The moon era
In an instant, I was being dragged through the cruel yellow spikes.
There was a sharp, dry, crackling sound, as they broke beneath my
weight. A thousand sharp, poisoned bayonets scratched at me, stabbed,
cut.
* * * * *
Intolerable agony racked me. I screamed. The razor-sharp spikes were
tipped with poison, so that the slightest scratch burned like liquid
flame. And many of the stabbing points went deep.
It seems that I struck near the edge of the thicket. For a moment I
hung there in the thorns. Then, as a harder puff of wind struck it,
the balloon leaped into the air, dragging me free. I swung up like a
pendulum. And down again, beyond the thorny scrub--over a strip of bare
sand beside the thicket.
Bleeding rapidly from my cuts, and suffering unendurable pain from the
poison in my wounds, I realized that I could not long remain conscious.
Moving in a haze of agony, I seized the red cable with one hand, put
the muzzle of the automatic against it, pulled the trigger. The report
was crashing, stunning. My right hand, holding the gun, was flung back
by the recoil--I should have lost the weapon had it not been glued to
my fingers. The cable was jerked with terrific force, almost breaking
my left hand, with which I held it.
And it parted! I plunged downward, sprawled on the sand.
For a few minutes I remained conscious as I lay there on the hard, cold
sand--the first soil, I recall thinking vaguely in my agony, that I had
seen not covered with vegetation.
The clothing had been half stripped from my tortured body by the
thorns. I was bleeding freely from several deeper cuts--I remember how
dark the blood was, sinking into the white sand.
All my body throbbed with insufferable pain, from the poison in my
wounds. As if I had been plunged into a sea of flame. Only my face had
been spared.
Weakly, dizzy with pain, I tried to stagger to my feet. But a coil
of the red web still clung about my legs. It tripped me, and I fell
forward again, upon the white sand.
Fell into bitter despair. Into blind, hopeless rage at my inane lack of
caution in leaving the machine. At my foolhardiness in venturing into
the edge of the jungle. Fell into gentle oblivion....
A curious sound drew me back into wakefulness. A thin, high-pitched
piping, pleasantly melodious. The musical notes beat insistently upon
my brain, evidently originating quite near me.
On first awakening, I was aware of no bodily sensation. My mind was
peculiarly dull and slow. I was unable to recall where I was. My first
impression was that I was lying in bed in my old rooming place at
Midland and that my alarm clock was ringing. But soon I realized that
the liquid piping notes that had disturbed me came from no alarm.
I forced open heavy eyes. What startling nightmare was this? A tangle
of green creepers, incredibly profuse. A wall of yellow thorns. A
scarlet mountain beyond. And purple balloons floating in a rich blue
sky.
I tried to sit up. My body burst into screaming agony when I moved.
And I sank back. My skin was stiff with dry blood. The deeper wounds
were aching. And the poison from the thorns seemed to have stiffened my
muscles, so that the slightest motion brought exquisite pain.
The melodious pipings had been abruptly silenced at my movement. But
now they rose again. Behind me. I tried to turn my head.
Recollection was returning swiftly. My uncle's telegram. The flight
through space and time. My expedition to the jungle's edge, and its
horrible sequel. I still lay where I had fallen, on the bare sand below
the spiky scrub.
I groaned despite myself, with the pain of my stiff body. The thin
musical notes stopped again. And the thing that had voiced them glided
around before me, so that I could see it.
A strange and wonderful being.
Its body was slender, flexible as an eel. Perhaps five feet long, it
was little thicker than my upper arm. Soft, short golden down or fur
covered it. Part of it was coiled on the sand; its head was lifted two
or three feet.
A small head, not much larger than my fist. A tiny mouth, with curved
lips full and red as a woman's. And large eyes, dark and intelligent.
They were deeply violet, almost luminous. Somehow they looked human,
perhaps only because they mirrored the human qualities of curiosity and
pity.
Aside from red mouth and dark eyes, the head had no human features.
Golden down covered it. On the crown was a plume or crest of brilliant
blue. But strange as it was, it possessed a certain beauty. A beauty of
exquisite proportion, of smooth curves.
Curious wing-like appendages or mantles grew from the sides of the
sleek, golden body, just below the head. Now they were stiffened,
extended as if for flight. They were very white, of thin soft membrane.
Their snowy surfaces were finely veined with scarlet.
Other than these white, membranous mantles, the creature had no limbs.
Slim, long, pliant body, covered with golden fur. Small, delicate head,
with red mouth and warm dark eyes, crested with blue. And delicate
wings thrust out from its sides.
I stared at it.
Even at first sight, I did not fear it, though I was helpless. It
seemed to have a magnetic power that filled me with quiet confidence,
assured me that it meant only good.
The lips pursed themselves. And the thin, musical piping sound came
from them again. Was the thing speaking to me? I uttered the first
phrases that entered my mind, "Hello. Who are we, anyhow?"
CHAPTER V
The Mother
The thing glided toward me swiftly, its smooth round golden body
leaving a little twisting track in the white sand. It lowered its head
a little. And it laid one of the white mantles across my forehead.
The strange red-veined membrane was soft, yet there was an odd firmness
in its pressure against my skin. A vital warmth seemed to come from
it--it was vibrant with energy, with life.
The pipings came again. And they seemed to stir vague response in my
mind, to call dim thoughts into being. As the same sounds were repeated
again and again, definite questions formed in my mind.
"What are you? How did you come here?"
Through some strange telepathy induced by the pressure of the mantle
upon my head, I was grasping the thought in the piping words.
It was a little time before I was sufficiently recovered from my
astonishment to speak. Then I replied slowly, phrasing my expressions
carefully, and uttering them as distinctly as I could.
"I am a native of Earth. Of the great white globe you can see in the
sky. I came here on a machine which moves through space and time. I
left it, and was caught and jerked up into the air by one of those
purple, floating things. I broke the web, and fell here. My body was so
torn by the thorns that I cannot move."
The thing piped again. A single quavering note. It was repeated until
its meaning formed in my mind.
"I understand."
"Who are you?" I ventured.
I got the meaning of the reply, as it was being piped for the third
time. "I am the Mother. The Eternal Ones, who destroyed my people,
pursue me. To escape them, I am going to the sea."
And the thin, musical tones came again. This time I understood them
more easily.
"Your body seems slow to heal its hurts. Your mental force is feeble.
May I aid you?"
"Of course," I said. "Anything you can do--"
"Lie still. Trust me. Do not resist. You must sleep." When the meaning
of the notes came to me, I relaxed upon the sand, closed my eyes.
I could feel the warm, vibrant pressure of the mantle on my forehead.
Vital, throbbing force seemed pulsing into me through it. I felt
no fear, despite the strangeness of my situation. A living wave of
confidence came over me. Serene trust in the power of this being. I
felt a command to sleep. I did not resist it; a strong tide of vital
energy swept me into oblivion.
It seemed but an instant later, though it must have been many hours,
when an insistent voice called me back from sleep.
Vitality filled me. Even before I opened my eyes, I was conscious of
a new and abounding physical vigor, of perfect health; I was bubbling
with energy and high spirits. And I knew, by the complete absence of
bodily pain, that my wounds were completely healed.
I opened my lids, saw the amazing creature that had called itself the
Mother. Its smooth golden body coiled beside me on the sand. Its large,
clear eyes watching me intently, with kind sympathy.
Abruptly I sat up. My limbs were stiff no longer. My body was still
caked with dried blood, clothed in my tattered garments; the sticky
scarlet coils of the web were still around me. But my ragged wounds
were closed. Only white scars showed where they had been.
"Why, I'm well!" I told the Mother, thankfully. "How'd you do it?"
The strange being piped melodiously, and I grasped the meaning almost
at once. "My vital force is stronger than your own. I merely lent you
energy."
I began tearing at the coils of the crimson web about me. Their viscid
covering seemed to have dried a little; otherwise I might never have
got them off. After a moment the Mother glided forward and helped.
It used the white, membranous appendages like hands. Though they
appeared quite frail, they seemed able to grasp the red cable
powerfully when they were folded about it.
In a few minutes I was on my feet.
Again the Mother piped at me. I failed to understand, though vague
images were summoned to my mind. I knelt down again on the sand, and
the being glided toward me, pressed the white, red-veined mantle once
more against my forehead. An amazing organ, that mantle, so delicately
beautiful. So strong of grasp when used as a hand. And useful, as I was
to learn, as an organ of some strange sense.
The meaning of the pipings came to me clearly now, with the warm,
vibrant mantle touching my head.
"Adventurer, tell me more of your world, and how you came here. My
people are old, and I have vital powers beyond your own. But we have
never been able to go beyond the atmosphere of our planet. Even the
Eternal Ones, with all their machines, have never been able to bridge
the gulf of space. And it has been thought that the primary planet from
which you say you came is yet too hot for the development of life."
* * * * *
For many hours we talked, I in my natural voice, the Mother in those
weirdly melodious pipings. At first the transference of thought by
the telepathy which the wonderful mantle made possible was slow and
awkward. I, especially, had trouble in receiving, and had many times to
ask the Mother to repeat a complex thought. But facility increased with
practice, and I at last was able to understand, quite readily, even
when the white membrane did not touch me.
The sun had been low when I woke. It set, and the dew fell upon us. We
talked on in the darkness. And the earth rose, illuminating the jungle
with argent glory. Still we talked, until it was day again. For a time
the air was quite cold. Wet with the abundant dew, I felt chilled, and
shivered.
But the Mother touched me again with the white membrane. Quick,
throbbing warmth seemed to flow from it into my body, and I felt cold
no longer.
I told much of the world that I had left, and of my own insignificant
life upon it. Told of the machine. Of the voyage across space, and back
through ons of time, to this young moon.
And the Mother told me of her life, and of her lost people.
She had been the leader of a community of beings that had lived on
the highlands, near the source of the great river that I had seen.
A community in some respects resembling those of ants or bees upon
the earth. It had contained thousands of neuter beings, imperfectly
developed females, workers. And herself, the only member capable of