Terrors Unseen

Terrors Unseen

_By Harl Vincent_

[Illustration: _"Eddie!" Lisa screamed suddenly. "Look out!"_]

[Sidenote: One after another the invisible robots escape Shelton's
control--and their trail leads straight to the gangster chief
Cadorna.]


Something about the lonely figure of the girl caused Edward Vail to
bring his car to a sudden stop at the side of the road. When first he
had glimpsed her off there on that narrow strip of rock-bound coast he
was mildly surprised, for it was a desolate spot and seldom frequented
by bathers so late in the season. Now he was aroused to startled
attention by the unnatural posture of the slender body that had just
been erect and outlined sharply against the graying September sky. He
switched off the ignition and sprang to the ground.

Bent backward and twisted into the attitude of a contortionist, the
little figure in the crimson bathing suit was a thing at which to
marvel. No human being could maintain that position without falling,
yet the girl did not fall to the jagged stones that lay beneath her.
She was rigid, straining. Then suddenly her arm waved wildly and she
screamed, a wild gasping cry that died in her throat on a note of
despairing terror. It seemed that she struggled furiously with an
unseen power for one horrible instant. Then the tortured body lurched
violently and collapsed in a pitiful quivering heap among the stones.

Eddie Vail was running now, miraculously picking his way over the
treacherous footing. The girl had fainted, no doubt of that, and
something was seriously wrong with her.

A mysterious mechanical something whizzed past; something that buzzed
like a thousand hornets and slithered over the rocks in a series of
metallic clanks. Then it was gone--or so it seemed in the confusion of
Eddie's mind; but he had seen nothing. Probably a fantasy of his
overworked brain, or only the surf breaking against the sea wall. He
turned his attention to the girl.

* * * * *

She was moaning and tossing her head, returning painfully to
consciousness. He straightened her limbs and placed his folded coat
under the restless head, noting with alarm that vicious red welts
marred the whiteness of her arms and shoulders. It was as if she had
been beaten cruelly; those marks could never have resulted from her
fall. Poor kid. Subject to fits of some sort, he presumed. She was a
good looker, too, and no mistake. He smoothed back the rumpled mass of
golden hair and studied her features. They were vaguely familiar.

Then she opened her eyes. Stark terror looked out from their
ultra-marine depths, and her lips quivered as if she were about to
cry. He raised her to a more comfortable position and supported her
with an encircling arm. She did cry a little, like a frightened child.
Then, with startling abruptness, she sprang to her feet.

"Where is it?" she demanded.

"Where's what?" Eddie was on his feet, peering in all directions. He
remembered the queer sounds he had heard or imagined.

"I--I don't know." The girl passed a trembling hand before her eyes as
if to wipe away some horrifying vision. "Perhaps it's my imagination,
but I felt--it was just as real--one of father's iron monsters.
Beating me; bending me. I'd have snapped in a moment. But nothing was
there. I--I'm afraid...."

Eddie caught her as she swayed on her feet. "There now," he said
soothingly, "you're all right, Miss Shelton. It's gone now, whatever
it was." Iron monsters! In a flash it had come to him that this girl
he held in his arms was Lina Shelton, daughter of the robot wizard. No
wonder she was afflicted with hallucinations! But those bruises were
real, as was the forcible twisting of her lithe young body. And he
_had_ heard something.

* * * * *

"You know me?" The girl was calmer now and faced him with a surprised
look.

"Yes, Miss Shelton. At least I recognize you from the pictures.
Society page, you know. And I'm Edward Vail--Eddie for short--on
vacation and at your service."

The girl smiled wanly. "You know of father's break with Universal
Electric? Of his private experiments?"

"I heard of the scrap and of how he walked out on the outfit, but
nothing further." Eddie thought grimly of how nearly he had come to
losing his own job when David Shelton broke relations with his
employers. He had been too enthusiastic in support of some of the
older man's claims.

"It's been terrible," the girl whispered. She clung nervously to his
arm as he picked the way back to the road. "The loneliness, and all.
No servants will stay out here now, and father spends all of his time
in the laboratory. Then--this fear of the mechanical men--they haunt
me. I--I guess they've got me a little goofy."

Eddie laughed reassuringly. "Perhaps," he suggested, "you will let me
help you. Your father, I believe, will remember me, and I'll be very
glad to--"

"No, no!" The girl seemed frightened at the thought. "I'm sure he
wouldn't welcome you. He's changed greatly of late and is suspicious
of everyone, even keeping things from me. But it's awfully nice of you
to offer your assistance, and you've been a perfect peach to take care
of me this way. I--I'd better go now."

They had reached the road and Eddie looked uncertainly at his
roadster. He hated to think of leaving the girl in this lonely spot.
She was obviously in a state of extreme nervous tension and, to him,
seemed pathetically helpless, and afraid.

"That the house?" he asked, pointing in the direction of the gloomy
old mansion whose dilapidated gables were barely visible over the tree
tops.

"Yes." The girl shivered and drew closer to him.

The ensuing silence was broken by the slam of a door. His car! Eddie
looked toward it in amazement; he was hearing things again. The
springs sagged on the driver's side as under the weight of a very
heavy occupant, but the seat was empty. Then came the whine of the
starter and the motor purred into life. The gears clashed sickeningly
and the car was jerked into the road with a violence that should have
stripped the differential. He pulled the girl aside just as it roared
past and disappeared around the bend in a cloud of dust. The sound of
the exhaust died away rapidly and left them staring into each other's
eyes in awed silence.

* * * * *

David Shelton was prowling around in the shrubbery when they
approached the house--a furtive, unkempt creature whom Eddie would
hardly have recognized. He straightened up and peered at his
daughter's companion with obvious disapproval.

"Lina," he said severely, "I've told you we want no visitors."

"Yes, Dad, I know, but Mr. Vail's car was stolen out in front and
there is no way for him to go on. We must look after him."

"His car--stolen? Who stole it?" David Shelton drew close and glared
suspiciously at his unwelcome visitor.

"One of your monsters, I think," she replied shakily, "though we could
see nothing. And the same thing attacked me and beat me. Look at my
bruises!"

Shelton was examining the marks, and his fingers trembled as he
touched his daughter's shoulder. He looked piteously into her eyes.
"Are you sure, Lina? Sure? Did you see it?"

"No, no. But I felt and heard--the iron arms and the clamps and the
buzzing. Oh, it was horrible!" The girl's voice rose hysterically.

"Oh, Lord! What have I done?" groaned Shelton. "It's true, then. Lina,
listen: I've succeeded in making them invisible, and one got away this
morning. But I thought--I thought--" He looked at Eddie, remembering
his presence suddenly. "But I'm talking too much. It seems to me I
remember having seen you before, young man."

"You have, sir," Eddie stated. "In the research laboratory of
Universal Electric. I work with Borden."

"They've sent you to find me?" Shelton stiffened perceptibly.

"Indeed, not, sir. I'm on vacation and was merely passing by when I
saw your daughter in danger, a danger I still do not understand."

"Yes, and he helped me to the road," Lina interposed, "and then lost
his car at the hands of--"

"Silence!" the father thundered. But his eyes fell before the fire
that instantly flashed in those of the girl.

"Now, you listen to me!" she returned angrily, "I've stayed on here
with you until I'm nearly crazy with your everlasting puttering and
experimenting--hearing your uncanny machines walking around in the
middle of the night--seeing impossible sights--then, this thing I
couldn't see but could feel. And you've gotten into such a state that
you'll go crazy yourself, if you continue. Something's got to be done,
I tell you. I can't stand it!"

* * * * *

Her voice broke on a choked sob.

"But Lina--"

"Don't but me, Father. I mean it. Mr. Vail discovered your hideout
quite by accident and he's been very nice to me. I tell you he means
no harm and I want him to stay. If you're not decent to him, if you
send him away, I swear I'll go too. I will--I will!"

Shelton's eyes misted and something of the hardness left his
expression. A look of haunting fear took its place and he stared
pleadingly at Eddie.

"Br-r! I'm cold!" Lina exclaimed irrelevantly. "And--and I believe I'm
going to cry." She turned away and raced for the shelter of the gloomy
old house without another word.

Eddie turned inquiring eyes on his unwilling host.

"Just like her mother before her," Shelton muttered softly. Then he
faced the younger man squarely and his shoulders straightened. "Mr.
Vail," he said sheepishly, "I've been a fool and I ask your pardon.
But Lina doesn't know. There's something tremendous behind all this,
something that's gotten beyond me. I'll send her away for her own
safety, but I must stay on. If--if only there was someone I could
trust--"

"You can trust me, sir," Eddie stated simply.

The older man paced the ground nervously, and Eddie could see that he
was under a most severe mental strain. Several times he halted in his
tracks and peered anxiously at his guest. Then he seemed to make a
sudden decision.

"Vail," he said sharply, "I need help badly. I want you to stay, if
you will. You swear you'll not reveal what I am about to show you?"

"I swear it, sir."

"You'll not report to Universal?"

"Never."

* * * * *

They surveyed each other appraisingly. Eddie was mystified by the
happenings of the day and was curious to learn more concerning these
mythical invisible creations. It was inconceivable that the scientist
had spoken truly of his accomplishment. Yet, he had done some
marvelous things with Universal and, maybe--well, anyway, there was
the girl.

"Come with me," Shelton was saying: "I believe you're a square
shooter, Vail." He was leading the way along the gravel path at the
side of the house. Before them loomed the squat brick building that
was the laboratory.

The door crashed open before Shelton's hand had reached the knob, and
one of those buzzing, unseen, monstrosities rushed clanking by,
knocking the scientist from his feet in its passage. Ponderous,
speeding footsteps crunched the gravel of the path, and then, with a
wild thrashing of the underbrush alongside, the thing was gone.

Eddie bent over the prostrate man and saw that he was unconscious. A
thin trickle of blood ran from a cut in the side of his head.

"Lina! Lina!" called Eddie frantically. For the first time in his life
he was genuinely frightened.

* * * * *

He half carried, half dragged the limp body through the door of the
laboratory and propped it in a chair. It required but a moment for him
to see that Shelton's injury was inconsequential. He had only been
stunned and already showed signs of recovering.

"What is it, Mr. Vail? What's happened?" came the voice of Lina
Shelton breathlessly. She was framed in the doorway, dressed now and
panting from her exertions in responding to his call. "Oh, it's
father," she wailed, dropping to her knees at his side. "He's been
hurt. Badly, too."

"No, not badly, Miss Shelton. He'll be around in a minute. I'm sorry
to have excited you, but when I called I feared it was worse than it
is." He was washing the blood from her father's small wound as he
spoke.

She took the basin from his hand, spilling some of the water in her
eagerness. "Here, let me have that cloth," she demanded.

Eddie admired her as her deft fingers took up the task. She was as
exquisite in a simple sport outfit as she had been in her bathing
suit.

The scientist opened his eyes after a moment. Remembrance came at once
and he sat erect in the chair, staring.

"Lina!" he exclaimed, grasping her hand conclusively. "You're here,
thank God! I dreamed--oh, it was horrible--I dreamed they had you." He
clung to her closely.

"They?" she murmured inquiringly.

"Yes. Two of them are loose now. It's danger for you, my dear. You
must leave at once. No, no--I can't let you out of my sight until they
are captured or destroyed." He rose to his feet in his agitation and
shook his head to clear it. He looked pleadingly at Eddie as if
expecting him to offer a solution of the difficulty.

"Vail!" he exploded, then, pointing a shaking forefinger at an
elaborate short-wave radio transmitter which occupied a corner of the
large room. "I ask you to bear witness. That is the source of energy
for these creations of mine and it's shut down. How on earth can they
keep going? I ask you."

"Perhaps someone else, sir," Eddie suggested doubtfully. "Have you any
enemies who might be able to duplicate the impulses of that
apparatus?"

"Bah! Enemies, yes--with Universal--but none who could duplicate the
complicated frequencies I use. My secrets are my own. I've never even
put them on paper."

* * * * *

Eddie was examining the intricate apparatus. "You knew of the first
one's escape, didn't you?" he asked. "How did it happen?"

Shelton again became the enthusiastic scientist. "Here," he said,
"I'll show you and you can judge for yourself." He strode to the
gleaming figure of a seven-foot robot of startlingly human-like
appearance.

Lina let forth an exclamation of repugnance and fear.

"No, Mr. Shelton," Eddie objected. "The same thing will occur again.
Then there will be three."

"We'll fix that, my boy." The scientist was removing cover plates from
the hip joints of the mechanical man. "I'll disconnect the cables that
feed the locomotors. He _can't_ walk then."

Eddie was still doubtful but dared offer no further objection,
especially since Lina Shelton was watching in wide-eyed silence. He
examined the monster and saw that it was quite similar in outside
appearance to those supplied by Universal for heavy manual labor,
excepting that this one was armed as were those used for prison
guards. There were the same articulated limbs and the various clamps
and hooks for lifting and heavy hauling; the tentacles for grasping;
machine guns front and back. Under the helical headpiece that was the
antenna this robot seemed to have two eyes--a new feature--but closer
examination showed these to be the twin lenses of a stereoscopic
motion picture camera. This robot, then, could see. Or at least it
could record what the lenses saw for its masters.

"There," Shelton grunted when he had finished his tinkering, "he's
paralyzed from the waist down. Let this one try and get away from us."

"Guns aren't loaded, are they?" Eddie asked.

"Lord, no! Never have any of them loaded. That _would_ be a fool
stunt." Shelton had pulled the starting handle of a motor-generator
and its rising whine accompanied his words.

* * * * *

The vacuum tubes of the transmitter glowed into life and the scientist
manipulated the controls rapidly. Lina was watching the robot with
fascinated awe. Its arms moved in obedience to the controls, tentacles
waved and coiled; the humming of its internal mechanisms filled the
room. The locomotion controls had no effect, as the scientist had
predicted. Eddie drew a sigh of relief.

"Now, Vail, watch," Shelton exulted. "I'll show you what I was doing
with the first one." He closed a switch that lighted another bank of
vacuum tubes behind the control panel.

"You can make this one invisible?" Eddie asked incredulously.

"Certainly--from the waist up. This ought to be good."

"Mind telling me the principle?"

"Not at all--now. I've your promise of secrecy. It's a simple matter,
Vail, really. Just a problem of wave motions--light. Invisible light;
the ultra-violet, you know. My robots are built of specially alloyed
metals which permit great freedom of molecular vibration. The
insulating materials and even the glass of the camera lenses are
possessed of the same property. Get it? I merely set up a wave motion
in the atoms of the material that is in synchronism with the frequency
of ultra-violet light, which is invisible to the human eye. All
visible colors are absorbed, or more accurately, none are reflected
excepting the ultra-violet. Perfect transparency is obtained since
there is neither refraction nor diffraction of the visible colors. And
there you are!"

Eddie stared at the upper half of the robot and saw that it was
changing color as Shelton tuned the transmitted wave. Then suddenly it
was gone. The entire upper portion of the mechanism had vanished; had
just snuffed out like the flame of a candle. He could see down into
the tops of the thing's hollow legs. Shelton laughed at him as he
stretched forth his hand and hesitatingly felt for the invisible
mid-section and upper body. It was there all right, unyielding and
cold, that metal body. But no trace of it was visible to the eye. He
drew back his fingers as if they had touched a hot stove. The thing
was positively uncanny.

"Dad! Turn it off--please," Lina begged. "It's getting on my nerves.
Please!"

Obligingly, Shelton pulled the switch. "Now you'll see," he said to
Eddie, "whether the same thing happens. Watch."

* * * * *

Mistily at first, the outlines of the monster's torso and arms came
into view, semi-transparent but clouding rapidly to opacity. Then it
glinted with the barely visible violet, a solid once more, rigid and
motionless. It was a lifeless mechanism, for the source of its energy
had been cut off. Eddie had an almost irresistible impulse to pinch
himself.

Then he gasped audibly, as did Shelton, for the thing snuffed out of
sight again without warning, and the hum of its many motors resumed.
There came a terrific clanking as it waved arms and tentacles and
violently threshed with its upper body. But the visible portion, its
legs, remained rooted to the floor of the laboratory. Lucky it was
that the scientist had disconnected those wires; lucky too that the
machine guns were empty of ammunition.

"There now--see?" Shelton's voice rose excitedly. "It's been no fault
of mine. The power is off but it moves--it moves. What on earth do you
suppose--"

Eddie's shout interrupted him. He had seen something at the window: a
face pressed against the pane and contorted with unutterable malice.
Then it was gone. With the shout of warning still in his throat, Eddie
bounded through the door in pursuit of the intruder. Lina's cry of
recognition followed him into the twilight. "Carlos!" she had called.

He saw a stocky figure slink around the corner of the laboratory and
make for the underbrush beyond. In a flash he was after him. No, he
thought grimly, Shelton hadn't any enemy clever enough to duplicate
his transmitter! The hell he didn't! Who the devil was this fellow
Carlos anyway? He tore savagely at the impeding branches as he plunged
deeper and deeper into the thicket.

* * * * *

It was a fruitless chase and Eddie soon retraced his steps to the
laboratory. Swell mess he'd gotten himself into! His car was gone:
probably wrapped around a tree by this time. And here was a situation
that spelled real danger, a thing with which Shelton was utterly
unable to cope. As a matter of fact, he was so impractical--such a
visionary cuss, after the fashion of all geniuses--that he'd never be
convinced of the seriousness of the matter until it was too late. What
to do? The girl was a corker, though, and game as they made 'em. Just
the sort a fellow could tie to....

Lina's firm clear voice came to him through the open door of the
laboratory. "Dad," she was saying, "why don't you give it up? Let's go
back to New York where it is safe for you and for me. Let the things
go and forget about them. What do they amount to, after all? We've
plenty of money and you already have earned enough fame to last the
rest of your life. Come on now--please--for me."

"What do they amount to?" Shelton reiterated, his voice rising
querulously. "Lina, it's the most tremendous thing I've ever done.
Think for a moment of what my robots could accomplish in the next war.
And there'll be a next war as sure as you're alive. Think of it! No
sending of our young manhood into the bloody fields of battle; no
manning of our air fleets with the cream of our youth; no bloodshed on
our side whatsoever. Instead, these robots will fight the war. They'll
fight other robots too, no doubt, but the property of invisibility
will be an invincible weapon. It will be a war that will end war once
and for all. You can't--"

"Nonsense, Father," the girl returned sharply. "You've let your
enthusiasm run away with your judgment. See what's happened
already?--someone's figured it out before you've even perfected the
thing. An enemy of our country could do the same in wartime. Maybe
it's a foreign spy who has done what's been done to-day."

* * * * *

Eddie walked into the laboratory. "Couldn't find him," he announced
briefly.

"No difference," said Shelton. "He doesn't count in this. We called to
you when you rushed out, but couldn't make you hear."

"Who is he?" Eddie asked shortly. What he had overheard made him more
than ever impatient with the older man. So clever and yet so dense,
Shelton was.

Lina avoided his gaze.

"Only Carlos--Carlos Savarino," said Shelton, carelessly, "a Chilean,
I think. He worked for me for two months during the summer and I fired
him for getting fresh with Lina. Good mechanic, but dumb as an ox. Had
to tell him every little detail when he was doing something in the
shop. I'd have saved time if I'd done it myself."

The girl looked at Eddie squarely now. She was flushing hotly. "And I
horsewhipped him," she added.

"Yes," Shelton laughed; "it was rich. He sneaked away like a whipped
puppy, and this is the first time we've seen him since."

Eddie whistled. "And you think he doesn't count in this?" he asked.

"Of course not. Too dumb, I tell you. Doesn't know the first
principles of science. He thinks the only wave motion is that of the
ocean." Shelton chuckled over his own jest.

"I wouldn't be too sure," Eddie snapped. "And I want to tell you
something, Mr. Shelton. Through no fault of my own, I heard some of
your conversation with Li--with your daughter, before I returned here.
I was puzzled over your reasons for working so absorbedly on this
thing, but now I know them and I think you're wasting your time and
keeping your daughter in needless danger."

"You dare talk to me like this!" Shelton roared.

"I do, sir, and you'll thank me later." Eddie returned the older man's
glare with one equally savage.

Lina's gurgle of laughter broke the tension. "He's right, Dad, and you
know it," she interposed. "Let him finish."

Eddie needed no such encouragement, though it warmed his heart. And
Shelton listened respectfully when he continued, "I'm into this now,
sir, and I intend to see it through to the end. I'll keep your secret,
too, though I doubt if it'll ever be of much value to you. Know what I
think? I think this Carlos is a damn clever fellow instead of the ass
you took him to be. He probably just pretended he was ignorant of
science. Why shouldn't he? That way he got a liberal education from
you in the very things he wanted to find out. Since you tied the can
to him he's had plenty of chances to build a duplicate of your control
apparatus--with the aid of some foreign government, no doubt--and now
they've stolen two of your machines to complete the job. Your secret
already is out and in the very hands you've tried to keep it from."

* * * * *

Shelton paled visibly as Eddie talked. "But--but how--" he stammered.

"How should I know how they did it?" the younger man countered.
"Here--let's take a look around. I'll bet they've left their trail
right here in this room."

He walked from one end of the laboratory to the other, peering into
corners and under work benches as he passed. Shelton trailed him like
a shadow, squinting through the square lenses of his spectacles.

They carefully avoided the partially invisible robot, for the humming
of its upper motors continued and clanking sounds occasionally issued
from the unseen upper portion. The enemies of David Shelton were still
at work on their hidden controls.

"Here--what's this?" Eddie exclaimed suddenly, pointing out a glinting
object in a dark corner of the laboratory.

Shelton examined it closely, looking over his shoulder. The object he
had located seemed to be a mounted and hooded lens, a highly polished
glass of about two inches diameter with its mounting attached rigidly
to the wall.

"Never saw that before," Shelton stated with conviction. "And--why--it
looks like an objective such as those used in the latest automatic
television transmitters."

"Just what it is," Eddie grunted. He picked up a pinch bar from a
nearby tool rack and drove its end through the glass as he spoke the
words.

A violent wrench tore the thing loose and broke away a section of the
thin plastered wall. There, in the cleverly concealed cavity behind,
was revealed the mechanism of the radio "eye." Somewhere, someone bad
been watching their every move. And abruptly the thrashings of the
robot ceased and its upper portion again became visible.

* * * * *

"Well," said David Shelton. "Well! Looks as if you're right, young
man. I'm astonished." His watery eyes looked sheepishly over the rims
of his glasses.

Lina watched their every move. She seemed to sense the seriousness of
the situation far more than did her father.

Then the lights went out. It had darkened to night outside and the
blackness and silence in the laboratory was like that of a tomb.

"They've cut the wires," Eddie whispered hoarsely. "Got any weapons
here, Shelton?"

"Yes. A couple of automatics. I'll get them." The scientist was no
coward, anyway. His whispered words came calmly through the silence.

Eddie heard him shuffle a few steps and fumble with a drawer of the
desk. In a moment the cold hard butt of a pistol was thrust into his
hand. It had a comforting feel.

"Stay here with Lina," he commanded. "I'll go out and see if I can
find them. This looks nasty to me."

"No," came the girl's voice, "I'm going too."

"You are not," Eddie hissed. "You'll stay here or I'll know the
reason. It's dark as a pocket outside and my eyes are as good as
theirs. I'll get 'em if they're around here. You hear me?"

"Yes," she whispered meekly.

Edward Vail, only that morning headed for rest and quiet, was now out
in the night, stalking an unknown and vicious enemy. And--for what? As
he asked himself the question, the smile of Lina seemed to answer him
from the blackness. Cherchez la femme! He was getting dotty as he
neared his thirties. Maybe it was the hard work that had affected his
mind.

* * * * *

The black hulk of the old house loomed against the scarcely less dark
sky. There was no moon, and in only one tiny portion of the heavens
were the stars visible. Mighty few of them at that. The swish-swish of
the surf came to his ears faintly. Or was it someone creeping along
the wall of the house? He held his breath and waited.

They wouldn't use the robots at night. Couldn't follow their movements
in the teleview, if such an attachment had been built into their
control transmitter. No, the devils would be here in person.

A muttered Teutonic curse sounded close at hand. That wouldn't be
Carlos. God! Were the heinies mixed up in this thing? Just like 'em to
be swiping a new war machine; but hadn't they gotten enough in 1944?
Without warning he was catapulted from his feet by the impact of a
heavy body. He struck the ground so violently that the pistol was
jarred from his hand. Disarmed before the fight had started!

Then he was rolling over and over, battling desperately with an
assailant who was much larger and heavier than himself. He was dazed
and weakened from his initial dive to the hard ground. All rules of
boxing and wrestling were forgotten. Biting, kicking, gouging, all
were the same to this silent and powerful antagonist. It was
catch-as-catch-can in the darkness, and mostly the other fellow could
and did. He had a grip like the clamp of a robot. Trying to dig out
one of his eyes? Eddie saw stars--and lashed out with all his might,
his flying fists playing a tattoo on the others ribs. Short arm jabs
that brought grunts of agony from his big assailant. Try to blind him,
would he?

Eddie somehow managed to get on top; his clutching fingers found the
other's collar. Then he let loose with terrific rights and lefts that
smacked home to head and face. Those outlanders don't like the good
old American fist, and Eddie had room to bring them in from way back,
now. The fellow had ceased struggling and Eddie's hands were getting
slippery. Blood! Must be, for the stuff was warm and sticky. He rested
for a moment, breathing heavily. The other was quiet beneath
him--knocked cold. He staggered to his feet triumphantly; wondered how
many more of them there were.

* * * * *

He looked around in the darkness, straining his eyes in vain to pierce
its thick veil. There was a glimmer of light over there, through a
window. The laboratory! The light flickered a second and vanished. A
cold fear gripped him and he stumbled through the grounds blindly,
finally colliding painfully with the brick wall. He felt his way
toward the door, or where he thought it should be.

He dared not call out for fear the others would hear. Where was that
damned door? He rested again and listened. Not a sound was to be
heard from within or without. He clawed his way frantically along the
unsympathetic wall. It was a mile wide, that laboratory of Shelton's.
Ah--at last! Weakly, he staggered within.

"Lina!" he whispered, "Lina! Shelton!"

There was no reply. He fumbled for a match. Funny how slowly his mind
worked ... thoughts coming jerkily like a sound film running at quarter
speed ... fingers shaking so he could scarcely strike a light. The flare
showed the laboratory empty of human beings ... Lina gone ... that crazy
robot ... quiet now, and visible ... but grinning at him ... then
darkness....

* * * * *

What a headache! Eddie rolled over and groaned. Astounded by the
hardness of his bed and the stiffness of his joints, he roused to
instant wakefulness; sat up and stared. Where the devil was he? The
laboratory--Shelton's--Lina. He jumped to his feet. Dawn was breaking
and its first faint radiance lighted the robot with eery shifting
colors. He berated himself: he'd passed out.

He dashed through the door and made a wild circuit of the grounds.
Empty! No--there was his automatic, where it had fallen. Blood stains
on the grass showed where the encounter had taken place last night.
Must have smashed the Dutchman's nose. But he was gone. Everybody was
gone. He rushed into the house and from room to room, upstairs and
down. The place was deserted.

This was something to think about. Not an automobile around, no
neighbors, not even a telephone. When Shelton went into seclusion, he
did it thoroughly. Eddie returned to the laboratory and hunched
himself in the scientist's chair. Maybe he could think better here.

They had Shelton and his daughter, all right. Kidnapped them. There
was probably some detail of his discovery they couldn't dope out, and
had decided to force him into telling them. The devils would use
Lina's safety as a threat to force him into anything. Horrible, that
thought. And Carlos already had made advances to her.

Startled by a sharp click, he turned around. The robot was whirring
into life. Fast workers, whoever Shelton's enemies were, and up early!
He found the pinch bar with which he had wrecked the television
apparatus and, with a few mighty blows, destroyed the antenna and
headpiece of the mechanical man. They'd not pull off any devilment
with this one, anyway.

A wave meter on one of the benches attracted his attention and he
twirled its knob. It gave strong indication at one and a half meters.
The wave length of their control transmitter! If only he could
find--but there it was: a direction finder. Hastily, he lighted its
tubes and tuned to the frequency shown by the meter. He rotated the
loop over the compass dial and carefully noted maximum and minimum
signals. He had a line on the transmitter! And it must be close by,
for the intensity of the carrier wave was tremendous.

* * * * *

Slipping the automatic into his pocket, he left the laboratory and
struck out through the underbrush in the direction Carlos had taken
the day before. Fighting his way through the tangled shrubbery, he
kept his eyes constantly on the needle of the magnetic compass he had
wrenched from the direction finder. It was tough going through the
thicket, and just as bad across a swampy clearing where he was mired
to the knees before he got across. Up the hill and into the woods he
forged, keeping doggedly to the direction he had determined. This was
rough country, less than a hundred miles from New York but
uncultivated and unsettled excepting for the few summer places along
the shore. He'd heard that these backwoods were infested with
rum-runners and hijackers, a cutthroat gang.

There was a cabin off there through the trees, almost on the line he
was following. Must be what he was looking for. He advanced
cautiously, creeping stealthily from tree to tree.

Voices came to his ears, and the throb of a motor-generator. It was
the place, all right. He crept closer, and, circling the house, saw
that an almost impassable road led to it from the rear. A heavy
limousine was parked there in the trees, and another car, a yellow
roadster--his own. A feeling of grim satisfaction was quickly
dispelled by the sound of a familiar humming. Within a foot of his
ear, it seemed to be, and instinctively he ducked.

Click! A powerful clamp had fastened itself to his wrist. One of
Shelton's invisible robots! He struck blindly at the unseen monster
and was rewarded by a shooting pain up his wrist as one of his
knuckles was driven backward by the impact with the hard metal. Bands
of writhing metal encompassed his body, pinning his arms to his side
and lifting him bodily from the ground. There he hung, kicking and
struggling in mid-air, supported by nothing he could see. He closed
his eyes and felt of the thing that held him. Cold, hard metal it
was--implacable and unyielding.

Clank, clank. The monster was walking with long, jerky strides. The
pressure against his ribs brought a gasp of agony from his lips. Each
jarring step was an individual and excruciating torture. His breath
was cut off by the relentless constriction of one of the tentacles
which now encircled his neck. It wouldn't be long now.

* * * * *

Then, when everything had turned black and he had given up hope, he
was dumped unceremoniously on the hard floor of the cabin. A harsh
laugh greeted him as he struggled weakly to his knees.

"Thought you could put one over on Al Cadorna, did you?" a voice
rasped.

The room spun round as he tried to regain his feet. A mist swam
before his eyes. Al Cadorna! The most picturesque figure in gangland.
Credited with a dozen killings and with ill-gotten wealth untold, this
leader of the underworld openly boasted that the police had never
gotten anything on him. And they hadn't. So it was a criminal who had
laid hands on Shelton's robots, not a foreign spy. Worse and worse. He
thought of what they might be able to do with these invisible
mechanical things: make gunmen out of them; safe blowers; house
breakers. Why, society would be at their mercy; banks defenceless; the
mints, even--

"Stand up on your pins, you worm! Let's have a look at you!" The
muzzle of an automatic was thrust in his abdomen, prodding
insistently. Things stabilized in the room and he looked up into the
cruelest face he had ever seen, and recognizable from the many
pictures which had appeared in the yellow press.

Eddie took in the surroundings at a glance. He was in a low-ceilinged
room that was almost unfurnished. In one corner there was a replica of
Shelton's robot control, teleview disc and all. Carlos had just pulled
the switch and the robot was taking visible form. The man who prodded
him with the automatic was Cadorna, no doubt of that. His evil leer
and yellow eyes marked him at once. The other occupant of the room was
a big square-built man with a patch over one eye and strips of
adhesive tape across his nose--his antagonist of the night before.
Must have sneaked off after he came to; it was safer to send one of
the robots after the _verdammt Amerikaner_. Eddie restrained a chuckle
at the thought.

"Nothing to laugh at, kid!" Cadorna snarled. "You're goin' for a nice
long ride pretty quick. Know that?"

Eddie's head was clearing rapidly, but he pretended to sway on his
feet. Lina and her father were not in sight. If only he could spar for
a little time.

"What's the idea?" he asked. "Haven't you guys got enough?"

"That's our business. We know what we're doin', and when you butted in
you just signed your own papers. Dead men don't talk, you know, kid!"

* * * * *

There was a door at the other side of the room. If only he could see
whether Lina was in there; whether she was alive.

"Tie him up, Gus!" Cadorna kept the pistol pressed into the pit of
Eddie's stomach as he gave the order. "Hands and feet--and make it a
good job, you wiener."

Eddie shouted then. "Lina!" Resistance was useless, but it would give
him some satisfaction to know she still lived even though Cadorna
pulled that trigger in the next instant. No reply came from beyond
that door.

"So!" Cadorna grinned maliciously. "Another victim! Carlos first, then
you, and now--Al Cadorna. If you're worrying about her, kid, you
needn't. She'll be perfectly safe with me."

Eddie's roar of rage shook the rafters. Heedless of consequences, he
brought his knee up suddenly and violently. Cadorna sank to the floor
with a groan, his pistol clattering harmlessly on the rough planks. In
a flash Eddie retrieved it, dropping behind the prostrate form of the
stricken gangster. Gus had fired and missed. Now he dared not shoot
for fear of hitting his chief. Eddie's gun spat fire and the big
German clapped his hands over his heart, his good eye widening in
surprise. Then he reeled and pitched forward on his face. A feminine
cry sounded from the adjoining room and Eddie's heart skipped a beat
when he heard it.

Carlos was padding across the floor, trying to get into a position
where he could fire without endangering Cadorna. Eddie swung his
pistol around and pulled the trigger. A miss! He fired again, but too
late. Fingers of steel had gripped his wrist and the king of gangland
rolled over on him, twisting the gun from his hand. Clubbed now, the
pistol was raised high over that distorted, malicious face. Eddie
tried to twist away from under the blow as it started its downward
swing, then a thousand steam hammers hit him all at once and ...
blackness....

* * * * *

Something was pounding insistently at the doors of his consciousness.
He must pull himself together! They'd left him for dead and he
was--almost. But voices as loud and raucous as those would waken the
dead. He groaned with pain when he attempted to move his head.

"That for you, you rat." It was Cadorna's voice. "Try to take my
woman, will you?"

The pounding resolved itself into the angry barking of an automatic.
Someone squealed with mortal agony. Eddie opened his eyes cautiously
and saw that the room was full of people. The pungent odor of burned
powder assailed his nostrils. There was Cadorna and Carlos, David
Shelton and Lina. An undersized, dapper youth stood over the body of
the big German, his hands outstretched before his horror-stricken
face. A moment he stood thus, like a statue. Then his knees gave way
beneath him and he crumpled into a grotesque heap beside the man who
had been called Gus. Such was the manner of Cadorna's dealing with
those who displeased him.

The door to the adjoining room was open. Lina and her father had been
kept in there, with the little thug as their guard. Evidently Cadorna
had caught him trying to force his attentions on the girl. Good thing
he'd killed him.

Lina was sobbing and the sound brought increased agony to the helpless
Eddie. He lay still where they had placed him, beside the table which
supported the robot control apparatus. His cheek was against the floor
and he saw that a little pool of blood was forming there, blood drawn
by the butt of Cadorna's pistol when it contacted with his skull. He
was bound hand and foot. They hadn't thought him dead, after all.
Keeping him for that ride and a watery grave. Couldn't afford to leave
his body around where it might be found.

"What are you going to do with us?" Shelton was asking, his voice
bravely defiant. Game old sport at that, he was.

"Don't fret over your daughter. Al Cadorna's her protector now, and
she'll be taken care of better'n she's ever been. But you--that's
somethin' else again. First off, you're goin' to give Carlos the dope
on these trick metals in your machines. He couldn't analyze 'em, or
whatever you call it. Then you're goin' to have a nice long ride with
your friend over there."

"You'll go to the chair for this, Cadorna. And I'll never tell you the
secret of the alloys."

"Tell him, Dad," Lina was crying. "He'll let us go if you do."

"The hell I will, girlie. What I said, goes. We'll make him talk
first, too," Cadorna snarled.

"Never!" Shelton shouted.

* * * * *

Lina had seen Eddie and, with a little cry, she bounded across the
room. Carlos was after her like a panther.

"Hands off that dame!" Cadorna yelled. "Let her cry over the boy
friend if she wants to. Won't do her any good. You get busy and set
one of the tin soldiers goin'. Make the old buzzard talk."

Carlos muttered sullenly as he started the motor-generator. Give him a
chance and he'd knife Cadorna in the back--for Lina.

The girl was kneeling at Eddie's side now, examining his bleeding
scalp. He opened one eye and gazed at her solemnly, pursing his lips
in a warning to silence. She caught her breath and nodded in
understanding.

Cadorna was shouting like a madman. "Keep the damn thing so I can see
it, you spig! They make me bug-house when you blink 'em off. Besides,
I don't trust you."

The bold Cadorna was afraid of something he couldn't see! An idea
flashed across Eddie's quickening mind. But he was helpless--bound so
tightly that the cords cut his wrists.

One of the robots was clanking across the room. Lina looked up in
momentary terror and Eddie saw her eyes stray over the table top where
Carlos was working.

"Want to grab the old one?" the Chilean called.

"Yes. Pick him up and squeeze him till his ribs crack. He'll talk."

Lina let a little moan escape her lips. Eddie was watching as the iron
monster approached the scientist and flung its tentacles around his
madly struggling form. Lina was fussing with him, trying to turn him
over. Cadorna's back was to them, his face thrust into that of
Shelton, who was fighting desperately to avoid the crushing grip of
the robot.

"Give him a squeeze, Carlos."

* * * * *

Shelton's yell brought another low moan from the girl's set lips. She
was working furiously at Eddie's bonds. Lord, she had a knife! Good
girl! Must have found it on the table. His hands were free and he
wriggled his fingers to bring them to life. Then his feet. He was able
to move. Lina whispered in his ear.

"All right?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes," he whispered. Somehow their lips touched and Eddie felt his
heart pound at his temples. New life came to him with a rush of
exaltation.

Shelton was crying out in pain and Lina sprang to her feet. "You
beast!" she shouted at Cadorna. "Let him go."

Then she was across the room, tearing at the unyielding metal bands
that pinioned her father and slowly crushed him. Cadorna laughed
mirthlessly.

"Tell him to give me the dope," he retorted. "Then I'll let him
go--for a while."

Shelton's head hung on his chest, rolling weakly from side to side.
Eddie doubted whether he could speak if he wished to. The Chilean was
working at the controls, increasing the tension of those terrible
tentacles. Eddie raised himself to his knees, watching Cadorna
narrowly. He fingered the knife Lina had used in freeing him. No, he
couldn't use that. The Chilean would cry out and queer everything. He
laid it on the floor, within easy reach.

Cadorna was cursing now, first Shelton and then the girl. His rage was
maniacal. "Another notch!" he bellowed.

Eddie rose silently and clamped his fingers on the Chilean's windpipe.
Lina's eyes widened as she saw. She did everything in her power to
keep Cadorna's attention occupied as Eddie sunk those fingers into
Carlos' throat. The Chilean's eyes popped from his head as he
struggled furiously to tear away the steel-sinewed hand that had
stopped off his breath. Death was staring him in the face, and he
could not cry out. His strength left suddenly as the fingers dug in
deeper, and Eddie shook him as he would a rat. In a surprisingly short
time he had slumped to the floor, and not until his squirmings ceased
did Eddie loose that awful grip.

"Another notch, you spiggoty!"

* * * * *

Eddie bent over the controls. Lina's pleadings mingled with the curses
of Cadorna. She was cajoling now--telling the brute she'd go with him
gladly if only he'd free her father; promising anything, everything,
in the desperate attempt to keep him from discovering that his last
henchman was out of the picture. But her words served only to spur
Eddie to swifter action. He twirled the knobs of the dual control. The
second robot was fading from view. He'd give Cadorna a dose of the
thing he really feared. He eased off a little on the other control,
releasing the pressure on poor Shelton's ribs as much as he dared.

The position indicator of the second robot moved slightly as Eddie
started the invisible monster toward the yelling gangster. He watched
the screen closely. It was quite a trick, at that, controlling these
things you couldn't see. All you had to go by were these sketchy
representations in the teleview; tiny flecks of light that outlined
the various movable members of the robot.

"Eddie!" Lina screamed suddenly. "Look out!"

But he had seen Cadorna wheel around as he watched his image on the
screen. At that moment a tentacle was writhing its way around his
thick neck. A bullet whistled past Eddie's ear and buried itself
harmlessly in the wall.

Then from the blasphemous mouth of the king of gangland there came a
shriek of awful fear. The tightening tentacle shut it off in a choking
gurgle. Cadorna was captured at last--by a monster he could not see, a
monster that struck terror to his craven soul.

It was the work of but a moment to free David Shelton from the grip of
the other robot. The tortured man tottered into Lina's arms for
support.

Eddie played with Cadorna now, releasing the grip from his throat and
pinioning his arms instead. With rapid fingers he manipulated the
controls until the screaming gangster was raised high in the air by
the unseen arms of the robot.

"Another notch, Al," he chortled.

Cadorna yelled anew as the clamps tightened, "For God's sake, kid,
quit it! Let me down. I'll do anything you say."

"Yeah?" Eddie moved one of the rheostat knobs a trifle.

The prince of racketeers was whimpering now, like a baby. The sharp
snap of a rib punctured his outcries.

"Another notch," said Eddie grimly.

But the king of the underworld had fainted.

* * * * *

An hour later Eddie Vail surveyed the scene complacently. Lina had
washed the blood from his head and face and bandaged his wound.
Luckily, Cardorna's blow had been a glancing one. The girl was fussing
over her father, now, and the scientist was on the point of resenting
her attentions; swore he could take care of himself; he wasn't a baby.
Carlos and his chief were trussed up like mummies, and had been
snarling at each other ever since the Chilean recovered his senses,
each blaming the other for their predicament. The robots stood
motionless by the wall.

This would be a big haul for the police. Plenty of evidence to send
Cadorna to the chair now. The murder of Butch Collins, the undersized
thug, had been witnessed by three of them. No, four: Carlos would
squeal. He was that kind. There would be rejoicing in the underworld
too, for Cadorna had many enemies. They'd be killing each other off in
droves though, for the leaders of rival gangs would be battling for
his place.

"Guess we'll have to dump them in the limousine," he remarked to
Shelton. "Drive them to the nearest town and turn them over to the
authorities."

"Yes. Then they can come back for the bodies of the other two."
Shelton grimaced as he contemplated the sprawled figures.

"What about your robots?" Eddie asked.

"Why, I'll go ahead with my original plans, of course." The scientist
looked surprised.

"Dad!" Lina turned beseeching eyes on Eddie and his heart performed
amazingly as he looked into their depths.

"And why not?" asked her father dolefully. "They'll insure the peace
of the world. They'll--"

"Listen, Mr. Shelton," Eddie interrupted. "If you'll think a little
you'll realize that they'll do no such thing. Has any new and terrible
engine of destruction ever accomplished that result? No--the enemy
always finds a way of combating the new weapon and of devising another
still more terrible. You've discovered a marvelous thing, but its
value is quite problematical."

"How can they ever combat a thing they cannot see?"

"Easily. Why, I could devise a teleview attachment in two days that
would make them visible. Photo-electric cells are capable of detecting
ultra-violet light as you well know. Radium glows under its rays. Why
not coat a teleview screen with some radio-active material?"

* * * * *

Shelton frowned thoughtfully. "You're right. Vail," he said, after a
moment of silence; "absolutely right. It was only a dream."

With dragging feet he walked to the transmitter, his expression grim
in the realization of failure. He started the motor-generator with a
gesture of finality.

"What are you going to do?" Eddie asked fearfully.

"Watch me! At least I can demonstrate another phase of the basic
principle I have discovered."

The motors of both robots whirred.

"Don't!" Cadorna wailed. "For God's sake, don't blink 'em out!"

Carlos cursed his chief for a coward.

Shelton was talking rapidly as he manipulated the controls. Instead of
building up the wave motion to the frequency of invisible light he was
reducing it. Past the other end of the spectrum and into the
infra-red. The heat ray! Both monsters were changing color as he
marched them through the door and into the open. But now they glowed
with a visible red that rapidly intensified to the dazzling whiteness
of intense heat. Cadorna babbled in superstitious terror. Then, in an
instant, both mechanisms were reduced to shapeless blobs of molten
metal. Lina clapped her hands gleefully.

Shelton looked up with enthusiasm once more shining in his face.
"Vail, my boy," he said, "we can find some use for that in industry.
Let the next war take care of itself."

"You bet!" Eddie was lost in contemplation of the girl--the flush of
pleasure that came at her father's words; the shining eyes.

"Then you'll leave the old place down here?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes, as soon as we get rid of these crooks and the other robot. Vail
is to spend the rest of his vacation with us, too--if he will."

Would he? Eddie gazed at the girl in rapt admiration and with an
inward thrill over his astounding good fortune. Her eyes dropped
before the intensity in his and her flush heightened.

David Shelton was wiping his glasses and peering at them with an
understanding smile. Good sport, Shelton--and in some ways as wise as
they made them. Eddie waited breathlessly for the girl to speak.

"Oh, that's wonderful, Dad," she approved; "and I'm sure that Mr. Vail
will agree."

She turned those glorious eyes on Eddie once more and her inquiring
smile spoke volumes. He opened his mouth to accept the invitation but
the words would not come. He could only nod his head vigorously like
an abashed schoolboy.

Some vacation!

[Illustration: Advertisement.]