From behind her came the sound of a low laugh, demoniacal, triumphant. The woman turned again and her terror-darkened eyes surveyed the two men.
Of a sudden, wild incredulity flooded her countenance.
Phil heard a choking gasp at his side.
“Audrey!” muttered Forbes, and the word was as a prayer.
“Arthur!” she cried.
He went to her in a swift flash of motion that took no heed of threatening dangers. “Arthur,” she said once more, as his arms folded about her, and the tone was a caress.
“Come back and be married. Come back and be married!” chanted the dry voice of the old hag.
“Come and be married! Awwwrk!”
There was the slippety-slop of feet on the stone.
The girl’s eyes darkened once more with terror. Phil could see her blue lips whispering rapid words to Arthur Forbes, saw him stiffen. And then there was the pad-pad of swift feet, and the hairy arm of a man-ape reached out.
A body followed the arm, a grimacing face. Phil recognized the ape as being the one he had encountered in the passageway below. By some secret side-exit he had returned to the rooms above.
But now there was no fear upon the bestial countenance, merely a savage leer of animal triumph. At the sight of Arthur Forbes, his lips curled back from glittering fangs. For a moment he stood so.
Phil raised the automatic.
A bounding ball of swift motion cut across the sights. With a gasp of surprise Phil realized what had happened. Arthur Forbes had moved to the attack.
His left and right flashed squarely into the face of the snarling beast, staggered it. But those long, hairy arms, so heavily muscled that they seemed as the legs of a lion, swept up, encircled the man in a hideous embrace. The snarling face of the enraged beast was thrust close. The bared fangs snapped for the throat.
Forbes jerked his head back and to one side, dodged the menace of that first spring. The girl screamed again. Pattering feet ran down the corridor.
Forbes struggled valiantly, sought to free one of his arms, to press back against the crushing pressure that enfolded him. As well have sought to struggle with a steam hammer. With a gloating snarl of cruel bloodlust upon its countenance, the ape freed one hairy arm, reached upward with talon fingers, and cruelly sought to pluck out his adversary’s eyes, one at a time.
But that motion gave Phil the chance he sought. The line of the sights ceased to show a blur of bodies struggling for life, and showed instead merely a furry body with white face twisted into an expression of fiendish rage.
He squeezed the trigger.
The hall reverberated to the roar of the explosion. The hairy body staggered, then stood erect. One of the arms clutched at the side of the head.
Arthur Forbes wormed free. The ape staggered forward. Forbes braced himself, swung a terrific right, catching the beast full upon the chin. It wobbled backward, and Forbes sprang to the side of the girl.
“This way,” called Phil, sprinting to their side, pointing down a side passageway.
Over their shoulder he could see a confused throng. There was the old man with the wizened countenance, his rheumy eyes expressionless, glittering darkly, the old woman with the parrot perched perpetually upon her shoulder; and the swarming natives, robed as for some strange ceremony. Behind them were the drummers, and behind them, in a room that radiated soft light, a horde of monkeys, sitting upon perches, tails twisting and twining.
The couple ran down the corridor. Phil remained behind, the automatic menacing those who followed. A native lowered a deadly knife, charged, chanting some weird song.
Phil’s finger squeezed the trigger. The native stumbled back, clutching his shoulder, stumbled, fell sprawling. The others swarmed over him, steady, relentless. The corridors reechoed the force of the explosion, sending it back multiplied a hundredfold.
The old man was the leader, and the natives seemed to look to his leadership, suiting their pace to his. After that one wild rush by the native, the throng advanced in a steady manner, as remorseless as the welling of an incoming tide. The old man was making such time as his withered limbs permitted. The others suited their pace to his.
“It’s a blind corridor, that’s why they’re taking their time, old chap,” said Forbes, looking ahead.
Phil’s grip tightened. He knew there were only a few more shells in the gun. Before that revengeful horde, seeking his death in such a remorseless, deliberate fashion, he would be torn to pieces. Anything was better than that. And there was the thought of the girl.
“The last shots are for the three of us,” she pleaded softly. “You don’t know the cruelty of them. Please.”
But a line in the masonry caught Phil’s eye. He acted upon a hunch, placed his shoulder against it and pushed. The wall seemed to yield, and than a door swung back upon well-oiled hinges.
“This way,” he called, and pushed the others within.
Two of the natives, barefooted, dark, the light rippling along powerful muscles, dashed forward, knives flashing back.
One of the knives glittered through the air, thudded against the rock wall and tinkled to the pavement. The other was never thrown. Once more Phil’s finger squeezed the trigger, and the man with upraised knife faltered, stumbled, and slumped forward.
CHAPTER 7
Flight
It was a low exclamation from the girl that attracted Phil’s attention as the door swung back into place and a bar clicked into the masonry.
Audrey Kent was bending over a bed; and on the bed, a gold and stone affair, studded with gems, covered with gold tapestry, lay the slumbering form of Jean Cray son.
The men exchanged swift glances. The impediment of that unconscious figure would greatly lessen their chances of escape. The three might escape. The three, burdened with a sleeping, drugged girl, would be almost certain to face recapture.
But that single glance sufficed for each to know the mind of the other.
Phil tossed the automatic to Forbes.
“You and Miss Kent try to make it. I’ll follow.”
And he stooped to the bed, slipped strong arms under the sleeper, throwing the gold tapestry about her.
“We stick together,” grumbled Forbes in a low voice. “If it’s death we take it standing up and smiling.”
It was then that Audrey Kent seemed to recover from the sheer panic that had gripped her. She laughed, a low, rippling laugh.
“Don’t be silly, Mr. Whoever-you-are.”
There was a window in the wall, open, unbarred. Soft night breezes flicked the delicate curtains which filmed the opening. Forbes thrust his head out.
“Can do,” he said. “It’s not over six feet. I’ll hand the girls down.”
He vaulted lightly. The thud of his landing feet could be heard in the room. Audrey Kent followed, dropped into his waiting arms. Phil lowered the sleeping form, and jumped. From the temple came the sound of a long wail, a cry of sheer animal anguish.
They ran across the bare ground, not knowing where they were going or for what purpose, surrendering themselves to blind flight, trying to leave behind them the memory of that nightmare, escape the crowd of fanatical pursuers.
A door swung open, a long streamer of light oblonged a golden path across the field. Phil, looking up from his labored running, saw the glint of reflected light from some silvery object.
“The cabin plane,” he yelled. “Quick. It’s our only chance!”
They altered their course. From the door came a pell-mell of figures that sent dancing shadows across the oblong of golden light. At their lead was a terrific spectacle, the ape-man who had sat in judgment, his mighty chest thrust forward, head up, jaw set, lips curled back from bare fangs.
He ran, not as a man, but as an ape, assisting himself in the running by touching the ground with the bare knuckles of his hands, swinging along by the aid of those mighty arms. And he made two feet to every one that the crowd behind him covered.
Forbes reached the plane,
slammed open the door, bundled in the girl, jumped for the starter. There sounded the mechanism of whirring springs. The motor throbbed into life.
It was then that Phil Nickers noticed the ropes running from wing tips to stakes, saw the blocks under the landing wheels. There was no time to communicate his discovery, no time to waste in first getting the drugged girl into the cabin.
He laid her along a wing, dived underneath, pulling blocks out, ripping rope from driven stakes. Their only chance was that Forbes could send the plane in a ground run to the other end of the field, leaving the pursuers behind, then turn and take off. As for Phil, he felt that he could only fight as long as possible, delay matters for a few seconds.
Phil emerged from under the far wing tip, pointed to the unconscious figure on the wing, waved his hands to urge the plane on, knowing that Forbes could stop at the other end of the field to get the sleeping girl in the cabin.
And then he turned toward his pursuers.
He expected to hear the song of the motor gather in volume. Forbes could taxi the plane sufficiently to finish warming up the motor. And with the engine he could dodge the pursuers. But there was no increase in the steady roar of the motor. Forbes was waiting. That would be the girl’s order.
Phil dashed for the door of the cabin.
The great ape-man was before him. A mighty arm plucked him from the step as a man might pluck an orange from a tree. Phil was hurled back, spinning. Before him loomed the solid front of advancing foe. The ape reached out great arms, scooped from the wing the figure that was rolled in golden tapestries.
And Phil, recovering his balance, unarmed, charged in a low tackle, straight for the ape. Forbes flung open the door of the cabin, thrust out the barrel of the automatic, pulled the trigger.
There was no report. The firing pin clicked with a metallic noise of hollow futility.
The ape staggered at Phil’s impact, then regained his balance. One arm encircled the golden tapestry. The other dropped, caught Phil’s neck in a crushing embrace. And then the ape turned toward those who were almost upon them.
His face twisted up in the agony of that superhuman grip which was literally crushing the muscles of his neck to jelly, ripping apart the vertebrae, Phil saw the white face of the ape-man. It was illuminated from the open doorway. Each change of facial expression was indelibly stamped upon Phil’s memory.
The ape looked at the old man, the natives, then at the slumbering features of the drugged girl, at the white, horror-frozen features of those in the plane, so near and yet so far from liberty.
Of a sudden the eyes lost their brute ferocity. The face was flooded with an expression such as comes to a human being in a moment of great renunciation. The ape-man shot out a hairy paw, literally flung Nickers into the plane. Then he extended the drugged figure, gently thrust her within.
And then they were upon him, a frenzied throng of shouting madmen. But the ape-man held them back, his great chest flung outward. The motor roared into increased speed, and the plane moved slowly and majestically out upon the field, out of the ribbon of light that came from the open door, out into the darkness of the calm night.
The ape-man turned, and Phil was able to see that there were tears in his eyes. But the expression of self-sacrifice still stamped his features with a something that was not only human, but more than human.
Then the throng swept past him, clutching hands tried for the tail assembly. One man, more swift than the others, reached for one of the wing tips. But the prop had swirled up a vortex of seething air, thick with dust. The dust-cloud swept into the eyes of the pursuers. The current of wind held them back even as the plane gathered speed.
And, just before the dust-cloud swirled about the lone form of the giant ape, he swung up one arm, in a gesture of farewell.
The plane swept down the field. Phil had grasped the throttles, his strained neck muscles aching with pain, his eyes seeming to protrude from their sockets. But his trained fingers guided the plane with a great sweep, into a huge circle.
He had no time to get the direction of what wind there might be. He needed to warm up the motor a few more degrees. And he must guard against crashing into the trees which lined the field. How far did he dare go? Would the foe chase after him on the inside of a circle and head him off? He could only take a chance.
He cut the plane in a series of ground antics like the zigzag of a huge bumblebee with one wing gone. Droning, snarling, ripping through the night, the plane skidded and twisted. The engine temperature rose. Phil pulled back on the stick. The wheels left the ground. Directly below appeared a light, a sea of upturned faces, clutching hands. Somehow the field had been flooded with light, disclosing the plane, the enemy. And the plane had got off just in time, for the clutching fingers barely missed the tips of the wings. One or two caught the bar of the landing wheels, but the terrific speed tore it from their grasp. Had those fingers caught a wing tip, however, the story might have been different.
The plane wobbled as it was, then zoomed upward. A row of black tree tops appeared ahead, swept toward them. But the plane leaped upward like a bird, the tree tops were below, and the motor sang a song of roaring power.
Phil took his direction from the stars, headed back upon a blind course. He was flying through the night as a fish might swim in a dark sea. Overhead were the glittering points of stars. Below was a great blotch of darkness, broken only by a fast-disappearing square of golden light. That light was filled with dancing shadows, bounded by the sides of great buildings, gold letters wrought in the solid stone, forming some Sanskrit sentence.
And in the center of that lighted pandemonium stood a solemn figure, apart from the rest, head bowed upon mighty chest in sorrow. It was the ape who was not a man, nor yet an ape. The animal that had surrendered victory for something that was higher and better.
The blob of light became a small circle, no larger than a dime, then slipped behind, faded, reappeared, and vanished forever. The plane roared on. The lights illuminated the instrument board, showed the various gauges and speed indicators. By reflection it showed the ovals of blurred, strained faces, peering into the night.
Phil caught Forbes’s eye, gave a forced, strained smile, and received a wan smile in return.
“I wish we could have taken that ape!” shouted Forbes.
Phil nodded. His mind was filled with the events of the past twenty-four hours. And he knew that the sudden flood of lights on that landing field omened danger. Murasingh had another plane, a lighter, faster plane, armed. Perhaps he had several planes there.
But the darkness gave them their hope of salvation. If it would only mist up with a fog he could sit back relieved. From time to time he glanced toward the east, anxiously.
The motor roared on. The east glowed with a soft light. The horn of the old moon slipped up over the horizon. Ahead showed fleecy clouds, seemingly like balls of soft cotton, drifting slowly between the plane and the ground. The glare of the moon tinged them with gold and black shadows.
And then it came. The other plane had evidently been following a compass course, watching, waiting. The rising moon had betrayed its quarry. A sudden snapping sound marked the indication of a hole in the cabin. The glass rippled into a series of radiating cracks. Another snapping sound marked another hole.
Phil snapped the plane over on one wing, sideslipped, twisted, rolled, and zoomed. The other plane was in sight now, a huge shadow of the night, swooping as an owl might swoop upon a mouse. From its bow came a spitting series of ruddy flashes.
Phil swung the plane, gave an anxious glance toward the clouds, then sent the plane sideslipping for the nearest.
The other plane followed, ripping machine gun bullets into the night. The cloud sent up welcoming streamers. Then the moonlight and stars vanished, swallowed in a sea of moisture. Phil kicked the rudder, swung the stick, glanced at the instruments, seeking to read the turn and bank indicator, get back to an even keel.
The plane righted, wobbled drunkenly,
shot through the cloud and dived for the earth. Phil straightened her out, looked for another cloud. One loomed ahead and lower. From the white mist behind them shot the other plane, straight on their tail.
They flung into the second cloud, and Phil resorted to a desperate maneuver. He flung the stick over, kicked the rudder, banked, turned, whipped back the stick, and zoomed. For a moment he held himself braced. They had flipped about in a complete turn almost in a vertical bank. They stood a big chance of crashing into the pursuing plane.
But the danger passed. They shot out into the night, climbed back up into the first cloud, and then Phil turned at right angles. The cloud was thicker in this direction. They flew for more than a minute before they again debouched into the weak moonlight. The pursuing plane was nowhere in sight.
Minute after minute passed while they roared on this new course and then Phil swung sharply, back to the south. The tachometer showed the motor was performing at its best, hitting like a top. The air was bumpy along the clouds, but the plane rode through the bumps, handling splendidly. Phil knew that nothing vital had been touched by those deadly bullets.
Below appeared a cluster of twinkling lights. Farther ahead showed another blob of golden illumination. They were approaching settlements.
A mountain, jagging the glowing sky with distinctive turrets, gave Phil a landmark. Forbes pointed out a gray sweep of landscape and Phil nodded. The song of the motor died from a deep-throated roar to a monotone of droning power as the nose dipped and the ship settled toward the ground.
Below could be seen the terraced grounds of Crayson’s house. Farther on appeared the sweep of the field, somewhat to the west of where Phil had expected to find it. But the distinctive landmark of the towering mountain had served as an unfailing guide.
The Human Zero- The Science Fiction Stories Of Erle Stanley Gardner Page 13
