Page:Astounding Stories of Super Science (1930-12).djvu/18

304 began dancing around him in evident joy. Faintly to the laboratory came a familiar chant, which Hale recognized as Aña's death song.

Dust to dust Mind to Mind— He will shed his body As the green snake sheds his skin.

As Hale watched, the struggling Indian's body seemed to shrink, and then, instantly, it disappeared.

"Watch them scatter the dust!" said the scientist.

One of the Indians stooped and blew upon the grass.

"What have you done!" Hale gasped. "You've killed this one. Oh, I see now! These poor devils are totally ignorant that you are killing them for practice. They worship you while you turn them to—silver dust!" He turned angrily on the scientist as though he longed to strike him.

"Keep cool, young man!" Sir Basil held up his fleshless hand. "There is no death! Change, yes; but no permanent blotting out of consciousness. Can't you see the horror of it as nature works? When your time for release comes, as it inevitably will, your mind-electron might find new enslavement in a worm!"

ALE'S reply came hotly. "If that is true, why do you murder these poor devils deliberately!"

"My dear Oakham, perhaps you are not so brilliant as I had hoped! All that I have done thus far is only child's play, in preparation for my real work. Haven't you guessed by now what I am getting ready to do?"

"No; I'm a poor guesser."

The scientist made a gesture of mock despair. "Then let me tell you. The molecule-disintegrator is active only on organic structures. When I concentrate it so"—he reached out again, sighted the projector on some point beyond the window and pressed a button—"one single living organism passes out. See that jupati tree by the rock disappear?"

Before Hale's eyes, the tall, slender tree melted into air.

"But," continued Sir Basil, "if I should broadcast my molecule-disintegrator on electron magnetic waves, destruction would pass out in all directions, following the curve of the earth's surface, penetrating earth, air, water." He wet his lips carefully. "You understand?"

Hale stiffened suddenly. "I understand. No life could survive these vibrations of destruction? Through every corner of the earth where life lurks, they would reach?"

"Yes!" cried Sir Basil. "There would be not a blade of grass, not a living spore, not a hidden egg! Think of it, Oakham! No more would the clean air and the sweet earth reek with life, and at last the ultimate mind-electron would be released forever."

He was breathing fast, and his emaciated face burned with two red spots.

Hale thought rapidly. He was convinced now that the fate of all life lay within that diabolical network of chemical apparatus.

At last he said: "And what of you and I, Sir Basil? Shall we, too, be caught in this wholesale destruction?"

"Not immediately," replied the scientist. "Of course, I want to remain in the flesh long enough to be sure that my purpose has been accomplished. I have provided a way for my own safety. If you desire, you may remain with me." He smiled craftily. "I have planned to keep Aña also, the woman whom I called into life and made as I wished."

IS words pounded against Hale's tortured ears with almost physical force. With a supreme effort, the young man controlled his rage and despair. Aña needed him too much now for him to risk defeat by showing his emotions.

To Sir Basil he said: "But if all life disappears from the earth, what shall