center of this building--itsopening must be covered by the luxuriant vines so that he had notnoted it--and dropped down to the midsection that was a hangar forlocal and private planes. His own little Zenith had been stored hereon occasion. There must be other helicopters there, and a stock offuel. A dim plan began to form at the back of his head.
But first he must find where they were, and what had happened toNaomi.
Allan removed his sandals, and began the endless climb. He made nosound on the steps, cushioned as they were with mold, but at eachlanding he paused for a moment, listening. The cold fire that burnedwithin him left no room for fatigue, for pain.
A murmuring, then a laugh, cut through the deathlike stillness. Allanwas nearly to the top. Down the corridor into which he crept,snakelike on his belly, red light flickered from an open door.
* * * * *
Dane moved soundlessly to that door, and, lying flat, pushed his headslowly past the sash till he could see within. By the light of a firethat danced in the center of the unburnable mallite floor, itsillumination half revealing their sodden, brutish faces, he saw anunspeakably strange group. A scene from out of the dawn of history itwas, the haunch-squatted circle, their yellow skins and blackglistening in the crimson, shifting glow. He recognized the giantNegro, Ra-Jamba, his head bound with a rag, and Jung Sin. There werefive others clustered about those two, and a third, a skew-eyedOriental, intent on some game they were playing with little sticksthat passed from hand to hand.
Before each of the players there was a little pile of fish bones,black with much handling. The Negro's pile, and that of Jung Sin, wereabout equal, but there were only two or three in front of the thirdplayer. And just as Allan caught sight of them, the sticks clicked,and a shrill objurgation burst from that third as the last of hismarkers were raked in by Jung Sin's taloned hand. The circle hunchedcloser, there was a ribald, taunting laugh from Ra-Jamba and Jung Singlanced over his shoulder into a shadowed corner.
"Have patience, my lotus flower," he purred. "Only one is left. Soonthe goddess of fortune and love will clear him from my path. By thenine-headed Dragon, I have never seen a game of Li-Fan last so long.But it draws to an end. Then we shall have our joy together, you andI."
In that instant the fire flared. Allan saw an open window in thebackground, and beneath it a slim white form lying, bound andhelpless. Fierce joy leaped in him, and fiercer hate, Naomi was as yetuntouched, the game was being played for her as stake. He had come intime to save her!
But how? There were eight of the Easterners in the room. He had hisray-gun, and might cow them with it and free the girl. But as soon ashe had gotten her out of the room, they would surge out after thewhites. He could fight for a while, but the end was inevitable. Andeven if by some miracle he and Naomi escaped, they would be tracked toSugar Loaf.
The sticks were clicking in a continuous rattle as the final bout ofthe game waxed fast and furious. And as fast and furious was the whirlof Allan's thoughts. He strove to remember the layout of thisbuilding. The helicopter hangar was next above this level. Outside thewindows of this floor a narrow ledge ran. The nebulous scheme that hadentered his dazed brain as he read the bronze plate below took clearerform, shaped itself to meet this new need.
* * * * *
Allan crept away to safe distance, leaped to his feet and flittedupward. He was in the empty, echoing space of the hangar level. Thefuel tanks bulged huge in the dimness. Here were reels of the feedhose he needed--flexible metal that had withstood the years; here afaucet nozzle, and a long coil of fine wire. Haste driving him, hemade the connections. Then he was descending again, dragging behindhim a long black snake of hose whose other end was clamped to a vat ofoxygen impregnated gasoline.
The rustle of the hose along the hall floor was muffled by the greasyslime. Dane got the nozzle to just outside the door of the room whereNaomi lay captive. The rattle of the playing sticks still continued.Jung Sin's voice sounded, in a language that Allan did not understand.But there was no mistaking the triumphant note in the silky, jeeringtones. The yellow man was winning, and winning fast.
Dane twisted one end of the wire around the faucet handle. Then he wasunwinding the coil as he tried the door of the chamber next to the onewhere the fire burned, found it open, darted across the room andsoftly raised the sash. The sill here, like the one beneath whichNaomi lay, was a bare two feet above the ground.
He was out on the ledge, sliding along it toward the fire-reddenedoblong five feet away. He crammed his body close against the wall,kept his eyes away from the unfenced edge of that eighteen-inch shelf.Beyond, an abyss waited, twelve thousand feet of nothingness downwhich a single misstep, an instant's vertigo, would send him hurtling.Suddenly the rattle of sticks stopped, and he heard the black's longhowl of disappointed rage. The game was over!
Allan reached the window, glimpsed a leering semicircle of animalfaces, saw Jung Sin coming toward him. Then he had swung in.
"Back, Jung Sin! Back!" Allan was straddled over Naomi's form, theray-gun thrust out before his tense threat, his face livid, his eyesblazing. "Get back, or I ray you!"
* * * * *
Consternation, awe, flashed into the brutal faces of the Easterners.Jung Sin reeled back, his saffron hands rising. Allan's weapon sweptslowly along the line of staring men. "If one of you moves I flash."
He bent to the girl, keeping his eyes on the Easterners, and hisweapon steady. He had hung the wire coil over his shoulder, leavinghis left hand free to fumble for and untie the cords around Naomi'swrists. He got them loose.
"Can you get your feet free, Naomi?"
"Yes, I can manage it." Her voice was steady, but there was a greatthankfulness vibrant in it.
"Then do it and get out on the ledge. Quick." He straightened, and theblaze of his eyes held the yellow men, and the black, motionless.
Naomi, at the window behind him, gasped. "I know it looks tough," heencouraged her, "but you can make it. Don't look down. Go to the left._And keep clear of that wire._"
"I'm all right, Allan. But you--"
"Never mind about me. Go ahead."
Jung Sin jerked forward, driven by the madness that twisted his faceinto gargoyle hideousness. But Allan's ray-gun stabbed at him, and hehalted.
"I'm out, Allan."
Dane's foot felt back of him for the sill, found it. He lifted, facinghis enemies inexorably, caught the lintel with his left hand, and wascrouching outside. A sidewise flick of his eyes showed Naomi justreaching the other window.
He pulled at the wire till it was gently taut. A moment's compunctionrose in him at what he was about to do. Then the black roll of theEasterners' crimes rushed into his mind. Naomi's safety, his own, andthat of the little colony that had endured so much to preservehumanity, cried out for their extinction. Allan jerked the metalthread, and the faucet nozzle in the corridor opened.
A black stream gushed forward, reached the fire, and the room was aroaring furnace. Allan saw the forms of his enemies silhouettedagainst the blaze for a fleeting instant, then they were flamingstatues. One only, Jung Sin, nearer than the rest, leaped for thewindow and escaped the first gush of flame. Allan pressed the triggerof his ray-gun. But no blue flash answered that pressure. The weapon'scharge had leaked out, was gone!
* * * * *
Allan tore himself loose from yellow hands that clutched at him, hisfist crashed into Jung Sin's fear twisted visage, and the crazedOriental fell back into the roaring blaze.
But Allan himself was thrust backward by that blow, was swaying on thevery edge of the chasm. His hand went out for a saving hold on thewindow sash; flame licked at it. He was toppling, against the strainof his body muscles to resist the inevitable fall, and death reachedup from depths for him. Then an arm was around him, was drawing himback to life. Naomi had darted back, defying the terror of thatheight, the surge of heat. She had reached him just in time--asplit-second later an
d his weight would have been too much for herpuny strength. But in this instant, the merest touch was enough tosave him. They crept along the ledge and climbed wearily in.
There was another plane in the hangar, and presently Allan had itrising through the well into clean, free air. He turned to the girl inthe seat beside him and pointed at the scene they were leaving.
"Look," he said.
The city was in darkness beneath them, save for the one staringrectangle that marked a pyre. But dawn shimmered opalescent in theeast.
A soft white hand crept into Allan's. There was a long moment ofsilence. Then Allan said, softly: "A new day, and a new world fortheir children."
A sleepy, tired voice sighed: "For their children and ours, Allan."
* * * * *
When the Sleepers Woke Page 7