Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

Bentley could say nothing. Barter’s eyes seemed to leap at him growing large and glaring, just as the eyes of caricatured animals leap at the camera in trick motion pictures. Physically he was powerless. Only his brain was active.

“Remove this covering from him, Naka Machi,” went on Barter. “Remove his bonds. You are about his size. Garb him in some of your own clothing.”

Bentley had the odd feeling that he didn’t need to turn his head to see things around him. His head felt huge, almost to bursting, and his eyes felt huge, too, so that he could see in all directions, as though his eyeballs had been fish-eye lenses.

He studied Naka Machi. A nasty opponent in a fight, he decided. He hadn’t figured on any opponent other than Barter. This man was almost as great. The skill of his fingers as he quickly removed the ape skin from Bentley, using scalpels taken from Barter’s table, amazed Bentley with their miraculous dexterity. He cleaned Bentley’s body with some solution in a sponge and clothed him in some of his own clothing which fitted fairly well.

Then he lifted Bentley from the floor and stood him against the wall.

Bentley was unbound. He tried to lift his hands but they refused to move. His feet, too, seemed anchored to the floor. His knees were stiff and straight. He might as well have been a wooden image for all his ability to get about.

Now Barter spoke.

“Come here, Lee,” he said.

Bentley was amazed at the kindliness in Barter’s attitude. He dealt with Bentley as though he had been his son. He felt that Barter genuinely liked him. It was rather amazing. Barter liked him but would remove him without compunction if he thought it necessary.

Bentley found he could move his feet, or rather they seemed to move of their own volition, as he crossed the room to stand before Barter.

“I’m rather proud of what I have been able to do, Lee,” went on Barter, “and I am now entirely safe from the police. I’ve issued another manifesto telling the public that for each attempt made against me, one of the eighteen men captured by me to-day will die. Manhattan is the abode of terror. Here, see for yourself.”

He extended to Bentley what seemed to be a pair of binoculars, but with the ear-hooks common to ordinary spectacles. He set them over Bentley’s eyes and set them in place.

“Now you can survey New York as you wish.”

Bentley looked for a moment or two. Sixth Avenue was a deserted highway, on which red and green lights blinked off and on in the usual routine, signaling to drivers who were non-existent. There were vistas of deserted streets and avenues. There were some few living things—policemen in uniform, standing in pairs and larger groups, all concentrated in an area covering no more than twenty acres, which twenty acres included the hideout of Caleb Barter. Bentley knew that the hideout was under Millegan Place. He had recognized it coming in. A secret panel in a brick wall had opened to show a door where none was apparent. Then a circular stairway leading down into darkness to the room which Barter had gouged out of the earth and turned into a laboratory of hell.

“See the police?” asked Barter. “They know now where I am, but they are helpless because of my hostages. I shall now begin the operations I believe to be necessary. Then I shall issue another manifesto, telling the public that I am safeguarded by great apes whose ability will prove the correctness of my theory about the possibility of creating a race of supermen. My manifesto shall say that my apes must not be slain. It shall say that for every ape slain by the police one of my eighteen hostages will die.”

Bentley would have gasped with horror, but he could not. Now he saw Thomas Tyler, his face a white mask of despair, in the midst of his helpless men.

“I’ll give you a hand, somehow, Tommy,” Bentley whispered deep down inside him.

“Now you shall see what I do, Lee,” said Caleb Barter. “Naka Machi, bring the ape skin you took from my friend. Bentley, you will follow us.”

Barter removed the strange glasses from Bentley’s eyes, blotting out the deserted streets and avenues of Manhattan. Naka Machi followed behind Bentley, carrying the ape skin in which Bentley had penetrated the stronghold of Caleb Barter.

The chrome-steel door swung silently back and the three entered another room filled with blaring light. Without being able to look back Bentley knew that Ellen, white of face and staring, followed at their heels.

There was a long white operating table in this room, and a smaller chrome-steel door set some four feet above the floor in one wall.

“Naka Machi, the incineration tube,” said Barter brusquely.

Naka Machi stepped to the operating table and dug into one of the drawers. He brought out a white tube, closed at one end, about an inch in diameter, eight inches in length, and snowy white.

“Concentrated fire, Bentley,” said Barter. “Watch!”

Barter had Naka Machi cast the ape skin through the small steel door, beyond which Bentley could see a boxlike space large enough to accommodate two or three grown men, lying side by side at full length. It seemed to be indirectly lighted. The ape skin dropped on the floor of this compartment. Barter took the “incineration tube” and directed it on the skin. Bentley heard the clicking of a button.

The ape skin charred quickly, folded up, drew into itself, disappeared—and a fine gray ash settled on the floor of the compartment, like rain from the roof of the ghastly little space.

“Now you understand that I have solved the problem of disposing of the cumbersome useless bodies of my hostages, Lee,” said Baxter, rubbing his hands together as though he washed them.

Bentley’s heart leaped as Naka Machi placed the incineration tube on the operating table. It was close enough that Bentley could have reached it, had he not been utterly powerless to move.

“Naka Machi,” said Barter. “Bring me ape D-4 and Frank Keller, the diplomat. Ellen, clear the operating table. Quickly, now! Bentley, stand against the wall and do not move—but miss nothing I do.”

Then began a grim series of activities which combined to form a nightmare Bentley was never to forget, even as he prayed within him that no slightest memory of it would remain in the brain of Ellen Estabrook.

Naka Machi went back to the room which Bentley had first entered and returned almost at once with a tall thin man, immaculately garbed in gray, wearing a spade beard. His eyes were flashing fires of anger and of pride.

He stared at Barter.

“What is all this quackery?” he demanded. “Who is responsible for this unspeakable rigmarole?”

“Your words are harsh, Mr. Keller,” said Barter suavely, “and you shall learn in good time what I intend. Had you followed my manifestoes in the news columns you would have known what I intend. I shall create a race of super—”

“You will at once release myself and the others with me,” interrupted Keller.

But at that moment Naka Machi returned, leading a great ape which seemed as docile as though it had been drugged. Naka Machi raised his right hand quickly, so quickly Bentley could scarce follow the movement, and with the edge of his palm struck the tall gray man in back of the head. Keller’s knees buckled. As he started to fall Naka Machi stepped close to him, gathered him in his arms and bore him to the table.

At Barter’s swift instructions Ellen Estabrook, all unknowing, placed a cone indicated by Barter over the mouth and nose of Keller. Naka Machi struck the ape as he had struck the man, but he waited until he had persuaded the brute to take his place on the table near Keller’s head.