CHAPTER VII
I was presently breathing the water with fair normality. Indeed, after the noxious air we had been struggling with so long, it came almost as a relief. Nona’s arms were about my neck; I loosed them, but she clung to my hand. Together we tried to stand upright.
This river bottom seemed a gray sand. But we could not maintain footing. The water was empty—by which I mean there was no marine vegetation here—nothing that we could grip with our hands. And from behind us, the current wafted us gently but irresistibly forward.
I soon discovered that normally we would float in an upright position. We held ourselves so with our toes occasionally touching the soil, bouncing along like feathers in a gentle breeze.
The scene around us now more resembled a misty gray day on one of our sandy Earth-deserts than anything else I can call to mind. The ground was undulating gray sand, sloping upward to one side, and with a steady incline downward in front. And down this slope we were blowing.
Swim, you say? It never occurred to either of us! We were frightened; we clung to each other, striving to remain upright.
Very soon the light from overhead seemed to deepen. But other light—the diffused light inherent to the water itself—grew brighter by contrast. We were swept forward much faster—and down a much steeper hill. I know now that the change was caused by the river having plunged into that cliff-face, to become subterranean.
How far we were carried I cannot say. A mile perhaps. Or more. Rocky cliffs now seemed to pen us in; it was as though we were in a steep canyon, with a powerful wind driving us down through it.
Then abruptly we came to the end of the canyon. Open country lay before us. There were hills in the distance, with the level floor of the sea between us and them. Long stalks of vegetation reared themselves up through the water—so high that I could not see to their tops—slender spires of growing things, rooted below, branching out above with huge air-bladders to keep them floating—the whole waving slowly to and fro. On some of them there seemed what you might term fruit.
It was a strange, but a beautiful and peaceful scene. This, then, was our new home—our new world! And how much better, more hospitable, it was than the one we had left! My heart swelled with pride as, standing beside my mate, I gazed at our new possessions.
A small living thing—slender and elongated and with a flat, waving tail—went past us waist-high. I clutched at it clumsily; but it eluded me and darted away.
On the ground beneath our feet were living things in shells. I seized one, ate it, and called to Nona.
Sounds? It was very still and quiet down here—but no more so than on the surface of the meteor above. The sound of my voice carried to Nona. Indeed, sounds here in the water carried very far, though somewhat muffled and blurred.
Having eaten of the shell-fish, the berries and the fruits, we lay down on the sand with Nona’s hair floating above us. We were in the shelter of a tenuous clump of ferns which spread out like an arbor above us. I twisted my leg in them to hold us from possible drifting; and Nona clung to me.
We would rest and then build our home here.
CHAPTER VIII
How long we slept I do not know. Nona brought me back to consciousness; she was twitching at my arm and whispering in my ear frantically.
“What?” I demanded; but she silenced me. She was pointing with a trembling hand. I saw what it was. Half a mile away perhaps, over the sand hills, I could see figures moving. Living things were advancing toward us along the water-bottom!
I sat up, alert. Living things! I would capture and kill one for food.
But as they came steadily closer, I saw that each of them was nearly as large as ourselves—and there were ten or more of them. I trembled; and Nona and I drew back into the fern to hide.
The things continued to advance. Soon I saw that they were upright, coming along the sand as though walking, slowly but steadily. I thought they had not seen us. Nona and I lay very quiet, with our hearts pounding with fright. Soon the things were so close that I could examine them in detail. They were apparently human as ourselves—made after a general plan like our own.
I have since named them Marinoids—a name that may serve as well as any other. The males—or shall I call them men?—were some five feet in height. Their bodies were pink-white, smooth, with a glistening skin. They were clothed—crude greenish garments wrapped around them tightly. They had feet and jointed legs, which, however, were connected by a flapping membrane. Their chests were over-large. There were four arms, two at each shoulder. The arms waved in the water sinuously, like the tentacles of an octopus. At the ends of the arms were fingers—very long and slim—and a huge pincer, like that of a crab.
Yet for all that, these beings seemed in human form. The heads were hairy and round, with two eyes only slightly protruding, a nose, and a mouth not much different from my own save that it was larger.
The women were slightly shorter and more slender than the men, with long dark hair that floated habitually above them.
In this party which now approached us were ten individuals—four of them women. In spite of their size, there was about them—both women and men—a curious aspect ofunsolidity. I felt less afraid of them as I realized it. They looked as though I could crush them in my arms. Their chests especially seemed no more than thin, inflated membranes, expanding and contracting with extraordinary rapidity.
I wondered, with a sudden flush of triumph, if these things would be good to eat. I whispered it to Nona.
“I can capture one,” I said confidently.
“Wait!” she cautioned.
The Marinoids were still walking toward us along the sand—slow dragging footsteps combined with a sort of waddle for their legs were hampered by the membrane which connected them. Their arms were waving back and forth. The backs of most of them were bent, with their faces downward as though they were examining the sand.
I must have made some movement. They saw us! They stopped, and seemed to grow suddenly alert. The men consulted together, pointing at us; the women drew partially behind them as though for protection.
I struggled upright, in spite of Nona’s warning and her restraining hold. I would fight these things—kill them for our food. It would be a glorious feast; my Nona was hungry.
I plunged forward. The Marinoids were alarmed—startled would describe their aspect better. The men stood their ground; the women darted upward through the water, swimming on one side with legs waving the connecting membrane like a great fish’s tail.
One of the Marinoid men had shouted something. I could hear his voice plainly—words seemingly—a rasping order. Nona was behind me, following me closely, ready to help me fight.
“Quick!” I shouted. “Catch one, Nona!”
It was so futile! The Marinoid men left the sand and darted at us so quickly that we could not have eluded them had we tried. They were upon us in an instant: I was helpless as they threw me down and with surprising strength in those three-foot long tentacles, wrapped them around me and held me.
Three of the men were thus engaged with me; and two were holding Nona. But they did not attempt to hurt us; indeed, they seemed to avoid doing so.
The sixth Marinoid—he who had shouted the order—was hastily gathering long, rope-like segments of the vegetation. At his command, Nona and I were raised upright. The women came down to the sand and they all inspected us curiously, talking among themselves with words to us unintelligible, but gestures which seemed wholly rational.
At last they bound our arms tightly against our sides and started us walking along the sand. They were leading us away, out over the sandy open spaces toward a line of hills in the distance.
The women swam above us; the men walked in a group, pushing Nona and me in front. We could run faster than they, and once we broke away. But they swam after us and caught us in an instant. And one of them warned us with a gesture which was unmistakable.
Soon I saw what this party had been doing before they encountered us. We passed occasionally, huge receptacles made seemingly of woven sea-vegetation. Into these baskets they had gathered various living, shell-backed creatures of the water-bottom. And these baskets in turn would be gathered up and carted away by other Marinoids.
I learned this later; Nona and I understood none of it at the time.
As we advanced, the aspect of things around us changed continually. The vegetation grew thicker, until soon we were in a veritable forest of it. And we seemed to be following a road—a pathway which had been cleared.
Abruptly I heard a shout ahead. The Marinoid women swimming above us came suddenly down. Our leader said something, and they all drew back from the road, pulling us with them.
The shout ahead of us grew louder. A moving object came into view—a sort of sleigh made of a huge shell. It was gliding over the sandy road toward us, pulled by a strange swimming animal.
In the sleigh were two Marinoid men—the larger of them elaborately clothed. The sleigh halted abreast of us. The smaller of its occupants stood up and shouted vehemently. And suddenly I realized that he was shouting at me! My captors were lying prone on the sand, and had pulled Nona down with them. But in their excitement and awe—for this was the ruler of their world—they had left me standing alone.
I stared stupidly at the angry figure in the sleigh; and suddenly, in his wrath at the effrontery of my upright posture before his Monarch, he launched something at me. I saw it leave his hand. It was long, thin and pointed. It came through the water like a spear thrown through the air. It hit my head a glancing blow.
I sank down to the sand. I heard shouts around me—Nona was screaming. Then my senses faded into blackness.
CHAPTER IX
I take up my narrative at a point some four or maybe five months (as you here on earth measure time) after Nona and I entered the world of the Marinoids. The human memory retains only high spots clearly; and those four or five months held nothing which now impresses itself strongly upon me.
You will recall that I had been knocked unconscious by a blow on the head. When I recovered, the ruler of that world had passed on his way and our captors were again dragging us forward.
We came presently to a city. A city, you say! A city under water! Why not? By a city I mean a closely-knit collection of human dwellings where a large number of people lived close together. Is that not a city?
This one was the capital of the Marinoid world. They called it Rax—a brusk, somewhat guttural monosyllable which I write with those three letters.
There we took up our abode with the leader of this Marinoid party which had captured us. There we learned the Marinoid language, and became a part of the Marinoid civilization—with friends and enemies, hopes, fears and despairs.
As I have already told you, our own spoken language was no more than at its beginning. We turned to that of the Marinoids readily; and within a few months it was to all intents and purposes native to us. That you may understand this point, I remind you again that our intellects were matured but unused. We learned like precocious children.
More than that, this contact with other beings with minds like our own brought us rapidly up from the primitive mental state in which I have previously pictured us. We learned that one great trait of civilization—deceit.
You will picture us then—Nona and me—as we were at the end of these months with the Marinoids. We lived in a dwelling near the bottom and outer edge of the city of Rax. The bottom of the city! A strange term! Let me explain.
Here on Earth you live in a world you call three dimensions—length, breadth and thickness. By that, you mean your bodies, and all material objects comprise three dimensions. Perfectly right. But you liveon the surfaceof a globe. In general—with exceptions of course—your actions take place in but two dimensions. Your birds move in three dimensions more than you do. And your fishes.
Fishes! There you see my point! In the Marinoid world of water, to move vertically came as naturally as the horizontal movement. Hence, I say the bottom of the city, for Rax had a vertical dimension almost as great as either of its others.
The city was, I should estimate, of roughly circular form some quarter of a mile long and nearly as broad. Like a huge, low cylinder standing on end.
It was a fibrous city of growing sea-vegetation! Huge stalks planted like a thick forest of trees in the sandy ooze of the water-bottom, grew straight upward a thousand feet or more. Broad, leaf-like branches spread from them at the top, sustained in an upright position by air-bladders.
These upright stalks were the vertical girders upon which the fabric of the city was built. For eight hundred feet up they were pruned of their branches. Parasite growing vines had been guided laterally to connect the vertical stalks. And upon these, other rope-like vegetation was woven. The result was a series of tiers some twenty feet apart—one above the other—forty of them from top to bottom of the city.
The tiers were further cut up into segments which served as houses. I shall describe one in detail presently—the one they gave Nona and me at the time our great event took place.
Throughout the city there were both vertical and horizontal streets at intervals—up and down and along which the inhabitants swam or drifted. And occasionally there was cubical open space—a sort of three-dimensional park. One of these, the largest, occupied the exact center of the city, with the ruler’s home contiguous to it.
Have I made myself clear? The fabric of this entire city—the very walls and rooms of its honeycombed houses—was living, growing vegetation of the sea. It grew rapidly. It was easily trained to grow in desired directions. A third of a man’s lifetime, no more, would grow such a city as this.
One species of vegetation? No, there seemed a hundred—each one of them had its specific use and adaptability. It was curious stuff. You have marine vegetation in your great oceans of Earth. You may conceive what this was like. Tough, smooth, somewhat slimy main stalks. But porous—like the stalk of your banana tree. The leaves were intricate and beautifully shaped; and there were millions of tiny air-pods growing everywhere.
When I first saw the city of Rax, I remember marvelling at the ingenuity that could build it. But soon I marveled at the greater ingenuity that could maintain its interior form. The main stalks changed little from year to year. But a constant pruning, altering, uprooting and replanting was necessary throughout every detail. The very walls of a man’s house were of varying form. Yet, since each man was responsible for his own, it was easily done.
Above the city, the great branches of the main stalks spread out—green-brown wavering things, a lace-work of great ferns with hundreds of pods twice as big as a man’s body—the air-bladders which sustained the entire city.
I have said the water was calm. Not a ripple down here save those made by the animate things themselves. Nature was passive. The half-twilight never altered; the temperature remained always the same; no storms, not a sound of the world disturbed its peace and calm.
Thus stood the city of Rax—tenuous, wavering gently throughout its every fibre. A city which, with one of your Earth-swords, I could have cut loose from its moorings and slashed to destruction. And you shall hear how one day I did something like that to a similar city. Not destroyed it indeed, merely—but first I must tell you what happened before the coming of Boy—our boy, Nona’s and mine—our little son.
CHAPTER X
We lived first in the home of Caan—the leader of the Marinoid party which captured us. He was in charge of gathering the shell-food from the water-bottom in the open spaces beyond the city.
I must sketch all this briefly—there is so much to tell you. We were at first, curiosities to the Marinoids. But we proved our friendliness; and when we learned their language they made us welcome among them.
Our history—what little we had to tell them of the outer world of air, the meteor, the heavens, the great Universe of which we are all so infinitesimal a part—none of this could they comprehend. But—and you of Earth mark me well—these Marinoids did not scoff. They were not unduly credulous either. Their ruler sent for me; and with a thousand ingenious questions sought to test the truth of my words.
I am sure now that it was this knowledge I held of things they had never dreamed of, which raised me to a position of importance among the Marinoids. That, and my physical prowess, which very shortly I was forced to demonstrate.
At all events, I did become a figure of importance in Rax. The ruler—an hereditary monarch whom I shall call King for simplicity—consulted with me frequently after a few months.
When Boy was born they gave us our own home. Caan had been very good to us; we counted him our best friend. He swam about the city with Nona and me helping us to select from among the vacant dwellings.
Can you picture us upon such a journey? The horizontal streets were like square tunnels twenty feet broad and equally as high—top and bottom a tangle of woven, green-brown vegetation, carefully pruned; sides formed by the rows of houses. There were windows and doors to the houses, with removable screens of vegetation.
The streets were artificially lighted. In the open water outside the city there was enough light inherent to the water itself to give a sort of twilight. But within the city, shut in by all this vegetation, it would have been too dark for comfort. At intervals along the streets a transverse strand of vine was stretched. From it hung a huge pod—half as big as a man perhaps. The pod was a vegetable air bladder, of a variety whose walls were exceedingly thin and translucent.
From these pods, which hung like lamps, a greenish-silver glow emanated. It spread downward in a ray of illumination through the water of the street; it cast queer, blurred, monstrous shadows of the Marinoids swimming past it.
You will be interested to know what the light was. Small, self-luminous organisms were gathered from the open water and placed—hundreds of them—in the translucent pods. Similar organisms to these form the familiar “phosphorescence” of the tropical waters of your Earth. But these were much larger—more the size of your glow-worms.
We swam slowly along. A few Marinoids were in the streets, passing us as they went to their occupations. From a window, or the bottom of a doorway, a naked child would peer at us with big curious eyes. In a horizontal street of more pretentious houses, where the tunnel deepened to two stories, a woman sat in the corner of a little balcony, nursing her infant. Beside her, two older children played a game with shining opalescent shells.
We turned upward into a vertical street. You would call it a huge elevator shaft. Its lights were fastened to the sides of buildings. Here the houses were one on top of the other—a single low story only, and very long horizontally. Nona did not like them; one was vacant here and Caan suggested it but she refused it decisively. I had no opinion to offer; they all looked all right to me.
We swam upward and soon reached the central cube of open space. Here was the ruler’s palace. Open water surrounded it on all four sides, and on top. The main stalks of the building grew above it with graceful hovering fronds of green—fronds whose smallest pods were luminous like a hundred tiny Chinese lanterns—under which, on the roof of the building, was a garden. There were small plants growing there, gleaming white shells laid out in designs, a bed of black ooze with brilliant red things like flowers growing in it. A row of small illuminated pods formed a parapet to the roof top.
The main building was not as large as the term “palace” sounds—it was not over fifty feet in its greatest dimension. It had both vertical and horizontal balconies, and a broad horizontal doorway near the top—a doorway built of shimmering iridescent shells plastered together with mud and a gluey substance which was made from one of the Marinoid plants. And on a tiny platform by the doorway lay the shell sleigh with its marine animal and its driver in waiting—the sleigh in which I had first seen the King.
It was to us a magnificent dwelling, this palace. Nona and I floated before it, gazing with awe. But my heart sank, for I knew that now Nona had seen it, we should have much more difficulty in selecting our own humble little home.
It was indeed, almost the time of sleep before Nona made her choice. She selected a two-story house, at the intersection of a horizontal with a vertical street. It had one room upstairs, and two downstairs—small rooms, you would call them, no more than fifteen feet cube.
But the house had a little horizontal balcony upstairs. On it Nona could lie and watch the people passing. And Caan told us that these streets were on the route the King habitually used when leaving the city with his equipage. I think it was the balcony that decided Nona. For myself, I was pleased because we were only a very short distance from the home of Caan.
Our room of sleep had bunks built into the wall—bunks which were soft with a springy growing mass of mattress—a grey-white growth whichyouwould call a sponge. There was a large ornamental shell standing like a table in the center of the room; and a window giving onto the balcony and the street. The window had a leafy, swinging blind for privacy.
For ventilation we left the window open. Ventilation, you say! Ventilation in a city of water! Most assuredly. Your most humble fish will die without fresh water. We were using the air held in solution by the water; and fresh water with new air was constantly necessary.
Once, after each time of sleep, the whole city was “ventilated.” Swimming animals—sleek shining things of brown, with slimy bodies like wet seals—pulled a sort of shield rapidly back and forth through the streets. The shield was large; it almost filled the street. Its movement stirred the water; pulled the water by suction into the city from outside.
I was describing our house, but there is so much to tell you I must be briefer. Downstairs we had circular shells to recline in and a place to store and prepare our food. And every room was lighted with a pod which had a green-moss shade that could envelope it when darkness was desired.
Nona was delighted with the house and immediately began planning a hundred ways to improve it. The place was in good repair, but there was much pruning and retaining of the vegetation to be done. And then, when we had slept in the house but once, and were both busily engaged with our own affairs, Og came to see us. He came to see Nona, I should say—for certainlyInever liked him. His coming was the immediate cause of my being forced to display my physical strength—to which occasion I have already alluded.
I fought Og twice—the first time in a pretentious hand-to-hand combat before the King’s palace, which attracted the attention of the entire city. It was a queer combat—unfortunate for me. I shall tell you about it at once.
CHAPTER XI
Og stood in our little doorway, talking to Nona. He was a young man about my own age. I have since learned he was not full-blooded Marinoid—but that can come later. He was somewhat taller than Nona, but shorter than myself. His legs, with their connecting membrane, were bare to slightly above the knee. From there to his shoulders, he was dressed in the characteristic Marinoid fashion—a single-piece garment of green woven grass. On his bulging chest he wore an ornament—a flat, circular affair of many tiny shells linked together. His four, tentacle-like arms waved before him. The hair on his head was thick and matted, but short. With one of his pincers he would occasionally brush it—a gesture evidently intended to impress Nona with his grace.
Og’s face—with features not much different from my own except that his mouth was larger and his eyes slightly protruding—was nevertheless most unpleasant. His chin was weak, his expression egotistical; and more than that, I never liked the way he looked at Nona.
A queer sort of being—this Marinoid—for me to be jealous of! If you are thinking that, you are wholly wrong. We were living in a Marinoid world, and in all that world only Nona and I were queer-looking!It was we who were abnormal, not they!
Nona, with her flowing hair and her short grey-green Marinoid jacket, was to me the most beautiful creature in the world. But, as Caan pointed out, our eyes—Nona’s and mine—were set too deep in our head to be of real use in seeing sidewise. Our mouths were too small to admit the water comfortably, and our chests too small and immobile to handle it properly. Two arms, which could bend in only one direction, were surely not so advantageous as the four Marinoid arms; and our legs, without the connecting membrane, would keep us always very indifferent swimmers. This was before I demonstrated my muscular strength; Caan changed his opinion a little after that.
I have wandered from Og. Nona unwittingly attracted him, in spite of her physical handicaps. I know why now. He was a half-breed; the blood in his veins which was not Marinoid barred him from finding a mate among the Marinoid women. And when Nona came he wanted her.
I did not know this at the time, but I sensed it. And Nona too was afraid of Og, though she had not shown it outwardly.
I was in the other room this time when Og came to our new home. He stood there talking to Nona; and suddenly I heard her scream. I launched myself in a dive through the inner doorway. They were up near the ceiling and Nona was struggling with him. He was laughing; he dropped her, and came swimming down to face me, still grinning insolently.
“She is tempting,” he said. “She has learned the ways of the Marinoid women very quickly.”
I swam at him, but he avoided me; and before I could seize him, Caan appeared in the doorway and stopped me.
Nona was crying. Caan would let me do nothing. Physical altercations were a dire offense in Rax. I could report Og for trial and punishment, but I could not personally attack him.
In his insolent confidence, however, Og did the one thing I would have wanted. He swam at me and struck me lightly in the face with the side of his left-front arm. It was not so different from one of your old customs here on Earth. He had challenged me to public combat. A duel? Call it that, if you wish.
Caan made all the arrangements. We were to fight after the next time of sleep, in the open cube before the King’s palace, with the King, Queen and young Prince on the palace roof to judge us.
Nona was frightened; she cried all that day. At Caan’s suggestion we slept that next time in his home, where his wife (I use the term wife, although it is inapplicable) could care for Nona.
The combat was to be without artificial weapons—and in spite of Nona’s feminine fear—I could not take it seriously. I was only twenty, you will remember, and youth is absurdly confident in itself.
Caan, however, was very grave. I did not know it at the time, but the combat was intended to be to the death. Og understood it so—and the whole city was stirred by it. As for the King, it would be an interesting sport for him as spectator; a thousand times of sleep had passed since such a sight had been offered.
Caan was very kindly to me that evening, solicitous and perturbed. Once he started to question me about my methods of fighting. Youth is so foolish! I laughed at him.
“I shall twist him in my hands before he can touch me,” I said boastfully. “We will not talk of it now, my friend, Caan. It frightens my Nona.”
At once he subsided. He had indeed something important to tell me. But my words chanced to make him think I knew it. The Marinoid is by nature reticent; he will force nothing upon you—offer no advice that you do not solicit. I was as it happened entirely ignorant of this thing he feared; had I not been I should have looked forward to the combat with alarm and probably terror.
Nona would not go to the scene. But Caan went to represent me, and lay on the palace roof beside the King.
The cube of water was a brilliant, gay arena. Illuminated air bladders were hanging from the palace balconies and from the foliage above its roof-garden. Everywhere about the cube, top, bottom and all four sides, these lanterns were banked in rows, so that the open water in which we were to fight was a bright, greenish glare of light.
On the roof-top there were perhaps ten Marinoids in addition to the Royal Family. They were reclining behind the row of lamps; and these lamps were shaded like the footlights of one of your theatres.
Across the cube, facing the palace, were a few balconied houses of the more important inhabitants of the city. Their lights, too, were shaded to throw the beams outward toward the open water. These balconies were all crowded with Marinoid men and women.
At every street entrance to the cube other Marinoids were crowded; a hundred or more of them lay prone on the lower surface, their gaze directed upward. And above, a swarm of others clung to the roof of the arena, or hovered in the foliage, staring downward.
The King’s sleigh was gone from its platform; a group of his guards stood there instead. Occasionally one would swim out to warn back a trespasser.
When Caan and I arrived, the figure of Og, nude save for a loin-cloth, was hovering alone near the center of the open water; his legs were moving very slowly, his four arms waving as he sustained himself. Every eye in the crowd was upon him. His face bore a confident, leering smile—the challenger waiting for his opponent.
Shouts arose as Caan and I pushed forward through the crowd. Caan took my outer garment, and with a grave word of encouragement, left me. My gaze followed him as he swam upward to join the King’s party.
A hush fell upon the crowd. The water now was soundless; then suddenly Og called to me—a sneering shout of defiance. I was not afraid; I was sorry Nona was not here to see me fight.
Slowly I mounted upward through the empty water to meet Og. And then the Queen did a curious thing. Her soft but commanding voice rang out over the stillness; she ordered me up to the roof-top.
I obeyed, hovering respectfully before her.
“I hope that you will win,” she said softly, yet loud enough so that all might hear. “You are badly equipped to fight—but you are in the right.”
There was some applause, for Og was not popular in Rax; but she silenced it.
“Go—do your best.” She dismissed me with a gesture.
As I was turning away, my heart swelling with pride at the incident, the young Prince—he was about my own age, and had already shown some liking for me—called out softly but vehemently:
“Nemo, do not let him touch your head and feet at the same time.”
“No,” I said, “and I thank you both.”
I swam slowly back to meet Og. I had no idea what the Prince meant; but I followed his warning as well as I could, until in the heat of the fight, as you shall see, I forgot it.
Og was waiting, facing me alertly. His arms and legs had ceased waving; his body was tense; he was sinking slowly downward. I followed him down with no more than ten feet separating us. I wondered when he would come at me. I would wait; then grip him around his chest and crush him with my superior strength.
The silence in that bright, glaring water was oppressive; we were sinking nearly to the bottom of the arena. Without warning, I doubled my body and dove forward—rushing at Og with all the strength I could put into my swimming strokes.
CHAPTER XII
I was a good swimmer; there are none like me among the humans of your Earth. But I soon found I was not the equal of Og. He eluded my first rush. With his arms close against his sides, his body slipped between my outstretched hands. He mounted upward—a pink streak through the glaring water.
I was after him. Up in the foliage, almost directly over the King, he hovered, waiting for me. The contemptuous smile on his face maddened me. As I came up, he turned sidewise into another dive, but I gripped his ankle as it went past me.
The crowd was shouting as we floundered, churning the water. I was trying to turn and clutch Og around the body. But he twisted away. I knew, if I could once get him in my grip, I could crush him. But he seemed to know it also.
I still held his ankle, and he did not try to kick himself loose. He seemed to be manoeuvering for something. He was swimming forcibly downward now, using his arms but leaving his legs limp. It drew our bodies through the water in a single straight line, like one boat towing another. Then Og turned into a sharp circle. I still clung to him, and his body, bent like a bow, went over mine. The movement brought his head near my feet. One of his arms swept down, made a clutch for my ankle, but missed.
I heard the shout of mingled horror and relief from the crowd. I was now above Og. Our turning movement confused me. The bottom of the arena was over my head in another instant; then the side and top swung past.
Og made another clutch at my ankles; and warned at last of some danger which I did not understand, I dropped him abruptly and swam away. He did not chase me, but turned over a few times more and then hovered in the center of the cube.
Into the upper foliage I swam. I was breathing heavily. My chest seemed constricted. I was not physically able to undergo such exertion without distress. I realized it. The excess oxygen my blood was demanding could not be obtained by my lungs from water. I would have to get my grip around Og at once.
Some of the spectators were now shouting at me derisively. They thought that after this first encounter I was now afraid of my adversary.
Afraid? I was beginning to be in truth. I ground my teeth, and turning, head downward, again dove for Og. He waited, quietly; he was tense again, his body slowly sinking.
Ten feet from him, I brought myself up short. We faced each other, both sinking gradually. Once he slid forward, and made a pass at me with an arm. But I dove away, returning at once.
We were nearly at the bottom of the arena when Og suddenly threw all four arms above his head. His body was bent forward, crescent-shaped. It seemed to be my opportunity. I rushed at him. He retreated; and as I came into an upright position for another lunge, his body bent over me like a bow. One of his feet touched one of mine; and simultaneously his fingers struck my head.
For a brief instant I was conscious that his touch seemed to burn. A tingling shock ran through me. Then, inert and unconscious, my stiffened body sank slowly to the bottom of the arena.
CHAPTER XIII
I recovered my senses, and heard dim voices around me. I did not open my eyes, but lay quiet, half in a dream. I remembered the combat; I thought, perchance, I was dead. I recall now how vague musings floated through my brain. I had been alone on a meteor—then I found people—civilization. Unhappiness and strife had come with them. To be really happy and at ease, one ought to be alone in his world. And yet, there were friends to be found as well as enemies. There was Caan, and the Marinoid Prince. He was my friend; he had warned me against Og. And there was love to be found, too. Nona!
The thought of Nona stirred me to fuller consciousness. The voices around me seemed to grow louder. I opened my eyes.
I was in a bunk at Caan’s house. Caan was there beside me—and an old, bent Marinoid whose work I knew was the care and treatment of the human body in distress.
Nona was sitting on the bunk close to me; her wonderful golden hair floated above us. Her face was white and set. As she saw me stir and open my eyes, she burst into sobs. My arms went up to pull her down to me. My Nona! And Caan. My friend Caan was gravely joyful to see me come back to life.
The old Marinoid was talking quietly to Caan about me, and then he left. Nona lay in my arms; presently the Prince sent a messenger to inquire if I were recovered. My cup of happiness was full.
It was far into the next time of sleep after the combat before I had regained my senses; and throughout all that time Nona and Caan had been beside me. I did not seem greatly injured. I was soon strong enough to talk with them, to find out what Og had done to me.
It was simple, and when I understood it I shuddered at the danger into which I had so rashly and ignorantly rushed. Og had shocked me into insensibility with a bolt of animal electricity. The bodies of all adult male Marinoids contain special electrical organs for the generation of it. The bolt can be released at will; its control is entirely voluntary.
Og had manoeuvered, I recalled at once, to get me into the right position to receive the maximum shock. His body was bent over me like a bow; he touched my extremities, with his extremities simultaneously; and the current, passing through my body, had all but stopped the beating of my heart.
Caan had thought I was on my guard regarding this. My words had made him think so; and I had refused to discuss the fight. And the Prince had meant to warn me of it.
I had indeed, heard of this natural weapon possessed by the Marinoids. But in my youthful confidence I had forgotten it, for the use of it against a human except in public mortal combat was a dire offense against the Marinoid laws.
You are amazed and perhaps incredulous at this physiological fact? You need not be—a very similar condition occurs on your own Earth. Indeed, only the ignorant can dare be rashly incredulous. In your own waters, as you would know if you ever bothered to apprise yourself of the fact, there exists the electric eel. Your learned men call itgymnotus electricus. It uses against its enemies very similar tactics to those Og used against me. And with very similar results, for it can kill or stun a fish much larger than itself. Many an ignorant native fisherman in the smaller streams which empty into your Orinoco River, has learned this fact to his cost.
And, to multiply instances, you have thetorpedoand the whole family ofrays. It was from them your scientist Galvani made his study of the electrical properties of muscles and nerves, applying his discoveries to the higher animals and to man.
I was soon recovered—and a wiser man than before. And I swore to myself that never again would I ignore the proffered advice of a friend.
My first desire was to fight Og again at once. With the knowledge of what I must avoid, I knew I could defeat him. I went to the place he lived, but he was not there.
The news that I wanted another combat—which was my right—spread through the city. Og had doubtless hoped I would die; when I recovered, and searched for him, he could not be found. After the next time of sleep, I learned he had left Rax. Shell-fish gatherers, working under Caan, reported seeing him swimming alone toward the Water of Wild Things.
He did not return. The region known as the Water of Wild Things was where he had been born, some said, and his only relations were among the half-savage beings living there.
I was content. With Og gone—my second fight with him, indeed was postponed for a considerable time—there was nothing in Rax to disturb my own and my Nona’s happiness. We had our home, our love and our son.
CHAPTER XIV
I go back again in my memories to that year in the underwater Marinoid city of Rax—the year of quiet and peace for Nona and me which followed the birth of our son. Boy, we called him; everyone called him that, for he was the only child of his kind in our world.
It was a wonderful, happy time for us both. In all the Universe there was never another like our Boy. So thought Nona and I. Pink and white, with his laughing blue eyes, and soft blond hair on his little head, he would lie cradled in the big white shell that stood in the center of our living room. The tiny bits of vegetation which often floated in the water past his face were his toys to snatch at and demolish; and Nona, who fed him, crooned to him, and when he was no more than a month or two old guided his baby flounderings into swimming strokes, was the center of everything around which his infant world revolved.
For myself, almost an outsider with these two, it was enough to watch them playing together, to see the light of motherhood in my Nona’s eyes, and the glory of it on her face.
The time—unmarked by daylight or darkness down here in the water—glided by; and for us the passing days meant only that Boy was growing larger, his limbs were lengthening, his neck would now support his head, he could swim and soon he would begin to talk.
Thus can happiness exclude one from the world around. Yet it must not be inferred that we lived at home in complete seclusion. There were happy times with our friend Caan and his family—in his home when Boy would lie there asleep and we others would play at a game of floating shells.
And there were other times when I went hunting with the Prince. He seemed to like me—and his friendship I must confess, was to me a great joy and pride. Like many another Prince of your own Earth, Prince Atar was a sportsman. Occasionally, heading a little party of his friends, he and I would hunt together, swimming toward the Water of Wild Things, where, over the cliffs which bordered the Marinoid domain, strange fearsome creatures would sometimes trespass.
My means of livelihood? Oh yes, I was a worker like the rest. There was no place in Rax for a drone; and Nona and I were by no means guests of the city—no longer than the first month or two. When they gave us our home I was assigned to work with Caan. After each Time of Sleep, we swam out with our baskets into the open spaces beyond the forest which surrounded the city. We would gather up the shell-food that lay on the sea-bottom. It was continually sifting down from above, and what we collected was later gathered and driven in to Rax, to the government storehouses.
Caan’s wife worked with us—for women, even though married, were obliged to work for the public good a portion of the time. After Boy was born Nona, too, often joined us—though this was not obligatory, for the care of infant children discharged a woman of the debt of working otherwise.
There is so much that my memory holds to tell you of this strange Marinoid civilization! But you, with your life to live at high speed, would weary of me if I were not careful. You want everything at a glance—and you shall have it.
Let me say then that during this peaceful year there were occurring in Rax a series of mysterious incidents of an exceedingly sinister character—incidents which shortly were to lead us into the most stirring and critical period of Marinoid history. But we did not know this at the time. Life—wherever in the Universe it may be found—runs on a similar plan. It’s like a puzzle—a jigsaw puzzle whose picture remains undefined until you fit the last segment into place.
So it was with these ominous events that now occurred one by one in Rax. (And the absent Og, I may say, was at the bottom of them.) Each in itself seemed relatively unimportant. Yet all were part of a plan of destruction that was menacing us like an unseen sword hung suspended. We awoke to a realization of the danger, finally. You shall hear how it was I, who—when the thing at last struck home as a personal tragedy to me—played a leading part in the stirring scenes that followed.
May I ask you first to bear with me a moment more, while I give you a very brief summary of conditions in our Marinoid world? I know you will chafe. A thousand supposedly pressing duties of your own super-civilized life are forcing themselves upon you even at this moment of relaxation. Set them aside, I beg you. They are not nearly so important as you think. If you were to die tonight, leaving all of them undone—your world would go on as placidly as before.
A moment then—and you shall have action and movement to your heart’s content.