Steel was about ready to give up. He knew he wouldn't be even faintly
surprised at anything else that happened here. He clung to one
thought, a praying hope that the police could get here before whatever
getaway the gang planned. But, with the crushing ice balls and those
weapon-snatchers, Dirk could hold the police off indefinitely, and
with this super-speed the gang apparently had at their disposal--the
speed that could get Dirk back and forth from Venus in a matter of
seconds--they'd be gone long before the police got started.
Steel was so deep in these thoughts, he barely considered what his own
fate might be....
The passage ended in a place that made New York's central power plant
look like a child's play room. Fifty-foot generators towered in the
center of the huge room and along the walls were banks of vacuum tubes
flashing like fireworks. The group halted before a master switch panel
that equalled the Terminal's dispatch board.
"Check the coils, Tom. Get at those insulator switches, Joe." Dr.
Harmon quickly assumed command here. "Lois and I'll finish keying in
the main control group." Along the rows of tubes and moving in and out
of the generator housings, Steel saw other scores of workers, busy as
ants at whatever devil's work this was.
The heavy-muscled guard delegated to remain with Steel took it all
with a yawn, however, leaning against a battery case and eyeing Steel
sleepily. And this was what made Steel want to tear his hair--the utter
confidence of everyone here. The fact that the police were on the way
seemed to bother them only slightly. They seemed quite convinced they
had here the power of a science that need fear nothing the whole world
might send against them.
"I suppose you're making your getaway with some sort of electric
expulsion system," Steel said finally. From combustion power to jet
propulsion--it was just one step further to the ultimate speeds of some
expulsion system. There had always been a basic flaw in vehicles having
to carry their own means of power. "What bothers me though is where the
hell you think you're going." To leave the earth was simple. To have to
stay away, forever, in the molten cold or venomous atmosphere of one of
the other planets--that should be no happy prospect for any fugitive.
"Where we're going?" Steel's guard laughed quickly. "Buddy, that's
something you'll be mighty interested in if Miss Harmon has a mind
to tell you about it." And Steel saw the girl walking toward them,
wiping a smudge of grease from her cheek. "He wants to know where we're
going," the guard grinned as she came up.
She also laughed, a tinkling laugh that Steel hated more because he
would have liked it if she hadn't been who and what she was. "Bring him
along," she told the guard. "Everything seems to be running smoothly.
We'll take a moment off to show him around."
The big fellow gave Steel a shove and followed him and the girl past
the generators toward the far end of the room. When they got there,
Steel saw there wasn't any wall at the room's end. The room ended
abruptly at a two hundred foot drop.
The exit here was only a hole in the wall of a vast cavern, big as a
city block. The place had been hollowed out of the earth's ice crust.
Its slick green walls glistened brightly under thousands of heat arcs
that melted, dried, held back the constantly encroaching cold. On the
floor of the cavern, Steel saw what appeared to be a monster space
ship, a smooth egg-like thing with a small platform on top. So this
was what they planned to escape in! Pile in, melt the ice lid off the
cavern, take off! He didn't see _them_ at first--they were the same
color as the frozen floor. Then he caught sight of the restlessly
moving creatures around the ship.
The cavern's floor was alive with ice-bears, thousands of them,
gigantic males, grizzly females, pink-clawed cubs, a living moat
around the precious ship. Not only had _The_ Bear chained science to
her grim purpose. Here were nature's cruelest watchdogs on guard.
"Okay," Steel said at last. "So I'm impressed. Now will you tell me
where you plan to _go_ in that ship?"
"Ship?" The girl's smile grew perplexed. "What ship?"
Steel motioned toward the egg-shaped thing below. "That. That's the
space ship you plan to get away in, isn't it?"
The girl burst out laughing. Her laughter echoed out across the cavern,
tinkling mirth in a place that Hell couldn't have rivaled in Steel's
eyes. "Well," she said finally, "you might call it something we plan
to escape with. That object is an antigrav projector, Mr. Steel. We'll
escape with it all right, but we're going to take the Earth along with
us...."
During his career as a detective, Steel had heard doomed convicts call
the Devil's curse upon mankind; he'd heard dope-crazed crones in the
upper levels shriek the curse of witches upon their neighbors; he'd
heard cornered gangsters swear dark vengeance--but he'd never before
heard words of such raw horror. And the girl said them as a simple
statement of fact--with a laugh.
"_We're going to take the Earth along with us...._" This could have
been just an insane threat. Cornered, the gang was trying to destroy
the world in its own suicide. But Steel had seen the gang's ultra
science here, he'd seen their banks of electrotubes--they weren't up to
anything as simple as destroying the world by suffo-gas. He couldn't
miss the real meaning of Lois Harmon's words. Taking the Earth with
_them_ meant _moving_ it.
Which was still madness! Still suicide! But they didn't think so. They
were right now making frantic preparations.
"You see," the girl continued, "we've been experimenting exclusively
with gravitational force--the forces of attraction and repulsion that
not only hold the atom together but hold the planets of the Solar
System in balance." Her smile taunted Steel. "Dad finally devised an
ultra-wave screen that could be projected. This screen surrounds the
object toward which it's projected, shields off all the gravitational
forces acting upon it and allows us to play upon it only those forces
we care to use in moving the object from one place to another. You saw
how we encircled you with those ice balls when you first came snooping
around. You saw how we snatched a pistol out of your hand. In a few
minutes, you'll see how we snatch the Earth out of the Solar System."
In a few minutes.... The girl's face blurred before Steel's eyes. Her
words came to him faintly. "But I don't know why I'm telling you all
this. You came here, working for Hampton Stahl's filthy money." Then
raving fury blinded Steel completely.
He whirled. Ran.
He streaked back into the control room. The first weapon he saw was a
wrench. He grabbed it on the run. He sped down the line of electrotubes
along the wall, smashing them as fast as he could swing his arm.
Vaguely, he heard the girl's scream behind him. He heard his guard's
heavy feet pounding after him. Before him, he saw the horde of workers
halt, then swarm toward him. But he kept slashing with his wrench, eyes
squinting against the flying glass, smashing his way up the line of
tubes toward the main control board. When the wrench was snatched away,
he kept tearing at the tubes with his bare hands.
Then he was crushed down by the hundreds of fists and feet that flew at
him from every side.
* * * * *
When he was jerked back on his feet, the first thing he saw was Lois
Harmon's face. Her face was streaked with tears. Tears of sheer hatred
glistened in her green eyes. Her lips parted, trembling, but she
couldn't speak. Her tiny fist lashed out, smacking Steel in the face.
She kept pummeling him till somebody pulled her back, fearful
apparently that she might hurt her hands on him. Nobody seemed at all
concerned whether Steel was hurt or not. Quite on the contrary.
"So you're still after Stahl's reward, huh?" Mike, the ex-boxer, swam
toward Steel's blood-filled eyes; he started whipping Steel back and
forth across the face with his open hand. A hand as heavy as a sand
bag. "When they took me into this crew it was the first decent thing
anybody'd ever done for me! They're the first decent folks this damn
world's seen in ten thousand years! And you try to stop what they're
doing!"
"Give him hell, Mike! The voice came to Steel as from a great distance.
But there was something about it.... He recognized it. When Mike's hand
paused, he twisted his head around to look at the man who had spoken.
"No!" He tried to blink the blood out of his eyes. The man was Harlan
Webb. Harlan Webb, one of those five cops who'd gone after The Bear and
never come back! "Harlan!"
"Sure," the man said. "I'm Harlan Webb. We used to be cops together.
But we're on different sides now, Steel."
"But I thought The Bear--"
"Sure, that's what we wanted everybody to think about us--Jim, Dick,
Bill, the other cops who disappeared, they're up there with Dirk
guarding the entrance now. That's what we wanted everybody to think
happened to our families when they were brought here too. That's the
only way Dr. Harmon could keep what he was doing secret."
"You mean The Bear didn't--"
"Didn't kill them? Is that what you mean!" This was Lois Harmon again.
"We didn't kill _you_, did we--when we certainly should have." She
pointed about the room. "There's the vice-president of Uranium, Inc.
He's been an engineer with us ever since he 'disappeared'. There's
the crew and passengers of that space liner that lost its cargo last
night." She shook her head furiously. "Our men have killed only as the
last possible resort. That rule has been as important as our secret."
"Hush! Hush!" This was Dr. Harmon, holding up his hands, finally making
himself heard. His eyes were grim behind his spectacles. "We haven't
time for this now! This man has wrecked our remote control up here but
we can still operate from the projector itself." He brushed his shaggy
white hair from his eyes. "We must hurry before the police get here."
"_But, my long-departed friend, the police aren't coming...._"
Every eye turned from Steel to the door leading in from the passage.
Steel craned to stare over the shoulders of the men who held him.
That great shadow in the doorway was the bulk of Hampton Stahl.
"I thought I had finished with your interference for good, Dr. Harmon,
when I arranged that little laboratory explosion fifteen years ago,"
Stahl said. "I see now, however, that I'll have to destroy you and your
work all over again."
Swiftly, when the shock of his appearance died, the men around Steel
surged toward Stahl in one mass. And, just as swiftly, when they came
at him, Stahl stepped aside, into the room, and twenty of his guards
pushed through the door.
They carried volt rifles. Stahl waved his fat hand.
The guards fired straight into the unarmed group coming at them, mowing
them down like insects. When the rifles lowered again, a full hundred
charred forms writhed on the floor, then quickly lay still. Mike,
Harlan Webb, the rest....
"After they've shown us around," Stahl said when the volt rifle
reverberations died, "you can do away with all the rest of them." Then
his thick lips twisted into a smile. "Including Mr. Steel there. It
will relieve me of an embarrassing contract."
At Stahl's words now, Steel realized he was standing there alone. Most
of the men who had surrounded him had left to go for Stahl. Most of
these were now lying in black heaps on the floor. The rest stood among
the charred bodies, staring helplessly as Stahl's guards advanced
across the room, ready for the slightest excuse to use their rifles
again. The terrible silence of their advance was broken only when Lois
Harmon sobbed, buried her golden head in her father's arms.
* * * * *
Steel stood there alone, realizing just how much alone he was. He'd
thrown a wrench into the Harmon gang's plans, for which they'd been in
the act of doing away with him. Then his rescuers--whom he'd called
here himself--had turned out to be an equal menace, bringing the same
fate that they'd saved him from. He'd jumped out of The Bear's frying
pan into the shortly forthcoming fire of Stahl's volt rifles....
"When I received your message and learned who The Bear was," the fat
man smiled, halting before Steel, "I preferred not to bother the police
with what was really a private matter between Dr. Harmon and myself."
"Private matter!" Dr. Harmon's cold eyes were frightening behind his
spectacles. One hand soothed his daughter's head but the other was
knotted, white-knuckled at his side. "Yes, you always did look upon my
experiments as a private matter. You didn't care whether they benefited
mankind or not--if they interfered with your vita-lamp profits, you
tried to crush them."
"And crush them I shall," Stahl replied easily, turning to the old
man. "When we sighted the coordinate location Mr. Steel so kindly sent
us, we blasted the whole area immediately. We blasted the entrance to
your hideout before your men had time to use any trick weapons you've
developed." Which had been the end of Dirk and the men who'd been up
there with him, Steel thought. "At this moment," Stahl continued,
waving toward the door through which he'd entered, "others of my guards
are searing every room in the place. When we leave here there won't
be the slightest sign that this place ever existed. The world will
continue to think Dr. Harmon died fifteen years ago."
The guards herded the remaining few of Dr. Harmon's men into a corner.
"Now," the fat man told Dr. Harmon, "if you'll kindly lead us on a
little tour of your power plant here, you'll have exactly that much
longer to live."
The old man hesitated a moment. Then he lifted his white head, took his
daughter's hand and moved slowly ahead past the generator houses. One
of the guards shoved Steel after them and the procession started down
the long room.
"On the way here," Stahl said chattily to the old man and the girl, "we
received a telenews report that a freight liner had just discovered
something rather startling in the Venusian space sector. Earth
scientists are in a dither." He laughed. "The planet Venus seems to
have disappeared...."
Steel's eyes widened. He recalled Dr. Harmon's and Dirk's mysterious
doings in the video room.
"Perhaps you can explain what happened, Doctor," Stahl said.
"If you wish," the old man answered finally. He walked straight ahead,
chin high, voice mechanical and cold. "Venus was in the way of Earth's
planned trajectory from the Solar System. We simply moved it--as we've
been moving smaller asteroids farther out in space for months. Venus
was the last object that had to be cleared from Earth's path to Sun
K-16."
"So that's where you planned to take it," Stahl said with some
surprise. He laughed. "Who was it that said 'Give me a lever and I'll
move the Earth'? So you found it! And I'm quite sure you could have
accomplished it without mishap too, Doctor. If you remember, I worked
out the preliminary planning with you myself."
"Until you realized what would happen to your vita-lamp monopoly if the
Earth had a warm sun again!"
Stahl laughed again, agreeably. Steel however could barely keep his
mouth from hanging open. He didn't know what to believe any more. Those
blurred white lines behind Venus' picture on the video screen--had they
been star trails? A background that Venus was moving past so fast even
the video camera's ultra speed couldn't catch it? Was it possible Venus
_had_ been moved and that the Earth could _have_ been moved? These men
talked about moving planets as if they'd been moving a house on log
rollers. Steel was bewildered.
"Well," Stahl said, "now I'll have your formula for the projector and
vita-lamps will become only a sideline. I'll move another planet to Sun
K-16--Jupiter, perhaps. When I move it to a livable climate its real
estate prices will be something unimaginable. I suppose you applied the
principle to space ships long ago."
"They were our first experiments," Dr. Harmon told him. "We have a
small fleet in stalls near the surface. We found our only problem was
keeping their speed down--to keep them from burning by air friction
in taking off and landing." For some reason now as they went down
the room, Dr. Harmon went into greater detail in explaining whatever
questions Stahl put to him. He was fighting for time, Steel decided,
hoping that _something_ would happen, anything. Steel also decided it
was high time he started hoping that too. He was in for the killing now
himself.
When explanations had finished they had reached the end of the room and
now stopped at the brink of the vast bear-pit.
"And here it is," Dr. Harmon said wearily. "The projector."
* * * * *
The immensity of the place, the terrible creatures staring up at them,
the mysterious machine majestically alone down there--all combined to
silence even Stahl a moment. His guards crowded forward, exclaiming to
each other and staring into the pit. They did not, however, let their
curiosity distract the vigilance of their rifles. The guns remained
snug against their prisoners' backs.
"And how did you get the manpower to build all this?" the fat man
finally turned back to Dr. Harmon.
"They were easy to find," the old man said simply. He seemed to stare
through Stahl--perhaps at the years he had put into this work and its
miserable failure. "We found followers everywhere--our workers came
from the slums of every city on Earth as well as from the highest
society. Most of those we were forced to capture also eventually
volunteered to work with us. Those who didn't volunteer we kept in very
comfortable quarters, knowing that they--and the world--would be free
very soon. We even brought poverty-stricken children here. Helping us
gave them their only chance for education." Steel remembered his first
sight of The Bear in that auditorium crowded with tenement kids. "The
Bear idea was only an advertising trick my daughter thought of," Dr.
Harmon said. "It awed the common man and terrified--_you_." His eyes
snapped back into focus on Stahl's face.
"And now it's all turned out to my profit," Stahl said. "So suppose we
go down and have a look at the projector. You have a way of getting
down there, certainly."
Steel found himself also wondering how they _could_ get down there.
He looked upon it with little surprise however, only one more
breath-taking gadget, when Dr. Harmon pressed a button on the nearby
wall and a low-railed platform shot up from the top of the machine
below. It halted at their feet. Where it had been on the machine below,
there was now an open port with a circular stair leading inside,
discernible in the distance.
"Very tricky," Stahl said. "But just to make sure this lift doesn't
suffer any mishap on the way down, Doctor, I think you better stay up
here and operate it while your daughter goes down with me."
Steel's eyes were on the girl's face as she looked at her father. Then
she quickly rushed into his arms. The sight made Steel wince. The old
man stroked her golden hair and whispered in her ear. Steel started
to turn away. Then something flashed, the slightest glint in that icy
place where the very walls glinted--he caught a glimpse of what it was,
then instantly turned away, afraid somebody else might have seen.
He searched the guards' faces around him and Stahl's face, but they
hadn't seen. They hadn't seen Dr. Harmon quickly slip a knife in his
daughter's hand.
Steel recognized it for what it was, a thing common in police circles,
a tiny knife, small enough to hide in one hand. When a button was
pressed on its side a six-inch blade licked out like a watch spring
uncoiling.
"The rest of you men stay up here with the good doctor," Stahl said.
"Hans, you and Barge come down with me and our lovely guide." The fat
man stepped out on the disk-like lift. He caught the girl's arm and
jerked her after him.
In the next three seconds, the guards stepped on the lift with
them--and Steel remembered the pledge that had brought him here, Floyd
lying there dead, the dreary upper levels around that deserted building.
Stahl said, "Okay, let us down, Doctor"--and Steel remembered the
confidence that even Dr. Harmon's deadly enemy, Stahl, had had in the
Earth-moving venture's safety. Floyd too, working for The Bear, had
believed in it enough to die for it. It was the one chance to bring
warmth to the Earth again, banish completely such things as the upper
levels!
Dr. Harmon pressed the button and the lift started down--and Steel
remembered the unwavering courage in Lois Harmon's eyes when her father
had slipped her that knife.
In those three seconds, everything that had happened flashed through
Steel's mind, and everything that _could_ happen. In those three
seconds he decided what he _wanted_ to happen.
He jumped.
* * * * *
The lift was moving down swiftly. It was going down just a trifle
slower than Steel fell. There was little jolt when he landed.
He knocked one of the guards' rifles sailing immediately. The other
whirled upon him, rifle raised. But the platform was too small for a
rifle. It worked to the guard's disadvantage. Steel grabbed the barrel.
A lever. With it, he wrenched the fellow over the side.
He caught a glimpse of Lois Harmon clinging to the hand rail, one hand
at her trembling lips, her green eyes huge. Then Stahl's bulk loomed
before him and the other guard came in behind him, while from above a
volt gun spurted its molten stream past his head.
The guard got his elbow around Steel's neck. Stahl raised both huge
hands and brought them down at his face like twin sledge hammers.
Steel dropped his weight in the guard's arms, twisted his head, caught
Stahl's blow on his shoulder. Then the arm around his neck was blinding
him, cutting off his air. A red film swam before his eyes. His ears
roared. He felt Stahl's blows numbly against his face. Going down.
Going down.
It was more instinct than anything else that made him grip the guard's
shirt behind him. It was many a police lesson in roughhouse that
doubled Steel forward and arched his back, while he jerked at the
guard's shirt with his last strength. He yanked the guard off his feet
and flung him up and out over the railing.
When the guard's scream died away, Steel found himself on the floor
of the platform, Stahl on top of him, thick fingers grappling for his
throat. The platform had stopped falling. It rested at the bottom of
the cavern.
"I'll get him! I'll get him!" screamed Lois, leaping toward Stahl,
deadly little knife upraised.
[Illustration: _"I'll get him! I'll get him!" screamed Lois._]
Steel fished his legs around and kicked her back against the railing.
"No!" he yelled. "Get the projector working!" Dr. Harmon had said: _We
can still operate from the projector itself...._
The girl turned and fled down the circular stairs, to disappear inside
the vast machine.
But Stahl found his opening. He got a grip on Steel's right arm,
twisted it behind him and then twisted it back like a bending stick.
Steel rolled to keep it from breaking. And found himself staring over
the platform's edge into a writhing sea of shaggy hair, upturned
blazing eyes, dripping jaws--the bears--ten feet below.
Stahl strained at his arm, shoving with his knees, breath heavy in
Steel's ear. Steel's right leg slid over the edge.
Although they couldn't shoot for fear of hitting Stahl now, the sound
of gunfire continued from above. It was the requiem for those who
remained of the Harmon gang, Steel thought wildly--and for Dr. Harmon.
Steel tried to get a grip on the railing post. The fat man scraped his
fingers away. He clawed at the platform floor. But he couldn't stop his
sliding. He cursed and prayed and tried to cling to the floor by the
sheer friction of his body. Stahl was shoving too hard. Steel's body
slid over the side, one last arm hooked in the railing.
The fat man struggled up and kicked at the arm. Then, more than the
kick on his arm, Steel felt a sickening shudder pulse through his
body--through the platform--through the world....
Stahl felt it, too. His foot hesitated in the next kick. His eyes
glaring down at Steel suddenly widened.
The moment was all Steel needed. He jerked himself back up on the
platform, rolled and struggled to his knees. Then he saw Stahl wasn't
even playing any more. The fat man was staring up at the roof of the
cavern as if he was having an apoplectic stroke. It was only then that
Steel realized the blinding light in his own eyes.
He squinted up at the strange brightness and saw at the distant
top of the cavern, like a huge skylight above them, a great white
square, blazing with a light that no artificial fluorescence had ever
approached. A light Earth had forgotten.
"The sun...."
Stahl's voice was a whisper. Then it sirened into a scream. "Sun K-16!
They've done it! They've done it!" His eyes shot back to Steel, like a
wild beast's. "But you'll never have it!" he shrieked. His hands shot
out at Steel like talons.
This time Steel was prepared. His right fist came up and across Stahl's
thick chin. The fat man toppled backward, tottered against the railing,
and then went over.
At that moment, Lois Harmon ran up the ladder. Steel caught her and
pressed her face against his chest. "Don't look."
But he looked. He saw Stahl ride for an instant on the shaggy white sea
below, beat with his hands frenziedly against the mass of animals under
him, and then slip down into the mass like a pig slipping into a meat
grinder.
His scream was an era dying....
* * * * *
The bright sunlight playing across the shimmering ice waste, the young
rivers of melting snow--the telenews cameras ate it up.
The telenews men didn't seem to care whether they had an audience or
not. They had the video cameras set up on the sun-drenched Terminal
roofs, sending the picture to receiving sets that probably hadn't
a single watcher throughout the world. The population of Earth had
swarmed to the surface _en masse_ and tears of thanksgiving mingled
with the melting snow.
"Nobody seems to care that the lower levels have already filled with
water," the announcer chattered hysterically into his portable mike.
"Nobody seems to care _how_ this thing happened. The only thing that
matters is that it _did_ happen--the greatest thing that _ever_
happened!"
"And they'll never know how it happened," Lois Harmon said. "Dad would
have wanted it that way." She and Steel sat in their plane on the
Terminal roof, listening to the announcer, watching the joyful mob that
stretched across the ice as far as they could see.
"Yeah," Steel said quietly, "every clue to the old world will be washed
away clean. Everything will begin new." And, he thought, Floyd would
also have wanted it that way. This was what he'd died for. Even the
memory of that upper level chill would soon be gone. He watched a
group of mothers holding their sickly white babies up to the warmth,
a horde of small boys and girls whose cheeks already glowed with the
strength of a new race.
"Everything new ..." the girl repeated. She turned, green eyes meeting
Steel's, then dropped her golden head against his shoulder.
Steel grinned as he put his arm around her. "Looks like I'd better hunt
another job, too," he said. "I guess I'm a pretty bum detective when
the world gets stolen right under my nose."