The Metal Monster by Otis Adelbert Kline

Author:Otis Adelbert Kline
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amontoth/Genesis
Published: 2012-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VII The Subterranean Jungle

I LOOKED cautiously about me. None of the Snals seemed to be watching my movements. Endeavoring to appear unconcerned, I walked slowly toward the door of Lak’s apartment. It took less than a minute to reach the edge of the pile of sleeping cylinders. Again I glanced slowly around. So far as I could see, neither Snal nor slave was paying any attention to my movements.

Dodging into the passageway between the piles of cylinders, I tiptoed to the door. It was closed, but gave when I tried the fastening. I opened it cautiously for a little way, Lak was standing with his back to me, holding Dolores by her shoulders. Neither could see me.

Entering soundlessly, I closed the door.

Lak was saying:

“You have earned death, slave-girl, but I can save you. Only I heard you tell the secret of Zet to the slave-man. You must make your choice now—your life or the love of Lak.”

I had heard more than enough. With a single bound, I stood beside them. Seizing the armored shoulder of the Snal, I spun him half around.

His burning rod stood in a rack, but his chopper and paralyzing ray cylinder still hung from his belt. With a grunt of surprise and anger, he grabbed for the latter. But his visor was up and I swung for his face.

The result was astounding—and sickening. My arm was buried, half way up to my elbow in his great round head. My fist had crashed through his nose and the frontal bones of his face, clear into his, huge, mushy brain.

With a feeling of intense disgust, I withdrew my arm, and the metal-clad body clanked to the floor. As best I could, I cleaned the slime from my arm with a coverlet dragged from Lak’s luxurious sleeping cylinder.

Dolores, who had bravely faced her persecutor to the end, now collapsed, with her face in her hands, and began weeping softly. I was about to try to comfort her, when I noticed something sputtering on the floor at her feet. Puzzled, I bent forward to investigate. A great tear trickled down between her fingers—fell to the metal floor. And where it struck, the sputtering commenced anew, while beneath it a patch of white crystals was forming.

The floor, unlike that of the main building, was made of the white metal that had defied shells, solid shot, oxy-acetylene flames and two of the strongest acids known to man, yet here it was, changing to a white powder beneath a woman’s tears. After each tear drop fell the sputtering soon ceased. But the white spots spread with amazing rapidity. Presently, several of them ran together, then collapsed, revealing the wild thallophytic growths of subterranean jungle about ten feet below the floor. The hole widened rapidly, the metal flaking away in white crystals. It undermined the body of Lak, and it fell into the undergrowth while Dolores and I looked on amazed.

“A way out!” I exclaimed. “Come on!”

After dropping Lak’s burning rod, I swung

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