pressing herselfagainst him. "Ever since the first time you came to the laboratory--"
A score of the monster forms of violet-filled crystal and gleaminggreen metal had dropped into the pen. They tore Agnes from Larry'sarms, hurling him roughly to the ground, at the bottom of the greenmetal fence. For some time he was unconscious.
* * * * *
When he had staggered painfully to his feet, it was night. Themonsters were gone; the starless sky was black and empty. Calling outweakly, and stumbling about the pen, he found Agnes. She was chainedwhere Dr. Whiting had been.
She was conscious, unharmed. For a time they talked a little,exchanging broken, incoherent phrases. Then they went to sleep, lyingon the anvil, beneath that mighty hammer that was slowly lifting tostrike another fearful blow.
When the "sun" had risen again, Larry brought Agnes some of the brownsoup from the metal urn, which had been filled again. Then, when hehad satisfied himself, he started clambering up the massive frame ofthe hammer.
If he could put it out of commission!
It was a difficult task. He slipped back many times, and finally hadto choose another place to make the ascent. Twice he slipped andalmost fell from a considerable height. But finally he reached themassive wheel of the valve which seemed to control the admission ofsteam into the cylinder above the hammer.
If he could but close that, the steam would be confined in the chestbelow. And when the pressure reached a certain point, something shouldhappen!
The valve was not easy to turn; it seemed fixed with the corrosion ofages. For hours Larry wrestled with it. Then he left it, realizingthat he must find something to use for a hammer. A vigorous search ofthe pen's hard earth floor failed to reveal any stone that would do.He turned his attention to the machine, and presently saw a slenderprojecting lever, high up on the side of the vast frame, which lookedas if it had been weakened by corrosion. After a perilous climb, hereached the bar of green metal and swung his weight upon it. It broke,and he plunged to the ground with the bar in his hands.
* * * * *
Clambering up once more to the great valve, he hammered it until therust that stiffened it was loosened. Then he struggled with the valveuntil it was closed.
"We'll see what happens!" he muttered.
Returning to the ground, he set to work to break the green metalfetters upon Agnes' wrists and ankles, using the broken lever ashammer and file.
For the greater part of six days he toiled at that task, while thegreat hammer rose slowly. But the green metal seemed very hard. Onearm was free at the end of the second day, the other on the fourth. Hehad one ankle loose on the morning of the sixth day. But as eveningcame on, and the great hammer reached the top of its stroke, thefourth chain still defied him.
Before sunset, a swarm of the monsters appeared, wheeling on greenwings. He was forced to leave the work, hiding his improvised file.
Agnes still lay across the anvil, to conceal from the monsters thefact that the chains were broken. Larry sat close beside her, nursinghands that were blistered and sore from his days of filing at thechains.
A sudden clatter came from the huge mechanism above them, and a sharphiss of steam, which became louder.
"It works!" Larry whispered to Agnes. "The old valve held, and thesteam can't get into the cylinder to smash us! But Allah knows whatwill happen when the pressure rises in that old steam chest!"
Darkness came. Dusk swallowed the wheeling machine-monsters. All nightLarry and Agnes waited silently, together on the great anvil,listening to the hissing of steam from above, which was slowlybecoming a shrill monotonous scream; monotonous, always higher,shriller.
The "sun" rose again. Still the green-winged monsters wheeled about.They came in glittering swarms, thousands of them. They came nearerthe machine now, and flew about more swiftly, is if excited.
* * * * *
Then it happened.
There was a roar like thunder, and a colossal, bellowing explosion.The air was filled suddenly with scalding steam, and with screamingfragments of the bursting steam chest. In the midst of it all, Larryfelt a crushing blow upon the head. And a blanket of darkness fellupon him....
"The monsters are all gone, darling," Agnes' voice reached him. "Asthough they were very much frightened. And a piece of the old hammerhit the fence and knocked a hole in it. You must go. Leave me--"
"Leave you?" Larry groaned, struggling to sit up. "Not a bit of it!"He touched his head gingerly, felt a swollen bruise.
Collecting a few fragments of the wrecked machine, to serve as tools,he fell to work again upon Agnes' remaining chain. Already he had cuta deep groove in it. Two hours later, it was broken.
Carrying the metal urn of brownish liquid, they crept out through thehole in the fence, which had been torn by the flying fragment of abroken casting of green metal. They left the wreck of the machinewhich a strange race had worshiped as a bloody god and hurriedfurtively into the desert of red sand.
Making a wide circuit about the fantastic city of green metal, whichLarry had seen from the air, they struck out eastward across thedesolate ocherous waste. The food in the urn, eaten sparingly, lasteduntil the end of the eighth day.
On the morning of the ninth, they came in view of the green line ofthe ancient canal. It was hours later that they staggered weakly overits wall of crumbling masonry, clambered down into the muddy,weed-grown channel, and drank thirstily of green, tepid water.
Larry found his old trail, beyond the canal. They followed it back. Inthe middle of the afternoon they stumbled up to the thicket of spikydesert growth, in which Larry had hidden the plane.
The machine was undamaged.
* * * * *
Before sunset, Larry had removed the stake ropes, slipped the canvascover from the motor, turned the plane around, inspected it, andexamined the strip of smooth, hard red sand upon which he had landed.
Agnes pointed out the dim band of crimson across the sky, from northto south, slowly rising toward the zenith.
"That's the red ray," she said. "We fly into it."
"And a happy moment when we do," Larry rejoined.
He roused the motor to life.
As the bar of crimson light neared the zenith, the plane rolledforward across the sand and took off. Climbing steeply, Larryanxiously watched the approach of the red band. The gravitation of thePygmy Planet seemed to diminish as he gained altitude, until presentlyhe could fly vertically from it, without circling at all. He set thebow toward the scarlet bar across the sky before him.
And suddenly he was flying through ruby flame.
His eyes went to the little scale at the corner of the instrumentboard. He saw the little ebon needle waver, leave the mark designated"Pygmy Planet Normal" and start toward "Earth Normal."
For what seemed a long time, he was wheeling down the crimson ray. Afew times he looked back at Agnes, in the rear seat. She had gone tosleep.
Then a vast, circular field was below--the crystal platform.
Larry landed the plane upon it, taxied to the center and stoppedthere, with the motor idling. The laboratory, taking shape in the blueabyss about him, seemed to contract swiftly.
* * * * *
Presently the plane covered most of the crystal disk. He taxiedquickly off, stopped on the floor nearby, and cut the ignition. Agneswoke. Together they clambered from the plane's cabin and walked backinto the crimson ray.
Once more the vast spaces of the room seemed to shrink, until itlooked familiar once more. The Pygmy Planet, and the huge machinelooming ever them, dwindled to natural size.
Agnes, watching a scale on the frame of the mechanism, which Larry hadnot noticed, leaped suddenly from the red ray, drawing him with her.
"We don't want to be giants!" she laughed.
Larry drew a deep breath, and looked about him. Once more he was inhis own world, and surveying it in his normal
size. He became aware ofAgnes standing close against him. He suddenly took her in his arms andkissed her.
"Wait a minute," she objected, slipping quickly from his arms. "Whatare we going to do about the Pygmy Planet? Those monsters might comeagain, even if you did wreck their god. And Dr. Whiting, poorfellow--But we mustn't let those monsters come back!"
Larry doubled up a brown fist and drove it with all his strengthagainst the little globe that spun so steadily between the twin,upright cylinders of crimson and of violet flame. His hand went deepinto it. And it swung from its position, hung unsteadily a moment, andthen crashed to the laboratory floor. It was crushed like a ball ofsoft brown mud. It spattered.
"Now I guess they won't come back," Agnes said. "A pity to spoil allDr. Whiting's work, though."
Larry was standing motionless, holding up his fist and looking at itoddly. "I smashed a planet! Think of it. I smashed a planet! Just theother--why it was
The Pygmy Planet Page 6