CHAPTER TWO - AVOIDING BEING LUNCH

I looked up, shading my eyes against the bright, impossible sun of this inner world. Above me, wings beating the clear sky, was a vision right out of a J. Allen St. John painting for some pulp story. It was huge and bat-like, but with a head that looked like a stub pencil sharpened at both ends. As I watched, it folded it wings and dove right at me. I clawed the .45 from my holster and fired at the rocketing monstrosity. At the last second, it leveled off by extending its translucent wings and bringing up its hand-size paws.

I avoided the swooping razor-sharp clutches by rolling under my plane. I pulled the carbine from my shoulder and checked the mechanism. The creature, circling at renewed altitude, shrieked like a burst boiler. I was afraid it would damage my plane so I used the wing as cover to pop up and squeeze off some better-aimed shots. One struck the creature's narrow, keel-like chest. The other, by luck, pierced its snaky neck. The winged apparition whistled again as it flew away, but its wounds were too great. The creature half-fell to the ground some two hundred yards from my plane.

I decided to examine this monster, rushing forward, weapon at the ready. I found it in a broken, bloody tangle, the tooth-filled beak snapping uselessly as its tiny eyes rolled and glared.

The flying lizard-thing sure seemed to be something out of prehistoric times. I knew people caught prehistoric fish once in a while near Africa, but this creature was another matter. As far as I could tell it was a Pteranodon, with a wingspread of nearly forty feet! It took it a while to die, but finally it gave a shudder and lay still. I considered cutting it up for dinner, but decided that I wasn't that hungry.

My most immediate problem was fuel. I checked my P-38's tanks and decided that if I kept a lean mixture and flew at low speed, I had perhaps another two or three hours. I had to find another city, since the other didn't seem to care for people in airplanes. I figured something must have spooked them for airplanes in the past. I thought back then, remembering as best I could what stories I had read about the inner world.

The most prolific writer about them was Burroughs. David Innes, a Burroughs character, had carved out an empire in Pellucidar—the earth's core. Pellucidar was a lot like the place I found myself, right down to the city full of pirates and the central sun and the crazy horizon. Maybe Burroughs had read an account of somebody else who had stumbled onto the opening and later incorporated it into his fiction. I remembered that another character in these fantastic stories—Jason Gridley—had threatened to bomb a pirate city named Korsar from a dirigible if the pirates did not release David Innes. I read these stories as a kid and found them great entertainment, but it now appeared there was some truth to the stories, and that would explain why the city was shy of planes.

Pellucidar was just a story, though. I was in a real world at the center of the earth, even though a lot of the stuff I encountered matched Burroughs' stories. So, I decided to call up the terms I could remember from his stories to dub this world and its denizens. The city would be called Korsar in the book I would write when I got out. The world would be called Pellucidar, and the flying lizard I shot would be called a thipdar. Now, if coincidence could be stretched farther, then southward lay David Innes' empire of Sari, and the moon of Pellucidar.

Between that mythical place and me lay the sea of Korsar, the Mountains of the Thipdars, and some cities populated by some intelligent flying lizards called Mahars. Sure they were! I thought.

To the south was probably a beach resort full of Hawaiian beauties, or I'd wake up and find I had dozed off during the patrol. Either sounded pretty good, certainly a lot better than dealing with a bunch of cavemen and lizards!

The current experience (dream or reality) had made me weary. I needed sleep, but there was no way I was sleeping in the open. I chose to nap in the P-38's cockpit, the carbine cradled in my arms. The heat was unbearable, but I was too tired to care. I fell asleep, wondering when it got dark.

I was awakened by a cacophony of howls and shrieks. I looked around and saw another tableau from the pulps. Two large cats with heavy bodies and upper tusks the size of carving knives were attacking what looked like a dinosaur about ten feet in height. The saber-tooths, as they had to have been, were not coming off the best of the exchange. Apparently, the fight was over the carcass of the pteranodon, or thipdar, as I was beginning to think of it. The dinosaur looked like a hammered-down Allosaurus, with huge sickle-like fore-toes.

One of the cats went down after a raking slash from one of the lizard's hind feet laid it open from breast to groin. The other saber-tooth had sunk its formidable fangs into the dinosaur's throat, and forks of black blood ran down the creature's mottled scales. I knew that the winner would probably come sniffing for me eventually, so I got out of the plane and crept forward, carbine ready. This place was becoming too rowdy for me. I was going to finish this fight and take off for a more peaceful climate. I guess I should have stayed where I was at, but I was a little ticked off at being rudely awakened, and I was beginning to get a liking for the tigers because of their tenacity. Also there was the practical matter of them damaging the plane if the winner did find me hiding out in the Lightning.

The dinosaur had grasped the tiger with its small forearms, but could not dislodge its grip. The pair went down in a heap, and I saw the lizard draw its legs under the saber-tooth, and with a huge double kick, literally tore the cat to shreds. Blood and fur exploded everywhere, yet the tiger's head remained attached to the dinosaur. I decided at that point to avenge those brave creatures and fired three shots into the dinosaur's skull from fifty yards. All three struck home.

The effect was immediate. It staggered to its feet and charged at me. The monster was half again my size and was a horrific vision, plastered with the blood of the cat mingled with its own. I fired the rest of my clip into it as it came. Before I could throw down my carbine and draw my pistol, it crashed to the ground not twenty feet in front of me. This time there was no prolonged twitching. It was quite dead, but I had no idea whether it died of my bullets or the fangs of the tiger.

I thought about collecting the tiger's teeth as souvenirs when I heard a plaintive mewling from a clump of brush another hundred feet beyond the thipdar's carcass. I reloaded my carbine and went over to investigate. I peeled back the limbs of thick bushes to find a tawny ball of fur rolling about. The ball uncoiled, and it had four large paws and a head with big blue eyes and some sharp, white teeth. It mewled and hissed alternatively, looking for all the world like a big kitten. I knew better, though. It could only have been a baby saber-tooth tiger.

Obviously, its parents were the pitiful corpses forty yards from where this tyke was hidden. Orphaned by the cruel fate of Pellucidar, I knew the cub had no chance of surviving on its own in this savage world. This world, whether the real Pellucidar or not, would not inculcate in me its callous disregard for life. As quick as I could, I snatched the cub by the nape of its neck and held it up. It came to life with an outburst of spitting, twisting to give my hand a rake with its small, but still serviceable claws. I dropped it and examined my hand, which now showed three welts, one oozing blood in ruby droplets.

The tiger cub ran over to the still forms of its parents, attempting to alert them to my presence, but it was shocked when it found them so dismembered. It poked and prodded at them, trying to get a response, and became quite disconsolate when none was forthcoming. I was able to come upon it once more, and this time managed to get a more secure hold. The thing was too distraught to fight me now, and I carried it back to the plane. I found a tin of powdered milk in my supplies and mixed some up in my mess kit. The little saber tooth lapped up the milk readily, and I prepared a bed for it in the back of my cockpit by laying out my fleece-lined flying suit. It accepted its berth suspiciously, but finally settled down, and I put the milk beside it.

Meanwhile, I was determined to get away from this monstrous plain immediately. The sun was still at noon, and it seemed to me larger than my old sun on the surface. Knowing I had barely four hours fuel remaining, I decided to continue the direction I had been traveling in the hopes of coming upon another village, hiding my plane, and walking in. I started my engines, giving the cub a fright. It mewled and buried itself in the arm of my suit as I revved the motors. Then, I taxied off the plain, skirted the seacoast as it curved, and continued south, or the direction I believed to be south. I probably could have alternated engines and had enough fuel to return to the surface, but how far out could I have gotten. Flying the P-38 on one engine is tremendously hard with all the instruments working, and you have to constantly switch to avoid damaging either engine. One slip would wreck me in the arctic with no hope of rescue. At least here, there was a promise of some friendly humankind, and new adventure far from the routine of chasing down Nazi subs. The war was over for me when I found myself lost in the ice. Here was a land I had only dreamt about.

The plain gave way to gentle mountains, and flitting among them I could see more of the flying reptiles, or thipdars, as I had dubbed them. The mountains were fully as high as the Rockies back home, and I adjusted my altitude to get above them. This limited my ability to look for villages, but I reasoned that I would see any large villages, and they would be the ones worth landing at. Two hours brought me over the mountains, and I was determined to find a village and set down before my fuel ran out. Another plain presented itself, and dropping low, I saw a great forest to the east. I had nearly despaired when I saw what appeared to be a network of stone towers in a rough semicircle. I veered off, hoping that I wasn't spotted, and spent a few minutes looking for a place near the forest that I could land and camouflage my aircraft. A spot presented itself and I taxied in.

The trees were much like those on the surface in any of the great forests in Canada, save the weather was more pleasant. I found sufficient branches that I was able to cut down with my knife to cover the plane so that a curious person would not disturb it. There were some odd noises in the woods as I worked, but no denizen of the forest presented itself, and I was soon ready to depart for the ring of towers, which to my mind represented a high level of human technology. Not wishing to frighten the people, I left my carbine in the plane, but did take my knife and pistol, along with some odds and ends from my flight kit to use as barter. The cub was beginning to get used to me, but was still wary, so I devised a carrying sack from my flight suit, giving him a space to stick out his head without being able to wriggle free. I attached the sack to my kit and slung it over my back. Civilization waited.

I marched for nearly two hours. The time spent in my plane told on me, because my legs were pretty sore. Having a kit and a kitten weighing me down didn't help much, either. The sun remained at noon, even though my watch told me that it had been eight hours since I had entered the polar opening. When I approached the ring of towers, I wasn't challenged. This caused me to wonder, because I was used to being barked at by guards whenever I left the base. I decided not to investigate the towers, though. They could be waiting to ambush me, whoever they might be. I was also surprised that no dinosaurs were around, either. I figured that maybe I had left them on the other side of the mountain.

The towers, from a distance, seemed roughly constructed, but solid. They were made from odd-shaped blocks of stone in squat cylinder shapes, crenellated at the top. The way the horizon curved up, I was sure you could see a long way, maybe even to where I hid my plane, since I hadn't marched too fast. The little cub didn't make much fuss, so I assumed that he must have been getting used to me. I thought about naming him. David Innes had a pair of hyenaedons, I remembered, and gave them names from India. After some consideration, I decided to name my cub Lightning, after my plane. It seemed like a good name, especially after the way I saw his parents move. It was bad luck that the dinosaur moved faster.

I noticed that inside the towers were two tall obelisks, carved out of single pieces of stone. They looked like they had been smoothed carefully. The whole place was getting pretty spooky. I went up to the megaliths, and found that they flanked a set of steps, maybe fifty feet wide. I was trying to remember where I had read about something similar in Burroughs. He had written about this very type of thing. I smiled as I remember the cable he sent to Cogdon Nestor: Story True. I had to admit it. The story was true. Everything matched up: a city full of pirates, dinosaurs and other prehistoric monsters everywhere, and now this hole in the ground.

It represented intelligence, though. Looking down the steps, I could see that they went down a long way, but it didn't look especially dark down there. The steps were worn by untold centuries of feet. I could see they went down to a large room, held up by giant columns.

"Well, Lightning," I said over my shoulder to the tiger, "I guess we go down."

His reply was a surprising purr and he rubbed his head against my back. I guess he was letting me know that I was his daddy. Fishing out a spring-loaded flash from my kit just in case, I descended the steps. As I had seen from above, some two hundred feet below was a long, colonnaded hall, from which ran corridors like spokes of a wagon wheel. The light, as best I could tell, came from sets of holes in the ceiling. Peering up into one, I couldn't quite figure it out, but it seemed like there was a system of reflectors that enhanced the natural light of the sun to give this underground city a sort of dusky illumination.

The floor was thick with dust, but I could see ample evidence that there had been some recent habitation, because several sets of bare feet cris-crossed the hall. Spears and shields littered the floor, but they were dust covered as well. I saw nothing else of interest, except a musky, snake-like odor, which did nothing for my mood and caused Lightning to squirm. Not wishing to pause, we shared some water from my canteen and picked a corridor.

The way was broad enough, but I still felt more claustrophobic than in the hall. Perhaps it was because I was getting farther from the steps. Several rooms adjoined the corridor, most of them empty, save for some long stone benches. I was about to retrace my steps and try another corridor when I heard an unmistakable female scream. Immediately, I put away my flash and drew my pistol.

The scream was ahead of me, but I moved cautiously. Who knew what denizens lay ahead? My head was full of wild imaginings, culled from every pulp story I ever read. I wondered how Doc Savage or the Shadow maintained their cool in such situations. The scream was not repeated, but I continued on. As I passed the black rectangle of a doorway, a hand reached out and grabbed my arm.''

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