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panting upon its rim, looking a little dashedly
across the wilderness of lava and crevasses.
"No wonder Simon couldn't explore all these
cracks," he thought. "I've picked myself a job."
He resolutely went on to explore the next chasm.
But in it, he found nothing at all. Otho felt
increasingly worried about the lack of beryllium
and calcium as he climbed back to the surface.
The beryllium would soon be needed for hull-
construction, and a few pounds of the calcium
catalyst must be found before their projected ship
could leave this world.
As he reached the surface, he suddenly recoiled.
A half-dozen weird creatures had emerged from the
jungle and were silently marching across the lava-
beds nearby. They looked like gigantic centipedes.
Then Otho recognized them as a band of the
Cubics, the weird little cooperative cubical
creatures they had already seen. The things had
grouped together into the centipedal formations.
They were solemnly crossing the lava-beds
toward the towering double range of volcanoes.
"Now what the devil are they going out there
for?" Otho wondered. "They must know it's
dangerous around the volcanoes."
The Cubics were heading toward the gigantic
canyon between the volcano-ranges, that which the
castaways had named the Canyon of Chaos.
The weird creatures approached a point some
distance along the rim of that terrifying abyss, and
then disappeared down into it.
"Holy space-imps, what reason can they have for
entering that devilish place?" muttered the android.
YSTIFIED and intrigued, Otho started
out across the lava-beds after the Cubics.
He picked his way as they had done, across the hot
expanses of solidified lava.
M
Swirling smoke made him cough and gasp for
breath. But he pressed on until he reached the rim
of the Canyon of Chaos at the point where the
Cubics had entered it. He peered down into the
abyss.
The Canyon was a fearsome spectacle. Many
miles long, a mile in width, and almost that in
depth, its gloomy rock walls sank downward almost
vertically everywhere. Far below, a glowing,
narrow river of crimson lava crawled along the
floor of the titan gorge.
Sulphurous smoke and blasts of superheated air
screamed up from its depths. The lava river at its
floor, Otho perceived, bubbled up from fiery
springs at the north end of the canyon and flowed
down its length and away through an underground
chasm at the southern end.
"But where did the Cubics go?" he muttered,
trying to peer down through the rushing smokes.
Then Otho perceived that a precarious pathway
led downward from where he crouched, along the
steep wall below him. The creatures he had
followed had obviously descended by that path.
38
THE FACE OF THE DEEP
He was on the point of starting down after them,
when he glimpsed them returning up the pathway.
At once Otho ducked behind a mass of rocks for
concealment.
The Cubics, still joined in groups to form the
centipede-like figures, emerged laboriously from
the abyss. But now each of these cooperative
figures carried with it a chunk of rock shot with
gray metal.
"That rock is lead-bearing," Otho thought
swiftly. "That's good-we need lead. But what are
they going to do with it?"
There was no apparent answer to that riddle.
The Cubics started marching back across the
lava-beds toward the jungle with their burdens.
Otho remembered now that when they had first
encountered the Cubics the little cooperative
creatures had been carrying similar chunks of rock
with them.
"Why, they come to this canyon for lead-bearing
rock!" he thought astonishedly. "They must be
more intelligent even than we figured. Wonder
what they do with it?"
He decided at once to enter the abyss and locate
the source of the lead ores.
Lead was one of the needed materials they had
not yet located. And there might well be other
required substances down there.
Yet even the hardy Otho hesitated a few
moments before entering that fearsome abyss. The
smoke and scorching air threatened to asphyxiate
even his tough lungs. His own respiratory system
was much more resistant to fumes and gases than
the ordinary human's. Still, he took care to make
himself a rude respirator from strips of cloth which
he tore from his jacket and bound across his nose
and mouth.
HEN Otho started down the pathway. It
was so. precarious, and had so many
sections torn out of it by recent seismic
convulsions, that only the agile android or creatures
like the Cubics could possibly descend.
T
Smoke-laden winds shrieked and howled
upward around him, as he made his way slowly
down. Hot ashes rained constantly upon him, from
the showers cast up constantly by the towering
volcanoes that flanked the canyon. The evil glow of
the lava river far below seemed to yawn for him.
Otho kept on. Presently he descried a big ledge
or shelf in the vertical wall close beneath him. In a
few minutes, he was standing upon this ledge. He
looked wonderingly around.
"Imps of the Sun, the Cubics never did all this!"
he exclaimed.
There were ancient mine-workings upon this
ledge. Tunnels had been driven back into the rock
wall for a dozen yards, and marks of the tools
which had dug them were still evident.
It was obvious that the purpose of the tunnels
had been to tap several rich veins of metallic ores
here. Otho's trained eyes at once recognized the
glittering streaks in the rock.
"Not only lead deposits, but also beryllium --
and plenty of it!" he exulted. "Now if we can only
find the calcium and a few others, we're all set as
far as materials are concerned."
Then wonder returned to conquer his exultation.
Who had dug these shafts? Who had mined here for
lead and other metals?
It could not have been the Cubics, he thought.
These cooperative little creatures appeared not to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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