Two Thousand Miles Below by Charles Willard Diffin (black books to read .txt) đź“•
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- Author: Charles Willard Diffin
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He had tried to talk to Gor, tried to tell him of his own limitations. And Gor had only smiled pleasantly and repeated "Rotan has spoken. It will come to pass!"
Ceaselessly his thoughts revolved about the hopelessness of his situation. He was alone. Whatever was to be done he must do single-handed—and there was nothing he could do! But he would not admit to himself that the aching loneliness came to a focus in the memory of a girl's smiling eyes, the touch of her soft hand.
"They're fighting up there," he argued, "fighting for their lives, and I can't help. What right have I to think of Loah or myself?" In spite of which he sprang abruptly to his feet, left the mountain and the voice of the mountain behind him, and went in search of the girl.
"I've got to make her understand," he exclaimed. "I've got to have someone to talk to. But I can't make her out. She's so confoundedly respectful—acts as if I were a little tin god. And yet—she wasn't always that way!"
t the home of Gor he found Loah, slim and beautiful as always. She had just come from the bath. The creamy texture of her skin had flushed to rosiness in the cold fountain. Her jeweled breast-plates sparkled. A cloth that shone like silk enwrapped her hips in soft folds of pale rose and hung in an absurd little skirt. She might have been the spirit of youth itself, a vision of loveliness; yet Rawson felt an almost uncontrollable desire to take her in his two hands and shake her when she bowed humbly and treated his request as if it were a royal command.
"To walk with Dean-Rah-Sun! But certainly, if that is his wish!"
In silence they left the village and walked toward the island's end where Rawson had emerged from the under-world.
The island was not large. On either side were low hills, mere knolls, of white crystal, where, in every hollow, men and women were harvesting strange grain. Between the two ranges of hills were flat fields of green, reaching out toward the point some three miles distant.
Rawson made no attempt to talk as he led Loah along the roadway that cleft the green expanse in half. Other workers were there, and Dean acknowledged their smiling, worshipful salutations. He did not want to talk now; he wanted to find some place where he and Loah could be by themselves. There was so much he must tell her. He must try to make her understand. And after that, perhaps, with her help, he could find some way to be of aid to his own beleaguered people—something he could do even single-handed.
here the fields ended, and from there on toward the point, had been an expanse of glistening white. Rawson remembered it plainly. So now, when he found it a place of flaming crimson, he stared in amazement. Across the full width of the valley a brilliant carpet had spread itself, a covering of flowers. A blossoming vine had sprung up in the few days since his arrival and had woven a thick mat of vegetation.
He wanted to go on out to the extreme end of the point. There they would be alone. But Loah objected when he started to enter the red expanse.
"No!" she said in quick alarm. "We must not cross. It is the Place of Death. We will go around it, following the hills."
"We crossed it the other day when it was a plain of white salt," argued Rawson.
"But now the flowers have come. Even now it might be safe—but when they die then nothing can cross here and live."
Loah could not give the reason. Dean gathered from what she could tell that a gas of some sort was formed, perhaps by the decomposing vegetation. Perhaps it combined with the sparkling white shale. But all this was of no consequence compared with his own problems. He did not argue the matter but followed where Loah led.
"Where is the shell?" he asked, when they stood at last near the open mouth of the great shaft into which the air was rushing. "Where is the machine that we came here in? I wanted to see it—thought perhaps I could use it later on.
"The jana—the shell, as you call it—is safely locked in a great room of Gor's house. Not all understand its use; it must be kept away from careless hands."
hen Rawson put that thought aside. He took Loah's hand and led her some distance away toward the shore. Beyond a rocky, crystalline mass, where fragments had been heaped, the sound of the rushing air was lost; only the flashing emerald waves whispered softly on the shore beyond. And there in that quiet place, under the brilliance of the central sun, Rawson told her of himself and of the great outer world. He told her of his work, of everything that had happened, of how he was only one of many millions of men and women like, and yet unlike, the People of the Light. And at last he knew that she understood.
He had spoken softly, though he knew there were no other listening ears. Loah had been seated before him on one of the white blocks. She rose to her feet. Her eyes were troubled. Vaguely he sensed behind them a conflict of emotions.
"I must think," she said. "I will walk by myself for a time; then I will return."
Rawson reached for her hand. "You're a good sport," he said huskily. Then he felt the trembling of that hand in his; and, as if it had been an electric current, his own body responded.
Shaken in every nerve, his poise deserted him. He could not think clearly. He knew only that that horrible loneliness was somehow gone. By force of will alone he kept his arms from reaching out toward that radiant figure. Instead, he raised her hand toward his lips.
She withdrew it sharply. "No," she said, "our Wise Ones were mistaken. For years they have listened to the mountain; they have written down its words. Slowly they have learned their meaning. A kiss, they said, was a symbol of love in your world. They were mistaken—as was I. Now I will walk alone for a time."
awson let her go. She seemed hardly looking where she went; her eyes were downcast. She moved slowly around the sheltering rock and on toward the level ground and the rushing winds of the shaft.
His own thoughts were in a whirl, too confused with emotion for clear thinking. "A symbol of love!" And back there in that cave world she had pressed her lips to his hand. Then they had come here, and he had been transformed to a god, a being who could never have more than an impersonal affection for one as humble as she.
The rising flood of happiness within him was abruptly frozen, changed to something which filled his veins with ice. For, from beyond the crystal barrier that hid Loah from his view, her voice had come in one single cry of terror. Then, "Dean!" she called. "Dean San!" But by then, Rawson was throwing himself madly around the barricade of rocks.
Like a sensitized plate when the camera's shutter is opened a merest fraction of a second, Rawson's brain took the imprint of every detail that was there. The black mouth of the shaft, and, on the rock beside it, something metallic, brilliantly gleaming—a flame-thrower! Beyond the pit was Loah, half crouching, her slim body tense as if checked in mid-flight. She had been running toward him, coming to warn him. And between her and the shaft, his back turned squarely toward Rawson, was the hideous figure of a mole-man, one of the Reds! His grotesque, pointed head was bent forward toward the girl; his arms were reaching, the long fingers like talons.
awson did not know when he called the girl's name. But he knew the instant that he had done it and he knew it was a mistake. He should have crept quietly, seized the weapon—and now his feet tore madly on the white rock floor as he raced toward the shining implement of death. From beyond, the red figure, whirling at his call, leaped wildly for the same prize.
The taloned hands were on the flame-thrower first. Rawson saw the red body straighten, saw the weapon swing, glistening in air, swinging over and down. From its tip green fire made a straight line of light.
He leaped in under the descending flame, felt the nozzle of the projector as it crashed upon his right shoulder and the green fire spat harmlessly beyond his back. That last spring had thrown him bodily against the red monster. They were both knocked off balance for a moment, then Rawson caught himself and swung with his left. He set himself in that fraction of a second, felt the first movement of that shining, crook-necked tube that meant the green flame was being drawn back where it could reach him; then his fist crashed into a yielding jaw.
Not five feet from the brink of that nearly bottomless shaft he stood wavering in the rush of air. He knew that the ugly red figure had toppled sideways, that the weapon had fallen with him, the blast swinging upward in a vertical, hissing arc—then man and weapon had dropped silently into the pit.
He was alone, save for the girl, who, her eyes wide with horror, threw herself upon him and clung trembling, while she murmured incomprehensible endearments in her own tongue wherein his own name was mingled: "Dean, dear! My own Dean-San!"
But the mole-men! Dean Rawson's mind was aghast with the horror of it: the mole-men had now found the way.
CHAPTER XXI Suicide?ordon Smith, sometimes known as Smithy, was to remember little of the happenings that followed the crash of the big Army dreadnought. It was Colonel Culver who dragged him from the pilot-room wreckage, Colonel Culver and one of the pilots whom he had restored to consciousness. They lowered Smithy carefully to the ground, then explored the rest of the ship.
Their hands were red when they returned—and empty. Captain Farrell and the rest of the crew had ceased to be units of the United States Army Air Force; henceforth they would be only names on a casualty list grown ominously long.
"Stood plumb on her tail," said the pilot, staring at the wreck. "They hit us just once, and the left wing crumpled like cardboard. Last I remember was pulling her up off the trees." He stared at the mass of twisted metal and the center section where the wing had torn loose; it stood upright, almost vertical, resting on the crushed tail.
"Funny," said the pilot in the same flat, level tone that seemed the only voice he had since that last pull on a whipping wheel. "Damn funny—mostly we get it first up there."
"Come here!" snapped Colonel Culver. "Lend a hand here with Smith; we've got to carry him. And don't talk so loud—those red devils will be out here any minute."
mithy was taking a more active interest in his surroundings when he sat a week later in the Governor's office.
"There's a detachment moving in there from the south," said the Governor. "We're going to follow your advice, to some extent at least. We're sending troops to Tonah Basin. If the top of that dead crater is closed they will blast it open; then a scouting party's going down. Call it a reconnaissance, call it suicide—one name's just as good as the other. Colonel Culver, here, is going. But you know the lay of the land there; you could be of great help. How about it?"
"Are you asking me?" Smithy inquired.
He stood up, flexed his arms, while he grinned at Colonel Culver. "Hinges all greased and working! As a flier, Colonel, you're a darn good first-aid man. I'll say that! When do we start?"
Which explains why Smithy, some time later, hidden under the grotesque disguise of a gas mask, was one of fifty, similarly attired, who stood waiting about the black open maw in the great cinder-floored crater of one of the peaks that surrounded Tonah Basin.
Night. And the big stars that hang so low in the black desert sky should have been brilliant. They were lost now in the white glare that streamed upward. The crater was a fortress. Around the circle of the
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