The Edmond Hamilton Megapack: 16 Classic Science Fiction Tales Read Free Page B

Door,” answered Chandra Dass steadily. “For she belongs now, not to us, but to They Beyond the Door. Within a few hours she and many others shall stand before the Door, and They Beyond the Door shall take them.”
    “What are you going to do to her?” cried Ennis. “What is this damned Door and who are They Beyond it?”
    “I do not think that even if I told you, your little mind would be able to accept the mighty truth,” Chandra Dass said calmly. His coal-black eyes suddenly flashed with fanatic, frenetic light. “How could your poor, earth-bound little intelligences conceive the true nature of the Door and of those who dwell beyond it? Your puny brains would be stricken senseless by mere apprehension of them, They who are mighty and crafty and dreadful beyond anything on earth.”
    A cold wind from the alien unknown seemed to sweep the lamplit room with the Hindoo’s passionate words. Then that rapt, fanatic exaltation dropped from him as suddenly as it had come, and he spoke in his ordinary vibrant tones.
    “But enough of this parley with blind worms of the dust. Bring the weights!”
    The last words were addressed to the Malay servants, who sprang to a closet in the corner of the room.
    Inspector Campbell said steadily, “If my men find us dead when they come in here, they’ll leave none of you living.”

    Chandra Dass did not even listen to him, but ordered the dark servants sharply, “Attach the weights!”
    The Malays had brought from the closet two fifty-pound lead balls, and now they proceeded quickly to tie these to the feet of the two men. Then one of them rolled back the brilliant red Indian rug from the rough pine floor. A square trap-door was disclosed, and at Chandra Dass’ order, it was swung upward and open.
    Up through the open square came the sound of waves slap-slapping against the piles of the old pier, and the heavy odors of salt water and of rotting wood invaded the room.
    “The water under this pier is twenty feet deep,” Chandra Dass told the two prisoners. “I regret to give you so easy a death, but there is no opportunity to take you to the fate you deserve.”
    Ennis, his skin crawling on his flesh, nevertheless spoke rapidly and as steadily as possible to the Hindoo.
    “Listen, I don’t ask you to let me go, but I’ll do anything you want, let you kill me any way you want, if you’ll let Ruth—”
    Sheer horror cut short his words. The Malay servants had dragged Campbell’s bound body to the door in the floor. They shoved him over the edge. Ennis had one glimpse of the inspector’s taut, strange face falling out of sight. Then a dull splash sounded instantly below, and then silence.
    He felt hands upon himself, dragging him across the floor. He fought, crazily, hopelessly, twisting his body in its bonds, thrashing his bound limbs wildly.
    He saw the dark, unmoved face of Chandra Dass, the brass lamp over his head, the red hangings. Then his head dangled over the opening, a shove sent his body scraping over the edge, and he plunged downward through dank darkness. With a splash he hit the icy water and went under. The heavy weight at his ankles dragged him irresistibly downward. Instinctively he held his breath as the water rushed upward around him.
    His feet struck oozy bottom. His body swayed there, chained by the lead weight to the bottom. His lungs already were bursting to draw in air, slow fires seeming to creep through his breast as he held his breath.
    Ennis knew that in a moment or two more he would inhale the strangling waters and die. The thought-picture of Ruth flashed across his despairing mind, wild with hopeless regret. He could no longer hold his breath, felt his muscles relaxing against his will, tasted the stinging salt water at the back of his nose.
    Then it was a bursting confusion of swift sensations, the choking water in his nose and throat, the roaring in his ears. A scroll of flame unrolled slowly in his brain and a voice shouted there, “You’re