Page:Wonder Stories Quarterly Volume 2 Number 2 (Winter 1931).djvu/61

 This retort brought Hal-Al into the water, where an aquatic fight followed, covering a mile. Here a wood grew down to the stream, and they left the water and Davidson climbed a tall tree. Far off to his left he glimpsed the purple walls of the City of Forbidden Ladies. He had placed the city in the opposite direction and had thought to lead his companions away from this dangerous locality until they were better armed against attack. He descended from the tree and frankly informed the men of the fact, and the danger of the fact. But they were highly elated, and Bailee suggested that they proceed at once to the city and throw themselves on the generosity of the ladles for wearing apparel.

The little corporal bit his ragged mustache. "We might as well throw ourselves on the generosity of a barbed-wire fence for a little esoteric peace. We will have to commandeer the toga of some no-man or pig-serpent headed native, if he doesn't first commandeer our skins for his own devious ends."

"Don't talk so familiarly of my flesh separated from my bones," protested Bailee. "It makes me feel too much up against it! Loan me a necktie, Hal."

HEY leapt to their bare feet in sudden alarm. Between them and the river came the sound as of numerous moving bodies, and cut off from escape by water, and fearing they know not just what danger, but vaguely suspecting a dozen dangers from another flood of geometric figures to a herd of wild creatures they took the shortest line to safety, which among trees is upward. A few minutes later, concealed amidst the thick branches, they saw a score of deaths go by. Hateful, squat figures with brutal human forms below the neck, and almost human faces, but toadish and compressed, as if some horror had sat on top of them in their infancy and flattened their skulls. "Human gargoyles, or humanity gone to the damnation toads," as Bailee's deft-pencil of a tongue illustrated them afterwards.

When these and strange and alarming creatures had gone by, and the three men had recovered their somewhat shaken nerve, they rescended from the trees and made back to the stream, to learn if the enemy had left any sphere or any guard in that direction. Davidson reflected that that which was evidently the humanity of this scarlet planet had split into many forms, while on the earth it had split into but two forms, man and ape. Perhaps these fellows were the apes of the planet, for they had swung by with the agility of apes, and with a slight apish crouch.

"And every one had a handsome shawl, and me naked!" sighed Bailee. "The insult of it!"

At the edge of the wood stood a great scarlet sphere. They rushed it with drawn automatics and, finding no one to bar their entry, sprang inside the open door.

"We're as lucky as three picked roosters jumping back into their feathers," grinned Bailee. He found the metal arm that locked the door and thrust it around till it functioned.

Evidently they were alone in the sphere, for they were not hindered, and examining the pilot key-board found it similar in general appearance to the one in the sphere of the bat girls, but they had to try half the keys before the sphere responded to simple motion ahead, for the response of the keys was different from that of the other pilot-board. Then Davidson located the stop-key, and with the power to go ahead or stop at will, they again felt almost masters of their fate.

"Let's head around the wood and attempt to learn what these fellows are up to," suggested Bailee. "Perhaps if we are careful, and with the help of a kindly providence, we can get into a glorious scrap with them."

The little corporal feared to cross the stream in the sphere, so he kept around the woods, but with no wish to get into a fight with the enemy.

"You two might get busy and lace any cloth you can find into three togas for us," he suggested.

Bailee and Hal-Al fell to work on some fabric which may have been the bedding of the squat fellows, and it was a quick and easy matter tö lace them with thongs of the same fabric into rude bags, from which their legs, arms and heads protruded with perfect freedom. All the while they had proceeded very slowly along the wood, for Davidson had been unable to find any key or combination that would accelerate the almost dragging progress of the sphere. He concluded that perhaps these squat fellows were allowed only so much speed by the government, that they might be easily apprehended, should they seek to overstep the law. He kept the sphere well within the shadow thrown by the trees, as this offered the best means of escape, should the owners of the sphere discover its absence and take to the treetops to locate it. Occasionally they stopped while one of the men listened at the half opened door, more advantageously to sense any sound or sight of pursuit. But they localized no enemy.

HERE was a quantity of what appeared to be dry, pressed food-substance, in briquette form, in a large metal-like hamper on the upper floor of the sphere. Bailee volunteered to sample a bit, and if it satisfied hunger and did not distress him, they could consider it the stuff on which these squat fellows sustained life. According to Bailee's verdict, it tasted better than it looked, and digested better than it tasted, and had the flavor of a compound of salted dried meat, cheese, nuts and grain.

There was no water on the sphere, so they ran in among some tall scarlet, feather-like growth near a sparkling little spring, and here filled with water several large vessels that they found aboard and afterwards remained at the spring, on guard, waiting for developments. Developments followed so swiftly that they never drank but a few cupfuls of this water they had collected.

They were just about to retire into the sphere to make a thorough study of its possibilities as a means of offense and defense, when four of 