A Thousand Degrees Below Zero

by Murray Leinster

  CHAPTER V.

  Teddy put his hand comfortingly on Evelyn's shoulder.

  "There isn't anything I can say, Evelyn," he said awkwardly, "exceptthat I couldn't have loved him more if he'd been my own father, and ithurts me terribly to have him go like this."

  Evelyn looked up.

  "Teddy," she said bravely, trying to hold back her sobs, "I've beenfearing this for a long time, but--I can't believe it wasn't caused bythat fearful Varrhus."

  "The professor did work very hard over that problem," admitted Teddy.

  "I don't mean that the work he did caused his heart to fail. I mean Ithink Varrhus killed father." Evelyn's eyes were dark and troubled asshe looked at Teddy Gerrod.

  "But, Evelyn, why do you think such a thing? You knew his heart wasweak."

  Tears came again into Evelyn's eyes, but she forced them backdeterminedly.

  "Will you go upstairs and look at his fingers--inside? I was--crossinghis hands--on his breast. Please look."

  Teddy went soberly up the stairs to where the professor lay quietly onthe bed he was occupying for the last time. Teddy turned back the sheetthat covered the figure and looked at the gentle old face. A lump camein his throat, and he hastily turned his eyes away. He lifted the sheetuntil the professor's thin hands came into view. He looked, at thefingers, then lifted one of the white hands and examined the inside.Small but deep burns disfigured the finger tips. When Teddy wentdown-stairs his face was white and set, and a great anger burned in him.

  "You are right, Evelyn," he said grimly. "Where is the bracelet he washolding when he was found?"

  "On the acids table. He was lying beside it when--when I saw him."Evelyn was grief-stricken, but she forced herself to be calm. "Do youthink you know what happened?"

  "I'm not sure."

  Teddy went quietly into the laboratory and found the massive silverbracelet lying where Evelyn had said. He looked at it carefully beforehe touched it, and when he lifted it it was in a pair of wooden tongs.

  "That thermo-couple, Evelyn, please. And start the small generator,won't you?"

  The two worked on the bracelet for half an hour, then stopped andstared at each other, their suspicions confirmed.

  "Varrhus," said Teddy slowly. "Varrhus caused your father's death. Thisearth has gotten too small for both Varrhus and me to live on."

  "He knew father could wreck his plans," Evelyn said in a hard voice,"and he wished to rule the world. So he killed my father."

  Teddy's lips were compressed.

  "Before God," he burst out, "before God, I'm going to kill Varrhus!"

  The bell rang, and in a moment the commandant of the forts was usheredin.

  "Mr. Gerrod, Miss Hawkins," he nodded to them, and then said: "Theytell me Professor Hawkins is dead. The Narrows are frozen over again.Hampton Roads is frozen over. Charleston is frozen over. The PanamaCanal is frozen over! There's no steam plume to blow up. Washingtonis worried. They're calling me to clear out the channel. The navydepartment is going crazy. If it were a case of fighting men I'd knowsomething, but I can't fight a chemical combination. What's to be done,since the professor is dead? Who on earth can fill his place?"

  He looked from one to the other, already beginning to show the strainunder which he was laboring.

  "Professor Hawkins," said Teddy quietly, "was murdered by Varrhus somefour hours ago."

  "Murdered! Varrhus has been here!"

  "No, Varrhus has not been here, but we may be able to trace him. I'llget the police. Then we'll talk about ice floes. We know Varrhus'method now. We'll soon be able to anticipate him."

  "But in the meantime," the commandant snapped angrily, "he'll play thedevil with the world."

  "We'll play the devil with him when he is caught," said Teddy evenly."I've no intention of letting Varrhus get away. Just now there's apossibility of catching him in the ordinary way. He mailed a present tothe professor, an antique bracelet. Ancient jewelry was the professor'shobby. He examined the bracelet and died.

  "I heard he was dead," said the commandant restlessly. "The paper saidheart failure."

  "So did the doctor." Teddy took down the receiver of the telephone."Give me police emergency, please."

  In a few moments he hung up again. The statement that Professor Hawkinshad been murdered and that there was a chance of catching Varrhuswas all he needed to say. Hardly five minutes had passed before thecommissioner of police himself was in the room with two of his keenestmen.

  "You'll have to explain what happened," he said at once to Teddy. "Whennews of the professor's death came I phoned at once to the doctormentioned in the paper and asked if there were any possibility of foulplay. To tell the truth, I'd been rather afraid something like thismight happen. What was it?"

  "Varrhus electrocuted the professor by an antique bracelet."

  He handed over the ornament. The commissioner examined it gingerly.

  "Nothing funny about this except the workmanship."

  "And the surface," said Teddy. His set calm was surprising himself. "Itlooks as if it had been lacquered. That's Varrhus' secret."

  "What is it? A powerful battery?"

  Teddy turned to the materials with which he and Evelyn had been working.

  "I'll show you. Here's an instrument that measures the resistance ofa given coil. This is one of the professor's evaporation machinesfor producing low temperatures quickly. He evaporates ether in thissheath that surrounds this oven and objects in the oven are cooled farbelow freezing point. Look at this coil of silver wire. We measurethe resistance at room temperature. One hundred and twenty ohms. Itis very fine wire. We put it in the cooling oven and set the enginesgoing----" For some minutes there was silence while the small electricpump thumped and rattled. "Now we'll take the coil out. The thermometerinside the oven says twelve below zero." Teddy handled the small coilof silver wire with thick gloves. "We'll measure the resistance again.Fourteen and a half ohms resistance, approximately. Low temperaturesdecrease resistance and increase the conductivity of metals. You see?"

  "Yes, but why----"

  "The inside of that bracelet is nine hundred degrees below zero. Thewhole thing is coated with Varrhus' lacquer, which, in this case,radiates all the heat from the inside out, leaving it incredibly coldwithin. That cold makes the silver conduct electricity better."

  "Well?"

  "At eight hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit silver has nomeasurable resistance to the passage of an electric current. Now watch."

  Teddy laid the bracelet on top of a frame wound with many turns ofglistening copper wire. He threw on a switch, and a small generator atone side of the laboratory began to run with a humming purr.

  "Eddy currents are whirling all around that bracelet. A strong currentis running in an endless circle in that closed circuit of silver,nine hundred degrees below zero. Silver at that temperature offers noresistance to an electric current. Closed circuits have been left atthat degree of cold for over four hours, and at the end of that timethe electric current was still flowing round and round like a squirrelin a cage."

  Teddy picked up the bracelet with a pair of wooden tongs. He took asecond pair in his other hand. Rubber handles insulated the tongs fromtheir handles.

  "There's a current flowing around the inside of this bracelet. Therewas one flowing around it when the professor received it in the mail.He opened it with his bare hands, suspecting nothing. I open it withthese insulated tongs. Watch."

  He jerked on the two tongs. The bracelet parted at the catch, and adazzling, blinding flash of light appeared with a sharp crackle at theparting.

  "I made the current jump the gap. The professor took it through hisbody and it killed him. Are you satisfied?"

  "God!" said the commissioner of police, aghast.

  "The box and wrapper," said one of the men who had come with thecommissioner. "Let us have the box and wrapper the bracelet came in andwe'll get the man that mailed it. But we'll handle him with tongs,too, when we close in on him."

 
They took what they wanted and left. Teddy turned to the commandant.

  "Now, sir, we'll see what can be done about the new berg. You saythere's no plume of steam. Have you had an a?roplane fly above it tomake sure?"

  "Yes. The pilot says the whole ice cake is covered with mist, exceptfor a round spot in the middle, but there's no sign of a steam plume."

  Teddy nodded at Evelyn.

  "No holes in this cold bomb. I wonder what happens to all the heat thatcomes in?"

  "Father mentioned that he expected something of the sort, but didn'tsay what he thought could be done about it."

  "The same as we did with the other, I suppose," said Teddyreflectively. "Only this time we'll have to blast down to the bomb andthen break it up."

  "I'll set men to work if you'll find the bomb," said the commandant.

  "Almost any one could find it," Teddy remarked, "but there are going tobe some queer difficulties when you get near the cold bomb. If you'llallow me, I'd like to be at hand when it is broken up. I may really beof use there."

  He began to pick out instruments he thought he might need. Among otherthings he took what seemed to be two silvered globes with small necks.They were Dewey bulbs. Several low-temperature thermometers and athermocouple connected with a delicate galvanometer completed hispreparations.

  The two men left the house and started for the launch that would takethem to the forts. On the way Teddy was asking crisp questions aboutthe explosives he could have placed at his disposal, quite ignorant ofwhat was happening at that moment in Jacksonville.

  The river there was a mass of ice from one shore to the other. Allthe little reedy islands and the swampy shores were frozen solidly. Tosee the slender palm trees rising from icy shores, their reflectionsvisible on the narrow strip of mist-free ice that ran along the shoresof the river was an anomaly. To see fur-clad tourists stepping outof the tropical foliage to step gingerly out on the ice "just tosay they'd done it" was even more strange. At the moment, however,interest centered on a little group of soldiers out in the centralclearing in the cloud of mist. They were bundled in furs and swathed innumberless garments until they looked like fat penguins or some strangearctic animals. A major of engineers was waving them to the right andleft, forward and back until they stood at equal distance around theclearing. Each man moved backward until the mist that rose graduallyfrom the ice reached his waist. Then, at a whistle signal from themajor, they began to move forward toward a common center. The majorhad reasoned that the cold bomb must be precisely underneath the exactcenter of the clearing, and this was a rough-and-ready means of findingthat center. They advanced toward each other, and as they went nearerthe center of the clearing the cold grew more intense. Infinitesimalice crystals glittered in little clouds where the moisture of theirbreath froze instantly in the terrific cold. At a second whistle fromthe major they halted. They formed a fairly even circle about fortyyards across. Each man began to stamp and fling his arms about to keepfrom freezing in that more than frigid atmosphere. No man could havestood that cold, no matter how hardy he might be, for more than a veryfew moments. The major trotted around the circle, marking the placewhere each man stood. Four small sledge loads of explosives stood outin the clearing. The major intended to blast down toward the cold bombwith them.

  The major was marking the position of the last man, completing hiscircle under which the cold bomb must lie, when a peculiar tremor wasfelt by every man there. It was not like the shiver of an earthquakeor the reverberation of an explosion. It was an infinitely shrillvibration that a moment later was followed by a creaking sound thatseemed to come from the center of the ice cake. The men on the icestopped their stamping and swinging of arms to listen in instinctiveapprehension.

  The center of the circle around which they stood seemed to rise in theair. The ice on which they stood was shivered into tiny fragments. Acolossal and implacable roar filled the air, and a great sheet of flameof the unearthly tint of a vaporized metal rose to the heavens. Theswathed and bundled soldiers were annihilated by the blast. A greathole five hundred feet across gaped in the center of the ice cake.Jacksonville shook from the concussion, and the plate-glass windows ofits stores and office buildings splintered into a myriad tiny bits thatsprinkled all its streets with sharp-edged, jagged pieces.

  Teddy Gerrod, all unconscious of the fate of those who had attempted tomeddle with the Jacksonville ice cake, went on out to bare and blastopen the cold bomb that blocked New York harbor.