Back Aa

Metal Moon

<h3>The Monstrosities</h3> "He's coming out of it. Hand me the water, Lents." Sine awoke to see Kass bending over him. He felt weak and languid, and the memory of recent events was returning only slowly. He looked around, saw that he was lying in a chamber about fifteen feet square, evidently hewn out of solid rock. "Are you all right, Sine? Answer me, boy!" Kass' bald head gleamed in the yellowish light of a single emanation tablet on the ceiling. "I'm all right. Where are we?" "Under the sea. Some hidden city of the Second Race—those that were banished. We are prisoners, but honored prisoners it seems." Sine passed his hand over his eyes. "How did we get here?" "Some kind of emanation of theirs—the brightening of that light, I guess. It had a paralyzing effect. I know I froze where I stood, unable to move a step. And I was protected by the hull. Same with Lents. But you had your head out of the port—caught the full effect. It laid you out cold." "They boarded us then," the fat man supplied. "As easy as that! Simply boarded us, herded me and Lents into their own ship, which is just as suitable for navigating in water as in air. As for you, they had to carry you." "Better tell him what to expect," Lents suggested. Kass explained, with considerable scientific interest: "The First Race was not so far wrong in calling them 'terrible people.' They are, a race of monstrosities. Men with four or six arms, men with hair like fur all over their bodies. With heads ten times too large. With boneless tentacles instead of limbs. With scales instead of skin. Quite horrible. And yet, most of them are highly intelligent, with normal human emotions, and painfully conscious of their deformities." "I don't quite understand." Sine was flexing his muscles, sitting up with the support of one elbow. He saw he was lying on a pallet of dried sea weed. "What caused these abnormalities?" "Well, you know—" Lents was speaking judiciously. "You know all about the mutations produced by X-rays in the biological laboratories?" "Of course!" For approximately a million years these actions of X-rays had been understood—their ability to bring about extraordinary mutations in the life-germ, whether animal or vegetable—the acceleration of natural evolution a millionfold. "But you don't mean to say the First Race deliberately brought about these mutations in the Mugs?" "Not deliberately. But they permitted it with utter callousness. You know those hydrogen integrators we saw at a distance in the dark half of The Bubble. Those things are the source of most of the power used by the Jovians. But the generators have a mighty dangerous by-product—the cosmic ray series, for instance, a particularly destructive band below the X-ray spectrum too." Sine nodded comprehension, his eyes hardening as he thought of the grotesque, distorted wreck of humanity who was Proserpina's father. A mere whim of fortune that he had not been condemned to that hell before she was born, or she might have been one of those unfortunate mutations— Might yet become one! Not only could the rays deform the offspring. They could distort the full-grown, normal body. Sine felt increasingly dismayed as he thought of this immature, quiet-eyed girl, this waif of an alien world. He experienced a recurrence of the indignation he had previously felt. This selfish, superior First Race! Condemning the weaker people to torture and death so they could enjoy a little paradise! The Pleasure Bubble they called it. Sphere of the Damned was better! For the unfortunate consigned to the dark hemisphere was condemned to an inferno that surpassed the Ancient's most perfervid imagination. "I wish we could save Proserpina!" The words were out before Sine knew it. Kass stopped in the middle of a sentence and lifted a quizzical eyebrow. "Oh, get the romantic ideas out of your heads!" Sine snapped. "You know she's just a kid. I couldn't take care of her if we did take her back to Earth. But I'd like to take her out of The Bubble!" Lents pulled at his toga thoughtfully. It was dirty, still wet, and smelled not too pleasantly. "I could take care of her," he said slowly, and his deep bass voice was a little wistful. "My wife would be glad—we're getting old, and no children—" "We-ell," Kass submitted practically. "I'd like to take her away, and her poor old daddy too—or is he old? But what's the use of discussing all that? Here we are prisoners, and she's a prisoner of the First Race, and we shall never see her again. Or the good old Earth either," he added sadly. A man entered the room. He looked more like a normal man than might have been expected—only his exaggerated dish-face, his bulbous forehead proclaiming him just another victim of the First Race's industries. Or his shrill, treble voice as he announced: "Gentlemen of Earth, the Manager and his council expect you in the office. Follow me." He turned, waited for them to come. The Manager's messenger led them up a long, ascending tunnel meagerly lighted at intervals by small emanation tablets. After they had gone perhaps a hundred yards the hewn rock gave way to what was evidently a kind of concrete. "This part of their city is built above the ocean floor," Kass remarked quietly. "They brought us in through airlocks. Passages lead to caves along the shore where the original refugees holed up. These are mostly their children, so marked and deformed even in embryo." Their dish-faced guide now stepped aside as they entered a spacious chamber with a domed ceiling. Here and there it was wet. No doubt above there was the sea. Lents made a rapid mental calculation, rumbled into Sine's ear: "Can't be so deep. Not over a hundred feet; maybe less. Otherwise those arches couldn't carry the weight." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> A hush fell upon the room. The leader of this strange people—the one they called The Manager, was rising from his seat back of a desk. His head was very large, his eyes large, liquid and expressive. A total lack of eyebrows, of hair on his head, gave a mixture of the comical and the obscene to his appearance. But the respect with which his counselors, ranged on either side of him, regarded him, ignored his appearance. They were all, without exception, victims of the strange and terrible mutations of type induced by the First Race's callous disregard to the dangers of the rays. All wore loose garments of drab material which concealed their deformities to some extent. The Manager's large, intense eyes fastened on the Earthmen, and he addressed them: "Men of Earth: We have captured you in battle, but we would be friends with the Old World. Why did you try to fight us?" "You were murdering helpless victims," Sine said shortly. "It was not our fight, but we could not stand by and permit such a thing." Something like amusement flashed up in The Manager's enormous eyes, so old, weary and wise. "So you could not bear to think of an easy death for those of the First Race? What think you of their treatment of us?" He raised a scrawny arm—so thin it suggested a skeleton. "Hunted like beasts—imprisoned and tortured! Are we not human?" "You see," Kass interposed diplomatically—"we were their guests. And in a way their quarrel...." The Manager cut him short peremptorily: "You were their guests! You lolled with them in The Pleasure Bubble, in the beautiful sun! The sun that most of us have never seen! And down in the dark half-human beings like yourselves—toiled and slaved at those devilish integrators to keep the machinery of pleasure going. "You were the guests in the Governor's palace—in the magnificent city of Rubio, though to you it may seem dismal. But did you think of the poor slaves, deep underground, in the slimy sewers, in the uranium pits, in the power plants? You basked in luxury with the First Race, and their fight was your fight—their enemies...." He was working himself into a fury, evidently forgetting the original purpose of this conference with the prisoners. But one of the counselors now approached him, bowed respectfully so that his scaly face was hidden. The Manager cut short his tirade. "What is it, Gnom?" "Isn't The Manager digressing?" Gnom asked in a hollow voice. "These men of Earth are now our guests. They come at an opportune time—when we shall reap the fruits of our long planning. If we wrest power from the First Race, shall we not need the friendship of the Mother Planet? Let them, then, carry our story to Earth, if it be that we may need their help." The Manager stood in thought. At last, coming to a decision, he asked sharply: "With whom do you stand, men of Earth? With us or our oppressors?" Kass and Lents looked at one another blankly. They started as Sine spoke up sonorously, beside them: "Officially, we are supposed to be neutral. But if you attack The Bubble and rescue the poor devils in the dark hemisphere I'll help!" But The Manager shook his enormous head slightly. "That we can not do. That satellite is too far out in space. There is no concealment, and we can not yet fight their patrol ships in space." "Listen!" Sine persisted. "There is a man there I know. He's about ready to die, unless he gets away. And he has a girl, a kid of fourteen or fifteen. The rays haven't made a freak out of her yet. I want to save her. Give me a ship and I'll take her out myself!" "That we can not do. Individuals do not count. One, or a hundred, may die. We can not endanger our plan." The counselors had drawn a little away from the Earthmen, unconsciously symbolizing their support to The Manager. Again he raised his bony arm. "Up above there our ships are destroying every city of the First Race on the planet. Our power-beams for the glowing ships are encircling Jupiter in a network of red and death—death to the oppressors! The Pleasure Bubble's turn will come. And when it is dashed down, master and slave must die together. To save the slaves might let some of the masters escape." "Gentlemen!" Kass was trying to smooth over the situation, "We have been sent here on a voyage of discovery, not of war. We regret your troubles here—but we can take no part in them. Our attitude is friendly to...." "No! Damned if I will!" Sine shouldered his iron-hard body through the close-packed counselors, so that he stood directly before The Manager, who did not shrink from the formidable young man. "If you murder those poor Mugs in the black hemisphere, I'm your enemy from now on!" "And I!" The words boomed and reverberated in the vaulted chamber, and Lents moved his bulky body beside Sine. "And I too!" Kass' naked, skinny torso glistened with sweat. "The First Race may be murderers, but they're magnificent murderers. They wouldn't forget their friends!" The Manager's large, liquid eyes seemed suddenly filmed over. He jerked his enormous head sharply, snapped: "We waste time. Put these meddlers out through the locks, that they may feed the fish." <hr style="width: 45%;" /> But Gnom again interposed. "If The Manager will permit—there is much water on Earth. They may know how to swim—might go to the top and escape—" "True, Gnom. I have a truly great brain, as all the oppressed admit, but details escape me. Call one of the watch, put them to death first." Gnom turned, looked into one of the larger passages that centered on that room. He turned his blank, scaly face. "The watch is not here!" "Perhaps he was called. See!" But before Gnom could execute the order a commotion arose in the passage. A voice called from outside: "Officer of the hour prays audience with The Manager." "Enter." An officer with an extreme hunchback dashed in, bowed low before The Manager. "It is the end!" he gasped. "They watched our glowing ships plunge under the water, and they are setting bombing rockets for this area. The first ranging shots have already been fired. Listen!" After a few moments there came a dull thud, as though a blow had been struck against the ceiling. A pendent drop of water fell. The Manager's hairless face became bleak. "I made great plans, great inventions—forgot a simple detail!" He slumped as he stood, a mixture of the absurd and the tragic. The mutation that had made a brilliant mind had nevertheless left it incomplete, and none had realized it until in this extremity. Again came that dull shock, and this time it seemed a little stronger. The Manager shook off his apathy. His great eyes burned with livid fire, as he called: "Officer of the watch. Take these prisoners to the locks. Kill them and put them out." "I obey!" The officer, squat, with enormous torso, pointed a small wand, pointed with a tiny spot of that peculiar pulsating pink light, threateningly. Stolidly he herded them through a broad corridor. Now and then they passed inhabitants of this submarine city, nightmarish, pitiable creatures, now disturbed, dreading death. Sine wondered vaguely that they should cling to such an unhappy existence. He was recalled to their own predicament when a metal gate, closed by a screw-wheel, loomed up in the poor light. The inside lock! The guard motioned them ahead, stood between them and the passage. He fumbled at his belt, ignoring the dull hammerblows of explosions transmitted by the water. He seized Kass by the throat, prepared to plunge the knife into his body. Sine leaped past, crooked his arm around the man's thick neck, attempted to break his neck. But a giant arm threw him off easily. He fell to the floor. Like an echo came the concussion of another explosion. The guard, without trace of ill-humor, turned his attention to Sine. He pointed the little wand at him, and the light glowed brighter. Sine felt again that torturing paralysis. His senses were leaving him. The pink light was throbbing, expanding.... He wondered why the stones of the passage should be pushing in, spurting water. The pink light faded. Tepid water struck him, stinging like needles. There was a roaring, blackness. A fat arm hooked around his waist—Lents', no doubt. He felt himself borne along in a swirl of water, strangling, fighting blindly. There was another terrific explosion shock, an interminable climbing struggle. Then his head broke water and he breathed air again. Lents came up beside him, puffing and blowing, and after a long wait—so long that they despaired, Kass came weakly to the surface. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h2>CHAPTER V</h2> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.