“No possible chance of doing anything until we smash open these damned anilum balls!” he blazed. “Get dynamite, titanite, every damn thing! We’ll blast this cavern wide open if we go to hell with it!”
Cliff twisted round sharply as Benson shouted hoarsely, “The air conditioning machine has stopped!”
“We’ve got our portable unit,” Val said, with feigned calmness. No time now to let panic gain a foothold. “Better get it, just in case we have trouble getting free.”
Benson departed, and with him the men who were to bring the explosives. Cliff paced up and down swiftly, impatiently, watched by the other engineers. Most of them turned to look presently at the crack in the floor, which had so ruthlessly swallowed up most of the party. They glanced uncertainly, furtively, around them, conscious of unseen but diabolical forces waiting to swallow them.
Suddenly Townshend said, “Say, we might get to know what’s in these little balls—and the big one too for that matter—by X-ray. If it will penetrate anilum, and there’s no reason why not, we might be able to get a photograph of what’s going on. Guess I’ll go to work on that angle.”
He departed actively, but in two minutes he returned suddenly. His face, usually so ruddy, had gone pale.
“Come and take a look...,” he whispered.
CHAPTER 3: MORE DEATH TRAPS
At the words Cliff stopped pacing and raised a haggard face. He moved immediately with the others at his side. Outside the cavern entrance leading to the elevator shaft they stopped, appalled. The workmen who had left, and Benson, were lying stretched motionless in a jumble of human figures not ten yards from the elevator.
His heart pounding, Cliff went warily forward in case the same fate overtook him. Nothing happened, however....
He needed only to look at Benson’s ashy, contorted visage to know the condition of the others. They were dead, every man of them. Cliff turned bitter eyes up to the walls and ceilings, and though he could see nothing unusual he could guess the cause of the annihilation. From somewhere a clockwork sniping ray had done its deadly work.
Evidently, in different parts of this underground there were switches, which, either when blocked by photoelectric cell system or else when trodden on, completed a circuit, which hit directly on the person or object causing the circuit, just as antiaircraft guns automatically sight and hit an enemy plane. At the elevator, Benson and his men had completed another circuit with their deaths, which was intercepted in the elevator. A system of progressive circuits, each one causing more to come into operation.
“We’ll go up and fetch the explosives down for ourselves,” Cliff stated quietly. “Only way to be rid of the bodies is to incinerate them. Seems brutal, but there’s no time for sentiment.... We’ll be next if we don’t act fast. Let’s go.”
The six of them, all that remained except the radio operator above, moved charily toward the elevator and clambered inside. Cliff threw the switches; then as the cage began to rise, he gave a sudden shout. A blinding ray winked momentarily from the opposite wall of the cavern. A resonant twang caused him to glance up just in time to see the steel hawser split through four of its six strands.
“Look out!” he yelled hoarsely, and jammed the switch out of contact. The next instant the remaining strands parted and the cage dropped down the hundred-foot length to the floor. Thanks to the lesser gravity the impact was mitigated slightly, but just the same it was mighty enough to smash the bottom of the cage through.
Edwards and Saunders vanished in a smother of splintering timber and crumbling elevator walls. Cliff found himself thrown clear with Val on top of him. Townshend, Morton, and Gilby scrambled out with nothing worse than cuts and bruises.
Immediately they turned to help their buried colleagues, hurling aside timber and metal supports. Halfway through the task Cliff called a halt.
“No use, boys; we’re only wasting time. Take a look....”
He indicated the two hands unearthed from the wreckage. There were no indications of pulse beats on either wrist.
Cliff switched on his wrist radio and hooked the tiny phone in his ear. He half expected a dead silence from Sparks as he gave the call signal, but Sparks’ voice answered at once.
“What happened, Cliff? Cage give way? I was just figuring out what to do....”
“Only one thing you can do right now and that’s drop a rope. And hurry!”
“Okay. Hang on; I’ll fix a winch. And when you come up I’ve some news that’ll interest you.” Cliff switched off.
“It’s suicide!” Val protested. “If we cross the same point in the shaft again, how do we know we won’t be wiped out?”
Cliff shrugged. “Have to chance it. We can’t stick here. If it took a whole cage to block the ray, it’s possible a small thing like a human body might get past without intercepting it.”
In a few minutes a cradle and rope came down the vast length of the shaft.
“I’ll go first,” Cliff said, slipping into the cradle. “If anything goes wrong, prepare to catch me!”
He gave two tugs and hung on tightly as the cradle began to rise. Nothing untoward happened. He sailed swiftly up past the danger point—higher and higher to the topmost levels. Sparks joined him anxiously at the winch top.
“How many others down there, Cliff?” he asked anxiously.
“Four,” he answered with grim significance.
“The others coming up later, I suppose?”
“I only wish they were,” Cliff muttered, and seeing the operator’s amazed look he went on, “They’re dead, Sparks—killed by mystic powers down in the bowels of this ungodly world. Tell you more afterwards. Get the others up first....”
Three times more the cradle was lowered, and Townshend, Val, and Morton arrived safely. But the fourth time there was a sudden ominous slackness in the rope followed by a desperate scream from far down in the depths. There came the thump of a body falling back on the ruin of timber. Cliff gave a frantic order and the winch screamed round its drum as the rope was whirled up. The end was smoking ominously.
“It got him,” Cliff whispered. “We others avoided it, but Gilby must have been swinging from side to side and intercepted the beam.... Hey, Gilby!” he yelled hoarsely. “Gilby! You there?”
There was no answer from the depths. Val reached out and tied the rope round his waist. “I’ll go see...,” he announced briefly, and before Cliff could say anything he nodded to Sparks who threw the switches that sent him into the depths.
There was an interval of five minutes in which the party waited anxiously, then came two tugs on the rope. Very slowly, due to extra weight, the winch began to turn. Val emerged with the blood spattered but still living figure of Gilby in his arms.
Gently Val laid him on the floor, turned his head for the emergency kit—but Gilby called him back weakly.
“No use doing that, Val,” he whispered. “I’m—I’m sunk.... But I guess I can tell you one thing. I—I saw where the electric eye lens is hidden.... Behind a V-shaped chunk of rock.... You—you’ll find it. You can avoid them. I—”
He fell back gently, became still.
The long succession of shocks had left the remaining engineers incapable of further emotions of pity. They could feel the same net of death tightening around them.
“We’ll bury him—over there,” Cliff said quietly. “The others we’ll have to cremate.... At least we know where the electric eye is and can dodge it even if we can’t destroy it—”
“Deathtraps,” muttered Val. “What is the reason for all this murdering?”
It was Townshend who answered. “Doesn’t it begin to become evident that all this is a brilliant posthumous scientific trap built by a dying race for a definite reason? Maybe there’s not so much mystery about it at all. All the other planets, as we well know now, are barren. If any living beings came here they’d have to be Earth people—and the chance of beings coming from systems way out among the stars is totally unlikely. Yes, it had to be Earth people�
��and when they had become clever enough to get here it meant they had an advanced civilization.”
“What are you driving at?” demanded Cliff.
“Just this. No race as advanced as the Martians must have been to build this complex machinery would be petty enough or impractical enough to plan a mere death trap to operate after their demise. They had a specific and vastly important reason. Maybe this is all a test. A trap like this would eliminate an intruder not sufficiently advanced to measure up to the mysterious Martian purpose. Somehow that purpose is connected with that giant ticking ball down below.”
“Sense in that,” Cliff admitted, and added wryly, “If you’re right, it looks as if we don’t measure up to Martian standards. So far we’ve qualified only for the elimination class.”
“Right,” agreed Val. “We’ve got to solve the purpose behind that tick-tocking ball. In the meantime, Sparks, radio to Earth. Tell them to send blast furnaces and to try and unlock the surface valves. We’ll bury Gilby and get to work below with the x-ray machines and flame gun batteries. We’ve little manpower now, and we’ve got to act fast. Let’s get started—”
He halted abruptly as he saw Sparks was trying to interrupt him. “What’s the matter?”
“That’s the news I was trying to tell you I have,” Sparks said. “We can’t radio. The batteries are dead. Some sort of radiation has burned them all out!”
CHAPTER 4: THE PENDULUM
Once Gilby was buried and a short service recited over his grave, the five returned to the depths, lowering their equipment down the shaft so that it missed the photoelectric eye. They reached below in safety, Sparks leaving his useless radio to help.
“You get to work on the smaller balls with the batteries and furnaces; I’ll x-ray the big one,” Townshend said, and immediately set about the erection of his equipment.
The next two hours were filled with intense activity for all of them, but as far as the flame gun batteries went, they had no effect. The balls refused to melt. Even the limited furnaces at their disposal only warmed them.
On the other hand, Townshend met with success and pointed to the cine x-ray screen triumphantly. The rays, passing through the globe, gave a hazy shadowgraph moving picture of what was going on inside. In amazement the others stared on the multitude of black-outlined machinery, intersected cog upon cog, linking up with whole masses of complex mechanisms, and dominated by a mighty pendulum swinging deliberately to and fro.
“What the devil is it?” demanded Cliff blankly.
Townshend regarded it thoughtfully.
“So far as I can tell it is a cosmic clock—about one of the cleverest ideas I have ever seen. You have seen those clocks on Earth that work by the action of light photons? Well, this is a similar idea but embodying a different principle. This clock is definitely the brain of all these other balls. It works, I imagine, by the action of cosmic rays passing through the planet. Can’t give you every detail right now; I’ll have to get my instruments to work and see what they can analyze of the forces inside the globe.”
“I have the uneasy feeling that it resembles a time bomb,” muttered Val, staring at it. “It started to tick when we broke a circuit. How do we know but what at a given hour the whole thing will explode?”
“We don’t,” Townshend said grimly. “That’s what I want to find out. If x-rays pass through the globe, so will others capable of analysis. You’d better set about helping me.”
Immediately there were further journeys to the surface and one by one detector instruments were carefully lowered, together with electronic analyzers, and dozens of smaller attachments necessary to a complete survey. Townshend worked steadily, tireless and grim, checking and computing, apparently heedless of the rather distracting ominous beating of the mighty pendulum.
“I think,” Townshend said finally, glancing up with a strained face, “at the present moment this giant ball is establishing an electromagnetic contact with Earth’s center.”
“What!”
Townshend pored over the instruments and notes again, waved an impatient hand.
“Leave me alone for a while; I want to be sure about this. We’re heading for something mighty tough, if you ask me.”
There was nothing the other engineers could do but pace around until they decided to utilize their enforced idleness by cremating the bodies round the elevator base. Once it was done, they stood for a while with heads bowed amidst the smoke of the gun discharges, then they returned quietly to the ball cavern. Townshend greeted them with a shout.
“Boys, we’ve got to stop this damn thing somehow! We’ve eighteen hours to do it in—no more! If we don’t manage it, the Earth will be pretty near blown in pieces by volcanic fires, earthquakes, and God knows what else. Listen here!”
He went on tensely, “Between worlds there is a common affinity—a bond of gravitation which centers in the nickel iron core based on each planet, large or small. An electromagnetic beam between worlds is bound to center on the exact center of each world. From here, the core of Mars, an electromagnetic beam is already being generated by the mechanism inside this ball. It has crossed the gap to Earth and automatically centers on the gravitational core of Earth. Earth and Mars are now chained by an invisible but unimaginably strong tunnel, its walls being force, its apparently empty center being a path down which radiations can pass. Clear so far?”
“Go on,” Cliff invited grimly.
“These instruments prove there is a potential force inside this globe of something like one million billion volts of energy, all of which will be released in one unthinkably terrible battering ram of force when the escape mechanism operates.
“Now, a force of that kind hurled through the electromagnetic beam—tube—and striking the magnetic center of Earth will create terrific havoc. The impact alone will be bad enough, but not half so bad as the abrupt dissemination of energy through all Earth’s metallic seams. The forces of unleashed lightning will be conducted to the surface through numberless veins of metal. Metal will become electrified; in parts seams will explode to allow volcanic forces to shatter forth.
“You can picture the rest. If there are any survivors from electric shock and other catastrophes, I’ll be surprised.”
“Just how is this incredible voltage built up?” Val demanded.
“It’s been built up ever since the Martians died or vacated the planet.”
Townshend pointed to various points on the x-ray screen.
“Here is the central mechanism. It is consistently absorbing the electric charges of the planet itself, which it generates by its spin in dynamo-like fashion. It’s been doing it for untold ages. A colossal potential power has been building up all this time.
“Part of it has passed into these other smaller balls by means of deeply sunk underground cables, I imagine, which we can’t reach, or to hidden mechanisms such as the one which opened the floor trap. That power has partly expended itself, but the main bulk is conserved for outlet against the Earth. It is so well balanced a unit that it remains fixed at this potential and transmits surplus and overload automatically—so had we not come here for another five centuries, it would have made no difference.
“Here,” Townshend concluded grimly, “is the escape mechanism. It releases the potential through the spatial shaft. Take a look at it and count the beats of the pendulum!”
The engineers surveyed their watches, then glanced at the shadowed machine Townshend had indicated. There was no doubt about it. After every beat of the pendulum a tiny minute hand jerked up a slight degree, bringing it very gradually round to a giant hand fixed in the noon position of an Earth clock.
“See?” Townshend demanded. “Six hours have elapsed since this damned thing started. The numerical order of the clock is pretty similar to our own reckonings. That giant hand points to the equivalent of the twenty-four mark. Now, when the little hand is parallel with it, it stands to reason that it will operate this catch on the left here, which you already see is slightly
away from its fixture. It widens very gradually until, when the two fingers lie atop each other, the catch will be fully back and....” He stopped, having no need to detail.
“Eighteen hours,” Val whispered. “That’s kind of short notice....”
“We’ve got to try something!” Cliff said hoarsely. “We’ve got to get through this ball, even if it’s only an inch at a time. We’ll try blasting too. Morton, you, Sparks, get all the titanite you can lay your hands on and rush it down here. You others help me with the furnaces and batteries....”
CHAPTER 5: A RACE
AGAINST DISASTER
Sudden and tremendous activity descended on the cavern. Working at top speed, Cliff, Val, and Townshend set up the ray-drillers in V-formation, ten all told, and centered them so that their blinding forces pointed directly on one focal point. They donned dark glasses, slammed the switches, and stood watching.
The brilliance of that one core of flame was blinding even through the dense goggles. At first it looked as though headway was being made, but when ten, twenty, and thirty minutes passed and there was no flow of molten metal, hope began to die. Cliff gave a despondent motion at last and cut the switches.
“No dice,” he muttered, tugging his goggles free. They stood surveying the blackened but otherwise unharmed patch where the rays had played. “It’s not even scratched, and Heaven knows how thick it is. We haven’t enough heat.... Titanite might do it.” He stood looking toward the door impatiently, but there was no sign of Morton or Sparks, no sounds from beyond the cavern.
“They’re the devil of a time,” Townshend said uneasily.
“Say, do you think...?” Val said slowly.
All three of them swung to the entrance together and stalked through into the adjoining cavern. There was no sign of either Sparks or Morton. There was no response to Cliff’s shouts. He turned quickly to the cradle and pointed to it in surprise. It was loaded with cases of titanite, but of the two men themselves there was no sign.
Rule of the Brains Page 10
