Flaming Zeppelins (34 page)

Lying in the road with its legs bent and twisted and broken was one of the Martian machines. The club Rikwalk had made for himself was stuffed through what had been the face glass of the machine.

Twain climbed down from the cruiser, went over for a look. It was dark, but near the machine lay a Martian. It looked as if something had taken hold of it and squeezed until what was inside of it had come out the top of its head.

Steam.

Ned slid the cruiser over close to Twain. He wrote: WHY DID THEY LEAVE?

“I don't know,” Twain said. “But they wouldn't have left us had they not had to. My guess is, from all the marks in the road here, the place was swarming with machines. Steam got this Martian and Rikwalk got the machine. And then they fled. It was the smart thing to do. I would have done the same. They were most likely outnumbered.”

Ned slapped a flipper to his side, pointed with the other.

Lying in the woods was another machine. Twain climbed onto the cruiser, and they glided over for a look.

This machine had been bent up too, and this Martian pilot had suffered the same fate as his partner. He lay near the machine, part of his body draped over a log.

“Steam just reached inside the glass, took him out like a baby grabbing a chocolate,” Twain said. “Then, he squeezed him.”

IS THAT MARTIAN SHIT HANGING OUT OF HIS TWO ASSHOLES?

“I doubt it's flour gravy, Ned.”

THEIR SHIT IS THE WRONG COLOR.

“I suppose they might say the same about ours. And my guess is that shit is mixed with a lot of other things. Blood. His guts. And we're seeing it in moonlight… I can't believe I'm standing out here discussing Martian shit with a seal.”

WHAT DO WE DO?

“We go on.”

INTO THAT MESS.

Ned pointed a flipper down the road. At the far end of it and beyond there were great red and yellow flames lapping at the darkness with the enthusiasm of a hound licking an ice cream cone.

“I suppose we must find our friends. They will be worried about us. They might even circle about to find us.”

“They think you're dead.”

Ned and Twain whirled at the sound of the voice.

The speaker came staggering out of the woods holding his head with one hand, a rifle with the other. It was Jules.

Twain leaped from the cruiser, grabbed his old friend, who suddenly collapsed to the ground.

“Jules. My God, man, what happened?”

“As you might suspect, the machines, my friend.”

“Where are the others?”

“Gone on. We were looking for wood, then we were looking for you.”

“We were detained by a machine. Ned and I were trapped in a farmhouse. We had supplies. But then we found this business.”

“They came on us suddenly. Steam was stoked up, though. Wood had been brought back and there was a fire in his belly. Or wherever the damn fire is. The machines saw us. Rikwalk took to them. He scampered up the side of one, tugged it down by hanging off it, letting his weight take it to the ground. He shoved a tree into it.

“Steam stomped the machine, grabbed the Martian out. Steam and Rikwalk got another one before the others came. Ten machines. Rikwalk and I decided we would detain them. There was a rifle in Steam. I took that and dropped out. The others were reluctant that we should do what we intended, but Rikwalk and I wanted them to go on. Passepartout knows how to reach Herbert. Herbert is the only reason to go to London. He is the only one who might save us. Our very planet. Either him, or Professor Challenger, if he can be found. But we sent them on. Rikwalk and I scampered into the woods, and the machines tried to follow. A ray was shot at me. It missed, but it hit a tree near me and the tree fell and I was hit.

“I don't know why I wasn't finished off. Maybe they thought I was dead. All I remember was hearing Rikwalk yelling at them. Trying to get them after him. I passed out. Then I awoke to the sound of your voice, Samuel. I have no idea what happened to Rikwalk. But I fear the worst.”

“If Wells is our best bet,” Twain said, “I suppose we too should head that way, into London. If Steam doesn't make it, then we must. And frankly, being a smaller target may work to our advantage.”

“Agreed.”

There was a little first-aid kit inside the cruiser, and Twain, using the meager resources of that kit, bandaged Verne's head. Then, with Ned at the controls, they were off.

The great fire before us made London seem near. But it was not. In fact, it was not only London that burned, but much that surrounded it. We cruised silently through many a charred village. Humans and animals lay littered about like tossed garbage. Carts and other vehicles were crushed and burning, and homes were often little more than rubble. There was a stink that rose up from the dead that was almost unbearable. Fish, when rotting, do not smell that bad, and in fact, rotting fish, if dipped briefly in seawater, and then eaten, really aren't that bad.

We had food in the cruiser that we had taken from the farmhouse. It was simple but acceptable under the circumstances. There had been a couple tins of dried fish in the wheelbarrow we had left in the woods, but neither Mr. Twain nor Mr. Verne wanted to go back after it.

I wanted to go back after it, but they overruled me. Sometimes democracy is not all it is cracked up to be.

But there were some potted meats and some dried cheeses that stank, and we ate that with some bread near hard as hammers, and drank water from a bottle Mr. Twain had taken from the farmhouse. It was better than sticking a sharp stick up your ass and cranking it, but only a little better. In fact, if you could grease that stick with butter, it might even have been the better deal.

We spent several days traveling, and along the way we encountered a couple of destroyed Martian machines.

“Steam,” Mr. Verne said. “He got some more.”

“He's been lucky to miss the rays,” Mr. Twain said.

“He didn't always miss them,” Mr. Verne said. “I saw him lose one of his metal fingers to one, right before I bolted into the woods. He's as fast as the Martian machines. It's really quite remarkable.”

“When they get to London, what are they going to do? Put him in their pockets? They can hardly sneak about with that big tin man.”

“I have no idea,” Mr. Verne said. “But Beadle and John Feather, and my good friend Passepartout, they are resourceful.”

“No doubt.”

We traveled by night and slept by day. Sometimes we slept in the woods, or down in gullies, and on occasion in abandoned or near-destroyed farmhouses.

Finally one morning, just as light was slipping through the shadows, we came to signs that told us we were on the outskirts of London. I would normally have been excited. I have always heard of, and have of course read much of London. But now I knew there would be nothing fine to see. From where we stood, was a view of black churning smoke and spits of flames, and even from that distance, the smell of death.

“We should find a place to hole up for the day, and even the night,” Mr. Twain said. “We need to be rested. Tomorrow we make London. Such as it is.”

We did find a place. A small grove of trees. It was comfortable enough, and we slept away the day, awakening at nightfall.

It was decided we wouldn't travel this night, or the next day. Instead, we would rest, eat plenty of food before proceeding on our journey.

We had a cold supper of canned meat, hard bread and water. There was little water left in the container, and it was decided, though it was dark, that we should venture out of the grove and cross over into the village to look for water.

On this last night before entering London, we had chosen to sleep outside the village for the simple reason that at night the Martian machines roamed such places looking for survivors. But with our water running low, and me needing a rubdown and feeling dehydrated, we took the cruiser back into town, came to a house where we found a water pump and were able to fill our bottle and douse me good.

We had no sooner accomplished that than we heard movement amongst a pile of ruins not far from us. Mr. Verne had the rifle Beadle had given him, a kind of scoop-cocking affair that Mr. Twain said resembled an American Winchester. He lifted it and listened.

No doubt about it. Something was moving amongst the debris near us, behind what remained of the ray-blasted walls. And it sounded huge.

We scampered back onto the cruiser and glided behind the remains of a cottage. Mr. Twain leaned out from the edge of the wall for a peek.

“My God,” he said.

“What is it?” Mr. Verne said.

“Ned, bring the cruiser out into the open.”

I hesitated for only a moment, then did as Mr. Twain instructed. Coasting out from behind the cottage I saw a wonderful sight, and even though my vision was clouded by night, there was enough light from the stars and the scattered fires from the burning village for me to know exactly what I was seeing.

Rikwalk, squatting, staring at us. When he saw us, he let out a whelp and came running, thundering along on back legs and front knuckles. In that moment he looked like nothing more than a huge gorilla.

As he came to the cruiser, he snatched Mr. Twain out of it, hugged him, set him on the ground, then did the same with Mr. Verne. I was third. Grabbed from the floating cruiser and hugged furiously, he placed me back gently behind the controls.

Mr. Twain and Mr. Verne remained on the ground. Mr. Twain said, “My god, you are all right. We feared the worst.”

“And so you should have. But here I am.”

“Come, let us go back to our place in the grove,” Mr. Verne said. “We can talk there. We have food.”

“So when they came, and I saw they were after you, I yelled to them, and they came after me —”

“And I thank you for that, my brother,” Mr. Verne said. “It was a brave and noble thing to do.”

“No. Not at all. You would have done the same. I ran, and they pursued. I went deep into the woods. On our world, my Mars, there is much foliage, and we use it to travel from place to place. There are even nets amongst the great trees for lounging, and many of our people go there for leisure, and there are homes built there as well. I live in such a place, not far from the locks where I work…worked. So I felt right at home. Except the trees are smaller… And it wasn't home.”

Mr. Twain reached out and touched Rikwalk's huge hand. “Easy, friend. If there is a way for you to return to your Mars, we will help you do it. I promise that.”

“I know,” Rikwalk said.

“Please,” Mr. Twain said. “Continue with your story.”

“There isn't much to tell. They pursued me through the woods, firing their rays, knocking down trees, causing a fire. I found a creek bed, and though I'm large, it was deep enough that I was able to make some passage down it, and then scamper up and into the trees. High up, amongst a thick growth of leaves, I hid. Wondering if the tree I was in would be hit by one of their rays.

“It wasn't, but as the machines came through, one of them smashed against the tree where I hid, and the might of the machine caused it to shake, and then the machine, somehow standing on two of its metal tentacles, used the other tentacle to grab the tree, and the machine pulled it up by its roots and threw it.”

“My God,” Mr. Verne said.

“The tree went for some distance and came down hard. Fortunately, I was on the clear side of its fall, and I was spared. I thought it had been grabbed because they knew I was in it, but it seemed that they were merely clearing a path, and the tree I was in happened to be blocking it. I stayed there amongst its limbs until the machine and its companions departed. When I was sure they were gone, I slipped away and have been moving slowly toward the town you call London ever since. I followed the road from a distance, not traveling on it itself, going mostly by night, sleeping in the day, but keeping it in sight as a kind of guide.”

Mr. Twain told him of our adventures, and when he was finished, he said, “We have decided to rest through this night, and all of tomorrow. Then when tomorrow night falls, we go into London. We felt, tired as we were, we should try and rest as much as possible. We have food. Can you use some?”

“I am famished, my friend. I found a number of canned goods, but I had to beat them open on a rock. A lot of the contents got splattered. I've mostly lived off bugs and worms, which, frankly, to me are a kind of delicacy, though I prefer them slow-grilled in garrodo
¹
fat.”

“I will not even ask,” Mr. Verne said.

Rikwalk grinned. We gave him the food we had left, and he polished it off greedily. With his belly as full as he could manage, and with half the water from our bottle in his stomach, he lay back and was immediately asleep.

It would have seemed that traveling by day, being up by night, we would not have been able to sleep as well. But it was quite the contrary. I lay next to the collapsed cruiser, and there, with a pile of leaves for a pillow, fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke, it was in the exact same position I had lain down, and my awakening was to the singing of birds and bright rays of sunlight lacing between the boughs of the trees.

The day was hot. I felt as if I were a dying bug specimen in a bottle, killing fumes rising up from the bottom of the bottle, the lid corked, and me with no place to go. Only the stink we encountered was not that of the killing jar, but that of the dead who lay bloated in the village and along the roadside.

It occurred to me, though I tried not to dwell on it, that odds were good that we might soon join them.

We stayed in our grove most of the day, talking, trying to plan strategy, but there was little to plan. The obvious and smart thing to have done would have been not to go into London, but to hide out and stay hidden.

But we were determined to reach Wells, and possibly find a way to get rid of these horrid invaders. We also spoke of Bull and Cat, the Dutchman, his ship and crew. Where were they? Had they lived through their traveling to another world? Was it another Earth? Mars? Hell? Would we ever know?