Pyramids

by Fred Saberhagen

  But no, this was too much. All of this had to add up to more than an alarm, however complex. Moving into the room, he looked around. None of the myriad lights were labeled, at least not in any way intelligible to Scheffler. Some of their glassy surfaces were shaped in ways that suggested they might be symbols, but certainly they were no letters or numbers or mathematical signs that he could remember seeing before.

  The carpet in here was another oddity, being of a totally different color and quality than anywhere else in the apartment. This was almost black. The texture was coarse, almost like that of artificial turf—

  The door of the little cell was sliding closed behind Scheffler, moving in such smooth silence that it was almost completely closed before he started to react. And before he could reach the door and stop it, the little box of the room was completely sealed around him.

  The tiny lights on the dark walls provided only a minimum of illumination. There was a swaying beneath Scheffler's feet, a momentary sensation of falling, and now he was sure that this had to be an elevator, some damned private, secret conveyance, and it was rushing downward.

  The motion was not a continuous free fall, but it was uncomfortably close to that. Scheffler grabbed for the small glassy projections of the lights on the wall, trying to maintain his balance in the shifting semi-weightlessness. He could see no controls, nothing that the old man had talked about. Damn Uncle Monty, anyway! What did this have to do with an alarm system? And how was he supposed to be accountable for the apartment and its treasures when he hadn't been told about this?

  Built in along each long side of the elevator, Scheffler now noticed, was a low, narrow projection like a couch or a bunk, just about long enough for a man to lie down on. He didn't want to lie down but it would be good to have something he could hang on to. And on the bunks he could now make out what looked like safety belts. Choosing a moment when the gravity felt comparatively reliable, he lunged for one of the couches and held on.

  The inward senses of his body assured him that the elevator was still going down. But now that Scheffler had had a moment or two in which to think about it, the existence of an elevator here didn't make any sense at all. It didn't even seem that there ought to be space for it within the architecture of the apartment building. And where was it going to come out?

  But here it was, obviously, and he was in it, and it was still taking him down. How long ought it to take for an elevator to descend twelve stories, when it was almost falling freely? Not this long. By this time he ought to be on ground level, either wrecked or landed safely. The thing looked ultramodern, but the ride suggested that something was badly in need of repair. At least fresh air was circulating nicely in the car.

  Jerk and stop, jerk and stop. Repeatedly Scheffler's weight dropped away and then returned to him. And what kind of elevator was it that needed couches aboard, equipped with safety straps? Fantastic ideas were elbowing their way forward. He was being kidnapped. Or transported to the secret underground pleasure palace shared by the millionaires of Lake Shore Drive. Or else this was someone's idea of a joke… it was hard to picture Uncle Monty relishing a joke.

  Fall, and stop, and fall again.

  Grimly Scheffler held onto his safety belt. How long could it possibly take to get down a mere twelve stories? How many basement levels could there be? Maybe the elevator, unused for years, was hopelessly broken, and simply jiggling him up and down. The trouble was that he never felt beneath him the extra pressure from the floor that would indicate an upward acceleration. Or else the thing was booby-trapped somehow, and anyone who got into it without knowing the secret code was in for—

  At last, a real stop. The floor felt steady once again. Stability persisted, going on for long seconds until he began to trust it. This impression of cessation, of finality, was reinforced by the cessation of a sound that Scheffler had not really heard until it stopped. It had been an almost subliminal hum, something like a cooling fan, something like a quiet engine, but not really quite like either. The ensuing silence was intense. Living in Chicago, you could go for weeks and months without really being out of the sound of traffic. But he had achieved that now. Even in his hunting forays as a youngster he had never experienced such an intense silence.

  Slowly, but with increasing confidence as stability endured, Scheffler arose from his couch. Now he noticed that, as if to confirm the fact that a definite change of state had taken place, the pattern of lights around the door had altered. He thought that must mean something. A pattern so complex ought to have some meaning beyond mere decoration.

  And what was there to do next, except to try the door? The weighty panel slid open for Scheffler at his first touch upon the inside handle. Outside was chiefly darkness, with only the indirect dim glow emanating from within the elevator itself to reveal what appeared to be the opening of a narrow, rocky tunnel. The air wafting in from the tunnel was almost uncomfortably warm, and laden with faint, exotic odors, as if it might be coming from the boiler rooms, the furnace rooms, of a dozen strange apartment buildings. But there was no light out there at all. And the aromas coming in grew stranger, blending into the oddest, outdoor, watery, fishy, mudbank kind of smell. Not strong, no, but strange indeed.

  All that Scheffler could really see out there was dark rock, making up an uneven floor, two crude walls without much space between them, a crumbling overhead. The overhead portion appeared to come to an end after a few yards. All of it was very dark and very rough-looking, as if only the crudest essential tunnel had been hacked out here below the city—somewhere far below.

  He wasn't about to go exploring down that tunnel without a light. He did venture to step outside the elevator, and examine the wall beside the door for any kind of switches. There wasn't even a button for the elevator itself.

  As soon as Scheffler re-entered the car, the door closed behind him. Good enough. Everything must be automatic. He would ride back up to the apartment, get Uncle Monty on the phone regardless of what time it might be now in Cairo, and ask him some questions. His list of questions was getting longer by the minute.

  One difficulty with this plan manifested itself at once. There were no obvious controls inside, either. As soon as the door was securely closed, the floor of the elevator again sank weightlessly beneath Scheffler's feet. The sensation of falling, or nearly falling, assured him that once more he was going down. Almost floating, thrashing the air with his arms and clawing at the carpet with his feet—when they were able to find purchase—he struggled back to his couch. Once more he anchored himself there by gripping one of the safety straps. If it was lunacy to have an elevator that carried people down to a dark tunnel under the city, what was it when the machine next carried them down farther, to who knew what? This berserk elevator was running away with him…

  Perhaps five minutes passed on this leg of his journey before the motion stopped. Again the cessation of the faint whispering sound was accompanied by renewed stability of the floor, all confirmed by a new pattern of the lights.

  Once more Scheffler disengaged himself from his supportive couch and stepped over to the door, this time moving on knees that felt a little weak. He drew in a deep breath before he pushed the inside handle.

  Letting out his breath, he stepped out of the car�and was back in the apartment, standing just in front of what he had once been told was a false door. Outside the windows of the museum room, the morning for a change was turning bright and sunny.

  The door of the elevator—or whatever it was—was once more closing itself behind him. Thoughtfully, Scheffler let it close, then pulled the tapestry curtain back into place. It wouldn't do for Mrs. White to notice that anything behind the grillwork had been moved or changed. Or Becky, for that matter. Or anyone else.

  Moving mechanically, Scheffler locked up the grill-work door again, and put the key back inside the model pyramid where Uncle Monty had kept it. He had no fear that Becky was going to come in and rip off anything. She might be a schemer, but she had other plans
than that.

  Next he went out into the hallway, where he squinted out of windows and paced off distances. The crude measurement confirmed his earlier idea—there simply wasn't space enough inside the building for the elevator to be where it was—where he had just seen it. Where he had just entered it and ridden up and down. Or ridden somewhere.

  Uncle Monty, Uncle Monty. You have some heavy explaining to do. But how could anyone explain this?

  The vague fear generated in Scheffler by the strange experience was turning into anger. He was supposed to be responsible for the contents of this damned apartment, and how could he—but that was only the start of the problem.

  A dawning suspicion: that his great-uncle had set him up for something—something unpleasant at best. Thinking back over what he knew of the old man's reputation, Scheffler did not find it reassuring.

  He could call his mother in Iowa, who after all had known her uncle for a long time, and ask her—but what could he ask her, really? She'd probably already told her son all that she really knew about the old man. After all, she hadn't seen or talked to him in decades. If Scheffler tried to explain what was happening now, she'd think that he'd gone crazy. For which her son could hardly blame her.

  His thoughts kept coming back to that damned elevator. He still called it that, in his own mind, because he couldn't think of what else to call it.

  Whatever it was, it represented a way out of the apartment that he hadn't been told about, and presumably a way in as well. Right into the treasure trove.

  He had to go back and unlock the grillwork again and take another look at the elevator door, because the more he thought about it the less he could believe that it was really there. But the door was there, all right. And when Scheffler touched the handle, it slid open obediently to show him the dark-walled little car with all the lights.

  Again he closed everything up, and started walking around through the other rooms of the apartment, trying to think. Call Uncle Monty back, sure. Wake him up and demand some answers. But think a little first.

  He visited all the rooms of the apartment in sequence, but looking at furniture and painted monsters didn't help. What had just happened wasn't a story you could take to the police. There was no crime involved, as far as he could see. And how would it sound when he tried to tell it? "You see, my great-uncle has this peculiar elevator built into the apartment building where he lives. You get into it, and it takes you down to a coal mine somewhere…"

  No, it wasn't a story he could take to anyone else. Not yet anyway. Not until he knew more. Maybe there was some reasonable, logical explanation. Maybe Uncle Monty really meant well by his nephew after all.

  Having achieved nothing during his interval for thought, Scheffler went to the phone in the kitchen and tried calling his great-uncle, dialing direct to Cairo. There was a minimum of noise on the line, and presently an unfamiliar man's voice, that said something in a foreign language. It switched to accented English as soon as Scheffler started speaking.

  "Is Doctor Chapel there? This is his nephew, calling from Chicago."

  "Dr. Chapel mumble mumble unintelligible," the voice at the other end responded. "I can take a message."

  "Tell him his nephew called." Scheffler found himself shouting as if that were likely to help. "From Chicago. Ask him to call me back."

  He repeated that several times, with variations, getting in return more vague reassurances, mumbles and electrical interference. He could only hope the word would be passed on.

  And then he went and got out his books and tried to do some schoolwork. It was hopeless.

  Another twenty-four hours passed with no return call. In the course of that time Mrs. White came and worked silently and went away again, and Scheffler went out to the grocery store and back once more, and spent some hours going through the motions of studying. Not knowing in what he was about to become involved, or how deeply, he refrained from calling Becky, though there were hours when that was difficult.

  December thirtieth. The next-to-the-last day of the old year.

  Eventually, the only course of action that Scheffler could settle on was that he had to go back and take another look at that subterranean tunnel, this time of course carrying a light. Maybe this time some obvious explanation would suggest itself.

  That evening, just before he'd made his decision, the phone rang for the third time since he'd moved into the apartment. He picked up the receiver with a barrage of questions ready, expecting Uncle Monty's voice. But this time it was Becky.

  She was in a pensive mood but not antagonistic, ready to discuss what their relationship had meant to each of them so far, and what its prospects might be for the future. From the way she sounded, uncertain and possibly regretful, Scheffler gathered that the prospects were not that good.

  "I don't know, Tom. It's not you, I mean not anything about you. It's me. I mean, I'm just trying to think some things through in my own mind."

  "Me too."

  "The other night was fine, don't get me wrong. Once we got into bed it was beautiful. But—I really acted like a whore, didn't I?"

  "No. No."

  "Yes I did. I mean, just to get my way, just to get to wear that gold. I mean that must be the way that my behavior looks to you."

  "No. I mean, no, I don't think of you that way. Not at all." The truth was he didn't really know how he did think of her. Except that if it hadn't been for the damned mysterious elevator, or whatever the hell it was, he'd probably be busy this minute trying to talk her into coming back to warm his bed again. He mumbled a few more words, making his best attempt at being reassuring. He tried to give the impression that he was busy with deep thoughts.

  "I understand." Becky's voice was sweetness itself. "I've been thinking too, Tom. Thinking a lot."

  Not about the same things, I'll bet. For a moment Scheffler wasn't sure that he'd kept himself from saying that aloud.

  "Tom, I want you to respect me as a person."

  "I do. I said I did." He realized suddenly that she must be waiting for him to invite her back. He forgot about his reasons for not doing so. "When are you coming over again?"

  "I don't know. Not tonight."

  They talked a little longer, inconclusively he thought, except for agreeing that both of them were going to think some more.

  When he had hung up the phone, Scheffler sat there for a long time with his hand still on it, trying to make up his mind whether or not to try once more to call his Uncle Monty. The first effort along that line hadn't done him much good. And he doubted that Uncle Monty would tell him the truth anyway.

  He thought back to the tour of the apartment that his uncle had given him—how carefully the old man had called his attention not only to the treasure but to the existence of a door behind the curtain. Pointing out the steps. Returning to the subject of the wall and how much trouble it had been to build. And almost harping on the existence of the key. And then the phone call, prodding Scheffler, actually instructing him to go back to the mysterious door, just in case he hadn't already done so out of curiosity or greed.

  Somehow Scheffler got through the rest of the day, though he could neither study nor do much of anything else. Several times he walked into Gallery Two and looked through the grillwork. But he let it stay locked.

  Next day, New Year's Eve, Mrs. White was due again. Scheffler arose fairly early, and breakfasted, and got out some books to try to convince himself that he was studying.

  He started trying to make conversation with Mrs. White when she came in, right on schedule. But she had little to say on any subject, and absolutely refused to be drawn into any discussion of the antiquities, or of any of Dr. Chapel's affairs. Except, when Scheffler asked her pointblank if she ever cleaned inside the grillwork alcove, she admitted that she did not, and in fact had no idea how to open it.

  "The Professor, he do all that in there himself. I cleans the rest of the place, that's all, Mistah Scheffler. Now excuse me, please, I got my work to do." And she turned b
usily away.

  Scheffler reflected that Uncle Monty had probably spent decades inculcating that attitude in Mrs. White. He probably paid her well also. Scheffler could testify that the old man could be generous when it suited him.

  Late that afternoon, when Mrs. White was safely gone, Scheffler, his anger growing again, went back into the elevator to risk another ride and have another look around. He was going to have to do something about the situation, but he was afraid that whatever he tried to do was going to leave him looking like an idiot.

  This time he brought along a flashlight that he'd discovered sitting on his uncle's dresser. Perhaps the batteries were a little weak, but they'd do for a start. The elevator once more began to move as soon as its door had closed him inside. He was treated to a journey very much like his previous one, and deposited in what might have been the same place.

  Might have been. It was a rocky tunnel, or at least a crevice, but he couldn't be sure it was the same one at all, because now it was bathed in daylight. Not that he could see anything of the sky; the long overhang of rock just outside the elevator prevented that. But some twenty yards or so in front of him along the angled passage, the high walls of grayish rock were bathed in what certainly looked like bright, direct sunlight. And the temperature had become truly ferocious. The moment Scheffler opened the elevator door, heat like the breath of a furnace struck him in the face.

  By daylight the scene outside the elevator door appeared about a thousand times more improbable than it had by night. The two walls of the passage were, on the average, no more than about a yard apart. The narrow floor between them, a surface almost too uneven to be called a floor at all, was more of the same rock. The overhead brow of rock, extending out several yards from where Scheffler stood inside the elevator, trailed small roots and little clods of earth here and there from cracks in its underside.