Beyond the Vanishing Point | Page 7

at me from behind. I shoved him back, and took a
step forward. I touched the bars.
"My name is Fred Davis. Newspaperman from Montreal I must see Mr.
Rascor."
"You cannot. You may send in your call. The mouthpiece is there--out
there to the left. Bare your face; he talks to no one without the face
image."
The guard had drawn back into his cubby; there was only his extended
hand and the muzzle of his weapon left visible.

I took a step forward. "I don't want to talk by phone. Won't you open
the gate? It's cold out here. We have important business. We'll wait
with you."
Abruptly the gate lattice slid aside. Beyond the cubby doorway was the
open darkness within the wall. A scuffed path leading inward from the
gate showed for a few feet.
I walked over the threshold, with Alan crowding me. The Essen in my
coat pocket was leveled. But from the cubby doorway, I saw that the
guard was gone! Then I saw him crouching behind a metal shield. His
voice rang out.
"Stand!"
A light struck my face--a thin beam from a television sender beside me.
It all happened in an instant, so quickly Alan and I had barely time to
make a move. I realized my image was now doubtless being presented
to Polter. He would recognize me!
I ducked my head, yelling, "Don't do that!"
It was too late! The guard had received a signal. I heard its buzz.
From the shield a tiny jet of fluid leapt at me. It struck my hood. There
was a heavy sickening-sweet smell. It seemed like chloroform. I felt my
senses going. The cubby room was turning dark, was roaring.
I think I fired at the shield. And Alan leapt aside. I heard the faint hiss
of his Essen, and his choked, horrified voice:
"George, run! Don't fall!"
I crumpled; slid into blackness. And it seemed, as I went down, that
Alan's inert body was falling on top of me....
* * * * *
I recovered after a nameless interval, a phantasmagoria of wild,

drugged dreams. My senses came slowly. At first, there were dim
muffled voices and the tread of footsteps. Then I knew that I was lying
on the ground, and that I was indoors. It was warm. My overcoat was
off. Then I realized that I was bound and gagged.
I opened my eyes. Alan was lying inert beside me, roped and with a
black gag around his face and in his mouth. We were in a huge dim
open space. Presently, as my vision cleared, I saw that the dome was
overhead. This was a circular, hundred-foot-wide room. It was dimly
lighted. The figures of men were moving about, their great misshapen
shadows shifting with them. Twenty feet from me there was a pile of
golden rock--chunks of gold the size of a man's fist, or his head, and
larger, heaped loosely into a mound ten feet high.
Beyond this pile of ore, near the center of the room, twenty feet above
the concrete floor, there was a large hanging electrolier. It cast a
circular glow downward. Under it I saw a low platform raised a foot or
two above the ground. A giant electro-microscope was hung with its
twenty foot cylinder above the platform. Its intensification tubes were
glowing in a dim phosphorescent row on a nearby bracket. A man sat in
a chair on the platform at the microscope's eyepiece.
I saw all this with a brief glance, then my attention went to a white
stone slab under the giant lense. It rested on the platform floor, a
two-foot square surface of smooth white marble. A little roped railing a
few inches high fenced it. And in its center lay a fragment of golden
quartz the size of a walnut!
There was a movement across my line of vision. Two figures advanced.
I recognized both of them. And I strained at my bonds; mouthed the
gag with futile, frenzied effort. I could no more than writhe; and I
couldn't make a sound. I lay, after a moment exhausted, and stared with
horror.
The familiar hunched figure of Polter advanced toward the microscope.
And with him, his huge hand holding her wrists, was Babs. They were
nearly fifty feet from me, but with the light over them I could see them
clearly. Babs' slim figure was clad in a long skirted dress--pale blue,

now, with the light on it. Her long black hair had fallen disheveled to
her shoulders. I couldn't see her face. She did not cry out. Polter was
half dragging her as she resisted him; and then abruptly she ceased
struggling.
I heard his guttural voice. "That iss better."
They mounted the platform. They were very