Netherwords

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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