The world below
that high void, and because I had a mind which assumed the smallness of
insects.
It drew back--hovered--flew forward at its utmost speed, with wing-beats
too swift to follow,--checked in its flight with an incredible
suddenness, as though it had struck an invisible obstacle,--and fell
headlong.
My mind followed it as it fell, and it was only as the earth rushed
upward to meet it that I was aware that it was of such a size that an
elephant might have travelled as a flea on its back. Though it fell
headlong, it did not turn over in the air, but appeared to be steadied
from the tail.
Though it was so huge, and fell from so great a height, it was not
destroyed by the impact. It was not even broken. It lay with wings
spread flatly over such a growth of glossy leaves as I had seen on my
first morning with the pink tongues licking upward between them.
There was no height of cliff at this point. Compared with the monster’s
bulk, the shore showed no great shelving. It lay with a long tail in the
water, and the end afloat on a calm sea.
But though it was unbroken, it did not appear uninjured. It had a
curiously flattened appearance, and though the tail moved at times, the
rest of the body appeared unable to do so.
Then the scene blurred, as though the narrator’s mind had failed to
picture its report, and cleared again to show it lying beneath a hail of
blue lightning. Only, the shafts of light did not flash and cease, but
remained visible, like blue whiplashes, striking and recoiling around
their disabled victim. I could not see from where they came.
Beneath this attack, the gauze-like wings shrivelled and disappeared.
The long tail lashed out, beating the water to tempest.
But when the lightnings struck the still-lifted wing-sheathes, or the
lustrous head, they slipped off harmlessly; and when some of them
attempted to penetrate beneath the sheathes, they were not repelled, but
appeared to be drawn in against their own wills, by a force which they
resisted vainly, though some made a better struggle than others, and
disappeared very slowly.
Then I was aware of another of these monstrous insects flying low over
the water. As it neared the conflict, its head drew back into a
neck-like collar, which shone with a metallic lustre, similar to that of
the wing-sheathes. The front pair of sheathes lifted and adjusted their
positions, till they formed a vertical shield to the advancing monster.
The blue lightnings, under no visible controls, grouped and advanced
through the air to meet their new adversary.
Swiftly as an eyelid winks, a glow of petunia-red appeared and faded on
the polished sheathes.
Instantly, the lightnings separated, and drew back. They reminded me,
grotesquely enough, of a pack of dogs that had brought a beast to bay
which they would not leave, but lacked the strength to pull down.
Then, almost too swiftly for sight to follow, they struck,--all, I
thought, at one spot beneath the withdrawn head. As they did so, the
petunia light glowed again, and in the same instant they recoiled,
writhing curiously, as though sentient and damaged.
After that, they disappeared entirely.
Freed from the annoyance of these attacks, the fallen monster lay quiet.
The convulsions of its tail ceased.
The rescuer, still almost upon the surface of the water, turned its head
seaward, and twined its tail around that of its companion.
So it remained for some time, with rapidly-beating wings, stationary
above the water. While it did so, its bulk appeared to increase, while
that of the fallen appeared to lessen, so that it lay flatter than
before, and its tail became flabby.
When they parted, the one lay inert, with no further sign of life, while
the other rose heavily, as though sated by a full meal.
I was stopped from further observation by the impatience of my
companion’s mind.
“Shall we not seek the things that more nearly concern us?” she
suggested.
I agreed, but added, “I am puzzled by what I have seen, and it would
take you little time to explain it, if you are able to do so. Are these
great bulks alive? Or do they contain smaller living creatures that
control them, as did an airship in the world I left?”
She answered, “Why not both? And if both, why should you suppose that
the smaller will control the greater?” And when she saw that her thought
confused my mind for a moment, she went on, “You know that I have a body
which is entirely mine, and which is clear of any alien life; and I know
that you have a body over which you have little influence, except in
some of its muscular activities, because a countless number of separate
lives are within you, and do not accept your authority. You have shown
me that you do not control the actions of a single corpuscle of your
blood, and were you able, you have not the requisite knowledge to enable
you to do so intelligently.
“But why should there not be such separate smaller life existing either
in subordination, or in control, of a larger physical body, and yet able
to sever connection without loss of vitality, as the dominant will may
direct?”
“The idea you give me,” I answered, “is as that of a living ship, which
is yet controlled by the crew it carries. Are the Antipodeans really of
this kind?”
“I cannot tell you that,” she replied, “I only showed you that you were
assuming more than is indicated by what we have seen. I can only tell
you that they dominate the most part of the world, and that their dead
bodies are so frequently lying on the shores of the lands they inhabit
as to suggest that they must be very short-lived. But they are too
antipathetic for us to land on those shores, or have any dealings with
them.”
CHAPTER XII
THE FATE OF TEMPLETON
Whatever interest might lie in the spectacle of Titanic conflict which
we had witnessed, it was of little direct assistance to our present
purpose. It showed that the Dwellers might be sufficiently occupied by
more important matters to be unlikely to give much attention to our
escape or capture, but we had known that already. If the moment were
propitious, there were the greater reason for acting swiftly, and when
we found that there was nothing further to be gained from the one volume
which we had been able to interrogate, we resolved to cut the knot of
our difficulty by a systematic inquiry, from corridor to corridor, for
any record of the Vivisection Department, which had been mentioned as
dealing with one, at least, of those for whom I was searching.
Even then, our inquiry might have been long and difficult, had we not
obtained an immediate response from an index, which was almost beside
us, at the entrance to the library, from which point we had resolved to
commence our inquiry.
It replied, “The 92nd on the 14th row, in the Hall of Dead Books,
contains a plan of the Level of the Inquirers, which includes the Bureau
of Prehistoric Zoology, and the Places of Vivisection. The plan is that
of the 28th of the Lower Levels, below the Division. The 73rd book on
the 2nd tier on the left-hand side of the 83rd corridor, contains an
account of all vivisections during the last five moons.”
We went at once to the latter book, as it was the nearer, and it was
here that we gained the first sight,--at least in picture,--of one of
those whose absence had brought me on this strange adventure.
After we had inquired through much detail, sometimes fascinating in its
enigmatic suggestions, sometimes repellent in its exhibitions of what
appeared to me to be a very callous brutality, we were shown a table, by
the side of which, as I thought at the first glance, a naked man stood
with a pair of pincers in his right hand, in which something of the size
of a large rat was squirming.
There was a row of five large jars upon the table before him, into the
first of which he plunged the object of his attention, holding it
immersed for about half-a-minute, and withdrawing it in a half-drowned
condition.
I saw it clearly as it came out, and recognised the red hair of
Templeton with a shock of horror.
Instantly, the proportions of the room were changed by my knowledge of
the identity of the victim. I recognised in the naked man the giant form
of a Dweller, and became aware of the huge size of the row of jars
before him.
I watched Templeton, now hanging limply in the pincers, plunged into a
second, third, and fourth of these jars, being raised to the level of
the operator’s eyes, and inspected carefully after each immersion. But
the fourth inspection was more prolonged than the others, and after
making it the Dweller turned to another table, and laid his victim,
still in the grip of the pincers, upon a yellow disc that was let into
its surface. As the limp body touched the metal it was galvanised into
an activity that kicked and writhed with a furious impotence. Lifted
again, it was plunged into a globe of light of a white intensity,
against which its body showed transparent, every organ, every internal
movement in lung, and artery, and intestine, being clearly indicated.
It appeared that this test had confirmed the unfavourable indications of
the fourth immersion, for the body was now withdrawn from the light, and
thrown carelessly into a mesh-sided tray upon the floor, in which a
number of non-human creatures of unfamiliar kinds were already heaped
and squirming. The Dweller pressed a stud with his foot, and the tray
slid from the room. I did not follow it further.
I felt almost physically sick with repulsion from the brutality which I
had witnessed, as I waited while my companion’s mind continued to
receive the picture.
After a short time, she broke connection also and addressed herself to
me.
“We now know,” she thought, “the fate of at least one of your
companions, and it must be a cause of satisfaction to you that you have
pursued your inquiries successfully, and that you are relieved of
further trouble by the fact that he had a body which was not worth
preservation.”
“I felt sure that they were about to destroy him,” I answered, “and
could not endure to look longer. How did they do it?”
She showed me an instant’s picture of the scene as her mind had followed
it. I saw his still-living body in the jaws of half-a-dozen pig-like
animals to whom it had been thrown for their fattening. My companion
recognised the repulsion that disturbed my mind with a puzzled wonder,
and a sympathetic curiosity.
“I wish,” she thought, “that I could understand the feeling which moves
you.”
“I wish,” I answered, “that I could understand how you can reject all
violence as evil, and yet condone such actions.”
“I condone nothing,” she replied, with a friendly coolness which tended
to reduce the temperature of my own thoughts. “I am not concerned to
defend or condemn. I am merely curious of your own repulsion. Your
fellow-primitive introduced a body which is diseased or defective. It is
so seriously so that the Dwellers, after a patient examination, do not
think it either fit to continue, or to be used for their own food, and
they therefore use it for the fattening of healthier creatures. What
better could they do? If you identify yourself with him, should you not
be grateful for the trouble to which they went?”
I paused a moment, knowing that the query required something better than
a random answer, and the pause lengthened to silence.
Feeling might still remain, but judgment answered too plainly.
I had forgotten once again that we were alien and inferior creatures, of
an uninvited coming. Did not my own race feed one living animal to
another in their zoological reservations? Would they have taken the
preliminary trouble to examine the body of such a creature? When they