Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 Part 6

But Unani a.s.su 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 Ana; 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 Ana, stuck out from his left breast.

Ana 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 Ana.

"For G.o.d'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 a.s.su! Lend a hand!"

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 a.s.su 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 a.s.su! 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 d.a.m.ned thing beyond repair. See, Unani a.s.su? 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 a.s.su 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 Ana 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 pa.s.sed, long, silent hours for the watchers in the laboratory.

Ana 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 a.s.su 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 a.s.su whispered:

"Let Ana 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 a.s.su 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 a.s.su! Kill it!"

Unani a.s.su'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 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 Ana'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 a.s.su lay dead within.

Hale and Ana, 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!"

Ana, wearing one of the first civilized dresses she had ever donned, and looking as smart as any debutante, 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!"