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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Fantastic Adventures, September 1939, with "City Under the Sea"
How could a giant ocean liner sink in a calm, without survivors? Gerry Van Dine and his best friend, Kemp Martin went down into the depths to find—a weird city!
THE girl in the reception room of the Van Dine Lines said: "Mr. Van Dine is busy in conference just now, Mr. Martin."
"What of it?" I retorted coolly, and swung the latched gate open with the ball of my thumb. As I eased my short, rather chunky body through, I inquired impolitely over my shoulder: "Playing solitaire with himself, eh?"
It was notorious that young Gerry Van Dine, christened Gerald, was the most reluctant third vice-president the famous Van Dine lines ever had. He would much rather be up at his private shipyard at City Island, clad in old dungarees, engaged in putting the last finishing touches to the special depth submarine he had invented. But his father, Howard Van Dine, was fast reaching the age of retirement, and insisted that his son spend a reasonable amount of time at the offices of the great steamship line to which he was heir.
The girl protested with a faint smile. "Not this time, Mr. Martin. He's in conference with his father."
"That's fine," I said and kept on walking. "I'll see 'em both, and kill two birds with one visit."
The girl shrugged her shapely shoulders and turned back to her desk. She was used to my little ways. Hell, a man has some rights, if he's known the Van Dines, father, and son, as long as I have! Gerry and I had chummed and fought together since boyhood; we had galloped simultaneously through Sheff Scientific; we had loved the same girl. But here there had been no dead heat. Gerry, with his two-headed blondness and infectious grin, had won by a nose. Well, I was resigned to that by now. I hadn't really expected Marion to fall for my homely and undistinguished phiz. As a matter of fact, I was to be best man at the wedding.
I turned the knob of the door marked Private, and entered unceremoniously.
"Hello, Mr. Van. Dine. Hello Gerry. How's the prospective bridegroom, you undeserving scoundrel?"
I stopped short. The two men had swerved in their chairs at my gusty entrance. Howard Van Dine, with his fine, aristocratic face and thin, high-bridged nose. Gerry, young, well put together, irregularly featured, yet wholeheartedly handsome when his famous grin lit up. But there was no hint of merriment in the blank, tragic stare that both of them turned my way. Gerry's face was white with repression, his blue eyes smoldering embers. Mr. Van Dine, Sr.'s nose was twitching slightly, always a sign of trouble. He held a thin slip of blue and white paper in his hand, and his hand trembled uncontrollably. Neither of them spoke.
"Sorry," I muttered, and felt behind me for the knob.
Gerry seemed to come out of his trance. "Don't go, Kemp," he said in a hard, dry voice. "I may need you."
I paused in midflight, looking from one to the other.
"What's wrong?"
"The Oceanic went down this morning with all on board."
"Good Lord," I ejaculated. "That's the third of your boats in a month."
Mr. Van Dine nodded jerkily. His nose was twitching violently now. "Yes," he said, "same place too."
It stunned me. What strange fatality was overtaking the Van Dine Lines? I remembered the sensation the other two sinkings had caused. Now the Oceanic! All three crack liners, all New York bound from London, and all disappearing without a trace, without a clue as to what had happened, not fifty miles out of New York harbor, just where the continental shelf drops suddenly into the depths.
Mr. Van Dine held up the fluttering slip of paper. It was a radiogram. "Just received this from the destroyer Erebus. They heard a single SOS, giving name and position. The wireless stopped suddenly, in the middle of a word. The Erebus got to the given position an hour later, and found loose gear floating around, some oil. Nothing else."
He stopped, his eyes shifting to avoid mine. Gerry said nothing, but the bones of his face showed white through the tight-drawn skin.
I glanced keenly from one to the other. "Out with it," I snapped. "You're holding out on me."
"Yes," Gerry's voice was barely audible. "Marion was on the Oceanic."
I STOOD there gaping like a fish, my heart turning sickening flip-flops within my breast. Marion Dale—lovely, slim, with her clear, golden-tanned skin and merry laugh, and those green-flecked hazel eyes of hers that looked so frankly out upon a sun-shiny world—Marion—dead! Gerry and I had both loved her and Gerry had won, and I was to be best man. Marion—dead!
"B-but," I stammered inanely, "she wasn't due till next week. Her passage was booked on the Atlantic, wasn't it?"
Gerry smiled bitterly, a smile that was frozen with agony. "She cabled she was changing over. Wanted the thrill of being on one of our liners."
Then he broke. His head went into his hands and great dry sobs shook him. Mr. Van Dine put his arm around his son's shoulders. "Take it easy, my boy," he warned.
Gerry shook off the restraining hand gently, rose to his full six feet. His eyes were blazing cold, the muscles of his jaw were set in hard ridges.
"I'm taking the Sea Scorpion out this afternoon."
The Sea Scorpion was his submarine, the second he had built. Planned for submergence to greater depths than had ever been possible before.
I looked at him blankly. "What for?" I asked feebly.
"What for?" he echoed harshly. "Do you think those boats sank of themselves? In a sea that was smooth as a pond, without a hatful of breeze stirring? At almost exactly the same spot and under the same circumstances? There's something damnably wrong out there, and I'm going to find out what it is, if it's the last thing I do on earth. I don't give a hoot about the ships, that's only money; but there were thousands of people who weren't given a chance, and there was—Marion."
His father lifted his head suddenly. "Gerry—I wonder if you know that all three boats were carrying secret shipments of gold bars, some ten millions worth?"
Gerry nodded silently.
"But damn it, man," I cried almost angrily. "You can't take the Sea Scorpion out by yourself. You need a crew for one thing, and it's too small, for another. Now if the Sea Squid hadn't gone down..."
"Yes," he interrupted softly. "But the Sea Squid sank almost six months ago, and do you know where? I'll tell you. It was almost exactly at the same spot, and in exactly the same way. A sudden cry for help from Garlon Petrie, and then the wireless went blank. Nothing to show after except some oil floating on the surface."
"I didn't know that," I told him. I had been away building a railroad in Bolivia when it had happened. Trying to forget about Marion, too.
"Poor Garlon," said Gerry. "He was the first to get smashed by the menace. I could have used him now."
That made me really angry. Of course, Garlon Petrie was a great engineer, a genius almost. He and Gerry had worked together on the depth submarine. Neither could have finished it without the other; their ideas dovetailed nicely. And Gerry's money backed them to the limit. But I never had liked the man. He was a sallow skinned individual, with smoldering, secretive eyes and straight, coarse black hair. His thin lips were always tightly compressed as though eternally withholding some secret.
When the Sea Squid had been finally completed, ready for a test, Gerry was down with a bad case of grippe. It devolved upon Garlon to try her out. He assembled a crew, slipped out of the ways, and went out to sea. At fifty miles out he was going to submerge, he had announced, and try for record depths. That was the last ever seen of the craft. A short frantic SOS, followed by silence!
It had been a great blow to Gerry. But immediately upon his recovery, he had shaken his head grimly, and plunged into the construction of another submarine, alone. Much smaller this one, for he was gambling—gambling that the Sea Squid had not sunk because of fundamental errors in construction.
"Garlon knew submarines, I grant you," I said heatedly, "but that doesn't mean I'm not as good as that fish-faced guy any day. What do you mean you could have used him? I'm here, am I not? And what's more, Gerald Van Dine," I shook a finger under his nose, "I'm going with you, whether you like it or not. I—I was rather fond of Marion," I ended inanely.
Gerry's features softened. "I know you were, Kemp," he answered, gripping me by the shoulder. "And you are coming. I couldn't have a better man along."
All taffy of course, but it makes a man feel good even when he knows it's not true.
Mr. Van Dine was standing now, looking sharply at us. His nose twitched violently, but his voice was steady. "God knows on what sort of a wild goose chase you two are going. I ought to forbid it, but I can't. Only promise that you won't take any undue chances. If you find anything wrong, radio for assistance. I'll see to it there are destroyers standing by."
"We promise, dad."
WHEN we were out of the office, with a hectic morning ahead. There were supplies to be purchased, tanks of compressed oxygen to be installed, batteries to be tested, and all the little odds and ends to be performed on a boat, when outfitting for a long cruise.
"We don't know where we're going, nor how long we'll be there," Gerry observed grimly.
But the Van Dine name was a talisman, the Van Dine millions a performer of miracles, and Gerry Van Dine a driving fount of energy. So that at two o'clock that afternoon, just four hours after we got started, the last bit of equipment had been carefully gone over, supplies had been stowed in ship-shape fashion, and the last of a small army of suddenly mobilized workmen was just as suddenly demobilized.
We were ready to go!
Gerry went over his craft with a sort of fierce pride, testing every last connection, every valve personally. Even back in Tech, submarines had been an obsession with him, and here was his dream in the flesh. I followed him around, staring meekly. I had never seen the boat before. My engineering knack ran to railroads and bridges; I knew nothing of ships in any form, but even my untrained eyes disclosed to me that this was a novel underwater craft.
It was fish-shaped, gracefully streamlined, and tapering to long blunt-nosed rams at either end. The hull and superstructure were of beryllium-steel, immensely thick. The internal combustion engines were miracles of compactness and driving energy and had been adapted to underwater propulsion. Gerry had very cleverly evolved an exhaust system to lead the gases of combustion into the ballast tanks, where they were harmlessly dissipated. Accordingly, there were no storage batteries.
The hydroplane vanes too, were peculiarly curved, not flat as was customary. Gerry explained that they gave better stability of control. The submarine was equipped to the last detail. Powerful searchlights of Gerry's own invention that could cut the water for considerable distances, special sono-devices, ejector tube with airlock, oxygenation apparatus that could keep the interior sweet and clean for over two weeks, rigid diver's suits of beryllium-steel, built to withstand tremendous pressures, with oxygen tanks and compact communication units for underwater use.
The whole craft was small, hardly more than a model. The tiny cubbyhole within could accommodate at the most, three persons; yet it looked thoroughly staunch and seaworthy.
I shrugged my shoulders, concealed whatever misgivings I had and said: "Let's go."
"Right," said Gerry, and herded me inside. The hatch to the tiny deck clamped to overhead.
THE sub was already off the ways, floating free in thirty feet of water. Gerry did things to the engine, and it sprang into instant, purring life. Then he turned valves. There was a hiss of inrushing waters. The ballast tanks were filling. I had an odd sensation that we were sinking, yet so smooth was our descent that I couldn't trace it to anything in particular.
Gerry watched his depth meter. At twenty feet, he held the sub steady. Then we started. No one had seen us submerge; no one knew our destination.
At dusk of that midsummer day we reached the place, almost fifty miles out. The little sub was functioning perfectly.
We came to the surface then to get our bearings. I stepped out on the tiny deck eagerly. Who knew, it might be the last sight I would ever have of sun and sky and clean sweet air.
The deck was awash with the great regular rollers of the interminable ocean. A narrow horizon circumscribed our view. A westering sun was plunging into the heaving depths. All around us floated bits of wood, spars, coiling ropes, tackle blocks, flotsam and jetsam of a wreck. The surface of the water was slimy with oil.
Gerry's face hardened. There was no doubt we were directly at the spot where the Oceanic had taken her tragic plunge into the depths.
"What do we do now?" I asked.
"We're going down to find her," his voice was harsh with pain. "I want to know what happened, and I want to find—"
"Yes, of course," I interposed hastily, and shuddered. A drowned body is not pleasant to look at, especially if fish had gotten at it. "But there's a depth of several hundred fathoms here. No sub has ever gone down that far."
"This one will," he retorted confidently. "I built her for just that."
I looked around a last time. A black smudge came crawling over the horizon, trailing long streamers of smoke.
"A destroyer," said Gerry, shading his eyes. "Below, Kemp. We're submerging at once."
Once more I heard the clang of doom over my head as the hatches clamped to. Then we were sinking with a rush. The searchlights sprang into illumination. Their spreading rays lit up the still, black waters, brought the images back to ground glass visors.
Already we were down two hundred feet, and still sinking steadily, though the speed of our descent had slackened. Small wavering shapes floated by on the visors—fish. Not many though. The depths of the ocean seemed deserted, black with eternal midnight, sinister.
A huge black mass drifted into the vision, a thing of waving slimy arms. A round fierce eye stared at us unwinking, balefully. Then it was gone.
"Octopus," said Gerry briefly.
And still we sank. Three hundred, four hundred, five hundred feet. No sub had ever gone down so far. I looked anxiously about. The pressure must be terrific. Half fearfully, I watched for sprung plates, tiny leaks that would widen into overwhelming Niagaras. But everything was intact, sound. The engines purred their sturdy song. Gerry was stony-faced, immobile, watching with fierce intensity only one visor—that which reflected the depth searchlight.
Six hundred feet down now, our depth meter showed, and the visor reflected far below an interminable solid stretch. The bottom of the ocean. Thick, primordial ooze it seemed, the detritus of uncounted ages. It was flat, flat as a Kansas prairie, but at one end there appeared the beginning of a regular upward swelling. The screen cut off the rest of it.
"Look, Gerry," I said. "That's funny. Turn the searchlight over to the left. I want to—"
That was as far as I got. For on the farther side came heaving into view sharp angles and jutting black fingers—the unmistakable outlines of a huge liner. It was the Oceanic, in her last tragic resting place. We had reached the end of our quest.
THE Sea Scorpion settled gently down into the ooze, close to the towering bulk of the great liner. A tomb—a thing of steel and wood and the already rotting flesh of over two thousand beings who had only that morning lived and breathed and loved.
Gerry's voice came to me, staccato, hard.
"Into the diving suit, Kemp."
In a daze I obeyed; pouring my chunky body into its unyielding mold with much grunting and labored breathing, admiring the swift, effortless movements of my companion. Last came the helmets, great globular beryllium-steel and quartz affairs, with a compact oxygen-release tank nestling not too comfortably against the back of my head. We helped each other screw the things into place.
Without a word we stepped into the ejector-lock, heard the slide hiss to behind us. Gerry turned a valve and water started gushing in. It filled rapidly. Then a final flip and the door to the unknown opened. We stepped out together. The flashes, set in our helmets like miner's torches, sent elongated cones of light stabbing into the depths. Our weighted feet sank heavily into the soft, porous ooze. All about us, outside the thin illumination of our flashes, was blackness; profound, inky almost physical blackness. No least ray of the sun filtered down to these tremendous depths.
We plodded forward, dragging our legs through the slime. Ahead, and as far up as our flashes could carry, loomed the giant bulk of the Oceanic, already settled into the soft muck. What was waiting for us in these sinister depths? The black, still reaches held some terrible secret. No fish swam into our range of illumination, no sign of life whatever. The appalling gloom was deserted.
An uneasy feeling that we were being followed held me. Several times I turned quickly. The stabbing beam disclosed nothing. But again and again I turned; I almost felt the impact of invisible eyes focused on the back of my head. Once I thought I caught a fleeting glimpse of a black shape slipping out of the wavering edge of illumination.
Gerry trudged ahead, eyes always to the front, where the Oceanic lay. I said nothing of my fears.
Now we were right under the exposed, overarching bow. An exclamation from Gerry came to me through the tiny receiving unit in my helmet. I stopped horrified. We knew now how the great liner had been sunk. A huge, ragged tear showed its gaping maw in the hull. The thick steel plates had been literally shattered to pieces by the force of the explosion. A powerful submarine mine had done the trick.
"I thought, as much," I heard Gerry's voice, metallic and harsh, through the communication unit. "The Oceanic was the victim of a man-made catastrophe. That mine was fastened to the bottom of the ship, and exploded. It could never have done such damage otherwise."
I was bewildered, stunned, at the confirmation of my nebulous ideas.
"Who could have done this?" I asked craftily. "And why?"
"The why is easy. They were after the gold. The who is what I'm going to find out. It's a submarine all right, and one that has all our ideas too. Poor Garlon must have blundered into him and died for it."
I kept my counsel. "Let's look inside," I suggested. "Maybe we can find a clue in there."
I didn't like the place where we were standing. I could have sworn that we were being watched, weighed, by invisible things all around us. Yet wherever I stabbed suddenly with my beam, nothing showed—nothing but wastes of water, pressing down upon us with terrific force. I would feel better inside the ship, where I could see what I was up against.
"Very well," said Gerry, and we stepped into the gashed bowels of the ship. We climbed cautiously up and up, through the piled-up wreckage of the hold, past the engine room, shuddered away from contact with lolling smashed-in bodies whose faces were sodden, unrecognizable pulps.
Gerry knew the Oceanic well. He finally reached his destination—the steel-lined treasure room. Then he swore, deeply. A section of the steel door had been neatly cut out, and the beams of light that we threw into the dank interior disclosed its emptiness. The treasure of gold bars—ten million dollars' worth—was gone.
"Stolen!"
"And here are the thieves," I cried, as I jerked around swiftly. I caught a glimpse of a figure, snatched at my knife, and struck out with an unwieldy arm.
MORE figures shot into the illumination out of nowhere and came at me with a smooth, graceful rush. I went down in a smother of clinging bodies. I heard a gasp of surprise from Gerry, and then I was fighting for my life. I hit out with weighted legs and arms, but the pressure of the water took all the force out of my blows. I didn't have a chance. My antagonists, silent, swift, sure of themselves in these strange depths, had my arms pinioned in a trice. The electric torch in my helmet was smashed with a well directed blow. Blackness enveloped me. I struggled feebly. I was borne along, not knowing where I went. I thought I heard a faint far-off cry from Gerry; then there was only silence.
I shall never forget that nightmare journey. Pushed through unyielding darkness at the bottom of the ocean by invisible captors. The short glimpse I had had of them was fantastic, unbelievable. What were they?
After what seemed hours I felt myself coming to a halt. The creatures that held me fumbled with something. A rush of sucking waters swept me off my feet. I was carried along a short distance, and again motion ceased. Then I sensed rather than felt the lightening of pressure on the upper portion of my body, as though the waters were receding.
It flashed on me then. I was in a lock of sorts, the water was being pumped out. Was I about to be led into some strange civilization beneath the bed of old ocean? Possibly that peculiar, regular swelling to which I had tried to call Gerry's attention was the roof.
More fumbling. Then a huge panel slid open in front of me. A wave of illumination beat in suddenly upon my dazzled eyes. Numerous hands had urged me through.
I was standing at the edge of a city of irregularly scattered mud hovels, shaped exactly like beehives. The whole of this interior world was circular, not over a mile in diameter, and over-arched by a soaring rocky dome. The ceiling rock gleamed with golden pinpoints of light that furnished an even illumination. Doubtless the rock was highly radioactive.
But it was the first full sight of my captors that evoked my utmost astonishment. There were a half dozen of them. They were men, but strange, fantastic. Their skins were olive-green and supple-leathered like the skin of a shark. Their heads were elongated like fish-heads, with mouths that were straight gashes, and peculiar feathered openings on either cheekbone. Gills slits. Their hands and feet had strong, webbed membranes between the fingers and toes.
These were not fishes who somehow had grown into the semblance of men; rather they were men who had degenerated into fish. It was evident too that they were equally at home in water and out.
Then my attention was distracted by a commotion in back of me. The next moment Gerry was catapulted from the lock into our midst, grotesque in his huge suit, lashing out with weighted hands and feet at a clinging dozen of these strange denizens of the deep.
The fightingest fool that ever was. I grinned and yelled within my helmet. "Stop scrapping, you idiot. You're only making it tougher for me."
He struggled upright with a heave of his armored shoulders that sent the whole dozen flying in all directions. I could hear his joyful whoop as his goggled eyes glared blankly in my direction.
"Kemp, you old son," he shouted. "I thought they had killed you."
"I'm too tough," I said, "but there comes the leader. He's saying things; but I can't hear him."
Sure enough, the tallest of my captors had approached me; his straight gash of a mouth gulping peculiarly, his webbed arms gesticulating. I looked at him puzzled. Then it dawned on me.
"He wants us to take off our suits, Gerry," I yelled in the transmitter. "Think it wise?"
He grunted. "Must be air in here. They seemed to be breathing. We've got to take the chance anyway; our oxygen can't last much longer."
"O.K." We edged heavily over to each other, the suits dragging us down with their weight. The fish-men, or men-fish, made way for us. I worked clumsily at Gerry's helmet; he reciprocated with mine. Very cautiously we lifted them, ready to clamp down again if there were no breathable air; but the first gulp satisfied me. It was rather heavy and saturated, but it would do.
Gerry stared at me whimsically. "What's next?"
"They seem to know," I said. The fish-men were pointing to a mud hovel that towered over the others, and were unmistakably gesturing that there was our destination.
"All right," said Gerry, "take us there."
Their leader scowled ferociously.
"You follow me." That was all he said, but if it had been an explosion we could not have jumped more. He had spoken in English!
"Listen, fellow," I cried, after I had caught my breath, "where did you learn that?"
"Me know plenty," he answered surlily. "You come see Emperor; me no talk to you."
"Nice, pleasant chap," I commented. Gerry took a step forward, his face black with anger. Instantly the leader whistled peculiarly. A dozen fish-men threw themselves on us. Their webbed fingers contacted with our bare heads before we could move in our weighted suits. A paralyzing vibration passed through my body, leaving me rigid, helpless. Our fish-men were electric too!
We were unceremoniously picked up and carted along on the shoulders of these under-ocean denizens as though we were mummies. We soon reached the entrance to the large structure that was our destination. It was made of smooth, yellow clay, about thirty feet in diameter, and tapering to a point the same distance up. I was pushed through the narrow opening and deposited upright, Gerry next to me in the middle of the huge clay chamber. We were rigid in every limb.
At the farther end stood a group. My eyes focused on them unbelievingly. I had suspected something, but this was incredible. Seven men, earth-men, dressed in normal earth clothes, were grinning evilly at us.
"GARLON PETRIE!" The name tore rasping out of Gerry's throat.
I disregarded the other six, who were the usual run of savage, furtive-eyed rascals who can be picked up in the dives of any big city to cut a throat for a ten dollar bill, and fastened my gaze upon the tall, sallow, black-haired man with the thin compressed lips.
He leaned forward a little and smiled. Not with his lips—those seemed to remain eternally shut even when he talked—but with a twitch of his sallow cheeks that made it into an evil grimace.
"Yes," he said softly, "Garlon Petrie himself. You are surprised, my friend?"
Gerry had gone white at the first sight of his former co-worker; now the red flooded suddenly into his cheeks. His blue eyes burned with strange flames. He tried to throw himself forward, but the paralysis held us tight in its grip.
"Garlon Petrie!" Strange how deadly cold his voice was. "The man I trusted. I see it all now. You used my money, my ideas, for your own ends. This devil's work is all of your making."
"Correct in every detail," the sallow man bowed mockingly. "Except that your ideas were very commonplace; I did not need them. Your money, yes. Did you think," his voice rose with sudden passion, "I was content to complete this brain child of mine, this submarine, and stand by to see it used by others, with merely a thanks to me?" His eyes glittered. "No, my friend, I had a definite goal in mind. The wealth of the world, power; that's what I want, and what I am going to get with this toy." His long, talon-like fingers curved inward as if he already had the world by the throat.
"Your illness was a lucky break. I picked my crew carefully." He waved a hand at the glowering cutthroats at his back. "I picked the spot to disappear, sent out an SOS to give the idea I had met with an accident. It was my intention to work back to shore under water to a place I had prepared, and use that as a base for operations."
His eyes smoldered on the surly fish-men who stood apart. "I found these animals, ripped a few of them apart with torpedoes. The rest yielded quickly enough." He laughed throatily. It seemed I detected a flare of hate in the fish-men's eyes. "I'm Emperor here. This is a much better base to work from. Every ship that sails the ocean shall pay me tribute, or sink. I've already shown what I can do."
Gerry was white again. "I do not mind the rotten scurvy trick you played me. I do not mind the loss of my money and ships. But you went further. You destroyed the lives of thousands of innocent people, and among them," his face was set and terrible, "was the girl I loved."
Garlon chuckled nastily. "Ah yes, the very delightful Marion Dale. A most delicate morsel. I myself admired her immensely, and wondered what she saw in your gross, overgrown beef."
Gerry spoke low. "You have said enough, Garlon. I shall kill you for this."
Two spots of red burned in the man's sallow cheeks. Gerry had finally gotten under his skin. He took a short step forward and hit Gerry hard with the flat of his hand. "For that you die tomorrow. It won't be an easy death either. And Marion shall see you die."
"Marion." The exclamation came simultaneously from both our throats. "She's alive!"
"Of course." Garlon was enjoying himself. "I knew she was on the Oceanic just as I knew there was gold on board. I have sources for obtaining information. While the boat was sinking, I climbed on board, unnoticed in the confusion, brought her back to the submarine. Shall I show her to you?"
WITHOUT waiting for a reply, he uttered a sharp command to the leader of the fish-men. "Ugru, bring the girl here."
Ugru salaamed sullenly and went out. My heart was bounding. Marion alive, Ugru and the fish-men manifestly disaffected, hating their conquerors. My brain teemed, while my body was rigid as ever in the paralysis. Gerry's face was ablaze; but he said nothing.
A padding of feet at the door. I tried to twist my head and could not. Then a girl was brought forward, held firmly by Ugru. It was Marion, lovely and slim as ever, but looking white and worn. Yet her proud little head was held high. She gazed up at Garlon's cold, cruel eyes fearlessly.
His features twisted. "Look behind you," he told her. "Some friends of yours who haven't long to live."
At a gesture, Ugru pivoted her around. Then she saw the two of us, rigid, paralyzed, with our hearts shining nakedly in our eyes.
The girl's startled eyes passed me by unseeing, fastened themselves with desperate eagerness upon Gerry. A flame leaped and as quickly died.
"Gerry, darling, you—here!"
He was looking on her as one resurrected from the dead. "Yes, dear. And now that I know you are alive, nothing can stop us."
"Say Chief, let me burn him now." One of the gutter rats in the background had stepped forward, his beady eyes glittering with coke, a blue-nosed automatic thrusting in his hand.
Petrie waved him back without taking his eyes off Gerry.
"Shut up, Spike," he said. "He dies tomorrow, and the way I want."
Horror sprang into the girl's face. "No! No!" she panted.
Petrie snarled like a fanged wolf about to strike. "He dies. He has discovered my secret; he stands in my way with you." His tone changed. "Enough, I have had my sport. I am weary of you now." He clapped his hands. "Strip off their suits, Ugru; they won't need them any more. Keep them paralyzed and under guard. Your life shall answer if they escape."
Ugru salaamed deeply. Underneath his veiled eyes I noted again, this time quite plainly, the welling hatred of the conquered.
Webbed hands lifted us out of our diver's suits, left us in our street clothes.
"As for you, my Marion," Petrie smiled crookedly at her, "from now on you shall be guarded by my own men. I don't trust the Keras. They're fish, but still men."
Spike sprang forward eagerly. "I'll watch her for you, Chief."
Garlon thrust him back with a careless hand. "I don't trust you either. You keep away from the girl, d'ye hear?"
Spike's face wreathed into a look of animal rage, but his voice was placating. "Aw, Chief," he whined, "I didn't mean nothing."
"You had better not. She's not for you and the sooner you find that out, the better off you'll be. Red, you go with her, and remember what I told Spike."
"O.K., Chief." A brutal faced thug shambled forward, his long, hairy arms gangling like an ape's, his unkempt hair and beard fiery red.
The last I saw as Gerry and I were hurried ungently out of the room, rigid on the shoulders of the fish-men, was Marion crouching away from Red's grip, and the look compounded of lust and hatred on Spike's face.
OUR prison was not far away. We were dumped unceremoniously into the interior of a smaller building, and stood up against the clay wall at an angle as though we were wax figures. Ugru sat himself down next to us, his eyes sullen, but watchful. Outside the open door, I saw two other of the Keras range themselves. We were well guarded.
"Kemp." Gerry was speaking softly.
"Yes?"
"Parle Français. Cet homme-poisson ne comprend pas." (Speak in French. The fish-man won't understand.)
"Oui."
Ugru watched us suspiciously. It was obvious he did not understand this gibberish.
"Can you move at all?"
"Not the slightest," I confessed, "though I've been trying hard enough."
"Listen," Gerry talked rapidly. "Ugru must know a way out. He has no cause to love Petrie and his band of cutthroats. Maybe he will help us."
"I've been thinking along the same lines," I admitted.
Gerry turned his eyes on the blank-faced Kera. "You do not like the Emperor?" he asked softly, in English.
The fish-man's eyes flashed with swift hatred; then clouded in startled terror. "No, no! Me do. You shut up."
Gerry pressed his advantage. "No, you don't. I saw it, and I don't blame you. He has conquered your people; he has made slaves out of them."
Again that flash of hatred, again the swift filming into terror. Ugru cast an uneasy glance at the guards outside the entrance. "You crazy. He good man. You shut up or I kill."
Gerry lowered his voice, went on persuasively. "You need not be afraid of us. We hate him more than you do. He has killed my people from the great world outside, he has stolen my girl. Help us get free, and we will help you get free. You can once more rule your own kind down here without interference."
It was a chance shot, but from the way Ugru's head lifted and his eyes flashed, it was evident that it had struck home. Ugru had been Emperor before the coming of Petrie!
Gerry went on as though he had not noticed. "When we go away from here, we shall forget that we ever found this place. No other people from the great air-world shall come down to molest you."
Ugru looked at him fearfully, yet with dawning hope. Gerry's voice had rung with sincerity, his face was candid and frank. I watched the struggle going on in the fish-man with a fierce eagerness. On the outcome of that struggle depended all our lives. Fear of the stranger Petrie and his cohorts, with their terrible weapons—torpedoes, automatics, hand grenades; against which the Keras had only their paralyzing touch, effective only on actual contact.
AT last Ugru came cautiously to his feet. The Emperor in him had won against the frightened savage. "Me help you," he said passionately. "Me help kill new Emperor. We old people, very old. Once we live in air world like you. Then storms come. Island covered with water. Not much. People learn to swim; live in water well as air. Then more storms come. Island sink altogether bottom ocean. Most people drowned. Some learned already live like fish. Ocean sink deeper and deeper, slow. Old people find this place; live here ever since. Me, Emperor." He beat his breast proudly. "Everything good, till new Emperor come. Kill lots people; take my place."
Gerry and I stared at each other.
"Good Lord," I said, "Then the legend of Atlantis was true after all!"
But Gerry was already talking to the Kera. "We'll help you get all that back. Listen, Ugru, can you release us from this paralysis?"
The fish-man came to himself with a start. He nodded, approached us. His webbed hand caressed the rigid backs of our heads, each in turn. I felt a flow of warmth careening through me. I essayed gingerly to move a leg; exclaimed joyfully as it shifted its position.
We worked our limbs vigorously until circulation was fully restored. Gerry wasted no time. "We'll have to move rapidly. Find Marion, and escape." I waxed sarcastic. "How, may I ask? We're not Keras to swim out at the bottom of the ocean."
Gerry looked blank. "I forgot about that." Our suits were in the building where Petrie and his men were. Then his face set grimly. "We'll rush them."
"With bare hands against automatics?" I argued. "No sir, leave me out of that picture. Besides, even if we got them, how would we find the Sea Scorpion? We don't even know in what direction it is."
"I have it," Gerry grinned. "The Sea Squid."
"Fine," I agreed heartily, "but where is it?"
"I'll find out. Ugru, where does the Emperor keep the boat he came in?"
"Emperor he keep it over there." A sweeping gesture showed the general direction.
"Is there a lock there also?"
"Yes, yes. He big one. Boat fit in."
"Splendid. Let's get started." Gerry started for the door.
"No." Ugru held him with a detaining hand. "Get killed. Wait dark."
"Dark?" Gerry echoed in surprise. "You mean to say you have nights down here?"
Ugru shrugged. "No understand, night. Emperor, he no like all time light. Do something make black; everyone go to sleep."
"A new wrinkle," said Gerry with grudging admiration. "The scoundrel is a genius. Must be blanketing the radio-active emanations with some sort of wave screen. Well, we'll wait, though it's hard."
"Come soon," said Ugru, and glided out of the hut to the guards. We heard them in rapid, hissing converse; then he was back, smiling as broadly as his thin gash of a mouth would permit.
"Kera happy," he announced. "One go tell other Kera; they help. Other stay with us."
THE next two hours seemed centuries, yet they ended finally. It became dark; swiftly, suddenly, like a tropical sunset. We could not see each other; it was so inky.
"Now," whispered Gerry, groping toward me. "Not yet," Ugru's voice came out of the blackness firmly. "They go sleep first. Lie down, shut eyes, look dead." His tone conveyed withering contempt.
Evidently in the course of what might be termed evolution, these Keras who once were men had dispensed with the art of sleeping.
Again we had to acknowledge the logic of his reasoning. We waited again. We had no weapons! To all our inquiries Ugru had shaken his head. There was no wood in this underground cave of ocean; not even a stone. The ground was silt hardened to clay, smooth and bare. I confess I did not relish the prospect; fists against bullets; but Gerry seemed to anticipate the coming fray with a good deal of enjoyment.
At last Ugru hissed to us. It was time! We rose and stealthily edged our way out of the building. The other guard had gone to join his comrades. Our eyes tried vainly to pierce the impenetrable dark. Ugru had no difficulty; he was accustomed to the sunless depths of the sea. We went along in line, Gerry's outstretched fingertips resting in the small of the fish-man's back, and mine on Gerry's.
Our plan of action had been carefully mapped. First we were going to the building in which Marion was captive; overpower her guard. Then on to Petrie and his cohorts. The Keras—there were only some half thousand left in their degraded state—were massing silently in a cordon around the Emperor's structure. At a signal we were to rush the place, ourselves in the van. The Keras had a wholesome respect for the weapons of the white men.
Through the profound dark we crept, following Ugru's unerring course. A silence as dense as the night enveloped us; not a light glimmered. My heart was pounding away; we were approaching the climax of our mad adventure.
Suddenly I bumped headlong into Gerry. He had stopped short.
"What the—" I commenced angrily.
"Sssh," he whispered. "Look."
Ahead of us and a little to the left, I caught a thin flicker of light. Then it was gone. Two seconds passed, and the pencil of light gleamed momentarily on the ground some paces further on, and was out again, like a snuffed candle.
"What in the world can it be?" I asked softly.
Gerry's voice floated back. "Someone else is on the trail tonight. A human being too! A Kera wouldn't need a light. Doesn't want to be seen, either. Watch."
Several times the strange flash lit up the ground, and flicked out, moving steadily ahead of us.
Ugru was back with us now, hissing excitedly. "He one of Emperor's people. Going same place we go. Air generator place—where woman prisoner."
I clutched Gerry by the arm. "Come on; there'll be fireworks soon. I expected this." I literally dragged him along. Ugru followed. The intermittent, receding flash ahead was a sufficient guide. If only things broke right 1
The light stopped short, went out.
I stopped also. "That must be the air generator building and Marion's prison," I whispered. "Walk softly."
Ugru led the way again. We made no sound as we tiptoed on the firm clay.
Ugru's webbed hand felt clammy against, mine. "Stop."
A VOICE was calling, softly, not ten paces from where we crouched, shielded by the blackness. "Red! Say, Red! Red, do you hear me?"
Silence, in which my heart thumped loud. Then a stirring within the hut, a sleepy grumbling, followed by a yawn.
"Red!"
More stirrings and yawns, then—muffled. "Who's there?"
"Sssh, it's me; Spike. I want to talk to ya." Straining our ears, we heard a huge form lumber to its feet, move about.
"'S a hell of a note. Can't ya let a fella sleep? Whatya want?"
"Listen, Red." Both figures were invisible, but we could hear plainly enough. "It's the girl. The Chief's keeping her fer hisself."
"What about it?" growled the other.
"'Tain't fair. Me 'n you's as good as him. Let's cut in."
"Not fer me." Red was wide awake now. "He'd chop us down sure as shootin'."
"Naw he wouldn't. If he kicks, we'd get 'im first. Then we cud keep all the swag fer ourselves."
"No go," said Red positively. We would hear him shift his position, as though he had turned to re-enter the air generator building. "You're all hopped up, Spike. Go ta bed an' sleep it off."
"Ya damned yellabelly," Spike gritted. "I gave ya a chance; now take this."
We could hear a swish in the silence; a groan, a dull thud—and more silence!
"Now," I whispered, and started to run. But Gerry was already on his way. We dashed pell-mell through the thick soft dark, heedless of obstacles, of anything except that we had to get there in time.
I crashed headlong into a wall. A terrified scream slashed through the night. Spike had found his prey. Heedless of gashed forehead, I whirled, slithered along the wall with groping fingers, trying to find the entrance. But Gerry beat me to it. His pounding feet had carried him straight. A whirlwind swept into the hovel, smacked squarely into invisible, struggling figures.
A startled oath ripped out, a grunt, and the crash of shots. By the time I was inside it was all over.
I saw the picture outlined in sharp shadows in the midst of weird machinery. I saw the gun Gerry held in one free hand. He'd snatched it from Red's body. The other arm enclosed protectively the slim form of Marion. On the ground, outstretched, groaning feebly, was Spike. Ugru peered in fearfully from the doorway, an unhuman note in the strange scene.
"Quick, we've got to get to Petrie," I snapped. "That shot must have wakened the whole place."
"Wait here, darling," Gerry whispered to Marion.
"No." Her voice was low, but firm. "I'm going too."
"All right, all right," I cried impatiently. "If we don't hurry, we'll have no place to go." There's no sense in arguing with a woman.
We catapulted out of the building, Gerry leading the way with his flash. There was no sense in further concealment; Petrie must be awake and waiting.
But to our surprise, the darkness held thick and palpable; silence brooded with invisible wings. Not a sound, not a glimmer of light to show that anyone was stirring.
FOR the first time I felt afraid. The silence was ominous, frightening. Garlon Petrie had shown himself too clever, too resourceful, to be caught napping like any dull-witted fool. I did not like it. But we could not hold back now. The last desperate chance must be taken.
IT WAS a strange race through an inky smudge relieved only by the wavering flash ahead. Soft slitherings grew upon my straining ears; the pad of hundreds of webbed feet. I could not see them, but I knew the Keras were gathering. Every so often the thin flare caught a startled figure that weaved quickly back into the sheltering darkness. And ahead, invisible, silent, ominous, was the building in which Petrie and his scum were gathered. A strange race to the death in this strange underground world!
Gerry flicked the torch off. I could hear Marion's soft panting alongside of me. The blackness was even more intense for the loss of light.
Ugru whispered. "Emperor's place he right ahead."
We were in the midst of a sway of invisible figures, pushing, hissing eagerly, softly. The Keras!
"What do now?" Ugru was manifestly perplexed.
"I'm going first," said Gerry quietly. "When I shout have your people rush the place."
"No," Marion panted.
"I'm with you," I stated. It was suicide, but I couldn't let him down. A hand found mine somehow, and squeezed. I felt better then.
"Come on." We started forward, shouldering our way through the press.
A shriek of agony split the night, stopped us flat-footed. Gerry flashed his beam instantly, and swore. A Kera, more daring than the rest, had crept to the curved wall of the building, had touched it. He was down on the ground, writhing in awful pain. Petrie had wired the walls, and the juice was on.
Almost immediately the whole of that underground world dazzled into the glow of day. Sharp spitting explosions came to our stunned ears, followed by the terrible clatter of gigantic typewriters.
"Machine guns!" I gasped, and threw myself flat, pulling the others down with me. Even in my despair I could not refrain from admiration. Petrie had been prepared, waiting.
A storm of bullets swept the open ground, cut through the bewildered, milling Keras like great scythes. The poor under-ocean creatures broke under the frightful hail. The great clay plain was dotted with madly running fish-men, leaving a score behind who never would run again.
The firing ceased. Petrie appeared in the doorway, a smoking automatic in each hand. His sallow cheeks were aflame, his smoldering eyes scorched in their intensity.
"The slaves thought to catch me napping, did they?" his chuckle rasped. "That's a lesson they soon won't forget."
Gerry cursed and tried to rise.
I pulled him back forcibly. "You fool," I whispered sharply. "You'll be cut in two before you go a yard. Our only chance is playing dead, and trying for the sub later."
But it was too late. Petrie's sharp eyes had seen the movement. "Come out of there," he said levelling his guns.
"Now we'll have to run for it," I groaned. "Come on."
Four figures rose like ghosts from the bloody ground and ran, head down, scattering, away from the building. Ugru had stuck with us.
Petrie's guns flamed, but our sudden move had upset his aim. We were making good time when the gunmen inside opened up with everything they had. Death belched and whistled all about us. A high-powered bullet ripped through my thigh, another thudded in my shoulder. I staggered, and kept on. I could see a gash across Gerry's scalp. Marion was pale but unhurt. Ugru was in the van, leading us steadily through that hell toward the submarine.
A SUDDEN lull in the firing behind us, a shout.
I looked back, saw Petrie and his men piling after us. They had sensed what we were about.
We put on an extra burst of speed. There was about three hundred yards between us now. The great rocky ceiling was curving low overhead. We were nearing the confines of the little world. Bullets began to zip around us, but the range was too great for accurate shooting. My eyes darted vainly along the sloping rock wall, seeking for some sign of an opening. There was none. Was Ugru leading us into a trap, I wondered? My perspiring hands clenched grimly as I ran. If he was...
But the fish-man padded unhesitatingly in front, straight for a smoother seeming section of rock. His webbed fingers slid along the edge where it joined the plain, fumbled in search. Behind came the gunmen, a compact little group, Petrie well in advance. They fired as they ran. Little spurts of clay kicked up around our feet, the rock chipped into flying fragments. I could hear the whine of the missiles as they hissed past my ear. Only two hundred yards separated us now.
Yet Ugru still fumbled, at a loss. I looked wildly about for some weapon, anything to defend ourselves. There was nothing, not even a pebble. Gerry had faced around grimly, crouching as if ready to spring upon the advancing men with bare hands. Marion stood erect and white.
There was a shout of triumph from the gunmen as they saw our predicament. Petrie raised his gun and fired. Gerry staggered from a bullet in his shoulder. Only a hundred yards now.
"We're through," said Gerry quietly. "Afraid, darling?"
"No," she answered bravely. "Better this than remain in Petrie's hands."
I wasn't quite that noble. I didn't want to die! I whirled around to curse out Ugru, just as he hissed exultant syllables in his own tongue. A section of smooth rock was sliding into a hidden recess.
"It's open," I yelled insanely. The four of us tumbled through in a confused heap; the section slid to behind us just as some highly indignant gunmen let loose another fusillade. I felt the impact of a slug somewhere, but what was one more or less when I was already so well filled with lead.
We were in a roughly hollowed chamber, almost completely filled with a gigantic metal fish. The Sea Squid!
Gerry's eyes flamed at the sight of it. "I never thought to see here again," he exulted.
"And you won't see her much longer if you don't do something quick," I told him in disgust.
I could hear muffled thumpings from the other side of our rocky prison. It would take Petrie only a minute to find the trick slide.
Gerry snapped into command. "Kemp, you take Marion into the sub through that open ejector tube. Ugru, you let the waters in, quick. I'll try and hold them off a while."
Marion started to protest, but I didn't give her a chance. I picked her up bodily and forced her, struggling, through the tube compartment into the interior of the sub. Then I went back to the mouth of the tube, hand on the wheel, ready to lock it fast if Gerry had to dive through in a hurry.
THE water was already pouring into the rock chamber; tumbling and splashing. The floor was covered with icy cold waves to the depth of a foot and rising visibly. Ugru was nowhere in sight. But Gerry was fighting for his life.
The entrance to the cavern lock was open. Someone, it may have been Petrie, was dashing through with smoking gun. Gerry, hidden to one side, stepped forward, clubbed him with his now empty gun. The man went down like a poled ox into the welter of waters. Already they were pouring through the opening, spreading into the underground world.
I yelled to him to come on, but he couldn't. For the other gunmen had piled through and were on top of him. It was a twisting, squirming, heaving mass. They could not use their weapons at such close quarters without killing their own men.
The water was not raising any further. As fast as it came in, it ran out through the entrance into the hollow world. In despair, I started out from the ejector tube in a hopeless attempt to help Gerry, when a noise like ten thousand Niagaras stopped me short. I shot one swift glance around, and jumped back into the ejector tube, just in time.
A solid wall of water darted down the cavern, picked up the powerful submarine, tossed it dizzily about like a tiny chip. I caught a last glimpse of those struggling figures buried beneath mountains of water, and then it was swirling into the tube until I was waist deep. Inside the sub, on the other side of the inner lock, which luckily I had had sense enough to close, I heard Marion's scream.
My dulled mind held fixedly to one thought. I must get Gerry somehow. Foolish, insane, of course. Gerry was dead, crushed under that welter of waters; I would be dead soon too. Already the flood was waist deep and coming up fast. But I was beyond coherent thought, I struggled against its almost irresistible onrush, trying to dive out of the tube.
I was still struggling vainly when I saw something moving in the pea-green depths. A dark, slender form shot toward me with the grace of a fish, seemingly attached to another and inert mass. A webbed hand reached out, caught me just as my lungs were filling with water, pushed me back into the tube.
My head bobbed above the surface, gasping. Ugru's wet skin shone sleekly as he supported Gerry's lolling head above the waters.
"Close door," he hissed. I coughed up some gallons of water, grasped at the valve. Luckily it was close by. It creaked protestingly, but it worked. The slide closed upon the incoming waters. Ugru supported us both to the other end. A twist at the inner valve, and we were tumbled into the sub with a rush of water. Marion closed it quickly behind us and caught at Gerry with tight, possessive arms.
SOME half hour later, the Sea Squid was resting quietly on the ocean bottom outside the submerged world of the Keras. Gerry was himself again, after a fashion. All our wounds were dressed, and the water drained from our lungs.
Gerry grasped the fish-man's hand. "Thanks," he said warmly, "you saved all our lives with your quick wit."
Ugru grinned. "Let all water in at once. Drown them. Catch you and pull you in."
"But what are you going to do now? Your world is ocean now; all your people killed! Come with us."
The fish-man shook his head. "No. Me stay here. Kera not dead. Only swim around. Petrie, he, others, dead. No breathe water. Me go back. Know how empty. Live again peace." He tapped his breast proudly. "Me Emperor again."
"And a damned good Emperor too," I responded cordially.
It was with real regret that we finally let him out through the tube, watched his graceful form darting fish-like through the blackness of ocean's depths in the visor-screens, saw him wave a webbed hand as he vanished into the drowned lock that led into his underground world.
Then we headed upward, back to our own world of sun and air and sky.
"You know," I said, as the engines throbbed their steady beat, "there's only one thing that worries me."
"What is that?" Marion asked.
"I hate to leave that ten million cooling itself down there."
Gerry looked at me queerly. "It isn't," he said. "It's all packed snugly in the sub's hold. Petrie was preparing to take it up and market it."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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