Part 12
Then to the captain of the guards: “With these six rifles, march to the palace and join the forces of Theoph and Jud. I will endeavor to destroy as many of the beasts as possible before I finally leave you and depart for my own country. Start at once, leaving only two or three of your number to help us.”
So the guard marched away, dragging a reproachful and tear-stained Quivven with them. Three leather-clad Vairkings remained, and these shortly were joined by a fourth. Cabot half consciously noticed this new arrival, but paid little attention in the bustle of his preparations.
The tapestries which were to serve in place of fire-worm fur to swathe himself and Doggo in their flight across the boiling seas were rearranged so as to take up less room. The goggles, which he had brought from the laboratory, were packed with them. The bombs and rifle ammunition were placed in handy positions. A small quantity of provisions were added. Everything was lashed down.
Then Myles drew Doggo to one side for a conference and wrote: “I plan first to attack those Formians and Roies who are besieging Theoph’s palace; then to dispose of as many as possible of the scout planes. How many of these are there?”
“We had seven airships in our city in the south,” wrote Doggo in reply. “This is one of them here. One is probably temporarily disabled by the shots which you fired in the laboratory yard. That should leave five.”
“Can we fight five?”
“Most assuredly,” Doggo wrote, agitating his antennae eagerly.
“Then let’s go!” wrote Cabot.
With a quick take-off diagonally down the inclosure, the huge bombing plane rose slowly into the air amid shouts from the Vairking soldiers below. It was now broad daylight. Myles glanced over the rail, and noted that there were now only three leather-clad warriors. He vaguely wondered what had become of the fourth, but it was too late to inquire.
Up through the swirling sparks and smoke they rose, up, up, until they could get a bird’s-eye view of the whole city of Vairkingi. There, on a slight eminence in the center, stood the palace and inclosures of the white-furred king, its walls manned by leather-clad Vairking warriors, surrounded by savage besiegers. The flames had not yet reached that part of the city, and with a change in the wind, appeared to be sweeping past it.
As Myles and Doggo circled the palace they noted that practically all the ant-men within sight were massing in a side street, evidently preparing for an assault. How convenient! Myles took the levers and swooped low, while Doggo deluged his fellow countrymen with bombs. When their sudden attack was over, fully half of the Formian menace to the city had been wiped out.
Now for the scout planes. These, five in number, could be seen circling the outskirts of the city. The two friends were able to approach one of these without being suspected of being an enemy. Before its flyers realized the peril it had gone down in flames from one well-placed bomb.
The other four scout planes at once realized that their own countryman, Doggo, had returned to do them battle, and accordingly converged upon him. Again the two friends exchanged places. And then there took place one of the finest examples of aerial warfare which the earth-man had ever witnessed.
This was not like the battles with the whistling bees before the advent of Cabot-made rifles on the planet Poros, when the fighting tail of the plane was pitted against the sting of the bee. For now it was rifle against rifle, bomb against bomb.
One by one the enemy planes crashed to the ground, as Doggo spiraled, looped, tailspun, and side-slipped. At last there was only one Formian opponent left.
Doggo maneuvered to a position just above it, and Cabot reached for a bomb to give it the _coup de grâce_.
But the bombs were all gone! And the ant-men in the plane below were raising their rifles, watching for a good opening.
What was to be done? With Doggo’s deafness to sound waves, it would be impossible to explain the situation to him in time for him to veer away. He naturally assumed that, as he maneuvered the ship into this position of advantage, Cabot would at once put an end to the fight.
In this extremity the earth-man suddenly thought of the obsolete fighting tail. Its levers were there. Was it still in operation? He would see.
Grasping its levers, he manipulated them swiftly, and drove the tip of the tail through the fuel tank of the enemy. Two bullets zipped by him. Then the machine below careened and soared to earth—or rather, Poros—followed by a stream of shots from the earth-man’s rifle. The battle was over.
Cabot relieved Doggo at the controls, and circled the palace once more. His own squad of laboratory guards were just entering one of the palace gates. The captain waved to him. But he noted that Quivven was not among them. Poor girl! What could have become of the poor little golden creature?
But there was no time to ask. With so many of the ants killed, all their aircraft disabled and the Vairkings firmly entrenched in the palace and supplied with at least six ant-rifles, Quivven’s people were in as good a position as possible.
For Cabot to stop now might mean not only renewed complications with the golden maid, but also possibly the confiscation of his plane by Jud. It would not pay to take any chances; he must hasten home to Lilla, leaving the ants, the Roies, and the Vairkings to contend for the possession of the burning city.
As he turned the nose of the airship upward and began the ascent preparatory to flying across the western mountains to the sea, he observed a large marching body of troops far to the south. These might change his responsibility with respect to his late hosts; it would only take a few minutes to investigate; so southward he turned the plane.
The marching troops were Roies, as he judged by their absence of leather armor. Swooping low he picked out the face of their leader. It was Otto the Bold, son of Grod the Silent, the leader of the friendly faction of the furry wild-men of the hills. Having captured and sacked the city of the ants, they were now evidently on their way to relieve Vairkingi.
The last feeling of obligation passed from the earth-man, as, waving to his savage friend, he turned the nose of his plane upward once more. Then it occurred to him that, having flown so far south, he might just as well take a final look at the ant-city. Besides, this would place him in exactly the location where the ant-men had landed when they flew east across the boiling seas from Cupia to found New Formia, and thus would be a good point for him to take off in his flight westward.
Accordingly, he turned to the right until he topped the mountain range, then turned to the left again, and followed the range southward.
But a tropical thunderstorm forced him to descend in a cleft of hills. Myles hoped that this rain extended to Vairkingi, and would serve to quench its fires.
After several hours, the weather cleared once more. The two companions compared notes on the adventures which had befallen them since their first hop-off that morning. Then they embarked once more, and continued their course southward. Soon they passed over the smoking ruins of the once-impregnable Sur, and at last came to the little radio hut of the Formians.
This, too, was in ruins; Otto had received his note. Wireless communication between Cupia, and Vairkingia and New Formia was at an end. Yuri would now believe the worst that Cabot had told him over the air. And that worst was likely to prove to be the truth after all.
Swinging to the westward, Myles passed over the deserted city of the ants, patrolled by a handful of Otto’s Roies; and thence on and on until there loomed before him a solid wall of steam. It was the boiling sea, over which he must pass in order to rejoin his loved ones.
Hovering gently down on a little silver-green meadow about five miles inland, the two fugitives prepared for the trip. First they pulled off some of the tapestries to pad the fuel tank.
And there before them lay a figure in leather Vairking armor, a golden figure smiling up at them, little Quivven, whom they thought they had left behind.
“You!” Myles exclaimed, scowling.
“Yes,” she replied. “I usually accomplish what I set out to do. When you sent me away, I persuaded one of the guards to lend me his suit. Then I returned, helped with the loading, and hid myself while you and Doggo were writing notes to each other. But I nearly died of fright when you were turning me over and over, up there in the sky.”
Myles sighed resignedly. “I can’t send you back now,” he said, “though what I shall do with you in Cupia, the Builders only knows!”
So the three friends completed the preparations, and then sat down together for a meal.
It was too late to start their flight that day and, besides, a rest would do them all good; so they encamped for the remainder of the afternoon and the night.
The next morning, as the first faint flush of pink tinged the eastern sky, they took their farewell meal on Vairkingian soil. Then, swathed in tapestries and with goggles in place, they took their stations in the plane, and headed straight for the bank of steam.
As they passed within its clouds, all sight was blotted out.
They had decked the fusilage over like an Eskimo kayack, only Cabot’s well-wrapped head protruding. Within, Doggo manipulated the levers and watched the altimeter and gyro-compass by the light of a Vairking stone lamp; strange mingling of modernity and archaism. Cabot’s vigil was for the purpose of guarding against flying too high, and thus piercing the cloud envelope and exposing them to the fatal glare of the sun.
On and on they went. Cabot could see nothing. The hot vapor condensed on his wrappings, seeped through, and scalded his head and shoulders unbearably. Finally, he could stand it no longer. He pulled in his head and tore off the bandages. The relief was instantaneous. He seized the levers, and Doggo took his place at the opening.
But at last even Doggo succumbed. Having braved the heat too long, he collapsed weakly on the floor of the cockpit.
“It’s my turn,” Quivven shouted, above the noise of the motors. “Now aren’t you glad you brought me along?”
And in spite of Cabot’s remonstrances, she swathed her golden head and stuck it through the opening.
By this time, scalding water was leaking through all the covering of the cockpit. It was only a question of minutes before it would soak through the body-coverings of those within.
But just then the girl cried out, “Land. Land, once more; and clear silver sky.”
Doggo revived and tore off the covers. True, the steam bank of the boiling seas lay behind them. Below them was the silver-green land.
What did it hold in store?
XX THE WHOOMANGS
Thoroughly exhausted by their flight across the boiling seas, the Radio Man and his two strange companions—the huge ant-man, Doggo, and the beautiful, golden-furred Vairking maiden, Quivven—wished to land at once, without waiting to ascertain what particular section of Cupia lay beneath them. But the entire area below appeared to be thickly wooded.
Accordingly the fugitives hovered down to a short distance above the ground and then just skimmed the treetops at a slow rate of speed, keeping a careful watch for a landing place. They had not long to wait, for presently they espied a road running beneath the trees; and, after putting on more speed and following this road for a couple of stads, they finally came to a sufficiently large clearing a short distance from the road, to enable them to settle down quietly to the ground.
The party quickly disembarked upon the silver-green sward, and the three companions then broke through the bushes to the road, which proved to be of dirt, although well-traveled.
Myles remarked, “This must be some very out-of-the-way part of my country; for practically all of our roads are built of concrete, a material similar to the cement with which I fastened the bricks together in making our furnaces in Vairkingi.”
Quivven shuddered. “Please don’t remind me of my poor city,” she begged piteously; then in a more resigned tone: “But that is behind us. Let us forget it and face the future. You were speaking of cement roads?”
“Yes,” Myles replied. “The fact, that this road is not made of concrete indicates that it is not a main highway, but the fact that it is well-worn shows that it is traveled considerably. Let us therefore wait for some passer-by who can tell us where we are.”
At this point Doggo produced a pad and stylus, and wrote, “Let me in on this.”
Cabot obligingly transcribed, in Porovian short-hand, an account of the conversation. Meanwhile the golden girl abstractedly examined the foliage beside the road.
While Doggo was reading the manuscript, Quivven called Cabot’s attention to the trees and shrubs. “How different they are from those in Vairkingia,” she remarked.
“That is to be expected,” Myles answered, “for your land and mine are separated by boiling seas across which no seeds or spores could pass and live. Thus it is surprising that the two continents support even the same general classes of life. Come, I will point out to you some of the more common forms of our flora.”
He had in mind to show her the red-knobbed gray lichen-tree; and the tartan bush, the heart-shaped leaves of which are put to so many uses by the Cupians; and the saffra herb, the roots of which are used for anaesthesia; and the blue and yellow dandelionlike wild flowers. But although he searched for a hundred paces or so along the road, he was unable to locate a single specimen of these very common bits of Porovian vegetation.
“It is strange,” he muttered half to himself. “When I want to show the common plants of Cupia, I find nothing but unfamiliar plants, and yet I’ll bet that if I were to go out in search of rare specimens for my castle garden at Lake Luno, I should find nothing but tartan, saffra, lichen-trees, and blue dandelions.”
The mention of Luno Castle turned his thoughts homeward with a jerk. Here he was at last, after many adventures, on the same continent with his Lilla and his baby Kew. He had come here to rescue them, if it were not too late, from Yuri the usurper and his whistling bees. Now that he was apparently within reach of his loved ones, he began to worry about their safety a great deal more than ever before.
But this fear _for_ Lilla was completely out-weighed by a growing fear _of_ Lilla. What would she say to his two allies? Doggo, the ant-man, was a representative of a race which Cabot had vowed to exterminate from the face of Poros; for, as he had repeatedly asserted, there can be no lasting peace on any continent, which is inhabited by more than one race of intelligent beings.
And Quivven, the golden-furred Vairking maiden, would be even more difficult to explain. She was beautiful, even by Cupian standards. She was more nearly the same race as Myles than was his own wife, Lilla. She and Myles could talk together, unheard by the radio-sense of Lilla. In these circumstances, it was hardly possible that the Princess Lilla would receive Quivven with open arms, or even be passably decent to her.
At this point, his reveries was interrupted by Doggo handing him the following note:
If we are to await passers-by, do you not think it would be well to return to the plane and secure our rifles, so as to protect ourselves in case the passers-by should prove to be hostile?
Myles nodded his assent, and informed Quivven of their intentions. She, being nearer to the point where they had entered the road, plunged through the bushes at once, and they hastened after her.
Just as Myles and Doggo were breaking through the bushes in the wake of the golden one, they heard an agonized scream ahead. Redoubling their efforts, they reached the clearing in an instant, and beheld a most unexpected sight!
Perched upon the airship, like a flock of enormous vultures, were about a dozen huge, bat-winged, pale green reptiles, each with a wing-spread of fully ten-feet; and one of these loathsome creatures held the writhing form of Quivven tight in its claws.
Without a moment’s thought for his own safety, the intrepid earth-man drew the Vairkingian sword which hung at his side, and rushed straight at the beast which held the girl. Doggo followed close behind, clicking his mandibles angrily.
But before they could reach the plane, the noisome flock flapped heavily into the air and disappeared over the trees to the northward, Quivven’s childish face an agony of despair, and one little furry paw waving a forlorn farewell.
The next move was obvious. Myles and Doggo sprang to their places in the aircraft and soared after. It was an easy matter to overtake the clumsy-winged saurians, but not so easy to decide what to do after reaching them. The reptiles flew so close together their pursuers were afraid to fire on them for fear of hitting Quivven. The girl was as yet apparently unharmed, so the only thing to do seemed to be to follow and watch for some opportunity to effect a rescue.
Thus the chase continued for several stads without event. Myles was in an agony for the safety of his little friend, but even his deep concern did not keep his scientific mind from speculating about the pale green dragons which he was following. He had read about such beasts in books on paleontology as a child. These were undoubtedly pterodactyls.
He had seen somewhat similar stuffed specimens in the imperial museum at Kuana, capital of Cupia. He had encountered swarms of tiny pterosaurs, the size of sparrows, in the caves of Kar. But he had been informed by Cupian scientists that the larger species had long since become extinct on Poros.
Whence then these captors of Quivven?
While engaged thus in speculations, he flew a bit closer to the flock, whereat two of them suddenly turned and simultaneously attacked the plane from both sides. Doggo instantly dispatched _his_ assailant with a rifle shot; but Myles did not dare let go of the control levers, as he was flying too close to the tree tops for safety as it was. Accordingly _his_ assailant got a clawhold on the side of the fusilage, furled its wings and started to crawl in.
But the earth-man steered the machine high into the air, as his companion swung around and fired at the intruder, which promptly let go its hold, and, falling with a shriek of pain, crashed through the tree tops and disappeared from view.
Myles drew a deep breath of relief, and once more swooped down on the flock of pterosaurs. But this time he kept at a safe distance from them; and they, warned by the fate of their two comrades, did not attempt any further sallies at the plane.
So the pursuit continued. Occasionally, between the green wings, the two in the airship could catch a glimpse of the form of Quivven, held fast in the talons of her captor. She was still alive. She did not seem to be in pain. Once she waved feebly to her friends above. What would those beasts do with her?
The question was soon to be answered. But first it was to be succeeded by many other questions, for a large and prosperous looking city loomed ahead. Its appearance was unfamiliar to Cabot. Strange, he thought that he knew all the principal settlements of Cupia! Its architecture was of an unknown type, not the pueblolike piles of exaggerated toy building blocks affected by the Formians, nor the red-tiled spires and minarets of the Cupians, but rather a style somewhat resembling classical Greek or Roman.
The architecture was immaterial, however, compared with the fact that this was a city of some sort, a city of a high degree of civilization. The beasts were apparently headed straight for it, and thus there was every prospect of the inhabitants—presumably Cupians—rescuing Quivven.
Suppose, however, it was a deserted city. Its unfamiliar style and remote location suggested as much. Perhaps this was the long forgotten court of some Cupian Jamshyd, now kept by lion and lizard, or rather by woofus and pterodactyl.
This was not so, however; for, as Cabot drew nearer, he could clearly see that the buildings were in an excellent state of repair, with not a crumbling ruin among them. No, this was an _inhabited_ city, to which the green dragons were bringing their prey. Could it be that the Cupian inhabitants kept these creatures as pets, and that this fact was unknown to the scientists at the Cupian metropolis?
Cabot’s cogitations were again cut short by his arrival over the city. The dragons made straight for an imposing centrally-located domed edifice, which they entered by one of the upper windows. The plane promptly dropped into a near-by plaza. Making a sign to the ant-man to guard the ship, Myles seized a rifle and cartridges, and rushed down a street which led toward the building which the green beasts had entered.
On the way he met several pterosaurs, four or five four-legged slate-colored reptiles ranging in size from that of a small dog to that of a horse, one large snake about thirty feet in length, various sorts of insects, and a few cat-like furry creatures; but not a single Cupian. If these were the pets of the city, where were their masters?
The strange creatures did not offer to molest him. In fact, they gave way to him with every indication of respect and not a little fear. This seemed to indicate that they were all thoroughly domesticated, so he made no effort to hurt them.
At last he arrived at the building which he sought. A wide incline led from the street up to its arched doorway. This smacked of Formia, for the ant-men before they were driven off the continent had used ramps everywhere instead of the flight of stairs employed by the Cupians.
Over the door was an inscription in unmistakable Porovian characters: “The Palace of the City of Yat.”
This must be Cupia, or old Formia—now occupied by the Cupians—for this was the language of those two races. But then, he reflected, it had also been the _written_ language of the Vairkings, far across the boiling seas.
Putting an end to his speculations, he rushed up the ramp and entered the building.
The splendidly arched and vaulted interior was crowded with the strangest assortment of animals the earth-man had ever set eyes upon. Picture to yourself Frank Buck’s circus, the New York zoo, and the gr-ool of Kuana, all turned loose in one hall, and then you wouldn’t imagine one-half of it; for very few of these assembled beasts bore the slightest resemblance to anything which you, or even Myles Cabot, had ever seen. He paused aghast and surveyed the assemblage. There was not a human or Cupian present, not even an ant-man!
At the farther side of the chamber, on a raised platform, there sat—or, rather, squatted—a gigantic pterosaur, whose wingspread must have been at least twenty feet from tip to tip. This beast, unlike those which had kidnapped Quivven, was pale slate-blue rather than green. His head was square, with a sharp crested beak, large circular lidless eyes, and earholes, but no ears.
Four legs he had, very much like those of a toad, except that the fifth finger of each hand, the finger which should have been the “little” finger, extended backward over his hips to a distance of about six feet, and served as the other supporting edge of his leathery wings, which now lay furled at his side.
In front of this creature stood Quivven the Golden Flame, guarded by two of the smaller pterodactyls, and seemingly unhurt and unafraid. None of the animals appeared to have noticed Cabot’s entrance, so he decided to wait a few moments and size up the situation before doing anything rash.