The Fifth-Dimension Tube Part 4

"It was large," said Tommy ruefully. "I didn't even get a good look it the thing. Probably just as well, though. I might have been--er--delayed.

Good Lord! What's that?"

A light had sprung into being somewhere. It was bright. It was blinding in its brilliance. Coming through the tangled jungle growth, it seemed as if spears of flame shot through the air, irradiating stray patches of scabrous tree-trunk with unbearable light. For an instant the illumination held. Then there was a distant, cracking detonation. The unmistakable explosion of gun-cotton split the air, and its echoes rolled and reverberated through the jungle. The light went out. Then came a thin, high yelling sound which, faint as it was, had something of the quality of hysterical glee. That crazy ululation kept up for several minutes. Evelyn shivered.

"The Ragged Men," said Tommy very quietly. "They sneaked up on the Tube. They flung blazing thermit, or something like it, with a weapon captured from the Golden City. That explosion was the grenades going off. I'm afraid the Tube's blown up, Evelyn."

She caught her breath, looking mutely up at him.

"Here's a pistol," he said briefly, "and sh.e.l.ls. There's no use our going to the Tube to-night. It would be dangerous. We'll do our investigating at dawn."

He found a crevice where tree-fern trunks grew close together and closed in three sides of a sort of roofless cave. He seated himself grimly at the opening to wait for daybreak. He was not easy in his mind. There had been two Tubes to the Fifth-Dimension world. One had been made by Jacaro for his gunmen. That was now held by the men of the Golden City, as was proved by carnivorous lizards and the Death Mist that had come down it. The other was now blown up or, worse, in the hands of the Ragged Men. In any case Tommy and Evelyn were isolated upon a strange planet in a strange universe. To fall into the hands of the Ragged Men was to die horribly, and the Golden City would not now welcome inhabitants of the world Jacaro and his men had come from. To the civilized men of this world, Jacaro's raids would seem invasion. They would seem acts of war on the part of the people of Earth. And the people of Earth, all of them, would seem enemies.

Jacaro would never be identified as an unauthorized invader. He would seem to be a scout, an advance guard, a spy, for hordes of other invaders yet to come.

As the long night wore away, Tommy's grim hopelessness intensified.

The Ragged Men would hunt them for sport and out of hatred for all sane human beings. The men of the Golden City would be merciless to compatriots of Jacaro's gunmen. And Tommy had Evelyn to look out for.

When dawn came, his face was drawn and lined. Evelyn woke with a little gasp, staring affrightedly about her. Then she tried gamely to smile.

"Morning, Tommy," she said shakily. She added in a brave attempt at levity: "Where do we go from here?"

"We look at the Tube," said Tommy heavily. "There's a bare chance...."

He led the way as on the night before, with his gun held ready. They traveled for half an hour through the awakening jungle. Then for long, long minutes Tommy searched for a sign of living men before he ventured forth to look at the wreckage of the Tube. He found no live men, and only two dead ones. But a glimpse of their b.e.s.t.i.a.l, vice-ridden faces was enough to remove any regret for their deaths.

The Tube was shattered. Its mouth was belled out and broken by the explosion of the grenades hung within it. A part of the metal was molten--from the thermit, past question. There was a veritable crater fifteen feet across where the Tube had come through, and there were only shattered shreds of metal where the first bend had been. Tommy regarded the wreckage grimly. A pair of oxidized copper wires, their insulation burnt off, stung his eyes as he traced them to where they vanished in torn-up earth. He took them in his bare hands. The tingling sting of a low-voltage current made his heart leap. Then he smiled grimly. He touched them to each other. Dot-dot-dot--dash-dash-dash--dot-dot-dot.

S O S! If there was anybody in the laboratory, that would tell them.

His hands stung sharply. Someone was there, ringing the phone! Evelyn came toward him, her face resolutely cheerful.

"No hope, Tommy?" she asked. "I just saw the telephone, all battered up. I guess we're pretty badly off."

"Get it!" said Tommy feverishly. "For Heaven's sake, get it! The phone wires weren't broken. If we can make it work...."

The instrument was a wreck. It was crumpled and torn and apparently useless. The diaphragm of the receiver was punctured. The transmitter seemed to have been crushed. But Tommy worked desperately over them, and twisted the earth-wires into place.

"h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo!"

The voice that answered was Smithers', strained and fearful:

"Mr. Reames! Thank Gawd! What's happened? Is Miss Evelyn all right?"

"So far," said Tommy. "Listen!" He told curtly just what had happened.

"Now, what's happened on Earth?"

"h.e.l.l!" panted Smithers bitterly. "h.e.l.l's been poppin'! The Death Mist's two miles across an' still growin an' movin'. Four townships under martial law an' movin' out the people. It got thirty of 'em this morning. An' they think the professor's crazy an' n.o.body'll listen to him!"

"d.a.m.n!" said Tommy. He considered, grimly. "Look here, Von Holtz ought to convince them."

"He caved in, outa his head, before I got to Albany. He's in hospital now, ravin'. He's got some kinda fever the doctors don't know nothin'

about. Sick as h.e.l.l!"

Tommy compressed his lips. Matters were more desperate even than he had believed. He informed his helper measuredly:

"Evelyn and I can't stay around here, Smithers. The Ragged Men may come back, and it'll be weeks before you and the professor can get another Tube through. I'm going to make for the Golden City and work on them there to cut off the Death Mist."

There was an inarticulate sound from Smithers.

"Tell the professor. If he can find Jacaro's Tube, he'll work out some way to communicate through it. We've got to stop that Death Mist somehow. And we don't know what else they may try."

Smithers tried to speak, and could not. He merely made grief-stricken noises. He worshiped Evelyn and she was isolated in a hostile world which was vastly more unreachable than could be measured by millions or trillions of miles. But at last he said unsteadily:

"We'll be comin', Mr. Reames. We'll come, if we have t' blow half the world apart!"

Tommy said grimly: "Then hunt up the Golden City and bring extra ammunition. Mostly explosive bullets. Good-by."

He untwisted the wires from the shattered phone units and thrust them in his pocket. Evelyn was picking up stray small objects from the ground.

"I've found some cartridges, Tommy," she said constrainedly, "and a pistol I think will work."

"Then listen for visitors," commanded Tommy, "while I look for more."

For half in hour he scoured the area around the shattered Tube. He found where some clumsy-wheeled thing had been pushed to a spot near the Tube--undoubtedly the machine which had sprayed the flaming stuff upon it. He found two pockets full of sh.e.l.ls. He found an extra magazine, for the sub-machine gun. It was nearly full and only a little bent. That was all.

"Now," he said briskly, "we'll start. I've got a hunch the jungle thins out over that way. We'll find a clearing, try to locate the Golden City either by seeing it or by watching for aircraft flying to it, and then make for it. They're making war on Earth there. They don't understand. We've got to make them understand. O. K.?"

Evelyn nodded. She put out her hand suddenly, a brave slender figure amid the incredible growths about her.

"I'm glad, Tommy," she said slowly, "that if--if anything happens, it will be the--the two of us. Funny, isn't it?"

Tommy kissed the twisted little smile from her face.

"And now that that's over," he observed, ashamed of his own emotion, "let's go!"

They went. Tommy watched the sun and kept approximately a straight line. They traveled three miles, and the jungle broke abruptly. Before them was a spongy surface neither solid earth or marsh. It shelved gently down to a vast and steaming mora.s.s upon which the dull-red sun shone hotly. It was vast, that marsh, and a steaming haze hung over it, and it seemed to reach to the world's end. But vaguely, through the attenuating upper layers of the steamy haze, they saw the outlines of a city beyond: tall towers and soaring spires, buildings of a grace and perfection of outline unknown upon the Earth. And faint golden flashes came from the walls and pinnacles of that city. They were reflections of this planet's monster sun, upon walls and roofs of plated gold.

"The Golden City," said Tommy heavily. He looked at the horrible marsh between. His heart sank.

And then there was a sudden screaming ululation nearby. A half-naked man was running out of sight. Two others danced and capered and yelled in insane glee, pointing at Tommy and at Evelyn. The running man's outcry was echoed from far away. Then it was taken up and repeated here and there in the jungle.