_The Coming of Greca_
The numbing shock from the tubes left the Earthmen's bodies almost
paralyzed for a time; but their brains were unfogged enough for them
to observe only too clearly all that went on from the point of their
capture.
They were bound hand and foot. At a piping cry from the leader,
several of the gangling figures picked them up in reedy arms and began
to walk across the square, away from the ship. Brand noticed that his
bearers' arms trembled with his weight: and sensed the flabbiness of
the substance that took the place in them of good solid muscle.
Physically these things were soft and ineffectual indeed. They had
only the ominous tubes with which to fight.
The eery procession, with the bound Earthmen carried in the lead,
wound toward a great building fringing the square. In through the high
arched entrance of this building they went, and up a sloping incline
to its tower-top. Here, in a huge bare room, the two were
unceremoniously dumped to the floor.
While three of the things stood guard with the mysterious tubes,
another unbound them. A whole shower of high pitched, piping syllables
was hurled at them, speech which sounded threatening and contemptuous
but was otherwise, of course, entirely unintelligible, and then the
creatures withdrew. The heavy metal door was slammed shut, and they
were alone.
Brand drew a long breath, and began to feel himself all over for
broken bones. He found none; he was still nerve-wracked from that last
terrific shock, but otherwise whole and well.
"Are you hurt, Dex?" he asked solicitously.
"I guess not," replied Dex, getting uncertainly to his feet. "And I'm
wondering why. It seems to me the brutes were uncommonly considerate
of us--and I'm betting the reason is one we won't like!"
Brand shrugged. "I guess we'll find out their intentions soon enough.
Let's see what our surroundings look like."
They walked to the nearest window-aperture, and gazed out on a
startling and marvelous scene.
* * * * *
Beneath their high tower window, extending as far as the eye could
reach, lay the city, lit by the reddish glare of the peculiar metal
with which its streets were paved. For the most part the metropolis
consisted of perfectly square buildings pierced by many windows to
indicate that each housed a large number of inmates. But here and
there grotesque turrets lanced the sky, and symbolic domes arched
above the surrounding flat metal roofs.
One building in particular they noticed. This was an enormous
structure in the shape of a half-globe that reared its spherical
height less than an eighth of a mile from the building they were in.
It was situated off to their right at the foot of a vast, high-walled
enclosure whose near end seemed to be formed by the right wall of
their prison. They could only see it by leaning far out of the
window; and it would not have come to their attention at all had they
not heard it first--or, rather, heard the sound of something within
it: for from it came a curious whining hum that never varied in
intensity, something like the hum of a gigantic dynamo, only greater
and of a more penetrating pitch.
"Sounds as though it might be some sort of central power station,"
said Brand. "But what could it supply power for?"
"Give it up," said Dex. "For their damned shock-tubes, perhaps, among
other things--"
He broke off abruptly as a sound of sliding bolts came from the
doorway. The two men whirled around to face the door, their fists
doubling instinctively against whatever new danger might threaten
them.
* * * * *
The door was opened and two of their ugly, towering enemies came in,
their tubes held conspicuously before them. Behind came another
figure; and at sight of this one, so plainly not of the race of
Jupiter, the Earthmen gasped with wonder.
They saw a girl who might have come from Earth, save that she was
taller than most Earth women--of a regal height that reached only an
inch or two below Brand's own six foot one. She was beautifully
formed, and had wavy dark hair and clear light blue eyes. A sort of
sandal covered each small bare foot; and a gauzy tunic, reaching from
above the knee to the shoulder, only half shielded her lovely figure.
She was bearing a metal container in which was a mess of stuff
evidently intended as food. The guards halted and stepped aside to let
her pass into the room. Then they backed out, constantly keeping Dex
and Brand covered with the tubes, and closed and barred the door.
The girl smiled graciously at the admiration in the eyes of both the
men--a message needing no inter-planetary interpretation. She
advanced, and held the metal container toward them.
"Eat," she said softly. "It is good food, and life giving."
* * * * *
For an instant Brand was dumbfounded. For here was language he could
understand--which was incredible on this far-flung globe. Then he
suddenly comprehended why her sentences were so intelligible.
She was versed in mental telepathy. And versed to a high degree! He'd
had some experience with telepathy on Venus; but theirs was a crude
thought-speech compared to the fluency possessed by the beautiful girl
before him.
"Who are you?" he asked wonderingly.
"I am Greca"--it was very hard to grasp names or abstract terms--"of
the fourth satellite."
"Then you are not of these monsters of Jupiter?"
"Oh, no! I am their captive, as are all my people. We are but slaves
of the tall ones."
Brand glanced at Dex. "Here's a chance to get some information,
perhaps," he murmured.
Dex nodded; but meanwhile the girl had caught his thought. She
smiled--a tragic, wistful smile.
"I shall be happy to tell you anything in my power to tell," she
informed him. "But you must be quick. I can only remain with you a
little while."
She sat down on the floor with them--the few bench-like things
obviously used by the tall creatures as chairs were too high for
them--and with the informality of adversity the three captives began
to talk. Swiftly Brand got a little knowledge of Greca's position on
Jupiter, and of the racial history that led up to it.
* * * * *
Four of the nine satellites of Jupiter were now the home of living
beings. But two only, at the dawn of history as Greca knew it, had
been originally inhabited. These were the fourth and the second.
On the fourth there dwelt a race, "like me," as Greca put it--a
kindly, gentle people content to live and let live.
On the second had been a race of immensely tall, but attenuated and
physically feeble things with great heads and huge dull eyes and
characters distinguished mainly for cold-blooded savagery.
The inhabitants of the fourth satellite had remained in ignorance of
the monsters on the second till one day "many, many ages ago," a fleet
of clumsy ships appeared on the fourth satellite. From the ships had
poured thousands of pipe-like creatures, armed with horrible rods of
metal that killed instantly and without a sound. The things, it
seemed, had crowded over the limits of their own globe, and had been
forced to find more territory.
They had made captive the entire population of the satellite.
Then--for like all dangerous vermin they multiplied rapidly--they had
overflowed to the first and fifth satellites--the others were
uninhabitable--and finally to the dangerous surface of Jupiter itself.
Everywhere they had gone, they had taken droves of Greca's people to
be their slaves, "and the source of their food," added Greca, with a
shudder; a statement that was at the moment unintelligible to the two
men.
* * * * *
Brand stared sympathetically at her. "They treat them very badly?" he
asked gently.
"Terribly! Terribly!" said Greca, shuddering again.
"But you seem quite privileged," he could not help saying.
She shook her dainty head pathetically. "I am of high rank among my
people. I am a priestess of our religion, which is the religion of The
Great White One who rules all the sky everywhere. The Rogans" (it was
the best translation Brand could make of her mental term for the slimy
tall things that held them captive) "--the Rogans hold my fate over
the heads of my race. Should they rebel, I would be thrown to the
monster in the pen. Of course the Rogans could crush any revolt with
their terrible tubes, but they do not want to kill their slaves if
they can help it. They find it more effective to hold their
priestesses in hostage."
Brand turned from personal history to more vital subjects.
"Why," he asked Greca, "are the shining red squares of metal laid
everywhere over this empire of the Rogans?"
"To make things light," was the reply. "When the Rogans first came to
this mighty sphere, they could hardly move. Things are so heavy here,
somehow. So their first thought was to drive my enslaved people to the
casting and laying of the metal squares and the metal beams that
connect them, in order to make things weigh less."
"But how do the plates function?"
* * * * *
Greca did not know this, save vaguely. She tried to express her little
knowledge of the scientific achievements of the savage Rogans. After
some moments Brand turned to Dex and said:
"As near as I can get it, the Rogans, by this peculiar red metal
alloy, manage to trap and divert the permanent lines of force, the
magnetic field, of Jupiter itself. So the whole red spot is highly
magnetized, which somehow upsets natural gravitational attraction. I
suppose it is responsible for the discoloration of the ground, too."
He turned to question the girl further about this, but she had got
nervously to her feet already.
"I'll be taken away soon," she said. "I was brought in here only to
urge you to eat the food. I must be interpreter, since the Rogans
speak not with the mind, and I know their hateful tongue."
"Why are they so anxious for us to eat?" demanded Dex with an uneasy
frown.
"So you will be strong, and endure for a long time the--the ordeal
they have in store for you," faltered the girl at last. "They intend
to force from you the secret of the power that drove your ship here,
so they too may have command of space."
"But I don't understand," frowned Brand. "They must already have a
means of space navigation. They came here to Jupiter from the
satellites."
"Their vessels are crude, clumsy things. The journey from the nearest
satellite is the limit of their flying range. They have nothing like
your wonderful little ships, and they want to know how to build and
power them."
* * * * *
She gazed sorrowfully at them and went on: "You see, yours is the
fourth space ship to visit their kingdom; and that makes them fearful
because it shows they are vulnerable to invasion. They want to stop
that by invading your planet first. Besides their fear, there is their
greed. Their looking-tubes reveal that yours is a fruitful and lovely
sphere, and they are insatiable in their lust for new territories.
Thus they plan to go to your planet as soon as they are able, and kill
or enslave all the people there as they have killed and enslaved my
race."
"They'll have a job on their hands trying to do that!" declared Dex
stoutly.
But Brand paled. "They can do it!" he snapped. "Look at those
death-tubes of theirs. We have no arms to compete with that." He
turned to Greca. "So the Rogans plan to force the secret of our motors
from us by torture?"
She nodded, and caught his hand in hers.
"Yes. They will do with you as they did with the six who came before
you--and who died before surrendering the secret."
"So! We know now what happened to Journeyman and the others!" burst
out Dex. "I'll see 'em in hell before I'll talk!"
"And me," nodded Brand. "But that doesn't cure the situation. As long
as ships disappear in this red inferno, so long will the Old Man keep
sending others to find out what's wrong. The Rogans will capture them
as easily as they captured us. And eventually someone will happen
along who'll weaken under torture. Then--"
* * * * *
He stopped. A dread vision filled his mind of Earth depopulated by the
feebly ferocious Rogans, of rank on rank of Earth's vast armies
falling in stricken rows at the shock of the Rogans' tubes.
Greca caught the vision. She nodded. "Yes, that is what would happen
if they found ways of reaching your globe."
"But, God, Brand, we can't allow that!" cried Dex. "We've got to find
a way to spike the guns of these walking gas-pipes, somehow!"
Brand sighed heavily. "We are two against hundreds of thousands. We
are bare-handed, and the Rogans have those damned tubes. Anyway, we
are on the verge of death at this very moment. What under heaven can
we do to spike their guns?"
He was silent a moment: and in the silence the steady hum from the
domed building outside came to his ears.
"What's in that big, round topped building, Greca?" he asked quietly.
"I do not know, exactly," replied the girl. "There is some sort of
machinery in it, and to it go connecting beams from all the square
metal plates everywhere. That is all I know."
Brand started to question her further, but her time was up. The two
guards poked their loathsome pumpkin heads in the doorway and
contemptuously beckoned her out. She answered resignedly, in the
piping Rogan tongue, and went with them. But she turned to wave shyly,
commiseratingly at the two men; and the expression in her clear blue
eyes as they rested on Brand made his heart contract and then leap on
with a mighty bound.
"We have in ally in her," murmured Brand. "Though God only knows if
that will mean anything to us...."