Chapter XXIV: The Blue Prism

For perhaps thirty miles we drove the great machine through the brilliant forest, southward down a broad valley. At last we stopped in a little grove of tall flowering trees, close by the cool crystal stream. Beyond the grove was a little patch of green clearing with the great purple trees closing in all about it. It was a peaceful spot, weirdly beautiful, and it seemed secure enough. The unceasing wind was not so hot beneath the great trees, and they shielded us from the burning, crimson glare of the sky.

The Omnimobile seemed safely hidden beneath the masses of purple bloom; and whenever we were tired, or thought ourselves in danger, we could retire to the quiet security of its cool interior, behind the thick metal walls. Frankly, I hoped that our stay there would be a long one. I tried to forget the menace that hung over the earth.

Our life there was simple, and, for my part, I was supremely happy. Or not quite supremely, for I could not quite still my conscience. I was pretty well resigned to fate, however. With such a girl as Xenora, a man might be supremely happy anywhere. We tramped together about the grove, gathered the tiny, bright-red flowers in the green meadows, and bathed in the cool dark pools, where the river flowed beneath the purple trees. Sometimes she sang to me the folk-songs of her people, monuments of the high estate that Lothar had once enjoyed.

What would it matter to me if the eternal death came again and forever to the upper earth? What would it matter if the earth did freeze? I forgot in the idyllic happiness of Xenora's companionship--or tried to forget. If the roof of water were changed to ice it would only be more secure! The maiden and I could live out our lives in this strange land, without regard to the fate of the world. One of her matchless smiles, or a note of her golden laughter, was worth more than all the earth!

Meanwhile, Sam was immersed in his laboratory work, in the examination of the prism of blue metal, and in his curious pet. The plant creature still grew with remarkable speed, and always showed most remarkable intelligence. It was always with Sam, flapping along above him on broad green wings, or walking awkwardly upon its thickening red tentacles. Sam gazed at the flickering colors of the membranes about the head, with the light of strange understanding in his eyes, making strange gestures with his hands. Just to what extent they could communicate, I never knew.

It always went with him, when he went to hunt for its meat. It was a voracious eater, requiring a kill a day. The great sloth-like animals were plentiful and sluggish; it was not difficult to stalk them. As soon as it was strong enough, the plant creature learned to carry Sam's rifle. Its extraordinary intelligence, or imitative instinct, is shown by the fact that one day it fired the gun itself, when it was flying with the weapon, and saw one of the sloths on the run.

It showed a very real affection for Sam. Once, when they were out together, it saved his life. One of the tuskers had suddenly charged him from behind, and the creature flew at it and attacked it madly with its undeveloped claws. At the cost of considerable minor injury to itself, it held the beast off until Sam could get in a shot. It always showed an odd delight at his caresses, and seemed to take a peculiar joy in the music of his old phonograph.

As I have said, it grew very quickly. At the time we stopped in the wood, it was somewhat smaller than a hawk. Perhaps two months later (time was rather meaningless to us during that one happy period of our adventures in that world of unending day) the creature had grown so large that once, in an apparently playful mood, it was able to lift Sam and fly with him on a circuit of a hundred yards, bringing him back to the machine and setting him down very softly. Then its armored brown body was as large as a man, and the green wings were like sails.

That was near the end.

During all that period, Sam devoted much time to the examination of that bar of strangely light, bright blue metal. He felt that in it he might find a solution to the mystery of the Lord of Flame. I assisted him as much as I could. The metal was evidently an alloy. Analysis showed that it consisted largely of aluminum. There was a trace of a heavy metal that we could not identify. And the bar was slightly, very slightly, radioactive--perhaps, Sam thought, merely because it had been exposed to intense radium emanations.

The density of the bar was only half that of aluminum. For some time we could not understand that. Careful examination showed no break in the surface; and presently we sawed it in two, and then in many pieces, searching for the machinery that we half-expected to find. But, as far as we could determine, the bar was absolutely homogeneous.

Then Sam thought of examining it under the microscope. He found that it was full of microscopic bubbles--hollow places! By later experiment, we found that the metal was just a sponge of the strange alloy, filled with tiny bubbles of helium gas, under considerable pressure. Sam presently formulated the theory that the alloy, when formed, had contained considerable amounts of radium compounds; and that the alpha particles, or charged helium atoms, thrown off by the disintegration of the radium, while the metal was in a semi-plastic state, had been imprisoned in it.

But it was not until later--much later--that we got the true meaning of it--that we understood the insidious force that acted in the metal, to make human beings slaves to it!

So the days went by--happy, carefree days for me. I knew real joy for the first time in my life. Since youth I had known the Green Girl in my fancy. I had longed to find her, with a restless, hopeless longing that had left me discontented and unhappy, whatever my surroundings. Now, at last, she was really mine. I loved her with a singleness and intensity of affection that turned all my emotion in one direction, so I felt little fear or care for anything else.

One day, when we sat like children together on a cool, moss-covered rock beneath a great fragrant purple tree, with a crystal pool before us, gleaming like molten ruby in the light of the scarlet sky, I told her quite simply that I loved her--that I had known her always, and loved her as long.

"The white chieftain of my dreams," she whispered, "for what long years I have wished for you to come and tell me that!"

There was no need for further words between us. It was a long, long time before we returned to the machine, and then I am afraid we both flushed a little before the smile of tender understanding on Sam's lean face.