The Onslaught from Rigel/Chapter XVI

Chapter XVI: A Dash for Freedom
They stood before the big machine. “You must do exactly as I tell you,” the Lassan informed him. “The machinery of this instrument is very delicate. First, to enter, you must reach up there, by that fin, and insert one of your fingers in the hole you will find.”

As he did so Sherman saw a door, so closely fitted that when it closed there was no visible seam in the metal, swing back. They entered.

The interior of the machine was disappointingly smaller than its outside would have led one to expect. A narrow walk, railed on both sides, led down the center to the forward part. Along and slightly below this walk was a row of instrument boards not unlike those of the mining machine, and at each of these one of the ape-men lay, helmet on head, apparently asleep. “No, not asleep,” the Lassan told him, “they do not require it, like all our mechanical servants. They have merely been thrown into a state of nothingness till we need them.”

At the prow of the machine the cat-walk widened into a control chamber. One of the Lassan couches was here and above it dangled a helmet which was connected with those of the slumbering ape-men. The Lassan removed the helmet he wore and exchanged it for this. Before this was another seat in which Sherman took his position. A complex of controls surrounded him, most of them with the fingerholes which were the ordinary Lassan method of handling machinery. Directly in front of this seat was a ground-glass panel, now dark but which lit up as soon as the Lassan had connected up his helmet, to give an accurate picture of the hall in which the fighting machine stood.

“And can you see to a distance?” Sherman wondered. The answer he received was either confused or beyond his comprehension. He gathered that the four-winged birds of the Lassans acted in some way or other as their scouts, remaining in a kind of telepathic communication with the Lassan in the fighting-machine they were assigned to help…

Sherman was surprised to find how readily the enormous bulk and weight of the thing handled under the Lassan's skilled control. He understood, without definitely asking, that the power was furnished by that “substance of life” to which the Lassan had referred; in some way connected with the absolute destruction of matter…

The door swung open before them, leading them down a passage that went up for some distance, then through an immense room where some twenty more of these giants lay stored, through it, and with surprising suddenness into the bright sunlight of a Catskill autumn day. As they emerged the viewing plate swung round to show them three of the big four-winged birds go whirring up from some unseen covert, spiral into the air above them and flying level with them, form an escort.

Like most mail aviators, Sherman held a commission in the Army Reserve and had been to West Point. It was not difficult for him to guide the great fighting machine there, to find a field gun and ammunition and load it into the fighting machine. He knew very little about artillery of any kind, but when they returned to the door of the Lassan city, he was enough of a mechanic to get the shell into the breech and find the firing mechanism. The gun went off with an earsplitting crack and the shell whistled down the valley to burst against a green hillside where they saw a graceful pine dip and fall to the shock.

And just at that moment such a sense of disturbance and alarm invaded Sherman's mind as he had never felt before. He looked around; the group of Lassans who had poured out of the city to see the experiment with the gun was gathered in a tight knot, eagerly conversing with one another. The old Lassan who was conducting him turned round abruptly. “Into the fighting-machine at once,” he commanded. “Our birds have sent a message that they are being attacked by some strange creature of your world.”

As Sherman climbed through the door of the fighting machine he glanced over his shoulder to see, far down the valley a black speck against the sky. An airplane? he wondered and it suddenly occurred to him that however great his thirst for information, he should have kept his knowledge of guns from the Lassans; for if there were other people alive out there in the world the day might come when it would be a battle—and explosives were as new to the Lassans as the light-ray to the children of men.

After that it became a struggle.

Sherman found he had to be constantly on his guard; constantly he had to conceal knowledge from the probing, insistent mind-helmets. The Lassans seemed interested in only one subject now: human methods of making war, human guns, human armor, human ships. Once they brought him an encyclopedia and as he held it on his lap went over every word of the articles on military subjects, questioning and cross-questioning him. Fortunately, it was an old encyclopedia, and he knew so little about it that in most cases he was able to throw open his mind and let his opponents see that it lay empty on these subjects. And still they were not satisfied.

Yet if he gave information, he also received it; for little by little an understanding of the subtle material they called pure light became part of his mental equipment…

One day, as he returned from a long session in the questioning room and his cage clicked into position behind him, he was startled by a cheery, strident voice:

“Well, well, if it isn't my old pal, Herbie. How's the boy?”

Sherman looked around. In the next cage was Marta Lami, grinning and extending her hand through the bars.

“For Heaven's sake!” he said, and took the offered hand. “How did you get here?”

“How does anyone get anywhere around this place? In one of those patent Fords of theirs.”

They gazed at each other for a moment, too glad of a familiar face to make the ordinary banal remarks. The dancer spoke first:

“Well, did they put the screws on you, big boy? They tried to pump me about that accident but all I'd think about was how good Broadway would look with all the lights, and they didn't make much out of me.”

“I'll say they put the screws on me. They've had me in there every day since, trying to find out something about guns.”

“Guns? What t'hell! Ain't they got that light-ray? They could give cards and spades to all the guns in the world with that. Wait a minute, though…” She thought for a moment. “Do you know, I think they're scared yellow about something and I'll bet a hundred dollars against a case of bathtub gin I know what it is.”

“Yeh? Spring it. They keep pumping me and I'd like to know what it's all about.”

The dancer glanced around. On the far side of her cage was an inattentive ape-man tossing his oil-ball about, across the corridor another. “Come over here,” she said. “They haven't put me next to you for the fun of it, and they may have a dictaphone stuck around somewhere.”

Obediently Sherman approached the bars of the cage.

“They put me to work making those fighting-machines,” she whispered, “you know, those big shiny things like we hid behind that day we tried to make the break. They had the helmets on me most of the time because I didn't know how to use their tools and machines and I got a lot of what the guy that was running me was thinking about. He was damn nervous about something, and I think it was because there are some people outside going to take a whack at these babies.”

“People like—us?” asked Sherman.

“I don't know. I didn't get it very good, but I think they're ordinary flesh-and-blood people. They came and got a lot of the dopeys from the room where I lived the other day and put them in one of the new fighting-machines and took it out. It never came back.”

“Mmm,” said Sherman, “do you s'pose that was because it got cracked up or because they took it somewhere else?”

“Dunno. But something's stirring.”

If the Lassans had set a dictaphone or some similar device to spy on them there was no sign of it in the conversation which Sherman's interrogator held with him during the next period. But when he saw the dancer again, she beckoned him silently to her side, and producing from one of her drawers a book, began to trace letters on it with a fingernail dipped in grease.

“Be careful what you say,” she wrote. “''They know what we're talking about. They pumped me.''”

He nodded. “Well, kid,” he said aloud. “What do you think? Will you ever make dancers of these Lassans?”

She giggled her appreciation of this remark for their unseen audience. “I'll say I won't. They're too slow on their pins. Rather sit still and suck up that green gooey than do anything. Cheez! What would I give for some good music.”

“If I had a hand-organ now—” said Sherman. “We've got the monk.” He nodded toward the ape-man, while with his own fingernail he wrote. “''How's chances of getting out of here? Do you know the way?''”

“I'll speak to one of the big shots tomorrow,” she said aloud. “Maybe we can get him to let us run a show.” On the book's flyleaf appeared the words. “''Only from the work-room on. It has an outside door.''”

“How would I do as a dancing partner?” asked Sherman. “Good,” he wrote. “''I've doped out how to work these cars. Are you game for a try at it?''”

“You haven't got the figure,” she said. “I'd rather dance with that old papa Lassan that does the questions.” “Sure,” she wrote, “any time you say.”

They broke off the conversation at this point, and Sherman set himself to study out a plan for escape. He had watched the cars intently both inside and out. The same needle arrangement that released the cage bars, apparently, actuated the mechanism of the car doors, and it was located inside. This meant that he could secure admission to the same car that carried the girl, and with luck, would be able to get out at the same time she did. What to do after that was a matter of chance and inspiration. If only he had a weapon!… The oil and grease balls. They would do to throw—might spoil a Lassan's aim or check the rush of one of the ape-man servants.

As finally arranged between them the plan was that he was to get in the same car she did. She would tap on the back of her compartment to assure him that everything was in order, and tap again when the door opened for her to get out. He would leave her a second to get her bearings, then they would make a rush of it. He weighed the usefulness of the knife as a weapon and discarded it—too clumsy for throwing and in a close struggle with one of the ape-men slaves, made of metal like himself, it would be quite useless. But another tool, rather like a short-handled and badly shaped hammer, he did take.

At last the hour arrived. The car ran down the line of cages, paused; opened before Marta Lami's. She smiled at him, nodded, and purposely delayed getting in. He fumbled desperately with his needle, fearing he could not make it, then it went home, the little arm at the bottom of the car swung out and its door opened. As he stepped in he heard the dancer's tap of encouragement from the compartment ahead.

Evidently it was some little distance to the work room. The car made several stops on the way, but Sherman, braced and ready, listened in vain for the tap that would tell him they had reached their destination. At last it came; two soft knocks. He bent, thrust home the needle. The door slid back, and he stepped out into one of the blue-domed rooms. His eyes caught a fantastic maze of machinery, helmeted ape-men busy at it and beyond them the huge forms of several uncompleted fighting machines.

The dancer gripped his hand. “This way,” she said, pointing along the wall past the machines. “Take it easy; don't run till they notice us.”

A feverish passion for activity burned in him. “Hurry, hurry,” called every sense, but he fought it down and followed Marta Lami down the line of machines, past the impassive ape-men.

They made over half the distance to the door before they were spotted. Then one of the Lassans, who had sauntered over to the car stop, evidently expecting Marta, missed her and looked around. The first warning the two had was a sudden flickering of blue lights here and there among the machines. “Come on,” shouted Marta. “There she goes!”

Sherman looked over his shoulder, saw the Lassan tugging at his pouch for a ray-gun, and paused to throw one of the oil-balls, straight and true, as one pitches a baseball. It struck the elephant-man squarely between the eyes, at the base of his trunk. He squealed with pain and fright and dropping the ray-gun, ran behind a machine. For a second all the eyes in the room turned toward him; then with another flickering of lights, the hunt was up.

Sherman saw a helmeted ape-man at a machine just ahead turn slowly round, gazing vacantly, and then fling himself at Marta. As she side-stepped to avoid his rush, Sherman swung his left from the heels. The metal fist took the slave flush on the jaw, and down he went with a crash. The dazzling spout of a ray-gun shot past them, spattering against the wall in a shower of stars, and they had reached the exit.

“Come, oh come!” shouted Marta, tugging at the heavy door. Sherman pulled with her, and at that moment another ray-gun flash struck it, just over their heads. The door gave suddenly; they tumbled through.

Into a gray twilight they struggled, shot with little dashes of rain that had beaten the valley to mud.

“Cheez!” said Marta, struggling through the gelatinous stuff. “If I live through this, I'll live to be a million.”

“No, not that way,” called Sherman. “They'll look for us down the valley. Come on, up the hill.”

He pulled her upward. They slipped, stumbled, slid, gripped the stump of a tree, then another. Below and behind them came a confused rumble and they heard the great door swing open again. A burst of light, like a star in the cloudy dark, broke out, and Sherman pulled the girl down behind the stump of a huge tree.

“What do you s'pose they'll bring after us?” he whispered, his lips close to her ear.

“Dunno. One of the little machines maybe. Look.”

Sherman peered cautiously round his side of the stump. In the valley beneath them, shining brilliantly in the pure white light it had released, was one of the metal fish—but a smaller one than the usual fighting machine, and without the projecting trunk.

“We've been working on them for a while,” the girl whispered. “I don't know what they're for, but they aren't fighting machines.”

Remembering how the vision plate of the fighting machine he had controlled had reflected every object within range, Sherman made himself small behind the stump. The machine below was probably trying to locate them in the light it had released.

“Wonder they don't bring the birds out,” he thought, and as if in answer to this idea, one of the four-winged creatures strutted around the machine, blinking in the light, then took off with a whir of wings, and spiralled upward. The light went out, reappeared as a beam, pointing down the valley and the machine moved off, slowly sweeping the sides of the hills with its pencil of illumination. He could see the multiple glow of the tubes at the stern, greenly phosphorescent, as the machine progressed. High above the bird screamed shrilly.