“‘I do bring a Flood of waters on the Earth’—Genesis, sixth chapter, seventeenth verse,” murmured the Mongolian, closing his eyes.
“Yeah, and what do we do?” Hoyle shouted.
“We sit in this blasted hole and get trapped!” cried somebody else.
“No,” Val said slowly. “We do what Noah did—and build an Ark!”
He was conscious of a passing surprise at his own declaration. He had not even thought of the notion a moment before; now it seemed so logical and obvious.
“This ain’t the time to get funny, Val! “Hoyle yelled.
“I mean it,” Val cried earnestly. “We’re building edifices, aren’t we? What’s to prevent us building an edifice as an Ark instead of a building? That’s it!” he went on keenly. “The buildings are all long, beetling ones, able to hold about five hundred people when empty.
“We’ll go on building, sure—but we’ll make the edifice movable and able to float when the water comes. Nobody—not even Ox—will notice the difference. Outwardly there won’t be a difference!”
“Say, he’s got something there…”
“It can’t miss…”
“You have a wise friend among you,” Kang observed calmly, opening his eyes again. “Heed him. He has the spirit and the energy of a leader…”
The grim-faced men nodded resolutely. Val looked at them earnestly in turn, read loyalty to him—until he came to the face of Bilworthy. As Val’s keen eyed gaze fell upon him Bilworthy turned and shambled off towards his crude bed. Val’s hand dropped on his shoulder.
“Just a minute, Bilworthy!” Val swung the man round. “You squealed on me last time to Ox. I let it pass that time. But if you repeat one word of what’s gone on in here tonight I’ll get you. Understand?”
“Now why should I—” Bilworthy began to bluster.
“Understand?” Val repeated ominously.
“Yes—yes, I understand.” Bilworthy turned away, scowling. Then the door opened and the guard came in vigorously.
“Lights out, you scum! Step on it, there! Line up for search!”
*
When, some weeks later, the world-wrapping mists began to rise and there came reports of abating volcanic eruption, Kronheim began to breathe a little more freely…but not for long.
With Angorstine he decided to investigate for himself the lack of fresh orders from European headquarters. And it was the airplane trip that rammed home the appalling truth into his brain.
The Atlantic Ocean had dropped tremendously in its level. Here and there ships were nosing through channels foreign to maritime knowledge. In other places vessels had broken their backs or lay beached and forlorn with their sides rusting. The British Isles, still filled with hurrying, desperate people in the war-cracked cities, were perched up like mountain tops a thousand feet or so above sea level. Cliffs never seen before had come to light.
Europe provided its own explanation for lack of orders from G.H.Q. One half of the great European plain from mid-Russia to mid-Germany was nothing but a lava field, hardened now, from which poked the shattered remnants of buildings. People, in little bunches, were gathered around crude camps before smoky fires. It was a glimpse of a primitive age. Civilization in Europe was ended.
Dazed, too stunned to understand the portent of it all, Kronheim had the plane pilot continue the trip. By degrees the whole globe was circumnavigated and the tale of tragedy unreeled. Everywhere there seemed to be either lava-fields, dried up rivers, or depleted oceans. Shipping was obviously doomed. Parts of the air were thick with either battering tempests or poisonous volcanic fumes. And occasionally through the driving reek there was a vision of a gray belt girdling the heavens.
Very much sobered Kronheim returned to his American headquarters, still the same brick building atop the small hill overlooking the New York labor camps.
“Angorstine,” he said slowly, “there is only one leader left in the Cause—and that is me. The others are dead. Obviously it is necessary to plan the world afresh with you and me at the head of it. We can master the few survivors with ease. We can make the scum in these American labor camps build as they never built before. That is what we will do! Fate has destroyed my superiors and made me the master of the world.”
Angorstine did not answer. He was looking out of the window onto the gray band across the heaven.
“Wonder what that is?” he mused.
Kronheim gave an impatient retort, “Stop wasting time on trifles and summon the guard. I’ve new regulations to put into force. Buildings must be hurried in construction. Several lots of workers must be drafted overseas to begin work there. We must make arrangements to conserve water. It’s becoming a problem.”
“Maybe Turner could explain that gray band,” Angorstine said. “You never summoned him again after ordering that flogging.”
“No use. He’s too stubborn. Besides there are more important matters…Get a move on, man!”
*
That Kronheim had become the undisputed master of the world made little impression on the prisoners in the camps. Things could not get much worse, anyway. Water was rationed, and precious little there was of it. Food was usually dry bread interspersed with vegetable concoctions from the fast dying fields of the Americas. Whatever worthwhile there was left in the eating line found its way to Kronheim and Angorstine.
Despite the privations, Val and his colleagues worked on steadily, keeping their eyes on that gray band that daily became larger in the sky. Otherwise the sky was rainless, blue, and sunny. Only that gray arc of slowly returning vapor revealed what was coming. Val wondered if Rita was watching it too. Communication with her was difficult these days. At least she was still alive; he knew that much. She knew, too, that an Ark was intended. Carrying out the plan they had arranged Val and his co-workers constructed one of the new buildings to their own plan, providing it with a keel and watertight floor, and apparently nobody was any the wiser. The guards had no reason to suspect anything phony…The hardest thing of all to bear was the lack of water.
Working ten hours a day in grueling sunshine and dust with lips cracked and muscles aching told on the strongest constitution. But Ox allowed no let-up. He had permitted himself only the same ration as his prisoners, regarding the camp in the light of a beleagured fortress. He was always at his post, legs apart and hands on hips, intent on every aspect of his duty.
A grinding, merciless month slipped by. In that time the gray band in the sky had crept nearer and nearer, drawn by the cooling Earth…Landscapes, lava caked and hard now, were wilted with sunshine. Underneath them lay buried fields and pastureland, gone probably forever…Even Kronheim was wondering if he could ever establish a new empire out of this cracked, battered wilderness of his own making, from which rain seemed to have eternally departed…The dispatchments of prisoners he had sent overseas were dying, said reports—dying of thirst or else starvation. Others had been preyed upon by the cannibal survivors of the eruptions in Mid-Europe.
Only those in Camp 4 knew what was really coming and it gave them cause enough to smile through their flaked lips. Water! There’d be more than enough before they were through! Water aplenty, and Building No. 7 all ready to float. All it needed now was a thorough examination for being watertight, and provisioning. These two were big problems.
At intervals, when opportunity looked favorable, Val slipped out to pass on the news to his wife. On one of the nights he was followed by the shadowy figure of Bilworthy. But Bilworthy went in the opposite direction, licking his parched lips as he went.
At length he reached the door of Ox’s guard room and knocked softly.
“Well, what in hell do you want?” Ox stood glaring down, his great figure silhouetted by the oil light behind him. Power, relying on water, had ended long since.
“I’ve—I’ve something more to tell you, Ox. It’s worth a can of water. That’s all I ask.” Billworthy stood sliming his paws down his overalls.
“You get your ration,” Ox re
plied brutally. “We all get half a pint a day— no more, no less.,.” He seemed to ponder then suddenly shooting out his arm he yanked the scrawny little prisoner up the steps and hurled him into the guard room.
“Go on,” he invited calmly, his blue eyes slitting.
“It’s—it’s about that prisoner Turner,” Bilworthy panted, fingering his lips nervously. “He’s—he’s plotting treason again. This time he’s building an—an Ark.”
“A what?” Ox cried.
“An Ark—like the one in the Bible. There’s a Deluge coming. The seas are going to cause a flood. That gray band in the sky…”
“Go on,” Ox said ominously. “Every detail…”
By degrees, his voice hoarse with dryness, Bilworthy got out every part of the story, including the scientific implications. At the end of it Ox calmly put on his coat, drew on his shiny boots, then pointed to the door.
“Outside! Show me this Ark— Go on, damn you!”
Bilworthy looked longingly at the water tank. “A-about my water, Captain—”
“That you’ll get later. I want to be sure first. Now move!”
Ox kept a grip on Bilworthy’s collar as he marched him across the camp grounds and out to the building site. When they came to building No. 7 Ox marched inside and flashed on his torch. Twenty minutes of minute examination convinced him. He came out and stood thinking.
“I— I was right, wasn’t I?” Bilworthy urged, clutching him. “Room enough in there for nearly five hundred people. It’ll float— “
“I’ve got eyes of my own,” Ox broke in. He turned and blew his whistle violently. After a while hastily dressed guards came running up in the starlight.
“Summon every prisoner here!” Ox roared. “Hurry up!”
There was an immediate scurrying and blowing of whistles. Ox stood waiting with his feet apart as the men in their coarse night shirts came stumbling along in bare feet, finally formed into a rough column. Val, his lips set into a taut line, stood gazing at Bilworthy’s cringing form.
“Men,” Ox said slowly, unfastening his whip from his belt and flexing it in his strong hands, “I pride myself I have treated you with the justice of a soldier while I’ve been here. Right?”
Heads nodded promptly.
“I’m a hard man…” Ox walked slowly along the line. “But that is because I obey orders to the letter. There is a code of honor among true soldiers, even as there is among prisoners and workers. Right here is a man who tries to sell all of you for a can of water!”
Ox spat in the dust at Bilworthy’s feet. Bilworthy stared for a moment, then his face was suddenly sweating.
“But Captain, you promised me— “
“Yes, I promised you water. You’ll get it—but it won’t be any good to you! You’re a rat, Bilworthy! You squealed once. You have squealed again to try and get more than your share! To try and get more than the prisoners and more than the guards!”
“So he told you about the Ark, eh?” Val asked grimly.
“About the Ark and about the Deluge. I’ll deal with that later.” Ox moved forward slowly. “As for you Bilworthy, I’ve one punishment for swine who try to get more than they’re entitled to.”
He stopped playing with his whip abruptly and whirled it round. The biting thongs flayed the torn nightshirt from Bilworthy’s back. He fell the dust, howling.
“Water!” he screeched. “That’s all I wanted! Water!”
“A can full,” Ox agreed, and his whip split the silence again. “Salty, stinking water—the sweat of your own filthy hide as you crawl from this lash. Go on, crawl, blast you! Crawl!”
Time and again the lash came round with pistol shot force. The prisoners stood motionless, sweating themselves, wincing at each swing of that mighty arm. Groaning, dragging himself in the dust, Bilworthy crawled into a corner by the Ark building. Ox stopped at that, ground the moistured drops of Bilworthy under the heel of his jackboot.
“Would anybody like to say something?” he asked dryly, breathing hard.
“Yes, Ox,” Val replied briefly. “You’re a damned sadist—but you’re a man of discipline. I’ll say that you.”
The starlight caught the gleam of Ox’s teeth. Then his jaws clamped shut again and he motioned to the Ark building.
“I’m not reporting this because it is the only thing you could think up to save us from the coming Deluge,” he announced curtly. “I am not reporting it—yet. You’re going to finish it properly first, make a thorough job of it. You’re going to fit steering, provision it, give it paddle power which you mugs can provide by physical labor. Because you decided to build it you will be allowed to travel in it—at a price, and it’s to the credit of your damnable souls that you’ll save the Master of us all from the Flood when it comes.”
“You mean Kronheim comes in it, too?” Val shouted.
“He is the master, and he comes—with Angorstine,” Ox snapped. “He is still the ruler. You found the way out and we’ll sail under Kronheim when the skies open. You’ll finish this Ark under my control. Ten hours a day—no more, no less. Now dismiss!”
Val hesitated, his fists clenched—then the small hand of Kang caught his arm. He whispered.
“Do as he says, my friend. He is only obeying his highest sense of duty. No man, whatever his beliefs, can do more.”
“But Kronheim—!” Val was aghast.
“Move!” Ox bellowed. “You, too!” He caught up the blood-spattered Bilworthy and hurled him into the line. “One, two, quick march! Never mind the pebbles. Think yourselves lucky you’ve feet at all. One, two…” His polished boots flashed out smartly.
CHAPTER VI
DELUGE
The next day the sun was obscured for the first time and the whole of the sky looked like a great inverted bowl of grey lowering down to earth.
Eased a little by the lack of sunshine but still physically weary to the breaking point Val and the others went to work exclusively on the Ark. Most of the men were bitter, loathe to accept the counsel of the little Mongolian who seemed to see some sort of virtue in the straddle-legged giant in the shiny boots who tirelessly watched over them.
Obeying his orders, a system of paddles was devised and seats were fixed inside the Ark building for the hapless ones who were to wield the oars. Somehow, the arrangement savoured of galley-slaving. Rough beds were made too, and chairs. There were movable stands for oil lamps, so they would stand upright under all circumstances. Floodlights, to act as searchlights, operating on batteries, were installed. Among a multitude of other things, the interior of the Ark was partitioned: it was evident Ox had possible women survivors in his mind.
Four days passed, in which Kronheim tried to figure out ways and means of saving his crumbling Empire. Unofficial reports had reached him from long distance fliers that Europe was experiencing rain. It made him smile and feel more comfortable. Once the problem of water was overcome he could soon tighten his grip again.
Over America the clouds lowered all through the intervening days and at every camp the prisoners were working in twilight gloom. Then as they knocked off in the evening of the fourth day little spots of moisture started dropping on their barely covered backs and spattered in the dust.
“Rain!” one of the men shrieked. “Rain!” He stood with his face upturned to the black sky, mouth open to catch the drops. Then Ox’s mighty fist hurled him back into the line.
“Keep marching, you! You’ll get your bellyful later! March!”
Spots of wet mud marred Ox’s immaculate boots as he herded the line back to camp. Once there he stood with arms akimbo appraising the blackness overhead. Turning presently he saw Val gazing up, too.
“Looks like you were right, Turner,” he said cryptically. “Get inside.”
Within the long building Val was immediately met with a barrage of questions. The presence of the guards was ignored. For that matter they were as interested as the prisoners in impending events.
“Is it coming, Val?” shouted Hoyle.
“Is it the Deluge?”
“Yes, my friends, the Deluge,” observed Kang quietly from his corner stool. “The last hours of a phase of brutal power domination are here. Be assured that we shall find safety.”
“Wish I could be sure of that bit, Kang,” Val said anxiously, as the pattering rain increased to a sudden fierce drumming on the tin roof. “This has been gathering for weeks. Seas and rivers are returning…”
“Hey, you men!” Ox stood in the doorway again with water trickling down his chin. “Outside and drink your fill, the whole perishing lot of you! Some of the holes have filled up…Step on it!”
He cracked his whip to hurry the scramble outside. As Bilworthy came scurrying past he delivered a terrific kick that sent the little man crashing on his face in the mud outside. He got up, elbowed an elderly prisoner out of the way from the nearest hole and drove his face into the pool.
Something blazed through the dark—the explosion of Ox’s gun. Bilworthy relaxed, his head sunk in the water.
For a moment there was silence. Ox came slowly down the dripping steps, lifted Bilworthy’s corpse out of the pool and threw it on one side as though it were a wet sack. He motioned to the trembling old man.
“Go on, you—drink—” Ox looked up and bawled, “I’ll have every man here drink his fill—no more, no less. And hurry it up!” he added urgently as the rain increased in force and drummed a hazy margin onto his hat and massive shoulders.
At last the men were satisfied and came stumbling through the blinding torrent back into the camp. Ox followed them, surveyed their dripping forms for a moment, then said curtly:
“No man moves out of here to that Ark until I give the order. Understand?” He went out and slammed the door.
Though the guards gave the usual “lights out” order the men were all out of their beds again immediately, gathering together in a circle and listening to the savage beating of the rain upon the roof. With every passing minute it seemed to increase its force. A slight wind had risen too, driving the blinding sheets against the windows. Outside it was swilling along the ground, dimly illumined by the battery driven lamps at various points.
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