"He"s alive!" screamed June. "The eyelids! They moved!"
"Yes, I"m alive," boomed a hoa.r.s.e voice. "I thought I was the only man G.o.d had spared. Pardon me for frightening you. I was so thunderstruck...."
The stranger stepped forward. He was dressed in a long black topcoat, high collar and string tie. The clicking noise was explained when he rubbed his long white hands together, making the knuckles pop like tiny firecrackers.
"Ivan Solinski, at your service." He smiled with what evidently was intended to be warmth, again showing those rows of teeth like picket fences. "I suppose we"re all here on the same mission: to find a solution for the mystery of the world"s paralysis." The apparition lit a long and bloated cigarette and through the acrid smoke surveyed them quizzically.
"I"m Jack Baron, formerly on the staff here, and this is June Manthis, daughter of Dr. Frank Manthis, head of the chemical research department." The engineer winced as Solinski enfolded his hand in a clammy grip.
"Ah yes, I know the doctor by hearsay. A great scientist. He has a lovely daughter"--bowing deeply to June as he let his beady eyes wander over her face and figure. "Perhaps we can join forces, although I must admit I have abandoned hope. It is G.o.d"s will." He rolled his eyes toward heaven, then riveted them once more upon June.
"Why, certainly." Jack was striving to overcome his growing dislike.
"We"ll be driving back in a few minutes. Would you care to come with us?"
"No." The pupilless eyes skittered toward Baron for a moment. "I know the doctor"s address. I will come to visit you soon. Now I must be going." Solinski turned as if to depart, then strode to the desk and looked down at the ma.s.s of equipment. "Ah, super-short wave tubes, I see. Very clever." His dexterous fingers lingered over them a moment.
Then he bowed and was gone.
The two remained staring at the empty doorway.
"I--I wish he"d been dead--sleeping," whispered June at last, twisting her handkerchief with trembling fingers. "He--I didn"t like the way he kept looking at me."
"He seemed all right to me." Jack tried to forget his own prejudice.
"He"s willing to help us."
"Might he not be one of the hashish addicts? Those eyes--the pupils were mere pinpoints--and those evil-smelling cigarettes."
"Then why should he have offered to help?" puzzled Jack. "He could have killed us."
"Nevertheless I hope we"ve seen the last of him. Are you about through? Let"s get out of this awful place. He looked like a mummy!"
They drove back to the apartment so completely preoccupied that both forgot to obtain the drug which the doctor had requested.
"Yes, I"ve heard of him," Manthis said after he had been informed of the encounter. "A naturalized Russian. Used to do quite a bit of valuable work in various fields of physics. But he was some sort of radical--seems to me an old-fashioned anarchist--and not popular. He dropped out of sight several years ago. I presumed he was dead."
They soon had the new equipment installed and again began exploring the wave bands, beginning with the comparatively lengthy ones and working down into those only slightly longer than light. It was tedious work, but all were by now as adept as Jack in combing the ether and their task progressed rapidly. Despite the labor, however, nothing could be heard. There was only the universal, breathless silence. At times they moved to the commercial bands and tried to pick up the stations they had heard on the previous day, but even there they met with failure.
By the evening of the third day they had left the wave bands which could be measured in meters and were exploring those strange and almost wholly uncharted depths of the ether which must be calculated in centimeters. There at last luck favored them. It was Jack who caught a strange pulsating tone on the three-centimeter band. It rose and fell, rose and fell, then died away like the keening of a lost soul.
"Listen," he whispered. "Plug in here. I"ve found something."
June and the doctor followed his instructions. Delicately fingering the coils, Baron picked up the sound again, only to lose it. Then it came once more. This time he followed it as it changed to the five centimeter band. Back and forth it went as though weaving an intricate and devilish web.
"What do you make of it?" queried the doctor at last.
"Don"t know." Jack bit his lips. "It"s no natural phenomenon, I"ll swear. Somebody is manipulating a broadcasting station of terrific power not far from here and playing with that wave as a helmsman brings a sailing ship into the wind and lets her pay off again."
"What do we do now?" The little chemist, finding his theory apparently confirmed, was at a loss. "Could we wreck that station?"
"Fat chance!" The engineer laughed bitterly as he reached for a cigarette. "Whoever has conceived that bit of h.e.l.lishness is well guarded. The three of us wouldn"t have a ghost of a show. What I can"t understand is--"
"No use talking about theories now." Manthis sat down, crushed.
Dropping his head in his bands, he pulled his few hairs as though that might drag out an idea. "What"s to be done? Do you realise that we hold more responsibility than ever man has held before? Caesar!
Napoleon! They were pikers. We have to save a world."
Silence greeted his outburst. The scratching of a match as June lit a cigarette sounded like an explosion. Then the smoke eddied undisturbed while the three stared vacantly into s.p.a.ce, trying to think.
"Couldn"t we"--the girl swallowed hesitantly as she realized her ignorance of radio engineering--"couldn"t we interfere with that wave?
Interfere with the wave which already is breaking up the thought waves. Cancel its power. Oh, Jack, you must know what I mean."
"With this d.i.n.ky, five-kilowatt station? We couldn"t reach Yonkers against the power they"ve got. By Jove!" He leaped to his feet as a new thought struck him. "Maybe we could just wake up New York. Get help from the police then! Smash that other station afterwards!"
"But we don"t know whether interference would break the spell,"
interposed the practical doctor. "And it will take a lot of practise to follow that wave. It jumps back and forth like a gra.s.shopper."
"And if we don"t do it right the first time, whoever is operating that station will be down on us like a ton of brick," admitted Jack.
"Let"s get the child we saved," suggested June. "We can bring her up here. Then we"ll need only a little power, just enough to be effective in this room, to bring her to life if we can. They wouldn"t hear our wave."
"Great!" Jack bent over and kissed her. "You"re a real help. I"ll be back in a minute." He dashed out. Soon they heard his step on the stairs and he reappeared, tenderly bearing his golden-haired burden.
"Now, June," he commanded briskly, "place her in a comfortable position on the work table while I get ready." He began arranging equipment and connecting it with the bank of storage batteries.
"Shall I adjust a headset for her?" asked the impatient doctor.
"Be yourself!" Jack placed a crooked vacuum tube near the child"s head and clamped two flat electrodes on her temples. "This wave must act directly on the brain. The sense of hearing has nothing to do with it.
"All right, Sleeping Beauty." He stretched the kinks out of his aching back. "Let"s see what we can do for you. Pardon me, Doctor, if I seemed rude. This is ticklish work. Pick up the outside wave for me.
Thanks. Now I"ve got our d.i.n.ky sending station set on the same wave length at a different frequency. It"s adjusted so that as I keep in touch through this tuning coil, our wave will fluctuate over the same path as the other. It should take six or eight hours to overcome the effect on her, I judge. Here we go. June, you"d better get yourself and your dad some food. Doctor, you examine the kid from time to time.
In an hour or so June can relieve me."
He pressed a switch. The tubes filled with a green glow.
Two hours pa.s.sed, and the sun was sinking behind the trees of the park in a b.l.o.o.d.y haze when Jack at last signaled for June to handle the dials. For a time he guided her slim fingers. Then, as she caught the trick, he rose and stretched his cramped muscles.
"Don"t lose the wave for a moment or we"ll have to start all over again," he warned. "Now for dinner!"
She nodded and, frowning slightly, bent over the dials.