Читать книгу Wings of Icarus - Raymond King Cummings - Страница 4

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Many weeks later we arrived at Neptune, twenty-eight hundred million miles out. The eighth, and except for Pluto, the outermost planet of the Solar System at last lay beneath us. That powerful little Nomad had certainly lived up to expectations. At its fullest acceleration, we had attained a velocity of more than eleven times that of any commercial vessel. But even so, Neptune now was our last chance. Despite the immense velocity, the passing weeks—those were interminable weeks to us three, believe me—had consumed a dangerous amount of the Uradonite fuel we had brought with us. The new-type Mansfield units gave speed, but they were wasteful, more wasteful than we had anticipated.

Jupiter proved to be about what we had expected, a viscous, semi-liquid surface upon which we could not possibly land. Saturn and Uranus were far on the other side of the Sun. Thus they did not figure. And now, here was Neptune. We went down through heavy, swirling, green-yellow cloud masses, and at some twenty thousand feet burst out to have our first look at the planet’s surface.

Chick Evans scowled at the panorama.

“Nice hospitable-looking place,” he sneered.

Below us we could see a stretch of wild greenish naked rocks, tumbled as though riven by a monstrous cataclysm. There were jagged peaks and spires, deep canyons and great pits of darkness. On this sphere hardly an Earth-acre of even semi-level land could be found.

“Only a bird could get anywhere,” declared Evans, as we sat in the turret, staring down in awe. “And we’re not birds, either. Climbing up and down those cliffs, one couldn’t go a mile a day.”

“But that’s the sort of rock for Uradonite,” I said.

“Let’s try it,” suggested Boyle. “There’s only enough Uradonite-fuel to get us back to Earth. If we don’t land here, what would you suggest?”

We had no argument to that.

“All right,” agreed Chick Evans. “If I can spot level ground I’ll set the Nomad down.”

Small as the ship was, finding a landing place did not prove easy. Neptune has the most forbidding landscape I have ever seen. Occasionally the sun peered through the clouds, just a little dull dot in the firmament. A dull, yellow-green twilight lay soddenly upon the wild Neptunian peaks, painting them into a dull drab monochrome. We knew Neptune revolves upon its axis in something over two Earth-days but that sunlight here was negligible. It seemed obvious this same weird twilight prevailed always, a blending of reflected starlight through turgid clouds, and perhaps a little glow inherent to the ground itself.

But this air should be breathable.

“Test some, will you?” I suggested to Boyle.

We had dropped down, now to about ten thousand feet. He could let some into our vacuum pressure-lock and test it easily.

Boyle came back presently. “Resembles Earth air,” he reported.

Then we cut off our artificial, interior-gravity from the tiny testing-lock in the bow. Neptune’s gravity pull proved to be somewhat less than that of Earth—porous rock masses; a globe less dense than ours, with a lesser total mass.

“Well, that’s a comfort, anyway,” smiled Chick Evans, “I’m sick of Moon-travel under glassite and light gravity ... There! See it? That’s where we land. Sort of a rock shelf?”

Now a small level area, with pits of darkness on both sides and a precipitous cliff at one end, came into view. We were going down nicely, when abruptly, at a thousand feet, something went wrong.

Boyle gripped me.

“Look at that altimeter needle. We’re dropping too fast. You, Chick Evans! Watch yourself.”

It wasn’t Chick Evans’ fault. He’d calculated the proper nullification but Neptune’s gravity had suddenly changed. It had increased.

Only for an instant did Chick Evans seem flurried. How could you blame him?

Frantically he reached for the adjustment levers. Then he let go of them and flung on the rocket-streams to put upward thrust under the hull.

That seemed to do it. At least, we thought so.

The level areas opened out underneath.

“Easy,” I murmured. “Be careful, Chick.”

Gosh, it seemed strange. Despite Chick Evans’ last-instant efforts, it turned out to be a crash landing, after all.

The yellow-green rock spires came sliding up. Then the bow of the Nomad struck first—hard! A shuddering thump!

The shock knocked all of us to the floor. The lights went out. Then silence. Only the full green-yellow Neptunian twilight came filtering in through portholes. None of us was hurt. Chick Evans was the first to scramble to his feet. “By Jupiter,” he gasped. “What a navigator I am.”

“Let’s get out of here,” suggested Boyle. “There’s chlorine gas escaping.”

The ventilating system had quit working. We could smell the choking, acrid chlorine. It did not take long to follow Boyle’s advice. Within half a minute all three had scrambled along the hull cat-walk and into the lower vacuum lock. The Neptune air came into it slowly, hissing heavily. That air smelt queer. But it proved breathable, more breathable than the chlorine fumes which had us choking by now. Then Chick slid back the exit door and we jumped to the rocks.

So this was Neptune. Awed, I stood swaying, gasping a little until my lungs grew accustomed to the new atmosphere. The temperature here reminded me of Earth on a tropic night The porous rocky ground seemed radiating heat as though from the planet’s molten interior.

We had not had time to bring along any equipment—but had tumbled out of the wrecked ship in the clothes we were wearing, tight flexible knee-boots, tight dark trousers and long shirt-blouses. All of us were bareheaded.

For a minute we stood gazing. That landscape was just the opposite of inviting. All one could do was to look at it, and then wish to be somewhere else.

“This dump will take some tough exploring,” was Chick Evans’ comment. “It beats anything I’ve bumped up against so far.”

For a few hundred feet the ledge on which we stood extended in a reasonable manner. Then it ended in nasty precipices, straight down into green blackness. At the two ends of the ledge, rock-spires went straight up. A mountain goat, even an abnormally adventurous, optimistic one, would have been nonplussed.

At this moment Boyle emitted an oath and gripped me by the arm.

“What’s that?” he cried. “Look off there, over that peak.”

A dark speck had appeared in the sky. It seemed to have wings and to be flying toward us. Could it be a bird? That there should be anything at all living on this bleak, barren world came as a shock. But there it was and approaching us, too. In a moment the speck had enlarged to be a queer, slim oblong object with a great spread of rhythmically flapping white wings, bigger than those of an albatross.

“Flies like a wounded bird,” I observed to my companions.

“Something is sure the matter with it,” agreed Chick Evans. “Look at it flopping along. Must be in trouble.”

The approaching object had drawn quite near. It had passed the ragged edge of one of the rock spires now, and seemed to be heading toward us. Then Boyle let out a gasp of surprise.

“By George, that’s not a bird,” he exclaimed. “It’s human. Boys, am I crazy? It looks like a girl!”

And that’s what it was, too. A winged girl.

In another moment we could see her clearly, a slim little body, white-limbed, with a bluish drape that fluttered in the wind and long golden hair.

On motionless pinions she soared past the peak. Her wings were broad, white-feathered and gracefully arched. Then she flapped them back again desperately, as if in danger of falling. To me it seemed as if the girl were exhausted. She made another effort and managed to land, upright, on the ledge a short distance away.

In the dim twilight I noticed something else peculiar. As her feet touched the rocks, sparks flew from them. Then she stumbled and fell in a little quivering heap.

For a moment we just stood staring.

“It’s a bird-girl,” yelled Chick Evans. “Let’s see if we can help her.”

He spoke too late. Already I had started running toward her. Boyle and Evans followed me. Though level for a few hundred yards, the ground was strewn with jagged boulders and crags. It proved to be tough going. But at last we managed to reach the girl and stood for a moment, gaping.

She was certainly human, all right. Except for those wings, it could have been a slim, blonde young Earth-girl lying there. Her ten-foot wings were spread out and quivering, under her. We saw they were not artificial, but as much a part of her body as those of a bird.

She did not seem to be wounded, either, just exhausted and breathless. I felt sure of that when she raised herself to her elbow and looked us over.

This girl might have been seventeen or eighteen years old and even by Earth standards she was undeniably beautiful. But it was a strange beauty. Her golden hair had the same opalescence which is seen in sea shells and her eyes had an Oriental slant.

“Well, I’m a tower-watchman if she isn’t a little beauty.” Then he spoke to the girl. “What’s the matter, sister? Are you hurt?”

My arm swept him back.

“Take it easy,” I cried. “Can’t you see you’re frightening her?”

The girl sat up and caught a good glimpse of us. She seemed surprised for her little hands went to her face in a terrified gesture. To quiet her I stepped back, instead of forward.

“Look here,” I said. “Do you speak an audible language?”

She did. Her face dimpled into a bewitching smile and from her red lips tumbled soft, liquid, unintelligible syllables. Of course we could not understand them until she pointed at herself.

“Ahla,” she said. “Ahla. Ahla.”

I knew what that meant. It was her name. So I put one finger to my chest.

“Alan,” I said. Sure enough, she understood me.

She seemed to have recovered her strength, now, for she arose to her feet. It gave me an odd sensation to see the tips of her folded wings touch the rocks, rattle the pebbles and to realize they were part of her slender, graceful body.

At this moment I heard a gasp and Chick Evans spoke into my ear.

“Take a look to your left, quick,” he suggested. “There are more of them coming.”

All three of us Earthmen turned around and gazed in the direction Evans indicated. He had spoken the truth. In the purple twilight several tiny figures flapped into view from behind a tall spire. They came rapidly—although awkwardly—in our direction. Now we could see them plainly. For a moment with beating wings, they gathered above us, like a dozen half-human hawks. Then they swooped down and hit the shelf nearby with a series of heavy thuds.

We gazed at each other in mutual astonishment. My feelings were hard to define. Apparently, all of the inhabitants of Neptune had wings. Four or five girls were numbered among the newcomers and, like the men, were small of figure. They were clad in either brown, green or black robes. The brown hair of the women was parted in the middle and draped down their backs in between the wings, but the hair of the men rose up above their foreheads, in short unruly shocks.

After observing us, they hurried to the side of the golden haired girl as if to make certain she was all right, and then once more turned to gaze at us, the three strange Earth men. They moved closer, surrounding us.

“Take it easy,” Boyle warned them, in sharp tones. “We’re friends.”

Ahla spoke to them again, possibly assuring them we were harmless. She must have mentioned the wrecked Nomad, for they turned to glance at it. But it was obvious to me they did not understand either the use or meaning of rocket ships. When the girl finished speaking, the men pressed about us, jabbering in excited voices. Our lack of wings seemed to confound these inhabitants of the planet. One of them tore open my shirt and examined my shoulders, as if in search of scars. He appeared to think some horrible mutilation had deprived us of our wings and seemed surprised to discover no proofs to back up his theory.

Then it seemed to dawn upon them we were born that way, and their contempt and pity had no bounds. Shortly afterward they held another conference, as if discussing some plan of action. When they had come to an agreement, four of the men leaped into the air and flew away. To me that was one of the strangest things of all. Back on Earth I have seen pigeons take off in just the same manner.

Boyle watched them disappear among the spires. Then he turned to me.

“Where have they gone?” he said. “I wonder what is up?”

“Suppose we wait and see,” I suggested. “In the meantime we can try to understand their language.”

But it was no use. We soon found that out. Our Earth tongues and vocal chords are totally incapable of mastering those odd, rippling accents which flowed from Ahla’s lips. On the other hand the flexibility of her throat seemed to lend itself to acquiring our language. In a little while she had not only memorized our names but several other words, as well. Furthermore, she appeared to remember them and to know what they meant, too. Later, when I learned the extraordinarily retentive power of the Neptunian memory, I felt less surprised.

Within thirty minutes I noticed something else. Other inhabitants of the planets were arriving in groups of threes and fours. Soon the ledge actually began to grow crowded.

In about an hour the four men who had left came back. They brought with them four hastily contrived baskets made of yellow-green withes. Bound to these baskets were long handles.

“Flickering Saturn, take a squint at those litters,” cried Chick Evans. “They mean to carry us away somewhere.”

“That suits me fine,” I answered. “Two of us can go, and one of us remain here to watch the ship. Which one shall it be?”

Evans, Boyle and I had an excited dispute, much to the amazement of the Neptunians who couldn’t seem to understand what all the shouting was about. Finally we settled the matter by drawing straws. It was Boyle who was finally elected to stay.

So Evans and I turned to the winged men, tapped ourselves on the chests and nodded our heads in agreement. Then we pointed at Boyle and tried to register a plain and emphatic negative. To us the whole pantomime seemed clear enough.

But these winged men did not get the idea at all. Grinning broadly they advanced, seized us all with powerful grips and started to load us into the baskets.

“No, no!” I yelled in protest. “All three of us can’t go. One must stay here with the ship.”

But the men of Neptune paid no attention to our shouts. They merely tightened their hold and tried to boost us into the cradles. We commenced to resist. A fight started, and soon we were battling for all we were worth.

I sent one of the winged men sprawling over on his side and shook off two more. For a moment I almost won free. Around me I could hear and catch glimpses of similar flurries. Evidently my companions likewise were putting up a tussle. But there were too many of these Neptune men around and our resistance had been hopeless from the start. What can three men do against a hundred?

Then reinforcements surged forward and overwhelmed us. They yanked our hands behind our backs and tied them. Then our feet were lashed together. Next we were tossed roughly into baskets and warned to be still. By this time we felt quite willing to quit struggling.

During the disturbance Ahla had been fluttering around, wringing her little hands and calling out soothing words. She was trying to reassure us that we would not be harmed. These Neptune people did not understand it was strictly against regulations of Interplanetary Transportation Force for fliers to leave their ship deserted in a case like this.

Our resistance seemed to change the whole atmosphere. I had never realized how quickly these men could turn into sinister and grim looking captors. The glances which they now turned upon us were vindictive enough to curdle the blood. With no more ceremony than butchers waste upon chunks of food, they hurled us into the baskets. Then they seized the handles of the litters—eight to a cradle—and took off from the ledge.

Just as we left the landing place, I heard Evans call out my name.

“Live chicken, trussed up good and tight, bound for the market,” he yelled. “What are they going to do with us now, Alan? Cut off our heads?”

It was just like Evans, to joke at such a time. As for me I did not feel like joking. Prospects did not look so good. Captives on Neptune! What could we do now?