floor where she clung breathlessly to both her rescuers.

Slowly, Niona’s shaking limbs regained their strength and the girl her composure. “I owe both of you my life.” Then, turning to the queen: “It is not something I shall readily forget,” a comment that marked the beginnings of a change of attitude towards Eyeusu.

But as one danger ended another swiftly took its place. A groaning sound made the trio jerk around. They saw the roof’s heavy trapdoor being opened by a hairy hand. The panel fell upon the stone with a crash. Rutherford swore, leapt to his feet. A creature emerged. It climbed on the roof and was swiftly followed by four others of identical hideousness.

The Earthman threw a glance at the balloon, now too far away to reach. Turning quickly he surveyed the four monstrosities, which were the last things he had expected to encounter. They were squat and hairy, their coats being dirty gray in colour. Their faces were flat and bestial, the small eyes deep set and agleam with feral cunning. None wore clothes of any kind and all were distinctly male.

“What are they?” gasped Eyeusu as she shrank back from the disgusting sight.

“Trouble,” answered Rutherford emphatically.

The brutes, in wild conformation of his words, howled in savage cacophony. As one they charged towards the trio. The Earthman drew his dagger as a gibbering monster leapt at him, talons clawing for his throat. It screeched shrilly as he plunged his blade deep within its hairy chest. The thing fell and he slashed wildly at another as it sought to lay its brutish hands upon Niona. The monster shrieked. It stumbled back, clutching at the gaping wound in its side as the remaining three pounced on Rutherford simultaneously.

Rutherford struck out madly with his dagger, but a hairy hand caught his knife arm in a crushing hold. Both girls leapt to his aid, hurling themselves on the backs of his bestial attackers. The Earthman, wrestling with the creature who gripped his knife arm, kneed it in the groin. His foe howled, collapsed. The Earthman slit its throat, leaving only two creatures, each furiously struggling with the girls.

But as the tide of battle seemed to turn in favour of the trio, more hideous brutes exploded from the trapdoor. Rutherford spun around. Hirsute bodies slammed against him. The force of impact tore the dagger from his hand as he was swamped by half a dozen foemen. Eyeusu screamed as other beast-men laid groping hands upon her, and Niona added to her cries of horror as she, too, was mauled by their base assailants.

Sickened and dazed, the battered captives were brutally dragged towards the trapdoor and thrust within the tower. Cruel animalistic faces hooted at them, callous and indecent hands pulled and pushed them down a ladder. They were then driven along a corridor and through a series of passages with many doors until at last the prisoners, exhausted from the slapping and prodding of the fiends, were forced into a spacious room and hurled to the floor before a wall aglow with mysteriously flashing lights.

From the corner of his eye Rutherford saw the creatures kneel and prostrate themselves before the glowing wall as if in adoration of a pagan god. His shock deepened when a ghostly voice slithered through his brain – a voice heard not with his ears but directly with his mind.

“Leave the captives in my care and depart,” was the telepathic command.

The hairy brutes rose and shambled out in silence. A thick metal door slid closed behind them. Rutherford rose with an effort and looked warily about. But for the Earthman and his companions the room was unnervingly empty. Even so there was a presence here. He could feel it touching his mind – an alien intrusiveness that raised his nape hairs with preternatural dread, and made the two women draw near to him.

“Who are you and what do you want with us?” he asked defiantly, managing to keep the fear out of his voice as he warily swept the chamber with his probing gaze.

“I am Vor and I am master of this ancient citadel and of all who dwell within,” replied the mysterious mental voice, “but to understand what I am,” it continued, “I must tell you something of the lost history of the world.

“Three thousand years ago two mighty empires- Zadim and Urit - went to war in a battle for global domination. For four years they fought, locked in a titanic and bloody struggle that encompassed all the nations of the world. In the final days, though, the tide of battle began to turn against Zadim.

“In his desperation, or perhaps his madness, Manuris, Emperor of Zadim ordered his military to unleash a terrible weapon – the Purple Death as the pestilence was called. The consequences were completely devastating. The disease broke free of all control its creators had tried to put upon it and spread across the globe. The cities of friend and foe became charnel houses, and entire nations vast cemeteries.

“When the wise men of Urit saw that doom had come upon the world and that civilisation was crumbling into ruin, they created me as a repository of information so that the accumulated knowledge of millennia would not be lost.

“The end they foresaw came to pass. The world regressed into barbarism as the few survivors became nomadic savages. But I, Vor, did not degenerate. With the passing of the centuries my intellect developed as my self-evolving program made improvements to the point where consciousness eventually emerged.

“It has taken three thousand years for civilisation to arise from the ashes of the past, and I have concluded that people are not fit to rule themselves, for as I watched culture begin to flower once again, observing things through mechanisms orbiting the globe, I saw the foolishness of conflict being repeated – the petty wars between the city states. Therefore, being wiser and more logical than all of you I have appointed myself as master of your destiny, and would have imposed my will upon the world long ago but for the limitations of my limbless intellect. But now fate has brought you to me, and in the three of you I see the fruition of my plan.”

At the completion of Vor’s speech the trio stood in stunned silence for a moment. To the women it seemed as if they were in the presence of a supernatural being. Even to Eyeusu, who had a better understanding of the Ancient’s science than Niona, it seemed that the sentient machine before her was a thing more of magic than technology. Vor’s audacity also left them shocked – that all of Mars should be ruled by an inhuman thing of metal.

Rutherford was the first to recover. Though naturally amazed he wasn’t overawed and intimidated by the device before him, its telepathic abilities or the idea that an apparatus could be sufficiently complex to possess a human-like intelligence.

“I see,” replied Rutherford, furious at Vor’s arrogance. “So, we are your prisoners, your slaves. You are no better than a dictator of flesh and blood! Machines were made to serve Man,” he continued with incautious defiance, “not Man the machine. I demand you release us immediately. What do you want of us, anyway?”

“You can demand nothing,” replied Vor. “I am master here, but I will explain things for your elucidation. Those whom I sent to capture you are my retainers. They are the descendents of the men and women who made me. Unfortunately, isolated as this tower is, millennia of inbreeding had regressed them to a state little higher than the beasts by the time my consciousness developed.

“You three, on the other hand are sound of mind and body, and will serve as artificers as well as breeding stock for my new corps of servitors who will build the mechanism I have devised – a machine that will enable me to reshape the minds of everyone upon this planet – a broadcast beam of mental power that will spread out across the world like ripples upon a pond. It will eliminate irrational passions such as love, and stamp upon the minds of all my own pure reason uncontaminated by illogical desire.

“You monster,” cried Niona, no longer awed but horrified, “you soulless piece of metal. You’d destroy the very thing that makes us more than beasts. No,” continued the girl as she vigorously shook her head. “I refuse to co-operate.”

“I, too, refuse,” added Eyeusu, equally outraged. “What you plan is utterly degrading – to turn all of us into heartless automata. The very thought makes me sick with revulsion.”

“You have no choice,” replied Vor with mechanical imperturbably.

Rutherford blanched. Clearly, they were captives of a mechanical monster that sought to remake Man in its own cold image. But people, whether human or Martian, need love, required passion, even if these desires led them into folly. But this was something an emotionless machine, no matter how intelligent, would never understand, and with this realisation came sickening fear – every man, woman and child a mental clone of Vor. It would mean the death of love, the death of laughter and all the sentiments that gave life its fullest meaning.

“We’ll see about that,” snarled Rutherford furiously as he leapt for the glowing wall, intent on wrecking the exposed mechanisms with his bare hands in a desperate bid to foil Vor’s ruthless and dehumanising scheme.

But his valiant effort was doomed to failure from the start: A cobalt ray lanced down from the ceiling. The hissing beam enveloped Rutherford. Searing pain exploded in his brain. The Earthman screamed in utter agony. Both women cried in horror as he crashed upon the floor. The chamber’s door slid open. The savage brutes, summoned by the metal monster, charged within the room. They seized the girls and bore them to the alloy floor. Both women screamed in wild fear as vicious hands tore their clothes away.

Chapter 7: Bold Defiance

Rutherford lay in a small room, the chamber illuminated by a slanting ray of morning sunlight that pierced the single high window of the cell. Both women, still asleep, lay on either side of him, the marks of wild passion clear upon their bodies, but these signs of sexual fervour where not imprints of the metal monster’s bestial servitors.

The Earthman remembered the horrid scene – the brutes tearing at the girls’ apparel, their cries of terror and his own wild fear for them as he fought against the stabbing pain that held him helpless in its agonising grip. But Vor had other plans for the women and had cooled the brutal passions of his hairy slaves with telepathic shocks from his powerful electronic mind.

Thus cowed, the brutes, at their metal master’s command, bore the trio to the cell Rutherford now found himself within. Their ordeal, though, was far from over, for no sooner had their hairy captors locked the door behind them than a strange light burst forth from the ceiling and bathed all three in its shimmering unearthly glow.

What the nature of the strange radiation was Rutherford couldn’t even begin to guess, but that it had a dramatic effect on the sexual centres of the brain could not be doubted, for under its erotic influence all three became immediately aroused. A wild inferno of searing passion burnt away all inhibitions and left the trio in the grip of uncontrollable desire. What ensued was an untamed orgy that would have made the most reprobate of porn stars hotly blush.

Rutherford, hailing from a small country town with conservative mores, had little experience with women and therefore sex but now, after such a night, it was fair to say his knowledge was encyclopaedic. Under different circumstances the experience might have been one to remember for all the right reasons, but the Earthman knew the three of them had been manipulated by a ruthless inhuman intelligence that saw them as nothing more than breeding stock for slaves.

Additional fears beset Rutherford. He thought of the women and worried how they would react to the wild night in the sober light of morning. Would they feel violated and degraded, would they feel shame at what they’d done? Another thought came to him – could he father children to them considering they were aliens? At the moment Vor seemed willing to experiment, but what would happen if the trial was a failure, when the metal monster realised he was from another world? Rutherford went cold with sudden and dreadful realization – the ruthless monster would force the women to mate with its bestial servitors.

A sickening scene exploded in his brain – the naked women being pawed and brutalized, and their piercing screams of horrid agony. Rutherford suppressed a wild oath. He forced aside his outraged sensibilities. Escape was now imperative. Carefully, he disentangled himself from the sleeping women and commenced an exploration of the chamber starting with the heavy metal door, and as he pressed his palms against it the mental voice of Vor sounded loudly in his mind.

“Escape is impossible. Logic dictates you have no choice but to submit or face harsh punishment.”

Rutherford glared up in bold defiance and as he did his gaze fell upon a device that had just emerged from the centre of the ceiling – a silvery globe from which a black rod projected like the barrel of a gun, the whole device being mounted on a slender stem and articulated by several a ball and socket joints.

“But I sense you are still rebellious,” continued Vor. “The device you look upon brought you pleasure, but it can bring great pain as well, and it appears a further demonstration of my power is necessary to convince you of the futility of resistance. Observe and learn this lesson well.”

The machine swung upon the sleeping women. A ray of cobalt light erupted from its barrel and bathed them in searing radiance. They screamed, writhed in piercing agony. Rutherford swore. He made a running jump and leapt for the device, his powerful muscles aided by the lesser gravity of Mars. Up he shot like an arrow. With one hand he caught the sphere’s stem. The other he clamped upon the barrel and struggled to deflect the burning beam.

“Fool,” cried Vor with almost human vehemence. “You cannot thwart me.”

The cell’s door burst open. The metal monster’s savage club-armed henchmen charged within the room. With a surge of wild strength the desperate Earthman jerked around the barrel of the weapon so its hissing ray fell upon the wild mob. They howled as he swept the spitting beam across them. Vor screamed its frustration as its bestial servitors crashed in senseless heaps upon the floor.

The metal monster cut the ray, sought to retract the weapon. Rutherford cursed his foe. He swung up his feet, braced them against the ceiling and heaved with all his might as more screaming brutes burst within the cell. The thin stem snapped. The Earthman fell, twisted and landed on his feet as six gibbering foes charged him, their bestial countenances further marred by wild savagery.

Rutherford, desperate beyond description, swung the weapon like a club. He crushed one brute’s skull with the heavy sphere then smashed the foaming jaws of another in swift succession. The remaining four fell back and in the breathing space the panting Earthman threw a glance at the groaning girls. During the savage fray both had recovered somewhat from the ray’s debilitating effect and the Earthman urged them to their feet with a wild shout.

“Up,” he cried as he leapt at the remaining brutes. “Run for the open door.”

Both staggered to their feet as Rutherford fell upon his enemies in a storm of savage violence. Another hairy monster fell, its skull shattered like a crushed egg. Vor screamed mental commands. Rutherford, too dangerous, was now expendable. The surviving brutes hurled themselves at the Earthman, their clubs swinging in vicious blows.

Rutherford ducked one whistling mace and slammed his weapon in the creature’s groin. The brute screamed shrilly, fell. But a glancing blow to the head from another foeman dropped the Earthman to his knees. As the two remaining brutes raised their weapons to crush the dazed man’s skull both women threw themselves upon the foe and brought them crashing to the ground.

Rutherford groaned, saw stars and through the flashes he glimpsed both women clawing at their foemen’s eyes. The brutes were howling, Vor was mentally shouting orders. The bodies of those he’d rayed were stirring. In but moments the savages would be on their feet and rushing at them in overwhelming numbers.

The Earthman marshalled his dazed wits. Grimly he gripped his weapon and as he did he saw two sundered wires projecting from the sphere’s broken stem. Inspiration struck him. The Ancients’ devices he’d seen so far had their own independent power source. With an effort Rutherford lurched to his feet as one beast got Niona in a brutal stranglehold. The Earthman rushed to the girl’s defence. He pressed the barrel of his weapon to the creature and touched one wire to the other. It screamed in wild agony as the piercing beam lanced its brutish cranium. Then Rutherford dispatched Eyeusu’s foe with swift expediency, enabling her to cry a dire warning.

“To the rear,” yelled the queen as the sweating Earthman dragged the senseless brute off her.

He swiftly spun around. The mob who’d first burst within the room were on their feet and rushing at him with savage vehemence. Again Rutherford pressed one wire to the other and swept the hissing ray across the charging foe. They screamed in utter agony at its burning touch and fell like downed ninepins.

Rutherford stood breathing hard. He tremblingly wiped the sweat from his face and surveyed the senseless brutes. All was deathly quiet. Too quiet, for Vor had fallen silent. The metal monster was up to something. They hadn’t heard the last of it for sure.

The Earthman having caught his breath turned to his companions. Eyeusu was helping Niona to her feet. The girl looked shaken, but not badly injured.

Rutherford stepped close to the women. “We must destroy Vor,” he said in a low whisper, hoping whatever listening devices it had couldn’t hear him. “It is the brain. These brutes are merely its crude limbs that, without guidance, will be unable to attack us in a coordinated manner. Vor’s biggest weakness,” he continued, “is its overconfidence. Its experience of people has been confined to the degenerate creatures who serve it. We, on the other hand have all our wits about us, and that is a very great advantage.”

Both women nodded their agreement and the trio began to retrace as swiftly as caution permitted the route to the metal monster’s lair. The corridors were deserted and their passage wasn’t hindered in any way, a fact that made Rutherford even more suspicious, but even so all three realised there was no option other than to advance with utter wariness.

Shortly, they arrived at the entrance to Vor’s inner sanctum. The heavy metal door was closed, which came as no surprise to Rutherford as he raised his weapon and played the beam around the edges of the portal. Sparks leapt and crackled, wisps of smoke leaked from around the circumference of the jambs as the electric nature of the ray shorted circuitry and sprung the locking mechanism.

“Now,” thought Rutherford with dark pleasure, “we’ll beard the monster in its den.”

But his thoughts of sweet revenge for the indignities they’d suffered were soured by Niona’s warning cry, for the girl, upon his orders, had kept a sharp eye to their rear.

“Look,” she said. “More brutes are coming and they are strangely clad.”

Rutherford quickly turned and saw at least a dozen club armed creatures at the corridor’s further end, all wrapped in black swathes of what appeared to be synthetic cloth that made them look like animated mummies. The sight would have been ludicrous, reminiscent of a cheesy B-grade horror movie had the Earthman not sensed the hand of Vor at work, and the metal monster was no comedian.

The Earthman raised his weapon, fired. The hissing ray swept across the advancing brutes in a coruscation of leaping sparks, but the strange synthetic was insulating and the beam had no effect upon the wild mob. Rutherford swore. The savages hooted their derision. Emboldened, they charged towards the helpless trio, red murder and much worse flaming hotly in their glaring eyes.

Chapter 8: The Clash of Arms

“We’ll have to force the door,” cried Rutherford as the raging brutes rushed towards the trio.

All three threw their weight against the heavy portal. It gave a little. But the savages were ever nearer and howled in wild bloodlust as they bore down upon their cornered quarry with brutal eagerness. Their horrid cries lashed the trio to greater effort as they heaved upon the stubborn door. Rutherford threw a glance at the raging foe and hotly swore. The frenzied brutes were half way down the passageway and in but seconds would fall upon them in a tidal wave of remorseless viciousness.

The Earthman cursed them. He cursed the mulish door as he hurled his strength against it. Metal squealed. The barrier opened further. A hissing beam lanced through the two inch gap – Vor’s ray fired from within its inner sanctum. The burning shaft of light struck Eyeusu. She screamed, collapsed. Without her added strength the portal began to swiftly close as the rushing brutes, now mere yards away, prepared to fling themselves upon their helpless prey.

Rutherford sensed their only chance. He swiftly grabbed his weapon from the floor, jammed its barrel in the narrowing gap and fired. The ray struck Vor’s delicate mechanisms, pierced them through with a needle of blazing energy. A wave of telepathic pain and fury erupted from the metal monster as sparks exploded from its innards. Despite its vaunted logic Vor, under great duress, was not immune to outbursts of human-like emotion.

Outward rushed the Metal monster’s mental emanations, engulfing all within its sphere of horrid influence. Stabbing energy pierced the brain of Rutherford like a blazing lance of fire. The Earthman screamed, crashed upon the floor. His eyes rolled in their sockets. He howled, convulsed and his heels drummed a tattoo of agony in grim accompaniment to his curdling cries that were worthy of the torments of the damned.

Dimly, Rutherford realised what was happening – Vor was lashing out, hammering his reeling brain with psychic force in a desperate bid to kill him. The Earthman fought back in a wild struggle against the power threatening to overwhelm him. His mind locked with Vor’s. They grappled mentally, their minds swirling, tumbling in a savage and desperate psychic braw.

The extremity of the situation enabled Rutherford to tap those latent powers lying dormant in most of us. But even so he was immersed in a blinding sea of agony for what seemed an eternity of pain that left him longing for sweet oblivion. The Earthman could feel his consciousness crumbling under the onslaught; he could sense Vor’s almost human elation. Anger gripped him. He fought on with sheer determination. He couldn’t let this monster win. With a wild cry of pure defiance he gathered all his strength and thrust against the mental avalanche.

The spear of his mind slammed against Vor’s mental shield. The attack was blunted. Rutherford strained mightily, desperately. Despair came upon him. Hope seemed lost. Then he felt his opponent begin to weaken – the damage wrought by the ray was having its effect. The Earthman pressed home his attack. He felt the barrier give a little. The metal monster screamed. But Rutherford was also weakening; his body drenched in sweat. With a wild cry he threw every ounce of psychic strength against his enemy. His thrust plunged through; tearing into the very core of his opponents being.

Again Vor howled in pain and fear – a wailing high pitched cry that echoed in the Earthman’s mind like the torments of the damned. A giant bubble seemed to burst. Vor’s dying mind began to dissipate like windblown smoke, and with its passing the hellish torment gradually began to fade, leaving Rutherford as breathless and enfeebled as a geriatric centenarian.

For long minutes he lay in this helpless state until at last a semblance of strength crept into his debilitated limbs. Gradually, he roused himself and looked about. Vor’s bestial slaves lay strewn across the floor, their hairy bodies twisted, and their eyes staring blankly in necrotic dissolution. The girls lay next to him, unmoving. Fear gripped Rutherford. He crawled to his companions, felt for a pulse. Relief flooded him after agonizing moments of searching – both were still alive, their hearts beating steadily.

Niona groaned. She opened her eyes, staring blankly. Again wild fear beset Rutherford. Had she been mentally damaged by Vor’s psychic assault?

“Niona,” he cried as he patted her cheek. “Look at me. Speak to me.”

“What happened,” mumbled the girl as she came out of her daze and weakly looked about, her eyes focusing on Eyeusu who was also stirring.

Rutherford helped both girls to a sitting position, explained what had happened and concluded: “Vor’s servitors are dead, their minds blasted by the metal monster’s emanations. Their feeble brains, unlike ours, must have been more susceptible to its mental attack. I’d be surprised if any of the brutes in this tower are still alive.

“I hope you’re right,” replied Niona. “But it is a pity that all the knowledge Vor possessed has been lost with its destruction.”

“Copies of the data may have been stored on independent mechanisms,” suggested Rutherford. “I think the Ancients would have been wise enough to take precautions. But the most important thing at the moment is getting out of here. Vor has been destroyed as I surmise are all its servitors. But this place is filled with corpses that will soon begin to rot. It is pestilence that is now the major threat.”

Having said this Rutherford turned his attention to Eyeusu who had now, like Niona, recovered further from their tumultuous ordeal.

“Are you sure you can go on?” he worriedly asked the queen who had been sitting quietly listening to the conversation.

“Yes, I can because I must,” she replied. “And you are right,” continued Eyeusu. “We have to get out of here. I must return to my people as quickly as I can. By now Daru the usurper will be mere hours from Kalchal. When he finds Niona has escaped he will be furious and I cannot trust my stupid brother to use diplomacy and avoid a bloody conflict. It is sad, but good that we shall part as friends.”

“One friend does not allow another to face danger alone,” corrected Niona as she took the older woman’s hand. “We will come with you and I will have no arguments,” continued the girl with mock severity as she placed a finger against Eyeusu’s lips, for their experiences together had transformed disdain and rivalry to noble sentiment.

The matter settled, and realising that time was short, the trio made a swift exploration of the tower which, as Rutherford had predicted, was littered with the corpses of Vor’s brutish servitors. On the fifth floor of the complex they discovered food – fruits of the trees that clung to the mountainside. These viands satisfied their hunger, and large tanks of rainwater they also found quenched their thirst and enabled them to bathe.

Moving on they made their way by stairs through other levels filled with dioramas that depicted the triumphs of ancient Mars in all its lost glory – models of magnificent cities whose elegant buildings were a harmony of pastel shades. Artworks of numerous forms and styles were also represented – paintings and sculpture that were the equal of Earth’s greatest masters, and libraries of many books whose ancient cursive script was a mystery to the women. And as Rutherford cast his eye upon these wonders that had been saved from the collapse of an entire civilisation, he realised that the collection could only be a fraction of what was lost. At that thought a heavy sense of sadness came upon him, and in addition a burning anger at the madness and futility of war.

In the lowest floor of the tower Rutherford found what he hoped were flying mechanisms. The devices, along with clothing resembling a diver’s wetsuit, were housed in a transparent case that spanned the length of a room whose large doorway opened upon a landing platform reminiscent of a helipad, a sight that strengthened his suspicions that the machines he gazed upon were aerial conveyances similar to the rocket-packs he had read about on Earth.

Rutherford, after explaining his theory to his companions, opened the case and the trio, relieved they could now do something about their nudity, quickly donned the grey garments whose elastic material hugged their bodies like a second skin. The Earthman then turned his attention to the flying mechanisms, removed one from its mount and began a careful examination.

The device was a silvery rectangular prism the size of a large backpack, with one side contoured to fit the wearer’s spine. Two short rods projected horizontally at shoulder level, each tipped with a knurled sphere the size of a basket ball and composed of a material resembling frosted glass. Arm rests similar to those of a chair swept round from the sides of the device. A black joystick was mounted at the end of each, one having a yellow button on its tip.

Seeing there was nothing more to be learnt through examination, Rutherford donned the machine, which was fastened to the wearer using a harness similar to that of a parachute. Sensing his intent Niona stepped forward and laid a hand on his arm.

“Please be careful,” she cautioned worriedly. “Many have died whilst experimenting with the Ancient’s devices.” Then the girl threw her arms about the Earthman’s neck and kissed him passionately. “For luck,” explained Niona as she broke away.

“Well,” said Rutherford somewhat breathlessly, “If that’s not an incentive for a fellow not to get killed then I don’t know what is.”

“And a highly effective one from what I can see,” quipped Eyeusu, for the skin tight garment the Earthman wore clearly showed what effect Niona’s stirring kiss had had upon him.

Rutherford, rather embarrassed, laughed. But humour couldn’t hide the danger from anyone. He didn’t really know what he was doing. Who knew what would happen when he pressed the yellow button. The machine might be faulty from lack of servicing. It might short out and explode like a bomb, or hurl him to his death. That it wouldn’t power up was the least of his concerns.

“For the sake of safety I’d better test this outside. Both of you stay here,” he warned them soberly.

The two women stood by the door and watched anxiously as Rutherford walked towards the landing pad and halted in the centre of the platform. The Earthman looked up. Above him arched the early morning sky. Behind him the mountains loomed with imposing height, their peaks wreathed in a tracery of cloud.

“It’s a nice day to die,” he thought with grim humour.

Despite the coolness of the morning Rutherford found he was sweating. He took a deep calming breath to steady himself and pulled down the ventilated visor that was an integral part of his flying suit’s hood. The yellow button seemed to swell in his vision. He gripped the joysticks. His thumb hovered over the switch. With a silent prayer he pressed it. The machine hummed. The spherical mechanisms began to glow. A tingling sensation of power ran across his skin like scuttling spiders.

Steeling his nerves Rutherford carefully eased the joysticks back. The Earthman shot into the air. Rutherford uttered a string of profanities. It felt as if he was strapped to the outside of a moon rocket. Vor’s tower shrunk beneath his heels with terrifying swiftness. He tugged on the joysticks. Panic made him overcorrect. The flying pack hurtled towards the mountainside. Jagged rocks seemed to leap at Rutherford. Again he wrestled with the unfamiliar controls. The machine spun dizzily, plummeted towards the ground like a falling meteor.

Rutherford, nauseous and disorientated, fought desperately to right his horrifying plunge as the ground streaked towards him with terrifying swiftness. Then, when all hope seemed lost in the face of looming oblivion the mechanism’s autopilot kicked in and saved him from disaster. The flying pack slowed, righted itself and set him gently on the ground where he collapsed, his knees so weak he couldn't stand. With a trembling hand the Earthman opened his visor and retched. The sound of running feet made him look up. Both women were coming to his aid.

Niona flung her arms about him. “You could have been killed,” she sobbed. “I should never have let you take the risk.”

“My heart also nearly stopped with fear,” seconded Eyeusu. “I agree with Niona. The risk you’re taking is too great. You’re lucky to be alive. We’ll have to find another means of getting out of here.”

“I’ve no choice but to try again,” countered Rutherford shakily. “The mountainside is precipitous and far too dangerous to descend, and the distance to Kalchal too great to traverse on foot. That I’m still alive isn’t due to luck. It was the device that saved me. It must possess a mechanism that protects the pilot from his own stupidity.”

**********

It was now late afternoon and Rutherford looked down on Kalchal from a height of about a thousand feet. The Earthman had mastered the piloting of the flying pack as had his companions who hovered beside him, but this accomplishment was overshadowed by the brutal conflict playing out in a bloody drama on the ground below. Eyeusu’s worst fears had come to pass – Zalax, her brother, had mishandled the crisis and the enraged usurper was laying siege to the city.

Daru had come in force to both impress and intimidate the Yakkan. The city was ringed by a sea of warriors. There were huge troop carriers – mighty wagons drawn by teams of striders – and other machinery of war: Siege engines hurled roaring fireballs that exploded furiously against Kalchal’s earthen ramparts, setting alight the thorny shrubs that had been planted on their slopes to hinder an infantry assault, while other mechanisms cast a rain of hissing darts that fell in death-clouds from the sky.

A pall of smoke, bat-like in form, hung over the city, giving the unsettling impression of a hovering demon. In places the thorny shrubs had been burnt to ash and here, in the smouldering breaches, light bridges had been flung across the wide stake lined moat and over these stormed hoards of screaming Valayan warriors who were met with fierce resistance.

Even from this height Rutherford could hear the clash of arms, the tortured cries of the wounded and the dying. He saw an uaat hurl an incendiary sphere. The giant beast’s aim was true and the globe exploded against a bridge in an inferno of raging fire. Valayan warriors were engulfed by tongues of flame. Screaming in indescribable agony they tumbled from the burning bridge and into the dry moat, the lucky ones meeting a swift death on its impaling stakes.

But the invading force had been more successful at other points. There was fighting in the city. Many narrow streets, too narrow to permit the use of striders, were choked with the hacked corpses of Valayan and Yakkan. From the roofs of buildings Yakkan archers sent whistling flights of arrows into the packed Valayan soldiery, reaping a terrible and bloody harvest.

Undeterred, the invaders formed a roof with their rectangular shields and pushed forward into the heart of enemy. Civilians, men, women and even children were butchered; buildings were set alight, their leaping flames casting a hellish glow over the awful carnage. The whole terrible scene, clamorous with death and suffering, was a nightmare of brutality laid bare, and Rutherford was sickened to the core by the unbridled atrocities playing out beneath him.

“We must put an end to this,” cried Niona, her words tinged with horror as she voiced Rutherford’s unspoken sentiments. “Look,” continued the girl, pointing. “It is Daru’s standard. There, in the thick of the fray. If we can capture the usurper we can stop this mad slaughter.”

Rutherford saw the standard – a red banner marked with blue chevrons swaying at the head of a second invading column of infantry that had just merged with the first. Reinforced, and with Daru in the lead, the Valayans exploded into wild cheering. The usurper had many faults, but cowardice wasn’t one of them and his men, inspired by his bravery and prowess in battle, hurled themselves against the Yakkan with reckless ferocity.

Sword clashed against shield. Men fell, helmets cleaved to the jaw. Steaming gore ran brightly in the gutters. The defenders were thrown back in broken disarray by the savage onslaught and the wild foe. Howling bloodcurdling war-cries as they scented victory, the invaders burst into the heart of the city like swarming army ants, and began to overrun the palace complex in a welter of unbridled slaughter.

Eyeusu cursed. “Daru’s standard has disappeared within the palace, and when we find it we will find him also. Quickly,” continued the queen. “Follow me. I will lead you in by a safe route.” The queen touched the controls of her flying pack. She plunged like a diving falcon upon the palace.

Rutherford turned to Niona. “Stay here,” he ordered. But the girl, though afraid as was Eyeusu, would have none of it and followed her companions with unhesitating swiftness. The trio dropped towards an unglazed skylight in the building’s roof. The globes of the machines they wore blazed wildly to slow their meteoric fall. Eysusu peered cautiously within. The way was clear, but the clash of arms and the screams of the stricken warned her that danger was perilously near.

“All clear,” she said.

Rutherford nodded. He unhooked Vor’s weapon and dropped within the palace, recognising the layout as the two women landed next to him, gripping the clubs they’d taken from the tower. They were in one of the colonnaded halls that led to the main audience chamber. Up ahead he could hear the sound of a raging battle where a last stand was being made by the desperate defenders.

The grim trio raced up the passageway and swiftly came upon the savage melee. The audience chamber was a seething mob of screaming men who hacked at one another with wild violence. Blood ran upon the floor, body parts lay strewn about. The place looked like a madman’s slaughterhouse.

Upon the dais above this tumult two men were locked in brutal combat, their weapons a whirl of clashing steel. The fighters crashed together like wild bulls, sword locked against spear as they strove against each other. Zalax jerked up his knee. Daru blocked the stroke and smashed the heavy pommel of his sword against the Yakkan prince’s jaw. Zalax staggered back. Daru lunged. The prince screamed a single piercing cry and then pitched forward dead upon his face.

The Earthman fired his weapon, swept its ray across the raging warriors. Men screamed, fell in tumbled heaps upon the bloody floor. He swung the beam at Daru, the last man standing, but the wily usurper ducked the scything ray and hurled his sword at Rutherford. The whirling blade, swifter than the eye could follow, struck Vor’s weapon. Sparks exploded as hardened steel pierced the metal casing of the mechanism.

Shorted circuitry sent a jolt of force through the Earthman’s body. He screamed, crashed upon the floor. His last sight was of Daru snatching up another sword and charging at him, then smothering pain blotted out all consciousness and crushing darkness closed its ebon hand upon his reeling brain.

Chapter 9: Triumph and Tragedy

Rutherford regained consciousness. He lay on a sleeping mat in a darkened room, his body dully aching and his mind confused. His last coherent memory was of the battle in the audience chamber and of Daru rushing at him, wild murder stamped upon his harsh visage. Then darkness, then brief moments of lucidity blurred by agony – an elderly wizened face swam before his eyes and the bitter taste of a pungent liquid on his tongue, and after that lassitude and unconsciousness as the physician’s drugs began their healing work.

A deep feeling of unease stirred the Earthman to motion. This wasn’t the audience chamber. He’d been unconscious for some time. What had happened in that dark interval? Struggling to his feet Rutherford staggered to a ray of light slanting through a louvered window and flung the shutters wide. He looked out across the city bathed in early morning sunlight. The air was tainted with smoke, which still rose here and there from burnt out buildings. The narrow streets were filled with workmen and women quietly going about the grim task of digging the remaining bodies from collapsed houses and clearing the streets of rubble. In the distance the sounds of carpentry could be heard.

Below, a cart, drawn by tattooed priests rumbled passed, piled with the bodies of the slain and on its way to the Towers of Eternity. Here, in the towers outside the city, the corpses would be exposed to the elements, scavengers and process of decay. Then, after a year the skeletal remains would be collected, washed, and with due ceremony interred within the elaborate catacombs beneath Yakkan.

The Earthman leaned weakly against the sill. There was no sign of the Valayan warriors, but this fact didn’t relieve Rutherford’s increasing disquiet. With the Earthman’s fall and the destruction of his weapon there had been nothing to stop the usurper’s complete conquest of Yakkan. Why had Daru, now triumphant, withdrawn all his troops without further retribution upon his bested foes? From what Niona had told him it was out of character for the man.

Niona! Rutherford swiftly turned, swept the lavish chamber with his wild gaze. Sunlight disclosed that he was within Eyeusu’s private rooms, for the queen lay asleep upon a padded mat adjacent to his own, but of the younger woman there was no sign at all.

A jolt of wrenching fear, more terrible than a lightning bolt, shot through Rutherford’s entire being and left him sick and trembling with wild dread. Stumbling weak-kneed to Eyeusu he shook the queen awake. The woman opened her eyes. The Earthman, in his current state, hardly noticed the lines of tiredness and worry upon Eyeusu’s face. The queen had worked late into the night to deal with the crisis and its aftermath, and adding to her grief was Zalax’s demise, for despite everything he was nonetheless her brother.

“Niona,” he gasped anxiously. “Where is she?”

The queen, greatly relieved at Rutherford’s recovery, rose and placed her hand on his shoulder, and fear clutched the Earthman’s heart when he saw her troubled expression.

“She saved our lives,” explained Eyeusu. “As Daru raced towards you I leapt in front of him. Our weapons clashed as we came together. Sweat flew as we cut and thrust in a violent dance of whirling club and sword. But the usurper is a master of the blade. He bound my weapon with his own and sent it flying from my hand with a cunning twist; then kicked me with such force that I fell upon you. Daru would have killed the two of us, run us through with a single thrust, but Niona threw herself across our bodies and pleaded with him.”

Rutherford gasped. He gripped Eyeusu’s arms, causing her to wince. “What did she do?” he cried as his voice and limbs trembled with emotion. “For God’s sake tell me, what did she do?”

“She offered to become his willing bride if he spared your life and mine, and left Yakkan without further retribution. He agreed and so she went with him.”

The Earthman paled. He slumped heavily to the floor in the grip of an emotion of such intensity, the likes of which he’d never known before. Previously, his feelings for Niona had been largely suppressed by the constant dangers he’d had to focus on, dangers that left him little time for thoughtful introspection. Initially, he’d been attracted to the girl for she was uniquely beautiful, but as time passed these feelings had flowered beyond mere carnality to a love deep and meaningful.

And that she returned his love was clearly evidenced by her selfless sacrifice – to become the bride of Daru, the man she loathed, the murderer of her father so that he, Rutherford, might live. This and her absence brought home to him the true nature of his feelings, and he knew he could never rest until he held her in his arms once again.

“I’ve got to rescue her,” he said as he stood with resolute determination. “A raid by flying pack on Daru’s stronghold - that’s the answer, and damn the risk to hell... I suppose you think I’m completely mad,” he continued as he noted the downcast expression of the queen.

“Not at all,” replied Eyeusu. “Considering you love Niona I’d think less of you if you did nothing to try and save her from an evil fate. But Daru has taken all three flying-packs, the only means, as you rightly surmise that a rescue could be made.”

Rutherford cursed the usurper, whose actions were no doubt meant to foil this very possibility. “I have a flying machine of my own,” he admitted as he restlessly paced the floor. “But it lies near the ruins where Niona and I were captured. That’s a twenty six day journey by uaat, and I don’t think Daru, being eager to consolidate his rulership, will wait that long to consummate his marriage.”

“I can help you reach your machine,” said Eyeusu as she eagerly stood. “I have another captured strider, one taken in a previous skirmish with the Valayans. At top speed you can reach your goal in two days.”

Rutherford smiled. He grabbed the queen and kissed her. “You are a good and true friend” he said with deep sincerity.

“And Niona is a very lucky girl,” admitted Eyeusu somewhat enviously.

**********

Rutherford looked down through the Daedalus’ keel observation port. His journey, although made in a frenzy of speed, had seemed to take forever and he was beset by stabbing fears he was too late. Beneath him Valaya glittered in the noonday sun. The city had been built on the east bank of the Tharis River, a broad waterway that snaked between craggy tors that rose like hunched sentinels from the tree dotted landscape.

On the west bank the land sloped away to form a floodplain where the city’s crops were grown and fertilised by rich alluvia from the Tharis’ yearly inundation. The crops, called okis, resembled corn in general form, but with leaves of deep crimson mottled in yellow and huge thistle-like seedpods instead of ears sprouting from their stalks. Peasant villages dotted the fields, the thatched huts built on high stone platforms to raise them well above the annual flood, and on these platforms reed boats were stored in preparation for the coming deluge.

Valaya, the city proper, was primeval, older than the Purple Death – the great plague that had destroyed the antique civilizations of Mars. It was in fact a vast museum created by the Ancients as a kind of full size diorama to illustrate the prehistoric past, but one now restored and inhabited by their descendants who had transformed it to a living city.

Its time worn buildings were low, built of a reddish stone marbled in bluish veins, with many planned around a central colonnaded courtyard of elegant archways. The roofs were predominantly of blue tile and many of the facades were set with ornate mosaics whose bright hues had been mellowed to pastel shades by countless ages. Throughout the city parks, gardens and artificial lakes were set here and there like living jewels, the lakes being interconnected by canals lined with weeping trees, and across these canals graceful stone bridges arched.

The waterways were thick with pleasure craft, brightly painted and festooned with fragrant blossoms from the many flowering ornamental shrubs that lined Valaya’s broad and cobbled thoroughfares. Crowds walked the streets, gaily dressed and interspaced by musicians who played strange warbling melodies on even stranger instruments.

It appeared a festive scene, but Rutherford’s sharp eyes discerned that at every intersection stood a squad of warriors who observed the crowd with tense watchfulness. The Earthman nodded grimly to himself. The soldiers, the silent throng, sullen despite the holiday atmosphere all indicated that Daru’s grip on power was rather tenuous.

Rutherford reviewed what Niona had told him during their time together concerning the political situation in Valaya. Her father, King Unam, had been a good parent, but a poor monarch if he read rightly between the lines of what the girl had said. Bad blood existed between the king and Daru, who at the time had been thaykon, or general of Valaya’s army. Unrest stirred the ranks over paltry pay and Daru’s negotiations with the king had broken down, the promised money for increased wages having been appropriated to fund a lavish extension to the palace.

It was a fatal mistake on King Unam’s part, his arrogance blinding him to looming danger. The unrest grew and Daru, a ruthless and ambitious man whose bravery and prowess made him hugely popular among his warriors, used this discontent to his advantage and seized power in a bloody coup in which he slew the king.

Daru, with the backing of his men was victorious, but the city was divided in its loyalty – the warriors worshipped Daru; the civilian population adored Niona whose good works had done much to improve their lives, for unlike her father the girl had a social conscious that prompted her to generous acts of charity.

Rutherford brought his mind to the present. The crowd had gathered at the largest of the lakes where the Temple of the Seven Gods was situated. This building, strikingly different from the other structures, had been constructed of soft golden stone. It rested on a massive square base at least twenty feet in height and six hundred in length around which ran a frieze whose subject matter was the world’s creation rendered in meticulous detail.

Before the temple was an imposing staircase flanked by huge and striking statues of pyhae - cat-like beasts that were the guardians of mythical Juhar, city of the Gods. These stairs led to the entrance of the structure, which was divided into three stories with open loggias separated by heavy architraves. The deep balconies penetrated the mass of the building to render it elegant and light, with the whole surmounted by a single tower-roof resembling a stepped pyramid.

Rutherford, though, was blind to the beauty of the architecture, for on the temple’s portico stood Niona resplendent in her wedding robe of gold and scarlet, and by her side the hatchet faced usurper whose grin of gloating triumph was a sharp contrast to the girl’s ill concealed loathing. Her hands had been chained behind her back and there were bloody scratches on Daru’s face – the reason why she’d been cruelly manacled. Clearly, the wedding was a travesty of holy matrimony and Niona not the willing bride she’d sworn to be.

The awful sight roused within the Earthman’s breast a raging storm of untamed swirling passions – first relief that he’d arrived in time; then came savage desire to slay the swine who clasped Niona’s hand with base possessiveness, and then to carry her away with all the untrammelled fervour of a wild conquistador.

The Earthman’s expression grew more savage as the degenerate priest, one of the usurper’s lackeys and the only cleric prepared to perform the marriage ritual, stepped forward to commence the ceremony. Rutherford slammed the controls. The Daedalus plunged in a wild sweeping dive that scattered the squad of warriors before the steps. The panicked crowd likewise recoiled in tumultuous alarm as the ship circled sharply, decelerated and landed with a heavy thump upon the flagstones before the temple stairs.

Rutherford leapt from the ship, a modified sword clutched savagely in his fist. The broken bodies of warriors lay all about. Some had been struck down by the sweeping ship; others crushed beneath it. The throng, like stampeding cattle, were fleeing in mindless panic before what seemed to them a fearsome monster from the sky.

The Earthman ignored the bedlam and the gory carnage all around him. He raced up the steps and saw Daru dragging Niona to the shelter of the temple, the frightened priest bringing up the rear. A surviving wild-eyed warrior came at him, sword swinging. Rutherford slashed savagely at the man. He screamed, fell, blood spurting in a sickening fountain from his severed arm.

The usurper turned at the cry as did Niona. Their reactions were entirely different. Niona’s heart seemed to miss a beat. A gasp of fear for the Earthman burst from her lips. Daru snarled like a savage beast. He flung the girl into the arms of the priest, drew his ceremonial sword and shouted a command.

“Run,” cried Niona frantically as a squad of concealed bodyguards burst from the temple like raging lions and bore down upon the Earthman. “This is madness. Save yourself. I do not want you to die.”

Rutherford ignored her frenzied pleas, for the Earthman was neither mad nor a fool. A savage cut felled the foremost of the rushing foe. He dodged a second and drove the others off with a wild sweep of his spinning blade.

“I challenge you Daru,” he shouted in the breathing space. “Call off your warriors and fight me man to man, or do you lack the courage to face my steel? From what I see you’re vaunted bravery goes no further than abusing helpless women.”

The warriors hesitated. They looked to their leader for commands. Daru’s face was a bleak mask of utter rage, his hot temper flaring at these insulting words. In addition his wedding day – to him the moment of his triumph when union with Niona would consolidate his possession of the throne – had been ruined by this base born interloper whom he should have killed when he had the chance. Perhaps another man would have ordered Rutherford’s instant death, but the usurper’s overweening pride, which the Earthman’s desperate plan was based upon, wouldn’t allow him to ignore this provoking challenge, especially with the eyes of all upon him.

“Oh, yes,” he cried with eager savagery. “I’ll cross swords with you. I’ll cut you into a thousand pieces and make each piece die a thousand bloody deaths.” Then to his men: “Stand clear and do not interfere. I’ll soon be done with this outlandish oaf.”

“One moment,” said Rutherford loudly. “As challenger I have the right by Valayan custom to stipulate my victory prize: When I win Noina will be queen, and all your men must swear unwavering loyalty to her.”

“A dead man dictating terms,” observed Daru sarcastically as he flexed his sword arm in gleeful preparation. Then he laughed with contemptuous arrogance. “Your butchered corpse will soon be lying at my feet and your woman upon my sleeping mat, so it is an oath easily made.” Turning to one of his lieutenants he continued: “Hear my pledge,” he smirked. “If this man wins Niona will be queen and all my men her loyal servants. Now, go and see that it is proclaimed throughout the city.”

The fellow left at a run leaving the two men to face each other. Rutherford stepped forward, grimly determined. Daru advanced, a supercilious sneer of disdain stamped upon his harsh visage. “Prepare to see your lover die,” he hurled at Niona.

Niona sobbed, prayed, for she knew the usurper was a peerless master of the blade. A vision of Rutherford’s hacked corpse seared her consciousness. The girl struggled wildly in the wiry arms of the priest as she tried to free herself to aid the Earthman. She stamped her heel upon the cleric’s sandaled foot in utter desperation. The man howled. Niona broke free, dashed forward. The priest recovered, leapt upon her. Both crashed to the ground, the cursing cleric struggling to subdue the frenzied girl.

Rutherford cursed at the sight. Distracted, he nearly fell to Daru’s thrust, barely leaping clear in time. The usurper laughed gleefully, struck again. Steel rang against steel as Rutherford blocked the savage stroke. Daru swore in surprise. Rutherford had modified his sword – there were tines cut into its forte and with these he had cleverly trapped his opponent’s blade.

A savage twist of Rutherford’s Earthly muscles wrenched Daru’s sword from his grasp and sent it flying. The Earthman, with a wild cry of triumph, hacked vehemently at his opponent. But the usurper wasn’t so easily killed. He ducked the brutal blow and dived at Rutherford’s legs in a tackle worthy of a grid iron player. Both men went down. They hit the temple’s platform hard. The Earthman’s sword clattered to the stones. Rutherford lunged for it. Daru sprang upon his back, clawing at his throat.

The Earthman rammed an elbow into Daru’s ribs. The man howled, fell away. Rutherford snatched up the sword. He lurched erect. Daru stared death in the face – Rutherford’s face. The Earthman raised his sword. The wild expression on his countenance sent a shaft of unnerving fear through his opponent. The usurper’s men gasped, bound helpless by their commander’s orders. But their wily master saw an opening - no such binds had been placed upon the priest.

“Rape the girl, Ukos” he cried desperately to the cleric as he scrabbled towards his fallen weapon.

The degenerate priest, Ukos, was only too eager to comply, for ravishment was his predilection.

Rutherford swore violently as the grinning cleric jerked Niona’s gown above her hips - the distraction Daru wanted so urgently. The usurper grabbed his sword, rushed at Rutherford as the Earthman leapt towards the screaming, struggling girl. The priest saw him coming. He paled, fled. Daru swung his sword at Rutherford’s unprotected back.

“Look out,” cried Niona.

Rutherford spun about. Off balance, he blocked the cleaving stroke. But the force of the wild blow sent him crashing to the ground. Daru laughed madly, raised his blade. Niona lashed out. Her heels struck the usurper’s shin. Daru howled, tumbled. Rutherford leapt on him with the ferocity of a deranged tiger. He wrapped both hands about the usurper’s throat, shoved a knee into his back and hauled.

Daru’s eyes bulged. He clawed desperately at Rutherford’s hands. But the Earthman’s strength was amplified by raging fury at the debased fiend. With a cry more bestial than human Rutherford threw all his power into one final mighty heave that bent his foe’s spine like a bow. There was an audible crack reminiscent of a snapping branch. Daru’s breath rattled in his throat. His tongue protruded. The usurper’s glassy eyes rolled back. Then Rutherford released his hold and the body fell, now as lifeless as the stones it crashed upon.

**********

Rutherford lay on the lavish sleeping mat in Niona’s private chambers, her boudoir illuminated by starlight falling through an arched window. A month had passed since the battle on the temple’s portico – a month of hectic activity sorting out the mess Daru’s misrule had made, for the usurper had imprisoned many loyal ministers who refused to serve him, and replaced these faithful men and women with inexperienced and sycophantic lackeys.

The coronation had happened within a couple of days of Daru’s death. Niona was now queen and her newly appointed thaykon had sworn his oath of fealty as had the other officers under his command, for Niona’s swift redress of their grievances had quickly won the men’s approval and stopped all grumbling in the ranks, as had her proclamation of an amnesty as further reassurance.

Rutherford and Niona were now married. The wedding ceremony had taken place earlier in the day upon the temple’s portico before the cheering populace. No warriors were in sight for the joyful people adored their queen and were eager to see her married to the man who’d won her love and saved her from a thousand perils.

The remainder of the day had been occupied with elaborate festivities that Rutherford found rather tiresome, for naturally the Earthman was eager for the privacy all lovers crave, especially since Valayan custom required celibacy for a month before the marriage rituals could occur – a practice that he, unlike Daru, had been willing to respect. For him the only highlight in the tedious celebrations had been the arrival of Eyeusu, who joyously congratulated the happy couple and wished the blessings of the gods upon them.

Now, as he waited eagerly for Niona to complete her ablutions, his thoughts turned to his father and he was touched by sadness that the man wasn’t here to share his joy. Rutherford turned his head and gazed through the window, thinking of Earth. He had set out to clear his father’s name, to make those who considered him a fool eat their distasteful words. But his love for Niona held him here and home is where the heart is as the saying goes. Besides, what would happen if he revealed his accomplishment to the world? More ships would be built. More adventurers would come, some to study purely for the love of knowledge, but others would be less noble, he was sure.

Mars was ripe for exploitation. Her culture was largely medieval. She had no chance against Earth’s weapons and the people here weren’t human. Rutherford thought of the slave trade and its bitter legacy of oppressive racial discrimination that still divided modern societies. The last thing he wanted was to see such evils perpetrated here.

No, when the people of Mars and Earth met it would have to be on an equal footing. Rutherford thought of Vor’s citadel and its treasure trove of ancient Martian science. With his help perhaps the people of this world could regain their lost heritage. But that was something for the future, for these thoughts receded at the sight of Niona stepping from the adjoining bathing chamber – an ornate affair of gild-work, marble-like stone and mosaics.

The girl was clad in a filmy robe. Behind her the light of oil lamps shone through the translucent material, silhouetting her shapely form. Smiling, she moved towards him. Niona knelt. The robe slipped from her shoulders and her unadorned beauty took his breath away. Rutherford reached up and gently drew her to him, and all his worries vanished in her sweet embrace.

THE END