_The New York of 2930_
Larry stood alone at an upper window of the palace gazing out at the
somnolent moonlit city. It was an hour or two before dawn. Tina and
Tugh had started almost at once into the underground caverns to which
Tina was told Migul had fled with his two captives. They would not
take Larry with them; the Robot workers in the subterranean chambers
were all sullen and upon the verge of a revolt, and the sight of a
strange human would have aroused them dangerously.
"It should not take long," Tina had said hastily. "I will give you a
room in which to wait for me."
"And there is food and drink," Tugh suavely urged. "And most surely
you need sleep. You too Princess," he suddenly added. "Let me go into
the caverns alone: I can do better than you; these Robots obey me. I
think I know where that rascally Migul has hidden."
"Rascally?" Larry burst out. "Is that what you call it when you've
just heard that it committed murder? Tina. I won't stay: nor will I
let--"
"Wait!" said Tina. "Tugh, look here--"
"The young man from 1935 is very positive what he will and what he
won't," Tugh observed sardonically. He drew his cloak around his squat
misshapen body, and shrugged.
"But I won't let you go," Larry finished. The palace was somnolent;
the officials were asleep: none had heard of the murder. Strangely lax
was the human government here. Larry had sensed this when he suggested
that police or an official party be sent at once to capture Migul and
rescue Mary Atwood and me.
"It could not be done," Tina exclaimed. "To organize such a party
would take hours. And--"
"And the Robots," Tugh finished with a sour smile, "would openly
revolt when such a party came at them! You have no idea what you
suggest, young man. To avoid an open revolt--that is our chief aim.
Besides, if you rushed at Migul it would frighten him; and then he
would surely kill his captives, if he has not done so already."
* * * * *
That silenced Larry. He stared at them hopelessly while they argued it
out: and the three small domesticated Robots stood by, listening
curiously.
"I'll go with you, Tugh." Tina decided. "Perhaps, without making any
demonstration of force, we can find Migul."
Tugh bowed. "Your will is mine, Princess. I think I can find him and
control him to prevent harm to his captives."
He was a good actor, that Tugh; he convinced Larry and Tina of his
sincerity. His dark eyes flashed as he added, "And if I get control of
him and find he's murdered Harl, we will have him no more. I'll
disconnect him! Smash him! Quietly, of course, Princess."
They led Larry through a dim silent corridor of the palace, past two
sleepy-faced human guards and two or three domesticated Robots.
Ascending two spiral metal stairways to the upper third floor of the
palace they left Larry in his room.
"By dawn or soon after we will return," said Tina "But you try and
sleep; there is nothing you can do now."
"You'll be careful, Tina?" The helpless feeling upon Larry suddenly
intensified. Subconsciously he was aware of the menace upon him and
Tina, but he could not define it.
She pressed his hand. "I will be careful; that I promise."
She left with Tugh. At once a feeling of loneliness leaped upon Larry.
He found the apartment a low-vaulted metal room. There was the sheen
of dim, blue-white illumination from hidden lights, disclosing the
padded metal furniture: a couch, low and comfortable; a table set with
food and drink; low chairs, strangely fashioned, and cabinets against
the wall which seemed to be mechanical devices for amusement. There
was a row of instrument controls which he guessed were the room
temperature, ventilating and lighting mechanisms. It was an oddly
futuristic room. The windows were groups of triangles--the upper
sections prisms, to bend the light from the sky into the room's
furthest recesses. The moonlight came through the prisms, now, and
spread over the cream-colored rug and the heavy wall draperies. The
leaded prism casements laid a pattern of bars on the floor. The room
held a faint whisper of mechanical music.
* * * * *
Larry stood at one of the windows gazing out over the drowsing city.
The low metal buildings, generally of one or two levels, lay pale grey
in the moonlight. Gardens and trees surrounded them. The streets were
wide roadways, lined with trees. Ornamental vegetation was everywhere;
even the flat-roofed house tops were set with gardens, little white
pebbled paths, fountains and pergolas.
A mile or so away, a river gleamed like a silver ribbon--the Hudson.
To the south were docks, low against the water, with rows of
blue-white spots of light. The whole city was close to the ground, but
occasionally, especially across the river, skeleton landing stages
rose a hundred feet into the air.
The scene, at this hour just before dawn, was somnolent and peaceful.
It was a strange New York, so different from the sleepless city of
Larry's time! There were a few moving lights in the streets, but not
many; they seemed to be lights carried by pedestrians. Off by the
docks, at the river surface, rows of colored lights were slowly
creeping northward: a sub-sea freighter arriving from Eurasia. And as
Larry watched, from the southern sky a line of light materialized into
an airliner which swept with a low humming throb over the city and
alighted upon a distant stage.
* * * * *
Larry's attention went again to the Hudson river. At the nearest point
to him there was a huge dam blocking it. North of the dam the river
surface was at least two hundred feet higher than to the south. It lay
above the dam like a placid canal, with low palisades its western bank
and a high dyke built up along the eastern city side. The water went
in spillways through the dam, forming again into the old natural river
below it and flowing with it to the south.
The dam was not over a mile or so from Larry's window; in his time it
might have been the western end of Christopher Street. The moonlight
shone on the massive metal of it: the water spilled through it in a
dozen shining cascades. There was a low black metal structure perched
halfway up the lower side of the dam, a few bluish lights showing
through its windows. Though Larry did not know it then, this was the
New York Power House. Great transformers were here, operated by
turbines in the dam. The main power came over cables from Niagara: was
transformed and altered here and sent into the air as radio-power for
all the New York District.[3]
[Footnote 3: In 2930, all aircraft engines were operated by
radio-power transmitted by senders in various districts. The New York
Power House controlled a local district of about two hundred miles
radius.]
Larry crossed his room to gaze through north and eastward windows. He
saw now that the grounds of this three-story building of Tina's palace
were surrounded by a ten-foot metal wall, along whose top were wires
suggesting that it was electrified for defense. The garden lay just
beneath Larry's north window. Through the tree branches the garden
paths, beds of flowers and the fountains were visible. One-story
palace wings partially enclosed the garden space, and outside was the
electrified wall. The Time-traveling cage stood faintly shining in the
dimness of the garden under the spreading foliage.
* * * * *
To the east, beyond the palace wall, there was an open garden of
verdure crossed by a roadway. The nearest building was five hundred
feet away. There was a small, barred gate in the palace walls beyond
it. The road led to this other building--a squat, single-storied metal
structure. This was a Government laboratory, operated by and in charge
of Robots. It was almost square: two or three hundred feet in length
and no more than thirty feet high, with a flat roof in the center of
which was perched a little metal conning tower surmounted by a sending
aerial. As Larry stood there, the broadcast magnified voice of a Robot
droned out over the quiet city:
"Trinight plus two hours. All is well."
Strange mechanical voice with a formula half ancient, half
super-modern!
It was in this metal laboratory, Larry knew, that the other
Time-traveling cage was located. And beneath it was the entrance to
the great caverns where the Robots worked attending inert machinery to
carry on the industry of this region. The night was very silent, but
now Larry was conscious of a faraway throb--a humming, throbbing
vibration from under the ground: the blended hum of a myriad muffled
noises. Work was going on down there; manifold mechanical activities.
All was mechanical: while the humans who had devised the mechanisms
slept under the trees in the moonlight of the surface city.
* * * * *
Tina had gone with Tugh down into those caverns, to locate Migul, to
find Mary Atwood and me.... The oppression, the sense of being a
stranger alone here in this world, grew upon Larry. He left the
windows and began pacing the room. Tina should soon return. Or had
disaster come upon us all?...
Larry's thoughts were frightening. If Tina did not return, what would
he do? He could not operate the Time-cage. He would go to the
officials of the palace; he thought cynically of the extraordinary
changes time had brought to New York City, to all the world. These
humans now must be very fatuous. To the mechanisms they had relegated
all the work, all industrial activity. Inevitably, through the
generations, decadence must have come. Mankind would be no longer
efficient; that was an attribute of the machines. Larry told himself
that these officials, knowing of impending trouble with the Robots,
were fatuously trustful that the storm would pass without breaking.
They were, indeed, as we very soon learned.
Larry ate a little of the food which was in the room, then lay down on
the couch. He did not intend to sleep, but merely to wait until after
dawn; and if Tina had not returned by then he would do something
drastic about it. But what? He lay absorbed by his gloomy thoughts....
But they were not all gloomy. Some were about Tina--so very human, and
yet so strange a little Princess.