Darker Than You Think by Unknown Read Free Book Online

Torgod Mongols raided our
camps. We almost perished of thirst, and we all but froze to death.
Then the war drove us out—just when we had located the first
pre-human sites."
    He
toiled to breathe again.
    "It
used to appear that those dark huntsmen already knew that we
suspected them and were trying to cut us down before we could expose
them. The State Department didn't want us to go back. The Chinese
government tried to keep us out. The Reds held us as spies—
until we convinced them we were after something bigger than military
information. Man and nature stood against us.
    "But
these are tough boys with me!"
    The
old man bent, heaving to another paroxysm.
    "And
we found what we were after," he whispered triumphantly. "Found
it—and brought it safely home, from those prehuman sites."
Once again his boot touched the green wooden box that his three
companions guarded. "We brought it back—and here it is."
    Once
again he straightened, struggling to breathe, painfully searching the
faces before him. Barbee met his dull, haggard eyes for an instant
and saw in them the stark conflict of dreadful urgency and deadly
fear. He understood that long preamble. He knew that Mondrick wanted
desperately to speak—to blurt the bald facts out—and knew
that a sick dread of disbelief restrained him.
    "Gentlemen,
don't condemn me yet," he croaked laboriously. "Please
forgive me, if all these precautions appear unnecessary. You'll
understand them when you know. And now that you're somewhat prepared,
I must speak the rest abruptly. I must break the news, before I'm
stopped."
    His
blotched face twitched and shivered.
    "For
there is danger, gentlemen. Every one of you— every person who
hears this news—is himself in deadly danger. Yet I beg you to
listen ... for I still hope ... by spreading the truth ... too far for them to kill enough to stamp it out entirely ... to defeat those secret clansmen."
    Mondrick
fought for breath again, doubled and shuddering.
    "It
was a hundred thousand years ago—"
    He
strangled. His own frantic hands came up to his throat, as if he
strove to open a way for his breath. A bubbling sound rattled in his
throat. His contorted face and clawing hands turned a cyanotic blue.
He swayed to his knees, sagging in Sam Quain's arms, gagging on words
he couldn't speak.
    "That
couldn't be!" Barbee caught Quain's shocked whisper. "No—there
are no cats here!"
    Blinking,
Barbee shot a bewildered glance at April Bell. She stood stiffly
motionless, staring at the gasping explorer. Dilated in the gloom,
her eyes were strange and black. White as her white fur, her fixed
face held no expression. Both her hands clutched her snakeskin bag,
twisting savagely.
    But
where was any cat?
    The
bag was closed now, and he saw nothing of her happy black kitten.
Anyhow, why should the stricken man be gasping anything about a cat?
Shivering to the cold east wind, Barbee peered back at Mondrick.
    Sam
Quain and Nick Spivak had laid the struggling man on his back. Quain
ripped off his own khaki shirt and folded it under Mondrick's head
for a pillow. But Rex Chittum, Barbee noticed, stayed beside that
heavy wooden box, his roving eyes warily alert—as if its
contents were more important than the old explorer's last agony.
    For
Mondrick was dying. His wild hands fought for air again and fell. His
mottled face turned lax and lividly pale. He kicked convulsively and
lay still again. As surely as if the garroter's iron collar were
being screwed down against his throat, he was strangling to death.
    "Back!"
Sam Quain shouted. "He's dying for air."
    A
flashbulb detonated blindingly. Policemen pushed back the news
photographers, crowding nearer for a better shot. Somebody shouted
for the crash truck, but Mondrick had already ceased to move.
    "Marck!"
    Barbee
heard that piercing scream. He saw Mondrick's blind wife dart away
from that guarded group by the terminal building, the huge dog beside
her, running as surely as if