The Fiery Wheel by Jean de La Hire

Author:Jean de La Hire [La Hire, Jean de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2014-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

In which an individual as interesting

as Ahmed Bey is found

In the desolate regions of the planet Mercury, on the crepuscular plateau on the edge of the immensity of darkness, Paul and Francisco were continuing their struggle against death.

Ten Mercurians they had killed furnished blood and fire for fifty-six hours. The blood appeased their hunger and thirst; the fire diminished the mortal cold falling from the somber sky and coming from the infinity of darkness.

As the penultimate monopod was burning, Francisco said: “You stay here, Señor, while I go hunting. Sixty hours have gone by since the last message; we won’t receive another for thirty-six hours. We need to ensure that we don’t freeze to death before then. Not one of these monsters has stayed in the gorge, as you can see. When they saw that we were drinking their blood and burning their bodies, they ran away. They must have gone back down to the valley. I’ll go after them. In the meantime, you can burn the last one—that will keep you warm until I come back. I’m agile, I won’t be running any risk. You wouldn’t be any use to me, with your foot still hurting. It’s better for you to stay here. In three or four hours I’ll come back, and bring half a dozen of these monopods, as you call them. And perhaps I’ll also bring back news of Lolla!”

“It’s all right—go!” said Paul. He was absorbed by thoughts so sad that, without the hope of finding and rescuing Lolla as soon as his foot was completely healed, he would have let himself die. The arrival of Bild and Brad seemed to him to be very problematic; he dared not believe, in spite of the phenomenon of the projections, that the Venusians would find a way to allow Bild and Brad to travel from Venus to Mercury. In any case, all the strange adventures that he had lived through since his abduction from Bogota seemed so exorbitant that he still believed himself to be the victim of an interminable nightmare, and his energy was gradually declining.

Already, Francisco—who was more inclined to action than thought—had grabbed his pike and set off toward the mountain gorge.

Before leaping on to the luminous slope of the mountain, he turned toward Paul, waved his weapon and shouted: “See you soon, Paul!” And while the aerial echoes reverberated his cry with rolls of thunder, he jumped. Skillfully, he aimed for a spot twenty or thirty meters ahead, calculating his leap carefully, and set off. He scarcely touched the ground; his muscular and elastic legs flexed and straightened again, and he went down the mountain with vertiginous rapidity. Once again he had the sensation of the blinding light and the stifling heat; he was suffocating slightly—but he knew that the malaise would be temporary and did not pay much attention to it.

Without stopping, he traversed the broad plateau where Paul had been injured. There was not a single Mercurian to be seen.

They must have gone back to their city on the river bank, he said to himself.

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