CHAPTER VIII
Trapped
Blake came back to consciousness with an aching head and the sensation of something gripping and biting into his body and limbs. He tried to stir, but couldn’t. Jerking his eyes open he found he was bound hand and foot, securely fastened to one of the two great globes. Whether it was the positive or negative one he didn’t know: either way they were equally dangerous.
The metal of the globe was cold under his bare back and arms. He tightened his powerful muscles in a vain endeavor to break away the tough cords that held him, triply knotted to projections on the globe’s surface. But the more he pulled the tighter they became until at last he desisted, breathing hard, perspiration streaming down his face.
He was aware of two things during the brief respite—things apart from the rumble and thud of meshed gears and whining machinery. One was a more distant sound, a dull heaving booming, and the other was the trembling of the one great window in its sockets under the repeated concussions. He twisted his head round as far as the cord allowed and stared: through the window smoke was visible—heavy, yellow smoke drifting by like fog.
He frowned in bewilderment, then suddenly it dawned on him. The volcano! Nothing else could produce such effects… Instantly he redoubled his efforts with frantic desperation, wondering as he tugged and pulled them how much time had elapsed during his unconsciousness. At any moment he might be blasted into infinitesimal dust… And Lania! Blake felt sick at the thought of her. If Dalaker had kept his word and gone after her…! He could sneak up without Ranji seeing him in the gloom, and—
Blake gave a hoarse cry as the realization stunned in upon him. He tore on his ropes until his flesh bruised and bled; but Dalaker had done a good job of work. There was no shifting them. Aching from his efforts, Blake stared in bewildered fascination at the opposite globe, fifty feet from him. He’d have given his soul to know how long he had before death caught up with him.
Outside, the booming sounds increased, and suddenly the tortured window cracked and splintered into pieces that tinkled inwards. Blake twisted his head again and gasped in hoarse delight as a cream-hued turban rose above the frame. A gleaming knife followed suit and in another second Ranji had vaulted lightly into the machine room, followed by wispy streaks of evil smelling smoke.
“Ranji!” Blake screamed. “Up here! Quick!”
The Indian glanced up, nodded, then turned swiftly aside and seized a ladder, evidently the one Dalaker had used. Propping it against the globe Ranji scrambled up it almost before it came to rest, sliced his knife to good effect, and supported Blake as the last rope gave way until he was able to get a grip on the rungs for himself.
They literally fell down the ladder to the metal floor—but they had not gone five yards before the thing happened. Violet streamers of electrical energy surged between the two globes with a shattering, crackling roar, flooding the great place with a purple haze of light.
Blake felt his hair stand upright as a terrific wave of static beat around him. His body tingled violently. Shaking and gasping, he and Ranji staggered away from the globes’ near proximity. When at last they came to look back the globes were gray again. The machinery had changed its note, but it was still working steadily.
“Well, that’s that,” Blake groaned bitterly. “The electrical wave has been released so I guess there’s nothing on earth can save those planes now—” He broke off and turned sharply to the Indian.
“Thanks a lot, Ranji,” he breathed gratefully. “But how in heaven did you know I was here?”
“Infidel has lot to answer for,” Ranji answered venomously. “Like reptile he sneaked out of dark. His gun was ready before honorable knife could spill his blood… He gloated like an overfed pig over leaving you tied to gray globe up there…”
“Then?” Blake urged. “Hurry up, man! What about Lania? Why did you…?”
It was not in Ranji to be hurried. He went on with cold, passionate bitterness.
“Infidel Dalaker shot the memsahib, sahib Blake. Shot her in back. Bad wound. Then pig of a Dalaker shot at me. I wonderfully ducked, received long scratch on shoulder. Feigned death, like animal, sahib. Infidel then go way.”
“Well?” Blake grated. “Damn you, man, step on it!”
Ranji shrugged, winced as he fingered his ripped shoulder. “Came for you, sahib Blake. Left the memsahib lying. Much fog to shield her, from volcano—”
“Let’s go!” Blake snapped.
In one bound he vaulted to the window, dropped outside into the choking smoke wreaths with the Indian beside him. Doradians came scurrying past in the gloom, some of them gripping their remaining possessions, searching frantically for the nearest place of safety… The ground shook incessantly, and overhead the denser smoke banks were painted dull red from the volcano’s furious crater.
“This way, sahib,” Ranji exclaimed, and with an unerring sense of direction headed through the smoke. “I took note of my course…”
They began to run at top speed, dodging the phantom figures that occasionally merged out of the mist—until presently they left the city’s main buildings behind. The shouting and screaming and stampeding grew less—they had a vision of the wilder terrain of the valley ahead of them, almost clear here of smoke as a drift of the wind carried the volcano’s discharge in the opposite direction.
Once they glimpsed the crater itself, flame-encrusted, spouting forth cinders and ash. There was a significant laboriousness about its efforts that seemed to presage it had still to get fully into its stride…
Blake hardly heeded it. He strode on with a set face, burst into a run where he could, until at last, nearly spent for breath, he reached the fallen girl’s side, lifted her limp body in his arms.
“Lania!” he cried hoarsely, raising her head. “Lania, say something—”
Her eyes still remained closed: her face was ashy gray in the volcano’s glare. Blake shook her gently, then as she made no response he turned her over gently and stared like one fascinated at the discolored red on Ranji’s makeshift bandage. Very quietly he laid her down, got to his feet. He turned a face that was like marble in its frozen set-ness.
“She’s alive, but in a bad way,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t give a red cent for her chances without medical aid… Guess you’ve done all you can, Ranji.” He clenched his fists. “Maybe she’s only a jump ahead of us anyway. The volcano will finish the rest… But before it does,” he almost whispered, “I’m going to find Dalaker. I’m going to smash him, Ranji, if it’s the last thing I do on God’s earth!”
The Indian nodded slowly. “The infidel made remark of visiting generation station to see remains of yourself—”
“He did!” Blake’s eyes blazed. “Right!”
Without a word he turned and vanished in the smoke. Ranji hesitated a moment, then, setting his teeth at the pain in his shoulder he stooped and lifted the limp girl in his arms, began to carry her gently in the direction Blake had taken. If death was to be the outcome of everything he preferred to die near his master and the girl his master so obviously loved…
CHAPTER IX
Blake Faces Dalaker
Blake strode through the gathering red-lit darkness like a man possessed. At times he broke into a trot, his heavy fists clenched. His face was a taut mask, a mirror for the fury he was holding in rein until he found his objective.
By the time he’d gained the city, smoking cinders and occasional showers of fine ash were dropping from the overhead pall. The ground groaned and creaked under the forces of internal torment: somewhere a din like a dozen steam safety valves split the already hellish row.
Once in his journeying Blake found himself facing a taskmaster. He didn’t stop to speak; he left the men groveling on the street with a pulped jaw… then through the haze and fleeing figures he caught sight of the generating station, still unshaken in its main bulk by reason of the peculiar metal composing it.
Blake went forward again, paused, smiled twistedly as he saw a f
igure appear on the steps. There was no denying who owned those white flannels. The figure looked right and left, then began running swiftly down the steps—but at their base Blake caught up from behind.
“You!” Dalaker screamed incredulously, as he was whirled round in an iron grip. “B—but I thought—”
“Yeah: you thought I was dead,” Blake nodded, and smiled as though his face was frozen. “Thought you’d killed me, like you thought you’d killed Ranji and nearly killed Lania, eh? Like you sent my father to his death… Remember?”
He stopped as Dalaker tore savagely at his revolver pocket. The weapon came out and traveled into the smoky haze under the impact of Blake’s hand. Clutching Dalaker by the lapels of his coat he forced him to his knees, looked down at him long and steadily.
“D—don’t look at me like that!” Dalaker implored frantically, sweat beginning to trickle down his face. “You look as though you’ve gone mad or something—”
“I’m not mad.” Blake’s voice was taut and measured. “I’m just taking a look at that pan of yours before I smear it into unrecognizable pulp—and your blasted body too!” he finished with a roar. “By God, Dalaker, you’ve asked for this and now you’re going to get it! Other things I might have let slide—but Lania! Why, you’re too damned rotten to be allowed to live, you—”
Dalaker scrambled to his feet by sheer force of effort, whirled round his fist. He missed his objective and instead received a punch like a steam hammer that slammed his top and bottom jaws together like a rattrap. He dropped in his tracks, got up again in blind fury and hurled himself on his nearly naked aggressor.
The very thought that he was a predestined loser goaded Dalaker to a false strength, turned him into a battering, gouging tiger of a man fighting for his last chance for life. Blake fought more coolly, impacting all his rage into his punches, controlling his movements with a methodical, relentless strength. It was only when he took one on the chin that sent him staggering that he really burst into demoniac fury and set about the deliberate mauling of his enemy.
His right fist came up and slammed into Dalaker’s sweating face, sent him reeling. He came back again with hands outspread, blood smeared in an unlovely mess across his mouth. Springing suddenly he clutched Blake’s neck, struck down gouging fingers on his face, tore with his nails, until two vicious jabs across the kidneys made him relax with a howl of pain. He kicked in retaliation, sent a bone splintering impact on Blake’s ankle and momentarily defeating his guard. Blake went down dazed, shaking the confusion of a punch out of his skull…
Instantly Dalaker was upon him, clutched him like a leech and hung on with blind, furious tenacity while blow after blow crashed remorselessly under his broken jaw and into his unprotected face.
Blake began to realize he was dealing with a maniac: no sane man could stand up to such punishment. And suddenly the hands that held him relaxed and instead moved to his neck, tightened with hellish force.
Blake struggled desperately as he felt the air shutting off from his lungs, but he couldn’t dislodge that panting, clawing figure… Then, mainly by accident, Blake found his hands locked across the small of Dalaker’s back. Quickly seizing his advantage, he brought his right knee up with a quick effort and wedged it under Dalaker’s chin… Then, exerting every ounce of his strength he began to draw his powerful arms inwards, forced the chin upwards and backwards. Dalaker’s back began to crack.
The fingers began to relax a little. Momentary sanity flashed back in Dalaker’s brain as he realized what was happening. He screamed hysterically as a terrific wrenching pain shot the length of his spinal column.
“You—you asked for this,” Blake ground out between his teeth. “I said I’d break you one day and—and I will…” His muscles bulged under the strain: Dalaker’s back arched further. He yelled and screamed, pawed air helplessly, but he was powerless to save himself— Then suddenly a sound like the breaking of a bough in the wind. Dalaker’s back had snapped.
The body of Dalaker relaxed limply, collapsed in curiously twisted fashion on the street. Shaking violently Blake struggled to his feet and drew a forearm over his drenched face.
“It was you or me, Dalaker—and I had the aces,” he muttered. “You—”
“So the infidel goes to his ancestors!” Ranji’s voice preceded his actual form as he merged through the smoke, still carrying Lania in his arms. “You are avenged, sahib Blake, and—”
He broke off, astonishment on his dark face. Blake too was standing motionless as, above the rumbling and booming of the volcano, there came the sound of throbbing engines.
The sound mounted with the seconds.
“Planes!” Blake screamed, forgetting his aching body in sudden excitement. “Planes, Ranji! But how?” he demanded in bewilderment, “That frequency was released—”
“There, sahib!” Ranji cried, and he nearly dropped the girl in trying to point to a clear space in the smoke clouds, through which at low altitude were moving three ordinary fast planes and, more distantly, a heavy bombing machine. The drone of their engines began to beat heavily.
“Here!” Blake bellowed, cupping his hands and running up and down desperately. “Land here! Hey—!” He looked around helplessly for something to signal with—and suddenly the astounded Ranji found himself without his turban.
Instead a broad length of cream cloth was waving wildly in Blake’s upflung hands. He watched desperately as the foremost plane swept by not more than two hundred feet above. As it went off into the smoke he groaned in despair—but in a few minutes it came back, much lower, began to nose through the mist of smoke and landed bumpily in the broad expanse of main square.
In an instant Blake had taken Lania from Ranji’s arms and was racing towards it, the Indian not a yard behind. He cursed in his native tongue as a cinder just missed him. They were falling more thickly now, the dust and fumes were becoming chokingly strong.
The plane’s door swung open. Without a word the girl was hoisted gently inside by willing hands. Blake and Ranji tumbled in after her. The door slammed again… But as the plane swept up to join the others Blake noticed something.
The slender copper electrodes on the generating station roof, formerly hidden by smoke, had collapsed under the incessant concussions and tremors. Being made of copper instead of ynium they had succumbed more quickly. In that moment he understood why the planes were safe: the destructive frequency had never been transmitted…
An hour and a half later, as the planes droned steadily over a waste of tropical forest, Blake leaned gently over Lania as she lay in a roughly devised bed by one of the windows. The plane’s pilot, shirt sleeves rolled up, was smiling a little.
“I’m no surgeon, but I guess she’ll be O.K.,” he remarked. “We can get proper aid when we strike Trinidad…” He held up the forceps and studied the bullet in their grip. “One inch further,” he muttered, “and—” He shrugged. “But why bother over that? Incidentally, you can thank that damned volcano for showing us where to find you. The smoke attracted us.”
He broke off, glanced at his watch, smiled ruefully. “Guess I’m plenty late on my schedule. I’ve passengers to pick up, but they—”
He shrugged and slid into his jacket as he saw Blake wasn’t listening. He was concentrating on the girl’s feeble enquiries as to what had been happening. Quietly he told her, tapped his face plasters for confirmation.
“So Dalaker’s all washed up and you’re on your way to New York,” he smiled. “As for your city, I guess it’s finished.”
The girl shook her fair head slowly. “No, Blake. Nothing can destroy ynium, even if it be buried in lava. And the Eternal Sleepers are deep underground, so even yet they may someday awake.”
“Until then, though, you’ll look mighty good in America,” Blake remarked. “That’s if you’ll accept the proposition?”
She smiled, lay passive as he kissed her gently. Ranji holding his bandaged shoulder, regarded them steadily.
“Allah is jus
t,” he commented. “Very just.”
The Multillionth Chance
Edited by Philip Harbottle
INTRODUCTION by Philip Harbottle
John Russell Fearn (1908-1960) was an English author who began his career as a science fiction writer in the American pulp magazines in 1933, when his first novel The Intelligence Gigantic was serialised in AMAZING STORIES. The following year he sold a short story “The Man Who Stopped the Dust” to ASTOUNDING STORIES, the first of many outstanding ‘thought variants’ he was to contribute to the magazine over the next several years.
Over the next 15 years, Fearn published some 120 magazine stories in all of the leading pulp magazines under his own name and numerous pseudonyms, creating a variety of plot-forms under different styles that ranged from universe-destroying thought variants to the intensely human story. His most popular pen names were Thornton Ayre and Polton Cross. As Ayre he introduced detective story techniques to science fiction and also created the first female super-heroine, Violet Ray (the ‘Golden Amazon’) with four stories in FANTASTIC ADVENTURES (19439-43).
Post-war, using numerous pseudonyms, Fearn increasingly began to write novels for UK book publication, mainly science fiction, but he had equal success with westerns, detective thrillers and romances. When he died of a sudden heart attack, aged only 52, he had published over 150 books, most of them over a ten year period.
His grief-stricken widow fell seriously ill herself, and was unable to promote his work, or answer publishers’ letters. His work quickly fell out of print, and since much of it was under pseudonyms that were not generally known to be his, Fearn was in danger of becoming completely forgotten.
John Russell Fearn Omnibus Page 81