The Earth-Tube

by Gawain Edwards

  The singing of the poets had ceased. The sound of the waves was far away. King heard the blood pound in his temples as the clothing of the guardsmen rustled in the trembling breeze.

  “I am the American,” he said at last. “I am your prisoner. What will you do with me?”

  The Tal Majod moved his right hand. He raised the forefinger.

  “What was your business in our city on the Western Hemisphere?”

  “I came to spy,” said King. “The Western Hemisphere is ours. not yours. The Americas are ours, not yours!”

  “The Americas,” interrupted the emperor suavely, “are for whosoever can take them. The Americas are for whosoever can hold them fast; drive enemies away from sea or air or underground. There are no rights which cannot be enforced; no claims which rest on words alone, but lack the deeds to make them real.”

  “Then there is neither truth nor justice in you!” cried King.

  The emperor’s finger remained upraised, his face impassive; yet in his eyes at the mention of justice there came a gleam, either of anger or triumph.

  “Ah. justice!” he replied. “That is another thing; all justice flows from us. There is no justice which is not in Tal Majod!”

  “You have not shown it!” King exclaimed.

  “It shall be shown. Have patience; it shall be shown.” He seemed to smile. His eyes gleamed brighter as he contemplated King.

  The American moved wearily. “Then take your armies from our lands,” he said, “your metal fortresses and your horse-mouthed followers. Get them back into the earth-tube and underground where they belong. Take your hand off the Americas!”

  The Tal Majod, moving a little forward to stare fixedly at his prisoner, arched his eyebrows ever so little. “That,” he replied, “would not be justice. That would be pity!”

  “Pity!”

  “Pity for your puny American race, which cannot defend itself. Barbarians, hunted into the woods!” He eased himself back into his chair and assuming sternness, continued: “But the Asian knows not pity. In years and generations he has schooled himself to justice, but never mercy. American, you will find us just, even though we hate!”

  The grounds of the palace of the ruler of Asia were as broad as the sea and swept upward from the shore in magnificent undulations of artificial terrain. Here were the strangely wrought figures of the Asian landscape art. The grounds, formed of the very materials of Nature: grass and trees, and fronds and flowers, with gay-colored birds from all the world flitting between. seemed somehow inescapably machine-like. There was the spirit of the machine in everything. Here and there, in coats of scarlet or blue or emerald, the gardeners worked in squads to keep the grounds in shape, moving always in units, knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder, wheeling to command. The wild birds swung like startled souls through all the clash and rhythm. They beat their wings against the bright sun, crying harshly.

  And near the middle of the grounds, on a slight elevation overlooking the sea, arose the palace; a handful of vertical crystals it appeared from a distance, as if some giant force had thrust them up like needles of granite from beneath the earth. Tremendous in height, these jagged towers dominated the countryside; they were mountains of metal, upreared in forms of Asian art and science. Fourteen towers like crystals leaned a little inward at different angles, and in the middle of them stood four greater ones. obelisks of amethyst and pale lavender, rising a third higher than all the rest. On every side the layered stairs and basins sloped away, and on the seaside was the court, beneath the highest pinnacle, flanked on two sides by rugged blocks of tinted undulal.

  The very winds stood still to hear the judgment of the Tal Majod. The harpist struck three rapid notes, and quivering echoes soared like snow-birds to the deep blue sky. The emperor folded his fingers. He placed his hands upon his placid breast. A scribe in scarlet upon a cushion of deepest green took down his words, as first in Asian, and then in English, he gave his sentence and pronounced his decree:

  “American, you came among us seeking truth and hunting out the science of the Asian men.

  “You came among us of your own accord, humbly, thirsting for knowledge which we alone could give.“

  The Tal Majod paused magnificently, raising an amber hand, while slaves and guards, courtiers and artisans and musicians alike, waited in breathless silence for the rest. King stood defiantly on two firm feet, amid the twenty-eight bowed guards. Alone he stared unflinching at the high-throned monarch of the Eastern Hemisphere, and Tal Majod went on.

  “Therefore, American. you shall learn the things you sought. You shall learn the secret of the undulal;

  the mysteries the Asians knew in the infancy of their race. And you shall even know what Asia learned when she pierced the heart of the rolling earth, to strike America!”

  Sharply he clapped his hands. “Gun-Tar!”

  A tall man, in the somber robes of the Mui Salvos, approached slowly, in measured steps. He came up and stood beside the American.

  “Gun-Tar,” directed the Tal Majod, “you shall take this man, this American; you shall teach him whatsoever secret of science he should wish to know, and he shall learn that which he would between the passing of the earth-car hence at noon to-morrow, and the passing of it hence at noon the seventh day. Then, after the earth-car has commenced its return from Tip-lis to Tanlis, you shall without fail conduct him to the earth-shaft in garments of flaming red, and in the presence of my people assembled in the chamber you shall hurl him downward after the car, that he may see and learn as well our secrets of the earth’s interior.

  “Mark this, and do not fail!”

  The Mui Salvo bowed low.

  “My judgment is ended,” said the Tal Majod.

  Mounting against the amethyst towers the twanging notes of the wild harp drowned his ashen voice. The three poets, rising together on an eminence, sang in a long-held nasal chant of justice and of Tal Majod. The bright-billed birds with legs of saffron flew about the court, crying out harshly over the heads of the courtiers gathered there to worship the Great and Just, the ruler of the Eastern World.

  “You shall go back to Tiplis at the passing of the earth-car to-morrow noon,” repeated Gun-Tar to King as they passed out into the high-walled prison together, surrounded by the guards. King knew that there would be no escaping this black-robed man; his grip was steel, his mind was steel. The sentence would be fulfilled to the letter. and at the end. !

  King had been sentenced to death by heat and falling.

  He clutched the tall, bright bars of his prison cell. He had not cringed before the ruler of all Asia; nor had he weakened in the seven days of imprisonment in Tanlis before his trial. It would be something to remember when they brought him to the great curbed hole in the earth, to push him into it, that he had faced this demon, and he had not flinched.

  But what of Diane? Had they captured her? Tortured her, perhaps?

  He hoped fervently that she had escaped. with his message. America could be saved from the Asians yet if Diane had gotten through!

  Diane. Diane. ! He could not take his mind from her. Diane, the white slave of the Asians. she was beautiful!

  And in eight more days King would die. He had been gone from America two long weeks. They had given up hope for him in Washington. New York would never know him any more.

  Diane he would not see again. He hoped that she was safe.

  III

  In Dr. Scott’s library in New York, where the aged scientist had first given warning of the approach of the Asians, the three remaining members of the War Council were discussing the situation at the end of the second week after King Henderson had entered Tiplis. Before the President was a voluminous pile of reports; at his right a private telephone connected directly with his offices in Washington. He spread his hands over the pile of yellow telegrams, pressing down on them as if by some unconscious urge he hoped to push them out of existence and the news they carried with them.

  It was apparent that all of South America w
ould finally go before the relentless forward pushing of the tanks. There was nothing that the armies of defense could do to hold them back. Slowly, stubbornly, the retreat had continued. And each day the tanks, running more and more swiftly, approached nearer the bottle-neck of Panama. Bogota and Caracas had gone and with them the government of South America.

  In addition, the Asians had begun to consolidate their positions on the continent to the south. Earlier they had been content to lay waste the land and to enslave or kill the inhabitants. Now three great metal cities had begun to grow; one where Buenos Aires had stood, another across the continent at Valparaiso, and a third at Rio, which had been razed to the ground after the defenders had hastily evacuated it.

  Throughout the southern continent Asian gardeners were restoring, as nearly as it might be done at that season of the year, the beauty of the country. And on a broad spot beside the sea, near the site of the ancient city of Santos, they were building a duplicate of the palace of Tal Majod, with fourteen crystal towers of tinted undulal and courtyards running downward to the ocean.

  It was no longer a question of driving these conquerors from the hemisphere. Now it was a fierce battle to keep them from moving through the Isthmus and striking at Central and North America. It was a fight for time to permit the chemists and physicists and armorers of America to study more fully the problem which had so far baffled them. They had already tried many experiments: new explosives, new gases, newly designed shells. To meet the vanguard of the Asians on their own terms, one American manufacturer had built a huge tank of the finest steel, similar in shape and almost equal in size to those of the enemy. Eagerly they had hurried it to the front, and there, with engines roaring for fight, it had crashed into an invading tank somewhere southeast of Bogota.

  The unengaged enemy tanks, like gentlemen watching a duel, stood aloof and observed the contest. The American troops, close enough to observe what was going on, cheered the courageous crew of the defending monster. For a full minute it appeared that the American objective had been won. Head-on, locked in a silent, wrestling posture, the two tanks pushed at each other, the Asian gaining not an inch. But the steel of the American tank suddenly crushed in like eggshell. It collapsed upon itself, a shrieking mass of plates and machinery from which steam and oil and little explosive flames escaped in greasy clouds. The triumphant Asian rolled unconcernedly over the wreck and crushed it into the ground.

  Even before the fall of Georgetown and Bogota the necessity for severing the continents had been seen. The Isthmus was narrow, and at either side foamed the waters of the oceans, the safest of defenses against the heavy Asian tanks. At the Isthmus, if ever, could the American forces dam the northward march of the invaders.

  All the resources of America were immediately concentrated upon the giant task. Man-power, money, giant powder, and all the mechanical tools that ingenuity could devise went pouring southward. The four-tracked Washington to Panama railroad was crowded with trains bearing supplies and helpers to the spot. Coast-wise vessels were commandeered from their usual work for the emergency. And in a few days, almost as if by magic, a jagged trench was blasted out between the Nicaraguan and Panama canals.

  In Dr. Scott’s library the President had recounted these details. “I have telegrams indicating that the work at the Isthmus is nearly done,” he said wearily. “The Americas are now separated by a channel of surging water deep enough to drown their tanks and becoming deeper and deeper every minute, due to the flow between the oceans and the action of the tides. Our troops and defenses in upper Venezuela and Colombia have been ordered to withdraw, and the Asians may reach the barrier in a few hours.

  “Upon whether or not the water stops them depends the future of the country.”

  Dr. Scott, recovered from his illness, though still weak, sat in his arm chair before the fire. Dr. Garcia, the third member of the Council, nodded absent-mindedly. Of what use to him or his people, he was thinking, would be this last desperate defense? The continent of which he had been president was already lost; the hundred million persons who had twice elected him were dead or captured, their cities burned, their lands laid waste.

  Dr. Scott shook his head slowly. “I haven’t much faith in the new canal,” he said. “It may stop them for awhile. it undoubtedly will hold them for a day or two. but these fellows are too resourceful to stop at a couple of miles of water if they really want to cross.”

  The President replied in a low tone as if he were afraid of being overheard. “I haven’t much faith in it myself,” he admitted. “But drowning men must catch at straws. And above all else, we must keep the public from panic as long as we can. Perhaps. perhaps a way will come.”

  Again the scientist shook his head.

  “A way might come,” he said, “but, for the life of me, Mr. President, I can’t see what it would be. My own discovery. the disintegrating ray. I have been able to reproduce only once since the night King Henderson left. And the second time, like the first, it destroyed my apparatus. I think that with the materials we have at hand we shall never be able to control and use it.

  “What else have we? On every side we have failed. The history of this invasion has been, for the Asians, a triumphal advance over hostile territory with hardly a noticeable degree of effective resistance. For us it has been a long series of costly blunders and futile efforts. Had they nothing but their metal with which to attack us, they could march into our armies with shields and swords and whip us still behind the shelter of that damnable shining stuff!”

  The telephone rang suddenly, its quick, neurotic clatter casting a spell of apprehension over the room. Nervously the President raised the receiver. In a moment he was talking and listening at the same time, excited by the message he was receiving.

  “My God,” he exclaimed. “The Asians are already at the Isthmus. In a sudden spurt, apparently knowing what had been prepared for them there, they burst through our lines and headed straight for the gap. The defense troops, driven to the shore on either side, were taken off by transports, with heavy losses.”

  “But the Asians?” queried Dr. Scott, sitting tensely in his chair.

  “. have stopped at the brink of the new canal!” the President replied. “They have stopped! For the time being, at least, we have them checked.”

  He was like a condemned man suddenly liberated. He was bursting with renewed energy. “I must hurry and wire my congratulations to the commanders at the front,” he exclaimed. “We must get this news out immediately over the radio. There will be a great celebration to-night in every city in North America!”

  Dr. Scott nodded.

  “I suppose there will,” he replied, “but that doesn’t mean much. The Asians have not yet been beaten. They will cross that channel as surely as they bored a hole through the earth. They may not be in a hurry about it, but our troubles, even supposing that we would be content to let them have South America in exchange for the safety of the north, are by no means over.”

  Half an hour later he heard the roaring of sirens and the sound of celebration in the city. The news of the Asian check had reached the populace, and the measure of their anxiety was evident in their exuberance at being relieved of it. Thousands of persons paraded the streets, convinced that the invasion was over, that the terrible tanks had been stopped once and for all at the threshold of North America, and that the trade and industry and life of the world could go on again as it had before the earth-tube had spewed out the Asians to attack the defenseless hemisphere.

  Dr. Scott did not leave his chair. He heard with bent head the roar of the celebration and stared into the briskly burning fire at his feet, while Anna, ever attentive, cared for his needs. At midnight he was still there, his old hands gripping the sides of the chair, his eyes staring unseeing into the flames.

  “Anna,” he said abruptly, “even the President has failed to realize our utter helplessness. There is only one thing that can save America. King’s return with the information he went to get!”
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  Anna did not reply. King had been gone more than two weeks. There was little hope, now, for his return. Not once since he left had he sent word by his radio, though it had been tested and found to be in good working order when he took off for the landing.

  “I am certain that he got through to the Asian stronghold,” Dr. Scott continued. “I am equally certain that if the information was available he got it. What has happened to him since. I cannot guess. But I feel sure of this, Anna. King is still alive; and we should rescue him.”

  “That isn’t possible,” Anna replied slowly. “Don’t you see. long before this he would have starved to death if he were still undetected in the Asian city. The only other possibility is that he has been taken and held captive; and in that case how could Americans rescue him? We who cannot even capture a hostile tank; how could we knock down the walls of that metal city and recapture King?”

  The old man brushed the argument aside impatiently.

  “Even so, we should make the attempt.”

  Later he said: “Anna, get me the President on the telephone. I’ll offer to head a rescue expedition myself if we can’t find some one younger and abler!”

  IV

  It is not easy for a man in one week to assimilate the science and learning of a whole race, especially if, throughout the period of tutelage, there hangs over him the knowledge of swift and certain death at the end of it; death by the most horrible of means. Accompanied at first by the Mui Salvo and a guard, and later, when the Asian saw that he would attempt no violence, by Gun-Tar alone, King was taken everywhere at his will through the Asian city of Tiplis, and all the wonders of the Asians were made clear to him: their science, their mechanics, their economics, their government, their theories of existence, and their justification for life.