The Cavern of the Shining Ones

By Hal K. Wells

 Layroh's hiring of husky down-and-outers for his expedition is part of a plan made ages past. 

It was shortly after midnight when a persistent nightmare aroused DonFoster from sleep. For a moment he lay drowsily in his blankets there onthe sand, with memory of the nightmare still vivid. 

It had been a monstrous flying thing like a giant blue-bottle fly thathe had been battling in his sleep. Memory of the thing's high-pitched, droning buzz still rang in his ears. Then abruptly he realized that thepeculiar buzzing was no mere echo of a nightmare. It was an actualsound that still vibrated from somewhere within the camp. 

[Illustration: _... Yet that thread held. _]

Startled into full awakening, Foster propped himself up on one elbow. The sound was penetrating, but not particularly loud. He was apparentlythe only one whom it had awakened. In the gray gloom of the desertstarlight he saw the blanket-shrouded figures of the rest of the menstill deep in slumber. 

He realized the source of the sound now. It came from inside the blackwalls of Layroh's tent, pitched there in its usual isolation on a slightrise fifty yards from the sleeping group. Foster grunted disgustedly tohimself. More of Layroh's scientific hocus-pocus! The man seemed to goout of his way to add new phases of mystery to this crazy expedition ofhis through the barren wastelands of the Mojave. 

For a solid week now they had been working their way back and forth overa thirty-mile stretch of desert, while Layroh labored with his intricateinstruments searching for something known only to himself. Whateverreason Layroh had for recruiting a party of fifteen to accompany him wasstill a mystery. So far the men had done practically nothing excepttrail along after Layroh while he worked with his apparatus. 

It was a state of affairs that caused the men little worry. As long asthey had enough to eat they were quite content. They weredown-and-outers, all of them, human derelicts recruited from the parkbenches and cheap flop houses of Los Angeles. They had only one thing incommon: all of them were large and powerful men. 

Don Foster was the youngest of the fifteen, and the only college man inthe group. A succession of bad breaks had finally landed him broke andhungry on a park bench, where Layroh found him. Layroh's offer of tendollars a day and all expenses had seemed a godsend. Foster had promptlyjumped at the offer. Layroh's peculiar conditions and rules had seemedtrivial details at the time. 

 * * * * *

Foster scowled as he lit a cigarette and stared through the gloom at theviolet-lighted tent from which the disturbing sound still came. Sevendays of experience with Layroh's peculiarities had begun to make them alittle irritating. His sternly enforced code of rules was simple enough. Never approach Layroh unless called. Never touch Layroh's instruments. Never approach Layroh's tent. Never ask questions. 

Layroh neither ate with the men nor mingled with them in any way thatcould possibly be avoided. As soon as they made camp each night he setup his small black tent and remained inside it until camp was broken thenext morning. No one knew whether the man ever slept. All night long theviolet light glowed inside the black tent. The men had wondered aboutthe unusual color of that light, then had finally decided it wasprobably something required by the same eye weakness that made Layrohwear heavily smoked goggles, both day and night. 

Strange sounds in the night as Layroh worked with his apparatus in theblack tent were nothing unusual, but to-night was the first time thatFoster had ever heard this peculiar whining buzz. As he listened it rosein a sudden thin crescendo that rippled along his spine like a filerasping over naked nerve-ends. For one shuddering second there seemed tobe an intangible _living_ quality in that metallic drone, as though somenameless creature sang in horrible exultance. Then abruptly the soundceased. 

 * * * * *

Foster drew a deep breath of relief and ground his cigarette into thesand beside him. Better try to get to sleep again before Layroh startedsome new disturbance with his infernal apparatus. 

He was just settling down into his blankets when a movement in the tentdrew his attention back to it. Layroh was apparently changing theposition of the violet light, for his tall figure was suddenlysilhouetted against the tent wall in sharp relief. 

Foster started in surprise as another figure loomed darkly beside thatof Layroh. For a moment he thought that the unprecedented had happenedand some member of the expedition was inside those jealously guardedtent walls with Layroh. Then he saw that the figure must be a mere trickof the shadows cast by the moving light upon some piece of luggage. Itlooked like the torso of a man, but the head was a shapeless blob andthe arms were nothing more than boneless dangling flaps. A moment laterthe light moved on and both shadows vanished. 

Foster grinned sheepishly over the momentary start the distorted shadowhad given him, and determinedly rolled himself in his blankets to sleep. It was after sunrise when he awoke. The rest of the camp was already up, but there was one member of the party missing. 

Jeff Peters' empty blankets were still spread there on the sand, but noone had seen the big Negro since the camp turned in the night before. The expedition's daily travels under the blazing sun of the Mojave neverhad appealed particularly to Jeff, and he had apparently at last madegood his repeated threats to desert. 

 * * * * *

The men were just getting up from breakfast when Layroh finished packinghis tent and apparatus in his sedan, and started down toward the camp. As usual, he halted some five yards away from them, standing there for amoment in stony silence. 

Physically, the man was a giant, towering well over six feet in height. On several occasions when the expedition's cars had stalled in deep sandhe had strikingly demonstrated the colossal strength in his tall body. 

His aquiline features, his red-bronze complexion, and his long blackhair, were all suggestive of Incan or Mayan ancestry. No one had everseen any trace of feeling or emotion upon his impassive features. Fosterwould have given a good deal for just one glimpse of the eyes hiddenbehind the dark-colored goggles. In their depths he might be able tofind some reason for the tingling surge of nameless dread that Layroh'sclose approach always inspired. 

Layroh noted Jeff Peters' absence at once. "We seem to have our firstdeserter, " he commented evenly. His voice was as richly resonant as thetone of some fine old violin. He hesitated almost imperceptibly betweenwords, like one to whom English was not a native tongue. 

"It does not matter, " he continued indifferently. "We can spare one maneasily enough. To-day we shall continue toward the east. Pack the truckat once. We are ready to start. "

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and strode back to the sedan. Acurious thought struck Foster as he stared after Layroh's retreatingfigure. What if the oddly distorted shadow he had seen against the tentwall last night had really been that of a man--had been that of JeffPeters?

 * * * * *

For only a moment did Foster mull over the idea. Then he promptlydismissed it as being absurd. He could imagine no possible reason forJeff Peters being in Layroh's tent in the middle of the night. Theshadow had been only remotely like that of a man, anyway. There had beenneither head nor arms to the figure, only shapeless masses totallyunlike anything human. 

They finished packing the breakfast stuff in the supply truck, and theparty started out along the trail with Layroh's sedan leading the way. For nearly two hours they followed their usual routine, working steadilyeastward and stopping at regular intervals while Layroh made hismethodical tests with his instruments. 

Then near the end of the second hour something happened that abruptlysent a thrill of excitement through the entire expedition. Layroh hadjust set his apparatus up on a small sand dune beside the trail. Themechanism looked somewhat like a portable radio, with two slenderparallel rods on top and a number of dials on the main panel. 

Layroh swung the rods slowly around the horizon while he carefully tunedthe various dials. It was when the rods pointed toward the southeastthat there suddenly came the first response he had ever received. Fromsomewhere within the mechanism there came a faint staccato ripple ofclear beauty like countless tiny hammers beating upon a crystal gong. 

 * * * * *

The sound galvanized Layroh into the nearest approach to emotion anyonehad ever seen him display. The giant moved with the furious speed of amadman as he returned the apparatus to the sedan and swung the car outacross the sand toward the southeast. After a mile he stopped andhurriedly set the apparatus up again. This time the crystalline signalcame in with a noticeable increase in volume. 

From then on the progress of the party became a mad dash that taxed theendurance of everyone except Layroh himself. After the first hour theyentered a terrain so rugged that the cars had to be abandoned and theyfought their way forward on foot. Layroh was forced to turn theradiolike apparatus over to one of the men, while he himself carriedanother mechanism that consisted of a heavy silver cylinder with fourflexible nozzles emerging from one end. 

They held as rigidly as possible to a straight line toward thesoutheast, scrambling over whatever obstacles intervened. Their onlystops were at regular intervals when Layroh checked their course. Eachtime the crystalline signal came in with greater volume. 

Their objective appeared to be a cone-shaped peak several miles aheadthat loomed up high above the surrounding rock masses. The oddly shapedmountain was identified by one of the men who had once been a Mojavedesert rat. 

"Lodestone Peak, " he announced succinctly. "Full of iron, or somethin'. A compass always goes haywire within a radius of ten miles of it. "

 * * * * *

It was early afternoon when they finally arrived at a level area at thebase of the mountain. For the last two miles Layroh had not stopped longenough to make any tests. Now he set the radiolike apparatus in placesome ten yards from the face of a sheer cliff that towered high abovethem. 

The crystalline signal came in a rippling flood. He spun the dials. Thesound ceased, and the pointing rods glowed with an aura of amber lightat their tips. Swift and startling answer came from deep within theheart of the cliff, a mighty note of sonorous beauty like the violentplucking of a string on some colossal bass viol. So powerful was thetimbre of the pulsing sound that the entire side of the mountain seemedto vibrate in harmony with it. 

Layroh snapped off the apparatus and the sound ceased. Carefullysearching until he found a certain spot on the cliff face, he steppedclose to it and unlimbered the nozzles of the silver cylinder. Fosternoted that at the place selected by Layroh there was a five-foot-widestratum of slightly lighter-colored rock extending from the sand to apoint high up on the cliff face. 

From the metal nozzles of the cylinder there spurted a broad beam ofdead black. There was a searing flash of blue-white flame as the blackbeam struck the cliff face. There followed a brief second during whichthe rock melted into nothingness in the heart of that area of blueradiance. Then the stabbing beam bored steadily on back into the clifflike the flame of a blow torch melting a way through a block of butter. 

Layroh adjusted the nozzles until the black beam was a solid shaft ofopacity seven feet in height and nearly five in width. The hole in thecliff became a tunnel from which blue radiance surged outward in ashimmering mist as the black beam steadily bit deeper into the rock. 

 * * * * *

"Follow me, " Layroh ordered the men, "but do not approach too close. "

He stepped forward and entered the mouth of the tunnel. Shaken by thespectacular thing occurring before their eyes, yet, driven by curiosityas to what might lie at the end of that swift-forming tunnel, the mencame crowding obediently after him. A moment later they were within thepassage, stumbling dazedly forward through the billowing fog of bluishradiance. There was an odd, almost electric, tingle of exhilaration inthat radiant mist as it surged about their bodies. 

Fragments of almost-forgotten scientific lore flitted through Foster'sbrain as he groped for a clue to the action of the strange ray. Notquite complete disintegration of matter, but something very close toit--probably the transformation of matter into radiant energy, aningenious harnessing of the same forces that are forever at work in thecosmic crucibles of the universe's myriad suns. 

The action of the black ray was amazingly rapid. They were forced tohurry forward at a fast walk to keep their distance behind Layroh. Thevertical stratum of lighter-colored rock continued straight back intothe heart of the mountain. It apparently served as a guide. The color ofthe blue flame-mist changed perceptibly whenever Layroh allowed theblack ray to stray into the rock at either side of it. 

 * * * * *

For nearly two hundred yards they bored their way steadily into themountain, their path gradually sloping downward. The walls and floor ofthe swift-forming tunnel were as smooth and hard as though glazed with afilm of diamond. 

Then abruptly Layroh shut the black ray projector off as the rock aheadof them ended and they broke through into another larger tunnel, dimlylighted by small globes of violet radiance set at intervals in theglassy ceiling. After thirty yards of travel along this tunnel theyfound their way barred by a massive door of copper-colored metal. 

At Layroh's imperious gesture the men halted a dozen feet back of him inthe tunnel while he brought something out of his leather belt-case. Foster was the only one of the group who was near enough to see that theobject was a small tube closely resembling a pocket flashlight. 

The only break in the surface of the great door was a six-inch disk overnear its right-hand edge. Layroh slid this disk aside. Into the openingthat was revealed he sent a series of flashes of colored light from thetube--two red, three green, and two blue. The colors were thecombination to the light-activated mechanism of the lock. At the last ofthe blue flashes there was a whirring of hidden mechanism and the portalswung slowly and ponderously open. 

 * * * * *

Layroh beckoned to the men to follow him as he strode swiftly on into avast room that was flooded with bluish light from scores of the radiantglobes. As the men passed through the door it reached the limit of itsopening swing and began automatically closing again behind them, butthey were too completely engrossed in the scene before them to noticeit. 

They were in a great cavern whose glass-smooth floor was nearly ahundred yards square, and whose ceiling was so high that it was lost inthe shadows above the maze of metal girders and cables that made awebwork some forty feet overhead. There was a feeling of almostincredible age about the place, as though it had been sealed away therein the heart of the mountain for countless centuries. 

On every hand there was evidence that the cavern and all its contentswere the products of a race of beings whose science was one that wasutterly strange to that of the modern world. At the end of the roomwhere they stood were row after row of different machines, great engineswith bodies of dull silver metal and with stiltlike legs and jointedarms that made them look like giant metal insects. Foster couldunderstand few of the details of the machines, but he felt that inefficiency and versatility they were far ahead of Earth's best modernefforts. 

Grouped together in the center of the cavern were many assemblies ofapparatus linked together by small cables that descended from maincables in the girder-crisscrossed ceiling overhead. There was a softhissing of sparks leaping between terminals and a steady glow from oddlyshaped tubes which indicated that the mechanisms were still functioningin silent and efficient performance of their unknown tasks. 

 * * * * *

The piece of apparatus nearest the door was an upright skeletonframework of slender pillars housing in their center a cluster of coilsset around a large drumlike diaphragm. Foster wondered if this were notthe signal device with which Layroh had tuned in his own portableinstrument. The principal piece of mechanism in the central space, however--a great crystal-walled case filled with an intricate array ofrods and wires--was something at whose purpose Foster could not evenguess. 

Layroh strode on past the central apparatus toward the back wall. Themen followed him. Then as they rounded the apparatus and saw for thefirst time the incredible things lining that rear wall, tier upon tier, they stopped short in utter stupefaction. Before them was Life, but Lifeso hideously and abysmally alien that their brains reeled in horror. 

Great shining slugs slumbered there by the hundreds in their boxlikecrystal cells, their gelatinous bodies glowing with pale andever-changing opalescence. The things were roughly pear-shaped, withthe large end upward. Deep within this globular portion glowed a largenucleus spot of red. From the tapering lower part of each slug's bodythere sprouted scores of long slender tendrils like the gelatinousfringe of a jelly-fish. 

The things measured nearly four feet in height. Each was suspendedupright in an individual glass-walled cell, its body supported by a loopof wire that dropped from larger cables running between each row ofcells. There was steady and exhaustless power of some kind coursingthrough those cables. Where they branched at the end of each cell-rowthere was a small unit of glowing tubes and silver terminals whose tipsglowed with faint auras of leaping sparks. 

 * * * * *

The slugs were dormant now but the regular changes in the opalescentsheen which coursed over their bodies like the slow breathing of asleeping animal, gave mute evidence that life was still in thosegrotesque forms, waiting only to be awakened. 

Fascinated by the tiers of glowing things, one of the men started slowlyforward with a hand outstretched as though to touch one of the cells. His advance aroused Layroh to swift action. The bronze-faced giantwhirled and swung the nozzles of the black ray projector into line withthe man. 

"Back, _yaharigan_, back!" he ordered imperiously. "The Shining Oneshave slumbered, undisturbed for a thousand centuries. They shall notawake from their long sleep to find the filthy fingers of a _yaharigan_defiling their crystal cells. Back!"

Panic-stricken at the threat of the black ray, the man stumbled backwardto join his fellows. Layroh's startling statement of the incredible ageof the shining things in the cases erased all thought of theexpedition's code of rules from Foster's mind. 

"You mean that those--those _things_--moved and lived in the outsideworld a hundred thousand years ago?" he asked dazedly. "But there is noindication of there ever having been any such creatures among Earth'searly forms of life. "

 * * * * *

"Fool!" There was angry disdain in Layroh's resonant voice. "They whoslumber here are a race born far from this planet. They are the ShiningOnes of Rikor. Rikor is a tiny planet circling a wandering sun whoseorbit is an ellipse so vast that only once in a hundred thousand yearsdoes it approach your solar system. Rikor's sun was nearly dead and theShining Ones had to find a new home soon or else perish. Then theirplanet swung near the Earth, and their scouts returned with the newsthat Earth was ideally suited for their purpose. There were barely fivehundred of the Shining Ones all told, and they migrated to Earth in abody. "

"And they've been in this cavern ever since, sealed up like tadpoles infish bowls?" The question came from Garrigan, a strapping sandy-hairedIrishman whose first blind panic at the black ray's menace was swiftlygiving way to curiosity. 

"It was your ancestors who drove the Shining Ones into their retreathere, " Layroh answered grimly. "When the Shining Ones arrived upon Earththey found the planet already in the possession of a race of humanbeings whose science was so far advanced that it compared favorably evenwith the science of Rikor. This race was comparatively few in numbers, and was concentrated upon a small island-continent known as Atlantis. Shining Ones and Atlanteans met in a war of titans, with a planet as thestake. The Shining Ones were vanquished in that first battle. They losta fifth of their number and barely half a dozen of their smallest spaceships escaped destruction. 

 * * * * *

"Planning a new and decisive assault, the Shining Ones planted atomicmines throughout the foundations of Atlantis. But the Atlanteans struckfirst by a matter of hours. At a set moment every volcanic vent on theEarth's surface belched forth colossal volumes of a green gas. Thoughthat gas was harmless to creatures of Earth, it meant slow but certaindeath to all Rikorians. Furiously the Shining Ones struck their ownblow, setting off the cataclysmic explosion that sank Atlantis foreverbeneath the waters of the Atlantic. Scarcely a handful of Atlanteansescaped, but Rikor's victory was a hollow one. Earth's air was sothoroughly poisoned that it would require centuries of slow ionizationby sunlight to again make it fit for Rikorian breathing. The ShiningOnes had at most three months before the slow poison would weaken theirbodies to the danger point. "

"Why didn't they go back to their own planet, then, where theybelonged?" broke in the truculent voice of Garrigan again. 

"That was impossible, " Layroh answered impatiently. "The few space shipsthey had left would carry barely a score, and Rikor's sun was already sofar advanced in its swing away from Earth that there would be time foronly one trip. There was only one chance for survival remaining to them. They knew of a process of suspended animation in which their bodiescould survive almost indefinitely without being harmed by the Atlanteangas. They would require outside aid to be awakened from that dormantstate, so a small group of them must remain active and embark for Rikor, to try to survive there until Rikor returned near enough to the Earthfor them to again cross the void. 

 * * * * *

"The dormant ones must have a retreat so well hidden that they would notbe disturbed during the thousand centuries that must elapse before theycould be awakened. The Shining Ones sped back to their base on the NorthAmerican continent and in the three months remaining to them theyprepared this cavern here in the heart of the mountain. Radium bulbssupplied its light. For the unfailing source of electrical energy neededto course through the dormant bodies and keep them alive they tapped themagnetic field of the planet itself, the force produced as the Earthrotates in the sun's electrical field like an armature spinning withinthe coils of a dynamo. "

It was Foster who broke in with the question that was in the thoughts ofthe entire party. "Just where do _you_ come in on all this?" he askedbluntly. "And what was your reason for bringing us here?"

There was blazing contempt in Layroh's rich voice as he turned towardFoster. "_Yaharigan_ of Earth!" he jeered. "Your brain is as stupid asthe feeble brains of those true _yaharigans_ of Rikor whose physicalstructure your human bodies so closely resemble. Have you not guessedyet that I am no contemptible creature of Earth--that this human shell Iwear is nothing but a cleverly contrived disguise? Look, _yaharigans_, look upon the real face of the one who has come to restore the Earth toits rightful masters!"

With a single swift movement, Layroh snatched the colored goggles fromhis face and flung them aside. There was a smothered gasp of horror fromthe group. They saw now why Layroh had always worn those concealinglenses. There were no eyes in that bronzed face, nothing but two emptysockets. And from deep within the skull there glowed through thosegaping sockets a seething pool of lurid red--the nucleus spot of aShining One!

 * * * * *

Reeling backward with the rest of the men from the horror of the glowingthing within the skull, Foster dazedly heard Layroh's resonant voicering exultantly on: "My ancestors were among the twenty Shining Ones whoremained active. After placing their comrades in their long sleep thosetwenty survivors set up signal apparatus in the cavern so that it couldbe found again no matter how much the outside terrain might change. Thenthey filled in the entrance tunnel with synthetic rock and embarked forRikor. 

"There upon that dying planet generations passed. When the time camethat Rikor's sun again neared Earth, so rigorous had life become uponRikor that only six Rikorians remained alive. In order to increase ourchances of winning through on the perilous trip to Earth, each of ustraveled in a separate space ship. The precaution was well taken. Weencountered a dense cloud of meteors near Alpha Centauri and I was theonly survivor. "

Layroh gestured briefly toward the rows of many-armed metal engines. "There are the normal vehicles for a Shining One's body--armoredmachines powered by sub-atomic motors and with appendages equipped forevery task of peace or war. This synthetic human figure which I now wearwas donned only in order that I might have no difficulty in minglingwith Earthmen while I sought the cavern. It is an exact replica of thebody of an Atlantean, including artificial vocal chords. Even thecolored goggles necessary to hide the glowing red of my nucleus aresimilar to those worn by Atlantean scientists while working with theirray machines--"

 * * * * *

Layroh was abruptly interrupted by a scream of maniacal fury from Olsen, a shambling Swede who stood near the edge of the group. Ever sinceLayroh's unmasking the Swede had been staring at him with eyes rigidlywide in terror like those of a bird confronting a snake. The steadycontemplation of the horror of the blaring red thing behind Layroh'sempty eye-sockets had apparently at last driven the Swede completelyinsane. He snatched a revolver from his belt as he leaped forward, andfired once. His shot struck Layroh in the forehead. 

The bullet ripped through the surface of Layroh's face, then glancedharmlessly aside as it struck metal underneath. Layroh never evenstaggered from the impact. The black ray from the projector caught Olsenbefore he could fire again. There was a searing flash of flame, then aswiftly melting cloud of blue-white radiance, and the Swede was gone. 

Layroh swung the projector back to menace the others. "I had forgottenthat _yaharigans_ of Earth have weapons that might be annoying, " he saidevenly. "Two more of you have pistols--Garrigan and Ransome. Toss themaway from you at once. Hesitate--and the black ray speaks again. "

Sullenly the two men obeyed his order. 

"Good, " commended Layroh. "In the pits where you are going you will havelittle use for pistols. When I again take you from those pits you willquickly learn why I brought you with me. _Yaharigans_, I have calledyou, and _yaharigans_ you shall be--Earthly counterparts of thosemiserable beasts of Rikor who have for ages been bred only for the onepurpose of supplying food for the Shining Ones. I knew that when I foundthe cavern the process of awakening the Shining Ones would require thatthey be carefully fed with the calcium and lime from the bones of living_yaharigans_, the normal food of all Rikorians. 

 * * * * *

"The few _yaharigans_ I had brought from Rikor were consumed on my longtrip to Earth. So I had to recruit a party of human beings to go with meand serve as the necessary food for the Shining Ones. My search for thecavern took longer than I had expected for I knew only its approximatelocation. My own body at last had to have sustenance. Last night theNegro, Jeff Peters, provided that sustenance. 

"I shall feed those of you who remain to the first group of Shining Onesto be awakened. After that we shall be strong enough in numbers to sallyforth and capture ample food for awakening the rest of our comrades. Then in our full strength we shall emerge and again become masters of aplanet upon which your crude race shall exist only as _yaharigan_ herdsfor our sustenance. "

Layroh's resonant voice ceased. Keeping the black ray projector alertlycovering the men, he strode over to a closed metal door in the wall justbeyond them. He took a small tube from a rack beside it and opened thedoor by sending a flash of yellow light into the mechanism of its lock. 

"Into the pits until I am ready for you, " he commanded curtly. "Theywere first constructed for keeping our own _yaharigans_ while we wereworking in the cavern, and they should serve just as well for you. "

 * * * * *

With the memory of Olsen's tragic fate still fresh in their minds, themen obediently filed into the next room, with Layroh bringing up therear. The room was little more than a single large cell carved from theliving rock, and lighted by a single radium bulb in the ceiling. 

Its smooth glasslike floor was broken at intervals of ten feet bycircular pits fifteen feet deep. At Layroh's order the men entered thefloor-pits, one man to each pit. As Foster lowered himself into one ofthem he saw how grimly efficient a trap the pit was. 

An unusually tall and active man might be able to jump high enough totouch the edge, but the effort would be useless. Those glass-smoothedges were so cunningly rounded that they offered no possible purchasefor clutching fingers. The diameter of the pit, ten feet, was too greatto permit any effort at climbing by wedging one's body between twoopposing walls. 

Layroh sent every man into the pits but one. 

"You will return to the cavern with me, Carter, " he ordered. "I haveneed for you at once. "

They heard the door clang shut as Layroh and Carter left the pit room. Chaos reigned as the men flung their bodies against the pit walls inefforts to escape. There was the click of metal as several of them triedwith pocket knives to chip finger-holes in the walls, but the glassysurfaces were of diamond hardness. 

 * * * * *

Foster's brain was numb with despair as he began to realize the truemeaning of those sleeping things out in the cavern. Death in someunknown and horrible form was imminent for himself and his companions, he knew, but his thoughts were going far beyond that, to the time whenthe Shining Ones would emerge in all their resistless power to ravageand conquer a helpless world. 

There could be little doubt as to the futility of Earth's best effortsagainst the advanced science of these invaders from far-off Rikor. Encased in their colossal machine-bodies of glittering metal, and armedwith such terrible weapons as the black ray projector, the Shining Oneswould be as invulnerable as men trampling an anthill underfoot. 

The future status of mankind upon the Earth would be that of vast herdsof human _yaharigans_, probably bred for ever greater bone content asmen breed cattle for superior food values. The picture aroused Foster toa fury of cold desperation. If they could only escape from the pitsthere might be a chance to trap Layroh and slay him before he broughtthose hordes of opalescent slugs to life. Then escape from the cavernitself would be an easy matter. Even if the outer door had been lockedsince they passed through it Layroh had the light-key and Fosterremembered the combination. 

Half a dozen wild schemes flitted through Foster's brain, only to bediscarded as futile. Then suddenly he thought of something that hadevery chance of success if only they were given time enough. Layroh inhis arrogance had forgotten that his prisoners were not naked brutes ofRikor. In the very clothing the men wore was the means of escape fromthe pits. 

 * * * * *

Foster's voice cut through the babel in the room until he gainedeveryone's attention. 

"Our only chance for escape is to get a rope between two pits, " he saidcurtly. "Then one man can climb out while the other holds the rope. We'll have to make that rope from our clothing. No one man can get astrip strong enough, so we'll have to work the strips to a central manwho can braid them into a single heavy rope. I'm near the center. Getthe strips to me. Tear your clothing into ribbons, and knot themtogether. Use your knives, watches, anything to weight one end of thestrip. Then cast until you get contact with the pit next to you. Thatway all the strips can be worked to me. "

A period of feverish activity followed while the men went to work. Layroh also was busy. Through several narrow ventilating slits high inthe cavern wall they heard the hum of machinery. 

The first of the men finished knotting their ropes together. Withweighted ends muffled to deaden their fall upon the rock floor, theybegan casting to get contact with their neighbors. 

Success came slowly. There were often scores of blind casts made beforea weighted end came into an adjoining pit. But the time finally camewhen Foster had a twenty-five-foot length of rope strong enough to bearhis weight. He already had a single strand making contact with Garriganin the next pit. Garrigan drew the heavier rope in to him, then acted asan anchor while Foster climbed to the floor above. 

 * * * * *

His downstretched hand pulled Garrigan to freedom. Getting the other menup to the floor was the work of but a few moments. They were aweird-looking crew in the torn fragments of clothing that remained tothem. Foster stationed them beside the locked cavern door so that theywould be hidden behind it when it opened. 

"Wait till Layroh is safely inside, " he ordered, "then rush him. Getthat black ray thing out of commission first. Without that, we should bemore than a match for him. In the meantime you come with me, Garrigan. Maybe we can get a look into the cavern. "

By climbing on Garrigan's broad shoulders Foster found that he had aclear view through one of the narrow ventilating slits. Layroh had madeefficient use of the time since he had left the pit room. Suspended fromsoftly glowing wires in the large central glass case was a circulargroup of ten of the Shining Ones. 

Foster's eyes widened in horror as he saw the object in which thetrailing tendrils of the luminous slugs were sunk. It was the naked bodyof Carter. As those sucking tendrils drew out the substance of hisskeleton, Carter's body was changing slowly, horribly, sinking into aflabby mass of puttylike flesh. 

The dormant bodies of the great slugs glowed perceptibly brighter asthey fed, and the pulsations of opalescence quickened. The Shining Oneswere beginning to awaken. Faint but unmistakable there came to Foster'sears a low singing drone from the group. 

He shuddered. He knew now why Jeff Peters' shadow had seemed sogrotesquely _boneless_. That droning buzzing sound he had heard from theblack tent had been the feeding cry of a Shining One--of Layroh. Then, his horrible feast ended, Layroh had blasted what remained of his victiminto nothingness with the black ray. 

 * * * * *

Foster was abruptly startled into action as Layroh turned from watchingthe central case. Picking up the black ray projector, he started towardthe pit-room door. Foster scrambled down. With Garrigan he joined thetensely waiting group beside the door. 

There was the sound of the mechanism unlocking. The door opened andLayroh came striding in. In a concerted rush the men were upon him. Foster's hurtling dive for the black ray projector knocked the apparatusout of Layroh's hands. It crashed to the floor with a violence that leftit shattered and useless. Swept off his feet by the savage fury of theunexpected attack, Layroh went to the floor beneath the writhing groupof men. 

The metal sinews of his magnificent body brought him to his knees in onemighty effort, but the numbers of his assailants were too great. Againhe was beaten down while powerful hands tore at his limbs. The metal ofthe ingenious machine that was Layroh's body began twisting and givingway before the savagery of the assault. 

He staggered to his feet, flinging the men aside in one last mad surgeof power, and lurched toward the cavern. His effort to slam the doorclosed behind him was blocked by the swift leap of two of the men. Layroh staggered on into the cavern. Then suddenly the torn framework ofhis legs collapsed completely, and he fell heavily on his back. 

The men surged forward with a shout of triumph. But before they couldreach Layroh's prostrate figure one of his hands reached up and openedhis skull as one opens the hinged halves of a box. From within the skullthere rolled a great shining slug, a sinisterly beautiful figure ofglowing opalescence, with a scarlet nucleus! For one breath-takeninstant it rose to its full height of four feet, hesitated, as if warilyregarding the horror-struck men, then with tendrils pressed into itsbody until it was nearly spherical, the slug that had been Layroh rolledlike a ball of living fire across the cavern toward the cluster ofmachines. Foster snatched up one of the discarded pistols from the floorand fired twice at that hurtling globe of flame, but both shots missed. 

A moment later the slug reached the machines. It fled swiftly past agroup of smaller mechanisms and selected a gleaming metal colossus whosesize and formidable armament indicated that it was designed primarily asan instrument of war. With whipping tendrils the slug swarmed up one ofthe metal legs and into a small crystal-walled compartment in theforward end of the machine. 

There was the crackling hiss of unleashed sub-atomic forces somewherewithin the metal body. The machine moved in fumbling uncertainty for amoment as the slug fought to get control of mechanism that had lain idlefor a thousand centuries! Then swiftly full control came, and themachine came charging toward the men. 

They broke in wild panic before the onslaught of the metal monster. Asan engine of war it was invincible. Six feet in height and nearly twentyfeet in length, it maneuvered upon its jointed legs with bewilderingspeed and efficiency. A score of rodlike arms projected from the maintrunk, arms that were equipped for nearly every purpose. Some ended inpincers, others in barbed points, and others in clusters of flexiblemetal tentacles. 

One of the men screamed in terror and broke for the door back into thepit room. Foster flung him aside and slammed the door shut and locked. 

"You'd be trapped like a rat in there, " he grated. "Our only chance isto stick together and fight it out. "

 * * * * *

It was a chance that seemed increasingly slight as they tried to closein upon the machine. Garrigan had recovered the other pistol from thefloor. He emptied it into the metal monster at a range of less than tenfeet but the bullets glanced harmlessly off as from armor plate. 

The machine fought back with deadly efficiency. One of thedagger-pointed arms impaled a man like a speared fish. Pincers closedupon the neck of another, half tearing his head from his body. With thestrength of desperation the men wrecked the pillars-and-diaphragmapparatus and from the debris tore metal fragments to serve as clubs. Their blows against the thing's pistonlike legs failed to even shake it. Two more men died before the grim efficiency of the stabbing arms. 

Foster had held the remaining bullets in his own pistol, waiting for achance to use them against some vulnerable spot in the machine, but hesaw none. There was a bare chance that if he could gain the machine'sback he might find some crevice through which he could send a tellingshot. Cramming the pistol into his belt, he watched his chance, thenused the debris of the wrecked apparatus as a stepping stone for arunning leap that landed him solidly on top of the metal bulk just backof the crystal compartment. 

He fumbled for the pistol in his belt, but before he could even touch ita tentacle-tipped arm lashed down toward him, picked him off the thing'sback, and flung him with terrific force high into the air.... 

 * * * * *

For a breathless moment he saw the girders and cables of the ceilinghurtling toward him. Instinctively he grabbed with both hands at one ofthe lower girders as his body thudded into it. His clutching fingersslipped momentarily, then held, leaving him dangling there at arms'length thirty feet above the floor. 

His wits swiftly clearing from the shock of that mighty toss throughspace, Foster scrambled up on the narrow girder. Sitting astride themetal beam, he looked down at the scene below. 

The battle down there was nearly over. The glowing slug in the machinewas now obviously trying to capture the remaining men alive for furtheruse. Instead of slaying, its lashing arms fought only to stun andcripple. 

Six of the men still remained on their feet but they were trapped in anangle between heavy apparatus and one of the walls. In the central casethe ten semi-dormant slugs, still too inactive to take part in thebattle themselves, seemed watching the conflict with great unwinkingeyes of crimson. 

Foster groaned. The metal colossus was too powerful for their feebleefforts. It would take a bolt of lightning to have any effect upon thatmighty engine of war. At the thought, Foster's heart leaped in suddeninspiration. There was lightning, the terrific electrical force of aspinning planet, in the cables up here among the girders, if he couldonly release it. 

 * * * * *

Slightly below his position and barely six feet away from him one of themain power cables of the cavern was suspended from heavy insulators. Ifthe cable had ever had an insulating sheath around it the fabric hadvanished during the centuries for the dull silver-colored metal was nowcompletely bare. 

If that naked cable could be dropped into contact with Layroh'smachine-body, the entire power of one of the cavern's main lines wouldbe grounded through the metal of the machine. The position of the cablewith regard to where the machine was now, was perfect for the scheme. IfFoster could sever the cable just opposite him there was an excellentchance that the longer one of the free ends would drop directly uponthe machine. 

And in his possession he had a possible means of severing thatcable--the pistol that was still crammed in his belt. There were fourshots remaining in the pistol. The cable was barely half an inch thick, but the range was so short that he could not very well miss. If thesilver-colored metal was as soft as it looked, the heavy bullets shouldbe enough to tear through it. 

Foster thrust the pistol as close to the cable as he could reach. Then, with the muzzle scarcely a yard from the silver strand, he fired. Theheavy bullet caromed from the cable's surface, but not before it hadtorn a gash nearly a third of the way through it. 

There was a sudden cessation of activity below as the slug in themachine looked up at the sound of the shot. Swift inspiration seizedFoster and he promptly sent his next shot down at the machine itself. The bullet glanced harmlessly off, but his ruse worked. Apparentlybelieving that Foster was merely trying another futile attack upon it, the machine turned its attention back to the men it had cornered. Fostercould be attended to later. 

 * * * * *

Foster slipped and nearly fell just as he fired at the power line thenext time and his shot missed. That left him only one remainingcartridge. Aiming with infinite care he sent his last shot smashingsquarely into the part of the cable remaining intact. 

It trembled and sagged as the bullet cut the remaining metal nearlythrough. Only a bare thread was left, yet that thread held. Sick atheart over the narrow margin by which his effort had failed, Fosterstared in despair at the nearly severed cable. It needed only one solidblow to tear that last thread of metal apart, but the cable was justfar enough away to be effectively beyond his reach. 

Then suddenly Foster's eyes narrowed. There was a way remaining by whichthe weakened power line could be broken. A single hurtling dive out anddownward from the girder would send his own body crashing squarely intothe metal strand. Beneath the smashing impact of his one hundred andeighty pounds the nearly severed cable was certain to break. 

Foster shuddered as he realized what that dive into space would mean. Hewas not thinking of the fall itself. The thirty-foot drop to thediamond-hard floor of the cavern would in all probability mean death orbroken bones, but that was a hazard which Foster was willing to take. 

It was the thought of what would happen in the brief moment of contactwhen his body met that bare cable that drained the color from Foster'sface. There was the terrific electrical energy from a spinning worldcoursing through that silver strand, a force that in all probability waspowerful enough to instantly char a human body to a glowing cinder!

 * * * * *

If he could only insulate his body at the point where it would touch thecable he might have at least a chance of surviving the contact. The onlypossible insulating medium he had was the clothing he wore--a pair ofheavy corduroy trousers and the sleeveless remnant of a woolen shirt. They could be rolled into a bundle that would be bulky enough to atleast give him some protection from contact with the bare cable. 

Laying the empty pistol on the girder beside him, he stripped as quicklyas his precarious perch would permit. Then, using the pistol as acentral core to give body to the bundle, he swathed it deep within thefolds of the clothing, making a thick roll that he could hold in hisright hand as he leaped. 

At best the insulating qualities of the roll would be far from perfect, yet it might serve to minimize the effects of the cable's charge enoughto give him some chance of escaping alive. His contact with the powerline would be only for the fractional part of a second and his bodywould be completely in the air at the time, out of direct contact withanything through which the cable's charge might ground. 

Foster crouched on the girder, his eyes fixed upon the scene below as hetensely waited for the best moment to make the leap. The machine hadshifted its position slightly while he had been stripping. It was nowtoo far over the right to be under the cable when it fell. 

For a moment as the machine maneuvered still farther over to the rightin its conflict with the cornered men, Foster was afraid that hisopportunity had passed. An idea came to him and he yelled directions. One of the men suddenly dashed to the left, apparently in a last franticeffort to escape the metal colossus. The machine flashed quickly over tohead the fugitive off. The maneuver brought it for the moment directlyunder Foster's position. 

Foster's muscles tensed swiftly, then flung his body headlong out intospace. His aim was perfect. The bulky roll of cloth in his outstretchedright hand struck the cable squarely with all the force of his hurtlingbody behind it. 

There was a searing flash of blue flame as the last thread of the cablesnapped, and a tearing flood of agony that blotted all consciousnessfrom Foster's brain as his falling body hurtled on toward the cavernfloor. 

 * * * * *

He struggled slowly back to consciousness to find Garrigan and anotherof the men working over him. There was the stabbing pain of broken bonesin his left ankle. With the men helping him, he sat up and lookedaround. 

The scene was one of utter chaos and destruction. The falling cable hadobviously found its mark on Layroh's machine-body and in its lastfurious convulsions the metal colossus had completely wrecked the greatglass case in the center of the cavern floor. 

The machine itself was now nothing more than a tangled heap of twistedmetal. In its shattered crystal compartment was a torn blob of swiftlyblackening gelatin--all that remained of Layroh, the Shining One. Othershredded figures of dead flesh marked where the ten half-awakened slugshad died in the wreckage of the glass-walled case. 

And in the many tiers of small cells along the cavern's back wall weremore figures of death. The severed cable had been the source of theenergy that had kept those dormant figures alive. When that energyceased death had come quickly. Those figures in the cells were no longerShining Ones. Their bodies were already swiftly darkening in decay. 

Foster smiled grimly as he looked around the cavern. There werescientific treasures here that would revolutionize a world. It was afitting retribution for the Shining Ones. When they had destroyedAtlantis they had robbed Earth of countless centuries of scientificknowledge and progress. Now, here in the cavern that had at last becometheir tomb, they were leaving a legacy of science that would go fartoward repaying that ancient debt. 

Transcriber's Note:

 This etext was produced from _Astounding Stories_ November 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.