by Earl
“Sire!” burst in Tal. “He is trying to dissuade us now from going to his cavern. It must mean he is trying to save his own people. Despite their clever military tactics, they are weakly armed. They used obsolete propulsion-weapons.”
His eyes lighted. “Another thing! His uniform is a military one. He came down for help, against an enemy. His people are at civil war—divided!”
Paige looked guilty. He nodded reluctantly. But then he said sharply: “But your armed fortes are not strong enough to conquer my people, divided though we are. I tell you, you can’t! You will not easily conquer my people.”
“Conquer your people!” interrupted King Luth, taking the bait. “Yes, we will conquer your people! Uldorn will add another part of its great kingdom. Obviously, they are weak, by your hesitation, dark man. We will conquer them quickly and then strike at Dorthia. It is my command. You, Tal, and this man will lead an expeditionary regiment to the upper cavern. If by some chance they prove too strong, send word and I will rush reinforcements. If the dark man tries treachery, torture him.”
“I have a better suggestion,” Tal grinned evilly. “Let us take the girl along, whom he loves. If the dark man attempts to lead us astray, she will be tortured!”
“Good!” nodded King Luth. “The regiment will start tomorrow.”
VIII
AGAIN Evan Paige felt that it was all a strange, incredible dream.
It was a week after the fall of the city. Behind him marched a regiment of Uldornian soldiers, powerfully armed. On his left and right were Reena and Tal. The girl was silent, drawn-faced, and had hardly spoken a word to either of them in six days. Her contempt for both was equal. One renegade deserved no better than another.
Tal Rithor strode along eagerly. As commanding officer of the regiment, he stood to gain much in prestige and favor with King Luth, if Paige’s cavern-world were successfully negotiated.
The way led upward steadily.
They had passed through the Fire Zone three days before. Again Paige saw why it had placed a natural limit on the expansion of the albino people. It was a hot, tempestuous region of linked caverns, with treacherous lava flows springing out at any unguarded moment. They had lost more than a dozen men, despite caution. And once, by a miracle, the regiment had barely quitted a cavern before a veritable cloudburst of molten, hissing rock dropped down from the ceiling. Had that struck them, the whole regiment would have been wiped out.
But that was all behind them now. Ahead lay fifty miles of Earth’s crust to penetrate. And they were constantly struggling against gravity, fighting their slow way up. Thus the region had long been known as the Heavy Region, where the peak of gravity existed. The bulk of albino population lived at least a thousand miles below, where gravity was only ¾ of surface gravity.
Paige followed Aronson’s arrows, in reverse, leading the way.
Tal looked at him suspiciously at times. “If you are leading us astray, Evan Paige, you’ll regret it. You wouldn’t like to see Reena—” He had then gone into detail, till Paige had to dig his nails in his palms to keep from leaping at the man.
But within himself, he laughed. For though Tal could not realize it, leading the army astray was the last thing in the world Paige would do. Sometimes Paige himself became a little confused, and wondered how it would all turn out.
Sweating and toiling their way upward, the army of Uldornian troops were muttering by the tenth day. King Luth had insisted that they take small cannon along, against any surprising power of the dark-skinned people. At times, where the way led over boulders or up steep defiles, the men had to sling the cannon on ropes and drag them up by sheer labor.
But they were hardy, well-disciplined troops, not easily dismayed by such drawbacks. They were superbly equipped, both in armament and supplies. Where the caverns were dim, lacking both phospherescent plants and radio-active walls, they lighted the way with portable radium-glow searchlights. Well armed, they would be able to set a defense line anywhere and at the very least hold off against vastly superior forces till reinforcements came, were such needed in the venture ahead.
Paige grinned.
The venture ahead was going to have an amazing climax! And even Paige was not sure just what sort of climax. Only one thing was certain—that he was at last leading the albino people to the upper world.
He thrilled at the thought. He was introducing one world to another, neither aware of the other. He was a second Columbus!
Though all had gone so far as he planned, one thing bothered Paige and made his sleep troubled. It was the girl, and the open way she despised him for what he had done. Paige longed to talk to her, convince her she was wrong, and one day had his chance. Tal had slipped back a few dozen yards, talking to one of his officers.
Paige called her without moving close to her. It would not do for Tal to know he had spoken to her. She made no answer, staring straight ahead, moving her legs mechanically.
“Reena, listen to me!” he tried again. “Whatever you think of me, it isn’t true. Do you think I’m deliberately showing the Uldornian army the way to conquer Dorthia?”
“Well?” she said witheringly, breaking her silence.
“But I’m not,” Paige returned. “Please trust me. You must believe me. What I’m doing is for the benefit of my people.”
Her voice came back wearily. “I only know that this regiment can bring no good to my people!”
“Reena, you don’t understand—” Paige began, but at that moment Tal returned, and Paige subsided. He stole a glance at the girl, for a sign that she might still trust him, but saw none.
Within himself, Paige alternately cursed her and forgave her. He could see her viewpoint, knowing no more of the outer world than the others.
TWO weeks after they had left their base, Paige drew a deep breath.
He was leading the way now across a cavern decorated by the ages with familiar stalactites and stalagmites. It was the cavern directly in back of Mammoth Cave proper. Another few miles. . . .
When they reached the narrow tunnel through which Paige and Sparky, and Aronson before them, had scarcely squeezed through, Paige called a halt.
“This narrow tunnel,” he informed Tal, “is the only entrance to my cavern in this vicinity. It would take too long for each man to wiggle through. Have a cannon blast a larger passage.”
Tal complied, after sending a man through and back. The albino cannoneers, past masters in the art of fashioning rock-bound tunnels, expertly hollowed out a large corridor. Their cannon’s blasts peeled the walls down rapidly. Within the smooth fissure down which Paige and Sparky had slid, they blasted a sloping path through to the cave floor. And the regiment marched up into the back portions of Mammoth Cave.
“This is your cavern?” Tal queried. “The beginning of it,” Paige nodded. “Further on, there is a wide portal, leading into the main part of my cavern-world. Come on.”
Tal was cautious. “I will send a man ahead first. Your forces might be lurking to trap us.”
A scout was sent, following the arrows, and came back reporting he had seen the portal, but no sign of enemy forces. He had a sort of shocked look in his eyes, and was shivering.
“I looked out of the portal,” he said. “It was strange. There were many little pinpoints of light in the roof of the cave beyond. Also a cold wind blew in.”
And as they marched to the mouth of Mammoth Cave, after a sleeping period, Evan Paige grew to wonder what reaction the full sight of his world would have on these buried people.
From now on, he told himself, anything might happen! He had played with fate. How would fate now play with him?
THEY reached the cave-mouth when it was again night in the outside world. Paige strained forward eagerly, for the last hundred yards, though Tal’s gruff voice warned him not to attempt to escape.
Finally he stood looking out into the night sky, his first glimpse of open air for more than a month. He stood drinking in the fresh night breezes. It was July and the summer stars beamed
down like fiery beacons. He felt much as if he had been resurrected from a grave.
He turned.
What was the effect on the albino people, who had never in all their lives seen the sky, or stars? They were looking out in puzzled astonishment. They were all shivering from the breeze, knowing little of circulating air in their protected world.
“What a strange cavern!” muttered Tal, his face slowly turning to take in the night view. “It must be truly huge. The roof appears very high. But what are all those flashing lights?”
“Stars!” murmured Paige in his own language, since they had no such word. “Blessed stars! And that roof is a little higher than you think!”
A gasp came suddenly from Reena. She pointed a trembling hand. “Look! That great light—it is moving up! What can that be?”
All the albino people watched in shocked amazement, as the full moon slowly bulked over the horizon. Its light, though pale and soft, was almost as bright as the radium-glow lamps the albino people used.
“That is unique,” commented Tal. “Your people are rather clever, Evan Paige. They move a huge radium-glow lamp across the roof. But on second thought, it’s rather ridiculous. If this is the end of the sleeping period, why don’t they have it overhead and simply turn it on?”
“We have our reasons,” said Paige, the comers of his lips twitching. He went on curiously. “How far away does that light look to you, Tal?”
“Well, perhaps ten lengths,” Tal estimated. A length was the length of a certain cavern used as a standard in the underworld; approximately a mile. He shook his head. “No. I must admit this is a huge cavern. Twenty lengths!”
He said it reluctantly, as though he had betrayed his people’s pride.
Some of the albino men in back gasped, at that bold and stupendous estimate. Paige laughed silently. The moon was twenty miles away! He realized something now. The albino people’s eyes, never focusing on distances more than a few miles in their restricted world, had no mental equipment with which to judge distances beyond a few miles. To them, the “roof” actually was twenty miles away, and no more! Paige watched Reena’s face mostly. A strange succession of emotions had flitted across her alabaster-white features. First amazement, wonder, even a little fear, but finally something softer.
“It’s beautiful, in a way,” she murmured. “It’s almost like something I’ve dreamed at times. And it’s beautiful!”
She was swallowing, her eyes misting slightly.
And Paige knew, from that, that though the albino race had not known the surface world for an age, their primary memory still loved it. The ancestors common to both races had known these things for longer ages before. Life did not forget, though the individual might.
He pitied the albino people at that moment. They had been withheld from their birth-right.
IX
THE regiment pitched camp at the mouth of the cave, for its regular sleep period.
At dawn, Paige was up. He wanted to see the sunrise. As the first rose rays stole into the air, the sentries began to get nervous. They watched in growing wonder as the light became stronger and stronger. When they caught a glimpse of the sun, behind a bank of thick clouds, they shouted in alarm.
The army woke to pandemonium. Albino men jumped up, rubbed sleepy eyes, and then shielded them from the light pouring in from outside. Light that was dozens of times stronger than their brightest radium-glow lamps.
Tal sprang up, shouting orders. In quicker time than it ever had before, the regiment broke camp—and retreated I They retreated back into the cave, where shadows cut down most of the blinding daylight glare. There they stopped, and reorganized themselves. It had been close to a panic.
Paige had watched with amusement. He stood in the direct rays, letting the warm, pleasant sunshine tingle on his skin. He was pale from his confinement underground. The deep tan he had once had was faded.
Reena, too, had stayed behind.
She stood tensely, watching Paige as though ready to bolt when he did. But again he saw in her eyes a queer growing wonder and joy, as though she were seeing a dream unfold exactly as some dim racial memory told her it would. Her eyes, bluish now in the sunlight, watered as the unaccustomed radiation bathed them. But blinking bravely, she was staring out at the wide sweep of rolling meadowland, lush and green and beautiful.
“Evan!” she whispered. “It seems to go on and on, till my sight blurs! On and on—” She swayed suddenly, as though perched on some tremendous peak.
Paige caught her. He held her for a moment, and it was more than the sun that pumped heated blood through his veins. He started, then, peering closely at her.
The white skin of her face, hands and lower legs, exposed to the sun, had turned a fiery red. With a cry, he pulled her back into the shadow of an upright stone block. A few more minutes and her un-pigmented skin might have had a bad burn! As it was, she was as red as a lobster.
Tal came running up. Glancing curiously at the girl, he clutched Paige’s arm, as if to prevent his escape.
“I’d almost forgotten you,” he panted. “But I should have known you wouldn’t try to escape. Something has happened out there in your cavern. Your people are doomed! It is on fire!”
“No,” Paige smiled in amusement at Tal’s statement.
After thinking a moment, he went on. “My people have devised a great, bright lamp that is swung across the roof, just as the dimmer lamp was last night. My people find this light better to see by, and have become used to its effects on the skin. Your men can also endure it, soon, by letting their skins become dark, like mine. But it must be done carefully, a few minutes at a time, over a period of days, otherwise you will have serious burns.”
Tal shook his head dazedly. “This is a queer enough cavern. But we will have to do it. Then we’ll reconnoiter out and see what forces oppose us.”
His eyes were suddenly on Paige, suspiciously.
“You didn’t attempt to run away, though you had a perfect chance! And now you are warning us against the burn from this great lamp, when you could have let us go out and be burned! What game are you playing, Evan Paige? You would not thus easily help us against your own people.”
“Don’t forget there is Reena,” countered Paige. “I didn’t want her to suffer revenge meant for me.”
The girl darted him a puzzled glance.
Tal looked from one to the other, clouds of doubt still hovering over his features. “I’m going to keep close watch on you, Paige,” he growled. “You won’t trick me.”
He waved his hand-pistol, for Paige to return to their camp.
SHRUGGING, Paige turned, thinking deeply. The ice was thin. He could not play this subtle game much longer. And yet the cards had to be played in the right order.
His whole body jerked suddenly. A low hissing sounded from outside the cave-mouth, from the sky. Alert to all new things in this strange cavern-world, Tal switched around, peering up. His mouth fell open. A wide-winged, sleek airplane soared high overhead.
It was the first manifestation of the outer civilization, and to Tal it was an unbelievable phenomenon.
“What is that?” he cried. “How can that machine ride off the ground?”
“It’s a machine that—” began Paige, then stopped.
There were no words to explain what he meant, in their language. He would have to say “flies like a bird” in English. Tal and the albino people had never seen a bird. They did not exist in the subterranean world. And they had no single word that meant “flying.”
Paige saw the mental shell-shock in Tal’s face. Hastily he said: “It is simple enough, Tal. We have a region, in the air, that is without gravity, just as your Center is. Machines float up there quite naturally. Is there anything strange about that?”
Paige waited to see the effect, wondering if his tissue of lies would hold together.
Tal nodded rather sheepishly, his tensed body relaxing. “Your people have strange things. Do they,” he asked shrewdly, “arm those
floating machines and use them in warfare?”
Paige nodded, putting a gleam in his eye for Tal’s benefit.
He went on truthfully. “Yes, and they are powerful fighting craft. They rain down rays and bombs, sweeping whole armies to destruction.”
“Enough!” cut in Tal, smiling. “I know when you lie, Paige! You’re trying to frighten me, hoping I’ll give up this campaign! But no—we’ll sweep out into your cavern, when we have become adjusted to the burning light. Your clumsy tongue won’t dissuade me from glory and conquest. You tremble, I see. But come, there is much to do.”
Paige was trembling. But for a different reason than Tal suspected. The plane, now gone, had been a Martian craft, upheld by its miraculous hissing rocket jets. A patrol ship, probably, scouting over conquered territory for possible human survivors.
The sight of the ship brought sharp remembrance to Paige, like a knife thrust. The adventures in the underworld had dulled his mind partly to the upper world catastrophe, but now the full, agonizing, unbearable thought of it reared.
He saw something else, about a mile away, on a broad field. A strewn line of little khaki mounds, broken silent field-pieces, and gouged-out craters of ton ground. A battle had been fought then, perhaps just a few days ago. A regiment of Earth soldiers annihilated. Several wrecks, of Earth planes, indicated how easily the Martians had won.
How far had the Martians advanced? Had the American army been driven back to the Rockies perhaps, while he had been below? Was Europe a vast graveyard of humans? Were the defenseless millions of China falling like chaff before the Martian juggernaut?
For all Paige knew, the Martians had broken all military resistance, and were now systematically running a vacuum-cleaner of death over Earth’s face!
“Good Lord!” he groaned aloud at that thought. If only he knew. But he had no radio, no way of finding out at present. There was a plane there, a mile away, that looked unwrecked. Perhaps its pilot had been able to land it just before dying of wounds. Paige almost leaped away, burning to find out about his world, but eased back with another groan. Tal would shoot him if he ran.