The Cosmic Express Page 3

highlycolored, clothing shimmering with artificial gems, waddled pompously outof the door through which the frantic French doctor had so recentlyvanished. She rolled heavily across the room, and out into the corridor.Shrill words floated back:

  "I'm going to see my lawyer! My precious Violet--"

  The sallow youth winked. "And now what can I do for you, Eric?"

  "We want to go to Venus, if that ray of yours can put us there."

  "To Venus? Impossible. My orders are to use the Express merely betweenthe sixteen designated stations, at New York, San Francisco, Tokyo,London, Paris--"

  "See here, Charley," with a cautious glance toward the door, Eric heldup the silver flask. "For old time's sake, and for this--"

  The boy seemed dazed at sight of the bright flask. Then, with a singleswift motion, he snatched it out of Eric's hand, and bent to conceal itbelow his instrument panel.

  "Sure, old boy. I'd send you to heaven for that, if you'd give me themicrometer readings to set the ray with. But I tell you, this isdangerous. I've got a sort of television attachment, for focusing theray. I can turn that on Venus--I've been amusing myself, watching thelife there, already. Terrible place. Savage. I can pick a place on highland to set you down. But I can't be responsible for what happensafterward."

  "Simple, primitive life is what we're looking for. And now what do I oweyou--"

  "Oh, that's all right. Between friends. Provided that stuff's genuine!Walk in and lie down on the crystal block. Hands at your sides. Don'tmove."

  The little door had swung open again, and Eric led Nada through. Theystepped into a little cell, completely surrounded with mirrors and vastprisms and lenses and electron tubes. In the center was a slab oftransparent crystal, eight feet square and two inches thick, with anintricate mass of machinery below it.

  Eric helped Nada to a place on the crystal, lay down at her side.

  "I think the Express Ray is focused just at the surface of the crystal,from below," he said. "It dissolves our substance, to be transmitted bythe beam. It would look as if we were melting into the crystal."

  "Ready," called the youth. "Think I've got it for you. Sort of a highisland in the jungle. Nothing bad in sight now. But, I say--how're youcoming back? I haven't got time to watch you."

  "Go ahead. We aren't coming back."

  "Gee! What is it? Elopement? I thought you were married already. Or isit business difficulties? The Bears did make an awful raid last night.But you better let me set you down in Hong Kong."

  A bell jangled. "So long," the youth called.

  Nada and Eric felt themselves enveloped in fire. Sheets of white flameseemed to lap up about them from the crystal block. Suddenly there was asharp tingling sensation where they touched the polished surface. Thenblackness, blankness.

  * * * * *

  The next thing they knew, the fires were gone from about them. They werelying in something extremely soft and fluid; and warm rain was beatingin their faces. Eric sat up, found himself in a mud-puddle. Beside himwas Nada, opening her eyes and struggling up, her bright garmentsstained with black mud.

  All about rose a thick jungle, dark and gloomy--and very wet. Palm-like,the gigantic trees were, or fern-like, flinging clouds of feathery greenfoliage high against a somber sky of unbroken gloom.

  They stood up, triumphant.

  "At last!" Nada cried. "We're free! Free of that hateful oldcivilization! We're back to Nature!"

  "Yes, we're on our feet now, not parasites on the machines."

  "It's wonderful to have a fine, strong man like you to trust in, Eric.You're just like one of the heroes in your books!"

  "You're the perfect companion, Nada.... But now we must be practical. Wemust build a fire, find weapons, set up a shelter of some kind. I guessit will be night, pretty soon. And Charley said something about savageanimals he had seen in the television.

  "We'll find a nice dry cave, and have a fire in front of the door. Andskins of animals to sleep on. And pottery vessels to cook in. And youwill find seeds and grown grain."

  "But first we must find a flint-bed. We need flint for tools, and tostrike sparks to make a fire with. We will probably come across a chunkof virgin copper, too--it's found native."

  Presently they set off through the jungle. The mud seemed to be veryabundant, and of a most sticky consistence. They sank into it ankle deepat every step, and vast masses of it clung to their feet. A mile theystruggled on, without finding where a provident nature had left themeven a single fragment of quartz, to say nothing of a mass of purecopper.

  "A darned shame," Eric grumbled, "to come forty million miles, and meetsuch a reception as this!"

  Nada stopped. "Eric," she said, "I'm tired. And I don't believe there'sany rock here, anyway. You'll have to use wooden tools, sharpened in thefire."

  "Probably you're right. This soil seemed to be of alluvial origin.Shouldn't be surprised if the native rock is some hundreds of feetunderground. Your idea is better."

  "You can make a fire by rubbing sticks together, can't you?"

  "It can be done, I'm sure. I've never tried it, myself. We need some drysticks, first."

  They resumed the weary march, with a good fraction of the new planetadhering to their feet. Rain was still falling from the dark heavens ina steady, warm downpour. Dry wood seemed scarce as the proverbial hen'steeth.

  "You didn't bring any matches, dear?"

  "Matches! Of course not! We're going back to Nature."

  "I hope we get a fire pretty soon."

  "If dry wood were gold dust, we couldn't buy a hot dog."

  "Eric, that reminds me that I'm hungry."

  He confessed to a few pangs of his own. They turned their attention tolooking for banana trees, and coconut palms, but they did not seem toabound in the Venerian jungle. Even small animals that might have beenslain with a broken branch had contrary ideas about the matter.

  At last, from sheer weariness, they stopped, and gathered branches tomake a sloping shelter by a vast fallen tree-trunk.

  "This will keep out the rain--maybe--" Eric said hopefully. "Andtomorrow, when it has quit raining--I'm sure we'll do better."

  They crept in, as gloomy night fell without. They lay in each other'sarms, the body warmth oddly comforting. Nada cried a little.

  "Buck up," Eric advised her. "We're back to nature--where we've alwayswanted to be."

  * * * * *

  With the darkness, the temperature fell somewhat, and a high wind rose,whipping cold rain into the little shelter, and threatening to demolishit. Swarms of mosquito-like insects, seemingly not inconvenienced in theleast by the inclement elements, swarmed about them in clouds.

  Then came a sound from the dismal stormy night, a hoarse, bellowingroar, raucous, terrifying.

  Nada clung against Eric. "What is it, dear?" she chattered.

  "Must be a reptile. Dinosaur, or something of the sort. This world seemsto be in about the same state as the Earth when they flourishedthere.... But maybe it won't find us."

  The roar was repeated, nearer. The earth trembled beneath a mightytread.

  "Eric," a thin voice trembled. "Don't you think--it might have beenbetter-- You know the old life was not so bad, after all."

  "I was just thinking of our rooms, nice and warm and bright, with hotfoods coming up the shaft whenever we pushed the button, and the gaycrowds in the park, and my old typewriter."

  "Eric?" she called softly.

  "Yes, dear."

  "Don't you wish--we had known better?"

  "I do." If he winced at the "we" the girl did not notice.

  The roaring outside was closer. And suddenly it was answered by anotherraucous bellow, at considerable distance, that echoed strangely throughthe forest. The fearful sounds were repeated, alternately. And alwaysthe more distant seemed nearer, until the two sounds were together.

  And then an infernal din broke out in the darkness. Bellows. Screams.Deafening shrieks. Mighty splashes, as if strug
gling Titans had upsetoceans. Thunderous crashes, as if they were demolishing forests.

  Eric and Nada clung to each other, in doubt whether to stay or to flythrough the storm. Gradually the sound of the conflict came nearer,until the earth shook beneath them, and they were afraid to move.

  Suddenly the great fallen tree against which they had erected the flimsyshelter was rolled back, evidently by a chance blow from the invisiblemonsters. The pitiful roof collapsed on the bedraggled humans. Nadaburst into tears.

  "Oh, if only--if only--"

  * * *