The Earth-Tube (24 page)

The Asian’s Jaw dropped.

“Penetravision telescopes!” he exclaimed. “For years our engineers have worked upon that secret, but we have not learned it. You must tell me how such telescopes are made.”

“But I am here to learn your secrets,” King reminded him, “not to tell you ours. Your orders were to show me whatever I wished to see in Tiplis before the end of seven days. I have asked to see Diane.”

“But the chosen women. you cannot see them,” replied the guide shrewdly. “They are forbidden any male eyes, save those of slaves and lovers. Like prisoners they must await the call of Tal Majod. You must not see them!”

“What? Is the Tal Majod jealous of a condemned man? Is he afraid that one glance at me would make him less manly in the eyes of his chosen ones?”

The Mui Salvo laughed. “You!” he exclaimed.

“The Asian women here would rather have a dog than an American. Have you not seen the emperor? Is he not strong and beautiful?”

“Of course. Of course,” replied King. “There is no chance that he should be jealous of me. Why, therefore, may I not see these women, properly chaperoned by yourself?”

“All of them?”

“No. only Diane.”

“Well. “ The Asian hesitated; he appeared to be considering the matter. “I will take you to see Diane. on one condition: that you tell me about the penetravision telescopes.”

“Of course. afterward.”

“On the contrary. I must hear the secret now.”

“My dear fellow, it is a simple one. There will be plenty of time, and I am now consumed with desire to see this beauty of the Tal Majod. How can I think of technical matters when my mind is fixed on other things?”

The Mui Salvo saw that King was firm. They had been moving through the rose-lighted gallery and now had stopped, upon the prisoner’s initiative, before a certain door.

“You see,” said King, “how marvelous our telescopes are. I know the very chamber where she lives.”

The Asian glanced at the inscription on the door, and was startled. “So you do,” he admitted. “But before I allow you to enter, will you please explain to me why you risked coming into Tiplis in person, if your telescopes permitted you to spy out our secrets safely from the outside?”

King clapped the other on the shoulder in comradely manner. “Why, that is simple,” he replied. “These telescopes, as you no doubt know, work upon a principle which is exactly opposite to that of the X-ray. Though we can see through metal and stone, we cannot see through flesh. Consequently it is easy to observe persons and their actions as well as to locate them accurately in an orderly city such as this. But how could we learn the secrets of undulal, which we most seriously needed, when to us undulal was invisible, and all your work upon it only a mysterious movement of the hands?”

The Mui Salvo nodded understandingly. “You must promise to tell me all the secrets of the Americans before you die,” he said.

“That is my offer, in return for a sight of this chosen woman,” replied King.

The Mui Salvo knocked upon the door, and it was opened.

V

Diane received them in her boudoir. Upon her bed she lay, insolently beautiful.

At the approach of the Mui Salvo she only stared haughtily, and King she pretended not to know.

The Mui Salvo addressed her long and politely in Asian, apologizing for the intrusion and explaining the meaning of it. The captive, he said, was a young American whom the emperor had chosen to honor before his execution, and he had paid such high tributes to her beauty and had been so insistent upon seeing her that the wish had been granted.

“But we will withdraw immediately,” the Asian concluded, “if the Chosen One so desires.”

Diane motioned for King to come closer and smiled at him slowly and comprehendingly.

“So you have heard that I am beautiful,” she said in Asian, slowly and seductively.

The eyes of the Asian, who was suspiciously watching the actions of the two, gleamed at her words. He hastened to caution her. “You need not speak to him unless you wish,” he reminded her. “But I must inform you that he understands nothing of our language. He speaks the language of your girlhood; he is an American.”

“That language!” she exclaimed with distaste. “I had almost forgotten it!”

The Mui Salvo appeared delighted with this statement, and approaching, made as if to kiss her hand. King glanced about quickly, and perceived that the little slave had left them. In the tinted chamber there were only three persons: himself, Diane, and the Asian. With a swift thrust he turned the Mui Salvo around and planting his right fist roundly beneath the chin of the surprised guide, he sent him spinning to the floor.

“Quick, Diane,” he exclaimed. “I must have something to bind him with!”

She leaped from her bed, transformed completely from the languorous beauty of the emperor. Beside King, over the prostrate form of the Mui Salvo, she directed the mutiny which King had started and all but finished with one quick jolt of his fist. “Strike him again,” she directed, as she saw the injured Asian attempting to arise. “Search him; he has a pistol there!”

King was upon the black-robed figure immediately, alternately pummeling the Asian and searching for weapons. From the voluminous robes he tore long strips until he found the secret pocket where the Mui Salvo carried his pistol. It was a small and exceedingly dangerous firearm, which fired a bullet of great explosive power. Before the search had been completed Diane had come with silken bandages. Together they bound the helpless guide, gagged him, and fastened him to a chair in such fashion that it appeared impossible for him to escape.

“If he moves, I will kill him,” said King, flourishing the pistol. “But tell me, Diane, were you able to send my message to the Americas?”

Diane slowly shook her head.

“When I had escaped from the passageway,” she explained, “they watched me night and day, until I dared not even go out of my apartment for fear of detection and torture. At length, three days ago, I disguised myself and slipped away, only to find that since your capture the outer gate of the city had been closed, and there was no way to get out. To send the message was impossible, even with your radio apparatus. I would have been caught before the first calls had been received by the Americans.”

“Then America is doomed,” said King. “And so are we.”

Diane took his hand, gripping it firmly. “I have tried!” she cried huskily. “We must not give up hope!”

He took her in his arms. His lips found hers as she clung to him.

“If we must die, we’ll go together,” he said. “But Diane, is there no other way?” He looked searchingly into her eyes. She glanced toward the bound Mui Salvo and toward the door where the slave had disappeared.

“There is a way, which I. have thought of,” she admitted, “but it is almost certain death. To-night I was going to chance it; I prefer death to the Asians. And this morning my call came from Tal Majod. Tomorrow I must go down through the earth to him!”

“You shall not go,” exclaimed King.

Diane was walking up and down the room, distraught. “We must take this long chance to escape,” she said. “Perhaps we can do it. “

She stopped beside the metal chest where King had once hidden, and reaching behind it, brought out a bundle for him to see. King gazed at it questioningly; it was an airplane parachute.

“I stole it this morning from the laboratory,” she explained. “It was for my escape; now it will have to do for both of us.”

“But. I don’t understand!”

“See. the air blast from the earth-tube, as the car comes this way at midnight. We will leap into it; the force will carry us upward through the opening at the top, and throw us into the air, to fall again. outside.”

“Diane. good God.”

“Yes. I told you it was almost certain death. But I am mad to-night, King. I must escape or die. What do I care which. to-night?”

“And the parachute?”

“That is to break our fall, as the air-blast drops us into space above the ocean.”

“But the heat, Diane! We should be roasted!”

“I have studied that, and I have found that the first air which pours upward from the earth-tube is not hot. It is only when the coming car, falling from the Asian side, has pushed out the upper, cooler layer, that the hot layers near the earth’s center begin to pour out of the tube’s mouth. We must get there early, King, before the blast gets too warm, and the heat will not kill us.”

“But even if we survive the pummeling of the air, the danger of striking the metal at the opening, and the speed of our ascent; even if the chute supports us and lets us gently down again, we would not be saved. There is the ocean all around; we both would drown. We could not possibly escape!”

Diane swept the objections aside impulsively. “Perhaps. perhaps,” she replied. “But I can swim. Can’t you?”

He nodded.

“And we have your radio sender. We can call for help while we are still in the air. Maybe your people will hear us and come. in time!”

King hesitated still. The plan was undoubtedly suicidal.

But she was tugging at his arm, urging him to put the parachute harness on, arguing gently with him, sobbing and hurrying at the same time, preparing for the departure.

“Don’t you see,” she explained. “We have only a few hours, and it is our only chance. It’s to-night or never!”

Slowly King slipped into the harness. With flying fingers Diane made a similar contrivance for herself of the silken hangings of her boudoir.

“I will lash myself to you before we leap,” she said. “We must not be separated in the air.”

When she had finished, she dressed King in part of the black raiment of the Mui Salvo, and the long black cloak of the learned man, to cover up his harness and the parachute. Herself she covered with a long white robe. The radio apparatus she got for him out of a secret hiding place.

“Now we are ready to go,” she said. “And it is time. Very soon they will release the earth-car from Tanlis. Before we can reach the mouth of the earth-tube the air which means escape or death for us to-night will be rushing upward through the vent above the tube. Come on, King!”

“It’s the end. I’m sure of that,” he replied, “but we have no choice now.”

Together they went through the door and hurried down the passage toward the center, where the great bole which ran through the earth had its western mouth. The frightened little slave glanced at them wildly as they passed her on the way out. “Wait here until I return,” Diane directed her, and she bowed very low.

VI

Everywhere the city of Tiplis was preparing to meet the earth-car, which, it was indicated by the bustle and confusion, was already on its flying journey from the Eastern Hemisphere. The streets were full of gangs of slaves. All were too busy and too intent on their work to pay much attention to a white-clad lady who walked beside a man in the robes of a Mui Salvo.

Nevertheless, Diane walked rapidly, nervously. Nor was there any need to urge King along the street, for now they must reach the earth-tube undelayed. He kept his face partly covered and his eyes cast down that no one would see that he was not an Asian. He listened for the distant rushing of the escaping air, but it was not yet pouring out from the tube. The eight thousand miles of it, piled up like compressible cotton before the oncoming car, had not yet caught the motion which would send it whistling upward from the earth.

The corridors were full of running slaves. The air was charged with the electricity of expectation. King and Diane walked faster and faster, gaining speed almost unconsciously, so great was their desire. “I think we should have bound the little slave also,” Diane whispered nervously. “It was a blunder to leave her free and the Mui Salvo alive. These people worship their rulers as we do God. If she should find him bound, she’ll probably set him free. I only hope it doesn’t happen until we reach that jet of airl”

Now they were halfway to their goal. King glanced backward to see if they were being pursued or if it appeared that they had been suspected. Three members of the Asian guard were directly behind, walking together. King thought they appeared to be watching him. He fingered with nervous hands the deadly pistol he had taken from the Mui Salvo.

By them and overhead the passenger cars went, time and time again, but they dared not get into them. They were crowded with Asians at that hour; detection would have been certain in such a place. King felt his breath coming short. They were moving so rapidly that Diane was almost running. Unconsciously they had so increased their pace, quickened by fear, that they were attracting attention by their haste.

Slaves, as they passed, were staring at them curiously, wondering what grave event had occasioned a Mui Salvo and a chosen woman to run. King touched Diane, urging her to go more slowly, but she refused to slacken her pace. “No, no,” she whispered. “We must go faster, if anything. It is too late to repair the damage now.”

King saw that it was true. The three men behind had dropped back an appreciable distance, but now others were coming in from all sides, staring at this spectacle of the two hurrying figures. Many of them were armed and in military uniform, obviously members of the city guard. A fierce little man, apparently in authority, went among them with a series of guttural commands. A group of four, mechanical and expressionless, moved out of a side corridor toward King and Diane, as if to cut them off, clearly intending to arrest and question them.

King glanced hastily about for some means of delaying or escaping the arrest. The passageway had become increasingly blocked with confused throngs, some moving toward the receiving-chamber, others crossing and re-crossing on duties which took them briskly through the right-of-way. Fortunately, such a party, slaves and drivers, passed before the approaching guards and for a moment held them up. King beheld with relief that only a few yards ahead of them was their objective, the great domed receiving-chamber. Taking Diane’s hand, he broke into a run and reached it before the guardsmen, apparently somewhat hesitant about arresting a Mui Salvo, decided what further action to take.

The confusion at the portal had saved them for the moment, but hundreds of feet ahead of them still was the mouth of the earth-tube. Its curbed edge was gleaming as the wind whistled upward through the high hole in the roof, coming now in a sudden torrent as the pent energy behind asserted itself. The whole chamber was full of eerie noises, the clatter of the distant earth-car, the shouts of slave-drivers urging their charges to the work, the whisper of drafts and eddies caught and generated by the central blast, the conversation of the Asians, shouting at each other above the general hubbub.