The Metal Monster (7 page)

“It looks that way,” I replied, kicking absently at the tip of one of the webbed wings, my head turned away to hide my feelings.

“Wallace! Look at me!”

I turned, and she came up very close, her glorious face upturned to mine.

“Wallace, isn’t there something you would like to say to me before we—are taken by death?”

There was that in her eyes which sent the hot blood coursing through my veins, and made me forget the peril in which we stood. The burning rod clattered to the floor of the cave as I crushed her to me—claimed her sweet lips.

“But, Wallace. You have said nothing,” she panted.

“I can’t make you pretty speeches,” I replied, “nor can I croon sweet love songs. But I love you, Dolores. You know that now.”

“I have known it all along,” she confessed, “but I wanted to hear you say it.
Dios,
how I love you, my big American! And we are to die so soon.”

Her arms went around my neck—clung there, and she buried her face in my shoulder, weeping softly.

Desperately I looked about me. There must be a way out. I must think. I must plan.

Suddenly an idea came to me.

“Don’t cry, dear,” I said. “I think I’ve hit on a plan.”

“What is it?” she asked eagerly,

“There is enough material in the webbed wing of that young bat to make a parachute that will carry us both to the ground,” I said, “and I’m going to try to make one.”

“I’ll help you,” she replied. “Let’s work fast. The mother bat may come back at any moment.”

Using Lak’s keen, two-edged chopper, I quickly severed the immense wings from the body. In the webs there was material enough for our purpose, and to spare. I cut a number of long strips to serve as rope, and with these, Dolores stitched the larger pieces together, punching the holes with the tip of the burning rod.

When I had exhausted the supply of web which we could spare for this purpose, I skinned the immense carcass, and cut the hide into strips two inches in width. I fastened the ends of these around the edge of the parachute, while Dolores finished her job of fastening the larger pieces together.

This work completed I drew all of our guy straps together, and tied them to a ring-strap, cut trebly wide that it might stand the extra strain. To this I added a strong loop on each side, forming a swing seat for each of us, and we stepped back to view the result of our labor.

It appeared exceeding crude and awkward, but it would be strong enough.

“Are you ready to make the jump?” I asked.

I slipped the loop of her swing strap around her, cautioning her to hold on with both hands.

“We’ll drag the whole thing clear up to the edge,” I said, “then jump out away from the ledge as far as possible. Otherwise the ’chute may catch on the edge and swing us back against the face of the rock.”

Luck had favored us thus far by the prolonged absence of the mother bat, and I wondered, as I arranged the folds of the ’chute on the rim of the abyss if it would fail us now.

For a moment I strained Dolores to me in a farewell kiss. Then I caught up the burning rod, and with a: “one, two, three!” we leaped.

For several seconds we hurtled downward at a breathtaking speed. The walls of the shaft vanished, and we were shooting down through the mists of the nether world sky, our speed unslackened. “It hasn’t opened,” I thought. “We’re doomed.” But even as this thought came to me, the guy straps suddenly tightened with a jerk. One of them snapped and fell down, trailing its wet inner surface over my shoulder. Our speed slackened. A few seconds more, and we were gliding smoothly downward. The immense web that had been designed to support the huge body of the bat in flight easily sustained us.

A CRY of exultation came to my lips, but it quickly changed to an exclamation of horror as I suddenly saw, flapping toward us, the immense black bulk of the mother bat. She was carrying a huge beetle in her mouth, but dropped it as she came closer and scented the hide of her dead offspring. With a horrible shriek, more powerful and ear-splitting than the sound of a steam siren, she dived straight at us, her immense maw gaping, her lips drawn back in a hideous snarl that revealed her big, ugly teeth.

I whipped the paralyzing ray cylinder from my belt, and gripped both it and the strap at my left with my left hand, while I couched the burning rod beneath my right arm. I had my misgivings as to whether or not the rays would have any effect on so huge a bulk, but it was our only hope.

To my surprise and relief, it worked. The giant bat, unable to move her wings, turned over and began hurtling groundward in a nose dive. But she had not fallen far before the rays ceased to affect her, whereupon she righted herself and came back at us.

Again I turned the rays on her and again she plunged downward, only to right herself and come back as fiercely as ever. She repeated the process persistently, and to my horror I noticed that she was able to get a little closer each time. The battery was growing weaker.

Presently she came so close that I thrust the burning rod into her mouth. With a snarl, she clamped her huge teeth down on it, snapping the metal shaft as if it had been matchwood. She opened her mouth once more and shook her head, attempting to dislodge the searing point, but it had already passed her throat, and was burning its way down into her vitals.

With a horrid, gurgling scream, she went into her last nose dive, falling like a plummet. I saw her strike the ground several seconds later, but we were drifting in an air current that had, in the meantime, carried us some distance to one side. I noticed for the first time that we were above a huge expanse of glistening, barren white dunes. A short time thereafter we alighted, sinking to our ankles in a substance which I readily recognized—the white crystals which my Tek had been loading these many days, to be hauled to the smelter. It was the material from which the Snals manufactured their miraculously hard metal.

Disentangling ourselves from our straps, we set out over the rolling dunes. As all directions were alike to us, we set our faces toward what looked like a rugged mountain range, some of the jagged peaks of which pierced the clouds. Our water supply had dwindled to a swallow apiece. And we were ravenously hungry.

For hour after hour, we plunged onward, through the weird light of the changeless day. We stopped once, exhausted, and slept for twelve hours by my chronometer. Upon awakening, we drained our water flasks, and pressed forward once more. But so great was the distance of these mountains, which at first had only seemed a few miles away, that they appeared to recede as we advanced toward them.

Another four hours of walking, however, made the outlines of the mountains bulk much nearer. And where there are mountains, there are usually springs or streams. After a brief rest, we set forth once more. But it was not long before Dolores staggered and fell. I tried to pick her up, and fell beside her. My strength was fast waning. I tried to murmur a few words of encouragement to her, but my lips were dry—my tongue so swollen that they sounded like the muttering of a drunken man. It did not matter, however, as she had swooned away.

After a brief breathing spell, I arose, and taking Dolores in my arms, proceeded, carefully conserving my strength and pausing at short intervals to rest.

We were less than a mile from the nearest mountain when Dolores regained consciousness. She immediately insisted that I set her on her feet. I did so, and found that, after her rest she could make better progress than I.

I was floundering along, so exhausted that I staggered as if intoxicated, when suddenly she clutched my arm.

“Look!” she cried. “Water, just ahead!”

Together we stumbled out of the loose sands of the white desert to a flat formation of lava rock. About half way between us and the mountain we had made our objective, a small circular pool of water gleamed in the weird light.

The sight renewed my strength, yet it seemed ages before we reached the side of the sparkling pool.

“Take it easy,” I cautioned. “Bathe your face first, and sip slowly.”

We threw ourselves flat at the-edge of the pool. I bathed my parched face, then sipped up a few drops from the hollow of my hand. But scarcely had the liquid entered my mouth than I spat it out in dismay. It was loaded with salt. Glancing at Dolores, I saw that she had made the same disappointing discovery.

I sat up wearily—despondently—and she crept over to me, resting her head against my shoulder.

“What a dreadful disappointment,” she said.

Suddenly I heard a familiar clanking sound behind me. Glancing back, I saw a flying globe which had descended, not fifty feet from us. The clanking sound was caused by the long, segmented cable it had dropped. Down this cable swarmed a score of Teks. Then they spread out in a wide semicircle and ran toward us. There was no mistaking their purpose. And no question but what, if we were captured, Zet would impose the death penalty on both. It would be as well to die fighting.

I stood up, and with Lak’s chopper in my hand, awaited the attack.

AS I stood in front of the briny pool, defiantly shaking the chopper of Lak at the advancing Teks, an idea came to me—an idea born of a theory which I had been pondering since the tears of Dolores miraculously opened our way to escape from the slave quarters.

Our metal enemies were almost upon us when I bent and, with my arm about her waist, helped Dolores up.

“Come,” I whispered. “Into the water.”

We turned and ran, splashing through the heavy brine. A few steps, and it reached our waists. The Teks splashed in after us. The circle was closing in at both ends. Suddenly their metal torsos began to sputter and pop, flaking away in a white powder wherever the brine had spattered.

“Splash them,” I told Dolores, and used the flat of the chopper to deluge those nearest me. She bravely-splashed those on her side. Presently a Tek stumbled —sank beneath the surface. Above the spot the water effervesced like champagne. Another sank—a third. Two that had only been slightly splashed tried to make the shore. I followed them, deluging them with brine. They sank down, sputtering and melting away in the shallows.

In less than five minutes the twenty Teks were a semicircle of wreckage, consisting mostly of neck, arm and leg tentacles, covered with masses of fluffy white crystals.

Dolores and I climbed up on the bank. Despite our thirst and weariness we felt refreshed by our salt-water plunge.

“If I could only fly that globe,” I said, “we might still have a chance to get away.”

“Why, I can do that,” she said. “For the past forty work-periods I have controlled a Tek flying a freighter, which carried liquid metal from a smelter to a factory.”

“Suppose there are more Teks aboard,” I said.

“Not likely,” she replied. “A crew always consists of twenty. The pilot could lock the controls and land with the rest.”

“Well, we’ll take a chance, but with a little preliminary preparedness,” I said. “Let me have your flask.”

She handed me her glass flask, and I filled both hers and mine with salt water. Pocketing one, and carrying the other in my hand, I walked up beneath the globe. The cable did not, as I expected, whip around my waist. “I guess you were right, after all,” I said. “Come on.” She came up beside me, but scarcely had she done so ere the cable swiftly wrapped around both of us, jerking us up through the round door. It put us down upon a floor of brown metal in front of a Tek that had one tentacle on the control board.

“So, small-brained ones, you thought to escape me!” The voice issued from the metal mouth, but I recognized it instantly. - It was the voice of Zet, emperor of the nether world.

“We came near doing it, Zet,” I replied. “For small-brained ones we didn’t do so badly.”

“Ha! Ha! Ha! What foolish bunglers you are, to be sure. To pit your puny intellects against mine. Ho! Ho! Ho! But I must bring you before me. I would pass judgment in person.”

The tentacle of the Tek jerked a lever and the door clanged shut behind us. Our waists were still gripped by the huge tentacle, but I could move my arms freely. Suddenly uncorking the flask I held in my hand, I splashed brine on the spherical body in front of me and on the round head. Some of it ran down the head-hole into the mechanism.

Globe and head began sputtering furiously—flaking away as white powder.

“Fool!” said the metal mouth in the voice of Zet. “I pass judgment now!”

The arm tentacle jerked a lever, and the huge cable that encircled us, slowly tightened its folds, squeezing the breath out of us. Drawing the chopper from my belt, I struck at the tentacle that clung to the lever. It sagged, but hung on. Again I struck, exerting all my strength, and the blade severed it. Not being of the hard, white metal, it was vulnerable.

With a corner of the blade I struck up the lever. The coils of the cables instantly loosed us. The Tek attempted to swing around—to use the other arm tentacle. But it was too far gone. It staggered and fell to the floor with a shower of white powder.

Dolores sprang to the control board. She pressed a lever, and the globe lurched violently as it sprang upward. She moved another lever, and we settled down to a straight course.

Above the controls two round lights hung on head-straps. Dolores took them down, handed one to me, and strapped the other around her head.

"If you will put that on,” she said, “you can look out through any part of the globe with it. The invisible rays are turned on or off simply by raising your eyebrows.”

I strapped on my light and found that it worked as she had said.

“Funny they left these things hanging here,” I said “when the Teks have them already built into their heads.”

“Sometimes the Snals fly these globes in person,” she replied. “They are kept here for that purpose.”

I raised my eyebrows and my light clicked on. The rays which emanated from it must have been effective only for a short distance, for, though they made the globe appear transparent, everything beyond it looked perfectly natural. Looking downward through the floor, I saw that we were above a jungle of primordial growths. I was gazing at the queer plants and beasts beneath us, when Dolores suddenly cried: