growth nearby. Cheeky clung to his shoulder, hushed to silence. They
waited.
After a few minutes Robin saw a slight motion in the vegetation at the
other side of the cave entrance. He watched, and a moment later saw a
head thrust itself out, and then a figure emerge and silently stalk to
the cave and look in. It was manlike, walking on two feet and it had
two arms. It was oddly misty, seeming naked and semi-transparent like
the other animal life.
In one hand the creature carried a long stick to which something sharp
and glassy was attached--clearly a type of spear. The creature paused
at the cave mouth, then seeing no one within and unable to resist the
tantalizing curiosity of cooking meat and a small fire, it went inside.
Immediately Robin dashed out of hiding, ran across the small space and
blocked the entrance of the cave with his body. The creature within was
bending over the meat, but on hearing Robin, it turned, and made a wild
dash for the cave mouth.
It collided with Robin. For a moment there was a wild scramble of arms
and legs and then Robin's greatly superior Earth muscles overpowered
the other's and the creature was caught. Robin held it tightly in his
arms, carried it into the cave, and sat it down.
The spear had been knocked aside in the tussle and Robin looked at it
with a glance. One glance was enough to make the young man realize that
he had had a narrow escape. Its tip was bright and as sharp as a piece
of broken glass. If the creature had thought to jab that spear, it
might have been deadly.
But now the captured being was sitting quietly in a sort of
resignation, merely looking at Robin with the same curiosity that Robin
bestowed upon it. It was very much like a human being, perhaps some
four feet tall. But its head was somewhat triangular in shape, having
only one eye (Robin never found any Moon creatures with two), and was
topped with a large yellow light bulb that extended a foot above.
Robin took the bit of meat, cut off a piece and held it out to the
creature. The Moonman looked at it, then reached out a hand and took
it. It smelled it, then tasted it, and, finding the taste to its
liking, swiftly gobbled it down.
Robin ate some too, and this gesture seemed to reconcile the other. A
fairly universal gesture, Robin thought. Only friends would share a
meal. Probably would hold true anywhere in the universe.
Now Robin picked up the other's spear and examined it. Seeing this, the
creature picked up one of Robin's sacks and also looked at it.
The sharp point of the spear was something that looked like glass but
glistened far more, seemed sharper, harder, and heavier. Robin turned
it over, and the realization struck him that this spearhead was a
diamond, a single six-inch-long shard of diamond!
After the first shock of this discovery, Robin realized that he should
have expected it. On such a volcanic world as the Moon had once been,
there might well be lots of diamond in great masses. What could be
easier to use for weapons and cutting edges than chunks broken from
such masses. Such a chunk brought back to Earth might be worth an
emperor's ransom--but who could think of such values here?
Getting the friendship of the Moonman proved to be easy after that
first effort. For the creature made no further effort to escape, seemed
itself to desire Robin's companionship. In fact, as it turned out,
Robin would have had a hard time getting rid of it. It seemed anxious
now to stay close to the Earthling, to share him with Cheeky.
The glass-skinned being had a language, for it soon began to jabber
away at Robin in a high-pitched squeaky tongue. After a little
experimentation, Robin was able to get it to repeat the name Robin, and
in turn, he found out that the Glassie's own name was something nearly
like Korree.
Korree was evidently a very primitive sort of savage in spite of his
ability to speak. As Robin set out to re-cross this bubble and return
to his own holdings, the creature wound in and out ahead of him,
returning steadily to see if all was well. Korree had no clothes and no
understanding of them. He had only his spear, which Robin had returned
to him and he had apparently lost faith in that, the first time Robin
used his bow and arrow on a yapping Moontiger.
The trip through the dark tunnels back to Robin's original bubble was
comparatively easy, for no sooner did they get into the darkness than
Korree's light organ began to glow brightly enough to render Robin's
lantern dim. When they came to the cleft, Robin had to pick the Moonman
up and jump with him, for Korree's muscles were built only for Moon
gravity and that leap was beyond his normal ability.
Once back in what Robin now thought of as the safety of his original
bubble, the two settled down to work together. Korree soon got the hang
of the simple duties Robin gave him--feeding the rabbits, slaughtering,
skinning, and tanning. They spent the time trying to learn each other's
languages.
Robin carefully jotted down each new sound or word he could identify in
the Glassie's speech and Korree in turn seemed anxious to imitate the
English.
It took about four months before they had a working interchange of
ideas. Robin found that the Glassie's language was quite limited in
many ways, though having a great many variations of verb form--a
typical characteristic of primitive tongues. Finally, however, Robin
heard Korree's story.
His people lived many bubbles away, possibly many months of travel,
though the Glassie idea of time was very vague and seemed hedged around
by all sorts of untranslatable mystic conditions. There were maybe
several hundred of them and they formed one big tribe or family.
There were many such tribes, usually one to a bubble-cavern. Korree
indicated that somewhere--he pointed downward--were greater caverns
where many tribes lived, tribes of great strength or magic or
knowledge. Robin could not decide which was meant--probably all three.
But Korree had never been there. These downward regions were taboo to
his people.
Robin's suspicion was that the Glassies from Korree's group had been
forced to live in the less desirable outer areas by the stronger and
more advanced races who had seized the better regions.
Korree indicated that there were many bubbles that were not inhabited
because of great terrors, either by heat or cold. Robin assumed he
meant caverns of jungle and caverns more exposed to the surface
temperatures.
Korree himself had broken some sort of tribal rule or magic and had
been chased out of his home. He was a lonely outcast. That was why he
had gone with Robin when Robin had given him food. This symbolized
acceptance into Robin's tribe. And though Robin looked to him like a
very strange sort of man indeed--a solid man, a "rock" man was the
way Korree explained Robin's nontransparent flesh and his tremendous
strength--Korree had been glad to find acceptance anywhere.
Carefully questioning Korree about the surface, Robin found that the
Glassie had apparently no conception of what sort of a world the Moon
really was. To him it was a place of many enclosed spaces. The surface
he had neither seen nor even dreamed of. That there could be a place
where the enclosures ended and the world "dropped off" into nothing,
this was something he could not imagine.
Robin then asked questions about the upward regions. Korree indicated
that these were less and less habitable, that his people strove always
to go down, never up. Robin twisted his questions around, trying to
determine if the Glassies had ever seen anything that might signify the
surface. He described the sun and the Earth to Korree but the Glassie
seemed unable to understand. But when he spoke of the sun as being a
bright glowing thing so bright that it hurt the eyes to look at it,
Korree seemed to remember something.
Carefully the Glassie told Robin that he had heard of a tribe that
lived somewhere in the upper regions, where in one part of their bubble
there sometimes came a terrible white-hot light that hurt when one
looked upon it. This light was not always there, but shone through the
top of the cavern, which Korree explained was like the substance of his
arm--that is, semi-transparent.
Robin became very excited when he heard this. It sounded to him as if
somewhere up near the surface there must be an airtight cleft or bubble
whose outer crust might be natural volcanic glass. Through this the sun
might sometimes penetrate to produce the phenomenon Korree described.
Plainly then, this was the place Robin must find. It looked like the
ideal place to begin his projected signaling to Earth. But whether it
was or not, Robin would have to make a visit there to see.
Korree did not like the idea, but indicated he would be willing to go
along. "Could you lead me there?" Robin asked.
"Much hard," Korree replied. "Can make do. You-me not like. Many-winter
trip, many bubbles."
But Robin was determined. "We will go. First I must make a space suit.
I may need it." Korree spread out a hand in acceptance.
It took about two months more to finish what Robin hoped would be
a workable space suit. The helmet he finally managed to weld into
something like a practical shape. It fitted over his head snugly, the
little glass plate in front of his eyes. Its seams were closed as best
as could be managed and sealed with melted animal fat. The bottom of
the helmet fitted snugly over Robin's shoulders and would be attached
to baggy leather arm-and-hand coverings. The bottom of Robin's body
would be simply encased in several layers of clothing made as airtight
as possible.
To carry a supply of air, Robin fashioned a large sack of Moonhound
skins, which, when filled with air and brought to the surface of the
Moon, would swell up like a huge balloon. He hoped that by breathing
from this reserve he might be able to survive on the surface for
perhaps twenty or thirty minutes. This would be all he would need,
he estimated, to rush out, set up some sort of reflector or flare
if he could contrive such, and dash back to safety. "Safety" would,
of course, be some previously sealed dome extending to the surface,
through which he could cut a space narrow enough to leave, and yet, one
which would not be entirely exhausted of its inner gases by the time
Robin got back to reseal it.
This was a long-chance project, yet it was the only hope Robin could
think of. The matter could at least be examined at closer range if he
could but find the cavern with the translucent roof. This would be an
ideal base for his project.
Robin packed his equipment, liberated the last of his penned rabbits,
and loaded as much food as he could in big sacks which he and Korree
carried. Then, preceded again by Cheeky's monkey bounds, Robin turned
his back on his "home" and headed back to the tunnel and the caverns
beyond.
It had been over a year and a half since he had been cast away on the
Moon, perhaps nearer two years. And now he was ready at long last to
begin the long trek home.
_12. The Long Trek_
As they progressed, Robin queried Korree as best he could as to the
exact location of this fabled place from which the sun could be seen.
"I not know from here," the Glassie replied. "Go from home place, yes.
We go Korree home place first."
Robin thought about that as they trudged along. He went easily and
lightly in spite of his huge load--a collection of sacks and equipment
tied together to make a bundle more than his own height. But bundle and
all, Robin was lighter and stronger by far than he would be on Earth.
"Won't they kill you if you go back?" he asked the Moonman.
Korree turned his head and Robin almost imagined he could see his
brains whirl. Through the glassy skin, he could see the shadows of his
skull structure and the pulsing of veins and arteries. "With Robin they
not do so. You make them give us free way." Obviously he regarded the
Earthling as an all-powerful being to whom things like tribal death
sentences would be mere nothings.
Robin smiled uneasily. Without firearms and modern weapons he could
still be overpowered if enough of the Moonmen attacked him at once. He
would have to think about his approach to the tribe before he got there.
They reached the tunnel and made their way once more through its dark
recesses to the jungle-bubble where he had encountered Korree. They
passed through this without incident. The Glassie led the way to one of
several cracks and tunnels at the far end. With Robin following and the
monkey Cheeky perched on the huge pack, Korree entered this tunnel.
As before, it was dark and narrow and seemed to wind ahead. Several
times they stepped around breaks in the floor, or ducked under low
passages where the ceiling had dipped. They walked on, Korree's bobbing
headlight casting a pale-yellowish glow a few feet ahead. Robin was
watching the floor carefully, straining his attention to keep his
footing safe. His ears registered the echo of their motions and the
changing pitch as the tunnel widened or receded, but he paid less and
less attention to this.
Suddenly he looked up. And saw not the one glow of Korree's light but
a number of smaller ones around them, distant ones, bobbing slightly,
one or two yellow, one small white one, and three verging on red. He
started and stared but Korree had said nothing.
Finally he reached out and tapped the Glassie and whispered, "What are
those lights?"
Korree said back in a normal tone, "Animals. White light is hunting
eater. I watch it."
"Here? In this tunnel?" asked Robin, startled.
"Not in tunnel," said the Glassie. "In new bubble-place."
Robin looked around. Sure enough he had not noticed the echo of their
feet in the last few minutes. The floor had changed from rock to sandy
dirt and he realized that he had lost some of the enclosed-air feeling.
It was indeed a new bubble-cavern--but a lightless one!
Now, as he looked carefully, he realized that there were many lights
around. There were tiny ones bobbing on the ground that were probably
Moonworms. The others were almost certainly those of various animals.
He took his flashlight out, suddenly clicked it on, and swung it around.
They were in an open area, sandy with sparse clumps of mushroomlike
vegetation growing here and there. He caught the scurrying flash
of several translucent animal bodies dodging out of sight from the
unexpected light of his flash. And when the beam was off, he noticed
the headlights returning, augmented in number.
"There are many bubble-places without light?" asked Robin.
"Many," said Korree. "Glassies not live there, but many animals hunt
there."
Robin wondered whether there might in fact be more bubbles without
light than with. He realized that that was probably the case; it very
likely explained the nearly complete lack of pigment in the flesh of
the native animals, the presence of the light stalks on all of them. It
had probably evolved originally in lightlessness, and the Glassies had
moved into the caverns fortunate enough to have natural phosphorescence
only after they had discovered them much later in their history. This
possibly also accounted for the single eye of Moon creatures--the
conditions for the use of two eyes to develop perspective and delicate
differentiations of shading and coloring simply never existed.
"Are there animals here without eye or light?" asked Robin thoughtfully.
"Yes," Korree answered softly. "Big eaters, they--"
There was a sudden rush of sound ahead, a crashing of plants nearby,
an instant winking out of all headlights, including Korree's, and then
Robin felt himself thrown to the ground as something vast and huge and
heavy seemed to envelop him.
He felt himself being smothered under a pulsing blanket of warm flesh,
a veritable wall that covered him from head to foot, crushing out his
strength. Robin recovered, ripped out with his hands, kicked with his
feet. He felt his strong Terrestrial muscles tearing into the tissue of
the creature, and swinging wildly, he got to his knees and then to his
feet, veritably lifting the entire bulk of the creature.
He reached for his knife and as he got it open he felt the sharp edge
of a jaw and the hot breath of a large mouth near his ear. He thrust
out with the knife hard and furiously, cutting the mass to bits.
There was a sharp screech and he felt the blanket of flesh pull away
and struggle to withdraw. He got his flashlight with his other hand,
flicked it on to see his opponent better.
He saw a wall of gelatinous flesh rolling back before him. It rolled
off the prostrate but unharmed body of Korree, gathered itself in a
mass and rolled rapidly away, uttering loud screeches. The thing was a
ball of flesh, several yards across. It had a wide, many-toothed mouth.
It had several flat flanged spots which were probably ears, and it was
lacking an eye, lacking any light organ.
It hardly needed them. Obviously the thing simply rolled around in the
darkness of the cavern, guided by the sounds of moving animals, rolling
over them, flattening out, and devouring them.
Korree got to his feet. He said nothing, seemed to take it for granted
that the great Earthling would have bested this thing, of course, and
started off again. Robin frowned, decided he'd have to watch himself
lest the Glassie sometime really overestimate his capacities.
They traversed the rest of the lightless cavern without incident, this
time Robin keeping his flashlight switching on and off regularly, long
enough to sweep the moonscape sufficiently to gain warnings of future
assaults. Once they saw the ball-like bulk of a Moonbowler, as Robin
mentally named it, in the distance, and they both carefully stopped and
held their breath until it rolled away.
At the far wall, Korree searched the various breaks until he found the
one through which he had originally come.
They passed through another lightless cavern, this one less of a desert
than the other, where giant mushrooms towered like great trees in the
darkness and where little chittering Moonmice ran about their feet,
tiny green lights sparkling.
The next cavern was a lighted one and this was now almost familiar to
them. Beyond that was another lighted one through which a channel of
water flowed only to disappear into a tiny crack in the far wall. This
water, however, was yellowish and evil-smelling and made the entire
cavern malodorous. Yet it too had its quota of strange vegetation.
A series of rather small bubbles, not more than a couple of dozen
yards across, came next, and then they arrived at a wide, deep one.
The spot in the wall which let out on it was near the roof of this
bubble, and they made their way delicately along a series of faults
and ledges. Looking down, Robin could see that a lake of some bubbling
oily substance filled the lower level of the bubble. Along one side,
tucked in a corner near a tunnel opening, many hundreds of feet down,
he spotted something odd. He stopped. Korree turned back, made his way
along the narrow ledge and looked down to where he pointed.
There was a small cleared space just before the opening, and there were
several objects too far away to be seen clearly, but they looked for
all the world like some sort of eggs. As they watched, Robin saw what
seemed a shadowy figure move near one. Because of the curious glassy
skins, that was probably an animal. Robin softly asked Korree what it
was.
"Is Glassie like Korree," answered Korree quietly.
"A friend? One of your people? And what are they doing there?" asked
Robin.
Korree shook his head violently. "Not Korree people. That one is from
down place. Is mighty people from...." He pointed downward to the
Moon's core. "They come here to take...." He pointed now at the curious
chemical lake. "They bring back down with them," he finished.
Robin gasped. Here was evidence of his reasoning. The Glassies that
lived near the core of the Moon were higher in civilization. Here
evidently was a place where something usable could be gathered--the
fluid of that lake. Possibly it might be fuel for burning, or substance
usable as tar or cement. The beings down below came up for it, put it
in tanks--the egg-shaped objects--and brought it back to their greater
caverns.
Someday this would have to be investigated. If he ever returned to
Earth, this would have to be explored. But now--were these unknowns
dangerous to him? He asked Korree, who shrugged. In his halting
fashion he conveyed to the Earthling that if the Glassies of the
upper crust left those lower down alone, they were not bothered. The
implication however was that Korree's people were only too willing to
stay out of the way of the powerful underlords.
After several more caverns--the trip had already taken over a
week--including one marvelous one in which several flaming gas jets
made amazing patterns in an otherwise lightless world, Korree finally
led the way into a large lighted cavern many miles wide, stopped and
announced, "Korree home."
Robin looked around, adjusted his pack and called to Cheeky to return.
The monkey, which had scampered on ahead, obediently dashed back and to
safety on the pack. This was an important moment to Robin. He mustered
his plans, and stepped out after Korree who had started out again
holding his spear high in the air in some sort of native signal.
For a short while they walked without seeing anyone. They were in
a forest of ball-trees when suddenly they found themselves quietly
surrounded by Glassies. Evidently they had been trailed since entering
the cavern and at a sufficient distance from the tunnel mouth the
Glassies had popped out of concealment.
There were about twenty or so, all armed with the diamond spears
and they effectively encircled the travelers. Korree had apparently
expected this, for he showed no surprise, but Robin stopped short and
Cheeky started jumping up and down on the huge pack and shrieking at
the pack of beings.
It was odd seeing a mass of Glassies. Robin could see that they
differed from each other as individuals. Some were larger, some
smaller, and the shadings within their bodies gave rather clear
evidence of fatness, of recent eating, and such. Like Korree they wore
no garments at all.
One of the Glassies said something sharply to Korree, who answered
promptly. The spokesman had a black circle painted on his chest--this
was obviously a symbol of some sort of tribal authority. Robin stepped
forward, walked up to this Glassie, who promptly withdrew, uneasy in
the presence of this unknown.
From his pocket Robin took his pack of matches, the one that had been
with him all the way from Earth. There were still three matches left,
saved for just some occasion as this, carefully conserved by the use of
Robin's flint and steel. Robin walked up to a small ball-tree nearby,
held the match aloft, then struck it, and rapidly held it to the
stalklike trunk. After a second the plant caught fire and was a blazing
mass.
While the Glassies were gazing in amazement at this unexpected display,
Robin drew in his breath, set his pack down, and gave a leap straight
upward with all his strength.
He soared some thirty feet high and then gently floated down to the
ground again. This was a feat that anyone with Earth muscles could do,
but it was something that Lunar muscles had never been developed for.
When the Glassies tore their eyes away from the burning tree it was to
find Robin apparently vanished. Looking around, one of them discovered
him in the air, floating gently back to the ground.
With one accord the Glassies shrieked and ran away. When Robin hit the
ground, he was alone with Korree--who looked as nearly smug as it was
possible for his unearthly features to look.
The Earthling picked up his sack, whistled to Cheeky to come to him,
and started off again. In a few minutes, Korree led him to the tribal
center, the "village" of his people.