CHAPTER VII
Captured!
Certainly my situation was no less desperate. Unless I could find somemethod of compensating for my lost ballast, the inverse gravity of myinertron ship would hurl me continuously upward until I shot forth fromthe last air layer into space. I thought of jumping, and floating downon my inertron belt, but I was already too high for this. The air wastoo rarefied to permit breathing outside, though my little aircompressors were automatically maintaining the proper density within theshell. If I could compress a sufficiently large quantity of air insidethe craft, I would add to its weight. But there seemed little chancethat I would myself be able to withstand sufficient compression.
I thought of releasing my inertron belt, but doubted whether this wouldbe enough. Besides I might need the belt badly if I did find some methodof bringing the little ship down, and it came too fast.
At last a plan came into my half-numbed brain that had some promise ofsuccess, though it was desperate enough. Cutting one of the hose pipeson my air compressor, and grasping it between my lips, I set to work tosaw off the heads of the rivets that held the entire nose section of theswooper (inertron plates had to be grooved and riveted together, sincethe substance was impervious to heat and could not be welded).Desperately I sawed, hammered and chiseled, until at last with a wrenchand a snap, the plate broke away.
The released nose of the ship shot upward. The rest began to drop withme. How fast I dropped I do not know, for my instruments went with thenose. Half fainting, I grimly clenched the rubber hose between my teeth,while the little compressor "carried on" nobly, despite the wreckedcondition of the ship, giving me just enough air to keep my lungs fromcollapsing.
* * * * *
At last I shot through a cloud layer, and a long time afterward, itseemed, another. From the way in which they flashed up to meet me and toappear away above me, I must have been dropping like a stone.
At last I tried the rocket motor, very gently, to check my fall. Theswooper was, of course, dropping tail first, and I had to be carefullest it turn over with a sharp blast from the motor, and dump me out.
Passing through the third layer of clouds I saw the earth beneath me.Then I jumped, pulling myself up through the jagged opening, and leapingupward while the remains of my ship shot away below me.
On approaching the ground I opened my chute-cape, to further check myfall, and landed lightly, with no further mishap. Whereupon I promptlythrew myself down and slept, so exhausted was I with my experience.
It was not until the next morning that I awoke and gazed about me. I hadcome down in mountainous country. My intention was to get my bearing bytuning in headquarters with my ultrophone. But to my dismay I found thelittle battery disks had been torn from the earflaps of my helmet,though my chest-disk transmitter was still in place, and so far as Icould see, in working order. I could report my experience, but couldreceive no reply.
I spent a half hour repeating my story and explanation on theheadquarters channel, then once more surveyed my surroundings, trying todetermine in which direction I had better leap. Then there came a stabof pain on the top of my head, and I dropped unconscious.
I regained consciousness to find myself, much to my surprise, a prisonerin the hands of a foot detachment of some thirty Hans. My surprise was adouble one; first that they had not killed me instantly; second, that adetachment of them should be roaming this wild country afoot, obviouslyfar from any of their cities, and with no ship hanging in the sky abovethem.
* * * * *
As I sat up, their officer grunted with satisfaction and growled aguttural command. I was seized and pulled roughly to my feet by foursoldiers, and hustled along with the party into a wooded ravine, throughwhich we climbed sharply upward. I surmised, correctly as it turned out,that some projectile had grazed my head, and I was in such shape that ifit had not been for the fact that my inertron belt bore most of myweight, they would have had to carry me. But as it was I made out well,and at the end of an hour's climb was beginning to feel like myselfagain, though the Han soldiers around me were puffing and drooping asmen will, no matter how healthy, when they are totally unaccustomed tophysical effort.
At length the party halted for a rest. I observed them curiously. Exceptfor a few brief exciting moments at the time of our air raid on theintelligence office in Nu-Yok, I had seen no living specimens of thisyellow race at close quarters.
They looked little like the Mongolians of the Twentieth Century, exceptfor their slant eyes and round heads. The characteristic of the highcheek bones appeared to have been bred out of them, as were those of therelatively short legs and the muddy yellow skin. To call them yellow wasmore figurative than literal. Their skins were whiter than those of ourown weather-tanned forest men. Nevertheless, their pigmentation waspeculiar, and what there was of it looked more like a pale orange tintthan the ruddiness of the Caucasian. They were well formed, but ratherundersized and soft-looking, small-muscled and smooth-skinned, likeyoung girls. Their features were finely chiseled, eyes beady, and noseslightly aquiline.
They were uniformed, not in close-fitting green or other shades ofprotective coloring, such as the unobtrusive gray of the Jersey Beachesor the leadened russet of the autumn uniforms of our people. Insteadthey wore loose fitting jackets of some silky material, and loose kneepants. This particular command had been equipped with form-moulded bootsof some soft material that reached above the knee under their pants.They wore circular hats with small crowns and wide rims. Their loosejackets were belted at the waist, and they carried for weapons each mana knife, a short double-edged sword and what I took to be a form ofmagazine rocket gun. It was a rather bulky affair, short-barrelled, andwith a pistol grip. It was obviously intended to be fired either fromthe waist position or from some sort of support, like the old machineguns. It looked, in fact, like a rather small edition of the TwentiethCentury arm.
And have I mentioned the color of their uniforms? Their circular hatsand pants were a bright yellow; their coats a flaming scarlet. Whattargets they were!
I must have chuckled audibly at the thought, for their commander who wasseated on a folding stool one of his men had placed for him, glanced inmy direction, and, at his arrogant gesture of command, I was prodded tomy feet, and with my hands still bound, as they had been from the momentI recovered consciousness, I was dragged before him.
* * * * *
Then I knew what it was about these Hans that kept me in a turmoil ofirritation. It was their sardonic, mocking, cruel smiles; smiles whichleft their stamp on their faces, even in repose. Now the commander wassmiling tauntingly at me. When he spoke, it was in my own language.
"So!" he sneered. "You beasts have learned to laugh. You have gotten outof control in the last year or so. But that shall be remedied. In themeantime, a simple little surgical operation would make your smile apermanent one, reaching from ear to ear. But there, my orders are todeliver you and your equipment, all we have of it, intact. TheHeaven-Born has had a whim."
"And who," I asked, "is this Heaven-Born?"
"San-Lan," he replied, "misbegotten spawn of the late High PriestessNlui-Mok, and now Most Glorious Air Lord of All the Hans." He rolled outthese titles with a bow of exaggerated respect toward the west, and in atone of mockery. Those of his men who were near enough to hear,snickered and giggled.
I was to learn that this amazing attitude of his was typical rather thanexceptional. Strange as it may seem, no Han rendered any respect toanother, nor expected it in return; that is, not genuine respect. Theirdiscipline was rigid and cold-bloodedly heartless. The most elaboratecourtesies were demanded and accorded among equals and from inferiors tosuperiors, but such was the intelligence and moral degradation of thisremarkable race, that every one of them recognized these courtesies forwhat they were; they must of necessity have been hollow mockeries. Theytook pleasure in forcing one another to go through with them, eachtrying to outdo th
e other in cynical, sardonic thrusts, clothed in themost meticulously ceremonious courtesy. As a matter of fact, my captor,by this crude reference to the origin of his ruler, was merely provinghimself a crude fellow, guilty of a vulgarity rather than of atreasonable or disrespectful remark. An officer of higher rank andbetter breeding, would have managed a clever innuendo, less direct, butequally plain.
I was about to ask him what part of the country we were in and where Iwas to be taken, when one of his men came running to him with a littleportable electronophone, which he placed before him, with much bowingand scraping.
He conversed through this for a while, and then condescended to give methe information that a ship would soon be above us, and that I was to betransferred to it. In telling me this, he managed to convey, with crudeattempts at mock-courtesy, that he and his men would feel relieved to berid of me as a menace to health and sanitation, and would take exquisitejoy in inflicting me upon the crew of the ship.