Prisoned on Triton
Nothing, I know now, of our own doing could ever have saved us from the
death that in that moment loomed dark and close above us. For, as the
Neptunian leader raised the tube toward us, I knew that before ever a
leap could take us across the cylinder to him, the pencil-like rays of
force from his tube would be tearing through us. For that split-second,
therefore, escape seemed impossible, and then before we could fully
realize the situation there came an interruption. The currents of
warmer air from the opening just beneath, down through which the
cylinder had been dropping with the others, were sweeping still upward
with great force around the cylinder. Only the Neptunian's grasp on the
controls had kept the cylinder heading down through those currents,
and now, as he leaped away from the controls for the moment and drew
his tube, those currents immediately seized upon the unguided cylinder
and in the next moment had whirled it over and sidewise with immense
speed and power! And as it whirled thus over, Marlin and myself and the
Neptunian before us were thrown instantly and indiscriminately to the
cylinder's side!
For a moment we rolled helplessly about the whirling cylinder's
interior, about the upmost section, and in that moment all thought of
battle had left us. Then, as I felt Marlin and the Neptunian leader and
the stunned guard rolling with me indiscriminately, I was aware, too,
of cries from the cylinder's other sections and of Neptunians drawing
themselves up to the upmost section on the ladder. Abruptly, in a
moment more the cylinder steadied, hung poised and upright as before,
and then as Marlin and I scrambled to our feet we saw that a trio of
the Neptunians beneath had made their way up to the upmost section,
despite the cylinder's whirling, by means of their multiple limbs, and
that while one now held the controls the other two had their tubes
trained once more full upon us!
Our wild attempt at escape had failed, it was evident, for now, as
the Neptunian leader of the crimson circle rose, he was addressing to
the others a sharp, snapping order, and at the same time motioning
Marlin and me peremptorily to the seats we had formerly occupied. We
took them with no further resistance, for we knew that our desperate
outbreak had put the Neptunians upon their guard and that the slightest
suspicious motion on our part might well mean instant death. And as we
seated ourselves once more with the guards on either side, one from
beneath replacing the one I had killed, the despair that formerly had
filled us seemed immeasurably intensified. For now the cylinder was
sinking down after the others, through the great opening in Triton's
roof, and even as Marlin and I looked outward we saw the great opening
in that roof closing again above us with a clang that to our ears was
like the clang of doom.
Above our sinking cylinders now there stretched the great roof,
and, even as Neptune's enclosing roof, this one was almost entirely
transparent from below, though opaque from above. And here as on
Neptune we could see no supporting pillars whatever for this vast
spherical roof that enclosed all Triton. This world seemed, indeed,
but a smaller replica of mighty Neptune. For, as our cylinders sank
down through the shadows of its darker side and then leveled out and
began to race back around its curving surface toward the sunward side
once more, we saw that all of Triton's surface was covered, even like
Neptune, with a great compartment-city whose intersecting black walls
stretched in their vast checkerboard arrangement over all the great
moon's surface. But as our cylinders shot over these, over the darkened
portion of the surface of Triton and toward the sunward side, we saw
that the compartment-city beneath was different, in some features, from
that of Neptune.
For one thing, there were moving to and fro above it a number of great
cylinders like that in which we were, and in the compartments of the
darkened side moved, too, a few Neptunians here and there. And the
great globes of metal that dotted this compartment-city of Triton, even
as that of Neptune, were here glowing with radiant light; glowing, I
knew, with radiant heat. For this was the secret of the Neptunians'
existence on Triton, this heat that glowed from the numberless giant
globes set in compartments here and there. Those great glowing globes
kept the air beneath Triton's great roof warm and comfortable, the
great roof itself preventing that warmer air from escaping into the
moon's colder outer atmosphere. As we shot on over the darkened side of
Triton, the side turned away from the sun, I could not but think that
the remnants of the Neptunian race must be few indeed, so few of them
moved in the shadowy compartments beneath.
At last, as Marlin and I gazed ahead, we could make out a brighter
crescent of light at the edge of the strange moon-world, and as we
shot on we saw that we were approaching the edge of the sunward or
sunlit side. A moment more and we could see it clearly and as we
did so Marlin and I gasped in utter amazement. For that part of the
great compartment-city that lay on Triton's sunward side, in the pale
sunlight, was swarming with incalculable millions upon tens of millions
of Neptunians! Crowding, seething, pressing together, they were pouring
to and fro through the compartments in the pale light of day, busy with
the mechanisms that scarce had room in those compartments, so great
were their crowds! And over this sunward side hundreds upon hundreds of
cylinders swarmed, rushing to and fro!
"Neptunians! Neptunians in countless millions here on the sunward side
of Triton! But why then are there so few upon the dark side?"
Marlin shook his head at my exclamation. "I can't guess," he said. "And
I never dreamed that----"
Before he could finish the sentence there came an amazing interruption
from beneath. As we gazed downward from our speeding cylinder we saw
a giant band of intensely brilliant white light spring suddenly into
being at the very line that marked where dark side and sunlit side of
Triton met. A mile in width, that great brilliant band of light seemed
to extend clear from Triton's north pole to its south, as far north
and south of us as our eyes could reach. And then, even as we stared,
astounded at it, that brilliant and immense band of light was moving
around Triton's surface over the dark side! Swiftly it moved, like a
great wave of brilliant light sweeping around Triton's surface, and in
a moment had disappeared from view far around the horizon from us on
the dark side!
And as that dazzling light-band moved around the big moon-world's dark
side, around the almost empty compartment-city that covered that dark
side, we saw emerging into that compartment-city of the dark side, as
though from its walls themselves, millions on millions of disk-bodied
Neptunians that matched in number the vast swarms on the sunlit side!
And as we gazed down in utter amazement we saw from whence they came.
There were in the dark compartment-city's extent many compartments like
those we had seen upon Neptune, with nothing in them save shelving,
which formed in their walls myriads of shelfed openings a few feet in
height and some four feet in width, one above the other. And in these
narrow, flat shelf-openings countless Neptunians had been sleeping!
Their disk-bodies, with the flexible legs drawn up, fitted snugly into
those flat, strange openings in the walls, and vast hordes of them,
countless millions of them, had been sleeping in the shelf-compartments
on Triton's dark side!
As that band of brilliant light swept swiftly across the dark side,
though, they had awakened, were pouring forth in all their hordes into
and through the compartments, all streaming toward the sunward side,
while the more remote of them were heading toward the same side in
flashing cylinders above. Then, as we gazed toward that sunward side,
we saw the brilliant band of light reappearing there, moving swiftly
still around Triton's surface, through the pale dim light of its
sunward side, having in those moments moved completely around Triton!
It moved on until in a moment more it had stopped where first it had
formed, at the junction of the dark and sunward sides. There it hung
for a moment, dazzling, and then had suddenly snapped out of being.
And now we saw that all the crowding millions of Neptunians that had
been busy upon the sunlit side were streaming through the compartments
toward the dark side!
"The Neptunians' day and night!" Marlin exclaimed, as we gazed
downward. "Triton must keep one face always toward the sun and one
dark, so these Neptunians spend their day on the sunlit side and sleep
their night on the dark side!"
"And that great band of light that traveled around Triton was their
signal, then!" I added.
* * * * *
It was plain now that that was the astounding truth. These countless
millions of Neptunians, coming here to Triton for some reason, had
been accustomed upon their own great turning planet to a day and night
of ten hours each, much like those of Earth. Triton, though, as we
had already guessed, kept the same face always toward the sun, it was
evident, turning at just such a rate of rotation as compensated for its
revolutions around Neptune and its slower movements with Neptune around
the sun. Thus, with one face always toward the sun and the other always
in darkness, the Neptunians had been forced to establish arbitrary
day and night periods, dividing their millions into two great bodies,
apparently. While half of them worked on the sunlit side for ten hours,
in their day, the other half were sleeping upon the dark side. Then,
when the ten hours ended, the great band of light went around Triton
as a signal, and the two bodies of them changed places, the millions
who had worked upon the sunward side taking their places for an equal
period of sleep on the dark side, while those who had slept on the dark
side streamed to the sunlit side for ten hours!
Even as we watched from our speeding cylinder we saw that great change
taking place, millions upon millions of the Neptunians streaming from
one side to the other in great throngs through the compartment-city,
while, from farther around Triton's two sides, rushed countless
cylinders, in which hosts of others were changing sides. Within a few
minutes, it seemed, that change had taken place, and beneath us on
Triton's sunward side there thronged in the pale light of its day the
vast hordes that so lately had been sleeping, while on the dark side
the other masses of the Neptunians had disappeared into the countless
shelf-like openings of the sleep-compartments, to lie in sleep for
another ten hours. In marveling wonder Marlin and I stared, and then
woke suddenly to a realization of our own position.
Beneath us there lay the very edge or dividing line between the dark
and sunlit sides, a belt of twilight dusk that was very narrow.
Squarely across that belt, we saw, there lay beneath us a great
compartment that was largest by far of all that we had yet seen, and
that was unique among them in that, instead of being rectangular,
it was circular in shape. Down, over and past this mighty circular
compartment our cylinders were speeding, and we could but vaguely note
some circular object inside it, when we were past it, were speeding
low over the thronged and busy compartments of the sunward side.
Rapidly the speed of the cylinders decreased, and then they had paused
in mid-air, were beginning to descend. And in a moment more they had
come smoothly to rest in a great rectangular compartment which seemed
reserved as a landing-place, since on it there rested scores of other
cylinders, others constantly arriving or departing. Later we were to
learn that these landing-compartments were scattered in large number
over Triton's surface, on the sunlit and dark sides both.
For the present moment, though, Marlin and I were gazing only at our
immediate surroundings. As we landed the guards on either side of us
gripped us tightly, the others keeping their tubes pointed toward us,
and then, as the throbbing of the cylinder's generators ceased, the
Neptunian leader of the crimson-circle insignia uttered a staccato
order. At once our guards were thrusting us toward the ladder that
led downward, and, holding us above and beneath, were descending
that ladder with us into the cylinder's lowest compartment. There
the Neptunian leader followed us in a moment, and as the cylinder's
door was slid open a flood of warm, heavy air and a babel of sound
from about us rolled inside. Before emerging, though, the Neptunians
performed an action that for the moment puzzled me completely.
This was to take from the cabinets in the cylinder's side a number
of small metal objects that seemed to be disks of gray metal a few
inches across with flexible metal straps attached to them. These the
Neptunians attached to the bottom or ends of their round, short limbs,
as though little round sandals of metal. Then at the order of their
leader they took other disks and attached them to the feet of Marlin
and myself, one to each foot, binding them to our soles by passing
the flexible straps up around our ankles. The thing was as puzzling
to Marlin as to myself, for the moment, nor could we understand its
object until, a moment later, the Neptunians began to pass out of the
cylinder to the paving of the compartment outside. For as they did
so I had reached toward one of the unused disks to examine it and
had uttered an exclamation to find that, though so small in size and
thickness, it was of many pounds weight! Yet as Marlin and I, in answer
to the leader's order and gesture, passed out of the cylinder to the
landing-compartment's floor, we could not feel at all that weight of
dozens of pounds which had been fastened to our feet!
Abruptly, though, light came to my perplexed mind. "Triton!" I
exclaimed. "It's of about the same size as Earth's moon and hasn't much
more gravitational power. And these Neptunians, used to the far greater
gravitational power of Neptune, have to use these weights to add to
their weight here on Triton to make it possible for them to move as
always!"
Marlin's eyes widened, and then he nodded. "It must be so," he said.
"I wondered when I saw them from above how these creatures of Neptune
could move so freely on its smaller moon."
It was, indeed, a simple, yet ingenious device which the Neptunians had
adopted. Accustomed as they had been to the great gravitational power
of Neptune, seventeen times that of Earth, their squat, strange bodies
owing their form to that great gravitational power, their muscles would
have sent them through the air of Triton in immense and uncontrollable
leaps at each step, so much smaller was the moon-world's gravitational
power. So they had devised these small disks which fitted to the end
of their strange limbs, and which, though so small and thin, yet had
great weight, no doubt because the atoms of their substance had been
compressed closely together for the purpose. The Neptunians had used
disks of some thickness for themselves, and had used thinner ones for
Marlin and myself, their smaller weight just sufficing to counteract
the difference in gravitational power between Earth and Triton. And
now, as we stepped out into the landing-compartment with our guards,
it seemed as though we were walking with lead-weighted shoes at the
ocean's bottom.
The landing-compartment about us held scores of resting cylinders like
our own, and even as we looked about we saw throngs of Neptunians
hastening forward and removing from our own and the other ten that had
just landed, the disassembled mechanisms which they had brought from
Neptune. The leader, however, motioned to our guards to follow with us,
and set off quickly across the landing-compartment toward one of its
doors. Following him, our four tube-armed guards watchful now about
us, we saw him pass through the low, broad door before us, and though
his strange disk-body passed easily through that door, Marlin and I
were forced to stoop low to get through it. Then, our guards never
relaxing their cautious watch over us, we were moving on through the
next compartment, and the next, and the next, on through compartment
after compartment, all thronging with Neptunians, moving across the
great compartment-city toward the twilight band that divided Triton's
dark and sunlit sides.
And as Marlin and I moved with our guards and their leader thus through
the pale daylight of Triton, through the compartments crowded with
masses upon masses of Neptunians, we forgot almost the uncertain fate
that hung over us, in the interest and wonder of what we saw. For
though we had explored the greater compartment-city that covered all
the surface of mighty Neptune, had seen its marvels also, it had been
a city dead, a city of lifeless and unused mechanisms whose purposes
we had not been able to guess. But here on Triton, in the compartments
that covered its surface, we saw a Neptunian city bursting with
crowding life, saw it as the giant city of Neptune itself must once
have been, before some unguessed purpose of the Neptunians had brought
them here to Triton. And, seeing it thus, we were able to comprehend
many things that had puzzled us in our venture through the city on
Neptune's lifeless surface.
* * * * *
We passed through compartments in which throngs of Neptunians moved
about great rows of looming, pear-shaped mechanisms such as we had seen
on Neptune, great water-making mechanisms that were beating here with
a slow, rhythmic sound of power, and from which there pulsed into the
great connecting pipes a ceaseless gush of water. That water, we knew,
was made synthetically in the mechanisms by the combination of hydrogen
and oxygen atoms, but whether those atoms were derived, as on Neptune,
from the break-down of Neptune's great vapor-masses, or whether they
were formed themselves from the primal electricity, we could not
guess. Through many compartments of these we passed, and through other
compartments that held great pumps that evidently forced the water
supplies thus manufactured to every part of Triton's surface.
And we went through compartments, too, in which were other great
objects that had puzzled us so completely on Neptune, but whose purpose
we saw now. These were the great flat metal containers stacked one upon
the other, each a foot or so in depth, and each filled with black,
green-shot soil. About them, as on Neptune, were set in the walls great
white disks connected to generating apparatus of some kind, but here
those generating mechanisms were humming with power, tended by many
Neptunians, and there shot from the disks, over and through those great
containers of soil, a ceaseless flood of pale violet light or force.
And, even as we passed through those compartments, we saw strange and
stocky pale-green plants bursting up from the soil of the containers,
growing at incredible speed before our eyes, attaining a height of
inches in but a minute or so! As these strange pale-green plants
reached a height of a foot or so, there formed upon them masses of
fruits or vegetables dead white in color, some being long and pod-like
and others ball-shaped. And as these formed, the attendant Neptunians
were swiftly turning off the violet force, pulling the fruit-laden
little plants from the fine soil, and depositing them in low-wheeled
containers, which were wheeled instantly away. Then from the framework
that held the great soil-containers there sprayed out upon them fine
whitish-green particles that I recognized as seed of some sort, that
fell upon the soil and then were turned under it as some reversing
mechanism turned over the soil in each container. Then the violet force
from the wall-disks was turned on again, and in a moment another crop
of pale-green plants was shooting up out of the containers!
It was then that I saw the astounding purpose of those projectors of
violet force that were set in the walls around the soil-containers.
For it was evident that they shot forth upon the containers a force or
vibration which held in it the ultra-violet and other radiations which,
in sunlight, stimulate the growth of plant-life. These vibrations were
projected artificially through the containers of soil with immeasurably
greater intensity than in sunlight, and so stimulated the growth of
plant-life in those containers immeasurably more. Also I could see
that tubes ran from the framework through the soil of the containers,
flooding that soil with moisture, and as that water used thus came
through special cubical tanks and mixers, it was apparent that it was
impregnated with the chemical elements needed by the plant-life in its
swift, astounding growth. Thus, stimulated to an intense degree by
those influences, the plant-life in those containers could germinate
and shoot up and ripen with unbelievable speed. When it was removed,
the containers were ready at once for another crop. The whole operation
was swift and almost automatic, and as we saw great masses of the white
fruits or vegetables being wheeled away from the plant-compartments, we
realized at last how the Neptunians, in their great compartment-cities,
obtained a ceaseless and inexhaustible food and water supply.
As we passed on, marveling, we saw other great mechanisms at work.
Some were huge and cogged, operated by seated Neptunians before them,
turning out ceaseless great blocks of smooth, black stone-like material
that composed the intersecting compartment-walls, which poured out as
a thick liquid and hardened in molds into that diamond-hard substance.
Others were strange-appearing machines like none we had seen on
Neptune, whose purpose we could not guess. Here and there there glowed
in its square compartment one of the great heat-radiating globes,
sending currents of intensely warm air rushing out from about it, all
the mechanisms of those globes seeming to be cased inside themselves.
Yet even these things were no more wonderful to us than the throngs
of Neptunians that swirled and pressed in their millions in the great
compartment-city about us.
Numberless, indeed, were the hordes of those Neptunians, their masses
swarming about us in great crowds of disk-bodied, pale-green monsters,
busy upon the clanking, beating, hissing mechanisms around them, busy
in providing the heat and food and water of their strange world. It
seemed impossible, almost, that so many countless millions of them
could thus have crowded together on Triton's surface. All wore the
strange armor or dress of flexible metal around their disk-bodies,
some carrying ray-tubes slung in that armor and others various tools
or instruments. Here and there we saw one with the same crimson-circle
insignia as our leader's upon his metal armor, and it was apparent
from the silent deference shown these circle-marked Neptunians that
they were officials of some kind. As we marched on behind our leader,
our guards close about us, we saw that, despite our strange appearance
to them, the Neptunians paid no great attention to us--so busy were
they. We saw, too, that here on Triton's sunward side there were no
shelf-like sleep-compartments at all, all such being upon the dark
side. In silent awe and wonder Marlin and I moved on through the
thronging compartments, countless Neptunians crowding busily all about
us, and countless cylinders throbbing through the air above, with the
vast roof far above them. Then I sensed that we were approaching our
destination.
For before us now, as we crossed a last compartment, there lay that
twilight band of dusk which marked the division of Triton's dark and
sunlit sides, and as we passed out of the pale, dim light of the
sunlit side into the twilight of that band, we saw that before us lay
a compartment wall that was curving instead of straight, the wall of
the great single circular compartment we had noticed from above. The
compartment that lay between us and that wall was empty save for a
file of Neptunian guards who stood motionless along the curving wall
with their force-ray tubes ready in their grasp. As our leader reached
them he halted, spoke with them for a moment in staccato speech, and
then as their snapping voices ceased the guards stood aside to right
and left and permitted us to pass through the low, broad door in that
curving wall. Through it we went, our circle-marked leader first and
then Marlin and I, our four guards still close about us, and then as
we halted inside that door, we two were gazing with a deepened awe and
wonder about us.
We were standing just at the edge of that great circular compartment
that we had glimpsed from above, one hundreds of feet in diameter, the
twilight about it dispelled somewhat in it by soft-glowing disks in its
walls. In this great compartment there stood what seemed an immense
circular table of metal, only a few feet in height, ring-like in form
and with a clear circular space at its center. This great ring-table's
edge was not more than a dozen or so feet from the compartment's
circular wall, and ranged around it, on low seats between the ring-like
table and the wall, were thirty disk-bodied Neptunians. Silent and
almost motionless they sat there around the great ring-table, and I
saw that upon the metal armor of each was a crimson circle like that
of our leader, except that there was a crimson dot at its center, a
symbol we had noted on no other Neptunian so far. And from each of the
thirty there ran in toward the clear space at the ring-table's center a
slender black wire-connection, attached by diverging connections to the
body of each of the thirty.
These thirty connections ended at the space at the ring-table's
center, running there into a strange object or mechanism that stood in
that space. It was composed of a great metal pedestal with straight
sides, like an upright pillar, into which the thirty connections ran,
while upon the pillar's top was supported a globe of metal somewhat
greater in diameter than the pillar, being some five feet across. In
this globe's side was a round opening, while set at two other points
at opposite sides of it were what seemed inset diaphragms. From the
supported globe came a fine hum, scarcely audible, and that was the
only sound in the great compartment. The whole scene was strange--the
towering black walls of the great circular compartment about us, the
great ring-table in it and the thirty silent, motionless disk-bodied
Neptunians seated around that table, and the giant globe on its
pedestal at the table's central space.
* * * * *
As we stood there the Neptunian leader before us spoke in sharp snaps,
as though explaining our presence, but not to the thirty around the
table; it spoke to the great central globe of metal! In amazement
we watched him, and then we saw that the globe was turning upon its
pedestal, turning toward us a small circle of clear glass set in its
opposite side, that surveyed us for the moment exactly like a single
calm eye. Then the globe turned again, the opening in its side again
facing us, and then from that opening came a staccato answer to our
leader, a swift question, apparently, in the snapping speech-sounds
of the Neptunians! The globe was hearing our captor's report, was
questioning him concerning that report, while the thirty around the
table uttered no sound, and turned not toward us!
"Good God!" I muttered at that astounding spectacle. "That globe of
metal, Marlin--it hears him, answers him! The thing must be alive!"
[Illustration: "_That globe of metal, Marlin--it hears him, answers
him!_
_The thing must be alive!_"]
"Not alive, Hunt," Marlin said swiftly, his own eyes startled, though.
"Those connections that run from the thirty to the globe--they center
in that globe's mechanism in some way the minds, the intelligence, of
all the thirty!"
Swift light flashed upon me at Marlin's words, and as I gazed
astonished toward the thirty Neptunians and the central globe I knew
that Marlin's explanation was the only logical one. These thirty
Neptunians, it was apparent, were the supreme rulers, the highest
council, of all the Neptunian race. And since it was necessary that
they use all of their differing minds as one in directing the destinies
of their strange race, they had in some way devised a mechanism for
that purpose, which synthesized the intelligence, the minds, of the
thirty into one single mind by means of that strange mechanism. So that
it was literally as one mind that the thirty perceived and thought,
when gathered here together, the central globe speaking out the
synthesized thoughts and questions of all the thirty!
As Marlin and I stared in amazement toward it, our leader was answering
to the globe's questions concerning us, the snapping speech of the
Neptunian indistinguishable from that of the mechanism. Then when he
had finished, the globe was speaking briefly to him again, a short
order, and in answer to that order the Neptunian leader turned at
once toward us. I think that both Marlin and myself would not have
been surprised to meet then the death that we knew hung over us, but,
instead, the leader gestured to us and to our guards and led the way
out of the great circular Council Compartment, through a different door
from that by which we had entered. As we passed through that door I
glanced back and saw the thirty Neptunians of the great Council still
sitting motionless and silent around their weird globe-mechanism, which
was listening now to the report of three other Neptunians who had
entered behind us.
Once out of the great circular compartment, we found ourselves with
our guards in an irregular-shaped compartment, filled with Neptunian
guards who parted to allow us to pass. Through that and through
another rectangular compartment we went, and then into a long oblong
compartment in which we could see, despite the twilight that reigned
here, were many smaller compartments or divisions along the walls.
These were very like cell-compartments, and the low door of each of
these was closed by a black slab that slid down across it from above.
Before these doors there were patrolling in the long compartment a
half-dozen of Neptunian guards, and, after being challenged by these,
our own leader and four guards marched us to one of these little
cell-compartments, reaching forth to grasp or touch something on its
outside wall.
As the Neptunian leader did so, the door of the cell-compartment slid
smoothly and silently upward, leaving its opening clear. Without
ceremony, then, Marlin and I were motioned to pass inside, and with
the four ray-tubes of the guards full upon us we had no choice in the
matter. Stepping inside, therefore, we found ourselves in a compartment
some ten feet square, whose walls, like all the black walls of the
compartment-city, towered for two hundred feet upward around us, the
only light the square of dusky sky far above. Then, as Marlin and I
stared about us, the door shot smoothly down across the opening, and we
heard the soft, shuffling steps of the Neptunian leader and our four
guards retreating, outside, leaving us gazing at each other's white
faces in silence. Our great mission out to Neptune, our great attempt
to save Earth and prevent the wrecking of the solar system, had come to
an end at last, with our two friends gone and with Marlin and myself
imprisoned here beyond all hope of escape on Neptune's peopled moon!