the bank. Nellon sucked in a breath andfollowed after him.
* * * * *
The climb was a hard and difficult one, and their recent physicaljarring caused by the fall made it all the harder. But curiosity pulledthem on like a vast magnet. In the exertion they forgot their aches andbruises. Slipping and sliding, clutching for handholds, floundering inloose drifts which filled pockets of hardened crust, they made their wayslowly but surely up the bank.
Finally they stood before that strangely mottled patch of red and brownand gold. The mood of awed wonder which gripped them at once heightenedand deepened.
"It _is_ metal!" Tim Austin breathed. "But--but, Brad, it's not a vein.It's--"
"It's a door!" Nellon finished hoarsely.
It was a door, a metal door in the snow covered bank of a falls thathad, in some long, long ago, solidified to ice. A door to what? Wheredid it lead? What would be on the other side of it? What could be on theother side of a metal door on a world where it was doubtful that livingbeings had ever existed at all?
There was a rasp in Nellon's earphones. And then Big Tim Austin's voicefollowed it.
"Brad--I'm going in. This--why, this is the biggest find of the wholeexpedition!"
"It might be dangerous," Nellon pointed out, before he could becomeaware of the wealth of irony which lay behind the words. "We don't knowwhat sort of life--"
"But this door has been hidden under snow for the Lord only knows howmany years, Brad. Look where the crust had split here. It's thick,thick. Nothing has gone in or out for a hell of a long time. If therewere beings, they're either gone or dead."
And, as if having satisfied himself on this last account, Big Timstepped directly up to the door. He was a tall man, yet he seemeddwarfed beside it. And it was obviously very massive, for it was partlyopen and the width of the edge revealed could not have been spanned bythe long, flexible metal fingers of their protecting gloves. The openingwas a mere crack, as if someone had once made it so for a cautiousglimpse 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, butwhat energy they managed to summon they threw into a brief, terrificeffort to move the portal. But it did not move. Their combined strengthseemed 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, incredulousexpression.
The door was opening. Slowly, majestically, it was swinging wide.
* * * * *
No force that they could see was behind it. The door seemed to move ofits own volition. They stood as still as a pair of weird, metal statues,watching. Every sense, keyed to its highest, was directed at thewidening gap.
At last all movement ceased, and the door hung wide. The humming notewhich 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 trancewhich gripped him.
"It's probably controlled by an automatic mechanism. When we shovedagainst it, we must have set that mechanism in motion."
"I'm going in, Brad," Big Tim said suddenly. "I'm going to see what'sinside." He strode impulsively to the door. But at the threshold hestopped and turned and looked at Nellon.
Nellon smiled faintly and nodded. He strode after Big Tim. Together theyentered the doorway.
Lights, built into the helmets of their suits, but up to this timeunused, were turned on to illuminate the way. The tunnel, they saw, wasa rectangular corridor or passageway. It was lined with the same metalas that of the door.
At two intervals down the corridor they found it necessary to squeezethrough half-opened doorways. The doors here were of the slide type andseemed to be controlled by machinery as was the one which they hadopened 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 remindsme of an airlock."
"I've noticed the same thing," Nellon responded. "But an airlock--" Heshook his head, for this was one of the many things he couldn'tunderstand.
Soon the corridor came to an end. Nellon and Austin found themselves ina small, square room, each side of which was lined with small glasscubicles or cabinets. In each reposed a transparent sphere with variousinexplicable attachments and a compactly folded mass of some strangematerial.
"Helmets!" Big Tim breathed. "Brad, those are helmets. And unless I'mmistaken the other stuff must be suits of some kind. What have westumbled onto, anyway?"
Nellon passed a slow, almost-knowing glance about the room, his helmetlights glinting on the glass 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 roomsopening from them. Each was uniformly alike, filled with the samearticles and furnishings. Nothing with which they were familiar had anycounterpart here. Everything, from strange, rounded furniture to bizarreclothing, was weirdly alien.
But of the beings who had once inhabited these rooms they found notrace. There were only the garments they had once worn, the chairs inwhich 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, foron shelves they found large, tablet-like books whose stiff pages werecovered with glowing hieroglyphs.
Then they found their first stairway, a succession of small rampsleading to some floor above. They ascended slowly, with the feelings ofmen entering some new portion of strange and utterly alien world.
Here they found but one, huge room, and this their lights revealed to beperfectly circular. In the center, glowing greenly, was what appeared tobe an immensely thick column, rising from floor to ceiling. About thisbanks of strange instruments and machinery were grouped.
"Brad," Big Tim whispered. "This place--What on earth could it have beenfor?"
Nellon made small, slow shakes of his head.
"That's what bothers me. I can't imagine any possible use. They knewutility, the beings who built these rooms. There was a good purpose forthis room, I'm sure. Yet I can't imagine what it could have been. Noneof the activities which we normally carry on in life would seem to fitin with these surroundings."
"Brad--that's it! This room was for no normal use. It was forsomething--oh, I don't know. But it must have been somethingtremendously important to them. I feel--" Big Tim did not finish. Hisstrained, low voice died away, and he moistened his lips. The reverieheavy 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," Nellonsuggested. "We might find a clue."
* * * * *
The column was big. Just how big they had never realized. It was onlywhen halfway to it, and still approaching, that awareness of its sizebegan to dawn upon them.
The vastness of the room had dwarfed it somewhat, but now, almost uponit and with their own sizes as standards of comparison, they were amazedand awed at its cyclopean girth. Slow understanding of the heroicdimensions of the place in its mysterious entirety began to dawn uponthem.
And then Nellon became conscious of something else besides size. Withcloser and closer approach to the column, a strange comfort andwell-being was growing within h
im. The stiff soreness of his bruises waseasing. The sense of restless confinement which he always associatedwith the wearing of his thermalloy suit was dimming. The first pangs ofrising hunger of which he had earlier become aware were now dulling, asthough he were in the midst of a bountiful and delicious meal. Heexperienced a rising tide of physical and mental satisfaction, as ifevery want of these two components were being realized and generouslyadministered to.
Momentarily, he thought of Laura and, because it had grown to besynonymous with her, the murder of Big Tim. His mental picture of thegirl had never been more beautiful, desirable, or appealing. Everyquality which she had ever possessed, real in actuality or imaginary asa result of his idealizations, was now transcended beyond all mortalplanes. She became the very embodiment of every human aspiration
The Sphere of Sleep Page 2
