Get Off My World Page 12

  Tal sprang up, shouting orders. In quicker time than it ever had before, the regiment broke camp—and retreated. They retreated back into the cave, where shadows cut down most of the blinding daylight glare. There they stopped, and reorganized themselves. It had been close to a panic.

  Paige had watched with amusement. He stood in the direct rays, letting the warm, pleasant sunshine tingle on his skin. He was pale from his confinement underground. The deep tan he once had was faded.

  Reena, too, had stayed with him.

  She stood tensely, watching Paige as though ready to bolt when he did. But again he saw in her eyes a queer growing wonder and joy, as though she were seeing a dream unfold exactly as some dim racial memory told her it would. Her eyes, bluish now in the sunlight, watered as the unaccustomed radiation bathed them. But blinking bravely, she was staring out at the wide sweep of rolling meadowland, lush and green and beautiful.

  “Evan,” she whispered. “It seems to go on and on, till my sight blurs. On and on…” She swayed suddenly, as though perched on some tremendous peak.

  Paige caught her. He held her for a moment and it was more than the sun that pumped heated blood through his veins. He started, then, peering closely at her.

  The white skin of her face, hands and lower legs, exposed to the sun, had turned a fiery red. With a cry, he pulled her back into the shadow of an upright stone block. A few more minutes and her unpigmented skin might have had a bad sunburn. As it was, she was as red as a lobster.

  Tal came running up. Glancing curiously at the girl, he clutched Paige’s arm, as if to prevent his escape.

  “I’d almost forgotten you,” he panted. “But I should have known you wouldn’t try to escape. Something has happened out there in your cavern. Your people are doomed. It is on fire.”

  “No,” Paige smiled in amusement at Tal’s statement. After thinking a moment, he went on. “My people have devised a great, bright lamp that is swung across the roof, much as the dimmer lamp was last night. My people find this light better to see by, and have become used to its effects on the skin. Your men can endure it, soon, by letting their skins become dark, like mine. But it must be done carefully, a few minutes at a time, over a period of days, otherwise you will have serious burns.”

  Tal shook his head dazedly. “This is a queer enough cavern. But we will have to do it. Then we’ll reconnoiter out and see what forces oppose us.”

  His eyes were suddenly on Paige, suspiciously.

  “You didn’t attempt to run away, though you had a perfect chance. And now you are warning us against the bum from this great lamp, when you could have let us go out and be burned. What game are you playing, Evan Paige?

  You would not this easily help us against your own people.”

  “Don’t forget there is Reena,” countered Paige. “I didn’t want her to suffer revenge meant for me.”

  The girl darted him a puzzled glance.

  Tal looked from one to the other, clouds of doubt still hovering over his features. “I’m going to keep close watch on you, Paige,” he growled. “You won’t trick me.” He waved his hand-weapon for Paige to return to their camp.

  Shrugging, Paige turned, thinking deeply. The ice was thin. He could not play this subtle game much longer. And yet the cards had to be played in the right order.

  His whole body jerked suddenly. A low hissing sounded from outside the cave-mouth, from the sky. Alert to all new things in this strange cavern-world, Tal switched around, peering up. His mouth fell open. A wide-winged, sleek airplane soared high overhead.

  It was the first manifestation of the outer civilization, and to Tal it was an unbelievable phenomenon.

  “What is that?” he cried. “How can that machine ride off the ground?”

  “It’s a machine that…began Paige, then stopped. There were no words to explain what he meant, in their language. He would have to say “flies like a bird” in English. Tal and the albino people had never seen a bird. They did not exist in the subterranean world. And they had no single word that meant “flying”.

  Paige saw the mental shell-shock in Tal’s face. Hastily he said: “It is simple enough, Tal. We have a region, in the air, that is without gravity, just as your Center is. Machines float up, there quite naturally. Is there anything strange about that?”

  Paige waited to see the effect, wondering if his tissue of lies would hold together.

  Tal nodded rather sheepishly, his tensed body relaxing. “Your people have strange things. Do they,” he asked shrewdly, “arm those floating machines and use them in warfare?”

  Paige nodded, putting a gleam in his eye for Tal’s benefit.

  He went on truthfully. “Yes, and they are powerful fighting craft. They rain down rays and bombs, sweeping whole armies to destruction.”

  “Enough,” cut in Tal, smiling. “I know when you lie, Paige. You’re trying to frighten me, hoping I’ll give up this campaign. But no…we’ll sweep out into your cavern, when we have become adjusted to the burning light. Your clumsy tongue won’t dissuade me from glory and conquest. You tremble, I see. But come, there is much to do.”

  Paige was trembling. But for a different reason than Tal had suspected. The plane, now gone, had been a Martian craft upheld by its miraculous hissing rocket jets, a patrol ship, probably, scouting over conquered territory for possible human survivors.

  The sight of the ship brought sharp remembrance to Paige, like a knife thrust. The adventures in the underworld had dulled his mind partly to the upperworld catastrophe, but now the full, agonizing, unbearable thought of it reared.

  He saw something else, about a mile away, on a broad field. A strewn line of little khaki mounds, broken silent field-pieces, and gouged-out craters of torn ground. A battle had been fought there, perhaps just a few days ago. A regiment of earth soldiers annihilated. Several wrecks of earth planes indicated how easily the Martians had won.

  How far had the Martians advanced? Had the American army been driven back to the Rockies perhaps, while he had been below? Was Europe a vast graveyard of humans? Were the defenseless millions of China falling like chaff before the Martian juggernaut?

  For all Paige knew, the Martians had broken all military resistance and were now systematically running a vacuum-cleaner of death over Earth’s face.

  “Good Lord,” he groaned aloud at that thought. If only he knew. But he had no radio, no way of finding out at present. There was a plane there, a mile away, that looked unwrecked. Perhaps its pilot had been able to land it just before dying of wounds. Paige almost leaped away, burning to find out about his world, but eased back with another groan. Tal would shoot him if he ran.

  Tal leered at him, hearing the groan. “There is no help for it, Evan Paige,” he said vigorously. “I will conquer your people.” And that made Paige’s groan end in a wild laugh.

  Chapter 16

  A week later, the regiment performed drills in the open space beyond the mouth of Mammoth Cave, under the hot sun. With Paige’s apparently reluctant guidance, Tal had conditioned the men to the new climate. Daily they had gone out into the sun, for short periods of time, acquiring a steady “tan”. Their white unpigmented skin turned a rich red, as with Scandinavians who went to sunnier climates.

  Active, hardy men, they were quickly becoming acclimated to extremes of heat and cold unknown in their sheltered world. The blowing of even the gentlest wind was to them a source of wonder.

  Tal, watching the drill, turned to Paige.

  “Look how energetic the men are. Somehow, these strange conditions are invigorating.” He drew a deep lungful of air. “In a way, Evan Paige,” he admitted thoughtfully, “your cavern is a desirable place to live in.”

  Paige felt almost friendly toward the man, at this. As with Reena, a heritage of instinctive memory must be whispering to him. It told him that this
was the world man was meant to live in, not the sunless depths below.

  Yes, man’s world…but for how long? How near was the end of mankind’s reign, usurped by the Martian invaders? The thought chilled Paige to the marrow.

  “I have been looking at the blue rock of the roof often.” It was Reena speaking, her voice awed. “Sometimes I have the feeling that nothing is there at all.”

  Paige looked at her. Though she was unrelenting in her attitude toward him, she was changed. She had become vital, alive, thrillingly lovely. With her carmine-tinted face, framed by ash-blonde hair, she was like some rare, exotic blossom.

  Tal’s eyes involuntarily turned upward, also, to the mystery of the sky, with a look close to fear. “Yes, at times I wonder, too.”

  “How foolish.” It was Paige himself who scoffed. It was not time for them to know. “The bright light my people use gives the illusion of emptiness. The roof is there.”

  “Of course,” agreed Tal, shaking his head in self-reproach. “There must be a roof. It wouldn’t be possible to conceive of its absence.”

  One more phenomenon Paige had to explain away—rain. Swift clouds came up, precipitating a brief but thorough downpour. A mere summer shower, but to the albino people, watching from the shelter of the cave, it was stark novelty. They knew water, but only in trickles that seeped down from the ocean bottoms, down into their isolated catacombs. What was this incredible dropping of lakefuls of water from the “roof”?

  “My people use this method of watering their crops,” Paige lied magnificently. “It is easy to transport water into the gravity-less region above and then propel it downward.”

  Lightning and thunder, accompanying the shower, still more amazed the albino people. And it brought something of fear.

  “A distant battle, in our war,” Paige improvised.

  Tal pondered. “More and more I begin to wonder what manner of science your people use…”

  “We are great scientists,” interposed Paige instantly. “You have seen the great lights we use, the flying machines, those thunders and flashes of our weapons, and how we handle large quantities of water. We have a great science!”

  Tal automatically gave a cynical leer.

  “I see it clearly now, Paige. You’ve been trying to impress me with your people’s greatness. You wish me to withdraw. But I’m more determined than ever to go on. My plans are careful. I’ve sent a messenger back to King Luth, telling him of what we have found, and to hold reinforcements ready at a moment’s notice. In the meantime…

  Paige’s ears caught a low sound throbbing from the sky. He interrupted Tal. “I tell you my people are powerful. Their air machines will come and blast you to dust.”

  The hissing drone became louder. They all heard it. Another rocket plane sailed grandly into view, overhead.

  “Blast us, eh?” grunted Tal. “We’ll see.”

  He whirled, shouting orders. His men obeyed, dragging forward their cannon. Lightly mounted on smoothly swiveled bearings, the tubes could be pointed in any direction swiftly.

  “Don’t,” yelled Paige. “Don’t shoot that plane down in cold blood…”

  Tal glanced at him in sadistic triumph. “Hate to see one of your craft wrecked, eh? And your people killed? Well, watch—watch the power of Uldornian military might.”

  Paige wore the proper look of agony. But within himself he exulted. He had played his cards right. Tal would shoot at aliens, not humans…

  The cannons began to whoosh softy, as their bolts of atom-compressing force stabbed invisibly into the sky. The Martian ship was about 2000 feet high, easily within range. But the Uldornian gunners, unused to such a fast-moving target, aimed far behind.

  Paige held his breath. Would the chance pass? Would the ship escape?

  But the Martian ship sealed its own doom. It slowed down and circled, obviously interested in the human figures below. They heard no cannon-roars, as with earthly artillery, and so were unaware of being shot at.

  The Uldornian gunners took better aim. Quite abruptly one wing of the ship crumpled. The craft flopped, burst into flame. It streaked down like a blazing comet to land with a sodden crash a thousand yards away. Its fiercely burning fuel formed a pyre out of which no creature could escape alive.

  A hush came over the albino men. Then Tal waved triumphantly and a cheer of victory welled from his regiment.

  “Thus we deal with your vaunted floating machines of war,” Tal crowed.

  Paige stared at the burned Martian wreck. His spirits sang. All had worked out as he had planned.

  The albino army had struck—not at his people—but at the Martians.

  The Martians would retaliate, when another patrol ship searched for the missing one. Coming in force then, they might wipe out the regiment very quickly. But in the face of defeat, Tal would send a message below. The news would sweep through the underworld. King Luth would not lightly dismiss the annihilated regiment. He would send up stronger forces.

  That had been Paige’s grand plan, from the start. To pit two powerful forces against one another. King Luth’s vast army of conquest versus the ruthless Martians. But would it work? It must, Paige told himself.

  It must!

  * * * *

  He was still staring at the wreck, thinking these world-moving thoughts, when dusk settled. The Uldornian regiment had made camp in the open air, outside Mammoth Cave, for the first time.

  Tal Rithor sidled up to Paige, rubbing his hands.

  “I will send out scouting parties tomorrow,” he informed. “When we have learned where your people’s forces lie, we’ll attack. I don’t care which side, in your civil war, they are on. I’ll conquer them both.”

  Tal radiated supreme confidence that he felt since bringing down the amazing “floating machine” so easily. Paige was glad it was dark, hiding the sardonic smile on his lips. If he hadn’t missed his guess, Tal would have a fight on his hands by the next day. The Martians would investigate the lost patrol ship, spy the camp of humans, and attack.

  His spine prickled suddenly, as a shout of alarm rose from one side of the camp. Paige whirled. Had the Martians arrived already? Yet he had heard no sound of aircraft.

  A sentry came running up, face working. “The enemy, sir,” he reported to Tal. “They are at the mouth of the cave.”

  “The enemy,” snapped Tal. “Who?”

  “Dorthians.”

  Tal was already running toward his camp’s edge nearest the mouth of Mammoth Cave. With a startled gasp, Paige followed. They halted a hundred yards from the cave-mouth. The gibbous moon, rising, shed light upon uniformed figures staring out, obviously surprised themselves.

  “Dorthian troops,” confirmed Tal, breathing heavily. “How did they get here?”

  He stared at Paige, suspicion crawling in his pale eyes.

  Paige stood stunned, asking himself the same question. Then he made out the stocky figure without a uniform, standing with arms outstretched, head high, like a man viewing a heaven he had been absent from. Dr. Aronson! He was seeing the upperworld again, after long weeks of sojourn beneath. Little wonder, Paige reflected, that he stood as if bewitched. Beside him was Sparky, also staring around raptly, swaying a little on his game leg.

  “Aronson! Sparky!” Paige called.

  The scientist started, peered out and then ran in his direction.

  “Halt!” yelled Tal. Behind him, his under officers had already aroused the regiment into watchful readiness.

  “Surrender your troops, in the name of King Luth, or we will fire.”

  Aronson’s flying figure did not hesitate. Tal seemed about to give the battle signal. Paige gripped his arm fiercely. “You can’t shoot a defenseless man. He has no weapons. He wants to talk with us.”

  Tal hesitated, then gave low commands
. His men stood watchfully, but did not fire. Aronson came up pantingly, and almost fell in Paige’s arms.

  “I can’t believe it’s you, Dr. Aronson,” Paige said, his thoughts confused. “And Dorthian troops with you. How did you convince the Kal of Dorthia?”

  The scientist spoke between gulps of his lungs.

  “First of all, Sparky and I were recaptured, after you left. But we weren’t sent back to Malmind Ward. Sur Vellko took us in custody with the Kal’s permission.”

  He gulped for breath.

  “Sparky did the miracle. When the news of Uldorn’s first major victory came through, Sparky worked on the Kal who was worried. Sparky told him this cavern-world extended over parts of Uldorn, which he could counterattack. Sparky didn’t try to say any more about what this ‘cavern’ really is, or our strange story of Martian invasion. He simply appealed to the Kal’s practical side, that from here he might find a way to invade Uldorn and stave off what looked like the eventual downfall of Dorthia. The Kal finally agreed to send up an expeditionary regiment.”

  He stopped, panting for breath.

  “Exactly how I worked on King Luth,” Paige went on briefly, explaining his part. “Good work you and Sparky did,” he finished. “We got the albino people out here after all, into this world they positively wouldn’t believe in. And now, we have some real work ahead of us.”

  He went on, telling of the Martian ship shot down, and the eventuality of Martian attack. Tal’s face was suddenly before him, dark with rage. He had listened closely as they spoke in English. Paige suddenly realized he might have understood.

  He had—in distorted fashion.

  “Treachery,” he spat out. “You two planned this. One of you to lure an Uldornian regiment into your cavern, the other a Dorthian regiment, to fall upon us. And then your forces—the ‘Martians’ you call them—are to join with Dorthia in invading Uldorn.”