A portion of the arc went through one of the gates. Had the gate been held motionless, the piece of the cylinder would merely have projected through its matching gate on another cylinder. But when the gate was pulled sidewise along the edge, the gate acted like a shears and cut off the part which went through the frame.
After setting the gate upright, the Lords went through it to the next cylinder, where they found the chunk of the platinum. And they used the next gate to cut the chunk into smaller pieces.
On the cylinder of the whirling death-gate, Wolff tested it with several stones. As soon as a stone disappeared, he marked the safe side with a dab of yellow paint brought from the waterworld. Thereafter, they had no trouble distinguishing the death-side from the safe side.
Wolff had the gates that could be moved in the various worlds transported to a more advantageous location.
The island on the waterworld became one vast forge of smoke and stink. The Lords and the natives complained mightily. Wolff listened, scoffed, laughed, or threatened, as the occasion demanded. He drove them on. Three hundred and sixty dark moons passed. The work was slow, disappointing many times, and often dangerous. Wolff and Luvah kept on making trips through the gates, bringing back from the still perilous circuit the materials they needed.
By this time the balloon spacecraft was half-built. When finished, it would ascend with the Lords until it rose above the atmosphere. Here the pseudogravity field weakened rapidly—if Theotormon was to be believed—and the craft would use the drag of the dark moon to pick up more speed. Then blackpowder rockets would give it more velocity. And steering would be done through small explosions of powder or through release of gas-jets from bladders.
The gondola would be airtight. Wolff had not yet worked out the problem of air-renewal and circulation or the other problems brought on by nongravity. Actualy, they should have a certain amount of gravity. They would not be getting into space as a rocket does, which attains escape velocity. Levitated by the expanding gas in the lift-bladders, they would rise until the atmosphere gave out. Past the atmosphere, the craft would lose its buoyancy, and would have to depend upon the pull of the moon and the weak reaction of wooden-cased rockets to give them thrust enough to escape the waterworld’s grip.
Also the gas in the cells would have to be valved off to prevent rupture of the cells by expansion.
Moreover, if they did pull loose from the waterworld, they would be in danger of being seized by the field of the moon.
“There’s no way of determining the proper escape path and necessary vectors by mathematics,” Wolff said to Luvah. “We’ll just have to play it by ear.”
“Let’s hope we’re not tone-deaf,” Luvah said. “Do you think we really have a chance?”
“With what I have in mind, I think there is,” Wolff replied. “Just now, today, I want to think of other things. There are the spacesuits to work on for instance. We’ll have to wear them while in the gondola, since we can’t rely on the gondola being too airtight.”
The fulminate of mercury for the explosive caps was made. This was a dark-brown powder formed by reaction of mercury, alcohol, and concentrated nitric acid.
The nitric acid, which oxidized sulfur to sulfuric acid, was obtained through a series of steps. The sodium nitrate, gotten by crystallization from the bird droppings and human excrement, was heated with sulfuric acid. (The sulfuric acid was derived by burning sulfur with saltpeter, that is, potassium or sodium nitrate.)
Free nitrogen of the air was “fixed” by combining it with hydrogen (from the gas bladders) to form ammonia. The ammonia was mixed with oxygen (from an oxygen-producing bladder) at the correct temperature. The mixture was passed over a fine wire gauge made from smooth compact platinum to catalyze for catalysis.
The resulting nitrogen oxides were absorbed in water; the dilute acid was gotten by concentration through distillation.
The materials for the furnaces and containers and pipes were furnished by the vitreous stuff from the planet of skaters.
Black gunpowder was made from charcoal, sulfur, and the saltpeter.
Wolff also succeeded in making ammonium nitrate, a blasting power of considerable power.
One day Vala said, “Don’t you think that you’re making far too many explosives? We can’t take more than a fraction on the ship. Otherwise, the ship’ll never get off the ground.”
“That’s true,” he replied. “Maybe you were also wondering why I’ve stocked the explosives at widely separated locations. That’s because gunpowder is unstable. If one pile goes up, the others won’t be affected.”
Some of the Lords paled. Rintrah said. “You mean the explosives we’ll be taking on the ship could go off at any time?”
“Yes. That’s one more chance we’ll be taking. None of this is easy or safe, you know. But I’d like to add a possibly cheering note. It is ironic and laughable, if we succeed, that Urizen himself has supplied the materials for his own undoing. He has furnished us with the basic weapons which might overthrow his supertechnology.”
“If we live, we’ll laugh,” Rintrah said. “I think, however, that Urizen will be the laugher.”
“Old Earth proverb: We’ll at least give him a run for his money. Another proverb: He who laughs last laughs best.”
That night Wolff went to Luvah’s hut. Luvah woke up swiftly on feeling Wolff’s hand on his shoulder. He started to draw the knife made of flint from the tempusfudger planet. Wolff said, “I’m here to talk, not kill. Luvah, you are the only one I can trust to help me. And I need help.”
“I am honored, brother. You are by far the best man among us. And I know that you are not about to propose treachery.”
“Part of what I plan may seem at first to be treachery. But it is necessary. Listen carefully, young brother.”
Within the hour, they left the hut. Carrying digging and hacking tools, they went to the hill on which stood the twin gates. Here they were met by twenty natives, all of whom Wolff was sure he could trust. They began cutting and digging through the tangle of decayed vegetation and bladder roots that formed the island. All worked swiftly and hard, so that by the time the moon had passed and taken night with it, they had completed a trench around the hill. They kept on working until there was only a few inches of roots to go before coming to the water level. Then the natives placed ammonium nitrate and fulminate caps in the trench. When this was done, they threw in the chopped up roots and dirt and made an attempt to cover the signs of excavation.
“Anybody can see at a glance that digging has been done here,” Wolff said. “I’m banking on nobody coming here, however. I told all of you that today would be a rest day, so that you wouldn’t rise until late.”
He looked at the gates. “Now you and I must travel the circuit again. And we must do it swiftly.”
When they came to the planet of the tempusfudgers, Wolff gave Luvah one of his blowguns. This was made of the hollow bamboo-like plants that grew on the mother-island. The natives used them to shoot darts tipped with a stupefacient made from a certain species of fish. They hunted the birds and the rats on the island with these.
Wolff and Luvah went into a canyon and there knocked out five of the fudgers. Wolff searched until he found the entrance to a burrow in which chronowolves lived. He placed the end of the blowgun inside the burrow and expelled the dart. After waiting a minute, he reached in and dragged out a sleeping wolf.
The animals, still unconscious, were cast into the gate that would open into Urizen’s world. Or it should lead there. It was possible that both gates merely led to the next secondary planet, as the gates on the birling world had.
“I hope the little animals will trigger off Urizen’s alarms,” Wolff said. “The alarms will keep him busy for a while. There’s also the possibility that the fudgers’ and wolf’s time-leaping and duplicating abilities will enable them to survive for a while. They may even multiply and spread through the palace and set off any number of traps and alarms. Urizen won’t know what th
e hell’s going on. And he’ll be diverted from the gate through which he expected us to come.”
“You don’t know that,” Luvah said. “Both these gates here, and both those on the waterworld, may just lead to another secondary.”
“Nothing’s certain in any of the multitudinous universes,” Wolff said. “And even for the immortal Lords, Death waits around every corner. So let’s go around the corner.”
They passed through the gate into the Weltthier. There was no sign of the chronobeasts. Wolff took heart at this, thinking that the chances were very good that the animals had gone into Urizen’s stronghold.
Back upon the waterworld, Luvah went off to accomplish his mission. Wolff watched him go. Perhaps he had been wrong in suspecting Vala of alliance with her father. But she had been too lucky in getting to a safe place whenever danger threatened. She had acted too quickly. Moreover, when they were in the river of the icerock planet, she had been too buoyant and just a little too assured. He suspected that the girdle around her waist contained devices to enable her to float. And there was the choosing of the gates by her. Every time, these had led to a secondary. They should have gone through one of Urizen’s gates at least once. She had been too self-assured, even for her. It was as if she were playing a game.
Although she hated her father, she could have joined him to bring her brothers and cousins to death. She hated them as much as she hated her father. She could have transceivers implanted in her body. Thus, Urizen would be able to hear, and probably to see, all that she did. She would enjoy the game as a participant, perversely enjoy it even more if she were in some danger herself.
Urizen could take pleasure in the deadly games as if he were watching a TV set. It would be a genuine spectator sport for him.
Wolff returned to the hill to start the next-to-last phase. The natives were just about finished loading the ship with black powder, ammonium nitrate, and mercury fulminate. The half-built craft consisted of two skeletons of hollow bamboo in which the gas cells had been installed. One was the lower decks of the planned ship; the upper part was supposed to be attached at a later date.
From the beginning, he had known that using the ship as a space traveler was impossible. He doubted very much that it would work, or, if it would, that the voyage between this world and Appirmatzum could be made. The odds were far too high against success.
But he had pretended confidence in it, and so the work had gone on. Moreover, any spy among the Lords, or any other monitor for Urizen, would have been fooled.
Perhaps Urizen was watching him now and wondering what he meant to do. If so, by the time he found out, it would be too. late.
The natives released the two halves of the ship from its moorings. They rose several feet and then stopped, weighed down by the several tons of explosives. This altitude was all that Wolff desired. He gave the signal and the natives pushed the crafts up the hill until their prows were almost inside the frame. There was just enough room for the ship to slide through the frames. Wolff had ordered it built in two sections because the fully built ship could not have negotiated the space. Even the partial frames had only an inch on either side on top and bottom to spare.
Wolff lit the fuses on each side of the two floating frameworks and signaled his men. Chanting, they pushed the crafts on in. Wolff, standing to one side, could see the landscape of the island on the other side of the gate. The first ship seemed to be chewed up, or lopped off, as if floated through the gate-frame. Presently, all but the aft of the second was gone, and then that, too, had disappeared.
Luvah appeared from the jungle with Vala’s unconscious body over his shoulder. Behind him were the other Lords, alarmed, puzzled, and angry or frightened. Wolff explained to them what he meant to do. He said, “I could tell no one except Luvah because I could trust no one else. I suspect Vala of spying for our father, but she may be innocent. However, I could not take a chance on her. So I had Luvah knock her out while she slept. We’ll take her along in case she is not guilty. By the time she wakes up, she’ll be in the midst of it. Too late for her to do anything then.”
“Now, get into the suits. As I’ve explained, they’ll operate under water as well as in space. Better, since they were designed for diving.” Luvah looked at the gate. “Do you think the explosives went off?”
Wolff shrugged and said, “There’s no way of telling. It’s a one-way gate, of course, so there’ll be no indication from the other side. But I hope that by now Urizen’s initial traps have been destroyed. And I hope he’s very upset, wondering what we’ve done.”
Luvah put a suit on Vala and then donned one himself. Wolff supervised the touching off of the fuses to the explosives planted at the bottom of the ditch around the hill. The fuses led through hollow bamboo pipes to the gunpowder, ammonium nitrate, and fulminate of mercury.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There was a rumble and a shaking of the earth. Up rose the decayed vegetation and the roots in a great cloud of black smoke. When the debris had settled and the smoke had blown away, Wolff led the Lords towards the hill. It was sinking swiftly; its anchorage to the rest of the island severed and the lower part ripped apart. Under the weight of the heavy golden hexagons, it went down.
Wolff threw several fuse-lit bombs at the base of the gates to hasten the descent to the sea. The gates began to topple. Wolff held his men steady until the upper part struck the sides of the pit formed by the explosion. As the gates slid into the water below, he gave the order to jump. His mask over his face, the air tanks turned on, a flint-tipped spear in one hand, and a flint knife and flint axe in his belt, he leaped into the water.
The top of the gates disappeared just as he came up to the surface for a better look. The water was so foul with bits of roots and humus that he could not see anything. He grabbed the top of the frame and let its weight pull him down. It was on its way to the bottom of the sea, but he could go only a little way with it.
He felt Luvah, who was holding Vala in one arm, grab his ankle with the other. Another Lord should be getting hold of Luvah’s ankle. Theotormon would be the only free swimmer until they got through the gate.
Wolff made sure, by feeling, that he was at the left gate. Then he began swimming. He had no trouble entering the gate. The inrush of sea-water carried him on in.
The current carried him down a long hall. The walls were self-luminous and radiated enough light for him to make out details. Some of the wall-plates were partially ripped off or bent. Down at the end of the hall, two thick white metal doors were twisted grotesquely. The explosion had done its work well. It was conceivable that the doors could have sealed off the rest of the palace from the flood of water. Eventually, the pressure of water from the sea bottom would have burst them open. By that time, the Lords would also have been dead from pressure.
Wolff went through the crumpled doors and on down another corridor. Seeing it come to an end, he twisted around until his feet were ahead of him. The water boiled at its end, striking the wall and then going off down a slightly sloping corridor. Wolff took the impact with his feet, shoved, and was off with the current down the hall. The light showed him a series of long metal spikes below him. Undoubtedly, they were prepared for the invading Lords, who were now passing above them.
The corridor suddenly dipped, and the water was racing down a fifty-degree angle. Wolff barely had time to see that it branched into two other corridors before he was carried helplessly out the great window at the end.
He fell, whirling over and over, seeing the palace walls rush by and a garden below. He was being hurled down by a cascade formed by the sea spouting out the window.
The crash into the pool at the bottom of the falls stunned him. Half-conscious, he swam up and away and was at the edge of the pool. Originally, the pool had been a sunken garden. Lucky for him, he thought, otherwise, he would have been smashed to death. He dragged himself up over the lip of stone, still clutching his spear.
The other Lords came bobbing up one by one. Theoto
rmon was first. Luvah was next with a frightened Vala behind him. Rintrah swam in a few seconds later. Tharmas floated into the edge of the pool. He was face down, his arms outspread. Wolff pulled him up and turned him over. He must have smashed into the side of the window before being carried out. His leg was snapped at the knee and the side of his face was crushed in.
Vala stormed at Wolff. He told her to shut up; they did not have time for talking. In a few words he explained what he had done and why.
Vala recovered quickly. She smiled, though still pale, and said, “You have done it again, Jadawin! Turned Urizen’s own devices against him!”
“I do not know if you are guilty of allying yourself with our father or not,” Wolff said. “Perhaps I am overly suspicious, though it may be impossible to be that when dealing with a Lord. If you are innocent, I will apologize. If not, well, our father must by now be convinced that you have betrayed him and are with us. So he will kill you before you can explain, unless you kill him first. You have no choice.”
“Jadawin, you were always a fox! So be it! I will kill our father the first chance I get! Who knows, I may have the chance! I would have sworn up to a few hours ago that we would be trapped as soon as we entered his domain! But here we are, and he has a deadly problem on his hands!”
She pointed up at the great window through which the sea was cataracting. “Obviously the gate is on the highest level of the palace. And water flows downward. If he doesn’t do something soon, he will be drowned like a rat caught in its own hole.”
She turned to indicate the land outside the palace. “As you can see, the palace is in a valley surrounded entirely by high mountains. It will take some time, but the entire sea of the waterworld will come through the gates, unless the matching gates on the waterworld settle on a shallow bottom. This valley will be flooded, and then the water will spill over the mountains and inundate the rest of the planet.”
The World of Tiers Volume One: The Maker of Universes, the Gates of Creation, and a Private Cosmos Page 36
