Brood of the Dark Moon
entirely assumed. "Lead on!" he said. "You are in command. The army is
ready to follow."
CHAPTER IX
_A Premonition_
Fire Valley had been the home of the ape-men. On that earlier journey
Walt and Chet had seen them, had fought with the tribe, and had lived
for a time in their caves that made dark shadows high on the rock wall.
And they knew that the wood the ape-men used for their spears was well
suited for bows.
Back in the caves they found discarded spears and some wood that had
been gathered for shafts. Tough, springy, flexible, it was a simple
matter for the men to convert these into serviceable weapons. Sinews
that the ape-men had torn from great beasts made the bowstrings, and
there were other slim shafts that they notched, then sharpened in the
fire.
Yet, to Chet as he worked, came an overwhelming feeling of despondency.
To be fashioning crude weapons like these--preparing to defend
themselves as best they could from the dangers of this new, raw world!
No, it could not be true.... And he knew while he protested that it was
all in vain.
He asked himself a score of times if his impulsive, desperate act had
not been a horrible mistake. And he found the same answer always: it was
all he could have done. Had he attacked Schwartzmann he would have been
killed--and Walt, too! Schwartzmann would have had Diane. Only some such
stupefying shock as the effect of the shattered control could have
checked Schwartzmann. No, there had been no alternative. And the thing
was done. Finally, irrevocably done!
* * * * *
Chet walked to the cave-mouth to stare down at the ship below him in the
valley. From the fumerole's throat came a steady, rolling cloud of
shimmering green; the ship was immersed in it. The voice of Herr Kreiss
spoke to him; the scientist, too, had come forward for another look.
"If it were at the bottom of the sea," he said, "it would be no more
inaccessible. It is, in very fact, at the bottom of a sea--a sea of gas.
We could penetrate an aqueous medium more easily."
"And," Chet pondered slowly, "if only I could have returned.... With
time--and metal bars--and tools that I could improvise--I might...."
His voice trailed off. What use now to speculate on what he might have
done. The scientist concluded his thought:
"You might have reconstructed the control--yes, I, too, had thought of
that. But now, the gas! No--we must put that out of our minds, unless we
would become insane."
Chet turned back into the black and odorous cave. He saw Harkness who
was flexing a bow he was making for Diane; he was showing her how to
grip it and let the arrow run free.
"Towahg was the last one I instructed," Walt was saying; and Chet knew
from the deep lines in his face that his attempt at casual talk was for
Diane's benefit; "I wonder how long Towahg remembered. He was a grateful
little animal."
"Towahg?" queried Kreiss. "Who is Towahg?"
"Ape-man," Harkness told him. "Friendly little rascal; he helped us out
when we were here before. He saved Diane's life, no question about that.
I showed him the use of the bow; jumped him ahead a hundred generations
in the art of self-defense."
"And offense!" was Kreiss' comment. "There are certain drawbacks to
arming a potential enemy."
"Oh, Towahg is all right," Harkness reassured the scientist, "although
he may have taught the trick to others of the tribe who are not so
friendly."
"Where are they? In what direction do they live?" Kreiss continued.
"Want to make a social call?" Chet inquired. "You needn't mind those
little formalities up here, Doctor."
* * * * *
But in the mental makeup of Herr Doktor Kreiss had been included no
trace of humor; he took Chet's remark at face value. And he answered in
words that echoed Chet's real thoughts and that took the smile from his
lips.
"But, no," said Herr Kreiss; "it is the contrary that I desire. Here we
are; here we stay for the rest of our lives. I would wish those years to
be undisturbed. I have no wish to quarrel with what primitive
inhabitants this globe may hold. There is much to study, to learn. I
shall pass the years so.
"And now," he questioned, "where is it that we go? Where shall be our
home?"
Chet, too, looked inquiringly at Harkness. "You saw more of this country
than I did," he reminded him; "what would you suggest?"
And, at sight of the serious, troubled eyes of Diane Delacouer, he
added:
"We want a site for a high-grade subdivision, you understand. Something
good, something exclusive, where we can keep out the less desirable
element. Dianeville must appeal to the people who rate socially."
At the puzzled look on the scientist's face, Chet caught Diane's glance
of unspoken amusement, and knew that his ruse had succeeded: he must not
let Diane get too serious. Harkness answered slowly:
"I saw a valley; I think I can find it again. When Towahg guided me back
to the ship, when we were here before, I saw the valley beyond the third
range of hills. We go up Fire Valley; follow the stream that comes in
from the side--"
"Water?" Chet questioned.
"Yes; I saw a lake."
"Cover? Trees? Not the man-eating ones?"
"Everything: open ground, hills, woods. It looked good to me then; it
will look a lot better now," said Walt enthusiastically.
"Walk faster," said Chet; "I'm stepping on your heels."
* * * * *
They reached the valley floor some distance above the fumerole and the
clouds of poison gas; and the march began. The attack of the flying
reptiles had taught them the danger of exposure in the open, and they
kept close to the trees that fringed the valley.
Once Chet left them and vanished among the trees, to return with the
body of an animal slung over one shoulder.
"Moon-pig!" he told the others. "Ask Doctor Kreiss if you want to know
its species and ancestry and such things. All I know is that it has got
hams, and I am going to roast a slice or so before we start."
"Bow and arrow?" asked Harkness.
Chet nodded. "I'm a dead shot," he admitted, "up to a range of ten feet.
This thing with the funny face stood still for me, so it looks as if we
won't starve."
The sun had swung rapidly into the sky; it was now overhead. One half of
their first short day was gone. And Chet's suggestions of food met with
approval.
"I can't quite get used to it," Diane admitted to the rest; "to think
that for us time has turned back. We have been dropped into a new and
savage world, and we must do as the savages of our world did thousands
of years ago. Now!--in nineteen seventy-three!"
Chet removed a slab of meat from the hot throat of a tiny fumerole.
"Nineteen seventy-three on Earth," he agreed, "but not here. This is
about nineteen thousand B.C."
* * * * *
He called to Kreiss who was digging into a thin stratum of rock. The
scientist had a splinter of flint in his hand, and he was gouging at a
red outcropping layer.
"Old John Q. Neanderthal, himself!" said Chet. "What have you found,
silver or gold? Whatever it is, you're forgetting to eat; better come
along." But Doctor Kreiss had turned geologist, it was plain.
"Cinnabar," he said; "an ore of hydrargyrum!" His tone was excited, but
Chet refused to have his mind turned from practical things.
"Is it good to eat?" he demanded.
"_Nein, nein!_" Kreiss protested. "It is what you call
mercury--quicksilver!"
"Ladies and gentlemen," said Chet dryly, "I see where this man Kreiss is
to be a big help. He has discovered the site for the thermometer
factory. He will be organizing a Chamber of Commerce next."
He left out a portion of the cooked meat for Kreiss' later attention,
and he and Harkness rolled a supply into leaf-wrapped packages and
stowed them in the pockets of their coats before they started on. Again
the little procession took up the march with Harkness leading.
"Leave as little trail as possible," Harkness ordered. "We don't want to
shout to Schwartzmann where we have gone."
They left the Valley of the Fires to follow the stream-bed in another
hollow between great hills. Chet found himself looking back at the
familiar flares with regret. Here was the only place on this new world
which was not utterly strange to his eyes. He continued to glance behind
him, long after the smoky fires were lost to sight; but he would not
admit even to himself that it was for another reason.
Nineteen seventy-three!--and he was a man of the modern civilization.
Yet deep within him there stirred ancient instincts--racial memories,
perhaps. And, as he splashed through the little stream and bent to make
his way through strange-leafed vines and leprous-spotted trees, a
warning voice spoke inaudibly within his own mind--spoke as it might
have whispered to some ancestor scores of centuries dead.
"You are followed!" it told him. "Listen!--there is one who follows on
the trail!"
CHAPTER X
_A Mysterious Rescuer_
Their way led through tangled growths of trees and vines that were like
unreal things of a dream. Unreal they were, too, in their strange degree
of livingness, for there were snaky tendrils that drew back as if in
fear at their approach and stalks that folded great, thorny leaves
protectingly about pulpy centers at the first touch of a hand. The world
of vegetation seemed strangely sentient and aware of their approach.
Only the leprous-white trees remained motionless; their red-veined
trunks towered high in air, and the sun of late afternoon shot
slantingly through a leafy roof overhead.
Twice Chet let the others go on ahead while he slipped silently into
some rocky concealment and watched with staring, anxious eyes back along
their trail. But the little stream's gurgling whisper was the only
voice, and in all the weird jungle there was no movement but for the
unfolding of the vegetation where they had passed.
"Nerves!" he reproached himself. "You're getting jumpy, and that won't
do." But once more he let the others climb on while he stepped quickly
behind a projecting rock over which he could look.
Again there was silence; again the leaves unfolded their thorny
wrappings while vermiform tendrils crept across the ground or reached
tentatively into the air. And then, while the silence was unbroken,
while no evidence came through his feeble, human senses, something
approached.
Neither sight nor sound betrayed it--this something, that came
noiselessly after--but a tell-tale plant whipped its leaves into their
former wrapping; a vine drew its hanging clusters of flowers sharply
into the air. The unseeing watchers of the forest had sensed what was
unheard and unseen, and Chet knew that his own inner warning had been
true.
He waited to see this mysterious pursuer come into view; and after
waiting in vain he realized the folly of thinking himself concealed. He
glanced about him; every plant was drawn tightly upon itself. With
silent voices they were proclaiming his hiding place, warning this other
to wait, telling him that someone was hidden here.
Chet's face, despite his apprehension, drew into a whimsical, silent
grin. "No chance to ambush him, whoever he is or whatever it is," he
told himself. "But that works two ways: he can't jump us when we're
prepared; not in daylight, anyway."
And he asked himself a question he could not answer: "I wonder," he
whispered softly, "--I wonder what these plants will do at night!"
* * * * *
Almost they could see the swift descent of the sun. Each flashing glint
of light through the dense growth came from lower down toward the
invisible horizon. It shone at last where Chet cast anxious glances
about upon a mound of rocks.