The Collected Stories

by Earl

  “In that, we are truly civilized, aren’t we, Humrelly?” She went on: “As a matter of fact, we can’t afford wars. One good one would be our end. Antarka, whatever else you may think, it, is a land of peace.”

  “And tyranny,” Ellory muttered.

  “Look—Antarka approaches!”

  ELLORY had felt the floor under them pressing upward for some minutes, and the forward thrust of the ship diminished. They were gliding down toward Earth, the tremendous pace of the stratosphere cut down by air resistance. Antarctica, land of the South Pole!

  In Ellory’s day, it had been a cold, frozen, bitter wilderness usurped by unbroken ice. Now it was open brown land, with only a crown of glistening ice about the South Pole itself. It looked vaguely like a vast doughnut floating over the vaster seas.

  “Earth’s axis hasn’t tilted,” Ellory said thoughtfully. The sun was low on the horizon. “But climate his changed radically since my time, Lady Ermaine.”

  She nodded. “Emergence from the last Ice Age.”

  “Of course!” Ellory snapped his fingers. That theory had been gaining ground in 1940, he recalled. Slowly but surely, the average temperature was rising, from the minimum of the Ice Age twenty-five thousand years or so ago. Massachusetts had been a bitter land to the Puritans of 1700. Boston had become comparatively balmy in 1940. Now, in 5000 A. D., those latitudes were Floridan.

  And Antarctica, also the Arctic, after these three thousand years, had finally won free from their eon-long prison of ice.

  Below the clouds now, the ship passed over what. Ellory surmised was Ross Sea, the outjutting crags of Admiralty Range, and the South Magnetic Pole area. A tall, cratered peak must be lonely Mount Erebus. Then over a mountain range and down into little America, where Byrd, an age before, had struggled against the elements.

  The elements had beer vanquished by time, since then. There was a city now.

  Ellory was again disappointed. He had expected a forest of spires, skyscrapers, row on row of buildings. He had been yearning to see such, in this age that had elsewhere leveled all man’s works to the ground. Instead he saw only a dull, metallic object, like a shield lying there. Yet it was huge, perhaps a mile across.

  “Our city is underground,” Ermaine explained, smiling at his rueful perplexity. “That is its metal cap. Though the land is clear of ice, the climate here is quite bitter still. It snows often. Underground, it is snug and warm. And down there, easy to reach, are the coal and metal veins.”

  Landing on the broad metal plate, the ship halted beside a huge drome and was then wheeled in by little auto-tugs. Ellory’s sense of hearing was titillated by a familiar chug-chug, that of a gasoline combustion motor. Surviving mark of the 20th century! He felt almost proud in that thought.

  The Lady Ermaine, wrapping a cloak about her, stepped out toward a low housing. Following, Sharina and Ellory shivered in the bite of chill, polar air. Entering a heat-tight door, a smooth-dropping elevator took them below the metal cap’s level. They stepped out again into warmed air that had the instant taint of city life to Ellory.

  He looked around eagerly.

  A new world. Or rather, an old, old one of three thousand years ago! For a moment, in broad detail, it was the twentieth century again, the heart of New York, or Chicago, or Paris. There were the clang, bustle and murmurous undertone of an active mechanical community. Ellory’s senses dizzied, as if he had been shot back in a time machine to the age he had left.

  But then, taking in detail, the heady illusion left. It was a city such as had not been known or dreamed of in 1940. They were treading a metal bridge, from the bank of elevators, that overhung a deep well. Ermaine led them close to the railing, pointing down for them to look. Ellory gasped.

  DOWN and down the sheer central pit went, as if to the center of Earth. Evenly spaced were the metal floors of successive levels. They were pinned solidly to columnar metal posts running from top to bottom of the beehive city. Ellory gave silent tribute to the engineers who had conceived this gigantic project, balancing those tremendous weights between post and pillar.

  “Does it amaze even you, Humrelly, who knew the colossus of ancient New York?” The girl of Antarka showed the faintest pleasure at his surprise. “There are twenty levels, resting on bedrock a mile below. The city is not wide, no more than a half-mile. The levels are suspended between rock, at the circumference, and these pillars. The whole is built symmetrically around the central elevator well, giving us short, easy transportation down and up. It is like, Humrelly, one building of your time on a grander scale, sunk into the earth.”

  Ellory had already made that comparison in his mind. A super Empire State building, plumbing the depths instead of piercing the sky.

  “Our reasons were two,” Ermaine continued. “One, the saving in building material. Fifty percent of our wall-space is furnished by mother earth. Secondly, the easier access to deeply buried coal and metal deposits. The rise of Antarka, out of the Dark Time, is based wholly on those deposits. But I will explain more fully some other time. Come.”

  They traversed the metal bridge.

  Sharina clung fearfully to Ellory’s arm, averting her eyes from the depths. To her, this first glimpse of metal-and-power civilization was pure shock. She tip-toed, as an original Stone Age creature might have at the top of a twentieth-century skyscraper, fearing to shake apart the magically hung structure beneath.

  The metal bridge led to the true floor of the first level, and beyond were receding tiers of sub-levels, each like the floor of a hotel. Steps, slanting ramps, and outside elevators connected all with the “ground” level. Walking lanes pierced back and back to the limiting rock walls of the narrow city. Living quarters of a variety of bungalow-like houses clustered about areas that shone green with grass. The perfume of flowers wafted in the air. Brilliant sun lamps sprayed down their actinic rays on these park-like spaces.

  Ellory drew an admiring breath. The Antarkans had fashioned a miniature elysium, combining the best of mechanics and imported nature.

  “You think well of our city?” Ermaine inquired, laughingly. “Humrelly, your face is more eloquent than your tongue could ever be!”

  Ellory tried to frown.

  “Exquisite exteriors often hide dark things,” he retorted meaningly.

  Then he did frown, blackly.

  A stream of Antarkans ahead, in their resplendent silks, resolved in his eyes. Most were walking leisurely, like lords in some higher life. But sprinkled among them were some in wheeled chairs. Pushing their indolent, blond occupants were darker-skinned men. dressed in drab cloth.

  The Stone Age men, in one aspect of their servile capacity to the Lords of Antarka! The remincer tightened Ellory’s lips, so that even the magnificent building they approached a few minutes later failed to stir him.

  “My home,” Ermaine remarked.

  ELLORY stared. The Taj Mahal in its heydey could not have matched this grandeur. Golden cornices, argent silver eaves, gleaming white marble—it was creative art frozen in stunning beauty.

  “We have most of the gold and silver, treasured by the ages, here in Antarka, for ornament,” said Ermaine, slightly boastful.

  Ellory turned. This building stood out. All the others faded by comparison. He looked at the girl.

  “Yours?” he repeated.

  “Yes. I’m Lady of Lillamra. didn’t you know? First Lady of this city. Wait—what would you call h? Queen, I think.”

  “Queen?”

  Ellory recalled then the deferential air of the Antarkans who had passed. They had nodded to her as respectfully as Sharina’s people nodded to any of the Antarkans.

  “And you would call this my palace,” she resumed. “Come, you are my guests. Understand, Humrelly, this is a great honor. You deserve a prison cell!”

  She searched his face for appreciation that he stonily withheld.

  Later, in a dining room hung with flowing drapes, the three sat before a sumptuous banquet table. Ellory smiled cynically. I
n the twentieth century, criminals sentenced to die had enjoyed a last meal of their choice.

  “Tell me of your interment, Humrelly,” urged the Lady of Lillamra. “And of your former life in that great, strange time of which we know so little.”

  Ellory talked mechanically, eating little. The recent collapse of all his plans and work for so many months weighed oppressively. And how few were the hours remaining to him? This was all mockery, refinement of torture. His golden fork dropped from nervous fingers finally.

  “When will the so-called trial be held?” he demanded bluntly.

  “Trial?” Ermaine, Lady of Lillamra, smiled slowly. “You have been on trial since we left Norak!”

  Ellory stared.

  “I am your judge and jury,” the girl of Antarka continued. “The Outland Council have agreed.” She looked at him and Ellory felt like a puppet dangling on a string. “I defer the final decision for the present.”

  She arose.

  “You are both tired and distraught. Tomorrow you will feel better. I’ll show you our city and our life.” She paused. “Well, Humrelly? No thanks for the reprieve? The others would have put you to death summarily.”

  “Thanks—for nothing,” Ellory went on, watching her enigmatic eyes. “Does the leopard change his spots?”

  The shaft went home, as he could see in the slight frown on her brow.

  Sharina and Ellory were led to adjoining rooms in a long hell. A man came to Ellory’s room, to tires; his burns, applying fresh salve. He was an elderly Outlander, evidently trained by the Antarkans in the healing art. He was well-groomed, sleek and well-fed, and had a certain urban air that spoke of a calm, secure life.

  “How long have you been here?” queried Ellory.

  “Thirty years, since I was twenty,” the man responded without emotion.

  “Do you like your life here? Speak freely. I’m an Outlander, like yourself. Are you treated well?”

  “Yes, I am treated well.” He looked around the room guardedly. “But I hate it!” he said dully. “We all hate it. We work only for them!”

  “Have you tried to escape?” Ellory ventured.

  “Escape!” The tones were hopeless. “There is none. After thirty years, I know that. The metal cap of the city seals us in. Lords guard the few exits, day and night, with guns.”

  He shook his head sadly, leaving.

  Ellory lay on soft cushions, surrounded by the luxury of Antarka, thinking. Ermaine planned toying with him, that was obvious. She would try to break his spirit. Beneath her veneer of beauty she was calculatingly cruel. He trembled with hate for her. Hate? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything any more, in this mad world of the fiftieth century.

  He sank into the unrestful sleep of mental, physical and spiritual fatigue.

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE CAVERN CITY

  DAYS passed swiftly. Ermaine told first of the rise of Antarka. “A thousand years ago—eleven hundred to be exact—civilization was at its lowest ebb. As you may know in part, Humrelly, your age ended about 3000 A.D. A thousand years of that wasteful era left nothing for the following. No ores, coal or oil. Mankind dropped to the bottom.

  “For nine hundred years—savagery. Only a legend remained of a strange land to the south, blessed with buried treasures. Your age, luckily, could not brave the icy breath of Antarka. We’ve found ruins.

  though, of abortive mining camps. They tried and failed.”

  Ellory nodded.

  “They talked of exploiting Antarctica in my time even.”

  Ermaine resumed.

  “A sailing vessel blew accidentally to the coast of Antarka, eleven hundred years ago. The Year One, by our calendar. Improving climate had at last driven away the hoarding ice, they found. And they found lumps of black matter that burned, other lumps that melted and formed the miraculous, almost mythical metal.”

  “Just as in the original Stone Age,” murmured Ellory. “Your ancestors, then, were pure savages, like the rest.”

  She nodded. “They—”

  Ellory interrupted. “They were just lucky, in finding Antarka. Sharina’s ancestors might just as well have been the ones. And you, today, would be in her place, she in yours. By what divine right do you Antarkans today lay absolute claim to the last of Earth’s metal and coal?”

  “In your time,” countered Ermaine shrewdly, “did the rich yield their places to the poor?”

  “Go on!” he snapped.

  “The civilization of power and metal sprang up again, in Antarka, naturally. However, food could not be grown in the wintry land. Two courses lay open. It was wiser, those early Antarkans decided, to build cities near the coal and metal and import food, than to build cities near food and import coal and metal.”

  “A rule of economics we should have applied more in our age,” confessed Ellory, thinking of the cotton mills of New England, remote from both coal and cotton.

  “The cities were hollowed out and extended downward, level by level, through many years. Ten such cities came into being around the coastline of Antarka, at the ten sites nearest the best deposits. They were limited from the start. Another problem arose—population. Birth-rate control was instituted. It might have been wiser in your time, Humrelly—”

  He conceded the point with a vexed nod.

  “In one short century all this was accomplished,” Ermaine resumed. “All the planning, building, inventing of legendary machines, rebirth of science. It was a sudden renaissance, inspired by black coal and hard metal. You see, Humrelly, mankind hadn’t really lost at its knowledge. Much of it was recorded in scattered monasteries and forgotten temples. But his tools he had lost. The suprise of Antarka was sudden, swift, like a flower booming in the desert.”

  “And the same thing could happen over the rest of Earth, given power and metal,” Ellory’s eyes shone a little.

  Ermaine arose.

  “Well, that is all of the story.”

  “All?” Ellory rose to his feet also. “But you’ve left out one entire phase—the serfdom of the Outland, as you call it!”

  “Oh that!” Ermaine waved airily. “It’s such a minor thing.”

  Ellory glared. Outside, for a thousand years, the less blessed people had had to reshape their whole philosophy of life, to conform to Antarkan standards.

  “I weary of this talk,” Ermaine continued. “Some other time. By the way—” She faced them both. “The reports have come in. The rebellion failed everywhere in your empire, Humrelly. The lesson is being administered. Your Norak capital was burned down.”

  Sharina caught her breath.

  “My father?” she asked timidly.

  “He’s safe, little Out lander. We allowed evacuation of the city. Come, I will show you the lower levels.”

  Ellory followed with a seething desire to take Ermaine’s slim white neck in his powerful hands and choke all the arrogance out of her. Yet, could he blame her? A thousand years of tradition ruled her mind. Only blood and sword had ever changed tradition, as with the unfederated tribes.

  A SWIFT descent in the yawning central elevator pit took them down to the eleventh level. “The lower ten levels,” Ermaine explained, “hold our workshops, machinery, metal refineries, laboratories, etc.”

  On several successive days, she guided them through the wonders of her city.

  Ellory felt the breath of the twentieth century in what he saw. The rumble of machinery was music in his ears, after the pastoral, unfulfilled silences of the outer world. Level after level was crammed with the sonorous discord of laboring metal and subservient power. Looms quite similar to those of 1940 wove line, patterned cloth. Spinning, grinding latties turned out metallic paraphernalia.

  Ellory thrilled. Machines in the service of man!

  But then he frowned, seeing that fully half of the personnel tending the machines were ruddy-skinned Outlanders. The blond, slim Lords, in their role as workers, moved levers and watched gauges, their white hands and clothing hardly soiled. The Outlanders
, grimed and active, fed the machines and carried heavy materials.

  Another level was quieter.

  Here a chemical industry reigned. Raw materials, also from Antarkan deposits, furnished acids and important reagents. Huge vats bubbled. A variety of plastic products was known to the Antarkans. Artificial silk trailed endlessly from spinnerets. Coal-tar extractions gave dyes, medicines and the hundred-and-one other variations of its complexity.

  At the mining levels, lower down, great caverns led beyond the rock walls, to coal and metal veins. Little trains pulled by chugging engines emerged with their all-important cargoes.

  Ermaine, a little distastefully, took them on a ride into one winding passage. Miles beyond, in a beamed chamber, miners were drilling out coal with compressed-air hammers. They were all, Ellory noticed, Outlanders, with a spotlessly clothed Antarkan superintendent in charge.

  Somehow, to Ellory, it was all quite twentieth century, not much more advanced in technology or method. Except for their rocket ships, only one thing struck a unique note—a giant mechanical lung for the subterranean city.

  An enormous conduit led from the upper surface down to bedrock, with outlets at each level. He could hear the low whine of colossal fans, sucking down the fresh air. thrusting it out for human lungs. At the opposite side, another conduit reversed the process, shoving used air out into the upper world.

  Ellory suspected that the average purity of air was better, because of the steady current, than it had been in the canyons of New York.

  WELL, Humrelly,” Ermaine asked when he had seen all, smiling at him, “does it impress the man from the mighty past that knew these things all over the world?”

  Ellory nodded grudgingly. But again, something lurked in his mind, as it had when he first viewed the metalless world outside the crypt.

  “Where are the generating plants? Do you produce electricity by steam-engine, steam-turbine, or what?”

  “Electricity?” Ermaine stumbled over the word a little. “You mean battery current? We don’t use that. Gasoline motors run all our machines. Gasoline is our power staple. All crude oil is cracked down into gasoline. All coal is hydrogenated to oil, and similarly cracked down. Gasoline gives us heat, light and power. What is the need of electricity?”