Astounding Stories of Super-Science 5

Astounding Stories of Super-Science 5

CHAPTER VI

 

_Escape!_

 

 

"I heard what he said. You shall not die. We shall go away to your

place, where there are no beetles to eat us, even if"--Haidia

shuddered--"even if we have to cross the bridge of fire, beyond which,

they tell me, lies freedom."

 

High over and a little to one side of the petrol flame Dodd and Tommy

had seen the slender arch of rock leading into another cleft in the

rocks. They had investigated it several times, but always the fierce

heat had driven them back.

 

Both Dodd and Tommy had noticed, however, that at times the fire seemed

to shrink in volume and intensity. Observation had shown them that these

times were periodical, recurring about every twelve hours.

 

"I think I've got the clue, Tommy," said Dodd, as the three watched the

fiery fountain and speculated on the possibility of escape. "That flow

of petrol is controlled, like the tides on earth, by the pull of the

moon. Just now it is at its height. I've noticed that it loses pretty

nearly half its volume at its alternating phase. If I'm right, we'll

make the attempt in about twelve hours."

 

"Bram's given us twenty-four," said Tommy. "But how about getting Haidia

across?"

 

"I go where you go," said Haidia, sidling up to Dodd and looking down

upon him lovingly. "I do not afraid of the fire. If it burn me up, I go

to the good place."

 

"Where's that, Haidia?" asked Dodd.

 

"When we die, we go to a place where it is always dark and there are no

beetles, and the ground is full of shrimps. We leave our bodies behind,

like the beetles, and fly about happy for ever."

 

"Not a bad sort of place," said Dodd, squeezing Haidia's arm. "If you

think you're ready to try to cross the bridge, we'll start as soon as

the fire gets lower."

 

"I'll be on the job," answered Haidia, unconsciously reproducing a

phrase of Tommy's.

 

* * * * *

 

The girl glided away, and disappeared through the thick of the beetle

crowd clustered about the entrance to the cavern. Tommy and Dodd had

already discovered that it was through her ability to reproduce a

certain beetle sound meaning "not good to eat" that the girl could come

and go. They had once tried it on their own account, and had narrowly

escaped the lashing tentacles.

 

After that there was nothing to do but wait. Three or four hours must

have passed when Bram returned from his inner cave.

 

"Well, Dodd, have you experienced a change of heart?" he sneered. "If

you knew what's in store for you, maybe you'd come to the conclusion

that you've been too cocksure about the monotremes. We're slaughtering

in the morning."

 

"That so?" asked Dodd.

 

"That's so," shouted Bram. "The beetles are beginning to emerge from the

pupae, and they'll need food if they're to be kept quiet. We're rounding

up about threescore of the culls--your friend Haidia will be among them.

We've got some caged ichneumon flies, pretty little things only a foot

long, which will sting them in certain nerve centers, rendering them

powerless to move. Then we shall bury them, standing up, in the

vegetable mould, for the beetles to devour alive, as soon as they come

out of the shells. You'll feel pretty, Dodd, standing there unable to

move, with the new born beetles biting chunks out of you."

 

* * * * *

 

Tommy shuddered, despite his hopes of their escaping. Bram, for a

scientist, had a grim and picturesque imagination.

 

"Dodd, there is no personal quarrel between us," Bram went on. Again

that note of pathetic pleading came into his voice. "Give up your mad

ideas. Admit that the banded ant-eater, at least, existed before the

pleistocene epoch, and everything can be settled. When you see what my

beetles are going to do to humanity, you'll be proud to join us. Only

make a beginning. You remember the point I made in my paper, about

spalacotherium in the Upper Jurassic rocks. It would convince anybody

but a hardened fanatic."

 

"I read your paper, and I saw your so-called spalacotherium,

reconstructed from what you called a jaw-bone," shouted Dodd. "That

so-called jaw-bone was a lump of chalk, made porous by water, and the

rest was in your imagination. Do your worst, Bram, I'll never crucify

truth to save my life. And I'll laugh at your spalacotherium when your

beetles are eating me."

 

Bram yelled and shrieked, he stamped up and down the cavern, shaking his

fists at Dodd. At last, with a final torrent of objurgation, he

disappeared.

 

"A pleasant customer," said Tommy. "We'll have to make that bridge, Jim,

no question about it, even if it means death in the petrol fire."

 

"Fire's dying down fast," answered Dodd. "Haidia ought to be here soon."

 

"If Bram hasn't got her."

 

"Bram got--that girl? If Bram harms a hair of her head I'll kill him

with worse tortures than he's ever dreamed of," answered Dodd, leaping

up, white with rage.

 

"You mean you--?" Tommy began.

 

"Love her? Yes, I love her," shouted Dodd. "She's a girl in a million.

Just the sort of helpmate I need to assist me in my work when we get

back. I tell you, Tommy, I didn't know what love meant before I saw

Haidia. I laughed at it as a romantic notion. 'Oh lyric love, half angel

and half bird!'" he quoted, beginning to stride up and down the cavern,

while Tommy watched him in amazement.

 

And at this moment a complete beetle entered the cave. Complete, because

it had a plastron, or breast-shell, as well as a back-shell, or

carapace.

 

* * * * *

 

A double breast-shell! A new species of beetle? An executioner beetle,

sent by Bram to summon them to the torture? Tommy shuddered, but Dodd,

lost in his love ecstasy, was ignorant of the creature's advent.

 

"'Oh lyric love--'" he shouted again, as he twirled on his heel, to run

smack into the monster. The crack of Dodd's head against the

beetle-shell re-echoed through the cave.

 

The double plastron dropped, the carapace fell down: Haidia stood

revealed. The lovers, folded in each other's arms, passed momentarily

into a trance.

 

It was Tommy who separated them. "We'll have to make a move," he said.

"I think the fire's as low as it ever gets. Why did you bring the

shells, Haidia?"

 

"To save us all from the beetles," answered the girl. "When they see us

in the shells, they will not know we are human. That is what makes it so

hard to have to be eaten by those beetles, when they are such

dumb-bells," she added, reproducing another of Tommy's words.

 

"Come," she continued bravely, "let us see if we can pass the fire."

 

* * * * *

 

The roaring fountain made the air a veritable inferno. Overhead the

rocks were red-hot. A cascade of sparks tumbled in a fiery shower from

the rock roof. Dodd, holding Haidia in his arms, to protect her,

staggered ahead, with Tommy in the rear. Only the beetle-shells, which

acted as non-conductors of the heat, made that fiery passage possible.

 

There was one moment when it seemed to Tommy as if he must let go, and

drop into that raging furnace underneath. He heard Dodd bawling hoarsely

in front of him, he nerved himself to a last effort, beating fiercely at

his blazing hair--and then the heat was past, and he had dropped

unconscious upon a bed of cool earth beside a rushing river.

 

He was vaguely aware of being carried in Dodd's arms, but a long time

seemed to have passed before he grew conscious again. He opened his eyes

in utter darkness. Dodd was whispering in his ear.

 

"Tommy, old man, how are you feeling now?" Dodd asked.

 

"All--right," Tommy muttered. "How's Haidia?"

 

"Still unconscious, poor girl. We've got to get out of here. I heard

Bram yelling in the distance. He's discovered our flight. There may be

another way out of the cave, and, if so, he'll stop at nothing to get

us. See if you can stand, but keep your head low. There's a low roof of

rock above us."

 

"There's water," said Tommy, listening to the roar of a torrent that

seemed to be rushing past them.

 

"It's a stream, and I believe these shells will float and bear our

weight. We've got to try. We've got to put everything to the touch now,

Tommy. I'm going to lay Haidia on one of the shells, poor girl, and

start her off. Then I'll follow, and you can bring up the rear."

 

"I'm with you," said Tommy, getting upon his feet, and uttering an

exclamation of pain as, forgetful of Dodd's injunction, he let his head

strike the rock roof overhead.

 

* * * * *

 

In the darkness he felt the outlines of his beetle-shell lying beside

the torrent. He could hear Dodd in front of him, grunting as he raised

Haidia's unconscious form in his arms and deposited her in her shell.

Tommy got his own shell into the stream, and held it there as the waters

swirled around it.

 

"Ready?" he heard Dodd call.

 

Before he could answer, there sounded from not far away, yet strangely

muffled by the rocks, Bram's bellow of fury. Bram was evidently fully

drugged and beside himself. Inarticulate threats came floating through

the rocky chamber.

 

"Bram seems to have lost his head temporarily," called Dodd, laughing.

"A madman, Tommy. He insists that the marsupial lion--"

 

"Yes, I heard you telling him about it," answered Tommy. "You handed it

to him straight. However, more about the marsupial lion later. I'm

ready."

 

"Then let 'er go," called Dodd, and his words were swallowed up by the

sound of the hollow shell striking against the rocky bank as he launched

his strange craft into the water.

 

Tommy set one foot into the hollow of his shell, and let himself go.

 

Instantly the shell shot forward with fearful velocity. It was all Tommy

could do to balance himself, for it seemed more unstable than a canoe.

Once or twice he thought he heard Dodd shouting ahead of him, but his

cries were drowned in the rush of the torrent.

 

* * * * *

 

Suddenly a light appeared in the distance. Tommy thought it was another

of the petroleum fountains, and his heart seemed to stand still. But

then he gave a gasp of relief. It was a cluster of luminous fungi, ten

or twelve feet tall, emitting a glow equal to that of a dozen 40-watt

electric bulbs.

 

By that infernal light Tommy could see that the stream curved sharply.

It was about fifty feet in width, and the low rock roof had receded to

some fifteen feet overhead. Instead of a tunnel, there was nothing on

either side of them but a vast tract of marshy ground thinly coated with

the red grass.

 

As Tommy looked, he saw the shell that carried the unconscious body of

Haidia strike the bank beside the phosphorescent growth. He could see

the girl lying in the hollow of the shell, as pale as death, her eyes

closed. Dodd was close behind. As the swirl of the current caught his

shell, he turned to shout a warning to Tommy.

 

And Tommy noticed a singular thing, of which his sense of balance had

already warned him, though he had hardly given conscious thought to the

matter. _The river was running up-hill!_

 

Of course it was, since the center of gravity was in the shell of the

earth, and not in the center!

 

But, again, the shell of the earth was under their feet!

 

Then Tommy hit on the solution to the problem. If the river was running

up-hill, that meant that they must be near the exterior of the earth. In

other words, they had passed the center of gravity: they must be within

a mile or so of the exit from Submundia!

 

* * * * *

 

Tommy was about to shout his discovery to Dodd when his shell grounded

beside the two others, at the base of the clump of fungi.

 

Huge, straight, hollow stems they were, with mushroom caps, and, like

all fungi, fly-blown, for Tommy could see worms nearly a foot in length

crawling in and out of the porous stalks. The stench from the growth was

nauseating and overpowering, utterly sickening.

 

"Push off and let's get out of here!" Tommy called to Dodd, who was

balancing his shell against the bank, and trying to peer into Haidia's

face.

 

At that moment he caught sight of something that made his blood turn

cold!

 

It was an insect fully fifteen feet in height, three times that of a

beetle, lurking among the fungi. He saw a hugely elongated neck, a

three-cornered head with a pair of tentacles, and two pairs of legs as

long as a giraffe's. But what gave the added touch of horror was that

the monster, balancing itself on its hind legs, had its forelegs

extended in the attitude of one holding a prayer-book!

 

That attitude of devotion was so terrible that Tommy uttered a wild cry

of terror. At the same time another cry broke from Dodd's lips.

 

"God, a praying mantis!" he shouted, struggling madly to push off his

shell and Haidia's.

 

The next moment, as if shot from a catapult, the hideous monster

launched itself into the air straight toward them.

 

(_To be concluded in the February Number._)

 

 

 

 

The Cave of Horror

 

_By Captain S. P. Meek_

 

[Illustration: "_Suddenly, for no apparent reason at all, one of the men

on guard was jerked into the air feet upwards._"]

 

[Sidenote: Screaming, the guardsman was jerked through the air. An

unearthly screech rang through the cavern. The unseen horror of Mammoth

Cave had struck again.]

 

 

Dr. Bird looked up impatiently as the door of his private laboratory in

the Bureau of Standards swung open, but the frown on his face changed to

a smile as he saw the form of Operative Carnes of the United States

Secret Service framed in the doorway.

 

"Hello, Carnes," he called cheerfully. "Take a seat and make yourself at

home for a few minutes. I'll be with you as soon as I finish getting

this weight."

 

Carnes sat on the edge of a bench and watched with admiration the long

nervous hands and the slim tapering fingers of the famous scientist. Dr.

Bird stood well over six feet and weighed two hundred and six pounds

stripped: his massive shoulders and heavy shock of unruly black hair

combined to give him the appearance of a prize-fighter--until one looked

at his hands. Acid stains and scars could not hide the beauty of those

mobile hands, the hands of an artist and a dreamer. An artist Dr. Bird

was, albeit his artistry expressed itself in the most delicate and

complicated experiments in the realms of pure and applied science that

the world has ever seen, rather than in the commoner forms of art.

 

The doctor finished his task of weighing a porcelain crucible, set it

carefully into a dessicator, and turned to his friend.

 

"What's on your mind, Carnes?" he asked. "You look worried. Is there

another counterfeit on the market?"

 

The operative shook his head.

 

"Have you been reading those stories that the papers have been carrying

about Mammoth Cave?" he asked.

 

Dr. Bird emitted a snort of disgust.

 

"I read the first one of them part way through on the strength of its

being an Associated Press dispatch," he replied, "but that was enough.

It didn't exactly impress me with its veracity, and, from a viewpoint of

literature, the thing was impossible. I have no time to pore over the

lucubrations of an inspired press agent."

 

"So you dismissed them as mere press agent work?"

 

"Certainly. What else could they be? Things like that don't happen

fortuitously just as the tourist season is about to open. I suppose that

those yarns will bring flocks of the curious to Kentucky though: the

public always responds well to sea serpent yarns."

 

"Mammoth Cave has been closed to visitors for the season," said Carnes

quietly.

 

"What?" cried the doctor in surprise. "Was there really something to

those wild yarns?"

 

* * * * *

 

"There was, and what is more to the point, there still is. At least

there is enough to it that I am leaving for Kentucky this evening, and I

came here for the express purpose of asking you whether you wanted to

come along. Bolton suggested that I ask you: he said that the whole

thing sounded to him like magic and that magic was more in your line

than in ours. He made out a request for your services and I have it in

my pocket now. Are you interested?"

 

"How does the secret service cut in on it?" asked the doctor. "It seems

to me that it is a state matter. Mammoth Cave isn't a National Park."

 

"Apparently you haven't followed the papers. It _was_ a state matter

until the Governor asked for federal troops. Whenever the regulars get

into trouble, the federal government is rather apt to take a hand."

 

"I didn't know that regulars had been sent there. Tell me about the

case."

 

"Will you come along?"

 

Dr. Bird shook his head slowly.

 

"I really don't see how I can spare the time, Carnes," he said. "I am in

the midst of some work of the utmost importance and it hasn't reached

the stage where I can turn it over to an assistant."

 

"Then I won't bother you with the details," replied Carnes as he rose.

 

"Sit down, confound you!" cried the doctor. "You know better than to try

to pull that on me. Tell me your case, and then I'll tell you whether

I'll go or not. I can't spare the time, but, on the other hand, if it

sounds interesting enough...."

 

* * * * *

 

Carnes laughed.

 

"All right, Doctor," he said, "I'll take enough time to tell you about

it even if you can't go. Do you know anything about it?"

 

"No. I read the first story half way through and then stopped. Start at

the beginning and tell me the whole thing."

 

"Have you ever been to Mammoth Cave?"

 

"No."

 

"It, or rather they, for while it is called Mammoth Cave it is really a

series of caves, are located in Edmonson County in Central Kentucky, on

a spur railroad from Glasgow Junction on the Louisville and Nashville

Railroad. They are natural limestone caverns with the customary

stalactite and stalagmite formation, but are unusually large and very

beautiful. The caves are quite extensive and they are on different

levels, so that a guide is necessary if one wants to enter them and be

at all sure of finding the way out. Visitors are taken over a regular

route and are seldom allowed to visit portions of the cave off these

routes. Large parts of the cave have never been thoroughly explored or

mapped. So much for the scene.

 

"About a month ago a party from Philadelphia who were motoring through

Kentucky, entered the cave with a regular guide. The party consisted of

a man and his wife and their two children, a boy of fourteen and a girl

of twelve. They went quite a distance back into the caves and then, as

the mother was feeling tired, she and her husband sat down, intending to

wait until the guide showed the children some sights which lay just

ahead and then return to them. The guide and the children never returned."