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Volume 8314

MOON MAID AT THE EARTH'S CORE by ANDY NUNEZ

CHAPTER FOUR - THE POOL OF DEATH

When we returned, I checked in with Giuseppe. He was happy to report that the Mahar had located a tar pit not too far away from which we could find the raw materials to refine gasoline. It had taken whatever passed for time up to this point to assemble the materials from parts in the Mahars' laboratory and rig up the necessary distilling apparatus. We ate our usual Spartan meal, after which I insisted Ee-lah-na show me the pool she was talking about. Taking only my pistol, I followed her down a broad winding stairway that was off another spoke of the main hub at the center of the Mahars' city.

"How do you hear that thing's thoughts?" I asked her as we descended. It was a real novelty to be able to hold a conversation with somebody besides Giuseppe. Besides, I liked the diminutive Pellucidarian. The way she would look at me gave me a thrill. I tried to think of her just as another work-mate, but it was becoming more and more difficult.

"Where I am from, we can sometimes pick up the thoughts of others," she said, simply, a small smile on her equally small features. "Not word for word most of the time, but usually when they are tied to strong feelings, emotions."

"Wow," I said. "Can you read my mind?"

"I haven't tried. It's not something we consider polite where I am from. You wouldn't eavesdrop on Solame and Giuseppe would you?"

"Well, no, especially when they," I stopped short, still trying to get a handle on relationships. "I mean, are they, do they -"

"Are they mates? Not the way I am used to. One mates for life where I am from, but it usually is arranged by the families."

"That's the way I like it, too," I told her. "Where you come from sounds like a nice place, especially if they are all like you."

She blushed, which really stood out on her pale skin. "That is the problem. They are not all like me back home. I would not want to go back there."

We had reached the bottom of the steps and were now in a long passageway, still lit by the reflected sunlight arrangement. I could feel a dampness coming from ahead. Ee-lah-na's story was getting stranger by the moment, even considering the strange events I was already involved in.

"Well, it's got to better than being a handmaiden for Miss Round Heels of the Stone Age back there," I said.

"They are a people bored with what they have. Now, they want to make war."

"Sounds like the Nazis back home. Well, here we are, I guess."

Before us the passageway broadened into a vast amphitheater of rocks, leading down to a pool of black water. The rocks looked platform-like, set in tiers around the pool. I saw several pieces of debris littering the rocky ledges. Going over to examine one pile I found odd bones and two skulls. By the tooth marks on several of the bones, I had no doubt that the humans represented by these pitiful remains had been devoured, no doubt by either the Mahars or their servants. I wondered again at the devil's bargain we had made with the Mahar above us. Once we had given it what it wanted, would it try to destroy us, or go away and return with a renewed race bent on subjugating humanity once more?

"You are one brave lady," I said, looking at Ee-lah-na. She looked back at me with a strange intensity. I was about to say more when suddenly there was a shrieking above us, a growing screeching and rustling. I looked up, unsnapping my pistol, only to see a cloud of winged shapes bursting out of the ceiling. I took them at first to be bats, but when they drew closer, I could see that they were small flying lizards, some sort of dimorphodon. In all aspects, they mimicked their surface mammal counterparts, chattering and boiling around the room. Ee-lah-na screamed in response and clutched me closely. I put one hand over her head and held her tight, delighted at the feel of her small, luscious form against me. The lizards, while upset, did not attack, but formed into a cigar-shaped cloud and rushed out through an illumination port.

"I think I've seen enough," I commented, trying to break the tension.

She immediately wriggled loose from my embrace and stood back, flustered.

"I never knew they were here," she said. "Why do you suppose these people died here?"

"You don't know, do you?" I asked, wishing she had held on a little longer. "You are such a sweet, innocent lady. These bones here were gnawed on by the sisters of that oversized scaly stork up there. I learned that these Mahars were once the dominant race down here. They enslaved humans, and had these big ape-man brutes as servants. They also used thipdars as their personal bodyguards. You know what thipdars are, don't you?"

"Yes, the big flying lizards. We don't have such things at home." She reached out and touched my arm with her slender fingers. "Can we go back up now, Byron Jasper Wells? Now that you have told me about the nature of this place, I don't want to go back here ever."

"I'm sorry to spoil it for you," I said as we retraced our steps. "The Mahars used the same mental powers that allow you to read its thoughts to hypnotize humans. They would perform elaborate ceremonies down here. The queen, I am told, would lead one human out into the water and ritually dismember them while still alive. The hypnosis was so strong that the human would feel no pain, only stop functioning once its vital organs had been chewed off. It's horrible to contemplate, but that's how the Mahars got their kicks. I've shot several animals while I've been down here, but I never took any pleasure in killing a living thing. These Mahars aren't human, they have no ability to care, to feel sorry, to want to understand what they consider inferior beings, or to love." I stumbled the last out a little. I was still smiling inside after that bear hug she gave me.

"I sometimes think my people are like that," Ee-lah-na said. "They believed that all others are inferior, and that war is their only solution to relieve the overcrowded conditions of our land. Marriages were arranged, with only the thought of creating perfect offspring."

"A master race, selective breeding, and lebensraum - I'm sorry, living space," I barked with an ironic tone. "I've heard all those slogans back home. That's why my country went to war. We're fighting a dictator who believes that his people are superior to all other races, and that they should inherit the lands of the inferior humans, to the point of exterminating whole populations if necessary. No marriages outside the master race are allowed. They want blonde, blue-eyed children. Even though their dictator has coal-black hair. It's madness."

"My leaders would agree with this dictator perfectly," she said. "Even now they perfect their weapons of war. I ran away because the mate they were selecting for me was very cruel. He would even kick pets."

"Nice guy," I commented. "Well, we're back now. I think we need to have a word with the Mahar, if you're up to it."

"It depends on how forceful the thought waves are. The Mahar can be very intense, as when we first met her. I will try to ask it to keep its power low."

"Sounds like trying to send too much juice through too small an electric cable," I said. "Something's got to give. Ok, let me talk to Giuseppe first."

I found the wiry Italian examining a flask full of amber liquid at one end of the makeshift lab. The Mahar sat at the opposite end, still as a gargoyle statue.

"What's that stuff?" I asked. "You're distilling beer down here are you?"

Giuseppe smiled a face-splitting grin. "Not at all. If you want to drink this, you take a drink first, eh?" He unstopped the flask and held it under my nose.

"Gasoline!" I exclaimed. "You've got the real thing."

"With this, we can head south, find Sari," he said. I need to rig up some sort of cart to carry the stuff bubbling up out of that tar pit. It's going to take a while, but we should have enough to fuel your plane before we get old and gray."

"I didn't think anybody lived long enough down here to get old and gray. What about the flying newt over there? She didn't croak on us, did she?" I pointed to the immobile Mahar.

"She's a just sleeping, I guess." Giuseppe shrugged his shoulders. "I see her do that when she is done working and not eating. She never closes her eyes, just kind of goes into a trance for a while."

"Probably something to do with her cold-blooded physiology. Just as well. I've got something to discuss with you." I outlined my adventures at the pool with Ee-lah-na. "Who's to say that once she gets this Great Secret, she doesn't turn out enough sisters to start the party all over again? Humans fought hard enough before just to get 86'd again."

"Well, what do you propose?" Giuseppe scratched his curly head. "Do we go back on our promise and kill the thing before we leave? It hasn't offered to harm us."

"It needs us. I wonder what it eats now? Do we keep bargains made with monsters?"

"It's a thinking creature, like us. Do you want to start the whole superior being mess again? I have heard enough of your talk about this Hitler. Now you want to exterminate another intelligent being without cause."

"Without cause? Giuseppe, it eats humans."

He shrugged his shoulders. "It hasn't eaten us. We'll use the pale girl and talk to it before making any decisions. For now, help me run a tube to the storage tank over there. I am trying to keep the gas as refined as possible. After all, your plane is very sophisticated compared to the bi-planes I remember, yes?"

"Yes," I said, and we fell to work. After a period of time, during which we worked, the women brought us food, and then we worked some more

Later, the Mahar stirred itself. It seemed to shiver a bit all over, then it rose and looked over our work. I went and got Ee-lah-na and we formed a half circle around it. My hand was never far from my holster flap, uncertain of the thing's sincerity. I wondered what feelings existed within that scaly, reptilian body. To shorten this narrative, I am just giving the questions and answers, without the laborious translation by Ee-lah-na's mental telepathy.

"I went down and saw the pool while you slept," I told it. "Human bones were all about."

"That was many sleeps ago. Many of my sisters have left or died since then."

"You ate humans there, did you not?" I asked.

"Yes, and I am sure many more bones are beneath the waters of the pool. Shall we get to work?" The thing regarded me with its cold, remorseless gaze, and I could feel a hint of its hypnotic powers. Ee-lah-na did not seem overly stressed by the exchange, so I continued.

"Not just yet," I said. "You are now working with the same creatures you feasted on when you controlled the gilaks. Do you still look upon us as food?"

"The fact that you can communicate and make tools is supposed to change thousands of generations of Mahar thinking?" it asked, its unblinking gaze never leaving me. "For now, we understand the necessity of working toward a common goal. I wish to go to Phutra unmolested, and you wish to find advanced gilaks like yourselves. Have you found some reason to abrogate this agreement? You haven't, have you? What are a few old bones to you? Nothing."

I could suddenly feel a dizziness sweep me. The Mahar's eyes suddenly seemed huge, until they were about to swallow me. Giuseppe saw me swaying and shook me sharply.

"Wake up, Byron!" he shouted. "It's trying to control you."

I came to myself and held my pistol pointed at the creature's heart. I was amazed that my mind could have been subjugated so easily.

"You will never attempt to use your powers on any of us again." I told it. "You know that this weapon can kill you from a great distance. For now, we will keep our bargain because I come from a people that believe that their word is their bond. One slip from you, and I will splatter your insides from one end of this lab to the other. Do you understand?"

"Yes," it said, though, of course, its toothy beak never moved. "You will not speak of the past, and I will not speak of the fact that you are just as easily entranced and are just as violent as any of the other gilaks I have encountered. I wonder which one of us is the real monster?"

I refused to be baited further.

"Remember my words, and this shall be the end of our conversation," I said, feeling my jaw clench as I spoke, grinding out my speech. "We are both intelligent creatures. Your powers differ from mine, as do your feelings, or lack thereof. However violent we gilaks might be, we do not eat Mahars. The fact that David Innes did not exterminate you when he held the upper hand shows you how we of the surface feel about the rights of all sentient beings to exist. Don't make me reassess this on an individual basis. We work together, and when we arrive at Phutra, our relationship ends."

The creature vented a low hiss and clacked its long jaws, but otherwise made no comment, only to use our sign language to convey that it was ready to get to work. Ee-lah-na seemed relieved at this, and I led her back to Solame so that they could prepare food for our meals. Her luminous eyes never left the Mahar as we left and she shivered visibly.

"I have seen madness and cruelty," she whispered to me, "but never have I felt such a coldness. This creature's thoughts are like the chill of a mountain peak, where water is frozen. Blackness darker than the interior of a cave swirls around its mind. Byron Wells, I believe this thing is beyond our comprehension of evil. I never thought I could feel the thoughts of a monster, but that is what I have heard."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," I said, taking her hand. "Look, I'm not going to put you through that again. We have the sign language. That'll be enough. I don't think we can relate to this thing anyway. As you say, it's a monster. Say, what do you know of frozen water? This place is one big Hawaii."

"I don't know what you mean by Hawaii," she said, "but where I come from, there are lots of places where nothing grows, and on the mountain tops are patches of white frozen water. Our leaders have it sent for to cool their drinks. Only the powerful can have such a privilege."

"The more I hear of your home, the worse it sounds," I said. "Is it such an unhappy place?"

"No, it is not. It is just that our leaders have used speeches to make the people long for more than what they have. They now want to move out, to attack."

"Sounds like Nazis to me," I sighed. "I am glad you aren't like that."

We arrived at the door to the sleeping quarters she shared with Solame. "Byron," she said, squeezing my hand, "promise me that you will not let them take me back if I am found."

"I promise," I said easily. "I will defend you with my life. Back home, there was a people called Texans, and another people that they wanted to be free from ruled them. They had a device called a cannon, like my pistol, only bigger. The other people, Mexicans, came to attack them, and the Texans made up a banner, a piece of cloth with words on it, that said: come and take it. Anybody wants you, they have to go through me, because I'm going to tell them the same thing: Come and take her."

She looked up at me, and I saw something different in her eyes. It was an intensity that up until that point I was unfamiliar with. The rest of existence seemed to retreat away that instant, leaving us alone, standing there oblivious to all. Her hand was suddenly warm in mine, and I realized that I was crossing into a territory just as unexplored as when I passed through the polar opening. There wasn't much reasoning beyond that. My heart began to pound and feelings erased any logical thought progression.

I can't remember if our embrace was gradual or quick. I gathered her up, lifting her off her tiny feet as her slender arms twined around my neck and my lips hungrily sought hers. This was real passion, not the pulp kind where feelings remain unrequited or stilted until the story could end in a tidy package. We had been thrown together in close contact for many sleeps, years perhaps on the outside world. Right now, though, time had stopped, and all I knew was the sweet softness of her lips and the rushing of my blood in my veins as I held her luscious body close to my own.

We said nothing, but in my mind I was beginning to half-form ideas, words, fragments of what to tell her. Any further movement in that direction, however, was squashed when the door to Ee-la-nah's quarters flew open to reveal the tall, rawboned Solame. Her eyes blazed beneath the black tangled mass of her hair.

"What is this?" She demanded. "My servant giving herself to a man on my very doorstep. He has more important things to do that waste his time with your dalliance, you little tramp. Tell him goodbye swiftly, and enjoy this memory. Perhaps it will comfort you while you are being beaten." She reached out a tanned hand and roughly yanked the girl toward her.

I snatched away the offending paw so hard that Solame stumbled a bit. She looked to me in anger. "You will not beat this girl," I said, my own passion energizing my voice. "She has done nothing worth beating and has been through a terrible ordeal communicating with the Mahar. Yes, I do have to work on our escape, but I tell you this. If I find one mark upon her body the next time I see her, you will receive a beating - from me."

Solame stiffened in terror. "You would not dare!" She shrieked. "Giuseppe would-"

"Would what?" came a voice behind me. I half turned to see the Italian engineer. "I was wondering what was keeping dinner and I find you three arguing."

"Solame wants to beat Ee-la-nah because she found us embracing," I said, hesitating on the last part a bit. I could feel the heat in my cheeks. "I told her to lay off or I'd give her a licking."

"And she thought I would stop you," Giuseppe surmised. "She's a not so dumb. I don't believe in anybody getting a beating, but I got a this to say. If she touches the girl, I beat her myself and you can have anything that's left. Now, I a damn sight hungry and somebody better get some food going before I do get in a mood to spank somebody." He grinned and slapped my back. "Come on, Byron. Let's make some gas while they make something to give us gas, OK? Besides, I've got an idea about a special package for our trip."

"A package? What's the occasion? Without night and day, I can even begin to consider a calendar."

He chuckled briefly. "Well, this occasion is our leaving this place. The way you described your airplane, I don't think all of us will fit, even without the Mahar. Not to mention your not-so-little kitty."

Actually, Lightning had been my only gauge that a long time had passed. He was as long as I was tall, and probably outweighed me by a hundred pounds. In between sleeping and working, I had trained him much like I have seen guard dogs trained. He was highly intelligent, and his only drawback was that he was a cat, and had his own ideas about some things. He did have a sense of deferring to the family head, which was me, so he did listen most of the time. He was also pretty handy at finding antelope and bringing back enough for us all. Unfortunately, or perhaps, fortunately, he didn't like the Mahar at all.

When we got to our workshop, Giuseppe unrolled a sheet of parchment that the girls had produced for us to make notes on. This, however, was a complex diagram, complete with specifications. Giuseppe had written it down in Italian, which was unreadable. Still, it was easy to see that what he was working on looked a lot like a monoplane.

"Another airplane?" I asked him. "I don't see anything about an engine. Does the Mahar have a machine shop capable of turning out a Pratt and Whitney? A Rolls Royce Merlin, or a Hispano-Suiza, maybe?"

"We have two engines on your plane, Byron," he said, smiling. "They will be all we need. During our conversations, you told me how the Nazis used gliders towed behind transports to carry extra men and equipment. Without your bombs, you should have enough power to lift a light craft and its occupants, though you won't be able to do complex maneuvers. That's what this is. I designed it as a hollow shell with a wide wing to provide easy lift. Here you see how the tow cable attaches to the nose of the glider and the tail of your fighter. While duralumin would be the ideal material for the frame, we will have to do with local woods that will provide strength while being light."

"We will also need a loom to produce the fabric for the skin," I pointed out.

"Not necessarily. I believe that we could provide an adequate covering by using stretched hides, carefully sewn. It has taken me some time to perfect the design and work out the calculations by hand. Mahars don't use slide rules."

I noted his lapses in perfect English ended when he explained things carefully. "So, you get this thing built and then we get it airborne. What happens if it shakes apart?

"A chance we must risk. I think we can produce simple levers so that if it suffered damage, I could sever the cable and glide it to a landing."

"A controlled crash, you mean."

He rolled up the parchment and tied it with a piece of leather. "Let's just make every effort to ensure that doesn't happen. I calculate that we should be able to get the glider finished at approximately the same time as we finish refining the gasoline. The two girls should be able to help us with the hides and sewing. Lightning's hunting skills will get us the raw materials for the skin, and the Mahar can tell us which trees will provide the best wood for the frame. I also need to build a setup to draw wire so we can weave cables for the controls, even if it has to be copper."

We worked happily and steadily after that, but my mind was far from the painfully slow drip of the amber fuel from the filtration system into the storage containers. I was already considering bringing my airplane into the city's proximity and beginning to pour fuel into its tanks while we labored to construct a glider that would allow all of us to escape. Once in the kingdom of Sari, we would be free from having to work with the repellent Mahar. I would also ask David Innes to set Ee-la-nah free so that she could be with me, and not with that lunar loony Solame. At the end of our work period, I ate, but barely tasted my food as I gazed into Ee-la-nah's eyes. She smiled through the entire encounter, and I went to sleep dreaming of a happy future flying for the Emperor of Pellucidar.