“In addition, the same thing that now blocks electricity seems to weaken the metal itself, and this engine relies for power on a rapid series of violent explosions inside the cylinders. As a result, the engines have to be pulled apart every few days. Ih short, we have nothing but unreliable means of rapid transportation at our disposal. This limits the radius of effective control of any military force we can form. It means that the only practical defense against anarchy is the creation of many small independent units, each self-sufficient and capable of defense against roving gangs of arsonists and murderers.”
The Duke’s fist banged on the desk. His eyes flashed. As Brian and the others waited alertly for an explosion of temper, the Duke beamed upon them.
“It won’t do. I visualize in its place a mighty organization of steam locomotives, each capable of fuelling by coal or wood, knitting together a network of armed camps under my own control, devoted to keeping order, eliminating karb, and bringing in supplies and recruits throughout a continuously expanding region. Such locomotives, pulling short trains, could average between forty and forty-five miles an hour, and travel, if need be, a thousand miles a day. They could do it without excessive strain or wear on the metal, and they could easily carry loads that would be too heavy for transportation by road. They would enable me to switch troops from one place to another very rapidly, and to unite a large region under one centralized control.” He leaned back and beamed upon them. “The people who did the work that put this tool at my disposal would be very liberally rewarded.”
Brian and the others went back to their little building with a clear picture of what the Duke had in mind.
“That So-and-So,” said Smitty, “sees himself as a dictator, with a fleet of locomotives carrying his private army around the country from one place to another.”
“Sure,” said Carl. “And he can do it, too. People will be so glad to get the gangs off their necks that they won’t realize they’ve been taken over till it’s too late.”
Brian said, “Anne’s father was right. We’ve got to find out if there’s some piece of America left somewhere, and join up with it.”
“Remember, he’s got Anne,” Carl reminded.
“We know where she is, anyway—and where Cardan is,” said Smitty.
Brian glanced out the window at the double fence, “We’ve got to find some way to get in touch with them.”
Outside their door, there was the crash of metal.
Smitty swore.
The door opened. One of the Duke’s men said, “This came out of an old lumber mill. Duke wants it working again. You get your water when she works. Let us know if you need anything.”
Outside was a formidable heap of scrap that made what they’d worked on the night before look brand-new.
In the next few weeks, Brian, Carl and Smitty repaired eight old steam engines. Food, fuel, clothing, special privileges—and water—were their rewards. The first thing any of them knew of a new job was the sound of its being unloaded and the announcement that they would get water when they had it finished. They took to hoarding water in the sinks and wash-tubs, but there was a limit to the amount they could store, while there was no limit to the rusted, stuck, cracked, corroded antique engines they were supposed to repair.
At night, when they were between jobs, Brian, Smitty and Carl tested the fences around their part of camp, and discovered an ingenious system of spring-loaded bells that immediately announced any attempt to get over the top. They could not cut the fence itself without it being discovered the next day, and the bottom of the fence turned out to be set in concrete. After a great deal of nighttime exploration, they finally found a weak place under the fence leading to a space between the outer wall and the fence surrounding the Duke’s “palace.” At the other end of this narrow passage was the place where Brian had seen Cardan, Maclane and Donovan; and here, too, was a spot where the fence could be burrowed under. While Smitty stayed behind in case a guard should come on one of the infrequent checks, Brian and Carl succeeded one cloudy night in getting under both fences, making their way through the darkness to Cardan’s building, easing open the door, and getting in, only to be immediately knocked senseless for their pains.
Brian opened his eyes in a room lighted brightly by a kerosene lamp, with blankets over the windows, and the harsh flat planes of a man’s face regarding him through a cloud of cigar smoke.
Brian recognized Cardan and, behind him, the sharp features of Maclane.
Brian dizzily sat up. His voice came out in a croak. “Hello, Chief.”
Cardan answered with a bare grunt and glanced at Carl, who was looking around dazedly.
Brian sniffed, aware, through the smell of cigar smoke, of a complex of faint odors that might conceivably come from glycerine and a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids at work.
He risked a guess. “I hope you’re keeping it cool.”
Cardan looked at him, then glanced at Donovan. “How’s this batch coming?”
“Slow, as usual. We don’t want any accidental reactions.”
“When are you planning to get out?” Brian asked.
Cardan looked thoughtfully at the glowing tip of his cigar and considered the question. “Possibly next week. Do you have any plans?”
“First we wanted to get in touch with you. We’re too worn out pounding on antique steam engines to plan very far ahead.”
“That explains why the pressure on us has let up a little,” Cardan said.
Brian asked, “What can we do to help?”
“There isn’t much you can do,” said Cardan, “except to keep caught up on your work and do nothing to make them suspicious. As for how we’re going to get out, you may have noticed a big piece of wheeled machinery on your way in.”
Brian shook his head. “It’s black as pitch out there.”
“Well,” said Cardan, “there’s an antique steam tractor out there. This so-called Duke wants it rebuilt and fitted with a blade—to make a kind of steam-powered bulldozer. We plan to distract attention with several dynamite blasts on the far side of camp, use the bulldozer to shove the wall into the ditch, and get away in the steam cars and diesel trucks that are in for repairs at the time. We can’t tell just what night will be right, but we’ll let you know when it comes.”
“What about Anne?”
Cardan took the cigar out of his mouth. “Is she here?”
Brian told what had happened, and Cardan thought a moment. “We could rig up something to immobilize the stretched wires that work that alarm system, then we could cut the fence, put a ladder up the side of that building and get her out that way. First, we’ll have to find out what room she’s in, but I’m sure we can do that.”
Brian didn’t like the idea of standing aside while the others did the work, but Cardan insisted.
“This has been planned for a long time, and we can’t change it now. Don’t worry. Just keep on as you have been. Don’t do anything to arouse suspicion. We want to keep them happy till we blast our way out of this place. Just go on as you are till our man crawls in and tells you to clear out.”
Doing as Cardan said and sticking to their usual routine was maddening, and to avoid thinking of the escape, they worked harder than ever. The Duke was delighted with them.
Soon they were at work in a large machinery shed, newly built between the palace and the watchtower. Here everything seemed to go wrong. Boilers were clogged, mechanical power-transmission lines tore themselves loose, engines vibrated, safety valves stuck, then let go with a roar and refused to close, governors ran the engines fast, then slow, then fast again, in a maddening rhythm that drove them to distraction; and in the midst of this chaos, the Duke came in covered with soot and dragged them outside for a look at their half-collapsed smokepipe. Only gradually did they begin to straighten out the chaos. And then one night Brian woke to hear Carl say urgently, "Come on, Brian! The chief says we’re leaving!”
Brian stumbled to his feet, dressed rapidly, and stepped to
the door. As he,went out, there was a dull impact at the back of his head, a burst of dazzling lights, and he felt himself falling.
His last conscious thought as he spiraled into blackness was the realization that Carl had done it again . . .
Somewhere, there was a heavy explosion, shouts, and the sounds of running feet. Then there was another explosion, the sound of shouts, a raining of dirt, pebbles, the thud of falling rocks, shouted orders, and a blast that seemed to go on forever.
A glare of light appeared, and a rough voice said, “There’s one, Duke! There’s one that didn’t get away!”
Rough hands gripped Brian by the arms.
An open hand slapped him stingingly across the face.
The light glared in his eyes, and the Duke was looking at him with a cold intensity.
Chapter 11
Brian, seeing the spot he was in, groped for some way out. Before the Duke had the chance to speak, Brian said angrily, “Did that yellow-haired Judas get away?”
The Duke looked puzzled, then turned as two of his men came over, supporting a battered and swearing Smitty.
A look of perfect mutual understanding passed between Brian and Smitty. If Smitty had had any lingering doubt as to what had caused Brian’s original delay in joining the rest of Cardan’s men, it was gone now. Angrily, he said to Brian, “I tried to catch him, but he got away.”
Brian said, “He smashed me over the head and knocked me senseless.”
“I know. Then I chased him, and he cracked me over the head. He jumped into some kind of truck and a whole bunch of people went right out through the wall.”
Smitty was obviously trying the same gambit that had occurred to Brian. The only trouble was that, first, it all rang slightly false to Brian’s ears; and second, if the Duke separated them, they would have no chance to get together on a story. Brian might say one thing and Smitty something else. The only chance they had seemed to come from the unmistakable indignation in their voices. The men around the Duke looked puzzled. The Duke himself glanced first at Brian, then at Smitty, as if urging them to go on.
But Brian, who’d had very little practice in misrepresenting things, was afraid of the fantastic and transparent web of lies he might spin if he once got started. Smitty, on the other hand, had no way to know what Brian might already have said, and was afraid to go on for fear he might contradict him.
The Duke was glancing impatiently from one to the other when Brian realized Smitty’s predicament.
With silence now stretched to the breaking point, there rose from the depths of Brian’s subconscious a liar’s credo that he had heard somewhere: Always stick as close to the truth as possible—only change what has to be changed.
With this for a guide, Brian said, “Something woke me up. I said, ‘Carl?’ Then he said something like ‘The chief wants us outside.’ So I got dressed and came out. The instant I opened the door there was a blinding flash, and the next thing I remember there were rocks and dirt raining down around me.”
The Duke remained silent, but one of the Duke’s men said, “How come you knew it was Carl? It was dark in the room, wasn’t it?”
Brian perspired. He had uttered only four sentences and already he was trapped.
Smitty got him out of it. “Carl would get up and prowl around at night.” This was true enough, as, before Cardan’s warning, all three of them had prowled around at night.
The Duke glanced at Brian. “Carl said, ‘The chief wants us outside.’ And you thought he meant me?”
Brian realized that this had been another mistake, but he managed a convincing shrug. “Who else?”
One of the Duke’s men said, “That’s what the rest of the scientists called the head scientist who smokes the cigars— chief.”
“Then,” said the Duke, “evidently Carl found some way to get to the others, and threw in with them. Just as he was leaving, someone called him, and he was nervous and afraid he’d be followed, so—” The Duke glanced at Brian. “Let’s feel that bump.” Brian winced as the Duke’s fingers probed the tender spot, and then the Duke said, “Obviously, these two were fighting on our side. Let them go so they can check the machine shed for us.”
Brian and Smitty were greatly relieved by the Duke’s leniency with them, but not by the change that came over the base as the Duke pointed out to his shame-faced followers what could have happened if this had been an attack instead of an escape. Discipline was tightened up, and Brian and Smitty found themselves constantly guarded— not, apparently, because the Duke really distrusted them, but just to be on the safe side. In the next few weeks the new and stricter routine became solidly established, and Brian and Smitty couldn’t see the slightest possibility for escape.
The Duke’s most distant patrols reported the successful escape of Cardan’s men, Anne, and Carl. Anne, the Duke never mentioned, but he determinedly put his energies into repairing the damage done to his base and his plans.
By now, the Duke had acquired more old steam engines and steam cars. Some he wanted made very light and fast. Some he wanted made into the equivalent of armored tanks. Others were to be shielded around the engine and part of the cargo section, and equipped to carry heavy loads of water and fuel. Gradually, a steam-powered armored force came into existence, capable of moving over the roads in a body at thirty or forty miles an hour by day.
The steam-powered workshop in the shed was now equipped with power lathes, drills, saws, and a blacksmith shop. The Duke was selecting the best-fitted of his men to do skilled work, and the competition was keen because of the relief from the continuous exercises and drills.
By now, the Duke’s men had regular ranks and insignia, and a standard uniform to be worn at all times except when off duty. But the men were busy and off-duty hours were rare. Flying squads of cavalry roamed the countryside hunting for “karbists.” The Duke’s armored force prowled the roads and highways, spotting towns that had been taken over by gangs, sending word back to the base by fast steam-car, and often by their mere appearance overawing and demoralizing the gangs before the infantry arrived in short trains of steam-drawn wagons.
Brian went along on one of these trips, huddled between the driver and the gunner, sucking in oven-hot air and feeling his nerve-ends tingle at the thought of what could happen if a high-velocity bullet should slam through the improvised armor and pierce the boiler. His experiences led him to provide heavier armor for selected parts of the steam cars, relocate the boilers, and put in a device to provide ventilation for the men.
He and Smitty now had in mind what they could do if they could only get one of the faster steam cars fueled and ready, and a half-hour’s head start. But now the Duke’s guards were perpetually alert, kept that way by special exercises, by a squad of daredevil “guard-catchers” whose job it was to get past careless guards, and by a merit system that brought extra privileges to guards who halted the “guard-catchers” with a shouted warning, and extra kitchen-duty to those who failed to spot them in time.
The Duke’s men were gradually becoming an elite corps, with the pride o1 such an organization, and while they regarded Brian as one of themselves, he could not get out because he lacked the proper pass, and the Duke saw to it that either he or Smitty was always on strenuous duty at the base when the other was out.
Late spring turned to summer. The Duke’s territory expanded, and his army grew with the volunteer sons of farmers and town dwellers, eager for the chance to rid the country of outlaws and parasites.
As the summer passed, the Duke’s control reached farther, and became stronger at the same time. Brian and Smitty were kept working on steam locomotives, and they now had a trained crew to help them. By fall, the crew was doing all the maintenance work, and Brian and Smitty had a combined laboratory and office in a workshop that had grown to the size of a small factory.
One day in late fall, Brian looked up from a new chemical bench, and realized that he was no nearer to Montana than he had been that spring. He was here. Anne—and
Carl— were there. And the chances of escape were worsening. It was no longer possible to escape the Duke’s grasp by going thirty miles away. His control now stretched out for well over a hundred miles, with the fast steam-cars providing a delivery and messenger service that knit the whole together. Brian himself had helped work out the compound for the signal flares and design the mirrors that soon would be used to flash warnings and messages from one end of the Duke’s domain to the other, along a special chain of stations centering at his headquarters. At a word of command, the roads could be blocked and the guard posts alerted for fugitives. If Brian was going to escape, he should do it now.
But Brian was determined to escape with Smitty, and the Duke chose this time to send Smitty out with a crew to repair a steam locomotive that had just been found by a scouting party.
Time passed.
The chain of signal stations was completed, the guards remained as alert as ever, and then the countryside was deep in snow, the streams iced over, and the mercury hovering, around zero.
One evening in the pit of winter, when the temperature had plunged deeper yet, the Duke sent for Brian. After questioning Brian closely on the progress of his work, the Duke leaned back in his big chair and put his feet on the shiny bumper of a cast-iron stove that radiated a steady comforting warmth.
“You’ve done well, Brian,” said the Duke expansively. “You don’t mind if I call you Brian, do you?”
“No, of course not,” said Brian, puzzled by the sudden friendliness.
“I’ve watched you,” said the Duke, beaming, and pulling over a kind of humidor on wheels. “You’ve done good work.”
The Day the Machines Stopped Page 11