DESPERATE

Edith's cries brought the others, unable to get out of their sleeping

bags, struggling to their feet. The mouths of the bags were choked with

thick masses of the hair-like vegetation.

Freeing their heads from the entangling meshes they stared out over

a dense, matted jungle of green hair five feet high. To the south

numerous vivid mounds marked the thickly overgrown carcasses of

the asphyxiated monsters. To the north stretched a dense mat of

impenetrable vegetation disappearing in a dark green cloud on the

horizon.

A hundred yards beyond the mounded monsters the tangled green mass

ended abruptly, save for a single band a hundred yards broad reaching

to the base of the black rocks. There the band stopped. It marked the

course which the men had taken across the ice on their return from the

crater.

Were their ears deceived? They stood motionless, five blunted pillars

festooned with great streamers and wreaths of the rank, fungus like

green weed, listening in fear to the rustling crepitation. The whole

mass was growing audibly.

Then they noticed a deep green discoloration of the ice on the west

side of the broad band between the blowholes and rocks. The edges of

the band were not sharp, like the edge of a cornfield. The green mass,

tapering down at the boundaries, merged with the ice and snow. The

green tinge on the ice far beyond the limit of growing vegetation was

the dust of innumerable spores blown from the living plants by the East

wind which rose with the dawn.

Attempting to move they found themselves bound from feet to armpits

by living ropes woven from thousands of growing, hair-like strands.

They fully realized their desperate situation only when Edith with a

frightened cry called attention to the airplane. It had disappeared

beneath a tangled mound of green ropes. Even if they could extricate

the machine it would be impossible to rise. That matted vegetation

would stop a thousand horsepower tractor in less than a hundred yards.

"It is those infernal spores," the Doctor said quietly. "See how our

track from the rocks to the blowholes is marked by the filthy weeds.

All that started from the dust Anderson and I shed from our boots and

our clothes as we marched. The sea of green rope between us and the

horizon grew up in the night from the spores we lost to the wind.

Evidently this stuff grows very slowly at first, then like a fire, or

we should have noticed it before we went to sleep. So much for theory.

Has anyone a plan for getting out of this? Don't get panicky. Take your

time."

"We might try to break our way through to the clean ice east of the

band," the Captain suggested, "and march round the stuff."

"Not much chance of beating it to the ship, I'm afraid. Still, that's

one plan. Any more?"

There was no response.

"Well," said Lane, "I suppose it is forward march. Not that I am

particularly anxious to return to civilization with this blunder on

my head. My stupidity has let loose one of the enemies which that

forgotten race gave its life to chain. Having done the asinine thing

I now see how it could have been avoided. Evidently these spores

require cold and moisture in order to grow like this. Possibly a low

temperature actually forces the growth beyond all nature. In the dry,

warm pockets in the cement, sealed from light and moisture, the spores

would lie dormant indefinitely.

"Probably what we found is the mass of spores from a growth which

started from a few dusted off the bodies of the last workers. When the

vegetation had exhausted the soil and moisture in the pocket it ceased

to grow. In the warmth, I imagine, the growth was slow and natural. The

spores have retained their life all these millions of years, waiting

for a fool like me to broadcast them over the ideal medium for their

luxuriant growth and propagation. Did those dead workers foresee the

ice ages ahead? Did they seal the caves against the escape of this

fiend to its stimulating cold? I don't know. Such is my theory, and it

is my last. Which way, Anderson?"

"Head northeast. Ole, you're the strongest. Go first till you give in.

We must head off the stuff before it grows over that bay against the

rocks to the left. Then we can climb along the rocks and beat it to

the east--if we can. It is an inch higher than it was when we began

talking."

Ole made about twenty feet. Panting and sweating he stopped for breath.

He made another two feet and collapsed in the green slush.

"All right, Ole," the Captain said, taking his place. "Fall behind

while I have a go."

Anderson gave out at the third yard.

"Drake, you're next."

Drake made less than a yard. Lane followed with a yard and a half.

Edith shoved. And so it went until complete exhaustion overtook them

less than a hundred feet from their starting place. By now the green

mass grew high above their heads when they stood erect.

"I can do no more," Anderson panted. "We might as well give up."

Saying nothing they flung themselves down on the green mess they had

trampled. Presently Edith got to her feet and beckoned to Drake. He

followed her back along the green tunnel. The hair-like mass at the

farther end was already a foot high. This was a second growth springing

rankly up from the trampled slush of the first.

"I wish you to know," Edith began when they reached the end, "that I

have always loved you. We shall not get out of here. I feel no shame in

telling you."

"Why didn't you tell me before?" he said, touched to the heart. "I

never knew you cared that way for me, although I hoped that some day

you might, darling. We shall die here. Let us forget the past and not

think of the cold eternity before us. The present is enough."

And they spent their priceless moments as only lovers know how. Death

might strangle them before night, certainly before morning. These few

moments were their eternity.

Years later, it seemed to them, they heard someone ripping through the

young growth in the tunnel. It was Ole.

"The Doctor sent me to fetch some grub," he apologized guiltily.

Edith's heart gave a great leap. While there is appetite there is hope.

Her father's head had started working again.

"Come on," she said to Drake, "we shall be married after all."

They found Lane and the Captain sitting in silence. Anderson's face

was expressionless. The Doctor glanced up at Edith's happy face, and

a spasm of pain contracted his own. For he had sent Ole to fetch,

not food, but a hundred pounds of dynamite. He had hoped to end the

misery of all of them painlessly and instantaneously without Edith's

foreknowledge.

"Have you thought of a way out?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes," he said. "But seeing you I haven't the courage to take it."

She guessed.

"John and I," she said, laying her hand on Drake's arm, "will go back

again to the end of the tunnel where you can't see us. I'm not afraid."

"But I am," he said.

She stood looking down at him, all the love and affection of her past

happy life in her eyes.

"You needn't be afraid. I never was frightened of the dark."

Ole joined them, dragging his mossgrown pack. Anderson glared at him.

"Why didn't you do it back there instead of coming here to scare the

girl to death?"

"I'm not going to do it. You are. Suicide and murder are against my

religion."

"Blowing you to hell is the only good thing about this whole business.

Hand me a cap and cut off a three-inch fuse."

In spite of himself Ole began to fumble. His half-frozen fingers

refused to pick out the cap. Then searching for his knife to cut the

fuse he remembered what had become of it. He looked at Edith.

"You couldn't fetch my knife, could you?"

"No, stupid," she laughed. "How could I fly back to the tunnel?"

"Here," the Captain exclaimed, impatiently brushing him aside, "I'll do

it if you haven't brains enough to use your teeth."

Drawing out his knife he opened the blade and gave Ole a sour look.

"I've a good mind to cut your fat throat," he said. "They can't hang

me."

"Then you will go to hell for sure," Ole asserted with certain

confidence.

Working in silence Anderson methodically set about his business. Lane

still sat in the green slush, trying not to think of Edith. Presently

he rose to his feet.

"The blowholes will spout in a moment," he said. "I just felt the

suspicion of a tremor."

Involuntarily Anderson paused in his work.

"You're right. Well, we shall add to the general celebration in a

minute or two."

The violent shaking began and ended with unexpected suddenness,

throwing them down in the slush. A dull thudding in the air announced

the kindling of the flame cones.

"Gas, oil!" Lane shouted.

In his excitement he was incapable of giving coherent expression to

the association of ideas which flashed across his memory. The others

started away from him. Even Edith drew back in alarm. Although they

were about to die it seemed a terrible thing that one of their number

should go out of life mad.

"Don't you remember, Ole?" he continued, barely able to utter the words

for emotion. "The oil from the shale on the beach oozed down into the

hole where that green stuff lay. That plant was the same as this. What

destroyed it? Oil! The whole mass was dissolved, a mess of brown

sludge when we saw it next. Oil is its natural enemy! Those gas flames

made me think of oil. Thank God for memory!"

They still thought him demented.

"Nitric acid might as well be its natural enemy," Drake remarked, "for

all the good it will do us. Where are we to get oil?"

Drake had not yet learned that genius is the gift for making the most

of circumstances.

"Where?" the Doctor shouted. "From the tank of the airplane of course.

Edith, can you spare two hundred gallons and still have enough petrol

to take us to the south shore of the oil lake?"

"Yes. It is less than a ten-minute fly. I can spare three hundred

gallons if you need that much and have plenty to fly to the cache by

the ship."

But Lane had not yet thought that far. Neither his own possible escape

from death nor that of the party had yet come above his horizon. He was

planning a greater deliverance.

"Break through to the plane, Ole," he ordered, "while I get the can."

The twelve feet to the oil tank took only half an hour. Hope had

trebled their strength. The first petrol drawn was used to soak the

spores in the can. These were then thrown away in the tunnel and the

can washed clean.

"Strip that green devil off the plane somehow, the rest of you," Lane

directed, "while I spread the petrol in the tunnel."

They went at the job like tigers.

"Look," Lane cried from the tunnel. "See what the soaked spores did."

Hurrying back they found him standing in a pool of brown muck. Like a

field of dry flax before a fire the eight-foot wall of green hair was

dissolving round the edges of the pool. The almost instantaneous decay

ate like a flame into the impenetrable thicket.

Lane carefully spread his can of oil against the matted roots along the

left side of the tunnel. When he returned with the second can a band of

brown slush two feet broad marked the destruction wrought by the first.

Four hours later they had cleared the plane and opened up a straight

alleyway through the matted tangle sufficiently broad and long enough

for the plane to run along and take the air.

"Hang on all your dynamite," Lane ordered. "I'll bring the can. Leave

everything else."

Ole and Edith climbed into their places, Drake sat on the back of the

seat clutching Ole round the neck, while Lane and the Captain disposing

themselves on either side of Drake clung to him and to one another.

The load, although considerable, was far below the plane's lifting

capacity. Edith ran it down the long alleyway and lifted from the brown

sludge with thirty feet to spare.

Their last look at the blowholes showed the green mounds all about them

lit up by the cheery fires.

Rising to the thousand foot level they saw beneath them a vivid green

band twelve miles broad winding like a river due north toward the oil

lake.

"That's what the wind did with the spores we lost last night. The stuff

multiplies on itself like compound interest at ten thousand per cent.

Unless we stop its growth now this whole continent will be matted thick

in a month."

"And then it will blow across the ocean to South America."

"Not if I can help it. We don't know yet whether it can multiply like

this in a warmer climate. Freezing temperature seems to act on it like

a violent stimulant. For all we know it might be controllable at ten

degrees and perish at fifty. But I'm not going to find out. This plague

will never get farther than that lake. Land near the cache, Edith. We

shall need all the dynamite we have."

Anderson guessing the Doctor's purpose made no remonstrance. The oil

had risen high in the lake during the night. Six inches more and it

would begin spilling over the south barrier of the lake. But they could

not wait for nature. The green plague river was broadening before their

eyes. In half a day it would have streamed up the intervening three

miles to the oil lake, surrounded it, and swept onto the desolate plain

beyond in its ever swifter rush to the ocean.

Ole unearthed the pick and began digging furiously into the ice under

the narrowest point of the barrier.

"How long will it take to fly across the lake, Edith?" Lane asked.

"Twenty minutes at the most."

"Then give your shots a twenty-minute fuse," Lane directed. "We shan't

stay to see the show. The oil may catch when the dynamite explodes.

All hands soak themselves in crude oil. We can't risk starting those

infernal spores in a new place."

Setting the example Lane baled up several canfulls of the black oil and

drenched himself from head to feet. Then he soused the plane. Having

finished he passed the can to Drake and stood watching Anderson at his

work. The Captain was saying nothing in the presence of his tragedy.

"Look here, Captain," Lane said, "all this is due to my stupidity

alone. I have lost your oil for you. In slight return I shall make you

a present of the finest thousand-acre orange grove in California."

The proud temptation to refuse gave way to the memory of twenty years

of cold and stink.

"I accept the sunshine and orange blossoms with all my thanks," the

Captain replied.

"And while you are about that job," Lane continued, "put this in with

the dynamite too." He handed the Captain his tobacco box containing the

parasites which he had scraped from the monster's tail. "I shall not

take another chance with any of the infernal diseases of the archaean

age," he said.

Having planted the last charge Anderson soaked his clothing in oil

before lighting all four fuses. He then clambered up on the plane with

the others. They were off as fast as they could fly.

Twenty minutes passed, twenty-five, and they were well beyond the

north shore of the lake speeding toward the ship.

"Are you sure those fuses were dry?" Lane shouted above the roar of the

propeller.

Anderson nodded. They flew another three minutes before hearing in

rapid succession the four dull explosions which announced the release

of the oil flood.

Nearing the ship they saw Bronson and the men on the ice near the

petrol cache loafing about, exercising the dogs and the now sturdy

devil chick.

"Out of here at once," Anderson ordered. "Is steam up?"

"Yes sir."

"Send four of the men to the petrol cache to fill the tank of the plane

to capacity. Order the rest to get the sledges and their packs in shape

for an immediate march to the coast. Hell's going to break loose."

Bronson obeyed orders on the run.

"Now Edith," Anderson continued, "you and Hansen stand by ready to

follow the ship down the channel. If mud comes down and mires us fly

as fast as you can to the nearest whaling station and send help. Ole

will do the navigating. We shall pack to the coast and wait there for

relief."

"Can I take the devil chick?" she pleaded.

"That brute? It's as big as a cow."

"The plane can lift it easily."

"Nothing doing. But," he added, seeing the tears in her eyes, "we'll

herd the ugly beast along with us to the coast if we have to hike."

Bronson rejoined them to say that the plane was now ready for a

thousand mile flight.

"Very well. Get the ship out of here. Have the men ready to leave her

at the first sign of trouble."

The men were already stowing their effects, including the obstinate

devil chick, aboard the ship.

Bronson had gone but four steps when the ice leapt into a crimson glow.

"Get the men on the ice and run for the coast," Anderson shouted.

The men needed no orders. They were swarming out as fast as they could.

The appalling concussion swept over them just as they reached the ice.

Looking south they saw the roof of the continent hurtling skyward. A

vast gush of red flames surging up overtook the black mass, flattened

along its underside in curling billows of crimson, and for an instant

pressed the millions of tons of suspended rock and cement hard against

the sky. Then it fell.

The fliers were already headed for the coast. Edith's last vision of

the ship revealed one of the crew tugging desperately at the devil

chick's head in a final attempt to get it ashore again. Failing, the

man abandoned the wretched creature and jumped to save his own life.

The falling of the suspended rock had set up a choppy land tide of

waves twenty feet high. Like a thunderclap the walls of the inlet met,

parted, and met again. The ship was matches.

Explosion after explosion rolled the fleeing machine over and over in

the turbulent air like a feather. But it was a well built plane, and

nothing of consequence snapped.

The fliers, better than the men far behind reeling over the heaving

ice, knew what might come at any instant. The oil which had gushed

over the plain from the lake, to plunge down the flaming blowholes and

generate vast quantities of gas, must still be rushing in a river of

fire toward the subterranean reservoirs beneath the unruined paradise.

That the two chains of underground lakes were connected they had good

grounds for believing.

Their expectations were realized late that afternoon as they sped

northeast in their flight toward the nearest whaling station. Neither

has any memory of how they weathered the unimaginable tempest of

detonations which shook the upper air from the Antarctic to Rio. The

unruined paradise was ruined.

Four weeks later the whaling vessel _Orion_ of Boston rescued a party

of stunned and half-starved men shivering on the ice at the mouth of

what had been the inlet. They were unable to give any coherent account

of their experiences. Not a member of the crew had been lost. The

expedition had returned with its life.

* * * * *