CHAPTER III
Dave Marlin stood on the ledge in the chill air of early morning, looking into the sodden depths below. The rain had ceased, but the rays of the newly risen sun as yet had scarcely found their way into the crater.
He turned, shivering, as DuChane sauntered toward him. "What's that thing down below?"
"What does it look like?"
"Like a huge ball of clay. But the scaffolding and building equipment-these bunkhouses-indicate human handiwork. The old duffer said something about a space ship. This couldn't be-"
"There's little enough I can tell you," responded DuChane. "I've been here less than a week. Slinky and I lost our bearings in a storm. It's a good hideout-and we're seemingly expected to stick around. The dipsomaniac and her queer companion have been here longer. She used to cook for the construction crew.
"Whatever that thing is-" he indicated the huge mud-colored ball in the pit below-"was practically in that condition when we arrived. The self-styled scientist, Thornboldt, seems to have started out with the idea of pioneering in space travel. My information comes chiefly from an article in a scientific magazine that I ran across in his shack, denouncing him as a charlatan. Near as I can gather, he evolved certain theories about nullifying gravity by atomic polarization-if that means anything to you. Claimed to do it by creating violent stresses within a magnetic field. The attacking author-some scientific duck by the name of Lamberton-acknowledged that there was a mathematical basis for Eli's conception, but pointed out that inconceivable power would be required to demonstrate the theory. Do I bore you?"
Marlin started. "Far from it." Then: "You're an educated man," he commented irrelevantly.
Bart DuChane threw back his head and laughed, the sound echoing from the opposite cliffs.
"Same to you," he retorted. "I recognized the Harvard accent. Like old Eli, it is a shame that we should be associating with scum-except that-as he so charmingly puts it-we are scum ourselves." He paused, then, lowering his voice: "Slinky didn't exaggerate. I have engaged in many shady pursuits, not the least of which is bilking the credulous by the ancient and phony art of crystal gazing. The manslaughter rap was the result of a tavern brawl. I have a weakness for low company."
His frankness was a pointed invitation for similar confidences. Marlin hesitated, then, with a shrug: "Not much of interest to tell about myself. My degree isn't from Harvard-nevertheless, it is from a university of good standing. It just happens that there are more openings for a bruiser than a scholar. I wasn't doing so badly in professional football, filling in with wrestling exhibitions and some boxing. Then I fell for a dame-fell hard. A guy without money was mud to her-so I had to get money. Hooked up with a smuggling mob, trucking the stuff over the border. Eventually we had a run-in with revenue officers, and a couple of them were so unfortunate as to stop lead. I got a minimum sentence, but it was plenty long."
"When you got out, naturally, the dame hadn't bothered to wait."
Marlin made no attempt to answer. DuChane nodded.
"It bears out old Goofus. We are not nice people. I wonder what the eighth will be like."
"The eighth?"
"There's to be another, according to legend. You saw the girl, Pearl. It seems she has prophetic spells. According to predictions which Maw claims the girl dropped, eight of us are due to show up, in addition to Eli-four male, four female. What is to happen then is rather vague, but Maw drops dark hints about a mysterious journey. She and Pearl were here first; then came Link and I. Thus you and your friends were more or less expected."
"Surely," expostulated Marlin, "you don't believe-"
"Believe? Without proof, I neither believe nor disbelieve. It's as bigoted to do one as the other. However, we need only one more arrival-female, of course-to complete the prophecy. I hope she turns out to be a good-looker-though I'll admit your friend Sal isn't bad."
Marlin turned away, somehow annoyed.
"Is there such a custom around here as breakfast?"
DuChane sniffed the air. "Maw Barstow seems to have anticipated your question. The eating shack is beyond the bunkhouses."
The fare produced was abundant if not choice. The whole group evinced hearty appetites, even Pearl, who, despite a soiled ill-fitting gown, seemed scarcely less lovely than she had under the flickering lamplight. She smiled amiably but spoke not at all.
While eating, Marlin let his eyes rove speculatively over the group.
The waif who had crouched beside him, shivering and disheveled, over the fire last night now looked somewhat more the part of an underworld moll. Sally had made an attempt to do her hair, but the dab of color applied to her lips accentuated the wary hardness of her expression.
Len McGruder, bull-necked, furtive-eyed, loose-lipped, inspired in Marlin a deep antipathy. "A man who would sell his best friend down the river," was his mental summation.
Maw Barstow, referred to by DuChane as a dipsomaniac, was probably not as old as she looked. Her unsavory appearance seemed due more to disfigurement than to disposition. A rather sentimental but plain-spoken person, she was unquestionably devoted to Pearl.
Slinky Link, with his ingratiating yet repellent manner, was a parasitic type of petty criminal-not particularly dangerous-not particularly anything.
DuChane, as Marlin sensed him, was a man at war with himself. "In a way," reflected Marlin, "He's too much like me."
The thought occurred that if he were looking at himself through other eyes, he would not be more favorably impressed than by the others. "I'd see a poker-faced lug with a cauliflower ear and the body of a stevedore," he reflected. "It'd be pretty hard to guess that a hard-looking egg like me ever dabbled in science and still has a yen to find out what fascinating stuff is hidden in the covers of every book-even if that book is only a human face."
It was difficult to account for the oldster, Elias Thornboldt. Danish, Marlin judged him to be. Apparently he was providing food and shelter for the gathering, much as he despised them all. He sat at the head of the table, coldly aloof, consuming food in enormous mouthfuls.
When his appetite was appeased, Thornboldt stalked from the cookshack, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. A few moments later, Marlin found him standing on the ledge, moodily staring down at the huge ball of clay.
"Still it moves!" he muttered. "It moves and rolls and grows."
"What moves?" demanded Marlin sharply. "That thing down there? And what is it?"
The older man turned as if to speak. But he only glared at the group surrounding him and abruptly walked away.
"It's a fact," DuChane commented. "If you watch patiently you can see it. The ball seems to be resting in a bed of ooze-a sort of tarry substance. As the sun rises, it softens under the heat, and when the heat is withdrawn, it hardens. The alternate expansion and contraction seems to impart a rotation to the ball. It's more than a hundred feet across, yet in the time I've been here, I'll swear it's turned half way over. And that isn't all. Care to take a trip down?"
Presently they stood on a precarious scaffolding close to the huge sphere. The bed of ooze could be discerned engulfing its base. Already, under the heat of the sun, a steaming effluvium was rising from the surface. The outside of the ball was caked with a grayish crust of the stuff.
"Feel it," urged DuChane. "Hard?"
"Yes, it's hard," admitted Marlin. "Like stone."
"Now look." DuChane caught up a crowbar and drove it into the bulging wall. It pierced the crust and sank a short distance into the interior.
"Push on it," he directed.
Marlin tested the resistance to the bar. Under pressure it sank deeper. He could even twist it slowly.
"Seems kind of-rubbery-inside," he commented.
"Pull it out."
He did so. Immediately the hole filled with a flowing exudation similar to the ooze below him. It spread over the edges and began to harden.
"Acts like the stuff they used to put in bicycle tires to make them puncture-proof," commented Marlin. "Is it solid clear through?"
DuChane stared. He was breathing more heavily than his recent exertion seemed to warrant.
"I forgot you don't know. This is Thornboldt's space ship. Or was. He built it in the form of a metal sphere, girded and braced inside, all equipped with dynamos and machinery. Had a big crew of workmen. When it was just about finished-even provisioned-his backers decided that the whole thing was crazy and shut off his money supply. Articles like that one by Lamberton finished them. To cap the climax, the thing broke through its scaffold and sank into this pit."
"Funny place to build in the first place."
"His idea was to keep the construction a secret from the general public. This crater-like depression, with its only entrance through the old mine tunnel, was far enough out of the way to accomplish the purpose, even though it must have enormously increased the cost of assembling materials. Anyway, after it fell into the pit, the creeping rotation commenced and the shell has gradually taken on this coating of lava-or whatever the stuff is. It's at least four feet thick by this time. Somewhere inside is an entrance port, but there's no way of locating it. The whole thing is so incomprehensible that it's driven him crazy. At least he thinks it has."
"You think otherwise?"
DuChane glanced at his companion. "Possibly his theories are ridiculous, but no one can deny that the ball actually...
