Science fiction -- Periodicals; Science fiction, American -- Periodicals
Something bothered me. Something about the ray projectors and the
other machinery I had seen. I glanced up at one of the balloons
floating high above. All these needed a power supply; tremendous power
to accomplish what the ray was doing. And there were no cables
running to them. How did the power get to them?
There was only one answer. Radio transmission. The required energy,
perhaps the very ray vibrations themselves, were being broadcast to
the points of projection. That meant a power-house and a control room
somewhere in the area. _The vulnerable points!_ Where were they?
I stumbled, and was jerked roughly to my feet. The lieutenant slapped
me. "Scared, Americansky? You well may be. We'll have rare sport when
they throw what the Ferret leaves of you into the ray." I shuddered.
To go out that way! I'll be honest--I was horribly afraid. The men to
whom I was shackled laughed.
A dull throbbing beat at my ears, a vibration just too low to be
sound. I looked about for its source. It came from my left--a concrete
building, low lying, about a hundred yards long by as many feet wide.
At the further end a squat smokestack broke the flat line of the roof.
Guards, many guards, were pacing their slow patrol about it. From the
center of the side nearest me, cables thick as a man's trunk issued
forth. I followed them with my eye. They ended in a marble slab on
which rested a concrete sphere, somewhat larger than the others. The
door of this one was closed. On the roof of the queer edifice was a
peculiar arrangement of wires, gleaming in the artificial daylight.
This building, too, was heavily guarded.
I had found what I sought--the power-house and the transmitting
station. Much good it did me--now.
* * * * *
My warders turned sharply to the right. I glimpsed another concrete
structure. A heavy steel door opened, then clanged shut, behind us.
The fetid odor that means only one thing the world over, folded round
me.
I sprawled on the steel floor of the cell into which I was thrust. A
wave of utter fatigue engulfed me. I felt great weariness of body and
despair of soul. I had failed in my mission. The fate of my country
had been entrusted to me--and here I was in a steel-floored,
steel-walled prison cell. And that tunnel was rushing toward New York
at three miles an hour; over seventy miles a day.
I think I slept from sheer exhaustion. But something startled me into
awaking. The dim light filtering in from the tiny air-hole high up on
one wall showed me that I was still alone. I lay, listening. There it
was again, a wailing scream of agony that rose and fell and died away.
I heard a grating sound at the door, and it opened and shut. Rubinoff,
the Ferret, had entered. "Comfortable, Captain Bolton?" he asked, and
there was more than a hint of mockery in the velvety voice. In the
hand with the twisted finger was his ray-tube. It pointed steadily at
me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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