Monsters of the Ray
By A Hyatt Verrill
Copyright © 1930 by A Hyatt Verrill
This edition published in 2011 by eStar Books, LLC.
www.estarbooks.com
ISBN 9781612101972
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Monsters of the Ray
By A Hyatt Verrill
Chapter I
To ninety-nine people out of every hundred the name of Frank Ogden Harris means nothing. Nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of every thousand have never heard of him or, if they have, the name has conveyed no more interest, nothing more of importance than the name of John Smith or William Jones.
To a certain number of people, however, Frank Ogden Harris was well known and his name meant a great deal. Among the more advanced members of the chemical profession he bore a high reputation for a number of noteworthy discoveries in inorganic chemistry. Several of his formulae were in constant use, and metallurgical chemists were all familiar with the Harris system of assaying the rarer earths and minerals.
Among scientists at large, but more especially among those interested primarily in astronomy and physics, Harris had a reputation of being a revolutionary, an iconoclast and something of a visionary. Even the most advanced and open-minded of the younger generation looked upon Harris' theories, prophecies and ideas as somewhat fantastic and impossible. But all admitted that he knew the subjects, that he was logical, that he could bring up points that could not be denied nor argued down, and that, in one or two cases, his theories had been completely borne out.
And in the circles of the most prominent electrical engineers, or rather among those who specialized in electro-magnetic phenomena and ether waves, Harris' name was one to conjure with. The multi-electronic tube was Harris' invention and its royalties brought him a princely income. The chromovisor, by means of which television had been brought within the reach of all, was the direct result of Harris' active and revolutionary brain, and that most important radio accessory of all—-the static-nullifier—had been conceived and developed by Frank Ogden Harris.
The medical profession also knew Harris' name and had good reasons for remembering it, for his Z-Xray apparatus had made those twin terrors of mankind—cancer and leprosy—of no more consequence than chicken-pox and whooping-cough. Yet for some unknown reason—it most certainly was not modesty—Harris had never permitted his name to be associated with any of these inventions or discoveries. He was quite willing to blow his own horn, as the saying goes, among men who could understand what he was talking about, and he had no illusions in regard to his own abilities, his own intellect, or his own knowledge of the most abstract and complicated sciences. But he detested publicity and notoriety. To him a newspaper reporter way the epitome of stupidity, vulgarity and impertinence combined, and nothing would arouse his fury so much as some flippant, inaccurate press account of some scientific discovery or attainment. He avoided publicity as the devil avoids holy water, and he carried his detestation of notoriety to such an extent that, fearing lest some reporter might bring his name into the limelight, all his contracts with the manufacturers of his various devices, apparatus and reagents contained a clause to the effect that, if the name Harris was used in any manner as a trade mark, a trade name, or for sales or advertising purposes, the contracts become null and void. He even went further and carried on his experiments in his magnificently equipped laboratories under an assumed name. Only in Peru, where he maintained a private observatory, together with a work-shop, a laboratory, a charming residence and a vast library among the sublime Andes, was he known as Frank Ogden Harris to the Spanish-American public. And there, as he laughingly admitted, nobody bothered over what a "crazy Gringo" was doing, and nobody cared who he was, as long as he paid his taxes, obeyed the laws, spent a reasonable amount of money and did not mix in politics.
So, as I said in the beginning, not one man in a thousand ever heard of Frank Ogden Harris, or, having heard the name, remembered it ten minutes later. Yet Harris came very near being the cause of wiping humanity from our planet, and, for a space, he held the fate of all mankind, the future of the earth, in the hollow of his hand.
Although Harris' name had been known to me for years, and although I had met him casually on many occasions when we were both present at scientific meetings and other functions, yet I never became really acquainted with him until I met him aboard ship. I was on the Ebro of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, bound for an archeological expedition to Peru, and to my delight found that Harris was a fellow-passenger.
Naturally we became friendly; we exchanged views on the country, narrated experiences and discussed the past, present and future of Peru. Harris expressed the greatest interest in the ancient Incan and pre-Incan civilizations—although admitting he was woefully ignorant on the subject—and plied me with questions. He was a keen observer; he had a marvelously clear mind, and to my surprise I found that many of his deductions, based on his superficial observations, were remarkably close to the conclusions reached by the most eminent archeologists. Being an astronomer— although he had perfected himself in that science merely as a side issue and to aid him in other lines of research—Harris was deeply interested in the astronomical attainments of the ancient American races.
He had gone into that phase of the subject pretty deeply, and really knew more of the technical and scientific details of the Mayas', Nahuas', Incas' and pre-Incas' astronomical instruments and calculations than myself. Also he was absolutely fascinated with the mystery of the accomplishment of the ancient Peruvians' engineering feats, particularly their marvelous stone-cutting, and he informed me that there were some very remarkable ruins near his place. In the end he gave me a pressing and wholehearted invitation to visit him for as long as I wished and to study the remains in his vicinity.
As I had never heard of any important ruins near Tucin, I very gladly availed myself of his invitation, and a few weeks after my arrival in Lima I set out for Harris' place. It was by no means an easy journey. Tucin itself was a tiny Indian village far from the beaten track of railway trains, motor roads and well-traveled highways and, being in an extremely rough and mountainous section, it could not be reached by airplane.
But even when I reached Tucin, nestling beside the brawling river in a verdant, rich-cultivated valley in the heart of the Andes, the worst of my journey lay ahead. At least, so I thought, when after three days of travel over deserts, punas(desolate regions) and mountains by motor-bus, horseback and muleback, I reached Tucin and asked the route to Huaro-Yana, as Harris' place was called. Imagine my astonishment when an Indian, in conventional clothes, pushed his way through the throng of poncho-clad sandal-shod, coca-chewing, stolid-faced natives, who were all chattering in their Quichua tongue, and smilingly announced in excellent Spanish that the Senor's car awaited me! I could scarcely believe my ears, for a motor car, in this remote out-of-the-way section of the Andes, seemed as impossible and incredible as a skyscraper in a desert. And when I had been guided to where the "car" was parked, I could scarcely believe my eyes. I had expected to find a rattletrap Ford or a battered "camion"; instead I saw a low-hung, speedy-looking roadster in shiny maroon paint and flashing nickel. As far as appearances went, it might just have left a Detroit factory, except that its tires were of enormous size and of a peculiar light-green color.
I stepped into the car and settled myself back on the luxurious cushions, my saddle bags and burro-pack were stowed away in a rear compartment, the Indian servant took his place at the wheel, and the next moment,
amid the shouts of the villagers, the barking and yelping of scores of mongrel curs, the shrill cries of scurrying children, and the stampede of a train of supercilious-looking llamas, we rolled along the narrow cobbled streets between the thatched stone huts and left the village of Tucin behind. Before us stretched a steeply inclined, rocky plain or puna merging into the colossal mountains, their bare sides scarred and seamed as though hewn from a solid mass by some titanic axe, their topmost summits gleaming white with perpetual snow against the clear blue sky. Across the rough puna a well-marked road had been made by removing the rocks and piling them in low walls on either side, and the car sped swiftly and smoothly onward towards the mountains.
Presently we reached a deep arroyo (brook) with precipitous sides and with a frail-looking suspension bridge spanning the torrent fully two hundred feet below. The structure, evidently ancient and probably dating from Incan days, was composed of llama-hair ropes with a flooring of narrow strips of wood, and my heart seemed literally in my mouth as the chauffeur unhesitatingly swung his car down the slight grade of the approach. To have ridden over that sagging, swaying bridge on muleback would have been a nerve-trying feat, and that an automobile could cross without mishap appeared incredible. However, the Indian assured me it was perfectly safe. He reminded me he had driven over it only a few hours before, and with a mental prayer I resigned myself to fate. It seemed ages before we reached the farther end of that bucking, lurching, creaking structure, though it could not have been more than a couple of minutes and in shaken tones I asked the Indian if there were others to be crossed. He shook his head, grinned, and commenced the steep upward climb of the mountains, I gazed ahead in amazement. Zigzagging up the almost perpendicular mountain side was a smooth, perfectly graded road narrow to be sure, so narrow that there was barely a foot of space between the wheels of the car and the edge of the roadway. But, aside from the dizzy gulf that stretched beneath and the even more dizzy wall that rose above us, it was safe as a city boulevard. In places the mountain side had been built up with great walls of massive stones to support the roadway; in other places barrancas or ravines had been filled with masonry to form causeways, and at each sharp abrupt turn a retaining and guard wall of stones had been built.
It was the most amazing thing I had yet seen in this wild, uninhabited district, more astonishing even than the car, and I marveled at Harris—for I could think of no one else —having gone to the tremendous expense and the herculean labor of building it solely for the use of his car on his occasional visits to Tucin and the outside world. Not until we rounded a turn some eight thousand feet above the puna did the truth dawn upon me. Here was a small plateau overgrown with giant cacti, immense bromeliads and thickets of the wild purple heliotrope trees. But I scarcely saw these details. I was gazing at the ruined stone buildings in the center of the plateau, ruins whose exquisitely fitted blocks with the round "Pucara" tower rising above them were unmistakably Incan. Instantly at sight of these ruined buildings I recognized them as the remains of a "tambu" or rest-house and a signal-tower. Everything was explained. The highway over which we were traveling had not been built by Harris, but by the Incan engineers centuries before the first white man set foot in America. It was a section of that most marvelous of ancient highways—the great Incan Road—that, before the conquest, had stretched for over four thousand miles from Ecuador to Chile!
So filled with wonder, so intensely interested did I become when the truth dawned upon me, that I scarcely noticed the character of the country, the strange form of Andean vegetation, the terrific gorges and vast heights as we climbed steadily upwards. All my attention was fixed upon the road and the engineering feats that had been necessary to build it. In many spots it was hewn from the solid rock; in one place it passed through a tunnel over one hundred feet in length and, not until the Indian brought the car to a halt, did I realize that we had surmounted the crest of the Andean range and that within a few hundred yards was the foot of a magnificent, gleaming glacier.
The Indian half-turned in his seat, "Huaro-Yana," he announced, pointing ahead. I craned my neck and stared in the direction he indicated. Far below us, seemingly so directly beneath that a stone might have been dropped for three thousand feet upon it, was a tiny square of vivid green cut by the white thread of a river. Scattered about its edges were the red-tiled roofs of buildings, like poppies in a green field. At its foot a precipice dropped, a sheer perpendicular wall for a thousand feet or more, to vanish in a hazy purple abyss, while behind it, and framing the charming picture as a proscenium arch frames a back-drop—was a natural arch of coal-black basalt —the Huaro-Yana or Black Bridge which had given Harris' place its Quichua name.
Only for a moment could I gaze upon the scene that, dwarfed by distance, and so amazingly at variance with its surroundings of awe-inspiring, bare mountain heights, seemed like a painting rather than reality. The next instant we were speeding down grade, traveling at a pace that caused me to hold my breath and to grip the sides of the car convulsively, swinging around horse-shoe curves and hair-pin bends on two wheels, roaring across masonry culverts, and dashing along the verges of precipices, where I gazed directly down through half a mile of air.
In vain I gasped orders to the Indian to slow down, he merely grinned and, like an imp from the pit, seemed to speed the faster. Each second I expected to find myself and the car hurtling into space. And then; suddenly, before us loomed that stupendous arch of black stone. With a roar we raced beneath it and the next moment came to a stop before a low stone bungalow embowered amid blossoming vines and blooming shrubs.
Harris rose from his chair on the shady porch and stepped forward with a cheery greeting and, still unnerved, but thanking God I was yet alive, I clambered stiffly from the roadster.
Chapter II
A Laboratory in Huaro-Yana
"Welcome to Huaro-Yana!" cried Harris, gripping my hand. "Did you enjoy the trip?"
I sank into the nearest chair. "Do you enjoy dreaming you are falling to certain death and then bringing up with a start in your bed?" I exclaimed. "Well— that's the way I feel about this trip—I have never enjoyed anything more than coming to the end of it."
Harris chuckled as he poured me a drink from a frosted shaker. "You’d become accustomed to it in time.” he assured me, "Cusi is inclined to speed a bit in the home run—likes to come in with a flourish. But it’s safe enough—the car couldn't leave the road if it tried. But what do you think of my place here—of Huaro-Yana?"
"It's the most fascinating spot I've ever seen—viewed from up there," I told him, gesturing toward the zenith, "and from what I have seen of it, it's just as beautiful from here. And that natural arch—the black bridge—beats anything in Zion Park or the Grand Canyon You've a wonderful place here, Harris, but the devil of a place to reach - quite out of the world." He smiled "That's why I chose it," he observed, lighting his pipe. "But you've made a mistake. That arch is not natural —it was made by human hands."
I sat up with a jerk. "What! I ejaculated. "Impossible! Why, it’s fully one hundred feet high, twice as wide and fifty feet through. No--"
"Nevertheless it was cut by men.” he insisted. "Didn't I tell you there were some interesting remains here But I'm not surprised that you doubt it—I did myself at first. However, you'll see for yourself presently. By the way, what did you think of the car?"
"That it was an optical illusion, at first," I laughed. "How on earth did you get it here? And what sort of tires do you use?"
"It wasn't so hard getting it here," Harris assured me. "These Indians can carry a load of two hundred pounds for day after day. And a bunch of them together will lug more than a ton, when slung upon poles. I brought the car in sections and reassembled it here—I've a fairly well-equipped machine shop, you know. Oh, and about the tires, they're a sort of an experiment; made of a chemical composition I invented—something like elastic Bakelite, and solid—no chance of blowouts or punctures."
"Good heavens!" I cried, "Why
don't you put them on the market then? There'd be a fortune in them. They rode like regular balloons."
He smiled. "Maybe I will—some day," he said. "But I don't need money and I've a lot of more important things to attend to."
I gulped down the contents of my second glass and stared at him. "If half of what you say is true, you're a magician dwelling in fairyland," I told him. "I—"
Again he interrupted me. "Piffle!" he exclaimed, waving his hand as if dismissing the astounding matter as of no consequence. "Anyone could do such things. However, before you leave, I hope to show you something really big. Do you know--" after a moment's thought, "I'm afraid I wasn't entirely unselfish in asking you up here. I—well, to tell the truth I Wanted some intelligent scientific man to be here when I tried out what I hope will be my greatest discovery. And I didn't want a fellow in my own line. Besides—" with a grin —"I took a liking to you from the first; you've got so many theories and ideas about as wild as my own. And finally, well, if my ideas work out, you'll be well rewarded; you may solve all the mysteries of the pre-Incas."
Amazing, incredible as were the feats he mentioned so casually on the day of my arrival, they were nothing in comparison with those I witnessed later.
For the first few days I was busy going over the place with Harris, and a marvelous place I found it. How he alone, with no aid other than his Indian servants, had ever accomplished such wonders was absolutely astounding. His house, a bungalow-like structure, which to my intense delight I found to be an ancient pre-Incan building repaired and adapted to modern life, was as well furnished and as well equipped with every convenience and luxury as any home in a great city. In fact, it was far better equipped, for Harris had installed many of his own inventions that were still unknown to die world. Such was his lighting system, produced by some intricate means and transmitted by some form of radio, and the lights themselves were masses of some composition that emitted an intense incandescent glow. But there were other ordinary, everyday comforts—hot and cold water, modern baths, and in the big comfortable living room a grand piano. Knowing that Harris was no musician and cared nothing for music, I was vastly surprised at finding such an instrument in his remote Andean home, especially as it must have been a tremendous undertaking to transport it over the mountains. But when I asked him about it, he laughed and opened the instrument. To my amazement I discovered that instead of a piano it was a most astonishing radio receiver that bore about the same relationship to the best and most perfect set on the market that a grand piano bears to a music box.
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