"That you are a prisoner in a sub-atomic world."
Talbot now realized with startling clearness what had happened to him.
When he had fallen into the crypt the weird birds had directly placed
him in the cabinet and transported him to their own world. In other
words, he and Reubens and everything he saw about him were infinitely
small creatures in an atom-world. He and the Professor were trapped!
And when Manuel blew up the only means of return....
"How long have I been here?" Talbot asked hoarsely.
"Five minutes at the most."
Then, at the shortest, the way to earth would exist twenty minutes
longer. Twenty minutes.... Incoherently he told Reubens of what had
happened in Arizona since his disappearance, of his own misadventure.
"Aye," said the Professor, "I knew as much. Nor do these inhuman birds
intend stopping with the use of seed globes. More devilish weapons than
that they plan using against earth. Oh, they are fiends, fiends!
Already have they wiped out civilization and intelligent life on other
planets in this sub-atomic system and introduced their own."
He stopped, shuddering. "Nor is it to be wondered at that no birds were
seen after the first attack on Oracle," he went on. "They do not fight
in person, as do we ourselves, but through proxy, directing machines
from centers of control. In powers of destruction, they are
immeasurably ahead of man. Thank God you discovered their headquarters
in the deserted mine and have spread the gas for its destruction. But
the rage of the birds at such a defeat will be terrible. They will
undoubtedly torture me in an effort to make me reveal the basis of my
invention so that they can resume the attack on earth. So we must
escape."
"But how--where?"
"I have thought that out. It is one chance in a thousand. Undoubtedly
we will be killed. But that is better than being tortured or living in
this world. Look."
He held up a pearl-handled pen-knife. "The birds are smart, all right,
but they don't quite understand clothes, wearing none themselves. They
found your revolver, but overlooked this."
"Of what good is it?"
"To cut our way out of this cell."
Talbot laughed incredulously. The walls of the room were smooth, and
hard to the touch. "They're as solid as concrete," he said.
"But cut like cheese under a steel blade. I found that out. Watch."
To Talbot's amazement the point of the penknife sank into the wall and
in a moment a section of it was gouged out. The professor said tensely,
"I've been months in this place, been taken back and forth, and know
the lay of the land. This room is in a great building that houses the
laboratory from which the attack against earth is being launched. Would
you believe it, only the great scientist who picked up my messages and
helped me perfect my invention, and a few of his assistants, are
concerned in that attack, and they will be congregated at the machines.
Follow me, and whatever I command, do it promptly."
The Professor had been working feverishly as he spoke, and now he and
Talbot crawled through the hole he had made in the wall and found
themselves in a long gloomy corridor. "Quick," Reubens whispered.
They darted down the passageway. Talbot had only time to see that the
gleaming sides of the corridor were beveled and etched with strange
designs, before they came to its end and where a curious device like a
huge five-pointed star was revolving noiselessly, half sunk in a great
hole in the floor. Without hesitation the Professor stepped onto one of
the flat-tipped star-points as it came level with where they stood and
Talbot did the same. Up, turned the star-point, to a dizzy height, and
over, but the tip swung on ball-bearings, maintaining its passengers in
a perpendicular position, and from its highest point of elevation
descended to another floor far below, where they disembarked.
The huge revolving star-wheel was nothing but an ingenious movable
staircase. But the Professor gave Talbot no time to marvel, nor did the
latter try to linger. The corridor below was wider, more richly beveled
and carved, and the statue of an heroic bird stood perched in the
center of it. The lighting was soft and mellow, but Talbot could
perceive no windows or globes. Suddenly from an open doorway hopped a
bird. There was no chance to avoid it. Its wings were spread and from
its parted bill came a harsh cry, "Toc-toc, toc-toc!"
Knife in one hand, the Professor hurled himself forward and caught the
bird in the grip of the other. Instantly from the doorway sprang a
monstrous mechanism on stilts, flexible tentacles of metal reaching out
and wrapping themselves around the Professor. Talbot leaped to the
Professor's assistance. The mechanism fought like a live thing. In vain
he strove to wrench the tentacles free of the Professor. One of them
lashed out and took him by the thighs in a crushing grasp. But the
Professor had the bird by the throat. Both of his hands were free.
Back, he forced its head, back. The mechanism seemed to falter in the
attack, as if bewildered. Across the exposed throat the Professor drew
the gleaming blade. Flesh, tendons and arteries gave, blood spurted,
and in the same moment the tentacles fell away from Talbot and the
Professor and withdrew with a dull clang. The Professor released the
bird and it dropped to the floor.
"It is the birds' mentality that directs those mechanisms," said the
Professor, pointing to the now harmless machine.
Apparently the brief but terrific battle had passed unnoticed, no alarm
being given. Now the corridor twisted. The two men came to where a deep
well was sunk in the floor. To one side a star-wheel revolved smoothly.
Out of the depths came the steady throb of machinery. Cautiously
peering over the edge, Talbot saw a sight he would never forget.
He did not need the Professor's whispered words to tell him that here
was the source of the deadly attack being waged against earth.
Motionless birds perched in front of bizarre machines; lights waxed and
waned; a cannon-like device, or funnel, shot a column of light into a
screen, and through the column of light moved a steady procession of
round objects the size of plums.
"The drifting globes being shot through to earth," whispered the
Professor, "and our only hope. Listen, the birds are intent on their
machines, their backs to the star-wheel. We will descend, throw
ourselves into the column of light, seize hold of a globe, and...."
He did not need to finish. Talbot understood in a flash. They would be
dragged to their own world by the weapons hurled at it.
"Of course that column of light may kill us," went on the Professor
tensely. "Or we may be blown up on the other side. Your Mexican friend
hasn't touched off that explosive gas yet, because--But we've not a
moment to lose. Follow me."
The tip of the star-wheel went up, over, descended. The blood was
roaring in Talbot's ears. "Now!" hissed the Professor. "Now!" Together
they rushed forward. Talbot's foot slipped. The heart leaped into his
throat. He never remembered reaching the column of light; but suddenly
he was in it, blinded, dazed. His clutching hands closed on something
small and hard.
The laboratory was a pinwheel going round and round. Through a sea of
darkness he floated. A distant glow grew, expanded, became the crypt in
the old Wiley mine. A moment he glimpsed the gleaming pillars, the
pulsing machines, the startled birds, and then--Oh, it was incredible,
impossible, but the dark, crumbling walls of the old shaft were around
him; the globe in his hand no larger than a pea was lifting him towards
life and safety.
He wanted to shout, to sing, but even as the pale stars fell athwart
his upturned face, even as the cool mountain air smote his fevered
brow, the dark earth erupted beneath his feet, a whirlwind of smoke and
wind beat and buffeted him, and, in the midst of an overwhelming noise,
consciousness was blotted out!
It was bright daylight when Talbot regained his senses. Propped against
a great rock the Professor regarded him whimsically. Reubens looked
badly bruised and battered; one arm hung loosely at his side. Talbot's
head ached and he knew that a leg was broken.
"Yes," said the Professor, "we got through just in time--a few seconds
before the explosive gas was touched off. Thank God, my invention has
been destroyed. The world is safe."
Yes, the world was safe. Talbot sank back with a sigh of relief.
Overhead a white plane was dipping toward earth.