The Science Fiction of Erle Stanley Gardner - The Human Zero

by Matin Greenberg

  walked into this alcove, then stopped and swore.

  “Here it was,” he said. “Now look!”

  We crowded at his shoulders to look.

  We saw the remains of a stout chest, bound with hasps of iron, bolted with some strangely designed bolts. The chest had been battered and splintered. It was empty, save for several inches of dust.

  Bender pushed his eager fingers in the dust, fished around with them for a few moments, then uttered a cry. He withdrew his hand, and there, in his fingers, was a great ornament of gold.

  The Mexican nodded casually.

  “There were hundreds more,” he said.

  The man with pin-point eyes slipped the golden ornament into the pocket of his coat, where it bulged out the pocket and sagged the garment. Then he started groping once more in the dust. When he had finished he knew that there was no hope of additional loot. The chest was empty.

  He sat down on a rock. I thought for a moment he was going to swear.

  “Where would they have taken it?” he asked.

  “Back to their villages. They were, for the most part, ornaments which adorned the temples they erected to their heathen gods . . . But hold. There was a private store of gold. This was the treasure chest which all were to share in; but there were some ornaments, some melted gold in bars, some of their turquoise jewelry which was mine. I hid it in another part of the cave. Perhaps they were not so fortunate in finding that. Come with me.”

  Bender needed no second invitation. He was on his feet and striding forward.

  I thought the light from the flash was getting just a trifle more dim.

  “Better turn off the flash for a minute or two and save the battery,” I warned.

  “Later,” said Bender. “Hurry on.”

  And the soldier hurried on.

  With us trailing after, our strange guide went back to the main chamber, ran along the dust-covered floor which sent his footfalls thudding back at us in muffled echoes, and shot the beam of the flashlight toward the west end of the chamber.

  There was nothing here but wall.

  The soldier muttered, sent the beam along the wall, up one side, down the other, stepping back a few paces, muttering to himself.

  “It should be here,” he said. “See you, there is the head of a lion in the stone, and that to the left looks like an old man . . . Ha, now I remember! It is off to the left.”

  And he strode confidently to the left. There seemed to be nothing but solid rock, but as we approached nearer a little vault opened out.

  “This is the place,” he said. “We must stoop.”

  We stooped, and as we got our heads near the floor of the cave there was a gentle draft of air which smote my nostrils with the unmistakable odor of wood smoke.

  But the others either did not smell it, or if they did, gave it no heed. Eagerly trailing the three hundred year old secret, they entered the chamber.

  It was really an entrance to another cave, or to another branch of caves shooting out from the main chamber. I could see that there was a long passageway, and then an arched roof, and I thought I could detect a glint of light coming from some faintly discerned opening in the distant darkness.

  “It was in this little cleft to the right of the opening,” said the Mexican, and turned the beam of the flashlight.

  I saw a long cleft some little distance away, and I saw also that the beam of the flashlight was weaker now. The light was no longer a brilliant pencil of white light, but was taking on a reddish hue.

  Emilio Bender ran forward, getting his shadow so that it danced along the wall in a grotesque blob of ebony silhouette.

  “To one side,” yelled the soldier. “I cannot see.”

  And, at that instant, the light went out.

  “More of your damned magic that gets tired!” shouted the Mexican, and dashed the flashlight to the floor of the cave. There sounded the tinkle of broken glass and then darkness was about us, a soul-chilling darkness that seemed as tangible as a smothering blanket thrown about our heads.

  “Fool!” ranted Emilio Bender.

  But his ranting did no good. The flashlight might have recuperated enough strength in the battery to have given us a few flashes that would have enabled us to find the gold and make our escape from the cave.

  “I can’t even find the cleft where the gold is,” whined the man of the pin-point eyes.

  “Bah!” scoffed the Mexican. “Are we men or are we babies? Why whimper about a little darkness? I have seen darkness before. Doubtless I will see it again!”

  “Come back, come back! We must get the gold!” yelled Emilio Bender.

  “It is my gold, not yours. This is a private store of my own plunder. I do not share it with soldiers who are cowards. There is much more gold in the Indian temples. Go to them and get your own store of plunder. As for me, I am going to go to the other cave.”

  And I could hear the Mexican’s feet ringing on the stone floor as he strode away.

  “How many matches have you got?” asked Bender of me, and his voice was wheedling.

  “I have a number, but we need them to get out of here,” I said.

  “Strike one, just one that I may see where we stand.”

  I struck just the one, and as I did so knew that I had made a mistake. For the light of that match,showed me the greenish glitter of those aluminium-colored eyes staring into mine from the dark background of the cave.

  “Hold that match, steady,” said the man.

  I wanted to shake it out. Some inner voice told me to dash it to the floor of the cave and step on it. But I hesitated too long.

  The pin-points of the eyes became rapiers, thrusting long tongues of flame into my brain. The whole side of the cave seemed to be a fathomless depth of aluminium-colored darkness from which radiated twin streamers of lambent flame.

  “Give me the matches.”

  The voice was low and vibrant, and I could feel my hand starting toward his with the matches. But I brought all my will power to my aid, and held them back.

  Once more came the command.

  “Give—me—the—matches!”

  The pin-points of the eyes seared the volition from my brain. I did not know that I was holding out the matches. I knew only that I was no longer master of myself.

  The next I knew, the match I was holding had burned my fingers, and a cold hand had closed about the box of matches I was holding out toward Bender.

  The darkness was welcome, but I was still haunted by the memory of those pin-points in their aluminium-colored background.

  The next I heard was the scrape of a match on the rock wall, the sputter of flame, and the dancing of grotesque shadows as Bender moved the light slowly along, nursing the flame between cupped hands.

  In a little while he found the place in the cleft where something had been thrust into a hole in the rocks. He lit another match, put in his hand and pulled out a bit of what had been cloth. Now it was but a few rags of scattered remnants. But from the openings gleamed the unmistakable yellow of gold.

  “Gold!” he cried.

  Then, as though it had been an echo to his shout, the cave reverberated with a blood-curdling scream which came from the distant darkness.

  Emilio Bender jumped back.

  “What was that?” he asked of me.

  “A woman’s scream and a man’s yell mingled together,” I said.

  We waited, tense, listening.

  Something was coming toward us. I could see the little flickers of ruddy light which were cast by a moving flame. The woman screamed again. I could hear the pound of shod feet.

  Then, from a distance, there was a bedlam of sound.

  Around the comer of a passageway came the flicker of a smoking torch, and there was the Mexican, holding to him the screaming form of a young woman.

  He was laughing, and there was blood on his face, marks of where her nails had raked down the skin. In his right hand, held with his sword, was a smoking wood torch, a pine knot that was fille
d with pitch. The girl was Indian, young, attractive, and frightened. She was held in his left arm so that her feet barely touched the floor of the cave, and the soldier was laughing, the happy carefree laugh of an adventurer.

  “Forward, amigos!” he cried. “There are other women to be had for the taking, and then there will be a splendid fight. The warriors are coming in force. This is life! And I have been as one dead for over a month!”

  And he laughed again.

  The woman was kicking, squirming in his embrace like an eel fresh from the water. Her lithe body was a beautiful nut-brown. Her well-turned legs writhed and twisted like twin snakes as she sought to get some purchase from which she could add to the efficacy of her struggles.

  “Go,” said the soldier, and threw the torch from him in a long arc of whirling fire. Then the pitch knot hit the floor of the cave and rolled along, bouncing, giving off red embers of fire.

  And the soldier was gone in the darkness with a mocking laugh.

  CHAPTER 8

  Battle

  Ahead of me I saw a barrier of grim shadow outlined against the light of that pine knot, and then heard the sound of naked feet pattering upon the floor. A torch gleamed from around the corner of one of the passageways, and I saw a young buck Indian, almost naked, running swiftly, low to the ground, a spear in his hand.

  He saw me as soon as I saw him, and flung up the spear.

  I am no swordsman, but desperation stirred dormant cells of dead instinct in my brain. I acted without conscious skill, but I swung that sword at just the right angle to parry the thrust.

  Then we were at it, the Indian thrusting with the spear, my sword seeming to bite through the darkness and ward off the thrusts as though it was the sword that guided the arm instead of the arm that must have guided the sword.

  There were half a dozen torches, now, and there were others coming on the run. Arrows whizzed about me, and the cave reverberated to the thunder of a rifle. A bullet fanned my cheek and spatted against the wall back of me.

  Another Indian was on my left, and I caught the gleam of a dagger as he struck. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bender standing against the wall, his sword glittering in a mad frenzy as he fought off the Indians.

  Then came more men and more torches. The red flames gave a weird illumination to the scene of battle. The black smoke went up in streamers until it clung to the distant roof of the chamber. And something thudded against my sword arm with numbing force. I tried to raise the blade and the muscles refused to function.

  I sensed a hurtling body coming through the air, and the sword clattered to the rock floor. I swung my left. The fist connected and the man went down. Then the half darkness fairly seemed to rain hurtling brown shapes that ran forward in close formation. Naked arms shot around my knees and I was dragged down. Something hit me on the head, and my brain exploded into a flash of light.

  For an instant or two I was unconscious. When I knew anything again I was being bound swiftly and securely. I could hear groans from my left where Bender was lying, two Indians banging his head on the rocks.

  There were shouts from one of the side chambers, and my captors, finished with their job of binding me, ran toward those shouts.

  I raised my head, and for a few seconds saw such a battle as few living men have seen.

  Our soldier had dropped the woman now, and his teeth were gleaming in the light of the torches as he fought and laughed. They did not shoot him because the very press of Indians about him prevented a bullet’s being placed with any accuracy.

  But they crowded upon him with grim and relentless fury. There were hunting knives that glittered red in the torchlight, and there were spears that were thrust forward by lean brown arms that rippled with wire-hard muscles.

  And moving with effortless ease, his glittering blade flashing in a swift circle of defense, the man held them at bay and laughed at them.

  Never had I believed it possible that a slender bit of steel could move with such bewildering speed, or could offer so perfect a defense against pressing numbers.

  A swift circling cut, and a man jumped back, his right arm dangling, a knife clattering to the rock. A pointed thrust that made of the sword a mere glittering tongue of naked steel, and a savage cried out in pain and toppled forward to join the piled bodies that were slumped in a half circle around the soldier’s feet, forming a barrier which hampered the movements of those who sought to attack.

  The sword glittered with red for a second or two, then as it whirled in its hissing circle, it cleared again and the light reflected from the smooth steel.

  It was a rock that got him, a rock expertly thrown. At that there must have been an element of luck in it, for the rock was thrown by the young girl who had crawled to the outer edge of the circle of combatants.

  It arched over the heads of the warriors, and dropped from the half darkness, squarely upon the top of the soldier’s head.

  He would have shaken off the daze in a few seconds, but he was too hard pressed to stop even for an instant. The sword wavered for a moment in its glittering speed, and then they were on him like a pack of brown wolves dragging down a wounded buck. The whole place became but a swarming mass of seething bodies, and then the motion gradually subsided.

  I moved my arms, testing the bonds which held me to see if there was any chance of escape. There was none. My arms might as well have been gripped in a vise.

  Then the circle of red figures fell apart and I saw our warrior raised to his feet. His head was bleeding heavily from the cut the rock had inflicted. His arms were circled with cords, and there was still the half-dazed look in his eyes I have seen in the eyes of prize fighters when some unexpected blow has caught them with deadly force in the middle of conflict.

  But he was still laughing, and I could see the gleam of his teeth.

  * * *

  About us gathered the enraged Indians. Many had wounds and they were in a deadly humor.

  “Explain to them. Otherwise they will put us to death,” chattered Emilio Bender.

  Explain! As well have tried to explain cold-blooded murder to twelve men in a jury box. All the smoldering enmity of these Indians against the white man had been fanned to life. They had captured us in the act of raiding them in their sacred cave. All we could hope for was that the end would be merciful. But that was a vain hope. They had been too careful to catch us alive.

  If our Mexican could throw himself back three hundred years into some past incarnation under the influence of hypnotism, then these savage Indians could throw themselves back under the influence of rage until the traditions of millions of years of ancestors swayed them in what they were to do.

  They jerked us together, tied the three of us with a rope which went around our necks. Many of them had nasty wounds from which blood was flowing in veritable rivulets. But they paid them no heed. Their obsidian-like eyes were glittering with a deadly rage.

  The voice of the swordsman rang out. He was fully conscious once more.

  “What sort of soldiers are you?” he cried at us. “Why didn’t you hold them here? You two should have had no trouble holding off the tribe. But you didn’t hold one. You let the whole band come down upon me. Soldiers! Bah!

  “Where are the circles of dead bodies that should be in front of you? Not a body. You are both tied like a couple of rabbits being taken to the spit! Bah, you have disgraced the swords you carried!

  “You, charioteer, did the best that could be expected of you. But how of you, soldier? Soldier indeed! You will answer to me for that falsehood! You are not a soldier. You are not even a charioteer!”

  He would have said more, but they jerked on the rope which circled our necks, and we perforce shuffled forward in the half darkness.

  Behind us, men looked to their own wounds, or gave treatment to the wounds of others. Ahead of us, some half dozen of the Indians jerked on the rope and took us forward at a half run.

  “Don’t stumble,” I warned Emilio Bender, “or they wi
ll drag you to death, and the weight of your body will strangle us all.”

  I knew something of Indian methods, and knew how hard it was to rush at a half trot through the darkness with hands tied.

  Bender yammered some reply, but I could not catch it nor did I care greatly what it was. But he did not stumble.

  I did not warn the Mexican. He had heard my warning to Bender, and he was not the sort to stumble, that soldier of a distant past, come to life to plunge us all into a conflict which mocked at history.

  We came at length to a lighted chamber. There was a big fire in the center and the walls were black with smoke. This must have been the council chamber of the tribe for countless centuries.

  They lined us up against a wall and there were iron loops driven into the solid rock of that wall. They tied us to these loops, and I could hear the laugh of the Mexican as the rope bit into his flesh.

  “These are the loops' we put into the wall to tie our prisoners to. Now they have turned the tables!”

  I found nothing to laugh about, nor did Emilio Bender.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Magic of Gold

  The Indians squatted in a circle to hold a conclave, and they talked in low tones.

  “Will they kill us?” asked Bender.

  “Ha!” chuckled the soldier. “Will they kill us! My white-livered scrivener, who talked like a soldier and fought like a coward—they will kill us by inches! Look you to the lofty walls of the cave. From those walls your screams of agony will echo back to you before another twenty-four hours have crossed the pathway of time.”

  The remark got on Bender’s nerves.

  “Yours, too!” he snapped.

  “No,” said the soldier, simply. “I will not scream.”

  I spoke to Bender in a low voice. “I have heard of a tribe which dwells in a secret pueblo. They come in to Zuñi to trade; and once or twice when I have been in Zuñi I have seen members of what I considered a new tribe. This is their secret: They make headquarters in this cave. If they are ever surprised on the outside, they pretend to be the ordinary run of Pueblo Indians. How savage they are I don’t know. Perhaps when they have had time to cool off I can barter with them. Remember, we know where there is a store of golden plunder which doubtless they consider sacred ornaments. For the present, our hope is that they will save us and not put us to immediate death.”