They rode fast. Alternate night and day--endless frozen wastes.
Occasionally they passed single mounds, isolated like that of Rokk.
Others in groups; blood-stained graveyards by day--eery and gruesome
in the starlight. Leela saw many of the green-white animals, lurking
like werewolves prowling among the mounds. And there were men gazing
curiously at the travelers. To them often Rokk gave a warning that the
vegetable things were loose.
But he said to Leela, "There really is no danger. These things I have
grown will do my purpose in the Ice City. Then I will command them back
to their fields. Let them rot there harmlessly in a red welter. I can
control them. They know me for their creator--their master."
There were few women or girls to be seen about the mounds. Rokk said,
with a horrible irony, "We have sent most of them to the Ice City.
It is a very beautiful place--we men have sent our women there. The
women----" He laughed sarcastically. "They are very stupid. They do
not guess our purpose."
They rode in silence. Then Rokk spoke again. "My woman, Mobah"--he
glanced behind at the patient figure riding behind them--"I have kept
Mobah with me. She is good to work in the mound. But you, my Lady
Leela----" He chuckled. "We shall get rid of Mobah all in good time. We
do not want her around, do we? But I will not make you work, Leela. In
your city of Crescent, little white woman, you and I will be very great
people. I shall be the leader of all our men----"
Again Leela did not answer.
A red day plunged into night. Far to the left across the snowy wastes
to the distant horizon, Leela saw a white radiance in the sky. A vague
patch of silver, as of light reflected from some remote distance below
the horizon. Rokk waved his hand.
"You see that, Leela? That is where I found the drugs. This globe is
very fair, off there. Longer days and nights. A warm, fruitful summer.
Food is there. Trees, with fruit. But it is all owned by another race
of people. They will not let us in. They are very powerful--very far
advanced in civilization. A wonderful age of science. . . . They know
everything. I crept into one of their cities and stole the drugs."
To Leela then was driven home the conception of how vast is God's
great plan of the Universe. This miserable region owned by Rokk's
people was no more than the Polar waste of this globe. A fairer land of
science lay there where the distant radiance showed. A great, cultured
civilization perhaps. And farther beyond it--other races--all on this
one tiny globe whirling among these stars. . . .
* * * * *
They came at last within sight of the City of Ice. In the starlight
it glittered with a pale sheen. It stood on a broad plateau above the
surrounding valleys--a place of white spires, glittering under the
stars, the whole surrounded by a high white wall of ice.
And as they came closer, Leela saw within the city a yellow-red glare.
Behind it, a high tower of stone dominated the scene; the glare painted
the tower a yellow-red upon one side. "The pit of fire," said Rokk.
"The one place in all our realm where the fires underground come near
the surface. It brings a warmth--a beauty. You shall see." He laughed
his horrible laugh. "That is why we tell the women they should like it
here----"
They approached the wall. Rokk gazed around. "We are but just in time."
In the farther distance beyond the city was a red sheen against the
ground. Rokk understood it, though at the moment Leela did not. "Just
in time, little woman. I had thought we might better enter by the
tunnel under the wall. But that is not necessary."
They rode through a gate, plunged at once into a passageway, and
emerged presently within the stone tower, left the dhranes there, and
mounted the tower. At its top, Rokk stood with Leela. Mobah sullenly
was behind them. Rokk glanced back at her. He said softly, "I think
perhaps she guesses what is to happen. But she can do nothing about it."
Presently Mobah moved away and disappeared. Rokk patted his belt.
"I have all the drugs here, Leela. All there are in this whole
realm--except a very little of each which I left with Degg. We must
guard them carefully."
To Leela came the thought that she might gain possession of the drugs
and thus escape. But Rokk was very watchful.
They stood upon a broad balcony, with the single tower room behind them
and a breast-high parapet in front. At the parapet, Leela gazed down.
From this height the city lay spread beneath them. It was still night.
A simple, placid scene, quiet, and in a measure beautiful. A few broad
streets of packed, gray-black snow. Flat, oblong houses of ice blocks
which were white and glittering, with spires and minarets occasionally
adorning them.
Directly beneath Leela, at the foot of the tower, was a yawning
yellow-red pit. She could see directly down into it; a glare, some
great distance down to where the fires of the earth were broken out.
Rising wisps of smoke . . . a sulfurous, fiery breath . . . and a
torrent of grateful heat surging upward.
Around the pit, the city was built of stone for a distance, like
a broad, square park. Trees were growing there; huge, graceful
ferns; blue-green leaves like great flopping ears of an animal. And
giant palms, hung with purple fruit. . . . A tropical garden, with
flower-lined, winding paths. . . . By contrast with all this bleak
region Leela had seen, the single little park was very beautiful.
There were a few women moving about the city--dull, heavy-looking,
shapeless women robed in a monotone of drab garments. Uninspired of
aspect. Yet each had a soul . . . desires . . . longings. . . .
In the park a woman sat and played with a little girl. There was
another woman, newly arrived here, with a baby at her breast. . . .
Rokk's voice broke upon Leela's thoughts with a rasp. "But who is to
feed them? It gets very tiresome, giving them food. . . . Ah! Now you
shall see my solution, Lady Leela----"
Beyond the city walls, out over the starlit, snowy wastes, spots of red
sheen were visible. Moving. Coming nearer. Spots of red sheen resolving
into long, thin lines of red. Undulating, twisting, slithering forward.
Green spots of eyes, waving, peering.
Red, growing things unrooted. Coming monstrously to do that for which
during all their growth they had been trained. There seemed thousands
of them. Over every distant slope they came closing in upon the city.
Thick red vines a hundred feet long. Others grown into a tangled
clump, every separate tendril of which was in slimy movement. A red
boll, like the bulging trunk of a tree. It rolled, leaped. Another of
a flat, round central growth, with prickling spines like huge needles
standing erect, and waving, groping tentacles. It hitched itself along,
awkwardly.
They came from everywhere. Red, gleaming monsters of the ground,
advancing with a grim, uncanny silence, closing in upon the city.
Leela watched, with the blood freezing in her veins. Within the city no
alarm had sounded. The woman in the park played with her little girl.
But the baby at the other woman's breast was crying. . . .
The first of the red things reached the city wall. Slithered up like
some monstrous red ivy growing there. A thing of dangling green pods
from which a slimy juice was dripping. A segment of it raised high over
the wall, with green eyes staring down.
In a near-by street a headless, friendly animal gave out its imbecilic
cry. The two women in the park looked and saw, and screamed. . . .
The red thing rose and slithered over the wall. Stretched its length
down a street; then encircled a house, its wide-flung segments
slithering into every door and window. Screams from in there sounded
over the silent, starlit city. Shrill, throat-tearing screams of
women . . . and the piping, terrified cries of children. . . .
The alarm spread. The cries were caught up, echoed from everywhere
about the city. Women and girl children were rushing in a panic from
the houses. . . .
Over the wall at its every point, the red things were climbing . . .
spreading over the city . . . filling the streets . . . climbing with
a red, leafy growth into houses . . . green peering eyes, searching
everywhere. . . .
One of the flat, round growths with prickling spines--needles each
as long as a human body--lurched itself into the park. With a sudden
spring it caught a running woman. Its tentacles tossed her aloft. She
fell, impaled upon its swordlike spines. Its tentacles pulled an arm
from her body . . . tossed the arm away. . . . The woman was still
screaming--horribly. . . .
Leela, sickened, covered her face with her hands. She heard Rokk's
gloating voice, "You see--my solution? Look, little white woman! Make
your heart stout, like Rokk's. This is the law of life. Some live, some
die. We--you and I--will live, for love, when this blood-red day is
over."
Day! The dawn had come. The red sun rose from the horizon in its low
arc. Red, staining everything.
Leela, with a fascination, again involuntarily stared. The city was a
chaos of terror. From windows, with reason fled, women were leaping.
The red things caught them as they fell. . . . On a flat housetop a
woman crouched with a baby in her arms, and a little girl huddling at
her knees. A slim red arm came up over the parapet of roof. Other red
things came up, and poised with watching green eyes. The woman fought
the red arm with all her meager strength. It seized the baby, waved the
small, gray-white body aloft, dashed it to a red pulp against the stone
of the parapet. Other arms jerked the little girl away. A flat, red
thing engulfed the woman and sat mouthing and tearing. . . .
In the park a crowd of the women were huddled. Some were trying to
climb the high railing at the pit of fire, but could not. The red
things slithered among them. . . .
The blood-red day! A white, glittering city, stained crimson now.
Splashed and stained; and upon it the red sun poured a polluting, gory
light. . . .
The blood-red day. . . .
_CHAPTER 7_