The Sleepers Page 9

  After climbing out of the airshaft he had sneaked into the cave serving the preparations for the conservation where the enormous generators were located and where he expected to have an opportunity to sabotage at least some operations of the ISC. Unfortunately the interference of the three guards had spoiled his plan. Although Kennof had heard the two explosions he was unable to figure out what had happened and he was puzzled why nobody came to put out the fire.

  The detective kept crawling and coughing. Out of the dense cloud of smoke, ashes and fire a burned-out object crashed to the ground, barely missing him. Suddenly a man loomed out of the flames with scorched clothes, holding a gun in his hand. Kennof rolled himself against his legs and caused him to topple on top of him. With a loud groan Kennof threw him off and pounced on him, aided by the flickering light of a burning piece of wood.

  A rasping voice was heard not far away: "Is that you, Stefan?"

  "Quick, over here!" the man lying under Kennof screamed.

  With sudden clarity Kennof saw a second man standing over him. He felt a sharp sting in his side and the room began to whirl around the detective. He fell on his back. Half-dazed he noticed the man crawl away from him and heard a voice call out: "He won’t bother us anymore. Let’s get out of here!"

  The Druufs! Kennof thought with waning strength. I’ve got to leave Shane a message.

  Then the blistering fire closed in around him...

  • • •

  Hardiston clamped his powerful fists around a warped iron brace and bent it out of the way. "Celia and Zekizawa remain here," he decided. "The others follow me into the cave. Payne, take over the detector. Don’t forget that they might spring a trap on us."

  He scrambled over the demolished door and nimbly jumped across a deep hole. "Shoot only if it’s necessary," Hardiston instructed his men. "We don’t want to hit any innocent victims. Keep your gas masks ready in case they use gas. Maliverney, keep checking the atmospheric pressure at all times. Lohnert and Adams, accompany me!"

  He waited till the two agents had joined him. Celia saw Hardiston’s tall figure standing in the jagged entrance for a moment before he ducked into the dark corridor, followed by the others.

  • • •

  Clinkskate’s head seemed to spin. His pain-wracked body knew only one goal: the transmitter station.

  "All our installations are on fire!" somebody shouted behind him.

  Clinkskate was convinced that the fire meant the end of the Druufs. The descendants of insects were still too young and helpless to save themselves from the inferno without assistance. The life-sustaining pipes to the incubators were already severed and the liquid nutrient would ooze away in the soil of the cave while the oxygen supply system would spew out suffocating fumes instead of breathable air.

  A man tugged at his sleeve. "We can’t get through!" he shouted.

  Clinkskate recognized Eberhard’s twisted face. He probably didn’t look any better himself, he thought. "We must reach the transmitter!" he exclaimed. "It’s our only chance to leave this place alive!"

  "The flames are everywhere!" Eberhardt yelled in desperation. "The fire extinguishers are out of reach.

  We should’ve put up more of them."

  Clinkskate kicked a burning piece of plastic out of the way. "Do you really believe it would have helped us?" he scoffed.

  He spotted a gap between two machines where the holocaust had as yet failed to spread. He squeezed his tortured body past a gearbox. The odor of the sizzling oil accentuated the stench of the smoke. His injured arm dangled at his side almost paralyzed. He crept forward. A man screamed when he was hit by a falling white-hot part. Clinkskate wished that not all his men would come through the conflagration. If the transmitter still functioned, only a few of them would be lucky enough to make use of it.

  Clinkskate stumbled over a boy lying crumpled on the floor. The clothes of the man were so badly burned that he was unable to tell who he was. Eberhardt came closer and they bent over the body.

  "Turn him over," Clinkskate said and Eberhardt rolled the man on his back.

  It was Stefan and he was still breathing. Clinkskate shook him up and Stefan opened his eyes.

  "What did you do with Kennof?" Clinkskate asked, drawing a weak reaction from the half-unconscious man. "Did you finish him off?"

  Stefan opened his mouth to say something but his vocal chords refused to respond. Clinkskate kept shaking him mercilessly. "Speak up, man!" he shouted.

  "Leave him alone," Eberhardt said, disgusted. "Let’s hurry or we’ll be too late."

  Clinkskate got up. Blue flames began to lick the machines and the paint started to blister.

  "Look out!" he warned with outstretched arms. The way to the transmitter station was blocked by flames. To go on meant certain death.

  "We’re caught in a circle of fire," Clinkskate moaned wearily when he realized that they were surrounded by a burning hell.

  • • •

  Notwithstanding their extreme caution they became snared in the first of the obstacles. Maliverney, who walked at the head of the column, suddenly cried out and began to totter. Hardiston seized him quickly. The metallic objects Maliverney carried glistened with a phosphorescent shine.

  Without a moment’s delay Hardiston tore the agent’s outfit from his body. Where the metal had been in direct contact with his skin, it had left severe burns. "There must be a contact release somewhere in the wall," Hardiston said grimly. "They probably have built in a detector which can register metal in this zone and triggers the emission of rays that make the metal glow with heat."

  Maliverney grimaced in pain as he whispered, "Pounds was lucky that he wasn’t in my place with his three gold teeth."

  Pounds winced and the men forced themselves to smile. "If we can’t find the device to destroy it, we have only one possibility left," Shane declared, "we must pass it without our weapons and other vulnerable equipment."

  "What do you want us to do?" Adams asked apprehensively.

  "This!" Hardiston drew his weapon and sprayed the rocky sidewalls. The others followed his example.

  "I hope we can at least smash the detector," Lohnert said optimistically. Shorty Fecher pulled a small steel shovel out of his pack and threw it in the direction of the forbidding barrier which had almost claimed a victim despite its invisibility. Nothing happened!

  "We did it!" Adams exclaimed with satisfaction and continued on his way.

  "Pounds, stay with Maliverney and try to take him back to Celia. She’ll take care of him. Adams will carry your equipment," Hardiston instructed the men. Adams came back again to take over the additional load.

  "How is it possible that the ISC can build such sophisticated installations?" Fecher wondered. Hardiston motioned him to move on. But after they had advanced a short distance they were blocked again by a massive metallic curtain.

  "Here we go again," Lohnert muttered, putting down his detonator and starting to unwind some cables.

  "Stop it!" Hardiston ordered. "I’m afraid that half the mountain will cave in on us when we blow it up. There must be a better way."

  "How about blasting a tunnel in the wall around it?" Adams suggested.

  "That wouldn’t be much better either." Hardiston opposed the idea. "We would have to work with such small explosive charges that it would take us much too long to get back into this corridor on the other side."

  Fecher knocked his shovel against the metallic wall. Lohnert listened to the thumping sounds, trying to estimate the thickness. "I’d guess it’s about five centimeters," he finally said.

  "We’ll burn a hole with a cutting torch," Hardiston decided. "It’s the only way to get through without taking a risk."

  "This obstruction isn’t made out of tin," observed Benson, a taciturn man with small black eyes and a cowlick.

  "The oxygen bottle," Hardiston demanded. "Connect the torch, Adams."

  "I wish I had a thermo-nuclear burner," Lohnert sighed. "This will have to do."

&nbs
p; Hardiston slipped a hose over the torch and fastened it with a clamp. "And now the acetylene gas." He lit the gas mixture and adjusted the conical flame whose tip exceeded a temperature of 16000°C. Hardiston melted the metal with the cutter and suddenly the flames blew back toward him.

  "It’s hopeless," the agent conceded in resignation. "The wall consists of several layers with tiny spaces between them, a condition which makes it extremely difficult to penetrate it in a reasonable time. We can’t wait that long." He turned off the gas and the flame blew out with a faint pop as the men watched him in silence.

  "What next?" Fecher inquired.

  "The barricade extends a little into the sidewall," Lohnert remarked.

  "If we can’t think of something better in the next few minutes, we’ll have to dynamite it anyway," Hardiston proposed. The seven men looked at him and their eyes reflected their determination to break through the barrier come what may.

  11/ THE SUPREME SACRIFICE

  Dr. Le Boeuf strained his ears in the dark. Something of decisive importance must have happened shortly before he regained consciousness.

  He groped toward the door of the small room in which they had imprisoned him. To his amazement he found the door unlocked. With great circumspection he, ventured out into the corridor where it was dark as well. He paused for a moment to orient himself as the smell of fire entered his nostrils. He determined that he was close to the airshaft leading into the sleeping chamber.

  He started to walk, holding his hands in front of him to avoid obstacles. He became dimly aware that the situation in the subterranean vault had been subjected to a change. Without a definite plan he tiptoed forward till he struck the edge of the man-sized opening of the shaft. He was about to enter it when he was struck by a different idea. He thought of the transmitter. If he were able to damage the transmitter he could inflict a devastating blow on the ISC and the Druufs since the traitors would have serious trouble erecting another transmitter.

  However he could accomplish little with his bare hands. Then he remembered Clinkskate’s warning words: "The transmitter may not be put in operation unless a corresponding mass is simultaneously disintegrated on the plane of the Druufs. Any violation of this regulation will cause a catastrophe."

  Dr. Le Boeuf wondered what would happen if he operated the transmitter without the knowledge of the Druufs. Would his body disintegrate or would he vanish forever in a supra-dimensional world? The energy equilibrium which was automatically maintained between the Einstein universe and the Druuf plane suggested another solution: the five-dimensional space would hurl them back! The physician was not qualified to form a clear picture of the energies thus released. He knew only one thing: they would be sufficient to demolish the transmitter and a lot of other matter too.

  Dr. Le Boeuf was sure to die in the execution of his plan but he would feel neither fear nor remorse. And so the frail man with the freckled skin hastened his steps in the darkness. He had become conscious of his responsibilities toward his race in the last hours of his life.

  • • •

  Lohnert brushed a strand of hair from his forehead. Benson’s face was covered with tiny beads of sweat. They had to switch on their own lamps because the light had suddenly failed. Intermittently the face of a man appeared in the cone of light.

  "Time is running out," Shane Hardiston reminded them. His figure threw a huge shadow on the rock behind him.

  Adams and Fecher turned their flashlights on Lohnert’s electronic detonator. The agent tightened the last cable.

  "Look over here!" Benson shouted, pointing his flashlight to the barrier which slowly began to slide up.

  The men of the Special Solar Defense Corps gripped their weapons. A thick cloud seeped out under the partition and quickly billowed into the corridor.

  "Gas!" Fecher bellowed, reaching for his gas mask.

  Hardiston remained unruffled. He sniffed and shook his head. "It’s burning in there." he said. The partition came to a grinding halt only half a meter above the ground. More yellow fumes poured out. "It got stuck," Thatcher observed, "but it opened the way for us." At that moment the first of the ISC guards crawled out through the crack. Hardiston lowered his paralyzer. The man was in no condition to think clearly although he held a knife in his hand. The greater part of his clothes were burned and exposed his seared skin.

  "Give him a hand!" Hardiston instructed his men. Adams and Lohnert carefully pulled out the injured man who moaned in pain. "There are more coming," he murmured. "They’re afraid you’ll shoot at them."

  Hardiston put on his gas mask and kneeled down at the crack. "Come on out and surrender!" he shouted into the swirling opaque vapor. "We won’t shoot you." He seized one of the figures and dragged the man over to his side. Soon they had captured almost 40 men all of whom had suffered more or less severe burns. One of them was Clinkskate.

  "What happened to the sleeping people?" Hardiston’s voice rose above the groaning of the prisoners.

  "Were they consumed in the fire?" Clinkskate opened his red-singed lids. "Don’t worry," he rasped. "There are no people left in there." His bandage was a grimy crust of blood, dirt and soot. He had reached the state of exhaustion where he no longer felt pain.

  "What do you mean?" Hardiston urged him. "Where did you put the sleepers?"

  "The sleepers are still there," Clinkskate explained apathetically, "but they aren’t humans—they are Druufs. The people you’re looking for are on a planet of the Druufs."

  "He’s, hallucinating," Fecher interjected.

  "No, he’s telling the truth," an ISC-man cowering on the floor next to his boss assured him. "You can see it yourself after the fire had died down. Of course the monsters won’t be alive. The fire has incinerated all connections to the containers."

  "What do you know about Richard Kennof?" Hardiston asked quickly.

  "He got loose," was the answer. "I guess he’s dead now." Hardiston got up. "I need two volunteers to help me search for Dick," he announced calmly. "The others have to remain here to take care of the captives."

  All his men stepped forward as one. "Thatcher and Lohnert," Hardiston decided.

  Putting on his gas mask again, Shane ordered: "Nobody else may follow me—now or later."

  • • •

  Dr. Le Boeuf gripped the bar and pushed himself away. The transmitter station was set up as a completely independent unit from the other caves. It would have aroused unnecessary suspicions if any power lines had been laid to the main generators. An inquisitive official could have entertained the idea of following the connection and stumbled into the secret cave.

  Dr. Le Boeuf didn’t know how long it would take the transmitter to start functioning. Nor did he care particularly. He squatted down on the cold floor and waited. More than 2000 persons had already been here before him—against their will. And he had been an accomplice to the crime.

  He smiled bravely. His act would restore his self-respect. It was all that mattered. Would he suffer pain?

  Just before his end Dr. Le Boeuf caught a glimpse of eternity. He felt a fleeting breath of inspiration that lifted all the problems from his mind. The metamorphic action of the transmitter took effect. The atomic mass of the physician was transformed into a hyper-energetic impulse and flung into another space. Under normal circumstances he would have been caught in the influence sphere of the Druufs’ transmitter. However the Druufs were not informed of his deadly intentions and thus Dr. Le Boeuf remained for a period of time whose duration could not be grasped by human concepts in a space that was ruled by its unique and mysterious laws.

  Then he was hurled back! But it wasn’t Dr. Le Boeuf who emerged from the transmitter. It was untrammeled energy!

  • • •

  Celia Mortimer didn’t take her eyes off the blasted entrance. Zekizawa who noticed her stare didn’t say a word. He kept watch on St. Cloud and Tober who were involved in a heated argument. Pounds had taken Maliverney to the airport to let the injured man rest on a stretch
er.

  The sun had set behind the forest and a cool breeze swayed the treetops. An eagle spread his wings, circling high up in the air and searching for prey with sharp, far seeing eyes.

  Suddenly the earth began to vibrate. A tremor shook the ground as if two mighty fists tried to tear the mountains apart. A rumbling thunder surged from the caves and the rocks became covered with a fine layer of dust. Huge boulders flew through the air as if they had no weight.

  Celia saw Zekizawa open his mouth and call something but the noise was too great to understand him. The other, hitherto closed entrances to the caves, split open. The whole mountain seemed to be on the verge of collapsing.

  Zekizawa threw himself to the ground and pulled Celia down with him.

  It was over as suddenly as it had begun. Grey dust spilled out of the gaping holes. Celia cried softly. Zekizawa overheard Tober saying to St. Cloud: "It can only have been the transmitter." The man must have flipped his mind, mused the agent. Moments later the first unrecognizable figures ran out of the caves.

  "They survived!" Zekizawa exclaimed, rushing toward the men. Celia saw Fecher, Hardiston and Benson emerging from the debris. Her heart stood still for a moment.

  Where was Dick? Thatcher, who was apparently injured, was carried out by Lohnert. They were followed by a bunch of half-dead ISC men, tottering in utter exhaustion. "Celia!" a hoarse voice cried out. A dust-covered, soot-smeared apparition raised a hand.

  "Indestructible Dick is back," Zekizawa proclaimed. His words spelled deliverance for Celia’s anxiety. Kennof shuffled toward her. Celia barely saw his tired eyes light up in a spontaneous spark.