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Wandl the Invader (version 2)

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<h2>12</h2> Later, we learned that Anita and Venza had tried much the same tactics on Meka that we had used on Wyk, but their task was more difficult. She was suspicious of them. Venza asked her where the control station was, but she wouldn't answer. "Your brother said it was just beyond the dark forest," Anita said. "What is the dark forest?" "A place with trees where no one lives."[92] "Off that way." Venza gestured. "That's what Molo said. Will it be day soon, or will the night keep on?" "If they cause Wandl to rotate, it will soon be day." An ironic look crossed Meka's face. "I am in no mood for answering more of your silly questions. Save the breath." "Well, if that's they way you feel about it," replied Venza laughing, "we will. There's not much air in here." She shoved herself across the floor toward the closed window. "Get back!" "Oh, all right—all right!" Perhaps Meka herself felt there was not enough air. She stood waveringly upright, and pushed herself with a slow leap for the window. Her back for that moment was to Anita and Venza. They shoved from the floor, whirled through the air and were upon her. It was a brief struggle, and instantly they knew that they had lost. The huge Martian whirled and flung them off. Her upflung fist, with a blow like a man's, caught Anita's thigh and knocked her toward the ceiling. She sank in a heap on the floor, saw that Venza had shoved back, but was standing upright. Anita bent double, with her feet braced against a chair, tensed to shove forward again. At the still unopened window, Meka crouched. Anita heard Venza's warning outcry. "Anita, look out for her! She's got a knife!" Upon this scene, in a moment, Snap and I came with a rush. The closed door was not barred. We slid it down and catapulted through the opening. Meka sailed over us. I swam up at her; seized her. The knife ripped my blouse and slit the flesh of my upper arm with a glancing blow. Then Snap came and struck against us; we sank to the floor. Meka had fought silently, but now she was shouting. I twisted her wrist, seized the knife handle and flung the knife away. I was aware of Anita lunging to retrieve it. And over us Venza appeared, waving a metal chair as though it were a huge feather. Snap gasped, "Gregg get your hand over her mouth. Shut her up!" We had her subdued in a moment, but it seemed almost too late. Outside the opened door a distant shout sounded.[93] I shoved Meka toward the door. "If you don't do what I say, I'll kill you," I whispered into her ear. "What shall I do?" There came another shout, closer, now. Someone was coming. "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 damn 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 prone 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[94] landing stage, the figures fluttering, the great globe, all dropped swiftly beneath a sharply curving horizon. We had passed 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 altitude 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.[95] We sank, fluttering, into a dark and tangled mass 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 circumference 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! <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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