Get Off My World Read online

  “It’s reversed here,” agreed Aronson. “The false theory of the ancients on upper earth is fulfilled here in reality. So you can see how the thought of a sun standing still, while the earth swings around it and rotates, makes for another blank down here. Things don’t happen that way, in their concept. By the way, the sun has a ‘polar orbit’ in relation to the city so that it passes over every part of the city each 24 hours and distributes its sunshine equally.”

  “That means there are no ‘poles’ here,” said Sparky shrewdly, having studied enough of space mechanics to know the fundamentals. “No spots where the sunshine is weaker or absent for long periods.”

  “Right,” said the scientist. “It’s like a queer distortion of outer earth and the sun and celestial mechanics.”

  Paige had been walking along aloofly, only half listening to the conversation. “Trapped,” he ground out suddenly. “Trapped in a crazy, mixed-up parody of our world—the true world. It’s like bees living inside a hive and never going out to see the truth. And the truth is that half the human race, up above—the half we came from—is being decimated, annihilated, rubbed out, murdered…”

  “Easy, boy,” soothed Dr. Aronson, taking the trembling Paige’s arm. “What can we do, buried 4000 miles down? Don’t think about it too much or your mind will crack.”

  “But the grinding irony of it,” exploded Paige, his face twisted with inner agony. “If the inner people only believed us and sent armies up, we could stop the alien invaders cold. Won’t anybody down here listen to us? Anybody at all?”

  Aronson was thoughtful beside him. “Wait, maybe there is.” He turned. “Follow me. I should have thought of this before.”

  Puzzled but silent, Paige and Sparky were led by the scientist to a bank of elevators. They crowded into a cage where albino people, oblivious to their stares.

  “These elevators go from the outer shell down through all layers to the city’s core,” said Aronson. After a sense of downward motion, Paige had the queerest feeling they were going upward again—but upside down.

  He was right. When they stepped out, alone, their magnetic shoes were clinging to the roof of the elevator cage.

  “What’s this?” gulped Sparky, looking dizzy. “We’re walking on the ceiling of this corridor…hey, it’s the outer shell again. But…?”

  Aronson waved. “It was the simplest and quickest way to get from one side of the globe-city to the other—by passing through the core. You see, the place I want is outside the city’s outer shell, or on top of it if you like.”

  Walking along the ceiling, easily upheld by their magnetic shoes in the weightlessness, they came to what seemed to be a closed hatchway in the “floor”. Before it stood a guard who held up a hand.

  “What is your business?” he said in the undergrounder tongue, which Paige and Sparky could follow without too much difficulty.

  “We wish to visit our Sur Vellko,” said Aronson.

  “No one is allowed outside Centropolis except by the main gates,” began the guard, then he stared more closely at them. “Wait. You are Sur Aronson, the Outsider. You may pass with your friends.”

  The guard was respectful now and pressed a stud. The metal hatchway swung downward, giving a dizzying view of the giant earth-center hollow within which the city hung. Aronson showed his companions how to bend their bodies and step out onto the outer shell’s upper surface. Straightening up, Paige and Sparky felt a momentary vertigo until they oriented their senses to feel they were standing “upright”, which a moment ago had been “upside down”.

  Aronson clumped on his magnetic shoes toward a dome-shaped bulge on the curving metal shell. “Certain officials and scientists are allowed to live out here,” he explained. “It’s like having penthouses on earth’s tall buildings. A privilege. By the way, ‘Sur’ means the equivalent of ‘Dr.’ on earth. And scientists are highly regarded here. That was why the guard let me through. As for Sur Vellko, he’s the foremost scientist of the underworld.”

  At the dome, Aronson put his hand before a sparkling jewel recessed into the metal wall. Some inner signal was given and a portion of the dome slid upward, forming an entrance.

  Inside was a laboratory and a tall, spare albino with pink eyes that were almost red looked around, frowning. But then his face lighted. “Ah, Sur Aronson. Welcome!”

  “Thanks, Sur Vellko,” said Aronson, waving and introducing his two companions.

  “Sit down,” invited the albino scientist, indicating form-fitting chairs that swung out of wall recesses. “Well, how is outer earth?” he went on.

  Paige was not sure if his smile was mocking or friendly. “Do you believe in the outer earth? Sparky and I have recently come from there. You must listen, Sur Vellko. Martians have attacked and…”

  It all came out in an impassioned rush, but the albino’s expression grew more and more impatient. “Stop,” he snapped finally. “Your words are utterly confusing. And…well, unbelievable.”

  “You too?” groaned Paige, slumping. He turned to Aronson with a hurt face. “But I thought, from the way you spoke before that this man might be on our side…” Aronson shook his head slightly. “Might, and might not. He needs convincing. We had talked about outer-earth before but more as a theoretical exercise—from his viewpoint. But he is not fully convinced.”

  “Then I’ll convince him.” Paige had a cunning look on his face. “I was thinking before while you and Sparky talked. Thinking of one thing that no undergrounder scientist can explain, if he believes there is no outer world.” Paige stared straight at the albino and changed to the underworld language. ‘The universe is a rock, pitted with caverns, for millions of miles in all directions. Is that right?”

  “So goes our theory,” said Vellko, with scientific caution.

  “If so, there is infinite mass around you?”

  “Uh…yes.”

  “Then where is the infinite gravity pull that should go with it?” drilled in Paige, sharply.

  Chapter 6

  The albino started a little. “Yes, that is one of the grave weaknesses in our concept. We have various ideas—the rock getting more porous in the outward regions…radioactive concentrations that distort the atoms and weaken gravity…uh…”

  “Rubbish,” snorted Paige. “And you know it, Sur Vellko.”

  The albino looked indignant for a moment but then his face collapsed. “I must admit that I am thoroughly dissatisfied with our theory. It is the one and only thing that made me listen carefully to Sur Aronson when we first met. Therefore, may I put it this way…your outer world is possible, but not probable.”

  Paige smiled, cheering silently. That was a great victory as compared to the Kal’s adamant “impossible”. Now they had something to work on. If they could convince this great scientist, it might work a scientific revolution in the underground as terrific as that of Galileo, or of Einstein’s relativity.

  “The proof you want may lie in your legends,” said Paige cannily. “What are your legends or so-called myths relating to the origin of your people and your world?”

  Sur Vellko leaned back in his chair, his eyes going misty.

  “They are strange indeed,” he began. “Now, mind you, I take little stock in these tales, which most likely came out of fertile minds and pure imagination. But I’ll repeat them as I’ve heard them.”

  The three from upper earth leaned forward. Vellko continued.

  “An age ago, the story goes, our people lived in a high cavern of gigantic size. There was even a sea of water all around their land. Its name is variously given as Ahtlunus, Altaneese, Athuntlis.”

  “Atlantis!” breathed Paige, with a significant glance at Dr. Aronson, whose eyes had sprung open.

  Not noticing, the albino went on. “There was another giant cavern across the sea, and another mighty land named
Mhoo or Muhh.”

  Paige did not have to say “Mu” aloud, seeing the second stunned look come into Aronson’s eyes.

  “The legend goes that those two civilizations warred. For a while, their weapons were equal and neither could defeat the other. But the warriors of Mhoo, it seems, discovered a maze of passages down to lower caves that had never been suspected before. Large crews were sent down to creep under Ahtlunus itself and to undermine that enemy land. They labored long years but at last led the molten rock of the Fire Zone up through fissures.”

  Vellko waved a hand. “The legends are vague as to the exact procedure but the result was greater than they planned. It touched off some mighty upheaval in all the rock-universe so that both lands sank. Most of the people died and their glory was no more.”

  “But there were survivors who went deeper underground?” guessed Paige.

  The albino nodded. “So goes the tale. A remnant of the people did wander down through the endless caverns and inhabited them. They found food and air…”

  “And where does the air come from?” demanded Paige, pouncing. “How can a universe of rock produce the enormous amounts of air that fill all your caves? You’re a scientist. You know that air is composed of gases. What produced those gases?”

  The albino scientist was obviously cornered. “We have the theory that the nitrogen and oxygen are released by radioactivity…”

  “What, from rock?” mocked Paige. “It’s well known that the silicates, carbonates, and other oxygen-impregnated rocks are among the most stable compounds known. To wrench oxygen loose in the free state is a kind of radioactivity never heard of—except in dreams. And nitrogen happens to be one of the least abundant elements in stone. Why is it then that the air-mixture is 78% nitrogen—probably more in volume and weight down here than all the rock could supply for a million miles out. Well, Sur Vellko. We’re waiting for the answer.”

  Paige was merciless, giving the scientist no chance to cling to his dignity or pride. It was a naked challenge to his intellectual integrity.

  The albino jumped up and began to pace the floor. “Nobody has that answer,” he said haltingly. “No answer that satisfies me, at any rate.”

  “But we have the answer,” Paige plunged on. “Think of earth as a ball—like this globe-city—floating in free space. Think of a layer of atmosphere surrounding this globe, originally released by ultra-volcanic forces when earth was born. Think of life-giving oxygen released by plants through the ages, building it up to where animal life could thrive. And that life-giving air has seeped down into all your caverns. Air from upper earth.”

  Lines grew in Vellko’s face as he tried to picture what to him was an incredible kind of universe.

  “And think of Atlantis and Mu as two great islands in the middle of the oceans that cover three-fourth’s of earth’s surface. The ‘cavern’ they existed in had no roof at all. And when they were destroyed, creating a holocaust all over earth’s surface, the survivors were forced to flee in the only safe direction—down. Down into this underground world. Your legends, like most legends in the upper world, are true”

  “I…I can’t believe it,” muttered Vellko, his face stricken as old and new ideas clashed in his mind.

  “Let me add some data that may clarify the situation,” spoke up Dr. Aronson. “May of our legends in the upper world tell of underground people and cities. At times some isolated tribes of your people must have wandered back to the surface world. And certain of our explorers claim they have gone far enough below to glimpse fabulous cities deep within earth.”

  Paige clasped his two hands and wrung them over his head in the boxer’s gesture of triumph, urging Aronson to go on.

  “At times, signs of the underworld civilization were discovered above, probably tossed up through violent upheavals. For instance, in 1936, a man named Tom Kenney of Plateau Spring, Colorado—that’s the name of an upper-world town, Vellko—dug ten feet down to excavate a root cellar. His spade hit something flinty and to his astonishment, he uncovered part of a roadway composed of smooth tiles exactly five inches”—Aronson spread his hand to indicate the size—“square and laid in a crosshatch manner.”

  The albino scientist turned, eyebrows uplifted in shock. “The standard roadways between cave-cities, of the Yeemarr Tribe! How could you know…unless… He broke off, biting his lip.

  Dr. Aronson did not pressure him as Paige had. He was playing a more subtle game.

  “Then, in Hammondville, Ohio, in the spring of 1868, a strip mine was being operated by Captain Edward Lacy. Blasting a vein of coal out of a mountainside, they uncovered a huge slate door with hieroglyphics scrawled all over it. Perhaps when the mountain rose thousands of years ago, it carried that ripped-away door with it, from deep underground among your people.”

  Dr. Aronson waved a hand. “I know all this in detail because unexplained phenomena like that were what first started me into making my exploration underground. I wanted to find out if some subterranean civilization did exist.”

  He grinned at Vellko. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I actually believed it when I went down. Half the time I felt I was going down to prove it couldn’t exist. You see, the concept of livable caverns perforating all earth was just as fantastic to me as the upper world is to you.”

  Vellko smiled weakly at Aronson’s candid admission that he had had difficulty believing in inner earth and was therefore no more open-minded than the albino scientist.

  “A giant stairway of stone was discovered in North Salem, Massachusetts—buried and leading underground. The Aluminaut, an experimental deep-sea vessel of 1967, went down 3000 feet to come upon a vast terraced land, apparently torn loose from somewhere below.”

  Aronson paused for breath.

  “There were other clues that tantalized me. Out of 10 million Incas that Pizzaro came upon and robbed of gold, only one million were left a few years later. It was impossible for his small army to kill the rest. How did those 9 million Incas vanish? Indian legend today says they went below to a mysterious land. A pack train of 50 llamas bearing untold millions in gold also vanished in thin air. And the only place the greedy Conquistadores could not find them would be a hundred or thousand miles under their feet.”

  Vellko again reacted as if a bullet had struck him. “It was not too long ago that red-skinned people did appear in certain caverns. With gold. But they deny today that they ever came from an ‘outer world,’ claiming they owned their caves all the time.”

  “Naturally they would,” said Aronson, easily. “They didn’t want to be driven away as outsiders. Furthermore, in the 500 years that have elapsed, the memory of their exodus downward became dim and before long was forgotten by succeeding generations. It has happened time and again—the movements and changes of peoples being lost without written records, and relegated to the status of fanciful myths.”

  Vellko was shaken, of that there was no doubt. Aronson went on gently.

  “Also, there were the puzzling tales of ‘lost’ cities or lands, seemingly suspended in some inaccessible dimension—the Scandinavian Ultima Thule, the Spanish El Dorado, the Indian Happy Hunting Grounds, the Viking Valhalla. They weren’t ‘heavens’ in the religious sense but seemingly some real place that had been visited, with some stragglers returning to describe them in idealized terms. But since they couldn’t be out in space or on earth’s surface itself, remaining utterly hidden, there was only one other remote spot possible—inside earth.”

  Paige was fascinated himself. Aronson had never fully reviewed all the reasons he suspected there might be a teeming world within the bowels of earth.

  “The reverse also happened, it seems. The Zuni Indians of America firmly believe they came from out of the earth. They brought with them certain skills nobody else had, such as growing gardens under almost desert conditions. Your gardens that I’ve see
n are grown under equally arid conditions.”

  Vellko winced as this point sunk home.

  “Finally,” said Aronson, “there was the riddle of the Gypsies. They suddenly appeared in the upper world, in Europe, about 500 years ago. They have a completely unique language of their own and customs alien to all other cultures up above. It occurred to me that they could be a tribe of inner-earth people who had accidentally reached the surface world, then found that their way back down was cut off somehow. So they remained. But how could they ever explain they had come from beneath the earth’s crust? They would have been laughed at loudly—almost as loudly as people coming down here and claiming they come from the upper world.”

  The irony in Aronson’s voice fairly dripped.

  “Wow, you really socked it to him, Doc,” muttered Sparky in English, so Vellko wouldn’t understand.

  Three pairs of eyes centered witheringly on the albino scientist. He faced them, eyes burning redly in his chalk-white skin.

  “Your accounts have impressed me very deeply,” he said slowly, as if it was difficult to draw the words out. “But…”

  “But what?” Paige half yelled. “You mean you still don’t believe us?”

  “I…I don’t know what to think,” moaned the albino, passing a shaky hand over his hair. “It’s all so…so upsetting. It would overthrow everything I’ve been taught, or learned, all my life. I…uh…” His voice died away.

  For the first time, Paige felt sympathy for him. His mind must be a bubbling cauldron of conflicting theories and “truths,” at savage war with each other. It would be like Paige himself suddenly being told that space was really a solid shell of black onyx and the stars were diamonds set into the stone, while earth was really square and the sun was just a big ball of swamp gas.

  Five minutes of silence ticked by as the albino scientist wrestled with himself. Finally he turned, eyes dull. “I do not know what to think of all this. It is too confusing, too overwhelming. I shall ponder your words carefully, I assure you-”