The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tree of Life, by Catherine Lucille Moore

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Title: The Tree of Life

Author: Catherine Lucille Moore

Release Date: June 17, 2010 [EBook #32850]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The Tree of Life

By C. L. MOORE

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales October
1936. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Sidenote: _A gripping tale of the planet Mars and the terrible
monstrosity that called its victims to it from afar--a tale of Northwest
Smith_]

Over time-ruined Illar the searching planes swooped and circled.
Northwest Smith, peering up at them with a steel-pale stare from the
shelter of a half-collapsed temple, thought of vultures wheeling above
carrion. All day long now they had been raking these ruins for him.
Presently, he knew, thirst would begin to parch his throat and hunger to
gnaw at him. There was neither food nor water in these ancient Martian
ruins, and he knew that it could be only a matter of time before the
urgencies of his own body would drive him out to signal those wheeling
Patrol ships and trade his hard-won liberty for food and drink. He
crouched lower under the shadow of the temple arch and cursed the
accuracy of the Patrol gunner whose flame-blast had caught his dodging
ship just at the edge of Illar's ruins.

Presently it occurred to him that in most Martian temples of the ancient
days an ornamental well had stood in the outer court for the benefit of
wayfarers. Of course all water in it would be a million years dry now,
but for lack of anything better to do he rose from his seat at the edge
of the collapsed central dome and made his cautious way by still intact
corridors toward the front of the temple. He paused in a tangle of
wreckage at the courtyard's edge and looked out across the sun-drenched
expanse of pavement toward that ornate well that