The Earth-Tube

by Gawain Edwards

  He caught her hand in a warm grip.

  “You are fine!” he exclaimed. “You’ve got the right idea!”

  CHAPTER IV

  THE SHINING CITY

  I

  THEY saw, after they had circled over it for a great while, that many things had changed about the huge metal shield over the mouth of the earth-tube since the first inspection flight made by Dr. Scott and the Secretary of War. Now its edges had been extended and brought close to the ground. It was no longer a huge umbrella, held up by metal piers, but a bright, metallic dome instead, lying like an overturned saucer on the little island which had been artificially placed there in the ocean. The total breadth of the dome now appeared to be nearly three and a half miles. There was only a little unused land showing around the edge, where the surprised and angry sea beat and dashed continually as if to sweep aside this unnatural obstruction. In the middle, King estimated, the shield rose nearly two thousand feet above the level of the island. The whole structure was gracefully molded. It was an amazing thing to come upon it suddenly, out of the rainy air.

  These Asians were building for permanency; that was evident in every line and curve. Not only had the shield of the earth-tube been gracefully completed, but the covering of the causeway was also beautifully and artistically finished. It stretched off across the intervening miles of sea to the mainland like a mighty arm, and ended in a rounded building, like a clenched fist, which rested upon the shore. Through this pipe line from the other hemisphere were now going the armies of the invasion, the slaves and their masters, the tanks and the throwers of horrible rays, the handlers of scalding steam and many another unknown and dreaded weapon. Here in the huge armored dome worked the engineers and mechanics who every day landed an earth-car and launched another, and here also lived the shrewd masters of military strategy, no doubt, who were planning the invasion and dictating its every move. In the dome below them, King knew, were the brains of the war, at least as far as the Western Hemisphere was concerned. And into that dome he must get, somehow. In there he must see without being seen. He must observe and remember and understand and in the end escape with his precious information. And above all, he must act quickly. A week. perhaps two at the most, must be sufficient for the work.

  “As soon as it gets dark enough, land me on the edge of the island,” he directed the pilot. “With this amphibian you can drop down into the sea a mile or so away, and I will row to shore in the collapsible boat.”

  Jenson signaled assent, and turned the plane away in a high arc to fly out the time at a safe distance. It was nearly eleven o’clock at night before King decided that it was sufficiently dark to make the attempt, and not before then did the plane return and settle gracefully in the ocean. King threw overboard the gas-inflated boat with which he had come prepared. Extra bottles of inflating-gas he stowed into it with the other equipment, and taking a paddle which had been fastened in clips under the gunwale, he shouted cheerfully to Jenson and rowed away. He could not see the island because of the darkness, but he knew its general direction and pulled for it with strong, steady strokes. Behind him, after a few minutes, he heard the loud clatter of the plane as, gaining momentum, it soared up from the water and left him alone.

  For a moment he felt a weakness in his limbs. Now the die was cast and the adventure really begun! To the skill of his mind he must now add physical skill as well. In addition, he must have no end of luck if this expedition were to be even a partial success.

  The ungainly boat tossed upon the waves and drifted uncertainly for a little, and then King, regaining control of himself, took up the oar with renewed determination and tore at the water which lapped against the side.

  He kept straining his eyes to catch sight of the island ahead until he heard a loud roaring on his right. That would be the waves breaking on the shore, he reasoned, and steered toward the sound. In a few minutes the blackness of the island and its great metallic hood loomed hideously before him in the night, its edges at the sea level ringed with froth and white water from the fury of the breakers. He handled the paddle dexterously, and guiding the giddy, rounded boat half by instinct, he beached it between waves and dragged it up on shore before he paused to look around.

  Not more than a hundred feet away arose the stately rounded wall which curved upward and inward to form the metallic cap. With great excitement he collapsed the boat and attached the extra bottles of inflating gas. A turn of the valve would liberate the carbon dioxide into the float tanks, and the boat would be again ready for use. He folded it all up into a small bundle and concealed it beneath the rocks. In order that he might find it again he arranged nine stones in the form of a cross upon the ground, and observed his compass. He was on the east side of the island. The stone cross would guide him to the exact spot when he came back again.

  From how many miles down in the earth, King wondered, had those stones come to aid him in this quest against his country’s enemies?

  It was chilly, for the autumn in the Southern Hemisphere was coming on. He drew his coat closely about him and went over to the metallic wall. It was finished to the ground, and probably the metal sides went deep beneath the surface, too. Carefully he felt his way around it toward the right, in the direction of which, he remembered, there was an aperture.

  The harsh roaring which he had mistaken earlier for the sound of the breakers seemed to have greatly increased. He noticed that the whole island was trembling. The curious clattering he had experienced once before was now coming down upon his ears from overhead, where the tremendous air-jet was escaping furiously into the sky.

  King knew that signal. The earth-car was about to arrive from the Eastern Hemisphere. and he must hurry and find the aperture before it came!

  He ran rapidly along the wall, seeking the opening.

  II

  Before him suddenly rose the portal, tremendous, marvelously proportioned. the gateway to the stronghold of the mysterious and mighty Asians. It was not, as he had supposed during his aerial investigation, a jagged opening where the wall on that side had been left unfinished. It was, instead, a colossal gate, arch-shaped, and carved at the top and along the sides with a curious pattern of designs. criss-cross planes, spears and shields, and an endless repetition of modernistic and mechanical figures.

  The wall at that point appeared to be about two feet thick. On the inside of the portal, closing down like a gigantic eyelid, was a door of metal which slid in oiled grooves. The aperture was about half open, so that the large, rather eye-shaped opening had the appearance of a colossal wink. The metal was gleaming and bright, as along the outer walls. Viewed in the glimmer of light from the cloud-wreathed stars and the waning moon, augmented by a kind of phosphorescence which came from within, the gate was at once weird and beautiful. The extreme modernism of its decoration, the perfect proportions of its contours, produced a feeling of exaltation, mingled with horror.

  What civilization produced this tremendous image of an all-seeing eye? No race but one of infinite cruelty could have expressed itself so; no people but one of vision and extraordinary technical skill could have conceived and executed it. There was about the entrance to the earth-tube cap a beauty which at once thrilled and terrified. When he came upon it suddenly out of the night King drew up short, startled by its magnificence.

  Involuntarily he looked up. Hundreds of feet above, where the gate arched and joined the shield, there was an inscription of some kind, in characters he could not read. The bare bright walls swept upward and away on every side. Over this tremendous gate was the only marking of any kind to be seen upon the whole of that polished expanse. The inscription may well have been, King thought as he gazed upward again more carefully at the amazing portal, the Dantean warning: “All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter Here.”

  There was no guard in sight. The Asians were apparently not expecting visitors or invasion from this source. The coming earth-car was very near the surface. To the clatter there was now added a horrible shrieking as the
uprushing jets of steam behind the projectile leaked past it in the tube and began to outrun it, whistling into the air. The island trembled unpleasantly; it seemed hollow and unstable as if the whole of the land might disintegrate at any moment and plunge again beneath the heavy waves, which bit and lashed incessantly at the rocky shores.

  Mingled with the rumbling could be heard vague cries and commands as hundreds of humans, slaves probably, took their places in the mechanism which received the car. In another moment the giant projectile would come burgeoning from the earth, to pour forth its load of men and munitions from the other hemisphere. Now, if ever, would King be able to slip safely and undetected inside the shield.

  He advanced to the corner of the portal and looked cautiously around. Inside he saw nobody. There was a long, metallic passage, illuminated in some mysterious manner with light which seemed to come from the metal itself. There were no shadows; the entire corridor was lighted brightly and evenly. Some distance inside it was apparent that other passages branched off at right angles. There was a city of metal underneath the dome! A metal city, with metal roofs, metal walls, metal floors; everything of metal.

  King slipped through the portal almost casually and moved down the corridor straight ahead. If any eyes observed him he did not know of them. The city appeared deserted, uninhabited. When he came to the first intersection, he turned into it, to the right, and there perceived that on either side of the new passageway were arched doors, each marked with small characters and firmly closed. Here were the cells, then, in, which the inhabitants of this strange city lived.

  There was still no one in sight. King followed the small passage until he came, after a short distance, to another, again at right angles. Gradually some idea of the pattern of the city came to him. It was laid out like a huge wheel, with the place of the arrival of the earth-car in the center, and main avenues leading away from it on every side. The cross streets were not straight, but evenly curved, and lay upon the spokes of the patterned wheel like a series of concentric, superimposed circles. In the cross streets only were the entrances to apartments and cells; the main avenues, at least so far out, appeared bare, save for a single overhead rail, the support, evidently, for some sort of transportation system.

  The ceiling in the corridors was about fifteen feet high. Above it there was probably another tier of dwellings, and above that still another, clear to the domed and solid top. At this rate the city would house thousands. millions. of persons, perhaps.

  But King had little time to reflect on these things. As he darted from one passage to another, always working toward the center of the dome, keeping a sharp lookout for guards or inhabitants, he came suddenly upon twenty or thirty persons, wearing what appeared to be uniforms, hurrying through one of the main passages in the same direction he had been going. There was no place in all the bright bareness of the passages to hide, but fortunately none of the group was interested in King. He had time only to dart into one of the side passages, and crouch against the wall, when the whole group went rushing at top speed past him, and on toward the center of the city.

  To his horror King saw that some of the uniformed creatures were women. Behind them, armed with long whips, came four or five large men with fierce mustaches. The entire party was running, but the large fellows could travel faster than the others, and they were continually lashing at them from behind, shouting fiercely in their own tongue. King saw a woman stumble and fall, and before she could regain her feet she had been severely knouted by four of the drivers. One of the men of the group turned back to help her to her feet, and he came in for his share of the merciless lashing also. They struck him repeatedly in the face as he stooped over to raise her up. Together, helping each other, the pair then ran rapidly to catch the others, pursued by the four drivers, who flicked them again and again as they ran.

  During this performance none of the slaves cried out, not even those who were being punished. All seemed to take it as an everyday occurrence. They trotted along to their destination with unresisting resignation. But the scene left King white and trembling with anger. So that was how they handled laborers in this gleaming and beautiful city, he reflected. To be captured by the Asians then could mean but one of two things: horrible death. or slavery more horrible still.

  As King turned off into another corridor, still pursuing his zigzag course, his ears were suddenly assailed by a fiendish screaming. The pavement seemed without warning to drop away beneath his feet. Clutching frantically at the air, he felt himself helpless and falling as the whole island rocked insanely.

  In a moment he had regained control of himself, and realized with a start what had happened. The earth-car had at last arrived; the howling and hissing was the escape of steam; the shocks a part of the recoil of the cap and its mechanism to the weight of the car and the stress of the landing. The roaring came down the corridors like the sound of an unearthly waterfall. Little plumes and wisps of steam came floating by, tiny jets which had escaped the valves or gaskets at the landing gear.

  And now he realized that in a few moments they would launch the returning car, the slaves would come back to their cells, and he would be detected surely if by that time he had not found some hiding place.

  Impulsively he looked about him, and it was well that he had done so, for coming swiftly down the narrow way where he had been standing was a guard or policeman. a uniformed man of brusque and determined manner, who had seen King from behind and was coming closer to investigate. As the American turned the patrolman recognized him as an alien and shouted gruffly above the hideous roaring of the steam, which still echoed in the passages. What he shouted was unintelligible, but King could have guessed his meaning easily enough; his manner was only too plainly indicative of his intent. He flourished a large club, similar to a policeman’s nightstick, and came down through the corridor toward the young scientist as fast as he could walk.

  There was only one thing to do. In the maze of passageways flight would be useless; it would be impossible for a stranger to outwit and elude any one who was familiar with them. The man was about King’s size and build. He waited until the fellow had come quite close, and then, with a full-arm swing he had often practiced with success in boxing bouts for health’s sake, he caught the Asian soundly under the chin.

  The guard stared weakly at him for a moment in a surprised manner and then went down as if his neck had been broken. So completely unprepared had he been for any show of resistance that he had been taken completely off his guard. King seized his club and struck him several times more as he sought to arise.

  “I may be needing clothing like that,” the American thought to himself. The man was lying quite still at last, completely knocked out. Quickly King stripped off the colored coat and trousers. Taking the coat and hat and shoes and billy also, he rolled them into a compact bundle and hurried out of the passageway into another across the nearest main corridor. As he did so he caught a fleeting glimpse of many persons pouring into the main passage and coming toward him. He must find a place to hide at all costs. His safety was a matter of minutes, perhaps seconds.

  He had, he calculated, penetrated the city perhaps three quarters of a mile, though he was surely much farther than that from the gate at which he had entered. He had run a great distance. His breath was becoming short; his legs were weary and aching. Gradually he noticed that he had somehow entered a corridor which was different from the others. a difference which lay in innumerable small details, but most strikingly in the quality of the light which suffused it. The illumination was not the glaring yellowish-white of other sections of the city; it was very pleasing and soft, instead, and of a creamy rose color. It was apparent that he was in a portion of the city which had been unaccountably marked apart from the rest; perhaps a select colony, a place for the homes of the rulers.

  He had little time to wonder about it. The sound of escaping steam was nearly gone. It had been replaced by the peculiar high-pitched whine which signified that the returnin
g car had been launched on its eight-thousand-mile journey through the earth. In the distance, and in corridors not so far away, he could hear as well the shouts and laughter and the voices of many persons. The citizens of the metal city were returning to their homes.

  Impulsively he tried to open the doors which fronted him along the passageway, but found them securely fastened. It was not until he had reached nearly the end of the row that one finally gave beneath his hand. He pushed it open, holding his automatic ready. He would make himself master of the cell, he resolved, and hide there until a plan came to his mind for further investigation in the city.

  The door opened with a clicking noise, and a small hallway was disclosed beyond. No one was in sight. King let the door fall closed behind him of its own accord and glanced quickly around. There was another door at the end of the hall. Hastily adjusting his load so that he might use both his hands, he continued his investigation, opening the door with his left band, and gripping the pistol with the right.

  III

  Walls of shining metal, varied here and there with opalescence and color. Furniture of metal, floors and ceilings of metal!

  When King pushed open the second door he found himself in a large room, apparently the living room or reception hall of the apartment. He gazed with surprise and delight at the beauty of the place, at the cunning and artistry of its furnishings, and the curious, all-pervading air of modernity and expressionism. It was as if artists here had carried to the farthest degree of perfection the movements in architecture and decoration which had been only moderately developed in certain of the largest cities of the Western Hemisphere. Everywhere was the suggestion, cunningly wrought, of the mechanical age; the cylinders, planes, cones and cubes of symmetrical geometry; yet so completely worked into a unified whole that the effect was neither harsh nor cold, but strangely exalting, like the roar and ordered tumult of giant machinery.