Chapter VII: Ankova's Story

The Martian made a brief nervous sign to the jailer. “Gently, Rega,” he said. The Space Man relaxed his painful grip on his prisoners. The noble surveyed them smiling. Defiantly, half contemptuously, Shelby was smiling back.

Finally, with a mocking casual air, Hekki spoke: “There is a very ancient saying on your planet,” he said, “to the effect that bad pennies always return.” The corners of his mouth twitched with sardonic amusement. His manner grew more serious, yet still there was an undercurrent of sarcasm: “Miss Darell and Mr. Shelby, I want to compliment you on your remarkable cleverness and daring. Words cannot express my admiration for you. You have every right to be proud of yourselves.”

Shelby nodded. “We are,” he told him drily. “Is there anything more on your mind?” He turned away with an expression of bored contemptuous indifference.

“I have little to say except that we are about to continue our recently interrupted journey tonight, Mr. Shelby,” said the Martian.

He saw the Earthman and the girl casting interested glances at the disc vehicles that surrounded them everywhere.

“You like my people?” Hekki inquired. “You find them entertaining? Perhaps you have discovered things in their habits which you cannot understand. Shall I give you explanations?” For the moment at least there was a serious earnest ring in Hekalu’s voice.

“Flag of truce, Jan. This should be interesting,” Shelby said. His eyes were full of eagerness as he turned back toward the Martian. “How do they live out there?” he cried. “There isn’t any air or water, and it’s almost as cold as it can get anywhere. Why, the thing is utterly impossible according to the laws of common sense!”

Immediately all of Hekalu’s lazy air of careless mockery was gone, and the dynamic aura of the tireless experimenter and inventor that had hidden beneath it showed out clear. His voice was husky with suppressed excitement when he spoke:

“I too was dumbfounded when, some five Earth years ago, I first ran across the Space Men out there. (He waved his hand toward the west away from the sun.) But after I had studied them for a time, I knew that there was really nothing very remarkable or impossible about the nature of their living. It is actually quite similar to our own.

“Why do we need air? Simply because by the chemical combination of oxygen with food we obtain the energy necessary to make our brains to think, our limbs to move, and our hearts to beat. Energy is life. But doesn’t it occur to you that this vital thing might be obtained in some other manner? The Space Men do. Their principal food is the radio-active element, atomic number 109, as yet undiscovered on the planets. It is a purplish liquid that is fairly abundant on a number of the planetoids. Daily, like radium, it gives off vast quantities of energy; and when in the systems of the Space Men it supplies them with power more efficiently than food and oxygen ever could do for us.

“Why can’t we survive the intense cold of space? The answer is a simple one. The protoplasm of all forms of living things that we know of, including the Space Men themselves, is a colloidal jelly the principal portion of which is, and must be, a liquid. Cells must be bathed and nourished, and impurities washed away. Without liquids there seems to be no likelihood that there would be any life, unless in some manner a gas could perform this fluid function. Solids would remain forever dead and motionless.

“If anything happens to chill even slightly the protoplasm of any of the higher forms of planetary life, the body fluid becomes sluggish and death may result. No mammals or birds that we know of can live actively with their body temperatures at all approaching the freezing point of water. However, in the polar seas of both planets there are creatures whose systems function quite normally with their blood temperatures just above this point. But beyond this deadline, zero degrees Centigrade, or a little lower or higher, depending on the actual congealing point of the water in their bodies, even they cannot go, for there, the cold limit of Terrestro-Martian life has been reached.

“Why couldn’t these polar fish survive the cold of space? Simply because the protoplasm of their tissues, based on water, would instantly become solid, and in solids as I have said, there can be no real life except perhaps in the form of suspended animation.

“The Space Men face no such danger, for first, their bodies are protected by this heat-resisting outer covering; and second, the liquid in their veins freezes only at absolute zero, and since it is radio-active--producing heat from within itself--it cannot get that cold even in the void. And that, friends, is the whole stupendous, simple explanation.”

“And how do the Space Men’s vehicles move?” asked Jan.

Hekki shook his head. “Except that a strange propulsive ray is involved, I know very little about it. I have not yet discovered how the Space Men manage to produce the ray. The works of Nature ever surpass the works of man.

“And that is all I have time for now, my friends. Breakfast is ready aboard ship. Enjoy my hospitality to the fullest!” Hekki’s mask of smiling sardonic cruelty had dropped again. He waved something to Sega.

Janice, sensing that she was about to be separated from her lover, threw herself into his arms. The series of things she had gone through in the past twenty-four hours had frayed her nerves almost to the breaking point.

“Don’t let them take me away from you, Austin. Don’t let them! Oh, Hekki, please!”

Hekalu’s face reddened, and then Sega tore the two apart. Shelby struggled but it was useless. Sega’s huge muscles were quite equal to the task of mastering a dozen of the best fighting men of Earth.

He dragged his captives aboard the Selba, and guided by the inscrutable Koo Faya, locked them in chambers from which escape would now be definitely impossible. Jan was thrust into the room she had occupied before, but Shelby was put into a chamber somewhat larger than his original prison.

An almost ungovernable fury had taken possession of the young Earthman. If for only a moment he could get his hand on the smooth Hekalu! His fingers clutched and unclutched spasmodically as he hurriedly paced the room. When presently, he found himself hammering on the walls with the frenzy of a trapped gorilla, a realization of where he was headed came to him. “Stop where you are, you fool!” he muttered to himself.

He went to the table where an appetizing breakfast was set out. He ate a little and then waited a while. He wanted to make sure that the food was not drugged. Half an hour passed and he felt no ill effects. He ate the rest of his breakfast. Then he made several attempts to signal Jan by tapping on the walls, but he was quite sure that to get a message to her in this way was now out of the question.

For a long time he gazed out into the sunlit valley floor from his window. Preparations of some kind were under way. It looked as though the entire population, which must have numbered close to fifteen hundred Space Men all told, was getting ready to move away en masse. Scores of the strange black people were hurrying about, lugging loads of weapons and hundreds of large cylindrical objects into four immense box-like things of dull metal. Several vehicles, resembling machines of the Space Men, but many times larger, were clustered together in a group.

It must have been several hours after Shelby had been taken into the space ship that two of Alkebar’s people came to his room, carrying between them the unconscious form of the Space Man who had been Jan’s and his fellow prisoner during the night of their arrival on Mars. They threw the limp giant down carelessly on one of the bunks, and without a glance at him or the Earthman, they stamped out.

Shelby would have liked to examine his cell mate more closely, but owing to the chain which had again been fastened to his ankle, it was impossible to get nearer to him than four yards. Who was this creature? His gorgeously bejeweled harness and his huge size seemed to indicate that he had been a leader of some kind. Shelby had noticed that all Space Men who had a right to command, were somewhat larger than their fellows.

All through the long Martian day Shelby paced the length of his tether, pausing occasionally to look out of the window and to think. By nightfall he was in a state bordering upon complete dejection. Not that he was weak; Shelby could face trying situations shoulder to shoulder with the stubbornest and cleverest men that Earth or Mars could produce. But he was human and had his limitations. Recapture after a glowing promise of freedom and safety for his people, his love, and himself had almost crushed him.

Only half interestedly he wondered when Hekalu Selba would strike. He knew that it would be very soon. In vain he tried to tell himself that he had no real proof of the Martian’s power, but always a vision of those black horrors swooping down like living thunderbolts upon Taboor or New York or Chicago made him realize how futile would be any resistance that the planets could offer.