The Collected SF & Fantasy Works. Abraham Merritt
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broke in upon me rudely.
“Say,” he spluttered, “am I crazy or are you? What in damnation kind of a place and time is this to start an argument like that?
“Angiospermae, is it?” exclaimed Larry. “HELL!”
Marakinoff again regarded him with that irritating air of benevolence.
“You have not the scientific mind, young friend,” he said. “The poonch, yes! But so has the mule. You must learn that only the fact is important — not you, not me, not this”— he pointed to Huldricksson —“or its sorrows. Only the fact, whatever it is, is real, yes. But”— he turned to me —“another time —”
Huldricksson interrupted him. The big seaman had risen stiffly to his feet and stood with Larry’s arm supporting him. He stretched out his hands to me.
“I saw her,” he whispered. “I saw mine Freda when the stone swung. She lay there — just at my feet. I picked her up and I saw that mine Freda was dead. But I hoped — and I thought maybe mine Helma was somewhere here, too, So I ran with mine yndling — here —” His voice broke. “I thought maybe she was NOT dead,” he went on. “And I saw that”— he pointed to the Moon Pool —“and I thought I would bathe her face and she might live again. And when I dipped my hands within — the life left them, and cold, deadly cold, ran up through them into my heart. And mine Freda — she fell —” he covered his eyes, and dropping his head on O’Keefe’s shoulder, stood, racked by sobs that seemed to tear at his very soul.
CHAPTER XI
THE FLAME–TIPPED SHADOWS
Marakinoff nodded his head solemnly as Olaf finished.
“Da!” he said. “That which comes from here took them both — the woman and the child. Da! They came clasped within it and the stone shut upon them. But why it left the child behind I do not understand.”
“How do you know that?” I cried in amazement.
“Because I saw it,” answered Marakinoff simply. “Not only did I see it, but hardly had I time to make escape through the entrance before it passed whirling and murmuring and its bell sounds all joyous. Da! It was what you call the squeak close, that.”
“Wait a moment,” I said — stilling Larry with a gesture. “Do I understand you to say that you were within this place?”
Marakinoff actually beamed upon me.
“Da, Dr. Goodwin,” he said, “I went in when that which comes from it went out!”
I gaped at him, stricken dumb; into Larry’s bellicose attitude crept a suggestion of grudging respect; Olaf, trembling, watched silently.
“Dr. Goodwin and my impetuous young friend, you,” went on Marakinoff after a moment’s silence and I wondered vaguely why he did not include Huldricksson in his address —“it is time that we have an understanding. I have a proposal to make to you also. It is this; we are what you call a bad boat, and all of us are in it. Da! We need all hands, is it not so? Let us put together our knowledge and our brains and resources — and even a poonch of a mule is a resource,” he looked wickedly at O’Keefe, “and pull our boat into quiet waters again. After that —”
“All very well, Marakinoff,” interjected Larry, “but I don’t feel very safe in any boat with somebody capable of shooting me through the back.”
Marakinoff waved a deprecatory hand.
“It was natural that,” he said, “logical, da! Here is a very great secret, perhaps many secrets to my country invaluable —” He paused, shaken by some overpowering emotion; the veins in his forehead grew congested, the cold eyes blazed and the guttural voice harshened.
“I do not apologize and I do not explain,” rasped Marakinoff. “But I will tell you, da! Here is my country sweating blood in an experiment to liberate the world. And here are the other nations ringing us like wolves and waiting to spring at our throats at the least sign of weakness. And here are you, Lieutenant O’Keefe of the English wolves, and you Dr. Goodwin of the Yankee pack — and here in this place may be that will enable my country to win its war for the worker. What are the lives of you two and this sailor to that? Less than the flies I crush with my hand, less than midges in the sunbeam!”
He suddenly gripped himself.
“But that is not now the important thing,” he resumed, almost coldly. “Not that nor my shooting. Let us squarely the situation face. My proposal is so: that we join interests, and what you call see it through together; find our way through this place and those secrets learn of which I have spoken, if we can. And when that is done we will go our ways, to his own land each, to make use of them for our lands as each of us may. On my part, I offer my knowledge — and it is very valuable, Dr. Goodwin — and my training. You and Lieutenant O’Keefe do the same, and this man Olaf, what he can of his strength, for I do not think his usefulness lies in his brains, no.”
“In effect, Goodwin,” broke in Larry as I hesitated, “the professor’s proposition is this: he wants to know what’s going on here but he begins to realize it’s no one man’s job and besides we have the drop on him. We’re three to his one, and we have all his hardware and cutlery. But also we can do better with him than without him — just as he can do better with us than without us. It’s an even break — for a while. But once he gets that information he’s looking for, then look out. You and Olaf and I are the wolves and the flies and the midges again — and the strafing will be about due. Nevertheless, with three to one against him, if he can get away with it he deserves to. I’m for taking him up, if you are.”
There was almost a twinkle in Marakinoff’s eyes.
“It is not just as I would have put it, perhaps,” he said, “but in its skeleton he has right. Nor will I turn my hand against you while we are still in danger here. I pledge you my honor on this.”
Larry laughed.
“All right, Professor,” he grinned. “I believe you mean every word you say. Nevertheless, I’ll just keep the guns.”
Marakinoff bowed, imperturbably.
“And now,” he said, “I will tell you what I know. I found the secret of the door mechanism even as you did, Dr. Goodwin. But by carelessness, my condensers were broken. I was forced to wait while I sent for others — and the waiting might be for months. I took certain precautions, and on the first night of this full moon I hid myself within the vault of Chau-ta-leur.”
An involuntary thrill of admiration for the man went through me at the manifest heroism of this leap in the dark. I could see it reflected in Larry’s face.
“I hid in the vault,” continued Marakinoff, “and I saw that which comes from here come out. I waited — long hours. At last, when the moon was low, it returned — ecstatically — with a man, a native, in embrace enfolded. It passed through the door, and soon then the moon became low and the door closed.
“The next night more confidence was mine, yes. And after that which comes had gone, I looked through its open door. I said, ‘It will not return for three hours. While it is away, why shall I not into its home go through the door it has left open?’ So I went — even to here. I looked at the pillars of light and I tested the liquid of the Pool on which they fell. That liquid, Dr. Goodwin, is not water, and it is not any fluid known on earth.” He handed me a small vial, its neck held in a long thong.
“Take this,” he said, “and see.”
Wonderingly, I took the bottle; dipped it down into the Pool. The liquid was extraordinarily light; seemed, in fact, to give the vial buoyancy. I held it to the light. It was striated, streaked, as though little living, pulsing veins ran through it. And its blueness, even in the vial, held an intensity of luminousness.