Read Ebook: Headhunters of Nuamerica by Coblentz Stanton A Stanton Arthur Kyle David A Illustrator

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HEADHUNTERS OF NUAMERICA

There was a stunned sensation in Downey's head as he slowly regained consciousness. He had the feeling of one who has been drugged, or sandbagged; and for a moment he could not quite recall where he was or what had happened to him. He was only aware of a dull, hammering sound from somewhere in the distance; and aware also of the aching pain and the stiffness in every joint and muscle of his body. It seemed to him at first that his eyelids were glued together, and would never open; and when at length he forced them apart, he realized that he was in darkness, except for a faint light that slowly widened at the further end of a narrow gallery.

A low moan from just ahead of him caused him to reach out; and, more by feeling than by sight, he recognized the slim form sprawled full-length on the floor. Judith Barclay! As this name flashed across his mind, recollection came back with a great leap, and his tortured brain reconstructed the scenes of the last hour or two. The announcement of the outbreak of war, followed almost immediately by the appearance of the raiding planes! His appeal to Judith, when for the twentieth time she had shrugged her thin shoulders and refused him; then the alarm, and their flight together through the panicky crowds toward the air-raid shelters! Their terrified halt, when a bomb plowed up the street just before them; and their dash into an immense section of concrete pipe, where some construction work was under way! And, finally, the thudding sound of a concussion; Judith's scream--and darkness!

"Well, by thunder, that shell pretty near got us!" he reflected, scarcely wondering at the changed appearance of the pipe, which he attributed to the explosion. Then, as he reached out and felt for the girl's arm, he asked, "How are you, Jude? Hurt?"

"No, I'm all right, Mort," she answered, weakly. "Only, a little--a little funny in the head."

He glanced out along the tapering dimness of the pipe, and saw the light at the further end slowly widening. At the same time, the noise of renewed hammering came to his ears. "Well, the rescuers are getting here pretty quick," he remarked. "Guess the raid's over."

"Thank heaven!" she sighed. "I--I don't think this was a very wise place to choose, Mort."

He bit his lip, wondering why, even in their present grim location, her least remark should have the power to torture him.

"Don't you--don't you smell something peculiar? A little like ether?" she went on, in faltering tones; while he, as the light at the end of the gallery brightened to a glare, tottered to his hands and knees, and then fell back to the floor of the tube, feeling sick in the head.

"There's something wrong with the air, by Christopher!" he muttered; and then cried out in astonishment, "Say, do you see that?"

Downey thought that the strangers started back in surprise; but all that he was certain of was that, after a second, they were motioning him to come out of the tube.

This Downey was able to do only very slowly, while helping the girl, who was tightly clutching at a large beaded handbag. So painful was their progress that the man's mind, still dazed, had little chance to reflect on their rescuers' appearance. Doubtless the strangers were vaudeville performers who, caught by surprise, had had no time to change their costumes.

But when Downey finally came to the end of the tube and stared out, he gasped and staggered, clutched one hand to his forehead, and sank full-length to the ground, in reeling bewilderment.

Surely, the shock had turned his mind! The long marble lines of the Government buildings, which had dominated the scene only a short while before--they were no longer to be seen! The sandstone mansions of Bannerton Row, just to his left, had vanished! He was in the midst of a wide park, featured by gnarled old elms--gnarled old elms a hundred feet high, where there had been not even a sapling!

But if this were only a nightmare, why did Judith share it? For her dazed exclamations showed that her eyes told the same story!

As they breathed the clear air outside the tube, the hazes cleared rapidly from their minds; the strength seemed all at once to course back to their limbs, and they were able to rise to their feet. But each second only added to their befuddlement.

The red-and-green-clad men were but two out of a score. All wore kilted costumes, with bare arms and knees; and all were arrayed in bright colors: purple and gold, chrome yellow, crimson, and milky white. And all had crowded around them with wild exclamations, calling out in high-pitched tones that neither of them could at first understand.

At length, from amid the din, two cries made themselves evident, shrilling in a strange accentuation, "Who are you? Who are you? Where do you come from? Where do you come from?"

His answer was an outburst of laughter which, beginning in a low ripple, gradually rose to an uproarious crescendo.

This demonstration was checked by the arrival of a tall blue-and-orange-clad individual, who stood out from the others owing to a large gemmed silver star that crowned his bald pate.

Raising his left arm authoritatively, the newcomer instantly silenced the crowd; and, stepping toward Downey and the girl, spoke in slow, crisp tones that were quite understandable despite their foreign ring:

"Better tell us, sir, where you come from. I understand you were both found among the ruins."

"Yes, I guess that's right," Downey replied. "That is, the ruins of the bombing raid."

"Bombing raid?" several voices caught him up, sharply. "Bombing raid?" And the men turned to one another with muttered exclamations; while one or two put their hands significantly to their heads.

"I do not know what you mean, sir," said the star-crowned one. "Must I tell you we are a civilized people, and have had no bombing raids for three hundred years?"

Downey grumbled something beneath his breath, thinking this a poor time for jesting. But incisively over all rose the voice of Judith, "if you have had no bombing raids for three hundred years, then what year is this? Didn't we go through a raid only a little while ago?"

The starred one cast Judith a piercing glance, and replied, contemptuously, "I suppose, then, you're forgotten this is the year 314!"

"That is, 314 by the new reckoning," another voice explained. "2270, if you prefer the Medieval calendar."

Downey and the girl stared at one another, dumbfounded. Could it be that they had slept for more than three centuries?

"Do not forget," the starred one continued, fixing Downey with a severe scowl, "we have yet to account for your presence here. A few days ago, digging among the ruins left by the savages in their war hundreds of years ago, we came across a big concrete tube which, on being opened, gave out fumes that produced temporary unconsciousness in the investigators. Later, as they worked with gas-masks, you two were noticed within. It is evident that you entered sometime after the first opening was made, while the workers lay drugged by the fumes. But where did you come from? That is what we cannot understand."

Downey's mind reeled. An explanation, amazing and yet barely possible, had flashed over him. What if the impact of the explosion had sealed both ends of the concrete tube where he and Judith had sought refuge? What if the tube had been buried beneath the earth, to remain there for centuries? What if the poison gas released by the bombs had entered their retreat, too diluted to kill them and yet strong enough to produce suspended animation? He remembered reading of a new war gas which could cause precisely that effect; and he knew that such substances did exist in nature: as, for example, the paralyzing fluid which the hunting wasp injects into the spider, to keep it indefinitely alive though seemingly lifeless. If such a poison could operate for weeks or months, what was there to prevent it from being effective for a year? for ten years? even for three hundred years?

Then might this not be what had happened to Judith and himself? In their profound unconsciousness, time would have no meaning for them; generation after generation might be born, grow to maturity and old age, and pass away while they slept their dreamless sleep, to be awakened at last when the opening of their tomb had released the poisoned fumes and let in some pure air.

But his new acquaintances were not to be convinced by his explanation. "I do not know where you are from," said the starred one, while his green and orange costume glittered brilliantly in the sun. "You do not talk like natives of our Nuamerica. You know our speech as if from old books, and there is a foreign ring to your voices. Your clothes are strange and clownish--I half believe you have robbed a museum. Either you are foreigners who have no passport, or fugitives who seek an outlandish disguise. For that reason, I proclaim you under arrest! You will come with me to be examined by the High Councillor!"

To the accompaniment of a sound as of rattling chains, three men stepped forth from the crowd. Each drew out a little pistol-like machine, and pressed the trigger; and from the muzzle of each apparatus there shot forth thin shining wires, which, with incredible swiftness, wound themselves about Downey and the girl, binding their arms to their sides beyond possibility of release.

Then, with a brusque "Come!", the starred one stalked away; while the two prisoners, poked and shoved by half a dozen guards, started slowly down an avenue of elms toward the huge triangular doorway of a remote building.

As they passed along the tree lined boulevard, their eyes were attracted to several edifices of strange forms and colors. Some were shaped like gigantic mushrooms, and were of a sky-blue complexion; others were like huge inverted sea-green funnels; while the queerest of all was an enormous crystalline sphere that rested on a wide base of black marble. "You see, Jude," Downey remarked, "this is the twenty-third century, sure enough. Was anything like this ever known in our own time?"

"They do look crazy," Judith admitted, "but I'd be crazier yet if I believed what you want me to. We must both be dreaming. That's the simplest explanation."

On reaching the triangular doorway, they passed into a hall whose softly glowing walls were lined with a satiny claret-colored cloth. The floors were of alabaster; the air was rich with pine-incense; and the golden incense burners, upon ebony tables, gave something of the effect of an Oriental temple.

But it was not this that arrested the newcomers' attention. Their eyes were immediately drawn to a figure who, clad in lush crimson, sat on a throne that dangled ten feet above the floor, being suspended from the ceiling by chains. As Downey adjusted himself to the subdued light, he was able to make out that the man was old, very old; his face was seamed and pitted until it might have been mistaken for the mummy of Rameses.

Yet his movements belied his age. He was able to act with the swiftness and decision of youth; and his words, when at length they came forth, were spoken rapidly and with force.

Surrounding him like courtiers, on the floor of the hall, were half a dozen elaborately robed men with faces as creased and scarred as his own. Yet all, despite their appearance of extreme age, moved with an almost youthful robustness; their bodies seemed erect and well developed, with none of the flabby or wizened quality that might have been expected to belong to their years.

It was with a vague discomfort that Downey noted the owlish stares these ancient beings cast at him, nudging one another, and ogling him with unhealthy peeps and squints. In his eyes they were the most repulsive creatures he had ever seen.

Judith, also, appeared to have something of the same feeling. Pressing close, she whispered into his ears, "What is this? The hall of the Harpies?"

The silver-starred dignitary, who had preceded them into the hall, had paused before the suspended throne, and was speaking to the crimson-robed old man, whom he addressed as "High Councillor." Downey could not make out much of his words, but could see how he paused occasionally to point to Judith and himself; and he noted with apprehension the avid gleams in the eyes of the High Councillor, who stared down half curiously, half malevolently at the two prisoners as they stood silently amid the guards.

At length the Councillor motioned the starred one away; beckoned Downey to approach him; and spoke, in the high, piping tones of advanced age:

"Stranger, I do not know where you come from: whether you be a spy from across the ocean, or one who was hidden away by misguided parents in order to escape the Decapitation Draft. In any case--"

"What is the Decapitation Draft?" Downey could not help breaking out.

The Councillor's fist came down angrily, pounding at the vacant air.

"Do not think to save your head," he shrilled, "by pretending ignorance of one of our most honored customs! As I was about to say, unless you can satisfactorily show where you come from, you will be sent to the body-testing rooms; and if you pass, as I believe you will, judging from your sturdy-looking frame, you will be put on the list for early decapitation. Such is the law of Nuamerica, of which I am the local administrator."

Downey gasped. Could it be that every one in the twenty-third century was mad?

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