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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Devil Crystals of Arret, by Hal K. Wells
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Devil Crystals of Arret
+
+Author: Hal K. Wells
+
+Release Date: April 28, 2009 [EBook #28628]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVIL CRYSTALS OF ARRET ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Barbara Tozier and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+    This etext was produced from Astounding Stories September 1931.
+    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+    copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The tip sprayed a web around his body.]
+
+
+
+
+Devil Crystals of Arret
+
+_By Hal K. Wells_
+
+    Facing a six-hour deadline of death, young Larry raids a
+    hostile world of rat-men and tinkling Devil Crystals.
+
+
+Benjamin Marlowe and his young assistant, Larry Powell, opened the
+door of the Marlowe laboratory, then stopped aghast at the sight
+which greeted their startled eyes.
+
+There on the central floor-plate directly in the focus of the big
+atomic projector stood the slender figure of Joan Marlowe, old
+Benjamin Marlowe's niece and Larry Powell's fiancee.
+
+The girl had apparently only been awaiting their return to the
+laboratory for around her gray laboratory smock was already fastened
+one of their Silver Belts, and a cord was already in place running
+from her wrist to the main switch of the projection mechanism.
+
+Joan's clear blue eyes sparkled with the thrill of high adventure as
+she swiftly raised a slender hand in a gesture of warning to the two
+men.
+
+"Don't try to stop me," she warned quietly. "I can jerk the switch
+and be in Arret, before you've taken two steps. I'm going to Arret,
+anyway. I was only waiting for you to return to the laboratory so
+I'd be sure of having you here to bring me back to Earth again
+before I have time to get into any serious trouble over there."
+
+"But, Joan," Benjamin Marlowe protested, "this is sheer madness! No
+one can possibly guess what terrible conditions you may confront in
+Arret. We've never dared to send a human being across the atomic
+barrier yet!"
+
+"We've sent all kinds of animals across, though," Joan retorted
+calmly, "and as long as we recalled them within the twelve-hour
+limit they always came back alive and unhurt. There's no reason why
+a human being should not be able to make the round trip just as
+safely. Ever since our Silver Belts first came back with the weird
+plant and mineral fragments which proved that there really is such a
+place as Arret, I've been wild to see with my own eyes the
+incredible things that must exist there."
+
+Joan waved her hand in gay farewell. "Good-by, Uncle Ben and Larry!
+I know that you'll drag me back just as quickly as you can possibly
+dash over to the recall switch, but I'll at least have had a few
+precious seconds of sightseeing as Earth's first human visitor to
+Arret!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Larry Powell was already sprinting for the mechanism as Joan jerked
+the cord that ran to the switch, but he was barely half-way across
+the intervening space when the big atomic projector flared forth in
+a brilliant gush of roseate flame.
+
+For a fraction of a second Joan's slender figure was outlined in the
+very heart of the ruddy glow, then vanished completely. There was
+left only a short length of the switch cord to indicate that the
+girl had ever stood there.
+
+Powell reached the mechanism and shut off the projector's flame,
+then turned swiftly to the control-panel of the recall mechanism. As
+he closed the switch on this panel, three banks of tubes set in
+triangular form around the floor-plate upon which Joan had stood
+glowed a brilliant and blinding green.
+
+Shielding his eyes from the glare with an upraised forearm, Powell
+began stepping a rheostat up to more and more power. In his anxiety,
+he increased the power far too quickly. There was a sudden gush of
+blue-white flame from the heart of the mechanism, together with the
+hissing crackle of fusing metal. The green light in the tubes
+promptly died.
+
+Benjamin Marlowe was bending over the apparatus almost instantly. A
+moment later he raised a face that had suddenly gone white. There
+was terror in his eyes as he turned to his assistant.
+
+"The entire second series of coils is burned out, Larry!" he gasped
+in consternation. "Joan is marooned over there in Arret--marooned in
+that grim unknown land as completely beyond our reach as though she
+were upon one of the moons of Mars!"
+
+For a long moment the two men gazed at each other with
+horror-stricken faces, dazed and shaken. Then they quickly drew
+themselves together again and set about the herculean task of making
+the necessary repairs to the damaged mechanism in time to rescue
+Joan before the twelve-hour limit should doom the girl to forever
+remain an exile in that land of alien mystery beyond the atomic
+barrier.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Their previous experiments with animals had proved that no living
+creature from Earth could be brought back after it had been in Arret
+over twelve hours. After that time the change in the atoms
+constituting living tissues apparently became permanently Arretian,
+for the Silver Belts returned without any trace of their original
+wearers.
+
+The necessary repairs to the damaged coils were of such an exacting
+and intricate nature that any great speed was impossible. Hours
+passed while the two men bent to their work with grim concentration.
+Neither of them dared think too much of what nameless dangers might
+be confronting Joan during those weary hours. Their actual knowledge
+of Arret was so pitiably slight.
+
+Some months ago, while they were experimenting upon apparatus for
+reversing the electrical charges of an atom's electrons and protons,
+they had first stumbled upon the incredible fact that such a place
+as Arret really existed. They found that it was another world
+occupying the same position in space as Earth, with the fundamental
+difference in the two interwoven planes of existence lying in the
+electrical make-up of the atoms that constituted matter in each
+plane.
+
+On Earth all atoms are composed of small heavy protons that are
+always positive in charge, and larger lighter electrons that are
+always negative. In Arret the protons were negative, and the
+electrons positive. The result was two worlds occupying the same
+space at the same time, yet with matter so essentially and
+completely different that each world was intangible to the other.
+They had named the unseen world Arret, the reverse of Terra.
+
+Finding it impossible to work directly upon most forms of matter,
+the experimenters had finally evolved a silver alloy that served as
+a medium both for sending objects into Arret and then bringing
+them back to Earth. By focussing the flame of the projection
+apparatus upon a Silver Belt of this alloy, the electrical charges
+of the Belt's atoms were reversed, automatically causing the Belt to
+vanish from Earth and materialize in Arret. At the same time the
+atoms of any object within the Belt's immediate radius were
+similarly transformed, and that object was taken into Arret with the
+Belt.
+
+The recall mechanism functioned by broadcasting a power wave that
+again reversed the atomic charge of the Belt and its contained
+object back to that of Earth. At the same time the recall wave
+exerted an attractive force that drew the atoms back to a central
+point in the laboratory, where they were re-materialized upon the
+same floor-plate from which they had originally been sent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The twelve-hour time limit was half up when Benjamin Marlowe and
+Larry Powell finally straightened up wearily from their work over
+the recall mechanism, their repairs completed. It had been one
+o'clock in the afternoon when Joan Marlowe vanished from Earth in
+the roseate flare of the projector. It was now nearly seven o'clock.
+
+With nerves tense from anxiety, the two men crossed over to the
+control-panel of the recall apparatus. This time they donned goggles
+of dark glass to shield their eyes from the blinding green glare.
+Marlowe threw the main switch, and the banked tubes came to life in
+a flood of vivid emerald light.
+
+Marlowe began stepping the rheostat up gradually to more power,
+advancing it with cautious slowness to avoid any chance of a
+repetition of the previous accident. The green radiance streaming
+from the tubes in every direction began to throb with an electric
+force that the two men could feel pulsing through their own bodies.
+
+There was a click as the rheostat struck the last notch. The green
+radiance was now a searing flame that half-blinded them even through
+the thick dark glass of their protective goggles, while the vibrant
+force of the green rays was sweeping through their bodies with a
+tingling shock that nearly took their breath away.
+
+Tensely the two men stared at the metal floor-plate in the center of
+the area bounded by the flaming green tubes. Just over the plate the
+green radiance seemed to be thickening and swirling oddly. The
+swirling eddy became a small dense cloud of darker green light. Then
+abruptly, like the fade-in on a moving picture screen, from the
+cloud over the plate the misty outlines of an object swiftly cleared
+and solidified into a bizarre something at whose unfamiliar aspect
+both Marlowe and Powell gasped in amazement.
+
+Marlowe snapped the switch off, and the green radiance vanished.
+Stripping the dark goggles from their eyes, the two men hurried over
+for a closer view of the thing that rested quiescent and apparently
+lifeless there on the metal floor-plate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was shaped like a huge egg, a little over a yard long, and was
+apparently composed of a solid lump of some unknown crystalline
+substance that closely resembled very clear, pale amber. Embedded in
+the heart of the strange egg were clearly visible objects which
+caused Marlowe and Powell to gasp in mingled horror and amazement.
+
+Chief among the things imprisoned in that amber shroud was the
+Silver Belt that Joan had worn, but the Belt was now looped over the
+bony shoulder of a skeleton that by no possible stretch of the
+imagination could ever have been that of a creature of this Earth.
+
+The skeleton was still perfectly articulated, and gleamed through
+the crystalline amber as though its bony surfaces were encrusted
+with diamond dust. The bones were apparently those of a creature
+that in life had been half dwarf-ape and half giant rat.
+
+The beast had stood a little under a yard in height. The legs were
+short, powerful, and bowed. The long arms ended in claw-like
+travesties of hands. The skull was relatively small, with a sharply
+sloping forehead and projecting squirrel-like teeth that were
+markedly rodent.
+
+Around the skeleton's neck there was a wide band of some strange
+gray metal, with its smooth outer surface roughly scratched in
+characters that resembled primitive hieroglyphics.
+
+Marlowe's face was white with grief as he turned to Powell. "Joan
+must be dead, Larry," he said sadly. "Otherwise, she would surely
+never have allowed her Silver Belt to pass into the possession
+of--this! She knew that the Belt represented her only hope of ever
+being brought back to this world."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a moment Powell stared intently into the heart of the
+crystalline egg without answering. Then suddenly he straightened up
+with marked excitement upon his face.
+
+"There's a small sheet of paper entwined in the coils of that Belt!"
+he exclaimed. "It may be a message from Joan!"
+
+Swiftly the two men lifted the amber egg up to the top of a
+workbench. Powell took a small hammer to test the hardness of the
+strange translucent substance.
+
+He struck it a sharp rap, then recoiled in surprise at the effect of
+his blow, for the entire egg instantly shattered with a tinkling
+crash like the bursting of a huge glass bubble. So complete was the
+disintegration of the egg and the skeleton within it that all that
+remained of either was a heap of diamond and amber dust. The only
+things left intact were the Silver Belt and the metal collar.
+
+Powell snatched up the Belt and extracted the small piece of paper
+that had been firmly tucked into its coils. Hurriedly written in
+pencil upon the paper was a message in a handwriting familiar to
+both Powell and Marlowe:
+
+    Help! I am held prisoner in the Cave of Blue Flames!
+                                                 --Joan.
+
+"Larry, Joan must still be alive over there in Arret!" There was new
+hope in Benjamin Marlowe's voice.
+
+"Yes, alive and held captive by whatever monstrosities may inhabit
+that unknown plane," Powell agreed grimly. "There's only one way in
+which we can possibly rescue her now. That is for you to send me
+into Arret with a reserve Belt for Joan. I'll be ready to start as
+soon as I get a couple of automatic pistols that I have up in my
+room. It's a sure thing that I'll need them over there in Arret."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Five minutes later Powell stood ready and waiting upon the
+floor-plate in the focus of the big atomic projector, with the
+central lens of the apparatus levelled down upon him like a huge
+searchlight. Around Powell's waist were strapped two Silver Belts,
+and a cartridge belt with a holstered .45-calibre automatic on
+either side. His wrist-watch was synchronized to the second with
+Benjamin Marlowe's watch.
+
+"Joan's twelve-hour time limit in Arret will expire at one o'clock
+tomorrow morning." Powell reminded Marlowe. "That gives me nearly
+six hours in which to find her and equip her with a Silver Belt. You
+will broadcast the recall wave at exactly one o'clock. If I haven't
+succeeded in finding Joan by then, I'll discard my own Belt and stay
+on over there in Arret with her.... I'm ready to start now, whenever
+you are."
+
+Benjamin Marlowe raised his hand to the switch in the projector's
+control panel. "Good-by, Larry,"--the old man's voice shook a trifle
+in spite of himself--"and may God be with you!" He closed the
+switch.
+
+A great burst of roseate flame leaped toward Powell from the
+projector. The laboratory was instantly blotted out in a swirling
+chaos of ruddy radiance that swept him up and away like a chip upon
+a tidal wave. There was a long moment during which he seemed to
+hurtle helplessly through a universe of swirling tinted mists, while
+great electric waves tingled with exquisite poignancy through every
+atom of his body.
+
+Then the mists suddenly cleared like the tearing away of a mighty
+curtain, and with startling abruptness Powell found himself again in
+a solid world of material things. For a moment as he gazed dazedly
+about him he thought that the roseate glow of the projector must
+still be playing tricks with his eyesight, for the landscape around
+him was completely and incredibly red!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He soon realized that the monochrome of scarlet was a natural aspect
+of things in Arret. The weird vegetation all around him was of a
+uniform glossy red. The sandy soil under his feet was dull
+brick-red. High in the reddish-saffron sky overhead there blazed a
+lurid orb of blood-red hue, the intense heat of its ruddy radiance
+giving the still dry air a nearly tropical temperature. From this
+orb's position in the sky and its size, Powell was forced to
+conclude that it must be the Arretian equivalent of Earth's moon.
+
+For a moment he stood motionless as he peered cautiously around him,
+trying to decide what should be his first step in this scarlet world
+that was so utterly alien in every way to his own. On every side the
+landscape stretched monotonously away from him in low rolling dunes
+like the frozen ground swell of a crimson sea--dunes covered with
+vegetation of a kind never seen upon Earth.
+
+Not a leaf existed in all that weird flora. Instead of leaves or
+twigs the constituent units of bushes and grasses consisted of
+globules, glossy spheres of scarlet that ranged in size from
+pinheads to the bulk of large pumpkins. The branches of the
+vegetation were formed from strings of the globules set edge to edge
+and tapering in size like graduated beads strung upon wire,
+dwindling in bulk until the tips of the branches were as fragile as
+the fronds of maidenhair fern. The bulk of the shrubbery was
+head-high, and so dense that Powell could see for only a couple of
+yards into the thicket in any direction.
+
+The stillness around Powell was complete. Not even a globular twig
+stirred in the hot dry air. Powell decided to head for the crest of
+one of the low dunes some fifty feet away. From its top he might be
+able to sight something that would give a clue to the location of
+the "Cave of Blue Flames" of which Joan had written.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He arrived at the foot of the dune's slope without incident. But
+there he came to an abrupt halt as the silence was suddenly
+shattered by a strange sound from the shrubbery-covered crest just
+above him. It was a musical, tinkling crash, oddly suggestive of a
+handful of thin glass plates shattering upon a stone floor. A second
+later there came the agonized scream of some creature in its death
+throes.
+
+The tinkling, crashing sound promptly swelled to a steady pulsing
+song like that of a brittle river of crystalline glass surging and
+breaking over granite boulders. There was an eery beauty in that
+tinkling burst of melody, yet with the beauty there was an
+intangible suggestion of horror that made Powell's flesh creep.
+
+The crystalline song swelled to a crescendo climax. Then there came
+another sound, a single resonant note like that given when a string
+of a bass viol is violently plucked--and the tinkling melody
+abruptly died. Immediately following the resonant twang some object
+was ejected from the midst of the thicket on the dune's crest, and
+came rolling and bounding down the gentle slope toward Powell.
+
+It finally came to rest against the base of a bush almost at his
+feet. He whistled softly in surprise as he saw the nature of the
+thing. It was another of the yard-long egg-shaped crystals of
+translucent amber like the one that had been materialized in
+Benjamin Marlowe's laboratory. Imprisoned in the clear depths of
+this amber egg was the sparkling, diamond-encrusted skeleton of what
+had apparently been a small quadruped about the size of a fox.
+
+Powell's eyes narrowed in speculation as he realized that he had
+before him the first slight clue as to what might have happened to
+Joan. Her Silver Belt had been enclosed in one of those amber,
+crystalline eggs. Apparently her capture had been in some way
+connected with that sinister, unseen Tinkling Death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Powell began cautiously working his way up the slope of the dune,
+with an automatic pistol ready for use in his right hand. Silence
+reigned unbroken now in the thicket on the crest, but with each
+upward step that he took there came with constantly increasing force
+a feeling of some vast, alien intelligence lurking up there,
+watching and waiting.
+
+Nearer and nearer the crest he worked his wary way, until he was so
+close that he fancied he could see the vague outline of some
+monstrous silvery bulk looming there in the heart of the red
+thicket. He took another cautious step forward--and then his careful
+stalking was sharply interrupted.
+
+Without a second's warning there came the roaring rush of great
+wings beating the air just above him. Powell tried to dive for
+cover, but he was too late. A slender snaky tentacle came lashing
+down and struck his shoulder with a force that sent him sprawling
+forward upon his face. Before he could rise, two of the tentacles
+twined around him, and he was jerked up into the air like a
+wood-grub captured by a husky robin.
+
+Again the great wings above him threshed the air in tremendous
+power, as the unseen monster started away with its prey. Then the
+tentacles from which he was dangling shifted their grip slightly,
+turning Powell's body in the air so that he could look up and get
+his first glimpse of the thing that had captured him. He shuddered
+at what he saw. The creature was a hideous combination of octopus
+and giant bat.
+
+Naked wings of membrane spanned twenty feet from tip to tip. There
+was a pursy sac-like body, ending in a head with staring, lidless
+eyes and a great black beak that looked strong enough to shear sheet
+steel. From the body descended half a dozen long writhing tentacles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Powell's one hundred and eighty pounds made a weight that was
+apparently a burden for even this flying monster. It flew jerkily
+along, scarcely a dozen feet from the ground, and there was
+laborious effort obvious in every movement of its flapping wings.
+Powell decided to make a prompt break for escape before the
+octopus-bat succeeded in fighting its way any higher. His left arm
+was still pinioned to his body by one of the constricting tentacles,
+but his right hand, with the automatic in it, was free.
+
+He swung the weapon's muzzle into line with the hideous face above
+him, then sent a stream of lead crashing upward into the creature's
+head. The bullet struck squarely home. The tentacles tightened
+convulsively with a force that almost cracked Powell's ribs. Then in
+another paroxysm of agony the tentacles flung him free.
+
+The impetus of his fall sent him rolling for a dozen feet. Unhurt,
+save for minor scratches and bruises, he scrambled to his feet just
+in time to see the mortally wounded octopus-bat come crashing down
+in the red vegetation some thirty yards away. For a few minutes
+there was audible a convulsive threshing; and then there was
+silence.
+
+Powell refilled the automatic's clip, then looked about, trying to
+regain his bearings. He wanted to return to the thicket of the
+Tinkling Death, but the octopus-bat had carried him hundreds of
+yards from there and he was now uncertain even of the direction in
+which the thicket was.
+
+As he paused in indecision, there came to Powell's ears a new sound
+that promptly drove all thought of the Tinkling Death from his mind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sound of his gun against the octopus-bat had apparently
+attracted new and unseen assailants--and their number was legion.
+Swiftly closing in upon him from every side there came the rustle
+and whisper of countless thousands of unseen foes advancing through
+the dense red thickets.
+
+Completely hemmed in as he was, flight was out of the question. He
+sought the center of a small clearing, some ten feet in diameter, in
+order to gain at least a moment's sight of his adversaries before
+they swarmed in upon him. With an automatic in each hand, he waited
+tense and ready.
+
+The encircling rush came swiftly nearer, until Powell was suddenly
+aware that the unseen horde had arrived. The thicket bordering his
+tiny clearing was literally alive with yard-high furry bodies of
+creatures that dodged about too swiftly in the cover of the red
+bushes for him to get a clear view of any of them. There was a
+constant babel of snarling, chattering sound as the things called
+back and forth to each other.
+
+Then the chattering stopped abruptly, as though at the command of
+some unseen leader. The next moment one of the creatures stepped
+boldly out into full view in the clearing. Powell's scalp crinkled
+in disgust as he realized the nature of the thing confronting him.
+
+It was literally a rat-man. Its upright posture upon two powerful,
+bowed hind legs was that of a man, but its human-like points were
+overshadowed by a dozen indelible marks of the beast. A coat of
+short, dirty gray fur covered the creature from head to foot. Its
+hands and feet were claw-like travesties of human members. Its
+pointed, chinless face with its projecting teeth and glittering
+little beady eyes was that of a giant rodent.
+
+The beast in the clearing was apparently a leader of some sort, for
+around his throat was a wide collar of gray metal, with its flat
+surface marked in rudely scratched hieroglyphics. Powell's heart
+leaped as he noted the collar. In this creature before him he had
+his second clue to the whereabouts of Joan Marlowe.
+
+Not only was the collar practically identical to the one worn by the
+skeleton that had been materialized in the egg back in the
+laboratory, but the skeleton itself was obviously that of one of the
+rat-men. Could it be this grotesque horde of human-like rodents that
+was holding Joan captive in the Cave of Blue Flames?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Powell tried desperately to think of some way of communicating with
+the gray-collared leader. Then the beast shrilled a command that
+brought hundreds of the beasts swarming into the clearing from every
+side, and in the face of the menace of their countless glittering
+eyes and bared fangs Powell abandoned all thought of attempting to
+parley with the beasts.
+
+There was another shrill command from the leader, and the horde
+closed in. Both of Powell's guns flamed in a crashing leaden hail
+that swept the close-packed ranks of furry bodies with murderous
+effect. But he was doomed by sheer weight of numbers.
+
+The rat-men directly in front of the blazing pistols wavered
+momentarily, but the press of the hundreds behind them swept them
+inexorably forward. Powell emptied both guns in a last vain effort.
+Then he was swept from his feet, and the horde surged over him.
+
+Blinded and smothered by the dozens of furry bodies that swarmed
+over him, he had hardly a chance to even try to fight back. His
+cartridge-belt and guns, his Silver Belts and his wrist-watch were
+stripped from him by the dozens of claw-like hands that searched his
+body. Other claw-hands jerked his arms behind his back and lashed
+them firmly together with rope.
+
+A blanketing sheet of some heavy fabric was crammed over his head
+and tied in place so tightly that he was completely blindfolded and
+half-suffocated. A noose was knotted around his neck. A suggestive
+jerk of this noose brought Powell lurching to his feet; there was
+another commanding jerk, and he obediently started walking.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The march that followed soon became torture for the captive.
+Blindfolded as he was, and having only the occasional jerks of rope
+to guide his footsteps, he stumbled and fell repeatedly, until his
+aching body seemed one solid mass of bruises.
+
+As nearly as he could judge, the horde had conducted him nearly two
+miles when the path abruptly sloped downward. A moment later the
+sudden coolness of the air and the echoes about him told him that
+they had entered an underground passage of some kind. After
+traversing this passage for several yards they emerged into what was
+apparently a large open area, for he could hear the excited
+chattering and squealing of countless thousands of rat-men on every
+side of him.
+
+He was dragged forward a dozen steps more, then brought to a halt.
+The blindfolding fabric was roughly stripped from his head. For a
+moment he blinked dazedly, half-blinded by a glare of blue light
+that flooded the place.
+
+He was standing in a vast cavern. From dozens of fissures high in
+the rock walls streamed flickering sheets of blue flame which both
+warmed and lighted the place. There was a weird tingling glow in the
+air that suggested that the strange blue fires might be electrical
+in their origin.
+
+Powell looked eagerly around for Joan, but he could see no trace of
+her. The only other living beings in the big cavern were the
+swarming thousands of the rat-people. The brutes were apparently too
+low in the evolutionary scale to have any but the most primitive
+form of tribal organization.
+
+Sitting on a rude rock throne just in front of Powell was a
+grotesquely fat, mangy-furred old rat-man who was obviously the king
+of the horde. Some thirty or forty rat-men, larger and stronger than
+their fellows, wore the gray-metal collars that apparently marked
+them as minor leaders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great bulk of the horde, numbering far into the thousands,
+swarmed in the cavern in one vast animal pack, sleeping, feeding,
+snarling, fighting. As Powell was halted before the king's throne,
+most of them abandoned their other pursuits to come surging around
+the captive in a jostling, curious mob.
+
+The metal-collared leader of the pack that had captured Powell
+presented the rat-king with the captive's gun-belt and two Silver
+Belts, accompanying the gifts with a squealing oration that was
+apparently a recital of the capture. The old monarch took the
+trophies with delight.
+
+The two Silver Belts were promptly draped over his own furry
+shoulders by the king--seemingly following the same primitive love
+for adornment that inspires an African savage to ornament his person
+with any new and glittering object he happens to acquire. The
+rat-king then graciously draped the cartridge-belt and holstered
+automatics around the shoulders of the metal-collared leader who had
+captured Powell.
+
+The king turned his attention back to his prisoner. He studied the
+captive curiously for a moment or two, then squealed a brief
+command. A score of the rat-men promptly closed in upon Powell, and
+began herding him toward a far back corner of the big cavern.
+
+Stopping a few yards away from the edge of what seemed to be a wide
+deep pit in the rock floor, the guard stripped Powell's bonds from
+him. Powell made no move to take advantage of his freedom, realizing
+that the swarming thousands of rodents in the cave made escape out
+of the question for the moment. He allowed himself to be docilely
+herded on to the edge of the pit.
+
+And the next moment he exclaimed aloud in delighted surprise as he
+gazed down at the floor of the pit ten feet beneath him. There,
+sitting on a low heap of stones on the pit's sandy floor,
+white-faced and weary but apparently unhurt, was Joan Marlowe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The girl's face brightened in relief as she looked up and recognized
+him.
+
+"Larry! Oh, thank God you've come!"
+
+The leader of the guards motioned for Powell to jump down into the
+pit. He needed no urging. A moment later he landed lightly on the
+sandy floor of the pit, and Joan was in his arms.
+
+The rat-men left a dozen of their number scattered as sentries
+around the edge of the pit. The rest of them returned to the main
+horde, leaving the prisoners to their own devices.
+
+"I knew that you'd come, Larry, as soon as you got my note," Joan
+exclaimed happily. "But how did you ever succeed in finding this
+Cave of Blue Flame?"
+
+"I didn't find it myself," Powell admitted. "I was captured like a
+boob and dragged here." He told Joan of his mishaps since arriving
+in Arret.
+
+The girl nodded when he had finished. "Much the same happened to me,
+Larry, only the red moon wasn't shining then. The only light was
+from what looked like the dim ghost of a big yellow sun. I
+materialized in Arret almost in the middle of a scouting group of
+rat-men. They took me captive immediately. When several minutes
+passed without you and Uncle Benjamin broadcasting the recall wave
+for me, I knew that something terrible must have happened back in
+the laboratory, and that I might be marooned in Arret for hours.
+
+"I tried to hang onto my Silver Belt, of course," the girl
+continued, "but when I was brought to the cavern here I saw that the
+king was going to take it. There was a notebook and a pencil in my
+laboratory smock. I managed to write the note and twine it into the
+belt just before it was taken from me. The king seemed to think the
+note enhanced the Belt's value as an ornament. He was wearing it
+when I last saw it. Was he materialized in the laboratory with the
+Belt?"
+
+Powell told her of the amber egg and the skeleton.
+
+"The same sort of crystalline amber egg that accompanied the work of
+the mysterious Tinkling Death, wasn't it?" Joan mused. "One of the
+king's lieutenants must have stolen the Belt, and reaped prompt
+retribution when he tried to flee. I wonder what that weird Tinkling
+Death is?"
+
+"Possibly some strange weapon of the rat-men," Powell hazarded.
+
+"No, they are as afraid of it as we are. While I was being brought
+here to this cave the Tinkling Death was heard several times in the
+distance, and the rat-men were obviously terrified at the sound."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The prisoners' conversation was abruptly interrupted by a rhythmic,
+snarling chant from the vast horde of rat-men in the cavern above.
+The chant rose and fell in a rude cadence that was suggestively
+ritual in nature.
+
+"They've been doing that at intervals ever since I was first brought
+here," Joan commented. "It sounds almost like the beginning of some
+primitive religious ceremony, doesn't it?"
+
+Powell nodded, without telling Joan the depressing thought in his
+mind. The rat-men were so low in the evolutionary scale as to be
+little more than beasts, and a prominent feature of nearly all
+primitive religious rites is the sacrifice of living beings. Powell
+could not help but wonder whether the chanting might not mark the
+beginning of rites which would end with the sacrifice of himself and
+Joan to some monstrous deity of theirs.
+
+The snarling chant continued with monotonous regularity for hours,
+while the prisoners huddled helplessly together there on the floor
+of the pit, awaiting the next move of the rat-men. Any thought of
+escape was out of the question. The sheer walls of the pit were
+always guarded by alert sentries who had only to call to bring the
+entire horde to their help.
+
+Without Powell's wrist-watch, the captives had no way of accurately
+following the lapse of time, but they both realized that the
+twelve-hour time limit upon Joan's rescue from Arret must be coming
+perilously near its end. They waited in momentary fear lest a sudden
+turmoil in the cavern above them should indicate that Benjamin
+Marlowe had broadcast the recall wave, whisking the two Belts back
+to Earth, together with the old rat-king who presumably still wore
+them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The chanting above rose slowly to a snarling climax, then swiftly
+died away into silence. A moment later there came the sound of
+thousands of claw-like feet scratching over the rocky floor as the
+main horde apparently began marching out of the cavern. A detachment
+of fifty rat-men appeared at the pit's edge.
+
+A rude metal ladder was shoved down to the captives, and a
+metal-collared leader motioned for them to climb up. Seeing nothing
+to be gained by refusal, they obeyed. They were seized as they
+reached the top, and their hands again bound behind them. The
+overwhelming numbers of the rat-men made any attempt at resistance
+futile.
+
+There was no sign of the main horde as Joan and Powell were herded
+out through the empty cavern and out into the open air again. With
+their prisoners in the center of their group, the rat-men started
+along a well-worn path that wound through the red vegetation.
+Overhead the blood-red moon still blazed down in lurid splendor.
+
+From somewhere ahead of them the captives began to again hear the
+distant squealing chant of the main horde. They steadily approached
+the sound, until abruptly they emerged into a huge clearing that had
+apparently been a ceremonial assembly place for generations, for its
+smooth sandy floor was packed down nearly to the hardness of rock.
+
+The main horde of rat-men was there now, countless thousands of
+them, packed in a roughly crescent-shaped mob, with the open side of
+their formation facing what seemed to be a large deep pit, some
+seventy yards in circumference. In the clear space left between the
+horde and the edge of the pit was a smaller group, among them the
+old king himself.
+
+Powell's heart leaped as he noted that the Silver Belts were still
+draped over the mangy old monarch's shoulders. If only he and Joan
+could get their hands on those precious Belts before Benjamin
+Marlowe broadcast the recall wave that would forever snatch them out
+of their reach!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The captives were hurried through the main horde and taken in charge
+by a score of picked guards who herded them on to join a small group
+of four rat-men near the pit's edge. These four rodents were
+apparently also prisoners, for their arms were firmly bound behind
+them.
+
+The rat-king, accompanied only by the metal-collared leader, around
+whose shoulders the gun-belt was still draped, stood near the pit's
+edge some ten yards distant from the guards and captives. Between
+the prisoners and the rodent monarch the edge of the pit jutted out
+in a narrow tongue of rock that extended outward for about twenty
+feet over the pit.
+
+Joan and Powell had barely taken their place with the other captives
+when an abrupt and familiar sound drew their attention to the floor
+of the pit some thirty feet beneath them. Its smooth sandy bottom
+was clearly visible from where they stood. And there on that sandy
+floor were six great gleaming shapes of menace which brought
+involuntary gasps of horrified amazement to the captives' lips.
+
+The faint musical tinkling sound as the things moved in occasional
+ponderous restlessness was unmistakable. Joan and Powell realized
+that the amazing organisms responsible for the mysterious Tinkling
+Death were at last before them.
+
+The things were giant _living_ crystals--great silvery
+semi-transparent shapes nearly ten feet in height, their faceted
+sides pulsing in sinister and incredible life as they gleamed in
+unearthly beauty beneath the blazing rays of the red moon!
+
+Near the center of each of the giant crystals there was visible
+through the semi-transparent wall a large inner nucleus of sullen
+opalescence that ceaselessly swirled and eddied.
+
+Their powers of movement were apparently limited to a slow,
+ponderous, half-rocking, half-rolling progress on their heavy
+rounded bases. They were now grouped in a rough semicircle just
+under the edge of the rocky projection that extended out over the
+pit. The opalescent nucleus in every silvery faceted form seemed to
+be "watching" with frightening intensity the figures on the pit's
+edge above them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no mistaking the meaning of the scene. The giant
+carnivorous crystals had obviously been lured from their normal
+habitat in Arret's red vegetation, and established there in the big
+pit by the rat-men to act as principals in their primitive religious
+ceremonies.
+
+Those Devil Crystals waiting down there on the pit's floor were
+waiting to be fed--and the small group of captives, rat-men and
+human beings, were to be the feast!
+
+Utterly sick at heart, Powell wondered if they would at least be
+given the boon of a merciful death before being hurled over the
+brink to those lurking shapes. He was not left long in doubt.
+
+At a shrill command from the rat-king the guards closed in upon the
+captives and herded two of the bound rat-men from among them. A
+guard placed to the lips of each of the captive brutes a small cup
+containing a faintly cloudy white liquid. Apparently resigned to
+their fate, the creatures docilely drained the cups.
+
+The drugged drinks acted with startling rapidity. Scarcely a minute
+passed before the rodents' eyes clouded dully, their jaws dropped
+slackly open, and their bodies stiffened in almost complete
+rigidity.
+
+The bonds were quickly stripped from the two stupefied creatures.
+The ceremonial rites apparently required that the victims go to
+their doom unbound and of their own volition. The guards maneuvered
+the two over to the rocky projection that jutted out over the pit.
+
+Moving with the stiffly wooden steps of automatons, the two victims
+started out along the narrow projection, leaving the guards behind.
+On they marched, straight for the end of the rocky strip--and then,
+without a second's hesitation, they plunged on and over.
+
+Their bodies crashed to the pit's floor squarely among the group of
+waiting crystals. One of the rat-men lay motionless. The other
+dazedly tried to struggle to his feet--but was too late.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the side of the nearest Devil Crystal, some fifteen feet away
+from the dazed rat-man, a cone-shaped projection budded with
+startling swiftness.
+
+A fraction of a second more and the projection had lengthened into a
+long slender arm of crystalline silver that streaked across the
+intervening space with the swiftness of a spear.
+
+There was a crashing, tinkling sound as the point of the arm struck
+the furry body of the rat-man. Then the arm's point sprayed into a
+web of shining filaments that laced the rodent's body inexorably in
+their web.
+
+The arm immediately contracted, jerking the victim irresistibly
+toward the waiting crystal. A second later the rat-man was pinned
+against the faceted crystalline side just under the opalescent
+nucleus.
+
+The moment the furry body made contact with the crystal's side a
+terrifying phenomenon occurred. Crystals grew and spread all over
+its form with the lightning growth of water-glass. Faster and faster
+clustered the crystalline shroud, until the furry body was lanced
+through and through--and all the time the air was filled with
+eldritch music as of a thousand sheets of thinnest glass crashing,
+tinkling and shattering.
+
+The crystal growths over the imprisoned body rounded their contours
+and merged together until they were in the form of a great
+crystalline egg. The outlines of the rodent's body blurred and
+vanished, melting swiftly until only a diamond-encrusted skeleton
+was left. The color of the great Devil Crystal began to gleam pink
+as the victim's flesh and blood were absorbed.
+
+The egg-like excrescence under the nucleus turned in hue to pale
+translucent amber in whose depths the diamond skeleton gleamed with
+weird brilliance. Then there came a sudden twang, as of a violently
+plucked string on a bass viol, and the amber egg dropped from the
+faceted side. The Crystal's feast was over.
+
+One of the most terrifying aspects of the whole thing had been its
+incredible speed. The entire tragedy had occurred in but little over
+two minutes from the time the lance-arm had first struck the
+rat-man.
+
+In the meantime the body of the second rodent had been drawn in and
+devoured by another of the carnivorous crystalline monsters. There
+came a second twang now, as its skeleton in its amber shroud was
+discarded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Powell's brain reeled as he saw the other crystals move sluggishly
+nearer the foot of the rocky projection in anticipation of the next
+victims.
+
+The remaining two captive rat-men came next. They were swiftly
+drugged, unbound, and started on their dazed march. They trudged
+woodenly out the rocky projection to its end, then on and over; and
+again the grim tragedy of the Devil Crystal's feast was repeated, to
+the accompaniment of that eerily beautiful crashing, tinkling song.
+
+The four Devil Crystals that had completed their gruesome feast
+moved sluggishly away, leaving the space clear for the two crystals
+that remained unfed. The score of guards closed in upon Joan and
+Powell.
+
+With the crystalline doom at last staring them squarely in the face,
+Powell went berserk in a final desperate effort to gain even a
+moment's respite. He lashed out in a writhing, kicking flurry that
+almost cleared the space around them.
+
+Then three of the rat-men slipped behind him, and a second later his
+feet were jerked from under him. His bound arms made him helpless to
+avert his fall, and he crashed heavily to the ground. Then a dozen
+of the powerful little beasts swarmed over him, completely
+overpowering him by their numbers.
+
+Claw-like hands pried his set jaws apart. A cup of the cloudy white
+liquid was pressed to his lips. He choked; then, unable to help
+himself, he had to let the stuff pour down his throat. It had an
+acid taste faintly reminiscent of lemons. The rat-men apparently
+wanted to make sure of giving him enough, for they poured another
+full cup of the liquid down his throat before releasing him.
+
+The guards then fell back and Powell stumbled to his feet. Joan was
+already up again, standing close beside him. From the wry expression
+upon her face, Powell knew that she had also been given the drugged
+potion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a long minute the two stood there with every nerve trembling as
+they helplessly waited for the paralyzing numbness to sweep over
+their bodies. The seconds passed slowly, and still their minds
+remained as clear as though the drug had been water. Another full
+minute elapsed without effect, before they could finally convince
+themselves of the amazing truth.
+
+The drugged drink of the rat-men, instantly paralyzing to those of
+their own rodent race, was utterly harmless to the human being from
+another world!
+
+Powell instantly realized the forlorn last chance their unexpected
+immunity to the drug gave them.
+
+"Play 'possum, Joan!" he whispered tensely. "Then we'll make a
+break for the king and those Belts!"
+
+Joan nodded slightly in quick understanding. Powell let his jaw drop
+slack and open, and stiffened his body in imitation of the stupor
+the rodent drug victims had shown. Joan promptly followed his lead.
+The alertly watching guards relaxed their tense vigilance in obvious
+relief.
+
+The guards waited another minute to be sure of the drug's effects.
+Then, apparently satisfied, they stepped forward and unbound the two
+prisoners. Powell let his bonds drop from him without making a
+hostile move of any kind. He wanted first to wait until he was free
+of the encircling guards.
+
+The rat-men maneuvered the two into position, and prodded them
+forward toward the projecting point of rock. They obediently began
+their march, simulating as best they could the wooden mechanical
+gait of the drug victims. Powell saw from the corner of his eye that
+Joan was tensely watching his face for a sign from him.
+
+As the captives reached the narrow projection the guards dropped a
+couple of yards behind and halted to watch. It was the chance for
+which Powell had been waiting.
+
+"Let's go!" he shouted to Joan. The girl, alert for his signal, was
+right beside him as they wheeled and dashed at break-neck speed for
+the rat-king and his sole lieutenant, some ten yards away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were upon the two startled rodent leaders before they even
+realized what was happening. Powell swept the squirming old king up
+in the air, tore the Silver Belts from about the monarch's
+shoulders, and flung the creature sprawling and senseless at the
+pit's edge.
+
+The lieutenant leaped for Powell's throat in a belated effort at
+rescue, but Powell smashed a solid fist squarely into its snarling
+face, and the brute collapsed with a broken neck.
+
+Snatching his gun-belt from the fallen rat-man, Powell crammed new
+clips of ammunition into the two guns and wheeled to confront the
+rest of the rat-men. The detachment of guards, demoralized by the
+dazzling speed of the captives' sortie, were milling in obvious
+uncertainty.
+
+Behind them the thousands of the main horde were chattering and
+squealing in excited frenzy, dazed and bewildered by their king's
+swift overthrow. The whole clearing was a seething mob of excited
+beasts, stunned for the moment, but ready at any second to rally
+from their shock and surge forward in a furious charge that would
+sweep everything before it.
+
+Powell menaced the rat-men with levelled guns while Joan, with
+fingers that shook from excitement and haste, quietly buckled one of
+the Silver Belts around each of them.
+
+The guards rallied from their panic first. At a shrill command from
+their leader, they began cautiously edging forward toward Joan and
+Powell. The two gave ground slowly, working their way back over
+toward the projecting tongue of rock. Out on the end of that narrow
+strip, Powell knew that he could hold the horde at bay for a few
+moments at least.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They reached the rocky projection, and began backing slowly and
+carefully out toward its end. The guards, galvanized into action by
+their captives' retreat, suddenly came surging forward in a furious
+charge.
+
+Powell emptied the two automatics in a crashing volley that nearly
+wiped out the charging guards. The few survivors turned and fled in
+panic back to the main horde. Powell reloaded his clips with
+feverish haste.
+
+The thousands of rat-men in the main horde were now milling in what
+was apparently a last moment of hesitation before surging forward in
+an irresistible stampede toward the beleaguered two out on the rocky
+strip.
+
+Several bolder individuals at the edge of the horde edged a step
+forward. Their example was followed by a hundred others. Another
+hesitant step or two--and then the whole horde was in motion.
+
+Powell swept the front rank with a rain of lead from one of the
+automatics, holding the other as a reserve. The heavy bullets plowed
+murder into the close-packed furry bodies. The charge wavered
+momentarily. Then Powell felt Joan tugging frantically at his arm.
+
+"Larry, the rocks under us are crumbling!" she cried. "We'll be
+hurled down into the pit!"
+
+Even as she spoke, Powell felt the narrow strip of rock under them
+quiver and settle. He looked quickly down. All along its length, the
+narrow rocky projection, weakened by their weight, was breaking
+swiftly away from the pit's edge. And on the floor of the pit below
+them the two waiting Devil Crystals moved with musical, tinkling
+sounds as they waited restlessly for their prey to fall among them.
+
+The horde of rat-men rallied and swept on forward in a wave that
+nothing could have stopped this time--but their charge was too late.
+The entire rocky projection collapsed with a final sickening lurch,
+and slid to the pit's floor, carrying Joan and Powell with it in a
+miniature avalanche of rocky rubble.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even in the chaos of their wild descent, Powell retained his grip
+upon the loaded automatic in his hand. They struck the bottom and
+staggered half-dazed to their feet, to confront the two crystalline
+monsters rocking on their rounded bases scarcely ten feet away.
+
+The fatal cone-shaped projection was already beginning to form upon
+the silver-faceted side of the nearest Devil Crystal. Before the
+lance-like arm of crystal could flash outward, Powell sent two
+bullets crashing into the crystal's side just over the opalescent
+nucleus.
+
+The leaden missiles caromed harmlessly off, as though they had
+struck armor-plate, but the nucleus clouded momentarily and the
+cone-shaped projection dissolved back into the side.
+
+With lightning speed Powell shifted his aim to the other crystal
+just as its partly-formed arm was flashing toward them. His bullet
+crashed into the silvery side squarely over the nucleus. Again the
+bullet's effect was the same. This crystal nucleus clouded murkily,
+and the lance-like arm telescoped back into the faceted bulk.
+
+But the effect of the bullets was only momentary. Swiftly the nuclei
+of both crystals cleared. A deep blue film, apparently protective in
+nature, formed between the outer wall and each nucleus. The cones
+budded, and again the arms started forth.
+
+Powell fired again, and this time uselessly. His bullet struck
+squarely, but the shock of its impact was apparently nullified by
+the protective blue film. He emptied his gun in a last crashing
+fusillade, but without effect of any kind upon the film-guarded
+nuclei of the giant crystals.
+
+Their forming arms never wavered as they came lancing forward with
+deadly accuracy straight toward Joan and Powell. In a last effort to
+save Joan from the terrible doom of the crystal lances as long as
+possible, Powell flung his own body as a shield in front of the
+half-fainting girl. The tip of one of the crystalline arms struck
+his chest with a crashing tinkle of musical glass.
+
+Instantly the tip sprayed into a web of fine filaments that laced on
+around his body. A tinkling shock raced through his every nerve from
+the contact with the weird life force of the great crystal.
+
+The arm began contracting. Powell was helpless against the terrific
+power of the slender, diamond-hard lance of crystal. He felt himself
+irresistibly drawn toward the silver-faceted wall of the Devil
+Crystal.
+
+His senses reeled in the babel of alien sounds--the crashing,
+glass-like music of the crystalline monsters and the snarling,
+squealing, paean of jubilant triumph from the thousands of rat-men
+now lining the rim of the pit above.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then suddenly the pit, the Devil Crystals, and everything else in
+the nightmare world of Arret was blotted out in a vast swirling
+cloud of pulsing roseate flame that seemed to sweep him bodily up
+into the air and whirl him dizzily around.
+
+His dazed brain staggered from the shock of the cataclysmic force
+that was disintegrating an entire world around him, but through the
+utter chaos one thought rang clear and exultant in his consciousness.
+
+Benjamin Marlowe had finally broadcast the recall wave!
+
+For what seemed endless eons of time Powell hurried through a
+limitless universe of swirling, tinted fires, while vibrations of a
+mighty force tingled with poignant ecstasy in every atom of his
+body.
+
+Then the eddying clouds of flame began to coalesce and solidify with
+startling suddenness. A moment later, like the abrupt lighting of a
+room when an electric switch is snapped, the mists vanished and
+Powell felt firm footing again under his feet. Around him were the
+familiar objects of Benjamin Marlowe's laboratory.
+
+He was standing upon the floor-plate in the center of the area
+bounded by the banked green tubes, and beside him stood Joan,
+sobbing with relief at their last-minute rescue from the Devil
+Crystals of Arret. And over by the control panel of the recall
+mechanism was the slight figure of old Benjamin Marlowe, with a
+great joy now shining in his faded eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Devil Crystals of Arret, by Hal K. Wells
+
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