Ryker figured Zarouk thought it wise to leave the escape route open, in case they needed it. For there was no telling how terribly, and with what unguessable weapons of scientific wizardry, the devil worshippers would be armed.
As they marched down into the vast, dreaming valley which lay open before them under the golden sky, Ryker was not so sure about those weapons. This gentle garden world did indeed seem like a very Eden—where even the lion would lie down with the lamb, and cats did not eat mice, but fed on lush ripe fruit instead.
Did they have war here, too? He found it difficult to imagine. This uncanny Eden seemed gentle, defenseless. He could not believe that men needed weapons here.
Zarouk had brought his weapons with him, of course.
And he would use them.
In the broad valley below they found the City.
It was built upon many waters. Lakes and canals surrounded it, and lush gardens and parks.
But it was walled, as all the Martian cities were, walled with clear, glistening marble, pale golden, and lucent as alabaster.
At the sight of it, Doc stopped short with a gasp. Curious emotion lit his eyes, a dawning comprehension, and a dawning wonderment as if he now envisioned some marvel transcending even those they had already seen.
But when Ryker asked him, he only shook his head.
“Later, later, my boy—when I’m sure,” was all he would say.
In truth, it was very beautiful, the City. It was built according to the immemorial Martian mode, walled courts and dome-roofed houses, slender minarets and long colonnades, with a central square, and a palace that fronted thereupon, and a huge square structure like a temple, too, and the streets radiated out from the central square like the spokes of the wheel.
The roofs were red tiled, and the houses had lush gardens, and canals meandered through the City, here and there, arched by little bridges. Men and women poled through those waterways in narrow boats with graceful, upcurved prows, like the gondolas of Venice.
There was only one gate to the City, and it was shut and barred.
But there were no guards before the gate, and no warriors stationed upon the walls. And that was very strange, indeed. Were these people so terribly armed with ancient weapons of science or magic, that they had no need of swords and spears?
Perhaps. The possibility was frightening.
Zarouk made his camp before the entrance of the broad causeway that arched over a lake to end before the gate of the City. His men reared their tents and made their fires and began to scout for food. They found the cat beasts marvelously easy to hunt, and easier yet to slay.
The creatures seemed not to comprehend what was being done to them. They would stand gazing indifferently at the hunters who tried to creep up on them, but they neither tried to dodge or flee when the darts flew or the spears struck.
Ryker saw one beautiful red cat pinned to the moss by spears, but still living. As the hunters came up to cut its throat the beast regarded them with puzzled eyes, stretching out a gentle paw as if to touch them. It just had time to utter one plaintive, questioning mew before they cut its throat.
Ryker found the slaughter of these gentle, fearless, puzzled creatures sickening. That night he and the scientist ate dried meat and bread brought with them from Mars, for to have eaten of the cat creatures, they would have had to be a lot hungrier than they were.
“Oh, we have let the Serpent into Eden all right,” sighed Herzog. “You saw it yourself, my boy. The cats had never been hunted before, no. They didn’t even know what was happening. They—I think they thought maybe the men wanted to—to play. …”
And Ryker felt sicker than before.
He began to wish they had killed him before he had made the replica of the stone seal. But it was too late for recriminations now.
The strange white sun-star of this world sank in a sunset sky the color of tangerine and the long filaments of cloud were painted vermilion and magenta.
Ryker sat on a log before his tent looking at the City.
He hadn’t known what to expect of Zhiam. But a city of devil worshippers had no right to be this serene and cool and beautiful. The ugliness, the perversion of its people, their dedication to evil, should have shown in their handiwork, somehow.
But the City was a dream of fragile beauty, slim towers floating against the dying fires of the sun, domes like ripe fruit or the breasts of women seeming to float like enormous bubbles upon the waters… .
No, there was no evil in the City men called Outside.
But—in its people?
It was hard to hazard a guess. It was the orothodox Martians who called them zhaggua—worshippers of devils. He had yet to hear Valarda’s side of the story.
But then his heart hardened and his face grew grim. Beautiful or not, this was Valarda’s kingdom, and she had lied to him, fooled him, tricked him, cheated him, robbed him, left him to die, bound and helpless, among his enemies.
There was no doubt about that.
The City knew they were there, but paid no attention. No flags flew, no bugles were blown, no warriors gathered to the defense of Zhiam.
The City dreamed in the dim moonlight, under the glitter of ten thousand stars.
There were fewer stars blazing in this sky of nights than made splendid the nighted skies of Mars. But, like Mars, this planet also had twin moons, one larger than the other.
The moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos, were too small and too low in albedo to be clearly visible even at night. In fact, they were all but impossible to see with the unaided eye. You had to know exactly where they were in the sky to glimpse them at all.
But here the moons, although small, were visible, disks of pallid silver against dark purple velvet.
The desert men ignored the splendor of the skies. They were not made for this warmth and humidity, and the air of this planet was so rich in oxygen, compared to what they had known, that its headiness intoxicated them. They perspired greasily, stripped to mere loincloths, panting breathlessly in what seemed to them an unendurably tropical heat.
To Ryker and his companion, the night was mild and balmy. Both Earthlings had gone through the series of treatments that readjusted their body chemistries to conditions on Mars. But this did not mean they could not readjust to conditions more like those on Earth. Their organic modifications reacted like thermostats to whatever conditions they found themselves in. So they, at least, were comfortable.
Doc seemed utterly fascinated by the spectacle of the skies. The constellations were strange and new to both of them, of course and, although he said nothing, Ryker guessed the scientist was trying to find a signpost in the altered constellations which might indicate their position in the universe.
In this he guessed wrong, as things turned out.
“Doc, you aren’t gonna find any stars you recognize,” Ryker argued . “We’re in another dimension, aren’t we?”
The Israeli savant snorted through his nose, rudely.
“My boy, when you don’t know what you’re talking about, then shut up,” he said. “The only dimensions you got to worry about are length, breadth and thickness.”
“What about the fourth dimension?”
“Duration. And it’s not really a dimension like the others, it’s a condition for existence. To exist at all, a thing has to have length, breadth and thickness—and it has to endure for a measurable unit of time. They been misquoting Einstein for two hundred years, it’s time they stopped. So stop, already!”
Ryker grinned and shut up. Doc could be cantankerous at times, especially when you interrupted him during a bout of cogitation.
But he couldn’t help wondering what Doc was cogitating about. He gave it up and turned in to sleep. Doc would tell him when he was ready to, and not one moment before.