Dusk was dropping upon the world, though, and Ralton had become slightly anxious before he glimpsed it at last, a huge, dark, squat cone, its broad summit flattened as though by some giant hand, that seemed to rise directly out of the gray waters miles from the coast. It was with a feeling of some relief that he sent his plane circling down toward the place, and as it loomed larger beneath him in the failing light he scanned it closely. The island itself, he saw, was roughly circular, perhaps a dozen miles across, a barren, level stretch of sands from whose center the great squat cone of rock arose, a curious formation frequent on such islands and carved out by the wind-driven sands. The cone's steep sides of rock, almost vertical, could not be more than a few hundred feet in height, Ralton estimated, but its broad, flat summit was several times that in diameter. And now, as he wheeled down toward that summit, he saw that upon it were the laboratories of the men he sought, long, low buildings of white concrete grouped in a rough circle about the summit.
The circle enclosed by the buildings, though, save for some great looming object at the center which he could but vaguely make out, was clear and flat, and seemed to Ralton of sufficient extent to permit the landing of his little plane. Carefully wheeling again over the place, he spiraled slowly down toward it. Even through the dusk he could see that no human figures were visible beneath, though from one of the buildings came a white spark of light. Downward still he circled, therefore, until at last he was dipping gently into the open clearing at the summit's center, running along over its smooth rock surface for a few seconds and then coming to a stop just before one of the encircling buildings. A moment more and Ralton had clambered forth and stood gazing into the dusk about him.
It was apparent that his coming had not yet been noticed, since he had cut off the plane's motor high above, and no one had yet emerged from the buildings about him. He glanced around them uncertainly, then started across the open clearing toward one at the opposite side, from whose door and windows came the white light he had glimpsed from above. Half-way across the clearing, though, he slowed, came to a stop. He had halted before the great object at its center which he had but vaguely glimpsed from above, but which now, looming a few feet before him, was so extraordinary in appearance as to turn all his interest and attention upon it for the moment.
It was a great globe, a giant sphere of burnished metal fully fifty feet in diameter, resting upon a massive metal pedestal that had been sunk into the rock. From the top of the great globe a thin, needle-like rod of metal, tapering to a point, projected perpendicularly upward, while from the pedestal-base a network of connections ran to some two or three of the long, low buildings about the summit. From these buildings came the throbbing of unceasing mechanisms of some sort, but from the globe itself arose only a fine, incessant hum, hardly to be heard, though giving to Ralton in some way an impression of terrific power. At the point where the myriad black-covered connections ran into the globe's base there rose beside it, on a tripod of metal standards, a box-like black-gleaming object upon whose face were set a dozen or more glass-fronted dials, their needles trembling with the power racing through them; a series of switches and automatic circuit-breakers; and a single bulbous black knob which moved up and down a vertical slot in the switch-board, apparently.
The sides of that slot, Ralton saw, were finely graduated, the knob-lever resting almost at its bottom. Near the slot's top small white letters inset beside it spelled "Ultra-Hertzian Vibrations." An inch or so beneath, beside the slot in similar lettering, was "Hertzian Vibrations." Beneath that, in turn, "Light Vibrations," "Heat Radiation Vibrations," "Radio-active (Gamma) Vibrations," then "Cosmic Ray Vibrations," at which the black switch-knob rested, and lowest of all a simple zero. Ralton stared at the thing in astonishment. It was the entire range of etheric vibrations that was lettered in order there before him, he knew, from highest to lowest, but for what reason? This great globe-mechanism, what could biologists be doing——
A cry from behind whirled him about, a cry of fierce rage from the door of the white-lit laboratory building beyond him. Framed in that doorway stood a massive-figured, gray-haired man, eyes burning and face contorted as he saw Ralton, while from the white-lit room behind him other figures were surging forward.
Ralton took a quick step toward them. "Dr. Munson!" he said, eagerly, advancing toward that massive figure, then stopped. For Munson and the others, with inarticulate cries of rage, had leapt forward toward him! He shrank instinctively back, heard the massive leader of the group crying, "Get him back—back from that condenser!" Then before his dazed understanding could credit what was happening the others were upon him, and flung him sidewise to the ground. Ralton, uncomprehending still but in an instinctive revulsion of antagonism, struck fiercely out at them, felt one or two give back before his blows, strove to struggle up to his feet. Then he heard another commanding shout from Munson, in the background; something hard crashed down upon his head and sent blinding light through his brain, and he knew no more.
Consciousness, when it finally came back to him, informed him first of two things, that his head was aching violently, and that he was lying on some hard surface in a dark and quiet place. He stirred a little, opened his eyes. It was a corner of a bare and empty concrete-walled room that he lay in, a dim radiance of starlight coming in through two barred windows in its walls. Then, as he strove to sit erect, he glimpsed a dark figure gazing outward through one of those windows, a figure that turned at his sound of movement and came swiftly across the room toward him, crouching down beside him and supporting him. Even in the dimness of the room and through his dazed senses Ralton recognized the other, and he gasped at sight of him.
"Mallett!" he whispered. "Good God, Mallett—what has happened here?"