Page:Astounding Science Fiction (1950-01).djvu/36

 Because of his father's choice of electronics, he had the opportunity to step onto a road—

The three-year chase was over. The trap was sprung.

In the darkness, dark as he had never before known it, Jim Tredel managed a grin, now that his fear was gone. That blinding, instinctive fear had been replaced, slowly, by the certainty of death, close at hand. Fear could no longer be used as a stimulus that might aid escape, and had given way to resignation.

It had been fear, though. Or more—shocking, numbing terror. Then he realized that for three years his mind had been preparing him, slowly, for a climax that must terrify him. Hardly any move he had made, hardly any discovery that had come to him in those three years, but now seemed almost designed to prepare him to be afraid, when at last there should be something to fear.

Why bother, now, to decide his mistake? The immediate error, of course, had been stepping into the hall. It had looked like all the others he'd traversed so carefully, moving slowly, ever alert for an alarm system. It was ten feet wide, ten feet high, like the others, and appeared to be about a hundred feet long.

Jim Tredel had stepped into it, cautiously, going forward slowly. He was three steps on his way when the darkness came, suddenly, without sound.

At first he thought the lights were gone. Then he realized that, behind him, where the opening had been, was now a wall. In front of him, where the passage seemed so clear, there was another wall. That was when he knew the fear, when he realized the trap was sprung, and he was in it.

He lit a match, after a few minutes, when he was sure his hand was steady. Ten feet wide, and ten feet high, this hall had been. Now its length was also ten feet. Each of the six sides was of metal, smooth, polished, with neither break nor opening, with no glint of light from outside, nor breath of air. Lightproof, air-tight, and, if it mattered, probably soundproofed as well.

Even in a melodrama it would have been perfect. From this time on, anything could happen. A wall could advance to squeeze the life from him. Water could be let in to drown him. Heat or cold could be used to—

Whatever the method, one of those, dozen of others, his lack of future could be assured by his captors without ever letting him out of the trap, until they were sure he would be no further trouble to them. They would not even hear his screams. He was quite certain he would scream, protesting the removal of a life he had come to enjoy.

They would take that life, surely. That had been plain from the start. Almost three years before, he had known that, if he ever slipped— And he had slipped, badly.

Perhaps it had been merely 36