by John Blaine
This is the word of the Great Khan! OBEY!
A sigh like the rushing of a wind rose from the Mongols. They were prostrated, no man daring to lift his face to the awful being on the wall.
Rick looked again for the figure on the wall. It was gone! Where had Scotty gone?
They waited. The minutes ticked past and no one spoke.
Then the trap door grated and lifted slowly upward!
The head of the young warrior called Subotai appeared. He didn’t look at them. Behind were other warriors, eyes downcast.
“We’re sacred,” Rick whispered. “They’re afraid to look.”
Hastily, as though in fear of a deadly curse, the warriors lifted the equipment boxes. Zircon, Weiss, and Rick hastily piled loose odds and ends into empty crates. Subotai whacked his warriors with the flat of his sword, urging them to greater speed.
The equipment vanished through the entrance, and in an amazingly short time the plateau was cleared.
With a low bow, eyes averted, Subotai stood aside. It was time for them to leave.
The stairs rushed by as they ran down, and then they were outside, breathing the dust-laden air. The city was a shambles, Rick saw. But the crowd of Mongols who bowed down to the earth seemed undiminished. With relief he realized that the place where the avalanche hit must have been thinly populated. Luckily, the slide had given some warning. Few Mongols, if any, had been caught under the mass.
But the one man whom they might have wished ill suddenly shouted and ran toward them.
HenrickVan Groot!
And, behind him, Sahmeed !
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Rick shouted. But as he spoke he saw Van Groot wrenching at his Page 102
pocket.
He was reaching for a gunl
Rick scooped up a rock and hurled it, all his strength in the throw. It crunched into Van Groot’s stomach and doubled him up.
Sahmeedleaped forward, his face contorted.
Zircon was there to meet him.
Rick ran to Van Groot just as the man staggered to his feet, reaching again for the gun in his pocket.
Rick bent low, doubling up his fist. All the strength of his wiry body was in the haymaker he swung from his shoe tops. He felt his knuckles crack as the blow landed. Van Groot’s legs buckled.
Julius Weiss stepped in and smacked the renegade sharply on the head with the flat of a sword he had picked up. Van Groot tumbled to the ground and was quiet.
Rick whirled, to see Sahmeed and Zircon locked in a titanic embrace. He grabbed a rock and leaped to the scientist’s aid, but his help was not needed.
Zircon brought up his hands sharply against the giant guide’s throat, breaking Sahmeed’s hold. The guide rocked backward, and, as he did, Zircon’s fist came up with all the weight of his big body behind it. The balled fist caught Sahmeed . He kept going backward, with increased impetus, fighting for balance. His heels struck a rock. He catapulted over and his head struck the ground with an audible crack. He lay very still.
“Run,” Zircon yelled.
In a moment they caught up with Subotai and the warriors, who were lugging their equipment as fast as their short legs would travel. As the last crate was carried up the steps and into the passageway that led from the valley, Subotai and his men turned and hurried away.
At that moment a mighty roar went up from the city.
“We’ve been found out,” Rick exclaimed. Then he saw Scotty.
The weirdly clad figure that had been on the wall was racing toward them with ground-eating strides. It bounded up the steps and into the passageway.
“Let’s go,” Scotty shouted.
Out of the dust cloud, half the warriors of the lost city came charging, waving swords. The vanguard knelt and discharged bows. Arrows rattled against the stone.
“Hurry,” Scotty said urgently.
From right over their heads came an ominous rumble. The four pushed into the passageway just as rock cascaded down in an ever increasing mass. The roar increased to a thunderous crash and all light was blotted out.
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The passageway into the lost city was closed!
“Scotty,” Rick choked, “what happened?”
“It was all arranged,” Scotty yelled above the din. ‘Let’s get out of here, in case the roof of the tunnel goes.”
For the next few minutes no one spoke as they wrestled the equipment to the outer end of the passageway. At last, they stood in the sunlight, breathless from their frantic efforts.
Scotty, attired in his strange garb, grinned at them, but it was a strained grin. “I went in to see what had happened to you, and they saw me. That tipped them off, I guess, because some of them had seen me before.”
“But the rockets!”Rick exclaimed. “And the landslide that blocked the entrance . . .”
“I had help,” Scotty said.“Unexpected help.” His grin broadened.
A familiar voice spoke from the rock ledge above them.
“Happy, joyous Fourth Holiday!”
There, grinning down at them, stood Chahdal
CHAPTER XXI
Success
Food had never tasted so good. The four travelers and Chahda sat around a cooking fire stuffing themselves with all the good things their recovered rations afforded. They paused between mouthfuls only long enough to answer or ask questions.
Scotty fished a can of hamburger out of the fire and opened it, explaining meanwhile: “I didn’t know whether my weight was pulling you all after me, or whether it was the wire stretching, but I didn’t want to take any chances, so when I got near enough to the ground, I just let go.”
“A good thing you did!” Rick said. “Professor Weiss was already over, and my legs were kicking in space. I was plenty scared, brother!”
Weiss stopped sipping hot tea long enough to add: “I cried out when I slipped over, but then I decided I was practically dead and nothing could save me. Being pulled back up again was like a miracle.”
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“There were plenty of miracles,” Scotty said. “I ran around the plateau and bumped right into a whole platoon of warriors. They didn’t notice me, I guess, because by that time I was so coated with dust that they couldn’t tell I wasn’t one of them. But I saw that it wasn’t any use trying to get into the hill. The passageway was blocked with Mongols, all hiding from the landslide.”
“We guessed as much,” Zircon nodded.
“They were all bowing and praying like crazy,” Scotty continued. “That was what gave me the idea of playing Genghis Khan. I skinned back through the city as fast as I could leg it. For a while, I couldn’t figure out how I was going to get over the wall,then I saw a tree right next to it. I shinned up the tree, and it bent over like a birch, and there I was on the wall. After that it was easy. I jumped down and ran to the Golden Tomb. We’d looked around before they caught us, so I knew right where the armor and stuff was. And, while I was getting into it ...”
“Chahda comes,” the Hindu boy beamed.
“And how.” Scotty grinned.“With my box of fireworks that I left on the yak.”
“I havehear the noise,” Chahda explained. “I can see you on the rock making shoots with firecracks . So I am thinking: I will make the shoots, too, and you will know that Chahda is here.’ But when I am come back with the box, there is Sahib Scotty!”
“It’s a good thing Scotty left his box of fireworks with the caravan,” Rick said. “Those Roman candles made quite some effect, believe me. For a minute I thought it was old Genghis himself.”
“ Chahda’sarrival was little short of miraculous,” Zircon remarked. “I, for one, never expected to see the caravan again. Or Sahmeed ,” he added, smiling with satisfaction at the memory of that encounter.
Chahda accepted a second helping of bacon and eggs. “Is most short, my story,” he said. “I am wake up when Sahmeed is talking soft to the bearers. He is say to them: ‘You come with me quiet like mouses or maybeso I make the break on the neck, you bet!’
“I am almost waking up you, but I am think: If I am waking, maybe there is fight and the Sahibsis hurt.’
So I go with Sahmeed toNepal , and I amtell the police and we are coming back for you.”
“We figured that was what you had planned,” Rick said.
“Is so,” Chahda agreed. “But when a day is going by, Sahmeed says to us: ‘Youwaits here. I amgo get many rupees for us. Soon we be much rich. So you wait. I come back two, three days.’”
Weiss nodded. “He wanted to get back to the lost city and contact Van Groot. I imagine he was afraid of not getting his money. Do you suppose any of the other bearers knew about the city?”
“They not know.” Chahda shook his head.“ Sahmeednot telling us. But when he isgo , I am talking to bearers. I am saying: ‘How we know Sahmeed is coming back? This Sahmeed , he is much bad one. He not giving us rupees. You want rupees, you come with me. The Sahibs will givemuch rupees.More than Sahmeed .’”
The Hindu boy paused to take a sip of tea. “They talk much, those men. They say to me: ‘How we know the Sahibs givemuch rupees?’ I am answer: ‘How you know Sahmeed come back? Also, you do Page 105
not go to the Sahibs, soon is coming police to put you from jail.’ They listen, and they think I speakgood
. So we come back.”
“But we weren’t there,” Rick said.
“Is true.We hunt very long, and we climb hills and look some more, and then one man is seeing green jacket way high on mountain. I look, and I think maybe belongs Sahib Rick. So we hunt near there, and we are finding yak. He is near hole in mountain. I go in, and what I see!”
“ Sahmeedmust have already been in the city by then,” Weiss guessed.
“I think Sahmeed , he is maybeMongol ,” Chahda said.
“He looks like one,” Rick agreed. “But I don’t think he’s one of the Mongols from the city.”
“There are many Mongols in this area,” Zircon said. “They’ve been pretty well absorbed by the native population, but now and then one comes across the mountains fromChina . Likely, Sahmeed got toNepal that way. I imagine Van Groot met him when he first left the lost city, and hired him on the spot. They were certainly two of a kind.”
“It would have done your heart good to see Professor Zircon smack that big hulk square on the chin.
I’ll bet it jarred him loose from his mustache.” Rick told Scotty.
“I’d like to have seen you swat Van Groot, too,” Scotty grinned.
“Well, we needn’t worry about either of them any longer,” Rick gestured toward the sealed entrance of the city. “They’re in there now, and to stay.”
“You still haven’t told us how you managed that last landslide,” Zircon prompted.
“Well, I figured we might need some kind of rear guard,” Scotty explained. “So when I met Chahda, I told him to beat it back to the entrance and get some of the bearers and climb up the mountainside.
When we first got into the city I noticed there was a sheer cliff on the inner side, but the outside of the tunnel could be climbed.”
Chahda picked up the tale. “I get three mens , and we climb far up, and there is a little place where we can squeeze in, so we do, and when we come out the other side, there is the city. And we look down and we can see thesteps which is going in the city from the passage. I look good, and I find a big stone which is loose. We wait, long time. Sooncomes you. Then comes Sahib Scotty, and thereis many Mongols behind, so I think: ‘Is now, Chahda!’ We push the big stone and bang! Much more stone is falling.”
“It’s a good thing rock slides easily in this country,” Rick said.
“That’s the strange part of it,” Zircon observed. “Actually, it shouldn’t. But I have a theory that this part ofTibet , or at least this immediate area, was under water at one time. The result is this type of rock, a kind of shale.”
Scotty scratched his head. “But you wouldn’t think just a firecracker explosion would blast it loose.”
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“That is understandable,” Weiss put in. “By the time the explosion was amplified, it was far beyond a mere firecracker noise. Then, with the sound hemmed in by the valley walls, there was a great deal of reverberation -which means that the vibration on loose stone must have been very great. You’ve seen pictures of glaciers breaking off when a boat blows its whistle? The effect was similar. And very fortunate for us, tool”
“And unfortunate for Van Groot,” Rick added. “He’s in there now, and I don’t know how he’ll get out.”
“A lot of good his pitchblende will do him,” Scotty agreed.
“The Tibetan government must know about that,” Zircon said.“And about this Mongol city. We will have to see that they are notified.”
“Theybe very happy,” Chahda said. “Is most poor country, thisTibet. I read this in Worrold Alm-in-ack
.”
Zircon smiled at the boy. “And how are we going to repay you, Chahda?”
“Is most easy.”Chahda smiled.“When you take me to ‘ Merica, is good payment, I think!”
The four travelers looked at each other, grinning.
“He’s certainly earned his passage,” Rick said.
The others nodded.
“I don’t know how well arrange it,” Zircon bellowed, “but you’re as good as inAmerica right now, young man!”
Silence fell over the group as they completed their meal. Rick wondered: Now what? Only three days remained until the tenth. Their equipment was intact, barring the loss of the batteries Van Groot had taken, but they could never reach Tengi-Bu on time, even with the bearers and yaks.
“It seems a shame to go through so much trouble,” he said, “and then not be ready to transmit on time.”
“I’ve been giving that some thought,” Zircon said. “Julius, have you any ideas?”
“There are a great many factors to consider, Ho- bart,” the little professor replied thoughtfully. “First, we are actually close enough to Tengi-Bu so that the angle of transmission will not be seriously affected.” He waved an arm at the encircling mountains. “But how could we hope to get a signal out of this pocket?”
“We did on the plateau, didn’t we?” Scotty pointed out.
The professors smiled. “No,” they said in unison, and then grinned at each other.
Zircon explained. “Our message never got out, Scotty. The power was too weak even to activate the modulator. Julius knew it, I was sure. But I felt that doing something, even something futile, would help our morale.”
“Quite so,” Weiss agreed. “Hobart, if we could find a suitable location near at hand, perhaps on top of one of these near-by peaks, we could very possibly set up in time.”
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“Provided ground conditions were right,” Zircon agreed. “Well, there is no point in worrying about it now. I propose we get a good night’s sleep and then start hunting. Fortune has smiled on us, gentlemen. I don’t believe she’ll let us down now.”
It was Rick who finally located a suitable transmission point. He went back over his memories of the climb down the mountainside before he had found the lost city, and recalled seeing a near-by peak that looked very much like the Hill of the Thousand Repentant Ancestors.
Then the problem was to locate the peak. He and Scotty climbed back up the mountainside toward the place where his jacket still rested-and would certainly remain until the elements rotted it away-and spotted the peak a few miles south of their present location.
By nightfall, the professors and the three boys had scouted the location, found a gradual slope that led to the top, and had pitched camp, the bearers following with the equipment and supplies.
Only two days remained until the tenth.
They were busy days. The equipment had to be set up andtested, water and fuel had to be carried for the steam-powered generator. While Scotty and some of the bearers hunted for fuel, Rick and others of the group searched for water. Finally they found a spring that flowed in a crevice betwe
en two peaks.
And then the water had to be hauled up laboriously in a bucket on a rope.
But at last the equipment was ready, except for supply voltage for the tube filaments. This was Weiss’s problem. He ransacked the spare-parts kit and finally rigged up a workable rectifier that would transform power from the big generator to the proper direct-current voltage.
Not until the predawnhours of July tenth was everything ready and the radar transmitter tested.
Rick was helping Professor Zircon make final adjustments on the big, oblong antenna when Scotty came up.
“The generator’s turning over,” he reported. “It’shalf past five .”
A queer little chill ran down Rick’s spine.Six o’clock was the time set for the trial. From their high peak he looked out across the Tibetan mountains. To the east was a faint glow, heralding the coming of daylight, but the valleys below were still inky with darkness.
In the west, the moon was slowly dipping toward the horizon. He knew that on the other side of the world, atSpindriftIsland , it was nearingeight o’clock in the evening of the previous day, July 9th. And the moon would be rising out of the sea, and his father and mother, and Barby, and the professors . . . yes, even Dismal . . . would be watching it and thinking of the little group in farawayTibet .
Rick swallowed the sudden lump in his throat and hurried over to Julius Weiss, who was checking the instruments, while Chahda looked on.
“A constant four-forty volts,” Weiss said. “Good.Hobart , will you take a look at the plate readings?”
In a circle around the equipment, the bearers were gathered, eyes wide, watching the final preparations.
As the minutes ticked away, Rick shivered a little from excitement as well as the early morning chill. To Page 108
the east, streaks of light were sharply silhouetting the mountains.
“Six o’clock,” Zircon called in a ringing voice.
Weiss opened his transmitter key, and there was the rapid click of the contact points as he tapped.
Tibet relay calling Spindrift . . .
Before the message was fully out, the radar scope broke into points of green light, and harsh code from the speaker mingled with the sound of Weiss’s key.
