Tama Princes of Mercury Read online

  Tama Princes of Mercury

  Terry Pratchett

  Terry Pratchett

  Tama Princes of Mercury

  A NIGHT OF HORROR

  THE NEWSCASTER'S VOICE came blaring from the sound-grid: "And we have upon good authority the information that the Bolton Flying Cube is almost ready for another trial flight. Dr. Norton Grenfell, when interviewed yesterday, was evasive regarding his plans. But from other sources we learn that at the next Inferior Conjunction of Mercury and Earthwhich occurs in about two weeks now, at which time the two planets will again be at their closest points to each otherwe are informed that this new concept in interplanetary travelthe Flying Cube, will endeavor to reach Mercury"

  "Well!" exclaimed Rowena. "They think they know a lot, don't they?"

  "Hear him out," I said.

  The voice went on: "There is undoubtedly no further menace from Mercury. The marauders from last fall will not come again. Jack Dean and his wife, Rowena Palisse, will of course be upon the Flying Cube when it makes its adventurous flight. Dean and his wife and Guy Palisse and the strange girl named Tama, and her brother Toh, who came last fall from Mercury, are still in seclusion. We have as yet been unable-"

  "To locate us," Guy said with a grin. "This fellow has a lordly manner, hasn't he?" I am the Jack Dean whom the newscaster mentioned. This was in March; in August of the previous year the world was startled by an attack of Mercurian invaders upon a girls' summer camp in Maine. Some of the girls were abducted vanished in the night. I met Rowena Palisse then.

  She's a very tall girl, with the regal aspect of a Nordic queen. I myself am several inches over six feet. I think our abnormal statures first attracted us to each other.

  Rowena's brother, Guy, had tried to get to the Moon ten years ago, an abortive attempt in a moon rocket. He left the Earth, and was not heard from again. It was to Mercury the rocket carried him. He lived there all those ten yearsand last August he came back, a captive with the Mercurian invaders.

  How the ship of these invaders was destroyed in outer space some three hundred thousand miles from the Earth; how the giant Mercurian Croat was killed; and Guy, the Mercurian girl Tama, and her brother Toh were rescued by the Bolton Flying Cubeall this was public news.

  And now Rowena and I were married and, with Guy and Tama and Toh, were trying to live in seclusion from the prying newscasters. The affair was over. Croat was dead.

  The only spaceship existing on Mercury had been destroyed.

  There was no further menace.

  Ah, if we had but known! The newscaster's voice interrupted my thoughts: "We feel sure that within a short time now the whereabouts of Jack Dean and the others will be disclosed. The Broadcasters' Press Association has every hope of being able shortly to supply its millions of subscribers with television scenes of the strange Mercurian girl Tama"

  "Not a chance," Guy gibed. "Get that right out of your mind, young fellow." Rowena, Guy and I were sitting before our audiophone grid in a secluded new cabin set in a lonely spot in one of the northern states not far from the Canadian border. Forests surrounded us. A little lake was nearby. It was a clear, frosty evening of mid-March. The lake was frozen now. Snow lay thick on the ground and edged the naked tree branches with white. The underbrush, ice-coated, gleamed with a white brilliance in the sunlight. The snow was piled high against our windows; but inside, with a roaring log fire, we were snug enough.

  Toh came into the living room. He was a slim, straight and boyish fellow, this Mercurian youth of twenty-one. In height he was no more than a little over five feet. He was dressed in high laced leather boots, corduroy trousers, and a flannel shirt open at his slender throat. It seemed a costume utterly incongruous to him. His thick black hair was long to the base of his neck. A band like a ribbon of red was about his forehead to hold the hair from his eyes; and with his highbridged nose, it gave him something of the aspect of a North American Indian youth. Toh was gentle-featured, almost girlish; yet there was about him an unmistakable dignity and strength.

  He joined us quietly, unobtrusively, at the radio grid.

  Guy said, "Toh, listen to thishe's talking about us."

  "The air always talks, these days, of the Bolton Cube," Toh said, in a soft, gentle voice with an indefinable accent.

  He spoke perfect English. Guy, on Mercury, had had years to teach him and Tama.

  "Right," said Guy. "And they're all excited because the news reporters can't find us." For a time we listened to the droning voice. Guy replenished our log fire.

  "They don't mention Jimmy," he commented.

  Jimmy Turk was my best friend. He had been with us on that memorable test flight of the Flying Cube, when we had gone, last fall, out of the Earth's atmosphere and met the Mercurian spaceship. He was an operative flyer in the newly established Interstate Patrol.

  Then the newscaster did mention Jimmy: "It was thought that James Turk might be persuaded to reveal the hiding place of his too-modest friends. But it seems not. He visits them occasionally, and it is no secret that our reporters have tried many times to trail him to their lair. But he is fleet and cleveras clever in avoiding our pursuit as he is in tracking down criminals." Rowena laughed. "That newscaster is frank enough, anyway."

  "Where is Tama?" Guy asked suddenly.

  "Out flying," said Toh. "She left just a little while ago." Guy frowned. "She shouldn't be out. I've told hernot while there's still light."

  "Pretty cold," I said.

  "She has a knitted suit," said Rowena, and smiled. "I told her, too, that she shouldn't go, but she went. You know Tama.

  But she can't go far. She can hardly fly with those clothes weighing her down, and the Earth's gravity" Guy went to the window, stood gazing out. Presently he called us.

  "Look here!" The sunset light was almost gone, but one could still see a snow-white cloud sailing high overhead.

  Guy pointed. "Look" We went outside. A tiny dot was far up there, dropping out of the cloud. We knew it was not Tama. It came down like a plummet, resolved itself presently into a midget monoplane descending almost with a nose dive.

  . ' "Jimmy's dragon," I said. "He must have been at fifty or sixty thousand feetdropping through those cloudsmaking sure nobody is trailing him here." Jimmy landed on the snow nearby. Climbing from his little pit, he was a shapeless bundle in his electrically warmed flying suit. In our living room he revealed himselfa short, stocky, redheaded little daredevil, with an unfailing grin.

  "Hello, folks! A damned B.P.A. plane was after me when I left the city. Hope they had a good trip. I say, how about a cup of coffee?"

  "Oh, 1m sorry," Rowena apologized. "Of course you'll want something. I'll tell Eliza." Eliza was our one servent, a middle-aged woman. She and Rowena returned presently with a hot breakfast for Jimmy.

  "What brought you, Jimmy?" I demanded.

  "Oh, )ust to see you. Don't I have to see my buried friends every so often?"-His grin faded. "I've got news, a message for you from Grenfell: We're definitely goingthe Cube is starting for Mercurythe tentative date is March thirtieth... . I say, Rowena, you do serve the most marvelous coffee." He took it as lightly as that I In two weeks we were leaving for Mercury. My heart pounded at the thought of it. We had been waiting here only for Grenfell's decision.

  Jimmy went on: "Inferior Conjunction is the first week in.

  Aprilthe shortest distance. I've been down to see the Cube.

  They've got perfect equipment this time. Everything's about ready. Grenfell wants you in Trenton in about a week, say March twenty-second." The Flying Cube had been built and now was housed in the midst of the huge buildings of the Bolton Metal Industries near Trenton, New Jersey.

  "Where is Tama?" Jimmy asked.


  Guy was still anxiously at the window. And now Tama was coming. We went to the cabin doorway to meet her.

  She came, flying low over the frozen lake. A great, whitebodied, red-winged bird! Flying sluggishly as though tired, but she was only hampered by the weight of her clothes, and Earth's heavy gravity.

  The wonder of Tama had never ceased to thrill me.

  The men of Mercury were very much like the men of Earth.

  But the women with their great feathered wings Her warm knitted suit made her slim body white as the surface of the frozen snow-covered lake. But her long black hair was waving in the wind; and her crimson-feathered wings with their ten-foot spread showed plainly in the twilight.

  Her body hung at an angle, breast down. She flew straight for our doorway, fluttered down, her feet dropping, her wings flapping backward as she righted herself to land on tiptoe among us. She was panting with the flying effort, and laughing, and the frosty evening had brought into her clear white cheeks a mantling red.

  "Tamal" exclaimed Guy. "You shouldn't fly out before it's dark."

  "No one saw me, Guy. I must get out. It smothers me indoors... . Oh, good evening, Jimmy!" A few minutes later Tama had taken off the knitted suit, and wore now her native garments. Beside the tall, queenly Rowena, Tama was an elfin, fantastic figure indeed. As small as Toh, They were, in fact, twins, twenty-one years old.

  Tama stood before me. "You are not angry at me, Jack?"

  "Well-"

  "Guy is." Elfin little creature, pouting at me to placate my anger.

  But like her brother, there was about her a decided dignity. The set of her )aw could be firm; her dark eyes, twinkling at me now, could flash with command. On Mercury, as Guy had told us, she was leader of all the winged virgins of the Light Country.

  On Mercury, a leader. But here on Earth, so strangely fantastic! Her crimson-feathered wings were folded now as she stood among us. They arched from her shoulder blades, with their flexible feathered tips just clearing the ground behind her. She wore silky fabric, gray-blue trousers bound at her ankles; sandals encased her bare feet. A silken gray-blue scarf was wound about her waist, crossing in front, covering her breast and shoulders, crossing again between the wings behind and descending to her waist.

  "Angry, Jack?"

  "Well-" I found it difficult to be angry; yet she should not have gone out.

  We sat down to discuss the voyage to Mercury in the Cube. Guy sat with his arm about Tama. It was no secret that they were in love. They were to be married as Tama wanted, on Mercury, in her native Hill City, at the end of this forthcoming trip.

  "I am glad," said Tama. "It seemed so long, waiting here." The elfin look was gone from her now. With her thoughts back on Mercury she was Tama of the Light Country, a leader.

  She met my gaze.

  "It is not that I do not like your Earth, Jack. But you know I am worried about things in the Hill City. My girls, the winged virgins as you call them. Jimmy, tell me just what Dr. Grenfell says. We go, surely?"

  "Sure thing!" said Jimmy.

  Late into that night and most of the next morning we discussed it; then Jimmy had to leave.

  "See you in a week," he told us. "I'll come up and fly you down to Trenton." We stood beside his tiny dragon to see him take off. If we had only known under what terrifying stress of circumstances we next were to see him! The remainder of that memorable day passed without incident. Jimmy left )ust before noon. That evening we all retired early. Our log-cabin bungalow was a rambling, manyroomed structure. Rowena and I had a bedroom off the living room. Toh and Guy slept in another room; Tama occupied a room alone. And Eliza, the housekeeper, had a bedroom nearby.

  It was after midnight when I awakened. I had slept uneasily, perhaps the stimulus of Jimmy's exciting news. What yoke me up, I do not know. I started into full wakefulness, and at once became aware that Rowena was not beside me.

  The room was cold, the house wholly silent. Through the drawn window blinds faint shafts of moonlight were straggling. Rowena's negligee was gone from the chair beside curbed.

  I lay listening in the silence. The door to the living room was open; a log in the dying fire fell with a sound startlingly loud.

  And then I heard something that set me shuddering, and took me out of bed with a bound. 4 crunching in the snow outside the cabin! Footsteps! And, it seemed, low murmurs of voices! I reached the living room. The waning fire illumined it with flickering yellow light and waving shadows. A shaft of moonlight showed me that the outer door was open; it hung askew on its hinges, the top one broken so that it dangled forward into the room! My confusion lasted no more than a moment, however.

  I found myself shouting, "Rowenal Guy!" At the door I saw a trail of footprints in the snow. Not our beaten path to the lake. These ..led sidewise toward a line of naked trees. I thought that in the moonlight there were dark blobs of retreating figures off there! The frosty outer air struck at me as I stood thinly clad.

  Our overcoats hung on pegs near the living room door. I recall donning a heavy coat and pulling boots over my bare feet.

  My shouts brought the household. A confusion of figures and voices.

  "Jack! What the devil-"

  "Jack-Guy and Toh were plucking at me. Then Toh saw the broken door.

  "Oh-" He darted at it. Stooped. Straightened. "Burned! The hinges burned with a heat-ray! Where is TamaP" Guy and Toh were here! But not Rowenal Not Tamal The housekeeper appeared; stood stricken with terror.

  "Mr. Jack-what is it? Tell mel What's wrong? What-" I ran outside. The distant figures had vanished. In the house the voices and tramping steps of Guy and Tob resounded.

  Guy shouted, "Tamal Rowenal Tamawhere are you?" Guy met me at the doorway; his face was livid in the moonlight.

  "Gone! They're not here!" Eliza was screaming with shrill, hysterical wails.

  I gasped, "I think I saw them out there among the trees!" We seized our large-bore rifles, which stood in a corner of the room. Guy and Toh drew on overcoats and boots.

  In a moment we started. The moon went under a passing cloud. The white snow surface turned dark gray, but the trail was plain. A wide, scuffled path, many footsteps. The edge of the forest was a few hundred feet away. We were half running. I suddenly realized, heedlessly running I stopped, and drew Guy and Toh crouching beside me behind the huge bulk of a fallen tree.

  "Wait! They must be close ahead. I saw them!" We could not fire on any distant figure, with the girls possibly among them.

  Toh murmured, "It must be Mercuriansi"

  "They can't travel fast," I whispered. "The Earth's gravity is too great. If we can decide their direction, then circle and get ahead of them" I checked my words. Beside me in the snow, almost at my feet, a dark object was lying. I reached for it. A torn piece of cloth. There was light enough for me to see it.

  A portion of a man's coat sleeve. The wrist cuff had some insignia on it. It was queerly burned, blackened where a segment of it had been melted away by a blast of heat.

  It was from the uniform of Jimmy Turk! I had no time to do more than show it to Guy and Toh.

  The Mercurians had seen us. From the edge of the nearby forest a narrow beam of blue-green light came with a hiss, like a tiny lightning bolt darting over us. It caught a snowdrift twenty feet away; melted a hole like a clean-bored tunnel with vapor rising from it.

  I leaped up, against the efforts of Toh and Guy to pull me down. A figure stood at the forest edgethe bundled shape of a man in animal skins. I shot. My rifle stabbed its spurt of yellow flame. The report echoed in the still night air over the frozen lake.

  But my shot never reached its intended mark.

  From my adversary the blue-green beam came again. By chance it must have met my bullet. A puff of fire showed in mid-air as the steel-tipped missile melted into burning gas and ashes.

  The figure disappeared. We were all three running forward, but we got not more than thirty feet.

  "Jack-look!" We stood amazed, transfixed, cold
with horror. From the forest a shape rose up. A huge silver ball, thirty feet or so in diameter. It mounted over the trees with a hiss, like a rocket, with a faint stream of light-fire beneath it.

  We stood stricken, watching as it sailed up and dwindled.

  The moon came out. The moonlight caught the sphere, bathed it with glistening silver. The tiny dark windows and doorway were visible.

  It shrank to a dot amid the stars. A gloaming speck.

  Twinkling... . Gone! The rest of the night was a turmoil of confusion to me. With the approaching nearness of Mercury, the silver ball had comeand was already gone. And Tama and Rowena were on it; we could not doubt that.

  By telephone we summoned help. Local flyers came. We called Grenfell. Headquarters of the Interstate Patrol were seeking Jimmy.

  In the midst of it allour orders from Grenfell giving us so much to do, so quickly1 moved as though in a dream.

  Rowena gone! My bride of two months stolen by these marauders from another planetl Goneand Tama gone! Already speeding out there into the starry depths of space! Guy rushed at me as I stood in the cabin living room groping with my confusion of thoughts.

  "Hurry, Jack!" he said. "Bring the rifles! Youll need those coats." Toh came in. "A report from Boston. A man outside told me-" There were tramping figures about the cabin, lights and figures and voices searching the nearby forest, planes landing on the lake. Confusion.

  Our door and two of our window shutters were found burned loose. Marks in the sn~w showed where a struggle had taken place. Long red feathers from Tama's wings lay ill the snow. In the forest were marks where the space-vehicle had rested.

  Toh was saying, "Jimmy Turk is reported missing!" Half an hour later came Grenfell's plane. We gathered our belongings, our equipment, and boarded it. The flight down to South Jersey through the glistening, frosty moonlight was like a dream.

  The plant of the Bolton Metal Industries was another turmoil of confusion. The Bolton Flying Cube resounded with hasty, last-minute preparations.

  From the Mount Wyndam Observatory, near Summit, New Jersey, came constant reports. The night was ideal for observation. The ascending silver ball was still plainly visible with the giant electro-telescope. The ball was swiftly but cautiously mounting. Too rapid a flight would have burned it from atmospheric friction-heat.