Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 by Various (best books to read for students .TXT) đź“•
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"W-what is it?" she gasped.
Swiftly he told her.
"But isn't there any way around it? Look, over there to the left. One edge of the crater seems to end almost underneath us."
It was true that the center of the caldron was far to the right of where they stood, and that its left rim was only a little within their direct line of descent. But to land even one foot inside that inferno would be as fatal as to alight in its very midst.
endrick was thinking fast.
"There's just a chance," he said. "It all depends upon how wide the zone of these escalator rays is, and whether we can tune in on them. At least, I can probably answer the latter question."
Pushing the protrudent round button on his mysterious bracelet as he spoke, he leaned over the edge of the trap-door and awaited results.
They were not long in coming. The vibration he was already under from the invisibility rays seemed to double. Alternate waves of giddiness and depression, of push and pull, swept over him.
A minute of it was enough. He pressed the round button that now protruded, ending this influence, and faced Marjorie, stating:
"I'm positive now that these things control descent and ascent. As nearly as I can figure, the rays work on the principle of an endless belt. If you're up here, you get carried down, and vice versa. As to how wide the belt is, and whether you can move sideways on it, remains to be seen. Anyway, I'm going to take a chance. I'll go first. If my guess is wrong, you—well, needn't follow."
"No, I'm going with you!" she declared resolutely. "We've come this far together. I shan't be left alone now. Let's go!"
And again her soft, warm hand was in his.
Lord, what a girl! How many would be brave enough to take a gamble like that, on a fellow's mere supposition?
"All right—go it is!" he said. "Push your round button, like this." He showed her the way he thought was right, pushed his own. "Ready?"
"Ready!"
heir voices were grave. It was a grim prospect, stepping off into space like that, with only a guess between them and death.
"Then jump!"
They jumped, gripping each other's hands tightly—and instead of dropping like plummets were caught in a powerful field of force and whirled gently downward.
"Oh, you were right!" gasped Marjorie, awed. "See, we—"
Then she paused, horror-stricken, for it was obvious that they were to descend within that lake of molten glass, unless they could change their course at once.
"Quick!" he called. "Hold fast! Now—run!"[270]
Breathless, they raced to the left, across that invisible descending belt.
Too far, Kendrick knew, and they would plunge outside its zone, fall crushed and mangled. Not far enough, and they would meet cremation. It was a fearful hazard, either way, but it had to be taken.
They were almost down, now, and still not quite far enough to the left. The heat of that yawning crater rose toward them.
"Faster—faster!" he cried, fairly dragging her along with him.
A last dash—a breathless instant—and they stood there on the ground, not three feet from the edge of doom.
Swooning with the heat, Marjorie swayed against him, murmured an incoherent prayer.
"Take heart!" he whispered, lifting her bodily and bearing her some yards away. "We're down—safe!"
heir safety was but relative, however, Kendrick well knew. Until they could put miles between them and this monstrous disc, they were not really safe. No telling how soon their escape might be discovered. No telling what terrible means Cor might take of curbing their flight.
So as soon as Marjorie had recovered sufficiently to proceed, they headed off across the desert at a fast walk toward Ajo, where he hoped to catch the afternoon train for Gila Bend. From there, they could board the limited for Tucson and points east, when it came through from Yuma that night.
They had tuned out on the escalator rays, but continued on still invisible—for the disc hung above them in plain view and it would have been suicide to let themselves be seen.
Even so, Kendrick soon began to have an uneasy feeling of being followed. He looked around from time to time, but could see nothing. Were some of those invisible little creatures on their trail?
He said nothing to Marjorie of his anxiety, but presently she too began glancing backward uneasily, every few steps.
"They are near us!" she said at length, in a whisper. "I can sense them."
It was more than sense, they soon discovered. Little paddings became quite audible, and once or twice they saw the sand scuffed up, not twenty feet away, as though by a foot passing over it.
eanwhile they were climbing a rise of ground, broken by many small hummocks and dotted with thorny shrubs. On the other side, at the foot of a long down-slope, lay Ajo.
Once they reached the summit, Kendrick felt sure they could outdistance their pursuers on the descent. Already, if his watch was right, the train was preparing to pull out. It would be a breathless dash, but he was confident they could make it.
So he reassured Marjorie as best he could, and helped her on up the slope.
They were practically on the summit and already in view of the little railroad station and huddle of shacks below—when suddenly he felt himself tripped and flung violently to the ground. At the same instant, his companion emitted a scream, as she felt herself seized by invisible hands.
Leaping to his feet, Kendrick flailed out with solid fists at their attackers. Groans answered the impacts and he knew his blows were taking effect.
ree for a moment he dashed to Marjorie, felt for the midgets who swarmed around her. Seizing one of the invisible forms, he lifted it and flung it crashing to the ground. Another, likewise, and another.
Then he threshed his legs, where two of the creatures clung, trying to drag him down again. They flew through the air, with cries of fright.
"Well, so far, so good!" he exclaimed. "We won't wait to see if there are any more. Come on—let's go!"[271]
"Right!"
Reaching for each other's hands, they raced down the slope.
Halfway there they saw a warning blast of steam rise from the engine, followed by a whistle.
"They'll be pulling out in a minute now!" he gasped, increasing speed. "We've got to make it!—our only chance!"
"We will make it!" she sobbed through clenched teeth, meeting his pace.
Glancing over his shoulder, after another fifteen seconds, Kendrick saw that the disc was no longer visible. Since there was no vibration he realized with relief that it was now hidden behind the slope they were descending.
"Quick—push your button!" he said, pushing his own.
They came out of the influence of the invisibility rays, raced breathless on down the slope—gained the station platform just as the train was getting under way.
Helping the exhausted girl aboard, he mounted the steps himself, led her through the vestibule into its single passenger coach.
Dropping into a seat, they sat there panting as the train gathered speed.
y the time the decrepit but life-saving little local drew into Gila Bend they had somewhat recovered from their harrowing experience.
Marjorie was still pale, however, as Kendrick helped her from the train.
"I may recover," she said with a wan smile, "but I'll never look the same! An old saying, but I know what it means now."
He thought better of a sudden impulse to tell her she looked quite all right to him. Instead, he said grimly:
"I know now what a lot of things mean!"
The Tucson limited would not be through for over an hour, they learned. That would give them time to hunt up the authorities and sound a warning of the ominous invader that was in the vicinity. Perhaps, by prompt military action, it might be destroyed, or at least crippled.
But first they went to the telegraph office, where Marjorie got off a message that would bring joy to her grieved family.
While standing there outside the barred window, odors of food wafting to them from a nearby lunch-room.
"Um-m!" she sniffed. "That smells good to me! I haven't tasted any earthly cooking for ages. Everything on that horrible disc was synthetic."
"Then I suggest we have ham and eggs, at once," he said. "Or would you prefer a steak?"
"I think I'll have both!"
s they walked into the lunch-room, Kendrick told her of the banquet in his honor Cor had promised for that night.
"I guess I didn't miss much," he ended.
"You certainly didn't!" she assured him, with a smile. "It would have opened with a purée of split-molecule soup, continued with an entrée of breaded electrons, and closed with an ionic café."
He laughed.
"I'm just as well satisfied. I was unable to attend! Humble as it is, I think this will prove to be much more wholesome food."
Night had fallen by the time they left the lunch-room. Glancing at his watch, Kendrick saw that they still had better than a half-hour before the limited was due, so they betook themselves to the police station.
It was only a block away and in consequence they weren't long reaching it.
The chief had gone home, the officer at the desk informed them, but if there was anything they cared to report, he would be glad to make note of it.
A big raw-boned westerner, he shifted his quid as he spoke and spat resoundingly in a cuspidor at his feet.
"All right, then—get your pencil[272] ready!" said Kendrick with a smile. "This is Miss Marjorie Blake, daughter of Henderson Blake, of New York. Perhaps you read of her disappearance, a few weeks ago. And I...."
As he introduced himself and told briefly of their astounding experience, the officer's eyes bulged with amazement.
"Say, what yuh-all tryin' to hand me?" he snorted finally. "D'yuh think I was born simple?"
"Press your button!" whispered Marjorie. "Show him how the invisibility ray works. It'll save a lot of argument."
"Right!"
e held up his wrist.
"See this? Now watch!"
Whereupon he pressed the button. But to their dismay, nothing happened.
"Wa-al. I'm still watchin'!" drawled the officer. "Who's loony now?"
Kendrick examined the mechanism in impatience, pressed that little button repeatedly: but still nothing happened.
"Try yours!" he told Marjorie finally.
She did so, with similar results—or lack of them, rather.
"Something's wrong," he said at length. "The ray isn't working."
"Wrong is right!" declared the officer with a contemptuous flood of tobacco juice. "Yuh folks better go catch yuhr train 'fore yuh ferget where it is."
Chagrined, embarrassed, they took their leave, headed back toward the railroad station.
"Of all the utterly silly things!" declared Marjorie, as they walked along. "Why do you suppose it didn't work?"
Kendrick didn't reply at once. When he did, his voice was grave.
"Because the disc has gone!" he said. "We are outside its zone of influence. That's my hunch, at least, and I think we'd better act on it."
"You mean...?"
"I mean our escape has probably caused them to hurry their plans. They're probably over New York right now. I think we'd better get there the quickest possible way."
he result was that when the train came, they remained on it only to Tucson. There they chartered a fast plane and started east at once.
At sunset the following day the plane swooped out of the sky and slid to rest on the broad grounds of the Blake estate at Great Neck.
As Kendrick stepped from the cabin and helped Marjorie down, a tall, distinguished-looking man with graying hair and close-cropped mustache came hurrying toward them.
"Daddy!" she cried, rushing into his arms. "Oh, Daddy—Daddy!"
Even without this demonstration. Kendrick would have recognized Henderson Blake from pictures he had seen recently in the papers.
Now he was introduced, and Blake was gripping his hand warmly.
"I don't quite know what this is all about, Professor," he heard the great financier say. "Marjorie's telegram last night was as cryptic as it was over-joying. But I do know that I owe you a deep debt of gratitude."
"Yes, and you owe our pilot about a thousand dollars, too!" put in the daughter of the house, clinging to her father's arm. "Please give him a check—then we'll go inside and I'll explain all about it."
"A matter very much
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