Chapter II: Part 2

He climbed back into the plane. The lights went on; at least, they still worked. I turned to Johnny Eagle, "You better get the sleeping bags out and turn in yourself. There's nothing to be done till morning."

I got in the plane.

"Any chance of fixing it?" I asked, watching the pilot's frantic flickering of switches.

"I'm trying to. It may only be a case of a broken tube from the jolt we had. If so, we're all right; I have a few spares."

I stayed up all night with him. A damp, pallid dawn filtered through a ceiling of clouds, their gray bellies heavy against the tops of the evergreen timber.

The day passed fretfully under the heavy overcast. Johnny Eagle had patched the opening in the tail and we spent the hours inside, sheltered from the drizzling cold. The pilot gave up his despairing tinkering with the radio and fell into an exhausted sleep. I followed suit.

A loud, shrill squealing brought me to my feet hours later. The radio was working again. The pilot was shouting excitedly to me. "I've got 'em. Listen."

"_CXRAP. We hear you. Come in._"

The pilot flipped the transmitter switch. "CXRAP calling Burns Lake. We are down in area located...." He went on, giving co-ordinates of our position, visibility, weather, and other data.

"Here, sir," he said, handing me the mike. "Someone wishes to speak to you."

I almost dropped the mike at the sound of the voice that boomed over the radio loudspeaker. It was Armstrong's.

Public opinion roused by Nevil Oxford's censored broadcast had forced the government's hand and Armstrong had been placed in command of a last minute effort to locate Chetzisky. Only two days separated the earth from annihilation.

"We can't get to you in this weather, Arnold. Sit tight and pray."

"Don't bother about us, Jim," I told Armstrong. "We're well enough set; don't waste time."

I knew he wouldn't. Afterwards I learned that he parachuted troops into the suspected area north of Burns Lake and rounded up every trapper, prospector, Indian guide and Provincial trooper to scour the region for Chetzisky.

* * * * *

Late in the afternoon the low-lying clouds began to lift. Rifts appeared in the solid grayness but the drizzle kept on. I put on my raincoat and got out of the plane to stretch my legs.

The air was wet, cool, refreshing. I looked about. In places the slopes were visible as far as the timberline and even before. In others the gray pall remained. Somewhere out of it I heard a voice calling my name, more loudly with each repetition. My eyes tried to bore through the haze and shortly a stocky figure detached itself from it, coming towards me. It was Johnny Eagle, his eyes more luminous than I had ever seen them.

"I've found the Twins," he said simply and plunged back into the mist with me close behind.

I stumbled eagerly up the slope for nearly two hundred yards. Johnny Eagle was standing on a boulder, pointing north through a great break in the low ceiling of cloud. I looked, my heart racing wildly. There they were towering in the sky, the Twins, as similar as though they were a double image seen in a badly focussed lens. I judged them to be three miles off.

I yelled for Johnny to stay put while I scrambled down the slope, ripping my pants and scraping my knees as my legs gave way under me in a patch of loose scree. Back at the plane I found the pilot putting up a makeshift antenna.

"Get Burns Lake quick," I ordered between gasps. "Ask for Armstrong."

Armstrong was elated but grimly realistic. "This must be it, Arnold; it has to be."

I knew what he meant. This was our last lead; there wouldn't be time for more.

Armstrong asked whether I could move out up to the peaks and radio a report to him. I looked out of the cabin ports. Night had fallen quickly, but in the cloud blankets the clefts were widening to let feeble patches of starlight show through.

"I'll start right away," I assured Armstrong. "It's clearing here."

Johnny Eagle scouted around the lake till he found a stream flowing from the direction of the Twin Peaks. With it as a guide we set off, panting as we stumbled, slipped, crawled along and wincing as needle-pointed evergreens stung our faces.

Sometimes the stream twisted out of sight, but Johnny pushed on with the ancient woodland canniness of the great Frog tribe. There were times, though, when this mystic sense deserted him and we stood perplexed and barely visible to each other a foot away. We waited, then, for some sudden glimmer to reveal our guiding stream.

* * * * *

My weary legs soon told me my estimate of four miles to the Twins was way off. About midnight we broke out of the forest wilderness high up on the timber line. The night was brilliantly clear by this time; sharply etched shadows of dark pines lay about us. Towering into the starry skies were our Peaks, their upper reaches capped with snow, with here and there a thick dark scar where a fissure lay in shadow. For the first time I saw the Twins were joined, Siamese-wise, by a low truncated mass.

Even though the going became easier, I felt more tired than before. The rarefied air sharpened the sense of fatigue and a tightness clutched at my chest. But I forgot all about it when I saw the grave. I spotted it even before Johnny Eagle cried out. The grave lay exposed in a bare patch above a clump of stunted timber; a tilted rotting cross was its only marking.

The almost unhoped-for discovery of this meager clue to the location of Chetzisky infused me with new energy. My tiring legs revived. Johnny Eagle was hard put to stay ahead of me.

On the bare rock shoulder of the granite bastion between the Twin Peaks we came upon a trail. My pace redoubled. Johnny Eagle stared at me in frank admiration and yielded me the lead.

The trail headed straight for the blank, inaccessible face of the ridge. But as we drew near the sheer wall high up near its rim, a cleft appeared, through which the trail led. The defile was narrow, shrinking at times to the width of a man.

Suddenly the walls fell away and we found ourselves on the narrow strand of a crater lake. In its center the dark mass of an island stood out under the starlight.

I strained for some sign of habitation but the wooded isle remained inscrutable. We began scouting around the lake. About twenty feet from the defile entrance Johnny Eagle discovered a canoe hidden in a crevice of the crater wall. I decided against using it to reach the island. Chances of approaching unseen in it were too slim. Besides, the theft of the canoe would reveal our presence. We couldn't afford that risk with Chetzisky playing God.

We would swim out, I decided. But first we went along the shore to reconnoiter the shortest route and in doing so we spied the clearing on the island. I could make out a cabin and a long, slanting structure resembling a ramp.

This was it, I was sure.

"Johnny, get back to the plane and have the pilot radio Colonel Armstrong that I've found Chetzisky. Give him all the necessary information."

5

I waited till Johnny Eagle had melted away and then, making my .45 as waterproof as I could, I slid into the lake. It was a short swim to the island--fifty yards or so--but I was pretty well exhausted when I dragged myself out of the water. The cold air knifed into my back and shoulder blades. It was welcome relief to crawl into the shelter of the undergrowth and rest a while.

With some of my strength back, I pushed on cautiously through the bushes and tightly-packed trees. The first washings of dawn now appeared in the sky. It was the beginning of the day that Chetzisky had chosen for the world to die.

When I came to the edge of the clearing, I stopped, my eyes probing the morning grayness. Then I stepped quickly out of the brush. Suddenly I stopped dead, afraid even to breathe. Two feet from me an Indian dozed, a rifle across his lap. It was too late; his eyes blinked open. I hurled myself on him. There was a brief scuffle and then he lay still, knocked unconscious by the butt of my .45.

I faded back into the undergrowth and waited. I thought I heard the door of the cabin in the clearing open. But nothing happened.

I let out a deep breath and started skirting the clearing, keeping in the shadows until I was in front of the ramp-like runway. I stared hard at it, trying to make out the details.

At the top of the sloping track was a cylindrical mass, the size of an oil drum. It reminded me instantly of the beer-barrel nuclear reactor, a portable affair, developed by the British physicist Robert Parker. Its purpose dawned on me: This was the trigger of the atomic gun that Chetzisky held at the temples of a planet.

I moved in for a clearer view. As I did I was brought up abruptly by a calm, even voice, its tone of command sharpened in the crisp morning air. "You needn't move any more, gentleman. Just raise your hands."

I looked in the direction of the speaker, as my hands went up. Out of the shadows in front of us emerged a short man with a rifle. Chetzisky! At last!

Bundled in a heavy mackinaw, wearing a fur cap with ear muffs, wool socks rolled over the tops of his high boots, he looked grotesque, hardly the intended assassin of a planet. More like a farmer who's waited through a winter night to catch a chicken thief.

"What are you doing here?" he asked sharply. In his tone I detected a worried uncertainty. I decided on the bold approach.

"Where is Professor MacRoberts?" I demanded sternly.

Chetzisky lowered his rifle slowly. He seemed surprised; relieved too. "You're looking for Doctor MacRoberts?"

"Yes, the University became worried about him and hired me to find him, fearing he might be ill or lost in this wilderness."

"How did you come to track him here?" Chetzisky cocked his head to one side and squinted at me suspiciously.

"Well, it happens, sir, that I'm a private investigator, specializing in missing persons," I lied with gusto. "When the University hired me to locate MacRoberts, I interviewed the man's friends, talked with the Indians, etc. And behold, here I am."

I grinned broadly with affected boastfulness. Chetzisky eyed me intently. I felt grateful for my mask of beard at that moment.

"You came alone?" he asked, relieving me of the automatic in my belt.

I nodded.

The Doctor put down his rifle. "I'm sorry to appear threatening. But I have reasons. Will you come into my cabin?"

* * * * *

He ushered me in front of him into a low-ceilinged house of fir logs. The room we entered was furnished with home-made chairs and a table on which a lantern burned with a low wick. In the far corner was a door leading to another room.

"My name's Roy Carlson," I said amiably as we sat down at the table, Chetzisky at one side alone, the rifle across his knees.

"I'm Doctor Hansen, geologist," volunteered Chetzisky, bowing slightly, and after a pause, "an associate of Doctor MacRoberts."

"Then where is he?" I demanded, seeking to keep the Doctor on the defensive.

"In the next room; he's very ill."

"What's the trouble?"

"Radiation sickness. A very bad case. Very painful. I have to keep him under drugs constantly."

"Why didn't you let his friends know?" My voice was angry and my anger was genuine.

"You see, Mr. Carlson, we are out of the world here. We have no telegraphic station just around the corner." He smiled an irritating, sarcastic smile.

My blood boiled. I wanted to jump him then and there, but his fingers were caressing the trigger of the rifle. "How did it happen?"

"Doctor MacRoberts and I were tracing a radioactive deposit. Without the necessary precautions he handled the ore for long periods of time. Fearfully careless." Chetzisky shook his head with the "tsk-tsk" air of a Chemistry teacher deprecating the clumsiness of a freshman student in the lab.

My brain tried to formulate a plan of action. But there should be two Indians. Where the devil was the other? I had to know before I went into action.

My head turned sharply. Several groans mounting into shrill cries came from the other room. "May I see him?" I asked, rising.

"You may. Go right in, Mr. Carlson."

I went in. The air was foul from vomit. On a cot lay a twitching form, whose features became suddenly visible in the rays of the lantern Chetzisky held up behind me. I gasped. The face was puffed into fiery welts and the eyes, sunken deep in their sockets, glowed fiercely in a savage agony.

"The poor devil," I exclaimed; "it would almost be better to shoot him."

Chetzisky was shocked. "For a dog, yes. But for a man, Mr. Carlson, that is murder."

What a sardonic jest. The man who planned to wipe out two billion people rebuking an unintended suggestion of mercy killing. I was so choked with anger that I could barely answer. "Just a figure of speech, Doctor."

Outside in the other room a door slammed. Someone rushed in shouting, "Soldiers, soldiers dropping from the skies." It was the other Indian.

* * * * *

Chetzisky kept his rifle aimed at my belly as the Indian poured out the details. Two planes had dropped paratroopers just outside the crater. He told the Indian to go back outside and watch and tell him when the soldiers got inside the crater.

"So you are looking for Professor MacRoberts, a private investigator," Chetzisky chuckled softly. "There is something familiar about you; I should have paid more attention to my suspicions in the beginning. You're someone I met once. That beard confuses me."

He waited for me to answer. I had to keep him talking; the paranoiac loves it. All Armstrong's men needed now was time. They were at the doorstep. "I'm Doctor Arnold Bailey of Atlantic University."

Chetzisky wrinkled his forehead.

"We met about four years ago en route to the St. Louis convention."

"Yes," he said slowly as if the recollection was gradually unfolding itself. "Yes, I remember you now. In fact, very well. We had a most interesting chat; do you recall it?"

"Something about making the world peaceful, wasn't it?"

"That's correct," Chetzisky commented with approval. "It was just my dream then. Now it's real, thanks to the unfortunate Doctor MacRoberts. You saw that incline outside. At its top is a drum filled with crude radioactive ore that MacRoberts discovered. The whole is charged with three milligrams of the new purified radioactive element. It was extremely easy to isolate. A simple precipitation process involving some hot ethyl iodide and a 0.1 Normal solution of cuprous chloride...."

He stopped abruptly as he detected a slight forward motion on my part. I threw him a question to dissolve the tension.

"What is the name of the new element?"

"You must admit it is difficult to call it 'MacRobertium.' Besides, it hasn't the scientific flavor," he said with an amused smile. "The Scots weren't meant for scientists. I call it simply 'MCR'."

He motioned me to fall back a few steps and then went on.

"The remarkable property of MCR is its diffusion rate, something like two centimeters a minute, assuming a specific gravity of 2.7 for the medium. MacRoberts traced a vein containing MCR ore to this point and for the past two months I've been impregnating it with refined MCR, converting it into a slow, controlled reactor."

The Doctor was warmed up now, and I didn't dare interrupt for fear of bringing him out of his paranoic trance. Armstrong might arrive any minute. I hoped.

"When the time comes," he continued, "and I believe it is now, I will remove the moderator bar from the drum at the top of the incline and release it. It will strike a trigger mechanism which will catapult it into the face of the vein of MCR ore. The critical mass will be exceeded and a planetary atom bomb will have been born."

His eyes were shining now with the madness of his dream. "The chain reaction will proceed through the earth's plastic mantle and down into the liquid core."

He paused to enjoy the pleasure of his speculations. "Then within ten hours I calculate the earth will exist no more. It will become a mushrooming cloud of cosmic dust. It deserves no better," he added bitterly; "I tried to give it peace."

* * * * *

Someone entered the room. It was the Indian reporting that the soldiers had penetrated into the crater.

"Watch this man," Chetzisky commanded. "Shoot him if necessary."

He left the room. I heard the cabin door shut and its sound echoed like a sentence of doom. In the long strained silence that followed I thought frantically.

Then the silence was broken. The cabin door opened again, dragging footsteps approached the room. Eyes bloodshot, one hand holding his head in evident pain, the Indian I had beat down with the butt of the .45 appeared in the doorway.

He glared at me in sudden recognition and with the roar of an enraged bull lunged at me. The other Indian tried to hold him back. That one moment was my opportunity; I picked up one of the home-made chairs and crashed it down on their heads. While they stumbled about groggily, I dashed out of the cabin after Chetzisky.

He was standing at the head of the ramp, working what appeared to be a lever. He heard me coming and fired his rifle at me twice. He missed my zigzagging figure. He acted quickly now, releasing the lever, and turning round, braced himself to meet my charge. We fell to the ground, Chetzisky clinging to me savagely, rolling me over and over until I realized what his game was, to move farther and farther from the ramp. I twisted my head and looked back.

My blood went cold. The drum was no longer at the top of the incline. It was half-way down and moving faster.

I shook Chetzisky off and started for the ramp, but he threw out his foot and tripped me. Sprawled out on the ground I looked up to see the drum swiftly moving towards the trigger mechanism that would catapult it into the head of the vein. I couldn't stop it now; time had run out on the world.

And in that black moment when the earth trembled on the rim of nothingness, the conditioned reflexes that I had acquired in four years of football asserted themselves. I was on my feet rushing madly and then I was sailing through the air. The breath was knocked out of me as I landed on the ramp. Something hard struck my side and kept crushing me.

At first I felt nothing. Suddenly a cold sweat broke out all over me. Chetzisky was beside me now, screaming at me and pulling me.

"You'll kill yourself," he kept shrieking.

I fought him off. I couldn't let him pull me off the ramp. Only my body stood between the earth and its annihilation.

"Don't be a fool; let me help you," he pleaded. He was a transformed being now; no longer the mad-man destroying a planet but a man trying to save the life of another human being. It was too late for such sentiment now. I didn't want to be saved.

He came at me again. I got one arm loose and pushed a fist at him. He went reeling backwards. He changed his tactics and started to pull me by the feet. I couldn't get at him. My body started to move. I clutched fiercely to one of the ramp rails.

He came around in front of me to loosen my grip. I pushed him off. He picked up a stone and came at me again. He meant to rescue me, like it or not. He raised the stone to knock me unconscious.

A shot rang out. Chetzisky sagged forward and dropped to the ground.

Canadian soldiers in battle dress were crowding around me, Armstrong with them. I felt sick, my head spun, but I managed to tell him what to do about the drum and the ramp.

"Okay, Arnold. We'll get you to a hospital right away."

The world spiralled down out of sight down a cone of darkness until I woke up in this hospital bed hours later with these flaming embers inside me. It won't be long now. I can read it in Armstrong's eyes.

There's strength in the feel of that friendly hand now that the world inside me is going to pieces. Around me a soft blackness is settling....

_EXTRACTS, HOSPITAL CASE HISTORY NO. 3007_:

_7:20 P.M. Patient relapsed into coma. Pulse almost
imperceptible.... 7:32 P.M. Patient pronounced dead._