girl.
With Joan safely in the Wanderer's care, he rushed out again for Tom.Then followed a nightmare of battling those twining tentacles and thepuffy crowding bodies of the spider men. Wrestling tactics andswinging fists were all that the two Earthlings had to rely upon, but,between them, they managed to fight off a half score of the Bardeksand work their way back into the glowing force area.
"It's no use," Tom gasped. "We can't get back."
"Sure we can. We've a friend--here--in the force area."
Tom Parker staggered: his strength was giving out. "No, no, Bert," hemoaned, "I can't. You go on. Leave me here."
"Not on your life!" Bert swung him up bodily into the sphere as hecontacted with the invisible metal of its hull. Kicking off thenearest of the spider men, he clambered in after the scientist.
* * * * *
The tableau then presented in the sphere's interior was to remainforever imprinted on Bert's memory, though it was only a momentaryflash in his consciousness at the time: the Wanderer, calm and erectat the control panel, his benign countenance alight with satisfaction;Tom Parker, pulling himself to his feet, clutching at the big man'sfree arm, his mouth opened in astonishment; Joan, seated at theWanderer's feet with awed and reverent eyes upturned.
There is no passing directly between the planes. One must have theforce area as a gateway, and, besides, a medium such as the cage ofthe Bardeks, the orange light of the metal monsters, or the sphere ofthe Wanderer. Bert knew this instinctively as the sphere darkened andthe flashing light-forms leaped across the blackness.
The motors screamed in rising crescendo as their speed increased.Then, abruptly, the sound broke off into deathly silence as the limitof audibility was passed. Against the brilliant background of swiftcolor changes and geometric light-shapes that so quickly merged intothe familiar blur, Bert saw his companions as dim wraithlike forms. Hemoved toward Joan, groping.
Then came the tremendous thump, the swinging of a colossal page acrossthe void, the warping of the very universe about them, the physicaltorture and the swift rush through Stygian inkiness....
"Farewell." A single word, whispered like a benediction in theWanderer's mellow voice, was in Bert's consciousness. He knew thattheir benefactor had slipped away into the mysterious regions ofintra-dimensional space.
* * * * *
Raising himself slowly and dazedly from where he had been flung, hesaw they were in Tom's laboratory. Joan lay over there white andstill, a pitiful crumpled heap. Panicky, Bert crossed to her. Histrembling fingers found her pulse; a sobbing breath of relief escapedhis lips. She had merely swooned.
Tom Parker, exhausted from his efforts in that other plane and withthe very foundations of his being wrenched by the passage through thefifth dimension, was unable to rise. Only semiconscious, his eyes wereglazed with pain, and incoherent moaning sounds came from his whitelips when he attempted to speak.
Bert's mind was clearing rapidly. That diabolical machine of Tom's wasstill operating, the drone of its motors being the only sound in thelaboratory as the inventor closed his mouth grimly and made adesperate effort to raise his head. But Bert had seen shapesmaterializing on the lighted disk that was the gateway between planesand he rushed to the controls of the instrument. That starting levermust be shifted without delay.
"Don't!" Tom Parker had found his voice; his frantic warning was ahoarse whistling gasp. He had struggled to his knees. "It will killyou, Bert. Those things in the force area--partly through--thereaction will destroy the machine and all of us if you turn it off.Don't, I say!"
"What then?" Bert fell back appalled. Hazily, the steel prow of a warmachine was forming itself on the metal disk; caterpillar treads movedlike ghostly shadows beneath. It was the vanguard of the Bardekhordes!
"Can't do it that way!" Tom had gotten to his feet and was stumblingtoward the force area. "Only one way--during the change of oscillationperiods. Must mingle other atoms with those before they stabilize inour plane. Must localize annihilating force. Must--"
What was the fool doing? He'd be in the force area in another moment.Bert thrust forward to intercept him; saw that Joan had regainedconsciousness and was sitting erect, swaying weakly. Her eyes widenedwith horror as they took in the scene and she screamed oncedespairingly and was on her feet, tottering.
"Back!" Tom Parker yelled, wheeling. "Save yourselves."
* * * * *
Bert lunged toward him but was too late. Tom had already burst intothe force area and cast himself upon the semitransparent tank of thespider men. A blast of searing heat radiated from the disk and themotors of Tom's machine groaned as they slowed down under a tremendousoverload.
Joan cried out in awful despair and moved to follow, but her kneesgave way beneath her. Moaning and shuddering, she slumped into Bert'sarms and he drew her back from the awful heat of the force area.
Then, horrified, they watched as Tom Parker melted into the mistyshape of the Bardek war machine. Swiftly his body merged with thehalf-substance of the tank and became an integral part of the mass.For a horrible instant Tom, too, was transparent--a ghost shapewrithing in a ghostly throbbing mechanism of another world. His ownatomic structure mingled with that of the alien thing and yet, for amoment, he retained his Earthly form. His lean face was peaceful indeath, satisfied, like the Wanderer's when they had last seen him.
A terrific thunderclap rent the air and a column of flame roared upfrom the force area. Tom's apparatus glowed to instant white heat,then melted down into sizzling liquid metal and glass. The laboratorywas in sudden twilight gloom, save for the tongue of fire that lickedup from the force area to the paneled ceiling. On the metal disk, nowglowing redly, was no visible thing. The gateway was closed forever.
* * * * *
What more fearful calamity might have befallen had the machine beenswitched off instead, Bert was never to know. Nor did he know how hereached his parked flivver with Joan a limp sobbing bundle in hisarms. He only knew that Tom Parker's sacrifice had saved them, hadundoubtedly prevented a horrible invasion of Earth; and that theefforts of the Wanderer had not been in vain.
The old house was burning furiously when he climbed in under the wheelof his car. He held Joan very close and watched that blazing funeralpyre in wordless sorrow as the bereaved girl dropped her head to hisshoulder.
A group of men came up the winding road, a straggling group,running--the loungers from the village. In the forefront was thebeardless youth who had directed Bert, and, bringing up the rear,limping and scurrying, was the old man they had called Gramp. He waspuffing prodigiously when the others gathered around the car,demanding information.
And the old fellow with the thick spectacles talked them all down.
"What'd I tell you?" he screeched. "Didn't I say they was queer doin'sup here? Didn't I say the devil was here with his imps--an' thethunder? You're a passel o' idjits like I said--"
The roar of Bert's starting motor drowned out the rest, but the oldfellow was still gesticulating and dancing about when they clatteredoff down the winding road to Lenville.
* * * * *
An hour later Joan had fallen asleep, exhausted.
Night had fallen and, as mile after mile of smooth concrete unrolledbeneath the flivver's wheels, Bert gave himself over to thoughts hehad not dared to entertain in nearly two years. They'd be happy, heand Joan, and there'd be no further argument. If she still objected toliving on the fruit farm, that could be managed easily. They'd live inIndianapolis and he'd buy a new car, a good one, to run back andforth. If, when her grief for Tom had lessened, she wanted to go onwith laboratory work and such--well, that was easy, too. Only therewould be no fooling around with this dimensional stuff--she'd hadenough of that, he knew.
He drew her close with his free arm and his thoughts shifted--movedfar out in infra-dimensional space to dwell upon the man of the pastwho had called hims
elf Wanderer of Infinity. He who would go on and onuntil the end of time, until the end of all things, watching over themany worlds and planes. Warning peoples of humanlike mold and emotionswherever they might dwell. Helping them. Atoning throughout infinity.Suffering.
* * * * *
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