Astounding Stories, April, 1931 Read online

  Monsters of Mars

  A COMPLETE NOVELETTE

  _By Edmond Hamilton_

  _The Martian gestured with a reptilian arm toward theladder._]

  [Sidenote: Three Martian-duped Earth-men swing open the gates of spacethat for so long had barred the greedy hordes of the Red Planet.]

  Allan Randall stared at the man before him. "And that's why you sentfor me, Milton?" he finally asked.

  The other's face was unsmiling. "That's why I sent for you, Allan," hesaid quietly. "To go to Mars with us to-night!"

  There was a moment's silence, in which Randall's eyes moved as thoughuncomprehendingly from the face of Milton to those of the two menbeside him. The four sat together at the end of a roughly furnishedand electric-lit living-room, and in that momentary silence there camein to them from the outside night the distant pounding of the Atlanticupon the beach. It was Randall who first spoke again.

  "To Mars!" he repeated. "Have you gone crazy, Milton--or is this somejoke you've put up with Lanier and Nelson here?"

  Milton shook his head gravely. "It is not a joke, Allan. Lanier and Iare actually going to flash out over the gulf to the planet Marsto-night. Nelson must stay here, and since we wanted three to go Iwired you as the most likely of my friends to make the venture."

  "But good God!" Randall exploded, rising. "You, Milton, as a physicistought to know better. Space-ships and projectiles and all that are butfictionists' dreams."

  "We are not going in either space-ship or projectile," said Miltoncalmly. And then as he saw his friend's bewilderment he rose and ledthe way to a door at the room's end, the other three following himinto the room beyond.

  * * * * *

  It was a long laboratory of unusual size in which Randall foundhimself, one in which every variety of physical and electricalapparatus seemed represented. Three huge dynamo-motor arrangementstook up the room's far end, and from them a tangle of wiring ledthrough square black condensers and transformers to a battery of greattubes. Most remarkable, though, was the object at the room's center.

  It was like a great double cube of dull metal, being in effect twometal cubes each twelve feet square, supported a few feet above thefloor by insulated standards. One side of each cube was open, exposingthe hollow interiors of the two cubical chambers. Other wiring ledfrom the big electronic tubes and from the dynamos to the sides of thetwo cubes.

  The four men gazed at the enigmatic thing for a time in silence.Milton's strong, capable face showed only in its steady eyes whatfeelings were his, but Lanier's younger countenance was alight withexcitement; and so too to some degree was that of Nelson. Randallsimply stared at the thing, until Milton nodded toward it.

  "That," he said, "is what will flash us out to Mars to-night."

  Randall could only turn his stare upon the other, and Lanier chuckled."Can't take it in yet, Randall? Well, neither could I when the ideawas first sprung on us."

  * * * * *

  Milton nodded to seats behind them, and as the half-dazed Randall sankinto one the physicist faced him earnestly.

  "Randall, there isn't much time now, but I am going to tell you what Ihave been doing in the last two years on this God-forsaken Mainecoast. I have been for those two years in unbroken communication byradio with beings on the planet Mars!

  "It was when I still held my physics professorship back at theuniversity that I got first onto the track of the thing. I wasstudying the variation of static vibrations, and in so doing caughtsteady signals--not static--at an unprecedentedly high wave-length.They were dots and dashes of varying length in an entirelyunintelligible code, the same arrangement of them being sent outapparently every few hours.

  "I began to study them and soon ascertained that they could be sentout by no station on earth. The signals seemed to be growing loudereach day, and it suddenly occurred to me that Mars was approachingopposition with earth! I was startled, and kept careful watch. On theday that Mars was closest the earth the signals were loudest.Thereafter, as the red planet receded, they grew weaker. The signalswere from some being or beings on Mars!

  "At first I was going to give the news to the world, but saw in timethat I could not. There was not sufficient proof, and a prematurestatement would only wreck my own scientific reputation. So I decidedto study the signals farther until I had irrefutable proof, and toanswer them if possible. I came up here and had this place built, andthe aerial towers and other equipment I wanted set up. Lanier andNelson came with me from the university, and we began our work.

  * * * * *

  "Our chief object was to answer those signals, but it provedheartbreaking work at first. We could not produce a radio wave ofgreat enough length to pierce out through earth's insulating layer andacross the gulf to Mars. We used all the power of our greatwindmill-dynamo hook-ups, but for long could not make it. Every fewhours like clockwork the Martian signals came through. Then at last weheard them repeating one of our own signals. We had been heard!

  "For a time we hardly left our instruments. We began the slow andalmost impossible work of establishing intelligent communication withthe Martians. It was with numbers we began. Earth is the third planetfrom the sun and Mars the fourth, so three represented earth and fourstood for Mars. Slowly we felt our way to an exchange of ideas, andwithin months were in steady and intelligent communication with them.

  "They asked us first concerning earth, its climates and seas andcontinents, and concerning ourselves, our races and mechanisms andweapons. Much information we flashed out to them, the language of ourcommunication being English, the elements, of which they had learned,with a mixture of numbers and symbolical dot-dash signals.

  "We were as eager to learn about them. They were somewhat reticent, wefound, concerning their planet and themselves. They admitted thattheir world was a dying one and that their great canals were to makelife possible on it, and also admitted that they were different inbodily form from ourselves.

  "They told us finally that communication like this was tooineffective to give us a clear picture of their world, or vice versa.If we could visit Mars, and then they visit earth, both worlds wouldbenefit by the knowledge of the other. It seemed impossible to me,though I was eager enough for it. But the Martians said that whilespaceships and the like were impossible, there was a way by whichliving beings could flash from earth to Mars and back by radio waves,even as our signals flashed!"

  * * * * *

  Randall broke in in amazement. "By radio!" he exclaimed, and Miltonnodded.

  "Yes, so they said, nor did the idea of sending matter by radio seemtoo insane, after all. We send sound, music by radio waves across halfthe world from our broadcasting stations. We send light, pictures,across the world from our television stations. We do that by changingthe wave length of the light-vibrations to make them radio vibrations,flashing them out thus over the world, to receivers which alter theirwave-lengths again and change them back into light-vibrations.

  "Why then could not matter be sent in the same way? Matter, it hasbeen long believed, is but another vibration of the ether, like lightand radiant heat and radio vibrations and the like, having a lowerwave-length than any of the others. Suppose we take matter and byapplying electrical force to it change its wave-length, step it up tothe wave-length of radio vibrations? Then those vibrations can beflashed forth from the sending station to a special receiver that willstep them down again from radio vibrations to matter vibrations. Thusmatter, living or non-living, could be flashed tremendous distances ina second!

  * * * * *

  "This the Martians told us, and said they would set up amatter-transmitter and receiver on Mars and would aid and instruct usso that we could set up a similar transmitter and receiver here. Thenpart of us could be flashed out to Mars as radio vibrations by thetransmitter, and in moments would have flashed across the gulf to thered planet and would be transformed ba
ck from radio vibrations tomatter-vibrations by the receiver awaiting us there!

  "Naturally we agreed enthusiastically to build such amatter-transmitter and receiver, and then, with their instructionssignalled to us constantly, started the work. Weeks it took, but atlast, only yesterday, we finished it. The thing's two cubical chambersare one for the transmitting of matter and the other for itsreception. At a time agreed on yesterday we tested the thing, placinga guinea pig in the transmitting chamber and turning on the actuatingforce. Instantly the animal vanished, and in moments came a signalfrom the Martians saying that they had received it unharmed in theirreceiving chamber.

  "Then we tested it the other way, they sending the same guinea pig tous, and in moments it flashed into being in our receiving chamber. Ofcourse the step-down force in the receiving chamber had to be inoperation, since had it not been at that moment the radio-vibrationsof the animal would have simply flashed on endlessly in endless space.And the same would happen to any of us were we flashed forth and noreceiving chamber turned on to receive us.

  "We signalled the Martians that all tests were satisfactory, and toldthem that on the next night at exactly midnight by our time we wouldflash out ourselves on our first visit to them. They have promised tohave their receiving chamber operating to receive us at that moment,of course, and it is my plan to stay there twenty-four hours,gathering ample proofs of our visit, and then flash back to earth.

  "Nelson must stay here, not only to flash us forth to-night, but aboveall to have the receiving chamber operating to receive us at thedestined moment twenty-four hours later. The force required tooperate it is too great to use for more than a few minutes at a time,so it is necessary above all that that force be turned on and thereceiving chamber ready for us at the moment we flash back. And sinceNelson must stay, and Lanier and I wanted another, we wired you,Randall, in the hope that you would want to go with us on thisventure. And do you?"

  * * * * *

  As Milton's question hung, Randall drew a long breath. His eyes wereon the two great cubical chambers, and his brain seemed whirling atwhat he had heard. Then he was on his feet with the others.

  "Go? Could you keep me from going? Why, man, it's the greatestadventure in history!"

  Milton grasped his hand, as did Lanier, and then the physicist shot aglance at the square clock on the wall. "Well, there's little enoughtime left us," he said, "for we've hardly an hour before midnight, andat midnight we must be in that transmitting chamber for Nelson to sendus flashing out!"

  Randall could never recall but dimly afterward how that tense hourpassed. It was an hour in which Milton and Nelson went with anxiousfaces and low-voiced comments from one to another of the pieces ofapparatus in the room, inspecting each carefully, from the greatdynamos to the transmitting and receiving chambers, while Lanierquickly got out and made ready the rough khaki suits and equipmentthey were to take.

  It lacked but a quarter-hour of midnight when they had finally donnedthose suits, each making sure that he was in possession of the smallpersonal kit Milton had designated. This included for each a heavyautomatic, a small supply of concentrated foods, and a small case ofdrugs chosen to counteract the rarer atmosphere and lesser gravitywhich Milton had been warned to expect on the red planet. Each hadalso a strong wrist-watch, the three synchronized exactly with thebig laboratory clock.

  * * * * *

  When they had finished checking up on this equipment the clock'slonger hand pointed almost to the figure twelve, and the physicistgestured expressively toward the transmitting chamber. Lanier, though,strode for a moment to one of the laboratory's doors and flung itopen. As Randall gazed out with him they could see far out over thetossing sea, dimly lit by the great canopy of the summer starsoverhead. Right at the zenith among those stars shone brightest acrimson spark.

  "Mars," said Lanier, his voice a half-whisper. "And they're waitingout there for us now--out there where we'll be in minutes!"

  "And if they shouldn't be waiting--their receiving chamber notready--"

  But Milton's calm voice came across the room to them: "Zero hour," hesaid, stepping up into the big transmitting chamber.

  Lanier and Randall slowly followed, and despite himself a slightshudder shook the latter's body as he stepped into the mechanism thatin moments would send him flashing out through the great void asimpalpable ether-vibrations. Milton and Lanier were standing silentbeside him, their eyes on Nelson, who stood watchfully now at the bigswitchboard beside the chambers, his own gaze on the clock. They sawhim touch a stud, and another, and the hum of the great dynamos at theroom's end grew loud as the swarming of angry bees.

  The clock's longer hand was crawling over the last space to cover thesmaller hand. Nelson turned a knob and the battery of great glasstubes broke into brilliant white light, a crackling coming from them.Randall saw the clock's pointer clicking over the last divisions, andas he saw Nelson grip a great switch there came over him a wildimpulse to bolt from the transmitting chamber. But then as histhoughts whirled maelstromlike there came a clang from the clock andNelson flung down the switch in his grasp. Blinding light seemed tobreak from all the chamber onto the three; Randall felt himself hurledinto nothingness by forces titanic, inconceivable, and then knew nomore.

  * * * * *

  Randall came back to consciousness with a humming sound in his earsand with a sharp pain piercing his lungs at every breath. He felthimself lying on a smooth hard surface, and heard the humming stop andbe succeeded by a complete silence. He opened his eyes, drawinghimself to his feet as Milton and Lanier were doing, and stared abouthim.

  He was standing with his two friends inside a cubical metal chamberalmost exactly the same as the one they had occupied in Milton'slaboratory a few moments before. But it was not the same, as theirfirst astounded glance out through its open side told them.

  For it was not the laboratory that lay around them, but a vastconelike hall that seemed to Randall's dazed eyes of dimensionsillimitable. Its dull-gleaming metal walls slanted up for a thousandfeet over their heads, and through a round aperture at the tip farabove and through great doors in the walls came a thin sunlight. Atthe center of the great hall's circular floor stood the two cubicalchambers in one of which the three were, while around the chamberswere grouped masses of unfamiliar-looking apparatus.

  * * * * *

  To Randall's untrained eyes it seemed electrical apparatus of verystrange design, but neither he nor Milton nor Lanier paid it but smallattention in that first breathless moment. They were gazing infascinated horror at the scores of creatures who stood silent amid theapparatus and at its switches, gazing back at them. Those creatureswere erect and roughly man-like in shape, but they were not humanmen. They were--the thought blasted to Randall's brain in thathorror-filled moment--crocodile-men.

  Crocodile-men! It was only so that he could think of them in thatmoment. For they were terribly like great crocodile shapes that hadlearned in some way to carry themselves erect upon their hinder limbs.The bodies were not covered with skin, but with green bony plates. Thelimbs, thick and taloned at their paw-ends, seemed greater in size andstronger, the upper two great arms and the lower two the legs uponwhich each walked, while there was but the suggestion of a tail. Butthe flat head set on the neckless body was most crocodilian of all,with great fanged, hinged jaws projecting forward, and with darkunwinking eyes set back in bony sockets.

  Each of the creatures wore on his torso a gleaming garment like a coatof metal scales, with metal belts in which some had shining tubes.They were standing in groups here and there about the mechanisms, thenearest group at a strange big switch-panel not a half-dozen feet fromthe three men. Milton and Lanier and Randall returned in a tensesilence the unwinking stare of the monstrous beings around them.

  "The Martians!" Lanier's horror-filled exclamation was echoed in thenext instant by Randall's.

  "The Martians
! God, Milton! They're not like anything we know--they'rereptilian!"

  * * * * *

  Milton's hand clutched his shoulder. "Steady, Randall," he muttered."They're terrible enough, God knows--but remember we must seem just asgrotesque to them."

  The sound of their voices seemed to break the great hall's spell ofsilence, and they saw the crocodilian Martians before them turning andspeaking swiftly to each other in low hissing speech-sounds that werequite unintelligible to the three. Then from the small group nearestthem one came forward, until he stood just outside the chamber inwhich they were.

  Randall felt dimly the momentousness of the moment, in which beings ofearth and Mars were confronting each other for the first time in thesolar system's history. The creature before them opened his great jawsand uttered slowly a succession of sounds that for the moment puzzledthem, so different were they from the hissing speech of the others,though with the same sibilance of tone. Again the thing repeated thesounds, and this time Milton uttered an exclamation.

  "He's speaking to us!" he cried. "Trying to speak the English that Itaught them in our communication! I caught a word--listen...."

  As the creature repeated the sounds, Randall and Lanier started tohear also vaguely expressed in that hissing voice familiar words:"You--are Milton and--others from--earth?"

  Milton spoke very clearly and slowly to the creature: "We are thosefrom earth," he said. "And you are the Martians with whom we havecommunicated?"

  "We are those Martians," said the other's hissing voice slowly."These"--he waved a taloned paw toward those behind him--"have chargeof the matter-transmitter and receiver. I am of our ruler's council."

  "Ruler?" Milton repeated. "A ruler of all Mars?"

  "Of all Mars," the other said. "Our name for him would mean in yourwords the Martian Master. I am to take you to him."

  * * * * *

  Milton turned to the other two with face alight with excitement."These Martians have some supreme ruler they call the Martian Master,"he said quickly; "and we're to go before him. As the first visitorsfrom earth we're of immense importance here."

  As he spoke, the Martian official before them had uttered a hissingcall, and in answer to it a long shape of shining metal raced intothe vast hall and halted beside them. It was like a fifty-footcentipede of metal, its scores of supporting short legs actuated bysome mechanism inside the cylindrical body. There was atransparent-walled control room at the front end of that body, and init a Martian at the controls who snapped open a door from which ametal ladder automatically descended.

  The Martian official gestured with a reptilian arm toward the ladder,and Milton and Lanier and Randall moved carefully out of thecube-chamber and across the floor to it, each of their steps beingmade a short leap forward by the lesser gravity of the smaller planet.They climbed up into the centipede-machine's control room, their guidefollowing, and then as the door snapped shut, the operator of thething pulled and turned the knob in his grasp and the long machinescuttled forward with amazing smoothness and speed.

  In a moment it was out of the building and into the feeble sunlight ofa broad metal-paved street. About them lay a Martian city, seen bytheir eager eyes for the first time. It was a city whose structureswere giant metal cones like that from which they had just come, thoughnone seemed as large as that titanic one. Throngs of the hideouscrocodilian Martians were moving busily to and fro in the streets,while among them there scuttled and flashed numbers of thecentipede-machines.

  * * * * *

  As their strange vehicle raced along, Randall saw that the conelikestructures were for the most part divided into many levels, and thatinside some could be glimpsed ranks of great mechanisms and hurryingMartians tending them. Away to their right across the vast forest ofcones that was the city the sun's little disk was shining, and heglimpsed in that direction higher ground covered with a vast tangle ofbright crimson jungle that sloped upward from a great, half-glimpsedwaterway.

  The Martian beside them saw the direction of his gaze and leanedtoward him. "No Martians live there," he hissed slowly. "Martians liveonly in cities where canals meet."

  "Then there's no life in those crimson jungles?" Randall asked,repeating the question a moment later more slowly.

  "No Martians there, but life--living things," the other told him,searching for words. "But not intelligent, like Martians and you."

  He turned to gaze ahead, then pointed. "The Martian Master's cone," hehissed.

  The three saw that at the end of the broad metal street down whichtheir vehicle was racing there loomed another titanic cone-structure,fully as large as the mighty one in which they first found themselves.As the centipede-machine swept up to its great door-opening andhalted, they descended to the metal paving and then followed theirreptilian guide through the opening.

  * * * * *

  They found themselves in a great hall in which scores of the Martianswere coming and going. At the hall's end stood a row of what seemedguards, Martians grasping shining tubes such as they had alreadyglimpsed. These gave way to allow their passage when their conductoruttered a hissing order, and then they were moving down a shorter hallat whose end also were guards. As these sprang aside before them, agreat door of massive metal they guarded moved softly upward,disclosing a mighty circular hall or room inside. Their crocodilianguide turned to them.

  "The hall of the Martian Master," he hissed.

  They passed inside with him. The great hall seemed to extend upward tothe giant cone's tip, thin light coming down from an opening there.Upon the dull metal of its looming walls were running friezes oflighter metal, grotesque representations of reptilian shapes that theycould but vaguely glimpse. Around the walls stood rank after rank ofguards.

  At the hall's center was a low dias, and in a semicircle around andbehind it stood a half-hundred great crocodilian shapes. Randallguessed even at the moment that they were the council of which theirconductor had named himself a member. But like Milton and Lanier, hehad eyes in that first moment only for the dais itself. For on itwas--the Martian Master.

  Randall heard Milton and Lanier choke with the horror that shook hisown heart and brain as he gazed. It was not simply another greatcrocodilian shape that sat upon that dais. It was a monstrous thingformed by the joining of three of the great reptilian bodies! Threedistinct crocodile-like bodies sitting close together upon a metalseat, that had but a single great head. A great, grotesque crocodilianhead that bulged backward and to either side, and that rested on thethree thick short necks that rose from the triple body! And that head,that triple-bodied thing, was living, its unwinking eyes gazing at thethree men!

  * * * * *

  The Martian Master! Randall felt his brain reel as he gazed at thatmind-shattering thing. The Martian Master--this great head with threebodies! Reason told Randall, even as he strove for sanity, that thething was but logical, that even on earth biologists had formedmultiple-headed creatures by surgery, and that the Martians had doneso to combine in one great head, one great brain, the brains of threebodies. Reason told him that the great triple brain inside thatbulging head needed the bloodstreams of all three bodies to nourishit, must be a giant intellect indeed, one fitted to be the supremeMartian Master. But reason could not overcome the horror that chokedhim as he gazed at the awful thing.

  A hissing voice sounding before him made him aware that the MartianMaster was speaking.

  "You are the Earth-beings with whom we communicated, and whom weinstructed to build a matter-transmitter and receiver on earth?" theslow voice asked. "You have come safely to Mars by means of thatstation?"

  "We have come safely." Milton's voice was shaken and he could find noother words.

  "That is well. Long had we desired to have such a station built onearth, since with it there to flash back and forth between the twoworlds is easy. You have come, then, to learn of this world
and totake back what you learn to your races?"

  "That is why we came." Milton said, more steadily. "We want to stayonly hours on this first visit, and then flash back to earth as wecame."

  * * * * *

  The head's awful eyes seemed to consider them. "But when do you intendto go back?" its strange voice asked. "Unless the one at your earthstation has its receiver operating at the right moment you will simplyflash on endlessly as radio waves--will be annihilated."

  Milton found the courage to smile. "We started from earth at ourmidnight exactly, and at midnight exactly twenty-four earth hourslater, we are to flash back and the receiver will be awaiting us."

  There was silence when he had said that, a silence that seemed toRandall's strained mind to have become suddenly tense, sinister. Thegreat triple-bodied creature before them considered them again, itseyes moving over them, and when it again spoke the hissing words camevery slowly.

  "Twenty-four earth hours," it said; "and then your receiver on earthwill be awaiting you. That time we can measure to the moment, and thatis well. For it is not you three Earth-beings who will flash back toearth when that moment comes! It will be Martians, the first of ourMartian masses who have waited for ages for that moment and who willbegin then our conquest of the earth!

  "Yes, Earth-beings, our great plan comes to its end now at last! Atlast! Age on age, prisoned on this dying, arid world, we have desiredthe earth that by right of power shall be ours, have sought for agesto communicate with its beings. You finally heard us, you hearkened tous, you built the matter-transmitting and receiving station on earththat was the one thing needed for our plan. For when thematter-receiver of that station is turned on in twenty-four of yourhours, and ready to receive matter flashes from here, it will be thefirst of our millions who will flash at last to earth!

  "I, the Martian Master, say it. Those first to go shall seize thatmatter-receiver on earth when first they appear there, shall buildother and larger receivers, and through them within days all ourMartian hordes shall have been flashed to earth! Shall have poured outover it and conquered with our weapons your weak races ofEarth-beings, who cannot stand before us, and whose world you havedelivered at last into our hands!"

  For a moment, when the great monster's hissing voice had ceased,Milton and Randall and Lanier gazed toward it as though petrified, thewhole unearthly scene spinning about them. And then, through the thicksilence, the thin sound of Milton's voice:

  "Our world--our earth--delivered to the Martians, and by us! God--no!"

  With that last cry of agonized comprehension and horror, Milton didwhat surely had never any in the great hall expected, leaped onto thedais with a single spring toward the Martian Master! Randall heard ahundred wild hissing cries break from about him, saw the crocodilianforms of guards and council rushing forward even as he and Laniersprang after Milton, and then glimpsed shining tubes levelled fromwhich brilliant shafts of dazzling crimson light or force werestabbing toward them!

  * * * * *

  To Randall the moment that followed was but a split-second flash andwhirl of action. As his earthly muscles took him forward with Lanierafter Milton in a great leap to the dais, he was aware of thebrilliant red rays stabbing behind him closely, and knew that only thetremendous size of his leap had taken him past them. In the succeedinginstant he was made aware of what he had escaped, for thehastily-loosed rays struck squarely a group of three or four Martianguards rushing to the dais from the opposite side, and they vanishedfrom view with a sharp detonation as though clicked out of existence!

  Randall was not to know then, that the red rays were ones thatannihilated matter by neutralizing or damping the matter-vibrations inthe ether. But he did know that no more rays were loosed, for by thenhe and Milton and Lanier were on the dais and were wrapped in ahurricane combat with the guards that had rushed between them and theMartian Master.

  Gleaming fangs--great scaled forms--reaching talons--it was all a wildphantasmagoria of grotesque forms spinning around him as he struckwith all the power of his earthly muscles and felt crocodilian formsstaggering and going down beneath his frenzied blows. He heard theroar of an automatic close beside him in the melee as Miltonremembered at last through the red haze of his fury the weapon hecarried, but before either Randall or Lanier could reach their ownweapons a new wave of crocodilian forms had poured onto them that bysheer pressing weight held them helpless, to be disarmed.

  * * * * *

  Hissing orders sounded, the arms and legs of the three were tightlygrasped by great taloned paws, and the masses of Martians about themmelted back from the dais. Held each by two great creatures, Miltonand Randall and Lanier faced again the triple-bodied Martian Master,who in all that wild moment of struggle appeared not to have changedhis position. The big monster's black eyes stared unmovedly down atthem.

  "You Earth-beings seem of lower intelligence even than we thought,"his hissing voice informed them. "And those weapons--crude, verycrude."

  Milton, his face set, spoke back: "It may be that you will find humanweapons of some power if your hordes reach earth," he said.

  "But what compared with the power of ours?" the other asked coldly."And since our scientists even now devise new weapons to annihilatethe earth's races, I think they would be glad of three of those racesto experiment with now. The one use we can make of you, certainly."

  The creature turned its bulging head a little towards the guards whoheld the three men, and uttered a brief hissing order. Instantly thesix Martians, grasping the three tightly, marched them across thegreat hall and through a different door than that by which they hadentered.

  They were taken down a narrow corridor that turned sharply twice asthey went on. Randall saw that it was lit by squares inset in thewalls that glowed with crimson light. It came to him as they marchedon that night must be upon the Martian city without, since the sun hadbeen sinking when they had crossed it in the centipede-machine.

  * * * * *

  Through what seemed an ante-room they were taken, and then into a longhall instantly recognizable as a laboratory. There were many glowingsquares illuminating it, and narrow windows high in the wall gave thema glimpse of the city outside, a pattern of crimson lights. Long metaltables and racks filled the big room's farther end, while along thewalls were ranged shining mechanisms of unfamiliar and grotesqueappearance. Fully a score of the crocodilian Martians were busy in theroom, some intent on their work at the racks and tables, othersoperating some of the strange machines.

  The guards conducted the three to an open space by the wall, below oneof the high window-openings and between two great cylindricalmechanisms. Then, while five of their number held the three menprisoned in that space by the threat of their levelled ray-tubes, theother moved toward one of the busy Martian scientists and held withhim a brief interchange of hissing speech.

  Milton leaned to whisper to the other two: "We've got to get out ofthis while we're still living," he whispered. "You heard the MartianMaster--in constructing that matter-receiver on earth, we've opened adoor through which all the Martian millions will pour onto our world!"

  "It's useless, Milton," said Randall dully. "Even if we got clear ofthis the Martians will be at their matter-transmitter in hordes whenthe moment comes to flash back to earth."

  "I know that, but we've got to try," the other insisted. "If we orsome of us could get clear of this, we might in some way hide near thematter-transmitter until the moment came and then fight to it."

  "But how to get out of the hands of these, even?" asked Lanier,nodding toward the alert guards before them.

  * * * * *

  "There's but one way," Milton whispered swiftly. "Our earthly muscleswould enable us, I think, to get through this window-opening above usin a leap, if we had a moment's chance. Well, whichever of us theytake to experiment with or examine first, must make a struggle o
rdisturbance that will turn the guards' attention for a moment and givethe other two a chance to make the attempt!"

  "One to stay and the other two to get away...." Randall said slowly;but Milton's tense whisper interrupted:

  "It's the only way, and even then a thousand to one chance! But it'swe who have opened this gate for the Martian invasion of our world andit's we who must--"

  Before he could finish, the approach of hissing voices told them thatthe leader of the six guards and the Martian who seemed the chief ofthe experimenters in the hall were nearing them. The three men stoodsilent and tense as the two crocodilian monsters stopped before them.The scientist, who carried in his metal-belt, instead of a ray-tube acompact case of instruments, surveyed them as though in curiosity.

  He came closer, his quick reptilian eyes taking in with evidentinterest every feature of their bodily appearance. Intuitively thethree knew that one of them was to be chosen for a first investigationby the Martian scientists, and that that one would have not even theslender hope of escape open to the other two. A strange lottery oflife and death!

  * * * * *

  Randall saw the creature's gaze turn from one to another of them, andthen heard the hiss of his voice as he pointed a taloned paw towardMilton. Instantly two of the guards had seized Milton and had jerkedhim out from the wall, the other guards holding back Randall andLanier with threatening tubes. It was upon Milton that the fatalchoice had fallen!

  Randall and Lanier made together a half-movement forward, but Milton,a tense message in his eyes, forced them back. The guards who held thephysicist led him, at the direction of the Martian scientist, toward agreat upright frame at the room's far end, upon which were clustered ascore of dial-indicators. From these flexible cords led; and now thescientists began attaching these by clips to various spots on Milton'sbody. Some mechanical examination of his bodily characteristics wereapparently to be made. Milton shot suddenly a glance at the two by thewall, and his head nodded in an almost imperceptible signal. Themuscles of Lanier and Randall tensed.

  Then abruptly Milton seemed to go mad. He shouted aloud in a terriblevoice, and at the same moment tore from him the cords just attached,his fists striking out then at the amazed Martians around him. As theyleaped back from that sudden explosion of activity and sound onMilton's part the guards before Randall and Lanier whirledinstinctively for an instant toward it. And in that instant the twohad leaped.

  * * * * *

  It was upward they leaped, with all the force of their earthlymuscles, toward the big window-opening a half-dozen feet in the wallabove them. Like released steel springs they sat up, and Randall heardthe thump of their feet as they struck the opening's sill, heard wildcries suddenly coming from beneath them, as the guards turned backtoward them. Crimson rays clove up like light toward them, but theinstant's surprise had been enough, and in it they had leaped on andthrough the opening, into the outside night!

  As they shot downward and struck the metal paving outside, Randallheard a wild babble of cries from inside. A moment he and Lanier gazedfrenziedly around them, then were running with great leaps along thebase of the building from which they had just escaped.

  In the darkness of night the Martian city stretched away to theirright, its massive dark cone-structures outlined by points of glowingruddy light here and there upon them. Beside the city's metal streetswere illuminated by the brilliant field of stars overhead and by thesoft light of the two moons, one much larger than the other, thatmoved among those stars.

  Along the street crocodilian Martians were coming and going still,though in small numbers, there being but few in sight in the dim-litstreet's length. Lanier pointed ahead as they leaped onward.

  "Straight onward, Randall!" he jerked. "There seem fewer of theMartians this way!"

  "But the great cone of the matter-station is the other way!" Randallexclaimed.

  "We can't risk making for it now!" cried the other. "We've got to keepclear of them until the alarm is over. Hear them now?"

  For even as they leaped forward a rising clamor of hissing cries andrush of feet was coming from behind as scores of Martians poured outinto the darkness from the great cone-building. The two fugitives hadpassed by then from the shadow of the mighty structure, and as theyran along the broad metal street toward the shadow of the next cone,through the light of the moons above, they heard higher cries and thenglimpsed narrow shafts of crimson force cleaving the night aroundthem.

  * * * * *

  Randall, as the deadly rays drove past him, heard the low detonatingsound made by their destruction of the air in their path, and theinrush of new air. But in the misty and uncertain moonlight the rayscould not be loosed accurately, and before they could be sweptsidewise to annihilate the two fleeing men they had gained, with alast great leap, the shadow of the next building.

  On they ran, the clatter of the Martian pursuit growing more noisybehind them. Randall heard Lanier gasping with each great leap, andfelt himself at every breath a knife of pain stabbing through hislungs, the rarified atmosphere of the red planet taking its toll.Again from the darkness behind them the crimson rays clove, but thistime were wide of their mark.

  With every moment the clamor of pursuit seemed growing louder, thealarm spreading out over the Martian city and arousing it. As theyraced past cone after cone, Randall knew even the increased power oftheir muscles could not long aid them against the exhaustion which thethin air was imposing on them. His thoughts spun for a moment toMilton, in the laboratory behind, and then back to their own desperateplight.

  Abruptly shapes loomed in the misty light before them! A group ofthree great Martians, reptilian shapes that had been coming towardthem and had stopped for an instant in amazement at sight of therunning pair. There was no time to halt themselves, to evade thethree, and with a mutual instinct Lanier and Randall seized togetherthe last expedient open to them. They ran straight forward toward theastounded three, and when a half-score feet from them, leaped with alltheir force upward and toward them, their tensed bodies flying throughthe air with feet outstretched before them.

  Then they had struck the group of three with feet-foremost, and withthe impetus of that great leap had knocked them sprawling to this sideand that, while with a supreme effort the two kept their balance andleaped on. The cries of the three added to the din behind them as theythrew themselves forward.

  * * * * *

  They flung themselves past a last cone building to halt for an instantin utter amazement despite the nearing pursuit. Before them were nomore streets and structures, but a huge smooth-flowing waterway! Itgleamed in the moonlight and lay at right angles across their path,seeming to flow along the Martian city's edge.

  "A canal!" cried Lanier. "It's one of the canals that meet at thiscity and flow around it! We're trapped--we've reached the city'sedge!"

  "Not yet!" Randall gasped. "Look!"

  As he pointed to the left Lanier shot a glance there; and then both ofthem were running in that direction, along the smooth metal pavingthat bordered the mighty canal. They came to what Randall had seen, amighty metal arch that soared out over the waterway to its oppositeside. A bridge!

  They were on it, were racing up the smooth incline of it. Randallglanced back as they reached the arch's summit. From that height thecity stretched far away behind them, a lace of crimson lights in thenight. He glimpsed the gleam of the giant waterway that encircled thecity completely, one that was fed by other canals from far away thatemptied into it, the great city's vital water-supply brought thus fromthis world's melting polar snows.

  There were moving lights behind now, too, pouring out onto the metalpaving by the waterway, moving to and fro as though in confusion, witha babel of hissing cries. It was not until Randall and Lanier wererunning down the descending incline of the great arched bridge,though, that the lights and shouts of their pursuers began to move upon that bridge after th
em.

  * * * * *

  Running off the bridge's smooth way, the two found themselvesstumbling on through the darkness over more metal paving, and thenover soft ground. There were no lights or buildings or sounds of anysort on this farther side of the great waterway. A tall dark wallseemed suddenly to loom up out of the darkness some distance ahead ofthe two.

  "The crimson jungle!" Randall cried. "The jungles we glimpsed from thecity! It's a chance to hide!"

  They raced toward the protecting blackness of that wall of vegetation.They reached it, flung themselves inside, just as the pursuingMartians, a mass of running crocodilian shapes and of great racingcentipede-machines, swept up over the bridge's arch behind. A momentthe two halted in the thick vegetation's shelter, gasping for breath,then were moving forward through the jungle's denser darkness.

  Thick about them and far above them towered the masses of strangetrees and plant life through which they made their way. Randall couldsee but dimly the nature of these plant-forms, but could make out thatthey were grotesque and unearthly in appearance, all leafless, andwith masses of thin tendrils branching from them instead of leaves. Herealized that it was only beside the arid planet's great canals thatthis profusion of plant life had sufficient moisture for existence,and that it was the broad bands of jungle bordering the canals thathad made the latter visible to earth's astronomers.

  * * * * *

  Lanier and he halted for a moment to listen. The thick jungle aboutthem seemed quite silent. But from behind there came through it avague tumult of hissing calls; and then, as they glimpsed red flashesfar behind, they heard the crashing of great masses of the leaflesstrees.

  "The rays!" whispered Lanier. "They're beating through the jungle withthem and the centipede-machines after us!"

  They paused no more, but pushed on through the thick growths withrenewed urgency. Now and then, as they passed through small clearings,Randall glimpsed overhead the fast-moving nearer moon and slowersailing farther moon of Mars, moving across the steady stars. In someof these clearings they saw, too, strange great openings burrowed inthe ground as though by some strange animal.

  The crashing clamor of the Martians beating the jungle behind wascoming close, ever closer, and as they came to still another misty-litclearing, Lanier paused, with face white and tense.

  "They're closing in on us!" he said. "They're hunting us down bybeating the jungle with those centipede-machines, and even if weescape them we're getting farther from the city and the matter-stationeach moment!"

  Randall's eyes roved desperately around the clearing; and then, asthey fell on a group of the great burrowed openings that seemedpresent everywhere about them, he uttered an exclamation.

  "These holes! We can hide in one until they've passed over us, andthen steal back to the city!"

  Lanier's eyes lit. "It's a chance!"

  * * * * *

  They sprang toward the openings. They were each of some four feetdiameter, extending indefinitely downward as though the mouths oftunnels. In a moment Randall was lowering himself into one, Lanierafter him. The tunnel in which they were, they found, curved to oneside a few feet below the surface. They crawled down this curve untilthey were out of sight of the opening above. They crouched silent,then, listening.

  There came down to them the dull, distant clamor of thecentipede-machines crashing through the jungle, cutting a way withrays, their clamor growing ever louder. Then Randall, who was lowestin the tunnel, turned suddenly as there came to him a strange rustlingsound from _beneath_ him. It was as though some crawling or creepingthing was moving in the tunnel below them!

  He grasped the arm of Lanier, beside and a little above him, to warnhim, but the words he was about to whisper never were uttered. For atthis moment a big shapeless living thing seemed to flash up towardthem through the darkness from beneath, cold ropelike tentaclesgripped both tightly; and then in an instant they were being draggedirresistibly down into the lightless tunnel's depths!

  * * * * *

  As they were pulled swiftly downward into the tunnel by the tentaclesthat grasped them an involuntary cry of horror came from Randall andLanier alike. They twisted frantically in the cold grip that heldthem, but found it of the quality of steel. And as Randall twisted init to strike frantically down through the darkness at whatever thingof horror held them, his clenched fist met but the cold smooth skinof some big, soft-bodied creature!

  Down--down--remorselessly they were being drawn farther into the blackdepths of the tunnel by the great thing crawling down below them.Again and again the two twisted and struck, but could not shake itshold. In sheer exhaustion they ceased to struggle, dragged helplesslyfarther down.

  Was it minutes or hours, Randall wondered afterward, of that horribleprogress downward, that passed before they glimpsed light beneath? Afeeble glow, hardly discernible, it was, and as they went lower stillhe saw that it was caused by the tunnel passing through a strata ofradio-active rock that gave off the faint light. In that light theyglimpsed for the first time the horror dragging them downward.

  It was a huge worm creature! A thing like a giant angleworm, threefeet or more in thickness and thrice that in length, its great bodysoft and cold and worm-like. From the end nearest them projected twolong tentacles with which it had gripped the two men and was draggingthem down the tunnel after it! Randall glimpsed a mouth-aperture inthe tentacled end of the worm body also, and two scarlike marks aboveit, placed like eyes, although eyes the monstrous thing had not.

  * * * * *

  But a moment they glimpsed it and then were in darkness again as thetunnel passed through the radio-active strata and lower. The horror ofthat moment's glimpse, though, made them strike out in blindrepulsion, but relentlessly the creature dragged them after it.

  "God!" It was Lanier's panting cry as they were dragged on. "This wormmonster--we're hundreds of feet below the surface!"

  Randall sought to reply, but his voice choked. The air about them wasclose and damp, with an overpowering earthy smell. He feltconsciousness leaving him.

  A gleam of soft light--they were passing more radio-active patches. Hefelt the wild convulsive struggles of Lanier against the thing; andthen suddenly the tunnel ended, debouched into a far-stretching,low-ceilinged cavity. It was feebly illuminated by radio-activepatches here and there in walls and ceiling, and as the monster thatheld them halted on entering the cavity, Randall and Lanier lay in itsgrip and stared across the weird place with intensified horror.

  For it was swarming with countless worm monsters! All were like theone who held them, thick long worm bodies with projecting tentaclesand with black eyeless faces. They were crawling to and fro in thiscavern far beneath the surface, swarming in hordes around and overeach other, pouring in and out of the awful place from countlesstunnels that led upward and downward from it!

  * * * * *

  A world of worm monsters, beneath the surface of the Martian jungles!As Randall stared across that swarming, dim-lit cave of horror,physically sick at sight of it, he remembered the countless tunnelopenings they had glimpsed in their flight through the jungle, andremembered the remark of the Martian who had first guided them acrossthe city, that in the jungles were living things, of a sort. Thesewere the things, worm monsters whose unthinkable networks of tunnelsand burrows formed beneath the surface a veritable worm world!

  "Randall!" It was Lanier's thick exclamation. "Randall--thosescar-marks on their--faces--you see--?"

  "See?"

  "Those marks! These creatures had eyes once but must have been forceddown here by the Martians. These may once have been--ages ago--human!"

  At that thought Randall felt horror overcoming his senses. He wasaware that the great worm monster holding them was dragging themforward through the cavern, that others of the swarms there werecrowding around them, feeling them blindly
with their tentacles,helping to drag them forward.

  Half-carried and half-dragged they went, scores of tentacles nowholding them, great worm shapes crawling forward on all sides of themand accompanying them along the cavern's length. He glimpsed wormmonsters here and there emerging from the upward tunnels with massesof strange plant stuff in their grasp that others blindly devoured.His senses reeled from the suffocating air, the great cavity being buta half-score feet in height, burrowed from the damp earth by thesenumberless things.

  * * * * *

  The faint, strange light of the radio-active patches showed him thatthey were approaching the cavern's end. Tunnels opened from its end asfrom all its walls and floor, and into one Randall was dragged by thecreatures, one before and one behind, grasping him, and Lanier beingbrought behind him in the same way. In the close tunnel the heavy airwas deadly, and he was but partly conscious when again, after momentsof crawling along it, he felt himself dragged out into another cavern.

  This earth-walled cavity, though, seemed to extend farther than thefirst, though of the same height as the first and with a fewradio-active illuminating patches. In it seethed and swarmed literallyhundreds on hundreds of the worm monsters, a sea of great crawlingbodies. Randall and Lanier saw that they were being carried anddragged now toward the farther end of this larger cavity.

  As they approached it, pushing through the swarming creatures who feltthem with inquisitive tentacles as their captors took them forward,the two men saw that a great shape was looming up in the faint lightat the cave's far end. In moments they were close enough to discernits nature, and a horror and awe filled them at sight of it moreintense than they had yet felt.

  For the looming shape was a huge earthen image or statue of a worm! Itwas shaped with a childish crudeness from the solid earth, a giantearthen worm shape whose body looped across the cave's end, and whosetentacled head or front end was reared upward to the cavity's roof.Before this awful earthen shape was a section of the cave's floorhigher than the rest, and on it a great crudely shaped rectangularearthen block.

  "Lanier--that shape!" whispered Randall in his horror. "That earthenimage, made by these creatures--it's the worm god they've made forthemselves!"

  "A worm god!" Lanier repeated, staring toward it as they were draggednearer. "Then that block...."

  "Its altar!" Randall exclaimed. "These things have some dim spark ofintelligence or memory! They're brought us here to--"

  * * * * *

  Before he could finish, the clutching tentacles of the worm monstersabout them had dragged them up onto the raised floor beside the block,beneath the looming earthen worm shape. There they glimpsed for thefirst time in the faint light another who stood there held tightly bythe tentacles of two worm monsters. It was a Martian!

  The big crocodilian shape was apparently a prisoner like themselves,captured and brought down from above. His reptilian eyes surveyedLanier and Randall quickly as they were dragged up and held besidehim, but he took no other interest. To the two men, at the moment, itseemed that his great crocodilian shape was human, almost, so muchmore man-like was it than the grotesque worm monsters before them.

  With a half-dozen of the creatures holding the two men and the Martiantightly, another great worm monster crawled to the edge of the raisedearth floor in front of the giant worm god's image, and then reared upthe first third of his thick body into the air. By then the great,faint-lit cavity stretching before them was filled with countlessnumbers of the monsters, pouring into it from all the tunnels thatopened into it from above and below, packing it thick with theirgrotesque bodies as far as the eye could reach in the dim light.

  They were seething and crawling in that great mass; but as the wormmonster on the elevation upreared, all in the cavity seemed suddenlyto quiet. Then the upreared eyeless thing began to move his longtentacles. Very slowly at first he waved them back and forth, andslowly the masses of monsters in the cavity, all turned by some sensetoward him, did likewise, the cavity becoming a forest of upraisedtentacles waving rhythmically back and forth in unison with those ofthe leader.

  * * * * *

  Back and forth--back and forth--Randall felt caught in some torturingnightmare as he watched the countless tentacle-feelers waving thusfrom one side to the other. It was a ceremony, he knew--some strangerite springing perhaps from dim memory alone, that these worm monsterscarried out thus before the looming shape of their worm god. Only thesix that held the three captives never relaxed their grip.

  Still on and on went the strange and senseless rite. By then theclose, damp air of that cavity far beneath Mars' surface was sinkingRandall and Lanier deeper into a half-consciousness. The Martianbeside them never moved or spoke. The upstretched tentacles of theleader and of the great worm horde before him never ceased swayingrhythmically from side to side.

  Randall, half-hypnotized by those swaying tentacles and butsemi-conscious by then, could only estimate afterward how long thatgrotesque rite went on. Hours it must have endured, he knew, hours inwhich each opening of his eyes revealed only the dimly-illuminatedcavern, the worm monsters that filled it, the forest of tentacleswaving in unison. It was only toward the end of those hours that henoticed vaguely that the tentacles were waving faster and faster.

  And as the tentacles of leader and worm horde waved alike ever moreswiftly an atmosphere of growing excitement and expectation seemed tohold the horde. At last the upstretched feelers were whipping back andforth almost too swiftly for the eye to follow. Then abruptly the wormleader ceased the motion himself, and while the horde before himcontinued it, turned and crawled to the three captives.

  * * * * *

  In an instant, as though in answer to a second command, the two wormmonsters who held the Martian dragged him forward toward the greatearthen block before the worm god's image. Two others of the creaturescame from the side, and the four swiftly stretched the Martian flat onthe block's top, each of the four grasping with their tentacles one ofhis four taloned limbs. They seemed to hesitate then, the worm leaderbeside them, the tentacles of the horde waving swiftly still.

  Abruptly the tentacles of the leader flashed up as though in a signal.There was a dull ripping sound, and in that moment Randall and Laniersaw the Martian on the block torn literally limb from limb by the fourgreat worm monsters who had held his four limbs!

  The tentacles of the horde waved suddenly with increased, excitedswiftness at that. Randall shrank in horror.

  "They've brought us here for that!" he cried. "To sacrifice us on thataltar that way to their worm god!"

  But Lanier too had cried out, appalled, as he saw that awfulsacrifice, and both strained madly against the grip of the wormcreatures. Their struggles were in vain, and then in answer to anotherunspoken command the two monsters that held Randall were dragging himalso to the earthen altar!

  He felt himself gripped by the four great creatures around the block,felt as he struggled with his last strength that he was beingstretched out on the block, each of the four at one of its cornersgrasping one of his limbs. He heard Lanier's mad cries as though froma great distance, glimpsed as he was held thus on his back the greatshape of the earthen worm god reared over him, and then glimpsed theleader of the monsters rearing beside him.

  * * * * *

  The dull sound of the swift-waving tentacles of the horde came to him,there was a tense moment of agony of waiting, and then the tentaclesof the leader flashed up in the signal!

  But at the same moment Randall felt his limbs released by the fourmonsters that had held them! There seemed sudden wild confusion in thegreat cave. The strange rite broke off; the horde of worm monsterscrawled frantically this way and that in it. Randall slipped off theblock; staggered to his feet.

  The worm monsters in the cave were swarming toward the downward tunnelopenings! The two captives forgotten, the creatures were pouring incrawling,
fighting swarms toward those openings. And then, as Randalland Lanier stared stupefied, there came a red flash from one of theupward tunnels and a brilliant crimson ray stabbed down and mowed apath of annihilation in the cave's earthen side!

  The two heard great thumping sounds from above, saw the tunnelsleading from above becoming suddenly many times greater in size as redrays flashed down along them to gouge the tunnel's walls. Then downfrom those enlarged tunnels there were bursting long shining shapes,great centipede-machines crawling down the tunnels which their raysmade larger before them! And as the centipede-machines burst down intothe cavern their crimson rays stabbed right and left to cut paths ofannihilation among the worms.

  "The Martians!" Lanier cried. "They didn't find us above--they knew wemust have been taken by these things--and they've come down after us!"

  * * * * *

  "Back, Lanier!" Randall shouted. "Quick, before they see us, behindthis--"

  As he spoke he was jerking Lanier with him behind the looming earthenstatue of the great worm god. Crouched there between the statue andthe cave's wall they were hidden precariously from the view of thosein the cavern. And now that cavern had become a scene of horrorunthinkable as the centipede-machines pouring down into it blasted thefrantically crawling worm monsters with their rays.

  The worm monsters attempted no resistance, but sought only to escapeinto their downward tunnels, and in moments those not caught by therays had vanished in the openings. But the centipede-machines, afterracing swiftly around the cavity, were following them, were going downinto those downward tunnels also, their rays blasting down ahead ofeach to make the tunnel large enough for them to follow.

  In a moment all but one had vanished down into the openings, theremaining one having its front or head jammed in one of the openingsfrom the failure of its operator to blast a large enough openingbefore him. As Lanier and Randall watched tensely they saw themachine's control room door open and a Martian descend. He inspectedthe tunnel opening in which his vehicle was jammed, then with a handray-tube began to disintegrate the earth around that opening to freehis machine.

  Randall clutched his companion's arm. "That machine!" he whispered."If we could capture it, it would give us a chance to get back to thecity--to Milton and the matter-transmitter!"

  Lanier started, then nodded swiftly. "We'll chance it," he whispered."For our twenty-four hours here must be almost up."

  * * * * *

  They hesitated a moment, then crept forward from behind the greatearthen statue. The Martian had his back to them, his attention on thefreeing of his mechanism. Across the dim-lit cavern they crept softly,and were within a dozen feet of the Martian when some sound made himwheel quickly to confront them with the deadly tube. But even as hewhirled the two had leaped.

  The force of their leap sent them flying through that dozen feet ofspace to strike the Martian at the moment his tube levelled. Onehissing call he uttered as they struck him, and then with all hisstrength Lanier had grasped the crocodilian body and bent it backward.Something in it snapped, and the Martian collapsed limply. The twolooked wildly around.

  Nothing showed that the Martian's call had been heard, and after amoment's glance that showed the head of the centipede machine alreadyfreed, they were clambering up into its control room, closing thedoor. Randall seized the knob with which he had seen the machinesoperated. As he pulled it toward him the machine moved across thetunnel opening and raced smoothly over the cavern's floor. As heturned the knob the machine turned swiftly in the same direction.

  He headed the long mechanism toward one of the upward-curving tunnelswhich the Martians had blasted larger in descending. They were almostto it when there flashed up into the cavity from one of the downwardtunnel openings a centipede-machine, and then another, and another.The Martians in their transparent-windowed control rooms took in at aglance the dead crocodilian on the floor, and then the three greatmachines were darting toward that of Randall and Lanier.

  "The Martian we killed!" Randall cried. "They heard his call and arecoming after us!"

  "Turn to the wall!" Lanier shouted to him. "I have the rays--"

  * * * * *

  At that moment there was a clicking beside Randall and he glimpsedLanier pulling forth two small grips he had found, then saw that twocrimson rays were stabbing from tubes in their machine's front towardthe others even as their own rays darted back. The beams that had beenloosed toward them grazed past them as Randall whirled their machineto the wall, and he saw one of the three attacking mechanisms vanishas Lanier's beams struck it.

  Around--back--with instinctive, lightninglike motions he whirled theircentipede-machine in the great dim-lit cave as the two remaining onesleapt again to the attack. Their rays shot right and left to catch thetwo men's vehicle in a trap of death, and as Randall swung their ownmechanism straight ahead he glimpsed at the cavern's far end the greatearthen worm god still upreared.

  On either side of them the red beams burned as they leapt forward, butas though running a gauntlet of death Randall kept the machine racingforward in the succeeding second until the two others loomed on eitherside of it. Then Lanier's beams were driving in turn to right and leftof them and the two vanished as though by magic as they were struck.

  "Up to the surface!" Lanier cried, his eyes on the glowing dial of hiswrist-watch. "We've been held hours here--we've but a half-hour ormore before earth midnight!"

  * * * * *

  Randall sent their machine racing again toward one of the upwardtunnels, and as the long mechanism began to climb smoothly up thedarkness he heard Lanier agonizing beside him.

  "God, if we have only enough time to get to that matter-transmitterbefore the Martians start flashing to earth through it!"

  "But Milton?" Randall cried. "We don't know whether he's alive ordead! We can't leave him!"

  "We must!" said Lanier solemnly. "Our duty's to the earth now, man, tothe world that we alone can save from the Martian invasion andconquest! At the hour of twelve Nelson will have the matter-receiverturned on and at that hour the Martian will start flashing toearth--unless we prevent!"

  Suddenly Randall grasped the knob in his hands more tightly as lightshowed above them. They had been climbing upward through the enlargedtunnel at their machine's highest speed, and now as the tunnel curvedthe light grew stronger. Suddenly they were emerging into the thinsunlight of the Martian day.

  In the crimson jungle about them were many Martians, milling excitedlyto and fro, and other centipede-machines that were blasting their waydown through tunnels to the worm world beneath.

  Randall and Lanier, breathless, crouched low in thetransparent-windowed control room as they sent their mechanism racingthrough this scene of swarming activity. Both gasped as one of thecentipede-machines clashed against their own in passing, its Martiandriver turning to stare after them. But there came no alarm, and in amoment they had passed out of the swarm of Martians and machines andwere heading through the jungle in the direction of the city.

  * * * * *

  Through the weird red vegetation their mechanism raced with them,Randall holding it at its highest speed, and in minutes they came outof the jungle and were racing over the clear space between it and thegreat canal. Beyond that canal loomed into the thin sunlight theclustering cones of the mighty Martian city, two towering above allthe others--the cone of the Martian Master and the other cone in whichwas the matter-transmitter and receiver.

  It was toward the latter that Lanier pointed. "Head straight towardthat cone, Randall--we've but minutes left!"

  They were racing now up over the great arch of the canal's metalbridge, and then scuttling smoothly off it and along the broad metalstreet through which they had fled in darkness hours before. In itMartians and centipede-machines were coming and going in greatnumbers, but none noticed the human forms of the two crouched low intheir mech
anism's control room.

  They were rushing then toward the looming cone of the Martian Master.As they flashed past it Randall saw Lanier's face working, knew thedesire that tore at him even as at himself to burst inside andascertain whether or not Milton still lived in the laboratories fromwhich they had fled. But they were past it, faces white and grim, wererushing on through the Martian city at reckless speed toward the othermighty cone.

  * * * * *

  It seemed that all in the great city were heading toward the samegoal, streams of crocodilian Martians and masses of shiningcentipede-machines filling the streets as they moved toward it. Asthey came closer to the mighty structure, hearts pounding, they sawthat around it surged a mighty mass of Martians and machines. Thehordes waiting to be released through the matter-transmitter insideupon the unsuspecting earth!

  "Try to get the machine inside!" Lanier whispered tensely. "If we cansmash that transmitter yet...."

  Randall nodded grimly. "Keep ready at the ray-tubes," he told theother.

  As unobtrusively as possible he sent their long mechanism wormingforward through the vast throng of machines and Martians, toward thegreat cone's door. Crouching low, the hands of their watches closingfast toward the twelfth figure, they edged forward in the longmachine. At last they were moving through the mighty door, into thecone's interior.

  They moved slowly on through the mass of machines and crocodile formsinside, then halted. For at the great crowd's center was a clearcircle hundreds of feet across, and as Randall gazed across it hisheart seemed to leap once and then stop.

  At the center of that clear circle rose the two cubical metal chambersof the matter-transmitter and receiver. The transmitting chamber, theysaw, was flooded with humming force, with white light pouring from itsinner walls. It was already in operation, and the masses of Martiansin the great cone were only waiting for the moment to sound when thereceiver on earth would be operating also. Then they would pour intothe chamber to be flashed in masses across the gulf to earth! The eyesof all in the cone seemed turned toward an erect dial-mechanism besidethe chambers which was clocklike in appearance, and that would markthe moment when the first Martian could enter the transmitting-chamberand flash out.

  * * * * *

  A little distance from the two metal chambers stood a low dais onwhich there sat the hideous triple-bodied form of the Martian Master.Around him were the massed members of his council, waiting like himfor the start of their age-planned invasion of earth. And beside thedais was a figure between two crocodilian guards at sight of whomRandall forgot all else.

  "Milton! My God, Lanier, it's Milton!"

  "Milton! They've brought him here to torture or kill him if they findhe's lied about the moment they could flash to earth!"

  Milton! And at sight of him something snapped in Randall's brain.

  With a single motion of the knob he sent their centipede-machinecrashing out into the clear circle at the mighty cone's center. A wilduproar of hissing cries broke from all the thousands in it as he sentthe mechanism whirling toward the dais of the Martian Master. He sawthe crocodilian forms there scattering blindly before him, and thenas his rays drove out and spun and stabbed in mad figures of crimsondeath through the astounded Martian masses he saw Milton looking uptoward them, crying out crazily to them as his two guards loosed himfor the moment.

  A high call from the Martian Master ripped across the hall and wasanswered by a shattering roar of hissing voices as Martians andmachines surged madly toward them. Randall and Lanier in a single leapwere out of the centipede-machine, and in an instant had half-draggedMilton with them in a great leap up to the edge of the hummingtransmitting chamber.

  * * * * *

  Milton was shouting hoarsely to them over the wild uproar. To enterthat transmitting chamber before the destined moment was annihilation,to be flashed out with no receiver on earth awaiting them. Theyturned, struck with all their strength at the first Martians rushingup to them. No rays flashed, for a ray loosed would destroy thechamber behind them that was the one gate for the Martians to theworld they would invade. But as the Martian Master's high call hissedagain all the countless crocodilian forms in the great cone wererushing toward them.

  Braced at the very edge of the humming, light-filled chamber, Randalland Lanier and Milton struck madly at the Martians surging up towardthem. Randall seemed in a dream. A score of taloned paws clutched himfrom beneath; scaled forms collapsed under his insane blows.

  The whole vast cone and surging reptilian hordes seemed spinning atincreasing speed around him. As his clenched fists flashed with waningstrength he glimpsed crocodilian forms swarming up on either side ofthem, glimpsed Lanier down, talons reaching toward him, Miltonfighting over him like a madman. Another moment would see itended--reptilian arms reaching in scores to drag him down--Miltonjerking Lanier half to his feet. The Martian Master's callsounded--and then came a great clanging sound at which the Martianhordes seemed to freeze for an instant motionless, at which Milton'svoice reached him in a supreme cry.

  _"Randall--the transmitter!"_

  For in that instant Milton was leaping back with Lanier, and asRandall with his last strength threw himself backward with them intothe humming transmitting-chamber's brilliant light, he heard a lastfrenzied roar of hissing cries from the Martian hordes about them.Then as the brilliant light and force from the chamber's walls smotethem, Randall felt himself hurled into blackness inconceivable, thatsmashed like a descending curtain across his brain.

  The curtain of blackness lifted for a moment. He was lying with Miltonand Lanier in another chamber whose force beat upon them. He saw ayellow-lit room instead of the great cone--saw the tense, anxious faceof Nelson at the switch beside them. He strove to move, made to Nelsona gesture with his arm that seemed to drain all strength and life fromhim; and then, as in answer to it Nelson drove up the switch andturned off the force of the matter-receiver in which they lay, theblack curtain descended on Randall's brain once more.

  * * * * *

  Two hours later it was when Milton and Randall and Lanier and Nelsonturned to the laboratory's door. They paused to glance behind them. Ofthe great matter-transmitter and receiver, of the apparatus that hadcrowded the laboratory, there remained now but wreckage.

  For that had been their first thought, their first task, when theastounded Nelson had brought the three back to consciousness and hadheard their amazing tale. They had wrecked so completely thematter-station and its actuating apparatus that none could ever haveguessed what a mechanism of wonder the laboratory a short time beforehad held.

  The cubical chambers had been smashed beyond all recognition, thedynamos were masses of split metal and fused wiring, the batteries oftubes were shattered, the condensers and transformers and wiringdemolished. And it had only been when the last written plans andblue-prints of the mechanism had been burned that Milton and Randalland Lanier had stopped to allow their exhausted bodies a moment ofrest.

  * * * * *

  Now as they paused at the laboratory's door, Lanier reached and swungit open. Together, silent, they gazed out.

  It all seemed to Randall exactly as upon the night before. The shadowymasses in the darkness, the heaving, dim-lit sea stretching far awaybefore them, the curtain of summer stars stretched across the heavens.And, sinking westward amid those stars, the red spark of Mars towardwhich as though toward a magnet all their eyes had turned.

  Milton was speaking. "Up there it has shone for centuries--ages--acrimson spot of light. And up there the Martians have been watching,watching--until at last we opened to them the gate."

  Randall's hand was on his shoulder. "But we closed that gate, too, inthe end."

  Milton nodded slowly. "We--or the fate that rules our worlds. But thegate is closed, and God grant, shall never again be opened by any onthis world."

  "God grant it," the other ech
oed.

  And they were all gazing still toward the thing. Gazing up toward thecrimson spot of light that burned there among the stars, toward theplanet that shone red, menacing, terrible, but whose menace and whoseterror had been thrust back even as they had crouched to spring atlast upon the earth.