United States or Uzbekistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
By Arthur J. Burks Desolation Stranger, more thrilling even than had been the flight of the Earth after being forced out of its orbit, was the flight of those dozen aircars of the Moon, bearing the rebels of Dalis' Gens back to Earth.
The Gens of Dalis had occupied all the territory northward to the Pole, from a line drawn east and west through the southernmost of what had once been the Hawaiian Islands. Upon this area had struck the strange blue light from the deep Cone of the Moon.
Neither Sarka nor Jaska, nor yet the people in those other aircars, could have told how long they had been flying, when, coming over the curve of the Earth, at an elevation of something like three miles, they were able at last to see into the area which had once housed the Gens of Dalis. A gasp of horror escaped the lips of Sarka and of Jaska.
But after the oceans had been obliterated, and the human family still outgrew its bounds, Dalis came to my father and me with still another proposal. It involved a strange, other-worldly young woman whom he called Lunar! Her family well, nothing was known about her, for her family could not be traced. Wiped out, I presume, in some inter-family quarrel, leaving her alone.
"The Moon and Mars are in alliance against us, and Dalis has allied himself and his Gens with the ruler of the Moon!
His heart beating madly with exultation, Sarka studied them. Then he stepped into the Observatory, gazed away across the space which separated the Earth from the Moon, sent a mental message winging outward. "Luar! Dalis!" Faintly, fearfully, came the answer. "We hear, O Sarka!" "Shift the blue column away from the Earth! Do not interfere as we return to our orbit about the sun!
Then he sent his mental commands to the Spokesmen: "Meet the Martians when they arrive and destroy or drive them back! You live only if you win! We speak no more until victory is ours! People of the Gens of Dalis, go to the areas being devasted by the cubes, taking your cubes and aircars with you, and I will join you there! And Jaska with me!"
Keep about you those people of Dalis whom I sent you, and understand before you break contact with your Beryls, that instructions received from these people come from me! In turn, after you have quitted the hives, anything you wish to say to me you can repeat to any one of the glowing people of Dalis!" The contacts were broken.
He coached and trained her against the consummation of his plan. We knew something, theoretically at least, about the conditions on the Moon, and everything possible was done for her, to make it feasible for her to exist on the Moon. My error was in ever permitting the experiment to be made, since if I had negatived the idea. Dalis would have gone no further!
"Release them and send them to the lowest level where, guarded by the cubes, they will be set to constructing fireballs like those in which they arrived for the use of Earth if Dalis, or the Martians, ever attack again! And, son...." "Yes, O my father?" said Sarka softly. "I have another suggestion for the employment of the cubes!
Word Of The Day