A
n attentive audience was awaiting Gordon Smith on his arrival in Sacramento. Smithy's father was not one to be kept waiting even by the Governor of the state. Also, Smithy was coming from the Tonah Basin region, and the news of the destruction of the desert town of Seven Palms had preceded him. Even the swift planes of the Coastal Service could not match the speed of the radio news.
There were only two men in the room when Smithy entered. One of them, tall, heavily built, as square-shouldered as Smithy, came forward and put his two hands on the young man's shoulders. Their greetings were brief.
"Well, son?" asked the older man, and packed a world of questioning into the interrogation.
"O. K., Dad," said Smithy simply.
His father nodded silently and turned to the other man. "Governor, my son, Gordon. He got tired of being known as the 'Old Man's son'—started out on his own—not looking for adventure exactly, but I judge he has found it. He's got something to tell us."
And again Smithy told his wild, unbelievable tale. But it was not so incredible now, for, even while Smithy was talking, the Governor was glancing at the report on his desk which told of the destruction of the little town of Seven Palms.
"I can't tell you what it means," Smithy concluded. He paused before venturing a prediction which was to prove remarkably accurate. "But I saw them—I saw them come up out of the earth, and I'm betting there are plenty more where they came from. And now that they've found their way out, we've got a scrap on our hands. And don't think they're not fighters, either. They're armed—those flame-throwers are nothing we can laugh off, and what else they've got, we don't know."
He leaned forward earnestly across the Governor's desk. "But that's your job," he said. "Mine is to find Dean Rawson. He's alive, or he was. He sent up his ring as proof of it. I've got to find him—I've got to go down in that pit and I want your help."
H
ow far his guard of wild, red man-things had taken him Dean Rawson could not know. Many miles, it must have been. And he knew that the air had grown steadily more stiflingly hot. But the heat of those long tunneled passages was like a cool breeze compared with the blasting breath of the room into which he was plunged.
It seared his eyeballs; it struck down from the tongues of flame that played in red fury in the recess high up on the farther wall. And the vast room, the fires, the hundreds of kneeling figures, all blurred and swam dizzily before him.
The hot air that he breathed seemed crisping his lungs. Vaguely, for the stupefying, brain-numbing heat, he wondered at the figure he saw dimly in its grotesque posturing close to the flames. And the hundreds of others—how could they live? How could he himself go on living in this inferno?
They had been chanting in unison, the kneeling red ones. Dean heard the regular beat of their repeated words change to an uproar of shrill, whistling voices. But he could neither see nor hear plainly for the unbearable, suffocating heat.
The clamor was deafening, confusing; it echoed tremendously in the rocky room and mingled with the steady, continuous roar of the flames. The mass of bodies that surged about him made only a blurring impression; he tried to make himself see clearly. He must fight—fight to the last! Only this thought persisted. He was striking out blindly when he knew that his red guard had cleared a way through the mob and was dragging him forward.
He knew when they reached the farther wall. Somewhere above him was the deep-cut niche in which the fires roared. And then, when again he could see from his tortured eyes, he found directly ahead another doorway in the solid rock. Beyond it all was black; it gave promise of coolness, of relief from the stifling air of the room. Red hands were thrusting him through.
The burst of water, icy cold, that descended upon him from above shocked him from the stupor that claimed his senses. He was drenched in an instant, strangling and gasping for breath. But he could think! And, as the lean hands seized him again and hurried him forward, he almost dared to hope.
T
o his eyes the passageway was a place of utter darkness, but the red ones, their great owl eyes opened wide, hurried him on. His stumbling feet encountered a flight of steps. With the red guard he climbed a winding stair where the tunnel twisted upward.
That icy deluge had set every nerve aquiver with new life. He hardly dared ask himself what might lie ahead. Yet he had been saved from that mob; it might be his life would be spared, that in some way he could learn to communicate with these people, learn more of this subterranean world—which must be of tremendous extent. Without any sure knowledge of their plans, he still was certain in his own mind that they intended to swarm out upon the upper world. He might even be able to show them the folly of that.
A thousand thoughts were flashing through his mind when the tunnel ended. Beyond a square-cut opening the air was aglow with red. An ominous thunder was in his ears. Then a score of hands lifted him bodily and threw him out upon a rocky floor that burned his hands as he fell.
Heat, blistering, unbearable, beat upon him. He was wrapped in quick-rising clouds of steam from his wet clothes.
The platform ended. Far below was a sea of red faces, grotesque and horrible, where each held two ghastly white disks, and at the center of each disk a mere pinpoint eye.
He saw it all in the instant of his falling—the inhuman, shrieking mob, the blast of hot flame not forty feet away at the back of the rocky niche, and, between himself and the flame, a giant figure that leaped exultantly, while its body, that appeared carved from metallic copper, reflected the red fires until it seemed itself aflame.
D
ean knew in the fraction of a second while he scrambled to his feet, that the great room had gone silent. The roaring of the flames ceased; even the clamor of shrill voices was stilled. He had thrown one arm across his face to shield his eyes; the heat still poured upon him like liquid fire. But his instant decision to throw himself out and down into the waiting mob was checked by the sudden stillness.
To open his eyes wide meant impossible torture, yet he forced himself to peer through slitted lids beneath the shelter of his arm.
The flame was gone. Where it had been was a wall of shimmering red rock above a gaping throat in the floor, whose rim was quivering white with heat. Here the blast from some volcanic depth had come.
Then he saw it, saw the great coppery figure leaping upon him—and saw more plainly than all this the end that had been prepared for him.
Fire worshipers! Demons of an under world paying tribute to their god. And he, Dean Rawson, was to be a living sacrifice, cast headlong to that waiting, white-hot throat!
The coppery giant was upon him in the instant of his realization. Somehow in that moment Dean Rawson's wracked body passed beyond all pain. With the inhuman, maniacal strength of a man driven beyond all reason and restraint he tore himself half free from those encircling arms and drove blow after blow into the hideous face above him.
Only his left arm was free. That, too, was clamped tightly against his body an instant later.
T
he giant had been between him and the glowing rocks. Now he felt himself whirled in air, and again the blast of heat struck upon him. He was being rushed backward; and there flashed through his mind, as plainly as if he could actually see it, the scintillant whiteness of that hungry throat.
He tried to lock his legs about the big body to prevent that final heave and throw that would end a ghastly ceremony. The rocks were close, their radiant heat wrapped about him like a living flame. Abruptly his strength was gone—the fight was over—he had lost! His heart sent the blood pounding and thundering to his brain; his lungs seemed on fire.
T
he high priest of the red ones had his priestly duty to perform—the sacrifice must be offered. But even the high priest, it would seem, must have been not above personal resentment. Sacrilege had been done—a fist had smashed again and again into the holy one's face. This it must have been that made him pause, that brought one big hand up in a grip of animal rage about Dean's throat.
Only a moment—a matter of seconds—while he vented his fury upon this white-skinned man who had dared to oppose him. Dean felt the hand close about his throat. So limp he was, so drained of strength, he made no effort to tear it loose. He wasdead—what mattered a few seconds more or less of life? And then a thrill shot through him as he knew his right hand was free.
That hand made fumbling work of drawing a gun from its smoking, leather holster. He could hardly control the numbed, blistered fingers, yet somehow he crooked one about the trigger; and dimly, as from some great distance, he heard the roar of the forty-five.... Then, from some deep recess within him, he summoned one last ounce of strength that threw him clear of the falling body.
Instinctively he had heaved himself away from the fiery rocks; the same effort had sent his big coppery antagonist staggering, stumbling, backward. And Dean, sprawled on the stone floor, whose heat where he lay was just short of redness, heard one long, despairing shriek as the giant figure wavered, hung in air for a moment in black outline against the fierce red of a rocky wall above a white-hot pit, then toppled, pitched forward, and vanished.
Sick and giddy, he forced himself to draw his body up on hands and knees. Then he straightened, came to his feet, and staggered forward.
B
elow him was pandemonium. The sea of faces wavered and blurred before his eyes. From a distant archway other figures were coming. He saw the gleam of metal, heard the wild blare of trumpets, and knew that the hundreds of red ones below him were standing stiffly, both hands raised upright in salute as another barbaric figure entered. The air was clamorous with a shrill repeated call. "Phee-e-al!" the red ones shrieked. "Phee-e-al!"
But Rawson did not wait to see more. Behind him, the flames that had been fed with human flesh—if indeed these red ones were human—roared again into life. He had returned the pistol to its holster when first he came to his feet; his weak hands had seemed unable to hold it. And now his two hands were thrust outward before him as he staggered blindly toward the tunnel mouth.
It was where he had emerged upon the platform. His reaching hands found the side entrance where the stairs led down to the main hall. In the darkness he made his way past. Stumbling weakly he pushed on down the long tunnel whose floor slanted gently away.
Ahead of him was a light. The comparative coolness of these rocks had served to revive him somewhat. He had no hope of escape, yet the light seemed comforting, somehow.
He stopped. His stinging eyes were wide open. He stared incredulously at the glowing spot on a distant wall, where a flame must have touched, and at the figure beneath it.
The figure of a woman! A young woman, tall, slender, fair-haired, whose skin was white, a creamy white, whiter than snow.
A woman? It was a mere girl, slender and beautiful, her graceful young body poised as if, in quick flight, she had been caught and held for a moment of stillness.
What was she doing here? His exhausted brain could not comprehend what it meant. He had seen women of the Mole-men tribe mingling with the men. Like them their heads were pointed, their faces grotesque and hideous. Rawson gave an inarticulate cry of amazement and staggered forward.
Between him and the distant figure a crowd of Reds swarmed in. They came from a connecting passage. Above their heads the lava tips of flame-throwers were spitting jets of green fire. Every face was turned toward him at his cry.
Beyond them the white figure vanished. Dean, leaning weakly against the wall, told himself dully that it had been a phantom, a product of his own despairing brain and his own weakness. Then that weakness overcame him; and the red Mole-men, their white and hideous eyes, the threatening jets of green flame, all vanished in the quick darkness that swept over him....
T
he black curtain of unconsciousness which descended so quickly upon Rawson was not easily thrown off. For hours, days or weeks—he never knew how long he lay in the citadel of the Reds—it was to wrap him around.
Nor was his waking a matter of a moment. Many and varied were the impressions which came to him in times of semiconsciousness, and which of them were realities and which dreams, he could not tell.
He was being tortured with knives, lances tipped with pain that dragged him up from the black depths in which he lay. Dimly he realized that his clothes were being stripped from him and that the piercing knives were none the less real for being only the touch of hands and rough cloth upon his blistered body. Then from head to foot he was coated with a substance cool and moist. The pain died to a mere throbbing and again he felt himself sinking back into unconsciousness.
There were other visions, many others, some of them plain and distinct, some blurred and terrifying to his fevered brain trying vainly to bring order and reason into what was utterly chaotic.
Once a bedlam of shrieking voices roused him. He tried to open his eyes, whose lids were too heavy for his strength. And by that he knew he was dreaming. Yet from under those lowered lids he seemed to see a wild medley of red warriors, their faces blotched and ghastly in the green light of their weapons. They were carrying a charred body which they threw heavily upon the floor beside him as if to compare the two. He saw the face which the flames had not touched, the face of Jack Downer—Downer, the sheriff of Cocos County. His sandy hair had been scorched to the scalp.
Dreams ... and the steady beat of metal-shod feet of marching men. He saw them passing some distance away. The repeatedthud-thudof metal on stone echoed maddeningly through his brain for hours.... Dreams, all of them.
And once there came to him a vision which beyond all doubt was unreal.
S
ilence had surrounded him. For what seemed hours not one of the red mole-men had come near. And then, in the silence, he heard whisperings and the sound of stealthy feet; and, for a moment, the same white figure that had met him in his flight stood where he could see.
Only the merest trace of dim light relieved the utter darkness of the room. The girl's figure was ghostly, unreal. Yet he saw the dull sparkle of jeweled breast-plates against her creamy white skin. Loose folds of cloth were gathered about her waist; her golden hair was drawn back except for vagrant curls that only accentuated the perfect oval of her face.
There were others with her, dim shapes of men; how many Rawson could not tell. They looked down at him, whispering softly, excitedly, amongst themselves; but their words were like nothing he had ever heard.
For an instant Dean felt his stupefied mind coming almost to wakefulness. Phantom figures, ghostly and unreal—but the faces were human, and the eyes looked down upon him pityingly. He tried to rouse himself, tried to call out, then settled limply back, for the girl was speaking—or he was catching her thoughts. It seemed almost that he heard her whispered words:
"They take him toGevarro, to the Lake of Fire which never dies! Gor told me—he overheard their plans. But, by the Mountain I swear...." Then footsteps echoed in a far-off passage, and the white ones vanished like drifting smoke.
Dreams, all of them. Yet the time came when Dean knew that he was awake—knew too that further experiences awaited him in this demoniac land.
A
gain red guards came. The wicked breath of their weapons filled the great room where Rawson had been with green, flickering light. Dean, dragged to his feet, was unable to stand. One of the giant yellow workers came forward at a whistled order and held him erect. Another brought a bowl carved from rock crystal and filled with a liquid golden-green with reflected light. He put it to Rawson's lips and with the first touch Dean knew that he must have been filled with a burning thirst beyond anything he had ever known. He gulped greedily at the liquid, drained the bowl to the last drop, then marveled at the thrilling fire of strength that flowed through him.
"Wine," he thought, "wine of the gods—or devils." He came to himself with a start. He knew that he was naked and that his body was encased in a coating of stiff gray plaster. It was this that prevented his arms and legs from flexing.
Another order and the giant worker picked him up in his arms and carried him where the others led to a distant room. A stream trickled through a cut in the rocky floor. At the center of the room was a pool. Unable to resist, Dean felt the giant arms toss him out and down.
The water was warm. At its first touch the hard plaster melted like snow. Sputtering and choking for breath, Rawson came to the surface. He found he could move freely, then reaching hands hauled him out upon the floor, and through all his dread he found time to marvel at his own firm muscles and the healthy white of his skin that had been seared and blistered.
He obeyed when the red guards pointed and motioned him into a dark passageway. He tried to keep up with them as they hurried him on. Evidently his pace was too slow, for again the big worker picked him up, swung him into the air and seated him firmly on one broad shoulder, and, with red guards ahead and behind them, hurried on.
To find himself a child in the hands of this big yellow man was disconcerting. To be calmly lugged off was almost humiliating. No one who was not a good sport could have grinned as Rawson did at his own predicament.
"Not exactly a triumphal procession," he told himself, then his lips set grimly. "They've got my gun," he thought, "and now, whatever comes, all I can do is stand and take it. Still, they've saved my life. But what for?"
A
lways the way led downward, and Rawson, perched on his strange, half-human steed, let his gaze follow up every branching tunnel and widespread cave. Not all of these were as dark as the broad thoroughfare they followed. In some, strange lights glowed, and Rawson saw weird, towering plant growths that yellow workers were harvesting.
Life, life, everywhere, and seemingly this underground world was endless.
Troops of red warriors passed them, upward bound. The dancing flames of their weapons, where occasional ones were in action, glowed from afar. They bobbed and waved like green fireflies as the Mole-men came on at a half-run.
"And this means trouble up top," he thought. "There's going to be hell to pay up there."
But workers, fighters, everyone they met stood aside to let the red guard pass. Again Rawson heard the strange word or call that had come to him in the temple of fire. One of the guides would give a whistling call that ended in the same strange shrill cry of "Phee-e-al," and instantly the way was cleared.
A wild journey, incredible, unreal. Rawson, as he met the countless staring white eyes of the creatures they passed, found his thoughts wandering. He had had wild dreams. Surely this was only another in that succession of phantom pictures. Then, seeing the cold, implacable hatred in those staring eyes, he would be brought back with sickening abruptness to a full knowledge of his own hopeless situation.
"Gevarro, the lake of fire which never dies"—what was it the white ones had said? But no, that certainly was a dream like that other in which he had seemed to see the charred body of a man, the sheriff who had called to see him at his camp in Tonah Basin.
Dreams—reality—his brain was confused with the wild kaleidoscope of unbelievable pictures.
H
e was suddenly aware that through it all he had been mentally tabulating their route, remembering the outstanding features when there was light enough to see. He knew that unconsciously his mind had been thinking of escape. Wilder than all the other visions, he had been picturing himself retracing his route, alone, free. He did not know that he had laughed aloud, harshly, hopelessly, until he saw the curious eyes of his red guard upon him.
"Yes," he told himself in silent bitterness, "I could find my way back, if...."
The guard had swung off from the great tunnel which must have been one of the main thoroughfares of the Mole-men's world. They crowded through a narrower passage and again Rawson found himself in one of the great, high-ceilinged caves like the others he had seen. But unlike the others this was brightly lighted.
Massive limestone formation. His eyes squinted against the glare and caught the character of the rock before he was able to distinguish details, and in the black limestone big disks of gray mineral had been set. Jets of flame played upon them and turned them to blazing, brilliant white.
The big yellow Mole-man who had carried him dropped him roughly to the floor and backed away. About him the red guard was grouped. Rawson caught a glimpse of hundreds of other thronging figures. The crowd about him separated. A space was cleared between him and the farther end of the room, a lane lined on either side by solid masses of savage Reds. And beyond them, more barbaric than any figure in the foreground, was another group.
A
cross the full width of the room a low wall was raised three or four feet from the floor. It was capped with rude carvings. The whole mass gleamed dully golden in the bright light. Beyond the wall in semicircular formation, resembling a grouping of bronze statues, were men like the one with whom Rawson had fought. Priests, tenders of the fires. He knew in an instant that here were more of the red one's holy men. They stood erect, unmoving. At their center was another seated man-shape that might have been cast from solid gold.
His naked body was yellow and glittering, contrasting strongly with the black metal straps like those the warriors wore. On his head a round, sharply-pointed cap was ablaze with precious stones.
Rawson took it all in in one quick glance. He knew that those copper bodies were not encased in metal, for the flesh of the one he had fought with had sunk under his blows. Their skin was coated with a preparation, heat resistant without a doubt, and the golden one must have been treated in somewhat the same way.
His thoughts flashed quickly over this. It was the face of that seated figure that riveted his attention, a white face, milk-white, so white it seemed almost chalky!
F
or one breathless second Rawson was filled with a wordless hope. Those white ones of his dream had looked upon him with kindly eyes. They were human—men of another race, but men. Then beneath the chalky whiteness of the face he found the hideous features of the red Mole-men, and knew that the white color of the face was as false as that of the golden body.
But he was their leader. He was someone of importance. Rawson had started forward impetuously when he saw the figure rise. At the first motion the hands of every red one in the room were flung in air. They stood stiffly at salute. Even the priests' coppery arms flashed upward. And "Phee-e-al!" a thousand shrill voices were shouting. "Phee-e-al! Phee-e-al!"
Rawson stopped, then walked slowly forward, one defenseless, naked man of the upper world, between two living walls formed by men of a hidden race.
"Phee-e-al," he was thinking. "He's the one I saw coming into their temple back there. They got out of our way when they knew we were coming to see him. He's the big boss here, all right."
He did not pause in his steady, forward progress until his hands were resting upon the golden barrier. Strange thoughts were racing through his mind. Phee-e-al, he was facing Phee-e-al, king of a kingdom ten miles or more beneath the surface of the earth, a place of devils more real and terrible than any that mythology had dared depict. And he, Dean Rawson, a man, just one of the millions like him up there in a sane, civilized world, was down here, standing at a barrier of gold before a tribunal that knew nothing of justice or mercy.
T
houghts of communicating with them had mingled with other half-formed plans in his racing mind. Sign language—he had talked with the Indians; he might be able to get some ideas across. He met the other's fierce scrutiny fearlessly, then, waiting for him to make the first advance, let his gaze dart about at closer range. He could not restrain a start of surprise at sight of his own clothing, his pocket radio receiver and his pistol spread out on a metal stand.
They had been curious about them. Rawson took that as a good sign. Perhaps he had been mistaken in his interpretation of what he had seen. For himself, he could have no real hope, but it might be that the outpouring of these demons into his own world was a threat that lay only in his own imagination.
His eyes came back to meet that gaze which had never left him. The eyes were mere dots of jet in a white and repulsive face. The rounded mouth opened to emit a shrill whistled order.
In the utter silence of the great room one of the copper-skinned priests moved swiftly toward the rear. There were chests there, massive metal things afire with the brilliance of inlaid jewels. The priest flung one of them open with a resounding clang.
The room had been warm, and the chill which abruptly froze Rawson's muscles to hard rigidity came from within himself. Dreams! He had thought them dreams, those marching thousands, and the others who returned. He had dared to hope he might avert an invasion by this inhuman horde.
And now he knew his worst imaginings were far short of the truth. He saw clearly his own fate. For the priest returning was holding an object aloft, a horrible thing, a naked body, scorched and charred. And above it a head lopped awkwardly. The hair was sandy; half of it had been burned to the scalp in a withering flame. Below, staring from sightless eyes, was the face of the man who had once been sheriff of Cocos County.
Y
ou fly, of course?" demanded Governor Drake.
Smithy nodded. "Unlimited license—all levels."
They had spent the night in the executive mansion, and now the Governor had burst precipitately into the room where Smithy and his father had just finished dressing. The two had been deep in an earnest conversation which the Governor's entrance had interrupted.
"I am drafting you for service," said the Governor. "I want you to go out to Field Number Three. A fast scout plane—National Guard equipment—will be ready for you—"
He broke off and stared doubtfully at a paper in his hand, a radiophone message, Smithy judged. "I'm in a devil of a fix," the Governor exclaimed, after a pause. Then:
"I don't doubt your sincerity," he told Smithy. "Never saw you till yesterday, but your father's 'O.K.' goes a hundred per cent with me. Old 'J. G.' and I have been through a lot of scraps together." His frowning eyes relaxed for a moment to exchange twinkling glances with the older man.
"No, it isn't that," he added, "but...." Again he stared at the flimsy piece of paper.
"What's on your mind, Bill?" asked Smith senior. "That stuff the boy told us was pretty wild"—he laid one hand affectionately upon Smithy's shoulder—"but he's a poor liar, Gordon is, and, knowing his weakness, he usually sticks to the truth. And there's no record of insanity in the family, you know. If there's something sticking in your crop, Bill, cough it up."
And the Honorable William B. Drake obeyed. "Listen to this," he commanded, and read from the paper in his hand:
"'Replying to your inquiry about the doings at Seven Palms. Some Indians did that job. No help needed. I can handle this. Posse organized and we are leaving right now.—Signed, Jack Downer, Sheriff, Cocos County.'"
"'Replying to your inquiry about the doings at Seven Palms. Some Indians did that job. No help needed. I can handle this. Posse organized and we are leaving right now.—Signed, Jack Downer, Sheriff, Cocos County.'"
"That sounds authentic," said Smithy drily. "I've met the sheriff."
"Now, if itwasIndians that got tanked up and came down off the reservation, burned Seven Palms and cleaned up your camp—" began Governor Drake.
"It wasn't!" Smithy interrupted hotly. "I told you—" He felt his father's hand gripping firmly at his shoulder.
"Steady," said Smith, senior. "Let him talk, son."
"There's an election three months from now, J. G.," said the Governor, "and you know they're riding me hard. Let me make one false move—just one—anything that the opposition can use for a campaign of ridicule, and my goose is cooked to a turn."
G
ordon Smith shook off his father's restraining hand and took one quick forward step. His face, even through the tan of the desert sun, was unnaturally pale.
"Election be dammed!" he exploded. "Dean Rawson has been captured by those red devils—he's down there, the whitest white man I ever met! I've been to the sheriff; now I've come to you! Do you mean to tell me there isn't any power in this state to back me up when—"
He stopped. There was a tremble in his voice he could not control.
"Good boy," said Governor Drake softly. "Now I know it's the truth. Yes, you'll be backed up, plenty, but for the present it will be strictly unofficial. Now pull in your horns and listen.
"You know the lay of the land. I want your help. Go out to Field Three; there'll be a man there waiting for you. Don't call him 'Colonel'—he's also strictly unofficial to-day. The sheriff and his posse will be there at Seven Palms inside an hour; I want you to be there, too, about five thousand feet up.
"Tell Colonel Culver—I mean Mr. Culver—your story; tell him everything you know. He'll be in charge of operations if we have to send in troops; he'll give you that private and unofficial backing I spoke of if we don't.
"Now get down there; keep your eye on the sheriff's crowd and see everything that happens!"
But Smithy's parting remark was to his father; it was a continuation of the subject they had been discussing before.
"You can buy at your own price," he said. "They've got rights to the whole basin. But they've quit; I'm not treating them to a double-cross."
And he added as he went out of the room: "Buy it for me if you don't want it yourself."
I
t was a two-place, open-cockpit plane that Smithy found had been set aside for him. Dual control—the stick in the forward cockpit carried the firing grip that controlled the slim blue machine guns firing through the propeller. Behind the rear cockpit a strange, unwieldy, double-ended weapon was recessed and streamlined into the fuselage. The scout seemed quite able to protect itself in an emergency.
Beside the plane a tall, slender man in civilian attire was waiting. He stuck out his hand, while the gray eyes in his lean, tanned face scanned Smithy swiftly.
"I'm Culver. Understand I'm to be your passenger to-day. How about it—can you fly the ship? Seven hundred and fifty DeGrosse motor—retractable landing gear, of course. She hits four-fifty at top speed—snappy—quick on the trigger."
Smithy shook his head dubiously. "Four-fifty—I'm not accustomed to that. But you can take the stick, Mr. Culver, if I get in a hurry and jump out and run on ahead. You see I'm used to my own ship, anAssegai—special job—does five hundred when I'm pressed for time."
The lean face of Mr. Culver creased into a smile. "You qualify," he said. "But keep your hands off the dead mule."
At an inquiring glance he pointed to the heavy, half-hidden weapon that Smithy had noticed. "Can't kick," he explained, "—hence 'dead mule.' It's the new Rickert recoilless; throws little shells the size of your thumb—but they raise hell when they hit."
"Sounds interesting." Smithy climbed into the rear cockpit and strapped himself in. "Show me how it works, then I won't do it."
A
pistol grip moved under Culver's reaching hand and the strange weapon sprang from concealment like something alive. The pistol grip moved sideways, and the gun swung out and down, its muzzle almost touching the ground. Smithy was suddenly aware that a crystal above his instrument board was reflecting that same bit of sun-baked earth. A dot of black hung stationary at the crystal's center.
"That's your target." Culver's voice held all the pride of a child with a new toy, but he released the grip, and the ungainly gun swung smoothly back to its hiding place.
He settled himself in the forward cockpit. "You will find a helmet there," he said. "It's phone-equipped; you can tell me all about that wild nightmare of yours while we jog along."
The white beam from the despatcher's tower had been on them while they talked. Other planes were waiting on the field. Smithy smiled as he settled the helmet over his head. "For a strictly unofficial flight," he thought, "we're getting darned good service."
He taxied past a hangar where uniformed men pointedly paid them no attention. He swung the ship to the line as Airboard regulations required.
"N-73" was painted on the monoplane's low wings that seemed scraping the ground. "N-73 Clear!" the despatcher's voice radioed into Smithy's ears. Then the seven-hundred-and-fifty-horsepower DeGrosse let loose its voice as Smithy gunned her down the field.
W
hatever doubts Colonel Culver may have had of Smithy's ability were dissipated as they made their way cautiously through the free-flying area under five thousand. Everywhere were mail planes, express and passenger ships taking off for the transcontinental day run, and private planes scattering to the smaller landing areas among the flashing lights of the flat-topped business blocks. Among them Smithy threaded his way toward the green-lighted transfer zone, where he spiraled upward.
At ten thousand he was on his course. He set the gyro-control which would fly the ship more surely than any human hands, and the air-speed indicator crept up to the four hundred and fifty miles an hour that Culver had promised. Not till then did he give the man in the forward cockpit the details of his "nightmare."
He had not finished answering the other's incredulous questions when he throttled down to slow cruising speed and nosed the ship toward a distant expanse of sage-blurred sand.
Outside the restricted metropolitan area he had already dropped out of the chill wind that struck them at ten thousand. Behind them and off to the right was the gray rampart of the Sierra. Ahead a rough circle of darker hills enclosed the great bowl he had learned to know as Tonah Basin.
S
ome feeling of unreality in his own experiences must have crept into his mind; unconsciously he had been questioning his own sanity. Now, at sight of the sandy waste where he and Rawson had labored, with the dark slopes of desolate craters looming ahead and a blot of burned wreckage directly below to mark the site of their camp, the horrible reality of it gripped him again.
He could not speak at first. The air of the five-thousand level was not uncomfortably warm, but Smithy was feeling again the baking heat of that desert land; again he was with Rawson in the volcanic crater; Dean was calling to him, warning him....
A sharp question from Culver was repeated twice before Smithy could reply.
He side-slipped in above the crater's ragged rim, heedless of down-drafts—the power of the DeGrosse motor would pull them out of anything in a ten-thousand-foot vertical climb if need arose. Smithy was pointing toward a confusion of shining black rock.
"Over there," he told Culver. Then he was shouting into the telephone transmitter. "It's open," he said. "That's where Dean went down—and there they are! Look, man, there—there!"
T
he throat of the old volcano was a pit of blackness in the midst of gray ash and the red-yellow of cinders. Beside it were other flecks of color: red, moving bodies; metal, that twinkled brightly under the desert sun—and in an instant they were gone. Nor did Smithy, throwing the thundering plane close over that place, know how near he had passed to sudden, invisible death. Rugged pinnacles of rock were ahead. The plane under Smithy's hands vaulted over them and roared on above the desert.
"Did you see them?" Smithy was shouting.
The man in the forward cockpit turned to face his pilot. "I am apologizing, Smith, for all the things I have been thinking and haven't said. We've got a job on our hands. Now let's find that fool sheriff who thinks he's hunting for drunken Indians. We must warn him."
Smithy wondered at the wisps of blue smoke still rising from the ruins of Seven Palms as he drove in above it. It seemed years since he had left the Basin, yet the wreckage of this little town, only five miles outside, still smoldered.
Colonel Culver was shouting to him. "East," he said. "Swing east. There's fighting over there." Then, in his usual cool tone: "I'll take the ship, Smith. Give then a burst or two from up here—perhaps the sheriff can use a little help."
Across the yellow sand ran a desert road. Ten miles away black smoke clouds were lifting. Smithy knew there had been a little settlement there. A dozen houses, perhaps, and a gasoline station. At half that distance the clear sunlight showed moving objects on the sand: automobiles, smaller dots that were running them. They came suddenly to sharp visibility as the plane drew near. Tiny bursts of white meant rifle fire.
They were a thousand feet up and close when Smithy saw the first car vanish in flame. Others followed swiftly. Men were falling. A dozen of them had made up the sheriff's posse, and now, like the cars, they, too, burst into flame and either vanished utterly or, like living torches, were cast down upon the sand.
Still no sign of the enemy, more than the ripping stab of green fire from a sand dune at one side. They were over and past before Smithy, looking back, saw the red ones leap out into view.
C
ulver must have seen them in the same instant. He throttled down to a safe banking speed. Opened full, the DeGrosse would have whipped them around in a turn that would have meant instant death. From five miles distant they shot in on a long slant. Smithy's hands were off the stick. It was Culver's ship now.
He saw the man peering through his sights, then the roar of the motor held other, sharper sounds. Thin flames were stabbing through the propeller disk, and he knew that the bow guns were sending messengers on ahead where red figures waited on the sand.
Their trajectory flattened. Culver half rolled the ship as they sped overhead. "He wants a look at them," Smithy was thinking. Then a blast of heat struck him full in the face.
It was Smithy's hand on the stick that righted the ship; only the instant response of the big DeGrosse motor tore them up and away from the sands that were reaching for those wings.
His face was seared, but the pain of it was forgotten in the knowledge that their drunken, twisting flight had whipped out the fire licking back from the forward cockpit. He saw Culver's head, fallen awkwardly to one side. The helmet in one part was charred to a crisp.
He leveled off. He was thinking: "Another man gone! Can't I ever fight back? If I only had a gun!" Then he knew he was looking at the pistol grip, where Colonel Culver's brown hand had brought an awkward weapon to life. His lips twisted to a whimsical smile, though his eyes still held the same cold fury, as he whispered: "And I don't even know that the damn thing's loaded—but I'm going to find out!"
T
hey were clustered on the sands below him as he roared overhead. He was flying at two thousand, the throttle open full. Beside the ship a gun swung its long barrel downward. It sputtered almost soundlessly—but where it passed, the sand rose up in spouting fountains.
But his wild speed made the gunfire almost useless. The shell-bursts were spaced too far apart; they straddled the blot of figures.
He came back at five thousand feet, slowly—until the ship lurched, and he saw the right wing tip vanish in a shower of molten metal. He threw the ship over and away from the invisible beam; the plane writhed and twisted across the last half mile of sky. He was over them when he pulled into a tight spiral, then he swung the pistol grip that controlled the gun until the dot in the crystal was merged with the target of clustering red forms. The gun sputtered.
Below the plane, the quiet desert heaved its smooth surface convulsively into the air. Even above the roar of the motor Smithy heard the terrific thunder of that one long explosion.
Above the rim of the forward cockpit Culver's head rolled uneasily; his voice, thick and uncertain, came back through the phone; and later—only a matter of minutes later, though fifty miles away—Smithy set the plane down on a level expanse of sand and tore frantically at his belt. Colonel Culver was weakly raising his head.