The Complete Hok the Mighty Page 14

  A backhanded flip of his big left fist sent the commander spinning head over heels like a straw figure. Whirling without an instant’s pause, Naku struck with both hands at Ipsar. His left sank into the priest’s flabby belly and, as Ipsar doubled over, Naku’s right landed flush on his bearded mouth.

  Down went Ipsar, and from behind the bars of the cage both Aria and Lumbo cheered loudly. Naku did not wait to acknowledge the applause. Already the robots turned toward him. One held a raythrowing rod.

  Springing across the floundering form of Ipsar, Naku fled for his life in among the buildings of the Martian settlement.

  CHAPTER VII

  In the Mammoth Pen

  TWO buildings, square storehouses, were set so closely together that Naku had to squeeze between them. But he hesitated only a moment to do it, not caring that bits of skin were scraped from the points of his broad shoulder. Behind the houses was an alley, and into this the two robots were already dashing from either end. Because Naku seemed trapped between them, and also to avoid injuring its companion, the robot with the ray-device did not use it.

  But Naku saw a wall or paling, of the red tile-like substance that the controlled atomic machines made out of plain earth. He charged at it and dived over, head first, though it was as tall as he. Landing on hands and knees beyond, he waited a breathless moment. The robots could not follow him, and he heard them clanking away to cut him off beyond. Like a fox he doubled, hurling himself back across the wall and into the alley. Up this he tore, just behind the robot with the ray-rod.

  There was an open street at the end of the alley, and across this he made a dash. Shouts greeted his appearance—full half a dozen armed Martians had gathered at the call of their leader, and moved to bring him to bay against a wall. But Naku was an outdoor man, thrice as strong and active as the most vigorous Martian, and the wall had inequalities enough to give him hand and foot holds. He swarmed up like a monkey. A flame-ray struck just where he had been as he mounted, turning the red of the wall to cindery black. Then he was over the coping.

  He had hoped to land in open country, but this part of the wall, once the outer rampart, had been passed by the encroaching works of the Martians. Beyond it was a higher wall, and the space between was full of sheds, shelters, and stacks of metal and other materials. It contained, too, a great pen or cage of metal bars with a flat earthen slab for roof—a structure similar to that in which he had been held, but larger and more coarsely made. He could thrust himself between those bars; and, with the noise of pursuit greatening behind him, that is what he did.

  He raced to the cage, squeezed in, without more than glancing at the great brown-black lumps that seemed to pulsate inside. Anything, he told himself, was less terrible and more practicable to deal with than Martians or their robot-slaves—and, even when he saw that the tenants of this enclosure were mammoths, he did not emerge again. For the Martians, four of them, accompanied by armed robots, were coming into view, through ports in the wall. Naku flung himself at full length into a heap of grassy forage which the Martians had sagely given to the captive beasts.

  Here he lay still.

  There were three mammoths, male, female and calf—great shaggy mountains of flesh, more than twice a tall man’s height at the blocky shoulders. Their woolly skulls were high-domed, the index of cunning brains that were mirrored in their tiny, questing eyes. Their legs were like living tree-trunks, covered with hair like thick, coarse moss. And their trunks, as pliable as anacondas and clever as hands, now began to swing and writhe. They squealed and muttered to each other. The sudden appearance of their chief enemy, man, alarmed and infuriated them.

  THEY moved, all three as one, toward the heap of grass into which Naku was burrowing, He felt, rather than saw, their great hillocky bodies above him. He heard the rumbling intake of their breath, the rustle of the trunks that began to squirm about him.

  The Martians, toward which he dared not lift his face, were patrolling near the cage, shouting to each other and to the robots. A mammoth’s trunk groped along the calf of Naku’s leg, paused on his bare back, and tweaked his flesh painfully. Naku stoically refused to twitch or gasp. The largest mammoth, changing position, set a massive foot within arm’s length of Naku’s head, and also explored with its trunk. The top of the member found the shell that covered Naku’s cranium, prodded it tentatively, and dislodged it.

  At once Naku could comprehend the speech of the Martians. Even in the midst of peril from the mammoths, he listened carefully. The commander was doing all of the talking:

  “We may have underestimated these beings that call themselves human. At first the black-haired specimen seemed completely under control, but in some way it wore off. Well, he must have gone over our wall. Go, two of you, on a flying detail. If you catch him, bomb or ray him. He knows too much to be allowed life.”

  Naku exulted in his hiding. The wise, harsh chief of the enemy was mistaken about him—and afraid of him, eager for his death. Naku swore that in this last case he would disappoint the commander; and then he felt the trunk-tip of the largest mammoth combing his hair. The big beast was snarling to itself, shifting ponderously on its feet, trying to guess what lay so still among the heaped grass, smelling of man but not moving. And the Martians heard.

  “Those animals we captured are nervous,” one of them said to the commander. “Let us see what they do.”

  The commander approved, and the party came near. The big mammoth, seeing his captors approach, moved grumpily forward to the bars. A foot swept across Naku’s prostrate back, barely a palm’s breadth above it, then another. The fugitive, daring to glance up, saw that he now lay under the hair-thicketed belly.

  Sensible of his mortal peril, yet he knew that he was for the moment hidden as under a shadowy roof. The Martians were conversing just outside the bars.

  “Fix the thing’s eyes with yours,” the commander was telling one. “See if you can read its mind—impossible, you think? There is something wrong here, but the animal’s brain is too primitive to communicate its impressions to ours.”

  “That is true,” agreed the Martian addressed. “Probably these beasts saw the escaped human run near their cage, and climb over the outer wall.”

  “Probably,” said the commander. “If I could bat fix that black-haired one’s eyes with mine again, I might subdue his will. But time is too short for experimenting. I am weary of walking on this thrice-gravitied planet. Let them bring that other male, the one with the yellow hair, to the operating room.”

  They moved away. Naku slipped stealthily from under the mammoth’s belly, around its massive hindquarters and into the back of the cage. The big beasts stood together, watching the departure of the Martians, Naku found a space between the rear-hindmost bars and the adjacent partition, a place where he could lie and be safe both from the blundering ill-will of the mammoths and the discovery of the Martians.

  HE RECKONED up the evidence in what he had just heard. The commander of the enemy had said something about wishing to look him in the eye. In such a gaze, then, must lie the power to enslave one’s will. Naku decided never to look another Martian in the eye, especially when he did not wear the shell cap. Then he looked for the shell cap—it still lay among the cut grass at the front of the mammoth’s cage. And, hearing the ill-tempered squeals and snorts from the three giants, Naku dared not go back just now for it.

  He continued his diagnosis of the Martians’ conversation. Lacking Naku, the commander ordered that “the other male, the one with yellow hair” be brought out. That would be Lumbo. What was to happen to Naku’s new friend?

  His meditations were interrupted by a low menacing growl, at his very ear. He whirled over in terror. Nothing was there but the wall. From behind it came another growl. Naku guessed at once that a cave-lion, perhaps several, were penned up next to the mammoths, and that they smelled him where he lay.

  “Lions and mammoths,” he thought. “These Thunder Folk hold them safe in traps now, and have nothing to fe
ar. But suppose that they, and whatever other animals are captured, should be let loose?” He smiled tightly, and his eyes shone at the thought.

  But he remained where he was, perforce, while the sun passed zenith and slid down, down, to the horizon and beneath it. He heard bustlings in the open and, once the takeoff of the flying machine. The enemy sought him afar—not here.

  When dark came, he slipped from his hiding.

  The Martian camp was lighted here and there by flares of a dozen colors and intensities—the gleam of rays that delved, built or modified things according to the will of their operators. But there were plenty of shadows, and Naku, subtle hunter and woodsman that he was, knew how to take advantage of them, hide in their hearts, pick his course from one to another. Even in the face of passing Martians and robots—there seemed to be more of these latter than before, as though the invaders built new ones of materials prepared in the camp—Naku retraced his steps across the inner wall, up the alley and between the storage sheds until he was again in sight of the cage where he had been held prisoner.

  He gazed long and critically through the gloom, and saw only one figure inside—a slender, dejected figure, that of the girl Aria. He approached cautiously and lay in a blot of darkness.

  “Aria!” he called softly. “It is Naku, escaped from the Thunder Folk. I am hungry and thirsty. Is there anything left from your evening meal?”

  She turned toward him, made a sign with her hand to show that she understood, and came close to where he had crept up against the bars. First she handed out a bowl of water, which he drained gratefully; then a platter of meat and cooked herbs. Naku began to eat ravenously, but he saw that she trembled and heard her sob to herself.

  “You are crying,” he said. “Why? They have taken away your brother Lumbo, is that it?”

  “Yes,” she replied brokenly. “He fought, but the shiny things that look like men but are only walking, wrestling tools—two of them dragged him away. Naku,” she addressed him earnestly, “you must leave here, or awful things will happen to you, too.”

  NAKU emphatically shook his head.

  “No, Aria. Up until now, I have outfought and outwitted these powerful Thunder Folk. I shall do so still. I shall not leave here until you are free also.”

  “But they will catch you and do terrible things. I am afraid that my poor brother—”

  “Did they take him to that great round shiny house in the middle?” Naku meant the space-ship. “Listen, Aria. I will go and spy on them. I will save your brother.”

  He said it as if he already saw a way to succeed, and his confident words put an end to her sobs. She put out a hand between the bars. It was a slim hand but strong, and it clutched Naku’s own broad one and seemed to draw strength from him. Naku squeezed her fingers encouragingly.

  “Be brave, Aria,” he begged. “I will not desert you. I am Naku—wiser and stronger and braver than the Thunder Folk—and I like you.” Again she seemed to believe, to win hope from his own confidence. As for Naku, he warmed to her still more.

  “Aria,” he said, “you are from a stranger people, whose customs I do not know. Do you know what a kiss is?”

  “A kiss?” she repeated. “Oh, you mean—like this?”

  Their heads came close together, and their mouths touched through the bars. “You must go now,” she whispered.

  “I will go, but to find and save Lumbo,” he replied, and crept away.

  Still taking advantage of sheltering patches of shadow, he approached the space-ship. Its ports were mostly open, and one of them gave off light. Naku came to it, and found it above his head. But nearby was a great block of wood, from which the Martians had cut lumps for their building. Naku dragged it close, stood upon it, and peeped into a chamber of the craft—the chamber which the Martians used as a surgical operating room.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Naku Finds Allies

  NAKU could see plainly all that happened in that room.

  Upon two raised metal slabs lay prone figures. The nearest of these was Lumbo, the brother of Aria, fastened down by bands at wrist and ankle, around the middle and the neck. He lay still and pale, but not dead—even though his blond head was cleft apart and a Martian fumbled inside his skull with twiglike fingers. Upon him played a green light, one of those myriad rays with which the Martians accomplished their wonders.

  On the other slab sprawled a Martian, the commander himself. But it could not be, Naku mused wonderingly—for near him stood two of his subordinates, and they were plainly doing him harm! One, plying a gleaming instrument like a knife, but with a tip that whirred like a dragon-fly’s wing, was making a hole in his brow. The other held the top of his chief’s huge cranium and, as the one with the knife cut it away, lifted loose the skull-cap like a bowl.

  “Hurry,” said the one who stood by the unconscious Lumbo. “We are at the moment for which we have labored these many hours. Spray the brain with the life-ray.” A companion did so, using a nozzle that gushed green light.

  “Now, then, into this other cranium.” From the cut-away skull of the Martian commander deft hands drew a crinkled gray lump, like a huge-nutmeat. Naku saw it for a brief instant as it was carefully slid into the cleft in Lumbo’s head. The operators exclaimed in triumph, and turned on the green light more strongly. It seemed to heal, to some degree, Lumbo’s wound, though his brow bulged with the extra volume of brain it now contained. After a moment he stirred, stretched and spoke:

  “Unfasten these shackles, someone.”

  As Naku stared and wondered, the operators hurriedly did so. Lumbo, so lately their prisoner, sat up on the edge of his slab and pointed to the silent form of their commander.

  “Throw that carrion away,” he directed, and a robot lugged it out through a panelway.

  “I feel splendid,” went on Lumbo, stretching luxuriously. “I can understand how the primitive natives of this planet can set so much store by physical health. And my intellect, I am sure, is not impaired by so much as an atom’s force.”

  The Martians agreed sycophantically, and one began to bandage the half-healed cranium. Naku was torn between utter amazement and utter delight. In some way his friend Lumbo had established command over these enemies. Perhaps it was because he had not died of that fearful wound in the head—they might think he was a mighty magician. But then, they had seemed to work hard to cure him. Naku scowled. His own head ached with the labor of trying to understand.

  ANOTHER figure entered. It was Ipsar. A Lumbo, as the bandage was swaddled around his brow, addressed the priest:

  “The operation was a success. It will follow with others, as swiftly as I obtain prime specimens of the human race to replace our own bodies. But I have orders for you.”

  “Yes,” nodded Ipsar respectfully.

  “It is possible—probable, even—that we can pass on our mental powers and other characteristics to human progeny; the children, that is, of these new bodies of ours and females of the human race.”

  “Yes,” repeated Ipsar.

  “We have one female prisoner. I give her to you for a mate. And now leave me—I have had little enough rest since I arrived.”

  He stretched out on the slab, and closed his eyes. A robot moved forward, as if on guard. The others departed.

  To Naku there were many mysteries. The fact that Lumbo’s body was now governed by the Martian chief’s brain he could not grasp. The things spoken by that brain through Lumbo’s mouth registered only vaguely, smacking to Naku of some strange occult viewpoint. But one thing was certain—Lumbo had told Ipsar that he might have the captive Aria for a mate.

  Naku stepped down from his block of wood. He could understand that thing least of all. Did Lumbo think to bribe Ipsar into an alliance? Was he not powerful enough already, in whatever strange way he had taken to seize control of the Martian party? Or was it that he valued his sister lightly, and cared little whom she might marry? Brothers were sometimes like that—but Naku was no brother of Aria. He had other hopes about
her.

  He saw fat Ipsar, tramping across to the cage, and followed quickly and silentfy, keeping yet again to the shadows. The priest deftly unfastened the gate and entered. After a moment Naku heard Aria cry out in fear:

  “No! Let go of me!”

  “Little fool,” Ipsar was replying angrily, “you will be far better off than most females—they will become like a race of robots. You, as my mate, will have the advantage of—”

  “I cannot understand your talk,” Aria gasped. “Let go!”

  Naku charged the door, sprang into the cage. Ipsar held Aria by her wrists, but with a single clutch and heave Naku tore the two apart from each other. Then he smote Ipsar in the center of the face that sent him staggering back into a corner.

  “Aria is mine,” Naku growled at him. “Do not move toward her, or I will kill you.”

  Ipsar did not move toward Aria. He was tugging something from a loop in his girdle—something that gleamed, even in the dimness of the cage. Naku had seen too many ray-rods in the past day or so to mistake this one. He made a quick, overwhelming lunge. Down went Ipsar again, giving one hoarse howl for assistance. Then Naku’s right hand clamped over his mouth, and Naku’s left hand imprisoned his weapon arm.

  “Run!” Naku bade Aria. “The door is open—run and hide!”

  SHE needed no second bidding—she was gone. Naku wrung Ipsar’s fat wrist until the ray-rod fell from his hand, then switched his left grip to the throat.

  “Traitor!” he growled at the priest. “You turn against your own people to help these devils from another star,” and his fingers, digging through the frill of red beard, sank into Ipsar’s windpipe. Naku rose to his feet, dragging Ipsar with him. He bent the pudgy form across his knee, bent it back, back—he heard the snap of the spine. Ipsar went limp.

  Dropping the body, Naku turned to follow Aria into the open, but there was a sudden malevolent clanking, and a robot towered in the doorway. Its face-lamp glowed as it peered in. Its claws held a ray-rod.