Part 6

The black void was no longer empty. Mountains showed ahead--and to the sides. Giant faces of rock, looming into unfathomable distance of the black sky. The mountains were drawing closer; contracting, rushing down with a violent movement.

Martt apprehensively glanced behind. A wall of dwindling rock was coming after them. The drug in these larger doses seemed acting with a multiplied power. The scene was a dizzy swirl of movement. Mountains closing in everywhere. To Martt came a flash of terror. They would be crushed. Their bodies were growing tremendously to fill this constricted space. . . .

Degg had stopped walking. They were gathered in a group. They were now in the center of a circular valley, with a ring of mountains closing in. A ten-mile valley . . . a mile . . . a hundred feet. . . .

But the mountains shrank to hills; to a low cliff-wall--a ridge. . . . It closed in. . . .

"Now!" shouted Degg. They leaped over the low ledge of encircling rock; scrambled over it and fell on a level ground above. . . .

Beside them Martt saw a small jagged hole in the ground. . . . The size of his waist . . . his fist . . . his finger. . . . It dwindled, closed and was gone; while again, above them and all about, were black, empty spaces, filled soon with shrinking canyons out of which hastily they climbed. . . .

A fantasmagoria of climbing, struggling upward to avoid being crushed by their own growth. . . .

There was a canyon too narrow, with sides too high. . . . They had to stop their growth, and climb its jagged, precipitous side. The climb took hours. There was another meal, while Martt slept and Zee remained on guard.

Then another valley. Broad, with a steeply inclined floor. They grew out of it; into another; and another. . . .

Martt became conscious of a change in the air. Cooler, with a dankness. And now at last, overhead the void was no longer black. A suggestion of purple. And suddenly as they leaped from a chasm which shrank and closed under them, Martt saw a sky. Somber purple, with stars.

A new conception of it all swept Martt. His Earth--the stars of its Universe. The Inner Surface of the Atom, Zee's realm--millions of times larger. And now--compared to Reaf . . . was he now a million times the size of Reaf? . . . Or a million million? Largeness, unfathomable. A convex world out here. The surface of a globe, whirling in Space. And overhead, still other stars, so gigantic--so remote!

V

Martt gazed curiously around. They were at last in Degg's world--the region of the Arcs. A tumbled land of crags upon which lay a gray-black snow. Martt's heart sank before its utter desolation--a tumbled waste, upheaved as though by some cataclysm of nature. Desolation! And as though to veil it, a fall of blackish snow--a somber, tragic shroud.

It was night. And, Martt surmised, a winter season. Yet the air was not cold; merely dank. And the snow seemed not cold, congealed perhaps by the dank, heavy air; but to Martt's touch, not cold, no more than chill.

With her bare limbs and filmy veiling, Zee was shivering. Martt discarded his jacket, but she did not want it.

He said, "But you must be cold, Zee."

"I'm not." She shook herself. "I'm--frightened. This--night up here--it's like a tomb, Martt."

Tomblike, indeed. A dank, chill silence brooded over the night. And then, almost unheralded, it was not night, but day. A small, cold-red sun leaped up from the distant black horizon. A day of dull, flat light. It stained the snow with blood. . . .

Blood everywhere. . . .

Degg said somberly to Zee, "Always blood. It is an omen. . . . My land, doomed----" There was a quiver in Zee's voice as she repeated his words to Martt.

They had come now not to mistrust Degg. He seemed a well-meaning youth. Simple-minded. He had told them something of his world--of Rokk, and the woman Mobah. Degg, in his heart, hated and feared Rokk.

"Why?" demanded Zee.

He turned his dark, solemn eyes upon her. "You are too gentle, little girl Zee, to understand. We have many--horrible things here in Arc. I would not talk of them with you."

It had been Rokk's plan, Degg said, to take Leela and Frannie to the place where he lived. Degg was to join Rokk there. . . . It was not so very far. . . . Degg called it Rokk's mound. They were headed that way now. Soon it would be night again--Martt could do what he thought was best toward rescuing the two girl prisoners. And Martt promised he would protect Degg.

Vaguely in Martt's mind had been the idea that he could use the drugs again now--make himself still larger--catch Rokk unawares. But the large drug would take no further effect. The maximum size had been reached. Degg did not know why; save that these drugs were for smallness--the large one merely an antidote to the other.

Martt was left without tangible plan. But his first desire was to get near Rokk's mound--whatever sort of place that might be. And he would decide then what could be done.

The blood-red sun came swiftly up in a low arc, and plunged as swiftly down again. To Martt, it had been some half an hour of daylight. Now came the brooding night--and in another half-hour the sun would again make its low sweep.

Martt urged Degg forward. Eeff was leading--lurid, green-white against the black of the ground. Then it stopped. Its eye quivered; it screamed--a long, shuddering, half-human cry of fright.

Degg stood frozen--a statue in the gloom. And then Martt--and Zee also, for she uttered a low, suppressed cry--saw what had frightened Eeff.

It was about a hundred feet away--a dull, glowing red as though the blood of sunlight were upon it. A thing which might have been a long, blood-red vine. Not animal, but vegetable. It lay on the ground--a great, thick stem, with upflung leafy branches waving like tentacles. At intervals, upon long stalks, were round spots of green light. Gleaming, baleful eyes.

The thing was lying its length upon the ground. Not quiescent, but everywhere in quivering, undulating, snakelike movement. Its eyes seemed all turned this one way. Eyes suggesting an intelligence--a reasoning behind them. A thing, not animal but vegetable! Its brain, lacking even the least vestige of human or animal restraint, cast in a mold unutterably horrible.

Eeff was crouching at Degg's feet, babbling with terror. Degg muttered, "It is unrooted! Free! It--I told Rokk they would break free some time--before he was ready!"

"Unrooted!" Zee echoed.

Unrooted! It was slithering, out there in the darkness. . . . It shrank to a blood-red blur. . . . It vanished. . . .

They went on again. Degg would not talk, save to reiterate fearsomely, "I knew they would cast off their roots! Roaming, everywhere. And Rokk thought he dared to grow them----"

A rise of ground lay ahead. Beyond its crest only the purple sky was visible, with stars sweeping in rapid, low arcs. Martt, Degg and Zee were walking together, with Eeff close before them.

Eeff began whimpering again; then screamed. And ahead, from over the crest of the hill, as though in answer came an echoing scream! Yet not an echo! A scream, human! It drove the blood to Martt's heart; stopped his breathing. The scream of a voice familiar--a girl's voice--Frannie!

For all the horror surging over him, Martt leaped forward. And stopped, stricken on the hill-crest.

Beneath him in the gloom lay a shallow, bowl-like depression. The starlight illumined it wanly. Frannie was down there, struggling in the grip of a blood-red, vegetable thing! A segment of it was wrapped around her, dragging her forward. The light of it drenched her with blood; its myriad green eyes glared throughout its waving length.

[Illustration: "Frannie struggled in the grip of the blood-red, vegetable thing."]

And ahead of it was a line of others of its kind, leading the way, slithering up and over the opposite slope!

_CHAPTER 6_

THE BLOOD-RED DAY

To Frannie, the subterranean river was an inferno of roaring blackness. Her dhrane was whirled along, sometimes swimming, sometimes floundering desperately. Frannie clung to its antlers and closed her eyes. . . . An eternity. . . . She heard Rokk shouting; felt the dhrane scrambling upon solid ground. The water dropped away from its sides. . . .

Frannie found herself and her dhrane standing in a dull, luminous darkness upon a ledge by the river. The other dhranes were there. Rokk spoke to Leela.

"What does he say?" Frannie demanded.

"He says we must get larger--this is too dangerous."

They followed then the methods used afterward by Degg in guiding Martt and Zee. Wading, in a large size, they went down the river. Then into the passageway leading upward.

And then the climb into largeness. To Frannie it seemed unending; but though they were only an hour or two ahead of Martt in starting, they were several hours ahead when they reached the giant world. Frannie and Leela were near to exhaustion, even though they had ridden most of the way. Rokk had not paused to sleep.

It was day when they reached the desolate land of the Arcs. Then a tomblike night; then blood-red day again.

Rokk rode now with Frannie and Leela beside him, and the woman Mobah behind. Rokk was jubilant. He talked swiftly to Leela. At intervals, Leela translated.

"He says he is glad to have us. He is taking us to his house--his mound, he calls it. He says, very soon there is something important happening up here. He is going to take us--show us it--happening." Leela shuddered.

"What is going to happen?" Frannie demanded.

"I don't know. Something--sinister, horrible. You saw his face when he told me?"

Frannie had seen it, indeed, but she was striving to master her fear. There was something queerly sinister, inhuman, about Rokk. And his smile had a leer to it. Shining in his dark eyes, which often were fixed thoughtfully on Leela, there was a look Frannie could not fail to understand. The woman, Mobah, had noticed it. Once, over her broad expressionless face a torrent of passion had swept. Hate? Jealousy? It flashed at Leela--and at Frannie--and was instantly gone.

Frannie said now, "Ask him what he wants of us. Why did he ever go down into our world?"

Leela listened to Rokk's smiling explanation. The man's voice was soft, caressing. Leela went white.

"He says, Frannie--he says his world here is very harsh--not good to live in. There is very little food--he says that he and some other men--his followers--are planning to descend into my world and conquer it. Kill all its men--Frannie, don't you understand?--kill, just the men of my world----"

There was a silence. Then Leela added, with a frightened hush to her voice, "Up here all is bleak and terrible. The women are all like this woman behind us--unbeautiful----"

Rokk was riding faster now, and soon, as they ascended a rise of ground, his home came into view. It lay on a falling slope, with paths trodden in the snow about it--a bulging mound built of pressed blocks of the gray-black snow. It rose above the surface perhaps ten feet--an oblong mound twenty feet wide and five times as long, like the grave of some giant buried there, with a small upright chimney at its farther end for a headstone. A few rectangles of white marked its doors and windows as though one might care to stand on the ground and gaze down at the coffin entombed within. Near by, two other mounds lay like the graves of children, with beaten paths connecting them.

Rokk's home was set alone in the midst of this snowy waste! Frannie's heart was cold with apprehension. What was to be her fate--and Leela's--within?

* * * * *

At Rokk's call a half-grown boy appeared in a doorway of the main mound. He led the dhranes away. Frannie and Leela were taken down a crude flight of icy steps and into the mound. It was much longer than it appeared; it seemed to extend at least another story underground, for Frannie saw an incline leading downward.

They had entered the top story. Rokk led them along a passageway; Frannie saw low-roofed rooms, with ceilings curved to the mound. Each with a window opening at the ground level; and with crude furniture seemingly fashioned from stone blocks.

Into such a room Rokk ushered them. He was smiling, bowing like a friendly host; his words to Leela were suave. But in his eyes there was an unmistakable irony, and when Frannie hesitated at the door, he pushed her roughly.

Mobah had disappeared. Rokk stood a moment talking to Leela. The door to the passageway was open. Rokk and Leela had their backs to it. Frannie became aware that beyond the door Mobah was standing listening. And in the dimness there, Frannie caught a glimpse of the woman's intense face. It was torn with a jealous passion--a torrent of loosed passion debasing its calm stolidity into an aspect almost bestial.

As Rokk turned slightly, the lurking woman silently fled. Rokk bowed to Frannie, and to Leela--a bow ceremoniously grotesque, but with a dignity, nevertheless. His hand lingered on Leela's white arm, but Leela jerked away. He shrugged, smiled, and went through the door, barring it after him.

"Oh, Frannie!" Leela at last gave way. She sobbed with fright unrestrained; and this gave Frannie additional strength to be calm. She sat Leela on the couch--a railed slab of stone, with a litter of furs on it like the bed of an animal. She tried to comfort Leela. Then left her; tried the door softly. It was stoutly barred.

Then she tried the window. It had a pane as transparent as glass, but evidently unbreakable. Frannie struck it recklessly with her fist. And there seemed no way to open the window. Through it Frannie could see along the snow-covered ground outside. The night had just come. The ground was dark, with faint stars showing above.

Frannie sat on the bed with Leela. They were both so exhausted that for a time they slept. Hours, perhaps--Frannie never knew. Then she awoke. The scene in the room was unchanged. It was night again. Leela was awake. Frannie began questioning her as to what Rokk most recently had said. Leela was outwardly calm now.

"He--insists we are not to be harmed, Frannie. He told me--just before he left--that he wanted me to like him." A shiver ran over Leela's frail body. "He will work to make me like him--he will be very good to me. And you--he says there is a young man--that man he left back in Reaf--named Degg. He is sure Degg will like you, Frannie."

"Did he say any more about that important thing which is going to happen?"

"Yes. He said he is going to take us somewhere--as soon as we have rested, and Degg has come to join us here. Take us somewhere--where we shall see a wonderful awesome sight. Frannie, he told me the men here in this world do not like their women. He has brought me and you--to show us to the men--that they may see how beautiful women can be. Then--they will join him to go down into smallness--to conquer----"

Leela choked. She added, and a hush fell upon her voice: "Frannie, this Rokk has planned it all. He says there is too little food here. The women--and the children that the men no longer want to feed--are all placed apart. Exiled to a city--where he is going to take us. And show us----"

A tapping at the window checked her. The girls stared at each other with the blood draining from their faces. A gentle tapping from outside. A scraping, fumbling as though soft fingers were working at the window.

Frannie stood up, trembling. Then she moved along the wall, and with her face to the window, peered out. The tapping had stopped. Outside she saw a faint, lurid red glow. And three gleaming spots of green. Moving, peering. And then like the tendrils of a creeping vine, a leafy something, with a red sheen upon it, gently beating at the pane; tapping--fumbling.

Frannie drew back. "Leela--out there----" But another sound stopped her. Someone--something--was unbarring the door of their room! The two girls were frozen with terror, incapable of sound or movement. A bar dropping with a muffled thump! The door slowly began opening inward. . . .

It was the woman Mobah. Her face was grim; her dull eyes were smoldering green-black coals. She flung a menacing glance at the girls, moved swiftly across the room. Her fingers at the pane touched some hidden lock. The window swung open.

Mobah darted back, seized Leela, tried to shove her toward Frannie and the window. Leela screamed, resisted, fought with all her little strength and called a warning to Frannie.

But it was too late. Through the window a thick, red-glowing tentacle came slithering. Its green eyes were waving triumphantly. It caught Frannie; rolled back upon itself, jerking her upward.

Heavy steps sounded in the passageway outside the room, and Rokk's alarmed voice, shouting. Rokk burst in. He knocked Mobah aside with a blow of his fist, and swept Leela protectingly backward.

The segment of red thing within the room slithered out the window, carrying Frannie with it.

II

"She is gone, my lady Leela. It is unfortunate, but we can not help it. She is lost--we shall never see her again."

Leela and Rokk were alone in the room. Leela shrank upon the couch; against his gaze she huddled with a corner of the robe drawn to shield her white limbs. He stood before her.

"Gone, Leela. Dead, by now. . . . Don't shudder, little white woman. It is the law of life--some live, some die. . . . But Degg will be sorry."

She had no words, no heart with which to answer.

He went on, with a frown crossing his face. "That vegetable thing coming here has changed my plans. It has no right to be unrooted. I grew it, Lady Leela--and many others of its kind--for a certain purpose. But now it has broken away, before I was quite ready to dig it up. It thinks it is full-grown. It is conscious of its power. And that which during all its growth I have taught it to do----" He shrugged. "I suppose they have all broken loose. All roaming----" A horrible grimness came to Rokk's voice. "Well, they will do what I taught them--we shall have to hurry if we wish to see it, Lady Leela."

Leela summoned words. "To see--what?"

He smiled. "You are impatient--and as becomes only a woman--curious! You shall see, little white woman--blood-red things----" He gestured. "Enough of that. But you shall realize how great is Rokk. I planned it all. But now I shall have to change my plans a little. I had wanted to show you and your friend--the little Frannie--to the men of this world. So that they--our men--would know how beautiful women can be. There is no time now, with the red things broken loose. We shall have to be careful, my Leela. I shall send word to all the men everywhere to have a care. . . . I wish Degg would come--but we can not wait for him now. . . . There are animals, too, who should be guarded from these roaming red vines I have grown. You have not seen our animals, Leela? Degg has one--a very friendly thing; we call it Eeff. It is but half human--and only half materialized into substance. A loyal friend, if it likes you. But its mentality is that of an imbecile. . . . I talk too much, like a loose-tongued woman. There is no time--we must start."

He called roughly, "Mobah! Come here at once!"

The woman appeared, sullen, defiant. On the flesh of her heavy gray shoulder was a red bruise where Rokk had struck her.

"Mobah! Bring the dhranes. We are leaving for the Ice City. Tell my boy here to have Degg follow us when he comes. . . . Hurry! . . ."

III

They rode fast. Alternate night and day--endless frozen wastes. Occasionally they passed single mounds, isolated like that of Rokk. Others in groups; blood-stained graveyards by day--eery and gruesome in the starlight. Leela saw many of the green-white animals, lurking like werewolves prowling among the mounds. And there were men gazing curiously at the travelers. To them often Rokk gave a warning that the vegetable things were loose.

But he said to Leela, "There really is no danger. These things I have grown will do my purpose in the Ice City. Then I will command them back to their fields. Let them rot there harmlessly in a red welter. I can control them. They know me for their creator--their master."

There were few women or girls to be seen about the mounds. Rokk said, with a horrible irony, "We have sent most of them to the Ice City. It is a very beautiful place--we men have sent our women there. The women----" He laughed sarcastically. "They are very stupid. They do not guess our purpose."

They rode in silence. Then Rokk spoke again. "My woman, Mobah"--he glanced behind at the patient figure riding behind them--"I have kept Mobah with me. She is good to work in the mound. But you, my Lady Leela----" He chuckled. "We shall get rid of Mobah all in good time. We do not want her around, do we? But I will not make you work, Leela. In your city of Crescent, little white woman, you and I will be very great people. I shall be the leader of all our men----"

Again Leela did not answer.

A red day plunged into night. Far to the left across the snowy wastes to the distant horizon, Leela saw a white radiance in the sky. A vague patch of silver, as of light reflected from some remote distance below the horizon. Rokk waved his hand.

"You see that, Leela? That is where I found the drugs. This globe is very fair, off there. Longer days and nights. A warm, fruitful summer. Food is there. Trees, with fruit. But it is all owned by another race of people. They will not let us in. They are very powerful--very far advanced in civilization. A wonderful age of science. . . . They know everything. I crept into one of their cities and stole the drugs."

To Leela then was driven home the conception of how vast is God's great plan of the Universe. This miserable region owned by Rokk's people was no more than the Polar waste of this globe. A fairer land of science lay there where the distant radiance showed. A great, cultured civilization perhaps. And farther beyond it--other races--all on this one tiny globe whirling among these stars. . . .

* * * * *

They came at last within sight of the City of Ice. In the starlight it glittered with a pale sheen. It stood on a broad plateau above the surrounding valleys--a place of white spires, glittering under the stars, the whole surrounded by a high white wall of ice.