Page:Astounding Stories of Super Science (1930-10).djvu/18
son and Willis their share now and we'll take care of the rest of you when you return. Is the ship well stocked?"
"Enough for two or three more trips."
"In that case, I'll inject this whole lot. Better get going, Frink, it's pretty late."
The four men who had brought the patient in stepped forward and lifted him from the table and bore him out. Dr. Bird dropped the canvas screen and strained his ears. A faint whir told him that the globe had taken to the air. He slid back along the limb of the tree until he touched the rope and silently climbed hand over hand until he gained the crest. He bent his back to the task of raising Carnes, and the operative soon stood beside him on the ledge surmounting the cliff.
"What on earth were they doing?" asked Carnes in a whisper.
"That was Professor Williams of Yale. They were depriving him of his memory. There will be another amnesia case in the papers to-morrow. I haven't time to explain their methods how; we've got to act. You have a flash-light?"
"Yes, and my gun. Shall we break in? There are only three of them, and I think we could handle the lot.
"Yes, but the others may return at any time and we want to bag the whole lot. They've'done their damage for to-night. You heard my orders to Lieutenant Maynard, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"He should be somewhere in these hills to the south with assistance of some sort. The signal to them is three long flashes followed in turn by three short ones and three more long. Go and find them and bring them here. When you get close give me the same light signal and don't try to break in unless I am with you. I am going to reconnoitre a little more and make sure that there is no back entrance through which they can escape. Good luck, Carnes; hurry all you can. There is no time to be lost."
THE secret service operative stole away into the night and Dr. Bird climbed back down the rope and took his place at the window. Willis lay on the operating table unconscious, while Slavatsky and Carson studied the now partially emptied syringe.
"You gave him his full share all right," Carson was saying. "I guest you are playing square with us. I'll take mine now."
He lay down on the operating table and the dwarf fitted an anesthesia cone over his face and opened the valve of the gas cylinder. In a moment he closed it and rolled the unconscious men on his face and deftly inserted the long needle. Instead of injecting a portion of the contents of the syringe as Dr. Bird had expected to do, he drew back on the plunger for a minute and then took out the needle and held the syringe to the light.
"Well, Mr. Carson," he said with a malignant glance at the unconscious figure, "that recovers the dose you got a couple of weeks' ago while Willis watched me. I don't think you really need any menthium; your brain is too active to suit me as it is."
He gave an evil chuckle and walked to the far side of the cave and opened a secret panel. He drew from a recess a flask and carefully emptied a portion of the contents of the syringe into it. He replaced the flask and closed the panel, and with another chuckle he limped over to a chair and threw himself down in it. For an hour he sat motionless and Dr. Bird carefully worked his way back along the branch and climbed the rope and started for the hollow.
A FAINT whirring noise attracted his attention, and he could set the faintly luminous globe in the distance, rapidly approaching. It came to a stop at the spot where it had previously landed and four men got out Instead of going toward the cave, they towed the globe, which floated a few inches from the earth, toward the side