by A. V. Clarke
“Proof! You expect to prove to me that you can fly to Mars!” expostulated Lin. “I thought the idea of a colony in the Arctic was crazy, but the notion of flying for Mars—I don't believe it,” he finished. “This is just a clever trick to deceive Victor.”
“Listen to the idiot drivel,” put in Syme.
“Oh, Lin. Don’t make me lose faith in you, don’t revert to type. I thought you were something extra special, the very thing we needed to convince doubters of the CC’s fallibility. Wait,” she said swiftly as Lin began to speak. “Don't say anything more until we get to—to where we’re going.”
She went quickly to a wide cupboard, set flush in the wall, and pulled out armfuls of clothes.
“Here, you,” to Wray. “I don’t know your name, but if you are a friend of Lin’s, you'd better come with us. Take 'these clothes and change as fast as you can. Then clear up this rubbish.” She pointed at the two trussed guardsmen.
“At your service,” beamed Wray, the prospect of action bringing him to life. “The name’s Wray. Do you want these two killed, or shall we take them wherever we’re going?”
“Oh!” The concept had startled Merryl. “Why, I suppose we shall have to take them with us. How awkward, yet I can’t kill them in cold blood.”
“Why not?” snapped Syme. “As long as they live, they can give us away.”
“No.” Merryl set her chin. “We take them with us.”
She walked across to the door set in the far wall. It opened as she reached it and closed behind her slender form. Lin and Wray sorted the pile of clothes and clambered into close-fitting suits of processed gabardine. They found calf length boots of soft hide, and tucked the bottoms of their trouser leg£ inside. Syme had similarly clothed himself, and the three stood ready when Merryl returned. Although she was wearing identical clothing, Lin saw her shapely body did things to the cloth that neither Syme’s or Wray’s could do.
Syme opened a microfilm spool lying carelessly on a spindly legged table and withdrew a key. Lin watched intently, realising that the casual unconcern of Syme’s manner and the hiding place of the key masked a Secret.
“Merryl, ask these two to step inside whilst I get the —the extra equipment,” Syme said over his shoulder.
“That’s all right, Syme. We must trust them, and they look as though they will prove very useful with your extra equipment.” She gave a light laugh. “Very prettily put, Syme.”
Syme grunted, and bent over the stuffed arm of the couch. Lin saw him insert the key somewhere along the junction of arm and back, then the whole arm swung soundlessly away from the seat.
“The ‘extra equipment,’ as Syme so adequately puts ?t,” said Merryl, “consists of weapons. Sometimes they are necessary.”
Lin was handed an unfamiliar weapon by Syme, who looked 'as though he would have like to use it on him instead.
“How do you use this thing?” asked Lin.
Wray took it easily out of his hands.
“Like this,” he said, confidently, his fingers moving efficiently over the weapon. Then a comical look of dismay spread over his face. “Why, this isn’t a—”
“Of course not, you clumsy oaf,” shouted Syme, springing to his feet and snatching the gun from Wray’s nerveless hands. “You brainless Fifth, you might have demolished the entire room.”
“Now watch,” interposed Merryl, picking up her own gun. “This may look like an ordinary high-velocity rifle, but that has been deliberately contrived to avoid awkward queries. This weapon is a radiant heat rifle. Shoots bundles of heat instead of bullets. It is not a ray gun, or anything like it.”
“Is it effective?” asked Lin.
“You’ll see if you have to use it. I advise you to notch it on low power when you start, otherwise you may ‘take large slices out of the landscape. Now grab those two guards and stop wasting time. Syme, would you ring for the brougham, please?”
Lin slung his weapon over his left shoulder and watched Syme press a combination of buttons set in a panel adjacent to the door. Wray stepped forward sharply, his pale eyes thoughtful on Syme.
“What’s he up to now?” Wray moved his weapon, uneasily.
“That’s quite all right, friend Wray,” smiled Merryl. “Syme is calling our brougham. I don’t think you Fifths quite realise the extent of remote control invention that has been installed throughout the First Level. CC runs most of it, naturally, but there are subsidiary control centres, operating broughams, food services, cleaning and disinfecting, transways and hundreds of the daily duties of life. We Firsts hardly have to lift a finger to help ourselves.”
“You don’t sound as though you find it a paradise,” commented Lin.
“Personally, no.” Merryl punched the button of the door viciously. “Most Firsts just wallow. Here’s the brougham now.”
Slinging the guardsmen over their shoulders, Lin and Wray followed Merryl and Syme out of the door. Purring softly, balancing effortlessly on two tandem wheels, a large brougham, called and operated by remote control, waited.
Bundling the unconscious guards inside, the four seated themselves and the vehicle shot away without a sound. As it increased speed, Lin watched fascinatedly the way in which it negotiated corners, slowing and speeding up, with no visible hand at the controls. As their speed , mounted the sound of the tyres penetrated the transparent canopy.
“Suppose we run into a patrol?” enquired Lin.
“Unlikely,” replied Merryl. “We use this tunnel at frequent intervals, guards don’t often come this way, there is not a great deal of interest at the far end.” She chuckled.
Wray fingered his heat rifle and glanced through the canopy.
“I’d just like to meet some guards, with this little baby set full.”
“And bring a tunnel roof down and bury us all, of course, you idiot,” said Syme.
“I may be a Fourth,” said Wray, slowly, “but your tone annoys me. Just remember—”
“Cut it, Wray,” said Lin, sharply. “Let’s get to this mysterious hideout and find out why we will automatically go over to Merryl’s side. After that we can deal with Syme.”
Lin felt a shock run through him. Had he dared to say those words, a naked threat to a First? They had stumbled out before he realised quite what he was saying. Something had changed in his life—he glanced at Merryl, seated by his side.
The brougham purred to a halt, facing an arched metal door. They all alighted, dragging the guards unceremoniously behind. Lin studied the door, noticing its immense strength.
“What now?” he asked Merryl.
“Now the fun begins in earnest.” Merryl pulled her heat rifle forward on her shoulder.
Lin felt a chill sense of foreboding, but followed Merryl to the door. She placed the palm of her hand against the thermo-control and the door slid upwards. The bottom edge of the door was spiked like a portcullis.
At first Lin did not quite realise what he was looking at through the opened door. A mass of green, splashed with violent colours, towering away until it lost itself from view high up among menacing shadows. Thick creepers, gigantic, soft, sappy tree stems, exotic orchids, a pungent, rotting odour of decaying vegetation. An everpresent buzz and hum of insects; a damp, humid heat that soaked him in perspiration before he had gone ten yards.
“What madhouse is this?” gasped Wray.
Lin answered automatically, without thinking, the information coming from some unknown source deep within his mind.
“This is part of the Hydroponics section, a part that has gone wild, reverted to nature and developed freaks that nature never dreamed of.” He was awed by the vastness of it.
“Lin, how did you know that?” Merryl was genuinely surprised, Lin saw, and knew that he could not answer her.
“I don’t know,” he replied, shortly, and strode on, sweating.
Syme came muttering behind, a guard bundled under his arm.
“Can’t we dispose of these carrion now,” he demanded.
“No, Syme. We will not murder unnecessarily,” Merryl turned back to him, face serious.
“Well, get one of these Fifths to carry him, then,” and Syme threw the guard to the 'ground with deliberately brutal force.
Without comment Lin hoisted the guard to his shoulder, and heard the man give a moan.
“They’re coming round,” he said, unemotionally. “They should be able to walk soon.”
“Up here, Lin.” Merryl swung lithely into the lower branches of a creeper-draped tree, and Lin saw that this tree was barkless. The protection that nature had devised for her trees above ground had never been developed here, all the trees being soft and easily cut.
They clambered up a series of notches hacked in the trunk, higher and higher, the light, gaining in intensity as they neared the shining globes spaced among the trees. Coming out onto a small railed platform, Lin saw before them a creeper-hung bridge, a long, swaying pathway slung high above the floor, stretching out from tree to tree, camouflaged by cunning hands to resemble the haphazard growth of natural vegetation.
Along this perilous arch they moved cautiously, stepping from rung to rung carefully, beating off the attacks of swarms of midges and biting insects. With one hand for the guard over his shoulder and the other for the rail, Lin soon felt exhausted. But he bit his lip and struggled on. He did not intend to appear a weakling before Merryl. He saw' with self conscious satisfaction that Syme was making heavy weather of the journey, even though he was a large and healthy specimen for a First. No doubt that accounted for his bitter reaction against his own class.
The guard on Lin’s shoulder began to struggle feebly against his bonds, and Lin almost slid a foot between two rungs of the bridge.
“Hold on a moment.” Lin brat and deposited the guard along the bridge, which was swaying with their movements. Moisture dropped from his face and he wiped a hand across his eyes. The stifling heat was enervating and he felt like drinking and never stopping. The heat gun across his other shoulder slid forward and he crooked it in his elbow, shrugging it back with an impatient jerk.
The spidery bridge was swaying from side to side. Lin had to throw both arms out to the rails to maintain his balance. He looked at the others, about to yell to them to stop, when he realised that they were all motionless. There was no wind. He glanced ahead uneasily, trying to peer, into a blossoming riot of fronds and orchids cascading from a gigantic trunk just in front—a gorgeous mass that hid the bridge’s junction with the tree. His spine prickled.
Almost too quick for sight, a pink form leaped down onto the bridge, snarling furiously, and bounded straight for Lin. His reactions followed so fast that it was all over before he realised that he had moved.
He jerked the heat rifle off his shoulder with one convulsive heave, levelled it and pressed the trigger without taking conscious aim. The snarling, whiskered face charging down on him disappeared without a sound, a blast of heat seared leaves and creepers, the bridge gyrated violently.
Wray came shuffling up to stand just behind Lin, rifle advanced. They looked down among the vegetation, far down, to where the remnants of the animal dropped, twisting and turning, to vanish at last among the greenery.
There was an unpleasant smell in the air.
Lin felt sick and leaned back for a moment against the solid comfort of Wray’s brawny body. Then he straightened and shook his head, clearing his mind.
“What was that?” Wray’s voice was a trifle unsteady.
Merryl, her rifle efficient in dainty hands, replied with a voice that trembled under tight control. •
“A cat.”
“A cat!” Lin looked down again, to where the carcase had vanished. “It was as big as ten cats.”
“Another mutation. Ideally suited for life in this artificial jungle. They are not a menace in the same way as the rats; there are too few. But as you saw they are awkward beasts to run across.”
“Let’s hope we don’t meet another, then,” said Lin.
“We might. They usually hunt in pairs. Keep your eyes peeled.”
“Pussy cats,” grumbled Wray. “And I didn't get a shot in. You were mighty fast there, Lin. We owe out lives to you.”
“Forget it,” said Lin, and felt a glow of pleasure.
Merryl turned back and gave a sharp exclamation.
“Syme! What are you doing?”
“Something that should have been done long ago. And something we should do to these two now.”
As he spoke, Syme heaved the second guardsman over the bridge rail and watched gloatingly as the body fell between exotic blooms out of sight.
Lin swung up his rifle.
“We should execute you for murder, right now, Syme,” he said, gratingly.
“Yes? How far. do you think you’d get without me?”
Merryl hid her face in her hands.
“How could you, Syme?” she said.
“Blame that on this crawling Fifth,” said Syme, brutally.
“On Lin? I don’t see—”
“You will, when he betrays you and all of us to *this paranoic Victor.”
Into Lin’s mind there leapt a concept that staggered him with its sheer audacity. Syme was jealous of him! Of him, Lin, a common, stupid, labouring Fifth! A high and mighty First was jealous of a lowly Fifth, Frightened that he would take his girl. And then the full enormity of it hit Lin and made him gasp. He, ‘a Fifth, could never hope to marry a First!
Then Lin lifted his head and laughed. He laughed and clung weakly to the bridge handrail.
“What’s so funny, Lin?” said Wray.
“You wouldn’t understand—but—but—”
Merryl looked from Lin to Syme, who was glowering with brows a black line across his face. Then she flushed.
“Come on,” she snapped. “What’s happened’s happened. Lin, control yourself.” She moved off along the bridge and Lin hastened to pass her and take the lead again.
Wray muttered to himself, slung his rifle over his shoulder and fell in behind. They clambered into the giant tree, forcing their way past, rank scented blooms a foot across, and began to mount footholds cut in the trunk.
“Stop, Lin. We’re at the elevator.” Merryl pushed past Lin, scraped away vines and leaves from a metal grille. Black cables snaked upwards from it.
The four crowded into the cage and slammed the door. Merryl pushed a button and with a mounting whine the cage was hauled upwards. This was no super-speed modern elevator, but one of the first installations, and lack of attention caused it to wheeze and complain as it laboured up.
The cage jerked and shuddered, then stopped, as if thankful to have reached the end of another journey. Merryl stepped out of the grille that Lin swung open for her, and the rest followed. Lin looked round quickly, then relaxed. They were in a small chamber hewn from the rock, a fluorescent overhead, another elevator door before them.
“This elevator will take us to the surface. It comes up beside section C4, completely deserted after the floodings a few years ago. The West 5-37 apartments storeroom lock which I told you about when we were Outside are on the other side of the city-block.”
“Is there anything this Fifth doesn’t know about the organisation?” asked Syme, angrily.
“Yes,” answered Lin, hotly. “Where you all intend to go. And also how you managed to live so long.”
He was becoming increasingly conscious of the uncomfortable “fact that he and Syme quite obviously could not live amicably within miles of each other. The reason was more than Merryl. They had a fundamental difference in outlook on life, engendered by their respective environments, and Lin was determined that his new-found freedom should not be lost in automatic subservience to any First. Not now, after what he had been through.
They all crowded into the elevator, the doors slid to and the cage shot rapidly upwards. Lin caught a glance of amusement from Wray’s pale eyes, and looked away quickly. He had a shrewd suspicion of what Wray was thinking. Then the elevator slowed, stopped, the door sl
id back and the party found themselves facing a small air-lock door.
Here Syme took charge, going ahead and opening the valves. He turned off sharply as soon as they were through, the doors grating rustily behind them, and he disappeared into the mouth of a tumble-down stone building.
“This used to be a cinema,” commented Merryl, leaning on her rifle. “We find it useful for storage purposes.”
Lin had been surprised to find warm sunshine Outside. He looked round, breathing fresh air gratefully, noticing small patches of greenery struggling to burst through the piles of debris and rubble. Across an impossibly blue sky floated tufts of white, that he knew were clouds. He felt somehow a part of this world Outside the city-block, almost as though he belonged here, and the ‘mole-like existence he had ‘always known was merely a dream.
A low rumble started in the wrecked cinema, then a high-pitched whistle. A shining disc inched out, followed by the snout of a machine.
Lin looked enquiringly at Merryl, but before he could put his question she hefted her rifle and walked easily forward.
“This is a helicopter, Lin. One of the few that were left after the wars and one of the two that we possess in the organisation. You needn’t be uneasy as to its efficiency. We have used it many times.”
Lin looked with interest at the new machine. He saw a capacious cabin, large vanes swung on a strong upright above, control surfaces smoothly covered with metallic skin. Then the shock hit him.
He had always taken for granted the fact that he had understood the mechanics of the vacuaminer machines and similar intricate mechanisms with which he had worked for years. But now, just looking at the outside of the helicopter, he realised that he understood thoroughly its whole function. Circuits, connections, wiring, all lay bare to his mind as though a blueprint had been presented to him. Then he shrugged. Just a useful knack—and forgot it in annoyance as Syme’s voice floated across from the cockpit.
“Come on. Fifths, we haven’t got all day.”
Merryl vaulted easily into the cabin, and Wray and Lin climbed after her more cautiously. They settled down in pneumatic seats and Syme opened up the throttle.