Then and Now : A Collection of SF, Page 2

  Well, you can guess that I didn’t waste much time in following Paxton’s suggestion, and for all his years he wasn’t slow either. We saw that the air-purifiers connected with our oxygen helmets were ready for twelve days of service without further attention, packed up some concentrated rations, a supply of water, our space-tent, a camera and various other things needed for exploration. Then we started out.

  I BELIEVE that it will be well for me to give a brief description of our space-tent here, for this piece of equipment was certainly sufficiently novel. It was a tiny light-weight shelter, made of a cold-resisting, rubber-like material supported on a metal framework. It was absolutely airtight and its walls were built to resist normal earthly atmospheric pressure. Eating and drinking were impossible, of course, when we were incased in our space-armor, and so when mealtime came around, while we were away from the rocket, it was necessary for us to put up our tent and remove our heavy impedimenta. That tent looked mighty serviceable even though we never got a chance to use it. Why, a fellow could even enjoy a quiet smoke inside of it! It rolled up into a compact little bundle that was easy to carry.

  The distance between the Black Meteor and the rock of the Four Faces was about seven miles. We made it in good time, moving at a dog trot most of the way. But now and then we leaped along covering twenty-five or thirty feet at each bound. Considering that things of equal mass weigh six times as much on the earth as they do on the moon, the weight of each of us, including our space-armor and equipment, represented about fifty-five pounds.

  Only once we paused, and then for just a minute or two. The sun was already shining on a portion of the crater’s floor. In a little depression, or hollow in the glowing sand, we found a cluster of tiny lichen-like plants. They were gray-green in color. Their leaf-like whorls, which clung close to the ground, seemed perfectly dry, but still we knew by their fresh appearance that they were living. Somewhere in that deep lunar valley there was still a trace of water.

  “Plenty of time to study present-day lunar plants after we have visited the Four Faces,” said Paxton.

  Presently we were climbing the gentle slope of the knoll, on which was perched the queer relic of the civilization of the ancient Moon Men. I felt oddly like a poor victim being led to the flaming maw of some heathen idol.

  We circled the structure so that we might see all sides of it. It was about fifty feet square and, neglecting the spire, about equally high. The four heads with their gaping mouths were all identical. They represented the head of a creature which seemed to be part feline and part reptile. The fanged jaws, the wicked, slanting eyes, and the little triangular ears were cat-like: but the fine scales that covered the forehead and neck were unquestionably reptilian.

  We found that the mouth of each creature was a door which led into the interior of the rock. With a feeling that was very close to awe, we entered one of the weird portals. The central chamber was circular, and except for a sort of ledge or walk running all around its walls it was floorless. In place of the floor, there was a great circular pit. Eagerly we peered over the railing which surrounded the hole. From far below a faint radiance seeped upward, lighting the walls of the immense excavation dimly. We could see that there was a road or runway spiralling down around the sides of the pit. It terminated on the side of the well opposite us.

  “The plot thickens, professor, but the Fates point the way toward the solution of this mystery. Come,” I said.

  We walked around to the other side of the pit to a place where the roadway began, and started down it. A layer of fine dust covered the runway. The fact that it was perfectly smooth and undisturbed heightened our belief that it had not been used for many ages.

  Every now and then, as we spiralled downward, we came opposite a large circular door in the walls of the well. Each was closed by a big metal portal.

  “Well, Jerry, here’s our moon city. Just as I expected—entirely under the ground. The doors probably lead into the streets. We’ll blast through just as soon as we can. Everything should be perfectly intact—the buildings, the machinery, even the dead Lunarians themselves. Talk about digging up Maya cities and Pharaoh’s tombs! Mighty little stuff compared to this!”

  At last, after a long climb, we came to the bottom of the well. Like the walls, it was covered with a black cement. At some time there must have been a rather violent moonquake in the vicinity, for the floor of the pit was veined with many deep cracks. At its center there was a trap door which had probably been closed at one time, but which had been burst open by the quake. Part of its frame had broken away, and it dangled down on its hinges into whatever chamber or room lay below. That room was brilliantly illuminated, seemingly by some artificial means. Incautiously, the professor and I knelt down beside the open trap door. We took just one look below, and then everything under us gave way. Amid fragments of broken stone we both tumbled to the sand-covered floor fifty feet below. The distance was the equivalent of only about eight feet on earth; in consequence neither of us sustained any injury.

  Paxton looked ruefully up at the big gaping hole in the ceiling. “I hope this room has another exit, Jerry, because if it hasn’t, we’re going to have to work pretty hard to get out of here. Let’s look about a bit first, though.”

  THE chamber in which we found ourselves was certainly a huge one. We were standing near the northern wall, and could get an excellent view of it. It was circular and must have been at least two hundred yards in diameter. It was roofed by an immense, white, stone rotunda, at the center of which was a big crystal globe, which gave a brilliant but not dazzling light.

  Almost the entire floor space was occupied by a weird outlay of apparatus, the purpose of which we were then unable to determine. In the middle of the pavement, a black hemisphere bulged up at least forty feet. On its top was poised a heavy metal disc, which looked like a huge horizontal fly-wheel. From this machine scores of small pipes and heavy cables branched out, after the fashion of the radial strands of a spider’s web. Each of the pipes was connected with the tops of a long row of queer torpedo-shaped bottles of tarnished metal. These bottles were little taller than a man. Each had what appeared to be a little circular door in one side of it, near the top. I estimated that there were about ten thousand of these bottles in the room.

  Everything in the vault was covered with a layer of fine dust, which showed plainly that no living creature had invaded the place for a long time. Unfortunately Paxton’s hoped-for “other exit” was nowhere in evidence. The principal task of the moment was to find some means of escape from the trap we had so awkwardly fallen into. Hence we didn’t have much time to devote to more interesting things. Since I was younger and more agile, the job was left mostly to me, and a most disgusting job it was! First I threw aside every piece of impedimenta I didn’t need, and going back a ways from beneath the hole in the ceiling I got a running start and tried to jump for it. Well, I didn’t go up much more than half way. I tried again several times with no better results. Then I took a long steel cord from my pack and made a lasso of it. Again and again I hurled the noose up through the opening in the hope that it would get caught on something and provide a means of escape, but no such luck.

  There were three circular doors, similar to those along the spiral runway, set in the walls of the chamber. It was the professor’s suggestion that we try to blast through one of these, and seek a way to freedom in that direction. We were carrying a small quantity of corlissite with us. Well, we did attack one of the doors, but after a long interval of boring with the small but effective drills we carried, and frequent blasts, we gave up. Our explosive was exhausted. The metal of the door was the toughest I had ever seen and the stone around the frame was only a trifle weaker.

  Only one more chance remained. We would have to collect everything in the room that we could move and make a pile of it under the opening in the roof. Then perhaps we could scramble up and regain the runway. But there wasn’t any hurry about it. It would be twelve earthly days before the Luna
r sunset. We had food and water for that length of time, and our air-purifiers could be relied upon to supply us with oxygen. Right now we were badly in need of sleep. For two days before we landed on the moon, we hadn’t slept, nor had we indulged in a nap since.

  Each of us kicked a little pile of sand together for himself and lay down in it.

  Just before I began to doze, a thought struck me: “Funny, how that big light up there can burn so brilliantly when it hasn’t had any attention for goodness knows how long,” I said.

  “Yes, it does seem queer to us, but you must remember that at the time they became extinct the Lunarians were scientifically probably far in advance of present-day human knowledge,” replied my companion. “The functioning of their machines must have been almost completely automatic. They were so perfect that they needed practically no attention. Doubtless there are many Lunarian machines still in existence which need only the touch of some living hand to set them to work.”

  In a minute we must have both been sound asleep.

  I awoke at last with a feeling that I had just had a wild nightmare. What my imaginary adventure had been, I had even then forgotten; but I still had a vague sense of terror. The last words of Professor Paxton, spoken just before we had gone to sleep, somehow haunted me. What if the big, engine-like device in the room was still in a condition to operate? Supposing I should attempt to start it? The idea captured my fancy immediately. I glanced toward the still slumbering Paxton. Needn’t bother to awaken him.

  I proceeded down an aisle between two rows of metal gas tanks toward the center of the room, where the machine squatted. I walked around the hemispherical thing once to see just what it was like. I had never ventured that close to it before, for I had been too much occupied with other things. There was no way to determine the principle of the enigmatic mechanism, for its working parts were all covered. Only the great disc at its top, and the hundreds of cables which radiated out in all directions, showed. A little stairway ran up one side of the hemisphere to a small platform. With the zest of the explorer hot within me, I climbed it.

  Set in the side of the machine was a black box about ten inches square. On top of it was a small lever which swung in a plane parallel to the upper surface of the box. Engraved in the metal along the arc in which the tip of the lever would evidently move, was a series of spaced marks, like the figures on any kind of meter or dial.

  The lever was the only bit of ornamentation, which the colossal mechanism boasted. It was made of some yellow metal, probably gold. Its handle was the head of some repulsive lunar creature which resembled an octopus more than anything else I could think of. The head had a really striking resemblance to a human skull. The tentacles of the thing were wrapt spirally around the lower part of the lever.

  Should I tamper with the great machine? Would there be any danger of disastrous consequences? Would it by any chance explode? Would it give off strange and deadly rays? I hesitated. Essayists have written on the topic of my hesitation at that moment, for unknowingly I was then the possessor of greater power than was possessed by any human ruler or dictator that ever lived. With one movement of my hand I could change the destinies of two worlds.

  My curiosity decided for me. The chances were that nothing would happen regardless of what I did. I grasped the gleaming golden handle, and tested it to see if it was movable. There evidently was a spring connected with it, for at my first touch it leaped over toward the right end of the scale above which it was poised.

  THE first indication that anything had resulted from my act was a slight vibration of the platform beneath my feet. Then I looked up. The flywheel was beginning to turn. It was going more and more rapidly every instant! Within a quarter of a minute it had settled down to an even speed of rotation.

  What was happening now? What was going to happen? My nerves were jumpy and I had a vague feeling of panic.

  I hurried down the stairs and over to where Paxton was sleeping. A lusty shove aroused him. “I’ve started it, prof!” I yelled—“The big engines!” and I pointed toward the center of the room. It was a little time before the sleep cleared from his brain sufficiently so that he could understand what I was talking about.

  We went over toward the silently working apparatus, and stood before it watching.

  I was becoming distinctly nervous. “Do you know, professor,” I said at last, “something is telling me that in a little while this is going to be a rather unhealthy place for us to be. That machine is ages old and its parts probably aren’t as strong as they once were. Supposing the forces acting inside of it should get out of control? They might blow us to pieces !”

  “Bosh, Jerry,” he replied. “Don’t be an old woman.” But I somehow felt that he, too, was a little uneasy.

  Presently it occurred to me that I might try to shut the thing off. When I reached the platform, I found that as far as my puny efforts were concerned, the switch was absolutely immovable.

  For what must have been nearly an hour the wheel rotated steadily, and then the Lunar Chrysalis burst its shell. The little doors in the sides of every one of the thousands of metal bottles suddenly clicked open. Paxton had been looking down one of the aisles of dully glowing capsules, and had seen it happen. His eyes fairly bulged from his head.

  “Jerry! Look!” he cried.

  A violet glow was coming from each of the openings. For what seemed eternity itself, we watched, glued to our tracks, too panic-stricken to move a muscle. I was staring at the open door in one of the metal bottles, which was only a couple of paces from me.

  Presently the end of a thin tentacle, tinted like mother-of-pearl, coiled itself delicately over the rim of the opening. Another followed, and then I saw a pair of antennae-like things, which supported on their tips little lavender globes that must have been eyes. They wavered and oscillated back and forth hypnotically. With slow deliberation the thing hoisted itself to the opening in its metal cocoon and squeezed through it. Lightly it lowered itself to the ground, and then, in an unhurried fashion, it proceeded to look me over.

  Except for its antennae, which swayed continually, it stood perfectly still. Sons of Satan! Was there ever such a gorgeous and yet hideous creature! It had all the glory and wonderful coloring of a tropic butterfly, magnified to unearthly proportions, and yet about it, with its scores of whip-like tentacles, there was something alien and snake-like, which provoked a shudder. A blue halo which intensified the weirdness of its appearance surrounded it. The Lunarian stood in a semi-erect position, and was about as tall as a man. It had no head as far as I could see. The top of its body was covered with a shiny brown shell, which looked like the calyx of an immense inverted flower. From beneath this shell a sort of mantle projected. It was wonderfully colored in orange and blue and red arranged in artistic designs. It seemed to me then to be a real part of the creature and not an artificial adornment, and I later found that this was true. The antennae, or eyes, as well as the tactile tentacles coiled out from the spaces between the sections of the calyx-like shell. A dozen or so of short thick appendages at the lower end of its body served it as legs.

  And now I was conscious of other eyes upon me. A curious groping tentacle was reaching around from behind me to the glazed front of my oxygen helmet. On the point of shrieking, I turned about, and then I saw rank upon rank of the Lunarians, each enveloped in his glowing nimbus. We were completely surrounded.

  “What kind of a mess have we gotten ourselves into now, Professor?” I cried.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, “but anyway, keep cool. Things won’t go wrong then I’m sure. Just do what they want you to, and try to be agreeable. We’ll get out of this all right.”

  There was a Lunarian on either side of me grasping my arms. The professor was being treated in a similar manner. Someone had opened one of the big metal doors in the wall, and Lunarians in groups of three were entering it. Guided by our escorts, Paxton and I fell in behind the rest.

  We were moving down a broad, lofty corridor. I
lluminating globes, similar to the one in the chamber of the machine, were set at equal intervals along the roof. The light was reflected many times from the polished granite walls and pavement, and it glinted richly on the little golden pillars, which lined the buried roadway at regular intervals. Each pillar supported on its top a sphere of rosy crystal. I could never then have tried to suggest that those immense globes were really rubies. Ornately carved doors were set between the pillars. We were walking down a street lined with lunar residences.

  The passageway was nearly a mile in length. At last our fantastic procession debouched into a chamber of simply colossal proportions. Its floor seemed to be oval or circular, and its roof swept up into a huge dome. An azure glow, exactly duplicating the sky of a bright earthly day, came from the ceiling. There was a big artificial sun, too, which poured down its hot rays from the center of the dome. In ages past the floor of the chamber must have been a splendid park with green trees, lakes and streams, and fairy-like pavilions. The pavilions and dry beds of lakes still remained, and the trees, too, but the latter were crumbling dead mummies devoid of life.

  The army of the Moon Men, with us in its midst, entered the park and proceeded along the white highways to its center. Here was the dry bottom of a pond. Beside the pond two big pipes rose upward. Each was fitted with a valve.

  Breaking ranks the Lunarians hurried toward the valves and scrambled over them. In a moment a geyser of sparkling water shot ceiling-ward from one of the pipes and began to flood the lake bed. What was coming out of the second pipe I could not at first guess, but when I heard a deep-toned roar which rapidly increased in volume, I knew. The Lunar city was being flooded with air. I looked at the aneroid barometer strapped about my wrist. The pressure was mounting rapidly.