Page:Weird Tales v15n01 1930-01.djvu/71

The sides of that slot, Ralton saw, were finely graduated, the knob-lever resting almost at its bottom. Near the slot's top small white letters inset beside it spelled "Ultra-Hertzian Vibrations." An inch or so beneath, beside the slot in similar lettering, was "Hertzian Vibrations." Beneath that, in turn, "Light Vibrations," "Heat Radiation Vibrations," "Radio-active (Gamma) Vibrations," then "Cosmic Ray Vibrations," at which the black switch-knob rested, and lowest of all a simple zero. Ralton stared at the thing in astonishment. It was the entire range of etheric vibrations that was lettered in order there before him, he knew, from highest to lowest, but for what reason? This great globe-mechanism, what could biologists be doing———

A cry from behind whirled him about, a cry of fierce rage from the door of the white-lit laboratory building beyond him. Framed in that doorway stood a massive-figured, gray-haired man, eyes burning and face contorted as he saw Ralton, while from the white-lit room behind him other figures were surging forward.

Ralton took a quick step toward them. "Dr. Munson!" he said, eagerly, advancing toward that massive figure, then stopped. For Munson and the others, with inarticulate cries of rage, had leapt forward toward him! He shrank instinctively back, heard the massive leader of the group crying, "Get him back—back from that condenser!" Then before his dazed understanding could credit what was happening the others were upon him, and flung him sidewise to the ground. Ralton, uncomprehending still but in an instinctive revulsion of antagonism, struck fiercely out at them, felt one or two give back before his blows, strove to struggle up to his feet. Then he heard another commanding shout from Munson, in the background; something hard crashed down upon his head and sent back blinding light through his brain, and he knew no more.

Consciousness, when it finally came to him, informed him first of two things, that his head was aching violently, and that he was lying on some hard surface in a dark and quiet place. He stirred a little, opened his eyes. It was a corner of a bare and empty concrete-walled room that he lay in, a dim radiance of starlight coming in through two barred windows in its walls. Then, as he strove to sit erect, he glimpsed a dark figure gazing outward through one of those windows, a figure that turned at his sound of movement and came swiftly across the room toward him, crouching down beside him and supporting him. Even in the dimness of the room and through his dazed senses Ralton recognized the other, and he gasped at sight of him.

"Mallett!" he whispered. "Good God, Mallett—what has happened here?"

The other's voice was high and strange. "Steady, Ralton," he told him. "You've come into the heart of a hell, here—and Munson and the rest the fiends."

"But what are they doing—Munson and the others?" Ralton asked dazedly. "I came up here in my plane—hours ago, it seems—to bring a message to Munson———"

And briefly he told Mallett of the phenomenon of the protoplasm deposits that had brought him north to the island. Mallett listened, silently, broodingly. "That protoplasmic slime," he said, finally, "you knew of it, the world knew of it, but who knew what lay behind it, what was to come of it, what has already come of it?"

The face of Ralton expressed his bewilderment, and the other lifted him suddenly to his feet, toward one of the metal-barred little windows at the room's corner.