Sons of The Great Selina
With grunts of satisfaction the pigmies rose to their feet, punched
them slyly in the ribs with their sharp-pointed spears, and indicated
that they must get up and march. It was not to be a very long march.
Hidden away in a deep recess of mountains they saw a large building
constructed with a stupendous round tube pointing at the sky where the
earth was now shining with soft, refulgent splendor. In front of the
building were many stone steps, arranged artistically, and forming a
long stairway that led upward to an opening supported by large white
pillars, ostentatiously decorated with painting and signs. Surrounded
by an armed bodyguard they were marched up these steps, and into a big
round chamber.
Their guards marched them up to a large, glittering disk in the center
of the chamber, and stopped. Beyond the disk were twenty seats; in
front of the seats there was a long, narrow platform. As they came to
a stop the disk in front of them began to whirl. At first it was
noiseless motion; then there came a slight scratching sound; followed
by a voice.
“Glory be!” Billy shouted. “A good old American is talking.”
But when he heard the words his enthusiasm faded.
“This is KFI, Los Angeles, California,” the disk declared. “We will
now hear from Professor Ainslee, who will talk to us on the condition
of the moon.”
The next second, Epworth’s old college classmate stepped on the disk,
looked into the microphone, and began to talk in a perfectly natural
tone.
“They’ve got the old earth skinned a city block,” Billy asserted in
disgust. “Look at that, will you. They not only hear but they see.”
The disk stopped sharply, Ainslee disappeared. The disk started again
and the City of Los Angeles, silent and still flashed on the disk.
Again it stopped, and for several seconds they stared at nothing. Then
a slight noise on their left attracted their attention. When they
glanced around twenty pigmies were filing into the room and seating
themselves in the chairs behind the platform.
They were different in appearance to any they had yet seen. While the
Taunan soldiers had large heads—entirely too large for their
bodies—these men had great round bulbous balls stuck on stringy necks,
and slender, ghastly bodies, showing that they were of a different
race.
“Sons of the Great Selina,” Moawha whispered in awe. “They are the
smartest and greatest men on our sphere. It is said that there are
only one hundred of them in their race.”
For some time the twenty bulbous-headed men sat gazing at the
Americans in silence. Their gaze was penetrating, far-reaching,
cutting.
“You are earth men,” the leader finally remarked in slow, manufactured
English. “We saw you coming in the disk, and placed a trap for you.
How did you get here?”
“We came in a flying machine,” Epworth answered, determined to put on
a bold front in the hope that they had not heard of Toplinsky and
would release them. “Who are you?”
The pigmy frowned. It was an ugly, dangerous contraction of a peculiar
round face, and it made him look fiendish.
“We compose the council of Lunar,” he said softly, his eyebrows
stretching across his moon-shaped face like a rainbow. “We are the
brains of this world. We make the laws, we furnish the thought, we are
the scientists who visualized the great world out in space and brought
its language to our people; we rule through Carza, our queen, who was
taught from childhood to obey our slightest command. Just as soon as
we capture the Land of the Selinites we shall be complete rulers of
the world.”
“You are quite an honorable and distinguished body,” Epworth agreed,
bowing courteously, “but I fear that you are not destined to rule this
world much longer.”
The leader glanced at him inquiringly, and when he saw that Epworth
was not making a military move against him, smiled gently.
“I am afraid that you will have very little to say about it,” he
suggested mildly.
“You need not worry about me,” Epworth added with another bow. “Just
wait until Toplinsky gets his hooks in.”
“Toplinsky?”
The leader thought over this for some time, and then consulted his
companions. Turning to the soldiers he issued a sharp command. The
soldiers responded by seizing Epworth, pushing him close to the leader
of the council, and dropping a metal cap over his head. This cap they
connected by wires with one the leader placed on his own head.
“This little cap,” the councilman explained, “is a thought
transferring device. It will keep you from lying, and enable me to
read all your thoughts. Now tell me about this Toplinsky.”
“Have you not heard of him? I should think by this time his connection
with your queen would be known everywhere in your land. Your queen has
made him her king, and together they expect to conquer the Selinites.”
“I had heard that the queen had taken a consort but——”
“A great giant, and a scientist of mighty ability. He is the man who
started your world to turning around.”
“Started our world to turn—a man?”
Very calmly Epworth told Toplinsky’s story, permitting his mind to
revert back to the camp in the Arctic Circle, and the manner in which
Toplinsky had shot water at the moon in a great projectile, and
followed it in fifteen minutes with another projectile of liquid air
to prevent the immediate evaporation of the water and in order to
build up an atmosphere on the moon. The council leader saw it all
flashing through the American’s brain, and in turn Epworth saw fear,
dread, hate, envy, creep into the bulbous brain in front of him—a fear
that this giant scientist from the earth would gain supreme control
over the Taunans, and eliminate the council of the Sons of the Great
Selina.
“You have reason to fear him,” Epworth remarked quickly. “I do not
like Toplinsky, I am constantly at war with him, but I hand it to him
as being the biggest thing in the way of science I ever read about. In
his scheme to make the moon inhabitable he shot the rarest vegetable
and fruit seed from the earth, he planned a rotation of your little
planet that would give it a Garden of Eden climate, he timed his
projectiles absolutely accurately to prevent the evaporation of the
water he sent up, and he sent nitrates and fertilizer to assure the
growth of his vegetation. When he was selected by Queen Carza as her
consort he boasted to me that he would soon be the absolute monarch of
this world.”
The councilman removed his head gear, and motioned to the soldiers to
remove the cap over Epworth’s head. Before this was done however
Epworth saw the thought flash through the pigmy’s brain that he must
do something to rid himself of Toplinsky’s power.
“You will have to act quickly,” the young American said slyly.
“Toplinsky is a fast worker.”
“What are your intentions?” the pigmy demanded angrily. “Why are you
sneaking around our country?”
Epworth made no effort to disguise the purpose. He realized that it
would be useless with the thought exposer again on the councilman’s
head.
“I intend to keep him from conquering your world. I am now on the way
to help Moawha and her army keep the crickets out of the Land of the
Selinites.”
“Just what can you do against this great scientist?”
The pigmy did not attempt to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
Epworth shook his head.
“I do not know. I can only hope for the best.”
The cap was removed from the American’s head, and the councilman
leaned forward nonchalantly.
“You are a fool—straight out in the open with your thoughts, and I
doubt if you get anywhere but we will try to see what your giant
friend is doing at this moment, and then compare notes.”
He stood up, drew aside a curtain, and exposed to view a bright
silvered sheet of metal about four feet square. In front of this had
been placed a peculiar machine with a projecting orifice connecting
with the sheet with numerous wires made of glittering copper. With a
slight movement of his hand the pigmy pushed a switch and a cylinder
began to revolve inside of the machine shooting pictures on the silver
square. These pictures were entirely lunar, and showed houses, land,
people.
“By this machine,” the pigmy explained, “we discovered that you were
approaching our retreat. Now watch for the giant.”
The interior of a large house flashed in front of his eyes. Thousands
of pigmies with large heads and small bodies were running to and from
working industriously. Among them, towering almost to the roof, was
Toplinsky. On his shoulders, with her copper legs locked around his
neck, was Queen Carza. She was playing with his coarse red hair and
bending over frequently to caress him with her cheek.
As his figure came prominently into view the giant stooped and dropped
a soft vegetable fabric into a large vat. Then he called to several
pigmies, and instructed him to follow his example. The pigmies hung
back timidly for a moment, and the queen shouted at them angrily. They
obeyed her quickly.
“She has decided control over them,” Epworth remarked gently, “and
Toplinsky, if I mistake not, has complete mastery of the queen. When
he desires to be nice that giant can make a post believe he is in love
with it.”
The councilman frowned.
“It seems so,” he admitted. “What is the mighty giant doing?”
“He is putting a soft vegetable fabric into a vat full of nitric and
sulphuric acid.”
“I can see that, of course. But why?”
“He is making gun cotton—a high explosive that can be used in the
place of gun powder. He contemplates blowing up Moawha’s people, and
all their cities.”
“With that stuff?”
Toplinsky was removing some of the gun cotton from the vat at the
moment.
“Yes, with that stuff he can blow off the side of a mountain.”
Epworth spoke quietly but he was greatly excited. Toplinsky was making
rapid strides. It had been only three days since they had escaped from
the crickets, and during that time the giant had put enough men to
work to make guns and manufacture a goodly supply of gun cotton and
powder. If he expected to aid Moawha’s people he would have to hurry.
And how could he hurry when he was a prisoner?
The big-headed pigmy shut off the pictures, and turned soberly to the
other members of the council, speaking to them rapidly in an unknown
tongue. As one man they acquiesced in his conclusions.
“Free them!” the leader commanded, pointing at Epworth and his
companions. “We wish to form an alliance with you. We have heard that
you destroyed a ramph, and rescued one of our men from his jaws. That
was a kind deed, and I am especially grateful because the man rescued
was my son. But it is not gratitude that prompts me to this act. We
want to see this man Toplinsky defeated in his purposes. We would
rather leave things as they are than fall into the power of a mighty
monster like this. Hence we are going to free you, and aid you to get
across the light gap to the Land of the Selinites.”
He led them to a secret corner of the chamber, pushed aside a large
stone, and showed them four cricket shells.
“Get into them,” he commanded. “They have been prepared for disguises,
and if you use caution they will hide you from the soldiers. My son,
the man you rescued from the ramph, will guide you.”
The four greatly harassed adventurers obeyed, and soon four crickets,
guided by a pigmy soldier, left the Observatory of the Sons of the
Great Selina, and somewhat clumsily made their way toward the border
land, avoiding traffic and observation as much as possible.