The Silver Crown, page 15
“It doesn’t seem so far out to me,” Ellen said, playing along, and Brother Michael was tremendously pleased.
“You don’t think so? Would you like to volunteer for blowgun training? I could arrange it. You’d be the first girl in Weapons. We’re just starting with girls, you know.” He sighed. “But I guess that’s premature. We’ve got to get you in tune first. We’d better go on.”
As they went on, Ellen ventured one question. It had been puzzling her since she first entered the castle: “Where do all the children come from?”
“Our recruits? Ah, now you’re asking secrets. But I’ll give you a hint: It’s amazing—deplorable, really—how careless people are about children. A school burns down, a school bus wrecks, an orphanage blows up. ‘Thirty-six Killed,’ the headlines say. But were there really thirty-six killed? Or were there perhaps only thirty killed and six they just couldn’t find? ‘Five Missing,’ the newspaper says. Do you know what ‘missing’ means? It means we’ve got five new recruits! How many children disappear in a year from a Harlem tenement block? Take my word for it—recruits are not hard to come by. Competent teachers, now, are something else again, but I won’t go into that.”
So, Ellen thought, these were all just ordinary children who had had the bad luck to fall into the wrong hands. Or was it bad luck? She had a horrible thought. A school burns down, Brother Michael had said, or an orphanage blows up. She thought of the Advanced Demolition class. Could it be…? She did not dare ask.
In any case, there wasn’t time. They had entered one last corridor, which broadened as they walked and led into an abrupt change of atmosphere. They had reached the outside of a large octagon: the tower. You could only see four sides as you approached, of course, and one of these framed a door of brilliant green. It had no doorknob, but a panel of gold- colored translucent material. Brother Michael laid his right hand against this panel and the door swung open.
The octagonal room they entered was, by contrast with the outer drabness, gorgeous. It was plush; it strove for elegance, but did not quite achieve it. The thick green carpet had come from a mail-order catalogue: “Good Carpeting. Better Carpeting. Our Finest Carpeting.” Ellen’s feet sank deep into it as they walked across the huge room to a shiny brass sliding door: an automatic elevator.
They got off at the third floor. Somewhere above, Ellen realized, must be the tower room with all the bay windows. This room, however, had no windows at all. It had, rather, glass-walled cubicles off a center room into which they had stepped from the elevator. They entered one of these, and Ellen quickly learned she had been tricked. She should not have trusted Brother Michael: The instant they were both inside, he stepped quickly out and clicked the glass door shut behind him. There was no handle, no knob, nor any way to open it. She was trapped.
She looked around her. Three walls of the cubicle were glass—but heavy, thick glass, not the kind you can break without a sledgehammer. The fourth was the stone wall of the tower itself. A wooden chair stood in the corner. Then she noticed the floor. It was woven of wire screen, like the playpen thing she had seen outside. The wire was shiny black, as heavy as a cattle fence, but much more closely knit.
She watched Brother Michael through the glass. On the other side of the main room he stood at a panel set with dial and knobs, like a very complicated radio. There was also an intercom. A speaker clicked on in the ceiling over her head, and she heard his voice: “Ellen.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry to trick you. But I thought you might not want to go in if I told you.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing that hurts. You’re going to get a treatment—like Genevieve. We want to get you in tune.”
“But I don’t want to get in tune.”
“I know. That’s why I tricked you.”
He flicked a switch on the panel, set two knobs, turned another one just a fraction. A needle on a white dial flickered a shade. (From zero to one? She could not read the figures.) She watched apprehensively. Would she feel something? She braced herself for an electric shock.
“There’s a chair,” the speaker said in its tin voice, “if you want to sit down.”
She stood. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Brother Michael put on a thing with earphones, a headset, turned the knob a fraction farther, took the headset off again. The needle flickered higher. Still nothing.
His voice again: “There’s a chair if you want to sit down.” Ellen remained standing, staring through the glass.
This ritual, including the reminder about the chair, was repeated five times. The needle moved farther across the dial each time, like the speedometer of a car spurting faster and faster, until, on the fifth try, it moved all the way across. Ellen felt exactly as she had before, except that her apprehension was disappearing. She knew, somehow, that whatever Brother Michael was doing, it wasn’t going to work. She watched him with calm eyes. She saw that he was sweating.
There was a click, and a strange voice broke in on the intercom.
“Brother Michael, may we assume that it is you?” Brother Michael’s voice said, “Yes, Sir.”
“The King does not appreciate your draining the circuits during the exercise period. Already three subjects have strayed off the malignite paths.”
“I apologize, Sir. I was treating a patient.”
“Surely not with Alpha Force twenty.”
“Yes, Sir. The patient shows no response.”
“No response? At Force twenty?”
A pause.
“Please repeat what you just reported.”
“I have treated the patient at standard angles 33 and 66 degrees, standard frequency four thousand cycles, at Alpha forces from one to twenty. The patient shows no reaction of any kind.”
A click. A longer pause. Another click.
“Is the patient male or female?”
“Female. It’s the girl who stowed away on the bus.”
“Please return her to her room and observe all precautions. The King will speak to her in person tomorrow morning.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A Way Out
ELLEN?” said Jenny that night. “Can you hear me?”
The voice came over the wall, through the gap. Ellen was alone in her room, sitting on the edge of her cot. She had eaten dinner from a tray someone had shoved through the door.
“Yes. Come on in.”
“I can’t. They took my key away. I’m locked in.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I thought it must be because of you. Did you do something… bad?”
“I didn’t do anything at all. That man—Brother Michael—showed me some of the classes. Then he put me in a glass room with a wire floor.”
“That’s the screen.”
“What’s it for?”
“That’s where they put me for treatments. It’s connected to the machine.”
“The Hieronymus Machine?”
“Yes. The hypnotism is much stronger in there. When I’m in there, I can get in tune. That’s what the treatments are for. If you can get in tune often enough and long enough, you stay in tune. At least, that works with most people.”
Brainwashing, Ellen thought. She said:
“When you’re ‘in tune’ do you… know things? Do they teach you things? About this place?”
“Oh, yes. You know everything about it. You know what to do, and why, and you know it’s good.”
“Do you know what 751B is?”
“That’s somebody’s number. They use numbers instead of names because it’s more efficient. They’re very efficient.”
“But what does it mean? Does it tell who it is? Or where?”
“ ‘B’ means it’s a boy. The number would tell something about how old he is and what group he’s in. And what bunk he sleeps in.”
“What bunk?”
“In the boy’s dormitory.”
“Where’s that?”
“Upstairs. On the back side of the castle. The side away from the tower.”
So that would be where Otto slept—in bunk number 751. A little bit of useful information.
“Ellen?”
“Yes?”
“Remember what you asked me?”
“When?”
“When Brother Michael came in.”
“About escaping?”
“Yes. Did you mean it?”
Ellen felt a small stir of excitement.
“Of course I meant it. I’m going to get out, somehow. If they don’t… kill me or something.”
“They won’t kill you.”
“Then I’m going to escape. Why?”
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Thinking what?”
“At first I didn’t want to. I thought I was nearly in tune, and that was all I wanted to do—get in tune. But now…”
“Yes?”
“Now they’ve locked me up again. Don’t you see? I’m not nearly in tune or they wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t think they had to.”
“Yes, I see.”
“I can’t stay down here another year. It might be two years. You don’t know what it’s like.” Her voice sounded on the watery edge of tears.
“All right,” said Ellen, very confident. “Let’s escape. We’ll go together.” She was pleased, of course. Jenny knew her way around; Jenny knew the ropes.
“But how? When?”
“Look. Can they hear us?”
“Here?”
“Yes. I mean, are there microphones or something?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“All right. We can start trying now. How big is the gap between the wall and the ceiling?”
“I can’t see it well enough to tell.”
If only it weren’t so dark.
“Do you have a light in your room?’
“Yes. It hangs from the ceiling. It’s dim, though.”
“Stand on your chair and see if you can reach it.”
A rattling. A chair dragging. “I can.”
“Hold it over as close to the gap as you can.” Ellen walked to the far side of her own room and stood on her chair. In a moment the faint glow coming through the gap grew visibly brighter, and the gap itself clearly outlined. It looked horribly narrow—six or seven inches—but just possibly big enough.
Ellen hopped down.
“Have you got a blanket?”
“Yes.”
“Fold it up as small as you can. Bring your chair over near the gap, and see if you can throw it through.”
Jenny asked no questions. Two minutes later a blanket like Ellen’s own plopped through the gap and fell at her feet. Ellen took both blankets, opened them up, and tied the corner of one to the corner of the other, using a double knot and pulling it hard. She stood on her chair.
“Jenny.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to throw your blanket back, but it’s tied to mine. You hold down your end—put the bed on it and sit on the bed. I’ll climb up this side and see if I can get through the gap.”
She rolled the blanket and tossed it through, holding her end.
She waited until she felt it pull taut on the other side.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
Up she went, heavy, clumsily, hand over hand. Otto would have sailed up. Will a girl’s head, turned sideways, go through a ventilation duct? It scraped on both sides. Dirt fell in her left eye. She had a cramp in her shoulder. She had to sneeze. Her knees, eventually, her thinnest part, led the way. Jenny saw them from below—then a foot, a shoulder and at last a face, pink with effort.
“I made it.” Ellen scrambled down the blanket, which pulled loose and fell on top of her, all in a heap on Jenny’s bed. “Not too bad.”
Except for the small light bulb hanging from the ceiling, the room was identical to hers.
“But what’s the use? We’re still locked in.”
“I know.” Ellen glanced at the opposite wall. There was, as she had hoped, a gap there, too. “Mainly I wanted to see if I could get through. But look—is the next room locked?”
“It didn’t used to be. There was no one in it. There’s no one but us on this whole floor.”
“Maybe it’s still not.” Ellen rested two minutes.
“Okay,” she said. “Give me a boost. Then toss the blanket through and I’ll hold it while you pull yourself up. If the door’s open, that is.”
It was harder this way. Finally, they both had to stand on the bed. Then, with Jenny’s hands under one foot, on the third try, Ellen got an arm across the top of the wall, scuffled, scraped, pulled her way through, and lowered herself into the dark room. She landed gently on the floor, knees bent to spare her ankles. She was learning.
She went quickly to the door, turned the knob and pulled. It was locked. No. She had forgotten. She pushed. It was unlocked. She opened it just a crack, peered out into the empty, dimly lighted corridor, and closed it softly. Her heart was running like an outboard motor. She was scared.
“Jenny? It’s open. Come on over.”
“If I can.” The blanket came through a minute later. Ellen held on as Jenny climbed.
But bones change in girls between the ages of ten and fifteen, and thin as she was and squeeze as she might, Jenny could not fit through the gap. She sat on the floor, shaking, after the fifth try. Ellen could hear her crying quietly, trying to muffle it.
“Jenny, don’t worry. I wasn’t going tonight anyway. I just wanted to explore. When the time comes, we’ll figure out some way to get you out.”
Ellen waited until the crying stopped; then she said: “Tell me—did you say we’re the only ones on this floor?”
“We were. I think we still are.”
“Do they have any guards? I mean at night.” It would be night now, probably nine or ten o’clock. Not that you could tell, in this dark, windowless place.
“No. That is, they never used to. They don’t need them, you see, except for us, and we’re locked in. Everyone else is in tune.”
“Are there any other people locked in?”
“I’m not sure. Yes. They were down below.”
“Who were they?”
“I don’t know. They were… secret.”
“Well, I’m going out.”
“Wait.”
“Yes?”
“When you get to the end of the hall, you’ll come to the stairway.”
“I know.”
“You won’t be able to go up. There’s a big iron door, and it’s always locked. But I think you can go down.”
“What’s down there?”
“I’ve never been. More halls, I think. More rooms.” Ellen opened the door. “I won’t stay long. Keep the blanket up there so I can climb back.” She closed the door behind her.
Down the dim and flickering corridor to the end. As Jenny had predicted, the door to the up stairway was locked. Leading down, there was no door. Below her, the spiral stairs wound down into blackness. The steps were of crumbling concrete, and there was a heavy smell of dampness in the air. How far down did they go?
That, at least, she could find out. It was, she realized, the wrong direction for escape; but it was exploration; it was information to be had, and lacking better, she would have it.
She counted the steps as she walked down. Twenty-one made a full circle, and she was on another landing. More corridors led off, and the doors here had been left carelessly ajar. She listened. No sound at all except the echo of her own footsteps. She decided against exploring these hallways—for now at least. They looked, sounded and smelled completely deserted. She continued down. Twenty-one more steps—another landing. Then another, and still one more.
The fourth one down—how deep underground must she be now?—was different. Only one corridor led from this landing, and it was shut off by a heavy gate of iron bars and, directly behind that, a locked door. She pushed and pulled; there was no budging either the gate or the door. The door had a large keyhole, however, to which she applied first one eye and then the other. Seeing only blackness, she tried her ear. She thought she could hear people talking. Could it be possible? A few words only, and and she could not catch them, very faint, very far off. She heard another sound, too—the deep, steady throbbing of a big machine, barely audible, somewhere far away in the bowls of the castle.
Ellen stayed, listening at the keyhole, for perhaps ten minutes. Once again she thought she heard a voice—a woman’s voice?—but only as a faint murmur. Then only silence, silence and the beating of the machine. No doubt whoever had been talking had gone to sleep; it must be very late, close to midnight by now. It was interesting to think about, however; since there was talking, there must be more than one person in that heavily barred corridor. Unless, of course, as sometimes happens, a lonely prisoner had taken to talking to himself. No, herself. Then it dawned on her; the first voice, she was quite sure, had not been a woman’s, but a man’s. Or had it? She could not really remember. It was almost unthinkable that anyone, man or woman, was locked up down here, so deep underground, so far from daylight. It made her own dark cell seem like a sunny attic room.
She continued downward. On the next two descending spirals the light, already almost imperceptible, grew steadily weaker, and in the end she was groping ahead in total darkness so thick it felt like a black mask over her eyes.
Then she was at the bottom. She could see nothing, but the grit of the concrete underfoot gave way to the ring of solid rock. She put her hand down: smooth, cool stone, damp stone. Holding her hands straight out, she walked slowly forward. She did not dare go far for fear of losing her sense of direction. She did not know how big a place she was in, and if she wandered away from the stairway, she might never find it again.
I’ll take three steps straight ahead, she thought, and then three steps backward, and I’ll be where I started. The throb of the machine was slightly louder down here, and mixed with it was a soft, whispering sound like wind blowing, but there was no wind. She took her three steps and her outstretched hand touched a wall: stone, dripping wet. Simultaneously she felt a coldness on her feet. She was standing ankle-deep in water.
