BLEACHED BONES.
Sue and I lunched together, served by Wong, the efficient Chinese
butler. The professor never took lunch, and Mrs. Davis had driven to
Sterling, a near-by town, for the purpose of doing some shopping. Late
that afternoon she returned.
A small, sweet-faced, white-haired woman, Mrs. Davis is rarely
perturbed. Sue and I were consequently amazed to hear her talking
excitedly to the professor in the laboratory. Then both of them came
into the drawing-room where we were seated.
"Some strange things have been happening to-day," she said as she
greeted us. "Banker Crolius, of Sterling, while driving home from the
country club in his roadster, suddenly disappeared. A farm hand who
saw him in the car only a moment before his disappearance, describes
a strange cloud which was mingled with the dust thrown up by his
car, but which separated from it and sailed away as soon as the car
overturned in the ditch. The motor cycle policeman who found the empty
car reported that there was a nauseating odor around it, but no sign of
Crolius."
"He must have shared the fate of Jackson," I said.
"Without a doubt," said the professor. "But that is not all. Look at
this; it's positively ghastly."
He passed me a copy of the evening paper which his wife had just
brought from Sterling. Together, Sue and I scanned the glaring
headlines, and read the article which followed:
TAMPICO CITIZEN BADLY
INJURED BY FALLING SKULL
_Believed to Be That of Missing
Aviator, Jackson_
William Aldrich, a citizen of Tampico, was seriously injured to-day
while walking on the main street of his home town, when a human
skull which had apparently fallen from the sky struck him on the
right shoulder. It fell with such force that he was knocked down.
Examination by a physician revealed two broken bones beneath a very
painful bruise. Near the fallen skull the metal frames and broken
glass of an aviator's goggles were found.
A moment later a number of other bones, which Dr. Brown of Tampico
Pronounced those of a human being, fell nearly a block from where
Mr. Aldrich had been struck down. These bones were so white and dry
that the doctor declared they must have been exposed to the weather
for a long period of time.
Among these bones were found a cigarette lighter, some coins, a
bunch of keys, several buttons and buckles, and a wrist watch on
an aviator's identification bracelet. Despite the fact that Pilot
Jackson disappeared not more than two hours before this happened,
it is thought that he has been murdered in some mysterious way,
and his bones dehydrated and dropped, for the bracelet is his, and
descriptions of the other articles tally with those he was known to
have carried.
"Do you think they were really Jackson's bones?" I asked the professor.
"I think it highly probable that they were," he replied.
"But how--"
"Come into my laboratory, Dick," he said. "I have something to show
you."
* * * * *
As Professor Davis led me into his laboratory his eyes sparkled
with excitement behind his thick-lensed glasses. He bent over the
mortar into which he had dropped the mysterious fragment of hair-like
substance and the earthworm, earlier in the afternoon. Then a look of
amazement came over his features.
"Really," he said, "this is most remarkable! Look here, Dick. The
creature has grown more swiftly than I thought possible."
Hurrying up to where he stood, I, too, looked into the mortar.
To my surprise I saw that the two-inch piece of the odd material had
a mushroom-like growth on one end. This end was raised nearly an inch
above the bottom of the bowl as if the mushroom growth were a little
balloon, gradually lifting the hair-like strand. But this was not all,
for sprouting beneath the cap were many other hairs, shorter than the
original one, but of the same diameter and evidently growing at an
astounding rate of speed.
"Do you know what it is?" I asked.
"I believe," said the professor, "that we are confronted by a creature
unknown to science, and, up to the present day, entirely outside the
experience of mankind. Unless other similar incidents have occurred
recently, the strange fates of Jackson and Crolius are unique in the
annals of the world. Without a doubt, Crolius and Jackson met the
same fate--were attacked either by the same creature or by one like
it. And this"--pointing to the thing in the mortar--"is perhaps a
reproduction of that creature. I say 'perhaps' because even among the
creatures known and classified by science we find numerous instances of
offspring which, in certain stages of their existence, bear very little
resemblance to their parents."
"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that the hair-like strand was an egg
or spore from which this creature in the mortar is developing?"
"Not precisely that," replied the professor. "It seems that we have
to do here, with a creature that reproduces itself by fission or
subdivision--or at least a creature which has the power to do so, even
though it may normally reproduce its kind by spores, spawn or eggs.
"I think that we can safely assume, in this case, that the division was
accidental so far as the intention of the creature itself is taken into
account. The hair-like tentacle was caught in the airplane rudder when
creature and plane were both traveling swiftly at right angles to each
other's courses. As a result three of these tentacles caught in the
splintered rudder were torn loose and carried down with the ship. With
my scissors I further divided the tentacle before placing it in the
mortar.
"You will observe that those tentacles which are still coiled around
the sticks on which you brought them have neither moved nor shown any
signs of growth. Our experience shows that they will not move unless
touched by living organic matter--food. And food, which I supplied in
the form of an earthworm, is undoubtedly the reason the piece in the
mortar was enabled to grow.
"I have been watching this one closely, and have learned something
more. The tentacles themselves, as we have learned before, are not
stimulated to action except when touched by organic food, but once the
umbrella-like crown has grown above them, they are led to the food by
the crown's perception of motion. The worm, as you will observe, has
all been devoured, or rather, absorbed, except a few segments from the
posterior extremity. These segments are quite near the original and
longest tentacle, but they are motionless. The growth of the creature
has ceased for lack of food, with this food quite near it, yet I saw it
travel toward and capture the wriggling anterior end again and again
until it had consumed all of it.
"We have here an analogy with the two tragedies which took place
to-day. Swift movement, apparently, attracted by the parent of
this creature to its prey, both in the case of Jackson and that of
Crolius--assuming, of course, that both men were taken by the same
monster."
* * * * *
"Then," I said, "you are of the opinion that this little creature in
the mortar is a miniature replica of the thing that took Jackson?"
"That," said the professor, "is only problematical. It may be of an
entirely different form. To draw an analogy from a creature well known
to science, and probably the one most closely resembling this creature
with which we have to deal, take the chrysaora, a kind of jellyfish. In
one stage of its existence it is a minute, flat worm-like affair. This
eventually settles down on the sea bottom and turns into a hydra--a
tube-like organism with threads. The hydra not only reproduces many
other hydras, but eventually turns into the segmented strobila, like a
stack of saucers. This, in turn, produces the free-swimming disk-shaped
medusa, which is the adult jellyfish.
"But while the jellyfish is in the hydra stage, many strange monsters,
entirely different in appearance from any of these creatures, have been
produced by artificial division. For that reason it is possible that
the individual we have here is nothing like the parent from which it
sprang. The fact that the creature more nearly resembles a jellyfish
than any other earthly creature--that it is in fact a sort of medusa of
the air--makes this analogy all the more plausible."
He pushed the few remaining posterior segments of the earthworm into
contact with the trailing tentacle, then watched reflectively while
the creature, drawing its umbrella-like cap down to the morsel, slowly
consumed it.
Scarcely had the last trace of the earthworm disappeared, ere the
creature rose once more, but this time it was able to lift the weight
of the tentacle, and started to float upward like a toy balloon
dragging the string to which it is attached.
Galvanized into action by this unexpected development, the professor
jumped for a butterfly net which was hanging on a hook near by. His
swift motion evidently attracted the creature, for it darted after
him, its long original tentacle as well as the shorter ones it was
developing, outstretched toward him. But despite his age, the professor
was as dexterous through long practice with a butterfly net as is
many a younger man with racquet or foil, and with a quick movement he
brought it down over his quarry.
On a table in one corner of the room was a large, finely meshed cage.
This cage contained a half dozen cocoons and three large, brightly
colored cecropia moths which had just emerged, and which the professor
had confined for observation.
* * * * *
Opening the door of the cage, the professor pushed in the butterfly
net, permitting his captive to float up out of the meshes. Then,
removing the net, he closed the door and watched the thing floating
about in the air near the top of the cage, while he mopped from his
brow the perspiration which his sudden and unaccustomed exertions had
engendered.
"I suppose the thing will eat my cecropias," he said, "but in the
meantime we may learn something more of the habits of this medusa of
the air."
Scarcely had he spoken, ere one of the cecropias spread its newly
opened wings and started to fly across the cage. With a quick dart, the
medusa pounced upon it, and its tentacles wound themselves around the
fat, soft body. For a few seconds the moth fluttered helplessly--then
it fell to the floor of the cage, while the wiry tentacles of its
remorseless enemy sank deeper and deeper into its yielding thorax and
abdomen.
It was the professor who first noticed that the medusa--for such we
had begun to call it--no longer depended on its tentacles for the
absorption of its food, but had developed a number of small, slightly
projecting sucker mouths which all but covered the under surface of the
cap. With these it was able to assimilate much more rapidly than before.
In an incredibly short space of time the cecropia had completely
disappeared, while the medusa, its cap now doubled in size and its
tentacles uniformly about three inches in length, slowly floated about
the cage, the frilled edges of its cap rippling like thin fabric
stirred by a breeze, but actually doing the work of propelling the
creature through the air.
"What do you suppose makes it float?" I asked.
"I've been wondering," replied the professor. "Possibly it has the
power to generate a gas lighter than air, which keeps it up. It might,
for example, have the power to separate the pure hydrogen gas from the
moisture in the air. By Jove! If that is it--"
The professor hastily secured a large test tube, a razor-sharp scalpel,
and his butterfly net. Cautiously opening the door of the cage, he
inserted the net, and soon had the medusa in its folds. Immersing the
creature in a large pan of water, he held the inverted, water-filled
test tube down over it, and sliding the scalpel under the edge inserted
it in the creature's cap. A tiny bubble arose in the tube.
The professor plunged the scalpel into a different spot, and another
bubble traveled to the top of the tube, the creature's arms writhing
meanwhile like a nest of snakes. Again and again he pricked the cap
until about a half inch of water in the test tube was displaced by gas.
Permitting the rest of the water to run out of the tube, and tossing
the medusa back into the cage, where it no longer floated about in
the air, but lay, writhing and squirming on the floor, the professor
carried the tube, still inverted, to a near-by table.
"If this is hydrogen, Dick," he said, "I've found a way to rid the
world of this menace."
"How is that?"
"By fire," he answered. "A spark, a shell, a rocket, or an explosive
bullet will turn each creature into a roaring furnace of flame."
Standing the inverted tube on the table for a moment, he picked it up
with a test tube holder. Then he lighted a taper and held the flame
in the mouth of the tube. Nothing happened. He thrust the flame still
higher. It sputtered and went out.
"No use, Dick," he said. "Had that been hydrogen, we should have had a
small explosion. It's something else. I'll have to make further tests."
Still keeping the tube inverted, he inserted a rubber stopper in the
mouth. Then he stood it upside down on the table.
At this moment Sue entered through the door which led to the drawing
room.
"Mother and I just heard fearful news on the radio," she said.
"Thirty-six airplanes in various parts of the country have crashed.
The occupants have not been found. More than a hundred people have
disappeared while driving their automobiles, and most of the machines
have been wrecked as a consequence. Recognizing the fact that something
in the air must have snatched these people from their machines, the
government has sent scout and combat planes to investigate. Similar
reports have been received from Canada and Mexico, and the air forces
of these two countries are patrolling the skies in an effort to learn
the cause of the mystery. What does it mean? What can we do?"
"It means," said the professor soberly, "that I must get in touch with
the War Department at once and tell them what little I know. Then I
must, somehow, continue my experiments."