Sinister Paradise Part 12

Retch, with one savage thrust, flung her aside. Again the two yellow eyes glared at Parker as Retch brought up the weapon that he held.

"You haven't licked me yet!" Retch screamed.

The gun in Parker's hand exploded.

Suddenly Retch had three eyes. One of them was in the middle of his forehead. It was round and blue.

He stood for a second, transfixed. Something had happened to him. He did not know exactly what it was. He had come here seeking Montezuma's treasure. He had it in the reach of his hand. But something had happened to him. What it was he did not quite know. Something--

He tried to lift the gun he held. His hands would not obey him. Or perhaps the gun had suddenly grown too heavy for him to lift. He could not raise it.

The yellow light in his eyes did not change. But suddenly he collapsed, went down, did not move.

Even after he was on the floor, his eyes remained fixed on Parker, glaring, yellow. Then, little by little, the yellow flames began to go out.

In the silence were two sounds. The first, Mercedes, whispering. "'Ave I paid my debt, Beel? I tried."

"You have paid it," Parker said.

The other sound was that of the old priest beginning the prayers for the dying. He had laid aside his spear. Now he was kneeling again, his voice lifting as he prayed even for those who had mis-used him.

Then there was another sound, voices shouting in the distance. The men who had run from this room were trying to regain their courage, trying to find the will to come back again.

Parker moved to the girl who sat at the key board.

"Effra, my dear, if you would--"

Catching his idea, she nodded. Her fingers lifted the image of an alligator from its niche.

Parker saw the 'gator waddle from this room of mystery and of magic, from this room of lost science, from this forgotten laboratory of a vanished race.

After the alligator, went a jungle cat, full of spit and scratch and the sounds of fury. After the cat went a jaguar, black, fanged, also with yellow eyes.

In the corridors the screaming stopped. Parker, listening, shuddered. He was glad he was not out in one of those corridors; one of the men who had tried to steal the treasure of Montezuma, one of the men who had followed Johnny Retch. h.e.l.l was walking through those tunnels--h.e.l.l in the form of an alligator; h.e.l.l in the form of a jungle cat; h.e.l.l in the form of a jaguar with yellow eyes.

From the window slot, Parker watched men swarm out of the cliff. Some found the small boats, pushed out in them to the PT boat. Others swam. A jaguar went along the sh.o.r.eline screeching at them. A jungle cat spat at them from the edge of the water.

On the boat, the anchors were hastily cast off. Powerful motors growled.

Gathering speed, leaving a growing wake behind it, the boat drove itself into the veil, went out of sight.

Parker went back to the girl at the key board.

Her eyes came up to him. "h.e.l.lo, Bill," she said.

"Effra?" he whispered.

"As I was sitting here, I remembered who you were--and who I am--Bill--Bill--" She came into his arms.

Hours later, on a balcony in front of one of the window slots, they still stood very close together. Rozeno and Mercedes were with them.

Rozeno was speaking.

"Do you think, my son, that you can go out into the world, and contact the great men of this time, and bring them here one by one, so that we may build in this secure spot a group from which the lines of progress can flow out to all men in all the corners of the earth?"

"I can, Father," Parker answered.

"Unto all men--" Rozeno's lips moved in prayer. "Unto all men--"

THE END