Chapter III

They rode fast. Alternate night and day--endless frozen wastes. Occasionally they passed single mounds, isolated like that of Rokk. Others in groups; blood-stained graveyards by day--eery and gruesome in the starlight. Leela saw many of the green-white animals, lurking like werewolves prowling among the mounds. And there were men gazing curiously at the travelers. To them often Rokk gave a warning that the vegetable things were loose.

But he said to Leela, "There really is no danger. These things I have grown will do my purpose in the Ice City. Then I will command them back to their fields. Let them rot there harmlessly in a red welter. I can control them. They know me for their creator--their master."

There were few women or girls to be seen about the mounds. Rokk said, with a horrible irony, "We have sent most of them to the Ice City. It is a very beautiful place--we men have sent our women there. The women----" He laughed sarcastically. "They are very stupid. They do not guess our purpose."

They rode in silence. Then Rokk spoke again. "My woman, Mobah"--he glanced behind at the patient figure riding behind them--"I have kept Mobah with me. She is good to work in the mound. But you, my Lady Leela----" He chuckled. "We shall get rid of Mobah all in good time. We do not want her around, do we? But I will not make you work, Leela. In your city of Crescent, little white woman, you and I will be very great people. I shall be the leader of all our men----"

Again Leela did not answer.

A red day plunged into night. Far to the left across the snowy wastes to the distant horizon, Leela saw a white radiance in the sky. A vague patch of silver, as of light reflected from some remote distance below the horizon. Rokk waved his hand.

"You see that, Leela? That is where I found the drugs. This globe is very fair, off there. Longer days and nights. A warm, fruitful summer. Food is there. Trees, with fruit. But it is all owned by another race of people. They will not let us in. They are very powerful--very far advanced in civilization. A wonderful age of science. . . . They know everything. I crept into one of their cities and stole the drugs."

To Leela then was driven home the conception of how vast is God's great plan of the Universe. This miserable region owned by Rokk's people was no more than the Polar waste of this globe. A fairer land of science lay there where the distant radiance showed. A great, cultured civilization perhaps. And farther beyond it--other races--all on this one tiny globe whirling among these stars. . . .

* * * * *

They came at last within sight of the City of Ice. In the starlight it glittered with a pale sheen. It stood on a broad plateau above the surrounding valleys--a place of white spires, glittering under the stars, the whole surrounded by a high white wall of ice.

And as they came closer, Leela saw within the city a yellow-red glare. Behind it, a high tower of stone dominated the scene; the glare painted the tower a yellow-red upon one side. "The pit of fire," said Rokk. "The one place in all our realm where the fires underground come near the surface. It brings a warmth--a beauty. You shall see." He laughed his horrible laugh. "That is why we tell the women they should like it here----"

They approached the wall. Rokk gazed around. "We are but just in time." In the farther distance beyond the city was a red sheen against the ground. Rokk understood it, though at the moment Leela did not. "Just in time, little woman. I had thought we might better enter by the tunnel under the wall. But that is not necessary."

They rode through a gate, plunged at once into a passageway, and emerged presently within the stone tower, left the dhranes there, and mounted the tower. At its top, Rokk stood with Leela. Mobah sullenly was behind them. Rokk glanced back at her. He said softly, "I think perhaps she guesses what is to happen. But she can do nothing about it."

Presently Mobah moved away and disappeared. Rokk patted his belt. "I have all the drugs here, Leela. All there are in this whole realm--except a very little of each which I left with Degg. We must guard them carefully."

To Leela came the thought that she might gain possession of the drugs and thus escape. But Rokk was very watchful.

They stood upon a broad balcony, with the single tower room behind them and a breast-high parapet in front. At the parapet, Leela gazed down. From this height the city lay spread beneath them. It was still night. A simple, placid scene, quiet, and in a measure beautiful. A few broad streets of packed, gray-black snow. Flat, oblong houses of ice blocks which were white and glittering, with spires and minarets occasionally adorning them.

Directly beneath Leela, at the foot of the tower, was a yawning yellow-red pit. She could see directly down into it; a glare, some great distance down to where the fires of the earth were broken out. Rising wisps of smoke . . . a sulfurous, fiery breath . . . and a torrent of grateful heat surging upward.

Around the pit, the city was built of stone for a distance, like a broad, square park. Trees were growing there; huge, graceful ferns; blue-green leaves like great flopping ears of an animal. And giant palms, hung with purple fruit. . . . A tropical garden, with flower-lined, winding paths. . . . By contrast with all this bleak region Leela had seen, the single little park was very beautiful.

There were a few women moving about the city--dull, heavy-looking, shapeless women robed in a monotone of drab garments. Uninspired of aspect. Yet each had a soul . . . desires . . . longings. . . .

In the park a woman sat and played with a little girl. There was another woman, newly arrived here, with a baby at her breast. . . .

Rokk's voice broke upon Leela's thoughts with a rasp. "But who is to feed them? It gets very tiresome, giving them food. . . . Ah! Now you shall see my solution, Lady Leela----"

Beyond the city walls, out over the starlit, snowy wastes, spots of red sheen were visible. Moving. Coming nearer. Spots of red sheen resolving into long, thin lines of red. Undulating, twisting, slithering forward. Green spots of eyes, waving, peering.

Red, growing things unrooted. Coming monstrously to do that for which during all their growth they had been trained. There seemed thousands of them. Over every distant slope they came closing in upon the city. Thick red vines a hundred feet long. Others grown into a tangled clump, every separate tendril of which was in slimy movement. A red boll, like the bulging trunk of a tree. It rolled, leaped. Another of a flat, round central growth, with prickling spines like huge needles standing erect, and waving, groping tentacles. It hitched itself along, awkwardly.

They came from everywhere. Red, gleaming monsters of the ground, advancing with a grim, uncanny silence, closing in upon the city.

Leela watched, with the blood freezing in her veins. Within the city no alarm had sounded. The woman in the park played with her little girl. But the baby at the other woman's breast was crying. . . .

The first of the red things reached the city wall. Slithered up like some monstrous red ivy growing there. A thing of dangling green pods from which a slimy juice was dripping. A segment of it raised high over the wall, with green eyes staring down.

In a near-by street a headless, friendly animal gave out its imbecilic cry. The two women in the park looked and saw, and screamed. . . .

The red thing rose and slithered over the wall. Stretched its length down a street; then encircled a house, its wide-flung segments slithering into every door and window. Screams from in there sounded over the silent, starlit city. Shrill, throat-tearing screams of women . . . and the piping, terrified cries of children. . . .

The alarm spread. The cries were caught up, echoed from everywhere about the city. Women and girl children were rushing in a panic from the houses. . . .

Over the wall at its every point, the red things were climbing . . . spreading over the city . . . filling the streets . . . climbing with a red, leafy growth into houses . . . green peering eyes, searching everywhere. . . .

One of the flat, round growths with prickling spines--needles each as long as a human body--lurched itself into the park. With a sudden spring it caught a running woman. Its tentacles tossed her aloft. She fell, impaled upon its swordlike spines. Its tentacles pulled an arm from her body . . . tossed the arm away. . . . The woman was still screaming--horribly. . . .

Leela, sickened, covered her face with her hands. She heard Rokk's gloating voice, "You see--my solution? Look, little white woman! Make your heart stout, like Rokk's. This is the law of life. Some live, some die. We--you and I--will live, for love, when this blood-red day is over."

Day! The dawn had come. The red sun rose from the horizon in its low arc. Red, staining everything.

Leela, with a fascination, again involuntarily stared. The city was a chaos of terror. From windows, with reason fled, women were leaping. The red things caught them as they fell. . . . On a flat housetop a woman crouched with a baby in her arms, and a little girl huddling at her knees. A slim red arm came up over the parapet of roof. Other red things came up, and poised with watching green eyes. The woman fought the red arm with all her meager strength. It seized the baby, waved the small, gray-white body aloft, dashed it to a red pulp against the stone of the parapet. Other arms jerked the little girl away. A flat, red thing engulfed the woman and sat mouthing and tearing. . . .

In the park a crowd of the women were huddled. Some were trying to climb the high railing at the pit of fire, but could not. The red things slithered among them. . . .

The blood-red day! A white, glittering city, stained crimson now. Splashed and stained; and upon it the red sun poured a polluting, gory light. . . .

The blood-red day. . . .

_CHAPTER 7_

THE FIGHT ON THE PARAPET

Martt stood in the starlight at the top of the slope, frozen into immobility with horror. Frannie was struggling in the grip of the red vine, being dragged along, with others of its kind leading the way. Grown and taught for nothing but the blood-red day of the Ice City, these things with single purpose were dragging Frannie there.

Martt stood stricken for an instant. The red thing paused. All its green eyes turned. Beyond it the other things came to a stop, irresolute, and then slithered on. But the one with Frannie lay momentarily quiescent; only its eyes were quivering.

Martt became aware that Zee and Degg were beside him. Eeff was crouching at its master's feet, whimpering with terror. Martt shouted, "Zee, run back! Come on, Degg!"

He caught a glimpse of Degg's face, gray with fright. But his eyes showed a sudden determination. And Degg leaped, with Martt after him.

The red thing flung up its forward tentacles, and shoved Frannie farther back within its folds. Degg leaped for the clump of its branches where Frannie was entangled.

Martt, running forward, abruptly stopped. One of the drug cylinders within his pockets had bumped his thigh. A thought swept him--the drug for smallness! He stopped; recklessly poured from the cylinder nearly half its contents. And stood, with a huge buckle of his jacket, crushing the white tablets into a powder in his hand.

Degg had fought his way to Frannie. He had torn her loose, thrust her violently away, but was himself entrapped. He fought, ripping, tearing at the red branches, struggling to avoid the sinuous tentacles which curled back at him. A thick tendril of the vine had wound itself about his legs. . . .

With the powder in his left hand, Martt rushed forward. There was a part of the red thing which seemed of lesser size and strength. Martt rushed in among its lashing brambles. They entwined him. He ducked the sweep of a tentacle thick as his body. Eyes on the branches peered into his face. He seized one, pulled it off. A slime with a red phosphorescence was on his fingers. A pod struck his face; he tore it open and scattered its seeds. A red, noisome juice spattered him. . . .

Martt was fighting only with his right hand. One of his legs was gripped and held; he kicked, striving to free it.

These smaller branches were easily broken. They mashed, some of them like a porous, tropical plant, oozing sap. They were spongy. Martt scattered a little of the white powder; sifted it through his fingers. The vegetable growth sucked it up--the drug mingled with the sap of its bruises.

The branches were dwindling. Upon vegetable the drug acted more swiftly than upon animal cells. The smaller tendrils shriveled. Then branches of greater thickness. Martt could feel them letting go their hold--shrinking, loosening their grip.

Around him in a moment was a shriveled, shrunken bramble. He kicked himself free. A huge tentacle from another portion licked back and seized him; whirled him aloft. But he kept his wits. Tore at it with his fingers; rubbed the drug into its bruised bark. Along all its length, the drug acted. Martt's weight brought its shriveled strength to the ground. He fell upon his feet; tore himself loose again. Stamped and tore, and leaped away.

Throughout all the length of the monstrous vine, now, the drug was acting. Martt momentarily stood inactive, panting. He saw that Degg had freed Frannie--saw her and Zee huddled at a distance on the slope near by. Degg was still fighting; one of his legs seemed queerly twisted; an arm of the red vine held him, but he kept his feet. Eeff was darting forward and back, too much terrified to approach, yet anxious to help.

The vine everywhere was shrinking. Martt ran to free Degg. But he was too late. The largest remaining tentacle lashed forward; it caught Degg, whirled him up in the air and flung him heavily to the ground. Degg lay still.

A moment. Then the vine was so shriveled that Martt waded throughout its lashing length. Tore it apart. Scattered it. Stamped upon its twisting, slithering red segments.

All dwindling. Separate, dismembered segments quivering around him . . . smaller . . . red, twisting lines, with tiny green eyes. . . . They winked and vanished into smallness. . . .