Presently the three men were standing at the door of a vast room, one
entire side of which was wide open to the outer air. It was filled by a
number of queer, shining objects. At first glance Chick took them to be
immense beetles.
The Jan Lucar spoke to the Geos:
“We had best take the June Bug of the Rhamda Avec.”
Watson thought it best to say nothing, show nothing. The Jan ran up to
one of the glistening affairs, and without the slightest noise he spun
it gracefully around, running it out into the centre of the mosaic
floor.
“I presume,” apologised the Geos, “that you have much finer aircraft in
your world.”
Aircraft! Watson was all eagerness. He saw that the June Bug was about
ten feet high, with a bunchy, buglike body. On closer scrutiny he could
make out the outlines of wings folded tight against the sides. As for
the material, it must have been metal, to use a term which does not
explain very much, after all. In every respect the machine was a
duplicate of some great insect, except that instead of legs it had
well-braced rollers.
“How does it operate?” Watson wanted to know. “That is, what power do
you use, and how do you apply it?”
The Jan Lucar threw back a plate. Watson looked inside, and saw a mass
of fine spider-web threads, softer than the tips of rabbit's hair, all
radiating from a central grey object about the size of a pea. Chick
reached out to touch this thing with his finger.
But the Geos, like a flash, caught him by the shoulder and pulled him
back.
“Pardon me, my lord!” he exclaimed. “But you must not touch it!
You--even you, would be annihilated!” Then to the Lucar: “Very well.”
Whereupon the other did something in front of the craft; touched a
lever, perhaps. Instantly the grey, spidery hairs turned to a dull red.
“Now you may touch it,” said the Geos.
But Chick's desire had vanished. Instead he ventured a question:
“All very interesting, but where is your machinery?”
The Rhamda was slightly amused. He smiled a little. “You must give us a
little credit, my lord. We must seem backward to you, but we have passed
beyond reliance upon simple machines. That little grey pellet is, of
course, our motive force; it is a highly refined mineral, which we mine
in vast quantity. It has been in use for centuries. As for the hair-like
web, that is our idea of a transmission.”
Watson hoped that he did not look as uncomprehending as he felt. The
other continued:
“In aerial locomotion we are content to imitate life as much as
possible. We long ago discarded engines and propellers, and instead
tried to duplicate the muscular and nervous systems of the birds and
insects. We fly exactly as they do; our motive force is intrinsic. In
some respects, we have improved upon life.”
“But it is still only a machine, Geos.”
“To be sure, my lord; only a machine. Anything without the life
principle must remain so.”
The Jan Lucar pressed another catch, allowing another plate to lower
and thereby disclose a glazed door, which opened into a cosy apartment
fitted with wicker chairs, and large enough for four persons. There
was some sort of control gear, which the Jan Lucar explained was not
connected directly with the flying and steering members, but indirectly
through the membranes of the web-like system. It was uncannily similar
to the nervous connections of the cerebellum with the various parts of
the anatomy of an insect.
“Does it travel very fast?”
“We think so, my lord. This is the private machine of the Rhamda Avec.
It is rather small, but the swiftest machine in the Thomahlia.”
They entered the compartment, Watson took his seat beside the Geos,
while the soldier sat forward next to the control elements. He laid
his hands on certain levers; next instant, the machine was gliding
noiselessly over the mosaic, on to a short incline and thence, with ever
increasing speed, toward and through the open side of the room.
The slides had all been thrown back; the compartment was enclosed only
in glass. Watson could get a clear view, and he was amazed at the
speed of the craft. Before he could think they were out in mid-air and
ascending skyward. Travelling on a steep slant, there was no vibration,
no mechanical noise; scarcely the suggestion of movement, except for the
muffled swish of the air.
Were it not for the receding city below him, Chick could have imagined
himself sitting in a house while a windstorm tore by. He felt no change
in temperature or any other ill effects; the cabin was fully enclosed,
and heated by some invisible means. In short, ideal flight: for
instance, the seats were swung on gimbals, so that no matter at
what angle the craft might fly, the passengers would maintain level
positions.
Below stretched the Mahovisal--a mighty city of domes and plazas, and,
widely scattered, a few minarets. At the southern end there was a vast,
square plaza, covering thousands of acres. Toward it, on two sides,
converged scores of streets; they stretched away from it like the ribs
of a giant fan. On the remaining two sides there was a tremendously
large building with a V-shaped front, opening on the square. The play
of opal light on its many-bubbled roof resembled the glimmer from a vast
pearl.
In the air above the city an uncountable number of very small objects
darted hither and thither like sparkling fireflies. It was difficult to
realise that they, too, were aircraft.
To the west lay an immense expanse of silver, melting smoothly into the
horizon. Watson took it to be the Thomahlian ocean. Then he looked up at
the sky directly above him, and breathed a quick exclamation.
It was a single, small object, perfectly white, dropping out of the
amethyst. Tiny at first, amost instantly it assumed a proportion nearly
colossal--a great bird, white as the breast of the snowdrift, swooping
with the grace of the eagle and the speed of the wind. It was so very
large that it seemed, to Chick, that if all the other birds he had
ever known were gathered together into one they would still be as the
swallow. Down, down it came in a tremendous spiral, until it gracefully
alighted in a splash of molten colour on the bosom of the silver sea.
For a moment it was lost in a shower of water jewels--and then lay
still, a swan upon the ocean.
“What is it, Geos?”
“The Kospian Limited, my lord. One of our great airships--a fast one, we
consider it.”
“It must accommodate a good many people, Rhamda.”
“About nine thousand.”
“You say it comes from Kospia. How far away is that?”
“About six thousand miles. It is an eight-hour run, with one stop. Just
now the service is every fifteen minutes. They are coming, of course,
for the Day of the Prophet.”
Watson continued to watch the great airship, noting the swarm of smaller
craft that came out from the Mahovisal to greet it, until the Jan Lucar
suddenly altered the course. They stopped climbing, and struck out on a
horizontal level. It left the Mahovisal behind them, a shimmering spot
of fire beside the gleaming sea. They were travelling eastwards. The
landscape below was level and unvaried, of a greenish hue, and much
like that of Chick's own earth in the early spring-time--a vast expanse,
level and sometimes dotted with opalescent towns and cities. Ribbons of
silver cut through the plain at intervals, crookedly lazy and winding,
indicating a drainage from north to south or vice versa. Looking back to
the west, he could see the great, golden sun, poised as he had seen it
that morning, a huge amber plate on the rim of the world. It was sunset.
Then Chick looked straight ahead. Far in the distance a great wall
loomed skyward to a terrific height. So vast was it and so remote, at
first it had escaped the eye altogether. An incredibly high range
of mountains, glowing with a faint rose blush under the touch of the
setting sun. Against the sky were many peaks, each of them tipped with
curious and sparkling diamond-like corruscations. As Chick continued to
gaze the rose began to purple.
The Jan Lucar put the craft to another upward climb. So high were they
now that the Thomahlia below was totally lost from view; it was but
a maze of lurking shadows. The sun was only a gash of amber--it was
twilight down on the ground. And Watson watched the black line of the
Thomahlian shadow climb the purple heights before him until only the
highest crests and the jewelled crags flashed in the sun's last rays.
Then, one by one, they flickered out; and all was darkness.
Still they ascended. Watson became uneasy, sitting there in the night.
“Where are we going?”
“To the Carbon Regions, my lord. It is one of the sights of the
Thomahlia.”
“On top of those mountains?”
“Beyond, my lord.”
Whereupon, to Chick's growing amazement, the Geos went on to state that
carbon of all sorts was extremely common throughout their world. The
same forces that had formed coal so generously upon the earth had thrown
up, almost as lavishly, huge quantities of pure diamond. The material
was of all colours, as diamonds run, and considered of small value; for
every day purposes they preferred substances of more sombre hues. They
used it, it seemed, to build houses with.
“But how do they cut it?”
“Very easily. The material which drives this craft--Ilodium--will cut it
like butter.”
Later, Watson understood. He watched as the craft continued to climb;
the Jan Lucar was steering without the aid of any outside lights
whatever, there being only a small light illuminating his instruments.
Chick presently turned his gaze outside again; whereupon he got another
jolt.
He saw a NEGATIVE sky!
At first he thought his eyes the victims of an illusion; then he looked
closer. And he saw that it was true; instead of the familiar starry
points of light against a velvet background, the arrangement was
just the reverse. Every constellation was in its place, just as Chick
remembered it from the earth; but instead of stars there were jet-black
spots upon a faint, grey background.
The whole sky was one huge Milky Way, except for the black spots. And
from it all there shone just about as much total light as from the
heavens he had known.
Of all he experienced, this was the most disturbing. It seemed totally
against all reason; for he knew the stars to be great incandescent
globes in space. How explain that they were here represented in reverse,
their brilliance scattered and diffused over the surrounding sky,
leaving points of blackness instead? Afterward he learned that the
peculiar chemical constituency of the atmosphere was solely responsible
for the inversion of the usual order of things.
All of a sudden the Jan Lucar switched the craft to a level. He held up
one hand and pointed.
“Look, my lord, and the Rhamda! Look!”
Both men rose from their seats, the better to stare past the soldier.
Straight ahead, where had been one of the corruscating peaks, a streak
of blue fire shot skyward, a column of light miles high, differing
from the beams of a searchlight in that the rays were WAVY, serpentine,
instead of straight. It was weirdly beautiful. Geos caught his breath;
he leaned forward and touched the Jan Lucar.
“Wait,” he said in an awed tone. “Wait a moment. It has never come
before, but we can expect it now.” And even as he spoke, something
wonderful happened.
From the base of the column two other streaks, one red and the other
bright green, cut out through the blackness on either side. The three
streams started from the same point; they made a sort of trident, red,
green, and blue--twisting, alive--strangely impressive, suggestive of
grandeur and omnipotence--holy.
Again the Rhamda spoke. “Wait!” said he. “Wait!”
They were barely moving now. Watson watched and wondered. The three
streams of light ran up and up, as though they would pierce the heavens;
the eye could not follow their ends. All in utter silence, nothing but
those beams of glorified light, their reality a hint of power, of life
and wisdom--of the certainty of things. Plainly it had a tremendous
significance in the minds of the Geos and the Lucar.
Then came the climax. Slowly, but somehow inexorably, like the laws of
life itself, and somewhere at a prodigious height above the earth, the
three outer ends of the red and the green and the blue spread out
and flared back upon themselves and one another, until their combined
brilliance bridged a great rainbow across the sky. Blending into all
the colours of the prism, the bow became--for a moment--pregnant with
an overpowering beauty, symbolical, portentous of something stupendous
about to come out of the unknown to the Thomahlians. And next--
The bow began to move, to swirl, and to change in shape and colour. The
three great rivers of light billowed and expanded and rounded into a new
form. Then they burst--into a vast, three-leafed clover--blue and red
and green!
And Watson caught the startled words of the Geos:
“The Sign of the Jarados!”