Back Aa

Doomsday Eve

<h2>XIV</h2> "Zero minus one hour," the loudspeaker droned, in a Chinese dialect. In a deep cavern in the hinterlands of Asia, men responded to the command coming over the speaker system. Already driven to the point of exhaustion, they were working harder than they had ever worked before. The moment of victory, for which all true Asians had lived, was near at hand. The launching of this bomb would make the Asian Union master of the world. Orders had come through to launch this bomb immediately. "Zero minus forty-five minutes," the speaker said. The drone had gone from the voice of the officer watching the time. A rising excitement appeared in the tones as if he, too, had caught the scent of fear rising in the vast underground depot. So much was left to be done. The atomic warhead was already in place, waiting for the day of launching, otherwise the task would have been impossible. The driving engines were complete, but had to be fueled. The steering equipment was almost ready, only the installation of the left gyroscope was necessary. This was at hand waiting to be installed. Five technicians constantly got in each other's way as they tried to slip the delicate instrument into place. "Zero minus thirty minutes!" The gyroscope was eased into place and tested. It was found to be in perfect working order. In the course plotting room, the final calculations were being made. Wind direction and velocity aloft had been noted across half the planet. This had some importance on the launching and landing end but had no significance when the bomb itself was out of the atmosphere. The target had been figured and refigured. Actually, the target was anywhere on the continent of North America. If this bomb struck anywhere in the Mississippi valley, the whole watershed below the striking point would be scoured clean of all life. Water carrying radiation downstream would account for that. "Zero minus fifteen minutes!" On the outside of the mountain, in a special observatory constructed for this precise purpose, radar scopes for tracking the rocket were ready. Instruments in the laboratory there were for the purpose of changing the course of the super bomb, if it veered too far from its destination. The technicians there were on their toes. They had no guards to encourage them but they needed none. They knew what would happen if this bomb failed to land and the fault was traced to their door. What would happen when the bomb landed? Hell would happen! Probably the crust of the Earth would open up in a hole miles in depth. Meteor Crater, in Arizona, would be the work of a child compared to the result of this explosion. What had happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be nothing in comparison. The possibility existed that the molten magma of the core of the planet would gush forth. No one knew for sure whether or not this would happen. If it did take place, the result might be the sudden appearance of a lake of over-flowing lava. The shock waves from the bomb would probably be strong enough to pull down every skyscraper that still remained standing in America. The effect on the watershed where the bomb landed would be almost complete catastrophe. If it struck on any of the rivers or streams flowing into the Mississippi, the water supply of all cities downstream to New Orleans would be contaminated. Nobody knew what the effect of the fall-out from this bomb would be. High air currents might carry radioactive particles for thousands of miles from the explosion point, where they would fall as a gentle but very deadly rain upon the Earth below. "Zero minus ten minutes!" The high, thin note of a violin appeared in the vast underground cavern. Amid the scurrying of feet, the shouts of the foremen bossing the work gangs, and the occasional cracking of the rifles of the guard, the sound was unheard by the ears. But deeper centers heard it. The first man to go was a fat engineer. Sighing, he stumbled and fell. When he did not rise a guard approached him. As the guard determined that the man was snoring, he lifted his rifle. The engineer died without awakening. Another shot rang out as another man went to sleep, then continued on to join his fathers. The technician busy filling the fuel tanks of the rocket was the third man to go. He managed to finish closing the filler cap and to lay down his flexible line before the urge to sleep overcame him. By this time the guards knew that something was wrong. Silence came over the cavern. In the stillness, the note of the violin flickering up and down the scale could be heard. Men looked at each other in growing apprehension. Looking, some of them lay down and went to sleep. "Sleep gas!" an officer bawled. "Shoot all foreigners on sight!" The officer suspected that some spy had slipped into the underground cavern and had released gas there. His command was intended to enable his men to find and eliminate this alien. As such, from a military standpoint, it was a good command. It had this deficiency: when his men did not find any aliens, but their own people continued going to sleep on them, they began imagining foreigners. The guards began to shoot their own technicians and engineers. As panic swept through the cavern, guards began to shoot other guards. Soon the people in this huge underground chamber were tearing and destroying each other. And one other thing: they were also going to sleep. The panic grew to hurricane proportions. When Kurt Zen appeared inside the cavern the whole vast place was as still as a tomb. Smoke from the rifles hung in the air, the cavern stank of death and fear. But the bomb still rested in its launching cradle. Zen took one long look at that bomb. He felt his sigh of relief clear down to the ends of his toes. At the sight, the last remnant of pain vanished from his toes and fingers. Not that the damage done by the matches did not still exist. It did. But in the surge of elation that swept through him, he completely forgot the pain. "We just got here in time," a man said, appearing beside him. It was Spike Larson who had spoken. Awe on his face, Larson glanced around the cavern. "They started killing each other. They must have gone nuts." "I don't blame them," Zen said. "I damned near did, on the way here." "That trip through nothing is sure a stinker, isn't it," Larson answered, grinning and shaking his head. Zen agreed with him whole-heartedly. After tuning his body to an instrument in the cavern, hidden so well that Cuso's men had not had time to find it, West had punched a button. The machine had vanished. West had vanished. A horrible moment had come when it had seemed that his feet were standing on nothing more substantial than air. What he had felt under his feet had, in fact, been far less substantial than air, which had body. It had been even less solid than space. It had been nothing. Swishing, colonel Grant came into existence on the other side of Zen. Grant looked fussed, but he gripped the rifle he had taken from one of Cuso's men with determination. "Just between you and me, I'd rather fly a space satellite to Mars any day in preference to facing this jump." "I know what you mean," Zen said. As he spoke, another figure came into existence to his left. Nedra! She came spinning into reality with a smile on her face. Zen wasted a moment wondering what kind of cast-iron nerves this girl had. "It looks as if all we have to do is to tie them up," Spike Larson said. "This is almost too good to be true." "It is too good to be true," Zen said. Turmoil was—somewhere. He did not know where but it seemed to him that a vast uneasiness had suddenly come into existence. It had to do, somehow, with the future, with a something that was about to happen. "Halt!" Grant's voice rang out. Zen swung his gaze around just in time to see an Asian lift himself to his feet near a control board that stood beside the rocket. "He's walking in his sleep," Larson exclaimed. "Zero minus one minute," the loudspeaker announced. "Where in the hell is that man on the speaker?" Grant demanded. "The sleep frequency didn't get to him!" "No time to be concerned about him now," Zen said. The turmoil that existed somewhere had increased in intensity. Somehow it was concerned with the solitary Asian who was reeling in circles like a drunken man trying to make up his mind. "Shall I shoot him, colonel?" Grant demanded. Zen hesitated. He knew that West's deepest wish was to avoid violence if that was possible. The split second's delay was fatal. Grant's shot rang out—much too late. Reeling on his feet, the man reached the control panel, and pulled the single switch there. A heavy thud came from the rocket as a ram drove home inside the heavy metal hull. "Get back!" Zen screamed. He caught Nedra and pulled her backward. Beside him, he knew that Grant and Larson were also reeling backward. Inside the rocket a steady rumble of sound was building up. Low in frequency but heavy in volume it seemed to shake the foundations of the Earth itself. Inside the vessel heavy heat charges were building up. Smoke and flame spurted backward as the first warming charge let go. For all Zen knew this section was to have been cleared before the firing of the first rocket. He did not know whether provision had been made for the elimination of flame and smoke but he knew that heat and smoke hit him as he pulled Nedra away. Then the main charges let go. Rising like some devil spurting upward from the depths of hell itself, the launching cradle carrying the rocket lurched upward. The stone floor shook underfoot, the mountain shook. Unless this rocket could be stopped, the whole planet would shake. Earth would twitch her skin like an elephant stung by a giant wasp. With a thundering roar the rocket shook itself loose from its cradle and hurled into the sky under its own power. "West," Zen shouted. "Yes, Kurt." The craggy man's reply was as prompt as it would have been if he had stayed in the same room. Actually he was in the American center. "We've lost," Zen said. "I know," West replied. A sadness as deep as the ocean of space was in his voice. "Pull these people back to you." "Of course." "Me last." The last lingering roars of sound were still pounding down the bore of the launching cradle. "Why do you want to be last?" "Duty," Zen said. "Get that miracle device of yours into operation, pronto." "Sure. I'm starting now." "Hey, guys, you're going home!" Zen yelled at the people with him. "What good is it to go home?" Spike Larson asked. "There won't be any home within an hour," Grant added. "Or however long that rocket will take to land. Why go back to what isn't there?" "That's where we will start the task of rebuilding," Zen said. "Rebuild what with what?" Larson demanded. "There will be something left," Zen said firmly. "You are already underground. You will stay that way. Keep the good fight going, for years. Raise some kids to keep it going after you are gone." He felt very firm and sure about what he was saying. "You're full of hot air," Red-Dog Jimmie Thurman said. "Besides, you are planning something else," Nedra spoke. "You want to get rid of us so you can—" "West!" Zen shouted. "Yes, Kurt." "Take 'em away!" Zen yelled. "They're trying to rebel on me. Take Nedra first before she reads my mind." "I'm working as fast as I can," West answered. "This instrument has to be tuned to the individual body frequency. Ah—" "I knew there was something—" Nedra began. And vanished. Zen grinned. He had the impression that she was calling him names that no lady should speak as she went away. Time would cure that, if any time was left. In the chamber an Asian was stirring. "Zen, old man, what are you up to?" Grant asked. "Take this one next," Kurt ordered. Grant looked reluctant but resigned as he disappeared. Zen was alone in the big chamber. Smoke swirled from the ceiling. One Asian was already on his feet and a guard was sitting up. "I've got them all here," West's voice came across vast distances. "Good." "Are you ready?" "Yeah," Zen answered. "But I'm going that way." He pointed toward the ceiling. "Kurt!" West's voice was sharp with sudden pain as he caught the colonel's meaning. "That way or no way," Zen answered. "But that's not a passenger rocket." "The hull will hold enough air to keep me alive for as long as I need to be there." "But the rocket is in constantly accelerating flight. It's a moving target." "Red-Dog Jimmie Thurman's plane was falling and Colonel Grant's satellite was moving and Spike Larson's sub was on the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Don't give me any back talk, Sam. Somebody got into that plane and that satellite and that submarine. I can get into that rocket. You're the man who can put me there." "But I'm not on that target!" West's voice had a wail in it. "Then get on it!" Kurt Zen sounded like an exceedingly gruff drill sergeant addressing a new recruit, or like a colonel who had his mind made up. "All right. I'll do my best. But something will remain here, Kurt, even after the explosion. We'll be safe, in a way, here." "That argument has already been used, by me, to get the others back to you. You and I know, Sam, that hell won't hold a hat to the American continent if that whizzer hits." "All right," West repeated. "Ah! I'm on the rocket as a target." "Good!" Zen repressed every muscular tremor everywhere in his body. Somewhere there was jubilation, a sensed but not tangible vibration that he could not locate. He concentrated on the jubilation. A layer of smoke floated down from the ceiling like a descending death-pall. The guard had gotten to his feet. He had picked up his rifle and was staring around the room seeking either an explanation for what had happened, or a target. To him, which he got didn't matter. His eyes came to focus on the lean colonel with the bandaged fingers. That uniform did not belong here. The guard raised his rifle. "Good luck, Kurt," West's voice whispered across the space between two continents. As the gun exploded in his face, Kurt Zen felt his body vibrate into what seemed to be nothing. Again the terror wrenched at his soul. Again he experienced the mind-compelling agony of this incredible type of space flight. This time he did not mind these terrors. Somewhere in his mind was jubilation. Wondering if it was the forerunner of death, he continued to concentrate on that. Dimly, as if from some other space, or some other time, he was aware of a roar. The rocket swam into existence ten feet away from him. He was outside it, in airless space. West had made a miscalculation. Agony seared every cell in his body. Pain clamped at his throat like hands trying to choke him to death. "Oops! I made a mistake," he heard West gasp. He was moving with the rocket, on a parallel course. West had matched course and velocity but he had not achieved his exact aiming point. Error in the instrument? Human mistake? Who knew? Who cared? Click! Like a vast ocean of warm, pulsing, sure power, the race mind came into Kurt Zen. It existed here in space, too! He had never thought of that. In what little thinking he had had time to do, he had considered it as a super special sort of field which possessed intelligence but which was limited to the surface of the planet. Here in space, it sustained life in him. He did not know how this was done, this was one of the mysteries which must be left to the future to solve—if there was a future other than the mud flats. It felt to him as if a vast tidal current was flowing into his body. Click! He was in the rocket! The smell of overheated oil fouled his nose. As he tried to move, he bumped his head. He was in a narrow passage. Ahead was a control panel with automatic devices. He began to crawl in that direction. Noise was a thundering roar in his ears. His whole body felt as if it was about to shake to pieces. The passage was narrow. It had never been intended for humans. Moving upward, Zen found it was too narrow. He got stuck. No matter how hard he tried he could not move an inch forward. The control panel was so close he could spit on it but it could not have been farther out of his reach if it had been on the other side of the Moon. Air was getting short. He twisted and squirmed, fighting like the devil, but his body was wedged into the narrow passage in such a way that he could not move. Something pulled at his arms. Nedra was directly ahead of him. She was trying to pull him forward along the passage. "You?" he whispered. "Who has a better right than I?" she answered. Sweat grimed her face. Her hair was awry. Fiercely she pulled at him. The rocket yawed, beginning its turn in space. He forced himself forward. And came free. Somehow he found the strength to pull himself up in front of the control panel. He was running on nervous energy now and he knew it. No strength was left in his body beyond what he was forcing into it. "Send it out to space!" he muttered. "Send it out there!" He tried to wave his arm in an outward gesture and bumped his hand on the steel hull. Light came through a circular port. He had a glimpse of the Earth down below. The planet was very far away. Blue seas and green land, the planet was also very beautiful. He fumbled his way over the controls, trying to understand them. Somewhere stabilizing gyroscopes were running smoothly. He could hear them. The controls were simple. He decided which way was up, and jammed home the controls. Nothing happened. In the confined quarters his laughter had madness in it. Nedra stared at him. "What happened?" "Nothing. Nothing happened. They're locked in place." His eyes grew very wide. "These controls are only for establishing the flight course. Once that is established and the rocket launched, they automatically lock in place." "Then we can't change the course?" "No." Her face puckered and she looked like a small girl about to cry. Another panel to the left caught his attention. It had a red button on it. He studied the wiring on it. "By thunder!" the words burst involuntarily from his lips. "What is it, Kurt?" "They put a manual control on the warhead. It's got to be that. It can't be anything else." He pointed to the red button. "Why do you suppose they did that?" "Test purposes, probably, to check the firing mechanism before the warhead was installed. What difference does it make?" Nedra's voice was listless. "Maybe we can go to heaven." "What do you mean?" He explained very carefully what he meant. "Explode the rocket here in space?" "Sure," he said. His tone of voice said this was nothing, that anybody could do it. West's voice clamored in his mind again. He ignored it. His hand moved toward the red button. "There's one thing I want you to know," he said, pausing. "What is that?" "I love you," he said. She came into his arms like a tired, frightened child. "I knew that the minute I saw you," she said. He held her close to him and she lay there, seemingly very content. "All right," she said. "I'm ready." Her lips sought his. Kissing her, he reached behind her back and punched the red button. A relay thudded. Darkness closed in. <hr class="tb" /> Kurt Zen came out of that darkness to find himself staring upward into the face of Sam West. There was something about that face that was familiar, something that he should have guessed long before. He tried to think what it was. "How'd you get to heaven?" he said. "The warhead had a delay relay on it," West explained. "It was about thirty seconds, as near as I can figure it. Anyhow it gave us just enough time to snatch both of you out of that rocket before she blew." What he said sounded very important. Under other circumstances, Zen knew he would have considered it important. But other things seemed more significant now. "Did she blow?" he asked. "All of ten minutes ago," West said exultantly. "Do you know what this means, Kurt? Do you know what it means?" "Yeah," Zen answered. "I won't have to be an eel." There was still this other thing that was important. "Say—" "An eel?" For an instant the craggy man was puzzled. Then he grasped the meaning. "You're right, Kurt. No eels—for any of us." "That's good," Zen said. "Nedra—" "She's right here beside you, still out from exhaustion. But she will be all right." "Good," Zen said again. This other fact was still in his mind. As he tried to think what it was, the answer came to him. He looked up at the craggy man. "You're not Sam West," he said. "No?" the craggy man said, the ghost of a smile on his lips. "Then who am I?" "You're Jal Jonner. Nobody but Jal Jonner could have done all the things you have done." "You're right, Kurt. I'm Jal Jonner. And you're Kurt Zen. And this is Nedra—" Zen saw the smile on the face of the craggy man. It was a very good smile, the best he had ever seen. Then it faded away as he sank into the deep slumber of exhaustion. He did not even feel Jonner place Nedra's hand in his as he went to sleep. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.