A Brand New World by Ray Cummings

"We have an hour," said father. "There is a great deal I must tell you, but we must make it brief."

"Kean will be coming at sunrise," Hulda said. "I'd have got you up earlier."

"I slept like a watchman," said Dan jovially. "Your air here must have a drug in it -- Hulda, what's the matter with your hair?"

"The matter? Don't you like it?"

"Well, but -- it's turning gray. I mean -- white!"

Father said: "Look at mine -- wholly white. There's something in the air here -- it kills the pigment coloring. There's no one in this world with hair other than white."

With father and Hulda, we were seated on the roof of Under Gardens. I had, I thought, been asleep only a moment when father came to awaken us. "Hulda is getting breakfast. Get up, you three. " He added when we were fully awake, "You'll find you don't need as much sleep here as on earth."

Hulda served us breakfast in a quaint simulation of the way she would have done it on earth. I would not pretend to describe the food. I was reminded of Dan's describing the involuntary grimaces Zetta had made at the food they served her in Porto Rico.

There was a beverage which might have been either tea or coffee -- a sweetish mixture of some herb; and the cooked flesh of what I hoped was an animal -- and eggs. They were small, and queerly oblong in shape; I did not think it best to inquire into them too fully.

"It's a very nice breakfast, Hulda," I said lamely, as we were finishing.

"You'll get used to it," said father. "Come upstairs."

It was dim on the roof top; the full moon was evidently low to its setting horizon; shafts of its purple light slanted down through the thick arch of vegetation. The flat roof of the house had a low metal parapet; paths between gleaming basins of flowers; and a small open area with comfortable chairs. We seated ourselves and father produced what were evidently home-made cigars. But they were not bad.

"Well," said Dan, "this is mighty luxurious. " In the moonlight I could see his great lazy length stretched in his chair. "Hulda, sit here by me."

She sat beside him, with her hand on his. Dear little Hulda; she would make any man happy to whom she gave the true steadfastness of her love. Freddie was alert and eager to hear all that father had to tell us. So was I, but my mind was divided by thoughts of Zetta. She had not yet appeared; and no one had spoken of her.

Father gazed around us. "It's been comfortable here. It must seem very strange to you."

Within the vault of this encompassing wall and ceiling of vegetation, the air hung heavy upon us. I had been convinced that a street was overhead; if so, it was untraveled now -- in the moonlight up there I could not see the moving figures.

There seemed nothing living in sight. A moment later I was not so sure. Vines ran up like ladders from the rooftop of the house to the jungle ceiling. I thought, far up there, a figure was clinging. A brown shape; a man -- an animal? Or was it some giant brown insect lying motionless on a great stalk of the vines? And then, down on the ground in front of the house by the front fence, I saw unmistakably a brown crawling thing. The length of a man -- crawling prone with several legs; it raised an eye toward our roof -- a spot of dull red light with a circle of smaller lights around it.

I stared; it came crawling to the gate; raised itself up, standing the height of a man upon a tripod of jointed legs; then sank back and crawled slowly on, following the line of fence.

Father remarked my awed, half-frightened gaze. He laughed. "One of our guards. We've half a hundred of them on the ground here, and in the foliage. We're just a little alarmed over Zetta's safety -- you'll understand presently."

I took advantage of that. "Where is Zetta?"