CHAPTER XIII
Escape!
We had little time, however, to waste in endearments, and very little todevote to informing me as to the American plans. The essential thingwas that I report the Han plans and resources to the fullest of myability. And for an hour or two I talked steadily, giving an outline ofall I had learned from San-Lan and his Councillors, and particularly ofthe arrangements for drawing off the population of the city to newcities concealed underground, through the system of tunnels radiatingfrom the base of the mountain. And as a result, the Americans determinedto speed up their attack.
There were, as a matter of fact, only two relatively small commandsfacing the city, Wilma told me, but both of them were picked troops ofthe new Federal Council. Those to the south were a division of veteranswho a few weeks before had destroyed the Han city of Sa-Lus (St. Louis).On the east were a number of the Colorado Gangs and an expeditionaryforce of our own Wyomings. The attack on Lo-Tan was intended chiefly asan attack on the morale of the Hans of the other twelve cities. If thereseemed to be a chance of victory, the operations were to be pushedthrough. Otherwise the object would be to do as much damage as possible,and fade away into the forests if the Hans developed any real pressurewith their new infantry and field batteries of rocket guns anddisintegrator-rays.
The "air balls" were simply miniature swoopers of spherical shape,ultronically controlled by operators at control boards miles away, andwho saw on their viewplates whatever picture the ultronic televisionlens in the sphere itself picked up at the predetermined focus. The mainpropulsive rocket motor was diametrically opposite the lens, so that thesphere could be steered simply by keeping the picture of its objectivecentered on the crossed hairlines of the viewplates. The outer shellmoved magnetically as desired with respect to the core, which wasgyroscopically stabilized. Auxiliary rocket motors enabled the operatorto make a sphere move sidewise, backward or vertically. Some of thesespheres were equipped with devices which enabled their operators to hearas well as see through their ultronic broadcasts, and most of thosewhich had invaded the interior of Lo-Tan were equipped with "speakers,"in the hope of finding me and establishing communication. Still otherswere equipped for two-stage control. That is, the operator control ledthe vision sphere, and through it watched and steered an air torpedothat travelled ahead of it.
The Han airship or any other target selected by the operator of such acombination was doomed. There was no escape. The spheres and torpedoeswere too small to be hit. They could travel with the speed of bullets.They could trail a ship indefinitely, hover a safe distance from theirmark, and strike at will. Finally, neither darkness nor smoke screenswere any bar to their ultronic vision. The spheres, which had penetratedand explored Lo-Tan in their search for me, had floated through breachesin the walls and roofs made by their advance torpedoes.
* * * * *
Wilma had just finished explaining all this to me when I heard a noiseoutside my door. With a whispered warning I flung myself back on thecouch and simulated unconsciousness. When I did not answer the poundingsand calls to open, a police detail broke in and shook me roughly.
"The air ball," I moaned, pretending to regain consciousness slowly. "Itcame in from the corridor. Look what it did to the guard. It must havegrazed my head. Where is it?"
"Gone," muttered the under-officer, looking fearfully around. "Yes,undoubtedly gone. These men have been dead some time. And this pistol.The ball got him before he had a chance to use it. See, it has beamedthrough the wall only here, where he dropped it. Who are you? You looklike a tribesman. Oh, yes, you're the Heaven-Born's special prisoner.Maybe I ought to beam you right now. Good thing. Everyone would call itan accident. By the Grand Dragon, I will!"
While he was talking, I had staggered to the other side of the room, todraw his attention away from the couch where the ball was concealed.
Now suddenly the pillows burst apart, and a blanket with which I hadcovered the thing streaked from the couch, hitting the man in the smallof the back. I could hear his spine snap under the impact. Then it shotthrough the air toward the group of soldiers in the doorway, bowlingthem over and sending them shrieking right and left along the corridor.Relentlessly and with amazing speed it launched itself at each in turn,until the corpses lay grotesquely strewn about, and not one had escaped.
It returned to me for all the world like an old-fashioned ghost, theblanket still draped over it (and not interfering with its ultronicvision in the least) and "stood" before me.
"The yellow devils were going to kill you, Tony," I heard Wilma's voicesaying. "You've got to get out of there, Tony, before you are killed.Besides, we need you at the control boards, where you can make real useof your knowledge of the city. Have you your jumping belt, ultrophoneand rocket gun?"
"No," I replied, "they are all gone."
"It would be no good for you to try to make your way to one of thebreaches in the wall, nor to the roof," she mused.
"No, they are too well guarded," I replied, "and even if you made a newone at a predetermined spot I'm afraid the repair men and the patrolwould go to it ahead of me."
"Yes, and they would beam you before you could climb inside of aswooper," she added.
"I'll tell you what I can do, Wilma," I suggested. "I know my way aboutthe city pretty well. Suppose I go down one of the shafts to the base ofthe mountain. I think I can get out. It is dark in the valley, so theHans cannot see me, and I will stand out in the open, where yourultroscopes can pick me up. Then a swooper can drop quickly down and getme."
"Good!" Wilma said. "But take that Han's disintegrator pistol with you.And go right away, Tony. But wrap this ball in something and carry itwith you. Just toss it from you if you are attacked. I'll stay at thecontrol board and operate it in case of emergency."
* * * * *
So I picked up ball and pistol, and thrust the hand in which I held itinto the loose Han blouse I wore, wrapped the ball in a piece ofsheeting, and stepped out in the corridor, hurrying toward the nearestmagnetic car station, a couple of hundred feet down the corridor, for Ihad to cross nearly the entire width of the city to reach the shaft thatwent to the base of the mountain.
I thanked Providence for the perfection of the Han mechanical deviceswhen I reached the station. The automatic checking system of these carsmade station attendants unnecessary. I had only to slip the key I hadtaken from the dead Han officer into the account-charting machine at thestation to release a car.
Pressing the proper combinations of main and branch line buttons, Iseated myself, holding the pistol ready but concealed beneath my blouse.The car shot with rapid acceleration down the narrow tunnel.
The tubes in which these magnetic cars (which slid along a few inchesabove the floor of the tunnel by localized repeller rays) ran were verynarrow, just the width of the car, and my only danger would come if oncatching up to another car its driver should turn around and look in myface. If I kept my face to the front, and hunched over so as to concealmy size, no driver of a following car would suspect that I was not aHan like himself.
The tube dipped under traffic as it came to a trunk line, and my carmagnetically lagged, until an opening in the traffic permitted it toswing swiftly into the main line tunnel. At the automatic distance often feet it followed a car in which rode a scantily clad girl, herflimsy silks fluttering in the rush of air. I cursed my luck. She wouldbe far more likely to turn around than a man, to see if a man were inthe car behind, and if he were personable--for not even the impendingdoom of the city and the public demoralization caused by the "air balls"had dulled the proclivities of the Han women for brazen flirtation. Andturn around she did.
Before I could lower my head she had seen my face, and knew I was noHan. I saw her eyebrows arch in surprise. But she seemed puzzled ratherthan scared. Before she could make up her mind about me, however, hercar had swung out of the main tunnel on its predetermined course, and myown automatically was closing up the gap to the
car ahead. The passengerin this one wore the uniform of a medical officer, but he did not turnaround before I swung out of main traffic to the little station at thehead of the shaft.
This particular shaft was intended to serve the very lowest levelsexclusively, and since its single car carried nothing but expresstraffic, it was used only by repair men and other specialists whooccasionally had to descend to those levels.
* * * * *
There were only three people on the little platform, which reminded mevery much of the subway stations of the Twentieth Century. Two men and agirl stood facing the gate of the shaft, waiting for the car to returnfrom below. One of these was a soldier, apparently off duty, for thoughhe wore the scarlet military coat he carried no weapons other than hisknife. The other man wore nothing but sandals and a pair of loose shortpants of some heavy and serviceable material. I did not need to look atthe compact tool kit and the ray machines attached to his heavy belt,nor the gorgeously jewelled armlet and diadem that he wore to know himfor a repair man.
The girl was quite scantily clad, but wore a mask, which was not unusualamong the Han women when they went forth on their flirtatiousexpeditions, and there was something about the sinuous grace of hermovements that seemed familiar to me. She was making desperate love tothe repair man, whose attitude toward her was that of pleased but loftytolerance. The soldier, who was seeking no trouble, occupied himselfstrictly with his own thoughts and paid little attention to them.
I stepped from my car, still carrying my bundle in which the "air ball"was concealed, and the car shot away as I threw the release lever over.Not so successful as the soldier in simulating lack of interest in theamorous girl and her companion, I drew from the latter a stare ofhaughty challenge, and the girl herself turned to look at me through hermask.
She gasped as she did so, and shrank back in alarm. And I knew her thenin spite of her mask. She was the favorite of the Heaven-Born himself.
"Ngo-Lan!" I exclaimed before I could catch myself.
At the mention of her name, the soldier's head jerked up quickly, andthe girl herself gave a little cry of terror, shrinking against herburly companion. This would mean death for her if it reached the ears ofher lord.
And her companion, arrogant in his immunity as a repair man, hesitatednot a second. His arm shot out toward the soldier, who was nearer to himthan I. There was the flash of a knife blade, and the soldier sagged onhis feet, then tumbled over like a sack of potatoes, and before my mindhad grasped the danger, he had swept the girl aside and was springing atme.
* * * * *
That I lived for a moment even was due to the devotion of my wife,Wilma, who somewhere in the mountains to the east was standing loyallybefore the control board of the air ball I carried.
For even as the Han leaped at me, the bundle containing the air ball,which I had placed at my feet, shot diagonally upward, catching thefellow in the middle of his leap, hurling him back against the grilledgate of the elevator shaft, and pinning his lifeless body there.
An instant the girl gazed in speechless horror at what had been hersecret lover, then she threw herself at my feet, writhing and shriekingin terror.
At this moment, the elevator shot to a sudden stop behind the grill, andprepared for the worst, I faced it, disintegrator pistol raised.
But I lowered the pistol at once, with a sigh of relief. The elevatorwas empty. For a moment I considered. I dared not leave either of thesebodies nor the girl behind in descending the shaft. At any moment otherpassengers might glide out of the tunnel to take the elevator, and givean alarm.
So I played the beam of the pistol for an instant on the two deadbodies. They vanished, of course, into nothingness, as did part of thestation platform. The damage to the platform, however, would notnecessarily be interpreted as evidence of a prisoner escaping.
Then I threw open the elevator gate, dragging Ngo-Lan into the car andstifling her hysterical shrieks, pressed the button that caused it toshoot downward. In a few moments I stepped out several thousand feetbelow, into a shaft that ran toward one of the Valley Gates.
The pistol again became serviceable, this time for the destruction ofthe elevator, thus blocking any possible pursuit, yet without revealingmy flight.
Ngo-Lan fought like a cat, but despite her writhing, scratching andbiting, I bound and gagged her with her own clothing, and left her lyingin the tunnel while I stepped in a car and shot toward the gate.
As the car glided swiftly along the brilliantly lit but deserted tunnelI conversed again with Wilma through the metallic speaker of the airball.
"The only obstacle now," I told her, "is the massive gate at the end ofthe tunnel. The gate-guard, I think, is posted both outside and insidethe gate."
"In that case, Tony," she replied, "I will shoot the ball ahead, andblow out the gate. When you hear it bump against the gate, throwyourself flat in the car, for an instant later I will explode it. Thenyou can rush through the gate into the night. Scout ships are nowhovering above, and they will see you with their ultroscopes, though thedarkness will leave you invisible to the Hans."
* * * * *
With this the ball shot out of the car and flashed away, down the tunnelahead of me. I heard a distant metallic thump, and crouched low in thespeeding car, clapping my hands to my ears. The heavy detonation whichfollowed, struck me like a blow, and left me gasping for breath. The carstaggered like a living thing that had been struck, then gathered speedagain and shot forward toward the gaping black hole where the gate hadbeen.
I brought it to a stop at the pile of debris, and climbed through thisto freedom and the night. Stumblingly I made my way out into the open,and waited.
Behind, and far above me on the mountain peak, the lights of the citygleamed and flashed, while the iridescent beams of countlessdisintegrator ray batteries on surrounding mountain peaks, playedcontinuously and nervously, criss-crossing in the sky above it.
Then with a swish, a line dropped out of the sky, and a little seatrested on the ground beside me. I climbed into it, and without furtherado was whisked up into the swooper that floated a few hundred feetabove me.
A half an hour later I was deposited in a little forest glade where theheadquarters of the Wyoming Gang were located, and was greeted with afrantic disregard for decorum by the Deputy Boss of the Wyomings, whorushed upon me like a whirlwind, laughing, crying and whisperingendearments all in the same breath, while I squeezed her, Wilma, mywife, until at last she gasped for mercy.
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