Page:Astounding Science Fiction (1950-01).djvu/55

 stretching behind and before him, hemming him in without recourse, taking him deeper into—he didn't know what.

Then, there was light ahead. He shifted his position on the belt, first to one side, then the other. About six feet between walls, the belt taking up the entire width of the tunnel. He would have to wait, prepared, until he came to the light. Then he would start walking backwards, trying to remain in one place so he could look into the light and see what was there before he himself went in. There was no room to get off the belt. Fie had to stay on. It must have been moving much faster than he thought. It was almost, for the moment, as though he had dozed. There was no time to prepare. Suddenly, so suddenly it hurt his eyes, he was out of the black tunnel, in the light.

He was a pigeon on the belt, he knew that. He was off in one quick motion, not pausing to see where he would fall.

It was eight feet from the surface of the belt to the hard, smooth floor on which he landed, and the breath left him in a grunt. He wasn't stiff, his muscles let go, his joints took some of the strain, then folded, so that he was almost in a ball. Fie rolled like that, then straightened out so he rolled sideways and lost his momentum.

It was luck, wild luck, impossible luck. The warehouse was empty.

Warehouse!

Twenty, thirty, forty warehouses such as he was looking for could he put inside this place. He stared upwards at the ceiling, hundreds of feet above him, then looked to the far walls, a thousand or more feet from him.

Then he rolled again, so that he was under the belt. Small protection—

The belt was going only one way. It was coming into the—room? What was it? The belt was coming in, but there was no return. An endless belt going one way only.

There was a lot to think about, now. Now that it was too late even to begin to think. There was no use starting with the obvious fact that he was in too deep.

What, Tredel wondered, had he thought he was up against?

He knew it was something big. The biggest thing in the country outside of the government itself. Blit he hadn't thought too much, after all, for he had been against only one phase at a time. There had been no sign of counteraction. It was as though he had been against the vari ous segments of an intricate machine, but one that was blind, letting him inspect it at his will, with no powers against him.

There had always been the feeling of menace, but menace without form or shape.

Now—

It couldn't be a secret movement. One with enough followers to support this, would have enough believers to man their own factories. NOT TO BE OPENED—