Ray Cummings

“ Above the city, the great branches of the main stalks spread out—green-brown wavering things, a lace-work of great ferns with hundreds of pods twice as big as a man’s body—the air-bladders which sustained the entire city.
I have said the water was calm. Not a ripple down here save those made by the animate things themselves. Nature was passive. The half-twilight never altered; the temperature remained always the same; no storms, not a sound of the world disturbed its peace and calm.
Thus stood the city of Rax—tenuous, wavering gently throughout its every fibre. ”

“ You marvel that in even so remote a hole of the Universe as this Water of Wild Things in the bowels of my little meteor, such ghastly, inhuman things should take place? You forget. Can you not recall that on your own fair Earth, not so very long ago, they cast infant girl-babies into the sacrificial waters of the Granges, to the hungry, eager jaws of the crocodiles?
I did not look again. Occasionally there was a sob—a scream; once, a brief, despairing scuffle as some mother found the ordeal beyond her strength. ”

“ Alone on this strange little world in the orbit of Saturn, the man who knew himself as Nemo, and the golden haired girl who called herself Nona, lived the lives of simple primitives. But weird was this planetoid where rocks burned and the water was fit to breathe, yet no less fantastic than the meteor itself was the bizarre Marinoid people who dwelt deep in its waters! ”

“ Atar—for so I called him now in the intimacy which had come between us—was younger than myself. A slim, clear-featured youth, with a boyish smile, but eyes which had in them the look of one born to command. And Caan—a man past the zenith of his life, whose arms were no longer limber with youth but with a body strong and sturdy nevertheless. With these two to help me I felt that I could conquer whatever strange creatures we might encounter—and get my Nona back. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV I go back again in my memories to that year in the underwater Marinoid city of Rax—the year of quiet and peace for Nona and me which followed the birth of our son. Boy, we called him; everyone called him that, for he was the only child of his kind in our world.
It was a wonderful, happy time for us both. In all the Universe there was never another like our Boy. So thought Nona and I. Pink and white, with his laughing blue eyes, and soft blond hair on his little head, he would lie cradled in the big white shell that stood in the center of our living room. ”

“ Caan, older than Prince Atar and I, pulled us back when in our eagerness to hear Og’s every word we would have pressed thoughtlessly forward and risked discovery from below.
These people called themselves Maagogs—two long, very harsh syllables. Down here under the Water of Wild Things, hidden away in caves, mud-holes and subterranean tunnels, there were doubtless thousands of them—dragging out a furtive existence, menaced on every hand by monsters of the deep. To them, Nature herself must have seemed an inexorable enemy, as though their very being were against her laws, her wishes. ”

“ Far overhead I knew was the rocky ceiling which marked the top of this watery, subterranean world; and the ooze and sand of the sea-bottom was perhaps two thousand feet beneath me.
I was heading for Gahna. The water here was almost free of vegetation, but not wholly so. Occasionally thin, waving spires of seaweed, covered with air-pods to sustain them, reared their heads. I threaded my way among them; and with every turn I made, the line of swimming figures behind me followed. ”

“ My Nona!
We crouched there on that upper ledge, staring down through the green water of the cave, and listened to Og as he harangued that pallid, puffy-faced throng. His words came up to us clear—words which, as I have said, were not Marinoid but a corruption of them sufficiently close to the original to be intelligible to us. We listened, breathless. What we heard made the past plain to us; and made our own future—the danger hanging over all the Marinoids—equally plain. ”

“ Nona stared into the girl’s pathetic little face.
“Go,” she said. “You speak truth, Maaret. You belong there with the man you love, no matter for what cause he fights. Go!”
Her gaze followed as Maaret dropped away, down into the recesses of the forest.
It was a terrible moment as we saw those black fishes, with Og in their midst, dashing at us. Atar and I shouted to our men—shouted encouragement. We could not avoid this new enemy; and so we had to plunge at it with a will. A hundred electric men, no more, and all of them were exhausted by the combat they had left but a moment before. ”

“ A third of a man’s lifetime, no more, would grow such a city as this.
One species of vegetation? No, there seemed a hundred—each one of them had its specific use and adaptability. It was curious stuff. You have marine vegetation in your great oceans of Earth. You may conceive what this was like. Tough, smooth, somewhat slimy main stalks. But porous—like the stalk of your banana tree. The leaves were intricate and beautifully shaped; and there were millions of tiny air-pods growing everywhere.
When I first saw the city of Rax, I remember marvelling at the ingenuity that could build it. ”

“ Cowards? I do not think you could call us that. But the man who tells you he has faced death—in a calm moment of physical inactivity—without fear, is a liar.
We were all of us afraid, numbed, confused. Abruptly Atar laughed. But his laugh was hollow.
“We must plan something,” he said. “We sit here like terrified children.”
It was Caan who outlined the situation for us. “Og,” he said, “undoubtedly wanted us to accept freedom. He could easily kill us now and keep Nona; but he wanted Nona’s promise to be his willing, smiling queen. None other would the Maagogs have.” ”

“ There were many half-breeds in the crowd—lurking in secluded spots, eying the King with their huge, solemn eyes. They began slinking away; and most of the crowd let them go. Except the Marinoid girls. Perversely feminine, the girls swam around them—taunting, laughing, jeering.
The King looked down anxiously at Atar and me. Then, with sudden dominance, his roaring voice stilled the confusion.
“Silence all! Your King speaks! Are you Maagogs that you defy the majesty of your King? You are unjust to the half-breeds. The half-breeds are loyal. ”

“ Again had I reckoned without Nona. Her eyes were shining, her beautiful face flushed with excitement.
“We women will ride your dolphins. Small, slim, skillful—without the electric power—we are the ones you need.”
It was then I protested. Indeed, I tried my best to get her to stay with Boy, at home. I failed. And now I realize that in spite of my fears for her, I was more proud of her then than I had ever been before. My Nona!
A single dolphin out of its cage, swam past us—sleek, graceful creature longer than my body, its every line denoting speed. Atar called to it. ”

“ And always I felt their stolid gaze upon Atar and me.
We entered the upper palace doorway, at the threshold of which the dolphin sleigh lay waiting on the platform. In a broad low room, brightly lighted by rows of pods at its ceiling, the King greeted us. He was seated in a shell, on a throne built of smaller shells cemented together.
Save for him, the apartment was empty. He kept his seat, and we reclined on the platform at his feet. Outside we could hear the murmurs of the gathering crowd. ”

“ A squid! you perhaps explain. It was, indeed, fashioned somewhat after the plan of the squid of your earthly waters. Let me call it then, a squid. It came down ponderously, waving its tentacles and floundering with its unwieldy body.
Avoiding it, we struck the cliff-face. A depression was there—a sort of ledge. On it we huddled, panting; Nona and I were almost exhausted.
“We must go on!” Caan whispered. “The black fishes—they will find us. And that giant thing—it can suck us up—”
But Atar silenced him. Atar knew what he was doing. ”

“ It is very easy to look backwards upon life and say what should have been done. We Marinoids—how stupidly we had done things! Our army—if it had been organized and ready—could have lurked here in this dark forest . . . leaped upon the Maagogs . . . defeated them at once in one great surprise attack . . .
“What?” I whispered.
Nona, from her dolphin beside mine, had reached out and gripped my arm. I followed her gaze, caught a glimpse of a figure hovering amid the air-pods overhead and just in advance of us. A man, coming down now toward us, swimming cautiously. ”

“ My wonderful Nona! She was dominating them. Her glorious arms—smooth as pink marble—went out to them appealingly.
“We are but women, frail of body. But the spirit of battle is strong within us.”
Then she called upon all the women who were young and strong like herself—bade them come now to the palace roof-top. ”

“ A tangle of weeds; air-pods, some of them gigantic—the whole forest a matted thicket on top of which one could lie at rest.
But there were many places which would have served as entrance down or exit up; which latter thought made my Nona shiver involuntarily. Down in the tangle—two thousand feet down—the Maagogs were passing through. What forces did they have? How many men? How many of the dreaded black fishes? Where were those black fishes—from which point would they attack us? ”

“ Soon we were speeding out across the cool, sweet Marinoid waters. They were dim with twilight. Peaceful, beautiful, a Garden of Paradise to us, returning now from that foul Water of Wild Things.
It was still the Time of Sleep in Rax when we arrived. Quietly, unobtrusively, we slipped unnoticed into the city.
And Nona was again with Boy! The joy of it! I am a mere man; I cannot describe—I know I cannot even appreciate—how my Nona felt to hold Boy again to her breast; to feel his baby arms about her neck; to hear his gleeful, welcoming cries. Only a mother can understand ”

“ Let me say then that during this peaceful year there were occurring in Rax a series of mysterious incidents of an exceedingly sinister character—incidents which shortly were to lead us into the most stirring and critical period of Marinoid history. But we did not know this at the time. Life—wherever in the Universe it may be found—runs on a similar plan. It’s like a puzzle—a jigsaw puzzle whose picture remains undefined until you fit the last segment into place.
So it was with these ominous events that now occurred one by one in Rax. (And the absent Og, I may say, was at the bottom of them.) ”

“ Was it another monster ahead? It was something. There was something sweeping toward us! Not slowly, ponderously this time—but swift almost as a thrown spear! From up near the horizontal passage we saw it coming—small, a dim blob at first, with a little V-shaped white wake behind it. Larger, closer—a few seconds only, while we huddled together, wholly confused.
Turning in an arc, this new thing swept at us—slowed down its flight, and stopped beside us. We shouted with the relief of hysteria. ”