Part 33 (1/2)

The arena filled with abominable life. Now, in the dark silence of a moonless night, the cold stars shone down on a gathering of spectators, wild and unreal--nameless, spectral horrors of a blood-chilling dream.

The flat capstone of the pyramid was the resting place of the ”Master”; his huge head showed pulpy and gray above the glittering gold of the metal carrying-chair where a misshapen body was seated. Others like him had poured from the pyramid, carried by thousands of slaves to their places about the arena.

Monsters of prodigious strength, their forebears must have been, but this degenerate product of evolutionary forces had lost all firmness of flesh. Their bodies, sacrificed for the development of the bulbous heads, were mere appendages, fit only for the propagation of their kind and for the digestion of human food.

The clean air of night was polluted with abominable odors as it swept over the exudations of those glistening, pulpy ma.s.ses. To the two waiting humans on the great sacrificial stone came a deadening of the senses, as an executioner, armed with strange torturing instruments, drew near. But, of the two, one, clinging hopelessly to the other, abruptly stifled the dry choking sobs in her throat to lift her head in sharp, listening alertness.

Walt Harkness was speaking in a dead, emotionless tone:

”Chet has failed us; he is probably dead. Good-by, dear--”

But his words were interrupted and smothered by a breathless, strangling voice. Diane Delacouer, staring with agonized eyes into the night was calling to him:

”Listen! Oh, listen! It's the s.h.i.+p, Walter! It's the s.h.i.+p! It's not the wind! I'm not dreaming nor insane!--Chet is coming with the s.h.i.+p!”

It was as well that Chet Bullard could not see the two, could not hear that voice, trembling and vibrant with an impossible, heart-gripping hope; and surely it was well that he could not share their emotions when, for them, the silence became faintly resonant, when the distant, humming, drumming reverberation grew to a nerve-shattering roar, when the black night was ripped apart by the pa.s.sage of a meteor-s.h.i.+p that shrieked and thundered through the screaming air close above the arena, while, with the rock beneath them still shuddering from the blasting voice of that full exhaust, the sky above burst into dazzling flame.

For Chet in that control-room that was darkened that he might see the world outside--Chet, grim and haggard and stained of face and with thin-drawn lips that bled unheeded where his teeth had clamped down on them--Chet Bullard, Master Pilot of the World, had no thought nor emotion to spare for aught beyond the reach of his hand. He was throwing his s.h.i.+p at a speed that was sheer suicide over a strange terrain flas.h.i.+ng under and close below.

He overshot the target on the first try. The twin beams of his searchlights picked up the dazzling black and white of the arena; it was before him!--under him!--lost far astern in one single instant that was ended as it began. But his hand, ready on a release key, pressed as he pa.s.sed, and the sky behind him turned blazing bright with the cloud of flare-dust that made white flame as it fell.

Such speed was not meant for close work; nor was a s.h.i.+p expected to hit dense air with a blast such as this on full. Even through the thick insulated walls came a terrible scream. Like voices of humans in agony, the tortured air shrieked its protest while Chet threw on the bow-blast to check them and slanted slowly, slowly upward in a great loop whose tremendous size was an indication of the speed and the slow turning that was all Chet could stand and live through.

He came in more slowly the next time. Floodlights in the under-skin of the s.h.i.+p were blazing white, and whiter yet were the star-flares that he dropped one after another. Brighter than the sunlight of the brightest day this globe had ever seen, the sky, ablaze with dazzling fire, shone down in vivid splendor to drain every shadow and half-light and leave only the hard contrast of black and white.

In the nose of the s.h.i.+p was a .50 caliber gun. Chet sprayed the pyramid top, but it is doubtful if the two below heard the explosions. They must have seen the whole cap of the mountain of rock vanish as if, feather-light, it had been s.n.a.t.c.hed up in a gust of wind. But perhaps they had eyes only for each other and for a glittering, silvery s.h.i.+p that came cras.h.i.+ng toward the place where they stood, that checked itself on thunderous exhausts; then touched the hard floor of the arena as softly as the caress of a master hand on the controls.

But from them came no cry nor exclamation of joy; they were dazed, Chet saw, when he threw open the port. They were walking slowly, unbelievingly, toward him till Diane faltered. Then Chet leaped forward to sweep the drooping, ragged figure up into his arms while he hustled Harkness ahead and closed the port upon them all. But, still haggard and stern of face, he left the fainting girl to Harkness' care while he sprang for a ball-control and a firing key that released a hail of little .50 caliber sh.e.l.ls whose touch could plough the earth with the ripping sword of an avenging G.o.d.

And later--a pulverous ma.s.s where a huge pyramid had been; smoking rock in a great oval of shattered crumbling blocks; and, under all the cold light of the stars, no sign of life but for a screaming, frantic mob of ape-men, freed and fleeing from the broken bondage of masters now crushed and dead!

All this Chet's straining, blood-shot eyes saw clearly before his hand on the firing key relaxed, before he covered his eyes with trembling hands as realization of their own release rushed overwhelmingly upon him.