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.