Astounding Stories, July, 1931 Part 16

Professor Prescott blinked at it a moment, almost in disbelief, then stooped and picked up one for himself--a diamond that would have made the Kohinoor look like a pebble.

There was no doubting its genuineness. Even in the moonlight, it flashed and burned like a thing afire.

But as the professor turned his eyes at last from its dazzling facets, they failed him again--or so he thought--for half hidden behind a jutting crag loomed a huge cylindrical object, seemingly of metal.

For the s.p.a.ce of two breaths, he stared speechless, then gasped:

"Good Lord! What's that?"

Following his gaze, Stoddard saw it too.

"G.o.d knows!" he muttered, in a tense voice. "It wasn't there this afternoon. Let's have a look at it."

Cautiously, not knowing what to expect, they advanced toward the singular phenomenon.

Nearing, they saw that it was a mechanism some twenty feet at the base and sixty or more feet high, pointed at the top.

"A rocket!" declared Professor Prescott. "Though I've never seen anything larger than a laboratory model, I'll gamble that's what it is."

"And I'll gamble you're right!" exclaimed Stoddard. "And one capable of carrying pa.s.sengers, would you say?"

"Fully."

"Then I think we have solved the mystery of how these diamonds reach the market. The question now is, who's back of this thing? And since our position here probably isn't any too healthy--"

He broke off and drew his automatic, as a small, ghostly figure appeared--seemingly from nowhere.

The professor saw it, too--saw it followed by another, and another--and now he knew his eyesight had not failed him back on that wind-swept slope above, either, for these were actual creatures, incredible as they seemed.

The snow people?

He did not know--had no time to find out--for with a rush, the strange beings were all around them.

Stoddard levelled his pistol and called on them to halt, but they came on--scores, hundreds now, seeming to pour out of some unseen aperture of the earth.

Once or twice he fired, over their heads, but it failed to halt them.

They closed in, jabbering shrilly.

But though their words were a babel, their actions were plain enough.

Swarming up, they overpowered the explorers by sheer numbers, and herded them with jabs of sharp, tiny knives toward a cavern mouth that opened presently amid those eery crags.

Led underground, they found themselves proceeding along a frosty pa.s.sage lit every few yards by a great chunk of diamond. Their dim glow seemed to be refracted from some central point beyond.

This point they soon reached--a great, vaulted chamber whose brilliance was at first dazzling.

Its source, after the first moment or so, was obvious. It was coming from the roof, which was one vast diamond.

"You see where we are?" whispered Stoddard. "Under the Diamond Thunderbolt! These people have tunneled beneath the meteor. Or else--"

"Their tunnel was already there, when the meteor fell," finished Professor Prescott. "But can it be possible such creatures could have produced that rocket?"

"I'm inclined to think anything is possible, now! But I'm sorry I dragged you into this, Professor. I--"

"Forget it! We're here and we'll face it together, whatever it is."

"You're a game sport!" Stoddard gripped the older man's hand. "We'll face it--and lick it!"

Further talk was interrupted by a stir among their captors. The ranks parted--and into that dazzling chamber stepped a tall, bearded personage whose aristocratic features and haughty bearing suggested a Russian of the old regime.

He strode toward them, smiling sardonically.

"Greetings, my friends! Nice of you to drop in on me while in the neighborhood." His English was suave, precise. "Professor Norman Prescott, leader of the American Kinchinjunga expedition, I believe."

He paused and lifted inquiring eyebrows to his other guest. "And--?"

"Dr. John Stoddard, our geologist," came the answer stiffly. "And you, sir?"

"A fellow professor, you might say. Prince Ivan Kra.s.snov. You have heard of me, perhaps?"

Prescott had indeed. One of Russia's most brilliant and erratic scientists under the czar, the man had been permitted to continue his work for the Soviets, developing among other inventions, a rocket reported to be capable of carrying pa.s.sengers. But some two years ago he and his rocket had vanished in the course of a test flight from Moscow, and the natural conclusion was that he had either perished in the sea or shot off the earth altogether, since no trace of the unique mechanism was ever found.

"Yes, I have heard of you," said the professor, recalling this sensational story that had occupied the front pages of the world's press for days. "And so it turns out that your rocket didn't come to grief."

"Not exactly--though as you can see, it landed me in rather an inaccessible spot," was the reply. "But quite an interesting one! I was well satisfied to let the papers report me missing. You can understand, yes?"

"I think I can, that part of it." While as for Stoddard, he was beginning to understand a great deal. "But these curious creatures?"

he said, indicating the whispering, pigmy host that filled the cavern.

"You found them here?"

"They found me, rather!" corrected the prince. "But we get on quite well together. They consider me a G.o.d, you see, since I, too, came out of the sky in a thunderbolt, as their great diamond once did, according to their legends."

"But who are they? What is their origin? Why are they so small, so pale?"

"Natural questions, Professor, but not so easy to answer. Who they are I cannot say, save that they are the snow people of native superst.i.tion. Their origin? It is lost in antiquity. Perhaps they are the remnants of some Tibetan tribe driven into the mountains by enemies, thousands of years ago. While as for their stature, their pallor--these no doubt are the result of the furtive underground life they lead."

He paused, waited politely, as though for further questions, but neither spoke. Now that the main mystery was solved, the one question uppermost in both their minds was what this suave, inscrutable n.o.bleman was going to do with them--and that question neither cared to ask, fearful of what the answer might be.

Finally Prince Kra.s.snov spoke again.

"What, gentlemen--you have no further curiosity about me? How unflattering! I thought perhaps you might want to know why I have chosen to maintain my headquarters here on Kinchinjunga, the past two years, and how I have been occupying my time. But I hold no resentment. I shall tell you, so that you will be prepared for what I am going to propose."