He was conscious of invisible eyes, coolly appraising him. With an effort he remained motionless and silent. A voice, low, clear and with every syllable sharply enunciated, asked:
“Do you speak our tongue?”
“Yes,” Woodley replied. “I am a friend.”
“You come alone?”
“Yes, alone.”
Woodley expected more questions, but there were none.
“Do not be afraid,” the voice said. “Before you can come into Center, you must be tested.”
“Eh?” he asked, startled. “How?”
“You will not be harmed. Coming from the outer world, as you do, you may bring diseases with you. Precautions must be taken to avoid infection. First of all, enter the elevator at your left and wait.”
Woodley glanced around. Part of the wall was sliding back like a camera shutter, revealing an oval opening and, beyond it, a small bare room. Without hesitation he crossed the threshold and stood waiting. The door closed.
There was a sensation of pressure against Woodley’s tattered sandals. Immediately it was gone, replaced by a sense of lateral motion. After a time this also vanished, and the wall opened.
Facing Woodley was a white-clad figure, the head entirely hidden by a light blue gauze mask.
“So there you are,” a pleasant voice said. “Well, I’m your medico. Come in.”
CHAPTER VI
Sham
WOODLEY found himself in a large, windowless room, lighted by a soft white glow that came from the walls and ceiling. It was apparently a laboratory. He was reminded of a physician’s office. There was not much equipment around, but the “medico” seemed capable enough as he took Woodley’s arm and urged him forward.
“Get those rags off,” he ordered. “They’re filthy! In here.”
He opened a door and showed his guest a sunken pool of greenish-yellow water. There was a tingling, aromatic odor.
“Don’t be afraid. It’s disinfectant.”
Woodley felt a faint resentment, then realized that his journey had turned him into a ragged, grimy scarecrow. Besides, the thought of a bath was luxurious. He slipped out of his garments and willingly lowered himself into the pool.
The water was pleasantly warm and invigorating. There was no need for soap. In a few moments his body was cleaner than it had been, he felt wryly, for years. He ducked his head and came up spluttering. From the pool’s brink the medico watched intently.
“You look half-starved,” he said finally. “Come out now. Stand here. That’s right.”
He pressed a button and a blast of warm air shot out from an aperture in the wall, drying Woodley swiftly. The medico went out, came back with a glass of pungent, brown liquid.
“Drink it,” he urged. “You’ll feel better.”
Woodley obeyed, but felt no different. The masked doctor laughed.
“It’ll take awhile. Medicine isn’t magic, you know. Come in and let me test you.”
“I’d like—”
“No questions!” The medico lifted a warning hand. “I mustn’t answer questions?”
Woodley spun the glass in his cupped hand. It was a lovely shell-like cup of translucent pearl, slightly elastic.
“I was going to say I’d like a shave.”
“Oh, I see. That’s easy enough.” A transparent jar was handed to Woodley. “Rub that lightly on your beard. It’s a reagent that acts only on the cellular structure of hair. But put on these gloves first, or you’ll lose you fingernails.”
Woodley gingerly obeyed, applying the foamy cream to his cheeks and chin.
There was an astringent, ticklish sensation for a time, but this vanished swiftly. The medico took Woodley by the shoulders and turned his face upward.
“Hold still.” He ran a spongy, moist pad lightly over Woodley’s features. “There. Off comes the cream, and the whiskers with it. Now you look almost civilized. Next you need a decent hair-trim. But first sit down and let me test you.”
Passively Woodley accepted his treatment. Peeling off the gloves, he felt his cheeks and discovered that they were smooth and hairless. A specialized chemical that reacted only on hair, without harming the skin. That certainly was convenient.
Dimly Woodley remembered going through such ordeals before. He was stood up before a screen, his skeleton projected upon it by fluorescence. The medico pointed to a knotty bulge on the forearm.
“Bad break there. It must have happened years ago, though.”
“Yes,” Woodley agreed, wondering. “It must have.”
HIS blood was tested, his spinal fluid, his pulse and his heart. All went with surprising speed. Within half an hour, he judged, the medico had finished his task and stood up, the gauze mask fluttering as he sighed.
“You’re all right. Slight trace of coryza, but I’ve antitoxined that. I guess you’ll do.”
He took a conical object from his garments and revolved it slowly. Woodley stared. The device was somewhat smaller than a man’s hand, made of smooth white plastic, and featureless. Suddenly it glowed with soft light. The medico spoke into it.
“Report satisfactory. Good, healthy specimen.”
“Clothing is being sent with a guide,” a thin, disembodied voice said.
The medico flipped the cone into his other hand idly, then noticed Woodley’s curious gaze.
“It’s a portable phone. No harm in telling you that.”
“How does it work?” Woodley pursued.
“On a radio energy beam. That’s how we can make them so compact. Center’s engines are continually broadcasting power, so all I do is turn the radiophone till it’s on the beam, receiving the energy. It lights up then. You saw that.”
He stripped the gauze mask from his face, revealing a round, pleasant countenance. It was lightly tanned, with the soft curves of youth still evident.
“I’d like to answer your unspoken questions, but I can’t yet. It’s against the rules—or, rather, against the latest rule. My orders were to-give you no information, so that’s that.”
Before Woodley could answer, part of the wall went a brilliant blue, while a musical, intermittent humming sounded. The medico looked around sharply.
“That’s my call,” he said. “I’m wanted. Funny. Well, wait here till the guide comes for you.”
He went out, with a nonchalant wave, by a door Woodley had not seen before. The panel on the wall changed color. It flamed scarlet. From it a voice came, soft and urgent.
“Listen!” it said. “There’s little time—”
Woodley whirled, staring. Was the message for him? As though to confirm his guess, the voice went on.
“Man from the outer world, listen to me! I am a friend. It’s dangerous for me to speak to you even now, but I must warn you. Be careful what you say while you are in Center. Be careful what questions you answer!”
“Who are you?” Woodley said.
“I—I have no time now. Later I’ll talk with you, when we can do so unobserved. Meanwhile—”
The voice fell silent. The red square on the wall died away and again matched the whiteness all around it. Woodley frowned, completely bewildered. What did this new factor mean? He could not guess. There was, of course, nothing to do but wait.
A MIDDLE-AGED man came in eventually, bearing a bundle of clothing. He himself was wearing something that resembled a white toga of soft cloth that seemed both comfortable and attractive. Nevertheless Woodley was relieved to find that his garments were more orthodox—light shorts and shirt of gray. He donned them in silence, which his guide did not offer to break.
At last he was ready and stood up, feeling more like himself than he had since his awakening in New York.
“All right,” he said. “What next?”
For answer the guide beckoned. Woodley followed into an elevator-like room, which was reminiscent of the one by which he had entered this city. There were visible controls, however. The guide pushed a button and sat down on a padded bench, motioning Woodley to follow his ex
ample.
As though propelled through a pneumatic tube, the car slid forward. It stopped at last. The door opened.
At the guide’s nod, Woodley rose and stepped out into a large, comfortably furnished room, which somehow startled him. He had expected something different, perhaps almost alien. Vet this room was not too unlike the ruined ones he had seen in New York.
The diffused light came from the walls and ceiling, and there were three-dimensional pictures apparently set within the walls. Their subjects were abstract, some pure design, others surrealistic, and there was one idealized portrait of a startlingly lovely woman. The floor or carpet was dead black, and gave slightly under Woodley’s feet, which were clad now in sandals of what seemed to be flexible glass.
Couches, decoratively carved tables and an oddly shaped piano made up all of the room’s sparse furniture. One whole wall was of glass. Beyond it Woodley could see a garden and glowing, pale towers.
The glass panel rose like a curtain. A girl stepped into the room, pausing when she saw Woodley.
“I was expecting you,” she said gently. “My name is Sham.”
Woodley stared, at a loss for words. Subconsciously he had been expecting an interview with grave, bearded men. Instead they had sent a girl scarcely out of adolescence, clad in a flame-red robe cut in the Chinese fashion, with platinum hair bobbed page-boy style about her young face. Wide-set, grave blue eyes contemplated him with interest as she came forward.
“Don’t be surprised. Come out here, where we can talk comfortably.”
He let himself be drawn into the roof garden, as he now saw it was. Comfortably padded lounging chairs were set here and there under the trees. A cool wind blew against his face.
Beyond the parapet, the towers of the mighty city stood white against the dark sky. The scent of flowers drifted into Woodley’s nostrils. He relaxed in a chair.
The girl Sham sat opposite him, crossing her legs and resting slim hands on her knees.
“THERE’S food and drink on the table beside you,” she suggested. “And cigarettes. No, just draw in. The cigarette is self-kindling.”
This was true, Woodley discovered. Luxuriously inhaling, he realized how much he had missed tobacco.
“I scarcely expected this,” he said at last.
Sham smiled. “We scarcely expected you. But you’re here now, and we’d like to know who you are, all about you. We thought there were only savages outside Center, primitives who could learn nothing. Then an artifact—an arrow—came over the wall. Naturally we investigated. Is intelligence really stirring in the nomad tribes?”
Woodley found himself talking without restraint. His civilized, calm satisfaction soothed his nerves, lulled his suspicions.
“There’s very little I know. My memories—”
He went on to tell her of his own experience. Abruptly he remembered the warning voice that had spoken to him out of the wall in the medico’s laboratory, and talked more warily after that. But there was little he could tell that Sham did not already know, he thought. When he had finished, she nodded somewhat wearily.
“We may be able to help you, give you back your memory. But I can’t answer all your questions. What destroyed civilization is a mystery.”
“A mystery?” Woodley was honestly shocked. “But surely you must know!”
“We do not. Something happened that wrecked the world. We are not—” She hesitated. “We are not survivors. We came after the catastrophe.”
“From where?”
Sham brushed a platinum curl back from her forehead.
“I don’t know. There were several hundred of us. Perhaps we awoke, as you did.”
Woodley pondered. It did not seem probable. The science of this city was far beyond him. Its very construction indicated a science more advanced than that of his own time. Sharn and the others were undeniably like himself. Yet was it possible that they had also suffered amnesia?
He was suddenly sleepy. The girl nodded at him understanding as he stifled a yawn.
“There will be more time to talk when you’ve rested. Sleep now.”
Woodley scarcely heard her. The brown elixir he had taken must have contained a soporific. Slumber rushed up and engulfed him.
Dreams came, confused and distressing. He saw Janet’s face as he remembered it, pale and sweet. Then it changed to the dull-eyed, terrible mask of the savage. That, too, faded, giving place to a red square from which a warning voice whispered.
“Beware!” it murmured, over and over again. “Beware!”
CHAPTER VII
The Rulers
WOODLEY heard music, soft and languorous. It changed, grew louder, a lilting, elfin refrain that aroused him. He opened his eyes to a sky of blue across which white clouds raced. No, it was the ceiling, on which a picture of the sky was projected.
He sat up, throwing aside a silken covering. He was in a large, airy room, filled with the fresh scent of pine. One whole side of it was of glass, revealing the sunlit towers of the great city beyond the roof garden.
Through an open door came the sound of running water. Woodley entered a bathroom paved with what seemed to be warm, velvety moss. In the center was a bubbling pool of clear water. His clothes were neatly laid out on a small table, on which stood a jar of the depilatory cream.
Woodley dived into the pool and splashed about vigorously. Emerging after a time, he stood before a mirror, staring.
His hair had been deftly trimmed while he slept. It was rather short now, and glistened with a sweet-smelling oil. The brawny, hard figure in the glass startled him. Was that himself?
Truly he had changed since the life he could not quite remember. He was muscular and bronzed, with a grim mouth, his body marked with white scars. Level gray eyes stared back at him.
Woodley donned his garments and went back into the sleeping chamber. After a brief search, he discovered a stud in the wall. As the panel slid up, he stepped out into the garden.
The scent of pine was gone. Fresh, cool morning air blew invigoratingly upon him. Over his head branches tossed, and he walked over clovery grass still wet with dew. The towers of Center glistened, pale as marble.
Woodley walked to the low parapet and peered over. There was no street below. Instead he saw another roof garden, far down. Apparently there were no streets in Center. It was actually one great building, within which pneumatic tube-elevators provided transportation.
He found cigarettes on a table and put one between his lips, drawing till smoke came. Then he relaxed in a chair, pondering, feeling better than he had since his awakening in that New York cellar. To be civilized again, to feel the luxury of cleanliness and smooth garments meant more to Woodley than he had realized.
He was in the hands of his hosts. Whether they would be friendly, he could not guess. His recent experience was no criterion. There was much he had to find out before he could make a move. Meanwhile there was Janet to remember, and the unknown voice that had warned him from the wall.
SHARN entered the garden, slim and competent in a blue uniform-like garment. She waved down Woodley’s attempt to rise and sank into a chair near him.
“You look better. Had breakfast yet? No?” She seemed astonished. “It’s on that table, waiting for you.” Woodley had not noticed it. He pulled the wheeled table close to him and examined its contents—fruit, some small, round cakes, and a liquid that resembled milk but was not.
“We’re feeding you lightly at first,” the girl explained. “You’ve been half-starved. Go ahead. I’ve eaten.” Woodley obeyed.
“When do I meet the—the ruler?” he asked hesitantly, choosing his words.
“Any time you like, if you want to. It isn’t a ruler, though. There’s a Senate that administers Center. It’s considering what you told me.”
“Oh.” Woodley frowned. “You gave them the information.”
“There was a microphone hooked on to your chair. Your words were recorded last night. The Senate felt you’d speak more freely to a
pretty girl.”
In the face of such disarming candor, Woodley could not help but smile. He sank his teeth into a peach.
“Do you grow these?”
“Yes. With hydroponics mostly. We never venture outside the city.”
“I have so many things to ask!” Woodley shook his head. The girl looked at him with grave inquiry.
“I’ll take you around Center when you’ve finished,” she said. “We had to be careful at first, of course. More than once the savages have tried to attack us, but naturally they failed. Yet if they were to become intelligent, we’d have to take more precautions. When you sent your arrow over the wall, we wondered. Now we realize that your intelligence is an accident.” She laughed a little. “I don’t mean to be insulting, Kent Woodley.”
The tour of the city was an amazing experience. Science had been so expertly blended with esthetics that the result made up a seemingly perfect whole. All the facilities of research were here, invented and perfected by minds far above the average. Woodley saw electronic telescopes that brought the planets close. A smiling young worker pointed out the silvery rays branching from some of the craters on the Moon.
“Know what those are?” he asked. “Fossilized remains. The remnants of an exo-skeleton. We’ve discovered that there was once life on the Moon, a sort of silicate, immobile life, growing rather like plants. When the creatures died—it must have been ages ago—their skeletons were left. Without air, there wasn’t any disintegration. Those gigantic fossils have been on the Moon for eons, we think.”
He fumbled with a photographic plate.
“We’re studying an explosion in Vega now. But come back some night and let me show you the Martian canali. We have some interesting speculations about the origin of those.” Biology, physics, chemistry, psychology—innumerable sciences were keenly studied in the laboratories of Center. Yet Woodley noticed an odd thing. Though the workers were alive with curiosity, at times they seemed amazingly impractical. They would go off on tangents, struck by some new idea, useless but fascinating. They worked, Woodley decided, when they felt like it. At other times they simply did not bother.
Collected Fiction Page 215
