The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Ix Part 98

Darkness came swiftly. I was shooting into the eye of the sun at three hundred miles an hour. I swallowed a few pellets of concentrated food, then curled up in my bunk. There was no knowing how many hours would pa.s.s till I slept again.

I fell asleep at once.

The strident clamor of the alarm bell woke me. Dawn was just breaking. Far below me I could make out the heaving Atlantic, calm and peaceful. A long line of the huge second-line rafts just underneath, stretching north and south till it curved over the horizon. A bugle's clear notes came drifting up to me, reveille. Then I was hovering over my goal, raft 1264. The black rectangle was alive with activity unwonted at this early hour. I took over the controls from the mechanical pilot, sent my recognition signal and drifted downward.

The Zephyr settled on the raft with a soft hiss of the compressed air shock absorbers. A guard came hurrying up. My credentials pa.s.sed upon, I alighted. Momentarily, it was getting brighter. I was just in time.

I looked eastward, toward the enemy rafts. Beyond them, there it was, just as General Sommers had described it--a mountain of vapor, gleaming white in the gathering light. Not at all disquieting; merely a shifting, billowing cloud ma.s.s. Rather pretty. The rest of the sky was clear, unspecked.

As I gazed a line of red fire ran around the edge of the cloud. A violet glow suffused the whole, faded swiftly into pink. The sun was rising. Behind me I heard a huge whirring. Turning, I saw her, just rising, all the beautiful trim length of her. The New York! Pride of our air fleet!

Fifty paces to my right a little knot of officers caught my attention. I recognized Jim Bradley. I remembered, someone had told me he was a major, and was commanding a raft. Good. Jim would work with me as he had in the old days at Stanford U., when I coached the air polo team that he captained. I walked over.

Time for only a hurried handclasp. The signal corps sergeant, earphones clamped to his head, was intoning the airship's messages. "We have reached the thousand-foot level. Will now head for the objective. All well."

We watched her. She was through our barrage-line. A snapped order from Jim restored the barrier, momentarily lifted to let her pa.s.s. A curious shimmering blurred the ship's outlines. I called Jim's attention to it. "That's the new device, a network of fine wires, charged with neutralising vibrations. Worked like a charm in the tests. But there's no telling how effective it is in actual service."

A cold shiver ran up my spine. Many a fine ship I had seen strike that invisible network of rays, and puff into smoke. Was that to be the New York's fate?

"We are about to pa.s.s through the enemy barrage. All well," came the sergeant's unemotional monotone, repeating the voice in his ears. I knew that voice was being listened to in Washington by a little group whose every shoulder bore the stars of high command. My thoughts flashed to them, gazing breathless at the screen that imaged the very scene before us.

My breath stopped. Now! She must be in it now. The next second would tell the tale. A faint coruscation of sparks ran along the network, but the craft kept steadily onward. Thank G.o.d!

"We have pa.s.sed through the enemy first-line barrage. All well."

A faint whistling of released breath came from all about me. I was not the only one who had agonised at that moment. The first test had been pa.s.sed; would the other be as successful?

"We are increasing our speed to the maximum. Objective dead ahead. All well."

I saw the ship fairly leap through the sky. Five hundred miles an hour was her greatest speed. Another moment-- "We are entering the cloud. Bow is invisible. All--"

She was in it. She lurched. Plunged forward. She was hidden. I turned to the sergeant. Tremendous concentration was on his bronzed face. He reached out, twirled a dial in the set before him, and shook his head slightly. Twirled again. We were knotted around him, our faces bloodless. He looked up. "The last sentence was cut off sharp, sir. I can hear nothing more. Even the carrier wave is dead."

Jim ripped out an oath, s.n.a.t.c.hed the phones, and clamped them over his own ears. Dead silence.

At last he looked up. "Nothing, gentlemen."

We looked at each other, appalled.

Bradley handed the apparatus back to the sergeant. "Remain here, listening carefully. Let me know at once if you hear anything." The sergeant saluted.

Out there the white cloud billowed and gleamed in the sunlight. But there was something ominous in its calm beauty now.

A thought struck me. I spoke, and my voice sounded flat, dead. "Perhaps it's only the radio waves that are cut off. Maybe she's all right, fighting there inside, smashing them." But I knew that it was all over.

"G.o.d, I hope you're right. Five thousand men aboard her." Bradley's lips were white, his hands trembling. "Come to my office, Eric; we'll wait there. To your posts, gentlemen. Each of you will detail a man to watch that cloud bank, and report to me any change in its appearance, even the slightest."

We walked back to the concrete command-post. We didn't talk, though it had been years since we had seen each other. My brain was numbed, I know. I had seen plenty of fighting, watched many a man go to his death in the seven months since the war began. But this, somehow, was different.

An hour pa.s.sed. Jim busied himself with routine paper work. At least he had that relief. I paced about his tiny office. Already I was making plans. Force had failed. Strategy must take its place. I must get in there. But how?

Bradley looked up from his work, his face grim. "No news, Eric. If you were right we should have heard something from the New York by this time. They're gone, all right."

"Yes, they're gone," I answered. "It's up to me, then."

He stared in surprise. "Up to you? What do you mean?"

"Just that. I'm going in there, G.o.d helping." I made sure the room was shut tight against eavesdroppers. Then, briefly as I could, I told him of my orders, showing him the doc.u.ment I had received the day before. He shook his head.

"But it's impossible. Their ray network, and the undersea barrier, are absolutely solid here. I don't think even a mouse could get through. And even if you did get behind their lines, how on earth are you going to get into the area underneath that devilish cloud. You saw what happened to the New York, protected as she was."

"Yes. I know all that. Nevertheless it's got to be done." Just then I got the glimmering of an idea. "Tell me, Jim, are they doing much scouting here. Undersea, I mean."

"The usual one-man sh.e.l.l, radio-propelled. We get one once in a while. Most of them, however, even if we do smash them, are pulled back on the wave before we can grab them. It's a bit easier than most places, though: our depth's only about six hundred feet."

"What! Why, I thought the bottom averaged three thousand all along the line."

"It does. But what would be a mountain ridge, if this were dry land, runs out from the mainland. We're over a big plateau here. It goes on east another twenty-five miles, or so. See, here's the chart."

A warning bell seemed to ring somewhere within me. Had this peculiar formation of the ocean bed anything to do with the problem at hand? But I kept to the immediate step. My plan was rapidly taking shape in my mind.

"What are the scouts--black, yellow, or--"

"Russians, mostly."

"Good. Now listen, Jim. Send down word that the next scout-sub that is caught is not to be ripped, but simply held against the attraction of the return wave. The television eye is to be smashed at once, and radio communication jammed. Can you do it as if something had happened to the sh.e.l.l?"

"Sure thing, but what's the big idea?"

"You'll see. I've worked the thing out now."

Just then a red light on Bradley's desk winked three times. "There's one between the lines now!" he exclaimed.

"Quick, man, shoot my orders down."

He pressed a yellow b.u.t.ton and spoke quietly but emphatically into a mouth piece. "O.K. They understand."

"Now take me down."

He looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses, but complied.

The door of the elevator that lowered us from the surface clanged open. We stepped out on a balcony that ran around a large, steel-lined room. The walls were dripping, and on the floor, twenty feet beneath, a black pool sloshed about with the heaving of the raft, in whose interior we were. Rubber-clad soldiers moved about in the blue glow of the globes sending down their heatless light from the ceiling. One sat at a desk near the elevator. As I spied him a green light glowed in front of him twice.

"They've got him, sir, bringing him in."

A low-toned order. The soldiers sprang to their post. A whirring signal. At the other end of the room the steel wall began to move upward, and water rushed in. A tremendous vibration shook the chamber: a ponderous thudding. The water rose to the level of the balcony and stopped. I looked at Bradley.

"We're beneath the surface, aren't we?" I asked. "How is it that the water doesn't fill the room?"

"Pumps," he replied. "Tremendous pumps that draw the water out just as fast as it comes in, and shoot it out again into the sea. We can maintain any desired level in here."

Then I noticed that the black flood was rushing by beneath me at a terrific rate.

Something bulked in the opening. Two tiny subs drew in, a black and a green. The steel wall rushed down again, and the vibration ceased. From the green craft heavy grapples extended, clutching the black, enemy scout. I saw a gaping hole in the black boat's nose, where its eye had been smashed.

Men were clambering over both vessels' hulls, tugging at the hatchway fastenings. The black one flew open. I leaped to the deck. Bradley after me, and jumped down into the hold.

In the little cubby-hole that was all the machinery left s.p.a.ce for, a pale-faced form in green-gray crouched against the wall. His eyes stared in fear. A Russian, praise be. And not far from my size and build.

"Off with his clothes, quick!" I yelled, stripping mine as I spoke. Bradley looked at me queerly, and shrugged his shoulders. "Quick, man! Everything depends on speed!"

He shook his head, as one who listens to the vaporings of an imbecile, but turned to obey. I was standing there--naked, studying the Easterner's face, his body. No scars. Good.

Jim turned to me, the prisoner's clothing in his hands. An exclamation burst from him. He looked back at the trembling Russ, then at me. "My G.o.d, Eric, how did you do it?" he asked.

I smiled. "All right, is it?"

"You're his twin; no, you're himself! If I'd had a drink to-day I'd be sure I was seeing double. How on earth--you had no make-up, no time--"

I was sliding into the Red's gear as I talked! "I've trained all the little muscles in my face--muscles you others don't even know you have. Started when I was a kid, then made a good living at it, acting. Comes in handy now, d.a.m.n handy. I can make anything of my face, and hold it forever if I have to. c.h.i.n.k, Russ--anything. Distort my limbs too, and change my voice. That won't be necessary now. Simple, but it takes a lot of practice."

I was dressed by then, a counterpart of the enemy officer--I hoped. If I wasn't--well, I wouldn't live much longer.

"Now, out with the Russ and my clothes. Don't leave a bit, if you value my life."

A light of comprehension illumined Jim's face. "You're going to pa.s.s yourself off as this man? You've got your nerve with you!" he exclaimed.

"Exactly." The cubby-hole was clear now. "Now take that spanner, and bang me over the head. Not too hard; I don't want a cracked skull, only a splashed scalp. Then pile me where it will seem I crashed against a projection of some kind when the grapples took hold. That bunk edge will do. Batten the hatch, and cast off the grapples. I hope their automatic control is still working, otherwise my scheme's gaflooey."

Jim stuck out his great paw. "Good luck, Eric," he said, simply. Then he clutched the spanner. I saw it go over my head....

Voices around me, harsh, guttural voices. Russian! By the Nine Dogs of War, I had pulled it off! But what were they saying? I was inside the lines, but was my deception successful? Or had my face relaxed with the shock of the blow? I thanked my Russian grandmother then for all the time she had spent teaching me her mother tongue.

"Boszhe moi, the poor fellow must have had an awful smash. He hasn't come to yet."

"The doctor will be here in a minute. He'll revive him."

I breathed a prayer of grat.i.tude. They didn't suspect! But I didn't like this doctor business. Well, I'd have to stall through that as best I could.

I seemed to be lying on hard rock. I opened my eyes, staring blankly, straight up. A bearded face was bending over me, the captain's crossed sickles on the shoulder straps just within my vision. Behind, and above him, towering straight up--my G.o.d!--what was it? A green wall, a vertical green wall, going up and up! It looked like--but no: how could water stand straight up like that, for hundreds of feet?

I almost betrayed myself with a gasp! A dim bulk showed in the translucent depths of the wall. It rushed toward me, took form. A fish, a huge, blind fish, its cavernous mouth stretched wide. It came straight for me, just above. In a second it would leap through. A scream of terror trembled in my throat. Then it hit the edge of the translucent green wall--and vanished! Was I dreaming? Had Jim hit me too hard?

Something stirred in the back of my mind. I sensed dimly that here lay the explanation of the disappearance of the New York, the very mystery that I had come to solve. Almost I had it; then it slipped away.

"Here's the doctor!" someone said. There was a little stir of activity about me. I allowed my eyes to close, as if in utter weariness.

"What's all this? What have you got here?" A gruff voice, intolerant.

"One of our sub-sea scouts, sir. Just come back, after some delay. Her eye was smashed, and there are grapple marks on her. Must have been caught, and then slipped away. She was leaking badly. We got her through the lock just in time." Jim had evidently added a few touches of his own. "Comrade Pauloff seems to have been seriously injured. He's got a bad cut on his scalp, and was unconscious till a moment ago. Opened his eyes just as you came along."

"Hm. Let's see." I felt a none too gentle hand finger my wound. It throbbed maddeningly. The doctor spoke again. "A nasty crack, but no fracture. Here, you--wake up." I made no move. "Come on, wake up!" I heard the plop of a cork being drawn from a bottle; a pungent odor a.s.sailed my nostrils, choked me. I writhed, pulled at the hand holding the bottle to my nose and opened my eyes.

"That's better. How do you feel now?"

I raised a hand to my injury and muttered, in Russian. "Hurts, papashka." I kept my expression as blank, as uncomprehending, as I could.

The doctor flashed an understanding glance at the captain, then turned back to me. "What's your name?"

Memories of my grandmother's tales of her youth came flooding back to me. "Pavel, son of Pauloff."

It was the formula of the Russian student, in his teens.

"Your rank?"

"Second year. Petrovski Gymnasium."

The physician turned away. "No use bothering him now. A clear case of amnesia.

"He's been thrown back to his high school days. I've had a number of cases like that among your scouts lately." Blessed inspiration! "Only cure is rest. Get him over to the infirmary. We'll evacuate him to a base hospital to-morrow."

I was in a cool white bed, in a low ceilinged room, white painted. There were other beds, vacant. A uniformed male nurse puttered around. There was an elusive green tinge to the light that poured in through the one window.

The door opened and a sergeant came in. "Comrade Alexis!"

"Well, what is it now? Have they found another gold-bricking officer to mess up my clean beds?"

"A party from corps headquarters will be here in fifteen minutes for inspection."

"Let them come. They won't find any specks of rust on my instruments, like they did on Comrade Borisoff's."