The Collected Stories

by Earl

  Emerging into a large cavern, the ramp stretched without support straight on, like a bridge through empty space.

  “You won’t fall,” Paige chuckled at Sparky’s gasp. “There’s no down here.”

  Paige looked ahead to where the miraculously hanging bridge led. It was a cavern so stupendously huge that the further walls were fused in distant gloom that looked like starless space. A hollow here, in Earth’s core. In the center was a gigantic metal ball, also suspended in the gravityless cavern, moored to the walls by thin wires. Lights streamed from countless rows of apertures.

  “A hanging hospital!” marveled Sparky.

  “A hanging city!” corrected Paige, realizing its true size.

  V

  THEY entered a large portal. An attendant began to take down some sort of record, asking questions, when another figure strode forward.

  “Evan Paige!”

  Paige looked around into the face of Dr. Aronson, familiar yet different, from months before. The sunless environment had obviously faded his skin, beard and hair. But otherwise, the short, stocky explorer-scientist seemed in good health. “Dr. Aronson!” Paige wrung his hand. “Hi, Doc!” greeted Sparky. “Had to play several tricks to get down here, but here we are.”

  “Good to see you both!” returned the scientist eagerly. “It’s like meeting fellow Americans in some foreign port. I knew you were coming—Reena sent a message, by wire. It’s still a surprise, though. After our radio contact clipped off so suddenly, a month ago, I didn’t know what had happened. I thought perhaps the—the Martians—”

  He stopped. He had said the word queerly. He looked at Paige with a strange, half-skeptical glance, questioningly.

  Paige nodded. “It’s true,” he said quietly. “Too bitterly true.”

  “Then it wasn’t a horrible dream I’d had.” The scientist’s shoulders sagged. “I’d been hoping it was that.” Shaking his head, he turned, beckoning. “I’ll take you to your room.”

  It was down a hall, a small cubicle with two hanging hammocks. Paige looked around for a chair, finding none, then realized standing was no effort at all, in the first place.

  Paige told their story briefly, then looked quizzically at the scientist for his.

  “First of all,” Aronson began, “this floating city is more or less of a huge sanitarium. In war-time, ail the Dorthian wounded are brought here, to recover more quickly, and so return to battle sooner.”

  A sanitarium at the center of the Earth! Paige thought of how skeptical, how utterly disbelieving the upper world would be, if told. He shrugged that away. Before 1492, they hadn’t even known of the other half of that upper world. It wasn’t so strange that two worlds could lie almost side by side, without mutual discovery.

  “I came down here to prove my geologic theories,” resumed the scientist. “I found the albino people. Or they found me, Reena and Tal. Neither believed I had come from an upper world, only another ‘cave.’ When Tal found out I was something of an M.D., as well as explorer, he impressed me into service here. Wartime measures. In spare moments I managed to repair my set and signal you. Then the news—”

  His voice was suddenly haggard. “You’re amazed at finding life and civilization below here. I’m amazed that up above, the civilization I knew is crumbling under alien attack.”

  He broke off, shaking his head with a groan.

  “But now there’s some hope!” Paige’s voice rang. “Sparky and I have already used the weapon that will defeat the Martians. You know of it.”

  Aronson brightened. “It will? Then we’ll contrive to go above, and bring the plans of this weapon along.”

  “But that wouldn’t help,” Paige ground out. “Most of our factories have been destroyed. Our industry paralyzed by the enemy’s ceaseless bombing.” He waved an arm around. “We must bring them along an albino army!”

  “Evan, wait a minute,” interposed the scientist, thunderstruck. “How are you going to convince the albino people to send such an army?”

  “How can they refuse?” Paige countered. “They’re human. When they hear of part of their own blood-race being savagely annihilated by monsters from another planet, they’ll flock up there like the crusaders of the Middle Ages!”

  “Will they?” Aronson was slowly shaking his head. “I’ve been accepted as a somewhat mad creature whose poor, dazed mind can’t even remember what ‘cave’ he came from. They’ve fed me, let me live with them, treated me kindly, for that reason. You told me yourself how deaf Reena and Tal were to your story.”

  Paige hardly heard him. He burst in, nervously impatient to start the grand scheme off.

  “Where is the ruling center? Take me there. If we go directly to the authorities, we’ll get somewhere. Where is it?”

  “A cavern quite near here. The ruler of Dorthia is a sort of premier or president, called the Kal of Dorthia. He heard of me and took some slight interest in me. But Evan, I don’t know—”

  “Look,” snapped Paige, shaking the older man like a little child. “Up above maybe half the human race is wiped out, the other half doomed. This is a matter of saving the civilization we know. Get me an audience with this Kal of Dorthia one way or another!”

  Aronson jerked erect. “I’ll do it! Stay here, in the meantime. Your wounds have to heal anyway.”

  THE Kal of Dorthia was a tall, regal albino with a mane of long, blond hair that hung to his shoulders. Paige studied him. His face was intelligent, his eyes keen and kindly. Surely such a man must have an open mind.

  “Dr. Aronson,” nodded the Kal of Dorthia in recognition. “My aide tells me you plagued him ceaselessly for a week for an audience. What is it?”

  The scientist pointed to Paige. “This man recently came from my world. He wishes to speak with you.”

  “Two more dark-skinned men!” marveled the Kal, glancing over Paige and Sparky. “One of my scientists has just advanced the possible theory that you, Dr. Aronson, and these men too, presumably, are”—he paused delicately—“freaks caused by excess radium emanation!”

  “Freaks, nothing!” Paige stepped forward, boiling a little at the albino’s patronizing smile. “We’re from a different world entirely. It exists above and around your world. Millions of human beings like myself live there, and we have a civilization comparable to yours. Three months ago the Martians attacked, beings from another planet—”

  Paige went on, describing the Martian invasion briefly. Aronson helped him when he was stuck for a word in the Dorthian tongue. Paige paused, out of breath, but went right on.

  “In behalf of my world, I appeal for your help. It will not be an easy task. It will take an army of millions. But your fresh forces, powerful weapons, and impregnable base will stop the enemy. You are human. We are human. It is your duty, by race ties alone, to send your help.”

  The Kal of Dorthia had listened patiently. A smile played about his lips at times.

  “Where do these so-called monsters you describe come from?” he queried.

  “From another ‘planet.’ Another world.”

  “You mean another cave?” The Kal looked genuinely puzzled. “Beyond the Fire Zone? But that is the Heavy Region, where our people do not go to live. It’s hardly explored.”

  Paige saw he would have to be more explicit. He did not notice the ironic look in Aronson’s eyes.

  “The Fire Zone lies just beneath Earth’s crust. Climbing up through the crust you emerge into open air. The Earth is a globe, a gigantic ball, hanging in ‘space,’ in nothingness. Other worlds lie in space. Mars is such a ‘planet.’ And from it, across space, have come the invaders. Surely you must understand?”

  “Gigantic—globe—space—nothingness?

  You speak in riddles, dark man. Everyone knows that there is no nothingness, which you call ‘space.’ How can the world be a globe, when there is only rock in all directions?”

  Paige groaned and tried again. He broke out in a sweat from intense explanation. Vaguely he knew himself to be Galil
eo, trying to say Earth revolved around the sun. Or Columbus, saying the Earth was round and that half the world lay beyond the seas, against all previous belief.

  The Kal of Dorthia suddenly waved an imperious arm, interrupting.

  “It is a mad conception. Dr. Aronson told me the same thing. I convinced him such thoughts are wholly wrong.”

  “But at least you can send an expedition with us beyond the Fire Zone, to disprove our claims,” Paige said desperately.

  “Not at present,” the Kal retorted. “King Luth of Uldorn is again waging war on us. All our activities must go into protection of our cave system.”

  “But Good Lord!” exploded Paige. “Don’t you realize that over your head your own blood-people are being exterminated, massacred!”

  “Enough!” snapped the ruler of Dorthia. “I deal with realities, not the figments of a madman’s brain. Go!”

  Baffled rage shook Paige. He took a step forward, fists clenched, but Aronson pulled him back.

  “Don’t be a fool!” he hissed.

  “No use, Sarge,” Sparky sighed. “Like with Tal and Reena.”

  Paige turned helplessly, to leave the chamber.

  The Kal of Dorthia’s voice floated to them, at the door, “You will be allowed to live with us and be treated well, dark man. I did not mean to be unkind to you.”

  “Treated well, like lunatics they pity!” Sparky muttered.

  Paige ground his teeth, out in the hall. “How could the man refuse? How could he be so obtuse, ignorant, heartless?”

  “No, Evan,” cut in the scientist wearily. “You can’t blame him. Think once, suppose it were the other way around. Suppose two albino men had stumbled up into our world, made their way to Washington, and demanded that the United States send a vast army down to defeat monsters who were wiping out the buried albino race. A race we never heard of, never even dreamed was under our feet. And monsters we couldn’t believe in, because we had never seen them before. Picture that, and then try to picture 130,000,000 practical, hard-headed Americans taking up the crusade.”

  “Yeah, especially past that Fire Zone,” agreed Sparky.

  “Okay, I get it,” muttered Paige. “When you look at it that way, there is some excuse for them. But at least our people would send down an expedition to investigate!”

  “Would they? If powerful, bloodthirsty European armies were invading the coasts at that particular time? Here’s how the situation is: For the past three years, there has been growing friction between the Dorthians and Uldornians. They are the two great ‘powers’ down here. There are separate governments and cultures, just like above. King or Dictator Luth of Uldorn rules over a vast chain of caverns lying roughly under the Pacific Ocean and Asia. He has built up a powerful aggressive army and has been absorbing smaller, independent cave-states. He is now creeping at the ‘borders’ of Dorthia, ready to smash at it with all his power. The Kal of Dorthia is concerned with that, not a hypothetical new world that needs help.”

  “And remember the recruiting officer up above?” put in Sparky. “He didn’t believe about the underworld for a minute. How can we blame these people? We had to desert the Earth forces to even get down here!”

  Paige suddenly felt as though a crushing weight had descended on him. Two worlds, neither of which believed in the other! One world, too panic-stricken with doom to investigate possible rescue. The other, preoccupied with a civil war, unaware that monsters were killing off half their blood-race!

  The gods must be laughing at the cosmic irony of it.

  What could be done? What possible way was there to break this nightmarish deadlock? Paige didn’t know. He just didn’t know any more.

  VI

  THEY were suddenly electrified by the clanging of a great bell. The sound reverberated through the cavern deafeningly.

  Startled, Aronson turned. Dorthians were scurrying by excitedly. He grabbed the arm of one man, questioned him. His reply was too rapid for Paige and Sparky to grasp.

  “Attack!” Aronson told them. “By Uldornian forces!”

  “Here?” gasped Paige. “At the center of Dorthia?”

  “No. Reena’s city, at the ‘border’ of Dorthia. But a real attack, this time. The beginning of large-scale war. The Kal of Dorthia has just called for general mobilization.”

  The scientist’s face was grave. “This is a big crisis down here in the underworld. The start of a great war that may drag on for years!”

  Paige’s nerves tightened suddenly. Reena in danger! That one thought stood out above all others. He clutched the scientist’s shoulder.

  “I’m going to Reena’s city!” he said hoarsely.

  “Evan, Good Lord—why?”

  “Because he loves her!” Sparky said simply.

  Aronson stared for a moment, then smiled in understanding. “We can’t do much for ourselves right now, anyway. Come on, I’ll take you to the tube-cars.”

  He led the way to the tube-car system. Soldiers were piling in, part of the standing army rushing to the defense of the border. Paige shouldered uniformed men aside and leaped in one of the cars. As he settled himself, Sparky attempted to follow.

  “Not you!” snapped Paige. “It’s enough that I’m crazy fool enough to go. You stay here with Dr. Aronson.”

  “Okay, Sarge,” Sparky said obediently, with a slight quiver of his lips. “Take care of yourself, Sarge.”

  Paige gripped his hand. “I’m a fool, I know. But I can’t help it. If I don’t come back, try your damnedest to talk the Kal into an expedition. I’ll try what I can, maybe on the Uldornians. Some way of other, we’ll work this out.”

  The car’s cover slid forward. A moment later the long train moved, slowly gathering speed. Paige heard the muffled throb of motors, and the drone of powerful rockets. This train was going up, against gravity, and needed power. Yet its speed, after acceleration, was scarcely less than that of free fall. The train roared up into its tube like a runaway comet.

  Paige’s thoughts were in a turmoil. His adventure into the underworld seemed more than ever a page out of the impossible. War raging above ground and below ground. Buried humans fighting under Earth’s crust for a few paltry caves. Doomed humans above ground counting their last hours.

  The universe was a madhouse.

  It was ironic, too, that at the moment Paige cared nothing for those things. Two worlds precariously dangled by fate, and he thought only of Reena, lovely albino girl of the underworld, and her possible danger!

  FIVE hours later the train slowed and ground to a halt.

  Its soldier-passengers stepped out into the midst of battle. The enemy was pressing forward, bent on capturing the tube-station and cutting off both retreat and reinforcement. The trained Dorthian troops scurried for cover, unslung their rifles, and began peppering away.

  Paige gasped as he raised his head and felt a diabolic bolt whine past his ear. Then fire leaped into his eyes. That strange madness which comes over men in battle swept through him. He leaped out with tigerish speed, and crouched behind the protective train. His shoulder wound was completely healed, after a week in the gravityless sanitarium.

  A moment later he picked up the rifle of a Dorthian whose crushed body lay sprawled over the stone floor. He loaded his pockets with charge-clips from slain Dorthians and settled down to the grim business of picking off as many of the enemy as possible. In this way he was helping Reena, who was safe back in the city. But if the city fell—

  Paige looked around.

  A wide no-man’s-land separated the two forces. Periodically the enemy charged in little detachments, never getting more than halfway. But Paige recognized the tactics. The detachments drew concentrated fire, marking the strongest and weakest points of the defending Dorthian line. The Uldornian generals must be paving the way for a great assault, within an hour, Paige reasoned.

  His eyes narrowed suddenly to a frown.

  Why didn’t the Dorthians counterattack and flank? Now was the time. It would be too late soon.
It was ABC military tactics. A queer thought struck Paige. Was it possible—just possible—that the military of both Dorthia and Uldorn knew nothing of flanking?

  Napoleon had beaten all Europe to its knees that way, once.

  Paige stopped firing and crawled on hands and knees toward the center of the Dorthian forces. He made out the officer in command—a general evidently rushed from headquarters to supersede Tal, now that the full tide of war had begun. He was staring out over the battlefield. Beside him stood Tal Rithor, now second-in-command. There was a strange look in Tal’s face, as he glanced from the battleground to the city, as though contemplating how soon the city would be in enemy hands.

  “Tai!” Paige called, striding up. “Is Reena safe?”

  Tal Rithor started, and flushed as he met Paige’s eyes, as though caught off guard. “So you’re back, Evan Paige? Just in time to see the city fall!”

  Paige grunted at the fatalistic words. He whirled on the high-commander, who hadn’t noticed him.

  “The enemy will attack soon, in force,” Paige said without preamble.

  “Yes, and we will be wiped out,” returned the commander imperturbably, without turning his head. “We are out-numbered. The city will fall. But we will fight to the last man.”

  IT was starkly clear to Paige then.

  Middle Age warfare, frontal attack, no strategy, no thought of outwitting the enemy. Paige could almost understand. The albino people had never known wide battlefields on which to experiment with maneuvers.

  Paige drew a breath. Could they be taught?

  “There’s still a chance!” he said. “Look! Send a file of men hugging the left wall, in the shadows. Halfway to the first Uldornian line there’s a hollow. From there they can blast out at the enemy attack from the side, taking them completely by surprise!”

  “What?” For the first time the commander turned, surprised. He started at sight of the dark-skinned man, in a uniform that was not even regulation. “Who are you?”

  “Tal Rithor knows me.”