Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1959 by The Dark Destroyers (v1.1) Read Free Book Online

another followed it in. This second one put out a tentacle, sleeved and
gloved, to slide the hatch shut. The first went forward in the ship and touched
some instruments that gave a faint vibrant clatter. The red light grew brighter
and paler. Then the floor beneath Darragh vibrated. It shifted. The ship was
taking off.
                 The
strengthening of the light gave Darragh his first clear view of the
compartment. It was no more than half the length of the vessel in extent, a
curve-walled chamber like the inside of an egg, some ten feet long. The rest of
the craft's interior must be occupied by the engines. Silent engines they were—
Darragh did not hear even the faintest purring of machinery in motion. There
was no furniture for the Cold People, who were not built to sit or to he, even
when in that motionless condition which for them must approximate sleep. Here
and there the bulkheads were pierced with glassed-in ports, and between these
were studded with strange instruments that might be gauges or chronometers, and
were furnished in several places with hatchlike panels that might be the doors
to cupboards.
                 The
gear that operated the craft was strange but, after Darragh had gazed at it for
moments, understandable.
                 Upon
a litde round pedestal of shimmery metal there lay, or was fastened, a
horizontal cross made of two wirelike rods, with the arms about a foot long.
From the intersection of the rods rose a third slender length, like the gnomon
of a sundial, but perpendicular. Each of the four arms of the cross, as well as
the upright fifth arm, was furnished with a beadlike object, more than an inch
in diameter and dead black in color. The position of these beads determined the
direction and speed of the craft.
                 Just
now, as Darragh judged, they were rising upward. The Cold creature at the
controls had its tentacle to the bead on the upright arm and held it nearly at
the top of the rod. And likewise they were going straight ahead; another
tentacle had advanced the bead on the forward arm of the cross, while those on
the other three arms remained at the intersection of the rods. Already they must
be soaring high above Haiti and the tropic heat, for upon Darragh's naked body
began to rise protesting areas of gooseflesh. He tried not to shiver or to
breathe heavily.
                 He
tried, also, not to curse himself for getting into the ship so confidently. Cursing
one's self was a waste of time, when one needed badly to find a way out of
mortal danger.
     

           CHAPTER
IV
                  
                  
                 Mark Darragh was young, tough and
healthy, but he was tropic-born and tropic-bred. Cold temperatures he had never
been made to endure, and here in this high-mounting aircraft it was growing
colder by the second. He groped frantically in his mind for some way of escape,
and yet another inspiration came to his mental hand.
                 He
had most sagely prepared a warm dress, an armor of his own against just such
shuddering chill. He himself had fashioned it of those two thicknesses of fine
deerskin, with a comforting layer of cotton down quilted between them. And he
had stowed it, as he well remembered, under the foredeck of his dugout when he
made ready to sail down the Orinoco.
                 But
it had been gone from the dugout when he had scrambled down into the open lock.
It must be here in this cabin, with his other gear. It must be. He widened the
crack of his vision between the folds of the woven sail.
                 There
was the bundle, sure enough—a great lumpy package of leather folded and bound
with strips of rawhide. In its center were the good moccasins, the gauntiets,
the goggles and the scarf. But it lay a sickeningly long four feet out of his
reach as he huddled there.
                 He
clamped his strong