The Earth-Tube

by Gawain Edwards

  The hour was late, but in the laboratory adjoining the aged scientist was at his work. Through the open doors of the library there came strange noises and unreal lights and electrical crackings which echoed against the walls and flared grotesquely among the shadows cast by the yellow flickering of the soft wood fire.

  King and Anna knew too well the nature of the task which was absorbing Dr. Scott’s time and energy in the other room. Almost feverishly he had been working in his long quest for rays that would destroy the atoms of the^Asian tanks or any other matter that should come within their range. It was his one hopeful contribution toward the winning of the war; if he could find the ray and harness it, the country might be saved.

  As they were sitting in the library there came suddenly from the laboratory a new and louder sputter and a flare of most unearthly light. The entire building seemed to shudder with it, and a glass tube which had been resting on the table back of the silent pair seemed to sing out abruptly in unison with some distant vibration before it burst in many pieces with a loud pop. As quickly as it had come the ghastly light disappeared; the noises stopped. And Dr. Scott was shouting incoherently in the laboratory at the top of his voice.

  “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” he screamed. He came hurrying out of the gloom toward Anna and King, who had leaped, startled, to their feet.

  “I had the disintegrating ray,” he explained with great excitement. “I produced it, but the first thing to disintegrate was the apparatus itself. I’ve got to learn how to avoid that, and we’ll have a weapon for the world.”

  Turning on the lights the three went back into Professor Scott’s alcove. It looked as if a bombshell had burst in there, and under the light it was seen that Dr. Scott himself had not escaped without serious burns. Parts of his clothing had entirely disappeared. The table upon which he had been working was more than half gone, together with all of the elaborate apparatus which had been sitting on it. A small heap of grayish dust, less than a tablespoonful, lay on the floor.

  “Do you know what it means?” continued the scientist, almost hysterical. “Do you know what it means? It means that if I can reproduce and control that ray we will be able to annihilate the enemy! But God, I’m not even sure that I can perform the experiment again. It happened when I wasn’t looking, quite by accident. Fortunately I was standing a little distance away when I threw the current on, else I, too, would have been down there.” He indicated the pile of dust.

  “Look here,” said King, taking a pencil and paper, “let’s draw it out, the way your apparatus was fixed. Maybe we can study it over and find a better way to set it up.”

  Already he was beginning to sketch the portions of the machine which he remembered, but Anna, looking at her father, gave a little cry. He was leaning against the wall, weak and very faint.

  “Quick,” she exclaimed. “Get a doctor and help me get him in bed. He’s hurt. Quick, help me, King!”

  Together they carried the old man to his bedroom, and King took off his clothes while Anna summoned aid. He was unconscious before the doctor came, breathing heavily. The physician examined him carefully. Aside from a few minor scars, which appeared to be burns, the old scientist was, to all appearances, unhurt.

  “It’s just shock, I think,” the doctor said when he had heard the details of the experiment which Dr. Scott had been performing. “He’s been working too hard. He should rest two or three weeks. That will bring him around.”

  “Two or three weeks,” exclaimed King in consternation. “Doctor, do you know the safety of the world may depend on what Professor Scott does in the next two or three weeks?”

  The physician shook his head firmly.

  “Either he rests,” he said, feeling his patient’s pulse, “or the world will have to get along without him. permanently.”

  Anna took hold of King’s arm impulsively.

  “Then it is up to us,” she said.

  “Yes,” replied King. “Let’s try to set the apparatus up.”

  IV

  The Secretary of War of the Pan-Americas kept in his office a private file of messages sent to his department which must by no means reach the newspapers or other public information agencies. Into this file on the week after Dr. Scott’s sudden illness went a brief message from an isolated military camp in South America, which read as follows:

  Pilot A. . went to the prearranged meeting place south of Buenos Aires last night in response to a special radio message from S. . N. . , who was dropped there eight days ago for espionage directed by the War Council. S. . N. . was equipped with a small radio sending apparatus with which he was to signal for aid or call the plane when he was ready to leave the enemy terrain with his information. When A. . reached the spot, he circled over it several times and finally sighted S. . N. . . He wirelessed us that he was landing, but no further messages were received from either A. . or S. . N. . .

  In the file, clipped to the message, was a carbon copy of the reply, sent the same day:

  Send searching party at once. Make every effort to learn what happened to the pilot and S. . N. . . Wire immediately results and spare no expense in the search.

  Angell.

  The Secretary now had the reply to this second message in his hand, and he was pacing nervously back and forth in his inner office, deliberating whether to call the President about it at once or wait for further word from South America. The spies had now been gone two weeks, the time limit set by the War Council. The searching expedition, in which more than a hundred airplanes had taken part, had found neither the spy who had been landed south of Buenos Aires disguised as a crippled old man, or the airplane in which A. . , the pilot whose name had been so carefully deleted from the dispatches as they were filed, had flown to meet his confederate.

  It was the loss of the airplane which particularly puzzled and alarmed the Secretary. Somehow the Asians had taken the spy and had used him as a decoy to bring the pilot to the spot. But why had they done that? It was clear. because they wanted an airplane of the latest design. Perhaps they would reproduce them in hundreds of thousands, and the air would be full of a new terror.

  “I will tell the President at once,” the Secretary decided, picking up a telephone. But in a moment he laid it down again. The capture of an airplane was, he felt, due to his blundering directions. It was his idea that the spy should be landed back of the lines in a plane, equipped with a radio to call the plane again. By any other strategy the airplane could not have been caught. How could he tell the President and the War Council that he had been responsible for the loss not only of a spy and pilot, but of an airplane as well?

  He crumpled the message in his hand and threw it to the floor. When he had taken the position of Secretary of War there had been no war in sight, and the likelihood of his ever having to mess around with military details, aside from parades and martial music, had been so remote as to seem negligible. But now he was faced suddenly with war. with war which was worse than anything any one had ever before imagined. A clever and ingenious enemy, threatening to engulf the continents, and here, in one of the moves intended to outwit them, he had played directly into their hands!

  Should he tell the President? Secretary Angell slowly unwadded the message from his military aide in South America and read it again:

  Have searched all night. Sent five squadrons of planes to take photographs of every inch of the terrain and others to make minute search. No sign of the enemy or of either of the men lost. No sign of the plane, though found searings in the soft dirt where it had landed. Will make further search by daylight today, though considered very dangerous. No enemy sighted on the plain.

  He smoothed the wrinkled paper on his knee and placed it carefully in the files with the other communications. He would not tell what had happened to the first spy and the plane; at least not just yet. There was still another man who ought to be sending word any time now that he had successfully completed his mission. If he came back there would be no need to mention the earlier ac
cident at all.

  He dismissed the matter of the lost airplane from his mind. Why would the Asians go to such trouble to get a model plane? What need had they of planes, when their tanks were so effective?

  He slammed the door of the filing cabinet shut and locked it. Turning, he brushed his hair into place and adjusted his tie. His fingernails appeared soiled. He took a small tool from his pocket kit and began to polish them. It was important, he was thinking, for a public official to look the part.

  The Secretary’s office was at one end of a long corridor. It was heavily carpeted and richly furnished, as were all of the offices of the governmental buildings. In the hallway could be heard the whisperings of many feet as they passed, the aides and messengers and other servants of an empire government.

  But the Secretary was thinking, as he worked over his hands, of something other than the great work of the State.

  The Pan-American War Mothers Patriotic Society was giving a formal luncheon that afternoon, with the Secretary of War of the Pan-Americas as honor guest. He would make a speech about the war which would be broadcast over most of the two continents. He hoped his voice would be good.

  He finished his nails with a flourish and held them up to the light.

  There was a uniformed attendant at the door with a, telegram.

  “It’s a confidential message, sir,” he asserted. “I was told to deliver it to you personally.”

  The telegram was from the army base near Asuncion. It read:

  your technician w. . n. . detailed for espionage work behind the lines and dropped three days ago vicinity enemy causeway picked up along coast in friendly territory by airplane squadron early to-day stop was blinded in both eyes ears had been amputated and other mutilation stop was babbling incoherently stop sent to military hospital here for treatment stop physicians unable to get anything out of him except enemy had captured tortured him then turned loose north the lines with warning to other spies stop in mutterings kept saying quote it is made out of mud comma only mud unquote physicians say temporary insanity shock and exposure.

  The Secretary’s hand trembled. He thrust the message hastily into his pocket and walked briskly down the hall. He stopped before he left the building for a drink of water.

  He was not quite so nervous by the time he had reached the scene of the luncheon. He was thinking by that time of what he would have to say over the radio. It would never do to betray excitement or alarm; rather he must appear to have the whole situation well in hand.

  “We turn now to a few moments consideration of those barbarians from the other side of the earth who have presumed to invade this free and quiet land of ours,” he would say. “Let us have no fear of the outcome of this contest. At last we have the situation in hand, and day by day our fighting men are pouring southward to meet the far-flung attack with steel and shells and flame that will wipe these enemies from the earth!”

  The ladies of the Pan-American War Mothers Patriotic Society applauded his speech most heartily that afternoon.

  V

  King Henderson was talking quietly and gravely with two men. One of them was the President of the Pan-Americas, and the other was Alexander Jenson, a war pilot whose reputation as a dare-devil flier had gained him fame throughout the world. It was he who had opened the first trans-polar air line from the old United States to Europe. It was he also who had charted the higher air currents over the Pacific Ocean, and had demonstrated the practicability of the highflying rocket plane for heavy passenger and freight duty. In his less spectacular hours he had practiced stunt flying and had, in addition, worked out at least seven improvements to wing design which had been incorporated on virtually every modern plane in the civilized world.

  He was listening carefully as Henderson talked, for he was about to engage, with the young scientist, in an adventure which might well be more dangerous and more important than any he had undertaken in his life. The President of the Pan-Americas was also deeply interested. The three of them were sitting in Dr. Scott’s library.

  “I will not attempt disguise,” said King. “If there were time, disguise might be the wiser way. But we must learn these secrets quickly now. Already they have Lima and Callao, and Para will fall before the end of the week.”

  The President nodded. The position of the new capital of South America, at Caracas, was already precarious because of the recent advances of the Asians, and half the population of upper Brazil, Colombia, Guiana, and even Venezuela had fled before the slowly approaching machines of the enemy. They seemed now everywhere in the south, as invincible as ever. A body of them had moved from Sucre to La Paz, thence to Mollendo and Lima. Another group had followed around the Atlantic coast, taking Bahia and Pernambuco, and was now moving upon Para. A third and larger fleet, fully equipped and accompanied by hundreds of convoy tanks, had plunged boldly into the Matto Grosso, working through the almost impenetrable jungle northward. Already, instead of foundering in the marshes as had been predicted, this ghastly company was approaching the main stream of the Amazon and would undoubtedly cross. The high and rugged Andes had served as a barrier to their further progress on the west coast for the moment, but at the rate they were advancing elsewhere they would soon have the whole continent to themselves,

  “We will start to-night,” said King quietly. “We will take the swiftest plane we can find, but one large enough for four or five passengers so that we may bring back some of this metal if it is possible. I will be ready to leave at dark.”

  “But what is your plan?” the President asked. King hesitated. “The fact is,” he said, “I haven’t any. yet. We will fly directly to the head of the earth-tube, and there we will size up the situation. I think it is foolish to try spying tactics in the enemy military camps. I propose, if it is possible, to land directly on the island at the head of the earth-tube and proceed from there.”

  The President started involuntarily. “My God,” he exclaimed, “you are going directly to their stronghold! It is extremely dangerous.”

  “The time is short; we must risk anything for this information,” King answered.

  The pilot extended his hand, gripping King’s warmly. “I’ll be at the flying field at dusk,” he said.

  “The plane will be fully equipped with the things you mentioned.”

  The President remained alone with King for a parting sentence. “My boy,” he said, “you must not fail. Good luck!” He took King’s hand and pressed it firmly. “We’ll do what we can for you, but you realize as well as any that your fate will be in your own hands. It is a sorry day when we must take a chance like this!”

  Without another word he followed Jenson out of the room, and King was left alone. Quickly he turned and went into Professor Scott’s room, where the old man, attended by nurses and physicians, was recovering slowly. Anna was there, sitting beside her father. She stood up when King came in and ran over to him.

  “I will go at dusk,” King announced. “It will mean everything or nothing.”

  Anna did not reply. The aged scientist raised himself slowly among his pillows.

  “In a few days I will be back in the laboratory,” he objected, “and then, if we have luck, we will reproduce and perfect the disintegrating ray. Maybe it would be better for you to wait. “

  “No. not on such a slender hope. I have no doubt but that you will find the ray and harness it. But it may take weeks. months. Already they are swarming toward the isthmus, and engineers have begun to discuss the widening and deepening of the Panama and Nicaraguan canals to prevent their tanks from crossing.”

  Dr. Scott nodded weakly. “Absurdities pile upon absurdities,” he replied, “and our people, led by a foolish military machine, delude themselves into feelings of security when it is as plain as day that nothing at present within our grasp will stop the march of the enemy.”

  He reached out and took King’s hand impulsively. “But why,” he asked, “must it be you? For five years I have looked upon you as my son. “ He looked quick
ly away. “Now, of course. you may come through. But after what they’ve done to our other spies. “

  “You must get strong as rapidly as you can,” replied King. “You must work on that ray, no matter what happens. And as for Anna here. she will be your helper in my place while I am gone.

  “But. I won’t fail. I have a small sending apparatus which I will wear with me, and with which I can signal you from time to time. You will know whether I am well. But even if you do not hear, don’t give up hope. I will come through. I’m sure of it!”

  Anna followed him out into the laboratory, linking her arm in his with sisterly affection. He glanced suddenly around the old familiar room, and was conscious of a keen nostalgia at the prospect of leaving all of the things which in a few years had become the whole of his life.

  “Two weeks. or three at the most, I will be gone,” he was thinking. But perhaps it would be longer than that.

  “This war has interrupted our happiness in this house,” he said softly after a while. “But it will not be for long, Anna. I will be back, and we will have peace.”

  “Of course you’ll come back, King,” she replied. “Everything depends upon it.” Then, as if fearing that she had been too brusque, she went on, taking hold of his arm impulsively. “Of course you know what you mean to us here. You are like a member of the family. You are the only brother I’ve ever had. “

  She turned back to practical matters after a moment.

  “Now you must get yourself ready for the trip,” she said, in a matter-of-fact voice. “You must not forget the radio and your automatic pistol. Here. I will help you get your things together. I want to have a part in this adventure. I envy you.

  “Think of it, King! You will be the first man of our race to see the earth-tube and these Asian wonders! While we are back here in the laboratory guessing about these things, you will be seeing and measuring them. You will be learning secrets which we have only been able to hint at!”