Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction; Venus (Planet) -- Fiction
Of course not, since it was designed for use by creatures who possessed
neither ears nor vocal speech! Gone then was all hope of news from home,
even if he could succeed in breaking in. At the most, he would merely be
able, by interposing an interrupter in the primary or secondary of that
aerial circuit, to send a dot-dash message across the boiling seas—I use
the term “aerial circuit,” because “antenna circuit” would be ambiguous,
as the latter term might have either its conventional earth
significance, or might mean the circuit in which the Formian operator
would place _his_ living antennae in sending and receiving.
Well, even a chance to send to Cupia a message to the effect that he was
free and safe, would be worth something. Myles Cabot tried the slitlike
windows, and finding them too narrow, slid quickly down the near-by
slope, soon to return laboriously with a twenty-pound rock, which he
heaved against the door.
Again and again he heaved the rock, until he had the satisfaction of
seeing the door crack and then give. Finally a large enough opening was
effected to afford passage for a man, although not for a Formian; and
through this breach Myles Cabot squeezed into the station.
A few minutes’ scrutiny familiarized him with the details of the
hook-up, the generator set, and the trophil-engine. Everything was in
running order and the fuel tank was full. So he fashioned a rude sending
key, broke one of the circuits and tied in the key. Then he warmed-up
and cranked the trophil-engine, clutched-in the generator, threw the
main switch, and sat down to flash across the seas the message which was
to hold firm his partisans in Cupia until he could join them.
But at that instant an arrow hummed through the hole in the door, and
struck quivering in the bench beside him.
Cabot sprang to his feet and slid home the huge beam which barred the
door on the inside. This was a precaution which he had neglected to take
before. Next he filled the hole in the door with some boards hastily
wrenched from the work-bench. Then picking up a Formian rifle and
bandolier which hung on the wall, he made his way to one of the slit
windows on the same side as the door and peeped cautiously out.
The result was immediate; an arrow sped through the window and passed
just above his head. But even as he ducked instinctively, he saw a dark
form moving behind a bush at some distance outside; so quickly rising
again, he discharged the rifle square at the bush.
There came a cry of pain, followed by silence. And there were no more
feathered incursions.
Not knowing whether his enemy had been disposed of, or whether the
cessation of the stream of arrows was merely a ruse to entice him from
his shelter, Myles did not dare venture forth to investigate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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