The Metal Monster (2 page)

Presently my outstretched hands encountered a wall, and I followed this to a doorway. Stumbling through, I entered a large room that was in semi-darkness. I felt a hand on my arm. Then Pat whispered:

“They’re after us! Hear ’em clanking around in the next room?”

“Where’s Reeves?” I asked.

“Don’t know. Must have found a place to hide.”

We came to another doorway. The door was half ajar, and we squeezed through. We found ourselves in a small clothes closet.

I peered through the interstice between door and frame. The dust was settling rapidly, and the room into which we had crashed was partly visible through the first doorway we had entered. A number of metal creatures like those we had seen in the shaft were swarming over the wreck. Their globular bodies gleamed in the sunlight which filtered through the dust into the hole we had smashed in the roof. And hanging down through that hole was a thick metal cable or tentacle composed of globular segments which tapered slightly toward the tip.

The creatures investigating the wreck of the electroplane were about four feet in height—the same stature as the structural workers we had observed in the shaft. Suddenly I heard the voice of Reeves:

“Let go of me, damn you!”

In a cloud of swirling dust he was dragged by two of the creatures, each of which had hold of an arm, out into the sunlight. His head and clothing were thickly covered with volcanic ash. Evidently he had missed the doorway, had dug in, and had just been discovered.

Twisting, kicking and cursing, he was dragged up toward the huge tentacle. It whipped around his waist, then jerked him aloft, out of our sight. In a moment it dropped once more. With remarkable agility, the metal beings swarmed up. Then it was withdrawn, there was a clank like that of huge metal door being closed, and the roof creaked as if a great weight had been lifted from it.

“They’ve gone,” said Pat, “and they’ve got Reeves!”

“Poor devil! And we couldn’t do a thing! Come on.” I led the way to the room into which the ship had crashed. Quickly mounting to its top, I climbed up on the unbroken helicopter blade and leaped to the roof. The huge metal sphere had disappeared.

Pat came up beside me.

“It’s a long walk to Leon,” he said, “and my wrist radiophone is smashed. How’s yours?”

I tested it. It was tuned for just such an emergency, with that of my secretary, Miss Davis, who was back in the Hotel Soledade at Leon.

It worked. Her answer came back, clear and distinct.

“Yes, Mr. Stuart.”

“Higgins and I cracked up on the roof of a large hacienda, about ten miles northwest of Leon. Send a helicopter taxi for us at once.

“Yes, Mr, Stuart. Right away.”

I broke the connection, then turned to Pat.

“Think we can save any of those pictures?” I asked. “Why not, chief ? The fuselage wasn’t wrecked. I’ll go down and get them.”

The helicopter taxi arrived just as Pat came up with the cameras. We got aboard.

“Soledade Hotel,” I told the driver.

In five minutes he lowered us to the flat hotel roof. I paid him while Pat unloaded the cameras. We passed them to a couple of liveried attendants, who led the way to our suite.

Miss Davis arose from her typewriter desk, concern in her eyes, as we entered.

“Was anyone injured? Why, where’s Mr. Reeves?

He’s not-”

“Not dead, so far as we know,” I replied. “Captured. I’ll explain later. Get me the secretary of the Association at once, on the radiovisiphone. Then the President of Nicaragua.”

“But President Monteiro and his daughter are here in the hotel,” said Miss Davis. “They came from Managua, today. Relief work, you know.”

“All right. Get Secretary Black. Then I’ll look up President Monteiro.”

The face of my chief presently appeared in the radiovisiphone disc.

“Stuart!” he exclaimed. “What are you up to now?”

“Turn on your recorder,” I replied. “Then I’ll tell you.”

“It’s on. Go ahead.”

I DID. I related every detail of the strange sights we had just witnessed, and the incredible experience through which we had just passed.

When I finished, he said:

“If anyone but you had told me this. Stuart, I’d think it some sort of a practical joke. But you are such a serious person, I believe you. Yet it’s possible that you were suffering from an hallucination.”

“I’ll send you photographs within ten hours,” I said. “Cameras don’t have hallucinations.'’

“Right. I’ll notify the War Department. Remain within call. Off.

As he spoke the word “Off,” the connection was automatically broken. His face faded from the disc.

Miss Davis had gotten the President of Nicaragua on the room visiphone.

“President Monteiro will see you in ten minutes,” she said. “He is in Parlor L.”

I went into the next room, where Pat was busy developing his films. He had taken his small metal captive from his binocular case and confined it in a stout bird cage with a small padlock on the door. It was leaning against the bars, watching him with its round, headlight eyes, as I entered.

“Get your stuff in shape so you can leave it, Pat,’' I said. “We’re going to call on President Monteiro in ten minutes, and take the prisoner with us.”

Ten minutes later I knocked on the door of President Monteiro’s suite. Pat stood behind me with his caged prisoner. We were ushered in by an attendant. The president, a small dark man with a carefully trimmed iron gray beard, was seated behind a large mahogany table. Beside him, with her hand on his shoulder, stood a slender, brown-eyed girl, apparently about twenty years of age. I recognized her instantly from the photographs I had seen of her, as Dolores Monteiro, daughter of the president, and the most famous beauty in the two Americas.

The president greeted me cordially. I introduced my assistant, and he presented us to his daughter. An attendant placed chairs.

Selecting a long, thin cigar from a humidor, and pushing it toward me with a gesture of invitation, the president said:

“And now, Senor Stuart, what is this important message you have for me?”

Briefly I told him of our strange experience—the astounding sights we had witnessed, and our narrow escape. He smoked with countenance unruffled until the end. Then he said:

“Understand me, senor, I am not doubting your word. But a story so strange as yours needs substantiation. You will not mind if I—ah—investigate further?”

“That is precisely what I hope you will do,” I replied. “We have brought an exhibit, however, which I believe will convince you—a miniature specimen of the strange race of metal creatures we saw.”

I lifted the cage, and put it on the table. The little creature inside it focused its huge headlight eyes inquiringly on each of us in turn, as if wondering what to expect next.

“Looks like a man-made automaton,” commented the president.

“True,” I replied, “yet it, and its larger fellows which we encountered, acted as if endowed with intelligence.”

“You think these creatures will be—hostile?”

“Judging by their past actions, yes.”

“Hum. We’ll try them a little further.”

He pressed a button on the table. A buzzer sounded in the next room and a uniformed aide came in.

“Dispatch three combat ships, fully armed and manned, to the crater Coseguina at once,” he ordered. “Tell them to be on the lookout for flying globes and strange metal beings, but to make no hostile move unless attacked. Have one descend as far as possible into the crater while the other two stand by to guard it. If attacked, they are to defend themselves to the best of their ability. And let me hear their reports.”

The aide bowed and withdrew.

“Perhaps you would like to see some photographs,” I suggested.

“With pleasure,” replied the president.

“I’ll make some quick prints and bring them up,” said Pat, rising. “Shall I leave the prisoner here?”

" Yes, leave him,” said Monteiro.
“I
want to examine him further.”

Pat went out and closed the door. The president poked an inquiring finger through the bars at the little creature in the cage, then withdrew it hastily with an exclamation of surprise as it struck at the encroaching digit with one of its tentacle arms.

"Per Dios!”
he exclaimed. “This one, at least, is hostile. We shall soon find out about the others.”

We did not have long to wait. The radiovisiphone hummed, and the face of the squadron commander’s operator appeared in the disc.

“We are hovering over the southern rim of Coseguina. RX-337 hang? over the northern rim. RN-339 is above the shaft. It descends. A huge sphere has come out to meet it. They collide. The 339 falls, a mass of wreckage. Our machine gunners are spraying the globe with bullets, as are those of the 337. It darts for the 337, which tries to elude it, but is brought down with one side torn off. It is coming at us. Our commander has ordered a retreat. It is too swift for us. It is almost upon us.

We are d-”

There was a terrific crash, and the disc went blank. Tensely, we waited in front of the disc—the president, the girl and I. It continued blank. Monteiro rushed into the next room. I could hear him volleying orders.

Suddenly I was aware that my wrist was tingling. Someone was trying to call me. I pressed the connection of my wrist radiophone.

"Mr. Stuart Mr. Stuart!" It was the voice of Reeves.

"Art Reeves!" I exclaimed, "where are you?”

"Not much tine. Called to warn you. That little metal man guided them to you. Keep him in darkness. Leave at once. They're coming for me. Must-”

“Quick!" I said. "We must get out of here!”

Stripping the scarf from the table, I was about to muffle the cage when something struck the window-screen —ripped it away. A huge tentacle whipped into the room. Clinging to it were four of the globular metal creatures. One picked up the cage, a second seized the girl, and the other two pounced upon me, gripping my arms with their powerful tentacles. As helpless as if I had been held in a steel vise, I saw girl and cage jerked out of the window and upward. Then the big tentacle returned, wrapped around my waist, and dragged me after them.

I WAS thrown into a small, brilliantly lighted room. A heavy metal door clanged shut behind me. To all appearances the floor, walls and ceiling were constructed of seamless brown metal, without windows or doors. Even the source of the light was invisible. It seemed to radiate from the six metal surfaces that surrounded me.

On the floor lay the girl, a look of terror in her eyes.

Bending over, I lifted her to a sitting posture. The floor lurched suddenly, and I sprawled beside her. Recovering my balance, I asked:

“Are you hurt, senorita?”

“No, senor, but I am very frightened. Where are we?”

“If I'm not mistaken,” I replied, “we’re riding in one of the swift flying globes of the metal people.”

In a few minutes there was a second lurch, followed by a sudden jolt that threw us both flat. Then a door opened in the apparently solid wall, and four of the metal creatures came in. Helping us to our feet, they hustled us out upon a platform constructed from brown metal. It was part of an extensive system of docks, along which hundreds of the globes rested. Countless others were arriving and leaving, from and for all points of the compass. Far above these flying globes I could see, through a dim haze, a great self-luminous dome—the ceiling of this tremendous underground world.

But most amazing of all was the immense city of gleaming white metal which surrounded the docks—a city of glistening towers, walls and battlements, all metal.

But conductors led us to a queer brown-metal vehicle —flat, with a hand-rail traversing the center longitudinally. In lieu of wheels, it traveled on four spheres, which supported it on idling bearings. There were no seats. Our captors, after bundling us aboard, indicated that we must stand, gripping the rail in the center.

The vehicle started smoothly, accelerating with great rapidity. I was unable to see any controls, and none of our captors seemed to be driving or steering it. Emerging from the dock, we rolled out on a broad, smooth street, paved with brown metal. Many vehicles like that we occupied were traversing this street, some of them at terrific rates of speed. Some had passengers, some carried materials of various kinds, and some were empty.

Moving in and out among the vehicles, and often traveling at even greater speeds, were thousands of silvery metal globes of divers sizes. I noticed some of them no larger than buckshot, while others were easily ten feet in diameter. I saw them, from time to time, stop at the entrances of buildings, put forth arms, legs and heads, and enter. Others, coming out of the buildings, retracted their limbs and heads and rolled swiftly away. I judged them to be factories, and afterward confirmed this belief.

We passed a building under construction, and I saw that it was being put together in the same manner as the metal shaft I had seen rising in Coseguina—the bodies of thousands of these strange creatures being utilized as building material.

Presently we drew up before a metal wall about fifty feet in height. Two massive gates, which had previously appeared as part of the wall itself, swung back, revealing a winding metal roadway which led to an immense building that stood in the center of the most unusual garden I have ever seen.

Instead of grass, flowers, shrubs and trees, it was filled with mosses, moulds, fungae, lichens and other thallophytic growths. Short velvety gray moss carpeted the lawn. There were clumps of huge mushrooms and morels, of many shapes, sizes and colors. But the most striking of all were the varieties of gigantic slime moulds.

The
leocarpus fragilis
with its gleaming golden spore cases shaped like elongated eggs, a mycetozoan on the borderland between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, grew to a height of ten feet. Globe-shaped physariums attained a diameter of three to four feet. And the dusky plumes of the stemonitis, massed in large clumps, waved twenty feet above our heads. Not so pleasing to look upon were the slimy, gelatinous plasmodia of the various species, flowing sluggishly about in the areas to which they had been confined, questing the food which they must have in order to produce the beautiful plumes, globes, baskets and ovoid spore cases of mature ones.