XXXVII
LOOKING DOWN
Presently the three men were standing at the door of a vast room, oneentire side of which was wide open to the outer air. It was filled by anumber of queer, shining objects. At first glance Chick took them to beimmense beetles.
The Jan Lucar spoke to the Geos:
"We had best take the June Bug of the Rhamda Avec."
Watson thought it best to say nothing, show nothing. The Jan ran up toone of the glistening affairs, and without the slightest noise he spunit gracefully around, running it out into the centre of the mosaicfloor.
"I presume," apologised the Geos, "that you have much finer aircraft inyour world."
Aircraft! Watson was all eagerness. He saw that the June Bug was aboutten feet high, with a bunchy, buglike body. On closer scrutiny he couldmake out the outlines of wings folded tight against the sides. As forthe material, it must have been metal, to use a term which does notexplain very much, after all. In every respect the machine was aduplicate of some great insect, except that instead of legs it hadwell-braced rollers.
"How does it operate?" Watson wanted to know. "That is, what power doyou use, and how do you apply it?"
The Jan Lucar threw back a plate. Watson looked inside, and saw a massof fine spider-web threads, softer than the tips of rabbit's hair, allradiating from a central grey object about the size of a pea. Chickreached out to touch this thing with his finger.
But the Geos, like a flash, caught him by the shoulder and pulled himback.
"Pardon me, my lord!" he exclaimed. "But you must not touch it!You--even you, would be annihilated!" Then to the Lucar: "Very well."
Whereupon the other did something in front of the craft; touched alever, perhaps. Instantly the grey, spidery hairs turned to a dull red.
"Now you may touch it," said the Geos.
But Chick's desire had vanished. Instead he ventured a question:
"All very interesting, but where is your machinery?"
The Rhamda was slightly amused. He smiled a little. "You must give us alittle credit, my lord. We must seem backward to you, but we have passedbeyond reliance upon simple machines. That little grey pellet is, ofcourse, our motive force; it is a highly refined mineral, which we minein vast quantity. It has been in use for centuries. As for the hair-likeweb, that is our idea of a transmission."
Watson hoped that he did not look as uncomprehending as he felt. Theother continued:
"In aerial locomotion we are content to imitate life as much aspossible. We long ago discarded engines and propellers, and insteadtried to duplicate the muscular and nervous systems of the birds andinsects. We fly exactly as they do; our motive force is intrinsic. Insome respects, we have improved upon life."
"But it is still only a machine, Geos."
"To be sure, my lord; only a machine. Anything without the lifeprinciple must remain so."
The Jan Lucar pressed another catch, allowing another plate to lowerand thereby disclose a glazed door, which opened into a cosy apartmentfitted with wicker chairs, and large enough for four persons. Therewas some sort of control gear, which the Jan Lucar explained was notconnected directly with the flying and steering members, but indirectlythrough the membranes of the web-like system. It was uncannily similarto the nervous connections of the cerebellum with the various parts ofthe anatomy of an insect.
"Does it travel very fast?"
"We think so, my lord. This is the private machine of the Rhamda Avec.It is rather small, but the swiftest machine in the Thomahlia."
They entered the compartment, Watson took his seat beside the Geos,while the soldier sat forward next to the control elements. He laidhis hands on certain levers; next instant, the machine was glidingnoiselessly over the mosaic, on to a short incline and thence, with everincreasing speed, toward and through the open side of the room.
The slides had all been thrown back; the compartment was enclosed onlyin glass. Watson could get a clear view, and he was amazed at thespeed of the craft. Before he could think they were out in mid-air andascending skyward. Travelling on a steep slant, there was no vibration,no mechanical noise; scarcely the suggestion of movement, except for themuffled swish of the air.
Were it not for the receding city below him, Chick could have imaginedhimself sitting in a house while a windstorm tore by. He felt no changein temperature or any other ill effects; the cabin was fully enclosed,and heated by some invisible means. In short, ideal flight: forinstance, the seats were swung on gimbals, so that no matter atwhat angle the craft might fly, the passengers would maintain levelpositions.
Below stretched the Mahovisal--a mighty city of domes and plazas, and,widely scattered, a few minarets. At the southern end there was a vast,square plaza, covering thousands of acres. Toward it, on two sides,converged scores of streets; they stretched away from it like the ribsof a giant fan. On the remaining two sides there was a tremendouslylarge building with a V-shaped front, opening on the square. The playof opal light on its many-bubbled roof resembled the glimmer from a vastpearl.
In the air above the city an uncountable number of very small objectsdarted hither and thither like sparkling fireflies. It was difficult torealise that they, too, were aircraft.
To the west lay an immense expanse of silver, melting smoothly into thehorizon. Watson took it to be the Thomahlian ocean. Then he looked up atthe sky directly above him, and breathed a quick exclamation.
It was a single, small object, perfectly white, dropping out of theamethyst. Tiny at first, amost instantly it assumed a proportion nearlycolossal--a great bird, white as the breast of the snowdrift, swoopingwith the grace of the eagle and the speed of the wind. It was so verylarge that it seemed, to Chick, that if all the other birds he hadever known were gathered together into one they would still be as theswallow. Down, down it came in a tremendous spiral, until it gracefullyalighted in a splash of molten colour on the bosom of the silver sea.For a moment it was lost in a shower of water jewels--and then laystill, a swan upon the ocean.
"What is it, Geos?"
"The Kospian Limited, my lord. One of our great airships--a fast one, weconsider it."
"It must accommodate a good many people, Rhamda."
"About nine thousand."
"You say it comes from Kospia. How far away is that?"
"About six thousand miles. It is an eight-hour run, with one stop. Justnow the service is every fifteen minutes. They are coming, of course,for the Day of the Prophet."
Watson continued to watch the great airship, noting the swarm of smallercraft that came out from the Mahovisal to greet it, until the Jan Lucarsuddenly altered the course. They stopped climbing, and struck out on ahorizontal level. It left the Mahovisal behind them, a shimmering spotof fire beside the gleaming sea. They were travelling eastwards. Thelandscape below was level and unvaried, of a greenish hue, and muchlike that of Chick's own earth in the early spring-time--a vast expanse,level and sometimes dotted with opalescent towns and cities. Ribbons ofsilver cut through the plain at intervals, crookedly lazy and winding,indicating a drainage from north to south or vice versa. Looking back tothe west, he could see the great, golden sun, poised as he had seen itthat morning, a huge amber plate on the rim of the world. It was sunset.
Then Chick looked straight ahead. Far in the distance a great wallloomed skyward to a terrific height. So vast was it and so remote, atfirst it had escaped the eye altogether. An incredibly high rangeof mountains, glowing with a faint rose blush under the touch of thesetting sun. Against the sky were many peaks, each of them tipped withcurious and sparkling diamond-like corruscations. As Chick continued togaze the rose began to purple.
The Jan Lucar put the craft to another upward climb. So high were theynow that the Thomahlia below was totally lost from view; it was buta maze of lurking shadows. The sun was only a gash of amber--it wastwilight down on the ground. And Watson watched the black line of theThomahlian shadow climb the purple heights before him until only thehighest crests and the jewelled crags flashe
d in the sun's last rays.Then, one by one, they flickered out; and all was darkness.
Still they ascended. Watson became uneasy, sitting there in the night.
"Where are we going?"
"To the Carbon Regions, my lord. It is one of the sights of theThomahlia."
"On top of those mountains?"
"Beyond, my lord."
Whereupon, to Chick's growing amazement, the Geos went on to state thatcarbon of all sorts was extremely common throughout their world. Thesame forces that had formed coal so generously upon the earth had thrownup, almost as lavishly, huge quantities of pure diamond. The materialwas of all colours, as diamonds run, and considered of small value; forevery day purposes they preferred substances of more sombre hues. Theyused it, it seemed, to build houses with.
"But how do they cut it?"
"Very easily. The material which drives this craft--Ilodium--will cut itlike butter."
Later, Watson understood. He watched as the craft continued to climb;the Jan Lucar was steering without the aid of any outside lightswhatever, there being only a small light illuminating his instruments.Chick presently turned his gaze outside again; whereupon he got anotherjolt.
He saw a NEGATIVE sky!
At first he thought his eyes the victims of an illusion; then he lookedcloser. And he saw that it was true; instead of the familiar starrypoints of light against a velvet background, the arrangement wasjust the reverse. Every constellation was in its place, just as Chickremembered it from the earth; but instead of stars there were jet-blackspots upon a faint, grey background.
The whole sky was one huge Milky Way, except for the black spots. Andfrom it all there shone just about as much total light as from theheavens he had known.
Of all he experienced, this was the most disturbing. It seemed totallyagainst all reason; for he knew the stars to be great incandescentglobes in space. How explain that they were here represented in reverse,their brilliance scattered and diffused over the surrounding sky,leaving points of blackness instead? Afterward he learned that thepeculiar chemical constituency of the atmosphere was solely responsiblefor the inversion of the usual order of things.
All of a sudden the Jan Lucar switched the craft to a level. He held upone hand and pointed.
"Look, my lord, and the Rhamda! Look!"
Both men rose from their seats, the better to stare past the soldier.Straight ahead, where had been one of the corruscating peaks, a streakof blue fire shot skyward, a column of light miles high, differingfrom the beams of a searchlight in that the rays were WAVY, serpentine,instead of straight. It was weirdly beautiful. Geos caught his breath;he leaned forward and touched the Jan Lucar.
"Wait," he said in an awed tone. "Wait a moment. It has never comebefore, but we can expect it now." And even as he spoke, somethingwonderful happened.
From the base of the column two other streaks, one red and the otherbright green, cut out through the blackness on either side. The threestreams started from the same point; they made a sort of trident, red,green, and blue--twisting, alive--strangely impressive, suggestive ofgrandeur and omnipotence--holy.
Again the Rhamda spoke. "Wait!" said he. "Wait!"
They were barely moving now. Watson watched and wondered. The threestreams of light ran up and up, as though they would pierce the heavens;the eye could not follow their ends. All in utter silence, nothing butthose beams of glorified light, their reality a hint of power, of lifeand wisdom--of the certainty of things. Plainly it had a tremendoussignificance in the minds of the Geos and the Lucar.
Then came the climax. Slowly, but somehow inexorably, like the laws oflife itself, and somewhere at a prodigious height above the earth, thethree outer ends of the red and the green and the blue spread outand flared back upon themselves and one another, until their combinedbrilliance bridged a great rainbow across the sky. Blending into allthe colours of the prism, the bow became--for a moment--pregnant withan overpowering beauty, symbolical, portentous of something stupendousabout to come out of the unknown to the Thomahlians. And next--
The bow began to move, to swirl, and to change in shape and colour. Thethree great rivers of light billowed and expanded and rounded into a newform. Then they burst--into a vast, three-leafed clover--blue and redand green!
And Watson caught the startled words of the Geos:
"The Sign of the Jarados!"