"Call out in Martian. Say there"s no trouble, nothing wrong. You were arguing with these girls."
She did as I commanded. The voice down the corridor answered, and then subsided.
Snap slid the door closed. "Hurry! We"ll go by the window. I dropped those d.a.m.n shoes."
Anita and Venza tore their dark coats into strips. We bound and gagged Meka, laid her in a corner of the room. We had dropped the shoes as we came plunging through the door oval. We found that we could all fasten their things to our feet. I put Meka"s knife in my belt.
"Hurry, all of you!" Snap was saying. "Got to get out of here; jump by the window."
"Say, look at these wing-shields!" From a recess in a corner of the room Venza appeared with an armful of the small shields. We thrust our hands and forearms into their loops. The shields extended from a few inches beyond our fingers to the elbow.
Snap had slid the window blind. I bent over the p.r.o.ne form of Meka.
"Don"t try to move. Molo will release you when he comes back."
We gathered on the starlit balcony. The city stretched around us.
There was as yet no alarm. No swimming figures near here; but a distance away we saw the towering conclave globe, with its audience just beginning to emerge, like bees coming from a hive.
"Let me go first." I held Anita and Venza at the rail. "It"s like swimming. I suppose we"ll get the way of it pretty quickly."
I balanced on the rail, and then leaped off. With the others after me, we swam awkwardly upward into the reddish starlight.
The city structures dropped away, showing in a dark blur with winking lights. Over us were the stars and the cloudless night sky. Behind, the flashing light beams of radiance at the landing stage, the figures fluttering, the great globe, all dropped swiftly beneath a sharply curving horizon.
We had pa.s.sed the city. A thousand feet below us, a dark forest stretched. It was beyond this that the control station was located.
The swimming flight became less awkward, but it was an effort in this abnormal Wandl air. Snap and Venza were behind me. Anita was leading, a strange, bird-like little figure. White blouse; long parted dark skirt from which her gray-sheathed legs kicked out as she swam, sometimes half upon one side, or with a breast stroke. The braids of her dark hair fell forward over her shoulders.
She was tiring: I could not miss it. How far had we gone? Ten miles, perhaps. There was only a small vista of this little world visible at once, it was so sharply convex. A line of distant mountains was to our left. We had crossed a river at the forest edge.
I suppose we had been half an hour swimming those ten-miles. Was daylight coming? It seemed that the sideline of mountain-tops had a little light on them. The opalescent beam from Earth had swept this portion of the sky and was gone below the horizon.
Apparently there was no pursuit from the city. Behind me, Venza panted, "Say, I"m about finished. Can"t we rest?"
With this alt.i.tude we could cease our efforts and drift down. It would take several minutes.
We gathered together, falling with a slow drift toward the dark forest under us. The trees seemed huge and spindly, a porous growth something on the Martian style, with huge leaves and a tangle of matter vines.
They came mounting up at us as we fell with slowly gathering speed.
"Shall we go on?" I suggested.
"Yes." But she was tired, and Anita as well.
"Girls," I asked, "where is the _Star-Streak_?"
They did not know.
Anita said, "Perhaps we can land in the trees, and examine what devices we have here."
The girls had carefully watched Molo upon several occasions. They thought we might find we had a hand-globe or a couple of the repulsive rays. With these we could attain rapid flight without effort.
We sank, fluttering, into a dark and tangled ma.s.s of the forest tree-top growth. I had understood that Wandl was crowded with its human population, yet this dark and silent forest evidently was uninhabited. We clung, like awkward birds, to a swaying limb of a tree-top. The trees were close together.
"Let"s see what you"ve got," Venza demanded.
We handed the girls the various devices we had taken from Wyk. Most of them were the size of my fist: globular metallic projectors like hand bombs; ray cylinders; a device with multiple barrels the size of one"s finger, set in a small circ.u.mference of a circular grid of wires.
Anita said, "I saw Molo with one of these. He killed an unwilling worker on the ship."
"I"ll take a look around," Snap said anxiously. "Suppose we"re being followed? Give me that weapon."
There was vegetation partly over us, so that the sky was half obscured. Snap took the weapon, and like a monkey swaying precariously, he ran and leaped among the upper branches, crashing his way until he could see back toward the horizon beyond which lay the city of Wor.
We heard his voice. "All clear. Nothing in sight. You coming up?
Better get started."
I put the weapons in my pocket. Snap had one now in the branches over us. I was examining an electronic bolt, when suddenly there came Snap"s call. "Gregg! Look out!"
We heard the hiss and saw the flash of his bolt.
Anita swung at me. "Gregg, see there!"
I followed her gesture, and then I knew why this forest was shunned by humans!
13
The forest swarmed with living things. Here in the dark they had been crawling upon us. Every branch of this leafy tree-top angle had something staring at us; the darkness was suddenly glowing with a myriad little green torches which were their eyes. They all winked on in an instant, as though at a signal, or at the sound of Snap"s shout and the hiss of his bolt.
Insects? I suppose I should call them that. With a glance I saw that they were of many sizes and shapes; tiny little things with eyes like lanterns; things of many legs, finger-length, hand-length, and some as long as my forearm. Brown-sh.e.l.led things, with eyes glowing on stems.
There was one quite near us, a smooth, brown-sh.e.l.led body; a round head on top, as big as my fist. And these things had heads like little distended brains.
What horrible jest of nature this was, with miniatures of the Wandl workers, crawling here, unable to stand erect, groping with little pincers. And miniature brains with naked, shriveled bodies.
It seemed that the eyes of that little brain were fixed on me with a baleful green glare in the darkness. Anita and Venza were floundering to their feet in horror. They all but slipped from the limb. The weapons and devices they had arranged there slid off and went down into the darkness unheeded. From above us came Snap"s horrified shouts and the hiss of his bolts.
"Here!" I gasped. "My hand--Anita, Venza, jump!"
I shoved Anita upward. The little eyes suddenly were all in movement, advancing upon us. Anita floundered, fluttered, got into the air and mounted toward Snap. Again Venza slipped off the limb. I lunged and drew her up. Green eyes nearest us came swooping. I did not dare fire a bolt; it was too close to Venza. I flung the entire weapon at the green eyes, but I missed.
The little thing bit Venza"s arm. She screamed and her flailing hand hit the tiny distended head. Its hideous little scream mingled with hers. It floated downward, ma.s.sed and purple-red with gushing blood.
I struggled upward with the inert form of Venza under one arm. Anita was mounting, free. Snap came lunging down.
"Fired every bolt in the d.a.m.n weapon!" He saw the unconscious Venza.
"Good G.o.d, Gregg!"