Chapter VIII

The shadowy men moved cautiously forward over the rough ground. Their autogyro had descended with the engine off, and had made but the faintest rustle, and now they were cursing softly, as branches broke under their feet with the multiple snaps and cracks of light artillery. A city-bred crook in the woods at night is a forlorn creature.

Finally they reached the clearing, many bruises were on their shins, given by unseen rocks that sprang suddenly into a seemingly clear path.

"Any light in the green stuff?" asked Gorilla Mike.

"Nope. That light you can't see isn't on. Must be a hell of a light you can't see. What good does it do 'em anyway? Course those damn light-beam traps have some sense, but they don't floodlight the place," muttered Shorty.

They approached the fence cautiously, and no sign of the green flame came from their simple detector. Likewise the fence got no impulse from them as they came toward it. Presently Mike used a heavy pair of bolt-clippers, and snipped several wires and rods of steel. He lifted the lock out of the gate bodily, and opened the way. They filed in cautiously, turned abruptly to the left, and followed the fence for nearly seventy-five feet. Then they cautiously set off across the grounds toward the laboratory building, bulking dim against the light grey of the clouds racing across the sky. A bright moon beyond threw a dim radiance on and past them. But they really had little to fear from any natural light, for as Atkill had learned from the too talkative Wilson, Warren was much more willing to trust to the abilities of his electrical and ultra-violet watchers than to those of any human watchers.

The suitcase which had been humming softly suddenly began clicking and humming in jumps and starts. Shorty looked down at it dubiously. Was the thing going wrong now, and leaving them marooned inside the fence? Suddenly he gave a cry of surprise, and pointed to the hitherto invisible streak of dirty-white paint. It was flaming with a blinding brilliance. Atkill had chosen his fluorescent paint well, and it reacted even to the long ultra-violets Warren was using.

With a curse the men turned to look for the light, to shoot it out. The scene was dark as before. No faintest glimmer lighted the scene. Shorty looked at the signal again and doubted. His eyes told him there was no light. This thing said there was. The suitcase was humming and clicking madly. The thing was broken. If there was light he could see it.

"Hey, are yuh goin' ta stay all night?" demanded Pete Constanti.

"Is this thing working or not? 'At's wat I wanna know."

"He said yuh couldn't see the light. Let's get out."

"Beat it then," ordered Shorty. The three men turned and raced for the open gate, taking the shortest route. They hadn't gone ten paces before a blinding white beam of light caught them, and held them. Constanti pulled out a long-barreled revolver. He fired twice and the light went out. They ran on desperately now, and then a third spotlight fell on them.

It took time to shoot them out, and there were lights in the laboratory now. But they ran on again, and no more lights struck them. Presently the open gate stood just before them, wedged open by a piece of rock. Shorty dived for it, and as his body started to pass through the gate it seemed to strike something, a something like a very strong sheet of india rubber. There was nothing but empty space there, but Shorty bounced back heavily. He sat down even more heavily, and jumped up with a howl of pain, for there was an out-cropping of bare, rough rock here.

The two following him hesitated in amazement, rushed hurriedly forward, and gave low cries of astonishment as their hands felt it. It was soft, yet almost as unyielding as a wall of steel padded with thick rubber. An inch it would yield, then it was immovably fixed. Pete Constanti had his long-barreled revolver out in an instant, and he sent three shots whining into the invisible barrier. Each gave a soft whine as it struck, and a second soft whine as it bounced from the barrier as from some marvelous spring. Luckily the bullets had not been aimed straight ahead, but at an angle and they did not return to their sender. They whined away to strike with a distant plop somewhere on a rocky out-crop.

"I wouldn't shoot," said a monstrous voice, "because the bullets will just bounce. Come to the laboratory."

The voice was very loud, and there was a slight mechanical timbre to it. But also there was a cold, deadly tone that made the three think of the tales two other men had brought back from this place of unknown horrors, of invisible walls that bullets merely bounced off, of invisible lights, and incredible and unknowable things that watched your every motion. Like trapped animals they hurled themselves at the barrier. Shorty Grimm hurled the suitcase with its load of batteries and mechanisms at the invisible wall, and it merely fell harmless.

"Come to the laboratory, immediately," the Voice said.

"Wat we gonna do?" quavered an affrighted Gorilla Mike. "You got us inta this, for God's sake get us out."

"We—we better go, I guess," Shorty said in a low voice.

Something pushed him from behind, something soft, but unyielding. With a cry of terror he ran forward, the wall was following them, pushing them. He ran, but not more than ten paces before he struck another of those invisible walls.

It was dark, horribly, weirdly dark, but the suitcase still flamed, and the lights of the laboratory glowed. All he knew was that before and behind were walls, walls that he could not see, and could not break through. Desperately he pounded on them, hurled himself against them. They did not even hurt him. He felt as though he were in some asylum, locked in a padded cell—a padded cell whose walls he could not see.

He began to laugh. Mike and Constanti looked at him with blank, fox-like faces. The laugh was very low at first, just a chuckle. Then more chuckles, then a wild, mad laugh that rang out. His pals could not understand.

Pete hit him and he fell to the ground. Mike looked on uncomprehending. Constanti bent over the fallen figure, and in a minute the man was stirring again.

"T'anks, Pete. God, it's like a padded cell, Pete. Let's go to dat lab-ra-tory. Maybe they'll let us out."

Anything seemed better than this. They started toward the laboratory, feeling for the wall, but the wall had moved. The Voice spoke again. "The walls move with you. You can move toward the laboratory, but in no other direction."

Presently they stood in the grey-white light that streamed from the laboratory door. Two great towers rose in the room of concrete, two half-dismounted things. They looked bare and ruined, like half-cleaned skeletons. In the center of the room was a great mass of iron, and around it nestled half a dozen mechanisms with long pointers of gleaming silver pointing at a glowing ball that floated unsupported just over the glowing top of the massive iron block. There was a slight depression under it, as though some acid had eaten at it slowly.

A half-score of men stood just within the doorway, looking out at them. Another man was seated beside one of the machines grouped about the central massive block. A tall, powerfully built man, with blond hair and grey eyes. His face was set and looked unpleasant. His fingers were working at controls before him. He looked up at them, and threw back a switch.

"Drop your arms," he ordered.

Half a dozen guns and three heavy knives came into view, to be followed by three slung-shots. Warren looked at them caustically.

"You're cheating," he smiled, but the smile wasn't pleasant.

"Honest—'at's all we got," objected Constanti.

Warren flipped a switch with another unpleasant smile. Constanti let out a howl of pain and snatched at something up his trouser leg, as suddenly Shorty Grimm howled and pulled a tiny automatic from his sleeve. He dropped it beside the knife Constanti had produced.

"Step back from the weapons," ordered Warren, and as they retreated, something shimmered for an instant in the light, and a curtain seemed to roll over the weapons. Warren threw over another switch, and a series of explosions like Chinese firecrackers rang out, then the smoke floated away, and there was a little pool of white-hot, sparkling metal on the smoking ground.

"All right, come in," he ordered. The three gangsters came because they couldn't do anything else.

"Who sent you?" demanded Warren sharply.

"Aw, we ferget," snarled Grimm.

"That's too bad. You like that padded cell you can't see? Or do you like this?" Something flashed around them resembling a sheet of water, and they were standing in the center of a hollow cylinder of milky light.

The light twisted and flowed in swirling currents.

"Touch it—touch it carefully," suggested Warren. "Better, stick your flask into it, and hold the neck with your handkerchief."

Constanti complied. He had whisky that was 85% alcohol in that flask. There was a faint crackling noise as the flask touched the beam, and the cylinder glowed faintly red for an instant, then relapsed to white.

"Enough—don't put your hand in. Drop that flask." Constanti stared at it instead. The flask was dripping moisture. It was white with frost, and drops of a light blue liquid fell from it in slow succession. He dropped it. The solid silver flask broke like glass, and the whisky within was a brown, hard substance that was coated with frost in an instant. It sizzled on the floor, and in a minute was melting and running away.

"Now—I think you have too much space. I'll close the column. If you want to talk—talk."

The milky cylinder began to contract, and as it grew smaller the men within it felt an awful cold come upon them. Their breath began to show, and their ears grew numb. Swiftly the cylinder became smaller, and rapidly it grew colder.

The milky cylinder began to contract, and as it grew smaller the men within it felt an awful cold come upon them. Their breath began to show and their ears grew numb. Swiftly the cylinder became smaller and rapidly it grew colder.

Presently Grimm saw something else above them. It was a great, deep-violet roof, and it seemed to be made up of streamers that fluttered slowly down. It descended, and touched his head. They weren't streamers, they were more of that padded force.

"Atkill—he sent us," wailed Grimm.

Instantly the cold was gone, the milky cylinder sprang back to its original size, and the violet streamers vanished.

"How did you pass the fence?" snapped Warren. A delicious warmth seemed to seep into the chilled men. It was easy to talk and be warm. Nothing could stop this man of unknown things.

"He gave us somethin' in a suitcase. You held it in your han' and the fence didn' spot you."

"Where is it?"

"Down on the grounds. I threw it at the wall, an' it just bounced off it."

"Wait." Warren turned to his instruments. Something fell to the floor with a soft thud behind them, and the men turned. The suitcase lay on its side. "Wrecked," said Warren tersely. "Delicate electro-static counterpoise, probably, eh Putt?"

"Probably," replied the black-eyed man beside Warren.

"Wat saw us?" asked Shorty.

"Your suitcase protected you against any one of our electro-static detectors, but it couldn't satisfy three at once, and when you were within range of the fence, and of two other detectors, it quit," replied Warren with a grin. "What were you after."

Briefly Grimm told him. Warren looked at Putney, and then at Grimm. He wrote hastily on a sheet of note paper, signed it, and passed it to Putney. He too read, then signed. "Good idea," was all he said.

"Take this to Atkill with our compliments. Where is your plane?" said Warren, passing the sheet in a sealed envelope to Grimm.

Grimm told him. Then something gripped him, something like the soft, impenetrable wall, but different in that it held him like a monstrous hand. It lifted him, and he shot through the door, turned, and shot down the hill, over the fence, and an instant later was standing beside the plane. The force released him, and was gone. A moment later the man, his nerves still quivering, saw Constanti flying through the air, to land gently twelve feet nearer a huge tree. Constanti stumbled, gave a low moan, and stood up. "Madre de Dios!" he groaned.

They watched something black hurtle through the air. It was headed exactly for the huge tree. A shrill scream of fear rang out as Gorilla Mike saw his end at hand. The force that carried him bore him toward the tree, and suddenly there was a crash, the great tree snapped over—and fell majestically away from the three men and the machine.

Gorilla Mike scrambled to his feet hysterically crying, unhurt. The forces were gone.

But it was an hour before their nerves quieted sufficiently to let one of them take the 'gyro aloft, and toward New York.