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The Bettle Horde, by Victor Rosseau
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00:00:00Gather round, boys and girls. You're listening to Astounding Stories of Sober Science.
00:00:13Out of the past comes the radio program that might have been but never was about the worlds
00:00:19that may yet still come to be, bringing to light the thrilling adventure stories of yesterday
00:00:25for the children of tomorrow. Tonight's episode, The Beetle Horde, a startling story by Victor
00:00:35Rosayou. Tonight we present part one of this thrilling two-part novel, only on Astounding
00:00:43Stories of Sober Science, read for you by number one Marmaduke fan, America's most mysterious
00:00:51bespectacled cartoon dog. And now, our feature presentation.
00:00:57The Beetle Horde, a two-part novel by Victor Rosayou.
00:01:02Only two young explorers stand in the way of the mad Brahms' horrible revenge,
00:01:07the releasing of his trillions of man-sized beetles upon an utterly defenseless world.
00:01:14Chapter 1. Dodd's Discovery.
00:01:18Out of the south, the biplane came winging back toward the camp, a black speck against
00:01:22the dazzling white of the vast ice fields that extended unbroken to the horizon on every side.
00:01:28It came out of the south, and yet, a hundred miles further back along the course on which
00:01:34it flew, it could not have proceeded in any direction except northward. For a hundred miles
00:01:40south lay the South Pole, the goal toward which the traveler's expedition had been pressing
00:01:45for the better part of that year. Not that they could not have reached it sooner. As a matter of
00:01:50fact, the pole had been crossed and recrossed, according to the estimate of Tommy Travers,
00:01:56aviator, and nephew of the old millionaire who stood fairy uncle to the expedition. But one of
00:02:02the things that was being sought was the exact site of the pole, not within a couple of miles or
00:02:08so,
00:02:08but within the fraction of an inch. It had something to do with Einstein, and something
00:02:14to do with terrestrial magnetism, and the variations of the south magnetic pole, and the reason,
00:02:19therefore, and something to do with parallaxes, and the precision of the equinoxes, and other things,
00:02:25this search for the pole's exact location. But all that was principally the affair of the
00:02:29astronomer of the party. Tommy Travers, who was now evidently on his way back, didn't give a whoop
00:02:35for Einstein, or any of the rest of the stuff. He had been enjoying himself after his fashion during
00:02:41a year of frostbites and hard rations, and he was beginning to anticipate the delights of the
00:02:46return to Broadway. Captain Storm, in charge of the expedition, together with the five others of
00:02:52the advanced camp, watched the plane maneuver up to the tents. She came down neatly on the smooth snow,
00:02:58skidded on her runners like an expert skater, and came to a stop almost immediately in front of the
00:03:03marquee. Tommy Travers leaped out of the enclosed cockpit, which, shut off by glass from the cabin,
00:03:09was something like the front seat of a limousine.
00:03:12Well, Captain, we followed that break for a hundred miles, and there's no ground cleft,
00:03:16as you expected, he said. But Jim Dodd and I picked up something, and Jim seems to have gone crazy.
00:03:22Through the windows of the cabin, Jim Dodd, the young archaeologist of the party, could be seen
00:03:27apparently wrestling with something that looked like a suit of armor. By the time Captain Storm,
00:03:32Jimmy, and the other members of the party had reached the cabin door, Dodd had got it open,
00:03:37and flung himself out backward, still hugging what he had found, and maneuvering so that he
00:03:42managed to fall on his back and sustain its weight.
00:03:45Say, what the, what, what's that? gasped Storm. Even the least scientific-minded of the party gasped
00:03:52in amazement at what Dodd had. It resembled nothing so much as an enormous beetle. As a matter of fact,
00:03:59it was an insect, for it had the three sections that characterized this class, but it was merely
00:04:04the shell of one. Between four and five feet in height, when Dodd stood it on end, it could now
00:04:11be seen to consist of the hard exterior substance of some huge, unknown coleopter. This substance,
00:04:18which was fully three inches thick over the thorax, looked as hard as plate armor.
00:04:23What is it? gasped Storm again. Tommy Travers made answer, for James Dodd was evidently incapable
00:04:31of speech, more from emotion than from the force with which he had landed backward in the snow.
00:04:36We found it at the pole, Captain, he said, at least pretty near where the pole ought to be.
00:04:41We ran into a current of warm air or something. The snow had melted in places, and there were patches
00:04:46of bare rock. This thing was lying in a hollow among them.
00:04:51If I didn't see it before my eyes, I'd think you crazy, Tommy, said Storm, with some asperity.
00:04:58What is it, a crab?
00:05:00Crab be damned, shouted Jim Dodd, suddenly recovering his faculties.
00:05:05My good, Captain Storm, don't you know the difference between an insect and a crustacean?
00:05:10This is a fossil beetle. Don't you see the distinguishing mark of the coleoptera? Those
00:05:16two elytra, or wing covers, which meet in the median dorsal line? A beetle, but with the shell
00:05:22of a crustacean instead of mere chitin. That's what led you astray, I expect. God, what a tale we'll
00:05:29have to tell when we get it back to New York. We'll drop everything else and spend years, if need
00:05:34be,
00:05:34looking for other specimens.
00:05:35Like fun, you will, shouted Higby, the astronomer of the party.
00:05:40Let me tell you right here, Dodd, nobody outside the Museum of Natural History is going to care a
00:05:45damn about your old fossils. What we're going to do is march straight to the true pole and spend a
00:05:51year taking observations and parallaxes. If Einstein's brochure, in which he links up
00:05:56gravitation with magnetism, is correct...
00:05:58Fossil beetles, Jim Dodd burst out, ignoring the astronomer.
00:06:02That means that in the tertiary era, probably, there existed forms of life in the Antarctic
00:06:08continent that have never been found elsewhere. Imagine a world in which the insect reached a
00:06:14size proportionate to the Great Saurians, Captain Storm. I'll wager poor Brom discovered this.
00:06:20That's why he stayed behind when the Greystoke expedition came within a hundred miles of the
00:06:25pole. I'll wager he's left a cairn somewhere with full details inside it. We've got to find it,
00:06:31we've... But Jim Dodd, suddenly realizing that the rest of the party could hardly be said to share
00:06:36his enthusiasm in any marked degree, broke off and looked sulky.
00:06:40You say you found this thing pretty nearly upon the site of the true pole? Captain Storm asked
00:06:46Tommy. Within five miles, I'd say, Captain. The fog was so bad that we couldn't get our
00:06:50directions very well.
00:06:52Well, then, there's going to be no difficulty, answered Storm. If this fair weather lasts,
00:06:58we'll be at the pole in another week, and we'll start making our permanent camp.
00:07:02Plenty of opportunity for all you gentlemen. As for me, I'm merely a sailor, and I'm trying
00:07:08to be impartial. And please remember, gentlemen, that we're well into March now, and likely to
00:07:15have the first storms of autumn on us any day. So let's drop the argument and remember that
00:07:20we've got to pole together.
00:07:23Tommy Travers was the only skilled aviator of the expedition, which had brought two planes
00:07:28with it. It was a queer friendship that had sprung up between him and Jim Dodd.
00:07:33Tommy, the blasé, ex-Harvard man, who was known along Broadway and had never been able
00:07:38to settle down, seemed as different as possible from the spectacled, scholarly Dodd, ten years
00:07:43his senior, red-haired, irascible, and living, as Tommy put it, in the age of old red sandstone,
00:07:50instead of the year 1930 AD. It was generally known, though the story had been officially
00:07:57denied, that there had been trouble in the Greystoke expedition of three years before.
00:08:01Captain Greystoke had taken the brilliant, erratic Brahm of the Carnegie Archaeological
00:08:06Institute with him, and Brahm's history was a long record of trouble. It was Brahm who
00:08:12had exploded the faked Neolithic finds at Mannheim, thereby earning the undying enmity of
00:08:18certain European savants, but brilliantly demolishing them when he smashed the so-called
00:08:24Mannheim stone pitcher, valued at $100,000 with a pocket axe, and caustically inquired whether
00:08:31Neolithic man used babbit metal rivets to fasten on his jug handles.
00:08:37Brahm's brilliant work in the investigation of the origin of the Negrito-Asiatic races had
00:08:43been awarded one of the Nobel Prizes, and Brahm had declined it in an insulting letter because
00:08:48he disapproved of the year's prize award for literature. He had been a storm center for years,
00:08:54embittered by long opposition, when he joined the Greystoke expedition for the purpose of
00:08:58investigating the marine fauna of the Antarctic continent, and it was known that his presence had
00:09:04nearly brought the Greystoke expedition to the point of civil war. Rumor said he had been deliberately
00:09:10abandoned. His enemies hoped he had. The facts seemed to be, however, that in an outburst of
00:09:17temper, he had walked out of camp in a furious snowstorm and perished. For days, his body had
00:09:23been sought in vain. Jimmy Dodd had run foul of Brahm some years before, when Brahm had published a
00:09:30criticism of one of Dodd's addresses dealing with fossil monotremes, or egg-laying mammals. In his
00:09:37inimitable way, Brahm had suggested that the problem, which came first, the egg or the chicken,
00:09:43was now seen to be linked up with the Darwinian theory and solved in the person of Dodd.
00:09:49Nevertheless, Jimmy Dodd entertained a devoted admiration for the memory of the dead scientist.
00:09:54He believed that Brahm must have left records of inestimable importance in a cairn before he died.
00:10:02He wanted to find that cairn. And he knew, what a number of Brahm's enemies knew, that the dead
00:10:09scientist had been a morphine addict. He believed that he had wandered out into the snow under the
00:10:15influence of the drug. Dodd, who shared a tent with Tommy, had raved the greater part of the night
00:10:20about the find. Well, but see here, Jimmy. Suppose these beetles did inhabit the Antarctic continent
00:10:26a few million years ago. Why get excited? Tommy had asked. Excited? Bellowed Dodd. It opens one of
00:10:34the biggest problems that science has to face. Why haven't they survived into historic times? Why didn't
00:10:40they cross into Australia, like the opossum? By the land bridge then existed between that continent and
00:10:46South America? Beetles, five feet in length and practically invulnerable. What killed them off? Why didn't
00:10:54they win the supremacy over man? Jimmy Dodd had muttered till he went to sleep. And he had muttered worse
00:11:00in his dreams. Todd was glad that Captain Storm had given them permission to return to the same spot next
00:11:06morning and look for further fossils, though his own interest in them was of the slightest. The dogs were being
00:11:13harnessed next morning when the two men hopped into the plane. The thermometer was unusually high for
00:11:18the season, for in the South Polar regions the short summer is usually at an end by March. Tommy was
00:11:25sweating in his furs in a temperature well above the freezing point. The snow was crusted hard, the sky
00:11:31overcast with clouds, and a wind was blowing hard out of the South, and increasing in velocity hourly.
00:11:38A bad day for starting, said Captain Storm. Looks like one of the autumn storms was blowing up. If I
00:11:45were you,
00:11:45I'd watch the weather, Tommy. Tommy glanced at Dodd, who was huddled in the rear cockpit, fuming at the delay,
00:11:52and grinned whimsically. I guess I can handle her, Captain, he answered. It's only an hour's flight to where he
00:11:58found
00:11:59that fossil. Just as you please, said Storm curtly. He knew that Tommy's judgment as a pilot could always
00:12:06be relied upon. You'll find us here when you return, he added. I've countermanded the order to march. I
00:12:12don't like the look of the weather at all. Tommy grinned again and pressed the starter. The engine
00:12:18caught and warmed up. One of the men kicked away the blocks of ice that had been placed under the
00:12:22skids
00:12:23to serve as chocks. The plane taxied over the crusted snow and took off into the South. The camp was
00:12:29situated in a
00:12:30hollow among the ice mountains that rose to a height of two or three thousand feet all around. Tommy had
00:12:36not
00:12:36dreamed how strongly the gale was blowing until he was over the top of them. Then he realized he was
00:12:42facing a tougher
00:12:43proposition than he had calculated on. The storm struck the biplane with full force. A snowstorm was driving up
00:12:50rapidly, blackening the sky. The sun, which only appeared for a brief interval every day, was
00:12:55practically touching the horizon as it rose to make its minute arc in the sky. A star was visible
00:13:02through a rift in the clouds overhead, and the pale daylight in which they had started had already
00:13:06become twilight. Tommy was tempted to turn back, but it was only a hundred miles, and Jimmy Dodd would
00:13:13give him no peace if he did so. So he put the plane's nose resolutely into the wind, watching his
00:13:18speed
00:13:18indicator drop from a hundred miles per hour to eighty, sixty, forty, less. The storm was beating
00:13:27up furiously. Of a sudden, the clouds broke into a deluge of whirling snow. In a moment, the windshield
00:13:33was a frozen, opaque mass. Tommy opened it and peered out into the biting air. He could see nothing.
00:13:40The plane, caught in the fearful cross currents that swirl about the southern roof of the world,
00:13:45was fluttering like a leaf in the wind. The altimeter was dropping dangerously. Tommy opened the throttle
00:13:51to the limit, zooming, and, like a spurred horse, the biplane shot forward and upward. She touched
00:13:57five thousand, six, seven, and that, for her, was sealing under those conditions, for a sudden,
00:14:03tremendous shock of wind, coming in a fierce cross current, swung her round, tossed her to and
00:14:09fro in the enveloping white cloud, and Tommy knew that he had the fight of his life upon his hands.
00:14:14The compasses, which required considerable daily adjusting to be of use so near the pole,
00:14:19had now gone out of use altogether. The airspeed indicator had apparently gone west, for it was
00:14:25oscillating between zero and twenty. The turn and bank indicator was performing a kind of tango
00:14:31round the dial. Even the eight-day clock had ceased to function, but that might have been due to the
00:14:35fact
00:14:36that Tommy had neglected to wind it. And the oil pressure gauge presented a still more startling
00:14:41sight, for a glance showed that either there was a leak or else the oil had frozen. Tommy looked
00:14:46around at Dodd and pointed downward. Dodd responded with a vicious forward wave of his hand. Tommy shook
00:14:53his head, and Dodd started forward along the cabin, apparently with the intention of committing assault
00:14:58and battery upon him. Instead, the archaeologist collapsed upon the floor as the plane spun completely
00:15:04around under the impact of a blast that was like a giant slap. The plane was no longer controllable.
00:15:10True, she responded in some sort to the controls, but all Tommy was able to do was to keep her
00:15:16from
00:15:16going into a crazy sideslip or nosedive as he fought with the elements. And those elements were
00:15:22like a devil unchained. One moment he was dropping like a plummet, the next he was shooting up like a
00:15:27rocket as a vertical blast of air caught the plane and tossed her like a cork into the invisible
00:15:32heavens. Then she was revolving as if in a maelstrom, and by degrees this rotary movement began to
00:15:38predominate. Round and round went the plane, in circles that gradually narrowed, and it was all
00:15:44Tommy could do to swing the stick so as to keep her from skidding or sideslipping. And as he worked
00:15:50desperately at his task, Tommy began to realize something that made him wonder if he was not dreaming.
00:15:56The snow was no longer snow, but rain. Mist, rather. Warm mist that had already cleared the windshield
00:16:04and covered it with tiny drops. And that white, opaque world into which he was looking was no longer
00:16:11snow, but fog. The densest fog that Tommy had ever encountered. Fog like white wool drifting past him in
00:16:20fleecy flakes that looked as if they had solid substance. Warm fog that was like balm upon his
00:16:26frozen skin, but of a warmth that was impossible within a few miles of the frozen pole. Then there
00:16:33came a momentary break in it, and Tommy looked down and uttered a cry of fear. Fear, because he knew
00:16:39he
00:16:39must be dreaming. Not more than a thousand feet beneath him, he saw patches of snow and patches of
00:16:47green grass. The brightest and most verdant green that he had ever seen in his life.
00:16:53He turned round at a touch on his shoulder. Dodd was leaning over him, one hand pointing menacingly
00:16:59upward and onward.
00:17:00You fool! Tommy bellowed in his ear. Do you think the South Pole lies over there? It's here!
00:17:07Yeah, don't you get it, Jimmy? Look down! This valley! God, Jimmy, the South Pole's a hole in the ground!
00:17:14And as he spoke, he remembered vaguely some crank who had once insisted that the two poles were
00:17:21hollow because—what was the fellow's reasoning? Tommy could not remember it. But there was no longer
00:17:27any doubt but that they were dropping into a hole, not more than a mile around, which explained why
00:17:33neither Scott nor Amundsen had found it when they approximated to the site of the pole. A hole,
00:17:40a warm hole, up which a current of warm air was rushing, forming the white mist that now gradually
00:17:46thinned as the plane descended. The plateau, with its covering of eternal snows, loomed in a white
00:17:53circle high overhead. Underneath was green grass now. Grass and trees. The fog was nearly gone.
00:18:02The plane responded to the controls again. Tommy pushed the stick forward and came round in a
00:18:07tighter circle. And then something happened he had not in the least expected. One moment he seemed to
00:18:13be traveling in a complete calm, a sort of clear funnel with a ring of swirling fog outside it.
00:18:18The next he was dropping into a void. There was no air resistance. There seemed hardly any air,
00:18:25for he felt a choking in his throat and a tearing at his lungs as he strove to breathe. He
00:18:30heard a
00:18:31strangled cry from Dodd and saw that he was clutching with both hands at his throat,
00:18:34and his face was turning purple. The controls went limp in Tommy's hands. The plane, gyrating more
00:18:40slowly, suddenly nose down, hung for a moment in that void, and then plunged toward the green earth,
00:18:47200 feet below, with appalling swiftness. Tommy realized that a crash was inevitable.
00:18:52He threw his goggles up over his forehead, turned and waved to Dodd in ironic farewell.
00:18:57He saw the earth rush up at him, and then came the shattering crash, and then oblivion.
00:19:05Chapter 2. Beetles and Humans
00:19:09How long he had remained unconscious, Tommy had no means of determining. Of a sudden,
00:19:14he found himself lying on the ground beside the shattered plane, with his eyes wide open.
00:19:19He stared at it, and stared about him, without understanding where he was or what had happened
00:19:25to him. His first idea was that he had crashed on the golf links near Mitchell Field, Long Island,
00:19:31for all about him were stretches of verdant grass and small, shrubby plants. Then, when he remembered
00:19:37the expedition, he was convinced that he had been dreaming. What brought him to a saner view was the
00:19:42discovery that he was enveloped in furs which were insufferably hot. He half-raised himself and
00:19:49succeeded in unfastening his fur coat, and thus discovered that apparently none of his bones was
00:19:54broken. But the plane must have fallen from a considerable height to have been smashed so
00:19:59badly. Then Tommy discovered that he was lying upon an extensive mound of sand, thrown up as by
00:20:06some gigantic mole, for burrow tracks ran through it in every direction. It was this that had saved his
00:20:12life. Something was moving at his side. It was half submerged in the sand pile, and it was moving
00:20:19parallel to him with great rapidity. A grayish body, half covered with grains of sand, emerged,
00:20:25waving two enormously long tentacles. It was a shrimp, but fully three feet in length, and Tommy had never
00:20:33before had any idea what an unpleasant object a shrimp is. Tommy staggered to his feet and dropped near the
00:20:40plane, eyeing the shrimp with horror. But he was soon relieved as he discovered that it was apparently
00:20:45harmless. It slithered away and once more buried itself in the pile of sand. Now Tommy was beginning
00:20:51to remember. He looked into the wreckage of the plane. Jim Dodd was not there. He called his name
00:20:58repeatedly, and there was no response, except a dull echo from the ice mountains behind the veil of
00:21:04fog. He went to the other side of the plane and scanned the ground all about him. Jimmy had disappeared.
00:21:10It was evident that he was nowhere near, for Tommy could see the whole of the lower scope of the
00:21:15bowl,
00:21:15on every side of him. He had walked away, or he had been carried away. Tommy thought of the shrimp
00:21:22and shuddered. What other fearsome monsters might inhabit that extraordinary valley? He sat down,
00:21:30leaning against the wreck of the fuselage, and tried to adjust his mind, tried to keep himself
00:21:35from going mad. He knew now that the flight had been no dream, that he was a member of his
00:21:40uncle's
00:21:40expedition, that he had flown with Jim toward the pole, had crashed in a vacuum. But where was Jim,
00:21:46and how were they going to get out of the damn place? Something like a heap of stones not far
00:21:52away
00:21:52attracted Tommy's attention. Perhaps Jim Dodd was lying behind that. Once more, Tommy got upon his feet
00:21:59and began walking toward it. On the way, he stumbled against the sharp edge of something that protruded from
00:22:05the ground. It cut his leg sharply, and with a curse he began rubbing his shin and looked at the
00:22:11thing. Then he saw that it was another of the fossil shells, half buried in the marshy ooze on which
00:22:17he
00:22:17was treading. The ground in this lower part of the valley was a swamp, on account of the very fine
00:22:23mist
00:22:23falling from the fog clouds that surrounded it impenetrably on every side. Then Tommy came upon another
00:22:30shell, and then another, and now he saw that there were piles of what he had taken to be rock
00:22:35everywhere,
00:22:36and that this was not rock, but great heaps of the shells, all equally intact. Hundreds of thousands of
00:22:44the prehistoric beetles must have died in that valley, perhaps overcome by some cataclysm. Tommy examined the
00:22:51heap near which he stood. He yelled Dodd's name, but again no answer came. Instead, something began to stir
00:22:58among the heaps of shells. For a moment, Tommy hoped against hope that it was Dodd. But it wasn't Dodd.
00:23:06It was a living beetle. A beetle fully five feet high as it stood erect, a pair of enormous wings
00:23:14outspread. And the head, which was larger than a man's, was the most frightful object Tommy had ever
00:23:20seen. Jim Dodd would have said at once that this was one of the Kerculeonidae, or snout beetles,
00:23:26for a prolongation of the head between the eyes formed a sort of beak a foot in length. The mouth,
00:23:33which opened downward, was armed with terrific mandibles, while the huge compound eyes looked
00:23:39like enormous crystals of cut glass. Immediately in front of the eyes were two mandibles as long as
00:23:45a man's arms, with feathery processes at the ends. In addition to these, there were three pairs of legs,
00:23:52the front pair as long as a man's, the hind pair almost as long as a horse's. Paralyzed with horror,
00:23:59Tommy watched the monster, which had apparently been disturbed by the vibrations of his voice,
00:24:04extract itself from among the shells. Then with a bound that covered fifteen feet,
00:24:09it had lessened the distance between them by half. And then a still more amazing thing happened.
00:24:14For of a sudden, the hard shell slipped from the thorax, the wing cases dropped off,
00:24:19the whole of the bony parts slipped to the ground with a clang, and a soft, defenseless thing went
00:24:24slithering away among the rocks. The beetle had molted. Tommy dropped to the ground in the throes
00:24:31of violent nausea. Then, looking up again, he saw the girl. She was about a hundred yards away from him,
00:24:40very close to the fallen plain, and she must have emerged from a large hole in the ground,
00:24:45which Tommy could now see under a ledge of overhanging rock. She seemed to be dressed in a
00:24:50single garment, which fell to her knees, and appeared to fit tightly around her body. But as
00:24:55she came nearer, Tommy, watching her, petrified by this latest apparition, discovered that it was
00:25:01woven of her own hair, which must have been of immense length, for it fell naturally to her
00:25:06shoulders, and thence was woven into this close-fitting material, a fringe, an inch or two in length,
00:25:13extending beneath the selvedge. She was about six feet tall, and apparently made after the normal
00:25:18human pattern. She moved with a slow, majestic swing, and if ever any female had seemed to Tommy
00:25:25to have the appearance of an angel, this unknown woman did. She was so fair in that flossy, flaxen
00:25:32covering, she moved with such easy grace, that Tommy, gaping, gradually crept nearer to her.
00:25:39She did not seem to see him. She was stooping over the very sand heap into which he had fallen.
00:25:46Suddenly, with lightning-like rapidity, her arms shot out, her hands began tunneling in the sand.
00:25:51With a cry of triumph, she pulled out the shrimp Tommy had seen, or another like it, and, stripping
00:25:57off the shell, began devouring it with evident relish. In the midst of her meal, the girl raised her head
00:26:04and looked at Tommy. He saw that her eyes were filmed, vacant, dead. Then, of a sudden, a third
00:26:12membrane was drawn back across the pupils, and she saw him. She let the shrimp drop to the ground,
00:26:18uttered a cry, and moved toward him with a tottering gait. She groped toward him with outstretched arms,
00:26:25and then she was blind again, for the membrane once more covered her pupils. It was as if her eyes
00:26:31were
00:26:31unable to endure even the dim light of the valley, through whose surrounding mist the low sun,
00:26:36setting just above the horizon, was unable to diffuse itself, save as a brightening of the fog
00:26:42curtain. Tommy stepped toward the girl. His outstretched hand touched hers. It was unquestionably
00:26:48a woman's hand he held, delicately warm, with exquisitely molded fingers, in whose touch there seemed to be,
00:26:56for the girl, some tactile impression of him. Again that membrane was drawn back from the girl's
00:27:02pupils for a fleeting flash. Tommy saw two eyes of intense black, their color contrasting curiously
00:27:09with the flaxen color of her hair and her white skin, almost the tint of an albino's. Those eyes
00:27:15had surveyed him, and appeared satisfied that he was one of her kind. She could not have seen very much
00:27:21in that almost instantaneous flash of vision. Queer, that membrane, as if she had been used to
00:27:27living in the dark, as if the full light of the day was unhearable. She drew her hand away. Soft
00:27:34vocals came from her lips. Suddenly she turned swiftly. She could not have seen, but before Tommy
00:27:40had seen, she had sensed the presence of the old man, who was creeping out of the hole in the
00:27:45mountainside. He moved forward craftily, and then pounced upon the sandpile, and in a moment had
00:27:51pulled out another of the big shrimps, which he proceeded to devour with greedy relish. The girl,
00:27:57leaving Tommy's side, joined him in that unpleasant feast. And in the midst of it, a flood came pouring
00:28:04from the hole. A flood of living beetles, covering the ground in fifteen-foot leaps as they dashed at
00:28:11the two. To his horror, Tommy saw Jimmy Dodd among them, wrapped in his fur coat like a mummy, and
00:28:17being
00:28:17pushed and rolled forward like a football. For a moment, Tommy hesitated, torn between his
00:28:23solicitude for Jim Dodd and for the girl. Then, as the foremost of the monsters bounded to her side,
00:28:30he ran between them. The vicious jaws snapped within six inches of Tommy's face, with a force
00:28:35that would have carried away an ear or shredded the cheek if they had met. Tommy struck out with all
00:28:41of
00:28:41his might, and his fists clanged on the resounding shell, so that the blood spurted from his bruised
00:28:46knuckles. He had struck the monster squarely upon the thorax, and he had not discommoded it in the
00:28:52least. It turned on him, its glassy, many-faceted eyes glaring with a cold, infernal light.
00:28:59Tommy struck out again with his left hand, this time upon the pulpy flesh of the downward-opening mouth,
00:29:05an inch higher, and he would have impaled his hand upon the beak, with a point like a needle,
00:29:09and evidently used for purposes of attack, since it was not connected with the mandibles.
00:29:15The blow appeared to fall in the only vulnerable place. The monster dropped upon its back and lay
00:29:21there, unable to reverse itself, its antenna and forelegs waving in the air, and the rear legs
00:29:27rasping together in a shrill, strident shriek. Instantly, as Tommy darted out of the way, the swarm
00:29:34fell upon the helpless monster and began devouring it, tearing strips of flesh from the lower shell,
00:29:39which in the space of half a minute was reduced simply to bone. The most horrible feature of this
00:29:44act of cannibalism was the complete silence with which it was performed, except for the rasping of
00:29:50the dying monster's legs. It was evident that the huge beetles had no vocal apparatus. For the moment
00:29:56left unguarded, Jim Dodd flung down the collar of his fur coat, stared about him, and recognized Tommy.
00:30:02Tommy. My god, it's you, he yelled. Well, can you? He had no time to finish his sentence. A pair
00:30:09of
00:30:09antennae went round his neck from behind. At the same instant, Tommy, the old man, and the girl were
00:30:14gripped by the monsters, which, forming a solid phalanx about them, began hustling them in the
00:30:20direction of the hole. Resistance was utterly impossible. Tommy felt as if he was being pushed
00:30:25along by a moving wall of stone. Inside the opening, it was completely dark. Tommy shouted to Dodd, but the
00:30:33strident sounds of the moving legs drowned his cries. He was being pushed forward, into the unknown.
00:30:40Suddenly, the ground seemed to fall away beneath his feet. He struggled, cried out, and felt himself
00:30:45descending through the air. For a full half-minute, he went downward at a speed that constricted his throat,
00:30:51so that he could hardly draw breath. Then, just as he had nerved himself for the imminent crash,
00:30:57the speed of his descent was checked. In another moment, he found that he was slowing to a standstill
00:31:03in mid-air. He was beginning to float backward, upward. But the wall of moving shells, pushing against
00:31:11him, forced him on, downward, and yet apparently against the force of gravitation. Then of a sudden,
00:31:19Tommy was aware of a dim light all about him. His feet touched earth and grass as softly as a
00:31:25thistledown alighting. He found himself seated in the same dim light upon red grass and staring into
00:31:33Jimmy's face. Chapter 3. Ten Miles Underground
00:31:39What I was going to say when we were interrupted was, can you beat it? Jimmy Dodd observed, with admirable
00:31:47saying Freud. They were still seated on the red grass, gazing about them at what looked like an
00:31:53illimitable plain, and upward into depths of darkness. It was warm, and the light, furnished
00:31:59by what appeared to be luminous vegetation, was about that of twilight. On every side were clumps
00:32:06of trees and shrubs, which formed centers of phosphorant illumination. But for the most part,
00:32:11the land was open, and here and there, human figures appeared, moving with head down and arms
00:32:17hanging earthward. No, I'm damned if I can, said Tommy. What happened to you after we crashed?
00:32:24Why, first thing I knew, I found myself riding on the back of a fossil beetle, apparently one of the
00:32:31Kerculeonidae, said Dodd. Never mind being so precise, Jimmy. Let's call it a beetle. Go on.
00:32:37They sent me down inside the hole and seemed to be investigating me. The whole swarm of them. Of
00:32:42course, I thought I was dead, and come to my just reward, especially when I saw those beaks. Then one
00:32:48of them began tickling my face with its antenna, and I drew up my fur collar. They didn't seem to
00:32:52like
00:32:53the feel of the fur. And after a while, the whole gang started hustling me back again, like a nest
00:32:57of
00:32:57ants carrying something they don't want outside their hill. And then you bobbed up. Well, my opinion
00:33:03is you saved your life by pulling up your collar, said Tommy. Looks to me as if it's a case
00:33:08of the
00:33:08survival of the fittest. The fittest being the insect, and the human race taking second place.
00:33:13You know what the humans here live on, don't you? No. What? Shrimps as big as poodles. If you'd seen
00:33:21that girl and the old man getting outside them, you'd realize that there seems to be a food shortage in
00:33:26this part of the world. So where in thunder are we, Jimmy? Haven't you guessed yet, Travers? asked
00:33:33Dodd, a spice of malice in his voice. I suppose this is some sort of big hole on the side
00:33:38of the
00:33:38South Pole, with warm vapors coming up. Maybe a great fissure in the earth or something?
00:33:44Jimmy Dodd's grin, seen in the half-light, was rather disconcerting.
00:33:49How far do you think we dropped just now? Dodd asked. Why, I'd say several hundred yards,
00:33:56replied Tommy. What's your estimate? Just about ten miles, answered Jimmy.
00:34:02What? You're still crazy. Why, we slowed up. Yeah, grinned Dodd. We slowed up. We're inside the
00:34:10crust of the world. That's the long and short of it. The earth we've known is just a shell over
00:34:17our
00:34:17heads. Yeah, walking head downward, are we? Then why don't we drop to the center of the earth,
00:34:23you damn fool? Because, my dear fellow, you can swing a pail full of water around your head
00:34:30without spilling any of it. In other words, our old friend, centrifugal force. The speed with which
00:34:37the earth is rotating keeps us on our feet, head downward. To be precise, the center of the earth's
00:34:44gravity lies in the middle of the hollow sphere, of course. But the counteraction of centrifugal force
00:34:50throws it outward, to the middle of the ten-mile crust. That's why we slowed down after we were
00:34:56halfway through. We're moving against gravity. And what's up there, or down there, or whatever you call
00:35:03it? asked Tommy, pointing to what ought to have been the sky. Nothing. It's the center of the tennis
00:35:09ball, though I imagine it's pretty near a vacuum when you get up a mile or so, owing to the
00:35:15speed
00:35:15of the earth's rotation, which forces the heat into the shell. You mean to say you actually believe
00:35:22that stuff you've been handing me? asked Tommy, after a pause. Then how did human beings get here,
00:35:28and those damn beetles, and why is the grass red? The grass is red because there's no sunlight to
00:35:34produce chlorophyll. The inhabitants of the deep sea are red or black, almost invariably. In the case
00:35:40of the humans, they've become bleached. My belief is that that man and woman we saw, and those, he
00:35:47pointed to the vague forms of human beings who moved across the grass, gathering something, are survivors
00:35:54of the primitive race that still exists as the Australians. Undoubtedly, one of the branches of the
00:36:00human stalk originated in Antarctica at a time when it enjoyed a tropical temperature, and was the land
00:36:06bridge between Australia and South America. And the beetles? asked Tommy. Ah, they go back to the days
00:36:15when nature was in a more grandiose mood, replied the archaeologist enthusiastically. That's the most
00:36:22wonderful discovery of the ages. The world will go crazy over them when we bring back the first living
00:36:27specimens to the zoological parks of the great cities. But, Dodd went on, speaking with still
00:36:33more enthusiasm, of course, this is only the beginning, Tommy. There are ten million species
00:36:39of insects, according to Riley, and it is inevitable that there must be hundreds of thousands of other
00:36:45survivals from the age of the great saurians, perhaps even some of the saurians themselves.
00:36:51Who knows but that we may discover the ancestor of the extinct monotremes,
00:36:55the rhynchrocephalia, the pterodactyls, hatch a brood of apiornis eggs.
00:37:02And, said Tommy tartly, how are we going to get them back, apart from the little problem of getting
00:37:08out of here ourselves? Don't let's worry about that now, answered Dodd. It will take ten years of the
00:37:14hardest kind of labor, even to begin a classification of the inhabitants of this inner world. I could sit
00:37:21down forever and... But Jimmy Dodd rose to his feet as a pair of antennae whipped round his neck and
00:37:27jerked him bodily upward. One of the monster beetles was standing upright behind them, and by its
00:37:35gestures, it evidently meant that Dodd and Tommy were to join the crowd of humans in the offing.
00:37:41As Dodd turned upon it with an indignant show of fists, one of the antennae whipped off his fur coat
00:37:47and stung him painfully with the bristle-like attachment at the end. It was a painful moment
00:37:53when Dodd and Tommy realized that they were powerless against the monstrous beetles. Tommy tried
00:37:59the uppercut with which he had knocked out the deceased monster, but the quick jerks of the present
00:38:04beetle's head were infinitely faster than the movements of his fists. While the antennae had a whip-like
00:38:10quality about them that speedily convinced him that discretion was the card to play. Under the threat of the
00:38:17curling antennae, Tommy and Dodd moved in the direction of the slowly circulating humans.
00:38:23Numerous tiny rodents, which evidently kept the red grass short, scampered away under their feet.
00:38:29The beetles made no further effort to force them on, but now they could see that a number of the
00:38:34monsters were stationed at intervals around a wide circle, keeping the humans in a single body.
00:38:41Good lord, ejaculated Tommy, stopping. See what they're doing, Todd? They're herding us like
00:38:47cowboys herd steers. Look at that! One of the herd, a male with a long beard, suddenly broke from the
00:38:54herd, bawling, and flung himself upon a beetle guard. The antennae shot forth, coiled around his neck,
00:39:01and hurled him a dozen feet to the ground, where he lay stunned for a moment, before arising and
00:39:07rejoining his companions. But what are they looking for? demanded Todd. Tommy had not heard him. He had
00:39:15stopped in front of one of the luminous trees, and was plucking a fruit from it. Jimmy, ever seen an
00:39:21apple before? he asked. If this isn't an apple, I'll eat my head. It certainly was an apple, and one
00:39:28of
00:39:28the largest and juiciest that Tommy had ever tasted. It was the reddest apple he had ever seen, and would
00:39:34have won the first prize at any agricultural fair. And look at this! shouted Tommy, plucking an enormous
00:39:41luminous peach from another tree. They began munching slowly. Then, seeing one of the beetle guards
00:39:48approaching them, they moved into the midst of the crowd. Did you notice anything strange about those
00:39:53fruit trees? inquired Dodd, as he munched. I'll swear they were monocotiladonus, which, after all,
00:40:00is what one would expect. Still, to think that the monocotiladons evolved the familiar droops,
00:40:07or stone fruits, on a parallel line to the dicotiladons, is amazing.
00:40:14A box on the ear, like the kick of a mule's hoof, jerked the last word from his lips as
00:40:19he went
00:40:19sprawling. He got up to see the girl standing before him, intense disgust and anger on her face.
00:40:26She snatched the fruits from the hands of the two Americans and hurled them away.
00:40:30It was evident from her manner that she considered such diet, in the highest degree,
00:40:35unclean and disgusting. Also that she considered herself charged with the duty of superintending
00:40:41Tommy's and Dodd's education, but especially Dodd's. Taking him by the arm, she propelled him into the
00:40:48midst of the groping humans. She released him, stooped, and suddenly stood up, a shrimp about 18 inches
00:40:55long in her hand. Towering over Dodd by six inches, she took his face in her hands and began caressing
00:41:02him. Then, seizing his jaws in her strong fingers, she pried them apart, and popped the tail end of
00:41:08the shrimp into his mouth. Dodd let out a yelp and spat out the love gift, to be rewarded with
00:41:14another
00:41:15box on the ear by the young Amazon. While Tommy stood by, convulsed with laughter and yet in
00:41:21considerable trepidation, for fear of being forced to share Dodd's fate. For the girl was again holding
00:41:27out the tail end of the crustacean, and Jim Dodd's jaws were slowly and reluctantly approaching it.
00:41:33But suddenly there came an intervention, as the strident rasping of beetle legs was heard in the
00:41:39distance. Panic seized the human herd, groveling for shrimps in the sandy soil with its tufts of red
00:41:45grasses. Milling in an uneasy mob, they cowered under the lashes of the antennae of the beetle
00:41:51guards, which sacrificed their backs through their hair garments whenever any of them tried to bolt.
00:41:57Nearer and nearer came the beetles, louder and more penetrating the shriek of their rasping legs.
00:42:03Now the swarm came into sight, rank after rank of the shell-clad monsters, leaping fifteen feet at a
00:42:10bound with perfect precision, until they formed a solid phalanx all around the humans. Tommy heard
00:42:17sighs of despair, he heard muttering, and then he realized, with deep thankfulness, that these human
00:42:23beings, degraded though they were, had a speech of their own. In the middle of the front line appeared
00:42:29a beetle a foot taller than the rest. That it was either a king or queen was evident from the
00:42:34respect
00:42:34paid it by the rest of the swarm. At its every movement, a bodyguard of beetles moved in unison,
00:42:40forming themselves in a group before it, and on either side. There would have been something
00:42:45ludicrous about these movements, but for the impression of horror that the swarm made upon
00:42:50Tommy and Jim Dodd. Hitherto, both had supposed that the hideous insects acted by blind instinct,
00:42:57but now there could no longer be any doubt that they were possessed of an organized intelligence.
00:43:03The strident sounds grew louder. Already, Tommy was beginning to discover certain variations in them.
00:43:09It was dawning upon him that they formed a language, and a perfectly intelligible one. For as the note
00:43:15changed about half a semitone, two of the monsters left the side of their ruler, and reached the two
00:43:20men with three successive leaps. Their movements left no doubt in either Tommy's or Dodd's mind what
00:43:27was required. The two strode hastily toward the assemblage, and stopped as the antenna of their guards
00:43:33came down in menacing fashion. It was light enough for Tommy to see the face of the ruler of the
00:43:38hellish swarm, and it required all his powers of will to keep from collapsing from the sheer horror
00:43:44at what he saw. For, despite the close-fitting shell, the face of the beetle king was the face of
00:43:51a man,
00:43:52a white man. Jim Dodd's shriek rang out above the shrilling of the beetle legs.
00:43:59Brom? It's you! It's you! My God! It's you, Brom!
00:44:06Chapter 4. Brom's Story
00:44:09A sneering chuckle broke from Brom's lips.
00:44:13Yes, it's me, James Dodd, he answered.
00:44:17I'm a little surprised to see you here, Dodd, but I'm mighty glad.
00:44:22Still insane upon the subject of fossil monotremes, I suppose?
00:44:27The words came haltingly from Brom's lips, as from those of a man who had lost the habit of easy
00:44:33speech. And Tommy, looking on and trying to keep in possession of his faculties, had already come
00:44:39to the conclusion that the sounds were inaudible to the beetles. Probably their hearing apparatus
00:44:45was not attuned to such slow vibrations of the human voice. Also, he had discovered that Brom was
00:44:52wearing the discarded shell of one of the monsters. He had not grown the shell himself. It was fastened
00:44:58about his body by a band of the haircloth, fastened to the two protuberances of the
00:45:03elytra or wing cases on either side of the dorsal surface. The discovery at least robbed the
00:45:09situation of one aspect of terror. Brom, however he had obtained control of the swarm, was still only
00:45:16a man.
00:45:17Yes, still insane, answered Dodd bitterly. Insane enough to go on believing that the polyprotodontia
00:45:25and the desuridae, which includes the paramilidae, or bandicoots, and the banded anteaters, or
00:45:32myrmocobidae, are not to be found in fossil form, for the excellent reason that they were not
00:45:37represented before the Upper Cretaceous Period.
00:45:40You lie! You lie! screamed Brom.
00:45:44I have shown to all the world that Phascolotherium, Amphitherium, Amblotherium, Spellicotherium,
00:45:52and many other orders are to be found in the Upper Jurassic Rocks of England, Wyoming, and
00:45:58other places. You, you are a man who denied the existence of the Nototherium, of the Marsupial
00:46:05Lion, in Pleistocene deposits. You denied that the desuridae can be traced back beyond the
00:46:12Pleistocene, and you stand there and lie to me, when you are at my mercy.
00:46:18For God's sake, don't aggravate him, whispered Tommy to Dodd. Don't you see that he's insane?
00:46:24Humor him, or we'll be dead men. Think what the world will lose if you are never able to
00:46:29go back with your specimens, he added craftily. But Dodd, whose eyes were glaring, said a sublime
00:46:36thing. I have given my life to science, and I will never deny my master.
00:46:42With a screech, which, however, was evidently inaudible to the beetles, Brom leaped at Dodd
00:46:48and seized him by the throat. The two men fell to the ground, the ponderous beetle shell completely
00:46:53covering them. Underneath it, they could be seen to be struggling desperately, all the while the
00:46:58beetle horde remained perfectly motionless. Tommy thought afterward that in this fact lay their
00:47:04brightest chance of escape, if Brom's immediate vengeance did not fall on them. Either because
00:47:09Brom was not himself a beetle, or because in some other way the swarm instinct was not stirred,
00:47:15the monsters watched the struggle with complete indifference. At the moment, however, Tommy was
00:47:20only concerned with saving Dodd from the madman. He got his foot beneath the shell, then inserted his
00:47:26leg, using his whole body as a lever. He succeeded in turning Brom over on his back.
00:47:32Then, and only then, the swarm rushed in upon them. Then Tommy realized that he had touched
00:47:38one of the triggers that regulated the beetle's automatism. In another instant, Brom would have
00:47:44been torn to pieces. The needlebeaks were darting through the air. The hideous jaws were snapping.
00:47:49Brom's yells rang through the cavern. Dodging beneath the avalanche of the monsters, Tommy got Brom upon his
00:47:55feet again. The beetle stopped, every movement arrested. Brom's hand went to the pocket of his
00:48:00tattered coat. There came a snap, a flash. Brom had ignited an automatic cigarette lighter.
00:48:07Instantly, the monsters were scurrying away into the distance, and Tommy had another clue.
00:48:12The beetles, living in the dimness of the underworld, could not stand light or fire.
00:48:18He ran to where Jimmy was lying, face upward on the ground. His face was badly scarred by Brom's nails,
00:48:25and the blood was spurting from a long gash in his throat, made by the sharp flint that was lying
00:48:30beside him. He had some time before discarded his fur coat. Now he pulled off his coat, and,
00:48:36tearing off the tail of his shirt, he made a pad and a bandage, with which he attempted to staunch
00:48:41the
00:48:41blood and bind the wound. It must have taken ten minutes before the failing heart force enabled him
00:48:47to get the bleeding under control. Dodd had nearly bled to death. His face was drawn and waxen, but,
00:48:53because the pulsation was so feeble, the artery had ceased to spurt. Then only did Tommy take notice
00:49:00of Brom. He had been squatting near, and Tommy realized that he had unconsciously observed Brom put
00:49:06some sort of pellets into his mouth. Now he realized that Brom was a drug fiend. That was what had
00:49:13made him
00:49:13walk out of the Greystoke camp in the storm. Brom got up and came toward them.
00:49:18Is he dead? he whispered hoarsely. I—I lost my temper. You two. I don't intend to kill you.
00:49:29There—there's room for the three of us. I've got plans of the utmost importance to humanity.
00:49:36I don't think much of the way you've started to carry them out, answered Tommy bitterly.
00:49:41No, he's not dead yet, but I wouldn't give much for his chances, even in the best hospital.
00:49:47The best thing you can do now is to go to hell and take your beetles with you, he added.
00:49:52Brom, without replying, raised his head and emitted from his throat the shrillest whistle
00:49:58that Tommy had ever heard. The response was amazing. Rasping out of the darkness came eight
00:50:04beetles in pairs. Instead of leaping from an upright position, they trotted in the manner of horses.
00:50:09On all fours, their shells, which touched at the edges, forming a solid surface, gently rounded in
00:50:16the center, so that a man's body could lie there and fit snugly into the groove.
00:50:21Help me get him up, said Brom. Trust me. I'll do my best for him. If we leave him here,
00:50:28they may kill and eat him. I can't trust all those beetle gods.
00:50:32Tommy hesitated a moment, then decided to follow Brom's suggestion.
00:50:36Together they raised the unconscious man to the beetleshell couch. Brom seated himself upon the
00:50:42boss of one of the beetleshells in front, and Tommy jumped up behind. Next moment, to his amazement,
00:50:48the train steeds were flying smoothly through the air, at a rate that could not have been less than
00:50:53seventy-five to eighty miles an hour. Tommy's shell seat was not a bed of roses, but he hardly noticed
00:51:00that. He was thinking that if Dodd lived, they should be able to turn the tables. For, unknown
00:51:06to Brom, he was in possession of the cigarette lighter which he had picked up, and which Brom,
00:51:11in his agitation, had forgotten. It was full of petrol, or some other fluid of a similar nature,
00:51:17which Brom must have obtained from some natural source within the earth. And in an emergency,
00:51:23Tommy knew that he had the means of keeping the beetles at bay.
00:51:27They had traveled for perhaps an hour, when a faint light began to glow in the distance.
00:51:32It grew brighter, and a roaring sound became audible. A turn of the track that they were
00:51:37traveling, and the light became a glare. A terrific sight met Tommy's eyes. Out of the bowels of the
00:51:43earth, actually out of the crust beneath their feet, there shot a pillar of roaring flame,
00:51:49of intense white color, and radiating a heat that was perceptible even at a distance of several
00:51:54hundred yards. The beetle steeds dropped gently to the ground. They halted. Brom got down, grinning.
00:52:02Nicely trained horses, what? he asked. By the way, you have the advantage of me in names. Who and what
00:52:09are you? Tommy told him. Well, Travers, it looks as if we're going to be companions for some time to
00:52:16come,
00:52:17and I quite admit you saved my life back there. So we don't want to start with secrets. This is
00:52:23a
00:52:23natural petrol spring, which has probably been burning undiminished for ages. My trained beetles
00:52:29are blind. You didn't happen to notice I'd cut off their antennae. But the rest of the swarm
00:52:35daren't come near it. So that makes me their master. Pretty trick, what, Travers? I'm the lord of the flame
00:52:43down here, and I'm using my advantage. But don't get the idea of supplanting me. There are lots of
00:52:49tricks you don't know anything about, and I'll have to trust you better before. He broke off,
00:52:55and slipped another pellet into his mouth. Help me get Dodd down, if this is our destination,
00:53:01answered Tommy. They lifted Dodd to the ground. He was conscious now, moaning for water. The two men
00:53:08carried him into a sort of large cavern, at the farther end of which the fire was roaring.
00:53:13Bram went to a spring that trickled down one side, filled something that looked like a petrified
00:53:19lily calyx, and brought it to Dodd, who drained it. Tommy looked about him. He was astonished to see
00:53:25that the place was, in a way, furnished. Bram had carved out a very creditable couch, and several low
00:53:32chairs, evidently with a stone axe, for by the light of the fire, which cast a fair illumination even at
00:53:38that distance, Tommy could see the marks of the implement, rough and irregular, in the wood.
00:53:43On the ground were thick rugs, woven of hair, and two or three more rugs of the same material
00:53:49lay on the couch. It was evident that the human herd was expected to furnish textile materials,
00:53:55as well as meat.
00:53:57Sit down and make yourself comfortable, said Bram, when they had raised Dodd to the couch.
00:54:03We'll have dinner, and then we'll talk. I can give you a fine vegetarian meal. Those
00:54:09dirty, shrimp-eating savages look on me as a cannibal because I eat the fruits of the
00:54:13trees, he grinned.
00:54:15There's a bad shortage of food in Submundia, as I've named this part of the world, he went
00:54:21on. For until I came, the beetles simply devoured the humans wholesale, instead of breeding them,
00:54:28like I taught them, and there's another of the hundred and fifty-year swarms due to hatch
00:54:33out soon. However, we'll talk about that later. And all those fine fruits going to waste.
00:54:40Excuse me, Travers.
00:54:42He disappeared and returned in a minute or two with a small tumble, piled high with
00:54:47luscious fruits unknown to Tommy, though among them were some that looked like loaves of natural
00:54:52bread.
00:54:52Tommy, whose appetite never failed him, even in the worst circumstances, fell too with
00:54:58a will. He was enjoying his meal. He was enjoying his meal when he happened to look up and saw
00:55:03that the penumbra at the edge of the lighted zone was dense with beetles. Thousands, perhaps
00:55:09millions, for they stretched away as far as the eye could see, were packed together, their
00:55:15antennae waving in unison, their heads beneath the shells, directed toward the fire.
00:55:20Brom saw Tommy's look of disgust and laughed.
00:55:24The fire seems to intoxicate them, Travers, he said. They always throng the entrance when
00:55:30I'm here. It's as far as they dare go. They're quite blind in the least light. Care to smoke?
00:55:37I've learned the art of making some quite decent cigars.
00:55:41He produced a handful.
00:55:42Oh, by the way, you didn't see my lighter anywhere, did you? He went on, with a pretense
00:55:48of carelessness.
00:55:50No, lied Tommy. I was surprised you.
00:55:53Oh, there's a supply of petrol in the rocks. No matter, answered Brom, carelessly.
00:55:59Your friend looks bad, he added, glancing at Dodd, who had fallen asleep.
00:56:04Travers, I'm sorry I lost my temper.
00:56:07The... the shock of meeting men from the upper world, you know.
00:56:11Dodd opened his eyes and tried to whisper. Tommy bent over him and listened.
00:56:17He wants to know whether he can have that girl to take care of him, he said.
00:56:21What, the one I saw you with? Why, she's a cull, Travers.
00:56:26What do you mean? asked Tommy.
00:56:28Why, useless, you know. There's several of them running loose and waiting to be rounded up.
00:56:33We raise two breeds, one for replenishing the stalk and one for meat. She's just a cull,
00:56:39a reversion, no use for either purpose. I'll have a brat by all means.
00:56:45I... I like Dodd. I want to get him to like me, Brom went on, with a sort of penitence
00:56:51that had a
00:56:52pathetic touch. Our little differences, quite absurd, and I can prove he's wrong in his ideas.
00:56:59Make yourself comfortable as long as you're here, Travers, and don't mind me.
00:57:03Only, don't try to escape. The Beatles will get you if you do, and there's no way out of here,
00:57:11none that you'll find. And don't try to follow me. But you're a sensible man,
00:57:17and we'll all get along famously, I'm sure, as soon as Dodd recovers.
00:57:23Chapter 5. Doomed
00:57:25There were no means, known to Tommy, of reckoning time in that strange place of twilight. His watch
00:57:32had been broken in the airplane fall, and Dodd never remembered to wind his, but they estimated
00:57:38that about two weeks had passed, judging from the number of times they had slept and eaten.
00:57:43In those two weeks, they had gradually begun to grow accustomed to their surroundings.
00:57:47Hydea, the girl, had arrived on Beetleback within an hour after Brahm's departure,
00:57:53apparently into a cleft of the rocks. How he had communicated his order to the
00:57:57beetle steeds, Tommy had no idea. And under the girl's ministrations,
00:58:02Dodd was making good progress toward recovery. That Hydea was in love with Dodd in quite a human
00:58:08way was evident. To please the girl, both Dodd and Tommy had learned to eat raw shrimps,
00:58:13which, being bloodless, were really no worse than oysters, and had a flavor halfway between
00:58:18shrimp and crawfish. To please the men, Hydea tried not to shudder when she saw them devouring
00:58:24the breadfruit and nectarines of which Brahm always had a plentiful supply.
00:58:29Brahm was solicitous in his inquiries for Dodd's health.
00:58:33Jim, I've been thinking about our chances of getting away, said Tommy one morning. It's evident
00:58:38Brahm's only waiting for your recovery to put some proposition up to us.
00:58:42Suppose you were to feign paralysis.
00:58:45How do you mean? What for? demanded Dodd. If he thinks you're helpless, he'll be less on his guard.
00:58:52You haven't walked about in his presence. That was true, for the activities of the two
00:58:57had been nocturnal when Brahm had vanished. Let him think a nerve's been severed in your neck,
00:59:02or something of the sort. If it doesn't work, you can always get better.
00:59:07Dodd's realistic portrayal of a man with a partly paralyzed right side
00:59:11brought cries of horror from Brahm next morning. Solicitously, he helped Dodd back to the couch.
00:59:18Brahm, when not under the influence of his drug, had moments of human feeling.
00:59:23Can't you move that arm and leg at all, Dodd? he asked. No feeling in them?
00:59:29There's plenty of feeling, growled Dodd. But they don't seem to work, that's all.
00:59:35You'll get better, said Brahm eagerly. You must get better. I need you, Dodd, in spite of our
00:59:41differences. There's work for all of us. Wonderful work. A new humanity waiting to be born, Dodd.
00:59:48Not of the miserable ape race, but of... of... He checked himself, and a cunning look came over
00:59:55his face. He turned away, abruptly. At the end of two weeks or so, an amazing thing happened.
01:00:02One day, Hydea, with a look of triumph in her eyes, addressed Dodd with a few English words. Her brain,
01:00:09which had probably developed certain faculties in different proportions from those of the upper
01:00:13human race, had registered every word that either of the two men had ever spoken, and remembered it.
01:00:19As soon as Dodd ascertained this, he began to instruct her, and, with her abnormal faculties
01:00:24of memory, it was not long before she could talk quite intelligently. The obstacle that had stood
01:00:30between them was swept away. She became one of themselves. In the days that followed, the girl
01:00:36told them brokenly something of the history of her race, of the legend of the universal flood that had
01:00:42driven them down into the bowels of the earth, of the centuries-long struggle with the beetles,
01:00:47and of the insects' gradual conquest of humanity, and the final reduction of the human race to a
01:00:52miserable, helpless remnant. Everywhere, Hydea told them, were beetle swarms. Everywhere humanity had
01:01:00been reduced to a few handfuls. Brahm, by breeding mankind from prolific strains, and using the newborn
01:01:07progeny for food, had temporarily averted universal starvation. But a new swarm of beetles was due to
01:01:14hatch out shortly, and then— The girl, with a shudder, put her hand to her bosom, and brought out a
01:01:21little, bright-eyed lizard. The old man you saw with me, who is one of your wise elders, has told
01:01:28our people that these things feed upon the beetle larvae, she said. We are putting them secretly into the
01:01:34nests. But what can a few lizards do against millions? She looked up. In the earth above us,
01:01:41the beetle larvae extend for miles, in a solid mass, she said. When they come out as beetles,
01:01:48it will be the end of all of us. Brahm had grown less suspicious as the time passed. His sudden
01:01:55visits
01:01:55to the cavern had ceased. Dodd and Tommy knew that he spent the nights, if they could be termed nights,
01:02:01lying in a drugged slumber somewhere among the rocks. They had asked Hydea whether there was any way of
01:02:07escape into the upper world. "'There are two ways from here,' answered the girl. "'One is the way you came.
01:02:15But it is impossible to pass the beetle guards without being torn to pieces. The other—'
01:02:21She shuddered, and for an instant drew back the film from across her pupils, then uttered a little cry
01:02:27of pain at the light, dim though it was. "'There is a bridge across that terrible monster that devours all
01:02:34it
01:02:34touches,' she said, shuddering, meaning the fire. Suddenly, Dodd had an inspiration. He still had the
01:02:42fur coat that he had worn, and reaching into a pocket, he drew out a pair of snow goggles, which
01:02:47he adjusted over Hydea's nose. "'No look,' he said." Hydea looked, blinked, and, with an effort, kept her eyes
01:02:56open. She gazed at Dodd in amazement. Dodd laughed and pulled her toward him. He kissed her, and Hydea's
01:03:04eyes closed. "'What is this?' she murmured. "'First you give me medicine that opens my eyes, and then you
01:03:12give me medicine that closes them.' "'That's nothing,' grinned Dodd. "'Wait till you understand me better.'
01:03:19Brom's eyes were preternaturally bright. It was evident that he had been increasing his dose of
01:03:25late, and that he was fully under the influence of it now. "'Well, gentlemen, the time has come for us
01:03:32to be
01:03:33frank with one another,' he said, as the three were gathered about the little table, while Hydea
01:03:38crouched in a far corner of the cave. "'I want you to work for me in my plans for the
01:03:44regeneration of
01:03:45humanity. The time for which I have long laboured is almost at hand. Any day now the new swarm of
01:03:52beetles may emerge from the pupil stage. But before I speak further, come and see them, gentlemen.'
01:04:01He rose, and Dodd and Tommy rose too, Tommy supporting Dodd, who let his arm and leg trail
01:04:07awkwardly as he moved. Brom led the way into the cleft, among the rocks into which he had been in
01:04:13the
01:04:13habit of passing. Beyond this opening, the two men saw another smaller cavern, with a beetle guard
01:04:19standing on either side, antenna waving. Brom shrilled a sound, and the antenna dropped. The three passed
01:04:26through. Tommy saw a hair-cloth pallet set against the rocks, a table, and a chair. Beyond was a sloping
01:04:33ramp of earth. Overhead was a rock ceiling. Brom led the way up the ramp, and the three stepped
01:04:39through a gap in the rocks and found themselves on an extensive prairie. But in place of the red grass,
01:04:45there was a vast sea of mud. By the light cast by the petrol fire, which roared up in the
01:04:51distance,
01:04:51a veritable, fiery fountain, the two Americans could see that the mud was filled with huge,
01:04:57insisted forms, grubs three or four feet long, motionless in the soil. Brom scooped up one of
01:05:04them and tossed it into the air. It thudded to their feet and remained motionless.
01:05:09As far as you can see, and for miles beyond, these pupae of the beetles lie buried in the decaying
01:05:17vegetation in which the eggs were hatched, said Brom. Every century and a half, so far as I have been
01:05:24able to judge from comparative anatomy, a fresh swarm emerges, see? He pointed to the pupae he had
01:05:31unearthed, which, as if stirred into activity by his handling, was now beginning to move. Or rather,
01:05:38something was moving inside the cocoon. The shell broke, and the hideous head and folded antenna of
01:05:44a beetle appeared. With a convulsive writhing, the monster threw off the covering and stepped out.
01:05:50It extended its wings, glistening with moisture from the still soft and pliant carapace, or shell,
01:05:57and suddenly zoomed off into the distance. Tommy shuddered as the boom of its flight grew softer
01:06:03and subsided. Any day now, the entire swarm will emerge, cried Brom. How many moltings they undergo,
01:06:12before they undergo the finished state, I do not know. But already, as you see, they are prepared for
01:06:18the battle of life. They emerge ravenous. That beetle will fall upon the manherds and devour a
01:06:25full-grown man, unless the guards destroy it. He raised his arms with the gesture of an ancient prophet.
01:06:31Woe to the human race, he cried, the wretched ape-spawn that has cast out its teachers and
01:06:39persecuted those who sought to raise it to higher things. Tommy knew that Brom was referring to
01:06:46himself. Brom turned fiercely upon Dodd. When I joined the Greystoke expedition, he cried,
01:06:53it was with the express intention of refuting your miserable theories as to fossil monotremes.
01:06:59I could not sleep or eat, so deeply was I affronted by them, for if they were true.
01:07:05The Desiuridae are an innovation in the great scheme of nature, and man, instead of being a mere
01:07:12afterthought, a jest of the creative force, came to earth with a purpose. That I deny, he yelled.
01:07:20Man is a joke. Nature made him when she was tired, as the architect of a cathedral fashions a gargoyle
01:07:28in a sportive moment. It is the insect, not man, who is the predestined lord of the ages.
01:07:36And for once in his life, perhaps because at this point Tommy dug him violently in the ribs,
01:07:41Dodd had the sense to remain silent. Brom led the way swiftly back into the larger cave.
01:07:47When this swarm hatches out, he said, I calculate that there will be a trillion beetles seeking food.
01:07:55There is no food for a tithe of them here underneath the earth. What then? Do you realize their stupendous
01:08:02power, their invincibility? No, you don't realize it, because your minds, through long habit, are only
01:08:09attuned to think in terms of man. All man's long history of slaughter of the so-called lower creatures
01:08:17obsesses you, blinds your understanding. A beetle? Something to be trodden underfoot, crushed in sport.
01:08:25But I tell you, gentlemen, that nature, God, if you will, has designed to supplant the man-ape
01:08:32by the beetle. He has resolved to throw down the wretched so-called intelligence of your kind and
01:08:38mind, and supplant it by the divine instinct of the beetle, an instinct that is infinitely superior,
01:08:45because it arrives at results instantaneously. It knows where man infers. Attuned closely to nature,
01:08:53it alone is able to fulfill the divine plan of creation.
01:08:59Then, Brahm was certainly under the influence of his drug. Nevertheless, so violent were his
01:09:05gestures, so inspired was his utterance, that Tommy and Dodd listened almost in awe.
01:09:10They are invincible, Brahm went on. Their fecundity is such that when the new swarm is hatched out,
01:09:18their numbers alone will make them irresistible. They do not know fear. They shrink from nothing,
01:09:25and they will follow me, their leader. I, who know the means of controlling them.
01:09:31How, then, can puny man hope to stand against them?
01:09:35Join me, gentlemen, Brahm went on, and beware how you decide rashly, for this is the supreme moment,
01:09:43not only of your own lives, but for all humanity and beetledom. Upon your decision hangs the future
01:09:50of the world. For, irresistible as the beetles are, there is one thing they lack, that is the sense of
01:09:57historic continuity. If you destroy man, they will know nothing of man's achievements, poor though
01:10:04these are. My own work on the fossil monotremes.
01:10:08Which is a tissue of inaccuracies and half-baked deductions, shouted Dodd.
01:10:14Brahm started as if a whip had lashed him. Liar, he bawled. Do you think that I, who left the
01:10:21Greystoke expedition in a howling blizzard because I knew that here, in the inner earth, I could refute
01:10:27your miserable impostures, do you think that I am in the mood to listen to your wretched
01:10:32Farago of impossibilities? Listen to me, bawled Dodd, advancing with waving arms. Once for all,
01:10:40let me tell you that your deductions are all based upon fallacious premises.
01:10:44No, I will not shut up, Tom Travers. You want me to aid your damned beetles in the destruction of
01:10:50humanity? I tell you that your Fasculotherium, Amphithereum, and all the rest of them, including
01:10:57the marsupial lion, are degenerate developments of the age following the Pleistocene. I say the whole
01:11:03insect world was made to fertilize the plant world, so that it should bear fruit for human food.
01:11:09Man is the summit of the scale of evolution, and I will never join in any infamous scheme
01:11:15for his destruction.
01:11:17Braum glared at Dodd like a madman. Three times he opened his mouth to speak, but only
01:11:22inarticulate sounds came from his throat. And when at last he did speak, he said something
01:11:27that neither Dodd nor Tommy had anticipated.
01:11:30It looks as if you're not so paralyzed as you made out, he sneered. You'll change your mind
01:11:38within what used to be called a day, Dodd. You'll crawl to my feet and beg for pardon,
01:11:45and you'll recant your lying theories about the Fasculmonotremes, or you die, the pair of
01:11:51you. You'll die.
01:11:55Chapter 6. Escape
01:11:58I heard what he said. You shall not die. We shall go away to your place, where there are
01:12:04no beetles to eat us, even if—
01:12:07Hydea shuddered.
01:12:08Even if we have to cross the bridge of fire, beyond which, they tell me, lies freedom.
01:12:14High over, and a little to one side of the petrol flame, Dodd and Tommy had seen the slender
01:12:20arch of rock leading into another cleft in the rocks. They had investigated it several
01:12:26times, but always the fierce heat had driven them back. Both Dodd and Tommy had noticed,
01:12:31however, that at times the fire seemed to shrink in volume and intensity. Observation had shown
01:12:37them that these times were periodical, recurring about every twelve hours.
01:12:41I think I've got the clue, Tommy, said Dodd, as the three watched the fiery fountain and
01:12:47speculated on the possibility of escape. That flow of petrol is controlled, like the tides
01:12:53on Earth, by the pull of the moon. Just now it is at its height. I've noticed that it loses
01:12:58pretty much half its volume at its alternating phase. If I'm right, we'll make the attempt
01:13:02in about twelve hours.
01:13:04Brahm's given us twenty-four, said Tommy.
01:13:06But how about getting Hydea across?
01:13:09I go where you go, said Hydea, sidling up to Dodd and looking down upon him lovingly.
01:13:15I do not afraid of the fire. If it burn me up, I go to the good place.
01:13:21Where's that, Hydea? asked Dodd.
01:13:24When we die, we go to a place where it is always dark, and there are no beetles, and the
01:13:29ground
01:13:30is full of shrimps. We leave our bodies behind, like the beetles, and fly about, happy forever.
01:13:36Not a bad sort of place, said Dodd, squeezing Hydea's arm. If you think you're ready to try
01:13:42to cross the bridge, we'll start as soon as the fire gets lower.
01:13:46I'll be on the job, answered Hydea, unconsciously reproducing a phrase of Tommy's.
01:13:52The girl glided away and disappeared through the thick of the beetle crowd clustered about
01:13:57the entrance to the cavern. Tommy and Dodd had already discovered that it was through her
01:14:01ability to reproduce a certain beetle sound, meaning not good to eat, that the girl could
01:14:08come and go. They had once tried it on their own account, and had narrowly escaped the
01:14:13lashing tentacles. After that there was nothing to do but wait. Three or four hours must have
01:14:19passed when Brom returned from his inner cave.
01:14:22Well, Dodd, have you experienced a change of heart? he sneered. If you knew what's in store
01:14:30for you, maybe you'd come to the conclusion that you've been too cocksure about the monotremes.
01:14:35We're slaughtering in the morning.
01:14:38That's so, asked Dodd.
01:14:41That's so, shouted Brom. The beetles are beginning to emerge from the pupae, and they'll need food
01:14:47if they're to be kept quiet. We're rounding up about three score of the culls. Your friend
01:14:53Hydea will be among them. We've got some caged itchnemon flies, pretty little things only a foot
01:15:00long, which will sting them in certain nerve centers, rendering them powerless to move.
01:15:06Then we shall bury them, standing up, in the vegetable mold, for the beetles to devour alive,
01:15:13as soon as they come out of the shells. You'll feel pretty, Dodd, standing there unable to move,
01:15:20with the newborn beetles biting chunks out of you.
01:15:24Tommy shuddered, despite his hopes of their escaping. Brom, for a scientist,
01:15:29had a grim and picturesque imagination.
01:15:33Dodd, there is no personal quarrel between us, Brom went on. Again, that note of pathetic
01:15:41pleading came into his voice. Give up your mad ideas. Admit that the banded anteater at least
01:15:49existed before the Pleistocene epic, and everything can be settled. When you see what my beetles are
01:15:56going to do to humanity, you'll be proud to join us. Only make a beginning. You remember the point I
01:16:04made in my paper about spellicotherium in the upper Jurassic rocks? It would convince anybody but a
01:16:11hardened fanatic. I read your paper, and I saw your so-called spellicotherium reconstructed from what
01:16:19you called a jawbone, shouted Dodd. That so-called jawbone was a lump of chalk made porous by water,
01:16:27and the rest was in your imagination. Do your worst, Brom. I'll never crucify truth to save my
01:16:35life, and I'll laugh at your spellicotherium when your beetles are eating me. Brom yelled and shrieked.
01:16:43He stamped up and down the cavern, shaking his fists at Dodd. At last, with a final torrent of
01:16:48objurgation, he disappeared. A pleasant customer, said Tommy. We'll have to make that bridge,
01:16:55Jim. No question about it, even if it means death in the petrol fire.
01:16:59Fire's dying down fast, answered Dodd. Heidi ought to be here soon, if Brom hasn't got her.
01:17:08Brom got that girl. If Brom harms a hair on her head, I'll kill him with worse tortures than he's
01:17:15ever dreamed of, answered Dodd, leaping up, white with rage. You mean you, Tommy began, love her?
01:17:22Yes, I love her, shouted Dodd. She's a girl in a million. Just the sort of helpmate I need to
01:17:28assist me in my work when we get back. I tell you, Tommy, I didn't know what love meant before
01:17:33I saw
01:17:34hide you. I laughed at it as a romantic notion. All lyric love, half angel and half bird, he quoted,
01:17:42beginning to stride up and down the cavern, while Tommy watched him in amazement. And at this moment,
01:17:47a complete beetle entered the cave. Complete because it had a plastron, or breast shell,
01:17:52as well as a back shell, or carapace. A double breast shell. A new species of beetle? An
01:18:01executioner beetle, sent by Brom to summon them to the torture? Tommy shuddered, but Dodd,
01:18:07lost in his love ecstasy, was ignorant of the creature's advent. All lyric love, he shouted again,
01:18:13as he twirled on his heel, to run smack into the monster. The crack of Dodd's head against the
01:18:19beetle shell re-echoed through the cave. The double plastron dropped, the carapace fell down.
01:18:25Hydea stood revealed. The lovers, folded in each other's arms, passed momentarily into a trance.
01:18:32It was Tommy who separated them. We'll have to make a move, he said. I think the fire's as low
01:18:38as it
01:18:38ever gets. Why did you bring the shells, Hydea? To save us all from the beetles, answered the girl.
01:18:44When they see us in the shells, they will not know we are human. That is what makes it so
01:18:49hard to have
01:18:50to be eaten by those beetles, when they are such dumb bells, she added, reproducing another of Tommy's
01:18:56words. Come, she continued bravely. Let us see if we can pass the fire. The roaring fountain made the
01:19:04air a veritable inferno. Overhead the rocks were red-hot. A cascade of sparks tumbled in a fiery
01:19:10shower from the rock roof. Dodd, holding Hydea in his arms to protect her, staggered ahead, with Tommy
01:19:16in the rear. Only the beetle shells, which acted as non-conductors of the heat, made the fiery passage
01:19:23possible. There was one moment when it seemed to Tommy as if he must let go and drop into that
01:19:29raging
01:19:29furnace underneath. He heard Dodd bawling hoarsely in front of him. He nerved himself to a last effort,
01:19:36beating fiercely at his blazing hair, and then the heat was past, and he had dropped unconscious upon
01:19:41a bed of cool earth beside a rushing river. He was vaguely aware of being carried in Dodd's arms,
01:19:48but a long time seemed to have passed before he grew conscious again. He opened his eyes in utter
01:19:53darkness. Dodd was whispering in his ear. Tommy, old man, how are you feeling now? Dodd asked.
01:20:01All right, Tommy muttered. How's Hydea? Still unconscious, poor girl. We've got to get out of
01:20:09here. I heard Brom yelling in the distance. He's discovered our flight. There may be another way
01:20:14out of the cave, and if so, he'll stop at nothing to get us. See if you can stand. But
01:20:19keep your head
01:20:20low. There's a low roof of rock above us. There's water, said Tommy, listening to the roar of a
01:20:26torrent that seemed to be rushing past them. It's a stream, and I believe these shells will float and
01:20:31bear our weight. We've got to try. We've got to put everything into the touch now, Tommy. I'm going to
01:20:36lay Hydea on one of the shells, poor girl, and start her off. Then I'll follow, and you can bring
01:20:41up
01:20:41the rear. I'm with you, said Tommy, getting up on his feet, and uttering an exclamation of pain as,
01:20:47forgetful of Dodd's injunction, he let his head strike the rock roof overhead. In the darkness,
01:20:53he felt the outlines of his beetle shell lying beside the torrent. He could hear Dodd in front of
01:20:58him, grunting as he raised Hydea's unconscious form in his arms and deposited her in her shell.
01:21:03Tommy got his own shell into the stream and held it there as the waters swirled around it.
01:21:08Ready? He heard Dodd call. Before he could answer, there sounded from not far away, yet strangely
01:21:13muffled by the rocks, Brom's bellow of fury. Brom was evidently fully drugged and beside himself.
01:21:20Inarticulate threats came floating through the rocky chamber.
01:21:24Brom seems to have lost his head temporarily, called Dodd, laughing. A madman, Tommy. He insists
01:21:31that the marsupial lion... Yes, I heard you telling him about it, answered Tommy. You handed it to him
01:21:37straight. However, more about the marsupial lion later. I'm ready. Then let her go, called Dodd.
01:21:43And his words were swallowed up by the sound of the hollow shell striking against the rocky bank as
01:21:47he launched his strange craft into the water. Tommy set one foot into the hollow of his shell
01:21:52and let himself go. Instantly, the shell shot forward with fearful velocity. It was all Tommy
01:21:57could do to balance himself, for it seemed more unstable than a canoe. Once or twice, he thought
01:22:03he heard Dodd shouting ahead of him, but his cries were drowned out in the rush of the torrent.
01:22:08Suddenly, a light appeared in the distance. Tommy thought it was another of the petroleum fountains,
01:22:12and his heart seemed to stand still. But then he gave a gasp of relief. It was a cluster of
01:22:17luminous
01:22:18fungi, 10 or 12 feet tall, emitting a glow equal to a dozen 40-watt electric bulbs. By that infernal
01:22:25light, Tommy could see that the stream curved sharply. It was about 50 feet in width, and the low rock
01:22:31roof had receded to some 15 feet overhead. Instead of a tunnel, there was nothing on either side of
01:22:37them, but a vast tract of marshy ground, thinly coated with the red grass. As Tommy looked, he saw
01:22:44the shell that carried the unconscious body of Hydea strike the bank beside the phosphorescent
01:22:48growth. He could see the girl lying in the hollow of the shell. As pale as death, her eyes closed.
01:22:54Dodd was close behind. As the swirl of the current caught his shell, he turned to shout a warning to
01:22:59Tommy. And Tommy noticed a singular thing, of which his sense of balance had already warned him,
01:23:04though he had hardly given conscious thought to the matter. The river was running uphill.
01:23:11Of course it was, since the center of gravity was in the shell of the earth, and not in the
01:23:16center.
01:23:17But again, the shell of the earth was under their feet. Then Tommy hit on the solution to the problem.
01:23:24If the river was running uphill, that meant they must be near the exterior of the earth.
01:23:29In other words, they had passed the center of gravity. They must be within a mile or so of the
01:23:35exit from Submundia. Tommy was about to shout his discovery to Dodd when his shell grounded beside two
01:23:41of the others at the base of the clump of fungi. Huge, straight, hollow stems they were, with mushroom
01:23:47caps, and, like all fungi, fly brown, for Tommy could see worms nearly a foot in length crawling in and
01:23:55out
01:23:55of the porous stalks. The stench from the growth was nauseating and overpowering. Utterly sickening.
01:24:03Push off and let's get out of here, Tommy called to Dodd, who was balancing his shell against the bank
01:24:08and trying to peer into Heidi's face. At that moment, he caught sight of something that made his blood
01:24:13turn cold. It was an insect, fully fifteen feet in height, three times that of a beetle, lurking among
01:24:21the fungi. He saw a hugely elongated neck, a three-cornered head with a pair of tentacles,
01:24:28and two pairs of legs as long as a giraffe's. But what gave the added touch of horror was that
01:24:34the
01:24:34monster, balancing on its hind legs, had its forelegs extended in the attitude of one holding a prayer
01:24:41book. That attitude of devotion was so terrible that Tommy uttered a wild cry of terror. At the same time,
01:24:48another cry broke from Dodd's lips. God, a praying mantas, he shouted, struggling madly to push off his
01:24:56shell and hide his. The next moment, as if shot from a catapult, the hideous monster launched itself
01:25:02into the air straight toward them. To be concluded. Thank you for listening. I'm number one Marmaduke
01:25:11fan. If you like classic pulp fantasy and sci-fi, subscribe, like this video, and comment to let me
01:25:18know what other stories you'd like to see turned into audiobooks. I love you guys, and I'll catch you
01:25:23later. Out of the south, the biplane came...
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