Then and Now : A Collection of SF, Page 3

  With the coming of the atmosphere, a strange thing happened to the Lunarians. The lavender flame, which had enveloped each of them, disappeared. I concluded, that in the absence of oxygen, this mantle of light must in some way supply them with the life-giving vapor.

  FOR several hours we wandered about the gardens with the thronging Lunarians. Our escort led us a short distance to a small, ornately carved building of some bright green material. Its doors swung open to receive us as if some invisible doorman tended them, and when the professor and I had passed inside they swung gently to. The short hairs on the back of my neck showed a decided tendency to stand on end.

  We looked at those two folding portals. They were of silvery metal, ornately tooled. No latch or knob was visible, and when I pushed against them they showed every indication of being locked. But maybe this was only because we did not understand their mechanism.

  A little exploring told us that we were quartered in the most gloriously beautiful suite of rooms we could wish for. There was a big living room, the walls of which were veiled with dark purple hangings. There was a bedroom with two odd beds in it. Each was suspended from the ceiling by four heavy chains of some metal which may have been silver. A door led from this room into an alcove, in the floor of which there was an oval basin—obviously a bath. Besides, there was a room with many odd instruments and devices in it.

  The pressure of the air about us was a trifle less than half normal earthly pressure, and so we decided to try discarding our heavy space armor. The atmosphere of the moon was evidently highly oxygenated, and so we found it perfectly breathable.

  Freed from our cumbersome attire, we proceeded to make ourselves comfortable. We lighted cigarettes and sat down on the soft divans in the living room. I had leaned back languidly, and had just begun to make myself perfectly at home when I heard a whirring sound, and then the hangings beside one of the crystal-glazed windows parted. A silvery sphere with several tentacular arms floated into our presence. A hoarse ejaculation of surprise escaped the professor’s lips. In an unhurried, methodical fashion the globe, unsupported by any visible means, glided into the room. Several moments later we heard a gushing of water. During the next few minutes we both enjoyed a hot, perfumed bath prepared and supervised by our mechanical servant. The thing dried us by means of a blast of warm air blown from a sort of register in the wall.

  When we returned from our ablutions, a tempting meal had been set out for us on the floor of the living room. There were two metal platters, each of which bore a lump of something, which looked and tasted like highly seasoned meat. We found it very palatable. No forks were supplied, but fingers served very well in a pinch. We weren’t particular. Besides, there was a bowl of delicious fruit of several different kinds. And a flagon of water, which had a sharp, invigorating taste. Evidently some stimulating substance had been dissolved in it.

  For a time after the meal we talked, trying to straighten out the strange events of the past few hours, but nothing came of it.

  “I guess we had better wait and see, Jerry. Frankly I am bewildered,” said Paxton.

  Presently we went into the bedroom, undressed and wrapped ourselves in silky blankets which our mechanical servant had prepared for us. I, for one, was quickly asleep.

  A bizarre little melody produced by a system of gongs, concealed somewhere in the wall, aroused us. We enjoyed a delicious meal of fruits brought by the automaton, and then visitors arrived—two Lunarians who had evidently been given the task of entertaining and instructing us. They led us out into the park and down a long, curving highway.

  The lunar city again throbbed with life. Vast machines, invisible to us, were filling the air with whirring. Gaudily marked inhabitants were moving about industriously, evidently hurrying to attend to some business.

  Following a throng of Moon Men, we entered a circular building, which appeared to be a depot of some kind. Scores of cone-shaped cars were moving slowly along grooved tracks set in the floor. Guided by our escorts, we climbed into one of these and took our places in seats along the wall. Except for the driver, who stood before the control board in the nose of the car, and the two Lunarians, who served as our guides, or jailers, we were alone.

  One of our escorts made a sign to the pilot by waving a tentacle, and then we began to gain momentum rapidly. Through the windows we could see the black opening of a tunnel yawning to receive us. The car shot into it. An illumination globe over our heads gave us light. We were pressed back in our seats by the terrific acceleration. The air in the tunnel, torn by the awful speed of our vehicle, first whistled and then shrieked like a tortured devil. But it lasted for only a few seconds. We glided out into a depot, which may have been many miles from the one we had just left.

  Our guides ushered us through an arched doorway out into the open. We were in another immense cavern, but it was not so richly ornamented as the one we had just quitted. It had been built for utility rather than for beauty. The arching roof was of bare concrete, and it was studded with numerous small illumination globes, instead of being lighted by a single large one.

  The bright light glinted up on rows of colossal, silvery forms, which stood in cradles of web-like metal scaffolding. Hundreds of automatons, directed by a few Lunarians, were swarming over them. Just what they were doing, I was, at the moment, quite unable to tell.

  Steering us by gently tapping us on our shoulders with their tentacles, our escorts guided us down an aisle between two rows of gleaming shapes. We craned our necks upward. Never have I felt so tiny in my life as I did that day, when I stood beneath those towering masses of metal. We paused beside one of them. It was formed something like a boat—its length must have been a thousand feet and its height nearly a hundred.

  “Those things are obviously craft of some kind,” said Paxton. “But what do you suppose can be their purpose?”

  I was looking at the short cylinders which protruded at regular intervals along the side of the hull and far above our heads. They suggested something sinister.

  “It seems as though there is a big war going on somewhere,” I said, “and may the Fates help the foe that faces this fleet! There must be at least a thousand ships in this hangar.”

  A big cylindrical drum was being rolled by a spider-legged automaton up alongside the vessel. Presently the mechanical creature halted and turned the drum up on end without any apparent effort. Even on the moon it must have weighed many thousands of pounds. Using a wrench-like claw, which was a normal part of his anatomy, he unscrewed the cap at the cylinder’s top and attached to the opening a flexible pipe, which dangled over the side of the vessel. A throbbing sound, like that of a pump in operation, set in.

  “Fueling!” said the professor excitedly. “Getting ready for a trip of some kind!”

  Other robots were bringing more drums.

  We followed our guides down toward the bow of the vessel until we came to a door in the huge hull. A gangplank led up to it. Signs were made which clearly indicated that we were to climb the gangplank. The interior of the ship was brilliantly lighted. The metal floor was lined with rows of tall tanks, connected with one another by means of cables in much the same way that a group of electric dry-cells are joined.

  The Lunarians showed us what must have been the engines of the vessel—bewildering mazes of pipes, cables, rods, and huge masses of framework—the very incarnation, it seemed to me, of brutal, insensate power.

  WE wandered over the entire craft, inspecting this, that, and everything. Few things we understood, but everywhere we found evidences of a science infinitely in advance of our own.

  About us were the silently working automatons, polishing, oiling, inspecting. Inhumanly, they never glanced up to look at us, and their masters, living, but equally inhuman, paid absolutely no attention to us.

  It was with a feeling of relief that I finally entered a car in the depot, and hurtled away from that gigantic, buried cavern, filled with its slumbering giants.

  Our guardians left us
at the door of the building in which we had been quartered. When we had entered our living room we found a Moon Man seated on a divan, awaiting us. His wavering stalk-like eyes turned about to glance in our direction. Then a dozen or so of his tentacles grasped small levers on the key-board of a rectangular mechanism, which stood on a low stand before him. He manipulated several of the levers, and in unison with his movements a familiar group of English words came to our ears:

  “Hello, fellows! Fine day, isn’t it?”

  The voice had a flat, mechanical quality devoid of all emotion; nevertheless, we were very pleasantly surprised. Perhaps I should say that we were very pleasantly dumbfounded, for that was truly the case.

  When I had regained the use of my tongue, I replied: “Greetings, Mr. Lunarian, you look like an agent. What have you for sale—airplanes, or is it radio-vision instruments?”

  But the Moon Man had evidently reached the limit of his understanding of earthly humor, or perhaps he was pressed for time.

  “I am Number 333,” he said. “The Council has sent me to clear up certain things concerning our race, which have evidently been puzzling you very much. Number 503 and Number 8974 have been studying your minds carefully since the Awakening. Your mental vibrations have been recorded by means of a device which is concealed in the ceiling of this room. The information thus obtained has been very interesting; especially were we interested by your peculiar sound language. Several of us, including myself, have mastered it, but since we have no natural organs with which to produce such sounds it was necessary for me to invent the machine which I am now operating. Since it was hastily designed and constructed, it naturally has its faults; but if you will overlook these faults I am sure that it can do much toward clearing up the mysteries which have been troubling you.

  “The history of my people begins countless ages before there were any living things on earth. Because of its much smaller size, and consequent greater radiating surface in proportion to its bulk, the moon cooled down from a molten state long before your planet. There was plentiful sunlight, atmosphere, and water. Conditions were ideal for life, and so nature, with its inevitable and inexplicable alchemy, proceeded to produce life. It began in the tepid seas, and then gradually spread over the adjoining plains, which became vast stretches of woodland, teeming with various species of animals.

  “These creatures were continually in competition with one another. Realizing that the time was short, nature quickly selected one, which, because of its intelligence and hardiness, seemed best fitted to survive.

  “These ancestors of mine were quite similar to me in appearance; they had the same tentacles, and the same multi-colored mantles, and, next to their intelligence, the most important characteristic—a sort of hard shell, in which they could seal themselves up during the nights, which were already very cold.

  “By the time the ancient Lunarians had discovered the use of fire, the moon must have begun to show signs of age. The numerous volcanoes which had formerly replenished the constantly leaking atmosphere by a steady flow of carbonic acid gas, were dying out one by one. In consequence, the air became rapidly rarer. The ability of a planet to retain its gaseous envelope depends on its gravitational force. Lunar gravity is too weak to prevent the air from floating off into space in a short time.

  “Like oxygen and nitrogen, water vapor also leaked away, and the oceans began to shrink. Thirsty deserts began to creep down into the lowlands.

  “Meanwhile, the terrific tidal drag of the earth was stopping the rotation of Luna on its axis. The drying ocean beds, under the glaring sun, which lingered longer and longer in the heavens, became during the day veritable furnaces of heat. The long nights were terrifically cold.

  “My ancestors inhabited a section of territory on the side of the moon now invisible from the earth. It was a wild country, cut up by high rocky ridges and deep valleys. Everywhere were those huge, sleepy lava-pits which seldom erupted, but which always poured forth clouds of smoke and vapor. All about lay impassable deserts and high mountain ranges beyond which no Moon Man had ever dared to venture.

  “The earliest knowledge of mechanics and science, which the early Lunarians gained, was acquired through the practice of irrigation. Water from the melting snows on the mountain summits was collected in reservoirs, and pumped into ditches which conveyed it to the growing plants.

  “The danger of over-population was offset by almost constant warfare between the various tribes. Walled cities were built in strategic positions. Protected by the ramparts of those cities, the more intelligent of our race were given sufficient leisure to devote themselves to science and art. Metals came into extensive use, and mechanics developed. The crystal-clear nights gave splendid opportunities to the astronomer. The stars were mapped and studied and the relationship of our planet to the earth, still a glowing mass of lava, was determined.

  “All went fairly well until a short time after the moon had ceased to rotate on its axis relative to its primary. In rapid succession the volcanoes all about us became extinct. The tidal pull of the earth must have been shifting the molten core of the moon away from these vents. The atmosphere, which had hung like a vast cloud over our homeland, began to rarefy. The water, relieved of much of the pressure of the air, quickly evaporated. Crops became inadequate, and the desert took possession of much of the arable land.

  “For a hundred years or so the Moon Men led a semi-nomadic existence. The population, which had numbered about four hundred thousand souls, dwindled rapidly.

  “Driven by sheer desperation, the survivors of the various tribes banded together and prepared to migrate. They packed up their scanty food supply, a few masterpieces of art and literature, and some scientific instruments. Then they started out into the untracked desert, which lay to the southwest.

  “The ancient historians have vividly portrayed the events of the Great Migration. There were a few power-driven automatons in the van, but, owing to the scarcity of oil fuel, the inhabitants carried most of their supplies on their backs, or slung in litter-like contrivances.

  “Across blazing, sun-lit plains that parched the skin, up high mountain slopes and down into deep valleys, the questing caravan moved, and always along the way it left the carcasses of its dead. Some tumbled to destruction from the summits of jagged ridges, and thousands died of hunger and thirst. In the lowlands, which had been sea bottoms, the air was thin but breathable, but on the higher plateaus it was frequently so rarefied that the gasping lungs of many of the weaker individuals gave up the fight, and the unfortunate creatures collapsed in their tracks. Not daring to help their fallen comrades, the others pressed on.

  “When night came the weary wanderers incased themselves in their cold-resisting shells and burrowed into the deep sand.

  “Sometimes, so the historians say, just at dusk, they would see queer purple and red sheets of flame flashing over the plains—obviously phenomena of the rarefied air similar to your northern lights. Only they were close to the ground.

  “When the sun rose again, a single Moon Man, piloting a crude, bat-like flying machine, which had recently been invented, would swoop upward on flapping wings and take a look at the surrounding country in search of the best course for the caravan to follow. During the day the flier made frequent trips aloft. Throughout their wanderings my ancestors took this ornithopter with them, slung in a sort of cradle, which required a hundred pilgrims to carry. It proved to be of inestimable help, and probably was the means of saving the race from extinction. When the scanty supply of oil for its motor had been used up, they supplied it with fuel by frying down the bodies of their dead in an improvised sun- furnace.

  "AT length, after the caravan had dwindled to twenty-five thousand, the Lunarians climbed the range of mountains and came out on an area of typical lunar country, with scattered volcanoes and long chalky rills. Those rills were the white rays of Tycho, still many miles away.

  “The Lunarians followed one of the rays, and as they progressed they became more a
nd more hopeful. The atmosphere was growing rapidly denser. At comparatively frequent intervals they came upon clusters of cactus-like plants, which had been very rare elsewhere. These plants held stores of water in the cavities of their pulpy leaves, and besides, in an emergency, they could be eaten. My ancestors ate them, just as in a famine-ridden country, starving men of your own earth have often eaten grass.

  “The arrival of the pilgrims at the brink of the Promised Land has been written about and painted countless times during the golden age of our history. All through the long, hot afternoon, the wanderers had been struggling up the eastern slopes of Tycho; but in spite of their weariness their hearts were singing. As least they were not gasping for breath, and besides, they were in the pleasant shade of the mountains. Beyond the rampart they felt certain was a place where with diligent effort they could win a chance to live.

  “Just at sunset the first of the van reached the summit of the barrier, and then they saw what the pilot of the flying machine had seen hours before. Deep down in the immense depression, where the shadows were deepening, was a glassy little lake that reflected the blue sky. Beside it was a jungle of vegetation. A faint breeze blew over the rim of the crater. Somewhere down there there were vents which were pouring forth volumes of air, steadily replenishing the dense cloud of life-giving vapor which hung over the surrounding territory.

  “The lunar night was half gone before the remaining ten thousand wanderers could descend, with the aid of metal cables, to the floor of Tycho. Their eagerness prevented them from waiting until dawn. The blanket of air retained the sun’s heat sufficiently so that there was no danger of anyone freezing to death—a thing which most certainly would have happened on the almost airless plains.

  “Everyone had a drink of the water of the lake, and then the contented pilgrims buried themselves in the sand and slept. When the next day came, they began to lay out the plans for their new city.