Squatting there, humming a tuneless song under his breath, Tuan chewed it over, finally nodding.
Rising to his feet, he said, “It shall be as Brant advises. A truce—for now.”
“And remember one thing I mentioned earlier,” Brant said. “We don’t know what strange powers these people may have—”
With a nod of acquiescence, Tuan stalked off to rejoin his band.
And Brant went back to sleep.
He was awakened suddenly by a shrill chorus of cries of alarm and consternation. Spring to his feet, he stared around him so as to discover the cause of the commotion. It took him only moments to spot the thing that had alarmed the children.
For, rising out of the luminous sea was something resembling the sea-slugs the flying hunters had captured for their larder. The main difference was the matter of size. While the hunters’ prey had been no bigger than small dogs, this sea-slug—if that is what it actually was—must have been the great-grand-daddy of them all, for it was as big around as a house, and must have been three hundred feet long.
Like the smaller versions they had seen earlier, its jellylike flesh was lucent to the point of transparency. As it broke the waves again, heaving its glistening, glassy bulk high, he saw that it was blind and faceless, save for a wet, working sphincter-like orifice which must have served it as mouth.
It looked harmless enough, for all its appalling size. But the sheer tonnage of the sea-monster could easily swamp or crush their flimsy vessel.
Will Harbin and the others joined him at the rail, staring with wide eyes at the huge sea-thing, while the golden children squealed and milled in confusion.
Tuan and his warriors came to the rail, hefting their power guns determinedly. Brant grabbed the chieftain’s arm.
“Don’t fire unless the monster heads in our direction,” he said in urgent tones. “These people have not yet recognized what we carry as being weapons. Why let them find out so soon?”
Tuan nodded grimly, muttering a curt order to his outlaws.
But, as things turned out, the energy weapons were not needed, although suddenly the monstrous sea-slug turned and came for the ship.
Some of the older youths had gone down into the cabins, and now came pelting up the stair holding strange objects in their right hands. These looked for all the world like glass doorknobs, with a rod small enough to hold in the palm of your hand and pointed knobs at either end.
These peculiar implements were carved from some dark, cloudy semilucent mineral that rather resembled lead-crystal, except that within the pointed knobs an eerie spark of blue flame flickered.
The youths pointed the crystal rods at the sea-beast as it came wallowing through the sluggish waves toward the ship.
Brant uttered an exclamation. Zuarra clutched his arm. Harbin stared wildly.
Darts of blue fire shot from the points of the crystal weapons, to stab and burn the jellied flesh of the sea-monster! Its sphincter-like maw opened and shut as if gasping in pain. It writhed, shrinking from the needle-thin bolts of uncanny blue fire. Then it turned away, sinking beneath the surface, and did not reappear.
The travelers looked at one another, wordless.
The youths watched vigilantly for a time, but when the giant slug failed to emerge a second time, they went below to the storage-space to return the strange weapons to their place.
Shaken, Tuan looked at Brant with something like a touch of admiration in his eyes.
“Wise were the counsels of Brant, when he gave warning to Tuan against using our weapons against the children, saying that we knew not what powers they might possess,” he said unsteadily.
Brant nodded. So, the ship-people had energy weapons of their own! That was something to think about… .
23 The City on the Sea
The next “day” the ship arrived at its destination, and Mars had yet another marvel to reveal.
It was a town of huts large enough to be called a city, and the buildings, which were mostly one-story structures, with a few that reached to two or three stories, were woven, like the ship, out of stiff fibers like wicker or rattan fastened to frames of thicker girth.
But that was not what made the place a marvel.
It was floating on the surface of the luminous sea!
The structures of the city were built on rafts, some of these being so small as only to be able to accommodate one hut, while others seemed nearly as big as city blocks back Earthside.
The rafts of all sizes were linked together by rope-bridges suspended from posts, or by ladders and catwalks, and the rafts were held together in the floating colony by thick braided cables and lines.
On Earth such a maritime metropolis could hardly have held together for long, but would have been broken up by the action of wind and wave, storm and tide. Here in this weird world of eternal morning, of course, there were no waves to speak of and the weather seemed perpetually calm, for the travelers had as yet seen no storms. Later they would discover that a gentle rain did fall from time to time, and that the Sea People—as they came to think of the golden subterraneans —collected this precipitation in rooftop troughs to serve as water for drinking, bathing and cooking. Will Harbin could understand the rains easily enough: humidity from the atmosphere collected like dew on the cavern roof and eventually the drops were large enough to make a decent, if mild, little shower.
The floating city was a gorgeous vision as they approached it across the luminous sea. Some of the wicker structures were painted in gay and gaudy profusion of colors that ranged from rose-pink to carnation and vermilion, pale blue, rich greens, indigo, lavender, tangerine—a dazzling variety of colors that made the incredible place look like an elfin city in a fairy tale.
Flags and banners and pennons fluttered from rooftops and gateposts and masts. Gorgeous silken carpets or tapestries hung from every aperture. None of the buildings seemed to have anything like windows, but it seemed that the rattan wall-screens could be fastened and rolled up by an arrangement of ropes and pulleys at wish.
An insubstantial town of Faerie, floating like a mirage on an unknown sea beneath the world… .
Their ship moored at the end of a long quay and the travelers and their captors trooped ashore. Here in a sort of harbor, many similar vessels were tethered. Some of these were ships as large as the one that had captured the travelers, while others ranged from the size of canoes and gondolas, down to little dinghys and miniature rafts.
A laughing, cheerful crowd gathered on the dock to greet their returning friends. And here, for the first time, Brant and the others saw the adults of the golden race, discovering the fully-grown of the Sea People to be as naked and hairless as the children had been. The men looked rather soft and languid and effeminate to Brant’s way of thinking, and the women tended to be placid and timid, much like Suoli.
It was obvious that the lack of enemies or hostile weather had made the Sea People degenerate over the hundreds of generations since their forefathers had come to the underground world.
The youths were unlading their ship, bringing “ashore” the food they had caught in ceramic jugs. Everyone milled about in happy confusion, staring curiously at Brant and his companions, laughing gaily and chattering among themselves. Many embraced and kissed the mariners as they came ashore, and Brant could not help noticing that, as often as not, youths were kissed by men or other youths, and girls by girls or women. He doubted, from the lascivious nature of this embracing and caressing, that many of these couples were family.