The Metal Moon by Everett C. Smith and Roman Frederick Starzl (early reader chapter books txt) 📗

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."

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.

CHAPTER V The Struggle for Freedom

They were afloat, and comparatively safe from the rockets which shrieked out of the leaden sky and threw spectral waterspouts up into the fog before they exploded. Unless one exploded directly under them, or very near, they would be safe—for the time being.

"Which way is shore?" Lents puffed.

"Rockets seem to come from that way," Sine answered, flipping his hand. "Swim that way. Fish probably lost appetites, so won't bother us."

The bombardment had indeed frightened away the monsters of the deep, and even the dead in the ruined submarine city would rest in peace for a while. But the Earthmen, after several hours of swimming, doubted that this was more than a postponement of death. The long greasy swells were rising, presaging another of Jupiter's unimaginably violent storms.

"I see a light!" Sine strained his eyes to get another glimpse of it through the brown fog. "There it is again." Something was moving slowly through the air a short distance over the water, following the course of the rockets, which had ceased coming. A powerful searchlight was cutting through the murk. A war party of the First Race, looking for wreckage.

In their methodical search they soon found the swimming men, and they were helped into the chief's cabin. Sine, looking up with half-blinded eyes, saw Governor Nikkia sitting in his chair, looking at him coldly.

"So!" the governor bit off his words. "The traitors are fished out." His arrogant, handsome face was vindictive, uncompromising. "We forgot that the aborigines of Earth would naturally sympathize with their equals, the Mugs! That was nicely timed, your 'visit.' How long have you been in communication with the rebels?"

The Earthmen, weak and exhausted by their long exposure, resisted their desire to lie down on the floor. They stood before the governor, hemmed in by hostile fighting men, and tried to maintain the traditions and dignity of their planet.

"We were not in communication with your slaves," Sine declared. "You should know that. Your radio monitors would have picked up any messages, and your own patrol ships picked us up when we were far out in space. Our mission is one of peace. As for your quarrels, they do not concern us. We are strictly neutral."

Nikkia laughed, a short, clipped bark in which there was little amusement.

"Well, your guilt is a matter of small moment anyway. We have paid the Mugs for the damage they did, and they will not have another chance. And if they had an idea of getting help from Earth, you shall be an object lesson on the uselessness of such hopes."

"Meaning?" But Sine and his companions knew that the meaning must be evil.

"Meaning," Nikkia snapped, "that from now on you three are Mugs, no better and no worse than the Jovian Mugs. Except that I shall instruct the labor office to put you to work at one of the power integrators—perhaps in The Bubble. We don't want to waste you" he added with grim humor—"and the gravity here on Jupiter might reduce your life of usefulness."

The governor turned his back in dismissal, and the prisoners were hustled into a dark, extremely hot storage hold. Here they lay down amid an untidy collection of miscellaneous gear, thick with dust. They rested gratefully until some of their strength should return to them.

When they awoke from their sleep of exhaustion they were aware that the ship had landed, and a few minutes later the door of their prison was opened and an officer, heat pistol trained on them, commanded the prisoners to get into another ship for transfer to the metal and crystal satellite where they were condemned to drag out the rest of their lives as slaves.

The second coming of the Earthmen to The Bubble was in marked contrast to their first. Instead of the large, commodious lock in the upper hemisphere, they entered this time through a drab, dull orifice in the black half of the sphere. The patrol ship which brought them was contacted without ceremony. They were thrust though with curt orders to ask somebody for the Mug superintendent's office. Then the valve closed behind them. There was a grating sound as it was locked from the outside, and then silence. The ship was gone. They were marooned in the gloom, the grisly domain of the rays and the Mugs. Sentenced for life, with their only companions, a few broken, despairing men.

The corridor in which they found themselves sloped gently downward, and artificial gravity made it possible to walk naturally. Sine taking the lead, they passed into the depths. Everywhere were monstrous shadows, with occasional stabbing eerie beams of light. But it seemed that an ominous hush hung over this metal-interlaced gulf. Here there was no sense of motion—no sense of bubble-like lightness. It was like a descent into the nether regions of the ancient—into an inferno. But of the denizens of this dismal place there was no trace.

"Let's go to Proserpina's home," Sine suggested. "I'm anxious to see if she's still all right. And the old man too."

Accordingly they watched for the numbered corridor, and after some fruitless wandering, came again to the deep crack that was the only home this timid girl knew. She started up in terror as the Earthmen came into view. Not unnaturally, for they were all bristly with unshaven beards and grimy with the dust they had collected when prisoners in the Jovian ship's hold.

But after her first reaction of terror she