The Science Fiction of Erle Stanley Gardner - The Human Zero

by Matin Greenberg

  He tossed over the match box. The little man caught it with eager hands. There was the scrape of a match, and then the sputter of flame an^i a hissing steam of thin blue smoke.

  He was scrambling toward them.

  “Quick!” he said. “Out of the way!”

  They got out into the outer corridor. The explosion came almost at once, a lightning quick smash of dry sound that was like the explosion of smokeless powder in a modern cannon.

  They were impatient, eager in their desire to see what had happened. Of a sudden that cruiser, floating so serenely upon the water, seemed a thing of refuge, something of permanent stability in this world which had suddenly swung over on a slope, where skyscrapers careened drunkenly and crashed into showers of rock dust and twisted steel girders.

  They found that the explosive had done its work. There was a great jagged hole in the building, 'against which the water lapped with gurgling noises.

  “Now to get her out,” said Phil. “We’ll have to have power of some sort!”

  But he had reckoned without the force of the current. Already an eddy had been created in the water, and the cruiser had swung broadside, the keel at the bow scraping along the tile floor of that which had been a display room.

  “The first thing is to get aboard, anyway,” he said.

  He took the girl’s arm, piloted her down the inclined floor to the side of the boat, found that the side of the deck was too far above water for him to reach.

  “I’m giving you a boost!” he said. And he shifted his grip to her knees, gave her a heave, and sent her up to where she could scramble to the deck. “Now see if there’s a rope,” he called to her.

  “One here,” she said.

  “Okay, fasten one end and throw over the other end.”

  She knotted the rope, flung it over.

  “You and the emergency stuff next,” said Phil to the scientist, and he grasped him, swung him out into the water, sent him up the rope, flung up the sack, grasped the end of the rope himself, pulled himself to the deck.

  “Well, well, here’s a boat hook, all lashed into place, and there’s a little boat with some oars, all the comforts of home!” he laughed. “I took a cruise once, down the coast of Mexico. Some of the other fellows got seasick, but I didn’t. It was a small yacht, and the motion was just like riding a bucking bronco. I was used to it.”

  And he untied the boat hook, an affair of mahogany and polished brass. “All spiffy,” he said. “Well, folks, here we go out to sea!”

  And he caught the boat hook about one of the jagged girders of twisted steel, and leaned * his weight against it. Slowly, the boat swung from the eddy which was circling in the half-submerged room, and slid its bow out to the opening.

  Almost at once the current caught them, whipped the bow of the boat around. The stern smashed against the side of the building with a terrific jar. The impact knocked Phil from his feet.

  He rolled over, grasped at a handhold, gave an exclamation of dismay. He felt sure the shell of the craft would be crushed.

  But she was strongly built, the pride of the corporation that had kept her on display, and her hull withstood the strain. She lurched over at an angle, and the water rushed up the hull, then she won free, and they found themselves out in the center of the stream of water, rushing forward, buildings slipping astern.

  “We’ve got to find some way of steering her,” yelled Phil. “If the current throws us against one of those buildings we’ll be smashed to splinters. Can we start the motor?”

  The scientist made no reply. He was too busy taking observations.

  It was the girl, standing in the bow, who screamed the warning. The boat was swinging in toward the ruins of a collapsed structure. Just ahead of it a new building was in the course of construction, and the steel girders, thrust up through the black waters, were like teeth of disaster, thrust up to receive the boat.

  In the office where it had been on display the boat seemed a massive thing. Out here in the swirling waters it seemed like a toy.

  Phil Bregg ran forward.

  “How much rope is there?” he asked.

  “A whole coil of the light rope. Then there’s a shorter length of the heavy rope.”

  Phil nodded.

  “I’ll show you how we handle charging steers in the cattle country when we get a loop on ’em.” he said.

  His bronzed hands flashed swiftly through the making of knots. He swung the rope around his head, let the coil gain momentum, and swung the loop out, straight and true.

  It settled over the top of one of the girders. Phil swung a few swift dally turns around the bitts in the bow, shouted to the girl to get the heavier rope ready.

  Then the rope tautened, the craft shifted, swung broadside, and the rope became as taut as a bowstring.

  Phil eased the strain by letting the rope slip slightly over the bitts, then, when he had lessened the shock, made a reversed loop, holding the line firm.

  The current boiled past the bow. The line hummed with the strain.

  “Maybe we can hold it here, for a while, anyway. The heavy rope will serve when we can get a chance to drop it over. There’s a winch here, and I can probably run the boat in closer.”

  He turned to look behind him, and grinned, the sort of a grin that an outdoor man gives when he realizes he is facing grave danger.

  “Looks like we’ve got to stay right here. If we break loose we’re gone!”

  And he pointed to a place where a building had collapsed, forming an obstruction in the current. The water fell over this like a dam, sucked in great whirlpools which gave forth an ever increasing roar.

  A small boat, sucked into those whirlpools, would be capsized or crushed against the obstruction, and those who were thrown into the current would be hurtled downward.

  It was at that moment that the scientist came toward them.

  “The forces of stress equalization are at work now,” he observed. “You doubtless notice the peculiar agitation of the water, the waving of the buildings . . . Ah, there goes our skyscraper! An earthquake of increasing violence is rocking the soil.”

  The skyscraper in which they had taken refuge came down with a roar, and then it seemed as though the boat was shaken as a rat is shaken by a terrier. It quivered, rocked, creaked. And the skyline flattened as by magic. Buildings came down with an accompaniment of sound which ceased to be a separate, distinguishable sound, but was a vast cadence of destruction, a sullen roar of terrific forces reducing the works of man to dust.

  Where one had seen the more or less ruined skyline of a city, there was now only a turbulent, quake-shaken sea of heaving water and plunging debris.

  And on the horizon loomed a vast wave, a great sea with sloping sides, a mighty wall of water that came surging toward them.

  “Quick,” yelled Phil, “down in the cabin and close everything. It’s our only chance.”

  And he pushed at the girl and the scientist, got them down the little companionway into the snug cabin. He followed, closed the doors, shutting out a part of the undertone of sound which filled the air.

  The interior was littered with advertising matter relating to the seaworthy qualities of the little craft, the completeness of the equipment which was furnished with it.

  A sign, scrolled in fancy lettering, carried the slogan of the company: “Craft that ^re ready to cruise.”

  “Maybe there’s some gasoline in the—”

  Phil had no chance to finish. The boat swung. There was a jar as the mooring line parted, and then they were thrust upward, and upward. The boat veered, rolled, and went over and over like a chip of wood in a mill race. Everything that was loose in the cabin was plunged about. There was no keeping one’s feet.

  Phil felt his head bang against the cooking stove, struggled to right himself, and his feet went out from under him. His head slammed against the floor. The craft rolled over and over, and Phil lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER 4

  Rushing-Where?

/>   He was aware of a slight nausea, of a splitting headache. He could hear voices that impinged upon his consciousness without carrying meaning. Slowly, bit by bit, he began to remember where he was. He remembered the disaster, the earthquake, that last wild rush of the tidal wave.

  The words ceased to be mere sounds, and carried intelligence to his brain.

  “. . . must be a fire.”

  It was the girl who spoke.

  “I should say it was a volcano, well away from us. There will probably be others,” came from the scientist.

  Phil sat up, and became conscious of a more or less violent rocking. The interior of the boat was almost dark. It was visible in a peculiar red half-light that showed objects in a vague, unnatural manner.

  “Hello,” said Phil, conscious of the throbbing in his head.

  They came toward him, looks of concern on their faces.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Right as a rivet,” said Phil. “What happened?”

  “We went over and over. We all got pretty badly shaken. You got a blow on the head and have been unconscious for several hours. The sky’s overcast, both with clouds and some sort of a dust. There’s an illumination that makes everything seem reddish, that Professor Parker thinks is from a volcano.”

  Phil nodded.

  “So you’re Professor Parker. I’m Phil Bregg of Fairbanks.”

  He glanced at the girl.

  “I’m Stella Ranson,” she said “and I was employed as a secretary. I guess that’s all over now. Ugh!” and she shuddered.

  Phil found that they had placed him on one of the little berths in the cabin. He swung his feet over.

  “Well, we seem to be on an even keel now. What can I do to help—anything?”

  The man who had been introduced as Professor Parker shook his head.

  “The sea’s comparatively calm. We have reason to believe there are earthquakes going on, probably quakes of considerable magnitude. We have found there is some gasoline in the fuel tanks, and a little kerosene in the stove and storage tanks. But we have no reason to waste any of it by starting the motor. So we’re waiting. There is some motion, but it’s not at all violent, and there’s no wind to speak of. The rain’s keeping up. You can hear it on the deck.”

  And Phil became conscious of an undertone of steady drumming which now impressed his senses as the beat of rain.

  “Well,” Phil grinned, “things could have been worse. When do we eat, if at all?”

  “There’s some cold concentrated rations in the emergency kit,” said Parker. “We were just discussing trying a fire in the kerosene cook stove and warming up some of the concentrated soup. We’ll have to go pretty light on rations for a while, until we—er—experience a change.”

  “Drinking water?” ,

  “The boat seems to have been fairly well supplied,” said Parker. “Evidently they used her as a sort of a closing room where they could get a customer, cook a demonstration meal, and close the order.”

  “Then there must be some canned goods or something stored in her.”

  “We haven’t found any as yet. There are cooking utensils, however.”

  Phil grinned at them.

  “Find me a little flour, bacon and some baking powder, and I can give you some real chow,” he said.

  There was a heartiness about his voice, an enthusiasm in his manner which radiated to his listeners/ Despite the blow he had suffered, Phil was a well built, husky man of the outdoors, and he was accustomed to roughing it.

  Parker grinned; the girl smiled.

  “Well,” she said, “eat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow . . .”

  And her voice trailed off into silence as she realized the deadly aptness of the familiar saying.

  Professor Parker made a remark to fill in the sudden silence.

  “I don’t want you folks to get a mistaken impression about me. My title of ‘professor’ is merely a courtesy title. In fact, it has been applied in recent years more in a spirit of derision.”

  He was a small wisp of a man, pathetically earnest, with eyes that were intelligent, yet washed out in expression. Phil noticed that he appealed to the motherly impulses of Stella Ranson, those maternal instincts with which every woman is endowed, be she an infant or a grandmother.

  “Well, I don’t know why anyone should laugh at you!” exclaimed Stella, jumping to his defense. “You’ve been right, and it was horrid of the newspapers to give you the razz that way!”

  Phil nodded his assent. “Now you are talkin’, ma’am. And, if you’ll get out that soup powder, professor, I’ll get the fire going, and then I’ll be having a look around. There are lots of trick storage spaces on these yachts, and I may run onto a bit of flour yet.”

  And he turned to the stove, primed it, pumped up the pressure tank, and had a fire going within a short time. Then he started an exploring expedition and, to his delight, he found that the couple had entirely overlooked a storage space in a closet back of the little sink.

  This closet had a label on the inner, side of the door: “Balanced Ration for a Six Weeks’ Cruise—Suggested Supplies.”

  Phil grinned at them.

  “Probably their idea of a six weeks’ cruise when they were showing the ample storage space in the boat didn’t agree with a healthy cowpuncher’s idea of food; but it’ll last for a while.” And he set about the preparation of a camp meal.

  The girl watched him with wistful eyes.

  “It must be great to live in the open! Lord, how I hate office buildings and apartments! I’d like to live for a while right out in the open.”

  Phil grinned, “Why don’t you?”

  “I’m chained to an office job, and . . .”

  And with an abrupt little gasp, she realized that the office and the apartment were no more; that she was having her wish for a life in the open.

  For a second there was the hint of panic in her eyes, and then she laughed, a throaty little laugh.

  “To-morrow,” she said, “I’ll take charge of the cooking. I’ve done quite a bit of it. But I did want to see some of your camp cooking tonight.”

  Phil Bregg chuckled.

  “Maybe one meal of my cooking’ll do what the flood didn’t do, and put you under!”

  And he rolled up his sleeves, looked around him. “Thunder!” he said. “Here I am wondering about fresh water for washing, and it’s raining cloudbursts outside. Let’s set some buckets and see that the tanks are filled up. There must be quite a water storage system here if they advertise the capacity of the boat for a six weeks’ cruise!”

  “Here,” she said, “you take the buckets and fill the tanks. I’ll do this and you can give us a camp meal some other time.” And she stepped to the stove, took over the duties of chef, while Bregg and Parker fought their way out into the rain, set buckets where they would catch rain water, used some canvas coverings they found to act as funnels, and gradually filled the tanks.

  The girl called them to a steaming, savory repast, and Phil, accustomed to camp fare, served any old way by a masculine cook of rough and ready attainments, felt suddenly intimate and homelike as he saw the table, spread with a clean cloth, and Stella Ranson’s eyes smiling at him. But he had a healthy appetite, and he made a sufficient dent in the food to make him realize that the supply he had discovered in the cupboard would last far short of six weeks unless he curbed his hunger.

  They resumed their water carrying after the meal. Phil, working on the outside, became soaked to the skin. But the water tanks were filling, and the boat seemed as dry as a chip, a seaworthy little craft.

  There was very little wave motion, and Phil called the attention of the professor to that fact.

  “Yes,” said Professor Parker, “this is not the sea proper. As nearly as I can determine, we are being swept in by the inrush of a body of water. Our direction is northwesterly, or it would have been northwesterly under our old compass. I don’t know what is happening now. The compass keeps veering, and I’m
satisfied it is due to a magnetic disturbance rather than a change in our course.

  “A continuation of our progress will take us to higher land, if the land is undisturbed. But we must remember that terrific tides and currents are being set up. It is possible we are ‘drifting’ on a tide that is traveling at a rate of speed which would be incredible were not the earth toppling on its axis.”

  “You think it is?” asked Phil.

  The light of fanaticism came into the washed-out eyes of the little man. “I know it is!” he said. “I knew it would happen, I predicted it, and I was ridiculed. They laughed at me simply because their scientific ideas, which were all founded upon terrestrial stability, didn’t coincide with mine.”

  Phil nodded. “What do we do now, keep a watch?”

  Professor Parker shrugged his shoulders.

  “It won’t do any good. But I want to make some calculations and check over certain data I’ve gathered. There’s no reason why you two shouldn’t sleep. Then I’ll wake you up if anything happens.”

  Phil regarded his wet clothes.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “There’s a stateroom forward. Miss Ranson can take that. I’ll bunk down here in the main cabin and give these clothes a chance to dry.”

  The girl nodded, crossed to Professor Parker. “You’ll call me if anything happens?”

  He nodded.

  “And promise you won’t work too hard?”

  He smiled up at her.

  “Yes, I will. If you’ll promise to sleep.”

  “I’ll try,” she said.

  Phil wished her good night, caught the wistful light in her eyes, saw her lips smile.

  “As for you,” she said, her lips smiling, “you certainly made quite a pick-up in the subway! I’m afraid I just wished myself off on you as a nuisance.”

  Phil gasped. “If you only knew . . .”

  But she gently closed the door of the cabin.

  “Don’t try to tell me,” she called. “Go to sleep.”