When the Sleepers Woke, Arthur Leo Zagat [best novels for beginners .TXT] 📗

to the drive of fist and foot, crashed into the wall, fell to its foot. From the crumpled heap rose a shriek, a long piercing wail that ended in a gurgle.

Dane froze, the captured cylinder in his hand, and listened. There were others of the unholy band about. Had they heard? Dim sounds came to him. He leaped to the door, flung it open. Faint footfalls, a distant shout, came from far down the corridor, away from the direction of the stairs. Allan glimpsed dark forms, rushing toward him. He darted back to the girl, swung her, still unconscious, to his shoulder, and was out. The floor was slippery beneath his feet. He reeled as he ran, and the sounds of pursuit gained on him. The heavy burden weighed him down, the dim hallway stretched endlessly before him. From close behind came hoarse, guttural shouts that chilled him.

The pack was not twenty feet away when Allan reached the stair door. He slammed it behind him, heard the latch click. He mounted the narrow, winding steps with the last dregs of energy draining from him, and heard a crash below that told of the collapse of the barrier. But he had reached his plane, had flung the girl into it, and was pulling himself in when the first of the pursuers burst out on the roof.

Allan thrust home the throttle, the helio-vanes whined, and his 'copter leaped skyward. He glimpsed men running across the roof; they vanished behind a leafy arbor. Dane turned the nose of his craft toward Sugar Loaf, amethyst in the haze of distance, but from that green arch a black aircraft zoomed up and shot after him. The American shook his head free of the cobwebs of fatigue, and veered westward. He must not lead the Easterners to Anthony's refuge.

Through the dead air, over a dead world they shot—Allan's white flier and the ebony plane with the bloody emblem of the seven-pointed star emblazoned on its nose. Allan wheeled again as the pursuers reached his level on a long, climbing slant.

But they continued rising! They, were five hundred, a thousand feet above him. Then they leveled out, and dived down. Their strategy flashed on him—they were planning to shepherd Dane down, to force him to land where they would have him at their mercy. And their craft was the faster!

The black ship was right on his tail; Allan flicked his controls and his 'copter slid sidewise on one wing. The other plane banked in a tight arc and sped for him; Dane countered with a lightning loop that brought him behind his enemy. His gray eyes were steel-hard, his lips were a straight, thin gash. The other ship was faster, but his, lighter and smaller, was more flexible. He could not get away, but—They flipped up and back in an inside loop; Allan's little craft barrel-rolled from under.

This sort of thing could not last forever. With each maneuver he was losing altitude. Serrated roof-tops were already a scant fifteen hundred feet beneath him, gaunt gray fingers that reached up to pluck him from the sky.

Only half Allan's mind was concentrated on the aerial acrobatics. The other half plodded a weary treadmill. In the nullite chamber beneath Sugar Loaf's summit, he thought, were three couples whose knowledge and wisdom had preserved them for the repeopling of the Earth. Their children, and their children's children—starting from such a source what heights might not the new race attain?

On the other hand, the ship that pursued him carried cowards who had failed in mankind's supreme test; men who had lost their manhood, ravening demi-beasts, half mad with loneliness and desire. As long as they remained alive they would be a menace to those others, an unclean band that would forever sully the new world with the old world's evils. Even should Allan himself escape them by some trick of fortune, they must inevitably find the little band of men—and women. A cold chill ran through Dane as he visioned the result.

He was not afraid to die. And the girl in the cabin behind him—better that she never awake than that she be the sport of Ra-Jamba's kind. A grim resolve formed itself, and he watched for a chance to put it into execution.

It came. At the end of a shifting maneuver the black 'copter was above and behind the white. Dane's fingers played swiftly over the control board. His ship flipped over backward, rolling on its long axis as it somersaulted. It was directly beneath the other. Then the helio-vanes screamed, and the American plane surged straight up!

A resounding crash split the air. Metal ripped, a fuel tank exploded. A black wing scaled earthward, zigzagging oddly. Dane's craft and the Eastern ship clung in an embrace of death. They started to drop. But, queerly, the black plane fell faster, left the white one behind as its descent gained speed till it splashed against concrete below. The American helicopter was dropping, too, but sluggishly. Something was buoying it up. Allan, momentarily struggling out of the welter of blackness and pain into which the concussion had thrown him, heard a familiar whine. His helio-vanes were still twirling, limply, stutteringly, bent and twisted, but gripping the air sufficiently to brake his crushed plane's fall.

Afterwards, Allan figured it out. The black pilot had slipped sidewise in that last frantic moment. His effort to escape had been futile, but instead of his ship's body, Dane's plane had struck the wing and torn it off. The impact had irreparably damaged the American craft, but the helicopter motor and vanes had somehow continued to function—just enough. The stanch alumino-steeloid fuselage, though bent and disfigured, had fended the full force of the crash from Allan and his passenger.

Just now, however, Allan Dane was doing no figuring. Pain welled behind his eyes, his left arm was limp, and a broken stanchion jammed his feet so they couldn't move. The vane motor stuttered and stopped, the plane floor dropped away from beneath him, then thudded against something. The jar jolted Allan into a gray land where there was nothing....

Someone was talking. He couldn't make out the words, but the sound was pleasant. It soothed the throb, throb in his head. Gosh, that had been some party last night, celebrating Flight ZLX's first prize in maneuvers! Great bunch, but would they be as good in real war—sure to come soon? Dane's stuff had too much kick; he must have passed out early.

Somebody shaking him.

"Lea' me 'lone; wanna sleep."

"Oh, wake up, please wake up."

Girl's voice. Nice voice. Voice like that should have pretty face. Better not look, though; too bad if she had buck teeth or squint eyes.

"Oh, what will I do? You're not dead? Please, you're not dead?"

"Don't think so. Head hurts too much." Allan opened his eyes. "Wrong again. Mus' be dead. Only angel could look like that. Not in right place, though. Mistake in shipping directions—tags switched or something."

A cold hand lay across his brow, and he felt it quiver. "Don't talk like that. Wake up." There was hysteria in the limpid tones.

Allan's brain mists cleared, and he grinned wryly. "I remember now. You all right?"

"Yes. But who are you? Are you Anthony Starr?"

"No. But Anthony sent me." Allan struggled to rise. He saw twisted wreckage beside him. He gasped. "I seem to be a bit conked. But what—what do you know about Anthony?"

The girl fumbled in her garments, brought out a paper. Allan found that he could move his right arm without much pain. He took the yellowed sheet, and read the faded writing.

Dear Naomi:

You are asleep, and we have been standing by your couch, drinking in the dear sight of you. You sleep soundly, tired as you are by the long-promised story we told you on this, your sixteenth birthday, the tale of how the world you know only from our teachings was destroyed, of how we planned with our friends to escape the general fate, of how an accident separated us from them and immured us here alone, of how you were born in this room and why you have lived here all your short life. We told you all that, but there is one thing we did not tell you.

Our food supply has run low, and the gas outside shows no signs of abatement. With careful husbanding we could all three live for another four months, but there is no prospect that we shall be released in so short a time. Alone, you will have sufficient for a year. If we had had some of Carl Thorman's life-suspension serum—but it was his perfection of that which caused the change of plan to a common refuge, and we never thought to stock with it the discarded rooms in our own apartments.

We have talked it over, and have decided that you must have that eight months' extra chance. And so, dear daughter, this must be farewell.

When the gas is gone Anthony will come to seek us, if he still lives. You will know him by the white robe of metal fabric he will wear, with its black girdle. Trust yourself to him; he was our friend. If all the food has been consumed, and he still has not come, open the door. But fate will not be so cruel to you.

We are weary of the long waiting, Naomi. Do not grieve for us. We shall go out into the gas hand in hand, and release will be welcome.

God guard you.

Allan was deeply moved by the love and sacrifice so simply worded. He looked at the girl, and had to blink away a mist that hazed his sight before he could see her. "I see," he said. "When the year ended and Anthony had not come, you opened the door—"

"And the gas was gone. Then I heard someone moving far down the corridor. I was so happy. Who could it be but Anthony? I called. A hairy, black giant came running, bellowing in some strange language. I was terribly frightened: I think I screamed, and tried to shut the door. But he was too quick for me: he was in the room, and his filthy paws reached out for me. I screamed again, dodged away from him. He pursued me. I threw myself backward, tripped, and fell. My head crashed against the floor.

"The next thing I knew I was here, and you were twisted and jammed there in front of me. At first I wanted to run, then I saw your robe. I dragged you out. Then I spied that other pile of wreckage, and I thought you too were dead...." She covered her face with her hands.

Allan turned his head, saw for the first time the crumpled debris of the black ship, a hundred feet away, saw stark forms. "There's nothing to be afraid of now," he said. "It's all over. We'll soon be with your father's friend, with Anthony."

A little smile of reassurance trembled on the girls lips. "Oh, do you think so?"

Allan nodded.

"Sure thing! Just trust to me, Miss ...?"

"Call me Naomi."

"I'm Allan." The pilot thrust out his big hand, full fleshed now, and a little white one fluttered into it. An electric thrill rippled at the contact, and the two hands clung. The girl gave a little gasp, and pink flushed her cheeks.

Naomi shivered a little, and Allan realized that a chill breeze was sweeping across the roof-tops and that daylight was almost gone. "Look here, partner, we'd better get started, somewhere." He pulled himself to his feet. Pain shot through him and his head still throbbed. "I'd better take a look at that." He gestured to the wreck of the Eastern ship. "You wait here."

When he returned his face was pallid, and there was a sick look in his eyes. The girl asked sharply: "What is it? What's wrong? Tell me, Allan!"

He looked at her grimly, started to say something, thought better of it. Then: "It wasn't a pleasant sight." He shrugged. "Come on, let's see what we can find. We'll have to spend the night here, and start for Sugar Loaf Mountain in the morning."

Once more Allan descended a narrow, spiral staircase into darkness and silence. But this time someone was at his side, and a warmness ran through him at the thought.

The topmost floor of this building was a residential level. Like the one where he had found Naomi, a green mold covered everything, and pallid fungi, emitting a pale-green phosphorescence, clung to the walls and ceiling of the long corridor. Apparently the dwellers here had rushed out at the first alarm, had died elsewhere. "This is luck," Allan said. "We shall have a comfortable place to sleep, and food is not far away."

"How is that?"

"Why, the stores level is not far below.