Chapter X

BESIEGED IN THE METAL DESERT.

For an instant my senses must have faded. When they cleared, I was lying away from water, save the rain that beat upon me. And Tama and her brother were standing over me. The cylinder was unharmed. We found it lying on the rocks near by.

"You got it!" Toh exulted.

I was bruised and battered, half choked with water, but not injured. The platform was here. We mounted it, Tama, Toh and I crouching together with the precious cylinder held between us.

The girls lifted us; we struggled up into the night, circled the outside of the city valley, and headed out into the metal desert, toward the Fire Country. The storm seemed now to burst into the height of its fury. The whirling rotary clouds were at times close over us—green and red vapor masses, hurling rain and wind heavy with sulphur.

The clouds sometimes rifted into gigantic vertical funnels through which the clear daylight of the sky was visible. It brightened the scene. The bleak, desolate landscape beneath us was at moments clearly shown. Great rippled sheets of metallic plateau, drenched with water. Shining coppery; then cast with green—then blinding red when the lightning puffed. Or again a wild, broken area with spires and crags and bowlders strewn as though some frenzied Titan had flung them.

And we swept over tiny valleys where soil had collected and trees and verdure had sprung up. The trees bent low in the wind; the rain-sheet blurred the vision of them as we struggled past.

It seemed unending. It would have been called a hundred miles on Earth. The storm abated a trifle or we could never have gone on. Tama relieved the girls to the limit of her strength—but Toh and I had to crouch there helpless.

Then the deep pit of the caldron-valley, with jagged, upstanding buttes and spires towering over it, lay beneath us. Caves down there to give us shelter. A great shaft of green-red light came down from a rift in the tumbling clouds. It fell like a cathedral shaft and disclosed the mile-wide pit floor. The close-encircling walls offered a measure of protection from the wind. Girls were down there, flapping about. Platforms lay discarded. Figures of girls and a few men were dragging supplies and equipment into the near-by caves.

The meeting-place at last!

The light from the clouds held only a moment. Then it was gone. There was darkness in the little valley under us. We descended into it. There were five hundred or more girls here now. At intervals more straggled in.

The valley floor was naked metal rock, thickly studded with bowlders. There was not a blade of vegetation; as I had anticipated, this was indeed no place where a permanent camp could be made.

But there were caves to give us shelter. In the dark confusion I located a dozen or so of the Hill Country young men. We got all the equipment sheltered underground. Meager supplies! A few knives for weapons. Agricultural implements. Food-bulbs and seeds. A little clothing and personal effects.

With my strength and activity, abnormal on this small world, I raised the equipment in great armfuls and staggered with it into the caves.

As order gradually came out of the confusion, Tama and I began to feel that the situation was not quite as drastic as it had seemed at first. When the storm was over we could fly to find soil, and build houses there. We had what might be called some carpenters' tools, and the wood on Mercury is very porous, easy to work. In this lush soil, vegetation grows rapidly. In a dozen day-cycles with favorable weather, some of the food would be ready for harvesting. We had enough food with us now, with luck, to last that long.

The caves, most of them, communicated. It was presently a weird enough scene in there. Animal-fat lamps spluttering with flickering yellow light. And there were some blue-green bulbs—small battery affairs of the electrocurrent which a few of the girls had been able to secure.

For hours, while the storm raged, the girls struggled in. Presently we had a thousand—I suppose that many; there was no way of counting them.

Some were from the City of the Water, the second largest settlement of the Light Country.

"The word has spread there," said Tama. We were in the cave which I had rigged for myself. Already I had started preparing my chemicals for the charging of the cylinder. Tama added, "Every virgin in the Light Country will join us in time. Except those ... unable to fly."

Some of the mutilated girls with us now were in pitiable condition. The exposure to the storm, the chill of the wind, the rain-soaked platforms upon which for so many hours they had lain inactive, had given them cold. Fever was attacking them.

We got some sleep. We prepared meals of a sort. I tried to arrange some form of organization by which with concerted, planned effort the necessary work of existing might be performed.

That night-cycle passed and the next day began. Day and night were alike in the darkness of the black storm. The rain fell in an almost continuous down-pour. The wind surged and sang around the naked pinnacles that towered over the valley. The puffs of lightning came at intervals. Within our caves it was only a distant turmoil, but outside it was an inferno of raging angry nature.

I posted the young men as guards at the cave-mouths where they could see across the caldron. It was about a mile in diameter, a pit depressed a hundred feet or so below the level of the surrounding plateau uplands. The rim was broken with gullies and ravines and studded with pinnacles like great pointed church spires. The caves we had chosen were all close together at the bottom of one wall.

As one stood at the cave-mouths, all was a green lurid murk outside. The wind came only in fitful, crazy gusts down here at the caldron bottom. The opposite valley wall could be dimly seen, its rim outlined against the turgid sky. Then a lightning puff would momentarily redden everything with its glare.

I had my chemical reactions well under way. We expected every hour that the storm would abate. I was preparing to write this narrative, an appeal to Earth. Dr. Grenfell once said to me that within ten years he and his associates would conquer the secret of space-navigation. I hoped that might by now have been accomplished.

Two day-cycles passed. Again the storm lulled, but it still hung threatening. We had just had an evening meal in our cave, when one of the young men guards came rushing in. He knew a little English but he forgot it now. He called excitedly to Tama.

She sprang to her feet. There was a flutter around the dim cave, for a dozen or more of the girls were here with us. Tama whirled on me.

"They've come, Guy! Roc's men are here!"

Before I could stop them, several of the girls ran, half-flying, out of the cave-mouth. I rushed out, calling after them. The rain had ceased. The valley floor held black pools of water between the bowlder masses. The sky overhead was brighter; slow, funnel clouds with green shafts piercing them.

On the upper rim I saw the figures of skulking men. Roc's pursuing band had found us! Our girls came fluttering from the caves to gaze up at them.

"Inside!" I called. "Tama, get them inside!"

It was too late! A group of them had run into an open space. From above, a long winged arrow came sailing down. Tama shouted. But the arrow caught one of the scattering girls. She fell on the rocks with the arrow sticking up from her back.

From then, it was open warfare. How little we had intended it! All that day men were appearing in greater numbers up there on the rim-top. They did not dare come down, apparently, but were content to camp up there in the upper crags and harry us. We did not know if Roc was here besieging us or not.

Nor how many men were here.

They tried to open communication with us. I was in favor of it, but the infuriated girls refused. A last platform had arrived from the Hill City, with a few young men and nearly twenty mutilated girls on it. Roc's men flung a rain of arrows and sling-shot stones at it as it came down. Two of the girls were killed.

But down below we were more wary now; we kept cautiously within the caves whenever the sky was bright. The storm still clung around. Then there came a period when the sky was black as night again. We added to our guards; it seemed not unlikely that Roc would take advantage of the blackness and come down.

The thought of that gave me an idea. If Roc were up there with these men, why could I not prowl out and seize him? I told Tama and Toh the idea.

"If we could capture him, hold him as hostage—threaten his life—"

We could make him disperse this band. I desperately wanted them to be gone; they would hamper me, perhaps could even stop me from launching the cylinder. And when we were ready to fly from here, some of the girls undoubtedly would be killed by their arrows. There were many of the girls now who wanted to fly out in force and try to drive Roc's men away. But I was obdurate against it. These young girls, flying, armed with knives, to enter into deadly combat! It was unthinkable.

But Tama and I might prowl quietly out into this blackness and bring Roc back with us. I hardly planned how it might be done; some fortunate chance—

Toh wanted to go, but I would not let him. Tama could fly; and I, an Earth-man, had unusual strength and agility.

We started with a knife and a small electro-torch in each of our belts. We picked our way slowly out to the floor of the valley. It was like the blackest of nights on Earth, save that there was that queer green-yellow sheen on the clouds. The wind swirled overhead, but there was no rain.

Tama walked beside me, with her wings occasionally flapping slowly.

"We must keep together," I whispered. "When we get near the top, I'll wait, while you fly around."

"Yes, Guy."

"But keep out over the valley. If they fire at you, fly back down."

We arranged light flashes by which we could call each other if desired. We passed the line of cave-mouths, splashing in the pools of water which lay on the valley bottom. Then we began to climb. No lights were showing on the rim overhead; it seemed that Roc's men were back from the brink, in cave openings perhaps.

Climbing was not difficult for me. With my weight less than half what it was on Earth, and my strength of muscle the same, I could leap up this ascent with ease.

And to Tama it was nothing. She flew from one crag, upward to the next, and waited for me to arrive.

There was a place where we had to cross a transverse ravine. It was too broad for me to leap with safety—sixty feet, perhaps.

Tama whispered, "Hold me, Guy."

I put an arm about her thighs; and as I crouched under her wings, we leaped together. She could almost sustain me—we fluttered over the ravine and landed scrambling but unhurt, on its opposite, lower brink.

She was laughing softly. "We get along very well.... Look there!"

Her tone changed abruptly. We crouched among the rocks, gazing up to where the valley rim showed black against the storm-sky.

A dark shape! It sailed slowly across the little valley, a thousand feet up. An oblong shape. Tiny lights were on it. A flying vehicle! Its small headlight ray was searching the plateau up there as though seeking a landing place. It passed over the rim and vanished.

That was the first I knew that a flying vehicle existed on Mercury. We could see now, behind the rim-top, the answering signal-beams of Roc's men.

It took us all of an hour to locate the flyer and get near it. But at last, without raising an alarm, we reached its vicinity. It had come down on the plateau perhaps a mile from the caldron-valley, concealed from the caves by an upstanding line of buttes. The figures of Roc's men on the upper plateau unwittingly guided us. Their small hand lights showed, as they picked their way along the broken rocky upland toward where the vehicle had landed.

Tama and I made a wide detour, ten miles to one side at least. Scrambling, running, flying, we made good speed.

Was this vehicle from the Hill City? Bringing Roc, perhaps, to join his men and plan what they were to do with the insurgent virgins? The scientists of the Hill City had never really admitted me into their secret activities. Flying vehicles had once been used on Mercury; had this one been reconstructed from the lost secrets of history?

We reached it at last, a great metal bird lying on the rocks. We crouched on the top of a butte, overlooking it. There were lights on its deck and in its portes. And hand lights showed a crowd of Roc's men swarming around it outside.

As I gazed, I got another shock. This was more than a mere flying vehicle; it was a space-ship! Its convex panes, the dome like a transparent bell over its deck, bore evidence to that. A ship from another planet? From Earth?

My heart leaped. But the hope was at once dispelled. Men showed, working under the bell of the forward deck. It was bright under there; we were not far away, gazing almost directly down upon them, for the ship lay close against our wall of rock. They were Mercutians, not Earth-men.

Tama whispered, "Those are Cold Country men! This thing is not from the Hill City."

Then we saw Roc approaching. A chance beam from the ship struck him and clung. He stopped and waved his arms. From the deck of the ship, where a porte in the dome had been rolled back, a gigantic figure answered his greeting.

We had relinquished hope of capturing Roc now. With all these men here, and in the glow of light, it would have been too desperate an attempt. We watched Roc approach the ship, dispersing his men while he climbed aboard and met the giant figure on the deck. We could see them greet each other; then they turned and went into the ship's interior.

A moment later a light in a lower porte of the hull flashed on. It seemed to suggest that Roc and this giant were down there in a cabin.

"Tama, if we could get down there—hear what they're saying!"

It seemed barely possible. The cabin porte faced the butte wall which was perhaps twenty feet away. The porte-hole was low in the hull—only a few feet above the rocks on which the ship rested. There seemed none of Roc's men down there; they were all on the other side.

We approached the brink. It was about a hundred-foot drop from where we stood.

"Can you lower us, Tama?"

"Yes."

If we were not seen! It was fairly dark, but there was a reflected glow from the ship.

"Hold tight, Guy."

I put my arms-around her. We stepped off the brink. My head was at her waist, my arms about her thighs, my body dangling lower than hers to be out of the way of her wings. She struggled, flapping with all her strength to check our fall.

There was a wind moaning around this naked rock-butte. The wall slid up past us; the ship seemed coming up. We dropped into the twenty-foot wide space, fluttering, scrambling.

My feet struck the ground. The impact was not too severe. We fell in a heap, but unhurt. The porte stood open, quite near us. Voices sounded.

We found a place where we could both see and hear. We were in a glow of light, but we forgot that.

Within the small metal-walled cabin, Roc sat with the giant Mercutian. There was no one else in the room. They were conferring earnestly—the giant man talking, Roc doing most of the listening.

He was a man of perhaps fifty, this stranger. He chanced to be in a glow of the interior light and I could see him plainly as he sat sprawling his great lazy length on a padded bench. A man almost seven feet tall, I judged him. Heavy-set, but not with the thick, barrel-chested look of the Cold Country natives.

He was a Light Country man, by his aspect, but head and shoulders taller than the tallest Mercutian I had ever seen. He was garbed in an animal skin belted about his waist; naked limbs, and naked, hairless torso with great muscles that glided beneath his skin as he gestured.

A black mane of hair was on his head, long to cover his ears. It was white at the temples, and came in a peak over his forehead, with that same Satanic aspect characteristic of Roc. But Roc generally wore a grinning, crafty smirk. This older man's face held a look of rugged, intellectual strength. A beak-like nose; eyes deep sunken under black bushy brows; a massive, square jaw.

It was Roc's father, the exiled Croat. They were talking in the Light Country tongue. I could understand some of it—enough so that in a moment I was tense with amazement. And Tama clung to me as she listened.

How long we crouched there I do not know. Abruptly I heard a ting! An arrow flashed past us!

We started into a realization of where we were; the porte glow was on us, had disclosed us! A group of Roc's men were coming around the forward end of the ship. Another arrow sang past.

I leaped the other way. It was fifty or sixty feet to the stern of the ship. Tama fluttered above me. I recall that I shouted, "Tama, fly off!"

I ran the ship's length in gigantic leaps. From under the stern another group of men appeared, directly in my path! I landed among them. They tried to scatter; I made an effort to check my leap and take another to clear them. A stone hit me. An arrow bit into my leg; I stooped and plucked it out. Four or five of the men rushed at me, fell upon me, and I went down.

But they could not hold me. I plunged my knife into one of them and lost it as he fell. I stood struggling, kicking, flinging them off. But there were a dozen or more here now. They came back at me like terriers. Their shouts raised the alarm. More men arrived at a run. On the ship's stern over us, Cold Country men were peering down in amazed curiosity at our swaying forms.

I was the center of a struggling group. Then from over us, Tama came like a fighting eagle into battle. A swoop. Her knife ripped a man's throat. She went past, came swooping back again.

I tore myself loose, crouched and sprang. My thirty-foot leap carried me over them all.

"Guy!"

Tama swooped at me with a rush of beating wings, and seized me. A rain of stones clattered around us. A torch-beam fell upon us and held us in its disclosing circle of light.

I cast Tama off. "Fly away—before you are hit!"

I ran on. But she came with another swoop, and caught me as I rose in one of my giant bounds. Struggled and flapped, carrying me until my weight pulled us down again.

The ship and its turmoil dwindled into distance behind us.