CHAPTER XIV
In the Passages
The first thing to be done, Sherman decided, was to short-circuit themind-reading helmet of the guard at the door, if it were possible. Hewas not certain that the thing was electrical, and ignorant of how thecurrent was conveyed if it were. He realized that he was dealing withthe products of an utterly alien form of mentality, one that might notproduce its results in the same way as an earth-man would at all. Butsomething had to be dared, and this seemed to offer the bestopportunity.
If the thing were electrical, the current must come through the tube tothe top of the head. On his second work-period he observed this tubewith care. It ran through an aperture in the stone roof and wasapparently provided with some spring device, for a considerable lengthof it reeled out when the ape-man wished to walk across the room, andwas absorbed as he returned.
The tube seemed to be made of the rubber-like material that composed thefloor of his cage. The simplest plan, of course, would be to bring hischopping-knife with him and when the ape-man paused before the wall,swing it up in a sweep, severing the tube. But this, he felt, was not tobe recommended. It would not necessarily short-circuit the current andthe damage would be too readily laid at his door. The desideratum wassome damage that apparently accidental, would yet produce a good deal ofuproar.
He talked it over with Marta Lami.
"I think you're bugs," she said frankly, "but anything for excitement.What do you want me to do about it?"
"Well, here's what I figured out," Sherman explained. "We both arriveabout the same time. I'll bring my knife. When we come in you hang backa bit, and while you're doing it, I'll take a poke at that cable withthe knife, not enough to cut it, but enough to damage it. Then abouthalf-way through the work period, I'll turn around and say something toyou. If I do it quick enough, I think the monk will start for me, and ifthe cable doesn't go then, I'll miss my guess."
The next period proved unsuitable; the dancer's car arrived considerablybefore Sherman's and the plan was dropped for the time, but on thefollowing occasion, as Sherman came down the passage, he noticed MartaLami just ahead of him. He hurried to catch up and she evidentlyunderstood, for she avoided the guard's outstretched hand and hung backa minute against the wall as Sherman came up behind. He made one quickmotion; the cable sheared half-way through exposing two wires of brightmetal.
As luck would have it, it proved unnecessary to put the second part ofthe plan into operation. For just as Sherman was nerving himself toswing round and attract the ape-man's attention, he heard the softpad-pad of one of the approaching Lassans. The ape-man stepped back toclear the entrance as he had before, and as he did so, there was atrickle of sparks, a blinding flash, and the cable short-circuited.
The result was totally unexpected. From the great machine before Shermanthere came an answering flash; the ground glass split across with abang, there was a hissing sound and something blew up with a roar thatrocked the underground chambers....
Sherman came to himself flat on his back and with pieces of rock and thedebris of the machine lying across his legs. He looked around; MartaLami lay some little distance across the room, half covered with fallenrock, one arm flung across her eyes as though to protect them. Above,the solid granite looked as though a blasting charge had been fired inits midst. Sherman pulled himself to a sitting posture, and findingnothing damaged, stood upright. The machine, badly shattered, lay infragments of bent rods, broken pulleys and wrecked cylinders all abouthim. In the place where it had stood was a long narrow opening, down atthe end of which something irregular shut off a bright point of light. Ablast of heat exuded from the place and a steady, deep-voiced roaringwas audible. The ape-man guard was nowhere to be seen.
He bent to pick up the unconscious girl, wondering how one revived amechanical woman, especially without water, but she solved the problemfor him by opening her eyes and asking:
"Who touched off the pineapple, boy friend?"
"I did. Come out of it and tell me what we do next. Anything busted?"
"Only my head." She patted the mass of stiff wire. "Boy, am I glad Iwore my hair long before they made a robot of me!" And with an effortshe stood up, looked down the pit where the machine had been and said,"Say, let's get out of here. That don't look so good."
"All right," said Sherman, "which way? Wait till I get my knife."
"No, leave it," she said. "Those babies are nobody's saps. If they findit on you they'll know you shot the well. Come on, I think that thing isgoing to pop again."
The roaring had increased in both volume and intensity, and themachine-room had become unbearably hot. They turned toward the door, butjust at the entrance into the passage a pile of debris had descended,making egress impossible. Behind them the roaring increased still more."Come on, boy friend," called the dancer, tearing at the rocks. "Getthese out of the road unless you want to be stewed in your own juice."
Together they toiled over the blocks of granite, hurling them backwardtoward the wreck of the machine. One minute, two, three--the roaringbehind them grew and spread, the heat became terrific.
* * * * *
"Ah!" cried Marta Lami at last. A tiny opening at the top of the heapwas before them. Sherman tugged at a rock--one more, and they would bethrough. But it was too big, would not budge.
"No, this one," shouted his companion and together they dragged at it.It gave--a cascade of smaller stones rolled down the heap to the floor."You first," said Sherman and stood aside.
The dancer wriggled through and reached back a hand to pull him after.He dived, grunted, pushed--made it. As they turned to slide down theother side of the heap, he looked back. A little rivulet of somethingwhite, hot and liquid was creeping through the ruins of the machine andinto the room.
Up the passage, strewn with wreckage, but with no more blockades, intothe upper machine room. The machines here also were deserted and fromone of them issued a minor variation on the roaring sound they had heardin their own room. The guard was not on duty. They turned, sped up thenext passage to the place where the cars ordinarily met them. Thecar-track was dark; by the illumination from the passage they could seethe rail on which it ran, a foot or two down from the level of thepassage, and about a foot broad--a single shining ribbon of metal.Sherman looked in one direction, then the other. Nothing. The roaringbehind them continued.
"Drive on, kid," said Marta Lami. "The boojums are going to get us if wewait."
"Stop, look, listen, watch out for the cars," he quoted as they leapeddown and both laughed.
The roadbed was as smooth as glass, the rail set flush with it. Judgingthat the best route was the one taking them upward Sherman turned to theright and they began climbing, hand in metal hand.
The track was on a curve as well as an ascent. After a few steps theywere in complete darkness and could only feel their way along, runninginto the wall every few minutes. They climbed for what seemed hours. Thetunnel continued dark, without branches, simply winding on and on.Finally, so quickly that Sherman missed his step, they reached a levelplace, rounded one more curve, and saw ahead of them a band of lightacross the track from some side-tunnel.
"Shall we try it?" he asked as they reached the opening.
"Might be another machine room," she said, "but let's go. This track isterrible. If I wasn't made of iron I'd have bruises all over."
He vaulted over the sill, reached down and hauled her after him. Frombehind them came the roar, sunk to a vague purring by the distance. Theywere in another granite-lined passage; one that went straight ahead fora few yards, then branched sharply. The right hand fork seemed to leaddownward; automatically they took the other turn. A diffused radiancefrom somewhere high in the walls, as though the granite had beenrendered transparent here and there, filled the whole place withshadowless light. For a time the passage ran level, then it climbedagain, with another fork to the right, which dipped away from theirlevel and which they again avoided. Of any other living being there
wasthus far no sign.
The passage began climbing again, in a tight spiral, this time.
"Good thing we're in training," remarked Marta Lami. "This is worse thanthe stairs in the Statue of Liberty."
"Oh, did you fall for climbing that, too?" asked Sherman.
"Sure. Publicity stunt about a year ago. Dumb bunny of a publicity man.Photographed on the old lady's spikes. Never will again."
The spiral ended, a side passage branched off. The dancer stopped.
"Sh," she said, "someone's coming. Duck in here." She seized Sherman'shand and led him into the side passage, down which they ran for a fewfeet, then paused to look back. Down the passage they had just vacatedcame a group of the ape-men, four or five of them, each carrying on hisleft arm a long, cylindrical shield like those one sees in pictures ofRoman soldiers, and in his right hand some instrument that looked likea fire extinguisher with a long, flexible nozzle.
Each of the group wore one of the helmets and behind them, wearing asimilar headgear to which all the tubes were connected from theape-men's helmets came one of the Lassans. The group hurried pastwithout a sideward glance, the metal feet of the ape-men ringing oddlyloud on the granite of the echoing passage. After a minute Sherman andthe dancer crept cautiously forward; the procession had gone straight ondown. Very likely a wrecking crew.
Sherman and Marta sprinted up the passage in the direction from whichthe ape-men and their guide had come. The passage no longer rose withthe same steepness, and as the ascent grew more gentle, the tunnelwidened, with frequent side-passages to the right and branches leadingdown to the track at the left. Finally, after a sharp turn, it openedout into a big room, untenanted like all they had seen so far, filledwith a complex maze of machinery, but machinery of a different characterfrom that they had labored at. At the farther end of the room a doorstood open. They dashed across it, plunged through--and found themselvesin one of the enormous blue-domed halls, whose ceiling seemed to stretchmiles above them.
* * * * *
It must have been all of three hundred feet across, and there was novisible support for the ceiling. All about the place stood variousobjects and pieces of machinery, and figures moved dimly among thetitanic apparatus at the far end. But what most attracted theirattention was the huge object that stood right before them.
It looked like a metal fish on an enormous scale. Fully fifty feet longand twenty feet high, its immense proportions dwarfed everything aboutit, and its sides, of brilliantly polished metal, shone like a mirror.The tail came to a stubby point, from which projected a circle of fourtubes; down the side was a rib which ended in a similar tube about halfway, and at the nose-end of the mechanical fish was a ten-foot snout,not unlike an elephant's trunk in shape and apparently made of the samerubbery material which held the cables of the helmets.
Marta pulled Sherman down behind the thing, and they peered around theedge seeking for a means of egress from the room. The nearest was twentyor thirty feet away. Watching their opportunity, they chose a momentwhen they seemed least likely to attract attention and made a dive forit.
They found themselves in another passage, terminating in two doors.
"Which?" asked Sherman.
"Eeny-meeny," said Marta--"this one," and stepping boldly to the righthand door, pushed it open....
For a moment they could only gaze. The room they had entered was anotherand smaller blue-domed hall. Around its sides was a row of curioustwisted benches of green material, each of which was now occupied by oneof the Lassans, hood thrown back from head, and elephant-trunk thrustinto a large pool of some viscous, green stuff with bright yellow flecksin it, in the center of the circle. Half a dozen helmeted ape-men stoodbehind the benches of their masters, apparently serving them at thissingular meal.
Half a dozen ape-men stood behind the benches of theirmasters apparently serving at this singular meal.]
As the two humans entered there was one of those silences which arepregnant with events. Then:
"Good evening, folks. How's the boy?" said Marta, and curtsiedgracefully.
The sound of her words seemed to release the spell. With a bellow ofrage the nearest Lassan leaped from his bench, fumbling at one of thepouches in his cloak. "The light-gun!" thought Sherman and bracedhimself to spring, but another of the masters extended his trunk anddetained the first one. There was a momentary babble of rumblingconversation, then one of the Lassans reached behind him, picked up ahelmet and placed it on his head, and attaching a tube to one of theape-men, rose.
The ape-man moved toward Marta and Sherman like a being in a dream. Theyturned to run, but the Lassan produced a light-gun with such evidentintention of using it at the first motion that they paused.
"Looks like we're in for it," said the dancer. "Oh, well, lead onNapoleon. What do we care for expenses?"
Under the direction of the Lassan the ape-man took them each by an armand led them back through the hall of the metal fish, down among themachines, where two or three others stared at them curiously or liftedinquisitive trunks in their direction. Then into another passage whichhad one of the inevitable car-tracks. Their Lassan conductor reachedaround the corner into the passage, applied his trunk briefly tosomething and a moment later one of the cars slid silently intoposition. The door opened.
"So long, old scout," said Marta Lami. "Even if I never see you again,we had a great time together."
"So long," replied Sherman, taking his place in the car. He felt adistinct pang at leaving this dancer--vulgar, no doubt, and flippant,but gay and debonair, and the best of companions.
The car did not take them far. It discharged Sherman in a little passagebefore a narrow door, which opened automatically to admit him to a smallblue-domed room containing nothing but a seat, one of the benches onwhich he had seen the Lassans reclining and a mass of wires and tubes.There seemed nothing in particular to do. He was at liberty, save thatthe door closed firmly behind him, cutting off escape, and seeing thathe was left alone, he seated himself and began to examine the machinery,most of which was attached to his chair.