The Complete Hok the Mighty Page 15

  In desperation, Naku snatched up a ray-rod of his own—the fallen weapon of Ipsar. He pointed the lens-end toward the figure of metal. His hand found a yielding stud upon the rod’s smooth surface, and he pressed it as he had seen the Martians and robots do.

  Out gushed a finger-narrow streak of flame, straight at the center of the robot’s torso. There was a sudden clangor, a red-hot glow of the creature’s metal, and then it fell noisily. Naku, releasing the switch, saw his weapon’s ray subside. He ran, jumped across the prostrate robot, and was free.

  Aria was nowhere in sight. Like himself, she would know how to take advantage of the shadows. But there was a commotion all through the fortress. Robots were moving hither and thither, singly and in little groups, with Martians stumping around in command.

  “I have made too much noise,” Naku told himself savagely.

  Once again he fled for the only quarter of the camp he knew anything about—between the storehouses, up the alley and to the old rampart wall that was now an inner fence. Up this he swarmed, and a searching Martian saw his silhouette against the night sky, yelled and pointed. There was a rush of feet, both metal and living, as robots and their masters converged in pursuit.

  Naku slid down on the other side of the wall, glaring wildly to left and right. He saw once more the pen where the mammoths were confined, the same that had given him such precarious asylum earlier in the day. Again he was inspired.

  “Hai, mammoths!” he shouted, rushing up. “Great hairy ones, mountains of meat—prepare to come out and fight for your lives!”

  The three mighty things cocked their great fanlike ears, as though they understood. Naku came close and turned his ray-rod against the fastenings of the big barred door.

  His pursuers were in sight now, and yelled to each other in triumph. But they did not ray him at once, for he stood among their shelters and possessions, and a flash of heat might destroy other things beside this troublesome human savage. Meanwhile Naku had destroyed the big locked catch, and with all his strength dragged the door back on its hinges.

  The largest mammoth, disgruntled at the commotion in front of him, rolled out immediately. The Martians saw that he was free, cried out in alarm, and drew back together in a little group. The mammoth hoisted its trunk, trumpeted, and hurled its great bulk forward.

  The other two scrambled heavily to follow their leader.

  Naku, crouching low to let the rush go by, sped on to the next cage.

  “Ho, you lions in there!” he cried, in fierce gaiety. “You, too, shall be let out to battle!”

  The big cats hissed at his shouts, which they could not understand. But when he rayed the lock from their door and dragged it open, they understood that. Out they came, in a tawny torrent, and dashed in sudden rage for the place of greatest noise and commotion.

  VWIL, roused from his laboratory work in a shed near the space ship, ran out into the night to investigate the growing commotion. His meager muscles made it a slow journey to the quarter where the captured animals were kept, and already the mammoths were out and had rushed the party that searched for Naku.

  Two Martians and six robots made up that party. Though they had ray-rods, they forebore to use them for a moment, fearing to injure valuable property. After that, it was too late. The biggest beast trod on a robot as on a beetle, smashing it into a welter of case-fragments and wheels and wires, then caught another in his trunk and hurled it far over a shed.

  The other robots stood their ground, threatening with their weapons. But the two Martians, able to know fear and caution, retreated into a squat building that housed a half-assembled atomic motor. The two smaller mammoths began systematically to tear it to pieces with their trunks.

  “Get into the open!” Vwil yelled to his companions. “Use your rays!” Suiting action to word, he turned his own ray-rod on the biggest mammoth, the full force of the leaping heat-flash striking it broadside in the region of the heart. The monster screamed once, then fell abruptly silent. The flame had torn clear through its huge bulk, killing it instantly. It collapsed, gushing smoke that gave off a disgusting burnt odor, almost overwhelming the robots.

  Heartened, the cowering pair in the motor-shed peeped out and levelled their rays. The smallest mammoth, less angry and perhaps more intelligent than his fellows, backed up as by instinct of danger, but the other took the full impact of both discharges in the head, and keeled over heavily upon the hardened pavement. At that moment the fight seemed won.

  But other forms were maneuvering in the open space, lithe and menacing forms. The lions were loose. Somewhere farther along sounded the truculent bellow of a wakened bison.

  CHAPTER IX

  The Battle of the Beasts

  NAKU, hurrying down the row of cages, rayed open door after door. All the brute inmates thankfully emerge d—the mammoths and lions were quickly joined in freedom by a bull bison, half a dozen frantic deer, three great apes of a species that ordinarily Naku would avoid, and a vast and grumpy cave-bear. As he freed each, Naku ducked around the corner of the pen, and the beasts gravitated toward the commotion in the center of the open.

  Turning from the bear’s prison, last of the cages, Naku came face to face with a robot. He lifted the ray-rod, which he regarded by now as a familiar weapon, and pressed the switch; but it gave forth no flame. Its charge was exhausted. The robot took a clanking stride forward, its talons extended to seize Naku.

  At that moment something rose behind it, even bulkier and more terrible than itself. The released cave-bear had come erect upon its rear legs, and was as much taller than the robot as the robot was taller than Naku. Two sturdy, shaggy forepaws extended and encircled the round metal torso.

  Naku retreated, but over his shoulder he watched the struggle with fascination. The robot tried to jerk free, but the fleshy arms of the bear were too strong for its mechanical lurchings. It reached back a claw, clutched and tweaked a furry shoulder. The bear roared, swung a paw, as a man strikes a fly with a flat palm. The metal skull of the robot, which could turn the most desperate blow of a war-axe, collapsed under the weight of that buffet. The bear shoved the tottering hulk aside and moved toward the thick of the fight.

  Naku gained the inner wall and mounted it. Once again he looked back—the animals were being destroyed by freely-used rays, but these same rays had set a dozen fires among inflammable dumps and stores. Even the hardened earth seemed to collapse and reek before the glowing spears of pure heat.

  “This place may burn to nothing,” Naku told himself. “I must find Aria—yes, and Lumbo, I promised to rescue Lumbo.”

  He ran back toward the space-ship, not taking so much trouble to stay in the shadows, for he saw neither Martians nor robots. They must have gathered to deal with the loosed animals in the cage-quarter. Once he dared call out for Aria, but there was no response, Perhaps, he considered, she might have won clear from the fortress, would be waiting outside. After he had found Lumbo and helped him to safety, Naku would look for her, find her. That would be pleasant.

  He came to the great round hull of the ship, moved cautiously along its side, and located a door. It was shut, but not locked. After a moment he solved the trick of its fastening, pushed it back and entered. Inside, he found himself once more light and springy, as though two-thirds of his weight had been taken away. He was able to move silently down a metal-faced corridor. A table stood against one bulkhead, with a ray-rod upon it. He picked up the weapon, and advanced more confidently.

  COMING to the entrance of a compartment, he saw a Martian inside, seated before a complicated mass of machinery—wheels, bobbing levers, electrodes that gave off rhythmic bands of sparks. From the various terminals rose pulsating rays in all colors of the rainbow. The Martian kept it in operation by constant pressing and shifting of an intricate system of keys, buttons and switches.

  “Thunder Creature,” Naku addressed the operator, “stop that work.”

  The Martian turned upon his seat. He looked at the levelled ray-rod,
and was afraid.

  “You are the human prisoner who escaped,” he said shakily to Naku. “Be careful of that thing you hold. It might cause damage—you do not know its power—”

  “But I do know its power,” Naku assured him. “With another thing like it I have killed some of your brothers, and have burned open the doors of all the prisons in which you held beasts. What is that tangle of stuff you work with, making to move and light up? It is a tool, I think, like the flying house and the man-shapes with lamps in their heads.”

  The Martian, helpless but plucky, was silent.

  “Tell me, or I will burn it with this weapon,” Naku insisted. “No, do not stop to make a lie in your heart. And do not try to catch my eyes, I will not look at them.” The ray-rod in his hands threatened the machinery.

  “Do not destroy it,” begged the Martian. “This is the basic-power machine—the broadcaster of energy to all our affairs. If it were damaged, the flying machine could not lift from the ground, the robots could not move, the very ray-rods could not be charged when exhausted—”

  “It seems,” broke in Naku, “that without this thing running and dancing and shining like that, you would be weak and easily conquered. Is that not so? Well, I shall wreck it.”

  He sent a gush of heat-ray into the heart of the mechanism. It grated, emitted a puff of oily vapor, and halted abruptly, its lights dimming.

  The Martian gave a wail of dismay, and sprang wildly at him. Naku laughed fiercely, and swung the ray-rod like a club. His assailant went over like a reed in a hurricane, and lay still.

  Abruptly, there rose new pandemonium outside, yells of mortal terror from Martian throats. Their lights had gone out, their machines had ceased running. Even their robot slaves, powered by the energy waves from the machine Naku had wrecked, were suddenly stilled. Only the ray-rods, each charged temporarily, remained potent against the heterogenous swarm of brutes they fought. The Martians began to retreat toward their ship.

  It was dark in there, too, but Naku was wise in night movements. He groped along the wall to another opening, from which came a gentle filtering of light. It was a chamber with an open port, and the flickering fires among the cages in the middle distance gave a little glow there—enough for Naku to see a stiff-frozen robot in a corner, a pair of slabs, a shelf of surgical instruments and other materials, and the outstretched form of Lumbo.

  HE went to the side of Aria’s brother and nudged him.

  “Lumbo,” he called softly. “It is I, Naku, come to save you. Wake up, Lumbo!”

  The blond youth stirred, sighed and awoke. Naku could not see his face in the dimness, but Lumbo evidently recognized him. A gusty snarl came from his mouth, and he sprang without warning upon Naku. A moment later the two were sprawling on the floor, Lumbo above, striking heavily at his would-be rescuer.

  “I will kill you, black-hair,” he panted between blows.

  Naku blocked the worst of the punches with his crossed arms, then, recovering from his half-paralysis of surprise, shot his hands upward and pinned Lumbo’s either biceps. With a sudden exertion of all his strength, he whirled the attacker sidewise and off of him. Rolling as he did so, he came up on top, pinning Lumbo against the cold metal floor.

  “You are dreaming, Lumbo!” he cried. “I am no enemy, but Naku—we were captives together, and planned to escape and overthrow the Thunder Folk!” As Lumbo struggled, Naku tightened his grip. “Lie still,” he warned. “I am stronger than you. If you force me to fight you—”

  At those words, Lumbo relaxed.

  “You are Naku,” he said slowly, as though to inform himself. “Yes—yes, of course I remember. Let me up. We are friends, escaping together.”

  They rose and went out side by side, Lumbo’s hand on Naku’s shoulder. Naku decided that the other was still sick, perhaps a bit delirious. His head was heavily bandaged, and Naku remembered the strange behavior of Ipsar after such an experience. But there were other things to consider.

  In the open, Naku displayed his ray-rod. “See,” he addressed his friend. “This is a weapon of our enemies. It makes fire—so.” And he spurted out flame, into the door of a shed. At once the place blazed up.

  “You know how to operate it!” gasped Lumbo, and Naku did not take time to dream that Lumbo’s surprise was other than that of joy. He was setting other fires.

  “We will burn their whole camp,” he announced. “Look, where the strongest fires are. I have let go the animals, and they fight the Thunder Folk.”

  “Then let us go that way,” said Lumbo at once, and started off swiftly, dragging Naku along.

  Together they climbed the inner wall that Naku was getting to know well. Behind them the fires Naku had set were growing brighter. The battlefield they now saw was strewn with dead bodies—the beasts of Earth, the men of Mars, the fallen, empty robots—but no living thing stirred.

  Lumbo bent over some of the corpses. “Most of my—most of the garrison must be dead,” he pronounced. “The expedition is a failure.”

  “The animals are all slain, too,” added Naku. He hurried to the pen where the mammoths had been kept. Its wooden joinings were afire, and the earthen roof flaking to bits. He could plainly see the interior.

  With a cry of pleasure, he rushed in and snatched up something round and white, that had miraculously escaped the trampling feet of the mammoths. Then he hurried back to Lumbo.

  “Look,” he said. “This shell, that Ipsar wore, helped me to do what I have done. When I wore it, the language of the Thunder Folk was lost to me, and the will-power they exerted over me was brought to nothing.”

  “Is that true?” demanded Lumbo sharply. With a forefinger he tapped the shell experimentally. “Hmmmm,” he said as though to himself. “It is not impossible—no. Made by nature as an absolutely tight vessel, with no single orifice—then transmuted by ages into inert stone, of the finest insulating elements—it could prove practicable, though we never guessed it—”

  NAKU did not know what the other was mumbling about.

  “I wore it thus,” went on Naku, and donned it.

  Lumbo was talking on—but in the purring language of the Martians.

  Naku stared, felt a coldness of fear about his heart, and lifted the thing from his head. Immediately he understood again.

  “Do not put it on a second time,” Lumbo commanded him earnestly, and fixed Naku’s eyes with his. “Give it to me.”

  Submissively Naku handed the shell over, and Lumbo hurled it down. With a powerful kick he smashed it. His eyes held Naku’s.

  “You will obey me,” he said.

  “I will obey you,” agreed Naku, “but what—what—”

  “You cannot comprehend, of course. Let me say it simply. You call me by the name of your friend, Lumbo. This is his body—but the mind is that of another. Yes, the mind of the chief of your foeman. Without that petrified shell that deflected the will-impulses from your head, you can understand me. I hold you as my slave, my robot, my tool.”

  Naku stared, stood silent. “I will obey you,” he said again.

  “This place burns,” spoke the Martian commander through the lips of Lumbo. “The ray-blasts are fiercer than the fires you know. The flame they began will destroy even tiles, even metals. But we will get away. I shall survive, with you for my slave, until more of my people—in space-ships—”

  Neither he nor Naku heard the stealthy feat that had come up behind him. But now Lumbo’s eyes, still holding Naku’s, bulged almost from his head. His mouth fell open, but speech died in it.

  His body drew up stiffly, his hands flung themselves out.

  Through the center of his naked breast something came into view, like a serpent rising from a pool.

  It was blood-dyed, keen, the point of one of the great blades with which some of the robots had been armed.

  Lumbo crumpled down upon his face. And his slayer, who drew forth the weapon, was Aria.

  CHAPTER X

  Vwil’s Farewell

  NAKU, hims
elf again, gazed at the girl with new wonder. Then he sprang around Lumbo’s body, and caught her in his arms. And she wept as though her heart was smashed within her.

  “I killed him, my brother—no, not my brother!”

  “No, he was not your brother,” agreed Naku, “but how did you know?”

  “He spoke with the tongue of the Thunder Folk. I could not understand, but I knew that the enemy had gone into him. His heart was no longer Lumbo’s heart. Oh, Naku, have I done well?”

  “You have done well,” said Naku, and comforted her. His eyes darted here and there. The fires were feeding everywhere, greater and wider and brighter. He drew her away from them, toward an unburnt quarter. As their flames followed, he led her farther and farther. They retreated toward the center, where lay the space-ship.

  Aria recovered herself, and gazed about dauntlessly. Grief could harrow her, but not danger.

  “This place burns, and all its devils with it,” she ventured.

  “And we too,” replied Naku.

  “But we have won,” was her almost joyous rejoinder. “Our death will be a good one. Every one of the Thunder Folk gone—”

  “No, not all!” exclaimed Naku, and sprang forward, ready to do battle with his fists, his only weapons. A gaunt, high-skulled figure hurried heavily toward them, a surviving Martian. But one claw-hand was lifted in truce.

  “Is it you, Naku?” panted the anxious voice of Vwil. “Come, I can save you.”

  “How?” demanded Naku. “The fire is all around us—but wait, your chief said, when he spoke from my friend’s body, that there was a way. Lead, but no treachery.”

  The three hurried to the space-ship and into it. Down a corridor Vwil led the way, then down another. They came to a central chamber, stacked high with cylindrical drums.

  “This is all the fuel that is left,” panted Vwil. “Bring it.” He hoisted a container, Naku seized three, and Aria two more. They hurried down yet another passageway, and arrived at the far side of the ship. Here Vwil flung upward a great slide that revealed the open, and began to roll forth a little fishshaped car, similar to the space ship itself in form but on a much smaller scale. It ran upon a little landing gear, and with Naku’s muscular help, Vwil got it into the clear.