For hour after hour, we plunged onward, through the weird light of the changeless day. We stopped once, exhausted, and slept for twelve hours by my chronometer. Upon awakening, we drained our water flasks, and pressed forward once more. But so great was the distance of these mountains, which at first had only seemed a few miles away, that they appeared to recede as we advanced toward them.
Another four hours of walking, however, made the outlines of the mountains bulk much nearer. And where there are mountains, there are usually springs or streams. After a brief rest, we set forth once more. But it was not long before Dolores staggered and fell. I tried to pick her up, and fell beside her. My strength was fast waning. I tried to murmur a few words of encouragement to her, but my lips were dry—my tongue so swollen that they sounded like the muttering of a drunken man. It did not matter, however, as she had swooned away.
After a brief breathing spell, I arose, and taking Dolores in my arms, proceeded, carefully conserving my strength and pausing at short intervals to rest.
We were less than a mile from the nearest mountain when Dolores regained consciousness. She immediately insisted that I set her on her feet. I did so, and found that, after her rest she could make better progress than I.
I was floundering along, so exhausted that I staggered as if intoxicated, when suddenly she clutched my arm.
“Look!” she cried. “Water, just ahead!”
Together we stumbled out of the loose sands of the white desert to a flat formation of lava rock. About half way between us and the mountain we had made our objective, a small circular pool of water gleamed in the weird light.
The sight renewed my strength, yet it seemed ages before we reached the side of the sparkling pool.
“Take it easy,” I cautioned. “Bathe your face first, and sip slowly.”
We threw ourselves flat at the-edge of the pool. I bathed my parched face, then sipped up a few drops from the hollow of my hand. But scarcely had the liquid entered my mouth than I spat it out in dismay. It was loaded with salt. Glancing at Dolores, I saw that she had made the same disappointing discovery.
I sat up wearily—despondently—and she crept over to me, resting her head against my shoulder.
“What a dreadful disappointment,” she said.
Suddenly I heard a familiar clanking sound behind me. Glancing back, I saw a flying globe which had descended, not fifty feet from us. The clanking sound was caused by the long, segmented cable it had dropped. Down this cable swarmed a score of Teks. Then they spread out in a wide semicircle and ran toward us. There was no mistaking their purpose. And no question but what, if we were captured, Zet would impose the death penalty on both. It would be as well to die fighting.
I stood up, and with Lak’s chopper in my hand, awaited the attack.
CHAPTER IX The Escape
AS I stood in front of the briny pool, defiantly shaking the chopper of Lak at the advancing Teks, an idea came to me—an idea born of a theory which I had been pondering since the tears of Dolores miraculously opened our way to escape from the slave quarters.
Our metal enemies were almost upon us when I bent and, with my arm about her waist, helped Dolores up.
“Come,” I whispered. “Into the water.”
We turned and ran, splashing through the heavy brine. A few steps, and it reached our waists. The Teks splashed in after us. The circle was closing in at both ends. Suddenly their metal torsos began to sputter and pop, flaking away in a white powder wherever the brine had spattered.
“Splash them,” I told Dolores, and used the flat of the chopper to deluge those nearest me. She bravely-splashed those on her side. Presently a Tek stumbled —sank beneath the surface. Above the spot the water effervesced like champagne. Another sank—a third. Two that had only been slightly splashed tried to make the shore. I followed them, deluging them with brine. They sank down, sputtering and melting away in the shallows.
In less than five minutes the twenty Teks were a semicircle of wreckage, consisting mostly of neck, arm and leg tentacles, covered with masses of fluffy white crystals.
Dolores and I climbed up on the bank. Despite our thirst and weariness we felt refreshed by our salt-water plunge.
“If I could only fly that globe,” I said, “we might still have a chance to get away.”
“Why, I can do that,” she said. “For the past forty work-periods I have controlled a Tek flying a freighter, which carried liquid metal from a smelter to a factory.”
“Suppose there are more Teks aboard,” I said.
“Not likely,” she replied. “A crew always consists of twenty. The pilot could lock the controls and land with the rest.”
“Well, we’ll take a chance, but with a little preliminary preparedness,” I said. “Let me have your flask.”
She handed me her glass flask, and I filled both hers and mine with salt water. Pocketing one, and carrying the other in my hand, I walked up beneath the globe. The cable did not, as I expected, whip around my waist. “I guess you were right, after all,” I said. “Come on.” She came up beside me, but scarcely had she done so ere the cable swiftly wrapped around both of us, jerking us up through the round door. It put us down upon a floor of brown metal in front of a Tek that had one tentacle on the control board.
“So, small-brained ones, you thought to escape me!” The voice issued from the metal mouth, but I recognized it instantly. - It was the voice of Zet, emperor of the nether world.
“We came near doing it, Zet,” I replied. “For small-brained ones we didn’t do so badly.”
“Ha! Ha! Ha! What foolish bunglers you are, to be sure. To pit your puny intellects against mine. Ho! Ho! Ho! But I must bring you before me. I would pass judgment in person.”
The tentacle of the Tek jerked a lever and the door clanged shut behind us. Our waists were still gripped by the huge tentacle, but I could move my arms freely. Suddenly uncorking the flask I held in my hand, I splashed brine on the spherical body in front of me and on the round head. Some of it ran down the head-hole into the mechanism.
Globe and head began sputtering furiously—flaking away as white powder.
“Fool!” said the metal mouth in the voice of Zet. “I pass judgment now!”
The arm tentacle jerked a lever, and the huge cable that encircled us, slowly tightened its folds, squeezing the breath out of us. Drawing the chopper from my belt, I struck at the tentacle that clung to the lever. It sagged, but hung on. Again I struck, exerting all my strength, and the blade severed it. Not being of the hard, white metal, it was vulnerable.
With a corner of the blade I struck up the lever. The coils of the cables instantly loosed us. The Tek attempted to swing around—to use the other arm tentacle. But it was too far gone. It staggered and fell to the floor with a shower of white powder.
Dolores sprang to the control board. She pressed a lever, and the globe lurched violently as it sprang upward. She moved another lever, and we settled down to a straight course.
Above the controls two round lights hung on head-straps. Dolores took them down, handed one to me, and strapped the other around her head.
"If you will put that on,” she said, “you can look out through any part of the globe with it. The invisible rays are turned on or off simply by raising your eyebrows.”
I strapped on my light and found that it worked as she had said.
“Funny they left these things hanging here,” I said “when the Teks have them already built into their heads.”
“Sometimes the Snals fly these globes in person,” she replied. “They are kept here for that purpose.”
I raised my eyebrows and my light clicked on. The rays which emanated from it must have been effective only for a short distance, for, though they made the globe appear transparent, everything beyond it looked perfectly natural. Looking downward through the floor, I saw that we were above a jungle of primordial growths. I was gazing at the queer plants and beasts beneath us, when Dolores suddenly cried:
; “A globe pursues us! We are discovered!”
“Slow up and let it come close to us,” I said. “Then open the door.”
I had corked, and was holding Dolores’ flask, still half full of brine. The other globe shot swiftly up behind us.
I lurched over to the door and grasped the rail beside it, holding the flask poised in my other hand.
“All right,” I shouted.
The door swung open. The other globe was now less than fifty feet from us. I hurled the flask and had the satisfaction of seeing it break against the pursuing globe, scattering its contents over the gleaming surface.
The door clanged shut, but I continued to watch the pursuing globe by means of my penetrating head light. A sputtering white patch instantly appeared where the brine had struck. Soon this was replaced by a gaping hole with rapidly widening white edges, from which fluffy crystals were flaking.
Dolores accelerated our speed and shot upward. The other globe attempted to follow, but it was rapidly losing power. Soon more than half of its surface had disappeared, exposing its mechanism and inner room, swarming with Teks. Another moment, and it hurtled groundward, burying itself in the soft muck of the swamp.
DOLORES straightened our course once more Ahead of us lay the metal city to which we had first been brought—the capital of the nether world. And about five miles to our right was a great cone of lava nearly two miles high. Above this cone was the gleaming mouth of a metal shaft which thousands of globes were constantly entering and leaving.
“Steer for the shaft,” I said. “Perhaps we can bluff our way through to the outer world. They can’t tell who is in this globe, can they?”
“Not unless they use the penetrating rays,” she replied, “and they can only do that at close range. I don’t think we can make our way through. However, Zet will expect us to try, and will be prepared.”
“Then we’ll try another way,” I said.
A moment later we plunged into the shaft—shot swiftly upward. The speed of the globe was terrific. I had no means of computing it. And because of this, I had no idea how many miles of shaft we had traversed when we suddenly shot up beneath the huge metal dome that covered Coseguina.
Dolores brought the globe almost to a stop—hovering uncertainly.
“Now where?” she asked.
I recalled my two visions of this dome—the first when it was in the process of building—the second after it was completed.
“Not the ports,” I said. “They’ll surely catch us there. Fly close to the wall.”
She instantly brought the globe to within ten feet of the arching wall.
“Open the door.”
As the door flew open I hurled my flask of salt water at the wall. The flask shattered, spreading the brine over an area about ten feet in diameter.
Another globe, apparently noting our strange actions, shot upward toward us to investigate. Dolores saw it, closed the door, and flew away, circling the huge dome. A second globe rose to cut us off. Then a third and a fourth. Dolores managed, somehow, to dodge all of them. Soon the dome swarmed with flying globes, all of which looked alike. We were darting in and out among the others, and I doubt whether more than one or two of their pilots had any idea which globe we were in. Several globes collided, bouncing apart like billiard balls, but undented and apparently unharmed.
Twice we flew past the rapidly widening hole in the dome where I had hurled the salt water, but each time it was too small for us to squeeze through. Then we were herded away from it by the other globes for several minutes. By dint of much skillful manipulation on the part of Dolores, we managed to get back to it. This time there was room to spare.
“At last!” I cried, as we shot out into the sunlight which we had not seen for more than two months.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Dolores. “Now where shall we go?”
“Get some altitude,” I replied. “Then we’ll look around. We must find a place to hide, first of all.”
Far out on the Pacific, I saw a rain storm coming.
“Quick!” I said. “Into that storm!”
A long trail of globes was after us, and more were continually emerging from the dome like a cloud of angry wasps. We plunged toward the storm. In less than two minutes we were in it. At least a thousand globes were on our trail by that time, but once we got into the thick clouds, they could not see us, nor we them. We veered off sharply to the right, traveling at tremendous speed. Presently our globe popped out of the clouds into the sunlight once more.
Coseguina had been left at least a hundred miles behind, and we were traveling toward the northwest, near the coast of Salvador.
Looking downward, I suddenly spied beneath the water, the slender, shadowy forms of a fleet of submarines—about twenty in number.
“If I only had my wrist-radiophone,” I said.
“I managed to keep mine,” said Dolores, and reaching into the coils of her dark hair, she extracted it and handed it to me. “I thought it might be useful in an emergency” she added.
“It certainly will,” I responded, working the call plunger and constantly changing the wave lengths, saying each time: “Ahoy, submarine fleet.”
Presently I got a reply. “Who calls the fleet?”
“Wallace Stuart,” I responded, “in the flying globe above you with Senorita Monteiro. We just escaped from the Snals.”
“Come closer, and show yourself at the door, Wallace Stuart,” was the reply.
Dolores dropped the globe to within a hundred feet of the water. She pressed the lever that opened the door, and I leaned out gripping the hand rail. Then the submarine just beneath us began to rise. Presently its tower emerged from the water. Then up came its turrets, rails and deck. A hatch swung open, and two men came out. One wore the uniform of a U. S. naval officer. The other was in civilian clothes. To my surprise I recognized my former assistant, Pat Higgins.
“Pat!” I shouted down to him. “What the devil are you doing on the iron fish?”
“Secretary Black ordered me to bring him the Coseguina films in person,” he said, “when he heard you were captured. But after I got back I enlisted in the naval air service and came down here to do some scrapping. I was lucky enough to dodge the globes until yesterday. Then one, bad cess to it, cut me down. My pontoons saved me until this ship came along and took me off. So here I am. It’s sure good to see you alive and well again, chief.”
While he was talking, Dolores had gently lowered our globe until it swung just a few feet above the deck. She locked the controls, and came over beside me, whereupon both men instantly doffed their hats. I dropped to the deck of the submarine and gave her a hand down. Pat introduced me to the officer, Rear Admiral Eldridge, in command of the fleet. I introduced the officer to Dolores, and we all went below. A few moments later the ship submerged, leaving the globe to drift aimlessly a few feet above the surface of the Pacific.
Our first request, as we were ushered into the admiral’s cabin, was for water. We drank eagerly, but sparingly. Then I told the admiral the amazing secret of the supposedly indestructible metal.
“Salt!” he exclaimed. “Who would have thought it? And here we have had millions of tons at our disposal without thinking to try it!”
“I believe it’s really the chlorine that does the trick,” I replied. “The metal, I know not what to call it, must be an element unknown to our outer world chemists. In its natural state it is combined with chlorine, forming a white salt. This white salt is mined, with the chlorine removed, leaving the basic metal, which is in the form of an impalapable powder. This powder is mixed with a liquid preparation, forming a colloidal solution that acts much like cement. The liquid evaporates quickly, leaving the solid metal, the particles cohering because they have regained the water of crystalization lost in the refining process.”
“But what causes the rapid action of the salt on the metal ?” asked the admiral.
“The chlorine in the salt,” I said, “apparently has a much stronger af
finity for the strange metal than it has for sodium. As soon as the two come in contact in an aqueous solution, the chlorine is torn away from the sodium, to unite with the other metal, forming the white crystals which are the chloride of the metal, and in which state it is stable in nature. The effervescing is caused by the escaping hydrogen displaced by the sodium as it unites with the water to form sodium hydroxide. It is plain that but very small quantities of of chlorine are necessary for the conversion of large areas of metal. It may be, also, that the process, once started, mysteriously rejuvenates itself in some way, like the mysterious ‘disease’ which attacks and often destroys old bronzes that have come in contact with saline solutions.”
“We’ll let the theories go for the present,” he replied, “and broadcast the news. We’ll tell ’em to use salt water, but also to try chlorinated water, potassium chloride, calcium chloride, hydrochloric acid—anything they happen to have handy that is a chlorine compound or solution.”
“Have they captured Chicago yet?” I asked.
“They have every big city in the United States,” he replied, “and many of the smaller ones. But they haven’t taken the radios out of the homes, nor the salt. Excuse me while I broadcast. Boy, there’s going to be some revolution!”
He went out to the radio room, and a steward brought in two large, juicy steaks, to which Dolores and I did full justice during his absence.
When he returned I submitted a plan which had occurred to me for attacking Coseguina. If it worked as I hoped it would, the communication between the upper and lower worlds would be severed forever.
All the rest of that day we were preparing for the attack—loading shells with wet salt and preparing special salt water bombs for the six small diving electroplanes which clung to the deck of each submarine. And while we made our preparations, we cruised slowly toward our objective.
CHAPTER X The Revolt
IT was dark, and a steady rain was falling when we hove to about a mile from Coseguina Point. The huge metal dome above the crater gleamed brightly with each recurring flash of lightning. The rest of the time it showed merely as an immense, dark bulk, except at rare intervals when its lighted ports opened to admit or let out flying globes, speeding on the errands of the slimy lord of the nether world.
The Metal Monster Page 6