Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1959 (7 page)

 
          
The luck
in which Mark Darragh chose to
believe was, it must be admitted, necessary to allow the slaying of the first
Cold Creature. Double luck had favored Darragh in his victory over the second.
But undoubtedly the high point of his phenomenal good fortune was attained when
the aircraft in which he thus fought and triumphed did not crash at once to
earth.

 
          
For
one thing, the Cold Creature which he had so expertly sabered at the controls
had flown its craft miles high, in fact had
risen
nearly to the stratosphere. When the pilodess vessel began to slip away
sideways out of its course, throwing the two ungainly carcasses against the
port bulkhead, and almost toppling Darragh from his moccasined feet, it had a
long way to go before crashing disaster could arrive. In the moments that followed,
Darragh himself became a successful operator of a Cold People's airship.

 
          
He
dropped his saber and clutched the pedestal of the control mechanism to steady
himself
. A frantic shake of his right hand threw off the
muffling gauntlet and he began to manipulate the beads upon the five metal
arms.

 
          
The
principle of the mechanism he had already grasped as he watched, and his first
act was to draw all the beads close together at the juncture of the five arms.
At once the ship righted
itself
, but continued to
descend swifdy. Darragh then drew the bead upward on the perpendicular arm, and
after a trembling halt in dark space, the thing began to rise. A slight
lowering of the bead slackened the pace of ascent. Then Parragh gingerly
adjusted the forward bead. At last he managed to get the captured craft on an
even keel, moving forward. He blew on his cold-nipped fingers, retrieved his
glove and thrust his hand back into its warm shelter. Then he stood up and
studied other items.

 
          
Before
him, as he stood in the pilot position, was set a round transparent pane in the
curved bulkhead, partially obscured by frost. He leaned forward and scrubbed it
clear with the cuff of his gauntlet, then gazed through it at the night. A
half-moon had risen, revealing a floor of soft, smooth white clouds far below.
He reckoned that h& must still be miles high, despite that sudden tumble
during the fight. On one side of the port was clamped an arrangement that
somewhat resembled a thermometer, furnished with an upright transparent tube
bracketed against a board marked with lines. Inside the tube quivered a
sparklike red pellet. This was a gauge of altitude, decided Darragh, and
apparently indicated that the ship was progressing far below its maximum
soaring height.

 
          
On
the opposite side of the portline opening
were
riveted
two yard-square metal plates, one above the other.

 
          
The
uppermost of these bore an engraved diagram that quite evidendy was a plan of
the ship. It stressed many mechanical devices, most of them seemingly located
in the chamber aft of the control cabin. Darragh studied them, but despaired of
understanding them properly. At the point on the diagram where the control
apparatus would be located were various flecks of glowing light—green, blue,
rose and yellow—approximating the positions of the various beads on the arms.
Darragh changed'the position of the forward bead, and saw a fleck move. This
diagram, he guessed, was to show whether all mechanisms were in working order.

 
          
He
looked here and there, but could locate no wire or lever connection between the
controls and that picture,
nor
any battery to supply
light for the moving flecks. He reflected that the Cold People were said to be
masters of ray-mechanics. Undoubtedly there existed invisible bands of power
here, beyond
his own
limited comprehension.

 
          
He
lectured himself on these matters, with no impulse toward humility. However he
might lack understanding of the head, his hands and arms and legs and body had
seemed to know what to do of themselves, and had done it. That brace of Cold
Creatures he had slain—and what human warrior could claim as many as two such
vanquished enemies, what fighting man of all history—had been supposed to be
wise and informed beyond all Terrestrial possibility. Now they were dead. He
adjusted the beads of the control mechanism, and gave his attention to the
lower engraved square on the bulkhead.

 
          
This
quite plainly was a map of North America, most skilfully done, with the
continent and islands rendered in greenish-brown, with blue for the oceans and
lines and blotches of blue for rivers and lakes. Here, too, was a fleck of pale
light that instandy caught his eye, hovering near the juncture of the peninsula
of Florida and the main northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico. After a moment of
puzzled study, Darragh set this down as an indication of the position of the
very ship he now operated. As time went by, the gradual progression of the
fleck to northward on the map confirmed his surmise. Here and there upon the
outline of the continent showed other, softer glows, ruby-red and varying in
size from a mere pinpoint of light to a disk a quarter of an inch in diameter.
One of the smaller shining marks was visible upon the southeastern corner of
the island of Haiti, from which Darragh deduced that the ruby lights marked the
positions of forts or settlements of the Cold People. The largest and most
numerous of these showed in northern Canada, Greenland and the islands above
the Arctic Circle. Several, though, were set in what once had been the United
States; and one of the biggest of these was situated at the southern end of
Lake Michigan, near where once Chicago had been a crowning American city.

 
          
Darragh
tried to count these evidences of Cold People's communities. He could not do so
while he must give partial attention to flying the craft.

 
          
"Every
one of those damned things is a city or town or village of these cold
creepers," he muttered aloud into the scarf across his face, "and
every one of them is full of inhabitants. They've certainly made themselves at
home here where they're not wanted. I wonder just what the Cold Creature
population of Earth adds up to."

 
          
He
wished that that war-eager council of chieftains he had left on the banks of
the Orinoco River could see that map and understand the disheartening
information it gave. Then he took time to wish that those same loftly and
sneering gendemen could see him, conqueror of two of the enemy and captor and
operator of the craft he had taken at point of his saber. Spence would have
something to wag his long chin about, Megan could glower in awed confusion
instead of conceited disdain; that Indian, Capato, would have to admit that a
white man as well as red men did not fear to face and fight the invader, if he,
Mark Darragh, came flying gloriously home with his prize. The scientists of the
Orinoco communities could study the two slaughtered corpses sagging yonder. The
best mechanics could survey and appreciate the mechanism of the ship itself,
perhaps understand it, perhaps even imitate it and make other craft in its
pattern to serve mankind. And for Darragh would be wide-eyed, wide-mouthed
admiration.

 
          
He
almost ungloved to put his fingers to those beads on the control arms, coax
them into position to achieve a U-tum and a course back to his home wilderness.
But he paused in mid-motion.

 
          
After
all, he had made certain promises to Spence and the others. He had talked with
all the young assurance in the world about bringing back definite information
that would lead to the overthrow of the Cold People. The dramatic return he
envisioned, complete with this little scouting craft, might bring him credit
and praise; but it would not be sufficient to assure victory. His mission was
still to be accomplished.

 
          
He
gazed at the map, at the little blob of radiance that marked his position upon
it. Then he leaned forward to the port, judging by long hunting practice his
direction by the stars. Then he set his course toward the big red blotch that
meant a setdement of the Cold People on the margin of Lake Michigan.

 
          
The
night wore on. Despite his stout lappings of leather and cotton, he felt the
penetrating cold of the upper atmosphere, and carefully manipulated the
control beads so as to drop his ship close to the cloud layer. Experimentally
he pushed the bead on the forward arm well along to increase speed ahead, but
drew it back when the ship accelerated so suddenly as to frighten him. He had
no way of telling what the mechanism's utmost rate of speed might be, and he
knew that he really had no desire to find out just then. He felt safer when he
slowed it to something like an estimated two hundred miles an hour. Skimming
along above the clouds, he watched the progress-light move northwestward on the
map-across what had been Georgia, then across what had been Tennessee. He was
somewhere above Kentucky when the sun came up and made the floor of clouds a
blazing glory.

 
          
In
the lower altitudes where he flew, the temperature rose until Darragh was fain
to peel off his gauntiets, unship his goggles and unwind the soggy scarf from
his face. He threw back the cowl-like hood of his jacket from his head.
Awareness of hunger and thirst came upon him. He took a step away from the
controls to pick up the string bag of fruit. A mango seemed soft and mushy—it
had been frozen, he supposed, then thawed out. He sucked its pulp gratefully,
then bent to grab for a little bundle that had cassava cakes and smoked meat.
He gnawed these things with vigorous young appetite.

 
          
At
mid-morning, the fleck on the map told him that he was approaching that great
center of the Cold People by the northern lake. Beneath his speeding craft, the
clouds still showed, but were thinning here and there. He began to wonder how
best to reconnoiter that settlement. It would be wise, he told himself, to set
the ship down somewhere, hide it perhaps among trees or in a valley; then he
could approach on foot, taking advantage of whatever cover he found. Surely
those confident seizers of Earth would not be expecting a scout in these
latitudes, would not keep a
watch ..
.

 
          
Pondering
thus, he was aware of a vibration in the metal floor under his moccasin soles,
a silent taut quivering.

 
          
Mystified
and startled, he glanced toward the chart that showed the warning lights on the
plan of the ship. None had shifted, changed color or intensity. The quiver
departed, as abruptly as it had come. Then it was back again:'

 
          
He
felt a tightening of his nerves and muscles. Was the mechanism on the point of
failure? But no—the ship did not waver as it slid along above the wispy layer
of clouds. Was it a matter of fuel, then, whatever the fuel was? He had come a
long
way ..
.

 
          
A
second time the vibration had ceased. Even as he sighed in relief, it was back,
stronger this time, and complicated with a deep audible undertone that, as
Darragh listened, broke into a jerky semi-rhythmic succession of humming
chirps.

 
          
It
sounded like telegraphy.

           
Undoubtedly it
was
telegraphy.

           
Up ahead, another aircraft had come
from somewhere, a larger ship of plumply ovoid lines, its nose turning in
Darragh's direction.

           
"That damned thing's signalling
me," he muttered aloud.

           
He had no desire for conversation,
even had he known how to achieve it. Nor had he desire for close companionship.
As the egg-shaped craft approached, he touched the bead on the right arm of the
control assembly, pulled it outward, and made his own little vessel slip
abruptly sidewise and around the other. As he did so, the vibration and the
rippling signal hum grew more intense, even insistent. His ears rang with it
and he shook his dark-maned head to clear it. A new pattern of signal thrust
itself into the cabin, seeming to stir the air around him.

 
          
Another
ship was accosting him.

           
He leaned above the controls to look
out at the port. Two or three more vessels were dropping down from above. Two
more came struggling upward through the wispy mask of cloud. They converged
toward him. They were closing in.

 
          
"This
is.
an
attack!" Darragh snorted aloud, and braced
himself like a stanchion for the destroying impact of rays.