The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  "Remembering the amount of the drug I had taken coming down, I took now twelve of the pills. Then, in a sudden panic, I hastily took two of the others. The result made my head swim most horribly. I sat or lay down, I forget which. When I looked up I saw the hills beyond the river and forest coming towards me, yet dwindling away beneath my feet as they approached. The incline seemed folding up upon itself, like a telescope. As I watched, its upper edge came into view, a curved, luminous line against the blackness above. Every instant it crawled down closer, more sharply curved, and its inclined surface grew steeper.

  "All this time, as I stood still, the ground beneath my feet seemed to be moving. It was crawling towards me, and folding up underneath where I was standing. Frequently I had to move to avoid rocks that came at me and passed under my feet into nothingness.

  "Then, all at once, I realized that I had been stepping constantly backward, to avoid the inclined wall as it shoved itself towards me. I turned to see what was behind, and horror made my flesh creep at what I saw. A black, forbidding wall, much like the incline in front, entirely encircled me. It was hardly more than half a mile away, and towered four or five thousand feet overhead.

  "And as I stared in terror, I could see it closing in, the line of its upper edge coming steadily closer and lower. I looked wildly around with an overpowering impulse to run. In every direction towered this rocky wall, inexorably swaying in to crush me.

  "I think I fainted. When I came to myself the scene had not greatly changed. I was lying at the bottom and against one wall of a circular pit, now about a thousand feet in diameter and nearly twice as deep. The wall all around I could see was almost perpendicular, and it seemed impossible to ascend its smooth, shining sides. The action of the drug had evidently worn off, for everything was quite still.

  "My fear had now left me, for I remembered this circular pit quite well. I walked over to its center, and looking around and up to its top I estimated distances carefully. Then I took two more of the pills.

  "Immediately the familiar, sickening, crawling sensation began again. As the walls closed in upon me, I kept carefully in the center of the pit. Steadily they crept in. Now only a few hundred feet away! Now only a few paces--and then I reached out and touched both sides at once with my hands.

  "I tell you, gentlemen, it was a terrifying sensation to stand in that well (as it now seemed), and feel its walls closing up with irresistible force. But now the upper edge was within reach of my fingers. I leaped upward and hung for a moment, then pulled myself up and scrabbled out, tumbling in a heap on the ground above. As I recovered myself, I looked again at the hole out of which I had escaped; it was hardly big enough to contain my fist.

  "I knew, now, I was at the bottom of the scratch. But how different it looked than before. It seemed this time a long, narrow cañon, hardly more than sixty feet across. I glanced up and saw the blue sky overhead, flooded with light, that I knew was the space of this room above the ring.

  "The problem now was quite a different one than getting out of the pit, for I saw that the scratch was so deep in proportion to its width that if I let myself get too big, I would be crushed by its walls before I could jump out. It would be necessary, therefore, to stay comparatively small and climb up its side.

  "I selected what appeared to be an especially rough section, and took a portion of another of the pills. Then I started to climb. After an hour the buskins on my feet were torn to fragments, and I was bruised and battered as you saw me. I see, now, how I could have made both the descent into the ring, and my journey back with comparatively little effort, but I did the best I knew at the time.

  "When the cañon was about ten feet in width, and I had been climbing arduously for several hours, I found myself hardly more than fifteen or twenty feet above its bottom. And I was still almost that far from the top. With the stature I had then attained, I could have climbed the remaining distance easily, but for the fact that the wall above had grown too smooth to afford a foothold. The effects of the drug had again worn off, and I sat down and prepared to take another dose. I did so--the smallest amount I could--and held ready in my hand a pill of the other kind in case of emergency. Steadily the walls closed in.

  "A terrible feeling of dizziness now came over me. I clutched the rock beside which I was sitting, and it seemed to melt like ice beneath my grasp. Then I remembered seeing the edge of the cañon within reach above my head, and with my last remaining strength, I pulled myself up, and fell upon the surface of the ring. You know the rest. I took another dose of the powder, and in a few minutes was back among you."

  The Chemist stopped speaking, and looked at his friends. "Well," he said, "you've heard it all. What do you think of it?"

  "It is a terrible thing to me," sighed the Very Young Man, "that you did not bring Llyda with you."

  "It would have been a terrible thing if I had brought her. But I am going back for her."

  "When do you plan to go back?" asked the Doctor after a moment.

  "As soon as I can--in a day or two," answered the Chemist.

  "Before you do your work here? You must not," remonstrated the Big Business Man. "Our war here needs you, our nation, the whole cause of liberty and freedom needs you. You cannot go."

  "Lylda needs me, too," returned the Chemist. "I have an obligation towards her now, you know, quite apart from my own feelings. Understand me, gentlemen," he continued earnestly, "I do not place myself and mine before the great fight for democracy and justice being waged in this world. That would be absurd. But it is not quite that way, actually; I can go back for Lylda and return here in a week. That week will make little difference to the war. On the other hand, if I go to France first, it may take me a good many months to complete my task, and during that time Lylda will be using up her life several times faster than I. No, gentlemen, I am going to her first."

  "That week you propose to take," said the Banker slowly, "will cost this world thousands of lives that you could save. Have you thought of that?"

  The Chemist flushed. "I can recognize the salvation of a nation or a cause," he returned hotly, "but if I must choose between the lives of a thousand men who are not dependent on me, and the life or welfare of one woman who is, I shall choose the woman."

  "He's right, you know," said the Doctor, and the Very Young Man agreed with him fervently.

  Two days later the company met again in the privacy of the clubroom. When they had finished dinner, the Chemist began in his usual quiet way:

  "I am going to ask you this time, gentlemen, to give me a full week. There are four of you--six hours a day of watching for each. It need not be too great a hardship. You see," he continued, as they nodded in agreement, "I want to spend a longer period in the ring world this time. I may never go back, and I want to learn, in the interest of science, as much about it as I can. I was there such a short time before, and it was all so strange and remarkable, I confess I learned practically nothing.

  "I told you all I could of its history. But of its arts, its science, and all its sociological and economic questions, I got hardly more than a glimpse. It is a world and a people far less advanced than ours, yet with something we have not, and probably never will have--the universally distributed milk of human kindness. Yes, gentlemen, it is a world well worth studying."

  The Banker came out of a brown study. "How about your formulas for these drugs?" he asked abruptly; "where are they?" The Chemist tapped his forehead smilingly. "Well, hadn't you better leave them with us?" the Banker pursued. "The hazards of your trip--you can't tell----"

  "Don't misunderstand me, gentlemen," broke in the Chemist. "I wouldn't give you those formulas if my life and even Lylda's depended on it. There again you do not differentiate between the individual and the race. I know you four very well. You are my friends, with all the bond that friendship implies. I believe in your integrity--each of you I trust implicitly. With these formulas you could crush Germany, or you could, any one of you, rule the world, with all its treasures
for your own. These drugs are the most powerful thing for good in the world to-day. But they are equally as powerful for evil. I would stake my life on what you would do, but I will not stake the life of a nation."

  "I know what I'd do if I had the formulas," began the Very Young Man.

  "Yes, but I don't know what you'd do," laughed the Chemist. "Don't you see I'm right?" They admitted they did, though the Banker acquiesced very grudgingly.

  "The time of my departure is at hand. Is there anything else, gentlemen, before I leave you?" asked the Chemist, beginning to disrobe.

  "Please tell Lylda I want very much to meet her," said the Very Young Man earnestly, and they all laughed.

  When the room was cleared, and the handkerchief and ring in place once more, the Chemist turned to them again. "Good-by, my friends," he said, holding out his hands. "One week from to-night, at most." Then he took the pills.

  No unusual incident marked his departure. The last they saw of him he was calmly sitting on the ring near the scratch.

  Then passed the slow days of watching, each taking his turn for the allotted six hours.

  By the fifth day, they began to hourly expect the Chemist, but it passed through its weary length, and he did not come. The sixth day dragged by, and then came the last--the day he had promised would end their watching. Still he did not come, and in the evening they gathered, and all four watched together, each unwilling to miss the return of the adventurer and his woman from another world.

  But the minutes lengthened into hours, and midnight found the white-faced little group, hopeful yet hopeless, with fear tugging at their hearts. A second week passed, and still they watched, explaining with an optimism they could none of them feel, the non-appearance of their friend. At the end of the second week they met again to talk the situation over, a dull feeling of fear and horror possessing them. The Doctor was the first to voice what now each of them was forced to believe. "I guess it's all useless," he said. "He's not coming back."

  "I don't hardly dare give him up," said the Big Business Man.

  "Me, too," agreed the Very Young Man sadly.

  The Doctor sat for some time in silence, thoughtfully regarding the ring. "My friends," he began finally, "this is too big a thing to deal with in any but the most careful way. I can't imagine what is going on inside that ring, but I do know what is happening in our world, and what our friend's return means to civilization here. Under the circumstances, therefore, I cannot, I will not give him up.

  "I am going to put that ring in a museum and pay for having it watched indefinitely. Will you join me?" He turned to the Big Business Man as he spoke.

  "Make it a threesome," said the Banker gruffly. "What do you take me for?" and the Very Young Man sighed with the tragedy of youth.

  CHAPTER IX

  AFTER FIVE YEARS

  Four men sat in the clubroom, at their ease in the luxurious leather chairs, smoking and talking earnestly. Near the center of the room stood a huge mahogany table. On its top, directly in the glare of light from an electrolier overhead, was spread a large black silk handkerchief. In the center of this handkerchief lay a heavy gold band--a woman's wedding-ring.

  An old-fashioned valise stood near a corner of the table. Its sides were perforated with small brass-rimmed holes; near the top on one side was a small square aperture covered with a wire mesh through which one might look into the interior. Altogether, from the outside, the bag looked much like those used for carrying small animals.

  As it lay on the table now its top was partly open. The inside was brightly lighted by a small storage battery and electric globe, fastened to the side. Near the bottom of the bag was a tiny wire rack, held suspended about an inch from the bottom by transverse wires to the sides. The inside of the bag was lined with black plush.

  On an arm of the Doctor's chair lay two white tin boxes three or four inches square. In his hand he held an opened envelope and several letter pages.

  "A little more than five years ago to-night, my friends," he began slowly, "we sat in this room with that"--he indicated the ring--"under very different circumstances." After a moment, he went on:

  "I think I am right when I say that for five years the thought uppermost in our minds has always been that ring and what is going on within one of its atoms."

  "You bet," said the Very Young Man.

  "For five years now we have had the ring watched," continued the Doctor, "but Rogers has never returned."

  "You asked us here to-night because you had something special to tell us," began the Very Young Man, with a questioning look at the valise and the ring.

  The Doctor smiled. "I'm sorry," he said, "I don't mean to be aggravating."

  "Go ahead in your own way, Frank," the Big Business Man put in. "We'll wait if we have to."

  The Doctor glanced at the papers in his hand; he had just taken them from the envelope. "You are consumed with curiosity, naturally, to know what I have to say--why I have brought the ring here to-night. Gentlemen, you have had to restrain that curiosity less than five minutes; I have had a far greater curiosity to endure--and restrain--for over five years.

  "When Rogers left us on his last journey into the ring, he gave into my keeping, unknown to you, this envelope." The Doctor held it up.

  "He made me swear I would keep its existence secret from every living being, until the date marked upon it, at which time, in the event of his not having returned, it was to be opened. Look at it." The Doctor laid the envelope on the table.

  "It is inscribed, as you see, 'To be opened by Dr. Frank Adams at 8 P. M. on September 4th, 1923.' For five years, gentlemen, I kept that envelope, knowing nothing of its contents and waiting for the moment when I might, with honor, open it. The struggle has been a hard one. Many times I have almost been able to persuade myself, in justice to our friend's safety--his very life, probably--that it would be best to disregard his instructions. But I did not; I waited until the date set and then, a little more than a month ago, alone in my office, I opened the envelope."

  The Doctor leaned forward in his chair and shuffled the papers he held in his hand. His three friends sat tense, waiting.

  "The envelope contained these papers. Among them is a letter in which I am directed to explain everything to you as soon as I succeed in doing certain other things. Those things I have now accomplished. So I have sent for you. I'll read you the letter first."

  No one spoke when the Doctor paused. The Banker drew a long breath. Then he bit the end off a fresh cigar and lit it with a shaking hand. The Doctor shifted his chair closer to the table under the light.

  "The letter is dated September 14th, 1918. It begins: 'This will be read at 8 P. M. on September 4th, 1923, by Dr. Frank Adams with no one else present. If the envelope has been opened by him previous to that date I request him to read no further. If it has fallen into other hands than his I can only hope that the reader will immediately destroy it unread.'" The Doctor paused an instant, then went on.

  "Gentlemen, we are approaching the most important events of our lives. An extraordinary duty--a tremendous responsibility, rests with us, of all the millions of people on this earth. I ask that you listen most carefully."

  His admonition was quite unnecessary, for no one could have been more intent than the three men silently facing him.

  The Doctor continued reading: "'From Dr. Frank Adams, I exact the following oath, before he reads further. You, Dr. Adams, will divulge to no one, for a period of thirty days, the formulas set down in these papers; you will follow implicitly the directions given you; you will do nothing that is not expressly stated here. Should you be unable to carry out these directions, you will destroy this letter and the formulas, and tell no one of their ever having been in existence. I must have your oath, Dr. Adams, before you proceed further.'"

  The Doctor's voice died away, and he laid the papers on the table.

  "Gentlemen," he went on, "later on in the letter I am directed to consult with you three, setting before you this w
hole matter. But before I do so I must exact a similar oath from each of you. I must have your word of honor, gentlemen, that you will not attempt to transgress the instructions given us, and that you will never, by word or action, allow a suggestion of what passes between us here in this room to-night, to reach any other person. Have I your promise?"

  Each of his three hearers found voice to agree. The Banker's face was very red, and he mopped his forehead nervously with his handkerchief.

  The Doctor picked up the papers. "The letter goes on: 'I am about to venture back into the unknown world of the ring. What will befall me there I cannot foretell. If by September 4th, 1923, I have not returned, or no other mortal has come out of the ring, it is my desire that you and the three gentlemen with you at the time of my departure, use this discovery of mine for the benefit of humanity in your world, or the world in the ring, exactly as I myself would have used it were I there.