Collected Short Fiction, page 433
Now they were so high that the convexity of America was visible. Veiled under the gray haze of atmosphere, the familiar line of the coast drifted back beneath them. They crossed the flattened green mountains of the Atlantic Corporation. Clayton spread out a chart and Shane pointed out the location of the Ring Guard Headquarters. He saw a little red dot where the Ring Cylinder was.
“That is the mathematical center of the Ring,” Clayton commented. “I suppose the Ring Cylinder is located there.”
“Maybe,” Shane said guardedly.
Deliberately the Friendship slanted down. The gray haze of air dissolved. Straight ahead, surrounded with golden fields of unharvested wheat, Shane saw the dark, armored bulk of the Ring Cylinder. Ring City made a pattern of roads and squares above it and the landing field at Headquarters was a dark rectangle.
“There’s Headquarters,” he said. “Turn.”
“Thank you, Shane.”
Clayton’s hard short laugh had a mocking ring. He touched the controls and the howl of the rockets became a demoniac shriek. Savage acceleration hurled the Friendship into a terrific power-dive.
The big metal chair was designed to protect the pilot from such acceleration, but Shane was hurled back against the bulkhead by the unexpected thrust. His elbow struck the metal wall and the gun snapped out of his hand. He was pinned there by a ruthless pressure.
A square black box dropped in front of Clayton’s head, where it lay against the back of the seat. He peered into hooded eye-pieces. With a stunned realization, Shane knew that the black box must be a bomb-sight.
Clayton was dive-bombing the Ring Cylinder!
DARKNESS hovered over Barry Shane as his thudding heart labored to pump his blood against that merciless pressure. But he clung to his consciousness with a grim and desperate tenacity. He knew what destruction of the Ring Cylinder would mean.
The instant that amazing invisible wall of ultra-electron vibration would cease to exist, the pent-up waters about America would flow down into the dry sea-beds. Even more cataclysmic, the imprisoned atmosphere would expand, creating the most terrific explosion the planet had ever seen. Nothing living, no work of man in all America, could stand against that unimaginable blast.
When it all was ended, there would be a few salt lakes in the old ocean deeps. There would be a breath of thin, useless atmosphere above them. Perhaps the cities of the Outside, under their armored domes, would not be injured. The flood might even bring them the water that they needed. But America would be forever dead.
The enormity of the plot, to Shane, was more stunning than the shock of the steel bulkhead against his skull. How could any man, with any motive possible, attempt to murder sixty million people with a single act?
But Captain Glenn Clayton was an incredible man. Easy and mocking, his hard voice rang back to Shane.
“A power-dive, Lieutenant, is no time to interrupt your pilot.”
Perhaps that was true. If the bombs shattered the ultradyne tube in the Cylinder, the grimly named Friendship might survive. In a matter of seconds Shane might be the only American living, and a successful attack on Clayton would probably result in death for both of them. But America might live!
Clayton was an incredible man—to think death would matter.
For one horrible instant it seemed to Shane that there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t reach Clayton against that savage pressure. There was no time for him to scramble for the dropped weapon. His groping fingers had already closed automatically on the heavy little platinum case that he had taken from Clayton, but the back of the tall seat protected the Outsider against anything thrown from behind.
With desperate, shoulder-wrenching force, Shane threw the platinum case. The same ruthless acceleration that pinned him to the bulkhead could be turned against Clayton!
Curiously deliberate, the white metal oblong flew past Clayton, into the nose of the power-diving rocket. For an instant it hung poised. Then that terrific thrust flung it back into Clayton’s face.
The shriek of the rockets increased again. A shocking apprehension struck Shane. Perhaps he had failed after all. Even if he had stopped Clayton from releasing his bombs, the entire machine might plunge on to strike the Cylinder, like one tremendous rocket torpedo.
Blackness dropped again.
ONCE more Shane clung grimly to awareness. In a moment he knew that the Friendship was coming out of the dive under automatic controls. Clayton was slumped sideward in the big seat, one side of his face red with blood.
The platinum boomerang had returned with even more force, beneath that terrific acceleration, than Shane had expected. Clayton was knocked out again.
Relieved of that mighty pressure, Shane dragged the unconscious man out of the chair, dumped him on the floor and took his place at the controls. For three hours he had watched Clayton navigate the ship. His first efforts resulted in two or three alarming spins, but he found that the automatic pilot would always bring him back into level flight, if he merely took his hands off the controls.
After three preliminary circles, he brought the Friendship down on the long field between the Academy quadrangle and the old, low concrete buildings that housed the Ring Guard Headquarters. He hadn’t known how to lower the landing struts. Checked with a sudden full burst of the braking rockets, the ship dropped like a falling meteor.
Shane was jarred considerably, but discovered that none of his bones were broken. The Friendship evidently was built to take it. He opened the air-valve in the side and dragged Clayton out into the crater the rockets had torn in the ground.
The ship actually resembled a fallen meteor. The metal plates that disguised it were shaped and painted to imitate the ragged contours of a great boulder. Only the open door and projecting rocket-muzzles and the caterpillar tracks betrayed the illusion.
A silent electricar came across the field from Headquarters. Slight, spry, white-haired General Whitehall got out with a little group of officers. They looked at Shane in blank astonishment.
“But it isn’t a meteor!” an aide stammered inanely.
General Whitehall was first to recover.
“Congratulations, Lieutenant.” His shrewd blue eyes were bright with comprehension. “So there was a stone that moved! Please forgive the skepticism of your superiors. Are you able to make a report at once?”
“I’ll try, sir.” Shane fought to keep on his feet. The landing must have been more violent than he had realized. “I believe this is the same object I saw approaching the Ring from Outside in Sector Forty-one-B.”
After he stubbornly completed his report, an ambulance took him and Captain Clayton to the Headquarters hospital, where he was treated for cuts and bruises. Clayton, suffering from concussion, failed to regain complete consciousness until the following day.
General Whitehall was still at the Friendship when Shane returned to the disguised war-machine from Outside. Ring Guard engineers were already arriving, at his orders, to examine it.
“There are a good many things about the ship that need study, sir,” Shane told the silver-headed commander. “A device called a polarizer enables it to fly through the Ring. Clayton said he didn’t understand it. Then there are the ion-blast rockets and the gold-film storage cells.”
“The engineers have orders to photograph and study every single part of the machine and its equipment,” Whitehall assured him. “But I imagine that your prisoner himself will be our most valuable source of information.”
“I doubt that, sir,” Shane said. “Captain Clayton is a remarkable man. I believe he would die under torture, rather than reveal one fact that he didn’t want to reveal. And I think he is clever enough so that we can’t believe anything he tells us until it is proved.”
“Anyhow, you will question him, Shane.”
“Yes, sir.”
NEXT day, in a pleasant little room in the small white building of the Guard hospital, Barry Shane tried to question the man he had captured. The windows of unbreakable vitroid needed no bars, so Shane had the guards wait outside.
Clayton sat up in bed, his brown face smiling under the bandages. The room was quiet. On the surface it was a casual scene, but Clayton’s hard, greenish eyes betrayed a mocking defiance.
“Congratulations, Shane!” Clayton said in a crisp voice. “How did you do it?”
When Shane told him, he grinned.
“Clayton, I can’t understand you.” Shane sat down in a chair by the bed. “You’re brave. You’re intelligent. I like you—”
“Thanks, Lieutenant.” Under the bandages, Clayton grinned again. “I can say the same about you.”
“But I can’t understand you,” Shane repeated soberly. “Yesterday you attemped to murder America, to kill sixty million men, women and children—the large majority, I think, of the human race left on the planet. How could you do a thing like that? Why?”
Clayton’s short laugh rang hard.
“Of course you can’t understand. No American could. But some of us can Outside. The Black Star has understood for two hundred years. I told you that some of us resented being shut out of the Ring.”
“I explained that you had no reason to.”
Clayton’s eyes were hard as malachite.
“I rejected your explanation.”
Shane tried another angle.
“What has the Black Star—this secret party in New Britain—got to do with your presence in America?”
“There are some things I’ll tell you,” Clayton said, completely self-possessed. “Some things I won’t. I refuse to answer any more questions about the Black Star.”
Shane questioned him for two hours. The results were not satisfactory. Clayton’s answers were mockingly evasive.
Late that night, in General Whitehall’s office in the gray old Headquarters building, he reported his failure. Worry shadowed the old general’s shrewd blue eyes.
“He must talk, Shane! We don’t know the real reason for his attempt to dive-bomb the Ring Cylinder. We don’t know how many enemies America has Outside, or when they are planning to strike, or what unexpected weapons they may use. We’ve got to have that information to save America.”
Shane shook his head.
“I don’t think we’ll get much dependable information out of Clayton.” He hesitated, then blurted hurriedly: “But I’ve been thinking, sir. I believe we’ll have to use the Outsider’s own methods. I’ve got a plan.”
Whitehall’s shrewd eyes brightened.
“What is it?”
“We must send a man Outside, sir.”
Shane thought that the keen blue eyes were looking through his head to the very back of his mind. For a long second Whitehall studied him. A sober little twinkle came at last into the deep-set eyes.
“And you want to be the one to go?”
Shane caught his breath and swallowed again.
“Yes, sir, if you will just listen to my plan. It’s the only way I see, to get the information that America needs.” His voice grew husky with excitement. “I want to go Outside, sir—back to New Britain—in Clayton’s place!”
CHAPTER VII
Double for Danger
SITTING behind the rigidly military order of his desk in the room at Headquarters, General Whitehall frowned, shook his white head and began to make objections.
“You mean you want to masquerade as Clayton? It would be suicide, for a dozen reasons. In the first place you don’t even look like Clayton.”
Shane leaned anxiously over the desk.
“I’m almost exactly the same height,” he urged. “We can send for Della Rand and have her do another plastic operation. She can rebuild my ace into a duplicate of Clayton’s. I’ll study his voice and mannerisms.”
“That might be done,” Whitehall admitted. His keen blue eyes twinkled again, this time with approval. “But we know almost nothing about New Britain and Clayton’s life there, and he doesn’t seem inclined to supply information. Remember, the Outsiders have been isolated for two hundred years. Language and customs change, especially under such sharply different conditions as must exist Outside. Their vocabulary probably contains thousands of new words. It probably took Clayton a long time to master our English.”
“But we can use his own methods,” Shane insisted. “I’ve just been down at the shops, talking to the engineers at work on the Friendship. That’s where the idea came to me. They’ve found some more of Clayton’s metal foil notes. There are maps that show the cities of New Britain. A few personal letters. Rolls of foil, printed in microscopic type, that seem to correspond with our magazines and newspapers. I can acquire a fair vocabulary by studying them.”
“Pronunciation will be different,” Whitehall objected.
“I can use the radio,” Shane said, “after I get near enough to New Britain to pick up anything. The lack of a Heaviside Layer cuts down the range of radio Outside. Perhaps I can pretend to be injured or exhausted, after I get there, to gain a little more time.”
The general nodded slowly. “I see you’ve thought this out, Shane. Maybe you have something.” Another argument made him shake his head. “But you would have to take the Friendship. That’s too valuable to give back to the Outsiders, at least until our engineers have had time to complete their study of it.”
“I realize that, sir.” Shane’s gray eyes lit with hope. He felt he was about to win his point. “I won’t need to take the Friendship. The engineers have found escape equipment, stored in a compartment by the air-valve. Evidently it was intended for Clayton to use in case anything went wrong with the Friendship itself. That discovery was the beginning of my whole plan, sir.”
Whitehall’s keen features began to reflect Shane’s eagerness.
“What sort of equipment?” he asked.
“An air-suit,” Shane said. “It doesn’t look comfortable, but it’s fitted to keep a man alive for days Outside. And there’s a light electric motorcycle, powered with gold-film cells. The helmet of the suit has a two-way radio.”
The victory was almost won. Shane caught his breath and confidently drove on.
“You see, I can use the radio to get in touch with them. I’ll report that the Friendship was destroyed—by a weapon that is waiting for any other Outsiders that happen to come along!”
GENERAL WHITEHALL rose abruptly.
“That’s possible.” He tried to control his excitement. “You can report that you were captured by the Guard and set free to take back a message. We’ll send a reply to that letter from the Secretary of New Britain, offering them the water they need, by peaceful exchange.”
Then another obstacle checked the old general’s mounting enthusiasm.
“But how will you get Outside,” he queried, “if you don’t take the Friendship?”
“I discussed that with the engineers. They have identified the polarizer units aboard the Friendship and have already learned a good deal about them. Apparently, they tell me, the units create an intense special field on the same ultra-electronic level as the vibration of the Ring itself. Atoms in this special field are polarized, their axes rotated into alignment with the radial axis of the Ring.
“The effect is probably quite temporary, but polarized matter evidently passes through the Ring just as light does, without making any rupture in it. The engineers say they can dismount one of the units from the Friendship and use it to put me through the Ring, with the air-suit and the motorcycle, whenever I’m ready to go.”
“I see.” Whitehall nodded. “But how will you get back?”
Shane grinned. “That’s a bridge to be crossed when I get to it. It’s easy to get out of the Ring at sea-level, but not so easy to get back against fifteen pounds of air-pressure. There are ways, though. I could make a report from Outside by radio. By that time the engineers probably will have finished their study of the Friendship and have her ready for operation, with both polarizers back in place. They might fly the machine Outside to pick me up.
“Also, it will be possible to duplicate the polarizers. A special air-lock could be built, extending through the Ring, with a polarizer inside. That would make it possible to come and go at will. But we’ve no time to wait for such things, now.” Urgently Shane’s voice dropped. “Please, sir, what do you think?”
Soberly the old general smiled.
“You seem to have answers for all my arguments. The matter will have to be discussed with my staff, but I suppose we’ll have to let you go.”
“Thank you, sir!” whispered Shane.
Dr. Della Rand arrived next day from Chicago Corporation, in answer to General Whitehall’s urgent call. At the monorail station in sleepy little Ring City, Shane was waiting to meet her. His breath came a little faster as the huge silver teardrop of the car paused above the station tower. The famous doctor stepped out of the elevator and his heart skipped a beat.
Her dark, vital beauty was arresting as ever. Her skin had the same warm glow, her eyes the same penetrating quickness, but something had changed. Shane felt a pang of vague loss. Then he knew what the trouble was.
Della Rand hadn’t changed at all, but he had seen the picture Clayton carried of that violet-eyed girl of far-off New Britain, who bore the haunting name of Atlantis Lee.
“Hello, Shane.”
EVEN her throaty, efficient voice hadn’t changed. Her dark, alert eyes studied his face, yet he knew she saw only the deft work of her surgeon’s hands.
“General Whitehall sent for me,” she stated. “What does he want?” Shane could talk to her now. He wasn’t afraid of her. He didn’t flush or stammer, because she didn’t really matter any longer.
“A military secret,” he said. “I need another facial operation.”
Her dark eyes widened. “What’s the matter with you now?”
He told her about the plan and the situation that made it necessary. Her quick mind accepted and digested the fact that men lived Outside. She studied Shane again, as if she had never really seen him before. In a lower, different voice she asked: “Isn’t this scheme of yours very dangerous?”
