The Lost World MEGAPACK®. Lin Carter

      CHAPTER X

      “The Secret Must Remain a Secret!”

      They returned to what had been the cave home. Most of it was a gaping ruin, but the back portion was comparatively unscathed. Food supplies remained, and a dozen sealed cans of blood.

      Dr. Damon picked them up eagerly. “I thought they would all be destroyed. I’ll take these back. I’ll still announce to the science world the great discovery of invisibility!”

      His voice changed to a bark.

      “Here—stop that!”

      Unseen hands were stamping a rifle butt down on the cans, splitting them open. The invisible fluid vanished into the dirt. Dr. Damon attempted to wrench the rifle away. A hand that could not be seen roughly pushed him away.

      Crane clutched at an arm whose position he guessed.

      “Listen, Robin Hood! Just—”

      A fist thudded against his chest, breaking his hold. He almost reeled back against the wall.

      For a moment, loud breathing sounded from the invisible man, as though he were a jungle animal over a kill.

      “Back!” he grated. “Stay back, or I’ll—”

      Suddenly his voice changed, to its usual softness.

      “I’m sorry. But I must do this. The secret of invisibility must remain in this valley!”

      Crane’s thoughts clicked. The last bits of the puzzle slipped into place.

      “I see!” he murmured. “That’s why you didn’t reveal yourself to us right away. You played a lone game. You smashed the radio, so the outside world could not be told of this.

      “You chased the deer because you didn’t want Dr. Damon to get blood samples. You wanted neither the fifth column to get the secret, nor Dr. Damon. Nor anybody—except yourself! But what right have you, Robin Hood, to deny Dr. Damon, a scientist, his discovery?”

      The Invisible Robin Hood’s voice came back in deadly earnest.

      “No one must have the secret of invisibility—ever! I discovered it by accident, by a physical principle rather than through a hormone. I’ve not misused it. Many others would do good with it, as I have. But once it got into the wrong hands—chaos! The world would be a madhouse. Invisible deeds of crime! Invisible spies! Invisible armies! Think of those things.

      “I know you’re an altruist, Dr. Damon. You probably think of good uses for invisibility—as in crushing crime. But you can’t quite know, as I do, what power it gives a person. You can’t quite know that you’re tampering with dynamite that can blast the world!

      “I hope you see my viewpoint. That if it’s within my power to prevent anyone else from having my secret, I must do so!”

      Jondra spoke up firmly. “It’s cold, ruthless reasoning. But it’s plain logic!”

      The two men glared, still angered, but they made no move as the rifle butt resumed cracking open the cans, spilling the last of the blood samples into the ground.

      “There!” It was a deep sigh from the unseen man. The sigh of one who has accomplished a vital mission.

      An echoing sigh came from Dr. Damon. His shoulders sagged. He turned away without a word, brokenly.

      Crane could think of no way of consoling a man who had just seen the discovery of a century trickling into oblivion. Nor could he think of any way of denying that the Invisible Robin Hood had done right.

      He turned to Jondra. He had something to say to her, anyway.

      * * * *

      Dawn stretched its rosy fingers across a seared, blackened valley. The four people—one invisible—picked their way to the other end. The fifth columnists’ plane, in its clearing, had freakishly remained unburned, its fuel untouched. The saboteurs had not thought that miracle would happen, or they would have huddled in the ship.

      Instead, they had fled. All that remained of them now was scattered somewhere in the black strewing of scorched bones littering the cliff-face. Crane shuddered, at thought of what terror had reigned here the day before.

      “Look!”

      Jondra’s hand pointed halfway up the cliff-face, along the steep path that led out of the valley. Pierre’s body hung there, against an outjutting stone—visible once again in death. Skin half black, the flames had just reached Pierre. One arm was stiffly outstretched, as if he had been beckoning. The expression on his face was strangely at peace.

      The Invisible Robin Hood spoke solemnly.

      “Have you guessed about Pierre? When he drank too much whiskey that time, delivering Dr. Damon’s letter, he babbled into the ears of a fifth column spy, as I mentioned. The spy took all the conversation down, in a report to Commander Z. I saw the verbatim wording.

      “In one place, Pierre had said, in drunken French:

      “I just dare the blitzkriegers of Europe to attack our shores! I will lead the invisible dragons out of the valley. They will frighten the enemy. They will stamp the enemy flat. Yes I, Pierre, will save my country from the enemy, for I will lead the invisible dragons against them!’”

      The invisible man’s voice rose a note. “I salute you, Pierre! In your own way, you were ready to defend your country and continent against invasion, even if you were mad in the thought. And you did lead the dragons…”

      * * * *

      Crane was not surprised when the Invisible Robin Hood, a while later, made no move to enter the plane.

      “I’m staying. Perhaps two or three of the dragons are alive yet. I must hunt them down. And any others of the Unseen Life. Then I must destroy every last vintage of the Unseen Vegetation, with burning gasoline.

      “Leave with me, besides food, a rifle, ammunition, the grenades, and a tin of gasoline. Invisibility is a menace. When I leave, this valley will be barren of life. After that”—he paused—“there are many things to do.”

      Jondra felt for his arm. “You said before that you loved a girl, and that she’s still alive. You’re wrong in denying yourself—and her—that love, no matter what tasks you set yourself!”

      A low, almost harsh chuckle sounded. “Look!”

      A switch snapped. With startling abruptness, Crane and Jondra saw a tall, lithe young man before them. He was completely sheathed in what looked like fine chain-mail. The gauntleted hands reached up to unfasten the helmet-like hood. Hugh Crane and Jondra Damon gasped in unison.

      The face revealed was hideous beyond belief. Great burn-scars obliterated what had once been strong, handsome features. There was little of nose or hair. The lips and jaws were a network of white lines where surgical thread had sewed mangled flesh together. The mouth still looked like an unhealed wound. Only purple folds of lumpy scar tissue remained.

      Jondra and Crane stared at this dreadful, once-handsome caricature of a man with horror-stricken eyes.

      “I discovered my method of invisibility in a laboratory,” said the Invisible Robin Hood. “There was an explosion—”

      “Oh, you poor fellow!” Jondra cried and burst into tears.

      Again there was a click, and the Invisible Robin Hood vanished from their sight.

      * * * *

      They took off a little later in Crane’s airplane, which had been quickly but efficiently repaired. Three people were in that plane, leaving forever behind them a land which time had truly forgotten—Hugh Crane, Jondra Damon and her scientist father, bitter lines about his mouth in the knowledge that the greatest discovery of all time had come to naught.

      Crane looked down. He could see nothing of an invisible man stalking invisible beasts. Somehow, it had all been a