Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/23

Rh of Margie Hart who had fallen for Mula's ad for females. She was bathing my head with the liquid from one of the green globes and pouring some of it down my throat. Either she was one of the most ravishing creatures on earth or the green fluid had remarkable properties.

"What happened?" I asked weakly.

"MacCarthy said Mula must have used your ray path to conduct a heavy jolt of juice back to you. The robot is still out of commission. MacCarthy says since we don't know how to fix a robot we'll have to make another one. He started the big machine making one. You know, Mr. Manville, I didn't get a chance to thank you for saving us from that overgrown hunk of meat. He is the most unattractive man I ever saw, that Mula." She leaned over and planted a highly satisfactory kiss on me.

"Just to show you I enjoyed being rescued from super fatty," she grinned.

MacCarthy and Murray, a radio engineer, a lean, dark Scot, came up leading a new robot different in no way from the other.

"Meet Joe Robot the second. How do you feel?" asked MacCarthy.

"Like I'd been kicked by a Mula," I countered weakly, "but apparently I'm still in working order. Now listen, you two. Since we can't catch Mula any more we're in plenty of danger. Sooner or later he will get a ray centered on us and that will be the end. We've got to figure what to do in a hurry. Was the big ray injured by Mula's juice?"

"Couldn't find anything wrong," answered MacCarthy. "Those things are built plenty strong. What a race they have been!"

Allen, a tall, thin, Southern electrical technician, spoke up, "We've been in a huddle about the mess for a couple of hours while you were unconscious. We can't find an answer. We can't kill Mula with this ray. We can't even look at him any more. It looks inevitable. Sooner or later Mula or the Hobloks will do for us. Even if we run; probably quicker if we run, since this huge ray is our only weapon."

"If we could just talk the language that robot is built to use," I mused aloud.

"There is a chance that there are other beings down here as strong or more so than Mula," I went on. "But how to find them or get any help out of them—" I didn't finish, for coming up the wide cavern road were the three men I had sent for food. Their coming had been announced by shouts from the girls who spent most of the time at the screen.

"We have news," were their first words.

"We will soon have visitors and please be nice to them. They were nice to us."

They had hardly thrown down their packs and stretched when out of an opening in the side of the cave popped a long car, glided to a halt near us. A door slid open and something emerged. Fanny promptly fainted; the other girls screamed and went into a complicated clinch with each other. The three men who had just arrived advanced toward the creature in welcome. He was a snail—yet, a man. A long, lumpy brown body oozed toward us, and, centaur-like above it rose the head, shoulders and arms of a man. His neck was surrounded by a foot-long frill extending over his shoulders downward. His mouth was very big and toothless; his nose long and prehensile: it quivered and sniffed at us with a curiosity all its own. But his eyes were big and brown and as gentle as a St. Bernard dog's. He did not waste time.

OU will be surprised to hear me speak English, but I have had contact with surface people before. I know you are in trouble here. It is safest for you to come with me at once, without more words. Without my help you will soon be killed. There is no time for delay. I will explain things to you on the way. Please come now."

Channing, one of the three who had just arrived, spoke up.

"We were talking with him a long time. His name is Hank. There is a horde of them deeper in the earth, but not many are strong enough to stand gravity this near the surface. There are people like ourselves there too; but they have lived there too long to come to the surface. I think he is our best bet. I don't see any harm in him."

I gave the word, really much elated. I picked up Fanny, who was preparing to come out of her faint.

"Let's go, folks," I called. "This is the subway. Can't keep the train waiting!"

The interior of the car contained some