The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 02 Read online

  "Got him, De Boer? Good!"

  Triumphant Spawn! He advanced across the garden with his heavy tread. And to me, and I am sure to De Boer as well, there came the swift realization that Spawn had been hiding safely in the background. But my detector was smashed now. It might have imaged De Boer assailing me: but now that it was smashed, Spawn could act freely.

  "Good! So you have him! Make away to the mine!"

  I did not see De Boer's face at that instant. But I saw his weapon come up--an act wholly impulsive, no doubt. A flash of fury!

  He levelled the projector, not at me, but at the on-coming Spawn.

  "You damn liar!"

  "De Boer--" It was a scream of terror from Spawn. But it came too late. The projector hissed; spat its tiny blue puff. The needle drilled Spawn through the heart. He toppled, flung up his arms, and went down, silently, to sprawl on his face across the garden path.

  * * * * *

  De Boer was cursing, startled at his own action. The men holding me tightened their grip. I heard Jetta cry out, but not at what had happened in the garden: she was unaware of that. One of the bandits had left the group and climbed into her room. Her cry now was suppressed, as though the man's hand went over her mouth. And in the silence came his mumbled voice:

  "Shut up, you!"

  There was the sound of a scuffle in there. I tore at the men holding me.

  "Let me go! Jetta! Come out!"

  De Boer dashed for the window. I was still struggling. A hand cuffed me in the face. A projector rammed into my side.

  "Stop it, fool American!"

  De Boer came back with a chastened bandit ahead of him. The man was muttering and rubbing his shoulder, and De Boer said:

  "Try anything like that again, Cartner, and I won't be so easy on you."

  De Boer was dragging Jetta, holding her by a wrist. She looked like a terrified, half-grown boy, so small was she beside this giant. But the woman's lines of her, and the long dark hair streaming about her white face and over her shoulders, were unmistakable.

  "His daughter." De Boer was chuckling. "The little Jetta."

  * * * * *

  All this had happened in certainly no more than five minutes. I realized that no alarm had been raised: the bandits had managed it all with reasonable quiet.

  There were six of the bandits here, and De Boer, who towered over us all. I saw him now as a swaggering giant of thirty-odd, with a heavy-set smooth-shaved, handsome face.

  He held Jetta off. "Damn, how you have grown, Jetta."

  Someone said, "She knows too much."

  And someone else, "We will take her with us. If you leave her here, De Boer--"

  "Why should I leave her? Why? Leave her--for Perona?"

  Then I think that for the first time Jetta saw her father's body lying sprawled on the path. She cried, "Philip!" Then she half turned and murmured: "Father!"

  She wavered, almost falling. "Father--" She went down, fainting, falling half against me and against De Boer, who caught her slight body in his arms.

  "Come, we'll get back. Drag him!"

  "But you can't carry that girl out like that, De Boer."

  "Into the house: there is an open door. Hans, go out and bring the car around to this side. Give me the cloaks. There is no alarm yet."

  De Boer chuckled again. "Perona was nice to keep the police off this street to-night!"

  We went into the kitchen. An auto-car, which to the village people might have been there on Spawn's mining business, slid quietly up to the side entrance. A cloak was thrown over Jetta. She was carried like a sack and put into the car.

  I suddenly found an opportunity to break loose. I leaped and struck one of the men. But the others were too quickly on me. The kitchen table went over with a crash.

  Then something struck me on the back of the head: I think it was the handle of De Boer's great knife. The kitchen and the men struggling with me faded. I went into a roaring blackness.

  CHAPTER XI

  Aboard the Bandit Flyer

  I was dimly conscious of being inside the cubby of the car, with bandits sitting over me. The car was rolling through the village streets. Ascending. We must be heading for Spawn's mine. I thought of Jetta. Then I heard her voice and felt her stir beside me.

  The roaring in my head made everything dreamlike. I sank half into unconsciousness again. It seemed an endless interval, with only the muttering hiss of the car's mechanism and the confused murmurs of the bandits' voices.

  Then my strength came. The cold sweat on me was drying in the night breeze that swept through the car as it climbed the winding ascent. I could see through its side oval a vista of bloated Lowland crags with moonlight on them.

  It seemed that we should be nearly to the mine. We stopped. The men in the car began climbing out.

  De Boer's voice: "Is he conscious now? I'll take the girl."

  Someone bent over me. "You hear me?"

  "Yes," I said.

  I found myself outside the car. They held me on my feet. Someone gratuitously cuffed me, but De Boer's voice issued a sharp, low-toned rebuke.

  "Stop it! Get him and the girl aboard."

  * * * * *

  There seemed thirty or forty men gathered here. Silent dark figures in black robes. The moonlight showed them, and occasionally one flashed a hand search-beam. It was De Boer's main party gathered to attack the mine.

  I stood wavering on my feet. I was still weak and dizzy, with a lump on the back of my head where I had been struck. The scene about me was at first unfamiliar. We were in a rocky gully. Rounded broken walls. Caves and crevices. Dried ooze piled like a ramp up one side. The moonlight struggled down through a gathering mist overhead.

  I saw, presently, where we were. Above the mine, not below it: and I realized that the car had encircled the mine's cauldron and climbed to a height beyond it. Down the small gully I could see where it opened into the cauldron about a hundred feet below us. The lights of the mine winked in the blurred moonlight shadows.

  The bandits led me up the gully. The car was left standing against the gully side where it had halted. De Boer, or one of his men, was carrying Jetta.

  The flyer was here. We came upon it suddenly around a bend in the gully. Although I had only seen the nose if it earlier in the evening. I recognized this to be the same. It was in truth a strange looking flyer: I had never seen one quite like it. Barrel-winged, like a Jantzen: multi-propellored: and with folding helicopters for the vertical lifts and descent. And a great spreading fan-tail, in the British fashion. It rested on the rocks like a fat-winged bird with its long cylindrical body puffed out underneath. A seventy-foot cabin: fifteen feet wide, possibly. A line of small window-portes; a circular glassite front to the forward control-observatory cubby, with the propellors just above it, and the pilot cubby up there behind them. And underneath the whole, a landing gear of the Fraser-Mood springed-cushion type: and an expanding, air-coil pontoon-bladder for landing upon water.

  * * * * *

  All this was usual enough. Yet, with the brief glimpses I had as my captors hurried me toward the landing incline, I was aware of something very strange about this flyer. It was all dead black, a bloated-bellied black bird. The moonlight struck it, but did not gleam or shimmer on its black metal surface. The cabin window-portes glowed with a dim blue-gray light from inside. But as I chanced to gaze at one a green film seemed to cross it like a shade, so that it winked and its light was gone. Yet a hole was there, like an eye-socket. An empty green hole.

  We were close to the plane now, approaching the bottom of the small landing-incline. The wing over my head was like a huge fat barrel cut length-wise in half. I stared up; and suddenly it seemed that the wing was melting. Fading. Its inner portion, where it joined the body, was clear in the moonlight. But the tips blurred and faded. An aspect curiously leprous. Uncanny. Gruesome.

  They took me up the landing-incline. A narrow vaulted corridor ran length-wise of the interior, along one side of the cabin body. To
my left as we headed for the bow control room, the corridor window-portes showed the rocks outside. To the right of the corridor, the ship's small rooms lay in a string. A metal interior. I saw almost nothing save metal in various forms. Grid floor and ceiling. Sheet metal walls and partitions. Furnishings and fabrics, all of spun metal. And all dead black.

  We entered the control room. The two men holding me flung me in a chair. I had been searched. They had taken from me the tiny, colored magnesium light-flashes. How easy for the plans of men to go astray! Hanley and I had arranged that I was to signal the Porto Rican patrol-ship with those flares.

  "Sit quiet!" commanded my guard.

  I retorted, "If you hit me again, I won't."

  * * * * *

  De Boer came in, carrying Jetta. He put her in a chair near me, and she sat huddled tense. In the dim gray light of the control room her white face with its big staring dark eyes was turned toward me. But she did not speak, nor did I.

  The bandits ignored us. De Boer moved about the room, examining a bank of instruments. Familiar instruments, most of them. The usual aero-controls and navigational devices. A radio audiphone transmitter and receiver, with its attendant eavesdropping cut-offs. And there was an ether-wave mirror-grid. De Boer bent over it. And then I saw him fastening upon his forehead an image-lens. He said:

  "You stay here, Hans. You and Gutierrez. Take care of the girl and this fellow Grant. Don't hurt them."

  Gutierrez was a swarthy Latin American. He smiled. "For why would I hurt him? You say he is worth much money to us, De Boer. And the girl, ah--"

  De Boer towered over him. "Just lay a finger on her and you will regret it, Gutierrez! You stay at your controls. Be ready. This affair it will take no more than half an hour."

  A man came to the control room entrance. "You come, Commander?"

  "Yes. Right at once."

  "The men are ready. From the mine we might almost be seen here. This delay--"

  "Coming, Rausch."

  * * * * *

  But he lingered a moment more. "Hans, my finder will show you what I do. Keep watch. When we come back, have all ready for flight. This Grant had an alarm-detector. Heaven only knows what eavesdropping and relaying he has done. And for sure there is hell now in Spawn's garden. The Nareda police are there, of course. They might track us up here."

  He paused before me. "I think I would not cause trouble, Grant."

  "I'm not a fool."

  "Perhaps not." He turned to Jetta. "No harm will come to you. Fear nothing."

  He wound his dark cloak about his giant figure and left the control room. In a moment, through the rounded observing pane beside me, I saw him outside on the moonlit rocks. His men gathered about him. There were forty of them, possibly, with ten or so left here aboard to guard the flyer.

  And in another moment the group of dark-cloaked figures outside crept off in single file like a slithering serpent, moving down the rock defile toward where in the cauldron pit the lights of the mine shone on its dark silent buildings.

  CHAPTER XII

  The Attack on the Mine

  There was a moment when I had an opportunity to speak with Jetta. Gutierrez sat watchfully by the archway corridor entrance with a needle projector across his knees. The fellow Hans, a big, heavy-set half-breed Dutchman with a wide-collared leather jerkin and wide, knee-length pantaloons, laid his weapon carefully aside and busied himself with his image mirror. There would soon be images upon it, I knew: De Boer had the lens-finder on his forehead, and the scenes at the mine, as De Boer saw them would be flashed back to us here.

  This Gutierrez was very watchful. A move on my part and I knew he would fling a needle through me.

  My thoughts flew. Hanley had notified Porto Rico. The patrol-ship had almost enough time to get here by now.

  I felt Jetta plucking at me. She whispered:

  "They have gone to attack the mine."

  "Yes."

  "I heard it planned. Señor Perona--"

  Her hurried whispers told me further details of Perona's scheme. So this was a pseudo attack! Perona would take advantage of it and hide the quicksilver. De Boer would return presently and escape. And hold me for ransom. I chuckled grimly. Not so easy for a bandit, even one as clever as De Boer at hiding in the Lowland depths to arrange a ransom for an agent of she United States. Our entire Lowland patrol would be after him in a day.

  * * * * *

  Jetta's swift whispers made it all clear to me. It was Perona's scheme.

  She ended, "And my father--" Her voice broke; her eyes flooded suddenly with tears "Oh, Philip, he was good to me, my poor father."

  I saw that the mirror before Hans was glowing with its coming image. I pressed Jetta's hand.

  "Yes, Jetta."

  One does not disparage the dead. I could not exactly subscribe to Jetta's appraisal of her parent, but I did not say so.

  "Jetta, the mirror is on."

  I turned away from her toward the instrument table. Gutierrez at the door raised his weapon. I said hastily, "Nothing. I--we just want to see the mirror."

  I stood beside Hans. He glanced at me and I tried to smile ingratiatingly.

  "This attack will be successful, eh, Hans?"

  "Damn. I hope so."

  The mirror was glowing. Hans turned a switch to dim the tube-lights of the room so that we might see the images better. It brought a protest from Gutierrez.

  I swung around. "I'm not a fool! You can see me perfectly well: kill me if I make trouble. I want to see the attack."

  "Por Dios, if you try anything--"

  "I won't!"

  "Shut!" growled Hans. "The audiphone is on. The big adventure--and the commander--leaves me here just to watch!"

  * * * * *

  A slit in the observatory pane was open. The dark figure of one of the bandits on guard outside came and called softly up to us.

  "Started. Hans?"

  "Starting."

  "Should it go wrong, call out."

  "Yes. But it will not."

  "There was an alarm, relayed probably to Great New York, the commander said, from Spawn's garden. These cursed prisoners--"

  "Shut! You keep watch out there. It is starting."

  The guard slunk away. My attention went back to the mirror. An image was formed there now, coming from the eye of the lens upon De Boer's forehead. It swayed with his walking. He was evidently leading his men, for none of them were in the scene. The dark rocks were moving past. The lights of the mine were ahead and below, but coming nearer.

  The audiphone hummed and crackled. And through it, De Boer's low-voiced command sounded:

  "To the left Is the better path. Keep working to the left."

  The image of the rocks and the mine swung with a dizzying sweep as De Boer turned about. Then again he was creeping forward.

  The mine lights came closer. De Beer's whispered voice said: "There they are!"

  * * * * *

  I could see the lights of the mine's guards flash on. A group of Spawn's men gathered before the smelter building. The challenge sounded.

  "Who are you? Stop!"

  And De Boer's murmur: "That is correct, as Perona said. They expect us. Well," he ended with a sardonic laugh, "expect us."

  His projector went up. He fired. In the silence of the control room we could hear the audiphoned hiss of it, and see the flash in the mirror-scene. He had fired into the air.

  Again his low voice to his men: "Hold steady. They will run."

  The group of figures at the smelter separated, waved and scattered back into the deeper shadows. Their hand-lights were extinguished, but the moonlight caught and showed them. They were running away; hiding in the crags. They fired a shot or two, high in the air.

  De Boer was advancing swiftly now. The image swayed and shifted, raised and lowered rhythmically as he ran. And the dark shape of the smelter building loomed large as he neared it.

  I felt Jetta beside me: heard her whisper: "Why, he should attack and then c
ome back! Greko told my father--"

  But De Boer was not coming back! He was dashing for the smelter entrance. Spawn's guards must have known then that there was something wrong. Their shots hissed, still fired high, and our grid sounded their startled shouts. Then as De Boer momentarily turned his head, I saw what was taking place to the side of him. A detachment of the bandits had followed the retreating guards. The bandits' shots were levelled now. Dim stabs of light in the gloom. One of the guards screamed as he was struck.

  * * * * *

  The attack was real! But it was over in a moment. Spawn's men, those who were not struck down, plunged away and vanished. Perona had disconnected the mine's electrical safeguards. The smelter door was sealed, but it gave before the blows of a metal bar two of De Boer's men were carrying.

  In the unguarded, open strong-room, Perona, alone, was absorbed in his task of carrying the ingots of quicksilver down into the hidden compartment beneath its metal floor.

  Our mirror was vague and dim now with a moving interior of the main smelter room as De Boer plunged through. At the strong-room entrance he paused, with his men crowding behind him. The figure of Perona showed in the vague light: he was stooping under the weight of one of the little ingots. Beside him yawned the small trap-opening leading downward.

  He saw De Boer. He straightened, startled, and then shouted with a terrified Spanish oath. De Boer's projector was levelled: the huge, foreshortened muzzle of it blotted out half our image. It hissed its puff of light--a blinding flash on our mirror--in the midst of which the dark shape of Perona's body showed as it crumpled and fell. Like Spawn, he met instant death.

  Jetta was gripping me. "Why--" Gutierrez was with us. Hans was bending forward, watching the mirror. He muttered, "Got him!"

  I saw a chance to escape, and pulled at Jetta. But at once Gutierrez stepped backward.

  "Like him I will strike you dead!" he said.

  * * * * *

  No chance of escape. I had thought Gutierrez absorbed by the mirror, but he was not. I protested vehemently:

  "I haven't moved, you fool. I have no intention of moving."

  And now De Boer and his men were carrying up the ingots. A man for each bar. A confusion of blurred swaying shapes, and low-voiced, triumphant murmurs from our disc.