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

“They were in the interplanetary regions for seven days. Then they managed to control the ray somewhat, and, by using it in short intervals with a greatly reduced current, were able to effect a landing. But the machine was pretty badly smashed when they landed. They came down not far from here, and the natives tried to capture them.

“They had rifles, and turned loose, killing more than a hundred. But the little beggars don’t seem to have any great fear of death. When they start to do a thing, they do it. Sheer force of numbers told the story, and they overpowered the expedition. They killed Gluckner’s companions, but held him for purposes of observation.

“He’s managed to learn their language. Says it’s a simple affair that’s like certain of the primitive African tribes. He’s sent for the chief. Here comes the chief now.”

The little man entered the hut, stood for a moment before Gluckner, regarding him in unwinking gravity. Then he muttered a single word.

Gluckner answered slowly, laboriously. He used five separate words, rolled his eyes, waited, then put together a slow, halting sentence, hesitating between each word as though to let the brain of the chief absorb the expression.

The chief turned his camera eyes to Badger, took from his robe a huge diamond that had been shaped into a knife, and slit Badger’s bonds with a single stroke of the razor edge.

“Good heavens,” exclaimed the professor; “that knife is a diamond; unpolished, but a diamond, nevertheless.”

The chief approached the others, bent over the girl, cut her bonds, then straightened and put the knife back in his girdle.

“But how about Father and Mr. Kendall?” asked Dorothy.

Badger shook his head.

The chief grunted again.

Two men armed with spears entered the hut.

The men each took an arm of the girl, led her outside the door.

Click glanced at Badger.

That individual was smiling, a loose-lipped, crafty smile.

The girl’s steps died away. The steady drip, drip, drip of the mournful forest rattled on the leaf roof of the hut. And then that fog-filled air was knifed by a single piercing scream.

Click struggled frantically with his bonds.

“The girl. She’s in danger. Quick, turn us loose, go see what it is!” he told Badger.

Badger went to the door of the hut. His manner was that of one who strolls casually. For an instant he stood within the entrance, then vanished. His feet could be heard on the ground, running.

Click struggled with his body, writhing, twisting, trying to get free, hardly conscious of what he was doing. One of the guards arose, picked up a spear and thrust the sharp end against Click’s throat.

Click glanced up into the expressionless eyes, jerked his head toward the doorway.

“Can’t you let me go to help her?” he asked, forgetting that the man could not understand his language.

His only answer was a tightening of the pressure where the spear pushed against his throat.

Click subsided. The spear had punctured his skin, was pushing against the tender spot of his throat. He concluded that he was to be murdered in cold blood.

“Nein, nein,” warned Gluckner.

The pressure relaxed. Shod footsteps came strolling along the packed ground outside the hut. Badger’s grinning face appeared in the doorway.

“She just saw a snake,” he remarked. “Said to forgive her for screaming.”

And then he turned to Gluckner and rattled off a long discourse. Gluckner shook his head once, then talked swiftly for more than a minute.

Badger yawned, stretched, nodded, turned to the professor.

“Pity you don’t speak German. Some of this information is well worth hearing. He says the heat on the central portion of the illuminated disk is unbearable. That no one lives there except a race of people that are close kin to the things we call apes. They’re hairy and live in the trees. This tribe represents about the highest order of civilization he’s seen; but he hasn’t made a complete exploration of the planet.

“The same face is always turned toward the sun, just as the same face of the moon is always turned toward the earth. That means there’s one side that has perpetual night. There’s a peculiar sort of mushroom growth that attains gigantic proportions in the night zone. And the borderland is peopled by a race of ferocious warriors.

“They use a sort of blowpipe and have a missile that’s got some toadstool preparation on it. It causes a painful death within about three hours of the time it’s absorbed into the system.

“These people aren’t very warlike, but they have a certain callousness to all forms of pain or suffering. They’re something like wild animals of a low order of intelligence. Yet they’re human all right. It’s what Gluckner calls ‘undeveloped soul ego.’ There’s a German name he uses that’s hard to translate.

“Well, I’m going out and walk around and see if I can make better friends with these natives. So long.”

He strolled to the door, muttered a sentence in German, and then went out.

Gluckner regarded the bound pair for a moment with pop eyes that seemed to contain some element of doubt. Once more he sought to raise his hand and make motions, but the effort was futile. The rheumatism had made his joints almost immovable. He sighed, barked a single explosive order, and the natives took hold of the stretcher, bore him outside.

There remained three guards watching them with unblinking camera eyes. About them the fog swirled. The trees dipped their mournful protest against the dismal environment. The reddish glow of waning light gradually began to tell on Kendall’s nerves.

Perspiration slimed his body from the effort of his struggles. The thongs bit into his wrists, and Click noticed that they developed a slime as the perspiration came in contact with them. There was a gelatinous something in the substance that softened in water. An idea seized him.

He worked his hands back and forth — up and down — sliding one over the other, trying to slip his bonds over his wrists, seeking to get as much perspiration on them as possible.

He noticed that the reddish light was becoming less bright. There seemed to be a pall settling down. Things lost their color, became drab. It was harder to see. The air seemed quivering with suspense.

“Thought it didn’t get dark here,” he said to Professor Wagner.

“Most strange. It cannot be night as we know it. Yet there is undoubtedly some obscuration of the sun. Perhaps there is an eclipse caused by some minor satellite. After all, the question of a small satellite for Venus has caused astronomical arguments at various times.”

The guards became restive, uneasy. The darkness grew more profound.

Then came a terrific crashing noise in the forest. It sounded as though millions of feet were tearing through the foliage, smashing branches.

“Rain!” exclaimed Click.

And it was rain, such as terrestrial residents never experienced. More like a thundering cloudburst it came. The trees bent and swayed. The beating drops, larger than any Click had experienced, came hissing through the foggy air, spattered upon the soggy ground.

The guards peered out of the door, turned their great eyes upon each other. Click could see them as shadowy outlines vaguely visible against the curtain of pouring water which covered the doorway.

Then came other forms. The doorway was blocked with struggling figures that paused long enough to make explosive remarks, single syllables of alarm.

In the confusion Click managed to plunge his arms in a pool of water which seeped through the wall of the hut. The water softened his bonds, made them as slippery as so much wet seaweed. He slipped his arm down until his right hand could grasp his knife which had been left in his pocket. A few seconds and he was free.