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this," Ezra Gurney said. "He's been prayin' to them
all day."
They got the smelters upright in the little hollow
near the towering cacti and soon had them in
operation again. But their molds had been cracked
by the quakes and had to be repaired before they
could go on with the work of casting new jackets
for the wrecked cyclotrons.
Men dropped and lay unconscious, during the
fearful hours of that night of labor. Joan, staggering
herself from weakness and strain, worked to revive
them.
CHAPTER XVIII
Supreme Sacrifice
KIM IVAN was a tower
of strength. The big Martian
pirate, his battered face
grimed and terrible, his eyes
a little wild, drove the
faltering mutineers on
whenever they showed signs
of halting work.
"We may be outlaws and
pirates, but we're fighters,
aren't we?" roared the
Martian, to them. "This is
the biggest fight we ever had. Nobody is going to
quit. There'll be no more traitors like Moremos. We
shall work and survive together -- or we shall die
together!"
They got the new jackets onto the cycs with
fumbling hands. By morning they had moved the
cycs back into the Phoenix and re-installed them.
While McClinton superintended this, Curt and
others wielded atomic welders to repair the rent in
the hull. Curt had not slept for forty-eight hours. He
was staggering when Joan came to him with food.
"The job's almost done," he said thickly.
"McClinton's hooking up the fuel-pipes now. Has
Simon come back?"
The Brain had been gone all through the
previous day and the night.
"Not yet," Joan answered. "Oh, Curt, maybe he's
been caught by one of the quakes when he was
exploring for calcium."
"He'll be back," Captain Future husked with
unquenchable confidence. "Maybe his staying so
long means that he has found calcium."
There was suddenly a low moaning sound in the
air. Winds and streamers of smoke whirled
frightenedly from a dozen different directions. They
felt a curious lightness on their feet, as though they
were sinking.
"Another quake!" Curt yelled warning. "Down,
everybody!"
They flattened themselves upon the ground just
as the shock hit. The ground seemed to rise and
sink beneath them with inconceivable rapidity, like
an elevator alternately ascending and descending.
A bursting, prolonged roar hit their ears. The
Phoenix bounced up and down in its cradle,
threatening to smash its keel by its own weight.
"Gods of Mars, look at that " yelled Kim Ivan.
Out there in the haze, miles away, whole new
fiery mountains were rising majestically into being.
The tortured throes of doomed Astarfall were
buckling up its crust.
Tremendous explosions of steam veiled the
distant spectacle of planetary chaos. A new, higher
wave of lava came hissing across the smouldering
crimson sea that surrounded the knoll. It splashed
higher against the sides of their elevation, breaking
in fiery spray.
Choking from the fumes as he stumbled to his
feet, Curt Newton saw vaguely that John Rollinger
had escaped from his hut. The madman, his bonds
apparently snapped by that last shock, was praying
64
THE FACE OF THE DEEP
frenziedly upon his knees.
"Masters, do not slay us! Spare us!" he was
praying insanely to the Dwellers.
APTAIN FUTURE, his brain rocking in
this hour of planetary doom, disregarded
the madman. "He had glimpsed a wavering shape
flying down through the smoke and steam.
C
"It's Simon!" he shouted. "He's come back!"
Buffeted about by the howling currents of hot
air, the Brain's glittering, transparent cube struggled
down toward them.
"The calcium?" cried Ezra Gurney to him.
"I could not find any," said the Brain. He spoke
as though with a great effort, his metallic voice
hesitating and jerky. "There is no calcium."
"Masters! Masters!" came Rollinger's wild,
insane shriek of imploration in the stunned silence
that followed Simon's fateful news.
And Curt Newton suddenly noticed that, as he
prayed, Rollinger was kneeling in front of the big
clump of gigantic, barrel-shaped cacti.
Blinding revelation crashed into Captain Future's
brain. The veil was abruptly torn from the sinister
mystery of the planetoid.
"Good God!" he choked. "The Dwellers! I've
found them out, at last!" The others looked at him,
obviously believing that the superhuman strain had
unseated his reason.
Curt ran forward to the nearest of the giant cacti
in front of which the madman was kneeling. He
laid his hand shakingly upon the fluted, spineless
side of that mighty growth which towered high
above him.
"We've been blind," he choked. "We knew that
plant life had been tremendously developed by the
burst of evolution through which Astarfall passed.
We knew that the tangle-trees and other plants had
developed the power to prey upon and ingest living
creatures. We should have known that plant
intelligence would have been developed too by that
evolutionary spurt!"
A look of awe came on their faces.
"What do you mean?" Kim Ivan asked huskily.
"I mean that one species of the mutating plants
of this world developed intelligence to the point
where it could use hypnotic mental power to draw
its victims to it!" Captain Future cried. "I mean that
these giant cacti are the Dwellers!"
"Curt, look out!" screamed Joan.
An opening had suddenly appeared in the fluted
side of the gigantic cactus-creature beside Curt
Newton. It was like a perpendicular, slitted mouth
that suddenly yawned in the elastic fiber body of
the thing.
Curt, off balance, was falling in toward the
hideous, yawning maw. By a superb effort, the
Brain flashed through the air and thrust Captain
Future aside. He fell sprawling a little beyond the
plant-monster.
The gaping slit-maw in the side of the great
growth instantly closed.
"Name o' the Sun!" Ezra Gurney cried wildly.
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