The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 01

by Anthology

  There were only two men in the room when Smithy entered. One of them, tall, heavily built, as square-shouldered as Smithy, came forward and put his two hands on the young man's shoulders. Their greetings were brief.

  "Well, son?" asked the older man, and packed a world of questioning into the interrogation.

  "O. K., Dad," said Smithy simply.

  His father nodded silently and turned to the other man. "Governor, my son, Gordon. He got tired of being known as the 'Old Man's son'--started out on his own--not looking for adventure exactly, but I judge he has found it. He's got something to tell us."

  And again Smithy told his wild, unbelievable tale. But it was not so incredible now, for, even while Smithy was talking, the Governor was glancing at the report on his desk which told of the destruction of the little town of Seven Palms.

  "I can't tell you what it means," Smithy concluded. He paused before venturing a prediction which was to prove remarkably accurate. "But I saw them--I saw them come up out of the earth, and I'm betting there are plenty more where they came from. And now that they've found their way out, we've got a scrap on our hands. And don't think they're not fighters, either. They're armed--those flame-throwers are nothing we can laugh off, and what else they've got, we don't know."

  He leaned forward earnestly across the Governor's desk. "But that's your job," he said. "Mine is to find Dean Rawson. He's alive, or he was. He sent up his ring as proof of it. I've got to find him--I've got to go down in that pit and I want your help."

  CHAPTER XI

  The White-Hot Pit

  How far his guard of wild, red man-things had taken him Dean Rawson could not know. Many miles, it must have been. And he knew that the air had grown steadily more stiflingly hot. But the heat of those long tunneled passages was like a cool breeze compared with the blasting breath of the room into which he was plunged.

  It seared his eyeballs; it struck down from the tongues of flame that played in red fury in the recess high up on the farther wall. And the vast room, the fires, the hundreds of kneeling figures, all blurred and swam dizzily before him.

  The hot air that he breathed seemed crisping his lungs. Vaguely, for the stupefying, brain-numbing heat, he wondered at the figure he saw dimly in its grotesque posturing close to the flames. And the hundreds of others--how could they live? How could he himself go on living in this inferno?

  They had been chanting in unison, the kneeling red ones. Dean heard the regular beat of their repeated words change to an uproar of shrill, whistling voices. But he could neither see nor hear plainly for the unbearable, suffocating heat.

  The clamor was deafening, confusing; it echoed tremendously in the rocky room and mingled with the steady, continuous roar of the flames. The mass of bodies that surged about him made only a blurring impression; he tried to make himself see clearly. He must fight--fight to the last! Only this thought persisted. He was striking out blindly when he knew that his red guard had cleared a way through the mob and was dragging him forward.

  He knew when they reached the farther wall. Somewhere above him was the deep-cut niche in which the fires roared. And then, when again he could see from his tortured eyes, he found directly ahead another doorway in the solid rock. Beyond it all was black; it gave promise of coolness, of relief from the stifling air of the room. Red hands were thrusting him through.

  The burst of water, icy cold, that descended upon him from above shocked him from the stupor that claimed his senses. He was drenched in an instant, strangling and gasping for breath. But he could think! And, as the lean hands seized him again and hurried him forward, he almost dared to hope.

  * * * * *

  To his eyes the passageway was a place of utter darkness, but the red ones, their great owl eyes opened wide, hurried him on. His stumbling feet encountered a flight of steps. With the red guard he climbed a winding stair where the tunnel twisted upward.

  That icy deluge had set every nerve aquiver with new life. He hardly dared ask himself what might lie ahead. Yet he had been saved from that mob; it might be his life would be spared, that in some way he could learn to communicate with these people, learn more of this subterranean world--which must be of tremendous extent. Without any sure knowledge of their plans, he still was certain in his own mind that they intended to swarm out upon the upper world. He might even be able to show them the folly of that.

  A thousand thoughts were flashing through his mind when the tunnel ended. Beyond a square-cut opening the air was aglow with red. An ominous thunder was in his ears. Then a score of hands lifted him bodily and threw him out upon a rocky floor that burned his hands as he fell.

  Heat, blistering, unbearable, beat upon him. He was wrapped in quick-rising clouds of steam from his wet clothes.

  The platform ended. Far below was a sea of red faces, grotesque and horrible, where each held two ghastly white disks, and at the center of each disk a mere pinpoint eye.

  He saw it all in the instant of his falling--the inhuman, shrieking mob, the blast of hot flame not forty feet away at the back of the rocky niche, and, between himself and the flame, a giant figure that leaped exultantly, while its body, that appeared carved from metallic copper, reflected the red fires until it seemed itself aflame.

  * * * * *

  Dean knew in the fraction of a second while he scrambled to his feet, that the great room had gone silent. The roaring of the flames ceased; even the clamor of shrill voices was stilled. He had thrown one arm across his face to shield his eyes; the heat still poured upon him like liquid fire. But his instant decision to throw himself out and down into the waiting mob was checked by the sudden stillness.

  To open his eyes wide meant impossible torture, yet he forced himself to peer through slitted lids beneath the shelter of his arm.

  The flame was gone. Where it had been was a wall of shimmering red rock above a gaping throat in the floor, whose rim was quivering white with heat. Here the blast from some volcanic depth had come.

  Then he saw it, saw the great coppery figure leaping upon him--and saw more plainly than all this the end that had been prepared for him.

  Fire worshipers! Demons of an under world paying tribute to their god. And he, Dean Rawson, was to be a living sacrifice, cast headlong to that waiting, white-hot throat!

  The coppery giant was upon him in the instant of his realization. Somehow in that moment Dean Rawson's wracked body passed beyond all pain. With the inhuman, maniacal strength of a man driven beyond all reason and restraint he tore himself half free from those encircling arms and drove blow after blow into the hideous face above him.

  Only his left arm was free. That, too, was clamped tightly against his body an instant later.

  * * * * *

  The giant had been between him and the glowing rocks. Now he felt himself whirled in air, and again the blast of heat struck upon him. He was being rushed backward; and there flashed through his mind, as plainly as if he could actually see it, the scintillant whiteness of that hungry throat.

  He tried to lock his legs about the big body to prevent that final heave and throw that would end a ghastly ceremony. The rocks were close, their radiant heat wrapped about him like a living flame. Abruptly his strength was gone--the fight was over--he had lost! His heart sent the blood pounding and thundering to his brain; his lungs seemed on fire.

  * * * * *

  The high priest of the red ones had his priestly duty to perform--the sacrifice must be offered. But even the high priest, it would seem, must have been not above personal resentment. Sacrilege had been done--a fist had smashed again and again into the holy one's face. This it must have been that made him pause, that brought one big hand up in a grip of animal rage about Dean's throat.

  Only a moment--a matter of seconds--while he vented his fury upon this white-skinned man who had dared to oppose him. Dean felt the hand close about his throat. So limp he was, so drained of strength, he made no effort to tear it loose. He was dead--what mattered a few seconds more or less of life?
And then a thrill shot through him as he knew his right hand was free.

  That hand made fumbling work of drawing a gun from its smoking, leather holster. He could hardly control the numbed, blistered fingers, yet somehow he crooked one about the trigger; and dimly, as from some great distance, he heard the roar of the forty-five.... Then, from some deep recess within him, he summoned one last ounce of strength that threw him clear of the falling body.

  Instinctively he had heaved himself away from the fiery rocks; the same effort had sent his big coppery antagonist staggering, stumbling, backward. And Dean, sprawled on the stone floor, whose heat where he lay was just short of redness, heard one long, despairing shriek as the giant figure wavered, hung in air for a moment in black outline against the fierce red of a rocky wall above a white-hot pit, then toppled, pitched forward, and vanished.

  Sick and giddy, he forced himself to draw his body up on hands and knees. Then he straightened, came to his feet, and staggered forward.

  * * * * *

  Below him was pandemonium. The sea of faces wavered and blurred before his eyes. From a distant archway other figures were coming. He saw the gleam of metal, heard the wild blare of trumpets, and knew that the hundreds of red ones below him were standing stiffly, both hands raised upright in salute as another barbaric figure entered. The air was clamorous with a shrill repeated call. "Phee-e-al!" the red ones shrieked. "Phee-e-al!"

  But Rawson did not wait to see more. Behind him, the flames that had been fed with human flesh--if indeed these red ones were human--roared again into life. He had returned the pistol to its holster when first he came to his feet; his weak hands had seemed unable to hold it. And now his two hands were thrust outward before him as he staggered blindly toward the tunnel mouth.

  It was where he had emerged upon the platform. His reaching hands found the side entrance where the stairs led down to the main hall. In the darkness he made his way past. Stumbling weakly he pushed on down the long tunnel whose floor slanted gently away.

  Ahead of him was a light. The comparative coolness of these rocks had served to revive him somewhat. He had no hope of escape, yet the light seemed comforting, somehow.

  He stopped. His stinging eyes were wide open. He stared incredulously at the glowing spot on a distant wall, where a flame must have touched, and at the figure beneath it.

  The figure of a woman! A young woman, tall, slender, fair-haired, whose skin was white, a creamy white, whiter than snow.

  A woman? It was a mere girl, slender and beautiful, her graceful young body poised as if, in quick flight, she had been caught and held for a moment of stillness.

  What was she doing here? His exhausted brain could not comprehend what it meant. He had seen women of the Mole-men tribe mingling with the men. Like them their heads were pointed, their faces grotesque and hideous. Rawson gave an inarticulate cry of amazement and staggered forward.

  Between him and the distant figure a crowd of Reds swarmed in. They came from a connecting passage. Above their heads the lava tips of flame-throwers were spitting jets of green fire. Every face was turned toward him at his cry.

  Beyond them the white figure vanished. Dean, leaning weakly against the wall, told himself dully that it had been a phantom, a product of his own despairing brain and his own weakness. Then that weakness overcame him; and the red Mole-men, their white and hideous eyes, the threatening jets of green flame, all vanished in the quick darkness that swept over him....

  CHAPTER XII

  Dreams

  The black curtain of unconsciousness which descended so quickly upon Rawson was not easily thrown off. For hours, days or weeks--he never knew how long he lay in the citadel of the Reds--it was to wrap him around.

  Nor was his waking a matter of a moment. Many and varied were the impressions which came to him in times of semiconsciousness, and which of them were realities and which dreams, he could not tell.

  He was being tortured with knives, lances tipped with pain that dragged him up from the black depths in which he lay. Dimly he realized that his clothes were being stripped from him and that the piercing knives were none the less real for being only the touch of hands and rough cloth upon his blistered body. Then from head to foot he was coated with a substance cool and moist. The pain died to a mere throbbing and again he felt himself sinking back into unconsciousness.

  There were other visions, many others, some of them plain and distinct, some blurred and terrifying to his fevered brain trying vainly to bring order and reason into what was utterly chaotic.

  Once a bedlam of shrieking voices roused him. He tried to open his eyes, whose lids were too heavy for his strength. And by that he knew he was dreaming. Yet from under those lowered lids he seemed to see a wild medley of red warriors, their faces blotched and ghastly in the green light of their weapons. They were carrying a charred body which they threw heavily upon the floor beside him as if to compare the two. He saw the face which the flames had not touched, the face of Jack Downer--Downer, the sheriff of Cocos County. His sandy hair had been scorched to the scalp.

  Dreams ... and the steady beat of metal-shod feet of marching men. He saw them passing some distance away. The repeated thud-thud of metal on stone echoed maddeningly through his brain for hours.... Dreams, all of them.

  And once there came to him a vision which beyond all doubt was unreal.

  * * * * *

  Silence had surrounded him. For what seemed hours not one of the red mole-men had come near. And then, in the silence, he heard whisperings and the sound of stealthy feet; and, for a moment, the same white figure that had met him in his flight stood where he could see.

  Only the merest trace of dim light relieved the utter darkness of the room. The girl's figure was ghostly, unreal. Yet he saw the dull sparkle of jeweled breast-plates against her creamy white skin. Loose folds of cloth were gathered about her waist; her golden hair was drawn back except for vagrant curls that only accentuated the perfect oval of her face.

  There were others with her, dim shapes of men; how many Rawson could not tell. They looked down at him, whispering softly, excitedly, amongst themselves; but their words were like nothing he had ever heard.

  For an instant Dean felt his stupefied mind coming almost to wakefulness. Phantom figures, ghostly and unreal--but the faces were human, and the eyes looked down upon him pityingly. He tried to rouse himself, tried to call out, then settled limply back, for the girl was speaking--or he was catching her thoughts. It seemed almost that he heard her whispered words:

  "They take him to Gevarro, to the Lake of Fire which never dies! Gor told me--he overheard their plans. But, by the Mountain I swear...." Then footsteps echoed in a far-off passage, and the white ones vanished like drifting smoke.

  Dreams, all of them. Yet the time came when Dean knew that he was awake--knew too that further experiences awaited him in this demoniac land.

  * * * * *

  Again red guards came. The wicked breath of their weapons filled the great room where Rawson had been with green, flickering light. Dean, dragged to his feet, was unable to stand. One of the giant yellow workers came forward at a whistled order and held him erect. Another brought a bowl carved from rock crystal and filled with a liquid golden-green with reflected light. He put it to Rawson's lips and with the first touch Dean knew that he must have been filled with a burning thirst beyond anything he had ever known. He gulped greedily at the liquid, drained the bowl to the last drop, then marveled at the thrilling fire of strength that flowed through him.

  "Wine," he thought, "wine of the gods--or devils." He came to himself with a start. He knew that he was naked and that his body was encased in a coating of stiff gray plaster. It was this that prevented his arms and legs from flexing.

  Another order and the giant worker picked him up in his arms and carried him where the others led to a distant room. A stream trickled through a cut in the rocky floor. At the center of the room was a pool. Unable to resist, Dean felt the giant arms toss him out and dow
n.

  The water was warm. At its first touch the hard plaster melted like snow. Sputtering and choking for breath, Rawson came to the surface. He found he could move freely, then reaching hands hauled him out upon the floor, and through all his dread he found time to marvel at his own firm muscles and the healthy white of his skin that had been seared and blistered.

  He obeyed when the red guards pointed and motioned him into a dark passageway. He tried to keep up with them as they hurried him on. Evidently his pace was too slow, for again the big worker picked him up, swung him into the air and seated him firmly on one broad shoulder, and, with red guards ahead and behind them, hurried on.

  To find himself a child in the hands of this big yellow man was disconcerting. To be calmly lugged off was almost humiliating. No one who was not a good sport could have grinned as Rawson did at his own predicament.

  "Not exactly a triumphal procession," he told himself, then his lips set grimly. "They've got my gun," he thought, "and now, whatever comes, all I can do is stand and take it. Still, they've saved my life. But what for?"

  * * * * *

  Always the way led downward, and Rawson, perched on his strange, half-human steed, let his gaze follow up every branching tunnel and widespread cave. Not all of these were as dark as the broad thoroughfare they followed. In some, strange lights glowed, and Rawson saw weird, towering plant growths that yellow workers were harvesting.

  Life, life, everywhere, and seemingly this underground world was endless.

  Troops of red warriors passed them, upward bound. The dancing flames of their weapons, where occasional ones were in action, glowed from afar. They bobbed and waved like green fireflies as the Mole-men came on at a half-run.

  "And this means trouble up top," he thought. "There's going to be hell to pay up there."