Chapter X: Austen's Retreat

Perhaps two hundred yards farther on we came to the camp. It was on a little hilltop below a giant tree. By the trunk was a little mud-daubed hut, with an open shed in front of it. By the shed was a rude clay furnace, with piles of coal, some strange ore, and large lumps of native copper lying by it. Beneath the shed was what appeared to be a small steam turbine, with a kettle-like boiler of hammered copper. Connected with it was a dynamo of crude but ingenious construction. Also there was a rude forge, and hammers, anvils, saws and drills, all of copper or bronze, and a device that I supposed had been used for drawing wire.

Simple as it seemed, that camp of Austen's was perhaps the most remarkable thing I came across in the crater. Austen was a wonderful man. Having not only an exhaustive knowledge of a half dozen fields of science--and he had not mere theories, but a practical, working knowledge--he had also courage and determination, patience and manual skill, and a great deal of resourcefulness and invention. While the average man would hardly have been able to keep alive in the jungle, Austen was able to do such things as smelt and refine ore, and set up complicated and workable electrical machinery. Of course he was fortunate in finding himself in a place where practically no effort was needed to satisfy his physical needs, and where he found various natural resources in available and easily accessible form. But I shall never cease to wonder at his accomplishments of less than a year.

I was struck by a sudden fear that we had come too late, and that something had happened to him. "Austen," I shouted, "Austen, are you here?"

For answer, an old man whom I recognized joyfully as the old scientist appeared in the rude doorway of the hut. His clothing was tattered beyond description, and he looked very worn and thin. There were lines of age and care about his wrinkled face. But his hair was neatly brushed, and he had just been shaving, for his safety razor was in his hand. A smile of astonishment and incredulous joy sprang over his face. For a moment he was speechless. Then the old familiar voice called out uncertainly, almost sobbing with joy.

"Winfield! Melvar! Naro! Can it really be you? At last!"

Then, as if he were a little ashamed of the feeling he had shown, he pulled out his pipe and began to try to fill it, his fingers trembling with emotion. But Melvar sprang to him and threw her arms about him in a way that gave me a momentary pang of jealousy. He stuck the pipe back in his pocket, grinning awkwardly, in a way that tightened the strings of my heart.

"I forgot," he said. "My tobacco was all gone a week ago."

I shook his hand, and it clung to mine for a moment as if he were seeking support. Then Naro placed his palm upon Austen's shoulder in the customary greeting of Astran.

"I'd almost given up," the old man said. "The world is so far away that it seems almost unreal. After I had sent the wireless call a few times the devilish rustling in the sky got too close for comfort, and I decided that the hissing red lights, whatever they are, were about to locate me by the signals. So I quit that. But how did you come over?"

I told him briefly about the adventure with the red ship.

"Yes, I knew that the things were ships of some kind," he said when I had finished. "I have been working on the quicksilver stuff, and making a few exploring trips. I have discovered several things. I had to work--to work endlessly--to keep going. Sometimes I got to feeling pretty low. Then I would shave, and try to clean up like a civilized man. And I kept repeating all the poetry I knew--that helped a lot. But Lord--you haven't any idea how glad I am to see you.--By the way, did you bring the spectroscope and tubes?"

By way of reply, I took off the pack that contained them. He began to open it with as much enthusiasm as a small boy investigating a Christmas present. Suddenly he paused and looked at us. "But you don't look like you've had any holiday yourselves. What has happened to you?"

"Two or three things," I told him. "It hasn't been a holiday at all. Do you happen to have any coffee left? I left mine in the tent outside the cliffs."

"And how about a little hot Mulligan stew to go with it?" he grinned, beckoning the way inside.

* * * * *

The Scientist Speaks

So we went into the cabin. Most of the room seemed to be devoted to his crude laboratory equipment. On one of his benches were several roughly modeled pottery jars, filled with the liquid from the Silver Sea. His bunk was in a screened off corner.

In a few minutes he had the coffee-pot boiling over a charcoal brazier. I believe that aroma is about the most pleasant that ever reached my nostrils. I was too much absorbed in it to do much talking, but Melvar sat down on one of Austen's rustic stools and gave him an account of our adventures.

When the coffee was done, Austen served a meal consisting in addition of a great pot of steaming soup made of the yellow fruits cooked with the tender roots of the red plants. That stands out in my memory as one of the truly magnificent repasts that have ever been laid before me. When we had finished Melvar retired to Austen's bunk, and Naro and I lay down on a blanket on the laboratory floor. I went to sleep at once, and, if I may credit the word of our host, slept for thirty-seven and a half hours. Although I am inclined to believe that is an exaggeration.

At any rate, when I got up, I felt a new man. Austen had set up the apparatus we brought. He had a test tube full of the silver liquid set up in a beam of X-rays, and the spectroscope in position to examine the dense purple gas that was rising from the stuff.

"How is it coming?" I asked him.

He shook his head sadly. "I don't know," he said. "I have a theory, but it doesn't seem to work out right. The key is in sight but it always eludes me. There is energy stored in the silver liquid. It may be that that amazing thing in the sky stores the energy of sunlight in the stuff. You know that the energy in sunlight amounts to something over one horsepower for each square yard on which it falls. Or perhaps the atomic energy of the gases in the air is released. It seems impossible to find the key, although I have been able to analyze the stuff pretty accurately. If I had it I could make the silver stuff go off like ten times its weight of T.N.T."

"Do you think," I asked him eagerly, "that you could set off some of it and wipe out the _Krimlu_?"

"Winfield," the old scientist soberly replied, "even if you could, would you wipe out a whole civilization--a science so high as that which made the Silver Lake--a culture equal to, if not above, that of our own world?"

"If you had seen those purple things--men and women that are old and hideous, and fearfully strong and malignant--you couldn't move too quickly to blot them off the earth," I cried.

"I have seen," he said seriously. "I have seen the purple monsters, and they are terrible enough. But they are not the masters. They are but the servants, or perhaps I should say the machines, of a higher power. I told you that I had been exploring a bit. I have seen some strange things.

"There is another form of intelligence here, Winfield. A form of life unrelated to humanity, without any sympathy for mankind, for any share of human feelings. Perhaps it is a danger to the human race. The things would not hesitate, I suppose, to use all humanity as they have used the people of _Astran_. But that does not solve the problem. Would it be right to wipe them out? Perhaps it would be better for mankind to go under. Perhaps they are superior to us. The purposes of the creation of intelligent life might be better met by these things than by man. I have given it a great deal of thought, and I can't decide."

He fell silent and presently I said, "You say there is another form of life here. What is it like?"

"You will know soon enough. I wish I had never seen. It is not a good thing to talk about. There is no use for me to tell you."

* * * * *

The Chasm of the Strange Machine

He would tell me no more. Presently I left him and went down to bathe in the stream of water that flowed back of the camp. The water was sluggish and tepid, certainly not invigorating, but it was cleansing. When I got back Melvar and Naro were up. The girl had been very glad to see Austen again. She was talking with him, very vivacious, and very beautiful. When I saw her, I loved her, if possible more than ever.

As soon as we had eaten, Austen began to dismount the spectrometer and other equipment, and to pack them. "I can go no farther with the experiments here," he said. "I am going to take the outfit to a place where we can see one of the engines of the _Krimlu_, where the silver liquid is broken up. There I may be able to get the clue I need."

In an hour we were ready to depart. Austen led the way, silent and preoccupied with the details of his work. We went down a narrow trail through the stagnating marshes, in the eldritch gloom of the weird red jungle, under the dull purple mist. For many hours we were on the way, until the purple dusk began to thicken, and a distant sighing whistle told us that night had fallen, and that the evil masters were abroad again.

Suddenly Austen called out in a guarded tone for us to halt. We all crept forward cautiously until we could see over the brink of a vast circular chasm. Sheer black walls, ringed by the red jungle, fell for a thousand feet. The round floor was a half mile across. Upon it was the most gigantic and amazing mechanical device I have ever seen. The thing was incredibly huge, and throbbing with strange energy. It made little sound, but the space about us seemed vibrant with power.

In the center of the pit was a titanic, shining green cylinder, perhaps a hundred feet in diameter and five hundred in length. A river of gleaming silver fluid ran from an opening in the rock, through a great open aqueduct, and poured into the cylinder in the middle of the upperside. At each end of the colossal cylinder rose a metal tower. At the top of each tower was a fifty-foot globe of blue crystal, slowly turning. Between and above the spheres arched a high-flung span of white fire--a great pulsing sheet of milky opalescent light--that roared and crackled like a powerful electric discharge, and lit the chasm with an unearthly radiance.

Toward the farther side of the floor was a second enormous machine, apparently unconnected with the first, resembling a vast telescope. The white metal tube was a full two hundred feet in length, mounted on massive metal supports. It did not seem to be in action. The barrel of it was pointing at the sky, like a telescope, or a cannon.

Then I saw a row of openings low down in the side of the vast green cylinder, with shafts of bright green light pouring from them. And I saw tiny human figures working feverishly about them. They had escaped my observation at first, so far away was the floor of the pit. Now I saw that they were taking great blocks of a luminous green substance from the doors in the cylinder and carrying them to the tube that was pointing at the sky.

I saw now that the bodies of the toilers were purple. There was something in their motion that reminded me of ants. I was amazed at their strength and agility, at their ceaseless, machine-like activity. They never looked about, never paused, never rested. They were like machines, or animated corpses, driven to endless toil by some strange force. I remembered the time I had splashed the white fluid on my arm, turning it purple, and the strange excitement of my nerves. At once I linked up the raids on _Astran_, the bracelet that Naro had found on the dead purple beast, and what Austen had told me of superior beings who enslaved the purple things. I knew that I looked upon the captured men and women of _Astran_, simply _man-machines_ in this strange place!

Perhaps they were already dead. Certainly they moved, not by their own volition, but by a stronger mechanical power. They must have been under the absolute hypnotic control of the higher intelligences, who treated their unfortunate captives, perhaps with the argent liquid, to convert them into unearthly machines, of super-human strength.

We turned away into the night that had fallen on the red jungle while we watched. I was sick with horror. Austen's face was white and his hands were trembling. There was a stern, fierce light in his eye. Now I knew, in spite of what he had said, that were the opportunity given him, he would not hesitate to wipe out the masters of the purple slaves. He said nothing, but his hands worked spasmodically, he muttered under his breath, and his dark eyes snapped with angry determination.

In a few minutes we set about preparing the apparatus for the work of the night. The spectroscope was set up, with telescopic condensers, to collect and analyze the radiation of the arch of crackling milky flame. We took care to screen ourselves in the jungle fringe, and to expose no more of the equipment to the sight of the beings below than was necessary. Austen had his drawing board set up in a convenient place behind our shelter, and he alternately peered through the telescope at the spectrum, and turned to make intricate calculation in the light of a shaded flashlight. We sat up all night at the work.

All night long the white flame played between the spinning blue crystal spheres above the vast green cylinder, filling the air with its ghostly crackle and whisper. All night long the tireless purple human machines toiled in the pit, carrying the great green blocks, and evidently stacking them in the vast cannon-like tube at the side. Whenever Austen did not need me with the analysis, I spent the time searching that amazing scene, but not once did I catch a glimpse of anything that might have been the directing intelligence of all that marvelous activity.

Melvar had been very tired, and I had contrived a hammock for her from a great sheet of fibrous bark torn from the trunk of one of the red trees. She spent the night asleep in that, while Austen and I carried on the work, and Naro, not having scientific inclinations, contented himself with a couch composed of a few feathery branches torn from the undergrowth.