by Harl Vincent
“How do you explain the pulsation that has been so powerful in its effects? The bringing of madness and of a coma on board our ethership. The living-death in the realm of Adpar?”
“It is as yet unexplained, insofar as its source and how it produces these effects is concerned. If indeed in the region of the dome it is the identical beat as that in your vessel. Quite likely it is this throb that causes the living-death in the easterners and the reason it does not reach us here is our depth within the planet and the layers of insulating material in the crust above us, such as metallic ores. Here, you see, is where the physical and metaphysical overlap where it is sometimes most difficult to resolve the problem. Eventually, we shall know the truth of this still unexplained phenomenon.”
“But you’re convinced that all the so-called living-dead in Adpar’s diggings will survive?” Donley hung anxiously on her reply.
“Indeed we are. And that they will awaken to a much better world in which to live a far better life. At the moment, our strongest wish is that a lasting peace will prevail between east and west when Ormin is rejuvenated.”
“I sure hope you’re right.” Donley told her. “You see, I have one I love back there. She’s in that state and it’s for her I’m concerned.”
Daila’s understanding permeated her thought-words. “I know,” she said. “Not in detail but I have known of your great love and concern. May I offer our shelter here, my friend? Bring your Mera here before the cataclysm. She will be safe, I assure you. The time is short, so you had best return at once. And here is a means of communicating with me.” She handed him a shiny metal instrument the size of a cigaret case. It was smooth on all sides save one and here there was a series of six or seven small buttons that projected a quarter inch from the side.
“You press the buttons in this sequence,” Daila instructed him. “Two, five, one, three. Then merely talk into the flat side. Use it, my friend, in any circumstance where you think it may be useful. I shall do anything within my power that you may ask—to help.”
She had pressed the wall plate and a contingent of her guards stood before them. “Go now,” she continued. “And please do what you can for us when the time comes. If you can get an answer before the impending collision, just use the communicator and let me know. Farewell, but not for long.”
Donley and the Martian, impelled by an urge they could not have explained, each bent and kissed one of the soft hands, then turned away to follow their guides.
Somehow, though the passage was well-lighted, they seemed engulfed in a deepening gloom once they had passed through the portals.
CHAPTER TEN
After escorting them to the tunnel car, Daila’s guards offered to go along with them but Donley and the Martian agreed that this was not necessary. If they couldn’t retrace so simple a route they had poor memories indeed. One last bit of advice from the head guard was to take the gravity lift to its termination, which was a few levels higher than where they had entered it with the drylander. In that way there would be no need for manual control of the lift and they would see other areas of the domain of the easterners.
It was the best advice they could have received, Donley thought as they stepped out of the concealed niche into which the lift shaft opened at the top of its travel. Not only had they missed the not too cheerful repositories of the corpses that were not corpses, they were in the hub of the easterners’ habitation. Where the various automated services essential to their continued existence and growth over the years were located. In contrast to the balconied arrangement of its western counterpart, the domain of Adpar was divided into separate chambers of varying size and usefulness. Instead of a level where at least a portion of the westerners’ diet was raised and a separate level for utilities and still another for manufacturing, all three functions were combined here in one huge domed interior. The sounds of rotating machinery were very much the same, but otherwise there was not too much in common between the two concepts. However, there were here illustrated some of the fundamental differences between east and west.
Food production was all by machines; there was no area where the inhabitants, before the living-death, could have raised fresh vegetables for dietary purposes or flowers for their beauty and aroma. Their food, however appetizing, was all ersatz. Manufacturing areas had been set up by the easterners on a strictly quantity production basis and the units making up the utilities were of massive construction, that is the individual pieces of equipment, generators, pumps, blowers and such, were bulky and strictly functional in design, not streamlined for space and weight saving in addition to appearance, as were those in Daila’s realm.
There simply must be a separate chamber for physical fitness and recreational programs. There was, as they discovered upon leaving the ramp they took upward from the far end of this area. They came into a completely equipped gymnasium that was alongside a game room, both of huge size and equal or superior to corresponding facilities provided in the west.
Casting about for a means of reaching the dome room, they came upon another gravity lift, this one of course provided with the type of call button used in Adpar’s diggings. The door opened at Donley’s touch and they managed to get inside before it closed upon them. There was only one up button so they had no choice. They found themselves on the floor of the rotunda when they stepped out.
An unexpected sight greeted them. Over at the open door to the circular stair well, Randall was bending over the still form of Apdar, straightening his legs.
He then crossed the man’s hands over his chest and rose to face Donley and the Martian.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “it finally got to him. His living-death.”
It was then that Donley noticed the pendant hanging from the slim chain that encircled Randall’s neck, a duplicate of the one worn by Adpar.
“What’s the decoration, Randall?” he asked lightly.
His question was evaded. Instead of answering it, Randall mumbled, “Much more work to be done topside.” And before Donley could do more than gape, he was up the circular stair to the observatory.
Donley would have followed him expecting for the fact that Lantag strolled in with the news that most of the Meteoric’s passengers and all but one of the crew had succumbed. Most of these, he said, had never left their beds since first getting into them. The newlyweds, both couples, were among the living-dead, as well as the two young girls Eula and Byrl, also Brand and Davidson. Apparently, the few of them remaining up and around were of hardier stock, or with differently constituted nervous systems, to resist the thing longer. But, even as Lantag was telling them these things, Donley could feel the measured pulse of the energy stream in his consciousness. He shook his head to clear it just as Mr. Standish came in to join them.
“What do we hear from up there?” he asked, indicating the top of the dome with a toss of his head. “They’ve been locked in for—” He saw the motionless body of Adpar. “—hours, without a word. Ah, I see our benefactor has had it,” he concluded.
“Yes,” Donley replied, “and I imagine we’ll follow in short order.”
It was then that Randall’s voice came to them from the audios. It was in calm and measured tones that he requested all who heard him to get together in the amphitheatre. “I want to do a little explaining/’ he said, “and show you on the screen what we, that is Adpar and myself, determined before he slipped away.”
Jal Tarjen said then, “All will hear this. A speaker is in every room, every corridor, All over.”
They moved toward the small bowl and soon there were seated in a row halfway back, eight of them in all. Two of these were from the crew of the Meteoric but the steward was not with them. There was one woman, a square-jawed amazon type, a tall beanpole of a man with thick spectacles, a stout oldster with thinning gray hair, Lantag, Jal Tarjen and Donley. With Doc in the observatory, this meant that nineteen of their number were in suspended animation.
Donley did a quick double-take, made sure the mate w
as not with them, then rushed outside. Sure enough, Mr. Standish had dropped in a heap, just before reaching the double doors, and all that Jack could do for him was to compose his arms and legs as Randall had done with Adpar. Time was running out!
A screen not too unlike the large optophone disc in the main saloon of the Meteoric lighted a moment after Donley resumed his seat and Randall began telling them about what he was ready to show. His features and the sag of his shoulders betrayed extreme weariness.
“Before I run any cinetape,” he said, “I’d better give you a brief rundown on some of the past of Or-min. Like Terra, there were years of preparation for nuclear defense and, strangely, this was between east and west as in our own case. Eventually came the horror of nuclear war on a world scale and, according to history tape which Apdar showed me, all habitable and uninhabitable areas of the surface were devastated and all of the populations destroyed with the exception of a few of the eastern territorials who escaped the holocaust by being in a previously prepared underground shelter.
“There were no pictures at this time but only words on the tape, so we have to rely on oral description. I’ll not bore you with all of it but it seems there were four men and four women, with two young children of one couple, and from these descended the five thousand who inhabitated this city as of the coming of the living-death. The city itself was a result of gradual growth over the years, five of the fugitives being engineers of one persuasion or another, working with and educating their offspring in the beginning. They mined their ores, smelted them, forged and machined required finished members as they expanded their quarters and multiplied in number. Power generation, water supply, oxygen and other gas production of their simulated atmosphere, refrigeration, food processing—all had to be expanded in capacity from time to time as the population grew. Generation after generation built up the city and its facilities.
“The planet Ormin, for reasons that are unclear, gradually slowed its rotation until one side always faced Sirius, its sun. Poisoned by radioactivity and fallout, its atmosphere changed composition in a slow mutation that expanded the altered gases and consumed the oxygen, leaving behind only the most tenuous gases and these soon left the gravitational field of the planet entirely. Fortunately, the airlock which had protected them against the poisoned gases proved equally effective against the now surrounding vacuum,the transparent dome and its later designed outer airlock were of comparatively recent construction, having been conceived and built by Apdar’s grandfather, who was then the leader of the easterners.”
Since much of this, excepting the portions referring only to the easterners, was already familiar to Donley, he had been spending most of his energy watching in the dim light the row of seats for signs of others succumbing to the energy beat. And so it was that he saw one of the crewmen topple forward and hang limply against the seat in front of him. It was Lantag who helped him carry the man to the rotunda and lay him out beside the mate. The woman next in the row let out with a long fluttering sigh as they lifted the man over her head. She wasn’t feeling too good, Donley thought.
For that matter, neither was he. The sensation of the beating pulse was strong in his brain and he needed quite a bit of head-shaking and self-discipline to clear it of the lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub’s potency.
However, when they came back to their seats and he saw that Randall was running a cinetape, he felt better.
“This tape,” Randall explained, “was pieced together over the years and all portions of it were taken here in the city. Naturally, the first footage is not too good, showing the wear of many runnings. There were not more than five hundred inhabitants when the first portion was made.”
What he had said was true; the tape showed horizontal streaks and snow on the screen to an extent that almost made some of it unrecognizable. But it showed mostly all of the five hundred easterners gathered in a large hall which evidently had been replaced since. They were in seats part of the time, milling about in the aisles from time to time and shouting unintelligible objections to what the speaker was telling them in the same language. Frequently, their shouted hecklings drowned out the man’s voice entirely. It was obvious that a state of great excitement prevailed, even of fear.
“Apdar interpreted this to me,” Randall stated. “It was at the time Ormin was hurled from its orbit by an undetermined force, making it a wanderer in space. The man addressing them, or trying to, was the chief scientist of that time and he was telling them what was about to occur. Some didn’t believe him, others believing and overcome with terror. A scene of confusion like this was bound to ensue. Watch now!”
The floor of the hall rocked and the humans were tossed hither and yon as if an earthquake of enormous strength was shaking their entire city, or perhaps refuge is the better word as it had hardly become a city at that period. There were screams and stampeding and certainly many of the participants must have lost their lives as they fell or were shoved to fall under the feet of the crowd. Ormin was out of its orbit!
“Not too many lost their lives,” Randall averred. “Apdar said history recorded only about fifteen, which is remarkable considering what we have just seen.” The view in the screen blanked out and was replaced.
There followed a few scenes in various portions of the growing city as it was expanded, taken during succeeding generations. Interesting records of the diligence with which the growing population added to the facilities of their underground retreat. They were making it a world within a world that was unliveable on its surface.
Then came a section of the tape that gave evidence of being recently made. “Apdar had most of the rest of this recorded,” said Randall. “In the beginning here you see a view through his optical scanner when he first learned that a mysterious energy had taken hold of Ormin and was sweeping it in a huge arc across the heavens in the direction of our solar system. From then on, he studied its course assiduously.”
A view of the heavens showed our sun as a bright star and a few of its planets could be made out with comparative ease. From the slow swing of the view it was evident that the instrument picturing it was traveling in a curved path. Whether this was orbital with reference to some other celestial body or bodies was not apparent, but these were the determinations which Apdar had then set out to make.
The view changed to show the inside of Apdar’s operating room, the identical one where he had operated on the injured Meteoric passenger. A young woman was on the table, covered with a sheet, apparently dead. But Apdar was going over her with care, using first a stethoscope then instruments unfamiliar to Donley. One must have been of the order of an oscilloscope because electrodes from it, when attached to various parts of the woman’s body, activated a pen-drawing device at the same time a wavy horizontal line flickered in a round window on its face. The line, whether viewed in the window or on the unrolling paper under the pen, showed a definite cyclic series of notches. In pairs, one notch larger than its mate. Like the lub-dub rhythm. Which it was—precisely.
Apdar looked up with wonder in the eyes above his mask. “She is not dead,” Doc translated his words, “but is in a state of suspended animation. There is no heart beat nor is she breathing. But her body temperature is not down to the point indicating death. Nor is there any sign of rigor mortis setting in.”
He was telling this to three white-robed and masked assistants at the table. Donley thought he saw a look of cunning come into his eyes as he continued: “It is as I hoped for, why I developed the cause. A period of irrationality, followed by this.” He pointed dramatically to the still form under the sheet. “So that we shall all be asleep when Ormin is destroyed.” His listeners reacted with violent surprise; this was obviously the first they had heard of this.
Continuing on and on, the tape now showed how one after another and sometimes in groups, Apdar’s people succumbed. Some were in a frenzy first, some in babbling lunacy, others joined the living-dead with no preceding mental effect. Casket makers were shown at work and the fil
ling of the lowest level into which Donley and the Martian had ventured, then the level above. Always the ranks of the workers were thinning and by the time the next higher level was filled with living-dead in their drop-side caskets, there were no more manufactured. The few remaining workers must perforce turn to other tasks necessary to sustain the rapidly diminishing population. Eventually, all were of the living-dead, Apdar being the last to survive.
“And so he continued his study of the situation with his excellent astronomical gear,” Randall faltered, “and—and I worked with him of late. Now he too has slipped into the state he called the living-death.”
Donley closed his eyes and immediately the lub-dub, lub-dub pulse was in his being, growing now in intensity. Terrifying, yet soothing. Resolutely, he opened his eyes and set himself against it, determinedly turning his thought to other matters.
He saw suddenly on the wall an audio pickup panel.
Walking down and touching what seemed to be its “talk” button, he said into the mouthpiece, “Can you hear me, Randall?”
“Yes, Donley” came from the several speakers in the small hall. “Go ahead.”
Donley hesitated a moment, not knowing if he should smudge Apdar’s memory or not. But, for the sake of the rest of them in the seats, he decided he must. “How did our friend get the idea that he had provided the force for the living-death thing? Did he really believe this?”
“Probably not, Donley,” Randall laughed. “My guess is that the poor guy was affected mentally a bit himself. Like we’ve heard of some kooks on earth thinking they’re the emperor of Venus.”
Emperor of Venus. Creator of the pulsation. What was the difference, as long as one believed it?