The Metal Monster (8 page)

“A globe pursues us! We are discovered!”

“Slow up and let it come close to us,” I said. “Then open the door.”

I had corked, and was holding Dolores’ flask, still half full of brine. The other globe shot swiftly up behind us.

I lurched over to the door and grasped the rail beside it, holding the flask poised in my other hand.

“All right,” I shouted.

The door swung open. The other globe was now less than fifty feet from us. I hurled the flask and had the satisfaction of seeing it break against the pursuing globe, scattering its contents over the gleaming surface.

The door clanged shut, but I continued to watch the pursuing globe by means of my penetrating head light. A sputtering white patch instantly appeared where the brine had struck. Soon this was replaced by a gaping hole with rapidly widening white edges, from which fluffy crystals were flaking.

Dolores accelerated our speed and shot upward. The other globe attempted to follow, but it was rapidly losing power. Soon more than half of its surface had disappeared, exposing its mechanism and inner room, swarming with Teks. Another moment, and it hurtled groundward, burying itself in the soft muck of the swamp.

DOLORES straightened our course once more Ahead of us lay the metal city to which we had first been brought—the capital of the nether world. And about five miles to our right was a great cone of lava nearly two miles high. Above this cone was the gleaming mouth of a metal shaft which thousands of globes were constantly entering and leaving.

“Steer for the shaft,” I said. “Perhaps we can bluff our way through to the outer world. They can’t tell who is in this globe, can they?”

“Not unless they use the penetrating rays,” she replied, “and they can only do that at close range. I don’t think we can make our way through. However, Zet will expect us to try, and will be prepared.”

“Then we’ll try another way,” I said.

A moment later we plunged into the shaft—shot swiftly upward. The speed of the globe was terrific. I had no means of computing it. And because of this, I had no idea how many miles of shaft we had traversed when we suddenly shot up beneath the huge metal dome that covered Coseguina.

Dolores brought the globe almost to a stop—hovering uncertainly.

“Now where?” she asked.

I recalled my two visions of this dome—the first when it was in the process of building—the second after it was completed.

“Not the ports,” I said. “They’ll surely catch us there. Fly close to the wall.”

She instantly brought the globe to within ten feet of the arching wall.

“Open the door.”

As the door flew open I hurled my flask of salt water at the wall. The flask shattered, spreading the brine over an area about ten feet in diameter.

Another globe, apparently noting our strange actions, shot upward toward us to investigate. Dolores saw it, closed the door, and flew away, circling the huge dome. A second globe rose to cut us off. Then a third and a fourth. Dolores managed, somehow, to dodge all of them. Soon the dome swarmed with flying globes, all of which looked alike. We were darting in and out among the others, and I doubt whether more than one or two of their pilots had any idea which globe we were in. Several globes collided, bouncing apart like billiard balls, but undented and apparently unharmed.

Twice we flew past the rapidly widening hole in the dome where I had hurled the salt water, but each time it was too small for us to squeeze through. Then we were herded away from it by the other globes for several minutes. By dint of much skillful manipulation on the part of Dolores, we managed to get back to it. This time there was room to spare.

“At last!” I cried, as we shot out into the sunlight which we had not seen for more than two months.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Dolores. “Now where shall we go?”

“Get some altitude,” I replied. “Then we’ll look around. We must find a place to hide, first of all.”

Far out on the Pacific, I saw a rain storm coming.

“Quick!” I said. “Into that storm!”

A long trail of globes was after us, and more were continually emerging from the dome like a cloud of angry wasps. We plunged toward the storm. In less than two minutes we were in it. At least a thousand globes were on our trail by that time, but once we got into the thick clouds, they could not see us, nor we them. We veered off sharply to the right, traveling at tremendous speed. Presently our globe popped out of the clouds into the sunlight once more.

Coseguina had been left at least a hundred miles behind, and we were traveling toward the northwest, near the coast of Salvador.

Looking downward, I suddenly spied beneath the water, the slender, shadowy forms of a fleet of submarines—about twenty in number.

“If I only had my wrist-radiophone,” I said.

“I managed to keep mine,” said Dolores, and reaching into the coils of her dark hair, she extracted it and handed it to me. “I thought it might be useful in an emergency” she added.

“It certainly will,” I responded, working the call plunger and constantly changing the wave lengths, saying each time: “Ahoy, submarine fleet.”

Presently I got a reply. “Who calls the fleet?”

“Wallace Stuart,” I responded, “in the flying globe above you with Senorita Monteiro. We just escaped from the Snals.”

“Come closer, and show yourself at the door, Wallace Stuart,” was the reply.

Dolores dropped the globe to within a hundred feet of the water. She pressed the lever that opened the door, and I leaned out gripping the hand rail. Then the submarine just beneath us began to rise. Presently its tower emerged from the water. Then up came its turrets, rails and deck. A hatch swung open, and two men came out. One wore the uniform of a U. S. naval officer. The other was in civilian clothes. To my surprise I recognized my former assistant, Pat Higgins.

“Pat!” I shouted down to him. “What the devil are you doing on the iron fish?”

“Secretary Black ordered me to bring him the Coseguina films in person,” he said, “when he heard you were captured. But after I got back I enlisted in the naval air service and came down here to do some scrapping. I was lucky enough to dodge the globes until yesterday. Then one, bad cess to it, cut me down. My pontoons saved me until this ship came along and took me off. So here I am. It’s sure good to see you alive and well again, chief.”

While he was talking, Dolores had gently lowered our globe until it swung just a few feet above the deck. She locked the controls, and came over beside me, whereupon both men instantly doffed their hats. I dropped to the deck of the submarine and gave her a hand down. Pat introduced me to the officer, Rear Admiral Eldridge, in command of the fleet. I introduced the officer to Dolores, and we all went below. A few moments later the ship submerged, leaving the globe to drift aimlessly a few feet above the surface of the Pacific.

Our first request, as we were ushered into the admiral’s cabin, was for water. We drank eagerly, but sparingly. Then I told the admiral the amazing secret of the supposedly indestructible metal.

“Salt!” he exclaimed. “Who would have thought it? And here we have had millions of tons at our disposal without thinking to try it!”

“I believe it’s really the chlorine that does the trick,” I replied. “The metal, I know not what to call it, must be an element unknown to our outer world chemists. In its natural state it is combined with chlorine, forming a white salt. This white salt is mined, with the chlorine removed, leaving the basic metal, which is in the form of an impalapable powder. This powder is mixed with a liquid preparation, forming a colloidal solution that acts much like cement. The liquid evaporates quickly, leaving the solid metal, the particles cohering because they have regained the water of crystalization lost in the refining process.”

“But what causes the rapid action of the salt on the metal ?” asked the admiral.

“The chlorine in the salt,” I said, “apparently has a much stronger affinity for the strange metal than it has for sodium. As soon as the two come in contact in an aqueous solution, the chlorine is torn away from the sodium, to unite with the other metal, forming the white crystals which are the chloride of the metal, and in which state it is stable in nature. The effervescing is caused by the escaping hydrogen displaced by the sodium as it unites with the water to form sodium hydroxide. It is plain that but very small quantities of of chlorine are necessary for the conversion of large areas of metal. It may be, also, that the process, once started, mysteriously rejuvenates itself in some way, like the mysterious ‘disease’ which attacks and often destroys old bronzes that have come in contact with saline solutions.”

“We’ll let the theories go for the present,” he replied, “and broadcast the news. We’ll tell ’em to use salt water, but also to try chlorinated water, potassium chloride, calcium chloride, hydrochloric acid—anything they happen to have handy that is a chlorine compound or solution.”

“Have they captured Chicago yet?” I asked.

“They have every big city in the United States,” he replied, “and many of the smaller ones. But they haven’t taken the radios out of the homes, nor the salt. Excuse me while I broadcast. Boy, there’s going to be some revolution!”

He went out to the radio room, and a steward brought in two large, juicy steaks, to which Dolores and I did full justice during his absence.

When he returned I submitted a plan which had occurred to me for attacking Coseguina. If it worked as I hoped it would, the communication between the upper and lower worlds would be severed forever.

All the rest of that day we were preparing for the attack—loading shells with wet salt and preparing special salt water bombs for the six small diving electroplanes which clung to the deck of each submarine. And while we made our preparations, we cruised slowly toward our objective.

IT was dark, and a steady rain was falling when we hove to about a mile from Coseguina Point. The huge metal dome above the crater gleamed brightly with each recurring flash of lightning. The rest of the time it showed merely as an immense, dark bulk, except at rare intervals when its lighted ports opened to admit or let out flying globes, speeding on the errands of the slimy lord of the nether world.

The upper works of twenty-four submarines silently emerged from the surface of the water. And like a frightened covey of quail there suddenly rose from the decks a hundred and forty-four diving electroplanes, their props and helicopters whirring.

There was an interval of four minutes, during which every submarine swung broadside, thus presenting simultaneously its front and rear turret guns toward the enemy.

When the four minutes were up the bombardment commenced. At first only the flashing of the guns and the bursting of the shells and bombs were visible, but soon great holes through which the light escaped began to appear in the dome.

Out of the dome swarmed the globes by thousands. But after a few volleys, the fleet again began to submerge. By the time the globes arrived, all were safely beneath the surface. The electroplanes, also, were well concealed, flying about in the rain clouds, high above the fast-dissolving dome.

The fleet now lined up with every prow pointed toward a narrow inlet that cut into the shore line. Something shot from the prow of the flagship and, traveling just beneath the surface, streaked straight for the inlet. It had not gone more than a quarter of a mile before a second torpedo from the boat next to it shot out with the same objective. The other boats discharged their torpedoes, each in turn, keeping them about a quarter of a mile apart.

Just as the fifth torpedo was launched, the first one struck the shore. There was a terrific explosion the shock of which came back through the water, jarring our ship tremendously. But when the debris had settled, the inlet was deeper by a full eighth of a mile. The second torpedo, following the path of the other unswervingly despite the agitation of the water, blasted away another eighth of a mile of earth, leaving a great hole into which the water rushed. And following these in rapid succession came the others, swiftly cutting a huge canal an eighth of a mile in width from the Pacific straight through the lava-clad shoulder of the volcano.

The great dome, meanwhile, was swiftly melting away —crumbling to white powder which was washed down by the rain. And whirling erratically about it, like mayflies around a street light, were the mighty fighting globes of Zet—impotent, utterly helpless against this attack by enemies they could not see or reach.

It took forty-five torpedos to blast the canal all the way to the shaft. But long before this was accomplished most of the huge metal dome had melted away.

With a swift rush of swirling waters, the mighty Pacific surged into the crater—formed a whirlpool just above the mouth of the shaft.

The diving electroplanes, no longer concerned about the dome, began attacking the globes, using hollow bullets filled with salt water in their machine guns. The submarines stuck the muzzles of their anti-aircraft guns up out of the water, and at_ each explosion of a well-aimed shell one or more of the globes was spattered with thick brine.

Flying globes, their shells eaten away as if by immense white cankers, fell into the water around us by hundreds. A few of them dived into the water-filled shaft. Several others hurtled away, to escape in the darkness. But most of them were destroyed.

The battle over, Dolores, Pat and I flew to Managua in one of the diving electroplanes. We found that the people had received our radio message and had acted promptly. The ring of flat domes that had encircled the city was a circle of white ruins. And the immense dome that had arisen in the center of the town was a mass of brown metal wreckage covered with white powder and strewed with the arm, neck and leg tentacles of defunct Teks.

Much of this had been accomplished by wet salt, fired from shotguns, rifles and pistols and much by hurled bottles filled with brine.

WE found President Monteiro established in temporary quarters until such time as a new capitol building could be constructed. He wept as he embraced Dolores and wrung the hands of Pat and me.