Operation Earthworm, Page 4

flashes on, and I count to three. Just as the blast of airloaded with XYB plus cuts loose I throw all the bug powder left in thebox into the current. Hitler Number Three breathes in a big gob of itand buckles a little at the knees.

  "Grab him!" I screech. "Don't let him yank that disintegrator loose. Hithim with anything you see, pals!"

  I see the other beetleheads collapse like they had been hit withbulldozers and I know now that insecticide is more dangerous in Subterrothan all the radioactivity harnessed up on six planets.

  Agrodyte Hitler, however, has some moxey left in him as he has two ofhis hands around Wurpz's throat, the third around Zahooli's leg and isreaching for a ray Betsy with his fourth. He grabs the disintegratorjust as I belt him over his ugly noggin with a wrench about two feetlong and which was certainly not made of aluminum or balsa wood.

  "Himmel!" the Neofeuhrer gulps. "Ach du lebensraum!" He has to be hitonce more which is enough and we tie him up with rope that looks like itwas made out of plutonium filaments.

  "Well," I says. "We have a sub from Subterro. Wurpz, you just sit thereat the controls and make sure that needle on the big dial don't move asI am sure this creep has it on robot so that this tub will automaticallyfollow the course of the river."

  "We are sure takin' a powder," D'Ambrosia yelps. "Look at the monitor!"

  We see fish gaping at us from the screen that even Earth citizens withdelirium tremens never saw, and I look quite anxiously at the instrumentpanel.

  "A thousand miles per and we are climbin'," I says. "I am glad thisHitler used old Germanic on his subs, and that I majored in it once.I--er--I am gettin' arthritis all at once! The bends! Uh--er--look, peelthem suits off the other creeps and fast, Zahooli, as I bet they can beinflated and made into compression chambers. They have got connectionsthat plug into something."

  We pull on the suits which were too big for the beetleheads and for agood reason. More bends than there are in the Ohio River are with usbefore we plug into the right socket. The suits bulge out until our feetalmost leave the floor. I grin through my helmet at Wurpz.

  The sub keeps purring and purring. The altimeter registers four thousandfeet. It is a caution, an altimeter in a sub. Two hours later we shootout through a hole deep under the coast of Brazil and I know we are inthe ocean as the monitor shows some old wrecked ships about three milesfrom us. We disconnect the Subterro anti-bends kimonos and peel themoff. Agrodyte Hitler is moving two of his arms when we climb toward thesurface.

  "Hah, we will make a sucker out of history," I says to Wurpz. "And waituntil we show this creep to Professor Zalpha and Exmud R. Zmorro."

  We come to the surface and contact an Earthian Franco-Austro atomicluxury liner. The skipper's pan registers on the viso-screen. "This isSeptimus Spink," I says. "Commander of Inner Spaceship Magnificent Mole.I have come from the center of Earth with a captured Subterro submarineand Agrodyte Hitler, the Neofeuhrer. Over and out."

  The universe goes into a cosmic dither when we slide into a berth inHampton Rhodus. Thousands of citizens hail us as we ride to Metropolitain a Supercaddijet. Behind us in a truck trailer made mostly oftransparent duralucite is our captive, the descendant of Adolph Hitlerand three dead Subterro beetle people.

  "Well, you won't give up so easy on a Spink from now on," I says toZahooli. "We are heroes and will get medals. First thing we have to do,though," I says to Coordinator One sitting in the jet sedan with us, "isto take care of the hole Earth has in its head. All we have to do isdrop that new bomb down the tunnel we made and it will wash up all thosesubs that are left and most likely cause a flood that will inundateSubterro. What do you think?"

  The brass is still tongue-tied. "One thing I must do and that is seethat a certain insecticide manufacturer gets a plug on InterplanetaryTV," I continue. "Ha, we took the bugs out of this planet. It shouldwork quite smooth from now on."

  "I still believe in reincarnation," D'Ambrosia Zahooli says. "I have thedarndest feeling I've been through almost as big nightmares with youbefore, Sep."

  * * * * *

  _Interplanetary Press, Circa 2022, Junius XXIV--Professor Apsox Zalpha,eminent professor of cosmogony, and Exmud R. Zmorro, leading newsanalyst of seven worlds, have entered the Metropolita Neuropsychiatoriumfor a routine checkup. They emphatically denied that it was connected inany way with a lecture given recently by Septimus Spink, first man toexplore inner space, at the Celestial Cow Palace in San Francisco. Bothmen expect to remain for two weeks. "Of course there is nothing wrongwith either of us," Professor Zalpha told your correspondent. "But ifyou see a beetle, please do not step on it. It could be somebody'smother."_

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ September 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.