 PROLOGUE OF 2000 MILES BELOW This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Richard Kilmer 2000 MILES BELOW By Charles Willard Diffen PROLOGUE In the grey darkness the curved fangs of a saber-toothed tiger gleamed white and ghostly. The man-figure that stood half-crouched in the mouth of the cave involuntarily shivered. Guanga, he said. He goes, too. But the man did not move more than to shift the club to his right hand. Heavy that club and nodded it and with a head of stone tied and wrapped with leather thongs. But Gore of the tribe of Zoran swung it easily with one of his long arms. He paid only casual attention as the great cat passed on into the night. One leathery hand was raised to shield his slitted eyes. The wind from the north struck towards the mouth of the cave and it brought with it cold driving rain and whirling flurries of frozen pellets that bit and stung. Snow. Gore had travelled far but never had seen a storm like this with white cold in the air. Again a shiver that was part fear ripped through his muscles and gripped with invisible fingers at his nod at arms. The beast of the north is angry, he told himself. Through the dark and storm animals drifted past before the blasts of cold. They were fleeing. They were full of fear. Fear of something that the dull mind of Gore could not picture but in that mind was the same wordless panic. Gore the man-animal of that preglacial day stared wonderingly, stupidly, into the storm with eyes like those of the wild pig. His arms were long almost to his knees. His hair coarse and matted hung in greasy locks about his savage face. Behind his low retreating forehead was place for little of thought or reason yet Gore was a man and he met the threat of disaster by something better than blind, terrified animal flight. A scant hundred in the tribe, men and women and little pot-bellied brown children Gore gathered them together in the cave far back from the mouth. For many moons he told them by words and signs the fear has been upon us. There have been signs for us to see and for all the four feet. For Hathor, the great and for little Wattie in his hole in the sand hill. Hathor has swung his long snout above his curved tusks and has cried his fear and the eaters of the dead have circled above him and cried their cry. And now the sun god does not warm us. He has gone to hide behind the clouds. He is afraid, afraid of the cold monster that blows white stinging things in his breath. The sun god is gone now, when he should be making hot summer. The four feet are going. Even Guanga, the long tooth, puts his tail between his legs and runs from the cold. The naked bodies shivered in the chill that struck in from the storm-wrapped world. They drew closer their coverings of fur and hides. The light of their flickering fires played strange tricks with their savage faces to make them still uglier and show the dull terror that gripped them. Run, we must run, run away. The breath of the beast is on us. He follows close, run. Through the mutterings and growls, a sick child whimpered once. Then was still. Gore was speaking again. Run, run away, he mocked them. And where shall the tribe of Zoram go, with Guanga, to make food for his cat-belly or to be hammered to death with the stones of the great tribes of the south? There was none to reply. Only a despairing moan from ugly lips. Gore waited, then answered his own question. No, he shouted, and beat upon his hairy chest that was round as the trunk of a tree. Gore will save you, Gore the wanderer. You named me well. My feet have traveled far. Beyond the red-topped mountains of the north I have gone. I have seen the tribes of the south, and I brought you ahead for proof. I have followed the sun, and I have gone where it rises. In the half-light, coarse strands of hair waved as hideous heads were knotted in confirmation of the boast, though many still drooped despairingly. If Gore leads us, where will we go, a voice demanded? Another growled. Gore's feet have gone far. Where have they gone where the beast cannot follow our scent? Down, said Gore, with unconscious dramatic effect. And he pointed at the rocky floor of the cave. I have gone where even the beast of the north cannot go. The caves, back of this you have seen, but only Gore has seen the whole. The whole where a strong man can climb down, a hole too small for the great beast to get through. Gore has gone down to find more caves below, and more caves below them. Far down is the place where it is always warm. There is water in lakes and streams. Gore has caught fish in that water, and they were good. They are growing things like the round earth plants that come in the night, and they too were good. Will you follow Gore, he demanded? And when the beast is gone and the sun comes back, we will return. The blast that found its way inside the cave furnished its own answer. The echoing, we follow, we follow. Spoken through chattering teeth was not needed. The women of the tribe shivered more from the cold than from fear as they gathered together their belongings. Their furs and hides and crude stone implements, and the shambling man's shape called Gore, led them to the hole down which a strong man might climb, led them down and still down. But as to the rest, Gore's promise of safe return to the light of day in the outer world where the sun god shone, how is Gore to know that a mighty glacier would lock the whole land and ice for endless years and retreating leave their upper caves filled and buried under a valley heaped with granite rocks? Even had the wave been open to the land above, Gore himself could never have known when the ice sheet left. For when that day came and once more the sun god drew steamy spirals from the drenched and thawing ground, Gore, deep down in the earth, had been dead for countless years. Only the remote descendants of their earlier tribe now lived in their subterranean home. Though even with them there were some who spoke at times of those legends of another world which their ancestors had left. And through the long centuries while evolution worked its slow changes, they knew nothing of the vanishing ice of the sun and the gushing waters, the grass and forests that came to cover the earth, nor did their descendants, exploring interminable caves, learning to tame the internal fires, always evolving, always growing. They were a remote conception of a people who sailed strange seas to find new lands and live and multiply and build up a country of sky-reaching cities and peaceful farmlands of sunlit valleys and hills. But always there were adventurous souls who made their way deeper and deeper into the earth and among them in every generation was one named Gore who was taught the tribal legends and who led the adventurers on. The legends have a trick of changing and instead of searching upward it was through the deeper strata that they made their slow way in their search for a mystical god and the land of their father's fathers. End of the Prologue Chapter 1 of 2000 miles below by Charles Willard Diffen This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. A man named Smith. Heat of a white hot sun, only two hours old. Heat of blazing sands where shimmering, gassy waves made the sparse sagebrush seem about to burst into flames. Heat of a wind that might have come out of the firebox of a mogul on an upgrade pole. A highway twisted among the black masses of outcropping lava rock or tightened into a straightaway for miles across the desert that swept up to the mountain's base. The asphalt surface of the pavement was almost liquid. It clung stickily to the tires of a big car letting go of the continuous ripping sound. Behind the wheel of the weather-beaten sun-burned car, Dean Rosson squinted his eyes against the glare. His lean tan face was almost as brown as his hair. The sun had done its work there. It had set crinkly lines about the man's eyes of darker brown, but the deeper lines at that young face had been etched by responsibility. They made the man seem older than his twenty-three years until the steady eyes, flashing into quick amusement, gave them the lie. And now Rosson's lips twisted into a little grin at his own discomfort, but he knew the desert driver's trick. A hundred plus in the shade, he reasoned silently. That's hot anyway, you take it. But taking it in the face at forty-five an hour is too much like looking into a Bessemer converter. He closed the windows of his old coop two within an inch of the top, then opened the windshield a scant half inch. The blast that had been drawing the moisture from his body became a gently circulating current of hot air. He had gone only another ten miles after these preparations for fast driving when he eased the big weather-beaten car to a stop. On his right, reaching up to the cool heights under a cloudless blue sky, the great peaks of the Sierras gave promise of relief from the furnished breath of the desert floor. There were even valleys of snow glistening whitely where the mountains held them high. A watcher had there been one to observe in the empty land might have understood another traveller's pausing to admire the serene majesty of those heights. But he would have wondered could he have seen Rawlson's eyes turned in longing away from the mountains while he stared across the forbidding sands. There were other mountains, lavender and gray in the distance, and nearby a matter of twenty or thirty elusive miles through the dancing waves of hot air were other barren slopes. Across the rolling sand hills, wheel-marks, faint and wind-blown, led straight from the highway toward the parched peaks. Tona Basin, Rawlson was thinking. It's there inside these hills. It's hotter than this is by twenty degrees right this minute. But I wish I could see it. I'd like to have one more look before I face that hard-boiled bunch in the city. He looked at his watch and shook his head. Not a chance, he admitted. I'm due up in Erickson's office in five hours. I wonder if I've got a chance with them. Five hours of driving, and Rawlson walked into the office of Erickson incorporated with a steady step. Another hour, and his tan face had gone a trifle pale. His lips were set grimly in a straight line that would not relax under the verdict he felt certain he was about to hear. For an hour he had faced a steel-eyed man across the long table in the director's room, faced him and replied to questions from this man and the half-dozen others seated there, skeptical questions, tricky questions, and now the man was speaking. Rawlson, six months ago you laid your Tona Basin plans before us, plans to get power from the center of the earth, to utilize that energy to control the power situation in this whole south-west. It looked like a wild gamble then, but we investigated. It still looks like a gamble. Yes, said Rawlson, it is a gamble. Did I ever call it anything else? The airman oscillator, the man continued impertubably. Invented in 1940, two years ago, solves the wireless transmission problem. But the success of your plan depends on your own invention. Upon your straight-line drills that you say will not wonder off at a tangent when they get down a few miles. And more than that, it depends upon you. Even that does not dam the scheme. But, Rawlson, there's only one factor we gamble on. No wild plans, no matter how many hundreds of millions they promise. No machines, no matter what they are designed to do. Get a dollar of our backing. Once men, we back with our money. Rawlson's face was set to show no emotion. But within his mind were insistent clamoring thoughts. Why can't he say it and get it over with? I've lost. What a hard-boiled bunch they are. But he doesn't need to drag out the agony. But what was the man saying? Men, Rawlson, the emotionalist voice continued. And we've checked up on you from the time you took your first nourishment out of a bottle. It's you we're backing. That's why we have organized the little company of thermal explorations limited. That's why we've put a million of hard coin into it. That's why we've put you in charge of the operations. He was extending a hand that Dane Rawlson had to reach for blindly. I'll drill through to hell, Dane said, and fought to keep his voice steady and backing like that. He allowed his emotions to express itself in a shaky laugh. Perhaps I will at that, he added. I'll certainly be heading in the right direction. Under another day's sun the hot-ass fault was again taking the print of the tires of Rawlson's old car. But this time, when he came to the almost obliterated marks that led through the sand toward the distant mountains, the grip on the sand and swung off. A fool kid-trick, he admitted to himself. But I want to see the place. I'll see plenty of it before I'm through, but right now I've got to have a look. Then I'll buckle down to work. Thermal explorations limited. The name rang triumphantly in his mind. A million things to do. Men, crews for the drills. Derricks. We'll have to truck in over this road. I'll lay a plank road over the sand and water. We'll have to haul that to until we can sink a well. We'll find water under there somewhere. I've got to see the place. The black sides of the mountains were nearer. Every outcropping rock was plainly volcanic and the great sweeping slopes were beds of ash and pumice. The wheel marks, where they showed it all, wound off and into a canyon hidden in the tremendous hills that thrust themselves abruptly to the desert floor. The mountains themselves towered hugely at closer range, but the road that Rawson followed climbed through them without transversing the highest slopes. It was scarcely more than a trail, barely wide enough for the car at times, but boulder-filled gullies showed where the hands of men had worked to build it. He came at last into the open, where a shoulder of rock bent the road outward above a sea of sand far below. And now the mountains showed their circular arrangement, a great ring twenty miles across. At one side were three conical peaks, unmistakable craters whose scarred sides were smothered under ash and sand that had rained down from their shattered tops in ages past. Yet, so hot they were, so clear-cut the irregularly rimmed cups at their tops that they seemed to have pushed themselves up through the earth in that very instant. At their bases were signs of human habitation, broken walls, scattered stone buildings whose empty windows gaped blackly. That was all that remained of new rhyolite. Rawson looked at the ghost town, which had never failed to interest him, but he gave no thought now to the hardy prospectors who had built it or to the vein of gold that had failed them. His searching eyes came back to the fiery pit, the tona basin, a vast cauldron of sand and ash, great sweeps of yellow and gray and darker brown into which the sun was pouring its rays with burning glass fierceness. But to Rawson there was more than the eye could see. He was picturing a great powerhouse, steel derricks, capped pipes that led off to whirling turbines, generators, strings of cables stretching out on steel supports into the distance, a wireless transmitter, and all of this result of his own vision of the stream he would bring from deep in the earth. Then abruptly the picture faded. Far below him, on the yellow sun-blasted floor, a fleck of shadow had moved. It appeared suddenly from the sand, moved erratically, staggeringly, for a hundred feet, then vanished as if something had blotted it out. And Dean Rawson knew that it was the shadow of a man. The road widened beyond the turn. He had intended to swing around. He had wanted only to take a clear picture of the place with him. But now the big car's gears wailed as he took the downgrade in second and the brakes jammed on at the sharp curves, added their voice to the chorus of haste. Com found that Desert Rats, Rawson was saying under his breath, they'll chance anything, but imagine crossing country like that, and he hasn't to burrow. He's got only the water he can carry in a canteen. But even the canteen was empty, he found, when he stopped the car in a whirl of loose sand beside a prone figure whose khaki clothes were almost indistinguishable against the desert soil. Before Rawson could get his own lanky six feet of wiry length from the car, the man had struggled to his feet. Again the little blot of shadow began its wavering, uncertain forward movement. He was a little shorter than Rawson, a little heavier of build and younger by a year or two, although his flush face and two days stubble of black beard might have been misleading. Rawson caught the staggering man and half carried him to the shadow of the car, the only shelter in that whole vast cauldron of the sun. From a mouth where a swollen tongue protruded thickly came an agonized sound that was a cry for water, water. Rawson gave it to him as rapidly as he dared until he allowed the man to drink from the desert bag at the last, and his keen eyes were taking in all the significant details as he worked. The khaki clothes earned a knot of silent approval. The compact roll that had been slung from the younger man's shoulders, even the broad shoulders themselves, and the squared jaw unshaved and grimy, got Rawson's inaudible OK. But the face was more burned than tanned. He introduced himself when the stranger was able to stand. I'm Rawson, Dean Rawson, a mining engineer when I'm working at it, he explained. I'm bound north. I'll take you out of this. You can travel with me as far as you please. The dark-haired youngster was plainly youthful now as he stood erect. His voice was recovering what must have been its usual hearty ring. I'm not trying to say thank you, he said, as he took Rawson's hand. I was sure sunk, going down for the last time, taps, all that sort of thing. You pulled me out. The good old helping hand. Can't thank a fellow for that. Just return the favor or pass it on to someone else. And by the way, you won't believe it, but my name is Smith. Rawson smiled good naturally. No, he agreed. I don't believe it. But it's a good handy name. All right, Smitty, jump in. Here, let me give you a lift. You're still woozy. Rawson found his passenger uncommunicative. Not but what Smitty talked freely of everything but himself, but it was of himself that Rawson wanted to know. Drop me at the first town, said Smitty. You're going north? I'm southbound, looking for a job down in Los. I won't take any more shortcuts. I was two days on this last one. I'll stick to the road. They were through the mountains that ringed in the fiery pit of Tauna Basin. Smooth sand lay ahead. Only the shallow marks that his own tires had plowed needed to be followed. Dean Rawson turned and looked with fair appraisal at the man he had saved. Drifter, he asked himself silently. Road bum? He doesn't look the part. There's something about him. Allowed, he inquired. What's your line? What do you know? And the young man answered frankly, not a thing. Dean sensed failure and efficiency. He resented it in this youngster who had fought so gamely with death. His voice was harsh with a curious sense of his own disappointment, as he asked. Found the going too hard for you up north, did you? Well, it won't be any easier. But Smitty had interrupted with a weak movement of his hand. Not too hard, he said leconically. Too damn soft. I don't know what I'm looking for. I've got a lot to learn. But it'll be a job that needs to take a good lecon. Too damn soft, Dean was thinking. And he tackled the desert alone. There was a lot here he did not understand. But the look in the eyes of Smitty that met his own searching gaze and returned it squarely, if a bit whimsically. That was something he could understand. Dean Rawson was a judge of men. The sudden impulse that moved him was founded upon certainty. You found that job, he said. The desert almost got you a little while ago. Now it's due to take that licking you were talking about. I'm going to teach it to lie down and roll over and jump through hoops. Fact is, my job is to get it into harness and put it to work. I'll be working right out there in the basin where I found you. It will be only about two degrees cooler than hell. That sounds good to you, Smitty. Stick around. He warmed oddly to the look in the young man's deep-set dark eyes as Smitty replied. Try to put me out, Rawson. Just try to put me out. End of chapter one. Chapter two of Two Thousand Miles Below by Charles Willard Diffen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Gold. Ten miles down, drillers, hellbound and proud of it. Ten miles down, drillers, hark to what I say. You're poking through the crust of hell and bragging too damn loud of it. For when you get the hell, you'll find the devil there to pay. From the black night-wrapped valley far below, the singer's voice went silent with the slamming of a door in one of the bunk houses. The song was popular. Some rhymester in the Tona Basin camp had written the parody of the planting of the drill crews. And high on the mountainside, Dean Rawson hummed the few bars of the lilting air after the singer's voice had ceased. Ten miles down, he said at last to his assistant, sprawled out on the stone beside him. That's about right, Smitty. And maybe the rest of the dog-roll isn't so far off, either. Poking through the crust of hell, well, there was hell popping around here once, and I'm gambling that the furnaces aren't all out. They were on the outthrust shoulder of rock where the mountain road hung high above the valley floor. Below, where months before, Rawson had rescued a man from desert death, was blackness, punctured by points of light, bunkhouse windows, the drilling floor lights at the foot of a big derrick, the single warning light at the derrick's top. But the buildings and the towering steelwork of the derrick that handled the rotary drills were dim and ghostly in the light of the stars. We've gone through some places I'd call plenty warm, said Smitty, but you, you craves it hot. Think we're about due, he asked. Rawson answered indirectly. One great big old he crater, he said. His outstretched arm swept the whole circle of starlit mountains that enclosed the basin. That's what this was once, twenty miles across, and when it blew its head off, it must have sprayed this hole south-west. Now those craters, he pointed contemptuously toward the three conical peaks off to the right. Those were just blowholes on the side of this big one. In the ragged ring of mountains, the throat of some volcanic monster of an earlier age, the three cones towered hugely. Their tops were plainly cupped, their ashy sloping sides swept down to the desert floor. At their base the gray walls of stone in the ghost town of little rhyolite gleamed pale like skeleton remains. I've seen steam, live steam, Rawson went on, coming out of the fissure in the rocks. I know their seat and plenty of it down below. We're about due to hit it. The boys are pulling the drill now. They cut through into a well of a cave down below there. He broke off abruptly to fix his attention on the dark valley below, where lights were moving. One white slash of brilliance cut across the dark ground, another, then a cluster of floodlights blazed out. They picked the skeleton framework of the giant derrick in black relief against the white glare of the sand. From far below, through the quiet air, came sounds of excited shouting. The voices of men were raised in sudden clamour. They've pulled the drill, said Rawson, but why all the excitement? He had already turned toward their car when the crackle of six quick shots came from below. His abrupt command was not needed. Smitty was in the car while still the echoes were rolling off among the hills. Their lights flashed on to show the mountain grade waiting for their quick descent. The sandy floor of this part of the ton of basin was littered with the orderly disorder of a big construction job. Mountains of casing, tubular drill rod, a foot in diameter, segmental bearings to clamp around the rod every hundred feet and give it smooth play. Dean drove his car swiftly along the surfaced road that was known as Main Street to the entire camp. There were men running towards a derrick. Men of the day shift who had been aroused from their sleep. Others were clustered about the wide concrete floor where the derrick stood. Clant only in trousers and shoes, their bodies tanned by the desert sun were almost black in the glare of the big floods. They milled wildly about the derrick and, through all their clamour and shouting, one word was repeated again and again. Gold! Gold! Gold! The big drillhead was suspended above the floor. Dean Rosson, with smitty, close at hand, pushed through the crowd. He was prepared to see traces of gold in the sludge that was bailed out through the hollow shaft, quartz perhaps, whose richness had set the men wild before. They realized how impossible it would be to develop such a mine. But Rosson stopped almost aghast at the glaring splendor of the golden drill hanging naked in the blinding light. Riley, formant of the night shift, was standing beside it, a pistol in his hand. Leave it be, he was commanding. Not a hand do you lay on it till the boss gets here. At sight of Rosson, he stepped forward. I shot in the air, he explained. I knew you were up in the hills for a breath of coolness. I wanted to get you here quick. Wright said Rosson tersely, but man, what have you done with the drill? It smeared over with gold. Fair clocked with it, sir, Riley's voice betrayed his own excitement. You remember, we couldn't pull it at first. The drill was jammed like after it broke through, at the ten-mile level. Then it come free. And look at it, look at the damn thing, sent down for honest work it was, and it comes back all dressed up in jewelry, like a squaw indian where there's oil struck on the reservation. Or is it gold you were after all the time, he demanded. Gold, gold, a hundred voices were shouting. Dean hardly heard the voice of the foreman, made suddenly garrulous with excitement. He stared at the big drill-head, heaped high with the precious metal. It was jammed into the diamond-studded face of the drill. It filled every crack and crevice, a smooth solid mass on top of the head and against the stem. A workman had brought a single jack and chisel. He was prying at the ribbon of the yellow stuff. Riley went for him, gun in hand. Leave it be, he shouted. But con found it all, Dean, Smitty's voice was saying in a tone of disgust, I thought we were working on a power plant. Not that a gold mine is so bad, but we can't work it. We can't go down after it at ten miles. Gold mine, Rosson echoed. I'll say it's a gold mine, but not because of the gold. Do you notice anything peculiar about that Smitty? His assistant replied with a quick exclamation. You're right, Dean. I knew there was something haywire with that solid chunk been cast around that stem, melted on. And that means... Heat said, Rosson. It means we found what we're after. Give the gold to the men. Tell them we'll divide it evenly among them. There's more down there, but there's something better. There's energy. Power. He snapped out quick orders. Get the temperature. Drop a recording pyrometer. Let me know at once. There'll be plenty doing now. Drill rods and cables all were made of the newest aluminum alloy. The long tube that held the pyrometer was formed of the same metal. Smitty sent it down to get a recording of the temperatures of that subterranean cave into which their tools had plunged. He adjusted the recording mechanism himself and stood beside the 20-inch casing that held back the loose sand from the big bore. Then he watched ten sections of cable each a mile in length, each heavier than the last, as they went hissing into the earth. From the cable control shed the voice of Riley was calling the depth. Fifty-two thousand. Then by hundreds until he cried, fifty-two seven were into the big cave. Now another hundred feet. The cable was moving slowly. In the middle of Riley's call of fifty-two eight a jangling bell told that the bottom of the pyrometer carrier had touched. Up with it, Smitty ordered. Make it snappy. We'll see if we got another cargo of gold. There was an undeniable thrill in this reaching to a tremendous distance underground, this groping about in a deep hidden cave where molten gold was to be found. What had they tapped? he asked himself. He saw visions of some vast pool of hot liquid gold. Perhaps Dean would have to change his plans. They could rig up some kind of baler. They could bring out thousands of dollars at a time. He was watching for the first sight of the metal carrier, far more interested in what might be clinging to it than in the record of the pyrometer it held. He saw it emerge. Then he stared in disbelief at the stubby mass at the cable's end. Where all that remained of the long tube he had sent down was a dangling two feet of discolored metal, warped and distorted. The lower part of full twenty feet in length had been fused cleanly off. Dean Rosson was there to watch the next attempt. Again Riley's roaring bass rolled out the count. But this time the call stopped at fifty-two seven. The dangling bell told that the carrier had touched. Divel a bit do I understand this Riley was calling. We're right at the point where we drop through into the clear, right at the roof of the big cave, fifty-two seven it says, and no lower do we go. The bottom of the hole is plugged. Rosson made no reply. He was scowling while he stared speculatively at the mouth of the twenty inch bore. A vertical tunnel that led from the drilling floor down, down to some inner vault. Molten gold he was thinking. It melted a cylinder of the new Krieger alloy, melted it when its melting point is way higher than that of any rock that we've hit. And now the bore is closed. He was trying vainly to project his mental vision through those miles of hard rock to see what manner of mystery this was for which he had probed. He shook his head slowly in baffled speculation, then spoke sharply. Drill it out, he ordered. We're into a hot spot sure enough, though I just can't figure out the howl of it. But we'll tame it, smitty. Send down the drill, clean it out. Then we'll poke a round down there and get the answer to all this. Five days were needed to send down the big drill with a new drillhead replacing the two fouled with gold for any use. The tubular sections a hundred feet in length were hooked together and lowered one by one. Each joint meant the coupling of the air pipe as well. Air mixed with water from the outer jacket must come foaming up through the central core to bring the powdered rock to the surface. Five days, then one hour of boring and another five days to pull out the drill before Rosson could hope for his answer. But he found it in the severed shaft of the great drill where the head had been melted completely off. The big stem that would have resisted all but electric furnace heat and had been cut through like a tallow candle in the blast of an oxy-acetylene flame. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of 2000 miles below by Charles Willard Diffen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Red drops. The flat roofed shack of yellow boards that was Dean Rosson's office had a second canopy roof built above it and extending out on all sides like a wooden umbrella. Thick pitch fried almost audibly from the fur boards when the sun drove straight from overhead. But beneath their shelter the heat was more bearable. By an open window where hot breeze stirred sluggishly Rosson sat in silent contemplation of the camp. His face was as copper-colored as an apaches and as motionless. His eyes were fixed unwaveringly upon a distant derrick and the blasted stub of a big drill that hung unmoving above the concrete floor. But the man's eyes did not consciously record the details of that scene. He saw nothing of the derrick or of the heat waves that made the steel seem writhingly alive. He was looking at something far more distant something many miles away something vague and mysterious hidden miles beneath the surface of the earth. Heat, he said at last as if talking in a dream heat, terrific temperatures but I can't make it out I can't see it. The younger broad-shouldered man whose khaki shirt thrown open at the neck showed a chest tanned to the black brown of his face stopped his restless pacing back and forth in the hot room. Yes, he asked with a touch of irritation in his tone there's plenty of heat there heat enough to melt off that shaft of that high temp alloy what the devil's the use of wondering about the heat, Dean what gets me is this the shaft has been plugged again of Dean Rawson's face had not moved the muscle during the others outburst his eyes were still fixed on that place that was so far away yet which he tried to bring close in his mind close enough to see to comprehend the mystery that should be so plain lava wouldn't do it, he said softly no melted stone would melt the Krieger alloy unless it was under pressure which this was not there was no blast coming out of our shaft yet we dipped into that gold we struck the drill right down into it but what did we go into the next time what did we dip into he swung quickly violently towards Smitty who was facing him from the middle of the room he aimed one finger at him as if it were a pistol and his words cracked out as sharply as if they came from a gun that tube you sent down with a piece of casing how was it burned were there straggling ends frozen gobs of metal did it look like an old fashioned molasses candy bar that had been melted did it why no said Smitty it hadn't dripped any it was cut off nice and clean cut Rawson almost shouted the word you said it Smitty so was the shaft of the drill and if you ever saw a piece of this alloy you know that it's as gummy as a pot of old paint it was cut Smitty dipping into that melted gold threw us off the track we were thinking of ramming the drill down into a mess of lava but we didn't it was cut off by a blast of flame so much hotter than lava that melted rock would seem cold and that helps us a lot doesn't it asked Smitty scornfully when the flame melts the end of the shaft shut as fast as we open it Dean Rawson's lean muscular hands took Smitty's broad shoulders and spung the younger man around cheer up Dean told him we've got it licked why it doesn't blow out of that shaft like hell out for noon is more than I can see but the heat's there we've won but Smitty began Rawson sent him spinning toward the door in a good natured showing of strength that his assistant had not yet guessed soup he ordered break out the nitroglycerin Smitty get that sweet Hanson on the job he's a shooter he knows his stuff we'll blow open the bottom end of our shaft so it'll never go shut Hanson knew his stuff and did it but he met Rawson's inquiring eyes with a puzzled shake of his head when the open mouth of the 20 inch bore gave fate echo of the deep explosion and followed after a time with only a feeble puff of air like a cannon she should have gone Hanson stated and she just goes poof it's open down below said Rawson briefly this is a different kind of well from the kind you've been shooting to the waiting Riley he said hook a baler onto that cable and send it down see what you can tell about the hole again ten miles of cable hissed smoothly down the gapping throat then it slowed fifty two seven said Riley and she's open seven twenty five seven fifty we're on the bottom up Rawson ordered if there's anything left of the baler it's probably melted into scrap but strangely it was not it hung from the dangling cable spinning lazily until Riley stepped in to check its motion there was a check valve in the bottom a door that opened inwardly to take in water and fragments of rock when needed Riley disregarding the possible heat of the twirling baler reached for it with his bare hands he drew them back he held them before him and a hundred watching eyes saw what had been unseen before the slow dropping of red liquid from the baler's end the same drops were falling from Riley's hands that had touched that end blood the word came from the form and throat of a dried gasp it ran in a whispering echo from one to another of the watching crew far across the hot sands came the rattle of a truck that brought the first of many loads of cement and steel for Rawson's buildings its driver was singing lustily hark to what I say you're poking through the crust of hell and bragging too damn loud of it for when you get the hell you'll find the devil there to pay but Rawson looking daisily into Smitty's eyes said only it's cold, the baler's cold there's no heat there End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of 2000 miles below by Charles Willard Diffen this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the light in the crater of course it wasn't blood said Smitty explosively but try to tell the men that see how far you get devils that's been their talk since yesterday when Riley got smeared up and now that the baler's gone we can't prove a thing again he was pacing restlessly back and forth in the little board shack that was Rawson's field headquarters Rawson, seated by the window was looking at tables of comparative melting points he glanced up sharply you haven't found it yet he questioned 40 foot baler now that's a nice easy little thing to mislay Riley had followed the excited Smitty into the room he stood silently by the door until he caught Rawson's questioning glance 40 feet or 40 inches he said he's gone it was there by the Derrick last night and this morning that's fine Rawson interrupted with heavy sarcasm I haven't enough down below ground I need a few mysteries up top now do you really expect me to believe that a thing like that baler has been carried off this time it was Smitty who interrupted you can just practice believing on that Dean he said when you get so you can believe a 40 foot baler can vanish in the thin air then you'll be ready for what I've got this is what I came in to tell you that one truckload of steel grillage beams for the turbine footings they were put out where we surveyed for the first powerhouse dumped on the sand well, questioned Rawson as Smitty paused his look was daring Smitty to say what he knew was coming five tons of steel beams said Smitty softly gone just like that just a hollow in the sand the big figure of the Irish foreman was still beside the door Rawson saw one clumsy hand on the cross then Riley held that hand before him and stared at it in horror devil's bloody whispered and I dipped my hands in it saints protect us all that will be all of that Dean Rawson's usually quiet voice was as full of crackling emphasis as if it had been charged with electrical energy if anyone thinks that I have gone this far just to be scared out by some dirty sabotage I see it all around how they did it but it's all come since the gold was found someone else wants it they think they can scare off the men maybe take a pop shot at me come back here and clean up later on pull up gold by the pale full I suppose Riley leaped forward and banged his big fist down on the table right you are he shouted until loitering men in the open street outside stared curiously devils they are but they're the kind of devils we know how to handle and now I'll tell you something else sir I know where they are hiding there was no work for anyone last night but I'm used to being up I couldn't sleep I was wondering around thinking of nothing at all out of the way and I thought I saw some shadows like it might be men way off on the sand then later over to the old ghost town do you mind I saw a light a queer green sort of light sure a fool I was calling myself at the time but now I believe it Dean Rosson had crossed the room while the man was still speaking he dragged the wooden case from beneath his cot and smashed at the lid with a wrecking bar then he reached inside and drew forth a blue black 45 he tossed the pistol to Riley know how to use one of these he asked the manner in which the big Irishman snapped open the side and the rejection was sufficient answer Dean handed another gun to Smitty then pulled out more and laid them on his cot together with a little pile of cartridge boxes you all right Riley he said just keep your head don't let your damn superstitions run away with you and I wouldn't ask for a better man to stand alongside of in a scrape the foreman beamed with pleasure Rosson went on in crisp sentences take these guns take plenty of ammunition pick five or six men you know you can depend on mount guard around the camp tonight I'll post an order saying you're in charge and I'm telling you now to use those guns on anything you see Smitty he said to the other man who had been quietly listening you and I are going to start for town only Riley will know that we're gone for the night we'll have a little listening to the post of our own up here in the hills but Rosson postponed their going more material was arriving one casting in particular needed all the men and Rosson's supervision to place it on the sand where an erection crew could swing it into place at some later date and then when he and Smitty had driven away from camp with the distant city has to announce destination Rosson still did not return quickly to the mountain grade he swung off instead where rolling sand hills blocked all view from the camp and headed the car into a gusty wind that brought whirling clouds of dust they almost obscured the crumbling walls at the volcanoes base the ghost towns that are found here and there in the forsaken wilderness of the west are depressing to anyone who walks their empty streets little ryalight was no exception in gray ghostly walls empty windows stared steadily disconcertingly like sockets of dead eyes and tattered weather beaten skulls Dean and Smitty walked among the roofless ruins lizards the color of the cold gray walls slipped from sight on silent clinging feet once a sidewinder almost invisible against the sand looped away from the intruders with smooth deliberation no marks here said rossin at last even an indian can't read sign in this ashy sand when the wind has dusted it off he turned his head from a world of fine ash where the wind sweeping around a wall of stone was scouring at a sand dune's sloping side Dean said Smitty old Riley may have been looking for banshees when he saw these lights superstitious old cuss Riley maybe there wasn't anything here but Dean there's some confoundly funny things happening around here are you telling me rossin asked grimly but we want to remember one thing he added we've punched a hole in the ground and we've got into a place that is hot enough to melt Krieger alloy one minute and is stone cold the next that's disturbing enough but we don't want to get that mixed up with what's happening up top what's going on he stopped his eyes that had never ceased to search for some mark of special meaning had come to rest upon an object half hidden in the sand he stooped and picked it up now what the devil is this Smitty began but rossin was staring at the smooth lava block that was in his hand it was tapered it was pierced through with a straight smooth hole it had been held in a clamp that he said at last was brought in from the outside outside Smitty get that Dean rossin's face was wreathed in a sudden smile of pure pleasure no I don't know what the darn thing is he admitted and I don't care but I know that someone or some bunch of someones outsiders are trying to horn in I might even go so far as to say that I suspect the power monopoly gentlemen I think they have started in on us plan to run off our men interfere in every way and drive me out of the field with the boring a failure Smitty I begin to think I'm going to enjoy this job again the hot wind only beginning the cool with the setting of the sun swept around the building where they stood and tore at the hill of sand come on said rossin it's getting dark we'll get up to our lookout hold on called Smitty sharply rossin turned Smitty was rubbing his eyes when the world of wind-borne sand had passed he was staring at the sand dunes I'm seeing things I guess he said I thought for a minute there was a hole there and the sand was slipping I'm getting as bad as Riley the two went back through the gathering shadows to their waiting car and Smitty's involuntary shiver told rossin that he was not the only one to feel a sense of relief at the sound of the exhaust as their car took them away from the dead bones of a dead city in a barren, trackless waste the shoulder of rock where the mountain road swung out gave a comprehensive view of camp and desert and the encircling mountains above in a vault of black was the dazzling array of stars as the desert lands know them so low they were the ragged broken tops of the rocks seemed touching the warm velvet of the sky on which the stars were hung beyond their smooth slopes a spreading glow gave promise of the rising moon rossin headed the car down grade in readiness for a quick return he ran it close to the inner wall of rock out of which the road had been carved then seated himself on the outer rim without thought of the thousand foot sheer drop beneath legs with a glass he was sweeping the foreground where the scattered lights of the camp were like vagrant reflections of the stars thrown back to them from the dead sea of sand Riley's on the job he told smithy when he passed over the glass later on and I've got my pocket portable he took the little radio receiver from his pocket as he spoke Riley will signal me from my office if he sees anything the moon had cleared the mountains it's flood of light poured across their rugged heights and filled the bowl of the ton of basin as some master of great theatrical switchboard might have flooded a dark stage with magic illumination half concealing transforming whatever things it touched all the hard brilliance of sunlit sands was gone the rolling dunes were softly mellow the more distant mountains were they seemed and half imagined in a veil of haze even the buildings, the scattered piles of material, the gaunt skeleton of the Derrick their stark blackness of outline and clear-cut shadows were gone the whole land was drenched in the mystery and magic of a desert moon Rossin and the man beside him were silent even a mind perplexed by unanswerable problems must pause before the witchery of nature's if Riley were here since Smitty softly at last he wouldn't be seeing any devils fairies, pixies, the little people he'd be seeing them dancing Rossin shot his companion a side-long appraising glance he had never penetrated before to the substratum of Smitty's nature he had never in fact felt that he knew much about Smitty whose past was still the one topic that was never mentioned but his thick mop of black care and the profile of his face as Smitty stared fixedly down towards the sleeping camp it was a matter of minutes or so before he knew that the head was outlined against an aura of red light Smitty was seated at his right off beyond him the three extinct craters made a dark background where the moonlight had not yet reached to the inner slopes Smitty's head was directly in line with the largest craters literally broken top and about it was the faintest tinge of red for a moment the light flamed close it seemed to be hovering about the head of the silent seated man then Rossin moved looked past and found a true perspective for the phenomena one rugged cleft in the rim of the craters' cup made a peephole for seeing within it was plainly red the light came from inside the cold throat it's alive Rossin whispered in quick consternation almost he expected to see billowing clouds of smoke the fearful pyrotechnics of volcanic eruption he sensed more than saw that Smitty had not turned his head look he was shouting by now wake up Smitty good lord he stopped open-mouthed the red glow had met volcanic fires to have it changed abruptly the green radiance was disconcerting green pale green only through the gap like a space where a tooth was missing in the giant jaw could Dean Rossin see the change the light only from this one point could the view be had there would be nothing visible from the camp below and as quickly as it had come all thought of volcanic fires left him he knew with quick certainty that this was something that concerned him that threatened and that was linked up with the other threatening mysterious happenings of the recent nights and days still Smitty had not turned Rossin felt one click flash of annoyance at his helper's dullness or indifference then he knew that Smitty's dark haired head was reached forward that he was bending at a precarious angle to stare below him into the valley then there there sit Smitty in a hushed voice as if someone or something on the desert floor far below might hear and take alarm look Dean where's your glass what are they his cautious whispering was unnecessary below them a thin line of light pierced the darkness another then three more in quick succession before the sharp crack of pistol fire came to the men a thousand feet above Rossin had snatched up his binoculars to the left Smitty was directing off there by the big casting great Scott what's that light Rossin got it in his glass a single flash of green that cut the blackness with an almost audible hiss it was gone in an instant while a man's voice screamed once in fear and agony one scream that broke like brittle steel in the same instant that it began Dean found the big casting in the circle of his glass there were black figures moving near it they were indistinct he changed the focus they were gone before he could get their images sharp but the casting plainly he saw its great bulk that many men had worked to ease down to the sand it was outlined clearly now until its edge became a blur until the sand rolled in upon it and its black mess became a circle that shrank and shrank and vanished utterly at the last it's gone ransom shouted it sank into the sand I sought he was running for the car a clamor of voices was coming from below the sound died under the thunder of the car's exhaust as Rossin gave it the gun and sent the big machine leaping toward the waiting curves End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of 2000 Miles Below by Charles Willard Diffen this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the attack every light of the camp was on as Rossin and his assistant approached a shallow depression in the sand marked the place where the big casting had been beyond it a hundred feet was a black swarm of men that parted as the car drew near they had been gathered about a figure upon the sand Dean sensed something peculiar about the figure as the big car plowed to a stop he leaped out and ran forward he knew it was Riley there on the ground he knew it while still he was a score of feet away only when he was close however did he realize that the body ended in two stubs of legs only when he leaned above him did he know that the Irish form and spig frame had been cut in two as if by a knife the severed legs lay a short distance beyond the body they had fallen side by side in horrible awkwardness their stumps of flesh protruding from charred clothing and suddenly shockingly Rossin knew that the flesh of body and legs had been seared the knife had been hot its blade had been forged to flame he heard Smitty cursing softly unconsciously at his side the green light Smitty was saying in horrified understanding but who did it? how did they do it? where did they go? quiet ordered Rossin sharply he dropped to his knees beside the mutilated body Riley's eyes had opened in a sudden movement of consciousness the voice that came from his lips was a ghastly whisper at first but in that stricken thing that had been the body of Riley foreman of the night-drilling crew some reservoir of strength must still have remained untapped he drew upon it now his voice roared again as it had done so many times before through the Tauna Basin camp it reached to every listening ear where crowding men stood hushed and motionless and the overtone of terror that altered its customary timber was apparent to all Devils said Riley Devils straight out of hell I saw him, I saw him plain I shot as if hot lead could harm the imps of Satan oh sir, his eyes found those of Dean Rossin who was leaning above for the love of the living, Mr. Rossin do ye be quit drilling this place is damned leave it sir, go away his eyes closed but he started up once more he raised his head from the sand with one final convulsive movement and his voice was high and shrill the fire, the fire of hell he's turned it on me God help but Riley, before his failing mind could recall again that torturing jet of flame must have slipped away into a darkness as softly enveloping has the velvet shadow world behind the low hung stars Rossin's hand that felt for a moment above the heart confirmed the message of the closed eyes and the head that fell in earthly back he came slowly to his feet keep the floods on he ordered take command of the armed guard, Smitty keep the whole camp patrolled then to the men boys, Riley was wrong he believed what he said all right but Smith and I know better don't worry about Devils these are just some dirty skulking dogs who got away with murder this time but who won't do it again we know where they're hiding I'm checking up on them right now after that you'll get a chance to square accounts for poor old Riley but the casting Smitty protested when he and Rossin were alone you can't explain that disappearance so easy Dean no I can't explain that Rossin's words came slowly they've got something that we don't understand as yet but I'm going to know the answer and I'm going to find out tonight he was seated behind the wheel of his old car I'm as good a desert man as there is in this crowd, he told Smith and it's my fight, you know I'm going alone but there'll be no fighting this trip I'll just be scouting around he leaned from the car to grip Smitty's shoulders you didn't see the crater when the show was on you think that I'm crazy to believe it but up in that crater is where I'll find the answer to a lot of questions Lord knows what the answers will be I've quit trying to guess but I'm going up there to find out he was gone the rear wheels of the car throwing a spray of sand as he started heedless of Smitty's protests against the plan Rossin was in no mood to argue he must climb the mountain while it was night under the sun he would never reach the top alive he would go alone and unseen he swung wide of the desert at town, at the mountain's base the spectral walls a little rhyolite still showed their empty windows that stared like dead eyes and the man guided his car without lights along a hidden stretch of hard salt-crusted desert he felt certain that other eyes were watching he began his climb at a point five miles away the slopes that seemed smooth and hard from a distance became at closer range a place of wind-heaped sandy ash carved and scoured into fantastic forms but its very roughness offered protection and Rossin fought the dragging sand and the gray choking ash that dried his throat and cut it like emery as the air of being observed he fought against time too above little rhyolite whatever mysterious men were making the ascent would find the going easy there were windswept areas long fields of pumice a man could make a good time there Rossin had none of these to aid him he cast anxious glances toward the eastern sky as he struggled on till he saw the gray light change to rose and gold but he stood in the titanic cleft in the crater's rim as the first straight rays of the sun struck across the volcano's top had been stripped clean by the winds of countless years rocks, black, brown and even blood red were naked to the pitiless glare of the sun their colors were mingled in a weird fantasy of twisted lines that told of the infernal of heat in which they had been formed they towered high above the head of Dean Rossin as he stood panting and trembling with exhaustion the cleft before him had become enormous it was a canyon half filled with pumice and coarse ash Rossin stood for long minutes in quiet listening at the canyon's end would lie the crater and in that crater he would find but there was no slightest picture in his mind of what he might see he himself must remain unseen he went forward cautiously rocky walls a floor of sand where his feet left no mark he was watching ahead and above him his gun was ready in his hand he did not propose to be ambushed he moved with never a sound the silence persisted no living thing other than himself lent any flicker of motion to the scene not even a lizard could hope for existence amid these dead and barren heights he was alone the certainty of it had driven deeply into his mind before the canyon end was reached and desert man though he was and accustomed to travelling the waste places of the earth Rossin learned a new meaning of depth of solitude here was no voiceless companionship of trees or brush or cactus no little living things scuttled across the rocks he was alone the only speck of life in a place where life seemed forbidden so sure of this was he that he stepped boldly from the canyon's end he knew before he looked that he would see only more of the same desolation and his mind was filled equally with anger and disappointment something was opposing him something had come into their camp had killed old Riley and he Rossin had been so sure he would find traces here that would allow him to give the opposing force a name he stared out from the rocky cleft into a sudden blasted pit already the rising sun was pouring its energy over the jagged rim of bleak rocks and down into the vast throat choked and filled with ash it sloped gently from all sides the grey brown powder that had been clothed from within the earth it made a floor where Rossin could have walked with safety but he did not go on damn it he said with sudden savagery what a fool I was to think of finding anyone here who would ever pick out a spot like this for a base of operations he stared angrily at the floor of ash at the black outcropping masses of Tuffa he was angry with himself angry embaffled and tired from his climb far down in the vast shallow pit blazing sunlight glinted from massive blocks whose sides were mirror smooth a whirl of wind eddied there for a moment and lifted the dust into a vertical grey column the only sign of motion in the whole desolate scene Rossin turned and tramped back toward the long hot descent to the floor of the basin he tried to maintain an air of confidence before the men he kept them busy placing and stacking materials to all appearances the work would go on despite the mysterious happenings of the night Dean even prepared to resume drilling operations he sent down another baler on the end of the ten mile cable but he left it there he did not care to raise it and risk more inexplicable results with the consequent destruction of the men's morale too late to do any more that afternoon we'll drop all work let the men get a good night's sleep I'll take guard duty tonight and you can run the job tomorrow there were men of the drilling crew standing near though Rossin was handling the hoisting drums himself a ratchet release lever hooked its end under a ring on Rossin's hand and pinched the flesh Dean made this an excuse for waiting a moment while the drillers walked away so where did I suppose he said and dabbed at a spot of blood under the gold band but it's an old cameo it belonged to my dad he was showing the ring to Smitty as the men passed from hearing don't want to be seen talking he explained tersely mustn't let the men know we're on edge they're about ready to bolt but you be ready for a call have your men armed I am looking for more trouble tonight the two were laughing loudly they followed the men toward the building where the cook was banging on an iron tire that served as a bell some three hours later Rossin was not smiling as he climbed the steel ladder of the great Derrick he was grimly intent upon the job at hand all thought of his drilling operations had gone from him he was not anxious about the project this was merely an interruption the work would go on later but right now there was an enemy to be met and a mystery to be solved a rifle slung from his shoulder bumped against him satisfyingly as he climbed a man was on duty at a master switch he would flood the camp with light at the rifle's first crack Dean seated himself at the top of the Derrick the cylinder of a huge floodlight was beside him beyond was the massive sheath block the cables ran dizzily down to the concrete drilling floor so far below and on every side the quiet camp spread out dark and silent in the night Dean surveyed it all with satisfaction nothing would get by him now but his further reflections were not so satisfying who did it? how? where did they go? he was echoing Smitty's questions and finding no ready answers and the flamethrower that had cut down old Riley how was that worked? it's one green flash had been almost instantaneous he was puzzling over such futile questioning when he saw the first sign of attack at the foot of the Derrick was the hoisting shed except for that there was clear sand for a radius of 50 feet around the Derrick's base Dean was staring suspiciously at the open space almost directly underneath moving sand he hardly knew what he had seen at first then the sand at one point bulged upward unmistakably for one instant Dean's thoughts shot off at a tangent it was like the work of a huge gopher he had seen the little animals break through like that then the sand parted and something indistinct blurred dark against the yellow background broke from cover Rosson swung the rifle's muzzle and ran down below him the vague shadow had moved Dean caught the blurred mass beyond his sights then swung the weapon aside who was it? he would have a look first the thin crack of his rifle ripped the silence of the sleeping camp Dean had aimed to one side and he regretted it in the instant of firing for in the same second there had come from the moving shadow the gleam of starlight reflected upward in the battle Dean swung the rifle back he fired quickly a second time beside him the big light hissed into action and the whole camp sprang to sudden blazing light and through the quick brilliance more dazzling even than the white glare itself was one blinding line of green flame Dean saw it as it began it came from the dim shadow that had sprung suddenly in the sharp outline as the big lights came on the figure he sensed that it was a man though he knew vaguely that the figure was grotesque and hideous in some manner he had no time to discern the thin line of green flame ripped straight out swinging in a quick sweeping trajectory slashing through the steel work of the great Derek itself Dean knew he was lost in that blinding instant while the fiery jet was sweeping in a fan shaped sector of vivid green it had destroyed a man it was now cutting down a framework of steel as well the Derek was falling as he fired again then came a crushing jar downward as the metal melted and failed and the wild out swing in the beginning of the toppling fall in the mind of Dean Rawson was but one thought the sights and something blurred beyond a trigger to be pressed he was still firing when the shriek of torn steel went to thundering silence and even the lights of tauna basin camp were swallowed up in the whirling night End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of 2000 miles below by Charles Willard Diffen this LibriVox recording is in the public domain into the crater Smitty's agonized face was above him when he came back to life God Smitty was breathing I thought you were gone Dean I thought you were dead as it had been with Riley there was one thought uppermost in Rawson's bewildered mind the fire he choked he's swinging it then after a time the Derek is falling I went down with it I'll say you did said the relief to Smitty the Derek smashed across the bunkhouse sent you skidding down the side of a sand dune it darned near scoured the clothes off you at that slowly Rawson began to feel the return flow of life through his body the shock had jarred every nerve to insensibility slowly he remembered and comprehended what had happened he was in his little office he recognized his surroundings now the windows were open outside the sun was shining at last the utter silence of that outer world he tried to raise himself from the cot but fell back as his surroundings began to spin the camp he gasped weakly the men I don't hear them gone Smitty told him while his eyes narrowed at some recollection and his hand came up unconsciously to a bruise of his cheek they beat it went last night after the Derek fell I tried to stop them the fools went crazy with fear devils, hell all that kind of stuff it wound up in a fight I couldn't hold him you've got to get better kind of fast he told Rawson we've got to get out of here ourselves that flame throwing stuff is too strong for me to take Rawson suddenly remembered the big figure that had directed that flame did I get him he demanded eagerly but then a whole swarm of things boiled up out of nowhere and carried him off we weren't any of us close enough to see the men said they were devils I'm not sure they were wrong either Dean old man we're up against something rotten we've got to get fixed for a fight we can't handle this by ourselves Rawson was silent he spoke slowly at last you mean we've got to quit quit without knowing what we're up against can you imagine what they'll say to me back in town scared out, licked by something I've never even seen scared, smithy inquired you couldn't find a better word for it if you hunted through the whole dictionary scared why say, I'm so damn scared I'm shaking yet and the only thing that will cure me of it is to look at those devils along the top of a machine gun we'll go catch us some equipment you're a good guy, smithy Rawson reached out and gripped one brown hand and will do as you say but first, I've got to get a line on things I'm becoming as irrational as the men I'm imagining all sorts of crazy things you don't have to imagine them smithy's voice was strained it showed the tension under which he was laboring men are beasts God knows what they are but when they come up from nowhere out of the sand, Rawson explained smithy stared at him out of the sand, he repeated then, when they cut a man in two melt steel as if it were butter pull a few tons of metal down out of sight as easy as we would sink it in the ocean flash their lights over in the ghost town up on top of a volcano stop, shouted Rawson unexpectedly some sudden gleam of understanding had flashed through his mind he dragged himself to his feet and staggered to the doorway where he clung until the nausea of a whirling world had passed the dust, the dust he gasped smithy put a hand on his shoulder plainly he thought Rawson out of his mind easy old timer he cautioned we'll get out of here I hit to make you walk in the shape you're in but the dirty cowards ran off with the trucks they even took your car isn't a thing here on wheels but Rawson did not hear he was staring off across the sand and he was muttering bitter words fool oh you utter fool he said the dust, the dust then he let the rough tender hands of smithy guide him back to the cot where he fell into a troubled sleep the comparative coolness of dusk was tempering the feverish midday heat when Rawson awoke and strangely his troubles and all his conflicting plans had been simplified by the magic of sleep his course was entirely plain he was going to the crater again what's there smithy demanded what do you think that you'll find I don't know was the reply then why what the devil's the idea it's my job they put it up to me Erickson in his crowd I've got to go and nothing smithy could say he wasn't able to reach Rawson and swerve him from his single idea you'll be safe on the road Rawson told him while he filled a canteen with water in preparation for his own trip you can get to the highway by morning smithy did not trouble to reply was Rawson out of his mind he could not be sure certainly he had got an awful bump but there were no bones broken however it might be that he was still dazed the crack on the head might have done it but there was no use in further argument he admitted to himself Dean was going to the crater again there was no stopping him but he was not going alone smithy could see to that again Rawson took the more difficult ascent they went first to the ghost town the slope above little rhyolite would save weary miles but once there they knew that the route was not a place where to be in the night the realization came when smithy walking where they had been the day before passed the sand dune where the wind had been scouring seized Rawson's arm I thought so he said softly I thought I saw something there the other day but the sand fell in and hit it I didn't know the old timers went in for subways in little rhyolite and Rawson looked as did smithy there was no basement at the roughly round opening in the sand a tunnel mouth driven through the shifting sands a tunnel if Rawson was any judge lined with brown glistening glass understanding came quickly the jet of flame he exclaimed half under his breath they melted their way through the sand turned to glass they held it some way for an instant while it hardened inside darkness but for the near glinting reflections from the walls that had once been molten and dripping the tunnel dipped down at a slight angle then straightened off horizontally Rawson could have stood upright in it with easily another two feet of headroom to spare and that said smithy it's how the dirty rats got over to the camp like moles in their runway no wonder they could pop up from nowhere you mean old man I'm thinking we're up against something we haven't dared speak of to each other don't tell me that it's just men we've got to meet wait Rawson begged in a hush whisper wait till we know that's why I didn't dare go out without something definite to report we'll go up but not here we'll get a line on this up top he led the way from the crumbling walls and skirted the mountain's base to the place and with the help of a supporting arm at times he found himself again in the great cleft in the rocks darkness now made the passageway a place of somber shadows the broad cupped crater lay beyond and silent waiting the vast sand-filled pit seemed under the starlight to have been only that instant cooled the twisted rocks that form the rim had been caught in the very instant of their tortures and into deep silence an eternal death the black masses of Tuffa protruding from the packed ashy sand might have been buried by the smothering mass but a moment before it was a place of death a place where nothing moved until again the breeze that whirled gustily over the sawtooth crags snatched at the sand in the lowest pit and drew it up in a spiral of dust the word was on Rawson's lip dust dust in the crater fool I said I could read signs I thought I was a desert man dust and why shouldn't there be dust how do you usually have your volcanoes arranged old man fine dust Rawson interrupted in the same whisper he was glancing sharply about him as if in fear of being overheard see the wind is blowing it coarse sand and pumice that's to be expected but light dust in a place that the winds have been sweeping for the last million years I don't have them arranged that way Smitty not unless the sand has been recently disturbed he moved soundlessly across the sand there was no chance for concealment the surface was too smooth for that yet he wished as he moved onward down the long gentle slope that he had been able to keep under cover the wide bowl of the great crater top was nothing but dead ashes of fire gone long centuries before coarse igneous rock nothing to set the little nerves of one's spine tingling Rawson tried to tell himself he was alone even the gun in his hand seemed an absurd precaution yet he knew with a certainty that went beyond mere seeing that invisible eyes were upon him the blocks were massive when he drew near to them they were buried in the sand their sides like mirrors their edges true and straight crystals Rawson tried to tell himself but he knew they were not gun in hand he moved among the great rocks open sand lay beyond running off at a steeper pitch to make a throat a smaller pit in the great pit of the crater itself Rawson noted it then forgot it looked for something that lay half hidden it's protruding and shining under the light of the stars as he had seen it gleam before at the Derek's base he snatched up the metal tube noting the lava tip and that it was like the one Smitty had found in the ghost town the tube clearly was part of some other mechanism and Rawson realized with startling suddenness that he was holding in his hand the jet of a flamethrower perhaps that it almost sent him to his death the thought while he was still thinking it was blotted from his mind he was thrown suddenly to the sandy earth the sand was slipping swiftly from beneath his feet he was scrambling on all fours clawing wildly for some anchorage that would keep him from being swept away he touched the corner of shining stone drew himself to it reached its slanting side then scrambled frenziedly up and threw himself about to face the place of slipping sands but where the sand had been his wildly glaring eyes found only a black hole a vertical bore like the ancient throat of the volcano and this, like the tunnel in the sand was lined with smooth and glistening glass it was black at first a yawning ominous mall till the polished sides caught a reflection from below and blazed red with a glare of hidden fires no time was needed for Dean's quick searching eyes to grasp the meaning of the change whatever had menaced the camp had set this trap he swung sharply to leap from the block but stopped at the site of Smitty's chunky figure coming slowly across the sand back he shouted his voice was almost a scream shrill and crackling with excitement get back, Smitty, I'm coming he would have leaped below the block the sand bulged upward as a yellow animal thing came clawing up into the night dimly he saw it saw this one and the others that must have been hidden in the sand they were between him and Smitty a blaze of red came from behind him there must be others there he snatched his gun from its holster as he turned flames were hissing into the darkness five or six of them in lines of hot crimson fire he watched the green as he watched and the livid light spread out in ghastly illumination over the creatures that directed them he saw them now saw them in one age-long instant while he stood in horror on the black shining rock he saw their heads, red skinned, pointed their staring eyes as large as saucer's owl eyes they were naked and their bodies that would have been almost crimson in the light of day were blotched ghastly in the green light and each one held in long claw-like hands a thing of shining metal a lava tip like the one he had found projected and ended in the hissing line of green a flame slashed downward for one sickening second he waited to feel the heat of it though it was many feet away in his mind he cringed involuntarily from the ripping knife-cut of the fiery blade he passed a life from him then he knew that the flame had passed it was tearing at the rock beneath his feet and the cold stone turned to liquid fire at that touch it leaped in a splashing fountain to the sand the blaze turned the whole pit to flame on even the farthest rugged crag of the crater's rim the red-light glowed before Rossin could raise his own weapon the blast had torn the rock from beneath his feet the great mass tipped rolled Rossin's arms were flung wide in an effort to save himself then below him was the black throat with its walls of glass he was plunging headlong into it turning as he fell and somewhere far down in that throat was the red glow of waiting fires he saw it again and again as he fell End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of 2000 miles by Charles Willard Diffen this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the ring Smitty Rossin had called him when he found the youngster fighting gamely with death in the heat of Tauna Basin and Gordon Smith was the name on the company records yet he remained always Smitty to Rossin and the name which Rossin never ceased to believe was assumed became a mark of the affection which can spring up between man and man and now Smitty stood like a rigid carved statue in the midst of a barren sandy waste in the vast cup of a towering volcano top sand that was in reality coarse pumice and ash this was a place of death a place where raging fires had left nothing for plant or animal life and overall the desert stars shone down coldly and added to the desolation with her own pale light Smitty had seen Rossin pull himself to the top of the great square edged rock sensing that danger of some sort was threatening he had started to run to the aid of the struggling man then came Rossin's cry back he shouted get back Smitty I'm coming but he did not come and Smitty halted by the command was frozen to sudden panic-stricken immobility by that which followed he saw the leaping things like grotesque yellow giants they came from the sand then red ones leaped from the open throat which had suddenly formed they held flamethrowers the red ones and the green lines of fire melted the rock from beneath Rossin's feet all in the one seconds time it was done and Rossin's body his arms wide flung was hurtling downward into the waiting throat and the threatening red glow from within then the carriers of flamethrowers vanished again into the pit and there was left only a huddle of giant figures that tore at the loose sand and ash with their hands they threw the material in a continuous stream the air was full of cascading sand to Smitty they were suddenly inhuman they were almost animals men like moles and they and their companions had captured Dean Rossin sent him to his death slowly the watching man raised himself from the crouched position that had kept him hidden they were through with their work these great yellow-skinned naked men or mole men six of them Smitty counted them slowly before he took aim and two were armed with flamethrowers Smitty rested his arm across a little hummock of gritty ash that had sheltered him and sent six flashes of flame through the night toward the cluster of bodies he made no attempt to aim at each individual the shapes were too shadowy for that and he had no knowledge of what other weapons they might have one thing was sure he must take no chances on facing the red ones single-handed he rammed his empty pistol back into its holster as he turned and ran ran with every ounce of energy he possessed to drive his flying feet across the crater floor out through the cleft in the rocks and down the steep mountain side he was stunned by the suddenness of the catastrophe that had overtaken them the horror of Dean Rossin's going the fearful reality of those devils from hell that old Riley had seen it was all too staggering too numbing for easy acceptance time was required for the truth to sink in and through the balance of the night Smitty had plenty of time to think he dared not go back to the camp where ripping flashes of green light told him the enemy was at work and then even had it been possible to creep up on them in the darkness that one chance vanished as the desert about the camp sprang into view one after another the buildings burst into flame and Smitty was thankful for the concealment of the vast empty desert the embers were still glowing when he dared go near this enemy it seemed worked only at night and Smitty waited only for the sun to show above distant purple ranges it had been their enemy once that fiercely hot sun they had fought against the heat but never had the sun wrought such destruction as this Smitty looked from haggard hopeless eyes upon the wreckage of Rawson's camp for the men who had worked there this had meant only a job to Smitty it had been a fight against a desert which had defeated him once but to Rawson it meant the fruit of years of effort the goal of his dreams brought almost within reach Smitty looked at the smoldering heaps of gray where an idle wind puffed a fluffy ash or fanned a bed of coals to flame twisted steel of the wrecked Derek was still further distorted the enemy had ripped it to pieces with his stabbing flames even the unused materials the steel and cement that had been neatly stacked for future use the flames had been turned on it all and Smitty though his voice broke almost boyishly from his repressed emotion spoke aloud in solemn promise it's too late to help you Dean I'll go back to town report to the men who were back of you and then they're going to pay Dean whoever, whatever they are they're going to pay he turned toward the mountains and the ribbon of road that wound off toward the canyon then at some recollection he swung back the cables still down he would have wanted it left all he whispered where the Derek had stood was the mouth of the 20 inch casing the cable that ran from it was entangled with a wreckage of the Derek but it had not been cut Smitty set doggedly to work a little gin pole and light tackle allowed him to erect a heavier tripod of steel beams it hoisted the big sheave block into place and gave Smitty's two hands a bounty to rig a temporary hoist the juice was still on the main feed line and the hoisting motors hummed at his touch the 10 miles of cable wound slowly onto the drums it's nonsense I suppose he told himself silently but something drove him to do this last thing to leave it all as Rossin would have left it the long baler came out at last there was just room to hoist it clear and let it drop back on the drilling floor a glint of gold flashed in the sunlight as Smitty let the long metal tube down and he broke into volable cursing at the sight of the bit of metal that was caught near the baler's top the gold had started at all the first finding of the gold on the big drill had begun it he crossed swiftly to the gleaming thing that seemed somehow to symbolize his loss he stooped to reach for it intending to throw it as far as he could instead he stood in an awkward stooping attitude stood so while the long uncounted minutes passed his eyes that stared and stared in disbelief seemed suddenly to have turned traitor they were telling him that they saw a ring a cameo jammed solidly into the shackle at the baler's end and that ring when last he had seen it had been on Dean Rawson's hand Dean had caught it he had hooked it over the lever in this very place and now from ten miles down inside the solid earth it had returned it meant it meant but the stocky broad shoulder youngster known as Smitty dared not think what it meant nor had he had time to follow the thought he was too busily engaged in running at suicidal speed across the hot sand toward barren mountains where a ribbon of road showed through the quivering air end of chapter 7 chapter 8 of 2000 miles below by Charles Willard Diffen this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the darkness darkness and red fires that seemed whirling about him as his body twisted in air to Dean Rawson plunging down into the volcano's mall each second was an eternity for in each single instant he was expecting crashing death then he knew that long arms were wrapped about him holding him, supporting him checking his downward plunge and at last the glassy walls where each bulbous irregularity shown red with reflected light moved slowly past after more eons of time a rocky floor rose slowly to meet him his body crashed gently he was sprawled face downward on stone that was smooth and cold the restraining arms no longer touched him he lay motionless for some time his mind has stunned and uncomprehending as if he had truly crashed to death upon that rocky floor then at last Rawson mussels to turn his body till he lay face upward darkness wrapped him as if it were the soft swathing of some black cocoon the world about him was at first a place of utter night-time blackness and then far above him there shone a single star until that feeble candle-glean too was snuffed out a hand was gripping his shoulder it seemed urging him to arise he felt each separate finger long slender like bands of steel the nail at each finger-end was more nearly a claw the whole hand a thin clutching thing like the foot of some giant ape and even as he shrank involuntarily from that touch Rawson wondered how the creature could reach out and grip him so surely in the dark but he came to his feet in response to that urging hand the night was suddenly cillibent with eerie whistling voices they came from all sides at once they threw themselves back and forth in endless echoes to Rawson it was only a confused medley of conflicting sounds in which no one voice was clear but the creature that held him must have understood for he heard him reply in a sharp piercing tone half whistle half shriek what had happened where was he what was this thing that pushed him stumbling along through the dark with all his tumultuous questioning he knew only one thing definitely that it would be of no use to struggle he was as helpless as any trapped animal he was inside the earth of course he had fallen he had no least idea how far and in some strange manner this long armed thing had supported him and eased him gently down but what it meant or what lay ahead were matters to obscure for him to try to see clearly he held his hands protectingly before him while the talons gripping into his shoulder hurried him along he stumbled awkwardly as his foot struck an obstruction he would have fallen but for the grip that held him erect for that creature whatever it was the darkness held no uncertainty he moved swiftly his shrill shriek and the jerk of his arm both gave evidence of his astonishment that his captive should walk so blunderingly then it seemed that he must have comprehended Rawson's blindness a green line of light passed close behind Dean's head it was cold there was no radiant warmth but when it struck the face of a wall of stone some twenty feet away the solid rock turned instantly a mass of glowing yellow red the cold green ray swung back and forth leaving a path of radiant rock behind it wherever it touched and the rock was hot once the green light held more than an instant in one place and the rock softened at its touch then splashed and trickled down to make a fiery pool abruptly Rawson was able to see his surroundings also he knew the source of the red glow that had seemed like volcanic fires there had been others like this captor they had been down below and had played their flames upon the rocks deep in the volcano it was thus that they made light with equal suddenness and with terrible clearness Dean found the answer to one of his questions he wrenched himself about to stare behind him a creature that held him in its grip and for the first time the wild experience became something more than an unbelievable nightmare in that one horrifying instant he knew it was true only a few minutes before he had been walking across the cindery sand of the crater top walking under the stars and the dark desert sky Dean Rawson, mining engineer in a sane, believable world now he squinted his eyes in the dim light to see more plainly the beastly figure more horrible for being so nearly human he had seen them briefly above the closer view of this one specimen of a strange race was no more pleasing for now he saw clearly the cruelty in the face it was there unmistakably even though the face itself under less threatening circumstances might have been a ludicrous caricature of a man's red and nearly naked the creature stood upright straps of metal about its body it was about Rawson's height its round staring eyes were about level with his own and each eye was centered in a circular disk of whitish skin the light went dim for a moment and Dean staring in his turn saw those other huge eyes enlarge the white coverings of each drawing back like an expanding iris some vague understanding came to him of the beast's ability to see in the dark they used these red hot stones for illumination but this thing had seemed to see clearly even when the stones had ceased to glow and again though indistinctly Dean knew that those eyes might be sensitive to infrared radiations they might see plainly by the dark light that continued to flood these rocky chambers though to him the rocks had gone lightless and black even as the quick thoughts flashed through his mind he was thinking other thoughts recording other observations the rest of the face was red like the body the head was sharply pointed and crowned with a mass of thin clinging locks of hair like a tripless orifice contracted or dilated at will from it came whistling words out of the darkness giant things were leaping they clutched at rossom while the first captor released his hold and drew back taller these newcomers were bigger and different in the red light from the hot rocks Dean saw their faces in which were owl eyes like those of the first one stupid their great bodies were yellow their outstretched hands were webbed for one instant as rossom's hand touched his pistol in its holster a surge of fighting rage swept through him his whole being was in a spasm of revolt against all the series of happenings that had trapped him he wanted to lash out regardless of consequences then cooler judgment came to his aid other figures with faces red and ugly expressive of nameless evil were gathered beside the one who still played the jet of cold fire upon the walls like him they were naked saved for a cloth at the waist and the metal straps encircling their bodies they too had flamethrowers he saw the long metal jets and their lava tips yet the temptation to fire into that group as fast as he could pull the trigger instead he allowed these other giant things to grip him with their webbed hands and lead him away the wavering light has shown many passages through the rock glazed all of them either they had been blown through molten rock which had then solidified to give the glassy surface or else and this seemed more likely the flamethrowers had done it rossom scan in the labrath for some recognizable strata had a quick vision of these caverns being cut out and enlarged and of their walls melted just as they were being melted now melted and hardened again innumerable times by succeeding generations of red and yellow skinned men yes they were men he admitted this while he walked unresistingly between two of the giants another went before them and lighted the way with the green ray of a flamethrower on the melting rock these were men men of a different sort evolution working strange changes underground had made them half beasts diggers in the dark mole men they were passing through a long tunnel that went steadily down cross passages loomed blackly ahead of them the leader was throwing his flame upon the walls of a great vault rossom had ceased to take note of their movements what use to remember he could never escape never retrace his steps he tried to whip up a faint flicker of hope at thought of smitty smitty had seen him go had seen the red mole men of course and he had got away he must have got away he would go for help but at that he groaned inwardly smitty would go for help and then what he would be laughed out of any sheriff's office saying if he persisted why should he persist for that matter smitty would not believe for a single minute that rossom was still alive his thoughts ended webbed hands wrapped tightly about his arms were thrusting him forward into a great room the green flame had been snapped off one last hot circle on the high wall showed only a dull red but before it faded Dean saw dimly the outlines of a tremendous cavern he also saw that these walls were unglazed raw they had never been melted below the rough and shattered sides heaps of fragments were piled about the room fleetingly he saw the shadowed details then darkness swallowed even that little he had seen clanging metal told of a closing door and a red outlined it for an instant to show where it was welded fast he was a prisoner in a cell whose walls were the living rock for a long time he stood motionless while the heavy darkness pressed heavily in upon his swimming senses he sank slowly to the floor at last he was numbed and his mind was as blank as the black nothingness that spread before his staring eyes in a condition almost of coma no measure or count of the hours that passed then a fever of impatience possessed him his thoughts springing suddenly to life were too wildly improbable for any sane mind were driving him mad he forced himself to move cautiously on the floor he had seen burnished gold shining dullly as he entered there had been a thick vein of the yellow in the rock the floor at that place was up beneath his feet as if the hot metal had been spilled his hands groped before him as he remembered the heaps of rock fragments then his feet found one of them stumblingly and he turned and moved to one side he remembered having seen a dim shape off there that had made a straight slanting line his searching hands encountered the object and kept him from walking into it the feeling of helplessness that drove him was only being increased by his blind and blundering movements he told himself that he must wait silently he stood where he had come to a stop hands resting on the object that barred his way until suddenly stifling his breath caught in his throat some emotion almost too great to be born was suffocating him slowly he moved his hands inch by inch he felt his way around the smooth cylinder so hard so coldly metallic then with a rush he let his hands follow up the slanting thing up to a rounded top to a heavy ring and a shackle that was on the end of a cable thin and taunt and while his hands explored it feverishly the metal moved he clung to the smooth roundness as it slipped through his hands it was the baler part of his own equipment the slender cable reached up straight up to the world he knew and smitty was there smitty was hoisting it he clung to the cylinder desperately the bore at this depth had been reduced to eight inches the baler fitted it loosely and Rosson cursed frantically the narrow space that would let this inanimate object return but would hold him back while he wrapped his arms about the cold surface of the metal messenger from another world it lifted clear then settled back this time it dropped noisily to the floor and suddenly Dean was tearing at the ring on one of the swollen fingers of his left hand it came free at last it was in his hand as the cable tightened again swiftly surely he worked in the darkness to jam the ring through the shackle at the baler's top then the baler lifted clanged loudly as it entered the shattered bore in the rocks above and scraped noisily at the sides the sound rose to a rasping shriek that went fainter and still fainter till it dwindled into silence but Dean Rosson standing motionless in the dark of that buried vault dared once more to let himself think and feel as he stared blindly upward up there smitty was waiting smitty would know and with smitty fighting from the outside and he Rosson putting up a scrap below he smiled almost happily as his hand rested upon his gun hopeless of course it was hopeless no use really kidding himself he didn't have the chance of a pink-eyed rabbit but he was still smiling toward the dark roof overhead as the outlines of a metal door grew cherry red for him he was ready to meet whatever lay ahead