Collected Short Fiction, page 118
Next day I hooked up the ship’s teleview set, which had been useless, out beyond the Heaviside Layer. We gathered before the great screen in the salon, to listen to the news of war, and the puzzling reports and conjecture concerning the five ships from Mars.
That night we picked up Dr. Eldred’s broadcast.
It was sent on a broad wave-band, interfering with stations on all the public frequencies. Thus all the world picked it up. And soon all the other stations were silent, as the whole world watched and listened in astounded fear.
Upon our screen appeared the interior of a strange room. A tiny, cramped room, whose oddly curving walls appeared to be of polished, bright green metal. Weird, incomprehensible apparatus crowded it.
CHAPTER VI
Eldred Speaks!
DR. ELDRED stood in that remarkable room. Weary, he looked, to me, exhausted. His old body was thin, emaciated. But he held his majestic head erect; his lined face was firm with a great purpose; strong light of determination burned in his eyes.
Some adjustment he made, of the fantastic apparatus beside him. Then he turned, so he seemed to look at us from the screen. He ran his thin fingers through his long, tangled hair, with that old, familiar gesture, and began to speak.
“People of the Earth,” he said, in the same quiet voice, that was kind, and sad, and yet had a ring of steel, “I have a message for you.
“Some of you may recognize me. But I shall introduce myself. I am Nyland Eldred. Many years ago I invented the ionodyne flier, from which you have been dropping bombs upon your cities, to maim and slay your women and children. I planned the Federation of Man, that was to unite you all, and end war. And you cast me and my work aside.
“I went to Mars. Now I have come back, to find you fighting. Why are you at war? How did your quarrel begin?” His kind, weary voice was touched with scorn. “A drunken soldier threw a cabbage!”
A long time he was silent, gazing solemnly from the screen.
“In all history, our civilization has known prolonged peace just once. The peace was the Pax Romana, enforced by the legions of Rome. And peace can return only when the whole world is united, a single nation, as all the civilized world was under Rome.
“People of the Earth, I tried to give you union and peace under a government of yourselves. You refused it. Now I am going to bring peace to you through war, as the legions of Rome brought it to the ancient world.
“You have failed to find peace on earth; I will give you the peace of Mars!
“For I found living beings on Mars. They may look repulsive to you. But they long ago discovered the vanity of war. They are willing—and able—to end war on earth.
“The conquest of the earth has already begun. Henceforth it will be a province of the planet Mars, ruled by Martian governors. You may feel that the price is great—but you must find peace or die!”
The weary voice paused. Dr. Eldred looked from the screen, for a long time, kind, sorrowful, but stern. Then he said, “People of Earth, look upon your future rulers.”
He turned, gestured. Two things came writhing into the cramped little room with him.
Long, slim, sinuous bodies of green, marked with black and gold. Four strange black eyes oddly placed in the middle of each. Ends of the bodies tapering into long, flexible tentacles. Weird, they were, as things of flesh well could be. But there was a certain beauty in the slender strength of them, in their bright, geometric markings.
The things glided into the little green room with the scientist. He dropped a hand upon one, patted it kindly. It coiled a long, serpentine tentacle about his body, softly, caressingly.
To me, there was something horrible in those long, snaky bodies, with great eyes staring from their middles. Something uncanny and repelling. Even the beauty of their markings of green and gold and black seemed sinister. I knew that I would fight to the death before submitting to the dominion of such monsters.
Gasps of horror came from the little group about me, in the salon of the Princess of Peace. Joan Lenwick seized my shoulder, peered up at me with a white face.
“Dr. Eldred can’t mean that!” she cried.
“He must mean it,” I said. “His Martians have already crushed our air forces.”
“It will only mean more war,” she whispered. “Not peace. No human being will ever submit peacefully to those—things!”
She shuddered.
“They seem terrible just because they are strange and unfamiliar,” I reasoned. “The Doctor seems to be on good enough terms with them.”
I looked back at the screen, but the picture had faded.
Lank, lean-faced Nisbit leaned across to me. “Eldred’s crazy!” he cried. “No peace in this! It means war—and more war!”
I was chief of communications on the flagship of the new fleet that gathered one gray night five weeks later, over the North Atlantic. Emil Heink, my late enemy upon Mars, was commander of the fleet.
For eleven days the five green arrows from Mars had hung motionless, twenty thousand miles from the earth, presumably awaiting reinforcements. This first fleet of the Federation assembling in the stormy night, was to sally out into space, to forestall the attack.
Our ionodyne fliers were of the latest design, swift and powerful, heavily armed. They were small, however; they numbered only sixteen; they had been built very hastily; the crews were mostly ill-trained.
A great enthusiasm filled all of us. Ours was the first fleet of the Federation. We represented the whole earth. We were determined to fight for our planet as men had never fought before. It mattered little to us that the five green arrows had been victorious in every combat with terrestrial forces. We were undaunted by the fact that they had annihilated the aerial armament of every nation.
Just two weeks before, the Federation of Man had become a reality, ratified by every government. All earth was united in it; the armament of the Federation was to defend the whole world.
THERE had been protest to the change. But the menace of Mars had swept away petty national quarrels. And it was agreed that a planet divided against herself must fall in interplanetary warfare.
Dr. Eldred’s old plan for the Federation had been ready to hand. The Tower was waiting by glistening Lake Geneva, desks ready for the representatives of each nation to take their seats in the great hall of council. Every problem of organization had been considered and settled, long years before. The earth donned the Federation as easily as a man slips into a well-tailored garment.
The workshops of the world were soon busy, night and day, fabricating ships for the new fleet of the Federation. Hastening to offer my services, I was accepted as a communications officer.
Only a week before I had left Joan, aboard the old Princess of Peace, which still floated beside shattered San Francisco. She did not ask me to stay, but she was crying when we kissed and parted. I did not know, then, that she had tried—in vain, of course—to enlist for service in the new fleet. I had no idea what she planned.
Before sunrise we rose swiftly out of the cold gray clouds that rested upon the stormy Atlantic where we had gathered, the fifteen other vessels following in a gleaming line behind.
Above the sky grew darker blue and darker, until it was black, stars bursting out within it, in hot glory. The earth drew away below, a misty globe, and we sailed out into vacant space.
Never shall I forget the elation that filled me, banishing, for a time, all my fear. The whole planet was united behind us. We were the first fleet of the Federation of Man.
Twenty thousand miles ahead, the five slim arrows from Mars were motionless, waiting . . .
Busy as I was, handling the photoscope that transmitted orders to the other vessels, I found time to look back with pride in my heart at the misty, luminous sphere of earth, swung in rosy glory.
My mind, however, was filled with more personal matters as we drew near the Martian fliers. I thought a good deal of Joan Lenwick, and wished that I could see her, for a few minutes, before the encounter.
The unexpected fulfillment of my wish, however, brought me anything but comfort.
We were ten thousand miles out—midway to the waiting arrows—when I heard an observer report to Heink.
“A ship ahead of us, sir. A dome-shaped ionodyne flier. Seems to be moving out toward the Martian fleet.”
“What’s that!” Heink ejaculated, and ran to the telescope.
“The Princess of Peace!” he cried, from the instrument.
“Contact her commander, Tancred,” he barked, turning to me. “She has no business out here!”
With trembling fingers I got the photoscope beam on the ship ahead.
“Flagship calling Princess of Peace,” I stammered.
“Hello,” came the quick reply. “This is the Princess of Peace.”
“Give me teleview contact with your commander.”
The teleview screen at the end of the bridge snapped to life. And upon it was the face of Joan Lenwick.
“Joan!” I gasped.
She looked at me with an odd smile, then briskly saluted Heink.
“Miss Lenwick!” he cried in astonishment.
“Captain Lenwick, sir, of the Princess of Peace,” she said.
“What are you doing here?”
“We have come to fight for the Federation of Man.”
“But—your crew—”
“There are many of us on earth ready to fight for the Federation. Most of my men have seen service on ionodyne fliers. I was chosen captain because I had had the experience on Mars—and because the idea of coming was mine.”
“You know that old tub is useless—she wasn’t built to fight!”
I saw a glitter of moisture in her eyes. She replied evenly, “We are armed, sir!”
Trembling, I turned to Heink. “Send her back,” I pleaded. “She’ll only get herself killed—”
He did not even look at me, but he said to Joan, “You could only sacrifice your ship needlessly. I command you to return to the earth.”
“I refuse to obey.” Her voice trembled.
Almost angrily, he said, “I am Admiral of the First Fleet of the Federation of Man!”
“And I am Admiral of the Second Fleet of the Federation of Man!” she replied. “I suggest that it is time to prepare for action.”
Disregarding discipline, I ran toward the screen.
“Please, Joan!” I cried. “Please go back. Oh, Joan—”
She looked at me, and I saw heartbreak in her eyes.
“Sidney,” she whispered, “do you think I could wait, back there, when you are going out—out—,” she choked, “out to—die—”
Her image vanished from the screen, leaving me unable to attend very efficiently to my duties. Cold, dreadful certainty numbed me. I knew that the Princess of Peace, in the van of our force, would be destroyed by the first blow from the Martians. Joan was throwing her life away, and nothing I could do to prevent it.
In another hour the enemy were in plain view, to the unaided eye. Five glistening emerald arrows, suspended motionless against the darkness of space. Ominous, menacing, fatal.
The silvered dome of the Princess of Peace was still between the lines.
We fired our first rockets, being forced to aim perilously close to the clumsy vessel that Joan commanded.
Chill blue flame spurted from the green arrows ahead.
Then suddenly, unexpectedly, they retreated. They fled away from us, at a speed our fliers could not match. They were swallowed up, forever, in the darkness of the eternal void.
FIVE years later the retreat of the Martians was still a mystery. During the interval, no green ship had been seen. But attack was still expected. The powerful fleets of the Federation of Man were always ready. Men, in their sense of union against the danger from without, were swift forgetting old sectional fears and hates.
When the green arrow of the Martian flier was seen over the Sahara, the fleets of the Federation were swiftly in the air. Scouring the atmosphere above all Africa, and scanning the sands of the desert, they found Dr. Eldred.
The ship that brought him escaped. They found the old scientist trudging wearily toward the nearest oasis, laden with a pack that contained food and water.
Arrested at once, he was taken to Lausanne, imprisoned in the Federation Tower that he himself had built, and charged with being a Martian spy, a traitor to man.
As I have told in the beginning, I found him in a cell in the tower.
“You promise solemnly not to reveal the story until your best judgment tells you it can be done without danger to the Federation?” he asked me, as we sat face to face in that long room, with azure Lake Geneva glistening below the window that was barred with deadly blue ionic beams.
“I promise,” I said—though reluctantly.
“In twenty years—or fifty—the truth might do no harm.”
He pushed his long fingers through his hair—which was thinner, now, and white—in the old gesture I remembered so well, and began.
“I had supposed, of course, that the Martian race was dead. I had no idea, until I had almost reached the end of the inscriptions, that those who built the monuments had been able to survive.
“But I learned that they had retreated to a series of great caves beneath the barren surface of the desolated planet, where water and breathable air remained. They had planned, so said the records, to enlarge these caverns, connect them with others, rear a new race in them.
“When I left the Princess of Peace, on that last morning, Sidney, I had already finished translating the inscriptions. I knew approximately where to look for the cavern, back in the red hills, not far away.
“I walked on past the monuments, and out into the lava hills. Before noon, I found the rift, and entered. The descending passage was narrow at first, and dark. It widened, slowly. At length I came out into vast spaces, illuminated with artificial light—blue-white, dazzling globes, suspended from the rocks. The floor of the caverns was covered, there, with luxuriant gardens. Grotesque plants, violet-colored and blue, that bore fruits as large as my body.
“I was soon in contact with the Martians. You have seen them. Elongated green bodies, mottled with gold and black. Highly intelligent, of course. They received me with the interest and consideration that I had expected from such civilized beings.
“I had prepared myself, of course, to communicate with them. I had a fair knowledge of the written language on the monuments. I brought with me pads of paper, pen, colored pencils. Oral intercourse was, naturally, out of the question for the time being—I later discovered, in fact, that the Martians have no vocal organs; their informal communication is by use of electromagnetic waves.
“Anyhow, I got into contact with the three who found me there in the strange cave-garden. I had an introduction of myself already written out, on a sheet of paper. It was hard, at first, to get them to notice the paper, because they were so interested in the rest of me. Then they had difficulty in reading it—these three, being laborers, were not very well educated, and the language of the monuments is no longer in common use.
“The three conducted me back into the cave, until we found a long, slender, cylindrical ship waiting at the mouth of a tunnel—but you must have seen those ships, like huge green arrows.
“In a few minutes we were in a city, deep in the planet. A strange place, and rather wonderful. Fantastic structures of metal, and of green crystal, like the ships, rising from gardens of blue and violet, beneath the globes that hang from the cavern roof.
“The scientists there were friendly enough, and I was soon communicating quite readily with them.
“I learned from them that there are some millions of the Martians surviving. They have a surprisingly great empire, beneath the surface of the planet. Thousands of caverns, connected with tunnels they have cut with some sort of disintegrating ray.
“It was a surprise to me to discover that the Martians had visited the earth. But the scientist assured me that several exploring parties had visited our planet, finding the atmosphere so heavy and the effects of the gravitation so oppressive that they had returned after the briefest of stays.
“Though the Martian scientists are a good deal ahead of us in most lines, I was able to give them a few bits of information that they appreciated.
“The scientists seemed to have a sympathetic interest in me—specially when they learned that war was still the rule on earth, as it once had been on Mars, and that I had devoted my life to trying to stop it. Several of the scientists offered, in fact, partly out of friendship and partly to show their appreciation for the ionodyne, to go to the earth with me to tell humanity something of the unfortunate military experiences of Mars.
“I REFUSED their offer, of course. I didn’t think humanity would listen very kindly to the persuasions of such strange-looking beings.
“Then the Martian ship that had set out to pay a friendly visit to the Princess of Peace was shot down in the hills.
“The first reaction, among the Martians, naturally, was anger. I suppose you would have been wiped out if you hadn’t taken off. But the civilization of the Martians soon asserted itself; their anger gave way to sympathy and regret.
“It was that occurrence that gave me the idea. You men who had been at each other’s throats were fighting side by side in a few hours after the Martians appeared. It’s a law of human nature that enemies will become allies when threatened with a peril greater than their danger to each other.
“This, it struck me, was the way to unite the earth!”
“You mean—” I broke out excitedly, “the attack on the earth—”
“Succeeded in its purpose,” Dr. Eldred said, smiling, “when the Federation of Man was ratified.
“The scientists of Mars were willing to help. They fitted out the five ships. Used electronic repulsion for power, by the way. Faster than the ionodyne.
“First we wiped out the air fleets—a pity to kill all those men! But their bombs were smashing our civilization entirely too fast. Armaments, anyhow, have always been the greatest enemy of peace.
