Suddenly Clint laughed—and with a movement too rapid to follow, he ducked under the pistol, caught Gozano by wrist and thigh, and burled him over his shoulder to drop on the little blaze! A single shot went wild; the automatic followed it; and a volley of Spanish oaths blistered the air. Retrieving the weapon, Clint sent It hurtling down the slope, then stood back, watching In amusement while Gozano kicked and squirmed free of the fire and struggled to his feet. His pudgy arms flailed smoking areas of trousers and coat, and his face was livid with outraged wrath.
“For that you weel pay you gringo peeg!” he bowled, dancing about in pain. “A Gozano never forget! Caramba—you swine!”
I’m still going south,” Clint smiled. “And I’m going over the mountains!”
“Eef you do. senor—eef you do—” The words died so abruptly that flint could almost hear their death-rattle in Gozano’s throat; and the Peruvian’s eyes moved beyond Clint, gazing toward the eastern horizon.
“Por Dios!” he whispered, standing motionless. “Por Dios!”
Clint watched him narrowly, suspecting some stupid ruse. But his amazement seemed so genuine that It could hardly be shammed. What did he see? Clint could feel the heat of the sun on his back, the sun risen above the wall of cloud—but what had that to do with the other’s staring? He cast a quick glance over his shoulder—and like Gozano. he turned and stared toward the east in wide-eyed bewilderment The sun, glaring balefully over the mountainous world, was—green! Green as the glowing figures he had found in the burial cave!
He heard Gozano mumble: “Por Dios! What can eet be! May the blessed virgin protect us!”
II
THROUGH narrowed lids Clint gazed at the unnatural sun. His first feeling of awe had been replaced by a fascinated interest. Wild conjectures buzzed like bees through his brain. As he watched, he felt his heart thump against his ribs, and his breath came more rapidly. That emerald disc was growing—expanding almost visibly!
Speeding toward the earth!
“What can eet mean, Senor?” A voice behind Clint whispered tremulously. “The sun—ees eet growing?”
Clint shrugged. “I don’t know. It may mean that the earth is falling into the sun! Be patient—we’ll know soon enough.”
“Mother of God!” The Peruvian’s groan trailed off into inarticulate prayer.
With thoughts and body taut, Clint waited. If he were correct, and Earth were falling into the sun, Terrestial life would soon be a forgotten echo in the Infinity of space. But somehow the thought seemed almost ridiculous; he couldn’t Imagine such an occurence. Yet—it might be!
Suddenly he saw a sliver of blinding white along the lower edge of the green—and he grinned with vast relief. It was the sun—behind the spreading emerald globe! The sun, glowing with Its age old, changeless serenity!
Then what was this other thing? A visitant from space? A thing of light, come out of the sun? As he watched. It grew and grew and grew, flashing toward Earth like some terrible tailless comet. An enormous ball of flaring light—a second sun!
Clint Morgan shivered—and it wasn’t through fear. A marrow-freezing chill blanketed everything, more intense, more penetrating by far than the normal cold of the uplands. It was as though the strange globe had cut off the heat of the sun with some Invisible radiation of its own.
Closer, steadily closer, sped the blazing mass, cloaking razor-back ridges, and gashed and tumbled valleys with a haze of living green. It had grown now till it covered a quarter of the sky. And still it sped on!
Clint felt fear now, the Icy fear of the inexplicable. This thing was uncanny. For despite its colossal size. Us meteoric speed, it was silent! No thunder of cleft air-walls crashing together behind it; no shrieking through the atmosphere. Dead silent Yet It was so close that it must strike in minutes.
Grimly he waited, scorning an impulse to run. Run! As well attempt to dodge a falling continent. For the radiant sphere blotted out all the sky now, almost seeming to touch the higher peaks. Another second . . . and it stopped! It hung motionless, an endless roof of ghastly frozen light.
Slowly (Hint relaxed, some of the tension leaving his stiffened limbs. His thoughts spun confusedly, relief, wonder, bewilderment, and unbelief mingling in an emotional hodge podge. Viciously the cold bit into his skin, on unnatural, sunless cold. Blowing Into his stinging hands, Clint turned toward Pardo Gozano.
The Peruvian was a hundred feet away, streaking up an almost invisible trail toward the uppermost ridges as fast as his fat legs could carry him. Clint smiled faintly, then sobered as he remembered that Gozano had tried to prevent his going in that very direction.
He whistled shrilly for Pizarro; and as the little horse approached, still chewing a mouthful of ichu grass, Clint seized his saddlebags and waited. With skill gained through long practice, he snapped the pack on his animal and hastily fastened it Into place. Before Pardo Gozano had vanished among the boulders near the end of the trail, Clint was hurrying after him.
The path he followed must have been the century-old camino of the forgotten Chimus; as it mounted toward the summit the flanking ridges crowded closer, squeezing its stony length to a cobbled footpath. Thirty feet from the mountain top it ended as abruptly as though It had been hacked off by a gigantic machette. Led by Pizarro, who could And a trail better than any man. Clint fought his way through a labyrinthian chaos of Jagged rock till he reached the roof of the world.
He saw Gozano disappear through a rift in an enormous stone wall towering up from the ridge. He recognized It as one of the ancient Chimu fortresses which perched on inaccessible crags throughout the Peruvian uplands. An enclosure two hundred feet wide by three hundred feet In length, with Its outer wall fully fifteen feet in height and a third as thick, built of smooth-cut, snow-white granite, it looked like a structure of another world in the strange and ghastly light. Beyond the outer wall he could see a higher inner barrier, jutting toward the sky.
Warily Clint moved toward the gap in the fortress. Mechanically he inspected his automatic; then with every sense alert, glancing keenly to right and left, he strode through the opening, into a narrow aisle between outer and inner walls.
He heard a thin, angry. High-pitched voice shouting in Spanish:
“Mother of the devil. Gozano! What do you mean? We have this green mystery to contend with—and now you lead this gringo spy to our very door! It is more than man can bear! With my own lips I shall report you to the President Quick—arm—we must stop him!”
Clint’s lips tightened. Stop him. eh? A whack on Pizarro’s flank sent him scampering away between the walls, out of danger. Clint knew he wouldn’t wander far. Then with automatic ready he sprang into the fortress; and a shout like the roar of a Latin American general burst from his throat.
A gray haired wisp of a mar., the only human in sight, froze at the sound of his voice, then turned slowly to face him. A man of about fifty, with mutton-chop whiskers, he was a typical Peruvian Don, except that he appeared to possess more than average Intelligence. Suddenly his face broke into an expansive smile, and he rushed toward Clint with outstretched hand.
“Welcome, amigo mio!” he cried. “Welcome! You have come at the most opportune time! There are things afoot which we in our deplorable Inexperience cannot explain; and we believe such as one as you—”
“Forget It! Clint snapped coldly, pointing his weapon at the other’s head. “I know how welcome i am! Tell Pardo Gozano and anyone else you have hiding around here that they better show their faces pronto or I’ll install an old-fashioned ventilating system in your cranium! And tell them to come out with empty hands! Is that clear?”
Evidently it was quite clear, for in a hasty, anxious voice the little man shrilled: “Pardo—Louisa—come out quick! Where are your manners? Do you not see we have a stranger with us? Hurry!”
Out of the squat stone building which occupied the center of the fortress—a building. Clint noted, that had been completely repaired—came Pardo Gozano and a young woman,
the latter, the most ornamental creature Clint had ever seen. Indeed, so great was his surprise at sight of a dark-haired loveliness in this mountain strong, old that he almost forgot his rather strained position. But he recovered from his astonishment instantly.
“Where are the others?” he demanded. “Make it snappy, or I’ll shoot!”
The little man’s distress was ludicrous. “But there are no others, amigo mio! Volga Dios—would I deceive a friend?”
As the two came closer, he continued: “Gozano, you have met. I believe. This is Louisa Castilla, and I am Alfredo Castilla.” He looked at Clint with a heavy earnestness on his thin face. “Look about you, amigo mio; then I will explain much to you.”
With a suspicious glance at Don Alfredo and a warning glare for Gozano. Clint curiously inspected the interior of the fortress. There was little to be seen, but what he did see was almost as amazing as his discovery of the green things In the cave, and the green globe In the sky. In a level space behind the stone building lay a huge autogiro, in startling contrast with the great antiquity of its surroundings. And a hundred feet away, close to the wall overlooking the Urubamba Valley, towered a tremendous object of polished metal unlike anything Clint had ever seen.
Upon a wide, bakelite platform resting on huge glass insulators, was a vast sheet of polished copper, extending upward fully five times the height of the Inner wall. Its fifty-foot length, held aloft by massive steel supports, was curved in a half-circle, like a reflector. Below this, within the half-circle, lay a maze of electrical apparatus, great tubes, thick cables, and a wilderness of smaller wires.
Clint faced Don Alfredo Castilla. “What is it?” be asked wonderingly. “And what’s It doing up here In the mountains?”
The Peruvian shrugged and smiled his expansive smile. “That I cannot tell you—but you will now understand why we must guard against the too-frequent visits of strangers. All I can say Is that we are commissioned by the Peruvian government to work on something here that will be of value to the whole world. More than that—”
Louisa Castilla Interrupted—and Clint thought he bad never beard so musical a voice, a voice as sweet and beautiful as the girl herself.
“Look—something is happening up there!”
As one the three men turned their eyes skyward. There was movement In the roof of vaporous green, a ponderous writhing born of internal motion; and a queer electrical tensity filled the air, sending an unpleasant tingling through them, drawing their hair stiffly erect.
More violent became the twisting and stirring and startled. Clint realized that the emerald dome was breaking up! Light shone through clefts in its billowing surface—and beyond beamed the deep-blue sky! Clint felt a touch of warmth; and he saw the sun! His eyes snapped shut, tear-filled and blinded. For moments he held them thus, then again stared skyward, blinking fiercely. His vision cleared, and he saw countless Irregular blobs of green radiance moving aimlessly about. They were turning on invisible axes, slowly at first, then more rapidly, till they began a mad. Dervish whirl, and started contracting. In moments the air was filled with perfect emerald spheres, floating and darting everywhere as though they possessed—life!
Mere and there one drifted down toward Earth; then as though following the leaders’ example, a veritable shower of them poured toward the bleak and frosty mountains. As they neared the watchers, Clint saw that they were not perfectly round as he had at first thought; their surface was in constant wraithlike motion, tongued with streamers of flickering green fire.
Stiffly Clint watched the globes’ descent, awe and dread holding him rigid. What were these things? More than anything else they resembled the balls of electricity seen at times of thunderstorms—but these vested with permanency, and seemed far more tangible than any electrical fire ball. And how explain their uncanny lifelikeness?
A dreadful, shrilling scream behind him severed the thought, and Clint whirled. His eyes widened and be crouched. A burro, tied to the wall of the fortress some distance away, bucked and reared in mortal fear, teeth bared and eyes glaring. Clint heard a chorused gasp escape the three Peruvians: his own breath sucked in through tightly drawn lips. For sinking slowly toward the burro, a monstrous globe of emerald mist swayed ponderously from side to side. Its tongues of cold fire licking downward—curiously! Clint could only stare in helpless fascination; knew dimly that the others stood in hypnotized paralysis.
A yard above the animal the thing paused—seemed to hesitate. A flame-tongue flicked out, touched the burro, and an awful scream of pain rolled across the ridges. Hoofs lashed out madly, and the cord parted! With ears flattened against his heed the burro darted wildly across the fortress. In a breath the globe flashed after him—enveloped him—spun in a blur of light! For an Instant It hovered there, whirling; then it flattened to the ground as though suddenly liquid, bearing with it something solid; pooled there; then rose, hovering, seeming to contemplate the four crouching humans!
Sweat studded Clint’s forehead, and a wild and furious curse died in his throat. He heard Louisa Castilla sob; heard Don Alfredo mutter, “Mother of the devil!” heard Gozano mumble a whining prayer. All of them like cornered rabbits, cringing before a serpent coiled to strike!
Closer drifted the green thing—closer—then unaccountably it swerved and sped away, curving down toward the Urubamba Valley a mile below!
A sigh escaped Clint; but It became a gasp as his eyes turned mechanically toward the burro. He glared In horror. It was changed—terribly changed! It was flattened, empty, charred, like the dried shell of a body from which all living substance had been drawn! Literally a bag of burned skin emptied of all except its bones!
Clint looked at the others. Their blanched faces reflected his own horror. Gozano’s oily face seemed almost green with terror, and his lips moved vacuously.
A second animal scream knifed the silence—and Clint’s heart sank. That was Pizarro! His teeth clamped together bitterly, and something choked him. Another scream—then silence. Clint swallowed hard. Poor Pizarro!
He glanced skyward, a storm of wrath raging In his heart Damned things! . . . But what could he do?
Great expanses of blue looked down now. He saw a wedge of globes speeding from the east: saw another mass approaching from the sooth along the serrated backbone of the Andes. And all the Sun-things were pouring into the valley below! It seemed as though these beings—If beings they were—were guided by one thought, one purpose—and that, to reach the floor of the valley as quickly as possible.
“Come on!” Clint snapped to the others. “Let’s see what’s going on.” He sprang toward the stone steps leading up to the parapet. The Peruvians followed dumbly; In moments were beside him on the edge of the wall, peering down the precipitous slope.
Far below they saw the mass of Sun-things, centered about what had been a rounded, heavily wooded peak. They were spinning, whirling; and they had lost their strange frigidity. Clouds of smoke arose from a forest being consumed by incredible heat, a forest that crumbled to ash. that blew away as dust even while they watched. Nor did the fire stop with the destruction of the timberland; it bit deeper, eating into the humus that held the roots; ate into the subsoil, melted the very rocks of the mountains!
And as the lava poured down into the gorge where the Urubamba flowed like some prehistoric serpent, sending clouds of steam hissing into the air, it bared the substance of the mountain itself. It was green—glowing green metal—a mountain that gleamed like a gigantic living gem! Metal like the metal he had found in the cavern!
Clint heard Castilla’s voice. “It Is the Metal! Mother or God—a mountain of coronium!”
He half turned—then bent his gaze again on the enigma below. The green globes completely covered the mountain now, merged Into a viscous mass, and it began to spin around the metal surface like a coating of oil. With every revolution its pace increased until It blurred in a whirl of insane speed. From it leaped volleys of green lightnings, flicking the sides of the gorge, curling up
the mountain slopes like lashing whips. And like whips they snapped and crackled and roared. Here and there, as the lightning-coils retreated, masses of emerald metal flashed into sight, flared into green vapor, flowed down to merge with the thing in the valley.
Faster and faster spun the mass of the globes; and a breath of furnace-heat touched the faces of the watchers. Faster—and its color changed, the green fading to pale yellow . . . still faster, and the yellow became the searing white of a blazing electric filament . . . whirling, melting the rocks, pooling in a constantly growing lake of lava. And as it spun, and as its flame-streamers lashed out, there came from it a thunderous clamor, a deafening crackle that mounted in a crescendo of dangerous sound.
Clint turned toward Don Alfredo—caught a glimpse of Pardo Gozano’s fat face, glaring hatred and triumph—and a world of agony crashed against his skull! Ho staggered back—felt the wall drop from beneath him—and with a nauseating flood of stabbing, bursting pain, he plunged into blackness.
III
A FOOT gouging brutally into Clint Morgan’s side prodded him back to consciousness. He lay with closed eyes for dragging moments when a hell-fire of torture thudded against his temples. Then, as a vicious kick snapped against the fleshy part of his thigh, he wrenched open his eyes and groaned, glaring upward to meet the fishlike stare of Pardo Gozano.
“Ah! so the gringo awakens!” the Peruvian exclaimed In his heavily accented English. “ ‘E’ave long deep sleep, with pleasant dreams—an’ now he wakes to amuse Pardo Gozano!” He shook his head in mock contrition. “That was one terr’ble punch I geev you!”
Clint smiled with saccharine sweetness, and said gently, “Go to hell, you damned cholo!”
Heavy Ups drew back to bare clenched white teeth, and the Peruvian’s reply was a vicious snarl. “Eet ees you. senor, who weel go te hell! An’ you weel taste eet before you go! Tomorrow we fly away—an’ we leave you here—tied as you now are. The cordillera—they arc melting—an’ thees one weel melt—an’ you weel burn! You throw Gozano into your leetle fire, eh? He weel feed you to a beeg one!” Ills eyes narrowed gloatingly.
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