GODS OF SPACE-7
771 Words
THE MARLANS. WITH AH-li gripping him he stood as the figures came forward and ranged themselves in a jabbering group around him and the girl. They were about five feet tall. Cast somewhat in Earth-human mould, with crooked heavy legs, and swart, putty-colored skin. The body was wide-shouldered, thick-chested. The round, hairless head was set low in a depression of the shoulders. The face was rough-hewn of feature, with up-turned snout-like nose, and small, watery reddish eyes.
They walked with a sluggishness of heavy, solid tread. Quite evidently their bodies were a wholly different density from that of Earthmen. Atwood guessed that here they weighed what might be called three hundred pounds; compared to which his own weight was ten or fifteen, and that of Ah-li not more than five or eight. Beside them, with their swinging, ponderous movements, Atwood suddenly felt spindly and birdlike. How obvious now, that these primitive people would have accepted the beautiful little Earthgirl as a Goddess! Her coming from the sky in a thing which struck the ground and burst into flame. Her seeming miraculous ability to leap into the air. Her size, and yet her lightness. Her ability to swim; to leap into the vine-tops and run upon their frail swaying surface.
Certainly these Marlans would sink like stones in this light water; they could leap no more than a heavy man could leap on Earth. Their weight chained them to the ground.
“Ah-lee....” One of them, slightly taller, less ponderous than the others, came forward, with a flood of words to the girl.
She answered him in weird, guttural, unintelligible words, with gestures toward Atwood at whom now they were all staring in awe. And then abruptly she added, in English:
“A Man-God has come to us, Bohr.”
“That fellow understands English?” Atwood put in.
“Yes. A little. I have taught him, since this time when I was born from the sky.”
“The language of the Gods.” Bohr said heavily. “It, I understand. I am like a God too—”
Whatever plans Atwood vaguely had made, were swept away now. There seemed not so much awe of him upon these jabbering, crowding Marlans as curiosity. They were plucking at him now, with heavy, taloned hands feeling his arms, prodding at his ribs. And abruptly he realized the tremendous strength of these creatures. A ponderous power of muscles; a different quality of strength from that of any Earthman.
The realization sent a thrill of fear through Atwood; mentally he cursed himself that he had not seized Ah-li, rushed her to one of those caves for the Xarite, and gotten away from this accursed place. But there was nothing he could do about it now. Bohr and one of the others gripped him, leading him along, with Ah-li excitedly beside them, and the crowd of jabbering Marlans engulfing them.
The crowd augmented as they progressed down the slope. It was fifty, then a hundred. And now he saw women. They were garbed much the same as the men—shorter, more flabby-looking bodies with wispy hair on their heads. Their shrill voices mingled with the deeper tones of the men, as they pressed forward, some of them carrying children, all of them trying to get a glimpse of Atwood.
“You are to see our Ruler, the great Selah,” Ah-li said, as she walked beside him, clinging to him. “Tonight, I am sure, you will be proclaimed a God.” Her young voice quivered. “Our Man-God.”
“All right, but look here—” Atwood muttered. “You better get us out of this now. This crowd is getting pretty heavy.”
They were among the little mound-shaped houses. The narrow crooked streets were jammed with pressing people.
“Yes,” Ah-li agreed. “To my home first. And then the Selah will send for you.”
In the Marlan language she gave her commands to Bohr. He seemed to assent. But in the light-radiance here which suffused the turmoil of the weird little village, Atwood had a better look at the leader of these Marlans. Bohr was close beside him; and on the Marlan’s grotesque, ugly face, Atwood saw an expression very strange. A sort of sidelong leer at Atwood; and a look at Ah-li that made Atwood’s heart pound. It was as though this Bohr were sullenly resentful. As though something which he might have been planning was going wrong. And abruptly, as though with a premonition of menace, Atwood recalled the only words of English which Bohr had spoken: The language of the Gods, he had said. “It, I understand. I am like a God too.”
Ahead of them a larger dwelling loomed in the radiant glow. “My home,” Ah-li said. “We will go there, and wait.”
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