by Eando Binder
“We lost,” Sparky whispered mournfully to Aronson, sensing that Sur Vellko had not been convinced after all. “And the more he thinks it over, the more crazy it will seem to him. We lost.”
Aronson had the same bleak feeling.
Chapter 7
But Paige had been nosing around the lab and its equipment, not much different from that of upper earth. “Look,” he said, “electronic stuff all over. And there’s something I’ve wanted to try, something better than the rock-penetrating radio I devised to keep in contact with you, Dr. Aronson, when you first went underground. There is only one sure way of convincing Sur Vellko…”
He turned to the albino, switching to the underworld language. “Sur Vellko, suppose you were to see our upper world with your own eyes?”
The albino gestured in distaste. “I will not make the hazardous trip to the upper regions or go through the Fire Zone, not at my age.”
“But I mean seeing our world right here in your lab,” went on Paige, his enthusiasm growing. “I think I can use your equipment to construct a vision-screen—television, we call it above. Or a form of TV with modifications.” Sparky and Aronson now exchanged startled looks.
“You must be off your nut, Sarge,” said Sparky bluntly. “It was hard enough poking down with a high-powered radio beam. To get TV radiations through solid rock for 4000 miles…besides, you’ve got it all twisted. TV radiations have to be sent down to us.”
“Not the way I plan it,” returned Paige quickly. “But I’ll explain later. The important thing right now is to use this lab for the next couple of weeks—with Sur Vellko’s permission, of course.”
The albino thought for a moment. Then his lips twisted. “The upper world is a delusion, even if you make such a device. It is pointless to do it.”
Paige bit his lip. Then a sly look came in his eye. “Regardless of showing our upper world, is such a far-seeing device useless? Think of a screen to which you could tune in scenes from a far-off cave thousands of miles away? And all other caves too?”
The underworld scientist stiffened, and his eyes began to glow. “We have no such viewing device. Stone always blocked the radiations we used. We are blind, in a sense.” His voice firmed. “All right, Evan Paige. I grant you permission to work here in my lab for a period of fifteen days, no longer.”
Paige felt like dancing. “That should be enough. I’ve had the circuits worked out in my mind for some time. It’s just a matter of turning an idea into hardware.” He took off his coat. “And I’m starting right now.”
“You can sleep here if you wish,” offered Vellko. “I have the facilities.”
“Good, that’ll let me work late hours.”
“How about me helping, Sarge?” said Sparky eagerly. “I’m pretty good at soldering connections and flipping switches, you know.”
“Yes, I could use your help everyday,” agreed Paige. “Also Dr. Aronson’s aid.” He looked inquiringly at Sur Vellko.
The albino spread his hands, smiling wryly. “It seems I have no choice. Just leave a little corner of my lab for my own work.”
A pretty nice guy, thought Paige. He was, in a sense, paving the way for the downfall of his own theoretical house of cards, which proved he was a real scientist, seeking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Paige had found a pad and a writing tool and was already sketching out an intricate electronic circuit, with a pioneering gleam in his eye.
* * * *
“Sarge, it just can’t work,” bleated Sparky for the tenth time that day. They had been working a week and on a workbench rested the skeleton circuits, not yet mounted into a box. “In TV, a transmitter sends you powerful waves which you pick up with your receiving set. Where’s the TV-transmitter up above that can send radiations down to us, buried under a pile of rock? Huh? Answer me that, genius.”
Dr. Aronson answered instead, raising his head from a meter with which he tested individual circuits. “It’s not conventional TV, Sparky. It will be more like a combination of TV and radar.”
“You guessed it,” said Paige. “But it’s going to be a reversed kind of radar. It will not bounce from solid matter. It will go through rock as if it weren’t there. Then, when it shoots up into the air, it will polarize and suddenly bounce from solid objects up there—trees, mountains, cities, people, the rest. The bounce return will then be registered on our screen by the television principle, rather than by radarscope.”
“Whew,” said Sparky dizzily. “You lost me a mile back. It sounds crackpot, kooky, Rube Goldberg. And I won’t believe it works until you show me,” he finished stubbornly.
“Just keep soldering those leads,” grinned Paige. “And call me Sur Crackpot, please.”
Sparky subsided into a mutter. Paige’s face turned grim. “It’s got to work,” he breathed. “We’ve got to show Vellko there is an upper earth—and what is happening there…”
The three workers looked at each other, stricken. They thought of the Martians and the slaughter and the wail of a dying world. How close was earth to total defeat? How long could the human race hold out? Unanswered questions that tormented them as they labored, and drove them into frenzied haste.
The news from the underworld, which Sur Vellko picked up on the sonar network, was equally disturbing. Further skirmishes had broken out between the Dorthian and Uldornian forces, in remote cave sections. But their frequency was increasing and would lead inevitably to open warfare on a large scale. And then the underworld would be engulfed in a bitter struggle for how long nobody knew.
Fighting a pointless civil war down here, came the nagging thought to Paige, to determine who would rule the “universe,” while the real rulers up above won the world. Paige could not hold back a groan as he worked.
Another thing bothered him. Only one more week to go. Would they finish under the deadline Vellko had set? The project had turned out more difficult than Paige had first thought. The principle was clear but the hardware was weak. Bugs in the circuitry kept bugging them—Paige grinned mirthlessly at the play on words.
The hours fled…
* * * *
“We’re not done,” said Sparky, looking bleakly at the other two. “Maybe three days more work hooking it up—and today’s the final day.”
Paige was staring at a calendar leaf on the wall, in underworld style, with 15 days crossed off. He turned fearfully as Sur Vellko came in the door, frowning heavily. They all winced as the albino came toward them.
But he paused at the calendar and quietly turned it face to the wall. Then he strode to his own corner of the lab, with a sly glance at his guests.
“Always disturbs me to watch the days pass in my work,” he said as if conversationally.
A great guy, thought Paige, drawing in a deep breath. He plunged into his work with renewed zeal. Now they had a chance. Three more days passed in a swift blur. A hush came over the lab as Paige waved and Sparky threw a switch. A surge of high voltage, amply supplied by Vellko’s power cables, hummed through the bulky, odd-looking electronic box on the workbench. On top was a large screen, glowing dully.
“Here goes,” said Paige undramatically, flipping over toggles and tuning dials. At somewhat less than the speed of light, pulsating energy flashed upward. Energy of a wavelength that could slide past atoms and molecules, using the immensity of subatomic spaces as its transmitting medium. But would it polarize when it hit the open air above, at earth’s surface? Would it then initiate the radar phase and bounce back a visual imprint of the world above?
They all caught their breaths as whorls of color began to spangle across the screen. Paige tuned his verniers delicately and the fuzzy pattern gradually sharpened into focus. Onto the screen leaped a clear-cut scene of mountains and forests under moonlight. It was night in the upper world.
“Holy mackerel—and c
od too!” gasped Sparky. “It works.”
But a louder gasp had come from behind them. Sur Vellko stood with his mouth open and eyes stunned. “Wh-what kind of cave is that?”
“It’s no cave,” chortled Paige. “That scene was a random choice. But I can change the polarized angle to ‘pan’ upward, sideways, anywhere. Get ready, Sur Vellko, for a view of the real universe…”
As Paige moved his dials, the view swung upward to show the vast bowl of the night sky, flooded with star-points. To one side floated the full moon.
“There’s the ‘roof’ of that ‘cave’—megabillions of miles away, Sur Vellko.”
The albino scientist clutched at a chair, as if dizzy. He shuddered as his eyes took in the full sweep of empty space and its sun sparks. He drew back as if fearful of being drawn out into that incredible void.
“No…no,” he whispered. “That emptiness…that fearful nothingness…” He flung a hand before his eyes and turned away.
“Agoraphobia,” said Dr. Aronson in English to Paige. “Living all their lives in confined spaces, with walls, floor, and ceiling always around them, they fear open spaces. The opposite of claustrophobia. If they migrated to the upper world, it might take them years to adjust.”
But Paige was not listening. He was tuning his dials and switching scenes and viewpoints until suddenly, a mass of gaunt ruins stood out in the screen.
“A dead city,” grunted Sparky. “Bombed by the Martians. Take a look, Sur Vellko. This is what we kept telling you about.”
The albino had recovered and once more dared look at the screen, awestruck. Paige swung the scene away and there was a blur of motion as if he were searching for something. Finally, there was a raw red beam stabbing down across the screen. An adjustment of focus and then it stood clear—a fleet of the Martian “flying saucers” razing another city with neutron-beams. A zoom-in close-up then showed the hell below as steel melted and fire leaped through the streets, catching human beings in midstride and frying them alive.
Paige was glad he had not been able to incorporate sound with his silent TV-radar. The agonized poses of those dying were bad enough without their screams.
Chapter 8
Paige had to shut the screen off, with a moan, unable to stand the ghastly sight himself. He was almost as white-faced as the albino scientist as he hissed, “See, Sur Vellko? That’s my world, dying, being murdered by the space invaders. That may be one of the last cities meeting its doom, up there.”
The albino stood stiffly as if turned to stone, still staring at the blank screen as if visioning the nightmare it had shown. Slowly he hung his head.
“Forgive me,” he said in a dry whisper. “Forgive us all in the underworld for not believing, and letting your people—our brothers—meet oblivion.”
A fierce look swept into his face and his eyes shone crimson. “I swear to you the truth will be known. I’ll go straight to the Kal of Dorthia. Our own war will be instantly forgotten. All the underworld will mobilize. Before long, our armies will march up and join our fellow humans against the enemy.”
“It may be too late,” said Sparky in a funereal tone. “Maybe the Martians are already doing the mop-up. Maybe everyone up there will be dead soon…”
“Maybe not,” barked Paige, turning on the screen again and tuning the dials. A series of scenes came into focus—a Martian army locked in a death-struggle with earthly troops, a city still untouched and defiantly hurling missiles at an oncoming Martian fleet, an earthly tank rumbling forward and for the moment mowing down Martian soldiers. After roaming the world with these spot checks, Paige turned with a hopeful glow in his face.
“The Martians haven’t won earth yet. Some cities are holding out. Armies are still organized. Europe is gone, most of Africa, and part of Asia. America is still fighting. South America is unconquered. Australia is untouched.”
He grimaced. “That’s the good side. The bad side is that the Martians have their job half done and have not been halted, only delayed. Their superiority in weapons and their huge bombing fleets will win out in the end—unless the underworld becomes our ally.”
“How much time is there?” demanded Sur Vellko.
“Hard to guess…well, say six months at the outside. Maybe only three months.”
“No time to waste,” barked the albino. “I’ll arrange to see the Kal within the hour. I’ll bring him here. You three must show him the…lesson…on your screen.”
“The lesson of what the penalties of a closed mind are,” murmured Dr. Aronson, as Sur Vellko fairly ran out the door.
Sparky plopped himself down in a chair, heaving a loud sigh. “Well, that did it. After he gets an eyeful, the Kal of Dorthia will sue for peace or truce or something, with Uldorn. Then the two big powers, plus all the other small fry, will join forces in sending their crusaders topside. With their atom-crunching weapon and millions of fresh troops, the Martians get squashed like a bug. It’s a cinch now.”
* * * *
Only it wasn’t a cinch.
The Kal of Dorthia went through all the stages of surprise Sur Vellko had, as Paige gave him a panoramic view of upper earth and its Armageddon. But then his face turned skeptical.
‘Trickery,” he snapped finally. “It was just a cave you showed me with a black roof in which jewels were embedded.”
“But, Sire,” gasped Paige, in shock. “The roof was infinitely far away, not close overhead. Didn’t you get the perspective…?”
Paige choked and stopped. Perspective? How could a man who had seen no further than a few miles at the most, in some big cavern, know of the true reach of the eye? Everything to him would seem close. Nothing could be very far away in their enclosed world.
“A jewel-studded roof I say,” returned the Kal firmly. “As for those so-called war scenes, they could easily be faked on some kind of secret film and fed into your scanner device. It’s all a trick to make your wild story of an upper world seem true.”
“But, Sire,” spoke up Sur Vellko, stepping forth boldly. “I am a scientist and cannot be easily fooled. I swear that those scenes were authentic and that the upper world does exist.”
Slowly the Kal of Dorthia turned, his eyes baleful. But then they softened. “Poor Vellko. Your brain has been addled by these clever fakers until you believe the impossible.”
His voice rang in loud anger as he swung to face Paige, Dr. Aronson, and Sparky. “You three schemers have ruined the mind of our greatest scientist. Your motivation can only be the utter madness within you, causing you to force your insane delusions on others. Guards, destroy their evil machine and take them to the Malmind Ward to be locked up as hopelessly psychotic.”
Paige opened his mouth but no words came out. He stared helplessly at his equally dumb companions. In the face of the Kal’s unbroken shield of disbelief, nothing they could say would alter his judgment or decision.
But when three burly guards marched toward the radar-TV, crunch-weapons ready, Paige snarled like a wild animal and leaped at them. One powerful blow of his fist felled a guard. He kicked the second in the chest, propelling him against the wall with a crash. He turned for the third guard, but he was already being flattened by Sparky.
“We’ll show ’em, Sarge,” yelled the little man. “They can’t push us arou…”
The word clipped off and he fell silently.
“A stun-ray,” said the Kal, aiming a small weapon he had pulled out at Paige. A faint flash of red and Paige felt all his voluntary muscles go limp. He collapsed beside Sparky.
“I will not use this on you, Dr. Aronson,” said the Kal, “if you will go quietly when my guards recover.”
Dr. Aronson, face haggard, nodded silently. Moments later, with Paige and Sparky flung over the shoulders of two guards, they all marched out.
“As for you, Sur Vellko,” sa
id the Kal tersely, “you will be examined by the malmind doctors. Hopefully, you will rid yourself of that mad delusion of an upper world.”
The albino scientist said nothing as he followed the guards. His eyes turned back to the radar-TV, now a useless wreck. With that had gone any chance for the upper men to prove their story, or save their people. Tears were in Sur Vellko’s eyes. Tears for billions of doomed humans, 4000 miles upward…
When Paige and Sparky came to, they found themselves in a metal-walled room with cots and bare furniture. Dr. Aronson was sitting there, his hands folded in resignation.
“You were out for an hour,” he said, as they stretched stiffened muscles. “They carried you here and locked us up. We’re in the Malmind Ward.”
“Insane asylum, in other words,” said Sparky disgustedly. “Is it part of Centropolis, the global city?”
The scientist shook his head. “It’s a separate small globe that hangs in the zero-g hollow, away from Centropolis. Look.”
Paige was already looking out of a small round window that was heavily barred. A mile or more away he could see the huge orb that was Centropolis, with various jet-driven craft going back and forth from the city to the sides of the earth-center hollow.
Centropolis, in a sense, was an “island,” but surrounded by air instead of water. People could only reach it in jet-craft, by which supplies were also ferried in. The Malmind Ward was a separate globe, similarly isolated from solid ground. Both were contained in the huge center-earth hollow. The miniature sun that slowly swung around Centropolis also came around to shed sunlight on the Malmind Ward for various periods of time.
“Locked up as lunatics,” raged Paige angrily. “And without an examination by qualified doctors or psychiatrists. Pretty high-handed of the Kal. I thought he ran a ‘democracy.’ We have the right to an examination…”