GODS OF SPACE-3
739 Words
FOR A WHILE, AMUSED in spite of his grimness, Atwood experimented. By the feel of his cautious attempts, a good running leap would sail him a hundred feet or more, and probably smash him against a rock. Better be careful at first. It wouldn’t be hard to kill himself, making errors with a power like this. His muscles were so powerful now in comparison with his weight.
Then he was ready to start. That faint weird humming still was audible. But there seemed nothing living here—no insect life underfoot, no birds in the trees. And, suddenly, he stood staring, stricken. Something was up on the top of the nearby patch of forest. The matted vegetation up there a hundred feet above him was so solid that he realized now he probably could manage to walk upon it. Something was moving up there. A swaying little blob, vaguely white.
Atwood stood silent, watchful with his gun in his hand. The blob seemed about five feet tall. White limbs; a flowing drape. Then, as it moved, a little more light came upon it—starlight filtering down now through a break in the overhead clouds.
Atwood sucked in his breath with his amazement. A girl! A human girl! Apparently she had not seen him; and, suddenly, she jumped from the top of the swaying mass of vines and came fluttering down. A girl, with pale drapes held like wings in her outstretched hands, so that like a bird she fluttered down and landed lightly on her feet. She was only a few paces from Atwood when she saw him. For an instant, amazed, she stood staring, like himself, stricken. An Earthgirl? Certainly she looked it. A slender little thing with dark flowing tresses; a draped robe to her knees—a robe with a flowing cape at her shoulders, the ends of which she had gripped to spread it like wings as she jumped down. And now he saw that the robe wasn’t fabric, but seemingly made of woven, dried vegetation.
“Well—” Atwood gasped. “What in the devil—”
With a cry like a frightened animal she stooped, seized a chunk of rock; flung it. The rock came, very much as a hurled rock would, on Earth. It struck Atwood’s shoulder. The girl turned, and with a leap made off.
“I’ll be damned,” Atwood muttered. His caution, this time, was gone. He jumped, went thirty feet, landed on his side. Already the girl was gone. Then he saw her as like a monkey she went up a vine-rope. He tried it; hauled himself up with amazing speed. On the vine-top he tried running. But after a leap or two, with the girl far ahead of him, he found himself entangled, floundering in the matted mass of vines. His gun had been knocked from his hand, lost as it fell down into the leafy abyss.
The girl, apparently less afraid of him now, stood a hundred feet away, balanced on a swaying, rope-like vine as she peered at him.
“All right,” Atwood muttered. “I guess I can’t catch you.”
Certainly he had no idea that she could understand him. But, suddenly, she laughed—a little rippling rill of human laughter, mingled with awe.
“You speak my language?” Her soft voice was amazed. English! It was quaintly, queerly intoned. But English nevertheless. And she added, in wonderment. “Who are you that you speak the language of the Gods?”
He could only stare, wordless. And abruptly she was coming forward; slowly at first, and then, overcoming her fear, she jumped and landed beside him.
He seized her. “Look here, who the devil are you?”
“Me? I am Ah-li, Goddess of the Marlans.”
“Well,” he said. “Whatever that is. Anyway, be reasonable. I’m Roy Atwood. I’ve just come from Earth. You came from there, too, of course. When did you come? Your people, are they around here?”
She seemed only able to stare at him as though numbed. Seemingly, she understood his words, but certainly not their meaning.
“The Earth?” she murmured at last. “What is that? My people? They are here, of course. The Marlans.” Her slim white arm gestured out over the forest-top. “I am Goddess Ah-li.” Wonderment was in her dark eyes and in her voice. “And now you come—a God, like me.”
Her voice faltered. She was trying to smile. “I am afraid I do not understand,” she murmured. “A Man-God coming here to rule with me. Never did I think that could happen.”
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- Writer
