Wonder Stories Super Pack. Fletcher PrattЧитать онлайн книгу.
four weeks or more (as nearly as Sherman could estimate it in that nightless, sleepless place where time was an expression rather than a reality) the car that came for him one day discharged him into a room entirely different from the school-room. Like the school-room it was small, and some twenty feet across. Against the wall opposite the door stood a huge machine, the connections of which seemed to go back through the wall. Its vast complex of pulleys, valves and rods, conveyed no hint of its purpose, even to his mechanically-trained mind.
Across the front of it was a long, black board, four feet or more across and somewhat like the instrument board of an airplane in general character. At the top of this board was a band of ground glass, set off in divisions. Beneath this band a series of holes, each just large enough to admit a finger, and each marked off by a character of some kind though in no language Sherman had ever seen.
To complete the picture, one of the mechanical ape-men stood before the board as though expecting him. On the ape-man’s head was a tight-fitting helmet, connecting with some part of the machine by a flexible tube. As Sherman entered the room the ape-man motioned him over to the board, pointed to the holes and in thick, but intelligible English, said “Watsch!” A flash of purple light appeared behind the first of the ground-glass screens. The ape-man promptly thrust his finger into the first of the holes. The light went out, and the ape-man turned to Sherman. “Do,” he said. The light flashed on again, and Sherman, not unwilling to learn the purpose of the maneuver, did as his instructor had done.
He was rewarded by a tearing pain in the finger-tip and withdrew the member at once. Right at the end it had become slightly grey. The ape-man smiled. Behind the second ground-glass a red light now appeared and the ape-man thrust his finger into another of the apertures, indicating that Sherman should imitate him. This time the aviator was more cautious, but as he delayed the light winked angrily. Again he received the jerk of pain in the finger-tip and withdrew it to find that the grey spot had spread.
[Illustration: He was rewarded by a tearing pain in his fingertip. Behind the ground glass a red light now appeared.]
When the third light flashed on he refused to copy the motion of his instructor. The light blinked at him insistently. He placed both hands behind his back and stepped away from the machine. The ape-man, looking at him with something like panic, beckoned him forward again. Sherman shook his head; the ape-man threw back his head and emitted a long, piercing howl. Almost immediately the door slid back and the car appeared. As Sherman stepped to its threshold, instead of admitting him, it thrust forth a gigantic folding claw which gripped him firmly around the waist and held him while a shaft of the painful yellow light was thrown into his eyes; then tossed him back on the floor and slammed shut vengefully.
Dazed by the light and the fall, Herbert Sherman rolled on the floor, thoughts of retaliation flashing through his head. But he was no fool, and before he had even picked himself up, he realized that his present cast was hopeless. Gritting his teeth, he set himself to follow the ape-man’s instructions, looking him over carefully to recognize him again in case—.
The course of instruction was not particularly difficult to memorize. It seemed that for each color of light behind the ground-glass panels one must thrust a finger into a different one of the holes below; hold it there in spite of the pain, till the colored light went out, and then remove it. The process was very hard on the fingers, made of metal though they were. What was it the farmer had shouted down the hall? “Wears your fingers out?” Well, it did that, all right. After an hour or two of it, when he had learned to perform the various operations with mechanical precision and the tip of his index finger had already begun to scale off, the ape-man smiled at him, waved approval and reaching down beneath the black board, pulled out a drawer from which he extracted a finger-tip, made in the same metal as those he already bore, and proceeded to show Sherman how to attach it.
As a mechanic, he watched the process with some interest. The “bone” of the finger, with its joint, screwed cunningly into the bone of the next joint below, the lower end of the screw being curiously cut away and having a tiny point of wire set in it. The muscular bands had loose ends that merely tucked in, but so well were they fashioned, that once in position, it was impossible to pull them out until the finger-tip had been unscrewed.
The instruction process over, he was returned to his cell, wondering what was to happen next. The poisoned paradise was becoming less of a paradise. He speculated on the possibility of wrecking the car that bore him from place to place, but finally decided that it could not be done without some heavy tool and was hardly worth the trouble in any case until he was more certain of getting away afterward.
Chapter XIII
The Lassan
When the car next called for him, it took a much longer course; one steadily downward and around a good many curves as he could judge from the way in which it swayed and gained and lost speed. It was fully a twenty-minute ride, and when he stepped out it was not into a room of any kind, but in what appeared to be a tunnel cut in the living rock, at least six feet wide and fully twice as high. The rock on all sides had been beautifully smoothed by some unknown hand, except underfoot where it had been left rough enough to give a grip to the feet.
At his side were two of the ape-men who had been released from the car at the same time. The tunnel led them straight ahead for a distance, then dipped and turned to the right. As he rounded the corner he could see that it ended below and before him in some room where machinery whirred. The ape-men went straight on, looking neither to the right nor the left. As they reached the door that gave into the machine-room they encountered another ape-man wearing the same kind of helmet with its attached tube, as Sherman’s instructor had worn. The ape-men who came with him stopped. The helmeted one looked at them stupidly for a moment and then, as though obeying some unspoken command, took one by the arm and led him across the room to the front of a machine and there thrust one of the ubiquitous helmets on his head.
The machine, as nearly as Sherman could make out, was a duplicate of that on which he had injured his fingers; as the helmet was buckled on the ape-man who stood before it he immediately began to watch the ground-glass panels and put his fingers in the holes below.
The process was repeated with the second ape-man, and then the sentinel returned to Sherman. Taking him by the arm, the mechanical beast led him past the row of machines (there seemed to be only four in the room) and to a door at one side, giving him a gentle push. It was the opening of another tunnel, down which Sherman walked for some forty or fifty yards before encountering a second door and a second helmeted ape-man sentry.
This one did exactly as the first had done. Stared at him for a moment, then took him by the arm and led him across the room to a machine, where it left him. Sherman perceived that he was supposed to care for it, and with a sigh, bent to his task.
It was some moments before the rapid flashing of lights gave him a respite. Then he had an opportunity to look about him and observed that, as in the other room, there were four machines. Two of them were untenanted, but at the one next to his, there was someone working. When he glanced again, he was sure it was a mechanized human like himself—and a girl!
“What is this place?” he asked, “and who are you?”
The other gave a covert glance over his shoulder at the sentry by the door.
“Sssh!” she said out of the corner of her mouth, “not so loud.... I’m Marta Lami—and I think this place is hell!”
After a time they contrived a sort of conversation, a word at a time, with covert glances at the ape-man sentry. He looked at them suspiciously once or twice, but as he made no attempt to interfere they gained confidence.
“Who—is—keeping—us—here?” asked Sherman.
“Don’t—know,” she replied in the same manner. “Think—it’s—the—elephants.”
“What elephants?” he asked a word at a time. “I haven’t seen any.”
“You will. They come around and inspect what you’re doing. Are you new here?”