 The Carnivore by G.A. Morris. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are on the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Miss Averis. The Carnivore by G.A. Morris. The beings stood around my bed in air suits like ski suits with globes over their heads like upside down fish bowls. It was all like a masquerade with odd costumes and funny masks. I know that the masks are their faces, but I argue with them and find I think as if I am arguing with humans behind the masks. There are people. I recognize people and whether I am going to like this person or that person by something in the way they move and how they get excited when they talk. And I know that I like these people in a motherly sort of way. You have to feel motherly toward them, I guess. They all remind me of Ronnie, a medical student I knew once. He was small and round and eager. You had to like him, but you couldn't take him very seriously. He was a pacifist. He wrote poetry and pulled it out to read aloud at ill-time moments. And he stuttered when he talked too fast. They are all like that. All fright and gentleness. I am not the only survivor. They have explained that. But I am the first they found in the least damage, the one they have chosen to represent the human race to them. They stand around my bed and answer questions and are nice to me when I argue with them. All in a group, they look halfway between delegation of nations and an arc. One of each big and small, thick and thin, forearms and wings, all shapes and colors and fur and skin and feathers. I can picture them in their UN of the universe, making speeches in their different languages, listening patiently without understanding each other's different problems, boring each other and being too polite to yawn. They are polite. So polite I almost feel they are afraid of me, and I want to reassure them. But I talk as if I were angry. I can't help it, because of things that had only been a little different. Why couldn't you have come sooner? Why couldn't you have tried to stop it before it happened? Or at least come sooner, afterward? If they had come sooner to where the workers of the Nevada powerpiles starved slowly behind the protecting walls of lead, if they had looked sooner for the survivors of the dust with which the nations of the world had slain each other, George Craig would be alive. He died before they came. He was my co-worker, and I loved him. We had gone down together, passing door by door the automatic safeguards of the plant, which were supposed to protect the people on the outside from the radioactive danger on the inside. But the danger of failure of politics was far more real than the danger of failure in the science of the powerpile, and that had not been calculated by the builders. We were far underground when the first radioactivity in the air outside had shut all the heavy lead-shielded automatic doors between us and the outside. We were safe. And we starved there. Why didn't you come sooner? I wonder if they know or guess how I feel. My questions are not questions, but I have to ask them. He is dead. I don't mean to reproach them. They look well-meaning and kindly, but I feel as if somehow, knowing why it happened, could make it stop, could let me turn the clock back and make it happen differently. If I could have signaled them, so they would have come just a little sooner. They look at one another, turning their funny-faced heads uneasily, moving back and forth, but no one will answer. The world is dead. George is dead, that thin, pathetic creature with the bones showing through his skin that he was, when we sat still at last with our hands touching. Thinking there were people outside who had forgotten us, hoping they would remember. We didn't guess that the world was dead, blanketed in the radiating dust outside. Politics had killed it. These beings around me, they had been watching, seeing what was going to happen to our world, listening to our radios from their small settlements on the other planets of the solar system. They had seen the doom of war coming. They represented stellar civilizations of great power and technology, and with populations that would have made ours seem a small village. They were stronger than we were, and yet they had done nothing. Why didn't you stop us? You could have stopped us. A rabity one who is closer than the others backs away, gesturing politely that he is giving room for someone else to speak. But he looks guilty and will not look at me with his big round eyes. I still feel weak and dizzy. It is hard to think, but I feel as if they are hiding a secret. A dole like one hesitates and comes closer to my bed. We discussed it. We wrote it. It talks through a microphone in its helmet with a soft, lisping accent that I think comes from the shape of its mouth. It has a muzzle and very soft, dainty, long nibbling lips like a deer that nibbles on twigs and buds. We were afraid, adds one who looks like a bear. To us, the future was very terrible, says one who looks as if it might have descended from some sort of large bird like a penguin. So much, your weapons were very terrible. Now they all talk at once, crowding about my bed, apologizing. So much killing, it hurt to know about, but your people didn't seem to mind. We were afraid. And in your fiction, the dole like one lisps, I saw plays from your amusement machines which said, the discovery of beings in space would save you from war. Not because you would let us bring friendship into each piece, but because the human race would unite in hatred of the outsiders. They would forget their hatred of each other only in a new and more terrible war with us. Its voice breaks in a squeak and it turns its face away from me. You were about to come out into space, we were wondering how to hide. That is the quick talking one, as small as a child. He looks as if he might have descended from a bat, grey silk and fur on his pointed face, big night-seeing eyes and big sensitive ears. With a hump shape on the back of his air suit which might be folded wings. We were trying to conceal where we had built so that humans would not guess we were near and look for us. They are ashamed of their fear, for because of it they broke all the kindly laws of their civilizations, restrained all the pity and gentleness I see in them and led us to sure ourselves. I am beginning to feel more awake and see more clearly, and I am beginning to feel sorry for them for I can see why they are afraid. They are herbivores. I remember the meaning of shapes. In the paths of evolution there are grass-eaters and berry-eaters and root-diggers. Each has its functional shape of face and neck and its wide, startled-looking eyes to see and run away from the hunters. In all their racial history they have never killed to eat. They have been killed neat and will run away and they evolved to intelligence by selection. Those lived who had succeeded in running away from carnivores like lions, hawks, and men. I look up and they turn their eyes and hands in quick and barest motion, not meeting my eye. The rabid one is nearest and I reach out to touch him, pleased because I am growing strong enough now to move my arms. He looks at me and I ask the question, are there any carnivores, flesh-eaters among you? He hesitates, moving his lips as if searching for tactful words. We have never found any that were civilized. We have frequently found them in caves and tents fighting each other. Sometimes we find them fighting each other with the ruins of cities around them, but they are always savages. The bear-legged one said heavily, it might be that carnivores evolve more rapidly and tend toward intelligence more often. We find radioactive planets without life in places like the place you call your asteroid belt, where a planet should be. But there are only scattered fragments of planet pieces that look as if a planet had been blown apart. We think that usually he looked at me uncertainly, beginning to fumble with his words. We think. Yours is the only carnivorous race we have found that was civilized, that had a science and was going to come out into space. The dolegged one interrupted softly. We were afraid. They seemed to be apologizing. The gravity one, who seems to be the chosen as the leader in speaking to me, says, we will give you anything you want, anything we are able to give you. They mean it. We survivors will be privileged people, with the key to all the cities, everything free. Their sincerity is wonderful but puzzling. Are they trying to atone for the thing they feel was a crime? That they allowed humanity to murder itself and lost to the galaxy the richness of a race? Is this why they are so generous? Perhaps then they will help the race to get started again. The records are not lost. The few survivors can eventually repopulate Earth. Under the tutelage of these peaceable races without the stress of division in the nations, we will flower as a race. No children of mine to the furthest descendant will ever make war again. This much of a lesson we have learned. These timid beings do not realize how much humanity has wanted peace. They do not know how reluctantly we were forced and trapped by old institutions with tangles of politics to which we could see no answer. We are not naturally savage. We are not savage when approached as individuals. Perhaps they know this but are afraid anyhow. Instinct of fear rising up from the blood of their hunted, frightened for bears. The human race will be a good partner to these races. Even recovering from starvation as I am, I can feel in myself an energy they do not have. The savage in me and my race is a creative thing. For in those who have been educated as I was, it is the controlled savagery which attacks and destroys only problems and obstacles. Never people. Any human raised outside of the political traditions that the race inherited from its bloodstained childhood would be as friendly and ready for friendship as I am towards these beings. I could never hurt these pleasant, overgrown bunnies and squirrels. We will do everything we can to make up for. We will try to help, says the bunny, stumbling over the English but civilized and cordial and kind. I sit up suddenly reaching out impulsively to shake his hand. Suddenly frightened, he leaves back. All of them step back, glancing behind them as though making sure of the avenue of escape. Their big, luminous eyes widen and glance rapidly from me to the doors, frightened. They must think I am about to leap out of bed and pounce on them and eat them. I am about to laugh and reassure them, about to say that all I want from them is friendship. When I feel a twinge in my abdomen from the sudden motion, I touch it with one hand under the bedclothes. There is a scar of an incision here, almost healed. In operation. The weakness I am recovering from is more than the weakness of starvation. For only half a second I do not understand. Then I see why they look to shame. They voted the murder of a race. All the human survivors found have been made sterile. There will be no more humans after we die. I am frozen, one hand still extended to grasp the hand of the rabid one. My eyes still searching for his expression, reassuring words still have form. There will be time for anger or grief later, for now, in this instant I can understand. They are probably quite right. We were carnivores. I know, because at this moment of hatred, I could kill them all. End of The Carnivore by G.A. Morris. Recording by Ms. Averis. The Doom from Planet Four by Jack Williamson. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Greg Marguerite. The Doom from Planet Four by Jack Williamson. S-O-S, S-O-S, S-O-S. Three short, three long, three short. The flashes winked from the dark headland. Dan McNally, master and owner of the small and ancient trading schooner Virginia, caught the feeble flickering light from the island as he strode across the foredeck. He stopped, stared at the looming black line of land beneath the tropical stars. Dan light flashed from a point of rock far above the dim white line of phosphorescent surf spelling out the signal of distress. Somebody been calling with a flashlight, I think. The big sweet larson rumbled from the wheel. Dan thought suddenly of a reply. He rushed into the chart house to return in a moment with a lighted lantern and a copy of the nautical almanac which would serve to hide the flame between flashes. He flashed an answer. Again the pale light flickered from the dark mass of land spelling words out rather slowly as if the sender were uncertain in his knowledge of Morse. Surprised as Dan had been by the signal from an island marked on the charts as uninhabited, he was astonished at the message that now came to him. You are in terrible danger, he read in the flashes. Dreadful thing here. Hurry away. Radio for warships. I am— The winking light suddenly went out. Dan strained his eyes to watch the point where it had been and a few seconds later he saw a curious thing. A darting, stabbing glance of green fire flashed out across the barren rocky cliff, lighting it fleetingly with pale green radiance. It leapt out and was gone in an instant, leaving the shoulder of the island dark as before. Dan watched for long minutes but he saw nothing more brilliant than the pale gleam of phosphorescence where the waves dashed against the sheer granite wall of the island. What do you think? Larson broke in upon him. Dan started, then answered slowly. I don't know. First I thought there must be a lunatic at large, but that green light, I didn't like it. He stared again at the looming mass of the island. Davis Island is one of the innumerable tiny islets that dot the South Pacific, merely the summit of a dead volcano projecting above the sea. Nominally claimed by Great Britain it is marked on the charts as uninhabited. Radio for warships, eh? He muttered. A wireless transmitter was one of many modern innovations that the Virginia did not boast. She had been gathering cobra and shell among the islands long before such things came into common use, though Dan had invested his modest savings in her only a year before. What would anyone want with warships on Davis Island? The name roused a vague memory. Davis Island, he repeated, staring in concentration at the Black Sea. Of course! It came to him suddenly. A newspaper article that he had read five years before at about the time he had abandoned college in the middle of his junior year to follow the call of adventure. The account had dealt with an eclipse of the sun, visible only from certain points on the Pacific. One Dr. Hunter under the auspices of a western university had sailed with his instruments and assistants to Davis Island to study the solar corona during the few precious moments when the shadow covered the sun and to observe the displacement of certain stars as a test of Einstein's theory of relativity. The reporter had interviewed the party at San Francisco on the eve of sailing. There had been photographs of the chartered vessel of Dr. Hunter and his instruments and of his daughter Helen, who acted as his secretary. She looked not at all like a scientist, Dan recalled. In fact, her face had seemed rather pretty, even in the blurred newspaper halftone. But the memory cast no light upon the present puzzle. In the rambling years that had led him to this spot upon the Old Virginia, he had lost touch with the science that had interested him during his college days. He had heard nothing of the results of the Hunter expedition, but this island had been its destination. He turned decisively to the man at the wheel. Larson, we'll stand well offshore till daylight, he said. Then, unless we see something unusual, we can sail in and land a boat to— The sentence was never finished. Through the corner of his eye, Dan saw a ray of green light darting toward them from the island. A line of green fire seemed to reach out and strike him a physical blow. Green flame flared around him, and somehow he was hurtled from the bridge, clear of the rail and into the sea. His impression of the incident was very confused. He seemed to have struck the water with such force that his breath was knocked out. He struggled back to the surface, strangling and coughing the bitter brine from his lungs. It was several minutes before he was comfortably treading water and able to see what had happened. The old schooner was then a hundred yards away, careening crazily and drifting aimlessly before the light breathed. The strange green fire had vanished. Parts of the ship apparently had been carried away or disintegrated by the ray of force of which it was a visible effect. The main mast was down and was hanging over the side in a tangle of rigging. Bright yellow flames were dancing at a dozen points about the wreckage on the listing deck. A grotesque broken thing, queerly illuminated by the growing fires was hanging over the wheel—the body of Larson. No living thing was visible, and Dan, after a second look at the wreck of the bow, knew that he must be the sole survivor of the catastrophe. Too bad about the boys, he muttered through teeth that chattered for the cold water had already chilled him. And poor old Larson—he thought again of the warning flashed from the shore. Yes, there must be something hellish afoot after all, he muttered again. The flicker of green that stopped the signals and the green fire that got us—what can they mean? He looked toward the looming black shadow of the island and began divesting himself of his clinging, sodden garments. I don't wonder somebody wanted battleships, but even a battleship if that green ray hit it. He drew a deep breath and ducked his head while he unlaced his shoes and kicked out of them. Then, with a final look at the burning wreck of the Virginia, he tore off the last bit of his underclothing and swam for the shore in an easy crawl. The rocky ramparts of Davis Island were three or four miles away, but there was no wind. The black sea was calm, save for a long, hardly perceptible swell. A strong swimmer and in superb condition, Dan felt no anxiety about being able to make the distance. There was danger, however, that a shark would run across him or that he could not find a landing place upon the rocky shore. Four bells had rung when he had seen the first flash. It had been just ten o'clock, and it was some four hours later that Dan touched bottom and waited wearily up a bit of smooth, hard beach through pally, glittering, phosphorescent foam. He rubbed the brine from his tired limbs and sat down for a time, in a spot where a fallen boulder sheltered his naked body from the cool morning wind. In a few moments he rose, flexed his muscles and peered through the starlit darkness for a way up the cliff behind the beach. He found it impossible to distinguish anything. Got to keep moving or find some clothes, he muttered, and I may stumble onto what made the green light. Darn lucky I've been so far anyhow. Larson and the others, but I shan't think of them. Wonder who was flashing the signals from the island and did the green fire get him? He turned to look out over the black plain of the sea. Far out the Virginia lay low in the water, a pillar of yellow flame rising from her hull. As he watched the flame flickered and vanished, the old schooner he supposed had sunk. Then he noticed a pale glow come into being among the stars on the eastern horizon. Hello, he muttered again. So we're going to have a moon in the last quarter, but still it ought to light me up from this beach. A moment later the horns of the crescent had come above the black rim of the sea. Dan waited, swinging his arms and tramping up and down on the sand until the silvery moon had cleared the horizon and illuminated the rugged face of the cliff with pale white radiance. He chose a path to the top of the cliff and clamored up, emerging in a jungle-like thicket of brush. Picking his way with the greatest caution, yet scratching his naked skin most painfully, he made his way for a few yards through the brush to a point of vantage from which he could look about. He was he perceived in a narrow valley or ravine, with rugged black walls rising sheer on either side. The silvery light of the crescent moon fell upon the rank jungle that covered the narrow floor of the canyon, which rose and dwindled as it penetrated inland. Gazing up the canyon, Dan gasped in amazement at what he saw. Mars, the red planet, hung bright and motionless low in the western sky, gleaming with deep, bloody radiance. Directly beneath it, bathed in the white light of the moon, was a bare rocky peak that seemed the highest point of the island. And upon that highest pinnacle, that chance to be just below the ruddy star, was an astounding machine. Three slender towers of a white metal that gleamed in the moonlight with the silvery luster of aluminum rose from the rocky peak. They supported in a horizontal position an enormous metal ring. It must be, Dan reckons swiftly, at least a hundred feet in diameter and held a hundred feet above the summit of the mountain. The huge ring gleamed with a strange purple radiance. A shimmering mist of red violet light surrounded it. An unknown force seemed to throb within the mighty ring, drawing the mantle of purple haze about it. And suspended inside the ring and below it was a long slender needle of dazzling white light. To Dan from where he stood in the canyon it seemed a fine sharp line, though he knew it must be some kind of pointer, luminous with the strange force pulsing through it. The strange needle wavered a little, with quick uncertain motions. The brilliance of its light varied oddly. It seemed to throb with a queer irregular rhythm, and the gleaming needle pointed straight at the planet Mars. Dan stood a long time watching the purple ring upon the silver towers with the shining white needle hanging below it. He stared at Mars glowing like a red and sinister eye above the incredible mechanism. His mind was in a wild storm of wonder shot with fear. What was the meaning of the gleaming ring and needle? What connection did this great device have with the signal of distress from the cliff and the green fire that had destroyed the Virginia? And why did the glowing needle point at Mars? He did not know when he first began to hear the sound. For a time it was merely part of the strange mystery of the island, only another element in the atmosphere of fear and wonder that surrounded him. Then it rose a little, and he became suddenly sharply conscious of it as an additional menace. The sound was not loud, but deep and vibrant, a whir or hum, like that of a powerful muffled motor, but deeper than the sound of any motor man has ever made. It came down the gorge from the direction of the machine on the mountain. That deep throbbing noise frightened Dan as none of his previous experiences had done. Shivering from fear as much as from cold, he crouched down beside a huge boulder in the edge of the tangle of brush that covered the bottom of the ravine. His heart pounded wildly. He was in the clutches of an unreasoning fear that some terrible thing had seen him and was about to seek him out. For a moment he had to use all his will to keep himself from panic flight through the brush. The unknown is always terrible, and he had invaded the domain of a force he could not understand. In a moment, however, he recovered himself. He would be as safe there in the jungle he thought as anywhere on the island. He thought of starting a fire, then realized that he had no matches and that he would not dare to make a light if he were able. He pulled a few handfuls of dry grass to make a sort of bed upon which he huddled up thanking his lucky stars that the island was in a semi-tropical latitude. His mind returned again to the riddles that confronted him, the green flash and the strange mechanism on the peak. He recalled fantastic stories he had read of hermit scientists conducting amazing experiments in isolated parts of the world. Presently he decided that something of the kind must be on foot here. The green flash is a sort of death ray, he summed up aloud, and they shoot it from that bright needle. The wonder they don't want to be bothered. Somebody may be fixing to upset civilization. But it's queer that the needle points at Mars. Of this last fact, which might have been a clue to the most reasonable solution to the mystery, if a rather astounding one, he was able to make nothing. In fact, huddled up on his pile of grass in some degree of comfort, he presently went to sleep, still pondering in vain upon this last clue. He was awakened by a soft, insistent purring sound, rather like that of a small electric motor run without load at very high speed. Recollection of the night's events came abruptly to him, and he sprang to his feet in alarm, finding his muscles sore and stiff from his gramped position. From one side Dan heard the rumble of thunder, and glancing up saw that the sky above the sea was overcast with a rolling mass of dark menacing clouds. There was a strange, portentious blackness about these storm clouds that filled him with a nameless fear. Suddenly he was struck with the thought that it was not thunder that had awakened him. The noise he had heard had not the rumbling or booming quality of thunder. As he stood there he again became conscious of the low, whirring sound behind him. He whirled around to face it. The shock of what he saw left him momentarily dizzy and trembling, though undoubtedly his surroundings had much to do with its effect upon him. The sound came from a glistening metal machine which stood half-hidden in the brush a dozen yards away, looking at him. The thing was made of a lustrous silvery metal which Dan afterwards supposed to be aluminum or some alloy of that metal. Its gleaming case was shaped more like a coffin or an Egyptian mummy case than any other object with which he was familiar, though rather larger than either. That is, it was an oblong metal box tapering toward the ends with the greatest width forward of the middle. Twin tubes projected from the end of it, lenses in them glistening like eyes. Just below them sprang out steely, glistening tentacles several feet long, writhing and twitching as if they were alive. The tangle of green brush hid the thing's legs so that Dan could not see them. Suddenly it sprang toward him, rising ten feet high and covering half the distance between them. It alighted easily upon the two long-jointed metal limbs upon which it had leapt and continued to keep the lens tubes turned toward Dan so he knew that the grotesque metal thing was watching him. The limbs he observed were similar to the hind legs of a grasshopper, both in shape and position, and evidently the thing leapt upon them in about the same way. Then he noticed another curious thing about it. Three little bars of metal projected above the thickest part of its case on the upper side. Their ends were joined by a little ring three inches across. The tiny metal ring glowed with purple luminosity. A purple haze seemed to cling about it as to the huge ring Dan had seen on the towers above the peak. And suspended inside this ring was a tiny metal needle shimmering with pulsating white fire. On the back of this metal monster was a miniature replica of the strange mechanism upon the pinnacle. The little needle pointed up the canyon. A glance that way showed Dan that it pointed at the great device upon the mountain which looked even more brilliant on this gloomy morning than in the uncertain radiance of the moon. The colossal ring was shrouded in a splendid mantle of purple flame, and the long slender needle which seemed to have swung on down to follow Mars below the horizon still throbbed with scintillating white fire. For several minutes the two stood there, studying each other, a naked man, tense and bewildered in the presence of a mysterious force, and a grotesque machine cased in gleaming white metal whose parts seemed to duplicate most of the functions of a living creature. Then one of the writhing tentacles that shot from the head of the machine reached back under the metal case and reappeared grasping what appeared to be a flat disk of emerald, two inches across and half an inch thick. This green disk it held up with a flat side toward Dan. There was no sound, but a flash of green light came from it, cutting a wide swath into the jungle and littering its path with smoking and flaming debris. But Dan, expecting something of the kind, had flung himself sideways into the shelter of the boulder beside which he had slept. Behind it he gathered his feet under him, picked up a rock of convenient size for throwing and waited, ready and alert. He heard the soft humming sound on the other side of the boulder. A glittering object flashed above him, crashing through the brush the metal monster came to earth on the same side of the boulder with him. But the metal thing had not turned in its flight. Consequently its rear end was toward Dan. As it began cumbersomely to turn about he hurled his rock with an accuracy that came of a boyhood on the farm. The instinct had made him try for the little ring and needle on the back of the monster, apparently its most vulnerable part. Whether by luck or skill the rock struck the gleaming ring, crushing it against the needle, and instant paralysis overtook the metal thing. Its tentacles and limbs became fixed and rigid and it toppled over in the brush. Dan walked over to it and examined it briefly. The green disc had fallen on the ground and he picked it up. It was made of emerald crystal. It had a little knob of glistening metal set in one side. Rather afraid of it, Dan forbore to twist the knob. But he still clutched it in his hand a few moments later when partly for fear that others of his kind would come to succour the fallen monster and partly to secure shelter from the threatening rain he retired into the shadows of the tangled jungle. He spent perhaps half an hour in creeping back to what he supposed a place of comparative safety. For some time he lay there in the cool gloom brushing occasional insects off his bare skin, wishing by turns that he had a cup of coffee and a good beef steak and that he could puzzle out a logical solution of all the astounding things he had met in the island. After the encounter with the metal monster he felt his theory of the hermit scientists a bit inadequate. Presently his attention was attracted by the unmistakable mew of a kitten. Then he heard the padding sound of cautious human footsteps and a clear feminine voice calling, Kitty, Kitty, in low tones. The steps and the voice seemed coming toward him. Since there was no sound of crackling brush he supposed there was a trail which he had not found. Hello? He ventured when the voice seemed only a few yards away through the green tangle. At the same instant a gray kitten appeared out of the underbrush and frisked trustfully across to him. He put out a hand, caressed it, picked it up. In a moment the feminine voice replied, Hello yourself? Who are you? A crackling sound came from the brush as if the speaker were starting toward him. Dan, abruptly conscious of his lack of attire, said quickly, Wait a minute, I haven't anything on. You see, Dan McNally, I owned the schooner that something happened to off the island last night. A delicious, trilling laugh greeted the panic of his first words. Then the clear, sweet voice, serious again, replied, So you swam ashore from the boat I signaled? Yes. Gee, but I'm glad to find you and you say you haven't any clothes. I wonder what the voice paused reflectively, then resumed. Here's a sheet that I got to signal with in the daytime if I had a chance. You might wrap it around you until we find something better. The low, liquid laugh rang out again. Then there was a rustling in the brush and presently an arm appeared holding a rolled-up sheet. All right, he called. Throw it this way. In a moment with the sheet draped around him like a Roman toga, and the kitten on his arm he advanced to meet the owner of the beautiful voice. At the trail he met a trim, active-looking young woman, clad in out-of-door attire with a canvas knapsack on her back. Bare-headed she wore her brown hair closely shingled. Her face, Dan recognized from the photograph he had seen five years before, though it was more lovely than the splotched newspaper picture had hinted. Her brown eyes were filled with laughter at his predicament and his present, unusual garb. He bowed with mock gravity and said, How do you do, Miss Helen Hunter? Brown eyes widened in surprise. You know me? she asked. Not have so well as I hoped to, he grinned. Then handing her the kit and he spoke seriously. What about this island, the green flashes, the big machine on the mountain, the metal thing that jumps about like a grasshopper? What's it all about? You know anything about it? Yes, I know a good deal about it, she told him soberly. It's rather a terrible story and one you may not believe. No, you've seen them. But the kitten is hungry and you must be too if you swam ashore. Well, yes I am, Dan admitted. The storm clouds were drifting out to sea. The sun was beginning to assert itself and it now lighted up the scene with a cheerful brightness. She slung off her pack and sat down cross-legged at the side of the trail. Dan sat down opposite her as she opened the knapsack and produced a can of condensed milk, one of sardines, a can opener, and half a loaf of bread. I had to select my supplies rather at random, she said, and you'll have to make the best of them. She started to open the sardines. You'd better give it to me, Dan advised. You might cut your hand. You think so? she asked, deftly lifting the lid, fishing out a fish for the kitten and presenting the can to Dan. Then with capable hands she broke off a large chunk of bread which she handed him. Go ahead and finish this up, she said. I've already had breakfast. She punched two holes in the end of the milk can and poured some of the thick yellow fluid into the palm of her left hand from which she let the kitten lap it. And now for the mystery of this island, Dan demanded forgetting bread and sardines in his eagerness. The girl turned to face him. I'm Helen Hunter, as you seem to know, she began. I came here with my father five years ago to observe an eclipse of the sun. When it was all over and the ship called to take us off, he decided to send the results of our observations by one of the other men. He wanted to stay here to carry on another experiment, the one that led to that machine on the hill. Part of the other men were willing to stay. The yacht left us here and has been back in San Francisco every six months since with mail and supplies. And what was the experiment? Dan demanded eagerly. Have you ever looked at Mars through a good telescope? She countered. Then you must have seen the canals, straight dark lines running from the white polar caps to the equatorial zone. All scientists did not agree as to what they were, but nobody could suggest a natural origin for them. My father was one of those who thought that the canals were fertile, cultivated strips, irrigated with water brought down from the melting ice caps. Irrigation systems meant intelligent life upon the planet, and his experiment was an attempt to communicate with that intelligence. And he succeeded. Dan was astounded. Yes, the means was simple enough. Other men had suggested it years before, in fact. Any fairly bright light on Mars, such as the beam of a searchlight directed toward Earth, would be visible in a good telescope when the planet is favorably situated. It follows that such a light on Earth should be visible to an observer with a similar instrument on Mars. It was possible, of course, but unlikely that Mars would have intelligent inhabitants still ignorant of the telescope. It was also possible that their senses would be different from Mars. That if they saw at all, it would be with a different part of the spectrum. Father took the chance, and he succeeded. The call was simple, merely three flashes of light repeated again and again. We used a portable searchlight mounted on a motor truck, such as used in the Army. The three flashes meant that we were on the third planet of the solar system. The answering call from the fourth planet should be four flashes, of course. For three nights we kept signaling. One of the men watched the motor generator, and I operated the searchlight, swinging it on Mars and off again to make the flashes. Dad kept his eyes screwed to the telescope. Nothing happened, and he got discouraged. I persuaded him to keep on for another night in case they hadn't seen us at first or needed more time to get their searchlight ready. And on the fourth night, Lord Dad came out of the observatory shouting that he had seen four flashes. Dan gasped, speechless with astonishment. Then that machine with the needle pointing at Mars and the green flashes and the thing that jumped at me? Helen waved a white hand for silence. Just keep cool a minute, I'm coming to them. The four flashes just began it. In a few days Dad and the Martians were communicating by a sort of television process. He would mark off a sheet of paper into squares, blacken some of the squares to make a picture or design, then have me send a flash for each black square and miss an interval for each white one, taking them in regular order. The Martians seemed to catch on pretty soon. In a few days Dad was receiving pictures of the same sort. Rather a slow way of communication perhaps, but it worked better than one might think at first. In a month Dad had received instructions for building a small machine like the big one on the hill. It is something like a radio. At least it operates with vibrations in the ether, but it's as much ahead of our radio as an airplane is in advance of a fire balloon. I understand a good bit about it, but I won't try to explain it now. And in the next three years Dad learned no end of things from the people on Mars. One queer thing about it was that they never let us see them on the television apparatus, no matter how many of their scientific secrets they gave us. Dad and I exhibited ourselves, but I don't know yet what the Martians look like, though I have made a guess. By the end of the third year they had showed Dad how to make one of those metal things. Like that one that jumped at me, Dad broke in with a shutter. Yes, they seem almost alive, but they are machines, like our robots and controlled by the radio apparatus. The eyes use photoelectric cells and relay what is before them to the master intelligence. The girl spoke these last words in a low tone, shrinking involuntarily. She paused a moment, then shrugged and continued. The first machine did not obey my father. It was controlled by signals that came from Mars over the big station on the hill, and it went to work making more apparatus, building more machines, enlarging the receiving station. It worked in obedience to the master intelligence on Mars. That was a year ago. The last time the yachts called, my father and the other men still hoped to control the machines. They let her go back without us. The machines tolerated us a while, paid no attention to us. They were busy working minds and building huge strange things that must be flying machines. The plateau on the other side of the peak is crowded with them, for the machines are preparing to leave the island. They are going to conquer the world for the master intelligence on Mars. Months ago my father discovered this and realized that he had loosed doom upon the earth. He and the three other men planned to destroy that big station on the peak. All the signals to the machines are relayed through that from Mars. The machines seem to pay no heed as they made their preparations. Then one night, about three weeks ago, they tried to dynamite the station. The girl's shoulder trembled. She paused to brush a tear from her eye, then went on hastily in a voice grown husky with emotion. Dan felt an odd desire to take her slight form in his arms and comfort her in her grief. The machines had seemed heedless, but they were ready. They had those discs that throw the green fire. We had not seen them before and, well, all four of them were killed. Dan handed her the disc of green crystal he had taken from the thing that had attacked him. She examined it silently, then went on. Dad had left me in bed, heard an explosion. I think the bombs went off when the green fire struck them. I knew what had happened and got out of the house just before the machines arrived. They wrecked the place with their green flashes. And for the last three weeks I've been hiding in the jungle or watching for ships. Three times I've raided the ruins of the house for something to eat. Fortunately it didn't burn, like your ship. And that's all, I suppose, except I'm awfully glad that you got a shore. Thanks, Dan said earnestly. And what are we going to do now? I don't know, Helen answered in a troubled tone. I'm afraid, afraid for all humanity. On the television I've seen enough of Mars to be sure that it is a world of machines controlled by one master intelligence. And even that may be a machine. We make machines that compute the tides and carry out other computations that are almost beyond the power of the human mind. Why couldn't a machine think? The master intelligence of Mars plans to add the earth to his domain. Unless we can do something to stop it, in a few years the world will be overrun with gigantic robot machines controlled by force from across the Gulf of Space. Humanity cannot resist them. Imagine a battleship pitted against that green annihilating ray and all the other science of an elder planet. Life is to be blotted out. The master intelligence of Mars has ruled two worlds of mechanical monsters. Dan sat in a dazed vision horror to come until Helen straightened up as if shaking off a mantle of fear and smiled heroically, if a bit wainly. Now you must eat your bread and sardines to give you strength to fight for humanity. She cried with a laugh that she strived, not too successfully, to make cheerful and gay. Immediately he began to eat, finding an excellent appetite. It was several minutes later that he fancied he heard a whirring and crackling in the brush behind them. He sprang to his feet in alarm. He can't be far back to where I left the machine. He cried. Do you suppose there's danger that... the mechanical ears of the metal things may have picked up the sound of his voice, but in any event green flame flashed about them on the instant. Feeling a sudden protective impulse, Dan started toward Helen. That was his last recollection before what seemed a terrific concussion swept him into the abyss of unconsciousness. His first thought when he awakened was of the girl, but he was alone in the silence of the canyon. He sat up, realizing that many hours had passed for the air was growing cool again and the sun was low behind the peak at the head of the ravine. The huge mysterious machine of the purple ring and the vibrating white needle were blazing splendidly. He took more detailed stock of his immediate surroundings. The tangle of brush that had sheltered them had been cut away by the green annihilating ray. Charred stumps remained to show where it had fired bushes beyond the trail. His own shoulder was blistered, a hole was burned into the sheet wound about him, and the hair was singed from the back of his head. Suddenly, trembling with horror, he looked about for anything to show that Helen had perished by the ray. Discovering nothing, he breathed a sigh of relief. She must still be alive anyhow, he muttered, and I've had another lucky break. The ray was too high to get me. They must have left me for dead. Presently he became conscious of torturing thirst. He retired through the brush along the rocky wall of the canyon. By sunset he came upon a little natural basin in the rock, half full of rainwater. It was none too clean, but he drank his fill of it and felt relief. Looking up the canyon, he could see the great mechanism on the peak gleaming in the dusk. Intensely glowing purple mist clung about the great metal ring and the slender delicate needle swung below it, still vibrating, still throbbing with brilliant white radiance. It pointed at the red eye of Mars which had just winked into view. Dan stared at it a long time. It all sounds crazy, he muttered. But it isn't. The master intelligence of Mars, she said, is controlling the mechanical things through that. The doom of the earth is coming through that white needle. If only I could smash it somehow. He looked down at the white folds of the sheet that draped him and clenched his hands imponently. No gun, not even a pocket knife, nothing but my bare hands. He bit his lip. Still he stared challengingly at the gleaming mechanism on the peak. An idea slowly took form in his mind. An exclamation abruptly escaped him. Narrowly he eyed the trust girders of the silver towers which supported the great ring muttering to himself. Yes. I can do it if I don't get caught. I can climb it well enough. The needle looks a bit frail. I should be able to smash it. I'd like to see Helen again, though. He gathered the sheet around him and began picking a cautious way up the canyon, staying always in the cover of boulders or brush. A few times he disturbed a rock or snapped a twig beneath his foot. Then he waited out of sight for long minutes, though he had no reason to believe that the metal monsters were on the alert for him. I've got to do it. The world depends on it. He kept saying again and again in his mind. The quick darkness of the tropics had fallen almost before he started, but he welcomed the night, for it made his own silent progress more difficult. It reduced the hazard that he would be discovered. Gaging the time by the slow wheeling of the diamond-like stars across the velvet sky, he thought that two hours had passed when he reached the head of the canyon. He stood up cautiously to survey the little plateau at the summit of the hill. It was several acres in extent, quite level and almost clear of vegetation. At the farther side was a pile of wreckage which he supposed had been the quarters of Dr. Hunter's party before they had been destroyed. Many huge machines stood about the plateau. Vast, dark masses looming in the starlight. Mostly they were either not running or very silent in operation, but a very deep, vibrant humming sound came from one near him. Smaller shapes were moving about them with long, easy leaps. These he knew were the mechanical monsters, though it was too dark to distinguish them. But by far the most prominent object upon the plateau was the enormous gleaming thing that Helen had said was the station over which came the signals from the master intelligence on Mars. One of its three towers sprang up, not far from where he stood. The huge, refulgent ring swathed in its mist of purple fire was a full hundred feet above him and the slender needle pulsing with white flame swinging within and below the colossal ring was itself a hundred feet in length. The white needle for all its length seemed hardly thicker than a man's finger. It was mounted at the top of a curiously complex and delicate-looking device that spread broadly out between the three towers below the center of the huge purple ring. Dan looked at it and decided that his plan had at least a chance of success, though he had no hope that it would not be fatal to him. Quickly and silently he ran to the base of the mighty silver towers nearest him and began to climb the side toward the ravine where the maze of girders would hide him, at least partially from any watchers back on the plateau. The starlight and the faint, weird radiance of the purple ring above suffice to guide him. The cross braces on the girder he had chosen were spaced closely enough to serve as the rungs of a ladder. Dan climbed easily, pausing twice for breath and to look down at the dark plateau. The vast humming machines loomed up strangely in the pale purple light that fell from the gleaming ring. Once he looked across toward the other side of the island. The surface there was more level. He glimpsed tiny moving lights and huge stationary masses apparently as large as ocean liners. He had an impression of a vast amount of mechanical activity proceeding in the darkness very rapidly and in a silent and orderly fashion. The expeditionary force of the master intelligence of Mars, he thought, preparing to set out against humanity. And what I can do is the only chance to stop it. He climbed again with renewed energy. A few yards more brought him to the colossal metal ring. Resting upon the three towers it was a circular band of shining metal a foot thick and as wide as a road. The intense purple glow extended several feet from its surface. Dan touched it tentatively. He felt a tingling electric shock and he thought he could feel a radiation coming from it giving him a curious sensation of cold. As he reached his hands up and grasped the upper edge of the great ring he felt what seemed a physical current of cold. Controlling his tendency to shiver he climbed upon the last brace and lifting his weight with his hands threw himself face down upon the flat upper surface of the vast ring. He lay bathed in cold purple fire. He tingled with the chill of it. A frozen current seemed to penetrate his body. Involuntarily he trembled, lost his grip and dangled precariously from the rim. Only a frantic scrambling restored his hold. Then fighting the sensation of freezing cold that came from the mist of purple flame he drew himself forward and got to his feet upon the broad surface of the metal ring. On both sides it curved away like a circular track. Red violet fire shimmered about it bathing him to the waist in a chilling torrent. Through coruscating frozen flame he waited to the inner rim of the colossal ring. Below him hung the needle, a mere straight line of white fire a hundred feet in length. Eye dazzling radiant scintillated along it waxing and waning with a curious throbbing rhythm. The needle vibrated a little but it pointed directly at the red point of Mars now almost directly overhead. Repressing a shutter Dan looked down at the complex and delicate apparatus upon which the slender needle was mounted. It was a light frame of white metal bars with spidery coils and huge glowing tubes and flimsy spinning discs mounted in it. The gleaming needle was mounted much like a telescope at the top of the device full fifty feet below him. Looks flimsy enough, Dan muttered. I'll go through it like a sixteen-inch shell. Who would have thought I'd end this way? He stepped back for a moment and stood on the polished metal hidden to the waist in cold purple flame. Lest it impede his movements he tore the sheet from him and threw it aside. He let his eyes sweep for a last time over the familiar constellations blazing so splendidly in the black sky above. He had a pang of heartache as if the stars were old friends. His glance roved fondly over the dark, indistinct masses of the island and across the black plain of the sea. Well, no good in waiting, he muttered again. Sorry I can't see Helen. Hope she gets off all right. He backed to the outer rim and drew a deep breath like one about to dive. Then, with set face, he sprinted forward. As he did so, a blinding flash of green light flickered up before him. He ducked his head and leapt to the inner edge of the vast glowing ring. For long seconds it seemed he was plunging down through space, feet first. Air rushed screaming about his ears, but his mind was quite calm and registered an astonishingly large series of impressions. He saw the delicate gleaming machines rushing up to meet him. The shimmering white needle swung on its top. He took in the silent dark plateau of the masses of the great machines rising like ominous shadows here and there, and the mechanical monsters leaping busily about it, almost invisible in the dim ghostly radiance that fell from the purple ring. He saw a vivid flame of green reach up past him from somewhere below. He knew without a motion or alarm that he had been discovered and that it was too late for his discoverers to stop him. He found time even for a fleeting thought of death. His mind framed the question, what will I be in a moment from now? Then he had struck the great white needle and was crashing into the delicate apparatus below it. Waves of pain beat upon his mind like flashes of blinding light, but his last mental image as he passed into oblivion was a picture of Helen's face. Oddly it was not her face as he had last seen it, but a reproduction of the old newspaper half-tone, curiously retouched with life and color. There is little more to tell. It was some weeks later when Dan came back out of a world of delirium and dreams to find himself lying on his back in a tent, very much bandaged. He was alone at the moment and at first could not recall that tremendous last day of his conscious life. Then he heard a thrillingly familiar feminine voice calling, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty. He tried to move. A dull pain throbbed in his breast and a groan escaped him. In a moment Helen appeared. The gray kitten was forgotten. She looked very anxious and solicitous and also Dan thought, very beautiful. No, no, she cried. You were going to be all right. Dad made me learn a little elementary medicine before we came here and I know. But you mustn't speak, not for days yet. I'll have to guess what you want and you can wink when I guess the right thing. Gee, but I'm glad you've come to. You'll be as well as ever pretty soon. The kitten was lots of comfort, still. Dan attempted to move. She leaned over him, shifted his weight and smoothed the sheet with strong, capable hands. You want to know about what happened to the machine monsters? He winked. Do you remember when they found us and shot the green ray at us? They left you there. I thought you were dead and carried me up here on the hill. Perhaps they wanted me for a laboratory subject to test the green ray on, or something of the kind. Anyhow, they carried me into a big shed filled with strange machines. They kept me there until that night. Then all of a sudden they all stopped. They froze. They were dead. The thing that was holding me were set about me, but I worked free and got out of the shed. It took all night. And when I came out just at sunrise I saw that the purple fire was gone from the great ring. The needle was knocked down and the apparatus smashed. I found you there in the wreckage. You made a human bullet of yourself to smash it. The greatest thing a man ever did. Though normally rather felt a glow of pride at the honest admiration ringing in her clear voice and shining from her warm brown eyes. So I gathered up what was left of you, she went on, and tried to put you back together again. Good many bones were broken and you had more cuts and bruises than I could mention. But the apparatus had broken the force of the fall and you were still alive. You are remarkably well put together, I should say, and unusually lucky as well. And well the machines and apparatus are scattered about all over the island. Every one of them stopped the instant you smashed the connection with the directing intelligence on Mars. They'll be quite a stir in the scientific world I imagine in about three weeks when the yacht comes and carries us back with a lot of plans and specimens. We must send about a thousand engineers back here to study what we leave behind us. And do you want anything else? She bent over and watched his bandaged face. Looking up into her bright eyes, thrilling to the cool comforting pressure of her hand on his forehead, Dan reflected. Then he winked. Something you want me to do? He winked. When? Right now? No response. After the yacht comes? He winked. What is it? She looked him in the eye, little and laughed. You mean? Dan winked. End of The Doom from Planet Four by Jack Williamson. It was, of course, one hell of an ending for a trip to Mars. Charlie Holmes lost touch with reality amid rending and shattering sounds that lingered dimly. Blackness engulfed him in a wave of agony. He was not sure exactly when the possibility of opening his eyes occurred to him. Vaguely he could sense. Remember was too definite. Much tugging and hauling upon his supine body. It doubtless seemed justifiable, but he flinched from recalling more clearly that which must have been so extremely unpleasant. Gently, now, he tried rolling his head a few inches right, then left. When it hurt only one tenth as much as he feared, he let his eyes open. Hello! Rasped the bulbous creature squatting beside his palate. Charlie shut his eyes quickly and very tightly. Something with a dampish, spongy tip. Probably one of the grape-red tentacles he had glimpsed prodded his shoulder. Hello! insisted the scratchy voice. Charlie peeped warily, was trapped at it, and opened his eyes residedly. Where now am I? he inquired. It sounded very trite, in his confused condition sections of the dark red skin before him, especially on the barrel-shaped belly quivered as he spoke. Surely! graded the remarkable voice. You remember something! The crash, gasped Charlie, setting up abruptly. He held his breath, awaiting the knifing pain. It seemed natural to expect. When he felt none, and then a horrid thought prompted him to wiggle his bare toes. Everything seemed to be in place. He lay in a small room on a thin pallet of furs. Floor and walls of slick ochre clay reflected the bright outside light pouring through a wide doorway. What's all the sand? he demanded, squinting at the heat waves outside. You do not recognize it! Look again, Earthman! Earthman, thought Charlie, it must be real. I can still see him. What a whack on the head I must have got. You are in pain? asked the creature solicitously. Oh, no. Just I can't remember the crash, and then... Ah yes, you have not been conscious for some time. His reddish host rippled upward to stand more or less erect upon three thick tentacles. Even with us, memory is slow after shock, and you may be uneasy in the lighter gravity. Light gravity reflected Charlie. This can only mean Mars. Sure, that must be it. I was piloting a rocket and cracked up somewhere on Mars. It felt right to him. He decided that the rest of his memory would return. Are you able to rise? asked the other, extending a helpful tentacle. The Earthman managed to haul himself stiffly to his feet. Say, my name is Holmes. He introduced himself, dizzily. I am Koteki. In your language learned years since from others. Spaceman, I might say fiery canal man. Has to be Mars. Charlie, under his breath. What a bump! When can you show me what's left of the ship? There will be no time! answered the Martian. Bunches of small muscles twitched here and there across the front of his round, pudgy head. Charlie was getting used to the single eye, half the size of an orange, and not much duller. With imagination the various lumps and organs surrounding it might be lost. The priestesses will lead the crowd here, predicted Ko. They know I took an Earthman, and I fear they have finished with the others. Finished with what? demanded the Earthman, shaking his head in hopes of clearing it enough to figure out what was wrong. It has been an extremely dry season. Moved listenily to the doorway, assuming a grotesquely furtive posture as he peered out. The people are maddened by the drought. They will be aroused to sacrifice you to the canal gods, like the others who survived. Canal gods, croaked Charlie, this kept you right. Aren't you civilized here? I can't be the only Earthman they've seen. Most Earthmen are perfectly safe at most times. But the laws, the Earth Consul. Ko snapped the tip of a tentacle at him. The canals are low. You can fill the heat and dryness for yourself. The crowds are inflamed by temple prophecies, and then your ship, flaming down from the skies. He snapped all his tentacle tips at once. And a threatening murmur became audible. It was an unholy blend of rasping shouts and shriller chanting punctuated by notes of a brassy gong as Charlie listened the volume rose noticeably. Ko reached out with one tentacle and wrapped six inches about the Earthman's wrist. When he plunged through the doorway, Charlie perforce went right with him. Whipping around a corner of the hut, he had time for a quick skit at the chatters. Ko alone had looked weirdly alien. Two hundred, like him, led by a dozen bulgy figures in streaming robes, masked and decorated in brass. The natives were swarming over the sand toward the fugitives. They had evidently been busy. Above a distant cluster of low buildings a column of smoke spiraled upward suggestively. Ko led the way at a flowing gallop over a sandstone ridge and down a long slope toward what looked like the junction of two gullies. The canal, he wheezed, with a look we may find a boat. A frenzied screech went up as the mob topped the ridge and regained sight of them. Charlie, having all he could do to breathe in the thin air, tried to shake his wrist now that they were descending the slope. He saw where the water was. They slid down a four-foot drop in a cloud of fine choking dust and were faced by several punt-like craft stranded on the mud flat below. The water was fifty feet further. We should have gone downstream, said Ko, but we can wade. Their momentum carried them several steps into the mud before Charlie realized how wrong that was. Then as they floundered about to regain the solid bank it became apparent that they would never reach it in time. They are catching us, rasped Ko. The howling crowd was scarcely a hundred yards away. The heat wave shimmered above the reddish desert sand until the Martians were blurred before Charlie's burning eyes. His feet churned the clinging mud and he felt as if he were running away. I'm sorry you're in it too," he panted. It does not matter. I act as I must. The earthman rubbed sweat from his eyes with the back of a muddy hand. Everything is wrong, he mumbled. I still can't remember cracking up the ship. Why did I always want to be a rocket pilot? Well, I made my bet. The oncoming figures wavered and blurred in the heat. Ko emitted a grating sound reminiscent of an earthly chuckle. As to all you mortals who finally have to lie in them, he rasped. I will tell you now, since I can carry this episode little farther you have never piloted a spaceship. Charlie gaped at him incredulously. You! You! What about the wreck? It was a truck that hit you, Charlie Holmes. You have no more sense than to be crossing the street with your nose in a magazine just purchased on the corner. With some dulled, creeping, semi-detached facet of his mind, Charlie noted that the running figures still floated above the sand without actually drawing nearer. Are you—do you mean I— Of course you are, co-amiably. And in view of certain actions during your life there will be quite a period of, shall we say, probation. When I was assigned to you, your reading habits suggested an amusing series of variations. You cannot know how dull it is to keep frustrating the same old dreams. Amusing! repeated Charlie, beyond caring about the whimper in his tone. The mob was dissolving into smoke, and the horizon were shrinking. Co. himself was altering into something redder of skin, but equipped with a normal number of limbs. Discounting the barbed tail, the constant heat of the desert began at last to seem explicable. For me a great amusement! Grinco displaying hideous tusks. Next time I'll be a Venusian. You will lose again. Then we can visit other planets and stars. Oh, we shall see a lot of each other. He cheerfully polished one horn with a clawed finger. You won't enjoy it! He promised. End of Flame Down by Horace Brown Fife The Indulgence of Negu Ma by Robert Arthur This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Stephen Anderson The Indulgence of Negu Ma by Robert Arthur In his garden, the Callisto Uranium merchant sat sipping a platinum mug of mulchai with his guest Sliss the Venusian. Nanlou, his wife, pushing before her the small serving cart with its platinum mulchai decanter paused for an instant as she entered the shell of pure viturite which covered the garden giving it the illusion of out-of-doorness. Negu Ma sat at his ease. His broad, merry, half-oriental face good-humored, his features given a ruddy tinge by the light of rising Jupiter, the edge of whose fear was beginning to dominate the horizon. Sliss, the intelligent Infibian, squatted across from him in the portable tub of water which he carried with him whenever absent from the swamps of his native Venus. The Infibian's popping eyes turned toward her. The wide, frog-face split in a smile of appreciation as Nanlou approached. She refilled their mugs deftly and withdrew. Before she re-entered the house, she could not resist hesitating to glance toward rising Jupiter and the slim shaft of the rocket ship silhouetted now against its surface. The ship was the cargo rocket Vulcan, newest and swiftest of Negu Ma's freighter fleet. Fully fueled and provisioned, storage space jammed with refrigerated foods that in space, the cold of the encompassing void would keep perfectly for generations were it necessary. She would take off in the morning from close by landing port for Jupiter's other satellites, then go on to the Saturnian system, returning finally with full holds of uranium for Negu Ma's refineries on Callisto. She was a beautiful craft, the Vulcan, and one man could manage her, though her normal crew was seven. She had cost a great sum, but Negu Ma was wealthy. Nanlou's face, silt-like in its beauty, hardened. Negu Ma was wealthy indeed. Had he not bought her? And had she not cost him more, much more than the Vulcan? But no, it was not quite accurate to say that Negu Ma had bought her. However, since time immemorial, beautiful daughters had been, if not sold, yet urged into marriages to wealthy men for the benefit of their impoverished families. And those science had made great strides, conquering the realms of the telescope and invading those below the level of the microscope, finding cures for almost every disease the flesh of man was heir to, there was one ailment it had not yet conquered, poverty. Nanlou's father had been a rocket port attendant. Once he had been a pilot, but a crash crippled him for life. Thereafter, his wages had been quite insufficient to sustain him, his brood of a half dozen children, and their hard working mother. But Nanlou, growing up, had developed into a mature beauty that rivaled the exotic loveliness of the wild orchids of E.O. And in debarking at the rocket port on a business trip to Earth, because hurricanes had forced him to land far south of New York, Negu Ma had seen her. Thereafter, but that is a story as ancient as history too. It was a truth Nanlou conveniently overlooked now that she had not been unwilling to be Negu Ma's bride. It was true she had driven a sharp bargain with him. Her father's debts paid and sufficient more to ease her parents' life and educate her brothers and sisters. Plus, a marriage settlement for herself. And a salmon escrow in the Earth Union bank, should she ever divorce him for cruelty or mistreatment. But that had been only in a trudeness. She would still have married him had he refused her demands for her family. For his wealth fascinated her and the prospect of being a virtual queen even of a distinct outpost colony such as that on Calisto appealed to her. And she had thought that she was taking little risk for if she were dissatisfied the law these days was very lenient toward unhappy marital relationships. It required only definite proof of misconduct mistreatment or oppression of any kind to win freedom from an unwanted partner. Nonlow had been confident that after a year or two she would be able to shake free of the bonds uniting her to Neguma and take flight for herself into a world made vastly more pleasant by the marriage settlement remaining to her. But now she had been married and had lived on Calisto for a full five years and her tolerance of Neguma had long since turned to bitter hate. Not because he was a bad husband but because he was too good a one. There was an ironic humor in the situation but Nonlow was not disposed to recognize it. Lenient as the law was yet it required some grounds before it could free her and she had no grounds whatsoever. Neguma was at all times the model of courtesy and consideration toward her. He granted every reasonable wish and some that were unreasonable although when he refused one of the latter it was with a firmness as unshakable as a rock. Their home was as fine as any on earth. She had more than adequate help in taking care of it. She had ample time for any pursuits that interested her but she only used it to become more and more bitter against Neguma because she could find no excuse to defuse him. So great had her bitterness become that if she could gotten off Callisto in any way she would have deserted him. This would have meant forfeiting her married settlement and the sum that was an escrow. It would also have left her father in debt to Neguma for all that Neguma had given him. But Nonlow's passionate rebellion had reached such a state of fervent in her breast that she would have accepted all this to strike a blow at the plump, smiling man who now sat drinking Molkai in their garden with their guest from Venus. The answer to that was Neguma would not let her leave Callisto. The journey to earth he logically argued was still one containing a large element of danger. There was no reason for her to visit any other planet and law and custom required that she look after their home while he himself was away on business. In this he was unshakable. There was a stern and unyielding lie to him, inherited perhaps from his eastern ancestors that left Nanlow shaken and frightened when it appeared. She had seen it the one time she had seriously gone into a tantrum in an effort to make him let her take a trip to earth. It had so startled and terrified her that she never used those tactics again. But now as she wheeled away the Molkai to Cantor and left Neguma and Slyst to themselves joy and exultation was singing in her doubly for she was going to run away from Neguma. Run away with the man she loved and in their flight they were going to steal the Vulcan. Thus Neguma would be doubly punished. He would be heard in his pride and in his pocketbook. And all through the Jupiter and Saturn systems where his wealth, his position and his beautiful wife were openly envied he would be laughed at dead. Humming lightly under her breath Nanlow put the Molkai to Cantor away in a little pantry and hurried on to her own apartment. Molkai was a powerful though non-habit forming drink. Under its influence one became talkative but disinclined to movement. Slyst and her husband would remain as they were for hours leaving her free to do as she would. The servants were asleep in another room and there was no one to note as she changed her clothes swiftly for a light warm traveling suit caught up two small bags one holding her personal things the other her jewels and let herself out through her own private entrance into the darkness of the rear gardens. Where in the shadows the tall, blond young engineer Hugh Neils was waiting for her. Neguma, when his beautiful wife had left the garden sighed and put to one side his mug of Molkai. Slyst, my friend he said to the Venusian who was regarding him with large unblinking pop eyes I am troubled in my mind tonight I must dispense justice justice to myself and justice to another. To be just is often to be terribly cruel Slyst blinked once a film moving horizontally across his large eyes and retracting to show that he understood due to the difficulty of using his artificial speech mechanism he refrained from speaking until speech was necessary. My wife non-low Neguma said heavily is unhappy I have done all that is in my power to make her happy but I failed she has made some requests that I have denied to be permitted freedom to visit earth that I denied because I knew the path she intended to tread would have not led her to happiness either and I hope that in the end here she would find contentment I have hoped in vain tonight she intends to take matters into her own hands Slyst blinked again politely to indicate that he was interested if Neguma to tell him more Neguma rose my friend he said if you will come with me I will show you what I mean Slyst grasped the edge of his tub with webbed hands and swung his webbed yellow skinned feet free from the water which kept the sensitive membranes from drying and at the same time supplied his body tissues with liquid falling upon all fours like a great misshapen pet settled awkwardly after his host Neguma led him to an elevator within the house this took them to a higher floor and there they followed a corridor to the rear of the building here Neguma without showing a light opened a door and in silence they moved out upon a small balcony overlooking the rear gardens which were shrouded in darkness because rising Jupiter was on the opposite side of the building they had stood there only a moment and a small figure slipped through another figure appeared from beneath the shadows of a cluster of slender purple necklowe trees and moved forward to greet the first they met in the center of a tiny open space where a fountain spurting through holes in a crystal made a sweet murmuring music and to the two watchers rose whispered words non lo non lo my darling you hug my love hold me close and tell me that everything is ready for us to leave Hugh Neal's arms held her close and his lips were hot on hers that he was here as they had planned meant that he had succeeded in the other plans they had agreed upon exultation soared higher and non lo's breast and can we go go now she asked eagerly as Hugh Neal's released her the crew's asleep you were able to arrange it the young engineer looked down at her his thin face a pale blur in the darkness in five minutes just five minutes non lo my own I left the guard half an hour ago drinking molkai into which I put a sleeping powder give him five more minutes to fall asleep then we can go to the ship unseen unchecked until then we can wait here in the garden he led her toward the trilling fountain and they sat down upon a bench before it of rare callisto crystal they were still in darkness but the flame like jupiter light touched the tops of the neclo trees above them with a ready light which brought faint glimmerings from the radioactive leaves Hugh Neal's was a recent college graduate whom negu ma had hired as an assistant supervisor in the refining mills on callisto where the precious uranium 235 was separated from the ordinary metal it was not a desirable job but the best Hugh Neal's could get his college record of reckless scrapes and entanglements with women had been against him indeed this position had only come to him because his home was in the same section as non lo's and negu ma had thought that perhaps his company on occasion would help alleviate non lo's restlessness it had but to an extent negu ma had not foreseen in less than a quarter of an hour and lo my darling Hugh Neal's whispered now we'll be gone from here and you'll belong only to me we'll leave this infernal barren satellite to spin itself dizzy out here in no place we'll leave that Humpty Dumpty husband of yours in his hypocritical good nature to whistle for his wife and his ship we won't care we'll be together always together from now on and he'll never see us again non lo leaned against his shoulder the prospect that he had painted seemed very sweet to her you're sure you can manage this ship alone? she asked but of course I can help a little anyway you can teach me of course Hugh Neal's answered confidently and bent to kiss her again I've been studying her for a week asking questions making friends with the crew I can handle her one handed we'll take off and circle Jupiter first they may think we landed on the other side in the outlaw crevice or they may figure that we went on to Saturn and we'll hide somewhere in the system there but we won't do either and they won't know where to look for us instead of turning back on the other side of Jupiter we'll make a tangential angle out in space we'll hold it for a month for safety's sake we could hold for 50 years or 100 if we needed to there's fuel and provisions meant for the mines enough to last that long at the end of the month we'll swing back cut into the path of the sun and pick up Mars as she comes in from behind Sol on Mars we can sell the Vulcan there's an outfit in the equator zone in the mountains west of the Great Canal that'll buy her and no questions asked I learned about them from a fraternity brother while I was in college he'd run into some hard luck they gave him a job and he was making money hand over fist they're asteroid miners the work they'd do was illegal but justified morally what right have men with more money than they know what to do with to own everything in the solar system how can a young fellow get a start anymore when corporations and rich old fogies own everything maybe I'll join up with this outfit after we sold the ship I'll see how does that sound to you wonderful Hugh but I don't care about all that all I want is for us to be together always you and me and our love together for eternity that's all I want that's all I want too darling Nanla Hugh Neils told her passionately and kissed her together forever just you and me Nanla sighed with luxuriant happiness and peered at his ready-might wrist watch five minutes are up she murmured can't we go now Hugh Neils nodded we've waited plenty long enough he decided the guard will be asleep by now the crew were that way when I left them in the dormitory I saw that they had plenty of spiked Malkia dinner pretended it was my birthday celebration and the ship's already and waiting for the takeoff all we have to do is lock the port and close the rising switch the two on the bench by the fountain rose and for a long minute were locked in an embrace then they turned toward the dark shadow trees and disappeared beneath them in the direction of the nearby spaceport Neguma silently turned back into the house Slyce shuffled after him the uranium merchant led the way back to the vitrite-covered garden there a little weirdly resumed his seat and picked up his mug again Slyce climbed back into his tub of water sighed gratefully at the comfort it gave him and then turned his pop eyes toward his host he blinked once inquiringly and Neguma understood that the intelligent amphibian was asking if he intended to do nothing to stop the pair who were running away Neguma sipped pensively at his drink if she had only told me he murmured if she had only come to me and said she desired her freedom if they had both come together and faced me saying that though it meant giving up all they had they wanted only each other I would have been generous I would have been indulgent but they did not they had not the courage they were afraid of me and they hated me Neguma was silent for a moment both he and his guest both he and his guest stared toward the graceful shaft of the Vulcan now fully silhouetted against the whole tremendous bulk of Jupiter sitting like a titanic scarlet egg upon the horizon of Callisto the Jupiter light flooded the Vitride Garden gave the plants there chosen with an eye to this strange exotic glowing colors flushed Neguma and Slyce with a ruby radiance towards that dark waiting craft they had watched were even now stealing tense with the weight of their daring in their crime in a moment they would reach her enter her actuate machinery that was miraculous in its complex simplicity and then be gone on the wings it gave them into the concealing embrace of universal space you see my friend Slyce Neguma said finally none lo is beautiful her beauty deceived me I thought that where such loveliness existed there must be a soul to animate it I was wrong she's like an imitation gem beautiful on the surface paced within yet the mistake was mine and I did not blame her I indulged her and still hoped that something real would bloom within her he drained the Malkai in his mug one great gulp and slumped back the young man too Hugh Neals I thought that he would be a companion for her but he too is weak yet they say they love each other they swear we heard them that they only want each other and their love for all time Slyce blinked twice and Neguma nodded yes he said if they carry out their plans as we heard them that feeling will soon go the sale of the Vulcan even a stolen property would give them many credits after that luxury self-indulgence and their natures are too weak to withstand the ravages of such things so I have been troubled to know what to do you see my friend from Venus though I would have let Nan Logo had she asked me my own honor is at stake when she seeks to deal me an injury by slipping away in the night and stealing from me the Vulcan she is doing evil and must be punished the young man too indulgent as I am I cannot let him dishonor me thus without paying any penalty Slyce's eye and brain shut questioningly yet the Uranium merchant went on I have a fondness for Nan Logo I will not prevent her from doing as she has chosen to do for the intent would still be there and knowing it as I do all between us is over I cannot aid her to fulfill her plans either for that is to injure her and myself too but there is another course I have chosen that he gestured with one plump hand toward the silhouetted ship I believe they have entered the Vulcan he announced I saw light as the entrance port opened then the amphibians great frog head nodded agreement so Nagumah continued I have decided to exercise what indulgence I can in the face of the injury they would do me they shall have their chance he fell silent again Slyce leaned forward in his tub both of them watched intently a flare of greenish light had sprung up beneath the black pillar that was the Vulcan for just an instant the freighter stood there green radiance expanding around her then she leaped into the sky with her leap she seemed to suck the radiance along it became a great cone of glowing light that arrow like raced away upward for a long instant the black length of the ship and the greenish fan of flame were outlined against the scarlet background of Jupiter then the freighter rocket flinging herself upward at three gravities or better past the edge of the planet and vanished Nagumah sat very quiet for some moments but at last he stirred again Slyce's eyes turned toward him immobile sometimes love transforms the weak the uranium merchant said slowly like fire giving temper to soft metal sometimes a mutual love will endure for all eternity and the two who share it will gain from it a soul they did not have before non-low and hue-neels have this chance both said they wanted only the other and their love for all eternity to gain this both were willing to cheat to steal to dishonor me and themselves so Slyce, my understanding friend they have paid the price they shall have what they ask for as the man hue-neel said there is fuel and food in the holds of the Vulcan to run the motors and last the lifetime of a man or a man and woman indeed two lifetimes or three for I was aware of their plans and secretly I placed aboard the craft many additional supplies fuel and food and books and tools and one additional thing the two who flee now in their space have not counted upon into the controls of the Vulcan one of my engineers has placed a small device after two hundred hours or when they are well beyond Jupiter this device will swing the Vulcan straight toward Proxima Centauri the nearest star in that position the controls will lock and for twenty years a generation it will be impossible either to alter the course of the Vulcan or to shut her blast motors off at the end of that time the last tank of reserve fuel will be exhausted and they will cease automatically then once more the Vulcan may be controlled by those aboard they may switch the motors on to the tanks of fuel in the cargo holds and continue onwards if they were celestial navigators they might try to turn and seek Earth again but they are not navigators and the Sun will be but a tiny spark in the limitless darkness one with a million others not to be told apart they will know that only Proxima Centauri in all space may the Vulcan hope to reach in their lifetime or perhaps even that of their descendants for a message to that effect the Vulcan presently so it may be that they will continue onward of their own choice if they make no choice momentum will carry them onward perhaps forever but in any case non-low and hue-neels will have exactly what they asked for each other for all eternity they or their descendants can be the first humans to bridge the gap of nothingness that has thus far daunted the stoutest hearts as they watched the green dart of light dwindled and was gone and quite invisible at last in the arms of out of darkness the Vulcan sped its two passengers onward toward the stars end of the indulgence of Neguma by Robert Arthur recording by Stephen Anderson Jacksonville, Florida