Free The Metal Monster by Otis Adelbert Kline Page A

call plunger and constantly changing the wave lengths, saying each time: “Ahoy, submarine fleet.”
    Presently I got a reply. “Who calls the fleet?”
    “Wallace Stuart,” I responded, “in the flying globe above you with Senorita Monteiro. We just escaped from the Snals.”
    “Come closer, and show yourself at the door, Wallace Stuart,” was the reply.
    Dolores dropped the globe to within a hundred feet of the water. She pressed the lever that opened the door, and I leaned out gripping the hand rail. Then the submarine just beneath us began to rise. Presently its tower emerged from the water. Then up came its turrets, rails and deck. A hatch swung open, and two men came out. One wore the uniform of a U. S. naval officer. The other was in civilian clothes. To my surprise I recognized my former assistant, Pat Higgins.
    “Pat!” I shouted down to him. “What the devil are you doing on the iron fish?”
    “Secretary Black ordered me to bring him the Coseguina films in person,” he said, “when he heard you were captured. But after I got back I enlisted in the naval air service and came down here to do some scrapping. I was lucky enough to dodge the globes until yesterday. Then one, bad cess to it, cut me down. My pontoons saved me until this ship came along and took me off. So here I am. It’s sure good to see you alive and well again, chief.”
    While he was talking, Dolores had gently lowered our globe until it swung just a few feet above the deck. She locked the controls, and came over beside me, whereupon both men instantly doffed their hats. I dropped to the deck of the submarine and gave her a hand down. Pat introduced me to the officer, Rear Admiral Eldridge, in command of the fleet. I introduced the officer to Dolores, and we all went below. A few moments later the ship submerged, leaving the globe to drift aimlessly a few feet above the surface of the Pacific.
    Our first request, as we were ushered into the admiral’s cabin, was for water. We drank eagerly, but sparingly. Then I told the admiral the amazing secret of the supposedly indestructible metal.
    “Salt!” he exclaimed. “Who would have thought it? And here we have had millions of tons at our disposal without thinking to try it!”
    “I believe it’s really the chlorine that does the trick,” I replied. “The metal, I know not what to call it, must be an element unknown to our outer world chemists. In its natural state it is combined with chlorine, forming a white salt. This white salt is mined, with the chlorine removed, leaving the basic metal, which is in the form of an impalapable powder. This powder is mixed with a liquid preparation, forming a colloidal solution that acts much like cement. The liquid evaporates quickly, leaving the solid metal, the particles cohering because they have regained the water of crystalization lost in the refining process.”
    “But what causes the rapid action of the salt on the metal ?” asked the admiral.
    “The chlorine in the salt,” I said, “apparently has a much stronger affinity for the strange metal than it has for sodium. As soon as the two come in contact in an aqueous solution, the chlorine is torn away from the sodium, to unite with the other metal, forming the white crystals which are the chloride of the metal, and in which state it is stable in nature. The effervescing is caused by the escaping hydrogen displaced by the sodium as it unites with the water to form sodium hydroxide. It is plain that but very small quantities of of chlorine are necessary for the conversion of large areas of metal. It may be, also, that the process, once started, mysteriously rejuvenates itself in some way, like the mysterious ‘disease’ which attacks and often destroys old bronzes that have come in contact with saline solutions.”
    “We’ll let the theories go for the present,” he replied, “and broadcast the news. We’ll tell ’em to use salt water, but also to try chlorinated water, potassium