Stronger than before came the feeling: life or death.

  Grayson had leaned forward to examine the spectacles. Now, he settled back again. And there he was aware once more of the darkness all around - except for that single spotlight focused on The Revolution.

  Was there anyone else in the room? Startling to realize that he did not know if the three men who had captured him had come inside with him.

  Since he hadn't heard the door open or seen a resultant light from the corridor, the man who had removed his gag must still be nearby. But it did seem to Grayson that he could hear the slow breathing of more than one person.

  —Should I try to get out of this situation? he asked himself… The silent question was a tentative attempt at having a purpose of his own. But he realized immediately that at this stage it was foolish to think in such terms. Even if he were successful, it would leave him tied hand and foot. Then what would he do?

  Besides, the truth was, he was curious. Explanations, it seemed to him, were in order. Before anything else. So why not start in that roundabout way?

  Quickly, he explained about the blond man, who had surprised him in the dark at Haskett Laboratories, and had tried to kill him. 'Was that,' he asked, 'one of your strong-arm boys?'

  'Yep.' The Revolution nodded. 'And you kind've had me worried there, Doc. You almost lost out in that situation to one guy.'

  Grayson waited. He had a feeling he was missing something.

  But that he had better not volunteer astonishment. He could, personally, see nothing disgraceful about an older man suffering defeat in hand-to-hand combat with a powerfully built younger man.

  The Revolution continued in that same dark tone. 'What still bothers me,' he said, 'is that, according to the report I got, you won against that attack by just plain muscle power.'

  Grayson had a picture, now, of a man who required scientific defenses from a doctor of physics. 'The moment we grappled,' he parried that expectation, 'I realized he hadn't been doing his push-ups like he should. So it was a good workout for somebody like me who had.'

  Silence. Then, grudgingly: 'I guess that's a good answer. But you'll have to do better than that in this situation, Doc. So, get ready!'

  … All right, thought Grayson, wearily, all right. So I'd better show I'm still alive, and have a brain - perhaps, it was time for less permissiveness and more aggressiveness.

  'What do you want?' he said, curtly.

  The face in front of him remained impassive for several seconds after those words were spoken. Then, the eyes blinked. Next, the lips parted. Excitement rippled across the face. Finally:

  'Hey!' said the man. 'What's that tone I hear in your voice? Power? Where did that come from?'

  Grayson merely continued to stare at the other. There was no reaction he could think of making.

  'Doc,' went on the voice urgently, 'we need a leader who understands science as good as you do. We've got the organization, but we don't know how to use it.'

  A thought came. Grayson said, 'You seem to manage pretty well. How much of this sub-world do you control?'

  The face in the light twisted into a wolfish smile. 'The Utt,' said the man, 'operate like automatons. They set up a system, and so long as you don't interfere with that system, they don't notice.'

  'The system seems to have a lot of holes in it if you can come down here at will.'

  'It has a lot of holes in it. I can come down here at will.'

  'Then if I agree to do what you want, you'll get me out of here?'

  The moment he had spoken, Grayson realized he had said the wrong thing.

  'Doc,' came the voice, suddenly soft in an unreassuring way, 'if you can't get yourself out of here, we don't want you.'

  Grayson was silently, grimly, critical of himself for having precipitated the crisis. But it also seemed to him that there was no immediate turning back. 'The existence of this underground world caught me by surprise,' he said defensively. It seemed to him that he could not possibly make any other admission or statement because that might be exactly what they wanted from him. 'So' - he finished unhappily - 'I'll need your help on that.'

  'If that's your answer,' was the suddenly cold reply, then we don't need to continue this conversation.' The heavily jowled face was abruptly gloomy. The thick lips parted and said savagely, 'You may recall, Doctor, I told you that if I ever had a bad feeling about you - Kaput!'

  He raised his voice. 'Okay, Hal, kill him!'

  chapter eighteen

  Grayson shifted position slightly in his chair, and moved his bound hands - slightly. Then he held his breath, and started counting.

  In front of him, the big man slumped down on the table, and crouched there limply, face down, arms sprawled.

  Behind Grayson, there were thud sounds.

  He continued counting to ninety - which was the safety margin - and then went on to a hundred to make absolutely sure.

  And then he gasped for air.

  He sat for at least a minute, breathing hard. When he finally stood up gingerly, it was with an unhappy feeling of: 'Surely, it's not, going to be that easy. Surely, The Revolution took such possibilities into account, and has a second line of defense.'

  The moments went by and became a minute. And that minute lengthened to another; and still there was no sign.

  While he waited for the counter-strike that never came, it seemed to Grayson that the floor felt uneven to his feet. Swiftly, he saw the problem. A man whose hands were tied behind his back could not balance himself properly. And so - careful!

  Nonetheless, he was quickly hopeful. And when he finally moved it was on the basis that, except for his bound hands, he had achieved complete victory.

  Crouching, kneeling, sitting, bending, and cursing under his breath, he now tried to insert his fingers into various pockets. First, he searched the big man, then the four individuals who lay on the floor each in his own twisted position. The final, though horribly delayed result, was not bad. He found the knife he craved - a switchblade that jumped into ready position at the touch of a button. But he found it after nearly thirty minutes. And found it in what was probably the second or third last pocket of the fifth man he tackled.

  Which fitted, he thought with the bitterness of exhaustion. He had always believed that, if such a thing as ESP or luck existed, his supply was exactly zero. Which had been one of the reasons why science had been, and was still, such a haven for him. He needed systematic thoughts for the totally missing intuition.

  Even as he had those strong feelings of frustration, the knife was doing its freeing action.

  The instant he was free, he was, to his surprise, no longer a man in a hurry. Up to the exact moment that the thin cord fell away from his wrists, his instinct had been to get out of this room right now.

  The feeling faded. The impulse to escape yielded to a practical consideration:—I've got these people here. They'll be unconscious for another half-hour. Why don't I search them

  Particularly, then, he removed the contents of the pockets of the big man. Grayson was amazed to realize that he was completely calm and completely remorseless. The other's command to a henchman to kill him canceled all obligation he had ever had to The Revolution.

  There was no time to examine his 'take.' He simply stuffed likely looking items into his pockets, and discarded handkerchiefs, pens, money, empty billfolds, keys, four automatics (but he removed their bullets), and a variety of obvious nothings. What he kept were notebooks, unidentifiable devices, the special pair of spectacles, one automatic, and all the cart-tridges.

  Moments after that he was out in the hallway; and it was, he decided, not the time to investigate the zombie types in the 'community' room.

  There were other more important things to do.

  It was twenty-eight minutes later. He stood at a doorway. The tingle in his arm said that he was close to his destination.

  In his mind was a kind of desolate memory of a dozen deserted corridors, and long, blank, brightly lighted walls - the same inside-the-wall lighting effect. And in his body was a conscious bracing of his muscles with the intent of opening the doorway and stepping through into what he firmly believed was the re-ception area. His expectation included the elevators, and included also what had been purported to be the entrance to the Utt Commissioner's office,

  He had several very simple, pure purposes. They all added up to the one idea: find out what was going on, and who these people were, and leave.

  Okay! he thought grimly, and pushed the door open.

  A bedroom. That was his first, mildly disappointed impression. With a woman in it,

  Grayson didn't see the woman for several seconds. Accordingly, he had time to have a second reaction to the room… not a bedroom, but simply a variation on the ten-by-ten-by-ten box in which he himself had spent most of the day.

  He was noticing that the variations consisted of drapery, a shower curtain, several small items of furniture, including a TV, a bookcase, and a rocking chair.

  The rocking chair faced away from him. And it was in it that the woman sat, almost hidden by the high back.

  She must have heard the door open, but not realized what the sound was. Because she merely turned her head, casually, and glanced toward the door. And, of course - as it turned out - that was the same as a glance at Grayson.

  Her eyes widened, and face twisted. Her body seemed to contort as she awkwardly scrambled to her feet, and sort of spun around.

  She wore a long, silken nightdress, which was extremely filmy; her nude body was visible through it. And she had on slippers. In those first instants she obviously saw that it was a human male wearing glasses. This obviousness showed on her face, which took on a severe expression of censure. The same critical attitude showed in her body, which stiffened with the beginning of outrage.

  The outrage was in her voice, as she said in the strident, censorious tone of an old-maid schoolteacher speaking to a little boy student: 'What are you doing here? Men are not allowed in this section.'

  Belatedly, Grayson recognized the receptionist who had been behind the 'basement' reception desk that morning. He chided himself: —Naturally, who else could it be… ? After all, it was she upon whom he had focused his detection device. And what was ridiculous about the present situation was that, somehow, he had taken it for granted that she would still be in the office.

  He realized that the woman was having her own delayed recognition of him. 'You're that man…' - she spoke accusingly - '· · · this morning…'

  For twenty-eight minutes he had been thinking what he would do at this moment of confrontation. Of the several possibilities, he now chose the most direct. With a deliberate sweep of his left hand, he removed his glasses.

  For him, the room blurred. The female figure in front of him was abruptly less substantial. Misty. Details obscured. Her face changed into a blob.

  Theoretically, she should have guessed that that would be his condition. But, of course, he had already discovered that people were not really aware. Here, also. According to his dim eyesight, during a long moment there was no visible reaction by the woman. Then:

  'What do you want me to do? ' It was a trembling voice that spoke the words. 'Do you want me to take off my nightdress and lie down?' An almost whimper followed in an undertone: 'Don't hurt me.'

  He had been intent. All day his insides had seemed to be continuously squeezed. And there had not been for a single moment an impulse toward feminine companionship, intimate or otherwise. It actually cost him an effort, now, to think about what might happen if he refused - which was his automatic impulse.

  The instant question was: Did he have to do here what he had done the previous night to get the key from Miss Haskett? In short, was this another purchase situation?

  He was unfortunately having some adverse personal recollections about this particular female. He found himself remembering her nasty attitude after she recovered from her emotional seizure twelve long hours before.

  Having had that memory, it was suddenly easier to decide that no transaction was necessary.

  With that, he realized what his purpose had to be. 'Get dressedl' he commanded, curtly.

  There was a pause. Then the woman said timidly, 'You mean, in front of you, get dressed?'

  It required simple, direct emotion to straighten that out. Grayson was not in the mood for illogical behavior… One minute she offers to lie down naked; the next she's suddenly modest - Besides, he wouldn't be able to see her clearly, no matter what she did.

  'Get dressed!' he snarled. 'And quickly.'

  He was slightly amazed to realize, as he looked at her nude body a minute later - looked blurrily, it was true, but still she was visible - that she appeared to have a good figure. And her skin, as seen by his nearsighted eyes from a distance of six feet, seemed clear and unblemished.

  He noted, idly, that she put on the same outfit which she had worn that morning. When she was completely dressed, he pointed. 'Go ahead of me!' he said. 'And take me to the elevators.'

  The woman had started to move on his first words. But as he named the destination, she stopped. 'I can't get in there at this hour,' she said. 'All the doors between here and there are locked until eight o'clock tomorrow morning. And besides' -her voice sank - 'Ipressed the alarm button when I went over to the sink. Somebody will be coming in a minute.' She finished with a mumbled 'I'm sorry.'

  'Nevertheless,' said Grayson, 'let's go toward the elevators.' He followed her out of her room, and walked beside her. 'What is your name?' he asked.

  It was Nora Patton.

  Grayson had his glasses back on. And so, with one eye, so to speak, on the corridor ahead, and another on the corridor to the rear, he spoke to her, seeking information.

  'Have you ever been on the surface since being brought down here?'

  'No.'

  'Not for eighteen years?'

  'Eighteen.' She nodded. She seemed suddenly apathetic, as if the mere turning of her thought to such details overwhelmed her spirit. Her face, which had a pretty shape, lost some of its color. Her eyes, when he looked down at them, had become dull. She said listlessly, 'I'm not supposed to talk about such things.'

  'Who told you not to talk?''

  'The woman upstairs.'

  'Does she come down here for the night? ·'

  'Yes.'

  'Do the men I saw also live down here - the man who brought me down the elevator?'

  'Yes.'

  'Do you associate with them?'

  'No.' Her voice quickened. 'They have to get authorization, and the electric lock system has to be opened from a central control area for them to come in here.'

  'Who gives the authorization? '

  'Idon't know. It's a voice that speaks.'

  'A man's voice, or a woman's?'

  Tm not sure. It's a high tenor, or a low contralto.'

  'What happens when the authorization is given?'

  'The doors unlock. Then they can get through.'

  'Who?'

  'Oh, there're about a hundred men in the men's section.'

  Grayson ceased his questions. They had come to a door that looked metallic. He reached forward tentatively and touched it. It felt metallic, and solid. Steel? he wondered. Whatever, it was very convincng. And gave instant credence to what Nora Patton had said about not being able to enter the reception room except by permission.

  Pity came. Mentally, he pictured the life these captured workers were living, and braced himself. All right, all right, he thought, so it's up to me.

  Exactly why he should take responsibility was not entirely clear. Something to do, of course, with being threatened by the same trap. But also there was the fact that the thought had finally been presented to him. And so what he had never before considered in any way became an accepted assignment.

  He stepped closer to the door. Pretended to press against it, as if he were testing it. Thus, he was able to rub the concealed device in his palm over the surface near what he believed to be the lock area. He had his ear against the metal, and, as he listened intently, the sound that he was waiting for came: a sharp click.

  It was loud enough to have been easily audible, requiring no special attention. Still, you could never know about such matters in advance. It might have been a soft, oiled, silding hiss of a sound.

  Grayson could not help wondering if, perhaps, Nora had not led him to a pre-selected door. In her enslaved state, betrayal was mandatory. If so, then behind the door was a trap. He could not, he realized, let the possibility make any difference.

  Bracing himself, he grasped the woman's wrist firmly with his left hand. With his right he pressed the latch, which he had so swiftly and expertly unlocked. And pushed.

  Emptiness. A deserted corridor. Which was exactly what she had said it would be. They came next to a cross corridor.

  'Which way to the elevators?' Grayson Whispered the question.

  The woman pointed. And, after he had taken off his glasses, and stared at her fixedly - she quailed immediately - he repeated the question. She insisted in a quavering voice. So there seemed no doubt.

  A minute later he opened another door, and there was the 'basement' reception room. It was still too soon to feel relief, but there was a small, special excitement inside him as he guided her across the room toward the elevator section. Grayson did have to suppress a momentary impulse to open the door through which she had directed him that morning, and to which he had gone in the naive belief that he would be interviewed by the Utt Commissioner. The impulse to look was momentary. The grim reality was that he didn't actually know what means had been used to stimulate the previously installed deep-trance hypnotism.

  Take no unnecessary chances; that was his credo now. Out and up; that was his purpose. All three elevators sat in a row at the bottom of their shafts.

  Enter the nearest. Press the 'up' button. Wait, and experience a sense of relief, as the doors sedately slid shut. And wait again many minutes while the machine moved up, and up… and up.

  There is a kind of death about anything interminable, thought Grayson. Like waiting for something to happen. And waiting. He tried to remember how long the down journey had seemed that morning. But that merely brought to mind a long-ago, wry observation that time past was not the same as time present. Besides, as he recalled it, he had tried to question his guide-guard. And, of course, conversation was a time devourer… Maybe if I talk to Nora. No - consciously he rejected that solution. Not inside the elevator. It was apparent that she was not a co-conspirator; so that whatever additional information she might have could wait.

 

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