Invaders of the Inner World

Invaders of the Inner World

By Lee Strong

Leningrad, USSR

February 1925

The streets of Peter the Great’s city were piled high with winter snow. Grand-mothers organized by some obscure arm of the Soviet bureaucracy were diligently plying shovels and brooms to clear the streets and sidewalks.

Inside a faceless government building, the temperature was scarcely warmer as two foreign scientists demanded action on their entry permits. The frustrated clerk was about to deny their requests for the tenth time when he spotted his superior approaching. Gratefully, he yielded to the impressive figure.

“Who are you and why do you wish to visit Zarovitch Island?” the latter demanded.

Neither of the scientists quailed as expected. “Good day, sir. I am….” began one.

The mountainous figure interrupted, “Do not say ‘sir.’ People’s Revolution has abolished titles of knighthood. I am Comrade Commissar P.I. Visclosky.”

Both scientists stared at the truculent figure for a moment. The speaker resumed, “Very well, Comrade Commissar Visclosky. This gentleman is Dr. Freidrich von der Tann of the International Astronomic Society and I am Dr. Gordon Warrington of the London Zoological Institute. We have passports for Pellucidar via the Romanov Island Scientific….”

“Do not say ‘Pellucidar.’ Is now Novy Mir, ‘New World’ in English. And ‘Romanov Island’ is now Zarovitch Island in honor of 19^th Century revolutionary explorer Vera Zarovitch.” As the scientists digested this revisionism, the glacial Visclosky turned to the one who had not yet spoken. “Why does German astronomer wish to visit inside world lacking in stars and planets?”

The second scientist cleared his throat. “I am Luthanian actually, not German. As an astronomer, I wish to study the pendant moon that orbits Pellucidar above the land of Thuria. My colleague wishes to study the Cenozoic and Mesozoic fauna of the Inner World. We both have the necessary passports, special permits, and letters of introduction from our home institutions and various distinguished authorities such as Professor Challenger, Dr. Lindenbrock, Mr. Burroughs,….”

“Stop!” barked Visclosky, his face mottled in rage. “Do you mean Mister E.R. Burroughs of Richmond, Virginia, USA?” His eyes glittered dangerously.

Von der Tann was a scientist but he had fought in the War of 1914-18. A war that the Soviets had lost before they were rescued by the Western Allies. “Yes, Commissar. That Edgar Rice Burroughs – a generous patron of the Society and an honorary Russian citizen if I recall correctly. He saved the Czar’s life….”

“Silence!” thundered Visclosky. “Guards!” Two soldiers, previously impassive against the wall, sprang to attention, guns upright. “Take these spies away! Any friends of E.R. Burroughs are no friends of the Soviet People!

Rifle butts quickly silenced the scientists’ protests.

Zarovitch Island, Russian POLUOSTROV ZAROVITCH, Novy Mir (New World) autonomous okrug (area), Pellucidarian Anti-Eurasian Ocean; it is separated from the Anti-Arctic Continental mainland to the north by the shallow Innokente Strait.

The land. The seas around the island are cold but seldom frozen. The climate is sub-Arctic dominated by mixed rain and snow throughout the year. Vegetation is low, dense and shrubby in a barren landscape; white grass and tripwire dominate the plant associations. There are no longer any land mammals indigenous to the island. A Russian scientific research establishment occupies most of the island.

History. The island was originally named for the Romanov Imperial dynasty of Russia. Professor Nikolai Innokentevic Trukanov discovered the island in 1914 and established a scientific outpost as a base for exploring the Plutonian region of the northern Anti-Arctic Continent. During the period 1916-20, it was also used as a transit point for Russian peasants colonizing Stolypin Land, Plutonia. The Soviets established themselves there in 1924 and renamed the island and establishment in honor of revolutionary explorer Vera Zarovitch. Present Soviet writings claim Russian knowledge of the Inner World since 1881. The Novy Mir Military District was declared in April 1924 and all access to the island or the adjacent mainland is currently forbidden. – The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 1929 Edition, s.v. “Zarovitch Island.”

Romanov Island, Pellucidar Scientific Research Area, USSR

March 1924

Captain Wrangell found his commander, Senior Colonel Kandinsky, and the latter’s staff officers seated in a small office in one of the Research Area’s laboratories. The establishment’s main administrative offices had been destroyed when the monarchists and their tame scientists had burned their files and specimens. This office’s windows did have a fine view of the nearby mainland. A samovar brewed hot water for tea in the far corner.

Wrangell saluted and reported. “Comrade Senior Colonel, we have secured the island, the causeway and a security zone on the mainland. We have completed a preliminary search of the buildings but found no one except fighters who we have either destroyed or captured. All of the monarchists here and in the town of Stolypin are either dead, captured or fled into the hinterlands.”

He paused and added, “We captured very few of them. Those we did find have been turned over to Comrade Commissar Lvov.” The latter nodded slightly in acknowledgement. Wrangell’s face betrayed nothing. During the Civil War, very few prisoners had survived the attentions of the zampolit, or political officer, and his brutes.

“What about the women and children?” asked Colonel Drobanin. “The Whites had a sizable settlement here—” He gestured towards the town. “—and evacuated several thousand civilians from northern Siberia. What happened to them?”

“Gone, Comrade Colonel. We believe that the monarchists moved their entire civilian population somewhere else deeper into the Inner World. The garrison that we fought on the island and in the town was a relatively small rear guard intended to delay our pursuit. One fighter said that they hoped to find sanctuary in the ‘Empire’ of Pellucidar. They apparently begin the ‘migration’ soon after they lost the Revolution.”

“That was 1920,” interpolated Drobanin. “They’ve had almost four years to organize and move their people.” He cursed. “According to the adventurer Burroughs, it only required thirteen years for the other adventurer Innes to construct his entire Empire. The refugees are well and truly gone by now.”

Wrangell stiffened to attention again. “Comrade Senior Colonel.”

“Yes, Comrade Captain?” inquired the commander mildly.

“According to the fighter that we captured, Burroughs himself is with the monarchists. He was part of the rear guard and led the last fighters into the interior just ahead of our capture of the island and the town.”

All of the seated Soviets leaped to their feet cursing like pirates. The office air blued with profanity.

The senior colonel recovered himself first and sat down heavily. The others imitated his example.

“Comrade Senior Colonel, do you have any orders?” asked Drobanin hesitantly.

The commander sighed loudly. “Yes,” he growled. “Get the men organized, fed and prepared to fight again. Assign one battalion to secure the Research Establishment and the town, conduct a more thorough search for survivors and information about the monarchists’ plans, and establish a permanent base here. Make contact with Moscow Center as soon as possible and notify me when contact is made.

“The other battalions will prepare to march on Comrade Stalin’s orders. When he hears that Burroughs and the surviving monarchists have escaped, I am sure he will order us to invade Pellucidar.” He glared out the window at the strange landscape rising before him.

Behind his back, the other Soviets shivered.

Plutonia okrug (area), Interior Zone, Novy Mir Military District

(Anti-Arctic Continent, northern Pellucidar)

April 1924

(Exterior World calendar)

Captain Wrangell signaled his company to rest and his men eagerly complied. Noncommissioned officers shouted at “volunteers” to stand guard while the captain, his lieutenants and specialists walked up a low hill. One squad began chopping up scrubby bushes for firewood. Overhead, Pellucidar’s tiny sun hung at the zenith but provided little heat to these latitudes. A nice fire would supply that oversight.

Wrangell took out his binoculars and surveyed the strange yet beautiful landscape carefully. Ahead, a plain stretched onward and upward until details blurred into the distance. Herds of animals grazed on the scanty grasses and pale flowers. Off to his right, a river snaked across the land. Wrangell guessed that it would eventually flow into the Anti-Eurasian Ocean below Siberia. Further to the right, he guessed that a series of smudges marked a mountain range. Much closer to his left, two companies of Soviet infantry plodded forward to liberate the New World from the dinosaurs and cavemen that inhabited it. And the monarchists. No good Soviet officer could ever forget the counterrevolutionary threats surrounding the Soviet Union like wolves surrounding an isolated farmhouse.

As Wrangell watched, the nearer company of men marched up a gentle ridge bound for a ruined fort. The monarchists had built a chain of forts reaching into the interior when they had controlled Mother Russia and the Motherland’s scientific resources. When they retreated before the Red Army, they had burned the forts to deny the victors shelter. Kandinsky’s infantry regiment included attached engineers to rebuild the forts and roads that the monarchists had laid down. Until that rebuilding was complete….

“Comrade Senior Colonel Kandinsky has ordered that we stop here ‘for the night.’ His headquarters section and the central column will occupy the site of the monarchists’ fort. Marakov’s company will be beyond them on the regimental left flank. We will occupy this ridge. Engel, move your platoon up to the military crest and dig in. The scouts are out ahead of you; make sure your men don’t shoot them by mistake. Schakowsky, move up behind Engel. Make sure that you are both linked with the central column.” He paused to look to his right where a clump of evergreens stood about one hundred meters away. “Borski, you’re our right flank. Those trees will make a nice windbreak so they can be your headquarters.”

The company lieutenants repeated the orders to their runners who started off to inform the sergeants. “Just a minute, Kirov.” Borski’s runner halted and saluted.

Wrangell resumed scanning the landscape thru his binoculars. “Comrade Specialist Kirov, so far the New World looks very much like the Old One. This could be Siberia rather than ‘Pellucidar.’ The wind here is as cold as it is at home. Those animals down on the plain look very much like reindeer, musk oxen and antelopes, not tyrannosaurs and brontosaurs. And those trees smell like pines, not palm trees.”

“Yes, Comrade Captain. The Anti-Arctic Continent is subarctic in climate and vegetation, not tropical. Cold air from the Exterior Arctic Ocean enters thru the Zarovitch Opening and cools the entire region. So those animals are likely to be similar to reindeer and musk oxen but they may also be mammoths and other creatures that no longer exist on the outer crust. As we move further south, the climate will change rapidly. And the animals and vegetation will change as well.” The young specialist seemed sure of himself, or, at least, his facts.

“Very good, Comrade Specialist. I for one will be very happy to discard this heavy clothing and bask in the eternal sunshine. Until then, you run along and tell your comrades to occupy those trees and provide us with plenty of firewood ‘for the night.’”

Kirov saluted and ran off to inform Lieutenant Borski’s senior sergeant.

While the officers continued discussing weighty matters with Captain Wrangell, Senior Sergeant Voitinuik bawled orders at Borski’s platoon. Whether because of him or despite him, the men soon had a small city of tents erected under the evergreens. As Wrangell had surmised, the trees did provide a buffer against the cold air rushing into Pellucidar. With the tents up, Voitinuik detailed a party to chop down a pine or two for firewood.

The Senior Sergeant was in an expansive mood and he seemed to think that Kirov had put the bright idea of occupying the small forest into Wrangell’s head. As a result, he was talking to the specialist rather than shouting at him. “So, what is a smart young fellow like you doing in the Red Army? Eager to liberate Pellucidar and all of the scantily clad women? Eh, Mikhail Kirillivitch?”

Kirov blushed. “I was a student of paleontology at the University of Leningrad. When Comrade Stalin announced the liberation of the New World, I was drafted….”

The discussion was interrupted by a sudden shout. Kirov and Voitinuik jerked their heads toward a woodcutter jumping back from a tree in horror. Gouts of red blood spurted from the tree trunk, spraying the woodcutter and his comrades. As the men watched in shock, the tree trunk folded upward, lifting into the lower foliage, splattering more blood onto the ground. A golden anvil fell from above, crushing the woodcutter’s skull. A monstrous screech drowned out human shouts of terror. The men scattered as the trees came to life around them.

Kirov froze in place. Moving trees? His mind gibbered. None of the adventurer Perry’s reports had mentioned moving trees!

Senior Sergeant Voitinuik had no such qualms. He leapt forward, bawling orders for Borski’s men to fall back, to leave the woods, to get their rifles off their cursed backs! Now! Now! Now! The men were too panic stricken to obey as more golden anvils appeared from the tops of the trees to smash into Soviet skulls. Other tree limbs flailed against the sky.

Standing twenty meters back from the nearest monster, Kirov suddenly realized what he was seeing. They’re not trees; they’re birds! Giant birds! The “foliage” was really green feathers on giant triangular bodies. The golden “anvils” were the birds’ heads and beaks. And the tree “trunks” and “roots” were the birds’ great legs and feet. No wonder the first one screamed when the woodcutter tried to sever its leg!

The birds were murdering Borski’s men. Beaks split heads and backs and chests in fountains of blood. Great feet kicked humans into the air, shattering bones and mutilating flesh. The small city of tents was ripped to shreds in a matter of seconds.

Behind Kirov, rifles began to crackle, feebly at first, but with mounting fury. The young student belatedly pulled his own Mosin Nagant off his shoulder and aimed at the nearest monster. He fired too hurriedly. The rifle’s recoil bruised his shoulder painfully.

Shamefaced, Kirov flexed his arms to ease the pain and reseat the rifle properly. His eyes took in a scene of horror.

With one exception, the birds had annihilated Borski’s platoon. Only Voitinuik fought on, dodging wildly as the monsters flailed the ground around him with claws and beaks. He cursed wildly, condemning the avians to all manner of impossible acts. And all the while, his rifle barked, savaging his enemies at the closest of ranges.

Kirov’s brutal military training took hold. He dropped to one knee, aiming carefully and bracing himself against the recoil of the gun. He began firing steadily into the knot of gyrating monsters. He couldn’t tell if he was hitting anything but at least he was fighting. Until now, he hadn’t been certain that he could fight.

The bloodthirsty roar of a Madsen machine gun howled from behind Kirov. The heavy weapons were coming into action. One giant collapsed, thudding to the ground, crushing Voitinuik flat. Others screamed defiance at the merely human weapon. One monster hopped forward, advancing on Captain Wrangell’s position. The Madsen lashed at it without apparent effect.

Kirov ran out of bullets. He reached into his greatcoat pockets for another magazine. He bent over as he fumbled, not seeing the mad avian eye fastened on him. He didn’t realize that, kneeling as he was, he was still the tallest, most conspicuous human within many meters of the birds.

Another giant smashed to the ground as Schakowsky’s machine gunners found the range to their target. Rifle fire from a dozen directions stung the strange creatures. Maddened with rage, one monster hopped forward. It’s free claw slashed thru the air….

Kirov was still trying to find his reserve magazines when a hammer smote his back, knocking him to the ground. Then he was yanked into the air, arms and legs flailing wildly. His rifle cartwheeled thru the air to crash somewhere below him. The bloody ridge and the carcasses that had been men five minutes before receded rapidly. The dark green avians strode amidst the ruin. Soon, they were mere blurs in the distance.

He looked up wildly. The great green body stretched above him and beyond that was the blue Pellucidarian sky. Giant wings flapped steadily, carrying him away, a thousand meters above the pallid landscape. The young man fought nausea and lost.

Captain Wrangell charged the site of the battle as the last of the avians collapsed in a thunder of machine gun bullets. He was followed by his lieutenants. The sergeants commanding the Madsens yanked their muzzles upright to avoid hitting their company commander and his staff. In a wide arc around them, prone riflemen began rising to their feet.

Wrangell and his staff slammed to a halt just short of the giant green bodies. They oozed red blood, not sap. He looked around wildly.

“Borski! What are those things?” shouted the company commander.

The lieutenant gaped helplessly. Five minutes before, he had commanded thirty-one men. Now, he was the sole survivor of his entire platoon. Wrangell shouted again. Finally, military discipline took hold of Borksi’s mind and he responded to the question.

“Captain, I don’t know. Kirov might have known but he’s gone. He was our expert in these accursed monsters,” Borski added needlessly.

He pointed towards the distant mountains. A speck was just visible in the distance – the flying monster and its victim’s body.

Other eyes watched the bird winging its way in the distance briefly and then swung back to the disorganized Soviets swarming around the avian carcasses. Those eyes were getting on in years but the brain behind them was as sharp as the day its owner had warned George Armstrong Custer not to underestimate the Sioux. The body that housed that brain was dressed in grey-green hunting clothes sold in a chain of general stores headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, USA.

“Well, Pardan, the Soviets were not as ready for Pellucidar as they thought they were. Will we be ready for them?” The speaker grinned savagely.

The person addressed was dressed in furs dyed the color of the grasses around him. He carried a stone hand axe on his belt and a Springfield rifle on his back. He answered, “Yes, Mister Burroughs, we will be ready for them.” He grinned as well.

Kirov stopped flailing his arms. The giant bird carrying him across the weirdly beautiful Pellucidarian landscape was a thousand meters in the air. If he struggled free of the creature’s claws now, he would encounter that landscape suddenly and fatally.

The strange land passed swiftly beneath him. This portion of Pellucidar’s concave surface was a vast plain, not unlike parts of Siberia. Grasses and unknown but beautiful flowers covered it. Herds of animals cropped the vegetation short. In spite of himself, Kirov recognized mammoths and baluchiteria, long extinct in the Exterior World but thriving in the Inner World, as well as antelope and musk oxen. Other beasts were less recognizable.

He tried to orient himself. His own body blocked his view to the rear, where – presumably – his comrades were planning his rescue. To his sides, the rolling plain stretched onward and upward blurring into the distance. Was there a glint of a vast body of water to his right? The Anti-Eurasian Ocean positioned below the Siberian mainland of the Exterior World? Ahead of him, mountains began to loom into the sky, reaching towards the mighty avian and its unwilling burden.

The bird relaxed its beating wings, angling downward towards the mountains. Granite claws thrust into the crisp, blue Pellucidarian sky at least two thousand meters over Kirov’s spinning head. The bird navigated the twisting canyons between the peaks with a surety of purpose that the human could only admire. Naked rock surrounded them as the bird sped thru the mountains.

Suddenly, the bird banked and twisted in midair. Kirov saw an isolated finger of rock thrusting upward in the chill canyon air in front of him. On the tip of the finger was a jumble of logs – a gigantic nest fit for an avian monster. In it, Kirov could see three smaller editions of the fearsome creature.

A bellowing squawk split the sky. Kirov’s chauffeur had announced its arrival. The younger birds looked up and began cheeping like a hundred high pitched bullfrogs croaking in unison.

Thoughts flashed thru the man’s brain. Home for dinner! And I am the dinner!

Without warning, the great bird released its prey, sending its victim hurling thru the air towards the nest. Kirov flailed his arms, attempting to fly like the Firebird’s Mate of legend. Unfortunately, he had no magic feather to enable him to fly.

Instead, his greatcoat caught the wind rushing thru the canyon. It slowed him just enough.… He crashed heavily into a massive log built into the side of the nest. A hammer blow smashed him unconscious.

Scouts K.M. Ostrogorsky and B.O. Erchov cautiously raised themselves from the ground of the Pellucidarian plain a kilometer in advance of Wrangell’s company of Kandinsky’s regiment. When gunfire had erupted behind them, they had instantly sought cover among the pale green grasses. From their hasty blind, they had watched the battle between Borski’s platoon and the monster birds. Now that the birds were dead or flown, they conferred briefly and decided to resume their advance. Whatever had happened on the ridge didn’t look good from their angle. As Russians and Soviets, they knew that the higher ups were going to find someone other than themselves to blame. Therefore, it would be much, much better for a couple of brave scouts to be somewhere else when blame was assigned.

They eased forward, keeping their eyes and ears on the curious animals that grazed the plain ahead of them and resolutely ignoring the diminishing gunfire behind them. Thus, they missed the simultaneous rifle flashes low in the grass between them and Wrangell’s company. When their lifeless bodies were discovered, the harassed captain concluded that they were the accidental victims of ‘friendly fire’ when Borski’s men fired wildly at the gyrating monster birds. If Wrangell had ordered an autopsy, he would have discovered that the fatal bullets came from American Springfield rifles rather than Soviet Mosin Nagants.

Kirov was shaken awake. Dull pain tortured half his body, confusing his thoughts. The shaking must be Senior Sergeant Voitinuik trying to wake him. A sharper pain jabbed his buttocks.

Kirov came wildly awake. Voitinuik might apply his boot to someone’s fundament, but not his knife. What? The young draftee stared about him wildly.

The three young giant birds – only the size of large dogs – were pecking at him. Fortunately, most of their blows had landed on his battered back pack or his thick greatcoat. Above them, the mother avian perched on the edge of her nest, preening her great tree-like body distractedly. The piney scent of the birds assailed Kirov’s nostrils.

The nearest monster pecked again, hoping for a nice human drumstick. Again, Kirov’s brutal military training took hold and he kicked frantically at the avians. Thoughts of Voitinuik’s versatile knife drove his hand to his belt sheath. The bayonet to his now vanished rifle whipped upward into a defensive posture.

The baby monsters were nonplussed by their dinner’s obstinacy. They were accustomed to meat stunned into unconsciousness by its impact with the nest. Food this lively was something new.

The monster to Kirov’s right edged closer. The soldier waved his left hand at it. As it turned to focus on the motion, Kirov stabbed his bayonet savagely into the side of its head. The creature convulsed as if electrocuted and collapsed.

The other birdlings gawped at their brother’s corpse. Kirov froze in place, trying to translate immobility into invisibility. The ploy worked. The baby monsters pecked at the body, tentatively at first, then with increasing vigor. They tore bloody strips from the corpse. Their dining habits were… messy.

Kirov edged backward carefully. His heel caught on the uneven footing of the giant nest. He fell heavily, slamming his injured back once more. He choked off a bitter cry.

Too late.

The mother monster heard the strangled cry and looked down to see two of her young shredding their brother while their intended dinner painfully crab walked away. She screamed and slammed her yellow head downward to crush the murderer of her young. A living anvil smashed into Kirov’s body as he twisted, attempting to escape….

The Providence that Soviet doctrine denied smiled on the young paleontologist. The monster’s beak crashed into the remains of his backpack, cutting it loose from Kirov’s body and carrying it upward. The gigantic bird shook the backpack savagely. The remains of valuable State property scattered in the air, arcing briefly and then falling into the nest or into depths of the canyon far below.

Kirov crawled frantically across the interlocked logs that formed the titan’s nest. They seemed cemented into place, not allowing any bolt holes for escaping soldiers. The younglings eyed him curiously but continued to dine.

The living anvil descended again. The powerful jaws seized the soldier. Once again, Kirov was yanked into the air. This time he was shaken savagely back and forth. Pain and fear lashed him into alertness. A corner of his brain guessed that the mother monster was still trying to tenderize her children’s food. Two can play that game!

Kirov’s arm flashed to the attack, plunging his bayonet deep into the monster’s eye. The creature convulsed. The slender blade had pierced its brain.

Dying, the giant bird whipped its neck, releasing Kirov to fly thru the air high above the canyon floor. Flailing his arms, he soared thru a short arc and hung momentarily suspended by the interplay of gravity and momentum. His body cartwheeled slowly in the cold air.

All around him flashed the wind sculpted stone of the canyon and mountain walls. A thousand meters below him, the canyon floor awaited him. He could see green vegetation and a blue river. And around him, more giant birds sailed towards the nest. Apparently, the monster had a large family.

His brief truce with gravity was over. Kirov began to fall towards the distant canyon floor. He was out of tricks and feints. The young Russian resigned himself to exploring the Great Unknown.

But before he could fall below the level of the giant bird’s nest, he was seized by more claws. Not again! Another bird, this one a dull black color, had snatched him out of the air.

To Kirov’s surprise, he heard a human voice. He looked away from his captor to see another great black bird flying beside him. On its back was a humanoid male clad in feathers and carrying weapons on leather belts. He was seated on his bird’s back in a leather saddle. Larger, bird sized belts attached the saddle to the avian torso.

The birdrider gestured towards the bird carrying Kirov away from the monster’s nest and shouted something in an alien language. Kirov looked up and saw a beautiful face peering at him between wing beats.

It was all too much. Kirov fainted.

Again, Kirov awoke to pain. This time at least he was lying on something soft and the noises in his head were human voices and birdsongs. He breathed deeply, eyes closed, enjoying the sensation of being back in the barracks at Zarovitch Island.

Birdsongs? Fear of another monster avian lanced into his brain. Kirov jerked fully awake and looked around him wildly.

He was lying on a bed in a cage-like enclosure made of wooden slats. A few simple furnishings suggested that it was someone’s room rather than a jail cell. He cautiously sat up.

His motion aroused the attention of a young woman seated near a doorway. She arose and spoke to him in a language full of monosyllables. When he didn’t respond, she shook her head and stepped thru the doorway.

As his head cleared, Kirov realized that he knew the language. It was Pellucidarian. He’d studied it at the University of Leningrad as part of his training as a paleontologist. Since the American adventurer Burroughs had reported the existence of living dinosaurs, all serious paleontologists learned Capronan and Pellucidarian in order to communicate with the Galu and gilaks respectively.

The young woman returned, escorting another woman. The first young lady was pretty; the second was beautiful. Both were slender, athletic brunettes. The first was clad in a simple shift-like garment of brown feathers. The second wore a clinging dress of glossy black feathers ornamented with white feathers on her bodice and in her hair. A chunk of raw gold was suspended from her shapely neck.

The second woman eyed Kirov carefully for a moment and then gestured to her escort. “He does not look dangerous to me, Flana. You may leave.”

“Yes, Ala.” Flana bowed and left.

Ala resumed appraising the young Russian.

Kirov attempted to frame a flowery greeting but was balked by the simplicity of the Pellucidarian language. He settled for saying, “Great woman, I thank you for rescuing me from the great green birds. I am Mikhail Kirillivitch Kirov of the Red War Party.” Pellucidarian had no word for Army.

Ala eyed Kirov curiously. “Where are the hunting grounds of the Red War Party? Why have you come to the Mountains of the Birds and the territory of the Black Birdriders?”

Kirov replied, “The Red War Party guards the lands of the Soviet Tribe in Pellucidar and far beyond. We hunt for enemies of the Soviet People including an evil war chief Edgar Rice Burroughs. When we find them, we will take them to our great chief Josef Stalin for trial. I am here because a great green bird captured me and brought me to her nest to feed her young. I come to the land of the Black Birdriders in peace.”

Ala’s beautiful brow furrowed as Kirov spoke. “Will the Red War Party invade the Mountains of the Birds?” Her breathing quickened.

Kirov thought a moment before answering. Soviet leaders seldom included ordinary soldiers in their plans. Until now, he had no idea that the Mountains of the Birds existed much less Comrade Stalin’s plans for them. Better to play it safe and declare peaceful intentions. “No. The Red War Party is far away hunting for our enemies. We will never invade the Mountains of the Birds.” He showed his most diplomatic smile.

“Good,” pronounced Ala. “Since the Red War Party cannot protect you, you are my slave.”

Once Kirov recovered from his two sets of wounds, he was put to work in Esi, the village of the Black Birdriders. His first set of wounds was a series of deep cuts and batterings inflicted by the skals, as he learned the giant green, treelike birds were called. His second set had been inflicted by Ala’s thugs when he protested her decision to enslave him.

No Russian was afraid of work and, in some ways, it was easier than working in his father’s shop before he had entered the University. Pellucidar’s sun hung eternally overhead, making time meaningless. The Black Birdriders and their slaves ate, slept and woke when their bodies told them to do so or when Ala needed their services. As long as the slaves obeyed orders and got their work done, the guards were inclined to allow them to work at their own pace. From time to time, Ala’s elite guards would inspect the work and it was best to labor especially diligently. When they left, life returned to normal.

The Black Birdriders numbered several hundred warriors and their women. They were the elite of Pellucidarian life and frequently told each other and their slaves exactly that. The men trained their giant black birds, manufactured weapons from parts made by the slaves, hunted beasts and other humans, capturing some and killing many. The women prepared food gathered from the Plain of Grazers below Esi, made clothes, supervised their homes, and raised the children. Both sexes gave orders to the thousand or so slaves in Esi.

The slaves did all the heavy work apart from hunting game. They cleaned houses, carried loads, and manufactured many of the simple wood, stone and leather tools that the Black Birdriders used. No slave was armed. Ala’s thugs had confiscated Kirov’s boot knife. They had allowed him his warm Soviet Red Army uniform and spare bullets. The young Russian sardonically told his captors that the metal cylinders were good luck charms. One of the guards thought himself a wit and noted that they hadn’t done Kirov any good. But the birdrider allowed the new slave to keep his “charms.”

Esi itself stood on a proud promontory of stone jutting outward from one of the Mountains of the Birds – a natural fortress amid the endless perils of the Inner World. Kirov’s captors called the peak Tralsi (Black Bird’s Roost). It reared high overhead, a bold warrior lancing the clear blue Pellucidarian sky. In other directions, Esi overlooked a vast plain about thirty meters below. Like all Pellucidarian landscapes, the plain curved onward and upward until it faded into the misty distance.

Whenever he could take time from his chores, Kirov gazed outward searching for a rescue party from Kandinsky’s regiment (or any other Soviet unit). Animals of various types grazed the pale green grass and oddly beautiful flowers and drank from the tiny streams threading the land. From his vantage point, Kirov recognized antelope, mammoths, mastodons, and many other creatures extinct for thousands of years in the Exterior World. They lived, moved, fought and died in Nature’s endless circle of life, passing to and fro before Kirov’s searching eyes. But no Soviet feet crossed the landscape. No Red Banners shouted rescue. Kirov glumly returned to his work.

A slave could be called on to perform any task any Black Birdrider wanted done. As a newcomer, Kirov was assigned to the least pleasant tasks including carrying away the community’s trash and hauling lumber to and fro. The Black Birdriders lived in wooden houses, not caves, as Senior Sergeant Viotinuik had thought, and used wooden tools. They used enough lumber that Kirov was kept busy.

The bare mountain rock that supported Esi allowed no trees to take root. When the birdriders needed wood, they mounted a specialized hunting party to a small forest growing on the plain far below their town. Kirov and a “platoon” of husky slaves were assembled. The trals, or great black birds from which the tribe took its name, were brought forth and harnessed. The giant avians seemed tame enough under their handlers’ hands but when a slave got too close, savage beaks pecked at him. He skittered back, dropping a load of tackle as he did. Ala’s lieutenant, Ulu, barked an order and a guard’s fist smashed the slave’s face in punishment. The other slaves grumbled but dared nothing under Ulu’s eyes. The struck slave glared at the guards darkly, his face reddening, but said nothing. He picked up the tackle and resumed his place.

The birdriders saddled their own birds, checking their lashings carefully, and mounted up. They had the same élan as pilots in the Red Air Force. Ulu shouted directions. One wing took off for the forest to scout for enemies. Another wing followed with the birds carrying baskets made of leather ropes and filled with tools. Finally it was the slaves’ turn.

They carried giant baskets to the edge of the precipice where Esi overlooked the plain below. Muttering all the time, the slaves climbed into the baskets and crouched down, two per basket. Slender Kirov was paired with an amiable giant named Dyryth. The trals hopped to the edge of the cliff and dived off. Wings beating fiercely, they flew down and then up, circling around over Esi. As they passed low over the town, their pilots guided them with piercing voices and slaps of the hand on their necks and heads. One by one, the trals passed over the baskets and snatched them off the cliff.

Burdened by the weight of three men, the trals guided rather than flew to the forest. Their pilots guided them expertly. Just before the slaves’ baskets would have crashed into the loamy soil, the great pinions beat frantically and the slaves arrived on the outskirts of the small forest more or less intact.

One of Ulu’s lieutenants formed the slaves up in a compact mass with armed birdrider infantry on all four sides. They walked together until they reached the trees selected for timbering.

Kirov and the other slaves were issued stone axes and directed to cut enough lumber to satisfy Ala’s requirements. A thin cordon of birdrider guards screened the workers, facing alternately inward and outward. Several times, trals came and went carrying food and water for the workers and their guards.

On this occasion, Ala seemed to need a great deal of lumber. The slaves slept twice and ate four times before Ulu was satisfied with the number of trees cut down and then trimmed into logs of more or less uniform length. The guards and slaves used some of the smaller branches as firewood to burn their food into greater palatability or to make simple huts to shield themselves from the constant glare of the tiny sun and the frequent gusts of chill air entering Pellucidar from the North Polar Opening.

Once Ulu was satisfied with the accumulated lumber, he directed the slaves to haul a log away from the pile to an open space on the plain where the trals could reach it. Many leather ropes or straps were attached to it and the slaves directed to stand back. An entire squadron of trals descended to the plain near the log and seized leather ropes in their claws. On a signal from Ulu, the flock rose in unison and beat slowly upward, carrying the log back to Esi.

While the trals were imitating cranes, the slaves were marched back to the pile and ordered to move another log to the landing area. The trals were still somewhere out of sight, presumably in Esi. Ulu allowed the slaves to rest until the birds returned.

Dyryth flopped down in place and appeared to go to sleep. Kirov sat wearily down on the log. He glanced at the placid giant.

“Dyryth, why are you a slave?” asked the Russian.

The giant opened a sleepy eye. “Birdriders capture Dyryth on Plain of Grazers.” He gestured vaguely at the plain surrounding the forest. “Dyryth not able to escape from birdriders.”

“Why can’t you escape from the birdriders?” asked Kirov softly. His head bowed but his eyes took in his surroundings carefully. He had not become a prize student at the University based on family connections.

“They always watching,” mumbled Dyryth sleepily. He rolled over.

Kirov cautiously raised his head. The slaves seemed to be sleeping or resting while the guards were watching for the trals to return from Esi. I will not be a slave, he thought. He looked around, hefted his stone axe, and rose to his feet. He quietly walked towards the pile of cut timber, his casual manner suggesting that nothing was unusual. Once past the pile, he bolted for the forest. Only the soft calls of Pellucidar’s strange birds and animals marked his escape.

The forest was not very large, only a few hundred meters across, but it provided concealment for the escaping Russian. The trees seemed to be evergreens of some sort. They smelled like pine trees as well as looking like them. Vividly recalling the slaughter of Lieutenant Borksi’s platoon by the skals, Kirov was cautious about approaching any supposed tree too closely. He zigzagged thru the woods, avoiding stepping on roots or obvious twigs. Either might be skal feet. He stopped at the far edge of the wood.

He studied the Plain of Grazers quickly but carefully. He was tired but the prospect of freedom spurred him on. Black Bird Roost was behind him; before him were the limitless possibilities of the Inner World. American adventurers had flocked here for fame and fortune. Even their cowboy President Roosevelt had established a colony out there somewhere. Kirov had long planned to come himself (altho as a distinguished scientist rather than a fugitive slave). He plunged forward, into freedom.

The Soviet advance into the Inner World – Novy Mir in politically correct jargon – had temporarily halted on the ridge that the soldiers had privately labeled Borski’s Blunder. Senior Colonel Kandinsky had relieved the unfortunate platoon commander and dispatched him back to Siberia and the tender mercies of higher command. More men were already on their way. But a stop would give the riflemen a rest and give the engineers a chance to build a fortified position on the site of the former monarchist fort and make other improvements. The position was now called Fort Alinsky after some obscure Hero of the Soviet Union.

Inside the packed earth ramparts, Kandinsky was unhappy with his intelligence officer. He sighed audibly.

“Comrade Major Garman. Do you have any idea where the monarchists have disappeared to? They moved several thousands of people from Siberia into Novy Mir. Yet all we have found are burned forts and wagon tracks. Surely you and the scouts have found some trace of the enemy forces.”

Ivan Garman was a plain faced man from the Finnish border region whose ordinary appearance belied the brain inside. “No, Comrade Senior Colonel. We have not yet located them. Their wagon convey tracks continue further south, apparently across the plain. The scouts explored three days march ahead and then returned to base for rest. The tracks still led onward to the south.

He continued, “I propose that we equip a special scouting party to press as far forward as they can along the wagon convey trail and make contact with the fleeing monarchists.”

Kandinsky grunted. “Yes. Prepare your special scouting party. We must find the enemies of the State as soon as possible and kill or capture them. We can not allow our enemies to wander around Novy Mir plotting trouble.”

There was a brief silence broken by Colonel Drobanin asking, “Comrade Senior Colonel, do we have orders concerning the other enemies of the State, the Americans in their foolish ‘New America’ to our east?” He gestured in what he thought was the right direction.

Kandinsky paused before answering. “They will be dealt with when the time comes,” he said blandly. The other Soviets knew what he meant.

The left flank of Kandinsky’s spearhead into Pellucidar was covered by the company commanded by Captain E. Marakov. He was camped between Fort Alinsky proper and a forest sloping upward towards a distant plateau. When he learned that Borski’s platoon had been destroyed by giant birds disguised as trees, he ordered his men to use the nearest trees as target practice. Not only was it good training but it prevented any giant “treebirds” from sneaking up on his company. Marakov was well pleased with himself.

Deep in the forest still being fired upon by Marakov’s men, Edgar Rice Burroughs of Richmond, Virginia grinned satanically. The racket the Soviets were making covered up a multitude of things. Pardan and he had located a cave bear’s lair in the caves pocking the plateau that the Soviets hadn’t yet investigated. Waiting until the bear was well outside his home, they had taken turns shooting him. Both crack shots, either Pardan or he could have killed the prehistoric giant with one carefully aimed bullet. If their Springfields didn’t do the job, Burroughs packed an express rifle for Pellucidar’s truly large game.

But the two gilaks weren’t hunting cave bears. They were hunting Soviets. Their carefully aimed shots stung the bear, enraging it, while the noise of their rifles attracted its attention. Maddened, it lumbered to attack.

For all its size, the cave bear of northern Pellucidar moved with the speed of a charging bull. Normally, it would have overhauled any two humans and made a short meal of the interlopers. But these humans were prepared for the attack. The older man ran for a previously hung rope ladder and swarmed up a tree too big for the bear to climb, push over or tear up. When the bruin stopped to concentrate on how to get its intended meal out of the tree, the younger man trotted to a new position deeper in the forest. From there, he fired, stinging the bear’s flank. Again the bruin charged…. The human fled, boldly luring the animal closer to Fort Alinsky and Marakov’s company. When he heard the ursinoid getting close, he went up a second tree like his simian relatives.

The deadly game of tag ended when the bruin came close enough to the Soviets to hear their gunfire and decide that he had finally run his tormentors to earth. He charged out of the forest….

Burroughs and Pardan watched the epic battle of bear and men from the relative safety of the woods. They left before the battered Soviets learned that cave bears have families. Large, vengeful families.

Kirov jogged across the vast plain, every step leaving Ulu’s Forest – a name that he had just invented – and Black Bird Roost further behind him. His heart sang with joy. Even so, he watched carefully as he ran. The adventurers Innes and Perry had vividly described Pellucidar’s multitude of dangers in their reports. Fortunately, the wild life in this part of the Inner World seemed to be limited to field mice and specimens of eohippus, ancestors of the modern horse but no bigger than fox terriers. They scampered away the fleeing human, glad of their tiny lives.

The young Russian continued running away from Esi and Ulu’s Forest as long as he could. The weariness caused by long hours cutting wood seemed to have vanished with the prospect of freedom. Finally, tho, he came to a creek cutting thru the rolling plain and stopped to rest. He flopped down in the tall grass and lapped up water from a dog. He didn’t realize that fierce eyes rested on his form.

Finally replete with water, Kirov rolled over on his back to rest. Lightning shot thru his brain. High in the clear blue of the Pellucidarian sky flew a flock of trals winging in his direction.

Energy suddenly restored, Kirov leaped to his feet and bolted to his right, seeking sanctuary somewhere, anywhere, on the open plain. As he pounded across the landscape, he clutched his stolen stone axe. If he had to make a last stand…. Heroic thoughts of Alexander Nevsky and other defenders of Old Russia rose in his mind.

Running desperately up a slight rise in the ground, he tried to look behind him to see if the Black Birdriders were closing in on him. As he crested the rise, he hit something soft and tripped, spilling his abused body across the obstacle and the Pellucidarian landscape.

Frantically, he twisted himself into an upright sitting position. The obstacle was a young woman and a saddled giant brown bird. She had been seated on the animal, crouched down, hidden in the tall grass. Kirov had apparently taken her by surprise and knocked her off the avian’s back. She was attempting to untangle herself from the Russian’s legs. The bird clucked and similar clucks sounded from the concealing grass around them.

He thought quickly, The birdriders ambushed me! One wing flew overhead to herd me into the trap while a second wing waited for me!

Determined not to be retaken easily, he lashed out, kicking the birdrider’s pretty chin. She convulsed and fell backwards against her clucking mount. She slid into a prone position and lay still.

Kirov’s first impulse was to help his fallen foe but he quickly decided that escape was more important than chivalry. He staggered to a half standing position and threw his leg over the bird’s saddle. He slapped the bird’s neck as he had seen Ulu’s men do.

The bird didn’t seem inclined to take orders. It squawked loudly and lurched upright. It shrieked again even more loudly as Kirov slid across its back and fell heavily to the ground. Pellucidarian saddles had no saddle horns or stirrups. Unless your feet and body were strapped to the saddle, you were dependent on your sense of balance.

The bird pecked at Kirov, who dodged wildly. He’d had enough of that mistreatment in the skal’s nest somewhere in the Mountains of the Birds. He gathered himself, twisting into a fighting posture. He still had his axe in his hand and waved it in a circle, trying to keep the fighting bird from pecking him to death.

A sudden pain stabbed thru Kirov’s brain followed by blackness.

When he came to, he was lying face down, his hands bound behind him. The back of his skull ached mightily. He looked up to see a rough circle of Pellucidarians dressed in brown feathers surrounding him and the young woman that he had knocked down. Two guards were watching him. Both faces were contorted in anger. Another man was speaking urgently to the young woman. Her face and the faces of the others were anxiously scanning the sky.

Kirov saw a tral cruise overhead. He recognized the birdrider in the black feather as Ala. Above him, more trals circled, their riders holding spears ready.

“Ka-goda?!” shouted the queen of Esi. Do you surrender? in Pellucidarian.

“We must,” whispered the young woman in obvious agony.

“No!” stormed a man, like the woman, clad in brown feathers.

“We must,” she repeated. She gestured vaguely towards Kirov’s prone body as she studied the sky. “He found us and led them to us. There are too many flying birdriders to fight.”

She looked upward at the circling trals. “Ka-goda!” she shouted and dropped her spear. We surrender. Her warriors angrily stabbed their spears into the earth.

In a thunder of wings, the Black Birdriders descended on the scene, spear tips glinting in the sun. The black clad warriors formed a circle surrounding their captives.

Eyes gleaming, Ala slipped from her saddle with the dignity of the semi-legendary warrior Empress Catherine the Great. She surveyed the scene, taking in the surrendered warriors and their captive lying on the ground. She first addressed herself to the brown clad woman.

“Well, Lal, I have you at last.” Ala’s smile was more poisonous than ten vipers. Her captive returned a tightlipped silence. The latter’s shoulders slumped in despair.

The triumphant queen turned to the bound Kirov. “Well done, slave. I will punish you for attempting to escape. However, it will be a light punishment because you led us to my most dangerous enemy, the chief of the Dyal Riders.”

Ala was true to her word. Kirov’s punishment for attempting to escape was relatively light – only one guard beat him brutally instead of many. He withstood it as manfully as he could. He had already learned that open resistance merely brought further punishment.

What was worse was the attitude of Lal’s warriors. They blamed him for their captivity and, more importantly, for Lal’s. One sleep period, he awoke suddenly and painfully to find many fists pounding on him. In timeless Pellucidar there was no way to tell how long he was dead to the world but when he awoke he was ravenously hungry. He guessed that days had gone by while his brutalized body had slowly healed. His dreams had been full of pain, sometimes caused by men’s fists, sometimes caused by skals’ beaks.

He also found that Ulu had promoted him to toolmaker and given Lal’s men his former assignments as trash haulers and lumbermen. All of Lal’s men had black and blue faces. Kirov didn’t ask how that had happened. Instead he concentrated on his new job. Only Dyryth dropped by his new workspace to chat at odd moments and relay news of the other slaves.

The American adventurers Innes and Perry had described most Pellucidarians as Stone Age cavemen. Kirov’s academic classes in anthropology had taught him the fallacy of assuming that “stone age” meant that every tool was made of stone and nothing but stone. The Black Birdriders used wood, bone and leather tools extensively. Their black feathered costumes were glued to leather undergarments. They lived in log cabins built directly on the naked rock of the mountain promontory jutting outward from Black Bird’s Roost. Thick walls and constant fires protected them from the cold air rushing into the Inner World thru the North Polar Opening.

Shortly before Ala’s birdriders had captured Kirov, fire had destroyed several homes. Kirov’s immediate job was to help trim logs into cabin sized units including carefully notching the lumber so that it would fit solidly together. As he sweated to shape logs with stone axes and then move them into position, the young Russian began to study his captors.

The notched logs only fitted together so well. The Black Birdriders had never invented daubing to fill in the resulting gaps in their walls. So hearth fires burned constantly. The fires required a great deal of wood and therefore a great many slaves to maintain the comfort of the master class. Once the first new cabin was erected and roofed with logs, Kirov was drafted to move furniture to suit the opinions of the lady of the house. As he did so, he observed the man of the house pile small branches on the naked rock and lit them with a brand borrowed from a neighbor. The fire caught and burned merrily in a natural fire pit in the center of the room. Around the fire pit, sawdust covered the floor in place of the rugs that the Birdriders had never invented.

When Kirov returned to his workplace, he rounded up all the stones that he find and built a walled fire pit for his own hearth. When a slave delivered more wood, the Russian noticed that the slave unloaded it sloppily only a pace or so away from the flames. Kirov told the slave to stack the wood in the corner of the room away from the fire pit.

“Why?” asked the slave. Kirov recalled that his name was Rell. “More work to fetch wood from corner to fire.”

“But safer,” rejoined Kirov. “Fire can’t escape from a fire pit. Fire can’t burn down the house if it can’t reach any other wood.”

Rell was puzzled by the thought but complied.

Thus began the career of Pellucidar’s Tom Edison.

Once Kirov began thinking in terms of more than simple survival, ideas occurred faster and faster.

The use of primitive tools to cut and shape wood left a great deal of sawdust and other debris lying around Esi, especially in the houses and workplaces. Most Black Birdriders and their slaves simply walked on the sawdust and kicked the chips out of the way. A fire hazard even if the gilaks didn’t build their fires on the sawdust and debris. Kirov tied some tral feathers to a conveniently sized branch and invented the broom.

At first he fed the wood chips into the fire but a cold gust of air inspired him to begin chinking shut the gaps in his workshop walls. He hunted up more wood chips in his off time despite the hoots of laughter from the other slaves.

Rell was the first person to notice that Kirov’s workplace was warmer than the other buildings and began loitering when he delivered firewood. The slave toolmakers were assigned individual cabins to work in, perhaps because Ala had realized that separating the slaves from each other made conspiracies against the masters more difficult. A supervisor named Ozo made rounds constantly to insure that the slaves worked diligently and stole no weapon parts. Since Kirov was always busy, even during his allowed rest periods, Ozo spent very little time inspecting the young Russian and more time shouting at the apparent slackers among the other slaves. Rell’s firewood deliveries took long enough for him to realize the difference between Kirov’s cabin and the others.

“Why is your work place warm when other houses are cold?” asked the puzzled slave. “Your fire is no bigger than others.”

Kirov smiled and put down the ax heads he was chipping. His anthropology classes at the University had proved surprisingly useful. “I closed the holes in the walls. Heat stays inside better.” He grinned with pride.

Rell studied the chinked walls carefully. “Why does heat stay with you but not stay with Rell or others?”

“Heat wants to be free,” Kirov paraphrased his secondary school physics to suit the Pellucidarian vocabulary. “All walls trap heat and make heat escape slowly. My walls trap heat better. Heat escapes very slowly from here.”

Rell nodded his head in agreement. He might not understand thermodynamic insulation efficiency but he understood the concept of one man hunting and trapping better than another man. He studied Kirov’s workplace, especially the walls, until Ozo found him apparently idle and shouted that lazy slaves would be beaten.

Kirov was already busy inventing the wheel.

Of course, the man from the Outer World already knew what a wheel was. The challenges were, first, building a true wheel with the primitive tools at hand and, second, finding a use for one. Both processes were delayed by Kirov’s assignment to produce ax heads and other, more traditional tools but he persevered.

Kirov settled on chipping a cross section of a log into a relatively thin slice and then cutting a hole thru the middle. His progress was impeded by the fact that no Pellucidarian had invented a drill and no Black Birdrider trusted a slave with a knife. Finally he chipped and sanded his way to success. He spent some time just rolling it back and forth across the floor of his workplace in celebration.

What to do with his “invention” was suggested by Rell. Each waking period, the slave trudged around Esi carrying firewood for the voracious hearths of the Black Birdriders and their slaves.

Kirov started with one of the boxy containers that the birdriders’ slaves used to carry water and loose items. He placed it on its side and set Esi’s first wheel next to it. Then he began the long task for chipping handles and supports out of branches. When he had shaped them as well as he could, he tied the results together with wet rawhide ropes. When the rawhide finished drying, the construction was as solid as the young inventor could make it with the technology at hand. He tested it by moving loads of firewood and hand axes around his workplace. He had to rebuild the handles and wheel supports several times before he was satisfied. The ungreased wheel squealed like a wounded pig but Pellucidar’s first wheelbarrow was born.

When the slave toolmakers finished five of anything, they were supposed to carry the resulting production to a central storehouse guarded by a “squad” of Black Birdriders. Once Kirov was satisfied that the wheelbarrow would do its job, he loaded his regular production of ax heads and other tools into his new invention and wheeled over to the building that he thought of as the Arsenal.

“What is that thing?” demanded one of the guards, eying it curiously.

“A wheelbarrow,” responded the young Tom Edison airily. He used the Russian term since Pellucidarian had no words for wheel or barrow. “It’s like a carrying box only better.”

“I have never seen a ‘wheelbarrow’ before.” The native eyed the contraption suspiciously.

“Of course, not. This is the first wheelbarrow in all of Pellucidar,” proclaimed Kirov breezily. He suspected that the American adventurer Innes had introduced wheelbarrows in the latter’s Empire of Pellucidar but that nation was far enough away that no Black Birdrider was likely to challenge his declaration. Or want to challenge it. “Only the Black Birdriders have a wheelbarrow to make work easier.”

The guards were typical of the master class of Esi. They swelled with pride at the recognition of their national superiority. “Yes, only the Black Birdriders have a ‘wheelbarrow’,” agreed the guard. He mangled the pronunciation but Kirov simply nodded in agreement with the birdrider’s sagacity. As the old Russian saying had it, Flattery will get you anything.

Slaves didn’t enter the Arsenal freely. The proud guard signaled Kirov to enter and followed him in. Ala’s lieutenant in charge of the central tool store also challenged the ungainly invention. The guard answered before Kirov could speak. “This is a wheelbarrow. It is the greatest wheelbarrow in all of Pellucidar. Only the Black Birdriders have one.” The guard’s attitude suggested that he had invented it personally.

The lieutenant eyed the contraption warily but its resemblance to an ordinary box of things allayed suspicions.

“Very good. You, unload the axes.” He gestured at Kirov. The latter obeyed quickly. He smiled as he worked. The differences between the humans of the Inner and Outer Worlds were less than many people imagined.

On the way back to his workspace, Kirov encountered Rell making his rounds with an armload of firewood.

“Rell,” announced the ebullient Russian. “This is a wheelbarrow. It can make your work much easier.”

The tired slave gave his full attention to Pellucidar’s first wheelbarrow salesman.

The Great Wheelbarrow Revolution was underway before any member of Esi’s master class realized it.

Rell had already seen that Kirov could trap heat and live more comfortably than other slaves could. He was therefore receptive to Kirov’s salesmanship about the wheelbarrow. He tried moving loads of firewood using the strange contraption. Soon enough, Rell was an advocate. Other slaves asked about the gadget and Rell explained that he could accomplish his assigned work more quickly and easily with the new device than before. Once his work had been accomplished, he had more time to himself. Some of his friends asked to try the device and Rell was proud to loan it out and to instruct others in the mysteries of its use. The original wheelbarrow was soon in constant use. Slaves began dropping by Kirov’s workspace to ask if they could have warm walls and more wheelbarrows. Like human beings everywhere, they chatted about many things as well as work.

Ozo noticed the sudden popularity of Kirov’s place and intervened. The crowd dispersed at his shouting. He demanded, “Why are the slaves hanging around your work place?”

“They wish to work easier and live better. They want more wheelbarrows. With wheelbarrows, the slaves can move firewood, tools, trash and other things more easily. Only the Black Birdriders have wheelbarrows,” replied the young salesman. “And they enjoy the warmth in my work place.” His tone was very bland.

Ozo was not convinced about the mysterious devices and ordered the young Tom Edison back to producing more conventional tools. But he also began checking up on the slaves’ use of the wheelbarrows that Kirov had already produced. And his attention had been drawn to the fact that Kirov’s workspace was warmer than those of the other slave toolmakers.

A few sleeps later, Ozo brought word that Ala’s chief lieutenant, Ulu, wanted to see Kirov.

Now.

As Kirov was walking towards the building that he called the Palace, he saw Ulu outside the building, scowling at him.

Danger waited ahead of him.

And above him.

As he approached, Kirov heard a scream followed by thunderous squawking. His head jerked upward as shadows eclipsed the eternal Pellucidarian sun. Skals – the great green birds of his nightmares – were attacking Esi.

The Black Birdriders trusted no slave with weapons and Kirov had no thought of fighting the aerial monsters with his bare hands. He dived for cover in the angle formed by some Birdrider’s log cabin and the bare stone on which Esi stood. Landing suddenly on the mountain rock reminded him painfully of the abuse that he had already suffered.

Overhead, the skals swooped impartially down on humans and the lesser giant black birds known as trals. Great claws snatched up human and avian prey alike. The trals were big enough and strong enough to put up good fights against the larger predators. The smaller humans were easier prey. Often a skal would grab two humans before sweeping upward, en route to nests in the Mountains of Birds. Whole families of skals would shortly dine well.

Kirov looked upward. He tried to watch in five or six directions at once lest a skal attack him from behind. Fortunately, none of the ungainly monsters seemed interested in forcing its great green body into the confined space next to the building. Not when fleeing slaves and overconfident masters could be snatched up from open areas so much more easily.

As the young Russian watched, he realized that trals carrying Black Birdriders were appearing from a point high up on Tralsi mountain. They leapt outward from the mountain, circled and descended to counterattack the raiders.

Revelation struck Kirov like lightning. That was how the Black Birdriders spotted his attempted escape! And the advance of Lal’s Dyal Riders across the Plain of Grazers! A hidden observation post and outwork! The upward curvature of Pellucidar’s landscape would only make spying on those below all the easier. Ala’s military security skills were better than he had thought.

Encouraged by Ulu’s shouted orders, the warriors of Esi rallied. Spears and stone axes flashed upward, seeking skal vitals. Many weapons fell back to earth harmlessly, unable to reach the vast targets circling above the mountain town. Other spears, cast from above, missed as well. One spear crashed to ground centimeters from Kirov’s nose. Startled, he jerked back deeper into the shadow of the log cabin. Other spears passed over the edges of the ledge on which Esi stood, clattering down to the Plain of the Grazers far below. The airborne cavalry were scoring some hits on the great green monsters but not many. The skals’ ability to withstand damage was frightening.

Ulu screamed more orders, underlining them with waves of his spear. A dozen or more Black Birdriders raced for the Arsenal to snatch up more weapons. Slaves raced towards the Palace to reach relative safety behind its impressive walls. Kirov suddenly realized why the Birdriders went to the trouble of building log cabins rather than the woven grass huts described by the American adventurer Perry. Timbered walls and roofs protected the inhabitants better than flimsy grass mats.

A vast shadow swept low over the Plaza. (That was Kirov’s sardonic name for the open space in front of the Palace.) A green colossus landed there clumsily, its vast wings flailing the timbered roofs of the surrounding log cabins. The golden anvil of its head dipped towards Ala’s lieutenant, doubly conspicuous by his upright stance and wigwagging arms.

Ulu stabbed upward with his spear. The colossal avian’s jaws closed on the wooden stick and yanked it from his hands. Pulled forward, Ulu fell to the ground as if worshiping some colossal demon god. The bird’s head reared upward, its jaws splintering the spear’s shaft. It spat out matchsticks. The golden anvil rotated, again seeking more palatable prey. Its eye fell upon the prostrate Ulu.

The Birdrider staggered to his feet, his hand unsteadily pulling his knife from the thong that Pellucidarians used instead of belts. From his vantage point behind the skal, Kirov saw fear in Ulu’s eyes….

Just then, a female clad in the brown feathers of slavery raced across the Plaza, near the royal wall, frantically seeking the hoped for safety of the regal doorway. The avian head jerked sideways, its eye attracted by the motion.

Ulu saw the skal’s attention shift. His eyes narrowed. Before the woman could pass behind him and enter the Palace, he whirled and seized her with his free hand. Brutally, he pushed her in front of him, a human shield against the giant’s appetite. The golden anvil descended, jaws gaping….

Kirov took the tableau in a heartbeat. Without thinking, he was on his feet, spear in hand. No one would mistake the slender young paleontologist for heroic warriors such as Alexander Nevsky or Peter Romanov but he had been raised on stories of Russian chivalry and valor. The stolen spear lanced deep into the skal’s bowels.

Deeply stung by the unexpected, stabbing blow, the colossal avian screamed like wounded thunder. Its head jerked upward, venting its rage against the blue Pellucidarian sky. It turned quickly, surprisingly so for its mighty size. The movement yanked the puny spear from Kirov’s hands, savagely twisting the weapon inside its own body, and smashed the young Russian into the wall that he had been crouching beside. The gigantic head came around, seeking its tormentor and finding Kirov lying crumpled in a heap, stunned and helpless.

“Comrade Senior Sergeant, another flight of birnam birds is coming towards us,” stated the lookout calmly. He didn’t lower his binoculars as he reported. “From the mountains again.”

“Very good, Konsta’. We’ll show these slow learners what good Russian steel and powder can do,” grinned Senior Sergeant Voitinuik. He took a quick look at the dots winging their way toward the Soviet position from the nameless mountains to their east. Then he bellowed at the various gunners dug in along what was now called Russia Ridge. (The enlisted men still called it Borksi’s Blunder when the officers weren’t present.) As a formality, he notified the captain commanding the defenses.

The latest battle between the Soviet forces and the great green skals was short and brutal. Engineers had been improving the fortified position surrounding the old monarchist fort since Kandinsky’s regiment had occupied it. A graveled road capable of bearing heavy traffic ran northward to what was now called Bogrov Town – the Soviet beachhead in the Inner World. Trucks and mule trains brought in more equipment and supplies constantly.

The former monarchist fort had been built up into a major installation overlooking the as yet unnamed rolling plain before it. Artillery commanded all the approaches and any attacker would have to penetrate rings of barbed wire, machine gun nests and rifle pits.

Overhead, great green “treebirds” intended to dine on good Russian flesh. Some scholar on Kandinsky’s staff, ignorant of the Pellucidarian name, had labeled them birnam birds in honor of the moving trees of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. No matter what they were called, this time the Soviets were prepared to meet them.

Antiaircraft guns thundered, flinging steel jacketed death upward to greet the avian monsters. Most of the skals died in the first minutes, flayed into bloody gibbets. A few managed to penetrate the curtain of shrapnel only to meet a hail of machine gun and rifle bullets. Red blood sprayed against the blue Pellucidarian sky and giant bodies crashed to the ground, well outside the rings of barbed wire. Waiting rifle grenades were not needed.

Some skals survived. Any flock of birds has some in front and some in back. Those fortunate skals in the rear witnessed their fellows dying amid fire and thunder. They screamed, wheeled and retreated, winging their way back to the mountain chain that the Soviets had not yet named. There must be easier prey elsewhere.

Perhaps on the far side of the Mountains of the Birds where guns were unknown.

Senior Sergeant Voitinuik waited until he was sure that the birnam birds had retreated back to the nameless mountains. Then he reported to Captain I.D. Engel. “Sir… I mean, Comrade Captain, the flying monsters have been driven off once again. I estimate that we killed sixteen creatures. We suffered no losses ourselves. I will send parties out to recover the bodies for our cooks.”

Engel nodded as he gazed eastward. “Very good, Comrade Senior Sergeant. I am sure that the Second and Third Battalions will appreciate some bird stew for a change.” He smirked at the mountains looming in the distance. Dinosaurs or giant birds alike, Soviet power would defeat any threat. “I would like your assessment, Senior Sergeant. Are the birnams likely to attack us again?”

Voitinuik’s bluff personality concealed a fine mind. “I am not sure, Comrade Captain. I would guess not. Since the engineers have delivered these fine guns, we have shown these monsters what good Russian steel will do. Each attack has fewer monsters in it. I think that they have learned that Russians are not such easy prey as they once thought. I can not be sure but I think that they will stay away from now on.” He grinned.

Engel looked at his senior enlisted man. “What about you, Comrade Senior Sergeant? A birnam fell on you in our first battle with them. Have you fully recovered?”

Voitinuik snorted and made a dismissive gesture. “Of course, I am, Comrade Captain. Bonaparte couldn’t kill me at Borodino; the British couldn’t kill me at Sevastopol; the Americans couldn’t kill me at Murmansk; and no giant chicken will kill me in Pellucidar… I mean, Novy Mir.” He thumped his massive chest proudly. Engel nodded sagely.

Off to the west of Fort Alinsky, working parties were chopping down the trees of the Bear Woods, so named for its former inhabitants, now hunted out by strong parties of heavily armed riflemen. Not only did the trees provide plenty of lumber for fires and buildings, but the clearing process improved the fields of fire that any attacker would have to cross to reach the fortress. By dint of constant labor, the Soviets were improving their grip on the vast resources of the Inner World.

Their grip was still being contested, tho. One hunting party had penetrated completely thru the Bear Woods to discover a cave pocked plateau above them. Cautiously, they began investigating the caves. They quickly discovered ample proof that the bears attacking the right flank of Kandinsky’s pioneers had been living in the caves. Fierce fusillades eliminated the young cave bears that had been left behind while their elders had been out hunting Soviets.

When the triumphant riflemen emerged from the caves, they were startled by the sound of thunder above them. Rocks catapulted outward from the top of the cliff and rumbled downhill at freight train speed. The startled hunters froze for a moment and then bolted in all directions. Most of them were too late to escape the avalanche. Those that did fled for their lives, leaping and bounding across the rocky terrain. They were cut down by bullets from Springfield rifles fired from the cliff above.

When the sounds of death faded into the quiet of prehistoric Pellucidar, two men carefully stood up atop the cliff.

The shorter man grinned. “Much fun. Let us find more Soviets and ambush them.” He gestured towards the Bear Woods.

The taller man shook his head. “No, Parhan. These tricks only work one time each. We killed a patrol. Soon an entire company will be here to investigate. We can’t fight that many by ourselves.” He looked outward and southward. The cliff top gave him an excellent vantage point to survey the seemingly endless Pellucidarian plain rolling onward beyond Fort Alinsky.

“It’s time for us to rejoin the retreating Imperial Russian Army.”

Senior Colonel Kandinsky took Captain Engel’s report on the latest Soviet victory. “I agree with your assessment, Captain. The birnams no longer present a significant threat to the Soviet occupation of Novy Mir.”

He dismissed the captain and turned to his senior staff. “Comrades, our current position in the Plutonian region of Novy Mir is secure. We have been amply reinforced. We will now press forward with the conquest of the Inner World.”

The members of his staff nodded in agreement.

Again, Kirov awoke to pain. This time at least he was lying on something soft and the noises in his head were human voices and birdsongs. He shook his head groggily. He’d had this dream before.

He opened his eyes. It wasn’t a dream. He was back in Ala’s Palace, once again lying on a bed rather than a slave’s grass pallet. Once again, the slave Flana was seated nearby, carefully watching him. When she realized that he was awake, she put her soft fingers over his lips and looked around cautiously. She had a huge bruise on her face.

“Be quiet,” she whispered. Her musical voice was quiet but urgent. “I am supposed to call Ala when you awaken but I wanted to warn you about Ulu first. He says that he saved your life and my life from the skal. If Ala asks, tell her that.”

Stupid people didn’t survive long in the Worker’s Paradise officially known as the Soviet Union. “I understand. Thank you for warning me.”

Flana relaxed and smiled. “You saved me from the skal when Ulu tried to feed me to it. You are a brave man and a cunning hunter. Ulu says that he is the greatest hunter in all of Pellucidar but he is a liar. If his men had not attacked the skal from behind as it reached for you, we would all be dead. You attacked the great bird by yourself and wounded it deeply. Ulu did not wound the bird at all but claimed your spear as his own when his men asked. When I said that you had wounded the skal first, he hit me.” She indicated her bruise. “When Ala asks, tell her that Ulu is a brave warrior.”

“I will.” Kirov relaxed, the party line firmly planted in his head. He closed his eyes and was asleep in seconds.

Flana smiled and turned to go. She paused and looked at the handsome young hero lying peacefully before her.

She smiled mysteriously as she rose to summon Ala.

When Ala questioned Kirov about the events of the skal raid, he stuck to the party line. He had witnessed Ulu fending off the monster with his spear until it was distracted by something or someone on the other side of its great green body. No, Kirov didn’t know what had distracted the bird. Ulu had stabbed it and Kirov had been knocked out when the golden anvil of its head swept around apparently seeking its tormentor. Yes, Kirov had seen a slave woman bump into Ulu when she attempted to escape the monster. Ulu had grabbed her to prevent her from falling into the monster’s reach. No, Kirov had not seen the arrival of any other Black Birdriders; he assumed that Ulu had slain the skal by himself. Yes, Kirov thought that Ulu was a brave warrior.

Ala looked at Kirov coolly, but then nodded in apparent satisfaction. Before she disappeared on her royal rounds, she gave Flana orders that Kirov might stay in the Palace for five regal sleeps. Flana paused to silently smile at him before she followed her queen out. Her smile was as lovely as the rest of her.

Kirov’s subsequent interview with Ulu was less pleasant. The chief lieutenant obviously knew the truth about the fight and probed deeply but the young Russian blandly repeated the party line. Ulu nodded in satisfaction and changed the subject.

“Ozo says that you are making the slaves lazy with your warm walls and wheelbarrows.” He mangled the Russian word that Kirov had grafted onto Pellucidarian but the latter realized what he meant.

“Ozo is mistaken,” protested Kirov. “I am making the slaves work better. That helps the Black Birdriders.” He repeated his various arguments. This led into a discussion of Russian science and technological achievements. The conversation took a long time because of the frequent need to translate Russian terms into their closest Pellucidarian equivalent. Many words had no equivalent and Kirov’s translations concealed as much as they revealed. When he tried to describe guns, he wound up calling them “loud spear throwers.”

Ulu was clearly suspicious and understood very little of Kirov’s arcane terms. But he did seem to accept the general concept of improved tools. He didn’t understand 20^th Century industrial engineering but he did know about hunting effectiveness and the idea of teaching others new tricks. He changed the subject back to the fight with the skals. After a new round of questioning, he concluded the interview with a warning not to listen to liars or to repeat lies.

Kirov solemnly agreed that lying was a bad idea.

Kirov naturally took the greatest advantage possible of Ala’s regal hospitality. He was in genuine pain from his most recent battering and wanted to recover. His nurse, Flana, was pleasant to talk to. And he had a lot to think about.

Five sleeps later, Kirov thanked Flana on behalf of Ala and returned to the slave barracks and his workshop. Behind his back, the pretty slave girl wiped away tears.

Esi was a different community than it had been before the skal raid. The giant green birds had killed or captured dozens of humans and trals. Fires caused by smashed lumber falling into open hearths had destroyed several buildings. Slaves, including the elite toolmakers, labored to haul away debris and rebuild the ruined dwellings. Formerly generous free time was reduced to rare breaks. And Kirov noticed that the numbers of Black Birdriders patrolling the “streets” of the community had doubled. He kept his ears and eyes open as he worked.

Another change was the attitude of the slaves. Previously, they had tended to separate into cliques based on their tribal loyalties. Amiable fellows such as Dyryth were the exception. Lal’s warriors had been particularly hostile since they blamed Kirov for Lal’s capture and their own. Now all factions greeted Kirov’s return cheerfully. Even Lal’s Dyal Riders were gingerly friendly.

Cautiously, Kirov asked Rell and Dyryth about the change. Dyryth responded simply, “You good man. Other slaves not understand this before. Not understand man of Soviet Red Tribe. You showed them that you are a great hunter and fighter and that you help everyone. You still strange but good.” He pointed to Kirov’s Soviet Army greatcoat, so different from the woven feathers worn by the Birdriders and their slaves.

Rell nodded, pointing to a wheelbarrow and the slave pushing it towards the town trash dump. “Black Birdriders make everyone work extra hard after skal raid. Wheel-barrows make work easier. And warm walls make rest better.”

A slave standing behind Kirov coughed to attract his attention. “I am Pol, deputy chief of the Dyal Riders. Kirov, you are a brave man. When Ala captured the war party of Lal, I thought that you were Ala’s riding bird. I was wrong. Ala’s riding bird would not have rescued Flana from the skal or protected her from Ulu. You are a man.”

Kirov stood and said simply, “And so are you.” He held out his hand, ready to shake hands in the European manner.

Pol clasped the startled young paleontologist turned inventor in both arms. Pellucidarians had not invented handshaking. Other Dyal Riders joined in and then slaves from other tribes.

Eventually, the slave master Ozo came along and shouted that lazy slaves would be beaten. Two guards accompanied him. Once the crowd dispersed, the Black Birdrider stayed to lecture Kirov on the need to work hard and not cause trouble. He had his eye on every slave, especially troublemakers, and especially troublemakers from the Soviet Red Tribe. Kirov listened stoically and agreed with Ozo’s logic at the appropriate pauses. Eventually Ozo and his guards left to hector other slaves.

Kirov stared after the slave master. Intuition nagged at him: the Black Birdriders were worried about something and he doubted it was really the slaves’ work habits.

A few sleeps later, Kirov realized what was worrying the Black Birdriders. The skals returned for more tasty human and tral food.

Once again, the unarmed slaves hid as best they could while the arrogant master class fought the great flesh eating birds with spears and stone axes. When the flying monsters had departed, clutching struggling humans and birds in their gigantic claws, people crept out of hiding.

Another log cabin was in flames as the result of monsters crashing into it and knocking logs into the ever present fires. Pellucidarian firefighting consisted of trying to rescue as many people and property from the flames as possible. There wasn’t sufficient water or dirt on the barren rock of Esi to throw either on the fire. One woman ran screaming from the burning building, her hair on fire. Kirov knocked her to the ground and smothered the fire with his greatcoat. The skin on her head was scorched but only lightly so. Kirov thought that she would recover and handed her over to the Birdrider elder who seemed to be the community nurse. Even Ozo was thoughtful when he required Kirov to return to the endless work of repair and rebuilding.

Ala’s lieutenants conducted a census of trals, Birdriders and slaves. They didn’t share their findings with Kirov but the young inventor could count as well as if not better than any Birdrider. And, as arrogant as they were, no Birdrider had experienced the horrors of the Russian Civil War of 1917-20.

In their continuing search for food, the voracious monsters were destroying the Black Birdriders’ community.

Each skal foray fell particularly hard on the Black Birdrider master class, especially the male warriors, and their tral mounts. Pride would not allow most of them to avoid battle and, overmatched, they became skal food. The slaves had outnumbered the masters when Kirov had arrived in Esi. That was even truer now. The masters were obviously worried that the slaves would notice the discrepancy and revolt.

The human losses were compounded by the losses of the trals – the combination war birds and working birds of the community. The masters needed trals to fight the skals, to overawe the slaves, and to transport the necessities of Pellucidarian life to the barren rock that they lived on. The rocky promontory of Black Bird Roost mountain was a natural fortress high above most dangers of Pellucidarian life. But it required endless tral-back trips to transport food, water, timber and other things to the site. Each tral lost to skal appetites was a triple blow to the Black Birdrider way of life.

While Kirov was wondering how the Black Birdriders would solve the problem of the skal raids, he was once again summoned to the Palace. This time, the command came from Ala herself.

This was the first time that Kirov had been in the “Throne Room” of the Palace. It was a large wooden chamber well lit with torches. The young Tom Edison noticed that the floor was thickly paved with flammable sawdust. Royalty had its privileges, even at the price of dangerous fire hazards. One of those privileges was a soft floor covering to comfort the regal feet.

The queen of the Black Birdriders was even more beautiful than the last time that Kirov saw her. Apparently, the challenges of war agreed with her. She sat on her royal stool like the semi-legendary Empress Catherine the Great surrounded by her barbaric courtiers and guards. Two attractive female slaves knelt beside her, faces downward. Ulu and other warriors were close at hand. Kirov automatically bowed before the queen of Esi.

Ala acknowledged his bow by inclining her head. Firelight glinted off the raw gold at her throat accentuating her brunette hair and her dress of woven black feathers. Her dress emphasized rather than hid her superb figure.

“Toolmaker Kirov, can you make ‘loud spear throwers’ for me?” She meant guns.

“No, great woman. I do not have the proper materials.” Pellucidarian did not have a native word for queen. The American adventurers Innes and Perry had grafted a number of English words onto Pellucidarian but their Empire was far distant from Esi.

Her eyes flashed. “We must have better weapons or the skals will destroy us all!”

One of Ala’s female slaves looked cautiously up at Kirov. It was Flana. Her face pleaded with him silently.

Electricity moved along Kirov’s spine. He could not allow Flana or the other slaves to die without making an effort even if it strengthened the Black Birdrider master class for the moment. “Great woman, I can not make ‘loud spear throwers’ for you but I can make quiet spear throwers and other weapons. In addition, I can make other things to make work easier and life better in Esi.”

“What other things?” demanded Ala.

“Rugs,” replied the young inventor. The word was necessarily Russian. A long discussion ensued about the dangers of fire hazards caused by torches and hearth fires burning so close to layers of sawdust.

Ala was not convinced. “Make me quiet spear throwers and other weapons first. We can talk about rugs another time. Go now and make weapons or the skals will eat us all!”

Kirov bowed again.

He did not realize that three women smiled after him as he left the Throne Room.

Major Ivan Garman paused to glare at Pellucidar’s eternal sun, hanging serenely overhead but providing relatively little heat to these latitudes. Novy Mir, in politically correct jargon, was supposed to be a tropical paradise. So far, it had turned out to be little different from portions of Siberia – a mere eight hundred kilometers beneath his feet. Garman didn’t like thinking about that. Even many of the animals looked much like antelopes, wolves and wild dogs. Of course, most of the animals resembled things out of so many nightmares but at least they moved away when Garman’s scouts advanced towards them. The intelligence officer found that suspicious.

Major Ivan Garman found almost everything suspicious. That was why he was an intelligence officer in the Red Army.

Ahead of him, two scouts looked around and gestured for Garman to come to them. He advanced quickly, but warily.

Major Ivan Garman did everything warily. That was why he was still alive in the Worker’s Paradise.

When he reached them, the senior scout pointed to a collection of bones amid the tall grass and curious flowers dotting the rolling Pellucidarian plain.

“What am I looking at, Comrade Scout?” snapped the intelligence officer as he bent over to examine the scene.

“A animal skeleton with a bullet hole in the skull, Comrade Major,” responded the senior scout. His partner kept watch on the various animals slowly moving away from the humans, cropping the pallid grass as they went.

Garman nodded. “How fresh?”

“Very fresh, Comrade Major. I would guess that whoever shot the animal did so within the last few hours. We were attracted to the scene by vultures – or something like vultures – flying away. When we arrived, rats and other small predators were still cleaning the bones.”

Garman examined the wound. “The hole is consistent with a Mosin Nagant bullet. This situation is consistent with a monarchist rifleman in the area. That would explain why the large animals move away when they detect us. This rifleman hunts them for food and they have learned to be wary of humans.”

“Could the rifleman be the American adventurer E.R. Burroughs?” hazarded the scout.

Garman shook his head. “We don’t have evidence of that yet. We must continue to look.”

So saying, he stood up and surveyed the endless plain, sloping gently upward as it receded into the distance. To the east was a chain of nameless mountains, gaunt with naked rock rising from the fertile lowlands. Savage birnam birds lived there but abundant firepower had taught them to leave the Soviets alone. To the west were forested plateaus that the men of Kandinsky’s regiment had named the Bear Hills after their frightful denizens. Ahead of the scouts, more kilometers of grass and occasional copses of trees stretched southward to the Anti-Eurasian Ocean. Out there somewhere the fleeing monarchists would be run to ground.

“Let’s go,” ordered Garman. He and the scouts oriented themselves on a thin picket line of engineers’ flags marking the wagon rutted road originally laid down by the monarchists attempting to colonize Novy Mir. The Soviets had continued that practice with surveyors’ stakes, flags, maps, compasses, clocks, and the many other large and small devices of 20^th Century civilization painstakingly imported into the Inner World. The scouts saluted and began trudging onward, parallel to the road. Garman returned to the road where his small command staff waited.

“Comrade Radioman, report to Comrade Senior Colonel Kandinsky that we have found signs of monarchist activity in this area. We have not found either monarchists or natives but we anticipate contact soon.”

No sooner were the words out of Garman’s mouth than a rifle shot echoed across the plain. Heads jerked southward to stare at a copse of trees standing on a lonely hillock.

The heads of the scouts ahead of Garman were visible momentarily above the grass but disappeared as they went to cover. More gunshots were heard, followed by an ominous silence. The grass around the copse rippled as scouts wormed their way forward.

“Report this!” barked Garman at the radioman. “Come!” he ordered his guards. He began running up the rough road towards the trees. He bent low, obscuring any enemy’s view of his valuable self.

As he ran, there was a new fusillade of gunfire from the copse. One insufficiently cautious scout jerked frantically, spraying blood across the pale grass, and then collapsing. Screams rent the endless noontime stillness. Garman couldn’t tell who was crying out.

Garman slowed and entered the small clutch of trees wary of any ambush. His face showed no relief when he heard Russian voices calling out “Clear!” The copse no longer sheltered any dangerous enemies. His guards caught up with him as he moved thru the trees. “Report!” he barked.

“Here, Comrade Major.” The intelligence officer advanced cautiously toward the voice.

Garman found three scouts looking down at a man dressed in a blood soaked Imperial Russian off white uniform. Beyond was another, similar man, now quite dead. The first man won’t last long. His head lolled and blood poured out of his mouth. He whispered something and then his breath stopped. His eyes stared upward into the eternal Pellucidarian sun peering thru the trees.

“What did he say?” snapped the intelligence officer.

The scout thus addressed paused, uncertain of the Soviet officer’s reaction, but answered. “He said, ‘God Bless the Czar and Holy Mother Russia.’”

Garman grimaced. There were no longer doubts in his mind. “Where’s the radioman? We must report this to Comrade Senior Colonel Kandinsky at once. We’ve found the rear guard of the fleeing monarchist army. The main army and the monarchist civilian population can’t be too far away now.

“And when we find the enemy army, we will find E.R. Burroughs. Comrade Stalin will make us all Heroes of the Soviet Union when we deliver the American warlord to Soviet justice.” He smiled at the thought. His men blanched when they saw his face.

Kirov had used the phrase “loud spear throwers” to refer to guns. What he started building were Central American atlatls, European long spears, and Zulu assegais. A guard working for Ozo watched him carefully but didn’t interfere as long as the young inventor worked diligently on his new assignment. Ozo also checked in from time to time. A quiet, thoughtful Ozo worried Kirov more than the more usual shouting Ozo. Kirov’s friends Dyryth and Rell spoke to him when they fetched materials. They assured him that Ozo recovered his temper and voice completely when he left Kirov’s workshop.

When Kirov had completed a sample of his new weapons, he tested them (under guard) against the walls of a partially burned out log cabin. The atlatl, or spear thrower, worked perfectly. The young inventor placed a regular spear in a wooden trough and whipped it thru the air, effectively extending the length of his arm. The spear sailed thru the air far further than Kirov could manage without mechanical aid. The long spear and the assegai – which the young Tom Edison labeled a short spear – didn’t work as well in the thrower. The guard made some crudely humorous comments that Kirov took in stride. As arrogant as many Black Birdriders, the guard didn’t notice the young inventor’s secret smile and paid no attention when the latter left the long spear and assegai in his workspace.

When Kirov demonstrated the spear thrower for Ulu, no one noticed Rell diligently wheeling his barrow of firewood around Esi. He brought a load of wood to the young inventor’s workshop, stacked half of it carefully away from the fire, added the assegai and long spear to his load, and then wheeled away.

Ulu liked the added distance and penetrating power of the spear thrower and ordered ten tens of them for his warriors. Kirov explained the advantages of research laboratories to Ala’s lieutenant and gained the latter’s agreement. The young Tom Edison then taught another toolmaker how to carve spear throwers rather than working on them himself.

Instead, the inventor of Esi began working on carts, ropes and pulleys.

One of the advantages to living on a bare mountain rock was that garbage disposal was easy. Slaves gathered up the community’s trash and tossed it over a particularly steep edge of the rock. The midden thirty meters below Esi on the Plain of Grazers attracted all sorts of scavengers but the resulting fights were both entertainment to the primitive Pellucidarians and a constant reminder to the slaves of the dangers of escape. One particularly vicious fight between a pack of dog-like jaloks and a herd of pig-like golloks lasted almost an entire waking period.

One of the disadvantages was that everyone and everything had to be transported from Plain to Esi and return on tral-back. With the constantly increasing menace of skal raids, there weren’t enough trals to provide aerial cavalry and truck service both.

Kirov broke the problem down into pieces. Normally, Black Birdriders hunted meat animals on the Plains of Grazers and brought the food back to Esi, all on tral-back. On the strength of his spear throwers, the young inventor persuaded Ulu to order slaves to transport the killed meat, always guarded by a Birdrider or two, to the base of Esi’s promontory rather than using trals. That freed up war birds for defense. One slave tried to escape but he was hunted down and executed when he refused orders to return. The other slaves glared at their guard but could do nothing about the Birdrider soaring above them. The slaves were diligent enough when someone was watching them.

Once meat was arriving at the base of Esi, Kirov introduced his pulley, rope and cart system to move the food up the mountain. Two four wheeled carts ran up and down the smoothest, gentlest slope connected by a leather cable running thru pulleys fastened to rocks at the top of the slope. The weight of one cart counterbalanced the other, thereby reducing the work of the sweating slaves who provided the energy to get the food to the community’s doorstep. That freed up even more trals.

When the skals next raided Esi, they were met with volleys of hard flung spears. The Black Birdriders still suffered but less than before. Ulu ordered his entire war band armed with spear throwers and asked if Kirov had any other ideas. The latter explained about catapults, scorpions and trebuchets. Ulu enthusiastically ordered ten of each. Kirov smiled and suggested samples instead.

The next time the skals returned, catapults and military scorpions guarded the Arsenal and Palace. Five great green monsters attacked the warriors standing apparently foolishly in the Plaza. Four skals succumbed to flying rocks and heavy spears. One escaped with its life. The Black Birdriders celebrated long and loudly that waking period.

The next step was a bold one. Lal’s tribe, the Dyal Riders, were birdriders as well as the Black Birdriders, using large flightless birds as avian horses. Like the phororhacos of the Exterior World, the dyal was a powerful creature about two and a half meters tall. Kirov proposed that the tral-riders authorize use of dyals as draft animals to transport food and other necessities across the Plain of Grazers and even within Esi. Under guard by flying Black Birdriders, of course. That concept required a great deal of argument. The more conservative tral-riders proudly proclaimed the dyals to be a mere food animal. But the necessities of life on Esi’s rock combined with Kirov’s new prestige won the argument.

The former Dyal Riders were put to work rounding up and training their two legged “horses.” Under guard by flying Black Birdriders, of course. Soon, flocks of dyals were penned in a light stockade below Esi and each waking period saw teams of dyals carrying provisions to feed the community.

Finally, even the most conservative of the master race approved the introduction of cart-pulling dyals in Esi itself. The pro-dyal faction among the master race pointed with pride at “their” clever idea. Those Black Birdriders charged with guarding the squadrons of working birds and birdboys began to lord it over their dyal-less fellows. Kirov noted the latter development with quiet approval.

With fewer and less deadly skal attacks and with dyals providing additional muscle power to the community, Esi changed again, becoming more relaxed than it had recently been. The master class prided itself on its courageous defeat of the avian monsters. The slaves were busy but quiet with dyal power replacing human muscles. Everyone seemed to have enough to eat and enough leisure time to enjoy life.

One development that would have startled any professional anthropologist studying the still primitive community was the sudden eruption of fashion. With more free time and resources at their disposal, first the slaves and then the master class began adopting brooms and then rugs as status symbols. At first, most rugs were merely scraps of leather but they quickly progressed thru shaped sheets of leather to tanned animal furs. Such luxuries were so much softer and more comfortable than layers of sawdust.

Ozo personally brought Kirov the latest and most auspicious news.

Ala, queen of the Black Birdriders, announced that inventor Kirov – another Russian word grafted onto Pellucidarian – would soon receive the supreme honor for his many contributions to the community of Esi. She would take him for her mate.

Kirov presented himself at the Palace with Ozo in tow. The Throne Room was packed with Black Birdrider warriors divided up on either side of the royal stool. Again, Ala sat in regal if barbaric splendor flanked by her two female slaves and dozen or so lieutenants. This time, her beautiful face was red and twisted in anger. She glared at Ulu who returned the disfavor. When Ala noticed Kirov, her expression changed completely, becoming enchanting, inviting, beguiling…. The young inventor’s blood stirred. In contrast, Ulu’s face hardened further as he noticed Kirov’s presence.

Ala spoke, “Inventor Kirov, I have decided to take you as my mate. Do you accept?” Kirov instantly realized that the question was a token one. Ala had decided and, naturally, he would agree.

Around her, the roomful of warriors tensed. White knuckled hands gripped spears held in the vertical guard, or parade rest, position.

Kirov paused, noting the barely controlled tensions. His eyes wandered. Both female slaves cautiously looked up at him. One was Flana. Her pretty face quivered, shaking slightly from side to side. The other slave was an even more beautiful young woman. Kirov had seen her somewhere before but couldn’t remember exactly where. Her resolute face nodded, signaling approval. He was tempted…. Ala was very beautiful and life as a prince consort was surely easier than slavery.

He looked again at Flana’s sad eyes.

He bowed to the queen of the Black Birdriders. “Great woman, I am not worthy of your attention. I am merely a toolmaker and inventor. A great warrior would be a better mate for….”

Ulu’s shout interrupted Kirov’s attempt at diplomatic evasion. “Aha! You see! The slave Kirov knows his place! Even he says that I am your true mate!” His face flushed with triumph as he exulted. Almost half of the warriors shouted a Black Birdrider victory cry in unison.

Ala’s face twisted thru a dozen emotions, none of them pretty. “You dare…!” she hissed. Kirov couldn’t tell if she meant Ulu or himself. Possibly both of them.

She snapped at the young inventor. “You! Return to your workplace! At once! I will deal with you when I am ready!” The queen turned away from her slave, obviously assuming obedience. Perhaps life as Ala’s prince consort would not be so different from life as her slave…!

Kirov was glad to escape Ala’s immediate attention but curious to see the outcome of Ulu’s suit for his queen’s hand. Clearly, a subterranean conflict was breaking out into the open. The young inventor began slowly moving away from the Throne, his scientist’s eyes taking in everything while his scientist’s mind analyzed the information.

Ala’s attention was fully on her chief lieutenant now, her slave momentarily dismissed from her mind. She spat out harsh words, “Ulu. I am the chief of the Black Birdriders. I will mate with who I please. You are a deputy chief and you will take orders from me. Is That Understood?”

A birdrider standing behind Ala shouted, “Ala is our chief!” The other half of the warriors in the room chanted their queen’s name in unison. Everyone still held his spear vertically. No one had raised his spear to a fighting position… yet.

Ulu shouted at his queen. “I am the greatest warrior in Esi! When the skals attacked, I slew one before your dwelling and placed its head before your doorway! No one else has done this! I am fit to be your mate!” He thumped his chest in pride.

Ala sneered. “Kirov’s tools have slain many skals! And done the work of many slaves! He is fit to be my mate! I will mate with….” She paused in fury and continued, “with who I choose!”

“Kirov is a slave!” rejoined the chief lieutenant. He suddenly became conscious of the female slaves kneeling beside their mistress. “You! Slaves! Depart! Slaves have no business in the councils of the Black Birdriders!”

Both female slaves rose, turned quickly away and left the Throne Room thru a side doorway. Kirov decided that it was time for him to leave as well. He turned to go….

And bumped into one of Ulu’s partisans. The latter lashed out with his spear butt, knocking the young inventor to the ground. The warrior repeated his leader’s words, “Depart! Slaves have no business here!” He waved his spear threateningly.

The disturbance attracted the attention of the squabbling leaders. As Kirov rose to his feet, Ulu shouted, “Look! Ala! He has defied your orders! He is spying upon us! You! Igi! Kill the spy!”

Igi lowered his spear to the stabbing position….

Kirov stepped forward, inside the warrior’s reach, and hit him in the solar plexus. Hard. The arrogant representative of the master class whuffed, collapsing on the soft rug that now covered the royal floor. He held onto his spear as he went down.

There was a moment of silence. Kirov loudly said, “I go to my workplace in obedience to the orders of Ala, great chief of the Black Birdriders!” He backed up towards the doorway, scanning the room in all directions for further death threats.

Ulu’s shout “Kill him!” and Ala’s countermand “No! Let him live!” were almost simultaneous. The warriors stirred, some spears coming up into the throwing position, others lowering into the stabbing position. Some stepped a pace forward, ready to kill.

Igi came to his knees, his arm bending back into the spear throwing position, murder in his eyes.

Kirov reached his left hand towards a torch while his right hand dug into his greatcoat’s pocket. Seeing Kirov leaning left towards a weapon, Igi shifted his aim…

And hurled his spear towards Kirov’s center of mass.

The young inventor was watching the birdrider’s spear arm muscles. When they started to move, he jerked to his right. The spear cut the cloth of his greatcoat but missed the lean body inside. His body thumped into the wall of the Throne Room. He pushed himself into an upright position.

Kirov screamed, “Ulu is defying Ala’s orders! He is a traitor to the Black Birdriders! His riding bird is murdering slaves who are loyal to the Black Birdriders! Ulu is a traitor! Ulu is a traitor!”

As he chanted, he waved his left hand over his head to attract attention. Meanwhile, his right hand plucked a handful of Mosin Nagant rifle bullets from his pocket and flung them into a fire pit.

Ala’s warriors picked up the chant. Most of Ulu’s partisans turned their attention to Ala’s supporters. Some started chanting “Ulu is a great warrior!” One supporter shouted “Ulu should be chief!”

As Kirov edged out of the Throne Room, he saw Ulu seize Ala’s arm, yanking her aloft in triumph. Her other arm flashed, burying something in Ulu’s gut. His eyes glazed in shock, his hand going slack.

Ala dropped out of his grasp and straightened up, every centimeter a warrior queen. “Ulu was a traitor! And now he is dead by my own hand! Rally to me, my loyal warriors!”

For an instant, the fate of the Black Birdriders hung in the balance. Then the bullets cooked off (as an American might say). Their propellant charges exploded in the fire pit, sending the metallic bits of death hurtling in all directions. Pellucidarian feathers offered scant protection against the tiny messengers of civilized destruction.

Frightened by the unexpected noise and wounded by the bullets themselves, Ulu’s partisans surged away from the fire pit of death. Their surge took them towards Ala’s supporters. To the queen’s men, the movement looked like a charge. Spears flashed, cutting, stabbing, killing….

The civil war of the Black Birdriders was on.

Kirov had already escaped the Palace. Outside, in the Plaza, he found Rell speaking to Ala’s female slaves in an agitated manner.

The unknown slave commanded, “The Dyal Riders must find weapons and attack the Black Birdriders! We must be free! Why do you resist my orders, Rell?”

“Great Lal,” protested Rell, speaking to the unknown. “Kirov has a better plan. We have been working on it for many waking periods. We have weapons. Strange weapons but ones that work well. His plan is better!”

Kirov was thunderstruck to realize that Ala’s second personal slave was the mysterious Lal, chief of the Dyal Riders. He had never seen her face clearly – not even when he kicked her while trying to escape from Ulu many sleeps ago.

Lal looked at Kirov coldly. “What is your plan, man of the Soviet Red War Band tribe?” She mangled the word Soviet but Kirov understood her.

“Revolution,” answered the man from the Outer World.

Kandinsky’s regiment, now reinforced to its full, three battalion strength, was on the march. Leaving a small guard behind in Fort Alinsky, it flowed down onto the Plutonian Plain south of the fortress. Officers ordered, sergeants bawled, and enlisted men complained as it has always been in armies from the Inner World to beyond the furthest star. The long columns of riflemen marched forward to conquer Pellucidar for the greater glory of the Soviet Union.

Senior Colonel Kandinsky himself commanded the second wave, which was composed of the fresh Second Battalion. Behind him, the battered First Battalion brought up the rear. Ahead of him, his executive officer, Colonel Drobanin, commanded the leading Third Battalion. And ahead of them, herds of strange animals moved slowly away from the well armed soldiers, grazing as they went. Creatures that moved too slowly were slaughtered for the greater glory of Soviet stomachs.

And far ahead of the masses of both men and animals, the advance guard scouted forward. The recent small battle with the monarchist rear guard had everyone on alert for possible ambushes, outposts, battles, or simply more evidence of the fleeing White Russian population. None were more alert than the advance guard.

Senior Sergeant Voitinuik strode easily forward, following the dirt road rutted by monarchist wagons at some time in the past. Those wagons couldn’t have passed too long ago: the grass had not yet reclaimed the road. Around him stalked a screen of the most advanced scouts, the very tip of the spear as Alexander Nevsky had said to Voitinuik on the banks of the Neva River. They were good fellows. They would find the Czar’s last defenders. Voitinuik started up a slight ridge….

Ahead of him, a scout reached the top of the ridge, stared southward for a moment, and dropped to the ground. Voitinuik reacted briskly. “Down!” he commanded in a voice pitched loudly enough to carry to his men but not loudly enough to carry to a nearby enemy. The scouts disappeared into the tall grass covering the endless Pellucidarian plain. Grass and curious but beautiful star tipped flowers wavered as men crept towards the military crest of the ridge. Voitinuik obeyed his own command as soon as he saw the scouts vanish. He bear walked rapidly forward.

The scout whose movement had started the evolution crawled backwards, bringing his head out of sight of any enemies to the Soviet front. He rolled over and opened his mouth to call Senior Sergeant Voitinuik. He gaped for a second and closed his mouth when he realized that Voitinuik was already beside him.

“Report,” demanded the latter.

“A wagon convoy stopped on a ridge ahead of us, Comrade Senior Sergeant,” answered the scout. “A great many wagons in laager formation. We’ve found the monarchists!”

Voitinuik sniffed in professional caution. “We’ll see if we have found the monarchists, Leonid. Let’s have a look.”

Both men crawled meter or two forward, their eyes cautiously clearing the ridgeline….

Young Leonid was right. Voitinuik saw a shallow grassy valley ahead of them and then a new rocky ridgeline a few kilometers away. Parked along the further ridge were several dozen wagons. An American might have called them Conestoga wagons circled for the night (if night ever came to timeless Pellucidar). Voitinuik carefully lifted binoculars that he had “liberated” from an inattentive officer and surveyed the sight. He saw a few sentries staring listlessly in his general direction. Behind them, other figures moved to and fro among the wagons. He nodded slightly to himself.

Other scouts began reporting in confirming what Voitinuik had seen. He took the reports and ordered them to halt here, concealed by the grass and the slight rise of this ridge. Other Soviet riflemen approached from the rear. He gestured for them to take cover. When a junior sergeant arrived, Voitinuik left him in charge of the line and crawled back to report to Major Garman, the intelligence officer in charge of the advance guard.

Garman queried Voitinuik carefully, his round face pinched in thought. Then he ordered the radioman to report to Senior Colonel Kandinsky, now not too far in their rear. Swiftly an order came back to investigate the wagon convoy further. If possible, the scouts should determine the strength and disposition of the enemy. The leading Battalion would arrive in force shortly.

“Comrade Senior Sergeant, take your best scouts and infiltrate their position. Learn as much as you can. Don’t fire on them unless necessary.” Voitinuik grunted. Garman took the noise as an acknowledgement. “Report back when you have thoroughly scouted their position. I will be at the point where the road crosses the nearer ridge.”

“Yes, sir… I mean, yes, Comrade Major.” Voitinuik carefully saluted and returned to his men.

Back on the nearer ridge, Voitinuik quietly assembled his best squad of scouts to the right of the road. Major Garman came forward and took command of the line of Soviets along the gentle rise. After a few more words, Voitinuik led his squad forward, slithering thru the pale green grass and white crowned flowers towards the enemies of the Soviet Union.

Moving carefully, they maneuvered to the right of the circled wagons. Stealthily, Voitinuik reached a point just below the further ridgeline and several meters from the nearest white uniformed sentry. He tapped a scout on the shoulder, made a cutting gesture across his own throat and pointed to the stolid sentinel. The scout nodded, quietly laid down his rifle and drew his knife. He wormed his way towards the oblivious guard.

Satisfied that the sentry would present no problem, Voitinuik cautiously peered over the further ridge….

He froze in place, unable to immediately comprehend what he was seeing.

There was no circle of wagons or camp of monarchist refugees. Instead, the wagons formed a line along the ridge. Beyond was an area denuded of grass by sheep-like animals grazing the barren ground. Apes – or something like African gorillas – moved excitedly back and forth in this area, pausing to snatch up biscuit-like disks or gourds from tables placed behind the wagons. They applied both biscuits and gourds to their gaping mouths. The apes resembled nothing so much as a gang of drunken nobles capering at some pre-Revolutionary party…!

Strange odors assailed Voitinuik’s nose. He quickly recognized the scent of alcohol. The apes were drunk! But why…?!

Just then, the puzzled Soviet heard a hissing sound. He turned to see his knifeman holding a scarecrow dressed in an Imperial Russian off white uniform, a puzzled look on the scout’s face. Strings led from the dummy to the apes. As they danced, the scarecrow made small, lifelike movements. He caught a whiff of naphtha…. Then, the sentry… this whole situation is….

“It’s a trap!” screamed Voitinuik at the top of his lungs.

The Pellucidarian language had no word for revolution but the slaves of the Black Birdriders had learned to trust the strange ideas of the man from the Outer World. With Lal’s backing and Pol and Rell as his lieutenants, Kirov set his plan into motion.

Several slaves ran from house to house in Esi, alerting all of the warriors not already in the Palace to report there at once. Half of the master class was told that Ulu had tried to kill Ala who needed their assistance to crush his revolt. The other half was told that Ala had killed Ulu and was now killing all of his supporters. The civil war among Esi’s master class grew rapidly.

Meanwhile, the remaining slaves congregated away from the Palace, staying undercover as much as possible to conceal their movements from the outpost high up Black Bird’s Roost mountain. They armed themselves with assegais and longspears that Kirov had designed while inventing spear throwers for the master class. Since the Black Birdriders used spears approximately two meters long, the slavemasters hadn’t realized the significance of sticks that were noticeably shorter or longer.

With the Black Birdrider males killing each other in and around the Palace, “squads” of slaves raided the homes of the master class, carrying off food, water, weapons, and rugs. They hauled their loot to the site of Kirov’s primitive tramway, which was already lowering women and children to the Plain of Grazers thirty meters below the settlement.

Meanwhile, Pol led a “company” of slaves to attack the tral aviaries, assegais and longspears in hand. The Birdrider guards hurled their standard spears and watched in shock as the slaves deflected the incoming shafts with leather rugs converted into simple shields. A typical Pellucidarian enemy would hurl spears back. Each side would pick up the other tribe’s spears and reuse them against their foes. This would continue until one side admitted defeat and fled. Instead, the slaves charged with assegais and began stabbing their erstwhile masters to death. Escaping Birdriders were cut off by another “squad” carefully positioned by Kirov. Shaka Zulu (and Kirov’s instructors in history) would be proud.

Inside the aviaries, the giant trals proved to be at least as dangerous as their human masters. One enthusiastic Dyal Rider tried to capture and saddle one of the great black birds. It pecked him to death while he was trying to fasten the saddle to its back. Pol’s men thrust longspears and hurled standard spears past tral beaks, slaughtering the great creatures in their nests. Without their namesake aerial mounts, the Black Birdriders were just another tribe, one among Pellucidar’s many isolated communities. Pol’s men jogged back to the tramway with tral feathers in their hair, whooping in triumph.

Once on the plain, Lal’s tribesmen, the Dyal Riders, led their fellow slaves to the great pens where dyals were held to provide bird power for Esi’s economy. Rugs were slapped across bird backs and tied underneath bird bellies, becoming saddles in the process. Women, small children and the elderly mounted up and began riding away.

Lal and Rell led the way, running across the Plain of Grazers towards Ulu’s Forest. Their fellow escapees ran beside the laden dyals, guiding them and protecting them from the myriad natural and unnatural dangers of the Inner World. Herbivores and even many of the smaller carnivores scattered with the advance of the new freedmen and freedwomen. Crushed flowers released sweet scents into the air.

The freedmen and freedwomen reached Ulu’s Forest where they came to a stop. Lal and Pol shouted orders and the various former slaves entered the pine forest where any flying enemies would have trouble seeing them much less reaching them.

A sleeping period later, the escapees began to disperse. Without their common enemy to hold them together, tribal loyalties reasserted themselves. Lal’s Dyal Riders were the largest group of the former slaves and the core of Kirov’s fragile organization. They wished to ride outward in a straight line away from Esi. But tribesmen from Bari wished to march to the left, along the foothills of the Mountains of the Birds, to reach their cavernous homes. Others wished to march to the right to reach an island in a river snaking across the Plain of Grazers. Lal pleaded with everyone to accompany her to Dyalsi (Dyal Town) before separating to maintain their common strength but only a few outsiders accepted. Kirov, Flana and Dyryth were three who did.

The former slaves lost a waking period arguing. In the end, Lal decided that she would not hold the others by force. The Cave Dwellers, the River People and the others took their shares of food and water and departed. Some tried to take dyal workhorses with them but the avians refused, sometimes bloodily, before Lal could issue a royal command. Before they left, all of the departing communities thanked Kirov and invited him to their homes. He declined the offers as diplomatically as he could.

Behind him, Lal and Flana nodded in satisfaction.

The Dyal Riders and their new recruits spent a few waking periods organizing themselves, hunting for game, and cutting the stolen rugs into better saddles and shields. Layers of “rugs” mounted on a wooden frame would stop or deflect most spear thrusts. Finally, they advanced cautiously onto the Plain of Grazers, guided by the mysterious Pellucidarian homing instinct.

A waking period later, they were attacked by the Black Birdriders.

Kirov had hoped that the civil war in Esi would keep the master class occupied indefinitely. When a scout spotted the wing of tral-riders headed for the escapees, the young inventor sighed loudly in disappointment. Some Black Birdrider had gained control of Esi and called out the reserve war birds normally stabled at the outpost above the community. Still, the reserves were only a fraction of the flock than had protected Esi before the civil war. Lal and Pol began directing the Dyal Riders into a circular formation with “squads” of warriors in little groups surrounding the women and children. The adult women cooed to the riding birds and the avian workhorses knelt to the ground, making themselves and their small burdens more difficult targets.

The tral-riders circled overhead and some warrior that Kirov didn’t recognize shouted “Ka-goda?!” Do you surrender? in Pellucidarian.

“No!” shouted the trapped queen. “I am Lal of the Dyal Riders and I defy your puny numbers! We are armed by Kirov the inventor! Fly away and live! Land among us like men and die!” She waved her assegai defiantly at the giant black birds overhead.

“Hah!” sneered the Black Birdrider. “We need not land. Your little sticks cannot reach us. Surrender or die!” Indeed, the trals were circling above the range of a normal spear cast.

Before Lal and the warrior could exchange further pleasantries, Kirov interrupted, whispering to the queen of the Dyal Riders. She smiled with savage glee and nodded agreement. Kirov gestured to Dyryth.

The amiable giant was carrying a longspear – an ungainly weapon for a normal sized gilak but completely natural in his oversized hands. Seemingly without effort, he hurled it aloft, piercing the neck of the spokesman’s tral. The war bird attempted to squawk, spraying a red mist across the plain, and heeled over. It spiraled into the ground, crashing with a dull thud, followed by its rider.

Flana dragged another longspear to Dyryth while the Dyal Riders cheered.

The Black Birdriders’ organization was efficient enough. Another warrior took command and trals gained altitude to escape the reach of Dyryth and Kirov-designed spear throwers. A few Birdriders, slow to adapt to the new ways of war, felt the shock of spears hammering home. They joined the first spokesman smashing into the Plain.

Once they had gained enough height to feel secure, the Black Birdriders began hurtling their spears ground ward, targeting the enemy warriors. A few weapons hit their targets, slashing into Dyal Rider flesh. Blood colored the pale green grass and curious flowers. But most spears were deflected by layered leather shields and then captured for reuse. Soon enough, the arrogant Black Birdriders had exhausted their quivers of spears, having done frustratingly little damage to the escapees.

One angry Birdrider dove his tral towards Lal, trying to snatch the enemy queen off the ground. He and his mount died in a thicket of longspears.

After that, the Black Birdriders circled for a while and peeled off, heading back to Esi. They were followed by Dyal Rider cheers.

Pol frowned and pointed at one avian monster flying towards them rather than away. “That is no tral. That is a skal! Someone is riding a skal and guiding it to us!”

Lal breathed, “A skalrider? That can only be….”

“Ho! Traitor Kirov!” came Ala’s commanding voice, melodious even in angry triumph. “You have destroyed Esi and killed my trals! But my pet will devour you and your women!” The warrior queen guided her gigantic skal forward almost casually.

The great green monster descended towards the escapees, its golden beak gaping, hungry for flesh and blood.

“It’s a trap!” bellowed Senior Sergeant Voitinuik just as bullets began hitting the deceptive wagons parked along the further ridge. He lurched forward, rising to a bear walk and launching himself into the area shorn of grass by the sheep-like animals. A bullet struck him in the leg and he grunted savagely as he collided with the ground. He lay still. Feigning death had saved him more than once during a long lifetime of war.

The fusillade raked the wagons, smashing lamps deliberately set dangerously close to the wagons’ cargos. Flaming oil spilled onto a mixture of explosives and incendiaries….

The wagons erupted in volcanic fury. A blast like a giant’s fist smashed the Soviet scouts (and apes and sheep) into unconsciousness. Fire fountained into the blue Pellucidarian sky. For a moment, a curtain of flame blotted out the entire further ridge.

Then the curtain collapsed to the earth, setting the dry grass alight. How long had the grass been drying under the eternal Pellucidarian sun? Who can say in the timeless Inner World? A wall of flame engulfed the ridge and began marching northward – toward the Soviet advance.

In the barren area south of the trap, Voitinuik, the apes and the sheep lay on the ground, stunned but otherwise largely unhurt. The fiery blast had angled away from them and the lack of grass in this shallow valley prevented any backfires from killing them or the Imperial Russian riflemen hiding behind a rampart of stacked rocks.

The scouts north of the trap were not so lucky. They fled as fast as they could but the tall grass impeded their movements. The fire burned thru the grass faster than they could run.

Major Ivan Garman had been waiting on the dirt road on the back of the nearer ridge. He frantically pressed himself into the soft Pellucidarian soil as the flames raced thru the grass on either side of him.

Drobanin’s advanced battalion pressed forward, anticipating a battle with the escaped monarchists. Their initially broad front narrowed as they closed in on the site of the wagons reported by Garman.

Their advance halted when brilliant light flared before and above them on Pellucidar’s inward curving surface. Thunder echoed across the plain. They saw the fire beginning to spread across the landscape….

Spreading towards them.

And they saw the masses of animals that had been moving away from them suddenly turn and charge, frantic to escape the oncoming wall of flame.

Fleeing towards them!

Momentarily, the Soviets were awed by the sight of thousands upon thousands of strange animals – antelopes, mammoths, baluchitheria, brontops, qirqirns, sloths, and things that no Outer World scientist had ever named – streaming forward in an avalanche of flesh. Behind them, a wall of flame marched across the plain, driving the Inner World’s strange creatures – and itself – towards the invaders.

Military training reasserted itself. Sergeants and officers bawled orders. Slowly – all too slowly – engineers began hacking at the grass and ground, trying to create firebreaks. One team started a backfire. Animals crashing into the frantic humans knocked them down, injuring them and impeding the already desperately slow work. An avalanche of flesh smothered the backfire. Soviet gunners began firing into the stampede, trying to defend themselves and, perhaps, to create firebreaks of animal flesh….

Thousands of animals fell to Soviet bullets and rifle grenades.

But men can only carry so much ammunition. When that ran out….

Thousands of surviving animals leapt the wall of the dead and dying to trample the proud invaders of the Inner World into the rich soil.

And after them, the cremation….

A shocked Kandinsky surveyed the blood soaked, fire cooked plain. Commingled human and animal bodies carpeted the landscape as far as he could see.

In the distance, he spotted two human figures standing on a rock. He couldn’t make out their faces but their body language was unmistakable. They were surveying him! The eternal Pellucidarian sunlight glinted off binoculars sweeping the battlefield and coming to rest on him!

Kandinsky snatched up his pistol and emptied it futilely at the distant figures. The taller one waved gaily back. The shorter one raised a rifle to his shoulder and fired back. The first bullet ripped thru the Soviet Senior Colonel’s sleeve. He didn’t wait for the shorter figure to correct his aim. Kandinsky disappeared behind a mammoth’s corpse seconds before a second bullet smacked into the giant body.

He would live to explain this disaster to Moscow Center. And after that? He hoped that he would merely be shot for his failure.

On the rock, Pardan grunted in frustration. He swept the Springfield back and forth, hunting for the escaped colonel. After a minute, he concluded that his target was unlikely to show himself to the victorious Pellucidarians.

“Shall we pursue?” asked the native.

“No,” replied his chief, still surveying the scene. “I’d like to make a clean sweep but it’s too dangerous. The stampede didn’t kill all of them. And there are bound to be more soldiers out there somewhere. Too many for us to fight here and now.”

“How many?” questioned Pardan eagerly. His eyes still hunted for Kandinsky.

Burroughs lowered his binoculars and mused. “Several millions if Joe Stalin pours the entire Red Army into Pellucidar. I’d love to see his face when he hears about this.” He turned to face his companion directly and said, “Don’t worry, Parhan. You’ll get your share.” He bared his teeth in his satanic smile. “Let’s go and rest. We need to tell our friends what happened.” He climbed down from the rock, grinning broadly.

Pardan followed his chief, already thinking about the fighting yet to come.

“Stand back, slaves!” commanded Ala, more beautiful than ever, and magnificent in her boldness. Alone except for her terrible giant, she defied a hundred threatening weapons as if she were defended by ten thousand warriors. “I seek the life of the traitor Kirov. Stand back and I will spare your lives!”

Many Dyal Riders quailed at the immense power of the great green monster confronting them and the élan of the warrior queen who had tamed it.

Lal bristled in defiance. She shouted, “Dyal Riders! Stand ready! Aim…!”

Kirov interrupted. “Wait, Lal. It’s me she wants. There’s no need to risk your men. I’ll fight her alone.”

Behind them, Dyryth and Rell each took a step forward. Flana strangled a cry.

Lal nodded her head in fierce approval. Kirov shouted a challenge upward to Ala, circling out of range of any spear throwers. There was a moment of silence before the warrior queen of the Black Birdriders accepted.

Kirov took an assegai and a longspear from Lal’s warriors and walked away from the circle protecting the noncombatants. Tiny animals scampered from his path – a reminder of the sweetness of life in the Inner World.

He walked about a hundred meters, stopped, and looked around. Ala watched from above, the skal’s vast wings easily sustaining it and her. Kirov stabbed his weapons into the ground and unbuttoned his tattered grey Soviet Red Army greatcoat so that it hung loosely across his shoulders. He looked up and waved to his foe, almost cheerfully.

She waved back and slapped her giant mount on its neck. The great green monster positioned itself and dived at Kirov, razor sharp claws outstretched.

The young inventor snatched up his longspear, braced it against a rock and aimed it at one oncoming scythe.

The skal’s own vast body obstructed its view of its prey. It was expecting to feel a meaty thump and close its claws on a tasty gilak. Instead, a sharp lance of pain stabbed into one claw. It screamed and jerked itself upward, frantically trying to escape its wound. Surprised, its mistress frantically slapped its neck, trying to regain control.

Kirov’s longspear had done its job but the monstrous impact had shattered the wooden shaft. Once again, the young inventor’s body went flying thru the air before crashing to the rich soil of the Inner World. This time, his flight was relatively short. He rolled upward, shaking his head in pain, trying to focus his eyes.

A few dozen meters away, the giant skal was hopping around on one foot, the other foot waving in the air, a broken stick protruding from it. Atop its mighty shoulders, Ala was slapping frantically. Finally, the colossal avian settled down and seized the offending shaft in its golden beak. Jaws that could swallow a cow closed and yanked the weapon out of the wound. The skal spat out matchsticks.

The great avian’s wild eyes surveyed the plain, hunting for its tormentor.

It spotted the brown clad Dyal Riders standing quietly eighty or ninety meters away and hopped towards them. Ala stopped it with more slapping. She began looking around for her foe….

The skal screamed as Kirov stabbed its bowels as deeply as his assegai would reach. The avian monster jerked forward, releasing itself from the stick held firmly in the young inventor’s hands, but not from the maddening pain. The mighty bird, savagely stung by a foe beneath its contempt, hopped forward another dozen meters, stopped and looked backward. Red blood sprayed the grass. On its shoulders, Ala hung on grimly.

The colossal avian saw a grey human target standing on the Plain, half of it standing still, half of it waving fiercely. Its mad eyes focused on the movement. It hopped around in a circle and then sprang forward. The golden anvil of its head descended in a swift arc, smashing thru the fragile tissue of its target and into the earth of the Plain of Grazers.

The impact tore Ala loose from her saddle. She flew head over heels and landed with a thump on the soft soil.

As the skal’s head smashed into the ground, Kirov whipped his hands from the greatcoat that he had used as a bullfighter’s distracting cloak and seized his assegai. The skal’s mighty beak had ripped the greatcoat into shreds – but missed the fragile human being waving it. The colossal avian’s last sight was the gilak driving his stick thru its eye and into its brain. Trapped by its own beak buried in the ground, it convulsed and died.

Kirov panted, frantically drawing the fresh, cool air of northern Pellucidar into his lungs. He was dizzy with adrenaline and afire with pain. When his head cleared, he walked over to where Ala was moving feebly. “Ka-goda?” he asked, quietly but firmly.

“Ka-goda,” she whispered.

He collapsed onto the grass beside her.

A handful of Dyal Riders ran to the battle site. Lal waved her men to a stop. She and Flana walked quickly to Kirov as he sat panting. Flana carried a gourd of water, which she began applying to the young victor’s throat and wounds. Lal stood guard beside her champion, one warrior protecting another.

Ala groaned and looked up. She saw Lal standing proudly beside the young inventor and then Flana kneeling possessively next to him. She addressed her conqueror, “Will you take me as your third mate?” Her commanding voice was subdued, bitter, but also conveying an emotion that Kirov could not decipher.

“No,” pronounced Kirov. “Since the Black Birdriders cannot protect you, you are my slave.” He paused to catch his breath. Behind him, the other Pellucidarians nodded in grim agreement. “However, I give you, my slave, to Lal of the Dyal Riders.”

All three women looked at Kirov in shock.

He continued. “Lal, teach Ala what it is like to be a slave. When she has served you as long as the Dyal Riders served her, I will ask you to free her. Perhaps then, she can truly be a great woman.”

Ala rolled over, hiding her face in the grass. Lal nodded in agreement, slowly at first and then more vigorously. Flana glowed as she gazed at the Solomon of the Inner World in awe and admiration.

Lal drew herself fully upright.

“Come, slave,” she commanded with immense authority. “When Kirov is ready to go to the nest of the Dyal Riders, you will come as well, willingly or not. This waking period, we will all rest. But next waking period, the Dyal Riders old and new will celebrate our freedom.”

The thick grass did not hide Ala’s moan of despair.

Kirov and Flana stood quietly together gazing across the endless Plain of Grazers. Behind them the celebration of freedom went on and on and on.

The young girl’s face was troubled. She quietly asked, “What will you do now? Will you return to the lands of the Russian tribe?”

Kirov was tempted. Russia had so many things that Pellucidar lacked: beautiful women to picnic with, stalwart men to drink with, sleigh rides in winter, canals, art museums, great universities, libraries, laboratories, scientists respected by their peers, professional societies, personal achievements and honors…. No, that wasn’t entirely true: Pellucidar had at least one scientist, one respected by his community and with a lifetime of research and achievement ahead of him: Kirov the inventor.

“No,” he answered gently. “I would like to stay here – in Pellucidar – with you.”

Her face turned upward towards his, glowing with joy like the eternal sun of the Inner World.

~ The End ~

~ In honor of Edgar Rice Burroughs of Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1875-1950,

and the many other bold explorers of the Inner World ~

This story was originally serialized in the National Capital Panthans Journal in issues #150 through 158 (but not in 154) from April to December of 2009. It is reprinted here with permission of the author. All rights reserved.

Read another pastiche by Lee Strong: The Wrecker