The Other Side of Here
- Автор: Лейнстер Мюррей
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Other Side of Here». Краткое содержание книги:
Newark ... Manhattan ... Baltimore—one by one they went out. A succession of thriving communities suddenly put out like a guttered flame—men, women, children sprawled like grotesque mannikins.
Steve Waldron knew it couldn't be plague. There had to be some connection with the disappearance of the nation's top scientists. And then he plunged to the very center of a dead city and gaped at a truth he could not believe. What could he do against so fearsome a force that threatened to engulf the whole nation?
Here's a spine-tingling science-fiction novel by an old master. It will open up a new dimension of suspense and excitement.
"What more can they do than kill us?"
"They had spies," said Nick. "And those spies would know something about tear gas. Your friend Fran didn't speak too highly of their methods of execution."
Waldron suddenly flung up a revolver and fired at a man dodging past a window. The window smashed. Something came in and exploded with a not-at-all alarming violence.
"That's gas now," said Waldron. "Come on!"
He took Lucy's hand. With Nick on one side and Waldron on the other, they broke into a sprint. They swerved as something else came in another window and burst. They plunged for the wall and tore open the small door there. A spiral stairway wound up and up, and then led down.
"We can't go down," said Waldron grimly. "There are mobs of them down below. So we're going up."
He led the way. For seconds, perhaps half a minute, their departure from the generator room went unnoticed. Initiative was not encouraged among the Underones by the leaders of the invaders. Waldron reached a landing with the others close behind. He halted and listened. A small window was close by. He peered out.
"I wish," he said between his teeth, "that we could convince them we'd gone down. Something to throw to make a noise in the courtyard below. What can I use?"
Nick was helpless. Concrete walls. Concrete floor. Steel spiral stairway. Nothing ... But Lucy reached up.
"Here's a light bulb," she said quietly. "It'll sound like a shot when it breaks."
Waldron took it and threw it out. There was a sharp cracking sound below. There was a babbling. Below them, on the stairs, there were voices. Men had pushed open the small door through which the three of them had disappeared. A voice bellowed arrogantly. Men started both up and down the stairs.
There were louder bellowings, farther away. The bulb had been mistaken for a shot. It was like enough, for ears not accustomed to firearms. Men halted and tramped down again.
"Go quietly," said Waldron, under his breath. Again he led the way.
He reached out and gathered electric light bulbs as he passed them. The powerhouse, of course, was lighted by a small auxiliary generator all its own. Lucy imitated him. When they reached the top of the stairs their arms were full.
The stairway ended at the powerhouse room. Here was a small plank platform and a sort of hut. From it a person should have been able to see far down to the Narrows. But there were no lights on the shore anywhere. The only lights visible were from the stars and from the aimless drifting tugs and other craft upon the harbor waters.
Waldron went to the edge of the roof. He peered down. All was still. He flung out half a dozen electric-light bulbs. When they struck, they created sharp bursts of sound. He saw light streak out into the street as a door was opened. Then Waldron, making due allowance for wind, threw two more, and then three, and four more. The result was a satisfying confusion and the use of flashlights to hunt for them.
Nick said somberly: "It looks to me, Steve, like we made a mistake not getting killed down there. After all, they've won. At a guess, the only place anybody would be safe from those devils would be somewhere out at sea."
Then Waldron said curtly: "That's an ideal If we'd had it before it might have done some good. Now, how are we going to put it into action?"
In the night atop the wind-swept roof, Nick seemed to stare at him. Then he grunted.
"I'll see how much I can make out of the way the streets run," he said dourly.
He went across the roof. He found a place where he could see the rooftops below and began to study them by starlight.
Lucy said unsteadily: "Steve, it's not fair. You try so hard, and every break is against you. It's not fair!"
Waldron looked at her and grinned. "Woman," he said gruffly, "you are slightly insane, expecting the breaks to be tempered to the boy friend. But thanks. And since Nick is plotting our later escape—why, come here."
It was a peculiar moment and place to act in a more or less romantic fashion, even if Waldron's motive was at least partly to reassure Lucy. But she clung to hurt.
"I—I thought," she said unsteadily, an instant or two later, "I was thinking tonight—when it seemed we would be killed any instant—I was thinking that it was horrible to have it happen when we hadn't really kissed each other since all this began. We've been together for days without saying a word about caring for each other.
There was some sound. She did not seem to mind.
"But I'm glad," she said. "I'm glad you felt like kissing me now."
And then there were footsteps inside the shed—the penthouse at the top of the stairs. The door opened. A figure came cautiously out, looking curiously about it. It wore the scaly armor of the invaders. The figure gazed interestedly.
Waldron drew his revolver, disengaging his arm from around Lucy with a slow precision. She whirled. The invader—looter, alien—was less than fifteen feet away. He was obviously performing something like a routine examination. But Lucy gasped.
Waldron shot him. There was nothing else to do.
While Lucy wrung her hands, Waldron faced the penthouse door. The wind blew strongly at this height. The sound of the shot was loud, but most of it would blow upward. Unless there were other invaders very close, it might go unheard.
Nick came running, a revolver ready.
"Here's armor for you, too, Nick," said Waldron grimly. "If this lad came up just to look about, we may be all right. But if he's missed, it may be too bad."
For five minutes, for ten, they waited for the penthouse to erupt figures. No one came. Then Waldron opened the door, with Nick ready to pour a storm of fire within it The penthouse was empty. The man had come alone.
Nick stripped him of his scaly armor and sighed gustily in relief when he had donned it, though he left the high-frequency pack in place until he was sure.
"Now I feel better."
But then there was a faint rumbling sound in the air somewhere. They looked down. Trucks were beginning to move in the streets about the powerhouse. At first they moved away from the great building. Waldron guessed that they were moving out of the building. They would be bound upon some definite errand. This might well have been the way the looting of Newark had begun. Doubtless there was another such activity beginning in Manhattan....
They went down the stairs when the first of the trucks began to come back. They counted on those trucks for a diversion. They had checked over their weapons. Waldron, using Nick's high-frequency pack, had shifted his scaly armor outside his clothing again, In a dim light he might pass as an invader. All three of them might—maybe. Certainly they needed every advantage they could get. Because the powerhouse was a center of the activity of the invaders.
As they went quietly down the circular stairs, they heard the faint humming of dynamos set running again. Lower, they listened to the dull rumbling of trucks. Once they heard voices behind a door they had to pass on their way down.
They reached the level of the generator room floor. The sound of generators was distinctly loud, now, but there was a louder noise elsewhere. As they descended further, that other noise became loud. Suddenly they reached a hallway and someone moved nearby. They walked quietly but very quickly through the nearest open door—and they were in the middle of vast activity and flickering light.
The scene was singularly like the one in the building in Newark. A platform with a helix of heavy bronze bars was raised above the ground. It had not been brought to this place from outside, and certainly it had not been built here. It must have been translated from that strange other world from which the invaders came. A ramp led to the platform and a wavering, bluish light flickered about the surrounding coil. A truck rolled onto the platform, flickered—and was not. Then another and another and another. They were coming steadily from the darkness beyond the building. There was no particular need for secretiveness now. There were no watchers trying to detect signs of life here.