"Wh-what?"
"The Khan's Beckerley fields are off in Alaska! His Siberian railroads are blocked at last by the fungi! He's out of fuel! It can't be our fields that are off, for our coal mines are too close behind our lines to be cut off in this way."
"How can you know that any Beckerley fields are off?" asked Sally.
"The—the—" He caught himself, then proceeded, "We're not going to Pelew Island, after all. We're going to Guam. This information can't wait; for, if the American lines know it and advance at once, the war's over. Our Beckerley fields are on, and yours are off!"
"How—how do you know?"
"I'll tell you, for it can't do any harm now. You wanted to know what I knew about this plague of algae, didn't you? Well, I'll tell you, Sally. It isn't an American weapon; it's an accident!"
"An—accident?"
"Yes, or a by-product. It's the result of the Beckerley fields. I got the hunch when I learned that the center of the trouble seemed to be Alaska. Up in Alaska there are two enormous fields of force within a few hundred feet of each other, ours and yours. Between them is a hundred-mile-long zone of terrific electrical strain. What's the result? Ozone! Tons of ozone pouring up into the air, until the very envelope of air around the earth was affected.
"The normal ozone content increased, and this layer of ozone around the earth cut off the sun's death rays which had been maintaining the balance of nature. Relieved from the restraining influence of the death rays, the cryptogamia— the lichen; and fungi and algae—increased to abnormal quantities.
"But it's over now. Ozone is unstable and goes rapidly back to normal. The ozone in the air is decreasing. The death rays are getting through again.
"How do I know? Because the algae are dying, and that can mean only one thing—that there are no longer two Beckerley fields opposing each other in Alaska, pouring ozone into the air. There is only one Beckerley field—ours. The Khan's shield is gone, and all we need do is advance!"
Sally was very pale now. "I wish you hadn't told me this," she whispered. "Oh, Dick, don't you see that it means that I just have to stop you? If you love me, throw me into the slime of the sea, for I'd rather die than live these next few hours trying to kill you!"
His triumphant face sobered. "Hours?" he echoed. "It will take us three days to reach Guam. Sally, when I need sleep, I'm going to tie you up. And I hope you don't resist, because Lord knows I don't want to hurt you."
But she yielded quite submissively when, a few hours later, he twisted the painter rope about her wrists and ankles. He remembered her trick of the drugged finger nail, and carefully avoided giving her another similar opportunity. Then he set and locked the gyro steering compass, and curled up on one of the seats to sleep.
When he awoke, the boat was still slapping along across the slime. Sally was still securely tied and apparently in. the same position, but the bottom of the boat was wet with some colorless fluid.
"What's this?" he snapped.
"It's your fuel," said Sally triumphantly. "I drained the tank."
He gasped! But in a moment he broke out in a chuckle of relief. "That isn't dynoline," he said. "That's the fresh water from the sun-alembic I was saving against a cloudy day. The water tank's air-tight, and the algae can't get in."
Sally sagged despondently in her place. "Will you untie me?" she asked dully. "I'm very cramped,"
HE VENTURED an attempt to sleep only once more, and this time lying full length against the fuel tank, while he bound Sally not only hand and foot, but lashed her to the gunwale as well. And when he awakened, she had kicked the sun-alembic to bits.
"Why'd you do that?" he asked angrily. "Although we don't need water for the one day that's left to travel, it would be a convenience."
"I did it so that if we miss Guam we'll be dead before some scouting American plane happens to run across us."
"We won't miss Guam," he promised grimly.
As the hot, stinking day wore on, the grueling grind began to tell on Lister. All about them the algae was turning brown, and the stench was almost unbearably nauseating.
"I'm going bats," he told the girl. "A crazy poem keeps hammering at my head. I've got to pass it on, or I shall go bats. Did you ever hear the short-short-short story about Algy? All this rotting algae is what suggested it to me, I guess."
Sally turned intent catlike eyes on him, aroused from her lethargy by the possibility of his cracking.
"Go on. Tell it to me," she urged insidiously.
He laughed harshly, discordantly, gave his head a violent shake, and ran the back of his hand across his tired eyes.
"It goes like this," he said:
"Bear met Algy.
Bear et Algy.
Bear was bulgy.
Bulge was Algy."
Suddenly, he gave a wild laugh. "That's all wrong this time!" he declared. "By Heaven! The bear isn't eating Algy this time. Algae is eating the bear—the Siberian bear. We've got them licked, if we ever reach Guam."
"We never will reach Guam," the girl taunted him.
"Won't we?" he exclaimed. "Look! A low shore line showed in the darkening east. "Guam!" he announced, sober and sane once more.
Sally was disconsolate. "I've lost, then," she whimpered. "Please, Dick, be kind to me, and—let me kiss you now, in case anything happens."
He knew what she meant. He had worried enough over the question of what would happen to the lovely Nightshade; for, despite his assurance, he knew that Captain Cass was aware of Sally's identity. The two days of grace were long since up—Cass would have reported the circumstances of Lister's disappearance.
Cass' description of Sally, together with the blurred photographs in Lister's office, would certainly identify the girl. Nothing could save her from a wall at sunrise. So he drew her into his arms with a tenderness born of despair.
Just in time he realized her intent. He caught her wrist as she struck with her drugged finger nail at his throat.
"Damn you, Sally!" he blazed. "Now I'm going to give you a dose of your own medicine. There's only one way you're safe to have around, and that's unconscious!"
But she read his purpose. Before he could seize her forefinger, she had clenched it into a stubborn little fist, and she fought him with a strength that was amazing. But at last he saw the way: disregarding her blows against his face, he slowly, inexorably, crushed her clenched fist in his hand. She cried out in pain as her own finger nails were driven into the flesh of her palm, and then, suddenly, her eyes widened, fluttered, and closed, and she sank first to her knees, then in a limp heap at his feet.
IT WAS DEEP NIGHT when he carried her up the side of the U. S. cruiser Dallas, stalled in the algae off Agana. Thrusting her into the arms of the ship's surgeon, he rushed to report to the commanding officer his information: that he knew, from the browning of the algae, that the Khan's Alaskan Beckerley field was off. The message did not need to wait for coding, for America still held the secret of non-interceptible radio.
Scarcely an hour later came back the news that America had triumphed in Alaska.
Later in the night came the flash that the Khan was dead—his body had been positively identified. America broadcast this news to the world.
By morning, rioting and dissension had broken out all over Asia. The Asiatic Union was disintegrating. It was the beginning of the end.
There was jubilation aboard the Dallas, but Dick Lister could not share in it. True, yes, he had saved America. He was a great national hero. The president in person had radioed his thanks.
So Dick Lister pretended to be elated, to join in the celebration—for, of course, he had to. But, through it all, two faces haunted him: the piquant oriental features of the girl he loved, and the grim, inexorable, duty-mad features of Captain Cass. Regardless of the fact that the war was now over and won, regardless of the part which Lister had played in winning it, Cass would never rest until he had brought death to the archspy of the late enemy.
And so, as soon as he cou
ld, Lister brake away from the jollification, and dragged his leaden feet toward the ship's hospital. There he stood with the ship's doctor, looking down on the still unconscious Sally.
"A very beautiful girl, your fiancee," said the doctor.
"Yes. We were kidnaped together by the Khan's spies, and she was really more important than I in accomplishing our escape. This is just exhaustion —and, of course, excitement." But he knew that Captain Cass would certainly spike that story.
"Well," observed the doctor, "your coming is almost the first excitement I've, had out of this war. I hope you're right about the algae being over, for it's been ungodly dull being stuck here in all this slime. One casualty is all I've seen, and that one at a distance. A young officer tried to land his plane on the algae a week ago, nosed over, and was lost. They never recovered his body."
"It's a difficult thing to do—find a body in that green muck," said Lister reminiscently. "Who was he?"
"He was—let's see—a Captain Jim Cass. We knew who it was, 'cause we'd been expecting him."
Captain Jim Cass! A week ago. Then Cass had never returned to America He had died before the end of the two days of grace which he had granted Lister. And his knowledge of Sally's identity had died with him. Now no one would ever know!
With a sob of joyous relief, Dick Lister dropped to his knees beside the sleeping form of the girl he loved.
Yellow Slaves
By Ralph Milne Farley and Stanley G. Weinbaum
Porpoise
DUSK over the Pacific. The great oily swells that misled Balboa into giving this world-girdling sea its false name of "Peaceful," slid smoothly away from the forty-foot cabin launch, and behind the craft its wake boiled momentarily before merging with the oily swell again.
Walter Scott, sandy-haired rangy Texan G-man ace, stared fixedly into the darkening southern sky, turning only intermittently to glance to the east, where the lights of Coronado showed faintly on the horizon like a false sunrise. Now he flashed a look at the clean-cut young Irishman at his side.
"Damn funny, Dan," he said. "I get an anonymous letter saying that somebody is going to run some Chinese into the U. S. tonight. Can't be from a friend of mine, or it would have been signed. Can't be from an enemy, for no enemy would send me a tip. You figure it out, O'Brien."
"An enemy—such as Slim Hammond, for instance—might want to lead you into a trap, Mr. Scott," O'Brien replied.
"I don't think so," slowly mused the rangy Texan. "There's something fishy about the whole set-up. How did whoever he was, know that we were in San Diego? He's no amateur—there were no finger prints on the letter. And—what's that?"
"It's a boat," said his companion needlessly. Scott turned toward a freckle-faced young man, bent over the wheel in the stern, his hatless red hair flaming like a reflection of the exhaust.
HEAD that craft off!" he snapped. "We'll take a look at her." The staccato roar of the stranger's engine grew rapidly louder. She was coming swiftly out of the seas that wash Baja California, the wild Mexican peninsula that severs the Gulf of California from the Pacific. She was running northward parallel to the shore, heading toward Coronado or San Diego.
"Now!" called Scott. "Swing across her bow." His voice turned grim. "If she doesn't stop, send a shot ahead of her."
She didn't stop. She swung in a wide half-circle, and the sputter of her laboring engines rose in crescendo. She was far more agile than the Coast Guard cruiser which Scott had requisitioned upon receiving his anonymous tip-off. The strange craft showed now as a low, black, swift fifty-footer; but illuminated in silhouette by the rocket-like jets from her exhaust pipes.
"Let her have it!" snapped Scott.
There was a series of flashing reports, as Dan O'Brien, far in the prow of the Coast Guard cutter ‘Porpoise’, sent a stream of lead from his machine gun across the bow of the stranger. She did not pause. A hundred yards to seaward she swung past in the darkness.
ALL right, cried the G-man, his voice crackling like the gun itself. "The United States has a twelve-mile treaty with Mexico. Give it to 'em amidships!"
O'Brien swung the muzzle toward the receding bulk. Above the rattling roar of his weapon, there came across the oily waters the crash of breaking glass; and then, suddenly, a high whine and a sullen boom.
"It's a one-pounder!" gasped Scott. "They've turned a cannon on us!"
AGAIN came the roar, followed by a splash astern. Scott seized his binoculars, and focused them on the craft that was drawing slowly away from their pursuit.
"Can't make out the name," he growled. Then started sharply, and stared even more intently.
A swarthy thin-faced man, with a small black mustache, emerged inquisitively from the cabin of the G-men's boat. Scott shouted to him, "Did you see that, Gregory? Did you see that?"
All four G-men stared hard to starboard, in the gathering dusk.
"They're dumping their cargo overboard!" blazed Scott. "And the bundles look suspiciously like—Torchy, hard a starboard. We'll see if we can pick up any evidence."
The stranger must: have noticed the Porpoise's change of course, for another shot plumped sullenly into the water just beyond the G-men's bow.
"Don't want us to have a look, eh?" grunted Scott. "Well, if those packages were what they looked like to me, I don't blame them. You can't hang a man for smuggling Chinks, but you can for murder; and what they dumped was just the shape and size of a human being!"
But only the black waters of the Pacific showed as they crossed the spot at which the cargo had been thrown overboard. Whatever had pierced that mysterious surface, it was now as if it had never been ruffled.
"Weighted, of course," said the G-man. "Whatever it was, it's feeding the crabs thirty fathoms down."
HE STARED into the darkness to the north, where only the faintest purr of engines drifted down on the wind. The mysterious black craft was fully a half-mile ahead by now, and drawing swiftly away from the lumbering Coast Guard cruiser. Scott swore softly under his breath.
"Figured we'd be watching the coast," he muttered. "`They saw they hadn't any chance of running through tonight, so they dumped their cargo, and now they'll circle back to wherever their base is. And there's a thousand miles of Lower California where it might be!"
Suddenly he slapped his thigh. "No, by the Lord!" he roared. There isn't! Their base has to be within one night's run of the American border. It can't be much more than a hundred miles south of Coronado, because they don't dare do any day-time running!" He pounded Gregory Patton on the back. "That means it has to be between here and San Telmo, and the chances are that it's near Ensenada. Probably in Ensenada, because an establishment such as they need—room for forty or fifty Chinks at once—is less noticeable in a town than in open country.
He spun toward the stern, where Torchy Cullinane bent his flaming head above the controls. "Put about!" he yelled. "We're going to Ensenada."
"G-men got no business in Ensenada, sir," Torchy called back. "It's in Mexico, you know, Mr. Scott."
"We'll not be on official business, then," retorted Scott. "We've got our passports, haven't we? It won't do any harm to see what info we can pick up to help us at the American end of the business."
AS THE Porpoise swung about, Dan O'Brien came aft from his machine gun, and remarked, "I'm betting it's Slim Hammond. It would take a heartless snake like him to murder a lot of helpless heathens—and after their paying him good money to take safe care of them. The double-crossing bastard!"
"A few minutes ago you blamed Hammond for sending me the tip. Do you think he's tipping me off to his own racket, Dan?"
"I'd not put it above him," retorted the other as he spat into the black waters, and stared back at the receding lights of Coronado. "Why do you suppose the Chink-smugglers use a boat, when they could run the Chinks overland and cut the expense?"
"Because a Chink on land is still a Chink, and hence is evidence, regardless whether he's alive or dead; but a Chink at sea is only fish-food if there's
any danger of him being discovered."
It was full daylight when the white adobe shacks of Ensenada appeared, sandwiched between the Coast Range and the sea.
"I can find out more here alone," said Scott. "Patton, you and Cullinane and O'Brien go on back to San Diego. Tell Headquarters where I am, and if I'm not back in twenty-four hours, round up all the special agents you can, and come back, looking for trouble." I've got a hunch there's going to be plenty."
"And if there ain't, you'll find it," muttered the irrepressible Torchy.
THE G-man disembarked on the solitary wooden wharf, grunted a farewell to his companions, and walked past two tiny fishing-smacks whose Indian and Mexican crews looked curiously at him. He proceeded slowly up the narrow and dusty street, past irregular rows of adobe buildings. None looked large enough to be the object of his quest, until he came to a two-story white structure with a sign painted on the wall above the door, "Casa de Libertad." Under it was the name of the proprietor, "Charles Yung."
A cantina, beyond doubt. Scott's Spanish was limited, but here was certainly the place to get information. He crossed the street, pushed open the door, and entered, blinking in the sudden dimness. A girl was singing; and, early morning though it was, some of the tables were occupied. As his eyes adjusted, he perceived that the girl was a Eurasian half white, half Chinese. The place itself was a dive, dingy and dirty.
THEN Scott gasped. Staring at him from a near-by table were two girls, brown eyes and blue fixed on him. Julia Dorni Slesson, daughter of the notorious Pug Dorni, Chicago gangland chief—and little Iowa-bred Mary Smith, fiancée of the late Jim Grant. Julia wore a flaming red sport suit, but Mary was dressed in black.
La Casa De Libertad
WHAT the devil are you two doing here?" Scott bellowed.
Mary looked up at him out of innocently large blue eyes. "Can't a couple of ladies enjoy themselves quietly without having the government send an investigator?" she asked demurely. "Besides, we're in Mexico, and out of your jurisdiction; so what are you going to do about it?"
The Lost Master - The Collected Works Page 6