The Earth-Tube (17 page)

“It is a kind of storage space,” Diane whispered. “For a few minutes I believe that we can rest and hide here, while we catch our breath and decide how to proceed. I am convinced, from what I have heard, that the beginning of the passageway we are looking for is somewhere near. Presently we shall make a thorough search for it.”

They were sheltered from direct view down the ball-like street by a series of curved niches. They drew back closely against the wall, while Diane continued to speak, in a low voice.

“I am almost certain,” she said, “that the police are looking for us. I had a feeling when that fellow stared at us as we walked out of the upper street that he would turn in an alarm. When they find that we have stepped off somewhere between the floors, they will soon organize a searching party. Without doubt they will come upon us sooner or later if we are still in the public passages.”

King indicated her costume.

“Will their laws allow them to arrest you, when you are marked with this as the property of the supreme power of the nation?”

Diane breathed deeply. “The Asians have no absurd ideas about individuality or liberty as have the Americans,” she replied. “They may seize and search any one, at any time. It is enough to suspect that a person is dangerous to the morale of the State to bring him to trial and to cause his death. You need not look for civil liberties here, and even if I were already the wife of Tal Majod; if, indeed, I were about to bear him a child, it would make no difference. No person and no condition is sacred here.

“To understand the Asians you must understand that to them the person is nothing, the nation everything. No. my costume will not protect us if we are caught. Nothing will protect us but good luck and quickness.”

They were silent for a moment, standing close together in the little hollowed place. King could feel that her heart was beating rapidly. His own circulation had been quickened by the imminent danger into which the necessary venture had thrust not only himself but the woman who seemed to him at that moment the loveliest being in the world.

“Now we must try to locate the hidden passage,” she whispered. “But before we go, we had better eat. It must be hours since you have had food.”

It occurred to King that this was true. In his supplies, most of which he had left in Diane’s apartment, there were emergency rations, but he had not found time to touch them. Now he had nothing with him.

“But what will we eat?” he asked. “What do the Asians eat and where? I have not seen a meal since I’ve been here.”

She laughed lightly, forgetting the danger in her amusement.

“Nor are you likely to,” she said. “The business of eating, except in the royal court and at state functions of various kinds, is no longer a ceremony here. The Asians have long ago worked out concentrated foods, as you might expect, and refueling the body is as perfunctory and mechanical a business as refueling a motor; and sometimes,” she added with a smile, “almost as distasteful.”

As she spoke she felt inside a small pouch which King had noticed depending from her girdle and took out several brownish, flat tablets. “You will need about two,” she remarked, placing them in his hand. “Don’t expect too much in the way of flavor.”

King put one of the tablets on his tongue. There was a faint chocolaty taste, accompanied by a tingling sensation. The tablet melted away slowly. Gradually the tingling extended to his flesh; every nerve seemed to catch it up and carry it along, producing the most delightful sense of vitality and energy. In some manner the pangs of hunger, which had been noticeable when his attention had been called to them, had disappeared, and his stomach seemed satisfied, though nothing whatever had entered it. Quickly he took the second tablet. It produced no additional effect and seemed to melt more slowly upon his tongue.

“If you swallow it,” Diane said, watching with amusement, “it will continue to supply you with energy as long as it lasts. In that manner you could take several of these tablets as you might load the magazine of a rifle. They will give off their energy to you only as it is needed. They are really remarkable substances, as producers of strength. but as foods; well. “ She made a grimace. “You can see for yourself that sooner or later, energy or no energy, a big dinner with plenty of meat and potatoes and vegetables and salad would taste pretty good.”

In another moment her mind had returned to the serious business at hand. She was correct about the activities of the police. Already they had sent out searching squads, and the various levels had been checked to see if the suspected couple had passed that way. Now more than a hundred police, working in small parties through the various streets, were converging upon the spot where King and Diane were hiding, making their way slowly, carefully, observing and examining every nook where the fugitives might be hiding.

Their suspicions were by this time fully aroused. It was not like an innocent woman of the Tal Majod and her equally innocent servant to enter an elevator ostensibly bound for one floor, and to get off secretly at another. That was in itself sufficient evidence to convict in this most suspicious of cities, where, in addition to the strictness accompanying the policing of any civilization in time of war, a continual surveillance had been found necessary to counteract the plots of the enslaved foreigners.

Diane had sensed, even before the search had reached the level upon which they were hiding, that the police had found the right trail and that their time would be brief.

“We must find the secret passage quickly,” she whispered. “It begins somewhere in this section. Press especially upon any discolored spots you may see in the smooth wall, about the height of a man’s head, or upon any little knobs or imperfections. My only knowledge of this passage was gained,” she explained, “when I was still a slave, working in the gangs which daily clean and patrol the public ways. I learned of it from a fellow slave who had accidentally stumbled upon it, but who had been prevented from exploring by the guards.

“He told me that the passage apparently led to the laboratory floor, and that he thought he had seen a Mui Salvo, whom he recognized by the flowing black costume, come out of it. He concluded that it was one of the secret passages frequently used by these men and closely guarded by them. Later in the day, his work permitting him to go near the spot, my friend passed his hand along the wall and quite by accident came upon the hidden spring or button which opened the door.

“In a moment the guards were upon him, and though he protested that he had only leaned against the wall without knowing what would ensue, they beat him so unmercifully that he was disabled for several days. It was weeks afterward that he mentioned it to me, cautioning me never to tell where I had gotten the information and never to make use of it except in the greatest need. A few days later he died, I believe from his injuries and the continued brutal treatment he received at the hands of the slave drivers, who would not let up on him.

“After his death they cast his body where they throw all such refuse here. down the earth-tube. It was, of course, consumed by the unmeasurable internal heat of the earth, and the ashes were blown out again by the winds which rush before and after the car as it passes through.”

As she made this recital, Diane was already exploring the glassy wall with her hands. King followed her example, his fingers trembling with the series of curious emotions and impulses which were sweeping through him. The food tablets had quite revived his energies; he felt refreshed even though for nearly thirty hours he had taken no sleep. The tingling sensation, which was somewhat akin to slight intoxication induced by wine, exhilarated him, made him somewhat oblivious to the dangers of their position, yet drew his senses to a keenness which was a new and wonderful experience.

They went down the passage a great way, one on each side, moving their hands along the wall, exploring with eager fingers. But nothing happened. With emotions almost amounting to panic Diane turned into a cross passage and began to work in the same manner along the wall there, with King on the other side, his hands also moving eagerly upon the metallic surface. The walls in that section were not lighted brightly; it was not easy to see what they were doing. The expanses of metal on either side seemed endlessly glassy and smooth, with no panels or other decorative features which might have hidden a secret spring or given concealment to the edges of an opening. It seemed like hopeless work, and after ten or fifteen minutes of it Diane called a halt to take counsel.

“I am sure it was in this general region,” she said, “and if the place was accurately described, it must lie in one of these two or three cross sections we have explored.” She checked over in her mind the route they had taken, seeking some explanation for their failure.

King’s mind was also working.

“See here,” he exclaimed, “these Asians would hardly be guilty of such crude apparatus as hidden springs or push-button mechanisms. Those were clever tricks in the Dark Ages, but surely modern trapdoors would operate more scientifically.”

Diane nodded. “Probably you’re right,” she admitted, “but that doesn’t solve our problem.”

“No. but it helps. It seems to me that the doors would probably be opened by sound-sensitive cells. Instead of pressing on the wall, we must strike it, or tap it. probably according to a certain system of signals. In America we commonly use these sound-cells, or impact cells as they are usually called, to start or stop automatic trains, elevators, and other appliances,
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which can, by this means, be controlled by speaking into a telephone transmitter or shouting in a certain manner or even by whistling. The number of impacts within a given time conditions the response, so that the mechanism may be made to go forward, reverse, or stop.”

“But if that is true, our problem is even more complicated, for we haven’t the slightest notion of the pre-arranged signals.”

“Well, we can use our reason on that, too. For one thing, we can look at the problem as an Asian engineer would, who wanted to build a door easily operated by the initiated, and yet one which would be most unlikely to be opened accidentally by a slave or worker. In the case of a sound or impact cell, a worker would accidentally excite it only in his daily labors in this section, probably by his broom or other tool. He would be extremely unlikely to strike it more than once or twice at the most in the same spot. Therefore, the signal to open should be greater than two taps. On the other hand, it should not require too many, for the savant who sought to gain entrance in a hurry would hardly care to attract attention to himself by thumping repeatedly on a portion of the wall which he wished particularly to keep secret.

“Taking these things into consideration, if I were the Asian engineer I would arrange my door in such a way that one tap would close it, two taps would keep the mechanism in a state of quiet, either opened or closed, and three taps would open it. That’s a safe working hypothesis, anyway, since we have no better one to go on.”

He took a small pocket knife from his clothing, and struck the wall before him three times, sharply, with it. Nothing happened directly, but far down the adjoining hallway, in the direction of the elevator, there was a faint trilling whistle, three times repeated, as if in direct response to the tapping. King looked at Diane momentarily for an explanation of the sound and saw his answer in the terror on her face.

“It’s the police,” she whispered. “It means that they have found our trail and will be upon us directly. Here, give me something to tap with, also!”

King produced a large coin. Diane, moving to the opposite wall, struck it in her excitement not three times, but four.

Something moved in the wall; they heard wheels turning, the distant buzz of machinery, before any rift appeared. Then, sliding back in grooves which were so cleverly dovetailed into the wall that no seam or joint had been visible, a door began to slide sidewise, and an opening grew in the wall where before it had appeared solid and unbroken. Diane and King watched it, fascinated, wondering when it would cease moving and dreading to enter the dark cavern disclosed behind it, though they dreaded discovery by the police even more.

The doorway opened about three feet, leaving a rectangular hole perhaps five feet tall, with its lower edge a few inches above the floor. When the door ceased to move, King went over to it and was about to step inside when an exclamation from Diane brought him to a halt. On the other side of the hall, not far away, an exactly similar opening was visible. It was impossible, from a cursory examination on the outside, to tell which was the right entrance to the laboratory tunnel.

“Maybe either one is right,” ventured King, striking a match and peering into the darkness of the second cavity.

“No, no!” exclaimed Diane. Stooping down quickly, she snatched up a small piece of cloth, upon which were smeared splotches of a dark, firm substance. “It’s part of the uniform of a servant,” she explained, “and that, I think, is. blood.”

King moved back from the doorway and hurried Diane with him toward the other.

“One of these entrances is a trap, then,” he said. “The initiated know which to enter; accidental visitors are encouraged to choose the wrong one, step inside, and be crushed by the closing of the door and other mechanisms there to take care of the gruesome job. Your bit of cloth is probably all that’s left of some poor devil who mistakenly chose the wrong passage. But his death may mean our safety. We will enter on this side.”

“But,” Diane objected, “the cloth may have been placed there as a part of the trap, to induce others to take the wrong route.”

Unable to decide, they hesitated before the first opening until they heard the footsteps of the police, and knew that they had no more time to waste in conjecture.

“We are trapped anyway,” said King. “I’ll take a chance on this one.”

“I’ll follow you,” murmured Diane.

Resolutely they stepped inside. There was a little landing or platform there which supported their weight, though it began to settle slowly as soon as they got upon it. At the same time, without any act on their part, the machinery of the door-mechanism resumed its whirring sound, and the panel of metal which had slid away to make the opening now began to return with exasperating slowness, moving easily along its oiled grooves.