The City of Space
Bill lay on an Alpine glacier, a painful broken leg inextricably wedged
in a crevasse. It was dark, frightfully cold. In vain he struggled to
move, to seek light and warmth, while the grim grip of the ice held
him, while bitter wind howled about him and the piercing cold of the
blizzard crept numbingly up his limbs.
He came to with a start, realized that it was a dream. But he was none
the less freezing, gasping for thin, frigid air, that somehow would not
come into his lungs. All about was darkness. He lay on cold metal.
"In the wreck of the _Fury_!" he thought. "The air is leaking out. And
the cold of space! A frozen tomb!"
He must have made a sound, for a groan came from beside him. He fought
to draw breath, tried to speak. He choked, and his voice was oddly high
and thin.
"Who are----"
He ended in a fit of coughing, felt warm blood spraying from his mouth.
Faintly he heard a whisper beside him.
"I'm Brand. The Moon Patrol--fought to the last!"
Bill could speak no more, and evidently the redoubtable captain could
not. For a long time they lay in freezing silence. Bill had no hope of
life, he felt only very grim satisfaction in the fact that he and Brand
had not been killed outright.
But suddenly he was thrilled with hope. He heard a crash of hammer
blows upon metal, sharp as the sound of snapping glass in the thin air.
Then he heard the thin hiss of an oxygen lance.
Someone was cutting a way to them through the wreckage. Only a moment
later, it seemed, a vivid bar of light cleft the darkness, searched the
wrecked bridge, settled upon the two limp figures. Bill saw grotesque
figures in cumbrous metal space suits clambering through a hole they
had cut. He felt an oxygen helmet being fastened about his head, heard
the thin hiss of the escaping gas, and was once more able to breathe.
Again he slipped into oblivion.
He awoke with the sensation that infinite time had passed. He sat up
quickly, feeling strong, alert, fully recovered in every faculty, a
clear memory of every detail of the disastrous encounter with the
strange blue globe-ship springing instantly to his mind.
He was in a clean bed in a little white-walled room. Captain Brand,
a surprised grin on his bluff, rough-hewn features, was sitting upon
another bed beside him. Two attendants in white uniform stood just
inside the door; and a nervous little man in black suit, evidently a
doctor, was hastily replacing gleaming instruments in a leather bag.
A tall man appeared suddenly in the door, clad in a striking uniform
of black, scarlet, and gold--black trousers, scarlet military coat and
cap, gold buttons and decorations. He carried in his hand a glittering
positive ray pistol.
"Gentlemen," he said in a crisp, gruff voice, "you may consider
yourselves prisoners of the Prince of Space."
"How come?" Brand demanded.
"The Prince was kind enough to have you removed from the wreck of your
ship, and brought aboard the _Red Rover_, his own sunship. You have
been kept unconscious until your recovery was complete."
"And what do you want with us now?" Brand was rather aggressive.
The man with the pistol smiled. "That, gentlemen, I am happy to say,
rests largely with yourselves."
"I am an officer in the Moon Patrol," said Brand. "I prefer death to
anything----"
"Wait, Captain. You need have none but the kindest feelings for my
master, the Prince of Space. I now ask you nothing but your word as an
officer and a gentleman that you will act as becomes a guest of the
Prince. Your promise will lose you nothing and win you much."
"Very good, I promise," Brand agreed after a moment. "----for
twenty-four hours."
He pulled out his watch, looked at it. The man in the door lowered his
pistol, smiling, and walked across to shake hands with Brand.
"Call me Smith," he introduced himself. "Captain of the Prince's
cruiser, _Red Rover_."
Still smiling, he beckoned toward the door.
"And if you like, gentlemen, you may come with me to the bridge. The
_Red Rover_ is to land in an hour."
Brand sprang nimbly to the floor, and Bill followed. The flier was
maintaining a moderate acceleration--they felt light, but were able
to walk without difficulty. Beyond the door was a round shaft, with
a ladder through its length. Captain Smith clambered up the ladder.
Brand and Bill swung up behind him.
After an easy climb of fifty feet or so, they entered a domed
pilot-house, with vitrolite observation panels, telescopes, maps and
charts, and speaking tube--an arrangement similiar to that of the
_Fury_.
Black, star-strewn heavens lay before them. Bill looked for the earth,
found it visible in the periscopic screens, almost behind them. It was
a little green disk; the moon but a white dot beside it.
"We land in an hour!" he exclaimed.
"I didn't say where," said Captain Smith, smiling. "Our landing place
is a million miles from the earth."
"Not on earth! Then where----"
"At the City of Space."
"The City of Space!"
"The capital of the Prince of Space. It is not a thousand miles before
us."
Bill peered ahead, through the vitrolite dome, distinguished the bright
constellation of Sagittarius with the luminous clouds of the Galaxy
behind it.
"I don't see anything----"
"The Prince does not care to advertise his city. The outside of the
City of Space is covered with black vitalium--which furnishes us
with power. Reflecting none of the sun's rays, it cannot be seen by
reflected light. Against the black background of space it is invisible,
except when it occults a star."
* * * * *
Captain Smith busied himself with giving orders for the landing. Bill
and Brand stood for many minutes looking forward through the vitrolite
dome, while the motor ray tubes retarded the flier. Presently a little
black point came against the silver haze of the Milky Way. It grew,
stars vanishing behind its rim, until a huge section of the heavens was
utterly black before them.
"The City of Space is in a cylinder," Captain Smith said. "Roughly five
thousand feet in diameter, and about that high. It is built largely
of meteoric iron which we captured from a meteorite swarm--making
navigation safe and getting useful metal at the same time. The cylinder
whirls constantly, with such speed that the centrifugal force against
the sides equals the force of gravity on the earth. The city is built
around the inside of the cylinder--so that one can look up and see his
neighbor's house apparently upside down, a mile above his head. We
enter through a lock in one end of the cylinder."
A vast disk of dull black metal was now visible a few yards outside
the vitrolite panels. A huge metal valve swung open in it, revealing a
bright space beyond. The _Red Rover_ moved into the chamber, the mighty
valve closed behind her, air hissed in about her, an inner valve was
opened, and she slipped into the City of Space.
[Illustration: _A huge metal valve swung open in it, revealing a bright
space beyond.... An inner valve was opened, and_ Red Rover _slipped
into the City of Space._]
They were, Bill saw, at the center of an enormous cylinder. The sides,
half a mile away, above and below them, were covered with buildings
along neat, tree-bordered streets, scattered with green lawns, tiny
gardens, and bits of wooded park. It seemed very strange to Bill, to
see these endless streets about the inside of a tube, so that one by
walking a little over three miles in one direction would arrive again
at the starting point, in the same way that one gets back to the
starting point after going around the earth in one direction.
At the ends of the cylinder, fastened to the huge metal disks, which
closed the ends, were elaborate and complex mechanisms, machines
strange and massive. "They must be for heating the city," Bill thought,
"and for purifying the air, for furnishing light and power, perhaps
even for moving it about." The lock through which they had entered was
part of this mechanism.
In the center of each end of the cylinder hung a huge light, seeming
large and round as the sun, flooding the place with brilliant mellow
rays.
"There are five thousand people here," said Captain Smith. "The Prince
has always kept the best specimens among his captives, and others have
been recruited besides. We are self-sustaining as the earth is. We use
the power of the sun--through our vitalium batteries. We grow our own
food. We utilize our waste products--matter here goes through a regular
cycle of life and death as on the earth. Men eat food containing
carbon, breathe in oxygen, and breathe out carbon dioxide; our plants
break up the carbon dioxide, make more foods containing the same
carbon, and give off the oxygen for men to breathe again. Our nitrogen,
our oxygen and hydrogen, go through similar cycles. The power of the
sun is all we need from outside."
Captain Smith guided his "guests" down the ladder, and out through the
ship's air-lock. They entered an elevator. Three minutes later they
stepped off upon the side of the great cylinder that housed the City,
and entered a low building with a broad concrete road curving up before
it. As they stepped out, it gave Bill a curious dizzy feeling to look
up and see busy streets, inverted, a mile above his head. The road
before them curved smoothly up on either hand, bordered with beautiful
trees, until its ends met again above his head.
The centrifugal force that held objects against the sides of
the cylinder acted in precisely the same way as gravity on the
earth--except that it pulled _away_ from the center of the cylinder,
instead of _toward_ it.
A glistening heliocar came skimming down upon whirling heliocopters,
dropped to rubber tires, and rolled up beside them. A young man of
military bearing, clad in a striking uniform of red, black, and gold,
stepped out, saluted stiffly.
"Captain Smith," he said, "the Prince desires your attendance at his
private office immediately with your guests."
Smith motioned Bill and Captain Brand into the richly upholstered body
of the heliocar. Bill, gazing up at the end of the huge cylinder with
a city inside it, caught sight, for the first time, of the exterior of
the _Red Rover_, the ship that had brought them to the City of Space.
It lay just beside the massive machinery of the air-lock, supported in
a heavy metal cradle, with the elevator tube running straight from it
to the building behind them.
"Look, Brand!" Bill gasped. "That isn't the blue globe. It isn't the
ship we fought at all!"
Brand looked. The _Red Rover_ was much the same sort of ship that the
_Fury_ had been. She was slender and tapering, cigar-shaped, some two
hundred feet in length and twenty-five in diameter--nearly twice as
large as the _Fury_. She was cylindrical, instead of octagonal, and she
mounted twenty-four motor tubes, in two rings fore and aft, of twelve
each, instead of eight.
Brand turned to Smith. "How's this?" he demanded. "Where is the blue
globe? Did you have two ships?"
A smile flickered over Smith's stern face. "You have a revelation
waiting for you. But it is better not to keep the Prince waiting."
They stepped into the heliocar. The pilot sprang to his place, set
the electric motors whirring. The machine rolled easily forward, took
the air on spinning helicopters. The road, lined with green gardens
and bright cottages, dropped away "below" them, and other houses drew
nearer "above." In the center of the cylinder the young man dextrously
inverted the flier; and they continued on a straight line toward an
imposing concrete building which now seemed "below."
* * * * *
The heliocar landed; they sprang out and approached the imposing
building of several stories. Guards uniformed in scarlet, black and
gold standing just outside the door held ray pistols in readiness.
Smith hurried his "guests" past; they entered a long, high-ceilinged
room. It gave a first impression of stately luxury. The walls were
paneled with rich dark wood, hung with a few striking paintings. It was
almost empty of furniture; a heavy desk stood alone toward the farther
end. A tall young man rose from behind this desk, advanced rapidly to
meet them.
"My guests, sir," said Smith. "Captain Brand of the _Fury_, and a
reporter."
"The mysterious Mr. Cain!" Bill gasped.
Indeed, Mr. Cain stood before him, a tall man, slender and wiry, with a
certain not unhandsome sternness in his dark face. A smile twinkled in
his black, enigmatic eyes--which none the less looked as if they might
easily flash with fierce authority.
"And Mr. Win----or, I believe you asked me to call you Bill. You seem
a very hard man to evade!"
Still smiling enigmatically, Mr. Cain took Bill's hand, and then shook
hands with Captain Brand.
"But--are you the Prince of Space?" Bill demanded.
"I am. Cain was only a _nom de guerre_, so to speak. Gentlemen, I
welcome you to the City of Space!"
"And you kidnaped yourself?"
"My men brought the _Red Rover_ for me."
"Dr. Trainor and his daughter----" Bill ejaculated.
"They are friends of mine. They are here."
"And that blue globe!" said Captain Brand. "What was that?"
"You saw the course it was following?"
"It was headed to intersect the orbit of the earth--and its direction
was on a line that cuts the orbit of Mars where that planet was forty
days ago."
The Prince turned to Bill. "And you have seen something like that blue
globe before?"
"Why, yes. The little blue circle on Mars--that I saw through the great
telescope on Trainor's Tower."
A sober smile flickered across the dark lean face of the Prince.
"Then, gentlemen, you should believe me. The earth is threatened with a
dreadful danger from Mars. The blue globe that wrecked your fleet was a
ship from Mars. It was another Martian flier that took the _Helicon_.
I believe I have credit for that ghastly exploit of sucking out the
passengers' blood." His smile became grimly humorous. "One of the
consequences of my position."
"Martian fliers?" echoed Captain Brand. "Then how did we come to be on
your ship?"
"I haven't any weapon that will meet those purple atomic bombs on equal
terms--though we are now working out a new device. I had Smith cruising
around the blue globe in our _Red Rover_ to see what he could learn. He
was investigating the wrecks, and found you alive."
"You really mean that men from Mars have come this near the earth?"
Captain Brand was frankly incredulous.
"Not men," the Prince corrected, smiling. "But _things_ from Mars have
done it. They have already landed on earth, in fact."
He turned to the desk, picked up a broad sheet of cardboard.
"I have a color photograph here."
Bill studied it, saw that it looked like an aerial photograph of a vast
stretch of mountain and desert, a monotonous expanse of gray, tinged
with green and red.
"A photograph, taken from space, of part of the state of Chihuahua,
Mexico. And see!"
He pointed to a little blue disk in the green-gray expanse of a plain,
just below a narrow mountain ridge, with the fine green line that
marked a river just beside it.
"That blue circle is the first ship that came. It was the things aboard
it that sucked the blood out of the people on the _Helicon_."
Captain Brand was staring at the tall, smiling man, with a curious
expression on his red, square-chinned face. Suddenly he spoke.
"Your Highness, or whatever we must call you----"
"Just call me Prince. Cain is not my name. Once I had a name--but now I
am nameless!"
The thin dark face suddenly lined with pain, the lips closed in a
narrow line. The Prince swept a hand across his high forehead, as if to
sweep something unpleasant away.
"Well, Prince, I'm with you. That is, if you want an officer from the
Moon Patrol." A sheepish smile overspread his bluff features. "I would
have killed a man for suggesting that I would ever do such a thing. But
I'll fight for you as well as I ever did for the honor of the Patrol."
"Thanks, Brand!" The Prince took his hand, smiling again.
"Count me in too, of course," said Bill.
"Both of you will be valuable men," said the Prince.
He picked up a sheaf of papers, scanned them quickly, seemed to mark
off one item from a sheet and add another.
"The _Red Rover_ sets out for the earth in one hour, gentlemen. We're
going to try a surprise attack on that blue globe in the desert. You
will both go aboard."
"And I'm going too!" A woman's voice, soft and a little husky, spoke
beside them. Recognizing it, Bill turned to see Paula Trainor standing
behind them, an eager smile on her elfinly beautiful face. Her amazing
eyes were fixed upon the Prince, their brown depths filled, for the
moment, with passionate wistful yearning.
"Why, no, Paula," the Prince said. "It's dangerous!"
Tears swam mistily in the golden orbs. "I will go! I must! I must!" The
girl cried out the words, a sobbing catch in her voice.
"Very well, then," the Prince agreed, smiling absently. "You father
will be along of course. But anything will be likely to happen."
"But you will be there in danger, too!" cried the girl.
"We start in an hour," said the Prince. "Smith, you may take Brand and
Windsor back aboard the _Red Rover_."
"Curse his fatherly indifference!" Bill muttered under his breath as
they walked out through the guarded door. "Can't he see that she loves
him?"
Smith must have heard him, for he turned to him, spoke confidentially.
"The Prince is a determined misogynist. I think an unfortunate love
affair was what ruined his life--back on the earth. He left his
history, even his name, behind him. I think a woman was the trouble. He
won't look at a woman now."
They were outside again, startled anew by the amazing scene of a street
of houses and gardens, that curved evenly up on either side of them and
met above, so that men were moving about, head downward directly above
them.
The heliocar was waiting. The three got aboard, were lifted and swiftly
carried to the slender silver cylinder of the _Red Rover_, where it
hung among the ponderous machinery of the air-lock, on the end of the
huge cylinder that housed the amazing City of Space.
"I will show you your rooms," said Captain Smith. "And in an hour we
are off to attack the Martians in Mexico."