CHAPTER VII

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[Transcriber's Note: Initial ads moved below main text.

The Beetle Horde concludes a story begun in the Jan, 1930 edition.

Minor spelling and typographical errors corrected.

Variable Spelling and Hyphenations standardized.

Full list of changes at end of text.

Passages in italics indicated by underscore _italics_.

Passages in bold indicated by equals =bold=.]

ASTOUNDING STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE

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VOL. I, No. 2 CONTENTS FEBRUARY, 1930

COVER DESIGN H. W. WESSOLOWSKI

_Painted in Water-colors from a Scene in "Spawn of the Stars."_

OLD CROMPTON'S SECRET HARL VINCENT 153

_Tom's Extraordinary Machine Glowed--and the Years Were Banished

from Old Crompton's Body. But There Still Remained, Deep-seated in

His Century-old Mind, the Memory of His Crime._

SPAWN OF THE STARS CHARLES WILLARD DIFFIN 166

_The Earth Lay Powerless Beneath Those Loathsome, Yellowish

Monsters That, Sheathed in Cometlike Globes, Sprang from the Skies

to Annihilate Man and Reduce His Cities to Ashes._

THE CORPSE ON THE GRATING HUGH B. CAVE 187

_In the Gloomy Depths of the Old Warehouse Dale Saw a Thing That

Drew a Scream of Horror to His Dry Lips. It Was a Corpse--the Mold

of Decay on Its Long-dead Features--and Yet It Was Alive!_

CREATURES OF THE LIGHT SOPHIE WENZEL ELLIS 196

_He Had Striven to Perfect the Faultless Man of the Future, and

Had Succeeded--Too Well. For in the Pitilessly Cold Eyes of Adam,

His Super-human Creation, Dr. Mundson Saw Only Contempt--and

Annihilation--for the Human Race._

INTO SPACE STERNER ST. PAUL 221

_What Was the Extraordinary Connection Between Dr. Livermore's

Sudden Disappearance and the Coming of a New Satellite to the

Earth?_

THE BEETLE HORDE VICTOR ROUSSEAU 229

_Bullets, Shrapnel, Shell--Nothing Can Stop the Trillions of

Famished, Man-sized Beetles Which, Led by a Madman, Sweep Down

Over the Human Race._

MAD MUSIC ANTHONY PELCHER 248

_The Sixty Stories of the Perfectly Constructed Colossus Building

Had Mysteriously Crashed! What Was the Connection Between This

Catastrophe and the Weird Strains of the Mad Musician's Violin?_

THE THIEF OF TIME CAPTAIN S. P. MEEK 259

_The Teller Turned to the Stacked Pile of Bills. They Were Gone!

And No One Had Been Near!_

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* * * * *

Old Crompton's Secret

_By Harl Vincent_

Tom's extraordinary machine glowed--and the years were banished

from Old Crompton's body. But there still remained, deep-seated

in his century-old mind, the memory of his crime.

[Illustration: _Tom tripped on a wire and fell, with his ferocious

adversary on top._]

Two miles west of the village of Laketon there lived an aged recluse who

was known only as Old Crompton. As far back as the villagers could

remember he had visited the town regularly twice a month, each time

tottering his lonely way homeward with a load of provisions. He appeared

to be well supplied with funds, but purchased sparingly as became a

miserly hermit. And so vicious was his tongue that few cared to converse

with him, even the young hoodlums of the town hesitating to harass him

with the banter usually accorded the other bizarre characters of the

streets.

The oldest inhabitants knew nothing of his past history, and they had

long since lost their curiosity in the matter. He was a fixture, as was

the old town hall with its surrounding park. His lonely cabin was

shunned by all who chanced to pass along the old dirt road that led

through the woods to nowhere and was rarely used.

His only extravagance was in the matter of books, and the village book

store profited considerably by his purchases. But, at the instigation of

Cass Harmon, the bookseller, it was whispered about that Old Crompton

was a believer in the black art--that he had made a pact with the devil

himself and was leagued with him and his imps. For the books he bought

were strange ones; ancient volumes that Cass must needs order from New

York or Chicago and that cost as much as ten and even fifteen dollars a

copy; translations of the writings of the alchemists and astrologers and

philosophers of the dark ages.

It was no wonder Old Crompton was looked at askance by the simple-living

and deeply religious natives of the small Pennsylvania town.

But there came a day when the hermit was to have a neighbor, and the

town buzzed with excited speculation as to what would happen.

* * * * *

The property across the road from Old Crompton's hut belonged to Alton

Forsythe, Laketon's wealthiest resident--hundreds of acres of scrubby

woodland that he considered well nigh worthless. But Tom Forsythe, the

only son, had returned from college and his ambitions were of a nature

strange to his townspeople and utterly incomprehensible to his father.

Something vague about biology and chemical experiments and the like is

what he spoke of, and, when his parents objected on the grounds of

possible explosions and other weird accidents, he prevailed upon his

father to have a secluded laboratory built for him in the woods.

When the workmen started the small frame structure not a quarter of a

mile from his own hut, Old Crompton was furious. He raged and stormed,

but to no avail. Tom Forsythe had his heart set on the project and he

was somewhat of a successful debater himself. The fire that flashed from

his cold gray eyes matched that from the pale blue ones of the elderly

anchorite. And the law was on his side.

So the building was completed and Tom Forsythe moved in, bag and

baggage.

For more than a year the hermit studiously avoided his neighbor, though,

truth to tell, this required very little effort. For Tom Forsythe became

almost as much of a recluse as his predecessor, remaining indoors for

days at a time and visiting the home of his people scarcely oftener than

Old Crompton visited the village. He too became the target of village

gossip and his name was ere long linked with that of the old man in

similar animadversion. But he cared naught for the opinions of his

townspeople nor for the dark looks of suspicion that greeted him on his

rare appearances in the public places. His chosen work engrossed him so

deeply that all else counted for nothing. His parents remonstrated with

him in vain. Tom laughed away their recriminations and fears, continuing

with his labors more strenuously than ever. He never troubled his mind

over the nearness of Old Crompton's hut, the existence of which he

hardly noticed or considered.

* * * * *

It so happened one day that the old man's curiosity got the better of

him and Tom caught him prowling about on his property, peering

wonderingly at the many rabbit hutches, chicken coops, dove cotes and

the like which cluttered the space to the rear of the laboratory.

Seeing that he was discovered, the old man wrinkled his face into a

toothless grin of conciliation.

"Just looking over your place, Forsythe," he said. "Sorry about the fuss

I made when you built the house. But I'm an old man, you know, and

changes are unwelcome. Now I have forgotten my objections and would like

to be friends. Can we?"

Tom peered searchingly into the flinty eyes that were set so deeply in

the wrinkled, leathery countenance. He suspected an ulterior motive, but

could not find it within him to turn the old fellow down.

"Why--I guess so, Crompton," he hesitated: "I have nothing against you,

but I came here for seclusion and I'll not have anyone bothering me in

my work."

"I'll not bother you, young man. But I'm fond of pets and I see you have

many of them here; guinea pigs, chickens, pigeons, and rabbits. Would

you mind if I make friends with some of them?"

"They're not pets," answered Tom dryly, "they are material for use in my

experiments. But you may amuse yourself with them if you wish."

"You mean that you cut them up--kill them, perhaps?"

"Not that. But I sometimes change them in physical form, sometimes cause

them to become of huge size, sometimes produce pigmy offspring of normal

animals."

"Don't they suffer?"

"Very seldom, though occasionally a subject dies. But the benefit that

will accrue to mankind is well worth the slight inconvenience to the

dumb creatures and the infrequent loss of their lives."

* * * * *

Old Crompton regarded him dubiously. "You are trying to find?" he

interrogated.

"The secret of life!" Tom Forsythe's eyes took on the stare of

fanaticism. "Before I have finished I shall know the nature of the vital

force--how to produce it. I shall prolong human life indefinitely;

create artificial life. And the solution is more closely approached with

each passing day."

The hermit blinked in pretended mystification. But he understood

perfectly, and he bitterly envied the younger man's knowledge and

ability that enabled him to delve into the mysteries of nature which had

always been so attractive to his own mind. And somehow, he acquired a

sudden deep hatred of the coolly confident young man who spoke so

positively of accomplishing the impossible.

During the winter months that followed, the strange acquaintance

progressed but little. Tom did not invite his neighbor to visit him,

nor did Old Crompton go out of his way to impose his presence on the

younger man, though each spoke pleasantly enough to the other on the few

occasions when they happened to meet.

With the coming of spring they encountered one another more frequently,

and Tom found considerable of interest in the quaint, borrowed

philosophy of the gloomy old man. Old Crompton, of course, was

desperately interested in the things that were hidden in Tom's

laboratory, but he never requested permission to see them. He hid his

real feelings extremely well and was apparently content to spend as much

time as possible with the feathered and furred subjects for experiment,

being very careful not to incur Tom's displeasure by displaying too

great interest in the laboratory itself.

* * * * *

Then there came a day in early summer when an accident served to draw

the two men closer together, and Old Crompton's long-sought opportunity

followed.

He was starting for the village when, from down the road, there came a

series of tremendous squawkings, then a bellow of dismay in the voice of

his young neighbor. He turned quickly and was astonished at the sight of

a monstrous rooster which had escaped and was headed straight for him

with head down and wings fluttering wildly. Tom followed close behind,

but was unable to catch the darting monster. And monster it was, for

this rooster stood no less than three feet in height and appeared more

ferocious than a large turkey. Old Crompton had his shopping bag, a

large one of burlap which he always carried to town, and he summoned

enough courage to throw it over the head of the screeching, over-sized

fowl. So tangled did the panic-stricken bird become that it was a

comparatively simple matter to effect his capture, and the old man rose

to his feet triumphant with the bag securely closed over the struggling

captive.

"Thanks," panted Tom, when he drew alongside. "I should never have

caught him, and his appearance at large might have caused me a great

deal of trouble--now of all times."

"It's all right, Forsythe," smirked the old man. "Glad I was able to do

it."

Secretly he gloated, for he knew this occurrence would be an open sesame

to that laboratory of Tom's. And it proved to be just that.

* * * * *

A few nights later he was awakened by a vigorous thumping at his door,

something that had never before occurred during his nearly sixty years

occupancy of the tumbledown hut. The moon was high and he cautiously

peeped from the window and saw that his late visitor was none other than

young Forsythe.

"With you in a minute!" he shouted, hastily thrusting his rheumatic old

limbs into his shabby trousers. "Now to see the inside of that

laboratory," he chuckled to himself.

It required but a moment to attire himself in the scanty raiment he wore

during the warm months, but he could hear Tom muttering and impatiently

pacing the flagstones before his door.

"What is it?" he asked, as he drew the bolt and emerged into the

brilliant light of the moon.

"Success!" breathed Tom excitedly. "I have produced growing, living

matter synthetically. More than this, I have learned the secret of the

vital force--the spark of life. Immortality is within easy reach. Come

and see for yourself."

They quickly traversed the short distance to the two-story building

which comprised Tom's workshop and living quarters. The entire ground

floor was taken up by the laboratory, and Old Crompton stared aghast at

the wealth of equipment it contained. Furnaces there were, and retorts

that reminded him of those pictured in the wood cuts in some of his

musty books. Then there were complicated machines with many levers and

dials mounted on their faces, and with huge glass bulbs of peculiar

shape with coils of wire connecting to knoblike protuberances of their

transparent walls. In the exact center of the great single room there

was what appeared to be a dissecting table, with a brilliant light

overhead and with two of the odd glass bulbs at either end. It was to

this table that Tom led the excited old man.

"This is my perfected apparatus," said Tom proudly, "and by its use I

intend to create a new race of supermen, men and women who will always

retain the vigor and strength of their youth and who can not die

excepting by actual destruction of their bodies. Under the influence of

the rays all bodily ailments vanish as if by magic, and organic defects

are quickly corrected. Watch this now."

* * * * *

He stepped to one of the many cages at the side of the room and returned

with a wriggling cottontail in his hands. Old Compton watched anxiously

as he picked a nickeled instrument from a tray of surgical appliances

and requested his visitor to hold the protesting animal while he covered

its head with a handkerchief.

"Ethyl chloride," explained Tom, noting with amusement the look of

distaste on the old man's face. "We'll just put him to sleep for a

minute while I amputate a leg."

The struggles of the rabbit quickly ceased when the spray soaked the

handkerchief and the anaesthetic took effect. With a shining scalpel and

a surgical saw, Tom speedily removed one of the forelegs of the animal

and then he placed the limp body in the center of the table, removing

the handkerchief from its head as he did so. At the end of the table

there was a panel with its glittering array of switches and electrical

instruments, and Old Crompton observed very closely the manipulations of

the controls as Tom started the mechanism. With the ensuing hum of a

motor-generator from a corner of the room, the four bulbs adjacent to

the table sprang into life, each glowing with a different color and each

emitting a different vibratory note as it responded to the energy

within.

"Keep an eye on Mr. Rabbit now," admonished Tom.

From the body of the small animal there emanated an intangible though

hazily visible aura as the combined effects of the rays grew in

intensity. Old Crompton bent over the table and peered amazedly at the

stump of the foreleg, from which blood no longer dripped. The stump was

healing over! Yes--it seemed to elongate as one watched. A new limb was

growing on to replace the old! Then the animal struggled once more, this

time to regain consciousness. In a moment it was fully awake and, with a

frightened hop, was off the table and hobbling about in search of a

hiding place.

* * * * *

Tom Forsythe laughed. "Never knew what happened," he exulted, "and

excepting for the temporary limp is not inconvenienced at all. Even that

will be gone in a couple of hours, for the new limb will be completely

grown by that time."

"But--but, Tom," stammered the old man, "this is wonderful. How do you

accomplish it?"

"Ha! Don't think I'll reveal my secret. But this much I will tell you:

the life force generated by my apparatus stimulates a certain gland

that's normally inactive in warm blooded animals. This gland, when

active, possesses the function of growing new members to the body to

replace lost ones in much the same manner as this is done in case of the

lobster and certain other crustaceans. Of course, the process is

extremely rapid when the gland is stimulated by the vital rays from my

tubes. But this is only one of the many wonders of the process. Here is

something far more remarkable."

He took from a large glass jar the body of a guinea pig, a body that was

rigid in death.

"This guinea pig," he explained, "was suffocated twenty-four hours ago

and is stone dead."

"Suffocated?"

"Yes. But quite painlessly, I assure you. I merely removed the air from

the jar with a vacuum pump and the little creature passed out of the

picture very quickly. Now we'll revive it."

Old Crompton stretched forth a skinny hand to touch the dead animal, but

withdrew it hastily when he felt the clammy rigidity of the body. There

was no doubt as to the lifelessness of this specimen.

* * * * *

Tom placed the dead guinea pig on the spot where the rabbit had been

subjected to the action of the rays. Again his visitor watched carefully

as he manipulated the controls of the apparatus.

With the glow of the tubes and the ensuing haze of eery light that

surrounded the little body, a marked change was apparent. The inanimate

form relaxed suddenly and it seemed that the muscles pulsated with an

accession of energy. Then one leg was stretched forth spasmodically.

There was a convulsive heave as the lungs drew in a first long breath,

and, with that, an astonished and very much alive rodent scrambled to

its feet, blinking wondering eyes in the dazzling light.

"See? See?" shouted Tom, grasping Old Crompton by the arm in a viselike

grip. "It is the secret of life and death! Aristocrats, plutocrats and

beggars will beat a path to my door. But, never fear, I shall choose my

subjects well. The name of Thomas Forsythe will yet be emblazoned in the

Hall of Fame. I shall be master of the world!"

Old Crompton began to fear the glitter in the eyes of the gaunt young

man who seemed suddenly to have become demented. And his envy and hatred

of his talented host blazed anew as Forsythe gloried in the success of

his efforts. Then he was struck with an idea and he affected his most

ingratiating manner.

"It is a marvelous thing, Tom," he said, "and is entirely beyond my poor

comprehension. But I can see that it is all you say and more. Tell

me--can you restore the youth of an aged person by these means?"

"Positively!" Tom did not catch the eager note in the old man's voice.

Rather he took the question as an inquiry into the further marvels of

his process. "Here," he continued, enthusiastically, "I'll prove that to

you also. My dog Spot is around the place somewhere. And he is a

decrepit old hound, blind, lame and toothless. You've probably seen him

with me."

* * * * *

He rushed to the stairs and whistled. There was an answering yelp from

above and the pad of uncertain paws on the bare wooden steps. A dejected

old beagle blundered into the room, dragging a crippled hind leg as he

fawned upon his master, who stretched forth a hand to pat the unsteady

head.

"Guess Spot is old enough for the test," laughed Tom, "and I have been

meaning to restore him to his youthful vigor, anyway. No time like the

present."

He led his trembling pet to the table of the remarkable tubes and lifted

him to its surface. The poor old beast lay trustingly where he was

placed, quiet, save for his husky asthmatic breathing.

"Hold him, Crompton," directed Tom as he pulled the starting lever of

his apparatus.

And Old Crompton watched in fascinated anticipation as the ethereal

luminosity bathed the dog's body in response to the action of the four

rays. Somewhat vaguely it came to him that the baggy flesh of his own

wrinkled hands took on a new firmness and color where they reposed on

the animal's back. Young Forsythe grinned triumphantly as Spot's

breathing became more regular and the rasp gradually left it. Then the

dog whined in pleasure and wagged his tail with increasing vigor.

Suddenly he raised his head, perked his ears in astonishment and looked

his master straight in the face with eyes that saw once more. The low

throat cry rose to a full and joyous bark. He sprang to his feet from

under the restraining hands and jumped to the floor in a lithe-muscled

leap that carried him half way across the room. He capered about with

the abandon of a puppy, making extremely active use of four sound limbs.

"Why--why, Forsythe," stammered the hermit, "it's absolutely incredible.

Tell me--tell me--what is this remarkable force?"

* * * * *

His host laughed gleefully. "You probably wouldn't understand it anyway,

but I'll tell you. It is as simple as the nose on your face. The spark

of life, the vital force, is merely an extremely complicated electrical

manifestation which I have been able to duplicate artificially. This

spark or force is all that distinguishes living from inanimate matter,

and in living beings the force gradually decreases in power as the years

pass, causing loss of health and strength. The chemical composition of

bones and tissue alters, joints become stiff, muscles atrophied, and

bones brittle. By recharging, as it were, with the vital force, the

gland action is intensified, youth and strength is renewed. By repeating

the process every ten or fifteen years the same degree of vigor can be

maintained indefinitely. Mankind will become immortal. That is why I say

I am to be master of the world."

For the moment Old Crompton forgot his jealous hatred in the enthusiasm

with which he was imbued. "Tom--Tom," he pleaded in his excitement, "use

me as a subject. Renew my youth. My life has been a sad one and a lonely

one, but I would that I might live it over. I should make of it a far

different one--something worth while. See, I am ready."

He sat on the edge of the gleaming table and made as if to lie down on

its gleaming surface. But his young host only stared at him in open

amusement.

"What? You?" he sneered, unfeelingly. "Why, you old fossil! I told you I

would choose my subjects carefully. They are to be people of standing

and wealth, who can contribute to the fame and fortune of one Thomas

Forsythe."

"But Tom, I have money," Old Crompton begged. But when he saw the hard

mirth in the younger man's eyes, his old animosity flamed anew and he

sprang from his position and shook a skinny forefinger in Tom's face.

"Don't do that to me, you old fool!" shouted Tom, "and get out of here.

Think I'd waste current on an old cadger like you? I guess not! Now get

out. Get out, I say!"

Then the old anchorite saw red. Something seemed to snap in his soured

old brain. He found himself kicking and biting and punching at his host,

who backed away from the furious onslaught in surprise. Then Tom tripped

over a wire and fell to the floor with a force that rattled the windows,

his ferocious little adversary on top. The younger man lay still where

he had fallen, a trickle of blood showing at his temple.

"My God! I've killed him!" gasped the old man.

With trembling fingers he opened Tom's shirt and listened for his

heartbeats. Panic-stricken, he rubbed the young man's wrists, slapped

his cheeks, and ran for water to dash in his face. But all efforts to

revive him proved futile, and then, in awful fear, Old Crompton dashed

into the night, the dog Spot snapping at his heels as he ran.

* * * * *

Hours later the stooped figure of a shabby old man might have been seen

stealthily re-entering the lonely workshop where the lights still burned

brightly. Tom Forsythe lay rigid in the position in which Old Crompton

had left him, and the dog growled menacingly.

Averting his gaze and circling wide of the body, Old Crompton made for

the table of the marvelous rays. In minute detail he recalled every move

made by Tom in starting and adjusting the apparatus to produce the

incredible results he had witnessed. Not a moment was to be wasted now.

Already he had hesitated too long, for soon would come the dawn and

possible discovery of his crime. But the invention of his victim would

save him from the long arm of the law, for, with youth restored, Old

Crompton would cease to exist and a new life would open its doors to the

starved soul of the hermit. Hermit, indeed! He would begin life anew, an

active man with youthful vigor and ambition. Under an assumed name he

would travel abroad, would enjoy life, and would later become a

successful man of affairs. He had enough money, he told himself. And the

police would never find Old Crompton, the murderer of Tom Forsythe! He

deposited his small traveling bag on the floor and fingered the controls

of Tom's apparatus.

He threw the starting switch confidently and grinned in satisfaction as

the answering whine of the motor-generator came to his ears. One by one

he carefully made the adjustments in exactly the manner followed by the

now silenced discoverer of the process. Everything operated precisely as

it had during the preceding experiments. Odd that he should have

anticipated some such necessity! But something had told him to observe

Tom's movements carefully, and now he rejoiced in the fact that his

intuition had led him aright. Painfully he climbed to the table top and

stretched his aching body in the warm light of the four huge tubes. His

exertions during the struggle with Tom were beginning to tell on him.

But the soreness and stiffness of feeble muscles and stubborn joints

would soon be but a memory. His pulses quickened at the thought and he

breathed deep in a sudden feeling of unaccustomed well-being.

* * * * *

The dog growled continuously from his position at the head of his

master, but did not move to interfere with the intruder. And Old

Crompton, in the excitement of the momentous experience, paid him not

the slightest attention.

His body tingled from head to foot with a not unpleasant sensation that

conveyed the assurance of radical changes taking place under the

influence of the vital rays. The tingling sensation increased in

intensity until it seemed that every corpuscle in his veins danced to

the tune of the vibration from those glowing tubes that bathed him in an

ever-spreading radiance. Aches and pains vanished from his body, but he

soon experienced a sharp stab of new pain in his lower jaw. With an

experimental forefinger he rubbed the gum. He laughed aloud as the

realization came to him that in those gums where there had been no teeth

for more than twenty years there was now growing a complete new set. And

the rapidity of the process amazed him beyond measure. The aching area

spread quickly and was becoming really uncomfortable. But then--and he

consoled himself with the thought--nothing is brought into being without

a certain amount of pain. Besides, he was confident that his discomfort

would soon be over.

He examined his hand, and found that the joints of two fingers long

crippled with rheumatism now moved freely and painlessly. The misty

brilliance surrounding his body was paling and he saw that the flesh was

taking on a faint green fluorescence instead. The rays had completed

their work and soon the transformation would be fully effected. He

turned on his side and slipped to the floor with the agility of a

youngster. The dog snarled anew, but kept steadfastly to his position.

* * * * *

There was a small mirror over the wash stand at the far end of the room

and Old Crompton made haste to obtain the first view of his reflected

image. His step was firm and springy, his bearing confident, and he

found that his long-stooped shoulders straightened naturally and easily.

He felt that he had taken on at least two inches in stature, which was

indeed the case. When he reached the mirror he peered anxiously into its

dingy surface and what he saw there so startled him that he stepped

backward in amazement. This was not Larry Crompton, but an entirely new

man. The straggly white hair had given way to soft, healthy waves of

chestnut hue. Gone were the seams from the leathery countenance and the

eyes looked out clearly and steadily from under brows as thick and dark

as they had been in his youth. The reflected features were those of an

entire stranger. They were not even reminiscent of the Larry Crompton of

fifty years ago, but were the features of a far more vigorous and

prepossessing individual than he had ever seemed, even in the best years

of his life. The jaw was firm, the once sunken cheeks so well filled out

that his high cheek bones were no longer in evidence. It was the face of

a man of not more than thirty-eight years of age, reflecting exceptional

intelligence and strength of character.

"What a disguise!" he exclaimed in delight. And his voice, echoing in

the stillness that followed the switching off of the apparatus, was

deep-throated and mellow--the voice of a new man.

Now, serenely confident that discovery was impossible, he picked up his

small but heavy bag and started for the door. Dawn was breaking and he

wished to put as many miles between himself and Tom's laboratory as

could be covered in the next few hours. But at the door he hesitated.

Then, despite the furious yapping of Spot, he returned to the table of

the rays and, with deliberate thoroughness smashed the costly tubes

which had brought about his rehabilitation. With a pinch bar from a

nearby tool rack, he wrecked the controls and generating mechanisms

beyond recognition. Now he was absolutely secure! No meddling experts

could possibly discover the secret of Tom's invention. All evidence

would show that the young experimenter had met his death at the hands of

Old Crompton, the despised hermit of West Laketon. But none would dream

that the handsome man of means who was henceforth to be known as George

Voight was that same despised hermit.

He recovered his satchel and left the scene. With long, rapid strides he

proceeded down the old dirt road toward the main highway where, instead

of turning east into the village, he would turn west and walk to

Kernsburg, the neighboring town. There, in not more than two hours time,

his new life would really begin!

* * * * *

Had you, a visitor, departed from Laketon when Old Crompton did and

returned twelve years later, you would have noticed very little

difference in the appearance of the village. The old town hall and the

little park were the same, the dingy brick building among the trees

being just a little dingier and its wooden steps more worn and sagged.

The main street showed evidence of recent repaving, and, in consequence

of the resulting increase in through automobile traffic; there were two

new gasoline filling stations in the heart of the town. Down the road

about a half mile there was a new building, which, upon inquiring from

one of the natives, would be proudly designated as the new high school

building. Otherwise there were no changes to be observed.

In his dilapidated chair in the untidy office he had occupied for nearly

thirty years, sat Asa Culkin, popularly known as "Judge" Culkin. Justice

of the peace, sheriff, attorney-at-law, and three times Mayor of

Laketon, he was still a controlling factor in local politics and

government. And many a knotty legal problem was settled in that gloomy

little office. Many a dispute in the town council was dependent for

arbitration upon the keen mind and understanding wit of the old judge.

The four o'clock train had just puffed its labored way from the station

when a stranger entered his office, a stranger of uncommonly prosperous

air. The keen blue eyes of the old attorney appraised him instantly and

classified him as a successful man of business, not yet forty years of

age, and with a weighty problem on his mind.

"What can I do for you, sir?" he asked, removing his feet from the

battered desk top.

"You may be able to help me a great deal, Judge," was the unexpected

reply. "I came to Laketon to give myself up."

"Give yourself up?" Culkin rose to his feet in surprise and

unconsciously straightened his shoulders in the effort to seem less

dwarfed before the tall stranger. "Why, what do you mean?" he inquired.

* * * * *

"I wish to give myself up for murder," answered the amazing visitor,

slowly and with decision, "for a murder committed twelve years ago. I

should like you to listen to my story first, though. It has been kept

too long."

"But I still do not understand." There was puzzlement in the honest old

face of the attorney. He shook his gray locks in uncertainty. "Why

should you come here? Why come to me? What possible interest can I have

in the matter?"

"Just this, Judge. You do not recognize me now, and you will probably

consider my story incredible when you hear it. But, when I have given

you all the evidence, you will know who I am and will be compelled to

believe. The murder was committed in Laketon. That is why I came to

you."

"A murder in Laketon? Twelve years ago?" Again the aged attorney shook

his head. "But--proceed."

"Yes. I killed Thomas Forsythe."

The stranger looked for an expression of horror in the features of his

listener, but there was none. Instead the benign countenance took on a

look of deepening amazement, but the smile wrinkles had somehow vanished

and the old face was grave in its surprised interest.

"You seem astonished," continued the stranger. "Undoubtedly you were

convinced that the murderer was Larry Crompton--Old Crompton, the

hermit. He disappeared the night of the crime and has never been heard

from since. Am I correct?"

"Yes. He disappeared all right. But continue."

Not by a lift of his eyebrow did Culkin betray his disbelief, but the

stranger sensed that his story was somehow not as startling as it should

have been.

"You will think me crazy, I presume. But I am Old Crompton. It was my

hand that felled the unfortunate young man in his laboratory out there

in West Laketon twelve years ago to-night. It was his marvelous

invention that transformed the old hermit into the apparently young man

you see before you. But I swear that I am none other than Larry Crompton

and that I killed young Forsythe. I am ready to pay the penalty. I can

bear the flagellation of my own conscience no longer."

* * * * *

The visitor's voice had risen to the point of hysteria. But his listener

remained calm and unmoved.

"Now just let me get this straight," he said quietly. "Do I understand

that you claim to be Old Crompton, rejuvenated in some mysterious

manner, and that you killed Tom Forsythe on that night twelve years ago?

Do I understand that you wish now to go to trial for that crime and to

pay the penalty?"

"Yes! Yes! And the sooner the better. I can stand it no longer. I am the

most miserable man in the world!"

"Hm-m--hm-m," muttered the judge, "this is strange." He spoke soothingly

to his visitor. "Do not upset yourself, I beg of you. I will take care

of this thing for you, never fear. Just take a seat, Mister--er--"

"You may call me Voight for the present," said the stranger, in a more

composed tone of voice, "George Voight. That is the name I have been

using since the mur--since that fatal night."

"Very well, Mr. Voight," replied the counsellor with an air of the

greatest solicitude, "please have a seat now, while I make a telephone

call."

And George Voight slipped into a stiff-backed chair with a sigh of

relief. For he knew the judge from the old days and he was now certain

that his case would be disposed of very quickly.

With the telephone receiver pressed to his ear, Culkin repeated a

number. The stranger listened intently during the ensuing silence. Then

there came a muffled "hello" sounding in impatient response to the call.

"Hello, Alton," spoke the attorney, "this is Asa speaking. A stranger

has just stepped into my office and he claims to be Old Crompton.

Remember the hermit across the road from your son's old laboratory?

Well, this man, who bears no resemblance whatever to the old man he

claims to be and who seems to be less than half the age of Tom's old

neighbor, says that he killed Tom on that night we remember so well."

* * * * *

There were some surprised remarks from the other end of the wire, but

Voight was unable to catch them. He was in a cold perspiration at the

thought of meeting his victim's father.

"Why, yes, Alton," continued Culkin, "I think there is something in this

story, although I cannot believe it all. But I wish you would accompany

us and visit the laboratory. Will you?"

"Lord, man, not that!" interrupted the judge's visitor. "I can hardly

bear to visit the scene of my crime--and in the company of Alton

Forsythe. Please, not that!"

"Now you just let me take care of this, young man," replied the judge,

testily. Then, once more speaking into the mouthpiece of the telephone,

"All right, Alton. We'll pick you up at your office in five minutes."

He replaced the receiver on its hook and turned again to his visitor.

"Please be so kind as to do exactly as I request," he said. "I want to

help you, but there is more to this thing than you know and I want you

to follow unquestioningly where I lead and ask no questions at all for

the present. Things may turn out differently than you expect."

"All right, Judge." The visitor resigned himself to whatever might

transpire under the guidance of the man he had called upon to turn him

over to the officers of the law.

* * * * *

Seated in the judge's ancient motor car, they stopped at the office of

Alton Forsythe a few minutes later and were joined by that red-faced and

pompous old man. Few words were spoken during the short run to the

well-remembered location of Tom's laboratory, and the man who was known

as George Voight caught at his own throat with nervous fingers when they

passed the tumbledown remains of the hut in which Old Crompton had spent

so many years. With a screeching of well-worn brakes the car stopped

before the laboratory, which was now almost hidden behind a mass of

shrubs and flowers.

"Easy now, young man," cautioned the judge, noting the look of fear

which had clouded his new client's features. The three men advanced to

the door through which Old Crompton had fled on that night of horror,

twelve years before. The elder Forsythe spoke not a word as he turned

the knob and stepped within. Voight shrank from entering, but soon

mastered his feelings and followed the other two. The sight that met his

eyes caused him to cry aloud in awe.

At the dissecting table, which seemed to be exactly as he had seen it

last but with replicas of the tubes he had destroyed once more in place,

stood Tom Forsythe! Considerably older and with hair prematurely gray,

he was still the young man Old Crompton thought he had killed. Tom

Forsythe was not dead after all! And all of his years of misery had gone

for nothing. He advanced slowly to the side of the wondering young man,

Alton Forsythe and Asa Culkin watching silently from just inside the

door.

"Tom--Tom," spoke the stranger, "you are alive? You were not dead when I

left you on that terrible night when I smashed your precious tubes?

Oh--it is too good to be true! I can scarcely believe my eyes!"

* * * * *

He stretched forth trembling fingers to touch the body of the young man

to assure himself that it was not all a dream.

"Why," said Tom Forsythe, in astonishment. "I do not know you, sir.

Never saw you in my life. What do you mean by your talk of smashing my

tubes, of leaving me for dead?"

"Mean?" The stranger's voice rose now; he was growing excited. "Why,

Tom, I am Old Crompton. Remember the struggle, here in this very room?

You refused to rejuvenate an unhappy old man with your marvelous

apparatus, a temporarily insane old man--Crompton. I was that old man

and I fought with you. You fell, striking your head. There was blood.

You were unconscious. Yes, for many hours I was sure you were dead and

that I had murdered you. But I had watched your manipulations of the

apparatus and I subjected myself to the action of the rays. My youth was

miraculously restored. I became as you see me now. Detection was

impossible, for I looked no more like Old Crompton than you do. I

smashed your machinery to avoid suspicion. Then I escaped. And, for

twelve years, I have thought myself a murderer. I have suffered the

tortures of the damned!"

Tom Forsythe advanced on this remarkable visitor with clenched fists.

Staring him in the eyes with cold appraisal, his wrath was all too

apparent. The dog Spot, young as ever, entered the room and, upon

observing the stranger, set up an ominous growling and snarling. At

least the dog recognized him!

"What are you trying to do, catechise me? Are you another of these

alienists my father has been bringing around?" The young inventor was

furious. "If you are," he continued, "you can get out of here--now! I'll

have no more of this meddling with my affairs. I'm as sane as any of you

and I refuse to submit to this continual persecution."

The elder Forsythe grunted, and Culkin laid a restraining hand on his

arm. "Just a minute now, Tom," he said soothingly. "This stranger is no

alienist. He has a story to tell. Please permit him to finish."

* * * * *

Somewhat mollified, Tom Forsythe shrugged his assent.

"Tom," continued the stranger, more calmly now, "what I have said is the

truth. I shall prove it to you. I'll tell you things no mortals on earth

could know but we two. Remember the day I captured the big rooster for

you--the monster you had created? Remember the night you awakened me and

brought me here in the moonlight? Remember the rabbit whose leg you

amputated and re-grew? The poor guinea pig you had suffocated and whose

life you restored? Spot here? Don't you remember rejuvenating him? I was

here. And you refused to use your process on me, old man that I was.

Then is when I went mad and attacked you. Do you believe me, Tom?"

Then a strange thing happened. While Tom Forsythe gazed in growing

belief, the stranger's shoulders sagged and he trembled as with the

ague. The two older men who had kept in the background gasped their

astonishment as his hair faded to a sickly gray, then became as white as

the driven snow. Old Crompton was reverting to his previous state!

Within five minutes, instead of the handsome young stranger, there

stood before them a bent, withered old man--Old Crompton beyond a doubt.

The effects of Tom's process were spent.

"Well I'm damned!" ejaculated Alton Forsythe. "You have been right all

along, Asa. And I am mighty glad I did not commit Tom as I intended. He

has told us the truth all these years and we were not wise enough to see

it."

"We!" exclaimed the judge. "You, Alton Forsythe! I have always upheld

him. You have done your son a grave injustice and you owe him your

apologies if ever a father owed his son anything."

"You are right, Asa." And, his aristocratic pride forgotten, Alton

Forsythe rushed to the side of his son and embraced him.

The judge turned to Old Crompton pityingly. "Rather a bad ending for

you, Crompton," he said. "Still, it is better by far than being branded

as a murderer."

"Better? Better?" croaked Old Crompton. "It is wonderful, Judge. I have

never been so happy in my life!"

* * * * *

The face of the old man beamed, though scalding tears coursed down the

withered and seamed cheeks. The two Forsythes looked up from their

demonstrations of peacemaking to listen to the amazing words of the old

hermit.

"Yes, happy for the first time in my life," he continued. "I am one

hundred years of age, gentlemen, and I now look it and feel it. That is

as it should be. And my experience has taught me a final lasting lesson.

None of you know it, but, when I was but a very young man I was bitterly

disappointed in love. Ha! ha! Never think it to look at me now, would

you? But I was, and it ruined my entire life. I had a little

money--inherited--and I traveled about in the world for a few years,

then settled in that old hut across the road where I buried myself for

sixty years, becoming crabbed and sour and despicable. Young Tom here

was the first bright spot and, though I admired him, I hated him for

his opportunities, hated him for that which he had that I had not. With

the promise of his invention I thought I saw happiness, a new life for

myself. I got what I wanted, though not in the way I had expected. And I

want to tell you gentlemen that there is nothing in it. With

developments of modern science you may be able to restore a man's

youthful vigor of body, but you can't cure his mind with electricity.

Though I had a youthful body, my brain was the brain of an old

man--memories were there which could not be suppressed. Even had I not

had the fancied death of young Tom on my conscience I should still have

been miserable. I worked. God, how I worked--to forget! But I could not

forget. I was successful in business and made a lot of money. I am more

independent--probably wealthier than you, Alton Forsythe, but that did

not bring happiness. I longed to be myself once more, to have the aches

and pains which had been taken from me. It is natural to age and to die.

Immortality would make of us a people of restless misery. We would

quarrel and bicker and long for death, which would not come to relieve

us. Now it is over for me and I am glad--glad--glad!"

* * * * *

He paused for breath, looking beseechingly at Tom Forsythe. "Tom," he

said, "I suppose you have nothing for me in your heart but hatred. And I

don't blame you. But I wish--I wish you would try and forgive me. Can

you?"

The years had brought increased understanding and tolerance to young

Tom. He stared at Old Crompton and the long-nursed anger over the

destruction of his equipment melted into a strange mixture of pity and

admiration for the courageous old fellow.

"Why, I guess I can, Crompton," he replied. "There was many a day when I

struggled hopelessly to reconstruct my apparatus, cursing you with every

bit of energy in my make-up. I could cheerfully have throttled you, had

you been within reach. For twelve years I have labored incessantly to

reproduce the results we obtained on the night of which you speak.

People called me insane--even my father wished to have me committed to

an asylum. And, until now, I have been unsuccessful. Only to-day has it

seemed for the first time that the experiments will again succeed. But

my ideas have changed with regard to the uses of the process. I was a

cocksure young pup in the old days, with foolish dreams of fame and

influence. But I have seen the error of my ways. Your experience, too,

convinces me that immortality may not be as desirable as I thought. But

there are great possibilities in the way of relieving the sufferings of

mankind and in making this a better world in which to live. With your

advice and help I believe I can do great things. I now forgive you

freely and I ask you to remain here with me to assist in the work that

is to come. What do you say to the idea?"

At the reverent thankfulness in the pale eyes of the broken old man who

had so recently been a perfect specimen of vigorous youth, Alton

Forsythe blew his nose noisily. The little judge smiled benevolently and

shook his head as if to say, "I told you so." Tom and Old Crompton

gripped hands--mightily.

* * * * *

_COMING, NEXT MONTH_

BRIGANDS OF THE MOON

By RAY CUMMINGS

* * * * *

Spawn of the Stars

_By Charles Willard Diffin_

The Earth lay powerless beneath those loathsome, yellowish

monsters that, sheathed in cometlike globes, sprang from the

skies to annihilate man and reduce his cities to ashes.

[Illustration: _The sky was alive with winged shapes, and high in the

air shone the glittering menace, trailing five plumes of gas._]

When Cyrus R. Thurston bought himself a single-motored Stoughton job he

was looking for new thrills. Flying around the east coast had lost its

zest: he wanted to join that jaunty group who spoke so easily of hopping

off for Los Angeles.

And what Cyrus Thurston wanted he usually obtained. But if that young

millionaire-sportsman had been told that on his first flight this

blocky, bulletlike ship was to pitch him headlong into the exact center

of the wildest, strangest war this earth had ever seen--well, it is

still probable that the Stoughton company would not have lost the sale.

They were roaring through the starlit, calm night, three thousand feet

above a sage sprinkled desert, when the trip ended. Slim Riley had the

stick when the first blast of hot oil ripped slashingly across the

pilot's window. "There goes your old trip!" he yelled. "Why don't they

try putting engines in these ships?"

[Illustration]

He jammed over the throttle and, with motor idling, swept down toward

the endless miles of moonlit waste. Wind? They had been boring into it.

Through the opened window he spotted a likely stretch of ground. Setting

down the ship on a nice piece of Arizona desert was a mere detail for

Slim.

"Let off a flare," he ordered, "when I give the word."

* * * * *

The white glare of it faded the stars as he sideslipped, then

straightened out on his hand-picked field. The plane rolled down a clear

space and stopped. The bright glare persisted while he stared curiously

from the quiet cabin. Cutting the motor he opened both windows, then

grabbed Thurston by the shoulder.

"'Tis a curious thing, that," he said unsteadily. His hand pointed

straight ahead. The flare died, but the bright stars of the desert

country still shone on a glistening, shining bulb.

It was some two hundred feet away. The lower part was lost in shadow,

but its upper surfaces shone rounded and silvery like a giant bubble. It

towered in the air, scores of feet above the chaparral beside it. There

was a round spot of black on its side, which looked absurdly like a

door....

"I saw something moving," said Thurston slowly. "On the ground I saw....

Oh, good Lord, Slim, it isn't real!"

Slim Riley made no reply. His eyes were riveted to an undulating,

ghastly something that oozed and crawled in the pale light not far from

the bulb. His hand was reaching, reaching.... It found what he sought;

he leaned toward the window. In his hand was the Very pistol for

discharging the flares. He aimed forward and up.

The second flare hung close before it settled on the sandy floor. Its

blinding whiteness made the more loathsome the sickening yellow of the

flabby flowing thing that writhed frantically in the glare. It was

formless, shapeless, a heaving mound of nauseous matter. Yet even in its

agonized writhing distortions they sensed the beating pulsations that

marked it a living thing.

There were unending ripplings crossing and recrossing through the

convolutions. To Thurston there was suddenly a sickening likeness: the

thing was a brain from a gigantic skull--it was naked--was

suffering....

* * * * *

The thing poured itself across the sand. Before the staring gaze of the

speechless men an excrescence appeared--a thick bulb on the mass--that

protruded itself into a tentacle. At the end there grew instantly a

hooked hand. It reached for the black opening in the great shell, found

it, and the whole loathsome shapelessness poured itself up and through

the hole.

Only at the last was it still. In the dark opening the last slippery

mass held quiet for endless seconds. It formed, as they watched, to a

head--frightful--menacing. Eyes appeared in the head; eyes flat and

round and black save for a cross slit in each; eyes that stared horribly

and unchangingly into theirs. Below them a gaping mouth opened and

closed.... The head melted--was gone....

And with its going came a rushing roar of sound.

From under the metallic mass shrieked a vaporous cloud. It drove at

them, a swirling blast of snow and sand. Some buried memory of gas

attacks woke Riley from his stupor. He slammed shut the windows

an instant before the cloud struck, but not before they had seen,

in the moonlight, a gleaming, gigantic, elongated bulb rise

swiftly--screamingly--into the upper air.

The blast tore at their plane. And the cold in their tight compartment

was like the cold of outer space. The men stared, speechless, panting.

Their breath froze in that frigid room into steam clouds.

"It--it...." Thurston gasped--and slumped helpless upon the floor.

* * * * *

It was an hour before they dared open the door of their cabin. An hour

of biting, numbing cold. Zero--on a warm summer night on the desert!

Snow in the hurricane that had struck them!

"'Twas the blast from the thing," guessed the pilot; "though never did

I see an engine with an exhaust like that." He was pounding himself with

his arms to force up the chilled circulation.

"But the beast--the--the _thing_!" exclaimed Thurston. "It's monstrous;

indecent! It thought--no question of that--but no body! Horrible! Just a

raw, naked, thinking protoplasm!"

It was here that he flung open the door. They sniffed cautiously of the

air. It was warm again--clean--save for a hint of some nauseous odor.

They walked forward; Riley carried a flash.

The odor grew to a stench as they came where the great mass had lain. On

the ground was a fleshy mound. There were bones showing, and horns on a

skull. Riley held the light close to show the body of a steer. A body of

raw bleeding meat. Half of it had been absorbed....

"The damned thing," said Riley, and paused vainly for adequate words.

"The damned thing was eating.... Like a jelly-fish, it was!"

"Exactly," Thurston agreed. He pointed about. There were other heaps

scattered among the low sage.

"Smothered," guessed Thurston, "with that frozen exhaust. Then the

filthy thing landed and came out to eat."

"Hold the light for me," the pilot commanded. "I'm goin' to fix that

busted oil line. And I'm goin' to do it right now. Maybe the creature's

still hungry."

* * * * *

They sat in their room. About them was the luxury of a modern hotel.

Cyrus Thurston stared vacantly at the breakfast he was forgetting to

eat. He wiped his hands mechanically on a snowy napkin. He looked from

the window. There were palm trees in the park, and autos in a ceaseless

stream. And people! Sane, sober people, living in a sane world. Newsboys

were shouting; the life of the city was flowing.

"Riley!" Thurston turned to the man across the table. His voice was

curiously toneless, and his face haggard. "Riley, I haven't slept for

three nights. Neither have you. We've got to get this thing straight. We

didn't both become absolute maniacs at the same instant, but--it was

_not_ there, it was _never_ there--not _that_...." He was lost in

unpleasant recollections. "There are other records of hallucinations."

"Hallucinations--hell!" said Slim Riley. He was looking at a Los Angeles

newspaper. He passed one hand wearily across his eyes, but his face was

happier than it had been in days.

"We didn't imagine it, we aren't crazy--it's real! Would you read that

now!" He passed the paper across to Thurston. The headlines were

startling.

"Pilot Killed by Mysterious Airship. Silvery Bubble Hangs Over New York.

Downs Army Plane in Burst of Flame. Vanishes at Terrific Speed."

"It's our little friend," said Thurston. And on his face, too, the lines

were vanishing; to find this horror a reality was positive relief.

"Here's the same cloud of vapor--drifted slowly across the city,

the accounts says, blowing this stuff like steam from underneath.

Airplanes investigated--an army plane drove into the vapor--terrific

explosion--plane down in flames--others wrecked. The machine ascended

with meteor speed, trailing blue flame. Come on, boy, where's that old

bus? Thought I never wanted to fly a plane again. Now I don't want to do

anything but."

"Where to?" Slim inquired.

"Headquarters," Thurston told him. "Washington--let's go!"

* * * * *

From Los Angeles to Washington is not far, as the plane flies. There was

a stop or two for gasoline, but it was only a day later that they were

seated in the War Office. Thurston's card had gained immediate

admittance. "Got the low-down," he had written on the back of his card,

"on the mystery airship."

"What you have told me is incredible," the Secretary was saying,

"or would be if General Lozier here had not reported personally on

the occurrence at New York. But the monster, the thing you have

described.... Cy, if I didn't know you as I do I would have you locked

up."

"It's true," said Thurston, simply. "It's damnable, but it's true. Now

what does it mean?"

"Heaven knows," was the response. "That's where it came from--out of the

heavens."

"Not what we saw," Slim Riley broke in. "That thing came straight out of

Hell." And in his voice was no suggestion of levity.

"You left Los Angeles early yesterday; have you seen the papers?"

Thurston shook his head.

"They are back," said the Secretary. "Reported over London--Paris--the

West Coast. Even China has seen them. Shanghai cabled an hour ago."

"Them? How many are there?"

"Nobody knows. There were five seen at one time. There are more--unless

the same ones go around the world in a matter of minutes."

* * * * *

Thurston remembered that whirlwind of vapor and a vanishing speck in the

Arizona sky. "They could," he asserted. "They're faster than anything on

earth. Though what drives them ... that gas--steam--whatever it is...."

"Hydrogen," stated General Lozier. "I saw the New York show when poor

Davis got his. He flew into the exhaust; it went off like a million

bombs. Characteristic hydrogen flame trailed the damn thing up out of

sight--a tail of blue fire."

"And cold," stated Thurston.

"Hot as a Bunsen burner," the General contradicted. "Davis' plane almost

melted."

"Before it ignited," said the other. He told of the cold in their plane.

"Ha!" The General spoke explosively. "That's expansion. That's a tip on

their motive power. Expansion of gas. That accounts for the cold and

the vapor. Suddenly expanded it would be intensely cold. The moisture of

the air would condense, freeze. But how could they carry it? Or"--he

frowned for a moment, brows drawn over deep-set gray eyes--"or generate

it? But that's crazy--that's impossible!"

"So is the whole matter," the Secretary reminded him. "With the

information Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley have given us, the whole affair

is beyond any gage our past experience might supply. We start from the

impossible, and we go--where? What is to be done?"

"With your permission, sir, a number of things shall be done. It would

be interesting to see what a squadron of planes might accomplish, diving

on them from above. Or anti-aircraft fire."

* * * * *

"No," said the Secretary of War, "not yet. They have looked us over,

but they have not attacked. For the present we do not know what they

are. All of us have our suspicions--thoughts of interplanetary

travel--thoughts too wild for serious utterance--but we know nothing.

"Say nothing to the papers of what you have told me," he directed

Thurston. "Lord knows their surmises are wild enough now. And for you,

General, in the event of any hostile move, you will resist."

"Your order was anticipated, sir." The General permitted himself a

slight smile. "The air force is ready."

"Of course," the Secretary of War nodded. "Meet me here to-night--nine

o'clock." He included Thurston and Riley in the command. "We need to

think ... to think ... and perhaps their mission is friendly."

"Friendly!" The two flyers exchanged glances as they went to the door.

And each knew what the other was seeing--a viscous ocherous mass that

formed into a head where eyes devilish in their hate stared coldly into

theirs....

"Think, we need to think," repeated Thurston later. "A creature that is

just one big hideous brain, that can think an arm into existence--think

a head where it wishes! What does a thing like that think of? What

beastly thoughts could that--that _thing_ conceive?"

"If I got the sights of a Lewis gun on it," said Riley vindictively,

"I'd make it think."

"And my guess is that is all you would accomplish," Thurston told him.

"I am forming a few theories about our visitors. One is that it would be

quite impossible to find a vital spot in that big homogeneous mass."

The pilot dispensed with theories: his was a more literal mind. "Where

on earth did they come from, do you suppose, Mr. Thurston?"

* * * * *

They were walking to their hotel. Thurston raised his eyes to the summer

heavens. Faint stars were beginning to twinkle; there was one that

glowed steadily.

"Nowhere on earth," Thurston stated softly, "nowhere on earth."

"Maybe so," said the pilot, "maybe so. We've thought about it and talked

about it ... and they've gone ahead and done it." He called to a

newsboy; they took the latest editions to their room.

The papers were ablaze with speculation. There were dispatches from all

corners of the earth, interviews with scientists and near scientists.

The machines were a Soviet invention--they were beyond anything

human--they were harmless--they would wipe out civilization--poison

gas--blasts of fire like that which had enveloped the army flyer....

And through it all Thurston read an ill-concealed fear, a reflection of

panic that was gripping the nation--the whole world. These great

machines were sinister. Wherever they appeared came the sense of being

watched, of a menace being calmly withheld. And at thought of the

obscene monsters inside those spheres, Thurston's lips were compressed

and his eyes hardened. He threw the papers aside.

"They are here," he said, "and that's all that we know. I hope the

Secretary of War gets some good men together. And I hope someone is

inspired with an answer."

"An answer is it?" said Riley. "I'm thinkin' that the answer will come,

but not from these swivel-chair fighters. 'Tis the boys in the cockpits

with one hand on the stick and one on the guns that will have the

answer."

But Thurston shook his head. "Their speed," he said, "and the gas!

Remember that cold. How much of it can they lay over a city?"

The question was unanswered, unless the quick ringing of the phone was a

reply.

"War Department," said a voice. "Hold the wire." The voice of the

Secretary of War came on immediately.

"Thurston?" he asked. "Come over at once on the jump, old man. Hell's

popping."

* * * * *

The windows of the War Department Building were all alight as they

approached. Cars were coming and going; men in uniform, as the Secretary

had said, "on the jump." Soldiers with bayonets stopped them, then

passed Thurston and his companion on. Bells were ringing from all sides.

But in the Secretary's office was perfect quiet.

General Lozier was there, Thurston saw, and an imposing array of

gold-braided men with a sprinkling of those in civilian clothes. One he

recognized: MacGregor from the Bureau of Standards. The Secretary handed

Thurston some papers.

"Radio," he explained. "They are over the Pacific coast. Hit near

Vancouver; Associated Press says city destroyed. They are working down

the coast. Same story--blast of hydrogen from their funnel shaped base.

Colder than Greenland below them; snow fell in Seattle. No real attack

since Vancouver and little damage done--" A message was laid before

him.

"Portland," he said. "Five mystery ships over city. Dart repeatedly

toward earth, deliver blast of gas and then retreat. Doing no damage.

Apparently inviting attack. All commercial planes ordered grounded.

Awaiting instructions.

"Gentlemen," said the Secretary, "I believe I speak for all present when

I say that, in the absence of first hand information, we are utterly

unable to arrive at any definite conclusion or make a definite plan.

There is a menace in this, undeniably. Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley have

been good enough to report to me. They have seen one machine at close

range. It was occupied by a monster so incredible that the report would

receive no attention from me did I not know Mr. Thurston personally.

"Where have they come from? What does it mean--what is their mission?

Only God knows.

"Gentlemen, I feel that I must see them. I want General Lozier to

accompany me, also Doctor MacGregor, to advise me from the scientific

angle. I am going to the Pacific Coast. They may not wait--that is

true--but they appear to be going slowly south. I will leave to-night

for San Diego. I hope to intercept them. We have strong air-forces

there; the Navy Department is cooperating."

* * * * *

He waited for no comment. "General," he ordered, "will you kindly

arrange for a plane? Take an escort or not as you think best.

"Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley will also accompany us. We want all the

authoritative data we can get. This on my return will be placed before

you, gentlemen, for your consideration." He rose from his chair. "I hope

they wait for us," he said.

Time was when a commander called loudly for a horse, but in this day a

Secretary of War is not kept waiting for transportation. Sirening

motorcycles preceded them from the city. Within an hour, motors roaring

wide open, propellers ripping into the summer night, lights slipping

eastward three thousand feet below, the Secretary of War for the United

States was on his way. And on either side from their plane stretched the

arms of a V. Like a flight of gigantic wild geese, fast fighting planes

of the Army air service bored steadily into the night, guarantors of

safe convoy.

"The Air Service is ready," General Lozier had said. And Thurston and

his pilot knew that from East coast to West, swift scout planes, whose

idling engines could roar into action at a moment's notice, stood

waiting; battle planes hidden in hangars would roll forth at the

word--the Navy was cooperating--and at San Diego there were strong naval

units, Army units, and Marine Corps.

"They don't know what we can do, what we have up our sleeve: they are

feeling us out," said the Secretary. They had stopped more than once for

gas and for wireless reports. He held a sheaf of typewritten briefs.

"Going slowly south. They have taken their time. Hours over San

Francisco and the bay district. Repeating same tactics; fall with

terrific speed to cushion against their blast of gas. Trying to draw us

out, provoke an attack, make us show our strength. Well, we shall beat

them to San Diego at this rate. We'll be there in a few hours."

* * * * *

The afternoon sun was dropping ahead of them when they sighted the

water. "Eckener Pass," the pilot told them, "where the Graf Zeppelin

came through. Wonder what these birds would think of a Zepp!

"There's the ocean," he added after a time. San Diego glistened against

the bare hills. "There's North Island--the Army field." He stared

intently ahead, then shouted: "And there they are! Look there!"

Over the city a cluster of meteors was falling. Dark underneath, their

tops shone like pure silver in the sun's slanting glare. They fell

toward the city, then buried themselves in a dense cloud of steam,

rebounding at once to the upper air, vapor trailing behind them.

The cloud billowed slowly. It struck the hills of the city, then lifted

and vanished.

"Land at once," requested the Secretary. A flash of silver countermanded

the order.

It hung there before them, a great gleaming globe, keeping always its

distance ahead. It was elongated at the base, Thurston observed. From

that base shot the familiar blast that turned steamy a hundred feet

below as it chilled the warm air. There were round orifices, like ports,

ranged around the top, where an occasional jet of vapor showed this to

be a method of control. Other spots shone dark and glassy. Were they

windows? He hardly realized their peril, so interested was he in the

strange machine ahead.

* * * * *

Then: "Dodge that vapor," ordered General Lozier. The plane wavered in

signal to the others and swung sharply to the left. Each man knew the

flaming death that was theirs if the fire of their exhaust touched that

explosive mixture of hydrogen and air. The great bubble turned with them

and paralleled their course.

"He's watching us," said Riley, "giving us the once over, the slimy

devil. Ain't there a gun on this ship?"

The General addressed his superior. Even above the roar of the motors

his voice seemed quiet, assured. "We must not land now," he said. "We

can't land at North Island. It would focus their attention upon our

defenses. That thing--whatever it is--is looking for a vulnerable spot.

We must.... Hold on--there he goes!"

The big bulb shot upward. It slanted above them, and hovered there.

"I think he is about to attack," said the General quietly. And, to the

commander of their squadron: "It's in your hands now, Captain. It's

your fight."

The Captain nodded and squinted above. "He's got to throw heavier stuff

than that," he remarked. A small object was falling from the cloud. It

passed close to their ship.

"Half-pint size," said Cyrus Thurston, and laughed in derision. There

was something ludicrous in the futility of the attack. He stuck his head

from a window into the gale they created. He sheltered his eyes to try

to follow the missile in its fall.

* * * * *

They were over the city. The criss-cross of streets made a grill-work of

lines; tall buildings were dwarfed from this three thousand foot

altitude. The sun slanted across a projecting promontory to make golden

ripples on a blue sea and the city sparkled back in the clear air. Tiny

white faces were massed in the streets, huddled in clusters where the

futile black missile had vanished.

And then--then the city was gone....

A white cloud-bank billowed and mushroomed. Slowly, it seemed to the

watcher--so slowly.

It was done in the fraction of a second. Yet in that brief time his eyes

registered the chaotic sweep in advance of the cloud. There came a

crashing of buildings in some monster whirlwind, a white cloud engulfing

it all.... It was rising--was on them.

"God," thought Thurston, "why can't I move!" The plane lifted and

lurched. A thunder of sound crashed against them, an intolerable force.

They were crushed to the floor as the plane was hurled over and upward.

Out of the mad whirling tangle of flying bodies, Thurston glimpsed one

clear picture. The face of the pilot hung battered and blood-covered

before him, and over the limp body the hand of Slim Riley clutched at

the switch.

"Bully boy," he said dazedly, "he's cutting the motors...." The thought

ended in blackness.

There was no sound of engines or beating propellers when he came to his

senses. Something lay heavy upon him. He pushed it to one side. It was

the body of General Lozier.

* * * * *

He drew himself to his knees to look slowly about, rubbed stupidly at

his eyes to quiet the whirl, then stared at the blood on his hand. It

was so quiet--the motors--what was it that happened? Slim had reached

for the switch....

The whirling subsided. Before him he saw Slim Riley at the controls. He

got to his feet and went unsteadily forward. It was a battered face that

was lifted to his.

"She was spinning," the puffed lips were muttering slowly. "I brought

her out ... there's the field...." His voice was thick; he formed the

words slowly, painfully. "Got to land ... can you take it? I'm--I'm--"

He slumped limply in his seat.

Thurston's arms were uninjured. He dragged the pilot to the floor and

got back of the wheel. The field was below them. There were planes

taxiing out; he heard the roar of their motors. He tried the controls.

The plane answered stiffly, but he managed to level off as the brown

field approached.

Thurston never remembered that landing. He was trying to drag Riley from

the battered plane when the first man got to him.

"Secretary of War?" he gasped. "In there.... Take Riley; I can walk."

"We'll get them," an officer assured him. "Knew you were coming. They

sure gave you hell! But look at the city!"

Arms carried him stumbling from the field. Above the low hangars he saw

smoke clouds over the bay. These and red rolling flames marked what had

been an American city. Far in the heavens moved five glinting specks.

His head reeled with the thunder of engines. There were planes standing

in lines and more erupting from hangars, where khaki-clad men, faces

tense under leather helmets, rushed swiftly about.

"General Lozier is dead," said a voice. Thurston turned to the man. They

were bringing the others. "The rest are smashed up some," the officer

told him, "but I think they'll pull through."

* * * * *

The Secretary of War for the United States lay beside him. Men with red

on their sleeves were slitting his coat. Through one good eye he

squinted at Thurston. He even managed a smile.

"Well, I wanted to see them up close," he said. "They say you saved us,

old man."

Thurston waved that aside. "Thank Riley--" he began, but the words ended

in the roar of an exhaust. A plane darted swiftly away to shoot

vertically a hundred feet in the air. Another followed and another. In a

cloud of brown dust they streamed endlessly out, zooming up like angry

hornets, eager to get into the fight.

"Fast little devils!" the ambulance man observed. "Here come the big

boys."

A leviathan went deafeningly past. And again others came on in quick

succession. Farther up the field, silvery gray planes with rudders

flaunting their red, white and blue rose circling to the heights.

"That's the Navy," was the explanation. The surgeon straightened the

Secretary's arm. "See them come off the big airplane carriers!"

If his remarks were part of his professional training in removing a

patient's thoughts from his pain, they were effective. The Secretary

stared out to sea, where two great flat-decked craft were shooting

planes with the regularity of a rapid fire gun. They stood out sharply

against a bank of gray fog. Cyrus Thurston forgot his bruised body,

forgot his own peril--even the inferno that raged back across the bay:

he was lost in the sheer thrill of the spectacle.

* * * * *

Above them the sky was alive with winged shapes. And from all the

disorder there was order appearing. Squadron after squadron swept to

battle formation. Like flights of wild ducks the true sharp-pointed Vs

soared off into the sky. Far above and beyond, rows of dots marked the

race of swift scouts for the upper levels. And high in the clear air

shone the glittering menace trailing their five plumes of gas.

A deeper detonation was merging into the uproar. It came from the ships,

Thurston knew, where anti-aircraft guns poured a rain of shells into the

sky. About the invaders they bloomed into clusters of smoke balls. The

globes shot a thousand feet into the air. Again the shells found them,

and again they retreated.

"Look!" said Thurston. "They got one!"

He groaned as a long curving arc of speed showed that the big bulb was

under control. Over the ships it paused, to balance and swing, then shot

to the zenith as one of the great boats exploded in a cloud of vapor.

The following blast swept the airdrome. Planes yet on the ground went

like dry autumn leaves. The hangars were flattened.

Thurston cowered in awe. They were sheltered, he saw, by a slope of the

ground. No ridicule now for the bombs!

A second blast marked when the gas-cloud ignited. The billowing flames

were blue. They writhed in tortured convulsions through the air. Endless

explosions merged into one rumbling roar.

MacGregor had roused from his stupor; he raised to a sitting position.

"Hydrogen," he stated positively, and pointed where great volumes of

flame were sent whirling aloft. "It burns as it mixes with air." The

scientist was studying intently the mammoth reaction. "But the volume,"

he marveled, "the volume! From that small container! Impossible!"

"Impossible," the Secretary agreed, "but...." He pointed with his one

good arm toward the Pacific. Two great ships of steel, blackened and

battered in that fiery breath, tossed helplessly upon the pitching,

heaving sea. They furnished to the scientist's exclamation the only

adequate reply.

Each man stared aghast into the pallid faces of his companions. "I think

we have underestimated the opposition," said the Secretary of War

quietly. "Look--the fog is coming in, but it's too late to save them."

* * * * *

The big ships were vanishing in the oncoming fog. Whirls of vapor were

eddying toward them in the flame-blaster air. Above them the watchers

saw dimly the five gleaming bulbs. There were airplanes attacking: the

tapping of machine-gun fire came to them faintly.

Fast planes circled and swooped toward the enemy. An armada of big

planes drove in from beyond. Formations were blocking space above....

Every branch of the service was there, Thurston exulted, the army,

Marine Corps, the Navy. He gripped hard at the dry ground in a paralysis

of taut nerves. The battle was on, and in the balance hung the fate of

the world.

The fog drove in fast. Through straining eyes he tried in vain to

glimpse the drama spread above. The world grew dark and gray. He buried

his face in his hands.

And again came the thunder. The men on the ground forced their gaze to

the clouds, though they knew some fresh horror awaited.

The fog-clouds reflected the blue terror above. They were riven and

torn. And through them black objects were falling. Some blazed as they

fell. They slipped into unthought maneuvers--they darted to earth

trailing yellow and black of gasoline fires. The air was filled with the

dread rain of death that was spewed from the gray clouds. Gone was the

roaring of motors. The air-force of the San Diego area swept in silence

to the earth, whose impact alone could give kindly concealment to their

flame-stricken burden.

Thurston's last control snapped. He flung himself flat to bury his face

in the sheltering earth.

* * * * *

Only the driving necessity of work to be done saved the sanity of the

survivors. The commercial broadcasting stations were demolished, a part

of the fuel for the terrible furnace across the bay. But the Naval radio

station was beyond on an outlying hill. The Secretary of War was in

charge. An hour's work and this was again in commission to flash to the

world the story of disaster. It told the world also of what lay ahead.

The writing was plain. No prophet was needed to forecast the doom and

destruction that awaited the earth.

Civilization was helpless. What of armies and cannon, of navies, of

aircraft, when from some unreachable height these monsters within their

bulbous machines could drop coldly--methodically--their diminutive

bombs. And when each bomb meant shattering destruction; each explosion

blasting all within a radius of miles; each followed by the blue blast

of fire that melted the twisted framework of buildings and powdered the

stones to make of a proud city a desolation of wreckage, black and

silent beneath the cold stars. There was no crumb of comfort for the

world in the terror the radio told.

Slim Riley was lying on an improvised cot when Thurston and the

representative of the Bureau of Standards joined him. Four walls of a

room still gave shelter in a half-wrecked building. There were candles

burning: the dark was unbearable.

"Sit down," said MacGregor quietly; "we must think...."

"Think!" Thurston's voice had an hysterical note. "I can't think! I

mustn't think! I'll go raving crazy...."

"Yes, think," said the scientist. "Had it occurred to you that that is

our only weapon left?

"We must think, we must analyze. Have these devils a vulnerable spot? Is

there any known means of attack? We do not know. We must learn. Here in

this room we have all the direct information the world possesses of this

menace. I have seen their machines in operation. You have seen more--you

have looked at the monsters themselves. At one of them, anyway."

* * * * *

The man's voice was quiet, methodical. Mr. MacGregor was attacking a

problem. Problems called for concentration; not hysterics. He could have

poured the contents from a beaker without spilling a drop. His poise was

needed: they were soon to make a laboratory experiment.

The door burst open to admit a wild-eyed figure that snatched up their

candles and dashed them to the floor.

"Lights out!" he screamed at them. "There's one of 'em coming back." He

was gone from the room.

The men sprang for the door, then turned to where Riley was clumsily

crawling from his couch. An arm under each of his, and the three men

stumbled from the room.

They looked about them in the night. The fog-banks were high, drifting

in from the ocean. Beneath them the air was clear; from somewhere above

a hidden moon forced a pale light through the clouds. And over the

ocean, close to the water, drifted a familiar shape. Familiar in its

huge sleek roundness, in its funnel-shaped base where a soft roar made

vaporous clouds upon the water. Familiar, too, in the wild dread it

inspired.

The watchers were spellbound. To Thurston there came a fury of impotent

frenzy. It was so near! His hands trembled to tear at that door, to rip

at that foul mass he knew was within.... The great bulb drifted past. It

was nearing the shore. But its action! Its motion!

Gone was the swift certainty of control. The thing settled and sank, to

rise weakly with a fresh blast of gas from its exhaust. It settled

again, and passed waveringly on in the night.

* * * * *

Thurston was throbbingly alive with hope that was certainty. "It's been

hit," he exulted; "it's been hit. Quick! After it, follow it!" He dashed

for a car. There were some that had been salvaged from the less ruined

buildings. He swung it quickly around where the others were waiting.

"Get a gun," he commanded. "Hey, you,"--to an officer who

appeared--"your pistol, man, quick! We're going after it!" He caught the

tossed gun and hurried the others into the car.

"Wait," MacGregor commanded. "Would you hunt elephants with a pop-gun?

Or these things?"

"Yes," the other told him, "or my bare hands! Are you coming, or aren't

you?"

The physicist was unmoved. "The creature you saw--you said that it

writhed in a bright light--you said it seemed almost in agony. There's

an idea there! Yes, I'm going with you, but keep your shirt on, and

think."

He turned again to the officer. "We need lights," he explained, "bright

lights. What is there? Magnesium? Lights of any kind?"

"Wait." The man rushed off into the dark.

He was back in a moment to thrust a pistol into the car. "Flares," he

explained. "Here's a flashlight, if you need it." The car tore at the

ground as Thurston opened it wide. He drove recklessly toward the

highway that followed the shore.

The high fog had thinned to a mist. A full moon was breaking through to

touch with silver the white breakers hissing on the sand. It spread its

full glory on dunes and sea: one more of the countless soft nights where

peace and calm beauty told of an ageless existence that made naught of

the red havoc of men or of monsters. It shone on the ceaseless surf

that had beaten these shores before there were men, that would thunder

there still when men were no more. But to the tense crouching men in the

car it shone only ahead on a distant, glittering speck. A wavering

reflection marked the uncertain flight of the stricken enemy.

* * * * *

Thurston drove like a maniac; the road carried them straight toward

their quarry. What could he do when he overtook it? He neither knew nor

cared. There was only the blind fury forcing him on within reach of the

thing. He cursed as the lights of the car showed a bend in the road. It

was leaving the shore.

He slackened their speed to drive cautiously into the sand. It dragged

at the car, but he fought through to the beach, where he hoped for firm

footing. The tide was out. They tore madly along the smooth sand,

breakers clutching at the flying wheels.

The strange aircraft was nearer; it was plainly over the shore, they

saw. Thurston groaned as it shot high in the air in an effort to clear

the cliffs ahead. But the heights were no longer a refuge. Again it

settled. It struck on the cliff to rebound in a last futile leap. The

great pear shape tilted, then shot end over end to crash hard on the

firm sand. The lights of the car struck the wreck, and they saw the

shell roll over once. A ragged break was opening--the spherical top fell

slowly to one side. It was still rocking as they brought the car to a

stop. Filling the lower shell, they saw dimly, was a mucouslike mass

that seethed and struggled in the brilliance of their lights.

MacGregor was persisting in his theory. "Keep the lights on it!" he

shouted. "It can't stand the light."

While they watched, the hideous, bubbling beast oozed over the side of

the broken shell to shelter itself in the shadow beneath. And again

Thurston sensed the pulse and throb of life in the monstrous mass.

* * * * *

He saw again in his rage the streaming rain of black airplanes; saw,

too, the bodies, blackened and charred as they saw them when first they

tried rescue from the crashed ships; the smoke clouds and flames from

the blasted city, where people--his people, men and women and little

children--had met terrible death. He sprang from the car. Yet he

faltered with a revulsion that was almost a nausea. His gun was gripped

in his hand as he ran toward the monster.

"Come back!" shouted MacGregor. "Come back! Have you gone mad?" He was

jerking at the door of the car.

Beyond the white funnel of their lights a yellow thing was moving. It

twisted and flowed with incredible speed a hundred feet back to the base

of the cliff. It drew itself together in a quivering heap.

An out-thrusting rock threw a sheltering shadow; the moon was low in the

west. In the blackness a phosphorescence was apparent. It rippled and

rose in the dark with the pulsing beat of the jellylike mass. And

through it were showing two discs. Gray at first, they formed to black,

staring eyes.

Thurston had followed. His gun was raised as he neared it. Then out of

the mass shot a serpentine arm. It whipped about him, soft, sticky,

viscid--utterly loathsome. He screamed once when it clung to his face,

then tore savagely and in silence at the encircling folds.

* * * * *

The gun! He ripped a blinding mass from his face and emptied the

automatic in a stream of shots straight toward the eyes. And he knew as

he fired that the effort was useless; to have shot at the milky surf

would have been as vain.

The thing was pulling him irresistibly; he sank to his knees; it dragged

him over the sand. He clutched at a rock. A vision was before him: the

carcass of a steer, half absorbed and still bleeding on the sand of an

Arizona desert....

To be drawn to the smothering embrace of that glutinous mass ... for

that monstrous appetite.... He tore afresh at the unyielding folds, then

knew MacGregor was beside him.

In the man's hand was a flashlight. The scientist risked his life on a

guess. He thrust the powerful light into the clinging serpent. It was

like the touch of hot iron to human flesh. The arm struggled and flailed

in a paroxysm of pain.

Thurston was free. He lay gasping on the sand. But MacGregor!... He

looked up to see him vanish in the clinging ooze. Another thick tentacle

had been projected from the main mass to sweep like a whip about the

man. It hissed as it whirled about him in the still air.

The flashlight was gone; Thurston's hand touched it in the sand. He

sprang to his feet and pressed the switch. No light responded; the

flashlight was out--broken.

A thick arm slashed and wrapped about him.... It beat him to the ground.

The sand was moving beneath him; he was being dragged swiftly,

helplessly, toward what waited in the shadow. He was smothering.... A

blinding glare filled his eyes....

* * * * *

The flares were still burning when he dared look about. MacGregor was

pulling frantically at his arm. "Quick--quick!" he was shouting.

Thurston scrambled to his feet.

One glimpse he caught of a heaving yellow mass in the white light; it

twisted in horrible convulsions. They ran stumblingly--drunkenly--toward

the car.

Riley was half out of the machine. He had tried to drag himself to their

assistance. "I couldn't make it," he said: "then I thought of the

flares."

"Thank Heaven," said MacGregor with emphasis, "it was your legs that

were paralyzed, Riley, not your brain."

Thurston found his voice. "Let me have that Very pistol. If light hurts

that damn thing, I am going to put a blaze of magnesium into the middle

of it if I die for it."

"They're all gone," said Riley.

"Then let's get out of here. I've had enough. We can come back later

on."

He got back of the wheel and slammed the door of the sedan. The

moonlight was gone. The darkness was velvet just tinged with the gray

that precedes the dawn. Back in the deeper blackness at the cliff-base a

phosphorescent something wavered and glowed. The light rippled and

flowed in all directions over the mass. Thurston felt, vaguely, its

mystery--the bulk was a vast, naked brain; its quiverings were like

visible thought waves....

* * * * *

The phosphorescence grew brighter. The thing was approaching. Thurston

let in his clutch, but the scientist checked him.

"Wait," he implored, "wait! I wouldn't miss this for the world." He

waved toward the east, where far distant ranges were etched in palest

rose.

"We know less than nothing of these creatures, in what part

of the universe they are spawned, how they live, where they

live--Saturn!--Mars!--the Moon! But--we shall soon know how one dies!"

The thing was coming from the cliff. In the dim grayness it seemed less

yellow, less fluid. A membrane enclosed it. It was close to the car. Was

it hunger that drove it, or cold rage for these puny opponents? The

hollow eyes were glaring; a thick arm formed quickly to dart out toward

the car. A cloud, high above, caught the color of approaching day....

Before their eyes the vile mass pulsed visibly; it quivered and beat.

Then, sensing its danger, it darted like some headless serpent for its

machine.

It massed itself about the shattered top to heave convulsively. The top

was lifted, carried toward the rest of the great metal egg. The sun's

first rays made golden arrows through the distant peaks.

The struggling mass released its burden to stretch its vile length

toward the dark caves under the cliffs. The last sheltering fog-veil

parted. The thing was halfway to the high bank when the first bright

shaft of direct sunlight shot through.

Incredible in the concealment of night, the vast protoplasmic pod was

doubly so in the glare of day. But it was there before them, not a

hundred feet distant. And it boiled in vast tortured convulsions. The

clean sunshine struck it, and the mass heaved itself into the air in a

nauseous eruption, then fell limply to the earth.

* * * * *

The yellow membrane turned paler. Once more the staring black eyes

formed to turn hopelessly toward the sheltering globe. Then the bulk

flattened out on the sand. It was a jellylike mound, through which

trembled endless quivering palpitations.

The sun struck hot, and before the eyes of the watching, speechless men

was a sickening, horrible sight--a festering mass of corruption.

The sickening yellow was liquid. It seethed and bubbled with liberated

gases; it decomposed to purplish fluid streams. A breath of wind blew in

their direction. The stench from the hideous pool was overpowering,

unbearable. Their heads swam in the evil breath.... Thurston ripped the

gears into reverse, nor stopped until they were far away on the clean

sand.

The tide was coming in when they returned. Gone was the vile

putrescence. The waves were lapping at the base of the gleaming machine.

"We'll have to work fast," said MacGregor. "I must know, I must learn."

He drew himself up and into the shattered shell.

It was of metal, some forty feet across, its framework a maze of

latticed struts. The central part was clear. Here in a wide, shallow pan

the monster had rested. Below this was tubing, intricate coils, massive,

heavy and strong. MacGregor lowered himself upon it, Thurston was

beside him. They went down into the dim bowels of the deadly instrument.

"Hydrogen," the physicist was stating. "Hydrogen--there's our starting

point. A generator, obviously, forming the gas--from what? They couldn't

compress it! They couldn't carry it or make it, not the volume that they

evolved. But they did it, they did it!"

* * * * *

Close to the coils a dim light was glowing. It was a pin-point of

radiance in the half-darkness about them. The two men bent closer.

"See," directed MacGregor, "it strikes on this mirror--bright metal and

parabolic. It disperses the light, doesn't concentrate it! Ah! Here is

another, and another. This one is bent--broken. They are adjustable. Hm!

Micrometer accuracy for reducing the light. The last one could reflect

through this slot. It's light that does it, Thurston, it's light that

does it!"

"Does what?" Thurston had followed the other's analysis of the diffusion

process. "The light that would finally reach that slot would be hardly

perceptible."

"It's the agent," said MacGregor, "the activator--the catalyst! What

does it strike upon? I must know--I must!"

The waves were splashing outside the shell. Thurston turned in a

feverish search of the unexplored depths. There was a surprising

simplicity, an absence of complicated mechanism. The generator, with its

tremendous braces to carry its thrust to the framework itself, filled

most of the space. Some of the ribs were thicker, he noticed. Solid

metal, as if they might carry great weights. Resting upon them were

ranged numbers of objects. They were like eggs, slender, and inches in

length. On some were propellers. They worked through the shells on long

slender rods. Each was threaded finely--an adjustable arm engaged the

thread. Thurston called excitedly to the other.

"Here they are," he said. "Look! Here are the shells. Here's what blew

us up!"

* * * * *

He pointed to the slim shafts with their little propellerlike fans.

"Adjustable, see? Unwind in their fall ... set 'em for any length of

travel ... fires the charge in the air. That's how they wiped out our

air fleet."

There were others without the propellers; they had fins to hold them

nose downward. On each nose was a small rounded cap.

"Detonators of some sort," said MacGregor. "We've got to have one. We

must get it out quick; the tide's coming in." He laid his hands upon one

of the slim, egg-shaped things. He lifted, then strained mightily. But

the object did not rise; it only rolled sluggishly.

The scientist stared at it amazed. "Specific gravity," he exclaimed,

"beyond anything known! There's nothing on earth ... there is no such

substance ... no form of matter...." His eyes were incredulous.

"Lots to learn," Thurston answered grimly. "We've yet to learn how to

fight off the other four."

The other nodded. "Here's the secret," he said. "These shells liberate

the same gas that drives the machine. Solve one and we solve both--then

we learn how to combat it. But how to remove it--that is the problem.

You and I can never lift this out of here."

His glance darted about. There was a small door in the metal beam. The

groove in which the shells were placed led to it; it was a port for

launching the projectiles. He moved it, opened it. A dash of spray

struck him in the face. He glanced inquiringly at his companion.

"Dare we do it?" he asked. "Slide one of them out?"

Each man looked long into the eyes of the other. Was this, then, the end

of their terrible night? One shell to be dropped--then a bursting

volcano to blast them to eternity....

"The boys in the planes risked it," said Thurston quietly. "They got

theirs." He stopped for a broken fragment of steel. "Try one with a fan

on; it hasn't a detonator."

The men pried at the slim thing. It slid slowly toward the open port.

One heave and it balanced on the edge, then vanished abruptly. The spray

was cold on their faces. They breathed heavily with the realization that

they still lived.

* * * * *

There were days of horror that followed, horror tempered by a numbing

paralysis of all emotions. There were bodies by thousands to be heaped

in the pit where San Diego had stood, to be buried beneath countless

tons of debris and dirt. Trains brought an army of helpers; airplanes

came with doctors and nurses and the beginning of a mountain of

supplies. The need was there; it must be met. Yet the whole world was

waiting while it helped, waiting for the next blow to fall.

Telegraph service was improvised, and radio receivers rushed in. The

news of the world was theirs once more. And it told of a terrified,

waiting world. There would be no temporizing now on the part of the

invaders. They had seen the airplanes swarming from the ground--they

would know an airdrome next time from the air. Thurston had noted the

windows in the great shell, windows of dull-colored glass which would

protect the darkness of the interior, essential to life for the horrible

occupant, but through which it could see. It could watch all directions

at once.

* * * * *

The great shell had vanished from the shore. Pounding waves and the

shifting sands of high tide had obliterated all trace. More than once

had Thurston uttered devout thanks for the chance shell from an

anti-aircraft gun that had entered the funnel beneath the machine, had

bent and twisted the arrangement of mirrors that he and MacGregor had

seen, and, exploding, had cracked and broken the domed roof of the

bulb. They had learned little, but MacGregor was up north within reach

of Los Angeles laboratories. And he had with him the slim cylinder of

death. He was studying, thinking.

Telephone service had been established for official business. The whole

nation-wide system, for that matter, was under military control. The

Secretary of War had flown back to Washington. The whole world was on a

war basis. War! And none knew where they should defend themselves, nor

how.

An orderly rushed Thurston to the telephone. "You are wanted at once;

Los Angeles calling."

The voice of MacGregor was cool and unhurried as Thurston listened.

"Grab a plane, old man," he was saying, "and come up here on the jump."

The phrase brought a grim smile to Thurston's tired lips. "Hell's

popping!" the Secretary of War had added on that evening those long ages

before. Did MacGregor have something? Was a different kind of hell

preparing to pop? The thoughts flashed through the listener's mind.

"I need a good deputy," MacGregor said. "You may be the whole works--may

have to carry on--but I'll tell you it all later. Meet me at the

Biltmore."

"In less than two hours," Thurston assured him.

* * * * *

A plane was at his disposal. Riley's legs were functioning again, after

a fashion. They kept the appointment with minutes to spare.

"Come on," said MacGregor, "I'll talk to you in the car." The automobile

whirled them out of the city to race off upon a winding highway that

climbed into far hills. There was twenty miles of this; MacGregor had

time for his talk.

"They've struck," he told the two men. "They were over Germany

yesterday. The news was kept quiet: I got the last report a half-hour

ago. They pretty well wiped out Berlin. No air-force there. France and

England sent a swarm of planes, from the reports. Poor devils! No need

to tell you what they got. We've seen it first hand. They headed west

over the Atlantic, the four machines. Gave England a burst or two from

high up, paused over New York, then went on. But they're here somewhere,

we think. Now listen:

"How long was it from the time when you saw the first monster until we

heard from them again?"

* * * * *

Thurston forced his mind back to those days that seemed so far in the

past. He tried to remember.

"Four days," broke in Riley. "It was the fourth day after we found the

devil feeding."

"Feeding!" interrupted the scientist. "That's the point I am making.

Four days. Remember that!

"And we knew they were down in the Argentine five days ago--that's

another item kept from an hysterical public. They slaughtered some

thousands of cattle; there were scores of them found where the

devils--I'll borrow Riley's word--where the devils had fed. Nothing left

but hide and bones.

"And--mark this--that was four days before they appeared over Berlin.

"Why? Don't ask me. Do they have to lie quiet for that period miles up

there in space? God knows. Perhaps! These things seem outside the

knowledge of a deity. But enough of that! Remember: four days! Let us

assume that there is this four days waiting period. It will help us to

time them. I'll come back to that later.

"Here is what I have been doing. We know that light is a means of

attack. I believe that the detonators we saw on those bombs merely

opened a seal in the shell and forced in a flash of some sort. I believe

that radiant energy is what fires the blast.

"What is it that explodes? Nobody knows. We have opened the shell,

working in the absolute blackness of a room a hundred feet underground.

We found in it a powder--two powders, to be exact.

"They are mixed. One is finely divided, the other rather granular. Their

specific gravity is enormous, beyond anything known to physical science

unless it would be the hypothetical neutron masses we think are in

certain stars. But this is not matter as we know matter; it is something

new.

* * * * *

"Our theory is this: the hydrogen atom has been split, resolved into

components, not of electrons and the proton centers, but held at some

halfway point of decomposition. Matter composed only of neutrons would

be heavy beyond belief. This fits the theory in that respect. But the

point is this: When these solids are formed--they are dense--they

represent in a cubic centimeter possibly a cubic mile of hydrogen gas

under normal pressure. That's a guess, but it will give you the idea.

"Not compressed, you understand, but all the elements present in other

than elemental form for the reconstruction of the atom ... for a million

billions of atoms.

"Then the light strikes it. These dense solids become instantly a

gas--miles of it held in that small space.

"There you have it: the gas, the explosion, the entire absence of

heat--which is to say, its terrific cold--when it expands."

Slim Riley was looking bewildered but game. "Sure, I saw it snow," he

affirmed, "so I guess the rest must be O.K. But what are we going to do

about it? You say light kills 'em, and fires their bombs. But how can we

let light into those big steel shells, or the little ones either?"

"Not through those thick walls," said MacGregor. "Not light. One of our

anti-aircraft shells made a direct hit. That might not happen again in a

million shots. But there are other forms of radiant energy that do

penetrate steel...."

* * * * *

The car had stopped beside a grove of eucalyptus. A barren, sun-baked

hillside stretched beyond. MacGregor motioned them to alight.

Riley was afire with optimism. "And do you believe it?" he asked

eagerly. "Do you believe that we've got 'em licked?"

Thurston, too, looked into MacGregor's face: Riley was not the only one

who needed encouragement. But the gray eyes were suddenly tired and

hopeless.

"You ask what I believe," said the scientist slowly. "I believe we are

witnessing the end of the world, our world of humans, their struggles,

their grave hopes and happiness and aspirations...."

He was not looking at them. His gaze was far off in space.

"Men will struggle and fight with their puny weapons, but these monsters

will win, and they will have their way with us. Then more of them will

come. The world, I believe, is doomed...."

He straightened his shoulders. "But we can die fighting," he added, and

pointed over the hill.

"Over there," he said, "in the valley beyond, is a charge of their

explosive and a little apparatus of mine. I intend to fire the charge

from a distance of three hundred yards. I expect to be safe, perfectly

safe. But accidents happen.

"In Washington a plane is being prepared. I have given instructions

through hours of phoning. They are working night and day. It will

contain a huge generator for producing my ray. Nothing new! Just the

product of our knowledge of radiant energy up to date. But the man who

flies that plane will die--horribly. No time to experiment with

protection. The rays will destroy him, though he may live a month.

"I am asking you," he told Cyrus Thurston, "to handle that plane. You

may be of service to the world--you may find you are utterly powerless.

You surely will die. But you know the machines and the monsters; your

knowledge may be of value in an attack." He waited. The silence lasted

for only a moment.

"Why, sure," said Cyrus Thurston.

* * * * *

He looked at the eucalyptus grove with earnest appraisal. The sun made

lovely shadows among their stripped trunks: the world was a beautiful

place. A lingering death, MacGregor had intimated--and horrible....

"Why, sure," he repeated steadily.

Slim Riley shoved him firmly aside to stand facing MacGregor.

"Sure, hell!" he said. "I'm your man, Mr. MacGregor.

"What do you know about flying?" he asked Cyrus Thurston. "You're

good--for a beginner. But men like you two have got brains, and I'm

thinkin' the world will be needin' them. Now me, all I'm good for is

holdin' a shtick"--his brogue had returned to his speech, and was

evidence of his earnestness.

"And, besides"--the smile faded from his lips, and his voice was

suddenly soft--"them boys we saw take their last flip was just pilots to

you, just a bunch of good fighters. Well, they're buddies of mine. I

fought beside some of them in France.... I belong!"

He grinned happily at Thurston. "Besides," he said, "what do you know

about dog-fights?"

MacGregor gripped him by the hand. "You win," he said. "Report to

Washington. The Secretary of War has all the dope."

* * * * *

He turned to Thurston. "Now for you! Get this! The enemy machines almost

attacked New York. One of them came low, then went back, and the four

flashed out of sight toward the west. It is my belief that New York is

next, but the devils are hungry. The beast that attacked us was

ravenous, remember. They need food and lots of it. You will hear of

their feeding, and you can count on four days. Keep Riley

informed--that's your job.

"Now I'm going over the hill. If this experiment works, there's a chance

we can repeat it on a larger scale. No certainty, but a chance! I'll be

back. Full instructions at the hotel in case...." He vanished into the

scrub growth.

"Not exactly encouraging," Thurston pondered, "but he's a good man, Mac,

a good egg! Not as big a brain as the one we saw, but perhaps it's a

better one--cleaner--and it's working!"

They were sheltered under the brow of the hill, but the blast from the

valley beyond rocked them like an earthquake. They rushed to the top of

the knoll. MacGregor was standing in the valley; he waved them a

greeting and shouted something unintelligible.

The gas had mushroomed into a cloud of steamy vapor. From above came

snowflakes to whirl in the churning mass, then fall to the ground. A

wind came howling about them to beat upon the cloud. It swirled slowly

back and down the valley. The figure of MacGregor vanished in its

smothering embrace.

"Exit, MacGregor!" said Cyrus Thurston softly. He held tight to the

struggling figure of Slim Riley.

"He couldn't live a minute in that atmosphere of hydrogen," he

explained. "They can--the devils!--but not a good egg like Mac. It's our

job now--yours and mine."

Slowly the gas retreated, lifted to permit their passage down the slope.

* * * * *

MacGregor was a good prophet. Thurston admitted that when, four days

later, he stood on the roof of the Equitable Building in lower New York.

The monsters had fed as predicted. Out in Wyoming a desolate area marked

the place of their meal, where a great herd of cattle lay smothered and

frozen. There were ranch houses, too, in the circle of destruction,

their occupants frozen stiff as the carcasses that dotted the plains.

The country had stood tense for the following blow. Only Thurston had

lived in certainty of a few days reprieve. And now had come the fourth

day.

In Washington was Riley. Thurston had been in touch with him frequently.

"Sure, it's a crazy machine," the pilot had told him, "and 'tis not much

I think of it at all. Neither bullets nor guns, just this big glass

contraption and speed. She's fast, man, she's fast ... but it's little

hope I have." And Thurston, remembering the scientist's words, was

heartless and sick with dreadful certainty.

There were aircraft ready near New York; it was generally felt that here

was the next objective. The enemy had looked it over carefully. And

Washington, too, was guarded. The nation's capital must receive what

little help the aircraft could afford.

There were other cities waiting for destruction. If not this

time--later! The horror hung over them all.

* * * * *

The fourth day! And Thurston was suddenly certain of the fate of New

York. He hurried to a telephone. Of the Secretary of War he implored

assistance.

"Send your planes," he begged. "Here's where we will get it next. Send

Riley. Let's make a last stand--win or lose."

"I'll give you a squadron," was the concession. "What difference whether

they die there or here...?" The voice was that of a weary man, weary

and sleepless and hopeless.

"Good-by Cy, old man!" The click of the receiver sounded in Thurston's

ear. He returned to the roof for his vigil.

To wait, to stride nervously back and forth in impotent expectancy. He

could leave, go out into open country, but what were a few days or

months--or a year--with this horror upon them? It was the end. MacGregor

was right. "Good old Mac!"

There were airplanes roaring overhead. It meant.... Thurston abruptly

was cold; a chill gripped at his heart.

The paroxysm passed. He was doubled with laughter--or was it he who was

laughing? He was suddenly buoyantly carefree. Who was he that it

mattered? Cyrus Thurston--an ant! And their ant-hill was about to be

snuffed out....

He walked over to a waiting group and clapped one man on the shoulder.

"Well, how does it feel to be an ant?" he inquired and laughed loudly at

the jest. "You and your millions of dollars, your acres of factories,

your steamships, railroads!"

The man looked at him strangely and edged cautiously away. His eyes,

like those of the others, had a dazed, stricken look. A woman was

sobbing softly as she clung to her husband. From the streets far below

came a quavering shrillness of sound.

The planes gathered in climbing circles. Far on the horizon were four

tiny glinting specks....

* * * * *

Thurston stared until his eyes were stinging. He was walking in a waking

sleep as he made his way to the stone coping beyond which was the street

far below. He was dead--dead!--right this minute. What were a few

minutes more or less? He could climb over the coping; none of the

huddled, fear-gripped group would stop him. He could step out into space

and fool them, the devils. They could never kill him....

What was it MacGregor had said? Good egg, MacGregor! "But we can die

fighting...." Yes, that was it--die fighting. But he couldn't fight; he

could only wait. Well, what were the others doing, down there in the

streets--in their homes? He could wait with them, die with them....

He straightened slowly and drew one long breath. He looked steadily and

unafraid at the advancing specks. They were larger now. He could see

their round forms. The planes were less noisy: they were far up in the

heights--climbing--climbing.

The bulbs came slantingly down. They were separating. Thurston wondered

vaguely.

What had they done in Berlin? Yes, he remembered. Placed themselves at

the four corners of a great square and wiped out the whole city in one

explosion. Four bombs dropped at the same instant while they shot up to

safety in the thin air. How did they communicate? Thought transference,

most likely. Telepathy between those great brains, one to another. A

plane was falling. It curved and swooped in a trail of flame, then fell

straight toward the earth. They were fighting....

* * * * *

Thurston stared above. There were clusters of planes diving down from on

high. Machine-guns stuttered faintly. "Machine-guns--toys! Brave, that

was it! 'We can die fighting.'" His thoughts were far off; it was like

listening to another's mind.

The air was filled with swelling clouds. He saw them before the blast

struck where he stood. The great building shuddered at the impact. There

were things falling from the clouds, wrecks of planes, blazing and

shattered. Still came others; he saw them faintly through the clouds.

They came in from the West; they had gone far to gain altitude. They

drove down from the heights--the enemy had drifted--they were over the

bay.

More clouds, and another blast thundering at the city. There were

specks, Thurston saw, falling into the water.

Again the invaders came down from the heights where they had escaped

their own shattering attack. There was the faint roar of motors behind,

from the south. The squadron from Washington passed overhead.

They surely had seen the fate that awaited. And they drove on to the

attack, to strike at an enemy that shot instantly into the sky leaving

crashing destruction about the torn dead.

"Now!" said Cyrus Thurston aloud.

* * * * *

The big bulbs were back. They floated easily in the air, a plume of

vapor billowing beneath. They were ranging to the four corners of a

great square.

One plane only was left, coming in from the south, a lone straggler,

late for the fray. One plane! Thurston's shoulders sagged heavily. All

they had left! It went swiftly overhead.... It was fast--fast. Thurston

suddenly knew. It was Riley in that plane.

"Go back, you fool!"--he was screaming at the top of his

voice--"Back--back--you poor, damned, decent Irishman!"

Tears were streaming down his face. "His buddies," Riley had said. And

this was Riley, driving swiftly in, alone, to avenge them....

He saw dimly as the swift plane sped over the first bulb, on and over

the second. The soft roar of gas from the machines drowned the sound of

his engine. The plane passed them in silence to bank sharply toward the

third corner of the forming square.

He was looking them over, Thurston thought. And the damn beasts

disregarded so contemptible an opponent. He could still leave. "For

God's sake, Riley, beat it--escape!"

Thurston's mind was solely on the fate of the lone voyager--until the

impossible was borne in upon him.

The square was disrupted. Three great bulbs were now drifting. The wind

was carrying them out toward the bay. They were coming down in a long,

smooth descent. The plane shot like a winged rocket at the fourth great,

shining ball. To the watcher, aghast with sudden hope, it seemed barely

to crawl.

"The ray! The ray...." Thurston saw as if straining eyes had pierced

through the distance to see the invisible. He saw from below the swift

plane, the streaming, intangible ray. That was why Riley had flown

closely past and above them--the ray poured from below. His throat was

choking him, strangling....

* * * * *

The last enemy took alarm. Had it seen the slow sinking of its

companions, failed to hear them in reply to his mental call? The shining

pear shape shot violently upward; the attacking plane rolled to a

vertical bank as it missed the threatening clouds of exhaust. "What do

you know about dog-fights?" And Riley had grinned ... Riley belonged!

The bulb swelled before Thurston's eyes in its swift descent. It canted

to one side to head off the struggling plane that could never escape,

did not try to escape. The steady wings held true upon their straight

course. From above came the silver meteor; it seemed striking at the

very plane itself. It was almost upon it before it belched forth the

cushioning blast of gas.

Through the forming clouds a plane bored in swiftly. It rolled slowly,

was flying upside down. It was under the enemy! Its ray.... Thurston was

thrown a score of feet away to crash helpless into the stone coping by

the thunderous crash of the explosion.

There were fragments falling from a dense cloud--fragments of curved and

silvery metal ... the wing of a plane danced and fluttered in the

air....

"He fired its bombs," whispered Thurston in a shaking voice. "He killed

the other devils where they lay--he destroyed this with its own

explosive. He flew upside down to shoot up with the ray, to set off its

shells...."

His mind was fumbling with the miracle of it. "Clever pilot, Riley, in a

dog-fight...." And then he realized.

Cyrus Thurston, millionaire sportsman, sank slowly, numbly to the roof

of the Equitable Building that still stood. And New York was still there

... and the whole world....

He sobbed weakly, brokenly. Through his dazed brain flashed a sudden,

mind-saving thought. He laughed foolishly through his sobs.

"And you said he'd die horribly, Mac, a horrible death." His head

dropped upon his arms, unconscious--and safe--with the rest of

humanity.

* * * * *

The Corpse on the Grating

_By Hugh B. Cave_

In the gloomy depths of the old warehouse Dale saw a thing that

drew a scream of horror to his dry lips. It was a corpse--the

mold of decay on its long-dead features--and yet it was alive!

[Illustration: _It was a corpse, standing before me like some propped-up

thing from the grave._]

It was ten o'clock on the morning of December 5 when M. S. and I left

the study of Professor Daimler. You are perhaps acquainted with M. S.

His name appears constantly in the pages of the Illustrated News, in

conjunction with some very technical article on psycho-analysis or with

some extensive study of the human brain and its functions. He is a

psycho-fanatic, more or less, and has spent an entire lifetime of some

seventy-odd years in pulling apart human skulls for the purpose of

investigation. Lovely pursuit!

For some twenty years I have mocked him, in a friendly, half-hearted

fashion. I am a medical man, and my own profession is one that does not

sympathize with radicals.

As for Professor Daimler, the third member of our triangle--perhaps, if

I take a moment to outline the events of that evening, the Professor's

part in what follows will be less obscure. We had called on him, M. S.

and I, at his urgent request. His rooms were in a narrow, unlighted

street just off the square, and Daimler himself opened the door to us. A

tall, loosely built chap he was, standing in the doorway like a

motionless ape, arms half extended.

"I've summoned you, gentlemen," he said quietly, "because you two, of

all London, are the only persons who know the nature of my recent

experiments. I should like to acquaint you with the results!"

He led the way to his study, then kicked the door shut with his foot,

seizing my arm as he did so. Quietly he dragged me to the table that

stood against the farther wall. In the same even, unemotional tone of a

man completely sure of himself, he commanded me to inspect it.

For a moment, in the semi-gloom of the room, I saw nothing. At length,

however, the contents of the table revealed themselves, and I

distinguished a motley collection of test tubes, each filled with some

fluid. The tubes were attached to each other by some ingenious

arrangement of thistles, and at the end of the table, where a chance

blow could not brush it aside, lay a tiny phial of the resulting serum.

From the appearance of the table, Daimler had evidently drawn a certain

amount of gas from each of the smaller tubes, distilling them through

acid into the minute phial at the end. Yet even now, as I stared down at

the fantastic paraphernalia before me, I could sense no conclusive

reason for its existence.

I turned to the Professor with a quiet stare of bewilderment. He smiled.

"The experiment is over," he said. "As to its conclusion, you, Dale, as

a medical man, will be sceptical. And you"--turning to M. S.--"as a

scientist you will be amazed. I, being neither physician nor scientist,

am merely filled with wonder!"

* * * * *

He stepped to a long, square table-like structure in the center of the

room. Standing over it, he glanced quizzically at M. S., then at me.

"For a period of two weeks," he went on, "I have kept, on the table

here, the body of a man who has been dead more than a month. I have

tried, gentlemen, with acid combinations of my own origination, to bring

that body back to life. And ... I have--failed!

"But," he added quickly, noting the smile that crept across my face,

"that failure was in itself worth more than the average scientist's

greatest achievement! You know, Dale, that heat, if a man is not truly

dead, will sometimes resurrect him. In a case of epilepsy, for instance,

victims have been pronounced dead only to return to life--sometimes in

the grave.

"I say 'if a man be not truly dead.' But what if that man _is_ truly

dead? Does the cure alter itself in any manner? The motor of your car

dies--do you bury it? You do not; you locate the faulty part, correct

it, and infuse new life. And so, gentlemen, after remedying the ruptured

heart of this dead man, by operation, I proceeded to bring him back to

life.

"I used heat. Terrific heat will sometimes originate a spark of new life

in something long dead. Gentlemen, on the fourth day of my tests,

following a continued application of electric and acid heat, the

patient--"

Daimler leaned over the table and took up a cigarette. Lighting it, he

dropped the match and resumed his monologue.

"The patient turned suddenly over and drew his arm weakly across his

eyes. I rushed to his side. When I reached him, the body was once again

stiff and lifeless. And--it has remained so."

The Professor stared at us quietly, waiting for comment. I answered him,

as carelessly as I could, with a shrug of my shoulders.

"Professor, have you ever played with the dead body of a frog?" I said

softly.

* * * * *

He shook his head silently.

"You would find it interesting sport," I told him. "Take a common dry

cell battery with enough voltage to render a sharp shock. Then apply

your wires to various parts of the frog's anatomy. If you are lucky, and

strike the right set of muscles, you will have the pleasure of seeing a

dead frog leap suddenly forward. Understand, he will not regain life.

You have merely released his dead muscles by shock, and sent him

bolting."

The Professor did not reply. I could feel his eyes on me, and had I

turned, I should probably had found M. S. glaring at me in honest hate.

These men were students of mesmerism, of spiritualism, and my

commonplace contradiction was not over welcome.

"You are cynical, Dale," said M. S. coldly, "because you do not

understand!"

"Understand? I am a doctor--not a ghost!"

But M. S. had turned eagerly to the Professor.

"Where is this body--this experiment?" he demanded.

Daimler shook his head. Evidently he had acknowledged failure and did

not intend to drag his dead man before our eyes, unless he could bring

that man forth alive, upright, and ready to join our conversation!

"I've put it away," he said distantly. "There is nothing more to be

done, now that our reverend doctor has insisted in making a matter of

fact thing out of our experiment. You understand, I had not intended to

go in for wholesale resurrection, even if I had met with success. It was

my belief that a dead body, like a dead piece of mechanism, can be

brought to life again, provided we are intelligent enough to discover

the secret. And by God, it is _still_ my belief!"

* * * * *

That was the situation, then, when M. S. and I paced slowly back along

the narrow street that contained the Professor's dwelling-place. My

companion was strangely silent. More than once I felt his eyes upon me

in an uncomfortable stare, yet he said nothing. Nothing, that is, until

I had opened the conversation with some casual remark about the lunacy

of the man we had just left.

"You are wrong in mocking him, Dale," M. S. replied bitterly. "Daimler

is a man of science. He is no child, experimenting with a toy; he is a

grown man who has the courage to believe in his powers. One of these

days...."

He had intended to say that some day I should respect the Professor's

efforts. One of these days! The interval of time was far shorter than

anything so indefinite. The first event, with its succeeding series of

horrors, came within the next three minutes.

* * * * *

We had reached a more deserted section of the square, a black,

uninhabited street extending like a shadowed band of darkness between

gaunt, high walls. I had noticed for some time that the stone structure

beside us seemed to be unbroken by door or window--that it appeared to

be a single gigantic building, black and forbidding. I mentioned the

fact to M. S.

"The warehouse," he said simply. "A lonely, God-forsaken place. We shall

probably see the flicker of the watchman's light in one of the upper

chinks."

At his words, I glanced up. True enough, the higher part of the grim

structure was punctured by narrow, barred openings. Safety vaults,

probably. But the light, unless its tiny gleam was somewhere in the

inner recesses of the warehouse, was dead. The great building was like

an immense burial vault, a tomb--silent and lifeless.

We had reached the most forbidding section of the narrow street, where a

single arch-lamp overhead cast a halo of ghastly yellow light over the

pavement. At the very rim of the circle of illumination, where the

shadows were deeper and more silent, I could make out the black

mouldings of a heavy iron grating. The bars of metal were designed, I

believe, to seal the side entrance of the great warehouse from night

marauders. It was bolted in place and secured with a set of immense

chains, immovable.

This much I saw as my intent gaze swept the wall before me. This huge

tomb of silence held for me a peculiar fascination, and as I paced along

beside my gloomy companion, I stared directly ahead of me into the

darkness of the street. I wish to God my eyes had been closed or

blinded!

* * * * *

He was hanging on the grating. Hanging there, with white, twisted hands

clutching the rigid bars of iron, straining to force them apart. His

whole distorted body was forced against the barrier, like the form of a

madman struggling to escape from his cage. His face--the image of it

still haunts me whenever I see iron bars in the darkness of a

passage--was the face of a man who has died from utter, stark horror. It

was frozen in a silent shriek of agony, staring out at me with fiendish

maliciousness. Lips twisted apart. White teeth gleaming in the light.

Bloody eyes, with a horrible glare of colorless pigment. And--_dead_.

I believe M. S. saw him at the very instant I recoiled. I felt a sudden

grip on my arm; and then, as an exclamation came harshly from my

companion's lips, I was pulled forward roughly. I found myself staring

straight into the dead eyes of that fearful thing before me, found

myself standing rigid, motionless, before the corpse that hung within

reach of my arm.

And then, through that overwhelming sense of the horrible, came the

quiet voice of my comrade--the voice of a man who looks upon death as

nothing more than an opportunity for research.

"The fellow has been frightened to death, Dale. Frightened most

horribly. Note the expression of his mouth, the evident struggle to

force these bars apart and escape. Something has driven fear to his

soul, killed him."

* * * * *

I remember the words vaguely. When M. S. had finished speaking, I did

not reply. Not until he had stepped forward and bent over the distorted

face of the thing before me, did I attempt to speak. When I did, my

thoughts were a jargon.

"What, in God's name," I cried, "could have brought such horror to a

strong man? What--"

"Loneliness, perhaps," suggested M. S. with a smile. "The fellow is

evidently the watchman. He is alone, in a huge, deserted pit of

darkness, for hours at a time. His light is merely a ghostly ray of

illumination, hardly enough to do more than increase the darkness. I

have heard of such cases before."

He shrugged his shoulders. Even as he spoke, I sensed the evasion in his

words. When I replied, he hardly heard my answer, for he had suddenly

stepped forward, where he could look directly into those fear twisted

eyes.

"Dale," he said at length, turning slowly to face me, "you ask for an

explanation of this horror? There _is_ an explanation. It is written

with an almost fearful clearness on this fellow's mind. Yet if I tell

you, you will return to your old skepticism--your damnable habit of

disbelief!"

I looked at him quietly. I had heard M. S. claim, at other times, that

he could read the thoughts of a dead man by the mental image that lay on

that man's brain. I had laughed at him. Evidently, in the present

moment, he recalled those laughs. Nevertheless, he faced me seriously.

"I can see two things, Dale," he said deliberately. "One of them is a

dark, narrow room--a room piled with indistinct boxes and crates, and

with an open door bearing the black number 4167. And in that open

doorway, coming forward with slow steps--alive, with arms extended and a

frightful face of passion--is a decayed human form. A corpse, Dale. A

man who has been dead for many days, and is now--_alive_!"

* * * * *

M. S. turned slowly and pointed with upraised hand to the corpse on the

grating.

"That is why," he said simply, "this fellow died from horror."

His words died into emptiness. For a moment I stared at him. Then, in

spite of our surroundings, in spite of the late hour, the loneliness of

the street, the awful thing beside us, I laughed.

He turned upon me with a snarl. For the first time in my life I saw M.

S. convulsed with rage. His old, lined face had suddenly become savage

with intensity.

"You laugh at me, Dale," he thundered. "By God, you make a mockery out

of a science that I have spent more than my life in studying! You call

yourself a medical man--and you are not fit to carry the name! I will

wager you, man, that your laughter is not backed by courage!"

I fell away from him. Had I stood within reach, I am sure he would have

struck me. Struck me! And I have been nearer to M. S. for the past ten

years than any man in London. And as I retreated from his temper, he

reached forward to seize my arm. I could not help but feel impressed at

his grim intentness.

"Look here, Dale," he said bitterly, "I will wager you a hundred pounds

that you will not spend the remainder of this night in the warehouse

above you! I will wager a hundred pounds against your own courage that

you will not back your laughter by going through what this fellow has

gone through. That you will not prowl through the corridors of this

great structure until you have found room 4167--_and remain in that room

until dawn_!"

* * * * *

There was no choice. I glanced at the dead man, at the face of fear and

the clutching, twisted hands, and a cold dread filled me. But to refuse

my friend's wager would have been to brand myself an empty coward. I had

mocked him. Now, whatever the cost, I must stand ready to pay for that

mockery.

"Room 4167?" I replied quietly, in a voice which I made every effort to

control, lest he should discover the tremor in it. "Very well, I will do

it!"

It was nearly midnight when I found myself alone, climbing a musty,

winding ramp between the first and second floors of the deserted

building. Not a sound, except the sharp intake of my breath and the

dismal creak of the wooden stairs, echoed through that tomb of death.

There was no light, not even the usual dim glow that is left to

illuminate an unused corridor. Moreover, I had brought no means of light

with me--nothing but a half empty box of safety matches which, by some

unholy premonition, I had forced myself to save for some future moment.

The stairs were black and difficult, and I mounted them slowly, groping

with both hands along the rough wall.

I had left M. S. some few moments before. In his usual decisive manner

he had helped me to climb the iron grating and lower myself to the

sealed alley-way on the farther side. Then, leaving him without a word,

for I was bitter against the triumphant tone of his parting words, I

proceeded into the darkness, fumbling forward until I had discovered the

open door in the lower part of the warehouse.

And then the ramp, winding crazily upward--upward--upward, seemingly

without end. I was seeking blindly for that particular room which was to

be my destination. Room 4167, with its high number, could hardly be on

the lower floors, and so I had stumbled upward....

* * * * *

It was at the entrance of the second floor corridor that I struck the

first of my desultory supply of matches, and by its light discovered a

placard nailed to the wall. The thing was yellow with age and hardly

legible. In the drab light of the match I had difficulty in reading

it--but, as far as I can remember, the notice went something like this:

WAREHOUSE RULES

1. No light shall be permitted in any room or corridor, as a

prevention against fire.

2. No person shall be admitted to rooms or corridors unless

accompanied by an employee.

3. A watchman shall be on the premises from 7 P.M. until 6 A.M.

He shall make the round of the corridors every hour during that

interval, at a quarter past the hour.

4. Rooms are located by their numbers: the first figure in the

room number indicating its floor location.

I could read no further. The match in my fingers burned to a black

thread and dropped. Then, with the burnt stump still in my hand, I

groped through the darkness to the bottom of the second ramp.

Room 4167, then, was on the fourth floor--the topmost floor of the

structure. I must confess that the knowledge did not bring any renewed

burst of courage! The top floor! Three black stair-pits would lie

between me and the safety of escape. There would be no escape! No human

being in the throes of fear could hope to discover that tortured outlet,

could hope to grope his way through Stygian gloom down a triple ramp of

black stairs. And even though he succeeded in reaching the lower

corridors, there was still a blind alley-way, sealed at the outer end by

a high grating of iron bars....

* * * * *

Escape! The mockery of it caused me to stop suddenly in my ascent and

stand rigid, my whole body trembling violently.

But outside, in the gloom of the street, M. S. was waiting, waiting with

that fiendish glare of triumph that would brand me a man without

courage. I could not return to face him, not though all the horrors of

hell inhabited this gruesome place of mystery. And horrors must surely

inhabit it, else how could one account for that fearful thing on the

grating below? But I had been through horror before. I had seen a man,

supposedly dead on the operating table, jerk suddenly to his feet and

scream. I had seen a young girl, not long before, awake in the midst of

an operation, with the knife already in her frail body. Surely, after

those definite horrors, no _unknown_ danger would send me cringing back

to the man who was waiting so bitterly for me to return.

Those were the thoughts pregnant in my mind as I groped slowly,

cautiously along the corridor of the upper floor, searching each closed

door for the indistinct number 4167. The place was like the center of a

huge labyrinth, a spider-web of black, repelling passages, leading into

some central chamber of utter silence and blackness. I went forward with

dragging steps, fighting back the dread that gripped me as I went

farther and farther from the outlet of escape. And then, after losing

myself completely in the gloom, I threw aside all thoughts of return and

pushed on with a careless, surface bravado, and laughed aloud.

* * * * *

So, at length, I reached that room of horror, secreted high in the

deeper recesses of the deserted warehouse. The number--God grant I never

see it again!--was scrawled in black chalk on the door--4167. I pushed

the half-open barrier wide, and entered.

It was a small room, even as M. S. had forewarned me--or as the dead

mind of that thing on the grate had forewarned M. S. The glow of my

out-thrust match revealed a great stack of dusty boxes and crates, piled

against the farther wall. Revealed, too, the black corridor beyond the

entrance, and a small, upright table before me.

It was the table, and the stool beside it, that drew my attention and

brought a muffled exclamation from my lips. The thing had been thrust

out of its usual place, pushed aside as if some frenzied shape had

lunged against it. I could make out its former position by the marks on

the dusty floor at my feet. Now it was nearer to the center of the room,

and had been wrenched sidewise from its holdings. A shudder took hold of

me as I looked at it. A living person, sitting on the stool before me,

staring at the door, would have wrenched the table in just this manner

in his frenzy to escape from the room!

* * * * *

The light of the match died, plunging me into a pit of gloom. I struck

another and stepped closer to the table. And there, on the floor, I

found two more things that brought fear to my soul. One of them was a

heavy flash-lamp--a watchman's lamp--where it had evidently been

dropped. Been dropped in flight! But what awful terror must have gripped

the fellow to make him forsake his only means of escape through those

black passages? And the second thing--a worn copy of a leather-bound

book, flung open on the boards below the stool!

The flash-lamp, thank God! had not been shattered. I switched it on,

directing its white circle of light over the room. This time, in the

vivid glare, the room became even more unreal. Black walls, clumsy,

distorted shadows on the wall, thrown by those huge piles of wooden

boxes. Shadows that were like crouching men, groping toward me. And

beyond, where the single door opened into a passage of Stygian darkness,

that yawning entrance was thrown into hideous detail. Had any upright

figure been standing there, the light would have made an unholy

phosphorescent specter out of it.

I summoned enough courage to cross the room and pull the door shut.

There was no way of locking it. Had I been able to fasten it, I should

surely have done so; but the room was evidently an unused chamber,

filled with empty refuse. This was the reason, probably, why the

watchman had made use of it as a retreat during the intervals between

his rounds.

But I had no desire to ponder over the sordidness of my surroundings. I

returned to my stool in silence, and stooping, picked up the fallen book

from the floor. Carefully I placed the lamp on the table, where its

light would shine on the open page. Then, turning the cover, I began to

glance through the thing which the man before me had evidently been

studying.

And before I had read two lines, the explanation of the whole horrible

thing struck me. I stared dumbly down at the little book and laughed.

Laughed harshly, so that the sound of my mad cackle echoed in a thousand

ghastly reverberations through the dead corridors of the building.

* * * * *

It was a book of horror, of fantasy. A collection of weird, terrifying,

supernatural tales with grotesque illustrations in funereal black and

white. And the very line I had turned to, the line which had probably

struck terror to that unlucky devil's soul, explained M. S.'s "decayed

human form, standing in the doorway with arms extended and a frightful

face of passion!" The description--the same description--lay before me,

almost in my friend's words. Little wonder that the fellow on the

grating below, after reading this orgy of horror, had suddenly gone mad

with fright. Little wonder that the picture engraved on his dead mind

was a picture of a corpse standing in the doorway of room 4167!

I glanced at that doorway and laughed. No doubt of it, it was that awful

description in M. S.'s untempered language that had made me dread my

surroundings, not the loneliness and silence of the corridors about me.

Now, as I stared at the room, the closed door, the shadows on the wall,

I could not repress a grin.

But the grin was not long in duration. A six-hour siege awaited me

before I could hear the sound of human voice again--six hours of

silence and gloom. I did not relish it. Thank God the fellow before me

had had foresight enough to leave his book of fantasy for my amusement!

* * * * *

I turned to the beginning of the story. A lovely beginning it was,

outlining in some detail how a certain Jack Fulton, English adventurer,

had suddenly found himself imprisoned (by a mysterious black gang of

monks, or something of the sort) in a forgotten cell at the monastery of

El Toro. The cell, according to the pages before me, was located in the

"empty, haunted pits below the stone floors of the structure...." Lovely

setting! And the brave Fulton had been secured firmly to a huge metal

ring set in the farther wall, opposite the entrance.

I read the description twice. At the end of it I could not help but lift

my head to stare at my own surroundings. Except for the location of the

cell, I might have been in they same setting. The same darkness, same

silence, same loneliness. Peculiar similarity!

And then: "Fulton lay quietly, without attempt to struggle. In the dark,

the stillness of the vaults became unbearable, terrifying. Not a

suggestion of sound, except the scraping of unseen rats--"

I dropped the book with a start. From the opposite end of the room in

which I sat came a half inaudible scuffling noise--the sound of hidden

rodents scrambling through the great pile of boxes. Imagination? I am

not sure. At the moment, I would have sworn that the sound was a

definite one, that I had heard it distinctly. Now, as I recount this

tale of horror, I am not sure.

But I am sure of this: There was no smile on my lips as I picked up the

book again with trembling fingers and continued.

"The sound died into silence. For an eternity, the prisoner lay rigid,

staring at the open door of his cell. The opening was black, deserted,

like the mouth of a deep tunnel, leading to hell. And then, suddenly,

from the gloom beyond that opening, came an almost noiseless, padded

footfall!"

* * * * *

This time there was no doubt of it. The book fell from my fingers,

dropped to the floor with a clatter. Yet even through the sound of its

falling, I heard that fearful sound--the shuffle of a living foot! I sat

motionless, staring with bloodless face at the door of room 4167. And as

I stared, the sound came again, and again--_the slow tread of dragging

footsteps, approaching along the black corridor without_!

I got to my feet like an automaton, swaying heavily. Every drop of

courage ebbed from my soul as I stood there, one hand clutching the

table, waiting....

And then, with an effort, I moved forward. My hand was outstretched to

grasp the wooden handle of the door. And--I did not have the courage.

Like a cowed beast I crept back to my place and slumped down on the

stool, my eyes still transfixed in a mute stare of terror.

I waited. For more than half an hour I waited, motionless. Not a sound

stirred in the passage beyond that closed barrier. Not a suggestion of

any living presence came to me. Then, leaning back against the wall with

a harsh laugh, I wiped away the cold moisture that had trickled over my

forehead into my eyes.

It was another five minutes before I picked up the book again. You call

me a fool for continuing it? A fool? I tell you, even a story of horror

is more comfort than a room of grotesque shadows and silence. Even a

printed page is better than grim reality!

* * * * *

And so I read on. The story was one of suspense, madness. For the next

two pages I read a cunning description of the prisoner's mental

reaction. Strangely enough, it conformed precisely with my own.

"Fulton's head had fallen to his chest," the script read. "For an

endless while he did not stir, did not dare to lift his eyes. And then,

after more than an hour of silent agony and suspense, the boy's head

came up mechanically. Came up--and suddenly jerked rigid. A horrible

scream burst from his dry lips as he stared--stared like a dead man--at

the black entrance to his cell. There, standing without motion in the

opening, stood a shrouded figure of death. Empty eyes, glaring with

awful hate, bored into his own. Great arms, bony and rotten, extended

toward him. Decayed flesh--"

I read no more. Even as I lunged to my feet, with that mad book still

gripped in my hand, I heard the door of my room grind open. I screamed,

screamed in utter horror at the thing I saw there. Dead? Good God, I do

not know. It was a corpse, a dead human body, standing before me like

some propped-up thing from the grave. A face half eaten away, terrible

in its leering grin. Twisted mouth, with only a suggestion of lips,

curled back over broken teeth. Hair--writhing, distorted--like a mass of

moving, bloody coils. And its arms, ghastly white, bloodless, were

extended toward me, with open, clutching hands.

* * * * *

It was alive! Alive! Even while I stood there, crouching against the

wall, it stepped forward toward me. I saw a heavy shudder pass over it,

and the sound of its scraping feet burned its way into my soul. And

then, with its second step, the fearful thing stumbled to its knees. The

white, gleaming arms, thrown into streaks of living fire by the light of

my lamp, flung violently upwards, twisting toward the ceiling. I saw the

grin change to an expression of agony, of torment. And then the thing

crashed upon me--dead.

With a great cry of fear I stumbled to the door. I groped out of that

room of horror, stumbled along the corridor. No light. I left it behind,

on the table, to throw a circle of white glare over the decayed,

living-dead intruder who had driven me mad.

My return down those winding ramps to the lower floor was a nightmare of

fear. I remember that I stumbled, that I plunged through the darkness

like a man gone mad. I had no thought of caution, no thought of anything

except escape.

And then the lower door, and the alley of gloom. I reached the grating,

flung myself upon it and pressed my face against the bars in a futile

effort to escape. The same--as the fear-tortured man--who had--come

before--me.

I felt strong hands lifting me up. A dash of cool air, and then the

refreshing patter of falling rain.

* * * * *

It was the afternoon of the following day, December 6, when M. S. sat

across the table from me in my own study. I had made a rather hesitant

attempt to tell him, without dramatics and without dwelling on my own

lack of courage, of the events of the previous night.

"You deserved it, Dale," he said quietly. "You are a medical man,

nothing more, and yet you mock the beliefs of a scientist as great as

Daimler. I wonder--do you still mock the Professor's beliefs?"

"That he can bring a dead man to life?" I smiled, a bit doubtfully.

"I will tell you something, Dale," said M. S. deliberately. He was

leaning across the table, staring at me. "The Professor made only one

mistake in his great experiment. He did not wait long enough for the

effect of his strange acids to work. He acknowledged failure too soon,

and got rid of the body." He paused.

"When the Professor stored his patient away, Dale," he said quietly, "he

stored it in room 4170, at the great warehouse. If you are acquainted

with the place, you will know that room 4170 is directly across the

corridor from 4167."

* * * * *

Creatures of the Light

_By Sophie Wenzel Ellis_

He had striven to perfect the faultless man of the future, and

had succeeded--too well. For in the pitilessly cold eyes of

Adam, his super-human creation, Dr. Mundson saw only

contempt--and annihilation--for the human race.

[Illustration]

In a night club of many lights and much high-pitched laughter, where he

had come for an hour of forgetfulness and an execrable dinner, John

Northwood was suddenly conscious that Fate had begun shuffling the cards

of his destiny for a dramatic game.

First, he was aware that the singularly ugly and deformed man at the

next table was gazing at him with an intense, almost excited scrutiny.

But, more disturbing than this, was the scowl of hate on the face of

another man, as handsome as this other was hideous, who sat in a far

corner hidden behind a broad column, with rude elbows on the table,

gawking first at Northwood and then at the deformed, almost hideous

man.

[Illustration: _The projector, belching forth its stinking breath of

corruption, swung in a mad arc over the ceiling, over the walls._]

Northwood's blood chilled over the expression on the handsome,

fair-haired stranger's perfectly carved face. If a figure in marble

could display a fierce, unnatural passion, it would seem no more

eldritch than the hate in the icy blue eyes.

It was not a new experience for Northwood to be stared at: he was not

merely a good-looking young fellow of twenty-five, he was scenery,

magnificent and compelling. Furthermore, he had been in the public eye

for years, first as a precocious child and, later, as a brilliant young

scientist. Yet, for all his experience with hero worshippers to put an

adamantine crust on his sensibilities, he grew warm-eared under the gaze

of these two strangers--this hunchback with a face like a grotesque mask

in a Greek play, this other who, even handsomer than himself, chilled

the blood queerly with the cold perfection of his godlike masculine

beauty.

* * * * *

Northwood sensed something familiar about the hunchback. Somewhere he

had seen that huge, round, intelligent face splattered with startling

features. The very breadth of the man's massive brow was not altogether

unknown to him, nor could Northwood look into the mournful, near-sighted

black eyes without trying to recall when and where he had last seen

them.

But this other of the marble-perfect nose and jaw, the blond,

thick-waved hair, was totally a stranger, whom Northwood fervently hoped

he would never know too well.

Trying to analyze the queer repugnance that he felt for this handsome,

boldly staring fellow, Northwood decided: "He's like a newly-made wax

figure endowed with life."

Shivering over his own fantastic thought, he again glanced swiftly at

the hunchback, who he noticed was playing with his coffee, evidently to

prolong the meal.

One year of calm-headed scientific teaching in a famous old eastern

university had not made him callous to mysteries. Thus, with a feeling

of high adventure, he finished his supper and prepared to go. From the

corner of his eye, he saw the hunchback leave his seat, while the

handsome man behind the column rose furtively, as though he, too,

intended to follow.

Northwood was out in the dusky street about thirty seconds, when the

hunchback came from the foyer. Without apparently noticing Northwood, he

hailed a taxi. For a moment, he stood still, waiting for the taxi to

pull up at the curb. Standing thus, with the street light limning every

unnatural angle of his twisted body and every queer abnormality of his

huge features, he looked almost repulsive.

On his way to the taxi, his thick shoulder jostled the younger man.

Northwood felt something strike his foot, and, stooping in the crowded

street, picked up a black leather wallet.

"Wait!" he shouted as the hunchback stepped into the waiting taxi.

But the man did not falter. In a moment, Northwood lost sight of him as

the taxi moved away.

* * * * *

He debated with himself whether or not he should attempt to follow. And

while he stood thus in indecision, the handsome stranger approached him.

"Good evening to you," he said curtly. His rich, musical voice, for all

its deepness, held a faint hint of the tremulous, birdlike notes heard

in the voice of a young child who has not used his vocal chords long

enough for them to have lost their exquisite newness.

"Good evening," echoed Northwood, somewhat uncertainly. A sudden aura of

repulsion swept coldly over him. Seen close, with the brilliant light of

the street directly on his too perfect face, the man was more sinister

than in the cafe. Yet Northwood, struggling desperately for a reason to

explain his violent dislike, could not discover why he shrank from this

splendid creature, whose eyes and flesh had a new, fresh appearance

rarely seen except in very young boys.

"I want what you picked up," went on the stranger.

"It isn't yours!" Northwood flashed back. Ah! that effluvium of hatred

which seemed to weave a tangible net around him!

"Nor is it yours. Give it to me!"

"You're insolent, aren't you?"

"If you don't give it to me, you will be sorry." The man did not raise

his voice in anger, yet the words whipped Northwood with almost physical

violence. "If he knew that I saw everything that happened in there--that

I am talking to you at this moment--he would tremble with fear."

"But you can't intimidate me."

"No?" For a long moment, the cold blue eyes held his contemptuously.

"No? I can't frighten you--you worm of the Black Age?"

Before Northwood's horrified sight, he vanished; vanished as though he

had turned suddenly to air and floated away.

* * * * *

The street was not crowded at that time, and there was no pressing group

of bodies to hide the splendid creature. Northwood gawked stupidly,

mouth half open, eyes searching wildly everywhere. The man was gone. He

had simply disappeared, in this sane, electric-lighted street.

Suddenly, close to Northwood's ear, grated a derisive laugh. "I can't

frighten you?" From nowhere came that singularly young-old voice.

As Northwood jerked his head around to meet blank space, a blow struck

the corner of his mouth. He felt the warm blood run over his chin.

"I could take that wallet from you, worm, but you may keep it, and see

me later. But remember this--the thing inside never will be yours."

The words fell from empty air.

For several minutes, Northwood waited at the spot, expecting another

demonstration of the abnormal, but nothing else occurred. At last,

trembling violently, he wiped the thick moisture from his forehead and

dabbed at the blood which he still felt on his chin.

But when he looked at his handkerchief, he muttered:

"Well, I'll be jiggered!"

The handkerchief bore not the slightest trace of blood.

* * * * *

Under the light in his bedroom, Northwood examined the wallet. It was

made of alligator skin, clasped with a gold signet that bore the initial

M. The first pocket was empty; the second yielded an object that sent a

warm flush to his face.

It was the photograph of a gloriously beautiful girl, so seductively

lovely that the picture seemed almost to be alive. The short, curved

upper lip, the full, delicately voluptuous lower, parted slightly in a

smile that seemed to linger in every exquisite line of her face. She

looked as though she had just spoken passionately, and the spirit of her

words had inspired her sweet flesh and eyes.

Northwood turned his head abruptly and groaned, "Good Heavens!"

He had no right to palpitate over the picture of an unknown beauty. Only

a month ago, he had become engaged to a young woman whose mind was as

brilliant as her face was plain. Always he had vowed that he would never

marry a pretty girl, for he detested his own masculine beauty sincerely.

He tried to grasp a mental picture of Mary Burns, who had never stirred

in him the emotion that this smiling picture invoked. But, gazing at the

picture, he could not remember how his fiancee looked.

Suddenly the picture fell from his fingers and dropped to the floor on

its face, revealing an inscription on the back. In a bold, masculine

hand, he read: "Your future wife."

"Some lucky fellow is headed for a life of bliss," was his jealous

thought.

He frowned at the beautiful face. What was this girl to that hideous

hunchback? Why did the handsome stranger warn him, "_The thing inside

never will be yours_?"

Again he turned eagerly to the wallet.

In the last flap he found something that gave him another surprise: a

plain white card on which a name and address were written by the same

hand that had penned the inscription on the picture.

Emil Mundson, Ph. D.,

44-1/2 Indian Court

Emil Mundson, the electrical wizard and distinguished scientific writer,

friend of the professor of science at the university where Northwood was

an assistant professor; Emil Mundson, whom, a week ago, Northwood had

yearned mightily to meet.

Now Northwood knew why the hunchback's intelligent, ugly face was

familiar to him. He had seen it pictured as often as enterprising news

photographers could steal a likeness from the over-sensitive scientist,

who would never sit for a formal portrait.

* * * * *

Even before Northwood had graduated from the university where he now

taught, he had been avidly interested in Emil Mundson's fantastic

articles in scientific journals. Only a week ago, Professor Michael had

come to him with the current issue of New Science, shouting excitedly:

"Did you read this, John, this article by Emil Mundson?" His shaking,

gnarled old fingers tapped the open magazine.

Northwood seized the magazine and looked avidly at the title of the

article, "Creatures of the Light."

"No, I haven't read it," he admitted. "My magazine hasn't come yet."

"Run through it now briefly, will you? And note with especial care the

passages I have marked. In fact, you needn't bother with anything else

just now. Read this--and this--and this." He pointed out penciled

paragraphs.

Northwood read:

Man always has been, always will be a creature of the light. He

is forever reaching for some future point of perfected evolution

which, even when his most remote ancestor was a fish creature

composed of a few cells, was the guiding power that brought him

up from the first stinking sea and caused him to create gods in

his own image.

It is this yearning for perfection which sets man apart from all

other life, which made him _man_ even in the rudimentary stages

of his development. He was man when he wallowed in the slime of

the new world and yearned for the air above. He will still be

man when he has evolved into that glorious creature of the

future whose body is deathless and whose mind rules the

universe.

Professor Michael, looking over Northwood's shoulder, interrupted the

reading:

"_Man always has been man_," he droned emphatically. "That's not

original with friend Mundson, of course; yet it is a theory that has not

received sufficient investigation." He indicated another marked

paragraph. "Read this thoughtfully, John. It's the crux of Mundson's

thought."

Northwood continued:

Since the human body is chemical and electrical, increased

knowledge of its powers and limitations will enable us to work

with Nature in her sublime but infinitely slow processes of

human evolution. We need not wait another fifty thousand years

to be godlike creatures. Perhaps even now we may be standing at

the beginning of the splendid bridge that will take us to that

state of perfected evolution when we shall be Creatures who have

reached the Light.

Northwood looked questioningly at the professor. "Queer, fantastic

thing, isn't it?"

* * * * *

Professor Michael smoothed his thin, gray hair with his dried-out hand.

"Fantastic?" His intellectual eyes behind the thick glasses sought the

ceiling. "Who can say? Haven't you ever wondered why all parents expect

their children to be nearer perfection than themselves, and why is it a

natural impulse for them to be willing to sacrifice themselves to better

their offspring?" He paused and moistened his pale, wrinkled lips.

"Instinct, Northwood. We Creatures of the Light know that our race shall

reach that point in evolution when, as perfect creatures, we shall rule

all matter and live forever." He punctuated the last words with blows

on the table.

Northwood laughed dryly. "How many thousands of years are you looking

forward, Professor?"

The professor made an obscure noise that sounded like a smothered sniff.

"You and I shall never agree on the point that mental advancement may

wipe out physical limitations in the human race, perhaps in a few

hundred years. It seems as though your profound admiration for Dr.

Mundson would win you over to this pet theory."

"But what sane man can believe that even perfectly developed beings,

through mental control, could overcome Nature's fixed laws?"

"We don't know! We don't know!" The professor slapped the magazine with

an emphatic hand. "Emil Mundson hasn't written this article for nothing.

He's paving the way for some announcement that will startle the

scientific world. I know him. In the same manner he gave out veiled

hints of his various brilliant discoveries and inventions long before he

offered them to the world."

"But Dr. Mundson is an electrical wizard. He would not be delving

seriously into the mysteries of evolution, would he?"

"Why not?" The professor's wizened face screwed up wisely. "A year ago,

when he was back from one of those mysterious long excursions he takes

in that weirdly different aircraft of his, about which he is so

secretive, he told me that he was conducting experiments to prove his

belief that the human brain generates electric current, and that the

electrical impulses in the brain set up radioactive waves that some day,

among other miracles, will make thought communication possible. Perfect

man, he says, will perform mental feats which will give him complete

mental domination over the physical."

* * * * *

Northwood finished reading and turned thoughtfully to the window. His

profile in repose had the straight-nosed, full-lipped perfection of a

Greek coin. Old, wizened Professor Michael, gazing at him covertly,

smothered a sigh.

"I wish you knew Dr. Mundson," he said. "He, the ugliest man in the

world, delights in physical perfection. He would revel in your splendid

body and brilliant mind."

Northwood blushed hotly. "You'll have to arrange a meeting between us."

"I have." The professor's thin, dry lips pursed comically. "He'll drop

in to see you within a few days."

And now John Northwood sat holding Dr. Mundson's card and the wallet

which the scientist had so mysteriously dropped at his feet.

* * * * *

Here was high adventure, perhaps, for which he had been singled out by

the famous electrical wizard. While excitement mounted in his blood,

Northwood again examined the photograph. The girl's strange eyes, odd in

expression rather than in size or shape, seemed to hold him. The young

man's breath came quicker.

"It's a challenge," he said softly. "It won't hurt to see what it's all

about."

His watch showed eleven o'clock. He would return the wallet that night.

Into his coat pocket he slipped a revolver. One sometimes needed weapons

in Indian Court.

He took a taxi, which soon turned from the well-lighted streets into a

section where squalid houses crowded against each other, and dirty

children swarmed in the streets in their last games of the day.

Indian Court was little more than an alley, dark and evil smelling.

The chauffeur stopped at the entrance and said:

"If I drive in, I'll have to back out, sir. Number forty-four and a half

is the end house, facing the entrance."

"You've been here before?" asked Northwood.

"Last week I drove the queerest bird here--a fellow as good-looking as

you, who had me follow the taxi occupied by a hunchback with a face

like Old Nick." The man hesitated and went on haltingly: "It might sound

goofy, mister, but there was something funny about my fare. He jumped

out, asked me the charge, and, in the moment I glanced at my taxi-meter,

he disappeared. Yes, sir. Vanished, owing me four dollars, six bits. It

was almost ghostlike, mister."

Northwood laughed nervously and dismissed him. He found his number and

knocked at the dilapidated door. He heard a sudden movement in the

lighted room beyond, and the door opened quickly.

Dr. Mundson faced him.

"I knew you'd come!" he said with a slight Teutonic accent. "Often I'm

not wrong in sizing up my man. Come in."

Northwood cleared his throat awkwardly. "You dropped your wallet at my

feet, Dr. Mundson. I tried to stop you before you got away, but I guess

you did not hear me."

He offered the wallet, but the hunchback waved it aside.

"A ruse, of course," he confessed. "It just was my way of testing what

your Professor Michael told about you--that you are extraordinarily

intelligent, virile, and imaginative. Had you sent the wallet to me, I

should have sought elsewhere for my man. Come in."

* * * * *

Northwood followed him into a living room evidently recently furnished

in a somewhat hurried manner. The furniture, although rich, was not

placed to best advantage. The new rug was a trifle crooked on the floor,

and the lamp shades clashed in color with the other furnishings.

Dr. Mundson's intense eyes swept over Northwood's tall, slim body.

"Ah, you're a man!" he said softly. "You are what all men would be if we

followed Nature's plan that only the fit shall survive. But modern

science is permitting the unfit to live and to mix their defective

beings with the developing race!" His huge fist gesticulated madly.

"Fools! Fools! They need me and perfect men like you."

"Why?"

"Because you can help me in my plan to populate the earth with a new

race of godlike people. But don't question me too closely now. Even if I

should explain, you would call me insane. But watch; gradually I shall

unfold the mystery before you, so that you will believe."

He reached for the wallet that Northwood still held, opened it with a

monstrous hand, and reached for the photograph. "She shall bring you

love. She's more beautiful than a poet's dream."

A warm flush crept over the young man's face.

"I can easily understand," he said, "how a man could love her, but for

me she comes too late."

"Pooh! Fiddlesticks!" The scientist snapped his fingers. "This girl was

created for you. That other--you will forget her the moment you set eyes

on the sweet flesh of this Athalia. She is an houri from Paradise--a

maiden of musk and incense." He held the girl's photograph toward the

young man. "Keep it. She is yours, if you are strong enough to hold

her."

Northwood opened his card case and placed the picture inside, facing

Mary's photograph. Again the warning words of the mysterious stranger

rang in his memory: "_The thing inside never will be yours._"

"Where to," he said eagerly; "and when do we start?"

"To the new Garden of Eden," said the scientist, with such a beatific

smile that his face was less hideous. "We start immediately. I have

arranged with Professor Michael for you to go."

* * * * *

Northwood followed Dr. Mundson to the street and walked with him a few

blocks to a garage where the scientist's motor car waited.

"The apartment in Indian Court is just a little eccentricity of mine,"

explained Dr. Mundson. "I need people in my work, people whom I must

select through swift, sure tests. The apartment comes in handy, as

to-night."

Northwood scarcely noted where they were going, or how long they had

been on the way. He was vaguely aware that they had left the city

behind, and were now passing through farms bathed in moonlight.

At last they entered a path that led through a bit of woodland. For half

a mile the path continued, and then ended at a small, enclosed field. In

the middle of this rested a queer aircraft. Northwood knew it was a

flying machine only by the propellers mounted on the top of the huge

ball-shaped body. There were no wings, no birdlike hull, no tail.

"It looks almost like a little world ready to fly off into space," he

commented.

"It is just about that." The scientist's squat, bunched-out body,

settled squarely on long, thin, straddled legs, looked gnomelike in the

moonlight. "One cannot copy flesh with steel and wood, but one can make

metal perform magic of which flesh is not capable. My sun-ship is not a

mechanical reproduction of a bird. It is--but, climb in, young friend."

* * * * *

Northwood followed Dr. Mundson into the aircraft. The moment the

scientist closed the metal door behind them, Northwood was instantly

aware of some concealed horror that vibrated through his nerves. For one

dreadful moment, he expected some terrific agent of the shadows that

escaped the electric lights to leap upon him. And this was odd, for

nothing could be saner than the globular interior of the aircraft,

divided into four wedge-shaped apartments.

Dr. Mundson also paused at the door, puzzled, hesitant.

"Someone has been here!" he exclaimed. "Look, Northwood! The bunk has

been occupied--the one in this cabin I had set aside for you."

He pointed to the disarranged bunk, where the impression of a head could

still be seen on a pillow.

"A tramp, perhaps."

"No! The door was locked, and, as you saw, the fence around this field

was protected with barbed wire. There's something wrong. I felt it on my

trip here all the way, like someone watching me in the dark. And don't

laugh! I have stopped laughing at all things that seem unnatural. You

don't know what is natural."

Northwood shivered. "Maybe someone is concealed about the ship."

"Impossible. Me, I thought so, too. But I looked and looked, and there

was nothing."

All evening Northwood had burned to tell the scientist about the

handsome stranger in the Mad Hatter Club. But even now he shrank from

saying that a man had vanished before his eyes.

Dr. Mundson was working with a succession of buttons and levers. There

was a slight jerk, and then the strange craft shot up, straight as a

bullet from a gun, with scarcely a sound other than a continuous

whistle.

"The vertical rising aircraft perfected," explained Dr. Mundson. "But

what would you think if I told you that there is not an ounce of

gasoline in my heavier-than-air craft?"

"I shouldn't be surprised. An electrical genius would seek for a less

obsolete source of power."

* * * * *

In the bright flare of the electric lights, the scientist's ugly face

flushed. "The man who harnesses the sun rules the world. He can make the

desert places bloom, the frozen poles balmy and verdant. You, John

Northwood, are one of the very few to fly in a machine operated solely

by electrical energy from the sun's rays."

"Are you telling me that this airship is operated with power from the

sun?"

"Yes. And I cannot take the credit for its invention." He sighed. "The

dream was mine, but a greater brain developed it--a brain that may be

greater than I suspect." His face grew suddenly graver.

A little later Northwood said: "It seems that we must be making fabulous

speed."

"Perhaps!" Dr. Mundson worked with the controls. "Here, I've cut her

down to the average speed of the ordinary airplane. Now you can see a

bit of the night scenery."

Northwood peeped out the thick glass porthole. Far below, he saw two

tiny streaks of light, one smooth and stationery, the other wavering as

though it were a reflection in water.

"That can't be a lighthouse!" he cried.

The scientist glanced out. "It is. We're approaching the Florida Keys."

"Impossible! We've been traveling less than an hour."

"But, my young friend, do you realize that my sun-ship has a speed of

over one thousand miles an hour, how much over I dare not tell you?"

Throughout the night, Northwood sat beside Dr. Mundson, watching his

deft fingers control the simple-looking buttons and levers. So fast was

their flight now that, through the portholes, sky and earth looked the

same: dark gray films of emptiness. The continuous weird whistle from

the hidden mechanism of the sun-ship was like the drone of a monster

insect, monotonous and soporific during the long intervals when the

scientist was too busy with his controls to engage in conversation.

For some reason that he could not explain, Northwood had an aversion to

going into the sleeping apartment behind the control room. Then, towards

morning, when the suddenly falling temperature struck a biting chill

throughout the sun-ship, Northwood, going into the cabin for fur coats,

discovered why his mind and body shrank in horror from the cabin.

* * * * *

After he had procured the fur coats from a closet, he paused a moment,

in the privacy of the cabin, to look at Athalia's picture. Every nerve

in his body leaped to meet the magnetism of her beautiful eyes. Never

had Mary Burns stirred emotion like this in him. He hung over Mary's

picture, wistfully, hoping almost prayerfully that he could react to her

as he did to Athalia; but her pale, over-intellectual face left him

cold.

"Cad!" he ground out between his teeth. "Forgetting her so soon!"

The two pictures were lying side by side on a little table. Suddenly an

obscure noise in the room caught his attention. It was more vibration

than noise, for small sounds could scarcely be heard above the whistle

of the sun-ship. A slight compression of the air against his neck gave

him the eery feeling that someone was standing close behind him. He

wheeled and looked over his shoulder. Half ashamed of his startled

gesture, he again turned to his pictures. Then a sharp cry broke from

him.

Athalia's picture was gone.

He searched for it everywhere in the room, in his own pockets, under the

furniture. It was nowhere to be found.

In sudden, overpowering horror, he seized the fur coats and returned to

the control room.

* * * * *

Dr. Mundson was changing the speed.

"Look out the window!" he called to Northwood.

The young man looked and started violently. Day had come, and now that

the sun-ship was flying at a moderate speed, the ocean beneath was

plainly visible; and its entire surface was covered with broken floes of

ice and small, ragged icebergs. He seized a telescope and focused it

below. A typical polar scene met his eyes: penguins strutted about on

cakes of ice, a whale blowing in the icy water.

"A part of the Antarctic that has never been explored," said Dr.

Mundson; "and there, just showing on the horizon, is the Great Ice

Barrier." His characteristic smile lighted the morose black eyes. "I am

enough of the dramatist to wish you to be impressed with what I shall

show you within less than an hour. Accordingly, I shall make a landing

and let you feel polar ice under your feet."

After less than a minute's search, Dr. Mundson found a suitable place on

the ice for a landing, and, with a few deft manipulations of the

controls, brought the sun-ship swooping down like an eagle on its prey.

For a long moment after the scientist had stepped out on the ice,

Northwood paused at the door. His feet were chained by a strange

reluctance to enter this white, dead wilderness of ice. But Dr.

Mundson's impatient, "Ready?" drew from him one last glance at the cozy

interior of the sun-ship before he, too, went out into the frozen

stillness.

They left the sun-ship resting on the ice like a fallen silver moon,

while they wandered to the edge of the Barrier and looked at the gray,

narrow stretch of sea between the ice pack and the high cliffs of the

Barrier. The sun of the commencing six-months' Antarctic day was a low,

cold ball whose slanted rays struck the ice with blinding whiteness.

There were constant falls of ice from the Barrier, which thundered into

the ocean amid great clouds of ice smoke that lingered like wraiths

around the edge. It was a scene of loneliness and waiting death.

"What's that?" exclaimed the scientist suddenly.

Out of the white silence shrilled a low whistle, a familiar whistle.

Both men wheeled toward the sun-ship.

Before their horrified eyes, the great sphere jerked and glided up, and

swerved into the heavens.

* * * * *

Up it soared; then, gaining speed, it swung into the blue distance

until, in a moment, it was a tiny star that flickered out even as they

watched.

Both men screamed and cursed and flung up their arms despairingly. A

penguin, attracted by their cries, waddled solemnly over to them and

regarded them with manlike curiosity.

"Stranded in the coldest spot on earth!" groaned the scientist.

"Why did it start itself, Dr. Mundson!" Northwood narrowed his eyes as

he spoke.

"It didn't!" The scientist's huge face, red from cold, quivered with

helpless rage. "Human hands started it."

"What! Whose hands?"

"_Ach!_ Do I know?" His Teutonic accent grew more pronounced, as it

always did when he was under emotional stress. "Somebody whose brain is

better than mine. Somebody who found a way to hide away from our eyes.

_Ach, Gott!_ Don't let me think!"

His great head sank between his shoulders, giving him, in his fur suit,

the grotesque appearance of a friendly brown bear.

"Doctor Mundson," said Northwood suddenly, "did you have an enemy, a man

with the face and body of a pagan god--a great, blond creature with eyes

as cold and cruel as the ice under our feet?"

"Wait!" The huge round head jerked up. "How do you know about Adam? You

have not seen him, won't see him until we arrive at our destination."

"But I have seen him. He was sitting not thirty feet from you in the Mad

Hatter's Club last night. Didn't you know? He followed me to the street,

spoke to me, and then--" Northwood stopped. How could he let the insane

words pass his lips?

"Then, what? Speak up!"

* * * * *

Northwood laughed nervously. "It sounds foolish, but I saw him vanish

like that." He snapped his fingers.

"_Ach, Gott!_" All the ruddy color drained from the scientist's face. As

though talking to himself, he continued:

"Then it is true, as he said. He has crossed the bridge. He has reached

the Light. And now he comes to see the world he will conquer--came

unseen when I refused my permission."

He was silent for a long time, pondering. Then he turned passionately to

Northwood.

"John Northwood, kill me! I have brought a new horror into the world.

From the unborn future, I have snatched a creature who has reached the

Light too soon. Kill me!" He bowed his great, shaggy head.

"What do you mean, Dr. Mundson: that this Adam has arrived at a point in

evolution beyond this age?"

"Yes. Think of it! I visioned godlike creatures with the souls of gods.

But, Heaven help us, man always will be man: always will lust for

conquest. You and I, Northwood, and all others are barbarians to Adam.

He and his kind will do what men always do to barbarians--conquer and

kill."

"Are there more like him?" Northwood struggled with a smile of unbelief.

"I don't know. I did not know that Adam had reached a point so near the

ultimate. But you have seen. Already he is able to set aside what we

call natural laws."

Northwood looked at the scientist closely. The man was surely mad--mad

in this desert of white death.

"Come!" he said cheerfully. "Let's build an Eskimo snow house. We can

live on penguins for days. And who knows what may rescue us?"

For three hours the two worked at cutting ice blocks. With snow for

mortar, they built a crude shelter which enabled them to rest out of the

cold breath of the spiral polar winds that blew from the south.

* * * * *

Dr. Mundson was sitting at the door of their hut, moodily pulling at his

strong, black pipe. As though a fit had seized him, he leaped up and let

his pipe fall to the ice.

"Look!" he shouted. "The sun-ship!"

It seemed but a moment before the tiny speck on the horizon had swept

overhead, a silver comet on the grayish-blue polar sky. In another

moment it had swooped down, eaglewise, scarcely fifty feet from the ice

hut.

Dr. Mundson and Northwood ran forward. From the metal sphere stepped the

stranger of the Mad Hatter Club. His tall, straight form, erect and

slim, swung toward them over the ice.

"Adam!" shouted Dr. Mundson. "What does this mean? How dare you!"

Adam's laugh was like the happy demonstration of a boy. "So? You think

you still are master? You think I returned because I reverenced you

yet?" Hate shot viciously through the freezing blue eyes. "You worm of

the Black Age!"

Northwood shuddered. He had heard those strange words addressed to

himself scarcely more than twelve hours ago.

Adam was still speaking: "With a thought I could annihilate you where

you are standing. But I have use for you. Get in." He swept his hand to

the sun-ship.

Both men hesitated. Then Northwood strode forward until he was within

three feet of Adam. They stood thus, eyeing each other, two splendid

beings, one blond as a Viking, the other dark and vital.

"Just what is your game?" demanded Northwood.

The icy eyes shot forth a gleam like lightning. "I needn't tell you, of

course, but I may as well let you suffer over the knowledge." He curled

his lips with superb scorn. "I have one human weakness. I want Athalia."

The icy eyes warmed for a fleeting second. "She is anticipating her

meeting with you--bah! The taste of these women of the Black Age! I

could kill you, of course; but that would only inflame her. And so I

take you to her, thrust you down her throat. When she sees you, she will

fly to me." He spread his magnificent chest.

"Adam!" Dr. Mundson's face was dark with anger. "What of Eve?"

"Who are you to question my actions? What a fool you were to let me,

whom you forced into life thousands of years too soon, grow more

powerful than you! Before I am through with all of you petty creatures

of the Black Age, you will call me more terrible than your Jehovah! For

see what you have called forth from unborn time."

He vanished.

* * * * *

Before the startled men could recover from the shock of it, the vibrant,

too-new voice went on:

"I am sorry for you, Mundson, because, like you, I need specimens for my

experiments. What a splendid specimen you will be!" His laugh was ugly

with significance. "Get in, worms!"

Unseen hands cuffed and pushed them into the sun-ship.

Inside, Dr. Mundson stumbled to the control room, white and drawn of

face, his great brain seemingly paralyzed by the catastrophe.

"You needn't attempt tricks," went on the voice. "I am watching you

both. You cannot even hide your thoughts from me."

And thus began the strange continuation of the journey. Not once, in

that wild half-hour's rush over the polar ice clouds, did they see Adam.

They saw and heard only the weird signs of his presence: a puffing cigar

hanging in midair, a glass of water swinging to unseen lips, a ghostly

voice hurling threats and insults at them.

Once the scientist whispered: "Don't cross him; it is useless. John

Northwood, you'll have to fight a demigod for your woman!"

Because of the terrific speed of the sun-ship, Northwood could

distinguish nothing of the topographical details below. At the end of

half-an-hour, the scientist slowed enough to point out a tall range of

snow-covered mountains, over which hovered a play of colored lights like

the _aurora australis_.

"Behind those mountains," he said, "is our destination."

* * * * *

Almost in a moment, the sun-ship had soared over the peaks. Dr. Mundson

kept the speed low enough for Northwood to see the splendid view below.

In the giant cup formed by the encircling mountain range was a green

valley of tropical luxuriance. Stretches of dense forest swept half up

the mountains and filled the valley cup with tangled verdure. In the

center, surrounded by a broad field and a narrow ring of woods, towered

a group of buildings. From the largest, which was circular, came the

auroralike radiance that formed an umbrella of light over the entire

valley.

"Do I guess right," said Northwood, "that the light is responsible for

this oasis in the ice?"

"Yes," said Dr. Mundson. "In your American slang, it is canned sunshine

containing an overabundance of certain rays, especially the Life Ray,

which I have isolated." He smiled proudly. "You needn't look startled,

my friend. Some of the most common things store sunlight. On very dark

nights, if you have sharp eyes, you can see the radiance given off by

certain flowers, which many naturalists say is trapped sunshine. The

familiar nasturtium and the marigold opened for me the way to hold

sunshine against the long polar night, for they taught me how to apply

the Einstein theory of bent light. Stated simply, during the polar

night, when the sun is hidden over the rim of the world, we steal some

of his rays; during the polar day we concentrate the light."

"But could stored sunshine alone give enough warmth for the luxuriant

growth of those jungles?"

"An overabundance of the Life Ray is responsible for the miraculous

growth of all life in New Eden. The Life Ray is Nature's most powerful

force. Yet Nature is often niggardly and paradoxical in her use of her

powers. In New Eden, we have forced the powers of creation to take

ascendency over the powers of destruction."

At Northwood's sudden start, the scientist laughed and continued: "Is it

not a pity that Nature, left alone, requires twenty years to make a man

who begins to die in another ten years? Such waste is not tolerated in

New Eden, where supermen are younger than babes and--"

"Come, worms; let's land."

It was Adam's voice. Suddenly he materialized, a blond god, whose eyes

and flesh were too new.

* * * * *

They were in a world of golden skylight, warmth and tropical vegetation.

The field on which they had landed was covered with a velvety green

growth of very soft, fine-bladed grass, sprinkled with tiny, star-shaped

blue flowers. A balmy, sweet-scented wind, downy as the breeze of a

dream, blew gently along the grass and tingled against Northwood's skin

refreshingly. Almost instantly he had the sensation of perfect well

being, and this feeling of physical perfection was part of the ecstasy

that seemed to pervade the entire valley. Grass and breeze and golden

skylight were saturated with a strange ether of joyousness.

At one end of the field was a dense jungle, cut through by a road that

led to the towering building from which, while above in the sun-ship,

they had seen the golden light issue.

From the jungle road came a man and a woman, large, handsome people,

whose flesh and eyes had the sinister newness of Adam's. Even before

they came close enough to speak, Northwood was aware that while they

seemed of Adam's breed, they were yet unlike him. The difference was

psychical rather than physical; they lacked the aura of hate and horror

that surrounded Adam. The woman drew Adam's head down and kissed him

affectionately on both cheeks.

Adam, from his towering height, patted her shoulder impatiently and

said: "Run on back to the laboratory, grandmother. We're following

soon. You have some new human embryos, I believe you told me this

morning."

"Four fine specimens, two of them being your sister's twins."

"Splendid! I was sure that creation had stopped with my generation. I

must see them." He turned to the scientist and Northwood. "You needn't

try to leave this spot. Of course I shall know instantly and deal with

you in my own way. Wait here."

He strode over the emerald grass on the heels of the woman.

Northwood asked: "Why does he call that girl grandmother?"

"Because she is his ancestress." He stirred uneasily. "She is of the

first generation brought forth in the laboratory, and is no different

from you or I, except that, at the age of five years, she is the

ancestress of twenty generations."

"My God!" muttered Northwood.

"Don't start being horrified, my friend. Forget about so-called natural

laws while you are in New Eden. Remember, here we have isolated the Life

Ray. But look! Here comes your Athalia!"

* * * * *

Northwood gazed covertly at the beautiful girl approaching them with a

rarely graceful walk. She was tall, slender, round-bosomed,

narrow-hipped, and she held her lovely body in the erect poise of

splendid health. Northwood had a confused realization of uncovered

bronzy hair, drawn to the back of a white neck in a bunch of short

curls; of immense soft black eyes; lips the color of blood, and

delicate, plump flesh on which the golden skylight lingered graciously.

He was instantly glad to see that while she possessed the freshness of

young girlhood, her skin and eyes did not have the horrible newness of

Adam's.

When she was still twenty feet distant, Northwood met her eyes and she

smiled shyly. The rich, red blood ran through her face; and he, too,

flushed.

She went to Dr. Mundson and, placing her hands on his thick shoulders,

kissed him affectionately.

"I've been worried about you, Daddy Mundson." Her rich contralto voice

matched her exotic beauty. "Since you and Adam had that quarrel the day

you left, I did not see him until this morning, when he landed the

sun-ship alone."

"And you pleaded with him to return for us?"

"Yes." Her eyes drooped and a hot flush swept over her face.

Dr. Mundson smiled. "But I'm back now, Athalia, and I've brought some

one whom I hope you will be glad to know."

Reaching for her hand, he placed it simply in Northwood's.

"This is John, Athalia. Isn't he handsomer than the pictures of him

which I televisioned to you? God bless both of you."

He walked ahead and turned his back.

* * * * *

A magical half hour followed for Northwood and Athalia. The girl told

him of her past life, how Dr. Mundson had discovered her one year ago

working in a New York sweat shop, half dead from consumption. Without

friends, she was eager to follow the scientist to New Eden, where he

promised she would recover her health immediately.

"And he was right, John," she said shyly. "The Life Ray, that marvelous

energy ray which penetrates to the utmost depths of earth and ocean,

giving to the cells of all living bodies the power to grow and remain

animate, has been concentrated by Dr. Mundson in his stored sunshine.

The Life Ray healed me almost immediately."

Northwood looked down at the glorious girl beside him, whose eyes

already fluttered away from his like shy black butterflies. Suddenly he

squeezed the soft hand in his and said passionately:

"Athalia! Because Adam wants you and will get you if he can, let us set

aside all the artificialities of civilization. I have loved you madly

ever since I saw your picture. If you can say the same to me, it will

give me courage to face what I know lies before me."

Athalia, her face suddenly tender, came closer to him.

"John Northwood, I love you."

Her red lips came temptingly close; but before he could touch them, Adam

suddenly pushed his body between him and Athalia. Adam was pale, and all

the iciness was gone from his blue eyes, which were deep and dark and

very human. He looked down at Athalia, and she looked up at him, two

handsome specimens of perfect manhood and womanhood.

"Fast work, Athalia!" The new vibrant voice was strained. "I was hoping

you would be disappointed in him, especially after having been wooed by

me this morning. I could take you if I wished, of course; but I prefer

to win you in the ancient manner. Dismiss him!" He jerked his thumb over

his shoulder in Northwood's direction.

Athalia flushed vividly and looked at him almost compassionately. "I am

not great enough for you, Adam. I dare not love you."

* * * * *

Adam laughed, and still oblivious of Northwood and Dr. Mundson, folded

his arms over his breast. With the golden skylight on his burnished

hair, he was a valiant, magnificent spectacle.

"Since the beginning of time, gods and archangels have looked upon the

daughters of men and found them fair. Mate with me, Athalia, and I,

fifty thousand years beyond the creature Mundson has selected for you,

will make you as I am, the deathless overlord of life and all nature."

He drew her hand to his bosom.

For one dark moment, Northwood felt himself seared by jealousy, for,

through the plump, sweet flesh of Athalia's face, he saw the red blood

leap again. How could she withhold herself from this splendid superman?

But her answer, given with faltering voice, was the old, simple one: "I

have promised him, Adam. I love him." Tears trembled on her thick

lashes.

"So! I cannot get you in the ancient manner. Now I'll use my own."

He seized her in his arms crushed her against him, and, laughing over

her head at Northwood, bent his glistening head and kissed her on the

mouth.

There was a blinding flash of blue electric sparks--and nothing else.

Both Adam and Athalia had vanished.

* * * * *

Adam's voice came in a last mocking challenge: "I shall be what no other

gods before me have been--a good sport. I'll leave you both to your own

devices, until I want you again."

White-lipped and trembling, Northwood groaned: "What has he done now?"

Dr. Mundson's great head drooped. "I don't know. Our bodies are electric

and chemical machines; and a super intelligence has discovered new laws

of which you and I are ignorant."

"But Athalia...."

"She is safe; he loves her."

"Loves her!" Northwood shivered. "I cannot believe that those freezing

eyes could ever look with love on a woman."

"Adam is a man. At heart he is as human as the first man-creature that

wallowed in the new earth's slime." His voice dropped as though he were

musing aloud. "It might be well to let him have Athalia. She will help

to keep vigor in the new race, which would stop reproducing in another

few generations without the injection of Black Age blood."

"Do you want to bring more creatures like Adam into the world?"

Northwood flung at him. "You have tampered with life enough, Dr.

Mundson. But, although Adam has my sympathy, I'm not willing to turn

Athalia over to him."

"Well said! Now come to the laboratory for chemical nourishment and rest

under the Life Ray."

They went to the great circular building from whose highest tower issued

the golden radiance that shamed the light of the sun, hanging low in the

northeast.

"John Northwood," said Dr. Mundson, "with that laboratory, which is the

center of all life in New Eden, we'll have to whip Adam. He gave us what

he called a 'sporting chance' because he knew that he is able to send us

and all mankind to a doom more terrible than hell. Even now we might be

entering some hideous trap that he has set for us."

* * * * *

They entered by a side entrance and went immediately to what Dr. Mundson

called the Rest Ward. Here, in a large room, were ranged rows of cots,

on many of which lay men basking in the deep orange flood of light which

poured from individual lamps set above each cot.

"It is the Life Ray!" said Dr. Mundson reverently. "The source of all

growth and restoration in Nature. It is the power that bursts open the

seed and brings forth the shoot, that increases the shoot into a giant

tree. It is the same power that enables the fertilized ovum to develop

into an animal. It creates and recreates cells almost instantly;

accordingly, it is the perfect substitute for sleep. Stretch out, enjoy

its power; and while you rest, eat these nourishing tablets."

Northwood lay on a cot, and Dr. Mundson turned the Life Ray on him. For

a few minutes a delicious drowsiness fell upon him, producing a spell of

perfect peace which the cells of his being seemed to drink in. For

another delirious, fleeting space, every inch of him vibrated with a

thrilling sensation of freshness. He took a deep, ecstatic breath and

opened his eyes.

"Enough," said Dr. Mundson, switching off the Ray. "After three minutes

of rejuvenation, you are commencing again with perfect cells. All

ravages from disease and wear have been corrected."

Northwood leaped up joyously. His handsome eyes sparkled, his skin

glowed. "I feel great! Never felt so good since I was a kid."

A pleased grin spread over the scientist's homely face. "See what my

discovery will mean to the world! In the future we shall all go to the

laboratory for recuperation and nourishment. We'll have almost

twenty-four hours a day for work and play."

* * * * *

He stretched out on the bed contentedly. "Some day, when my work is

nearly done, I shall permit the Life Ray to cure my hump."

"Why not now?"

Dr. Mundson sighed. "If I were perfect, I should cease to be so

overwhelmingly conscious of the importance of perfection." He settled

back to enjoyment of the Life Ray.

A few minutes later, he jumped up, alert as a boy. "_Ach!_ That's fine.

Now I'll show you how the Life Ray speeds up development and produces

four generations of humans a year."

With restored energy, Northwood began thinking of Athalia. As he

followed Dr. Mundson down a long corridor, he yearned to see her again,

to be certain that she was safe. Once he imagined he felt a gentle,

soft-fleshed touch against his hand, and was disappointed not to see her

walking by his side. Was she with him, unseen? The thought was sweet.

Before Dr. Mundson opened the massive bronze door at the end of the

corridor, he said:

"Don't be surprised or shocked over anything you see here, John

Northwood. This is the Baby Laboratory."

They entered a room which seemed no different from a hospital ward. On

little white beds lay naked children of various sizes, perfect,

solemn-eyed youngsters and older children as beautiful as animated

statues. Above each bed was a small Life Ray projector. A white-capped

nurse went from bed to bed.

"They are recuperating from the daily educational period," said the

scientist. "After a few minutes of this they will go into the growing

room, which I shall have to show you through a window. Should you and I

enter, we might be changed in a most extraordinary manner." He laughed

mischievously. "But, look, Northwood!"

* * * * *

He slid back a panel in the wall, and Northwood peered in through a

thick pane of clear glass. The room was really an immense outdoor arena,

its only carpet the fine-bladed grass, its roof the blue sky cut in the

middle by an enormous disc from which shot the aurora of trapped

sunshine which made a golden umbrella over the valley. Through openings

in the bottom of the disc poured a fine rain of rays which fell

constantly upon groups of children, youths and young girls, all clad in

the merest scraps of clothing. Some were dancing, others were playing

games, but all seemed as supremely happy as the birds and butterflies

which fluttered about the shrubs and flowers edging the arena.

"I don't expect you to believe," said Dr. Mundson, "that the oldest

young man in there is three months old. You cannot see visible changes

in a body which grows as slowly as the human being, whose normal period

of development is twenty years or more. But I can give you visible proof

of how fast growth takes place under the full power of the Life Ray.

Plant life, which, even when left to nature, often develops from seed to

flower within a few weeks or months, can be seen making its miraculous

changes under the Life Ray. Watch those gorgeous purple flowers over

which the butterflies are hovering."

Northwood followed his pointing finger. Near the glass window through

which they looked grew an enormous bank of resplendent violet colored

flowers, which literally enshrouded the entire bush with their royal

glory. At first glance it seemed as though a violent wind were

snatching at flower and bush, but closer inspection proved that the

agitation was part of the plant itself. And then he saw that the

movements were the result of perpetual composition and growth.

* * * * *

He fastened his eyes on one huge bud. He saw it swell, burst, spread out

its passionate purple velvet, lift the broad flower face to the light

for a joyous minute. A few seconds later a butterfly lighted airily to

sample its nectar and to brush the pollen from its yellow dusted wings.

Scarcely had the winged visitor flown away than the purple petals began

to wither and fall away, leaving the seed pod on the stem. The visible

change went on in this seed pod. It turned rapidly brown, dried out, and

then sent the released seeds in a shower to the rich black earth below.

Scarcely had the seeds touched the ground than they sent up tiny green

shoots that grew larger each moment. Within ten minutes there was a new

plant a foot high. Within half an hour, the plant budded, blossomed, and

cast forth its own seed.

"You understand?" asked the scientist. "Development is going on as

rapidly among the children. Before the first year has passed, the

youngest baby will have grandchildren; that is, if the baby tests out

fit to pass its seed down to the new generation. I know it sounds

absurd. Yet you saw the plant."

"But Doctor," Northwood rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, "Nature's forces of

destruction, of tearing down, are as powerful as her creative powers.

You have discovered the ultimate in creation and upbuilding. But

perhaps--oh, Lord, it is too awful to think!"

"Speak, Northwood!" The scientist's voice was impatient.

"It is nothing!" The pale young man attempted a smile. "I was only

imagining some of the horror that could be thrust on the world if a

supermind like Adam's should discover Nature's secret of death and

destruction and speed it up as you have sped the life force."

"_Ach Gott!_" Dr. Mundson's face was white. "He has his own laboratory,

where he works every day. Don't talk so loud. He might be listening. And

I believe he can do anything he sets out to accomplish."

Close to Northwood's ear fell a faint, triumphant whisper: "Yes, he can

do anything. How did you guess, worm?"

It was Adam's voice.

* * * * *

"Now come and see the Leyden jar mothers," said Dr. Mundson. "We do not

wait for the child to be born to start our work."

He took Northwood to a laboratory crowded with strange apparatus, where

young men and women worked. Northwood knew instantly that these people,

although unusually handsome and strong, were not of Adam's generation.

None of them had the look of newness which marked those who had grown up

under the Life Ray.

"They are the perfect couples whom I combed the world to find," said the

scientist. "From their eugenic marriages sprang the first children that

passed through the laboratory. I had hoped," he hesitated and looked

sideways at Northwood, "I had dreamed of having the children of you and

Athalia to help strengthen the New Race."

A wave of sudden disgust passed over Northwood.

"Thanks," he said tartly. "When I marry Athalia, I intend to have an

old-fashioned home and a Black Age family. I don't relish having my

children turned into--experiments."

"But wait until you see all the wonders of the laboratory! That is why I

am showing you all this."

Northwood drew his handkerchief and mopped his brow. "It sickens me,

Doctor! The more I see, the more pity I have for Adam--and the less I

blame him for his rebellion and his desire to kill and to rule. Heavens!

What a terrible thing you have done, experimenting with human life."

"Nonsense! Can you say that all life--all matter--is not the result of

scientific experiment? Can you?" His black gaze made Northwood

uncomfortable. "Buck up, young friend, for now I am going to show you a

marvelous improvement on Nature's bungling ways--the Leyden jar mother."

He raised his voice and called, "Lilith!"

The woman whom they had met on the field came forward.

"May we take a peep at Lona's twins?" asked the scientist. "They are

about ready to go to the growing dome, are they not?"

"In five more minutes," said the woman. "Come see."

* * * * *

She lifted one of the black velvet curtains that lined an entire side of

the laboratory and thereby disclosed a globular jar of glass and metal,

connected by wires to a dynamo. Above the jar was a Life Ray projector.

Lilith slid aside a metal portion of the jar, disclosing through the

glass underneath the squirming, kicking body of a baby, resting on a bed

of soft, spongy substance, to which it was connected by the navel cord.

"The Leyden jar mother," said Dr. Mundson. "It is the dream of us

scientists realized. The human mother's body does nothing but nourish

and protect her unborn child, a job which science can do better. And so,

in New Eden, we take the young embryo and place it in the Leyden jar

mother, where the Life Ray, electricity, and chemical food shortens the

period of gestation to a few days."

At that moment a bell under the Leyden jar began to ring. Dr. Mundson

uncovered the jar and lifted out the child, a beautiful, perfectly

formed boy, who began to cry lustily.

"Here is one baby who'll never be kissed," he said. "He'll be nourished

chemically, and, at the end of the week, will no longer be a baby. If

you are patient, you can actually see the processes of development

taking place under the Life Ray, for babies develop very fast."

Northwood buried his face in his hands. "Lord! This is awful. No

childhood; no mother to mould his mind! No parents to watch over him, to

give him their tender care!"

"Awful, fiddlesticks! Come see how children get their education, how

they learn to use their hands and feet so they need not pass through the

awkwardness of childhood."

* * * * *

He led Northwood to a magnificent building whose facade of white marble

was as simply beautiful as a Greek temple. The side walls, built almost

entirely of glass, permitted the synthetic sunshine to sweep from end to

end. They first entered a library, where youths and young girls poured

over books of all kinds. Their manner of reading mystified Northwood.

With a single sweep of the eye, they seemed to devour a page, and then

turned to the next. He stepped closer to peer over the shoulder of a

beautiful girl. She was reading "Euclid's Elements of Geometry," in

Latin, and she turned the pages as swiftly as the other girl occupying

her table, who was devouring "Paradise Lost."

Dr. Mundson whispered to him: "If you do not believe that Ruth here is

getting her Euclid, which she probably never saw before to-day, examine

her from the book; that is, if you are a good enough Latin scholar."

Ruth stopped her reading to talk to him, and, in a few minutes, had

completely dumbfounded him with her pedantic replies, which fell from

lips as luscious and unformed as an infant's.

"Now," said Dr. Mundson, "test Rachael on her Milton. As far as she has

read, she should not misquote a line, and her comments will probably

prove her scholarly appreciation of Milton."

Word for word, Rachael was able to give him "Paradise Lost" from memory,

except the last four pages, which she had not read. Then, taking the

book from him, she swept her eyes over these pages, returned the book to

him, and quoted copiously and correctly.

* * * * *

Dr. Mundson gloated triumphantly over his astonishment. "There, my

friend. Could you now be satisfied with old-fashioned children who spend

long, expensive years in getting an education? Of course, your children

will not have the perfect brains of these, yet, developed under the Life

Ray, they should have splendid mentality.

"These children, through selective breeding, have brains that make

everlasting records instantly. A page in a book, once seen, is indelibly

retained by them, and understood. The same is true of a lecture, of an

explanation given by a teacher, of even idle conversation. Any man or

woman in this room should be able to repeat the most trivial

conversation days old."

"But what of the arts, Dr. Mundson? Surely even your supermen and women

cannot instantly learn to paint a masterpiece or to guide their fingers

and their brains through the intricacies of a difficult musical

composition."

"No?" His dark eyes glowed. "Come see!"

Before they entered another wing of the building, they heard a violin

being played masterfully.

Dr. Mundson paused at the door.

"So that you may understand what you shall see, let me remind you that

the nerve impulses and the coordinating means in the human body are

purely electrical. The world has not yet accepted my theory, but it

will. Under superman's system of education, the instantaneous records

made on the brain give immediate skill to the acting parts of the body.

Accordingly, musicians are made over night."

He threw open the door. Under a Life Ray projector, a beautiful,

Juno-esque woman was playing a violin. Facing her, and with eyes

fastened to hers, stood a young man, whose arms and slender fingers

mimicked every motion she made. Presently she stopped playing and handed

the violin to him. In her own masterly manner, he repeated the score she

had played.

"That is Eve," whispered Dr. Mundson. "I had selected her as Adam's

wife. But he does not want her, the most brilliant woman of the New

Race."

Northwood gave the woman an appraising look. "Who wants a perfect woman?

I don't blame Adam for preferring Athalia. But how is she teaching her

pupil?"

"Through thought vibration, which these perfect people have developed

until they can record permanently the radioactive waves of the brains of

others."

Eve turned, caught Northwood's eyes in her magnetic blue gaze, and

smiled as only a goddess can smile upon a mortal she has marked as her

own. She came toward him with outflung hands.

"So you have come!" Her vibrant contralto voice, like Adam's, held the

birdlike, broken tremulo of a young child's. "I have been waiting for

you, John Northwood."

* * * * *

Her eyes, as blue and icy as Adam's, lingered long on him, until he

flinched from their steely magnetism. She slipped her arm through his

and drew him gently but firmly from the room, while Dr. Mundson stood

gaping after them.

They were on a flagged terrace arched with roses of gigantic size, which

sent forth billows of sensuous fragrance. Eve led him to a white marble

seat piled with silk cushions, on which she reclined her superb body,

while she regarded him from narrowed lids.

"I saw your picture that he televisioned to Athalia," she said. "What a

botch Dr. Mundson has made of his mating." Her laugh rippled like

falling water. "I want you, John Northwood!"

Northwood started and blushed furiously. Smile dimples broke around her

red, humid lips.

"Ah, you're old-fashioned!"

Her large, beautiful hand, fleshed more tenderly than any woman's hand

he had ever seen, went out to him appealingly. "I can bring you amorous

delight that your Athalia never could offer in her few years of youth.

And I'll never grow old, John Northwood."

She came closer until he could feel the fragrant warmth of her tawny,

ribbon bound hair pulse against his face. In sudden panic he drew back.

"But I am pledged to Athalia!" tumbled from him. "It is all a dreadful

mistake, Eve. You and Adam were created for each other."

"Hush!" The lightning that flashed from her blue eyes changed her from

seductress to angry goddess. "Created for each other! Who wants a

made-to-measure lover?"

* * * * *

The luscious lips trembled slightly, and into the vivid eyes crept a

suspicion of moisture. Eternal Eve's weapons! Northwood's handsome face

relaxed with pity.

"I want you, John Northwood," she continued shamelessly. "Our love will

be sublime." She leaned heavily against him, and her lips were like a

blood red flower pressed against white satin. "Come, beloved, kiss me!"

Northwood gasped and turned his head. "Don't, Eve!"

"But a kiss from me will set you apart from all your generation, John

Northwood, and you shall understand what no man of the Black Age could

possibly fathom."

Her hair had partly fallen from its ribbon bandage and poured its

fragrant gold against his shoulder.

"For God's sake, don't tempt me!" he groaned. "What do you mean?"

"That mental and physical and spiritual contact with me will temporarily

give you, a three-dimension creature, the power of the new sense, which

your race will not have for fifty thousand years."

White-lipped and trembling, he demanded: "Explain!"

Eve smiled. "Have you not guessed that Adam has developed an additional

sense? You've seen him vanish. He and I have the sixth sense of Time

Perception--the new sense which enables us to penetrate what you of the

Black Age call the Fourth Dimension. Even you whose mentalities are

framed by three dimensions have this sixth sense instinct. Your very

religion is based on it, for you believe that in another life you shall

step into Time, or, as you call it, eternity." She leaned closer so that

her hair brushed his cheek. "What is eternity, John Northwood? Is it not

keeping forever ahead of the Destroyer? The future is eternal, for it is

never reached. Adam and I, through our new sense which comprehends Time

and Space, can vanish by stepping a few seconds into the future, the

Fourth Dimension of Space. Death can never reach us, not even accidental

death, unless that which causes death could also slip into the future,

which is not yet possible."

"But if the Fourth Dimension is future Time, why can one in the third

dimension feel the touch of an unseen presence in the Fourth

Dimension--hear his voice, even?"

"Thought vibration. The touch is not really felt nor the voice heard:

they are only imagined. The radioactive waves of the brain of even you

Black Age people are swift enough to bridge Space and Time. And it is

the mind that carries us beyond the third dimension."

* * * * *

Her red mouth reached closer to him, her blue eyes touched hidden forces

that slept in remote cells of his being. "You are going into Eternal

Time, John Northwood, Eternity without beginning or end. You understand?

You feel it? Comprehend it? Now for the contact--kiss me!"

Northwood had seen Athalia vanish under Adam's kiss. Suddenly, in one

mad burst of understanding, he leaned over to his magnificent temptress.

For a split second he felt the sweet pressure of baby-soft lips, and

then the atoms of his body seemed to fly asunder. Black chaos held him

for a frightful moment before he felt sanity return.

He was back on the terrace again, with Eve by his side. They were

standing now. The world about him looked the same, yet there was a

subtle change in everything.

Eve laughed softly. "It is puzzling, isn't it? You're seeing everything

as in a mirror. What was left before is now right. Only you and I are

real. All else is but a vision, a dream. For now you and I are existing

one minute in future time, or, more simply, we are in the Fourth

Dimension. To everything in the third dimension, we are invisible. Let

me show you that Dr. Mundson cannot see you."

They went back to the room beyond the terrace. Dr. Mundson was not

present.

"There he goes down the jungle path," said Eve, looking out a window.

She laughed. "Poor old fellow. The children of his genius are worrying

him."

* * * * *

They were standing in the recess formed by a bay window. Eve picked up

his hand and laid it against her face, giving him the full, blasting

glory of her smiling blue eyes.

Northwood, looking away miserably, uttered a low cry. Coming over the

field beyond were Adam and Athalia. By the trimming on the blue dress

she wore, he could see that she was still in the Fourth Dimension, for

he did not see her as a mirror image.

A look of fear leaped to Eve's face. She clutched Northwood's arm,

trembling.

"I don't want Adam to see that I have passed you beyond," she gasped.

"We are existing but one minute in the future. Always Adam and I have

feared to pass too far beyond the sweetness of reality. But now, so that

Adam may not see us, we shall step five minutes into what-is-yet-to-be.

And even he, with all his power, cannot see into a future that is more

distant than that in which he exists."

She raised her humid lips to his. "Come, beloved."

Northwood kissed her. Again came the moment of confusion, of the awful

vacancy that was like death, and then he found himself and Eve in the

laboratory, following Adam and Athalia down a long corridor. Athalia was

crying and pleading frantically with Adam. Once she stopped and threw

herself at his feet in a gesture of dramatic supplication, arms

outflung, streaming eyes wide open with fear.

Adam stooped and lifted her gently and continued on his way, supporting

her against his side.

* * * * *

Eve dug her fingers into Northwood's arm. Horror contorted her face,

horror mixed with rage.

"My mind hears what he is saying, understands the vile plan he has made,

John Northwood. He is on his way to his laboratory to destroy not only

you and most of these in New Eden, but me as well. He wants only

Athalia."

Striding forward like an avenging goddess, she pulled Northwood after

her.

"Hurry!" she whispered. "Remember, you and I are five minutes in the

future, and Adam is only one. We are witnessing what will occur four

minutes from now. We yet have time to reach the laboratory before him

and be ready for him when he enters. And because he will have to go back

to Present Time to do his work of destruction, I will be able to destroy

him. Ah!"

Fierce joy burned in her flashing blue eyes, and her slender nostrils

quivered delicately. Northwood, peeping at her in horror, knew that no

mercy could be expected of her. And when she stopped at a certain door

and inserted a key, he remembered Athalia. What if she should enter with

Adam in Present Time?

* * * * *

They were inside Adam's laboratory, a huge apartment filled with queer

apparatus and cages of live animals. The room was a strange paradox.

Part of the equipment, the walls, and the floor was glistening with

newness, and part was moulding with extreme age. The powers of

disintegration that haunt a tropical forest seemed to be devouring

certain spots of the room. Here, in the midst of bright marble, was a

section of wall that seemed as old as the pyramids. The surface of the

stone had an appalling mouldiness, as though it had been lifted from an

ancient graveyard where it had lain in the festering ground for

unwholesome centuries.

Between cracks in this stained and decayed section of stone grew fetid

moss that quivered with the microscopic organisms that infest age-rotten

places. Sections of the flooring and woodwork also reeked with

mustiness. In one dark, webby corner of the room lay a pile of bleached

bones, still tinted with the ghastly grays and pinks of putrefaction.

Northwood, overwhelmingly nauseated, withdrew his eyes from the bones,

only to see, in another corner, a pile of worm-eaten clothing that lay

on the floor in the outline of a man.

Faint with the reek of ancient mustiness, Northwood retreated to the

door, dizzy and staggering.

"It sickens you," said Eve, "and it sickens me also, for death and decay

are not pleasant. Yet Nature, left to herself, reduces all to this.

Every grave that has yawned to receive its prey hides corruption no less

shocking. Nature's forces of creation and destruction forever work in

partnership. Never satisfied with her composition, she destroys and

starts again, building, building towards the ultimate of perfection.

Thus, it is natural that if Dr. Mundson isolated the Life Ray, Nature's

supreme force of compensation, isolation of the Death Ray should closely

follow. Adam, thirsting for power, has succeeded. A few sweeps of his

unholy ray of decomposition will undo all Dr. Mundson's work in this

valley and reduce it to a stinking holocaust of destruction. And the

time for his striking has come!"

She seized his face and drew it toward her. "Quick!" she said. "We'll

have to go back to the third dimension. I could leave you safe in the

fourth, but if anything should happen to me, you would be stranded

forever in future time."

She kissed his lips. In a moment, he was back in the old familiar world,

where right is right and left is left. Again the subtle change wrought

by Eve's magic lips had taken place.

* * * * *

Eve went to a machine standing in a corner of the room.

"Come here and get behind me, John Northwood. I want to test it before

he enters."

Northwood stood behind her shoulder.

"Now watch!" she ordered. "I shall turn it on one of those cages of

guinea pigs over there."

She swung the projector around, pointed it at the cage of small,

squealing animals, and threw a lever. Instantly a cone of black mephitis

shot forth, a loathsome, bituminous stream of putrefaction that reeked

of the grave and the cesspool, of the utmost reaches of decay before the

dust accepts the disintegrated atoms. The first touch of seething,

pitchy destruction brought screams of sudden agony from the guinea pigs,

but the screams were cut short as the little animals fell in shocking,

instant decay. The very cage which imprisoned them shriveled and

retreated from the hellish, devouring breath that struck its noisome rot

into the heart of the wood and the metal, reducing both to revolting

ruin.

Eve cut off the frightful power, and the black cone disappeared, leaving

the room putrid with its defilement.

"And Adam would do that to the world," she said, her blue eyes like

electric-shot icicles. "He would do it to you, John Northwood--and to

me!" Her full bosom strained under the passion beneath.

"Listen!" She raised her hand warningly. "He comes! The destroyer

comes!"

* * * * *

A hand was at the door. Eve reached for the lever, and, the same moment,

Northwood leaned over her imploringly.

"If Athalia is with him!" he gasped. "You will not harm her?"

A wild shriek at the door, a slight scuffle, and then the doorknob was

wrenched as though two were fighting over it.

"For God's sake, Eve!" implored Northwood. "Wait! Wait!"

"No! She shall die, too. You love her!"

Icy, cruel eyes cut into him, and a new-fleshed hand tried to push him

aside. The door was straining open. A beloved voice shrieked. "John!"

Eve and Northwood both leaped for the lever. Under her tender white

flesh she was as strong as a man. In the midst of the struggle, her red,

humid lips approached his--closer. Closer. Their merest pressure would

thrust him into Future Time, where the laboratory and all it contained

would be but a shadow, and where he would be helpless to interfere with

her terrible will.

He saw the door open and Adam stride into the room. Behind him, lying

prone in the hall where she had probably fainted, was Athalia. In a mad

burst of strength he touched the lever together with Eve.

The projector, belching forth its stinking breath of corruption swung in

a mad arc over the ceiling, over the walls--and then straight at Adam.

Then, quicker than thought, came the accident. Eve, attempting to throw

Northwood off, tripped, fell half over the machine, and, with a short

scream of despair, dropped into the black path of destruction.

* * * * *

Northwood paused, horrified. The Death Ray was pointed at an inner wall

of the room, which, even as he looked, crumbled and disappeared,

bringing down upon him dust more foul than any obscenity the bowels of

the earth might yield. In an instant the black cone ate through the

outer parts of the building, where crashing stone and screams that were

more horrible because of their shortness followed the ruin that swept

far into the fair reaches of the valley.

The paralyzing odor of decay took his breath, numbed his muscles, until,

of all that huge building, the wall behind him and one small section of

the room by the doorway alone remained whole. He was trying to nerve

himself to reach for the lever close to that quiet formless thing still

partly draped over the machine, when a faint sound in the door

electrified him. At first, he dared not look, but his own name, spoken

almost in a gasp, gave him courage.

Athalia lay on the floor, apparently untouched.

He jerked the lever violently before running to her, exultant with the

knowledge that his own efforts to keep the ray from the door had saved

her.

"And you're not hurt!" He gathered her close.

"John! I saw it get Adam." She pointed to a new mound of mouldy clothes

on the floor. "Oh, it is hideous for me to be so glad, but he was going

to destroy everything and everyone except me. He made the ray projector

for that one purpose."

Northwood looked over the pile of putrid ruins which a few minutes ago

had been a building. There was not a wall left intact.

"His intention is accomplished, Athalia," he said sadly. "Let's get out

before more stones fall."

* * * * *

In a moment they were in the open. An ominous stillness seemed to grip

the very air--the awful silence of the polar wastes which lay not far

beyond the mountains.

"How dark it is, John!" cried Athalia. "Dark and cold!"

"The sunshine projector!" gasped Northwood. "It must have been

destroyed. Look, dearest! The golden light has disappeared."

"And the warm air of the valley will lift immediately. That means a

polar blizzard." She shuddered and clung closer to him. "I've seen

Antarctic storms, John. They're death."

Northwood avoided her eyes. "There's the sun-ship. We'll give the ruins

the once over in case there are any survivors; then we'll save

ourselves."

Even a cursory examination of the mouldy piles of stone and dust

convinced them that there could be no survivors. The ruins looked as

though they had lain in those crumbling piles for centuries. Northwood,

smothering his repugnance, stepped among them--among the green, slimy

stones and the unspeakable revolting debris, staggering back and faint

and shocked when he came upon dust that was once human.

"God!" he groaned, hands over eyes. "We're alone, Athalia! Alone in a

charnal house. The laboratory housed the entire population, didn't it?"

"Yes. Needing no sleep nor food, we did not need houses. We all worked

here, under Dr. Mundson's generalship, and, lately under Adam's, like a

little band of soldiers fighting for a great cause."

"Let's go to the sun-ship, dearest."

"But Daddy Mundson was in the library," sobbed Athalia. "Let's look for

him a little longer."

* * * * *

Sudden remembrance came to Northwood. "No, Athalia! He left the library.

I saw him go down the jungle path several minutes before I and Eve went

to Adam's laboratory."

"Then he might be safe!" Her eyes danced. "He might have gone to the

sun-ship."

Shivering, she slumped against him. "Oh, John! I'm cold."

Her face was blue. Northwood jerked off his coat and wrapped it around

her, taking the intense cold against his unprotected shoulders. The low,

gray sky was rapidly darkening, and the feeble light of the sun could

scarcely pierce the clouds. It was disturbing to know that even the

summer temperature in the Antarctic was far below zero.

"Come, girl," said Northwood gravely. "Hurry! It's snowing."

They started to run down the road through the narrow strip of jungle.

The Death Ray had cut huge swathes in the tangle of trees and vines, and

now areas of heaped debris, livid with the colors of recent decay,

exhaled a mephitic humidity altogether alien to the snow that fell in

soft, slow flakes. Each hesitated to voice the new fear: had the

sun-ship been destroyed?

By the time they reached the open field, the snow stung their flesh like

sharp needles, but it was not yet thick enough to hide from them a

hideous fact.

The sun-ship was gone.

* * * * *

It might have occupied one of several black, foul areas on the green

grass, where the searching Death Ray had made the very soil putrefy, and

the rocks crumble into shocking dust.

Northwood snatched Athalia to him, too full of despair to speak. A

sudden terrific flurry of snow whirled around them, and they were almost

blown from their feet by the icy wind that tore over the unprotected

field.

"It won't be long," said Athalia faintly. "Freezing doesn't hurt, John,

dear."

"It isn't fair, Athalia! There never would have been such a marriage as

ours. Dr. Mundson searched the world to bring us together."

"For scientific experiment!" she sobbed. "I'd rather die, John. I want

an old-fashioned home, a Black Age family. I want to grow old with you

and leave the earth to my children. Or else I want to die here now under

the kind, white blanket the snow is already spreading over us." She

drooped in his arms.

Clinging together, they stood in the howling wind, looking at each other

hungrily, as though they would snatch from death this one last picture

of the other.

Northwood's freezing lips translated some of the futile words that

crowded against them. "I love you because you are not perfect. I hate

perfection!"

"Yes. Perfection is the only hopeless state, John. That is why Adam

wanted to destroy, so that he might build again."

They were sitting in the snow now, for they were very tired. The storm

began whistling louder, as though it were only a few feet above their

heads.

"That sounds almost like the sun-ship," said Athalia drowsily.

"It's only the wind. Hold your face down so it won't strike your flesh

so cruelly."

"I'm not suffering. I'm getting warm again." She smiled at him sleepily.

* * * * *

Little icicles began to form on their clothing, and the powdery snow

frosted their uncovered hair.

Suddenly came a familiar voice: "_Ach Gott!_"

Dr. Mundson stood before them, covered with snow until he looked like a

polar bear.

"Get up!" he shouted. "Quick! To the sun-ship!"

He seized Athalia and jerked her to her feet. She looked at him sleepily

for a moment, and then threw herself at him and hugged him frantically.

"You're not dead?"

Taking each by the arm, he half dragged them to the sun-ship, which had

landed only a few feet away. In a few minutes he had hot brandy for

them.

While they sipped greedily, he talked, between working the sun-ship's

controls.

"No, I wouldn't say it was a lucky moment that drew me to the sun-ship.

When I saw Eve trying to charm John, I had what you American slangists

call a hunch, which sent me to the sun-ship to get it off the ground so

that Adam couldn't commandeer it. And what is a hunch but a mental

penetration into the Fourth Dimension?" For a long moment, he brooded,

absent-minded. "I was in the air when the black ray, which I suppose is

Adam's deviltry, began to destroy everything it touched. From a safe

elevation I saw it wreck all my work." A sudden spasm crossed his face.

"I've flown over the entire valley. We're the only survivors--thank

God!"

"And so at last you confess that it is not well to tamper with human

life?" Northwood, warmed with hot brandy, was his old self again.

"Oh, I have not altogether wasted my efforts. I went to elaborate pains

to bring together a perfect man and a perfect woman of what Adam called

our Black Age." He smiled at them whimsically.

"And who can say to what extent you have thus furthered natural

evolution?" Northwood slipped his arm around Athalia. "Our children

might be more than geniuses, Doctor!"

Dr. Mundson nodded his huge, shaggy head gravely.

"The true instinct of a Creature of the Light," he declared.

* * * * *

_Remember_

ASTOUNDING STORIES

_Appears on Newsstands_

THE FIRST THURSDAY IN EACH MONTH

* * * * *

Into Space

_By Sterner St. Paul_

What was the extraordinary connection between Dr. Livermore's

sudden disappearance and the coming of a new satellite to the

Earth?

[Illustration: _A loud hum filled the air, and suddenly the projectile

rose, gaining speed rapidly._]

Many of my readers will remember the mysterious radio messages which

were heard by both amateur and professional short wave operators during

the nights of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of last September, and

even more will remember the astounding discovery made by Professor

Montescue of the Lick Observatory on the night of September

twenty-fifth. At the time, some inspired writers tried to connect the

two events, maintaining that the discovery of the fact that the earth

had a new satellite coincident with the receipt of the mysterious

messages was evidence that the new planetoid was inhabited and that the

messages were attempts on the part of the inhabitants to communicate

with us.

The fact that the messages were on a lower wave length than any receiver

then in existence could receive with any degree of clarity, and the

additional fact that they appeared to come from an immense distance lent

a certain air of plausibility to these ebullitions in the Sunday

magazine sections. For some weeks the feature writers harped on the

subject, but the hurried construction of new receivers which would work

on a lower wave length yielded no results, and the solemn pronouncements

of astronomers to the effect that the new celestial body could by no

possibility have an atmosphere on account of its small size finally put

an end to the talk. So the matter lapsed into oblivion.

While quite a few people will remember the two events I have noted, I

doubt whether there are five hundred people alive who will remember

anything at all about the disappearance of Dr. Livermore of the

University of Calvada on September twenty-third. He was a man of some

local prominence, but he had no more than a local fame, and few papers

outside of California even noted the event in their columns. I do not

think that anyone ever tried to connect up his disappearance with the

radio messages or the discovery of the new earthly satellite; yet the

three events were closely bound up together, and but for the Doctor's

disappearance, the other two would never have happened.

* * * * *

Dr. Livermore taught physics at Calvada, or at least he taught the

subject when he remembered that he had a class and felt like teaching.

His students never knew whether he would appear at class or not; but he

always passed everyone who took his courses and so, of course, they

were always crowded. The University authorities used to remonstrate with

him, but his ability as a research worker was so well known and

recognized that he was allowed to go about as he pleased. He was a

bachelor who lived alone and who had no interests in life, so far as

anyone knew, other than his work.

I first made contact with him when I was a freshman at Calvada, and for

some unknown reason he took a liking to me. My father had insisted that

I follow in his footsteps as an electrical engineer; as he was paying my

bills, I had to make a show at studying engineering while I

clandestinely pursued my hobby, literature. Dr. Livermore's courses were

the easiest in the school and they counted as science, so I regularly

registered for them, cut them, and attended a class in literature as an

auditor. The Doctor used to meet me on the campus and laughingly scold

me for my absence, but he was really in sympathy with my ambition and he

regularly gave me a passing mark and my units of credit without regard

to my attendance, or, rather, lack of it.

When I graduated from Calvada I was theoretically an electrical

engineer. Practically I had a pretty good knowledge of contemporary

literature and knew almost nothing about my so-called profession. I

stalled around Dad's office for a few months until I landed a job as a

cub reporter on the San Francisco _Graphic_ and then I quit him cold.

When the storm blew over, Dad admitted that you couldn't make a silk

purse out of a sow's ear and agreed with a grunt to my new line of work.

He said that I would probably be a better reporter than an engineer

because I couldn't by any possibility be a worse one, and let it go at

that. However, all this has nothing to do with the story. It just

explains how I came to be acquainted with Dr. Livermore, in the first

place, and why he sent for me on September twenty-second, in the second

place.

* * * * *

The morning of the twenty-second the City Editor called me in and asked

me if I knew "Old Liverpills."

"He says that he has a good story ready to break but he won't talk to

anyone but you," went on Barnes. "I offered to send out a good man, for

when Old Liverpills starts a story it ought to be good, but all I got

was a high powered bawling out. He said that he would talk to you or no

one and would just as soon talk to no one as to me any longer. Then he

hung up. You'd better take a run out to Calvada and see what he has to

say. I can have a good man rewrite your drivel when you get back."

I was more or less used to that sort of talk from Barnes so I paid no

attention to it. I drove my flivver down to Calvada and asked for the

Doctor.

"Dr. Livermore?" said the bursar. "Why, he hasn't been around here for

the last ten months. This is his sabbatical year and he is spending it

on a ranch he owns up at Hat Creek, near Mount Lassen. You'll have to go

there if you want to see him."

I knew better than to report back to Barnes without the story, so there

was nothing to it but to drive up to Hat Creek, and a long, hard drive

it was. I made Redding late that night; the next day I drove on to

Burney and asked for directions to the Doctor's ranch.

"So you're going up to Doc Livermore's, are you?" asked the Postmaster,

my informant. "Have you got an invitation?"

I assured him that I had.

"It's a good thing," he replied, "because he don't allow anyone on his

place without one. I'd like to go up there myself and see what's going

on, but I don't want to get shot at like old Pete Johnson did when he

tried to drop in on the Doc and pay him a little call. There's something

mighty funny going on up there."

* * * * *

Naturally I tried to find out what was going on but evidently the

Postmaster, who was also the express agent, didn't know. All he could

tell me was that a "lot of junk" had come for the Doctor by express and

that a lot more had been hauled in by truck from Redding.

"What kind of junk?" I asked him.

"Almost everything, Bub: sheet steel, machinery, batteries, cases of

glass, and Lord knows what all. It's been going on ever since he landed

there. He has a bunch of Indians working for him and he don't let a

white man on the place."

Forced to be satisfied with this meager information, I started old

Lizzie and lit out for the ranch. After I had turned off the main trail

I met no one until the ranch house was in sight. As I rounded a bend in

the road which brought me in sight of the building, I was forced to put

on my brakes at top speed to avoid running into a chain which was

stretched across the road. An Indian armed with a Winchester rifle stood

behind it, and when I stopped he came up and asked my business.

"My business is with Dr. Livermore," I said tartly.

"You got letter?" he inquired.

"No," I answered.

"No ketchum letter, no ketchum Doctor," he replied, and walked stolidly

back to his post.

"This is absurd," I shouted, and drove Lizzie up to the chain. I saw

that it was merely hooked to a ring at the end, and I climbed out and

started to take it down. A thirty-thirty bullet embedded itself in the

post an inch or two from my head, and I changed my mind about taking

down that chain.

"No ketchum letter, no ketchum Doctor," said the Indian laconically as

he pumped another shell into his gun.

* * * * *

I was balked, until I noticed a pair of telephone wires running from the

house to the tree to which one end of the chain was fastened.

"Is that a telephone to the house?" I demanded.

The Indian grunted an assent.

"Dr. Livermore telephoned me to come and see him," I said. "Can't I call

him up and see if he still wants to see me?"

The Indian debated the question with himself for a minute and then

nodded a doubtful assent. I cranked the old coffee mill type of

telephone which I found, and presently heard the voice of Dr. Livermore.

"This is Tom Faber, Doctor," I said. "The _Graphic_ sent me up to get a

story from you, but there's an Indian here who started to murder me when

I tried to get past your barricade."

"Good for him," chuckled the Doctor. "I heard the shot, but didn't know

that he was shooting at you. Tell him to talk to me."

The Indian took the telephone at my bidding and listened for a minute.

"You go in," he agreed when he hung up the receiver.

He took down the chain and I drove on up to the house, to find the

Doctor waiting for me on the veranda.

"Hello, Tom," he greeted me heartily. "So you had trouble with my guard,

did you?"

"I nearly got murdered," I said ruefully.

"I expect that Joe would have drilled you if you had tried to force your

way in," he remarked cheerfully. "I forgot to tell him that you were

coming to-day. I told him you would be here yesterday, but yesterday

isn't to-day to that Indian. I wasn't sure you would get here at all, in

point of fact, for I didn't know whether that old fool I talked to in

your office would send you or some one else. If anyone else had been

sent, he would have never got by Joe, I can tell you. Come in. Where's

your bag?"

"I haven't one," I replied. "I went to Calvada yesterday to see you, and

didn't know until I got there that you were up here."

The Doctor chuckled.

"I guess I forgot to tell where I was," he said. "That man I talked to

got me so mad that I hung up on him before I told him. It doesn't

matter, though. I can dig you up a new toothbrush, and I guess you can

make out with that. Come in."

* * * * *

I followed him into the house, and he showed me a room fitted with a

crude bunk, a washstand, a bowl and a pitcher.

"You won't have many luxuries here, Tom," he said, "but you won't need

to stay here for more than a few days. My work is done: I am ready to

start. In fact, I would have started yesterday instead of to-day, had

you arrived. Now don't ask any questions; it's nearly lunch time."

"What's the story, Doctor?" I asked after lunch as I puffed one of his

excellent cigars. "And why did you pick me to tell it to?"

"For several reasons," he replied, ignoring my first question. "In the

first place, I like you and I think that you can keep your mouth shut

until you are told to open it. In the second place, I have always found

that you had the gift of vision or imagination and have the ability to

believe. In the third place, you are the only man I know who had the

literary ability to write up a good story and at the same time has the

scientific background to grasp what it is all about. Understand that

unless I have your promise not to write this story until I tell you that

you can, not a word will I tell you."

I reflected for a moment. The _Graphic_ would expect the story when I

got back, but on the other hand I knew that unless I gave the desired

promise, the Doctor wouldn't talk.

"All right," I assented, "I'll promise."

"Good!" he replied. "In that case, I'll tell you all about it. No doubt

you, like the rest of the world, think that I'm crazy?"

"Why, not at all," I stammered. In point of fact, I had often harbored

such a suspicion.

"Oh, that's all right," he went on cheerfully. "I _am_ crazy, crazy as a

loon, which, by the way, is a highly sensible bird with a well balanced

mentality. There is no doubt that I am crazy, but my craziness is not of

the usual type. Mine is the insanity of genius."

* * * * *

He looked at me sharply as he spoke, but long sessions at poker in the

San Francisco Press Club had taught me how to control my facial muscles,

and I never batted an eye. He seemed satisfied, and went on.

"From your college work you are familiar with the laws of magnetism," he

said. "Perhaps, considering just what your college career really was, I

might better say that you are supposed to be familiar with them."

I joined with him in his laughter.

"It won't require a very deep knowledge to follow the thread of my

argument," he went on. "You know, of course, that the force of magnetic

attraction is inversely proportional to the square of the distances

separating the magnet and the attracted particles, and also that each

magnetized particle had two poles, a positive and a negative pole, or a

north pole and a south pole, as they are usually called?"

I nodded.

"Consider for a moment that the laws of magnetism, insofar as concerns

the relation between distance and power of attraction, are exactly

matched by the laws of gravitation."

"But there the similarity between the two forces ends," I interrupted.

"But there the similarity does _not_ end," he said sharply. "That is the

crux of the discovery which I have made: that magnetism and gravity are

one and the same, or, rather, that the two are separate, but similar

manifestations of one force. The parallel between the two grows closer

with each succeeding experiment. You know, for example, that each

magnetized particle has two poles. Similarly each gravitized particle,

to coin a new word, had two poles, one positive and one negative. Every

particle on the earth is so oriented that the negative poles point

toward the positive center of the earth. This is what causes the

commonly known phenomena of gravity or weight."

"I can prove the fallacy of that in a moment," I retorted.

"There are none so blind as those who will not see," he quoted with an

icy smile. "I can probably predict your puerile argument, but go ahead

and present it."

* * * * *

"If two magnets are placed so that the north pole of one is in

juxtaposition to the south pole of the other, they attract one another,"

I said. "If the position of the magnets be reversed so that the two

similar poles are opposite, they will repel. If your theory were

correct, a man standing on his head would fall off the earth."

"Exactly what I expected," he replied. "Now let me ask you a question.

Have you ever seen a small bar magnet placed within the field of

attraction of a large electromagnet? Of course you have, and you have

noticed that, when the north pole of the bar magnet was pointed toward

the electromagnet, the bar was attracted. However, when the bar was

reversed and the south pole pointed toward the electromagnet, the bar

was still attracted. You doubtless remember that experiment."

"But in that case the magnetism of the electromagnet was so large that

the polarity of the small magnet was reversed!" I cried.

"Exactly, and the field of gravity of the earth is so great compared to

the gravity of a man that when he stands on his head, his polarity is

instantly reversed."

I nodded. His explanation was too logical for me to pick a flaw in it.

"If that same bar magnet were held in the field of the electromagnet

with its north pole pointed toward the magnet and then, by the action of

some outside force of sufficient power, its polarity were reversed, the

bar would be repelled. If the magnetism were neutralized and held

exactly neutral, it would be neither repelled nor attracted, but would

act only as the force of gravity impelled it. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly," I assented.

"That, then, paves the way for what I have to tell you. I have

developed an electrical method of neutralizing the gravity of a body

while it is within the field of the earth, and also, by a slight

extension, a method of entirely reversing its polarity."

* * * * *

I nodded calmly.

"Do you realize what this means?" he cried.

"No," I replied, puzzled by his great excitement.

"Man alive," he cried, "it means that the problem of aerial flight is

entirely revolutionized, and that the era of interplanetary travel is at

hand! Suppose that I construct an airship and then render it neutral to

gravity. It would weigh nothing, _absolutely nothing_! The tiniest

propeller would drive it at almost incalculable speed with a minimum

consumption of power, for the only resistance to its motion would be the

resistance of the air. If I were to reverse the polarity, it would be

repelled from the earth with the same force with which it is now

attracted, and it would rise with the same acceleration as a body falls

toward the earth. It would travel to the moon in two hours and forty

minutes."

"Air resistance would--"

"There is no air a few miles from the earth. Of course, I do not mean

that such a craft would take off from the earth and land on the moon

three hours later. There are two things which would interfere with that.

One is the fact that the propelling force, the gravity of the earth,

would diminish as the square of the distance from the center of the

earth, and the other is that when the band of neutral attraction, or

rather repulsion, between the earth and the moon had been reached, it

would be necessary to decelerate so as to avoid a smash on landing. I

have been over the whole thing and I find that it would take twenty-nine

hours and fifty-two minutes to make the whole trip. The entire thing is

perfectly possible. In fact, I have asked you here to witness and report

the first interplanetary trip to be made."

"Have you constructed such a device?" I cried.

"My space ship is finished and ready for your inspection," he replied.

"If you will come with me, I will show it to you."

* * * * *

Hardly knowing what to believe, I followed him from the house and to a

huge barnlike structure, over a hundred feet high, which stood nearby.

He opened the door and switched on a light, and there before me stood

what looked at first glance to be a huge artillery shell, but of a size

larger than any ever made. It was constructed of sheet steel, and while

the lower part was solid, the upper sections had huge glass windows set

in them. On the point was a mushroom shaped protuberance. It measured

perhaps fifty feet in diameter and was one hundred and forty feet high,

the Doctor informed me. A ladder led from the floor to a door about

fifty feet from the ground.

I followed the Doctor up the ladder and into the space flier. The door

led us into a comfortable living room through a double door arrangement.

"The whole hull beneath us," explained the Doctor, "is filled with

batteries and machinery except for a space in the center, where a shaft

leads to a glass window in the bottom so that I can see behind me, so to

speak. The space above is filled with storerooms and the air purifying

apparatus. On this level is my bedroom, kitchen, and other living rooms,

together with a laboratory and an observatory. There is a central

control room located on an upper level, but it need seldom be entered,

for the craft can be controlled by a system of relays from this room or

from any other room in the ship. I suppose that you are more or less

familiar with imaginative stories of interplanetary travel?"

* * * * *

I nodded an assent.

"In that case there is no use in going over the details of the air

purifying and such matters," he said. "The story writers have worked

out all that sort of thing in great detail, and there is nothing novel

in my arrangements. I carry food and water for six months and air enough

for two months by constant renovating. Have you any question you wish to

ask?"

"One objection I have seen frequently raised to the idea of

interplanetary travel is that the human body could not stand the rapid

acceleration which would be necessary to attain speed enough to ever get

anywhere. How do you overcome this?"

"My dear boy, who knows what the human body can stand? When the

locomotive was first invented learned scientists predicted that the

limit of speed was thirty miles an hour, as the human body could not

stand a higher speed. To-day the human body stands a speed of three

hundred and sixty miles an hour without ill effects. At any rate, on my

first trip I intend to take no chances. We know that the body can stand

an acceleration of thirty-two feet per second without trouble. That is

the rate of acceleration due to gravity and is the rate at which a body

increases speed when it falls. This is the acceleration which I will

use.

"Remember that the space traveled by a falling body in a vacuum is equal

to one half the acceleration multiplied by the square of the elapsed

time. The moon, to which I intend to make my first trip, is only 280,000

miles, or 1,478,400,000 feet, from us. With an acceleration of

thirty-two feet per second, I would pass the moon two hours and forty

minutes after leaving the earth. If I later take another trip, say to

Mars, I will have to find a means of increasing my acceleration,

possibly by the use of the rocket principle. Then will be time enough to

worry about what my body will stand."

A short calculation verified the figures the Doctor had given me, and I

stood convinced.

"Are you really going?" I asked.

"Most decidedly. To repeat, I would have started yesterday, had you

arrived. As it is, I am ready to start at once. We will go back to the

house for a few minutes while I show you the location of an excellent

telescope through which you may watch my progress, and instruct you in

the use of an ultra-short-wave receiver which I am confident will pierce

the Heaviside layer. With this I will keep in communication with you,

although I have made no arrangements for you to send messages to me on

this trip. I intend to go to the moon and land. I will take atmosphere

samples through an air port and, if there is an atmosphere which will

support life, I will step out on the surface. If there is not, I will

return to the earth."

* * * * *

A few minutes was enough for me to grasp the simple manipulations which

I would have to perform, and I followed him again to the space flier.

"How are you going to get it out?" I asked.

"Watch," he said.

He worked some levers and the roof of the barn folded back, leaving the

way clear for the departure of the huge projectile. I followed him

inside and he climbed the ladder.

"When I shut the door, go back to the house and test the radio," he

directed.

The door clanged shut and I hastened into the house. His voice came

plainly enough. I went back to the flier and waved him a final farewell,

which he acknowledged through a window; then I returned to the receiver.

A loud hum filled the air, and suddenly the projectile rose and flew out

through the open roof, gaining speed rapidly until it was a mere speck

in the sky. It vanished. I had no trouble in picking him up with the

telescope. In fact, I could see the Doctor through one of the windows.

"I have passed beyond the range of the atmosphere, Tom," came his voice

over the receiver, "and I find that everything is going exactly as it

should. I feel no discomfort, and my only regret is that I did not

install a transmitter in the house so that you could talk to me; but

there is no real necessity for it. I am going to make some observations

now, but I will call you again with a report of progress in

half-an-hour."

* * * * *

For the rest of the afternoon and all of that night I received his

messages regularly, but with the coming of daylight they began to fade.

By nine o'clock I could get only a word here and there. By noon I could

hear nothing. I went to sleep hoping that the night would bring better

reception, nor was I disappointed. About eight o'clock I received a

message, rather faintly, but none the less distinctly.

"I regret more than ever that I did not install a transmitter so that I

could learn from you whether you are receiving my messages," his voice

said faintly. "I have no idea of whether you can hear me or not, but I

will keep on repeating this message every hour while my battery holds

out. It is now thirty hours since I left the earth and I should be on

the moon, according to my calculations. But I am not, and never will be.

I am caught at the neutral point where the gravity of the earth and the

moon are exactly equal.

"I had relied on my momentum to carry me over this point. Once over it,

I expected to reverse my polarity and fall on the moon. My momentum did

not do so. If I keep my polarity as it was when left the earth, both the

earth and the moon repel me. If I reverse it, they both attract me, and

again I cannot move. If I had equipped my space flier with a rocket so

that I could move a few miles, or even a few feet, from the dead line, I

could proceed, but I did not do so, and I cannot move forward or back.

Apparently I am doomed to stay here until my air gives out. Then my

body, entombed in my space ship, will endlessly circle the earth as a

satellite until the end of time. There is no hope for me, for long

before a duplicate of my device equipped with rockets could be

constructed and come to my rescue, my air would be exhausted. Good-by,

Tom. You may write your story as soon as you wish. I will repeat my

message in one hour. Good-by!"

At nine and at ten o'clock the message was repeated. At eleven it

started again but after a few sentences the sound suddenly ceased and

the receiver went dead. I thought that the fault was with the receiver

and I toiled feverishly the rest of the night, but without result. I

learned later that the messages heard all over the world ceased at the

same hour.

The next morning Professor Montescue announced his discovery of the

world's new satellite.

* * * * *

_Coming_--

MURDER MADNESS

_An Extraordinary Four-Part Novel_

_By_ MURRAY LEINSTER

* * * * *

The Beetle Horde

_By Victor Rousseau_

Bullets, shrapnel, shell--nothing can stop the trillions of

famished, man-sized beetles which, led by a madman, sweep down

over the human race.

[Illustration: _The hideous monsters leaped into the cockpits and began

their abominable meal._]

CONCLUSION

Tommy Travers and James Dodd, of the Travers Antarctic Expedition, crash

in their plane somewhere near the South Pole, and are seized by a swarm

of man-sized beetles. They are carried down to Submundia, a world under

the earth's crust, where the beetles have developed their civilization

to an amazing point, using a wretched race of degenerated humans, whom

they breed as cattle, for food.

The insect horde is ruled by a human from the outside world--a

drug-doped madman. Dodd recognizes this man as Bram, the archaeologist

who had been lost years before at the Pole and given up for dead by a

world he had hated because it refused to accept his radical scientific

theories. His fiendish mind now plans the horrible revenge of leading

his unconquerable horde of monster insects forth to ravage the world,

destroy the human race and establish a new era--the era of the insect.

The world has to be warned of the impending doom. The two, with Haidia,

a girl of Submundia, escape, and pass through menacing dangers to within

two miles of the exit. There, suddenly, Tommy sees towering over him a

creature that turns his blood cold--a gigantic praying mantis. Before he

has time to act, the monster springs at them!

CHAPTER VII

_Through the Inferno_

Fortunately, the monster miscalculated its leap. The huge legs, whirling

through the air, came within a few inches of Tommy's head, but passed

over him, and the mantis plunged into the stream. Instantly the water

was alive with leaping things with faces of such grotesque horror that

Tommy sat paralyzed in his rocking shell, unable to avert his eyes.

Things no more than a foot or two in length, to judge from the slender,

eel-like bodies that leaped into the air, but things with catfish heads

and tentacles, and eyes waving on stalks; things with clawlike

appendages to their ventral fins, and mouths that widened to fearful

size, so that the whole head seemed to disappear above them, disclosing

fangs like wolves'. Instantly the water was churned into phosphorescent

fire as they precipitated themselves upon the struggling mantis, whose

enormous form, extending halfway from shore to shore, was covered with

the river monsters, gnawing, rending, tearing.

Luckily the struggles of the dying monster carried it downstream instead

of up. In a few moments the immediate danger was past. And suddenly

Haidia awoke, sat up.

"Where are we?" she cried. "Oh, I can see! I can see! Something has

burned away from my eyes! I know this place. A wise man of my people

once came here, and returned to tell of it. We must go on. Soon we shall

be safe on the wide river. But there is another way that leads to here.

We must go on! We must go on!"

Even as she spoke they heard the distant rasping of the beetle-legs. And

before the shells were well in mid-current they saw the beetle horde

coming round the bend; in the front of them Bram, reclining on his shell

couch, and drawn by the eight trained beetles.

* * * * *

Bram saw the fugitives, and a roar of ironic mirth broke from his lips,

resounding high above the strident rasping of the beetle-legs, and

roaring over the marshes.

"I've got you, Dodd and Travers," he bellowed, as the trained beetles

hovered above the shell canoes. "You thought you were clever, but you're

at my mercy. Now's your last chance, Dodd. I'll save you still if you'll

submit to me, if you'll admit that there were fossil monotremes before

the pleistocene epoch. Come, it's so simple! Say it after me: 'The

marsupial lion--'"

"You go to hell!" yelled Dodd, nearly upsetting his shell as he shook

his fist at his enemy.

High above the rasping sound came Bram's shrill whistle. Just audible to

human ears, though probably sounding like the roar of thunder to those

of the beetles, there was no need to wonder what it was.

It was the call to slaughter.

Like a black cloud the beetles shot forward. A serried phalanx covered

the two men and the girl, hovering a few feet overhead, the long legs

dangling to within arm's reach. And a terrible cry of fear broke from

Haidia's lips.

Suddenly Tommy remembered Bram's cigarette-lighter. He pulled it from

his pocket and ignited it.

Small as the flame was, it was actinically much more powerful than the

brighter phosphorescence of the fungi behind them. The beetle-cloud

overhead parted. The strident sound was broken into a confused buzzing

as the terrified, blinded beetles plopped into the stream.

None of them, fortunately, fell into either of the three shells, but the

mass of struggling monsters in the water was hardly less formidable to

the safety of the occupants than that menacing cloud overhead.

"Get clear!" Tommy yelled to Dodd, trying to help the shell along with

his hands.

* * * * *

He heard Bram's cry of baffled rage, and, looking backward, could not

refrain from a laugh of triumph. Bram's trained steeds had taken fright

and overset him. Bram had fallen into the red mud beside the stream,

from which he was struggling up, plastered from head to feet, and

shaking his fists and evidently cursing, though his words could not be

heard.

"How about your marsupial lion now, Bram?" yelled Dodd. "No monotremes

before the pleistocene! D'you get that? That's my slogan now and for

ever more!"

Bram shrieked and raved, and seemed to be inciting the beetles to a

renewed assault. The air was still thick with them, but Tommy was waving

the cigarette-lighter in a flaming arc, which cleared the way for them.

Then suddenly came disaster. The flame went out! Tommy closed the

lighter with a snap and opened it. In vain. In his excitement he must

have spilled all the contents, for it would not catch.

Bram saw and yelled derision. The beetle-cloud was thickening. Tommy,

now abreast of his companions on the widening stream, saw the imminent

end.

* * * * *

And then once more fate intervened. For, leaping through the air out of

the places where they had lain concealed, six mantises launched

themselves at their beetle prey.

Those awful bounds of the long-legged monsters, the scourges of the

insect world, carried them clear from one bank to the other--fortunately

for the occupants of the shells. In an instant the beetle-cloud

dissolved. And it had all happened in a few seconds. Before Dodd or

Tommy had quite taken in the situation, the mantises, each carrying a

victim in its grooved legs, had vanished like the beetles. There was no

sign of Bram. The three were alone upon the face of the stream, which

went swirling upward into renewed darkness.

Tommy saw Dodd bend toward Haidia as she lay on her shell couch. He

heard the sound of a noisy kiss. And he lay back in the hollow of his

shell, with the feeling that nothing that could happen in the future

could be worse than what they had passed through.

* * * * *

Days went by, days when the sense of dawning freedom filled their hearts

with hope. Haidia told Dodd and Tommy that, according to the legends of

her people, the river ran into the world from which they had been driven

by the floods, ages before.

There had been no further signs of Bram or the beetle horde, and Dodd

and Tommy surmised that it had been disorganized by the attack of the

mantises, and that Bram was engaged in regaining his control over it.

But neither of them believed that the respite would be a long one, and

for that reason they rested ashore only for the briefest intervals, just

long enough to snatch a little sleep, and to eat some of the shrimps

that Haidia was adept at finding--or to pull some juicy fruit

surreptitiously from a tree.

Incidents there were, nevertheless, during those days. For hours their

shells were followed by a school of the luminous river monsters, which,

nevertheless, made no attempt to attack them. And once, hearing a cry

from Haidia, as she was gathering shrimps, Dodd ran forward to see her

battling furiously with a luminous scorpion, eight feet in length, that

had sprung at her from its lurking place behind a pear shrub.

* * * * *

Dodd succeeded in stunning and dispatching the monster without suffering

any injury from it, but the strain of the period was beginning to tell

on all of them. Worst of all, they seemed to have left all the luminous

vegetation behind them, and were entering a region of almost total

darkness, in which Haidia had to be their eyes.

* * * * *

Something had happened to the girl's sight in the journey over the

petrol spring. As a matter of fact, the third, or nictitating membrane,

which the humans of Submundia possessed, in common with birds, had been

burned away. Haidia could see as well as ever in the dark, but she could

bear more light than formerly as well. Unobtrusively she assumed command

of the party. She anticipated their wants, dug shrimps in the darkness,

and fed Tommy and Dodd with her own hands.

"God, what a girl!" breathed Dodd to his friend. "I've always had the

reputation of being a woman-hater, Tommy, but once I get that girl to

civilization I'm going to take her to the nearest Little Church Around

the Corner in record time."

"I wish you luck, old man, I'm sure," answered Tommy. Dodd's words did

not seem strange to him. Civilization was growing very remote to him,

and Broadway seemed like a memory of some previous incarnation.

The river was growing narrower again, and swifter, too. On the last day,

or night, of their journey--though they did not know that it was to be

their last--it swirled so fiercely that it threatened every moment to

overset their beetle-shells. Suddenly Tommy began to feel giddy. He

gripped the side of his shell with his hand.

"Tommy, we're going round!" shouted Dodd in front of him.

There was no longer any doubt of it. The shells were revolving in a

vortex of rushing, foaming water.

"Haidia!" they shouted.

The girl's voice came back thickly across the roaring torrent. The

circles grew smaller. Tommy knew that he was being sucked nearer and

nearer to the edge of some terrific whirlpool in that inky blackness.

Now he could no longer hear Dodd's shouts, and the shell was tipping so

that he could feel the water rushing along the edge of it. But for the

exercise of centrifugal force he would have been flung from his perilous

seat, for he was leaning inward at an angle of forty-five degrees.

* * * * *

Then suddenly his progress was arrested. He felt the shell being drawn

to the shore. He leaped out, and Haidia's strong hands dragged the shell

out of the torrent, while Tommy sank down, gasping.

"What's the matter?" he heard Dodd demanding.

"There is no more river," said Haidia calmly. "It goes into a hole in

the ground. So much I have heard from the wise men of my people. They

say that it is near such a place that they fled from the flood in years

gone by."

"Then we're near safety," shouted Tommy. "That river must emerge as a

stream somewhere in the upper world, Dodd. I wonder where the road

lies."

"There is a road here," came Haidia's calm voice. "Let us put on our

shells again, since who knows whether there may not be beetles here."

"Did you ever see such a girl as that?" demanded Dodd ecstatically.

"First she saves our lives, and then she thinks of everything. Good

lord, she'll remember my meals, and to wind my watch for me, and--and--"

But Haidia's voice, some distance ahead, interrupted Dodd's soliloquy,

and, hoisting the beetle-shells upon their backs, they started along the

rough trail that they could feel with their feet over the stony ground.

It was still as dark as pitch, but soon they found themselves traveling

up a sunken way that was evidently a dry watercourse. And now and again

Haidia's reassuring voice would come from in front of them.

* * * * *

The road grew steeper. There could no longer be any doubt that they were

ascending toward the surface of the earth. But even the weight of the

beetle-shells and the steepness could not account for the feeling of

intense weakness that took possession of them. Time and again they

stopped, panting.

"We must be very near the surface, Dodd," said Tommy. "We've surely

passed the center of gravity. That's what makes it so difficult."

"Come on," Haidia said in her quiet voice, stretching out her hand

through the darkness. And for very shame they had to follow her.

On and on, hour after hour, up the steep ascent, resting only long

enough to make them realize their utter fatigue. On because Haidia was

leading them, and because in the belief that they were about to leave

that awful land behind them their desires lent new strength to their

limbs continuously.

Suddenly Haidia uttered a fearful cry. Her ears had caught what became

apparent to Dodd and Jimmy several seconds later.

Far down in the hollow of the earth, increased by the echoes that came

rumbling up, they heard the distant, strident rasp of the beetle swarm.

Then it was Dodd's turn to support Haidia and whisper consolation in her

ears. No thought of resting now. If they were to be overwhelmed at last

by the monsters, they meant to be overwhelmed in the upper air.

* * * * *

It was growing insufferably hot. Blasts of air, as if from a furnace,

began to rush up and down past them. And the trail was growing steeper

still, and slippery as glass.

"What is it, Jim?" Tommy panted, as Dodd, leaving Haidia for a moment,

came back to him.

"I'd say lava," Dodd answered. "If only one could see something! I don't

know how she finds her way. My impression is that we are coming out

through the interior of an extinct volcano."

"But where are there volcanoes in the south polar regions?" inquired

Tommy.

"There are Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, in South Victoria Land, active

volcanoes discovered by Sir James Ross in 1841, and again by

Borchgrevink, in 1899. If that's where we're coming out--well, Tommy,

we're doomed, because it's the heart of the polar continent. We might as

well turn back."

"But we won't turn back," said Tommy. "I'm damned if we do."

"We're damned if we don't," said Dodd.

"Come along please!" sang Haidia's voice high up the slope.

They struggled on. And now a faint luminosity was beginning to penetrate

that infernal darkness. The rasping of the beetle-legs, too, was no

longer audible. Perhaps they had thrown Bram off their track! Perhaps in

the darkness he had not known which way they had gone after leaving the

whirlpool!

That thought encouraged them to a last effort. They pushed their

flagging limbs up, upward through an inferno of heated air. Suddenly

Dodd uttered a yell and pointed upward.

"God!" ejaculated Tommy. Then he seized Dodd in his arms and nearly

crushed him. For high above them, a pin-point in the black void, they

saw--a star!

They were almost at the earth's surface!

One more effort, and suddenly the ground seemed to give beneath them.

They breathed the outer air, and went sliding down a chute of sand, and

stopped, half buried, at the bottom.