Chapter IV

It seemed minutes later, but it might have been hours, that Jim Landor sat up with a start, aware that the softly purring motors had lulled him to sleep. He wondered how long they had been travelling. Now their speed seemed to have diminished considerably.

But something else seemed strange.

He turned to the tiny window, and was startled to see no more Polar Cap, no more expanse of white ice. Instead they were in a strange dark place. It was several seconds before he could adjust his eyes sufficiently to see that a wall was very close. It seemed to be moving backward and slightly upward. He knew then that they were descending somewhere at about a thirty degree angle.

"When did this begin?" he asked, turning to Conley.

"About twenty minutes ago. We must be a mile below the ice by now."

So M'Tonak lay somewhere _beneath_ the Polar Cap! That was why men in ages past had been unable to find it, until it became a legend on a par with Earth's lost Atlantis! Jim tensed in his seat now as he thought of all the conflicting reports he had heard about M'Tonak; vague questions crossed his mind to which there were only vaguer answers.

Now the passage through which they sped seemed to widen. Simultaneously they were in a sea of softly diffused, pale greenish light. This light increased as they went on, but did not become intense or glaring; rather it seemed to permeate the very atmosphere from some subtle, unknown source. Then, with breath-taking suddenness they burst out into a vast open place and looked upon the city of M'Tonak.

M'Tonak lay in the center of a vast, shallow bowl several miles wide. In the first start of amazement Jim thought they must have somehow emerged again upon the planet's surface; but this thought was immediately discarded when he gazed across at the opposite horizon. It was concave rather than convex, which meant they were in a cavern of inconceivable dimensions. Far overhead he saw something vague and misty that must have been a roof. That soothing green light was everywhere but he still could not determine its source, it simply seemed to exist.

Now they were gliding gently down into the city which consisted of low-structured, white-marble buildings of peculiar architecture. Wide, empty avenues stretched away in a perfect geometric pattern.

"This city must be inconceivably old!" Conley gasped. "There's no other architecture like this anywhere on Mars!"

Their car was slowing now. It came to rest in a wide circular plaza. The door slid smoothly, invitingly open.

Jim glanced at the others who made no move to leave. He didn't blame them for not moving, for there was something strange and devilishly pre-arranged about all this.

"End of the line!" he said with a jocularity he did not feel. He moved to the door and stepped out.

Instantly he was aware of a strange difference. It might have been that alien green-tinged atmosphere, as if he had suddenly stepped into another dimension. Every fiber of his being now seemed to tingle in a peculiarly delightful way. It was very slight, scarcely felt, but there was no mistaking it.

As the others stepped out Jim looked at them closely. They felt it too, he noticed--especially Kaarji. Kaarji's usually dark and expressionless face was now alight with a feverish excitement.

They looked at the radiating streets about them. All were utterly empty, eerily silent.

"Where in blazes," muttered Conley, "is the welcoming committee? We were brought here, but why? Surely the place isn't uninhabited!"

"It isn't!" Jim said in that instant. "Look. Here comes your welcoming committee!" There was a peculiar note, almost a shrillness of disbelief in his voice.

The others whirled, their combined gaze following his pointing finger across to the opposite side of the plaza.

* * * * *

Toward them slowly came a single lone figure. It was a Martian, of that there could be no doubt; but a Martian inconceivably old! He was stooped and withered, he leaned heavily on a stout cane, but he moved forward briskly for all of that. There was a certain purposefulness about him.

He stopped before them, and leaned forward with both hands on top of his cane. His chin almost rested on his hands as he peered around at them. None of the men moved or spoke. Jim, who was nearest, was fascinated by that grayish leathery face criss-crossed with thousands of tiny lines, in which were set, like jewels, four unwinking black eyes incongruously bright and alert with cunning. There was an uncanny aura of evil about this bent little Martian, an evil made audible as he spoke:

"There are only four of you--and one Martian. Strange, I thought there were more. But it is all right. Four Earthmen, intelligent Earthmen too. Earthmen are always welcome here."

He pointedly ignored Kaarji and turned his eyes upon Jim. Then he chuckled, as though with secret glee. It was a dry metallic wheeze that reminded Jim of an empty rocket tube when the fuel is burned out. Jim was glad of the comfortable weight of his electro-pistol in his pocket.

"My name is Jim Landor," he said. "Who are you, and why were we brought here? Did you have anything to do with it?"

The old Martian gave a quirk of a smile as if faintly amused by Jim's impetuosity. But he answered the questions promptly and in order.

"My name? It is Bhruulo. Here I am the Overseer--the Co-ordinator--call it what you will. As to why you were brought here, did you not seek M'Tonak, as have innumerable men in ages past? Now you have attained M'Tonak, and you should thank me. Yes, it was I who sent the surface car for you. I send it for all men who come far into the Polar Cap."

"You still haven't explained why we were brought here."

"That," Bhruulo said with a tinge of sarcasm, "I am sure you will learn from the others far better than you could from me."

"Then there are _others_ here!"

"Yes, there are others. You need not fear, you are free to come and go here as you please. I give you--M'Tonak! But you will excuse me now, I must leave you. I am sure you will find--the others." With that, the old Martian whirled upon his cane and hurried across the plaza in the direction whence he had come.

* * * * *

"Wait a minute, lad," Conley put out a restraining hand as Jim leaped forward. "Let him play his game for the time being. Let's see where his hangout is, so we can find him later."

They watched as Bhruulo, without a backward glance, entered a columnaded building that was different from the others by reason of its imposing height. Jim nodded and decided to remember that building.

"Now, Jim, let's find those others he speaks of. There are other Earthmen here, I'm convinced of it now." Conley had begun to lose his skepticism of M'Tonak--now that he had found it!--and his eyes were agleam with a growing excitement.

But search as they would, they saw no other occupants. They traversed streets that were dead and empty and silent. That palely diffused greenish radiance was everywhere, coloring all with a ghostly brightness. For several hours they explored, wandering far from that central plaza.

Kaarji stayed very close to Jim now, his original excitement having faded; indeed he seemed appalled, if not a little frightened, as he stared around in the abysmal stillness, and several times Jim noticed the Martian pass his hand in a puzzled manner across his brow.

Wessel's mien brightened, as he watched the needle of his radite-finder gyrating wildly as if at any moment it would jump its bearings.

"It must mean we're now in the very center of the main deposit!" he exclaimed. "If only we--"

It was then they saw the figure of an Earthman emerge from a building hardly fifty yards away. He saw them at the same time. He turned quickly indoors again, and shouted something that sounded like: "New arrivals!"

Then three other men emerged, and they all walked toward the little group of five.

* * * * *

"We're friendly," one of them said as they neared, and Jim's hand fell away from his weapon. "Because we have to be, here. Hmmm. When did _you_ arrive?"

"A few hours ago."

"Uh-huh. And you met the funny little man, I suppose?"

"If you mean Bhruulo," Conley said with a grimace, "we sure did! Is he head man here?"

"More about that later. My name's Spurlin. Ross, Fleming, Adams," he introduced the others.

Jim was staring at the speaker, a huge man with a purposeful set to his unshaven jaw. "Then you're Gregg Spurlin, who headed the scientific expedition three years ago in the search for M'Tonak!"

"And found it, as you can see. Found it too damn well. But we weren't the first. What about you?"

Briefly, Jim told of their trek, and of his search for his brother. "What about him?" he said in imitation of Spurlin's own brusqueness. "Frank Landor. He should have arrived here weeks ago, unless--"

He stopped there, looking from one to the other. The men were looking uncomfortably at each other.

"No Frank Landor ever showed up here," Adams said.

Fleming nodded agreement, a little too hurriedly, Jim thought, and none of the men would look directly at him.

"They're lying to you," Spurlin said. "You might as well know the truth; but before I tell you about it let's get back inside, out of this green hell."

He led the way back into the building whence they had emerged. But once inside they did not stop. The greenish radiance penetrated even there. They hurried over to a wide metal door that slid silently open when Spurlin pressed a hidden button. Revealed to their gaze was a dark narrow tunnel, leading downward.

"What about the Martian?" Ross said, addressing Spurlin.

"He goes along!" Jim snapped, and Kaarji looked at him gratefully.

"All right," Spurlin murmured softly. "No harm if he comes. But I don't think he'll last long, no Martian ever does in this city."

If Kaarji heard the words he did not show it, as he followed Jim into the tunnel.

"About your brother," Spurlin spoke brusquely out of the darkness as they moved along. "Yes, he arrived here all right. For a while, Frank Landor was with our secret little group down here below. But--there's something about that greenish atmosphere, something exhilerating but also deadly, in a very subtle and insidious way. Sometimes it increases, penetrates even down to us, through walls and things. But there are some men who--"

"Yes, I know," Jim's voice was as dead as the hope within him. "Frank was one of those men. He couldn't stay cooped up here. He was curious, he had to find out--things, and the reason for things. That what you're trying to tell me?"

"That's about it. Like others who have come here he had to go up into the city, searching, trying to solve its secret. Every day he and a few others went up. Always they returned to us here, exhausted, until one day--they just didn't come back."

In silence they continued along the winding passage. Jim was thinking of his brother now, with a dawning realization that he would probably never again see him alive. He was thinking of other things too. Of that menacing greenness in the city above. Of Spurlin who seemed so calloused and unconcerned. Of the legendary emerald of M'Tonak, the lure for countless men in ages past.

* * * * *

Spurlin's voice shattered the silence. "Here we are." Now he was flashing a tiny light upon a massive metal door. And Jim's heart leaped, for he saw it as a metal new, and yet not new to him. It was the same dull, greenish-gray metal as the piece Kaarji had given him. Jim passed his fingers lightly across it to make sure, but said nothing.

For more than any of these things he was thinking of a bent and shrivelled old Martian named Bhruulo, who had chuckled with a secret evil glee.

The door swung ponderously open. They stepped into a huge oval room, and many men came hurrying toward them. The walls of this room, Jim noticed, were of the same peculiar metal.

"Introductions later," Spurlin said, as the men came crowding around. "Right now I want you newcomers to see the work we're engaged in here. You look like the sort who can help us in the job."

He led them to another room where a long, skeletal shape was under construction. It rested on curved cradles, pointing upward. Only a few outer plates had as yet been put into place, plates of the same strange metal Jim identified with everything here.

"A spaceship!" he exclaimed unbelievingly. "But--why a spacer here, so far beneath Mars' surface?"

"A spacer it is, Jim Landor. One such as you never saw before, and it's being built under conditions such as you cannot imagine. We have to mine and fashion the metal in the few tiny furnaces we have here, and it's inconceivably slow due to the scarcity and crudeness of tools. We've been at work on this one spacer for three years.

"As for this new metal, it's to be found here in huge deposits. In some ways it's like radite, it might even _be_ radite, strangely changed through the centuries by those peculiar green radiations. Anyway, it's amazingly light and tough, almost expansive under fuel pressure and it's going to revolutionize spacer construction if we can only get any from here and make it known!"

"But how, man? How do you propose--"

"To get the spacer out of here?" Spurlin smiled confidently. "In one super blast we're going to hurl through this roof to the city above, and through _that_ cavern roof onto the surface of Mars. I'm fully convinced this metal is capable of withstanding it. We're building a double hull. And we have enough fuel hoarded here to take us clear to Earth if we wish."

Jim nodded, but he was not enthusiastic. "How long, do you think, before you finish it?"

"Perhaps only another month now! The ore's damnably hard to get out, and we can only stay up there on the surface a few hours at a time--but with the added help of you new men...."

* * * * *

"We're with you to the finish!" Conley exclaimed, and the others nodded enthusiastically. Wessel, especially, had listened with an eager intentness to Spurlin's description of the new metal. Wessel had come seeking new radite deposits, and had stumbled upon something vast beyond his fondest dreams! Even his loyalty to TRI-PLANETARY MINING was fast beginning to waver.

"What I want to know," Jim voiced the thought uppermost in his mind, "is the status of that little old Martian, Bhruulo."

Spurlin frowned. "No one seems to have found out, and most of us don't care. He's incredibly old, of course. He seems to have been here always. In some strange manner, he seems to know when men come into the Polar Cap, and he always sends that surface vehicle out for them. However, he completely ignores us here. I'm not even sure that he knows we're working on this spaceship! We try to keep out of his sight, and I've personally not seen him more than twice in the past year."

"But isn't it incredible that in three years he hasn't found out or guessed what you are doing?"

"Not so incredible. We don't know what he's doing. We leave him alone and he leaves us alone."

"But," Jim exclaimed unbelievingly, "he brought you here, and you're not even curious to know why?"

"Let me remind you that certain men have been curious--and they have disappeared. Anyway our sole purpose now is in completing the spacer for our escape."

Jim gestured disdainfully. "And you, Spurlin--you once claimed to be a scientist! You have not even the scientific mind--"

"One's mind," Spurlin interrupted softly, "somehow, does not seem to be the same after three years in this place."

"All right. But before _I_ leave here I'm going to find out what Bhruulo's purpose is! I don't like the way that old Martian grinned at me. He's got something up his sleeve, and I think you men'll find it out too late."

Spurlin smiled sadly. "All right, Jim Landor. Each man is his own boss here. At least I wish you would accompany a few of us tomorrow. We're getting more of the metal out, and trying to determine the proper spot to blast through with our spacer. You'll become more acquainted with the city and the general terrain, and maybe it'll change your mind."

"Sure, I'll go," Jim agreed. But he didn't think it would change his mind. He had wanted to find M'Tonak, here he was in M'Tonak and he was gong to solve the mystery of M'Tonak. More than that, he was going to learn once and for all what had happened to his brother.