Snap and I were dressed much the same, wearing heavy boots, for which weight we were thankful, tight, puttee-like trousers, flaring at the top, and high-necked white blouses. Both of us were bare-headed.
Doubtless we were as fantastic a sight to these Wandlites as they to us. Some of the workers crowded up, reaching out to pluck at us, but Snap waved them away and our guard dispersed them.
One of the master brains came bouncing up. Upon his little upright body the great head wavered.
"You will wait here." His eyes glowed up at us.
"But listen," Snap began.
"You will wait here for the Martian. He has his orders to take you to the Great Intelligence." The little arm from the side of the head had a hand with a finger pointing for a gesture. "There is a meeting place there. We decided now what to do to destroy the warships of your worlds. I do not like your thoughts; they are black. I will inform the Great Intelligence when he can spare the thought for you."
He added something in the Wandl tongue. A worker came forward; lifted him carefully, held him in the hollow of an encircling tentacle. And with a bound, the worker sailed upward and was gone.
Again we stood through an interval. I noticed now that the towering structure near us, with its storied balconies, was not perpendicular.
Its front curved up and back. It was convex, somewhat in the fashion of an irregular globe, a three-hundred foot ball, with a flattened base set here on the ground. The balconies were segments of its front curve. At the top, the roof was as though the ball had been sliced off, like a giant apple with a slice gone for a base and another for the roof. At the bottom was a huge portal with a glow of light from within. And at the terraced balcony levels were lighted windows.
"Is that the meeting place?" Snap whispered.
"Probably. And look to the side of it, Snap."
It was a city. There was a vista of distance to one side of the great globe structure. Now that our eyes were more accustomed to the queerness of this night upon Wandl, we could ignore the colored light-beams of the landing stage and the disembarking palisade upon which we were standing. Gazing into the distance, the curvature of the surface of this little world was immediately apparent. The reddish firmament of stars came down to meet the sharply-curving surface at a horizon line which seemed about a mile away.
Spread upon this near distance were a variety of structures with little roads of open s.p.a.ce winding between them. Most of the buildings seemed globular in shape. Some were small, little round mound-shaped individual dwellings. Others were larger. Some were tiered like half a dozen apples speared in a row upon a stick and set upright.
I saw a ribbon of what might be a river in the distance, with the reddish starlight glinting upon it. To our left, half a mile away perhaps, was a row of b.u.t.tes and rocks which stood like a miniature range of mountains. The city seemed entirely to encompa.s.s them; and every little rock-peak had upon its top a globelike dwelling.
Lights were winking everywhere and figures bounded a hundred feet and more, and sailed in an arc, coming down to the ground to bound again.
A row of workers went by overhead, not swimming or leaping but stiffly motionless. Tiny opalescent rays went from them to the ground, as though to give them power.
Five minutes of Earth-time might have pa.s.sed while Snap and I gazed at this busy night scene in this Wandl city upon the occasion of the landing of their ship so triumphantly returned from its mission to Earth. As I stood, certainly a helpless captive if ever there was one, nevertheless a strange sense of my own power was within me.
This was so small a world; the people were so flimsy. With a poke of my fist I could kill any one of these master brains. The ten-foot workers seemed mere sh.e.l.ls, light and fragile; even the buildings were light and flimsy. The little globe-houses on their sticks seemed to waver, almost like nodding flowers. If we ran amuck we could smash everything we saw here on Wandl.
We became aware of Molo approaching. What a solid giant this seven-foot Martian seemed now in the midst of this buoyant, almost weightless city! He was still bare-headed and wearing his garments of ornamented leather, with his brawny legs bare. Upon his feet were strange-looking, wide-soled shoes. His hands and forearms were thrust into loops of small shields. These shields appeared to be constructed of a heart-shaped flexible framework, covered with an opaque membrane.
They were about two feet long and half as wide. With a hand and forearm thrust into fabric loops, the shield appeared to serve as wings so that the arms had more thrust against the air. He came at us with a sort of swimming stroke. He landed somewhat awkwardly, half-stumbled and almost fell, but gathered himself up and confronted us.
He gained his balance and waved our guard aside. His gaze went to me.
"You are the new prisoner taken from that wrecked Earth-ship?"
"Yes."
"What is your name? You are an Earthman, evidently."
"Yes." I hesitated. I had seen Molo and heard him talk, back there in Greater New York; but he had not seen me nor heard of me probably.
"Gregg Haljan." I added, "I am a skilled navigator; perhaps it was fortunate you saved me."
He flung me a look and there was a tinge of amus.e.m.e.nt in it. "You would save your own skin now?"
"Why not? You"re a Martian, and this is a war also against Mars."
His look darkened, but then again sardonic amus.e.m.e.nt struck him.
"We shall see what the Great Master says. There will be a few of our type humans, men and women, wanted when the worlds begin anew. The Great Master said so. He wants to study life on Earth as it was before the destruction."
Molo"s glance swept behind us. I turned to see three figures approaching. My heart pounded. They were Anita, Venza and Molo"s sister, Meka. They came slowly, trying to walk, with balancing outstretched arms. With a dozen curious Wandl workers crowding them, they came and joined Molo before us. My heart was pounding, but I flung them a curious, impersonal stare.
"You are here," said Molo. "Good. We go now." He bent over Snap and me. "I advise you make no effort to leap away, though it may look easy."
"Not me," said Snap. "Where would I go alone in this d.a.m.ned world? I can"t very well leap back to Earth, can I?"
"True enough," said Molo. "You have sense, little fellow. But I just warn you: the guard who will watch you always is very sharp of eye.
And the weapons here bring very swift death."
I could feel Anita"s gaze upon me, but I did not dare look her way.
"Let"s go," I said, "You will have no trouble with me."
With Molo leading us, and the giant insect-like guard following close behind, we made our slow, awkward way across the esplanade portals of the huge globular building.
And within, we traversed a cylinder-like, padded corridor and came presently upon the strangest interior scene I had ever beheld.
10
The room was so large that it seemed almost the entire interior of the building. It was a globular room, a hundred and fifty feet or more in diameter. The inner surface was crowded with people. It was a huge, hollow interior of a ball; and upon its concave surface a throng of the brown-sh.e.l.led workers were gathered. They sat on low seats at the curved bottom of the room, where we entered, and up the sides and upon the slopes and the top, like flies in a globe, hanging head downward.
There was no up or down here; the slight gravity made little difference.
I gazed up amazed to where, a hundred and fifty feet above me, head downward, the crowd of figures were calmly seated. These were clinging, of course; the pound-weight of each of them would drop them down if they let loose. But it required only a slight effort.
Between the tiers, there were narrow open aisles bearing glowlights at intervals. With Molo leading us, we stared up the curving incline of one of these aisles.
"Gregg! Good Lord, it"s weird!" Snap said. "Where are we going to sit?
Don"t speak to the girls yet."
"Have you spoken to them?"
"Yes. A little, on the ship. They"re watching for an opportunity but we have to be cautious. Gregg, I"ve got so much to tell you, but no chance. The brains can just about hear your thoughts."
We went only a short distance up the incline. There were vacant seats seemingly held ready for us. Our pa.s.sage created a commotion among the figures. Some leaped up and over us to get a better look. I found that we were clinging to the mound-like convex surface of a small half-globe. It raised us some ten feet above the floor. There were low seats with arms against the side-pull of gravity. I found Anita close beside me. Her hand touched me, but she did not turn her head or speak.
Molo was on my other side. I chanced to see his feet. They were planted firmly on the floor. He wore wide-soled shoes equipped with suction pads, no doubt, which would enable him, like the Wandlites, to walk and stand upon the upper inner surfaces of buildings.
As during the moments when Snap and I stood on the landing esplanade, there was so much here that at first I could not encompa.s.s it. But now I began to grasp other details of the strange scene.