In a moment I noticed a change. The seething clouds of green were sucked down. They drew into a dense cyclone vortex of flame about the old house.
In a moment I noticed a change. The seething clouds of green were sucked down. They drew into a dense cyclone vortex of flame about the old house.
In a moment I noticed a change. The seething clouds of green were sucked down. They drew into a dense cyclone vortex of flame about the old house.
Suddenly the ancient house burst into strange red incandescence. The chimney, gables and corners shone with a dull, lurid scarlet fire. There was no flame, just a dusky, crimson gleam! It grew brighter and deeper, until it was an intense, bloody glare. And then the climbing vines and trees about it, gleaming like ruby plants, began to melt away! The house began to dissolve into crimson light!
The green mist swirled lower. The silvery central moon waxed brighter. Once or twice thin fingers of purple mist were again thrust out exploringly, all in a silence of death. And the red gleam grew! The house glowed as though washed in a rain of blood. And swiftly it faded into that awful light!
The chimney tottered and came down in a shower of red sparks that faded into nothingness before they touched the ground. The roof fell, and the remnant of the walls collapsed upon it in a heap of crimson dust of fire that faded swiftly—dissolved—vanished!
The little hill was a bare red waste, gleaming with that terrible scarlet glare. The two purple tentacles of misty flame shot out again, and swept searchingly over the spot. Suddenly the green mist stopped its seething motion. Its fires died out. It grew dim, faded, was gone like a cloud of dissipating steam. The white glow of the silver globe waxed dull, and suddenly it, too, was no more.
Quickly the red glow faded from the weirdly denuded hilltop, and the night fell in a heavy mantle. I stood wrapt in a spell of amazement and terror.
CHAPTER VIII
Out of the Sea's Abyss
"Well, how was the show?" Sam's voice was a little weak and strained. Suddenly I was conscious of an unpleasant tremor of the knees. I went into the conning-tower and dropped myself weakly on a seat. I tried to speak, but my mouth was very dry. I swallowed twice.
"What was it?" I contrived to articulate at last.
The old man stood erect in the opening, with a hand upon his thoughtful brow. "I don't know," he said. "I didn't think they could come. They must have mastered secrets of time and space that we know nothing of. They have conquered our limitations of distance. They must be ages ahead of us!"
"But the house—it just melted away!"
"As for that, the emanations of the green cloud must have disrupted the atoms, allowing the electrons to fall together to make neutrons (formed of united protons and electrons) so small that they fell through the ground, toward the center of the earth. That is easy enough to understand—in fact, I could probably have developed a similar ray myself, as a result of my work on the hydrodyne. The strange thing is how they got here!"
"The thing just seemed to appear and vanish!"
"Possibly we could see it only when it was lit with the radiation of the green. It may have just slipped up and away in the darkness. But it is more likely—judging from the etheric disturbance it created—that it did not come through our space at all, but moved by the distortion of hyper-space—came through the fourth dimension, in effect!"
"And they seemed to know just where to strike!"
"Yes. They must have found that by triangulation on my interference waves I was doing the same trick for them when the apparatus warned me."
"You were what?"
"I have been working a long time to get the direction of that mysterious force."
"And you succeeded!"
"You remember the Mangar Deep?"
"What? Oh, yes. Discovered in the South Pacific by Mangar and Kane about 1945."
"In 1946, I believe. The disturbance comes from there.It emanates from a point ten miles below the level of the Pacific!"
"What! Impossible!"
"Do I make mistakes?" Sam asked softly.
"No. But the discoverers reported only six miles of water. And anyhow, men couldn't live under there!"
"The exact spot is somewhat south of their soundings. But, Mel, don't assume that we have to deal with men! We may be dealing with entities that developed in the sea, even with creatures of the rocks below the sea! I tell you, it's outside the range of your old anthropomorphic fiction!"
I could say nothing more. I sat still, with rather unpleasant thoughts. Intelligences that could reach casually from a point ten miles below sea level, to wipe out a building ten thousand miles away! Such things are very good in amazing romances, but extremely hard to face squarely in real life!
For many minutes Sam was silent. He had pulled out his battered pipe and filled it absently with illegal tobacco. He stood puffing on it steadily, with the dim glow coming and going on his tanned face as he drew. Presently he spoke very softly:
"Mel, we can go in the Omnimobile to see about it."
"Dive into the Deep!"
"We could do it."
"Ten miles of water! Good Lord! That would crush us like—like—"
"I think the machine would stand it."
"But what could we do?"
"We don't know until we know what needs to be done."
"It means death!" I whispered hoarsely. "And the Green Girl! When I am dead I may dream of her no more! It may be that she lives only in my mind, and when I die—"
Sam said nothing. He merely waited, puffing away, with his pipe smoke drifting out into the night. In a moment I had considered, and realized my selfishness. I thrust out my hand, and he gripped it firmly.
"I knew you would see it, Mel!" he cried with a glad ring in his voice. "Whoever, and whatever they are, they haven't got us yet! We're still kicking!"
"We start for the Mangar Deep—"
"—At sunrise in the morning."
We climbed down into the machine, and went together into the galley to fix supper. Sam got out his old music box and played through his ancient favorite selections, and then we went to our miniature staterooms.
But I did not sleep soon that night. The Green Girl came to me in a fresh and vivid waking dream. She was, as ever, supremely, superbly beautiful, with dark curls, smiling red lips, and clear, sparkling violet eyes. I told her of the struggle I had had, and that I was resolved to set out upon the fateful cruise. And she seemed very happy, so I regretted my decision no longer. So, very happy, I fell asleep, and had dreams of the Green Girl that were dreams indeed.
At dawn I was awakened by the rattle of pots and pans in the galley. I sprang out of my bunk, took an icy shower, and ran into the dining room where Sam had breakfast ready. The stores had been well selected, and Sam was a prince among chefs. Whatever our fate, we would approach it feasting like kings.
He seemed as cheerful and confident as myself. Now that the issue was determined, the uncertainty of action was removed, and we both felt oddly relieved. After we had eaten, we started the engines and drove the machine back to the hilltop where the cottage had been. We got out and examined the surface of the ground that had been acted upon by the strange red dissolution.
The earth had evidently been eaten away to a depth of several feet, and the surface was left covered with a hard, greenish vitrified crust, smooth and hard as glass. It was unpleasant to think what would have happened if Sam had failed to intercept the warning of the approach of that amazing machine—if it had been a machine.
CHAPTER IX
Into the Mangar Deep
We hurried back into the Omnimobile, climbed into the conning-tower, and started the engines again. Sam turned the bow toward the sea, and the great machine crawled slowly down to meet the lapping white waves. In a few moments they were slapping and splashing against her sides.
On we drove, down the sloping sand. The green water rose about the windows. In a moment the periscope screen showed that we were entirely under water. We crawled steadily over the bottom of the sea, deeper and deeper. All the wonders of the hidden sea-life lay about us, bright corals and strange shrubs, curious rocks, and beautiful dells between them, through which silvery fishes and stranger monsters of the deep were moving. It grew darker, and Sam turned on the powerful searchlights. We moved on down into stranger regions. But I must not take space for that, for we were hastening toward a world that was weirder by far!
In half an hour we closed the valves, which had been left open to let the water flood the tanks, and started the pumps. We were lifted above the ocean floor. We stopped the caterpillar tread, and set the screws into motion. In a few minutes the Omnimobile rose above the surface and splashed back into the blue waves like a gigantic dolphin of silver metal!
I climbed out on the deck. The Florida coast was a bright green line in the west. The serene blue vault of the heavens was illimitable above us, and the deeper blue expanse of waters lay about in a flat, measureless plain. The machine throbbed almost imperceptibly with the motors, and the prow sent out two white wings of water. The plates were wet and slippery with the spray. I thrilled to feel again the motion of a powerful craft beneath me, to smell the salty tang of the air, and to feel the tingle of the salt mist upon my skin. We were making a good fifty knots, and I had to brace myself against the cool, damp wind of our progress. Thanks to her gyro-stabilizers, the vessel was perfectly steady.
I stood there a long time, gripping the low rail, and lost in the wonders of sea and sky. I felt very much a part of all that splendid, sunlit world. I felt a deep, poignant regret at leaving it. But I found myself feeling—with a little surprise—that I could be willing enough to give up my life to save it!
At last I went back into the conning-tower. Sam stood alert at the controls, with an odd, exultant light in his eyes, and with a smile of joy and confidence on his lean face. With his hands on the levers, he turned to me and said:
"The little old machine's a wonder, Mel! She runs on sea, land, or air! It's a great feeling to drive her! She'd go anywhere! You know, I wish we had time to make a trial for the moon!"
"There's no hurry about that!" I assured him heartily. "The moon will keep!"
Presently I took the controls. Sam fixed dinner, and brought my meal in on a tray. Then he went to his stateroom. I enjoyed my spell at the controls. Indeed, as Sam had said, the handling of the machine gave one a strange sensation of power, of omnipotence, almost. It was the same feeling of unconquerable, careless power that a god might have enjoyed. I was almost sorry when Sam came to relieve me in the evening, and I had to go to my bunk.
When I got up to take his place again, it was night. The generators were beating steadily, and the Omnimobile was ploughing her way through heavy seas. The sky was black, and occasional brilliant flashes of lightning lit the sheets of falling rain that drummed on the metal deck. When he showed me our position, it was in the Pacific, off Central America. I knew that he had used the rocket tubes to carry us over the Isthmus.
For two more days we kept the bow southwest, in the direction of the Mangar Deep. Sam and I alternated at the controls, and he took time to prepare our meals when he was off duty. The cabin was fixed up most comfortably with bookcases, table, and upholstered divan. During the second long afternoon I looked over my old stories of science, and read again Verne's immortal story,Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I was somewhat amused at the thought that I was aboard a stranger and more wonderful machine than that of the fantastic tale, and that our adventures had already been far more amazing than those of the great romance at which so many practical people had scoffed. If I had known what was to come—well, I suppose I could not have composed myself enough to read at all!
At evening on the third day, the sea lay cold and blue about us, and the northern sun was crawling along the horizon to sink cold and bright in the clear north-western sky, turning the westward waves into a glittering sea of frozen fire, and gleaming with prismatic whiteness on the snow caps of a few vast icebergs that dotted that far southern sea. Sam stopped the engines. We floated in that wintry, lonely ocean, infinitely removed from the busy world of man, over the Mangar Deep—over the lair of the hidden menace!
I stood on the gleaming wet metal deck, shivering slightly from the chill of the keen south wind, breathing deep of the fresh salty air, and lost in the never-aging wonders of the sea and sky. I felt even a distant kinship with the blue, white-capped mountains of ice that lifted their massive frozen spires to meet the cold sunshine. How often, in the incredible adventure to come, was I to fear that I was never again to see the blue of the sky, or to feel the ancient spell of a limitless surging sea!
I took a last deep breath, and went below. I was a little surprised to see that Sam was closing the ventilators, opening the oxygen apparatus and air purifiers, inspecting the pumps and valves, getting ready to dive.
"Surely we can't start till morning?"
"Why not? At two hundred fathoms night is the same as day."
"I hadn't thought of that. Then—"
"Before we see the sky again, we shall know—"
With a queer tightening in my throat, I saw the manhole closed for the last time upon the fresh, cold air of the sea. In ten minutes more we had let the water into the buoyancy tanks. Green water and gleaming monsters of the sea rushed upward in the steady glare of the searchlights beyond the windows.
I stood at the valve and pump controls, while Sam busied himself in seeing to the torpedo tube and the machine gun, and in adjusting his electric arc weapon. Then he brought out a grotesque suit of steel submarine armor he had had made, with oxygen tanks and electric searchlight, etc., attached.
Swiftly we were dropping into the Mangar Deep!
CHAPTER X
The Depths of Fear
In the deep sea the temperature is just above freezing; the darkness is absolute; the pressure is many tons to the square inch. But still, life has been found, even in the greatest depths. It is strange life, to be sure, for the organisms must be developed to withstand the great pressure, and to generate their own light. It is an odd truth of nature that there is some form of life adapted for each locality. There are the mosses and reindeer of the frigid north, the cactus and lizards of the burning deserts, the blind creatures of the Mammoth Cave, the stranger things of the deepest seas! May it not be that there are entities living out in space, or in the earth's interior, of which we may never know? Such were my thoughts as we dropped to meet the menace that had risen from under the sea!
We sank swiftly, and steadily the manometer climbed. The water was dark but for the bright beams of the searchlights, and very cold, though, with the insulation and the electric heaters, we felt no discomfort. The pressure on the plates must have been terrific beyond conception. It seemed impossible that metal—even our cleverly braced plates of the wonderful beryllium bronze—could withstand so much, when even the rocks of the ocean floor "creep" and bend beneath the water's weight!
Thousands upon thousands of feet we sank, and still the sea was dark and cold! In our wild plunge downward I caught fleeting glimpses of many of the weirdly grotesque creatures of the deep, flashing past in the gleam of our lights.
At last Sam had completed his preparations for the emergency that might arise when we reached our goal. He came into the conning-tower. I looked at the manometer—in fact, I had been looking at it most of the time.
"Pressure four thousand pounds!" I read. "That means we are nearly eight thousand feet down! I wonder how much longer—"
"Remember," Sam said softly. "Remember that we have to go ten miles down—fifty thousand feet!"
"Fifty thousand feet! Every cubic foot of water weighs sixty-five pounds. Fifty thousand times sixty-five, divided over one hundred and forty-four square inches. That is—about twenty-two thousand pounds to the square inch! Eleven tons!"
"Somewhat more, I fancy, say 23,800 pounds," Sam observed calmly.
"What's the difference? Nothing could live or move under such a weight!"
"The thing we have come to investigate lives there, if it is a living thing at all."
I said nothing more. Somehow, I did not feel inclined to conversation. I could think only of the terrific weight of water so near, pressing so mercilessly upon the thin plates, think only of how cruelly it would crush and tear us when it found its way in! I gazed at the little needle with a sort of fascination. It crept slowly around the dial, counting up the pounds of the irresistible pressure that surrounded us.
The minutes dragged by. The little needle showed a depth of fifteen thousand feet, almost three miles. The height of a good mountain, and still it crept up! And yet we were not a third of the way! Suddenly I heard a splintering crackle that grated roughly on my strained nerves. I looked down. The unconscious grip of my hand had splintered the top panel of the back of a chair by my side!
Sam was looking at me, grinning. "I'm glad you didn't have your hand on me, Mel."
I glanced back at the needle, and shouted in surprised relief.
"It has stopped!"
Truly, the pointer stood still! As we watched it, it hung still a moment under my riveted gaze, and then crept back!
"It's a turning point! The pressure is getting less!"
"It couldn't be!" Sam said. "Unless we are rising!"
"No! See! The buoyancy tanks are still flooded!"
"The duplicate pressure gauge?"
"It turned back with the other!"
"Look! Yes, we are still sinking." He pointed to the windows. "See! The fish are still flashing upward in the light!"
In speechless wonder, we stood and watched. Still we were evidently sinking. Still the dark waters rushed up about us. And still the needles crept back!
Suddenly Sam seized my shoulder in a hand of iron. "Look!" he whispered hoarsely, pointing out through the heavy lenses. "Can't you see? A light! A red gleam beyond our searchlights!"
A switch clicked under the nervous fingers of his other hand, and our lights went out. In a moment, as soon as my eyes were accustomed to the darkness, I saw that he was right! The sea was not black! There was a pale, roseate glow suffused through it!
Steadily it grew stronger. We were coming into a region of light, and of decreased pressure, at the bottom of the sea! Of all wonders!
The red light grew stronger, until it seemed that we sank through a sea of molten ruby—through an ocean of blood. Intense red light poured in through the lenses until I had to hide my eyes. With shaded eyes, Sam bent over the manometer.
"Only two hundred feet!" he cried. "Fifty! Ten!"
Suddenly the floor fell away from beneath my feet. We seemed to have dropped from the sea into a lake of fire. A blindingly intense red glare poured in the windows. I was very sick. The ship reeled about me, the floor sank, dropped away! I grasped dizzily for the table, drew myself blindly toward it!
I remember hanging limply and helplessly to the table for a moment, remember Sam pushing me suddenly away. I have a dim memory of a crashing thunder of sound that reverberated deafeningly and seemed to roll away to infinite distances through the fiery mist. And with that strange, deep sound, my consciousness faded away!
CHAPTER XI
The Roof of Waters
The next thing I knew I was lying on the floor, with a torrent of icy water falling on my face. I sat up, sputtering. Sam was bending over me with a relieved grin on his face.
"Care for any more?" he asked, emptying the pail.
"That's quite enough, thanks," I sputtered. "Where are we?"
"Right here."
"Talk sense," I pleaded, trying to get up, and rubbing the bump in my head.
"Really, I hardly know," he said, soberly. "It's rather queer. We're afloat on a smooth, warm sea! The sky is red!"
I stared at him stupidly.
"It's a good thing we had the rockets! If we hadn't used them, we'd have hit this water like a concrete pavement!"
"Queer, you say! My eye! We're both crazy! It can't be!"
"You might get up and see for yourself."
"You say we've fallen through the Pacific and into another sea?"
"I only know what I can see."
"We did seem to come out of the water into a red mist."
"So it seemed."
"But the Pacific Ocean overhead! We must have come through six miles of water! And water won't float on air!"
"We have several interesting questions before us."
I got uncertainly to my feet, walked past the calm old scientist, and climbed out on the narrow deck. Indeed it was a weird and incredible sight that met my eyes. Overhead arched a great dome of crimson fire. In all directions it reached down to the dark, warm sea on which we were floating. Nothing in sight but red sky and dark waves! There was a light, hot breeze, but the strange sea was very still. Its color was a blue-black, splashed weirdly with the reflected light of the crimson sky. It stretched out on every hand to where the red sky rose, utterly lifeless—lonely and dead.
We had fallen into an unsuspected and incredible world! Miles of water lay between us and our fellow men. Suddenly I felt an absurdly great loneliness, a vast homesickness for the world we had left—even if my fellow men had never meant very much to me! I felt an ineffably intense desire for the sunshine, for blue skies and green plains, and for the busy, cheerful cities of men! In fact, I almost burst into tears.
It was not so much that I was afraid. But the place seemed so strange, that even after I was dead my soul could not find a way out!
If there had been a rock, or an island to break the monotony of the ghostly, silent sea, it would not have been so bad. But there were none. The strange dark desert of waters stretched out as far as my eye could reach! The eerie, scarlet radiation of the sky beat down with intense heat, and the wind was damp and sultry.
Abruptly Sam stepped out beside me. There was almost a grin on his lean, tanned face, and he looked somehow very confident and resourceful. I felt a great wave of faith in him and in the wonderful machine beneath our feet, rocking silently in the strange, smooth sea. Impulsively I reached out my hand to him, and he took it with a smile.
"I know how you feel, Mel. But we're still kicking!"
"But the ocean?" I asked again. "What could hold it up?"
"I've been doing some pretty stiff thinking along that line. I have a theory that might help you, even if I have missed the point. You know we came through the red gas that makes the curious sky we see. The gas was just below the water. It's evidently radioactive, or it wouldn't be luminous. Its emanations might change the gravity of the water above!"
"Negative gravity or levitation?"
"Something of the kind. You know that science has held for a long time that there is no reason,per se, to doubt the existence of substances that would repel instead of attracting one another. In fact, the mutual repulsion of the like poles of a magnet is, in a way, an illustration of that very thing. Even assuming the existence of substances of negative gravity, they would not be found on the surface of the earth, for they would escape into space as fast as liberated. The phlogiston of the old alchemists, by the way, was supposed to be such a substance.
"But suppose the gravity of the water is negatived by the gas. Water, you know, has the property of becoming radioactive after it has been exposed to radium emanations, and it is logical enough for it to assume the qualities of the gas. The water next to the gas may support that above."
"But it looks as if the gas would bubble out, like air under water," I said.
"That was the principal objection to the theory. But we know from our pressure readings that the water is not resting heavily on the gas. If it is supported by the negative gravity of its lower stratum, the equilibrium is very delicate, but it would be naturally maintained.
"Suppose the roof of water is lifted. The gas and atmosphere below, being given more room, would expand. Consequently the gas would be brought less intimately into contact with the water, the negativing effect would be reduced, and the balance would be restored. Conversely, a sinking would compress the gas, increase its effect, and bring back the balance. Even if the water sank in one place and was lifted in another, the difference in the density of the gas at various altitudes would maintain the equilibrium."
"Yes. Yes, I believe I see. A thousand thanks! It makes me feel a lot better to see how it could be," I said, admiring the wonderful readiness with which he had formulated his theory. "But can you say how the gas came to be here, and how there happens to be breathable air beneath it?"
"Both might have been manufactured by the intelligences we have come to investigate. More likely, however, the gas comes from the disintegration of the radium in the earth, and has been rising out of fissures in the ocean floor and collecting here for ages. The oxygen of the air may have come from the decomposition of rocks—the earth's crust is nearly fifty per cent oxygen. This place may be as old as the sea. That alien power may have been growing up in here through all the ages that man has been developing outside!"
"You think there may be living things here?"
"No reason why not. In fact, this is the logical habitat for your Green Girl. Red and green are complementary colors. If there are people here, green would be the natural color for the protective pigmentation against this red light!"
CHAPTER XII
The Second Sea
Leaving to me the visions and the flights of wild hope that his last words induced, Sam went below. In a few minutes he called me to eat. Suddenly I realized that I was very hungry. I looked at my watch. It was eight o'clock.
"Why, is it just two hours since we left the surface?"
"No. It's fourteen!"
Forgetting the intense red sky, the strange, smooth sea, and the damp, hot wind, I went below to meet Sam's wonderful biscuit, with fresh steak and fruit from the refrigerator. A very mild and colorless beginning for adventurers newly fallen into an unknown world, but a very sensible one!
After the meal, each of us took a turn on guard in the conning-tower, while the other slept. Nothing happened. The soft hot wind blew steadily out of the south, the bloody glare of the weird sky was changeless, and the sea lay about in a motionless desert.
The thermometer outside registered 115°, but on account of the automatic temperature control, the machine was comfortable enough, though the heat and humidity on deck were stifling.
When we had rested, we turned the bow of the Omnimobile toward the north and cruised along at a speed of four or five knots. I stood in the conning-tower at the wheel, while Sam busied himself with making an analysis of the air, and of a sample of water from the sea. Presently he came up out of the little laboratory, with his report.
"The air shows to be 31% oxygen," he said, "and 64% helium, with the remainder a mixture of various other gases. The barometer pressure is only eleven pounds, which compensates for the excess of oxygen. The helium is a good indication of the radioactivity which must have produced the gas overhead, since helium is one of the ultimate products of radium disintegration. The oxygen must have come largely from the breaking up of carbon dioxide by plant life."
"Then there is life?"
"There were microscopic organisms, both animal and vegetable, in the sample of water I took. The water, by the way, carries only 1.23% solid matter, mostly sodium chloride. Less than half as much as the sea above, which has 2.7%."
For several hours longer we moved slowly over the surface of that warm, silent sea. In all directions it lay flat as far as my eye could reach, its blue-black depths glancing with the unearthly crimson of the sky. Sam was still working in the laboratory and looking after the machinery.
And then I saw the first living thing!
My roving eye caught a tiny black speck against the gleam of the bloody sky. It was soaring, drifting slowly, like a vast bird—its motion was too irregular, I thought, to be that of a flying machine. I flung the little port open, and tried to get my binoculars upon it. It was very far away, but I made out that it was a vast, strange, winged thing. It seemed very large to be a bird. And its colors were bright—fantastic! It seemed—I was sure—that its wings were green! But it seemed to be moving faster than I had thought. I never got it clearly into focus, and suddenly it dived, and was lost beneath the horizon!
"Sam! Sam!" I called sharply. "I've seen something—somethingalive!"
In a moment he was climbing up into the conning-tower, with a question on his lips. I described my confused impression of the thing as best I could, mentioning the strange colors.
"More than likely, Mel," he said, "you wouldn't have recognized it, even if you had seen it clearly. You could hardly expect to find life here like that we know. The chances are that evolution has taken a widely different course in here. Even the tiny things in the sea were strange to me. And in a world like this, of hot and endless day, we're likely to find jungles with great insects and huge reptiles—a fauna and flora corresponding to that of the Carboniferous Era on the surface."
"Then you think there is land here, trees, even men! You really think—the Green Girl?"
"That was just an idea, about the green tan. But there is sure to be land, of some sort, where the lips of this abyss curve up to meet the water above. And there is no reason why there might not be life upon it—highly developed life, at that. Life may be as old in this place as outside, perhaps older, for it has been protected from the cataclysms of one kind and another that may have swept life off the surface again and again through the ages. And we know there is some kind of intelligence here—"
"No wonder they were willing to freeze the earth! They couldn't tell the difference if the sea were frozen a mile thick!"
Still we held our course to the northward. Presently Sam went back below again. An hour later the horizon was broken by a line of dull blue in the north. A thin blue strip appeared between black sea and scarlet sky, and widened slowly. In another hour I could make out a wall of towering blue cliffs all across the north, rising from the sea as if to support the red sky. They were veiled in the mists of infinite distances. When Sam had made his observations, computed his angles and completed his calculations, he announced that they were a hundred miles north of us, and met the red sky at a level four miles above us as we floated along!
That meant that we were nine miles below the level of the Pacific, according to Sam's figures. The seat of the menace we thought to conquer was a mile below us yet!
As the hours went by, and we still went northward at our crawling pace (we went slowly because Sam thought that the use of the engines at full power would create an etheric disturbance that would reveal our position to our mysterious enemy). The jagged rim of the abyss rose steadily out of the sea. The cliffs, when I focused my powerful glasses upon them, seemed composed of sheer columns of blue rock, reaching up to meet the red roof of waters like gigantic prisms of blue basalt.
At last my searching eyes glimpsed a patch of green below the blue. A vast slope of green hills drew up out of the red-black sea. They gleamed with the pure verdant emerald of well-watered grasslands. Here and there they were marked with huge, strange splotches of purple. I was ever amazed anew at the vastness of the weird world about us.
Steadily the green and purple slopes lifted themselves out of the dark sea before us, and stretched up, through vast plains and low hills, to the sheer wall of rough blue cliffs that lay all about the north, cut off so sharply at the top by the red sky.
At last we came in view of the shore—fringed with a jungle of green and lofty forest. Huge those strange plants were, with long thick leaves, grotesque forms, and fantastic flaming blossoms! I stared at them through the binoculars. They were like nothing that is or has ever been above the sea—like nothing that I had ever seen or imagined! They were strange wild trees of another earth! Their green was weirdly tinted with purple, or with queer metallic tints of silver and bronze! Their incredibly great blooms were prolifically borne and infinitely varied, making the weird jungle an alien fairyland of bright and multicolored flame!
A fit habitat, indeed, for the monstrous things we found there!
CHAPTER XIII
The Flying Flowers
It was several miles back of the shore to where the green grassland rose from the jungle to slope up to the cliffs of gleaming blue. I had ceaselessly searched the plains and the jungles for a sign of life or intelligence; but, so far, I had seen nothing save the weird flying monster of which I had caught a glimpse.
But suddenly a huge winged thing arose from the jungle strip! In a moment two more had joined it from the shore! In a few minutes a score of vast weird monsters were circling over the beach ahead! They were strange things, incredible, almost. I might have doubted my eyes but for Sam's warning of the strange things we might encounter. Their colors were bright. The wings were plainly green and of a spread of many yards! They flew with slow and regular wing-beats.
It was some time before I got one focused clearly in the glasses and then I gasped in astonishment and terror at the weird creature that seemed to spring at me from the lenses. It was neither bird nor winged reptile! It was not an animal at all!
It was a winged plant!
The great flapping wings were broad and green, braced with white veins like the leaf of a plant. The long body was plated with coarse brown scales, and tapered to a green-fringed tail. Eight long blood-red tentacles dangled in pairs below the body. They were thick, and the coils of each must have measured many yards in length. Each bore at the end a single terrible claw.And instead of a head, the thing carried on the forward end—a flower!It was huge, of many petals, brightly colored! Out of the calyx were thrust three dead-black, knobbed appendages that must have been organs of sense!
It was a vast thing—unbelievable! It was as large as an airplane! It was terrible—a nightmare monster! I could scarcely believe my sight, though, after what Sam had said, I might have expected such a thing.
I do not remember calling Sam. I was too much amazed. But suddenly he climbed up beside me, and took the binoculars from my unconscious hand. With a fearful gaze, I watched him raise and focus the instrument, trying to read in his lean, tanned face the meaning of the astounding things.
I saw keen interest reflected there, surprise, intense concentration, but nothing of the strange terror I felt. A sensation of immense relief came over me, and I made a half-hearted effort to smile as he lowered the glasses and looked at me, grinning.
"Don't let it get you, Mel," he said. "I was expecting something of the sort—or more so. They are no more terrible than the old winged saurians, probably. At any rate, the Omnimobile can take care of herself. We're likely to meet something worse before we're through."
"I hope not!" I said, piously. "But the things are plants!"
"Possibly. But the idea of animated plants is nothing new to science. The line of division between the plant and animal kingdoms is rather vague, and it seems that both developed from a common ancestor. Even today there are living things that can be classified neither as plant nor animal. Take, for instance,Euglena Viridis, the microscopic organism that colors green scum on fresh-water ponds. It is a plant, because it contains chlorophyll, and utilizes sunlight in the manufacture of food from carbon dioxide and it absorbs salts dissolved in the water. It is an animal because it can swim about very actively, and because it can absorb particles of food that it finds in the water. Carry the evolution of such a thing to the nth degree, and you have the flying things before us!"
Again, I had to admit that Sam had advanced a most plausible explanation for an amazing thing, but still I prefer my plants fastened to the ground.
It soon became evident that the monsters had discovered us. They approached and circled close above, green wings slowly beating the air, and the great blooms that were like heads seeming to flicker with varied colors. The thick, red tentacles coiled below the great brown shark-like bodies, with terrible talons drawn back threateningly.
"The things may be feeling unpleasant," Sam suggested. "It might be a good thing to fix 'em a hot welcome."
That had already occurred to me. I let Sam have the controls, and ran out and loaded the little cannon. Through the thick windows of the little conning-tower I watched the monsters flying above us. They followed as we kept up our deliberate advance toward the jungle-covered shore.
Suddenly one of them dived down upon us. The impact of its heavy, shark-like body shook the machine, and its great claws grated over the metal plates with an unpleasantly suggestive sound, as it strove vainly to rip them open. I felt some alarm. For sheer fighting power I would match one of those flying plants against any animal that ever walked on earth. In wing-spread it was fully as long as the Omnimobile, though the machine was, of course, many times heavier.
I slipped into gear the machinery that revolved the turret, and as soon as a portion of that rough, armored brown body was fairly before the gun, I let fire with an explosive shell. The whole machine rocked with the force of the explosion, and the side of that vast scaly brown body was torn off. A viscid green fluid gushed out, dyeing the deck and tinting the water alongside. The terrible grasp of the thing relaxed, and it slipped off into the sea.
The others were hovering low, but in a moment Sam had submerged the machine, and we made for the shore under water. In five minutes we struck a soft, muddy bank. He shifted the caterpillar tread into gear. The machine waddled up the muddy slope through the fringe of strange plants, and broke into the weird jungle.
The unearthly radiance of the sky filtered through the jungle roof in a dull crimson light. In the vague, ominous twilight, huge and monstrous tree-trunks rose all about us, as much like great fungoid growths as like normal trees. We pushed through thickets of weird purples and strange metallic hues, under vast masses of hanging green vines, all hung with gigantic incredible blooms that were so bright they seemed to light the dusky forest with their vivid flames of crimson and yellow and blue!
For perhaps three miles the Omnimobile smashed her deliberate way like a gigantic reptilian monster through that strip of weird rotting jungle. Then we emerged on higher ground of a different vegetation.
CHAPTER XIV
The Prey of the Plant
We stopped the machine on the first little eminence of the open space, to survey the vastly different and unfamiliar region that lay before us. It was an open, park-like country. There were broad meadows and low hills covered with a fine turf of luxuriant green grass. There were scattering small groves and great solitary trees so profusely laden with vast purple blossoms that they seemed afire with purple flame.
It was a strange landscape, and not without a certain unearthly beauty. The rich, green plains and hills lay all about before us, scattered with clumps of brilliant purple woodland, and stretching up to the great blue cliffs in the misty distance. A lurid, melancholy weirdness was given to the scene by the awful scarlet glare of the sky.
Presently we rolled on again, across the broad level meadow, and over a little stream, and through a copse of flaming purple trees. We had gone another mile when Sam, still at the controls, shouted above the beating of the engine and the clatter of the machinery.
"Look, Mel! Get it! Shoot! North of us!"
Still behind the gun, I looked out quickly. To the north was an open green field of several acres extent. Beyond, the scattering purple trees rose, dotting the green hills until at last they merged in the slope that reached up to the cliffs in the misty distance beneath the amazing sky.
For a moment my eyes searched that strange scene in vain, and then I saw the huge green wings of one of the terrible flying plants, flapping deliberately above the brilliantly purple trees a hundred yards to our right. Sam was already swinging the machine about in that direction. Without waiting to see the cause of his frantic appeal, I trained the gun and depressed the firing pin.
For a moment my eyes searched that strange scene in vain, and then I saw the huge green wings of one of the terrible flying plants, flapping deliberately above the brilliantly purple trees a hundred yards to our right.... Without waiting to see the cause of his frantic appeal, I swung the gun, trained it, and depressed the firing pin. "Mel," cried Sam, "one of those red tentacles was wrapped around a human being."
For a moment my eyes searched that strange scene in vain, and then I saw the huge green wings of one of the terrible flying plants, flapping deliberately above the brilliantly purple trees a hundred yards to our right.... Without waiting to see the cause of his frantic appeal, I swung the gun, trained it, and depressed the firing pin. "Mel," cried Sam, "one of those red tentacles was wrapped around a human being."
For a moment my eyes searched that strange scene in vain, and then I saw the huge green wings of one of the terrible flying plants, flapping deliberately above the brilliantly purple trees a hundred yards to our right.... Without waiting to see the cause of his frantic appeal, I swung the gun, trained it, and depressed the firing pin. "Mel," cried Sam, "one of those red tentacles was wrapped around a human being."
The little gun roared sharply, slid quickly back and forward again in its recoil cylinders, and the mechanism clicked smoothly as another shell was thrown into the breech. For a moment my vision was obscured by the thick white cloud of smoke. Peering intently, I saw the unearthly monster flying more slowly—sinking. In a moment it was out of sight behind the purple trees.
"Did you hit it?" Sam cried anxiously.
"I think so. But why all the fuss about that one? There are plenty more back in the jungle."
"Oh, didn't you see? It was carrying something!"
"Carrying something?"
"Mel, one of those red tentacles was wrapped around aman!"
He had brought the lumbering machine about in the direction of the place where we had last seen the monster. We went at a reckless pace. The machine rocked and banged, and we were shaken up unmercifully when we crossed a dry watercourse. Two or three of the trees went down before our undeviating and irresistible advance, filling the air with purple clouds of petals from the great bright flowers.
Then I saw before us, thirty yards away, the great strange creature lying flat on the ground, with wings outspread. Beneath it, in the coils of one of the thick tentacles, I saw the gleam of a naked human body.
The machine jerked to a halt and I threw open the manhole and sprang out on the deck. In a moment Sam was beside me. He had buckled on an automatic pistol of the latest design and the heaviest caliber. He handed me a duplicate weapon, with ammunition belt and holster, with the warning, "We've got to expect the unexpected, and must be quick on the draw!"
I fastened on the gun, and led the way down the ladder to the ground. In a few seconds we stood by the dead monster. Seen at close range, it was an appalling thing, indeed. It was very strange, and even the dead body of it showed cruel strength. The green wings were like tough green leather stretched over a metal frame. The body was armored with thick, rough brown scales. The tough scarlet skin of the tentacular limbs was smooth and rubber-like. Already the weird flower at the forward end was withered and black. The ground about the thing was stained with a flood of green liquid from the terrible wound the shell had torn.
I hurried around it. Only the shoulder and arm of the human prey were in sight. Yes, it was a human being, and the skin had the clear smoothness of youth. I bent closer and perceived, with an odd admixture of feelings that made my heart beat wildly and then pause until I reeled, that the skin had a soft greenish tan. I saw that the body, lying under the wing alone, had not been crushed by the fall of the monster.
"We'll be able to tell what manner of mankind we have to deal with here," Sam said, though I scarcely heard him. "If our man was at all civilized, there ought to be ornaments, or remnants of clothing. I hardly expected human life here. But it may be a human science that is threatening our world!"
He stumbled over the end of one of the thick red tentacles. It moved uncertainly, and he stopped in a sort of fascinated horror. "God!" he muttered. Indeed, it was a terrible thing. The slick red limb, four inches thick, ended in a suction cup, with a hideous claw, a good twelve inches long, fastened at the side. It made one's flesh creep to think of that terrible claw ripping and tearing flesh, or of the cupped end of the tube sucking blood from it.
I pulled at the still white form beneath the wing. One of the crimson tentacles still clung closely about the young body. I tried to pull it free; but at my touch it seemed to tighten with a sort of aimless reflex action. Sam got out his sheath knife and cut at it. It was very tough, and the viscid green slime flowed from the abrasions in its rubber-like membrane, but presently we cut it in two. I drew the body from under the wing.
I echoed Sam's exclamation. "It's the body of a woman!"
CHAPTER XV
The Green Girl
It was, indeed, the form of a woman—rather, of a girl. The eyelids were closed and still. There was no breathing, and no perceptible beating of the heart. But the body was very beautiful. The hair was soft and dark; the skin, white with just a hint of the green coloration. The features were regular, classic—perfect! The lips were still very red.
That form was familiar to me—it was the dearest shape of my dreams! It was the Green Girl! There could be no mistake. This was the flesh and blood reality of the delightful vision that had been the joy of my life. At last, my supreme wish was granted! I had found the Green Girl! But too late! She was so white and still!
As Sam remarked, his words reaching me faintly through a gray daze of despair, she seemed to have belonged to a rather highly developed race of people. In fact, so far as physical perfection goes, she was without parallel; and physical and mental endowments usually go hand in hand. The wide white forehead betokened a keen intellect.
Sam had expected to find ornaments on the body, but no such things as we did find! There was a thin band of metal about the waist! The twisted fragments of a strange metal object were upon the back, fastened to the white shoulders with metal clamps that gripped them cruelly!
It was evident that something, recently torn away, had been fastened to the back of the girl!
Sam brought a file from the machine. I helped aimlessly, mechanically, and we cut that metal frame off. As we worked over that white body, with its soft tints of green, I saw strange, livid marks upon the back, that stood out sharply from the warm hue of the skin! I had never seen anything like them. They were splotches of a dull violet color! They looked like burns, or stains, that must have been caused by the thing that had been fastened to her body.
"Radium burns?" I questioned Sam in apathetic curiosity.
"No. Something similar, perhaps. Radium emanations whiten the hair, but the color of the skin is not affected except by inflammation. This is the effect of atomic radiation of a shorter wave-length, I think. My hands were oddly stained for months while I was making my initial experiments with the artificial generation of the cosmic ray, which led to the hydrodyne. I found the cause and developed an effective treatment. I imagine that burn is the chief cause of her coma."
"Coma! Then she isn't——" My heart beat madly, and a mist came before my eyes.
"I think there is hope. She seems not to have been injured by the monster, or to have been seriously hurt by the fall. She is in a profoundly comatose state, due to the electronic burns, and also to physical exhaustion and the terrible hardships of which her appearance gives evidence."
"If you can save her——" I fell on my knees and raised that delicate head in my arms.
"Let's get her to the machine. It's cooler in there. We'll do what we can."
I picked up the silent body, still warm and limp, and carried it to the machine, up to the deck, and down into the cabin. I gently placed it on the divan, and nervously urged Sam to haste.
He deliberately began his work. He had included medical supplies in our equipment; and he was a doctor of considerable skill, whose special knowledge of the effects of etheric vibration was of greatest value here. I could do little except stand and watch him, or stride impatiently up and down the room.
First he quickly prepared a thick red liquid, with which he bathed the violet-colored burns. Then he made a hypodermic injection, and next administered a small quantity of some kind of gas—a mixture of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, with something else that I did not recognize. In a few minutes the beating of the heart had become normal, and the breathing was resumed. He had me cover the patient up, and it soon became evident that she had passed into a deep but natural sleep.
I sat by the couch, feasting my sight on the reality of the vision that had been mine so long, in a fever of impatience for the time the beautiful sleeper might awake, so that I could speak to her, yet fearful of making a sound that would disturb her.
Sam had gone out to examine the dead monster more fully. In half an hour he came back in the cabin, carrying a queer writhing green thing in his hand. He held it up silently for me to see. With a sickening sensation, I perceived that it was a miniature replica of the great flying monster!
It was no bigger than a dove! The madly fluttering wings were a bright rich green, very delicate and soft. The thin, slender tentacles that clutched Sam's hand, or scratched harmlessly at it with undeveloped claws, were a pale rose color. The thin, fish-like body was almost white, and the little bloom at the end of it was now an intense violet in color, while the little black sense organs were thrust stiffly out of it.
"Quite a find!" Sam said. "We ought to learn no end of things from studying it, if we can keep it alive."
"Quiet!" I whispered. "Don't wake her! But where did you get it?"
"Tore it out of a curious pouch on the back of the old one. A cunning little creature, isn't it?"
"Not to my way of looking at it!"
"I wonder what it eats? Most likely it's carnivorous. The claws would suggest as much. And that assumption would demand that there must be large game of some kind to support the winged plants."
Sam carried the little monster on into the galley. In half an hour, since he had not come out, I left the sleeping girl and went in to see him, fearing that he had been bitten or stung by the thing. I found him with the grotesque little creature perched contentedly on his finger, sucking with the thin pink tentacles at a wisp of cotton he had soaked in condensed milk. An odd thing I noticed about it. The little bloom on the end of the body, which had been purple a short time before, was now white, flushed only with a pale pink glow.
"It's as friendly as a kitten," Sam said. "I'm going to name it Alexander. No reason why it should not develop into a young conqueror."
"Keep it, and give me a pet rattlesnake!"
And it was well he did keep it.
CHAPTER XVI
Xenora of Lothar
I went back to the beautiful sleeping girl, and sat down again in my rapt contemplation of the quiet charm of her face. She was breathing quite normally, and the face bore a slight smile of pleasure. Suddenly she moved, and the eyelids were raised. Clear violet eyes looked straight into mine—they were those eyes that have haunted me always.
"Melvin Dane!" she breathed in a voice that was low and musical and wholly delicious. She knew me! She spoke my name! Truly, it was the Green Girl! She was aware of the meeting of our minds upon the ether! "My chieftain of dreams!"
From beneath the light covers she reached a slender rounded arm, white, with just a hint of green tan. I took her hand in my own, feeling a strange thrill at the touch. After a moment of hesitation, when I struggled fiercely with that thrill, relaxing to it briefly, I put her hand quickly to my lips, and then released it.
I did not feel capable of speech. For all the hours since we had found the girl, I had been undergoing a storm of emotions—alternate joy and despair. Now, when the Green Girl actually smiled upon me, I forgot all my old dreams of how I would cross oceans and voyage through space to take her in my arms. I sat still, with a curious lump in my throat, in incredulous joy, not daring even to surrender to the delicious thrill of her touch.
She laughed softly and questioned, "From whence did you come, chieftain of my dreams, or am I dreaming still?"
"It's no dream," I began awkwardly. "Though I can hardly feel that it isn't. I came from a land above the red sky. I have always dreamed of you! And now I find you real—living! What is your name? Do you have people?"
"I am Xenora. My father was the last prince of the old city of Lothar. My people now are few."
"You spoke my name! You already knew it?"
"Yes, Melvin Dane, I have dreamed of you since I was a child. Even now, before I awoke, I had a curious dream of you—I thought you were coming to me through the sky in a ship of fire." The poor girl had raised herself on her elbow. Now she lay back on the pillows again as if she were very weak.
"So you have known me always, too!"
"Since one day when I was a child. The old lost city was my playground, and even when I was very small I wandered alone through the great palaces of old Lothar, dreaming of the ancient time when her warriors were great. One day I found a strange machine in a ruined tower room. Curious sounds came out of it when I put it to my ears. And then came the vision of you—of the white prince of my dreams. Day after day I slipped back, to dream of you. But even when I could go back no longer, you still came to me in dreams."
"But now they are dreams no longer! You are mine!" I exulted.
I thought there was something wistful in her smile, a hint of sadness in her sparkling violet eyes. "Yes," she breathed, "even for a little time, it is real. A little time, before the end."
She rose a little, resting on her elbow. I took her hand again. How slender and small it was! She still smiled, a little wanly.
"Don't speak of the end!" I said, unconsciously lapsing into the strange tongue in which I had so often conversed with her. "I have found you. You are safe. The flying thing is dead!"
For a moment there was frank admiration in her violet eyes that went oddly to my head. "You killed it! You are like the great warriors of old!"
"Hardly," I demurred with painful honesty. "I did nothing except push down a little pin."
"But the Lunak, the flying thing, is not what I fear. It had taken me from a fate that was far worse. It was carrying me from the power of the Lord of Flame!"
Her eyes dilated as she pronounced the words, as if they were a curse of fatal horror. For a moment she seemed to struggle fiercely with some terrible fear. She sank back rigid and unconscious to the couch. I sprang to her and lifted her in my arms. I started to call Sam, but in a moment her body relaxed, and her breathing was resumed, though she did not open her eyes.
Still, I felt no haste to put her down. I brought her a little closer to my heart, and my lips were very close indeed to hers when suddenly her violet eyes opened wide. I almost dropped her in my speechless confusion, and I felt myself turning red. Embarrassed more than I care to say, I hurriedly departed for the galley.
I found Sam whistling cheerfully and busy making apple pies for dinner. I have known several men who called themselves scientists, but Sam is the only one of them who had mastered the science of cooking. He used to say that if he were going to be hanged, he would want to cook and eat his dinner first.
"What did you do with the little—reptile-plant?" I asked.
"Oh, Alexander's gone to bed," he said lightly, pointing to a ventilated cardboard box on the shelves. "But how are you coming on with your specimen?" he questioned with a grin.
"Xenora seems—er—recovering very well. Perhaps you had better see her. She might think—that I——"
As Sam, with an understanding nod, walked toward the cabin door, I climbed out on deck, to think about it all. The great trees still whispered a little in the hot south wind, which was laden with the unfamiliar fragrance of the great purple flowers. The rich green grass moved in long waves before it. The red glare still beat down with a torrid intensity. I gazed up the vast slope of purple and green, to the blue cliffs in the distant north, and wondered about what the girl had told me—and about what she thought of me now. I cursed myself for my impulsive action.
A city of ruined palaces! A fallen race that had had a science great enough to build a radio machine—if such it was—which she had found and over which our minds had met! And a thing more terrible, and the flying plants! What had she meant by the words, "The Lord of Flame," the mere utterance of which had overwhelmed her with horror?
Then I thought again of the metal bands and frame we had cut from her body, and of the strange burns upon her skin. What was it that had caused them? Did all of that link up with the menace that threatened the earth? That might even now be doing its work?