* * * * *
Onto the field at each end marched two hundred men; a hundred men naked
but for white gee-strings at one end of the field, a hundred men with
red gee-strings at the other end of the field.
They carried short swords and shields. For a while they stood inactive,
waiting; then two small cars were driven onto the field. Each contained
a driver and a young woman.
One of the cars was red, the other white. The red car attached itself
to the contingent wearing the red gee-strings, the white car to the
whites.
When they were in position the two factions paraded entirely around
the field clockwise. As they passed the stands the people cheered and
shouted words of encouragement and praise, and when the warriors had
completed the circuit they took their places again.
Presently a trumpet sounded, and the reds and the whites approached
each other. Now their formations were changed. There was an advance
party and a rear guard, there were flankers on either side. The
cars remained in the rear, just in front of the rear guard. On
running-boards that encircled the cars were a number of warriors.
I leaned toward Ero Shan. "Tell us something of the idea of the game,"
I begged, "so that we may understand and enjoy it better."
"It is simple," he replied. "They contend for fifteen vir (the
equivalent of sixty minutes of earth time), and the side that captures
the opponent's queen oftenest is the winner."
I do not know what I expected, but certainly not that which followed.
The reds formed a wedge with its apex toward the whites, then charged.
In the mêlée that ensued I saw three men killed and more than a dozen
wounded, but the whites held their queen.
When a queen was pressed too closely her car turned and fled, the rear
guard coming up to repel the enemy. The tide of battle moved up and
down the field. Sometimes the whites seemed about to capture the red
queen, again their own was in danger. There were many individual duels
and a display of marvelous swordsmanship throughout.
But the whole thing seemed so out of harmony with all that I had
heretofore seen in Havatoo that I could find no explanation for it.
Here was the highest type of culture and civilization that man might
imagine suddenly reverting to barbarism. It was inexplicable. And the
strangest part of all of it to me was the almost savage enjoyment with
which the people viewed the bloody spectacle.
I must admit that I found it thrilling, but I was glad when it was
over. Only one queen was captured during the entire game. At the very
last the white queen fell into the hands of the reds, but only after
the last of her defenders had fallen.
Of the two hundred men who took part in the game, not one came through
unwounded; fifty were killed on the field, and I afterward learned that
ten more died of their wounds later.
As we drove from the stadium toward our house I asked Ero Shan how such
a savage and brutal exhibition could be tolerated, much less enjoyed,
by the refined and cultured inhabitants of Havatoo.
"We have few wars," he replied. "For ages war was man's natural
state. It gave expression to the spirit of adventure which is a part
of his inheritance. Our psychologists discovered that man must have
some outlet for this age-old urge. If it be not given him by wars or
dangerous games he will seek it in the commission of crimes or in
quarrels with his fellows. It is better that it is so. Without it man
would stagnate, he would die of ennui."
* * * * *
I was now working on my plane with the keenest enthusiasm, for I now
saw rapidly taking form such a ship as, I truly believe, might be
built nowhere in the universe other than in Havatoo. Here I had at my
disposal materials that only the chemists of Havatoo might produce,
synthetic wood and steel and fabric that offered incalculable strength
and durability combined with negligible weight.
I had also the element, vik-ro, undiscovered on earth, and the
substance, lor, to furnish fuel for my engine. The action of the
element, vik-ro, upon the element, yor-san, which is contained in the
substance, lor, results in absolute annihilation of the lor. Some
conception of the amount of energy thus released may be obtained by
considering the fact that there is eighteen thousand million times as
much energy liberated by the annihilation of a ton of coal as by its
combustion. Fuel for the life of my ship could be held in the palm of
my hand, and with the materials that entered into its construction the
probable life of the ship was computed by the physicists working on it
to be in the neighborhood of fifty years. Can you wonder that I looked
forward with impatience to the completion of such a marvel ship! With
it I would be sure to find Duare.
At last it was finished! I spent the final afternoon checking it over
carefully with my large corps of assistants. On the morrow it was to be
wheeled out for my trial flight. I knew that it would be successful.
All my assistants knew that it would be; it was a scientific certainty
that it must fly.
That evening I determined to indulge in a little relaxation; and
I called Nalte on the wireless, transmitterless, receiverless
communicating system that is one of the wonders of Havatoo. I asked her
if she would take dinner with me, and she accepted with an alacrity and
display of pleasure that warmed my heart.
We dined in a little public garden on the roof of a building at the
corner of Yorgan Lat and Havatoo Lat, just inside the river wall.
"It seems good to see you again," said Nalte. "It has been a long
time--not since the war games. I thought you had forgotten me."
"Far from it," I assured her, "but I have been working day and night on
my airship."
"I have heard some mention of it," she said, "but no one that I have
talked with seemed to understand very much about it. Just what is it
and what will it do?"
"It is a ship that flies through the air faster than a bird can wing,"
I replied.
"But what good will that be?" she demanded.
"It will carry people quickly and safely from one place to another," I
explained.
"You don't mean to say that people will ride in it!" she exclaimed.
"Why, certainly; why else should I build it?"
"But what will keep it in the air? Will it flap its wings like a bird?"
"No; it will soar like a bird on stationary wings."
"But how will you get through the forests where the trees grow close
together?"
"I shall fly over the forests."
"So high? Oh, it will be dangerous," she cried. "Please do not go up in
it, Carson."
"It will be very safe," I assured her, "much safer than incurring the
dangers of the forests on foot. No savage beasts or men can harm the
voyager in an airship."
"But think of being 'way up above the trees!" she said with a little
shudder.
"I shall fly even higher than that," I told her. "I shall fly over the
loftiest mountains."
"But you will never fly over the great trees of Amtor; I know that."
She referred to the gigantic trees that raise their tips five thousand
feet above the surface of Amtor to drink the moisture from the inner
cloud envelope.
"Yes; possibly I shall fly even above those," I replied, "though I will
admit that flying blind in that solid bank of clouds does not appeal to
me."
She shook her head. "I shall be afraid every time I know that you are
up in the thing."
"Oh, no you won't, not after you are familiar with it. Some day soon I
am going to take you up with me."
"Not me!"
"We could fly to Andoo," I said. "I have been thinking of that ever
since I started to build the ship."
"To Andoo!" she exclaimed. "Home! Oh, Carson, if we only could!"
"But we can--that is if we can find Andoo. This ship will take us
anywhere. If we could carry enough food and water we could stay in the
air for fifty years, and it certainly wouldn't take that long to find
Andoo."
"I love it here in Havatoo," she said, musingly, "but after all, home
is home. I want to see my own people, but I would like to come back to
Havatoo again. That is, if--"
"If what?" I asked.
"If you are going to be here."
* * * * *
I reached across the table and pressed her hand. "We _have_ been pretty
good friends, haven't we, Nalte? I should miss you terribly if I
thought that I were not to see you again."
"I think that you are the best friend I ever had," she said, and then
she looked up at me quickly and laughed. "Do you know," she continued;
but stopped suddenly and looked down, as a slight flush suffused her
cheeks.
"Do I know what?" I asked.
"Well, I might as well confess. There was a long time that I thought
that I loved you."
"That would have been a great honor, Nalte."
"I tried to hide it because I knew that you loved Duare; and now
recently Ero Shan has been coming to see me, and I know that I did not
know before what love was."
"You love Ero Shan?"
"Yes."
"I am glad. He is a splendid fellow. I know you will both be happy."
"That might be true but for one thing," she said.
"And what is that?"
"Ero Shan does not love me."
"How do you know that he doesn't? I don't see how he could help it. If
I had never known Duare--"
"If he loved me he would tell me," she interrupted. "Sometimes I think
that he believes that I belong to you. We came here together, you
know, and we have been much together since. But what's the good in
speculating! If he loved me he would not be able to hide it."
We had finished our dinner, and I suggested that we drive about the
city for a while and then go to a concert.
"Let's take a little walk instead of driving," suggested Nalte, and as
we rose from our table, "How beautiful the view is from here!"
In the strange glow of the Amtorian night the expanse of the great
river stretched into the vanishing visibility above and below the city,
while on the opposite shore gloomy Kormor was but a darker blotch
against the darkness of the night, with here and there a few dim lights
showing feebly in contrast to brilliant Havatoo lying at our feet.
We followed the walkway along Havatoo Lat to a narrow side street that
extended away from the river.
"Let's turn here," said Nalte. "I feel like quiet and dim lights
to-night, not the brilliance and the crowds of Havatoo Lat."
The street that we turned into was in the yorgan section of the city;
it was but dimly lighted, and the walkway was deserted. It was a quiet
and restful street even by comparison with the far from noisy main
avenues of Havatoo, where raucous noises are unknown.
We had proceeded but a short distance from Havatoo Lat when I heard a
door open behind us and footsteps on the walkway. I gave the matter no
thought; in fact I scarcely had time to give it thought when some one
seized me roughly from behind and as I wheeled about I saw another man
grab Nalte, clap a hand over her mouth and drag her into the doorway
from which the two had come.