"Told you he was trailing the Nebula. That was a neat way to divert
suspicion from himself. You see, Garth, although a member of the
_superiors_ class, has been having financial trouble with both of his
companies lately, Crater City Trust, and Phobos Enterprises. Some of
his investments went wrong; in particular, an expedition he financed
to Pluto was never heard from again. He needed funds desperately and
_pxar_ was his answer.
"How he learned that your father's work in deciphering the _Chronicles_
was connected with this strange material, we probably shall never
know. The important thing is he did find out and immediately took
steps to acquire them. But even after he had them it was necessary to
complete the cypher before he could learn the secret. Garth must have
found a passage in some work other than the _Chronicles_ that led him
to suspect vaguely the nature of the final revelation."
Jimmy nodded slowly. "I see," he said. "And after Garth has located the
supply of figurines, he intends to launch them on their parasitical
work and sell the supply of _pxar_ he thus accumulates to the
engineers. But neither the Martians nor the engineers would consent to
such a diabolical plan."
The girl smiled grimly and touched a stud on the dash, increasing the
speed of the car. "Garth took care of that, too," she explained. "He
planned to advertise all over Mars a sanitarium devoted to the cure of
every conceivable kind of ill. It was to be located in the mountains
beyond the Red Desert Country. Once a patient was admitted, his doom
was sealed.
"It was Garth, of course, who broke into the Crater City Museum, stole
the three Thro-Pahl figurines and killed the night-watchman. Previously
he had designed a fake Nebula signature card, and he left this behind
at the scene of the crime. He's a member of the _superiors_ class, you
must remember, and his hatred for the man who was making a mockery of
that class was intense."
* * * * *
Dawn came up slowly, a reddish haze at first, then a brilliant glare
that turned the canal into a glittering avenue of crimson reflections.
They roared east along a canal that steadily grew narrower.
Presently, far ahead, a depression became visible in the side wall. Up
this depression a nature-formed ramp led to the upper level.
"This is the end of the line," the girl said. She gave a short laugh.
"Do you realize, Mr. Starr, you haven't even asked me my name?"
He colored, stammered something.
"It's Linda," she said, "Linda Hall. Come. Up this way."
The climb was hard, grueling work, and when at length they reached the
summit, man and girl were panting from the exertion. But here Jimmy
looked upon a scene of utter desolation. As far as the eye could reach
stretched a vast plain. No cairn, no monolithic pile of rocks broke the
bleak monotony.
Linda, however, moved forward with a quick step. She had a small
metal box with needle dials in her hand now, and she consulted it at
intervals. For a quarter of a mile they plodded across the flat. Then
Jimmy saw that the needles on the dials were fluttering wildly.
"Stand here," she told him.
She moved off on a tangent, walking carefully, studying the ground. He
watched her figure grow smaller and smaller. Abruptly she halted and
waved to him frantically. He hurried to her side.
She stood at the brink of a deep cleft in the plain floor. Rectangular
in shape, it seemed to bore down and down into measureless depths.
Jimmy felt his heart skip a beat. A flight of ladder-like stairs
descended into the well, and lying prone at the top of those stairs was
a man.
A deep searing burn ran from his temple down the left side of his face,
about which blood had caked and hardened. Jimmy knelt and fumbled for a
pulse. A faint flutter touched his fingers. He whipped a flask from his
pocket and brought it to the man's lips.
He moaned, opened his eyes weakly and rose up on one elbow.
"Who are you?" Jimmy demanded.
At first his words were unintelligible. Then the haze which clouded his
eyes cleared somewhat.
"Name's Hanley," he said weakly. "Phil Hanley. Represent the _Martian
Globe_. Hamilton Garth's down there. We've got to stop him."
Hanley struggled with short jerky sentences. "Garth blasted me with a
heat gun. Tried to do it once before in my own apartment, but I managed
to get away from him. This time he thought he'd done for me. He's after
the figurines. _By the blazing eternal! Are you the Nebula?_"
* * * * *
Six hundred and thirty-nine steps led to the bottom of the shaft.
In places the rock had crumbled so badly the greatest care had to
be taken, or a misstep would have meant plunging into the abyss.
Curiously, no sand seemed to have drifted here; the air was dry and
clear.
Hanley, still unsteady from the burn he had received, examined the
hieroglyphics on the stone walls with puzzled eyes.
"This place must have been discovered before," he said. "It isn't
possible that this shaft could have remained here all these years
without someone stumbling upon it."
Linda nodded. "It's presence has been known, of course," she replied.
"It leads to an underground cavern that stretches for miles under the
surface. It's the burial place of the first dynasty Martians. But there
are many such places below the Red Desert country. Always it has been
thought they contained nothing of value."
They reached the bottom level and stood staring out before them. Where
the floor of the desert above had been red in color, the surface here
was ochre, a dull uncertain floor that gave off a radiance of its own
and illuminated the underground cavern with a faint unreal glow. The
grotto stretched in three directions as far as the light permitted them
to see. At intervals of every twenty feet or so, large rectangular
blocks, ten to fifteen feet high and twelve feet long, dotted the
expanse. In a way the place looked like a vast apiary.
"Each one is a grave," Linda said quietly. "The block, of course, is
only a marker. The crypt is lower down."
Jimmy scowled. "And one of those crypts contains the figurines, eh?
Like looking for a needle in a haystack."
She gripped his arm. "We've got to find the right one before Garth.
We've got to, do you understand! He's somewhere down here now, with
those two hirelings of his. When--if--we do find it, this will destroy
them." She pressed a short tube in Jimmy's hands.
Like three sleep-walkers, they paced slowly out among the stone blocks.
And now Jimmy realized the proportions of the task they had set
themselves to do. Each of the blocks was equipped with a vault-like
door of massive weight and size, surrounded by a panel of those strange
hieroglyphics, and with an intricate series of bizarre lock dials on
its surface. The blocks looked exactly the same.
Above them in the dimness of the ceiling a heavy whirring sounded, and
at intervals a curious bird-like creature with pointed wings and a
weazened human face swooped down to be momentarily visible in the half
light.
"_Sarkonivals_," Linda said shortly. "The early Martians were
superstitious of them and transported them here to guard the burial
grounds. They must feed on a variety of moss that grows down here."
They moved on. The rows of burial blocks seemed endless. Jimmy came to
a halt.
"We're getting no place fast," he said. "Have you no clue at all as to
which block it might be?"
Linda shook her head. Hanley was staring up above him, apparently
fascinated by the strange flying creatures.
"You know," he said slowly, "I read about those _sarkonivals_ once.
They always fly in groups of an even twenty, save when some atmospheric
disturbance causes them to alter their formation."
He pointed upward. "They _are_ all in groups of twenty except over that
block over there. Above that they seem to be in confusion."
Jimmy followed his gaze and frowned thoughtfully. He paced forward
to the block in question, stood there watching the movements of the
_sarkonivals_.
Suddenly he turned to Linda. "Look. See how their flying formation is
always the same? They're twenty of them up there all right, and they
start to circle the block in a compact mass. But as soon as they strike
a point directly above it, they separate. First five, then three, then
two, six, one, and three. Always the same order. Do you suppose that
might be the combination? A magnetic disturbance issuing from the block
in such a way as to prevent the usual twenty-formation and break it up
in that fashion?"
"Jimmy!" Her eyes lighted. "I think you've got it!"
He seized the ancient combination wheel, put his strength to it.
Slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, it began to turn. Jimmy
hesitated.
[Illustration: He seized the ancient combination wheel....]
"I can't read these numerals, if they are numerals," he said. "I don't
know where to start."
Linda studied the markings. "I think that's the symbol for absolute
zero," she said. "Try it anyway."
He began to turn the wheel again, counting off the numbers as he
watched the irregular formation of _sarkonivals_ above him. "Five,
three, two, six, one, three."
Twice he tried with no result. The third time there was a dull whirring
somewhere in the bowels of the block, and the door slowly swung open.
Within, a short passageway ended at another door, equipped with another
series of dials.