by Earl
At the note of the bell, Dora had paled. Yet her hands had jabbed quickly at a dial, stepping up the system to full power. Then a giant hand seemed to pick her off the floor and throw her against the wall. All went black before her eyes.
When consciousness came to her, she thrilled to And herself in Renolf’s strong arms. He clutched her to him with a fierce exultation.
“Are you all right, dearest?” he asked anxiously.
“Yes——”
Renolf then set her on her feet. She noticed his headband was off. Something felt strange to her, and she reached a hand to her head to feel her own headband missing. She saw it on the floor at her feet. The chronometer showed her that it was five minutes since the charges had been set off.
“Vince! The result——”
“Perfect!” cried the man. “The second charge did the trick! The Spawn of Eternal Thought is no more! I know because the two aligning beams of superradiation back-fired with something that blew out the whole works back here. Only one thing could have done it—the collapse, or implosion, of the being’s screen, sending out a wide vortex of reaction waves of the fourth-dimensional order.
“It is absolute, scientific proof that the beam we sent up there to Tycho knocked something all to hell, like a meteor splashing into a lake and drenching an observer a mile from the shore. We’ve done it! We’ve done it!”
Renolf skipped around the room in an abandon of relief and joy.
“But Vince! What about the recoil—what about Earth? How did that turn out?”
Vincent sobered suddenly. “Not as bad as I thought. I mean that although the recoil was enough to shake us off our regular orbit, the Earth staggered through with flying colors.”
“How can you know that already?” asked Dora dubiously at the same time staring out the window to see if perhaps there were some indication that the Earth was plunging into the Sun, unloosed from its age-old orbit.
“I don’t know, of course,” returned Vincent. “But the super-Renolf does. In those few minutes after the shock he figured tentatively from the reaction gauges there that the recoil had failed by just a little to jolt the world into a dangerous position.
“As it is, however, the Earth is taking up a new orbit. In a few days it will be more than a million miles nearer to the Sun, and its period of rotation and revolution have been increased some tenth of one per cent. But that is nothing serious—not compared to the doom we have taken away from our future.”
He sobered still more. “And, of course, the jolt has been great enough to do much damage. This place, built especially on bedrock and of superstrong materials, withstood the shock as I planned it should. But elsewhere people have not been so fortunate. In all the big cities, many buildings have probably collapsed. Thousands have been killed by falling things. And in a few hours a terrible series of tidal waves and storms will sweep over all coasts.
“The next few hours will be hours of suffering and terror. All the millions who know nothing of all this will think the Earth is coming to an end. There will be fire and madness and pain and great fear——”
Dora touched the man’s arm. “You are the Benefactor again, Vincent, worrying over your people. But they will understand when they hear the truth. They will know that the Benefactor has saved their posterity from a hideous menace. My father—you will insist he be credited above you, I know. But they will honor you, forever, Vincent, for what you have done.
The End.
THE HORMONE MENACE
Wistert Plays the Invisible Spy at Enemy Headquarters During a Stupendous War!
CHAPTER I
The Giants
WINGING its way down from the clouds, a snub-nosed Boske leveled at two thousand altitude. It was a ‘hell-dark’ night, no moon or stars, and, below, a few twinkling lights marked a habited spot in the general desolation of that region. The airplane, its. motor purring almost noiselessly, crawled, along—warily, it seemed.
When it was almost directly over the cluster of lights a figure dived from its rear cockpit and disappeared, falling rapidly. The quiet little Boske went on steadily. A mile farther its purring deepened and the airplane rose, disappearing into the heavy cloud-bank.
James Wistert, secret operative S-23 United North America, extricated himself from his parachute harness and stood erect to breathe deep of the air over enemy land.
“Well,” he mused, “here I am. Hope the rest is as easy.”
He knew it wouldn’t be. Not daring to light a match, he fumbled on the ground in the pitch darkness for a bulky bundle heavily wrapped in oilskin which he unleashed from the parachute straps. With it under one arm, he felt around his middle.
“Food pellets—flashlight—ammunition—automatic—okay.”
He was not far, apparently, from his destination, for he could see a glow of hidden lights beyond a rise of the ground. The parachute would occasion suspicion when found the next day. But Wistert expected to be safely away before the night had passed. If not—well, such was fate.
Topping the rise, the spy saw, not a quarter of a mile away, a large brick building from whose windows lights glowed. A lone building in a boulder-strewn, uncultivated region in the heart of the Allied States of Europe. What purpose did it serve? What mysterious connection did it have with the terrific war going on between Europe and America?
When the building loomed close, Wistert stopped in the shadow of a large rock. He undid his package, and draped about himself a hooded suit of a peculiar crinkly material. It seemed made of metallic fiber, and a half-dozen Insulated wires ran from various parts of it to a heavy, fiat, rubberized case which he strapped to his chest. The suit covered him completely from head to foot. It had two small glass-shielded peepholes for his eyes, and its hem dragged on the ground.
Snapping a small switch at the side of the case on his chest, the spy felt a tingling sensation. But that was all. Somehow, he had expected more. They had assured him back at headquarters that, wearing the suit, he was invisible to others except for a faint, indistinct halo. Such a thing did not seem possible, but in these remarkable days of the late twentieth century anything could happen. This Invisibility Cloak was one of the enemy’s inventions. The one he was wearing was the only one his country ever confiscated. That alone bespoke the importance of his present mission.
Anxious to test the thing—but apprehensive at the same time—Wistert stepped from the rock’s shadow and strode warily toward the large brick building.
THE side he approached was unbroken by even a single doorway. Rounding the corner, the spy muffled a gasp as a uniformed man shouldering a rifle came toward him. Instinctively his gauntleted hand dove for his automatic; then he relaxed sheepishly. For the soldier passed not ten feet away, staring straight at him. Yet not at him, but through him!
His nerves somewhat shaken, Wistert followed the wall. Under the first doorway he reached stood another guard. The spy paused. To enter this portal he must open the door and shove past the guard.
Wistert thought of a dozen and one plans in the space of a minute. The dilemma was still unsolved when he stiffened suddenly at the sound of a motor. The guard came to attention as a big black sedan whined down the tar road, coming to a stop thirty feet away. Two figures stepped from the car and approached.
Wistert’s eyes grew big as the foremost figure was revealed in the light over the door. Baron Laiglon, ordnance chief of the North African sector! The mysterious building took on a new significance in the American’s mind.
The guard now knocked on the door, and stood aside. It was opportunity knocking for Wistert. He followed the two men in like their shadows’ shadow; fate was still with him. Beyond the door he quickly edged to one wall of a corridor as the two officers strode ahead.
Careful not to scrape his shoes on the hardwood floor, the spy followed down the hallway, which seemed to stretch interminably. Finally the two officers paused before a great steel door.
The baron’s companion stood before a Ronaldson scanning d
isc and pressed the button below it. There was a click of relays, the interplay of photoelectric beams, and then the steel portal rolled aside like a dinner plate. Perhaps it was fortunate that the two officers were speaking as they stepped beyond the threshold; else they might have heard the hurried tread of their invisible follower as he squeezed through with them. The ponderous steel valve rolled back into place.
The one man spoke a few low words to the guard standing at attention—he who had scanned the transmitted image and opened the seal upon seeing who it was—and then motioned for the baron to follow. Like a ghost, Wistert slipped along in their wake.
A staircase led below at the end of this new corridor. Wistert paused at the bottom to see the two officers enter an elevator car, which immediately descended. The spy stared around, surprised. There were no less than ten elevator shafts opening upon the room. From the opposite side led half a dozen large corridors. What lay below this mysterious brick building?
The spy became aware of a steady vibration in the floor, as of ponderous machinery. Speculatively he eyed the sentinel leaning against the wall. Perhaps, if the guard were out of the way, Wistert might get on an elevator himself, for they were automatic.
Prepared to take the risk involved, he was about to step forward when one of the elevators came up. As its grillwork door was pulled aside, a dozen men stepped out. The spy gasped.
Those men were giants! Each was eight feet tall and built proportionately. Their faces were brutish in cast, thick-lipped. They were obviously witless creatures, mere mountains of strength. Dressed in baggy jumpers of denim, they trudged forward silently and awkwardly, followed-by two guards who had ready pistols and barked sharply in tones of command. Like a herd of driven oxen, the giants turned into a corridor.
Hardly had this group disappeared than a similar group of giants came from one of the corridors and entered the elevator which had first disgorged its human load. Thereafter, eight more elevator loads came up and an equivalent number went down.
Wistert noticed that those who came up were grimy and looked tired and hungry, while the giant men who were taken below were clean and fresh-looking. The spy could come to only one conclusion—that it was change of shift. Some great project was going on below that sapped the strength of eight-foot men so that they had to be replaced periodically with fresher forces.
AT last the interchange of giant men was over. The first elevator came up again, but from it this time stepped men who, though normal in size, were distinctly odd in some way. They too were silent and tired-looking, and obeyed the guards’ orders mutely, turning into one of the corridors. One after the other the elevators arose, emptied their loads of weary men, and descended with reinforcements which came from the various hallways.
The spy suddenly knew what made these workers so queer in appearance. It was their facial expressions. Almost as though they were prototypes, their visages reflected an extreme dreaminess. Wistert discounted drugs; it was something deeper, more basic—something in their very natures. Their eyes held strange lights.
Then this shifting omen ended, and the elevators came up and went down with another series of groups. These men, also normal in size, seemed extremely nervous. Their stride was jerky and the muscles of their faces twitched uncontrollably. Yet it was not the type of nervousness associated with hysteria; it was more the sensitiveness of energetic, high-strung personalities.
What was the solution of this mystery? Why this change of shift of workers who were so alike in their own group, so greatly different in different groups? The key to this, Wistert realized, would be priceless information to American headquarters. Wistert’s one aim then was to go below himself and see just what these pitifully slavelike creatures were made to do.
CHAPTER II
The Invisible Cloak
“MON DIEU!” exclaimed Baron Laiglon, speaking French, the official language of the Allied States of Europe. “What is the meaning of all this?”
He swept an arm around to include the immense workshop filled with industrious humans. Beyond pillared arches he could see other large chambers; and he understood that there were three more sub-levels of a similar nature. It was strange to find all this beneath a plain brick building in semi-desert land.
His companion, Director Bergmann, chuckled at his astonishment. “You are surprised, baron?” He spoke French with the guttural accent of a German. “But where did you think our great military inventions came from?”
“Oh, I knew, of course, M. Bergmann, that this place existed. That it had been established ten years in advance—in anticipation of the great European American struggle for world supremacy. But because of the utter secrecy with which it was done, none but the highest officials knew just where it was, and what it was expected to accomplish.”
“Naturally,” said the director, “secrecy was paramount, lest the American espionage get wind of it.”
“Of course,” agreed the baron. He laughed. “M. Bergmann, if America but suspected that this place existed! They would undoubtedly withdraw half their aerial forces from the very Nile sector to attack and bomb this cozy nest of yours.”
The director cooed gleefully. “No doubt, baron, not a tiny doubt! For from this place are turned out in quantity the Invisibility Cloak, the Radio-Wave Absorption Screen, and the Super-Sonic Gun—to mention only three of the inventions which have beaten back powerful America.”
“Beaten her back!” said the baron scornfully. “These inventions have turned the tide of the war! Yes, it is so. Beginning within a month, Europe will take the offensive, whereas for three years we have been on the defensive. Our first drive—” He clipped his words and peered uneasily around.
The director smiled. “What do you fear—spies? Not here!”
“I had the uncomfortable feeling for a moment that we were being watched,” admitted the baron.
“Ach, no spies here!” said the director.
“Nevertheless—” The baron did not take up the topic he had dropped, still uneasy. Instead, he waved his hand again to include the bee-hive industry surrounding them. “M. Bergmann, as long as I’m here on my first visit, tell me how you have made such marvelous military and scientific strides in so short a time. I have seen many men working industriously—queer men, deformed physically—or mentally, perhaps?”
“Ah, a-shrewd guess, baron,” said the director. “Yes, these men are all deformed—except, of course, my own personnel, who are ordinary menials and soldiers. But they are deformed, baron, to a purpose! Perhaps you know little of the science of biology. It has been my life work. I shall explain what I have accomplished; you shall then judge whether it is the work of genius or not.”
THE director rubbed his hands as he began: “I was early in life fascinated by the study of the mysteries of human nature—especially in its attributes of intelligence. What essentially was intelligence—or intellect? I was very soon brought face to face with the gland question. Each human is controlled and governed to a great extent by ten glands of internal secretion. These small organs manufacture certain powerful chemicals, called hormones, which react in the blood-stream and make the individual what he is—mentally and physically!
“You have heard of diabetes and its cure by insulin. Insulin is the hormone produced by, the pancreatic gland, situated near the stomach. Perhaps you have heard of cretinism, and its eradication by the feeding of thyroxin, which is the hormone product of the thyroid gland in the neck. Diabetics, cretins—as well as abnormally tall people, intellectual people, sensitive people—are the result of over-active, or under-active, glands.
“It came to me that miraculous things might be done through these glands. I made endless experiments with animals. But animals could not satisfy me; I wanted human animals as my control subjects!”
The baron involuntarily shuddered and turned his eyes away from the beady, fanatic ones of the director.
“My chance came ten years ago,” went on the scientist. “Military officials were pleading fo
r advanced armament with which to wage war against powerful America, who was slowly but surely gaining dominance in Africa and Asia, having it already in South America. I laid down my plans—promised great inventions. And all I would ask for were condemned criminals from the jails, the flotsam of life. That, and a free license to use them as laboratory subjects!
“My petition was granted, in the desperate hope, no doubt, that I might know what I was saying. They are not sorry—the members of the Governing Council—that they consented. Eh, baron?”
The Frenchman nodded, but a fine sweat had beaded his forehead.
The scientist went on, his voice eager: “Then began my monumental work. I performed a great series of experiments with my gland-products, on my human guinea pigs. Before five years had passed, I began to see some glimmerings of success. I was beginning to bring order out of chaos, simplicity out of complexity. And these indefatigable, super-clever workers of mine”—he swept a quick arm-around to include the hundreds of men in denim—“are my symbols of success!”
The baron nodded, but his soul felt sick within him. Human beings—criminals, it was true, but still human beings—experimented upon like rabbits, by a cold, heartless scientific genius. Yet—the baron sighed reflectively—it was serving a purpose. It had brought the Allied States of Europe within reach of its goal as the world power.
“To leave generalities and explain more fully,” continued the director. “You have seen the eight-foot giants who do all the heavy labor in these workshops. They were ordinary men who were fed an excess of the pre-pituitary hormone. This gland substance promotes bone and tissue growth beyond the normal. To give them added strength in keeping with their great stature, they were fed also adrenal-cortex hormone. They are the simplest of my transmutations.
“Think now of the men in the second chamber who do the mechanical work: fitting gears, running machines, and such. They have been overfed on the hormone of the adrenal-cortex to give them strength and determination, and on adrenal-medulla to give them a great capacity for work. They work sixteen hours of every day without tiring; each is worth three ordinary men for his work.