The Martian War

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


IN THE HALL OF THE GRAND LUNAR

In the underground chambers of the Moon, the Selenite servants prepared a banquet for the three humans. The pale drones brought forth platters of soft fungus meat and decanters of sap as sweet as honey.

At first, they hesitated to eat the proffered food, but they were far from their cavorite sphere and their supplies. Huxley inspected each item, sniffing it and frowning uncertainly. The aromas were certainly tantalizing and appetizing. Wells and Jane looked to the older man for his guidance. Finally, he surrendered to his hunger and took a bite, then several more. Seeing Huxley’s implied approval, Wells and Jane fell to the banquet with great gusto.

After Wells had consumed much of the honey-like sap liquid, he began feeling giddy and fuzzy. Huxley and Jane decided to stop drinking, preferring not to become intoxicated at such an important moment under the awesome gaze of the Grand Lunar.

Next, they were served a buttery-tasting meat that purportedly came from the mooncows; the slug-like herd animals matured rapidly and were butchered for food each lunar cycle. It seemed that everything on the Moon moved at a frenetic pace, like desert flowers bursting into bloom after a rare downpour. Unfortunately, the once-admirable lunar civilization had not recovered so swiftly after the Martian attacks.

“We too have learned of the threat from Mars,” Huxley said, between bites. “Precisely what happened when the Martians invaded the Moon? And when did it occur?”

The Grand Lunar studied them, its enormous throbbing brain supported by a heavy framework. Finally, a series of horrific images and memories poured into their minds, conveying the full spectacle of the disaster.

Once, lunar society had been a complex web with many different castes: drone workers, soldiers, thinkers, engineers, builders, shepherds, and farmers, all guided by the Grand Lunar’s incredible intellect. Their hive-like society had been diligent and peaceful. They had no rivals, no enemies. For millennia the Grand Lunar and its predecessors had maintained the number of Selenites at the perfect level for proper functioning.

Then the Martian invaders had come.

Cylinder after cylinder had been launched from Mars to crash upon the Moon’s day side, at the height of Selenite productivity. At first, even the Grand Lunar did not know what was happening. Large-eyed Selenite astronomers, who also spied upon Earth, had noticed the green flashes from Mars and so were able to determine the origin of these terrible spacecraft.

While the cylinders cooled in their new craters, the Martians assembled large mechanical walkers, giant tripod devices equipped with powerful weapons. Heat rays incinerated the Selenite observers who had gathered to welcome the visitors from the red planet.

The first Martian attack was immediate and terrible. Thousands of Selenites were slaughtered outright by the awful heat rays, and the Grand Lunar was forced to withdraw the soldier-drones until Selenite scientists could develop appropriate defenses. The Moon’s engineers and thinkers turned their knowledge to building immense weapons.

Since lunar society functioned as a single vast and efficient machine, the Selenites could combine their skills with focused determination; thus, they swiftly developed and produced new defenses. As the Martians began their march of destruction across the lunar surface, the brave Selenites rallied. They used newly synthesized explosive devices to blow up the Martian cylinders, but more and more of the deadly projectiles rained down from space.

The Martian invaders attacked with their heat rays, forcing the Selenites to take even more violent measures. Desperate, the Grand Lunar authorized the most terrible bombs imaginable. The round craters of these incredible explosions now peppered the whole surface of the Moon.

The invaders from Mars had kept coming, and the heat ray decimated the Selenite population. The Grand Lunar bred and produced army swarms to defend the Moon, but the Martian conquest could not be stopped. Loyal drones and soldiers had massed here in this chamber in a last stand to defend their leader, the core and soul of Selenite society. They planned to fight to the death.

The Martians, however, had no intention of utterly destroying lunar civilization, nor of seizing the Moon as new territory. With their red world dying, the Martians needed more slaves, more food, and more resources. They wanted to take huge numbers of Selenite captives back to Mars, no doubt to be put to work on the Martian canals and industries. Their conquest finished, the hideous invaders loaded their return cylinders with hundreds of thousands of Selenites, cramming them in like packaged goods, and departed for the red planet.

Still tenuously connected to their leader, the captive Selenites had sent their last mental messages home. The voyage to distant Mars was long, and they had been crowded aboard the vast conquering ships. Cut off from the Grand Lunar, they did not know what to do. They were bullied and tortured by the dominant, tentacled monstrosities.

In the vision, Wells could taste their fear and helplessness. The drones could not fight back, and their puppet strings were cut once they’d been taken from the Moon. Aboard the transport ships they stood shoulder to shoulder, the bulk of the lunar population dragged off to another planet. Those who survived the journey became the seeds of an endlessly oppressed slave corps on Mars.

Without the bulk of the population, the once-magnificent lunar society had gone stagnant. The Martians left the Moon a devastated, barren place, its civilization broken. There were too few survivors of each Selenite caste for the Grand Lunar to rebuild the population. Thus, for many centuries, the beaten Grand Lunar had barely held together the tattered remnants of a once great society … .

As the parade of images in his head ceased, Wells looked at the insect-like workers and servants. He remembered the dilapidated fences around the crater pastures and how few Selenite shepherds existed to watch all the mooncows. The remaining drones were barely enough to keep the Grand Lunar alive and functioning; they would never be sufficient to repair the war damage. Ever since the holocaust, the Grand Lunar’s surviving astronomers had kept their telescopic eyes upon the Earth, watching small threads of civilization appear on the big blue neighboring planet.

Jane expressed her concern in a voice that rang out too loud in the chamber. “And the Martians have also been watching us! We know they’ve sent at least one scout, and they intend to launch an invasion force to Earth.”

They will conquer you and destroy you, the Grand Lunar said.

Wells defiantly clutched Jane’s hand. “No, they will not! Thankfully, we have had some forewarning. We can take our spacecraft directly to Mars—and prevent this.”

Huxley looked at him in surprise. “Ah, you are most ambitious, Mr. Wells, to think that the three of us could stop the war plans of an entire planet.”

“If not us, then who else is there?” Wells knew in his heart that he had to do something.

Perhaps there is help. The Grand Lunar lifted tiny hands to its shrunken face. With a deft movement of nimble fingers, it selected one of the faceted gemstone eyes, twisted it, and removed the jewel, leaving an empty socket in the insectile head. Holding it in the palm of a diminutive hand, the Grand Lunar extended the gem to Jane, who was closest.

Take this as a talisman. If any of my Selenites still survive on Mars, they will know this comes from their Grand Lunar.

Jane clutched the eye gem, looking at it. Then she smiled back up at the immense, quivering brain. “Thank you.”

The remaining Selenite drones swarmed out, guided by the Grand Lunar to usher the human visitors back to the cavorite sphere. Other workers brought blankets, water, food, and other supplies, stocking the interior for a long voyage to distant Mars.

As the three humans climbed back into the armored vessel, the Selenites backed away, bowing their ant-like heads. Wells, Jane, and Huxley called out farewells, knowing that the mind of the Grand Lunar could see them through these lesser drones.

When they were secured inside the sphere again, Wells and Jane looked at each other, knowing their next step. Together, they closed the louvered blinds on the floor of the craft, sealing off the cavorite and severing all ties to the Moon’s gravity.

As the armored globe rose from the cratered surface, the three of them opened and closed various blinds, searching the star-studded sky until they located the angry crimson eye of Mars. Committed to their course of action, they left that one porthole open so that the gravitational pull of the red planet could drag them across the emptiness of space.

They sat back to prepare their battle plans. Three mere humans would have to fend off an alien invasion.