“Oh, but I am. You will find my name in ‘Who’s Who.’ Up to two years ago I was actively engaged as a scientific explorer, then I happened on this place and—”
Dalaker broke off and whipped up his automatic. For a second his vigilance had relaxed, and in that second Blake acted. He hurled his powerful body forward, clutched Dalaker round the neck and flung him to the floor. The automatic went off deafeningly, twanged on the metal wall. Then Dalaker found himself sagging in a sickly heap, numbed as a bunch of iron fist struck him in the face.
“Now get up!” Blake grated, snatching up the fallen gun. “Get up, blast you!”
Dalaker rose slowly, mopping a streaming nose. His dark eyes looked like those of an angry snake.
“You think this is going to help you?” he demanded thickly.
“No harm in trying,” Blake retorted, then he put the gun in his father’s hand. “Keep him covered,” he ordered. “I’ve one or two things to do.”
He jerked open the cabin door, yelled to Ranji above the engine’s roar. “Turn around! Fly back.”
“Yes, sahib Blake.”
Blake watched anxiously for a moment as the yellow city began to recede—then struck by a sudden thought he swung to the radio, gazing at the maps on the table as he made contact. After a few moments’ delay Trinidad Air Port answered him.
“Henthorne Expedition plane calling Trinidad,” Blake intoned quickly. “Send help. Urgent. Beware of danger. Hidden city. Approximate position, 16.20 South, 49.55 West…”
Trinidad repeated the message, cut contact. Blake swung round swiftly, grinning.
“Well, Dalaker, what do you think of that?” he demanded in triumph—but before the scowling explorer could answer the ship dipped sharply as it swung round the range of hills. In an instant all three men were hurled off their feet. The Doctor’s automatic went spinning through the air.
Blake dived for it, and missed. He saw Dalaker, face set and venomous, snatch the gun up, swing it down with the sharp butt foremost. Blake tried in vain to scramble out of the way but a blinding pain shot through the region of his temple and sent him sprawling into darkness…
CHAPTER III
The Sleepers
As he came back to consciousness Blake found himself staring up at something yellow and glowing. It was a lamp set in a ceiling of yellow metal. He jerked upright, groaned at the throbbing in his head, eased himself up more slowly.
By degrees he realized he was in some kind of cell with a single grilled window. Dr. Henthorne was standing before it, gazing moodily outside. On the bunk on the opposite wall Ranji was reclining, hands locked behind his turbaned head. He seemed utterly lost in thought.
“Say, dad, what’s happened?”
Henthorne turned sharply at the words, smiled rather ruefully as Blake came to his side.
“Dalaker won,” he said, obviously enough. “That was hours ago, though. I thought you were never going to regain consciousness. Night’s just fallen… Of course he had Ranji bring the plane down here— But, Blake, how are you?” he finished anxiously, studying him.
“Oh, I’ll be O.K. Where are we exactly?”
Henthorne’s white head shook in puzzlement. “We’re in El Dorado; I know that much, and this seems to be a sort of prison. Hills all around the city—and a volcano. Take a look…”
Blake gazed over a floodlit expanse of yellow metal buildings—strange buildings, all of them of uniform height, perfectly square, most of them with a plentiful supply of window. And from them there floated a dull, low throbbing that told of immense industry and power.
Blake’s eyes lifted to the further distances of the city. There were taller buildings there, having a certain stamp of officialdom. One of them had obelisks on its roof, obelisks that looked odd on account of a copper color amidst the pervading gold. Then there was the volcano… brooding and smoking over the whole strange basin, its steamy discharge lighted by the kindled fires deep within its crater.
“Some dump,” Blake observed at length, rubbing his aching head. Then he frowned. “Just what do you make of it all, dad? What sort of people are there? Seen any?”
“Oh, yes—men and women, pale skinned. All of them—or nearly all—dressed in somewhat Arcadian attire. The men wear shorts and long-sleeved tunics: the women knee length skirts, sleeveless blouses, and sandals. Men wear skin shoes… All most extraordinary.” Henthorne knitted his brows. “This place seems to be extremely scientific. As we were brought here I had glimpse of machines, mainly electrical, defying anything I ever saw in my life before. I forgot to mention too that some of the people are peculiar—downtrodden in appearance, clad in rags for the most part…”
Ranji came silently from his bunk. “Might I suggest, sahibs, that people come from other world?”
“Huh?” Blake exclaimed, staring.
“For these people to have skin as fair as the sky and yet so close to the sun troubles me deeply,” Ranji embellished. “One would expect them as dark as Allah’s own children—yet they are not. I am disturbed, sahibs; deeply disturbed.”
“Maybe something in it,” Henthorne admitted, musing. “These people look as though they’ve spent ages out of sunlight. They are obviously not natural inhabitants otherwise they would be dark. But people of another world—!” He laughed a little incredulously, and Ranji shrugged.
“I wonder if—” Blake began, then they all three turned as the cell door suddenly opened to admit two of the curiously garbed men. They carried a collapsible table and four chairs, which they set up in the cell’s center. Then two other guards came in and began to lay a meal of fruits and cold meats.
“What’s this? Execution feast?” Blake demanded, watching.
The men did not answer, so he watched them silently. They were hefty fellows, splendidly muscled, bull necked, with yellow hair and very vivid blue eyes. The Arcadian attire was very much in evidence, conveying an impression of easy comfort… When they were through laying the meal they stood silently against the wall with folded arms.
Blake looked longingly at the open doorway, and at that moment Dalaker came through it, faultlessly attired in white flannels. He spoke a few short words to the men in a language that was entirely new to Blake, despite a fairly wide linguistic knowledge; then Dalaker turned and smiled cynically.
“So you’ve recovered, Blake? I’m glad of that… Please be seated, my friends.” He took his seat at the head of the table and the guards looked on in silence.
For some time the meal proceeded quietly. There was plenty of everything. The food, though strange, was extremely palatable, the wine light—but there was such an air of mystery and incongruity about the whole thing that at last Blake could stand it no longer. Leaping to his feet he slammed his fist down on the table.
“Come on, Dalaker, out with it!” he snapped. “What damned monkey business are you up to, anyway? Why this honored guest fiasco?”
“Still impetuous, eh?” Dalaker murmured. “Sit down, Blake, and try getting some knowledge through your thick skull.”
“Why, you—”
“Sit down!” Dalaker thundered, and at the bitter cruelty in the voice Blake slowly obeyed. Then he watched with interest as, at a signal from Dalaker, one of the guards stepped out into the corridor and wheeled in a contrivance like an ebony box with a ground glass screen, supported on a rubber-wheeled tripod.
With swift movement Dalaker switched a button, began tuning a figured dial that looked as though it ought to belong to a radio or television receiver. And presently the ground glass screen came to life, presented a color picture of an immense hall of yellow metal illumined with indirect lighting. It was a magnificent place, the mighty domed ceiling supported on carven pillars…
And the hall was populated—by supine figures lying on yellow metal beds. They were dressed in white, grave-like shrouds, whilst wires were affixed by suction cups to various nerve centers of their bodies and craniums. It was difficult to see what the men looked like: there was a confusi
ng impression of distance.
“What on earth—” Henthorne began, staring, then he stopped as Dalaker interrupted him.
“That is the main underground hall of El Dorado, my friends. Those men are the Eternal Sleepers.”
“The what?” Blake jerked out.
“They are the real rulers of this city—my sleeping masters,” Dalaker went on, thoughtful eyes on the screen. “This television enables you to see the hall, which ordinarily can only be unlocked from the inside by the Sleepers themselves… I only show it to you now because, though you see so much, there is so little you will ever reveal— But I was saying, the Sleepers have slept for generations, generations without number. They are masters of thought and sensory impression because, as they lie there, their minds are actively working,
“You see the wires? Those carry every sensory impression to them without them having to exert physical effort: that gives their minds free play. And the decision and orders of their minds are impressed on machines. Thought waves do react on sensitive machinery, you know, just the same as radio waves react on remote control mechanisms… You will appreciate the possibilities. Machines select what thoughts they receive; they set other machines in action which translate the orders of the Sleepers. Thuswise, without any physical effort, the Sleepers can both give orders and receive thoughts, sift the interesting from the uninteresting. A strange but infinitely sublime state of personal detachment.”
“You mean that physical sensations, if desired, are produced by certain—er—nerve excitations through those numerous wires?” Doctor Henthorne demanded.
“Yes. And I am the Sleepers’ ambassador… They nominated me. They discovered that you knew of a scientific effort to rid the world of humanity through the medium of tremendous electric storms. They commanded I bring you here. I have done so—and you will never leave.”
“That’s what you think,” growled Blake.
“But—but who are you?” cried Henthorne in bewilderment. “What are you?”
Dalaker smiled coldly. “Basically, I am a Venusian.”
Blake started to say something, then he laughed shortly, “Oh, cut it out, Dalaker! A Venusian! Anybody knows Venus is a hellish hot planet and—”
“El Dorado, too, is in quite a warm spot,” Dalaker observed, unmoved.
“But—but— You mean all these people are Venusians?”
“The majority, yes—but there are certain low types here in the form of guards who are American. My own people could not do such tasks, so I chose a large number of low-class American types, together with one or two Britishers, and imported them here.”
“Oh, you did…” Blake’s eyes began to get hard.
“After all, this spot is not so much different from certain parts of Venus,” Dalaker resumed. “On Venus direct sunlight is unknown—certain ultra violet radiations are blocked. That is why these people are white skinned. If I seem darker than the rest that is purely because I deliberately darkened my skin to fit in with my role as an explorer… After all, it is not so strange a story as it seems.
“Countless ages ago—mere small spans for almost eternal Venusians—we lived on Venus, were born there. But changes in the surface, together with various other things, forced us to move out. We decided Earth would be a possible planet, at that time. But when we arrived here the world was only half formed, filled with rank vapors and ever changing landscape. We decided we must have a world of our own—” Dalaker broke off, then said slowly, “You are aware that the moon is not a true satellite of Earth?”
“Such a fact has been suggested,” Henthorne admitted. “Some scientists believe in the theory very strongly.”
“The theory is correct,” Dalaker said flatly. “We made the moon for our own use, gouged it out of what now forms the Pacific Ocean bed. But the moon didn’t serve us long,” he went on regretfully. “Its slight gravity permitted the air to escape very rapidly into space, and with that came disaster. Not only from lack of air, but from the perpetual bombardment of meteorites and cosmic debris which created the craters you see today. On Earth, of course, the frictional quality of a dense atmosphere prevents such happenings—save in rare cases, such as the Siberian meteorite…
“But during our stay on the moon some of us—now the Eternal Sleepers—had become masters of mental and physical phenomena. We came to Earth again, transported the Sleepers with great care, and chose a spot where it was very warm, and where the chance of being discovered was negligible. Hence came El Dorado, which is of course a mere fanciful name and not our own. Actually this city is named Kirandol, but that is beside the point… City of ageless, imperishable yellow metal… I hope I’m not boring you?” Dalaker broke off, raising his eyebrows and looking round.
“It sounds incredible to me,” Blake muttered. “Especially when you say your name is in ‘Who’s Who’.”
“I had a status to maintain as an ambassador,” Dalaker explained. “There was no better profession to choose than that of explorer.”
“But your race is so identical to ours,” Henthorne muttered, shaking his head. “It is by no means common for races of two worlds to be so identical. Especially Venus and Earth.”
“I grant you that. But it isn’t unusual when one life form is patterned after another…”
A long silence followed Dalaker’s observation, then at last Henthorne cried, “Good God, man, you don’t mean that Earthlings were originally created by Venusians?”
“Just that. Creation of life is not difficult to our science. Yes, we created Earthly life at the time of our first visit to Earth—or rather we created the first man and woman of Earth, after the image of ourselves, of course. It seemed the most natural thing… You believe that man worked his way from the amoeba. He did not. The distinction between man and beast is absolute. The gap between—that which you call the Missing Link—really is missing, nor will it ever be found because man and beast are forever separate. Man began with the lowest cave-man form and worked up from that to his present rather childish status. We started it.
“Our original intention was for the Eternal Sleepers to control these children of our making for definite uses, but only a few—notably those whom you call geniuses—responded. The remainder ran wild. The experiment is a failure… Therefore the Sleepers have decided on other measures. What has been built up can also be destroyed. Electrical storms are the answer, mainly because they appear to be natural upheavals of the elements to the outside world. More direct and drastic methods would bring unwanted attention and attack down on ourselves. You, Dr. Henthorne, could have upset our plants with your unusual scientific knowledge, so, obeying commands, I captured you and your son… Fortunately, Doctor, you were utterly discredited, and no other scientist seems to possess your ability. If one does appear, he will be taken care of…”
Another long silence fell after Dalaker had finished. Lighting a cigarette he watched the three through the smoke, a faintly cynical grin on his bronzed face. Then suddenly Blake shot to his feet.
“And suppose I don’t believe it?” he demanded fiercely.
“Again?” Dalaker was clearly surprised. “Will nothing ever convince you, Blake?”
“I’ll be convinced by the truth any time, but your story isn’t truth. I say it’s a lot of bunk! You a Venusian! Hell knows how many millions of years old! You expect us to believe that?”
Dalaker’s thin lips compressed; then he shrugged. “Obviously it is no use expecting you to believe anything. Not that it matters in any case. I’ve better things to do than to waste time convincing fools. Maybe a few years in the Mines will teach you common sense, break your spirit, force you to realize that obstinacy is the wrong line to adopt in the presence of your betters.”
“Betters!” Blake flamed. “By God, I’ll—”
“No you won’t,” Dalaker interrupted bitterly, his automatic in his hand. “You’ll take what’s coming to you—and that’s slavery! Same as all the rest of the damned fools in this city who thought they coul
d defy the commands of the Eternal Sleepers. In the Mines you’ll have plenty of time to think. Down there they obtain and smelt the yellow metal of which this city is composed. It has the name of ynium, not gold, if that interests you,” he finished with a sneer.
“If you’re so anxious to get rid of us why don’t you kill us right now and have done with it?” Blake demanded, glaring.
“Because,” Dalaker answered softly, “I have certain recollections of a very strong punch in the face, back in the airplane. Naturally, one cannot treat the ambassador of the Sleepers in that fashion without receiving due punishment… lingering punishment through long years.
“For myself,” he went on, shrugging, “I am really sorry that matters have come to so unpleasant a pass, but there are certain things that have to be done. Confinement and punishment of all three of you is one of them… So much slower than a bullet; so much more time to think!”
“B—but you can’t send me to the Mines!” Henthorne burst out desperately. “I can’t do it, Dalaker! Why, I’m over sixty years of age—”
“In that case you will have less time to brood over your misfortunes,” Dalaker retorted coldly. “And take it easy, Blake!” he finished, as Blake stirred in restless fury.
Blake gulped, stared at the automatic, then at Dalaker.
“I’ll get you for this one day, Dalaker, if I have to come back from the dead to do it. I’ll break every damned bone in your rotten, slimy body—”
Dalaker ignored the outburst. He made a quick signal to the silent guards and they jerked heavy revolvers from their pockets. Blake looked at the revolvers in puzzlement, a vague thought turning over in his mind—then he was seized and bundled out of the cell. His last vision of Dalaker was his coldly triumphant face… Blake felt himself grow hot with mounting but useless fury…
CHAPTER IV
Slavery in the Mines
It took an hour to reach the Mines, and in that time Blake, his father, and the silent Ranji were piloted by the unrelaxing guards through devious quarters of the strange, floodlit golden city, taken through broad streets and narrow alley-ways.
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