Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930, Various [top 100 books to read .txt] 📗

the day time, courting A�a in secret at night, had not Unani Assu come back for revenge.

On the fourth night after Unani Assu had disappeared into the jungle, Hale went to the igarap� to meet A�a. He had gone only half the distance when he encountered her, running frantically up the path toward him.

“Hale!” she gasped, falling into his opened arms, where she lay panting and exhausted.

Hale gently patted the long braids, shimmering in silver tangles under the moonlight, and, crushing the soft little trembling body close, he murmured:

“What’s the matter, darling?”

She dug her face deeper into the bend of his arm. “Oh, Hale! I saw Unani Assu a few minutes ago.” For several moments she was unable to go on, for sudden sobs cut off her breath. “It’s terrible, Hale, what Aimu did to his hands and feet, but what Unani’s going to do to Aimu is still more terrible.”

Hale placed his hand gently under her chin and tilted up her small, pale, tear-drenched face.

“Be calm, A�a, and tell me plainly.”

Still clinging to him, she went on. “He told me that Aimu is a devil, Hale. He showed me his hands and asked me if I could ever get used to them and be—his squaw.” The round gold breastplates and the necklace of painted seeds clinked together over her panting bosom. “I told him about you, Hale. And then he seemed to go mad. He said he’d kill Aimu to-night.”

“But, A�a! Why did he let you go, knowing that you would give the alarm?”

“He didn’t let me go.” Her petaled lips parted in a faint smile. “I escaped. Unani Assu tied me to a tree by the igarap�. Because he doesn’t ... hate me, he could not bear to tie me too tightly.”

“Then he must be close to the laboratory now. If he breaks in upon Aimu—oh, my God!”

Hale remembered the death-projector. If Sir Basil were in danger of attack, he would not hesitate to touch the 307 waiting button that would broadcast death throughout the world.

He seized A�a’s little hand and cried out: “Run, A�a! The only safe place now is Aimu’s laboratory. Run!”

As they dashed on madly, Hale opened wide his nostrils to scent the heavy, flower-laden air of the jungle. Any moment all this sweet, rich life might vanish instantly. He had a horrible vision of a world devoid of life, a world of bare rocks, dry sand, odorless, dead waters. For it was life that greened the landscape, roughened the stones with moss and lichen, thickened the ocean with ooze, and turned the dry sand into loam—life that swarmed underfoot, overhead, all around!

And now, just as they reached the laboratory door, panting and frantic, a hoarse shriek broke forth. Dragging A�a after him, Hale dashed forward, conscious of two masculine voices raised in passion.

The door to the room where the life-machine performed its vile work was locked. Hale pounded against it and called out to Sir Basil, but only curses and the sound of tumbling bodies came from beyond the door. Although originally the door had been thick and strong, the destructive forces of the tropics had pitted and rotted the wood. A few blows of Hale’s shoulder broke it down.

Under the brilliant electric light, Sir Basil and Unani Assu were fighting upon the blood-spattered floor. The struggle was uneven: the scientist’s emaciated body was no match for the splendid strength of the young Indian.

“Help Aimu!” cried A�a, pushing Hale forward.

Aimu was being choked to death.

Hale acted fantastically but efficiently. Catching up a bottle of ammonia, he moistened a handkerchief and clapped it against Unani Assu’s nose. Instantly the Indian choked, released Sir Basil, and fell back, gasping for breath.

Hale thrust the handkerchief into his pocket.

“Get out!” he ordered Unani Assu. “Quick!” He threatened him with the ammonia bottle.

But Unani Assu was not looking at the bottle. “Aimu!” he screamed, pointing.

When Hale saw and understood, he leaped across the room to plant his body in front of A�a; for Sir Basil was behind the life-machine, reaching for the controls of the ray projector.

Suddenly, from behind Hale, a silver streak shot across the room. Sir Basil groaned and sank to the floor of the laboratory.

A keen-bladed dissecting knife, thrown by A�a, stuck out from his left breast.

A�a ran forward, sobbing wildly. “Oh, Aimu! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for it to strike you there. Only your hand, Aimu! I didn’t want Hale to die, Aimu. I didn’t—oh!”

She was on her knees by the scientist’s side, his head held in her slender arms.

“He’s breathing!” she rejoiced. “Some masata, Hale, quick!”

Hale found a bottle of good brandy which he had contributed from his own supplies. Soon Sir Basil gasped and opened his eyes. He stared about him wildly, then gasped:

“I’m dying, Hale Oakham! Quick, the life-machine, before my mind-electron escapes.”

He tried to pull his body up, but fell back, weak and panting.

Hale hesitated, looking doubtfully at A�a.

“For God’s sake, quick!” screamed Sir Basil. “I’m dying, I say! I must have—rebirth. Lift me to the disintegrator. Hurry!...” His voice trailed off faintly.

“He is dying,” snapped Hale. “We might as well try it.” He jerked open the door to the disintegrator. “Here, Unani Assu! Lend a hand!”

308

Instantly the Indian came forward, a peculiar, pleased expression on his handsome face. In a moment, Sir Basil’s body was inside, and the machine began its weird humming, the humming that indicated the transformation of a human body into dust.

“Now!” cried Unani Assu exultingly, going behind the machine. “I have helped him enough to understand that if one changes this—and this—and this”—he made some rapid adjustments on the machine—“something that is not pleasant will happen.”

“Stop!” cried Hale. “What did you change?”

The Indian laughed mockingly. “Wouldn’t you like to know? But, yet, you should not worry. You have no cause to love him, have you?”

“I can’t be a traitor, Unani Assu! Arrange the machine as it was originally, and I give you my word of honor than when Sir Basil comes out, I’ll wreck the damned thing beyond repair. See, Unani Assu? You and I together will smash it.”

The Indian folded his arms so that the repulsive things that should have been hands were hidden.

“It’s too late now,” he admitted, shaking his head. “Yet I’ve done no more to him than he did to me.”

Hale went to the eye-piece in the machine and started to look inside. Unani Assu stepped forward, tapped him on the shoulder, and, fingering significantly the dissecting knife which he had picked up, said:

“I am operating the machine. Will you sit over there by A�a and wait? It won’t be long. And, white stranger, remember this: I am your friend. I am turned against none but our common enemy.” He pointed significantly to the machine.

Two hours passed, long, silent hours for the watchers in the laboratory. A�a fell asleep, in a sweet, childish bundle upon the piled cushions, her golden hair, still decorated with the red flowers which she always wore, crushed and withered now. Several times Hale caught Unani Assu gazing at her sadly, and his own look saddened when it rested on the Indian’s strong, outraged body.

The humming of the machine changed to a whistle. Placing his fingers on his lips in a signal of quiet, Unani Assu whispered:

“Let A�a sleep. She mustn’t see this.”

Opening a door in the machine, his handsome face lighted with a grim smile, he whispered exultingly:

“Watch!”

A scuttling sound issued forth and then, half drunkenly, an enormous rat tumbled out—one of those horrible rats with the hairless, humanlike faces that had so frequently come from the life-machine.

Hale could not crush back the cry that issued from his throat.

“Where is Sir Basil?” he gasped.

“There!” cried the Indian, pointing to the kicking rat, which was fast gaining strength.

Hale staggered back. “No! You don’t mean it, do you?”

Unani Assu turned the rat over with a contemptuous toe. “Yes, I mean it. Behold Aimu, the man who thought himself creator and destroyer—the man who said that a human being was no higher than a rat! Perhaps he was right, for see this thing that was once a man!”

Hale buried his face in his hands. “Kill it, Unani Assu! Kill it!”

Unani Assu’s low laugh was metallic. “You kill it.”

Hale uncovered his face. “Open the disintegrator.” Gingerly he reached for the rat’s tail.

But his hand never touched the animal. The hairless face turned for a second, and the little, beady eyes blinked up at Hale with an expression that his fevered imagination thought almost human. Then, like a dark shadow, the rat dashed away. Once around the room it scampered, hunting 309 for an exit. Hale started in pursuit. He was almost upon the animal again, when, leaping up from his grasp, it landed on a low shelf where chemicals were stored. Several bottles fell, filling the room with fumes.

Another bottle fell, and, suddenly, amid a thunderous roar, the ceiling and walls began falling. Some highly explosive chemical had been stored in one of the bottles.

Hale was thrown violently against the couch. His hand touched A�a’s body. One last shred of consciousness enabled him to pick her up and drag her out. In the open, he fell, aware, before blackness descended, that flames leaped high over the laboratory building and that Unani Assu lay dead within.

Hale and A�a, leaning over the deck-rail of a small steam launch, gazed into the dark waters of the Amazon.

“We ought to reach Para by morning,” said Hale, “and then, dearest, we’re off for New York!”

A�a, wearing one of the first civilized dresses she had ever donned, and looking as smart as any d�butante, slipped her little hand into her husband’s.

“Isn’t it a shame, Hale,” she moaned, “that the fire burned all the animals and insects, the machinery, and even your notes?” Her beautiful face saddened. “Just one or two specimens might have been proof enough for your What-You-Call-It Club!”

“The Nescience Club, darling. No, I can’t expect to win the Woolman prize, but I’ve won a prize worth far more.” He squeezed her little hand and looked devotedly into her blue eyes. “And, A�a, I’ve reasoned out something concerning mind-electrons which even Sir Basil overlooked.”

“What is it, Hale?”

“He maintained that matter seeks always to enslave mind-electrons, but I am convinced that mind-electrons seek to enslave matter. Understand? It’s creation, A�a! Had Sir Basil succeeded in broadcasting death throughout the world, the freed mind-electrons, as in the beginning, would have started again to vitalize inorganic atoms. And, in a few million years, which is no time to the Mind, the world would be humming with a new civilization. Large thought, eh, sweetheart?”