Slaves of Ijax. John Russell Fearn
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like a witch on a broomstick,” Peter muttered, trying to grin. “Besides, I suffer from astrophobia—fear of heights, that is.”
“Oh?” Alza looked down casually into the yawning gulf and then shrugged. “I am sure that must be unpleasant. I seem to remember it was a disease of the ancient races....” She coloured very slightly in embarrassment. “I am sorry Excellence, I didn’t mean to imply— My words were ill chosen.”
“That’s all right,” Peter assured her. “Compared with your standards, Alza, I am ancient.... And don’t mind me using your first name, will you? I like to be sociable.”
Wonder was in the grey eyes but the girl made no comment. So, closing his eyes and wishing his stomach would stop turning over Peter clung to the robot arms tightly until at last the girl and he were set down gently in a vast airport on top of a building. He stood up, staggered momentarily, then gazed about him on flying machines of all sizes, wingless and utterly unlike those of seven centuries—or was it seven hours?—ago.
Towards one of the smallest machines the girl led the way. In different parts of the airport mechanics moved keeping a respectful distance, watching the rather queasy Peter as he followed the girl’s graceful figure.
Opening the airlock of the small machine she motioned him inside it. Peter settled down thankfully in a small cabin, relaxing his limbs in an air-pressured chair. Presently the girl got in beside him and he watched her skilful hands operating controls on a dashboard whose complications were quite beyond him.
“We have three methods of flight incorporated in the machine,” she explained. “Rocket-propulsion, radio-beam control, and atomic power. I think the atom motor will be the best for our purpose, Excellence, in that we’ll be free to wander as we will, separated from beam control.”
“Good enough.” Peter muttered, feeling a trifle less dizzy.
Somewhere in the vessel behind them an almost silent motor purred. Shot like a bullet from a gun the machine catapulted up from the roof and climbed with dizzying velocity to 8,000 feet; then the girl levelled out and moved a switch, which opened a floor panel beneath their feet. Below, framed by a four-foot square of warpless glass, lay Metropolita.
Struggling against vertigo Peter looked down and saw the city now in all its massive splendour...the traffic levels, the pedestrian ways, the spacious parks, the gigantic buildings, the radio-beam towers—and presently, as they flew onwards, one particular tower taller than all the rest. He had seen it from his suite, as a matter of fact, and wondered about it. It reared fully four thousand feet, far higher than the buildings. At the summit it tapered to support a giant cradle carrying a gleaming bowl. From this bowl, trailing down within the tower’s metalwork, were what seemed to be heavily insulated cables. Down they went until they were lost to sight in the city below.
“That’s the biggest tower I ever saw,” Peter confessed at last.
“The Grand Tower, Excellence,” Alza replied. “All part of the Task.”
“Fly right over it, slowly,” Peter instructed. “I want a close look at it.”
The girl manoeuvred the machine perfectly and they dived to within twenty-five feet of the Tower, hovering with helicopter screws spinning noiselessly. They were now directly over the colossal bowl in the Tower top. Peter looked down intently, surprised to discover a few figures at work in the bottom of the bowl, mere dots by comparison with their surroundings. Some of them were staring up at the stationary flyer.
“I—I say!” Peter gasped suddenly. “I do believe— Got a pair of binoculars, Alza?” he asked quickly.
“Binoc—?” She looked puzzled for a moment; then comprehending she closed a switch. Automatically a high magnification lens slid over the warpless floor glass and the figures below leapt into bold, pin-sharp relief. Half a dozen men in the usual flowing robes were down there, and among them, looking up, was Mark Lanning!
“The Adviser-Elect himself!” Peter exclaimed, narrowing his eyes. “Well, think of that! All right, Alza, move on....”
She restored the glass to normal and sent the machine forward again. Peter sat thinking for a moment or two and rubbed his chin. “He told me he had important business, but I never guessed it was at the top of a four thousand foot Tower! What’s he up to, Alza? What’s the Grand Tower for anyway?”
“As I understand the Task, the Tower will eventually be used to hold moondust,” the girl answered. “By that I mean the giant bowl at the summit will be filled with moondust.”
“Moondust?” Peter stared at her. “What the devil’s that?”
“I have no idea, Excellence. That is Mr. Lanning’s particular province. My own part in the Task is quite small—purely three hours supervision of excavating machines every day, when I have finished secretarial duties. Today of course I am with you so my usual work is neglected.”
Peter did not say ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ even though he felt like it. His interest was definitely aroused: for the first time since he had awakened in the fantastic Twenty-Eighth Century he was beginning to feel that everything was not as perfect as it seemed to be, In a word, something was going on!
Thoughtfully he gazed below again. There was something else too now which was puzzling. From the base of the Grand Tower, clearly visible in the unwavering summer air, there radiated six wide channels, like spokes of a wheel, radiating from the hub. They went in perfectly straight lines, carved through the city in six different directions and then onwards and outwards to the flat countryside which surrounded Metropolita. As far as Peter could see they extended, heedless of rise and dip in the landscape, right out of sight over the horizon.
“What’s the idea of the channels?” he asked the girl, but she only shook her blonde head.
“I don’t know, Excellence. I excavate in them, and at times even dig, but I don’t know their exact purpose.”
“You...you dig in them? A girl like you?”
Her full lips smiled as she glanced at him. “Why not? I enjoy my part in the Task. And I am strong—very strong. I have Class A Woman’s Certificate for health. My parents were Class A with distinction.”
Peter sighed and raised his eyebrows; then he gave more orders.
“Fly low over that channel straight ahead.”
Alza obeyed without question and crawled at a mere twenty-five feet over one of the vast gouges in the landscape outside the city. This channel, as far as Peter could tell, travelled due north. Within it, as the girl piloted the machine onwards, he saw men and women at work, some with a homely pick and shovel and others operating mechanical excavators and electric drills. In other parts of the channel, nearer the Tower base, something of dull coppery shade was being packed into the channel with infinite care.
All along the line, for three hundred miles and more, the men and women toiled, the greatest scene of activity being where the channel had yet to be made across rough, uncultivated landscape.
“If they keep on going,” Peter said musingly, “they’ll encircle the Earth.”
“Yes, Excellence,” the girl agreed. “That is the idea. Even under the ocean beds.”
“But damnit, why? Haven’t the people anything better to do than this?”
“What else is there when science does everything for one?”
The words brought back Mark Lanning’s own statement. Peter hesitated, then said no more for a while. The memory of the word ‘Moondust’ returned to him. He had heard of it somewhere—not here in the twenty-eight century but somewhere at home in the days of Judith and Michael. Michael had mentioned it once, casually, during a conversation on science. Peter sighed as the memory refused to come fully into the open.
“Turn around, Alza,” he said finally. “We’ll get back to the city for dinner. I’m getting hungry.”
“Yes,