The Fifth-Dimension Tube Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  _The Tree-Fern Jungle_

  Tommy watched Smithers drive away. The sun was sinking low toward thewest, and the car stirred up a cloud of light-encarmined dust as itsped down the long, narrow lane to the main road. The laboratory hadintentionally been built in an isolated spot, but at the moment Tommywould have given a good deal for a few men nearby. Smithers was takingVon Holtz to Albany to add his information to Denham's pleas. Denhamhad ordered it, when they reached him by phone after hours of effort.Smithers had to go, to guard against Von Holtz's escape, even sick andill as he was. And Evelyn had refused to go with him.

  "If I stay in the laboratory," she insisted fiercely, "you can slipdown and I can blow up the Tube after you, if the Ragged Men don'tstay away. But by yourself...."

  Tommy did not consent, but he was helpless. There was danger from theTube. Not only from ghastly animals which might come through, but frommen. Smithers had fought the Ragged Men above it. He had chased themoff, but they would come back. Perhaps they would come very soon,perhaps not until Denham and Smithers had returned. If they could beheld off, the as yet unknown dangers from the other Tube--of whichonly the lizards and the Death Mist were certainties--might becounteracted. In any case, the Tube must not be destroyed until itsdefense was hopeless.

  Tommy made up a grim bundle to go through the Tube with him: thesub-machine gun, extra drums of shells, more gas bombs and half adozen grenades. He hung the various objects about himself. Evelynwatched him miserably.

  "You--you'll be careful, Tommy?"

  "Nothing else but," said Tommy. He grinned reassuringly. "There'snothing to it, really. Just sitting still, listening. If I pop offsome fireworks I'll just have to sit down and watch them run."

  * * * * *

  He settled his gas mask about his neck and started to enter the Tube.Evelyn touched his arm.

  "I'm--frightened, Tommy."

  "Shucks!" said Tommy. "Also a couple of tut-tuts." He stood up, puthis arms about her, and kissed her until she smiled. "Feel betternow?" he asked interestedly.

  "Y-yes...."

  "Fine!" said Tommy, and grinned again. "When you feel scared again,ring me on the phone and I'll give you another treatment."

  But her smile faded as, beaming at her, he crawled into the firstsection of the Tube. And his own expression grew serious enough whenshe could see him no longer. The situation was not comfortable. Evelynintended to marry him and he had to keep her cheerful, but he wishedshe were well away from here.

  He tried to move cautiously through the Tube, but his bundles bumpedand rattled. It seemed hours before he was climbing up the lastsection into the tree-fern jungle. He was caution itself as he peeredover the edge. It was already night upon Earth, but here themonstrous, dull-red sun was barely sinking. It moved slowly along thehorizon as it dipped, but presently a gray cast come over thecolorings in the forest. Flying things came clattering homewardthrough the masses of fern-fronds overhead. He saw a projectile-likething with a lizard's head and jaws go darting through an incrediblysmall opening. It seemed to have no wings at all. But then, in oneinstant, a vast wing-surface flashed out, made a single giganticflap--and the thing was a projectile again, darting through a_cheraux-de-frise_ of interlaced fronds without a sign of wings tosupport it.

  * * * * *

  Tommy inspected his surroundings with an infinite care. As thedarkness deepened he meditatively taped a flashlight below the barrelof the sub-machine gun. Turned on, it would cast a pitiless light uponhis target, and the sights would be silhouetted against the thing tobe killed. He hung his grenades in a handy row just inside the mouthof the Tube and set his gas bombs conveniently in place, then settleddown to watch.

  It was assuredly necessary. Von Holtz's story confirmed his own andDenham's guesses and made their worst fears seem optimistic. Von Holtzhad made a Tube for Jacaro, working from the model of Tommy's ownconstruction. It had been completed nearly a month before. But nojungle odors had seeped through that other Tube on its completion. Itopened in a sub-cellar of a structure in the Golden City itself, thecity of towers and soaring spires Denham had glimpsed long monthsbefore. By sheer fortune it opened upon a rarely used storeroom whereimprobable small animals--the equivalent of rats--played obscenely inthe light of ever-glowing panels in the wall.

  For two days of the Fifth-Dimension world Jacaro and his gunmen layquiet. During two nights they made infinitely cautious reconnaissance.The second night it was necessary to kill two men who sighted the tinyexploring party. But the killing was done with silenced automatics,and there was no alarm. The third night they lay still, fearing anambush. The fourth night Jacaro struck.

  * * * * *

  He and his men fled back to their Tube with plunder and precious gems.Their loot was vast even beyond their hopes, though they had killedother men in gathering it. The Golden City was rich beyond belief. Thevery crust of the Fifth-Dimension world seemed to be composed of othersubstances than those of Earth. The common metals of Earth were rareor even unknown. The rarer metals of Earth were the commonplace onesin the Golden City. Even the roofs seemed plated with gold, butJacaro's gunmen saw not one particle of iron save in a ring they tookfrom a dead man's finger. There, an acid-etched plate of steel was setas if to be used for a signet.

  Von Holtz had accompanied the raiders perforce on every journey.Jeweled bearings for motors; objects of commonest use, made of goldbeat thin for lightness; huge ingots of silver for industry; once aqueer-shaped spool of platinum wire that it took two men tocarry--these things made up the loot they scurried back to theirrathole with. Five raids they made, and twenty men they shot downbefore they came upon disaster. On the sixth raid an outcry rose andan ambush fell upon them.

  Flashes of incredibly vivid actinic flame leaped from queer enginesthat opened upon them. Curious small truncheonlike weapons spatparalyzing electric shocks upon them. The twelve gangsters fought withthe desperation of cornered rats, with notched and explosive bulletsand with streams of lead from tommy-guns.

  * * * * *

  A chance bullet blew something up. One of the flame weapons flew tobits, spouting what seemed to be liquid thermit upon friend and foealike. The way of the gangsters back to their Tube was barred. Theroute they knew was a chaos of scorched bodies and melting metal. Thethermit flowed in all directions, seeming to grow in volume as itflamed. Jacaro and his gangsters fled. They broke through the shakenremnants of the ambush. The six of them who survived the fightingfound a man somnolently driving a ground vehicle with two wheels. Theyburst upon him and, with their scared faces constituting threats inthemselves, forced him to drive them out of the Golden City. They fledalong aluminum roads into the tree-fern forests, while the sky behindthem seemed to flame as the city woke to the tumult in its ways.

  They killed the driver of their vehicle when he refused to take themfarther, and it was that murder which saved their lives. It was seenby Ragged Men, the outlaws of the jungle, and it proved their enmityto the Golden City. The Ragged Men greeted them joyously and fed them,and enlisted their aid in a savage attack on a land-convoy on the wayto the city. Their weapons carried the convoy, and they watchedwounded prisoners killed with excruciating tortures....

  They were with the Ragged Men now, Von Holtz believed. He had fled aweek or more before, when Jacaro--already learning the language of hishalf-mad allies--began to plan a grandiose attack upon the GoldenCity. Von Holtz was born a coward, and he knew where Tommy Reames andDenham would shortly thrust a Tube through. It would come out justwhere the catapult had flung Evelyn and Denham, months before, thesame spot where he had marooned them. He searched desperately for thatTube, and failed to find it. He was chased by carnivores, scratched bythorns, and at last pursued by a yelling horde of human devils whowere fired into by Smithers from the mouth of the just-finished Tube.

  * * * * *

  To
mmy debated the story grimly as he stood guard in the Tube in thehumid jungle night. Many-colored stars winked fitfully through thethatch of giant ferns overhead. The wind soughed unsteadily above thejungle. There were queer creakings, and once or twice there weredistant cries, and when the wind died down there was a deep-tonedcroaking audible somewhere which sounded rather like the croaking ofunthinkably, monstrous frogs. But it could not be that, of course. Andonce there was the sound of dainty movement and something passednearby. Tommy Reames saw the shadowy outline of a bulk so vast that itturned him cold to think about it, and it did not seem fair for anycreature as huge as that to move so quietly.

  Then there was a little scuffling noise beneath him. A hand touchedhis foot.

  "It's--it's me, Tommy." Evelyn crowded up beside him and whisperedshakenly: "It--it was so lonesome down there, so quiet."

  Tommy frowned unhappily in the darkness. If he sent her back, shewould know it was because he knew danger lurked here. Then she wouldworry. If he did not send her back....

  "I'll go back the minute you tell me," she insisted forlornly."Honestly. But--I was lonesome."

  Tommy slipped his arm about her.

  "Woman," he said sternly. "I'm going to let you stay ten minutes, soyou can brag to our grandchildren that you were the first Earth-girlever to be kissed in the Fifth Dimension. But I want you down in thelaboratory so you won't be in my way if I start running!"

  His tone was the right one. She even laughed a little, softly, as hepressed her to him. Then she clung to his hand and tried eagerly topierce the darkness all about them.

  "You'll be able to see something presently," he assured her in a lowtone. "Just keep quiet, now."

  * * * * *

  She gazed up at the stars, then around in the so-nearly completeobscurity. Tommy answered her comments abstractedly, after a little.He was not quite sure that certain irregular sounds, yet far distant,were not actually quite regular ones. The Ragged Men Smithers had shotinto had run away. But they would come back and they might come withJacaro and his gunmen as allies. If those distant sounds were men....

  She withdrew her hand from his. Her back was toward him then, as shetried to pierce the darkness with her eyes. Tommy listened uneasily tothe distant sound. Suddenly he felt Evelyn bump against his shoulder.He turned sharply--and she was out of the Tube! She was walkingsteadily off into the darkness!

  "Evelyn! Evelyn!"

  She did not falter or turn. He switched on the flashlight beneath hisgun barrel and leaped out of the Tube himself. The light swept about.Evelyn's lithe figure kept moving away from him. Then his heart stoodstill. There were eyes beyond her in the darkness, huge, monstrous,steady eyes, half a yard apart in a head like something out of hell.And he could not fire because Evelyn was between the Thing andhimself. Its eyes glowed unholily--fascinating, hypnotic, insane....

  * * * * *

  Evelyn swayed ... and the Thing moved! Tommy leaped like a madmanshouting. As his feet struck the ground a mass of sold-seeming fungusgave way beneath him. He fell sprawling, but clutching the gun fast.The spreading beam of the flashlight showed him Evelyn turning, herface filled with a wakening horror--the horror of one released fromthe fascination of a snake. She screamed his name.

  Then a huge lizard paw swept forward and seized her body. A secondgripped her as she screamed again. And Tommy Reames was deathly,terribly cool. The whole thing had happened in seconds only. He wassubmerged in slimy, sticky ooze which was the crushed fungus that hadtripped him. But he cleared the gun. The flashlight limned a ghastly,obscenely fat body and a long tapering tail. Tommy aimed at the baseof that tail and pulled the trigger, praying frenziedly.

  A stream of flame leaped from the gun-muzzle. Explosive bulletsuttered their queer cracking noise. The thing screamed horribly. Itscry was hoarsely shrill. The flashlight showed it swinging ponderouslyabout, with Evelyn held fast against its body in a fashion horriblyreminiscent of a child holding a doll.

  Tommy was scrambling upright. Jaws clamped, cold horror filling him,he aimed again, at the sharp-toothed head above Evelyn's body. Hecould not try a heart shot with her in the way. Again the gun spat outa burst of explosive lead. And Tommy should have been sickened by theeffect of detonating missiles. The thing's lower jaw was shattered,half severed, made useless. It should have been killed a dozen timesover.

  But it screamed again until the jungle rang with the uproar, and thenit fled, still screaming and still holding Evelyn clutched fastagainst its scaly breast.