Page:Weird Tales Volume 30 Number 02 (1937-08).djvu/72

Gor Om snarled angrily, "This slave is lying—he did not come from another world."

The leader of the Dwellers was surveying me with his huge, glowing eyes. He hissed calmly, "The man speaks truth—he comes from another world, for I can discern many great differences between his body and that of the men of this planet."

"Yes, I speak truth," I said quickly, "and I can show you how to build a mechanism that will transfer you instantly to worlds far across the universe."

"Khal Erik, do not do it!" cried Lura brokenly.

The Dweller leader's great eyes seemed to brood on me. The creature finally said, "It would be well for us to have such power. It would give us all the dark worlds of the universe for our domain. You will show us now how to build the mechanism."

"Only if you promise to let this girl and me go free!" I reminded him.

The Dweller hissed, "You will show us how to build the mechanism. After you have shown us, you and the other victim will be treated as we treat all humans sent down to us."

"No!" I cried. "In that case, I will show you nothing."

One of the creatures at once wriggled forward with a small box-like apparatus. He simply held it toward me. And fiery, agonizing pain leaped through every nerve in my body, somehow induced electrically by the apparatus.

I gasped, "Stop—stop it! I will show you!"

The pain ceased as the apparatus was withdrawn.

Gor Om chuckled, "You thought to bargain with the mighty ones, slave—see now the results of your bargain."

I stepped off the car, into the midst of the worm-like horde. There, weak and still gasping from that moment of awful torture, I told the leader of the Dwellers the various mechanisms that would be necessary to build the dimension-crossing machine. Dwellers hurried away in all directions to bring the necessary parts, and I began instructing them in the assembly of the parts.

Weird, incredible scene! The vast, dim-lit cavern whose spaces stretched far away and whose rock roof vaulted high overhead. The looming, enigmatic mechanisms towering around us, and the hideous white worm-like creatures busy under my direction putting together the parts of my mechanism. The Dwellers' leader watching with his unhuman eyes, while Gor Om's obese figure waited impatiently, and while Lura shrank back and looked on my work in horror.

The Dwellers were assembling a machine that was identical with that which I had used to flash from Earth to Krann, except that it was many times larger. A huge, flat, square mechanism, it almost filled the circular clearing, and was capable of generating a force that would thrust almost any amount of matter clear out of the ordinary dimensional universe. The wild hope in my heart strengthened as the machine approached completion.

I asked the Dwellers' leader, "How thick is the rocky roof above this cavern?"

His glowing eyes fastened on mine and for a moment I thought he had become suspicious. "Why do you ask?" he hissed.

"It is necessary for me to know so that I may make allowance for its gravitational influence," I lied.

He said, "It is but a thousand feet in thickness, for these dark spaces lie close beneath the crust of Krann." Then he added, "Do not think that there is any chance of your escaping on that mechan-