Captain Future 13 - The Face of the Deep (Winter 1943) (12 page)

The beryllium would soon be needed for hull-construction, and a few pounds of the calcium catalyst
must
be found before their projected ship could leave this world.

As he reached the surface, he suddenly recoiled. A half-dozen weird creatures had emerged from the jungle and were silently marching across the lava-beds nearby. They looked like gigantic centipedes.

Then Otho recognized them as a band of the Cubics, the weird little cooperative cubical creatures they had already seen. The things had grouped together into the centipedal formations.

They were solemnly crossing the lava-beds toward the towering double range of volcanoes.

“Now what the devil are they going out there for?” Otho wondered. “They must know it’s dangerous around the volcanoes.”

The Cubics were heading toward the gigantic canyon between the volcano-ranges, that which the castaways had named the Canyon of Chaos.

The weird creatures approached a point some distance along the rim of that terrifying abyss, and then disappeared down into it.

“Holy space-imps, what reason can they have for entering that devilish place?” muttered the android.

MYSTIFIED and intrigued, Otho started out across the lava-beds after the Cubics. He picked his way as they had done, across the hot expanses of solidified lava.

Swirling smoke made him cough and gasp for breath. But he pressed on until he reached the rim of the Canyon of Chaos at the point where the Cubics had entered it. He peered down into the abyss.

The Canyon was a fearsome spectacle. Many miles long, a mile in width, and almost that in depth, its gloomy rock walls sank downward almost vertically everywhere. Far below, a glowing, narrow river of crimson lava crawled along the floor of the titan gorge.

Sulphurous smoke and blasts of superheated air screamed up from its depths. The lava river at its floor, Otho perceived, bubbled up from fiery springs at the north end of the canyon and flowed down its length and away through an underground chasm at the southern end.

“But where did the Cubics go?” he muttered, trying to peer down through the rushing smokes.

Then Otho perceived that a precarious pathway led downward from where he crouched, along the steep wall below him. The creatures he had followed had obviously descended by that path.

He was on the point of starting down after them, when he glimpsed them returning up the pathway. At once Otho ducked behind a mass of rocks for concealment.

The Cubics, still joined in groups to form the centipede-like figures, emerged laboriously from the abyss. But now each of these cooperative figures carried with it a chunk of rock shot with gray metal.

“That rock is lead-bearing,” Otho thought swiftly. “That’s good-we need lead. But what are
they
going to do with it?”

There was no apparent answer to that riddle.

The Cubics started marching back across the lava-beds toward the jungle with their burdens.

Otho remembered now that when they had first encountered the Cubics the little cooperative creatures had been carrying similar chunks of rock with them.

“Why, they come to this canyon for lead-bearing rock!” he thought astonishedly. “They must be more intelligent even than we figured. Wonder what they do with it?”

He decided at once to enter the abyss and locate the source of the lead ores.

Lead was one of the needed materials they had not yet located. And there might well be other required substances down there.

Yet even the hardy Otho hesitated a few moments before entering that fearsome abyss. The smoke and scorching air threatened to asphyxiate even his tough lungs. His own respiratory system was much more resistant to fumes and gases than the ordinary human’s. Still, he took care to make himself a rude respirator from strips of cloth which he tore from his jacket and bound across his nose and mouth.

THEN Otho started down the pathway. It was so precarious, and had so many sections torn out of it by recent seismic convulsions, that only the agile android or creatures like the Cubics could possibly descend.

Smoke-laden winds shrieked and howled upward around him, as he made his way slowly down. Hot ashes rained constantly upon him, from the showers cast up constantly by the towering volcanoes that flanked the canyon. The evil glow of the lava river far below seemed to yawn for him.

Otho kept on. Presently he descried a big ledge or shelf in the vertical wall close beneath him. In a few minutes, he was standing upon this ledge. He looked wonderingly around.

“Imps of the Sun, the Cubics never did all
this!”
he exclaimed.

There were ancient mine-workings upon this ledge. Tunnels had been driven back into the rock wall for a dozen yards, and marks of the tools which had dug them were still evident.

It was obvious that the purpose of the tunnels had been to tap several rich veins of metallic ores here. Otho’s trained eyes at once recognized the glittering streaks in the rock.

“Not only lead deposits, but also beryllium — and plenty of it!” he exulted. “Now if we can only find the calcium and a few others, we’re all set as far as materials are concerned.”

Then wonder returned to conquer his exultation. Who had dug these shafts? Who had mined here for lead and other metals?

It could not have been the Cubics, he thought. These cooperative little creatures appeared not to make use of tools. They apparently came down here and secured chunks of the lead-bearing rock which had already been loosened by the ancient mining operations.

OTHO advanced into one of the shafts. Something upon its wall caught his eye. It was a smooth plate of pure lead, affixed to the rock. He discovered that it was engraved closely with unfamiliar symbols.

“Why, that’s
writing!”
he exclaimed. “Then whoever did the mining here long ago were intelligent creatures — maybe humans.”

He pried the soft lead plate out of the rock and excitedly examined its engraved characters. They were not, of course, in any language of the Solar System. Here was a cosmic mystery, indeed!

“The chief and Simon will be plenty excited by this thing,” Otho thought. “And by the beryllium and lead I’ve found.”

At that moment, there came a slight quivering of the rock walls around him. It put him instantly on the alert.

“Better get out of here, and tell the others about this!”

At the moment the words left his lips, he was thrown from his feet by a terrific shock. Flattened upon the floor of the ledge, he heard an awful grinding roar as the whole Canyon of Chaos rocked wildly.

It was the same unprecedentedly strong quake which at this very moment was so startling to the other Futuremen and the mutineers, back at the camp. But it had disastrous effects here.

Otho heard a cracking, crashing reverberation from above as he struggled to his feet on the swaying ledge. He looked up. A whole vast mass of the canyon, wall above him had been split loose by the shock and was falling toward him.

With a smothered yell, Otho plunged into the nearest of the ancient mine-tunnels. He was not a moment too soon. A shower of boulders crashed down upon the ledge, as a huge mass of the rock above split loose and fell.

The shock gradually died away. Otho picked his way out onto the rock-strewn ledge, and then uttered a cry of consternation.

“Now how am I going to get out of here?”

The violent quake had split off a great section of the rock wall just above the ledge, destroying the precarious path upward. There was a great cleft in the wall there, which even Otho could not hope to climb. He was trapped upon the ledge.

Otho, as he looked around in dismay, became aware of a louder roaring and hissing beneath him. He peered down into the canyon.

His dismay became acute. The molten lava river down there at the floor of the abyss was rapidly
rising.
The shock had opened new rifts by which the liquid lava was pouring into the bottom of the canyon faster than the single narrow outlet could carry it away.

“Holy sun-imps, this is a real jam!” muttered the android. “That lava will be washing over this ledge in an hour.”

He peered intently through the swirling smoke, endeavoring to discover some way of escape from the ledge. There was none. And the lava continued to rise relentlessly.

How to get help? Captain Future and the others didn’t even know he was down here in the Canyon of Chaos. He had to signal them somehow. How?

“I’d give my right arm for a rocket signal-pistol right now,” he thought.

That thought brought a vague possible expedient into his fertile mind. There
might
be a way of signaling the others.

Hopefully Otho began searching through the mass of broken rock that now littered the ledge. He finally found some chunks of a rock that he thought might be suitable for his purpose. It was a tawny stone streaked with rich veins of orange mineral.

Otho experimentally tossed a small piece of it down into the rising lava. As the rock melted and vaporized in the molten river, a small puff of orange-colored smoke shot up from it.

“Yes, that might do it,” Otho told himself. “Here goes, anyway.”

HE ASSEMBLED a number of chunks of that orange rock. Then be began tossing them down into the fiery lava.

He dropped them in a certain order first a small chunk, then a large one, then two small ones, and so on.

From each chunk of rock, as it melted and vaporized, a brilliant puff of orange smoke shot up through the swirling fumes to the surface above the canyon. The succession of short and long puffs of orange smoke were spelling out Otho’s message in the Futuremen’s code.

“I-n C-h-a-o-s C-a-n-y-o-n c-o-m-e q-u-i-c-k-l-y —”

He came to the end of his message. Hopefully, he peered up through the drifting smoke. Those distinctive orange puffs should have been visible from a distance. If the others had only seen them.

But no one came to answer his signals. His hopes declined. And the molten lava was still rising. The heat was becoming terrific. He assembled more chunks of orange rock and repeated his smoke-puff message.

Again be waited. There was still no answer. And the crimson tide of rising lava was now only a few hundred feet below the ledge.

“This,” muttered the undaunted android calmly, “begins to look serious. I won’t have time for many more signals.”

Then be discovered that he had not enough of the chemical-laden rock for even one more signal. There were only a few chunks of it left.

Otho used them to spell out a last, incomplete smoke-signal. “I-n C-h-a-o-s C-a-n-y-o-n —”

“If none of them see that, this cursed place is liable to be the end of Otho’s rocket-trail,” he muttered.

A few minutes passed. Then a thrill of hope shot through the android as he glimpsed a small, cubical object flying down toward him through the swirling fumes.

It was the Brain. And Simon Wright was having a difficult time to beat against the wild currents of up-steaming hot air. Otho yelled and waved his arms, and his old comrade saw and came toward him.

The Brain was quickly beside the ledge then. His square, transparent “body” hovered in the air, his lens-like eyes estimating the desperate situation as Otho explained his predicament.

“Humph, it’s lucky for you that I saw your last smoke-signal,” said Simon. “I’ve been reconnoitering some of the chasms northeast of here. I found some rich veins of magnesium and cadmium in one of them.”

“You can talk about that later,” Otho said hastily. “Right now, how am I to get out of here? That rising lava will be over the ledge soon.”

“Well, I can’t possibly lift you out of here,” rasped the Brain. “I’ll have to find Curtis and Grag.”

Simon’s gaze fell upon the inscribed lead plate which Otho had wrenched from the wall of the ancient shafts. “What’s that?”

Otho explained hurriedly how he had found that mysterious relic of the past.

“Why, that’s amazing,” Simon exclaimed with deep interest. “I believe those characters have a resemblance to the Antarian language. Let me see it.”

“For space’s sake, Simon, forget your scientific curiosity for now and go get the others!” howled Otho.

“All right, but take care of that plate,” cautioned Simon. “I don’t want to see it destroyed.”

“You’re worrying a lot more about the cursed plate than you are about me,” Otho declared, outraged.

The Brain shot up through the streaming smoke and disappeared. The lava was still rising menacingly, and the heat and fumes from it had become almost overpowering.

BUT Otho felt reassured. He had unlimited confidence in his fellow Futuremen. He crouched as far back on the ledge as he could get, gasping for breath against the choking fumes.

It seemed a long time to him before he heard a yell from above. Then a long rope made of tough vines knotted together was let down to him. The agile android instantly grabbed it and was drawn up.

Captain Future, Grag and the Brain greeted him diversely when he thankfully emerged onto the rim of the Canyon of Chaos.