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

“Has it occurred to you that they show no surprise at our appearance?” asked the girl abruptly. “They should be surprised at the color of our skins, at our eyes, at our clothes, at our height. But they take us for granted.”

“By George, that’s so!” agreed the professor. “Ah, here’s where they have their village. Notice the manner in which the trees protect them from surprise attacks from above. What enormous trees they are! That one is thirty feet in diameter. It must stretch up for five hundred feet, perhaps more.

“And here are the women. Ugh! How ugly! Evidently they’re closely allied to the animals of our globe as far as sex beauty is concerned. The males have the beauty.”

Click made no comment. His startled eyes surveyed the drab spectacle in the cheerless, dripping forest. Little huts had been made, thatched with broad leaves, lashed with thongs. Overhead a tangled mass of branches dripped globules of moisture in endless cadence upon the echoing leaves.

Ferns had been cleared away to make a little circle before the houses. About this circle the women had gathered. They were even smaller than the men, and their appearance was startling.

They showed as squat, dish-faced creatures, thick of lip, dark of skin, round of eye, low of forehead. Their faces were expressionless, and they made no sound. But Click noticed a peculiar twitching of the nostrils, as though they were sniffing some faint odor.

The chief led the way to a hut. The dwarfs who pulled the prisoners followed. They led the trio inside, gave a deft loop of the neck rope about their ankles, knotted it, and backed out.

There was no sound of conversation coming into the hut from those who clustered in the village. Occasionally a sound of motion, the thud of bare feet on the ground, a hacking cough, would attest to their presence, but there was no conversation.

Professor Wagner closed his eyes, sighed. Click tried to sleep, and could not. There was an atmosphere of tense waiting about the place that was as omnipresent as the everlasting fog.

Steps sounded without the hut.

“I wonder,” began the professor, then suddenly broke off. For to the ears of the men came a strange sound, the sound of a human voice talking as men on the earth talked, although the words were indistinguishable.

“Good heavens!” snapped the professor, and struggled to a sitting posture. “That’s the German language, or I don’t know it when I hear it. What’s this? What’s this?”

“I told you,” reminded his daughter, “that they didn’t show any curiosity. They’ve seen people like us before.”

“Tut, tut,” snapped the professor. “We’re the first earth mortals ever to set foot on Venus.”

But his voice lacked assurance, and made up in irritability what it lacked in conviction.

The door darkened with moving bodies, bearing a shuffling burden. They swayed and tottered with the weight of it as they formed a congested group in the doorway.

Then they crowded through.

They carried a species of stretcher made of saplings across which had been stretched a network of cords. Upon that stretcher a huge form reclined, heaving restlessly, grumbling.

They up-ended the stretcher, and Click found himself gazing into the face of a man, pop-eyed, blond, frightfully obese, the skin bleached of color.

The man sputtered a stream of German at them.

Professor Wagner rattled a reply in English.

“We don’t speak German. Do you speak English? How did you happen to arrive here? When did you arrive? How? What are these people? Do they have a language? Do you speak it? Are you a captive, or are you treated as a guest?”

The fat neck rolled the huge head from side to side.

“Nein, nein, nein. Ach Gott, nein!”

“Can you speak any German?” demanded Professor Wagner.

Click Kendall shook a reluctant head. It was a language of which he knew nothing. And that ignorance seemed in a fair way to shut them out from all understanding with the strange creatures who held them captive.

“The man evidently isn’t held as a captive. He’s treated with some respect,” muttered Click.

“Crippled with rheumatism,” added the professor. “Notice the enlarged joints, the peculiar posture of the fingers. It’s a bad case, and the heart is evidently impaired. You can see the blue lips, the discolored finger nails. Truly this is a great disappointment, to think that our remarkable voyage has been anticipated by other scientists, and that these scientists are of another nation.”

“Look, Father! He’s trying to make signs.”

The man on the stretcher slowly and laboriously raised an arm. He tried to make a gesture, but broke off in a groan. Perspiration stood out upon the forehead. The pop eyes puckered in agony.

With a sigh the man collapsed back to immobility. He shook his head, groaned, gutturaled another sentence in German, then smiled a wan smile.

The squat men clustered on either side regarded the scene in unblinking silence. Their eyes, looking like twin lenses of a huge camera, turned from time to time as they exchanged glances.

“I’m afraid it’s hopeless. Was there ever such a tantalizing situation?” exclaimed Professor Wagner.

Again there was a commotion before the door of the hut, and then two of the squat natives entered bearing between them a human burden. It was Badger, bound hand and foot, his face gray with fright, his vest-button eyes fixed with terror.

“You speak German?” shouted the professor.

Badger nodded.

The pop-eyed man on the stretcher saw that nod, interpreted it correctly. His blue lips parted and rattled forth a long string of conversation.

And Badger settled the question of his linguistic ability by replying in smooth German, speaking rapidly, making gestures from time to time.

“Ah!” sighed Professor Wagner. “At last we have solved our difficulties. Ask him if these men intend to do us harm, Badger.”

But Badger paid no attention to the command.

For more than fifteen minutes the two chattered on. The little men sat hunched about, apparently without curiosity. Their huge, lidless eyes remained motionless. Their breathing was deep and regular. They showed no emotion, gave no faintest flicker of facial expression.

Then it became apparent that the conversation had drifted to the three who lay listening with such eager curiosity.

Badger pointed toward them, indulged in a rattle of conversation. The German nodded, looked at the three, and his eyes clouded with hostility.

Again he looked at Badger.

“Treachery!” snapped Click. “That bird’s double crossing us.”

“Hush!” whispered the girl. “We have got to make him our ally. Otherwise we won’t have any means of communicating with these people.”

The German rolled his head, turned his pop eyes upon one of the natives, and muttered a single sound. It was one of those crisp, explosive words such as the chief had used.

The native got to his feet, left the hut without a word of reply.

Badger turned to the others.

“Well, I guess you folks are wondering what it’s all about,” he said. “You see, it’s this way. This chap, Carl Gluckner, was working on a new type of aerial warship during the World War. He discovered a peculiar ray that had remarkable properties, but he couldn’t control that ray. At length he made himself a metallic house somewhat similar to ours, made it airtight, constructed it to withstand terrific pressure from within, and determined to explore the upper atmosphere.

“He’s a little indefinite about it, and I think he’s perhaps trying to confuse me on the nature of his invention. That’s only natural, anyway. But he, and four companions, started out. They tuned up their ray, directed it beneath them, and found they were ascending with such terrific velocity that they lost all control of the car. Gluckner says he was unconscious because of being thrown against the floor, the acceleration was so great.