“Given time I can probably work it out,” Munro said briefly. “You, Conway, had better take this hieroglyphic message back to headquarters and get Wade to work on it right away. Radio to us the minute you know anything. Now get going.”
“Right!” Conway took the metal sheets and departed swiftly, leaving Terry and Dawlish watching intently as Munro turned to the next metal sheet—the last one. It had engraved upon it the unmistakable formation of a city. Munro stroked his chin; Terry stared at it fixedly, a memory of words drifting like a forlorn echo across his mind.
“A city so beautiful. It crumbles … down it goes!”
A city? Elsa Dallaway? The woman who had crumbled to dust? Two rings … He shook his head wearily, wandered off across the room as Munro settled down to another long spell of concentration.
Munro brooded throughout the remainder of that day, was still tireless when Terry and Dawlish made up their makeshift beds and gratefully lay down. Only one solitary globe illumined Munro as he sat in thought, his bald dome shining like a great egg, his eyes mere chilly marbles as he stared into space.
Terry closed his eyes, listened to the eternal whining of the wind down the great shaft and, below it, subdued yet insistent, the muffled, thundering mystery that lay beneath the space ship’s nose. He began to doze, began to dream—Then he was suddenly and violently awakened. Wincing in the light of the solitary globe he stared up into Munro’s face. For once the scientist was actually eager, shaken out of his dispassionate calm. Dawlish still slept heavily, emitting the snores of one at peace with the flesh.
Munro squatted down, tugged out a foul pipe and lit it. Solemnly he said, “Terry, I think I have it—at least part of it.”
“You have!” Terry sat up wakefully, silently forgave the violence of his departure from slumber.
“Right now,” Munro said slowly, “we’re sitting over a shaft some five miles deep, up which are trying to escape Earth’s inner forces in all their fury. Only they can’t because a gigantic valve of metal—probably the same incredibly tough metal of which this ship is made—holds them back. Only an atom smasher can fuse this metal, not mere pressure alone, no matter how strong.”
Terry stared blankly. “You sit there so calmly and tell me that!” he gasped. “What the hell are we doing risking it? And anyhow, how do you know all this? Who’d be nuts enough to sink a five mile shaft anyway, even if they could?”
“When you’ve disentangled your anything but clear remarks I’ll continue …” Munro had the cold iciness now that always came to him when he was dead sure of himself. “The measurements on the diagram we found show, that by comparison with the ship, the tapering ‘cylinder’ below its nose—which is actually intended to represent a shaft—is all of five miles depth. The wavy lines are earth strata. It’s simple enough to see that the shaft has direct access to the inner furies boiling up from Earth’s very core through innumerable seams and natural tunnels. Gases, lava, inconceivable pressures—some of them escaping, but a vast majority held back by a gigantic valve. That is this —” and he stabbed the metal diagram with his pipe to show the small ellipse in the bottom of the ‘cylinder.’
“It is pretty evident that whoever built the shaft knew that it would directly connect with a great natural inner fault extending maybe thousands of miles into the earth—and thereby the main outlet for inner pressures. How this fact was discovered we don’t yet know. Now, the machinery sunk in the nose of the ship is of radio design; that we know already. It’s operated from the switchboard inside the globe here. In the small power plant is a bar of copper. It’s pretty certain the genius who built this ship had solved the secret of atomic energy’s inexhaustible power. Using this energy, the switchboard transferred it to the radio machinery, waves were generated, and they in turn reacted on the giant valve at the bottom of the shaft. Under the influence the valve would turn aside into an inlet. See this drawing again … There’s distinct evidence of some kind of machinery round the valve. Anyway, that’s the way I figure it.”
“But,” Terry pondered, “if that happened the ship would go up like a rocket before the blast from the shaft!”
“It would go out into space far beyond the pull of Earth’s gravity field,” the scientist added complacently. “Now do you see?”
Terry frowned. “So far as I can make out some master mind planned to use the earth’s natural forces to fire this space ship into the void. He had no motive power of his own so created a vast cannon of natural power. But why, Munro? What good would it do to just get fired into space?”
Munro debated. “As yet we don’t know the reason for this desire to leave earth,” he murmured. “One or two facts are clear. The people responsible were definitely Earthlings and not, as I at first thought, inhabitants of another world sojourning here. Nobody from another world could be so like Earthlings as that woman we found. Again, there was once a city around here that finally became buried under sand. Lastly, the people were far ahead of us in scientific knowledge, but even so actual space travel was one thing they had still to solve. The point I stumbled over was the matter of strain on being fired from this shaft. They would hurtle outwards at such a terrific pace that living flesh and blood could not stand it. That’s where this ring comes in.”
Terry gazed wondering as Munro showed the dissected ring in his palm.
“I tried everything I could think of to get some reaction out of this ring, but I got nothing until I tried it in the range of the flame gun. With the flame gun I smashed up a piece of metal, and since the gun works on the principle of forcing electron and proton into contact in order to destroy atoms, it of course produces cosmic waves in the process—a small scale replica of the vast radiation floods going on eternally in outer space. The instant the cosmic waves radiating from the smashed metal reached the stone, a tiny needle actuated by a spring shot out of the ring circlet and just as quickly went back again. After that, I took the ring to pieces.
“Actually, Terry, the stone of the ring is a beautifully made prismatic device, gathering cosmic rays and concentrating them on a mechanism which releases a spring. The spring thrusts out the needle just once into the wearer’s finger, then snaps back. Once I had the ring in pieces I saw that the needle was really coated with some fluid-like stuff—in truth an enormously powerful drug.”
“What!” Terry gasped blankly. “How do you know that?”
“Remember a period a little while back when it looked as though I was drunk? That was after trying an infinitely small percentage of the needle’s contents. Had I taken the whole lot I’d have been utterly paralyzed, I guess. From chemical analysis it is quite obvious the drug is a brilliant combination of chemicals for producing suspended animation—No, wait a minute! Let me finish. The drug lies in one half of the ring—but in the other half is an antidote and a second spring. That second spring is released not by cosmic waves, but radio waves. The stone can deal with either.”
“But—but why all this planning and arranging with a ring?” Terry demanded.
“Quite simple. Let us assume that this plan for firing the ship had succeeded. What would have happened? The occupant is sat in the chair by the switchboard there, presuming for a moment there is only one person present. The pressure is weighing him down as he hurtles through Earth’s atmosphere—he can’t lift a finger to help himself, can hardly even breathe. The straps are secure round his limbs—So, out into space!
“Instantly cosmic waves surge through the ship, react on the ring stone. Needle stabs, drug fills body and suspends all its faculties, destroys breathing and heart beats—makes it possible for that inanimate mass of flesh to move at frightful speed without any injury to organs. Then what?
“Gradually the ship’s speed becomes constant. In that projector by the switchboard is clockwork radio machinery. Without doubt it would be set in action before the start of the journey, timed to release a switch when, by calculation, the ship would have reached a constant velocity and acceleration would have cease
d. A radio wave from the nozzle-like end of the thing strikes dead on those chairs before the switchboard—strikes the ring on our figurative traveler. The antidote works and he revives, none the worse, sets about his plans for a landing and guiding the ship.
“That too could be done easily enough by recoiling radio beams, exerting sufficient pressure in striking a planet to easily swing the ship as desired and break the fall when the desired world is reached. The mightiest difficulty—pulling against gravity from Earth—has been overcome. Now do you understand?”
Terry was nodding slowly, a multitude of thoughts chasing through his brain.
“You’ve—you’ve definitely proved the antidote works with radio wave reaction?” he asked slowly.
“Beyond question—but as yet I don’t know the wavelength.”
“Then the whole thing was really a gigantic effort to leave the earth by automatic means?”
“Exactly. And there were probably two people here—the girl and somebody else. At the last minute something went wrong and the journey was never made. The girl was left to die, and —”
Munro broke off in surprise as Terry gripped his arm tightly.
“Munro, do you begin to realize the truth?” he whispered, his eyes bright with anxiety. “Do you understand what you have found? Elsa is not dead!”
The scientist’s cold eyes stared back levelly. “Take it easy, Terry! After all —”
“I mean it!” Terry cried hoarsely. “I remember now! When she came with me on that stratosphere trip she was testing cosmic waves. Her ringed hand couldn’t fail to be in the path of them because it was right before the window. Cosmic waves won’t go through a stratosphere globe’s walls, but they will through the window. Her ring must have been like this one. She got the benefit of the drug —” He broke off, breathing hard. “She did not really die! She only went into suspended animation … Oh, my God, we’ve got to do something quick! Give her antidote—anything! Smash her ring open and give it to her —”
“What the hell’s going on here?” Dawlish stirred among his blankets and looked around blearily. “Let a guy get some sleep, can’t you?”
“Never mind sleeping; come here and listen!” Munro snapped; then he turned back to ‘Terry. “Guess you’re right about Elsa, Terry. I didn’t know the real circumstances about her actions in the stratosphere. Certainly she’d get the full blast of cosmic waves on that ring. We’ve got to think this out carefully. Can’t rush at it. One slip up, and she’s dead forever. Can’t use the antidote from this ring; I used it all up making experiments.”
“Then smash the ring she was buried with!” Terry implored. “Can’t you see what it means —”
“Of course I can, but your idea’s too impetuous. Smashing her ring may lose the antidote utterly. No; the only thing to do is to analyze that radio projector there and find the exact wavelengths it generates. Then we can either take that projector with us, or else know enough about it to duplicate it. With that idea we can turn the waves on Elsa’s ring from the mausoleum itself and, we hope, revive her. Let me see now? In her tomb she has no air—Hmm, not that it matters. To all intents and purposes she is dead. Yes, only thing to do is to find the wavelength.”
“What’s all this about?” Dawlish demanded.
“Terry will tell you that.” Munro scrambled to his feet, tireless as ever. Then he paused suddenly. “Say, we’ve gotten this far,” he mused, “but how the devil did Elsa get hold of a second ring anyhow?”
He turned, shrugging, to the projector and Terry turned to explain matters to Dawlish. He explained very sketchily. One thought alone was drumming through his brain—Elsa Dallaway was alive! Locked in a tomb through some odd twist of time and circumstance that had still to be unraveled.
V – A Race Against Doom
Towards dawn, as Munro still labored over the analysis of the radio projector, the normal portable short wave apparatus suddenly came onto action. Immediately, Dawlish crossed to it, clamped on the headphone and begun to write steadily. He continued for twenty minutes, then broke the contact and turned.
“Conway, Chief,” he announced briefly. “Seems Wade can’t solve the puzzle entirely, but he’s managed part of it. It is mainly in very old Egyptian and Arabian language, intermingled. He’s substituted modern terms for ancient numbers and distances.”
Munro took the notes from him and read them aloud:
“…‘our city is falling into ruins. Few of our people can survive. The three thousand year (?) cycle of surface change is here … Hurricanes sweep by, driving the sand before them—the sand of an ocean bed, the waters of which have receded to smother a vast but fortunately deserted continent … Sand … Our city will perish beneath it. The people do not believe … Thensla and I can escape perhaps—The second planet (Venus?) is a possible world. Yes, we can escape, take a chosen few with us. The few who still believe …’ ”
Munro turned the page avidly, went on to the next one. “I believe I can accomplish a double purpose. The problem of leaving Earth can be overcome. X-rays (?) reveal fault leading to core of disturbances—five mile (?) division of earth and rock between core shaft and surface … Shaft of five miles (?) could be sunk with valve of drulux (some kind of metal? Wade) at its base, operated by radio control … Blast would fire ship into space and release Earth’s inner pressure to such an extent that the upheavals would cease. Some of our race would perhaps survive. Three or four thousand (?) years will elapse before it comes again. Thensla, myself, and those who believe will travel to this second world; radio beams will land us safely. Our friends we shall place in suspended animation to commence with. We ourselves will use the rings. I cannot —”
The message ended abruptly. In wonderment the three men stared at each other.
“So there definitely was a city here three or four thousand years ago,” Munro breathed. “Buried under the Sahara sands, which were brought hither by hurricanes blowing over the sea bottom of a receded ocean. The people belonged to Earth, were an ancient civilization of tremendous knowledge. And why not? Time and again science has proven the ancients to be far cleverer than we. It is even possible that this race was the basic cause of all past mysteries and miracles. Science, of enormous power, was lost when upheaval swept over the world.
“Who wrote this record? Was he the father, the husband or the lover of the girl Thensla? We will call him the Recorder, for convenience. And why is Elsa so much like the vanished Thensla? Only Elsa herself can perhaps provide the solution.”
“No question of it!” Terry exclaimed. “Even as she lay apparently dying in the hospital she spoke of things exactly matching up with the events described in this record.”
Munro debated for a time, said thoughtfully, “Most amazing! May have something to do with Time itself.” He shrugged. “However, that we’ll know later. What we know now is that the Recorder hit on the sublime idea of saving the earth and blasting himself and those dearest to him into space at the same time. It didn’t work for reasons still unknown. But this time … Good Heavens, don’t you see?”
“You mean that if we release the valve we blow this unwanted ship into the void and expend all—or at least nearly all—of Earth’s internal tumults at one go?” Terry asked quickly.
“Of course—even as an old-time locomotive’s excess steam escaped by the safety valve. In truth this shaft is the Earth’s safety valve because it has direct path to the core. The Recorder’s X-ray showed that. On the last occasion the valve was not moved through an unknown mistake and the havoc went on until the pressure escaped through volcanoes and constant earthquake. This time no such thing will happen because we’ll release the pressure. At one terrific blast the entire mass of inner gas and steam will go off, hurl this ship into space in the process. What happens to it is, of course, immaterial.”
“But we’ll have to control it from inside here,” Dawlish objected.
“Not necessarily. The Recorder wanted it that way, of course, but there’s nothing to stop ra
dio waves operating from a considerable distance, provided they’re directed properly. We can, if necessary, shift that valve from as far away as New York. In fact, for safety, that’s what we’d better do. The shock of the up-rush will be felt the world over.”
Munro wasted no further time on words. He turned back actively to the completion of his analysis.
*
Six more hours brought Munro to the end of his analysis of wires, coils, tubes and controls—an analysis that had filled a comfortably thick notebook. He made no immediate observations on his conclusions, simply fell asleep exhausted. When he awoke again it was late afternoon.
“Well, did you get everything?” was Terry’s anxious demand.
“Yes, I got it.” Munro rubbed his unshaven chin: “But we’ll have to make the apparatus. That stuff there is beginning to fall to pieces. Thing to do is to head for New York right now.”
Neither Terry nor Dawlish needed a second invitation. They had their equipment already packed and ready. Quickly they moved to the ladder outside the globe and climbed up to the gray hole giving egress to the surface. The moment they poked their heads up the cyclonic force of the wind thundered into their faces, filled with driving rain and stinging sand grains. Battling against it they gained their Stratosphere globe and tumbled inside it.
Instantly, Terry moved to the controls, slammed them home the moment Munro had closed the airlock. Tugging and pulling, the globe struggled into the upper reaches, battled through the midst of the clouds to the quieter regions, and onwards in a westerly direction
The view was unchanged. Below swirled the eternal boiling scum of clouds. When, three hours later, they dropped once more they were met with a vision of rolling waters entirely inundating vast portions of America’s eastern seaboard. The sea, driven with hurricane force and turmoiled by the upset of earthquake and tremors, had spilled over onto New York itself, marooning the towering buildings, obliterating the storm-lashed harbors. Presumably the same conditions existed all along the coast.
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