The Sphere of Sleep Part 2

Big Tim was already started up the bank. Nellon sucked in a breath and followed after him.

The climb was a hard and difficult one, and their recent physical jarring caused by the fall made it all the harder. But curiosity pulled them on like a vast magnet. In the exertion they forgot their aches and bruises. Slipping and sliding, clutching for handholds, floundering in loose drifts which filled pockets of hardened crust, they made their way slowly but surely up the bank.

Finally they stood before that strangely mottled patch of red and brown and gold. The mood of awed wonder which gripped them at once heightened and deepened.

"It _is_ metal!" Tim Austin breathed. "But--but, Brad, it's not a vein.

It's--"

"It's a door!" Nellon finished hoa.r.s.ely.

It was a door, a metal door in the snow covered bank of a falls that had, in some long, long ago, solidified to ice. A door to what? Where did it lead? What would be on the other side of it? What could be on the other side of a metal door on a world where it was doubtful that living beings had ever existed at all?

There was a rasp in Nellon's earphones. And then Big Tim Austin's voice followed it.

"Brad--I'm going in. This--why, this is the biggest find of the whole expedition!"

"It might be dangerous," Nellon pointed out, before he could become aware of the wealth of irony which lay behind the words. "We don't know what sort of life--"

"But this door has been hidden under snow for the Lord only knows how many years, Brad. Look where the crust had split here. It's thick, thick. Nothing has gone in or out for a h.e.l.l of a long time. If there were beings, they're either gone or dead."

And, as if having satisfied himself on this last account, Big Tim stepped directly up to the door. He was a tall man, yet he seemed dwarfed beside it. And it was obviously very ma.s.sive, for it was partly open and the width of the edge revealed could not have been spanned by the long, flexible metal fingers of their protecting gloves. The opening was a mere crack, as if someone had once made it so for a cautious glimpse of the world outside and never closed it again.

Big Tim placed his gloves against the projecting edge.

"Give me a hand, Brad. We'll see if we can open it further."

Together, they shoved. They drew upon ebbing reserves of strength, but what energy they managed to summon they threw into a brief, terrific effort to move the portal. But it did not move. Their combined strength seemed pitifully small against the weight they sought to budge.

They were about to relax their efforts in despair when, suddenly, transmitted from the metal of the door to that of their gloved hands, they felt what seemed to be a coughing whir. The sound smoothed out, deepened, and became a steady hum.

Startled, they leaped away. Their faces took on an intent, incredulous expression.

The door was opening. Slowly, majestically, it was swinging wide.

No force that they could see was behind it. The door seemed to move of its own volition. They stood as still as a pair of weird, metal statues, watching. Every sense, keyed to its highest, was directed at the widening gap.

At last all movement ceased, and the door hung wide. The humming note which had accompanied its opening dwindled to a whisper and died away.

Revealed was a tunnel of utter blackness.

Tim Austin released his breath. The sound roused Nellon from the trance which gripped him.

"It's probably controlled by an automatic mechanism. When we shoved against it, we must have set that mechanism in motion."

"I'm going in, Brad," Big Tim said suddenly. "I'm going to see what's inside." He strode impulsively to the door. But at the threshold he stopped and turned and looked at Nellon.

Nellon smiled faintly and nodded. He strode after Big Tim. Together they entered the doorway.

Lights, built into the helmets of their suits, but up to this time unused, were turned on to illuminate the way. The tunnel, they saw, was a rectangular corridor or pa.s.sageway. It was lined with the same metal as that of the door.

At two intervals down the corridor they found it necessary to squeeze through half-opened doorways. The doors here were of the slide type and seemed to be controlled by machinery as was the one which they had opened to gain entrance to the corridor. But these could not be moved, nor did their efforts awaken any hum of machinery.

"You know," Big Tim remarked, "this arrangement of doors sort of reminds me of an airlock."

"I've noticed the same thing," Nellon responded. "But an airlock--" He shook his head, for this was one of the many things he couldn't understand.

Soon the corridor came to an end. Nellon and Austin found themselves in a small, square room, each side of which was lined with small gla.s.s cubicles or cabinets. In each reposed a transparent sphere with various inexplicable attachments and a compactly folded ma.s.s of some strange material.

"Helmets!" Big Tim breathed. "Brad, those are helmets. And unless I'm mistaken the other stuff must be suits of some kind. What have we stumbled onto, anyway?"

Nellon pa.s.sed a slow, almost-knowing glance about the room, his helmet lights glinting on the gla.s.s of the cabinets.

"I've got a crazy idea," he said. "But let that wait until we see more.

There's another doorway over there. Let's go on."

They went on. There were more corridors, but this time there were rooms opening from them. Each was uniformly alike, filled with the same articles and furnishings. Nothing with which they were familiar had any counterpart here. Everything, from strange, rounded furniture to bizarre clothing, was weirdly alien.

But of the beings who had once inhabited these rooms they found no trace. There were only the garments they had once worn, the chairs in which they had sat. About these clung the ghosts of their presences.

Over all was an air of desertion and long neglect.

They entered another section. Here there were rooms as large as halls, spread with queer tables and chairs. One they found to be a library, for on shelves they found large, tablet-like books whose stiff pages were covered with glowing hieroglyphs.

Then they found their first stairway, a succession of small ramps leading to some floor above. They ascended slowly, with the feelings of men entering some new portion of strange and utterly alien world.

Here they found but one, huge room, and this their lights revealed to be perfectly circular. In the center, glowing greenly, was what appeared to be an immensely thick column, rising from floor to ceiling. About this banks of strange instruments and machinery were grouped.

"Brad," Big Tim whispered. "This place--What on earth could it have been for?"

Nellon made small, slow shakes of his head.

"That's what bothers me. I can't imagine any possible use. They knew utility, the beings who built these rooms. There was a good purpose for this room, I'm sure. Yet I can't imagine what it could have been. None of the activities which we normally carry on in life would seem to fit in with these surroundings."

"Brad--that's it! This room was for no normal use. It was for something--oh, I don't know. But it must have been something tremendously important to them. I feel--" Big Tim did not finish. His strained, low voice died away, and he moistened his lips. The reverie heavy upon his face showed clearly how oblivious he was of the act.

"Let's take a closer look at that column, or whatever it is," Nellon suggested. "We might find a clue."

The column was big. Just how big they had never realized. It was only when halfway to it, and still approaching, that awareness of its size began to dawn upon them.

The vastness of the room had dwarfed it somewhat, but now, almost upon it and with their own sizes as standards of comparison, they were amazed and awed at its cyclopean girth. Slow understanding of the heroic dimensions of the place in its mysterious entirety began to dawn upon them.

And then Nellon became conscious of something else besides size. With closer and closer approach to the column, a strange comfort and well-being was growing within him. The stiff soreness of his bruises was easing. The sense of restless confinement which he always a.s.sociated with the wearing of his thermalloy suit was dimming. The first pangs of rising hunger of which he had earlier become aware were now dulling, as though he were in the midst of a bountiful and delicious meal. He experienced a rising tide of physical and mental satisfaction, as if every want of these two components were being realized and generously administered to.