by Perry Rhodan
They were making progress, which served to bolster their spirits. After many long hours of incessant labor the makeshift rope was finally ready. For a weight to tie to the end of it, Ez Rykher donated one of his space boots.
He insisted upon it with a typical argument: "How many of you city slickers have ever gone barefooted? Not a one! As for me-for many a year it was every summer for months at a stretch. So?"
The next thing was to test the- rope's strength. A trial tug of war ensued, with Richard and Trenton on one end of it and Tony and Ez on the other. Dynah's expert knots held firm. If the lamp's suspension cord were equally strong they would be -able to climb up without danger of a sudden drop.
It was time to make the rope throw.
They had thought they had the most difficult part of their task behind them but this operation proved to be a greater challenge. It took them awhile to even gauge the height of the throws. The boot clanked a number of times against the lamp, which indicated that its holder was made of metal, and each time the smoking flame flickered ominously. At each throw they held their breaths because if the lamp went out they could forget the whole idea.
Only after many efforts, when their arms were aching from repeated attempts, they struck an obstacle somewhere above the lamp itself. They saw the boot whirl around as the rope struck against something, and Ez let out a whoop of joy. But then the boot seemed to change its mind and it fell back again to the floor. When Ez became silent, Dynah began to cry.
In spite of everything, however, they had come a long way. Now they knew that there was a grappling point above the lamp and all they had to do was develop a proper throwing technique so that the boot would wrap the rope a few times around the lamp's suspension line.
"Maybe we'd all better take a break first," Richard decided. "I think we could use it."
"OK," grumbled Ez Rykher grimly, "but first I'm going to give it one more try. That lousy lamp's getting to me!"
Impelled by his fit of anger, he grasped the home made rope about three feet behind the boot. Stretching his right arm out high and wide, he swung the boot around his head a couple of times until it had built up the right momentum. Then with a quick lift of his head he swung the boot upward and let go. Richard saw the boot shoot past the lamp and disappear into the darkness above it. Ez thought he heard a faint scraping sound but didn't pay much attention to it. He was staring upward to see what place the boot would fall back from.
Then Rykher let out a sudden wild cry that seemed alien to his age and mannerism. "It's up there! By God, we did it!"
• • •
Suddenly all thought of a rest was forgotten. Richard had to shove everybody back from the rope as there was a general tendency to grasp it eagerly. If it had caught on something somehow, then they had to go easy with it.
At first he pulled on it carefully with one hand. Above them the lamp began to sway, which was a good sign that the rope was caught on a suspension line somewhere. It seemed to be well-anchored because it did not yield when Richard pulled on it with both hands, using all his strength. Finally he even jumped upward and clung to it, swinging above the floor and completely supported by it. Nothing happened.
The rope was fast!
Richard claimed the prerogative of being the first to go up and he decided that Tony Laughlin should follow him-with good reason. If they should be surprised up above by the Ghamese, they had to be ready to defend themselves with their fists, and the best-trained fists in the group happened to be those of Richard and Tony.
Richard found it comparatively easy to climb the first nine or 10 feet because Dynah's knots provided many good handholds. But then he began to sense the fatigue in his arms. He locked his feet on a knot in order to rest his arms for awhile and then, gritting his teeth, he continued climbing.
Finally he was a scant three feet under the lamp and he could see that beyond it the dungeon walls tapered abruptly inward, leaving one small opening that was hardly a meter in diameter. Richard couldn't make out what was inside the opening.
It was not too difficult to get past the lamp itself. It was framed in the shape of a 3-foot wheel of metal. Four spokes led from the outer rim to the center where the actual flame was housed. Richard saw an oily basin in the hub, from which a burning wick protruded.
He was able to stand on the wheel rim and grasp the chain that held it. He rested awhile with the lamp frame swinging wildly back and forth under his weight. Then he grasped the rough links of the chain and climbed higher.
When he reached the place where the rope had been caught by the chain he came within a hair of losing his grip. The boot had only made a 3-quarter turn around the chain, and apparently all that had held Richard was his own weight on the rope, which was all that had kept it snagged over the toe of the boot. He was dizzied by the thought of what might have happened if the rope had slipped over the end of the boot at any moment. It would have been a pretty severe fall.
After unfastening the rope, he swung it and the boot around his neck and then climbed the rest of the way up to the opening. He had no difficulty in getting over the edge of the hole onto a solid stone floor but once safely inside his strength left him for awhile. He lay down and gave his body a chance to recover from its cramped stiffness.
Only then did he firmly fasten the rope so that the others would not have to fear it would come loose. Tony came up swiftly, followed by Ez. Then it was not very difficult to haul up Lyn Trenton and Dynah.
The room over the dungeon had roughly the same diameter but its ceiling was considerably lower. While Dynah was still untying herself from the rope, Richard was already examining the walls. It did not require much skill to locate the door because nobody had taken pains to conceal it. Apparently the Ghamese had considered their prison to be absolutely secure. The door was suspended by three wooden hinges of somewhat grotesque dimensions. It had a simple locking bolt which apparently worked in the same manner outside as in. Richard cautiously lifted the bolt and sought to move the door. It moved heavily on its hinges. Immediately he closed it again and replaced the bolt, waiting for everybody to be ready at once for the breakout.
It came to Richard in that moment that their attempt was actually rather hopeless. This city was under water, deep below the surface of the sea. There were exit locks, of course, and for a Ghamese it would be no particular task to swim up to the surface without any kind of equipment. Also, if he wanted to use a more convenient method he could use one of the submersible boats. But for Terrans there could be only this latter choice. They were not capable of swimming up through 30 or 40 fathoms of water unaided. It meant they would have to steal a boat from the Ghamese before the pursuit began and that they'd also have to learn how to operate it without any loss of time. This prospect seemed to offer little chance of success.
There was still a 3rd alternative: through the airshafts that connected the city with the upper world. Although the Ghamese had both lungs and gills they chose to live in a gaseous atmosphere. However, Richard doubted that such a route would be negotiable. The shafts probably extended upward vertically and had no provisions for climbing them.
When everyone had gathered closely behind him, Richard carefully opened the door. It squeaked frightfully in its hinges and he hesitated awhile, fearful that somebody on the outside might hear it. But then he saw what was out there and the spectacle caused him to throw caution to the winds.
There was a passage or street of some kind that slanted gently upward from left to right and which was only illuminated by a dim greenish twilight glow. But directly across from him, only a few meters away, was the hideous skull of a tremendous sea monster. It stared at him curiously and started to open its mouth, which was as big as a barn door. It was as though the sight of the humans had stirred up its appetite.
Richard shot through the door, dove to his right and then threw himself instinctively to the ground. The monster moved to attack, approaching him with uncanny swiftness. Dynah screamed loudly while at the same in
stant a thunderous shock of impact ran through the street-like passage. Richard turned on his side in time to see the weird sea giant swim off into the darkness with a lazy movement of its huge fins.
He sat up. After all-that was sea water. What the devil! How could this passage be dry when some whalish creature was swimming out there?
Ez Rykher suddenly started to laugh in his carping sort of way.
"It's a trick illusion, Dick!" he exclaimed. "That critter was playing games with us. He knew there was a glass wall between us-only we didn't know it!"
Almost as if walking in a dream, Richard slowly crossed the passage to the other side. He had to hold his hands out in front of him because the glass was literally invisible. He didn't know where it was until his hands collided with it.
This was a kind of glass that Richard had never encountered before. It was completely transparent and free of reflections. There was no way in which the material could be seen by any normal means. It was the ultimate material for windows and it was a Ghamese product Richard and his companions were staring out into the ocean depths through a transparency that extended the whole length of the street-like passage. Or at least it extended as far as they could see.
Close overhead was a stone ceiling that joined the glass wall. The glass-walled street passage made a slight ascent to their right ahead of them and disappeared around a curve. The inner wall of the structure was also of stone, in which there were doors at evenly spaced intervals.
It was a strange situation, alien and weird, in fact. None of them had ever seen anything like it. It finally dawned on them that they were in a place where human feet had never ventured before: 40 or 50 fathoms beneath the surface of an alien sea, in a glass-walled avenue of a unique city of amphibious fishmen.
Richard seemed to sense the emanation of something ominous in the silent stones of the ponderous structure. He looked around several times, expecting at any moment to see one of the ponderous doors swing open before a hostile horde of Ghamese. But nothing happened. The undersea avenue remained undisturbed.
He had a presentiment that the deserted aspect of the place might have something to do with the giant fish creature who had made such a fool of him. He knew that there were aquatic monsters in the oceans of Ghama which filled the natives of the planet with an instinctive and panicky fear. He considered it possible that the Ghamese in the area may have taken to their heels at the sight of the giant sea denizen. It might explain why this section of the street passage was empty of any local traffic.
Richard knew they had to go on. They couldn't just stand where they were. He could sense his own rising nervousness and apparently the others were in the same mood.
"Let's go!" he said suddenly, in an attempt to appear vigorous and confident. "We have to head for the surface. Somewhere we'll find a lock and a boat."
He started off, leading the way. He hoped that after he rounded the curve up ahead he would get a clearer picture of what was going on and why this passage was so ominously quiet but this hope was not realized. Actually, there wasn't any curve, as such. That had only been an illusion. The passage merely described a slow, constant arc so that from any given point one's range of vision along its extent was limited to some 15 or 20 meters.
After marching along for about a quarter of an hour they began to notice for the first time since they had emerged from their dungeon that the air they were breathing was not quite suited to them. They had long since ceased to pay much attention to its oily fish odor but now in addition they realized that it was poor in oxygen content. They broke out in sweat and often had to rest in order to recover from a dizziness that was slowly creeping over them.
At times Richard thought he heard noises up ahead somewhere but each time he would stop to listen he found he had been deceived. The deathly silence continued-with the exception of their dragging footsteps.
The left wall of the passage was made up of one long window after another, which were only interrupted here and there by brief stretches of massive stone masonry. The glass panels must have been tremendously thick to withstand the awful pressure of these depths but in spite of this their factor of light distortion remained zero.
The strange way continued to curve before them and in the stone wall to their right the fugitives continued to encounter the ponderous, silent doors. Richard was tempted to open one of them to see what lay behind it but decided that it was more important to continue onward and try to find a way out of the city.
After they had continued in this manner for half an hour they gathered the impression that during this time they must have completed a circle, if not more. The city appeared to be built on a plan like the Tower of Babel, having one passage on the outer wall that ascended like a spiral.
A few minutes after that the inner stone wall of the passage altered its appearance. Now the monotonous masonry was broken by a series of windows also. Of course they were smaller than the sweeping thick panes that separated the city from the sea and they didn't have the same marvelously smooth clarity, yet they were transparent enough to permit a view of what lay in the interior rooms behind them. Inside they could see a confusing maze of objects which were totally unfamiliar to Richard and his companions and which seemed to have lain there for a long period of time.
Then the passage became wider and higher. Richard slowed his pace cautiously. A warning presentiment assailed him when he perceived that a kind of plaza or square lay before him which opened inward to his right, into the main structure of the city. It was completely empty. The dim light filtering in from the sea was sufficient to enable him to see where the passage narrowed again to the width of the avenue they had been following.
He kept hard right and next to the stone wall, which gave him a sense of security. He would not have crossed the center of the plaza for anything in the world, no matter how much time it might have saved him and it appeared that the others were of the same opinion.
Lyn Trenton muttered, "Something smells fishy here... and I mean that literally. I'll bet you the local inhabitants are hiding somewhere close by and are watching us."
Richard would have preferred that he hadn't expressed this fear. It matched his own presentiments exactly but for Dynah's sake it would have been better if he'd kept his mouth shut. He had turned to look back at the girl several times and he knew she was at the end of her stamina, both physically and mentally.
He stopped to let Ez and Tony pass him and then he went to her. "If you want to we could take a rest before going on," he suggested.
She shook her head almost too vehemently, it seemed to him. "Not on my account," she answered stubbornly. "I can still make it a little farther."
Ez was in the lead now and he moved forward at a faster pace than Richard. The square seemed sinister to him and he wanted to get it behind him as quickly as possible. Within five minutes they had reached the middle of it-that is, halfway along one wall-and under the new pace Ez was setting they were relieved to see the opposite continuation of the passage draw nearer swiftly.
"We'll soon be there," Ez growled, half aloud. "I'll be glad when we-"
He got no further.
It was then that it happened, Doors flew open. Hinges squeaked raucously and the pattering of naked feet was heard on the stone floor. Swarms of the small, oily-skinned little brown Ghamese streamed outward from openings in the wall of the city. They spoke not a word, apparently operating under an agreed plan of action. No one came close to the Terrans. The ones that had emerged from doors ahead of the Earthmen occupied the street opening across the plaza and those who had emerged behind them blockaded the passage they had come from.
Richard and his companions were surrounded! And then suddenly the giant stepped into the arena. He was the last one to emerge from one of the doorways, being forced to duck down as he entered in order not to bump his head. He was wearing some close-fitting synthetic clothing that was in modern contrast to the primitive loincloths of the Ghamese inhabitants and in his hand was an impos
ing energy weapon. His wide face was framed by a fiery red beard and when he began to speak his voice resounded like thunder through the square.
"Welcome, Terrans! I see you troubled to get up here on your own. That saves us a lot of bother. Otherwise we would have had to fish you out of your hole down below. He spoke Interkosmo and the way he gloated in amusement over his victims was the typical characteristic of a Springer. The beard and powerful structure were merely incidental proofs of his identity.
There was no way out.
"Come on! Be my guests!" scoffed the bearded giant. "You'll be as comfortable here in this wonderful city as you would at home!"
Richard could only stand there with his jaws clamped shut, on the verge of gnashing his teeth. He noted that Ez was watching him questioningly along with Tony and Lyn Trenton.
"Go to him!" he almost gritted, half under his breath. "Don't try anything with him. I'll try to get help!"
He had no idea of how he might keep such a promise. There were a number of doors in their vicinity but he didn't even know if he could reach one of them before the Springer fired, aside from whether or not the door he chose would have an exit behind it.
But he was going to attempt it.
Ez understood his plan. He shrugged his shoulders and walked toward the waiting Springer in an apparent mood of resignation. After some hesitation, Tony followed him and then finally Lyn brought up the rear.
It was at that moment that the Springer assumed he had won and he relaxed his alertness.
It was also the moment when Richard Silligan made a mighty leap to one side and started running for the nearest door.
7/ FRANTIC FUGITIVES
Relay 14 to Ghama Station: Expect delivery in 34 hours. Over...
Ghama Station to Relay 14: That's dragging it out. It will be a tight schedule here. Over and out...
• • •
For about the 10th time in the past four days, Larry repeated his question: "So you're not going to tell me why you shipped that Lidiok out of here?"
