The Runaway Skyscraper

by Murray Leinster

  XI.

  Arthur urged the elevator boy to greater speed. They were speeding upthe shaft as rapidly as possible, but it was not fast enough. Whenthey at last reached the height at which the excitement seemed tobe centered, the car was stopped with a jerk and Arthur dashed downthe hall.

  Half a dozen frightened stenographers stood there, huddled together.

  "What's the matter?" Arthur demanded. Men were running, from theother floors to see what the trouble was.

  "The--the windows broke, and--and something flew in at us!" one ofthem gasped. There was a crash inside the nearest office and thewomen screamed again.

  Arthur drew a revolver from his pocket and advanced to the door. Hequickly threw it open, entered, and closed it behind him. Thoseleft out in the hall waited tensely.

  There was no sound. The women began to look even more frightened. Themen shuffled their feet uneasily, and looked uncomfortably at oneanother. Van Deventer appeared on the scene, puffing a little fromhis haste.

  The door opened again and Arthur came out. He was carrying somethingin his hands. He had put his revolver aside and looked somewhatfoolish but very much delighted.

  "The food question is settled," he said happily. "Look!"

  He held out the object he carried. It was a bird, apparently apigeon of some sort. It seemed to have been stunned, but as Arthurheld it out it stirred, then struggled, and in a moment was flappingwildly in an attempt to escape.

  "It's a wood-pigeon," said Arthur. "They must fly after darksometimes. A big flock of them ran afoul of the tower and weredazed by the lights. They've broken a lot of windows, I dare say,but a great many of them ran into the stonework and were stunned. Iwas outside the tower, and when I came in they were dropping tothe ground by hundreds. I didn't know what they were then, but ifwe wait twenty minutes or so I think we can go out and gather upour supper and breakfast and several other meals, all at once."

  Estelle had appeared and now reached out her hands for the bird.

  "I'll take care of this one," she said. "Wouldn't it be a goodidea to see if there aren't some more stunned in the other offices?"

  * * * * *

  In half an hour the electric stoves of the restaurant were going attheir full capacity. Men, cheerfully excited men now, were bringingin pigeons by armfuls, and other men were skinning them. There wasno time to pluck them, though a great many of the women were busilyengaged in that occupation.

  As fast as the birds could be cooked they were served out to theimpatient but much cheered castaways, and in a little while nearlyevery person in the place was walking casually about the hallswith a roasted, broiled, or fried pigeon in his hands. The ovenswere roasting pigeons, the frying-pans were frying them, and thebroilers were loaded down with the small but tender birds.

  The unexpected solution of the most pressing question cheeredevery one amazingly. Many people were still frightened, but lessfrightened than before. Worry for their families still oppresseda great many, but the removal of the fear of immediate hunger ledthem to believe that the other problems before them would be solved,too, and in as satisfactory a manner.

  Arthur had returned to his office with four broiled pigeons ina sheet of wrapping-paper. As he somehow expected, Estelle waswaiting there.

  "Thought I'd bring lunch up," he announced. "Are you hungry?"

  "Starving!" Estelle replied, and laughed.

  The whole catastrophe began to become an adventure. She bit eagerlyinto a bird. Arthur began as hungrily on another. For some timeneither spoke a word. At last, however, Arthur waved the leg ofhis second pigeon toward his desk.

  "Look what we've got here!" he said.

  Estelle nodded. The stunned pigeon Arthur had first picked up wastied by one foot to a paper-weight.

  "I thought we might keep him for a souvenir," she suggested.

  "You seem pretty confident we'll get back, all right," Arthurobserved. "It was surely lucky those blessed birds came along.They've heartened up the people wonderfully!"

  "Oh, I knew you'd manage somehow!" said Estelle confidently.

  "I manage?" Arthur repeated, smiling. "What have I done?"

  "Why, you've done everything," affirmed Estelle stoutly. "You'vetold the people what to do from the very first, and you're goingto get us back."

  Arthur grinned, then suddenly his face grew a little more serious.

  "I wish I were as sure as you are," he said. "I think we'll be allright, though, sooner or later."

  "I'm sure of it," Estelle declared with conviction. "Why, you--"

  "Why I?" asked Arthur again. He bent forward in his chair and fixedhis eyes on Estelle's. She looked up, met his gaze, and stammered.

  "You--you do things," she finished lamely.

  "I'm tempted to do something now," Arthur said. "Look here, MissWoodward, you've been in my employ for three or four months. In allthat time I've never had anything but the most impersonal commentsfrom you. Why the sudden change?"

  The twinkle in his eyes robbed his words of any impertinence.

  "Why, I really--I really suppose I never noticed you before,"said Estelle.

  "Please notice me hereafter," said Arthur. "I have been noticingyou. I've been doing practically nothing else."

  Estelle flushed again. She tried to meet Arthur's eyes andfailed. She bit desperately into her pigeon drumstick, trying tothink of something to say.

  "When we get back," went on Arthur meditatively, "I'll have nothingto do--no work or anything. I'll be broke and out of a job."

  Estelle shook her head emphatically. Arthur paid no attention.

  "Estelle," he said, smiling, "would you like to be out of a jobwith me?"

  Estelle turned crimson.

  "I'm not very successful," Arthur went on soberly. "I'm afraid Iwouldn't make a very good husband, I'm rather worthless and lazy!"

  "You aren't," broke in Estelle; "you're--you're--"

  Arthur reached over and took her by the shoulders.

  "What?" he demanded.

  She would not look at him, but she did not draw away. He held herfrom him for a moment.

  "What am I?" he demanded again. Somehow he found himself kissingthe tips of her ears. Her face was buried against his shoulder.

  "What am I?" he repeated sternly.

  Her voice was muffled by his coat.

  "You're--you're dear!" she said.

  There was an interlude of about a minute and a half, then she pushedhim away from her.

  "Don't!" she said breathlessly. "Please don't!"

  "Aren't you going to marry me?" he demanded.

  Still crimson, she nodded shyly. He kissed her again.

  "Please don't!" she protested.

  She fondled the lapels of his coat, quite content to have his armsabout her.

  "Why mayn't I kiss you if you're going to marry me?" Arthur demanded.

  She looked up at him with an air of demure primness.

  "You--you've been eating pigeon," she told him in mock gravity,"and--and your mouth is greasy!"

  XII.

  It was two weeks later. Estelle looked out over the now familiarwild landscape. It was much the same when she looked far away,but near by there were great changes.

  A cleared trail led through the woods to the waterfront, and araft of logs extended out into the river for hundreds of feet.Both sides of the raft were lined with busy fishermen--men andwomen, too. A little to the north of the base of the building ahuge mound of earth smoked sullenly. The coal in the cellar hadgiven out and charcoal had been found to be the best substitutethey could improvise. The mound was where the charcoal was made.

  It was heart-breaking work to keep the fires going with charcoal,because it burned so rapidly in the powerful draft of the furnaces,but the original fire-room gang had been recruited to severaltimes its original number from among the towerites, and the workwas divided until it did not seem hard.

  As Estelle looked down two tiny figures sauntered across the clearingfrom the woo
ds with a heavy animal slung between them. One of themwas using a gun as a walking-stick. Estelle saw the flash of thesun on its polished metal barrel.

  There were a number of Indians in the clearing, watching withwide-open eyes the activities of the whites. Dozens of birch-barkcanoes dotted the Hudson, each with its load of fishermen,industriously working for the white people. It had been hard toovercome the fear in the Indians, and they still paid superstitiousreverence to the whites, but fair dealings, coupled with a constantreadiness to defend themselves, had enabled Arthur to institute asystem of trading for food that had so far proved satisfactory.

  The whites had found spare electric-light bulbs valuable currency indealing with the redmen. Picture-wire, too, was highly prized. Therewas not a picture left hanging in any of the offices. Metalpaper-knives bought huge quantities of provisions from the eagerIndian traders, and the story was current in the tower that Arthurhad received eight canoe-loads of corn and vegetables in exchangefor a broken-down typewriter. No one could guess what the savageswanted with the typewriter, but they had carted it away triumphantly.

  Estelle smiled tenderly to herself as she remembered how Arthur hadbeen the leading spirit in all the numberless enterprises in whichthe castaways had been forced to engage. He would come to her in aspare ten minutes, and tell her how everything was going. He seemedcuriously boylike in those moments.

  Sometimes he would come straight from the fire-room--he insisted ontaking part in all the more arduous duties--having hastily cleanedhimself for her inspection, snatch a hurried kiss, and then gooff, laughing, to help chop down trees for the long fishing-raft.He had told them how to make charcoal, had taken a leading part inestablishing and maintaining friendly relations with the Indians,and was now down in the deepest sub-basement, working with a gangof volunteers to try to put the building back where it belonged.

  Estelle had said, after the collapse of the flooring inthe board-room, that she heard a sound like the rushing ofwaters. Arthur, on examining the floor where the safe-deposit vaultstood, found it had risen an inch. On these facts he had built uphis theory. The building, like all modern sky-scrapers, rested onconcrete piles extending down to bedrock. In the center of one ofthose piles there was a hollow tube originally intended to serveas an artesian well. The flow had been insufficient and the wellhad been stopped up.

  Arthur, of course, as an engineer, had studied the construction ofthe building with great care, and happened to remember that thispartly hollow pile was the one nearest the safe-deposit vault. Thecollapse of the board-room floor had suggested that some changehad happened in the building itself, and that was found when hesaw that the deposit-vault had actually risen an inch.

  He at once connected the rise in the flooring above the hollowpile with the pipe in the pile. Estelle had heard liquid sounds.Evidently water had been forced into the hollow artesian pipe underan unthinkable pressure when the catastrophe occurred.

  From the rumbling and the suddenness of the whole catastrophea volcanic or seismic disturbance was evident. The connection ofvolcanic or seismic action with a flow of water suggested a geyser ora hot spring of some sort, probably a spring which had broken throughits normal confines some time before, but whose pressure had beensufficient to prevent the accident until the failure of its flow.

  When the flow ceased the building sank rapidly. For the factthat this "sinking" was in the fourth direction--the FourthDimension--Arthur had no explanation. He simply knew that in somemysterious way an outlet for the pressure had developed in thatfashion, and that the tower had followed the spring in its fallthrough time.

  The sole apparent change in the building had occurred above theone hollow concrete pile, which seemed to indicate that if accesswere to be had to the mysterious, and so far only assumed spring,it must be through that pile. While the vault retained its abnormalelevation, Arthur believed that there was still water at an immenseand incalculable pressure in the pipe. He dared not attempt to tapthe pipe until the pressure had abated.

  At the end of a week he found the vault slowly settling back intoplace. When its return to the normal was complete he dared beginboring a hole to reach the hollow tube in the concrete pile.

  As he suspected, he found water in the pile--water whose sulfurousand mineral nature confirmed his belief that a geyser reaching deepinto the bosom of the earth, as well as far back in the realms oftime, was at the bottom of the extraordinary jaunt of the tower.

  Geysers were still far from satisfactory things to explain. Thereare many of their vagaries which we cannot understand at all.We do know a few things which affect them, and one thing is that"soaping" them will stimulate their flow in an extraordinary manner.

  Arthur proposed to "soap" this mysterious geyser when the renewalof its flow should lift the runaway sky-scraper back to the epochfrom which the failure of the flow had caused it to fall.

  He made his preparations with great care. He confidently expectedhis plan to work, and to see the sky-scraper once more toweringover mid-town New York as was its wont, but he did not allow thefishermen and hunters to relax their efforts on that account. Theylabored as before, while deep down in the sub-basement of thecolossal building Arthur and his volunteers toiled mightily.

  They had to bore through the concrete pile until they reached thehollow within it. Then, when the evidence gained from the waterin the pipe had confirmed his surmises, they had to prepare their"charge" of soapy liquids by which the geyser was to be stirred torenewed activity.

  Great quantities of the soap used by the scrubwomen in scrubbingdown the floors was boiled with water until a sirupy mess wasevolved. Means had then to be provided by which this could be quicklyintroduced into the hollow pile, the hole then closed, and thenbraced to withstand a pressure unparalleled in hydraulic science.Arthur believed that from the hollow pile the soapy liquid wouldfind its way to the geyser proper, where it would take effect instimulating the lessened flow to its former proportions. When thattook place he believed that the building would return as swiftlyand as surely as it had left them to normal, modern times.

  The telephone rang in his office, and Estelle answered it. Arthurwas on the wire. A signal was being hung out for all the castawayto return to the building from their several occupations. They wereabout to soap the geyser.

  Did Estelle want to come down and watch? She did! She stood in themain hallway as the excited and hopeful people trooped in. Whenthe last was inside the doors were firmly closed. The few friendlyIndians outside stared perplexedly at the mysterious white strangers.

  The whites, laughing excitedly, began to wave to the Indians. Theirleave-taking was premature.

  Estelle took her way down into the cellar. Arthur was awaiting herarrival. Van Deventer stood near, with the grinning, grimy membersof Arthur's volunteer work gang. The massive concrete pile stoodin the center of the cellar. A big steam-boiler was coupled to atiny pipe that led into the heart of the mass of concrete. Arthurwas going to force the soapy liquid into the hollow pile by steam.

  At a signal steam began to hiss in the boiler. Live steam fromthe fire-room forced the soapy sirup out of the boiler, throughthe small iron pipe, into the hollow that led to the geyser farunderground. Six thousand gallons in all were forced into theopening in a space of three minutes.

  Arthur's grimy gang began to work with desperate haste. Quicklythey withdrew the iron pipe and inserted a long steel plug,painfully beaten from a bar of solid metal. Then, girding thecolossal concrete pile, ring after ring of metal was slipped on,to hold the plug in place.

  The last of the safeguards was hardly fastened firmly when Estellelistened intently.

  "I hear a rumbling!" she said quietly.

  Arthur reached forward and put his hand on the mass of concrete.

  "It is quivering!" he reported as quietly. "I think we'll be onour way in a very little while."

  The group broke for the stairs, to watch the panorama as the runawaysky-scraper made its way back through the thousands of years tothe times t
hat had built it for a monument to modern commerce.

  Arthur and Estelle went high up in the tower. From the window ofArthur's office they looked eagerly, and felt the slight quiver asthe tower got under way. Estelle looked up at the sun, and saw itmend its pace toward the west.

  Night fell. The evening sounds became high-pitched and shrill,then seemed to cease altogether.

  In a very little while there was light again, and the sun wasspeeding across the sky. It sank hastily, and returned almostimmediately, _via_ the east. Its pace became a breakneck rush. Downbehind the hills and up in the east. Down in the west, up in theeast. Down and up-- The flickering began. The race back toward moderntimes had started.

  Arthur and Estelle stood at the window and looked out as the sunrushed more and more rapidly across the sky until it became but astreak of light, shifting first to the right and then to the leftas the seasons passed in their turn.

  With Arthur's arms about her shoulders, Estelle stared out acrossthe unbelievable landscape, while the nights and days, the wintersand summers, and the storms and calms of a thousand years sweptpast them into the irrevocable past.

  Presently Arthur drew her to him and kissed her. While he kissedher, so swiftly did the days and years flee by, three generationswere born, grew and begot children, and died again!

  Estelle, held fast in Arthur's arms, thought nothing of such trivialthings. She put her arms about his neck and kissed him, while theyears passed them unheeded.

  * * * * *

  Of course you know that the building landed safely, in the exacthour, minute, and second from which it started, so that when thefrightened and excited people poured out of it to stand in MadisonSquare and feel that the world was once more right side up, theirhilarious and incomprehensible conduct made such of the world aswas passing by think a contagious madness had broken out.

  Days passed before the story of the two thousand was believed, butat last it was accepted as truth, and eminent scientists studiedthe matter exhaustively.

  There has been one rather queer result of the journey of therunaway sky-scraper. A certain Isidore Eckstein, a dealer in jewelrynovelties, whose office was in the tower when it disappeared into thepast, has entered suit in the courts of the United States againstall the holders of land on Manhattan Island. It seems that duringthe two weeks in which the tower rested in the wilderness he tradedindependently with one of the Indian chiefs, and in exchange fortwo near-pearl necklaces, sixteen finger-rings, and one dollar inmoney, received a title-deed to the entire island.--He claims thathis deed is a conveyance made previous to all other sales whatever.

  Strictly speaking, he is undoubtedly right, as his deed wassigned before the discovery of America. The courts, however, aredeliberating the question with a great deal of perplexity.

  Eckstein is quite confident that in the end his claim will beallowed and he will be admitted as the sole owner of real-estateon Manhattan Island, with all occupiers of buildings and territorypaying him ground rent at a rate he will fix himself. In the meantime, though the foundations are being reinforced so the catastrophecannot occur again, his entire office is packed full of articlessuitable for trading with the Indians. If the tower makes anothertrip back through time, Eckstein hopes to become a landholder ofsome importance.

  No less than eighty-seven books have been written by members ofthe memorable two thousand in description of their trip to thehinterland of time, but Arthur, who could write more intelligentlyabout the matter than any one else, is so extremely busy thathe cannot bother with such things. He has two very importantmatters to look after. One is, of course, the reenforcement of thefoundations of the building so that a repetition of the catastrophecannot occur, and the other is to convince his wife--who is Estelle,naturally--that she is the most adorable person in the universe. Hefinds the latter task the more difficult, because she insists that_he_ is the most adorable person--

  [* Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from the February 22,1919 issue of _Argosy_ magazine.]