“He’s alive!” cried Hartwig, joyfully. “In order to have maintained his equilibrium during all the maneuvers that have just shaken the lantern, he must still be alive.”
In a doubtful tone, I murmured: “But he isn’t moving.”
“Perhaps he’s just fainted,” Hartwig retorted, swiftly. “We need to get him out of the apparatus.”
On his orders, a few men hurled themselves forward, and immediately proclaimed that Moldo was dead. The damaged controls of the lantern were crushing him against the back of the cage and maintaining him in the attitude of a living man. When it became possible to free him, his body collapsed. The visor of the helmet was unscrewed, and his face appeared, black and swollen.
There was a frisson of amazement in the crowd that surrounded us. A profound silence fell. Then whispers began to run around, and voices were raised. Obviously, the confidence of these people, gorged with pleasures to the point of exhaustion, had been dented by these unexpected events. Besides, Moldo was not the only victim of the bombs launched by the enemy balloons; on all sides, the extent of the damage was becoming manifest. Houses were burning; automobile ambulances could be seen passing by every few seconds, their warning bells causing the murmuring and disconcerted crowd to clear a path for them.
Goldfeller’s lieutenants understood that it was necessary to react against the discouragement that seemed to be increasing around them. People knew them, and knew about their mysterious connection to the Master of Aeria. Already, the murmurs, becoming more focused as covert allusions, were threatening to turn into personal invective. Kositch, having given the order to take away Moldo’s body, boldly turned to the people surrounding him.
“All this,” he shouted, “has already been dearly avenged. At this moment, our balloons are burning Paris…”
A well-known voice interrupted him: that of Goldfeller, for whom everyone stood aside. The appearance of his imperious face brought silence again. Without pausing for discussion with the crowd, which he dominated with his sovereign will, the Gem King called out: “Kositch, Hartwig—and you too, Bayoud—come with me. We’re going to take the necessary measures to make it impossible for this dirty trick to be repeated.”
He did not spare a glance for Moldo’s cadaver, extended at his feet: that mute brute who had served him like a dog for years now had no more value in his eyes than the debris of scrap iron against which he was lying.
At a rapid pace he led us into the glazed hall that served as an office for the commandant of the dirigibles’ mooring-station. That officer, a subaltern aide of little importance, greeted us obsequiously, enquiring about the fate of the little fleet that had departed a few hours before, and whose return he had expected sooner.
“They’re not coming back,” Goldfeller declared, in a firm tone. “The wireless telegraphy station has transmitted an order to the squadron leaders to pursue the enemy balloons and bring them back over Aeria, by encircling them. The rest is up to us, and we’re going to work, gentlemen.”
“What are you going to do?”
He looked at me coldly and replied: “Poison the air above the city and drive the enemy dirigibles into that suffocating atmosphere, where their pilots will be asphyxiated, which will make them as many phantom balloons destined to be lost in space. The enemy fleet will be entirely destroyed.”
The tone of implacable resolution in which he said this, and the triumphant expressions with which his lieutenants welcomed the expectation of further massacres, brought to a climax the impression of horror and disgust that had been increasing within me for two days. I had lowered my head; I raised it again to state at the Gem King, and my gaze must have expressed my thoughts clearly.
To my great surprise, Goldfeller did not even have a scornful smile for what he must have regarded as pusillanimity. He bowed his heads and simply murmured: “You’ll be leaving—but keep quiet.”
Feverishly, he went to take Kostich’s arm, and walked for a few minutes with the officer, to whom he set about giving orders and explanations; Hartwig took his turn, and then the commandant of the aerostat-port. When he had finished, Goldfeller returned to me. “Come with me,” he said. “We need to talk.”
Such calm frightened me momentarily. In the cold insanity that was driving him to extremes of cruelty in order to ensure the triumph of his domination, what might it cost me to have dared to censure the conduct of a man jealous above all else of his authority? We had leapt into a car that was waiting in front of the door of the hall we had just left, and at first we moved in silence. I remembered my first voyage in the interior of the tower, through that subterranean city, by the side of the mute Goldfeller, smoking his cigar. To tell the truth, he had been more impassive then, and the wrinkles on his forehead had not manifested the anxious creases of today.
Abruptly, he began to speak. “Bayoud,” he began, effortfully. “I need you.”
The surprised gaze that I directed at him made his laugh and flattered his self-respect.
“Come on,” he continued, with a sigh. “You’re an intelligent child, but a child. Perhaps, in time, you’ll understand that a soul that aspires to command the world must rise above the contingencies of sensitivity. Personally, it’s for not having foreseen…”
He fell silent, frowning in irritation. The car was moving rapidly, and its speed was more favorable to thought than speech. I dared not interrogate the terrible and worried man, but I was already less afraid of him, and on seeing him pensive I almost felt sorry for him. The work of death in which he persisted appeared precarious and petty by comparison with the soft and radiant splendor of a summer sky in which the clouds were beginning to space themselves out, uncovering an infinity of worlds already paling in the light of dawn. At the idea of imminent liberty, the youth for which Goldfeller had reproached me a little while before had lifted my heart with joyous hopes that he no longer had, and I discovered him sad at the summit of his grim power.
Meanwhile, we had arrived at the governmental palace> A compact crowd obstructed it to begin with. At the sight of us, violent rumors broke out and a group of citizens, evidently having made preparations in advance, came toward Goldfeller. One of them began to speak on behalf of them all, demanding the free circulation of the elevators, which had been send down to the mid-way point of the tower a week before.
“You want to leave the city?” asked the Gem King.
The attitude of the delegates answered for everyone. There was a momentary silence. Suddenly, the eyes of the Master of Aeria flashed.
“What if I ask you for 24 hours to ensure general security?” he said. “What if I guarantee that this time tomorrow, the city that you have helped me to build will be conclusively protected from any kind of attack?”
He saw that they were hesitant, already reconquered, and then spoke ardently, with such assurance of tone that within a few minutes, the almost-menacing men had become cowardly and lustful slaves. The crowd opened before us, and we went into the governmental palace.
On entering his study, Goldfeller threw his hat on to a table. Parading his steely gaze around him, he spotted Hernu motionless in a corner. The latter was looking at him, his cigarette stuck between his lips, with the sly expression that the workmen of the Parisian faubourgs maintain, for no reason.
“What are you doing there?” the billionaire shouted, violently. “Get moving, to wherever I’ve commanded to you go!”
With a constrained smile that uncovered his discolored teeth, Hernu replied simply: “I’m waiting for M. Rassmuss, who’s ordered me to help him carry something.”
Rassmuss’s head immediately appeared in the gap in a doorway. The old man exchanged a mysterious sign with Goldfeller, and a gesture instructed the technician to follow him.
XI. The Murder
Alone with me, the Gem King began by turning down the dimmer-switches of the laps that illuminated the immense room. When the darkness was complete, I felt him take me by the hand to lead me toward a corner where, suddenly, in the half
-light of a night-light, I perceived a form lying on a bed.
It was Yella. In the middle of a narrow room, the door of which her father had just opened in front of me, the young woman was sleeping, so peacefully and profoundly that I thought she might be dead. I almost uttered a scream.
“Shh!” said Goldfeller. “No power in the world can wake her up before 48 hours, but above all, no one must suspect her presence here. She will only leave here to quit this tower, and it’s to you that I confide her from now on. Do you accept?”
He could not mistake the emotion that I could not suppress on hearing these words. With a gesture, he contained the protests that he suspected I was about to make and, closing the door again, continued in the midst of the darkness that surrounded us once again: “You’re at the impulsive age when the emotions still act directly upon a man’s heart. That child shares your apprehensions and your scruples, and I’m counting on you to take her away from our troubles and violence. Later…”
In the gloom, it seemed to me that his voice was trembling slightly; it became hard and imperious to add: “Do I need to tell you what reprisals you would incur if you do not scrupulously carry out the mission that I’ve decided to entrust to you? What you know about me is sufficient to assure you of it. For the moment, stay here until I return, and if anything unusual should happen, press the button you see shining there beside you. The contact will activate a siren whose noise will warn me. When I return, I’ll explain to you how I expect you to get out of here.”
I understood from his voice that he was drawing away; I heard the noise of a door clicking shut. I remained alone in the vast dark room.
I had been there for a quarter of an hour, scarcely daring to move in order not to lose sight of the faintly-phosphorescent button that Goldfeller had pointed out to me, when a muffled sound nearby made my prick up my ears anxiously.
I had no time to listen; a few paces away from me a door opened. By the light of a small portable electric lamp that he lifted into the air in order to get his bearings, I perceived old Rassmuss. Setting his lamp on the ground, he bent down, and the same muffled sound was repeated. I saw then that the old man, using all his strength to stiffen his arms—still robust in spite of his great age—was shoving in front of him a sort of flat trunk that must have been very heavy. He crossed the entire hall in this manner, stopped to catch his breath, and took a little key from his pocket, which he introduced into a lock whose catch he activated. A low door turned on its hinges, revealing a dark corridor into which the old man passed, still pushing his burden.
The door swung to behind him, and was about to close when a rapid shadow passed before my eyes. I saw it gliding noiselessly in the wake of light that the old scientist’ lantern left behind, slipping through the gap in the doorway through which Rassmusss had just disappeared—which abruptly closed again, with a dry click.
Immediately, I seemed to perceive muffled plaints, a noise of trampling, and then of a fall. Then there was a long silence.
After a few minutes, I saw the door behind which I suspected that a struggle had just take place re-open. A man appeared, bent over a heavy burden that he was maintaining with both hands on his back. A little miner’s lamp, attached to his forehead, was lighting his unsteady march beneath the weight that was crushing him. He crossed the hall slowly and went out.
Darkness had fallen again and I tried to pierce its thickness that kind of clairvoyance that comes to eyes adapted o obscurity. A slender thread of light streaking the ground eventually attracted my attention. Feeing my way, I advanced toward it. Wedging open the door through which I had seen Rassmuss disappear was a small portable lamp, which continued to illuminate the ground on which it had fallen. To pick it up, pull the partly open door toward me and direct the luminous beam into the dark corridor was the work of a moment.
I could not retain an exclamation on perceiving a body extended in front of me. I saw white hair, soaked in blood. It was Rassmuss, lying on the ground, his neck pierced by a knife with a horn hilt.
Although I had become accustomed to a few singularities in that monstrous city, it seemed to me that the event might seem unusual to Goldfeller, and I immediately carried out the procedure that he had indicated to me. Overhead, the roar of the siren that would warn him rose up, and while I waited for him to arrive I tried to render assistance of the old chemist, whom I had pulled out of the corridor. He was still breathing, faintly, but in that darkness, with the sole aid of a pocket torch, my resources were scarcely extensive, and I had not been able to do anything much when the lights in the hall suddenly brightened again and Goldfeller appeared in front of me.
“Who did this?”
Already leaning over the old man, he addressed the question to him as much as to me, but neither of us could answer him. In the blink of an eye he had brought water, and bathed the frightful wound that was bloodying Rassmuss’s neck. The latter opened his eyes slightly.
“What happened?” Goldfeller asked.
The old man’s lips trembled. In a single breath, he articulated: “Hernu…diamonds…money…”
A hiccup strangled that exceedingly feeble voice. Rassmuss’s head became heavier in the hands that were supporting it, and his lips exhaled a profound sigh. The old chemist had just died.
Goldfeller leapt to his feet. Moldo’s death had left him impassive, but the loss of an auxiliary like this one touched him more; there must have been rage and despair in his clear eyes. He pulled himself together rapidly, though, and seemed to be reflecting profoundly. Suddenly, he raised his head.
“This is an unexpected event that will delay your departure,” he said. “The strong-box stolen by Hernu contains a fortune in English banknotes and a collection of diamonds whose beauty is unique: all that constituted the treasure of Yella’s journey. I need to catch up with that wretch…”
A sound of a bell interrupted him. His gaze brightened. “I suspected as much!” he cried, in a triumphant one. “The imbecile! He knows full well that he can’t escape me. Look…”
With his finger, he showed me a vast console divided by vertical grooves in which the buttons were located that activate and stopped all the numbered service elevators. One of the buttons began to rise slowly. Goldfeller dived forward to grip it and, with a violent effort, pushed it all the way down. Then, with a dry click, he released the immobilization switch.
“Number 213,” he said, gripping my arm. “The embarkation cage is only a few steps away, in Government Plaza. You’re going to help me to get hold of that brute and get back what he has stolen. As for his punishment, I’ll see to that later.”
The Gem King hastened out of the governmental palace. “We have him,” he said. “He’ll persist, out of pride in his trade, in trying to maneuver the apparatus that he released without Rassmuss noticing. He’ll lose time, and we’ll trap him on the job, as they say.”
It was daylight outside—a delightful morning after the previous day’s rain. To my great surprise, Government Plaza was almost deserted. I remarked on this to Goldfeller. He was about to reply when he was interrupted by the clamor of one of the service loudhailers that issued official proclamations on the street-corners. Reminiscent of giant phonographs, they functioned automatically every five minutes, playing the same role in Aeria as town criers in rural areas.
This is what the resounding voice of the apparatus said:
“The inhabitants of Aeria are warned that they must go before 8 a.m. to the central elevators, which will take them down to the bunkers of the old city, where they will have to stay for a time no longer than two days. This respite is rendered necessary by the poisoning of the upper layers of the atmosphere, which will permit the annihilation of crews of the enemy dirigibles; the balloons, impossible to steer, will then be scattered at hazard by aerial currents. Before 8 a.m.!”
7:30 chimed on the immense clock that ornamented the fronton of the governmental lace.
“Hurry up!” said Goldfeller. “The orders have been given. In exa
ctly 30 minutes, it will become dangerous to remain in the streets.”
We only had to cross the plaza to reach the embarkation-point of the elevator by means of which Hernu thought he could ensure his escape after the murder of Rassmuss and the theft of his precious strong-box. To his great surprise, Goldfeller found the little station full of people anxiously occupied in following the gestures of a man who, crouching down on the ground, was attempting the impossible to discover the cause of the inexplicable arrest of the apparatus.
Without a word, the Gem King went on to the platform of the immense elevator; he perceived in a corner the strong-box stolen by Hernu, lifted it up without apparent effort, and came to hand it over the balustrade to me. I staggered under its weight, almost letting the precious burden fall to the ground.
At the sight of the Master of Aeria, a profound silence had followed the hubbub of conversations, and it was that silence, more than anything else, that attracted the attention of the man leaning over the ground and absorbed in his research. He raised his head. I recognized the unwholesome face and arrogant moustache of Hernu.
He leapt to his feet with a single movement and advanced toward Goldfeller. “You’re going to give me the strong-box,” he grated, “or else…”
“The strong-box isn’t yours,” the Gem King replied, calmly. “It’s mine, and I’m taking it back—for you have stolen it from me, after having murdered the man who was in charge of it. For that murder, you will be punished.”
The technician shrugged his shoulders; he turned toward the people who were watching the scene without saying anything, and with a mocking gesture, pointed at Goldfeller.
“Punished!” he jeered. “Punished! You think so? For having killed that old poisoner Rassmuss. Patience! That’s nothing. It’s the beginning of the end. We’ve had enough, you hear. While it was a matter of having a laugh, of striking out at others, it was all right—but the moment we started suffering in our turn and getting shot at, there’s nothing to be done. Go on, be off! You can see that we want to hop it—it’s a matter of getting the elevator moving, and double quick!”
The World Above The World Page 24
