by Earl
Suddenly he raised his head, swung one arm aloft drawing the attention of everybody below, and pressed his other hand down on the switch, holding it there for three seconds.
The idol lit up with a colorful blaze that even blinded Grayson. Rays of all hues sprang forth and revealed the cavern in its immensity. The apex of the pyramid became a blinding sun.
When he stood up, hastily slipping his light back on its clip, he saw the Mogu lying in worship in the dust.
Grayson chuckled; then started a bit as he remembered Koloko. The Mogu youth, to Grayson’s perturbation, was standing and furthermore there was a peculiar glint in his eyes.
“By the way, Koloko,” he said. “Are you willing to keep the secret?”
Koloko put a straying tentacle on the light and seemed to be thinking deeply. Then he said: “I keep secret, yes. But no keep unless you . . . you take Koloko along wit’ you when leave Palome!”
Then Grayson saw that the peculiar glint in his eyes was actually a twinkle of amusement. Koloko’s intellect had finally broken the last strand of superstition and fear.
“Good boy! Certainly I’ll take you along!”
CHAPTER VI
FIRE OF THE GOD
TWO figures strode the corridors leading away from the community of Mogu ruled by Palome Morkol. Grayson’s body was bent forward from the weight of the huge diamond idol in his knapsack. Beside him tripped
Koloko; his hand stroked the needle gun in his waist strap that Grayson had offered him in place of his less effectual spear.
Both of them were elated. Grayson’s gigantic coup had worked to his full satisfaction. He had the Mogu God. Koloko was thrilled to the depths of his semi-savage heart. He was going to another world!
Koloko turned his face to the Earthman; a slight frown creased his brow.
“Only one t’ing I no like, Grreerr. I hear before we leave—t’at High Priests he bit su’picious.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” assured the adventurer confidently. “Soon we’ll be so far away they’ll never find us, if they should happen to change their minds.”
Greer Grayson had no compunctions about talking freely to his Mogu companion. Koloko had admitted that his belief in the idol had always been tempered with crafty, hidden doubts. Koloko was a fully converted savage.
But the Mogu’s worries were to materialize before they had gotten more than twenty hours’ distance away from the former Temple along the trail blazed by radium crosses.
It was while they were following a river that Koloko put up a hand, cocking his head forward.
A moment later a spear whistled toward them and struck the wall at their side. Then with a demoniac yell a group of Mogu dashed out of a side passageway, hurling spears.
Grayson switched on his lights and swung them full in their eyes. Then he grasped Koloko’s arm and pulled him behind a rock ledge. When the blinded Mogu recovered and charged with wild cries, they ran into a hail of needles.
But Koloko had not used his gun.
Although he had severed connections with his people, he could not bear to harm them. Grayson did the shooting, withholding his fire when the remnants of the ambushing party lost courage and fled.
From thence on they took a new route at Koloko’s suggestion. It was shorter and would lead them to the same opening by which he had entered the underground world. It was the only way to escape the vengeful Mogu as they seemed to have divined the purpose of the radium crosses and could therefore ambush them time and again. The only drawback was that the new route led through territory long dominated by the hated and bloodthirsty Black Martians. It was the lesser of two evils, with the odds almost even.
Finally they came to a chasm that Koloko had told Grayson about. It was a deep gash separating two sections of the corridors from each other. The Mogu youth pointed to the long vine that grew from the ceiling of the chamber. Across this they must swing from ledge to ledge.
Greer Grayson carefully tested the precarious swinging bridge. It was solidly rooted to the ceiling. At Koloko’s urging, he swung across first, landing against the opposite wall with a thump.
When the Earthman looked back, his heart grew cold. Down the corridor which was lit up by a river flowing at its other end came a group of Mogu on the run. Somehow they had trailed them.
“Jump across!” shouted the Earthman as Koloko stood a moment petrified in fear.
Just in time, the Mogu youth grasped the vine, took a short run and swung toward him. The approaching Mogu dashed up and hurled spears at the dangling figure.
Then Grayson cursed, for just before Koloko landed in his waiting arms, a spear thudded into his back.
Blindly, madly, screaming in intense rage, Grayson emptied his one pistol of explosive bullets, threw it down and emptied the second loaded pistol at the unfortunate Mogu.
Then he carefully pulled the spear out of Koloko’s body and dashed a canteen of water in his face.
“Koloko!” muttered Grayson as the lad opened his eyes. “Koloko, are you badly hurt?”
Koloko rolled his eyes in agony.
“I die, Grrayzn. Don’t feel batt! Watch out . . . for . . . Black Martians!”
There was a momentary twitch of his curling tentacles; then his head jerked back.
Greer Grayson tenderly laid him flat, arose to his full height, and spoke softly:
“The Mogu God . . . I’ll always remember you, Koloko, when I think of the Mogu God!”
He looked across at the hashed remains of the Mogu who had killed his friend. Only one had escaped. He counted the figures with priestly robes. Five of them. Then there was only one of them left alive, for in the first ambush, he had accounted for four priests.
“At least I’ve avenged you, Koloko. Nine of those High Priests who incited the Palome against us after we left are dead. Let the other one live and remember the might of the taker of the Great God!”
* * * *
Grayson did not afterward know much of what occurred from then on till he escaped Mars altogether. He had got the Mogu God all right, but he paid a price.
THE adventurer became hopelessly lost after he left Koloko’s dead body lying beside the chasm. Without his crosses to guide him, the Earthman could not tell one passageway from the next. He tried to reason his course by use of the compass, but he knew how futile that method was, for the labyrinths did not all run in the same level. Some were lower, others higher toward the surface.
Then to make matters worse, the Black Martians beset him periodically, and from these encounters he carried scars of spear cuts the rest of his life. At times, too, animals attacked and his ammunition ebbed lower and lower. When his food supply gave out, he thought that was the last straw and resigned himself to his fate, although he plodded on and on in the corridors, hardly knowing whether he was where he should be or perhaps under the south pole. But fate made him pay more yet. His batteries gave out and he stumbled along in the darkness.
He had to kill game with spears that he picked up from dead Black Martians, for the bullets would blow them to bits and the needles would poison them to unfitness for human consumption. In the oases it was fairly easy to get game even for an in experienced spear-tosser as he was. With his large supply of matches he had the comfort of being able to build fires any time he needed them.
But the diamond idol stayed in his pack. Drag him to starved weariness though it did, weight his muscles to agonizing pain, he never let it go. And betimes he took it out and watched it in the reflection of the fire over which he cooked some reptilian or aquatic creature. It was his sole comfort; only one other thing gave him great joy: the worship drums were silent. He never heard them again.
When Grayson later figured the time spent in the labyrinths from the moment he got the idol to the time he saw daylight, he was astounded. It was no less than five Earthly weeks!
Footsore, weary, half starved, racked by constant numbing pains, bruised from bumping into unlit walls, gaunt and thin, Greer Grayson and the diamond
idol wandered in the corridors of Mars and the curse of the Mogu seemed upon them.
Then came that welcome sight. Far in the distance a glowing cross!
“Saved! Saved!” screamed the sobbing man.
How he ever fought his way from the underground entrance to his ship against the raging red storm, he would never understand. But finally he woke up to find himself in the cabin as if a benign spirit had seen his suffering and had taken pity on him. But he knew that it was his powerful, subconscious will that had driven him across the wind-swept plains to the haven of the ship.
For a week he ate good food, drank sweet water, and slept soundly before he got his strength back to the point where he felt able to challenge the forces of the elements in his ship.
He fought his way through the raging dust storms, cursing the red dust violently and the wind more, and soared into the comparatively clear upper reaches of atmosphere. Eagerly he gazed at the sun, the sun that he hadn’t seen now for many weary weeks.
Then he went through the routine of escaping from the gravity of Mars, a process the same as he had gone through on Earth, different only in degree.
Deep silence greeted him, in space. But Greer Grayson was not as lonesome and exasperated by the monotony and quietness as he had been coming to Mars.
HE EXTRACTED the diamond idol from his pack, set it up at his feet and talked to it, recounting everything he had gone through just for the amusement it now afforded him.
The big emerald of the Arab Shiek, the copper amulet of ancient Babylon, the Teakwood Chinese miniature of past centuries, the nine-inch solid gold Buddha from the Lama Temple of Tibet, the silver urn of the Incas, the golden statuette of Mayan origin, the alabaster vase of Byzantium, the Roman spearhead, the jewel-encrusted headdress of an Egyptian empress—all there, what can they compare with the Mogu God of Mars—solid diamond!
“At the head of them all, you’ll go!” said Grayson, nodding at the idol. “Even ahead of the Golden Buddha, for you’re the idol of another world!”
Then, strange as it may seem, the nine year period of the radio-active material within the substance of the idol came to its time, and the Mogu God flared momentarily in dazzling splendor!
THE MAN WHO SAW TOO LATE
The lives of an entire Antarctic expedition depended on Pat Hiker’s vision, and he was worse than blind. Everything he saw had occurred nearly three minutes before
PAT RIKER looked at his watch. Nine A.M. It was almost time for Admiral Gregg’s periodic report to the civilization that hung on his every word. He was down in a bleak, white desert, most inaccessible spot on 20th Century Earth. There was always the possibility that disaster might strike. Planes were ready, in Australia and Argentina, to leap off to the rescue, in that event.
Pat Riker tuned the high-frequency wavelength reserved for Gregg’s party, and barred to any other transmitter. The minutes ticked by, but no voice came from the far south. Riker turned up his volume, hoping he hadn’t missed any of the message. But still no voice! He turned the power-dial up steadily, till a million bees hummed from his set; his own private home-made receiver, the most powerful in the world. Riker was justly proud of it.
He had about decided Gregg had for once been delayed, when he caught the faint sound of a voice, underneath the power-hum. He’d need more volume yet—more than he had ever used before. He glanced a bit anxiously at the tubes, already glowing hotly.
He wasn’t sure exactly how much they would stand.
Suddenly he noticed how tense the tones of the faint voice were. There was trouble! Riker turned up the power with a quick twist. The voice, anxious, became understandable. It was just a whisper in the ether, magnified by the radio’s ultra-powers.
“—wrecked. One wing is completely smashed. Burrows and Hedgewood are hurt. This is John Caldwell, radio operator. I can only get a half watt out of the batteries, and they will last, at most, 24 hours, repeating this call hourly. Please send the rescue ships immediately. Our position is latitu—”
And then it happened. There was a soft whoomf of tubes burning out, and something seemed to stab forth like a bolt of lightning, into Riker’s eyes.
He jerked back, shielding his eyes seconds too late. When he removed his hands, he saw nothing but whirling lights that gradually faded. A little shakily, he groped for the power switch, snapping it on and off. Dead!
The SOS had been cut off just as Caldwell was about to give their all-important position in the white hell of Antarctica. Riker chewed his tongue and reflected that coincidence could pop up at the most amazing, and annoying times. But he had been more or less expecting the tubes to give way under the overload of power.
Riker heard now the mewing of Pete, his large Angora cat, from the corner. From the farthest corner of the workship room, in fact. He remembered now that the cat, who had been on the bench nosing at the set, had let out a terrified cry and had leaped away.
“You too, eh?” said Riker soothingly, feeling his way along the wall to the corner and reaching down to pet the animal. He often talked aloud to it, in the long hours of his work. “But it’ll be over in a few moments—these spots in front of our eyes. Let’s just take it easy till we can see properly again.” Riker realized he was trying to calm his own racing pulse.
As he stroked its fur, the cat’s frightened mewing changed to a half-hearted purr. They waited, man and cat, as the dancing light streaks obscuring their vision slowly faded. Riker was puzzled. What kind of radiation had struck their eyes, from the overloaded tubes. Ultra-violet?
Of course, it would have to happen at that crucial moment, he reflected bitterly. Five men stranded beside a wrecked plane in isolated Antarctica, position unknown! Riker would have to get his set to working again, and pick up the next SOS, for the position. Without that, the rescue planes might search forever in that white wilderness. And probably no other radio on Earth—it struck him forcefully—could pick up their weak half-watt call! It depended on Riker!
A FEW minutes later, Pat Riker arose. He could see again. He made his way toward the radio, to investigate damages, but let out a startled “ooff!” He had struck with his stomach against the back of the easy chair before the radio.
Riker stopped, with his breath half knocked out, and wondered how he could be so clumsy. He hadn’t even seen the chair. Fie looked down at it now. But he still didn’t see it!
Furthermore, the most amazing phenomenon took place—the whole room turned down with his eyes. He seemed to be hanging precariously on a vertical floor, with the other end of the room at the bottom of a pit!
Riker made the sound that people make when ice-cold water hits their bare skin. Dizzied, he hastily looked up again. The room obediantly straightened out. This motion, combined with the blow on his stomach, very nearly made him dash for the bathroom, but he had a sinking feeling, mental this time, that he might not find it in time. So, valiantly, he conquered his weakness.
Still swallowing, he eased himself into the chair-cushions, feeling his way. This would take some thought. What was it all about? He wasn’t blinded. He distinctly saw things. But he was seeing them in the wrong order, or something like that.
Pat Riker felt momentarily dismayed. A hollow feeling came up inside of him. But then he took hold of his nerves. He would reason this out, and not go into a panic. He made experiments in line with mental deductions.
First of all, holding his head rigidly against the back of the chair, he moved his eyes. The scene that he apparently saw did not change in the slightest. He was still seeing the room from the viewpoint of the corner, where he had been several minutes before.
But now, suddenly, the scene shifted. He was moving forward in the room—so his eyes told him—toward the workbench. The easy chair now loomed in front of him. He flinched as it struck his stomach—in the view. But that had happened minutes ago. He was sitting in the easy chair now. It was like a movie reel passing before his eyes.
Riker put two and two together and got a time-honored fo
ur. His vision was somehow several minutes behind time. That is, what his eyes saw wasn’t transmitted to his brain’s optical center until that much later.
He gave out an unhappy grunt as he came to that staggering conclusion. He had never heard of such a thing before and it made his skin crawl.
He reasoned out also why the scenes before his mental eye dipped or rose as he lowered or raised his head. The balancing canals of the inner ear, independent of the eye, knew the slightest change of his head’s position. When the canals, linked with gravity, said he was looking down, he was simply looking down, even if his delayed vision showed a level floor whose visual impression had struck his retina minutes before—when his head had been level.
A puzzled mew, more plaintive than before, came from the corner.
“Poor Pete,” said Riker feelingly. “I at least know what’s wrong. You don’t.”
SITTING in the chair, Riker watched the queer delayed sight unwind before his eyes. It all checked. The view changed to show the floor and chair, as he had stood looking down, in surprise, after the bump. Then the room again, dancing fitfully, as he must have stared around wildly at the time he thought of the bathroom.
He grinned wryly. Once he had taken a boat ride on a choppy lake and had decided then he was no seaman. Now he was sure of it. By sheer force of will he fought back nausea. But why did this have to happen to him, he thought rebelliously—and especially now? Five men down in Antarctica shivered in the icy winds of the South Polar regions. . . .
What had happened to the sane and orderly world he had known just a few minutes before?
Now the view of the room turned as he had fumbled his way into the chair. Then it fused more or less into his present perspective, looking straight out from the chair toward the radio.
Just what had come out of the radio, to cause this?
The blowing tubes had released some kind of beam, or radiation, that had bathed his eyeballs. But instead of blinding him—he was really lucky at that— it had caused the weird delayed vision. It had played some ghastly trick with his optic nerves. Not being a physiologist, Riker made no conjectures about it, beyond the fact itself. Which, in brief, was that there was a lapse of time between his seeing with his eyes and his “seeing” with his brain. The brain was behind time.
