* * * * *
They were in a subterranean city, or palace, or laboratory. It was
difficult to determine the purpose of everything they saw. Light
apparently without a source followed them automatically wherever they
went. The walls, ceiling and floor seemed to be made of a translucent
substance that was as soft as rubber yet tougher than steel. Now
Henry's billion year theory made more sense to the others. In all
that time some high form of civilization had to evolve. And this was
indisputable evidence that it had.
But why was it hidden so cleverly under the ground? This fact allowed
them to presuppose the existence of an enemy. What, in the outer world,
could oppose the race that had built this?
Or more logical still--what, in outer space?
"Perhaps," said Uncle Andy, "it's the ionosphere. This is another
answer to the danger of hard radiations."
"But not for long," said Henry. "When the critical moment comes
there'll be no more atmosphere. What will they do without air?"
"The place is empty," observed Peggy. "Where did the others go?"
That was the principal question.
Twenty minutes later, they stood in a circular room which was roughly
forty feet in diameter. In one wall was a mirror, ten feet high. It
shimmered like molten silver. They had been in the room twice already.
"What do we do now?" asked Valerie. "Go back to some of those control
rooms and start pulling levers?"
"Wait!" exclaimed Martia. "Listen!"
In another moment they could hear the sound of their own breathing.
Then--unmistakably--they heard slow, hesitant footsteps.
Valerie and Peggy paled, remembering only too vividly the one-eyed
towering creature that had thrown Weston thirty feet through the air.
Henry appropriated Valerie's bow and arrow. Uncle Andy, his jaws
clamped on a pipe that had long since burned out, took a firm grip on
his axe. Pee Bee stood rooted to the floor, unable to do anything but
stare in the direction of the curving passageway from which the sounds
of the footsteps emanated.
"Weston tried violence against him," whispered Martia to Henry. "Maybe
if we--"
"Shh!" From Uncle Andy. He raised his axe and braced himself.
The automatic, progressive light of this place advanced into view
and blended with their own light aura as the owner of the footsteps
approached.
Once more, Henry's mind began to awaken into that strange condition of
ultimate clarity, as it had in alternate time, in New Bretania, before
the machine guns.
"Hold up!" he said, lowering his bow.
"Yes!" exclaimed Martia. "It's a friend!"
At that moment, Scarface stepped into view, gun in hand. And Peggy
almost swooned with relief.
Pee Bee wiped his forearm across his moist brow and said, "Man! Dat's
de finest lookin' _my_-rage ah seen today!"
Uncle Andy could not refrain from studying the two adolescents again
in amazement. They had definitely known beforehand that Scarface would
appear instead of the alien.
"I've been doing some checking," said Scarface, without smiling, and
without preamble. "There's only one place they could have gone."
"Did you let us in here?" asked Uncle Andy, irrelevantly.
"Yes. There's some kind of viewer that shows who's upstairs. When I saw
you out there I pressed the entrance button. But I've been busy since.
I think I know the next step."
"Where have you been all this time?" asked Henry.
Scarface glanced at Martia, then at the shimmering mirror behind her.
"Trying to trace down missing persons," he answered. "I was topside in
the jungle when One Eye brought in his prisoners. So I came down here
to pick up the trail, and it ends in front of that mirror."
* * * * *
As all of them turned to look at the shimmering mirror, Scarface
advanced toward it to show them something that had, until now, escaped
their notice. He mounted two steps of a raised dais on which the mirror
stood. Then he halted before it and pointed at its base.
"Look at that!" he said.
Protruding from the strange substance of the mirror was a small branch.
He kicked it outward with his foot, and more of the branch emerged into
view.
"One of the bunch that was captured dropped that as he went through.
Look!" He shoved his hand into the mirror up to his elbow, then pulled
it out again. "No pain at all," he said.
"A teletransporter!" exclaimed Henry.
Scarface looked at him quizzically. "I knew _you'd_ have a name for
it," he said. "But come again?"
"A teletransporter. I get more of the picture now," said Henry.
"Underground stations like this may be scattered all over the planet.
Transportation between them is accomplished instantaneously by this
means. Perhaps, with the proper setting of controls, one could walk
around the world, through various stations, in a few minutes!"
"Whoa!" said Uncle Andy. "When did you ever see a teletransporter?"
"I didn't, but their possibility may be extrapolated from a set of
known facts in our own era of time. One premise is that energy may
be propagated at the speed of light through the ether, in various
pulsation patterns that can be used for the reintegration of sound
or light in receivers. Another premise is that matter is energy.
Therefore, it lies within the realm of possibility to reduce matter to
its basic energy components, broadcast the energy in a representative
pattern sequence--perhaps on multiple wavebands--and reintegrate the
same form of matter at the other end. On the other hand, new principles
may have been discovered after our own time, such as the manipulation
or use of hyper-space or ether warp of some kind. But I'm sure this is
a bonafide teletransporter. We have only to step through it, the way it
is adjusted now, and be where our friends are. Since Scarface is armed,
I think we need not fear being surprised by the alien."
Scarface raised his brows and looked at the others. "It's simple when
you know how," he said, wryly. "But there's an easier way of analyzing
this contraption. I'll walk through it. If I don't come back, you can
decide for yourselves if you want to follow or take up camping in that
jungle outside for the rest of your lives. Here goes!"
"Wait!" cried Uncle Andy.
But Scarface walked into the mirror and disappeared.
They waited. Five minutes. Ten minutes. And Scarface did not return.
Finally, Pee Bee offered a solution.
"Ah sees it like this," he said, breaking an oppressive silence. "Ah
feels safe when ah's on de right side of dat gun. Now if we goes
through dat mirror an' finds Scahface, we's better off than we is here.
If we goes into dat mirror an' gets snuffed into nothin'--then dat
means Scahface an' all de rest is probably big, flattened out blobs of
nothin', too. So we might as well join 'em instead of hangin' around
here. Ah's sick of it, an' ah's ready!" Before they could stop him, he
hurled himself into the mirror and disappeared.
The remaining castaways looked at each other in silence for almost
thirty seconds.