Lord of Atlantis. John Russell Fearn
the automatic speaker in the ceiling made an announcement. “Pilot Carson and Navigator Baxley to see you, Miss Brant. Most urgent communication.”
She pressed a button on her desk and the two young men came in. “You have an urgent communication?” the Amazon asked briefly. “Please state it concisely.”
“We’re just back from New York, Miss Brant,” Pilot Carson explained. “Considerable damage has been caused there, and all along the east coast of the Americas, by a tidal wave—damage similar to that caused here.”
“Yes, yes, I know that.” The Amazon sounded and looked impatient. “I heard of it over the communications system. Have you nothing more important to report?”
“There is dry land, about twenty miles in width, now linking America with Britain, which has resulted in partial submergence of other continents by the displacement of water. There is also a city.”
“A city?” The girl’s violet eyes sharpened. “Where?”
“Approximately near the middle of this newly created plateau, Miss Brant.” Carson gave the details and then added: “We saw the whole thing happen, from the moment this buried land and mountain range rose out of the depths. The mountain peaks used to be called the Azores. I have a filmed record of everything.”
“Come into the laboratory where we have better facilities.”
The Amazon led the way into a huge adjoining room filled with complicated instruments that she had devised.
In silence the Amazon, Chris, and his wife—the two pilots in the background—stood watching the extraordinary scenes the cameras had recorded.
“Seems to me that Ethel is going to have a trip in vain,” Chris said. “She can’t usefully add any more to this recording.”
The Amazon said: “Let her go, Chris. Something more may have developed by the time she flies over this newly risen continent. Obviously, it is the resurrected Mu, just as I guessed—and that city under the giant dome is lost Atlantis, evidently perfectly preserved from its long immersion in the depths by the dome which has covered it. The spherical shape of the dome would lessen the deep-water pressure. All of which brings me back to one inevitable answer. Abna!”
“Seems like it,” Chris admitted. “I can’t think of anybody else who could conceivably have any interest in lost Atlantis. Which in turn ties up with the mystery of that spacecraft.”
The Amazon turned to the enormous radar telescope in the laboratory. It ‘found’ its objectives in broad daylight by the radar beam recoiling from a chosen spot in the heavens, the displays showing the size and position of the object. Seating herself at the control board, the Amazon went to work on the keys, her fingers playing up and down them until the beam struck the object for which she was seeking. She studied the readings and calculated swiftly. “That must be it,” she said finally. “It is 20,000 miles from Earth and moving in a slow orbit around Earth. Nothing else in that space location, so it isn’t a meteorite. We’ll have a look at it.”
She switched on the motors controlling the telescope and set the guider that would direct it exactly at the object the radar beam had located. There was an interval as the masterpiece of engineering directed itself, then the viewing screen came to life, mirroring an image of the weird craft.
It shone golden, while around its ‘equator’ there was ringed the curious-looking mirrors, or lenses. There were also signs of exterior catwalks on the object and the dull gleam of domes that could have been glass conning towers or outlook ports.
For half an hour the Amazon studied it, then with grim face she switched off.
“Seems to be of phenomenal size,” she said. “As big as a town and probably equipped with every known scientific device. Abna may be controlling it or he may not. Whoever it is, I’m perfectly sure that the person is responsible for the chaos on Earth here and the resurrection of Atlantis. And it may mean something much more menacing. Why resurrect Atlantis unless it is intended to use it? It doubtless contains many highly scientific engines of destruction, which, turned loose against us, might prove too much even for my science. The original Atlanteans were wizards of science against which my own knowledge might prove puny. I’ll fly out to this craft in the Ultra and see what I can learn. If it is Abna, maybe I can reason with him. If I can’t do that, then I can perhaps destroy him. Whichever course opens, he must be stopped!”
“In other words,” Chris said, with a dry smile, “any chance is better than none to have a look at Abna again?”
The Amazon flashed him a stony glance. “Don’t underrate the situation, Chris! There’s danger there; deadly danger, unless it is crushed at the start. You seem to have forgotten that Abna and I parted as enemies, so we’ll remain so. His science or mine. There isn’t room in the universe for both of us, and if he dares to invade my territory, I’ll wipe him out because I’ll have no alternative. Certainly I’ll never submit to his dictates.” She turned to the door, adding over her shoulder, “Take charge whilst I’m gone, Chris. You know as well as I do how much needs handling. Whatever report Ethel has to make can wait until I get back.”
CHAPTER TWO
THREAT FROM SPACE
An hour later the Ultra, the huge, super-fast air-and-space machine which the Amazon alone understood in detail, was streaking into the twilight—upward to the stratosphere, thence through successively weakening layers of atmosphere until the machine had plunged through into the void.
It was not a new scene that lay before the girl, or indeed to anybody in these space-conscious days of the late twenty-first century; yet it always had a certain gripping quality. The majestic sun, blinding and intolerable to look upon without intervening purple shields; the drifting hosts of stars and planets; the paler moon, at the first quarter and below the gigantic bulk of Earth, receding now as the Ultra swept onward into the abyss.
Motionless, the Amazon sat at the controls, watching through the observation port for the first sign of that golden circle toward which the instruments told her she was speeding.
She was no longer the scarlet-costumed ruler of Earth, queen of the inner solar system, but a black-suited adventuress, the negativity of her attire relieved only by the solid gold belt about her slender waist, a belt packed with every needful instrument and weapon. Such an attire she always wore when on business bent. In any moment of crisis making demands upon her physique, the close-fitting elastic-glass mesh of which the suit was made gave her absolute freedom. Her golden hair was swept back now from her forehead and held in place by a gleaming band with twin rubies at either end. A stray hair in her way when she needed absolute clarity of vision might prove fatal. To the Amazon no detail was too trivial to be overlooked. She had learned from hard experience the need of precision and deadly accuracy.
When presently the golden circle came into view from the depthless black of infinity, she became more alert, her right hand near enough to the protonic gun to press the switch if any attempt was made to attack her. Nothing happened, however, and she flew steadily on.
When she was 20,000 miles from Earth, she inspected the giant space-globe as she flew the Ultra around it. The mirrors were concave in shape like the reflector of an arc, and she judged them to be twenty feet in diameter and made of some highly polished substance beside which the most brilliant chrome finish would have seemed dull.
That the craft itself was man-made was no longer in doubt. The rivets that held the globe’s two hemispheres together were plainly visible. So were the catwalk ladders and transparent conning towers, behind which she could see dim evidences of people moving—probably watching her Ultra as it cruised around like a wasp, darting, diving, sweeping, taking avoiding action in case of attack.
Then suddenly the Amazon found the Ultra seized in the grip of tremendous magnetic power. Though she exerted all the strength of the atomic plant to break free, she found it impossible. Relentlessly, the Ultra was dragged toward the globe, and finally came to rest anchored against it.
Grim-faced, furious at being beaten, the Amazon switched