At least, I had thought they would knock me on the head beforehand rather than boil me like a live lobster.
In my natural fright and confusion it took me some moments to realize that the water, which had seemed scalding hot, was in reality no warmer to the epidermis than my usual morning tub. In fact it was quite agreeable. Judging by the violence with which it bubbled beneath my chin, it was not likely to grow much hotter.
This anomaly of sensation puzzled me mightily. By all rights I should be suffering agonies. Then, like a flash of lightning, I remembered the passing sidelong flick of Medusa’s left eye and the apparent lack of effect at the time. Her glance had in no way petrified me—but in some strange fashion it must have toughened my skin, which was now impervious to the normal effects of heat; and perhaps also to other phenomena. Perhaps, to cause the mythic petrification, it was necessary to sustain the regard of both the Gorgon’s eyes.
These things are mysteries. Anyway, it was as if I had been given a flexible asbestos hide. But, curiously enough, my keenness of touch was unimpaired.
Through the veering smoke I saw that the cooks were coming back, laden with baskets of vegetables. They were all getting drunker; and the chief was the drunkest. He lurched about, waving his war-club, while the others emptied their baskets into the kettle. Only then did they perceive that things had not proceeded according to culinary rules. Their eyes grew rounder and they yelled with surprise to see me grinning at them from amidst the steaming ebullient contents. One of the cooks made a pass at my throat with a stone knife—and the knife broke in the middle. Then the chief stepped forward, shouting ferociously, and hoisted his toothed war-club.
I ducked under water and to one side. The club descended, making a huge splash—and missed me. Judging from their outcries, some of the cooks must have been scalded by the flying water. The chief fared worse. Over-balanced by that mighty stroke, he lurched against the pot, which careened heavily, spilling much of the contents. Using my weight repeatedly against the side, I managed to overthrow the vessel, and rolled out in a torrent of water, smoke and vegetables.
The chief, yowling from what must have been third-degree burns, was trying to extricate himself from the brands and embers into which he had fallen. Limping, he got to his feet after several vain attempts and staggered away. The other cooks, and the expectant feasters, had already decamped. I had the field to myself.
Looking around, I noticed the broken-off sword which had been used in striking fire, and levered myself in its direction. Holding it clumsily, I contrived to work my wrist-fetters against the edge. The blade was still fairly sharp and I soon had my hands free. After that, it was no trick to untruss my legs.
The wine had worn off but there were many unemptied pots of it still around. I collected two or three, and put some of the spilled vegetables to roast amid the glowing coals. Then, waiting comfortably for the cannibals’ return, I began to laugh.
I was washing down a well-baked taro root with the second pot of wine when the first of them crawled out of the woods and fell prostrate before me. I learned afterwards that they were deprecating my anger and were very sorry they had not recognized me as a god.
They have christened me in their own tongue. The-One-who-cannot-be-cooked.
I wish that Pegasus would return.
THE DART OF RASASFA
Jon Montrose and his wife Mildred were passing Belaran, a sun obscured to earth-astronomers by a small dense nebula many million miles beyond Alpha Centauri. The sun’s existence had been discovered nine years previous by an expedition which had gone by to remoter spatial objectives. Jon and Mildred were the only crew of the space-flier Daedalus, in which they had left Earth two years before, and were making their maximum speed of several light-years a week by atomic power.
In their reflectors Belaran, a white sun similar to our own, displayed a system of seven worlds. The tint was unusual—most suns in proximity to nebulae were blue or red. They were nearest to the fourth world when the trouble began—a sudden and violent veering toward the planet, which lay to starboard. Jon’s quick inspection showed that the steering apparatus was in good order. Some obscure magnetic force, not classified by their instruments, was drawing them downward to the unknown world, which soon revealed a conformation of plains and mountains below. The plains broadened, the mountains leapt upward with tops and slopes that assumed color and sharp definitude.
“Gods! we’re going to crash!” Jon cried. He and Mildred watched helplessly as the vessel slanted past the high peaks with no visible snow and a lichen-like purplish vegetation. They dipped into a long steep ravine showing threads of water or other liquid at the bottom, and then landed on a sort of shelf, their prow plunging into soil and rocks deeply enough to hold the ship from sliding further.
Stunned and shaken by the impact, the voyagers soon regained full consciousness. They had held instinctively to the steering seat, but were bruised and bleeding in places. No bones seemed to be broken. The engines were silent. Air blowing in their faces drew their attention to the manhole in the slanted wall. It had been forced half open, and their atmosphere was tempered by a cool fresh breeze from outside which seemed to have no deleterious effects but was perhaps a little higher in oxygen than that to which they were accustomed.
Jon examined the atomic engines. They had been turned off automatically by a breakage in the rod which connected them with the steering-gear. The rod was made of carborundum and zysturium, the last-named a new element found on the moon and certain outer planets. How it had been broken, unless flawed, was a mystery: the alloy was harder than diamond.
Unless the break could be mended, they would be powerless to resume their journey. Jon cursed in a low but vehement voice, remembering that they had neglected to bring along any spare parts, and wondering if the local landscape would afford the required materials. If so, they had a furnace for smelting and fusing and could mend the rod, even if rather crudely.
He told Mildred the problem, adding: “There’s nothing to do but get out and hunt. Otherwise we’ll be stuck here till the Second Coming—of Christ, Beelzebub, or what have you.”
He packed a knapsack with food and a thermos bottle of coffee, and gave it to Mildred. Then, carrying slung from his shoulders a pick and shovel and a complicated new instrument for detecting all known minerals and elements up to a depth of ten or more feet, he forced the manhole lid open enough to climb out and descend to the ledge on a crazily slanted ladder. His wife followed, having strapped the knapsack about her neck.
They could now see much of the surrounding terrain. Far in the distance of the flat country below, towers or tall buildings glimmered. At their feet a series of rough projections in the stone made feasible their descent to the stream-bed where liquid pools and cascades gurgled between steep walls partly mantled with lichen or other short growth of the order of ice-plants.
They climbed down to the stream-bed, testing each of the salients carefully before trusting their full weight upon it. The pools were indistinguishable from common water at close view but might contain poisonous elements. They did not pause to test it but stepped across the stream and began to ascend the opposite side, stopping many times to try the detection instrument, which showed only minerals and metals of ordinary kind, including traces of gold, silver, iron, and mercury.
By slow degrees they worked diagonally toward the plain, crossing several ridges and streams, one of the latter a cataract which they had to circumnavigate laboriously. At last, on a downward slope, they found evidence of carborundum; and, not far away, a small deposit of zysturium. Jon started to dig. He had gone down about five feet and had struck the carborundum, Mildred stooping over him, when an interruption occurred. A heavy net of some clinging ropy material dropped over their heads and tightened. Beyond the meshes a group of incredible beings, reptile-headed but upright, bluish in color, with two hands and feet, were standing above them, holding the long handle of the net. One of these beings carried a sharp-pointed spear with which he touched them in turn, pricking through their clothes between the meshes. Unconsciousness quickly followed a spreading numbness at the touch of the spear.