Valley of DreamsWeinbaum, Stanley G. (Stanley Grauman)
Science
Valley of Dreams
Weinbaum, Stanley G. (Stanley Grauman)
Mars (Planet) -- Fiction; Science fiction
"Then we passed an edifice with an open arch; the doors were there, but
blocked open by sand. I got up nerve enough to take a look inside, and
then, of course, we discovered we'd forgotten to take our flashes. But
we eased a few feet into the darkness and the passage debouched into a
colossal hall. Far above us a little crack let in a pallid ray of
daylight, not nearly enough to light the place; I couldn't even see if
the hall rose clear to the distant roof. But I know the place was
enormous; I said something to Leroy and a million thin echoes came
slipping back to us out of the darkness. And after that, we began to
hear other sounds--slithering rustling noises, and whispers, and sounds
like suppressed breathing--and something black and silent passed between
us and that far-away crevice of light.
"Then we saw three little greenish spots of luminosity in the dusk to
our left. We stood staring at them, and suddenly they all shifted at
once. Leroy yelled '_Ce sont des yeux!_' and they were! They were eyes!
"Well, we stood frozen for a moment, while Leroy's yell reverberated
back and forth between the distant walls, and the echoes repeated the
words in queer, thin voices. There were mumblings and mutterings and
whisperings and sounds like strange soft laughter, and then the
three-eyed thing moved again. Then we broke for the door!
"We felt better out in the sunlight; we looked at each other sheepishly,
but neither of us suggested another look at the buildings inside--though
we _did_ see the place later, and that was queer, too--but you'll hear
about it when I come to it. We just loosened our revolvers and crept on
along that ghostly street.
"The street curved and twisted and subdivided. I kept careful note of
our directions, since we couldn't risk getting lost in that gigantic
maze. Without our thermo-skin bags, night would finish us, even if what
lurked in the ruins didn't. By and by, I noticed that we were veering
back toward the canal, the buildings ended and there were only a few
dozen ragged stone huts which looked as though they might have been
built of debris from the city. I was just beginning to feel a bit
disappointed at finding no trace of Tweel's people here when we rounded
a corner and there he was!
"I yelled 'Tweel!' but he just stared, and then I realized that he
wasn't Tweel, but another Martian of his sort. Tweel's feathery
appendages were more orange hued and he stood several inches taller than
this one. Leroy was sputtering in excitement, and the Martian kept his
vicious beak directed at us, so I stepped forward as peace-maker. I said
'Tweel?' very questioningly, but there was no result. I tried it a dozen
times, and we finally had to give it up; we couldn't connect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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