The Early Pohl (10 page)

I half heard a rustle of movement behind me, and turned to see that the "dead" man had come to life again—dangerously!

He was creeping up to me, preparing to spring. If he had, it would have been a hand-to-hand fight, which I might have lost; he was powerfully built, and I had no time to draw my knife. But when he got a good look at me he faltered.

"Who are you?" he whispered, relaxing his menacing attitude.

"You're a Tribesman!"

The girl was alive too, I saw thankfully. She had been close behind him, backing him up.

4
The Mad Tunnel

Yes, we were Tribespeople, and so were they. We were all equally ignorant of the nature of the owners of the vessel in which we were. We exchanged stories.

Their adventures were interesting, but not very helpful. They, with all of their Tribe, had been asleep one evening. (Their Tribe was called the Greystripes—I'd heard of it, but it was too far away from my own village for us to have had any dealings, commercial or martial.) The girl's name was Braid; the man's, Check. Their individual huts were at almost opposite ends of the village; how they came to be together they did not know. They had gone to sleep in their own huts, and wakened, for a brief period, in a dimly lighted cell, together with dozens of other Tribespeople, all in an unnaturally deep sleep. They'd tried to arouse others, and failed. But their activities had drawn the attention of a guard dressed like the men Clory and I had seen, who had come in, found them awake, and pointed something long and tapering at them. They'd gone back to sleep, quite involuntarily, and awakened in the ship.

Our own story, which we then told, took more time. In fact, before we'd finished it, it was halted by an outside event. Braid had been keeping watch on the progress of the boat, and she suddenly cried out, pointing. The river forked off ahead, one branch continuing on into the distance, the other ending in what seemed to be the side of a mountain. Closer inspection revealed a hole, a tunnel, in that cliff wall; into it the boat unerringly sped, not abating its speed.

And a few seconds later the ship halted. The subdued whir of the motors diminished and died altogether. There was a soft jar from outside and we were motionless. I seized the door; it opened freely.

The four of us crowded around the door and peered out cautiously. Not a living soul was in sight. After a moment, we stepped out, timorously at first, then more bravely, as it became evident that we were in no immediate danger.

Unless we wanted to entrust ourselves to that boat again, allowing it to proceed as it would back down the river—if, indeed, we could get it to move—we were trapped here. We might have been able to swim out, but it was a considerable distance; just how far, the darkness made it impossible to say. And there was no way at all of walking back through the tunnel, for the water lapped precipitous walls, except at the landing where we stood.

Set into the face of the rock there was a door, ajar. With one accord, we entered it.

We found ourselves in a long tunnel, which swept in a broad curve away from us in either direction. No human was visible, even now, though the place was brightly lit. Too brightly lit. It showed things that I could not understand, that drove me almost to the sharp brink of madness.

Picture a tunnel, a long one, and high and broad as well, descending in a shallow slant into the ground, as far as you can see. Fill it, in your mind, with a tremendous number of strange and eerie machines of some sort, each in motion. Make sure that every machine is different from the one next to it, and remember that each gives forth some tiny sound all blending together into a low, sustained chord, in which you can nevertheless distinguish individual tones.

Imagine that you are part way into the tunnel, that no human being is visible save three as ignorant as you, that the motions of the wheels and cams and levers of the machines are totally incomprehensible; see with amazement that in some cases there are wheels revolving in thin air, without an axle; that occasionally a piece of one machine will detach itself, float unsupported through the air to another, where it joins on, then recommences its spinning, twisting, gyrating activity; that more than once a wheel will roll completely through what appears to be a completely solid machine, leaving no hole or mark to show where it had entered.

Add to all this the fact that the machines are constructed of strange materials, some transparent, almost invisible, others seemingly transparent but curiously reflective; most of glistening metals—which, you must remember, you have seen comparatively seldom in your former life.

To our left, the tunnel sloped up, and downwards to our right. Up would mean the surface—but the entrance of the subterranean canal was in the direction of our right. Which way would take us out?

We spent minutes in debate, and could not decide. Braid settled it finally. "When you cannot follow your head," she said, "you must follow your heart. We can try the left. If it seems the wrong way, we'll come back."

So the four of us executed a broad left-wheel, and marched down that glittering action-filled tunnel. The machines—as I should have said—lined the walls only. The centre was a broad, flat path for us to walk on.

We walked mostly in silence, all of us gaping at the mad activity that surrounded us. For some distance we walked, until I tore my attention from the machines long enough to note that Check was acting strangely. He was twisting around to stare back, then forward; then tilting his head to peer at the ceiling overhead. A frown of puzzlement was appearing on his face.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know—listen." We listened, but heard nothing more than the constant machine-drone; the same drone we had been hearing all along.

But with a difference? Yes, surely. There was a new, growing note in the symphony. A deep buzz, something like the whir of the ship's motors.

Check peered over his shoulder, and his face changed. He cried out and shoved my shoulder, spinning me around. I looked—and staggered.

Bearing down on us faster than any Eater ever ran was an immense, wheeled metal shape. The noise was coming from it, from the sound of its huge wheels on the flooring, and from the hidden motor within. The thing was large—it almost filled the tunnel from top to bottom, though it wasn't wide enough by far to interfere with the machines that whirled along at the sides.

Leaving Check to look after Braid, I dragged Clory by main force into the maze of machinery at the side of the tunnel. We dodged spinning wheels and bars and climbed behind the pedestal of one of the machines.

Braid and Check were quick to do the same, but on the other side of the passage. But not quite quick enough, it seemed. Before they were well concealed, the metal monster was upon us. And it became evident that we had been seen.

For the thing squealed to a halt fifty feet beyond us, then rolled back to where we were and stopped.

5
The Subterranean City

I shouldn't have been surprised at the black cloud of sleep that descended over us all just then, because Check and Braid had told me about it before. I knew the people in that car were the same as the people who had abducted my two friends, but in the shock of that swift blotting out of consciousness, I didn't connect their experience with the present one.

Clory awakened me, and I found myself in a pleasantly light and cheerful room, lying on a luxuriously soft couch. We might be prisoners, but we were being treated well enough.

All four of us were there. For no reason except, perhaps, that she was youngest and best able to throw off the effects of the sleep ray or whatever it was, Clory had come to first, and immediately roused me.

Together we woke Braid and Check.

The oddest feature of the room was its very curious windows. As we looked out of them from the interior of the room, we saw a blue sky with occasional puffy clouds. But as we approached, and tried to look down, the apparent transparency of the glass clouded. By the time one reached the window, it was almost opaque; only vague formless shadows could be seen. And as one walked away, the sky slowly reappeared.

The door, we found, was locked.

The style of the room's furnishings was far less strange than we might have imagined. Except that each item was so beautifully made, it might almost have been a Chief's home of any progressive tribe.

But we didn't have too much time to investigate it. Some signal must have been given of our awakening, for the door flew open, and a man entered.

He seemed friendly enough, but when we besieged him with questions he said nothing, just stood there looking at us. There was no malice in his stare, but neither did he seem particularly interested.

He just stood there, regarding us. He was dressed like those of his kind we had already seen; the abbreviated divided trousers, tunic, belted back. In his hand he carried a smaller version of the rod we had seen used on the Eater; on his head he wore a flat-topped pillbox hat.

As moments passed without a movement from him beyond his shifting glances, Check edged over to me, darting meaningful stares at the man and at me. I didn't comprehend his meaning at first, but the stranger did.

"I wouldn't do that," he said smoothly, and raised the rod a trifle. (Check and I both noticed for the first time that we were unarmed.) He continued his easy stare as Check brought up sharp, flushing.

"No," said the man after a space, reflectively, "I don't think you'll find it necessary to gang up on me. Certainly"—he gestured with the rod—"you wouldn't find it safe. If you are all comfortable, we had better get started. There has been a special meeting of the Council to consider your problem. Come with me." And he stood aside. But he would not answer questions even then, just gestured wordlessly with the rod.

You might think we could have overpowered him. Certainly it would seem that we could have—and should have—made some objection to going so freely with him. I thought so. I even attempted, in passing, to clutch at the door and slam it on him as he stood in the threshold, barricading ourselves in until we could make more definite plans.

But I couldn't. Just couldn't. My muscles would not obey the orders from my brain. It was like a complete paralysis, though I was perfectly free to walk, to look around, to do anything that did not conflict with his orders.

It was his pillbox hat that did it. There was a tiny instrument in it which acted to amplify his will, to force his commands upon others. Our thoughts he could not control, but our actions were his to command.

So we went with him quite obediently. We had not far to go, just out into a door-studded hall, and along it for a few feet until we came to an empty door. We entered, the door closed and we looked around perplexedly. We were in a tiny room, scarcely large enough for us. There was no furniture save a row of studs set in a wall by the door. This could not be our destination.

Nor was it. The man with the helmet stabbed one of the buttons with his forefinger and an inner door whirred shut. There was a muffled click, then the floor surged up under us, and the whole room shot up into the air.

There was a frightened squawk from Clory, who grabbed me and hung on. I was nothing much to cling to, having left my stomach below when the room swooped up, nor were the others in a better state. The man took it calmly enough, grinning at our discomfiture, though, so I concealed my apprehension as much as I could.

The motion lasted only a few seconds. Then it stopped smoothly and the door opened. We were escorted out and into a large, handsome hall.

The man with the rod escorted us in, then stepped aside. "This is the Council Chamber," he said. "Go forward and answer the questions of the Council."

We stepped forward timorously, and he made his exit. The Council Chamber was vast—larger, even, than the big ceremonial field back in the village of the Tribe, the field in which I was nearly burned to death. How long ago that seemed!

A triple-tiered balcony ran around the wall. It reminded me of the Balcony of Men back in the ceremonial field, though the crude wooden balcony there was not to be compared with this ornate structure of metal and fabrics. The seats were occupied, with some vacancies, by perhaps fifty men and women. They eyed us with much the same friendly unconcern that had characterized the man with the rod.

We were brought up before this impressive audience and seated in chairs as comfortable as their own. The questions began almost immediately.

The oldest of the Council—they were a youngish lot—rustled some papers on the flat arm of his chair and glanced at us piercingly. "Have you any objection to allowing Check to act as your spokesman?" he asked suddenly. Check asked us with his eyes; we all nodded.

"None," he said. "But how did you know my name?"

"I know a great deal about you—all of you," laughed the judge. "Braid and Keefe better than Clory, and you best of all, but even Clory is familiar to me. We have heard of her from her father."

"Her father!" I gasped as Clory squealed in surprise. "Her father is dead!"

"No. Glory's father is not dead. He is—elsewhere, just now, but he is alive. Perhaps Clory may see him soon, when he returns. At the time of his 'death' he was injured by a blow. He did not die, but he would have, had not one of our patrols found him. When he was well again we examined him, as we are examining you now, and decided favorably. . . . But we will do the asking here, just now. You, Check, tell me: how did you come to be here?"

Check told what he knew, and I supplemented the account with dory's history and mine. The interrogator appeared to be satisfied; when he had finished, he held a low-pitched conversation with those around him, which we could not hear. For a few moments all of them talked among themselves, then apparently a decision was reached.

The one who had questioned us signed to a guard standing by the entrance, who opened the portal and admitted three men trundling a large, flat box on wheels, from which depended flexible tubes of varying descriptions. The guard, who was wearing one of those hypnotic hats, accompanied them up to us, ordering us to do as they said.