Bill and Jeff began to pull the blue robes off at once, wadding them up and throwing them aside. Trotting over to Judy, they both hugged her.
“Now let’s get out of here,” Bill suggested.
Judy looked upward. “Not up there. It’s spooky. And so devastated…”
“No, we have a way,” Jeff said.
He took her arm and helped her down onto the platform. They walked past the wrecked cars and Jeff pointed at the waiting handcar.
“Now are we far-thinking ‘hero types’ or not? Look at that, Judy—a genuine getaway car.”
She smiled, but her face was wan. “You two guys are really something, but—” She swayed and almost fell, but Bill caught her. “I’m so… weak… I…”
Bill and Jeff lifted her up, carried her to the handcar, and set her down on it. Jeff bent over and gathered up one of the torches he had prepared earlier.
“Okay, navigator, which way?” Jeff asked.
Bill looked down one dark tunnel, then the other. He shook his head. “Both look bad to me. But if we want to go forward, we’ll have to lift this thing—and Judy—to the parallel tracks. Why don’t you get that torch lit.”
As Jeff searched in his pockets for the Ever-Seal, they heard a clicking noise, and the hidden door in the tile wall snapped and started to slide open.
Bill cried out, “They’re after us!” and leaped on the handcar, starting to pump the handle.
As the car began to move, squeaking in protest, Jeff jumped down and shoved against the back of the car to help it go, digging his feet into the grit and debris between the tracks.
The hidden door was now wide open and several blue-robed figures, were running through.
“After them!” they shouted.
“They’re getting away! Hurry!”
The pursuers raced along the subway platform, shouting, and finally leaped down between the tracks. The handcar, squeaking shrilly had gained speed; Jeff jumped aboard just as it passed into the darkness of the tunnel.
“I’ll see if I can light another torch!” Jeff called out.
“No! Douse that one!” Bill cried. “Keep it dark!”
“But there might be anything ahead!” Jeff complained, shouting over the noise behind them. ‘
“And there’s something behind us, too!”
The handcar squeaked, rumbling its way along the tracks and gaining a little distance on the pursuers. Not far beyond the mouth of the tunnel, the blue-robed figures came to a halt, their feet scuffing the rubble of ages disconsolately.
But the leading figure stood very still. There was a sudden humming and two wire-thin beams of light flashed from his eyes. Far down the tunnel there came an explosion of light and sound and the thunderous noise of falling rocks.
* * *
Krador settled back into the pads within the egg-shaped module. Reaching up, he pulled down the dome to fit over his head. His movements were swift but certain, in contrast to the nervous twitches of the blue-robed figures around him.
The leader of the Underdwellers now settled more firmly into the seat of the Chair of Power, his face grim. He closed his eyes and commanded in a husky voice, “Activate the Chair!”
One of the figures extended a hand from the long sleeve of his robe and gestured to another, who waited at the control panel. The switch was thrown.
Instantly the entire visual display of the control panel changed. One section of lights went dead and another lit up brightly, blinking rapidly, then swiftly settling into a steady beat that matched Krador’s pulse. Another panel changed colors several times, rearranged its pattern. Then all lights turned green.
The robed figure standing before the egg-shaped chair gave his leader a searching look, then turned away toward the repairmen who were working feverishly on the ruined solar dish. “Hurry with the repairs! Krador has only a short time!”
* * *
“Halt!”
General Urko’s voice cut through the rumble of tanks and the crash of trucks over the steepening desert hills. His jeep swerved to miss a rock hidden behind a dry, scraggly bush and stopped in a shower of dust.
The gorilla commander stood up, impatiently waving the dust away, and put his fieldglasses to his eyes. He scanned the rock cliffs above, then snarled to his aide-de-camp, “Mulla, which cliff was it?”
The gorilla captain had his glasses on the rocks, but he shook his head. “Sir, I could swear it was that one up there… but it looks just as solid as any of them!”
Urko growled, a threatening rumble that came from his hate-filled chest. “Is this some trickery of the Underdwellers? Or are my eyes deceiving me?”
The captain wisely kept silent, his glasses, too, searching the sheer rock faces for some clue to the mystery.
* * *
A blue-robed figure ran up to the Chair of Power and grasped the edges of the concave compartment within it where Krador sat with the dome over his head.
“Krador! The humanoids have escaped!”
Another of the robed figures put out a restraining hand. “Don’t bother Krador now! He is powering the entire defense system!”
“But—!”
Krador’s voice came from the egg-shaped chair—a hollow voice, distant and weak. “Stop… them…!”
* * *
The explosion on the tunnel wall sent flying shards of rock over the heads of Bill, Judy, and Jeff. The former pilot of the Venturer cried out a warning, but a second blast drowned him out. Rock fragments and concrete chips from the tunnel wall hailed down on the three in the darkness as they rattled along.
“They’re shooting beams at us!” Bill yelled.
Jeff pushed Judy down and held her to the deck of the rocking handcar. They ran into a chunk of rock, which tilted the car dangerously, but it fell back neatly upon the tracks and the back wheels kicked the rock off into the darkness.
“Help me pump this thing!” Bill called out to Jeff, who lurched to his feet on the swaying old machine and grabbed at the opposite pumping handle. The two men bent their backs furiously to the task as a third explosion blew out a section of the tunnel behind them.
A searing beam of light now flashed past Bill’s head and struck the floor of the tunnel ahead, enabling him to see tracks bent upward, ragged strips of rusted steel that had just curled like paper.
“Look out!”
They bounced over a rock in the middle of the dark tracks.
“They hit the other tracks, thank God!” Jeff called out.
He looked back and could dimly see the figures still standing in the half-circle of light at the tunnel’s beginning. When he saw the next flash of light proceeding from the head of the center man, he started to cry out a warning.
“Look—!”
This blast hit the tunnel wall, cascading dirt and broken concrete down upon the handcar. It faltered as the two men staggered awkwardly to keep their balance. Jeff looked down at Judy, lying limply across the car.
Bill caught the look and yelled out, “Is she hurt?”
“I can’t tell,” the black yelled back. “She may have just passed out and—”
Another flash of light and a thunderous echoing struck just behind them, choking the tunnel with dust and shaking down the grit and grime of centuries upon their heads.
“Faster!” Bill shouted, his arms pumping hard.
The squeaking of the ancient machine was less now, more of a rhythmic beat, as the mechanism got its parts working more smoothly.
Ahead of the handcar, standing in the darkness of the ancient subway system, were two blue-robed figures unseen by the approaching astronauts.
“They come,” one said, hearing the rumble echoing in the tunnel. “Prepare!”
* * *
Bill and Jeff were pumping hard, but Jeff took a second to look back. “They’ve stopped shooting!”
“Pray for a turn in the tunnel!” Bill gasped.
They bent their backs, up and down, up and down, forcing the handcar to speed along the ruste
d track. Grit and small stones popped out from under the corroded old wheels, making a steady crunching sound.
Jeff looked up to see a faint red light ahead, and the thin red crack of some kind of door. Then he saw the red-framed outlines of two robed figures.
“Look out! More of them!”
Bill looked over his shoulder just in time to see the beam of light proceed from the head of one of the figures. A bright explosion splashed light and rubble from a ruined ceiling onto the tracks just behind the hurtling handcar. It was almost upon the two robed figures when the second Underdweller hummed, the sound audible even over the falling dirt and the rattling handcar. A light flashed from his head, but glided between Bill and Jeff as they passed, exploding harmlessly across the tunnel from them.
Bill swung out his foot and, keeping his hold on the pump handle, gave the nearer figure a solid kick in the chest. The handcar passed, rattling over grit and rusted tracks as the figure staggered against the other and fell.
The second figure called out in a suddenly stricken and surprised voice, “Oosa!”
The handcar rattled on into the darkness as the fallen blue-robed man lurched to his feet. He started to fire another bolt after the car, his humming sound growing fast, but the other figure stopped him.
“No! They have Oosa! We cannot stop them!”
The risen robed figure grew still and spoke in a calm voice, “It is up to you, Krador.”
In the embryo-like confines of the Chair of Power, the Underdweller leader spoke in a sepulchral voice. “Very well.”
The lights on the control panels began to blink at a different tempo and further generators began to hum. A special panel, unlit before, glowed red and started to form a dazzling concentric pattern of lights, which blinked furiously.
* * *
Judy groaned and shook her head. The echoing rattle of the handcar as it rolled down the dark tunnel was like a hammer at her brain. But she gathered her strength and raised her head. She saw that the tunnel was black, with only an occasional shower of sparks as the ancient hurtling vehicle ran over something on the tracks.
She could hear, from time to time, the grunts of Bill and Jeff as their weary arms worked the pump handles. She groaned again, but her voice could not be heard over the noise.
Then, all at once, came a loud, metallic clatter and the handcar tilted. Judy screamed as the velocity of the car was diverted upward. Bill cried out, but the car was already falling over, coming to a rest, its wheels still spinning, on its side. Judy fell off into the gritty darkness, striking her shoulder sharply and plowing into some ancient cinders. Dust and grit choked them all, but both men groped their way through the gloom to find her.
“Are you all right?” Bill asked, his voice forced to a calmness he did not feel.
“Yes…” Judy answered weakly. “I’m all right… but… I’m so weak…”
“Here, let me help you.” Jeff found her arms and gathered her up, to bring her to a sitting position. “There. You’re sure there’s nothing hurt?”
“No,” Judy said into the blackness, forcing the words out painfully.
Bill stood and stared back the way they had come. “We’re out of their sight and range. I think we’d better get some light down here. We can’t see what we’re doing.”
Jeff agreed, and they searched for the torches he had made, which had been scattered in the wreck.
They were able to locate two, but Jeff could not locate the butane cigarette lighter.
“I’ve lost it, I guess. Dammit!” he cursed.
They sat down not far from Judy to rest and regain their breath.
In a minute or two, Bill rose. “I’ll check on Judy,” Bill said and scrambled over to her through the debris that cluttered the tracks. “How are you?” he asked her.
“Weak… very weak… Krador is draining my… energy…”
“What?” Bill exclaimed, puzzled. Then, as he began to comprehend the control the Underdweller leader still must hold over her mind, he comforted her as best he could: “Hold on, Judy, we’re trying. Just as soon as we get our breath, we’ll see if we can clear the tracks.”
A few feet away, Jeff let out a sudden happy cry. Bill turned to see the tiny flame of the Ever-Seal.
He scampered back through the trash and broken bits of unidentifiable junk to crouch next to Jeff. They gently touched the tiny flame to an oil-soaked torch. To Judy’s blurry eyes they looked like two cavemen in a prehistoric cave, trying to bring fire into the world.
In moments, the torch was crackling, lighting up a circle that showed the handcar tilted on its side and the obstacle it had hit—a section of ceiling that had fallen in across the tracks long ago. Jeff stuck the torch in a niche in the tunnel wall, and then he and Bill started heaving rubble off the tracks.
From time to time, they paused to listen for pursuers but heard nothing. Soon the track was clear and they had lifted the handcar back on the tracks and were ready to go.
“Lucky these things were made to handle by hand,” Jeff said.
He then quickly gathered up his fallen torches, recovered the flaming one from the crevice, and got onto the handcar as Bill laid Judy carefully down across it.
“Weak…” she muttered, her head falling onto her arm.
“Come on, let’s get going!” Bill said.
Jeff stuck the flaming torch into a crack in the front end of the handcar and they started to pump. The car bounced over the few remains of the rubble, then started gathering speed along the tracks.
The first torch quickly burned down and Jeff paused in his pumping to light another with it, throwing the smoking first torch away. The handcar moved quickly now, though it still bounced over minor obstacles and spat grit out from under its rusty steel wheels.
After a time, Bill looked up, frowned at a patch of light ahead, then as they rocketed closer, suddenly saw what it was.
“Hit the brakes!” he screamed to Jeff.
Ahead of them was a huge chasm, faintly lit from some unknown source. There the subway tracks were ragged and torn, and bent down into the crater at an impossible angle.
Jeff grabbed the brake handle with both hands, heaving at it with all his strength. The handle bent, then snapped, and almost catapulted the black man out of the rough-riding handcar.
“No good!” he cried out, clinging to the pump handle. “We can’t stop!”
Bill leaned down, attempting to gather up Judy and jump, and Jeff did the same. But the two men fumbled on the rocking car and in their haste got in each others way. Then it was too late. The handcar hurtled out into the air above the pit!
And kept right on going!
The two astronauts gaped in astonishment as the handcar swept straight across the yawning chasm without even wobbling. Amazed, they saw the farther edge of the crater approaching, felt the familiar rock and bump of the car under them, and were back on the tracks, sailing away again into the darkness.
There was no time to question how this had happened, only gratitude that they had not hurtled to their deaths. Their speed had decreased, however, since they had temporarily stopped pumping, and the two astronauts stared back at the hole.
The hole had disappeared, as had the faint light that had illuminated it!
“It’s gone!” Jeff marveled.
Bill frowned as the car slowed to a rattling glide. “If it really ever was there…”
Judy’s groan alerted Bill, and he bent to her. Speaking to Jeff over his shoulder, he yelled, “Get pumping! Get us out of here!”
As Jeff started pumping at the mechanical arm, Bill gathered Judy in his arms. “Judy! What’s happening?”
* * *
The control panels glittered with diamond lights, their patterns intricate and keyed to Krador’s mind and body. The high-pitched whine continued, rising and rising. Krador’s assistants watched him with apprehension.
The jewel-like lights flickered for a moment, then resumed their steady blinking beat. The blue-robed assistants fr
owned, and watched their leader even more carefully.
* * *
The handcar raced, meanwhile, through the ruins of the New York subway system, a flickering torch illuminating only a few feet beyond the front of the creaking vehicle.
Bill looked up at Jeff.
“It must be Krador,” he shouted over the noise. “He’s affecting her in some way!” Bill eased Judy out of his arms and down to the bouncing floor of the little handcar and rose to help pump. “Stay with us, Judy,” he shouted down at her. “You must stay with us!”
The handcar hit a rail switching, jostled and jerked its way to a sudden turn, and then they were moving swiftly down another tunnel.
“Pump!” Bill shouted.
At a sudden roar, the tunnel was filled with light. Bill looked over his shoulder and Jeff stared. A wall of flame had appeared abruptly across the full width of the battered tunnel ahead. Smoke billowed along the curving top of the tunnel and light illuminated every inch of the litter-filled passage.
“Look out!” Jeff shouted. “A wall of fire!”
He started to leap, but Bill yelled at him over the crackling of the flames. “No! Don’t jump!”
“But—!”
Bill held on to the pump handle with one hand and reached down to grasp Judy with the other. “Hang on!” he screamed to Jeff. “We’re going through!”
“Are you crazy? You’ll—”
The handcar rushed into the crackling wall of fire. Jeff gasped as the flames licked over his body—but they were cold!
In seconds, they had cleared the wall of flames—untouched, only frightened. Jeff looked back and saw the flames cease, not die down gradually but all at once, instantly—like turning out a light. The tunnel was dark again, lit only by the smoking remains of Jeff’s second torch.
“We made it,” Jeff said with wonder, “but how—?”
“Light another torch,” Bill ordered. He started pumping again. “There was no fire—no real fire anyway. It was all an illusion. It must be something generated by Krador and the Underdwellers. It’s their defense system, no doubt.”
“That’s why it was cold!”
Planet of the Apes Omnibus 4 Page 17