The Greatest Works of Otis Adelbert Kline - 18 Books in One Edition. Otis Adelbert Kline
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the building where each man had his ration doled out to him: a bowl of stewed mushrooms and a steaming cup of a beverage which Grandon found to be very much like a strong wine.
As he followed his companions, Grandon noticed that each man stopped before a small shrine and stood for a moment with head bowed low and hand extended toward it, palm downward. When he reached the shrine, he stopped as the others had done, then gave a gasp of amazement at a life-size painting of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
She wore a robe of scarlet, ornamented with gold and precious stones, and a jeweled band of platinum imprisoned a mass of golden curls which were piled on top of her head after a style different from anything he had ever seen. She was seated on a massive golden throne with cushions of scarlet, across the arms of which rested a scarbo—a sword like those carried by the guards, but with a hilt of gold studded with rubies.
Could this be the Amazon ruler of whom Dr. Morgan had spoken?
A sharp exclamation brought him to his senses; he turned and saw an overseer advancing with whip upraised. Quickly bowing as the others had done, he ran forward to join his fellow slaves.
Once outside the building, the men seated themselves on the ground in little scattered groups for their morning meal. Grandon joined a company of those who had occupied the same dormitory with him.
He could not take part in the general conversation because the language was unintelligible to him—yet the words sounded strangely familiar. A recollection of their meaning was stored in the brain cells of the body which had become his, but the ego, which was Grandon could not interpret them. He kept silent and listened.
The meal finished, the slaves were herded to the quarries by their drivers. Each driver, who had charge of ten slaves, wore both tork and scarbo in his belt and carried a whip, the five lashes of which were woven from some coarse fiber and interwoven with short pieces of a brittle, nettle-like moss, which broke off in the skin of the victim, inflicting pain like that of a thousand bee stings.
Grandon managed to keep pace with his fellow slaves. The intense heat of the sun would have made labor in the open impossible, had it not been constantly tempered by the floating clouds of vapor, ever present in the dense, moist Zarovian atmosphere.
The marble was being removed from the hillside in large rectangular blocks, by thousands of slaves working on a series of terraces, each of which was the height of one of the blocks. The crews were so distributed that the terraced hillside constantly retained the same general contour.
Grandon’s crew worked on the bottom terrace all morning, but were ordered to the top in the afternoon to reinforce the laborers in that section who, for some reason, had not kept up their quota. He and a fellow slave were removing one of the heavy blocks by means of levers when his end slipped and fell on another block, breaking off a large fragment. The driver raised his whip and struck Grandon a stinging blow across the shoulders.
Quickly wheeling, Grandon landed a tremendous right hook on the point of the man’s jaw. It was a clean knock-out. Another driver came running with whip upraised, but Grandon bowled him over with a marble fragment and ran through the group of startled slaves toward the brow of the hill. Some one raised the alarm and a half dozen torks were immediately pointed toward the fugitive. Several slaves fell, struck by the missiles intended for him, as he disappeared over the hilltop.
Before him stretched a dense, waving forest of tree ferns into which he plunged without slackening his speed, his pursuers close behind. As he dodged in and out among the tree trunks he could hear their halloos growing fainter and fainter; finally no sound was audible except the rustling of the countless, wind-shaken fern leaves.
He slackened his pace and, after proceeding about a mile, farther, stopped and looked about him.
Huge tree ferns with rough trunks and foliage growing out of the tops like that of palm trees, some of them over seventy feet in height, towered above the shorter, more bushy varieties which were themselves giants. Then there were climbing ferns hanging in tangled masses, creeping ferns and dwarf, low-growing kinds, barely raising their fronds above the thick carpet of moss which everywhere covered the forest floor.
Grandon noticed that the ground slanted slightly toward his right, and intuition told him that this might lead to a valley and water. He changed his course accordingly. He hoped also to find some fruits, berries or nuts with which to satisfy his hunger.
As he trudged wearily forward, sunset was succeeded by twilight, and before he realized it, the black, moonless Zarovian night had spread its impenetrable mantle about him.
Suddenly, from out the darkness behind him, came a peal of horrible, demoniac laughter.
As he wheeled, two glowing phosphorescent orbs were slowly advancing as if something were creeping or slinking toward him. Then, without warning, the hideous noise was repeated at his left.
He turned to face another pair of menacing eyes, then leaped for the trunk of the nearest tree-fern and climbed it barely in time to escape the snapping jaws that yawned beneath him.
Not until he had reached the leaf-crown, fifty feet above the ground, did he pause or look downward. Then he saw, not two, but a dozen pairs of eyes glancing toward him, while peal after peal of the nerve-racking laughter smote his ears.
Time dragged along. What manner of things were these? Evidently they were unable to climb, or they would have followed him ere this. The fact that they did not leave, even after several more hours had elapsed, made it evident that they expected to get him.
He had been hearing a peculiar crunching sound some time before he located it and guessed the terrible truth.
They were gnawing through the base of the tree trunk!
When morning came, it looked as if Grandon’s luck was running out. He’d made a desperate leap when the first tree started to fall and landed on another. The beasts followed and started to work on his new refuge. He’d found what felt like a coarse thick rope, and recognized it as the stem of one of the large climbing ferns he’d seen the day before. That led him to the crown of another tree twice the size of the one he left. But now the beasts had felled that one and were patiently gnawing at his. third refuge.
Now he could see them below—twelve of the most fearsome creatures he’d ever seen. They looked like hyenas, but were twice as large, their bodies covered with thick scales, black and mottled with orange spots. Each beast had three horns, one projecting from either temple, and one sprouting out between the eyes. Six of them were gnawing at the base of his tree while the other six rested. Apparently they were working in shifts.
Then he saw a man about two hundred yards away, walking with his eyes on the ground as if following a trail. He was armed with scarbo, tork, and knife, and carried a long bundle strapped to his back. Someone sent out to trail the fugitive slave, no doubt, Grandon thought. Well, he’d have a surprise soon.
A moment later, one of the beasts scented the newcomer, and uttered the laugh with which Grandon was now familiar. All work on Grandon’s tree stopped and the pack charged the stranger.
Now the Earthman witnessed the power of the tork. The leader of the pack fell a full fifty feet from his quarry; seven more met a similar fate in as many seconds. The rest turned and fled. Then the man drew his knife and coolly and deliberately cut the throat of each animal. He glanced at the two fallen trees, then walked over to the one in which Grandon was perched.
“Come down, Robert Grandon,” he said, in English.
Grandon was so surprised he nearly fell out of the tree.
“Who are you,” he asked, “and where did you learn my language?”
“Come down and I will explain.”
“You might come up,” suggested Grandon. “I don’t fancy the climate down there. I suppose you have instructions to bring me back dead or alive. I won’t go back alive.”
“You are mistaken, Robert Grandon. I have come to your aid. To prove this, I need only mention that I have communicated with Dr. Morgan of your planet for several