The Devolutionist and the Emancipatrix, Homer Eon Flint [e novels for free TXT] 📗

himself with a contemptuous shake of the head. The man of the couch, for the first time conceding young Ernol's presence, now ordered him brought forward.

"I know," he told the father, "that it would be useless to work with YOU. You are just fool enough to imagine that suffering means martyrdom.

"But I told you that I must have those photographs. I meant it. I shall have that information if I have to torture you until I get it!"

"Go right ahead!" taunted the revolutionist; but his face was white.

Norbith turned to the boy's guards. "Strap him into this chair!"

It was done in half a minute. The doctor had no way of seeing how the boy took it, except that he studiously avoided his father's eyes, and that he made no sound.

"Now move him under that clock!"

One of the guards gave a low exclamation, instantly checked at a cold stare from Norbith. And meanwhile the boy was being placed just below, and a little to one side of the big clock.

"Remove the lower half of the clock-case!"

It was done in a few seconds. The instrument's pendulum now vibrated freely in the air, its weight swinging almost to the boy's head where he sat.

"Move him until I drop my hand," said Norbith.

A slight push, and instantly the doctor became aware that the heavy pendulum of the clock, on reaching the outward extremity of its swing, was now gently tapping at the boy's left temple. TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP it went, with the peculiar quickness due to the planet's powerful gravity.

"Keep him there until I tell you to move him."

The tapping continued. To the doctor, of course, the thing was entirely devoid of pain. It made much the same noise the dentist makes with his mallet, only it went on and on, until perhaps two minutes had passed.

"Stop!"

Instantly the boy was moved away. The student said nothing; neither did the father. Yet the doctor noticed something which meant volumes to his trained senses.

The boy's gaze was no longer clear. Instead, dancing lights appeared wherever he looked; tiny flashes of violet and orange, which shimmered before his pupils even though he closed his lids.

"Will you ask your father to tell?" inquired Norbith.

"No—damn you!"

It was the first thing the boy had said. And it came through set teeth, in a voice which the doctor scarcely knew.

"Move him back; a little further this time."

The tapping began again. This time the boy's head got more of the force of the swing; the tapping was more like a blow. THUD-THUD-THUD came the sound now; and in a few seconds the boy could see nothing for the shivering flames. He gave a faint groan.

"Ready to talk now?"

"Damn you—no!" in a voice that shook with pain.

"Move him closer!"

The thud became a pound. The doctor looked for the skull to give way at any moment; he tried his best to control the subconscious, but the boy's agony was too great. The dancing lights had become a continuous flare; the lad moaned steadily.

And then quite without warning, the boy broke down and gave out a terrible shriek. Norbith ordered the guards to move him away from the clock.

"Ready now?" he inquired calmly.

The boy's answer was a snarl. "No!"

"Once more!"

The thud-thudding began again, and now it had a sharp sound which the doctor instantly recognized. In a moment the boy was shaking the air with cries of such awful agony that the doctor—

"Stop!" cried the father convulsively, his face streaming with tears. "God—the boy doesn't—know! Don't torture him—like that!"

The man with the metal heart said:

"Will you tell now?"

"Don't do it father!" the boy whispered through palsied lips. But no
Capellan heard him.

The father was saying to Norbith, "I gave the whole outfit to—"

And then that crashing and smashing came to an end. The boy had fainted.

XI THE DOUBLE WORLD

The four felt that they understood the situation quite well, indeed. It was really simple, this far-off world with its standardized life, this petrified civilization in which everything was guaranteed except the one real essential—progress.

But what was Fort going to do about it? Billie was not the only one who was interested; Van Emmon was equally curious, and Smith privately believed that the geologist was slightly jealous of the distant athlete. Certainly he was as eager as any one to continue the investigation, and stoutly defended Powart against any criticism.

"He's the right man in the right place!" he insisted. "Lord, I wish
I was in his boots!"

"Well, I'm rather thankful you're not, dear," commented Billie with a look which quickly brought an answering light to his eyes. Yet, behind her remark there was a certain wistfulness which the doctor did not overlook.

Yes, the four felt that they were very well acquainted with
Capellette.

But the most amazing part of the whole proposition was yet to be discovered. It was not until after nearly two weeks of daily investigation, in fact, that the whole astonishing truth of the matter was uncovered.

It came through Billie. Fort was now calling regularly at Mona's house, evidently trying his best to understand the girl and make himself understood; for he said not a word about his suit. And one day he suggested that they make a much longer flight than any they had so far taken together.

"I haven't been down into the contact for a long while. Have you?"

And the two set out, Billie wondering mightily what "the contact" might be. They flew for several hours in a direction which would have been called "westerly" on the earth; and during the time they were above land, Billie saw no sign of factories, farms, or other forms of industry. In fact, hill and valley alike were laid out with handsome residences, beautifully kept grounds, vast parks and extensive greens, suggesting golf. That was all.

Then she noticed something that made her marvel. The sun, which had stood directly overhead when they left the house, within less than three hours began to descend with increasing rapidity; so that in half the length of an ordinary afternoon it had approached to within an hour of setting. Its motion was so rapid that it could almost be seen.

Soon Billie concluded that the two fliers were bound for the bottom of some unusually wide and exceptionally deep canon. She tried to remember what she had read of the earth's greatest chasms; was it possible for the sun to disappear in mid-afternoon in such? And yet the flight went on and on, until Billie began to wonder if a chasm could be a hundred miles deep.

Soon she could dimly discern the dark mass of the opposite side. The fliers were steadily approaching this, and all the time going deeper and deeper. Once Mona turned her eyes searching to the right and left; whereupon Billie was still further mystified to see that, although the cleft was fifty or sixty miles in length, yet its extreme ends seemed entirely open to the world. Nothing but a deep "V" of blue sky was to be seen in either direction.

The sun disappeared altogether. Always the two walls grew closer and closer together, until at last Billie could see, despite the semidarkness, a heavy growth of vegetation on the opposite wall. Beneath her, as well, the surface was densely wooded.

Still they descended! It was unbelievable; surely the chasm did not extend right into the heart of the globe. They had been flying for hours!

At last came a time when the far wall of the cleft was so near that Billie could have shot a deer upon it. She estimated the distance at two hundred yards; and then, and not until then, did she realize that Mona, in order to inspect this bank, was now LOOKING up. The wall which had seemed right ahead, all along, was now actually overhead!

Were they entering some sort of a cave? If so, it had dimensions that staggered the imagination. What was more, if it were a cave, how could the mind of man account for vegetation on its roof?

Within a few minutes Fort called from his machine; whereupon Mona located a landing-place, a small clearing dimly visible in the distance. The opposite wall of the chasm—or the roof of the cave, whichever it was—now approached to within five yards of the tops of the two machines. Mona and the athlete stepped out, and looked around.

Billie's senses swam. This clearing, as has been said, was only a few yards away from the tops of the bushes on the roof. Moreover, all this vegetation, instead of growing at right angles from the surface in the usual way, was all lying flat against the soil, and all pointing in one direction—back, the way they had come!

The sky was not overhead any longer; it was a mere strip of very dark blue, lying far off on the horizon. That is, to the right; on the left, the cavelike cleft extended still further, its limits shrouded in darkness.

"Queer, isn't it?" laughed Fort. "Shall we walk around?"

Whereupon the two young people set out on a narrow, but much worn trail. Keeping the sky always at their right, they passed through the thicket, Mona's eyes telling Billie that the queer horizontal vegetation grew always toward the light.

It was much like the growth at the bottom of any gulch; only the two were walking in the normal way, upright, at right angles to the surface, quite as though it were level ground!

Overhead the thicket grew in the same fashion; Billie thought the foliage much like ferns. Here and there, however, was a small flowering shrub; and it was to one of these that a tiny, orange-colored bird came flying.

And Billie wondered why Mona did not gasp in astonishment. For the bird, when it alighted upon the shrub, was not over eight feet above Mona's eyes; and unless there was something decidedly wrong with the girl's vision, the bird had alighted upside down!

There it clung, chirping flatly, moving its head from side to side and watching the two with bright, unfrightened eyes. But Mona was not much interested; she and Fort moved on. And shortly Billie was gazing at a fresh wonder.

Directly opposite them, on what Billie was now calling the roof, instead of the wall, there appeared a deep furrow in the ferns. She saw that it was a path, much like the one Mona was treading; it meandered in and out of sight from time to time. What was the meaning of it? Billie began to wonder if "the contact" was the name of some mechanical illusion, like a distorted mirror.

The two had been walking for nearly an hour when, right ahead of them, the thicket opened up, and another clearing presented itself. That is, Billie called it another clearing, until she looked more closely and made out two flying-machines in it. They were the ones the pair had come in!

Now Billie was positive that they had not turned around in their walk; they had kept the sky on their right all the while. In fact, the sky was still on that side. They were approaching the clearing from the side opposite the one they had gone out from!

Yet, neither the athlete nor the surgeon seemed to see anything peculiar in the fact. Instead, they looked at one another as much as to say, "Well, time to go, isn't it?"

Then Fort stared up at the mysterious roof. There was another clearing there, a little to one side; which accounted for Billie's overlooking it at first. Fort led the way over opposite.

"Shall we try it?" he dared Mona.

"You first," she replied, indifferently.

Whereupon the athlete, without another word, pulled his cap down tight, made sure his pockets were buttoned, cleared the shrubbery away from his feet and—leaped! Leaped straight into the air, and as he went up, he flipped his body as only an acrobat can, so that he turned a mid air somersault.

But he did not come back to where he jumped from. Instead, his jump took him five yards, which separated the ground from the roof; and when he landed HIS FEET WERE RESTING ON THE ROOF, AND HIS HEAD WAS POINTING DOWNWARD, TOWARD MONA.

"It's easy," he remarked, craning his neck so that he could look at the girl. "Come on; I'll catch you!"

And then Billie's senses whirled as the surgeon duplicated the feat. Next second Mona was standing beside Fort, five yards above the spot she had just left; and in that second