The Lost World MEGAPACK®. Lin Carter

      Harlan gasped. “The man’s mad! He’s firing his gun at us!”

      Above the roar of the propeller sounded the sharp bark of a rifle. The man below was firing not at them, but in warning not to land! To stay away!

      “I’m going to land anyway!” Crane yelled. “I’ve got to! Blinding snowstorm up above, and getting worse. This is a safer chance.”

      A hundred feet above ground, Crane gasped through tight-pressed lips.

      Something had brushed against the undercarriage! He felt it jar through the ship, though he saw nothing! A keen instinct of danger knifed through him. He tried instantly to zoom upward again, but again something struck the ship.

      This time it had been at the right wingtip, almost wrenching the wheel out of his hands. The plane dipped groundward sickeningly, like a wounded bird. With desperate strength, Crane straightened the craft just as the wheels touched ground.

      Bouncing badly, the plane rumbled over the rough terrain. It rolled almost to a stop, but abruptly struck something with a stunning impact, shivering through its entire length. Crane found himself thrown in a tangled heap with his two passengers on the tilted cabin floor.

      The motor coughed to silence, luckily, eliminating the danger of fire if any gas had spurted out of the wing tanks.

      CHAPTER II

      The Invisible Specter

      Hugh Crane picked himself up dazedly, then pulled the girl to her feet. She lay limp in his arms for a moment, half stunned. Finally her eyelids flew open. The warm color of her eyes was washed over with terror that faded, and wonder that grew.

      “What happened?” she asked weakly. “Why did the plane act as if it had struck something?”

      “Struck something!” Paul Harlan stood beside them, dark face glowering, a bruise over his right eye. “Bad piloting, that’s all,” he growled. “First he nearly wrecks the ship in taking off at Chicago. Now he nearly puts us down in pieces!”

      His voice rose harshly. “Spies! Your father is worried about spies, you say. I just wonder if this Hugh Crane is a licensed pilot at all. Or if he’s using his right name!”

      Jondra Damon’s eyes widened. She stepped back from Crane.

      “Father warned me to be very careful, and now—”

      “Good God!” Crane exploded. He’d had to bite his lips to keep from swinging at Harlan. Now the stark suspicion in the girl’s eyes added fuel to a mounting rage. He didn’t have to take this from anybody!

      He lunged at Harlan, driving his fist forward.

      The blow never landed. Crane was not quite sure why it didn’t. Some force seemed to grasp his wrist and hold his arm back. He tried again, more enraged than ever.

      “Stop!”

      Crane whirled. The new voice had come from the swung-open door of the plane’s cabin, with a bark of authority. A man leaned there, rifle upraised. Tall and thin, gray-haired, unshaven, boots and pants muddy, he looked the part of some desperate character. But there was intelligence in his high brow and level gray eyes.

      “Dad!”

      With the one word, Jondra flew to embrace him. He patted her head, then disengaged her gently, facing the two men again.

      “I heard your little quarrel,” he said casually. “Your nerves are upset by the close escape you had. Calm down, please.”

      Crane relaxed, anger draining from him as suddenly as it had come.

      “You’re Dr. Sewell Damon, of course,” he said, and introduced himself and Harlan. He went on, grinning ruefully, “I was supposed to just land, and unload, and go. But I guess now I’ll have to stay till I can make repairs.”

      The scientist’s lips pursed behind a week’s growth of beard.

      Crane snapped, “If you think that’s a spy’s trick, so that I can stay and horn in on whatever you’re doing here—” He shrugged indifferently.

      Dr. Damon’s eyes narrowed. His hand tightened on the rifle.

      “If there’s any spying, it wouldn’t be healthy. The secret of this valley—”

      “I don’t want a dime of it,” Crane growled. “Just tell me one thing—what spoiled my landing? Bad air-currents rising from the valley?”

      Dr. Damon stared. “You haven’t guessed?” he said slowly.

      “Guessed what?” Crane looked blankly at Harlan, who was equally mystified.

      The scientist turned. “Follow me.” The four stepped from the cabin. Dr. Damon dodged under the right wing and stood erect beside the motor cowling. There was a large round dent in the front wing-edge. Crane gaped at it.

      “Exactly as though I’d struck a tree there, just before the plane stopped rolling.”

      “You did,” Dr. Damon said.

      “What? Where’s the tree?” Crane looked around for the fallen tree, but there was no sign of one within hundreds of yards. “Look, Dr. Damon,” he grunted, “I’m not in the mood for humor—”

      A startled cry from Harlan interrupted. He had passed back of Crane, stretching his cramped muscles. Now he was toppling to the ground, for no visible reason—as if his legs had been knocked from under him!

      Rising to his elbow, looking foolish, he slowly stretched out his hand near the ground. Crane watched in utter fascination as Harlan’s hand seemed to meet something, and explore its outline. Harlan looked up with his foolish expression altered to one of ghastly shock.

      With a smothered curse, Crane kneeled and stretched out his hand to the same spot. In mid-air he felt something—the bark of a tree! Solid and real to his sense of touch, but unseen by his eyes.

      Harlan’s whisper seemed to shatter the quiet air.

      “It’s—invisible!”

      For a moment nothing more was said. The three newcomers to the valley looked at one another in dumb amazement, as human beings must when confronted by a wonder out of the realms of fantasy. Invisibility! A dream of science—and of superstition before that—come true!

      Hugh Crane followed the length of the fallen trunk before he was satisfied. With his hands he felt the bole, the lower branches, and the upper foliage of some pine-like tree with needles and cones, knocked over by the plane.

      He came back facing the scientist.

      “So that’s the secret of this valley, Dr. Damon! Not gold or minerals, but invisibility!”

      The elderly man nodded slowly.

      “It’s a miracle that you landed without smashing up completely.” He swept an arm around. “The valley looks bare to the eye, doesn’t it? As a matter of fact, it teems with life! Trees, bushes, grass and animals. All invisible!”

      The others looked around. The level stretch of the valley floor was naked, to their eyes. Yet they realized now that between them and the cliffs must be a thousand unseen things. Jondra shivered. Crane could hardly keep from doing the same, overwhelmed by the eerie mystery.

      Dr. Damon resumed. “By blind, lucky chance, you brought the ship down in a cleared patch of bush growths. Almost any other spot you would have cracked up against rows of trees.”

      “Fools luck,” agreed Crane. “But why weren’t we warned?”

      “I tried to warn you away,” the scientist reminded. “I fired my gun, hoping you’d go back and land up above somewhere.”

      “But why wasn’t your daughter warned, before we even arrived?” Crane eyed the man accusingly. “You risked your daughter’s life by keeping that so secretive!”

      “No,