The Zanthodon MEGAPACK ™: The Complete 5-Book Series Read Online Free PDF Page B

fascinated by what he saw—he yelled, over the roar of the engine, stuff about “combustible carbons,” “silurians,” and “primordial soil,” but I was too busy gritting my teeth to bother listening.
    Above our heads the circular opening framed a disc of day, which dwindled to the size of a dime. Now we were entered into the regions of Eternal Night, where light of the sun has but seldom penetrated since the planet was formed. It was an eerie experience, even a thrilling one, to have gone where no human foot had ever gone before us.
    I would have traded the thrill for my favorite table at the Cafe Umbala and a good stiff martini and a glimpse of Tabiz’s grin.
    * * * *
    The glow of a flashlight lit the cabin and broke the gloomy pattern of my thoughts. By its glare, the Professor peered intently at his instruments.
    “Two thousand five hundred feet, my boy,” he whispered hoarsely. “We are below the very base of Mount Zanthodon at this point…in fact, we are beneath the earth’s crust!”
    I felt a momentary qualm of uneasiness go through me. Then I stiffened my spine and set my jaw firmly.
    “How’s the radiation count?”
    “Still the same amount of background radiation,” he murmured. “I do not anticipate that it shall rise to a level even remotely dangerous…the radioactivity released by the Jurassic explosion would have fallen to harmless levels many millions of years ago…but what of the width of the shaft?”
    “Still about the same,” I said tersely, estimating with my eye. “Doesn’t look as if it’s ever gonna narrow!”
    Nor did it when we reached the depth of a mile, then five miles, then ten.
    And so we continued our descent into the regions of Eternal Night and our journey to the Underground World.
    CHAPTER 4
    BENEATH THE EARTH’S CRUST
    At the depth of twenty-five miles the barometric apparatus we had used to measure our depth became thoroughly useless, as the weight of the air in the shaft accumulated beyond that of sea level. We switched over to the manometer, which was inefficient for some reason.
    The air, although dense, was still perfectly breathable and even fresh. I suppose the volcanic shaft above us acted as a colossal chimney, drawing the stale cavern air out and replacing it with fresh air from the surface above. The pervading temperature had grown considerably warmer, but certainly not unendurable. We began shedding our outer garments.
    At this depth, the lava walls were gorgeously colored, and the coating had formed into swelling blisters very curious to see. Crystals of opaque quartz and veins and splatters of once-liquid glass blazed and glittered awesomely in the light of our lamps. It was a fairyland of dazzling light and color…no more gorgeous or fantastic a sight could have met the eyes of Aladdin, when he descended into the caverns of the Wonderful Lamp.
    The profuse wealth of minerals must have thrilled the Professor to the core. He jumped up and down in the bucket seat, peering nearsightedly at the wealth of mineral specimens that moved past our view, scribbling feverishly in his little black notebook, making excited comments to me in a highsqueaky voice.
    We could no longer accurately measure our depth because of the unexpected failure of the manometer; but about an hour later, when we must have reached a depth of more than thirty miles, we became increasingly aware of a most peculiar phenomenon.
    The darkness, which had been as impenetrable as a sea of black ink, began to… lighten .
    At first, we didn’t notice it, because we were still descending through a zone of sparkling quartz and streaked glass. The gradual fading of the eternal dark we consigned to the ten thousand flickering, wandering reflections of our spotlights.
    But when we had passed below that glittering zone, we could no longer fail to notice the ebbing of the midnight dark of the abyss, and its peculiar dawn-like lightening.
    “I wonder if the residual radioactivity could possibly be