The Science Fiction of Erle Stanley Gardner - The Human Zero

by Matin Greenberg

  He glanced at the monkeys, wondering where the ring had come from, sensing that it had been pilfered from one of the principals who were to take part in the wedding ceremony.

  And then, as he saw the round, inquisitive eyes watching him greedily, Phil conceived a brilliant idea. He took the diamond between thumb and finger, made a quick pass, and thrust his fingers into the chink the monkeys had made in the stone side of their cell.

  Apparently the diamond was in his fingers when he thrust his hand to the wall. Actually the diamond had been slipped to his other hand. Therefore, when he slowly withdrew his empty fingers from the dark chink, the gesture was convincing.

  Then Phil gazed solemnly at his snoring partner, and smiled, with his face turned toward the window. Then he, too, crawled back against the wall and pretended to sleep.

  The monkeys looked at each other.

  Such things they could understand. The strange man-creature had stolen the gem from the monkeys, and had now hidden it in that strange dark crack in the wall. Then the man had gone to sleep.

  The leading monkey cautiously dropped along the wall, his powerful, furry tail looped about the bars of the window. For several seconds he hung swinging back and forth, while Phil anxiously surveyed him from half-closed eyes.

  Then the monkey dropped to the flag floor, and scampered across to the wall. He plunged his hand gropingly within, pulled forth his arm, and inspected that which he held in his grasp. It was nothing but a round piece of dead white mortar. He made a grimace, dropped the bit of mortar to the floor, screwed his forehead into washboard wrinkles and reached again.

  The other monkeys trooped into the room.

  Phil remained motionless, his eyes closed to mere slits, watching with tense anxiety, praying that Forbes would not awaken and frighten the little workers.

  The afternoon sun slanted to the west. The cell became darker. Both men leaned against the wall, breathing regularly, rhythmically. The monkeys worked feverishly. They had apparently seen the gem go in that crack, they had not seen it come out. And they had become fond of the diamond, wanted to survey its glittering surfaces. There was nothing to fear from these two sleepers, and so they pulled out bit after bit of mortar, each monkey thinking he had secured possession of the gem until that which his fingers had closed upon was brought to light.

  It was not until dusk approached and Arthur Forbes terminated a snore in a snort, moved, rubbed his eyes, that the monkeys took alarm, scampered off into the gathering shadows.

  Phil made a swift leap for the stone.

  At the bottom of the wall was a considerable pile of mortar fragments. The monkeys had worked their way well around the stone, searching for their plaything. And each monkey had dug for himself. As a result a dark band showed about the entire outline of the stone.

  Phil tugged at the rock, pushed, tugged again. A very faint, crunching sound transmitted itself through the stone.

  “I believe it’s working loose. Lend a hand,” hissed Phil.

  The two men strained, twisted, pulled, pushed. At length the rock budged slightly on one end. The other was firmly anchored.

  “If we keep it up long enough there’s a chance,” agreed Forbes.

  There followed hours of sweating labor. The obstinate rock seemed malevolently intelligent in its resistance. The men nipped their fingers, tore nails loose, groped, pushed, pulled, sought for a finger hold. And, at length the rock slid back. They pushed it out, heard the thud with which it fell to the floor.

  Phil was first through the opening, worming and twisting, aided by such pressure as Forbes could apply. Then Arthur Forbes, tired, almost exhausted, slipped his feet through the opening, felt Phil’s fingers clutching his ankles.

  The mortar on the inside of the wall had set until it was like cement. The hard particles scraped their flesh as they wormed through the hole, accounted for the hours of final effort.

  “Seems to be a blind room without a single window,” remarked Phil, keeping his voice in a whisper.

  “Wish we had matches,” agreed Forbes, his tone worried. “We haven’t the faintest idea of whether it’s a dungeon, or a snake pit, and we’ve got to hurry—there’s the wedding.”

  “There’s the wedding,” agreed Phil. “We can’t be particular about the room. And no matter what’s here it can’t be any worse than what we’ve left. Let’s go.”

  “Easy, old chap. This is India, you know, and that whole room with its crumbling mortar and all may be nothing but a trap. These fellows like to get prisoners to kill themselves trying to escape. Let’s make sure. It’s just a little queer, you know, that that diamond ring should have turned up so opportunely. Let’s keep our arms interlaced, and then feel cautiously. There may be a pit in the center of the floor for all we know.”

  “Good idea,” agreed Phil. “But we’ve got to work fast. They’ll be coming in to look us over any minute now. And that stone from the wall is as good as written directions telling them where to go to look for us. They know the place, and we don’t.”

  With arms interlocked, feeling with outstretched fingers, shrouded in pitch darkness, the men groped their way about the room.

  Of a sudden Phil felt his companion stumble, draw back.

  “Just as I suspected. There’s a pit in the center of the floor here. Watch out. I nearly fell, would have if it hadn’t been for your arm. Let’s see how far it goes, what it’s like.”

  Phil came forward, cautiously, finger tips scraping the floor. Abruptly his arms swept off into black space. He continued to grope about the edge.

  “Circular,” he said at length. “Let’s keep working around it. I’ll tear off a bit of cloth from my shirt and leave it here so we’ll know when we get back to the starting point.”

  There was the sound of tearing cloth, and then the noise of garments rasping along stone as the two men explored the pit. It was Phil whose exploring fingers found the stairs. They were stone stairs, rounded by years of u$e. Moving in the darkness, not knowing what was below, their ears attuned for the scraping rustle which would mean the presence of a deadly snake, the two men descended.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Halls of Hanuman

  For some thirty feet they went down. The stairs circled the pit, swinging in a spiral. At the bottom began the game once more of finger-tip exploration. This time it took them but a matter of seconds to become oriented. They were at the entrance of a walled passageway, arched at the top, some eight feet wide, leading on a gradual slope. Water had oozed through the stones until a green slime had formed over the rocks. There was a damp, dank, stagnant smell, and the darkness teemed with the suggestion of living things.

  But only once did they hear the scraping of a scaled body moving over the stones, and that noise grew less, terminated in a long-drawn hiss. The men pressed on, knowing that death lay behind, not knowing what was ahead.

  A regular throbbing of the atmosphere seemed to pulse in their blood before their ears became directly conscious of it as sound.

  “Tom-toms,” remarked Forbes. “You never hear ’em but what you know you’ve been listening to ’em long before you first heard ’em.”

  “Where are they?” asked Phil, turning his head in the darkness, this way and then that, after the manner of a bird listening to a whistle.

  “Have to keep going to tell. It’s the hardest sound in the world to locate.”

  As they progressed, the sound of the tom-toms grew louder, seemed to come from above them. Phil touched his hand to the side of the passage, and noticed that the walls were now dry and free from the green slime.

  “We’ve been underground for a while. Now we’ve climbed back up,” he announced.

  “And we must have covered at least half a mile,” said Forbes. “You know I’m wondering—” He broke off and lapsed into silence.

  They went for some hundred feet farther, and then a current of air, striking Phil’s left cheek, caused him to stop and investigate.

  A door led from the stone pass
ageway. That door had been left slightly ajar, and through the crack came a current of drier air.

  Phil thrust his hand into the opening, pulled. Slowly the heavy door creaked back. Ahead was a flight of stairs, and from the top came the first faint light the men had seen since they entered upon the passageway. As they started up, walking cautiously, a sound from above caused them to stop abruptly.

  The faint slithering of rhythmic sound could come only from feet descending the stairway. The men exchanged glances in consternation. Perhaps their escape from their cell had been discovered. In that event the searchers might have decided to cover both ends of the passage. Or, on the other hand, the approaching feet might merely belong to some of the priests of Hanuman, who were using the passage as a means of communication with other parts of the temple buildings.

  The stairs offered no place where they could conceal themselves, unless they trusted to chance that the others would walk past them in the darkness. And the same was true of the passageway.

  Now they could see the feet approaching, faint shadows outlined against the dim light from above. No word was spoken; by faint pressures of the hand alone Nickers conveyed to his companion the idea that but two approached, that they would take their chances on a hand-to-hand encounter in the darkness. It was better to surprise them and attack them than to play fugitive and run into a trap.

  They crouched, bracing themselves. The feet of the figures who descended the stairs were now more plainly visible. And Phil’s eyes detected the hairy legs as soon as Arthur Forbes’s hissed warning penetrated the darkness.

  One of those who descended was an ape!

  Of necessity that changed the plans of the two who crouched in the darkness. They would be no match for the ape. They dropped back, cautiously, a step at a time, feeling their way, trusting to luck that they should make no noise.

  As they regained the passage, the darkness above them was split by the beam of an electric flashlight which cut through the darkness, illuminated the arched passageway, the stairs, the dancing shadows.

  The men braced themselves for an uneven conflict. In close quarters the great strength of the giant ape would make their own efforts puny by comparison.

  And then a voice purred and rippled through a guttural dialect which was strange to the listeners. But they recognized the sound of the voice. It was Murasingh, talking to the ape-man as one would chat with an intimate friend.

  Was it pose or could the ape-man understand the language? The men glanced at each other, and then stiffened. For the light flickered its beam at their very feet. The sound of shuffling feet was upon them, and the strange pair literally brushed past.

  It was the ape-man who saw them. Perhaps it was that his eyes were more accustomed to darkness, perhaps some keen sense of smell enabled him to detect the presence of others.

  He uttered a shrill sound sequence which seemed to be like words, sounded startlingly like the dialect in which Murasingh had been talking.

  The men who crouched in the darkness of the passageway could not understand the words, but there could be no mistaking the sudden shrill tone in which they were uttered.

  Phil Nickers raised his foot, swung it as swift and true as a football player punting the ball down a muddy field. He aimed his toe for a point above the flashlight, and connected with the wrist of Murasingh.

  The light snapped out, clattered against the stones of the passageway. And all became struggle, noise, confusion. The ape-man gave short, shrill screams of rage, perhaps mingled with terror. Murasingh, not knowing the numbers nor identity of those who opposed him, fought wildly in the darkness.

  Phil swung his fist chin high, in a long, pivoting swing, had the satisfaction of feeling a tingle of pain run up his forearm as the blow connected.

  There was the sound of a falling body, and then a hairy arm shot out through the darkness, grazed his own body. Fingers that were as steel gripped the shoulder of his coat.

  Phil flung himself forward and down, swung a futile blow with his left. The mighty arm did not so much as quiver when Phil’s weight hurled against it. But the cloth gave way and Nickers sprawled free on the floor of the passageway.

  But he sensed that other great arm was busy, not concerning itself with him, but reaching for his companion. There was the swish of rapid motion above, the sound of feet dragging over the flags. Something slid over Phil’s sprawling figure. He flung up his hands and encountered the shod feet of Arthur Forbes. The man was being dragged as though he was a sack of meal, the feet trailing behind.

  Phil rolled to hands and knees, braced himself for a tackle, and then his hands closed upon something cool and metallic. In an instant he realized that he had the flashlight he had kicked from Murasingh’s hand. Would it work?

  He grasped it, pressed the button. A reassuring beam of light stabbed the darkness. And Phil thrust that stabbing beam directly into the face of the ape.

  Man or animal, enough of the animal remained in the ape to give him a fear of that sudden light. Phil had a picture stamped indelibly upon his memory of a hairy ape, the face almost devoid of hair, pale and thin of skin, lips twisted back from glittering fangs, nostrils that were merely two dark, quivering holes, eyes that were wide, dark-pupilled, moist with fright.

  And in that swift stab of light he saw also Arthur Forbes’s white face, drained of color, lifeless, with that hairy hand reaching at his throat, ready to tear out the flesh.

  The light made the ape recoil, jump back. His hairy arms flashed up, using his hands as shields to keep the blinding light from his eyes. And Arthur Forbes, released from the grasp of the man-beast, thudded to the stone flags.

  As the ape-man recoiled, Phil pushed the light ahead, taking every inch he could gain, keeping his advantage pressed home. A huddled something on the stones moved, tripped Phil, sent him sprawling. Hands clutched at his arm, pulled the flashlight down.

  Phil had a brief glimpse of Murasingh, lying upon the stones, his face white with pain but grim with determination. Then there was the flash of a steel blade, and a knife bit through the cloth of his coat, razored the skin apart, sent a warm trickle of blood flowing down his arm.

  Phil felt himself tottering forward, and doubled his left fist, sent it crashing down ahead of him, a stiff-armed jolt with all the impetus of his falling body behind it.

  The fist grazed the countenance of the man below. The flashlight was tom from Phil’s grasp, and the two locked on the floor in a hand-to-hand struggle. The ape-man, terrified by the cold fire that had been plunged in his face, was running awkwardly back, down the passage, toward the room from which Phil and his companion had escaped.

  Forbes was still unconscious. The struggle was hand to knife, finger to throat, between the fanatic and Phil Nickers. Murasingh seemed intent upon plunging the knife to a vital spot. But he was underneath, fighting against the crushing weight of the man above. And Phil pressed that advantage to the limit, keeping on top, groping for the hand with the knife, smashing home vicious short-arm jabs with his fist.

  At length his questing fingers caught the lean wrist that was wielding the knife. Phil’s fingers tightened, gave a twist, and the knife slithered along the dark stone.

  Murasingh sought his throat. Phil’s fingers were first to their goal. He tightened his grip. The struggles of the man below grew less violent, suddenly subsided. Fearing a trap, Phil continued the pressure for a moment or two more, then released his grip. Murasingh lay still.

  Phil turned to Forbes, found that there was a pulse, and pulled his companion to a semi-upright position against the side of the passageway. Then he returned to Murasingh, a recollection of the automatic with which the fanatic had been armed, sending his fingers questing through the man’s clothing.

  And he found it, gripped the precious metal in his damp hand with a strange sense of power. He groped about until his hands once more closed upon the flashlight. Now he was willing to meet the foe in any numbers, under any conditions.

  A rustle of mot
ion apprised him of Forbes’s motions. He swung the flashlight, encountered dazed eyes.

  “It’s all right, old man. How d’you feel?”

  “Like a chunk of meat that’s been through the sausage grinder. I’m groggy, but guess I’m all right aside from that. What happened?”

  “I frightened the ape with the flashlight. He wasn’t the one that acted as judge, but another. Guess he’s the one that was to be the bridegroom. He’s gone for help. Murasingh is out, but he gave us a flashlight and automatic before he went. Feel up to walking? We’ve got to stop that wedding, you know.”

  For answer, Forbes staggered to his feet.

  “I’m just shaken up a bit. We’re going to stop that wedding, even if we have to walk in and fight the outfit.”

  They ascended the stairs, trapped between two flanking dangers. Up the passage lay the menace of being trapped within cramped quarters. Down the passage lay the menace of the hideous ape-man. From up the stairs came the booming of the great drums. As they pounded, the rhythmic chant of throbbing sound which entered the pulsations of the blood, seemed to stir the very soul with monotonous repetition of sound.

  The light grew stronger as they ascended. From a corridor ahead came a mellow glow. There seemed to be no particular light source. It was merely that there was light. The hallway glowed with a soft radiance that was almost phosphorescence. So might the interior of a rotting log seem to a tiny grub.

  Phil stopped, surprised at the lighting effect. And, as he stood there—dimly conscious of the weird surroundings, the boom of drums, and the shuffle of many feet upon stone floors —the scream of a woman knifed the night.

  There was a wild terror in that scream, a blood-curdling horror that stabbed the eardrums. Forbes straightened, turned toward the source of that sound. Phil gripped the automatic, and there sounded the flutter of filmy draperies. A woman rushed out from a side corridor, saw the men, paused in terror, and turned wide eyes back over her shoulder.