The Mother
The thing glided toward me swiftly, its smooth round golden body
leaving a little twisting track in the white sand. It lowered its head
a little. And it laid one of the white mantles across my forehead.
The strange red-veined membrane was soft, yet there was an odd firmness
in its pressure against my skin. A vital warmth seemed to come from
it--it was vibrant with energy, with life.
The pipings came again. And they seemed to stir vague response in my
mind, to call dim thoughts into being. As the same sounds were repeated
again and again, definite questions formed in my mind.
"What are you? How did you come here?"
Through some strange telepathy induced by the pressure of the mantle
upon my head, I was grasping the thought in the piping words.
It was a little time before I was sufficiently recovered from my
astonishment to speak. Then I replied slowly, phrasing my expressions
carefully, and uttering them as distinctly as I could.
"I am a native of Earth. Of the great white globe you can see in the
sky. I came here on a machine which moves through space and time. I
left it, and was caught and jerked up into the air by one of those
purple, floating things. I broke the web, and fell here. My body was so
torn by the thorns that I cannot move."
The thing piped again. A single quavering note. It was repeated until
its meaning formed in my mind.
"I understand."
"Who are you?" I ventured.
I got the meaning of the reply, as it was being piped for the third
time. "I am the Mother. The Eternal Ones, who destroyed my people,
pursue me. To escape them, I am going to the sea."
And the thin, musical tones came again. This time I understood them
more easily.
"Your body seems slow to heal its hurts. Your mental force is feeble.
May I aid you?"
"Of course," I said. "Anything you can do--"
"Lie still. Trust me. Do not resist. You must sleep." When the meaning
of the notes came to me, I relaxed upon the sand, closed my eyes.
I could feel the warm, vibrant pressure of the mantle on my forehead.
Vital, throbbing force seemed pulsing into me through it. I felt
no fear, despite the strangeness of my situation. A living wave of
confidence came over me. Serene trust in the power of this being. I
felt a command to sleep. I did not resist it; a strong tide of vital
energy swept me into oblivion.
It seemed but an instant later, though it must have been many hours,
when an insistent voice called me back from sleep.
Vitality filled me. Even before I opened my eyes, I was conscious of
a new and abounding physical vigor, of perfect health; I was bubbling
with energy and high spirits. And I knew, by the complete absence of
bodily pain, that my wounds were completely healed.
I opened my lids, saw the amazing creature that had called itself the
Mother. Its smooth golden body coiled beside me on the sand. Its large,
clear eyes watching me intently, with kind sympathy.
Abruptly I sat up. My limbs were stiff no longer. My body was still
caked with dried blood, clothed in my tattered garments; the sticky
scarlet coils of the web were still around me. But my ragged wounds
were closed. Only white scars showed where they had been.
"Why, I'm well!" I told the Mother, thankfully. "How'd you do it?"
The strange being piped melodiously, and I grasped the meaning almost
at once. "My vital force is stronger than your own. I merely lent you
energy."
I began tearing at the coils of the crimson web about me. Their viscid
covering seemed to have dried a little; otherwise I might never have
got them off. After a moment the Mother glided forward and helped.
It used the white, membranous appendages like hands. Though they
appeared quite frail, they seemed able to grasp the red cable
powerfully when they were folded about it.
In a few minutes I was on my feet.
Again the Mother piped at me. I failed to understand, though vague
images were summoned to my mind. I knelt down again on the sand, and
the being glided toward me, pressed the white, red-veined mantle once
more against my forehead. An amazing organ, that mantle, so delicately
beautiful. So strong of grasp when used as a hand. And useful, as I was
to learn, as an organ of some strange sense.
The meaning of the pipings came to me clearly now, with the warm,
vibrant mantle touching my head.
"Adventurer, tell me more of your world, and how you came here. My
people are old, and I have vital powers beyond your own. But we have
never been able to go beyond the atmosphere of our planet. Even the
Eternal Ones, with all their machines, have never been able to bridge
the gulf of space. And it has been thought that the primary planet from
which you say you came is yet too hot for the development of life."
* * * * *
For many hours we talked, I in my natural voice, the Mother in those
weirdly melodious pipings. At first the transference of thought by
the telepathy which the wonderful mantle made possible was slow and
awkward. I, especially, had trouble in receiving, and had many times to
ask the Mother to repeat a complex thought. But facility increased with
practice, and I at last was able to understand, quite readily, even
when the white membrane did not touch me.
The sun had been low when I woke. It set, and the dew fell upon us. We
talked on in the darkness. And the earth rose, illuminating the jungle
with argent glory. Still we talked, until it was day again. For a time
the air was quite cold. Wet with the abundant dew, I felt chilled, and
shivered.
But the Mother touched me again with the white membrane. Quick,
throbbing warmth seemed to flow from it into my body, and I felt cold
no longer.
I told much of the world that I had left, and of my own insignificant
life upon it. Told of the machine. Of the voyage across space, and back
through ons of time, to this young moon.
And the Mother told me of her life, and of her lost people.
She had been the leader of a community of beings that had lived on
the highlands, near the source of the great river that I had seen.
A community in some respects resembling those of ants or bees upon
the earth. It had contained thousands of neuter beings, imperfectly
developed females, workers. And herself, the only member capable of
reproduction. She was now the sole survivor of that community.
It seemed that her race was very old, and had developed a high
civilization. The Mother admitted that her people had had no machines
or buildings of any kind. She declared that such things were marks of
barbarism, and that her own culture was superior to mine.
"Once we had machines," she told me. "My ancient mothers lived in
shells of metal and wood, such as you describe. And constructed
machines to aid and protect their weak and inefficient bodies.
"But the machines tended to weaken their poor bodies still further.
Their limbs atrophied, perished from lack of use. Even their brains
were injured, for they lived an easy life, depending upon machines for
existence, facing no new problems.
"Some of my people awoke to the danger. They left the cities, and
returned to the forest and the sea, to live sternly, to depend upon
their own minds and their own bodies, to remain living things, and not
grow into cold machines.
"The mothers divided. And my people were those that returned to the
forest."
"And what," I asked, "of those that remained in the city, that kept the
machines?"
"They became the Eternal Ones--my enemies.
"Generation upon generation their bodies wasted away. Until they were
no longer natural animals. They became mere brains, with eyes and
feeble tentacles. In place of bodies, they use machines. Living brains,
with bodies of metal.
"Too weak, they became, to reproduce their kind. So they sought
immortality, with their mechanical science. And still some of them live
on, in their ugly city of metal--though for ages no young have been
born among them. The Eternal Ones.
"But at last they die, because that is the way of life. Even with all
their knowledge they cannot live forever. One by one, they fall. Their
strange machines are still, with rotting brains in their cases.
"And the few thousands that live attacked my people. They planned to
take the Mothers. To change their offspring with their hideous arts,
and make of them new brains for the machines.
"The Mothers were many, when the war began. And my people a thousand
times more. Now only I remain. But it was no easy victory for the
Eternal Ones. My people fought bravely. Many an ancient brain they
killed. But the Eternal Ones had great engines of war, that we could
not escape, nor destroy with our vital energy.
"All the Mothers save myself were taken. And all destroyed themselves,
rather than have their children made into living machines.
"I alone escaped. Because my people sacrificed their lives for me. In
my body are the seed of a new race. I seek a home for my children. I
have left our old land on the shores of the lake, and I am going down
to the sea. There we shall be far from the Eternal Land. And perhaps
our enemies will never find us.
"But the Eternal Ones know I have escaped. They are hunting me. Hunting
me with their strange machines."
When day came, I felt very hungry. What was I to do for food in this
weird jungle? Even if I could find fruits or nuts, how could I tell
whether they were poisonous? I mentioned my hunger.
"Come," the Mother piped.
She glided away across the white sand, with easy, sinuous grace. Very
beautiful, she was. Slim body, smooth, rounded. Compactly trim. The
golden down was bright in the sunlight; sapphire rays played over the
blue plume upon her head. The wondrous, red-veined mantles at her sides
shone brilliantly.
Regarding her strange beauty, I stood still for a moment, and then
moved after her slowly, absently.
She turned back suddenly, with something like humor flashing in her
great dark violet eyes.
"Is your great body so slow you cannot keep up with me?" she piped,
almost derisively. "Shall I carry you?" Her eyes were mocking.
* * * * *
For answer I crouched, leaped into the air. My wild spring carried me a
score of feet above her, and beyond. I had the misfortune to come down
head first upon the sand, though I received no injury.
I saw laughter in her eyes, as she glided swiftly to me, and grasped my
arm with one of the white mantles to assist me to my feet.
"You could travel splendidly if there were two of you, one to help the
other out of the thorns," she said quaintly.
A little embarrassed by her mockery, I followed meekly.
We reached a mass of the green creeper. Without hesitation, she pushed
on through the feathery foliage. I broke through behind her. She led
the way to one of the huge white flowers, bent it toward her, and crept
into it like a golden bee.
In a moment she emerged with mantles cupped up to hold a good quantity
of white, crystalline powder which she had scraped from the inside of
the huge calyx.
She made me hold my hands, and dropped part of the powder into them.
She lifted what she had left, upon the other mantle, and began
delicately licking at it with her lips.
I tasted it. It was sweet, with a peculiar, though not at all
unpleasant, acid flavor. It formed a sort of gum as it was wetted in my
mouth, and this softened and dissolved as I continued to chew. I took a
larger bite, and soon finished all the Mother had given me. We visited
another bloom. This time I reached in, and scraped out the powder with
my own hand. (The crystals must have been formed for the same purpose
as the nectar in terrene flowers--to attract raiders, which carry the
pollen.)
I divided my booty with the Mother. She accepted but little, and I
found enough of the sweetish powder in the calyx to satisfy my own
hunger.
"Now I must go on down to the sea," she piped. "Too long already have I
delayed with you. For I carry the seed of my race; I must not neglect
the great work that has fallen upon me.
"But I was glad to know of your strange planet. And it is good to be
with an intelligent being again, when I had been so long alone. I wish
I could stay longer with you. But my wishes are not my master."
Thoughts of parting from her were oddly disturbing. My feeling for her
was partly gratitude for saving my life and partly something else. A
sense of comradeship. We were companion adventurers in this weird and
lonely jungle. Solitude and my human desire for society of any sort
drew me toward her.
Then came an idea. She was going down the valley to the sea. And my
way led in the same direction, until I could see the triple peak that
marked the location of the machine.
"May I travel with you," I asked her, "until we reach the mountain
where I left the machine in which I came to your world?"
The Mother looked at me with fine dark eyes. And glided suddenly
nearer. A white membranous mantle folded about my hand, with warm
pressure.
"I am glad you wish to go with me," she piped. "But you must think of
the danger. Remember that I am hunted by the Eternal Ones. They will
doubtless destroy you if they find us together."
"I have a weapon," I said. "I'll put up a scrap for you, if we get in
a tight place. And besides, I'd very likely be killed, in one way or
another, if I tried to travel alone."
"Let us go, Adventurer."
Thus it was decided.
I had dropped the camera, the binoculars, and the vacuum bottle
when the balloon-creature jerked me into the air. They were lost in
the jungle. But I still had the automatic. It had remained in my
hand--stuck to it, in fact--when I fell upon the sand. I carried it
with me.
The Mother objected to the weapon. Because it was a machine, and
machines weakened all that used them. But I insisted that we should
have to fight machines, if the Eternal Ones caught us, and that fire
could be best fought with fire. She yielded gracefully.
"But my vital force will prove stronger than your rude slaying machine,
Adventurer," she maintained.
We set out almost immediately. She glided off along the strip of bare
sand beside the wall of thorny yellow scrub. And began my instruction
in the ways of life upon the moon, by informing me that there was
always such a clear zone about a thicket of the thorn-brush, because
its roots generated a poison in the soil which prevented the growth of
other vegetation near them.
When we had traveled two or three miles, we came to a crystal pool,
where the abundant dew had collected at the bottom of a bare, rocky
slope. We drank there. Then the Mother plunged into it joyously. With
white mantles folded tight against her sides, she flashed through the
water like a golden eel. I was glad to remove my own garments, and wash
the grime and dried blood from my body.
I was donning my tattered clothing again, and the Mother was lying
beside me, at the edge of the pool, with eyes closed, drying her golden
fur in the sunshine, when I saw the ghostly bars.
Seven thin upright pillars of light, ringed about us. Straight bars
of pale white radiance. They stood like phantom columns about us,
inclosing a space ten yards across. They were not above two inches in
diameter. And they were quite transparent, so I could see the green
jungle and the yellow wall of thorn-brush quite plainly through them.
I was not particularly alarmed. In fact, I thought the ghostly pillars
only some trick of my vision. I rubbed my eyes, and said rather
carelessly to the Mother:
"Are the spirits building a fence around us? Or is it just my eyes?"
She lifted her golden, blue-crested head quickly. Her violet eyes went
wide. I saw alarm in them. Terror. And she moved with astonishing
speed. Drew her slender length into a coil. Leaped. And seized my
shoulder as she leaped, with one of her mantles.
She jerked me between two of those strange columns of motionless
light, out of the area they enclosed.
I fell on the sand, got quickly to my feet.
"What--" I began.
"The Eternal Ones," her sweet, whistling tones came swiftly. "They have
found me. Even here, they reach me with their evil power. We must go
on, quickly."
She glided swiftly away. Still buttoning my clothing, I followed,
keeping pace with her easily, with my regular leaps of half a dozen
yards. Followed, wondering vainly what danger there might have been in
the pillars of ghostly light.