Lords of Creation Page 18

  Here and there were rows of pressure tanks, whose contents, probably emergency oxygen, had long escaped. An artesian well occupied a corner, and shelves of tinned food, some of which might still be edible, gave indication of how well stocked and self-sufficient this subterranean maze had been. Ellory even recognized enfiladed photo-electric apparatus in up-slanting corridors—mechanical sentries.

  Ellory’s thoughts, lost in the past, abruptly returned to the present reality.

  He was looking at a swiveled machine gun whose barrel was only slightly iridescent with thin rust. The air was dry here, and low in oxygen, as the dimming candle and their laboring lungs testified. For centuries upon centuries it had been this way, preserving metal from the bite of water rust and oxidation.

  “Let’s go back,” gasped Radnor. “The air here is bad.”

  He tugged at Ellory’s arm, but the latter shook him off.

  He was staring at the machine gun, and at the long clip of cartridges trailing from the breech to a box. Trembling suddenly, Ellory swung the armored shield aside and pulled at the gun. It came forward, though its tripod wheels were frozen with rust. They were not of the magnificent steel of the gun itself. It was a somewhat strange looking design, a thirtieth-century model perhaps, but otherwise quite twentieth-century.

  Ellory pointed the gun down the length of the corridor, tense with anticipation.

  With his finger on the trigger, he hesitated. What mad thing did he hope—that the gun would work after two thousand years? Perhaps the gun, but what of the ammunition? Surely that had deteriorated to worthless powder. Or, contaminated by time, it might blow him to shreds at the first burst.

  Ellory pulled the trigger.

  Rat-tat-tat-tat.…

  Thunder and lightning had leaped from the muzzle. Far down the hall there was the vicious spat of steel-jacketed bullets against concrete. Ellory eased up almost instantly on the trigger. Then, above the rolling echoes that filled the space, he shouted:

  “It works, Mal Radnor! Did you see—it works! It’s incredible, but it did. Either the thirtieth-century people made superlative guns and ammunition, or I’m a fool for luck. Mal Radnor, where are you?”

  Ellory strode to a niche and pulled his trembling, pale-faced companion from the refuge he had dived into.

  “What terrible magic was that?” Mal Radnor stuttered.

  “The magic of sudden death! And we’re going to show that mob some of the same. Carry that box, Mal Radnor—”

  A half-hour later they emerged into sunlight, panting under their load. Parties of the mob were searching all about for them. A head turned in their direction. A shout went up. From all sides, the rabble converged on the two young men standing beside the strange machine.

  Setting the gun firmly on its tripod, Ellory kneeled, aiming.

  “This is for the death of Sem Onger!” he yelled. “And for your blind, stupid chase!”

  He pressed the trigger.

  For the first time in an age, there came the sharp deadly bark of a gun. The front line of the mob went down like cut grass. Those in back pressed forward, not quite comprehending what had happened. Another line went down as Ellory sprayed a leaden hail among them.

  Then, awed by the thunders they heard, frightened by the sight of bodies strewn in rows, the rest of the mob broke and fled.

  Ellory watched them flying away, driven by the devils of fear. Then he looked at the half hundred men he had mowed down. Most of them were moaning and trying to crawl somewhere. He had shot low, at their legs.

  Then he looked at the gun. His eyes were as steely as the barrel that shone in the hot sun.

  Mal Radnor was sitting on his heels, moaning as though he himself had been hit. Ellory shook him.

  “Snap out of it. I had to do it, Mal Radnor. They aren’t dead, or even dying. They deserved it—” Ellory stopped. Then suddenly he shouted: “I’ll be back—”

  He leaped back into the underground passage that led to what had once been a vast arsenal.

  When Ellory emerged again, it was after two hours of wandering in the underground labyrinths. Now he scarcely noticed the scene before him.

  Jon Darm was there, with a thousand hastily-armed troops from the barracks of Norak. They had come for belated rescue. They stayed now, administering to the wounded. Sharina darted among them, Mal Radnor kneeled nearby, beside a reclining figure whose chest rose and fell in sharp gasps.

  It was Sem Onger, still alive.

  Ellory sprang forward, kneeled also, grasping the old man’s bony hand. He was in a pitiful condition, his clothing torn, his flesh bruised. He had been beaten terribly by the mob, Mal Radnor muttered in explanation, when he had refused to reveal Ellory’s hiding place. He was close to death.

  “Sem Onger—”

  The pale, watery eyes looked up at him, lighting dimly.

  “Humrelly!” The cracked tones were weak, but joyful. “I have been waiting for you—to see you once more. Ah, grieve not, my son. I go, but you reMaln. You and the new world!”

  He panted for a moment, clutching at fading strength. He went on eagerly. “There will be a new world, Humrelly—promise me that!”

  “I promise,” Ellory murmured.

  The dimming eyes peered into his closely.

  “You are not just humoring a dying old man. I see something in your eyes, Humrelly. You have found something down there. You have found radium, perhaps?”

  Ellory hesitated a second, then nodded. “I have found radium,” he said. He added mentally, “Or the means to get it.”

  Sem Onger made a last effort to speak, his voice a faint whisper.

  “Then you will lift this poor age to some of the glory of the past! You will give them machines and metal and all the things they need for a great civilization. The mistakes of the past can be avoided. Mankind can live as one, united in aim and deed. It is not just a dream, Humrelly. I see it now! I see—”

  Whatever he saw, in the strange borderland between life and death, left a peaceful happiness on his face. For now the hand that Ellory held went limp.

  Chapter 28

  SPEAK WITH GUNS

  Jon Darm’s broke the hush, presently. “What did he see, in the end? What strange dream—”

  Ellory arose.

  “Not a dream!” His voice, strong and confident, rang out over the ruins. “Listen to me! I’m going to make that dream come true. I’m going to keep my promise to Sem Onger. I’m going out again—empire building!”

  It seemed almost sacrilege to speak thus over the dead form at their feet, whose death had come from a similar venture. All eyes were on the man from the past, in stunned amazement, even those of the wounded men who had come to hunt him down.

  “With guns this time!” Ellory went on. “There are hundreds of these machine guns down there, rifles too. Thousands of them. And thousands of rounds of ammunition!”

  “That many of them?” Mal Radnor looked skeptical. “Are you sure, Humrelly?”

  “I saw them! And I went through only a small part of the caverns. They lie in forgotten corners, some half buried among crumbled walls. There’s a taint of poison gas in the deeper corridors. Probably at one time the whole place was flooded with poison gas. And so thoroughly that for years after none could enter, till they were abandoned and forgotten.” Ellory shook his head. “I’m not going to theorize how it happened. Those weapons are there, waiting for us to use!”

  He grasped Mal Radnor’s shoulder. “We’ll train a special gun corps. We’ll sweep to victory as fast as we can march!” His words tumbled out. He gave his listeners no chance to object.

  “Then, a fleet is going to Europe, across the ocean! In that gigantic atom war between continents, Europe too must have dug itself in with underground labyrinths, probably running through Germany an
d France, to protect the inner lands! Unearthed, they’ll yield more weapons buried and forgotten.

  Equipped with these, no force can stand against us. We’ll conquer the whole world, this time!”

  Mal Radnor caught on more quickly than the others.

  “You mean, Humrelly, that this time the whole world will stand against Antarka—”

  Heads jerked up at the name. The recent abortive revolt was in all minds. Was the madman from the past suggesting another futile campaign against the Lords of a thousand years?

  But the madman from the past had a still more breathtaking idea.

  “No,” he answered Mal Radnor. “The whole world will not simply stand against Antarka. It will attack Antarka!”

  There was a chorus of gasps. Ellory looked around. The incredible idea struck instant hostility. Ellory realized what he had done—asking for loyalty when he had so recently abused it.

  Jon Darm stared as though at a maniac.

  “I forbid you, Humrelly,” he said sternly, “to speak further on the subject. If you persist, I will have to imprison you!”

  Mal Radnor stepped quietly to Ellory’s side.

  “I am with you, Humrelly!”

  “Then you too will be imprisoned, Mal Radnor!” snapped Jon Darm. “And your marriage to my daughter cannot be!”

  Sharina moved toward the young chieftain, defiantly, but Jon Darm held her back.

  “They have gone mad, those two. Young and headstrong, they would bring greater vengeance on our heads, from Antarka. Humrelly, though he is from a great past, has not the powers to defeat Antarka. It is a mad, mad thought—”

  Ellory stood helplessly.

  Except for Mal Radnor and perhaps Sharina, all the others thought the same. Attack Antarka, eight thousand miles away, impregnable in the metal-sealed subterranean vaults—it was absurd, on the face of it. But only on the face of it! If he could demonstrate the true power of the ancient weapons…

  As if in answer to his prayer, a low drone sounded from the sky. Ellory stiffened. All eyes turned upward. It appeared—an Antarkan ship. The patrol ship that had been haunting this vicinity, the spawning ground of the last revolt. It lowered and circled, obviously looking with suspicion on this congregation of Outlanders in the ruins of New York.

  Ellory was already flying toward the machine gun.

  He threw himself before it, swung the muzzle skyward, squinted his eye. Could he bring the ship down? He must! In one stroke, it would insure the loyalty of the Outland. The news would swing to all the tribes, in all the world, that Humrelly, Lord of the Past, had smitten an Antarkan ship from the sky.

  Ellory began squeezing the trigger. Then he suddenly paused, as a terrible thought struck him. What if ErMalne were aboard that ship?

  But he stood hesitating for only an instant. Then he pulled the trigger, his lips pressed together. A bigger issue was at stake than the fate of one Antarkan girl, even though he loved her desperately.

  In lightning calculation, Ellory aimed for one wing. There was a chance of crippling the ship without causing complete destruction. The rat-tat-tat of machine-gun fire cracked through the air, voice of a weapon absent from the Earth for an age.

  The ship was close, within two thousand feet. Ellory couldn’t miss. His sights zigzagged across the left wing in a pattern that must strike a vital spot.

  The ship’s occupants apparently took no alarm. Guns were unknown to them. One more half-circle the ship made.

  Then suddenly a cough of the steadily throbbing rocket roar. More coughing. Smoke from the left wing. A trickle of flame at the wing-edge as leaking gasoline caught fire. The ship faltered.

  Like a wounded bird, it fluttered for the ground. With great skill, the pilots banked, averting a tailspin, and utilized the last of their momentum for a landing in the nearest open space. At the end, out of control, the gleaming craft skidded over the ground, nosed into a pile of rock, and upended. Fire began to lick eagerly around the wreck.

  Ellory was already there when six men scrambled for safety. An instant later flame sheets swept over the mass. The men came forward, dazedly unharmed.

  “No others are left in there?” Ellory screamed.

  “No. Just we six,” answered one of the Antarkans.

  Ellory stumbled back with them, exhausted by his fear. If ErMalne had been in there—he knew it now—he would have leaped to share her death.

  Then his spirit leaped. The Outland had struck its first new blow against Antarka. The first offensive blow in an age!

  “Our craft strangely failed,” continued the Antarkan. “We can’t understand it. We are lucky to be alive, however.” His voice became imperious. “You will immediately equip a sailing vessel to return us to Antarka.”

  Ellory smiled a slow, twisted smile. He turned to Jon Darm.

  “Your prisoners!” he said simply.

  And back of him the awed assemblage paid homage with their silence. Humrelly, Lord from the Past, was once again champion of a world against tyranny.

  Chapter 29

  ANTARKA, SURRENDER!

  By a curious timelessness, the following eight months passed like a queer dream of night to Homer Ellory. It was eight months of incredible upheaval and change. It was part of the vast drama of man’s destiny. Ellory rode the steed of conquest again, and a wild steed it was. He despaired at times. The task was so huge, so uncharted. His goal so paradoxical—to bring brotherhood, peace and rising civilization to a world by means of war.

  And with him, through every episode, rode the vision of ErMalne. Yet now each step he took, driven by a mental lash that knew no mercy, separated him further from her and all she believed.

  Ellory and Mal Radnor planned carefully this second time.

  Deciding against a time-consuming march through America, they led their legion down the eastern coast. Ships were the things they needed. Their conquering course met no slightest hitch. Bullets outclassed arrows, clubs and spears by a stupendous margin. Opposing armies scattered at the first roar of guns.

  Ellory had trained five thousand Norak troops in the use of rifles and machine guns from the underground pits. They accepted the magic of the thundering weapons in surprisingly short order.

  The Atlantic states were re-federated in a month. All their sailing ships were conscripted, loaded with supplies, and gathered for an ocean voyage. Trim vessels they were, as good as any of the pre-steam era of Ellory’s time. Each carried two hundred fighting men, besides the crew.

  Before the grand departure, a patrolling Antarkan rocket plane bore down to observe. At Ellory’s signal, all guns within range blasted out. The Antarkan ship came down in flames burning its crew.

  No slightest hint must reach Antarka’s ears. If the Antarkans eventually grew uneasy over these missing patrol ships, they would send more—to the same fate. They must not know. It was a grim, merciless game now.

  Though it proved again that ErMalne was not aboard the ship shot down, Ellory was weak and ill afterward. How many more times would he have to go through the agony of it?

  At last the fleet leaped from the shores of America.

  In the flagship at the van, Ellory looked back at two thousand vessels, bearing almost a half million warriors. About ten thousand were armed with rifles from a previous age, all that the underground arsenal and the rust of time had yielded. He hoped to arm twice that many, in Europe.

  The long ocean voyage, with no outlet of action, tore Ellory’s nerves to shreds. At times the ships were almost becalmed. Again a storm’s fury lashed at them, sinking several. He cursed the sea and sky and wind, aligned against him, and thought longingly of days gone by, when great liners had so easily slipped across in four short days.

  It took two months.

  The fleet anchored in a harbor of what had once been Belg
ium. A fusillade of bullets cleared the docks of their belligerent owners. While the army disembarked, Ellory trembled in a fever of impatience.

  “We’ll strike directly for the fortifications of my time,” he told Mal Radnor. “Then we’ll federate the coast, commandeer all ships. We’ll have to work fast. Only three months left now before the Antarkans come for their usual tribute. We must be well on our way toward Antarka before that day. As we have instructed, all tribes will give up the tribute without question, allaying suspicion. The actual news of our attack on Antarka won’t come soon enough to let them prepare any great defense.”

  Mal Radnor nodded.

  “I know we will succeed this time, Humrelly!”

  Ellory grasped his friend’s shoulder. “This is the third time I’ve broken up your marriage with Sharina!” Then, more seriously, “Sem Onger’s spirit guides us, on to the new world.”

  He broke off; above, another Antarkan ship was hovering, observing.

  Ellory himself jumped to a machine gun, pumped lead into the sky, along with his trained gun crews. The ship dove, a firebrand. Ellory stood stolidly until an orderly came, reporting that the crew of five Antarkans were dead—all men.

  Ellory relaxed, breathing again.

  “You suffer much, Humrelly,” Mal Radnor murmured. “You love ErMalne more than you can say.”

  “But not more than liberty, and the new world,” Ellory returned quietly.

  The march to the inland goal, with five thousand picked men, was brief, rapid, with the thunder of guns clearing the way magically. Ellory recognized the underground defenses by a long line of broken concrete pillars—tank traps. Finding no entrance to the caverns below, after a day’s search, Ellory set his men to digging with iron shovels he had had made at Norak. They struck a side tunnel.

  Curiously, Ellory had no doubt he would find preserved weapons, and stores of ammunition, as at New York. Various factors had worked to that end. Bombings had sealed all exits and entrances. With the collapse of civilization, men had quickly forgotten these hidden chambers. Or perhaps legends had warned of a frightful death in them, before time had settled poison gases. They escaped rifling by man and corrosion.