A Voyage to Arcturus Part 9

"Oh, don't say that! There was nothing else to be done. We must all help one another. Yet, somehow--forgive me--I feel polluted."

"And well you may, for it's a fearful thing for a girl to accept in her own veins the blood of a strange man from a strange planet. If I had not been so dazed and weak I would never have allowed it."

"But I would have insisted. Are we not all brothers and sisters? Why did you come here, Maskull?"

He was conscious of a slight degree of embarra.s.sment. "Will you think it foolish if I say I hardly know?--I came with those two men. Perhaps I was attracted by curiosity, or perhaps it was the love of adventure."

"Perhaps," said Joiwind. "I wonder... These friends of yours must be terrible men. Why did they come?"

"That I can tell you. They came to follow Surtur."

Her face grew troubled. "I don't understand it. One of them at least must be a bad man, and yet if he is following Surtur--or Shaping, as he is called here--he can't be really bad."

"What do you know of Surtur?" asked Maskull in astonishment.

Joiwind remained silent for a time, studying his face. His brain moved restlessly, as though it were being probed from outside. "I see.... and yet I don't see," she said at last. "It is very difficult.... Your G.o.d is a dreadful Being--bodyless, unfriendly, invisible. Here we don't wors.h.i.+p a G.o.d like that. Tell me, has any man set eyes on your G.o.d?"

"What does all this mean, Joiwind? Why speak of G.o.d?"

"I want to know."

"In ancient times, when the earth was young and grand, a few holy men are reputed to have walked and spoken with G.o.d, but those days are past."

"Our world is still young," said Joiwind. "Shaping goes among us and converses with us. He is real and active--a friend and lover. Shaping made us, and he loves his work."

"Have you met him?" demanded Maskull, hardly believing his ears.

"No. I have done nothing to deserve it yet. Some day I may have an opportunity to sacrifice myself, and then I may be rewarded by meeting and talking with Shaping."

"I have certainly come to another world. But why do you say he is the same as Surtur?"

"Yes, he is the same. We women call him Shaping, and so do most men, but a few name him Surtur."

Maskull bit his nail. "Have you ever heard of Crystalman?"

"That is Shaping once again. You see, he has many names--which shows how much he occupies our minds. Crystalman is a name of affection."

"It's odd," said Maskull. "I came here with quite different ideas about Crystalman."

Joiwind shook her hair. "In that grove of trees over there stands a desert shrine of his. Let us go and pray there, and then we'll go on our way to Poolingdred. That is my home. It's a long way off, and we must get there before Blodsombre."

"Now, what is Blodsombre?"

"For about four hours in the middle of the day Branchspell's rays are so hot that no one can endure them. We call it Blodsombre."

"Is Branchspell another name for Arcturus?"

Joiwind threw off her seriousness and laughed. "Naturally we don't take our names from you, Maskull. I don't think our names are very poetic, but they follow nature."

She took his arm affectionately, and directed their walk towards the tree-covered hills. As they went along, the sun broke through the upper mists and a terrible gust of scorching heat, like a blast from a furnace, struck Maskull's head. He involuntarily looked up, but lowered his eyes again like lightning. All that he saw in that instant was a glaring ball of electric white, three times the apparent diameter of the sun. For a few minutes he was quite blind.

"My G.o.d!" he exclaimed. "If it's like this in early morning you must be right enough about Blodsombre." When he had somewhat recovered himself he asked, "How long are the days here, Joiwind?"

Again he felt his brain being probed.

"At this time of the year, for every hour's daylight that you have in summer, we have two."

"The heat is terrific--and yet somehow I don't feel so distressed by it as I would have expected."

"I feel it more than usual. It's not difficult to account for it; you have some of my blood, and I have some of yours."

"Yes, every time I realise that, I--Tell me, Joiwind, will my blood alter, if I stay here long enough?--I mean, will it lose its redness and thickness, and become pure and thin and light-coloured, like yours?"

"Why not? If you live as we live, you will a.s.suredly grow like us."

"Do you mean food and drink?"

"We eat no food, and drink only water."

"And on that you manage to sustain life?"

"Well, Maskull, our water is good water," replied Joiwind, smiling.

As soon as he could see again he stared around at the landscape. The enormous scarlet desert extended everywhere to the horizon, excepting where it was broken by the oasis. It was roofed by a cloudless, deep blue, almost violet, sky. The circle of the horizon was far larger than on earth. On the skyline, at right angles to the direction in which they were walking, appeared a chain of mountains, apparently about forty miles distant. One, which was higher than the rest, was shaped like a cup. Maskull would have felt inclined to believe he was travelling in dreamland, but for the intensity of the light, which made everything vividly real.

Joiwind pointed to the cup-shaped mountain. "That's Poolingdred."

"You didn't come from there!" he exclaimed, quite startled.

"Yes, I did indeed. And that is where we have to go to now."

"With the single object of finding me?"

"Why, yes."

The colour mounted to his face. "Then you are the bravest and n.o.blest of all girls," he said quietly, after a pause. "Without exception. Why, this is a journey for an athlete!"

She pressed his arm, while a score of unpaintable, delicate hues stained her cheeks in rapid transition. "Please don't say any more about it, Maskull. It makes me feel unpleasant."

"Very well. But can we possibly get there before midday?"

"Oh, yes. And you mustn't be frightened at the distance. We think nothing of long distances here--we have so much to think about and feel.

Time goes all too quickly."

During their conversation they had drawn neat the base of the hills, which sloped gently, and were not above fifty feet in height. Maskull now began to see strange specimens of vegetable life. What looked like a small patch of purple gra.s.s, above five feet square, was moving across the sand in their direction. When it came near enough he perceived that it was not gra.s.s; there were no blades, but only purple roots. The roots were revolving, for each small plant in the whole patch, like the spokes of a rimless wheel. They were alternately plunged in the sand, and withdrawn from it, and by this means the plant proceeded forward. Some uncanny, semi-intelligent instinct was keeping all the plants together, moving at one pace, in one direction, like a flock of migrating birds in flight.

Another remarkable plant was a large, feathery ball, resembling a dandelion fruit, which they encountered sailing through the air. Joiwind caught it with an exceedingly graceful movement of her arm, and showed it to Maskull. It had roots and presumably lived in the air and fed on the chemical const.i.tuents of the atmosphere. But what was peculiar about it was its colour. It was an entirely new colour--not a new shade or combination, but a new primary colour, as vivid as blue, red, or yellow, but quite different. When he inquired, she told him that it was known as "ulfire." Presently he met with a second new colour. This she designated "jale." The sense impressions caused in Maskull by these two additional primary colors can only be vaguely hinted at by a.n.a.logy. Just as blue is delicate and mysterious, yellow clear and unsubtle, and red sanguine and pa.s.sionate, so he felt ulfire to be wild and painful, and jale dreamlike, feverish, and voluptuous.