by Paul Ernst
CHAPTER V
_Trapped_
On along the tunnel they went. And as they progressed, Dennis got theanswer to something that had troubled him a great deal before theirentrance here--a problem which had been solved, rather amazingly, ofitself.
Termitaries, as far as the entomologist knew, were pitch-black placeswhich no ray of light ever entered. He had been afraid he would beforced to stumble blindly in unlit depths, able to see nothing at all,on a par with the blind creatures among whom he moved. Yet he and Jimcould see in this subterranean labyrinth.
He observed now the reason for that. The walls on all sides, made ofhalf-digested cellulose, had rotted just enough through long years to befaintly phosphorescent. And that simple natural fact was probably goingto mean all the difference between life and death: it gave the two menat least the advantage of sight over the eyeless savage creatures amongwhom, helped by the termite-smell given by the paste, they hoped toglide unnoticed.
However, even the termite-paste, and the fact that the termitarycitizens were blind, didn't seem enough to account for the immunitygranted the two men as they began to come presently to more crowdedpassages and tunnels near the center of the mound.
On every side of them now, requiring the utmost in agility to keep fromactually brushing against them, were hordes of the worker termites, anddozens of the frightful soldiers. Yet on the two men moved, ever moreslowly, without one of the monsters attempting to touch them. It wasodd--almost uncanny.
"Surely the noise of our walking, tiptoe as we may, must be heard bythem--and noted as different from theirs," whispered Dennis. "Yet theypay no attention to us. If it is due to the paste, I must say it'swonderful stuff!"
Jim nodded in a puzzled way. "It's almost as if they wanted to make ourinward path easy. I wonder--if it's going to be different when we try toget out again!"
Dennis was wondering that, too. It seemed absurd to suspect the thingsof being intelligent enough to lay traps. But it did look almost asthough they were encouraging their two unheard-of visitors from anotherworld to go on deeper and deeper into the heart of the eerie city (allthe tunnels sloped down now), there perhaps to meet with some ghastlyimprisonment.
He gave it up. Sufficient for the moment that they were unmolested, andthat he had a chance at first hand to make observations more completethan the world of entomology had ever dreamed of.
* * * * *
They stumbled onto what seemed a death struggle between one of the giantsoldiers and an inoffensive-looking worker. The drab, comparativelyfeeble body of the worker was wriggling right in the center of the greatclaws which, with a twitch, could have sliced it in two endwise. Yet thejaws did not twitch; and in a few moments the worker drew unconcernedlyout and moved away.
"The soldier was getting his meal," whispered Denny, enthralled. "Theirmandibles are enlarged so enormously that they can't feed themselves.The workers, who digest food for the whole tribe, feed them regularly.Then if a soldier gets in the least rebellious, he can simply be starvedto death at any time."
"Ugh!" Jim whispered back. "Fancy being official stomach to three orfour other people! More of your wonderful 'organization,' I suppose."
They went on, down and down, till Denny calculated they had at lastreached nearly to the center of the vast city. And now they stumbledinto something weird and wonderful indeed. Rather, they half fell intoit, for it lay down a few feet and came as a complete surprise in thedimness; and not till they had recovered from their near fall and lookedaround for a few seconds did they realize where their last fewsteps--the last few steps of freedom they were to have in the grimunderground kingdom--had taken them.
They were in a chamber so huge that it made the largest of man-madedomes shrink to insignificance by comparison.
* * * * *
A hundred yards or more in every direction, it extended. And faroverhead, lost in distance, reared the arched roof. A twenty-storybuilding could have been placed under that roof without trouble.
Lost in awe, Dennis gazed about him; and he saw on the floor, laid inorderly rows in countless thousands, that which gave further cause forwonderment: new-hatched larvae about the size of pumpkins but a sicklywhite in color--feeble, helpless blobs of life that one day develop intosoldiers and workers, winged rulers or police. The termite nursery.
"Whew!" gasped Jim, wiping his face. "From the heat in here you'd thinkwe were getting close to the real, old-fashioned hell instead of anartificial, insect-made one. What are all these nauseating-looking blobsof lard lying about here, anyway?"
Denny told him. "Which is the reason for the heat," he concluded. "Jim,it's twenty degrees warmer in here than it is outdoors. How--_how_--canthese insects regulate the temperature like that? The work of the rulingbrain again? But where, and what, can that brain be?"
"Maybe we'll find out before we leave this place," said Jim, moreprophetically than he knew. "Hello--we can't get out through the door weentered. We'll have to find another exit. Look."
Dennis looked. In the doorway they had just come through was asoldier--a giant even among giants. Its ten-foot jaws, like a questing,gigantic vise, were opening and closing regularly and rapidly across theopening of the portal. It made no attempt to enter the great nursery,just stood where it was and sliced the air rhythmically with its jaws.
"We haven't a chance of walking through _that_ exit!" Dennis agreed."Let's try the other side."
* * * * *
But before they could half cross the great room--walking between rows oflife that weakly stirred like protoplasmic mud on either side ofthem--a soldier appeared at that door, too. Like the first, it stationeditself there, and began the same regular, swift slicing movements ofjaws that compassed the doorway from side to side and halfway from topto bottom.
"We might possibly be able to run through that giant's nut-crackerbefore it smashed shut on us," said Jim dubiously. "But I'd hate to tryit. There's a door at the end, too."
They made for this, running now. But a third soldier appeared to blockthe way out with those deadly, clashing mandibles.
"You're _sure_ they can't see?" demanded Jim, clutching his spear whilehe hesitated whether to try an attack on the fearful guard or to turntail again. "Because they certainly act as if they did!"
"Direct commands from the ruling brain," Denny surmised soberly."Somewhere, perhaps half a mile down in the earth, Something is able tosee us through solid walls, read in our minds our intentions of whatwe're to do next, and send out wordless commands to these soldiers toexecute countermoves."
"Rot!" said Jim testily. "These things are bugs, not supermen. And thefact that they're now bigger than we are, and much better armed, doesn'tkeep them from being just bugs. There's no real brain-power in evidencehere."
But an instant later he changed his mind. They approached the fourth andlast exit from the giant chamber. And here there was no guard. They wereable to race out of it without interference. The oddity of that wasglaring.
"Denny," gasped Jim, "we're being _herded_! Driven in a certaindirection, and for a certain reason, by these damned things! Do yourealize that?"
Dennis did realize it. And a moment later, when he glanced behind, herealized it more.
* * * * *
Behind them, marching in orderly twos that filled the tunnel from sideto side, moved a body of the soldiers. As the men moved, they moved;never coming nearer and never dropping behind.
Experimentally, Dennis stopped. The grim soldiers stopped, too. Denniswalked back toward them a step or two, spear held ready.
The monsters did not try to attack. On the other hand they did not giveground, either; and as Denny got to within a few yards of them, one inthe front line suddenly opened and shut his ponderous jaws.
They clashed together a matter of inches from Denny's torso--a clearwarning to get on back in the direction he had come.
Jim came and sto
od beside him, heavy shoulder muscles bunched intoknots, standing on the balls of his feet as a boxer stands beforeflashing in at an opponent.
"Shall we have it out with them here and now?" said Jim, his jaws set."We wouldn't have a chance--but I'm beginning to get awfully doubtfulabout the fate these things have in store for us. I can't even guess atwhat it may be--but I've an idea it may be a lot worse than a quick,easy death!"
Denny shook his head. "Let's see it through," he muttered, looking atthe nightmare jaws of their guard. Two sweeps of those jaws and he andJim would lie in halves.
* * * * *
They started back down the corridor, the monstrous shepherds moving asthey did. The way descended so steeply now that it was difficult forthem to keep their footing. Then, yards below the level of the horriblenursery, the tunnel narrowed--and widened again into a chamber which hadno other opening save the one they were being herded into. A blind endto the passageway.
"The bug Bastille," said Jim with a mirthless grin. "Here, I guess,we're going to wait for the powers-that-be to judge us and give us oursentence."
The giant soldiers halted. Two of them stood in the narrowed part of thetunnel, one behind the other, blocking it with a double, living barrier.Their jaws commenced moving regularly, savagely back and forth, open andclosed. Blind these guards might be; but no living thing, even though itbristled with eyes, could creep out unscathed through the animatedthreshing machine those jaws made of that doorway. The two men were moresecurely held in their prison cell than they would have been by two-inchdoors of nickel-steel. They could only wait there, helpless prisoners,to learn the intentions of the unknown Something that ruled the greatcity, and that held them so easily in its grasp.