Эрл Гарднер - The Human Zero. The Science Fiction Stories of Erle Stanley Gardner

He flipped the lever, manipulated the slide.

The surface of the billowing clouds came up toward him, dazzling with their brilliance. Then a swirling streamer of cloud stretched misty tentacles toward the shell, swirled about it, and they were enveloped in a white mist.

Darker and darker became the mist. The eyes slowly adjusted themselves to the greater darkness after the white brilliance of the reflecting cloud banks. Lower and lower went the shell, but its progress could only be told by the slithering clouds of moisture which slipped past the sides of the shell.

“Keep a sharp watch for obstacles,” called Professor Wagner. “If you see anything, shout at once.”

Click pressed his face against the floor glass, watched below. There was nothing but fine drifting mist, and through that mist a strange, unreal light penetrated.

And then a bit of mist seemed to congeal, take color.

“Hold everything!” he yelled.

The girl saw it at the same time.

“Something dark below.”

The professor held the shell motionless, then joined them at the floor window.

“Humph,” he said. “The top of a tree. Watch it. We’ll try to avoid the branches.”

He returned to the controls. The shell settled lightly, down, down. The top of the tree slipped past to one side.

“Great heavens! It’s got a diameter of over ten feet right near the top, and some of those branches are regular trees in themselves,” said Dorothy.

Suddenly Click gave a shout. “Life!” he exclaimed. “A bird fell out below and flew away. It was an enormous bird, bigger than our eagles. And it looked as though it wore spectacles.”

Professor Wagner chuckled.

“If some of our contemporaries on the earth could only be with us! But that bird’s flying is a wonderfully favorable sign. It shows that the atmosphere must be equally dense with that of our earth. Gravitation we know is about the same. Ah, here’s another tree to one side. We’re going down between them, and look. Here’s the ground!”

The shell dropped rapidly, checked itself, fluttered to the ground as lightly as a snowflake, then was quickly sent up.

“It’s a regular morass!” exclaimed Click.

“We’ll bounce up and try it over a little farther. Watch out for trees, but I’ll have the gravitation at zero and the speed down to three or four miles an hour. There won’t be much momentum. Here we go.”

The shell drifted through the forest. Overhead the luminous sky reflected dusky light through the ever present mists.

The great trees stretched up in long spires of green. The shell was about twenty-five feet above the ground, floating along like a great soap bubble.

Dorothy gave a shriek.

“A man! Watching us from the tree. Quick, look!”

And there, perched on the limb of a small tree, regarding them with unblinking solemnity, was a man, some four feet in height, clothed in some peculiar texture which seemed a species of silk.

In appearance he was very like an earth man, save for the eyes. Those eyes were apparently without lids, were so large and protruding as to dominate the entire face. The pupils alone were almost an inch in diameter, and they regarded the drifting shell with an owl-like scrutiny of expressionless contemplation.

Professor Wagner guided the shell closer, brought it to a stop, lightly drifting against a tree branch.

The strange creature slipped from the branch, caught a twig with fingers that were somewhat like those of a monkey, and dropped to another branch, hit the trunk, went down it with an agility that no earth human had ever possessed, and disappeared in deep ferns.

Search as they might, they could find no sign of him. He had vanished.

The professor reluctantly set the shell in motion again, drifting at a slow rate of speed. Within half a mile the forest abruptly thinned to a clearing. Bare ground, hard and brown, cleared into a huge circle, was beneath.

“That is undoubtedly the work of man,” said Professor Wagner, and dropped the shell to the ground, brought it to a rest, slipped the gravitational control over to normal, and opened the door.

Moist air came pouring in, air that smelled of mists, dripping green stuffs, decaying wood. Dank, yet warm and pleasant, the air seemed to bathe them as a lukewarm shower.

“All out for Venus!” yelled Professor Wagner.

Click got to his feet, sighed, took a step, and then held back. For into the clearing had suddenly debouched a row of men, marching gravely from the fern-rimmed forest.

“Ah,” sighed Professor Wagner, and stepped to the ground of the planet.

The line of men advanced.

“Look here,” insisted Click, “I don’t like their looks. We’ve got some weapons inside. Let’s get them ready. We may have to fight.”

“Bosh! That is the way hostilities start. Think you we are going to come here and depart without stopping to investigate these inhabitants? We must investigate their flora and fauna, take motion pictures, learn their language, their tribal beliefs, their family life. We can’t do all that by starting a fight.

“Their clothes look like silk. Do you know, I believe those eyes can penetrate the fog. You’ll notice there’s a reddish tinge to the light. The violet rays are absorbed in the upper layers of atmosphere.

“That’s the chief there in front. He’s coming this way. Hold up your hands, palms outward. Hang him, can’t he tell a gesture of friendship? And look at their joints. See how they bulge. That’s probably caused by generations of rheumatism. Gradually they’ve become immune to it, probably, but the joints are remarkably enlarged. They average about four feet. Almost dwarfs, but—”

The line swung at the ends, became a half circle, swept about, darted inward, and the trio found themselves crowded out from their entrance, walled in by the little creatures who surveyed them in austere silence.

“Hello, howdy. We come for a visit.”

Professor Wagner smiled, waved his hands, bowed.

The circle made no motion.

“More men coming out from the forest, Professor,” warned Click in an undertone.

“They’re our friends,” said the professor, and smiled again.

A man stepped forth from the circle.

“That will be the chief. He’s an old man, yet there’s no wrinkling of the skin. Notice how they all appear to be of about the same age,” muttered the professor. “But the chief has certain unmistakable indications of age. He has knotted veins in his temples, and the teeth are worn down. Then there’s his neck. The neck glands are almost invariably deficient in aged persons. Why, look out — the beggar’s hostile!”

“Look out, Father!” shrieked the girl.

For the chief’s lips had twisted back from his gums. He opened his mouth, barked a single shrill word, and lunged forward.

The circle closed. Hands reached out.

Click swung a terrific blow.

To his surprise, the little man side-stepped that blow with an agility that would have done credit to a monkey. Strong hands darted forward, seized his wrists, and Click knew then that these men were incredibly muscular, for the hands bit deeply into his skin, held with a grip of iron.

A twisted strand of some light substance appeared from nowhere, was looped about his hands and twisted over his neck.

From behind him he could see the others were being similarly treated.

The chief opened his mouth again. Another single sound issued forth. And, with that sound, he turned abruptly. Some of the men remained behind with the shell. The others accompanied the chief. And the captives followed, persuaded by a single jerk of the rope that had been placed around their necks.

“We’re going to be taken into the forest. Now we shall see how the men live,” purred the professor.