The Earth-Tube (22 page)

Throughout the southern continent Asian gardeners were restoring, as nearly as it might be done at that season of the year, the beauty of the country. And on a broad spot beside the sea, near the site of the ancient city of Santos, they were building a duplicate of the palace of Tal Majod, with fourteen crystal towers of tinted undulal and courtyards running downward to the ocean.

It was no longer a question of driving these conquerors from the hemisphere. Now it was a fierce battle to keep them from moving through the Isthmus and striking at Central and North America. It was a fight for time to permit the chemists and physicists and armorers of America to study more fully the problem which had so far baffled them. They had already tried many experiments: new explosives, new gases, newly designed shells. To meet the vanguard of the Asians on their own terms, one American manufacturer had built a huge tank of the finest steel, similar in shape and almost equal in size to those of the enemy. Eagerly they had hurried it to the front, and there, with engines roaring for fight, it had crashed into an invading tank somewhere southeast of Bogota.

The unengaged enemy tanks, like gentlemen watching a duel, stood aloof and observed the contest. The American troops, close enough to observe what was going on, cheered the courageous crew of the defending monster. For a full minute it appeared that the American objective had been won. Head-on, locked in a silent, wrestling posture, the two tanks pushed at each other, the Asian gaining not an inch. But the steel of the American tank suddenly crushed in like eggshell. It collapsed upon itself, a shrieking mass of plates and machinery from which steam and oil and little explosive flames escaped in greasy clouds. The triumphant Asian rolled unconcernedly over the wreck and crushed it into the ground.

Even before the fall of Georgetown and Bogota the necessity for severing the continents had been seen. The Isthmus was narrow, and at either side foamed the waters of the oceans, the safest of defenses against the heavy Asian tanks. At the Isthmus, if ever, could the American forces dam the northward march of the invaders.

All the resources of America were immediately concentrated upon the giant task. Man-power, money, giant powder, and all the mechanical tools that ingenuity could devise went pouring southward. The four-tracked Washington to Panama railroad was crowded with trains bearing supplies and helpers to the spot. Coast-wise vessels were commandeered from their usual work for the emergency. And in a few days, almost as if by magic, a jagged trench was blasted out between the Nicaraguan and Panama canals.

In Dr. Scott’s library the President had recounted these details. “I have telegrams indicating that the work at the Isthmus is nearly done,” he said wearily. “The Americas are now separated by a channel of surging water deep enough to drown their tanks and becoming deeper and deeper every minute, due to the flow between the oceans and the action of the tides. Our troops and defenses in upper Venezuela and Colombia have been ordered to withdraw, and the Asians may reach the barrier in a few hours.

“Upon whether or not the water stops them depends the future of the country.”

Dr. Scott, recovered from his illness, though still weak, sat in his arm chair before the fire. Dr. Garcia, the third member of the Council, nodded absent-mindedly. Of what use to him or his people, he was thinking, would be this last desperate defense? The continent of which he had been president was already lost; the hundred million persons who had twice elected him were dead or captured, their cities burned, their lands laid waste.

Dr. Scott shook his head slowly. “I haven’t much faith in the new canal,” he said. “It may stop them for awhile. it undoubtedly will hold them for a day or two. but these fellows are too resourceful to stop at a couple of miles of water if they really want to cross.”

The President replied in a low tone as if he were afraid of being overheard. “I haven’t much faith in it myself,” he admitted. “But drowning men must catch at straws. And above all else, we must keep the public from panic as long as we can. Perhaps. perhaps a way will come.”

Again the scientist shook his head.

“A way might come,” he said, “but, for the life of me, Mr. President, I can’t see what it would be. My own discovery. the disintegrating ray. I have been able to reproduce only once since the night King Henderson left. And the second time, like the first, it destroyed my apparatus. I think that with the materials we have at hand we shall never be able to control and use it.

“What else have we? On every side we have failed. The history of this invasion has been, for the Asians, a triumphal advance over hostile territory with hardly a noticeable degree of effective resistance. For us it has been a long series of costly blunders and futile efforts. Had they nothing but their metal with which to attack us, they could march into our armies with shields and swords and whip us still behind the shelter of that damnable shining stuff!”

The telephone rang suddenly, its quick, neurotic clatter casting a spell of apprehension over the room. Nervously the President raised the receiver. In a moment he was talking and listening at the same time, excited by the message he was receiving.

“My God,” he exclaimed. “The Asians are already at the Isthmus. In a sudden spurt, apparently knowing what had been prepared for them there, they burst through our lines and headed straight for the gap. The defense troops, driven to the shore on either side, were taken off by transports, with heavy losses.”

“But the Asians?” queried Dr. Scott, sitting tensely in his chair.

“. have stopped at the brink of the new canal!” the President replied. “They have stopped! For the time being, at least, we have them checked.”

He was like a condemned man suddenly liberated. He was bursting with renewed energy. “I must hurry and wire my congratulations to the commanders at the front,” he exclaimed. “We must get this news out immediately over the radio. There will be a great celebration to-night in every city in North America!”

Dr. Scott nodded.

“I suppose there will,” he replied, “but that doesn’t mean much. The Asians have not yet been beaten. They will cross that channel as surely as they bored a hole through the earth. They may not be in a hurry about it, but our troubles, even supposing that we would be content to let them have South America in exchange for the safety of the north, are by no means over.”

Half an hour later he heard the roaring of sirens and the sound of celebration in the city. The news of the Asian check had reached the populace, and the measure of their anxiety was evident in their exuberance at being relieved of it. Thousands of persons paraded the streets, convinced that the invasion was over, that the terrible tanks had been stopped once and for all at the threshold of North America, and that the trade and industry and life of the world could go on again as it had before the earth-tube had spewed out the Asians to attack the defenseless hemisphere.

Dr. Scott did not leave his chair. He heard with bent head the roar of the celebration and stared into the briskly burning fire at his feet, while Anna, ever attentive, cared for his needs. At midnight he was still there, his old hands gripping the sides of the chair, his eyes staring unseeing into the flames.

“Anna,” he said abruptly, “even the President has failed to realize our utter helplessness. There is only one thing that can save America. King’s return with the information he went to get!”

Anna did not reply. King had been gone more than two weeks. There was little hope, now, for his return. Not once since he left had he sent word by his radio, though it had been tested and found to be in good working order when he took off for the landing.

“I am certain that he got through to the Asian stronghold,” Dr. Scott continued. “I am equally certain that if the information was available he got it. What has happened to him since. I cannot guess. But I feel sure of this, Anna. King is still alive; and we should rescue him.”

“That isn’t possible,” Anna replied slowly. “Don’t you see. long before this he would have starved to death if he were still undetected in the Asian city. The only other possibility is that he has been taken and held captive; and in that case how could Americans rescue him? We who cannot even capture a hostile tank; how could we knock down the walls of that metal city and recapture King?”

The old man brushed the argument aside impatiently.

“Even so, we should make the attempt.”

Later he said: “Anna, get me the President on the telephone. I’ll offer to head a rescue expedition myself if we can’t find some one younger and abler!”

IV

It is not easy for a man in one week to assimilate the science and learning of a whole race, especially if, throughout the period of tutelage, there hangs over him the knowledge of swift and certain death at the end of it; death by the most horrible of means. Accompanied at first by the Mui Salvo and a guard, and later, when the Asian saw that he would attempt no violence, by Gun-Tar alone, King was taken everywhere at his will through the Asian city of Tiplis, and all the wonders of the Asians were made clear to him: their science, their mechanics, their economics, their government, their theories of existence, and their justification for life.

He saw them making undulal in the laboratory, molding into place the soft, waxen stuff which formed the metal’s base. Then King remembered the dying and delirious cry of the earlier American spy: “They make it out of mud!” It was, indeed, made out of a refined clay which the Asians had found in great quantities in their native country and in sufficiently large deposits elsewhere to build the earth-tube and the metal cities at either end, as well as the castles of their rulers and their implements of war.

But the clay, which was of a yellowish-blue color, and stiff, like putty, was only the base. Into it was mixed the secret chemical substance whose formula, known only to the Mui Salvos, Gun-Tar whispered carefully to King.
¹
This substance glowed in the dark;

it was compounded of radio-active elements; it could be brought together in different ways, producing various types of undulal.

Into an enormous flower in the laboratory the slaves molded the plastic undulal for King, and when it was done the Mui Salvo touched a button in the wall. There was a blinding flash as electricity shot through the clayey stuff. The flower glowed instantly with hellish fires and shrunk and writhed amid an aura of green and gold and purple. There was a blast of heat, and out of the phenomena there came the shining metal, reduced in size, but exactly in the shape in which the slaves had molded it.

The Mui Salvo smiled. “It is your flower,
²⁴
he said, “and you may carry it.” But when it had cooled sufficiently to touch, King found that he could not lift it from the spot. A smaller bit of undulal was placed in his hand; it was so heavy that he involuntarily dropped it to the floor.

Beneath the city’s lowest streets there were storehouses. Beside King, another day, walked his Asian guide through the long, twilight corridors there. They came to a locked door, and the Mui Salvo, producing a key, threw it open. The place was like a giant bin, and on the floor, as coal might have been thrown, lay gold. hundreds and thousands of tons of it. King gasped, and going in, picked up a handful of nuggets to satisfy himself that they were real. In another compartment there were tons of platinum; in a third lay mountains of radium and uranium and unknown radio-active substances. There were endless piles of precious stones, all locked away beneath Tiplis.

“These stones and metals came from the middle of the earth,” the Asian explained. “As we bored through we found, as we had expected, that the heavy metals had been drawn downward and were near the core. Some were of no use to us; the gold, for instance, was too soft for use. but we have saved it;

I cannot tell you now what for. But tell me”. the Asian’s eyes gleamed. “what would a pile of gold like that do if it were suddenly discovered in America?”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed King. “There is enough of the stuff here to destroy our entire monetary system, which, as you know, rests upon the value and scarcity of gold for its stability. I am glad, on the whole, that you discovered it, and not we. It would disorganize the country.”

“Americans would kill each other for so much wealth,” commented Gun-Tar. “And see. here are jewels also which we have brought up out of the earth . so many and of such variety that they also are no longer valuable. Go help yourself. Take gold and platinum, too!”

The Asian laughed.

“It will weight you down: you’ll fall into the earth much faster when you go,” he said.

King drew back.

“No, thanks,” he replied. “I’ll have no use for wealth in three more days. But I am interested in this gold. What do you use for coinage here?”

“Coins? We have no money. Such systems are relics of barbarism. We live by science here; our economics are as scientific as our machines. We have no money.”

“How then. ?”

“Why, food and clothing, shelter and entertainment are furnished to each citizen by the state. There is nothing that he could buy which is not given him free. The state in turn exacts from him a measure of labor. The state supports itself and in turn supports the units of itself.”

“But if one will not work?”

“Then he is first disciplined by demotion to a lower class, and in the end, if he persists, he is executed. Only the offspring of willing workers survive. Heredity and eugenics bear with us. When any evil crops out, it is eradicated by execution, root and branch. We have plenty of people; destroying a few has always a salutary effect.”

“That is horrible,” exclaimed King.

“We have no such emotion. It is not horrible; it is merely scientific. If you had a machine which was being made inefficient by one defective part, would you preserve and coddle the defective part or would you destroy and replace it?”

“But the analogy is poor,” argued King. “In America we believe that the state is a machine which exists only for the good of its members. When the state becomes so powerful that it destroys and crushes these members to further its own ends, then it has ceased to serve.”