The Onslaught from Rigel Part 18

When the car next called for him, it took a much longer course; one steadily downward and around a good many curves as he could judge from the way in which it swayed and gained and lost speed. It was fully a twenty-minute ride, and when he stepped out it was not into a room of any kind, but in what appeared to be a tunnel cut in the living rock, at least six feet wide and fully twice as high. The rock on all sides had been beautifully smoothed by some unknown hand, except underfoot where it had been left rough enough to give a grip to the feet.

At his side were two of the ape-men who had been released from the car at the same time. The tunnel led them straight ahead for a distance, then dipped and turned to the right. As he rounded the corner he could see that it ended below and before him in some room where machinery whirred. The ape-men went straight on, looking neither to the right nor the left. As they reached the door that gave into the machine-room they encountered another ape-man wearing the same kind of helmet with its attached tube, as Sherman's instructor had worn. The ape-men who came with him stopped. The helmeted one looked at them stupidly for a moment and then, as though obeying some unspoken command, took one by the arm and led him across the room to the front of a machine and there thrust one of the ubiquitous helmets on his head.

The machine, as nearly as Sherman could make out, was a duplicate of that on which he had injured his fingers; as the helmet was buckled on the ape-man who stood before it he immediately began to watch the ground-gla.s.s panels and put his fingers in the holes below.

The process was repeated with the second ape-man, and then the sentinel returned to Sherman. Taking him by the arm, the mechanical beast led him past the row of machines (there seemed to be only four in the room) and to a door at one side, giving him a gentle push. It was the opening of another tunnel, down which Sherman walked for some forty or fifty yards before encountering a second door and a second helmeted ape-man sentry.

This one did exactly as the first had done. Stared at him for a moment, then took him by the arm and led him across the room to a machine, where it left him. Sherman perceived that he was supposed to care for it, and with a sigh, bent to his task.

It was some moments before the rapid flas.h.i.+ng of lights gave him a respite. Then he had an opportunity to look about him and observed that, as in the other room, there were four machines. Two of them were untenanted, but at the one next to his, there was someone working. When he glanced again, he was sure it was a mechanized human like himself--and a girl!

"What is this place?" he asked, "and who are you?"

The other gave a covert glance over his shoulder at the sentry by the door.

"Sss.h.!.+" she said out of the corner of her mouth, "not so loud.... I'm Marta Lami--and I think this place is h.e.l.l!"

After a time they contrived a sort of conversation, a word at a time, with covert glances at the ape-man sentry. He looked at them suspiciously once or twice, but as he made no attempt to interfere they gained confidence.

"Who--is--keeping--us--here?" asked Sherman.

"Don't--know," she replied in the same manner.

"Think--it's--the--elephants."

"What elephants?" he asked a word at a time. "I haven't seen any."

"You will. They come around and inspect what you're doing. Are you new here?"

"New at these machines. They had me teaching them to write English. This is my first day in here."

"This is my eightieth work-period. We lost track of the days."

"So did I. Where are we? Are there any other humans with you?"

"One in the cage across the corridor from me. Walter Stevens the Wall Street man."

"Have they got him on this job, too?"

"Yes."

Sherman could not avoid a snicker. Back in the days before the comet he had had Stevens as a pa.s.senger once, and a more difficult customer to satisfy, a more c.o.c.ksure-of-his-own-importance man he had never seen.

The thought of him burning his fingertips up in one of these machines gave him some amus.e.m.e.nt. But his next question was practical.

"Do you know what these machines are for?"

"Haven't the least idea; Stevens said they were for digging something.

They had the helmets on him twice."

"What helmets?"

"Like the dopey at the door wears. The dopeys all have to wear them."

"Why?"

"Haven't got any brains, I guess. I had one on once when they were teaching me to do this. They tell you what to think."

"What do you mean?"

"You put the helmet on and it's like you're hypnotized. You can't think anything but what they want you to think."

Sherman shuddered slightly. So that was how the mechanical ape-men were controlled so perfectly!

"How did they get you?" asked the girl who had described herself as Marta Lami.

"In an airplane. I'm an aviator. They shot me down somewhere and when I came to, put me in one of those cages. How did you get here?"

"The birds. I was at West Point with Stevens and that old fool Vanderschoof. They started shooting at the birds and the birds just picked us up and flew away with us."

"Where were you after you came to? I mean after the comet."

"New York. Century Roof. I was dancing there before."

"You aren't Marta Lami, the dancer?"

"Sure. Who the h.e.l.l do you think?"

He turned and regarded her deliberately, careless of the aroused attention of the sentry. So this was the famous dancer who had blazed across two continents and three divorce suits--who had been proclaimed the most beautiful woman in the world in starring electric lights before an applauding Broadway; for whose performances speculators held tickets at prize-fight premiums! How little she resembled it now, a parody of the human form, working her fingers off as the slave of an alien and conquering race.

She asked the next question:

"Where have they got you?"

"I don't know. In a cage somewhere. The only people around there are like these mugs." He nodded toward the ape-man.

"I wonder how long they'll keep us at this."

"I wish I could tell you. How's chances of making a break?"

"Rotten. There was a guy at the next machine tried it three or four work-periods ago. He socked the dopey at the door."

"What happened?"

"They sent a machine down for him and gave him the yellow lights all over. It was fierce, you should have heard him scream."

"How far down are we, anyway?"