I must state now that it is far from my purpose—even if space permitted, which it does not—to sketch the life-history of the tragic little Zurian people. I am no ethnologist. Nor can I detail the effect George Simpson had upon them—the practical working of his ideal economic system. Books have been written on it in the last half century, based on what Tara was able to tell the learned men who questioned her. And as I indicated in my preface, much nonsense has been written. I think that my own experience, with Tara there in Zura, will demonstrate fully what I mean.
"And so now," I said, "since your father's death, you are ruler here?"
"Yes, of course. I followed my father's ideals."
"And there is no crime here? Nobody does anything wrong? They obey you?"
"I make them obey me," she said; and again her eyes flashed with the little lightnings. "So I understand you came here to get what it is you call Xalite?" she added suddenly.
"Yes."
"Something that belongs to us—to me—not to you."
I withheld my smile. She was amazingly beautiful, reclining there so close to me. Her bosom, the contour of it faintly apparent beneath the white furry garment, rose and fell with her emotion. Her long snow-white hair glistened with a silvery sheen in the opalescent light.
"You're very beautiful, Tara," I said abruptly. "Your strange white hair—"
"My mother was like that. So you are a thief? My father would have expected it of any man of earth."
I had touched her hand, where it rested on the fur rug beside me. "You were taught to hate all earth-people, weren't you, Tara?"
"I hate thievery, and murder." Her beautiful moist red lips curved with her scorn. "Five of you—just five to represent earth's millions—and you are thieves and murderers. Everywhere on earth it is the same. Oh, Iknow—my father, he told me. Oh, he tried so hard for what is right—"
"I know he did, Tara. But he was doomed to fail."
"And your nations, too—thieves, murderers, just like you individuals." She suddenly seemed to realize that my hand was on hers. As though a viper had stung her she snatched her hand away. "You—Earthman! You would dare to touch me! Thief! Murderer—like all your miserable kind!"
She was abruptly sitting erect, quivering with her anger as she spat the words at me. I had drawn back. I was aware that from a nearby door-oval one of the little white Zurian guards was coming forward, but Tara imperiously waved him away. Her small white hand had gone to her furry garment, came back, clutching a small knife of polished stone. Little frozen volcano. But the tempestuous fires within her were seething now. For that breathless instant I thought that she was about to spring upon me with the knife.
"Tara—" I murmured.
Amazing little creature. Was it that subconsciously she realized the irony of her violence, and was ashamed that I should see it? Her hand opened and the knife fell to the rug at her side. Her flashing, steel-blue gaze like a little sliding sword clashed with mine. Then she called out an imperious command in the Zurian tongue. From the shadows of the door-oval three guards came leaping at me.
"Tara—wait! Listen—"
Her furious commands drowned my protests. She was lying back, panting, staring after me as the guards roughly dragged me away.
VII
I was not killed, as momentarily I had feared, but was flung into a cell. You might call it that—a small cave-like recess off one of the smaller corridors. It seemed a level below the apartment in which Tara had been. My captors flung me into it, shoved a heavy stone into the door-slit, barred the stone with a metal fastening and withdrew.
More than ever now, the light inherent to the metallic rock-masses of subterranean Zura was apparent—a soft luminous glow. Left alone, I looked around me. It was somewhat warmer in here. The air was fresh enough. I saw that it was seeping in through many little rifts, an inch or two in width—tiny fissures in the honeycombed walls. There was a couch here, of white skins. I threw myself on it with the sudden realization that I was exhausted, and hungry and thirsty. The latter two needs I could not supply—but presently I had drifted into sleep.
I was awakened by the realization that the door-slab was being drawn aside. It was Zogg, Tara's guard who had taken Alan and the others away. He came in with food and water—food that was a fatty, uncooked animal flesh. I drank the water greedily—water different in taste from anything I had had on earth, but it was palatable. The blubbery animal-flesh at first was nauseous, but my hunger made me manage it. I was stiff with chill, but the food warmed me.
"Thanks," I said.
Zogg had been standing by the door, watching me impassively. I added: "Those friends of mine—what did you do with them? Kill them?"
"Near here. No hurt them," he said. Was that irony on his weird, grimacing face? A string of little ornaments hung on his chest now, dangling from his spindly neck. He gestured to them proudly. He was a dignitary here—one of Tara's leaders, I surmised. Afterward I learned that for years, in fact, he had been Simpson's lieutenant—forcing Simpson's commands upon the primitive little people, with what autocratic violence I could only guess. A belt of sinew was around his waist, with crude weapons dangling from it.
His grimace widened. He swept me with a sidelong glance and again I had the feeling that this Zurian was far more intelligent than his weird, to me fantastic, aspect would suggest. His little slit eyes stared at me with a queer sort of cunning, and his grimacing mouth more than ever seemed ironical. It sent a vague shudder through me so that involuntarily I tensed as he came suddenly toward me.
"Tara send me for you," he said. "She wants see you now."
Silently I preceded him through the doorway. He followed, guiding me with his brief, guttural English words and with a knife-point prodding my back. We traversed the dim, glowing little tunnel, mounting steadily. I had expected we would emerge into the same apartment where Tara had been before, but we did not. Abruptly the tunnel ended in a huge glowing open space. The ceiling of this gigantic grotto must have been five hundred feet or more overhead; only a bluish opalescent haze was up there so that I had the feeling that I was outdoors. An ice and rock wall rose to one side of me, through big openings of which I could see the grotto apartment where I had met Tara a few hours ago.
And here, stretching before me in shining prismatic beauty, was her garden—a smaller, vaulted grotto to my left, into which Zogg at once led me. It was an amazing little place of glittering ice formations. From its arching roof, ice hung in great sparkling clusters, like stalactites, in places hanging down to meet the icy stalagmites of the floor, so that there were vaulted little corridors and aisles between them. In other places there were recesses shrouded with a white lacery of frozen moisture—great bridal veils, blue-white, intricate with nature's lacy patterns.
A little fairyland of ice. The opalescent sheen of the rocks sparkled on it everywhere with a riot of pastel colors—a soft, prismatic, breath-taking beauty.
"This way," Zogg said. "Tara waits you."
She was in a small ice glade where furs had been spread, and in a recess, half shrouded with frozen lacery, there was a stone bench fashioned in earth-style. She was standing by the bench. Zogg pushed me forward, and at her gesture, he withdrew. I caught a glimpse of his face; his grimace—ironical.
"Tara—" I began.
"Sit down—John Taine." She waved me to the bench and dropped to the pile of rugs. "You angered me," she said. "I am sorry about that. I am thinking I will have to decide what to do with you—and those men with you whom you say are murderers."
I could think of no answer. I could only sit staring at her beauty. The lacery of ice-veils behind her seemed to glorify her with its prismatic pastel glow.
"Tell me," she murmured, "of your earth-world. Is it now what my father feared that always it would be?"
"Yes," I admitted. "I'm afraid it is." I began telling her of the history of my lifetime. It is horrible, when you think of it, how the events which humans create may be translated into terms of lust and greed, and jealousy and hatred. And the motives of nations—aggression—banditry.
"But it isn't all like that," I tried to explain. "There is love, too. And friendship and self-sacrifice. And science to try and heal the sick—to raise the standards of living. Xalite will do that. Xalite which is apparently of no use to your people, Tara."
She was staring at me musingly. Heaven knows, looking back on it now, I can try to understand her. Something within her, frightening her as she talked here alone with me. The urge, hardly to be understood by her, to order me here—to be alone with me. The first young man of her own world whom she had ever seen. Emotions, frightening—mingling with the life-long teachings of her fanatic father—his hatred of mankind, so that now what she instinctively felt must have angered as well as terrified her.
I had shifted from the bench to the rug beside her. My own emotions were sweeping me. "Tara," I murmured impulsively, "I'm going back to earth—and you're going with me."
I think she hardly heard me. She drew in her breath with a little hiss at my touch and leaped to her feet. "I shall show you my people," she said. "You will see what my father and I have done here."
She led me through the fairyland of the little garden; out through an archway, so that again I seemed outdoors, with the ceiling of this giant grotto high in the luminous haze overhead. And presently we stood on a small rocky height, gazing down upon a primitive little city. It was a brief glimpse—my only glimpse—of the Zurian subterranean world. This group of habitations here—one of perhaps a dozen scattered throughout the vast system beneath the wild surface of the little asteroid—I saw as a scattered collection of white little mound-dwellings. Stone and frozen moisture, modeled so that families might have privacy. I saw the women there, with dangling hair and breasts; and children, playing in the doorways of the huts.
It had been, before Tara's lifetime, a much more numerous people. Perhaps once they had lived on the asteroid's surface. They were of a different bodily structure from earth-humans—cold-blooded, in comparison with ourselves. Then the Great Change had driven them in here—and killed most of them, so that now, so far as Tara knew, only these few thousand were left.
"The Great Change?" I said.
"It was when this world first came into the Solar System. My father has explained it to me. It happened at about the time of my birth when this world rounded the sun. Almost all of them died then. The heat was too terrible to them."
And that time was coming again! Zura now was heading to round the sun, close, between the orbits of Mercury and Vulcan. Already, as I well knew, the little asteroid was inside the orbit of Venus.... With the protective blanket of heavy atmosphere, and the fires which doubtless were at the core of the little world, Zura, even in the realms of outer Interstellar space, had been habitable. But that protective atmospheric blanket was not enough, inside the orbit of Mercury! The heat would melt these ice-grottos. Already it was melting the outside surface.
"And you have no crime here?" I murmured. I could not avoid a faint irony. "Nothing ever goes wrong? Everyone always does everything exactly right?"
We were back in the prismatic little garden, walking down one of its glowing blue-white aisles. She stopped and faced me.
"They would not dare do wrong," she said. Again her eyes were flashing.
"I see," I murmured. "But you have done well, Tara. You and your father." And then, some damnable little imp within me made me add: "On earth, Tara, our people sometimes resent that their rulers live in palaces, when they can have only a hovel. That room where I met you—and your gardens here—they're very beautiful—"
It stung her. I cursed myself for the words, almost as I said them. She leaped to her feet, backed away, panting, in a tumult of hurt and anger.
"So all you can do is let me talk and then jibe at me! I—I hate you! You and all your kind!"
"Oh, Tara—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Really, I'm sorry—"
"I hate you—"
The words died in her throat. Behind us, here in the glittering garden, from Tara's apartments a group of Zurian women came running. They were terrified, calling out to her in their guttural voices. Her personal servants. And now, with them, a dozen or more of the little guards appeared. They came from several directions, shouting for Tara; confused, panic-stricken, wildly jabbering and gesticulating as they gathered near us.
Tara's questioning glance crossed with mine. "Why—why, what—" she stammered.
There was a turmoil everywhere here. Tara's servants and guards gathering around her in terror. And now we could hear other sounds, coming in through the huge archway from the open grotto-space outside. Sounds floating up from the Zurian village down the declivity. A distant blended murmur of angry voices. A mob down there, mounting the slope, screaming defiance....
It was as though my words of a moment ago had been prophetic. Tara's people had risen now into sudden murderous revolt!
"Why—why, what is this?" she gasped. Amazement swept her face as she listened to the terrified words of one of her servants. And then her beautiful face contorted with anger, her eyes were flashing as she tossed up her head and squared her shoulders. "Why—why, how dare they—"
She whirled suddenly and dashed through the garden, with me after her, and the panic-stricken guards and servants gathering behind us. At the big archway, where we emerged upon a little ledge-like eminence with a ragged white slope down to the village spread below us, Tara paused, stricken by the tumult of the scene. A mob of a thousand or more, men, women and even children, were milling up the broken ascent. A frenzied, menacing mob. Most of them carried crude weapons—shafts of pointed ice, knives of polished stone; others primitive implements of agriculture.
At Tara's appearance on the little height, a great shout went up. Those in front, halfway up the slope now, momentarily paused, but the milling throng behind shoved against them, screaming threats, waving their weapons. A leaderless mob? And then I saw the tall figure of Zogg. Not in the front ranks, but a little farther down. He was shoving, shouting, inciting them forward. Then with a prodigious leap he was on a boulder, screaming up at Tara, wildly waving at the milling crowd, exhorting them forward.
The thought stabbed at me: Had the crafty Carruthers contrived this? Working upon Zogg, showing him how he could raise himself into power here in his little world by promising these people things which poor Tara had not been able to give them? Had Carruthers, Duroh and Alan contrived to be released? In that stricken moment I stared down at the frenzied, milling throng, expecting perhaps to see them down there. But I did not.
"Tara, good Lord—" I gasped.
An imperious sweep of her arm shoved me back. Then, with her little figure drawn to its full height, she stepped to the brink of the ledge, with her arms raised as she confronted the murderous mob!
VIII
For that instant the imperious, angry figure of Tara checked the climbing rabble. Their shouts rose higher, but as she grimly gestured, the shouts died into a low muttering murmur. And then she began speaking. For just a moment her imperious words in their own tongue held them. Most of them had stopped milling now, staring up at her, muttering sullenly. Her voice rose above it. Then from his rock, Zogg was shouting and the mob caught it up, mutterings that rose again into screams as the rear ranks again began shoving forward.
Poor little Tara. For an instant she tried to shout above the din. And then suddenly she stopped, dropped her arms and on her face was the pathos of disillusionment. Her father's ideals, bred in her, clattering down now like a house of cards upon her.
The mob, frenzied again, was surging up the slope now. A thrown missile came hurtling past us, a rock that crashed into a lacery of ice-veil above us and brought it down upon us. Then other rocks, stones, a variety of missiles showered us. Behind me I was aware that the terrified servants and Tara's guards had fled.
"Tara," I gasped. "No use—"
I gripped her, trying to draw her away; and she stared at me with eyes in which tears now were gathering. "Oh, John—"
"Come—run," I muttered. "You lead us—out to the upper surface—"
We started back into the garden....
"Here they are, damn them—"
It was Duroh's growling, triumphant voice! I whirled. He and Carruthers were here in the garden glade, with Alan behind them. Near them were two or three of the little white Zurian guards who evidently had released them. They stood confused as Carruthers, snarling, whipped out a heat-gun and leaped for me. Its sizzling violet bolt stabbed, missed me as I leaped under it; and I struck him with my lowered head. We went down, rolling, locked together in wild scrambling combat. Above us, as we lunged and struggled with flailing fists, I could see that Duroh had gestured at Alan to help Carruthers. He himself had leaped for Tara, seized her as she fought like a little wildcat, with a knife in her hand now, trying to stab him. Carruthers' gun had dropped from his hand with my onslaught. He was a damnably agile fellow. He twisted on top of me, his hands fumbling at my throat to strangle me.
The confused, terrified Zurians had decamped. I saw in that second that Alan, unarmed, was standing numbed. Duroh thought he would leap to finish me up, of course. But he did not. Suddenly Alan seemed to realize that Duroh's huge arms were around Tara, his hand twisting the knife from her, his leering, grinning face pressing down with a caress upon hers.
And then Alan swiftly stooped, seized a blue-white ragged chunk of ice at his feet, and leaped at Duroh. The huge ice-chunk crashed on Duroh's head and he fell, with the raging little Alan upon him, crashing his head again and again. But the knife in Duroh's hand was stabbing....
"Got you—" Carruthers leered. His hands throttled me. He did not see what was going on above him as he sprawled down upon me while momentarily I lay limp. But he didn't have me. My sudden unexpected heave caught him off balance, broke his hold on my throat. And I tumbled him off. The little heat-gun was lying here and I seized it. Its bolt seared full into his face, shriveling, blackening the flesh with a ghastly stench. He was dead in that second, with his face a bubbling, pulpy mass of horror.
"John—he—he's stabbed—dying—"
Tara's voice called to me as I rose. Duroh, with his skull cracked, was dead, and beside him Alan lay with Duroh's knife buried in his chest, a ghastly crimson stain spreading over his shirt-front. His eyes were open, glazing. They seemed to focus on me, and his lips, on which bloody foam was gathering, twisted into a smile. Then he gasped faintly.
"I did something worthwhile—in my new world—didn't I? That's—good—I guess I'm—glad—"
A gush of blood from his mouth choked him. Tara was down beside him, her hand on his. He was trying to smile at her as the light went out of his eyes and he died.
"Oh, John—"
I was aware that the shouts from the oncoming mob were much louder now. Rocks were clattering into the arcade opening.
"Tara—we've got to—"
It seemed too late. In the opening three or four of the mob appeared, brandishing their weapons. My gun spat its sizzling bolt. One of the men screamed, leaped and fell. The others scattered as I ran forward. On the ledge, with Tara behind me, I stared down at the advancing mob. The first milling ranks of it were hardly more than fifty feet from the top. My bolt hissed again; another man fell....
"John—oh, please—my people—" Tara's hand checked me. But I could not be sure, if we tried to retreat, but that the frenzied throng would be able to overtake us. Then with sudden thought I adjusted the gun to a spreading heat-beam. The wave of heat leaped down—again and again—heat diffused over a wide area, not intense enough to kill. But before it the leaders of the Zurians staggered back, terrified, with their hands before their faces. The mob behind them wavered. Down at the bottom of the slope, others were pressing upward. In a moment it was a milling, scrambling crowd with panic spreading. And then the wavering ranks of it began rolling back until it was a rout....
"Tara, come—hurry—they'll be after us in a moment—"
White-faced, with sorrow in her eyes mingled with wonderment, as though still she could not believe this catastrophe, she nodded. She led me as we ran, plunging down into the maze of tortuous corridors. Breathless, panting, we ran; rested a moment in a dim, glowing passage—and ran again.
"Oh, John—"
"Don't talk, Tara—keep going—"
It seemed that we could hear muffled shouts far behind us. But presently we outdistanced them, and then at last, after an eternity, we came safely out onto the upper surface.
It was night; glittering starlight on this doomed little world, heading for the heat of our giant sun.
And there, quite near us, was the dark little globe of thePlaneteer, with the starlight glittering on its glassite dome-top.
"Wait, Tara—just a moment—" Unexpectedly, here on the sloshing half-melted surface, I came upon the pickaxe, shovel and big canvas bags, which Carruthers had dropped here when we were captured. The sword-slash of gray Xalite ore was visible, a gleaming inlay in the cliff-face nearby. I ran there. It chipped out readily under the axe and then I shoveled it up, stuffed a hundred pounds or so of it into a bag and staggered away.
ThePlaneteer. Never was anything so welcome as that lower little door-oval. I tossed the bag into it. Barely in time. From over by the cliff, the first of the pursuing Zurians were pouring out.
"Hurry! Get inside, Tara—I'll close the door—"
Mutely she obeyed. The oncoming Zurians were led by a huge figure. Zogg. Grimly I leveled my gun, sizzled a bolt which struck him full, crumpled him. It checked the others for a moment as I slammed thePlaneteer'sdoor and with Tara rushed up to its upper control turret. The mechanisms hummed as they went into operation.
And then slowly, silently, we lifted. The Zurians were in a horde down there around thePlaneteer, milling and scrambling. A few of them dropped off as we rose, up into the starlight with the strange little world sliding away beneath us.
"Tell me more of what I will see on earth," Tara said.
ThePlaneteer'sjourney was nearing its end. In the pale glittering starlight, Tara and I sat in the control room, watching the approaching earth, which was spread in a great crescent before us.
"You're too warm, Tara?"
"No, I'm getting used to it."
"The cold, on Zura—you never felt it?"
"I was born to that," she said. "My father, when I was a little girl, he did everything to make me fitted for it. But I will like earth's warmth."
Then again, as a hundred times before, I was telling her of earth—the things that we were going to do there together. She was seated now on a blanket on the floor-grid. Her knees were hunched up to her chin, with her hands clasping them and her eager little face over her rounded knees turned to me. Just an interested little earthgirl, making plans.
And presently I sat beside her on the blanket, with my arm around her, and her head tilted so that her cheek was resting against my shoulder. Then we fell silent as we stared out to the approaching crescent of earth.
Good or bad—our world.