Spider Read online

  The next moment, the truck had backed out of danger, and Wentworth had a moment's respite in which to plan his next move. He knew now that it was useless to charge the robots even with this mighty juggernaut. And next time, they would be ready; would meet him with a rain of bullets. He strained his eyes to see beyond the crowded ranks of the robots. Were the police retreating yet? Or was Kirkpatrick foolishly leading them to a new attack? He could not see—but he knew Kirkpatrick!

  Even while he cursed the stubbornness of Kirkpatrick that would fling him again and again into this vain battle, Wentworth knew a grim admiration for the man. It was this very quality of perseverance that made him the most effective police commissioner the city had ever known! But he was beaten in advance this time. He and his brave men would only walk to their deaths!

  With the thought, Wentworth knew what he must do, and he was already in action as the idea flashed across his mind. He backed the truck into the cross street, sent it lurching forward. A few minutes of maneuvering and then, gathering momentum, he headed straight for the tottering wall of a half-collapsed tenement that towered above the close-packed robots!

  He knew that the wall would not destroy, or even stop the robots, but it would slow them for a few moments. It would give the Spider time enough to complete his work!

  Grimly, Wentworth clung to the truck to the last possible moment, then he leaped from the running board, sprawled into the street. He bounded to his feet, and sprinted back the way he had come, but he had not taken a dozen strides when the truck slammed its tons of weight against the rocking tenement wall. There was an instant when a few bricks rained down on the battered steel truck, then a groaning crack opened up the face of the wall. It leaned gently forward. It bowed gracefully above the truck—then it lost its balance! Faster and faster, the solid wall of the tenement pitched forward. As it fell, many jagged cracks ran across its face. A window frame was popped out and sailed like a box kite ahead of the fall. That window frame smashed down over the head of a robot, and then the wave of bricks broke over the upright monsters of steel. Fragments flew upward as from an explosion, and the dust roiled high against the sleet-spitting sky. The concussion of the fall rolled thunder through the deserted streets.

  But Wentworth took no notice of the collapse. Already he was circling toward where Kirkpatrick and his cohorts laid siege to the steel killers. They were rolled back by that wave of masonry. Kirkpatrick and Reams, their grenades exhausted, had quickly retreated before that impact. Wentworth saw this as he popped out of the doorway of a tenement which he had reached through the back court. He was within a dozen yards of Kirkpatrick's limousine, and like a black shadow, he slipped soundlessly across the street. There were a score of police within gunshot of him, but all stared where the dust of the building collapse still lifted a monstrous dark silhouette against the sky. Already, within that moiling cloud, there was movement.

  Wentworth saw a single robot lift an arm, then a leg . . . and thrust out of the edge of the wreckage!

  A shivered, concerted moan went up from the men in police blue. They were brave, these men, but they could not fight immortals! Wentworth was squarely beside Kirkpatrick's car now. He straightened, and the driver twisted about, his face bewildered. Wentworth's hand darted like a snake's head, and his stiffened fingers drove to nerve centers in the man's throat, spilled him unconscious across the seat. It was the work of a moment to dump the man into the back, to pull on his uniform cap. Wentworth's lips were grim as he reached for the microphone of the loudspeaker unit, but when he spoke it was crisply, in the metallic tones which Kirkpatrick used!

  "Retreat, men," he said, imitating Kirkpatrick. "We have done all we can. Return to quarters and await further orders. And make it fast! These monsters in steel are after us again!"

  Wentworth saw Kirkpatrick leap from the shadows where he had crouched to ambush the stirring giants, but the men behind the squad wagon did not suspect. They had heard Kirkpatrick's voice, they thought, and it was an order they welcomed. Within brief seconds, while Kirkpatrick raced toward his parked car, the squad car got under way. Then Kirkpatrick reached the running board, whipped open the door on the far side from Wentworth.

  "Who the devil gave that order?" he demanded harshly. "Damn it, Cassidy . . ."

  He did not notice until then that the man in the uniform cap wore a long black cape on his shoulders, or that the face that peered toward him through the gloom was the face of the Spider! When he did notice, Wentworth's fingers were already striking for his throat! Instantly the Spider hauled Kirkpatrick into the car. When Sergeant Reams bolted alongside the limousine, he looked into the muzzle of Wentworth's automatic!

  "Get behind the wheel, Sergeant Reams," Wentworth ordered coldly, "and drive this car away from here. Never mind the blown-out tires. The robots can't move rapidly enough to catch you!"

  Reams' jaw set stubbornly, but the grey-blue eyes that glared at him through the steel mask were relentless; behind them blazed the will of the Spider. Reams muttered an oath, and took the wheel. As the car wheeled away, with Wentworth on the running board, he cast a single backward glance—and relief flooded through him!

  The robots had had enough of that battle, and they were moving off toward the river as they hauled themselves out of the debris which Wentworth had dumped upon them. Wentworth's teeth were clenched together, and there was a coldness in his soul that was fury. God alone knew how many poor mortals had died this night under the march of the robots. But, God being willing, he would track the monsters to their lair beneath the waters of the East River!

  "Straight on!" he ordered Reams harshly. "And if you love Kirkpatrick, don't revive him until it's too late to fight those robots! They're in full retreat . . . and it would only mean his death!"

  As he finished, Wentworth dropped from the running board of the limousine and ducked into the shadows of a dark doorway. For a moment, he stood there watching the limousine jounce on its flat tires down the street. His lips were a little twisted. Kirkpatrick could be so true a friend—and so harsh an enemy! Too bad that they could not work side by side against crime, but Kirkpatrick was first of all a defender of the law. And it was because the law so often failed that the Spider had been born!

  With a jerk of his head, Wentworth bounded from the doorway and raced through the shadows. A half dozen blocks away, he ducked into the dead-end street where he had told Ram Singh to meet him; where Nita would be waiting. They called to him softly from a gap in the wall that surrounded the ruins of what had been once his fortress home—and which criminals had destroyed in one awful hour. Wentworth swerved toward the gateway, already stripping off the black cape about his shoulders.

  "Quickly," he ordered, "get the diving suit ready!"

  He saw Nita then, huddled against the broken wall for protection from the bite of the sleet. The Long Island shore was obscured and the black waters made a mournful obligato to the wind. A tug howled from the obscurity. Nita came toward him.

  "Must you go . . . tonight, Dick?" she asked softly. "It will be terribly cold under the river."

  Wentworth laughed harshly. "The robots are marching toward the river now," he said. "When they enter, I must follow!" He could see how white and drawn her face was, could see how she tried to smile as he stepped into the tight fitting rubber suit, and Ram Singh hurriedly made the fastenings secure.

  "But, Dick . . . you'll be helpless under water! Those great murderous things will know you're following them."

  Wentworth shook his head. "Perhaps," he said softly, "but under water, I will have a weapon against them! There are men inside those suits, Nita, and I will carry a knife!"

  Nita stared at him incredulously. "A knife against bullet-proof armor!'

  Wentworth laughed grimly. "It is the one weapon that can win! Hurry, Ram Singh, hurry. They will be here soon!"

  Ram Singh prepared to hoist the heavy copper diving helmet high, and Wentworth rapidly adjusted the oxygen valves. But Nita was standing very close, an
d he saw her shoulders shiver a little. Brave Nita . . . afraid. Wentworth laid his hand upon her arm, and then his head lifted. Stiffness ran through all his body, a stiffness that was the eagerness for battle.

  The air was vibrating dully to that funereal rhythm he knew. He felt the earth quiver under the remorseless tread of the steel robots, and for an instant he looked dubiously at the long blade of the knife which would be his only weapon beneath the black waters of the East River. Then he laughed, harshly.

  "Lock on the helmet, Ram Singh!" he ordered. "The hour of battle is here!"

  Chapter Six

  Under The River

  THE BLACK WATERS OF THE EAST RIVER heaved sullenly, dimpled by the slash of sleet. The thunderous tread of the robots was very close and, in the ruins of what had been his home, Wentworth crouched against the wall and drew Nita close to protect her. Ram Singh growled in his throat, his big hand close to his dagger.

  Past the concealing shadows went the robots, whose marching feet had become an intolerable weight upon the brain, upon the heart. Only when they were past did Wentworth release Nita.

  "Keep watch, if you like," Wentworth told her gently. "I'll be back within the hour. I won't follow too closely, but if I can track those robots to their hideout, I'll contrive a way to smash this whole damnable murder conspiracy!"

  He pivoted then and moved heavily in the wake of the robots. They were already entering the water, one by one. The black waters lapped against their steel flanks, then closed quietly above those rounded helmets. Wentworth moved as heavily as a robot. There were leaden weights fastened to the belt that held the knife, and in his hands he had other leaden weights which could be fastened to his feet. He would need them beneath the surface of the river, but on land they made walking too difficult. When the last robot had disappeared, Wentworth broke into a lumbering run. At the water's edge, he paused to tighten the window in the front of his helmet, to slip his feet into the straps of the shoe weights. He touched the hilt of the knife at his belt, and his lips locked grimly. He floundered into the water.

  The shore was slippery with mud and the river closed about his ankles. The water deepened instantly and within four strides, he was up to his neck. The weights were less hampering now. He was beginning to feel the buoyancy of his suit—and the cold of the water struck through the rubberized material. There had been no time to don heavy garments beneath it. No matter. . . . He would not be below the surface long. Within a few minutes, he should know the lair of these monsters of steel, or be defeated. His grey-blue eyes narrowed, he rapidly checked the valves of his helmet—and took a final step.

  The water lapped against the window in the helmet. For a moment the slap of the waves against the metal casque was thunderous . . . and then it stopped and he knew he was wholly beneath the water. The blackness was impenetrable. He groped across the chest of the suit, touched a hard spot in the rubber, and a powerful beam reached out from a glass port. Its range was only a few feet, but it lighted the ground at his feet. He was already ankle-deep in the sludge of the bottom. Perhaps he carried too much weight. He could tell better when he was deeper in the river. But now his eyes focused on the mud, and a thin smile twisted his lips. As he had expected, the huge steel feet of the robots had left their trail! It looked as if a herd of elephants had waded through soft mud. But those footmarks were even larger!

  Wentworth bent against the thrust of the tide and dragged his weighted feet steadily forward. He had forgotten the bitter cold that was seeping into his tight suit; forgotten everything save the chase. It was the first moment in all this mad night of battle that he had been able to put his mind entirely upon the problem of the robots. Mechanized monsters they undoubtedly were, but he was equally certain that they carried men inside them—and men as ruthless as if they were soulless robots! In heaven's name, who could be the leader, the director of this mad jehad of slaughter? But he had a clue to that, even though it was a lead he could not understand.

  Three rich houses had been looted, smashed by the robots—and a fourth house just beside them, richer than the others, had not been looted. That fourth home had been guarded by a man of the Drexler agency, and on his chest was tattooed the sign of the murder monsters! Wentworth had always had the highest regard for Frank Drexler, and he was loath even now to believe the man capable of such infamies. And yet . . . there was the evidence of the Drexler guard, and the trail of the robots led upstream toward Drexler's riverside home!

  Now that he was farther from the shore, the force of the current was extremely powerful. It was labor to set each foot before the other; labor too to drag his weighted legs free of the sucking mud upon the river bottom. Swirls of it lifted like torpid dust to cloud against the shortened ray of his lamp. There was a numbness in his limbs that was the creeping paralysis of cold. Wentworth was like that, canted forward at a forty-five-degree angle against the current, fighting for each step, when the light reached out and wrapped itself about him.

  For an instant, Wentworth thought that it was the blinding reflection of his own lamp, hurled back by the higher swirl of the mud. Then he realized that the light was far more powerful than his own. A muffled oath burst from his lips and crashed deafeningly within the helmet. He twisted his head about, peered out of the small sideport in the helmet—and then his hand flicked to the knife at his waist! Peering at him from the black wall of the water were two great balls of light and he realized as he stared at them, that the light poured from the eyes of one of the robots! God, he had been a fool! He should have guessed that they would post a rear guard!

  Wentworth ripped the knife from its sheath, but he had no intention of battling the robot in these depths if he could avoid it. His purpose was to find their lair, and then to arrange for its destruction. He wrenched his feet free of the mud, tried to thrust himself swiftly upstream. He moved with incredible speed for a diver, but it was slow, terribly slow. The robot moved with the same implacable pace that it used upon land, neither faster nor slower. It was too powerful to heed either mud or water pressure. The glare of the lights glittered from the steel. The knees lifted steadily, the feet swung forward six feet at a stride!

  After that single instant of struggle, Wentworth realized that flight was useless. If he was to go on with his pursuit—and it was characteristic of the Spider's indomitable purpose that he did not even consider abandoning his task!—there was only one possible course. He must destroy this robot!

  On the face of it, the thought was madness. Bullets and the headlong charge of trucks had not stopped these monsters, nor had the impact of a wall of brick done more than delay them for a space of moments! Yet, with only that slim-bladed knife which he gripped in a cold-numbed hand, Wentworth turned to face the enemy! His mouth was a lipless gash across his face, and his eyes were narrowed and intent. He shifted his feet in the silt of the bottom, kicked free of their weights. His left hand moved rapidly upon the weights that were attached to his belt. There were five of them, weighing ten pounds each.

  The robot was only two strides away now and Wentworth swiftly unfastened three of the five weights from his belt. The buoyancy of his suit immediately made itself felt. His feet felt light. Wentworth poised the knife before him like a sword and, with a tensing of his leg muscles, he dived straight at the robot! The current plucked him up and hurled him forward. The light from the robot's eyes was suddenly dazzling, but in its reflection Wentworth could make out the great steel body. He saw then that the two massive beams of the arms were swinging forward, and that the steel talons were clenched to seize him! Once let those points rake his rubber suit, and they would tear it to shreds!

  But Wentworth had no intention of being caught. With less weight he had gained considerable swiftness of movement. As the right arm of the steel monster swung toward him, Wentworth jackknifed and swept in under it. It was the moment for which he had waited. His knife point rasped across the steel armor until it found the armpit. As he had discovered when he hurled bullets at the monster, th
e joints of the armor were covered by overhangs of steel . . . but there were joints, and in order to keep out the water, they must be covered by rubber!

  It was this deduction on which Wentworth had gambled his life. Now, probing deeply into the socket of the armor, he felt the knife catch on some soft, half-yielding substance and exultation coursed hotly through his veins. It did not matter whether this was a mechanical monster, or whether a human being was within it, if water trickled inside, it spelled the robot's doom!

  Wentworth seized the shoulder of the robot with his left hand, and thrust more deeply with his probing steel. He knew that the robot was in violent motion, for the water swirled fiercely about him, but he clung tightly, fought to widen the slit he had made in the rubber. He thought that, already, the motions of the robot had become slower. A few more moments of clinging to this creature's back, where it could not reach him, and he would have the robot disabled. Afterward, he could press on with his pursuit, and then. . . .

  A cry surged to Wentworth's lips. He had thought the robot could not reach him, but he had been wrong! Even in his moment of triumph, he felt a steel hand close like a vise about his ankle! It pulled at him resistlessly, and Wentworth's hold was instantly torn loose. He had just time to wrench his knife free when he was whirled in a frenzied circle through the waters! His arms flung wide, and centrifugal force drove the blood to his brain so that his senses faded. Presently, he realized that the motion had ceased; that he was being held aloft before the dazzling lights that were the eyes of the robot. But it was only for an instant, and then there was a tremendous pressure upon his helmet; blood started from his nostrils. He heard the thin creaking of strained metal and horror shot through him like the punch of a bullet. God in heaven, the robot was crushing Wentworth's helmet!