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Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930

by Various · English · Gutenberg #29255 · 479,783 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930

Author: Various

Editor: Harry Bates


        
Release date: June 27, 2009 [eBook #29255]
                Most recently updated: January 5, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASTOUNDING STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE SEPTEMBER 1930 ***




Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net











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  ASTOUNDING
  STORIES
  OF SUPER-SCIENCE

  _On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month_

  W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher

  HARRY BATES, Editor

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  VOL. III. No. 3              CONTENTS      SEPTEMBER, 1930

  COVER DESIGN              H. W. WESSOLOWSKI
  _Painted in Water-Colors from a Scene in "Marooned Under the Sea."_

  A PROBLEM IN COMMUNICATION     MILES J. BREUER, M.D.               293
  _The Delivery of His Country into the Clutches of a Merciless,
   Ultra-Modern Religion Can Be Prevented Only by Dr. Hagstrom's
   Deciphering an Extraordinary Code._

  JETTA OF THE LOWLANDS        RAY CUMMINGS                          310
  _Fantastic and Sinister Are the Lowlands into Which Philip Grant Descends
   on His Dangerous Assignment._ (Beginning a Three-Part Novel.)

  THE TERRIBLE TENTACLES, OF L-472     SEWELL PEASLEE WRIGHT         332
  _Commander John Hanson of the Special Patrol Service Records Another of
   His Thrilling Interplanetary Assignments._

  MAROONED UNDER THE SEA       PAUL ERNST                            346
  _Three Men Stick Out a Strange and Desperate Adventure Among the
   Incredible Monsters of the Dark Sea Floor._ (A Complete Novelette.)

  THE MURDER MACHINE     HUGH B. CAVE                                377
  _Four Lives Lay Helpless Before the Murder Machine, the Uncanny Device by
   Which Hypnotic Thought Waves Are Filtered Through Men's Minds to Mold
   Them Into Murdering Tools._

  THE ATTACK FROM SPACE     CAPTAIN S. P. MEEK                       390
  _From a Far World Came Monstrous Invaders Who Were All the More
   Terrifying Because Invisible._

  EARTH, THE MARAUDER     ARTHUR J. BURKS                            408
  _Martian Fire-Balls and the Terrific Moon-Cubes Wreak Tremendous
   Destruction on Helpless Earth in the Final Death Struggle of the Warring
   Worlds._ (Conclusion.)

  THE READERS' CORNER         ALL OF US                              423
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[Illustration: I saw the famous Science Temple with its constant stream
of worshippers.]

A Problem in Communication

_By Miles J. Breuer, M.D._


PART I

_The Science Community_

(This part is related by Peter Hagstrom, Ph.D.)


"The ability to communicate ideas from one individual to another," said
a professor of sociology to his class, "is the principal distinction
between human beings and their brute forbears. The increase and
refinement of this ability to communicate is an index of the degree of
civilization of a people. The more civilized a people, the more perfect
their ability to communicate, especially under difficulties and in
emergencies."

[Sidenote: _The delivery of his country into the clutches of a
merciless, ultra-modern religion can be prevented only by Dr. Hagstrom's
deciphering an extraordinary code._]

As usual, the observation burst harmlessly over the heads of most of the
students in the class, who were preoccupied with more immediate
things--with the evening's movies and the week-end's dance. But upon two
young men in the class, it made a powerful impression. It crystallized
within them certain vague conceptions and brought them to a conscious
focus, enabling the young men to turn formless dreams into concrete
acts. That is why I take the position that the above enthusiastic words
of this sociology professor, whose very name I have forgotten, were the
prime moving influence which many years later succeeded in saving
Occidental civilization from a catastrophe which would have been worse
than death and destruction.

       *       *       *       *       *

One of these young men was myself, and the other was my lifelong friend
and chum, Carl Benda, who saved his country by solving a tremendously
difficult scientific puzzle in a simple way, by sheer reasoning power,
and without apparatus. The sociology professor struck a responsive chord
in us: for since our earliest years we had wigwagged to each other as
Boy Scouts, learned the finger alphabet of the deaf and dumb so that we
might maintain communication during school hours, strung a telegraph
wire between our two homes, admired Poe's "Gold Bug" together and
devised boyish cipher codes in which to send each other postcards when
chance separated us. But we had always felt a little foolish about what
we considered our childish hobbies, until the professor's words suddenly
roused us to the realization that we were a highly civilized pair of
youngsters.

Not only did we then and there cease feeling guilty about our secret
ciphers and our dots and dashes, but the determination was born within
us to make of communication our life's work. It turned out that both of
us actually did devote our lives to the cause of communication; but the
passing years saw us engaged in widely and curiously divergent phases of
the work. Thirty years later, I was Professor of the Psychology of
Language at Columbia University, and Benda was Maintenance Engineer of
the Bell Telephone Company of New York City; and on his knowledge and
skill depended the continuity and stability of that stupendously complex
traffic, the telephone communication of Greater New York.

       *       *       *       *       *

Since our ambitious cravings were satisfied in our everyday work, and
since now ordinarily available methods of communication sufficed our
needs, we no longer felt impelled to signal across the house-tops with
semaphores nor to devise ciphers that would defy solution. But we still
kept up our intimate friendship and our intense interest in our beloved
subject. We were just as close chums at the age of fifty as we had been
at ten, and just as thrilled at new advances in communication: at
television, at the international language, at the supposed signals from
Mars.

That was the state of affairs between us up to a year ago. At about that
time Benda resigned his position with the New York Bell Telephone
Company to accept a place as the Director of Communication in the
Science Community. This, for many reasons, was a most amazing piece of
news to myself and to anyone who knew Benda.

Of course, it was commonly known that Benda was being sought by
Universities and corporations: I know personally of several tempting
offers he had received. But the New York Bell is a wealthy corporation
and had thus far managed to hold Benda, both by the munificence of its
salary and by the attractiveness of the work it offered him. That the
Science Community would want Benda was easy to understand; but, that it
could outbid the New York Bell, was, to say the least, a surprise.

Furthermore, that a man like Benda would want to have anything at all to
do with the Science Community seemed strange enough in itself. He had
the most practical common sense--well-balanced habits of thinking and
living, supported by an intellect so clear and so keen that I knew of
none to excel it. What the Science Community was, no one knew exactly;
but that there was something abnormal, fanatical, about it, no one
doubted.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Science Community, situated in Virginia, in the foothills of the
Blue Ridge, had first been heard of many years ago, when it was already
a going concern. At the time of which I now speak, the novelty had worn
off, and no one paid any more attention to it than they do to Zion City
or the Dunkards. By this time, the Science Community was a city of a
million inhabitants, with a vast outlying area of farms and gardens. It
was modern to the highest degree in construction and operation; there
was very little manual labor there; no poverty; every person had all the
benefits of modern developments in power, transportation, and
communication, and of all other resources provided by scientific
progress.

So much, visitors and reporters were able to say.

The rumors that it was a vast socialistic organization, without private
property, with equal sharing of all privileges, were never confirmed. It
is a curious observation that it was possible, in this country of ours,
for a city to exist about which we knew so little. However, it seemed
evident from the vast number and elaboration of public buildings, the
perfection of community utilities such as transportation, streets,
lighting, and communication, from the absence of individual homes and
the housing of people in huge dormitories, that some different, less
individualistic type of social organization than ours was involved. It
was obvious that as an organization, the Science Community must also be
wealthy. If any of its individual citizens were wealthy, no one knew it.

I knew Benda as well as I knew myself, and if I was sure of anything in
my life, it was that he was not the type of man to leave a fifty
thousand dollar job and join a communist city on an equal footing with
the clerks in the stores. As it happens, I was also intimately
acquainted with John Edgewater Smith, recently Power Commissioner of New
York City and the most capable power engineer in North America, who,
following Benda by two or three months, resigned his position, and
accepted what his letter termed the place of Director of Power in the
Science Community. I was personally in a position to state that neither
of these men could be lightly persuaded into such a step, and that
neither of them would work for a small salary.

       *       *       *       *       *

Benda's first letter to me stated that he was at the Science Community
on a visit. He had heard of the place, and while at Washington on
business had taken advantage of the opportunity to drive out and see it.
Fascinated by the equipment he saw there, he had decided to stay a few
days and study it. The next letter announced his acceptance of the
position. I would give a month's salary to get a look at those letters
now; but I neglected to preserve them. I should like to see them because
I am curious as to whether they exhibit the characteristics of the
subsequent letters, some of which I now have.

As I have stated, Benda and I had been on the most intimate terms for
forty years. His letters had always been crisp and direct, and
thoroughly familiar and confidential. I do not know just how many
letters I received from him from the Science Community before I noted
the difference, but I have one from the third month of his stay there
(he wrote every two or three weeks), characterized by a verbosity that
sounded strange for him. He seemed to be writing merely to cover the
sheet, trifles such as he had never previously considered worth writing
letters about. Four pages of letter conveyed not a single idea. Yet
Benda was, if anything, a man of ideas.

There followed several months of letters like that: a lot of words,
evasion of coming to the point about anything; just conventional
letters. Benda was the last man to write a conventional letter. Yet, it
was Benda writing them: gruff little expressions of his, clear ways of
looking at even the veriest trifles, little allusion to our common past:
these things could neither have been written by anyone else, nor written
under compulsion from without. Something had changed Benda.

       *       *       *       *       *

I pondered on it a good deal, and could think of no hypothesis to
account for it. In the meanwhile, New York City lost a third technical
man to the Science Community. Donald Francisco, Commissioner of the
Water Supply, a sanitary engineer of international standing, accepted a
position in the Science Community as Water Director. I did not know
whether to laugh and compare it to the National Baseball League's
trafficking in "big names," or to hunt for some sinister danger sign in
it. But, as a result of my ponderings, I decided to visit Benda at The
Science Community.

I wrote him to that effect, and almost decided to change my mind about
the visit because of the cold evasiveness of the reply I received from
him. My first impulse on reading his indifferent, lackadaisical comment
on my proposed visit was to feel offended, and determine to let him
alone and never see him again. The average man would have done that, but
my long years of training in psychological interpretation told me that a
character and a friendship built during forty years does not change in
six months, and that there must be some other explanation for this. I
wrote him that I was coming. I found that the best way to reach the
Science Community was to take a bus out from Washington. It involved a
drive of about fifty miles northwest, through a picturesque section of
the country. The latter part of the drive took me past settlements that
looked as though they might be in about the same stage of progress as
they had been during the American Revolution. The city of my destination
was back in the hills, and very much isolated. During the last ten miles
we met no traffic at all, and I was the only passenger left in the bus.
Suddenly the vehicle stopped.

"Far as we go!" the driver shouted.

I looked about in consternation. All around were low, wild-looking
hills. The road went on ahead through a narrow pass.

"They'll pick you up in a little bit," the driver said as he turned
around and drove off, leaving me standing there with my bag, very much
astonished at it all.

       *       *       *       *       *

He was right. A small, neat-looking bus drove through the pass and
stopped for me. As I got in, the driver mechanically turned around and
drove into the hills again.

"They took up my ticket on the other bus," I said to the driver. "What
do I owe you?"

"Nothing," he said curtly. "Fill that out." He handed me a card.

An impertinent thing, that card was. Besides asking for my name,
address, nationality, vocation, and position, it requested that I state
whom I was visiting in the Science Community, the purpose of my visit,
the nature of my business, how long I intended to stay, did I have a
place to stay arranged for, and if so, where and through whom. It looked
for all the world as though they had something to conceal; Czarist
Russia couldn't beat that for keeping track of people and prying into
their business. Sign here, the card said.

It annoyed me, but I filled it out, and, by the time I was through, the
bus was out of the hills, traveling up the valley of a small river; I am
not familiar enough with northern Virginia to say which river it was.
There was much machinery and a few people in the broad fields. In the
distance ahead was a mass of chimneys and the cupolas of iron-works, but
no smoke.

There were power-line towers with high-tension insulators, and, far
ahead, the masses of huge elevators and big, square buildings. Soon I
came in sight of a veritable forest of huge windmills.

In a few moments, the huge buildings loomed up over me; the bus entered
a street of the city abruptly from the country. One moment on a country
road, the next moment among towering buildings. We sped along swiftly
through a busy metropolis, bright, airy, efficient looking. The traffic
was dense but quiet, and I was confident that most of the vehicles were
electric; for there was no noise nor gasoline odor. Nor was there any
smoke. Things looked airy, comfortable, efficient; but rather
monotonous, dull. There was a total lack of architectural interest. The
buildings were just square blocks, like neat rows of neat boxes. But, it
all moved smoothly, quietly, with wonderful efficiency.

       *       *       *       *       *

My first thought was to look closely at the people who swarmed the
streets of this strange city. Their faces were solemn, and their clothes
were solemn. All seemed intently busy, going somewhere, or doing
something; there was no standing about, no idle sauntering. And look
whichever way I might, everywhere there was the same blue serge, on men
and women alike, in all directions, as far as I could see.

The bus stopped before a neat, square building of rather smaller size,
and the next thing I knew, Benda was running down the steps to meet me.
He was his old gruff, enthusiastic self.

"Glad to see you, Hagstrom, old socks!" he shouted, and gripped my hand
with two of his. "I've arranged for a room for you, and we'll have a
good old visit, and I'll show you around this town."

I looked at him closely. He looked healthy and well cared-for, all
except for a couple of new lines of worry on his face. Undoubtedly that
worn look meant some sort of trouble.


PART II

_The New Religion_

(This part is interpolated by the author into Dr. Hagstrom's narrative.)

Every great religion has as its psychological reason for existence the
mission of compensating for some crying, unsatisfied human need.
Christianity spread and grew among people who were, at the time,
persecuted subjects or slaves of Rome; and it flourished through the
Middle Ages at a time when life held for the individual chiefly pain,
uncertainty, and bereavement. Christianity kept the common man consoled
and mentally balanced by minimizing the importance of life on earth and
offering compensation afterwards and elsewhere.

A feeble nation of idle dreamers, torn by a chaos of intertribal feuds
within, menaced by powerful, conquest-lusting nations from without,
Arabia was enabled by Islam, the religion of her prophet Mohammed, to
unite all her sons into an intense loyalty to one cause, and to turn her
dream-stuff into reality by carrying her national pride and honor beyond
her boundaries and spreading it over half the known world.

The ancient Greeks, in despair over the frailties of human emotion and
the unbecomingness of worldly conduct, which their brilliant minds
enabled them to recognize clearly but which they found themselves
powerless to subdue, endowed the gods, whom they worshipped, with all of
their own passions and weaknesses, and thus the foolish behavior of the
gods consoled them for their own obvious shortcomings. So it goes
throughout all of the world's religions.

In the middle of the twentieth century there were in the civilized
world, millions of people in whose lives Christianity had ceased to play
any part. Yet, psychically--remember, "psyche" means "soul"--they were
just as sick and unbalanced, just as much in need of some compensation
as were the subjects of the early Roman empire, or the Arabs in the
Middle Ages. They were forced to work at the strained and monotonous
pace of machines; they were the slaves, body and soul, of machines; they
lived with machines and lived like machines--they were expected to _be_
machines. A mechanized mode of life set a relentless pace for them,
while, just as in all the past ages, life and love, the breezes and the
blue sky called to them; but they could not respond. They had to drive
machines so that machines could serve them. Minds were cramped and
emotions were starved, but hands must go on guiding levers and keeping
machines in operation. Lives were reduced to such a mechanical routine
that men wondered how long human minds and human bodies could stand the
restraint. There is a good deal in the writings of the times to show
that life was becoming almost unbearable for three-fourths of humanity.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is only natural, therefore, that Rohan, the prophet of the new
religion, found followers more rapidly than he could organize them.
About ten years before the visit of Dr. Hagstrom to his friend Benda,
Rohan and his new religion had been much in the newspapers. Rohan was a
Slovak, apparently well educated in Europe. When he first attracted
attention to himself, he was foreman in a steel plant at Birmingham,
Alabama. He was popular as an orator, and drew unheard-of crowds to his
lectures.

He preached of _Science_ as God, an all-pervading, inexorably systematic
Being, the true Center and Motive-Power of the Universe; a Being who saw
men and pitied them because they could not help committing inaccuracies.
The Science God was helping man become more perfect. Even now, men were
much more accurate and systematic than they had been a hundred years
ago; men's lives were ordered and rhythmic, like natural laws, not like
the chaotic emotions of beasts and savages.

Somehow, he soon dropped out of the attention of the great mass of the
public. Of course, he did so intentionally, when his ideas began to
crystallize and his plans for his future organization began to form. At
first he had a sort of church in Birmingham, called The Church of the
Scientific God. There never was anything cheap nor blatant about him.
When he moved his church from Birmingham to the Lovett Branch Valley in
northern Virginia, he was hardly noticed. But with him went seven
thousand people, to form the nucleus of the Science Community.

       *       *       *       *       *

Since then, some feature writer for a metropolitan Sunday paper has
occasionally written up the Science Community, both from its physical
and its human aspects. From these reports, the outstanding bit of
evidence is that Rohan believes intensely in his own religion, and that
his followers are all loyal worshippers of the Science God. They
conceive the earth to be a workshop in which men serve Science, their
God, serving a sort of apprenticeship during which He perfects them to
the state of ideal machines. To be a perfect machine, always accurate,
with no distracting emotions, no getting off the track--that was the
ideal which the Great God _Science_ required of his worshippers. To be a
perfect machine, or a perfect cog in a machine, to get rid of all
individuality, all disturbing sentiment, that was their idea of supreme
happiness. Despite the obvious narrowness it involved, there was
something sublime in the conception of this religion. It certainly had
nothing in common with the "Christian Science" that was in vogue during
the early years of the twentieth Century; it towered with a noble
grandeur above that feeble little sham.

The Science Community was organized like a machine: and all men played
their parts, in government, in labor, in administration, in production,
like perfect cogs and accurate wheels, and the machine functioned
perfectly. The devotees were described as fanatical, but happy. They
certainly were well trained and efficient. The Science Community grew.
In ten years it had a million people, and was a worldwide wonder of
civic planning and organization; it contained so many astonishing
developments in mechanical service to human welfare and comfort that it
was considered as a sort of model of the future city. The common man
there was provided with science-produced luxuries, in his daily life,
that were in the rest of the world the privilege of the wealthy few--but
he used his increased energy and leisure in serving the more devotedly,
his God, Science, who had made machines. There was a great temple in the
city, the shape of a huge dynamo-generator, whose interior was worked
out in a scheme of mechanical devices, and with music, lights, and odors
to help in the worship.

       *       *       *       *       *

What the world knew the least about was that this religion was becoming
militant. Its followers spoke of the heathen without, and were horrified
at the prevalence of the sin of individualism. They were inspired with
the mission that the message of God--scientific perfection--must be
carried to the whole world. But, knowing that vested interests,
governments, invested capital, and established religions would oppose
them and render any real progress impossible, they waited. They studied
the question, looking for some opportunity to spread the gospel of their
beliefs, prepared to do so by force, finding their justification in
their belief that millions of sufferers needed the comforts that their
religion had given them. Meanwhile their numbers grew.

Rohan was Chief Engineer, which position was equal in honor and dignity
to that of Prophet or High Priest. He was a busy, hard-worked man, black
haired and gaunt, small of stature and fiery eyed; he looked rather
like an overworked department-store manager rather than like a prophet.
He was finding his hands more full every day, both because of the
extraordinary fertility of his own plans and ideas, and because the
Science Community was growing so rapidly. Among this heterogenous mass
of proselyte strangers that poured into the city and was efficiently
absorbed into the machine, it was yet difficult to find executives,
leaders, men to put in charge of big things. And he needed constantly
more and more of such men.

       *       *       *       *       *

That was why Rohan went to Benda, and subsequently to others like Benda.
Rohan had a deep knowledge of human nature. He did not approach Benda
with the offer of a magnanimous salary, but came into Benda's office
asking for a consultation on some of the puzzling communication problems
of the Science Community. Benda became interested, and on his own
initiative offered to visit the Science Community, saying that he had to
be in Washington anyway in a few days. When he saw what the conditions
were in the Science Community, he became fascinated by its advantages
over New York; a new system to plan from the ground up; no obsolete
installation to wrestle with; an absolutely free hand for the engineer
in charge; no politics to play; no concessions to antiquated city
construction, nor to feeble-minded city administration--just a dream of
an opportunity. He almost asked for the job himself, but Rohan was
tactful enough to offer it, and the salary, though princely, was hardly
given a thought.

For many weeks Benda was absorbed in his job, to the exclusion of all
else. He sent his money to his New York bank and had his family move in
and live with him. He was happy in his communication problems.

"Give me a problem in communication and you make me happy," he wrote to
Hagstrom in one of his early letters.

He had completed a certain division of his work on the Science
Community's communication system, and it occurred to him that a few
days' relaxation would do him good. A run up to New York would be just
the thing.

To his amazement, he was not permitted to board the outbound bus.

"You'll need orders from the Chief Engineer's office," the driver said.

       *       *       *       *       *

Benda went to Rohan.

"Am I a prisoner?" he demanded with his characteristic directness.

"An embarassing situation," the suave Rohan admitted, very calmly and at
his ease. "You see, I'm nothing like a dictator here. I have no
arbitrary power. Everything runs by system, and you're a sort of
exception. No one knows exactly how to classify you. Neither do I. But,
I can't break a rule. That is sin."

"What rule? I want to go to New York."

"Only those of the Faith who have reached the third degree can come and
go. No one can get that in less than three years."

"Then you got me in here by fraud?" Benda asked bluntly.

Rohan side-stepped gracefully.

"You know our innermost secrets now," he explained. "Do you suppose
there is any hope of your embracing the Faith?"

Benda whirled on his heel and walked out.

"I'll think about it!" he said, his voice snapping with sarcasm.

Benda went back to his work in order to get his mind off the matter. He
was a well-balanced man if he was anything; and he knew that nothing
could be accomplished by rash words or incautious moves against Rohan
and his organization. And on that day he met John Edgewater Smith.

"You here?" Benda gasped. He lost his equilibrium for a moment in
consternation at the sight of his fellow-engineer.

Smith was too elated to notice Benda's mood.

"I've been here a week. This is certainly an ideal opportunity in my
line of work. Even in Heaven I never expected to find such a chance."

By this time Benda had regained control of himself. He decided to say
nothing to Smith for the time being.

       *       *       *       *       *

They did not meet again for several weeks. In the meantime Benda
discovered that his mail was being censored. At first he did not know
that his letters, always typewritten, were copied and objectionable
matter omitted, and his signature reproduced by the photo-engraving
process, separately each time. But before long, several letters came
back to him rubber-stamped: "Not passable. Please revise." It took Benda
two days to cool down and rewrite the first letter. But outwardly no one
would have ever known that there was anything amiss with him.

However, he took to leaving his work for an hour or two a day and
walking in the park, to think out the matter. He didn't like it. This
was about the time that it began to be a real issue as to who was the
bigger man of the two, Rohan or Benda. But no signs of the issue
appeared externally for many months.

John Edgewater Smith realized sooner than Benda that he couldn't get
out, because, not sticking to work so closely, he had made the attempt
sooner. He looked very much worried when Benda next saw him.

"What's this? Do you know about it?" he shouted as soon as he had come
within hearing distance of Benda.

"What's the difference?" Benda replied casually. "Aren't you satisfied?"

Smith's face went blank.

Benda came close to him, linked arms and led him to a broad vacant lawn
in the park.

"Listen!" he said softly in Smith's ear. "Don't you suppose these
people who lock us in and censor our mail aren't smart enough to spy on
what we say to each other?"

"Our only hope," Benda continued, "is to learn all we can of what is
going on here. Keep your eyes and ears open and meet me here in a week.
And now come on; we've been whispering here long enough."

       *       *       *       *       *

Oddly enough, the first clue to the puzzle they were trying to solve was
supplied by Francisco, New York's former Water Commissioner. Why were
they being kept prisoners in the city? There must be more reason for
holding them there than the fear that information would be carried out,
for none of the three engineers knew anything about the Science
Community that could be of any possible consequence to outsiders. They
had all stuck rigidly to their own jobs.

They met Francisco, very blue and dejected, walking in the park a couple
of months later. They had been having weekly meetings, feeling that more
frequent rendezvous might excite suspicion. Francisco was overjoyed to
see them.

"Been trying to figure out why they want us," he said. "There is
something deeper than the excuse they have made; that rot about a
perfect system and no breaking of rules may be true, but it has nothing
to do with us. Now, here are three of us, widely admitted as having good
heads on us. We've got to solve this."

"The first fact to work on," he continued, "is that there is no real job
for me here. This city has no water problem that cannot be worked out by
an engineer's office clerk. Why are they holding me here, paying me a
profligate salary, for a job that is a joke for a grown-up man? There's
something behind it that is not apparent on the surface."

The weekly meetings of the three engineers became an established
institution. Mindful that their conversation was doubtless the object of
attention on the part of the ruling powers of the city through spies
and concealed microphones, they were careful to discuss trivial matters
most of the time, and mentioned their problem only when alone in the
open spaces of the park.

       *       *       *       *       *

After weeks of effort had produced no results, they arrived at the
conclusion that they would have to do some spying themselves. The great
temple, shaped like a dynamo-generator attracted their attention as the
first possibility for obtaining information. Benda, during his work with
telephone and television installation, found that the office of some
sort of ruling council or board of directors were located there. Later
he found that it was called the Science Staff. He managed to slip in
several concealed microphone detectors and wire them to a private
receiver on his desk, doing all the work with his own hands under the
pretense of hunting for a cleverly contrived short-circuit that his
subordinates had failed to find.

"They open their meeting," he said, reporting several days of listening
to his comrades, "with a lot of religious stuff. They really believe
they are chosen by God to perfect the earth. Their fanaticism has the
Mohammedans beat forty ways. As I get it from listening in, this city is
just a preliminary base from which to carry, forcibly, the gospel of
Scientific Efficiency to the whole world. They have been divinely
appointed to organize the earth.

"The first thing on the program is the seizure of New York City. And, it
won't be long; I've heard the details of a cut-and-dried plan. When they
have New York, the rest of America can be easily captured, for cities
aren't as independent of each other as they used to be. Getting the rest
of the world into their hands will then be merely a matter of routine;
just a little time, and it will be done. Mohammed's wars weren't in it
with this!"

Francisco and Smith stared at him aghast. These dull-faced,
blue-sergeclad people did not look capable of it; unless possibly one
noted the fiery glint in their eyes. A worldwide Crusade on a scientific
basis! The idea left them weak and trembling.

"Got to learn more details before we can do anything," Benda said. "Come
on; we've been whispering here long enough; they'll get suspicious."
Benda's brain was now definitely pitted against this marvelous
organisation.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I've got it!" Benda reported at a later meeting. "I pieced it together
from a few hours listening. Devilish scheme!

"Can you imagine what would happen in New York in case of a break-down
in water-supply, electric power, and communication? In an hour there
would be a panic; in a day the city would be a hideous shambles of
suffering, starvation, disease, and trampling maniacs. Dante's Inferno
would be a lovely little pleasure-resort in comparison.

"Also, have you ever stopped to think how few people there are in the
world who understand the handling of these vital elements of our modern
civilized organization sufficiently to keep them in operation? There you
have the scheme. Because they do not want to destroy the city, but
merely to threaten it, they are holding the three of us. A little
skilful management will eliminate all other possible men who could
operate the city's machinery, except ourselves. We three will be placed
in charge. A threat, perhaps a demonstration in some limited section of
what horrors are possible. The city is at their mercy, and promptly
surrenders.

"An alternative plan was discussed: just a little quiet violence could
eliminate those who are now in charge of the city's works, and the panic
and horrors would commence. But, within an hour of the city's
capitulation, the three of us could have things running smoothly again.
And there would be no New York; in its place would be Science Community
Number Two. From it they could step on to the next city."

The other two stared at him. There was only one comment.

"They seem to be sure that they could depend on us," Smith said.

"They may be correct," Benda replied. "Would you stand by and see people
perish if a turn of your hand could save them? You would for the moment,
forget the issue between the old order and the new religion."

They separated, horrified by the ghastly simplicity of the plan.

       *       *       *       *       *

Just following this, Benda received the telegram announcing the
prospective visit of his lifelong friend, Dr. Hagstrom. He took it at
once to Rohan.

"Will my friend be permitted to depart again, if he once gets in here?"
he demanded with his customary directness.

"It depends on you," Rohan replied blandly. "We want your friend to see
our Community, and to go away and carry with him the nicest possible
reports and descriptions of it to the world. I wonder, do I make myself
clear?"

"That means I've got to feed him taffy while he's here?" Benda asked
gruffly.

"You choose to put it indelicately. He is to see and hear only such
things about the Science Community as will please the world and impress
it favorably. I am sure you will understand that under no other
circumstances will he be permitted to leave here."

Benda turned around abruptly and walked out without a word.

"Just a moment," Rohan called after him. "I am sure you appreciate the
fact that every precaution will be taken to hear the least word that you
say to him during his stay here? You are watched only perfunctorily now.
While he is here you will be kept track of carefully, and there will be
three methods of checking everything you do or say. I am sure you do not
underestimate our caution in this matter."

Benda spent the days intervening between then and the arrival of his
friend Hagstrom, closed up in his office, in intense study. He figured
things on pieces of paper, committed them to memory, and scrupulously
burned the paper. Then he wandered about the park and plucked at leaves
and twigs.


PART III

_The Cipher Message_

(Related by Peter Hagstrom, Ph.D.)

Benda conducted me personally to a room very much like an ordinary hotel
room. He was glad to see me. I could tell that from his grip of welcome,
from his pleased face, from the warmth in his voice, from the eager way
in which he hovered around me. I sat down on a bed and he on a chair.

"Now tell me all about it," I said.

The room was very still, and in its privacy, following Benda's
demonstrative welcome, I expected some confidential revelations.
Therefore I was astonished.

"There isn't much to tell," he said gaily. "My work is congenial,
fascinating, and there's enough of it to keep me out of mischief. The
pay is good, and the life pleasant and easy."

I didn't know what to say for a moment. I had come there with my mind
made up that there was something suspicious afoot. But he seemed
thoroughly happy and satisfied.

"I'll admit that I treated you a little shabbily in this matter of
letters," he continued. "I suppose it is because I've had a lot of new
and interesting problems on my mind, and it's been hard to get my mind
down to writing letters. But I've got a good start on my job, and I'll
promise to reform."

I was at a loss to pursue that subject any further.

"Have you seen Smith and Francisco?" I asked.

He nodded.

"How do they like it?"

"Both are enthusiastic about the wonderful opportunities in their
respective fields. It's a fact: no engineer has ever before had such
resources to work with, on such a vast scale, and with such a free hand.
We're laying the framework for a city of ten millions, all thoroughly
systematized and efficient. There is no city in the world like it; it's
an engineer's dream of Utopia."

       *       *       *       *       *

I was almost convinced. There was only the tiniest of lurking suspicions
that all was not well, but it was not powerful enough to stimulate me to
say anything. But I did determine to keep my eyes open.

I might as well admit in advance that from that moment to the time when
I left the Science Community four days later, I saw nothing to confirm
my suspicions. I met Smith and Francisco at dinner and the four of us
occupied a table to ourselves in a vast dining hall, and no one paid for
the meal nor for subsequent ones. They also seemed content, and talked
enthusiastically of their work.

I was shown over the city, through its neat, efficient streets, through
its comfortable dormitories each housing hundreds of families as
luxuriously as any modern hotel, through its marvelous factories where
production had passed the stage of labor and had assumed the condition
of a devoted act of worship. These factory workers were not toiling:
they were worshipping their God, of Whom each machine was a part.
Touching their machine was touching their God. This machinery, while
involving no new principles, was developed and coordinated to a degree
that exceeded anything I had ever seen anywhere else.

I saw the famous Science Temple in the shape of a huge
dynamo-generator, with its interior decorations, paintings, carvings,
frescoes, and pillars, all worked out on the motive of machinery; with
its constant streams of worshippers in blue serge, performing their
conventional rites and saying their prayer formulas at altars in the
forms of lathes, microscopes, motors, and electron-tubes.

"You haven't become a Science Communist yourself?" I bantered Benda.

There was a metallic ring in the laugh he gave.

"They'd like to have me!" was all he said.

       *       *       *       *       *

I was rather surprised at the emptiness of the large and well-kept park
to which Benda took me. It was beautifully landscaped, but only a few
scattering people were there, lost in its vast reaches.

"These people seem to have no need of recreation," Benda said. "They do
not come here much. But I confess that I need air and relaxation, even
if only for short snatches. I've been too busy to get away for long at a
time, but this park has helped me keep my balance--I'm here every day
for at least a few minutes."

"Beautiful place," I remarked. "A lot of strange trees and plants I
never saw before--"

"Oh, mostly tropical forms, common enough in their own habitats. They
have steam pipes under the ground to grow them. I've been trying to
learn something about them. Fancy _me_ studying natural history! I've
never cared for it, but here, where there is no such things as
recreation, I have become intensely interested in it as a hobby. I find
it very much of a rest to study these plants and bugs."

"Why don't you run up to New York for a few days?"

"Oh, the time will come for that. In the meanwhile, I've got an idea all
of a sudden. Speaking of New York, will you do me a little service? Even
though you might think it silly?"

"I'll do anything I can," I began, eager to be of help to him.

"It has been somewhat of a torture to me," Benda continued, "to find so
many of these forms which I am unable to identify. I like to be
scientific, even in my play, and reference books on plants and insects
are scarce here. Now, if you would carry back a few specimens for me,
and ask some of the botany and zoology people to send me their names--"

"Fine!" I exclaimed. "I've got a good-sized pocket notebook I can carry
them in."

"Well then, please put them in the order in which I hand them to you,
and send me the names by number. I am pretty thoroughly familiar with
them, and if you will keep them in order, there is no need for me to
keep a list. The first is a blade of this queer grass."

I filed the grass blade between the first two pages of my book.

"The next is this unusual-looking pinnate leaf." He tore off a dry
leaflet and handed me a stem with three leaflets irregularly disposed of
it.

"Now leave a blank page in your book. That will help me remember the
order in which they come."

       *       *       *       *       *

Next came a flat insect, which, strangely enough, had two legs missing
on one side. However, Benda was moving so fast that I had to put it away
without comment. He kept darting about and handing me twigs of leaves,
little sticks, pieces of bark, insects, not seeming to care much whether
they were complete or not; grass-blades, several dagger-shaped
locust-thorns, cross-sections of curious fruits, moving so rapidly that
in a few moments my notebook bulged widely, and I had to warn him that
its hundred leaves were almost filled.

"Well, that ought to be enough," he said with a sigh after his lively
exertion. "You don't know how I'll appreciate your indulging my foolish
little whim."

"Say!" I exclaimed. "Ask something of me. This it nothing. I'll take it
right over to the Botany Department, and in a few days you ought to have
a list of names fit for a Bolshevik."

"One important caution," he said. "If you disturb their order in the
book, or even the position on the page, the names you send me will mean
nothing to me. Not that it will be any great loss," he added
whimsically. "I suppose I've become a sort of fan on this, like the
business men who claim that their office work interferes with their
golf."

We walked leisurely back toward the big dormitory. It was while we were
crossing a street that Benda stumbled, and, to dodge a passing truck,
had to catch my arm, and fell against me. I heard his soft voice whisper
in my ear:

"Get out of this town as soon as you can!"

I looked at him in startled amazement, but he was walking along, shaking
himself from his stumble, and looking up and down the street for passing
trucks.

"As I was saying," he said in a matter-of-fact voice, "we expect to
reach the one-and-one-quarter million mark this month. I never saw a
place grow so fast."

       *       *       *       *       *

I felt a great leap of sudden understanding. For a moment my muscles
tightened, but I took my cue.

"Remarkable place," I said calmly; "one reads a lot of half-truths about
it. Too bad I can't stay any longer."

"Sorry you have to leave," he said, in exactly the right tone of voice.
"But you can come again."

How thankful I was for the forty years of playing and working together
that had accustomed us to that sort of team-work! Unconsciously we
responded to one another's cues. Once our ability to "play together" had
saved my life. It was when we were in college and were out on a
cross-country hike together; Benda suddenly caught my hand and swung it
upward. I recognized the gesture; we were cheerleaders and worked
together at football games, and we had one stunt in which we swung our
hands over our heads, jumped about three feet, and let out a whoop. This
was the "stunt" that he started out there in the country, where we were
by ourselves. Automatically, without thinking, I swung my arms and
leaped with him and yelled. Only later did I notice the rattlesnake over
which I had jumped. I had not seen that I was about to walk right into
it, and he had noticed it too late to explain. A flash of genius
suggested the cheering stunt to him.

"_Communication_ is a science!" he had said, and that was all the
comment there was on the incident.

So now, I followed my cue, without knowing why, nor what it was all
about, but confident that I should soon find out. By noon I was on the
bus, on my way through the pass, to meet the vehicle from Washington. As
the bus swung along, a number of things kept jumbling through my mind:
Benda's effusive glee at seeing me, and his sudden turning and bundling
me off in a nervous hurry without a word of explanation; his lined and
worried face and yet his insistence on the joys of his work in The
Science Community; his obvious desire to be hospitable and play the good
host, and yet his evasiveness and unwillingness to chat intimately and
discuss important things as he used to. Finally, that notebook full of
odd specimens bulging in my pocket. And the memory of his words as he
shook hands with me when I was stepping into the bus:

"Long live the science of communication!" he had said. Otherwise, he was
rather glum and silent.

       *       *       *       *       *

I took out the book of specimens and looked at it. His caution not to
disturb the order and position of things rang in my ears. The Science of
Communication! Two and two were beginning to make four in my mind. All
the way on the train from Washington to New York I could hardly, keep
my hands off the book. I had definitely abandoned the idea of hunting up
botanists and zoologists at Columbia. Benda was not interested in the
names of these things. That book meant something else. Some message. The
Science of Communication!

That suddenly explained all the contradictions in his behavior. He was
being closely watched. Any attempt to tell me the things he wanted to
say would be promptly recognized. He had succeeded brilliantly in
getting a message to me. Now, my part was to read it! I felt a sudden
sinking within me. That book full of leaves, bugs, and sticks? How could
I make anything out of it?

"There's the Secret Service," I thought. "They are skilled in reading
hidden messages. It must be an important one, worthy of the efforts of
the Secret Service, or he would not have been at such pains to get it to
me--

"But no. The Secret Service is skilled at reading hidden messages, but
not as skilled as I am in reading my friend's mind. Knowing Benda, his
clear intellect, his logical methods, will be of more service in solving
this than all the experts of the Secret Service."

I barely stopped to eat dinner when I reached home. I hurried to the
laboratory building, and laid out the specimens on white sheets of
paper, meticulously preserving order, position, and spacing. To be on
the safe side I had them photographed, asking the photographer to vary
the scale of his pictures so that all of the final figures would be
approximately the same size. Plate I. shows what I had.

       *       *       *       *       *

I was all a-tremble when the mounted photographs were handed to me. The
first thing I did was to number the specimens, giving each blank space
also its consecutive number. Certainly no one could imagine a more
meaningless jumble of twigs, leaves, berries, and bugs. How could I
read any message out of that?

Yet I had no doubt that the message concerned something of far more
importance than Benda's own safety. He had moved in this matter with
astonishing skill and breathless caution; yet I knew him to be reckless
to the extreme where only his own skill was concerned. I couldn't even
imagine his going to this elaborate risk merely on account of Smith and
Francisco. Something bigger must be involved.

I stared at the rows of specimens.

"Communication is a science!" Benda had said, and it came back to me as
I studied the bent worms and the beetles with two legs missing. I was
confident that the solution would be simple. Once the key idea occurred
to me I knew I should find the whole thing astonishingly direct and
systematic. For a moment I tried to attach some sort of heiroglyphic
significance to the specimen forms; in the writing of the American
Indians, a wavy line meant water, an inverted V meant a wigwam. But, I
discarded that idea in a moment. Benda's mind did not work along the
paths of symbolism. It would have to be something mathematical, rigidly
logical, leaving no room for guess-work.

No sooner had the key-idea occurred to me than the basic conception
underlying all these rows of twigs and bugs suddenly flashed into clear
meaning before me. The simplicity of it took my breath away.

"I knew it!" I said aloud, though I was alone. "Very simple."

I was prepared for the fact that each one of the specimens represented a
letter of the alphabet. If nothing else, their number indicated that.
Now I could see, so clearly that the photographs shouted at me, that
each specimen consisted of an upright stem, and from this middle stem
projected side-arms to the right and to the left, and in various
vertical locations on each side.

The middle upright stem contained these side-arms in various numbers
and combinations. In five minutes I had a copy of the message,
translated into its fundamental characters, as shown on Plate II.

[Illustration: Plate I]

The first grass-blade was the simple, upright stem; the second, three
leaflets on their stem, represented the upright portion with two arms to
the left at the top and middle, and one arm to the right at the top; and
so on.

That brought the message down to the simple and straightforward matter
of a substitution cipher. I was confident that Benda had no object in
introducing any complications that could possibly be avoided, as his
sole purpose was to get to me the most readable message without getting
caught at it. I recollected now how cautious he had been to hand me no
paper, and how openly and obviously he had dropped each specimen into my
book; because he knew someone was watching him and expecting him to slip
in a message. He had, as I could see now in the retrospect, been
conspicuously careful that nothing suspicious should pass from his hands
to mine.

[Illustration: Plate II]

Substitution ciphers are easy to solve, especially for those having some
experience. The method can be found in Edgar Allen Poe's "Gold Bug" and
in a host of its imitators. A Secret Service cipher man could have read
it in an hour. But I knew my friend's mind well enough to find a
short-cut. I knew just how he would go about devising such a cipher, in
fact, how ninety-nine persons out of a hundred with a scientific
education would do it.

If we begin adding horizontal arms to the middle stem, from top to
bottom and from left to right, the possible characters can be worked out
by the system shown on Plate III.

[Illustration: Plate III]

It is most logical to suppose that Benda would begin with the first sign
and substitute the letters of the alphabet in order. That would give us
the cipher code shown on Plate IV.

It was all very quick work, just as I had anticipated, once the key-idea
had occurred to me. The ease and speed of my method far exceeded that
of Poe's method, but, of course, was applicable only to this particular
case. Substituting letters for signs out of my diagram, I got the
following message:

     AM PRISONER R PLANS CAPTURE OF N Y BY SEIZING POWER WATER AND
     PHONES THEN WORLD CONQUEST S O S

[Illustration: Plate IV]


PART IV

_L'Envoi_

(By Peter Hagstrom, M.D.)

My solution of the message practically ends the story. Events followed
each other from then on like bullets from a machine-gun. A wild drive in
a taxicab brought me to the door of Mayor Anderson at ten o'clock that
night. I told him the story and showed him my photographs.

Following that I spent many hours telling my story to and consulting
with officers in the War Department. Next afternoon, photographic maps
of the Science Community and its environs, brought by airplanes during
the forenoon, were spread on desks before us. A colonel of marines and a
colonel of aviation sketched plans in notebooks. After dark I sat in a
transport plane with muffled exhaust and propellers, slipping through
the air as silently as a hawk. About us were a dozen bombing planes, and
about fifty transports, carrying a battalion of marines.

I am not an adventure-loving man. Though a cordon of husky marines about
me was a protection against any possible danger, yet, stealing along
through that wild valley in the Virginia mountains toward the dark
masses of that fanatic city, the silent progress of the long, dark line
through the night, their mysterious disappearance, one by one, as we
neared the city, the creepy, hair-raising journey through the dark
streets--I shall never forget for the rest of my life the sinking
feeling in my abdomen and the throbbing in my head. But I wanted to be
there, for Benda was my lifelong friend.

I guided them to Rohan's rooms, and saw a dozen dark forms slip in, one
by one. Then we went on to the dormitory where Benda lived. Benda
answered our hammering at his door in his pajamas. He took in the
Captain's automatic, and the bayonets behind me, at a glance.

"Good boy, Hagstrom!" he said. "I knew you'd do it. There wasn't much
time left. I got my instructions about handling the New York telephone
system to-day."

As we came out into the street. I saw Rohan handcuffed to two big
marines, and rows of bayonets gleaming in the darkness down the streets.
Every few moments a bright flare shot out from the planes in the sky,
until a squad located the power-house and turned on all the lights they
could find.

[Illustration]




Jetta of the Lowlands

BEGINNING A THREE-PART NOVEL

By Ray Cummings


_Foreword_

_Have you ever stood on the seashore, with the breakers rolling at your
feet, and imagined what the scene would be like if the ocean water were
gone? I have had a vision of that many times. Standing on the Atlantic
Coast, gazing out toward Spain, I can envisage myself, not down at the
sea-level, but upon the brink of a height. Spain and the coast of
Europe, off there upon another height._

[Sidenote: Fantastic and sinister are the Lowlands into which Philip
Grant descends on his dangerous assignment.]

_And the depths between? Unreal landscape! Mysterious realm which now we
call the bottom of the sea! Worn and rounded crags; bloated mud-plains;
noisome reaches of ooze which once were the cold and dark and silent
ocean floor, caked and drying in the sun. And off to the south the
little fairy mountain tops of the West Indies rearing their verdured
crowns aloft._

[Illustration: "Look around, Chief. See where I am?"]

_If the ocean water were gone! Can you picture it? A new world, greater
in area than all the land we now have. They would call the former
sea-level the zero-height, perhaps. The depths would go down as far
beneath it as Mount Everest towers above it. Aeroplanes would fly down
into them._

_And I can imagine the settlement of these vast new realms: New little
nations being created, born of man's indomitable will to conquer every
adverse condition of inhospitable nature._

_A novel setting for a story of adventure. It seems so to me. Can you
say that the oceans will never drain of their water? That an earthquake
will not open a rift--some day in the future--and lower the water into
subterranean caverns? The volume of water of all the oceans is no more
to the volume of the earth than a tissue paper wrapping on an orange._

_Is it too great a fantasy? Why, reading the facts of what happened in
1929, it is already prognosticated. The fishing banks off the Coast of
Newfoundland have suddenly sunk. Cable ships repairing a broken cable,
snapped by the earthquake of November 18th, 1929, report that for
distances of a hundred miles on the Grand Banks the cables have
disappeared into unfathomable depths. And before the subterranean
cataclysm, they were within six hundred feet of the surface. And all the
bottom of that section of the North Atlantic seems to have caved in. Ten
thousand square miles dropped out of the bottom of the ocean! Fact, not
fancy._

_And so let us enlarge the picture. Let us create the Lowlands--twenty
thousand feet below the zero-height--the setting for a tale of
adventure. The romance of the mist-shrouded deeps. And the romance of
little Jetta._




CHAPTER I

_The Secret Mission_


I was twenty-five years of age that May evening of 2020 when they sent
me south into the Lowlands. I had been in the National Detective Service
Bureau, and then was transferred to the Customs Department, Atlantic
Lowlands Branch. I went alone; it was best, my commander thought. An
assignment needing diplomacy rather than a show of force.

It was 9 P. M. when I catapulted from the little stage of Long Island
airport. A fair, moonlit evening--a moon just beyond the full, rising to
pale the eastern stars. I climbed about a thousand feet, swung over the
headlands of the Hook, and, keeping in the thousand-foot local lane,
took my course.

My destination lay some thirteen hundred miles southeast of Great New
York. I could do a good normal three-ninety in this fleet little Wasp,
especially if I kept in the rarer air-pressures over the zero-height.
The thousand-foot lane had a southward drift, this night. I was making
now well over four hundred; I would reach Nareda soon after midnight.

The Continental Shelf slid beneath me, dropping away as my course took
me further from the Highland borders. The Lowlands lay patched with inky
shadows and splashes of moonlight. Domes with upstanding, rounded heads;
plateaus of naked black rock, ten thousand feet below the zero-height;
trenches, like valleys, ridged and pitted, naked in places like a
pockmarked lunar landscape. Or again, a pall of black mist would
shroud it all, dark curtain of sluggish cloud with moonlight tinging its
edges pallid green.

To my left, eastward toward the great basin of the mid-Atlantic
Lowlands, there was always a steady downward slope. To the right, it
came up over the continental shelf to the Highlands of the United
States.

There was often water to be seen in these Lowlands. A spring-fed lake
far down in a caldron pit, spilling into a trench; low-lying,
land-locked little seas; cañons, some of them dry, others filled with
tumultuous flowing water. Or great gashes with water sluggishly flowing,
or standing with a heavy slime, and a pall of uprising vapor in the heat
of the night.

At 37°N. and 70°W., I passed over the newly named Atlas Sea. A lake of
water here, more than a hundred miles in extent. Its surface lay fifteen
thousand feet below the zero-height; its depth in places was a full
three thousand. It was clear of mist to-night. The moonlight shimmered
on its rippled surface, like pictures my father had often shown me of
the former oceans.

I passed, a little later, well to the westward of the verdured mountain
top of the Bermudas.

There was nothing of this flight novel to me. I had frequently flown
over the Lowlands; I had descended into them many times. But never upon
such a mission as was taking me there now.

I was headed for Nareda, capital village of the tiny Lowland Republic of
Nareda, which only five years ago came into national being as a
protectorate of the United States. Its territory lies just north of the
mountain Highlands of Haiti, Santo Domingo and Porto Rico. A few hundred
miles of tumbled Lowlands, embracing the turgid Nares Sea, whose bottom
is the lowest point of all the Western Hemisphere--some thirty thousand
feet below the zero-height.

The village of Nareda is far down indeed. I had never been there. My
charts showed it on the southern border of the Nares Sea, at minus
twenty thousand feet, with the Mona Valley behind it like a gash in the
steep upward slopes to the Highlands of Porto Rico and Haiti.

Nareda has a mixed population of typical Lowland adventures, among which
the hardy Dutch predominate; and Holland and the United States have
combined their influence in the World Court to give it national
identity.

       *       *       *       *       *

And out of this had arisen my mission now. Mercury--the quicksilver of
commerce--so recently come to tremendous value through its universal use
in the new antiseptics which bid fair to check all human disease--was
being produced in Nareda. The import duty into the United States was
being paid openly enough. But nevertheless Hanley's agents believed that
smuggling was taking place.

It was to investigate this condition that Hanley was sending me. I had
introduction to the Nareda government officials. I was to consult with
Hanley by ether-phone in seeking the hidden source of the contraband
quicksilver, but, in the main, to use my own judgment.

A mission of diplomacy. I had no mind to pry openly among the people of
these Lowland depths, looking for smugglers. I might, indeed, find them
too unexpectedly! Over-curious strangers are not welcomed by the
Lowlanders. Many have gone into the depths and have never returned....

I was above the Nares Sea, by midnight. I was still flying a thousand
feet over the zero-height. Twenty-one thousand feet below me lay the
black expanse of water. The moon had climbed well toward the zenith,
now. Its silver shafts penetrated the hanging mist-stratas. The surface
of the Nares Sea was visible--dark and sullen looking.

I shifted the angles of incidence of the wings, re-set my propeller
angles and made the necessary carburetor adjustments, switching on the
supercharger which would supply air at normal zero-height pressure to
the carburetors throughout my descent.

I swung over Nareda. The lights of the little village, far down, dwarfed
by distance, showed like bleary, winking eyes through the mists. The
jagged recesses of the Mona valley were dark with shadow. The Nares Sea
lay like some black monster asleep, and slowly, heavily panting.
Moonlight was over me, with stars and fleecy white clouds. Calm, placid,
atmospheric night was up here. But beneath, it all seemed so mysterious,
fantastic, sinister.

My heart was pounding as I put the Wasp into a spiral and forced my way
down.




CHAPTER II

_The Face at the Window_


With heavy, sluggish engines I panted down and came to rest in the dull
yellow glow of the field lights. A new world here. The field was flat,
caked ooze, cracked and hardened. It sloped upward from the shore toward
where, a quarter of a mile away, I could see the dull lights of the
settlement, blurred by the gathered night vapors.

The field operator shut off his permission signal and came forward. He
was a squat, heavy-set fellow in wide trousers and soiled white shirt
flung open at his thick throat. The sweat streamed from his forehead.
This oppressive heat! I had discarded my flying garb in the descent. I
wore a shirt, knee-length pants, with hose and wide-soled shoes of the
newly fashioned Lowland design. What few weapons I dared carry were
carefully concealed. No alien could enter Nareda bearing anything
resembling a lethal weapon.

My wide, thick-soled shoes did not look suspicious for one who planned
much walking on the caked Lowland ooze. But those fat soles were
cleverly fashioned to hide a long, keen knife-blade, like a dirk. I
could lift a foot and get the knife out of its hidden compartment with
fair speed. This I had in one shoe.

In the other, was the small mechanism of a radio safety recorder and
image finder, with its attendant individual audiophone transmitter and
receiver. A miracle of smallness, these tiny contrivances. With
batteries, wires and grids, the whole device could lay in the palm of
one's hand. Once past this field inspection I would rig it for use under
my shirt, strapped around my chest. And I had some colored magnesium
flares.

       *       *       *       *       *

The field operator came panting.

"Who are you?"

"Philip Grant. From Great New York." I showed him my name etched on my
forearm. He and his fellows searched me, but I got by.

"You have no documents?"

"No."

My letter to the President of Nareda was written with invisible ink upon
the fabric of my shirt. If he had heated it to a temperature of 180°F.
or so, and blown the fumes of hydrochloric acid upon it, the writing
would have come out plain enough.

I said, "You'll house and care for my machine?"

They would care for it. They told me the price--swindlingly exorbitant
for the unwary traveller who might wander down here.

"All correct," I said cheerfully. "And half that much more for you and
your men if you give me good service. Where can I have a room and
meals?"

"Spawn," said the operator. "He is the best. Fat-bellied from his own
good cooking. Take him there, Hugo."

I had a gold coin instantly ready; and with a few additional directions
regarding my flyer, I started off.

It had been hot and oppressive standing in the field; it was infinitely
worse climbing the mud-slope into the village; but my carrier, trudging
in advance of me along the dark, winding path up the slope, shouldered
my bag and seemed not to notice the effort. We passed occasional
tube-lights strung on poles. They illumined the heavy rounded crags. A
tumbled region, this slope which once was the ocean floor twenty
thousand feet below the surface. Rifts were here like gulleys; little
buttes reared their rounded, dome heads. And there were caves and
crevices in which deep sea fish once had lurked.

       *       *       *       *       *

For ten minutes or so we climbed. It was past the midnight hour; the
village was asleep. We entered its outposts. The houses were small
structures of clay. In the gloom they looked like drab little beehives
set in unplanned groups, with paths for streets wandering between them.

Then we came to a more prosperous neighborhood. The street widened and
straightened. The clay houses, still with rounded dome like tops, stood
back from the road, with wooden front fences, and gardens and shrubbery.
The windows and doors were like round finger-holes plugged in the clay
by a giant hand. Occasionally the windows, dimly lighted, stared like
sleeping giant eyes.

There were flowers in all the more pretentious private gardens. Their
perfume, hanging in the heavy night air, lay on the village, making one
forget the over-curtain of stenching mist. Down by the shore of the
Nares Sea, this world of the depths had seemed darkly sinister. But in
the village now, I felt it less ominous. The scent of the flowers, the
street lined in one place by arching giant fronds drowsing and nodding
overhead--there seemed a strange exotic romance to it. The sultry air
might almost have been sensuous.

"Much further, Hugo?"

"No. We are here."

He turned abruptly into a gateway, led me through a garden and to the
doorway of a large, rambling, one-story building. The news of my coming
had preceded me. A front room was lighted; my host was waiting.

Hugo set down my bag, accepted another gold coin; and with a queer
sidelong smile, the incentive for which I had not the slightest idea,
he vanished. I fronted my host, this Jacob Spawn. Strange fate that
should have led me to Spawn! And to little Jetta!

       *       *       *       *       *

Spawn was a fat-bellied Dutchman, as the field attendant had said. A
fellow of perhaps fifty-five, with sparse gray hair and a heavy-jowled,
smooth-shaved face from which his small eyes peered stolidly at me. He
laid aside a huge, old-fashioned calabash pipe and offered a pudgy hand.

"Welcome, young man, to Nareda. Seldom do we see strangers."

The meal which he presently cooked and served me himself was lavishly
done. He spoke good English, but slowly, heavily, with the guttural
intonation of his race. He sat across the table from me, puffing his
pipe while I ate.

"What brings you here, young lad? A week, you say?"

"Or more. I don't know. I'm looking for oil. There should be petroleum
beneath these rocks."

For an hour I avoided his prying questions. His little eyes roved me,
and I knew he was no fool, this Dutchman, for all his heavy, stolid
look.

We remained in his kitchen. Save for its mud walls, its concave,
dome-roof, it might have been a cookery of the Highlands. There was a
table with its tube-light; the chairs; his electron stove; his orderly
rows of pots and pans and dishes on a broad shelf.

I recall that it seemed to me a woman's hand must be here. But I saw no
woman. No one, indeed, beside Spawn himself seemed to live here. He was
reticent of his own business, however much he wanted to pry into mine.

I had felt convinced that we were alone. But suddenly I realized it was
not so. The kitchen adjoined an interior back-garden. I could see it
through the opened door oval--a dim space of flowers; a little path to a
pergola; an adobe fountain. It was a sort of Spanish patio out there,
partially enclosed by the wings of the house. Moonlight was struggling
into it. And, as I gazed idly, I thought I saw a figure lurking. Someone
watching us.

       *       *       *       *       *

Was it a boy, observing us from the shadowed moonlit garden? I thought
so. A slight, half grown boy. I saw his figure--in short ragged trousers
and a shirt-blouse--made visible in a patch of moonlight as he moved
away and entered the dark opposite wing of the house.

I did not see the boy's figure again; and presently I suggested that I
retire. Spawn had already shown me my bedroom. It was in another wing of
the house. It had a window facing the front; and a window and door back
to this same patio. And a door to the house corridor.

"Sleep well, Meester Grant." My bag was here on the table under an
electrolier. "Shall I call you?"

"Yes," I said. "Early."

He lingered a moment. I was opening my bag. I flung it wide under his
gaze.

"Well, good night. I shall be very comfortable, thanks."

"Good night," he said.

He went out the patio door. I watched his figure cross the moonlit path
and enter the kitchen. The noise of his puttering there sounded for a
time. Then the light went out and the house and garden fell into
silence.

I closed my doors. They sealed on the inside, and I fastened them
securely. Then I fastened the transparent window panes. I did not
undress, but lay on the bed in the dark. I was tired; I realized it now.
But sleep would not come.

I am no believer in occultism, but there are premonitions which one
cannot deny. It seemed now as I lay there in the dark that I had every
reason to be perturbed, yet I could not think why. Perhaps it was
because I had been lying to this innkeeper stoutly for an hour past, and
whether he believed me or not for the life of me I could not now
determine.

       *       *       *       *       *

I sat up on the bed, presently, and adjusted the wires and diaphragms of
the ether-wave mechanism. When in place it was all concealed under my
shirt. As I switched it on, the electrodes against my flesh tingled a
little. But it was absolutely soundless, and one gets used to the
tingle. I decided to call Hanley.

The New York wave-sorter handled me promptly, but Hanley's office was
dead.

As I sat there in the darkness, annoyed at this, a slight noise forced
itself on me. A scratching--a tap--something outside my window.

Spawn, come back to peer in at me?

I slipped noiselessly from the bed. The sound had come from the window
which faced the patio. The room, over by the bed, was wholly dark. The
moonlight outside showed the patio window as a dimly illumined oval.

For a moment I crouched on the floor by the bed. No sound. The silence
of the Lowlands is as heavy and oppressive as its air. I felt as though
my heart were audible.

I lifted my foot; extracted my dirk. It opened into a very businesslike
steel blade of a good twelve-inch length. I bared the blade. The click
of it leaving the flat, hollow handle sounded loud in the stillness of
the room.

A moment. Then it seemed that outside my window a shadow had moved. I
crept along the floor. Rose up suddenly at the window.

And stared at a face peering in at me. A small face, framed by short,
clustering, dark curls.

A girl!




CHAPTER III

_In a Moonlit Garden_


She drew back from the window like a startled fawn; timorous, yet
curious, too, for she ran only a few steps, then turned and stood
peering. The moonlight slanted over the western roof of the building and
fell on her. A slight, boyish figure in short, tattered trousers and a
boy's shirt, open at her slim, rounded throat. The moonlight gleamed on
the white shirt fabric to show it torn and ragged. Her arms were
upraised; her head, with clustering, flying dark curls, was tilted as
though listening for a sound from me. A shy, wild creature. Drawn to my
window; tapping to awaken me, then frightened at what she had done.

I opened the garden door. She did not move. I thought she would run, but
she did not. The moonlight was on me as I stood there. I was conscious
of its etching me with its silver sheen. And twenty feet from me this
girl stood and gazed, with startled eyes and parted lips--and white
limbs trembling like a frightened animal.

The patio was very silent. The heavy arching fronds stirred slightly
with a vague night breeze; the moonlight threw a lacy dark pattern of
them on the gray stone path. The fountain bowl gleamed white in the
moonlight behind the girl, and in the silence I could hear the low
splashing of the water.

A magic moment. Unforgettable. It comes to some of us just once, but to
all of us it comes. I stood with its spell upon me. Then I heard my
voice, tense but softly raised.

"Who are you?"

It frightened her. She retreated until the fountain was between us. And
as I took a step forward, she retreated further, noiseless, with her
bare feet treading the smooth stones the path.

       *       *       *       *       *

I ran and caught her at the doorway of the flowered pergola. She stood
trembling as I seized her arms. But the timorous smile remained, and her
eyes, upraised to mine, glowed with misty starlight.

"Who are you?"

This time she answered me. "I am called Jetta."

It seemed that from her white forearm within my grasp a magic current
swept from her to me and back again. We humans, for all our clamoring,
boasting intellectuality, are no more than puppets in Nature's hands.

"Are you Spawn's daughter?"

"Yes."

"I saw you a while ago, when I was having my meal."

"Yes--I was watching you."

"I thought you were a boy."

"Yes. My father told me to keep away. I wanted to meet you, so I came to
wake you up."

"He may be watching us now."

"No. He is sleeping. Listen--you can hear him snore."

I could, indeed. The silence of the garden was broken now by a distant,
choking snore.

We both laughed. She sat on the little mossy seat in the pergola doorway
And on the side away from the snore. (I had the wit to be sure of that.)

"I wanted to meet you," she repeated. "Was it too bold?"

       *       *       *       *       *

I think that what we said sitting there with the slanting moonlight on
us, could not have amounted to much. Yet for us, it was so important!
Vital. Building memories which I knew--and I think that she knew, even
then--we would never forget.

"I will be here a week, Jetta."

"I want--I want very much to know you. I want you to tell me about the
world of the Highlands. I have a few books. I can't read very well, but
I can look at the pictures."

"Oh, I see--"

"A traveler gave them to me. I've got them hidden. But he was an old
man: all men seem to be old--except those in the pictures, and you,
Philip."

I laughed. "Well, that's too bad. I'm mighty glad I'm young."

Ah, in that moment, with blessed youth surging in my veins, I was glad
indeed!

"Young. I don't remember ever seeing anyone like you. The man I am to
marry is not like you. He is old, like father--"

I drew back from her, startled.

"Marry?"

"Yes. When I am seventeen. The law of Nareda--your Highland law, too,
father says--will not let a girl be married until she is that age. In a
month I am seventeen."

"Oh!" And I stammered, "But why are you going to marry?"

"Because father tells me to. And then I shall have fine clothes: it is
promised me. And go to live in the Highlands, perhaps. And see things;
and be a woman, not a ragged boy forbidden to show myself; and--"

       *       *       *       *       *

I was barely touching her. It seemed as though something--some vision of
happiness which had been given me--were fading, were being snatched
away. I was conscious of my hand moving to touch hers.

"Why do you marry--unless you're in love? Are you?"

Her gaze like a child came up to meet mine. "I never thought much about
that. I have tried not to. It frightened me--until to-night."

She pushed me gently away. "Don't. Let's not talk of him. I'd rather
not."

"But why are you dressed as a boy?"

I gazed at her slim but rounded figure in tattered boy's garb--but the
woman's lines were unmistakable. And her face, with clustering curls.
Gentle girlhood. A face of dark, wild beauty.

"My father hates women. He says they are all bad. It is a sin to wear
woman's finery; or it breeds sin in women. Let's not talk of that.
Philip, tell me--oh, if you could only realize all the things I want to
know. In Great New York, there are theatres and music?"

"Yes," I said. And began telling her about them.

The witching of this moonlit garden! But the moon had presently sunk,
and to the east the stars were fading.

"Philip! Look! Why, it's dawn already. I've got to leave you."

I held her just a moment by the hand.

"May I meet you here to-morrow night?" I asked.

"Yes," she said simply.

"Good night--Jetta."

"Good night. You--you've made me very happy."

She was gone, into a doorway of the opposite wing. The silent, empty
garden sounded with the distant, reassuring snores of the still sleeping
Spawn.

I went back to my room and lay on my bed. And drifted off on a sea of
magic memories. The world--my world before this night--now seemed to
have been so drab. Empty. Lifeless. But now there was pulsing, living
magic in it for me.

I drifted into sleep, thinking of it.




CHAPTER IV

_The Mine in the Cauldron Depths_


I was awakened by the tinkling, buzzing call of the radio-diaphragm
beneath my shirt. I had left the call open.

It was Hanley. I lay down, eyeing my window which now was illumined by
the flat light of dawn.

Hanley's microscopic voice:

"Phil? I've just raised President Markes, there in Nareda. I've been a
bit worried about you."

"I'm all right, Chief."

"Well, you'd better see President Markes this morning."

"That was my intention."

"Tell him frankly what you're after. This smuggling of quicksilver from
Nareda has got to stop. But take it easy, Phil; don't be reckless.
Remember: one little knife thrust and I've lost a good man!"

I laughed at his anxious tone. That was always Hanley's way. A devil
himself, when he was on a trail, but always worried for fear one of his
men would come to harm.

"Right enough, Chief. I'll be careful."

He cut off presently.

I did not see Jetta that morning. I told Spawn I was hoping to see
President Markes on my petroleum proposition. And at the proper hour I
took myself to the government house.

       *       *       *       *       *

This Lowland village by daylight seemed even more fantastic than
shrouded in the shadows of night. The morning sun had dissipated the
overhead mists. It was hot in the rocky streets under the weird
overhanging vegetation. The settlement was quietly busy with its
tropical activities. There were a few local shops; vehicles with the
Highland domestic animals--horses and oxen--panting in the heat; an
occasional electro-automatic car.

But there were not many evidences of modernity here. The street and
house tube-lights. A few radio image-finders on the house-tops. An
automatic escalator bringing ore from a nearby mine past the government
checkers to an aero stage for northern transportation. Cultivated fields
in the village outskirts operated with modern machinery.

But beyond that, it seemed primitive. Two hundred years back. Street
vendors. People in primitive, ragged, tropical garb. Half naked
children. I was stared at curiously. An augmenting group of children
followed me as I went down the street.

The President admitted me at once. In his airy office, with safeguards
against eavesdropping, I found him at his desk with a bank of modern
instruments before him.

"Sit down, Grant."

       *       *       *       *       *

He was a heavy-set, flabby man of sixty-odd, this Lowland President.
White hair; and an old-fashioned, rolling white mustache of the sort
lately come into South American fashion. He sat with a glass of iced
drink at his side. His uniform was stiffly white, and ornate with heavy
gold braid, but his neckpiece was wilted with perspiration.

"Damnable heat, Grant."

"Yes, Sir President."

"Have a drink." He swung a tinkling glass before me. "Now then, tell me
what is your trouble. Smuggling, here in Nareda. I don't believe it."
His eyes, incongruously alert with all the rest of him so fat and lazy,
twinkled at me. "We of the Nareda Government watch our quicksilver
production very closely. The government fee is a third."

I might say that the Nareda government collected a third on all the
mineral and agricultural products of the country, in exchange for the
necessary government concessions. Markes exported this share openly to
the world markets, paying the duty exactly like a private corporation.

He added, "You think--Hanley thinks--the smuggling is on too large a
scale to be any illicit producer?"

I nodded.

"Then," he said, "it must be one of our recognized mines."

"Hanley thinks it is a recognized mine, falsifying its production
record," I explained.

"If that is so, I will discover it," he said. He spoke with enthusiasm
and vigor. "For you I shall treat as what you are--the representative
of our most friendly government. The figures of our quicksilver
production I shall lay before you in just a few days. Let me fill up
your glass, Grant."

       *       *       *       *       *

The lazy tropics. I really did not doubt his sincerity. But I did doubt
his ability to cope with any clever criminal. His enthusiasm for action
would wilt like his neckpiece, in Nareda's heat. Unless, perhaps, the
knowledge that the smuggler was cheating him as well as the United
States--_that_ might spur him.

He added--and now I got a shock wholly unexpected: "If we think that
some recognized producer of quicksilver here is cheating us, it should
not be difficult to check up on it. Nareda has only one large cinnabar
lode being worked. A private individual: that fellow Jacob Spawn--"

"Spawn?" I exclaimed involuntarily.

"Why, yes. Did not he mention it? His mine is no more than ten
kilometers from here--back on the southern slope."

"He didn't mention it," I said.

"So? That is strange; but he is a secretive Dutchman by nature. He
specializes in prying into the other fellow's affairs. Hm-m."

He fell into a reverie while I stared at him. Spawn, the big--the only
big--quicksilver producer here!

       *       *       *       *       *

The President interrupted my startled thoughts. "I hope you did not
intimate your real purpose?"

"No."

We both turned at the sound of an opening door. Markes called, "Ah, come
in Perona! Are you alone? Good! Close that slide. Here is Chief Hanley's
representative." He introduced us all in a breath. "This is interesting,
Perona. Damnably interesting. We're being cheated, what? It looks that
way. Sit down, Perona."

This was Greko Perona. Nareda's Minister of Internal Affairs. Spawn had
mentioned him to me. A South American. A man in his fifties. Thin and
darkly saturnine, with iron-gray hair, carefully plastered to cover his
half-bald head. He sat listening to the President's harangue, twirling
the upturned waxen ends of his artificially black mustache. A wave of
perfume enveloped him. A ladies' courtier, this Perona by the look of
him. His white uniform was immaculate, carefully tailored and carefully
worn to set off at its best his still trim and erect figure.

"Well," he said, when at last the President paused, "of a surety
something must be done."

Perona seemed not excited, rather more carefully watchful, of his own
words, and of me. His small dark eyes roved me.

"What is it you would plan to do about it, Señorito?"

An irony was in that Latin diminutive! He spread his pale hands. "Your
United States officials perhaps exaggerate. I am very doubtful if we
have smugglers here in Nareda."

"Unless it is Spawn," the President interjected.

       *       *       *       *       *

Perona frowned slightly. But his suave manner remained. "Spawn? Why
Spawn?"

"You need not take offense, Perona," Markes retorted. "We are discussing
this before an envoy of the United States, sent here to consult with us.
We have nothing to hide."

Markes turned to me. And his next words were like a bomb exploding at my
feet.

"Perona _is_ offended, Grant. But I promise you, his natural personal
prejudice will not affect my investigation. Of course he is prejudiced,
since he is to marry Spawn's daughter, the little Jetta."

I started involuntarily. This pomaded old dotard! This perfumed, ancient
dandy!

For all the importance of my mission in Nareda my thoughts had been
subconsciously more upon Jetta--far more--than upon smugglers of
quicksilver. This palsied popinjay! This, the reality of the specter
which had been between Jetta and me during all that magic time in the
moonlit garden!

This suave old rake! Betrothed to that woodland pixie whose hand I had
held and to whom I had sung love songs in the magic flower-scented
moonlight only a few hours ago! And whom I had promised to meet there
again to-night!

This, then, was my rival!

       *       *       *       *       *

Nothing of importance transpired during the remainder of that interview.
Markes reiterated his intention of making a complete governmental
investigation at once. To which Perona suavely assented.

"_Por Dios Señorito_," he said to me, "we would not have your great
government annoyed at Nareda. If there are smugglers, we will capture
them of a certainty."

From the Government House, it now being almost time for the midday meal,
I returned to Spawn's.

The rambling mud walls of the Inn stood baking in the noonday heat when
I arrived. The outer garden drowsed; there seemed no one about. I went
through the main door oval into the front public room, where first I had
met Spawn. He was not here now, nor was Jetta.

A sudden furtiveness fell upon me. With noiseless steps I went the
length of the dim, padded interior corridor to my own room. My
belongings seemed undisturbed; a vague idea that Spawn might have seized
this opportunity to ransack them had come to me. But it seemed not;
though if he had he would have found nothing.

I stood for a moment listening at my patio window. I could see the
kitchen from here; there was no one in it. I started back for the living
room. That furtive instinct was still on me. I made no noise. And
abruptly I heard Spawn's voice, floating out softly in the hushed
silence of the house.

"So, Perona?"

       *       *       *       *       *

A brief silence, in which it seemed that I could hear a tiny aerial
answer. Then Spawn again. A startled oath.

"De duvel! You say--"

I stood frozen, listening.

"She is here.... Yes, I will keep her close. I am no fool, Perona."

Spawn's laugh was like a growl. "Later to-day, yes. Fear not! I am no
fool. I will be careful of it."

Spawn, talking by private audiphone, to Perona. The colloquy came to an
abrupt end.

"... Might eavesdrop? By hell, you are right!"

I heard the click as Spawn and Perona broke connection. Spawn came from
his room. But he was not quick enough. I slipped away before he saw me.
In the living room I had time to be calmly seated with a lighted
cigarette. His approaching heavy footsteps sounded. He came in.

"Oh--Grant."

"Good noon, friend Spawn. I'm hungry." I grinned at him. "I understand
my bargain with you included a noonday meal. Does it?"

He eyed me suspiciously. "Have you been waiting here long?"

"No. I just came in."

He led me to the kitchen. He apologized for the informality of his hotel
service: visitors were so infrequent. But the good quality of his food
would make up for it.

"Right," I agreed. "Your food is marvelous, friend Spawn."

       *       *       *       *       *

There was a difference in Spawn's manner toward me now. He seemed far
more wary. Outwardly he was in a high good humor. He asked nothing
concerning my morning at the Government House. He puttered over his
electron-stove, making me help him; he cursed the heat; he said one
could not eat in such heat as this; but the meal he cooked, and the way
he sat down opposite me and attacked it, belied him.

He was acting; but so was I. And perhaps I deceived him as little as he
deceived me. We avoided the things which were uppermost in the thoughts
of us both. But, when we had very nearly finished the meal, I decided to
try him out. I said suddenly, out of a silence:

"Spawn, why didn't you tell me you were a producer of quicksilver?" I
shot him a sharp glance. "You are, aren't you?"

It took him by surprise, but he recovered himself instantly. "Yes. Are
you interested?"

I tried another shot. "What surprised me was that a wealthy mine
owner--you are, aren't you?--should bother to keep an unprofitable
hotel. Why bother with it, Spawn?"

I thought I knew the answer: he wanted Nareda's visitors under his eyes.

"That is a pleasure." There was irony in his tone. "I am a lonesome man.
I like--interesting companionship, such as yours, young Grant."

It was on my tongue to hint at his daughter. But I thought better of it.

"I am going to the mine now," he said abruptly. "Would you like to
come?"

"Yes," I smiled. "Thanks."

       *       *       *       *       *

I wanted to see his mine. But that he should be eager to show it,
surprised me. I wondered what purpose he could have in that. I had a
hint of it later; for when we took his little autocar and slid up the
winding road into the bloated crags towering on the slope behind Nareda,
he told me calmly:

"I shall have to put you in charge of my mine commander. I am busy
elsewhere this afternoon. You will see the mine just as well without
me."

He added. "I must go to the Government House: President Markes wants a
report on my recent production."

So that was what Perona had told him over the audiphone just before our
noonday meal?

It was an inferno of shadows and glaring lights, this underground
cavern. As modern mining activities go, it was small and primitive. No
more than a dozen men were here, beside the sweating pudgy mine
commander who was my guide. A voluble fellow; of what original
nationality I could not determine.

We stood watching the line of carts dumping the ore onto the endless
lifting-belt. It went a hundred feet or so up and out of the cavern's
ascending shaft, to fall with a clatter into the bins above the smelter.

"Rich ore," I said. "Isn't it?"

The cinnabar ran like thick blood-red veins in the rock.

"Rich," said the mine commander. "That it is. Rich. But who does it make
rich? Only Spawn, not me." He waved his arms, airing his grievance with
which for an hour past he had regaled me. "Only Spawn. For me, a dole
each week."

The smelter was in a stone building--one of a small group of mine houses
which stood in a cauldron depression above excavations. Rounded domes of
rock towered above them. The sun, even at this tri-noon hour, was gone
behind the heights above us. The murky shadows of night were gathering,
the mists of the Lowlands settling. The tube-lights of the mine, strung
between small metal poles, winked on like bleary eyes.

"Of a day soon I will fling this job to hell--"

       *       *       *       *       *

I was paying scant attention to the fellow's tirade. Could there be
smuggling going on from this mine? It all seemed to be conducted openly
enough. If the production record were being falsified I felt that this
dissatisfied mine commander was not aware of it. He showed me the
smelter, where the quicksilver condensed in the coils and ran with its
small luminous silver streams into the vats.

He was called away momentarily by one of his men, leaving me standing
there. I was alone; no one seemed in sight, or within hearing. In the
shadow of the condensers I drew out my transmitter and called Hanley.

I got him within a minute.

"Chief!"

"Yes, Phil. I hoped you'd call me. Didn't want to chance it, raising you
when you might not be alone."

I told him swiftly what I had done; where I was now.

And Hanley said, with equal briskness: "I've an important fact. Just had
Markes on secret wave-length. He tells me that Spawn has been saving up
his quicksilver for six months past. He's got several hundred thousand
dollar-standards' worth of it in ingots there right now."

"Here at the mine?"

"Yes. Got them all radiuminized, ready for the highest priced markets.
Markes says he is scheduled to turn them over to the government checkers
to-morrow. The Nareda government takes its share to-morrow; then Spawn
exports the rest."

I heard a footstep. "Off, Chief! I'll call you later!"

I clicked off summarily. The little grid was under my shirt when the
mine commander rejoined me.

       *       *       *       *       *

For another half hour or to I hovered about the smelter house. A
treasure of quicksilver ingots here? I mentioned it casually to my
companion. He shot me a sharp glance.

"Spawn has told you that?"

"I heard it."

"His business. We do not talk of that. Never can I tell what Spawn will
choose to take offense at."

We rambled upon other subjects. Later, he said, "We work not at night.
But Spawn, he is here often at night, with his friend, the Señor
Perona."

That caught my attention. "I met Perona this morning," I said quickly.
"Is he a partner of Spawn's?"

"If he is so, I never was told it. But much he is here--at night."

"Why at night?"

The fellow really knew nothing. Or if he did, he was diplomatic enough
not to jeopardize his post by babbling of it to me. He said:

"Perona is Spawn's friend. Why not? His daughter to marry: that will
make him a son-in-law." He laughed. "An old fool, but not such a fool
either. Spawn is rich."

"His daughter. Has he a daughter?"

"The little Jetta. You haven't seen her? Well, that is not strange.
Spawn keeps her very hidden. A mystery about it: all Nareda talks, but
no one knows; and Spawn does not like questions."

Spawn abruptly joined us! He came from the black shadows of the lurid
smelter room. Had he heard us discussing Jetta? I wondered.




CHAPTER V

_Mysterious Meeting_


"Ah, Grant--have you enjoyed yourself?" He dismissed his subordinate. "I
was detained. Sorry."

He was smoothly imperturbable. "Have you seen everything? Quite a little
plant I have here? We shut down early to-day. I will make ready to
close."

I followed him about while he arranged for the termination of the day's
activities. The clatter of the smelter house was presently still; the
men departing. Spawn and I were the last to leave, save for the eight
men who were the mine's night guards. They were stalwart, silent
fellows, armed with electronic needle projectors.

The lights of the mine went low until they were mere pencil points of
blue illumination in the gloom. The eery look of the place was
intensified by the darkness and silence of the abnormally early
nightfall. The fantastic crags stood dark with formless shadow.

Spawn stopped to speak to one of the guards. The men wore a
gold-trimmed, but now dirty, white linen uniform, wilted by the
heat--the uniform of Nareda's police. I remarked it to him.

"The government lent me the men," Spawn explained. "Of an ordinary time
I have only one guard."

"But this then, is not an ordinary time?" I hinted.

He looked at me sharply. And upon sudden impulse, I added:

"President Markes said something about you having a treasure here.
Radiumized quicksilver."

It was evidently Spawn's desire to appear thoroughly frank with me. He
laughed. "Well, then, if Markes has told you, then might I not as well
admit it? The treasure is here, indeed yes. Will you like to see it?"

       *       *       *       *       *

He led me into a little strong room adjoining the smelter
coil-rectifiers. He flashed his hand searchlight. On the floor, piled
crosswise, were small moulded bars of refined quicksilver--dull,
darkened silver ingots of this world's most precious metal.

"Quite a treasure, Grant, here to-night. See, it is radiumized."

He snapped off his torch. In the darkness the little bars glowed
irridescent.

"To-morrow I will divide with our Nareda government. One-third for them.
And my own share I will export: to Great New York, this shipment.
Already I have the order for it."

He added calmly, "The duty is high, Grant. Too bad your big New York
market is protected by so large a duty. With my cost of
production--these accursed Lowland workmen who demand so much for their
labor, and a third of all I produce taken by Nareda--there is not much
in it for me."

He had re-lighted the room. I could feel his eyes on me, but I said
nothing. It was obvious to me now that he knew I was a government
customs agent.

I said, "This certainly interests me, friend Spawn. I'll tell you why
some other time."

We exchanged significant glances, both of us smiling.

"Well can I guess it, young Grant. So here is my treasure. Without the
duty I would soon be wealthy. Chut! Why should I roll in a pity for
myself? There is a duty and I am an honest man, so I pay it."

I said, "Aren't you afraid to leave this stored here?" I knew that this
pile of ingots--the quicksilver in its radiumized form--was worth four
or five hundred thousand dollars in American gold-coin at the very
least.

       *       *       *       *       *

Spawn shrugged. "Who would attack it? But of course I will be glad to be
rid of it. It is a great responsibility--even though it carries
international insurance, to protect my and the Nareda Government share."

He was sealing up the heavy barred portals of the little strong-room.
There was an alarm-detector, connected with the office of Nareda's
police commander. Spawn set the alarm carefully.

"I have every safeguard, Grant. There is really no danger." He added, as
though with sudden thought. "Except possibly one--a depth bandit named
De Boer. Ever you have heard of him?"

"Yes. I have."

We climbed into Spawn's small automatic vehicle. The lights of the mine
faded behind us as we coasted the winding road down to the village.

"De Boer," said Spawn. "A fellow who lives by his wits in the depths.
Near here, perhaps: who knows? They say he has many followers--fifty--a
hundred, perhaps--outlaws: a cut-belly band it must be."

"Didn't he once take a hand in Nareda's politics?" I suggested.

Spawn guffawed. "That is so. He was once what they called a patriot
here. He thought he might be made President. But Markes ran him out. Now
he is a bandit. I have believe that American mail-ship which sank last
year in the cauldron north of the Nares Sea--you remember how it was
attacked by bandits?--I have always believe that was De Boer's band."

       *       *       *       *       *

We rolled back to Nareda. Spawn's manner had again changed. He seemed
even more friendly than before. More at his ease with me. We had supper,
and smoked together in his living room for half an hour afterward. But
my thoughts were more on Jetta than on her father. There was still no
evidence of her about the premises. Ah, if I only had known what had
taken place there at Spawn's that afternoon while I was at the mine!

Soon after supper Spawn yawned. "I think I shall go to bed." His glance
was inquiring. "What are you going to do?"

I stood up. "I'll go to bed, too. Markes wants to see me early in the
morning. You'll be there, Spawn?"

"Yes. We will go together."

It was still no more than eight o'clock in the evening. Spawn followed
me to my bedroom, and left me at its door.

"Sleep well. I will call you in time."

"Thanks, Spawn."

I wondered if there were irony in his voice as he said good night. No
one could have told.

       *       *       *       *       *

I did not go to bed. I sat listening to the silence of my room and the
garden, and Spawn's retreating footsteps. He had said he was sleepy, but
nevertheless I presently heard him across the patio. He was apparently
in the kitchen, cleaning away our meal, to judge by the rattling of his
pans. It was as yet not much after hour eight of the evening. The hours
before my tryst with Jetta seemed an interminable time to wait. She
might not come, though, I was afraid, until midnight.

At all events I felt that I had some hours yet. And it occurred to me
that the evening was not yet too far advanced for me to call upon
Perona. He lived not far from here, I had learned. I wanted to see this
beribboned old Minister of Nareda's Internal Affairs.

I would use as my excuse a desire to discuss further the possibility of
smuggler being here in Nareda.

I put on my hat and a light jacket, verified that my dirk was readily
accessible and sealed up my room. Spawn apparently was still in the
kitchen. I got out of the house, I felt sure, without him being aware of
it.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Nareda streets were quiet. There was a few pedestrians, and none of
them paid much attention to me. It was no more than ten minutes walk to
Perona's home.

His house was set back from the road, surrounded by luxurious
vegetation. There was a gate in front of the garden, and another, a
hundred feet or to along a small alleyway which bordered the ground to
my left. I was about to enter the front gate when sight of a figure
passing under the garden foliage checked me. It was a man, evidently
coming from the house and headed toward the side gate. He went through a
shaft of light that slanted from one of the lower windows of the house.

Perona! I was sure it was he. His slight figure, with a gay,
tri-cornered hat. A short tasseled cloak hanging from his shoulders. He
was alone; walking fast. He evidently had not seen me. I crouched
outside the high front wall, and through its lattice bars I saw him
reach the side gate, open it swiftly, pass through, and close it after
him. There was something furtive about his manner, for all he was
undisguised. I decided to follow him.

The front street fortunately was deserted at the moment. I waited long
enough for him to appear. But he did not; and when I ran to the alley
corner--chancing bumping squarely into him--I saw him far down its dim,
narrow length where it opened into the back street which bordered his
grounds to the rear. He turned to the left and shot a swift glance up
the alley, which I anticipated, provided for by drawing back. When I
looked again, he was gone.

       *       *       *       *       *

I have had some experience at playing the shadow. But it was not easy
here along the almost deserted and fairly bright Nareda streets. Perona
was walking swiftly down the slope toward the outskirts of the village
where it bordered upon the Nares Sea. For a time I thought he was headed
for the landing field, but at a cross-path he turned sharply to the
right, away from the field, whose sheen of lights I could now see down
the rocky defile ahead of me. There was nothing but broken, precipitous
rocky country ahead of him, into which this path he had taken was
winding. What could Perona, a Minister, be engaged in, wandering off
alone into this black, deserted region?

It was black indeed, by now. The village was soon far behind us. A storm
was in the night air; a wind off the sea; solid black clouds overhead
blotted out the moon and stars. The crags and buttes and gullies of this
tumbled area loomed barely visible about me. There were times when only
my feel of the path under my feet kept me from straying, to fall into a
ravine or crevice.

I prowled perhaps two hundred yards behind Perona. He was using a tiny
hand-flash now; it bobbed and winked in the darkness ahead, vanishing
sometimes when a curve in the path hid him, or when he plunged down into
a gully and up again. I had no search-beam. Nor would I have dared use
one: Perona could too obviously have seen that someone was following
him.

There was half a mile of this, I think, though it seemed interminable. I
could hear the sea, rising with the wind, pounding against the rocks to
my left. Then, a distance ahead, I saw lights moving. Perona's--and
others. Three or four of them. Their combined glow made a radiance which
illumined the path and rocks. I could see the figures of several men
whom Perona had joined. They stood a moment and then moved off. To the
right a ragged cliff wall towered the path. The spots of light bobbed
toward it. I caught the vague outline of a huge broken opening, like a
cave mouth in the cliff. The lights were swallowed by it.

I crept cautiously forward.




CHAPTER VI

_Ether-wave Eavesdropping_


I had thought it was a cavern mouth into which the men had disappeared,
but it was not. I reached it without any encounter. It loomed above me,
a great archway in the cliff--an opening fifty feet high and equally as
broad. And behind it was a roofless cave--a sort of irregularly circular
bowl, five hundred feet across its broken, bowlder-strewn, caked-ooze
floor.

I crouched in the blackness under the archway. The moon had risen and
its light filtered with occasional shafts through the swift-flying black
clouds overhead. The scene was brighter. It was dark in the archway, but
a glow of moonlight in the bowl beyond showed me its tumbled floor and
the precipitous, eroded walls, like a crater-rim, which encircled it.

The men whom Perona had met were across the bowl near its opposite side.
I could see the group of them, five hundred feet from me, by a little
moonlight that was on them; also by the sheen from the spots of their
hand-lights. Four or five men, and Perona. I thought I distinguished the
aged Minister sitting on a rock, and before him a huge giant man's
figure striding up and down. Perona seemed talking vehemently: the men
were listening; the giant paused occasionally in his pacing to fling a
question.

All this I saw with my first swift glance. My attention was drawn from
the men to an object near them. The nose of a flyer showed between two
upstanding crags on the floor of the valley. Only its forward horizontal
propellers and the tip of its cabin and landing gear were visible, but I
could guess that it was a fair-sized ship.

The men were too far away for me to hear them. Could I get across the
floor of the bowl without discovery? It did not seem so. The accursed
moonlight became stronger every moment. Then I saw a guard--a dark
figure of a man showing just inside the archway, some seventy feet from
me. He was leaning against a rock, facing my way. In his hands was a
thick-barreled electronic projector.

I could not advance: that was obvious. The moonlight lay in a clear
clean patch beyond the archway. The guard stood at its edge.

       *       *       *       *       *

A minute or two had passed. Perona was still talking vehemently. I was
losing it: not a word was audible. Yet I felt that if I could hear
Perona now, much that Hanley and I wanted to learn would be made clear
to us. My little microphone receiver could be adjusted for audible air
vibrations. I crouched and held it cautiously above my head with its
face, like a listening ear, turned toward the distant men. My
single-vacuum amplification brought up the sound until their voices
sounded like whispers murmured in my ear-grids.

"De Boer, listen to me--"

Perona's voice. They must have been chance words spoken loudly. It was
all I could hear, save tantalizing, unintelligible murmurs.

So this was De Boer, the bandit! The big fellow pacing before Perona. I
wanted infinitely more, now, to hear what was being said.

I thought of Hanley. There might be a way of handling this.

I had to murmur very softly. I was hidden in these shadows from the
guard's sight, but he was close enough to hear my normal voice. I
chanced it. A wind was sucking through the archway with an audible
whine: the guard might not hear me.

"X. 2. AY."

The sorter's desk. He came in. I murmured Hanley's rating. "Rush.
Danger. Special."

It went swiftly through. Hanley, thank Heaven, was at his desk.

       *       *       *       *       *

I plugged in my little image finder; held it over my head; turned it
slowly. I whispered:

"Look around, Chief. See where I am? Near Nareda; couple of miles out.
Followed Perona; he met these men.

"The big one is De Boer, the depth bandit. I can't hear what they're
saying--but I can send you their voice murmurs."

"Amplify them all you can. Relay them up," Hanley ordered.

I caught Perona's murmurs again; I swung them through my tiny
transformers and off my transmitter points into the ether.

"Hear them, Chief?"

"Yes. I'll try further amplification."

It was what I had intended. Hanley's greater power might be able to
amplify those murmurs into audible strength.

"I'm getting them, Phil."

He swung them back to me. Grotesquely distorted, blurred with tube-hum
and interference crackle, they roared in my ear-grids so loudly that I
saw the nearby guard turn his head as though startled. Listening....

But evidently he concluded it was nothing.

I cut down the volume. Hanley switched in.

"By God. Phil! This--"

"Off, Chief! Let me hear, too!"

       *       *       *       *       *

He cut away. Those distorted voices! They came from Perona and the
bandits to me across this five hundred foot moonlit bowl; from me,
thirteen hundred miles up to Hanley's instruments; and back to me once
more. But the words, most of them, now were distinguishable.

Perona's voice: "I tell it to you. De Boer ... and a good chance for you
to make the money."

"But will they pay?"

"Of course they will pay. Big. A ransom princely."

"And why, Perona? Why princely? Who is this fellow--so important?"

"He is with rich business men, I tell to you."

"A private citizen?"

"... And a private citizen, of a surety. Fool! Have you come to be a
coward, De Boer?"

"Pah!"

"Well then I tell you it is a lifetime chance. All of it I have
arranged. If he was a government agent, that would be very different,
for they are very keen, this administration of the American government,
to protect their agents. But their private citizens--it is a scandal! Do
you not ever pick the newscasters' reports, De Boer? Has it not been a
scandal that this administration does very little for its citizens
abroad?"

"And you want to get rid of this fellow? Why, Perona?"

"That is not your concern. The ransom is to be all yours. Make away with
him--in the depths somewhere. Demand your ransom. Fifty thousand
gold-standards! Demand it of me. Of Nareda!"

"And you will pay it?"

"I promise it. Nareda will pay it--and Nareda will collect the ransom
from the American capitalists. Very easy."

His voice fell lower. "Between us, you will get the ransom money from
Nareda--and then kill your prisoner if you like. Call it an accident;
what matter? And dead men are silent men, De Boer. I will see that no
real pursuit is made after you."

       *       *       *       *       *

They were talking about me! It was obvious. Questions rushed at me.
Perona, planning with this bandit to abduct me. Hold me for ransom. Or
kill me! But Perona knew that I was not a private citizen. He was lying
to De Boer, to persuade him.

Why this attack upon me? Was Spawn in on it? Why were they so anxious to
get rid of me? Because of Jetta? Or because I was dangerous, prying
into their smuggling activities. Or both?

De Boer: "... Get up with my men through the streets to Spawn's house?
You have it fixed?"

"Yes. Over the route from here as I told you, there are no police
to-night. I have ordered them off. In the garden. _Dios!_ You offer so
many objections! I tell you all is fixed. In an hour, half an hour; even
now, perhaps, the Americano is in the garden. The girl has promised to
meet him there. He will be there, fear not. Will you go?"

"Yes."

"Hah! That is the De Boer I have always admired!"

I could see them in the moonlight across the pit. Perona now standing
up, the giant figure of the bandit towering over him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hanley's microscopic voice cut in: "Getting it, Phil? To seize you for
ransom!"

"Yes. I hear it."

"This girl. Who--?"

"Wait, Chief. Off--"

De Boer: "I will do it! Fifty thousand."

Perona: "An hour now. Spawn will be at his home asleep."

"And you will go to the mine?"

"Yes. Now, from here. You seize this fellow Grant, and then attack the
mine. Our regular plan, De Boer. This does not change it."

Attack Spawn's mine! Half a million of treasure was there to-night!

Perona was chuckling: "You give Spawn's guards the signal. They are all
my men--in my pay. They will run away when you appear."

Hanley cut in again. "By the gods, they're after that treasure! Phil,
listen to me! you must...." His voice faded.

"Chief, I can't hear you!"

Hanley came again: "... And I will notify Porto Rico. The local patrol
will be about ready to leave."

"Or notify Nareda headquarters," I suggested. "If you can get President
Markes, he can send some police to the mine--"

"And find all Nareda's police bribed by Perona? I'll get Porto Rico. We
have an hour or two; the patrol can reach you in an hour."

The bandits were preparing to leave here. Two or three of them had gone
to the flyer. Perona and De Boer were parting.

"... Well, that is all, De Boer."

"Right, Señor Perona. I will start shortly."

"On foot, by the street route to Spawn's--"

Hanley's hurried voice came back: "I've sent the call to Porto Rico."

       *       *       *       *       *

The guard had moved again. He was no more than forty feet away from me
now--standing up gazing directly toward where I was crouching over my
tiny instruments in the shadows of the rocky arch. A footstep sounded
behind me, on the path outside the arch. Someone approaching!

A tiny light bobbing!

Then a voice calling, "Perona! De Boer!"

The guard took a step forward; stopped, with levelled weapon.

Then the voice again: it was so loud it went through my opened relay,
flashed up to New York, and blew out half a dozen of Hanley's attuned
vacuums.

"Perona!"

Spawn's voice! He was coming toward me! I lay prone, my little grids
switched off. I held my breath.

Spawn's figure went past within ten feet of me. But he did not see me.

He met the guard. "Hello, Gutierrez. The damned American--"

Perona and De Boer came hastening. Spawn joined them in the moonlight
just beyond the archway, close enough for me to hear them plainly. Spawn
was out of breath, panting from his swift walk. He greeted them with a
roar.

"The American--he is gone!"

"_Dios!_ Gone where, Spawn?"

"The hell--how do I know, Perona? He is gone from his room--from the
house. Maybe he followed you here? Did he?"




CHAPTER VII

_Behind the Sealed Door_


There was a moment when I think I might have escaped unseen from that
archway. But I was too amazed at Spawn's appearance to think of my own
situation. I had believed that Perona was plotting against Spawn,
meeting these bandits in this secret place; I had just heard them
planning to attack Spawn's mine--to rob it of the treasure doubtless,
which I knew was stored there.

But I realized now it was not a plot against Spawn. He had come here
swiftly to join Perona and tell him that I, their intended victim, was
missing. He had greeted the bandit guard by name. He seemed, indeed, as
well known to these bandits as Perona himself.

They stood now in a group some thirty feet away from me. I could hear
their excited voices perfectly clearly. My instruments were off; but I
recall that as I listened to Spawn I was also aware of the tingle of the
electrode-band on my chest--Hanley, vigorously calling me back to find
out why I had so summarily disconnected.

"I took him to his room," Spawn was explaining excitedly. "De duvel, why
should I have sealed him in? How could I? He is no child!"

De Boer laughed caustically. "And so he has walked away from you? I
think I am a fool to mix myself with you two."

Perona retorted, "I have made you rich, De Boer. Think what you like;
to-night is the end of our partnership. Only, you do what I have told
you to-night."

"Hah! How can I? Your American has flown his trap."

This guard--this Gutierrez, as Spawn had called him--was listening with
interest. De Boer's several other men were gathered there. I felt
myself safe where I was, for the moment at least.

       *       *       *       *       *

I cut Hanley in. "Chief, they're closer! Spawn has come! They've missed
me! I'll relay what they're saying, but you step it down; there's too
much volume."

"You're all right, Phil? Thank Heaven for that! Something blew my
vacuums."

"Chief, listen--here they are--"

Perona: "But he will be back. In the garden now, no doubt, with Jetta."

De Boer: "Ah--the little Jetta! So she is there, Spawn? Not in years
have you spoken of your daughter. A young lady now, I suppose. Is it
so?"

Spawn cursed. "We leave her out of this. You follow the Señor's plan."

"Come to your house? You think the bird will be there for me to seize?"

"Yes," Perona put in. "You go there; in an hour. Then to the mine."

Spawn undoubtedly was in this plot to attack his mine! He said, "At the
mine we have arranged everything. Damn this American! But for Perona I
would not bother with him."

"But you will bother," Perona interjected.

De Boer laughed again. "I would be witless could I not figure this! He
is a young man, and so handsome he has frightened you with the little
Jetta! Is that it, Perona? Jealous, eh?"

I had been holding the image finder so that Hanley might see them.
Hanley's voice rattled my ear-grid. "Phil! Get away from there! Look! De
Boer is searching!"

       *       *       *       *       *

De Boer had, a moment before, spoken quietly aside to Gutierrez. And now
three or four of the men were spreading out, poking about with small
hand-flashes. Searching for me! The possibility that I might be here,
eavesdropping!

Hanley repeated vehemently, "Phil, they'll find you! Get out of there:
the way is still open!"

Gutierrez was approaching the archway. But I lingered a moment longer.

"Chief, you heard about that girl, Jetta, Spawn's daughter--"

I stopped. Perona was saying, "Spawn, was Jetta still in her room? You
did not untie her?"

"No."

"And gagged? Suppose the Americano was back there now? She might call to
him, and he would release her--"

De Boer: "How do you know he is not around here? Listening?"

With the assumption that I might be within hearing, De Boer tried to
trap me. Gutierrez, at a signal now, suddenly dashed through the archway
and planted himself on the path outside. The other searchers spread
their rays; the rocks all about me were lighted. But my niche was still
untouched.

De Boer: "If he is around here--"

Perona: "He could not have followed me; I was too careful."

I was murmuring: "Chief, they've got that girl."

"Phil, you get away! Go to Markes. Stay with him."

"But Chief, that Jetta, I--"

"Keep out of this! You're only one; you can't help any! I've sent for
the Porto Rican patrol ship to handle this."

"Chief, I'm going back to Spawn's."

"No--"

I cut off abruptly. In another moment I would have been discovered. The
searchers were headed directly for me.

       *       *       *       *       *

I moved, crouching, back along the inner wall of the archway. The moon
was momentarily behind a cloud. It was black under the arch; and out
front it was so dim I could only see the faint blob of Gutierrez's
standing figure, and the spot of his flashlight.

Perona: "He is not around here, De Boer. That is foolish."

Spawn: "He could have gone anywhere. Maybe a walk around the village."

Perona: "Go back home, Spawn. De Boer will come--"

Their voices faded as I moved away. A searching bandit behind me poked
with his light into the crevice where a moment before I had been
crouching. I moved faster. Only Gutierrez now was in front of me. He was
at the far end of the arch. I could slip past, and still be fifty feet
from him--if I could avoid his swinging little light-beam.

I was running now, chancing that he would hear me. I was on the path; I
could see it vaguely.

From behind me came a sizzling flash, and the ting of the flying needle
as it missed me by a foot.

"The Americano! He goes there!"

Another shot. The shouts of the bandits in the archway. A turmoil back
there.

But it was all behind me. I leaped sidewise off the path as Gutierrez
small light-beam swept it. I ran stumbling through a stubble of
boulders, around an upstanding rock spire, back to the path again.

There were other shots. Then De Boer's voice, faint by distance: "Stop!
Fools! We will alarm the village! The landing field can see our shots
from here! Take it easy! You can't get him!"

The turmoil quieted. I went around a bend in the path, running swiftly.

Pursuit was behind me. I could hear them coming.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a run of no more than ten minutes to the junction where, down the
slope, I could see the lights of the landing field.

The glow of the village was ahead of me. Then I was in its outskirts.
Occasional dark houses. Deserted streets.

I slowed to a fast walk. I was breathless, panting in the heat.

I heard no pursuit now. But Spawn and the rest of them doubtless were
after me. Would they head back for Spawn's inn? I thought they would.
But I could beat them back there; I was sure there was no shorter route
than this I was taking.

Would they use their flyer? That would not gain them any time, what
with launching it and landing, for so short a flight. And a bandit flyer
could not very well land unseen or unnoticed, even in somnolent Nareda.

I reached the main section of the village. There were occasional lights
and pedestrians. My haste was noticeable, but I was not accosted. There
seemed no police about. I recalled Perona's remark that he had attended
to that.

My electrode was tingling. I had been running again. I slowed down.

"Chief?"

"Phil." His voice carried relief. "You got away?"

"Yes. I'm in the village."

"Go to President Markes."

"No, I'm headed for Spawn's! They're all behind me; I can get there a
few minutes ahead of them."

       *       *       *       *       *

I panted an exclamation, incoherently, but frankly, about Jetta. "I'm
going to get her out of there."

"Phil, what in hell--"

I told him.

"So you've fallen in love with a girl? Entangled--"

"Chief!"

"Go after her, Phil! Got her bound and gagged, have they? Going to marry
her to this Perona? Like the Middle Ages?"

I had never seen this side of Hanley.

"Get her if you want her. Get her out of there. Take her to Markes--No,
I wouldn't trust anybody in Nareda! Take her into the uplands behind the
village. But keep away from that mine! Have you got flash-fuses?"

"Yes."

I was within sight of Spawn's house. The street was dim and deserted. I
was running again.

I panted. "I'm--almost at Spawn's!"

"Good! When it's over, whatever happens up there at the mine, then
signal the patrol."

"Yes."

I reached Spawn's front gate. The house and front garden were dark.

"Use your fuses, Phil. What colors?"

"I have red and blue."

"I'll talk to the patrol ship again. Tell them to watch for you. Red and
blue. Two short red flashes, a long blue."

"Right, Chief. I'm here at Spawn's, cutting off."

"Come back on when you can." His voice went anxious again. "I'll wait
here."

"All right."

I cut silent. I ran through the front doorway of Spawn's inn. The living
room was dim and empty. Which way was Jetta's room? I could only guess.

I had a few minutes, perhaps, before my pursuers would arrive.

       *       *       *       *       *

I reached the inner, patio garden. The moon was well out from under the
clouds now. The patio shimmered, a silent, deserted fairyland.

"Jetta!" I called it softly. Then louder. "Jetta!"

Spawn's house was fairly large and rambling. There were so many rooms.
Jetta was gagged; how could she answer me? But I had no time to search
for her.

"Jetta?"

And then came her voice. "Philip?"

"Jetta! Which way? Where are you?"

"Here! This way: in my room."

A window and a door near the pergola. "Jetta!"

"Yes. I am in here. They tied me up. Not so loud, Phil: father will hear
you."

"He's gone out."

I reached her garden door. Turned its handle. Rattled the door. Shoved
frantically with my shoulder!

The metal door was firmly sealed!

_(To be continued)_




[Illustration: _One of the men rolled free and came lurching toward
us._]

The Terrible Tentacles of L-472

_By Sewell Peaslee Wright_


It was a big mistake. I should not have done it. By birth, by instinct,
by training, by habit, I am a man of action. Or I was. It is queer that
an old man cannot remember that he is no longer young.

[Sidenote: Commander John Hanson of the Special Patrol Service records
another of his thrilling interplanetary assignments.]

But it was a mistake for me to mention that I had recorded, for the
archives of the Council, the history of a certain activity of the
Special Patrol--a bit of secret history[1] which may not be mentioned
here. Now they insist--by "they" I refer to the Chiefs of the Special
Patrol Service--that I write of other achievements of the Service, other
adventures worthy of note.

[Footnote 1: Editors Note: "The Forgotten Planet" July 1930 issue of
Astounding Stories]

Perhaps that is the penalty of becoming old. From commander of the
_Budi_, one of the greatest of the Special Patrol ships, to the duties
of recording ancient history, for younger men to read and dream about.
That is a shrewd blow to one's pride.

But if I can, in some small way, add luster to the record of my service,
it will be a fitting task for a man grown old and gray in that service;
work for hands too weak and palsied for sterner duties.

But I shall tell my stories in my own way; after all, they are my
stories. And I shall tell the stories that appeal to me most. The
universe has had enough and too much of dry history; these shall be
adventurous tales to make the blood of a young man who reads them run a
trifle faster--and perhaps the blood of the old man who writes them.

This, the first, shall be the story of the star L-472. You know it
to-day as Ibit, port-o'-call for interplanetary ships, and source of
ocrite for the universe, but to me it will always be L-472, the world of
terrible tentacles.

       *       *       *       *       *

My story begins nearly a hundred years ago--reckoned in terms of Earth
time, which is proper, since I am a native of Earth--when I was a young
man. I was sub-commander, at the time, of the _Kalid_, one of the early
ships of the Special Patrol.

We had been called to Zenia on special orders, and Commander Jamison,
after an absence of some two hours, returned to the _Kalid_ with his
face shining, one of his rare smiles telling me in advance that he had
news--and good news.

He hurried me up to the deserted navigating room and waved me to a seat.

"Hanson," he said. "I'm glad to be the first to congratulate you. You
are now Commander John Hanson, of the Special Patrol Ship _Kalid_!"

"Sir." I gasped, "do you mean--"

His smile broadened. From the breast pocket of the trim blue and silver
uniform of our Service he drew a long, crackling paper.

"Your commission," he said. "I'm taking over the _Borelis_."

It was my turn to extend congratulations then; the _Borelis_ was the
newest and greatest ship of the Service. We shook hands, that ancient
gesture of good-fellowship on Earth. But, as our hands unclasped,
Jamison's face grew suddenly grave.

"I have more than this news for you, however," he said slowly. "You are
to have a chance to earn your comet hardly."

       *       *       *       *       *

I smiled broadly at the mention of the comet, the silver insignia, worn
over the heart, that would mark my future rank as commander, replacing
the four-rayed star of a sub-commander which I wore now on my tunic.

"Tell me more, sir," I said confidently.

"You have heard of the Special Patrol Ship _Filanus_?" asked my late
commander gravely.

"Reported lost in space," I replied promptly.

"And the _Dorlos_?"

"Why--yes; she was at Base here at our last call," I said, searching his
face anxiously. "Peter Wilson was Second Officer on her--one of my best
friends. Why do you ask about her, sir?"

"The _Dorlos_ is missing also," said Commander Jamison solemnly. "Both
of these ships were sent upon a particular mission. Neither of them has
returned. It is concluded that some common fate has overtaken them. The
_Kalid_, under your command, is commissioned to investigate these
disappearances.

"You are not charged with the mission of these other ships; your orders
are to investigate their disappearance. The course, together with the
official patrol orders, I shall hand you presently, but with them go
verbal orders.

"You are to lay and keep the course designated, which will take you well
out of the beaten path to a small world which has not been explored,
but which has been circumnavigated a number of times by various ships
remaining just outside the atmospheric envelope, and found to be without
evidence of intelligent habitation. In other words, without cities,
roads, canals, or other evidence of human handiwork or civilization.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I believe your instructions give you some of this information, but not
all of it. This world, unnamed because of its uninhabited condition, is
charted only as L-472. Your larger charts will show it, I am sure. The
atmosphere is reported to be breatheable by inhabitants of Earth and
other beings having the same general requirements. Vegetation is
reported as dense, covering the five continents of the world to the
edges of the northern and southern polar caps, which are small.
Topographically, the country is rugged in the extreme, with many peaks,
apparently volcanic, but now inactive or extinct, on all of its five
large continents."

"And am I to land there, sir?" I asked eagerly.

"Your orders are very specific upon that point," said Commander Jamison.
"You are not to land until you have carefully and thoroughly
reconnoitered from above, at low altitude. You will exercise every
possible precaution. Your specific purpose is simply this: to determine,
if possible, the fate of the other two ships, and report your findings
at once. The Chiefs of the Service will then consider the matter, and
take whatever action may seem advisable to them." Jamison rose to his
feet and thrust out his hand in Earth's fine old salute of farewell.

"I must be going, Hanson," he said. "I wish this patrol were mine
instead of yours. You are a young man for such a responsibility."

"But," I replied, with the glowing confidence of youth, "I have the
advantage of having served under Commander Jamison!"

       *       *       *       *       *

He smiled as we shook again, and shook his head.

"Discretion can be learned only by experience," he said. "But I wish you
success, Hanson; on this undertaking, and on many others. Supplies are
on their way now; the crew will return from leave within the hour. A
young Zenian, name of Dival, I believe, is detailed to accompany you as
scientific observer--purely unofficial capacity, of course. He has been
ordered to report to you at once. You are to depart as soon as feasible:
you know what that means. I believe that's all--Oh, yes! I had almost
forgotten.

"Here, in this envelope, are your orders and your course, as well as all
available data on L-472. In this little casket is--your comet, Hanson. I
know you will wear it with honor!"

"Thank you, sir!" I said, a bit huskily. I saluted, and Commander
Jamison acknowledged the gesture with stiff precision. Commander Jamison
always had the reputation of being something of a martinet.

When he had left, I picked up the thin blue envelope he had left. Across
the face of the envelope, in the--to my mind--jagged and unbeautiful
Universal script, was my name, followed by the proud title: "_Commander,
Special Patrol Ship Kalid._" My first orders!

There was a small oval box, of blue leather, with the silver crest of
the Service in bas-relief on the lid. I opened the case, and gazed with
shining eyes at the gleaming, silver comet that nestled there.

Then, slowly, I unfastened the four-rayed star on my left breast, and
placed in its stead the insignia of my commandership.

Worn smooth and shiny now, it is still my most precious possession.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kincaide, my second officer, turned and smiled as I entered the
navigating room.

"L-472 now registers maximum attraction, sir," he reported. "Dead ahead,
and coming up nicely. My last figures, completed about five minutes
ago, indicate that we should reach the gaseous envelope in about ten
hours." Kincaide was a native of Earth, and we commonly used Earth
time-measurements in our conversation. As is still the case, ships of
the Special Patrol Service were commanded without exception by natives
of Earth, and the entire officer personnel hailed largely from the same
planet, although I have had several Zenian officers of rare ability and
courage.

I nodded and thanked him for the report. Maximum attraction, eh? That,
considering the small size of our objective, meant we were much closer
to L-472 than to any other regular body.

Mechanically, I studied the various dials about the room. The attraction
meter, as Kincaide had said, registered several degrees of attraction,
and the red slide on the rim of the dial was squarely at the top,
showing that the attraction was coming from the world at which our nose
was pointed. The surface-temperature gauge was at normal. Internal
pressure, normal. Internal moisture-content, a little high. Kincaide,
watching me, spoke up:

"I have already given orders to dry out, sir," he said.

"Very good, Mr. Kincaide. It's a long trip, and I want the crew in good
condition." I studied the two charts, one showing our surroundings
laterally, the other vertically, all bodies about us represented as
glowing spots of green light, of varying sizes; the ship itself as a
tiny scarlet spark. Everything shipshape: perhaps, a degree or two of
elevation when we were a little closer--

"May I come in sir?" broke in a gentle, high-pitched voice.

"Certainly, Mr. Dival," I replied, answering in the Universal language
in which the request had been made. "You are always very welcome." Dival
was a typical Zenian of the finest type: slim, very dark, and with the
amazingly intelligent eyes of his kind. His voice was very soft and
gentle, and like the voice of all his people, clear and high-pitched.

"Thank you," he said. "I guess I'm over-eager, but there's something
about this mission of ours that worries me. I seem to feel--" He broke
off abruptly and began pacing back and forth across the room.

I studied him, frowning. The Zenians have a strange way of being right
about such things; their high-strung, sensitive natures seem capable of
responding to those delicate, vagrant forces which even now are only
incompletely understood and classified.

"You're not used to work of this sort," I replied, as bluffly and
heartily as possible. "There's nothing to worry about."

"The commanders of the two ships that disappeared probably felt the same
way, sir," said Dival. "I should have thought the Chiefs of the Special
Patrol Service would have sent several ships on a mission such as this."

"Easy to say," I laughed bitterly. "If the Council would pass the
appropriations we need, we might have ships enough so that we could send
a fleet of ships when we wished. Instead of that, the Council, in its
infinite wisdom, builds greater laboratories and schools of higher
learning--and lets the Patrol get along as best it can."

"It was from the laboratories and the schools of higher learning that
all these things sprang," replied Dival quietly, glancing around at the
array of instruments which made navigation in space possible.

"True," I admitted rather shortly. "We must work together. And as for
what we shall find upon the little world ahead, we shall be there in
nine or ten hours. You may wish to make some preparations."

"Nine or ten hours? That's Earth time, isn't it? Let's see: about two
and a half enaros."

"Correct," I smiled. The Universal method of reckoning time had never
appealed to me. For those of my readers who may only be familiar with
Earth time measurements, an enar is about eighteen Earth days, an enaren
a little less than two Earth days, and an enaro nearly four and a half
hours. The Universal system has the advantage, I admit, of a decimal
division; but I have found it clumsy always. I may be stubborn and
old-fashioned, but a clock face with only ten numerals and one hand
still strikes me as being unbeautiful and inefficient.

"Two and a half enaros," repeated Dival thoughtfully. "I believe I shall
see if I can get a little sleep now; I should not have brought my books
with me, I'm afraid. I read when I should sleep. Will you call me should
there be any developments of interest?"

I assured him that he would be called as he requested, and he left.

"Decent sort of a chap, sir," observed Kincaide, glancing at the door
through which Dival had just departed.

"A student," I nodded, with the contempt of violent youth for the man of
gentler pursuits than mine, and turned my attentions to some
calculations for entry in the log.

       *       *       *       *       *

Busied with the intricate details of my task, time passed rapidly. The
watch changed, and I joined my officers in the tiny, arched dining
salon. It was during the meal that I noticed for the first time a sort
of tenseness; every member of the mess was unusually quiet. And though I
would not, have admitted it then, I was not without a good deal of
nervous restraint myself.

"Gentlemen," I remarked when the meal was finished, "I believe you
understand our present mission. Primarily, our purpose is to ascertain,
if possible, the fate of two ships that were sent here and have not
returned. We are now close enough for reasonable observation by means of
the television disc, I believe, and I shall take over its operation
myself.

"There is no gainsaying the fact that whatever fate overtook the two
other Patrol ships, may lay in wait for us. My orders are to observe
every possible precaution, and to return with a report. I am going to
ask that each of you proceed immediately to his post, and make ready, in
so far as possible, for any eventuality. Warn the watch which has just
gone off to be ready for instant duty. The disintegrator ray generators
should be started and be available for instant emergency use, maximum
power. Have the bombing crews stand by for orders."

"What do you anticipate, sir?" asked Correy, my new sub-commander. The
other officers waited tensely for my reply.

"I don't know, Mr. Correy," I admitted reluctantly. "We have no
information upon which to base an assumption. We do know that two ships
have been sent here, and neither of them have returned. Something
prevented that return. We must endeavor to prevent that same fate from
overtaking the _Kalid_--and ourselves."

       *       *       *       *       *

Hurrying back to the navigating room, I posted myself beside the
cumbersome, old-fashioned television instrument. L-472 was near enough
now to occupy the entire field, with the range hand at maximum. One
whole continent and parts of two others were visible. Not many details
could be made out.

I waited grimly while an hour, two hours, went by. My field narrowed
down to one continent, to a part of one continent. I glanced up at the
surface temperature gauge and noted that the hand was registering a few
degrees above normal. Correy, who had relieved Kincaide as navigating
officer, followed my gaze.

"Shall we reduce speed, sir?" he asked crisply.

"To twice atmospheric speed," I nodded. "When we enter the envelope
proper, reduce to normal atmospheric speed. Alter your course upon
entering the atmosphere proper, and work back and forth along the
emerging twilight zone, from the north polar cap to the southern cap,
and so on."

"Yes, sir!" he replied, and repeated the orders to the control room
forward.

I pressed the attention signal to Dival's cubicle, and informed him that
we were entering the outer atmospheric fringe.

"Thank you, sir!" he said eagerly. "I shall be with you immediately."

In rapid succession I called various officers and gave terse orders.
Double crews on duty in the generator compartment, the ray projectors,
the atomic bomb magazines, and release tubes. Observers at all
observation posts, operators at the two smaller television instruments
to comb the terrain and report instantly any object of interest. With
the three of us searching, it seemed incredible that anything could
escape us. At atmospheric altitudes even the two smaller television
instruments would be able to pick out a body the size of one of the
missing ships.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dival entered the room as I finished giving my orders.

"A strange world, Dival," I commented, glancing towards the television
instrument. "Covered with trees, even the mountains, and what I presume
to be volcanic peaks. They crowd right down to the edge of the water."

He adjusted the focusing lever slightly, his face lighting up with the
interest of a scientist gazing at a strange specimen, whether it be a
microbe or a new world.

"Strange ... strange ..." he muttered. "A universal vegetation ... no
variation of type from equator to polar cap, apparently. And the
water--did you notice its color, sir?"

"Purple," I nodded. "It varies on the different worlds, you know. I've
seen pink, red, white and black seas, as well as the green and blue of
Earth."

"And no small islands," he went on, as though he had not ever heard me.
"Not in the visible portion, at any rate."

I was about to reply, when I felt the peculiar surge of the _Kalid_ as
she reduced speed. I glanced at the indicator, watching the hand drop
slowly to atmospheric speed.

"Keep a close watch, Dival," I ordered. "We shall change our course now,
to comb the country for traces of two ships we are seeking. If you see
the least suspicious sign, let me know immediately."

       *       *       *       *       *

He nodded, and for a time there was only a tense silence in the room,
broken at intervals by Correy as he spoke briefly into his microphone,
giving orders to the operating room.

Perhaps an hour went by. I am not sure. It seemed like a longer time
than that. Then Dival called out in sudden excitement, his high, thin
voice stabbing the silence:

"Here, sir! Look! A little clearing--artificial, I judge--and the ships!
Both of them!"

"Stop the ship, Mr. Correy!" I snapped as I hurried to the instrument.
"Dival, take those reports." I gestured towards the two attention
signals that were glowing and softly humming and thrust my head into the
shelter of the television instrument's big hood.

Dival had made no mistake. Directly beneath me, as I looked, was a
clearing, a perfect square with rounded corners, obviously blasted out
of the solid forest by the delicate manipulation of sharply focused
disintegrator rays. And upon the naked, pitted surface thus exposed,
side by side in orderly array, were the missing ships!

       *       *       *       *       *

I studied the strange scene with a heart that thumped excitedly against
my ribs.

What should I do? Return and report? Descend and investigate? There was
no sign of life around the ships, and no evidence of damage. If I
brought the _Kalid_ down, would she make a third to remain there, to be
marked "lost in space" on the records of the Service?

Reluctantly, I drew my head from beneath the shielding hood.

"What were the two reports, Dival?" I asked, and my voice was thick.
"The other two television observers?"

"Yes, sir. They report that they cannot positively identify the ships
with their instruments, but feel certain that they are the two we seek."

"Very good. Tell them, please, to remain on watch, searching space in
every direction, and to report instantly anything suspicious. Mr.
Correy, we will descend until this small clearing becomes visible,
through the ports, to the unaided eye. I will give you the corrections
to bring us directly over the clearing." And I read the finder scales of
the television instrument to him.

He rattled off the figures, calculated an instant, and gave his orders
to the control room, while I kept the television instrument bearing upon
the odd clearing and the two motionless, deserted ships.

       *       *       *       *       *

As we settled, I could make out the insignia of the ships, could see the
pitted, stained earth of the clearing, brown with the dust of
disintegration. I could see the surrounding trees very distinctly now:
they seemed very similar to our weeping willows, on Earth, which, I
perhaps should explain, since it is impossible for the average
individual to have a comprehensive knowledge of the flora and fauna of
the entire known Universe, is a tree of considerable size, having long,
hanging branches arching from its crown and reaching nearly to the
ground. These leaves, like typical willow leaves, were long and slender,
of rusty green color. The trunks and branches seemed to be black or dark
brown: and the trees grew so thickly that nowhere between their branches
was the ground visible.

"Five thousand feet, sir," said Correy. "Directly above the clearing.
Shall we descend further?"

"A thousand feet at a time, Mr. Correy," I replied, after a moment's
hesitation. "My orders are to exercise the utmost caution. Mr. Dival,
please make a complete analysis of the atmosphere. I believe you are
familiar with the traps provided for the purpose?"

"Yes. You propose to land, sir?"

"I propose to determine the fate of those two ships and the men who
brought them here," I said with sudden determination. Dival made no
reply, but as he turned to obey orders, I saw that his presentiment of
trouble had not left him.

"Four thousand feet, sir," said Correy.

I nodded, studying the scene below us. The great hooded instrument
brought it within, apparently, fifty feet of my eyes, but the great
detail revealed nothing of interest.

The two ships lay motionless, huddled close together. The great circular
door of each was open, as though opened that same day--or a century
before.

"Three thousand feet, sir," said Correy.

"Proceed at the same speed," I replied. Whatever fate had overtaken the
men of the other ships had caused them to disappear entirely--and
without sign of a struggle. But what conceivable fate could that be?

"Two thousand feet, sir," said Correy.

"Good," I said grimly. "Continue with the descent, Mr. Correy."

Dival hurried into the room as I spoke. His face was still clouded with
foreboding.

"I have tested the atmosphere, sir," he reported. "It is suitable for
breathing by either men of Earth or Zenia. No trace of noxious gases of
any kind. It is probably rather rarified, such as one might find on
Earth or Zenia at high altitudes."

"One thousand feet, sir," said Correy.

I hesitated an instant. Undoubtedly the atmosphere had been tested by
the other ships before they landed. In the case of the second ship, at
any rate, those in command must have been on the alert against danger.
And yet both of those ships lay there motionless, vacant, deserted.

       *       *       *       *       *

I could feel the eyes of the men on me. My decision must be delayed no
further.

"We will land, Mr. Correy," I said grimly. "Near the two ships, please."

"Very well, sir," nodded Correy, and spoke briefly into the microphone.

"I might warn you, sir," said Dival quietly, "to govern your activities,
once outside: free from the gravity pads of the ship, on a body of such
small size, an ordinary step will probably cause a leap of considerable
distance."

"Thank you, Mr. Dival. That is a consideration I had overlooked. I shall
warn the men. We must--"

At that instant I felt the slight jar of landing. I glanced up; met
Correy's grave glance squarely.

"Grounded, sir," he said quietly.

"Very good, Mr. Correy. Keep the ship ready for instant action, please,
and call the landing crew to the forward exit. You will accompany us,
Mr. Dival?"

"Certainly, sir!"

"Good. You understand your orders, Mr. Correy?"

"Yes, sir!"

I returned his salute, and led the way out of the room, Dival close on
my heels.

       *       *       *       *       *

The landing crew was composed of all men not at regular stations; nearly
half of the _Kalid's_ entire crew. They were equipped with the small
atomic power pistols as side-arms, and there were two three-men
disintegrator ray squads. We all wore menores, which were unnecessary
in the ship, but decidedly useful outside. I might add that the menore
of those days was not the delicate, beautiful thing that it is to-day:
it was comparatively crude, and clumsy band of metal, in which were
imbedded the vital units and the tiny atomic energy generator, and was
worn upon the head like a crown. But for all its clumsiness, it conveyed
and received thought, and, after all, that was all we demanded of it.

I caught a confused jumble of questioning thoughts as I came up, and
took command of the situation promptly. It will be understood, of
course, that in those days men had not learned to blank their minds
against the menore, as they do to-day. It took generations of training
to perfect that ability.

"Open the exit," I ordered Kincaide, who was standing by the switch, key
in the lock.

"Yes, sir," he thought promptly, and unlocking the switch, released the
lever.

The great circular door revolved swiftly, backing slowly on its fine
threads, gripped by the massive gimbals which, as at last the ponderous
plug of metal freed itself from its threads, swung the circular door
aside, like the door of a vault.

       *       *       *       *       *

Fresh clean air swept in, and we breathed, it gratefully. Science can
revitalize air, take out impurities and replace used-up constituents,
but if cannot give it the freshness of pure natural air. Even the
science of to-day.

"Mr. Kincaide, you will stand by with five men. Under no circumstances
are you to leave your post until ordered to do so. No rescue parties,
under any circumstances, are to be sent out unless you have those orders
directly from me. Should any untoward thing happen to this party, you
will instantly reseal this exit, reporting at the same time to Mr.
Correy, who has his orders. You will not attempt to rescue us, but will
return to the Base and report in full, with Mr. Correy in command. Is
that clear?"

"Perfectly," came back his response instantly; but I could sense the
rebellion in his mind. Kincaid and I were old friends, as well as fellow
officers.

I smiled at him reassuringly, and directed my orders to the waiting men.

"You are aware of the fate of the two ships of the Patrol that have
already landed here," I thought slowly, to be sure they understood
perfectly. "What fate overtook them, I do not know. That is what we are
here to determine."

"It is obvious that this is a dangerous mission. I'm ordering none of
you to go. Any man who wishes to be relieved from landing duty may
remain inside the ship, and may feel it no reproach. Those who do go
should be constantly on the alert, and keep in formation; the usual
column of twos. Be very careful, when stepping out of the ship, to
adjust your stride to the lessened gravity of this small world. Watch
this point!" I turned to Dival, motioned him to fall in at my side.
Without a backward glance, we marched out of the ship, treading very
carefully to keep from leaping into the air with each step.

Twenty feet away, I glanced back. There were fourteen men behind me--not
a man of the landing crew had remained in the ship!

"I am proud of you men!" I thought heartily: and no emanation from any
menore was ever more sincere.

       *       *       *       *       *

Cautiously, eyes roving ceaselessly, we made our way towards the two
silent ships. It seemed a quiet, peaceful world: an unlikely place for
tragedy. The air was fresh and clean, although, as Dival had predicted,
rarefied like the air at an altitude. The willow-like trees that hemmed
us in rustled gently, their long, frond-like branches with their rusty
green leaves swaying.

"Do you notice, sir," came a gentle thought from Dival, an emanation
that could hardly have been perceptible to the men behind us, "that
there is no wind--and yet the trees, yonder, are swaying and rustling?"

I glanced around, startled. I had not noticed the absence of a breeze.

I tried to make my response reassuring:

"There is probably a breeze higher up, that doesn't dip down into this
little clearing," I ventured. "At any rate, it is not important. These
ships are what interest me. What will we find there?"

"We shall soon know," replied Dival. "Here is the _Dorlos_; the second
of the two, was it not?"

"Yes." I came to a halt beside the gaping door. There was no sound
within, no evidence of life there, no sign that men had ever crossed
that threshold, save that the whole fabric was the work of man's hands.

"Mr. Dival and I will investigate the ship, with two of you men," I
directed. "The rest of the detail will remain on guard, and give the
alarm at the least sign of any danger. You first two men, follow us."
The indicated men nodded and stepped forward. Their "Yes, sirs" came
surging through my menore like a single thought. Cautiously, Dival at my
side, the two men at our backs, we stepped over the high threshold into
the interior of the _Dorlos_.

The _ethon_ tubes overhead made everything as light as day, and since
the _Dorlos_ was a sister ship of my own _Kalid_, I had not the
slightest difficulty in finding my way about.

There was no sign of a disturbance anywhere. Everything was in perfect
order. From the evidence, it would seem that the officers and men of the
_Dorlos_ had deserted the ship of their own accord, and--failed to
return.

"Nothing of value here," I commented to Dival. "We may as well--"

There was a sudden commotion from outside the ship. Startled shouts
rang through the hollow hull, and a confused medley of excited thoughts
came pouring in.

With one accord the four of us dashed to the exit, Dival and I in the
lead. At the door we paused, following the stricken gaze of the men
grouped in a rigid knot just outside.

Some, forty feet away was the edge of the forest that hemmed us in. A
forest that now was lashing and writhing as though in the grip of some
terrible hurricane, trunks bending and whipping, long branches writhing,
curling, lashing out--

"Two of the men, sir!" shouted a non-commissioned officer of the landing
crew, as we appeared in the doorway. In his excitement he forgot his
menore, and resorted to the infinitely slower but more natural speech.
"Some sort of insect came buzzing down--like an Earth bee, but larger.
One of the men slapped it, and jumped aside, forgetting the low gravity
here. He shot into the air, and another of the men made a grab for him.
They both went sailing, and the trees--_look!_"

But I had already spotted the two men. The trees had them in their grip,
long tentacles curled around them, a dozen of the great willow-like
growths apparently fighting for possession of the prizes. And all
around, far out of reach, the trees of the forest were swaying
restlessly, their long, pendulous branches, like tentacles, lashing out
hungrily.

"The rays, sir!" snapped the thought from Dival, like a flash of
lightning. "Concentrate the beams--strike at the trunks--"

"Right!" My orders emanated on the heels of the thought more quickly
than one word could have been uttered. The six men who operated the
disintegrator rays were stung out of their startled immobility, and the
soft hum of the atomatic power generators deepened.

"Strike at the trunks of the trees! Beams narrowed to minimum! Action at
will!"

The invisible rays swept long gashes into the forest as the trainers
squatted behind their sights, directing the long, gleaming tubes.
Branches crashed to the ground, suddenly motionless. Thick brown dust
dropped heavily. A trunk, shortened by six inches or so, dropped into
its stub and fell with a prolonged sound of rending wood. The trees
against which it had fallen tugged angrily at their trapped tentacles.

One of the men rolled free, staggered to his feet, and came lurching
towards us. Trunk after trunk dropped onto its severed stub and fell
among the lashing branches of its fellows. The other man was caught for
a moment in a mass of dead and motionless wood, but a cunningly directed
ray dissolved the entangling branches around him and he lay there, free
but unable to arise.

       *       *       *       *       *

The rays played on ruthlessly. The brown, heavy powder was falling like
greasy soot. Trunk after trunk crashed to the ground, slashed into
fragments.

"Cease action!" I ordered, and instantly the eager whine of the
generators softened to a barely discernible hum. Two of the men, under
orders, raced out to the injured man: the rest of us clustered around
the first of the two to be freed from the terrible tentacles of the
trees.

His menore was gone, his tight-fitting uniform was in shreds, and
blotched with blood. There was a huge crimson welt across his face, and
blood dripped slowly from the tips of his fingers.

"_God!_" he muttered unsteadily as kindly arms lifted him with eager
tenderness. "They're alive! Like snakes. They--they're _hungry_!"

"Take him to the ship," I ordered. "He is to receive treatment
immediately," I turned to the detail that was bringing in the other
victim. The man was unconscious, and moaning, but suffering more from
shock than anything else. A few minutes under the helio emanations and
he would be fit for light duty.

       *       *       *       *       *

As the men hurried him to the ship, I turned to Dival. He was standing
beside me, rigid, his face very pale, his eyes fixed on space.

"What do you make of it, Mr. Dival?" I questioned him.

"Of the trees?" He seemed startled, as though I had aroused him from
deepest thought. "They are not difficult to comprehend, sir. There are
numerous growths that are primarily carnivorous. We have the fintal vine
on Zenia, which coils instantly when touched, and thus traps many small
animals which it wraps about with its folds and digests through
sucker-like growths.

"On your own Earth there are, we learn, hundreds of varieties of
insectivorous plants: the Venus fly-trap, known otherwise as the Dionaea
Muscipula, which has a leaf hinged in the median line, with teeth-like
bristles. The two portions of the leaf snap together with considerable
force when an insect alights upon the surface, and the soft portions of
the catch are digested by the plant before the leaf opens again. The
pitcher plant is another native of Earth, and several varieties of it
are found on Zenia and at least two other planets. It traps its game
without movement, but is nevertheless insectivorous. You have another
species on Earth that is, or was, very common: the Mimosa Pudica.
Perhaps you know it as the sensitive plant. It does not trap insects,
but it has a very distinct power of movement, and is extremely
irritable.

"It is not at all difficult to understand a carniverous tree, capable of
violent and powerful motion. This is undoubtedly what we have here--a
decidedly interesting phenomena, but not difficult of comprehension."

It seems like a long explanation, as I record it here, but emanated as
it was, it took but an instant to complete it. Mr. Dival went on
without a pause:

"I believe, however, that I have discovered something far more
important. How is your menore adjusted, sir?"

"At minimum."

"Turn it to maximum, sir."

I glanced at him curiously, but obeyed. New streams of thought poured in
upon me. Kincaide ... the guard at the exit ... _and something else_.

I blanked out Kincaide and the men, feeling Dival's eyes searching my
face. There was something else, something--

I focused on the dim, vague emanations that came to me from the circlet
of my menore, and gradually, like an object seen through heavy mist, I
perceived the message:

"Wait! Wait! We are coming! Through the ground. The trees ...
disintegrate them ... all of them ... all you can reach. But not the
ground ... not the ground...."

"Peter!" I shouted, turning to Dival. "That's Peter Wilson, second
officer of the _Dorlos_!"

Dival nodded, his dark face alight.

"Let us see if we can answer him," he suggested, and we concentrated all
our energy on a single thought: "We understand. We understand."

The answer came back instantly:

"Good! Thank God! Sweep them down, Hanson: every tree of them. Kill them
... kill them ... kill them!" The emanation fairly shook with hate. "We
are coming ... to the clearing ... wait--and while you wait, use your
rays upon these accursed hungry trees!"

Grimly and silently we hurried back to the ship. Dival, the savant,
snatching up specimens of earth and rock here and there as we went.

       *       *       *       *       *

The disintegrator rays of the portable projectors were no more than toys
compared with the mighty beams the _Kalid_ was capable of projecting,
with her great generators to supply power. Even with the beams narrowed
to the minimum, they cut a swath a yard or more in diameter, and their
range was tremendous; although working rather less rapidly as the
distance and power decreased, they were effective over a range of many
miles.

Before their blasting beams the forest shriveled and sank into tumbled
chaos. A haze of brownish dust hung low over the scene, and I watched
with a sort of awe. It was the first time I had ever seen the rays at
work on such wholesale destruction.

A startling thing became evident soon after we began our work. This
world that we had thought to be void of animal life, proved to be
teeming with it. From out of the tangle of broken and harmless branches,
thousands of animals appeared. The majority of them were quite large,
perhaps the size of full-grown hogs, which Earth animal they seemed to
resemble, save that they were a dirty yellow color, and had strong,
heavily-clawed feet. These were the largest of the animals, but there
were myriads of smaller ones, all of them pale or neutral in color, and
apparently unused to such strong light, for they ran blindly, wildly
seeking shelter from the universal confusion.

Still the destructive beams kept about their work, until the scene
changed utterly. Instead of resting in a clearing, the _Kalid_ was in
the midst of a tangle of fallen, wilting branches that stretched like a
great, still sea, as far as the eye could see.

"Cease action!" I ordered suddenly. I had seen, or thought I had seen, a
human figure moving in the tangle, not far from the edge of the
clearing. Correy relayed the order, and instantly the rays were cut off.
My menore, free from the interference of the great atomic generators of
the _Kalid_, emanated the moment the generators ceased functioning.

"Enough. Hanson! Cut the rays; we're coming."

"We have ceased action; come on!"

I hurried to the still open exit. Kincaide and his guards were staring
at what had been the forest; they were so intent that they did not
notice I had joined them--and no wonder!

A file of men were scrambling over the debris; gaunt men with
dishevelled hair, practically naked, covered with dirt and the greasy
brown dust of the disintegrator ray. In the lead, hardly recognizable,
his menore awry upon his tangled locks, was Peter Wilson.

"Wilson!" I shouted; and in a single great leap I was at his side,
shaking his hand, one arm about his scarred shoulders, laughing and
talking excitedly, all in the same breath. "Wilson, tell me--in God's
name--what has happened?"

He looked up at me with shining, happy eyes, deep in black sockets of
hunger and suffering.

"The part that counts," he said hoarsely, "is that you're here, and we're
here with you. My men need rest and food--not too much food, at first,
for we're starving. I'll give you the story--or as much of it as I
know--while we eat."

I sent my orders ahead; for every man of that pitiful crew of survivors,
there were two eager men of the _Kalid's_ crew to minister to him. In
the little dining salon of the officers' mess, Wilson gave us the story,
while he ate slowly and carefully, keeping his ravenous hunger in check.

"It's a weird sort of story," he said. "I'll cut it as short as I can.
I'm too weary for details.

"The _Dorlos_, as I suppose you know, was ordered to L-472 to determine
the fate of the _Filanus_, which had been sent here to determine the
feasibility of establishing a supply base here for a new interplanetary
ship line.

"It took us nearly three days, Earth time, to locate this clearing and
the _Filanus_, and we grounded the _Dorlos_ immediately. Our
commander--you probably remember him, Hanson: David McClellan? Big,
red-faced chap?"

I nodded, and Wilson continued.

"Commander McClellan was a choleric person, as courageous a man as ever
wore the blue and silver of the Service, and very thoughtful of his men.
We had had a bad trip; two swarms of meteorites that had worn our nerves
thin, and a faulty part in the air-purifying apparatus had nearly done
us in. While the exit was being unsealed, he gave the interior crew
permission to go off duty, to get some fresh air, with orders, however,
to remain close to the ship, under my command. Then, with the usual
landing crew, he started for the _Filanus_.

"He had forgotten, under the stress of the moment, that the force of
gravity would be very small on a body no larger than this. The result
was that as soon as they hurried out of the ship, away from the
influence of our own gravity pads, they hurtled into the air in all
directions."

Wilson paused. Several seconds passed before he could go on.

"Well, the trees--I suppose you know something about them--reached out
and swept up three of them. McClellan and the rest of the landing crew
rushed to their rescue. They were caught up. _God!_ I can see them ...
hear them ... even now!

"I couldn't stand there and see that happen to them. With the rest of
the crew behind me, we rushed out, armed only with our atomic pistols.
We did not dare use the rays; there were a dozen men caught up
everywhere in those hellish tentacles.

"I don't know what I thought we could do. I knew only that I must do
something. Our leaps carried us over the tops of the trees that were
fighting for the ... the bodies of McClellan and the rest of the landing
crew. I saw then, when it was too late, that there was nothing we could
do. The trees ... had done their work. They ... they were _feeding_....

"Perhaps that is why we escaped. We came down in a tangle of whipping
branches. Several of my men were snatched up. The rest of us saw how
helpless our position was ... that there was nothing we could do. We
saw, too, that the ground was literally honeycombed, and we dived down
these burrows, out of the reach of the trees.

"There were nineteen of us that escaped. I can't tell you how we
lived--I would not if I could. The burrows had been dug by the pig-like
animals that the trees live upon, and they led, eventually, to the
shore, where there was water--horrible, bitter stuff, but not salty, and
apparently not poisonous."

We lived on these pig-like animals, and we learned something of their
way of life. The trees seem to sleep, or become inactive, at night. Not
unless they are touched do they lash about with their tentacles. At
night the animals feed, largely upon the large, soft fruit of these
trees. Of course, large numbers of them make a fatal step each night,
but they are prolific, and their ranks do not suffer.

"Of course, we tried to get back to the clearing, and the _Dorlos_;
first by tunneling. That was impossible, we found, because the rays used
by the _Filanus_ in clearing a landing place had acted somewhat upon the
earth beneath, and it was like powder. Our burrows fell in upon us
faster than we could dig them out! Two of my men lost their lives that
way.

"Then we tried creeping back by night; but we could not see as can the
other animals here, and we quickly found that it was suicide to attempt
such tactics. Two more of the men were lost in that fashion. That left
fourteen.

"We decided then to wait. We knew there would be another ship along,
sooner or later. Luckily, one of the men had somehow retained his
menore. We treasured that as we treasured our lives. To-day, when, deep
in our runways beneath the surface, we felt, or heard, the crashing of
the trees, we knew the Service had not forgotten us. I put on the
menore; I--but I think you know the rest, gentlemen. There were eleven
of us left. We are here--all that is left of the _Dorlos_ crew. We found
no trace of any survivor of the _Filanus_; unaware of the possibility of
danger, they were undoubtedly, all the victims of ... the trees."

Wilson's head dropped forward on his chest. He straightened up with a
start and an apologetic smile.

"I believe, Hanson," he said slowly, "I'd better get ... a little ...
rest," and he slumped forward on the table in the death-like sleep of
utter exhaustion.

       *       *       *       *       *

There the interesting part of the story ends. The rest is history, and
there is too much dry history in the Universe already.

Dival wrote three great volumes on L-472--or Ibit, as it is called now.
One of them tells in detail how the presence of constantly increasing
quantities of volcanic ash robbed the soil of that little world of its
vitality, so that all forms of vegetation except the one became extinct,
and how, through a process of development and evolution, those trees
became carniverous.

The second volume is a learned discussion of the tree itself; it seems
that a few specimens were spared for study, isolated on a peninsula of
one of the continents, and turned over to Dival for observation and
dissection. All I can say for the book is that it is probably accurate.
Certainly it is neither interesting nor comprehensible.

And then, of course, there is his treatise on ocrite: how he happened
to find the ore, the probable amount available on L-472--or Ibit, if you
prefer--and an explanation of his new method of refining it. I saw him
frantically gathering specimens while we were getting ready to leave,
but it wasn't until after we had departed that he mentioned what he had
found.

       *       *       *       *       *

I have a set of these volumes somewhere; Dival autographed them and
presented me with them. They established his position, I understand, in
his world of science, and of course, the discovery of this new source of
ocrite was a tremendous find for the whole Universe; interplanetary
transportation wouldn't be where it is to-day if it were not for this
inexhaustible source of power.

Yes, Dival became famous--and very rich.

I received the handshakes and the gratitude of the eleven men we
rescued, and exactly nine words of commendation from the Chief of my
squadron: _"You are a credit to the Service, Commander Hanson!"_

Perhaps, to some who read this, it will seem that Dival fared better
than I. But to men who have known the comradeship of the outer space,
the heart-felt gratitude of eleven friends is a precious thing. And to
any man who has ever worn the blue and silver uniform of the Special
Patrol Service, those nine words from the Chief of Squadron will sound
strong.

Chiefs of Squadrons in the Special Patrol Service--at least in those
days--were scanty with praise. It may be different in these days of soft
living and political pull.

[Illustration]




Marooned Under the Sea

_By Paul Ernst_

     (Editor's note: This document, written on a curious kind of
     parchment and tied to a piece of driftwood, was reported to have
     been picked out of the sea near the Fiji Islands. The first and
     last pages were so water soaked as to be indecipherable.)

Yacht _Rosa_ was due to leave the San Francisco harbor in two hours.

We were going on some mysterious cruise to the South Seas, the details
of which I did not know.

[Sidenote: Three men stick out a strange and desperate adventure among
the incredible monsters of the dark sea floor.]

"Professor George Berry, the famous zoologist, and myself are going to
do some exploring that is hazardous in the extreme," Stanley had said.
"For purely mechanical reasons we need a third. You are young and have
no family ties, so I thought I'd ask you to go with us.
I'd rather not tell you what it's all about until we are on our way."

[Illustration: _"Look at the cable!" called Stanley._]

That was all the explanation he had given. It was sufficient. I was
fed-up with life just then: I had enough money to avoid work and was
tired of playing.

"I must warn you that you'll risk your life in this," he had continued,
in answer to my acceptance of his invitation.

And I had replied that the hazard, whatever it might be, only made the
trip appear more desirable.

So here I was, on board the yacht, about to sail for far places on some
scientific mission which had so far been kept veiled in secrecy and
which was represented as "hazardous in the extreme." It sounded
attractive!

       *       *       *       *       *

Stanley came aboard accompanied by a lean, wiry man with iron gray hair
and cool, alert black eyes.

"Hello, Martin," Stanley greeted me. "I want you to meet Professor
Berry, the real leader of this expedition. Professor, this young
red-head is Martin Grey, a sort of nephew by adoption who knows more
about night life than most cabaret proprietors--and not much of anything
else. He has shaken the dangers of the gold-diggers to face with us the
dangers of the tropic seas."

The professor gripped my hand, and his cool black eyes gazed into mine
with a kind of friendly frostiness.

"Don't pay any attention to him," he advised me. "Twenty years ago, when
I first met him, he was on his way to Africa to shoot elephants because
some revue beauty had just thrown him over and he felt he ought to do
something big and heroic about it. It was shortly afterward that he
decided to stay a bachelor all his life, and became such a confirmed
woman hater."

He smiled thinly at Stanley's prod in the ribs, and the two went below,
talking and laughing with the intimacy of old friendship.

I stayed on deck and soon found myself watching, with no little wonder,
an enormous truck and trailer arrangement that drew up on the dock
heavily loaded with a single immense crate. It was for us. I speculated
as to what it could possibly contain.

It was a twenty or twenty-five-foot cube solidly braced with strap-iron
and steel brackets. It evidently contained something fragile. The
yacht's donkey engine lowered a hook for it, and swung it over the side
and into the hold as daintily as though it had been packed with
explosives.

The last of the ship's stores followed it over the side: the group of
newspaper reporters who had been trying to pump the captain and first
mate for a story were warned to leave, and we were ready to go.
Precisely where and for what purpose?

I was to find out almost immediately.

Even as the yacht nosed superciliously away from the dock, the steward
approached me with the information that lunch was ready. I went to the
small, compactly furnished dining salon, where I was joined by Stanley
and the professor.

       *       *       *       *       *

There were only the three of us at the table. Stanley Browne, noted big
game hunter and semi-retired owner of the great Browne Glassworks at
Altoona, a man fifteen years my senior but tanned and fit looking;
Professor Berry, well known in scientific circles; and myself, known in
no branch of activity save the one Stanley had jested about--the night
life of my home city, Chicago.

"It's time you knew just what you're up against," said Stanley to me
after the consomme had been served. "Now that we've actually sailed,
there's no longer any need for secrecy. Indeed there never has been
urgent need of it: the Professor and myself merely thought we might
provoke incredulity and comment if we stated the purpose of our trip
publicly."

He buttered a roll.

"We--the Professor and you and I--are going in for some deep sea diving.
And when I say deep, I mean deep. We are going to investigate conditions
as they exist one mile down from the surface of the ocean."

"A mile!" I exclaimed. "Why--"

There I stopped. I had only a layman's knowledge of such matters. But I
knew that the limit of man's submersion, till then at any rate, was a
matter of a few hundred feet.

"Sounds incredible, doesn't it," said Stanley with a smile. "But that's
what we're going to do--if the Professor's gadget works as he seems to
think it will."

"I don't think it, I know it," retorted the Professor. "And man, man,
the things we may see down there! New and unknown species--a world no
human has ever seen before--perhaps the secret of all of life--"

"Dragons, sea-serpents, and what not!" Stanley finished with a grin.

"Or, possibly--nothing at all." The Professor shrugged. "I mustn't let
my scientific curiosity run away with me. Perhaps we'll find no new
thing down down. Our deep sea dredging and classification may already
embrace most of the forms of life in the greater depths."

"If it does I want my money back," said Stanley. "When you asked me to
finance this expedition for you, I agreed on condition that you would
show me a thrill--some _real_ big game, even if I would not be able to
shoot it. If we draw blank--"

"The mere descent should satisfy you, my adventuring friend," replied
the Professor brusquely. "I think you'll find that thrilling enough."

"But--a mile under the surface!" I marveled, feeling not entirely
comfortable. "The pressure! Enormous! It can't be done! That is, I mean,
can it be done?"

"It had better be," said Stanley with a humor that I did not entirely
appreciate. "If it isn't, the three of us are going to be pressed out
like three sheets of tissue paper! For we are assuredly going down that
far in the Professor's gadget."

"Was that the thing I saw hoisted aboard just before we left?"

"That was it. We'll stroll around after lunch and look it over."

If I had taken this cruise in search of distraction--I was surely going
to be successful! That was plain!

"Just where are we going?" I asked. "You said something about the South
Seas, but you've named no special part of them."

"We're bound for Penguin Deep. That's a delightful little dimple in the
Kermadec Trough, which," Stanley explained, "is north-northeast of New
Zealand almost halfway up to the Fiji Islands. Penguin Deep is ticketed
at five thousand one hundred and fifty feet, but it probably runs deeper
in spots."

The rest of the meal was consumed in silence. I hardly tasted what I
ate; I remember that. Over five thousand feet down--where no man had
ever ventured before! Could we make it?

I tried to recall my neglected physics lessons and compute the pressure
that far down. I couldn't. But I knew it must be an appalling total of
tons to the square inch. What possible arrangement could they have
brought in which to make that awful descent?

And, if the descent were accomplished, what in the world would we see
when we got down there? Gigantic, hitherto unknown fishes? Marine
growths, half animal and half vegetable?

Decidedly, hot rolls and salad, cutlets and baked potatoes, good as they
were, could not distract attention from the crowding questions that
assailed me. And I could see that Stanley and the Professor were also
far away in their thoughts--probably already exploring Penguin Deep.

       *       *       *       *       *

After lunch we went forward to look at the Professor's gadget, as
Stanley insisted on calling it.

It had been carefully unpacked by the crew while we ate, and it
shimmered in the electric lighted hold like a great bubble.

It was a giant glass sphere, polished and flawless. Inside it could be
made out various objects--a circular bench arrangement on a wooden
flooring, batteries that filled the cup between the floor and the bottom
arc of the sphere, tall metal cylinders, a small searchlight set next to
a mechanism that was indeterminate. At three equidistant points on the
sides there were glass handles, as thick as a man's thigh, cast integral
with the walls. On the top there was a smaller handle.

At first glance the sphere seemed all in one piece, with the central
objects cast inside like a toy ship in a sealed bottle. Then a
mathematically precise ring of prismatic reflections showed me that the
top third of the ball was a separate piece, fitting conically down like
the tapered glass stopper of a monstrous perfume bottle. The handle on
the top was for the purpose of lifting this giant's teapot lid, and
allowing entrance into the sphere.

"Isn't it a beauty?" murmured Stanley. "It ought to be," he added. "It
cost me eighty-six thousand to make it in my own glass factory. Eleven
castings before this one came along that was reasonably free of flaws.
Twenty-two feet six inches over all, walls five feet thick, new formula
unbreakable glass, four men working a month to grind the lid into place,
tolerance limits plus or minus zero."

He slapped the Professor's shoulders. "Let's go in and look over the
apparatus."

       *       *       *       *       *

To accommodate the huge ball a well had been constructed in the Rosa's
hold. This brought the deck we were standing on up to within six feet of
the top ring, above which was rigged a chain hoist for lifting the
ponderous lid.

The hoist was revolved, the conical top was swung free, and we clambered
into our unique diving shell.

The tall cylinders were revealed as great flasks of compressed air. The
indeterminate thing beside the searchlight turned out to be a hand pump,
geared to work against heavy pressure. From the suction chamber of this
three tubes extended.

"We inhale the air of the chamber," the Professor explained to me, "and
exhale through the tubes into the pump cylinder. Breathe in through the
nose and out through the mouth. The pump piston is forced down by this
geared handle, sending the used air out of the shell through this
sixteenth-inch hole. A ball check valve keeps the water from squirting
in when the exhaust pressure is released."

He pointed to a telegraphic key which completed a circuit from the
batteries in the bottom of the ball to a thread of copper cast through
the lid.

"That's your plaything, Martin. You are to raise or lower us by pressing
that key. It controls the donkey engine electrically, so that we guide
our own destinies though we are a mile beneath our power plant. Stanley
works the pump. I direct the searchlight, write down notes, and, I
sincerely hope, take snapshots of deep sea life."

For a moment my part of the labor seemed so easy as to be unfair. Merely
to sit there and punch a little key at raising and lowering time! But as
I thought it over it began to appear more difficult.

The _Rosa_ could not anchor, of course, in a mile of water. We would
drift helplessly. If we approached an undersea cliff I must raise us at
once to prevent us being smashed against it. And if the cliff were too
lofty to be cleared in time....

I mentioned this to the Professor.

"That would be unfortunate," he said, with his frosty smile. "Stanley
assures us this glass is unbreakable. He means commercially unbreakable.
What would happen to it if it were submitted to the strain of being
flung against a rock pile--in addition to the enormous stress of the
water pressure--I don't know. It's your job to see that we don't have to
find out!"

       *       *       *       *       *

It had been planned to test the sphere empty first to see how it stood
the strain.

We drifted to a full stop over the center of Penguin Deep where we were
to gamble our lives in a game with Neptune. Sea anchors were rigged to
lessen our drift and the donkey engine was geared to the first cable
drum.

There was an impressive row of these drums, each holding an interminable
length of three-quarter-inch cable. The bulk of a mile of steel cable
has to be seen to be believed!

The glass sphere was lifted from the hold, delicately for all its
enormous weight, and swung over the rail preparatory to being lowered
into the depths.

Not until that moment did I notice two things: that there was no
fastening of any kind to keep the thick lid in place: and that the
three-quarter-inch cable looked like a pack thread in comparison to the
ponderous bulk it strained to support.

"We couldn't use a heavier cable," said the Professor, "because of the
strain. We're overloading the hoist as it is. As for the lid being
fastened down--I think you'll find it will be pressed into place
securely enough!"

There was unanimous silence as the great globe slipped into the
sea--down and down until the last reflection of the morning sun ceased
to shimmer from its surface. Drum after drum was played out, till the
first mate held his hand up to check the engineer.

"Five thousand feet, sir," he called to Stanley.

"Haul it back up. And let us hope," Stanley added fervently, "that we'll
find the gadget in one piece."

       *       *       *       *       *

The engine began to snort rhythmically. Dripping, vibrating, the coils
of cable began to crawl back in place on the drums. There was a glint
under the surface again as the sunlight reflected on the nearing sphere.

The great ball flashed out of the water, and a cheer burst from the
throats of all of us. It was absolutely unharmed. Only--there was a
beading of fine moisture inside the thick globe. What that could mean,
none of us could figure out.

"Difference in temperature?" worried the Professor. "No, it's as cold
inside as out. Molecules of water driven by sheer pressure through five
feet of glass to unite in drops on the inside? Possibly. Well, there's
one way to find out. Stanley, Martin--are you ready?"

We nodded, and prepared to visit the bottom a mile below the _Rosa's_
keel. The preparation consisted merely in donning heavy, fleece-lined
jumpers to protect us from the cold of the sunless depths.

Soberly we entered the ball to undergo whatever ordeal awaited us on
the distant ocean floor. How comparative distance is! A mile walk in the
country--it is nothing. A mile ascent in an airplane--a trifle. But a
mile descent into pitch black, bone chilling depths of water--that is an
immense distance!

Copper wire, on a separate drum, was connected from the engine switch to
the copper thread that curled through the glass wall to my telegraphic
key. We strapped the mouthpieces of the breathing tubes over our heads,
and Browne started the slow turning of the compression pump.

The Professor snapped the searchlight on and off several times to see
that it was in working shape. He raised his hand, I pressed the key, and
the long descent began.

       *       *       *       *       *

That plunge into the bottomless depths remains in my memory almost as
clearly as the far more fantastic adventures that came to us later.

Smoothly, rapidly, the yellow-green of the surface water dimmed to
olive. This in turn grew blacker and blacker. Then we were slipping down
into pitch darkness--a big bubble lit by a meagre lamp and containing
three fragile human beings that dared to trust the soft pulp of their
bodies to the crushing weight of the deepest ocean.

The most impressive thing was the utter soundlessness of our descent. At
first there had been a pulsing throb of the donkey engine transmitted to
us by the sustaining cable. This died as we slid farther from the Rosa.
At length it was hushed entirely, cushioned by the springy length of
steel. There was no stir, no sound of any kind. As far as our senses
could tell us, we were hanging motionless in the pressing, awesome
blackness.

The Professor switched off our light and turned on the searchlight which
he trained downward through the wall at as steep an angle as the
flooring would permit. Even then the illusion of motionlessness was
preserved. There was nothing in the water to mark our progress. We
might have been floating in a back void of space.

Down and down we went, for an interminable length of time--till at
length we reached the abysmal level where the sun never shone and the
eyes of man had never gazed till now.

       *       *       *       *       *

Words were made to describe familiar articles. I find now when I am
faced with the necessity of portraying events and objects beyond the
range of normal human experience that I cannot conjure up words to fit.
I despair of trying to make you see what we saw, and feel what we felt.

But try to picture yourself in the glass ball with us:

All is profound blackness save for a streak of white, dying about fifty
feet away, which is the beam of our searchlight. Twenty feet below is a
bare floor of flinty lava and broken shell. This is unrelieved by
sea-weed of any kind, appearing like an imagined fragment of Martian or
lunar landscape.

The ball sways idly to the push of some explicable submarine current. It
is like being in a captive balloon, except that the connecting cable
extends stiffly upward instead of downward.

There is a realization, an instinctive _feel_ of awful pressure around
you. Logic tells you how you are clamped about, but deeper than logic is
the intuition that the glass walls are pressing in on themselves--at the
point of collapse. Your ears, tingle with the feel of it: your head
rings with it.

You are breathing in through your nose--thin, unsatisfying gulps of air
that cause your lungs to labor at their task; and you are exhaling
through, your mouth, with difficulty, into the barrel of the powerful
pump. No bubbles arise from the tiny hole where the used air is forced
into the water. The pressure is too enormous for that. Only a thin,
milky line marks its escape from the sphere.

In a ghostly way you see Stanley turning the pump handle. With a handful
of waste which he has borrowed from the _Rosa's_ engine room, the
Professor wipes from the section of wall through which the searchlight
plays the moisture that constantly collects there. I sit with my hand
near the key, peering downward and ahead like an engineer in a
locomotive cab, ready to raise the shell or lower it as occasion
warrants.

And always the suffocating awareness of pressure....

       *       *       *       *       *

Strange and mystic journey as the tortured glass sphere floated over the
bottom, following the slow drift of the _Rosa_ far above!

The finger of light played along the tilted side of a wrecked tramp
steamer. There was a crumpled gash in the bow. From this ragged hole
suddenly appeared a great, serpentine form....

The Professor clutched at his camera, pointed it, and clenched his hands
in a frenzy of disappointment. The serpent shape had disappeared back
into the hull. A little later and we had drifted slowly past the wreck.

"Damn it!" the Professor snatched away his mouthpiece to exclaim: "If we
could only _stop_."

The bottom changed character shortly after we had passed the hulk. We
began to creep over low, gently rounded mounds.

These were so regular in form that they were puzzling. About fifty feet
across and ten in altitude, they looked artificial in their
symmetry--like great saucers set on the ocean floor bottom side up. They
took on a dirty black hue as our light struck them, and glowed with a
faint phosphorescence as they stretched away into the darkness.

A twelve-foot monstrosity, all toad-like head and eyes, swam into the
light beam and bumped blindly against the glass ball. For an instant it
goggled crazily at us. The Professor took its picture. It blundered
away. As it reached the darkness beyond the beam it, too, showed
phosphorescent. A belt of blue-white spots like the portholes of a
liner extended down its ugly sides.

Along the bottom, between the curious mounds, writhed a wormlike thing.
But it was too huge to be described as truly wormlike--it was eighteen
or twenty feet long and a foot thick. It was blood red, almost blunt
ended and patently without eyes.

I took my gaze off it for an instant. When I looked again it had
disappeared. I blinked at this seeming miracle and then discovered a
foot or so of its tail protruding from under the edge of one of the
mounds. It was threshing furiously about.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was at this instant that I suddenly found increased difficulty, and
glanced at Stanley.

He had stopped pumping and was clutching at the Professor's arm with one
hand while he pointed down with the other. The Professor motioned him
toward the pump, and began to click pictures furiously with the camera
pointed at the nearest mound.

Wondering at the urgency of Stanley's gesture and the frantic clicking
of the camera shutter, I looked more closely at the curious, saucerlike
hump.

Under closer inspection something remarkably like a huge, mud-colored
eye was revealed! And as we drifted along, twenty feet away on the
farther slope, another appeared!

Paralyzed, I stared at the edges of the thing. They were waving almost
imperceptibly up and down, _creeping_!

The mounds were living creatures! Acres and acres of them lying
lethargically on the bottom waiting for something to crawl within range
of their monstrous edges!

Involuntarily I pressed the key to raise us. But we had gone only a few
feet when the Professor called to me.

"Down again, Martin. I don't think these things will bother us unless we
scrape against them. Anyway they can't hurt the shell."

I lowered the ball to our former twenty-foot level, and there we swung
just over the monsters' backs.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Professor had said that the giant inverted saucers would probably
not bother us if we did not come in contact with them. It soon became
apparent that, in a measure, he was right. The creatures either could
not or would not lift their enormous bulks from the sea floor.

A gigantic wriggling thing, all grotesque fringe and tentacles, drifted
down into the range of our light. Lower it floated until it hovered just
above one of the larger mounds. The Professor got its portrait. At the
same instant, as though it had heard the click of the shutter and been
frightened by it, the thing dropped another foot--and touched the
sloping back.

With the speed of light the inverted saucer became a cup. Like a
clenching fist, the cup closed over one of the straggling tentacles.

There followed a tug of war that was all the more ghastly for its
soundlessness. The hunted jerked spasmodically to get away from the
hunter. So wild were its efforts

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