by Don Wilcox
Something floating along on the water attracted his attention. It appeared to be one of those giant snails with the red flesh and cream colored backs. But this snail was carrying something—something that looked very much like a man.
“What next?” Stupe mumbled. “Do they ride the sea on snails on this planet?” He needed his binoculars to see what was going on. Apparently the snail’s passenger was struggling with ropes. “I’d better tell Dudu.”
Stupe bounded down the spiral stairs, but this time he was intercepted by the Old Man, who was just yawning out of his sleep.
“What is all the hurry about, guard?” the Old Man asked.
Stupe hesitated. If the Old Man took him for a guard or a servant, he had better answer in kind. “Someone is coming on the back of a snail.” He felt that he should add “sir” or “your honor” or some other formal address, but the Old Man was too sleepy to notice.
“Snail?” the Old Man yawned.
“The beast is jerking around like something crazy,” said Stupe.
“Some fish is nibbling at it,” said the Old Man. “But I never heard of anybody riding one of the things. Ring for the other guards. Never mind, I’ll do it.”
The Old Man acted on his own suggestion at once. There was nothing Stupe could do but retreat.
A few minutes later, when Stupe descended for the first time to the city proper, he was aware that he had left a scene of trouble in his wake. Was it one of his own men who had come to the overhead port? He wondered. He tried to remember how Hefty had been dressed.
“Yea, gods, I wouldn’t want that boy to get in bad.” He looked back, wishing that Dudu might appear so that he could appeal to her.
“Come on,” his servant companion said. “Here’s the elevator.”
It had been arranged that Stupe would work with a so-called “Egg-Inspector.” What this meant Stupe did not know. But presently he was being introduced to a huge, sluggish official—a man whose costume was weighed with medals.
“Your new assistant, Inspector.”
“Huh? Oh—er—all right, follow me.”
The Inspector was preoccupied with the chase that was now going on high overhead. Some stranger had crashed the top gate of this citadel and had resisted the guards. He was being foolhardy, Stupe thought. Rashness on the part of foreigners is never good judgment.
“Come on,” the Inspector repeated, placing a heavy metal hammer in Stupe’s hand. “Get busy.”
Stupe waited for more specific instructions.
After a sharp reprimand or two he began to catch on. He was supposed to test the “Eggs.” These spherical objects, approximately ten feet in diameter, lined the walks of the residential district. For some strange reason each mound-shaped residence had a small sphere in its front yard. Eventually Stupe learned that these objects were safety devices—life boats, as it were.
“Tap them!” the Inspector barked. “Get busy.”
Stupe pounded. He struck the first as if he were swinging a sixteen pound maul. The stone-glass sphere shuddered. The Inspector gave a startled jump. “Not so hard. That citizen is fussy. You’ll have to build a new one if you break that.”
So the inhabitants of this undersea world were prepared for the inpouring of a flood. As Stupe listened to the Inspector exchanging comments with the residents he understood. Regular flood drills were practiced. In case the walls of the city should spring a leak, every woman and child would enter one of these safety eggs, while the men would get busy with their flood fighting equipment.
The unusual building material, previously alluded to, was a natural substance very much like a plastic product—stone-glass. There were mines of it. With this natural resource it seemed that the builders were able to make houses, walls around their city, and fantastic towers with spiral steps that led to the observation platform overhead.
Another natural resource was the live steam—an inexhaustible supply of it from somewhere within the bowels of the planet. It furnished the power for the huge stone-glass hoses. The molten stuff was thus on tap at the summit of any tower.
Fascinating as these devices were to Stupe’s curiosity, he was much more concerned with the troubles of the stranger who had crashed the gates. Eight hundred feet overhead, barely discernible amid the confusion of guards, this intruder was chasing back and forth along the horizontal trails to and from the central balcony.
“Why don’t they nab him?” the Inspector kept saying. Along the streets several of the natives had stopped to look up. Some had started toward the elevators to get in on the excitement. Now the Inspector took the hammer, tossed it at the foot of the nearest Egg, and repeated his favorite expression, “Come on.”
The elevator was crowded with men, all jabbering in their native tongue, much too excited to notice Stupe. In his costume he was passing as one of them. And as he stood back of the Inspector, with the good manners of a subordinate, he was not likely to be noticed.
“Come on . . . Come on . . .
The foot beats along the horizontal path high above the city echoed within the walls like low thunder. Suddenly the crowd stopped and began to surge backward. The stranger stood in their path. He was shouting wild threats, and although they could not understand his words, his insane fury held them at bay.
“Dick!” Stupe gasped, “Dick Bracket, how did he—”
It would have been impossible to shout loud enough for Dick to hear against all the clamor. What was Dick waving in his hand? Something like an immense candle. Out of the pandemonium Stupe caught two words from Dick’s frenzied voice.
“Kill you . . . kill you . . . kill!”
The threat had magical effect. It gave Dick his moment to dodge into another pathway. Three guards were scampering out of the way. Was he carrying a stick of dynamite or some other explosive? Stupe recalled that he had made a visit to the arsenal only a few days before.
The race was on again. The crowd surged forward. The guards were closing in on Dick from three sides. His only escape was the metal tower. Suddenly he was climbing upward—up toward the curved ceiling. A dead end, thought Stupe. He has trapped himself now. Four guards followed him. One of them caught him by the heel.
“Kill!” the wild screech rang out. Like an animal fighting for his life Dick clung with one hand, kicking and snarling. Then he hurled the red stick. It flew straight toward the bridge where the crowd had gathered below him.
Someone tried to catch it—swung at it—batted it over the heads of the others. Then it struck the curved wall—
BLAMMMM!
The fire flashed hot before Stupe’s eyes. Fire and a puff of white smoke. The crowds along the bridge went into a momentary panic. Stupe was no longer following at the heels of the Inspector. He was trying to dodge the stampede of frightened men. At the same time he edged forward hoping to make Dick Bracket hear his shout.
But Dick was making his escape now. The desperate young hothead leaped down to the bridge over the heads of two guards. Now he hurled a third overboard, and the kicking, writhing body fell through the eight hundred feet to be pulverized on the street. With a clear path back to the Old Man’s spiral stairs, Dick Bracket streaked his way to freedom. Before the echo of the explosion died away, he had reached the surface.
CHAPTER XXXII
Everything had happened so fast that Stupe hadn’t had time to get his thoughts together. Where had Dick come from? Were other members of the party with him? Were they waiting overhead in a motorboat?
“If I could only have a word with Hefty—”
The crowd was drifting back to the level of the city by way of elevators and staircases, and Stupe saw that he had shaken his boss, at least temporarily. That was a break. He hurried around the circular balcony to the palace of Dudu.
“Where is she? Has she returned?”
Before the servant could answer him, he heard the swooshing skirts of the goddess as she swept in from blue-lighted tunnel.
“Were you calling for me?” Her melodious vo
ice thrilled him as it had during the whispers of his recent dreams. He was more self-conscious now than he had been during their first conversations. So much had happened. Those unexpected kisses—the whispers of her ceremonial plans—the uncertainty of his own existence here.
“Did you see what happened on the balcony?” he asked. “That foreigner was one of my party—from my land.”
The goddess frowned disapprovingly. “I did not care for his exhibition. There was no excuse for such rash behavior.”
“Please do not think we are all like him,” Stupe said. “He is a hothead—a criminal type. The whole party has been troubled by him. How did he get here? Do you know? Is it too late for me to overtake him?”
Stupe was becoming confused. The girl’s searching eyes disturbed him. From his words he appeared to be in alliance with Dick. There was danger that he would break the trust which had sprung up between them. She was nodding slowly.
“If you wish to reach him with a message, I can help you.”
“I want him to tell the others that I have found you—that you are real.”
Dick Bracket was on his way back to see Captain Meetz. Out of his many motives, frustrated by the recent violence, he had chosen one course of action. He must tell the Captain about this amazing world beneath the sea.
As he plunged into the waters, he realized that the swim to shore would be too much for his strength. Yet that was his only route of escape. If only there would be a chance to rest—
Floundering in the waters he discovered the tiny raft tied beneath the island platform. Would he be safe here until he could collect his thoughts? He climbed aboard, edged into the streak of sunshine and allowed himself to relax.
Within twenty-four hours Dick Bracket had found his way back to the Venusian Capital, to the bedside of Captain Meetz.
“Not so fast,” the Captain said, rousing up and propping a pillow behind his back. “You’re too excited, Dick. I can’t make head nor tail of your story. Did the Doctor know you came in here? I’m supposed to be a sick man, you know.”
“I slipped in without being seen. A few hours ago I was out there in the sea, hiding under that little platform.”
“What little platform?”
“The one above the hidden city.”
“What hidden city?”
“The one where the girl is—the girl that Wellington sent us here to find.”
The pained expression of Captain Meetz was not from his bullet wound or his illness. His whole illusion about his Venusian venture was suddenly shaken.
“But that was a fake!” he exploded. “A trumped-up story. Wellington never took any stock in the fanciful yarn that Mr. Vest told about a beautiful girl on a white horse. You know that, Dick!”
Dick stared past the Captain. His lips were tight. In his eyes was the vision of a sapphire sea.
“I tell you, it’s true, Captain. I was drifting back to shore on a little raft when she came to me.”
“From where?”
“Right up out of the water. Hell, man, she was the most beautiful thing you ever saw. The spray of the sea was all over me as that big white stallion came dashing out of the waves, and there she was riding like a queen—”
“What have you been drinking?”
“Not a damned thing.”
“You look bad. You need rest and nourishment, I’ll bet. You’re not yourself. Now these plans for a Wellington empire—”
The Captain broke off sharply. His hotheaded young assistant was coming toward him, fists doubled. Such rash, insane behavior was typical. Back in the States there would be a straitjacket for this lad.
The Captain waved his hand in acquiescence. “All right, all right—go on with your story.”
“You believe me?” Dick clutched the Captain by the shoulders. “I’m telling you, she’s there! Out there in the waves! We’ve got to turn our whole scheme about—give Wellington what he sent us for. Capture that prize . . .”
The captain might have suffered a relapse. To dream of an empire, organized in secret under the very nose of the authorities; to scream the well laid plans under the guise of a quest for a fantastic beauty needed by a billionaire for his show business—and then, out of a blue sky, to be informed that the declared prize was not a fantasy after all, but a living and breathing reality—this was enough to stun a sick man into insensibility.
Captain Meetz was not stunned. He was a man of great energy and drive.
“I’m getting up from here,” he said.
“You’d better consult the doctor.”
“Doctor be damned. I’ve got business to take care of. I’m going to get word back to Wellington—”
The captain was too busy with his own thoughts, to listen carefully to Dick’s further talk about his encounter with the beautiful girl. But he caught a sketchy idea. Dick had had a glimpse of a world beneath the sea—a world where guards captured any foreigner who tried to intrude—a world where an earth man would come in handy for an urgent matter connected with a ritual—a world that Dick had escaped none too soon—a world where a beautiful goddess reigned with some mysterious power.
“She’s a rare one,” Dick conceded. “She followed me and tried to give me some message that she said was from Stupe Smith. But I was too smart for her. I wouldn’t listen.”
CHAPTER XXXIII
The camp which the earth party established above the Thirteenth Finger was enlivened by the presence of Gypsy Brown’s little friend with the orange wings. When she and Thelma returned from an errand to the plane, they saw that some wood had been added to the campfire, and the camp stool had been moved up close.
“Somebody bass ben varming his veet at our vire,” Gypsy Brown said.
“You sound like a recitation of the three bears,” said Thelma. “Someone has been eating my porridge.”
“Has it? I mean, did dey?” Gypsy asked, half in alarm. “Oh my! Somevun bass been eating my chocolate pies! And chust look! Dey left dere calling card.”
“Where?” said Thelma.
“In der pie—sticking straight up. Dot rascal; dot leedle orange-vinged mischief!”
The “calling card” was a tiny orange feather, Gooyay’s, unquestionably. The little vagabond had had his share of refreshment during their absence. He had eaten all of the pie except one piece. That piece he had stuck his feather on like a miniature flag.
“Dot vas to show us who done it,” Gypsy said, “So ve vouldn’t tink it vas a regular thief.”
“By rights,” said Thelma, “we ought to spank him. But if we did he would think it was a new earth joke, and he would laugh like a little monkey.”
“I vould like to take him back to der earth with me,” said Gypsy, “and veed him chocolate pies der rest of his life. Vith his vings he would be mine own leedle angel.”
Thelma laughed at this. “With his wings you would have a merry time keeping track of him. He would fly across the country to play baseball, I’ll bet, and how would you call him home when it was supper time?”
“Don’t vorry,” Gypsy said, with a wink, “Ven I bake chocolate pies, he don’t forget about supper.”
“You’re right,” said Thelma, “He’ll come home—and bring all of the baseball team with him.”
All but four members of the earth party were present at this Oceanside camp. As Dr. Jabetta remarked, it was an unusual thing for so many of them to be reunited.
“The Captain should be with us too,” the Doctor said, “He could be back on his feet now if he hadn’t worried so much.”
The other three members who were missing were Stupe Smith, Dick Bracket and Bull Fiddle. As to Stupe’s strange disappearance there was much concern. Hefty and some of the others were scouting over the hills at present, trying to find some trace of him.
Dick’s disappearance was a matter which was discussed only in secret. The few who had come in the first plane, brought here at the command of Dick, knew the dread secret—or believed they knew. They had last seen him tied to the ba
ck of a lumbering giant snail. They believed that he had been devoured.
The most unaccountable case was that of Bull Fiddle. At mid-day, shortly after the second plane had arrived, the first one had taken off. An unscheduled flight. Since only Bull Fiddle was unaccounted for, everyone assumed that he must have yielded to some perverse impulse to run away. Where had he gone? And why?
“Those Fiddle brothers are an erratic lot,” the doctor said guardedly.
Gypsy Brown made no comment. Privately she was suspicious of everyone. The doctor needn’t try to confide in her. She might share confidences with Hefty and the Stevens’ sisters, but she knew she would learn more by keeping here ears open and her mouth shut.
“It looks like we’ll be here for some time,” the doctor went on, “With the captain out of the picture and Stupe and Dick both absent, we should hold an election to see who is boss.”
“Who vunts to be bossed by a boss?” Gypsy Brown grumbled, and went about her business.
“You’d better keep a sharp watch over your little winged pet,” the doctor said, deciding that some leadership was necessary. “There are probably more winged men around us than we know. Are you keeping him tied?”
Gypsy Brown nodded. She would look out for Gooyay all right. She hadn’t forgotten that some winged rapscallion had stolen her suitcase. She was still determined to keep the little fellow as a hostage.
Everyone was worried because there was only one plane now, but neither the Stevens sisters nor Gypsy saw fit to invest any authority in Dr. Jabetta. Jake Fiddle was surly over his brother’s unaccountable departure. The others preferred to leave him alone. Things looked black to Hefty. Stupe’s disappearance had left the party in a hole.
Little Hefty trudged wearily down the mountainside, the picture of fatigue and despair. It was nearly sunset, and he had been hiking all day. He settled himself on a folded blanket at the mouth of the cave, and one of the Stevens girls unlaced his shoes and prepared a footbath for him.