The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series (83 page)

Directly in front of him was a grassy glade. In the midst of this open space there stood the supple, half-naked figure of a young golden-haired girl whom the Professor instantly recognized as Darya of Thandar.

At her feet, writhing in slow death spasms, were heaped the thick, glistening coils of the most enormous python the scrawny savant had ever seen. It seemed to be without a head!

Between the Professor and Darya stood a tall, well-built white man, facing the Cro-Magnon girl with a smoking Mauser rifle clenched in his hands.

His back was turned to the Professor, but the old scientist saw with amazement that the man had close-cropped silver-gray hair topped with the battered remnants of an officer’s cap—an officer’s cap such as those worn by the German Army during the Second World War.

The man was completely clothed in garments of faded khaki, very much worn and carefully repaired, but little more than a collection of scrupulously clean rags held together by needle and thread. The desert boots he wore were dilapidated and long unpolished, but scrubbed clean.

Taking a deep breath, the old man stepped forward and put the point of his spear between the shoulder blades of the German, who flinched and tensed all over, but did not move or even turn his head.

Darya blinked incredulously at the sudden appearance out of nowhere of her lover’s friend, then smiled.

“I say, my dear, are you hurt at all?” quavered the Professor in a shaky voice. “If this brute has dared to lift a hand against you, I’ll—I’ll—”

In his excitement, the Professor spoke in English, although he knew quite well that the Princess of Thandar knew only a few words of that language. But the man into whose back the point of his spear was pressing was acquainted with the language, and turned to look with amazement at his attacker.

He saw a scrawny old man in tattered bits of fur, wearing an absurdly large and very dirty sun helmet, with a white goatee and pince-nez glasses perched insecurely on the bridge of his nose.

All three looked at each other in wordless astonishment, while at their feet the giant reptile slowly, slowly, died.

* * * *

Recovering from her surprise, Darya lifted her own spear and touched the German officer upon the wrist. He knew precisely what she wanted him to do—drop the rifle—but as the weapon was not on safety and had a hair-trigger, he was reluctant to do so. Addressing the old man at his back in only slightly accented and formal English, he said gently:

“With your permission, sir, I will lower my rifle to the ground, as to drop it might cause it to fire.” His voice had good timbre, resonant and cultured. The Professor nodded crisply.

“Please do so, and take care!”

The rifle safely laid at his feet, the officer lifted both hands in token of surrender and spoke again.

“If I may introduce myself, sir, I am Oberlieutenant the Baron Manfred Von Kohler, late of the Ninth Attack Group of the Afrika Korps, at your service!” Worn bootheels clicked together as the officer made a slight bow. “I assure you, sir, that I meant no harm at all to the
fraulein
; my weapon was at the ready in case the serpent was not entirely dead.”

The Professor came out of the bushes and looked his prisoner over narrowly. The officer was no longer a young man, and had suffered many privations in the jungles of Zanthodon, from the tattered but patched condition of what remained of his uniform, but his keen blue eyes were candid and alert and his voice was steady.

For his own part, Manfred Von Kohler was examining the old scientist with equal interest and curiosity.

“English?” he inquired with a slight smile. The Professor shook his head.

“American—although I have spent much time in England, and, for that, Germany, too—although of course that was after the…the…”

The Professor let his words trail away awkwardly into silence.

“You meant to say ‘after the war’?” the German said, completing the Professor’s remark. And it was not really a question. The Professor looked a trifle unhappy.

“Yes,” he said simply. The Baron looked at him for a moment, and then in quiet tones, asked the question.

“My country lost the war.” Again, it was not really a question. The Professor nodded, and Manfred Von Kohler drew a long, deep breath.

“So. Thank you for your candor,” he said softly. “The…Russians, I suppose?”

Professor Potter shrugged. “The Russians, yes; and the Americans, and the British, and the Free French.…”

The German nodded with a touch of sadness in his eyes.

“So,” he breathed. “I knew it was a lost cause. To take on the whole of the civilized world was pure madness…I was only a boy when I entered the Army, but even then I knew it was madness. Still…all of these years we have spent in this fantastic world under the sands of the Sahara, with never a word of news, one could not help but entertain…hopes.”

The Professor cleared his throat. “I…um…I’m sorry,” he said. The German shook his head with a polite smile.

“Not at all. If I may presume, you will be wondering what I am doing here.”

“As a matter of fact—?”

Hands still raised, the officer gave a brief explanation.

“My group was cut off from the main body during a desert battle,” he said quietly. “When our vehicles ran dry of petrol, we attempted to cross the desert afoot. A sandstorm drove us into seeking refuge in a cave. When the blown sand blocked the entrance to the cave, and we thought we should soon suffocate, we discovered that fresh air was coming from the other end of the cave. We followed the tunnel as it sloped down and down into darkness, and in time we found ourselves emerging into this perennial daylight, in a world left over from prehistoric ages in a cavern larger than we could comprehend. Ever since then, we have been trying to find our way back to the surface, but without any success, I fear.”

“An amazing story, simply amazing!” breathed the Professor. The German shrugged.

“We have been here ever since,” he finished. “It has been…many years now.”

“It has indeed,” agreed the Professor sympathetically, and he refrained from telling just
how
many.

“There are more of you, then?” Potter asked.

“In the beginning, we were three score, although several were wounded in the desert battle,” said Von Kohler. “The fantastic world, as you know, has many perils. Some of our numbers we lost to the depredations of the great prehistoric beasts, others to swamps, earthquakes, fever. But four of us remain alive, including myself. There is my superior, Oberst Hugo Dostman, who was very seriously mauled by a stegosaurus and whom we do not expect to live, and two soldiers, Corporal Schmidt and Private Borg, good and loyal men both. We are encamped not very far off; I came ahead to scout the safest path to the sea, and arrived on the scene just in time to assist the
fraulein
in eluding the fangs of the monster serpent.”

Professor Potter was busy absorbing this latest of the many surprises Zanthodon’s jungles hide, and so was Darya, who was breathlessly hanging on every word. The conversation, by now, had fallen into a crude sort of
lingua franca
, part German, part in English, and part in the universal language of Zanthodon, the conversants picking up a term from one language where they lacked it’s equivalent in another.

Darya was able to grasp about one word out of every four, but that was enough for her to get the drift of what the two men were talking about. She touched the professor’s arm.

“It is true, what the stranger says,” she told him. “I did not even see the isst until he shattered its head with his thunder-weapon. Had he refrained from doing so, Darya would by now be dead and eaten—!” She shuddered at the idea.

The Professor nodded thoughtfully.

“Well, then, my dear Baron,” he said tentatively, “I believe that we can permit you to lower your arms to your sides, if you wish, although I most earnestly entreat you not to attempt to pick up your rifle. Both the young woman and myself are remarkably proficient in the employment of these crude weapons,” he said with a meaningful gesture of the spear he still held at the back of the German officer.

Manfred Von Kohler nodded and said nothing. He had no doubt that the beautiful Cro-Magnon girl could use the spear with great skill, and would not hesitate to do so, were he foolish enough to try for his firearm, but he rather felt inclined to think that the old American scientist overstated, to some degree, his own skill with the weapon.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, lowering his arms to his sides.

And they stood for a moment without words.

“Well,” said the Professor at last, clearing his throat uncertainly, “and now we must decide—what the devil I am supposed to do with you!”

CHAPTER 20

XASK MAKES A DISCOVERY

With Niema, as usual, taking the lead, the three adventurers moved on swift and silent feet through the jungles of Zanthodon. Jorn and Yualla knew they could not be very far behind their tribes, for so huge a host of men, encumbered with women and children, the aged and the injured, can move only as rapidly as the weakest among them.

Thus it came as no particular surprise to them when, of a sudden, Niema froze, motionless, with a quick gesture at the two Cro-Magnon youngsters behind her, commanding silence.

The bushes parted before where she stood, revealing a tall blond-headed young man armed with a long knife at his waist and a bronze-bladed spear held at the ready. Spying the long-legged black woman, he paused momentarily, eyes widening in amazement.

In the next instant, Jorn and Yualla came crashing forward, and all three embraced, laughing with joy while the Aziru girl watched uncomprehendingly.

“Varak—is it really you!” exclaimed Jorn the Hunter with delight. The other hugged him fiercely, tears of happiness agleam in his blue eyes.

“The question should be—Jorn, can it be that you still live?” declared Varak. “We thought you long since dead from that fall you took from the mountain ledge…and, unless my eyes are lying, is not the girl at your side Yualla, gomad of the Sotharians?”

“I am Yualla,” laughed the girl.

“Your father and mother will be heartily relieved that you still live…but were you not carried off by a hunting thakdol
[2]
? By what marvel have you both survived? By what incredible luck do you come to be here? And, before my heart bursts with curiosity, do tell me who that amazing black colored woman is…although I suddenly am able to guess her identity.”

Interrupting each other, the Cro-Magnon boy and girl related to Varak a brief and somewhat confused account of their adventures while Niema stood with a warm smile lighting her lovely face, affectionately sharing the excitement and joy of these reunited friends. For Varak, of course, had been on the mountain with Hurok and the others of my retinue when they had striven to seek the Professor and me amid the bewildering ways of the Scarlet City, that time we had been held captive by Zarys of Zar.

Varak interrupted this torrent of narrative just long enough to answer a question from Yualla.

“My news will please you,” he grinned. “For we are all together again, or soon will be…Eric Carstairs and the Professor are with us, and all of our other comrades, although Hurok had strayed from us, I hope but briefly. And, Yualla, your mother and father, and all of your tribe, are not far ahead, for we parted from them only a little time ago in order to search for our huge and hairy friend. Soon we will all be united again, to continue the journey south to Thandar…but tell me, Jorn, how it was that you escaped from the little men of Zar?”

The tale was taken up again, and when at length it came to a narration of the most recent of their adventures, and the two youngsters mentioned how they had been found and befriended by Niema, the tall warrior interrupted a second time, to turn a smiling face upon the silent amazon girl. “If you are truly Niema of the Aziru,” he said, “and surely there cannot be two such women as you in all the length and breadth of Zanthodon, then I have welcome news for you, lady, which will be pleasant to your ears, I doubt not!”

“What news is that?” inquired Niema, and, as if by foreknowledge of the words the warrior was about to speak, her heart lifted within her breast in a surge of glorious hope.

“The black warrior who would be your mate, Zuma of the Aziru, is among us and we are already friends!” said Varak triumphantly.

The blaze of joy that lit up Niema’s face was truly wonderful to see.

“Can it be the truth?” she breathed faintly. “Tell me that he is well and unharmed, and searches for me still!”

“He is—he does—!”

“Where, then, is he at this moment?” she demanded. Varak pointed toward the sea.

“We split up to hunt for food for our meal,” he said. Hefting his spear with a rueful expression on his face, he added: “I came into the jungle, hoping to find uld, but the shaking-of-the-earth seems to have scared them all into hiding, for not yet have I so much as made a single kill! As for Zuma, he went down the beach, hoping to spear fish in the tidal pools along the shallows, and for aught I know paces the sands even now—”

“
Ai-raa!
” shouted Niema in a loud voice filled with exultant joy, startling them all. And, without another word, the black girl turned and plunged into the brush and vanished from their view in the direction of the shores of the Sogar-Jad, eager not to waste another moment before hurling herself into the arms of the stalwart black warrior whom she had long desired to take as her mate.

* * * *

When Manfred Von Kohler blew the head off the giant python to save Darya of Thandar from its gaping jaws, the shot was heard by other ears than those of Professor Percival P. Potter.

Moving stealthily through the brush on the heels of Niema, Yualla and Jorn the Hunter, Xask and Murg were keeping their quarry in sight when the shot rang out, echoing through the stillness of the wood.

Xask allowed a gasp of surprise to escape, his lips, and sank his fingers into the skinny arm of Murg. An unholy light flashed in the dark eyes of the Zarian vizier, for he at once recognized the sound as that made by the thunder-weapon which Eric Carstairs carried, although on second thought it seemed to him that it was different in timbre and in loudness.

How this could be eluded his imagination, for surely, there could not be two such weapons in the Underground World—not since the explosion set by the Professor back in the Scarlet City had totally destroyed all of the weapons which his wiles had coaxed and coerced the scrawny old savant into making for him and his Empress.

Instantly abandoning the tracking of the Cro-Magnon couple and the tall black warrior woman who had befriended them, he turned to plunge through the bushes in the direction from which the shot had come.

With an unerring sense of direction, the vizier led his whining, stumbling little companion to the glade where they arrived in time to be eye-witnesses to the confrontation between Darya of Thandar, Professor Potter, and the unknown stranger in peculiar garments who held a weapon of dark metal such as neither Xask nor Murg had ever looked upon before.