A Thing of the Past by John Russell Fearn

Author:John Russell Fearn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, pulp fiction, dinosaur, dinosaurs, prehistoric world
ISBN: 9781434447302
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2013-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

INTO THE DEPTHS

Though he obviously had misgivings, the doctor discharged Cliff later that day as fit enough to resume normal activity, provided he took sensible precautions. Cliff, for his part, did not give his physical condition a second thought: there was important work to be done. He and Joan made the hotel their ‘base of operations,’ and spent most of their time in travelling back and forth to the mining headquarters to study the all but completed earth-bore. The events happening up and down the country were now of secondary interest to them. The news that monsters were being destroyed here and there did not mean a thing, because more would probably arrive to take their place—and in any case the matter of the gradually spreading nitrogene gas had to be dealt with. The one thing to concentrate upon now was the journey below.

Cliff spent most of the evening, after an afternoon’s preliminary study of the machine, making sure that all the controls were exactly as he had planned them. Apparently they were. In appearance the machine itself resembled a submarine, except that it had no conning tower or periscope, and was fitted with the powerful drill on the nose. To the rear were the atomic exhaust jets and disintegrator chambers. Inside the machine was the control room, observation room, and sleeping quarters, together with smaller compartments for stores, spares, and so forth.

Joan took upon herself to handle the matter of provisions, receiving carte blanche from the chairman of the mining organisation to do so. The chairman did not stint on a single thing: he knew Cliff Brooks was an engineer of vision, and he also knew that if this underground project succeeded, there was a mint in it for the mining concern as a whole.

Towards midnight Cliff and Joan returned to the hotel, having made their final arrangements with Dr. Blair for him to be present at the mining headquarters at ten the following morning, along with those scientists he wished to bring with him. Cliff had limited the number to two besides Blair. There would be overcrowding otherwise.

The night was peaceful enough—as far as Cliff and Joan were concerned—but the bulletins at breakfast time carried news of further havoc wrought by wandering monsters. Only two more had been killed, whereas at least eighteen had been seen leaving the underworld. Efforts had been made to destroy them as they emerged from their lair, but one of the earliest arrivals, only wounded, had charged in maddened fury upon the gun battery and smashed the equipment to scrap iron, pounding every soldier into pulp before there had been a chance to escape. This had definitely slowed things up a bit.

“What happens,” Joan asked when breakfast was nearly over, “if the monsters attack our bore as we descend? Had you thought of that? We haven’t any weapons on the vessel—not big ones, anyhow, and those flame-jet guns won’t be any use against dinosaurs.”

“We’re going to risk that chance,” Cliff replied. “The worst that can happen is for the bore to be lifted in the jaws of one of the bigger creatures.

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