Doomsday Eve by Robert Moore Williams (ebook pc reader .TXT) 📗

only too well what lay back of Cuso's words. "I see what you mean. But what do you wish of me?" His voice carried an intimation of surrender in the face of odds that he recognized as being hopeless.

Zen, with his back to the wall, tried to keep from squirming. Emotions that were causing actual pain were in his body. Why would the race mind permit such an outrage as this?

The smile on Cuso's face went from ear to ear. Here was victory, here was the submission of the enemy. Here was what his leaders wanted. Here was a marshal's baton for him.

"Really very little." He drew in his breath with a hiss as he addressed West, a sign of deferent politeness. "Merely that you show us what you have here. And, of course, that you should explain it all to our scientists and engineers, showing them how your equipment operates."

The room got very quiet after Cuso had finished speaking. West seemed to muse. "What do you think we have here?" he said.

"If I knew the answer to that question, I would not be asking such a stupid thing," Cuso answered.

"Quite true," West agreed. "I was stupid to even ask such a question."

"The time is here to end stupidity," Cuso said.

"Again I agree," the craggy man answered. He shrugged. "Well, when and where do you want me to start?" The smile on his face was a mixture of fear and resignation. It indicated that he had given up completely.

"Now you are talking the kind of words I like to hear," Cuso said emphatically. "You will start now, and show me, personally, everything that is of importance in this mountain."

"Very well. Follow me." West turned and moved toward the opening that led to the chamber where the super radar was hidden.

"Wait here," Cuso snapped at his lieutenant. "Shoot any person who moves."

"Yes, great one," the lieutenant answered, saluting. This was the kind of order he loved to obey.

Cuso and West went out of sight.

Jake, Cal, and Ed stood in the middle of the room. Ed approached the lieutenant, nodded toward Nedra, and spoke earnestly to the man. The lieutenant shook his head vigorously, a gesture which seemed to indicate that Ed was being very stupid. The bantam grumbled to himself and moved away. Out of the corners of his eyes he kept watching the nurse.

Nedra ignored him. She also ignored Kurt Zen. As silent as so many statues, the new people stood against the stone walls. They seemed stunned. The impossible had happened to them and they were having difficulty in adjusting to it. John was not in the room. Either he had succeeded in hiding or he had been killed.

The fat youth was standing directly across the gallery from Zen. Farther down the wall, clad in pants and a bra, was a shapely blonde. When he was not watching Nedra, Ed paid attention to her. His actions seemed to irritate the lieutenant. Lifting his rifle, he fired a single shot through the head of the bantam.

Ed collapsed, dead before he hit the floor. Two Asian soldiers carried the body away.

"That lieutenant is hell on lovers," Zen whispered.

Nedra did not answer him. Her face was pale and her breathing was shallow. A film of sweat glistened on her forehead. Glancing at her, Zen had the impression that she was listening.

For what? he wondered. The only thing that was left for any of them was the sounding of the trump of doom. Zen had no illusions that Cuso would keep his promises for any longer than was expedient. First, West and all the others must be pumped dry of information, the whole interior of the mountain must be thoroughly explored, then—more bodies for the deep hole.

Zen had no illusions that either West or the new people would long survive the information they could be forced to divulge. As to Cuso's talk of West being given a commission as a marshal of the Asian Federation, for protection, the colonel knew that Asian field marshals had been listed among the missing before now. A field marshal who fell from grace vanished.

Across the gallery the fat youth also vanished.

One second he was there, the next second he was—gone!

XII

Neither the lieutenant nor any of the Asians noticed that a man had vanished. Cal and Jake, with the memory of Ed's death still very fresh in their minds, were engaged in making themselves inconspicuous. As far as Zen could tell, none of these clean, tall kids knew anything out of the ordinary had happened.

Beside the colonel, Nedra seemed slightly more composed. Her eyes were blank as if she were not seeing. The thin film of moisture was still visible on her forehead. Zen started to whisper to her, to ask her if she had noticed anything different, then changed his mind. There was no point in taking such a risk at such a time.

A sound was in the room, a thin, high note that was close to the upper limits of hearing. It passed beyond the range of hearing, or diminished in volume, then came again with the frequency of the ears, moving like a microscopically small but very powerful honey bee. Had the sound been present all the time? Or had it come into existence just before the fat youth vanished? Zen did not know about the sound.

A face appeared in the middle of the room. About ten feet above the floor, it looked around briefly, then vanished.

Cal seemed to see it too. A startled expression appeared on the face of the ragged man. His eyes opened wide. He blinked them hastily when the face vanished, then looked furtively around the room.

Jake said, very loudly, to the face, "Hi, bud. Long time no see. Where you been?"

"Shut up your crazy head!" Cal snarled at him.

"But I just saw an old buddy," Jake tried to explain.

"You saw nothing."

"What are you two talking about?" the lieutenant demanded.

"Nothing," Cal answered. He pointed his finger at his forehead and made circling motions in the air, then nodded toward Jake. "You know he's a looney, lieutenant."

"Oh, yes," the Asian officer said, as if he had just remembered something. Again he lifted the rifle to his shoulder. Jake fell dead.

The lieutenant slid another cartridge into his rifle.

"As long as you needed us—" Cal began.

"But I no longer need you to help me find the hidden ones," the lieutenant answered. "That makes things different, doesn't it?"

"It sure does," Cal agreed. "But why did you shoot him?"

"I made up my mind months ago to shoot him as soon as I no longer needed him," the Asian officer answered. "He was too crazy to trust."

"But he found this place for you and he got you past those hell generators," Cal said.

"That is true. But the place is now found and we are past the odd devices that make weaklings afraid." His tone said that this also made the situation different and that the ragged man had better understand this and guide himself accordingly. Cal started to speak, then changed his mind.

"What were you two talking about?" the Asian asked.

"He said he saw a face in the air," the ragged man answered. "I told him that he was nuts and to shut up."

"Was there a face?"

"I didn't see nothing," Cal answered.

While the two were talking, Zen was watching a youth in a loin cloth across the room. Standing erect against the wall, looking as if he were being crucified there, but without making any sound, the youth was slowly vanishing.

While the youth was sliding away, the violin note throbbed softly in the air. As he vanished, it went into silence, ending on a note of triumph.

The lieutenant became suspicious. He scanned the people against the wall.

"I thought there were more—" he muttered. Slowly he counted them. "Thirty-eight," he said. As if to engrave the number on his memory, he repeated it.

Simultaneously, one of the Asian soldiers spoke to him in a swift flow of sound.

Zen could not understand what was being said, but he guessed from the way the soldier pointed to the spot where the fat youth had stood that he was reporting what he had seen happen.

While they were talking the face appeared again in the air high in the middle of the room. The face was that of a man. He was wearing a mustache and he looked around the room with alert brown eyes. Nodding to himself with apparent satisfaction, he vanished.

Down the wall from Zen, a young woman vanished.

She went rapidly, in the flicker of an eye.

A youth standing next in line to her, followed suit.

Turning, the lieutenant saw that something had happened. Hastily he counted those standing against the wall.

"Thirty-six! Who slipped out while my back was turned?"

As he asked the question, three of the new people vanished behind him. No one answered him. He turned again, and realized that more blank places had appeared while he was not looking.

Again, keeping behind him, another one of the new people vanished.

Watching, Zen was treated to the spectacle of seeing an Asian officer grow crazy. While the lieutenant was watching one particular person, nothing happened to the one under his scrutiny. But directly behind him a person flicked out of existence.

For a time, the lieutenant almost had Zen's sympathy. The colonel knew what would happen to this officer when Cuso returned and found his prey had been permitted to escape. The Asians were not known for leniency to their own men who failed an assigned duty.

The lieutenant knew as well as Zen what would happen to him. But he was helpless. No matter which way he looked, his back was always turned to someone. The person he was not watching—vanished.

Unnoticed by the lieutenant, the face that seemed to be directing the vanishing operation appeared and disappeared in the center of the room. It kept directly above the lieutenant's head, moving as he moved, vanishing as he looked up.

The note of the violin came into hearing and went out again, repeating this action time and time again.

Sweat dripped off Zen's chin and formed a puddle on the floor under him. He did not know what was happening. Terror that was close to panic was in him but he did not move a muscle. For all he knew, the face might look at him and he might be the next one to vanish.

Where would he find himself if he vanished? Would he find himself again? Or did these people slide forever into nothingness, into some dimensional interspace where there was no Earth, no moon, and no stars?

Only he and Nedra were left along the walls.

The others had vanished.

The lieutenant had gone completely crazy. Sputtering a mixture of Chinese and English, he was jabbing his rifle against Nedra's stomach and was yelling at her.

"Tze! Go away. I will kill you if you do. N-oten. Where did they go? I demand an answer. Speak!"

"I do not know," the girl answered.

"Speak! I command it. Cuso will have my throat slit if I let all of you get away!"

"I have already—"

The lieutenant jabbed the muzzle of his rifle against her stomach.

"If you go away, I will kill you."

He meant what he said.

Smiling at him, the girl vanished.

He pulled the trigger of the weapon. The bullets howled madly through the gallery. Zen dropped hastily to the floor. Death was too close for him to be amazed at the sight of an Asian officer shooting at nothing.

The lieutenant stopped shooting when the magazine was empty. As he clicked another clip into place, some measure of sanity seemed to return to him. He did not shoot the colonel.

Instead Zen found himself being prodded with the muzzle of the still hot and smoking rifle.

"If you go away—"

Zen got to his feet.

"If I knew how to do it, I'd be gone," he said.

"Where did they go? How did they do it?" Fine flecks of spittle were blown from the lieutenant's lips.

The sound of hot lead was still strong in Zen's ears. At any moment, the lieutenant might start shooting again, for any reason. Or for no reason.

"I don't know," Zen said.

"But you've got to know. You're one of them."

"Would I stand around here and let you shoot me if I was one of them?" Zen answered.

Some of the logic of the question must have penetrated to the officer's mad mind. "No. No, you wouldn't. That is, I guess you wouldn't. But you might be trying to trick me." The thought of being tricked seemed to bring all his fury to the surface. "You did it once before, you and the girl."

"How?" Zen demanded.

"You put us all to sleep, you and that girl? Don't tell me you didn't. I was there."

"I was there but I