The Metal Monster Read online

  Insect monstrosities buzzed busily about, or scampered over the moss. An immense thousand-legged worm, fully twenty feet in length, startled us as it crossed our path. A huge green beetle as large as a Shetland pony charged us with its huge four-foot mandibles distended, but backed up and hastily scampered away at a touch from my searing rod. A mosquito, as large as a crane, buzzed about us for some time, until I killed it with a lucky thrust through the head.

  The air was heavy with the musty odors of the fungoid growths, the sickening charnel scent of the slimy creatures that lived in their moist depths, and the reek of decaying organic matter.

  Stumbling, slipping, sliding, sometimes sinking knee-deep in clinging muck or splashing through water above our waists, we pressed onward, our sole desire being to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and the slave quarters.

  As we hurried along I pondered much on the miracle that had wrought our deliverance from the apartment of Lak. What could there be, I wondered, in this woman’s tears, that had destroyed a metal which had defied projectiles, explosives, heat, and powerful acids? In this solution of this mystery lay the key to the door of knowledge which, if once opened, would deliver the world from bondage.

  And why, I wondered further, had this mircale not been wrought before? Surely many of the captured woman and children had dropped tears in the metal globes, on the metal vehicles in which they had been hauled, and on the tentacle-like arms of their captors. Then I recalled that the room in the globe that had brought me in, a prisoner, was of brown metal, as were the bodies of the vehicles in which we had been carried, and the highways over which we had traveled. The arms of the Teks, although of white metal, were of a duller cast than the globes and heads, as were the tables, globes and electrodes in the control room. The floor of the building, except in the private apartments of the overseers which jutted out over the jungle, were of stone.

  But all this did not explain the enigma.

  After five hours of wearisome travel, we were glad to stop and sit down on the moss for a breathing spell. I took a drink of water from my flask. It was nearly half full. I shuddered at the thought of having to drink the foul, stagnant water we had encountered. Dolores also drank some water and replaced her flask in her apron pocket.

  “I’m hungry,” she announced. “Do you suppose any of these plants are edible ?”

  “No doubt,” I replied, “and it’s equally probable that some of them are so poisonous that a mouthful or two would prove fatal. The question is, which are poisonous and which are edible. We have no way of knowing.”

  “Then what are we to do?”

  “We may run across some of the varieties of slime moulds that the Snals cultivate for food,” I replied. “Their spores are good to eat. And in the palace gardens I saw some gigantic morels. I think we would be safe in using these for food if we could find any. In the outer world the morel is the one mushroom form that is never poisonous.”

  “In that case,” she said, “let us look for morels.”

  Rested by our brief pause, we resumed our journey. Presently the character of the vegetation changed as we came out of the marshy country to higher and drier ground. The moss was replaced by short, white snake grass. And huge, jointed reeds began to take the place of the tall mushrooms.

  We had not gone far when we came to a group of large mounds uniformly about fifty feet in diameter and twenty feet high.

  “I’m going up and have a look around,” said Dolores, and suited her action to her words by scampering up the side of the mound. She had not taken more than five steps when one foot broke through into a compartment underneath. She withdrew it with a scream of pain, and came running toward me, her knee bleeding. Then a white thing about eighteen inches in height, popped out after her and pursued her on six rapidly moving legs. Behind it came another and another, and I recognized them for what they were—giant termite as large as pet bulldogs and ten times as dangerous.

  I ran toward her, my burning rod ready for action, but before I reached her a veritable army of the formidable creatures came rushing toward us from around both sides of the mound, their great hooked mandibles snapping menacingly.

  “No use to argue with those things,” I shouted. “We wouldn’t have a Chinaman’s chance. Can you run?”

  “And how!” she replied, passing me like a bullet.

  I was not slow to follow, but I soon saw that we were being outstripped by the swift, six-legged creatures behind us, and that it would only be a matter of a few moments before we would be pulled down and torn to pieces.

  “Climb something,” I cried. “It will be our only chance to hold them off.”

  Dolores leaped for the nearest jointed stalk, and scrambled up, I at her heels, just as the foremost termites came snapping up behind us.

  I thrust the point of my burning rod into the open mouth of the leader, and sent it tumbling back on those behind it. Then an astounding thing happened. There was a roar overhead as if a dozen helicopter blades had suddenly gone into action, and the stalk to which we were clinging left the ground with amazing rapidity.

  I glanced upward and saw the reason. Instead of a scaly plant stalk, we were clinging to the slender, segmented body of an immense insect! And already we were so high above the ground that to let go would mean certain death!

  CHAPTER VIII Monsters of the Nether World

  THE huge insect to which we were clinging flew off with incredible speed. Its immense wings, which when quiescent I had taken for the spatulate leaves of a strange subterranean plant, whirred so rapidly that they were invisible. The creature itself greatly resembled a titanic dragon fly, with its massive head, great bulging eyes, and long, relatively slender body. It flew at an elevation of about a thousand feet, and watching the ground, I calculated that it was carrying us at a speed of over a hundred miles an hour.

  Clinging to the rim of the huge segment with one hand, and gripping the round body with both legs, I watched the rapidly changing landscape beneath us. Presently, all signs of vegetation ceased, and we were flying over a barren, gleaming white area of dunes and hollows.

  On the next segment in front, Dolores was clinging tightly with hands and arms, and I noticed that she, too, was anxiously watching the landscape below. I shouted to her, but she could not hear me because of the whirring of the huge wings. And I could not creep nearer to her without danger of losing my grip on our living aircraft and pitching to sudden death below.

  So occupied was I in watching the landscape beneath that I did not notice the immense black thing, flashing downward at us from above, until it struck. Huge teeth sunk into the thorax of the giant dragon fly, just back of the head. Its wings quivered, then hung limply. It was a swift, clean kill. We were borne swiftly aloft in a steep spiral and I had an opportunity to observe the thing that was carrying us. It was an immense, black-skinned hairless bat. The body of the insect trailed almost vertically, making it much more difficult to hang on than when it had been flying horizontally. It appeared that the giant bat had not even noticed us, taking us for part of its victim’s body.

  As we spiraled higher and higher, the light grew stronger above us, while the outlines of the ground below became more and more blurred and indistinct.

  Up and up we went through the drifting, diaphanous mists until we were just under the luminous dome of this weird nether world, fully five miles above the ground. My eyes were dazzled by the brightness of the rugged, luminous, and probably radioactive stone that formed the vault.

  The bat hovered for a moment beneath a huge jagged opening in the dome. As it did so I saw that there were a number of similar openings nearby. Then it flew upward and to one side, alighting in a self-illuminated cave about a hundred feet square.

  I wondered why the monster had not devoured its victim on the wing as outer world bats habitually do, but I realized the reason when two of its offspring, which had been hanging upside down from a ledge at the back of the cave, fluttered to the floor and rushed toward th
e parent, screeching and flapping excitedly.

  The adult bat laid the insect on the floor with us still clinging to it, then turned and dived back through the opening.

  Judging by the size of the parent, the two youngsters that were rushing toward us were about a quarter grown. But this did not prevent them from being exceedingly formidable antagonists, for each stood more than ten feet in height, and was armed with long sharp teeth as well as wicked looking claws on wing joints and hind feet. Dolores and I both sprang to our feet and backed away as they pounced on the insect and began feeding voraciously, as if each feared that it would get less than the other would.

  My first impulse was to look for some way of escape while the two immense youngsters were occupied with their feast. Bidding Dolores secrete herself behind one of the boulders that cluttered the floor, I made a careful search, circling behind the young bats and returning in front of them. They watched me with their black, beady eyes, but evidently did not think me quite as tempting a morsel as the insect.

  Having assured myself that there was no way out of the cave except that by which we had come, I returned to the boulder with the beady eyes of the bats still following me as they finished the remains of the ill-fated dragon fly.

  Our situation appeared utterly hopeless. There we were, five miles above the surface of the nether world, and we knew not how many uncounted miles below the surface of the earth, imprisoned with two hungry beasts larger and more formidable than the greatest of the outer world carnivora. Moreover, we might expect at any moment, the arrival of one or both of the parents— creatures four times as large as the ones we now faced.

  There seemed little question but that the young bats would attack us, and that was quickly resolved, for as soon as they had finished their feast and licked their chops for a moment, they came hopping and flapping toward us.

  With Lak’s paralyzing ray cylinder in my left hand, and his burning rod in my right, I leaped up on the boulder, behind which Dolores crouched.

  As soon as they were within striking distance, both of them reached out to seize me, whereupon I held the one on my left with the paralyzing ray and lunged at the other with the burning rod. I struck for the eye, but the beast dodged and the point seared itself into the hunched shoulder, instead.

  With a siren-like shriek of rage and pain the burned creature jerked back out of reach of the point, toppled on the edge of the entrance for a moment, and then fell, squawking and fluttering, down the steep shaft. As it had not learned to fly, it was undoubtedly dashed to pieces on the ground five miles below. At any rate, I did not see it again.

  The other young bat, held by the powerful paralyzing ray, stood helplessly while I plunged the point of the burning rod into its heart. Then, as I withdrew the rod and shut off the ray, a shudder ran through its frame and it toppled over on its back, dead.

  ALTHOUGH we had vanquished our immediate enemies, we were a long way from being out of our predicament.

  Dolores came out from behind the boulder, and together we examined the fallen monster.

  Presently she said:

  “Tell me the truth, Wallace. Is there no way out? No hope of escape?”

  “I’m afraid not,” I replied.

  “Then we are to die here together. It doesn’t matter how. We’ll be slain by the mother bat when she returns, or perhaps by her mate. Even if you conquer both monsters with the weapons of Lak, we’re trapped here to die of hunger and thirst. In one case it will be a matter of a few hours, the other a few days. Am I not right?”

  “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 bul
k, 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.