NetherWords

The suspensful conclusion to David Gerrold's tale of a mysterious journey through darkness. Winner of the 2013 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction.

Part two of David Gerrold's tale of a mysterious journey through darkness. Winner of the 2013 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction.

Writer David Gerrold takes us on an unsettling journey through darkness. Winner of the 2013 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction.

Above me shone the red eye of Mars holding her awful secret, forty-eight million miles away.

I traveled with awful velocity for my errand was a race against time with death.

A wild cry of exultation arose from the Heliumite squadron, and with redoubled ferocity they fell upon the Zodangan fleet.

"Zodanga has fallen," I cried. "Look!"

I fell beside a huge monster who was engaged with three antagonists, and as I glanced at his fierce face, filled with the light of battle, I recognized him ...

As I sped through the air the screeching of the bullets around me convinced me that only by a miracle could I escape ...

"Too late, too late," she grieved. "O my chieftain that was, and whom I thought dead, had you but returned one little hour before--but now it is too late, too late."

Driving my fleet air craft at high speed directly behind the warriors, I soon overtook them ...

"And so good-night, my friend," he continued, "may you have a long and restful sleep--yes, a long sleep."

As the brutes, growling and foaming, rushed upon the almost defenseless women I turned my head that I might not see the horrid sight.

Laughing and chattering like the idiot I was fast becoming I fell upon his prostrate form my fingers feeling for his dead throat.

He had all the cold, hard, cruel, terrible features of the green warriors, but accentuated and debased by the animal passions to which he had given himself over for many years.

"Have none of me if it is your will, but that you must aid me in effecting your escape, if such a thing be possible, is not my request, but my command."

"I know that I can trust you, and because the knowledge may someday help you or him or Dejah Thoris or myself, I am going to tell you the name of my father ..."

He was soon streaming blood from a half dozen minor wounds, but I could not obtain an opening to deliver an effective thrust.

As my arm rested for an instant upon her I felt a thrill pass through every fiber of my being such as contact with no other mortal had even produced ...

"You are a prisoner and yet you give commands which must be obeyed; you are an alien and yet you are a Tharkian chieftain."

"I am of another world," I answered, "the great planet Earth, which revolves about our common sun and next within the orbit of your Barsoom, which we know as Mars."

...I saw the blow aimed at her beautiful, upturned, pleading face, and ere the hand descended I was halfway across the hall.

"Say what you please to Tars Tarkas, he can mete out no worse fate to me than a continuation of the horrible existence we are forced to lead in this life."

The great warship ... soared majestically into the air, her decks and upper works a mass of roaring flames.

Sola's duties were now doubled, as she was compelled to care for the young Martian, as well as for me.

Scarcely had the blow descended when I was confronted with a new danger.

He wheeled instantly and charged me with the most appalling speed I had ever beheld.

I swung my fist squarely to his jaw and he went down like a felled ox.

I opened my eyes upon a strange and weird landscape.

I closed my eyes, stretched out my arms to the god of my vocation ...

I am a very old man; how old I do not know.

In submitting Captain Carter's strange manuscript to you in book form, I believe that a few words ... would be of interest.

"Quis custodiet," Hartz thought. The old problem. And the answer was: Nobody.

In a way it was worse, having hope.

"But that two-handed engine at the door / Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."

"Not for me. I'm safe. I'm protected. It hasn't come for me."

"It's true. I'll show you. I can pull a Fury off any victim I choose."

Ever since the days of Orestes there have been men with Furies following them.

"By Kronos, Nid, Ymir and Loki, you'll have cause to regret this!"

"We'll strike, and the Emperor can't do a damn thing about it!"

"Ever heard of a union?" Crockett asked, his gaze intent.

"After you've been here a century, you're allowed one mud bath a day."

"Well, you're a gnome now. It's the Nid Law."

Tim Crockett should never have sneaked into the mine on Dornsef Mountain.

Kerry's face had a blank, dazed look. His pupils were dilated, and he seemed to recognize Fitzgerald only slowly.

The robot, then, was not merely a servant. It was a censor.

Kerry began to feel a general unwillingness to go home. A hobgoblin was waiting for him.

'I bought it as a radio. And-and-the damn thing seems almost alive to me.'

'My new radio,' Kerry told Fitzgerald carefully. 'It's washing the dishes.'

Joe went back into the shop and found a vacant bench. He began to build a Twonky.