The planet of peril
companions as he ascended, until, when the summit was reached, the
sky was black with grisly swarms of his fellows, wheeling, circling,
darting hither and thither, and uttering hoarse, croaking cries, the
weird sound of which added to the horror of the frightened girl.
Suddenly the grampite dipped over the edge of the crater and Vernia
beheld the creatures' great stronghold. The walls slanted in a series
of ledges, perhaps twenty feet wide, downward and in toward the great
central pit, whence issued the smoke and gases, and occasional flashes
of lurid light from the glowing lava.
At regular intervals around the ledges were holes in the solid rock,
which led to the dark caves that honey-combed the entire mountaintop.
In front of each entrance was a circular pit about ten feet in diameter
and twelve feet deep. As they passed above these pits she noticed that
they contained captive animals of various kinds.
Her captor hovered for a moment above the ledge near one of the caves,
then lowered her gently to her feet. She was so weak from fear that she
could scarcely stand, but he seized her roughly by the arm with a bony
hand-like claw, and dragged her through the entrance.
The sight that greeted her within sickened her with horror. In the
center of the cave sat a huge female grampite in the act of draining
the last remaining blood from the body of a sailor whose uniform she
recognized as that of the navy of a neighboring empire. Her long,
claw-like fingers gripped the corpse just under the armpits, and her
leech-lipped mouth was fastened to the back of the neck.
Vernia's captor stood humbly awaiting the pleasure of his hideous mate,
who at length cast the body from her with a grunt of satisfaction, and
lay down on her side with her belly distended to a drum-like tightness
by the blood of her victim.
The male grampite now dragged the shrinking girl close to the huge
female, who seized her eagerly and felt her over from head to foot as a
butcher might inspect a prime young heifer. Evidently the she-grampite
had been surfeited by her ghoulish repast, for she made no move to
fasten her sucker-mouth to the girl's neck.
Her mate had retired to a corner of the cave where he was industriously
absorbing the juice from a large specimen of the underwater fruit, but
he rose at a croaking call from his mate and seized the girl by the
wrist, stooping also to pick up the bloodless corpse of the sailor,
which he heaved far out into the great lake of molten lava when they
reached the ledge.
He then lowered the girl into the deep, smooth-sided pit in front of
the cave and threw down some fruit and spore-pods. Evidently she was to
be kept alive until the blood-bloated she-grampite was ready for her
next meal. Huddled against the wall of the pit were three frightened
frellas, small animals somewhat resembling terrestrial sheep, but
absolutely without hair or wool of any kind. Apparently the female
grampites drank the blood of these creatures when their human quarry
was lacking.
All through the rest of the day Vernia sweltered in the pit, awaiting
the inevitable end. Soon the loathsome creature in the cave would
become hungry and she would be dragged from her prison, clutched in
those bony hands, and--She shuddered at the thought of feeling her
life-blood slowly ebb away in that filthy den with no human being to
see, to pity, or to rescue.
Night fell, but in the crater its blackness was partly dispelled by the
red glow from the molten lava, punctuated at times by brilliant flashes
of light as gas explosions or other disturbances occurred in the fiery
lake.
The shadow of her captor loomed at the edge of the pit. The
she-grampite was ready for her victim. As she felt the grip of that
bony hand on her arm, Vernia screamed again and again.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FIGHT IN THE CRATER.
Grandon groped his way to the Olban airship in the pitchy darkness.
While it was yet light, he had noticed that the side door of the
domelike cab stood open, and he made up his mind to enter and explore
the interior, although he had small hope of being able to run it.
A brilliant flash from the volcano, reflected by the clouds, the
boiling water, and the crystal dome, showed him his objective. He
entered the cab and closed the door.
Moving his hands carefully about the interior, he felt two cushioned
seats and a number of handles, levers and buttons. At random, he
pressed a small button, whereupon a tiny light cast its radiance down
on him from the top of the dome.
For a moment he was bewildered by the imposing array of levers, handles
and buttons. Then, to his delight, he saw that each was marked in the
simple phonetic characters of the universal language which had been
taught him by Vorn Vangal.
He seized a lever marked "Cab Control" and moved it to the left.
Immediately the cab revolved to the right, sliding smoothly and
noiselessly. He pressed downward on the lever and the cab slanted
backward. Being in the form of a perfect sphere it could not only be
turned from side to side, but could be tilted forward or backward in
its socket. Upon his straightening the lever, the cab resumed its
original position.
The advantage of such an arrangement was obvious. From the front of
the craft, to right and left, projected two guns labeled "mattork."
The mattorks were weapons similar in construction to torks, but
much larger, and firing projectiles of far heavier caliber. Another
projected through the keel. By a touch of the cab control lever these
mattorks could be trained on an enemy in any position.
Grandon loaded one mattork with explosive metal bullets and the other
with deadly glass bullets. The keel-mattork was already loaded with
explosive metal bullets. What a battle he would give the accursed
grampites in the morning! If he could only solve the secret of flying
the strange craft, he would make a night raid, but he had nothing to
guide him except the parting meager explanation of Vorn Vangal that
Olban airships were moved by a mechanism which amplified telekinesis,
the force inherent in will-power.
Constant thoughts of Vernia dominated his mind. His reason told him
that she must be dead, that she had probably been killed many hours
before, but despite this, hope persisted--a slender hope born of an
overpowering desire--a hope that no amount of reason could overcome
without irrefutable confirmation.
As he hoped, he wished intensely--earnestly. Then suddenly his wish
bore fruit, for the airship began slowly to rise from the ground.
He had once listened, with scant attention, to a lecture by a noted
psychologist. He recalled dimly the assertion that every living
human being is endowed at birth with all the potential powers of the
subjective mind, but that few develop such powers to any appreciable
extent.
So it was with Grandon. He had unconsciously mastered the power of
telekinesis after a fashion, but he needed practice to develop and
perfect it. Before making for the mountain he sailed about in the
air for a considerable time, practicing the turning, elevating, and
lowering of his craft by purely mental control. At length, feeling that
he was master of the airship, he made for the mountain peak.
* * * * *
Very cautiously he made a landing on the outer rim of the crater, then
crept to the top to reconnoiter. As he peered over the brink a sight
greeted his eyes which, prepared though he was for something of the
sort, caused him to gasp in horror.
It was as if the most terrifying dreams of Milton and Dante had been
fused into one to form the fearful reality before him, for there in the
blood-red glow of the molten lava, swarmed countless thousands of the
demoniac inhabitants of this planetary inferno, croaking hoarsely to
each other as they moved about on the ledges or fluttered from place
to place. Mingled with the noises made by the grampites in the bedlam
of sounds that came up to him, were the piteous bleating and cries of
countless animals in the pits.
Directly beneath him, a huge grampite emerged from a cave and heaved a
human body far out into the fiery lake. He recognized the uniform of
the Olban officer who had been captured at the side of the airship a
few hours before.
Horrified and enraged, Grandon walked stealthily around the edge of
the pit, hoping to find some path by which he might make his way,
unnoticed, to the ledges beneath. Were it not for that faint ray of
hope that Vernia might still be alive, he would have returned to his
craft and raked the ledges with the deadly fire of the mattorks, but as
it was, he would have chosen to explore every cave unarmed, rather than
imperil her life by gunfire.
He had gone perhaps a third of the way around the mountain top when he
heard a scream of terror, followed by another and another. It was the
voice he had heard on the river bank two nights before, the voice of
Vernia.
Startled to instant action, Grandon scrambled and slid precipitately
down to the top ledge, leaped the ten feet to the second and a like
distance to the third, and ran directly to the pit from which the
sounds emanated. Twelve feet down he saw Vernia struggling in the
clutches of her captor, while the two terrified little animals hugged
the wall. In an instant he was at her side. A stroke of his keen blade
severed the bony arm that gripped her, and another sent the gory head
of the monster rolling on the floor.
"Come," he said, "we must get out of here at once."
"But how?" she asked. "The walls are as smooth as glass. I'm afraid
escape from this pit is impossible. If we could fly--"
Her words were cut short by a terrific onslaught from above. Grandon
had been seen descending the terraces and a general alarm had been
sounded. The first attacker was the ugly she-grampite whose mate had
just been slain. As the keen blade ripped her belly she fell to the
floor.
With his back to the wall and the girl crouching at his side, Grandon
fought desperately with sword and knife. Again and again his blade
drank blood, as his hideous adversaries swooped down upon him. The
pile of carcasses before him grew breast high before he realized that
they were likely to be smothered beneath them. Calling to the girl to
follow, he leaped atop the pile of his dead enemies, and fought from
that position. After that he constantly shifted from side to side,
while the pit continued to fill with his slain assailants, who came
on in increasing numbers, recklessly disregarding the fate of their
companions.
Torn and bleeding from many wounds, he at length stood with head and
shoulders above the edge of the pit. This left him open to attack from
the rear, and forced him to adopt new tactics. Bringing his tork into
play, he sent a spray of bullets about him in a circle, temporarily
demoralizing the attackers. The slight respite gave him time to assist
Vernia from the pit, and together they ran into the cave where she had
been appraised by the ghoulish mate of her captor.
* * * * *
They found a narrow passageway at the back of the cave, and groped
their way in the pitchy blackness for some distance before they came to
another narrow gallery crossing it at right angles. Soon they were in a
veritable labyrinth of caves and galleries, leading farther and farther
into the mountain. All about them sounded the croaks of the pursuing
grampites, and it was only by the utmost strategy that they avoided
detection.
They had wandered for more than an hour in the subterranean maze when
a narrow-lighted opening appeared ahead. Very cautiously Grandon led