We soared over the divided channel of the St. Lawrence, between Orleans
and the mainland. Montmorency Falls in a moment showed dimly white
through the murk to our left, a great hanging veil of ice higher than
Niagara. Further ahead, the lights of the little village of St. Anne de
Beaupre were visible with the gray-black towering hills behind them.
"Swing left, George. Over the mainland. That's St. Anne. We pass this
side of it. Put the mufflers on. This damn thing roars like a tower
siren."
I cut in the muffler and switched off our wing-lights. It was illegal
but we were past all thought of that. We were both desperate; the slow
prudent process of acting within the law had nothing to do with this
affair. We both knew it.
Our little plane was dark, and amid the sounds of this night blizzard
our muffled engine couldn't be heard.
Alan touched me. "There are his lights; see them?"
We had passed St. Anne. The hills lay ahead--a wild mountainous country
stretching northward to the foot of Hudson Bay. The blizzard was roaring
out of the North and we were heading into it. I saw, on what seemed like
a dome-shaped hill perhaps a thousand feet above the river level, a
small cluster of lights which marked Polter's property.
"Fly over it once, George," Alan said. "Low--we can chance it. And find
a place to land near the walls."
We presently had it under us. I held the plane at five hundred feet, and
cut our speed to the minimum of twenty miles an hour facing the gale,
though it was sixty or seventy when we turned. There were a score or two
of hooded ground lights. But there was little reflection aloft, and in
the murk of the snowfall I felt we could escape notice.
We crossed, turned and went back in an arc following Polter's curved
outer wall. We had a good view of it. A weird enough looking place, here
on its lonely hilltop. No wonder the wealthy "Frank Rascor" had attained
local prominence!
The whole property was irregularly circular, perhaps a mile in diameter
covering the almost flat dome of the hilltop. Around it, completely
enclosing it, Polter had built a stone and brick wall. A miniature of
the Great Wall in China! We could see that it was fully thirty feet high
with what evidently were naked high-voltage wires protecting its top.
There were half a dozen little gates, securely barred, with doubtless a
guard at each of them.
Within the walls there were several buildings: a few small stone houses
suggesting workmen's dwellings; an oblong stone structure with smoke
funnels which looked like a smelter; a huge domelike spread of
translucent glass over what might have been the top of a mineshaft. It
looked more like the dome of an observatory--an inverted bowl fully a
hundred feet wide and equally as high, set upon the ground. What did it
cover?
And there was Polter's residence--a castlelike brick and stone building
with a tower not unlike a miniature of the Chateau Frontenac. We saw a
stone corridor on the ground connecting the lower floor of the castle
with the dome, which lay about a hundred feet to one side.
Could we chance landing inside the wall? There was a dark, level expanse
of snow where we could have done it, but our descending plane doubtless
would have been discovered. But the mile-wide inner area was dark in
many places. Spots of light were at the little wall-gates. There was a
glow all along the top of the wall. Lights were on in Polter's house;
they slanted out in yellow shafts to the nearby white ground. But for
the rest, the whole place was dark, save a dim glow from under the dome.
I shook my head at Alan's suggestion that we land inside the walls. We
had circled back and were a mile or so off toward the river. "The
trees--and you saw guards down there. But that low stretch outside the
gate on this side...."
A plan was coming to me. Heaven knows it was desperate enough, but we
had no alternative. We would land and accost one of the gate guards.
Force our way in. Once inside the wall, on foot in the darkness of this
blizzard, we could hide; slip up to that dome. Beyond that my
imagination could not go.
We landed in the snow a quarter of a mile from one of the gates. We left
the plane and plunged into the darkness.
It was a steady upward slope. A packed snowfield was underfoot, firm
enough to hold our weight, with a foot or so of loose, soft snow on its
top. The falling flakes whirled around us. The darkness was solid. Our
helmeted leather-furred flying suits were soon shapeless with a
gathering white shroud. We carried our Essens in our gloved hands. The
night was cold, around zero I imagine, though with that biting wind it
felt far colder.
From the gloom a tiny spot of light loomed up.
"There it is, Alan. Easy now! Let me go first." The wind tore away my
words. We could see the narrow rectangle of bars at the gate, with a
glow of light behind them.
"Hide your gun, Alan." I gripped him. "Do you hear me?"
"Yes."
"Let me go first. I'll do the talking. When he opens the gate, let me
handle him. You--if there are two of them--you take the other."
We emerged from the darkness, into the glow of light by the gate. I had
the horrible feeling that a shot would greet us. A challenge came, at
first in French and then in English.
"Stop! What do you want?"
"To see Mr. Rascor."
We were up to the bars now, shapeless hooded bundles of snow and frost.
A man stood in the doorway of a lighted little cubby behind the bars. A
black muzzle in his hand was leveled at us.
"He sees no one. Who are you?"
Alan was pressing at me from behind. I shoved him back, and took a step
forward. I touched the bars.
"My name is Fred Davis. Newspaperman from Montreal I must see Mr.
Rascor."
"You cannot. You may send in your call. The mouthpiece is there--out
there to the left. Bare your face; he talks to no one without the face
image."
The guard had drawn back into his cubby; there was only his extended
hand and the muzzle of his weapon left visible.
I took a step forward. "I don't want to talk by phone. Won't you open
the gate? It's cold out here. We have important business. We'll wait
with you."
Abruptly the gate lattice slid aside. Beyond the cubby doorway was the
open darkness within the wall. A scuffed path leading inward from the
gate showed for a few feet.
I walked over the threshold, with Alan crowding me. The Essen in my coat
pocket was leveled. But from the cubby doorway, I saw that the guard was
gone! Then I saw him crouching behind a metal shield. His voice rang
out.
"Stand!"
A light struck my face--a thin beam from a television sender beside me.
It all happened in an instant, so quickly Alan and I had barely time to
make a move. I realized my image was now doubtless being presented to
Polter. He would recognize me!
I ducked my head, yelling, "Don't do that!"
It was too late! The guard had received a signal. I heard its buzz.
From the shield a tiny jet of fluid leapt at me. It struck my hood.
There was a heavy sickening-sweet smell. It seemed like chloroform. I
felt my senses going. The cubby room was turning dark, was roaring.
I think I fired at the shield. And Alan leapt aside. I heard the faint
hiss of his Essen, and his choked, horrified voice:
"George, run! Don't fall!"
I crumpled; slid into blackness. And it seemed, as I went down, that
Alan's inert body was falling on top of me....
* * * * *
I recovered after a nameless interval, a phantasmagoria of wild, drugged
dreams. My senses came slowly. At first, there were dim muffled voices
and the tread of footsteps. Then I knew that I was lying on the ground,
and that I was indoors. It was warm. My overcoat was off. Then I
realized that I was bound and gagged.
I opened my eyes. Alan was lying inert beside me, roped and with a black
gag around his face and in his mouth. We were in a huge dim open space.
Presently, as my vision cleared, I saw that the dome was overhead. This
was a circular, hundred-foot-wide room. It was dimly lighted. The
figures of men were moving about, their great misshapen shadows shifting
with them. Twenty feet from me there was a pile of golden rock--chunks
of gold the size of a man's fist, or his head, and larger, heaped
loosely into a mound ten feet high.
Beyond this pile of ore, near the center of the room, twenty feet above
the concrete floor, there was a large hanging electrolier. It cast a
circular glow downward. Under it I saw a low platform raised a foot or
two above the ground. A giant electro-microscope was hung with its
twenty foot cylinder above the platform. Its intensification tubes were
glowing in a dim phosphorescent row on a nearby bracket. A man sat in a
chair on the platform at the microscope's eyepiece.
I saw all this with a brief glance, then my attention went to a white
stone slab under the giant lense. It rested on the platform floor, a
two-foot square surface of smooth white marble. A little roped railing a
few inches high fenced it. And in its center lay a fragment of golden
quartz the size of a walnut!
There was a movement across my line of vision. Two figures advanced. I
recognized both of them. And I strained at my bonds; mouthed the gag
with futile, frenzied effort. I could no more than writhe; and I
couldn't make a sound. I lay, after a moment exhausted, and stared with
horror.
The familiar hunched figure of Polter advanced toward the microscope.
And with him, his huge hand holding her wrists, was Babs. They were
nearly fifty feet from me, but with the light over them I could see them
clearly. Babs' slim figure was clad in a long skirted dress--pale blue,
now, with the light on it. Her long black hair had fallen disheveled to
her shoulders. I couldn't see her face. She did not cry out. Polter was
half dragging her as she resisted him; and then abruptly she ceased
struggling.
I heard his guttural voice. "That iss better."
They mounted the platform. They were very small and seemed to be far
away. I blinked. Horror surged over me. Their figures were dwindling as
they stood there. Polter was saying something to the man at the
microscope. Other men were nearby, watching. All were normal, save
Polter and Babs. A moment passed. Polter was standing by the chair in
which the man at the microscope was sitting. And Polter's head barely
reached its seat! Babs was clinging to him now. Another moment and they
were both tiny figures down by the chair-leg. Then they began walking
with swaying steps toward the miniature railing of the white slab. The
white reflection from the slab plainly illumined them. Polter's arm was
around Babs. I had not realized how small they were until I saw Polter
lift the rope of the little four-inch fence, and he and Babs stooped and
walked under it. The fragment of quartz lay a foot from them in the
center of the white surface. They walked unsteadily toward it. But soon
they were running.
My horrified senses whirled. Then abruptly I felt something touch my
face! Alan and I were lying in shadow. No one had noticed my writhing
movements, and Alan was still in drugged unconsciousness. Something tiny
and light and soundless as a butterfly wing brushed my face! I jerked my
head aside. On the floor, within six inches of my eyes, I saw the tiny
figure of a girl an inch high! She stood, with a warning gesture to her
lips--a human girl in a filmy flowing robe. Long, pale golden tresses
lay on her white shoulders; her face, small as my little fingernail,
colorful as a miniature painted on ivory, was so close to my eyes that I
could see her expression--warning me not to move.
There was a faint glow of light on the floor where she stood, but in a
moment she moved out of it. Then I felt her brush against the back of my
head. My ear was near the ground. A tiny warm hand touched my ear lobe;
clung to it. A tiny voice sounded in my ear.
"Please do not move your head. You might kill me!"
There was a pause. I held myself rigid. Then the tiny voice came again.
"I am Glora, a friend. I have the drug! I will help you!"