Two Thousand Miles Below

by Charles W Diffin

  The taloned hands were on the flame-thrower first. Rawson saw the red body straighten, saw the weapon swing, glistening in air, swinging over and down. From its tip green fire made a straight line of light.

  He leaped in under the descending flame, felt the nozzle of the projector as it crashed upon his right shoulder and the green fire spat harmlessly beyond his back. That last spring had thrown him bodily against the red monster. They were both knocked off balance for a moment, then Rawson caught himself and swung with his left. He set himself in that fraction of a second, felt the first movement of that shining, crook-necked tube that meant the green flame was being drawn back where it could reach him; then his fist crashed into a yielding jaw.

  Not five feet from the brink of that nearly bottomless shaft he stood wavering in the rush of air. He knew that the ugly red figure had toppled sideways, that the weapon had fallen with him, the blast swinging upward in a vertical, hissing arc—then man and weapon had dropped silently into the pit.

  He was alone, save for the girl, who, her eyes wide with horror, threw herself upon him and clung trembling, while she murmured incomprehensible endearments in her own tongue wherein his own name was mingled: "Dean, dear! My own Dean-San!"

  But the mole-men! Dean Rawson's mind was aghast with the horror of it: the mole-men had now found the way.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXI

  Suicide?

  ordon Smith, sometimes known as Smithy, was to remember little of the happenings that followed the crash of the big Army dreadnought. It was Colonel Culver who dragged him from the pilot-room wreckage, Colonel Culver and one of the pilots whom he had restored to consciousness. They lowered Smithy carefully to the ground, then explored the rest of the ship.

  Their hands were red when they returned—and empty. Captain Farrell and the rest of the crew had ceased to be units of the United States Army Air Force; henceforth they would be only names on a casualty list grown ominously long.

  "Stood plumb on her tail," said the pilot, staring at the wreck. "They hit us just once, and the left wing crumpled like cardboard. Last I remember was pulling her up off the trees." He stared at the mass of twisted metal and the center section where the wing had torn loose; it stood upright, almost vertical, resting on the crushed tail.

  "Funny," said the pilot in the same flat, level tone that seemed the only voice he had since that last pull on a whipping wheel. "Damn funny—mostly we get it first up there."

  "Come here!" snapped Colonel Culver. "Lend a hand here with Smith; we've got to carry him. And don't talk so loud—those red devils will be out here any minute."

  * * *

  mithy was taking a more active interest in his surroundings when he sat a week later in the Governor's office.

  "There's a detachment moving in there from the south," said the Governor. "We're going to follow your advice, to some extent at least. We're sending troops to Tonah Basin. If the top of that dead crater is closed they will blast it open; then a scouting party's going down. Call it a reconnaissance, call it suicide—one name's just as good as the other. Colonel Culver, here, is going. But you know the lay of the land there; you could be of great help. How about it?"

  "Are you asking me?" Smithy inquired.

  He stood up, flexed his arms, while he grinned at Colonel Culver. "Hinges all greased and working! As a flier, Colonel, you're a darn good first-aid man. I'll say that! When do we start?"

  Which explains why Smithy, some time later, hidden under the grotesque disguise of a gas mask, was one of fifty, similarly attired, who stood waiting about the black open maw in the great cinder-floored crater of one of the peaks that surrounded Tonah Basin.

  Night. And the big stars that hang so low in the black desert sky should have been brilliant. They were lost now in the white glare that streamed upward. The crater was a fortress. Around the circle of the entire rim, on the inner side of the rough crags, men of the 49th Field Artillery stood by their guns. Lookouts trailed their telephone wire to the higher peaks, where they perched as shapeless as huddled owls; and, like owls, their eyes swept the mountain's slopes and the desert at its base, where the searchlight crews played long fingers of light incessantly—and where nothing moved.

  But the empty silence of the desert was misleading, as the men in the crater knew.

  * * *

  hey had begun arriving with the earliest light of morning. Smithy had come in with the first lot. And when the first big auto-gyro transport had settled and risen again from the crater, another had taken its place, and another and many others after that.

  That first crew had been a machine-gun battalion, and Smithy had smiled with grim satisfaction at the unhurried way in which their young captain had snapped them into position without the loss of a second. And their guns, Smithy noticed, were trained inward upon the crater itself.

  Inside that protecting circle the other transports landed one by one: men, mobile artillery, ammunition cases, big searchlights, and a dozen engine-generator outfits. The last transports brought in strange cargo—short sections of aluminum struts with bolts and splice plates to join them together: blocks, and tackle and sheaves; then spools of steel alloy cable at least ten miles in length.

  From the last ship they took a hoisting engine and an assortment of aluminum plates and bars which were bolted together by waiting mechanics, and which grew magically to a crude but exceedingly substantial elevator, on which fifty men, by considerable crowding, could stand.

  Only a floor of bolted plates, with corner posts and diagonal bracing and a single guard rail running around the four sides—but for the first time Smithy began to feel that he was actually going down; that this was not all make-believe, or a futile gesture. He would stand on that platform; he would go down where Dean had gone. And then.... But what would come after he knew he could never imagine.

  * * *

  little crane swung the first metal work into position above the shaft. One end of the assembled framework of aluminum alloy dragged loosely on the ground; the other end swung out and projected above the shaft, swayed for an instant—and then came the first direct knowledge of the enemy's presence. The end of a metal strut, though nothing visible was touching it, grew suddenly white hot, sagged, then broke into a shower of molten, dazzling drops that rained down into the pit.

  "Good," said Colonel Culver, who was standing beside Smithy. "Now we know they are there—but it means we will have to go down there with our gas masks on."

  To Smithy it was not immediately apparent how gas masks were to protect them from the deadly invisible ray. He got the connection of thoughts when a bomb was slid over the edge. The dull thud of the explosion quickly came back to them.

  "They popped that one off in the air—hit it with their heat ray," said a cheerful voice beside them. "But the phosgene will keep on going down. Give them another!"

  The interval this time was longer. "Now for a dirty crack," said the cheerful voice. "Time this one."

  * * *

  youngster nearby snapped a stop-watch as the bomb was released. He held some printed tables in his hands. Odd receivers from which no wire led were clamped over his ears. This time the dull thud was long in coming. It was hardly perceptible when the young man with the stop watch announced: "Fifty thousand feet, sir."

  "Give 'em another. Time it again." A second high explosive bomb was released.

  "Fifty thousand feet, sir."

  "Good. That measures it. And those last bombs have knocked the devil out of whatever machinery they've got down there. Now we'll give them a real taste of gas. Two of the green ones there, men. Put ten miles of cable on the drums. Get that hoisting frame into place."

  But night had come, though searchlights outside the crater and floodlights within had robbed the night of its terror, when Smithy, with Culver beside him, climbed over the guard rail of the lift that hung waiting just over the pit.

  A gas mask covered his entire face. Through its round eye plates he looked at the others w
ho crowded about him. Grotesque, almost ludicrous—twenty men, armed with clumsy sub-machine guns; the others would follow later. A searchlight was on a tripod at the center, and a spool of electric cable.

  The light sizzled into life and swung slowly about. Then the platform jarred, and the spool of cable began slowly to unwind. Beside him Colonel Culver was returning the salute of an officer outside on the ashy ground. Smithy raised his hand, but the brink of that pit had moved swiftly up—there was nothing before him but a glassy wall.

  Reconnaissance? Suicide? One word was as good as another. But he was going down—down where Dean Rawson had gone—down where there was a debt to be paid.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXII

  The Red-Flowering Vine

  otan," said Gor slowly, sadly, "was wrong. His vision was not the truth. The Red Ones have come. And now—we die."

  "Without a fight?" Rawson demanded incredulously.

  "We are not a fighting people. We have no weapons. We can only die."

  Rawson turned to Loah. They were inside the mountain, and the servants of the mountain, with terror and dismay written plainly on their faces, were gathered about. "At the Lake of Fire," said Rawson, "when you saved me, there was an explosion and clouds of white fumes. What was it?"

  "It was like water," Loah said. "We found it deep inside the earth in a place where it is very cold. When warmed it turns to white clouds. We threw a flask of it on the hot rocks, hoping to reach you while they could not see."—she paused and shook her head slowly—"but we can get no more. The Pathway of Light is closed to us, now that the Red Ones are there."

  "Liquefied gas of some sort," said Rawson briefly, "caught in enormous rock pressure. But that's out! Now what about this Place of Death? There's an idea there."

  The White Ones were numbed with fear, but Loah and Gor accompanied him when Rawson returned to the red field. The flowers were still in bloom; they waved gently in the breeze that blew always from the mountain across the fields and out toward the point, where even now dark figures could be seen near the mouth of the shaft.

  "It will be many of your days," said Loah, "before the flowers die. If you thought to trap the Red Ones in the Place of Death, there will not be time...." But Rawson had left them; he had advanced into the scarlet field and dropped to his knees.

  * * *

  e was crushing the vines in his hands, grinding them into the white, salty earth underneath. Then he passed his hands guardedly before his face as if to detect an odor.

  Loah and Gor saw him shake his head slowly while he spoke aloud words that they could not understand. "Cyanide," Dean Rawson was saying. "It's a cyanide of some sort—releases hydrocyanic acid gas. I could have rigged a generator, though I've forgotten about all of my chemistry—and now there isn't time." Off in the distance the dark figures still moved near the end of the point.

  He made no effort to conceal his dejection as he returned. The edge of the Place of Death made a winding line across the scant half mile of valley where the green fields ended abruptly.

  Dean stepped high over the stone trough a half mile long that marked that dividing line. There was water in it; it was part of their irrigation system. A little beyond, in the midst of the green, stood a tiny flat-topped knoll on which he knew was a pool that supplied the crude system. Beyond it Loah and Gor were waiting.

  Gor read the look on Rawson's face. "It is useless," Gor said. "And now I have decided. The People of the Light must die—but not in the fires of the Reds. With my people I shall walk into the sea."

  And Rawson could not protest. He could only follow as Gor turned back toward the village and the mountain beyond.

  From a spur on the mountainside Rawson could see the full length of the island. One way lay the village; beyond it the green fields; then the wide scarlet band of the Place of Death. And beyond that the little crystal hills and the valley between that led out to the point. It was now dark with massed clusters of bodies, red even at that distance. He could even see the glint of metal from time to time.

  And behind the mountain were the People of Light, where Gor was only waiting for the attack to lead them out to the island's farther end and then on to a kindlier death in the emerald sea. Only Loah was with Dean, although there were others of the White Ones not far away, watching, ready to warn Gor when the attack began.

  Not an hour before, Rawson had stood in the inner chamber and had listened to the mountain as it repeated the words of a far-distant man: "Attack of the mole-men growing increasingly ferocious ... heat-ray projectors—almost invincible ... our forces have entered the Tonah Basin—they are descending into the crater. But whether warfare can be carried on advantageously under ground is problematical...." Rawson unconsciously gritted his teeth behind his set lips as he watched the Reds.

  He knew why they had been so slow in attacking. They must have a carrier of some sort, a shell like that of Loah's, and they were bringing their fighters one shell-load at a time. When the entire force was ready they would attack. And Rawson was convinced that this force would be limited in number.

  "They'll have plenty to keep them busy up there," he argued. "If only we could wipe out this one lot we could prepare to defend ourselves." And now, standing on the side of the mountain, he startled Loah with the fury of his sudden ejaculation.

  "Fool! Quitter! Waiting here for them to come and get you! There's one chance in a million—" Then he was rushing at full speed along the roadway that circled the mountain toward Gor and the terrified throng.

  * * *

  he waiting savages must have laughed, if indeed laughter was possible for such a race, at sight of the White Ones creeping timidly down. Off a mile and more they could see them harvesting their strange crop—harvesting!—storing up supplies of food, no doubt, when the mole-men with their flame-throwers would reap the harvest so soon!

  But in a crimson field Dean and Gor and Loah led the others where they swarmed across the Place of Death, gathering huge armfuls of the red-flowering vine, carrying them to the village and returning for more. Where they trod it was as if peach pits were crushed beneath their feet. And there was a curious fragrance which Rawson told them not to breathe, but to keep their faces always into the wind.

  Their hands and bodies were sore and burned by the strong juice of the vines. They stopped often to cast apprehensive glances at the distant group of red figures, and always Rawson drove them in a frenzy of haste. At last he made them move the long trough of stone beyond the edge of the green field and over into the Place of Death.

  Rawson kept no track of the time. The voice of the mountain was his only measure of hours in a world of perpetual day. But more hours—another day, perhaps—had passed when the Red force at last began to move.

  * * *

  hey did not spread out wide across the valley, but formed a straggling line that was denser toward the center. They could not know what opposition they would meet; for the present they would stay together. Above them as they came were twinkling lights of pale-green fire.

  The radio had spoken of heat rays; Rawson wondered if that meant some newer and more horrible instrument. But he saw nothing but the flame-throwers in the armament of this force.

  He was waiting by the irrigation pool, hidden for the moment behind the little knoll. Loah was with him; he had tried in vain to induce her to stay with Gor and the others who were waiting beyond the mountain.

  There were watchers, some of them within hearing, whose voices relayed the news of the enemy's advance. Then they ran; panic was upon them.

  "Tur—gona!" they cried, "Nu—tur—gona! We die! Quickly we die!" Rawson heard the shout carried on toward the hidden throng.

  Cautiously he peered from the little knoll. They were coming. Already they were trampling the remaining red blooms on the farther edge of the field. But he waited till they were halfway across before he leaped to the top of the knoll, grasped a pole he had placed there in readiness and rammed it down through the pool, turbid yell
ow with the juice from the vines, and broke open the outlet he had plugged in the base.

  * * *

  ne green light slashed above his head. One flicked at the knoll near his feet, where green growing things burst into flame—then he threw himself backward down the short rocky slope while the stones tore at his nearly nude body. He sprang to his feet and held Loah close. On either side of the knoll was a holocaust of flame where green lights played. He waited breathlessly. The fires brought in a little back draft of air, the scent of peach pits was strong—and then the green lights ceased. The unripe grain of the fields smoldered slowly.

  Then Rawson stepped from his hiding and stared out at the Place of Death.

  Nearby was a huddle of bodies. On either side, in a long, straggling line, they lay now on the ground—a windrow where Death had reaped. The flames of their weapons still in action were all that moved. The white earth turned molten wherever those flames struck.

  Farther off there were red things that were running. The yellow liquid from the pool, charged with the acid of the vines, had been slow in flowing out through that long trough. The savages could only see that their fellows had fallen. Some mystery, something invisible and beyond their comprehension had struck them. They ran toward the center at first, then turned and fled—and by then the soft air blowing gently about them had brought that strange fragrance of death. Then they, too, lay still.