 CHAPTER IX The metal plate that had sealed him in his tomb fell open with a crash. Beyond it the passageway was alive with crowding red figures. Above their heads the nozzles of a score of flamethrowers spat jets of green fire. Then drew back in sudden uncontrollable horror as they came crowding into the room. The familiar feel of the baler's cold metal had given him a momentary sense of oneness with his own world. Now this inrush of hideous, demoniac figures, beneath the flare of green flames, was like a fevered vision of the infernal regions come suddenly to actuality. Then retreated to the shattered rocky wall and prepared for one last fight, until he realized that the evil black eyes in their ghastly circles of white skin were fixed upon him more in curiosity than in active hatred. They formed a semi-circle about him, a wall of red bodies, whose pointed heads were crammed forward while an excited chatter in their broken whistling speech filled the room with shrill clamor. Then one of them pointed above toward the open shaft that Rawson had drilled, the shaft up which the baler had gone. And again their voices rose at weird discord, while their long arms waved and red, lean, fingered hands pointed. Only a moment of this, then one of them gave an order. Two of the red figures came toward Rawson where he was waiting. They were unarmed. They motioned that he was to go with them. And Dean, with a helpless shrug of his shoulders, allowed them, one on each side, to take him by the arms and hurry him through the open door. Two others went ahead, the green jets aflame from their weapons lighting the passage. The system of communicating tunnels seemed at first only the vents and blowholes from some previous volcanic activity. And yet at times they gave place to more regular arrangement. That plainly was artificial. The air in them was pure, though odorous, with a pungent tang which Dean could not identify. Through some of the passages it blew gently with uncomfortable warmth. The guard of wild red figures hurried him along through a vast world of caverns and winding passages which seemed one great mine. The richness of it was amazing. Dean Rawson was a man, a human being, facing death in some form which he could not yet know. And so fast had his wild experiences crowded in upon him, he seemed numbed to all normal emotions. Yet through it all the mind of the engineer was at work, and Dean's eyes were flashing from side to side, trying to see and understand the ever-changing panorama of a subterranean world. Mole men, both red and yellow, were everywhere, but it was apparent at a glance that the yellow giants were a race of toilers, slaves, driven by the reds. Their great bodies glowed orange-colored with a reflected heat of the blasts of flame used to melt the metals from their oars. Gold and silver, other metals that Rawson could not distinguish in the half-light. The glow of the molten stuff came from every distant cave that the passages opened up. The sheer marvel of it overwhelmed him, his own danger even the death that waited for him were forgotten. A world within a world, and who knew how far it extended? Mole men, by the scores and hundreds, the denizens of a great subterranean world, of which his own world had been in ignorance. Here was civilization of a sort, and now the barriers that had separated this world from the world above had been broken down, the two were united. Suddenly there came the Rawson's mind a flashing comprehension of a menace wild and terrible that had come with the breaking of those barriers. They were passing through a wider hall when the whistling chatter of Dean's escort ceased. They were looking to one side where a cloud of smoke had rolled from a slope beyond. One of the red figures staggered chokingly from the cloud. Two yellow mole men followed closely after. The red mole man was unarmed. Each yellow one had a flamethrower that was now so familiar a sight to Dean. His own escort was silent. They had halted, watching those others expectantly. In the silence of that rocky room the single red one whistled in order. One of the two yellow men placed his weapon on the floor. Another shrill order followed, and the remaining worker, without a moment's hesitation, turned the green blast of his own projector upon his comrade. It was done in a second, a second in which the giant's shriek ended in a flash of flame for which his own flesh was the fuel. A wisp of drifting smoke, and that was all. And the red creatures who had Rawson in their charge after a moment of silence filled the room with shrill-voiced pandemonium while they shrieked their approval of the spectacle. The Dean Rawson's lips were forming half-whispered words. So intently was he thinking the thoughts. The damn red beast. The poor devil's flame hit some sulfur, I suppose. Burned it to SO2. Then he got his. But even while he searched his mind for words to describe the evil of this red race, he was realizing another fact. These yellow giants, countless thousands of them, perhaps, were held in subjection by their red masters. They would do as they were told. Dimly, vaguely, through his horrified mind, came the picture of a horde of red and yellow beasts, turned loose upon the world above. There were fears now which filled Dean Rawson, shook him with horrors, as yet only half-comprehended. But the fears were not for himself, one solitary man in the grip of these red beasts. He was fearing for all mankind. His guard was hurrying him on. But now Dean hardly saw the scenes of feverish activity through which they passed. Another thought had come to him. The shaft, the hole which he himself had drilled, what damage had it done? It was he who had broken down the barriers. His drill had told these beasts that there was other life above. It had guided them. They had realized that they were near to some other place where men worked and drove tunnels through the rocks. They had followed up these forgotten passages that led to the old craters, had ascended inside the volcano, made their way through the top, and emerged into another world, a clean and sunlit world. Now Rawson's eyes found, with new understanding, the activity about him. The mining operations had been left behind. Here were branching passages, great cave-like rooms, a world within a world in all truth. Throughout it, demoniac figures were hurrying, driving thousands of giant yellow slaves, where the light shone sparkling from innumerable heaps of metal weapons, flamethrowers and others, the nature of which Rawson could not determine, and everywhere was the shouting and hurry as of a nation in the throes of war. His speculations ended abruptly. They were approaching a room, a vast open place, high on the farther wall, was a recess in the rock in which tongues of flame licked hungrily upward. The heat of the fires struck down in a ceaseless hot blast. Close to the fires, unmindful of the heat, a barbaric figure assumed grotesque and horrible postures, while its voice rose in echoing shrillness. Below were crowding red ones who prostrated themselves on the rocky floor. Fire worshippers. The explanatory thought flashed through Dean Rawson's mind. Here was one of their holy places, a place of sacrifice, perhaps, and he was being taken there, helpless, a captive. Diffen. This leap of ox recording is in the public domain. Plum Loco. The sheriff of Cocos County was reacting exactly as Rawson had anticipated. Smitty stood before him, a disheveled Smitty, grimy of face and hands. He had made his way to the highway and caught a ride to the nearest town, and now that he had found Jack Downer, sheriff, that gentleman leaned back in his old chair behind the battered desk and regarded the younger man with amused tolerance. Now that's right interesting what you say he admitted. Tauna Basin and the old crater and red devils setting fire to everything. I've heard some wild ones since this prohibition went into effect, and some of the boys started making their own, but yours sure beats them all. Guess likely I'll have to take a run up tauna way and see what kind of cactus liquor they're making. Meaning I'm drunk or a liar, Smitty's voice was hot with sudden anger, but the sheriff regarded him imperturbably. Well, I'd let you off on one account, son. You do look sort of sober. Smitty disregarded the plain implication and fought down the anger that possessed him. Now use your phone, Mr. Downer, he asked. He called the office of Erickson and his associates in Los Angeles and told, as well he could for the constant interruptions from his listener, the story of what had occurred. And Mr. Erickson at the other end of the line, although he used different words, gave somewhat the same reply as had the sheriff. I refuse to listen to any more such wild talk, he said. If our property has been destroyed, as you say, there will be an accounting, you may be sure of that. And now Mr. Smith, get this straight. You tell Rosson, wherever he is hiding, to come and see me at once. But I tell you, he's been captured, said Smitty, desperately. He's gone. I rather think we'll find him, was the reply. He had better come of his own accord. His connection with us will be severed, and all drilling operations in Tauna Basin will be discontinued. But Mr. Rosson will find that his responsibility is not so easily evaded. The sheriff could not have failed to realize the unsatisfactory nature of the conversation. He must have wondered at the satisfied grin that spread across Smitty's tired face. Do you mean you're through, he demanded? You're abandoning Rosson's work? Exactly was Mr. Erickson's crisp response. Smitty, as the telephone clicked in his ear, turned again to the sheriff. That unties my hands, he said cryptically, one more call, if you please. Then to the operator. Get me the offices of the Mountain Power and Lighting Corporation in San Francisco. I will talk with the president. The sheriff of Cocos County chuckled audibly. You'll talk to the president's sixteenth assistant secretary son, he told Smitty. And I take back what I said before. Now I know your plum loco. By the way, son, it cost money for telephone calls like that. I hope you ain't by any chance overlooking. But Smitty was speaking into the telephone unmindful of the sheriff's remarks. Is Mr. Smith in his office he was inquiring? Yes, President Smith. Would you connect me with him at once, please? This is Gordon Smith talking. Hello, Dad, he said a moment later. Yes, that's right. It's the prodigal himself. Now listen, Dad, here's something important. Can you meet me in Sacramento and arrange for us to see the governor? Get his private confidential ear. I'll beat it for Los Angeles. Charter the fastest plane they've got. There was more to the conversation, much more, although Smitty refrained from giving details over the phone. An operator was breaking in on the conversation as he was about to hang up. Emergency call, the young woman's voice was saying. We must have this line at once. Smitty handed the telephone to the sheriff. Someone's anxious to talk to you, he said. He searched his pockets hurriedly, found a ten-dollar bill which he laid on the sheriff's desk. That will cover it, he said, with a new note in his voice. Perhaps you're not just the man for this job, Sheriff. It's going to be a whole lot too hot for you to handle. He turned quickly toward the door, but something in the sheriff's excited voice checked him. Burned? Wiped out, you say? Halfway across the room, Smitty could hear another horse voice in the telephone. The sheriff repeated the words, Red Devils? They wasn't Indians? The whole town of seven palms destroyed? I thought, said Smitty, softly to himself, that we'd have to go down there to find them. Instead, they're out looking for us. Yes, I think this will be decidedly too hot for you to handle, Sheriff. He turned and bolted out the door. An attentive audience was awaiting Gordon Smith on his arrival in Sacramento. Smitty's father was not one to be kept waiting even by the Governor of the State. Also, Smitty was coming from the Tauna Basin region, and the news of the destruction of the desert town of seven palms had preceded him. Even the swift planes of the Coastal Service could not match the speed of the radio news. There were only two men in the room when Smitty entered. One of them, tall, heavily built, as square-shouldered as Smitty, came forward and put his two hands on the young man's shoulders. Their greetings were brief. Well, Son asked the older man and packed a world of questioning into the interrogation. OK, Dad, said Smitty, simply. His father nodded silently and turned to the other man. Governor, my son Gordon. He got tired of being known, as the old man's son, and started out on his own. Not looking for adventure exactly, but I judge he has found it. He's got something to tell us. And again Smitty told his wild, unbelievable tale. But it was not so incredible now, for even while Smitty was talking, the Governor was glancing at the report on his desk, which told of the destruction of the little town of seven palms. I can't tell you what it means, Smitty concluded. He paused before venturing her prediction, which was to prove remarkably accurate. But I saw them. I saw them come up out of the Earth. And I'm betting there are plenty more where they came from. And now that they've found their way out, we've got a sprap on our hands. And don't think they're not fighters either. They're armed. Those flamethrowers are nothing we can laugh off. And what else they've got we don't know. He leaned forward earnestly across the Governor's desk. But that's your job, he said. Mine is to find Dean Rawson. He's alive, or he was. He sent up his ring, as proof of it. I've got to find him. I've got to go down in that pit. And I want your help. End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 of 2000 miles below, by Charles Willard Diffen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. THE WHITE HOT PIT How far his guard of wild, red man things had taken him Dean Rawson could not know. Many miles it must have been. And he knew that the air had grown steadily more stifling hot. But the heat of those long-tunneled passages was like a cool breeze compared with the blasting breath of the room into which he was plunged. It seared his eyeballs. It struck down from the tongues of flame that played in red fury in the recess high up on the farther wall. In the vast room, the fires, the hundreds of kneeling figures all blurred and swam dizzily before him. The hot air that he breathed seemed crisping his lungs. Vaguely, for the stupefying, brain-numbing heat, he wondered at the figure he saw dimly in its grotesque posturing close to the flames. And the hundreds of others. How could they live? How could he himself go on living in this inferno? They had been chanting in unison the kneeling red ones. Dean heard the regular beat of their repeated words changed to an uproar of shrill whistling voices. But he could neither see nor hear plainly for the unbearable, suffocating heat. The clamor was deafening, confusing. It echoed tremendously in the rocky room and mingled with the steady continuous roar of the flames. The mass of bodies that surged about him made only a blurring impression. He tried to make himself see clearly. He must fight, fight to the last. Only this thought persisted. He was striking out blindly when he knew that his red guard had cleared away through the mob and was dragging him forward. He knew when they reached the farther wall. Somewhere above him was a deep cut-nitch in which the fires roared. And then, when again he could see from his tortured eyes, he found directly ahead another doorway in the solid rock. Beyond it, all was black. It gave promise of coolness, of relief from the stifling air of the room. Red hands were thrusting him through. The burst of water icy cold that descended upon him from above shocked him from the stupor that claimed his senses. He was drenched in an instant, strangling and gasping for breath. But he could think. And as the lean hands seized him again and hurried him forward, he almost dared to hope. To his eyes the passageway was a place of utter darkness. But the red ones, their great owl eyes opened wide, hurried him on. His stumbling feet encountered a flight of steps. With the red guard he climbed a winding stair where the tunnel twisted upward. The icy deluge had set every nerve a quiver with new life. He hardly dared ask himself what might lie ahead. Yet he had been saved from that mob. It might be his life would be spared, that in some way he could learn to communicate with these people, learn more of the subterranean world, which must be of tremendous extent. Without any sure knowledge of their plans, he still was certain, in his own mind, that they intended to swarm out upon the upper world. He might even be able to show them the folly of that. A thousand thoughts were flashing through his mind when the tunnel ended. Beyond a square cut opening the air was aglow with red. An ominous thunder was in his ears. Then a score of hands lifted him bodily and threw him out upon a rocky floor that burned his hands as he fell. He blistering unbearable beat upon him. He was wrapped in quick rising clouds of steam from his wet clothes. The platform ended. Far below was a sea of red faces grotesque and horrible, where each held two ghastly white discs, and at the center of each disc a mere pinpoint eye. He saw it all in the instant of his falling. The inhumane shrieking mob, the blast of hot flame not forty feet away at the back of the rocky niche, and between himself and the flame a giant figure that leaped exultantly while its body, that appeared carved from metallic copper, reflected the red fires until it seemed itself a flame. Dean knew in a fraction of a second, while he scrambled to his feet, that the great room had gone silent. The roaring of the flames ceased, even the clamor of sure voices was stilled. He had thrown one arm across his face to shield his eyes. The heat still poured upon him like liquid fire, but his instant decision to throw himself out and down into the waiting mob was checked by the sudden stillness. To open his eyes wide meant impossible torture, yet he forced himself to peer through slitted lids beneath the shelter of his arms. The flame was gone. Where it had been was a wall of shimmering red rock above a gapping throat in the floor, whose rim was quivering white with heat. Here the blast from some volcanic depth had come. Then he saw the great coppery figure leaping upon him, and saw, more plainly than all, this the end that had been prepared for him. Fire worshipers, demons of an underworld, pay in tribute to their god, and he, Dean Rawson, was to be a living sacrifice cast headlong to that waiting, white-hot throat. The coppery giant was upon him in the instant of his realization. Somehow in that moment Dean Rawson's wracked body passed beyond all pain. With the inhumane maniacal strength of a man driven beyond all reason and restraint he tore himself half free from those encircling arms, and drove blow after blow into the hideous face above him. Only his left arm was free. That too was clamped tightly against his body an instant later. The giant had been between him and the glowing rocks. Now he felt himself whirled in air, and again the blast of heat struck upon him. He was being rushed backward, and there flashed through his mind as plainly as if he could actually see it the sickle-ant whiteness of that hungry throat. He tried to lock his legs about the big body to prevent that final heave and throw that would end a ghastly ceremony. The rocks were close. The radiant heat wrapped about him like a living flame. Ubreptly his strength was gone. The fight was over. He had lost. His heart sent the blood pounding and thundering to his brain. His lungs seemed on fire. The high priest of the Red Ones had his priestly duty to perform. The sacrifice must be offered. But even the high priest it would seem must have been not above personal resentment. Sacrilege had been done. A fist had smashed again and again into the Holy One's face. This it must have been that made him pause, that brought one big hand up in a grip of animal rage about Dean's throat. Only a moment, a matter of seconds, while he vented his fury upon the white-skinned man who had dared to oppose him. Dean felt the hand close about his throat. So limp he was, so drained of strength he made no effort to tear it loose. He was dead. What mattered a few seconds more or less of life? And then a thrill shot through him as he knew his right hand was free. That hand made fumbling work of drawing a gun from its smoking leather holster. He could hardly control the numbed blistered fingers. Yet somehow he crooked one about the trigger and dimly as from some great distance he heard the roar of the forty-five. Then from some deep recess within him he summoned one last ounce of strength that threw him clear of the falling body. Instinctively he had heaved himself away from the fiery rocks. The same effort had sent his big coppery antagonist staggering, stumbling backward. And Dean sprawled on the stone floor whose heat, where he lay, was just short of redness, heard one long despairing shriek as the giant figure wavered, hung in the air for a moment in black outline against the fiery red of a rocky wall above a white-hot pit, then toppled, pitched forward, and vanished. Sick and giddy he forced himself to draw his body up on hands and knees. Then he straightened, came to his feet, and staggered forward. Below him was pandemonium. The sea of faces wavered and blurred before his eyes. From a distant archway other figures were coming. He saw the gleam of metal, heard the wild blare of trumpets, and knew that the hundreds of red ones below him were standing stiffly, both hands raised upright and salute as another barbaric figure entered. The air was clamorous with a shrill repeated call. Fee ye all, the red ones shrieked. Fee ye all! But Rawson did not wait to see more. Behind him the flames that had been fed with human flesh, if indeed these red ones were human, roared again into life. He had returned the pistol to its holster when first he came to his feet. His weak hands had seemed unable to hold it. And now his two hands were thrust outward before him as he staggered blindly toward the tunnel mouth. It was where he had emerged upon the platform. His riching hands found the side entrance where the stairs led down to the main hall. In the darkness he made his way past, stumbling weakly he pushed on down the long tunnel whose floor slanted gently away. Ahead of him was a light. The comparative coolness of these rocks had served to revive him somewhat. He had no hope of escape, yet the light seemed comforting somehow. He stopped. His stinging eyes were wide open. He stared incredulously at the glowing spot on a distant wall, where a flame must have touched and at the figure beneath it. The figure of a woman, a young woman, tall, slender, fair-haired, whose skin was white, a creamy white, whiter than snow. A woman. It was a mere girl, slender and beautiful. Her graceful young body poised as if, in quick flight, she had been caught and held for a moment of stillness. What was she doing here? His exhausted brain could not comprehend what it meant. He had seen women of the Mole-men tribe, mingling with the men. Like them their heads were pointed, their faces grotesque and hideous. Rosson gave an inarticulate cry of amazement and staggered forward. Between him and the distant figure a crowd of reds swarmed in. They came from a connecting passage. Above their heads the lava tips of flamethrowers were spitting jets of green fire. Every face was turned toward him at his cry. Beyond them the white figure vanished. Dean, leaning weakly against the wall, told himself dully that it had been a phantom, a product of his own despairing brain and his own weakness. Then that weakness overcame him. And the red Mole-men, their white and hideous eyes, the threatening jets of green flame, all vanished in the quick darkness that swept over him. CHAPTER XII. The black curtain of unconsciousness which descended so quickly upon Rosson was not easily thrown off. For hours, days, or weeks, he never knew how long he lay in the citadel of the reds. It was to wrap him around. Nor was his waking a matter of a moment. Many and varied were the impressions which came to him in times of semi-consciousness, and which of them were realities and which dreams he could not tell. He was being tortured with knives, glances tipped with pain, that dragged him up from the black depths in which he lay. Dimly he realized that his clothes were being stripped from him, and that the piercing knives were none the less real for being only the touch of hands and rough cloth upon his blistered body. Then from head to foot he was coated with a substance cool and moist. The pain died to a mirth robbing, and again he felt himself sinking back into unconsciousness. There were other visions, many others, some of them plain and distinct, some blurred and terrifying, to his fevered brain trying vainly to bring order and reason into what was utterly chaotic. Once a bedlam of shrieking voices roused him. He tried to open his eyes whose lids were too heavy for his strength. And by that he knew he was dreaming. Yet from under those lowered lids he seemed to see a wild medley of red warriors, their faces blotched and ghastly in the green light of their weapons. They were carrying a charred body which they threw heavily upon the floor beside him, as if to compare the two. He saw the face which the flames had not touched, the face of Jack Downer, Downer, the sheriff of Cocos County. His sandy hair had been scorched to the scalp. Dreams. And the steady beat of metal-shod feet of marching men. He saw them passing some distance away. The repeated thud-thud of metal on stone echoed madly through his brain for hours. Dreams all of them. And once there came to him a vision which beyond all doubt was unreal. Silence had surrounded him. For what seemed ours, not one of the red mole-men had come near. And then in the silence he heard whisperings and the sound of stealthy feet. And for a moment the same white figure that had met him in his flight stood where he could see. Only the mirrors-trace of dim light relieved the utter darkness of the room. The girl's figure was ghostly unreal. Yet he saw the dull sparkle of jeweled breast-plates against her creamy white skin. Loose folds of cloth were gathered about her waist. Her golden hair was drawn back except for vagrant curls that only accentuated the perfect oval of her face. There were others with her. Dim shapes of men. How many, Rosson could not tell. They looked down at him, whispering softly, excitedly among themselves. But their words were like nothing he had ever heard. For an instant Dean felt his stupefied mind coming almost to wakefulness. Phantom figures ghostly and unreal. But the faces were human, and the eyes looked down upon him pittingly. He tried to rouse himself, tried to call out, then settled limply back, for the girl was speaking. Or he was catching her thoughts. It seemed almost that he heard her whispered words. They take him to Guevara, to the lake of fire which never dies. Gore told me he overheard their plans. But by the mountain I hear. Then footsteps echoed in a far-off passage, and the white ones vanished like drifting smoke. Dreams all of them. Yet the time came when Dean knew that he was awake. He knew that further experiences awaited him in this demoniac land. Again red guards came. The wicked breath of their weapons filled the great room where Rosson had been with green flickering light. Dean dragged to his feet was unable to stand. One of the giant yellow workers came forward at a whistle-auder, and held him erect. Another brought a bowl carved from rock crystal, and filled with a liquid, golden-green with reflected light. He put at the Rosson's lips, and with that first touch, Dean knew that he must have been filled with a burning thirst beyond anything he had ever known. He gulped greedily at the liquid, drained the bowl to the last drop, then marveled at the thrilling fire of strength that flowed through him. Wine, he thought, wine of the gods or devils. He came to himself with a start. He knew that he was naked, and that his body was encased in a coating of stiff gray plaster. It was this that prevented his arms and legs from flexing. Another order, and the giant worker picked him up in his arms, and carried him where the others led to a distant room. A stream trickled through a cut in the rocky floor. At the center of the room was a pool. Unable to resist, Dean felt the giant arms toss him out and down. The water was warm. At its first touch, the hard plaster melted like snow. Sputtering and choking for breath, Rosson came to the surface. He found he could move freely. Then reaching hands hauled him out upon the floor, and, through all his dread, he found time to marvel at his own firm muscles and the healthy white of his skin that had been seared and blistered. He obeyed when the red guards pointed and motioned him into a dark passageway. He tried to keep up with them as they hurried him on. Evidently his pace was too slow, for again the big worker picked him up, swung him into the air, and seated him firmly on one broad shoulder. And with red guards ahead and behind them hurried on. To find himself a child in the hands of this big yellow man was disconcerting. To be calmly lugged off was almost humiliating. No one, who was not a good sport, could have grinned as Rosson did at his own predicament. Not exactly a triumphal procession, he told himself, then his lips set grimly. They've got my gun, he thought, and now whatever comes, all I can do is stand and take it. Still they saved my life, but what for? Always the way led downward, and Rosson perched on his strange, half-human steed. Let his gaze follow up every branching tunnel and widespread cave. Not all of these were as dark as the broad thoroughfare they followed. In some, strange lights glowed, and Rosson saw weird, towering plant growths that yellow workers were harvesting. Life, life everywhere, and seemingly this underground world was endless. Troops of red warriors passed them upward bound. The dancing flames of their weapons, where occasional ones were in action, glowed from afar. They bobbed and waved, like green fireflies, as the moment came on at half a run. And this means trouble up top, he thought. There's going to be hell to pay up there. But workers, fighters, every one they met, stood aside to let the red guard pass. Again Rosson heard the strange word or call that had come to him in the temple of fire. One of the guides would give a whistling call that ended in the same strange shrill cry of, Fie all! And instantly the way was cleared. A wild journey, incredible, unreal. Rosson has he met the countless staring wide eyes of the creatures they passed, found his thoughts wondering. He had had wild dreams, surely. This was only another in that succession of phantom pictures. Then, seeing the cold and placable hatred in those staring eyes, he would be brought back with sickening abruptness to a full knowledge of his own hopeless situation. Gavaro, the lake of fire which never dies. What was it the white ones had said? But no, that certainly was a dream, like that other, in which he seemed to see the charred body of a man, the sheriff, who had called to see him at his camp in Tana Basin. Dreams, reality, his brain was confused with the wild kaleidoscope of unbelievable pictures. He was suddenly aware that through it all he had been mentally tabulating their route, remembering the outstanding features, when there was light enough to see. He knew that unconsciously his mind had been thinking of escape. Wilder than all the other visions, he had been picturing himself retracing his route alone free. He did not know that he had laughed aloud harshly hopelessly until he saw the curious eyes of his red guard upon him. Yes he told himself in silent bitterness I could find my way back, if. The guard had swung off from the great tunnel, which must have been one of the main thoroughfares of the Mole Men's world. They crowded through a narrower passage, and again Rossin found himself in one of the great high-ceilinged caves, like the others he had seen. But unlike the others, this was brightly lighted. His eyes squinted against the glare and caught the character of the rock before he was able to distinguish details. And in the black limestone, big discs of gray mineral had been set, jets of flame played upon them and turned them to blazing brilliant white. The big yellow Mole Man, who had carried him, dropped him roughly to the floor and backed away. About him the red guard was grouped. Rossin caught a glimpse of hundreds of other thronging figures. The crowd about him separated. The space was cleared between him and the farther end of the room. Elaine lined on either side by solid masses of savage reds. And beyond them, more barbaric than any figure in the foreground, was another group. Across the full width of the room a low wall was raised three or four feet from the floor. It was capped with rude carvings. The whole mass gleamed dolly golden in the bright light. Beyond the wall in a semi-circular formation, resembling a grouping of bronze statues, were men like the one with whom Rossin had fought. Priests, tenders of the fires, he knew in an instant that here were more of the red one's holy men. They stood erect on moving. At their center was another seated man's shape that might have been cast from solid gold. His naked body was yellow and glittering, contrasting strongly with the black metal straps like those the warriors wore. On his head, a round sharply pointed cap was ablaze with precious stones. Rossin took it all in in one quick glance. He knew that those copper bodies were not encased in metal, for the flesh of the one he had fought with had sunk under his blows. Their skin was coated with a preparation, heat-resistant without a doubt, and the golden one must have been treated in somewhat the same way. His thoughts flashed quickly over this. It was the face of that seated figure that riveted his attention. A white face, milk-white, so white it seemed almost chalky. For one breathless second Rossin was filled with a wordless hope. The white ones of his dreams had looked upon him with kindly eyes. They were human, men of another race, but men. Then beneath the chalky whiteness of the face he found the hideous features of the red mole men, and he knew that the white color of the face was as false as that of the golden body. But he was their leader. He was someone of importance. Rossin had started forward impetuously when he saw the figure rise. At the first motion the hands of every red one in the room were flung in the air. They stood stiffly at salute. Even the priest's coppery arms flashed upward. And, fee-e-all, a thousand shrill voices were shouting, fee-e-all, fee-e-all. Rossin stopped, then walked slowly forward, one defenseless naked man of the upper world, between two living walls formed by men of a hidden race. Fee-e-all, he was thinking. He's the one I saw coming into their temple back there. They got out of our way when they knew we were coming to see him. He's the big boss here, all right. He did not pause in his steady forward progress until his hands were resting upon the golden barrier. Strange thoughts were racing through his mind. Fee-e-all, he was facing fee-e-all, king of a kingdom ten miles or more beneath the surface of the earth. A place of devils more real and terrible than any that mythology had dared depict. And he, Dean Rossin, a man, just one of the millions like him up there in a sane, civilized world, was down here standing at a barrier of gold before a tribunal that knew nothing of justice or mercy. Thoughts of communicating with them had mingled with other half-formed plans in his racing mind. Sign language. He had talked with the Indians. He might be able to get some ideas across. He met the others fierce scrutiny fearlessly. Then, waiting for him to make the first advance, let his gaze dart about at closer range. He could not restrain a start of surprise. At sight of his own clothing his pocket radio receiver and his pistol spread out on a metal stand. They had been curious about them. Rossin took that as a good sign. Perhaps he had been mistaken in his interpretation of what he had seen. For himself he could have no real hope, but it might be that the outpouring of these demons into his own world was a threat that lay only in his own imagination. His eyes came back to meet the gaze which had never left him. The eyes were mere dots of jet in a white and repulsive face. The rounded mouth opened to emit a shrill whistled order. In the utter silence of the great room one of the copper-skinned priests moved swiftly toward the rear. There were chests there, massive metal things of fire with the brilliance of inlaid jewels. The priests flung one of them open with a resounding clang. The room had been warm, and the chill which abruptly froze Rossin's muscles to hard rigidity came from within himself. Dreams. He had thought them dreams, those marching thousands, and the others who returned. He had dared the hope he might avert an invasion by this inhumane horde. And now he knew his worst imaginings were far short of the truth. He saw clearly his own fate. For the priest returning was holding an object aloft, a horrible thing, a naked body scorched and charred. And above it a head lopped awkwardly. The hair was sandy, half of it had been burned to the scalp in a withering flame. Below, staring from sightless eyes, was the face of the man who had once been the sheriff of Cocos County. CHAPTER XIII You fly, of course, demanded Governor Drake. Smitty nodded, unlimited license, all levels. They had spent the night in the executive mansion, and now the Governor had burst precipitately into the room where Smitty and his father had just finished dressing. The two had been deep in an earnest conversation which the Governor's entrance had interrupted. I am drafting you for service, said the Governor. I want you to go out to field number three, a fast scout plane, national guard equipment will be ready for you. He broke off and stared doubtfully at a paper in his hand, a radio phone message Smitty judged. I am in a devil of a fix. The Governor exclaimed after a pause, then. I don't doubt your sincerity, he told Smitty. Never saw you until yesterday, but your father's OK goes a hundred percent with me. Old Jay G and I have been through a lot of scrapes together. His frowning eyes relaxed for a moment to exchange twinkling glances with the older man. No, it isn't that, he added, but again he stared at the flimsy piece of paper. What's on your mind, Bill? asked Smith Sr. The stuff the boy told us was pretty wild. He laid one hand affectionately upon Smitty's shoulder. But he's a poor liar, Gordon is, and knowing his weakness he usually sticks to the truth. And there's no record of insanity in the family, you know. If there's something sticking in your crop, Bill, cough it up. And the Honorable William B. Drake obeyed. Listen to this, he commanded, and read from the paper in his hand. Replying to your inquiry about the doings at Seven Palms, some Indians did that job. No help needed. I can handle this. Posse organized and we're leaving right now. Signed Jack Dower, Sheriff, Cocos County. That sounds authentic, said Smitty dryly. I've met the Sheriff. Now if it was Indians that got tanked up and came down off the reservation, burned Seven Palms and cleaned up your camp, began Governor Drake. It wasn't Smitty interrupted hotly, I told you. He felt his father's hand gripping firmly at his shoulder. Steady, said Smith Sr., let him talk, son. There's an election three months from now, J.G., said the Governor. And you know they're riding me hard. Let me make one false move, just one, anything that the opposition can use for a campaign of ridicule, and my goose is cooked to a turn. Gordon Smith shook off his father's restraining hand and took one quick forward step. His face, even through the tan of the desert sun, was unnaturally pale. Election be damned, he exploded. Dane Rosson has been captured by those red devils. He's down there, the whitest white man I ever met. I've been to the Sheriff. Now I've come to you. Do you mean to tell me there isn't any power in this state to back me up when...? He stopped. There was a tremble in his voice. He could not control. Good boy, said Governor Drake, softly. Now I know as to truth. Yes, you'll be backed up, plenty. But for the present it will be strictly unofficial. Now pull in your horns and listen. You know the lay of the land. I want your help. Go out to field three. There'll be a man there, waiting for you. Don't call him Colonel. He's also strictly unofficial today. The Sheriff and his posse will be there at seven poms inside an hour. I want you to be there, too. About five thousand feet up. Tell Colonel Culver, I mean Mr. Culver, your story. Tell him everything you know. He'll be in charge of operations if we have to send in troops. He'll give you that private and unofficial backing I spoke of, if we don't. Now get down there, keep your eye on the Sheriff's crowd, and see everything that happens. But Smitty's pardon remark was to his father. It was a continuation of the subject they had been discussing before. You can buy it at your own price, he said. They've got rights to the whole basin. But they've quit. I'm not treating them to a double cross. Any added has he went out of the room. Buy it for me, if you don't want it yourself. It was a two-place open cockpit plane that Smitty found had been set aside for him. Dual control. The stick and the forward cockpit carried the firing grip that controlled the slim blue machine guns firing through the propeller. Behind the rear cockpit, a strange, unwieldy, double-ended weapon was recessed and streamed lined into the fuselage. The scout seemed quite able to protect itself in an emergency. Beside the plane, a tall slender man in civilian attire was waiting. He stuck out his hand while the gray eyes in his lean tan face scanned Smitty swiftly. I'm Culver. Understand I'm to be your passenger today. How about it? Can you fly this ship? 750 de-gross motor. Retractable landing gear, of course. She hits 450 at top speed. Snappy, quick on the trigger. Smitty shook his head dubiously. 450? I'm not accustomed to that. But you can take the stick, Mr. Culver, if I get in a hurry and jump out and run on ahead. You see, I'm used to my own ship, and a siggy, special job does 500 when I'm pressed for time. The lean face of Mr. Culver creased into a smile. You qualify, he said, but keep your hands off the dead mule. At an inquiring glance he pointed to the heavy, half-hidden weapon that Smitty had noticed. Can't kick, he explained. Hence, dead mule. It's the new, rickored, recoilless, throws little shells the size of your thumb, but they raise hell when they hit. Sounds interesting. Smitty climbed into the rear cockpit and strapped himself in. Show me how it works. Then I won't do it. The pistol grip moved under Culver's reaching hand, and the strange weapon sprang from concealment like something alive. The pistol grip moved sideways, and the gun swung out and down, its muzzle almost touching the ground. Smitty was suddenly aware that a crystal above his instrument board was reflecting that same bit of sun-baked earth, a dot of black hung stationary at the crystal's center. That's your target, Culver's voice held all the pride of a child with a new toy. But he released the grip, and the ungainly gun swung smoothly back to its hiding place. He settled himself in the forward cockpit. You'll find a helmet there, he said. It's phone-equipped. You can tell me all about that wild nightmare of yours while we jog along. The white beam from the dispatcher's tower had been on them while they talked. Other planes were waiting on the field. Smitty smiled as he settled the helmet over his head. For a strictly unofficial flight, he thought, we're getting darned good service. He taxied past a hangar, where uniformed men pointedly paid them no attention. He swung the ship to the line as airboard regulations required. N-73 was painted on the monoplane's low wings that seemed scraping the ground. N-73 clear the dispatcher's voice radioed into Smitty's ears. Then the 750 horsepower degross let loose its voice as Smitty gunned her down the field. Whatever doubts Colonel Culver may have had of Smitty's ability were dissipated as they made their way cautiously through the free flying area under 5,000. Everywhere were mail planes, express and passenger ships, taking off for the transcontinental day run, and private planes scattering to the smaller landing areas among the flashing lights of the flat-topped business blocks. Among them Smitty threaded his way toward the green-lighted transfer zone, where he spiraled upward. At 10,000 he was on his course. He set the gyro control, which would fly the ship more surely than any human hands, and the airspeed indicator crept up to 450 miles an hour that Culver had promised. Not till then did he give the man in the forward cockpit the details of his nightmare. He had not finished answering the other's incredulous questions when he throttled down to slow cruising speed and nosed the ship toward a distant expanse of sage-blurred sand. Outside the restricted metropolitan area he had already dropped out of the chill wind that struck them at 10,000. Behind them and off to the right was the gray rampart of the Sierra. Ahead a rough circle of darker hills enclosed a great bowl that he had learned to know as Tauna Basin. Some feeling of unreality in his own experiences must have crept into his mind. Unconsciously he had been questioning his own sanity. Now at sight of the sandy waste where he and Rosson had labored, with the dark slopes of desolate craters looming ahead and a blot of blurred wreckage directly below to mark the sight of their camp, the horrible reality of it gripped him again. He could not speak at first. The air of the 5,000 level was not uncomfortably warm, but Smitty was feeling again the baking heat of the desert land. Again he was with Rosson in the volcanic crater. Dean was calling to him, warning him. A sharp question from Culver was repeated twice before Smitty could reply. He side slipped in above the crater's ragged rim, heedless of downdrafts. The power of the degross motor would pull them out of anything in a ten-thousand-foot vertical climb if need arose. Smitty was pointing toward a confusion of shining black rock. Over there, he told Culver. Then he was shouting into the telephone transmitter. It's open, he said. That's where Dean went down. And there they are. Look, man, there, there! CHAPTER XIV The throat of the old volcano was a pit of blackness in the midst of gray ash and the red yellow of cinders. Beside it were other flecks of color, red, moving bodies, metal, that twinkled brightly under the desert sun, and in an instant they were gone. Nor did Smitty, throwing the thundering plane close over that place, know how near he had passed to sudden, invisible death. Rugged pinnacles of rock were ahead. The plane under Smitty's hands vaulted over them and roared on above the desert. Did you see them? Smitty was shouting. The man in the forward cockpit turned to face his pilot. I am apologizing, Smith, for all the things I have been thinking and haven't said. We've got a job on our hands. Now let's find that fool, Sheriff, who thinks he's hunting for drunken Indians. We must warn him. Smitty wondered at the wisps of blue smoke still rising from the ruins of Seven Palms as he drove in above it. It seemed the years since he had left the basin, yet the wreckage of this little town only five miles outside still smoldered. Black smoke-cover was shouting to him. East, he said. Swing east. There's fighting over there. Then, in his usual cool tone, I'll take the ship, Smith. Give them a burst or two from up here. Perhaps the Sheriff can use a little help. Across the yellow sand ran a desert road. Ten miles away, black smoke clouds were lifting. Smitty knew that there had been a little settlement there. A dozen houses, perhaps, and a gasoline station. At half that distance the clear sunlight showed moving objects on the sand, automobiles, smaller dots that were running them. They came suddenly to a sharp visibility as the plane drew near. Tiny bursts of white meant rifle fire. They were a thousand feet up and close when Smitty saw the first car vanish in flame. Others followed swiftly. Men were falling. A dozen of them had made up the Sheriff's posse. And now, like the cars, they too burst into flame and either vanished utterly or, like living torches, were cast down upon the sand. Still no sign of the enemy. More than the rippling stab of green fire from a sand dune at one side. They were over and past before Smitty, looking back, saw the red ones leap out into view. Never must have seen them in the same instant. He throttled down to a safe banking speed. Open full, the degross would have whipped them around in a turn that would have met instant death. From five miles distance they shot in on a long slant. Smitty's hands were off the stick. It was Culper's ship now. He saw the man peering through his sights. Then the roar of the motor held other, sharper sounds. Thin flames were stabbing through the propeller disk. And he knew that the bowguns were sending messengers on ahead where red figures waited on the sand. Their trajectory flattened. Culver half rolled the ship as they sped overhead. He wants to look at them, Smitty was thinking. Then a blast of heat struck him full in the face. It was Smitty's hand on the stick that right at the ship, only the instant response of the big degross motor, tore them up and away from the sands that were reaching for those wings. His face was seared, but the pain of it was forgotten in the knowledge that their drunken pristine flight had whipped out the fire, looking back from the forward cockpit. He saw Culver's head fallen awkwardly to one side. The helmet, in one part, was charred to a crisp. He leveled off. He was thinking. Another man gone. Can I ever fight back if I only had a gun? Then he knew he was looking at the pistol grip where Colonel Culver's brown hand had brought an awkward weapon to life. His lips twisted to a whimsical smile. Though his eyes still held the same cold fury as he whispered. And I don't even know that the damn things loaded, but I'm going to find out. They were clustered on the sands below him as he roared overhead. He was flying at two thousand, the throttle open full. Beside the ship a gun swung its long barrel downward. It sputtered almost soundlessly. But where it passed, the sand rose up in sprouting fountains. But as wild speed made the gunfire almost useless, the shellbursts were spaced too far apart. They straddled the blot of figures. He came back at five thousand feet slowly, until the ship lurched, and he saw the right wing tip vanish in a shower of molten metal. He threw the ship over and away from the invisible beam. The plane writhed and twisted across the last half mile of sky. He was over them when he pulled into a tight spiral. Then he swung the pistol grip that controlled the gun, until the dot in the crystal was merged with the target of clustering red forms. The gun sputtered. Below the plane the quiet desert heaved its smooth surface convulsively into the air. Even above the roar of the motor, Smitty heard the terrific thunder of that one long explosion. Above the rim of the forward cockpit Culver's head rolled uneasily. His voice, thick and uncertain, came back through the phone. And later, only a matter of minutes later, though fifty miles away, Smitty set the plane down on a level expanse of sand and tore frantically at his belt. Colonel Culver was weakly raising his head. What hit us, he demanded, when Smitty got to him. Did I crash? He looked about him with dazed eyes, from which he never would have seen again but for the protection of his goggles. Fire sit Smitty tersely. They did at the devils, and it wasn't a flamethrower either. There wasn't a flash of their cursed green light. It just flicked us for a second. You got the worst of it. Your half-roll saved us. That thing, whatever it was, would have ripped off our left wing in a second. He was looking at the forward cockpit where the metal fuselage was melted. The leather cushioning around the edge was black and charred. Culver's helmet had protected him, but half of his face was seared, as if it had been struck by a white flame. But we got some of them. They know we can hit back, Smitty began. But he knew he was speaking to deaf ears. Again, his passenger had lapsed into unconsciousness. Quickly he disconnected their own radio receiver, and threw on the emergency radio siren. Ahead of them, for a hundred miles an invisible beam was carrying that discordant blast. Then, with throttle open full, regardless of the levels and of air traffic that tore frenziedly from his path, he drove straight for the home field. In the office of the Governor, the radio newscaster was announcing last-minute items of interest. The Governor switched off the instrument as Smitty entered, supporting the tall figure of Colonel Culver, whose face and head were swathed in bandages. Culver had insisted upon accompanying him for the rendering of their report, though Smitty had to do the talking for both of them. He outlined their experience in brief sentences. And now he was saying grimly, You can go as far as you please, Governor. You've got a man-sized fight on your hands. We don't know how many there are of them. We don't know how fast they'll spread out. But... A shrill wail interrupted him. From the news-casting instrument came a flash of red that filled the room. The crystal, the emergency call installed on all radios within the past year, and never yet used, was clamoring for the country's attention. Governor Drake sprang to switch it on, and tried to explain to Smitty as he did so. It's out of my hands now, he said. Washington has. Then the radio came on with a voice which shouted. Emergency order, all aircraft, take notice. Mole men. Smitty started at the sound of the word. It was the name he had given them himself. Mole men are invading western states, a new race. They have come from within the earth. In Arizona, three ships of the transcontinental day-line, Southern Division, have been destroyed with the loss of all passengers and crew, shattered in air. It is war, war with an unknown race. Goldfield, Nevada, is in ruins. Heavy loss of life. Federal government taking control. Air control board orders traffic to avoid following areas. They're followed a list of locations, while still the red crystal blazed its warning across the land, and to all aircraft in the skies. Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Southern transcontinental routes closed, all except military aircraft grounded in restricted areas. Smitty's excitement had left him. In his mind he was looking far off, deep under the surface of the world. They've been there, he said quietly, thousands of years, a new race, and they've just now learned of this other world outside. Three ships downed. They picked them off in the air, just as they tried to do to us. I knew we had a fight on our hands. His voice died to silence in the room, where now the new announcer was giving a list of the dead. A room where men were speechless before an emergency no man could have foreseen. But Smitty's eyes, gazing far off, saw nothing of that room. Again he was seated on an outthrust point of rock, Dean Rosson beside him, and from the black depths, beneath, a man's voice was rising clearly, mockingly, it seemed, in song. 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. The devil is there to pay, Smitty repeated softly. He leaned across and placed one hand on Colonel Culver's knee. With your assistance, Colonel, I'd like to go down there and find him. You and I. We know the way. We'll organize an expedition. Maybe we can settle that debt. CHAPTER XV of 2000 miles below by Charles Willard Diffen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. THE LAKE OF FIRE For a barrier of gold, waist-high, Dean Rosson stood tense and rigid. Behind him the great cave-room swarmed with warriors, leaders doubtless of the unholy hordes. But beyond the barrier were the real leaders of the Mole-men tribes, Fee-E-All, ruler-in-chief, and his clustering guard of high-priests. In the flooding light from the wall, their eyes were circles of dead white skin. A black speck glinted wickedly in the center of each. Fee-E-All was speaking. His artificially whiteened face grimanced hideously. The shrill whistling voice made no comprehensible sound. But in some manner Rosson gathered a dim realization of what his gestures meant. Fee-E-All pointed at the captive, and one lean hand, with talons more suggestive of a bird of prey than of a human hand, pointed downward. Gavaro, he said. The word was repeated many times in the course of his whistling talk. Gavaro, what did it mean? Then Rosson remembered. It was the word he had heard in his dreams, the name of the Lake of Fire. The voices of the priests rose, and a shrill chorus of protests, and even Fee-E-All stood silent. They crowded about their ruler, and Rosson knew they were demanding him for themselves. Then the one who still held a human body in his arms sprang forward, and his long talons worked unspeakable mutilation upon the body and face. Rosson averted his eyes from the ghastly spectacle. For swiftly he was seeing something more horrifying than this desecration of a dead body. He was seeing himself, still living tortured and torn by those same beastly hands. The dead face of Sheriff Downer was staring at him from red, eyeless sockets, as with one leap Rosson threw himself over the golden wall. Ten leaping strides away was his gun. In that instant of realization he knew why his life had been spared. In the room of fire he had destroyed their priests. They had saved him for further torture. To get his hands on that gun to die fighting the thought was an unspoken prayer in his mind. Behind him the room echoed with demonic shrieks. Before him was the metal stand. His outstretched hands fell just short of the blue forty-five as he crashed to the floor. The copper ones were upon him. Half-stunned by the fall he hardly knew when they dragged him to his feet. He was facing the golden figure of Phi E. All. But now the rulers in decision had vanished. He was exercising his full authority, and even Rosson's throbbing brain comprehended the doom that was being pronounced. Guevarao he was reeking. Guevarao. Beside him a priest swept the metal table clear. Rosson's clothing, the gun, the radio receiver, all were snatched up and hurled into one of the massive chests. Phi E. All was still shouting shrill commands. An instant later Rosson was lifted in air, rushed to the barrier and thrown bodily from the sacred premises he had invaded. Then the hands of the red guard closed about him before he could struggle to his feet. A shining object swung down above his head. It was the last he knew. His dreams were of falling. Always when he half-roused to consciousness he was aware of that smooth, even descent, and he knew it had continued for hours. Once he saw black walls slipping smoothly past upward, always upward. Gropingly he tried to marshal his facts into some understandable sequence. He was falling, falling towards the center of the earth, and this that he saw was not rock or any metal such as he knew. It's all different, he told himself dully. New kind of matter, rock would flow, this stands to pressure. But he knew the air pressure had built up tremendously. The blood was pounding in his ears. He wanted to sleep. It was the heat that awakened him. The air was stifling him, suffocating. He was struggling to move his heavy body, fighting against this nightmare of heat when he opened his eyes and knew that he was in a place of light. First to be seen were walls, no longer black, no longer even with the characteristics of rock or even metal. Here, as Rossin had sensed, was a new material to form the core of a world. It would have been red in an ordinary light. It was transformed the orange, strangely terrifying in the blazing flood of yellow brilliance that came from the tunnel's end. Rossin's brain was not working clearly. An unendurable weight seemed pressing upon him, the air pressure he thought, to which he had not yet become accustomed. And the air itself, hot, hot. A breeze blew steadily past toward the place of yellow horror at the tunnel's end. Yellow that reflected light, but its source was a searing dazzling white in the one brief instant when Rossin dared turn his eyes. Hands held him erect, red, gripping hands. One whose body seemed a molten copper in that fierce glare approached. His hand described the circle over Rossin's bare chest. Straight lines radiated out from the circle, lines of stabbing pain, for the helpless man. He had seen the same emblem in the temple of fire again in the big room where Phi E. All had stood. The living sacrifice was prepared. Burned into his bare flesh was the emblem of their legendary sun-god. The priests, their bodies coated with a flashing coppery film that must somehow be heat-resistant, had him in their grasp. The red warriors had fallen back. Then Phi E. All appeared. He joined the march of death of which Dean Rossin formed at the head. Voices were chanting. Somewhere a trumpet blared. Then Rossin, moving like one in a dream, knew the priests were guiding him toward that waiting incredible heat. The tunnel's end was near. About him was an inferno where heat and hot colors blended. The whole world seemed the flame. But beyond the tunnel's end was a seething pit upon which no human eyes could look and live. One glimpse only of the unbearable whiteness beneath which was the lake of fire. Then the chains of his stupor broke, and Dean Rossin struggled frenziedly in the grip of two copper giants. They had been chanting a shrill monotonous refrain. They ceased now as they fought to throw the man out past the last ten paces where even they dared not go. Rossin was beyond conscious thought. Eyes closed against the unendurable heat. He fought blindly desperately. Then knew his last strength was going from him. Still struggling, he opened his eyes. Some thought of meeting death face to face compelled him. A hideous, coppery face glared close into his own. Miraculously it vanished, disappeared in a cloud of white. Then the blazing walls were gone. There was nothing in all the world but rushing clouds of whiteness, shrieking winds, the roar of an explosion. And cold, so biting, that it burned like heat. Vaguely he wondered at the hands that still clutched at him. Dimly he sensed other bodies close to his, other hands that tore him free, where he lay still struggling with the priests upon the floor. A narrow opening was in the wall, a blur of darkness in the billowing white clouds. They were dragging him into it, those others who held him. And they were white, white as the vapor that whirled about him. Ahead the girl of his former dreams was guiding him, her hand cool and soft in his. Others helped him. He ran stumblingly where they led, down a steep and narrow way. The white ones, in a vision they had reached out to him before. Was this to a dream? Was it only the delirium of death, that burst of cold, had it truly been liquid fires wrapping him around? Dean Rosson could not be sure. He knew only that his fate lay holy in the hands of these white ones, and that the hideous eyes and the coppery face of a priest had glared at them as they fled. Dean Rosson had passed through a nerve-wracking experience. It was not a question of courage. Rosson had plenty of that. But there are times when a man's nervous system is shocked almost to insensibility by sheer horror. Not at once did he realize what was happening. Perhaps it was the sound of pursuit that jarred him out of the fog, clouding all his thoughts and perceptions. It was like the sound of fighting animals, cat-beasts, whose snarls had risen to screaming, calling shrieks of rage. It was sheer beastliness, the din that echoed through the narrow passage. Ahead of him the girl was running. She held a light in her hand. Soft wrappings of cloth hung loosely from her waist. Like her golden hair, it was flung backward in the strong draft of air against which they were struggling. She was outlined clearly before the red, rock-like masses, where her light was falling. She was running swiftly, like a wild woodland nymph. Two men, their milk-white bodies naked, but for the thick foals of their loin-cloths, were beside Rosson helping him along. Two others followed. And by their haste and their odd, whispered words of alarm, he knew that pursuit had not been expected, that they must have thought to get away unobserved. Rosson felt his strength returning. He shook himself free from those who tried to aid him. He was amazed at how easily he ran. His weight was a mere nothing. His efforts were expended in driving his body against the blast of wind. The air seemed dense, thick. He had almost the feeling of forcing himself through water. Ahead of him the girl darted abruptly through a narrow crack in the wall. Rosson followed, and then began a wild race through a network of connecting passages, a vast labyrinth of caves, more like fractures in this strange red substance which Rosson could think of only as rock, for lack of a more accurate name. Until at last there was no sound except that of their own hurrying feet. They stopped and stood panting in one of the wider passages. He heard nothing but the endless rush of the wind. For the first time Rosson became aware of his own almost naked condition. The Mole-men had prepared him for the sacrifice. They had decked him with a loincloth of woven gold. It felt cold to the touch, and Rosson did not doubt it's being made of fine threads of the precious metal. About his neck hung a gold chain with a heavy object suspended. He tore it off and found again the representation of a golden sun. The copper priests had arrayed him to meet their fire-god, and again Rosson wondered at the emblem they employed. What in the name of the starlit heavens he demanded silently of himself could this buried race know of the sun? The others were watching him. In the glow of that strange light, held by the girl, he saw them smiling. They were congratulating one another with odd, soft, syllables words, and Rosson, ignorant of their tongue, was mute when his whole soul cried out to thank them. He gripped the hands of the men. They were as tall as himself, their gaze leveled with his own. Their faces were human, friendly. Their eyes sparkled and smiled into his. Then he turned to the girl. She had seen the method of greeting this stranger employed, so she extended her hand, a white hand, slim, soft, cool. And Rosson, choking with emotion, knowing that here was the one who had first seen him and who had returned to save him, a stranger, bent low above the hand, held in his own so rough and burned, and pressed his lips to the slender fingers in a quick caress. When he raised his head she was looking at him oddly. Her eyes were deep, serious, unsmiling. He wondered if, blunderingly, he had offended her. He could not know. He did not know their customs. Then the slim girlish figure turned. Her jeweled breast-place flashed, and she led the others, on where always the way led upward, and the wind pressed against them, unceasingly. The white ones wore sandals that seemed woven of glass. Rosson's bare feet were bruised and sore. For those narrow clefs had been paved with only broken fragments of the red walls. He moved less easily now. The heavy, beating air tired him. The lightness of his body made it all the more difficult to fight the steady wind. Still he followed the white figure of the girl, where her light was flashing on endless walls of red. In his ears a new sound was registering. Above the rush of the air, that now was soft and warm, a new note had risen to a hollow, unremitting roar. He knew that for some time he had been hearing it faintly. It grew louder, one long, steady, unchanging note, as they advanced. It was a deafening reverberation that seemed shaking the whole earth when they came at last to an open room. It beat upon him thunderously. As deep as the deepest tone of a mighty organ, like a thousand gigantic organs welded in one, it roared and shook him through and through with its single note. And by his wild flight, surrounded by this maelstrom of sound, he sank to the floor and let his laboring lungs have their way. But his eyes were searching the big room. The great cave was too regularly formed to have had a natural origin. The light that the girl had carried gave only feeble illumination in so great a space that had so evidently been hollowed out of the solid red matter. The light flashed here and there as the girl and her companions moved away. They were circling the room. Rosson saw the irregular outlines of entrances to many dark passages, like the one through which they had come. The red rock mass seemingly had been riven and torn, and apparently in front of each opening the white figures fought against the rush of outgoing air. Rosson felt the same current sweeping and whirling gustily about him. Now his companions were across the room, and between him and them, in the center of the floor, he saw the mouth of a black well, a pit some twenty or more feet across. Directly above where the red rock stuff formed the domed ceiling he found a counterpart of the pit below. Another great bore or open shaft, roughly circular. Eventually it went straight on up and was a continuation of that lower pit. This room was cut out, Rosson was thinking, by the white people or the mole-men. Lord knows who or when or why. Cut out around this big shaft. His thoughts trailed off. Even thinking seemed impossible under the battering of the roaring noise that pounded about him. Then another thought pierced through the bedlam. He had found the source of the uproar. The upper shaft, the hole that went on up, must be plugged. There was no outlet that way, and this air that drove endlessly upward from the room must be coming from the lower shaft. It was striking up into that upper cavity. An organ pipe, truly, but once came the unending blast of air to keep the gigantic instrument in operation. Rosson dropped to his knees and crept slowly across the floor toward the pit. He must test his theory. See if that was where the air was driving in. Just short of the brink he stopped, the girl had called a cry of alarm. She was running swiftly toward him, circling the pit. And Rosson, as she tugged at him, trying to draw him back, knew that she had mistaken his motive. She had thought he was going to cast himself down. He did not need to go farther. He was close to the edge, and now, even above the roaring sound, he heard the rush of the column of air. He seated himself on the stone floor and smiled up at the girl reassuringly. Her eyes, that had been dark with fear, changed swiftly to a look so sweetly, beautifully tender, that Dean Rosson found himself thrilled and shaken by an emotion that set his nerves to quivering even more than did the sonorous vibration from above. Her companions had joined her. Dean saw her eyes regarding them steadily. Then, as if reaching some sudden final conclusion in her own mind, she dropped swiftly to her knees beside him, raised one of his hands in hers, and pressed her soft lips against it. And Dean, even had he known their language, could not in that moment have spoken. There had been something in the look of her eyes and the soft touch of her lips that of themselves went far beyond words. You, darling, he was whispering softly to himself as the girl sprang to her feet and walked swiftly away, the others following. An angel no less, down in this damned place. He wondered as he watched the flickering light fire across the room what destination they could be bound for. Surely no one so radiantly beautiful could inhabit a world of endless dungeons like that where the Mole Men lived. But if not that, then what? Where would their next journey take them? And in what direction would they go? Again Rosson's thoughts were submerged beneath his own weariness. The air that beat about him had seemed cool after the terrific heat that drove in off the lake of fire. Now he realized that the air itself was hot. His one spurt of strength and energy had been expended. He watched the men disappear into one of the passages. But he roused himself when they returned. They were clinging to a strange device, a metal cylinder that floated in air above their heads, like a derogable on end. It was about eight feet in diameter and some fourteen feet in height. Both upper and lower ends were rounded. A cage of parallel bars enclosed it from end to end. Like springs of steel they extended from top to bottom, where they curved in and were attached to the rounded ends. Rosson sat up quickly and stared in startled amazement at the thing glinting like polished aluminum in the light. And his engineer's mind responded as much to that smooth finish and the evident workmanship that had entered into the making of this thing as it did to the object itself. The girl placed her light on the floor. She too reached up and gripped a bar of the protecting cage to which the others were holding. With her added weight and strength they drew it down almost to the floor. Rosson knew by their efforts that they were dealing with something actually buoyant, a metal balloon. One of the men still put in his weight on the bars, reached in and opened a door in the smooth shell. He stepped inside and a moment later the big shell dropped to the floor and still vertical stood on the lower rounded end of the protecting cage rocking gently as the hot whirling wind hit it. They were communicating among themselves by signs. Rosson saw them motioning. Speech was useless in that roaring pandemonium filled room. She was motioning for him to follow. One of the men circled that central pit, came beside Rosson and helped him to his feet, steadying him as they crossed the room. The girl had entered the big metal shell. Dean saw the glow of her torch shining through the open doorway and through two other windows of crystal glass. The big room had grown dimmer. The high ceiling was lost in murky shadows. All the room was dark, say where the light struck upon walls and floor to make them glow blood red. The waiting light at shell seemed the haven of refuge. To get inside, close the door, lock out some of this unendurable battering sound. It was all Rosson asked, all he could think. The door closed. He was within the shell standing on a smooth metal floor. The others were beside him. Dully, he wondered what wild adventure was ahead. He had expected he hardly knew what. But there should have been machinery of some sort. If this weird balloon thing was actually to carry them, there must be some mechanism, some propelling power. And instead he saw nothing but the shining walls of the circular room, and at the exact center, reaching from floor to ceiling, a six inch metal post that thickened to a box like form on a level with his eyes. There was a plate on the side of that box, a cover, and clamps that held it in place, and on an adjoining side, two little levers, one near the top of the box, the other near the bottom. His one all inclusive glance showed him bull's eye windows in the ceiling. There were more of them in the floor. One curved bar, circling the room, was mounted on brackets against the wall. They were telling him by signs that he was to put his hand on it and hang on. One of the men was beside that central post. He too gripped at a projecting handhold. His other hand was on the lower lever. Rosson knew his disappointment was unreasonable. But his weary mind was tired of mysteries. Some understandable bit of machinery would have been reassuring. And then in his next thought, he asked himself what difference did it make? If this childish balloon thing were really capable of carrying them somewhere, what of it? It could only mean more of this hideous inner world that grew more unbearably fantastic with each new experience. His life had been saved, true. But for what end? The girl's eyes were upon him, reading the expression on his face. She smiled encouragingly. Then Rosson's hands tightened upon the metal bar. The man who stood by the central post had moved one lever the nearest trifle. Rosson felt the floor lifting beneath him. Then the shell, like a bubble of metal, pitched and tossed as the powerful air currents caught it. His own lightness saved him from injury. He gripped the bar and held himself free of the wall. The round top of their strange craft grated against the domed roof. Then again the ship steadied and seemed motionless. And Rosson knew they had slipped up into the still air of that upper shaft. For one wild instant filled with impossible hope, Rosson saw this as a means of ascent to his own world. Then reason tore those wild hopes to shreds. It's closed up above, he thought. It must be. That's why it sounded that way. That's why the air drove off through those side passages. The next instant held no time for thought. Rosson's whole attention was concentrated upon the bar to which he clung. For quicker than thought, the metal shell, the little cylindrical world in which he and these others were, fell swiftly beneath them. His body twisted in midair. He knew the others were being thrown in the same manner. Then what an instant before had been the ceiling was now the floor beneath his feet. Pressing up against him and giving him weight. And by the whistling rush of the air that tore past their shell, he knew they had fallen with marvelous swiftness straight down through the throat of that lower shaft. And now what had been down was up. The ceiling of this strange room was now their floor. But Rosson was not deceived. Acceleration, he said. It's crowding us. The shell tends to fall faster than we do. It's like an elevator traveling downward at a swifter rate than a free falling body. He had glimpsed the glassy side of that well into which he knew they had been flung. He knew that the shrieks that filled the room time and again were caused by the touching of their shells guiding and protecting bars against one glassy wall. The sounds came always from the same side. And Rosson found momentary satisfaction in his own understanding of the phenomenon. Were falling free, he argued with himself within his own mind. Falling toward the center of the earth. And a falling body wouldn't follow a vertical course. It would tend to hug against one wall. And by that he knew something of their speed. The necessity for it was apparent a moment later. Above his head the bull's eyes pointing forward in the direction of their flight were faintly red. Swiftly they changed to crimson. Rosson was standing beside a window in the wall of their craft. That too grew quickly to an area of dazzling brightness. Slowly the heat struck in. The air in the little room was stifling. He saw the girl turn her head and give a sharp order. The man by the central post responded with another slight movement of the lever. Beneath Rosson's feet the floor pressed upward in a surge of speed that bent his knees and bore him downward. Under his hands the rod to which he clung was hot. The shining walls were dimly glowing. They were being hurled through the very heart of hell. And then it was passed. The crimson horror beyond those windows grew dull and then black. In the blunt nose of their craft a tiny crevice must have opened. The one who drove that projectile in its shrieking flight had touched another control that Rosson had not seen before. And with a piercing shriek a thin jet of cold air drove down into the hot room. No wine could have been one half so potent. That thin jet filled the room with buffeting whirlwinds that grew quickly cold. Then their speed was checked. abruptly Rosson was weightless, his body hanging in air, moved only as he moved his hand upon the bar. Only a few feet away was the body of the girl floating weightless like himself. The others were shouting loud words of satisfaction. But her face was turned toward Rosson. Her eyes were smiling into his. While outside the little shell that fell in meteor flight were only shrieking winds and the blackness into which they plunged. GORE Through an ordinary experience Dean Rosson, like any other man, would have kept unconscious measurement of the passing time. An hour, no matter how crowded, would still have been an hour that his mind could measure and grasp. But now he had no least idea of the hours or minutes that had marked their flight. Each lagging second was an age in passing. Even the flashing thoughts that drove swiftly through his mind seemed slow and laborious. Painstakingly he marshaled his few facts. They know what they're about, that's one thing dead sure. They're on to their job, and they've got something here that beats anything we've ever had. He mentally nailed that one fact down and passed on to the next. And that's the bow end of our ship up there. He looked above him, at the dented place in the ceiling, the ceiling that had been the floor of the room when he first stepped into it. There isn't any up or down any more. I've been flipped back and forth every time we slowed down or accelerated until I don't know where I am at. But I saw that dented plate in the floor when I got in. And we started falling in that direction. But whether we're falling toward the center of the earth still, or whether we passed the center back there at that hotspot, and now this crazy senseless shell is flying on and up, perhaps these people know I don't. Then fact number three. They live somewhere inside here. They're taking me there, of course. It must mean there's a race of them, and they don't like the Mole Men. They know the way back, too. And if they'll help me. Perhaps the fighting's not over yet. Through more endless age-long seconds they're passed through Rosson's mind in transient visions. An army of men, like these white ones, himself at their head. They were armed with strange weapons. They were invading the Mole Men's world. The girl was reaching toward him. She laid one hand upon his, then pointed overhead. Rosson looked quickly above. The glowing bullseye startled him. Then he knew it was white light he was seeing, not the red threat of glowing rock. Their speed had been steadily cut down as the air pressure lessened. They're decompressing, he thought. They're working slowly into the lesser pressure. The passing air no longer shrieked insanely. Above its soft rushing sound he heard the girl's voice. It was clear, vibrant with happiness. Her hand closed convulsively over his. Her eyes, beneath their long lashes, smiled unspoken words of welcome, of comrade ship, and of something more. Within their room, her light, which at close range seemed only a slender bar of metal, with a brilliantly glowing end, had been clamped in a bracket against the wall. The illumination had seemed brilliant. Now suddenly it was pale and dim. Through the bullseye above a brighter light was shining clear, and golden, like the light of the sun on a brilliant and cloudless day. And to Rosson, who felt that he had spent a lifetime in gloomy dungeons of the inner world, that flooding brilliance was more than mere light. It was the promise of release, the very essence of hope. His eyes clung to these little round windows. Then the larger glass beside him blazed forth with the bright sunlight of an open world that was unbearable to one who had lived so long in darkness. He held tightly to that slim hand that remained so confidingly within his own. It isn't true, Rosson was telling himself frantically. It can't be true. It must be a delusion, another dream. He gripped the girl's hand in what must have been a painful clasp. He told himself that she at least was real. Her lovely face was before him, when at last he could bear to open his eyes. Above him were the others. The cylinder rested firmly upon a surface of pale rose quartz. Inside the shell he saw the floor where he had stood, and with that he added one more fact to the few he had gotten together. There was no dent in the floor. The shell's position was reversed. What had been up was now down. Rosson knew he was standing firmly with what seemed as normal earth weight upon a smooth surface of rock. He knew that he was standing head down as compared with his position at the beginning of their flight, as compared to with the way he had stood in the Mole-men's world and in his own world up above. I've passed the center of the world. The words were ringing in his brain, and then reason shot in a quick denial. You're as heavy as you were on earth, he told himself. You have to go through and on to the other side, the opposite surface of the world, before your weight would come back like that. What could it mean? He was demanding as his eyes came back from the machine and swept around over a gorgeous, glittering panorama of crystal mountains, rose, and white, fields of strange plants, vividly green, a whole world that rioted madly in a luxury of color. Before him the girl stood smiling. Every line of her quivering figure spoke eloquently of her joy in seeing this world through Rosson's eyes. A man was approaching. A man like the others, yet whose oval face strangely resembled that of the girl. She led Rosson toward him. Then Rosson, stopping, jerked backward in uncontrollable amazement, for the tall man drawn near had spoken. His lips were open moving, and from them came sounds which to Rosson were absolutely unbelievable. Stranger, said the newcomer, in the name of the holy mountain, and in the mountain's language and words, I bid you welcome. And Rosson, too stunned for coherent thought, could only stammer in what was half a shout. But you're speaking my language. You're talking the way we talk on earth. Am I crazy, stark, raving, crazy? But even the sound of the man's voice could not have prepared him for what followed. There was amazement written on the face of the man, and the girl who stood beside him. Her eyes, that had been smiling, were wide and staring in utter fear. Then she and the man and the other white figures nearby dropped suddenly to kneel humbly before him. Their faces were hidden from him, covered by their hands as they bent their heads low. He heard the man's voice. He speaks with a tongue of the mountain. He comes from the land of the sun, from La Ota, at the top of the world, and I gore and permit it to hear his voice. End of Chapter 17