Collected Short Fiction, page 31
The horror relaxed, and I collapsed in a daze of relief. In a moment I had recovered and got to my feet. Xenora was a score of yards away, dashing off. I ran after her, calling for her to take back the precious helmet.
Suddenly she stopped. A convulsion ran through her frame. She turned, with her face a mask of livid horror. She was in the power of the Flame! She was a Sleeper! She bent, seized a rock, and hurled it at my head with superhuman strength. I dodged and it hurtled past my ear. She sprang at me like an animal, drawing the hunting knife I had left her.
I turned and ran wildly, as a score of the Sleepers came running. I passed close by that violet metal monostyle, and it seemed that its crawling violet fires reached out for me. I ran desperately toward the east! I heard the strange cries of the Sleepers of Mutron behind me! I felt the awful green flame writhing above me, but even it could not penetrate the helmet!
I was insane with terror!
I ran on and on, through eternities of heart-breaking effort. At last I stopped exhausted, with pounding temples and bursting lungs, to look behind me. The flaming brain was but a dull violet glow against the red sky. A desolate waste of bare rugged rocks and great round craters lay about me beneath the crimson mist. All was silent! The sounds of pursuit were gone!
CHAPTER XXX
“The Nitrate Plantation”
SHOULD I go on, or return and try to save Xenora, as she had rescued me? That question throbbed in my brain. The answer would have been easy enough if I had had her alone to consider. I might cheerfully have surrendered myself to that dreaded power to save her—any man would have done as much! But what of the menace to the earth? Should I give up the struggle?
For a long time I stood there on the rim of a strange crater, lost in indecision. At last my sense of duty to mankind was victor. I set off wearily toward the east again. The Omnimobile was so near the flaming brain that I dared not attempt to reach it, even if I had been confident of finding it. And upon consideration, I was sure that if the machine was left as it was, it would be only as a trap for me.
A sorry hope, indeed, was I for victory in the struggle with that vast alien power for the safety of earth! A man alone, ragged, without even a pocket-knife, lost in the wilderness of a strange world, and possessing only a modicum of scientific knowledge!
What folly, indeed, for one in such circumstances to pit himself against such a science! But that seemed the only hope for victory. With Sam in my place, the outlook would have been brighter. If I had a fair scientific education, Sam knew enough to raise cities and armies in the wilderness!
For many hours I struggled toward the east—away from the violet glow—over the desert of rocks and craters, through the ruby mist. And I came unexpectedly upon an explanation for the origin of the crimson haze. Thin clouds of red luminous gas were hissing from some of the craters or funaroles—escaping from the radium deposits in the core of the earth, to float up and augment the radioactive cloud that held up the waters!
I was half dead with weariness when I reached the mile-high cliffs at the crater’s rim, and half insane with grief for Xenora, and with angry doubt of my wisdom in deserting her. I have little memory of how I got up that wall of rocks. I remember climbing until I was worn out, of toiling upward with bleeding hands and feet, of fighting on when I was dizzy for want of food and water, of struggling up when my body screamed in pain for me to surrender and drop to merciful oblivion in the abyss! I remember sleeping many times on ledges or in crevices when I could go no farther.
But at last I reached the rim!
I climbed out upon the flat plateau to the east of the abyss, a strange wilderness of green plains and purple trees, but infinitely welcome after the tortures through which I had been. I stumbled across the meadows until I found a little stream. Eagerly I wet my parched mouth, and presently I slaked my thirst, and ate a few of the date-like fruits of the flowering trees. And then I slept.
For a period of many months thereafter, I led a strange wild life—the life of a beast or a savage. It now seems to me that I must have been more than half insane, yet I had cunning of a sort. Wandering about in the woodland in the first few days, before my strength was fully recovered, I came upon a great lump of native copper. With hammer and anvil of stone I set out to shape some tools of it. First I made a knife, and then a broad blade for a wooden spear. With those weapons I soon had stalked and killed one of the great fat sloths. After several weary efforts, I achieved a fire by friction, and feasted upon roasted meat.
Many were the mad and impossible schemes that my fevered brain formed for making an attack on the flaming brain of metal, only to reject each upon consideration. As I had hurtled through the air above the pit, in my ill-starred attack in the Omnimobile, I had been much impressed by the narrowness of the bridge of cliffs between the great lake and the abyss. Now it occurred to me that I might dig a canal, and let the waters of the lake in to flood the Lord of Flame.
With that in mind, I made an expedition to the isthmus, armed with copper pick and spade. I found that my eyes had curiously deceived me, from the air. The land bridge was a wall of rock, nowhere less than a hundred feet high and four hundred thick, covered with a rank growth of jungle. Along it, even as Xenora had said, was a ruined road. Here and there a crumbling stone monument rose from the jungle like a bleached skull of the dead civilization.
There was no hope of digging a canal. A hundred men, in ten years, might have been able to cut a tunnel through that wall of stone, with modern tools and explosives! Nitroglycerine! That started me on a new line of thought. I had once made chemistry a hobby. It was not impossible. For Sam, it would have been child’s play. But, alas! there was no help from my old friend!
I set to work at once. For many months I labored. The task was a tremendous one. The first necessity was an adequate supply of nitrates. I was not fortunate enough to discover a natural deposit, as heroes of fiction usually are; so I set out to make a “nitrate plantation” such as is used for the manufacture of nitrates in a primitive way. I dug a great shallow pit, lined it with waterproof clay, and filled it with alternate layers of wood ashes obtained by burning the purple trees, and everything I could pick up in the way of nitrogenous animal and vegetable refuse. At last it was filled and wet down with water from my clay-bed. I had nothing to do but wait until the nitrogen products of decomposition had united themselves with the potassium bases in the wood ashes.
Then I fell to the mining of iron pyrites, and to the building of a furnace in which I could burn my pottery apparatus. After many disheartening failures I was able to set up apparatus that I thought would suffice for the manufacture of my acids. I burned rude jars, glazed with sand, in which to carry and store my reagents and explosives.
My memory of all that time is a dim dream of terror. Many times for long hours I stood on the brink, gazing into the flickering mist, thinking of Xenora and half determined to give it all up and to seek her. But always I went back to my mad task, toiling in a daze of grief and despair.
Before I did anything more in the way of manufacture, I paid another visit to the isthmus, and selected the site for the mine which was to tear an opening in it. I found a deep crevice in the rocks, and spent many weeks in clearing and enlarging it, until I had ready a chamber deep in the heart of the barrier, below the level of the lake.
During all that time I lived upon the little fruits and upon the flesh of the sloths I killed. I carefully saved the fat from the latter, saponified it with alkalies leached from wood ashes, and removed the soap by “salting down” with evaporated brine from a salt spring. I collected and stored the glycerine until I had many gallons.
At last, judging that my “nitrate plantation” had had time to serve its purpose, I dug it up, leached the product, and crystallized the saltpeter by evaporation in earthen pots. The yield was satisfactory in quantity and fair in quality, but it had cost fearful effort.
Then I set about the manufacture of sulphuric acid by roasting the iron pyrites with nitrate in my crude apparatus, collecting the acid in wet pottery condensers. That took many days, and the next step was making nitric acid by boiling saltpeter in sulphuric acid and condensing the fumes.
At last, when I had the three necessary chemicals—glycerine, and nitric and sulphuric acids—I set out to transport them separately to my mine, to avoid the hazard of the transportation of the finished product. That, again, was a heartbreaking task, for I had materials enough to make several hundred quarts of nitroglycerine, and the distance was half a dozen miles.
But ragged, ill-kept savage that I was, I had collected on the cliffs above my shaft the materials for the manufacture of a good quantity of high explosive. For one in my position, it had been a considerable achievement.
CHAPTER XXXI
The Mine on the Brink
AT LAST, in haste and fear and trembling, I began the task of mixing my chemicals, dumping them into vats of water cooled by evaporation, under a rude shed to cut off the fierce heat of the red sky. Even with all my precautions to prevent a premature explosion, the hazard was fearful. I washed the nitroglycerine, and carried it in earthen jars down into the heart of the cliffs. I meant to die in the final explosion, but I was afraid the stuff would go off before it was in place.
But finally I got the last of the rough jars into position. Then I closed the mouth of the chamber with rocks and rubbish, to be sure that the full force of the explosion would be exerted upon the cliff. I lit the fuse I had prepared—a tall candle of the sloth’s fat, which, burning low, would ignite a powder train; and that would set off a charge of gunpowder I had placed by the jars of nitroglycerine.
I knew that, if my terrible months of toil had not been in vain, a few hours more would see a raging torrent of water rushing into the pit. At last I judged my task completed. I walked a few yards north to the rim. I stood on the brink of that sheer precipice, and gazed down into the rosy mist, alight, as always, with the wavering, reflected fires of the metal brain. I made no attempt to get beyond the range of the explosion. Hope was dead. Life meant no more to me. I was ready to be swept into the abyss on the crest of the wave that, if my plans went well, would drown the flaming brain.
For a long time I stood there waiting, lost in dreams of Xenora. I had no doubt that she was dead. My regret was bitter; I stormed vainly and passionately at fate. If my reason had been tottering, now it was almost gone. I wept, and cursed, and then laughed loud and bitterly. A strange figure I must have been, wild and unkempt, red and burned from exposure, half naked, with insanity in my eyes, laughing and waiting to be blown to my doom!
And then I heard a sound that brought me into silent and cunning alertness! I sprang to the mouth of my shaft and crouched like a savage with my great copper-bladed spear at hand. I heard a stone rattling and crashing down into the abyss! Someone—or something—was climbing up out of the pit! I crept forward where I could see, and lay tense and silent, a desperate madman, determined to protect my mine against whatever might find it.
At last a human figure clambered up over the brink, and drew itself erect in the edge of the jungle! It was a Sleeper of Mutron! The emaciated form was bent beneath the weight of the bar of gleaming violet metal clamped upon its back. It was clad in tattered, bloody rags. The flesh was bleeding from the fearful climb.
With the dull, mechanical motions of a sleeping person, or of a walking corpse, galvanized by some weird power, that terrible figure got deliberately to its feet. The bloody hands raised a long, glittering weapon of silver metal. And it plodded dully, lifelessly, toward me. And then a hoarse, wild cry echoed through the silent jungle—my own scream!
The Sleeper was Xenora!
With her old intuition of my thoughts, she had been able to penetrate my helmet! Through her, the Lord of Flame had read my thoughts of victory! She had been sent to prevent the mine’s explosion, to snuff out that candle flame!
If she heard my scream, she paid no heed. She walked on toward me, with the same weary, mechanical gait. There was no light, no life in her eyes. They stared straight ahead, dully, unseeing! And the strange silver tube was held ready in her hand. She was more like a moving corpse—a dead avenger—than a living person!
A mad storm of desires arose in my brain. How I longed to spring up, to take that dear body in my arms, to minister to its hurts, to have the Green Girl for my own again! It took all my will to hold me in my hiding place. But this was not Xenora! It was a Sleeper of Mutron, a slave of the Lord of Flame!
It was a fearful choice before me! But my resolution held! I would carry on if it tore out my heart. With a burning pain in my breast, I ran my fingers over the jagged copper blade, and tensed my muscles for a spring!
Perhaps, after all, we would be better dead.
My madness was gone, but cold, grim determination remained. I knew that I would not hesitate. The silent, sleeping figure of the Green Girl was but a dozen yards from me, and I raised my ragged blade!
Then—a shadow upon the crimson sky! A whisper that grew to a mighty roar! The beat of many wings! A strange and ringing cry from the air above! A shouted, imperative, strange-toned command! Sam’s well-remembered voice! A rushing sweep of vast green wings before my eyes! A tempest of wind as they beat the air! Xenora snatched up and out of my sight by great red tentacles!
I was petrified in incredulous amazement. It seemed impossible that Sam should be alive. Yet, there had been no definite proof of his death. And, I thought, it must have been Alexander that carried him, and that had swept up Xenora.
In a moment I had aroused myself, and dashed out of my hiding place beneath the purple trees. It was an amazing sight that met my eyes. There were numberless thousands of the flying plants on the wing above! The red sky was flecked with their green wings! In a strange semblance to military order they flew, like fleets of battle-planes. In scores and hundreds they dived and circled, in perfect formation. Many of them, I saw, carried weapons—vast clubs, or huge metal-tipped spears, or heavy stones and masses of metal.
And then a flight of them swept downward again, and I saw Sam, mounted on one that must have been Alexander—though the things all looked alike to me. He was evidently controlling the whole squadron with his shouts and gestures. The old scientist still seemed strong and able.
Then I saw Xenora. She was still in the clutch of the winged steed of Sam’s. Even as I looked, the red tentacles tore off the flaming violet prism and hurled it into the abyss.
The weird, amazing creature dived. An incredible thing it was, with its armored brown body as large as a shark’s, with the vast flower of the flowing colors about its head, with red tentacles like those of a gigantic scarlet octopus, and with wings like those of a green airplane!
It bore down upon me! A great crimson tentacle reached down and picked me up! I was swept through the air, held lightly in that strange grasp, and lifted until I was face to face with Sam, who sat astride the creature! He reached out his strong brown hand and grasped my own.
“Mel, old man, it’s some luck to find you! And what do you think of my army? A couple of the flying dragons captured Alec and me, so I’ve been making the best of a bad situation. The things are really quite intelligent, and I’ve been drilling them for months. They’re hereditary enemies of the alien civilization, anyhow. There’s going to be some fight when we meet the silver ships!” Exultant, joyous triumph rang in his tones. He had not noticed my strange condition.
At last I was sufficiently recovered to speak. “I’ve got a ton of nitroglycerine in that rock,” I stammered. “The lake will be running in the pit in an hour or so.” My voice had a curious rusty sound.
“Nitroglycerine! You’ve been making it, and planting a mine! No wonder you look like a ghost! And how comes Xenora to have that damned metal bar on her?”
Abruptly I broke down into uncontrollable tears of relief and joy. I did not try to answer. In a few minutes the vast army of winged monsters had wheeled about, and was headed north again, over the crimson mists—line after regular line of beating green wings that bore the strangest army of history to the strangest battle ever fought!
But, at the moment, I was paying little attention, for I was mounted on another of those vast flying creatures; and in my arms was Xenora! She was limp, unconscious, sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion. But she was free again from the Lord of Flame! With tears of joy streaming down my face, I tried to dress her bleeding hands and feet.
CHAPTER XXXII
When the Red Roof Fell
ABRUPTLY a green light ran through the rosy haze beneath us, and that dreadful twisting bar of radiance—that living, alien tongue of fire—the serpent-like head of the Lord of Flame, was thrust up out of the flickering violet! With its strange, writhing motion, it swept in a wide arc, as though it saw us! It searched the sky, and then drew back in alarm! The terrible, rhythmic throb of the emerald gleam in it grew faster!
And quickly the crimson sky ahead of our flying army of green-winged monsters was filled with fleets of the silver spheres! They rose swiftly, by the hundred, in long, gleaming lines—floating, drifting, darting, as though carried in swift, cyclonic winds. And then in smoothly sailing squadrons they advanced to meet us, with the swirling green mists of the disintegration force reaching out before them!
The aerial battle-lines met! The winged monsters joined in mad conflict with the silver ships! It was a fierce struggle—a terrible scene! The plant-things swept to the attack, scores in number for each great ship. With desperate, incredible energy they wielded their gigantic clubs and spears; or, wheeling high above the silver vessels, dropped their missiles down upon them.
And the swift searching fingers of purple flame reached out of the silver ships, to guide the thick, swirling vortexes of atomic disintegration. Under that terrible force of flowing green, the plant creatures turned red, battled on for a moment as they glowed with an awful scarlet radiance, and fell in a rain of crimson sparks that fast faded into nothingness!
