8 The Conspiracy
Just as the sting was about to pierce my breast I recognized the bee. It was the same one which had been my companion in the spider web, and which I had rescued. There was the leg-stump and the scarred abdomen. What irony of fate that this bee should have now returned to kill me!
“Don’t!” I shrieked aloud. “Was it for this that I saved you from the spider?”
And it almost seemed as though he heard me and understood me, for he stayed his rapier in mid air. Then he recognized me, too. At least he must have done so, for in no other way can I explain his sudden clemency. Instead of finishing his stroke, the bee withdrew his sting, gazed intently on me for several seconds, and then flew heavily away.
Once more my life was saved!
When I had recovered my breath, I struggled weakly to my feet and looked about me. The plane was a hopeless wreck. The impaled bar-pootah was still in his place at the levers. The one who had jumped was lying crushed and silent near by. I was alone in a small open spot in the woods.
After ascertaining that the crushed ant-man was beyond all help, I started off in as nearly a straight direction as I could, lining up first one pair of trees and then another in order to keep from traveling in a circle. The absence of any direct sunlight made orientation very difficult, for without any shadows to judge by it was impossible to tell north from south or east from west.
Again, as on my second day on this planet, I noticed the peculiar fauna of the woods, and especially the strange birds which seemed to fly in tandem pairs. Finally, as I passed through a small clearing, a pair flew near me, and to my surprise I found that it was not a pair at all, but rather a single animal. In fact it was not a bird at all, but rather a reptile of some sort, resembling a lizard with a wing where each leg should be—a veritable flying snake about three feet long.
As this peculiar winged creature fluttered near and saw me, it uttered a shrill squeak and rushed at my head. The squeak was answered in various directions, and almost immediately several more flying snakes began to converge upon me from all sides. Luckily for me there was a stout stick lying close at hand, and seizing this I began to defend myself.
More and more of the strange aerial snakes arrived, and soon I was surrounded by a swarm of them, all striving to strike at my head, regardless of my frantic attempts to beat them off.
I was rapidly tiring from my efforts, when a diversion offered, in the form of a new enemy—a lavender colored hairless cat-like beast about the size of a large dog—which bounded into the clearing with a blood-curdling scream.
Forgotten were the flying snakes, as I clambered into a tree, just barely in time to escape this new onslaught. And forgotten, apparently, was I by them. For they scattered to the four winds of heaven, leaving me alone with the purple beast, which paced screaming beneath my tree. I felt perfectly safe where I sat, for the creature did not appear to be a climber, but its hideous howls were most annoying until I noticed that the noise came entirely from my headset. So I switched off the current, and instantly all was silence.
But even the silence and the comparative safety of the tree were not particularly pleasant. The beast was anything but pretty, resembling a mountain lion except that it was lavender colored and hairless, with antennae and webbed feet.
So this was the woofus, of which I had heard so much, the most dreaded carnivore of all Poros! One of these, it was said, was easily a match for three or four ant-men; so what chance had I, perched in my tree, if my captor chose to hang around until hunger and thirst should force me to descend?
But this question never was answered; for, luckily for me, something else presently attracted the attention of the woofus, and it trotted off into the woods. I switched on my radio, and heard its screams gradually fade away in the distance.
When all was silent again I descended, and picked up the line of trees which I had been following when I entered the clearing. Soon I came to another clearing. There in the center lay a crippled airplane and beside it the dead body of a huge ant. It was my own plane. I had traveled in a circle, after all.
In despair I sat down on the side of the airship. How was I ever to get out of this woods?
And then the fading daylight gave me a clue. To one side the silver gray of the sky was darkening, while to the other it was assuming a pinkish hue. I could now tell east from west, and if I hurried, and if the way was not too far, I could follow a straight line out of the wood while it was still light. So off I set, due west toward the pink of the unseen setting sun. Just as the pink light finally died out before me and all became jet black on every hand, I reached a concrete road at last and sat down exhausted on its edge.
I must have slept; for the next thing that I knew I was flooded by a bright light, and then a kerkool stopped beside me, and I was hailed by a cheery “Yahoo!”
The driver was a lone ant-man.
I struggled sleepily to my feet.
“Yahoo!” I said. “Whither?”
“To Wautoosa,” he replied. “Can I accommodate you?”
“You certainly can,” said I, “for I am from Wautoosa myself, and have just been in an airplane wreck, which killed both my companions, two bar-pootahs of the Imperial Air Navy.”
“Crawl in, then,” said he.
So I accepted his invitation and promptly fell sound asleep again in the bottom of the kerkool, where my new host had the decency to let me lie undisturbed.
In the morning we stopped at a roadside tavern, where I was awakened for breakfast. The driver of the kerkool was a rich farmer ant on the way to Wautoosa on government business from one of the southern provinces. He had heard of me, and was very much interested in my recent adventures; and I in turn was glad to find that I could talk with him quite fluently. We spent the morning chatting pleasantly as we rode along; and stopped for lunch at another tavern, where we ate a particularly delectable mess of fried mashed purple grasshoppers, served with honey.
In the afternoon conversation lagged a bit; and finally, to kill time, my host undertook to teach me how to drive the kerkool. The control was not unlike that of an earth automobile, so I caught on readily enough, and in fact drove the machine for the last hour or so, and into Wautoosa, which we reached just before supper-time.
There I bade farewell to the ant and proceeded at once to headquarters to report the loss of the plane to the winko, or admiral of the entire air navy. Then I returned to my quarters, where I bathed and changed, and had supper with Doggo, to whom I related the sad fate of his friends.
Tabby was there and was glad to see me. But I should not say “see,” for these pet buntlotes of the ants are totally blind, being guided entirely by their sense of smell, which is very keen. They smell with their antennae, as well as hear, these two senses being commingled in much the same way as we are taught on earth to regard the two components of radio waves: namely, electrostatic and electromagnetic.
But enough of Tabby’s methods of perception; Doggo informed me to my joy that the Cupian lady had been moved to quarters adjoining my own; and had expressed herself as no longer unfriendly toward me.
The next morning I called upon her.
I had now made sufficient progress with the spoken language, so that we were able to chat quite pleasantly together. She had me tell my entire adventures since my arrival on the planet, and punctuated my narrative with many pretty “ohs” and “ahs” at the various points at which my life was endangered and then spared. We parted very good friends, it seemed to me. At least she no longer regarded me as a repulsive wild beast, which was some consolation and encouragement.
In the succeeding days we became better and better acquainted, she telling me a great deal about her planet, and I in turn telling her about my life on earth. But I—warned by Doggo—never once suggested that she tell me who she was; and she on her part showed no inclination to do so.
Doggo, at my insistence, made no report to headquarters that her hostility to me had ceased.
Frequently she and I dined together. Our favorite dish was a stew of alta, the mushroomlike plant which the ant-men cultivate underground on beds of chopped tartan leaves. The secret of growing this plant had been carefully guarded by the Formians and has never been learned by the Cupians. It tastes much like chestnuts, only not so rich, and forms the chief part of ant diet, much like rice among the Japanese.
All this time I had seen nothing of my old enemy Satan; in fact, I had seen nothing of him since he had tried to kill me many months ago. I had dismissed him from my mind, and so was much surprised when one day he swaggered into my quarters in a particularly truculent mood. Doggo was with me at the time, and bristled up at the other’s approach. It was plain that the two did not care for each other.
“How is your pet mathlab from the planet Minos?” sneered Satan.
Now, to call a person a “mathlab” is one of the worst insults that can be offered on the planet Poros. It is as bad as to call a man a skunk, a sandless puppy, and a cur all at once in the United States, or a chameau in France. And although the insult was directed at me, yet it was spoken to my friend Doggo and it was he who had been really insulted.
Doggo kept his temper admirably, but answered the sneer with another sneer: “You forget yourself to speak so to a superior officer. My only explanation is that you have been chewing some saffra root.”
The saffra is a peculiar narcotic plant which is cultivated on Poros both for its anesthetic qualities and also for use in much the same way as alcohol is employed on earth. So that Doggo had virtually accused Satan of being drunk, which was both a charitable way of explaining Satan’s insubordinate language and a deadly insult in itself.
Satan clicked his jaws in rage, and hurled at Doggo the words: “I’ll get your number.”
To which Doggo calmly replied: “I’ll get yours.”
And to my surprise, the two rushed at each other and started fighting.
Never before having seen a duel between two ant-men, I did not then know how common duels are, nor that they transcend all rank. The proper formality for challenging to a duel is to say, as Satan had, “I’ll get your number,” and the proper formality for accepting the challenge is to speak as Doggo had spoken.
The battle was a sort of combined wrestling bout and fencing match, the two huge creatures tumbling over and over on the floor, each trying to get his mandibles at the other’s neck and each parrying with his own mandibles the thrusts of the other.
Finally, to my horror, Satan slipped by Doggo’s guard and fastened his jaws on Doggo’s throat. He could easily and instantly have severed Doggo’s head, but he apparently preferred to hold him for a moment and gloat over his victim, and this delay gave me the opportunity to come out of my coma, seize a chair, and rush to Doggo’s rescue.
But, to my surprise, it was Doggo himself who ordered me back.
“This is a duel to the death,” he said, “and it is not etiquette for any one to interfere.”
Satan turned his horrid eyes to me and remarked:
“Wait a few minutes until I finish your friend, and I will get your number, too.”
“Go to it!” I replied in English, not then knowing the correct formalities, but being perfectly willing to try my chances again with my old enemy.
“What was that peculiar remark?” asked Satan. “Mathlab language? Or perchance the way that half-wits talk on Minos?”
Keeping my temper, I answered: “What I said was for you to come and get my number if you can.”
This diversion proved unfortunate for Satan. He should have severed Doggo’s head while he had him in his power; for, while his attention was distracted by his conversation with me, Doggo suddenly wrenched loose and with a snap rolled Satan’s head upon the floor.
Then Doggo shook himself, went to the door, and called for assistance; and shortly three ant soldiers entered, two of whom removed the dead body, and the third of whom brought a paint pot and brush, with which he proceeded to paint on Doggo’s back, under Doggo’s own number and the string of smaller ones, the number which had been Satan’s in life.
So this was the meaning of the small numbers and also of the formal words used in challenging and accepting the challenge to a duel; Doggo had got Satan’s number in truth. And now, so far as I knew, I had no enemy on all Poros.
A few days later, in one of the corridors, I ran across the first male Cupian whom I had ever seen at Wautoosa. He was even handsomer than the Cupians whom I had met at the University of Mooni. In fact, he was the most handsome Cupian man that I have ever seen, either before or since. He had curly chestnut hair, a straight nose, and regal features and bearing.
But he seemed furtive and in a great hurry. Dragging me into a near-by room, he closed the curtains.
“Place your antennae close to mine,” he cautioned, “and radiate very softly. This is a matter of life and death to one who is very dear to both of us.”
“The beautiful Cupian?” I gasped.
“The very same,” he replied. “The Princess Lilla, daughter of King Kew of Cupia, illegally detained as a prisoner by the Formians.”
So that was why her identity was sealed!
“And who are you?” I asked.
“I am her unhappy cousin, Yuri, next in succession to the throne of Cupia,” he answered.
Yes, I had heard of him from his younger brother, Prince Toron, who had been my assistant in the laboratories of Mooni.
Yuri continued: “I have long loved the beautiful princess, but she ignored me. And so, blinded to all sense of right and wrong by my passion, I arranged with the Department of Eugenics at Mooni to have her kidnaped into Formia, for the purpose of forcing her to marry me and thus inaugurate a strain of perfect Cupians.”
I knew, from Toron, of Yuri’s great influence among the ant-men, due to his being the leader of the court party in Cupia who believed in the most abject adherence to the treaty of Mooni. And I could well believe that a splendid race would spring from this pair, the two most perfect specimens of all Cupia.
Yuri went on with his tale: “All of Cupia was turned upside down searching for the princess, but of course no searching by Cupians was possible in Formia, and the authorities of the latter country gave out no intimation that they knew the whereabouts of the princess. My implication in Lilla’s kidnaping was unknown to her; and so, on meeting me here at Wautoosa, she hailed me as a possible rescuer.”
I could restrain my indignation no longer.
“What duplicity!” I shouted. “I am tempted to try to get your number.”
But Yuri held up a restraining hand.
“Quiet, for Lilla’s sake!” he implored. “I do not blame you, for I am deserving of censure. But hear me out. Hear how I plan, with your aid, to atone for my crimes.
“Just as my suit was progressing admirably, you—Myles Cabot—arrived on this planet, and the plans of the Department of Eugenics abruptly changed from merely mating the two most beautiful Cupians to a really much more interesting experiment with a strange new breed.”
I shuddered, and Yuri smiled.
He went on: “At first I was jealous of you, and quite naturally so. Satan was a particularly loyal henchman of mine, and it was my influence that fostered and perpetuated his original hostility toward you. But now Satan is dead, so let the past stay gone. I no longer bear you any ill will, for I have seen that the Princess Lilla is even more averse to the stranger from Minos than she ever was to her devoted cousin. So now I am willing to take a chance on you as a rival, and enlist your support and assistance in my efforts to rescue our beloved princess from the Formians, and return her to her own country.”
All this he hurriedly told me in the room into which he had dragged me. Of course I was horrified at the part which he had played; but, appreciating his change of heart, I assured him that I was willing to help him rescue the Princess.
Then he outlined his plans.