CHAPTER XXVI
_Power!_
A girl whose creamy body was strangely unsoiled by smoke or grime,whose jeweled breast-plates flashed in the light of her torch whilethe loose wrappings about her waist whipped against her as she ran.And Rawson, naked but for the golden loin cloth, running beside her.Then Smithy, and ten others in the khaki uniform of the service--itwas all that was left of the fifty who had dared the depths. And nowall of them were harried and driven like helpless animals in theburrows and runways of that under-world.
But not entirely helpless. Colonel Culver had been right: their riflesoutranged the flame-throwers. And Rawson, looking past that firstburst of rifle fire, saw the one flame that had reached them whipupward as its owner fell. Others of the Reds came crowding in after,and the jets of their weapons made little areas of light as theycrashed to the floor. Then Colonel Culver took charge of the retreat.
Ahead of them and behind them was impenetrable darkness; only thenearby walls were illumined by the torch that Loah had been forced toturn on. And out of that darkness at any moment might come devastatingflames. Culver detailed two men as a rear guard and two others to runahead a few paces in advance. At intervals of a minute or two theirrifles would crack, and the echoes would be pierced by the whiningscream of ricochets, as their bullets glanced from the walls.
"We may not need them up ahead," Culver shouted to Rawson. "I don'tunderstand it. The place seems deserted--there were plenty of themhere before!"
"They've got something else to think of," Rawson shouted in reply. "Ikilled Phee-e-al--he was their leader. But they're after us now.They'll be running through other passages, cutting in ahead of us."
The tunnel turned and bent upward. For a full half mile they ranstraight in a stiff climb. Between gasping breaths Colonel Culvershouted hoarsely: "Won't it ever turn? If they bring up their damnedheat-ray machines they'll get us on a straightaway like this!"
Then Smithy's voice outshouted his with a note of hope: "We're almostthere; I remember this place. There's where we mounted thesearchlight. They've ripped everything out. Up ahead, one turn to theright, then a quarter mile, then a turn toward the crater. That runsstraight for a mile, but there's a field gun at the bottom of thevolcano. We'll be safe when we're on that last stretch."
* * * * *
Ahead of them the rifles of the two who ran in advance crashed out ina fury of fire as a green glow appeared. But this time the flame didnot die; and Rawson, staring with hot, wide-opened eyes, saw that theribbon of green swept transversely across the tunnel.
He could hardly stand when he came to a stop. Beside him Loah wasswaying with weariness. The walls echoed only the hoarse, pantingbreath of the men. Then they crept slowly forward, where the passagewent steadily up. Loah's light was out; she had slipped the cap on thetorch at the first sight of that green.
They stopped but ten feet short of the deadly blaze. From a narrowrift in the left wall it streamed outward, the rock at the edges ofthat crack turning to red at its touch. It beat upon the oppositewall, where already the stone was melting to throw over them a whiteglare and the glow of heat. And, like a shimmering, silken barrier,whose touch could mean only instant death, it reached across the widetunnel at the height of a man's waist and moved slowly up and down.The heaviest armor plate ever rolled could have formed no moreimpenetrable a barrier.
"And we almost made it," said Smithy slowly. "Look, beyondthere--another hundred feet. There's the bend in the tunnel, a sharpturn--and we almost got around!"
Rawson reached for Loah's light. In the wall where the flame wasstriking, only a dozen steps back, he had seen another dark mouth, aragged crack in the rock. He sprang to the entrance; it might be therewas another way around. His first glance told the story, for he sawthe walls draw together again not a hundred feet off.
"A blind alley," he groaned.
* * * * *
One of the two who had been their advance guard snapped his rifle tohis shoulder. He was aiming at the glowing crack where the green lightwas issuing.
"A ricochet," he growled. "It may go on in and mess 'em up." But therewas no whine of a glancing bullet that followed his shot; thesoftened wall had cushioned the impact.
Another man sprang beside him. He was shouting at the top of his voicewhile one hand reached into a bag that hung at his waist. "Get back,everyone," he said. "If I miss...." He did not finish the sentence,but pulled the pin from a hand grenade, then took careful aim andthrew.
It went high--thrown there purposely; he had not dared aim it into theflame. But it struck the crevice fairly, and they heard it rattle oninside. The next instant brought the crack and roar of its explosion.
Like a winking signal light the green barrier vanished. Where it hadbeen was only blackness and the dying glow of molten rock. Then, ahundred feet beyond, up close to the roof, the bend of the tunnelturned red; it seemed bursting into flame. Far back of them, down thelong sloping way where they had come, shrill voices werescreaming--and still there was no green flame to account for thattunnel end flaming red.
Rawson stood motionless. Loah, and the others beside him, seemedlikewise petrified, until the voice of Culver jarred them into action.
"The ray!" he shouted. "It's the heat ray, damn them! Quick, jump intothat cave!"
* * * * *
They had all retreated through fear of the grenade; they were oppositethe black place into which Rawson had looked. Loah was close besideDean; he threw her with all his strength into the black mouth of thecave, then he was one of a crowding, stumbling mass of men whofollowed after, and their going was lighted by a terrible torch offlame.
One man had stood apart from the others, farther across the widecorridor. His khaki-clad body flashed suddenly to incandescence, thenfell to the floor. And inside the cave, where the walls came abruptlytogether to cut off any further retreat, Colonel Culver spoke softly.
"One more gone," he said. "That was Oakley. Well, he never knew whatit was that hit him--and it looks as if we'll all get the same."
Through it all, Rawson had clung to his flame-thrower; unconsciouslyhis hand had held fast to the bent handle of the cylindrical weapon.Now he set it down slowly upon the floor, then straightened his achingbody laboriously.
Loah's light was still gleaming. He saw her eyes searching for his,half in terror, half in wonderment. Strange men with strangethundering weapons--he knew she was wondering if they still daredhope, wondering if these warriors of Rawson's race might be able towork further magic.
Dean put one arm tenderly about her and drew her close and his otherhand came to rest upon Smithy's shoulder.
"It's the end, dear," he told the girl softly. "It's the end of ourjourney. You've been so dear and so brave. Pretty tough to lose outwhen we'd almost fought clear." Then, to Smithy: "Loah came back tosave me--refused to go when she could have got away and been safe."
* * * * *
Already the air was stifling. The tunnel beyond the mouth of the cavewas hot, though only at its end, where the invisible ray struck therock surface squarely, was there red, glowing heat. Rawson suddenlysaw none of it. He was seeing in his mind the world up above, his ownworld of great, free, sunlit spaces. Suddenly he was hungry for somecloser link, no matter how slight, to bind him to that world.
"What day is it?" he asked. "Have you kept track of time?"
Smithy looked at him wonderingly. "Yes," he said, then added: "Oh, Isee. You want to know what day this is when we die. It's thetwentieth, Dean"--he looked at the watch on his wrist--"just twoo'clock, the afternoon of the twentieth."
Within him, Rawson felt a dull resentment. He was being denied eventhis last trifling solace. "You're wrong," he said sharply. "Youslipped up on your count."
"It doesn't make any real difference," Smithy said. But Rawson wenton:
"We left the inner world on the nineteenth. At noon on the twentiethGor was to
cut loose the flame-throwers, melt a hole in the floor ofthe ocean. But it didn't work. I had hoped I could wipe out themole-men, turn a solid stream of water down a shaft for over sixhundred miles. It would have gone through the Zone of Fire, comeflooding up into the mole-men world and spread out all over down deepwhere it's hot. It would have hit the Lake of Fire--all that!"
"I don't know what you are talking about, Dean." Smithy's voice wasintentionally soothing; he knew Rawson was talking wildly. "But I knowI am right on the time. We've kept track of it every hour since--"
Rawson's talk had sounded like insanity in Smithy's ears. He wouldhave gone on--he didn't want to see Dean Rawson go out like that--butnow he stopped. The rock was quivering beneath his feet.
And now Rawson, with a wild wordless cry, threw himself toward theflame-thrower on the floor. His voice rose to what was almost ascream. "It's worked!" he shouted in a delirium of joy. "It's the endof the brutes!"
* * * * *
Then, in words which the others could not comprehend but which somehowfired them with his own emotion: "Gor has cut it loose! Water,millions of tons of it! The Zone of Fire--steam!..." He threw himselfflat on the floor as close to the hot mouth of the cave as he daredgo, and the green flame of his weapon ripped outward and up as heaimed it.
From the passage, where it sloped downward toward the source of theheat ray, the sound of shrill, whistling voices had swelled louder.The whole tunnel now glowed green from the flames of an advancinghorde. They were bringing their ray projector with them, Rawson knew,not that its beam was visible, but the white, dazzling glow from theend wall where the tunnel turned was still there.
"Shoot above me!" Rawson shouted. "Don't stick your guns out into thatray, but aim as straight down the tunnel as you can. Keep 'em busy.Keep 'em from coming too close."
Above his head he heard the beginning of rifle fire as the men crowdedclose to aim at the opposite wall at as flat an angle as they could.The air grew shrill with the sound of ricochets as the bulletsglanced, but still the enemy came on, as their screeching voices told.
His own weapon was aimed up above. The roof of the tunnel was roughand broken. He directed the flame against the top of a great blackgranite block. In one place it was fractured. If he could cut it offabove, make it fall to the steeply slanting floor.... He worked thefull force of the blast methodically along the line he had chosen.
* * * * *
The air of the tunnel had been blowing gently, but now it came insharp gusts that whipped in through the mouth of the cave, while itbrought an unending growl and roar like distant gunfire from deepwithin the earth. The breeze had swelled to a steady blast when therock crashed down.
"But that's no use," Culver had shouted, when the deafening sound ofits fall had ceased. "They'll melt it in a second with their ray."Even as he spoke the great mass of granite softened and rolleddownward as the enemy shot their ray on its lower side. The heat of itstruck blastingly into the entrance to their retreat, yet still Rawsonkept on, sawing doggedly with the weapon of flame at other greatblocks above.
Now that distant thunder grew hugely in volume, and again the rockstrembled beneath them. The wind in the tunnel grew suddenly to a wildblast. It brought to them from a thousand other passages, the shrill,demoniac shrieking of air that was torn and ripped on projectingledges of rock. Mingled with it was the sound of voices that screamedin terror, and the echo of feet running in mad flight down the tunnel.
The mass of stone, that had been melting under the invisible ray,cooled to red, then to black. Outside, the tunnel, now a place ofroaring winds, was lighted only by the single flame of Dean's weapon.
"They've gone!" Culver shouted. "The ray's off. Get outside! Now we'llrun for it!" And, with the others, Rawson sprang to his feet andleaped out into the tunnel which was no longer a place of death.
* * * * *
He heard the sound of their hurrying feet and a voice that cried:"Look out for the turn--the rock's hot," but he did not look afterthem. He was standing squarely, bracing himself in the blast of air,still directing the flame upon a block that hung stubbornly and wouldnot let go.
He knew that Loah alone stood near. He heard other feet; someone wasreturning. Then Smithy was upon him, almost jarring him from hiscareful pose. Smithy was shouting.
"Come back, Dean!" he cried. "Are you crazy? Don't you know they'll beafter us again?"
Rawson sprang as the big rock let go. It, too, crashed deafeninglyupon the floor and rolled sluggishly downward beside the high hummockof glass that the first rock had become. They bulked hugely in thepassage. They were eight or ten feet high, reaching across from onewall to the other.
Above them was still a space of four feet; Rawson estimated itcarefully while he looked at the ceiling above. Then he shook offSmithy's hand that was dragging at him and returned to the attack; fornow, above the top of the barricade he had built, white ribbons ofvapor were streaming. He had to shout to his utmost to make Smith hearabove the shrill shriek of the blast.
"Steam!" he screamed into Smithy's ear. "Live steam! We could nevermake it--before we got to the top we'd be cooked to a pulp. I've gotto block it, got to seal it off." A whole section of the ceiling toreloose as he spoke, and the wind raised its voice like the scream of awounded animal--or the cry of an overwhelmed and stricken people--asit tore through the space that remained.
* * * * *
It whipped the molten drops as they fell and made of them a deadlyrain. Rawson, staring through the clouds of hot steam that now wrappedhim about, called to Smithy to take Loah to safety, and kept the flamewhere it should be--until at length the last aperture was closed, thelast gap in the wall filled in. And even after that Rawson kept theflame still playing above that wall till he had melted rock and morerock that flowed down to make the barrier a single heavy, solid mass.
Steam was coming now from the narrow cleft where the green light hadflashed out to bar their way. But that was simple, and he sealed thegap shut with his flame.
He was gasping. The radiant heat from that molten mass had beentorture that his naked body could never have borne but for thedesperate necessity that drove him.
Smithy and Loah were again beside him. "Now," he choked, "we can go,but if there are any cross passages I'll have to block them too."
"There aren't," said Smithy, and added: "I thought you were crazy.You've saved us all, Dean; we never could have made it to the top.That steam was getting hot--hot as if it had come right out of hell."
"It did," said Rawson. Then the flame-thrower fell from his nervelesshand. He was swaying; his knees were trembling with weakness whenSmithy and Loah, on either side, took his burned arms tenderly andhelped him on where the others had gone.
Colonel Culver and a rescue party met them halfway. The Colonel hadseen his men safely to the bottom of the volcanic pit. Others had runfrom their station beside a field gun to meet them; then Culver hadcalled for volunteers and had gone back. And now there were plenty ofwilling arms to help.
* * * * *
The big lift, with its platforms of metal plates, awaited them at thetunnel's end. There was room on it now for all who were left; therewas no crowding of men's bodies as there had been on the downwardpassage. Rawson was stretched on the floor-plates, whose touch wascool to his tortured body. Loah was seated that his head might restin her lap on that absurd little fragment of skirt. She bent abovehim, whispering brokenly: "Dean-San--my dear--my own Dean-San! Welive, Dean-San. I can scarcely believe it, but I know that we live,for I still have you."
But Dean was able to stand when that journey was done. First, though,there were men who placed him carefully on a stretcher and carriedhim, when he commanded, to the crater's outer rim. On the ashy floorof the crater a big transport was waiting with idling motors, but Deanwould not let them put him inside. He wanted to look out across theworld, to see it in reali
ty as he had seen it in his own mind when allhope was gone. He wanted to look out once more across Tonah Basin andlet his eyes rest upon country he had known.
Loah and Smithy walked beside him, as the first-aid men carried himtoward that distant rim. The rocks there were cleft--it was the placewhere he first had seen the inside of the crater's cup. There he hadthem put him down; and, with the help of Loah and Smithy, he gotslowly to his feet. While they lifted him, he wondered at the sound inthis desert world where no sound should be. A terrific rushing, anendless roar--and then his eyes found the clouds of steam.
* * * * *
Below him was the Basin, the tangled wreckage of his camp. And there,where the derrick had stood, was a tall plume of white. It did notbegin close to the ground--superheated steam, until it cools andcondenses to water vapor, is invisible--but a hundred feet above thesand. And, from there on up, two thousand feet sheer into the air, wasa straight shaft of vapor, rolling up for another thousand feet intobillowing clouds that the afternoon sun turned to glorious white.
"Power!" gasped Rawson. "Power--and it will be like thatindefinitely!" Then he laughed weakly. "I had to go down there to doit, to make Erickson richer, but it was worth it. In there the oceanwill slowly subside. Gor and his people will find their lost lands;the column of water in the shaft will hold the back-pressure of steam.And here, I have Loah, and that's all--but that's enough!"
He put one arm, still with the bandages of the first-aid men, aboutthe girl. "I hope you'll be happy, dear," he said softly, and turnedback. But Smithy barred the way.
"That isn't all," said Smithy jubilantly. "You see, Dean, Ericksonfired you--Erickson thought you had run out on him. Instead of backingyou up, he quit. So I bought them all out. Whatever is there,Dean--and it's worth more millions than I dare to think about--you ownhalf of! Now get back on that stretcher. Just because you've saved allour necks up here on top of the earth, you mustn't think you can keepan Army ship waiting all day!"
(_The End._)
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