by Jerry
He became silent and the boy thought of the long rows of Sleepers, glimpsed through the door, each so completely still. Once, long before, he had noticed that one white sheet was stained and crumpled, rotting away into ribbed ruin, and that moisture dripped from it to the floor. He had called the old man, who stared through the glass panels, nodding sagely, and at last shuffled away.
“It is nothing, lad,” he said. “When I was a boy there were two, far away down the right hand line.”
The boy had not forgotten, and had crept back, peering awkwardly through the door. Just visible where the old man had said were two bunks where lay no neat shrouded forms, but odd, skeleton shapes like many fingered bone hands resting with their tips together, and protruding through tattered sheets. Not understanding but feeling uneasy, the lad shivered and hurried away.
After eating they went along a tunnel dimly lit and narrow and into the high, wide room where the broken machine stood. The old man gazed at it, stroking his beard pensively.
“My tutor said that once this machine showed a whole strange world above. He did not know on what principle it operated, except, except——”
He hesitated and the boy prompted him eagerly: “Except what?”
“That it caused a curvature in light-rays.”
The old man became silent. Disappointed, the boy walked round the contrivance. A lens pointed upwards, surrounded by upright, slender rods, and before the machine was a cubicle. Visible inside the octagonal framework were upright burnished cylinders large as a man and connected by a bewildering intricacy of leads and tubes to each other and to apparatus below.
“Have you tried to repair it?” the boy breathed.
The old man shook his head. “It is beyond comprehension. What could anyone do with such a machine? We are helpless, and the ancients are not here to show us. I only know what I was told, and that one must stand in the cubicle in darkness, to watch.”
“We could find what is broken!” the boy declared.
The old man shrugged unbelievingly. “Try, it is a harmless pastime. I am too old to ponder on such things.” He withdrew, and his slippered feet whispered away into the silence of the corridor.
The boy returned to the machine, hung his long outer garment, warm but hampering, on the cubicle door, and examined the apparatus minutely while the clock in their sleeping-room marked many revolutions of its hands upon the slowly mounting row of figures in a long, thin window above it. He did not understand the working of any part of the machine, but studied it carefully and at last came the moment when he found a tiny, bluish crystal tube from which projected three silvery legs. Yellow leads went to each outer leg, but the broken end of a red lead was poised a nail’s thickness from the other. Excited, scarcely breathing, he inspected the other crystal tubes spaced round the core of the machine. All were exactly the same, but the red lead was joined to the centre leg on each.
For many long moments a strange fear and awe came upon him, then he carefully twisted the end of the red lead on its tag. Trembling, he went into the cubicle and to the large switch the old man had shown him and drew it down.
A slow murmur awoke in the machine and a violet radiance played in the cubicle, slowly clearing so that the boy held his breath. For a long time nothing seemed to happen, then the cubicle became abruptly blue. Irregular greyish fluffy shapes drifted across it, rising slowly upwards, and a line of undulated brown came into view low down. The boy gazed, wide-eyed, and the brown, blue and fluffy shapes slowly began to pass away to the left. Far, far away on the very edge of the screen something moved, growing closer and clearer as the scanning rotation of the beam reached it and he stared in amazement. Abruptly he turned away and went running down the corridor.
The old man came hurriedly, muttering that it must be one of the “terrible ones,” but gazed in astonishment. The boy thought the thing moving there oddly beautiful, and hung on his companion’s words.
“Unbelievable,” the old man breathed at last, and his voice shook. “It is a woman, a woman . . .”
Steel shod boots scuffed rhythmically through the peppery hills, leaving a winding trail in the saffron dust. Eyes stared ahead at the yellow plain, unmarked by movement or the artifice of men, or turned, sometimes, to look back, following for a moment the long trail which snaked across the slopes, up a valley, and from sight where the ochreous horizon met the sky. Away to the left, pole-like and corky, stood the remnants of old woodland. A delicate ear turned towards it, but no birds sang in the dead trees, no creature stirred under them, no man or machine moved among the brittle, fossilised trunks.
The feet went on, and the sun cast ahead the shadow of a beautiful woman, fine of face, firm and graceful of muscle and limb. She altered her direction slightly, and soon her shadow fell across the torn roofs of empty buildings nearly buried in the drifting brown particles. She paused, as if wondering what past knowledge of men lay buried here, hidden for ever as the sterile earth sifted into the great libraries of the world, then went on. A light wind moaned over the undulated brown, raising tiny eddies, and she began to hurry. Since growing things had relapsed their tenure upon the earth fearful dust-clouds often raced upon the screaming wind, so that a dark twilight came at mid-day and the sun was hidden. The poisoned, dusty soil rose many miles into the air, sweeping fantastically across whole continents. Rivers ran brown and no fin stirred in their polluted depths, or in the seas, tinted with the same noxious death.
Her footsteps came to a stream, and she halted. No plants grew upon its barren banks and the swirling brown water held no life. She followed its course, going down upon the plain, eyes searching always for something that lived.
Farther on, a crumbling town lay empty, the wind-driven sterile soil up to its second floor windows. She went through the tall buildings, upthrust through the dust like the relics of some ancient city, listening always, her eyes never still. Beyond a great building the curling wind had drawn away the all-pervading dust; the bonnet of a vehicle showed, and scattered bones, white in the sun. A newspaper flapped, uncovered by odd chance, yellowed and crinkly. She bent, touching the sheet lightly with gloved fingers, but it crumbled like a dry, fragile leaf into nothing.
She went on through the unpeopled city. Soon night would come, and she stopped, taking from her back a satchel made of thin chain-mail and lifting out a book. With a pointed instrument which left a blue line she wrote upon the thin steel pages.
The sun sank; a brilliant moon shone across the dusty hills, leaving clear-cut, inky shadows, and she went on. Once a sharp, clear crack came echoing through the night and she turned towards it, walking until she found herself among the sticks of a dead forest. Another bough broke, scattering a thin mist of fine earthy particles, and she turned away, her face expressionless . . .
The sun shone brightly as she approached a steel dome upon high rocks. Blown earth lay piled against one side, but the steps were half clean and she mounted slowly, her shod feet loud upon the naked rock. The dome had windows, and a sliding door which stood open, leaving a trickle of dust in the crack in which it rolled. She went in, looking each way, said “Do not be lonely,” then stopped. No one was there. An eddying wind had swept dust in and it was undisturbed.
For a long time she stood motionless, listening to the sigh of the wind, now rising. Soon the poisoned, dusty soil would obscure the sun and silt into greater obscurity great buildings where lay the whole knowledge and history of mankind, unread for uncounted years.
As if at a loss and having no activity-pattern to respond to this, the unexpected, she stepped backwards. One steel heel caught in the groove in which the door slid and she fell backwards, jarring down the rocky steps. There, her head opened like a compressed tin-can; tiny wheels and electronic tubes sprang out and lay on the dust. One foot twitched, then she was still, her machinery silent, the mechanisms of her cogitation halted.
The rising wind swept long trails of dust across the peppery hills; a tree snapped, but no eye saw it fall, and no
ear heard it, or the piping gusts carrying the saffron dust high in the obscured sky.
Eyes tingling from concentration, the boy had watched the figure pass from sight, walking quickly. Only then had he dared operate the controls which guided the seeing ray, but night came. Even when the cubicle showed dawn he could not find her and he left the machine feeling hungry and disappointed.
During the following days he often returned, but did not see the figure again. Once, on the rim of vision, a great shape moved, almost obscured by flying dust, yet massive and terrifying. He called, but the thing was gone before the old man entered the cubicle, nodding sagely at the description.
“One of the terrible ones. They tear the earth as with a devil’s claw, and once, legend says, thrust their sting into the very heart of all man, so that he ran, screaming, but could find no refuge. In those days wise men said that the terrible ones would run with fire and tumult until there were no more men.”
“What are they?” the boy whispered.
“I do not know, lad.”
“But the great library?”
“It tells nothing of them. I only know what was said by my aged tutor, and that had been related to him in his turn. The terrible ones tore the body of living men, he said, and the rivers ran red and cities burned to the lowering sky. Happiness was no more, nor green, nor did any living things move in all the air, upon all the land, or stir in all the waters of the earth.”
“But the woman,” the boy pressed eagerly.
The old man shook his head in puzzlement. “They would wish to kill her,. with the last sons and daughters of all men, leaving earth a wilderness where no living thing moves.”
“They move,” the boy pointed out.
“They move,” the old man agreed, his face grey under the single bulb. “But legend says they do not live.”
He was silent and the boy saw that he had learned all the old man knew, but a restlessness came upon him. He left the cubicle door open and thought of the world above, of the slender figure walking through the dust, and of her danger, and knew that he must go up.
“You have never been above?” he asked as they ate before sleeping.
The old man shook his head as if very tired. “Never; it would betray the whole remnant of living man, the legend says. The beasts on the hills are quick as an adder, and powerful, and long to spread their poisonous gas upon all men. My tutor was told how we must wait, guarding the Sleepers, that perhaps one day when the clock has turned full circle the reign of the terrible ones will be ended.”
As he concluded the light dimmed; the engines far below droned softer and the burrowings were hushed as with fear. Immeasurably distant, like the scratching of a horny insect on thin metal, sounded a slow scraping and the earth vibrated as with the passage of some huge body.
The old man’s face was grey and moist. “They are coming more often,” he breathed. “Do they suspect? If they find us there can never again be any more men.”
He trembled and his suppressed terror communicated itself to the lad, who shook as with ague, gripping the bunk. He thought of the beautiful woman and the extremity of peril threatening her and knew that he must go up to the surface, whatever dangers his act caused.
After many days he learnt that there was a way up, prepared for the Sleepers, but that it had never been trod since they had filed into the earth and lain down to dream. No one should know of it, the old man told him; it was secret knowledge of the Sleepers. But when his tutor had entered the Chamber to arouse him to his duty one of the Sleepers had been moving upon his bunk, the apparatus off his face, and had talked of a door and a tunnel, thinking the hour of awakening had come. Afterwards he had died, white with terror. The old man tried to point out the bunk, but it was so far from the glass door they could not see its emptiness.
The boy found the door through which none had ever been. Thrilling strangely he hurried back, calling, but the old man did not answer. He was still on his bunk, his hands folded on his chest and his eyes closed. The boy shook him, calling loudly; then was abruptly silent. For a long time he sat looking at the old man, whose white beard jutted up, then everything he had been told began to return like whispers in the room.
“When you find me asleep, not waking, take the key. Afterwards carry me to the little steel door at the end of this corridor, drop me through, close it.”
He took the thong and placed it round his neck; for a moment the key was cold on his chest. He lifted the old man, astonished at his lightness, and carried him to the steel door. Open, it showed a narrow, black shaft leading downwards to where red glowed as from everlasting fires. He slipped the body in, watched it disappear with a sudden swish, closed the door and went away.
He walked the corridors, trying to escape from his own loneliness, often halting to listen for the old man’s slippers on the rock. He ate, slept, and awoke knowing that his plan to go up could now be soon fulfilled. Perhaps the woman would even come below, to be his companion, so that they could be safe, and neither lonely . . .
As he prepared the old man’s voice seemed to echo faintly there, as if his spirit still lived and strove to give a warning.
“The terrible ones are formidable beyond all expressing. They strive to discover where the Sleepers lie. Their aim is unchanging beyond man’s understanding, their power great. They see with a vision outside the spectrum used by men, and move with a life not like ours. They spin endlessly at their work; never hasten, yet are never slow, though seasons wax and wane across the world they never tire.”
The door was secured by a means he could not understand, but after two long periods of work he burrowed round it. Ahead was a passage, rising slightly and extending farther than his light penetrated. He withdrew over the fragmented rock to get food and contrive a haversack.
The tunnel was long and old falls made piles upon the floor. A fault sheared the way so that he had to scramble down a rubble-filled funnel on cut hands and knees to gain the floor ahead. Many hours came and went; his eyes ached from staring into the blackness beyond his torch beam; his legs hurt and twice he sat down, eating and moodily wondering if the tunnel ever ended. Often he crept over loose rubble, a broken roof near his head, but at last blue showed and he emerged upon the higher slopes of a great hill, startled, amazed, and with his eyes streaming from such light as he had never before seen.
Down the hill unroofed buildings made squares in the billowing dusty brown; behind them a haze of flying particles rode the breeze he felt on his cheeks. Beyond the swirling wisps shapes moved, enormous and grotesque and he shrank back into the hole in fear. They were dissimilar in size and form and as the dust thinned he saw they moved around a spidery tower pointing high into the obscured sky. Then the wind grew keener; dust flew higher and the scene was hidden from view, though his ears caught an intermittent high-toned note, audible across the whole valley and setting chill fingers on his spine.
Feeling hidden by the rising dust he went over the hill, squinting against the flying particles, which made a deep brown twilight. Half way down the opposite slope the air cleared abruptly and the configuration of the hills was familiar. He searched eagerly but found no footprints, then went rapidly down the hillside and across the plain.
The sun shone on a metal dome, silted round by blown dust. There was no movement; no one came to greet him, nor did any sound break the quiet. He walked round slowly, noting that at one place hewn steps had led up to it, but now merely descended from sight into the powdery soil. The dome was a hundred paces round, and a sliding door stood open near the steps. Blown earth made a long ridge against the interior wall, and he entered.
The brown dust lay everywhere. Inside the door feet appeared to have disturbed it, but he could not be sure because the wind had driven in a new layer. The interior was divided into sections, each, he thought, equipped just as if a man had wanted to live there. One door was fastened and would not open. One gave access to a room containing a machine like that below, another, to a workshop. T
he last swung wide at his touch and inside there was less dust, a bed, a mirror, and books, and a few pictures on the wall. One was of a lad, brown-skinned and tall; clear-eyed, lean and blonde. The boy looked for a long time, still with amazement; looked in the mirror, then again at the picture. He knew, then, that he was not mistaken: the photo showed himself. The frame was aged, dry as cork and immeasurably old. He sat down upon the bed, looking at it, not thinking because the power of thought had momentarily flown.
Wind sang round the dome. The boy went to the door, but choking particles raced by, sweeping from the barren hills. For long hours the wind piped and drummed as upon a tambourine, swirling its brown earthen fog past the open door and reducing visibility to a single pace. Night came, and still the wind sang. The boy slept, and awoke at early dawn to find that the wind was gone. The air was clear and from the door he looked down a score of hewn steps. The dome stood on an up-jutting rock, bared now of the surrounding dust and at the bottom of the steps lay a form, still half concealed.
He ran down, dropping to his knees to scrape away the dusty earth. Then he saw the limbs and head, and sat back upon his heels, his frantic attempts at rescue ended. The woman was metal, polished and beautiful, yet with a split across her skull and a sight of tiny, compact electronic machinery, choked with soil.
He stood up, fear conquering disappointment, as he remembered the old man’s words. Was this machine a trick of the terrible ones? He looked round quickly, trembling, but all was silent. No sound came across the sterile hills; no shapes moved in the brilliant sunlight, or in the long, sinuous shadows.
He retreated up the steps, hiding until he should decide what to do. He searched again and was confronted by the closed door. He would get behind it, he decided; he could not leave without knowing what secrets lay hidden.
