by Anthology
"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.
* * * * *
He 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.
* * * * *
The 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.
* * * * *
They 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 yellow with the juice from the vines, and broke open the outlet he had plugged in the base.
* * * * *
One 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.
From the distance came faintly a booming chant, two thousand voices raised in unison. "Tur--gona! Nu--tur--gona!" The last of a once mighty people were marching to their death.
Rawson and Loah turned with
one accord. Victory was theirs, but there was no time to taste the fruits of victory. They ran with straining muscles and gasping breath toward the distant mountain and the marching host beyond.
* * * * *
"My plans are made," Rawson spoke quietly. "I must go. I shall take the shell--the jana--and go back to the mole-men's world. I shall go alone, and I shall die, but what of that?" His eyes lit up for a moment. "I'll try to find Phee-e-al first. If I can get him before they get me, that will help."
They were standing on the mountain's lower slope, Gor and Leah and the servants of the mountain gathered near. Below, the White Ones were massed in worshiping silence. Had not Dean-Rah-Sun saved them? And now what else would come to pass?
The same question had been asked by the Wise Ones, and now Rawson turned and spoke to them. "Rotan was right," he told them. "His vision was true. There is work I must do here before I go. Your lands, or some of them at least, will be restored. And you will be safe forever from what we have seen to-day. Gor will lead you wisely, and Loah...." His voice faltered; he had kept his eyes resolutely away from the slim figure of the girl, who had been wordless, scarcely breathing. Now she stepped swiftly before him.
"You must go, Dean-San," she said gently. He knew it was a term of endearment. "You must go if you say you must. But you do not go alone, nor die alone. Long ago the voice of the mountain spoke beautiful words. I know now it was one of your priests telling of a woman of your own race. Always have I remembered. 'Wheresoever thou goest, I shall go; thy people....'"
But Dean Rawson had gathered the slender figure, starry-eyed and sobbing into his arms.
CHAPTER XXIII
Oro and Grah
[Sidenote: As part of their titanic plan, Rawson and Loah-San return to sacrifice themselves in the flaming caverns of the Red Ones.]
[Illustration: Then there were footsteps approaching the chest.]
"The Place of Death!" said Dean Rawson. "Whoever named it had the right idea."
He looked out across the wide stretch of ground with its covering of white salt almost entirely stripped of the carpet of vines. The bodies of the mole-men lay where they had fallen; their flame-throwers still tore futilely at the earth or stabbed upward in vain, thrusting toward the green-gold sun that shone pitilessly down.
"Still I do not understand," said Gor. "My people pressed the strong, burning water from the vines and poured it into the pool as you directed. But the Red Ones did not touch it--how could it burn them?"
"I'll say it was strong!" said Rawson. He looked at his hands, red and burned where the liquid had touched. "And it got stronger by standing. It was an acid, and when it touched the white earth a gas was formed--hydrocyanic acid gas. And that's nothing to fool with."
He walked cautiously out where the liquid had been poured over the white ground. No odor remained; the air was clean. Then he picked up one of the flame-throwers and experimented with it until he found the sliding sleeve that shut off the blast.
"All right," he called to Gor. "Bring on your men; we've got to clean up this place and get rid of the bodies before the sun gets in its work. They're the ones that will go into the ocean instead of you." He moved carefully along the straggling line of bodies, salvaging the weapons and turning off their fearful blasts.
They worked and slept and worked again before their gruesome task was done and Rawson was ready to begin the other work that he had in mind.
Beside the mouth of the great shaft, resting on the rocks, was a cylinder, almost exactly a counterpart of the one Loah had used. But this was larger--fully fifty of the red savages could have crowded inside.
"It is the only one they had," said Loah. "I have seen, and I know."
"But they can make more," Gor argued. "This one and the one we have," he told Rawson, "were made thousands of years ago. There were masters of metal-work among them, and they had learned to use Oro and Grah. Even then the people were divided. He who was then Gor and his followers fought with the others. But he left them one jana--this very one here. Then Gor followed the Pathway to the Light, though he sealed it as you know. But--but they will build others. Sooner or later they will come."
"I think not," said Rawson. "Now what about this Oro and Grah material? What was it you called them--the Sun-stone and the Stone-that-loves-the-dark? I must know how they work." But Loah was reluctant to experiment with the jana of the Reds; she had her own shell brought instead--and then Rawson learned the secret of what seemed its miraculous flight.
A cylindrical metal bubble, just buoyant enough to lift itself above the ground--Gor and some of the others brought it from the village. Gor brought, too, a little box which he carried with great difficulty.
* * * * *
"It is Grah," he said, when he showed Rawson a little scattering of black dust within the box. "Always it tries to fall back under the ground. Both Oro and Grah grow deep down near the Zone of the Fires; we find them in the caves, Oro on one side and Grah on the other. Oro is as heavy in its upward falling as Grah is in its downward.
"Then"--he pointed to the central vertical tube in the shell--"we put both of them in here, bringing it a few grains at a time. One falls to one end and the other to the other. And then, with these simple valves, we let out a little of whichever we wish--release it a grain at a time, if that is best. We let out a few grains of Grah, and Oro, being stronger, draws us upward; or we let a little of the Oro escape, and we fall downward swiftly. You see it is simple, as I said."
Rawson's reply was not an answer to Gor so much as it was an argument with himself. "Heavy," he said. "Specific gravity beyond anything we've ever known. Osmium, the heaviest substance we have, would be light as a feather compared to this. But wait. This Grah, as you call it, falls downward, but that means it falls toward the outside of the earth. With us it would be light--light! And Oro would be heavy. New substance--new matter! One feels only the attraction of our normal gravitation; the other doesn't react to that at all, but is driven outward with tremendous force by counter-gravitation, the repulsion of this Central Sun. You've used it cleverly, but we'd have done more with it up on top."
* * * * *
He was lost in thought for some minutes, muttering figures and calculations half aloud. "Two thousand miles from the Central Sun to us; two thousand more through the solid earth. And if that repelling force follows Newtonian laws it will decrease as the square.... But, coming down from up on top, normal gravity would decrease directly as the distance!" He made scratches with one small stone upon a larger one in lieu of paper and pencil, but, to his listeners, his muttered words could have meant nothing.
"Around six seventy-six hundred and seventy miles to the neutral zone, the Zone of Fire. And a column of water--it would carry on by, plug the shaft, check the back-pressure, and then...." For the first time since that night when the mole-men had poured out into the crater, his eyes were alight with hope, though his face seemed tense and grim. Then the lines about his lips relaxed; he smiled at Loah.
"I would like to investigate this under-world," he said, "--not very far down. Will you take me?"
The girl's adventurous spirit had led her on many exploring trips in that subterranean world. She laughed happily when Rawson told her what he wanted. "But, yes," she said; "of course I know such a place." And from some two or three miles below, after anchoring the janasecurely, she led him through a winding tunnel where he knew he was steadily climbing.
* * * * *
It was a wide corridor that they followed, where the walls came together high above their heads; he could hardly see where they met by the light of Loah's torch. Now and then there were lateral passages, but they were narrow, hardly more than cracks; and Rawson, looking into them, nodded his head with satisfaction.
Occasionally his footsteps rang hollowly on the stone, and he knew that the floor was thin between this and other caverns below. "What an old honeycomb it is!" he exclaimed. "And we had it all figured as being solid. The weight is all here, of course, but it'
s concentrated in that red stuff down near the neutral zone. But anyway, Loah has shown me just what I wanted."
He had gathered a handful of little fragments, and, keeping count of his steps, had shifted a bit of rock to his left hand for every hundred paces. By this he knew they must have gone five or six miles when he reached the tunnel's high point. Many times it had widened. Here, too, was a cave more than a hundred feet across.
From the farther side the tunnel continued, pitching sharply downward, but Rawson did not explore farther. "I can seal that off with a flame-thrower," he said. "I've seen how they use them." Then he took Loah's light and looked with every evidence of approval at the rocky walls and the roof that seemed heavy with dew.
He had wondered about the air, but he found that it seeped through from that central shaft, although Loah told him that in some deeper passages the air was bad. Here, although it was moving gently, it seemed wet as if charged with moisture. Rawson, staring upward, felt a drop strike him in the face, dripping from the rocks above.
"It's a gamble," he said, "just a gamble. But the stakes are worth while. And now, Loah-San, we will return."
* * * * *
He made crude work with the flame-throwers at first but finally he got the knack, and the mouth of the tunnel beyond the big room was sealed. Then, with the help of Loah and some few of the others, he brought in more and more weapons of the Reds. He was curious as to their construction, but his curiosity had to go unsatisfied. They were only cylinders, so far as he could see, cylinders a foot long and six inches through, of some metal with the dull lustre of aluminum. But they were sealed, and he dared not cut one open with another flame-thrower for fear of what might come forth.
On the top of each cylinder a tube was connected that ended in a lava tip; but at the base of the tube, where it joined the cylinder, was a sliding sleeve that checked the flame to nothing when it was moved, or opened it to the full blast.