Attack From Atlantis, page 15
Don showed him the whistle, and nodded. He explained it quickly. The older man shook his head. "Sounds higher than sound," he said slowly. "That was one of the fantasies I didn't believe. When a people have such small secrets, what must their big ones be? I—I wish I could trust your people, my son. With the emergency . . ."
"They could solve it," Don told him. He was sure of it. It would probably take only a small modification of their power handling methods to reduce the need for all the crystal to some small key kernel, with the rest handled electronically in the usual ways. The basic function of parts in the diagram he had seen might be different—but most of the parts had similar working methods among the equipment he knew.
"Then it would have to be soon," K'mith answered. "We have just two of the large spare crystals. And the men whom I sent out a year ago with great supply bubbles have returned to report that they could find no more."
The dome over his head seemed suddenly close and dangerous to Don. He looked up at it, and shivered. The emergency wasn't something for the future now. It was already on them.
He slept fitfully that night, feeling cheap and mean. He'd been using a dirty trick to get out of prison, while K'mith had been faced with the end of his world. And his trick had sent the people who had a real thing to fear into a panic over an imagined one. It seemed like a pretty horrible thing to deny them what comfort they could have while they were living under the dark shadow of death.
He tried again to persuade K'mith that the remedy could be found on the surface world. But when he admitted that he knew of no crystals exactly like the ones they used, the older man signaled him to drop it. Nor would assurances that there were men up there who might know of such crystals change his mind.
"It isn't entirely up to me," he said at last. "I am only the voice of the Council in this. Sometimes I think . . ."
Then he sighed. "But why should I believe you, when the world above is going to its death as quickly as we? How can they help us when they won't help themselves? And today, over our radio, we had word that men on the border of a territory the two nations have divided were engaged in battle."
Don looked at him sickly. War was coming, then. A few such border skirmishes could be passed over, he knew from his history books, but not unless some major change in relations came. And it now looked as if atomic doom were inevitable.
If they could get to the surface with proof of the usefulness of the dome, there still might be time, but it was a matter of hours now, not of days. And there was no transmitter here that he could use, even though Atlantis had a receiver.
He caught himself sharply. The transmitter on the Triton! Then he shook his head. Even if Atlantis would let him use it—which they would not—the message would only stay things, until he could prove it was genuine by surfacing. Otherwise, it would be put down to a fake.
K'mith went to the door slowly. "The last spares are now in the dome station," he announced wearily. "If one breaks down . . . well, we can keep the dome up for a few weeks on the smaller crystals in the suits and on the supply bubbles. Or if we cut down to one quarter size, we can keep going until we all starve. Tomorrow ..."
He stopped, and Don looked up to see his face harden. A cold chill ran through the boy's heart. "Tomorrow?" he asked.
K'mith shook his head. "It's better that you shouldn't know, my son," he said.
But Don knew. Tomorrow, the order for the "mercy of the sea" treatment would go through for his friends.
He had only a few hours left.
Chapter 19 Mad Dog!
on squatted down on the bunk, digging his fist into his forehead. Shep whined unhappily, but he disregarded the dog. His original idea had been right. He had succeeded, as long as he looked for the other side's weakness to use. But he'd abandoned that to go back to arguing, trying to use the strength of his people's science. It had failed miserably. Now he had to go back to what had worked.
Find the weakness . . . find the weakness . . . find . . .
It was so obvious, when he realized it, that he kicked himself. Their weakness lay in the very trouble that was driving him to this frantic worry. Out there in the dome power station was a weakness that spelled death for all of them. And there were other weaknesses—the superstition that had been encouraged over Shep, for instance. Or the aloofness of the technicians from the people.
The ideal way to gain freedom would be to save
Atlantis from its danger, but that was impossible without surface help. Still, if the people thought they were saved, it might work as well. He collected his idea carefully, examined it quickly, and nodded. It wasn't perfect, and would need a lot of changes as he went along. But it was the best he could hope for.
"Come on, Shep," he said. The dog was the most doubtful part of his plan. He'd been trained for perfect obedience, but with all the changes in his life, he might get nervous and balk. Like the other weak links in the plan, though, Don had to risk that.
He went out onto the street, noticing the low temper of the people. Most of them couldn't know, but they sensed the danger from those who did. There was nothing they could do. Now they watched the dog in fascination, making their peculiar sign of worship. For a few moments, they seemed to cheer up. But Don knew that even superstition couldn't prop up their lagging hopes forever. It wasn't so much that they believed, as that they didn't dare not to believe, in the ancient prophecy of the smiling dog-god.
"The dog-god demands a shrine," he announced to the crowd. "He asks for a place to restore the fortune of Mlayanu. He needs a shrine, and he has chosen one. We go there to save Mlayanu."
Those in the crowd who knew English picked it up. Some translated it with amused contempt, but the crowd missed such subtleties. They began to mutter and collect others.
"Strut!" Don ordered Shep. The dog went up on his hind feet and walked along for a few yards. The crowd gasped again. Don turned to them. "The dog-god finds his godhood rising and goes to make a temple. But there are those who have no faith. They will resist."
He was already sick of the mummery of it, though nobody would be hurt. It had really been K'mith and all the technicians who had encouraged the superstition. Let them see it operate, and maybe they'd be less likely to play on it in the future—if there was a future.
They came to the dome station. "Strut—speak!" he told Shep. The dog obeyed, barking loudly as he danced about.
The technicians came to the front of the station to stare at the scene, but he ignored them. "The dog-god has chosen his shrine," he announced to the crowd which now numbered nearly a thousand. "He must go within to bring strength to the power crystals. He needs only a few minutes. Tell the keepers of the crystals to come out!"
They didn't wait to tell the men inside. They saw Shep start toward the station, barking loudly. Then one man shouted and ran into the forbidden station. Don saw with a shock that it was S'neifa. But the crowd didn't look to see who it was; they had been triggered, and now streamed in behind him.
The technicians weren't having any of the crowd. They shrugged elaborately and came out before they could be removed. One of them turned to Don, glowering. "Be not long," he said in thick English.
"If you must be a false priest, be quick. In there we are needed. Ten minutes, not more."
Don nodded quickly. "It's a bargain. Now close the doors."
The crowd streamed out and he went inside. Shep dropped down and followed quietly, unaware of his importance. Don ignored most of the setup and went looking for the main crystals. If he could find something to indicate what they were, he might still get honest help for Atlantis.
He found them, and he could see why the technicians were worried. The big crystals had burned spots that were visible to his eyes, and there were small cracks here and there that had been crudely patched. There was nothing to indicate what type they were.
He traced the diagrams quickly. It did no good. He could guess what the parts were, but the operation of the whole was beyond his knowledge, even in theory. Things were done to a basic electrical signal which could almost certainly be done by vacuum tubes, but he couldn't understand what the results were. It would take a staff of experts to guess. He was sure it could be done. A substitute for the crystals could be found even before the operation was fully understood. But he wasn't well enough trained to do it.
He gave up, and turned to the control section, which he had figured out before. He knew that it depended on a controlling frequency being fed in, to cut the main power off and on, in time with that frequency. The shorter the "off" periods, the less could get through the dome. It was now operating on a frequency of about fifty million a second—which kept the "off" periods down to a fiftieth of a millionth of a second, of course. He found the place where the huge device creating the control signal fed it into the main power section, just as the door burst open.
K'mith led a group of guards, and there was no smile on his face. "This is too much. You have abused our trust for the last time, Don Miller. Play your games elsewhere. You are under arrest." He turned to the guards. "Put him with the others. He's to be the first to be given to the sea in the emergency!"
Don knew better than to argue now. He had known that something like this must happen. He turned to the guards, glancing down at the dog. "Guard the place, Shep!" he ordered softly. The dog dropped back at once and sank to the floor, while the group escorted Don out.
"Hydrophobia!" he cried suddenly. "Don't let him bite you."
"Silence!" K'mith ordered.
It was a long way up the street this time, through the muttering, confused crowd and toward the building that was to be his jail. K'mith walked beside him in stony silence, and the guards seemed eager to use their weapons. Don waited, and still there was no sign from behind. If Shep had failed now . . .
Then the sound of angry barking came to them. Don sighed as it continued. There was a scream of pain, protesting yells, and then mixed shouting of the crowd.
In less than a minute, a group of technicians came raging up the street, followed by a crowd armed with sticks and stones. One of the technicians broke ahead, while the others delayed the mob. His waving arm was gashed and bleeding. Shep had followed orders; nobody was coming into the plant until his master gave him the command to relax his guard.
"Get him out!" The technician screamed to Don. "Get him out! We've got to get in before the dome fails. He's mad!"
Some of the guards dropped back to hold the crowd that was boiling in fury. Their stunguns were effective against the poorly aimed rain of stones, but they looked worried.
Don turned to K'mith. "I told you about hydrophobia," he said, mixing his truth with the smallest amount of outright lying he could use. "It's rare, but it still happens. I guess the high frequency radiation in the station didn't cure him. I don't know whether I can get a mad dog out of there."
"Use your stunguns on him," K'mith ordered.
The technician shook his head violently. "We started to. But the crowd—they would kill us before we hurt him."
K'mith's eyes were suspicious as he turned to Don, but the fear bubbling in the eyes of the technician must have convinced him. "Get him out, then."
"I'll need some equipment from the ship. The antitoxin . . *
"Then get it." K'mith motioned some of the guards to follow Don, and turned back to the station.
They weren't far from the submarine. Don went up the ramp at a full run and dived into the sonar room. The little signal generator lay there, and he pocketed it quickly. He was sweating, but not from exertion. He had no idea of how long the dome could hold without the technicians, or whether it could stand the added strain he was about to put on it.
The guards rushed him through the crowd. At his orders, K'mith reluctantly let them shut the door before he turned to the dog. "All right, Shep," he said. "Take it easy."
He'd need some way of delaying the effect until he got out with Shep. He began looking for a switch to use with some of the twine lying about. A sound behind him swung him around, to face S'neifa crawling out of a pile of boxes. There was some terrific strain going on inside the man, but he came over and began dropping on one knee.
"Thanks," Don told him quickly. S'neifa smiled tightly, still obeying the order not to speak.
Don coupled the signal generator into the circuit, wiring one of the cumbersome switches in ahead of it. With that, the original control equipment would go on working until the switch was thrown. Then the signal generator would take over. Don set it to produce the four hundred cycle "audio" signal he had used for testing. "Wait until I'm outside, S'neifa, and then throw that switch. And I hope I'm right!"
He carried Shep in his arms as he went out, casting a last glance back at the setup. The signal generator and switch would be well hidden. He stepped out—and the trouble began.
Suddenly, from the whole dome around a great roaring note like an organ pipe tuned to G began to sound. The tiny signal of the generator was being amplified and used to turn the great screen off and on four hundred times a second, instead of at the frequency used before. And at that frequency, even liquids should be able to come through during the "off" periods. It was the pressure of the ocean striking the air during those off periods that produced the great humming sound.
He glanced up as a drop of moisture hit him. For the first time in Atlantis, it was raining! Great drops of salt water of the ocean were shooting through the dome and raining down from the top and out from the sides.
The crowd screamed, and began tearing away, milling over each other. The technicians let out their own roars and went tearing into the station. Don jerked his eyes back, but S'neifa had hidden again.
The technicians were going over their controls frantically, changing the setting, and running about like chickens under the attack of a hawk. They were too frantic. The tiny generator with its thin wires hidden away escaped their notice completely. The rain began to puddle on the streets and drizzle on the faces of the sick and frenzied crowd.
Then the technicians broke. One of them rushed up to K'mith, flailing his arms. He shouted out a long string of Atlantean that was almost lost in the cries of the crowd. K'mith turned to Don.
"Are you responsible for this oscillation he's getting?"
Don shrugged. "They would have me remove the dog-god too soon. Did you see me carry in anything that could do this? Or do you think that an uneducated child could learn your station at once better than all your experts? But if you want, the dog-god and I will try to fix it."
K'mith looked at him for a long moment, then drew him back into the station away from the crowd threatening to overcome the guards. "Fix it! You're educated in your own sciences—I've known that for a long time. But you can't know all of ours, and all the weaknesses of this station. Fix it, before it wrecks the city with fear. And if you can't undo your damages, I shall tear you to bits with my hands before the dome fails!"
Don moved to the big controlling device the Atlan-teans had used. He unfastened it completely and shoved it aside—or tried to; even on wheels, it weighed more than he could move. K'mith lent his shoulder unquestioningly, and the bulky machine wheeled reluctantly out of the way. Then Don drew out the tiny signal generator and cut off the "audio" beat. Outside, the hum disappeared, and a cry came up from the crowd, but he paid no attention to it. He switched to the regular radio frequencies, and turned the indicator until a signal of fifty megacycles would be produced.
Now, with the great dome being turned off and on fifty million times each second, everything was normal again.
"You forced me into this, sir," he told K'mith. "You wouldn't listen to reason. And don't forget now, that to the crowd out there, the dog-god and I have just saved Atlantis from the end you have been expecting. I think I could even persuade them to force you to let me take my friends and go back."
He nodded toward the sounds that were now changing to a wild, joyful singing in which their word for the dog-god was loudest of all. "I never intended to hurt them. I like your people, K'mith, enough to want to save them as much as I want to save my own world. I never tried to do anything that wasn't for their good, too."
K'mith had the signal generator in his hands, turning it over and over. He held it out to the awed technician. "This—or this," he said, pointing first to the tiny device and then to the cumbersome bank of crystals. Then he grimaced, and nodded toward Don. "Go and see what your experiment has done to our crystals."
Don ran back quickly, sudden worry cutting through his triumph. He knew, that having the signal operate four hundred times a second meant that it was on for single periods a hundred thousand times as long as for a signal of fifty million cycles a second. He had hoped that it would cancel out, since it was on only a hundred thousandth as many times during a second, too.
But apparently he had been wrong. The great crystals were sicker-looking than before. The burned spots were now glaring wounds, and the cracks had deepened. The technicians were working at them in a frenzied haste.
But it was obvious that they couldn't keep the dome operating much longer.
Chapter 2Ü Operation Contact
'mith was not apparently worrying about the crystals when Don went back to him. Seven older men were grouped around him, and two more came dashing up. He held up the signal generator and broke into a slow-paced speech in Atlantean. Their faces had been washed numb by a succession of emotions, but now sudden excitement crept into them.
K'mith handed the tiny generator to Don. "Can it be opened to show the parts?"
Don nodded. He pulled out his pocketknife and found the small screwdriver blade. With it, he removed the screws from the back, and held out the instrument, trying to point out the similar parts in it and in the huge device that was now disconnected. The little transistors, looking like beads of glass, drew the loudest gasps, though they were closest of all to the crystals the Atlanteans used.
