After Worlds Collide (When Worlds Collide 2)

“Diagrams?”

“The working plans of the cities, and the machinery and of the passages which, without the diagrams, you could not suspect.”

“Underground passages?”

“Precisely. That is how they took me out of the city. They laughed at us guarding all the gates! When they decided to take me away, two of them escorted me underground and led me on foot to a door that was opened only after some special ceremony, and which communicated with a conduit.”

“Conduit for what?”

“I could only suppose what. My eyes were taped, and during this journey, even my ears were muffled; but I am sure from my sensations during the journey that I was underground, and carried through a long, close conduit like a great pipe.”

“Carried?” repeated Tony, as the others in the group excitedly crowded closer to catch the weak word. “How did they carry you?”

“In a car. They sat me up in some sort of small car which ran very rapidly—and, I am sure, underground. I could feel enough of it with my hands to be sure it was not what we would call a passenger-car. I am sure now, from what I felt at the time, and what I learned later, that it was a work-car, built by the Old People for their workmen in the conduit. I was taken into a power tunnel, I believe, and transported in a work-car through the conduit to the other city. Certainly when, after a time I can only estimate as hours, I was brought up to daylight, it was in the city occupied by Russians and Japanese, and with them, on the same terms, some Germans. There are also English there, men and women; but not on the same terms as the others.”

“Go on!” begged several voices.

“They let me see the city—and themselves,” said Von Beitz. “It is a great city—greater than this, and very beautiful. It offers them everything that they could have dreamed of—and more! It makes them, as they succeed in mastering its secrets, like gods! Or they think so!”

“Like gods!”

“Yes,” said Von Beitz, “that is our great danger. They feel like gods; they must be like gods; and how can they be gods, without mortals to make them obeisance and do them reverence? So they will be the gods; and we will be the mortals to do their bidding. Already they have taken the English and set themselves above them, as you have heard. They tried to take us—as you know. We killed some of them—some of the most ruthless and dangerous; but others remain. They know they need not endanger themselves. They wait for us confidently.”

“Wait for us? How?”

“To come to them.”

“But if we don’t come?”

“We must.”

“Why?”

“We have no help for ourselves—and they know it. For the truth is as we feared. For all these great cities of the eastern section of this continent,” the German declared solemnly and slowly, “there is a single power city—or station. It is located deep underground—not directly beneath their city, but near it. Of course they control it, and control, therefore, light and power— and heat. Any of these we can enjoy only as they ration it to us.

“We move out, as we know, toward the cold orbit of Mars where heat will mean life in our long dark nights. They wait for that moment for us to admit their godship, and come and bow down before them.”

Tony stared silently at Von Beitz, biting his lip and clenching his hands. He remembered the exaltation which he had felt—which he could not help feeling—when he realized that he was in command in this single city. They felt themselves in command—in absolute power—over this planet. He could comprehend their believing themselves almost gods.

The weakened man went on: “In the cavern city where are the engines which draw power from the hot center of this planet, a guard of the ‘gods’ stands watch. It is the citadel of their authority, the palladium of their power. I have not seen the station; but yesterday I learned its location. I stole a diagram and traced it before I was discovered. I escaped my guards. I fought my way into a ship this morning.”

“You have the tracing?” Dodson whispered.

The German smiled. “I have it.”

He shut his eyes and gave a sigh that was partly a groan. Dodson leaned over him. “We’ll carry you to the center of the city now. You’ve taken a terrible beating.”

Von Beitz opened one eye, then, and a grin overspread his battered features. “My dear Dodson,” he replied spiritedly, although in a low tone, “if you think I’ve taken a terrible beating, you ought to see the other fellows. Three of them! One I left without so many teeth as he had had. The one who had the knife, I robbed of his weapon, and I put it between his ribs—where, I fear, it will take mortal effect. The third—alas, his own mother would neither recognize nor receive him!”

With those words the courageous Von Beitz quietly fainted.

Tony told Jack Taylor to post a call for a meeting, in the evening, of the Council of the Central Authority; and he himself accompanied those who bore Von Beitz to Dodson’s hospital.

It was, of course, really a hospital of the Other People which Dodson had preëmpted. The plan of the place and its equipment delighted Dodson and at the same time drove him to despair trying to imagine the right uses of some of the implements of the surgery, and the procedures of those Vanished People.

Von Beitz’ case was, however, a simple one; and Tony left, fully assured that the German would completely recover.

Tony went home—to the splendid, graceful apartment where he knew he would find Eve, and which they called their home because they occupied it. But they could never be free from consciousness that it was not theirs—that minds and emotions immensely distant from them had designed this place of repose.