"We're almost there now. Sert told me there were nine chambers between
the one we were in and the machine room. They're all supposed to be
unoccupied, too."
"But--if they're not?"
"Then our plans go up the creek. But Sert wouldn't be likely to make a
mistake. He has more at stake than we--Ah! There she blows!"
Larry's fingers had finally moved into the right combination. The
smooth wall slid back. The pair from the past moved into the next room
of the labyrinth of the future. The door closed behind them, and Larry
moved immediately to the wall fronting them.
"One more small chamber, and then--"
He stopped, shocked and alarmed. For just as his hand touched the wall,
it moved backward and a figure loomed before him. Sandra screamed a
little scream of fright. To be so near success, and then--
But the voice that spoke was that of a friend.
"Ah, Larry Wilson! You were long in coming. So I came to find you. But,
come! Our council awaits you."
The three entered, then, the final and largest of the chambers. During
the working hours of the day it was a machine shop in which Underlings
toiled under the harsh supervision of their Master overseers. Now it
was deserted save for rather more than twoscore conspirators similar in
physique and coloring to the leader, Sert.
Introductions were a brief formality. It was evident that some of the
Underlings could not comprehend the anomaly of Sandra and Larry's
presence. But what these rebel serfs lacked in intellect they made up
for in their lust for freedom. And the two young Americans, hailing
from a land that, in its time, had been the bulwark of this precious
inheritance, felt a kinship with the suppressed uprisers.
At length Sert said, "--so that is as far as our plans have gone, Larry
Wilson. You see how pitifully inadequate they are.
"Not only do the Masters outnumber us, but theirs is the possession of
the golden force-ray which no armament can pierce. None, that is, of
the feeble type we own. The force of our greater strength ... tools
converted into crude swords...."
He looked hopelessly at the massive machinery surrounding them. "Could
we but find a way to destroy their protective force-field, we would
tear these machines into bits to mold weapons for ourselves. But we
cannot."
Larry said, "I've been thinking about that problem. And I've got an
idea that may or may not work. Sert, it is only the Masters whose ears
are sensitive to sound, isn't it? There's nothing wrong with your
hearing?"
"That is right, Larry Wilson."
"Then sound--" began Larry.
Sert shook his head. "Do you forget the _menaudo_, my friends? The
Masters wear it at all times. It blocks out the sound waves that would
torture them, drive them mad."
"I haven't forgotten it," grunted Larry. "I'm trying to think of a way
to pour sound over 'em without making 'em remove the football helmet.
And I think I know how to do it. Strangely enough, you have to make
them turn on the golden force-ray before it will work!"
"I don't understand," said Sert. Others edged in curiously as Larry
explained.
"When the force ray surrounds them," he explained, "their bodies
become, in effect, a helical core. Such a core can be made responsive
to musical tones by what, in my day, we called C.E.M.F.--counter
electromotive force. I suppose you know the method of manufacture of
the force ray?"
"Not the details. But the purely mechanical part, yes. We wind the
relays in this shop--"
"Then," said Larry crisply, "you've got 'em licked! We'll get to
work--_now!_--and build an electrical resonator. One that shoots out
plenty of noise on the wave length to which their force-fields are
attuned. When this howler gets going, the force-field will act as a
conductor, leading the sound directly into their bodies!"
Sert's face broke in a huge grin. "And if they turn off the
force-field--" he howled.
"Right! You work out on them with whatever you can lay your hands
on." Larry was suddenly all work. "Give me one or two technicians and
I'll rig up the electrical siren in jig-time. The rest of you start
gathering weapons. This rebellion starts the minute they find out what
we're cooking up!"
* * * * *
Thus, for the next couple of hours, the room became once more a place
of strenuous labor--but this time there was gladness and will in the
way the Underling rebels went to work. With ruthless disregard for
assigned uses, they tore apart a brace of mighty machines. Bellows
sighed, lathes screamed, as rods, bars, balanced shafts became
blunt-edged swords, lances and maces.
Meanwhile, in one corner, Larry Wilson cudgeled his brain to remember
almost forgotten college physics. Finally his task was done. Before
him lay a box some two feet square; within it were two tubes, a slide
condenser, and an armature turning on a "howler" disc, pierced with
circles of varying diameter. Larry lugged the contraption to Sert's
side and crossed his fingers.
"Here it is," he said. "Salvation or the bum's rush in one small
package. It'll work as a radio, I know that, but I'm not sure it will
pull the trick against the force-field. I've rigged a rheostat control
which gives a certain choice of wave-lengths. But if the field blocks
'em all out--"
He shook his head ruefully. But Sert laid a hand on his shoulder. "It
will work, my friend," he said. "It will work because--it must! And,
now--" He turned to the others gathered about him. "And, now we will
strike! For freedom!"
Larry turned to Sandra Day. "This," he said, "is going to be no place
for you, darling. Not in a few minutes. So grab yourself a box-seat in
the background somewhere and after the fireworks are over I'll--"