The Moon Pool

by Abraham Merritt

  CHAPTER IX

  A Lost Page of Earth

  When I awakened the sun was streaming through the cabin porthole.Outside a fresh voice lilted. I lay on my two chairs and listened. Thesong was one with the wholesome sunshine and the breeze blowingstiffly and whipping the curtains. It was Larry O'Keefe at his matins:

  The little red lark is shaking his wings, Straight from the breast of his love he springs

  Larry's voice soared.

  His wings and his feathers are sunrise red, He hails the sun and his golden head, Good morning, Doc, you are long abed.

  This last was a most irreverent interpolation, I well knew. I openedmy door. O'Keefe stood outside laughing. The Suwarna, her enginessilent, was making fine headway under all sail, the Brunhilda skippingin her wake cheerfully with half her canvas up.

  The sea was crisping and dimpling under the wind. Blue and white wasthe world as far as the eye could reach. Schools of little silverygreen flying fish broke through the water rushing on each side of us;flashed for an instant and were gone. Behind us gulls hovered anddipped. The shadow of mystery had retreated far over the rim of thiswide awake and beautiful world and if, subconsciously, I knew thatsomewhere it was brooding and waiting, for a little while at least Iwas consciously free of its oppression.

  "How's the patient?" asked O'Keefe.

  He was answered by Huldricksson himself, who must have risen just as Ileft the cabin. The Norseman had slipped on a pair of pajamas and,giant torso naked under the sun, he strode out upon us. We all of uslooked at him a trifle anxiously. But Olaf's madness had left him. Inhis eyes was much sorrow, but the berserk rage was gone.

  He spoke straight to me: "You said last night we follow?"

  I nodded.

  "It is where?" he asked again.

  "We go first to Ponape and from there to Metalanim Harbour--to theNan-Matal. You know the place?"

  Huldricksson bowed--a white gleam as of ice showing in his blue eyes.

  "It is there?" he asked.

  "It is there that we must first search," I answered.

  "Good!" said Olaf Huldricksson. "It is good!"

  He looked at Da Costa inquiringly and the little Portuguese, followinghis thought, answered his unspoken question.

  "We should be at Ponape tomorrow morning early, Olaf."

  "Good!" repeated the Norseman. He looked away, his eyes tear-filled.

  A restraint fell upon us; the embarrassment all men experience whenthey feel a great sympathy and a great pity, to neither of which theyquite know how to give expression. By silent consent we discussed atbreakfast only the most casual topics.

  When the meal was over Huldricksson expressed a desire to go aboardthe Brunhilda.

  The Suwarna hove to and Da Costa and he dropped into the small boat.When they reached the Brunhilda's deck I saw Olaf take the wheel andthe two fall into earnest talk. I beckoned to O'Keefe and we stretchedourselves out on the bow hatch under cover of the foresail. He lighteda cigarette, took a couple of leisurely puffs, and looked at meexpectantly.

  "Well?" I asked.

  "Well," said O'Keefe, "suppose you tell me what you think--and thenI'll proceed to point out your scientific errors." His eyes twinkledmischievously.

  "Larry," I replied, somewhat severely, "you may not know that I have ascientific reputation which, putting aside all modesty, I may say isan enviable one. You used a word last night to which I must interposeserious objection. You more than hinted that I hid--superstitions. Letme inform you, Larry O'Keefe, that I am solely a seeker, observer,analyst, and synthesist of facts. I am not"--and I tried to make mytone as pointed as my words--"I am not a believer in phantoms orspooks, leprechauns, banshees, or ghostly harpers."

  O'Keefe leaned back and shouted with laughter.

  "Forgive me, Goodwin," he gasped. "But if you could have seenyourself solemnly disclaiming the banshee"--another twinkle showed inhis eyes--"and then with all this sunshine and this wide-openworld"--he shrugged his shoulders--"it's hard to visualize anythingsuch as you and Huldricksson have described."

  "I know how hard it is, Larry," I answered. "And don't think I haveany idea that the phenomenon is supernatural in the sensespiritualists and table turners have given that word. I do think it issupernormal; energized by a force unknown to modern science--but thatdoesn't mean I think it outside the radius of science."

  "Tell me your theory, Goodwin," he said. I hesitated--for not yethad I been able to put into form to satisfy myself any explanation ofthe Dweller.

  "I think," I hazarded finally, "it is possible that some members ofthat race peopling the ancient continent which we know existed here inthe Pacific, have survived. We know that many of these islands arehoneycombed with caverns and vast subterranean spaces, literallyunderground lands running in some cases far out beneath the oceanfloor. It is possible that for some reason survivors of this racesought refuge in the abysmal spaces, one of whose entrances is on theislet where Throckmartin's party met its end.

  "As for their persistence in these caverns--we know they possessed ahigh science. They may have gone far in the mastery of certainuniversal forms of energy--especially that we call light. They mayhave developed a civilization and a science far more advanced thanours. What I call the Dweller may be one of the results of thisscience. Larry--it may well be that this lost race is planning toemerge again upon earth's surface!"

  "And is sending out your Dweller as a messenger, a scientific dovefrom their Ark?" I chose to overlook the banter in his question.

  "Did you ever hear of the Chamats?" I asked him. He shook his head.

  "In Papua," I explained, "there is a wide-spread and immeasurably oldtradition that 'imprisoned under the hills' is a race of giants whoonce ruled this region 'when it stretched from sun to sun before themoon god drew the waters over it'--I quote from the legend. Not onlyin Papua but throughout Malaysia you find this story. And, so thetradition runs, these people--the Chamats--will one day break throughthe hills and rule the world; 'make over the world' is the literaltranslation of the constant phrase in the tale. It was Herbert Spencerwho pointed out that there is a basis of fact in every myth and legendof man. It is possible that these survivors I am discussing formSpencer's fact basis for the Malaysian legend.[1]

  "This much is sure--the moon door, which is clearly operated by theaction of moon rays upon some unknown element or combination and thecrystals through which the moon rays pour down upon the pool theirprismatic columns, are humanly made mechanisms. So long as they arehumanly made, and so long as it _is_ this flood of moonlight from whichthe Dweller draws its power of materialization, the Dweller itself, ifnot the product of the human mind, is at least dependent upon theproduct of the human mind for its appearance."

  "Wait a minute, Goodwin," interrupted O'Keefe. "Do you mean to sayyou think that this thing is made of--well--of moonshine?"

  "Moonlight," I replied, "is, of course, reflected sunlight. But therays which pass back to earth after their impact on the moon's surfaceare profoundly changed. The spectroscope shows that they losepractically all the slower vibrations we call red and infra-red, whilethe extremely rapid vibrations we call the violet and ultra-violet areaccelerated and altered. Many scientists hold that there is an unknownelement in the moon--perhaps that which makes the gigantic luminoustrails that radiate in all directions from the lunar craterTycho--whose energies are absorbed by and carried on the moon rays.

  "At any rate, whether by the loss of the vibrations of the red or bythe addition of this mysterious force, the light of the moon becomessomething entirely different from mere modified sunlight--just as theaddition or subtraction of one other chemical in a compound of severalmakes the product a substance with entirely different energies andpotentialities.

  "Now these rays, Larry, are given perhaps still another mysteriousactivity by the globes through which Throckmartin said they passed inthe Chamber of the Moon Pool. The result is the necessary factor inthe formation of the Dweller. There would be nothing scien
tificallyimprobable in such a process. Kubalski, the great Russian physicist,produced crystalline forms exhibiting every faculty that we call vitalby subjecting certain combinations of chemicals to the action ofhighly concentrated rays of various colours. Something in light andnothing else produced their pseudo-vitality. We do not begin to knowhow to harness the potentialities of that magnetic vibration of theether we call light."

  "Listen, Doc," said Larry earnestly, "I'll take everything you sayabout this lost continent, the people who used to live on it, andtheir caverns, for granted. But by the sword of Brian Boru, you'llnever get me to fall for the idea that a bunch of moonshine can handlea big woman such as you say Throckmartin's Thora was, nor a two-fistedman such as you say Throckmartin was, nor Huldricksson's wife--andI'll bet she was one of those strapping big northern women too--you'llnever get me to believe that any bunch of concentrated moonshine couldhandle them and take them waltzing off along a moonbeam back towherever it goes. No, Doc, not on your life, even Tennessee moonshinecouldn't do that--nix!"

  "All right, O'Keefe," I answered, now very much irritated indeed."What's your theory?" And I could not resist adding: "Fairies?"

  "Professor," he grinned, "if that Thing's a fairy it's Irish and whenit sees me it'll be so glad there'll be nothing to it. 'I was lost,strayed, or stolen, Larry avick,' it'll say, 'an' I was so homesickfor the old sod I was desp'rit,' it'll say, an' 'take me back quickbefore I do any more har-rm!' it'll tell me--an' that's the truth.

  "Now don't get me wrong. I believe you all saw something all right.But what I think you saw was some kind of gas. All this region isvolcanic and islands and things are constantly poking up from the sea.It's probably gas; a volcanic emanation; something new to us and thatdrives you crazy--lots of kinds of gas do that. It hit theThrockmartin party on that island and they probably were all more orless delirious all the time; thought they saw things; talked it overand--collective hallucination--just like the Angels of Mons and othermiracles of the war. Somebody sees something that looks like somethingelse. He points it out to the man next him. 'Do you see it?' asks he.'Sure I see it,' says the other. And there you are--collectivehallucination.

  "When your friends got it bad they most likely jumped overboard one byone. Huldricksson sails into a place where it is and it hits his wife.She grabs the child and jumps over. Maybe the moon rays make itluminous! I've seen gas on the front under the moon that looked like athousand whirling dervish devils. Yes, and you could see the devil'sfaces in it. And if it got into your lungs nothing could ever make youthink you hadn't seen real devils."

  For a time I was silent.

  "Larry," I said at last, "whether you are right or I am right, I mustgo to the Nan-Matal. Will you go with me, Larry?"

  "Goodwin," he replied, "I surely will. I'm as interested as you are.If we don't run across the Dolphin I'll stick. I'll leave word atPonape, to tell them where I am should they come along. If they reportme dead for a while there's nobody to care. So that's all right. Onlyold man, be reasonable. You've thought over this so long, you're goingbug, honestly you are."

  And again, the gladness that I might have Larry O'Keefe with me, wasso great that I forgot to be angry.

  [1] William Beebe, the famous American naturalist and ornithologist,recently fighting in France with America's air force, called attentionto this remarkable belief in an article printed not long ago in theAtlantic Monthly. Still more significant was it that he noted apersistent rumour that the breaking out of the buried race wasclose.--W.J. B., Pres. I. A. of S.