Ten days later I read of a violent quake that had destroyed the town of Tegulcipan, in northern Mexico, and the neighbouring villages of Causo and Santlione. The newspaper dispatches estimated the dead at fifty and mentioned the escape of an American staying in Tegulcipan, Clark Landon.
Landon went southward and a more or less continuous series of earthquakes followed him. At Progreso, in Yucatan, a double quake laid practically every structure in ruins and slew three-fourths of the population. Again I saw Clark Landon mentioned as one who had escaped, and it was said he had started for Guatemala.
At Guatemala came the end. The day after Landon arrived came the first terrifying rumblings of an earthquake of tremendous violence. The radio and cable stories told of the unexpected suddenness with which the earth heaved violently and with which vast crevices began opening in it. They told also of the curious suicide of an American named Clark Landon, which took place as the quake started.
According to these dispatches, Landon, when the quake started, had rushed into the street along which crevices were opening and had shouted madly as though adjuring someone or something to stop the quake. The shocks becoming each moment more violent, Landon had shouted something about surrendering himself and stopping these quakes devastating earth, and had rushed to the nearest crevice and thrown himself into it. According to those who saw, the crevice closed instantly upon him.
With Landon’s death the quake stopped almost at once, the tremors subsiding. Though a few of Guatemala’s buildings were shaken down and much glass shattered, there was no other damage and so Guatemala had cause for rejoicing. It was only after the first sensational stories of the quake and its sudden stop had filled the papers that they carried the minor detail of Landon’s strange suicide.
The quake at Guatemala was the last of the series of earthquakes that for almost two years had wrought destruction over earth’s surface. There have been minor tremors and movements since, of course, but no such succession of cataclysms as that which began with the great polar quake and moved here and there over earth until it ended at Guatemala.
That is all of the story, and I, Morris, intend to attach to it no explanation or attempt at explanation. It must end not with explanations but with questions, questions that may have their answer in known natural causes or that can be answered, perhaps, only by the incredible tale Clark Landon told me that morning.
Was the tale the literal truth? Did Landon and Travis and Skeel actually penetrate that icy mountain at earth’s top to find there the Earth-Brain, the vast mind that has this earth for body? Was it because Landon attacked that Earth-Brain that for two years earth was racked by quakes?
Certain it is that that terrible series of quakes did follow Landon over earth’s surface. Whether that was by coincidence only, or whether those quakes were the deliberate movements of its huge earth-body by which the Earth-Brain was striving to kill Landon, as he believed, there will be different minds.
And what of that last quake at Guatemala, where Landon flung himself into the crevice after madly adjuring the Earth-Brain to stop its destruction? There can be no doubt that Landon saw himself as bringing endless death and destruction on innocent cities and peoples by his mere continued living, and that he felt at last that only by sacrificing himself would the Earth-Brain’s vengeance be satisfied, and the quakes cease.
Here again it is certain that no sooner had Landon flung himself into that crevice in the Guatemala street than the quake there stopped, the whole series of quakes stopped. Was that, too, by chance only? Or was it that Landon’s sacrifice was not in vain, that with his death the Earth-Brain’s revenge was accomplished?
It is with such questions and not with explanations, as I said, that the story must end. We cannot say whether up in its mountain-chamber at earth’s top sits that mighty ovoid of sentient light that Landon called the Earth-Brain, whether we who consider ourselves masters of all are not but a race of microscopic parasites dwelling upon the vast and strangely living body of that Earth-Brain. It may be that we shall never be able to say, and I think that that is best. I think it is infinitely best that we, who know so much so certainly, do not know this thing.
THROUGH THE ALIEN ANGLE
BY ELWIN G. POWERS
“I’M SORRY, BUT THAT’S ALL THE BOOKS THE LIBRARY HAS ON that subject.” I started to protest to the librarian, but knew at once it would do no good. I should have realized the folly of venturing out on a stormy night to try to get some information from this mausoleum of knowledge, and would have done better to go directly to the University. And with the time the girl had spent in vain searching for my material, the University Library had certainly closed. My final paper on the prehistory of man, due in class tomorrow, was in a sadly incomplete state.
I turned away, wondering whether I dared attempt to find a bookstore which might have remained open this late. But it was unlikely that any ordinary bookstore would have the books I needed. As I stood there, I felt a touch on my arm.
I turned, and looked at an old man who stood there. He came barely to my shoulder, and his white hair and beard made me think that he was a teacher from some local school. But his eyes were what arrested my attention. They were deep-set and dark, and seemed to hold in their depths some hint of dark and forbidden knowledge. I was tempted to rebuff him, but he smiled at me disarmingly.
“They are hopelessly materialistic here,” he said, in a quiet voice. “I heard you asking about certain books. I may be able to help you, and my own small collection is at your disposal if you wish.”
I thanked him. Scorn not the gifts that the gods provide, and I remembered that uncompleted class paper.
“I live a little way from here,” he said, as I nodded my assent. “Is it still raining, as it was? Yes? Well, we will take a cab.”
Almost before I could protest, he had hustled me from the library and into a taxi. He muttered something to the driver, and we whirled away into the dark.
I was almost inclined to withdraw from this singular venture, but I was confident of my ability to take care of myself, and so relaxed, and spent the time watching my companion as the cab sped along.
He seemed to have an indefinable air of antiquity about him, and I observed that he wore a cape—this incongruous garment had previously escaped my notice.
I grew more and more uncomfortable as the minutes passed. But suddenly the cab pulled up before a row of old brownstone houses, and the caped man paid the driver and we alighted.
That part of town was unfamiliar to me, and I stared at the residence with misgivings. But I suddenly caught sight of a police prowl car under a distant street light, and, reassured that help was near if I should need it, I mounted the steps behind my companion.
The room into which we stepped made me gasp, for it was luxuriously furnished, in contrast with the plain exterior of the house. In every corner stood relics, antiques from every corner of the globe. There was a saturnine statuette from Easter Island, a gorgeous Egyptian mummy-case, carved jade figurines, miniature Indian totems, Mayan tablets—and many others.
“Interesting, aren’t they?” the old man said, breaking his silence. I wish I could give his name, but for some reason it never occurred to me to ask it. And I have never been able to find that house again, though I have combed the city several times, looking for it.
The antiquarian in me aroused, I examined several pieces more closely. They were undoubtedly genuine, and worth a small fortune.
“Collected every one myself,” he said. “But come. In the library is what you wish to know.”
He ushered me into another room, and here my astonishment was redoubled. For the walls were lined with books—books of every nature and description. But in spite of my enthusiasm, I could not help feeling that there was something amiss. And after a searching look around, I discovered what it was.