by Earl
In another moment, Williams came down the rope and all three of them stood crowded on the flat cable-lug that joined to the building. A cool autumn breeze whistled around the wall and quickly took the perspiration off their brows.
“All right,” whispered Williams. “I listened at the door just before I left through the window; apparently none of the guards have heard a sound. But the longer we hesitate, the more chance we take. M’bopo, umo ulka dis. He’ll go first, Terry. Then you. Do you think you can manage without help?”
Terry watched the black man without answering. The cable support for the nearby span stretched taut, enclosing a triangle with the building and the span housing. It was a hundred feet long and thick enough to give a solid footing. M’bopo, arms outstretched and slightly crouched to balance the gentle breeze, negotiated the cable without pause, as surefooted as a mountain goat. His body gradually faded into the gloom at the side of the span.
“I could hold your hand,” suggested Williams, “or your belt—”
Suddenly realizing that he must seem craven in the older man’s eyes, for not having answered his question, Terry looked into his eyes.
“I go. . . . alone, Williams. If I fail, there is no need for you to fall with me.” Williams gripped his hand encouragingly and admiringly. It was one thing for M’bopo and himself, long trained in Africa in physical pursuits, to traverse the cable, but quite another for a man reared in civilization. The latter does not have that fine balance and muscular coordination that a child of nature has, nor does he have that callousness toward danger that brings great courage.
Nevertheless, Terry stepped away from the cable-lug with set jaw, determined to do or die. He took the first ten steps confidently and began to feel that his first fears were silly. But at the next step, a gust of wind pushed at him. Off-balance, he blindly put his free foot forward and only by sheerest luck touched the cable with his toe. Back of him a voice called encouragement. It was no time to hesitate and recover breath or nerve and Terry plunged recklessly forward, barely able to see the cable at his feet. He steeled himself not to look past the support, knowing that one glance at the pit under him would paralyze his every muscle. Breathing hard, swaying, and moving steadily forward, Terry forgot everything but the cable, his feet, and the wind. It seemed hours on end that he alternately lifted his feet and set them down. He dared not look up nor to the side. He wondered how far he was. God! Was this an eternal nightmare? Already he had tramped miles. His calve muscles ached as though he had run a marathon. He was getting dizzy. The constant stare of concentration at the cable was bringing spots to his eyes. He was swaying! The wind, in spiteful little gusts, would. . . .
Terry felt his front foot barely scrape the cable. It slipped and he knew it was over. Suddenly limp and hopeless, he felt himself toppling. . . . toppling into that deep pit between buildings. His body would drop like a stone, past five spans, down to the hard street; nothing would stop it. . . .
Now what had happened, wondered Terry. Something had grabbed his belt. Something strained at his body hanging over the pit with one foot only on the cable. And that something pulled him back from the abyss.
Terry’s brain cleared. M’bopo was there with a hand in his belt, looking at him in mute inquiry. Terry waved forward, again on balance. One—two—three steps, and then Terry felt the welcome solidity of a broad, flat surface. They were on the span’s roof! He had lost his balance and almost fallen only three steps from safety! M’bopo had saved his life. M’bopo was grinning now and large beads of sweat stood out on his brow. Only he would ever realize how much superhuman, agonizing strength it had taken to pull the falling white man upright, and at the constant risk of losing his own balance should the torque shift too suddenly from limp body to straining muscles.
There was a sound of running feet and then a familiar voice as a figure loomed up from farther along the span’s roof.
“Terry, my boy! Thank God you made it!”
“Mr. Hackworth! Great to see you again. But how did you—”
“Explanations later. Must get away as quickly as possible.”
They turned to watch the dim figure coming along the cable. Without hesitation, firmly and swiftly, Williams moved along the cable. There was an indefinable grace about him and a boyish elasticity that made it hard for Terry to realize that he was an old man in point of years. Certainly no younger man could do the feat any easier.
Williams came up with a rush, waving a jubilant arm.
“All here safe and sound,” he hissed, nodding to Hackworth. “No delay now; into the ship, all of us.”
As they ran toward the dark hulk of Hack worth’s Sansrun, they heard the rumble of an electro-car beneath them. Terry smiled; little did the passengers realize that on the roof under which they streaked were four jail-breakers and an outlaw ship. How simple it had been after all, when but an hour before, escape had seemed absolutely impossible!
Williams closed the cabin door behind them. Hackworth was already at the controls. But before starting the motors, he had them all look around for a possible lurking police ship. It was against the law to land on a span. Detection would bring immediate pursuit. They looked searchingly around. High above from the towers of the tallest buildings came the broad sweeps of aircraft beacons, ribboning the sky. Several of the important traffic lanes were bathed in constant light, revealing a considerable night traffic. Where they were, beneath the lowest lane, it was a pocket of darkness between the lighted streets and the swinging searchlights.
Satisfied that no police ships were around, Hackworth brought the twin motors to life, idled them for a minute, and then shot the ship upward. They climbed obliquely toward the neon-lighted spire of a lane mark, up and up out of the canyon of spans. Suddenly there were lane signals and Hackworth obediently leveled. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“The police danger is over. Now we’re just one ship out of thousands.”
He spoke too confidently, however. Had he but known it, the pilot of a lumbering freighter, passing the Unidum subheadquarters on the way to a landing a mile away, had seen the shadowed ship rise from the canyon. Suspicious as to the motives of a private ship coming from that forbidden direction, he reported the incident to the police after landing.
In the meantime, Hackworth piloted his ship away from Boston and headed in the gloom of night to the south. He built up a fast but safe speed, high above the commercial lanes. Then he turned to his cousin beside him.
“Dan, you’re a free man, at least for a while.”
“Thanks to you, Earl. You are—”
“Thanks to M’bopo,” interrupted Hackworth. “It was his idea. Passing the prison side of the Unidum sub-headquarters, he saw that your window was within reach of the cable support from that sixth level span. At first I thought it hare-brained. Then I saw how easy it would be to land the Sansrun on the span roof in the night. As for the rest, M’bopo claimed it would be just as easy. And so it proved.”
Williams struck his head deprecatingly. “And to think it escaped me entirely, that idea. M’bopo, unlettered native as we like to call him, has scored against the all-powerful Unidum. It’s a curious thought. Well—” he changed his tone—“the important thing is now: where to go?”
“I’ve figured that out already,” returned Hackworth. “You and Terry at present are outlaws. There will be a price on your heads. A peaceful life in Unitaria is impossible. The thing for you both to do is get away and live in regions not governed by the Unidum.”
“Never!” came vehemently from Terry. “Not while Lila is alive. I live with her or die with her. I could never forged her—”
“Let me finish, Terry,” said Hackworth quietly. “My plan is to negotiate your escape from Unitaria, along with Lila! And furthermore, after I myself have carefully had my money transferred to foreign accounts, I will join you. We can all live a happy life in some sheltered corner of earth, free of the Unidum.”
Hack worth’s eyes shone as he went on. “The
plan in detail is this—I am taking you to the Long Island Tide-station, whose superintendent is a close friend of mine. I have already spoken to him; he is to be trusted. A tide-station is the ideal place for you two to hide because of its position right on the ocean, and because the police will never think of you being there. Once safely hidden, you will simply lie low and I will do my part, charter a stratosphere ship and somehow get Lila from the hospital. Andrew Grant will help me do that. Then—”
An exclamation from Terry cut him off.
“Look! A ship is pursuing us!”
They peered backward through the rear-vision mirror. With ominous purposefulness, a long, slim tri-motored plane hung on their trail, rapidly gaining. It could not be mere chance that it followed them; they were both out of the regular lanes.
“God!” cried Hack worth weakly. “It’s a Unidum police ship; I can tell by its shape!”
CHAPTER IX
The Tide-Station
l The three white men looked aghast at one another. Hackworth became suddenly enervated; his eyes reflected hopelessness. Terry peered again into the mirror and confirmed the statement.
“That stops us,” said Hackworth wearily. “It’s possible they merely wonder why we fly so high and fast, but if they make us land and question us, the whole thing is spoiled.”
But Williams was not so willing to admit defeat.
“How long yet before we reach the tide-station?”
“About twenty minutes at top speed. But there’s no use trying to outfly them, Dan. They are much faster. Besides, they’re armed; if we try to escape, they’ll disable us. Not only that, in a few minutes there will be more police ships here—”
“And here’s the Stop-and-Land signal!” burst in Terry.
From the pursuing ship had flashed a thin beam of crimson light, flooding the cabin with reflected red.
“If we disobey—”
“Stop-and-Land be damned!” cried Williams, grasping Hackworth by the arm with compelling fingers. “It’s dark, isn’t it? Turn off the cabin lights and drop. Maneuver around—throw ’em off the track! Why should we give up so tamely when we’ve gone to the trouble of breaking jail?”
Hackworth hesitated and Terry firmly motioned him away from the controls.
“Williams is right! I’ll give them a runaround!”
Plunged in darkness, Terry manipulated the controls and shot the ship down. Leveling gradually, he swung in a huge arc that would take them away from the police ship. From the latter now shot several brilliant beams of white light which probed through the darkness, searching for the vanishing prey. For a moment it looked as though they would escape entirely.
Then Terry cursed. To one side appeared more beams of dancing light, a maze of them. Some of the rays almost touched them and only a quick drop or swerve prevented it.
“They’ve got the whole Boston Patrol after us,” gasped Hackworth. “They must know we are the ones who broke jail. With the direct radio contact they have, they’ll hem us in gradually—”
“Not if I can help it,” muttered Terry grimly.
Williams encouraged him with hopeful words, and their ship became a plunging, weaving thing, trying to escape the inexorable beams of dozens of police ships. It looked like a dance of the fireflies. Every so often, the fleeing ship would flicker in the chance beam of a light and the police ships would converge like hungry vultures.
“If I only had more speed,” groaned the perspiring Terry. “This way I can’t draw away; I can only dodge up and down.”
“No good, Terry,” said Williams who had quietly watched the maneuvers. “They’re gradually cutting us off on all sides. Can you give them a run as far as the tide-station without getting in range of their weapons?”
“Possible, if we rise at full power. You see, as a helicopter, we’re their equal because they only have two adaptable engines. We might get as far as the tide-station with a good start. But a lot of good that will do.”
“Try it!” said Williams in commanding tones.
Willing to try anything under the circumstances, Terry jammed his foot on the throttle and swung the air-screws upward. The beams of the police ships fell below for many long seconds, then again followed as flicker after flicker revealed the outlaw ship rising. But before they gained sufficient altitude to head the fleeing ship off, Terry had swung level at full speed. He flew over a police ship from which came a sudden scarlet flash.
“Missed!” breathed Terry trembling’, “And they won’t get another chance for some time.”
Ten minutes of ear-shattering flight, with the police gaining rapidly, brought them within sight of the tide-station at the tip of Long Island. Williams stared in interest as it swiftly crawled toward them from the horizon. It was an incredible affair, more alien to 1933 than even the queer hyp-marine. Long stiff concrete appendages reached out to sea for miles, all dimly visible in reflected light. They all radiated from a comparatively small building, flat and unadorned. In the exact center of its circular flat roof was a small brightly-lit bubble, which was the control room for the entire station. All the enormous electrical energy produced by the tides at that point was wired to cities as far north as Boston, and as far south down the coast as New York.
But the immensity of the thing distracted Williams from the affairs of the moment only for an instant. He knew one important thing about the tide-station upon which he had built a plan which offered a slim hope of once again escaping the Unidum. At his order, Terry shot the plane downward, braked with the helicopters at a dragging angle, and landed on the flat roof.
“No time to talk,” said Williams hurriedly as Hackworth looked inquiringly at him. “Lead the way to your friend the superintendent.”
Even as the four of them raced across the roof toward a lighted alcove from which steps led downward, one of the police ships descended with roaring motors. At the foot of the stairs a figure met them panting.
“Hackworth!” he cried. “You’ve ruined me! I saw—the police—”
“We’ve ruined nothing yet!” cried Williams. “Listen to me. . . .”
In terse sentences, he unfolded his plan. Joe Manners, the superintendent of the tide-station, nodded and led the way along a corridor and then up steps. They emerged in a room of small size whose ceiling was hemispherical. It contained nothing more than a desk and chair and a panel of several dials and switches. But inconspicuous as it seemed, it was the master control-room of the station. From below, vibrating through the walls, came the hum of the giant tide-generators.
Manners dosed the door they had entered and locked it. After a momentary glance at the dial readings, he turned to the others.
“The plan will work only if we properly strike fear into their hearts.”
“But will there be any trouble for you afterward?” asked Hackworth.
“I think not. Little is known of the technicalities of a tide-station to the average person like the police. I will be able to lie out of it and stave off suspicion. As for the chances I take, I have good reasons of my own for wishing to help you in this predicament. You see—”
A loud knocking at the door cut him off. He signalled caution to the others.
“Open for the Unidum police!” came in loud tones from the other side of the door.
“I—I can’t!” shouted back Manners with well-simulated fear in his voice. “I am in the hands of desperate men who—”
He bit off his words and choked as though threatened by dire threats. From the other side of the door the conspirators heard a jumbled murmur. Then again a voice:
“Those men, two of them at least, are criminals, sentenced to death for treason. They broke prison in Boston. They are—”
“Oh, oh, oh!” moaned Manners in mock tribulation. “What will I do! I have nothing to do with this—”
“Shut up!” shouted Williams with well-timed ferocity. He winked to the others and held up a warning finger. They would see what the police had to say next.
“Hey,
you in there,” came from the minions of the law beyond the door. “Surrender yourselves or it will go hard with you.”
“Damn you, never!” shouted back Williams with a tone of voice that was meant to convey desperate recklessness. “Rather than go back prisoners to certain death, we will wreck this tide-station and die in its ruins!”
As he finished, Manners pulled a little switch which sent a crackling spark across two fuse electrodes; then he raised his voice to shouts of alarm, stamped his feet on the floor, and signalled for the others to do likewise.
“Don’t touch that switch!” he cried gasping.
The police, seeing none of this, but hearing the noises of a scuffle which sounded ominous, threw their weight against the door and attempted to batter it down. But the door held.
“You don’t know what you’re doing! You’ll blow up—”
“Get out of my way—”
“You’re mad to try—help!”
“No help for you! Nor for the police who want to capture us! Nor for anybody.
All these jumbled words delivered with hoarse shouts, along with scuffling noises, struck a nameless fear into the hearts of the police. The desperadoes inside the control room were tampering with electric dynamite, thousands of kilowatts of it!
Then came Manners’ voice again in a piercing scream.
“The master switch!—he pulled it—let me out of here—the whole station will blow up—fools! you’ve got just ten seconds to live. . . .”
The police, hearing this dreadful statement, stampeded away from the door like frightened rats. If the station was doomed to crash in ruin, no need for them to lose their lives along with the insane criminals who had unleashed the titanic power.
