by Don Wilcox
However, it wasn’t likely that the ex-captain and his sidekick would know about these. If they stopped off it would more likely be at one of the lighted stations.
Bandyworth rubbed his bruised eye. His encounter with Jimmy Ruggles on the balcony had changed the complexion of his right peeper. He could have used a beefsteak to advantage. Well, as long as he was riding through the dark the boys would forget that he was wearing a shiner.
He’d make Jimmy Ruggles eat gravel for that, though, when he got a chance. He’d have done it with stones when the two captives were floundering in the pit. But the Scravvzek had come too soon and cut that party short.
He muttered bitter words at the thought of the ex-captain slamming that rock at him. Sheer luck that he hadn’t folded up from that blow. The Scravvzek’s invisible hand must have been over the whole gang, protecting them, he decided. They’d all come through the war with the Bunjojops almost unscratched.
“Whatcha whistlin’ about, Bandy?” one of the Green Coats asked.
“Think in’ how I’d like to bust that ex-captain’s ribs right through his backbone.”
“That ain’t the way Sully wants it done, is it?”
“Not if I heard him right,” said another Green Coat. “I thought he gave you a plan—”
“Quiet,” Bandyworth ordered. “Wait till we get into the light and we’ll talk it over.”
Minutes later they crossed the inky Diack River and coasted on into the narrowing tunnel that would take them, very soon, into the vast chamber of the world’s mirrors.
“Station ahead,” Bandyworth said. “We’ll stop off for a drink of water and a minute’s rest before we walk in on the mirrors.”
The patch of light came sweeping over the surface of the walk. Bandy’s four companions became visible as blotches of darkness with highlights of green spreading over their shoulders. Then the full light reached them. They stepped off the glide-walk and onto the solid gravel floor. Bandy followed them.
Bandy strode across the end of the station room and bent down to take a drink from a small spring that bubbled out of the wall.
“What do I smell?” one of the Green Coats said with a suspicious sniff.
The others joined the sniff. “Food,” someone said. “They must have stopped off here for lunch recently. I think we’re on the trail.”
The skeptic of the group guessed that it was probably Doc Pakkerman’s trail and not the ex-captain’s. How, he asked, would the ex-captain know there was any reason to come back into this world beyond the Black River?
“He could have heard the Scravvzek speak of it,” Bandyworth said, looking up from the spring. “Or he could have tried following the Scravvzek when the thing walked off on Pakkerman’s legs. If there’s been any lunching done here—”
Bandyworth stopped, noticing that one of the Green Coats had picked up a liquor bottle.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Found it here beside the bench.”
“What’s in it?”
“Lava bubbles-General Snoozey’s favorite drink.” The Green Coat took a swig and passed it to his neighbor. “Uh-yum!”
“Gallagher’s bottle.” Bandyworth was touchy over the discovery. He had wondered why the others weren’t crowding for a turn at the spring while he had monopolized it. They were drinking behind his back. And they’ hadn’t even reported their find until he discovered them. “Who found it?”
“I did,” one of the Green Coats said, as if he thought he might receive a citation for his act.
“Why the hell didn’t you say something? The next time, you report to me, pronto. See? Let’s have that bottle.”
Sully took a long gurgling sample.
“That’s Gallagher’s brand, all right.” Bandyworth glanced around the station sharply. The irregular walls led off into dark openings that might have been the sleeping quarters of the Scravvzek, for all he knew. He didn’t care to go exploring into unknown regions. Besides, his line of reasoning told him that the bottle pointed the way ahead. “How was that bottle lying when you found it? Here, put it back just the way you found it.”
The Green Coat obeyed. Bandyworth studied the matter. He paced across to the gravel path that paralleled the moving walk. He sighted across. Then he nodded.
“Just as I thought.”
“What do you make of it, Bandy?”
Bandyworth cast his eyes toward the shadowed openings among the sections of walls before he answered. Then he nodded more confidently. “Yes, I know what’s happened here, boys. It was this way. Captain Burgess and Ruggles must have contacted Gallagher hours ago when they first entered these mountains. They must have learned he had access to food. They guessed that he was a pushover. So, after they got away from us at the pit, they went back to him and put the strong arm on him. They made him get food and drink for them. Then they put him on the glide-walk and got on with him, and they were off for the races. As long as they could keep Gallagher, they’d feel safer about finding their way back.
“By the time they reached this spot, they stopped off to eat before they took the run on in to the mirrors.” Then they must have heard us coming. So they picked up and left in a hurry.”
“How do you get that?”
“Because Gallagher didn’t empty his bottle. In fact, he had barely started on it. If they’d had all the time they wanted, he’d have killed it before he budged. And then he might not have been able to budge.”
The Green Coats might have agreed to this theory. But the skeptic among them shook his head. “Why would Gallagher have left the bottle here? Bandy, you know he wouldn’t have done that. No matter how fast they jumped aboard, he’d have held onto that bottle.”
“Boys, we’ve poked plenty of fun at Gallagher,” Bandy replied, lowering his tone, “but in this case we’ll have to give him credit. He left the bottle to show us the trail.”
“You don’t mean it,” said the skeptic. He picked up the bottle and took a drink, and shook his head.
“He probably got just one good swig,” said Bandy, “like this.” Then Bandy took the bottle and went through the actions of striding toward the glide-walk, taking one deep drink, corking the bottle and sliding it back across the gravel toward the bench.
Two Green Coats jumped for it, for fear it would slam into the rocks and break. The five men parleyed over whether the action could be accomplished that swiftly without Gallagher’s attracting the attention of the ex-captain and Ruggles with his act. Each of them went through the maneuver, grabbing a quick drink and slinging the bottle back toward the bench. There were as many versions of the events as there were men, and the bottle grew emptier with each version.
The five found it worthwhile to sit down and settle several points of difference by long-winded arguments, passing the bottle as they talked. They soon became mellow, if not soggy.
“Boys, these shmall differences of opinion will not lessen our alliance to our good leader Bandy,” one of them declared, and he rose as if to deliver a Fourth of July oration.
It was agreed that Chester Bandyworth was to be their leader through thick and thin, and if he won the award that Sully had offered, it would mean an award for all of them.
“Cut the operation,” said the skeptic. “Bandy, you give it to us again. The plan, I mean. Sully’s plan for handing these damned gate crashers when we catch ‘em. What we got to do to win new uniforms an’ a big dinner?”
“That’s the painful part of the story, boys,” said Bandyworth. “We don’t get to kill these gate crashers outright. Instead, we put the Scravvzek poison to ‘em, and this time we’ve got to make it work. The Scravvzek’ll want to see it work. If we can get them doctored up right, we’ll put it over right on the stage of the Glass Arena. Give ‘em each a knife an’ watch ‘em chop the hide off of each other.”
“I don’t see it,” said the skeptic.
“That guy Jimmy Ruggles could never be made to fight his captain. You know that.”
“I know damn’ well he can. A
nybody can be made to fight anybody, if they got doctored up with the right kind of propaganda.”
“This I’ll believe when I see it. That guy was as loyal as a dog, and anybody knows there’s nothing in the world more loyal than a dog. And from what I’ve seen of them together this time, the ex-captain is still like a fond father. Damn it. Bandyworth, you can’t split up a combination like that. It can’t be done.”
“The hell it can’t. I’ve already started it!”
“How?”
“Puttin’ a bug in Jimmy Ruggles’ ear.”
“What kind of bug?”
“Tellin’ him a few things about the ex-captain he didn’t know.”
“What’s he say?”
“He sort of opened his eyes.”
“When did all this happen?”
Bandyworth hesitated. Any mention of the contact he had made with Jimmy Ruggles a few hours earlier would bring up that certain unpleasantness that went with losing one’s clothes and getting one’s eye blacked. Bandyworth expanded his chest and launched a brazen lie.
“I talked with Jimmy Ruggles, you know. And when Jimmy Ruggles began to see how many damned dirty tricks the captain used to play on him, you shoulda seen his face. He turned to me and said, ‘Bandy,’ he said, ‘I gotta hunch you’re right. But I’m stuck with the captain,’ he said, ‘an’ I’ll have to string along till the time’s right. But I won’t forgit what you’ve told me,’ he said, ‘and the first time I catch him pullin’ any more of his damned dirty tricks—’ ”
Jimmy Ruggles said that to you?” the skeptic broke in.
“Sure. If it hadn’t been that he was stuck with the captain—”
Bandyworth broke off short. A rustle of footsteps from one of the shadowed openings at the farther side of the room broke in upon the argument. Bandy and his four Green Coats looked up to see Jimmy Ruggles come tearing out, and his fists were clenched for business.
“You lowdown liar!” Jimmy Ruggles yelled. “You’ll swallow those words or I’ll—gosh-ding-it, I’ll do it anyhow!”
CHAPTER XXXII
Allan came out of the shadows only half a pace behind Jimmy. His fists were three swings ahead of his thoughts. He saw Jimmy jerk Bandyworth to his feet and throw a right to his jaw before the blow-hard White Shark could bat his eyes.
“Hey! Wait a minute! Damn it, I was jist kiddin’ the boys—”
Bandy’s splutters were just enough to add weight to Jimmy’s punch. Thud! Bandy went staggering backward. Allan took a swing at his solar plexus as he went by. Bandyworth collapsed quietly on the gravel floor.
Then it was two against four. Allan had never seen Jimmy fight like this before. He was entranced to watch the boy work, and at times the battle was almost one against four, with Allan as an interested spectator. He worked from the outside. Jimmy was in the center of things. When a Green Coat went plunging in as if to settle Jimmy with one surprise blow, Allan was there to thrust the fellow off his pins and shove him back against the wall.
Jimmy scored a knockout on a tall lanky Green Coat, who gave a sad huff! His hands slapped the gravel, and his shoulders made a perfect stumbling block for two more Green Coats who tried a center rush on Jimmy. Allan drew one of them to his feet, swung an upper cut at him, barely grazed his chin. The fellow came back as if on steel springs. He swung a wide one, Allan ducked it, and delivered to the fellow’s breadbasket. The resulting “Unch!” was an interesting sound effect, and Allan worked the territory for two more lusty unches before the sound effects ran out. The fellow went down trying to say, “No!” but all he did was open his mouth like a fish.
The indulgence in sound effects almost proved costly for Allan. One of the Green Coats who had already sunk to the floor still had a kick left in him, and he delivered it to advantage. Allan caught the pressure on his ankles, he skidded on the gravel, and fell across the stone bench.
That was when Allan heard a slight cry of distress from Sue Carson. She had been watching from the shadows, and now she came out with a nimble bound, like a stage dancer imitating a gazelle. She raised the lunch basket and might have lambasted anyone, friend or foe, who came within her reach. She needn’t have bothered. Allan was on his toes again. The Green Coats who fell from Jimmy’s slugging fists decided not to get up. The last of the four was the skeptic. He came Allan’s way, and the look on his dizzy face showed that he was already seeing stars or planets somewhere far beyond the cavern ceiling.
“Don’t do it!” he cried to Allan just in time. “I’ll—”
He illustrated his point by simply dropping to the floor and stretching his arms out, as if this were exactly the rest the doctor had ordered. He rolled his eyes wistfully, saw Yippee, and gave an unbelieving gulp just before fainting away.
“Nice work, Jimmy,” Allan said.
“Thanks.” Jimmy’s eyes were large. “Captain you didn’t believe what that white-bellied rat tried to tell about me, didja?”
Allan gave a dry laugh. “Don’t waste your breath asking silly questions.”
“Thanks,” Jimmy said more comfortably.
“These birds would poison their own grandmothers if they had a chance. The amazing thing is that they believe one another. Let’s get out of here.”
Sue had picked up the bottle and was swinging it like a hatchet. “You boys didn’t give me a chance. I would have conked one of those birds just for practice.”
Allan had given her strict orders to stay back. In fact, he had whispered to Jimmy, right up to the last minute of their hiding, to pay no attention to the talk. No matter what was said, they should remain hidden. But Bandyworth’s brazen lie had set Jimmy off like a trigger.
“I still want to conk somebody,” Sue said looking around.
The skeptic, lying peacefully, tightened his eyes. But Bandyworth made the mistake of uttering a hopeful groan. Sue whirled and cracked him over the head with the bottle, and he went back to sleep.
“There,” Sue said. “That will improve my disposition for all day.
Okay, Captain, where do we go from here?”
“The glide-walk,” Allan said. “Have you got the lunch? This way out.”
Once again they were coasting along through the narrow black tunnel, wondering what adventure might lie before them. They finished eating along the way. Jimmy admitted that he had been hungrier a few times in his life, though he couldn’t remember precisely when. And Allan assured him that he should stop eating altogether, he fought so well on an empty stomach.
Many minutes later their track carried them into view of an opening that was like the whole out-of-doors, shadowed in the deep twilight. If there had been people to see within this vast chamber of darkness, they could not have been seen except at close range. It was the mirror of the world that rose before them—an immense shadowy cone, like a perfect volcano with softly illuminated sides.
“We’re coming to it at last,” Allan said. “See it, Sue?” He touched her hand.
“I can’t say a thing,” Sue answered. “I’m all out of breath at the sight.”
“It’s a volcano,” Jimmy said. “Once I saw some fire up at the top.”
“Orange fire?”
“Could have been.”
Allan felt like a stranger entering a strange city in the middle of the night, with no streetlights or street signs to give him his bearings. He wanted to make arrangements with Sue and Jimmy for a central meeting place, for anyone could see at once that the spaces of this room extended into miles. This place deserved to be explored. Here, Allan knew, he would find some answers.
“We’re going to look into this little matter,” Allan said. “Woe unto Bandyworth or any other man that tries to stop us. Looks like we’re coming to the glide-walk terminal at last.”
The approaching station could be seen as a platform of white concrete might be seen on a dark, foggy night. The line of gray which led down the incline over which the glide-walk was passing appeared to open into a wide circle around the base of the great volcano
-like cone. From the opposite direction it returned to form the upper level—the returning glide-walk.
“Look, Jimmy—Sue,” Allan said. “It’s dark enough here by the station that we can fix some sort of signal to warn us if the search parties come this way. The clatter of that bottle would do it. We can stretch a cord across the incoming glide-walk, and hang that lava bubble bottle on the end . . .”
CHAPTER XXXIII
The sight that unfolded before Allan’s eyes at the end of the glide-walk was like nothing in this world. For a moment he forgot to breathe. He wondered how a blind man might feel, looking upon the sun for the first time.
It was easy to forget that Jimmy and Sue had gone in another direction. He should be looking for them—but would a blind man, having his first glimpse of the sun, be able to bring his attention back to a pair of companions who had gone astray?
What Allan was seeing was not the sun, nor the sky, nor anything related to the heavens. It was a gigantic room, so large that it would seem there should be clouds floating along the ceiling. Nearly two miles high, he estimated. And with clouds? Sort of. There were clouds of orange fire rolling out of the top of a volcano-like cone. Like steam, they skimmed along the surfaces of the high ceiling and melted away into nothing.
It was the cone itself that struck Allan with awe. It must have been two miles in diameter—yet the room was not filled by it.
It must have risen to a height of seven or eight thousand feet. It was a mountain within a mountain. The great loop of the glide-walk moving around it gave it the effect of slowly turning.
It was strangely illuminated, and over its perfectly symmetrical surface Allan could see hundreds—yes, thousands of patches of color. How many different hues and tones and tints could be brought together in a single picture? A million or more, he had once been told.
Was it true that an artist could distinguish seven hundred shades of green? Somewhere in this massive cone-shaped form there must have been all of those shades and more.
But this was only the first quick impression of Allan’s discovery. What he was seeing, upon closer inspection, was a glass-like surface that was composed of small, sharply defined squares. Each square, only about three by three inches, contained a picture.