Author: Kirk Straughen
Synopsis: A pulp style science fiction adventure in which the Earth is attacked by unknown aliens. Backyard spaceships, pursuit and strange perils on other worlds await our daring adventurers who seek revenge for the destruction of their planet.
Edit history: Minor changes were made to this story on 29 June 2021.
Scourge from the Beyond is space opera inspired by the spirit of pulp era science fiction, and is set in an alternative universe where some of the other planets in our solar system are inhabited worlds. Space opera, for those who may not know, is defined as a subgenre of science fiction which is characterized by romantic and often melodramatic elements together with conflicts between intelligent species possessing advanced technology.
These stories are pure escapism written entirely for their entertainment value rather than being serious attempts by futurists to explore the effects of science and technology on the development of civilization. So, if it’s rollicking adventure you desire on exotic worlds with perils aplenty then read on if you dare.
Elliott Clayton stood in a quiet and reflective mood as he gazed at the moonlight tinged steel hull of the Ahura - the strange craft he’d helped his uncle build. The ship, whose name was derived from the winged god of the ancient Persians – Ahura Mazda, was the culmination of Professor John Lamont’s decade’s long research and experiments in theoretical physics.
The vessel, whose form was that of a gleaming geodesic polyhedron, measured one hundred and fifty feet in diameter. It rested on its tripod legs within his uncle’s barn-like workshop, the roof of which had been slid open in preparation for their maiden test flight beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
A faint humming came from the Ahura’s open port – his uncle, the professor, was within the craft warming up the ship’s drive coils. Clayton had only a sketchy knowledge of how the vessel operated, for the abstruse mind-bending mathematics behind its principles was too complex for him to grasp in all but its most basic form.
Negative energy, he knew, was the ship’s fundamental operating force. In 1928 British physicist Paul Dirac proposed that electrons could have either positive or negative kinetic energy. However, in the normal state of affairs the positive and negative energy of quantum states balances, so the effects of negative energy go unobserved.
His uncle, however, had found a way to unbalance Nature’s forces and create a bubble of negative energy around an object. Space-time in front of the negative energy bubble would contract while behind it would expand. A vehicle thus encapsulated would remain stationary while the universe moved around it, thus achieving superluminal acceleration without violating Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which showed nothing can exceed light speed.
That was the theory, anyway. But would it work? Clayton didn’t know. His uncle was brilliant, but eccentric and driven by what to the young man was an obsession with spaceflight. Clayton, a mechanical engineer by profession was a practical man. He had of course knowledge of physics as it applied to his vocation, but the esoteric mathematics of his uncle seemed to him to border on the metaphysical.
Over the past five years he’d helped the professor construct Ahura whenever he had the time on weekends and holidays. Five years is a fair chunk of time, especially for a young man of twenty six, but he felt he owed his uncle quite a bit. Clayton had been orphaned at the tender age of five when both his parents were tragically killed in a car accident.
His uncle had taken him in, had raised and educated him, had been a father to him in all conceivable ways. Clayton felt it was the least he could do to help the man, to lend him his time and the use of his practical skills to build the ship, to try and make his uncle’s vision become reality.
A movement in the sky drew the young man’s gaze. Above him was a glowing sphere of sizzling light that looked like ball lightning – that unexplained atmospheric electrical phenomenon that sometimes manifests during thunderstorms, but lasts considerably longer than the brief flash of ordinary lightning.
A chill ran up Clayton’s spine at the sight of it. The weather over the past month had been unusually stormy, and it wasn’t the first time he’d seen the strange unnerving lights. Indeed, on several occasions one of the enigmatic spheres had floated through an open window and drifted around the workshop, seemingly to inspect the construction of the craft.
Clayton, moved by what upon reflection appeared completely irrational – the thing seemed alive, brimming with sinister sentience - had on both occasions hurled a spanner at the globe. The spheres had burst with a hissing crackle, leaving behind a lingering sulfurous odor, and the fading sense of an alien presence.
Strangely, the sky was free of storm clouds on this occasion. The moon was full and the stars clear and bright. Again, an eerie feeling of menace came upon him at the sight of the drifting globe, and he shivered slightly though it was a mild evening.
The sound of his uncle’s voice broke through his unsettled thoughts: “I’ve finished earlier than anticipated, Elliott. Come aboard. There’s no reason why we can’t be on our way, and I’m eager to make a start.”
Clayton smiled at the sight of Professor Lamont’s bearded and kindly visage peering at him from the open port. The man was in his early seventies, but surprisingly spry for his age. His rangy body disappeared within the craft and Clayton followed, throwing a final glance skyward before hauling in the retractable ladder and sealing the lock. The sinister sphere had gone, and again the young man was possessed by an uncanny feeling that it had been watching, like a cat ready to pounce.
Pushing aside the thought he climbed the longer slanting ladder to the centre of the ship where the flight deck was situated – a circular space twelve feet across that was jammed with gauges, meters, switches and glowing indicator lights that looked like a surrealist’s version of electronics.
Clayton took his seat with mixed feelings – hope that the craft would work, and fear that it wouldn’t. There were no reporters to see them off, no observers of any kind. The professor was a secretive man by nature and shunned publicity. Perhaps it was just as well.
His uncle, who was considerably absorbed in flicking switches, pushing buttons and monitoring instruments, gave a brief grin in acknowledgement of Clayton’s arrival. The young man turned his attention to his appointed task – to keep his eye on the power level indicators, and to report any dangerous fluctuations in the output of the experimental generator.
Uneventful minutes passed. No movement in the craft could be sensed, no vibration felt. It seemed they were still firmly upon the ground. Clayton felt disappointed for his uncle. Lamont had been so certain that the ship would work, and he wondered how he’d deal with abject failure after so much time and effort had been futilely expended. He was wondering how to broach the subject when his uncle did it for him.
“We’ve reached 30,000 feet,” announced Lamont, grinning boyishly with an unbridled enthusiasm that made him look years younger.
“What?” gasped Clayton, considerably amazed. “We’re moving? But I don’t feel any acceleration.”
“As I’ve explained before,” replied Lamont, patiently. “It’s the space-time around the ship that’s moving - like a conveyer belt bearing objects past us. The Ahura is in a sense stationary, and that is why there isn’t any sensation of motion.”
The professor swung a binocular-like instrument before his nephew. “See for yourself,” he continued. “Look through the viewer.”
Clayton gazed into the eyepieces and was staggered by what he saw. The night shrouded landscape was far below them – a patchwork of farmland and the glow of lights from rural towns. The scene was blurred, as if looking through a heat haze, by the ship’s negative energy field. Suddenly, the reality of his situation came upon him in a rush. Before, Clayton had hoped but not really believed the ship would work – it all seemed too fantastic to be capable of success, like expecting a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
But now it was reality. They would be the first men in space, the first to conquer the void and put the stars within humanity’s reach. It was an astounding achievement and a historic moment for all Mankind.
A sudden flare of light dazzled Clayton and dashed his elation. He gasped and jerked his eyes away from the viewer.
“What’s wrong?” asked Lamont in alarm.
“I’m all right,” replied Clayton as he shook his head and blinked away tears. “There was a tremendous flash of light on the ground. I’m okay now. Have a look, but be careful.”
Lamont took the viewer, slid a filter in place and gazed through the instrument.
“Dear God,” he cried in wild alarm. “There’s another flash, and another.” He looked at Clayton, his face pale and haggard. “Vast explosions! Dear God, we’re in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Cold War has suddenly become white hot.”
“Are you sure?” asked Clayton breathlessly, not wishing to believe Armageddon was erupting beneath them – millions of lives, entire cities being vaporized by atomic fire hotter than the sun.
“I’ll take us into orbit,” replied Lamont shakily. “We’ll get a view of the entire continent. If nuclear explosions are going off everywhere then we’ll know the end is truly upon us.”
Tense seconds passed as the ship gained the required altitude. Clayton, his vision recovered, peered through the viewer, rived by indescribable apprehension. The North American continent lay beneath them, the landmass aglow with city lights.
“All seems normal,” observed Clayton, vastly relieved. “There’s no sign of any other explosions,” he continued as he maintained his scrutiny. “If this was the Unthinkable, then the Russians would launch an all out attack. They wouldn’t drop a couple of A-bombs and leave it at that.”
Clayton stiffened. “Wait!” he gasped. “I see something,” he continued unsteadily. “I’ll increase the magnification… Dear God,” he cried. “Spaceships of some kind – twelve fluted cylinders tapering at both ends with fan-like structures protruding laterally on either side. Why… why it’s incredible! The hull of each ship is faceted like a gemstone. Unbelievable! They’re crystals – titanic emerald hued crystals surrounded by auras of golden light. They’re using green rays to tow something. It… it looks like an asteroid – a crater pitted mass of dark rock. Lord, it must be at least six miles across. The green rays have winked out, the asteroid is tumbling.” Clayton swore. “It’s going to hit the Earth!”
Lamont grabbed the viewer, looked into it. Horror stricken he saw the plunging mass begin to glow as it entered the atmosphere. Fragments broke off, scattered like blazing pellets from a demonic shotgun. Then the main body hit and the kinetic energy of its vast mass was converted in an instant to a titanic, world shaking explosion.
Debris billowed upwards in a mushroom cloud that made the most potent nuclear weapon look like a firecracker. Rocks the size of skyscrapers were hurled into space. Lamont, a normally placid man, swore violently as one huge mass hurtled passed them in a narrow miss, while below the scene was blotted out by an expanding cloud that swept around the world in a wave of superheated gas that would soon choke the globe in impenetrable darkness.
Lamont quickly moved their frail craft to a safer distance, and hid from the alien vessels within the shielding cleft of an orbiting mass of jagged rock thrown up by the cataclysmic blast. Over the passing hours the horrified men watched the destruction of their world unfold. From space most of the rocky debris began falling back to Earth, creating a burning rain of glowing fireballs that hammered the world in a hail of blazing destruction. Vast firestorms, fanned by raging winds blazed uncontrollably, incinerating huge areas. The scene below with its roiling inky clouds that glowed in patches like smoldering coals was a medieval vision of darkest Hell.
When the last of the fireballs ceased to fall, both men sat numbly, staring vacantly at nothing in particular, emotionally exhausted from the horror of it all. The world was in ruins. Uncountable numbers were dead, cities utterly destroyed and among them friends and family. The entire planet would be wrapped in an obscuring morass of dust and smoke for weeks, possibly months. The lack of sunlight would kill many plants and disrupt the food chain. Those who hadn’t died instantly would face starvation. Out of the teeming millions of humanity there would be very few survivors. Civilization, as we understand it, had ended.
Clayton at last broke the oppressive silence: “We have to do something, he said, groping for ideas in the face of unimaginable disaster. “Mount a rescue mission… if there is anyone left to rescue.”
“And where would we take the survivors?” replied his uncle, despondently. “We need a safe haven for the remnants of humanity. Those alien ships might return to finish off the few who are left. Earth isn’t safe anymore. Oh, why did they attack us – this murder of a world… “Horrible,” he gasped, his voice trembling. “It’s like a nightmare from which one can’t awake.”
With sudden insight the disturbing answer came to Clayton. “That ball lightening,” he heavily began. “Remember how I said it seemed watchful – like a weird window through which an inhuman intelligence was looking.
“Well I think my fancy was closer to the truth than either of us imagined. We’ve been under surveillance for some time, even though you’ve kept our project secret. Something alerted these aliens to the fact we were developing space travel more advanced than primitive rockets– perhaps negative energy radiation from our drive coils when we were testing them.
“No doubt they saw us as a threat and attacked us, fearing we’d build a fleet of ships and invade their world – we’ve atomic weapons, and they’ve plenty of evidence of how warlike we are. The first attack was intended to destroy our ship before we got off the ground, and they would have succeeded, too, if we hadn’t left unexpectedly. The attack on Earth was to make doubly sure the threat was completely eliminated – we’ve reached a stage where we can harness negative energy, and if one person can make the breakthrough, then others can.”
Lamont hung his head dejectedly, “Then it’s my fault,” he murmured, stricken with guilt and despair.
“Don’t ever think that Uncle John,” replied Clayton as he stood and placed a comforting hand on the other’s shoulder. “If you hadn’t discovered the secret of harnessing negative energy someone else would have. It was only a matter of time.
“Now isn’t the moment for remorse,” continued Clayton, rising anger transforming his grief to steely resolve. “We must save what we can of Humanity. But first we have to locate these aliens and utterly exterminate them; otherwise all our efforts will be doomed to failure as long as the threat remains.”
“Yes, I guess you’re right, at least in part,” replied Lamont after some moments of thought. “I don’t like killing, but if it means saving Humanity then I suppose we must. But I draw the line at genocide,” he said firmly. “I’ve lived through the war. I’ve see what the Nazi’s did. I won’t have the blood of an entire race on my hands, even if it is alien blood.”
Clayton opened his mouth to utter a hot retort, but then caught himself in time. Wasn’t he making the same mistake the aliens had made – believing that it was necessary to eliminate an entire species. He closed his mouth, shamefaced at giving way to the base desire for blind vengeance, and listened to his uncle’s concluding remarks:
“The last glimpse I had of those ships - they appeared bound for Mars. We’ve long known the fourth planet is more than likely a living world. Its blue seas were visible even in the early telescopes. We’ll commence our search there, though I don’t know what we can realistically do. There isn’t even a revolver aboard this ship.”
**********
Within two hours - so fast was the stupendous speed of their craft - Mars hung beneath the Ahura, the planet’s swelling globe filling the viewer’s entire optic field, and through the instrument Clayton could clearly see fine details heretofore hidden from the best of Earth’s observatories.
Daylight glinted off the planet’s equatorial ocean and sparkled on huge lakes in the cloud laced continents of both hemispheres. The ruddiness of the world, originally thought to be mostly desert, proved at closer range to be crimson vegetation, the exact nature of which was still indeterminate due to distance. The polar icecaps were more extensive than those of Earth for Mars, being further from the sun, is a cooler world. During winter snow fell at the tropics of the globe.
The Ahura cautiously entered the atmosphere of Mars. Clayton’s eyes were tensely glued to the viewer, but no alien craft rose to challenge their intrusion, much to his relief. They continued their wary descent. Coastal habitations came into view, enlarged with closing distance - walled cities of pale blue stone veined with black, domed and ornamented with spires and minaret-like towers, and in their harbors were sailing ships of strange design - vessels that looked like an outlandish cross between a catamaran and a Spanish galleon.
Clayton reported his observations and made the following conclusions based on what he’d seen: “There’s no sign of advanced technology. The walled cities suggest a pre-scientific culture as do the many sailing ships. I think we can be fairly sure the aliens that attacked Earth didn’t come from here.”
“Nevertheless, we’ll land and investigate,” replied his uncle. “On Earth primitive cultures exist contemporaneously with New York, London, Rome and Paris. This area might be a backwater of the planet. Besides, we need to re-provision the ship. This was supposed to be a mere test flight, not an extended voyage.”
Clayton agreed, and both men commenced the landing sequence that brought the Ahura to the surface of Mars. They touched down several miles from the largest city they had so far sighted, concealing the ship in a grove of strange trees. Tests revealed a breathable atmosphere. The carbon dioxide levels were considerably higher than on Earth and the air pressure lower, but the ratio of other gases was about the same. They could survive, and that meant the planet could also be a refuge for the remnants of humanity.
Lamont cracked the seal of the airlock and both men stepped onto the surface of an alien world. It was a thrilling moment, but one sadly tempered by the disaster that had struck Earth and the desperate and seemingly hopeless nature of their mission. Their most immediate need was supplies, and with this in mind Clayton began to examine the surrounding vegetation as a possible source of food.
Strange trees, whose average height was about sixty feet, met his gaze. The thick trunks were dark gray and warty, and were braced by a pyramidal tract of thick prop roots. The boles ramified into multiple crowns whose large leaves were strap-like spiraling forms variegated in deep red, ebony and vivid yellow. The growths were heavy with dark purple fruit, almost black in hue. The potential viands, each about the size of a papaya, were pinecone like in form with a scaly rind.
There was no grass to be seen. Beneath Clayton’s feet was the ubiquitous Martian equivalent – a dense creeping, sprawling mass of tough leathery leaves that were set in close spirals upon their stems. The low growth, studded with blue star-shaped flowers, carpeted the glade with its crimson foliage, spread through the grove and spilled onto the plains beyond.
Feeling hungry, Clayton was about to pick one of the low hanging cone-like fruits, but before he could take a step a strange woman with silver skin materialized before him with all the suddenness of a magical illusion. He gasped and started in shock, not only from her strange and completely unexpected appearance, but also from the fact she was totally nude.
He heard an accompanying cry of astonishment from his uncle, then a yell of alarm as three other amazons suddenly appeared in the same disconcerting manner and leapt at the explorers with all the fierceness of enraged demons.
Clayton’s assailant tried to rake his eyes. He caught her hand. Horror came upon the Earthman. Retractable cat-like claws had sprung from her fingertips – venom dripping talons. He managed to grab her other wrist. They grappled desperately, the man amazed at the strength of his slim opponent. He managed to head butt the woman, then sent her crashing to the ground with a solid right to the jaw. But no sooner had his erstwhile opponent hit the soil than another leapt at him. Again he was battling madly and desperately with a wild woman who was all teeth and claws.
Lamont’s agonized cry wrenched Clayton’s head around. Fear thrust him through. The other women had set upon his uncle. The professor was down, bleeding from a dozen claw marks. The distracting, horrifying sight proved the Earthman’s swift undoing. His assailant broke free, struck in a swift and savage attack.
Clayton swore as razor claws slashed his arm. Burning pain struck him. He staggered back and in a panic and tried to suck the venom from his wound. Too late – sudden weakness drained his strength. He tottered dizzily. His legs buckled, he fell. The last thing he saw as consciousness frighteningly ebbed was his victor standing over him, a look of wild triumph upon her silvery countenance.
When Clayton regained consciousness he found he’d been stripped of all apparel and that his hands had been tied securely behind his back. He turned his head and saw his uncle lying next to him in the same state of helplessness. The professor was breathing, but still unconscious due to the larger dose of venom he’d received. Both Earthmen were very lucky that the chemical was an anesthetizing agent and not a deadly toxin.
Relieved his uncle was still alive Clayton turned his attention to their captors who were milling about the ship, clearly puzzled as to what it was. None appeared to have entered the craft even though the port was open, and the Earthman correctly guessed they were somewhat fearful of it, which he found rather strange considering the fierceness they displayed in their attack.
As he scrutinized them he saw their anatomy and proportions approximated those of Earthly women. All were tall, easily matching Clayton’s six foot stature. Their faces were elfin in appearance and their figures slim and athletic in build, and their eyebrows and eyelashes were as transparent as glass. The silver growth on their heads, however, wasn’t hair. The shoulder length ropy appendages were pencil thick and writhed like a mass of serpents. It was an unsettling sight – one that made Clayton’s skin craw in revulsion.
He saw only three women and looked around for the fourth – the one he’d knocked unconscious. She lay some distance away, her throat cut from ear to ear; her blue blood soaking the earth. Clayton swore at the sickening sight. He knew it wasn’t his hand that had slain her. He could only surmise she’d been killed by the other amazons, possibly because she’d been defeated by a man.
One of the women saw that he was conscious. The group approached. Not a word had been spoken, but Clayton sensed that in some strange way they were in communication with each other. Three pairs of silver eyes stared at him. The ropy pseudo-hair upon their heads rose up and fanned out in wavering unnerving halos. He felt a multitude of thoughts pressing in upon his mind.
Clayton reeled under the psychic onslaught of the three. It was as if a torrent of probing questions were being hurled at him all at once, as if he was in the midst of a vast shouting crowd. Clayton collapsed back upon his side, gasping with the shocking force of the intrusion into the innermost recesses of his brain.
“Enough,” he cried as he writhed in agony. “I can’t stand it. I’ll go mad.”
The voices withdrew, leaving him panting and shaken from the experience. He felt as if his brain had been rifled in the way a burglar might carelessly ransack his victim’s home in search of valuables. Clayton sensed that the information his captors had been looking for had been purloined. He was glad his uncle had been spared this violation.
A woman prodded the professor with her toe. The man gasped, jerked awake. “What… what?” he muttered confusedly.
“It’s all right Uncle John,” reassured Clayton. “Neither of us has been badly hurt. But we are captives of these strange women. Best do as they want and hope for the best. We don’t appear to be in any immediate danger.”
Lamont grunted his assent. Both men were hauled to their feet and forced down a trail that snaked its way through the grove, their captors callously leaving the corpse of their fellow amazon where it lay. It was now apparent that the landing site the Earthmen had chosen was frequented by the people of the city, and Clayton silently cursed their ill fortune.
They stopped briefly so their captors could don the clothes and armament they’d concealed behind some bushes and collect the sacks of fruit they had picked. The women’s garments were simple sleeveless dresses, black in hue and daringly short in Clayton’s eyes, even more so as they were slit on both sides to the hip. Their footwear consisted of laced sandals that crisscrossed to the calves, and their weapons were broad short-swords of steel with basket hilts.
“How do you suppose they sprang out of nowhere, Uncle John?” asked Clayton as he watched the women unselfconsciously dress. “It can’t be a trick of advanced technology. Those short-swords of theirs are practically medieval.”
“Invisibility,” replied the professor, embarrassed by the all-round nudity and wishing that he, too, could make himself disappear. “See how their skins sparkle, as if dusted with minute prisms. They must be able to voluntary control the epidermis layer so that light is refracted around their bodies. It’s a marvelous adaptation, a form of camouflage that helps then stalk their prey. That’s why they had to strip – the only thing they can make vanish is their flesh.”
The woman, having donned their raiment, prodded their captives onwards. Soon they emerged from the grove and began their march across the plains, passing through the cultivated fields of the city. Nude men were industriously harvesting purple crops that resembled corn, but whose growth was that of a waist high shrub with multiple ears. Women overseers were in evidence. No man appeared to be in a position of authority, reinforcing Clayton’s conclusion that the culture here was thoroughly matriarchal.
They passed on through the fields, the strange appearance of the Earthmen attracting quite a number of stares, much to their embarrassment. Within about half an hour they had arrived at the city’s guarded gate, one of four cardinal portals that pierced the towering circular wall with its battlements and domed towers.
A dozen sentries let them pass beneath the scalloped arch of the massive portal, and they entered the city, which had been built on a circular plan with broad avenues radiating from a central plaza.
Despite their predicament both Earthman looked curiously about, for they were the first humans to encounter an alien culture. The city was small by Earth standards, its population about fifteen thousand. Most of the inhabitants of the region lived in the rural villages of the city’s territory, occupying the simple single story homes - round fieldstone houses with conical shingle roofs – the Earthmen had seen from a distance.
The detached nature and circular plan of the homes continued in the city, but here the houses were two storeys in height and more elaborate in their architectural forms. The exterior walls were gadrooned. The circular windows fretted and inlaid, and protected by sliding storm shutters. Doorways were scalloped arches and the roofs consisted of beehive shaped domes of red tile. At the back of the houses was a horseshoe shaped walled courtyard overlooked by a large balcony screened by fretwork, and at the front a similar balcony faced the street.
Not many people were abroad, but as they approached the centre of the city the avenue became more crowded, and the press grew even denser as they entered the plaza, which served as the city’s marketplace. The colorful booths of merchants were everywhere, selling everything from exotic spices and rare gems to mundane kitchenware and vegetables. Ornate palanquins screen by fretwork and borne aloft by nude male carriers pushed their way through the milling crowd as highborn women in filmy gowns made their purchases with affected disdain. Male servants and laborers were also present; struggling with heavy loads of goods and produce they either hauled on carts or bore upon their servile backs.
The one thing that struck both Earthmen was the utter silence of the throng – not a single voice rose above the noise of footfalls, the swish of clothes or the rumble of the carts, yet everyone seemed to know exactly what to do. Clayton remarked upon it to his uncle.
“They must be telepathic,” replied the professor. “Those tentacle-like growths upon their heads are probably thought perceiving sensory organs – antenna if you like. My boy, we’d best be very careful what we think.”
Both men fell worriedly silent as their captors forced passage through the throng, herding them to a tall building on the other side of the expansive circular plaza – a building that was formed from three conjoined and domed cylinders, each slightly higher than the other, and arranged on a trefoil plan. The structure was huge; its sides gadrooned and encircled at each of its four levels by tiered vaulted galleries, the columns of which had bracket capitals that took the form of abstract arabesques.
Passing beneath the guarded archway of the palace, which was ornamented with interlacing and tracery, they entered the structure’s primary tower and found themselves in an arcaded hall, with a second tier of arches springing from the first in a complex geometrical interplay that was exceptional in its harmony of form.
At the end of the hall was a broad pillar about seven feet in height with a throng of female courtiers standing at its base. The column was encircled by a spiraling stair that led to an ornate throne at its top upon which a woman sat – young and strangely beautiful.
Queen Uroona regarded the Earthman haughtily as they approached, her face etched with lines of anger and contempt, as if she were looking at something that had been dredged up from a noisome sewer, and was now polluting the elegance of her court with its odious stench.
Both Earthmen were forced face down upon the floor just outside the border of golden tiles that encircled the pillar – the boundary beyond which only the royal favorites could pass. There was a pause as their captors exchanged intense looks with the queen, and then Uroona’s thoughts spoke within their minds – strong, direct and amazingly in English.
“So, you are that barbarians from Earth. With men ruling what a backward world it must have been! Praise the Goddess that such a state of affairs does not prevail here.”
“You speak our language,” gasped Lamont in utter surprise.
“You will address me as Queen Uroona,” she replied angrily. “The warriors who captured you probed your companion’s feeble mind. They took the knowledge of your tongue and other data from his brain and transmitted all of it to me. This is the way we the M’din – the people of Mars – learn. We have no need of books as you do.”
“Queen Uroona, if this is true then you must know of Earth’s destruction and our mission,” responded Lamont pleadingly. “We mean you no harm. Let us go and we will continue on our way.”
“No,” replied the queen firmly. “We can dimly sense these aliens you seek. They are not of M’din, but periodically circle our world, no doubt observing us before departing for the planet you call Venus. If I let you go and you find them, then they may discover we aided you, and in their anger destroy our world as well.
“Besides,” she continued harshly. “You are an affront to our civilization, our way of life. You are oppressors of women. Yes, the contents of your foul minds condemn you – your chauvinism, your debased lust for woman-flesh, and to think you planned to use our world as a refuge for your kind. No, death is the only thing you deserve. Guards,” she hotly commanded, “draw your blades and slit their throats forthwith.”
Clayton who heretofore had been content to let his uncle speak swiftly intervened: “You are brave indeed to cut the throats of helpless men,” he sneered. “And you call us barbarians! You think men inferior? I challenge you to fight me and we’ll see.”
A gasp of shock and outrage burst from the minds of the courtiers at these daring and insulting words, for they too had shared in the knowledge of English stolen from Clayton’s mind. Never in their long history had a man spoken to a woman in such a manner – to them the natural order had suddenly been turned upon its head.
The queen’s psychic command lashed out like a whip, stilling the aristocrats’ babble of wild thoughts.
“Stop,” she cried as her warriors advance upon the Earthmen. Uroona looked at Clayton, her face a study in utter rage. “You dare,” she gasped, fury choking her projected thoughts. “Barbarian filth; you’ll die a slow death by foul torture for that insult.”
“You haven’t taken up my challenge,” he replied calmly, needling her further. “I think you’re afraid you’ll be beaten by a mere barbarian, and a man at that. When I win I want our freedom as the prize.”
A courtier – an older woman - stepped forward before the infuriated queen could reply. “Your majesty,” she said, “it pains me to say that the barbarian has a point. He has, either by blind luck or insight, stumbled upon one of our ancient laws – a queen cannot leave such a challenge unanswered. You will have to fight him even though it’s merely a desperate ploy on his part to delay his inevitable demise.”
The queen looked at Vadra – her chief advisor – with suspicion. The woman’s thoughts were always well guarded by her psychic shield. Uroona could never get a hint of what might be going on behind that imperturbable visage. The queen suddenly felt trapped. She was sure Vadra had some ulterior motive, but what? Uroona sensed the pressure of the other courtiers’ eyes upon her. She’d lose face if she delayed her answer any longer.
“Very well,” she said sourly. “If I must soil my hands with barbarian blood then I must. Let the dual be set for tomorrow morning at sunrise. At the moment I have other more important matters requiring my attention.”
Having dealt with the problem Uroona issued orders. Both Earthmen were hustled from the audience hall and through a confusing maze of passageways and rooms, finally arriving at a little used section of the palace. Here, they were thrust into a dingy chamber with a single barred window, and then the heavy door was slammed and locked behind them.
“Well,” said Lamont when he was sure the guards had departed. “That was quite a challenge you hurled at the queen. It left her completely apoplectic. I thought she was going to have a heart attack.”
“Pity she didn’t,” muttered Clayton, angry not only at the queen but also at the confronting truth of some of what she’d said. On Mars men were oppressed, and he could see the injustice of it, and if it was wrong for men to be oppressed by women then was it not also wrong for women to be exploited by men? Putting the thought aside for later serious consideration he spoke again:
“We’ve got to break free of these bonds. I’ll chew through yours and then you can do the same for me.”
Lamont grinned, trying to find humor in their predicament. “Just as well,” he quipped, “I’ve still got all my teeth.”
**********
Several hours had passed and both men, hungry, thirsty and exhausted by their ordeals, had fallen asleep. Clayton awoke. Something had disturbed his slumber. He looked around and saw two small leather bags dangling by a thin line and thudding against the bars of the window. Impelled by inquisitiveness he stood, grasped the bags, and with some difficulty wrenched them through the narrow interstices of the iron rods.
Someone above jerked the line violently. It snapped, and the unseen person quickly hauled it out of reach. Clayton curiously opened one of the bags. In it was food, a waterskin and a note written in black paint upon a scrap of white cloth. He woke his uncle, and both men looked speculatively at the contents of the bags, which Clayton had spread out upon the floor.
“Poisoned, do you think?” asked Clayton warily, referring to the food and water.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” replied Lamont as he hungrily grabbed a square biscuit of unknown foodstuff. “Besides, if we aren’t to starve or die of thirst then we have no choice but to risk it.”
Clayton could see his uncle’s point. Both men commenced to eat and drink as they gazed upon the note. It was in English, but crudely written in a clumsy script, as if its author was a child just beginning lessons. It read as follows:
“When the queen fights you she will use the power of invisibility to her advantage. In one of the bags is a small glass sphere. It contains a liquid that will make her visible when it comes in contact with her skin. It will even the odds a little, but unfortunately won’t neutralize her venom. The rope will be lowered again shortly. Tie the empty bags to it with the note and waterskins inside. Good luck.” It was signed “a friend.”
Both men looked at each other. “A friend?” asked Lamont, puzzled.
“I doubt that,” replied Clayton cynically. “More likely someone wants to use us for their own ends. I can’t see any of these man-haters doing us a favor.”
They turned their attention to the sphere, which had been wrapped in padding. It was about an inch in diameter, fragile looking and filled with a pale green liquid. Would it be enough to win the day?
The sound of tapping at the window drew their gaze, and they saw that a weighted line had been lowered. Clayton tied the leather bags to it with the other things their unknown benefactor had requested be returned. He signaled by tugging on the line and the incriminating articles were swiftly hauled aloft, leaving both men with much to think about.
**********
It was now early morning and Clayton, the small sphere of pale green liquid concealed in his mouth, stood within the dueling circle whose circumference was marked by eight columns, each surmounted by an outward facing skull carved from dark obsidian.
A dozen guards had come for him and his uncle at sunrise, and had escorted them from their cell and to the palace grounds. Both Earthmen had been extremely worried that their captors might probe their minds and thus expose the plot, but the guards had no such orders. Uroona, believing there was nothing more to be learnt from her contemptible captives hadn’t given any instructions, and so the nervous state of both Earthmen was wholly attributed to their fear of imminent demise.
The society of the amazons was quite violent, and duals were a favored method of settling disputes. Consequently, a large crowd of onlookers had gathered within the formal gardens to watch. The throng was greater than it would normally have been due to the historic nature of the event, for never before in recorded history had a man challenged a woman to combat.
Clayton threw a quick glance at his uncle. Lamont smiled encouragement despite his hidden fear, but before he could offer words of support the crowd parted and Uroona stepped upon the thirty foot expanse of the dueling circle’s sand.
Clayton watched her warily. Like him she was completely nude. Her body was slim and athletic, and she was taller than he by at least four inches, giving her the advantage of reach. Her legs were long, her stomach flat with well defined muscles and her breasts small but firm. In many respects she could have passed for a human woman. She could even be considered attractive, but at the moment her features were marred by a look of utter malignance and disdain for her opponent.
Vadra – the queen’s chief advisor – stepped within the circle and raised her hand for silence. The telepathic chatter of the throng ceased, and in the sudden quiet she spoke, her psychic broadcast perceived and understood by all.
“There are no rules but the law of might,” she announced. “The strongest will prevail. The weak will die. When I lower my hand to the death you will fight.”
Clayton coughed, spitting the sphere into his palm under the cover of the ruse. Vadra’s hand chopped down like the swing of an axe. Uroona vanished as the Earthman hurled the globe. Glass tinkled. A splash of green fluid hung in the air. A form began to materialize – semitransparent, ghostly. The crowd mentally gasped as it lunged at Clayton. The Earthman leapt aside, avoiding the clawing phantasmal hand. He knew the venom couldn’t kill, but one touch of those claws would render him unconscious and unable to defend himself.
Further cries of consternation erupted from the throng as Uroona’s body become more opaque. The queen gasped, looked at her hands in utter shock. Clayton lashed out with a kick, catching his opponent in her moment of distraction. His heel slammed into Uroona’s stomach. The queen was knocked to the ground. The Earthman leapt forward to strike again, but she swiftly rolled to her feet and he was forced to leap back to avoid her wildly slashing claws.
Now completely visible, she came at him in a whirlwind of fury, her face a gorgon’s mask of savage rage. Clayton barely dodged her claws, but her kick rammed against his shin and he stumbled. Fighting off the pain he managed to leap aside and tripped her with a swinging foot as she lunged passed, her talons slashing wildly. Again she fell. Again she swiftly rolled to her feet before he could press his advantage.
The desperate Earthman knew he couldn’t keep this up forever. One touch of those envenomed claws and it would all be over – she’d tear his throat out while he lay unconscious. There was only one thing he could do. He didn’t like it for he felt it was a dirty trick, but he was fighting for his life and his uncle’s.
Once more his savage opponent hurled herself at him and as she did Clayton kicked sand up in her face. The queen swore, twisted her head, and staggered as the grit stung her eyes and blinded them with tears. The Earthman leapt close as she reflexively turned away and drove his foot into the back of her knee. Uroona went face down upon the sand. Clayton leapt on her, ground his knee into her back and grabbed both wrists, pinning her clawing hands to the ground.
Uroona telepathically screamed imprecations as she wildly struggled, and it took all of the Earthman’s considerable strength to keep her from breaking free. Clayton wasn’t a ruthless killer. He didn’t want to slay the woman if it could be avoided – she was too human in appearance, not some bug eyed horror that could be swatted like a fly. His strategy was to let the queen expend her strength in a futile struggle until it was obvious she’d been utterly defeated.
Slowly Uroona’s struggles subsided until she lay breathless and panting. Then Vadra stepped within the circle. For a brief moment her imperturbable mask slipped, and on her face Clayton glimpsed a flicker of gloating satisfaction, rapidly suppressed. Instantly, he knew the identity of their mysterious benefactor.
“You have won,” stated Vadra calmly. “The weak must die. Kill the woman you have soundly beaten.”
Clayton threw a glance at his uncle for he, too, was affected by the outcome. Lamont shook his head. Both were in agreement. Come what may neither man would violate their code of ethics by stooping to callous barbarity.
“I have beaten your queen. That is enough,” he firmly replied. “It is not my way to kill a helpless person. Let us go and we will leave in peace. There is no need for any further violence.”
Vadra stared at him for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then she turned and addressed the stunned and silent throng of onlookers.
“Uroona has been defeated by a man. She is no longer fit to rule. That the barbarian had help from some unknown person is irrelevant as there are no rules governing these duals. As our laws decree - I will become regent until another queen is chosen from among us.
“Concerning these barbarians: they have insulted us. They refuse to respect our laws, our customs and this cannot go unpunished. Guards,” she called, “seize both males and our former queen. All three will be sacrificed to Gatia. As regent this is my irrevocable decree.”
Clayton swore. It was now clear to him the extent of Vadra’s duplicity. Knowing he had nothing to lose he hurled himself at the woman, hoping to grab her and hold her as a hostage. Vadra, though, had anticipated his attack. Her claws lashed out as he made his desperate leap. Envenomed talons raked his chest. But the Earthman’s momentum carried him forward and he collided with her. They wrestled wildly for a moment as guards rushed to aid the struggling regent, but then the toxin took effect and Clayton sagged to the earth. His last sight was Vadra’s naked and gloating look of utter triumph.
Clayton looked through the bars of his cell and stared out across the expanse of the temple’s arena-like floor. Neither Earthman had any memory of being carried to the holding cell as both had been unconscious at the time, rendered so by their captors venomous claws. He shifted his gaze to Uroona. No doubt the former queen could fill them in on the details of their situation, but at the moment she was in no condition to talk – her claws had been brutally torn out, her screams of agony having roused both men ten minutes ago, and now she lay curled in a fetal position in still shock from the pain.
Lamont knelt next to her, but there was little he or Clayton could do as their wrists, like those of Uroona, were manacled securely behind their backs with heavy chains and locks. The worried Earthman returned to his scrutiny of the temple, hoping to learn something that might enable them to escape.
From what he could see the building was like a stadium – open to the air and with enough tiered benches to seat a substantial crowd of spectators. Unlike a stadium it was horseshoe in shape with a large ornate stage at its narrow end where a huge idol had been erected. The statue of the goddess Gatia was hideous. It sat tailor fashion upon a mighty plinth; both hands cupped in its lap and from its upturned palms leapt weird tongues of roaring emerald fire.
The body of the idol was masculine in appearance, its herculean physique belied only by huge breasts. The face was a leering devil-mask with bulging faceted eyes and a protruding forked tongue that hung to its chin. The lips were drawn back in a bestial grimace displaying fangs that would have made a shark envious, and its animalistic nature was further heightened by a crest of horns running fanwise from pointed ear to pointed ear.
Clayton shuddered at the sight. Had all their efforts come to this – to be sacrificed to a blind, insensate idol that embodied the worst of irrationality and superstition? He refused to submit to such a fate. If only his hands weren’t bound. If he was going to die he’d rather die fighting than be led like a placid lamb to the slaughter.
Turning to Lamont he sensed by his uncle’s expression that the older man’s thoughts were running along similar and equally desperate lines. The professor met his gaze and spoke, thus confirming his deduction.
“There’s a slim chance of escape,” he said, or at least to go down fighting. They’ve stripped us of everything, but they’ve neglected to take Uroona’s ornaments – these jeweled wires that are wound about the tendrils upon her head. If I can get one free I might be able to use it to pick the lock of these primitive restraints.”
Clayton nodded. “I’ll help in any way I can. Just tell me what to do.”
Both men set to work, their task made more difficult by their bonds and the fact that Uroona was in too much pain to help them. Fortunately, she didn’t resist as they struggled to free one of the ornamental wires, for she dimly understood what they were trying to do, and knew her only chance for life lay in the success of these barbarians.
At last after much struggle they managed to remove one of the wires. Both men knelt back to back. Lamont inserted one end of the wire into the lock on Clayton’s manacles and began to manipulate it.
“This is an old party trick I use to do in my university days,” explained the professor. “But I’ve never done it this way before… It’s much more difficult when working by touch alone… I’d better shut up and concentrate.”
“You’d better hurry, too,” weakly came Uroona’s telepathic thought, for she had somewhat recovered from the torture inflicted on her. “I sense a crowd gathering in the temple. The moment of sacrifice will soon be upon us.”
Clayton muttered an oath and sweated as his uncle wrestled with the recalcitrant lock for what seemed an age. Then the sound of footfalls made him swear again. The guards were coming and they were out of time. Lamont crushed the wire into a rough ball and tossed into a dark corner of the cell. Both men quickly stood and although still bound prepared to hurl themselves upon their jailers the moment the door was opened.
A key grated in the lock. The Earthmen tensed. The door swung wide and they madly leapt upon their captors with all the savagery of wild tigers. One amazon went down with a broken nose from Clayton’s head butt. Lamont felled another with a brutal kick. It was brief but violent struggle - a desperate bid for freedom, but one doomed to failure from the outset.
Reinforcements poured within the chamber, swamped both men in a wave of tackling bodies and hammering fists. No venom was used for the ceremony demanded the victims be conscious when sacrificed. Strong arms seized the battered and bleeding men; others hauled Uroona to her feet and the hapless barely conscious trio was swiftly frog marched from the cell.
As they were hustled from their prison Clayton fought through the agony of his many bruises and looked desperately about, hoping that by some miracle he could save himself and his companions. But there was nothing which met his gaze that gave the slightest shred of hope. The temple’s seats were packed with the nearly the entire female population of the city, the males being banned from attending the ceremony. The captives were hopelessly outnumbered and surrounded on all sides by amazons armed with swords and crossbows. With the queen’s defeat the women weren’t taking any chances.
The struggling prisoners were dragged to the huge idol. Clayton gazed upon its hideousness as they were forced up broad steps and towards a sinister black alter. The goddess towered above him to a height of at least twenty feet. Its body seemed to be molded of plaster. Great age had deeply cracked the surface in many places, and time had faded the garish paintwork to more muted tones of reds, blues, creams and yellows.
Before the altar were five black robed figures, each priestess wearing a mask whose features were equal in ghastliness to that of the repulsive idol. The fiercely resisting captives were hauled before the group, four of which seized Uroona. The former queen struggled valiantly, but in her weakened condition and clawless she was no match for her determined captors.
Clayton, a wild expression on his sweating face, readied himself to make a desperate leap to aid the woman. Amazons swiftly surrounded him. Blades were pressed against his flesh, stilling his lunge. He swore violently at the warriors – the only outlet for his fear and rage.
By now Uroona’s chains had been removed and she was spread-eagle on the altar, her limbs held fast by four priestesses. From behind the stage came the rising sound of drums – a wild primeval throbbing that stirred the blood with Bacchanalian passion. The fifth priestess began a savage orgiastic dance while the others commenced an eerie chant. The expectant throng took up the paean to their bleak goddess.
The fevered drumbeat began to reach its dark crescendo. From her girdle the dancer drew a wicked dagger whose awful length glittered weirdly with the idol’s emerald fire. She spun like a mad dervish towards the black altar, her blade held high for the brutal thrust.
Clayton looked on in utter horror as the whirling woman reached the bloodstained block upon which Uroona’s nude and sweating form was pinned. Quickly he glanced sideways and saw his captors were distracted, their gloating gaze focused upon the culmination of the bloody ceremony.
The Earthman wrenched his chains in utter desperation, for what he saw went against all he believed in. A maniacal snapped open with a click. Lamont’s work, half done, was completed by his sudden surge of wild strength.
With a savage yell he swung the free end of his bonds. The heavy links smashed against the foe and drove them to the ground. The commotion of the fray stopped the dagger’s plunge. Clayton charged the startled dancer, the length of chain whirling like a Catherine wheel. The shocked woman tried to dodge the wild blow, but wasn’t quick enough. Hard iron slammed against her mask, tore it free and felled her to the floor. The face revealed was Vadra’s vulpine countenance.
By now the entire temple was in wild uproar. An amazon raised her crossbow. Lamont lunged against her. The shot went wide and missed Clayton by a foot. The professor struck out at another, kicking up her weapon. The bolt flashed up and hit the idol’s ugly face as Clayton wildly swung his weapon and drove away the four remaining women.
Vadra scrabbled for her dagger, her face made as ugly as the idol’s by wild rage at the profanation of Gatia’s holy ceremony. She grabbed the blade and with a savage yell lunged at Clayton’s back. Uroona psychically cried a sharp warning. The Earthman spun around. His flying chain crashed against her weapon hurling it away. Still, she came at him, claws extended. He grabbed her wrists, wrestled with the maddened regent as more amazons rushed towards the pair who spun about in a frenzy of mad combat.
Above them the features of the idol began to crack where the crossbow bolt had struck. A huge section of the face sloughed off like glacial ice. The piece fell and struck one breast a heavy blow. More plaster, weakened by millennia gave way beneath the heavy impact.
Clayton caught a glimpse of the impending danger as the charging foe closed in upon him and his uncle. With a surge of strength he hurled Vadra back and leapt away. The regent sensed the threat. She looked up, eyes wide in fear, one arm raised futilely. The mass of crashing plaster struck her squarely cutting off her psychic scream of horror.
More of the statue began to fall apart in an avalanching chain reaction of billowing dust and crashing debris. Clayton grabbed Uroona and swept her from the altar as more rubble tumbled all around them in frighteningly narrow misses. The charging guards faltered at the sight. The whole temple was in a bedlam of wild uproar as the plaster continued to disintegrate revealing what lay hidden underneath: Emerging from the collapsing ruin was the golden statue of a man that for untold ages lay concealed beneath the disguising overlay.
“Quick, where’s the way out,” shouted Clayton above the telepathic chaos that crashed against his brain.
“Over there,” pointed Uroona as Lamont stumbled to their side.
Clayton spun about and saw the massive ornate doorway exclusively reserved for the priestesses of Gatia. It wouldn’t do for those of such exalted status to rub shoulders with the common herd. Both men dashed for the portal, Clayton carrying the woman. A bolt flashed passed them, then another. The guards, recovered from the shock were madly hot upon their heels.
The fleeing trio reached the exit. Clayton swiftly set Uroona on her feet, turned the handle of the massive brass bound door and threw his weight against it. The panel didn’t budge an inch. The door was locked. Frantically he turned. A mob of wild guards was rushing at them. They were trapped and in but moments the savage foe would swiftly fall upon the hapless trio.
As the guards charged them Uroona shoved Clayton aside, grasped the handle and turned it in the opposite direction.
“This way, you fool,” she cried.
All three flung their weight against the mighty panel. A quarrel grazed Clayton’s arm – a burning spur that furthered his frantic exertions. The door swung open. They scrambled through the narrow gap, slammed the panel closed and Uroona slid the locking mechanism into place.
The trio leaned against the door breathing hard from their frenetic exertions as their furious pursuers spent their towering rage by hammering futilely upon the barred portal. Clayton shuddered in delayed reaction. His ignorance of a simple thing – the workings of a Martian door – had nearly cost all of them their lives.
“Dear God,” gasped Lamont, breathlessly. “That was a damnably narrow escape.”
“We’re not out of it yet. We still have to get back to the ship,” cautioned his nephew. Clayton turned to Uroona and looked at her with mixed feelings. He didn’t like the woman, nor did he entirely trust her. But necessity and adversity, like politics, often makes for strange bedfellows.
“Even with Vadra dead you’ll never be queen again,” he bluntly said. “There’s nothing for you here, and if your own people catch you, you’ll be killed. But if we work together we have a better chance of getting out alive. Help us gain our ship, and with it we can take you to any point on Mars you desire.”
Uroona thought for a moment. She didn’t like Clayton either, but could see his offer was genuine and that she’d be a fool to refuse it.
“I agree,” she replied. “This way, and be quick, before the guards cut off our escape.”
“What about my chains?” worriedly asked Lamont.
“No time for that,” responded Clayton. “I’ll use the ship’s tools to get you free, now hurry.”
They raced along the passage and soon came to another door at the temple’s rear. Uroona cautiously opened it and peered out onto a scene of utter chaos. News of events in the temple had quickly spread throughout the city by telepathic broadcast, and the male population was in riotous revolt.
For thousands of years religion had been an instrument of oppression – that women ruled by divine decree and any man who disobeyed the smallest of commands would be brutally punished in this life and the next, but now that the goddess had been exposed as fakery - that beneath the lying plaster was a male supernatural being. With this exposure all restraint had been cast aside and all those pent up hatreds – the bleak children of oppression - ran amuck.
Buildings fiercely burned. Men and women - both visible and invisible - battled madly in the streets with swords, claws and improvised weapons. The gutters ran with blood. Wild uproar was to be seen at every quarter of the smoke enshrouded city.
“Dear God,” gasped Clayton as he, too, gazed at the ghastly scene. “The slaves are in revolt, and we’re caught in the middle of it all.”
“We can’t stay here,” warned Lamont. “The whole city is in violent uproar. We’ll have to flee before we’re fully mired in the pandemonium.”
The trio ran, bolting through the savage anarchy at a wild pace. Led by Uroona they raced along the chaos that was the streets. There was danger at every turn – feral mobs that they narrowly evaded, leaping flames and the collapse of burning buildings, and it was a miracle that they dashed through the city’s gates with little in the way of injuries.
From a distance the trio gazed back at a city in the grip of utter madness. Clayton looked upon the scene in sober reflection. This was the terrible fruit of oppression. Tyranny in any form bore the seeds of its own destruction. It was a deadly toxin whose only antidote was complete equality, and this conclusion came to him very strongly, for he also would have to change his attitudes.
The sober trio continued on their way, and at last arrived at the grove where the Earthmen’s ship had landed. They approached boldly for Uroona assured them she hadn’t given orders for a guard to be posted near their craft. But the former queen hadn’t counted on Vadra overruling her decision.
Four amazons, alerted by what was transpiring in the city, leapt from the undergrowth and fell upon the escapees in a wild rush. In an instant Uroona became invisible and set upon her adversaries. Clayton swung his chain in a whipping arc. It struck one foe across the head with fracturing force and sent her crashing to the ground.
The second who had held back, quickly slipped from her garments and disappeared before his eyes. A sword slashed at him, its wielder now invisible. He leapt aside with a curse as his uncle dodged the third attacker and tripped her while Uroona madly wrestled with the fourth.
Again the sword struck at Clayton. He swung his chain, the links whipping around the blade. The Earthman gave a savage jerk. His foe gasped as her sword was torn away and this time he glimpsed something he’d missed before – twin flickers of silver in the air before him. In an instant he realized what they were – the appearance and disappearance of the eyes of his enemy as she blinked.
Clayton leapt back, watched intently, but saw nothing. The wary Amazon was keeping her eyes closed, sensing his position telepathically. He risked a worried glance in the direction of his uncle and glimpsed Lamont kick his downed opponent in the head. The distraction was nearly fatal - he almost missed the sudden impression of a footprint in the soil as his enemy lunged forward in swift attack.
The Earthman dodged aside and felt the wind of slashing claws whip by his face. He struck out with a fist, felt his knuckles strike invisible solidity. There was a cry of pain. For a moment his foe’s body flickered into view. It was enough for him to precisely pinpoint her position and his flying fist swiftly crashed against her jaw.
The Earthman turned as his insensible opponent tumbled to the ground. Clayton cursed. The remaining amazon had stabbed Uroona with her dagger. The former queen, now visible, lay bleeding in the dirt, her foe upon her with bloody weapon poised to strike a fatal blow. Clayton dashed forward, a wild yell bursting from his lips. The amazon turned with a feral snarl, her dagger slashing at him as she shot erect.
He caught her wrist, stopped the sweeping blade, and then snared her other hand as she tried to claw him viciously. Lamont rushed to his aid as he wrestled with his fierce opponent. The professor kicked her in the shin. The woman gasped, went to her knees in agony. Clayton drove his knee against her chin. Her head snapped back and she fell unconscious to the earth.
With all opponents hors de combat both men swiftly turned their attention to Uroona. The woman was unconscious. Blood flowed from a gash on her head where her opponent had struck her a heavy blow with the pommel of the dagger, and there was a deep stab wound to her breast that bled profusely. Clayton quickly staunched the injury with cloth torn from the garments of their erstwhile foes, and then carried her within the ship where, with the aid of tools, he swiftly freed Lamont from his bonds.
“Here,” said Clayton as he passed his uncle a medical kit. “You’ve been trained in first aid. Tend to her injuries, which need stitching. I’ll grab as much fruit as I can to re-provision our ship, and also the garments of the amazons which we can fashion into loincloths for ourselves. Then we’re off to Venus, which is where Uroona said the aliens were heading.”
Lamont placed a restraining hand on his shoulder as he was about to leave. “What about Uroona? It will take a week, possibly longer for her to recover from these injuries.”
Clayton looked at the unconscious woman with a grimace. “We can’t leave her here injured like this. It wouldn’t be right. We’ll have to take her with us. I don’t like it, and I don’t think she will either, but we’ve been delayed enough as it is.”
**********
The Ahura had departed Mars several hours ago. Uroona now looked through the ship’s viewing instrument, and gazed upon the cloud shrouded globe of Venus with mixed feelings. She was grateful to be alive, and was surprised she hadn’t been molested by either man during her incapacity. It seemed these barbarians were not as barbaric as she’d surmised.
Indeed, Uroona had a lot to think about. The revelation that a male figure had been concealed beneath the idol of Gatia had been quite a shock. Martian civilization was very ancient, and in the deep past things had clearly been very different, with males obviously having a more prominent position in society. How and why men had been subordinated was a mystery whose answer was lost in the mists of remotest antiquity. But even if she had the answer Uroona knew her religion was a fraud, and that all her certainties had been forever swept away.
Adding to her worries was the fact that she’d been dragged into a conflict that was neither of her making nor of her choosing and, as she’d vigorously pointed out before – if the aliens discovered her involvement destruction might fall upon her world as it had upon the Earth. Turning away from the instrument Uroona eyed Clayton, her full lips drawn in petulant lines as she projected her thoughts at him.
“So, you plan to press on with your mad mission,” she said, “and thereby endanger my people.”
“Even if you weren’t here these aliens are still a threat to your world,” he replied calmly. “Perhaps not now, but the civilization of Mars will advance. Indeed, you readily claim Martians are superior to Earthmen. If so then eventually the technology of spaceflight will be developed, and this will attract the attention of these creatures. It is in your best interest to help us defeat them before they become a menace to you.”
Uroona silently considered his words and had to grudgingly admit, at least to herself, that he had a point. Cooperation was the best option, at least for the moment until she regained her strength and her claws regrew.
“It seems I have no choice,” she replied, evading a direct admission that he was right.
“Elliott,” interjected Lamont before his nephew could respond. “I need you at the controls. We’re about to enter the atmosphere of Venus.”
Uroona rose from the copilot’s chair. Dizziness struck her. Although her wounds were healing with amazing rapidity she was still weak from her injuries. Clayton steadied the stumbling woman. She shook off his hand.
“I don’t need your help,” she irritably replied as she sank upon the nearby bunk and tiredly turned her face to the bulkhead.
Clayton threw his hands up in the air, muttered an oath and moved to the controls.
The Ahura began its descent. Swirling clouds engulfed the ship. Down she went; lower still into the turgid blinding atmosphere. At forty thousand feet they broke through into clear air. Beneath them Clayton saw the dull sheen of a mighty sea that stretched from horizon to horizon across the slight curve of the planet.
“There’s no sign of land whatsoever,” he announced. “Could it be that the surface is entirely ocean?”
“We’re near the equator replied Lamont as the craft continued it’s decent. "Our thermal sensor shows the ocean to be hot – 730 Celsius. If life as we know it exists on this hothouse world then the cooler Polar Regions are the place we’d most likely find it.”
“And if you do find it – the aliens, I mean,” interjected Uroona, “what then? Your plans seem rather vague to me.”
“This is a reconnaissance mission,” explained Lamont as he set the craft on a northward course. “We need as much information on the enemy as we can get. Then we can formulate a plan. We’re not such fools as to rush blindly to attack.”
Within about three hours – their speed necessarily slow due to atmospheric friction and the need to reconnoiter – they were over the north pole of Venus, and looking down on the planet’s single roughly triangular continent from a height of two thousand feet.
A riotous purple jungle met Lamont’s gaze as he looked through the viewing instrument. The vegetation was all encompassing, except for where jagged mountain peaks thrust through the steaming hothouse growths, and mighty rivers cut across the intensely tropic land. It was a primordial wilderness bereft of any hint of civilization. Lamont brought the Ahura lower towards the elemental landscape which he judged to be about the size of China, describing what he saw to his companions.
“There’s no sign of cities, no radio transmissions,” he observed. “I think …”
His sentence was cut short by the violent movement of the craft - it was as if a giant hand had suddenly grabbed the ship and jerked it sideways, and so fierce and unexpected was the force that its occupants were hurled painfully upon the deck.
“What the hell was that?” gasped Elliott as both men scrambled for the controls in desperate haste.
Lamont frantically pressed buttons, flicked switches as the Ahura continued its frightening and inexplicable rush. But his frenzied manipulations had no effect upon their altered course. He turned his pale frightened features towards his worried nephew.
“I can’t break free. We’re in the grip of some tremendous power,” he shakily admitted. “We’re being drawn to its source like a fleck of iron to a magnet, and I’m helpless to do anything about it.”
The anxious trio took turns gazing through the viewer as their craft hurtled low over the steaming jungle, whose soaring purple growths had crowns resembling giant staghorn ferns supported by lobed and scaly trunks of a grayish hue.
About an hour had passed when the ruins came into view – the broken remnants of a once mighty city. The stubs of many towers rose from the riotous jungle, and as Clayton looked upon the scene he imagined them as they had been before their ruination.
The buildings would have risen a mile high at the very least, far taller than the skyscrapers he was familiar with and not at all like modernity’s staid architecture. The towers, constructed of a material more like glazed porcelain than concrete, were fluted in the manner of Grecian columns, and encircled by broad friezes of sinuous sculpture between their floors. The walls were colored, with some of the patterns and hues reminding Clayton of the wings of a Monarch butterfly, while other buildings were less subtle in their artistry, being as gaudy as a peacock’s tail in full display.
During its prime the city would have been a wonder to behold, but now it was a forlorn thing to look upon. The soaring walls had crumbled and in the crevices many plants had taken root. The bright colors had faded and were stained with the grime of centuries. In the broad avenues where its proud citizens had confidently stridden was the silence of the choking wilderness, broken only by the furtive scurrying of small things and the distant roar of some savage unthinking beast, and as Clayton took in the melancholy scene he was deeply struck by the impermanence of civilization.
The thoughtful Earthman turned a knob and changed the angle of the view. He saw they approached a small tower whose state of preservation was better than the rest. Although begrimed and muted in its glory it was nonetheless intact, and towards this their craft now began its slow descent.
Clayton described the scene and turned the viewer over to his uncle. “What do you make of that machine in the middle of the flat roof of the tower we’re heading for?”
Lamont brought the strange device into focus. A coppery rod fifty feet in height rose from the centre of the roof, its length piercing six ebon spheres of decreasing size with the smallest – ten feet in diameter - at the apex of the shaft, and from this globe a slender yard long cone projected horizontally – a cone surrounded by a crimson aura of hissing radiance.
“I think the machine is emitting an attractive force that is acting upon our vessel,” theorized Lamont. “The cone is tilting down... Ah, I’m right - our ship is moving with a corresponding motion. Brace yourself for touchdown.”
The craft came to rest with only a slight bump. Its occupants waited tensely for developments, wondering what was going to happen next, and it wasn’t long before they had a startling answer: A door opened in the thick parapet of the roof, and from the aperture strode six mechanisms of strange design. The machines, constructed from a greenish alloy, were horizontal cylinders, and from the belly of each sprang four legs that ended in hoof like feet of a dark rubbery material.
Upon the flanks of their forms were six retractable metal tentacles, three to a side, which bifurcated to finger-like appendages. The front and rear of the machines swelled to a dome with six lenses encircling the equator of the hemisphere, thus completing their outlandish appearance.
Uroona, who was looking through the viewer at the moment described events and turned the instrument over to Lamont. The things advanced towards the grounded ship and drew up in a semicircle before its airlock. A machine stepped forward. The top of the thing opened. The mechanism extended a tentacle into the aperture, withdrew a rod shaped tool and pressed it to the craft’s hatch.
“Dear God,” gasped Lamont as the rod’s tip began to blaze with actinic light. “They’re going to cut their way in.”
Clayton swore. “Quickly, open the lock. We’ll have to stop them. If they breach the hatch we won’t be space-worthy.” Then, turning to Uroona: “Make yourself invisible and stay hidden no matter what. Your injuries haven’t healed enough for you to join the fight.”
The woman stripped and vanished as Lamont opened the hatch with the jab of a button. Both men began to exit the ship, each armed with a sword taken from their foes, each man reigning in his bolting fear in the face of the unknown. Was there a living intelligence behind the machines, or were they entirely automatic? In the face of imminent danger there wasn’t time to contemplate these questions.
Clayton burst from the open hatch, knocked aside a grasping tentacle. Lamont swiftly followed. Writhing metallic limbs darted at them. Both men wildly swung their swords in a whirlwind of frenzy. Metal rang on metal. Sparks flew. Clayton lunged, shattered a lens of the machine before him. The thing struck back with its multiple tentacles. He dodged them, but another mechanism swiftly joined the fray.
A whip-like limb quickly curled about his sword and tore it from his grasp as other appendages snaked around his arms and legs in swift attack. The Earthman cursed, gasped in fear and pain as he was hauled aloft in a grip of iron. From the corner of his eye he saw his uncle similarly ensnared. Struggling was futile. Not even an Olympic weightlifter could have broken the powerful hold of their metallic foes, and realizing this Clayton ceased his useless struggles to conserve his strength, and consoled himself with the knowledge that at least Uroona had escaped capture.
But even this small comfort was denied him as another machine stepped towards the open hatch and extended all its ropy limbs. The thing’s tentacles snaked within the lock, slithered up the slanting ladder to the centre of the ship. The sound of a brief but violent struggle could be heard; then the machine withdrew its limbs, which seemed wrapped about empty air.
Uroona dropped her veil of invisibility. Heat sensors in the robot’s tentacles had detected her presence. She struggled wildly in the things metallic limbs, but like the others her frantic efforts came to naught.
“Don’t resist,” said Clayton to her and his struggling uncle. “The machines are far stronger than we are and seem intent on capturing us alive. We can only hope that they, or whoever controls them, are more curious than malevolent. But I could be wrong, so save your strength in case we have to fight.”
His companions subsided and as the machines carried them towards the portal from which they had emerged the trio nervously speculated upon the nature of their captors, and the fate that might await them. But no definite conclusions could be drawn given so many unknowns, and so the prisoners fell into a tense and anxious silence as their mechanical foes bore them through the huge doorway and into a windowless cubical room.
Lamont gasped as the floor suddenly dropped beneath them. “We’re in a giant elevator,” he said by way of explanation to Uroona, whose culture had very little in the way of complex machinery.
They fell at an alarming stomach churning rate, the lift rattling and squealing frighteningly. After about thirty seconds of sheer terror the elevator slowed to a grinding stop. The door grated open and their captors marched out, much to the relief of the trio who had feared that at any moment the rattling decrepit lift was going to crash to the bottom of its shaft in a wild plunge.
The machines clattered down a long broad passageway that led to the heart of the tower. The walls, floor and ceiling were of the same seamless porcelain-like substance as the exterior, and ornamentation consisted of substantial frieze-work where cornices and skirting board would have been in Earthly architecture. Illumination was provided by the high vaulted ceiling whose entire substance glowed with a wan light that barely drove back the shadows.
As Clayton looked about he saw that here, too, was evidence of decay. The walls were cracked in many places, and patches of ceiling had fallen to the dusty floor. Even their metallic captors showed evidence of great antiquity and disrepair, for now that he had a chance to observe them free of the frenetic haze of battle the Earthman could see that their bodies were dented, and pitted in places with oxidation, and that some moved jerkily from worn components.
Clearly, whoever or whatever had captured them was the remnant of a once great civilization eking out a forlorn existence amongst the ruins of its former glory. But what fell disaster had brought this unknown people to their knees? Clayton’s speculations were cut short as their robotic captors entered a gloomy chamber and clattered towards a thing of utter awfulness at its further end.
Clayton felt the gorge rise in his throat at the sight of it, and his companions were similarly affected. The thing was a metallic rectangular prism about three feet in height that was supported vertically by four spider-like mechanical legs the same length as its body. Two tentacle-like arms sprouted at either side of the mechanism, but the real horror was seated at the apex of the dark prism – a severed humanoid head attached to the machine by a metal collar and protected by a glassy dome.
The hairless dead white skin lent a cadaverous air to the thing. The eyes were red, staring. The mouth was a gash, the nose brutally hooked. Chill fear gripped Clayton as they drew near the horror, whose eyes swiveled upon them.
“By the Goddess,” said the shocked and horrified woman telepathically, “the thing’s alive!”
“Dear God,” gasped Lamont. “It’s a … a mechanical zombie! Uroona,” he continued, struggling to control his revulsion. “Can you use your telepathic powers to communicate with it?”
Uroona mastered her loathing. She began to prepare for the task, though it was plain to see that the thought of mental contact with the thing revolted her. Sweat moistened her brow. She paled as the horror focused its staring crimson eyes upon her. The woman stiffened as the mechanisms bearing them halted before their dreadful master. She looked into its staring and unnerving eyes – the eyes of a thing that should have died long ago.
Steeling herself, Uroona reached out with her mind. Contact was established. An exchange of minds occurred. It was like falling into icy water. Whatever kinship with humanity the Head might have once possessed was utterly gone. The thing’s mind was as cold and as inhuman as the insensate body that sustained its living brain. She caught a glimpse of its malevolent intent and cried out at what she saw. Uroona was no weakling but even so she reeled from the sheer awfulness of it.
Clayton swore. “Uroona,” he frantically cried.
The Head swung its eyes upon him. Though its lips didn’t move a dead metallic voice issued from an oval grill in its body. It spoke haltingly in English, not yet fully fluent in the language it had acquired from the mental, contact with Uroona.
“The aliens that attacked Earth are not from Thurim or Venus as you call my world. Nor is your planet the first one they have assailed. Two thousand years ago a mighty civilization encompassed this globe, but look about you now and all is utter ruination.
“I am the last survivor of my people, for post apocalypse we were too few to repopulate the globe. I aged; my body became enfeebled unto the point of death, so I built this mechanical counterpart and the robot surgeons that skillfully joined living tissue to machine.
“But even machines wear out, and the machines that build the machines. So too, my metal body falters, and the equipment to build another is no more. Fortunately, the automatic monitoring stations still function and detected your arrival, which has been most fortuitous. Your bodies are young and strong and so I will graft my head upon the best.”
For a moment both men stared at the thing, not quite believing what they’d heard. Then the full horror of it struck them like a blow. The Earthmen cursed, struggled wildly but to no avail, and all the while the Head watched with the closest thing to gloating triumph its cold dispassionate mind could experience.
Clayton managed to reign in his panic with tremendous effort. “At least let the woman go,” he cried. “Surely you don’t want a female body.”
“She will be a useful subject for my experiments,” replied the Head with uncaring ruthlessness, “as will the older male. It will prove most interesting to dissect an alien species.”
Clayton cursed the monster with a string of creative profanity but the Head, being coldly logical, was immune to his blistering insults as it was equally unmoved by his pleas for mercy. The machine-creature ignored him. It issued commands. The robots clattered towards another doorway, bearing their terrified captives with them, their horrid master following close behind.
They entered a room of gleaming whiteness, brightly lit. An operating table was positioned in the middle of the chamber. Above it hung a large sphere from which many metallic tenancies depended, their tips ending in surgical instruments and robotic eyes. Clayton, struggled wildly as he was borne inexorably towards the sinister sphere. The Head moved next to him as the Earthman’s robot captor halted before the table.
“I shall begin with a preliminary investigation of you physiology,” it informed the terrified Earthman.
As the robot prepared to strap Clayton down it released his leg in order to free a tentacle for the task. The desperate Earthman saw his only chance. With every ounce of wild strength he lashed out with a mighty kick and slammed his foot against the Head’s protective dome.
The machine-creature was rocked by the powerful blow. It staggered, tumbled to the floor in a clattering crash. The shock broke the Head’s control over its robot servitors. Clayton felt a tentacle go limp. He tore an arm free, struggled out of the flaccid grip of the other limbs as he wildly shouted encouragement to his companions.
But the Earthman’s elation was quickly swamped by fear. The Head was down but far from out – the thing had swiftly regained control of its robots. Uroona, who had writhed free of all but one metallic limb, cried in pain as the remaining tentacle tightened like a vice upon her arm, trapping her in its steely grip.
Clayton swore as the other robot’s limbs darted at him. He ducked the grasping tentacles, swiftly flung his body beneath his mechanical foe. The Earthman thrust his shoulders against the belly of the thing, heaved mightily, legs and back straining with tremendous effort. Adrenalin and the lightness of the robot’s alloy aided his frenetic exertions. With a savage cry he toppled the mechanism, flung it on the Head as the thing struggled to its feet.
The abomination went down beneath the crashing robot in a heap of twitching limbs. Clayton, gasping from the effort staggered towards his companions. While the Head lay stunned beneath the pinning body of the robot Uroona had freed herself from the weakened grip of her mechanical captor, and was struggling to loosen the tentacles about Lamont. The Earthman quickly joined her and with his help his uncle was swiftly disentangled.
“To the lift,” panted Clayton as the Head began to stir and take command of its robot servitors. “We haven’t a moment to lose.”
Lamont dodged a groping tentacle. The trio dashed madly from the room. Behind them they heard the clatter of the dogged mechanisms now in swift pursuit. The escapees tore frantically down the passageway. The lift doors loomed. Clayton’s eyes fell upon a button. He skidded to a stop, stabbed it with a finger.
The Earthman spun about as the doors began to grate open. Fear choked him. The robots were swiftly bearing down upon them in a wild rush of pounding legs and waiving tentacles.
“In,” cried Clayton as he grabbed Uroona and thrust her through the narrow gap of the opening door. Lamont quickly followed. The rushing mechanisms were now mere yards away. Clayton leapt into the lift. His uncle jabbed another button. The doors began to close. The robots put on a burst of speed. The foremost snapped out long whip-like limbs. They shot between the closing doors causing them to shudder to a stop.
Clayton leapt back, but wasn’t quite fast enough. A tentacle coiled about his waist, jerked him forward. Uroona leapt to his aid, grabbed the Earthman as he jammed one bracing foot against the half open door.
“Get back,” cried Clayton as other metallic limbs swiftly darted for Uroona.
The woman ignored him, struggled to free him. She gasped as a tentacle ensnared her, pulled her swiftly after the battling Earthman. Clayton grabbed her, braced both feet against the opening doors. He strained mightily. A robot slid forward as the man’s quivering legs pushed back. Then the other machine added its might to the deadly tug-o-war. Clayton’s strength was on the verge of failing when Lamont found the override switch.
In panic he thumped the button, yelped as sparks flew. The doors snapped shut with a convulsive shudder. The lift dropped like a stone. A mighty clang echoed in the lift well as a robot was jerked forward and slammed against the outer elevator doors. Tentacles snapped, torn asunder by the weight of the falling lift. More sparks erupted from their severed ends. Clayton and Uroona dropped to the floor, badly shaken by their ordeal.
But now a new danger presented itself – the rattling lift continued its wild plunge. Lamont cursed as he frantically jabbed other buttons.
“Damn this bucket of rust,” he cried in terror. “It’s probably as old as the pyramids!”
The lift slowed, and shuddered to a stop that jarred its shaken occupants. The doors screeched open, the lights dimmed. A final spark crackled and then there was silence broken only by the gasping of its rattled passengers.
“Well, the lift is shot,” observed Lamont. “I’m sorry,” he continued apologetically,” in my panic I obviously pressed the down button rather than the one that would take us up towards our ship, and now we’re stuck at the bottom of the tower.”
“Don’t be sorry,” consoled Clayton as he stood and helped Uroona stand. “You saved us from an ugly end. Come on. We’d better get out of here. I don’t think the Head is going to give up so easily. It needs our bodies to preserve its life, though I would prefer death to that form of existence.”
The trio exited the broken lift and found themselves in the expansive lobby of the tower. Huge windows, now shattered and fallen let in light. Nature had invaded the foyer. Untold centuries of dirt had accumulated on the floor and in it grew a riot of choking purple verdure – strange fern-like growths possessing translucent kidney shaped fronds whose scalloped edges were bordered with vivid orange.
Not knowing how far behind their pursuers were the escapees quickly forced a path through the outlandish vegetation, clambered out a shattered window and entered the jungle proper. Huge trees soared above them, their thick lobed boles covered with a scaly bark of grayish hue that ramified to crowns whose leaves resembled those of giant staghorn ferns. The air with its oppressive humidity struck them like a blow. Strange pungent scents of an alien world assailed their nostrils, and to their ears came the weird cries of unseen life in the dense canopy that cast an unsettling gloom upon a scene of primordial wilderness.
Clayton took the lead as they pushed through a dense undergrowth of the same fern-like plants that had invaded the building. He had no definite plans as to how they might regain their ship. The main objective at the moment was to put as much distance between the Head and its mechanical minions as possible. Then, when they were safe, perhaps a scheme could be evolved that would get them off this hothouse world.
For two hours they forced passage through the hindering undergrowth and clambered over the jungle choked detritus of the ruined city. All three were near to exhaustion from their exertions in the torturous humidity that drained their strength with malicious vampirism. Clayton called a halt. There was no sign of pursuit, but even if there had been none of them could have gone any further without rest.
Wearily, they sank to a slab of fallen masonry, silent and drained, each absorbed in their own bleak thoughts. After a time Uroona suddenly stirred. She looked about sharply, tensely probing the surrounding jungle with wary eyes.
“What is it?” asked Lamont sharply.
“Something is out there,” she replied. “I can sense it.”
“The Head’s robots?” queried Clayton as all three quickly stood and gazed about in a state of jumpy apprehension.
The answer came swiftly – six men, each at least seven feet in height, emerged from a patch of dense and soaring verdure with unexpected suddenness. Clearly, the Head had been mistaken in believing that it alone survived.
A surprised tableau momentarily ensued with each side staring in amazement at the other. The native’s skin was the color of cream, the fur upon their heads a darker shade and their large eyes the vivid hue of sapphire. They were dressed in simple kilt-like garments of supple leather and armed with lengthy knives and blowguns as long as their muscular bodies were tall.
The frozen tableau held only for a moment. With a wild yell the foremost warrior swiftly leapt at Clayton, his blowgun swinging like a staff to stun the Earthman. Uroona went invisible, valiantly shoved him aside. The blow missed Clayton, struck her by accident instead. She collapsed unconscious to the ground, visibility returning as Clayton flung himself upon her savage assailant.
The rest of the warriors rushed forward with wild yells and ferociously hurled themselves upon the Earthmen. The fight was short and brutal – Clayton and Lamont, both already weary, swiftly fell beneath their towering adversaries battering fists. In mere seconds they lay bleeding in the dirt at the feet of their fierce assailants, who swiftly bound all three adventurers.
The warriors stood above the captive trio conversing in their native tongue, which was phonetically characterized by strange whistling sounds. Clayton fought through his pain and fear as one warrior grasped Uroona. The man was clearly fascinated by her appearance – her silver skin and the serpentine telepathic organs on her head.
“Leave off,” snarled Clayton furiously as the fellow began to grope her.
The brute’s reply was a vicious backhand that knocked the rising Earthman down. With a grin the savage shoved his hand between Uroona’s thighs. The woman gasped. Her eyes flew open and in an instant took in the scene. She spat in her molester’s face. The man swore, rocked back upon his heels. Though bound, Uroona drew her knees to her chest, swiveled and drove her heels against the fellow’s side with all her furious strength.
Ribs cracked. The brute was hurled backwards to crash upon the ground where he lay moaning incoherently from incapacitating pain. There was uproar from the warriors, and for a dreadful moment Lamont feared they’d all be slaughtered. But then their captors’ mood swiftly changed, and they began to laugh at their wounded comrade, adding insult to injury by jesting about how he’d been beaten by a woman.
Order to the party was quickly restored. A crude stretcher made from saplings and the prisoner’s garments was soon constructed for the injured man. The warriors hauled the naked trio to their feet, and under the threat of long menacing knives they were forced to march through the brooding wilderness.
Clayton turned worried eyes upon Uroona. “Are you ok?” he asked with whispered concern.
She replied with a wild gaze, still in a towering rage at what had happened to her; then softened somewhat when she sensed his genuine sympathy.
“I’ll recover,” she replied. “Now let me concentrate. I’ll use my telepathic abilities to discover more about these people.”
Within an hour the trio had arrived at the habitation of their captors, who called themselves the People of the Trees, as Uroona had informed her companions. The abodes they beheld were like nothing any of them had ever seen before. Each dwelling consisted of a series of organic pod-shaped structures that hung from sturdy branches high above the jungle floor, each a kind of independent room connected to the other by short suspension bridges.
As Clayton’s amazed gaze roved across the hundreds of pods hanging from the surrounding trees and the many people walking upon the web of suspension bridges that linked them, his eyes alighted on a new dwelling under construction, and he gasped in incredulity at the sight of its outlandish builders.
The creatures’ bodies resembled those of chimpanzees in general form and size, but this is where all similarity ended. Instead of hair they were covered in rows of overlapping keratinous scales, purple in color and shaped like the leaves of an artichoke. The head was the least simian part of their anatomy - distinctly insect-like in form, the appearance being amplified by powerful mandibles. The eyes, though, were not the compound oculars of invertebrates but rather reptilian in their physiology.
Construction of the dwellings was accomplished not with tools, but with the mouthparts of the creatures. The powerful mandibles of the twez, as the domesticated animals were called, chewed wood to a pulp, which was mixed with their gluey saliva. The twez shaped the resulting mash with their jaws, building the stem of the pod, and then shaping its walls in a manner similar to a potter using coils of clay to form a jar, with the pulp hardening in about a minute to form a thin, waterproof and incredibly durable shell.
Clayton’s observations were interrupted by a shout as someone high above hailed the party. A swift exchange of speech occurred between their captors and the treetop sentry. Within a few minutes ropes were lowered and bound beneath the prisoners’ armpits. Clayton and his companions were hauled aloft followed by the warriors, while their injured comrade was carefully lifted in a basket.
The ropes passed through circular apertures in a lengthy platform constructed from the same papier-mâché material as the dwellings. Here, the worried captives were seized roughly by other warriors and forced along a series of swaying suspension bridges to the centre of the arboreal habitation where a domicile much larger than the rest was situated.
Clayton and his companions were manhandled through the circular entrance of the largest pod that comprised the expansive dwelling. The walls of the structure were translucent and in the diffuse light of the interior the Earthman beheld an imposing figure. The giant stood apart from the others in the room. Taller than the rest, muscles bulging with leonine strength, his face marked by the fierce will that dwelt behind his hawkish countenance.
Taran, the leader or umoz of his people, dismissed the messenger who had run ahead bearing news of the strange captives, and turned his stormy eyes upon the Earthmen and Uroona. From his thin lips flew sharp questions as pointed as any arrow to which the former queen replied, having learnt his tongue using her telepathic powers.
Lamont and Clayton watched the proceedings with growing apprehension. Although ignorant of the language it was evident by the deepening scowl on Taran’s face that he didn’t like the answers he was hearing.
The discourse ended abruptly. The umoz shouted, glared at his captives, his eyes wild with fury.
Uroona turned to her companions. “I’ve explained to him our origins and our escape from the Head. But the suspicious narrow minded fool refuses to believe me. He is accusing us as being servants of that monster whom they know about and consider a devil of the blackest kind.”
Clayton’s heart sank. He had hoped they’d be able to reason with the fellow, but at every turn they were opposed, as if wicked fate conspired to thwart their efforts to save the remnants of humanity. Despair swiftly turned to anger. He couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t let that happen!
“Tell him the gods have sent us to destroy the Head,” he desperately improvised. “Tell him to free us and I’ll show him how it can be done.”
Uroona swiftly translated. Taran grew even more wrathful. He stamped his feet, screamed wildly in a manner that hardly befitted a man of his import.
“He says that as leader of his people,” translated Uroona, “that he alone is the mouthpiece of his gods.”
“The gods are on my side, not his,” replied Clayton who was now so angry he threw all caution to the wind, “and I’ll prove it by beating him in personal combat. Tell him that and be damned what may come of it.”
Taran was speechless with apoplexy when he heard the challenge. He stood rigid, chest heaving with wild rage that was beyond expressing in words. He glared at Clayton so fiercely that his hatred was almost palpable. At last he managed to speak, his words quivering with wrath.
“He accepts your challenge,” explained Uroona, worriedly, “and that you are a blasphemous liar whom he shall take great pleasure in killing by slow degrees.”
The dual, which was taking place upon a large platform-plaza suspended from the surrounding trees, had been arranged almost immediately, but its nature wasn’t one Clayton had anticipated. The Earthman sat upon a stool with Taran seated opposite him and a low circular table between the two. On the taboret stood two goblets brimming with a mysterious black liquid that Clayton eyed nervously, his earlier bravado having abated in the face of the unknown.
Taran grinned maliciously, grasped the goblet before him and downed its strange contents in a single gulp. Clayton threw a glance at his companions. Lamont and Uroona returned his anxious gaze with worried looks of their own, but it was too late to back out now. They were surrounded by a crowd of onlookers that hemmed them in. Clayton raised the vessel to his lips and drained its contents, wondering if it would really have the effect upon him that was claimed. It all seemed too incredible to be possible.
The liquid was cool and bitter as it slid down his throat, and the effects almost immediate. His skin began to tingle and then an unsettling numbness quickly followed. Panic seized him. His body had become rigid. His vision began to blur, to fade. Wings of darkness swept in upon him and the world vanished. He hung in a void of impenetrable night, his mind reeling in fear.
Blackness slowly lightened to gray. He stood on a bleak plain whose dark surface rippled like a rain struck pond. Above him was a sky of shifting and unnerving shadows shot through with pulsing veins of venomous green. Clayton’s fear gave way to astonishment. He turned in a circle and was struck by the vividness of the hallucination. He grasped his own arm. It felt as real as it would have under ordinary circumstances and he was utterly amazed.
Looking to his right he beheld a distant figure walking towards him. The figure took a single step and advanced ten yards with a solitary stride; ten more steps and the figure was before him. Taran regarded Clayton with a mocking smile.
“Now we fight to the death,” announced Taran in English. “Here, in the Dark Realm, anything is possible.”
Before the astonished Earthman could respond his adversary thrust out an arm. The limb twisted, changed, grew long, serpentine, the fist transforming to a striking head that seemed a cross between serpent and hawk, its fang lined maw horribly agape.
Clayton gasped in shock. Horrified, he leapt aside. The darting head struck him a glancing blow. Rough scales tore his skin. Blood flowed. He cried in pain. The frightened Earthman staggered away. Reality and hallucination were indistinguishable. Taran bellowed laughter. His body grew, became huge – ten feet, then twenty. In disbelief Clayton gazed up in dismay at the towering monstrosity as it sprouted a dozen wavering serpentine limbs, each ending in an ugly venom drooling head.
Reeling with terror, Clayton tried to run. The strange ground suddenly softened, became like quicksand. He sank to his calves, helplessly trapped. Taran bellowed mad laughter. The weird sky trembled with his thundering mirth as his body grew to the size of a skyscraper.
The giant raised his titanic foot. It hovered above Clayton – a monstrous floating slab of flesh. The heel came rushing down to crush him as if he were an insect. The Earthman instinctively raised an arm. An idea burst up from the unconscious, broke through his fear. A spiked dome suddenly materialized around him. Taran howled in agony as his bare foot slammed against it. The giant stumbled, fell. The ground rocked as his titanic form crashed upon the rippling earth.
Clayton willed himself to grow as his gasping foe staggered up. Now both were of equal size – towering monstrous beings whose very tread shook the strange earth. Taran swiftly struck with his snaky limbs. His six arms lashed like whips. Clayton multiplied his arms, his hands transforming to huge crab-like claws that seized the striking limbs of his opponent.
Again Taran howled as his limbs were severed. The screaming Umoz collapsed, blood gushing from his injuries like water from a hose. But Clayton couldn’t press his attack. He was forced to leap back - the fallen heads and the limbs to which they were attached still writhed and snapped as they lay upon the earth, and he’d come close to being bitten. Everything seemed so incredibly real he couldn’t risk it was mere hallucination.
It was a brief respite for his adversary, but enough to allow him to recover. Taran swiftly healed his injuries. Again, the Umoz transformed himself dramatically. His body became a vast sheet of darkness that hovered above the startled Earthman like an enormous thunderhead. Burning spikes of crimson fire erupted from the belly of the cloud-thing as it swept down upon Clayton like a plummeting hawk.
The Earthman forced aside his wild panic, transformed his body to a whirling sphere from which scythe shaped blades protruded as the sheet of flaming spikes engulfed him in its burning folds. Clayton screamed at the touch of fire, but his cry of pain was drowned out by a howl of greater agony. A flare of actinic light erupted as the engulfing inferno that was Taran was torn apart by The Earthman’s whirling body. But Clayton, too, was badly stricken. The burst of energy from his exploding adversary slammed against him. The Earthman howled. He fell, tumbling through otherness, his reeling senses fading to oblivion.
**********
Clayton groaned an opened his eyes. He lay disorientated and it took several seconds for him to realize he was slumped upon the taboret, the empty goblet lying by his outstretched hand. Unsteadily levering himself up he saw Taran sprawled upon the platform’s floor. The man hadn’t a single mark upon him, but it was clear from his open mouth and staring eyes that he was as dead as any corpse can be.
The Earthman stood shakily, unnerved by the inexplicability of his surreal experience. Had it been real, had the strange drug transported him to another reality, or was it all just a vivid hallucination, but if so how could a hallucination kill? Turning his thoughts from these unanswerable questions he gazed worriedly and tensely at the silent throng, wondering if they’d seek bloody retribution. But in this instance his fears proved to be unfounded for they fell upon their knees and touched foreheads to the ground, arms outstretched before them.
Uroona stepped forward followed by Lamont. “You’re now umoz by right of victory,” she explained. “You’ve not only won the title and possessions of your slain protagonist, but also his wives” she added with a prudish and disapproving air.
“Wives,” gasped Clayton in shock. “What the hell am I going to do with wives?”
“Well my boy,” said Lamont with a grin. “If you don’t know the answer to that question then there’s not much hope for you.”
Uroona was not amused by his remark.
**********
Three days had passed since Clayton’s victory, and he was now uncontested umoz of the People of the Trees. But another threat had swiftly come upon them – two days ago a hunting party had spied the Head, accompanied by its mechanical servitors, prowling through the jungle several miles from the vicinity of the arboreal habitation.
A cold chill came upon Clayton when he’d been informed. A horrid vision arose within his mind – men and women being carried off to the Head’s laboratory by its stalking robots. The gleam of scalpels, the bright splash of blood, and the terrified cries of the victims; then that night the ugly nightmare in which he saw his own body with the Head grafted on it had assailed him with sickening fear.
He’d woken up alone and screaming in the night. It had been an awful experience, but one which had firmed his resolve to destroy the monster and save these people from the threat he felt he’d inadvertently brought upon them.
Clayton brought his mind to the present surround of the jungle. Lamont remained in the village. The nightmare had badly shaken Clayton, and he’d refused to let his uncle accompany him on this dangerous mission least Lamont be captured. Clayton now knelt behind a bush cautiously peering through the verdure at the column of six machines. The monstrous Head was perched upon the back of a robot in the middle of file. That the creature was here braving the dangers of the jungle, not having left its citadel for a millennium, showed just how desperate it was for a body.
The Earthman briefly glanced at Uroona. The woman, who squatted next to him, was in a sullen mood. Could it be jealousy? Her reaction to the news he’d won possession of Taran’s wives had been one of frank disapproval. Clayton felt annoyed. Did she really think he’d take the widows of the man he’d slain to bed? He’d felt her trying to probe his mind on several occasions, but had discovered that with an effort he could now shield his thoughts. He could have told her that although he didn’t want to be alone he was still as celibate as desert Anchorite, but his anger kept him silent. It really was none of her business what he did or who he did it with.
He shook his head, now annoyed at himself for despite his denial he found her opinion mattered to him. Clayton suppressed an oath. This was no time for distractions. The Head and its machines drew ever nearer, and now they must put their desperate plan into action. Again he turned to Uroona and softly spoke:
“Are you ready to act as backup?”
“Yes,” she telepathically responded and then became invisible.
Clayton rose from concealment and shouted. At his signal a dozen warriors leapt from the verdure and swiftly hurled their barbed javelins. The flight of missiles rattled harmlessly off their mechanical foes. The robots turned, charged at their bold attackers as the Earthman hoped they would.
The warriors fled. The Head spotted Clayton, rushed furiously towards him. The Earthman turned and ran. The monster, mounted upon its machine followed in swift pursuit.
Clayton sprinted through the jungle, but his flight was not one of mindless panic as it appeared. He, as with the other warriors led their foes with deadly intent. The fleeing Earthman risked a glance behind him and nearly tripped. The Head was now but yards away. In a glimpse he saw its pale, corpse white face, the dreadful crimson eyes – a thing of horror kept alive by perverted science.
The Earthman put on a burst of desperate speed as the pursuing machine lashed out with a grasping tentacle. It barely missed the racing man, so close was the thing upon his heels. Clayton drew near his goal. He leapt mightily as his pursuer reached for him again. The machine blundered into the trap as its tentacles brushed his back. The ground beneath it gave way and it crashed heavily within the concealed pit.
Clayton signaled. Above him, hidden in the jungle canopy, a waiting warrior swiftly swung his blade. A rope was severed. The heavy log plunged as the Head scrambled from the pit. The weighty mass missed the machine-creature but smashed the robot flat. Further crashes sounded in the distance as a similar fate befell the other mechanisms.
The Earthman tore the heavy mace from his belt, swung viciously at his horrid opponent as it scrambled upright. Hard bronze slammed against the Head’s protective dome. A web of cracks appeared as the thing staggered back. Clayton leapt forward, mace whirling for a second blow. Though the monster wanted him alive it knew another strike would be the finish. It flung up a metallic tentacle to which a cylinder had been recently affixed.
Clayton knocked the limb aside, and as he did a blazing purple ray erupted from the stubby tube. It struck a tree and punched a hole entirely through the thickness of the trunk. The desperate Earthman slammed against the thing. The Head toppled back within the pit, but as it fell it ensnared Clayton with a tentacle and jerked him after it.
With a wild yell the Earthman tumbled into the hole. The Head crashed upon its broken robot. Clayton crashed upon the Head, dropped his weapon. The monster was the first to recover. Too close to employ its weapon for fear of backwash of the flare, it wrapped its metallic limbs about the struggling Earthman’s throat and began to squeeze the breath from him.
Clayton struggled wildly, but his efforts were futile in the face of his horrid opponent’s mechanical might. His vision began to darken with impending unconsciousness. His hands tore feebly, desperately at the constricting limbs about his throat. The thing’s chill eyes bored into his. It was intent on incapacitating rather than killing. In its dreadful gaze the weakening Earthman sensed his horrid fate – the Head grafted upon his body with his own skull preserved as a ghastly specimen. To the rapidly failing man it was a fate more revolting than any ugly death could ever be, and he was powerless to save himself from it.
As darkness closed in upon Clayton’s reeling brain his mace suddenly flew up from the bottom of the pit. The Head’s eyes widened at the sight. The weapon whipped down in a blur of speed. It crashed against the machine-creature's weakened dome before it could defensively react. The casing shattered. The thing screamed as the heavy mace drove through and smashed its ugly face to gory ruin.
Uroona became visible. She swiftly freed the choking man from the dead thing’s constricting limbs. Clayton gasped air into his lungs as the woman helped him up.
“Are you badly hurt?” she anxiously enquired.
“No,” he replied shakily. “I just need to rest a bit.”
After a few minutes he was, with her assistance, able to scramble from the pit. Looking down Clayton gazed at the horrid thing that lay lifeless below him. Thanks to Uroona he’d been saved from a truly terrible fate. Delayed reaction set in. His knees suddenly became weak. Uroona helped him to a fallen tree upon which he gladly sat. Sensing his feelings she hugged him and he returned her embrace.
This joining of bodies was intimate without being sexual. It was a strange feeling for the woman. Uroona was no virgin, but the slaves who’d embraced her had been so frightened that their fear of her had impeded their performance. There had been neither love nor passion in the act, merely a mechanical routine that left her emotionally unsatisfied.
Secretly, she’d yearned for something more, not really knowing what it was. In this tender instant though she sensed an inkling of what it might be. In mutual awareness of these feelings they clung to one another, and in that moment no words were needed to be spoken.
**********
Clayton, eager to be under way, watched with restrained impatience as his uncle performed the final exterior check of the Ahura’s new weapons system. With the Head’s demise those robots that hadn’t been destroyed by the pitfalls had ceased to function coherently, and so unopposed it had been easy to regain their ship.
Uroona had proven invaluable. With her knowledge of the Head’s language, which she had gained using her mental abilities, she was able to translate vital information found in the monster’s extensive library, which had pinpointed the origin of Earth’s attackers.
Lamont, with Uroona’s help and the aid of technical manuals, had also analyzed the Head’s ray-weapon and discovered its operating principles, and although many of the machines in the Head’s workshop had ceased to function, those that were still operational combined with the equipment aboard the Ahura, had enabled the savant to manufacture what he had named the Atomic Disruptor Cannon.
Six of the tubular weapons had been mounted on ball and socket joints equidistantly about the circumference of the vessel’s geodesic polyhedron hull. The cannon, which could be swiveled in any direction, fired a ray of actinic amethyst light that could punch a hole through an inch of steel with frightening ease.
In addition the ship could now be made to disappear. Based on studies of Uroona’s skin Lamont had perfected a spray on film that contained microscopic particles whose geometry interfered with the normal scattering of light. Electrifying the ship’s hull changed the polarization of the film thus rendering the craft utterly invisible. Clayton had found it rather disconcerting to watch the Ahura vanish before his eyes.
The modifications had taken a week of hectic activity to complete, and all the while Clayton, who had also thrown himself into the task with vigor, fretted over Humanity’s fate. The process was taking far too long for his liking, but there was little that could be done to accelerate it. To rush at the enemy ill prepared would be an invitation to defeat.
After what seemed an age, but was in fact about fifteen minutes, Lamont spoke to his agitated nephew: “Everything is in order. We’re ready to depart.”
Clayton turned to Uroona who stood beside him. Memories of their embrace were still strong in his mind. There was much he wanted to talk to her about, but all the other pressures and the urgency of saving humanity left him little opportunity to do so. So many things seemed to be getting in the way. With an effort he refocused his thoughts and spoke to the woman, his terseness a sign of his frustration:
“Let’s get this farewell speech done so we can be off.”
The Earthman faced the throng who had gathered at the tower’s apex and Uroona translated as he addressed the crowd of notables.
“Legends speak of the destruction of your ancient civilization,” he began. “Those beings responsible also dealt my own a devastating blow. We go now to avenge your ancestors and my people, to attack those demons that dwell beyond the sky. I have chosen Munan to rule in my place,” he continued, pointing at a distinguished looking fellow. “If I do not return within a year it will be because I am dead, and the chieftainship will then pass permanently to him. Are there any questions?”
The throng remained silent. They were in awe of Clayton. He had killed the Head – to them an almost supernatural monster, and now he was about to ascend to the realm of the spirits and do battle with the demons who had destroyed their world in ancient times. Secretly, many were relieved to see him go, for it is one thing to listen to the legends of a time when mighty sorcerers strode the world, but it is quite another to have one living among you.
Seeing there was nothing further he needed to say Clayton raised his hand in farewell. The trio entered the Ahura. The port clanged shut and shortly the ship rose silently into the air. The throng watched quietly as the vessel grew smaller and smaller, until it vanished into the pearly haze of the Venusian sky.
**********
Clayton looked down upon Ganymede, moon of Jupiter and largest satellite in the solar system. The globe was only slightly smaller than Mars, and could easily have been classified as a planet but for the fact it was orbiting another world.
The Ahura, now invisible, hovered about a mile above the rugged surface of the moon. The landscape was one of a dark and rugged terrain, dimly illuminated by Jupiter’s reflected light. Mountains, slender and as sharp as the spires of a Titan’s cathedral thrust into the nitrogen sky, their crowding masses creating deep narrow valleys clotted with bleak shadows broken here and there by the glinting rush of methane rapids and leaping cataracts.
Everywhere the Earthman looked was a wilderness of wild and intimidating rock, and in the sky, bulking huge was the banded mass of Jupiter. Its gigantic red spot, three times larger than the Earth, glared like the swirling eye of a cyclopean monster.
The environment was alien, hostile, but nonetheless life existed here as nature often finds a way. Clayton gazed upon the weird bioluminescent forms in wonder. Conical spongy growths with deep pits sprouted from the stony soil and softly glowed with a puce illumination. Strange irregular convoluted masses speckled with gelatinous spheres were also present, these shining with a pale orange light while above them towered cylindrical forms covered in a shaggy pelt of tendrils that added their citrine radiance to the unearthly scene.
Clayton moved the viewer and beheld fanning clusters of vertical discs with spiky edges that shined pastel green in the darkness, and near them were flattened globes whose surfaces were ridged and veined and glowed smoldering crimson through the gloom, their strange forms augmented by unearthly pear-shaped things of a warty texture whose expansive girth was ringed by protuberances of stars that pulsed with sapphire light.
“What do you see?” enquired Uroona who stood beside him.
“Marvels,” was his quiet reply.
“Any sign of the enemy?” asked his uncle, pragmatically.
Clayton sobered as these words broke the spell enthralling him. The moment of confrontation with Earth’s destroyers would soon be upon them, and here he was gawking at alien life. There might be time for that later if they survived. Clayton refocused his attention and shifted his intent gaze to another quadrant of the surface. Near the horizon something bulked against the sky – indistinct, yet large enough to draw the eye.
The Earthman focused his instrument upon it. A touch of the controls sharpened the view. He gasped. The mass was regular – too regular to be a rocky outcrop. He gave directions. The Ahura descended to the cover of the rugged terrain and slowly moved towards the looming thing.
Within an hour Clayton gazed at the object of their destination from the deep shadows of a narrow valley that debouched upon a rocky plain cut with rivers of liquid methane. The forms his eyes beheld towered mountainous – a fused column of emerald hexagonal crystals which formed a colossal spire that raked the sky with its stupendous reach.
Around the mighty tower and growing out from its base, was an encircling dendrite web of emerald growth that ramified like the branches of a tree. The entire structure was porous in the manner of coral, and combined the seeming contradictory elements of the organic and inorganic realms, for it was also veined with silvery inclusions that gave the impression of a complex network of axons.
Clayton gasped as he swept the viewer across the astounding scene. Clambering about the webby growth of the tower were other mobile forms that looked like giant emeralds of oval form, their glittering bodies supported by faceted many jointed legs of living mineral, and it was clear to the amazed Earthman that what his eyes beheld was no ordinary geological formation.
A movement in the sky drew his gaze and he tensed when he swung the viewer in that direction, for his eyes beheld a ship identical to those that had attacked the Earth – a fluted cylinder tapering at both ends with fan-like structures that protruded laterally on either side, the entire vessel being of faceted emerald crystal and surrounded by an aura of golden light. The craft descended, touched the soaring spire. The vehicle’s outlines shimmered, grew fluid and the entire ship was absorbed as if the mighty tower was a sponge soaking up water.
Clayton leaned back in his chair, stunned. They’d found the enemy, and what a foe it was.
“What is it? What do you see?” asked Lamont impatiently.
Succinctly Clayton described what he’d observed and concluded thus as his uncle pressed his eyes to the viewer: “I don’t think the crystal growth is indigenous to Ganymede – it’s too different from the other forms of life inhabiting the moon. My guess is that it’s of extra-solar origin. Perhaps a spore or something like that drifted in from interstellar space and took root upon this world.”
“Perhaps,” began Lamont, but before his uncle could continue a vibration jarred their craft and sent a quiver of wild alarm through its startled occupants.
“What was that?” came Uroona’s telepathic thought.
Lamont swung the viewer about and swore when it came to rest upon the threat. “It’s another crystal ship,” he cried in alarm. “Somehow, they’ve sensed our presence and caught our vessel in a net of emerald force.
Both men leapt for the weapon controls, grimly swung the atomic disruptor cannon upon the alien. Raging beams of blasting force lanced out and struck the crystal ship in a swirling coruscation of actinic light. But for all the destructive power of the ray they might as well have been shining a flashlight at the enemy, for not the slightest mark was put upon the foe.
The crystal ship rose up, drawing its captives with it and drove with unhurried ease towards the colossal spire of shining otherworldly crystal. Lamont, pale and shaken, looked upon his companions bleakly as he spoke in fear tinged tones:
“Our weapons have no effect. I can’t break free of the force ensnaring us. I’m afraid we’re completely helpless and at the utter mercy of the foe.”
The alien vessel swept towards the soaring crystal tower, the smaller Earth ship held fast in its powerful clutches. Ahura’s unnerved and helpless occupants could do nothing but observe the looming structure as it drew ever nearer, bulking huge and intimidating against the inky sky.
Uroona shivered and moved close to Clayton. “I feel a presence,” she said. “A mind strange and alien; its thoughts unfathomable. It’s like nothing I’ve ever sensed before and … and its weirdness frightens me.”
Clayton placed his arm around the shaken woman and drew her to his lap. Then he, too, felt the unnerving presence as it touched his mind. For a moment his senses swirled and it seemed as if he tumbled into a spinning vortex of indescribable otherness as a tumult of otherworldly sensations washed over him. The alien presence withdrew, and although its touch had been but fleeting to him and his companions, nonetheless it had left all of them shaken to the core.
The trio looked at each other, pale and speechless. Words were simply inadequate. In the silence the alien craft touched the tower, drew the Ahura in as it was absorbed. They passed through thrumming liquefied crystal. The glittering fluid drew apart, re-solidified in an altered configuration. A faceted hemispherical void was created and the Earth-ship settled gently to its floor.
Lamont, who had been touched less heavily by the strange presence, was the first to recover from the mind jarring experience. He pressed his eyes to the viewer and looked within the newly created chamber with a feeling of curiosity mixed with understandable trepidation.
Clayton found his tongue. “What do you see?” he asked in a shaky voice.
“A lot of glittering space, but not much… Wait. Something is emerging from the walls… Three globes of light. They look like the ball lightening we saw back on Earth.”
“They might look like it,” replied Clayton tensely. “But obviously they’re much more than that. Do you think we are safe in the ship?”
“Who knows.” replied Lamont candidly. “We’re dealing with something so outside the realm of our experiences it’s impossible to say. Uroona,” he continued, “the things are circling our craft. Have a look and tell us what you think. Perhaps your other senses can reveal something more.”
The woman looked into the instrument. “I sense an intelligence of sorts,” she announced after a moment. “But one of a lower order than that which touched our minds, though just as strange. I can’t even begin to imagine what they are.”
Uroona tensed. “One of the spheres is moving towards the Ahura… It’s touched the hull.” The woman jerked away from the viewer and anxiously faced the men. “It’s penetrated the metal. It’s in the ship!”
The atmosphere was thick with jittery tension as the trio gazed wildly about the control room. Lamont gasped, cried out as he pointed: “Look.”
A glowing sphere emerged from the floor, passing through solid metal as light passes through a windowpane. Clayton swore, drew his sword and hurled at the thing. The globe nimbly dodged the flying blade, struck back with a hissing ray. Clayton screamed, convulsed as he was hit. He collapsed upon the deck. Lamont and Uroona rushed to his aid.
“Are you badly injured?” she asked; her gaze eloquent with worry as she looked upon him while Lamont kept a wary eye on the intruder.
Clayton groaned, weakly shook his head and managed to reply: “No… Felt like an electric shock… Damn… that hurt.”
Lamont tensed. “We’ve got more company,” he warned.
Two additional globes had emerged from the floor. One darted for the control panel forcing the trio to scuttle back. The thing sank into the board, and shortly the sound of the opening port came to the ears of Ahura’s edgy crew.
Clayton cast aside caution. He dodged the other spheres, leapt frantically for the controls. The Earthman swore. “It’s taken possession of the ship. Nothing responds to my touch.”
“I’m not surprised,” replied Lamont somberly. “They were observing us during the construction of the Ahura. They know far more about us and our technology than we know about them.”
With a muttered oath Clayton stepped back from the unresponsive board as cold but breathable air rushed into the ship. Its occupants shivered, but not from the chill alone: The sphere that had penetrated the instruments had emerged and with its companions was advancing upon them – slow and sinister as a stalking tiger, an implacable alien force that touched them with its aura of otherworldly menace.
The trio backed tensely away. Lamont’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. Clayton shot him a warning look as the spheres quivered in seeming anger. The savant forced himself to relax as the adventurers were herded from the ship. They emerged into the crystal chamber. In the far wall a tunnel opened before them like a dilating iris, and down this passage their weird captors herded them.
As the worried trio advanced along the way a sense of the alien presence they had heretofore encountered again came upon them. Silently, they drew closer to each other, seeking comfort in each other’s humanity. It was all they could do in the face of the oppressive and disturbing sensation that grew ever stronger with each passing step towards their unknown destination.
After what seemed an age, but in reality would have been no more than fifteen minutes, the jumpy trio emerged from the tunnel into another faceted chamber of enormous size, and here the presence of the alien mind struck them with the full force of its weird presence. Lamont staggered under its impact. Uroona and Clayton though similarly affected managed to steady him. All three gazed at the thing before them, a mixture of awe and fear upon their pale countenances.
In the middle of the circular room was a stupendous cluster of lucid tetrahedral crystals in which were golden needle-like inclusions that formed a complex network of starburst forms. But the most astounding thing of all was the dancing nimbus of aural light that cloaked the glittering mass in a spectral flame of pellucid illumination.
The emanations of the crystals washed over them, penetrated them, and in that moment they knew that here was a mind of living light – a strange pattern of radiations that stood in defiance of all accepted views of biology – a being so alien that it could have no kinship with any of them.
Indescribable, incomprehensible thoughts flooded their minds. Strange feelings and sensations invaded their brains. Lamont groaned, collapsed limply upon the faceted floor, overcome by the experience. Clayton reeled. He clutched his head as if this physical act could somehow hold his sanity in place. A terrible inhuman cry burst from his throat. His eyes rolled back and he, too, fell in a twitching heap. Uroona sank to her knees under the weight of the alien presence. Terror came upon her – fear not only for herself but also for her companions for she could sense their minds disintegrating under the pressure of the entity’s psychic emanations.
Then the unexpected happened. The paranormal force impinging upon her brain reacted with it in a completely unintended way. Barriers were broken through. The secret places of her mind were unlocked and suddenly Uroona became aware of abilities she never dreamed she possessed.
She gathered her mental strength. For her the world vanished as her mind entered another level of reality opened by the entity’s catalyzing energy. Uroona extended her powers, and a spider web of light spread through the misty void of emerald - like water crystallizing on icy glass. She sensed the minds of her companions – shifting patterns of glowing fractural shapes linked by threads of light that crawled across their whirling surfaces.
Distress came upon Uroona as she perceived the evidence of mental disintegration - dark areas in the brightness, black cankerous shadows whose edges extended writhing growths of dark disruption among the spinning forms. Quickly she moved; cast the net of her mind over the psychic forms of her failing companions and drew them swiftly together. Fibers of light grew from her glowing net and penetrated the virulent darkness in ramifying strands. The strands pulsed, blazed with actinic light. The blotches shrank, vanished as the web of force became an enveloping sphere of radiant mesh which sent forth a multitude of silvery threads that bound the trio of minds into a single entity.
For Clayton there was a moment of wild panic as his sense of self was subsumed by the greater whole, but it quickly passed with swift integration to be replaced by a sense of wonder as a new reality impinged upon awareness. The new being sensed the alien. It swirled about the sphere of light that was the blended minds of the trio. The enemy was a shifting geometric pattern of strange forces that metamorphosed so swiftly it was impossible to perceive its exact form.
Rays of blackness shot forth from the foe and struck the sphere in a spray of foaming shadows. The orb quivered under the terrible impact. Agony spread out from it in rippling waves of crimson light. The emboldened antagonist leapt upon the globe, smothered it in swirling patterns of rending darkness. Lances of light burst from the wounded sphere. The blazing shafts pierced the swirling ebon things before they could inflict a fatal injury. The globe spun dizzily, sundering its opponent, scattering it like leaves before a gale.
But the enemy swiftly reformed, rushed the sphere. The injured globe fled. The dark entity pursued relentlessly, driving the orb before it in respite denying chase that was a wild running fight. The orb twisted, turned. It dove and soared through the void of otherness. Stabbing rays of destructive force leapt between both combatants in a coruscation of frightful impacts.
Weakness came upon the wavering sphere. Dark blotches marred its surface where the necrotic bolts had struck. It knew that in but moments the end would come. The alien mind leapt at it, and in that moment of wild overconfidence the sphere sensed a weak point in its foe – an aperture in the whirling patterns through which it briefly glimpsed the strange being’s pulsing core – concentric rings of whirling spiky discs whose surfaces rippled with scintillating light.
The sphere became a streak of fire – a desperate sacrificial move. It flashed within the gap like a blazing arrow and plunged within the enemy’s gyrating nucleus. The globe burst in a flash of psychic force. Ripples of fire spread out in a cyclonic rush and blazingly impinged upon the whirling discs. The energies merged. The discs quivered with the agony of change. Prominences of roaring light leapt from disc to disc in the manner of titanic thunderbolts. A fog of sparkling silver shrouded the scene in whirling clouds, solidified like a chrysalis to become a spinning cube, mirror bright.
An eon seemed to pass and then the cube, by some inexplicable means, began to slowly turn inside out and a new being that defied description was gradually revealed.
**********
Clayton could remember only agony – the excruciating pain as the unity of minds was sundered in that final frightful moment; that and a sense of terrible loss with the shattering of the psychic concord. After an age the numb Earthman found the strength to rouse himself to action. Looking about he saw the still form of his uncle some feet away. Fear came upon him as he crawled to Lamont and a wild sob of grief burst forth as his hand touched the cold inert body.
Clayton wept. His uncle was dead. Earth was dead and all hope dashed and broken like a pot of frail clay cast upon stony ground. A hand upon his shoulder broke through his biting grief. He looked up and saw that Uroona was unharmed and his anguish abated somewhat at the sight of her.
“Your uncle is not wholly gone,” she said gesturing. “Look upon the aura of the crystal being.”
The Earthman turned and gazed at the dancing nimbus of aural light that cloaked the glittering mass in a spectral flame of pellucid illumination. Before, the halo had been akin to the leaping of a fire, but now the cloak of light was more like an aurora with its streamers, folds and arches of spectral multicolored rays. Clearly, there had been a transformation.
Sensations swept over Clayton. Mental emanations – the thought patterns of the living crystal – touched his mind, and at once he perceived a change in them: There was a trance of humanity that made the being less alien, and he knew with certainty that some aspect of his uncle yet survived.
Nonverbal communication was established. It was all a pattern of sensations – images, emotions and other feeling too alien to describe. But the essence of it was regret for the harm inflicted upon Earth and its people. There was also an explanation why, but this escaped the wondering Earthman, for the concepts were born of a way of thinking that was beyond Humanity’s ken, and therefore incomprehensible.
Clayton became irate and frustrated. It was unfathomable. Anger he could comprehend. Hatred he could understand and fear also, but this inexplicable reason for so much suffering and death was meaningless, pointless. It might as well have been a natural disaster that had wrought such havoc upon his home-world. He wanted to scream and rage and lash out in fury, but realized he might as well shake his fist at the unfairness of the Universe for all the good it would do.
One thing came through clearly, however: the desire of the transformed being to make amends and save the remnants of Humanity. Images impinged upon Clayton – a fleet of crystal ships carrying survivors from the devastated planet to an Earth-like world orbiting a nearby star. The intelligence explained its reasoning: Mars and Venus were already inhabited, and as the colonists grew in number conflict with the indigenous population would be inevitable.
Clayton reigned in his anger. He thought hard. Thanks to their combined efforts the being that attacked Earth had undergone a metamorphosis. It no longer existed any more than a caterpillar exists after it has become a butterfly. He saw now that his desire for revenge, although understandable, was without purpose. After a moment’s further contemplation Clayton readily assented to the plan.
Many years had passed. Clayton, now an old man, looked from his roof terrace upon the city of whitewashed mud brick that had slowly grown along the banks of the broad river the first settlers had named Arcadia. The sun, rising in the west, was no longer strange to him. Neither were its emerald rays that fell upon the waking metropolis and its agricultural fields.
Soon, the streets would be alive with the risen populace – the old and their children: those born upon this world of New Earth – tall and strong and brown of hair and skin; the flourishing admixture of the surviving races of Humanity.
A light footstep made Clayton turn and he smiled as Uroona joined him to watch the sunrise. Love had slowly blossomed between them, a love that had mellowed with the passing of the years.
“It’s never lost its fascination for you, has it?” she enquired, referring to the coming of the day.
“The world renews itself,” he quietly replied, “and it reminds me that upon this planet we have a new beginning and a hope of better things: peace, equality and reason - I’ve taught this at the school, and trained all the teachers so. I’m an old man now. They can carry on my work when I am gone.”
“You’re not old,” she replied.
Clayton smiled. “Someone’s being kind and I don’t think it’s the mirror,” he countered humorously.
They both laughed and together watched the dawning of the day.
THE END