The Earth-Tube (20 page)

“But you. !”

King glanced at the panel. It was nearly open.

“We haven’t a ghost of a chance to get away, both of us,” he replied. “They will guard either end of the passage until we are forced to come out. You only can escape. Go on, Diane. Never mind about me. I’ll get out of it somehow. But remember. you must get word to the Americas!”

He reached into his tunic and brought out the tiny radio. He handed it to her. “Here,” he said. “When you get out of the city you can call the airplane pilot with this. Now hurry!”

Diane gripped his hand, and in another instant she had darted into the opening. A moment later the first of the Asian mechanics raised his head cautiously above the level of the balcony at the nearest stairway. King pointed his pistol and fired. The head disappeared.

Again and again he sent bullets crashing into the heads of his attackers, rejoicing that these were not common slaves, but important enemies who were being destroyed. They came up to capture him on either side. He struggled fiercely to keep them back until Diane had been carried safely to the bottom of the shaft.

The Asian attackers, perceiving the damage he was able to do whenever they showed themselves, gathered underneath him, below the balcony. There was a moment of ominous silence, and then King felt an impact and a sickening sensation as if a bullet had seared his flesh. He had seen nobody fire, and there was no sign of the missile. but even as he searched for his wound he felt the influence of the shock spread over his body. He was caught as if in a magnetic and invisible web, which rendered him incapable of movement, except with the greatest effort.

The Asians, who were now all out of sight beneath the balcony, were using some one of their subtle weapons on him, he knew, paralyzing him from a distance, holding him subject to their will. His last conscious act was to glance at the panel, which, he observed as if in a dream, was nearly closed. He felt increasingly drowsy; it seemed that he, was being slowly swept off the balcony into mid-air. The automatic dropped from his fingers though he struggled to hold it longer. His arms and legs relaxed; at length he went to sleep.

His staring eyes were fixed upon the panel when they came and found him there. By then it had completely closed, and Diane, at least for the time being, had escaped.

CHAPTER VI

BETWEEN THE HEMISPHERES

IALMOST exactly eight days had passed since King, entering the inscribed gate at the southeastern side of the island, had first become acquainted with the wonders of the Asian city of Tiplis. Now the earth-car was again on its daily flight, falling from the ancient East, through Central Earth, to newer West, bearing its burden of men and supplies, its mail and communications, its orders to the men of Tiplis from the mighty Tal Majod, and the multitudinous and complicated mechanisms which made motion through the earth possible and bearable for humans and their goods.

Its companion, a monster of metal which lay like a huge rifle bullet at the side of the earth-tube in Tiplis, was ready to be sent winging its way back to Tanlis at the moment the first car arrived. Inside it was King, guarded by four uniformed police and strapped to his seat, awaiting the descent. In a perfunctory trial, carried on in their own tongue, the Asians had decided to send the scientist before the Tal Majod for judgment. King Henderson, they had learned, was no common American military spy, but a great man in his own nation and a member of the enemy War Council. A message had been sent through the earth-tube:

“To the Great and Good, the mighty in Two Hemispheres, Tal Majod, ruler of the Earth and Stars and Greatest in Science, Greetings: Know that we have in Tiplis taken a man who was a member of the War Council of the Americas and who came among us to spy out the secrets of undulal. Know that he did succeed, by accident, in learning the secret of the Mui Salvos; that, therefore, having broken this commandment, must die. Yet thy humble servants, rulers of Tiplis, aware of his dignity and importance among our enemies, would send him to your Royal Presence for condemnation. Shall it be the pleasure of the great Tal Majod in person to strike and torture this, a prisoner worthy of his attention?”

The answer had come back with the speeding earth-car from Tanlis:

“To the Rulers of Tiplis, the Recipients of all Our Favors, the Engineers of the West, Greetings: Know that the Great and Good would see and judge your prisoner. Send him by earth-car to-morrow; he shall be well received.”

There was a slave who knew English, and through him the import of these messages was communicated to King.

“Why have they saved me for this?” he asked the slave, who had once been a teacher of English in a Japanese college.

“I do not know,” the little man replied, “except to torture you. The ways of the Asians are strange, as you will learn. I feel sorry for you and for your country. but those of my race who survive have learned to obey; perhaps yours will also learn.”

King moved impatiently at this humility. “Ask them for me,” he commanded, “whether there will also be interpreters in the Asian court.”

The Japanese obeyed, couching his question tremulously in Asian. The four purple-robed judges conferred together upon their high dais and nodded. There would be interpreters, they said. In fact, the Tal Majod himself could speak English and might do King the extreme honor of explaining in person the nature of the punishment which would be meted out. They stared at King for more than ten minutes after this pronouncement, as if they had found him a curious creature they wished further to study. Like all true Asians, they were lipless; their huge square teeth grinned mirthlessly. Their staring eyes were steely blue, cruel and impassive. It was the high tribunal of Tiplis; in this court were all matters of policy and law settled.

“For all that,” thought King, “they look like horses!”

Directly after he had been dismissed from the presence of the court, his four guards marched him to the elevator and took him down to the waiting earth-car. At close view it appeared even more magnificent and gigantic than before.
²²
Nearly two thousand feet in length, and fluted on the sides, the sleeping projectile lay in its cradle, its pointed ends clearly showing the orifices where water was discharged in flight. Around them, in three concentric rings, were arranged the rocket discharge openings, which could be set off behind to hasten the movement of the car, or before, to slow it down.

Along the gleaming, perfect sides, between the contact flutings, were twenty doors, ten on each side. Through these, entrance was effected to the storage spaces and the passenger cabins. These doors could be closed firmly from the inside; air- and heat-tight joints were provided, and the fittings were so accurately made that when completely closed the car was, for all practical considerations, a solid, seamless projectile.
²³
The cabins inside were beautifully finished, with metal walls which were partly covered by draperies and hangings. The doors opened into them from little alleyways ingeniously worked out; it was like entering a cabin on an ocean-going ship to walk into this falling palace for a voyage through the earth.

King, accompanied by his four guards and the interpreter, moved down a passage until his space had been reached. There the interpreter made it clear that he must be strapped firmly in place before the journey began.

“You must remember,” said the little Japanese, “that at a point midway in the fall there is no gravity, and your cabin will behave queerly. You must be prepared for that.”

The room was simply furnished. A small desk, apparently for writing, stood in one corner, and before it a chair which had been screwed to the floor. Nearer the door there was a large and comfortable couch and on the floor a deep rug. Over the couch and upon the chair were broad silken bands or straps by which the occupant could be fastened in place. One of the guards indicated that King should choose. He selected the chair and sat in it while the silk was tightened gently about him. His hands were left free; he could grip the wooden sides of the chair, write at the desk, or even release himself from the bonds if he desired, but against the latter he was cautioned as his guards filed out.

Faintly through the closed door he could hear sounds of loading and embarkment going on about him. Faintly, also, the sounds outside the projectile drifted through the twenty open doors and penetrated his cell with quiet echoes. Then he heard the clanging of the loading doors as they closed. The cheerful noises of industry were replaced by silence. There was a lurch; the great car, held vicelike in its metal sling, was drawn slowly out of its bed and raised over the steaming pit which led into the earth.

As it assumed the vertical position, King saw what the interpreter had meant about his cabin. It was suspended on a pivot, so that the whole cell, responding apparently to a weight at the bottom, hung always upright, no matter what the position of the projectile.

Unable to see what was happening, the sickening realization that he, with these thousands of tons of metal, the freight and passengers, and the crew, was about to drop without hindrance into the very center of the earth, produced a feeling of nausea. In his mind’s eye he pictured the scene; the tremendous double-ended bullet, long and glistening, hanging in the steamy pit from which its companion had just been extracted; the slow swinging of the giant crane, the awful moment when the projectile, pointed directly downward like a plumb-bob, waited for the signal of release. Gripping the sides of his chair and seeking with a frantic toe for some foot-brace against which to prop himself, King waited, breathing rapidly.

Despite this preparation, the sudden lurch of the car into the hole was startling and almost unbearable.

For an instant King felt himself helpless; falling. The joint of his chair clicked almost imperceptibly. There was a giddy whirl of blood to his head; his fingers bit into the wood of the chair-sides, where he clung with the unreasoning grip of a drowning man. The speed downward increased rapidly, and with it the symptoms of distress. The dizziness and pain of the pounding blood became intolerable; King felt that he must cry out, must burst from his bonds and beat upon the door, begging for release.

Two hours of falling! It would be impossible for any man to stand so much! He would tear himself from his captors and throw himself out of the projectile, to perish in the heat rather than to stand the torture any longer.

Minutes passed, but with them came little feeling of relief. The speed of the fall had begun to reach its maximum. The pain had lessened; the pounding blood had become quieter as through the almost perfect silence the great metal car went winging downward toward the middle of the earth, tearing through the barrier of air ahead like a winged demon.

But as the pain of the first fall began to recede, it was replaced by a sensation of unusual warmth. The outer shell of the car must by that time have been incandescent; the heat was piercing the double shell of undulal and the impervious packing. The network of frosty pipes leading from the cooling plants had failed to stop it.

The illusion of air and lightness and space in the little cabin seemed to disappear. Perspiration broke out; King’s hands were wet with it, his face was damp, his clothing began to cling unpleasantly to his skin. Breathing was hot and difficult even though the air was now continually stirred by a small fan which had begun buzzing of its own accord in the compartment. The distressing symptoms which accompanied the tremendous speed of the fall were brought on with renewed vigor, accentuated by the heat. Perspiration bursting from his forehead, his breath coming in short gasps, his heart thumping furiously, King strained at his bonds, struggling to tear himself loose. Fortunately they held him fast. He was carried, against his will and partly out of his mind, through the unmeasurable heat of the earth-tube to the center of the world.

He saw, suddenly, that they had reached the middle of the journey. There was a sensation of weightlessness which, by comparison with his earlier feeling, was extremely pleasant. He thrust his arm out, and found that it remained outstretched without effort. He drew a coin out of his pocket and dropped it from his finger tips. It remained suspended in midair. It was but for a moment. The center was crossed; weight began to make itself evident again. The coin moved upward and struck the ceiling with a metallic click; King’s arm grew heavy, trying to follow the coin. Momentarily he had the feeling of standing on his head, and then the compartment performed a half-revolution. He felt it go, lurching around on its pivot; the coin fell past him again and struck the rug at his feet. He felt dizzy and nauseated.

Now the long upward climb out of the interior of the earth to Asia had begun. Almost imperceptibly the tremendous speed of the car slacked away. The weight of his body, pressing against the chair, was increasingly evident; the pleasant upward sensation experienced in a rapidly moving elevator soothed his nerves and eased the rapid, panic-induced circulation of his blood. Gradually, too, the temperature went down.

But no longer was the motion quiet and unchecked. Now there were occasional jarring vibrations, as if the car, having passed the center, was rubbing too familiarly against the side of the long metal tube through which it flew. It was more difficult to guide the car away from the earth-tube side in the slackening speed. It had begun to touch the wall in a series of long, rhythmic, sliding contacts.

As the speed slowed King thought he could detect the moment when the water was turned out behind to fill the tube with expanding steam. Above the sound of the vibrations there came to him, he thought, a faint roaring as the clouds of vapor, expanding against the plug of air which the falling car had sucked through from the Western Hemisphere, pushed at the metal projectile from behind, to throw it from the tube. Upon that packing of steam the car seemed to bounce like a cork in an air-jet; its speed gradually slackening away, pleasantly; its temperature nearly as cool as normal room temperature.

King glanced at his watch. The two hours were nearly up; his plunge through the earth nearly over. He pictured the great receiving room at Tanlis, the thousands of slaves ready to assist with the landing of the car and with the unloading. As the rumbling vibrations grew more intense and frequent, he was reminded of the time when the first investigating planes had flown over Tiplis, witnessing the arrival of a car. The bursts of steam, the race for safety, came strongly to his mind. Now the earth-car was bearing him to the Eastern Hemisphere, where he was to be tried and condemned and probably tortured to death.