The 52nd Golden Age of Science Fiction, page 20
“Penny,” he whispered.
Had the same horrible death struck at her? Had she tried to flee only to find death racing after her, death coming faster than she could run?
He was trembling as he knelt beside her.
Then—she stirred in his arms. Her dress did not fall into dust at his touch, as Morton’s clothing had. And her skin was white, not a hideous blotched red. Death had passed her by.
“Oh, Rocks,” she whispered. “It was awful—”
Kennedy and his two men paused only long enough to make certain Penny was not injured. Then they went on into the house, and Rocks, even in the pressure of that moment, found time to admire their courage. Good boys, those cops were. They knew they might find something inside that house against which their guns would prove useless. But they drew the guns, and went in.
“Are you all right?” Rocks whispered.
“I—I think so. After I called you, I ran outside to call for help and I slipped and fell down the steps.”
He picked her up and carried her inside, laid her on a divan. He did not ask about her grandfather. He could hear the detectives on the floor above. They had stopped racing through the house, jerking open doors. They were all gathered in one room and they weren’t saying much.
Then Kennedy came down the stairs, with one of his men. “Malone,” he called softly.
“Here,” Rocks answered. Kennedy came in. His eyes were black agates in a mask of dough. He slipped his gun back into its holster and said to the man who followed him, “You stay here with the girl. Malone, will you come upstairs with me?”
Rocks nodded. The detective led the way upstairs.
McCumber lay on the floor. The skin of his face was a blotch of red. His clothing had fallen away into dust. He had been working at his desk. When death struck him he had fallen to the floor.
Kennedy took a sheet from the bed and placed it over the still form.
Penny, very pale but very resolute, came into the room.
“Are you strong enough to tell us what happened?” Kennedy asked gently.
“I came in to kiss him goodnight,” she answered. “He was lying there on the floor. I started to run to the telephone—then I heard something.” She shuddered. “It was—I didn’t hear anything. You can’t hear silence, I suppose. But I did hear it. My feet didn’t make any sound on the floor. I know I screamed, but I couldn’t ever hear the sound of my own voice. I ran to call the museum, then I ran outside to call for help.”
“Did you see anything in the room?”
“No. The desk light was burning and most of the room was in shadows, but if anything was here, I didn’t see it. But—” she paused.
“What is it, miss?” Kennedy inquired gently.
“It isn’t anything I’m sure of,” she answered. “But I think that thing followed us home from the museum. I had the feeling that we were being followed.”
“Did you see anything following you?”
She shook her head. “It was just an impression, a feeling.”
“You had better go lie down,” said Rocks. “We’ll take care of everything.” He looked at Kennedy. “Can she have a man to be on guard outside her door?”
“She sure can. I’ll call headquarters and get a special detail here at once.” Gently Rocks led her to her room. Better than anyone else, he knew how impossible it was to put into words anything that would make her feel better. Only time could do that. And now that the terrible death had struck twice, he knew that Penny might be in danger. No one could tell where it would strike again. Or why.
It was a death that came in silence. It came out of nowhere, struck, and passed back into nowhere, leaving no clues behind it. It had come out of a metal box found in the tomb of a king forgotten for six thousand years. It was older than the king. It was older than history. It came out of the black past of the planet with horrible, monstrous death. Sharp had seen it—a creature of planes and angles, flashing lights, a creature that disappeared at will, and reappeared elsewhere. It had been here in this home, and had struck down a man. It might be here still, watching, waiting.
Penny cried as she lay on her bed and wiped the tears away, and tried to think. How had it entered the house? The doors had been locked. Of course it could have secured entrance through an open window, but how had it passed so unerringly through the rooms, seeking out her grandfather? Why had it killed him? Did he threaten its existence?
Penny tried to think, and tried not to.
Rocks talked to Kennedy. The burly detective said, “If this was an ordinary murder, I would know how to handle it. The first thing we always look for is the motive. When we find that, we’ve got the killer. But there’s no motive here—there’s not anything. Frankly, Malone, I’m up a tree. We’ve got to find that thing, and destroy it, quickly. Supposing it should start wandering loose through the streets of Chicago—” The detective shuddered. “Malone, if you have any ideas, let’s have them. I admit I don’t know what to do.”
Rocks had been thinking too. “This thing came out of that box back in the museum. If the secret of controlling it is anywhere, it’s written on the lid of that box.” He gritted his teeth. “I don’t think we have a chance in a million of cracking that language, but right now it’s the only thing I see to try.”
“We’ll go back to the museum,” said Kennedy. “I can’t help with the language, but I want another look around that place.”
The authorities responsible in cases of sudden death had already arrived at the McCumber home. Kennedy left a special detail to guard Penny. He and Rocks went back to the museum.
Rocks went to work. He began to try to crack the hieroglyphics written on the lid of the box. That his task was all but impossible, he well knew.
He could read Sanskrit, Babylonian cuneiform, and Egyptian picture writing with fair readiness. He could translate ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek. An archeologist had to know these languages.
He thought the writing on the box might be in one of these languages.
He began with Morton’s notes.
Then the telephone rang again. Kennedy went to answer it. He came back very excited.
“That was the girl—Penny,” he said. “She may have something. She described a piece of round glass and said her grandfather had found it in his pocket tonight as he left the museum. She wanted to know if we had found it. I didn’t. Did you?”
“No,” Rocks answered. “But I can’t see how it is important.”
“Nor can I,” Kennedy answered. “But it might be. I’ll call and see if it has been found. She also mentioned another thing, and this, I think, is really important.”
“What was it?”
“She said her grandfather was writing at his desk when he was killed. The piece of paper on which he was writing was under a blotter and we missed it. She found it. The old man had written a single question on it.”
Rocks had risen from his chair. Here, he realized, might be a clue that would lead them to the capture of the incredible creature that was loose within the city. “What was the question?”
“‘Why did Morton weigh the box a second time?’” Kennedy said.
“Why did he—” Rocks sat down again. His eyes went across the room to the box. It was sitting on the scales where Morton had placed it.
“It’s routine here,” Rocks said slowly, “to weigh all specimens as soon as they are brought in. Many statuettes, etc., were constructed as hiding places for gems. We weigh them, compute their specific gravity, and thus determine if they contain a hollow place that might be worth investigating.”
His eyes lit up. “Morton weighed that box before it was opened. He opened it, and something came out of it. But, from Sharp’s description, they were in doubt as to whether something had really come out of the box. There was one way to prove something had come out of it—weigh it again and check its present weight with its weight when it was brought in.”
Rocks leaped across the room to the scales, checked the weight of the box. It weighed 121 pounds. Quickly he found Morton’s notes and located the weight of the box when it was first brought to the museum.
“Before it was opened it weighed an even 130 pounds,” he said. “Now it only weighs 121. That proves that something came out of it.”
Kennedy whistled. “Nine pounds of sudden death. Well, we don’t need any proof to know that something came out of that box. We’ve got two dead men to prove it. Look,” the detective finished, “I’m going back to McCumber’s residence and see if I can locate that piece of glass. You keep trying to crack that language.”
He went out of the room on the run. The motor of the squad car howled to sudden life outside as the detective left.
Rocks expected Kennedy to return. But he didn’t come back that night. He called instead. “I’m at the undertaker’s. They didn’t find any piece of red glass. I’ve been over McCumber’s house with a magnifying glass. It isn’t there. Either the thing that killed him destroyed it, or somebody picked it up. You getting anywhere with that language?”
“No,” Rocks groaned.
“Well, keep trying. My hunch is that everything depends on whether or not you solve those hieroglyphics. I’ve got some checking to do on this end. I’ll call you if anything turns up.” The detective hung up.
Rocks went back to the basement. His job was to crack the language. And what a job that was!
The night ended. Dawn came. The morning was passing. Rocks worked on.
The museum was closed that day. The police were not willing to take a chance on some visitor stumbling into a death that came in silence. Nor was the museum itself. Sharp called in and gave explicit orders on that point.
Rocks drank strong coffee, and worked, and failed. The language was not similar to cuneiform. It was not like any language he knew. Every time he realized that fact, he shivered. It had either been invented by a people so long lost in the past that history had no record of them, or it didn’t belong on earth at all.
Yet someone, somewhere, had constructed that box, and had used it to safeguard something. Perhaps they had used it as a prison, to cage a creature they could not control, an entity unknown to the science of the present. Perhaps later peoples had created legends about it—Pandora’s Box. Perhaps this was really Pandora’s Box that Morton had brought back from Asia Minor.
The creature had waited in that box for uncounted centuries. Now a new race had opened the door of his prison.
Now the Lord of the Silent Death was free again.
Rocks Malone kept wondering when and where he would strike.
During the whole day there was not even a whisper of the incredible silence in which men’s lives were blotted out.
But when the second night came—
CHAPTER IV
At nine o’clock that night Rocks was ready to drop from exhaustion. He was not only so tired that the hieroglyphics blurred before his eyes, but he had failed. That hurt worse than anything else. Everything depended on his cracking the lost language, and he had failed.
At nine o’clock it happened.
There were three officers on duty at the museum. They had been sent there as a guard detail and they had brought in a radio so they could listen to the police calls. They had the radio in a room on the first floor, so it would not disturb Rocks.
At nine o’clock one of them came stumbling downstairs. His face was ashen. “Hell’s broken loose,” he said tersely. “It’s coming in over the radio. Come on upstairs if you want to listen. You might as well forget that language now.”
Over and over again the announcer was droning. “Calling all cars—Calling all cars—Drop everything and be on the alert. Tragedy in burlesque showhouse. Over three hundred people dead. Cause of death not known. Manager went in to investigate sudden silence. Found audience and cast of show dead. Bodies livid color, as if they had been burned. Clothing falls to ashes when touched. Sergeant Kennedy of the homicide division suggests there is a definite connection between the death of these people and the death of the two Asian Museum archeologists last night. Be on the alert. Take over main intersections and prevent panic. Story already broken in general radio news flash. Cordon being thrown around the theater area. All special details canceled, all squad cars call your stations for definite orders—Be on the alert—Calling all cars—”
Death was walking through Chicago, a horrible, incredible form of death.
Rocks Malone stood without moving, listening to the operator repeat his message. He could scarcely conceive the meaning of the words. “Over three hundred people dead—” Dim pictures flashed to his mind. Out of nowhere, out of nothingness, silence had come. Three hundred people had died. Before they knew what struck them, death had washed over them. Millions of microscopic needles had plunged through their bodies, points of agonizing pain. Then death—
Jerkily, the telephone rang. One of the officers grabbed it. He listened, said “Okay,” huskily, and turned to his fellows.
“Station calling. We’re to report back there immediately for emergency duty. They’re calling us off here. Come on.”
The radio was still droning as they went out.
The telephone rang again. It was Penny this time.
“I’m coming down there,” she said, “I’m scared. I’m coming down there with you.”
“Stay away from here!” Rocks shouted. But she had already hung up. Desperately, he tried to call her back. There was no answer. She had already left. She was driving toward the museum, driving through a night in which death lurked.
Rocks groaned. He went back to the basement. There was nothing he could do. Nothing! The coffee pot was bubbling on its burner. He poured himself a cup of the scalding brew. It burned his throat but it cleared his head.
He went back to work. The language was out. He couldn’t crack it. He didn’t even have time to try to crack it any more. But there were Morton’s notes. He hadn’t studied them thoroughly. He had read only those portions of the notes that dealt with the language. He began to go over them again, starting with the section that dealt with the discovery of the box.
Jan. 10, 1940—Morton had written—Discovered today what is unquestionably the tomb of a Sumerian king. Located in a hillside. Cut out of solid rock. Landslide centuries ago had covered entrance. But even more important, in my opinion, than the tomb is the discovery of the strange metal box that we found in a niche at the back. We are unable to determine the metal of which the box is constructed. It is covered with mould but shows no sign of rust or corrosion, which is exceedingly unusual, for this tomb dates back into the past for at least six thousand years.
“Jan. 12, 1940. Box very heavy—must weigh more than a hundred pounds. Frankly, aside from its archeological interest, I am curious to know the contents of this box. There is a possibility of gold or gems. Guess I’m human after all, to be thinking about wealth. Am writing full details to the museum.
“Jan. 15, 1940. Unable to open box. Must have cunning combination lock. Also unable to decipher inscription on it. Don’t know this form of writing. No record of it anywhere. This is exceedingly unusual. A completely forgotten language rediscovered.”
Rocks Malone went through the notes, reading swiftly, searching, hoping for a clue. Outside in the night death was stalking. And there was a possibility that the clue to the death lay here, in the notes of the dead archeologist.
Penny came in. He went to meet her. She flew to his arms. “It’s awful outside,” she whispered. “Thousands of people must have heard the news broadcast. Half of them are trying to get to the theater where all those people were killed. The others are trying to get away. Oh, Rocks, have you discovered anything.”
He shook his head. She looked again at his unshaven, haggard face, and said nothing.
He went back to the notes Morton had left. With Penny helping, he went through them, down to the last page. “It’s no use,” he groaned. “Morton didn’t know anything about the thing that was in that damned box.”
Then he turned the last page. Morton had written that page only yesterday, the day he died.
“Sept. 21, 1940. Succeeded in opening the box today. As I suspected it was closed by a combination lock. Deucedly clever thing, that lock. Not like any lock in use today. Patent rights on it might provide the museum with some of the cash it so badly needs.
“To my great astonishment, and regret, when I opened the box, I found it empty.”
Rocks Malone started at the words Morton had written. Penny had been reading over her shoulder. He heard her catch her breath.
EMPTY! The single word seemed to leap out at him. How on earth could Morton make a mistake like that!
There was another line of writing. “Weighed box. Find that it weighs nine pounds less than it did when I brought it here.”
In the fleeting flash of a second, Rocks saw the whole picture. Or almost all of it. There were parts that needed clearing up. But he knew at last the real significance of the fact that Morton had weighed the box a second time.
“There’s somebody coming!” Penny whispered.
A step had sounded on the stairs outside the room. The door opened. Sharp entered.
He had a traveling bag with him.
Rocks shoved the last page of Morton’s notes out of sight, got to his feet. “Hello,” he said. “Have you heard the radio?”
“I’ll say I have,” the business manager answered. “That’s why I’ve got this bag along. I’m getting away from here while I have a chance. It’s terrible—what happened to all those people at the theater. For all I know, it might happen to me next. Have you,” he paused, “have you found anything that might—might lead to the capture of that horrible beast? That’s why I stopped here, before I left town.”
“No,” Rocks answered. He walked across the basement toward the business manager. He was ten feet away, he was five feet away. He stopped. “One thing we have discovered. Morton’s notes. He said in his notes that when he opened the box he found it empty. What do you suppose he meant by that?”
Sharp looked perplexed. “Why, I have no idea. Perhaps he decided that what we saw was an illusion after all.”
