City of the Beast

Chapter One MY DEBT TO M. CLARCHET

THE Matter Transmitter is both villain and hero of this story (began Kane), for it took me to a world where I felt more at home than I shall ever feel here. It brought me to a wonderful girl whom I loved and who loved me-and then took it all away again.

But I had better begin nearer the beginning.

I was born, as I told you, in Ohio-in Wynnsville-a small, pleasant town that never changed much. Its only unusual feature was in the person of M. Clarchet, a Frenchman who had settled there shortly after the First World War. He lived in a large place on the outskirts of town. M. Clarchet was a cosmopolitan, a Frenchman of the old school-short, very straight-backed, with a typically French, waxed moustache and a rather military way of walking.

To be honest, M. Clarchet was something of a caricature to us and seemed to illustrate everything we had learned about the French in our dime novels and comic books. Yet I owe my life to M.

Clarchet, though I wasn't to realize it until many years after the old gentleman had passed on, and when I found myself suddenly transported to Mars … But again I am getting ahead of myself.

Clarchet was an enigma even to me though, as boy and youth, I probably knew him better than anyone else. He had been, he said, a fencing master at the Court of the Tsar of Russia before the Revolution and had had to leave in a hurry when the Bolsheviks took over.

He had settled in Wynnsville directly because of this experience. It had seemed to him at the time that the whole world was in chaos and was being turned upside down. He had found a small town that was never likely to change much-and he liked it. The way of life he led now was radically different from the one he had been used to, and it seemed to suit him.

We first met when I had accepted a dare by my young pals to climb the fence of his house and see if I could observe what M. Clarchet was up to. At that time we were all convinced he was a spy of some description! He had caught me, but instead of shooting me, as I half-expected, he had laughed good-naturedly and sent me on my way. I liked him at once.

Soon after that we kids had a phase which was a sequel to seeing Ronald Colman in The Prisoner of Zenda. We all became Ruperts and Rudolfs for a time. With long canes for swords, we fenced one another to exhaustion-not very skilfully but with a lot of enthusiasm!

On a sunny afternoon in early summer, it so happened that I and another boy, Johnny Bulmer, were duelling for the throne of Ruritania just outside M. Clarchet's house. Suddenly there came a great shout from the house and we wheeled in astonishment.

"Non! Non! Non!" The Frenchman was plainly exasperated. "That ees wrong, wrong, wrong! That ees not how a gentleman fences!"

He rushed from his garden and seized my cane, adopting a graceful fencing stance and facing a startled Johnny, who just stood there with his mouth open.

"Now," he said to Johnny, "you do ze same, oui?"

Johnny inelegantly copied his posture.

"Now, you thrust-so!" The cane darted out in a flicker of movement and stopped just short of Johnny's chest.

Johnny copied him-and was parried with equal swiftness. We were amazed and delighted by this time. Here was a man who would have been a good match for Rupert of Hentzau.

After a while M. Clarchet stopped and shook his head. "It ees no good with thees slicks-we must have real foils, non? Come!"

We followed him into the house. It was well furnished though not lavishly. In a special room at the top we found more to make us gasp.

Here was an array of blades such as we'd never even imagined! Now I know them to be foils and epees and sabres, plus a collection of fine, antique weapons-claymores, scimitars, Samurai swords, broadswords, Roman short swords-the gladiusand many, many more.

M. Clarchet waved a hand at the fascinating display of weapons. "Zere! My collection. Zey are sweet, ze little swords, non?" He took down a small rapier and handed it to me, handing a similar sword to Johnny. It felt really good, holding that well-balanced sword in my hand. I flexed my wrist, not quite able to get the balance. M. Clarchet took my hand and showed me the correct way of grasping it.

"How would you like to learn properly?" said M.

Clarchet with a wink. "I could teach you much."

Was it possible? We were going to be allowed to wield these swords-taught how to sword-fight like the best. I was amazed and delighted-until a thought struck me, and I frowned.

"Oh-we don't have any money, sir. We couldn't pay you and our moms and pops aren't likely tothey're mean enough as it is."

"I do not wish for payment. The skill you acquire from me will be reward enough! Here-I will show you zee simple parry first…"

And so he taught us. Not only did we learn how to fence with the modern conventional weaponsfoils, epees and sabres-but also with the antique and foreign weapons of all shapes, weights, sizes and balances. He taught us the whole of his marvellous art.

Whenever we could, Johnny and I attended M.

Clarchet's special Sword Room. He seemed grateful to us, in his way, for the opportunity to pass on his skill, just as we were to him for giving us the chance to learn. By the time we were around fifteen we were both pretty good, and I think I probably had the edge on Johnny, though I say it myself.

Johnny's parents moved to Chicago about that time so I became M. Clarchet's only pupil. When I wasn't studying physics at high school and later at university, I was to be found at M. Clarchet's, learning all I could. And at last the day came when he cried with joy. I had beaten him in a long and complicated duel!

"You are zee best, Mike! Better zan any I have known!"

It was the highest praise I have ever received. At university I went in for fencing, of course, and was picked for the American team in the Olympics. But it was a crucial time in my studies and I had to drop out at the last moment.

That was how I learned to fence, anyway. I thought of it in my more depressed moments as rather a purposeless sport-archaic and only indirectly useful, in that it gave me excellently sharp reactions, strengthened my muscles and so on. It was useful in the Army, too, for the physical discipline essential in Army training was already built in to me.

I was lucky. I did well in my studies and survived my military service, part of which was spent fighting the Communist guerrillas in the jungles of Vietnam. By the time I was thirty, I was known as a bright boy in the world of physics. I joined the Chicago Special Research Institute, and because of my ideas on matter transmission was appointed Director of the department responsible for developing the machine.

I remember we were working late on it, enlarging its capacity so that it could take a man.

The neon lights in the lab ceiling illuminated the shining steel and plastic cabinet, the great 'translator cone' directed down at it, and all the other equipment and instruments that filled the place almost to capacity. There were five of us workingthree technicians and Doctor Logon, my chief assistant.

I checked all the instruments while Logan and the men worked on the equipment. Soon all the gauges were reading what they should read, and we were ready.

I turned to Doctor Logan and looked at him. He said nothing as he looked back at me. Then we shook hands. That was all.

I climbed into the machine. They had tried to talk me out of it earlier but had given up by this time. Logan reached for the phone and contacted the team handling the 'receiver'. This was situated in a lab on the other side of the building.

Logan told the team we were ready and checked with them. They were ready, too.

Logan walked to the main switch. Through the little glass panel in the cabinet I saw him switch it on gravely.

My body began to tingle pleasantly. That was all at first. It is difficult to describe the weird sensation I experienced as soon as the transmitter began to work. It was literally true that every atom of my body was being torn apart-and it felt like it. I began to get light-headed; then came the sensation of frightful pressures building up inside me, followed by the feeling that I was exploding outwards.

Everything went green and I felt as though I was spreading gently in all directions. Then came a riot of colors blossoming around me-reds, yellows, purples, blues.

There was an increasing sense of weightlessness-masslessness even. I felt I was streaming through blackness and my mind began to blank out altogether. I felt I was hurtling over vast distances, beyond time and space-covering an incredible area of the universe in every direction in a few seconds.

Then I knew nothing more!

I came to my senses-if senses they were-under a lemon-colored sun blazing down on me from out of a deep blue, near-purple sky. It was a color more intense than any I had ever seen before. Had my experience enabled me to see color with greater sharpness?

But when I looked around I realized that it was more than intensity which had changed. I was lying in a field of gently swaying, sweet-smelling ferns. But they were ferns unlike any I had ever seen!

These ferns were an impossible shade of crimson!

I rubbed my eyes. Had the transmitter-or rather the receiver-gone wrong and put me together slightly mixed up, with my color sense in a muddle?

I got up and looked across the sea of crimson ferns.

I gasped.

My whole sight must somehow have been altered!

Cropping at the ferns, with a line of yellowish, hills in the background, was a beast as large as an elephant and of roughly the same proportions as a horse. Yet here the similarly to any beast I knew ended. This creature was a mottled shade of mauve and light green. It had three long, white horns curling from its flat, almost catlike head. It had twin, somewhat reptilian, tails spreading to the ground behind it, and it had one huge eye covering at least half the area of its face. This was a faceted eye that shone and glinted in the sunlight. The beast looked rather curiously at me and lifted its head, then began to move towards me.

With, I suspect, a wild yell, I ran. I felt convinced I was experiencing some sort of nightmare or paranoiac delusion as a result of a fault in the transmitter or receiver.

I heard the beast thundering on behind me, giving out a strange mooing sound, and increased my pace as best I could. I found I could run very easily indeed and seemed to be lighter than normal.

Then to one side of me I heard musical laughter, at once merry and sympathetic. A lilting voice called something in what was to me a strange, unearthly language, trilling and melodic. In fact, the sound of the language was so beautiful that it did not seem to need words.

"Kahsaaa manherra vosu!"

I slowed my pace and looked towards the source of the voice.

It was a girl-the most wonderful girl I have ever seen in my life.

Her hair was long, free and golden. Her face was oval, her white skin clear and fresh. She was naked, apart from a wispy cloak which curled round her shoulders and a broad, leather belt around her waist. The belt held a short sword and a holster from which jutted the butt of a pistol of some kind. She was tall and her figure was exquisite. Somehow her nakedness was not obvious and I accepted it at once. She, too, was totally unselfconscious about it. I stopped still, not caring about the beast behind me so long as I could have a few seconds' glimpse of her.

Again she threw back her head and laughed that merry laugh.

Suddenly I felt something wet tickling my neck.

Thinking it must be an insect of some sort, I put up my hand. But it was too large for an insect. I turned.

That strange mauve and green beast, that monster with the fly-like, Cyclops eye, two tails and three horns, was gently licking me!

Was it tasting me? I wondered vaguely, still concentrating on the girl. Judging by the way she was laughing, I thought not.

Wherever I was-in dream or lost world-I knew that I had fled in panic from a tame, friendly, domestic animal. I blushed and then joined in the girl's laughter.

After a moment I said: "If it's not a rude question, I wonder, ma'am, if you could tell me where I am."

She wrinkled her perfect brow when she heard me and shook her head slowly. "Uhoi merrash?

Civinnee norshasa?"

I tried again in French but without any luck.

Then in German-again no success. Spanish was equally ineffective at producing communication between us. My Latin and Greek were limited, but I tried those, too. I am something of a linguist, picking up foreign tongues quickly. I tried to remember the little Sioux and Apache I had learned during a brief study of the Red Indians at college.

But nothing worked.

She spoke a few more words in her language which seemed to me, when I listened very carefully, to have certain faint similarities to classical Sanskrit.

"We are both, it seems, at a loss," I remarked, standing there with the beast still licking me lovingly.

She stretched out a hand for me to take. My heart pounded and I could hardly make myself move. "Phoresha," she said. She seemed to want me to go somewhere with her, and pointed towards the distant hills.

I shrugged, took her hand and went along with her.

So that was how, hand in hand with its loveliest resident, I came to Varnal, City of the Green Mists-most splendid of the splendid Martian cities.

Oh, how many thousands upon thousands of years ago!