“This way!” snapped the guard, pointing to a side door surmounted by the notation: ATAVS.

  A moment later Ed and Phil found themselves in a long, plain room featured by wooden benches along all the walls. Here seven or eight people were waiting with bored, depressed looks. All were evidently Mutants, for all had something freakish about them: one was almost neckless; one had hair on the palms of his hands; a third had a chin cleft as by a hatchet; a fourth had eyes with a peculiar, twisted, upward slant that gave him a constant questioning look.

  As the newcomers were motioned to seats by their guard, the Mutants all edged away, putting the widest possible distance between themselves and the strangers…

  THE

  ANIMAL

  PEOPLE

  By

  Stanton A. Coblentz

  Published originally in hard cover by

  Avalon Books

  THE ANIMAL PEOPLE

  Originally entitled THE CRIMSON CAPSULE

  A UNIBOOK

  Published under special arrangements by Modem Promotions, A Unisystem Company

  155 East 55th Street

  New York, New York 10022

  Copyright © MCMLXVII by Stanton A. Coblentz

  All rights reserved.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Contents :-

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER I

  Beneath the succession of jarring shocks, the hillside heaved and trembled. The crash and thunder of landslides mingled with rumblings from underground when the earthquake struck most sharply; here and there jagged rifts appeared in the soil.

  At the base of the hill, in a little grass-grown hollow, a particularly wide fissure had opened. It was shaped like a zigzag of lightning, and varied in width from less than an inch to almost a foot. From this aperture fog-like fumes slowly issued, at first thick enough to hide the fracture but gradually thinning out and fading away above a newly unbared, curved crimson metallic surface.

  Under the surface, all lay still and shadowy as a tomb. Daylight, seeping through the crooked gap, barely sufficed to show the outlines of a rounded recess about twelve feet across, the vague forms of machines, metallic chests and cases, shelves crowded with vials and bottles held in place by metallic clasps, and various other objects.

  At the bottom of the vault, the light-beams dimly touched two men who, clad only in khaki shirts and trousers, were stretched out a few feet apart on two of the four narrow mattresses that covered most of the floor. One was a pale, lean six-footer with a long, thin, sensitive face, reddish-brown hair, and bushy brows.

  The other, shorter and stockier, had bullock shoulders beneath black hair, and a dark round face with a craggy nose. Both men had untended, scraggly beards nearly two feet long.

  When the first ray of light pierced their ruptured roof, their eyes were closed, their arms reached out beside them as stiffly as rods. But as the opening above them admitted the air and as the foggy vapors were slowly dispersed from about them, the taller man stirred slightly. Like a dreamer, he mumbled between half-shut lips. His mumblings gave way to a long-drawn sigh; he rolled over.

  He was answered by a stirring opposite him, followed by a moan as the earth was shaken by a severe new tremor, which widened the hole in the ceiling and increased the volume of light.

  It was only after some time, when the shocks had ceased, that the shorter of the pair opened his eyes and stared in a dazed way at the litter on the floor, which included razors, toothbrushes, combs, bars of soap, notebooks, and every other loose object which the earthquake had been able to strew about. Groaning, he rolled halfway over on his mattress. “Phil!” he gasped in a rasping voice. “Phil! Phil! Where are we?”

  The tall man sighed again, gulped, opened two luminous, clear-blue eyes, and gaped at his immense beard.

  “Ed, I—am I—I guess “I’m only dreaming!” he uttered in tormented spurts, while his world swam dizzily. “Oh, Lord, but it’s hot here!”

  For a moment neither spoke, again, although each was rubbing one hand painfully, almost automatically over his dry, fevered brow. But after a minute, as the mists gradually cleared from his head, the tall man lifted himself on his elbows, and spoke more coherently:

  “Can it be, Ed—tell me, it can’t possibly be! The thousand years—why, they’re not…”

  The other man also had risen on his elbows. His small black eyes were twin glitters of sheer astonishment. He drew doubtful fingers across his bushy chin. “Oh, no, Phil, it—it can’t be! The—the thousand years —they can’t be gone already!”

  He reeled, feeling dizzy, and echoed the other mans complaint. “Sure is hot here!” And then, with an air of increasing bewilderment, “How can it be, old man? Why, it—it doesn’t seem a minute since we opened that Trichloro and went to sleep!”

  “Swear it wasn’t more than a wink away! But what—what in God’s name has happened to this crazy capsule?” He pointed to the zigzag of the opening. “It wasn’t—you know darned well it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. We—we were supposed to work our way out.”

  In sudden, clear stabs of recollection they reviewed the past. It had been in the latter part of the twentieth century that the two of them—Philip Lee Talbot and Edgar A. Magnus—had set the whole affair into action. Ever since meeting on the Los Angeles campus of the University of California back in the fifties, they had been inseparable. Not that they were at all alike: Edgar, the practical-minded engineer with his precise mathematical approaches, was in some ways the antithesis of the introspective and imaginative Philip, poet and artist.

  Unfortunately, they were not so different that they had not both been attracted to Pamela Bywater—their rivalry had threatened the first rift in their friendship. Pamela, however, had settled the problem in her own way by quietly announcing her engagement to Housman J. Pratt, a broker who, his unsuccessful rivals agreed, was “flatter than a tabletop,” although his ranking on Wall Street was something beyond their most fevered dreams. In their mutual disappointment, the two friends were drawn together more closely than ever. And it was at the time of their deepest depression that they became interested in the Bellington Capsule.

  The Bellington Capsule was the brainchild of S. Franklin Bellington. Believing that twentieth century civilization would be annihilated in a thermonuclear blast, he had devised a sealed container in which three or four men, along with books, phonograph records, electronic machines, and a few other typical products of the age, might be preserved for a thousand years. This, he held, was possible owing to Trichloroline, a gas of his discovery, which would harmlessly produce a state of suspended animation, until, after an estimated ten centuries, the drug finally lost its efficacy. Backed by unlimited resources, and by the ablest collaborators money could attract, Bellington had constructed a capsule coated with the dully crimson new alloy Cuproferrozincite that, tests indicated, could withstand the vagaries of the elements for millennia. Having furnished it with the necessary paraphernalia, he spent considerable time in seeking a spot most likely to be safe from atomic attack; and finally decided to bury the capsule on a hillside near his summer home on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, some dozens of miles above Sacramento. All that now remained was to find candidates for the experiment.

  When the call for volunteers was advertised there had been few applicants. And that, as much as anything else, Phil and Ed realized, had been the reason why they were among the chosen four.

  Thus it came about that, one morning in the late sixties, while newspapers, radio, and television acclaimed the event and great crowds stood about to bid the adventurers farewell, the two men prepared to enter the capsule on a pine-covered hillside. They could not have said whether they were pleased or disappointed when the other two volunteers caused a last-minute change in their plans. Alleging their incapacitation in an automobile wreck, they sent their regrets instead of appearing in person at the time of the sealing-in ceremony.

  And so Phil and Ed went in alone, despite Belling-ton* s original view that (our men would have a better chance than two in a future age. The last that the volunteers could remember was the hollow thud of the door closing above them, drowning out the cries of the crowd; the dull sound of the earth pounding down on the capsule as Ed reached for the little button releasing the Trichloroline; and, finally, a reeling sensation, silence, and nothingness…

  How much later was it now? “Even if it’s hard to believe, it must be years, maybe centuries,** surmised Phil, with a wry grimace on his long, droll face as he let his hands range exploratively through his enormous red-brown beard. “Why, maybe the whole thousand years have passed. We sure ought to be thankful! I don’t mind confessing it now, old man, but I was never quite sure we*d wake this side of the pearly gates.**

  “Well, I may be a numbskull, but I never had any doubts,** replied Ed as he lifted his stocky frame on an elbow and arose stiffly, “That Trichloro was well tested. By golly, my joints are about as limber as boards.**

  “Mine—they’re made of the best cas
t iron!** Phil muttered. He screwed up his blue eyes and arose with the slow, painful movements of a very old man. “My lips—they’re drier than the Sahara! And am I hungry! I could eat solid rock, if it wasn’t so hard on an empty stomach!**

  His glance fell on a small table at the head of their mattresses, where, in the dim light, various objects were visible, including the small bottle labeled “C-42 A,” which, upon awakening, it had been expected, they would easily find in the pitch-darkness—it was featured by a button that, at a fingers touch, would produce a light from an electrical current set up by the prepared reaction of metals and acid. That device, fortunately, would not now be needed. But what they did need was the little metal case beside the C-42 A, which held sterilized water, hermetically sealed to stay fresh forever, as well as the tablets listed as “GX-18,” containing a concentration of sugar and protein as immediate sources of energy.

  “Wonder just what the deuce hit us and let in the air,” mused Ed, as he and his companion cautiously sipped the water and swallowed several tablets each of GX-18. “Do you think it was nothing more than an earthquake?”

  “Felt like an attack by blockbusters,” noted Phil, pointing to the zigzag crack in the ceiling. “What if— well, what if our capsule has been found and attacked by enemies in some future age?”

  “Oh, there you go again!” scoffed Ed. “Even if you are centuries older, you don’t seem one bit wiser. No matter what made that hole in the roof, this much is pretty clear. As soon as the air was let in, the Tri-chloro gas, being lighter than air, began escaping from the capsule. And when it was mostly gone its anaesthetic influence over us was ended and there was nothing we could do but wake up.”

  “Well, if we ever need any more of the darned stuff, there’s plenty of it compressed there,” remarked Phil, pointing to a row of yellowish thumb-sized vials marked “TRI,” which stood on a little shelf beneath die table that held the C-42 A.

  He broke off short, and waved one hand nervously toward the lightning-shaped gap in the roof. “Don’t understand it,” he muttered. “That Cuproferrozincite covering was supposed to be everlasting.”

  Ed gave a toss to his square-jawed face in which his vivid black eyes burned with decisive fires. “Let’s not stand here jawing!” he grumbled. “Hadn’t we better go up and find out just what the story is?”

  He pulled on a pair of sandals which stood waiting beside the mattress, pointed to a folding ladder that lay against the wall, then indicated the plastic-covered revolvers and the saw and the steel-handled axes, which were likewise protected by plastic wrappers and which, if necessary, could have cat their way out Hastily both men began stuffing their pockets with a variety of articles, including flasks of water, tablets of GX-18, a small pocket compass, and a tiny plastic-clad notebook and ballpoint pen. “Might want to jot down directions or other important data” Ed pointed out as he stowed the objects away. Then, on an afterthought, standing with one foot already on the ladder, he reached for a holster and a revolver, which he belted to his side. “Never can tell what we might run into!”

  “Sure, we might fall in with tigers and boa constrictors!” Nevertheless, Phil followed Eds example.

  Regardless of the heat, both men reached for the leather jackets stored in a chest on the floor. And then, while their stiff muscles ached and they both still felt spurts of dizziness, they began climbing.

  CHAPTER II

  “Lord have mercy! I’m sure seeing things!”

  With an effort, Phil drew his slender six-foot-two out of the zigzag opening after enlarging it with one of the axes; then reached down to help his companion, who, being seven inches shorter, found it harder to crawl out.

  On the top rung of the ladder, Ed paused and gasped. But not until he was in the open could he End coherent expression. After staring about him in the bewildered way of one who has seen a ghost, he let out a low whistle, drew one startled hand across his brow, and exclaimed, “Looks as if we’ve slept the whole thousand years!”

  “Maybe more than a thousand!” muttered Phil* “What in the name of Old Nick has come over the landscape?” With a sweeping gesture, he pointed to the hills above them and the mountains billowing far into the distance. The tall slopes stretched treeless and rocky, with patches of grass varied by clumps of shrubbery.

  “Why, when we—when we saw this before,” Phil jerked out, tossing his beard, “when we saw this before…

  He could not go on, nor was there any need to go on. Into the minds of both men there flashed pictures of the pine groves that had surrounded the capsule’s burial place—the thickly wooded slopes rising in magnificent greenery all about them.

  “The sky—it seems so heavy—so thick and murky, not exactly cloudy but not clear either,” Phil went on, running one hand with a disgusted grimace through his foot-long hair and raising the other hand toward the sky, whose half-hearted blueness seemed dimmed with a leaden film. “As for heat—a blast furnace has nothing on us!”

  “Don’t remember anything quite like it,” mumbled Ed, his dark eyes narrowing. “I’ve been in Southeast Asia with the army, but I can t remember running into anything as sultry as this.”

  “The weather isn’t what really troubles me,” answered Phil, wiping his brow. He staggered a bit, feeling dizzy again, then stabbed one hand westward like a dagger. “Down there! Have you noticed?”

  “Think I’m stone-blind? But do you suppose, old fellow, we’ve both gone loonier than a bat?”

  A long, tense minute passed. Both men were staring westward in a befuddled way. Beneath them, with a sharp descent, the denuded slopes fell for thousands of feet, until, many miles in the distance, beyond a chaos of canyons and ridges, they gave way to a wide, glittering pale-blue floor that fiercely reflected the afternoon sunlight. North and south, like a sea, the waters reached as far as the shouldering ranges permitted them to be seen; in the remote west they were bounded by long lines of blue-gray mountains.

  “What in God’s name,” groaned-Phil, “has happened to the Sacramento Valley?”

  “And where—where s the city of Sacramento?”

  The whole great fertile inland valley of California, populated with scores of communities, including the proud capital of the state—a city approaching two hundred thousand in population—had disappeared! Instead, there was only water.

  “Can it be,” suggested Phil, blanching to a ghastly white, “that the capsule was removed from the hillside while we slept and has been buried somewhere else?”

  “Why would it be removed?”

  With a manner of assumed calmness, Ed pointed beyond a long succession of ranges to the northeast. Slowly he went on: “We’re in the same place, all right. See those two bare rocky peaks jutting out like the points of an immense M? I’ll admit I’m crazy, but not so far gone I couldn’t swear to seeing those summits just before we entered the capsule. I remember them particularly because I asked myself whether they’d look at all changed next time we saw them.”

  “Well, then, they’re die only things that don’t look changed. Just notice the ground around here! See how it’s all rifted and fissured! Sure must have been a peach of an earthquake! If any people are living hereabouts, they must have had a tough time.”

  “That’s just what I’m wondering. Are there any people?” replied Ed. “What do you say to doing a little exploring?”

  “I’m with you there.”

  They took the precaution of covering the deft in the capsule with a heavy waterproof canvas, which had been provided for such an emergency and had been specially treated to last forever. Then, taking careful note of their directions—for the capsule would have to serve as home for them until they could relocate themselves—they started around the side of an oddly pyramidal hill to the right. At first, as they panted on their way, mopping their brows in the heat, they saw no sign of any living thing except for a solitary vulture swinging high above them in long circles against the dull sky. But they moved cautiously, fingering their revolvers, prepared for whatever might be lurking behind dumps of bushes, staring, staring at their every movement.