Hal K. Wells

“ A coat of short, dirty gray fur covered the creature from head to foot. Its hands and feet were claw-like travesties of human members. Its pointed, chinless face with its projecting teeth and glittering little beady eyes was that of a giant rodent.
The beast in the clearing was apparently a leader of some sort, for around his throat was a wide collar of gray metal, with its flat surface marked in rudely scratched hieroglyphics. Powell’s heart leaped as he noted the collar. In this creature before him he had his second clue to the whereabouts of Joan Marlowe. ”

“ There’s no reason why a human being should not be able to make the round trip just as safely. Ever since our Silver Belts first came back with the weird plant and mineral fragments which proved that there really is such a place as Arret, I’ve been wild to see with my own eyes the incredible things that must exist there.”
Joan waved her hand in gay farewell. “Good-by, Uncle Ben and Larry! I know that you’ll drag me back just as quickly as you can possibly dash over to the recall switch, but I’ll at least have had a few precious seconds of sightseeing as Earth’s first human visitor to Arret!” ”

“ I’m going to Arret, anyway. I was only waiting for you to return to the laboratory so I’d be sure of having you here to bring me back to Earth again before I have time to get into any serious trouble over there.”
“But, Joan,” Benjamin Marlowe protested, “this is sheer madness! No one can possibly guess what terrible conditions you may confront in Arret. We’ve never dared to send a human being across the atomic barrier yet!” ”

“ The horde of rat-men rallied and swept on forward in a wave that nothing could have stopped this time—but their charge was too late. The entire rocky projection collapsed with a final sickening lurch, and slid to the pit’s floor, carrying Joan and Powell with it in a miniature avalanche of rocky rubble. ”

“ The twelve-hour time limit was half up when Benjamin Marlowe and Larry Powell finally straightened up wearily from their work over the recall mechanism, their repairs completed. It had been one o’clock in the afternoon when Joan Marlowe vanished from Earth in the roseate flare of the projector. It was now nearly seven o’clock.
With nerves tense from anxiety, the two men crossed over to the control-panel of the recall apparatus. This time they donned goggles of dark glass to shield their eyes from the blinding green glare. ”

“ Powell looked eagerly around for Joan, but he could see no trace of her. The only other living beings in the big cavern were the swarming thousands of the rat-people. The brutes were apparently too low in the evolutionary scale to have any but the most primitive form of tribal organization.
Sitting on a rude rock throne just in front of Powell was a grotesquely fat, mangy-furred old rat-man who was obviously the king of the horde. Some thirty or forty rat-men, larger and stronger than their fellows, wore the gray-metal collars that apparently marked them as minor leaders. ”

“ Powell told her of the amber egg and the skeleton.
“The same sort of crystalline amber egg that accompanied the work of the mysterious Tinkling Death, wasn’t it?” Joan mused. “One of the king’s lieutenants must have stolen the Belt, and reaped prompt retribution when he tried to flee. I wonder what that weird Tinkling Death is?”
“Possibly some strange weapon of the rat-men,” Powell hazarded.
“No, they are as afraid of it as we are. While I was being brought here to this cave the Tinkling Death was heard several times in the distance, and the rat-men were obviously terrified at the sound.” ”

“ The sheer walls of the pit were always guarded by alert sentries who had only to call to bring the entire horde to their help.
Without Powell’s wrist-watch, the captives had no way of accurately following the lapse of time, but they both realized that the twelve-hour time limit upon Joan’s rescue from Arret must be coming perilously near its end. They waited in momentary fear lest a sudden turmoil in the cavern above them should indicate that Benjamin Marlowe had broadcast the recall wave, whisking the two Belts back to Earth, together with the old rat-king who presumably still wore them. ”

“ Finding it impossible to work directly upon most forms of matter, the experimenters had finally evolved a silver alloy that served as a medium both for sending objects into Arret and then bringing them back to Earth. By focussing the flame of the projection apparatus upon a Silver Belt of this alloy, the electrical charges of the Belt’s atoms were reversed, automatically causing the Belt to vanish from Earth and materialize in Arret. At the same time the atoms of any object within the Belt’s immediate radius were similarly transformed, and that object was taken into Arret with the Belt. ”

“ The green radiance was now a searing flame that half-blinded them even through the thick dark glass of their protective goggles, while the vibrant force of the green rays was sweeping through their bodies with a tingling shock that nearly took their breath away. ”

“ The chanting above rose slowly to a snarling climax, then swiftly died away into silence. A moment later there came the sound of thousands of claw-like feet scratching over the rocky floor as the main horde apparently began marching out of the cavern. ”

“ Powell began cautiously working his way up the slope of the dune, with an automatic pistol ready for use in his right hand. Silence reigned unbroken now in the thicket on the crest, but with each upward step that he took there came with constantly increasing force a feeling of some vast, alien intelligence lurking up there, watching and waiting. ”

“ On Earth all atoms are composed of small heavy protons that are always positive in charge, and larger lighter electrons that are always negative. In Arret the protons were negative, and the electrons positive. The result was two worlds occupying the same space at the same time, yet with matter so essentially and completely different that each world was intangible to the other. They had named the unseen world Arret, the reverse of Terra. ”

“ From the body descended half a dozen long writhing tentacles.
Powell’s one hundred and eighty pounds made a weight that was apparently a burden for even this flying monster. It flew jerkily along, scarcely a dozen feet from the ground, and there was laborious effort obvious in every movement of its flapping wings. Powell decided to make a prompt break for escape before the octopus-bat succeeded in fighting its way any higher. His left arm was still pinioned to his body by one of the constricting tentacles, but his right hand, with the automatic in it, was free. ”

“ The fatal cone-shaped projection was already beginning to form upon the silver-faceted side of the nearest Devil Crystal. Before the lance-like arm of crystal could flash outward, Powell sent two bullets crashing into the crystal’s side just over the opalescent nucleus. ”

“ Their previous experiments with animals had proved that no living creature from Earth could be brought back after it had been in Arret over twelve hours. After that time the change in the atoms constituting living tissues apparently became permanently Arretian, for the Silver Belts returned without any trace of their original wearers. ”