Flamedown - H B Fyfe

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Flame down by H. B. Fife, Charlie Holmes lost touch
with reality amid rending and shattering sounds that lingered dimly.
Blackness engulfed him in a wave of agony. He was
not sure exactly when the possibility of opening his eyes
occurred to him. Vaguely, you could sense remember was too definite,

(00:23):
much tugging and hauling upon his supine body. It doubtless
seemed justifiable, but he flinched from recalling more clearly that
which must have been so extremely unpleasant. Gently, now, he
tried rolling his head a few inches right, then left.
When it hurt only one tenth as much as he feared,
he let his eyes open. Hall rasped the bulbous creatures

(00:48):
squatting beside his palate. Charlie shut his eyes quickly and
very tightly. Something with a dampish, spongy tip, probably one
of the great red tentacles he had limpsed, prodded his shoulder.
Hello insisted the scratchy voice. Charley peeped wearily, was strapped
at it, and opened his eyes resignedly. When hell am I,

(01:10):
he inquired, It sounded very trite, even in his confused condition.
Sections of the dark red skin before him, especially on
the barrel, shaped barely quivered as he spoke, surely granted
the remarkable voice, you remember something the crash, gasped Charley,
Sitting up abruptly. He held his breath, awaiting the knifing

(01:31):
pain it seemed natural to expect. When he felt none,
he cautiously fingered his ribs, and then a horror thought
prompted him to wiggle his bare toes. Everything seemed to
be in place. He lay in a small room on
a thin pallid of furs, floor and walls of slick
ochre clay reflected the bright outside light pouring through a
wide doorway. What's all the sand, he demanded, squinting at

(01:54):
the heat waves outside. You do not recognize him? Look again,
earth Man. Earth Man, thought Charlie, it must be real.
I can still see him. What a whack on the
head I must have got. You are in pain, asked
the creature solicitously. Oh, no, or just I can't remember

(02:17):
the crash? And then ah, yes, you have not been
conscious for some time. His readish hose rippled upward to
stand more less erect upon three thick tentacles. Even with us,
memory slow after shock and you may be uneasy in
the lighted gravity. Light gravity, reflected Charley. This can only

(02:39):
mean Mars. Sure, that must be it. I was piloting
a rocket and cracked up somewhere on Mars. It felt
right to him. He decided that the rest of his
memory would return. Are you able to rise? Asked the other,
extending a helpful tentacle. The earth man managed to all
himself stiffly to his feet. Say my name is Holmes,
he introduced him self, dizzily. I am ko teky in

(03:03):
your language, learned here since from other spacemen, I might say,
fiery canal man has to be Mars, muttered Charlie under
his breath. What a bump? When can you show me
what's left of my ship? There will be no time,
answered the Martian. Bunches of small muscles twitched here and
there across the front of his round, pudgy head. Charlie

(03:25):
was getting used to the single eye half the size
of an orange, are not much duller with imagination. The
various lumesome organs surrounding it might be considered a face.
The priestesses will lead the crowd here, predicted Coe. They
know I took an earth man, and I fear that
they are finished with the others, finished with what demanded

(03:47):
the earth man, shaking his head in hopes of clearing
it enough to figure out what was wrong. It has
been an extremely dry season. Co rippled these tentacles and
moved lissomely to the doorway, assuming a grotesque footire posture
as he peered out. The people are maddened by the draft.
They will be aroused to sacrifice you to the canal gods,

(04:09):
like the others who survived canal gods. Croaked Charlie, this
can't be right. Aren't you civilized? Dear? I can't be
the only earth man they've seen. It is true that
earthmen are perfectly safe at most times, but the laws
the earth consul k snapped the tip of a tentacle

(04:30):
at him. The canals are low. You can feel the
heat and dryness for yourself. The crowds are inflamed by
temple prophecies, and then your ship flaming down from the skies.
He snapped all these tentacle tips at once. From somewhere outside,
a threatening murmur became audible. It was an unholy blend

(04:52):
of rasping shouts and shriller chanting punctuated by notes of
a brassy gong. As Charlie listened, the volume rose noticeably.
Coe reached out with one tentacle and wrapped six inches
about the earthman's wrist. When he plunged through the doorway,
Charlie perforce went right with him, Whipping around a corner

(05:12):
of the hut. He had time for a quick squint
at the chanters. Coe alone. It looked weirdly alien. Two
hundred like him, led by a dozen bulgy figures in
streaming robes massed and decorated in brass. The natives were
swarming over the sand towards the fugitives. They had evidently
been busy above a distant cluster of low buildings. A

(05:34):
column of smoke spiraled upward. Suggestively. Coe led the way
at a floating gallop, over a sandstone ridge and down
a long slope toward what looked like the junction of
two gullies the canal. He wheezed, with luck, we may
find a boat. A frenzied screech went up as the

(05:55):
mob topped the ridge and regained sight of them. Charlie,
having all he could do to breathe in the thin air,
try to shake his wrist loose. Now that they were
descending the slope, he saw where the water was. They
slid down a foe foot drop in a cloud of fine,
choking dust, and were faced by several punt like craft
stranded in the mud flat behind. The water was fifty

(06:16):
feet further. We should have gone down stream, said k,
but we can wade. Their momentum carried them several steps
into the mud before Charlie realized how wrong that was. Then,
as they floundered about to regain the solid bank, it
became apparent that they would never reach it in time.
They are catching us, rasped Ko. The howling crowd was

(06:40):
scarcely a hundred yards away. The heat waves shimmered above
the reddish desert sand until the Martians were blurred before
Charley's burning eyes. His feet churned the clinging mud, and
he felt as if he were running in a dream.
I'm sorry, you're in it too, he panted. It does
not matter. I act as I must. The earthman rubbed

(07:01):
sweat from his eyes with the back of a muddy hand.
Everything is wrong, he mumbled. I still can't remember cracking
up the ship. Why did I always want to be
a rocket pilot. While I made my bed, the oncoming
figures wavered and blurred in the heat. K emitted a
grating sound reminiscent of an earthly chuckle, as do all

(07:25):
you mortals who finally have to lie in them. He rasped,
I will tell you now, since I can carry this episode,
little father, you have never piloted a spaceship. Charlie gaped
at him incredulously. You you what about the wreck? It
was a truck that hit you, Charles Holmes, You have

(07:48):
no more sense than to be crossing the street with
your nose in a magazine just purchased on the corner.
With some dulled, creeping, semi detached facet of his mind,
Charlie noted that the running figures still floated above the sand,
without actually drawing near. Are you do you mean? I'm

(08:09):
of course you are grated, Koe amiably, and in view
of certain actions during your life, they will be quite
a period of shall we say, probation. When I was
assigned to you, your reading habits suggested an amusing series
of variations. You cannot know how dull it is to

(08:30):
keep frustrating the same old dreams, amusing repeated Charley beyond,
carrying about the whimper in his tone. The mob was
dissolving into thin smoke, and the horizon was shrinking. Koe
himself was altering into something red off skin, but equipped
with a normal number of limbs, discounting the barbed tail.

(08:54):
The constant heat of the desert began at last to
seem explicable for me a great amusement, grinned co, displaying
hideous tusks. Next time I'll be a Venusian. You will
lose again. Then we can visit other planets and stars.
Oh will we shall see a lot of each other.

(09:15):
He cheerfully polished one horn with a clawed finger. You
won't enjoy it, he promised. End of flame down by
h B five