Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

I think I slept from sheer exhaustion. But something startled me into awaking. The dim light filtering in from the tiny air-hole high up on one wall showed me that I was still alone. I lay, listening. There it was again, a wailing scream of agony that rose and fell and died away.

I heard a grating sound at the door, and it opened and shut. Rubinoff, the Ferret, had entered. “Comfortable, Captain Bolton?” he asked, and there was more than a hint of mockery in the velvety voice. In the hand with the twisted finger was his ray-tube. It pointed steadily at me.

I got to my feet. I was in no mood for trifling, for that scream had shaken me. “Cut the comedy, Rubinoff.” I growled. “Kill me, and let’s have done with it.”

He raised a deprecating hand. “Oh, come now. There’s really no absolute necessity for that. You can save yourself, very easily.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can use you, if you’re amenable to reason.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re the cleverest of the American Intelligence men. The rabble they give me are well-nigh useless. Cast your lot in with us, and in a week you’ll have the riches of your greatest city to dip your hands in. It’s easy. There is certain information we need. Give it to us. Then I’ll get you back into your lines: we’ll cook up a good tale for Sommers. You can resume your post and send us information only when it is of extreme importance. Come, now, be sensible.”

At first blush this was an astounding proposal. But I knew my man. He needed to know something. Once he had extracted the knowledge he sought from me, I should be disposed of. He’d never let me get back into our lines with what I had found out. It might have been policy to play him—but what was the use?

“No, Rubinoff. You know I won’t do it.”

He sighed. “Just as I thought. Honor, country, and so on. Well, it’s too bad. We should have made a wonderful team. However, you’ll tell me what I want to know. What are the defenses within fifty miles of New York?”

I laughed derisively.

“You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble if you tell me, Bolton. After all, death in the ray isn’t so bad. Whiff—and you’re gone. Don’t force me to other measures.” There was a grim threat in his voice. But I simply shook my head.

“Stubborn, like all the other Anglo-Saxons. Well, I’ve got something to show you.” He raised his weapon and glanced at it. “Pretty little thing, this. Not the ordinary ray-tube. Only field officers have these. Look.”

He pointed it at the wall from behind which that scream had come and pressed the trigger button. A tiny round hole appeared in the steel.

“Neat, isn’t it? Utilizes the same ray you saw at work in the tunnel. The Zeta-ray we call it. Just think what that would do to human flesh.” I said nothing.

“But that isn’t what I had in mind. Just look through that hole.”

I wanted to see what was on the other side, so I obeyed. The Thing that lay on the floor within—could it ever have been a man? I whirled back to the Ferret in a fury, my fists clenched.

His infernal weapon was pointing straight at me. “Softly, Bolton, softly. You’d never get to me.” I checked my spring, for he was right. “How’d you like that?” he purred.

“Some of your work, I suppose,” I growled.

“The poor fool was fomenting a mutiny. We wanted to know the other plotters. He was stubborn. What would you? Necessity knows no law…. What are the defenses around New York?” He advanced menacingly.

No answer.

“Why be a fool? This ray hurts, I tell you, when it’s properly applied. How would you like to be melted away, piece by little piece, till you’re like that in there?”

I shrugged my shoulders, but kept silent.

“I tell you it hurts. You don’t believe me? That in there is unconscious, seven-eighths dead. Listen.”

He bored another hole in the steel, keeping his finger pressed on the trigger. Again that heart-rending scream of agony rang out, tearing its way through me. My brain exploded in red rage. I leaped for the fiend, reckless of consequences. My fist drove into the leering face with all the force of my spring, with all the insane fury that his heartless cruelty had roused in me. Smack!—he catapulted across the floor and crashed into the wall! I was on him, my hand clutching for his tube. But there was no need. He was out—dead to the world. So sudden, so unexpected was my mad attack that even he had not had time to meet it.

I worked fast. In a minute I was in Rubinoff’s uniform and had assumed his face. I was a little taller; no matter. But the finger—that would be noticed immediately. There was only one thing to do. I stuck my little finger through one of the holes he had made in the wall and twisted. Crack! Beads of agony stood out on my forehead, but the break was just right. By bending the other fingers slightly I could hold that one in just the position of his.

I picked up the ray-tube with my left hand. If I went out through the guard-house entrance I might meet other officers and be engaged in conversation. That might lead to discovery. My cell was on the side of the prison away from the road; I had noticed no buildings behind it: I’d chance it. Luck had been with me so far.

I carved out a hole in the wall pierced by the air-hole. It was like cutting through butter with a red hot knife. I stepped out.

There was no one about. I walked carelessly around the corner of the building, my hand, holding the tube, buried deep in my pocket. Not far away was the spherical structure I had spotted as the control room. I returned salutes. No one stopped to talk to me. Would the guard before that building require a pass-word?

I heard a shout behind me. My escape was discovered! At once I broke into a run and dashed past the guard, shouting: “Prisoner escaped! Came this way!” The man gaped. The shouting behind me grew louder. I heard the thud of many feet, running. I flung open the door, slammed it shut behind me, and turned the key.

A long row of giant electrode bulbs, as tall as a man, stretched before me—the source of the Zeta-ray. From here came the power that held back the waters, that bored the tunnel. A thunderous knocking shook the door. Someone at a huge switchboard turned toward me. Instantly my hand was out of my pocket, and the ray-tube leveled at the nearest bulb. I pressed the trigger. The bulb crashed. I swept down the line. Crash, crash, crash—they were all gone.

I whirled to meet the expected attack. It was wholly instinctive, for in a second we’d all be dead anyway. The waters would be down on us.

But the switchboard operator wasn’t springing at me. Instead, he was tugging frantically, at a long lever that came down from above. There was a clang, and a steel shutter dropped across the door.

Then came a sound of crashing thunder that split my eardrums with its unbearable clamor. Then a mightier roar, as the mountain-high sea, held back so long by the invisible ray, poured its countless millions of tons of deep green water down into the man-made hole.

The impact was terrific. The yards-thick concrete shuddered and strained. The tremendous pressure forced trickles of water into the concrete shell: the roaring of the elements was indescribably deafening.

I was in pitch darkness, expecting every moment to be crushed under miles of ocean, when suddenly I was thrown from my feet. The floor was heaving drunkenly beneath me. In a moment I was slammed breathlessly against the shattered remnants of a huge vacuum tube. The jagged glass slashed my arms and face. I grabbed with my hand to steady myself; came in contact with in iron bar: clung like grim death.