“You have it all reasoned out!” Rod whispered. “You have! I thought that was my task. I was chosen to save those that deserved to be saved…”
“At my direction, yes,” Phyllis acknowledged quietly.
“What!”
“You’ve known me as Phyllis Bradman,” she went on steadily, moving toward him and putting her weapon slowly away. “That is not my name. Actually, my position is that of a queen, though I am not designated as such. I am the complete ruler of this underworld. My name is Erina…”
“I always suspected there was something queer about you,” Rod muttered. “But—but what does it all mean? What are you driving at?”
“I occupied the two hundredth coffin,” she announced calmly. “Let me tell you the whole story…I am the daughter of Saldon Ruj, the former ruler of this underworld—in fact of the whole world before the last atavism set in. When that atavism set in, many enemies were present with us down here. My father was slain. Events so worked out that our only chance of escape from them lay in feigning death by suspended animation, the period of the drug timed to last until mankind should be well on the upward trail again.
“Our enemies presumably slew each other, since no trace of them remained upon my awakening. Because of my position and authority the particular dose I had taken was timed to operate a year ahead of everybody else, so that I could determine in that time what course to take when the others recovered.
“I decided to see the world. I realized from our charts that the next atavism could not be more than a few days away…
“I departed to the surface and took on an apparently ordinary identity. First thing I found was that geological slips had brought out metal underworld remarkably near the surface soil at one spot. Though the metal could not be broken without special knowledge, it was to me, rather disconcerting. The first thing I saw was you investigating the metal. I have to admit, Rod, that you attracted me immensely.”
“Can a woman so clever, so resourceful, be attracted by a mere farmer?” Rod asked bitterly.
“Even a ruler, even a woman who has slept as long as I have, can still love,” she answered steadily. “I was only twenty-two when I went to sleep; physically I am hardly any older even now. I saw the moment I met you that you were no fool, and since part of my scheme included obtaining all the intellectual people I could find, I led you on. Your language was easy; your mind told me everything…”
“Then my discovering the city, all that robot talk, was so much bunk? Even that about me being the savior of mankind?”
“Most of it was true, though I was back of you all the time. The robots, of course, acted and spoke in response to my commands. I personally supervised everything the first time you were down here. It was easy enough, even easier when you accidentally fell and hurt yourself. That gave me time to act.”
“But how did you get down? You met me coming back up the steps!”
“That links up with something else.” The girl smiled mysteriously. “I’ll tell you that later. As you may have guessed, the welder you used on the first occasion was one equipped exactly like the one you used for the final entrance. I arranged that. You found the secret because I hypnotized you into finding it. You were by no means a difficult subject.”
“All those outporings of genius from that machine? Were they real?”
“In every way. I gave you knowledge of amazing range, all of which is going to be useful to you in building up the new civilization when we take over.”
Rod frowned. “Now I understand why conventions didn’t worry you. Why you had infinite money. Naturally, you manufactured the stuff?”
She nodded slowly, smiling.
“But, Phyllis, it still leaves parts undone. How on earth did you ever re-seal that hole when we were away in New York?”
“That was easy enough. I transferred myself from New York to this underworld, performed the act, then returned to New York.”
“What! All in one night! Whose plane did you use?”
“I didn’t use a plane. Do you remember asking me once if I had disappeared while leaving you down the lane?”
“Sure I do. I’ve never forgotten it.”
“It’s a gift, Rod, handed on to me by my father as he died. Even as ordinary rulers hand down certain valuable secrets to their next of kin, so my father handed on to me a supreme scientific achievement of his own discovery—mental control of matter. Mind over matter, if you wish, by which the body is compelled to obey the mind.
“If you remember, the early civilizations used it quite a lot; the Bible records it. If I will myself to a certain place, I am there, just as certain experts in your modern world cause an astral projection to take place. I use my whole body, however. I only behaved normally where necessity compelled it, but where there was no sense in physically wearing myself out, I merely willed myself to a point I was heading for.
“That was how I left this underworld in the first place, how I got to New York and back, how I met you so suddenly, how I disappeared in the lane. I thought, in the lane, that I was out of view, otherwise I would have been more careful.”
“And why did you reseal the hole and make me look such a fool?”
“For a very good reason. When I returned to reseal it I also converted your welder back into a normal one. I wanted only the intelligent men, able to think for themselves. Purposely I made you contact Dr. Gore. I knew that if he found no trace of proof for your statements he’d probably go off in a huff, but if he was really intelligent and scientific he’d finally come back to reconsider the matter of the metal itself. If he didn’t, he wasn’t worth having. My judgment was right, for he turned up. He brought others. That was why I said, save only those that deserve to be saved.”
Rod sighed. “I begin to see. You knew all this would happen on the surface. You got what intelligent residue there was left on earth down here in safety. You destroy the rest before they destroy what intelligence has built up. You intend, when the cloud has passed, to take over the surface, together with those who will awaken in another year. That’s it?”
“Exactly,” she assented quietly.
“And all this you could have done alone,” he whispered. “What need had you of me? An ordinary man?”
“I’ve told you!” she insisted earnestly. “I love you, Rod—love you deeply. I had to find a way to keep you and yet still carry out my plan. I did it by making you a pawn—but my proof of good faith lies in the fact that I gave you genius almost equal to mine. Here and there hypnotism helped you over the difficult spots, but in time you will grasp as much, and maybe more, than I know. Even mind over matter; I will reveal that to you, too.
“Oh, Rod, don’t you understand? That was my only reason—the reason why I held off an ordinary marriage. Ours can be so different, so much more complete. What I have done I have done for the future, for the good of a world that is to come. Surely I am entitled to some reward? Love? Happiness?”
Rod hesitated a moment, glanced at the still turning projector. He had a mental vision of human beings vanishing by the million as they marched to vainglorious war—human beings who had never done anything but impede the intellectuals, anyway.
Genius? He had that. The girl? She needed him, wanted him deeply. The past? It was done with. The mystery? It was solved, laid bare. The future? There lay promise—infinite promise once the cloud had passed.
He turned sharply, met the girl’s steady blue eyes. He held forth his arms slowly.
“Phyllis,” he murmured gently, as she came toward him. “Phyllis…I shall always call you that…”
World Without Death
CHAPTER I
A Scientist’s Secrets
It was the weeding out of scientists and inventors that brought to light the quiet, slender Janice Milford—scientific theorist par excellence, a girl who had apparently crammed into her youthful life more scientific knowledge than a clever man could manage in a full lifetime.
In the Judgment Hall, presided ove
r by Abel Dodd himself, the girl revealed no trace of fear as she was ordered to step out from the ranks of the brilliant captives around her.
With majestic calmness she walked forward to the little railed dais, became the focus for the eyes of the grim faced, specially selected jurors, and particularly the glittering, snaky orbs of Dodd.
For a long time he studied her in silence, allowed his gaze to encompass her from the fluffed golden hair round her shapely head to her trim little feet. He eyed her blue silk dress, rent and torn with the rough handling she had received, brooded on the white flesh that peeped through the gaps. Then at last he came back to the oval face with its steadily gazing azure blue eyes. He frowned a little at the tiny glow of contempt he saw therein, the twisted, cynical smile on her finely molded lips.
“Janice Milford,” he said slowly, his thin, cruel lips hardly moving as he spoke, “you are, we understand, an inventor? A scientist? You have been cited as America’s foremost woman thinker. In three years you have forced yourself from obscurity to acknowledged scientific authority. Back of most scientific enterprises in this country are your ideas. Correct?”
The girl did not answer. She stood perfectly still, her small white hands on the bar of the dais.
Dodd scowled, resumed with menacing slowness.
“Some little time ago you stated that you had the secret of atomic force—even space travel. Also you have ideas about the cosmos which are far beyond normal science. You are a mathematician and physicist…Janice Milford, we demand every one of your secrets and order that you shall work entirely for our benefit. Is that clear?”
The girl slowly shrugged, asked in a soft voice:
“And if I refuse?”
Dodd’s lips twisted into a sensual smile. “If you refuse, you will be forced through physical suffering to give up your secrets. Either way we shall win; it lies in your hands whether you choose the easiest or the hardest way.”
“I see.” The girl’s faintly cynical smile broadened a little. “This seems to be as good a time as any to speak my mind. I tell you right now—tell all of you murderers sitting around me—that not one of my secrets shall pass into your possession. Do what you will with me, torture me until death if you wish…But I will never speak!”
There was a little gasp of amazement from the assembly. Abel Dodd stared blankly for a moment: this was unheard of! A mere slip of a girl defying his edict.
“Do you realize,” he breathed viciously, “that it is in my power to—”
“I know all you can do,” the girl interrupted coldly. “I think it would be better if you stopped wasting time!”
She was sublimely calm and unmoved, so much so that Dodd felt irritated. A woman of acknowledged genius locking her secrets up so securely was more than he could tolerate.
“Later, perhaps, you will have learned sense!” he barked, making a motion to the guards. “Take her away, and when she is more tractable notify me…I’ll break you down, Janice Milford, if it’s the last thing I ever do!” He watched her half dragged, half carried from the hall to an ominous black door on the right, then he turned to survey the remaining victims of his merciless inquiry.
* * * *
The closing months of 1959 were destined to be written down in American history like a catalogue of horrors, as a period when for the time being the progress and peace of the United States was interrupted by civil war.
Nobody quite knew how it happened: it just did happen. A sudden determined march, and back of it all as champion of the oppressed and bearing the torch of liberty loomed one Frederick Marden. He precipitated the revolution which only had its equal in the far-gone dark days of Russia’s remaking.
Unquestionably Frederick Marden believed in his cause; he was out for justice. He could not be altogether responsible for the lawless hordes who operated under his banner, who defeated police and army alike in their savage uprising against civilization itself.
In October, 1959, the trouble started, until by the end of November, through violence and open murder, the Frederick Marden party had established itself in control of the entire country, had so far avoided open civil war by very reason of overwhelming numbers. But the civil war menace was by no means over. Somewhere in America there still remained one Graham Doone, implacably determined to rout Frederick Marden no matter what the cost. Until Doone was found Marden could not possibly rest content.
By December, 1959, the threat of Graham Doone was less tangible. Marden was in power, was to all intents and purposes the new President of the United States. But unhappily Marden was not alone. His Minister for Control, Abel Dodd, was a flint hearted and merciless scoundrel. He it was who instituted a reign of terror over America that would have done credit—had all the true facts been revealed to the world—to the Spanish Inquisition.
Abel Dodd terrorized men and women alike. Other countries, gathering drifting details, were up in arms over Dodd’s methods, but because interference might mean war they stood aloof, and America went on suffering. But somewhere, still unfound, Graham Doone awaited his opportunity to strike…
One by one, former celebrated master minds, men and women, began to disappear, their wealth and knowledge going to swell the Marden party’s resources. The cleverest brains in the land were forced under torture or pain of death to supply their services to the new regime. Inventors were compelled to give up their every secret in order that the regime might gain sufficient scientific knowledge to one day make an attempt to master the world itself…
* * * *
When Dodd’s work was at last finished he lost no time in visiting the basement below the hall, paused as he entered the grim looking place replete with the heinous machinery by which he usually forced prisoners to obey his will.
In bitter silence he glowered down on the half stripped, silent figure of Janice Milford, lying against the wall on a pile of straw. Savagely he seized her arm, swung her over, stared down into her bruised, blood streaked face. Her blue eyes looked back at him in dumb contempt. He noted her blackened nails where hot iron had seared them away, the torn flesh beneath her arms where pincers had done their deadly work.
“Well, will you speak?” he demanded at last, standing over her. “Or would you like more?”
“Kill me if you wish,” she replied quietly. “I’ll never speak…” Then she turned over again and lay silent.
Dodd’s brutal jaw set squarely. He swung around savagely on the half stripped guards by the doorway.
“Why the hell didn’t you make her speak?” he snarled.
One of the men shrugged. “Guess I never saw a dame so tough, chief. We tried most things—and slowly too. All she did was to smile, until we beat up her face a little—”
“Get her secrets or suffer the same medicine!” Dodd snapped. “That’s final! One thing only have you got to remember. Not one vital faculty must be destroyed: she’ll be needed later. Advise me how you go on…”
He glared round, then went back up the steps into the main hall, turned sharply as the head office visiphone came into being on the wall. The square, rugged face of Frederick Marden appeared on the screen.
“Come up to the office, Dodd!” he snapped. “Immediately!”
Dodd nodded insolently, walked up the great staircase from the hall and entered his superior’s great office. Marden eyed him with steady gray eyes across his desk.
“It might interest you to know, Dodd, that while you have been so busy hunting down inventors and scientists, Graham Doone has been busy,” he said slowly. “Yes, you can stare! If you’d taken the trouble to direct your attention to vital matters it would never have happened. As it is, Doone has succeeded in commandeering an entire army unit in Chicago, complete with airplanes and munitions. Obviously that is where he has been hiding out all this time. What is more, thousands are rallying to his banner.”
“Well?” Dodd asked sourly. “Doone doesn’t scare me none. We can thrash him and his whole army—”
“We may do so!” Marden
broke in bitterly. “If I know anything of Doone he will not stop until one or other party is extinct. It’s too late now to stop him. That was your job, only you were too busy torturing men and women.”
“As far as Janice Milford is concerned, it’s necessary!” Dodd retorted hotly. “You know as well as I do that she has marvelous inventions, and—”
“I know it, and if you’d have had intelligence instead of brute emotions you’d have won her cooperation by a proper outline of the cause we stand for. Instead you use barbaric cruelty that goes right back to the medieval.” Marden got to his feet, his face set in relentless lines.
“Dodd,” he said slowly, “your brutality has got to stop! We’re working for justice, not power through inhuman cruelty…Through that very reason, your panderings to it, we stand now with a civil war on our hands. Beyond any doubt Graham Doone means to strike at us—and hard!”
“Well, what do you want me to do?” Dodd’s face was sullen after the upbraiding he had received.
“Marshal all your forces and manpower immediately. Drop everything except military preparations. Release all prisoners and use them to swell your manpower.”
“What! Even Janice Milford!” Dodd’s face was a study.
“Even Janice Milford,” Marden nodded coldly. “She’ll be useful somewhere. We’ll return to the matter of her secrets when the war’s over.”
“But, damn it all—”
“Get going!” Marden snapped, and watched in grim silence as Dodd went slowly from the office.
CHAPTER II
Civil War
On January 3, 1960, a week after the general mobilization call had gone forth from Marden, Graham Doone marched to the attack. He was commander-in-chief of his own army, an army made up of men and women of whom only a minority of the former were professional soldiers. The rest was made up of business men, even women, now more hard bitten than any old campaigner.
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