The Enormous Room

by H. L. Gold

  VII

  Tom Watkins awoke slowly. He had a cramp in one arm from sleeping on it,but otherwise he was conscious of a comfortable, healthy feeling, whichtold him he'd slept well and long. He stretched and brushed a few piecesof straw from his face.

  Straw?

  He suddenly remembered sitting down on their platform, very sleepy andworried because of the abruptness of it.

  He sat up. Summersby had just stood, yawning. "Did you carry me inhere?" he asked the big man.

  "I was going to ask you that."

  "Christ! What happened?" He was wholly awake now. "Did you drop off outin the lab?"

  "Yeah."

  "So'd I," said Adam. He was sitting next to the Mexican, whom he nowpushed gently. "You okay, Porfirio?"

  Villa erupted with a grunt. The Fulls were looking at each otherowlishly.

  And then it hit him. Watkins twisted, cased the floor, and saw nothingbut straw and fountain and tree trunks. He was literally staggered, andnearly lost his balance.

  His briefcase was gone!

  He stared about wildly, panic lifting in him like a swift debilitatingdisease. Then he took four fast steps and grabbed Summersby by the coat.It was queer, but he didn't even think of anyone else having taken it.Summersby towered over him, but he could be brought down.

  "Okay, you skyscraper," said Watkins, "where'd you put it?"

  "Put what?"

  "My case! Where is it?"

  "I never touched your damned case."

  Well, Watkins could smell honesty, and here it was. That startledamazement was genuine. He glared at Adam Pierce, Villa, the Fulls. Notthat last pair, surely! As rock-ribbed and staunchly honest as their NewEngland coasts, and about as imaginative. Not the colored boy, either, agood kid; and he didn't think it was Villa.

  "We must have been carried in here by the scientists," said Adamrationally. "Maybe they left it outside."

  That was logical. But he'd had a death-grip on the handle when he fellasleep, just as he always did. He looked at them all again. He went fromwall to wall, kicking the straw. Then he scowled at the sand box, theonly place a thing that size could be stashed away. He was suddenly onhis knees, tossing sand left and right.

  Avoiding certain places, he checked the pile. Nothing! Not a scrap ofleather or a piece of green paper!

  "If you are through," said Villa heavily, "I wish to use the box."

  "Go ahead, Viva." Watkins walked across the room, groping for acigarette, then remembering he had none left. "What happened out there?"he asked loudly. "Were we doped? Something in the chickens?"

  "We were awake for a long time after we ate," said Adam. "Not even thesepeople could make a drug act on six of us in the same minute, after thatlong; too many differences in metabolism. If that's the word I want."

  "They weren't even in the room when we dropped off," said Mrs. Full.

  * * * * *

  That was a tip-off. Watkins momentarily forgot his great loss. "Theyleft, and in a minute, we were asleep. They must have pumped some sortof gas into the lab. Sleep gas."

  "Is there such a thing?" asked Cal. "An anesthetic vapor that wouldpermeate such a large place so quickly?"

  "Is there such a thing as a four dimensional maze?" asked Adam shortly.

  Watkins grinned. He wasn't the only one who needed his morning coffee.

  Then he thought of his briefcase again. He tried to push the moving wallto one side; no go. He got mad again. "It's no good to them," he said."What do they want with it?"

  "It couldn't have been so important that--" began Full.

  "Important?" Watkins was yelling now, and although he disliked raisinghis voice and making scenes, he did it now, with furious pleasure. "Cal,you never saw anything more important in your life than that case, and Idon't care how many blue-ribboned cows you've gaped at!"

  "What was in it?" asked Villa.

  "Money, goddammit, money!" It didn't matter if his secret came out now.In this insane place, God knew where, the cautious habits of half alifetime slid away. "The best haul I'd made this year. The contents ofthe safe of Roscoe & Bates, that's what was in it! Better thantwenty-two thousand in good, green cash!"

  "The contents of a safe?" Calvin Full frowned. "You mean you were amessenger, taking it somewhere, and got on that roller coaster with--"

  Adam Pierce laughed abruptly. "No, he wasn't a messenger," he said. "Hewasn't any messenger. He's a safe-cracker. Mr. Watkins, what good do youthink it'd do you in here?"

  "We'll get back."

  "You're a safe-cracker?" asked Mrs. Full, her pale face lengthening withhorror, disgust, and fear. "A criminal?"

  "In a manner of speaking, ma'am," said Tom Watkins, "I am."

  "I'll be hanged," said Summersby. "And you accused me of stealing yourloot. I ought to butter you all over the wall."

  "You try it, you overgrown galoot. I didn't do a hitch in thePhilippines for nothing." Watkins smoothed back his hair, which wasdangling into his eyes. "Sure, I'm a safe man. Don't worry, Mrs. Full,that doesn't mean I'm a thug." She looked scared.

  "That's right," said Adam, still chuckling. "This boy's the aristocracyof crime. You don't have to worry about your purse. He only plays aroundwith big stuff."

  Tom flipped him a grin. "I'll bet you even know why I was on thecoaster."

  "Sure. You were hiding out."

  "That's it. If I kept out of sight till dark I was okay. They were outfor me, because my touch is known; but who'd think of checking anamusement park?" He turned as Cal made a noise in his throat. TheVermonter was a study in outraged sensibilities.

  "You--you swine," he said, a typical Victorian hero facing themustache-twisting villain. "You stole that money--"

  "My morals and your morals, Cal," said Watkins as genially as he could,"are probably divergent, but it doesn't make a whale of a differencenow, does it?"

  Full turned to his wife and began to mutter to her.

  Villa said, "I don't like crooks, I run a respectable stand and I am anhonest man," and scratching his hand where the healed burn was, heturned away likewise. Summersby was sitting on the tire, and only Adamlooked sympathetic. The boy wasn't crooked, that was plain, but Watkinshad the glamor that a big-time thief has for the young, the fake aura ofRobin-Hoodism.

  He shook his head. He'd had to spill it. For a while they'd trusted himand now he was a pariah.

  The food panel opened and something plumped in. Watkins glanced at hischronograph. Ten o'clock Saturday. He went over to the food.

  It was a big, glossy chocolate-brown vulture with a blue head.

  "Well," said Adam. "Well, now, I don't know."

  "They pulled a boner this time," said Watkins. "Unless it's part of theconditioning."

  Villa picked it up. "It weighs many pounds. It's warm, just killed. Idon't want any of it." He dropped it on the straw. "With my spices,perhaps; but not cooked on that grill, without sauce and spice. Aargh!"

  Watkins thought, Amen to that. He rubbed the sandy bristles on his chin.No razor or soap here. It dawned on him that he was thirsty, and he wentto the fountain. As it always did when he bent over to drink, thecurious web of silver strands in the corner caught his eye. There wereso many puzzles about this damned lab that he despaired of ever solvingall of them.

  After fifteen minutes, the wall opened. They went out, Villa carryingthe vulture. He flung it at the feet of the chief scientist, who wasthere with two associates.

  "No!" he bellowed up at it. "We do not eat this!" He articulated slowly,clearly, as though to a foreigner with a slim knowledge of English. Itpicked up the great bird and regarded it closely, then without warningthrew it at one of the other giants.

  The vulture caught it on the side of the head and knocked it offbalance; falling to its knees, it bleated out an angry sound and divedfor the boss' legs. They went down together in a gargantuan scrimmagethat made the humans dance backward to avoid being smashed by the thickswinging arms.

  Tom Watkins walked off, unim
peded, to look for his briefcase. It wasnowhere in the lab. He cursed bitterly. Twenty-two grand, up the spout.

  The head scientist, having chastised the other, left the room; Watkinshad a glimpse of another fully as large, with something like a big tabletherein. Shortly the creature returned, carrying in one arm a load ofwood chips, and in the other a bulgy, leathery thing that turned out tobe a partially stunned octopus, still dripping the waters of an unknownocean.

  They killed it, rebuilt their grill (larger this time), and cut up theoctopus and cooked and ate it. It wasn't as bad as Watkins had feared.

  After a dragging day, they were locked into their box--no one had achance to gimmick the wall, for the giant were watching themclosely--and shortly afterward a load of raw vegetables was dumped in.

  Watkins paced the floor after he had eaten, waiting for the sleep gas,determined to combat it if he could. When the drowsiness came, he walkedfaster. It didn't do any good. He knew he was sinking to the floor.Powerful stuff, he said to himself, very powerful st--

  * * * * *

  Mrs. Full kept close to Calvin all through Sunday. They had been heresince Thursday, all these men without women, and she knew there were menwho had to have women frequently or they became vicious and could not bestopped by any thought of consequences. The Mexican seemed all right,but you never knew with a person from a Latin country.

  Another facet of the same problem was the fact that she and Calvin weresupposed to be on their honeymoon. She faced it: she was frustrated. Shewanted a honeymoon, no matter what sort of prison they were in. So aftertheir first meal on Sunday, she asked Calvin to fix up a privateapartment in their prison.

  With various materials, plastic blocks and the different sizes of slabs,and some screens of translucent fabric she had dug up in a corner, hemade a walled-off compartment just large enough for two.

  Then one of the scientists looked in, saw what he was doing, andpromptly knocked it down.

  Adam, who had been helping in the latter stages, squinted at the ceilingof the box. "You know, Mrs. Full, I think they can see us through that.If it's opaque to us, it still might be transparent to them; like amirror, I mean, I've seen them at home, mirror on one side, window fromthe other. That'd explain the light we get in here. And if they want toobserve us all the time, then this private cell of yours would make 'emmad."

  "But _it_ had no roof," she objected.

  "That's right." He shook his head. "Another theory gone poof."

  "I'll build it again," said Calvin stubbornly, and did so. This time thegiants left it alone. He and Adam made a screen for the sand box too,and built a permanent grill on one side of the box.