Two Thousand Miles Below Part 25

"Rotan," said Gor slowly, sadly, "was wrong. His vision was not the truth. The Red Ones have come. And now--we die."

"Without a fight?" Rawson demanded incredulously.

"We are not a fighting people. We have no weapons. We can only die."

Rawson turned to Loah. They were inside the mountain, and the servants of the mountain, with terror and dismay written plainly on their faces, were gathered about. "At the Lake of Fire," said Rawson, "when you saved me, there was an explosion and clouds of white fumes. What was it?"

"It was like water," Loah said. "We found it deep inside the earth in a place where it is very cold. When warmed it turns to white clouds.

We threw a flask of it on the hot rocks, hoping to reach you while they could not see."--she paused and shook her head slowly--"but we can get no more. The Pathway of Light is closed to us, now that the Red Ones are there."

"Liquefied gas of some sort," said Rawson briefly, "caught in enormous rock pressure. But that's out! Now what about this Place of Death?

There's an idea there."

The White Ones were numbed with fear, but Loah and Gor accompanied him when Rawson returned to the red field. The flowers were still in bloom; they waved gently in the breeze that blew always from the mountain across the fields and out toward the point, where even now dark figures could be seen near the mouth of the shaft.

"It will be many of your days," said Loah, "before the flowers die. If you thought to trap the Red Ones in the Place of Death, there will not be time...." But Rawson had left them; he had advanced into the scarlet field and dropped to his knees.

He was crus.h.i.+ng the vines in his hands, grinding them into the white, salty earth underneath. Then he pa.s.sed his hands guardedly before his face as if to detect an odor.

Loah and Gor saw him shake his head slowly while he spoke aloud words that they could not understand. "Cyanide," Dean Rawson was saying.

"It's a cyanide of some sort--releases hydrocyanic acid gas. I could have rigged a generator, though I've forgotten about all of my chemistry--and now there isn't time." Off in the distance the dark figures still moved near the end of the point.

He made no effort to conceal his dejection as he returned. The edge of the Place of Death made a winding line across the scant half mile of valley where the green fields ended abruptly.

Dean stepped high over the stone trough a half mile long that marked that dividing line. There was water in it; it was part of their irrigation system. A little beyond, in the midst of the green, stood a tiny flat-topped knoll on which he knew was a pool that supplied the crude system. Beyond it Loah and Gor were waiting.

Gor read the look on Rawson's face. "It is useless," Gor said. "And now I have decided. The People of the Light must die--but not in the fires of the Reds. With my people I shall walk into the sea."

And Rawson could not protest. He could only follow as Gor turned back toward the village and the mountain beyond.

From a spur on the mountainside Rawson could see the full length of the island. One way lay the village; beyond it the green fields; then the wide scarlet band of the Place of Death. And beyond that the little crystal hills and the valley between that led out to the point.

It was now dark with ma.s.sed cl.u.s.ters of bodies, red even at that distance. He could even see the glint of metal from time to time.

And behind the mountain were the People of Light, where Gor was only waiting for the attack to lead them out to the island's farther end and then on to a kindlier death in the emerald sea. Only Loah was with Dean, although there were others of the White Ones not far away, watching, ready to warn Gor when the attack began.

Not an hour before, Rawson had stood in the inner chamber and had listened to the mountain as it repeated the words of a far-distant man: "Attack of the mole-men growing increasingly ferocious ...

heat-ray projectors--almost invincible ... our forces have entered the Tonah Basin--they are descending into the crater. But whether warfare can be carried on advantageously under ground is problematical...."

Rawson unconsciously gritted his teeth behind his set lips as he watched the Reds.

He knew why they had been so slow in attacking. They must have a carrier of some sort, a sh.e.l.l like that of Loah's, and they were bringing their fighters one sh.e.l.l-load at a time. When the entire force was ready they would attack. And Rawson was convinced that this force would be limited in number.

"They'll have plenty to keep them busy up there," he argued. "If only we could wipe out this one lot we could prepare to defend ourselves."

And now, standing on the side of the mountain, he startled Loah with the fury of his sudden e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"Fool! Quitter! Waiting here for them to come and get you! There's one chance in a million--" Then he was rus.h.i.+ng at full speed along the roadway that circled the mountain toward Gor and the terrified throng.

The waiting savages must have laughed, if indeed laughter was possible for such a race, at sight of the White Ones creeping timidly down. Off a mile and more they could see them harvesting their strange crop--harvesting!--storing up supplies of food, no doubt, when the mole-men with their flame-throwers would reap the harvest so soon!

But in a crimson field Dean and Gor and Loah led the others where they swarmed across the Place of Death, gathering huge armfuls of the red-flowering vine, carrying them to the village and returning for more. Where they trod it was as if peach pits were crushed beneath their feet. And there was a curious fragrance which Rawson told them not to breathe, but to keep their faces always into the wind.

Their hands and bodies were sore and burned by the strong juice of the vines. They stopped often to cast apprehensive glances at the distant group of red figures, and always Rawson drove them in a frenzy of haste. At last he made them move the long trough of stone beyond the edge of the green field and over into the Place of Death.

Rawson kept no track of the time. The voice of the mountain was his only measure of hours in a world of perpetual day. But more hours--another day, perhaps--had pa.s.sed when the Red force at last began to move.

They did not spread out wide across the valley, but formed a straggling line that was denser toward the center. They could not know what opposition they would meet; for the present they would stay together. Above them as they came were twinkling lights of pale-green fire.

The radio had spoken of heat rays; Rawson wondered if that meant some newer and more horrible instrument. But he saw nothing but the flame-throwers in the armament of this force.

He was waiting by the irrigation pool, hidden for the moment behind the little knoll. Loah was with him; he had tried in vain to induce her to stay with Gor and the others who were waiting beyond the mountain.

There were watchers, some of them within hearing, whose voices relayed the news of the enemy's advance. Then they ran; panic was upon them.

"_Tur--gona!_" they cried, "_Nu--tur--gona!_ We die! Quickly we die!"

Rawson heard the shout carried on toward the hidden throng.

Cautiously he peered from the little knoll. They were coming. Already they were trampling the remaining red blooms on the farther edge of the field. But he waited till they were halfway across before he leaped to the top of the knoll, grasped a pole he had placed there in readiness and rammed it down through the pool, turbid yellow with the juice from the vines, and broke open the outlet he had plugged in the base.

One green light slashed above his head. One flicked at the knoll near his feet, where green growing things burst into flame--then he threw himself backward down the short rocky slope while the stones tore at his nearly nude body. He sprang to his feet and held Loah close. On either side of the knoll was a holocaust of flame where green lights played. He waited breathlessly. The fires brought in a little back draft of air, the scent of peach pits was strong--and then the green lights ceased. The unripe grain of the fields smoldered slowly.

Then Rawson stepped from his hiding and stared out at the Place of Death.

Nearby was a huddle of bodies. On either side, in a long, straggling line, they lay now on the ground--a windrow where Death had reaped.

The flames of their weapons still in action were all that moved. The white earth turned molten wherever those flames struck.

Farther off there were red things that were running. The yellow liquid from the pool, charged with the acid of the vines, had been slow in flowing out through that long trough. The savages could only see that their fellows had fallen. Some mystery, something invisible and beyond their comprehension had struck them. They ran toward the center at first, then turned and fled--and by then the soft air blowing gently about them had brought that strange fragrance of death. Then they, too, lay still.

From the distance came faintly a booming chant, two thousand voices raised in unison. "_Tur--gona! Nu--tur--gona!_" The last of a once mighty people were marching to their death.

Rawson and Loah turned with one accord. Victory was theirs, but there was no time to taste the fruits of victory. They ran with straining muscles and gasping breath toward the distant mountain and the marching host beyond.

"My plans are made," Rawson spoke quietly. "I must go. I shall take the sh.e.l.l--the jana--and go back to the mole-men's world. I shall go alone, and I shall die, but what of that?" His eyes lit up for a moment. "I'll try to find _Phee-e-al_ first. If I can get him before they get me, that will help."

They were standing on the mountain's lower slope, Gor and Leah and the servants of the mountain gathered near. Below, the White Ones were ma.s.sed in wors.h.i.+ping silence. Had not Dean-Rah-Sun saved them? And now what else would come to pa.s.s?

The same question had been asked by the Wise Ones, and now Rawson turned and spoke to them. "Rotan was right," he told them. "His vision was true. There is work I must do here before I go. Your lands, or some of them at least, will be restored. And you will be safe forever from what we have seen to-day. Gor will lead you wisely, and Loah...."

His voice faltered; he had kept his eyes resolutely away from the slim figure of the girl, who had been wordless, scarcely breathing. Now she stepped swiftly before him.