IV.
Davis was unwontedly silent as Gerrod drove him out to the tiny cottageto which he had been invited.
"Evelyn's expecting you," said Gerrod as the little motor car wound upa hill between banks of fragrant trees that line the road on eitherside. "We rather looked for you last week, but you wired, you know."
"Yes, I know," said Davis gloomily. "I went somewhere else."
Gerrod smiled. Davis was sufficiently his friend to break an engagementand admit it frankly, and besides Gerrod more than suspected whereDavis had gone.
"How is Miss Morrison?" he asked.
"She's all right," said Davis still more gloomily. "But damn herfather!"
Gerrod raised his eyebrows and said nothing until they arrived at thecottage with the little built-on laboratory. Evelyn came out at thesound of the motor and shook hands with Davis.
"We were beginning to be afraid the competition was too much for us,"she said with a smile.
Davis looked at her and tried to smile in return, but the result was adismal failure.
"Oh, I'm glad to be here now," he said dolefully.
Gerrod made a sign to Evelyn not to refer to Nita again until he couldspeak to her, and helped Davis carry his two suit cases into the house.
"Your usual room, of course," he said cheerfully. "Dinner is served atthe same hour as before, and you can do just as you please until youfeel like coming down. I'll be in the laboratory."
Davis went heavily upstairs, his usually cheerful face suffused withgloom. Evelyn glanced at Gerrod.
"What's the matter?" she asked quickly. "Has he quarreled with Nita?"
Gerrod shook his head, smiling.
"I asked about her, and he answered by damning her father. I suspect hehas run against a little paternal opposition."
Evelyn's eyes twinkled and she laughed.
"Best thing in the world for them," she declared. "When he's ripe forit I'll take a hand. Nita Morrison was a classmate of mine in collegeand I know her well enough to help along."
Gerrod chuckled.
"He was like a funeral all the way out. We'll let him alone until hewants to talk, and then you can advise him all you like. But just nowI want to get back at those small animals that are raising so muchparticular Cain."
He went into the laboratory and slipped off his coat. He had a numberof test tubes full of the silvery animalcules and was examining themunder all sorts of test conditions to determine their rate of growthand multiplication.
He was rather hopeful that he would be able to demonstrate that aftera certain period they would--because of their extremely close packingtogether--either die from inability to obtain nourishment or bepoisoned from their own secretions.
He was looking curiously at a phenomenon that always puzzled him whenDavis came into the room. His expression was that of a man utterlywithout hope.
"What've you got there?" he asked listlessly.
"Some of our silvery little pets," said Gerrod cheerfully. "I'mstudying them in their native lair. Have you looked at them under amicroscope?"
"No."
Gerrod smeared a bit of the silvery mess on a glass slide and put itunder a microscope. He worked busily for a moment or so, adjusting thefocus, and then waved Davis toward the eyepiece.
"They're funny little beasts. Look them over."
Davis looked uninterestedly, but in a moment even his gloom waslightened by the interest of the sight he saw. The enlargement of themicroscope was so great that only a few of the tiny animals werevisible, but each of them was clearly and brilliantly outlined.
They were little jellylike creatures, roughly spherical in shape, withtheir bodies protected by almost infinitely thin, silicious shells thatpossessed a silvery luster. From dozens of holes in the fragile shellsprotruded fat, jellylike tentacles that waved and moved restlessly,forever in search of food.
Under the microscope the shells were partly transparent, and within thejellylike body inside the shell could be seen a single dark spot.
"That blotch in their shells seems to be the nucleus, or else theirstomach. I can't quite make out if they're one-celled animals likeam[oe]b?, or if they're really complex creatures."
"Rum little beggars," said Davis without removing his gaze from theeyepiece. "They're separate animals, anyway. Odd that they should makea jellylike mass."
"Move the slide about a little," suggested Gerrod. "You'll see how theydo that. You're looking at individuals now. Sometimes--and I thinkit's when food gets scarce--they twine their tentacles together andthe tentacles actually seem to join, as if they were welded into one.In fact, as far as nourishment goes, they do seem to become a singleorganism. That's when they're so noticeably jellylike."
Davis watched them curiously for a few moments, and then straightenedup. He moved restlessly about the room.
"The funny thing," said Gerrod cheerfully, ignoring Davis' evidentgloom, "is that they seem to be able to move about. See this test tube?They've climbed up the sides of the glass until they almost reach thetop."
"I know," said Davis uninterestedly. "When we took the crew off thatyacht, they showed us where the jellylike mass seemed to be slowlycreeping up the sides of the ship. Looked like exaggerated capillaryaction."
Gerrod listened with a thoughtful frown.
"I wonder----" he began, but Davis turned to him suddenly.
"Look here, Teddy, I'm in a mess. I want your advice."
Gerrod put down his test tubes and sat on one of the tables in thelaboratory, swinging his legs and preparing to be properly sympatheticwith Davis' plight, which he already knew perfectly well.
"Go ahead."
"It's like this," said Davis reluctantly. "I liked Nita tremendouslythe first time I saw her, and she seemed to like me, too. I called onher, and she seemed to like me better. And I kept on calling. I musthave pretty well infested her house, but she didn't seem to mind it,you know----"
Gerrod nodded sympathetically.
"I know."
"Well," said Davis savagely, "I found out I was pretty badly gone onher, and last week I was just getting up the nerve to propose--and I_know_ she wouldn't have been displeased--when that infernal father ofhers began to interfere."
"He asked you quite pleasantly," said Gerrod with a faint smile,"exactly why it was that you were coming around so often."
"And I told him," said Davis, suddenly plunged into gloom again. "Itwas rather premature, because I hadn't talked to Nita, but I told herfather I wanted to marry her, and I loved her and all that."
"And her father," suggested Gerrod, "asked what your prospects were,and the rest of it. It takes a millionaire to be really middle class."
"That's what he did," admitted Davis miserably. "I told him my payamounted to something, and I had about two or three thousand a yearincome from stocks and bonds and such things, and he laughed at me.Told me how much Nita cost him. Damn it, I don't care about how muchNita pays for dresses!"
"We men are deuced impractical," said Gerrod with a smile. "But whatwas her father's next move?"
"Oh"--Davis looked as if he could weep--"he was polite and all that,and said how much he liked me and such rot. Then he asked me not to seeNita again until I was in a position to offer her the things she hadbeen raised to expect. You see the idea. He put it that he didn't wantNita to learn to care for me unless it were possible for me to make herhappy and so on. It made me sick."
"I know." Gerrod nodded again. "He practically put you on honor topreserve Nita's happiness at the cost of your own."
"Damn him, yes!" Davis clenched his fists. "But Nita does caresomething about me. I know she does!"
Gerrod watched Davis with eyes from which he had banished every traceof a twinkle, until Davis had calmed down a little. Then he saidcheerfully:
"Let's go ask Evelyn about it. His late majesty, King Solomon, onceremarked that women should have the wisdom of the serpent, amongother qualifications. We'll see if Evelyn comes up to Solomon'sspecifications."
He le
d the morose Davis out of the room.
* * * * *
The great American public became alarmed and rather resentful when itsharbors were blocked by the silvery jelly. It felt, though, that theSilver Menace was more of an imposition on the part of mother naturethan anything else.
Passenger traffic with Europe could be maintained by air, and freightcould probably be routed through the far Northern seas to which theSilver Menace had not yet penetrated. The public considered it anannoyance, and those who were accustomed to go to the seashore lottheir vacations were disgusted that the mountains would receive themthat summer.
They were quite sure they did not want to go down where that slimy,disgusting, musklike odor from the stilly, silent silver sea would maketheir days unpleasant and the nights unendurable. Fresh fish, too,became almost prohibitive in price, as the fishing fleets were immuredin the harbors that had now become mirrorlike masses of the disgustingjelly.
The public resented those things, but was not really afraid. It was notuntil nearly a week, after the closing of the harbors had passed thatthe world was informed of the Silver Menace's real threat to the humanrace, and began to feel little shivers of horror-stricken apprehensionwhen it looked at the morning papers.
The news was at first passed about in swift, furtive rumors, but halfbelieved as something too horrible to be credited. The rumors grew,however, and became more circumstantial, but the newspapers remainedsilent.
It is known now that the government had ordered that no hint of thenew danger be allowed to become public, while its scientists workednight and day to discover a means of combating this silent, relentlessthreat that menaced our whole existence. Whispers flew about and becamemagnified, but the facts themselves could not be magnified.
At last the government could keep silence no longer, and the world wasinformed of the true malignity of the Silver Menace. The silvery jellyhad reached the American coasts, invaded and conquered the harbors, andwas even then rapidly solidifying the rivers, but its threat did notend there.
Just as it had crept up the sides of Gerrod's test tubes, and as ithad overwhelmed the yacht, now it crept up the beaches. Slowly andinexorably die slimy masses of jelly crept above the water line.The beaches were buried below thick blankets of sticky, shimmeringanimalcules and still the menace grew.
They overwhelmed all obstacles placed in their path. The whole green,fertile earth was threatened with burial beneath a mantle of slimy,silvery, glistening horror!
TO BE CONCLUDED
in the September 15th number of THE THRILL BOOK. Order a copy from your news dealer at once so you will not miss the end of this amazing yarn.