Sleepers Of Mars

A tall, shaven-headed man, wearing a robe much worked with gold thread, arose, saluted the sign of Ra, and began to speak in a powerful, resonant voice.

‘In Aegypt, where the people are being weaned from dark superstition and shown the glory of Ra, the Lord of Life, we, priests and converts, worked amid great dangers. When we heard of the vibrator, we petitioned that one should be sent to us for our protection. We were doing all in our power to ensure peace, but we must be prepared for war.

‘The inevitable day came when the heathen essayed to contest the mightiness of Ra. From the south and the west, black men and brown, they marched upon us. We sent messengers to warn them that we were invincible. They killed our messengers. In their hundreds and thousands they advanced—we had no choice but to use the vibrator.

‘As the switch was pulled over, they dropped in their legions. In men and horses alike, that vibration which we call life, given of Ra, was quenched. The very trees and flowers drooped and died. The heathen covered the ground with their innumerable bodies. Ra blazed down in great anger on their corpses, and they were corrupted.

‘But Ra was displeased also with his servants. From the field a stench arose and floated over all Aegypt, and with it came plague. Out of every four men, three died. When it became safe, we went out to see the battlefield. It had been a pleasant, fruitful land. Now we found it scorched and sandy beneath the pitiless eye of Ra—an arid desert.’

He finished, and walked back to his seat. Calmly, Alhui called the next witness. ‘Yoshin, of the Temple of Knowledge.’ Yoshin stood up. He was a bent, bearded man of great age and spoke in a voice scarcely audible.

‘In our mountain fastnesses, we have for centuries pursued pure knowledge. We have been but little molested, for we have not the things which most men value. But more lately we have been disturbed. The brown men to the south-west caused us no anxiety, for they are content to stay behind the mountain barriers, but the yellow race of slant-eyed men to the east and north-east became dangerous.

‘Lemuria provided us with vibrators. Many of our members reverted temporarily to a state of less enlightenment. They grew vengeful, and pursued our attackers far to the north-east. As a monument to their folly and their madness, there is now a great desert beyond our northern mountains.’

The next witness was called. He wore a military uniform, and his speech was brief and concise.

‘To protect the communications on the west between ourselves and the new colony of Atlantic, I was given a vibrator. In repulsing continual attacks by red-skinned men from the north, several deserts have been created.’

He retired, and Alhui called another witness, and then another. Endlessly it seemed to go on, this tale of deserts large and small created by my machine. And as the recital continued, the temper of the council changed. At last. Alhui disposed of the final witness and called upon me again.

‘You agree with the council’s proposal, Kis-Tan?’

‘I do.’

‘And you will do all in your power to construct a modified form of the vibrator?’

‘It may not be possible, but I will do my best.’

There was a break here in my vision, projected memory, or whatever mental process I was undergoing. Some months—I cannot say how many—had passed, and I was in my laboratory with my assistants.

We had worked hard, and now fancied we had met with success. A fair trial of the new machine we had produced would have been too dangerous, but for a preliminary test, to ensure that the working parts functioned properly, we had constructed a special chamber of stone slabs, lined with insulating material. Into this we moved the machine, with infinite care, and together with it we enclosed growing plants and a few small animals.

I pulled over the switch. We intended to give the equivalent of one minute’s exposure to the vibrations. Half the time had passed when the catastrophe came, without warning.

The stone chamber collapsed. Its walls did not merely fall; they seemed to dissolve abruptly into a fine dust. I had a brief glimpse of the machine still standing; then some titanic force gripped and seemed to wrench me apart…

Again that sensation of falling timelessly through a silent, swirling blackness, until suddenly I was aware that I stood upon a solid floor. Before me was a tall window, and I looked down through it on a scene of bustling activity.

Immediately below ran broad, busy streets, and beyond them lay the quaysides of a harbour. Ships were being unloaded there by swarms of hurrying men. Still farther off, ships with sails of red, purple or russet, looking like huge butterflies, were sliding over a blue sea; homeward bound, with a small, joyous white wave curling from the bows. My gaze followed one as it rounded the headland and passed the harbour pylons.

I saw the tumult on deck and the lowering of the vivid scarlet sails, embroidered with the golden emblem of Ra. The wealth of the world was pouring into Zapetl, the greatest port in Atlantis; and I knew that I was Xtan, a person of rank, as was shown by the feathered headdress which I now held in the crook of my left arm. A glittering, embroidered tunic clad me to the knees, while from my shoulders hung a cloak of gorgeous featherwork.