<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></SPAN>CHAPTER VII<br/> Captured!</h2>
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Certainly</span> my situation was
no less desperate. Unless I
could find some method of compensating
for my lost ballast, the
inverse gravity of my inertron
ship would hurl me continuously
upward until I shot forth from
the last air layer into space. I
thought of jumping, and floating
down on my inertron belt, but I
was already too high for this.
The air was too rarefied to permit
breathing outside, though
my little air compressors were
automatically maintaining the
proper density within the shell.
If I could compress a sufficiently
large quantity of air inside the
craft, I would add to its weight.
But there seemed little chance
that I would myself be able to
withstand sufficient compression.</p>
<p>I thought of releasing my inertron
belt, but doubted whether
this would be enough. Besides I
might need the belt badly if I
did find some method of bringing
the little ship down, and it came
too fast.</p>
<p>At last a plan came into my
half-numbed brain that had some
promise of success, though it
was desperate enough. Cutting
one of the hose pipes on my air
compressor, and grasping it between
my lips, I set to work to
saw off the heads of the rivets
that held the entire nose section
of the swooper (inertron plates
had to be grooved and riveted
together, since the substance was
impervious to heat and could not
be welded). Desperately I sawed,
hammered and chiseled, until at
last with a wrench and a snap,
the plate broke away.</p>
<p>The released nose of the ship
shot upward. The rest began to
drop with me. How fast I dropped
I do not know, for my instruments
went with the nose. Half
fainting, I grimly clenched the
rubber hose between my teeth,
while the little compressor "carried
on" nobly, despite the
wrecked condition of the ship,
giving me just enough air to
keep my lungs from collapsing.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">At</span> last I shot through a cloud
layer, and a long time afterward,
it seemed, another. From
the way in which they flashed up
to meet me and to appear away
above me, I must have been dropping
like a stone.</p>
<p>At last I tried the rocket motor,
very gently, to check my
fall. The swooper was, of course,
dropping tail first, and I had to
be careful lest it turn over with
a sharp blast from the motor,
and dump me out.</p>
<p>Passing through the third layer
of clouds I saw the earth beneath
me. Then I jumped, pulling
myself up through the
jagged opening, and leaping upward
while the remains of my
ship shot away below me.</p>
<p>On approaching the ground I
opened my chute-cape, to further
check my fall, and landed lightly,
with no further mishap.
Whereupon I promptly threw myself
down and slept, so exhausted
was I with my experience.</p>
<p>It was not until the next
morning that I awoke and gazed
about me. I had come down in
mountainous country. My intention
was to get my bearing by
tuning in headquarters with my
ultrophone. But to my dismay I
found the little battery disks had
been torn from the earflaps of my
helmet, though my chest-disk
transmitter was still in place,
and so far as I could see, in
working order. I could report my
experience, but could receive no
reply.</p>
<p>I spent a half hour repeating
my story and explanation on the
headquarters channel, then once
more surveyed my surroundings,
trying to determine in which direction
I had better leap. Then
there came a stab of pain on the
top of my head, and I dropped
unconscious.</p>
<p>I regained consciousness to
find myself, much to my surprise,
a prisoner in the hands of a foot
detachment of some thirty Hans.
My surprise was a double one;
first that they had not killed me
instantly; second, that a detachment
of them should be roaming
this wild country afoot, obviously
far from any of their cities,
and with no ship hanging in
the sky above them.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">As</span> I sat up, their officer grunted
with satisfaction and
growled a guttural command. I
was seized and pulled roughly to
my feet by four soldiers, and
hustled along with the party into
a wooded ravine, through
which we climbed sharply upward.
I surmised, correctly as it
turned out, that some projectile
had grazed my head, and I was
in such shape that if it had not
been for the fact that my inertron
belt bore most of my weight,
they would have had to carry me.
But as it was I made out well,
and at the end of an hour's climb
was beginning to feel like myself
again, though the Han soldiers
around me were puffing and
drooping as men will, no matter
how healthy, when they are totally
unaccustomed to physical
effort.</p>
<p>At length the party halted for
a rest. I observed them curiously.
Except for a few brief exciting
moments at the time of our
air raid on the intelligence office
in Nu-Yok, I had seen no living
specimens of this yellow race
at close quarters.</p>
<p>They looked little like the
Mongolians of the Twentieth
Century, except for their slant
eyes and round heads. The characteristic
of the high cheek bones
appeared to have been bred out
of them, as were those of the
relatively short legs and the
muddy yellow skin. To call them
yellow was more figurative than
literal. Their skins were whiter
than those of our own weather-tanned
forest men. Nevertheless,
their pigmentation was peculiar,
and what there was of it looked
more like a pale orange tint than
the ruddiness of the Caucasian.
They were well formed, but rather
undersized and soft-looking,
small-muscled and smooth-skinned,
like young girls. Their
features were finely chiseled, eyes
beady, and nose slightly aquiline.</p>
<p>They were uniformed, not in
close-fitting green or other
shades of protective coloring,
such as the unobtrusive gray of
the Jersey Beaches or the leadened
russet of the autumn uniforms
of our people. Instead they
wore loose fitting jackets of some
silky material, and loose knee
pants. This particular command
had been equipped with form-moulded
boots of some soft material
that reached above the
knee under their pants. They
wore circular hats with small
crowns and wide rims. Their
loose jackets were belted at the
waist, and they carried for weapons
each man a knife, a short
double-edged sword and what I
took to be a form of magazine
rocket gun. It was a rather
bulky affair, short-barrelled, and
with a pistol grip. It was obviously
intended to be fired either
from the waist position or from
some sort of support, like the
old machine guns. It looked, in
fact, like a rather small edition
of the Twentieth Century arm.</p>
<p>And have I mentioned the color
of their uniforms? Their circular
hats and pants were a
bright yellow; their coats a flaming
scarlet. What targets they
were!</p>
<p>I must have chuckled audibly
at the thought, for their commander
who was seated on a
folding stool one of his men had
placed for him, glanced in my
direction, and, at his arrogant
gesture of command, I was prodded
to my feet, and with my
hands still bound, as they had
been from the moment I recovered
consciousness, I was
dragged before him.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Then</span> I knew what it was
about these Hans that kept
me in a turmoil of irritation. It
was their sardonic, mocking,
cruel smiles; smiles which left
their stamp on their faces, even
in repose. Now the commander
was smiling tauntingly at me.
When he spoke, it was in my own
language.</p>
<p>"So!" he sneered. "You beasts
have learned to laugh. You have
gotten out of control in the last
year or so. But that shall be
remedied. In the meantime, a
simple little surgical operation
would make your smile a permanent
one, reaching from ear to
ear. But there, my orders are to
deliver you and your equipment,
all we have of it, intact. The
Heaven-Born has had a whim."</p>
<p>"And who," I asked, "is this
Heaven-Born?"</p>
<p>"San-Lan," he replied, "misbegotten
spawn of the late High
Priestess Nlui-Mok, and now
Most Glorious Air Lord of All
the Hans." He rolled out these
titles with a bow of exaggerated
respect toward the west, and in
a tone of mockery. Those of his
men who were near enough to
hear, snickered and giggled.</p>
<p>I was to learn that this amazing
attitude of his was typical
rather than exceptional. Strange
as it may seem, no Han rendered
any respect to another, nor expected
it in return; that is, not
genuine respect. Their discipline
was rigid and cold-bloodedly
heartless. The most elaborate
courtesies were demanded and
accorded among equals and from
inferiors to superiors, but such
was the intelligence and moral
degradation of this remarkable
race, that every one of them recognized
these courtesies for
what they were; they must of
necessity have been hollow mockeries.
They took pleasure in forcing
one another to go through
with them, each trying to outdo
the other in cynical, sardonic
thrusts, clothed in the most meticulously
ceremonious courtesy.
As a matter of fact, my captor,
by this crude reference to the
origin of his ruler, was merely
proving himself a crude fellow,
guilty of a vulgarity rather than
of a treasonable or disrespectful
remark. An officer of higher rank
and better breeding, would have
managed a clever innuendo, less
direct, but equally plain.</p>
<p>I was about to ask him what
part of the country we were in
and where I was to be taken,
when one of his men came running
to him with a little portable
electronophone, which he placed
before him, with much bowing
and scraping.</p>
<p>He conversed through this for
a while, and then condescended
to give me the information that
a ship would soon be above us,
and that I was to be transferred
to it. In telling me this, he managed
to convey, with crude attempts
at mock-courtesy, that he
and his men would feel relieved
to be rid of me as a menace to
health and sanitation, and would
take exquisite joy in inflicting
me upon the crew of the ship.</p>
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