Chapter XXXII: When the Red Roof Fell

Abruptly a green light ran through the rosy haze beneath us, and that dreadful twisting bar of radiance--that living, alien tongue of fire--the serpent-like head of the Lord of Flame, was thrust up out of the flickering violet! With its strange, writhing motion, it swept in a wide arc, as though it saw us! It searched the sky, and then drew back in alarm! The terrible, rhythmic throb of the emerald gleam in it grew faster!

And quickly the crimson sky ahead of our flying army of green-winged monsters was filled with fleets of the silver spheres! They rose swiftly, by the hundred, in long, gleaming lines--floating, drifting, darting, as though carried in swift, cyclonic winds. And then in smoothly sailing squadrons they advanced to meet us, with the swirling green mists of the disintegration force reaching out before them!

The aerial battle-lines met! The winged monsters joined in mad conflict with the silver ships! It was a fierce struggle--a terrible scene! The plant-things swept to the attack, scores in number for each great ship. With desperate, incredible energy they wielded their gigantic clubs and spears; or, wheeling high above the silver vessels, dropped their missiles down upon them.

And the swift searching fingers of purple flame reached out of the silver ships, to guide the thick, swirling vortexes of atomic disintegration. Under that terrible force of flowing green, the plant creatures turned red, battled on for a moment as they glowed with an awful scarlet radiance, and fell in a rain of crimson sparks that fast faded into nothingness!

And ever the throbbing emerald column rising above the sea of ruby mist below us--the writhing serpentine bar of green that was the Lord of Flame--moved and twisted, directing its armies!

The plants battled with desperate ferocity, with incredible strength! In ones and twos and threes, the silver vessels fell, in twisted, battered wreckage--fell among the showers of sparks from the vanished creatures that had crushed them!

It was a battle of animal strength and courage, of desperate, savage energy--against deliberate, inhuman science! It was the battle of the mad, elemental beast--against silent, pitiless power!

And the plants won!

As the monsters that carried Sam and Xenora and myself swept along high above the line of battle, we saw the silver ships give way, saw them drop into the red mist, with the avenging, victorious plants following close upon them!

And then my mine went off!

A vast white cloud of smoke and shattered rock rose deliberately above the cliffs, spread into a Titanic mushroom shape, and fell in a great rain of débris into the abyss and into the lake. After many seconds the sound of it reached us--a crashing, deafening blast! The great wave of air swept up the green-winged fleet like leaves on a stormy lake!

Below the cloud of smoke, where the black cliffs had been, I saw a vast white sheet of waters--a rushing Niagara multiplied manifold--plunging over the brink in a sheer and gleaming arc!

Even as I gazed at it, in dazed wonder at the thing I had wrought, Sam was suddenly close beside me, shouting something with alarm and urgent command in his voice.

"Mel--the roof! Where is the Omnimobile? For God's sake----"

"In a crater in the abyss, by the metal cylinder," I cried, wondering.

Then I looked up, and saw that the flat roof was cupping up, like a vast inverted basin! The waters above were rising!

With no further word to me, Sam shouted a strange order to the monsters we rode. Their vast green wings were folded! We dropped like plummets into the crimson mist! The violet gleam appeared, and we made out the crater-pitted floor. I shouted directions, and in a few minutes we settled into the same little crater in which I had met disaster.

The Omnimobile was still lying there, just as I had left it!

The creatures that bore us dropped near the ground. Those great red tentacles set us gently down on the rocks by the machine. Sam led the way and I carried Xenora. Desperately we scrambled aboard and screwed down the manhole. Sam's mount, Alexander, slumped into a curious attitude of dejection.

Suddenly one of the silver vessels shot into view above the crater's rim, drifting swiftly towards us! The machine was watched! It had been left as a trap! The thing flashing beams of purple flame reached out eagerly--found the Omnimobile. The whirling spirals of thick green mist extended toward us!

Sam fumbled with the dials and made a hopeless gesture. Then I saw Alexander spring into the air and fly toward the terrible gleaming thing! With mad, desperate speed, the plant creature dashed straight into that fearful swirling mist! It charged on through it! Already glowing red with the disintegration beam, it struck the white machine with terrific force!

The argent globe paused, hung uncertainly, and then fell with swift acceleration until it crashed upon the walls of the pit, with the gleaming, wasting form of the heroic plant still clinging to it in the agony of a fearful doom!

For a long moment Sam was still. Suddenly he aroused himself as if from a daze of pain, and turned again to the instrument boards.

"The earth is not frozen!" he shouted. "The power in the ether is dead!" I thought of the havoc my cannon fire had wrought with the machines about the flaming brain.

In a moment he had the generators going, and the machine crawling to an upright position. Then he turned on the rocket tubes. The crater was filled with the roaring jets of steam, and we were hurled into the crimson sky!

I had a fleeting glimpse of the metal brain--the vast cylinder of violet--with the green beam still throbbing from it, and with the last of the silver ships battling the victorious army of plants that swarmed about it!

"The roof is lifting!" Sam cried. "The equilibrium was very delicate--the gas that kept issuing from the earth was lifting the waters to the danger point, and your explosion carried them past! The attempt to freeze the earth was probably undertaken because a roof of ice would have been more secure!"

His voice was drowned in a fresh rushing, whistling burst from the rocket tubes. I carried the inert form of Xenora down to the cabin, and did my best to care for her. In a few moments we were above the haze. I took a last glimpse of the green and purple forests dropping away below us, and turned again to the unconscious girl.

Soon the fierce red glare that poured in the ports told me that we had reached the red roof. And suddenly the Omnimobile was pitching and spinning madly, with wild waters thundering against her sides. A sound reached my ears--a roar, dull, distant and slumberous at first, but rising to a crashing, deafening storm of sound! It seemed an eternity that I held the sleeping girl upon the tossing couch, while the very heavens rocked with thunder!

Abruptly, the bloody glare grew lighter, and was streaked with shafts of bright sunshine--white, precious sunlight of the upper earth! We had followed the vast bubble of gas through the roof of waters! The red mists cleared--drew up into the blue vault above--repelled into outer space!

We were flying in the cold white light, above a mad blue sea!

In fifteen minutes Sam had brought the machine down upon an ocean that was still heaving madly from the cataclysm that had drowned a world. He came into the cabin, and under his skillful ministrations Xenora was soon sleeping quietly, in a normal slumber from which she would wake herself again.

Presently Sam questioned me about my adventures. I gave him the whole account and concluded with the question that, for months, my troubled mind had striven so vainly to answer.

"Sam, how could intelligence exist in metal?"

"Why not in metal, Mel?" the old scientist replied, smiling thoughtfully. "Why not there as well as in lumps of impure carbon and water, as one of the early savants called us? But do you remember the radioactivity of the metal bar, and the little cells of helium gas in it? I think the radium had somehow set up neuronic circuits between the cells, like the circuits between the neurone cells in our brains. It is not impossible. That was a helium brain--but it was formed as naturally as yours or mine!"

On May 4, 2000 A.D., just a year after the beginning of my story, our leisurely homeward cruise was ended. The green coast of Florida rose out of the clear blue sea before us. Xenora and I stood on the deck, happy in the cool salty air and the bright sunlight. The girl was lost in vast delight at the new wonders of azure sea and sapphire sky. At last the dream of my life was come true!

The wonderful girl of my fancy was by my side, to be mine forever!

But she was the Green Girl no longer! A week of the sun and wind of the sea had erased the soft green tint of her clear skin, and replaced it with a light, smooth tan!

THE END