The Fiery Wheel Page 15

  More fortunate than Francisco, having traversed the immense plateau that extended half way down the mountain, he arrived at the entrance to the steep path that descended through the black cliff all the way to the golden river.

  He was about to go into it when he spotted five Mercurians in a cave hollowed out in the side of the path. He stopped, indecisively—but the monopods immediately bounded toward him, trunks whistling and claws extended.

  Fearing for his life, or at least for his liberty, Paul de Civrac raised his pike and brought it down violently on each of the nearest monopods. The blows yielded the same sound as the impact of a sledgehammer on green wood. Two monsters fell, struck down. The other three fled precipitately down the enclosed path.

  The war will definitely be unending, Paul said to himself.

  As he had just come from a dark and cold region, however, he was inordinately affected by the ambient heat and light. “I need a rest!” he murmured.

  And having thrown the two Mercurian corpses—one of which had the gold-circled trunk symbolic of high command—into the cavern. Paul went in and sat down next to them.

  Then he saw two white speaks dancing before his eyes. They settled into immobility, in a horizontal line, a meter above the cadavers.

  “Why, what’s this! Some new phenomenon of this strange country?”

  He reached out toward the two sparks, like a child trying to catch flies on the wing, but the motionless sparks seemed to pass through the flesh of his hand.

  “I’m damned if I understand any of this!” he whispered. “Doubtless some electrical phenomenon, unless...”

  He fell silent, intrigued.

  The two sparks descended slowly toward the trunks of the Mercurian cadavers. Paul followed them with his eyes. He saw them flutter momentarily in front of the sucker of each of the trunks—and suddenly, both sparks disappeared.

  Immediately, however, the Mercurian cadavers appeared to revive. Each one agitated its arm and its leg, opened its eye—and stood up, with an abrupt movement.

  “Hey!” Paul cried, his hair bristling on his head and his eyes widening with fright. “What…!” Seizing his pike, he backed away.

  But the two resuscitated Mercurians fell to their knees, inclined their black torsos, and humbly laid their trunks on the ground, as if to implore the Terran not to get angry.

  Before Paul was able to recover from his prodigious astonishment, the monopod with the ringed trunk stood up, and with calm gestures and very gentle movements, without the young man feeling the scrape of claws, the Mercurian had removed the diamond-encrusted gold ring that Paul de Civrac wore on the ring-finger of his left hand.

  Holding the diamond between its talons, the monopod headed for the smooth wall of the cave, and in front of Paul de Civrac—who wondered whether he might have gone mad, and whether what he was seeing was really happening—the amazing resuscitated individual raised its arm and methodically scratched the slate wall with one of the points of the diamond…

  And the scratches outlined letters, which formed words...

  As the Mercurian wrote, Paul de Civrac read:

  I am Dr. Ahmed Bey, who has come from Earth. The other resuscitated Mercurian is Brad, whom I went to seek out on Venus. All this is done by means of the disincarnation of the soul, of which I know the formula and the secret. Bild insisted stubbornly on refusing disincarnation; he wanted to remain on Venus, declaring that he would return to Earth in the flesh. We left him there. We can’t speak to you, because the Mercurians have no throat, no tongue, no teeth, no palate and no other organ that would permit us to articulate human words, but we can hear you, since the Mercurians have ears. We have our terrestrial souls with Mercurians bodies and organs. Speak, then. I’ll reply in writing. Where is Francisco? Where is Lolla?

  Prepared for the marvelous as Paul de Civrac was, this new adventure was truly too exorbitant and prodigious not to cause his reason to lurch momentarily. He passed his hand over his eyes, got to his feet, moved closer to the engraved slate wall, and read the singular inscription all the way through. Then he looked at the two Mercurians. They were standing before him, gently waving their trunks, and the two red eyes were shining, not ferociously or stupidly, as Paul had always seen them shining before, but with a gleam of human intelligence!

  “Come on, let’s see!” said Paul, aloud. “I’m not mad! I’ve killed two monopods; I’ve seen two sparks go into their trunks; the monopods have come back to life; one of them gently removed my diamond ring and started writing words....”

  While Paul was speaking, the monopod with the diamond had moved to the slate wall again, and it resumed writing:

  No, you’re not mad. We’re Ahmed Bey and Brad!

  “Ahmed Bey, who I met in Calcutta!” Paul exclaimed. “Is it possible? Am I not the victim of a hallucination? Ahmed Bey here, in this form! And with Brad! But it’s crazy! However…here are the lines, written there…I can see them, I can touch them—they exist! I’m in possession of my reason. I’m not hallucinating...”

  He stammered these words, his eyes wide, his hands trembling, standing stiffly in front of the two Mercurians so fantastically resuscitated.

  Suddenly, the young man had an idea.

  “Brad!” he shouted. “Take the watch that’s in my belt!”

  Immediately, the second monopod leapt forward, put out its arm and took hold of Lolla’s watch by the ring with its claw.

  “What time is it?”

  The monopod Brad looked at the watch, and after gesturing with its arm, it emitted eight spaced whistles.

  Paul took back the watch and glanced at it; it was showing eight o’clock.

  “Good!” exclaimed Paul. “Now take this box and strike a match.”

  A few moments later the monopod Brad held up a lighted match.

  The demonstration was sufficient. With a sudden surge of crazy joy, Paul de Civrac opened his arms wide. Brad threw himself into them, and the young man felt the caress of his trunk on his neck.

  Several minutes went by in silence and emotion. Then, suddenly sensing that all his presence of mind and composure had returned, Paul de Civrac spoke.

  “I’ll leave it until later,” he said to the monopod Ahmed, “to ask you for enlightenment regarding this inconceivable adventure and Bild’s ridiculous stubbornness. And I thank you, my dear doctor, for having replied, perhaps without being aware of it, to the appeal that I cried out to you in the Fiery Wheel. It was a presentiment, then! I’d also like to know what the Fiery Wheel and its inhabitants were, if you’ve discovered that—but time is too precious now. We have to act, to find Lolla and Francisco. Listen!”

  And he described the various phenomena of the Mercurian land, recounted the loss of Lolla Mendès, the flight from the monopods, the fortunate incident of the projections, the twelve monopods killed, drained of their blood and burned, and Francisco’s departure to go hunting. He concluded: “I’ve set out myself to search for him. What should we do now?”

  Ahmed Bey reflected. With an entirely human gesture, he supported the extremity of his trunk on the talons of his arm and closed his eye. Brad watched him. Suddenly, he shook his head and walked to the wall. Raising his arm, the claws still clutching the diamond, he traced words on the slate:

  Civrac, you’ll be our submissive prisoner. Keep your pike, though; it might be useful. Brad, you imitate all my movements and whistles. Let me take the lead. We’ll find Lola and Francisco, dead or alive. Civrac, guide us to the Mercurian city, and then act like a voluntary prisoner.

  “Understood!” said Paul.

  As a sign of acquiescence Brad dipped his drunk several times.

  And they set out to descend the abrupt ravine that led to the golden river and the Mercurian city.

  During the journey, Paul’s mind posed a thousand questions, insoluble for the time being, because the explanations that Ahmed Bey could have given to made the disincarnation and reincarnation of souls comprehensible were scarcely convenient to develop in writin
g with a diamond as a pen and slate rock as tablets. It would have been even less easy for Brad to furnish revelations on the subject of the catastrophe of the Fiery Wheel on the world of Venus and descriptions of the world itself. Paul de Civrac therefore resigned himself to not knowing. Besides which, the fate of Lolla Mendès was paramount in his thoughts, and after that, Francisco’s.

  During his sojourn on the twilit platform, his body being forcibly inactive, his mind and heart had been nourished by the idea and the image of the young woman. And, as can happen in circumstances exempt from banality, his sentiments had immediately attained their complete development. He loved Lolla Mendès as if he had lived through years of cloudless happiness with her—and yet, the two young people had scarcely been able to exchange a few words of love, a few caresses and a few kisses, in the midst of terrible events.

  Suddenly, Paul was distracted from his thoughts by the appearance, at a bend in the ravine, of the Mercurian city. He stopped and, pointing at the valley open at his feet, with the golden river in the middle and the pyramidal huts on both banks, all in the shade of the overhanging cliffs, he said: “That’s it!”

  The two false Mercurians had stopped with him. Then, at a gesture from Ahmed Bey, which was understood as soon as it was made, Brad took hold of Paul’s left arm, leaving his right arm free, carrying the pike. Ahmed Bey placed himself in front of the pair, and they resumed walking.

  The new arrivals had been seen by the Mercurians in the city, however. A concert of violent whistles filled the air. A host of monopods soon surrounded Ahmed Bey, Brad and their pretended prisoner.

  Ahmed Bey marched at random into the midst of the huts. He too emitted whistles then, but as he did not know the Mercurian language, he could not space them out, cadence them and pitch them in such a way as to form meaningful sentences. He whistled in brief, equal blasts to the rhythm of his march. Having arrived in the middle of an empty space between the huts, he stopped, immobilized his companion and his prisoner with a gesture, and raised his arm in a dignified fashion.

  Then a monopod with a gold-circled trunk emerged from the crowd, stood in front of Ahmed Bey, in whom it doubtless recognized a high-ranking Mercurian, and apparently launched into a speech, for its whistles went on for several minutes without interruption.

  Ahmed Bey was embarrassed. He did not know how to respond. He therefore maintained a prudent silence, and an attitude he believed to be dignified. It must have been, in fact, in the Mercurian sense, for the monopod orator did not persist. It turned around and started walking. Ahmed Bey followed it without hesitation. Brad and Paul followed close behind, escorted a short distance away by the whistling and gesticulating host of black monsters.

  Having arrived at the door of a hut, the chief stopped and stood aide. Deliberately, Ahmed Bey stopped too and made a curt gesture to his acolytes, pointing at the door. Brad put on a show of forcing Paul to bend down and all three disappeared into the hut, accompanied by the monopod chief.

  There were a few moments of silence and immobility. Paul’s eyes adjusted to the relative gloom of the hut—but when he could see his surroundings clearly he stepped to the side, bent down, and stood up again, raising his left hand, in which he was holding a scrap of cloth. In a voice vibrant with indescribable emotion he proclaimed: “Brad! Lolla’s been here—this is a piece of her bodice.” And two tears brimmed in his eyes.

  The hut to which the chief had led the individual it believed to be its colleague was the one to which Francisco and Lola had been brought after their second capture. What had become of them since?

  PART FIVE

  IN COMPLETE MYSTERY

  Chapter One

  In which even Ahmed Bey knows no more

  The discovery of the scrap of red cloth that had been part of Lolla Mendès’ costume plunged Paul de Civrac, Ahmed Bey and Brad into profound reflection. The Mercurian chief who had come in with them had closed the door of the hut and, crouched against it, was gazing with its unique eye at the two monopods, whom it could not imagine being vivified by human souls, and their prisoner. Evidently, it did not understand their conduct or their silence, but, as is appropriate in the presence of a superior, the subaltern chief also kept quiet and waited, without its eye manifesting anything but the most absolute stupidity.

  Sitting in front of Ahmed Bey and Brad, who had remained standing, Paul could not take his eyes off the scrap of red fabric that he was holding in his hand. He felt a claw touch his arm gently, however, and looked up to see Ahmed Bey. The monopod Doctor leaned over and, in the fine black dust accumulated on the ground, he traced words that Paul read as they appeared:

  We need to stay here for at least forty-eight hours. That’s the time it will take me...

  At that point, the Doctor stopped writing, having run out of space. He rubbed out the words, smoothed over the black and began again:

  …to learn the Mercurian words that will permit me to ask where Lolla and Francisco...

  He erased them again, and continued in the same place:

  …have been taken. I can’t see any other means. Is that agreed?

  “Yes,” Paul replied.

  The Doctor resumed writing:

  Stay calm, sleep, eat what is brought to you. Brad will keep watch on you, and let me do what I need to do.

  “Agreed!” said Paul. “But in the meantime, Lolla might be killed!”

  The Doctor did not reply. He looked at Brad, who had also read what he had written, and gestured his support with his trunk.

  The Mercurian had watched all these actions and movements with an amazement that was manifest in its widened eye, and the agitation of its trunk and arm. Suddenly, however, Ahmed Bey uttered an imperious whistle and the Mercurian froze. The Doctor marched to the door, easily tipped over the slate plate masking it and, making a summoning gesture to the true Mercurian, went out.

  The docile Mercurian got up, and followed him. What turmoil there must have been in its head! It had seen its superior making gestures that no Mercurian had ever made. And the superior did not speak. Doubtless, it did not deign to explain.

  Followed by the obedient monopod, Ahmed Bey marched through the Mercurian city. As he passed by, the host of little black monsters parted silently. Sometimes, whistles vibrated. However attentively the Doctor listened, compared and reasoned, however, he could not extract the slightest meaning from the sounds that he heard.

  After strolling for three hours, during which he crossed the golden river several times and had made a tour of the entire Mercurian city, he went back to the hut where Paul was enclosed under Brad’s guard.

  The observations that Ahmed Bey had made could be summarized as follows:

  The city was composed of between five and six thousand huts, set up in no particular order, uniformly pyramidal and all completely empty.

  The Mercurian indigenes had no knowledge of science or art, save for that of constructing the huts with plaques of slate stuck together with a sort of green clay; they had no trades and no agriculture; they lived in the most absolute inaction. Their only industry was the fabrication of bowls in yellow metal, but although Ahmed Bey saw several of these bowls in the huts, he did not know where they came from.

  The monopod indigenes were the only anima life on the planet; no snakes crawled on the ground, nor did any biped or quadruped walk there; there were no insects or birds in the air.

  The Mercurians’ sole apparent nourishment and beverage was the blood of other Mercurians. During his walk, in fact, knowing already from Paul’s account that the monopods were mercurophages, he had seen black monsters sucking the blood of other, fatter monsters, each with a mutilated arm and leg, through the eye. He had passed in front of a row of huts where he had seen the nutritious Mercurians lying on the ground, nourished themselves by other Mercurians, which presented the eyes of smaller, formless monopods—doubtless infants—to their trunks.

  How were those infants produced? What laws regulated the choice of newborns that would live and th
ose that would serve to nourish the monopods used as food? The Doctor could not determine that. Doubtless he would have learned it eventually, if the tragic events that followed shortly afterwards had not prevented him from completing his observations. From what he could see, however, he concluded that the reproduction of the species took place, on Mercury, in conditions of extraordinary multiplicity, facility and rapidity—and that Nature had thus provided for the unique need of the living.

  He also discovered how the Mercurians died a natural death. Several times, in fact, he saw a nearby monopod turn abruptly on its foot, whistle and fall. They the wide open eye swelled up and suddenly burst. The Mercurian nearest to the one that had fallen then introduced the tip of its trunk into the burst eye, drank the white blood, and went away, satisfied. And the dead one remained where it was, without any other paying any attention to it.

  The Doctor came across cadavers that life had abandoned for some time. He touched them; some were as hard as iron, others as flaccid as an empty bladder. The Doctor never found out what stages of decomposition the cadavers passed through, or even if they did decompose.

  As for the internal structure of the Mercurian body, Ahmed Bey intended to study it by dissecting a cadaver when he had time to do so and could find a trenchant instrument appropriate to the task.

  Throughout his stroll, the Doctor was meekly followed by the monopod chief that had been the first to welcome him. From the attitude of numerous indigenes he encountered, Ahmed Bey understood that he had introduced himself into the body of a very powerful and highly honored Mercurian, perhaps the sovereign of the Mercurian country, or at least of that city.

  He was blessing that good luck, which permitted him, under the pretext of dignity, not to communicate with his subjects by means of comprehensible whistles, when he got back to the hut where Paul was enclosed. He could distinguish it from the others because Paul’s footprints were still visible in the dust in front of the entrance.