Manhattan Transfer

by John E. Stith

  Rudy handed him a couple of rods. Matt took one, slipped it into a sewn pocket in one corner of the tarp, and stuck the rod into the gray goo. He did the same thing with the other rod and the fourth corner of the tarp, and they had a small square roof that should stay up for an hour or so before the rods sank into the goo.

  Matt looked back inside the dome and experienced a renewed awe at seeing a structure not built by humans. The huge square building inside looked enormous now, where before in the monitor it had simply looked big. The building was bathed in deep blue light like moonlight. The video camera had corrected for light levels, but to Matt's unassisted eyes the scene was dim.

  The large round windows held no hint of what might be inside. On the ground, an irregular series of planters contained vegetation that looked both alien and dying. Perhaps the plants were in fact perfectly healthy, but the tightly curled black leaves and the gnarled and wiry black branches looked pathetic. As before Matt could see no sign of life aside from the pitiable vegetation.

  Matt stepped down, and the others each took a turn. When Rudy finished, Matt said, "Okay, Bobby Joe, how about if you get up there and try out your communication toys."

  "Sure thing!" Bobby Joe took a couple of boxes from the rear of the cart and climbed into the opening. He spent almost fifteen minutes making discouraging noises, and then finally came down.

  He set the boxes back on the cart. "Nothing. I beamed in both light and RF, in a range of frequencies. I listened for everything I could. Either they don't hear us, or they're ignoring us."

  Matt took a large wrench from the cart, and climbed up. He took a long look for any sign of activity before he finally tapped the wrench against the bubble. It made a bong like bouncing it against a battle–cruiser hull. He swung the wrench harder. Ten times he swung it, slightly harder each time. The last bong might have been heard back in Manhattan.

  For several more minutes, he stared at the silent building, still seeing no signs of activity. He climbed back down into the tunnel.

  "Very strange. Enough of these domes are so obviously populated, I'm having a hard time thinking our captors took an empty building, so I don't know what to think. Either these folks heard us and they're ignoring us, or maybe they're different enough that they don't even have ears. Or they don't hear in the same range we do. Or they've got some cultural thing about going outside."

  "Or talking to strangers," Abby said.

  "Does this all mean what I think it means?" Rudy asked.

  "Probably," Matt said. "I think we need to know what's going on, and I don't see any alternative but to go inside and take a look around."

  Chapter 6

  Anybody Home?

  Abby swallowed hard as she gripped one corner of the square slab of solid–feeling dark–gray material Rudy had cut from the tunnel roof. Matt, Rudy, and Bobby Joe each took the other corners. The four of them pushed the slab back into place, as though fitting a very thick and stubborn ceiling tile into the lid of the world's longest coffin.

  As the tunnel darkened again, Abby felt the claustrophobia tighten its grip on her lungs. As a kid, a friend of hers, Christie something, had closed a trunk lid while Abby was lying inside. The inability to stretch her arms and straighten her legs was even more frightening than the smothering darkness. Instantly she was afraid the trunk was soundproof and her friend wouldn't hear her cries for help. Abby screamed and nothing happened. She screamed again, pounding on the inside of the trunk lid. The lid was immovable. Panic electrified her and she suddenly imagined staying stuck in that position until she starved, or until she went crazy, which might happen first.

  At the moment when she'd given up hope, her vocal cords rough from screaming, a line of white had appeared, and the trunk lid swung upward. Abby choked. She stuck her legs out the side of the trunk so the lid couldn't close again, caring not one little bit how her legs might get hurt if her friend tried to close the lid again. But there was her friend, helping her out, as startled by Abby's reaction as Abby herself had been.

  "Good, good. That's got it," Rudy said finally, when the tough bottom of the slab came fairly close to matching the surrounding edges of the tunnel ceiling. He got a torch from one of the tool bins on the cart and applied the flame to the seam around the slab. The gray goo flowed together in the seam, like ice cream melting between counter–top tiles, and in places Abby could no longer see where the edges met. Rudy pushed a ventilation fan through a hole in the center of the restored area and sealed the goo around it.

  "Kinda messy," Bobby Joe said of the uneven seam.

  From what Abby had seen of the constant mess that seemed to follow Bobby Joe around, he was a fine one to talk. The only thing about him that always seemed clean was his bald scalp. Abby told herself Bobby Joe was probably the only one on the team not totally repulsed by the zipper–lock plastic bags they carried for emergency elimination.

  Rudy put down the torch and turned to Matt. "When we cut through the wall and tunnel to the surface inside that dome, we're going to have to put the dirt somewhere. If we want to be able to bring the borer back through this tunnel at some point, we're going to want a small side tunnel to dump the dirt in. I guess it's about time we arranged that."

  "How much time will that take?" Matt asked. "It's been a long day."

  Abby glanced at her watch and realized Matt was right. It was already after 11 P.M., and they'd started early. Suddenly she felt tired.

  "Shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes," Rudy said.

  "Okay," Matt said. "What's involved?"

  "We back up the borer maybe ten meters from where we stopped it, then turn it as much as we can while we tell it to go forward again."

  "Let's do it."

  Bobby Joe backed up the cart and the trailer while Rudy operated his hand control. The treads on the borer made a slightly higher–pitched noise when they moved in reverse, and Abby saw the back of the borer slowly come out of the darkness at the end of the tunnel. It got within a few meters of them before Rudy halted it.

  Rudy pushed another button and the plunger, a head–sized circular plate on the end of a pipe, extended toward them. "This shaft normally forces the borer away from a wall and into the opposite wall, but we can use it another way."

  Following Rudy's instructions, Matt, Abby, and Bobby Joe joined Rudy and they took positions along the plunger. When Rudy gave the signal and started the borer moving forward again, they all pushed as hard as they could against the side of the plunger, to curve the borer's path more sharply than it could handle on its own. Bobby Joe rested his back against the tunnel wall and pushed with his feet. Abby's shoulder bumped against Matt's and tingled even after the contact was lost.

  The plunger moved a few centimeters deeper into the tunnel as the borer made labored noises. Abby was afraid the pressure they exerted wasn't enough, but a moment later she had to shift position because the plunger began to move slowly toward the opposite wall as it continued to pull farther into the tunnel.

  "Looking good!" Rudy said.

  Bobby Joe fell to the floor as the plunger moved too far away, and Matt, Rudy, and Abby strained harder to maintain the curve. Soon the plunger was against the tunnel wall, and for the next couple of minutes the four of them managed to keep the end of the plunger against the wall as the borer pulled forward.

  In another minute Rudy said they could let go. They slowly followed the borer into a tunnel that grew darker and darker without the light from the cart adding to the small lights on their helmets.

  Sure enough, the tunnel split into a "Y." For a moment Abby felt as if they had been miniaturized and put inside an artery junction in a human heart. Rudy stopped and ran his hand over the narrowest section of the junction, halfway between the top and bottom. "I'd better get the torch. This section might be too weak to hold. And the tunnel face in the dead end hasn't been heated, so I'll have to torch that manually. We can probably leave the borer parked about eight hours without worrying too much about it sinking."


  "Sounds good," Matt said. "When you're done with that, we'd better get some rest."

  While Rudy was busy with the torch, Matt, Bobby Joe, and Abby retrieved sleeping bags from the cart. The sleeping bags and the flickering torchlight brought back a sudden memory of the one camping trip Abby had been on, a disastrous weekend when she was seven. Her parents had gone through a long series of vacation experiments, looking for something they would both enjoy, almost always finding out that one but not the other liked the most recent try.

  When they'd tried sailing, Abby's father loved it, but Abby's mother got seasick and lacked the coordination to maneuver quickly as the boat came about. She had been dunked twice in the frigid water off the coast of Maine before they gave up on sailing. When they tried horseback riding, her father had been doing all right until his mount rode under a stout branch. Her father complained about back pains for months after the fall.

  At first the camping trip had seemed like a success. Aside from being out of breath for about three solid hours as they hiked, all three of them enjoyed the clean air, glimpses of squirrels and birds, and the absence of the deep rumbling sounds of the city. It was only when they were setting up camp that things began to go wrong. When they'd loaded their packs with several tins of food, her dad had seen several pop–tops, so he didn't think to bring a can opener for the rest.

  Trying to open cans by using rocks and keys and other instruments at hand managed to get tempers so high that no one paid much attention to the building clouds. Abby had been amazed at how quickly the weather could change from still, clear air to a drenching downpour. Trying to sleep and stay warm in a wet sleeping bag was a never–to–be–forgotten experience. By four the next morning they were all more than ready to get up and start back for the car. And then getting lost on the way back was a vocabulary–building experience that got her father angry enough that Abby worried that he'd have a heart attack.

  Abby laid her sleeping bag and air mattress on the curved tunnel floor and pushed the switch on the pump. She sat on the floor next to it and watched as the mattress popped into shape.

  Abby hoped this camping trip was going to be better than the last one.

  Moments later she lay down on the air mattress and tried to go to sleep. Sleep normally came easiest if she was tired but not too tired, and right now she was too tired. Or too worried. She saw her parents' faces in the blackness, and she wished she could be with them again, even if they were in the same mood they were in on the camping trip.

  She wondered if she'd ever see them again, and she wished that she had some way of telling them she was safe. For now.

  #

  The arched entrance to Temple Emanu–El at Fifth Avenue and 65th Street had set a new record for the number of people passing through in a twenty–four–hour period.

  As with most places of worship, the crowd included a fair number of non–believers who were here for their first time, or their first time in years. The crowd also included a number of Jews who believed Elijah would announce the Coming of the Messiah on a Passover. With the recent upheaval coming so close to Passover, many of those same people wondered if now was the time they had been waiting for.

  #

  Matt woke before his watch alarm went off. On the cart ten meters down the tunnel, the small utility light they had left on provided a faint glow that was just enough to highlight shapes of other sleepers on the tunnel floor. Matt touched the light button on his watch, and the numbers said it was ten minutes before they were due to get up. Matt sat up and crossed his legs, trying to be quiet, but impatient to be on the move.

  The nearest sleeping bag rustled. Abby's soft voice said, "How are you doing?"

  "Okay," he whispered. "You?"

  "I'm nervous about going in there."

  "Me, too. The three of us can go in first and get you on the second trip."

  "No." Abby's whisper was intense. "I should be there, for all the reasons we've talked about. I just had to be honest."

  She was right. When they encountered aliens, they still ran the risk of accidentally saying something like, "Your food looks like rancid axle–grease," when trying to say, "It's not safe for us to eat your food." They had to tread carefully when for all they knew a casual touch on the cheek might be tantamount to suggesting sexual relations. "You're sure you're going to be okay?"

  "Positive. But thanks for being sympathetic. I wasn't sure if much of that went on in combat."

  "Well, we're not in combat."

  "Yet."

  Suddenly Bobby Joe's voice carried through the tunnel. "Time for work."

  Matt shook his head. He looked at his watch again and said, "Okay, Bobby Joe."

  After breakfast, the first order of business was an air barrier across the tunnel leading back the way they had come, to prevent contaminants in the atmosphere here from interfering with anyone trying to reach them with medical help. If the earlier remote readings were right, the pressure in the dome they were about to cut into was slightly higher than that between the domes. Unchecked, the atmosphere from this dome would flow into the tunnel and out to the open space between the domes. And despite the fact that the oxygen content should be similar, letting the different mixture shunt into the open space could very possibly show up on their captors' sensors.

  The barrier consisted of a frame built from four quarter–circle arcs, which, when fastened together, formed a circle just enough larger than the tunnel that it was a tight fit against the gray goo. Two layers of thin plastic were ample to keep the air flow negligible.

  As Matt and Abby got the air barrier in place, Rudy drilled an air hole to the outside and placed one of the blower pumps in it so there'd be a dependable source of oxygen blowing in from the outside, no matter what the dome contained. After a few minutes the pump had built up enough positive pressure that Matt's ears popped, and the pump began to slow down.

  Matt helped Rudy ready the dipole oscillator as Bobby Joe cleared off the tray on top of the cart, positioned it by the proposed opening to the dome, and scraped the goo off a square portion of the flat black barrier, a meter on each side., making a black window in the tunnel wall. The black surface leaned toward them, perhaps forty degrees from vertical. While Bobby Joe drove ahead and dumped the scrapings in the side tunnel, Rudy rolled the dipole oscillator into place.

  With the device, Rudy drew a one–meter square on the black surface. The air in the tunnel grew noticeably warmer as the device traveled along the black surface, leaving a gray line behind.

  When the gray line of weakened barrier material was complete, Rudy got out the tool he called "the cutter" and positioned it at one of the top corners of the gray outline. He switched it on, and it began to turn, strong tiny hooks snagging individual fibers, pulling them slowly around a spool, and stretching them until one by one they finally broke. The process was like cutting a very strong section of screen door whose wires ran only vertically, and sounded like fingernails run over the teeth of a comb.

  Cutting the fibers along the one–meter line took almost a half–hour, so they all took turns holding the cutter. Near the end of the cutting, Rudy stood as far back as he could while cutting the final fibers.

  With a crowbar Matt popped the top of the black square loose from the rest of the black barrier.

  The black square tipped forward into the tunnel, revealing a square meter of hard–packed dirt. Rudy folded the black square down as far as it would go. Bobby Joe scooped out enough more goo from near the bottom of the opening so the black square would fold down toward the tunnel floor instead of sticking out into the tunnel. Matt applied a torch to the newly exposed goo.

  Rudy got out the drill. "Okay. I guess it's time to check the air in there."

  Matt unhooked the air pump at the top of the tunnel and inserted the periscope. "Still no sign of activity up there," he said moments later.

  Rudy switched on the drill and slanted the long bit toward the surface. The bit tore through the dirt with little resista
nce, and dirt spilled into the tray on top of the cart. In less than a minute Rudy was pulling the bit back out. As the bit came out, a flurry of dust spurted into the tunnel, and Matt could hear the rush of air flowing through the hole. The barrier plastic billowed away from them and held, and a second later the air flow stopped. Rudy stuck a hose into the hole. Matt's ears popped again.

  On the near end of the hose was the gas analyzer. In less than a minute, Rudy gave the other three a thumb's up. "We're in business. Nitrogen's a little higher than we thought, and argon's just a little higher, but we'll be fine. Best of all, it's about twenty–three degrees C."

  Matt and Rudy took turns with the drill, making a series of slanting holes in a square pattern just inside the opening in the black barrier. Dirt spilled into the tray atop the cart, and dust swirled in the air.

  When the outline was cut, Rudy and Matt attacked the dirt with shovels and within minutes had excavated almost a cubic meter of dirt. Bobby Joe drove forward and they dumped the dirt into the dead–end tunnel.

  To Matt the dirt itself looked just like dirt on Earth. What was different was the network of black roots. One long root looked like a rope with knots every several centimeters, but was surprisingly easy to cut with the shovel.

  By the time they could see a head–sized column of dim blue light filtering through the hole to the surface, they were all coughing steadily as the dust hung in the air.

  Another twenty minutes was enough to dig a meter–square opening from the tunnel to the surface inside the dome, and by that time the dust was more manageable. A few more shovelfuls of dirt were enough to make a small ledge at waist level.