Part 3

But, from the morning of his awakening in the tartan bush, his recollections, although terrible, are clear.

His first thoughts on arousing himself were: “Lilla! And my baby!”

So, pushing the protecting leaves to one side, he set out to the northward. A thousand stads away lay Lake Luno and the royal family. Four days’ travel by kerkool. Fifty days’ travel on foot under favorable circumstances! And here he was essaying it, battered and wounded, without antennae, without food, without an umbrella to shield him if the scorching sun should burst through the protecting clouds; in fact, with nothing but an army revolver, four cartridges, and an unconquerable will.

Myles Cabot recited to himself:

“If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you, Except the Will that says to them: ‘Hold on’!”

He could and he would! And so he set out on that thousand-mile journey.

His plan was to reach the nearby suburb of Lai, where he had many friends. Surely one of these would lend him fresh raiment and a kerkool in which to overtake the army of Buh Tedn.

At the first brook to which he came, he shed his toga and washed from it as much of the blood and grime as possible. Also he bathed his face and head. The cool water stilled the ache of his wound, and refreshed him greatly. His appearance now was thoroughly presentable, but the destruction of his antennae by Trisp in the jail prevented him from looking like a real Cupian any longer. At most he looked like a deformed person, a deaf-mute. Still, his friends would not mind this, if he could but reach them.

He breakfasted off of milk which he drew from a herd of aphids, those green cows kept by both races of intelligent beings on Poros. And then he felt nearly his old self again, and pressed on with more vigor.

* * * * *

Around midday, 600 o’clock, he reached the outskirts of the town of Lai. One of the first houses was the villa of a very intimate friend of his and Lilla’s. There it stood, set in a clearing, surrounded by thick woods, a little way to the right of the road, at the end of a flower-flanked path. The architecture was typically Cupian, white stucco with steep red-tilted roof, ornamented with turrets, towers and minarets.

Just as Cabot was about to turn in at the gate, a Formian appeared at the door. This was unexpected. His friend had never before been known to entertain ant men. Ant men were the last creatures on the planet whom Myles desired to see at that moment, so he hastily passed by.

At last he topped a rise, from which he could see the whole of Lai stretched beneath him. And what a sight met his eyes. Not a Cupian stirring in the usually bustling little village, but instead all the streets patrolled by ant men.

There would be no haven here. So Myles sadly circled the town, rejoined the road at the other side, and resumed his journey northward.

Day after day he trudged on, avoiding the towns, which he rightly assumed were policed by ant men as Lai had been, and hiding whenever a kerkool approached or an airplane motor sounded in the sky. True, the kerkool might bear friends, but he was taking no chances.

His sustenance was root-crops stolen from the fields, edible twig-knobs plucked in the woods, green milk drawn from the grazing aphids, and even lobsterlike parasites plucked from the sides of these creatures. Once he was about to extract a bullet from one of his cartridges and discharge the blank into a pile of dried leaves to start a fire and roast some of these parasites; but, realizing that his ammunition was now limited to four rounds, he decided to forego the experiment.

His hair and beard grew long and unkempt, so that now there was no possible hope of escaping unrecognized, if ever he should be seen. For in the whole history of the planet Poros, there had never been but one person with long hair and beard, and that one person was Myles Cabot, the earthman. Cupians cannot grow beards, and the hair on their heads remains a fixed length, never requiring cutting.

As he plodded along, day after day, he did a great deal of thinking. Most of it was useless recrimination: “Why wasn’t I a bit quicker on the draw, that fatal morning in the stadium? Why did I ever leave Lilla alone at Lake Luno, even at the behest of her father, the king? Was I not influenced by my conceited desire to pose as a popular hero on the anniversary of the beginning of my great victory over Formia, and by my wish to star as a pistol shot, rather than by deference to the king?”

And so on. And so on.

Then, too, he worried a great deal about the safety of Lilla, and their little son. And about the progress of the civil war. Not daring to approach any towns, he was completely cut off from all knowledge of current events. The only clues he had were the fact that he met no Cupians stirring abroad, that the roads were constantly patrolled by ants in kerkools, and that airplanes scoured the sky.

This might mean any one of several things. For instance, it might mean that the insurrection had crumbled, and that the last survivors were being run down. Or perhaps the ant men were trying to prevent reenforcements from joining an already augmented Cupian army in the Okarze Mountains. Or perhaps it might even be that they were scouting against an impending advance of overwhelming forces from the Cupian strongholds. But whatever it meant, Cabot was resolved to reach Lake Luno, and find out what had happened to Lilla, and little Kew.

Finally, one day, he espied through the woods the tower of one of the radio relay-stations which formed a part of the network of wireless communication which he had installed throughout the kingdom.

As Minister of Play in the cabinet of King Kew XII, Myles had introduced radio broadcasting, and thus had given to the Cupians the benefit of music, which heretofore their lack of ears had denied them, but which he had been able to translate into their antenna-sense.

One of the stations of his broadcasting system now loomed before him. There was more than an even chance that it was an automatic station, and that the attendant would be absent. Although a trip to this tower would take Cabot a bit out of his way, yet it might enable him to listen in on the news of the day, and thus find out how his loved ones fared, and how the revolution was progressing. So thither he turned his weary steps.

The aerial loomed above the tree-tops about a stad away to the right of the road. Thick woods intervened. The trees were mostly of that typical Porovian variety which resembles a greatly enlarged form of that red-knobbed many-branched gray lichen which is so commonly found growing on rocks and tree-stumps on the earth. There was a heavy underbrush of ferns and small conifera. Gayly colored plants, of the sort which grace the fields and gardens of Poros, were conspicuously absent; but there was no lack of tropical vines and gray moss. Here and there flitted four-winged snakes, but in numbers merely sufficient to be a nuisance, not a menace.

Through all this tangle, Myles Cabot had to plow his way for at least one whole stad, in order to reach the relay-station. And to add to his discomfiture, the sky began to darken. This portended one of those torrential Porovian thunderstorms, the like of which is never experienced on earth.

Well, there was one thing to be thankful for: the relay-station would furnish a shelter from the storm, if he could but reach it in time.

He did. The storm had not yet broken when he entered the little clearing where the station stood. A brief reconnaissance convinced him that the shack was vacant. Its door was standing open. So he cautiously made his way inside.

But, even as he entered, he realized how foolish he had been, for of course the set would be without earphones, as the inhabitants of Poros have no sense of hearing; and Cabot’s own earphones lay smashed on the floor of the office of the mango of Kuana.

All was not lost however. He could still use the set for the purpose of sending in dots and dashes a cryptic message, which Poblath alone would understand. Such as “When will we four play ming-dah again?” for Poblath, and his wife Bthuh had been the most frequent opponents for Myles and Lilla in that four-handed Porovian checker-game. Or, for Toron’s antennae alone, “The black light still shines,” for to no one except Toron had Cabot disclosed that masterpiece of optical science which had safeguarded the American troopships in the war against Germany. So with renewed courage, he continued to enter. But, alas, the entire installation lay wrecked by some vandal hand.

Cabot surveyed the disorder sadly for a long time. Then he turned to the door to resume his journey north—

And looked into the muzzle of a rifle held by an ant man in the doorway.

Up went Cabot’s hands. The other advanced to shackle him.

IV

TRAPPED

At this point in the narrative, it is both fitting and proper for me to digress for a moment, in order to explain how these radio-relay stations came to be dotted all over the country of Cupia.

Back in the early days, radio engineers speculated as to why it is that a crystal set can often receive much more distant stations when located in the vicinity of a tube set. Various more or less absurd theories were advanced, such as induction, a field of negative resistance, and so forth. Yet the true explanation is very simple. It was one of the first points about radio communication which Cabot explained to me after his return from Poros.

As for induction being the cause, one has only to consider the electrical law whereby the induction field diminishes as the square of the distance, whereas the field due to actual radiation diminishes only as the distance.

“A field of negative resistance”—I defy any one to explain what he means by that in such a connection.

One further theory remains, namely, electrostatic coupling. I do not know that this explanation has ever been seriously advanced. If advanced, it would be very plausible. But I should like to see a proponent of such an explanation draw a diagram of the electrostatic coupling between a crystal set with a coil antenna, and a vacuum set with capacity antennas, or vice versa. Maybe it is possible, but I don’t see how; and Myles Cabot, the greatest radio expert of two worlds, is my authority for saying that it can’t be done.

No, Cabot’s explanation which follows sounds a lot more sensible than any of the foregoing. And the fact that he has demonstrated his theory, and has put it to practical use on Poros, proves it to be so. The man who has done that, will some day find a practical use even for static. Enough said!

This is his explanation: Compare the situation in a sending set and a receiving set. In the former, with the tube oscillating, we have in the antenna-circuit an oscillating current with impressed sound waves. A regenerative receiving-set picks up this current, very weak, and builds it up to the limit of the capabilities of our tube; so that we have in the antenna-circuit of a receiving-set the same situation as though we were sending, only, of course, weaker because of the small size of our tube. And we actually _are_ sending at such a time, although faintly, thus augmenting the impulse from the distant broadcasting station, and thus undoubtedly accounting for the hitherto unexplained phenomenon of long-distance crystal reception.

Cabot, while still on earth, demonstrated this theory to his own satisfaction by experimenting with a tube-set and a crystal-set half a mile apart, and by actually catching in his crystal-set the not-quite-damped-out sixty-cycle hum of the power-line which he was using to run his tube-set. Then, by substituting a large transmitting-tube for his small receiving-tube, although still leaving the set hooked up as a receiving set, he was able to relay even distant stations to friends with crystal sets scattered all over Back Bay, Boston. The removal of the phone circuit was the final step to convert his set into a pure radio relay-station, nothing more.

These early earthly experiments of his recurred to his mind when establishing the radio routes on the planet Poros. Hence the myriad relay-stations which dotted the planet, in one of which he now found himself a prisoner.

But as the ant man advanced to secure his captive, the long-impending tropical thunderstorm broke in all its fury.

Gusts of rain swirled in at the door. Crash after crash of almost continuous thunder shook the ground. The lightning fell in one continuous sheet of flame, so that all was as bright as daylight. But still the ant man kept his rifle pointed at Cabot. Quite evidently the creature wished to capture the earthman alive.

Finally there came a roar more deafening than all the others, followed by a ripping of timbers, a deluge of rain, and then the collapse of the entire building, pinning both captor and captive beneath it. The tower of the aerial had been struck by lightning, and had fallen.

The dash of rain against his face brought Myles Cabot to his senses. He found himself momentarily free from the ant man, and yet not free at all, merely free from the ant man, for he was pinned to the floor, flat on his back, with a heavy timber across his chest. Struggle as he would, he could not dislodge it. And to make matters worse, a stream of rain water now began to flow into the room, threatening to submerge him. The Formian was nowhere to be seen; evidently he was buried by some other part of the building.

Although the stream continually flowed past, yet, as the downpour kept on, the level of the water gradually rose, until only an extreme craning of Cabot’s neck kept his nose above the surface.

Finally, with a tidal wave, the waters swept over his head, and at the same instant something beneath him gave way, and he was carried under the beam and along with the current. Quite evidently the supports which held the floor had been washed out just in time.

After a few deep breaths to relieve his strangled lungs, Cabot scrambled to his feet in the shallow stream. The rain had stopped, but dark clouds still scudded along beneath the silver sky.

Cabot made his way back to the road, bruised and wet, and continued his interminable journey northward.

As he trudged on, he had plenty of time for thought, although his senses had to be always on the alert for scouting-planes, for kerkools on the roads, and for other forms of enemy activity. At towns, and even at isolated farms, he had to detour with exceeding care, in order to escape detection. In some places where the woods happened to be fairly open, this was not so hard; but wherever the undergrowth was thick and tangled, this detouring proved to be most laborious.

* * * * *

All day long he pressed on, day after day, northward, ever northward, toward Luno Castle and his loved ones. His thoughts consisted mostly in worrying, and wondering what had occurred to Lilla and to baby Kew, of fearing for the worst, and of blaming himself for whatever might have happened to them.

Undoubtedly the fleet of kerkools, manned by his friend Poblath, the mango of the Kuana jail, had long since reached Lake Luno. Undoubtedly other kerkools, manned by supporters of the atrocious Prince Yuri had also arrived at that point. Probably considerable bodies of the partisans of both factions in this civil war had also congregated there. The question was: which group had got there first, and what had been the outcome of the clash that had inevitably followed? The answer Cabot could not know until he arrived there himself. So he pressed on, ever thinking of Lilla, of Lilla and his baby; and ever borne up by his longing for his loved ones.

The one thing which saved him from exhaustion was the fact that travel at night was impractical. In the starless jet blackness of the Porovian night, it was difficult to keep on the concrete road, and even more difficult for him to find his way on detours through the tangled tropical forests. Thus, for six out of the twelve parths that make up one revolution of the planet about its axis, he was forced against his will to rest, regardless of how eager he was to reach his journey’s end.

Every night, as the western sky turned pink from the unseen setting sun, Cabot would penetrate into the woods at the side of the road, seek out some thicket, crawl into the midst of it, lie down, cover his weary body with leaves, and sink into a troubled sleep.

In detouring, except in the early morning or the late afternoon, when the pink light on the one hand or on the other served to show him which was east and which was west, it was very difficult to keep himself properly oriented; and accordingly he frequently lost his way.

On one such occasion, after wandering aimlessly through the woods for some time, he finally came out upon a grassy hill, overlooking a small sandy plain. He sat down for a while on the crest, and surveyed the scene below him. It was by far the most peculiar expanse of sand which he had ever seen. Its entire surface was pitted with large cup-shaped depressions. But almost every one of these craters here was approached by a long, winding furrow, as though a huge snow-plow had got lost for quite a distance, in trying to make its way out of the crater.

Myles Cabot was primarily an inquisitive scientist, so for the present he forgot his troubles, forgot even his quest, engrossed in the problem presented by the scene on the plain below. As he intently scanned the view, his eye caught a slight movement of the sand at the bottom of one of the depressions. He watched this particular hole for some time, but nothing further happened; so he studied one of the others for similar phenomena, and at last was rewarded by the sight of a slight spurt of sand.

“These holes are probably of a volcanic nature,” he mused, “but apparently their eruptions are not powerful enough to be dangerous. This is the first evidence of volcanic action which I have ever seen on the continent of Poros. Accordingly a study of these holes may furnish some valuable information, bearing upon the nature of the boiling seas which surround the continent.”

So he arose, and trotted down the grassy slope to the sandy plain below. Along the edge of the sand there ran a little brook. Here was a chance to combine business with pleasure. So Cabot laid aside his revolver, for which he had long since fashioned a rough sling of grass-rope. He took off his toga, washed it thoroughly in the stream, and hung it up to dry on a nearby bush. He bathed himself, and took a long drink of the cool water. Then, feeling much refreshed, he walked across the plain to examine the craters, while his clothing dried.

The sand was hot and dry. It was infested with brinks, those miniature kangaroolike lizards which are so common on Poros. But he scarcely heeded the heat or the brinks, so intent was he on the scientific problem before him.

Gingerly he approached the rim of one of the craters, and sat naked for a long time on the edge, staring into the interior. The hole was about fifty paces across, and of a depth fully six or eight times the height of a man. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about it except its size and the problem of what could possibly have created it.

* * * * *

After a period of intense watching, Cabot tired and permitted his gaze to shift to the other holes about him, then to the edge of the plain, then to the country beyond. Whereat he was startled, and a bit annoyed, to find that a stretch of road was in plain view but a short distance from his position. Conversely his position must be in plain view from the road, and therefore he was in danger of being observed by the occupants of any passing kerkool.

Instantly his quest, and his duty to his country and his family became uppermost in his mind. Forgotten was his scientific interest in the mysterious plain with its strange depressions, as he jumped to his feet to resume his journey northward.

But, unfortunately, his scrambling to his feet disturbed the ground where he had been sitting. It crumbled away beneath him. He stood for a moment at the very edge of the crater, pawing the air, struggling for a foothold; and then, amid a shower of pebbles, he slid down into the depths.

His slide was not absolutely precipitate. He struggled upward as the gravel rolled down beneath him; and thus, slipping, scrambling, gaining an inch and then losing two, he gradually approached the bottom.

His descent was momentarily stayed by a piece of rotten log about the size of his own body, which projected from the side of the crater, and with which he came in contact; but finally his struggles loosened it, and it bounded down the slope ahead of him. As he slid after it, he instinctively watched its downward course. It rolled to the exact center of the bottom of the pit; and as it came to a stop, the sand beneath it heaved convulsively, and from each side of it rose out of the ground a glittering scimitar fully ten feet long, which closed upon the log like the blades of a pair of buttonhole scissors, and dragged it beneath the surface.

A moment later, and Cabot himself rolled to the exact spot where the log had been seized and had disappeared.

Like a flash he realized the full extent of his predicament. He had fallen into the trap of a gigantic ant-bear. Years ago, as a boy at Atlantic City, he had often lain on the piazza floor of the bathhouse and watched through the cracks the antics of the miniature beasts of prey in the sand below. He had seen them dig their pits; two or three inches across; he had seen them plow a trail to their pits; he had seen inquisitive beach ants, in search of food, follow these trails, fall into the pit, and be dragged struggling beneath the surface, to furnish a meal for the ant bear which lay in wait, buried in the center of the depression which it had dug. But never had he pictured himself as falling into one of these traps.

Was he in one now? It could hardly be. And yet, as there were huge ants ten feet long on Poros, and also slightly smaller breeds without the intelligence which characterized the Formians, why not ant-bears in proportion? It certainly sounded plausible.

Of course, these thoughts, which take so long to set down here, passed through Cabot’s brain in a single instant. He felt no fear, merely a keen scientific interest in the situation. But, quickly as his mind worked to analyze his predicament, it worked as quickly to determine a course of action.

The subterranean beast spewed up the unappetizing log of wood which it had seized, and snapped its mandibles together again; but Cabot had already sprung to his feet, and had passed beyond the fatal spot. The sharp jaw just barely missed him.

His bound carried him part way up the opposite side, but almost immediately he started slipping back again into the center. This time, however, instead of merely striving to scale the unstable walls, he ran in a circle, round and round the flashing jaws.

As he increased his speed, his centrifugal acceleration, like that of a horse-chestnut which a small boy whirls on a string, gradually forced him outward and upward, thus offsetting to a large extent the sliding action of the sand.

But the beast at the bottom, evidently tiring of snapping aimlessly in the air while its prey circled about it and showered it with dirt, began to dig itself out.

Just then Myles espied a branch or root protruding from the bank just above the level of his head. With one last spurt, he leaped in the air and grasped the branch. For a moment he hung swaying beneath it. It held, and did not become dislodged from the bank. So gradually he hauled himself up, until finally he sat upon it.