The Onslaught from Rigel Part 20

"Come on, boy friend," called the dancer, tearing at the rocks. "Get these out of the road unless you want to be stewed in your own juice."

Together they toiled over the blocks of granite, hurling them backward toward the wreck of the machine. One minute, two, three--the roaring behind them grew and spread, the heat became terrific.

"Ah!" cried Marta Lami at last. A tiny opening at the top of the heap was before them. Sherman tugged at a rock--one more, and they would be through. 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 the other side of the heap, he looked back. A little rivulet of something white, hot and liquid was creeping through the ruins of the machine and into the room.

Up the pa.s.sage, strewn with wreckage, but with no more blockades, into the upper machine room. The machines here also were deserted and from one of them issued a minor variation on the roaring sound they had heard in their own room. The guard was not on duty. They turned, sped up the next pa.s.sage to the place where the cars ordinarily met them. The car-track was dark; by the illumination from the pa.s.sage they could see the rail on which it ran, a foot or two down from the level of the pa.s.sage, and about a foot broad--a single s.h.i.+ning ribbon of metal.

Sherman looked in one direction, then the other. Nothing. The roaring behind them continued.

"Drive on, kid," said Marta Lami. "The boojums are going to get us if we wait."

"Stop, look, listen, watch out for the cars," he quoted as they leaped down and both laughed.

The roadbed was as smooth as gla.s.s, the rail set flush with it. Judging that the best route was the one taking them upward Sherman turned to the right and they began climbing, hand in metal hand.

The track was on a curve as well as an ascent. After a few steps they were in complete darkness and could only feel their way along, running into the wall every few minutes. They climbed for what seemed hours. The tunnel continued dark, without branches, simply winding on and on.

Finally, so quickly that Sherman missed his step, they reached a level place, rounded one more curve, and saw ahead of them a band of light across 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 is terrible. 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. From behind them came the roar, sunk to a vague purring by the distance. They were in another granite-lined pa.s.sage; one that went straight ahead for a few yards, then branched sharply. The right hand fork seemed to lead downward; automatically they took the other turn. A diffused radiance from somewhere high in the walls, as though the granite had been rendered transparent here and there, filled the whole place with shadowless light. For a time the pa.s.sage ran level, then it climbed again, with another fork to the right, which dipped away from their level and which they again avoided. Of any other living being there was thus far no sign.

The pa.s.sage began climbing again, in a tight spiral, this time.

"Good thing we're in training," remarked Marta Lami. "This is worse than the 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 pa.s.sage branched off. The dancer stopped.

"Sh," she said, "someone's coming. Duck in here." She seized Sherman's hand and led him into the side pa.s.sage, down which they ran for a few feet, then paused to look back. Down the pa.s.sage they had just vacated came a group of the ape-men, four or five of them, each carrying on his left arm a long, cylindrical s.h.i.+eld like those one sees in pictures of Roman soldiers, and in his right hand some instrument that looked like a fire extinguisher with a long, flexible nozzle.

Each of the group wore one of the helmets and behind them, wearing a similar headgear to which all the tubes were connected from the ape-men's helmets came one of the La.s.sans. The group hurried past without a sideward glance, the metal feet of the ape-men ringing oddly loud on the granite of the echoing pa.s.sage. After a minute Sherman and the dancer crept cautiously forward; the procession had gone straight on down. Very likely a wrecking crew.

Sherman and Marta sprinted up the pa.s.sage in the direction from which the ape-men and their guide had come. The pa.s.sage no longer rose with the same steepness, and as the ascent grew more gentle, the tunnel widened, with frequent side-pa.s.sages to the right and branches leading down to the track at the left. Finally, after a sharp turn, it opened out into a big room, untenanted like all they had seen so far, filled with a complex maze of machinery, but machinery of a different character from that they had labored at. At the farther end of the room a door stood open. They dashed across it, plunged through--and found themselves in one of the enormous blue-domed halls, whose ceiling seemed to stretch miles above them.

It must have been all of three hundred feet across, and there was no visible support for the ceiling. All about the place stood various objects and pieces of machinery, and figures moved dimly among the t.i.tanic apparatus at the far end. But what most attracted their attention was the huge object that stood right before them.

It looked like a metal fish on an enormous scale. Fully fifty feet long and twenty feet high, its immense proportions dwarfed everything about it, and its sides, of brilliantly polished metal, shone like a mirror.

The tail came to a stubby point, from which projected a circle of four tubes; down the side was a rib which ended in a similar tube about half way, 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 same rubbery material which held the cables of the helmets.

Marta pulled Sherman down behind the thing, and they peered around the edge seeking for a means of egress from the room. The nearest was twenty or thirty feet away. Watching their opportunity, they chose a moment when they seemed least likely to attract attention and made a dive for it.

They found themselves in another pa.s.sage, terminating in two doors.

"Which?" asked Sherman.

"Eeny-meeny," said Marta--"this one," and stepping boldly to the right hand door, pushed it open....

For a moment they could only gaze. The room they had entered was another and smaller blue-domed hall. Around its sides was a row of curious twisted benches of green material, each of which was now occupied by one of the La.s.sans, hood thrown back from head, and elephant-trunk thrust into a large pool of some viscous, green stuff with bright yellow flecks in it, in the center of the circle. Half a dozen helmeted ape-men stood behind the benches of their masters, apparently serving them at this singular meal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Half a dozen ape-men stood behind the benches of their masters apparently serving at this singular meal.]

As the two humans entered there was one of those silences which are pregnant with events. Then:

"Good evening, folks. How's the boy?" said Marta, and curtsied gracefully.

The sound of her words seemed to release the spell. With a bellow of rage the nearest La.s.san leaped from his bench, fumbling at one of the pouches in his cloak. "The light-gun!" thought Sherman and braced himself to spring, but another of the masters extended his trunk and detained the first one. There was a momentary babble of rumbling conversation, then one of the La.s.sans reached behind him, picked up a helmet and placed it on his head, and attaching a tube to one of the ape-men, rose.

The ape-man moved toward Marta and Sherman like a being in a dream. They turned to run, but the La.s.san produced a light-gun with such evident intention of using it at the first motion that they paused.

"Looks like we're in for it," said the dancer. "Oh, well, lead on Napoleon. What do we care for expenses?"

Under the direction of the La.s.san the ape-man took them each by an arm and led them back through the hall of the metal fish, down among the machines, where two or three others stared at them curiously or lifted inquisitive trunks in their direction. Then into another pa.s.sage which had one of the inevitable car-tracks. Their La.s.san conductor reached around the corner into the pa.s.sage, applied his trunk briefly to something and a moment later one of the cars slid silently into position. 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 a distinct 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 pa.s.sage before a narrow door, which opened automatically to admit him to a small blue-domed room containing nothing but a seat, one of the benches on which he had seen the La.s.sans reclining and a ma.s.s of wires and tubes.

There seemed nothing in particular to do. He was at liberty, save that the door closed firmly behind him, cutting off escape, and seeing that he was left alone, he seated himself and began to examine the machinery, most of which was attached to his chair.

CHAPTER XV

The La.s.san Explains

Before he had time to riddle out any of its secrets the door opened again and one of the La.s.sans came in--a distinctly different type than any he had hitherto seen. This one was smaller than most; his skin, where exposed, was covered by a tracery of fine wrinkles and his coloring was whiter than the rest. Little crowfeet stood around the corners of his eyes, giving him an expression that was singularly humorous. He approached Sherman on noiseless feet, moved his trunk up and down as though examining him and then, producing from a pocket in his cloak one of the thought-helmets, set it on Sherman's head, tightened a connection or two with his trunk and placing a like device on his own head, settled himself on the twisted bench.

The ordeal of the helmet! "They make you think whatever they want you to; it's like being hypnotized," Marta Lami had said. He braced himself resolutely. This alien intelligence should not plumb his thoughts without a struggle....