E.E. 'Doc' Smith SF Gateway Omnibus: The Skylark of Space, Skylark Three, Skylark of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne (17 page)

That was evidently a title, so Seaton had to give himself one. ‘Boss of the Road,’ he said, drawing himself up with pride.

Thus properly introduced to his visitor, Nalboon pointed to the crippled plane, inclined his royal head slightly in thanks or in acknowledgement of the service rendered – Seaton could not tell which – then turned to face his people with one arm upraised. He shouted an order in
which Seaton could distinguish something that sounded like ‘See Tin Basz Uvvy Roagd.’

Instantly every right arm in the crowd was aloft, that of each man bearing a weapon, while the left arms snapped into that peculiar salute. A mighty cry arose as all repeated the name and title of the distinguished visitor.

Seaton turned. ‘Bring out one of those big four-color signal rockets, Mart!’ he called. ‘We’ve got to acknowledge a reception like this!’

The party appeared, DuQuesne carrying the rocket with an exaggerated deference. Seaton shrugged one shoulder and a cigarette-case appeared in his hand. Nalboon started and, in spite of his self-control, glanced at it in surprise. The case flew open and Seaton, after taking a cigarette, pointed to another.

‘Smoke?’ he asked, affably. Nalboon took one, but had no idea whatever of what to do with it. This astonishment at simple sleight-of-hand and ignorance of tobacco emboldened Seaton. Reaching into his mouth, he pulled out a flaming match – at which Nalboon jumped straight backward at least a foot. Then, while Nalboon and his people watched in straining attention, Seaton lit the weed, half-consumed it in two long drags, swallowed the half, regurgitated it still alight, took another puff, and swallowed the butt.

‘I’m good, I admit, but not
that
good,’ Seaton said to Crane. ‘I never laid ’em in the aisles like that before. This rocket’ll tie ’em up like pretzels. Keep clear, everybody.’

He bowed deeply to Nalboon, pulling a lighted match from his ear as he did so, and lighted the fuse. There was a roar, a shower of sparks, a blaze of colored fire as the rocket flew upward; but, to Seaton’s surprise, Nalboon took it quite as a matter of course, merely saluting gravely in acknowledgement of the courtesy.

Seaton motioned his party to come up and turned to Crane. ‘Better not, Dick. Let him keep on thinking that one Boss is all there is.’

‘Not by a long shot. There’s only one of him – two of us bosses would be twice as good.’ He introduced Crane, with great ceremony, as ‘Boss of the
Skylark,
’ whereupon the grand salute of the people was repeated.

Nalboon gave an order, and a squad of soldiers brought up a group of people, apparently prisoners. Seven men and seven women, they were of a much lighter color than the natives. They were naked, except for jeweled collars worn by all and a thick metal belt worn by one of the men. They all walked proudly, scorn for their captors in every step.

Nalboon barked an order. Thirteen of the prisoners stared back at him, motionlessly defiant. The man wearing the belt, who had been studying Seaton closely, said something, whereupon they all prostrated themselves. Nalboon waved his hand – giving the group to Seaton and Crane. They accepted the gift with due thanks and the slaves placed themselves behind their new masters.

Seaton and Crane then tried to make Nalboon understand that they wanted copper, but failed dismally. Finally Seaton led the native into the ship and showed him the remnant of the power-bar, indicating
its original size and giving information as to the number desired by counting to sixteen upon his fingers. Nalboon understood, and, going outside, pointed upward toward the largest of the eleven suns visible, and swung his arm four times in a rising-and-setting arc. He then invited the visitors to get into his plane, but Seaton refused. They would follow, he explained, in their own vessel.

As they entered the
Skylark,
the slaves followed.

‘We don’t want them aboard, Dick,’ Dorothy protested. There are too many of them. Not that I’m exactly scared, but …

‘We’ve got to,’ Seaton decided. ‘We’re stuck with ’em. And besides – when in Rome, you’ve got to be a Roman candle, you know.’

Nalboon’s newly-invested flagship led the way; the
Skylark
followed, a few hundred yards behind and above it.

‘I don’t get these folks at all,’ Seaton said, thoughtfully. ‘They’ve got next century’s machines, but never heard of sleight-of-hand. Class Nine rockets are old stuff, but matches scare them. Funny.’

‘It is surprising enough that their physical shape is the same as ours,’ Crane said. ‘It would be altogether too much to expect that all the details of development would be parallel.’

The fleet approached a large city and the visitors from Earth studied with interest this metropolis of an unknown world. The buildings were all of the same height, flat-topped, arranged in random squares, rectangles, and triangles. There were no streets, the spaces between the buildings being park-like areas.

All traffic was in the air. Flying vehicles darted in all directions, but the confusion was only apparent, not real, each class and each direction having its own level.

The fleet descended toward an immense building just outside the city proper and all landed upon its roof except the flagship, which led the
Skylark
to a landing-dock nearby.

As they disembarked Seaton said, ‘Don’t be surprised at anything I pull off – I’m a walking storehouse of all kinds of small junk.’

Nalboon led the way into an elevator, which dropped to the ground floor. Gates opened, and through ranks of prostrate people the party went out into the palace grounds of the emperor of the great nation of Mardonale.

It was a scene of unearthly splendor. Every shade of their peculiar spectrum was there, in solid, liquid, and gas. Trees were of all colors, as were grasses and flowers along the walks. Fountains played streams of various and constantly-changing hues. The air was tinted and perfumed, swirling through metal arches in billows of ever-varying colors and scents. Colors and combinations of colors impossible to describe were upon every hand, fantastically beautiful in that strong, steady, peculiar light.

‘Isn’t this gorgeous, Dick?’ Dorothy whispered. ‘But I wish I had a mirror – you look simply awful – what kind of a scarecrow am I?’

‘You’ve been under a mercury arc? Like that, only worse. Your hair
isn’t as black as I thought it would be, there’s some funny green in it. Your lips, though, are really black. Your teeth are green …’

‘Stop it! Green teeth and black lips! That’s enough – and I don’t want a mirror!’

Nalboon led the way into the palace proper and into a dining hall, where a table was ready. This room had many windows, each of which was festooned with sparkling, scintillating gems. The walls were hung with a cloth resembling spun glass or nylon, which fell to the floor in shimmering waves of color.

There was no woodwork whatever. Doors, panels, tables and chairs were made of metal. A closer inspection of one of the tapestries showed that it, too, was of metal, its threads numbering thousands to the inch. Of vivid but harmonious colors, of a strange and intricate design, it seemed to writhe as its colors changed with every variation in the color of the light.

‘Oh … isn’t that stuff just too perfectly gorgeous?’ Dorothy breathed. ‘I’d give
anything
for a dress made out of it.’

‘Order noted,’ Seaton said. ‘I’ll pick up ten yards of it when we get the copper.’

‘We’d better watch the chow pretty close, Seaton,’ DuQuesne said, as Nalboon waved them to the table.

‘You chirped it. Copper, arsenic, and so forth. Very little here we
can
eat much of, I’d say.’

‘The girls and I will wait for you two chemists to approve each dish, then,’ Crane said.

The guests sat down, the light-skinned slaves standing behind them, and servants brought in heaping trays of food. There were joints and cuts of many kinds of meat; birds and fish, raw and cooked in various ways; green, pink, brown, purple, black and near-white vegetables and fruits. Slaves handed the diners peculiar instruments – knives with razor edges, needle-pointed stilettos, and wide, flexible spatulas which evidently were to serve as both forks and spoons.

‘I simply
can’t
eat with these things!’ Dorothy exclaimed.

‘That’s where my lumberjack training comes in handy,’ Seaton grinned. ‘I can eat with a spatula four times as fast as you can with a fork. But we’ll fix that.’

Reaching out, apparently into the girl’s hair, he brought out forks and spoons, much to the surprise of the natives.

DuQuesne and Seaton waved away most of the proffered foods without discussion. Then, tasting cautiously and discussing fully, they approved a few of the others. The approval, however, was very strictly limited.

‘These probably won’t poison us too much,’ DuQuesne said, pointing out the selected few. ‘That is, if we don’t eat much now and don’t eat any of it again too soon. I don’t like this one little bit, Seaton.’

‘You and me both,’ Seaton agreed. ‘I don’t think there’ll be any next time.’

Nalboon took a bowl full of blue crystals, sprinkled his food
liberally with the substance, and passed the bowl to Seaton.

‘Copper sulphate,’ Seaton said. ‘Good thing they put it on at the table instead of the kitchen, or we couldn’t eat a bit of anything.’

Seaton, returning the bowl, reached behind him and came up with a pair of salt- and pepper-shakers which, after seasoning his own food with them, he passed to his host. Nalboon tasted the pepper cautiously, then smiled in delight and half-emptied the shaker onto his plate. He then sprinkled a few grains of salt into his palm, studied them closely with growing amazement, and after a few rapid sentences poured them into a dish held by an officer who had sprung to his side. The officer also studied the few small crystals, then carefully washed Nalboon’s hand. Nalboon turned to Seaton, plainly asking for the salt-cellar.

‘Sure, my ripe and old.’ In the same mysterious way he produced another set, which he handed to Crane.

The meal progressed merrily, with much sign-language conversation between the two parties, a little of which was understood. It was evident that Nalboon, usually stern and reticent, was in an unusually pleasant and jovial mood.

After the meal Nalboon bade them a courteous farewell; and they were escorted to a suite of five connecting rooms by the royal usher and a company of soldiers, who mounted guard outside the suite.

Gathered in one room, they discussed sleeping arrangements. The girls insisted that they would sleep together, and that the men should occupy the rooms on either side. As the girls turned away, four slaves followed.

‘I don’t want these people and I can’t make them go away,’ she protested again. ‘Can’t you do something, Dick?’

‘I don’t think so. I think we’re stuck with ’em as long as we’re here. Don’t you think so, Mart?’

‘Yes. And from what I have seen of this culture, I infer that they will be executed if we discard them.’

‘Huh? How do … could be. We keep ’em, then, Dot.’

‘Of course, in that case. You keep the men and we’ll take the women.’

‘Hmmm.’ He turned to Crane, saying under his breath, ‘They don’t want us sleeping in the same room with any of these gorgeous gals, huh? I
wonder
why?’

Seaton waved all the women into the girls’ room; but they hung back. One of them ran up to the man wearing the belt and spoke rapidly as she threw her arms around his neck in a perfectly human gesture. He shook his head, pointing toward Seaton several times as he reassured her. He then led her tenderly into the girls’ room and the other women followed. Crane and DuQuesne having gone to their rooms
with their attendants, the man with the belt started to help Seaton take off his clothes.

Stripped, Seaton stretched vigorously, the muscles writhing and rippling under the skin of mighty arms and broad shoulders as he twisted about, working off the stiffness of comparative confinement. The slaves stared in amazement at the display of musculature and talked rapidly among themselves as they gathered up Seaton’s discarded clothing. Their chief picked up a salt-shaker, a silver fork, and a few other items that had fallen from the garments, apparently asking permission to do something with them. Seaton nodded and turned to his bed. He heard a slight clank of arms in the hall and began to wonder. Going to the window, he saw that there were guards outside as well. Were they honored guests or prisoners?

Three of the slaves, at a word from their leader, threw themselves on the floor and slept; but he himself did not rest. Opening the apparently solid metal belt he took out a great number of small tools, many tiny instruments, and several spools of insulated wire. He then took the articles Seaton had given him, taking extreme pains not to spill a single crystal of salt, and set to work. As he worked, hour after hour, a strange, exceedingly complex device took form under his flying fingers.

Seaton did not sleep well. It was too hot. He was glad after eight hours to get up. No sooner had he started to shave, however, than one of the slaves touched his arm, motioning him into a reclining chair and showing him a keen blade, long and slightly curved. Seaton lay down and the slave shaved him with a rapidity and smoothness he had never before experienced, so wonderfully sharp was the peculiar razor. Then the barber began to shave his superior, with no preliminary treatment save rubbing his face with a perfumed oil.

‘Hold on a minute,’ said Seaton. ‘Here’s something that helps a lot. Soap.’ He lathered the face with his brush, and the man with the belt looked up in surprised pleasure as his stiff beard was swept away with no pulling at all.

Seaton called to the others and soon the party was assembled in his room. All were dressed very lightly because of the unrelieved and unvarying heat, which was constant at one hundred degrees. A gong sounded and one of the slaves opened the door, ushering in servants bearing a table, ready set. The Earthlings did not eat anything, deciding that they would rather wait an hour or so and then eat in the
Skylark.
Hence the slaves had a much better meal than they otherwise would have had.