Page:Astounding Science Fiction (1950-01).djvu/54

 morning. The guard would be down at the corner having doughnuts and coffee.

He had a pistol in his pocket when he went over the fence. A pistol, a small flashlight, cigarettes and matches, a wallet with money in it but no identification.

There was barbed wire at the top. Tredel ripped his clothes, tore a gash in his arm. Then he was moving cautiously, yet swiftly, across the yard, dimly lit, toward the warehouse.

He'd never seen the big door that led to the docks closed. They were always slid all the way back, leaving the ramps and dock and conveyor belt clearly visible, easily accessible.

He went that way, because that way was in, and in fast. He made a half-jump, half-roll, that took him from the bottom of the descending ramp to the top of the dock. He kept rolling, until he was far back, beyond the dark shadows and in the blackness.

Then he lay there, breathing hard, heart pounding from the exertion but not quieting down. Pumping and breathing to the strain of listening, waiting, and trying to be calm, quiet.

Five minutes, then ten. There was nothing. Nothing except himself in the blackness of the dock. Even then he was telling himself he was a fool. This was too far to have gone on his own. Long before this he should have brought others in, left it to them. This was no place for him. He'd go back, get help.

When he was quiet, he went ahead.

He'd watched the unloading, seen how the place worked. Trucks backed up to the dock, unloaded their cargo. There was an endless belt at the middle of the dock, disappearing into a six-foot square hole in the wall that separated the dock from the rest of the warehouse.

He heard it running now. It always ran, day and night, whether trucks were unloading or not.

Tredel had expected another way into the warehouse. Known there must be one on the dock, out of sight from his watching point. There had to be doors, perhaps at the end of the dock, so that he could get in without going the same way the endless belt did.

There weren't.

He got on the belt, because that was the only way. Just got on the belt and let it carry him, for sure, where he wanted to go. He crouched on it, kneeling, pistol drawn now, feeling little sense of movement, little vibration to the belt as he was carried into the warehouse, into the darkness, away from the light.

Tredel was prepared for almost anything, without having any idea as to what he might expect. He had thought, that, eventually he would get into where the lights were probably burning, and there would be men to handle the boxes—and him.

He seemed to be in a tunnel. Absolute blackness, but he could sense the walls and ceiling, close to him, 54