“Very quickly it became one of the best organized on the planet and its renown reached the ears of Leonid Zattan, who also had a secret international organization. His genius was to federate different occult networks and they were about to take over the whole world when you caught him and broke up his organization. He died soon afterward, in exile, abandoned on an island in the Pacific. At his side was my future wife, who had also been captured. She was tortured but managed to escape her enemies by the sole power of her genius. It was you who had delivered her to them!
“We decided to unite our forces once and for all to fight you. She became my third wife and we created the Hashishin who were becoming as powerful as the organization founded by Zattan. And the moment I’d been waiting for finally came: our confrontation! Everything was ready to make you suffer the worst torments. Unfortunately, I have to admit I underestimated you. Thanks to a ploy you managed to beat us. My wife lost her life because of you and I was on the verge of suicide…”
“I thought you did kill yourself. I was at your funeral in Madrid,” the Nyctalope broke in, deeply disturbed by the discussion and trying to change the tone just the same.
A hint of amusement flavored the voice of Korridès when he answered:
“Yes, that’s what I wanted you to believe. A strong ally helped me. But you will never know exactly how I managed it. It’s time to get the friendly conversation back on track and tell you exactly how I figure on exacting my revenge on you. Of course, you know that we’ve attacked and killed a bunch of your agents…”
“Yes, yes, I know,” the Nyctalope answered dryly.
“And that we destroyed your mansion in Versailles and your house in Paris where we captured your wife Sylvie, who will have to die soon. But we also murdered your friend, Duke Petro d’Arandar, who was helping you fight against me and Diana in Spain.”
Saint-Clair was stunned and babbled:
“Duke d’Arandar… murdered…”
“And that’s not all. We also wiped out the expedition of your friend Hubert de Pibriac, including your son Pierre. When I learned that he was going off to Africa I sent one of my old inventions against them. They should all be dead as we speak but their bodies will never be found.”
“Pierre… Dead…” The Nyctalope felt the world collapsing around him and he could not utter another sound.
“Yes, dead, just like you and your wife will be soon. But before reaching my final step, I still have a little surprise in store for you. Listen…”
With his heart crushed and broken, Saint-Clair listened. At first he heard nothing. Then all of a sudden the noise of an explosion was clearly heard over the speaker. Then another and another. There were six in all. Although distressed and anxious, Saint-Clair kept silent, waiting for his enemy to explain, which Korridès was postponing out of sick pleasure.
“Nice explosions, weren’t they?”
“What was that?”
“The sound of the six main CID offices in France and Europe disappearing.” He paused dramatically before adding, “Now there’s nothing left of the Nyctalope and I’ll be able to kill Léo Saint-Clair.”
Shocked by the revelations of Maur Korridès, Saint-Clair was shaken to the very core of his being. He had suddenly remembered the awful events that had caused the destruction of the French colony on Mars along with the death of his two older children, killed by his own hands while he was oblivious, under the spell of the Martian virus that made him crazy. He had just learned of the death of his son Pierre and the destruction of the CID. His wife was being held prisoner by his enemies and her life was on the line. He sat there in a daze, totally devastated…
A light started flashing on the instrument panel. Saint-Clair shook himself and looked at the screen to see what was coming at the Zig. He saw a huge metal machine. There was no doubt about it: it was the helicopter powered by solar energy designed by Korridès. Once, in Spain, during one of their first encounters, he had the chance to see a prototype. He prepared his machine guns and got ready to give a big welcome to his enemy. They were a hundred yards from each other and the helicopter was coming on fast. The Nyctalope opened fire. The machine guns rattled. Saint-Clair had aimed well and the bullets hit the fuselage, but it must have been thick and reinforced because in spite of the heavy fire Korridès’ aircraft seemed unaffected by the attack.
The Nyctalope’s plane flew as close as possible to the helicopter in order to give it another flurry of bullets. Just then the copter spun around and shot a yellow ray that barely missed. The Zip, skillfully piloted by Saint-Clair, made a long spiral to escape the powerful weapon. In the past the Engineer had developed a disintegrating ray. If he were dealing with that weapon here, he had every reason to be afraid.
After flying around he was facing the helicopter again, searching desperately for a way to fight his enemy effectively. His machine guns could not pierce the armored fuselage, so he had to try to hit a more vulnerable spot. He saw two possibilities: he could target the windows, but they were small and the outcome was uncertain; or he could fire at the rotor blades whose armor, if there were any, would be much thinner. This last idea seemed a lot easier to accomplish.
He got closer and started firing continually at the rotor, hoping to break them and bring down the copter. At first the bullets were lost in the whirling blades. Then there was a slight disturbance in the rapid whirling that made them almost invisible. One of them must have been hit and a piece thrown off had hit the other. The rhythm of the rotation slowed down and the blades, which could clearly be seen now, were coming to a stop. The helicopter stalled and dropped down, but the blades started spinning again and aircraft stabilized.
Saint-Clair made a wide loop to get next to the helicopter. He was hoping to do the same thing again but this time finish off his enemy. He was only 20 yards from his target when he was caught off guard by an unexpected maneuver: the helicopter spun around 90 degrees. The ray hit the Nyctalope’s plane on the right wing, which tore apart like paper. Another ray shot out and ripped off the end of the other wing. The plane, which the Nyctalope was having a hard time controlling, swerved away, turned back and headed straight for the blades of the helicopter. Saint-Clair was trying one final attack: to ram into it. But at the moment when he was about to smash into the helicopter, it shot up into the sky and avoided the collision.
A third ray hit his plane right in the engine and the fuel caught fire immediately. The Zip exploded; shards of metal flew through the sky for hundreds of yards around before falling to the ground. Nothing remained of the Nyctalope’s plane.
The helicopter made several turns around the site of the explosion, no doubt to verify that nobody had time to eject and possibly survive. The combat had taken place at over 1600 feet altitude, so if the pilot had managed to jump out with a parachute like the Germans used during the Great War, he would easily be spotted.
The rotor blades of the helicopter, damaged in the battle, were completely twisted and were starting to make a weird noise. With the deformed metal it was getting harder for them to spin around and the helicopter could obviously not stay long in the air. Korridès had conquered the Nyctalope but the victory had cost him. He decided to leave the battlefield and get as far away as possible.
Of course, the Engineer could be satisfied. The death of the Nyctalope had cost him his helicopter but this did not really matter: he had had his revenge. Now he just had to execute his enemy’s wife. And he was ready to do so in a very original manner, as befit his genius.
CHAPTER XVII
The Artificial Man
Pierre Saint-Clair felt a sharp pain in his head and he could not think straight. He felt like he was floating in a vacuum. A painful vacuum. He had never thought that he would suffer so much after death. Maybe, just maybe, he was still alive, as surprising as it might seem. The window in his diving suit had been broken by the claw and the glass had splintered into his face. It hurt like mad. At more than 130 feet down the frighteningly destructive power of the u
nderwater enemy had probably killed him. But blood was still beating in his veins; an awful pain was hammering his head; and all these sensations meant that he was still alive. He was out of the water, in a dry place, apparently lying on the ground, abandoned in a strange land. He made a great effort to open his eyes but he could not. What could have happened after he passed out on the bottom of the lake?
Someone was shaking him gently and putting a wet cloth on his forehead. A voice called out, sounding very far away. It was Bob’s voice.
“Pierre, wake up! How do you feel?”
Pierre concentrated all his energy on answering the call and he finally managed to open his eyes. Bob, dressed in a diving suit without his helmet, was leaning over him. Behind him was Pir, smiling down on him. He, too, must have been hit in the face because his left cheek was swollen.
Pierre gradually came around. He tried to figure out where he was. Pir and Bob were standing there but he did not see Professor Noque or Hubert de Pibriac.
The big, high room was decorated with monumental statues of Semitic-looking men wearing long robes and beards. Their clothes, however, looked practical and they were holding in their hands objects that seemed modern, although they could have been designed by advanced technology: boxes covered with buttons, switches and a control panel, rods that could have been firearms, a kind of earpiece that was probably for communicating at a distance.
On one side of the room was a double door opposite the monumental gate that was open.
Pierre struggled to his feet, looked at the entrance and managed to ask:
“How did you get inside the tower? When I passed out I was still in the cube and the door was still shut tight.”
“It’s a mystery,” answered Bob. “I was on the tower, keeping watch, when I saw Hubert come up to the surface. His arm was broken and he was having trouble staying afloat. I used the hoist to help him up and he crawled onto the tower before the crocodiles could get to him. I asked him what happened and where the others were. He was out of breath but told me that you’d been attacked by some diabolical machine, a kind of underwater capsule equipped with huge, metal pincers. It had broken his arm like a matchstick. Hubert escaped by taking off his lead boots and everything else that was heavy on his suit. He said to me: ‘We have to do something, Bob. The others are in grave danger. But I don’t see how we can fight this monstrous underwater machine.’
“I thought about it for a moment and offered to put on my diving suit to go and see what could be done. Hubert winced in pain and suggested that I take two harpoons from the plane. He said: ‘I don’t know if it’ll make any difference but you can always try.’ He leaned back against the railing, closed his eyes and tried to fight against the pain. I went to get the harpoons, put on my diving suit and then I dove all the way to the entrance of the tower. I was lucky not to run into any crocodiles and got to the bottom quickly. In the spotlights I saw my brother unconscious near the veloscaphe. Given the condition of our prototype I knew that there’d been a bad fight. Pir was passed out but his suit wasn’t damaged and he was still alive.
“I left him there and went to the cube. The exterior door had been torn clean off. Stuck in the airlock in front of the inner door, which was also in bad shape, was the machine Hubert had described. Or what remained of it. The back of it was ripped out and the window was smashed. A dead man wearing a turban was sitting inside it at the commands. His head had been literally torn off. Pools of blood floated in the water and I was afraid the scent would attract the crocodiles around the lake. I managed to free the door and I saw that there was an opening in the tower. But nobody was inside. You and Professor Noque seemed to have disappeared. I went to get my brother and we entered this room where I found you, unconscious. My brother had been knocked out but not injured and I woke him up. Then I got to work on you. Now the three of us are up and around but Professor Noque is still missing. I wonder where he could be? And what are we going to do? Keep exploring this part of the tower or go back to the surface to get Hubert?”
Pierre thought for a minute before saying:
“That depends on Hubert’s condition. Do you think he’s able to dive with his injuries?”
“He was hit pretty hard. He would certainly have trouble getting through the rubble and may not be of much use to us. On the other hand, he’s the most experienced explorer among us and his advice would be valuable.”
“Let’s not forget that the lake is infested with crocodiles,” Pir added, “and we don’t have the veloscaphe to protect us anymore. So, we have to be careful where and how we move and not try to do too much.”
“Maybe we should start checking out the tower,” Bob conclude. “Maybe we’ll be able to find the Professor. I’m starting to worry about him. Maybe this ‘mysterious benefactor’ who helped Pierre has taken him inside the tower. But if we want to go exploring the monument, maybe it’d be better to fetch Hubert. He can help us if we have to make any tricky decisions about dangerous situations.”
They made some quick arrangements. As much out of curiosity as out of desire to find Professor Noque they decided to go back up to the surface later to get Hubert.
The hall was lit by a dim light whose source was hidden. They headed for the second door from which a brighter light was coming. It opened onto a huge room. The floor was littered with rubble. The ceiling was cracked and looked unstable. On the right was a monumental staircase going up to the upper floors. On the left was a similar staircase that descended into the underground. In the opposite wall were numerous openings into darkened rooms.
Huge frescoes decorated the walls around the room. The patterns told of an epoch that obviously stretched far into the past.
The first fresco represented a fertile valley flooded with sunlight and watered by a wide river. A strange machine, vaguely resembling an insect, was sitting on the riverbank. Four men dressed in long robes like the ones on the statues in the hall appeared to have got out of the machine and were standing around it. The weird vehicle had no wheels and probably flew through the air, which the explorers refused to believe at first because of the antiquity of the tower.
The next fresco showed a city being built in the same location as the first. The city spread out from a tower, itself under construction. On observing the second painting, it was no longer possible to deny the existence of technological machines in ancient times. Even in this contemporary age, they looked like something straight out of the fertile imagination of Jules Verne or Albert Robida. Huge digging machines along with flying vehicles bigger than existing airplanes. The traces that these men were seeing at the bottom of the lake were unquestionably the remains of this tower in the fresco and the city around it.
The three young men could not believe their eyes. The frescoes proved undeniably the existence of the advanced civilization that Professor Noque had talked about. They must have been painted very long ago because the weather in the valley had changed and the geography of the place seemed to have evolved as well: in the background was a mountaintop much higher than the others and that no longer existed in the 20th century. As for the lake, it had still not appeared.
The three of them discussed their discovery while hustling to the third fresco, eager to see the sequel to this extraordinary history. It was a very surprising picture. There was no more valley but a futuristic city that extended as far as the eye could see. In the foreground a group of men dressed in the same clothes as those in the other frescoes were in deep discussion. The way their faces were drawn and their gestures made, it was clear that there was an argument. To the side, one of them was walking away and pointing to other characters whose faces seemed frozen in a cold expression and who were dressed in metallic gray outfits.
Three other frescoes were painted on the wall across from them. Very excited now, the young men crossed the room in a hurry.
A battle scene, totally unexpected, was painted. Numerous metal tanks faced off on the ground among cannons that were shooting multicolored rays. In t
he sky were swarms of flying machines fighting one another and bombing the machines on the ground. It was a battle comparable to Verdun but with weapons that looked even more destructive.
The faces of the young explorers turned pale. They had not yet seen what the last two scenes had to show but they had the feeling that they already knew the end of the story.
The next painting was, unfortunately, very damaged. They could, however, make out a big aircraft but it was hard to understand its use and the whole subject of the fresco was not at all clear. On the side with the weird ship was some kind of transmitting machine of unknown purpose.
The last picture showed the population of the city, obviously celebrating a great victory. Men were being covered in glory and decorations. In the background the futuristic city had sunk beneath the ocean, destroyed by weapons of frightening power that had put an end to the ancient civilization.
The three young men, a little shocked by this last picture, looked at each other in silence.
Bob finally spoke up:
“A civil war tore apart a great nation in the far past. A big city was swallowed up by the ocean because of some powerful weapon that we can’t even imagine… it’s dreadful!”
“Yes, Bob, it sounds like the destruction of Atlantis that Pierre’s father talked about at the Blingy mansion a few days before we left for Africa. What do you think, Pierre?”
The Nyctalope and The Tower of Babel Page 29
