The Doctor put down his rifle. "I'm sorry to appear threatening. But I
have reasons. Will you come into my cabin?"
* * * * *
He ushered me in front of him into a low-ceilinged house of fir logs.
The room we entered was furnished with home-made chairs and a table on
which a lantern burned with a low wick. In the far corner was a door
leading to another room.
"My name's Roy Carlson," I said amiably as we sat down at the table,
Chetzisky at one side alone, the rifle across his knees.
"I'm Doctor Hansen, geologist," volunteered Chetzisky, bowing slightly,
and after a pause, "an associate of Doctor MacRoberts."
"Then where is he?" I demanded, seeking to keep the Doctor on the
defensive.
"In the next room; he's very ill."
"What's the trouble?"
"Radiation sickness. A very bad case. Very painful. I have to keep him
under drugs constantly."
"Why didn't you let his friends know?" My voice was angry and my anger
was genuine.
"You see, Mr. Carlson, we are out of the world here. We have no
telegraphic station just around the corner." He smiled an irritating,
sarcastic smile.
My blood boiled. I wanted to jump him then and there, but his fingers
were caressing the trigger of the rifle. "How did it happen?"
"Doctor MacRoberts and I were tracing a radioactive deposit. Without
the necessary precautions he handled the ore for long periods of time.
Fearfully careless." Chetzisky shook his head with the "tsk-tsk" air of
a Chemistry teacher deprecating the clumsiness of a freshman student in
the lab.
My brain tried to formulate a plan of action. But there should be two
Indians. Where the devil was the other? I had to know before I went
into action.
My head turned sharply. Several groans mounting into shrill cries came
from the other room. "May I see him?" I asked, rising.
"You may. Go right in, Mr. Carlson."
I went in. The air was foul from vomit. On a cot lay a twitching form,
whose features became suddenly visible in the rays of the lantern
Chetzisky held up behind me. I gasped. The face was puffed into fiery
welts and the eyes, sunken deep in their sockets, glowed fiercely in a
savage agony.
"The poor devil," I exclaimed; "it would almost be better to shoot him."
Chetzisky was shocked. "For a dog, yes. But for a man, Mr. Carlson,
that is murder."
What a sardonic jest. The man who planned to wipe out two billion
people rebuking an unintended suggestion of mercy killing. I was so
choked with anger that I could barely answer. "Just a figure of speech,
Doctor."
Outside in the other room a door slammed. Someone rushed in shouting,
"Soldiers, soldiers dropping from the skies." It was the other Indian.
* * * * *
Chetzisky kept his rifle aimed at my belly as the Indian poured out the
details. Two planes had dropped paratroopers just outside the crater.
He told the Indian to go back outside and watch and tell him when the
soldiers got inside the crater.
"So you are looking for Professor MacRoberts, a private investigator,"
Chetzisky chuckled softly. "There is something familiar about you; I
should have paid more attention to my suspicions in the beginning.
You're someone I met once. That beard confuses me."
He waited for me to answer. I had to keep him talking; the paranoiac
loves it. All Armstrong's men needed now was time. They were at the
doorstep. "I'm Doctor Arnold Bailey of Atlantic University."
Chetzisky wrinkled his forehead.
"We met about four years ago en route to the St. Louis convention."
"Yes," he said slowly as if the recollection was gradually unfolding
itself. "Yes, I remember you now. In fact, very well. We had a most
interesting chat; do you recall it?"
"Something about making the world peaceful, wasn't it?"
"That's correct," Chetzisky commented with approval. "It was just my
dream then. Now it's real, thanks to the unfortunate Doctor MacRoberts.
You saw that incline outside. At its top is a drum filled with crude
radioactive ore that MacRoberts discovered. The whole is charged with
three milligrams of the new purified radioactive element. It was
extremely easy to isolate. A simple precipitation process involving
some hot ethyl iodide and a 0.1 Normal solution of cuprous chloride...."
He stopped abruptly as he detected a slight forward motion on my part.
I threw him a question to dissolve the tension.
"What is the name of the new element?"
"You must admit it is difficult to call it 'MacRobertium.' Besides, it
hasn't the scientific flavor," he said with an amused smile. "The Scots
weren't meant for scientists. I call it simply 'MCR'."
He motioned me to fall back a few steps and then went on.
"The remarkable property of MCR is its diffusion rate, something like
two centimeters a minute, assuming a specific gravity of 2.7 for the
medium. MacRoberts traced a vein containing MCR ore to this point and
for the past two months I've been impregnating it with refined MCR,
converting it into a slow, controlled reactor."
The Doctor was warmed up now, and I didn't dare interrupt for fear of
bringing him out of his paranoic trance. Armstrong might arrive any
minute. I hoped.
"When the time comes," he continued, "and I believe it is now, I will
remove the moderator bar from the drum at the top of the incline and
release it. It will strike a trigger mechanism which will catapult
it into the face of the vein of MCR ore. The critical mass will be
exceeded and a planetary atom bomb will have been born."
His eyes were shining now with the madness of his dream. "The chain
reaction will proceed through the earth's plastic mantle and down into
the liquid core."
He paused to enjoy the pleasure of his speculations. "Then within
ten hours I calculate the earth will exist no more. It will become a
mushrooming cloud of cosmic dust. It deserves no better," he added
bitterly; "I tried to give it peace."
* * * * *
Someone entered the room. It was the Indian reporting that the soldiers
had penetrated into the crater.
"Watch this man," Chetzisky commanded. "Shoot him if necessary."
He left the room. I heard the cabin door shut and its sound echoed
like a sentence of doom. In the long strained silence that followed I
thought frantically.
Then the silence was broken. The cabin door opened again, dragging
footsteps approached the room. Eyes bloodshot, one hand holding his
head in evident pain, the Indian I had beat down with the butt of the
.45 appeared in the doorway.
He glared at me in sudden recognition and with the roar of an enraged
bull lunged at me. The other Indian tried to hold him back. That one
moment was my opportunity; I picked up one of the home-made chairs and
crashed it down on their heads. While they stumbled about groggily, I
dashed out of the cabin after Chetzisky.
He was standing at the head of the ramp, working what appeared to be
a lever. He heard me coming and fired his rifle at me twice. He missed
my zigzagging figure. He acted quickly now, releasing the lever, and
turning round, braced himself to meet my charge. We fell to the ground,
Chetzisky clinging to me savagely, rolling me over and over until I
realized what his game was, to move farther and farther from the ramp.
I twisted my head and looked back.
My blood went cold. The drum was no longer at the top of the incline.
It was half-way down and moving faster.
I shook Chetzisky off and started for the ramp, but he threw out his
foot and tripped me. Sprawled out on the ground I looked up to see the
drum swiftly moving towards the trigger mechanism that would catapult
it into the head of the vein. I couldn't stop it now; time had run out
on the world.
And in that black moment when the earth trembled on the rim of
nothingness, the conditioned reflexes that I had acquired in four years
of football asserted themselves. I was on my feet rushing madly and
then I was sailing through the air. The breath was knocked out of me as
I landed on the ramp. Something hard struck my side and kept crushing
me.
At first I felt nothing. Suddenly a cold sweat broke out all over me.
Chetzisky was beside me now, screaming at me and pulling me.
"You'll kill yourself," he kept shrieking.
I fought him off. I couldn't let him pull me off the ramp. Only my body
stood between the earth and its annihilation.
"Don't be a fool; let me help you," he pleaded. He was a transformed
being now; no longer the mad-man destroying a planet but a man trying
to save the life of another human being. It was too late for such
sentiment now. I didn't want to be saved.
He came at me again. I got one arm loose and pushed a fist at him. He
went reeling backwards. He changed his tactics and started to pull me
by the feet. I couldn't get at him. My body started to move. I clutched
fiercely to one of the ramp rails.
He came around in front of me to loosen my grip. I pushed him off. He
picked up a stone and came at me again. He meant to rescue me, like it
or not. He raised the stone to knock me unconscious.
A shot rang out. Chetzisky sagged forward and dropped to the ground.
Canadian soldiers in battle dress were crowding around me, Armstrong
with them. I felt sick, my head spun, but I managed to tell him what to
do about the drum and the ramp.
"Okay, Arnold. We'll get you to a hospital right away."
The world spiralled down out of sight down a cone of darkness until
I woke up in this hospital bed hours later with these flaming embers
inside me. It won't be long now. I can read it in Armstrong's eyes.
There's strength in the feel of that friendly hand now that the world
inside me is going to pieces. Around me a soft blackness is settling....
_EXTRACTS, HOSPITAL CASE HISTORY NO. 3007_:
_7:20 P.M. Patient relapsed into coma. Pulse almost
imperceptible.... 7:32 P.M. Patient pronounced dead._