CHAPTER III

Red-Hood

Straight up and up a swinging ladder the prisoner was borne for scores of yards; while, as he gazed into the abyss and thought of the result if his captor's hold should slacken, his head reeled with vertigo.

But his terror was not for himself alone. Even as he was hurtled high in air, he glanced down and saw an octopus's arm wrapping itself about a feminine form. And fury and alarm for Eleanor's sake drowned out all self-concern. In a flash, as his persecutor wound his way through the webbed void, he relived the history of his acquaintance with Eleanor. He saw again that day, little more than a year ago, when she, fresh from college, had come to the laboratory; and recalled the great leap his heart had given, and how he had gone away thinking only of her. But a natural timidity had delayed his advances; while Dunbar, the silent, morose Dunbar, whom nobody liked, had not been so restrained. Could she not see that the man, though clever enough, was as self-centered as a porcupine? How could she have fallen for this schemer? Not that she had fallen for him absolutely! Though they had been seen together frequently, was she not always gracious to Gates? Yet the rivalry of the two men was bubbling way beneath the surface like acid.

These thoughts, which passed through Gates' mind in much less time than it takes to repeat them, were interrupted by a peculiar squeal which his captor gave out as he reached one of the hammock-like floating platforms and released the victim. Clinging to this unsteady island high in air, in imminent peril of plunging into a two-hundred-foot gulf, the prisoner was not likely to attempt escape!

But even had there been anywhere to flee, he would have been held by the magnetism of a particularly large, sinister-looking pair of crimson eyes, which glowed from a monster who appeared, to Gates' startled gaze, to be at least twenty-five feet tall. A blood-red hood, placed upon the creature's many-hued mail, set him off from all his fellows; as did the air of autocratic command which, somehow, Gates sensed rather than observed directly.

While he stood gaping at this goblin, a sharp cry to his left caught his attention; and, wheeling about, he observed Eleanor and Dunbar being deposited at his side. Both were trembling, as well they might, after their journey up the web, but he thought he saw a glint of relief in the girl's eyes, as he gestured to her.

A long, portentous silence fell as the red-hooded brute glared at his victims. Gates had the sensation of standing before a judge about to pass sentence of execution.

Then there came a throaty rumbling, followed by a buzzing as of a multitude of bees; after which, to the hearers' incredulous amazement, these words rasped forth, in grossly accented yet quite recognizable English,

"Welcome, my guests! Welcome to our web!"

* * * * *

The three humans stared at one another, their lips agape. Had they all gone crazy?

The red eyes of the beast gave a wicked twinkle. Somehow, with their triangular scarlet pupils, they seemed more diabolical than ever.

"Come, come, do you not return my greeting?" buzzed the creature; while a grating noise, which may have been laughter, came from his companions.

"How--how in thunder do you come to speak English?" sputtered Gates, feeling that he was but living through a nightmare from which he would soon awaken.

Again that grating noise, like harsh laughter.

"English--pooh! It is not hard to learn. It is not as if it were an advanced language," proceeded Red-Hood. "But you earthlings, with your minor-planetary minds, may not understand. Do you want me to explain?"

"Why not?" gasped Gates. But had he not steadied himself barely in time, he might have fallen off the platform.

"Well, it is all so very simple," went on the monster. "When arriving here, we covered ourselves with the powder Amvol-Amvol, which makes us invisible, or almost so. We then roamed your planet for many days, unseen by you, observing your habits, and listening to your conversations. Not being slow-witted like earth denizens, we were able to pick up the meaning of the words, which we held in our memories--memories that register everything, and never forget. After all, it is not for nothing that we are gifted with Saturnian intellects."

"Saturnian?" demanded Dunbar.

"Yes, that is the word you would use, is it not? We come from the planet Olar-olargulu, the ringed one."

The hearers remained silent. After all, it had been evident from the first that the strangers had not been born on earth!

"This is our first experience with the inferior globules," continued the speaker, in a voice like a growl. "We have never before spoken with any of you Nignigs, or lesser peoples. But of late centuries we of Saturn have become too numerous, even for the great size of our native planet. So we have been looking for provinces to colonize. For various reasons, we have chosen the earth. As for Mars--it is too small to bother with. Jupiter, unfortunately, is too powerfully defended by its three-footed dwarfs. And Venus is too near the sun for comfort. So we are prepared to take over the earth."

"Take over--the earth?" demanded the three humans, in one voice.

"What else? After all, are we not entitled to it, by virtue of our superior intelligence?"

* * * * *

His hearers could merely stare in bewildered silence.

"Our method, you see, is simple. We have ferried these cars--which you call the Crystal Planetoids--all the way from Saturn, and placed them in positions to whirl about the earth as satellites, enabling us to drop down upon our future domains at leisure, while weaving our clogclotlas--"

"Your what?" demanded Gates.

"Pardon me," apologized Red-Hood, while a spout of smoke came from between his thick grayish-green lips, and his tail lashed out and shot its hornet dart to within half a dozen inches of the young man's face. "Pardon me--I had forgotten myself, and used a Saturnian term. Weaving our webs, I should have said. You see, it is necessary to spin these webs thoroughly through your entire atmosphere before choking out all the planet's native life."

The speaker had made this announcement in as quiet a manner as though he had merely foretold that tomorrow's weather would be rainy.

Hence his hearers were hardly able to take in his full dread meaning. They merely gaped at him as though he were perpetrating a ghastly joke.

"What! Do you doubt me?" rattled out the monster. "Beware lest I take offense! We Saturnians never lie to our inferiors."

This assertion was punctuated by another flick of the creature's tail, whose rapier-like barb barely missed Dunbar's nose.

"But you don't mean to say you would actually exterminate us--exterminate us all--" began Eleanor; then faltered, and halted in confusion.

"Why not? Would you earth-creatures hesitate to wipe out a hive of ants? Doubtless they too have minds, and even a civilization of a sort. But what is that to you? If they got in your way, would you not crush them?"

"So we are no more to you than ants?"

"Do not flatter yourselves. Why should we be sentimentalists, and spare you nignigs unless you can serve us?"

The puff of smoke that came from between the monster's lips, as he spat out these words, was so heavy that all three humans gasped, with the stench of sulphur in their nostrils.

"As I have said," he went on, "our clogclotlas, or webs, have been woven all through your atmosphere, checking the usual wind currents, and laying down a blanket that will enclose the planet's heat, until after a time every living creature will be baked or choked to death in one vast oven. Of course, like any other great engineering project, this will take time. We cannot expect to complete the good work in less than a year or two."

In Gates' disturbed fancy, it seemed that many-colored points of light, like little demons, danced malevolently upon the huge expanse of his captor's armor.

Yet there was just a trace of incredulity in his tone, as he demanded,

"If this is all true, why do you trouble to tell us about it? We for our part do not warn the ants we intend to trample!"

"Nor do we!" Red-Hood's words came in a snort, and his tail flicked through the air in an angry crackling. "But whether we will spare you or sting you to death remains to be seen!"

* * * * *

The beast took a sudden step forward, and Gates found himself almost projected off the platform as the monster shot out at him,

"Do you not think we brought you to the Planetoid for a purpose? For a long while, have we not been looking for suitable earth-captives? No, not at first members of the common pack! We wanted prisoners who knew something of your science, rudimentary as that is. When you went to the roof down there to use your ray machine--the Infra-Red Eye, as you call it--you set up etheric vibrations that instantly attracted our attention. Your ability to produce such vibrations told us that you were the folk we were seeking. So we lost no time about capturing you."

During the moment of silence that followed, Dunbar turned toward Gates with unveiled enmity in his snapping black eyes.

"So!" he snarled. "It was your damned invention that got us into this mess!"

Gates made no reply; but an answer came from an unexpected direction.

"You should thank him, earth-man, for getting you into this mess. Because of his invention, you three may live while all other earth-creatures perish!"

"What in God's name would life on such terms be worth?" Gates demanded. But a sob to his left caught his attention; and, wheeling about, he joined Dunbar in trying to console the weeping girl.

With a contemptuous glint in his triangular eyes, Red-Hood stood looking on; but it was several minutes before he resumed,

"Life is dear to all creatures--and you will find it not worthless on our terms!"

"What are your terms?"

It was Dunbar who asked this question, while Gates felt a silent resentment against the other man leap up within him.

"They are really most reasonable," the monster announced, sliding back and forth on the web, while his scales clanked ominously. "You see, even after all we have done, we find it hard to work on earth. The air is much too thin. After we have thickened the atmosphere with a complete network, things will be different; but as yet we labor under great disadvantages. What we need are tanks of compressed air to help our breathing. Such compressed air can be supplied only by you earth-creatures, since in our haste, unfortunately, we neglected to bring our automatic condensers from Saturn. That is why we have captured you. And that is why we promise you your lives--if you will do us a little service."

Gates glared back at Red-Hood in unconcealed fury. That this creature, who was threatening to wipe out the human race, should ask for his assistance--the idea was too preposterous, too heinous for consideration! And he was glad to note, from the revulsion in Eleanor's face, that she felt no less shocked than he.

But it was in unbelief, swiftly turning to anger, that he heard Dunbar's low, even voice, inquire,

"And what little service do you want of us?"

The gray-green lips of the Saturnian opened in a hideous grin.

"I knew from the first," he rasped, "that you earth-animals would be reasonable. Our proposition is simply this: we will release you all, on condition that, on your return to earth, you prepare great containers of compressed air, according to our directions. If you do this faithfully, we will see that your lives are spared even after the extinction of all other earth-creatures."

"And if we refuse?" demanded Gates.

Red-Hood took a menacing stride forward.

"You will not refuse!" he proclaimed, again with a puff of sulphur fumes. "For, in that case, you will suffer a fate a hundred times worse than death!"

With ominous rapidity, the monster's tail whipped out once more, flashing back and forth before all three captives. And Gates, edging again toward the webbed abyss, had a momentary idea of leaping over the brink. But even as this thought came to him, he felt an ice-cold arm lashing him in a firm grip. Harsh, loud and ironic, the monster's derision grated in his ears,

"Not yet, my friend, not yet! The road of escape will be long and spiky! The road of escape will be long and spiky for all who defy the will of Saturn!"

These words were emphasized by a peal of laughter, shrill, grating, diabolical, wherein all the onlooking monsters joined in one prolonged scream.