The Fire People, Ray Cummings [best thriller books to read .txt] 📗

in the rice fields for the small land owners.

We reached the base of the mountain proper, and I found myself in a broad street with houses on both sides. This street seemed to run directly to the summit of the mountain, sloping upward at a sharp angle. We turned into it and began our climb into the sleeping city. It was laid out regularly, all its principal streets running from the base of the mountain upward to its summit, where they converged in a large open space in which the castle I have already mentioned was situated. The cross‑streets formed concentric rings about the mountain, at intervals of perhaps five hundred feet down its sides—small circles near the top, lengthening until at the base the distance around was, I should judge, ten miles or more.

[Pg 75]

We climbed upward nearly to the summit; then Miela turned into one of the cross‑streets. I had found the climb tremendously tiring, though Miela seemed not to notice it unduly, and I was glad enough when we reached this street which girdled the mountain almost at the same level. We had gone only a short distance along it, however, when Miela paused before a house set somewhat back from the road on a terrace.

"My home," she said, and her voice trembled a little with emotion. "Our home it shall be now, Alan, with Lua and Anina, our mother and sister."

A low, bushy hedge separated the street from a garden that surrounded the house. The building was of stone, two stories in height. It was covered with a thick vine bearing a profusion of vivid red flowers. On its flat roof were tiny palm trees, a pergola with trellised vines, and still more flowers, most of them of the same brilliant red. The whole was surrounded by a waist‑high parapet.

One corner of the roof was covered with thatch—a little nest where one might be sheltered from the rain, and in which I could see a bed of palm fiber. At one side of the house a tremendous cluster of bamboo curved upward and over the roof. A path of chopped coconut husks led from the street to a short flight of steps in the terrace at the front entrance.

We passed along this path and entered through the open doorway directly into what I judged was the living room of the dwelling. It was some thirty feet long and half as broad, with a high ceiling and stone floor. Its three windows fronted the garden we had just left; in its farther wall a low archway led into an adjoining room. The furniture consisted only of two or three small tables and several low, wide couches, all of bamboo.

A woman and the girl Anina rose as we entered. Anina ran toward us eagerly; the elder woman stood, quietly waiting. She was about forty years of age, as tall as Miela, but heavier of build. She was dressed in loose silk trousers, gathered at waist and ankle; and a wide sash that covered her breast. Her hair was iron gray, cut short at the base of the neck. From her shoulders I saw hanging a cloak that entirely covered her wings.

[Pg 76]

As she turned toward us I saw a serious, dignified, wholly patrician face, with large, kindly dark eyes, a high, intellectual forehead, and a firm yet sensitive mouth. She was the type of woman one would instinctively mark for leader.

Miela ran forward to greet her mother, falling upon her knees and touching her forehead to the elder woman's sandaled feet. As she rose I could see there were tears in the eyes of them both. Then Miela presented me. I stood for an instant, confused, not knowing quite what I should do.

Miela laughed her gay little laugh.

"Bow low, Alan—as I did—to our mother."

I knelt to her respectfully, and she put her hands lightly upon my head, speaking low words of greeting. Then, as I stood up again, I met her eyes and smiled an answer to the gentle smile on her lips. From that moment I felt almost as though she were my own mother, and I am sure she took me then into her heart as her son.

The introduction over, I turned toward one of the windows, leaving Miela to talk with her mother. Anina followed me, standing timidly by my side, with her big, curious eyes looking up into my face.

"You're a sweet, dear little sister," I said, "and I am going to love you very much."

I put my arm about her shoulders, and she smiled as though she understood me, yielding to my embrace with the ready friendship of a child. For some moments we stood together, looking out of the window and talking to each other with words that were quite unintelligible to us both. Then Miela suddenly called me.

"We shall eat now, Alan," she said, "for you are hungry, I know. And above there is water, that we may wash." Her face clouded as she went on: "Our mother has told me a little that has happened. It is very serious, Alan, as you shall hear. Tao, with his great news of your wonderful world, is very fast winning over our men to his cause. A revolt, there may be, here in our own city—a revolution against our government, our king. We can only look to you now, my husband, to save our country from Tao as well as your own."

[Pg 77]

The situation as I found it in the Light Country was, as Miela said, alarmingly serious. During the two years Tao had been in the Twilight Country, preparing for his attack upon the earth, his project had caused little stir among the Light Country people.

Its women were, at first, perturbed at this wanton attack upon the humanity of another world, but since the earth was such an unknown quantity, and the fact of its being inhabited at all was problematical, interest in the affair soon lagged. The government of the Light Country concerned itself not at all.

But now, upon Tao's return, the news of his venture, as told by the emissaries he sent to the Light Country, struck its people like a bombshell. These emissaries—all men—had come to the Great City, and, finding their presence tolerated by the authorities, had immediately started haranguing the people.

The men were inclined to listen, and many of them openly declared their sympathy with Tao. These, however, were for the most part of the poorer, more ignorant classes, or those more adventurous, less scrupulous individuals to whom the prospect of sudden riches appealed.

"Why doesn't your government just throw Tao's men out if they're causing so much trouble?" I asked. "They never should have been allowed in the country at all."

Miela smiled sadly. "That is so, my husband. That should have been done; but now it is too late. Our men would protect them now, declaring their right to stay here and speak. There might be bloodshed among our people, and that must not be."

"Are they armed?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No one is armed with the light‑ray. To carry it is a crime punishable by death, for the light is too destructive."

"But Tao has it?"

"Tao has it, indeed, but he is not so great a monster that he would use it against us."

[Pg 78]

I was not so sure of that, and I said so. "You don't mean to tell me, Miela, that your government has allowed Tao to prepare all this destructive armament without itself arming?"

Again she shook her head. "We have been preparing, too, and all our young men can be called if occasion comes. But that must never be. It would be too terrible."

Miela and I occupied, that first night on Mercury, a broad wooden bed built low to the floor, with a mattress of palm fiber. At first I could not sleep, but lay thinking over the many things she had told me. The light in the room, too, was strange. Lattice covered the windows, but it was like trying to sleep at midday; and the heat and heaviness of the air oppressed me. I dropped off finally, to be awakened by Miela's voice calling me to breakfast.

We sat down to the morning meal at a low table set with shining plates and goblets of copper, or whatever the metal was, and napery of silk. The rice formed our main article of food, with sugar, milk, and a beverage not unlike coffee. There was also a meat like beef, although more highly flavored, and a number of sickish sweet fruits of a kind entirely new to me, which I could do no more than taste.

We were served by a little maid whose darker skin and heavier features proclaimed her of another race—a native of the Fire Country, Miela told me. She was dressed in a brown tunic of heavy silk, reaching from waist to knee. Her thick black hair was cut to her shoulders.

On her left arm above the elbow was welded a broad band of copper inscribed with a mark to identify Lua as her owner, for she was a slave. Her torso was bare, except for a cloak like Lua's which hung from her shoulders in the back to cover her wings. By this I knew she could not fly.

It was not until some time afterward that I learned the reason for this covering of the clipped wings. The wing joints were severed just above the waist line. The feathers on the remaining upper portions were clipped, but through disuse these feathers gradually dropped out entirely.

[Pg 79]

The flesh and muscle underneath was repulsive in appearance—for which reason it was always kept covered. Lua showed me her wings once—mere shrunken stumps of what had once been her most glorious possession. I did not wonder then that the women were ready to fight, almost, rather than part with them.

Difficulties of language made our conversation during the meal somewhat halting, although Miela acted as interpreter. Lua and Anina both expressed their immediate determination to learn English, and, with the same persistence that Miela had shown, they set aside nearly everything else to accomplish it.

We decided that we should see the king and arrange our future course of action. Whatever was to be done should be done at once—that we all agreed—for Tao's men were steadily gaining favor with a portion of the people, and we had no means of knowing what they would attempt to do.

"What will your people think of me?" I suddenly asked Miela.

"We have sent our king word that you are here," she answered, "and we have asked that he send a guard to take you to the castle this morning."

"A guard?"

She smiled. "It is better that the people see you first as a man of importance. You will go to the king under guard. Few will notice you. Then will he, our ruler, arrange that you are shown to the people as a great man—one who has come here to help us—one who is trusted and respected by our king. You see, my husband, the difference?"

I did, indeed, though I wondered a little how I should justify this exalted position which was being thrust upon me. After breakfast Lua and Anina busied themselves about the house, while Miela and I went to the rooftop to wait for the king's summons. From here I had my first really good view of the city at close range.

Miela's home sat upon a terrace, leveled off on the steep hillside; all the houses in the vicinity were similarly situated. Behind us the mountain rose steeply; in front it dropped away, affording an extended view of the level, palm‑dotted country below.

[Pg 80]

The slope of hillside rising abruptly behind us held another house just above the level of the rooftop we were on. As I sat there looking idly about I thought I saw a figure lurking near this higher building. I called Miela's attention to it—the obscure figure of a man