Chapter 8 THE MERCURIALS.

Professor Quinn and I were sitting on a large box constructed of metal that was polished to dazzling brilliancy. So far as our purposes were concerned, this box was nothing less than an elevator; we had fallen upon it and it had carried us down into the wonderful interior of the planet.

Now, truly, we were in another world-a world that teemed with life-a smiling and pleasant region underlying a most barren and inhospitable shell. The scoriated exterior of the planet was the husk; here was the kernel.

It was a white world, extending league on league in every direction and roofed with a lofty vault that sparkled as with stars. From every hand came a bee-like hum, proving that we were in a hive of industry and life.

Houses spread out before us in rows, queerly shaped structures that looked as though they might have been built of alabaster, and so diminutive that the tallest scarcely came more than head high. Back of the houses were fields thickly covered with nodding blossoms that looked like snow; through the fields ran waterways dividing each into small squares.

So intent were we on the background of this strange picture that we failed to take account of what was going on in our immediate vicinity.

Suddenly a weird creature hopped to the top of the box and stood between my companion and myself, regarding us fixedly. This, I supposed, was one of the Mercurials. If he considered the professor and myself objects of curiosity and surmise, we were no less keen in so regarding him.

He stood twenty-three or twenty-four inches high; his head was an ivory billiard ball, and his trunk a larger spheroid; from his middle downward hung a red kirtle. He had one eye at the front of the head and an ear at the back; the olfactory organ was missing, but there was a mouth opening perpendicularly under the eye.

The upper spheroid rested directly on the lower; and at each side of the lower one, corresponding to the shoulders, were two tentacle-like arms, sinuous as whips and ending in hands that were made up of a palm and seven digits. Queerest of all, there were two more arms set in the breast and back.

From the creature's shoulder was suspended a round object like a canteen. For all of five minutes Quinn and I eyed this surprising figure and were eyed in return.

"Can you talk English?" asked the professor at last.

It was a foolish question, such as I was far from expecting from the professor, but something had to be said, and I suppose that was as good as anything else. As the professor began speaking the head whirled squarely around, presenting the ear.

After my companion was done, the head spun back again, and the breast arm caught the canteen while the fingers of a shoulder arm began manipulating a set of keys. The result was language, with all the variations of tone and accent. But it was an unknown tongue, if an expression of that kind may be allowed in such a case.

Since the word-box was as ineffective as our own speech, we fell back with more success on the language of signs. At this the Mercurial had the better of us, for he could make signs with four hands.

The professor signified that we were hungry, and the Mercurial signified that we were to descend from the box. This we did, and found ourselves in the centre of a group of Mercurials whose word-boxes were chattering like so many magpies.

The Mercurial with whom we were already on gesticulating terms played off some orders on his own canteen, and two of the others advanced upon the box from which we had just descended. Pulling out a slide in the side of the receptacle, they exposed two ewers of steaming food, and we were motioned to fall to.

We stood not upon the order, but obeyed instantly, using a pair of small paddles which were thrust into our hands. I had no idea what the food might be, but it was tender and of good flavor.

"A bright little people," observed the professor as he ate.

"Seemingly," I responded.

"Nature has denied them the power of speech, yet see how they have surmounted the difficulty. I must give that talking machine of theirs a close inspection. We are in a most wonderful country, Mr. Munn."

"The little I have seen of it already quite dazes me," said I. "What a pickpocket a man could make of himself with all those hands!"

Quinn gave me a reproachful look, and I hastily apologized for even mentioning a branch of my profession.

"Do you understand now," said he, turning the subject very pleasantly, "what those bright objects were which we saw on the tops of the low hills?"

"No," said I.

"They were ovens," he answered. "Food is put in them and sent up to the hot surface of the planet. When properly cooked it is lowered again."

Association with this learned man was a liberal education in itself. I can never be sufficiently thankful to fate for causing our paths to cross.

"You think, then," said I, "that we were blown to the top of one of the hills and fell into a shaft used by the traveling ovens?"

"Nothing else could have happened."

The professor gave a start and looked worried.

"Dear, dear!" he exclaimed. "I was quite forgetting our friends. While we are here feasting and taking our ease, they are battling with the storm, and are no doubt in peril of their lives. How very, very thoughtless we are, Mr. Munn."

I was not greatly exercised over the matter. The trust magnates believed that there was a figurative gulf between myself and them, and I was more than willing that this gulf should grow from the symbol to the reality.

"I doubt if we can return to the outside of the planet at present, professor," said I, "and even if we were able to do so, what could we accomplish in the face of that tremendous storm?"

"True, very true," said he.

"That oven," said I, by way of taking his mind from the plutocrats, "must have been very warm when we landed on it and descended to these regions."

"We should have been grilled, sir," returned the professor, "but for the fact that we are coated, and our clothing impregnated, with my anti-temperature fluid."

"These Mercurials appear to stand the heat pretty well," I remarked.

"Covered, as we are, with the anti-temperature compound," he returned, "it is impossible for us to judge, even approximately, of the degree of heat that obtains in these sub-Mercurial regions. Naturally it must be very much less than prevails on the surface of the planet, and yet, even at that, if left unprotected we should probably be shriveled to cinders."

"Hardly, professor," I ventured to protest. "Those fields"-and I waved my paddle toward the open country-"are growing rank with a white herb, which is evidently cooked in these ovens and served for food. Quite likely we are eating of it now, and very good eating I find it. However, the point I wish to make is this: If the heat was so intense as you surmise, those fields would be wilted and dried up."

"Nature, Mr. Munn," answered the professor, "adapts itself to every condition. On our own planet we see how life and comfort are rendered possible in every zone from the farthest north to the tropics; and this same adaptability of intelligent creatures to their environment, we may be sure, proceeds throughout the universe. These one-eared, one-eyed, diminutive creatures are formed in the manner best calculated to afford them comfort and happiness amid these surroundings. And, as with them, so with the products of their husbandry."

"You could argue a squirrel out of a tree, professor," said I, with whole-souled admiration. "I am sorry I did not take a course of scientific training, for it would have helped me immensely in my business. A burglar should be an all-around man. If I ever return to Terra--"

"So long as you feel as you do regarding your odious profession, Mr. Munn," broke in the professor, compressing his lips, "you will never return to Terra."

"A return is possible?" I asked, hiding the wonder his words aroused.

"Anything is possible."

"How about the millionaires? Are they to return provided the means are at hand?"

"Provided they experience a change of heart. In their present state of delusion, they are mere firebrands of destruction. Before they ever again take part in mundane affairs, they must be taught to see things differently. I wonder what has become of them?"

The professor's brow clouded with anxiety.

"Don't fret about them, professor," said I. "They are not overeager for our society. Let them have a taste of shifting for themselves without your knowledge and resourcefulness to shield them from everything that goes wrong. It will do them a world of good."

"Perhaps you are right, Mr. Munn," my companion answered musingly. "If I could know they had survived the storm, I should feel tolerably easy in my mind. These little Mercurials appear to be a friendly people, and if our comrades escaped that frightful tempest they must sooner or later fall into the hands of these dwellers of the under-world."

"I suppose," I ventured, seeking to draw my companion's mind from the plutocrats, "that this Mercurial under-world is another illustration of the way Nature takes care of her protégés. After baking the outside shell of the planet to a degree that makes all life impossible, she thoughtfully scoops out the interior so that these small creatures will have a place to go."

"You have stated the case correctly, Mr. Munn," and the professor's face lighted up as he swept his gaze over the country immediately adjacent. "These ovens," he proceeded, "are a remarkable example of adapting means to an end. The fierce heat of the surface does the cooking."

"Popham will find little pleasure in that," I laughed.

"Like the rest of us," answered the professor grimly, "he will have to accustom himself to new conditions."

"Everything must be different here from the surroundings with which we have been familiar all our lives. I wonder what form of property is considered most valuable to these Mercurials?"

The professor frowned. My mind was running in its old groove despite its novel environment.

"That query was inspired by an unworthy motive, Mr. Munn," said Quinn severely.

I bowed humbly. "Every man his own way," said I. "I cannot help trying to adjust myself along the line of the principles I know best. Nevertheless I am of an intensely curious disposition, and those talk-boxes fill me with wonder."

"The Mercurials are dumb, it seems," answered the professor, "and they have to resort to purely mechanical means for an exchange of ideas. Language appears to flow readily enough from the little boxes."

"If any one of them ever lost his four hands," I observed, "he would not only find it impossible to help himself but would be unable to tell others what to do to help him. Nature has been prodigal with them in the matter of hands, and in this, no doubt, showed her usual wisdom."

"I am glad to see your thoughts taking a philosophical trend, Mr. Munn," said the professor. "It argues well for your future."

By that time we had emptied the receptacle of food, and as we dropped our paddles and drew back, the word-boxes of a hundred Mercurials shrieked despairingly. The pygmies clustered about the empty basins, glared into them, and then turned their menacing eyes on the professor and myself.

"Goodness me, Mr. Munn," exclaimed the professor. "We have probably eaten the food supply of the entire district. If we do not have a care, our voracious appetites are like to prove our undoing. Look, there come more of the Mercurials. They're after their supper, I'll warrant, and they are going to be disappointed."

I looked in the direction indicated by the professor, and saw a long line of billiard balls rolling our way.

It was a procession, headed by a pompous little Mercurial whose trunk and arms were gorgeously gilded. With two of his hands he carried a metal plate and spoon, and with the other two he wielded a silver baton about the size of a match.

Plates and paddles were also carried by the rest of the advancing Mercurials, their word-boxes chanting a sort of quickstep. The sight of the professor and myself, towering mountain-like over the throng about us, brought the procession to an abrupt halt with a squeak of dismay.

The gentleman in the red kirtle went forward and held converse with the gentleman of the gilt torso. Before they got through, their word-boxes were fairly roaring, and stricken groans went up from every talk-machine in the line.

The advent of two leviathans like my companion and myself must have had a demoralizing effect, but that seemed as nothing in comparison with the harrowing results of our voracity.

The leader raised his baton. Silence fell. The leader then advanced to where we were standing and circled around us, examining us critically with his solitary eye.

The survey finished, he tried his word-box on us, the professor answering in all the languages of our home planet, living and dead, of which he was master. But in vain; we could not come to an understanding.

The begilded gentleman finally gave over and whirled on the underling in the red kirtle. His fingers flew over the keys of his canteen, and speech of a swift and commanding kind was poured out.

A skurrying about of the oven tenders resulted. From somewhere a fresh supply of uncooked food was brought and placed in the huge metal box.

While this was going forward, Quinn suddenly seized my arm, a troubled look crossing his face.

"What is the matter, professor?" I asked.

"Matter enough, Mr. Munn!" he answered. "The lever was left on Number Five!"

His thoughts were up with the steel car. I was surprised at this, for it appeared to me that there was more than enough to claim our full attention right in our immediate vicinity.

"And what of that, sir?" I asked.

"The anti-gravity cubes lighten the car by five degrees," he answered excitedly. "Thus buoyed, and in its elevated position, I doubt if the car should hold its own against the fury of the storm!"

"You think it has been blown--"

"Aye! Blown to the uttermost parts of Mercury and perhaps wrecked and lost-lost with all our scientific apparatus and other paraphernalia!"

"But--"

"And that is not all," went on the professor. "The lever should have been thrown to zero and then removed to prevent Gilhooly from tampering with it. Who knows what that mad railway magnate may take it into his head to do? Suppose he were to grasp the lever and give the cubes their full power. He would be launched into the void, sir, and we should be marooned on this sun-baked planet, compelled to live out our lives with these one-eyed quadrumana, devastating the country of its food supply-our presence a curse instead of a blessing!"

I had already imagined a possible return to Terra, and from this it, seemed that the professor had not lost sight of that contingency.

"What is to be done?" I asked, catching some of his excitement.

"We must return to the outer shell-we must find the car-we must go back on the oven when they send it up!"

As he finished speaking, Quinn ran frantically to the metal box and leaped to its top. I followed, clumsily upsetting a half dozen Mercurials who chanced to gel in my way.

The oven was loaded by that time and ready for its return to the intense heat; nay, more, the chef in the red kirtle already had his hand on a wheel which presumably released the lifting power.

Our movements, however, had acted as a check on proceedings.

"We've got to go back!" cried the professor, forgetting in his stress of feeling that his words were lost on the throng around us. "Don't attempt to stop us, don't! We'll return--"

The Mercurials began leaping to the box from all sides in a veritable swarm. Carried away by the excitement of the moment, I sank to my knees and swept my arms about me, throwing them back pell-mell.

The professor also resorted to violence. In the midst of it all, I caught a glimpse of the gilded gentleman aiming his baton.

A moment more and there was a lurid flash, which enveloped my companion and myself in a billow of violet fire. Every atom of strength was drawn from my limbs, and I fell limply to the ground with the professor on top of me.