Operation Earthworm

by Joe Archibald

the inside of the Earth is ashot as a Venutian calypso number, and that gases are being generated bythe heat and that we haven't volcanoes enough on the surface to allowthem to escape.

  Exmud R. Zmorro comes and asks me if I have an opinion.

  "Ha," I laugh. "I have many on file in the Neuropsychiatorium. Just goand take your pick. However, I will give you one ad lib and sub rosa.There is more downstairs than Professor Zalpha dreams about. Who is heto say there is no civilization in inner space as well as outer? How dowe know that there is not a globe inside a globe with some kind of spaceor atmosphere in between?"

  Exmud R. Zmorro says thanks and leaves in quite a hurry. I snap off thegadget and head for my rocket jeep, and fifteen seconds later I amwalking into the factory where a hundred citizens are already at work onthe inner spaceship. It is listing a little to port from the quake butthe head mech says it will be all straightened out in a few hours. Itis just a skeleton ship at the moment with the auger already in placeand the point about three feet into the ground.

  D'Ambrosia Zahooli comes in and says he has been to see CommanderBizmuth Aquinox. "He will give just enough of the atom pile for seventymillion miles," he says. "And only enough superhydrogenerated radium topush us twenty million miles, Sep. I think we should write to NumberOne. I explained to the space brass that we have got to come up againafter going down and have to reverse the blast tubes. It is radium wehave to have to make the return trip. I says a half a pound would do it.You know what I think? I bet they don't believe we'll ever git back. Andwas their laughs dirty!"

  "Skeptics have lived since the beginnin' of time," I scoff. "Theylaughed at Leonardo da Vinci, Columbus, Edison, a guy named Durante.Even the guy who first sat down at a pianer. We will take what we cangit, pal, and then come back and laugh at them."

  "I wish you was more convincin'," D'Ambrosia says. "I haveclaustrophobia and would hate to git stuck in an over-sized fountain penhalfway to the middle of this earth."

  "Hand me those plans," I says sharply. "And stop scarin' me."

  Three months later we have it made. Technicians come from four planetsto look at the Magnificent Mole. The area is alive with members of theInterplanetary Press, the Cosmic News Bureau, and the Universe FeatureService. Two perspiring citizens arrive and tear up two insurancepolicies right in front of my eyes. An old buddy of mine in the waragainst the Nougatines says he wants to go with me. His name is AxitopeWurpz. He has been flying cargo between Earth and Parsnipia and says heis quite unable to explain certain expense items in his book. AParsnipian D.A. is trying to serve him a subpoena.

  "You are in, Axie," I says. "A crew of three is enough as that is aboutall the oxygen we can store up. Meet D'Ambrosia Zahooli."

  "Why is he wearing a mask?" Wurpz quips.

  "You are as funny as a plutonium crutch," Zahooli says.

  "No hard feelin's," Wurpz says, and takes a small flask out of hispocket. "We will drink to Operation Earthworm."

  As might have been expected, we run into some snags. The EuthanasiaSociety serve us with papers as they maintain nobody can commit suicidein the year 2022 without permission from the Board. Gulflex and otheroil companies protest to Number One as they say we might open up a holethat will spill all the petroleum out of the earth all at once, so fastthey couldn't refine it. A spark could ignite it and set the globe onfire like it was a brandied Christmas pudding. But then anotherearthquake shakes Earth from the rice fields of China to the llamas inPeru just when it looks as if we were about to be tossed into an outerspace pokey.

  The seismologists get together and agree that they can't possibly figureout the depth of the focus and state that the long waves have to passthrough the epicenter or some such spot underground. Anyway, all thebrass agrees that something is going on in inner space not according toHoyle or Euclid or anybody else and that we three characters might justhit on something of scientific value.

  The Magnificent Mole is built mostly of titanium, a metal which is onlyabout half as heavy as steel and twice as rugged. It is not quite as bigin diameter as the auger, for if it was any Martian moron knows we wouldscrape our sides away before we got down three miles. We storeconcentrated chow to last six months and get the acceleration couchesready. We are to blast down at eighteen point oh-four hours, Friday, May26th, 2022. Today is Wednesday. The big space brass, the fourteenthestate haunt the spot marked X.

  We get it both barrels from the jokers carrying press cards. They callit Operation Upside Down. At last three characters were really going todig a hole and pull it in after them. Three hours before Dig-day, ExmudR. Zmorro interviews us. We are televised around the orbit.

  "Laying all joking aside, Spink," the news analyst says dolefully, "youdon't expect this to work."

  "Of courst!" I says emphatically. "You forget the first man to reach NewMu was a Spink. A Spink helped Columbus wade ashore in the West Indies.The first man to invent a road-map all citizens could unfold andunderstand was a Spink."

  Zmorro turns to Zahooli and Wurpz. "Don't ask us anythin'!" they yelp inunison. "You would only git a silly answer."

  "A world inside of a world you said once, Spink. Ha--"

  "Is that impossible? You have seen those ancient sailing ships builtinside of a bottle, Mr. Zmorro," I says.

  He paws at his dome and takes a hyperbenzadrine tablet. "Well, thankyou, Septimus Spink. And have a good trip."

  It is Friday. We climb up the ladder and into the Magnificent Mole."Check everything," I says to Wurpz. "You are the sub-strataastrogator."

  "Rogeria. I hope this worm can turn," Wurpz says.

  * * * * *

  Zahooli checks the instruments. We don't put on space suits, but have apressure chamber built in to insure against the bends. I wave good-byeto the citizens outside and close the door.

  "I have got to git out," D'Ambrosia Zahooli says and heads for the door."I forgot somethin'."

  "Huh?"

  "I forgot to resign," he says, and I pull a disintegrator Betsy on himand tell him to hop back to the controls.

  "Awright, we have computed the masses of fuel we need. Stand by for thetakeoff--er, takedown. Eight seconds. Seven--Six--Five--Four--"

  "I know now my mother raised one idiot," Zahooli says.

  "Three seconds--two seconds--one second!" I go on. "Awright, unload thepile in one and three tubes! Then when we have gone about five hundredmiles, give us the radium push."

  Whir-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-o-o-om! The Mole shudders like a citizen lookingat his income tax bite and then starts boring. There is a big brightlight all around us, changing color every second, then there is a soundlike all the pneumatomic drills in all the universe is biting through athousand four-inch layers of titanium plate. And with it is a rumble ofthunder from all the electric storms since the snake bit Cleopatra. Inless than five seconds we turn on the oxygen just in case, and I jump tothe instrument panel and look at the arrow on a dial.

  "Hey," I yell, "we are makin' a thousand miles per hour through theground!"

  "Don't look through the ports," Wurpz says. "In passin' I saw anangleworm three times the size of a firehose, and a beetle big enough tosaddle."

  "Git into the compression chamber quick," I says to him. "You aregettin' hallucinations."

  I turn on the air conditioning as it gets as humid in the Mole as in theAmazon jungle during the dog days. The boring inner spaceship startsscreeching like a banshee.

  I look at the instrument panel again and see we are close to being seventhousand miles down, and all at once the gauges show we are out ofenergy. I look out the port and see a fish staring in at me, and a crabwith eyes like two poached eggs swimming in ketchup.

  Then we are going through dirt again and all of a sudden we come out ofit and I see a city below us all lit up and the buildings are made ofstuff that looks like jade run through with streaks of black.

  The Mole drops down about a thousand more feet and then hits the floorof the subterranean city and we land like a fountain pen with its
pointslammed into the top of a lump of clay. Bo-o-o-o-i-ing! We twang like aplucked harp string for nearly five minutes and I hit my noggin againstthe pilot's seat.

  When I pick up my marbles I look around for either an Elysium field or aslag heap but instead a creep is staring down at me. He looks part humanand part beetle and has a face the color of the meat of an avocado. Hishead is shaped like a pear standing on its stem and has two eyes spacedabout six inches apart and they are as friendly as those of a spittingcobra irked by hives. He is about four feet tall and has two pairs ofarms. I guess I am still a little delirious or I would not have toldthe thing he would make a swell