by Earl
“Queer thing, the mist—but probably just some volcanic vapor that has seeped from fissures through the centuries. We’re prepared for it. I wouldn’t doubt there’s plenty of skeletons down there, but certainly no ghosts. Time’s flying, Doc. Let’s get going.”
He sprang into action. Allan Rand helped him slip the helmet of aluminum, rubber and glass over his stubby-haired skull, then attached the double hose from the compressed oxygen tank that rested in a leather harness on Curwood’s back. It was a simple outfit, designed and built by Rand, assuring the wearer of an independent air supply for over three hours.
Armed with pistol and knife, a bandolier of ammunition around his waist, Tom Curwood paused for a final handshake, then turned. His six-foot three of hardened body slowly wound its way down the slope, skirting boulders and picking the easiest course. He disappeared in the ultramarine fog.
Utter silence smote Rand. The two behind him made no slightest sound. The valley itself was as quiet as a tomb. Not even the chirp of an insect could be heard around them, as though the finger of death had withered every last inch of the valley.
Allan Rand waited tensely. Gold there might be down there, but what else lay beyond—in the depths of the blue mist?
Twenty-five years before, Allan Rand’s father had come in possession of an old treasure-map, dating from the days of Balboa’s explorations four centuries before. The ancient, crumbling document gave explicit directions for reaching the valley in the Cordillera Range of Honduras. The surviving member of a party of Spanish who had penetrated into the blue mist, had written the account and drawn the map. Obviously, he had reached the coast and had been picked up by the main expedition. Through what hands the treasure-map had then gone in the next four hundred years, how many others had sought the valley, drawn by its yellow lure, only the fates knew. But eventually it had turned up in an old urn the elder Rand had picked up in Mexico City.
He had promptly made an overland trip, with a safari of Hondurans and Indians, from San Lorenzo on the coast, despite the pleas of his wife against it.
He had not come back. Two years later a half-crazed Honduran returned to San Lorenzo, where the wife made inquiries, and told a horrible story of death for all except himself in the valley of blue mist. Allan did not hear the full story till he had completed his schooling and gained his academic degree, according to his father’s wishes. Then his mother turned over to him the treasure-map and the last message from his father, scrawled apparently at the point of a strange, choking death.
“To my son, Allan,” the already faded lines read, “when he’s grown to manhood—if God grant that this message ever be delivered: I found the Valley of Blue Mist and its gold, but lingered to solve a strange secret it holds. It was my undoing. I cannot tell what I have seen—it is too unbelievable—but you, my son, must come here and with your scientific knowledge combat the Blue Mist and penetrate into the valley. The Blue Mist attacks the lungs—chokes out life—brings death—or perhaps not death—but I am too weak—”
That was all. At that moment death must have struck. Under what strange circumstances his father had died, or just what he had died from, Allan Rand did not know. He had often pondered over that queer phrase—“brings death, or perhaps not death”—without making any sense out of it. Insanity perhaps? Yet Allan Rand could not quite bring himself to picture that calm, clear-minded man who had been his father as insane, even in the face of a horrible, certain doom.
But Allan Rand was here to find out just what it all meant. He had induced his college chum, Curwood, to join him and together they had flown their bi-motored Douglas[1] flying laboratory down to San Lorenzo. From here they had gone out cruising three times, searching for the valley, finding it at last and picking a nearby landing on a broad smooth plateau not fifteen miles away. Then the final trip, two days before, with the Douglas well laden with supplies, and carrying Ramon and the Indian. And now they were here at the valley itself, ready to solve its secret.
Tom Curwood returned two hours later. As his figure materialized at the edge of the fog veil, Rand gasped. He was carrying something! Gold? But it was white, not yellow. When Curwood emerged from shadow to bright sunlight, Rand saw what he carried and dropped his pipe. It was a human body!
Allan Rand leaped to flying feet and raced down the incline, shouting over his shoulder for Ramon and Queto to follow. When the three panting men reached Curwood’s struggling figure, they stopped short and blinked in utter bewilderment.
“Good Lord!” stammered Rand, passing a hand before his eyes.
“A woman!” declared Ramon, dark face glowing suddenly. “A young and pretty senorita! Caramba! ’Tis impossible!”
Queto merely gave a grunt, then transferred the limp form to his broad shoulder and began climbing toward their camp at the top of the slope. The rest followed.
Rand helped Curwood remove his tank and helmet. “Works perfectly,” was the latter’s first comment. He took several deep breaths, wiped his steamy face, and took a long draught of their tepid water supply. Rand could hold himself no longer.
“All right, Tom. Spill it before I bust. That body—”
As though reminded, Curwood strode to where the Indian had stretched the unbreathing, apparently lifeless girl on a patch of grass. He started. “A girl!” he exclaimed dazedly. “Well, I’ll be darned!”
“You mean you didn’t know?”
“I didn’t!” returned Curwood. “I could hardly see in the first place, what with the damned thick blue fog and steam on my visor-plate. I just grabbed the first one and—”
“First one what!” exploded Rand. “You idiot, will you please explain what—” He waved his hands helplessly, at the valley and at the girl.
Curwood grinned. “I’d like once to see a man go crazy from curiosity, and Doc, you’re pretty close to it!”
His face suddenly became dead serious. “Allan, your father was not—imagining things. He did see the unbelievable. And so did I! There are hundreds more like that girl down there, men and women, all lying around like dead. But I don’t think they are dead! There are buildings down there, machines, implements of civilization. Don’t ask me how they can be here in the middle of wild mountain land. They just are. The Blue Mist—”
A slight moaning sound interrupted. They whirled, to see that the girl was breathing, her lungs inhaling in heaving gasps. Suddenly she sat up. Wide eyes, bluer than the Blue Mist she had come from, stared around bewilderedly. Four pairs of male eyes watched her. To say the least, she was beautiful, Curwood reflected. Her olive-tanned oval face was framed by a cascade of golden hair. Her brief garments reached only to her knees.
“Hm, just as I thought,” murmured Curwood, less surprised than the others at her sudden awakening. “Allan, that Blue Mist is some sort of preserving agent, keeping all those people in what we’ll have to call suspended animation, since we don’t know any more about it. Open air again revives them.”
“Suspended animation!” muttered Rand, shaking his head doubtfully. “Scientific humbug—like unlimited atomic power. It can’t be—” He stopped dazedly, finding this thing un-digestible to his academic training.
“Don’t be unreasonable, Doc,” blithely returned Curwood, whose phlegmatic temperament accepted facts without question. “You must admit the girl’s alive.”
“But who is she? Who are her people?”
Together they looked at her, unable to classify her features, which were a strange blend of the northern and tropical. High cheekbones and slightly slanted eyes of Oriental cast, but also full lips, blonde hair and fair, though tanned, complexion of Nordic quality.
“Of what race?” demanded Rand of no one in particular.
The girl, in the meantime, had been staring at them in stark bewilderment. She looked down into the valley, realization dawning, then frowned daintily at the four men. Her blue eyes caught those of Curwood. She continued to gaze at him interestedly.
Curwood flushed and cleared his throat. Rand
grinned in a preoccupied way. The girl’s eyes suddenly flicked to Ramon and grew icy, offended, at his insolent frank stare which travelled ceaselessly from her toes to her face.
Ramon stirred. “But gold!” he queried. “Did you find gold down there, Senor Curwood?”
“Gold!” scoffed the latter. “Who cares about gold? There’s people down there, man—strange buildings, mysterious machines.” He turned to Rand. “Doc, if this girl revived, the others should. I’ll go down there and bring them up one by one. However they got into the Blue Mist, they couldn’t have any reason for staying in it forever. And—”
A slight cry from the girl interrupted him. She had listened intently while he talked and now she clearly enunciated a few words, looking from one to another for comprehension. The four men stared at her blankly. She frowned, but spoke again.
Rand listened to the strange liquid tones, straining to understand. Somehow, he seemed almost able to. Several of her syllables and inflections were strangely familiar, yet annoyingly escaped his comprehension. It was as though his subconscious mind understood.
“Her words almost—” began Ramon. He too had been listening intently, baffled.
Then a thought struck Rand. Rapidly, he spoke to the girl in Spanish. At her doubtful glance he switched to Latin, stumbling over the difficult words and phrases.
The girl nodded eagerly now, and when Rand tried the few words of Arabic and Greek he knew, she sprang erect with a glad cry. She spoke now, while Rand listened intently. After a moment he shook his head, still puzzled, and motioned for her to sit down.
“Speak her lingo?” asked Curwood eagerly.
“Yes and no!” retorted Rand. “Listen to this, Tom. She can partly understand my Latin, Greek, Arabic, etc., but I can’t grasp her language, except for a word here and there. Why? Because she speaks the basic mother tongue of all modern speech! She can recognize the meaning behind my words because they are variations of her tongue. But I can’t quite make sense out of hers because I never knew the basic language.”
“Well, that helps,” said Tom slowly. “Though I don’t see how you’ll find out anything if she can’t answer.”
Rand, however, still looked dazed, shaken. “But do you know what it means, Tom? The basic mother tongue, which must include Chinese, Sanskrit, etc., goes back—and back! Thousands of years. Before the schism of the Mongolid, Hamitic and Caucasian races and languages came about. It is like finding the missing link, parental stock of man and ape. Thousands and thousands of years—”
He stopped, appalled at the thought. Curwood snapped his fingers. “You can figure that all out for yourself, Doc, but I’m going down in the Blue Mist and bring up some more. Maybe—”
“No, Tom, not that way.” Rand pointed to the far end of the valley, a sheer wall of precipitous shale. “Remember how thin that wall looked from the air? Beyond it is desert lowland. If we could once break down that wall, the Blue Mist would pour out of the valley like water!”
Curwood nodded. “Now I know why you insisted on taking that case of dynamite along—I get it.”
“I came here for one main purpose—to solve the mystery of this valley, as my father wished.” Rand looked again at the girl. “And there’s plenty of mystery to work on.”
CHAPTER II
Draining the Valley
IT was now late afternoon. Rand gave orders to set up night camp. Ramon and Queto went efficiently to work, setting up two tents, building a fire, and opening the packs of food. When sudden tropical night fell, they were eating. The girl ate with them, apparently unaffected by a sleep of unknown duration in the weird Blue Mist. At times her eyes peered down into the black shadow of the valley, with a vague expression in them, half of sadness, half of alarm.
But her eyes centered mostly on Curwood, softly, dreamily, save at such times as she shot the insolent Ramon a. look of frozen scorn. Curwood, strangely stirred by her regard, found himself scowling blackly at the Spaniard. Rand was too preoccupied to take note of these undercurrents, and after the meal tried conversing with her.
His voice rose often in query, and as often the girl shook her head, till both of them were nonplussed.
“Not much of a go,” sighed Rand. “All I can do is ask questions and suggest the answers myself, and nine times out of ten I’m away off the track, apparently. However, her name is something like Aletha Ankliar. She has never seen our like before, she intimates, nor does she know how long she’s been in the Blue Mist. By the way, Tom, she asked for your name!”
Curwood grunted and suggested they roll in. Aletha was given one tent to herself. The three white men rolled themselves in blankets in the other tent. Queto laid himself just outside the men’s tent, on the grass, scorning the shelter.
The morning dawned clear and hot. After a hasty meal, Rand and Curwood left the camp and girl in charge of their two helpers and departed to reconnoiter for their plan to empty the valley of its mist. An hour later they looked down into the valley from its other end and examined the narrow rock wall that separated it from the mesa beyond.
It was unbelievably thin at the top and did not seem to thicken much at the base. A prehistoric river had dug out the valley, but what strange geological event had put this thin partition up, like a dam?
“It could be artificial,” mused Rand. “Put up by these people for the express purpose of sealing off the valley.”
“Scientific humbug,” grinned Curwood. “Like their suspended animation.”
“Something tells me I’ll have to change my scientific opinions before long,” pursued Rand, half bitterly. He pointed out over the mesa. “There’s our route, Tom. From our plane, we come up on the desert floor. No way of getting, down that thousand feet from here.”
“Right,” corroborated Curwood. “A dozen sticks of dynamite ought to blast a hole through somewhere.”
On the way back to camp they discussed details and decided to get everything set for the dynamite blast on the following morning. As they rounded the last rock overhang between them and camp, a shrill, feminine scream rang through the quiet air. Curwood bounded into a run and took the situation in at a glance.
Queto lay sprawled on the ground, eyes closed. Ramon had the girl in his arms and was brutally trying to kiss her. She was scratching at his face and struggling.
Curwood reached the Spaniard, spun him around by the shoulder, and lashed out with a hard fist. The blow landed squarely on the dark man’s chin. Ramon bent at the knees and sagged to the ground. The girl ran into Curwood’s arms, momentarily hysterical. For a second Curwood held her close, hot blood pounding, amazed at his own emotion. Then he pushed her brusquely away and turned to Ramon, who had struggled to one elbow and was rubbing his jaw.
“One more pass like that, Ramon, and you go back to San Lorenzo on foot!”
“Your pardon, senors,” mumbled the Castilian, blanching at the threat. “It was the—the heat.” But Curwood did not like the narrowing of his eyes as Ramon turned away.
“Bad blood,” he muttered to Rand. “He’ll try knifing next.”
Rand bit his lip thoughtfully. “We can’t waste time flying him back to San Lorenzo now. We’ll just have to keep an eye on him.”
A dash of water in Queto’s face brought him to. The Indian glared balefully at Ramon’s back. “Him hit me on head with rock,” he explained shortly. “Him bad man!”
Before night fell, Rand, Curwood and Ramon had made the fifteen-mile trek to their plane and returned via the lower route to dump their dynamite and paraphernalia at the base of the tall partition between the valley and mesa. They were able to arrange the trailing wires and prepare everything for an early morning start before the sun dipped toward the western horizon. Then they made the laborious, roundabout trek past the plateau cliffs and toward camp, arriving just after dark.
The girl, Aletha, looked at them with obvious curiosity as they ate.
“Why not tell her?” suggested Curwood. “It directly concerns her and her people.”
/>
“If I can get it across,” said Rand ruefully. He began speaking to her in Latin, slowly and distinctly. Gradually a look of intense interest came over Aletha’s face. Finally she dropped her tin platter and poured a flood of her liquid speech at Rand. Somehow, she seemed to be frightened and her tones were those of warning.
Rand spoke to her soothingly and she subsided with a worried shrug. But she made no attempt to take more food, having eaten very little.
“Something’s bothering her about the draining of the Blue Mist,” murmured Rand. “It isn’t that her people would die, or be harmed in any way, but—” He faced Curwood squarely. “One thing I did catch when she talked. She said, ‘Tom will be harmed!’, and the rest of us too, I suppose.”
Ramon spoke suddenly in corroboration. “Senors, she talk of great danger!”
“Oh, hang it!” Curwood exclaimed. “Maybe the girl’s a little daffy, or you understood wrong. Anyway, we can’t stop for a little thing like that.”
A light shower greeted them as they arose at dawn, promising a stuffy day. Rand watched rain falling into the valley, vanishing in the opacity of the Blue Mist.
“Rain doesn’t even roil its surface,” he mused. “Must be tremendously cohesive, perhaps almost liquid. And it hasn’t diffused into the upper air for at least—at the very least—four centuries!”
After breakfast, Curwood departed by himself, with the air-helmet, on the desert trek to the mesa side of the rock partition. The rest of the party leisurely followed the lip of the valley to the same point, but a thousand feet higher up. Aletha had insisted, by signs and unmistakable tones in her enigmatic speech, on going along.
Soon they saw Curwood’s figure trudging up. He waved to them and set the lead-wire and plunger for the blast, three hundred yards from the rock wall. Then he donned his air-helmet and waved a warning.
“Back!” ordered Rand to his party. He led them a safe distance away from the valley’s rim.
