John Russell Fearn Omnibus

by John Russell Fearn

  “That makes us O.K.,” he said slowly, “but I still don’t like the idea of men and women turning against each other as they are doing. If only I’d have been able to prove my point to Gore this place would have been a haven.”

  “For everybody?” the girl asked pointedly. “No, Rod—only those that are worth saving. You said that yourself.”

  “Yes, but how does one discriminate?” he demanded.

  “I’m not sure…yet,” the girl answered slowly. “One thing is very certain, in my opinion. The whereabouts of this place must never be discovered by the masses at large; we’d be invaded. Even though we can beat anybody off with the apparatus around us, the intruders might do irreparable damage to the machinery first.”

  “So long as that hole remains in the roof anybody can get in,” Rod reflected. “And that gives me an idea! I’m going to find out from that damned robot exactly why this place was resealed. The thing must be around here somewhere.”

  He turned swiftly and headed to the opposite end of the place. After some searching he found the robot standing against a corner. At his command it moved forward. Sharply he questioned it, but it gave no answers, remained perfectly mute.

  Baffled, Rod desisted. “You know,” he said slowly to the girl, “there’s something infernally queer about this. Last time this robot and two others were working of their own accord, but this time only my voice stirs it into action. What stimulated it on the last occasion? I don’t see how it could start off on its own. It looks to me as though there’s some mysterious conspiracy afoot to prevent me knowing why this place was resealed.”

  “Maybe, but you got in just the same,” Phyllis pointed out. “The thing right now is to set to work and find out how to refill that hole with metal.” Rod nodded slowly, ideas once more turning over in his mind.

  “Molecules of free air are only that way because of the spaces between them,” he muttered. “Condense them, lessen the spaces, and we get a thin solid. Condense them still further and we get a strong solid. Add more molecules and atomic basis and we get—”

  “The metal of which this guardian globe is composed?”

  “Exactly. I’m going to work that out.”

  Rod moved quickly to the nearest table, pressed a switch, and an automatic calculating device shot from a concealed well. He experienced no wonder at the fact; instinctively he knew it ought to be there. He spoke steadily into the machine, gave the basis of his ideas, then waited as the mathematical interior of the thing clicked and whizzed persistently, building up a formula. In half an hour it was finished, complete to the tiniest detail.

  “Wish I’d had one of these at school,” he grinned, taking up the metal sheet. “Let’s get busy…”

  He walked across to a self-contained force-generating instrument, perched on three massive, wheeled legs. Seizing it, he pushed it through the doorway, aimed the sights on the far distant dim square that marked the opening to the upper world. With the girl right behind him he made quick adjustments to the multiple controls, carefully directed the highly polished, queerly designed lens.

  “This thing generates force waves of infinite range, from constructive to destructive,” he explained briefly. “Ethereal agitation, if you like the term better. Anyway, electrical charges, following exactly the formula given here, will stream into that gap and condense the molecular paths of the air together, add other molecules into the spaces which are left. Result will finally be seamlessly joined indestructible metal—same thing we came up against…”

  He prepared to close the master switch—then suddenly Phyllis grabbed his arm frantically and gave a shout.

  “Wait a minute! Wait, Rod! There’s somebody up there, unless my eyes are playing tricks with me!”

  Rod stared at the distant opening, his hands dropping to his sides. A figure was certainly in view, commencing to slide down the still dangling rope. Rod’s face set grimly as he watched.

  “So we’re being invaded already, eh?” he demanded savagely. “O.K., I’ll show him!”

  He sighted the projector again, altered the frequency—then he stopped again as a shout reached him.

  “Hey, there! Hey! Is that Mr. Marlow? This is Gore!”

  Gore! Rod stared blankly at Phyllis, then just for a moment the funny side struck him. The sight of the pompous President of the Scientific Association sliding awkwardly down that rope was certainly worth seeing.

  “What the devil brought him back, I wonder?” Rod whispered, waiting; and presently the scientist reached the summit of the vast steps and started to pelt down them at top speed. Breathless, dirty, and perspiring he finally came to a stop, gripped Rod’s arm.

  “Is this the place you were trying to tell me about?” he asked wonderingly, gazing around.

  “Sure it is, but—” Rod eyed him, mystified. “Say, what brought you back, Doctor? I thought you and your associates had given Miss Bradman and me up as hoaxers.”

  “We had—at that time.” Gore breathed heavily. “Then, just after dinner time today the most terrible things began to happen in the city. Most people seemed to suddenly lose their sense of reason. Things just went mad. There’s some kind of cosmic cloud in the sky. I thought back on all you had said, remembered your earnestness. You see, the thing I couldn’t understand was not so much why you could not find the hole you had mentioned, but why there should be metal on your land which resisted even a welding flame. That was a point well worth pondering. I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt—came here by plane intending to take another look at the metal. Since the first half of your story had come true, the rest might. Anyway, seeing the horrible things going on in the city I saw no harm in trying. I found the farm locked up; then going to the hole I saw the rope, this lighted city, and—Well, here I am.”

  “And only just in time,” Rod said slowly. “I was just on the point of sealing the hole.”

  “Evidently,” the girl said slowly, “you are a man of intelligence, Doctor. You reasoned things out for yourself—came right back here to correct your mistakes. I guess that took plenty of pride swallowing in a man of your position. But it’ll pay you; you’ll be safe enough down here with us.”

  “But that wasn’t my main reason for coming,” Gore went on anxiously. “Things are getting worse every hour, Mr. Marlow. Surely, amongst all this machinery there must be some way to counteract the atavism which has set in? Save humanity? That’s what you set out to do, isn’t it? What you were chosen for?”

  “Not entirely, Doctor. I was chosen to save the deserving of humanity—men and women with intelligence and reason like yours. There is not, so far as I can find, any method here of saving the surface. The cosmic cloud cannot be dispelled by any means we’ve got. All that can be done is to collect down here all those who are worth saving. Only thing is, I’m not quite sure how to discriminate.”

  “I am,” Phyllis put in, slowly. “Doctor Gore has provided the answer. He knows all the scientific and intellectual heads of every country. Every scientist and every master brain. That right?”

  “Most of them,” Gore acknowledged. “Why?”

  “Your task will be to gather them together in the shortest possible time, bring them here. It doesn’t matter how you get them, what methods you use, so long as you succeed. Until you return and bring those whom you think worth having with you, we’ll keep the opening in the roof unsealed. How’s that?”

  “Perfect!” declared Rod with enthusiasm. “Matter of fact that was the idea I had in mind myself. Can you do that, Doc?”

  “Without delay,” Gore nodded promptly. “Everything now depends on time. You can rely on me. I’ll get back to New York right away. The plane’s waiting for me.”

  “And as you go up the steps,” Rod added, “take care to step over that metal bar at the summit. It’s a switch.”

  Gore nodded, turned actively away. In a moment or two he was mounting the steps.

  Rod turned slowly to the girl.

  “Well, that about settles th
at. Nothing to do now but wait.”

  “I don’t agree with you there, Rod. As I see it, in about ten years the cosmic cloud will have passed and a civilization will remain—buildings, that is. But will it remain? On the last occasion not one brick was left standing on another because of the barbaric destructiveness of atavized humans. Definitely, in this case too, the atavizing people will drift to war and bestial savagery as they sink lower down the scale. Cities will suffer. A world well supplied with arts and treasures will be wantonly destroyed. That isn’t right, particularly when down here there will be expert minds who can take everything over when the cloud passes…”

  “Well?” Rod looked at the girl curiously.

  “You’ve got to devise a means of destroying all those people who try to invade or pillage cities,” she went on grimly. “It’s the only just thing to do. And the only way to do it is to use this force projector on still another wavelength and on a larger scale. Devise a wavelength of destructive power which will pass through solid matter—such as intervening rock, but will disrupt and destroy flesh and blood the instant it strikes it…It can be done.”

  “And watch world events through the televisor meantime?”

  “Yes. Seems the best course to me.”

  “O.K., I’ll get busy—but I’m certainly not going to use such a terrific weapon from underground unless the wanton destruction of surface cities really warrants it. Sounds rather too ruthless to me.”

  The girl’s eyebrows rose. “Ruthless? Is that what you think of me?”

  “Not of you; only of your plan. You must admit it’s drastic.”

  She remained silent, but Rod fancied he detected a curious hardness in her clear blue eyes. In silence he seized the force projector and wheeled it back into the laboratory, settled down to analyze it and work out a wavelength capable of piercing unlimited hard matter yet shattering human structure the moment it was contacted.

  As he worked, with the mathematical machine to aid him, he was aware that Phyllis was watching him in silence. For the first time since he had met her his vague doubts were beginning to crystallize. He had always known the girl was somehow mysterious. Now he was beginning to think she was hard and callous—the last thing he wanted to believe. But there was no gainsaying the fact that since she had come to this underworld all the girlishness had dropped from her. Her whole manner was subtly altering.

  CHAPTER V

  A Degenerating World

  Two days passed in the underworld. They were days in which Rod spent nearly all his time working out the final details of a giant force projector, and afterward supervising its rapid erection in a comparatively deserted machine-room near the laboratory. Engineering science and tireless robots made short work of a job that would have otherwise been incredibly complicated.

  While he was thus engaged the girl spent the time exploring, discovered the synthetic food department and set robots to work on such domestic matters as cooking and attendance. By degrees she unearthed the different places where comfort abounded—long airy lounges, softly lit, immensely roomy sleeping rooms; beds and bedding in perfect repair. There were all clothing requisites, unlimited water and food, automatically controlled air…The place was a super efficiency of preparation, perfectly prepared for an indefinite siege.

  It struck Rod that the girl was curiously subdued, and he inwardly blamed himself as the cause. He’d probably gotten her intentions all wrong, anyway.

  She spent a lot of time at the radio televisor, intently watching scenes of vast disorder and senseless struggle, listened to the fevered yammering of radio announcers declaring that war was eminent. Every nation was preparing to fling itself against its neighbor. The whole mad, insane world was drifting under the yellow skies to wholesale slaughter and destruction. Man was falling down the evolutionary ladder with incredible speed.

  “It’s easy to see,” Rod commented slowly, as he joined the girl one afternoon, “how the early civilizations fell. Maybe, even, man’s discontent through the ages has been an hereditary relic of that last devolution. At heart he is not all bad—nobody is. What is it makes people bad? Maybe that heritage.”

  “Maybe,” Phyllis admitted quietly. “I never thought of it like that before. Whatever it may be, though, the wanton destruction which eradicated early cities from the world must not be repeated. We must stop it, from here—”

  She broke off and the question Rod was about to ask was forgotten as they both turned at a sudden sound. A figure came slowly through the doorway, disheveled and weary. It was Doctor Gore. Behind him were evidences of other men and women, all of them worse for wear, expressions crossed between relief and amazement at the vision of the amazing underworld.

  “You made it!” Rod cried delightedly and the scientist nodded exhaustedly.

  “Yes. The hardest job I ever had—any of us ever had for that matter. Some have come by fast plane, others by road, others walked, but they all arrived…” He turned, waved his arm to the people.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, meet Mr. Rodney Marlow and Miss Bradman. They will tell you the rest of the story.” Looking at the two again, he added, “There are about two hundred of us altogether—the picked brains of America, England, Europe, Africa and Asia, in science, politics, engineering, geology, welfare, etcetera…”

  “O.K.,” Rod interrupted briefly. “You’ll be well cared for. Phyllis, see that they get a meal, then make accommodation arrangements. I’m going to seal that hole up before any unwanted ones start drifting down.”

  The girl nodded and turned away at the head of the weary people. Rod wasted no time sealing the gap. When at last the empty space was closed, with solid, immovable metal he breathed more freely, turned and headed back with the projector to the laboratory. To his surprise, Phyllis was there, seated before the radio. She switched it off and got to her feet as he came in.

  “World war has commenced,” she announced steadily.

  Rod shrugged. “I expected it—But say, what are you doing here? What about the people?”

  “They’re O.K.—having a meal and a rest. The robots will take care of them. We’ve still got work to do, Rod. Your force projector’s finished, isn’t it? Ready for action?”

  “Sure, but we’ve got to wait until we see a deliberate attack on a city before we—”

  “We shan’t wait for that,” the girl answered coldly. “Every human being on the surface has got to be destroyed! The Earth, when it clears the cosmic cloud, will start again with a clean sheet, freed forever from the degenerate rabble which has tenanted it too long already.”

  Rod stared. “Good Heavens, Phyllis, do you realize what you are saying? It’s world massacre!”

  “Oh, don’t be a fool!” Her voice was incredibly hard and commanding. “All the people that are worthwhile are down here, that’s been seen to. Those who are left above are nothing better than animals, fast on the way to destruction. They’ll kill each other in the end, anyway, but they’ll destroy every useful city and its contents in the doing. I, for one, don’t intend to allow that to happen. Destroy them! They’re nothing but vermin. No brains, no sense, concerned only with their own petty lusts and villainies… If you don’t do it, I will!”

  “You!” Rod laughed shortly. “You don’t even know how!”

  The girl hesitated a moment, then flashed him a look of biting contempt. Calmly she strode from the laboratory and closed the door. In an instant Rod was after her, caught up to her as she entered the projector room. The giant instrument was standing motionless, ready for instant action. Without so much as a glance to either side Phyllis moved to it, operated the switchboard which Rod had thought was his own especial knowledge, slammed in the switches that started the generators.

  Rod saw nothing unusual, but from the graded scale with its quivering needles, from the slow turning of the giant apparatus on its universal bearings, he knew quite well that the girl was controlling the instrument through a slow arc, hurling forth destructive waves clean through the earth, destr
oying every living thing in the track that reposed on the surface.

  Suddenly life surged back into him. He hurled himself forward toward the girl, intent on seizing her and stopping her wholesale destruction of living beings.

  “Stand exactly where you are!” she commanded, and to his utter bewilderment a silvered object gleamed suddenly in her hand, whipped with terrific speed from the filmy dress she was still wearing. But this was not the pleasing, generous Phyllis Bradman he had grown to love: it was a cold, calculating woman with a mission to fulfill.

  “Make one move toward me until this task is finished and I’ll be forced to destroy you, Rod,” she said slowly. “I beg of you not to make me do it. This weapon is a tiny duplicate of this object here. No flesh and blood can withstand its blast.”

  “But, Phyllis, what—? How—?” Rod stopped, too utterly amazed to speak further.

  The girl flashed a glance at the meters, at the still slowly turning instrument. Her lips twisted into a grim smile.

  “Ask yourself,” she said quietly, “just what good are those left on the surface? What have they ever done? How can a single one of them survive the effects of ever growing atavism? They’ll die, horribly. Maybe spend months in lingering agony from wounds. War—of the vilest kind—will ride the earth and destroy all that has ever been built up, unless those who cause that war are destroyed first! It will be a quicker death for them—a merciful death, for in the end they are bound to meet up with it. The intellectuals, the brains of the world, remain. Down here! The rest will go, leave the earth to be taken over again unscratched. And out of it may grow a better, worthier civilization.”

  Vaguely Rod began to see the point of her reasoning. He eyed her steadily.

  “In an hour this projector will have encompassed every part of the globe,” she went on quietly, turning away from it. “Since the force beam expands fan-wise as it travels, it incorporates an enormous surface area at remoter regions of the world. I have it all reasoned out. Sixty minutes to eliminate a scum that should never have been on the earth anyway—which would never have been had birth been controlled and only intelligence been the permit to life…”