diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29322-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 86080 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29322-h/29322-h.htm | 1825 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29322-h/images/image_001.jpg | bin | 0 -> 50532 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29322.txt | 1722 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29322.zip | bin | 0 -> 34387 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
8 files changed, 3563 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29322-h.zip b/29322-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e49e690 --- /dev/null +++ b/29322-h.zip diff --git a/29322-h/29322-h.htm b/29322-h/29322-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f68fc0a --- /dev/null +++ b/29322-h/29322-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1825 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of When The Sleepers Woke, by Arthur Leo Zagat + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.img1 {border:solid 1px; } + +.f1 {font-size:xx-large; font-weight:bolder; } + + +.blockquote { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of When the Sleepers Woke, by Arthur Leo Zagat + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: When the Sleepers Woke + +Author: Arthur Leo Zagat + +Release Date: July 5, 2009 [EBook #29322] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN THE SLEEPERS WOKE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Astounding Stories November 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img class="img1" src="images/image_001.jpg" width="500" height="514" alt="All his strength went into that trick." /> +<span class="caption">All his strength went into that trick.</span> +</div> + + +<h1>When the Sleepers Woke</h1> + + +<h2>By Arthur Leo Zagat</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="sidenote">Only two small groups of people—enemies—survive the vast +desolation of the Final War.</div> + + +<p><span class="f1">"P</span>repare for battle!" The command crackled in Allan Dane's helmet. +"Enemy approaching from southeast! Squadron commanders execute plan +two!" Allan settled back in the seat of his one-man helicopter, his +broad frame rendered even bulkier by the leather suit that incased +it. He was tensed, but quiescent. Action would be first joined sixty +miles away, and his own squadron was in reserve.</p> + +<p>Over New York and its bay the American air fleet was in motion. +Suddenly movement ceased, and the formation froze. Ten flying forts +were each the apex of a far-spread cone, axis horizontal, whose body +was the fanned back-ranging of its squadron of a thousand helicopter +planes. The cones bristled oceanward from the sea-margin of New York, +their points a fifty-mile arc of defiance, their bases tangent to one +another, almost touching the ground at their lower edges, then +circling upward for ten thousand feet. From van to rear each formation +was five miles in length.</p> + +<p>Behind and above, the main body of the fleet sloped in echeloned +ranks, hiding the threatened city with an impenetrable terraced wall +of buzzing helios and massive forts. Up, back, up, back, the serried +masses reached, till the rearmost were twenty-five thousand feet +aloft. And farther behind, unmoving on their six-mile level, were the +light 'copters of the reserve. Dane gazed down that tremendous vista +to the far-off front line, and swore softly. Just his luck to be out +of the scrap: the enemy would never penetrate to these northern +out-skirts of New York.</p> + +<p>"Men of the fleet!" General Huntington's voice sounded from his +flagship, the <i>Washington</i>. Somehow its gruffness overrode the +mechanical quality of the intra-fleet radio transmission. Almost it +seemed he was there in the tiny cabin. "Reports have at this moment +been received that our attack fleets have been everywhere successful. +Our rocket ships have destroyed Tokyo, Addis Ababa, Odessa, Peiping +and Cape Town, and are now ranging inland through enemy territory."</p> + +<p>Even through the double leather of his helmet a roar came to Allan. He +felt his craft vibrate to the exultant cheers of the fleet. His own +mouth was open, and his throat rasping....</p> + +<p>"<i>But</i>"—the single syllable choked the surge of sound—"London, +Paris, and Berlin have fallen to the enemy." The words thudded in the +pilot's ear-phones. "San Francisco is being attacked. Communication +with New Orleans has failed. The enemy are in sight of Buenos Aires—" +The general broke off, and Allan sensed dully that there was other +news, news that he dared not give the fleet.</p> + +<p>The gruff voice changed. "Men of the fleet, New York is in our charge. +The enemy is upon us, the battle is commencing. The issue is in your +hands."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">P</span>at on his last word, a dark cloud spread along the south-eastern +horizon. From the spear-heads of the cone formations great green beams +shot out across the sea. Orange flame flared in answer, all along the +black bank that was the enemy fleet. Where the green beams struck the +orange blinked out, and the blue of sky showed through. And the +American ships were as yet untouched. A great shout rose to Allan's +lips—that they had the range on the enemy, and the attack defeated +before it was well begun.</p> + +<p>But was it? Swift as the American rays scythed destruction along the +enemy line, the gaps filled and lethal orange leaped out again. Now +the black cloud was piling up, was rising till it was a towering +curtain against the sky. On it came, like some monstrous tidal wave. +Great rents were torn through it by the stabbing beams of the flying +forts, holes where ships and men had been whiffed into dust by the +hundred. But the attack came on.</p> + +<p>Now all the great defensive cones burst into an emerald blaze as the +smaller ships loosed their bolts. And from the terraced slope of the +supporting fleet a hundred steel ovoids lumbered forward to meet the +threat. All the vast space between the hosts, mountain-high from the +sea's surface, was filled with dazzling light, now green, now orange, +as the conflicting beams crossed and mingled. There were gaps in the +advancing curtain that did not fill, but the defending cones were +melting away, were disappearing, were gone.</p> + +<p>"Flight ZLX prepare for action!" Dane's eyes flicked over the gages, +checking in routine precaution. He started when he saw the V of the +chronometer's hands. Only six minutes had passed since the battle's +start—it seemed hours. And already the reserve was being called on! +He was suddenly cold. Out there, over the bay, the enemy forces had +ceased their advance. The American first line cones were gone—true +enough, but the support fleet was still intact. Some new element had +entered the battle, visible as yet only in the <i>Washington's</i> powerful +television view-screens. The flight adjutant's voice again snapped a +command:</p> + +<p>"Direction vertical. Thirty thousand feet. Full speed. Go!"</p> + +<p>Dane jerked home his throttle. The battle shot down, and his seat +thrust up against him. Something hurtled past, blurred by the speed of +its descent. The plane rocked to a sudden detonation, and Allan fought +to steady it. Then he had reached the commanded height. At sixty +thousand feet the helio vanes were useless, only the power of the +auxiliary rocket-tubes maintained his altitude.</p> + +<p>"Formation B. Engage the enemy!" came the order.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>hey were just ahead, a dozen giant craft, torpedo-shaped and +steel-incased, the scarlet fire of their gas blasts holding them +poised steady in their fifty-mile-long line. From curious swellings +that broke the clean lines of their under-bodies black spheres were +dropping in steady streams. Allan knew then whence came the crash that +had rocked his ship as she rose. These were bombs, huge bombs, +charged with heaven alone knew what Earth-shaking explosive. They were +catapulting down, an iron death hail, on the fleet and the city twelve +miles below!</p> + +<p>The enemy's strategy was clear. While his main fleet was engaging the +American defense in a frontal attack, these huge rocket-bombers had +looped unseen through the stratosphere to this point of vantage. The +planes that had leaped to this new menace swept toward the bombers in +three parallel lines, above, to right and left of them. Allan's plane +leaping to position at the very end of one long line. The three +leaders reached the first rocket-ship, and their green beams shot out. +In that instant the enemy craft seemed to explode in intense blue +light. Then the awful dazzle was gone. The rocket ship was there, just +as before, but the American helio-planes were gone, were wiped out as +though they had never been. The next trio, and the next, rushed up. +Again and again came that flash of force, annihilating them. Superbly +the tiny gnats that were the American planes plunged headlong at the +hovering Leviathan of the air and were whiffed into nothingness. Sixty +brave men were dancing motes of cosmic dust before the shocked +commander could sound the recall.</p> + +<p>The helicopter squadron curved away, still keeping its ordered lines, +but orange flame leaped out from all twelve of the enemy vessels, +orange flame that caught them, that ran along their ranks and sent +them hurtling Earthward—blackened corpses in blazing coffins. +"Abandon ships!" The adjutant's last order crisped, coldly metallic, +soldierly as ever. In the next breath, as Allan reached for the lever +that would open the trapdoor beneath him, he saw the command-ship +plunge down, a flaring comet.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>bove Allan Dane, the twenty-foot silk of his parachute bellied out in +the denser air of the lower heights. His respirator tube was still in +his mouth, and the double, vacuum-interlined leather of his safety +suit had kept him from freezing in the spatial cold of the +stratosphere. He looked south.</p> + +<p>All the proud thousands of the defense fleet were gone, blown to +fragments by the time bombs from above. The city was hidden in a +thick, muddy-yellow fog. "Queer," the thought ran through his brain, +"that there should be fog in mid-afternoon, under a blazing sun." Then +he saw them, the circling black ships of the enemy, trailing behind +them long wakes of the drab yellow vapor that drifted heavily down to +shroud New York with—gas!</p> + +<p>Allan felt nauseated as he imagined a fleeting picture of the +many-leveled city, of its mist-darkened streets with swarming myriads +of slumped bodies clogging the conveyor belts that still moved because +no hand was left to shut them off; of women and children, and aged or +crippled men strewn in tortured, horrible attitudes in all the +roof-parks, in their homes, in every nook and cranny of the murdered +city. He looked beneath his drifting descent and saw roads that were +rivers, alive with every manner of fleeing conveyance, and he groaned, +knowing that in moments the pursuing ships would send down their +lethal mist to put an end to that futile flight.</p> + +<p>Sugar Loaf Mountain rose toward him. At its very summit was a clearing +among the trees, and, incongruously motionless in that world where +every one was rushing from inescapable death, a man stood calmly +there, gazing up at him. Allan screamed down to him! "Run! You fool. +Run or the gas will get you!"</p> + +<p>Of course the man could not hear that cry, but one tiny arm rose and +pointed south. Allan followed the direction of the gesture and saw a +black plane veering toward him. Then orange flared from it, though it +was distant, and a wave of intolerable heat enveloped him. Something +cried within him: "Too far—he's too far off to kill me with his +beam!" Then he knew no more.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">F</span>rom New York, from devastated San Francisco, from Rio, from Buenos +Aires, from fifty other desolated points along the seaboards of the +Americas, the black fleets swept along the coasts and inland, vomiting +their yellow death till all the continents were blanketed with +life-destroying gas. And in Europe and Australasia the destroying +hordes, having smashed the proud defenses of the coastlines, engaged +in the same pursuit, till in one short week all the lands of the +Western Allies were swept clear of life. Then the Eastern ships turned +homeward, to wait until the vapor they had strewn had lost its +virulence, and the teeming masses of the East might take possession of +the half world the ebony-painted destroyers had conquered. The black +fliers turned homeward, but there was no homeland left for them to +seek!</p> + +<p>For though the defense fleets of the Western Coalition had been +everywhere beaten, their attack squadrons had been everywhere +successful. All Asia and Africa lay under a pall of milky emerald gas +as toxic, as blasting, as the Easterners' yellow.</p> + +<p>And the Westerners were returning too!</p> + +<p>In their teleview screens the commanders of the black swarms, and of +the white thousands, sought their home ports, and saw the world to be +a haze-covered sphere where not even a fly could live. Then, as if by +common accord, the white ships and the black sped across lifeless +hemispheres to meet in mid-air over the long green swells of the +Pacific. They met, and on the instant they were at each others' +throats like two packs of wild dogs, killing, killing, killing till +they themselves were killed. No quarter was asked in that fight, and +none given. No hope of victory was there, nor fear of defeat. Better +swift death in the high passion of combat, than slow, hopeless +drifting over a dead world.</p> + +<p>But there was one black ship that slunk out of that mass suicide of +man's last remnant. Within its long hulk three motionless forms lay in +a welter of blood that smeared their officers' badges, and a dozen +gibbering men labored at the controls of their craft. The long black +shadows came at last to veil an empty sky, and a sea whereon there was +drifting wreckage but not one sign of any life. And as far to the +north a shadowed airship sped athwart the moon, searching for one +spot, one tiny patch of solid ground, that was free from the dread +gas.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">C</span>onsciousness came slowly back to Allan Dane. At first he was aware, +merely, that he was alive. That was astonishing enough. Even if the +orange beam had not killed him with its heat, the gas should have +struck his leather suit. The Easterners could not be behind his own +forces in their development of that terrible weapon.</p> + +<p>Allan felt a coolness on his face, his hands, that could mean only +that his helmet and gloves had been removed. He heard movement, and +opened his eyes.</p> + +<p>At first he could see only blueness, pale and lambent. He gazed dully +up at a lustrous, glasslike substance that arched above him. The sound +of some one moving came again, and Allan turned his head to it. His +neck muscles seemed stiff, that simple motion drew tremendously on his +strength.</p> + +<p>About fifteen yards away, a man bent over a transparent, boxlike +contrivance in which something fluttered. From this device a metal +tube angled away into the wall. There was other apparatus on the long +table at which the man was—</p> + +<p>"At last! Clear at last!" a mellow, rounded voice exclaimed +jubilantly.</p> + +<p>"Clear? Are you sure, Anthony, are you sure?" This other voice, +throbbing with vibrant repression as if its owner feared to believe +longed-for tidings come at last, was a woman's. As the man half +turned, its owner came between him and Allan. All he could see of them +was that the one called Anthony was very tall, and thin, and the woman +almost as tall, and that both wore hooded white robes, the woman's +falling to her heels, the man's to his knees, waist-girdled with black +cords.</p> + +<p>"Look for yourself, Helen."</p> + +<p>She bent over the transparent cage. "Oh Anthony, how wonderful!"</p> + +<p>Allan attempted to rise. He was unutterably weak; to move a finger was +a gigantic task, to do more impossible. He tried to call out. No sound +came from his straining throat.</p> + +<p>The couple straightened. The man spoke, too low for Dane to hear. Each +took something from the table, something that gleamed metallically. +Then they turned—and Allan saw what the white robes clothed!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">S</span>kulls leered at him from beneath the hoods—fleshless skulls; tinted +a pale green! Jutting jawbones, cavernous cheeks, lipless mouths that +grinned mirthlessly—his eyes froze to them and a scream formed within +him that he could not utter. Hands appeared from within the flowing +sleeves, and they were skeleton hands, each phalanx clearly marked. +They moved, that was the worst of it, the hands moved; and deep in the +shadowed eye-pits of the skulls blue light glowed in living eyes that +peered at something to Allan's right.</p> + +<p>His eyes followed the direction of their gaze. Ranged along the wall, +and jutting out, he saw four couches. On each was a figure, shrouded +and hooded in white. Utterly still they were—and the cadaverous +countenances exposed between robe and hood betrayed not the slightest +twitch. The arms were crossed on each breast. Allan realized that his +own arms were similarly crossed. He looked down at them, saw the white +gleam of a robe that fell down his length in smooth, still folds, saw +his hands—greenish skin stretched tight over fleshless bones. +Suddenly it seemed to him that the air was musty and fetid.</p> + +<p>Footsteps slithered across the floor. The woman-form bent over the +farthest couch. With one skeleton hand she bared an arm of the +corpselike figure; the other hand lifted—metal glinted in it and +plunged into the unshrinking limb! A slow movement of the bony fingers +and the threadlike, silvery thing was withdrawn. She stared +ghoulishly—and the man, too, gazed tensely at her victim. A long +quiver ran through the recumbent shape, another. The death's-head on +the pallet moved slightly—and merciful blackness welled up in Allan's +brain....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span> cool liquid was in his mouth. He swallowed instinctively, and warmth +ran through his veins. He felt strength flooding back into him—and he +remembered horror.</p> + +<p>"That's better," a mellow voice said, close above him. "Drink just a +little more." The cool liquid came up against Allan's lips again, +pungent, and he drank. Once more strength surged warmingly within him. +"That's a good fellow. A little more now."</p> + +<p>Fingers were on Allan's wrist, life-warm. There was friendliness in +the voice that was speaking to him, and solicitude. He dared to look.</p> + +<p>A skull-like head was right before him. But seen thus closely, the +terror of it was lessened. Fleshless indeed it was. But a parchment +skin was tightly drawn over the bones, and Allan could see that its +true shade was a sere yellow. It was the bluish light that had given +it the green of decay. The deep-sunk eyes were kindly; they gleamed +with pleasure as Allan's opened; and the voice asked:</p> + +<p>"How do you feel?"</p> + +<p>Allan made shift to reply, though a strange lassitude still enervated +him, and his mouth was full of tongue. "Much better, thank you. But +who—who...?"</p> + +<p>With a sudden access of energy Allan sat up on his couch. He looked +about him, and his fears were back full flood.</p> + +<p>He was in a chamber with neither door nor window—floor, walls, and +arched ceiling entirely formed of the palely lustrous, glasslike +substance. The room was perhaps twenty by forty feet, its ceiling +curving to about five yards from the floor at its highest point, and +the spectral blue glow that filled it was apparently sourceless. It +lit three vacant couches to his left. To his right were the four he +had already seen. The woman was ministering to the occupants of +these—living skeletons that lay flaccid, but whose heads were moving, +barely moving from side to side. Like nothing else but a sepulcher the +place seemed, a tomb in which the dead had come to life!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>llan clutched at Anthony's arm, grasped textured fabric that was cold +to his frantic touch, and thin bone beneath. "In Heaven's name," he +mouthed, "tell me what sort of place this is before—" He stopped, +appalled by a sudden thought. Perhaps he was insane, this seeming tomb +really some hospital ward transformed by his crazed brain. A wave of +weakness overcame him, and he fell back.</p> + +<p>"Careful," the other spoke soothingly, "you must give the plasma time +to act or you may harm yourself."</p> + +<p>If Allan shut out sight with his eyelids, and listened only to the +resonance of Anthony's voice, he could hold his slipping grip on +reason. He felt that the cloth of his robe was metal, fine spun and +woven. That was strangely reassuring.</p> + +<p>"How long do you think you have slept?"</p> + +<p>"How long?" Dane murmured. Something told him that he had been +unconscious for a long time. "A week?"</p> + +<p>Anthony sighed. "No. Longer than that, much longer." There was +reluctance in his tone. "You have lain here for twenty years."</p> + +<p>Allan's eyes flew open, and he stared up into the speaker's face. +Twenty years! Somehow it did not occur to him to disbelieve this +astounding statement. He struggled hard to realize its implication. +Two decades had passed since last he remembered. He had been a youth +then. Now he was forty-four.</p> + +<p>Anthony continued. "That may be a shock to you, but this will be a +greater. Unless I am greatly mistaken, we seven, we four men and three +women, are the only living humans left on Earth."</p> + +<p>The words dripped into Allan's consciousness. Beyond them, he could +hear movements, exclamations. But they meant nothing to him. Only the +one thought tolled, knell-like, within him. "We seven are the only +living humans left on Earth."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">D</span>imly he knew that Anthony was talking. "There is a possibility, a +bare possibility, that somewhere near here there are two others. That +chance is faint indeed. Otherwise humanity is dead, killed by its own +hand."</p> + +<p>Through a dizzy vertigo that blurred sight and sound Allan heard the +rounded voice go on and on, telling the story of the doom that Man's +own folly had brought. And intermingled with that tale of a world gone +mad there came back to the listener the clear-cut vision of the day of +horror that to him seemed but yesterday. He remembered the sudden +ultimatum of the Easterner's, the Western Coalition's stanch defiance. +Again he saw a supposedly invincible fleet utterly destroyed, saw +comrades whiffed out of existence in infinitesimal seconds. Again he +watched a city of twenty millions inundated by a muddy yellow gas in +which no human being, no animal, might live. He waked once more to +find himself helpless with weakness, among living corpses, in a place +that seemed a tomb.</p> + +<p>"All this we saw in our long-distance televisoscope." Anthony gestured +to a blank screen above the apparatus ranged along the opposite wall. +"Then, just as that last weird battle ended, something happened to the +eye-mast outside, and we were isolated." He fell silent, in a brooding +reverie, and Allan, recovered somewhat, saw that the other strange +occupants of the place had risen and were clustered about that cage +where something fluttered.</p> + +<p>He turned to his mentor. "But I still don't understand. How is it that +we escaped the holocaust?"</p> + +<p>"Four of us, members of the scientific faculty of the National +University, having foreseen the inevitable result of the course of +world events, had joined forces and developed a substance—we called +it nullite—so dense and so inert that no gas could penetrate it or +chemical break it down. We offered it to the Western General Staff, +and were laughed at for our pains. Then we decided to use it to +preserve our families from the danger we foresaw.</p> + +<p>"At first we sheathed one room in each of our own dwellings with the +nullite. Later we decided that the deposited gas might last for many +years, and blasted out this cave, a hundred feet below the summit of +Sugar Loaf Mountain, for a common refuge.</p> + +<p>"When the red word flared from the newscast machines, 'War!', we fled +here with our wives, as we had planned. All, that is, save one couple, +the youngest of us. They never arrived—I waited for them in the +clearing at the entrance to the shaft. At the last moment I saw you +dropping in your parachute, saw the death beam just miss you, saw you +land at my feet, unconscious, but still breathing. I carried you in +with me. There were two vacant spaces: you could occupy one of them. +Then we sealed the last aperture with nullite, and settled to our +vigil. We did not know how long the gas would last, but we had +sufficient concentrated food, and enough air-making chemicals, to last +two persons for a century."</p> + +<p>"Two people," Allan interjected. "But there were seven here."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>nthony nodded. "We had worked out every detail of our plan. When +release came we needs must be in the full vigor of our prime. From our +loins must spring the new race that will repopulate the Earth; that +will found a new civilization, better, we hope, and wiser than the +one that had died. By injecting a certain compound we suspended +animation in all but a single couple. Those so treated were to all +intents dead, though their bodies did not decay. The two who remained +awake kept watch, making daily tests of the outside atmosphere, drawn +through tubes of nullite that pierced the seal. At the end of six +months they revived another couple by the use of a second injection, +and were themselves put to sleep. We exempted you from the watch, +since you could have no companion, so that while we have lived about +seven years in the twenty, you have not aged at all."</p> + +<p>"Not aged at all!" Dane exclaimed. "Why, I have wasted away to a mere +bagful of bones, and you others also."</p> + +<p>The other smiled wistfully. "Even though life was the merest thread +there was still an infinitely slow using of bodily tissue. But the +drink we partook of as we awoke is a plasma that will very quickly +restore the lost body elements. In an hour we shall all have been +rejuvenated. You will be again the age you were on that fateful day in +2163, and the rest of us but seven years older. Look!" He moved aside, +so that Allen could see the others, who had gathered around his couch. +They were a curious semicircle of gaunt figures, but he could see that +they had subtly changed. Still emaciated beyond description, they were +no longer simulacra of death. The contours of their faces were +rounding, were filling out, and the faintest tinge of pink was +creeping into the yellow of their skins.</p> + +<p>"Anthony, isn't it time that we opened the seals and went outside? +Haven't we been long enough in this prison?" It was a short man who +spoke, his voice impatient, and there was an eager murmur from the +others.</p> + +<p>"I am as anxious as you." Anthony's slow words were dubious. "But it +may still be dangerous. The gas may have cleared away only from our +immediate vicinity. In hollows, or places where the air is stagnant, +it may still be toxic. It is my opinion that only one should go at +first, to investigate."</p> + +<p>A babble of volunteering cries burst out, but Dane's voice cut through +the others. "Look here," the sentence tumbled from his lips. "I'm an +extra here. It doesn't matter whether I live or die—I have no special +knowledge. I cannot even father a family, since I have no wife. I am +the only one to go out as long as there is danger."</p> + +<p>"The young man is right," some one said. "He is the logical choice."</p> + +<p>"Very well," agreed Anthony, who appeared the leader. "He shall be the +first."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">H</span>is instructions were few. One plane had been preserved, and was in +the shaft. Allan was to make a circuit of the neighborhood. If he +deemed it safe he was to visit the building, described to him, where +the fourth couple had lived, and see if he could find trace of them. +Then he was to return and report his findings.</p> + +<p>All stuffed their ears with cotton wool, and crowded against one end +of the chamber. Anthony had the end of a long double wire in his hand, +and it curled across the floor to the farther wall. He pressed the +button of a pear-switch—and there was a concussion that hurled the +watchers against the wall behind them. A great gap appeared in the +farther wall, beyond it a black chasm, and a helicopter that was dimly +illumined by the light from within the room. A quick inspection of +the flier revealed that its alumino-steeloid had been unaffected by +the passage of time, and Allan climbed into it. A wave of his hand +simulated an insouciance he did not feel. Then he was rising through +darkness. The sun's light struck down and enveloped him, and he was in +the open air. He rose above the trees.</p> + +<p>Desolation spread out beneath him. In all the vastness that unfolded +as the lone 'copter climbed into a clear sky, nothing moved. The air, +that from babyhood Allan had seen crowded with bustling traffic, was a +ghastly emptiness. Not even a tiny, wheeling speck betrayed the +presence of a bird. And below—the gas that was fatal to animal life +seemed to have stimulated vegetable growth—an illimitable sea of +green rolled untenanted to where the first ramparts of New York rose +against the sky. Roads, monorail lines, all the countless tracks of +civilization had disappeared beneath the green tide. Nature had taken +back its own.</p> + +<p>Heartsick, he turned south, and followed the silver stream of the +Hudson. The river, lonely as the sky, seemed to drift oily and +sluggish down to plunge beneath the city at the lower end of the +Tappan Zee. Allan Dane came over New York, gazed down at the ruin of +its soaring towers, at the leaping arabesque of its street bridges. He +peered into vast rifts of tumbled, chaotic concrete and steel. Nothing +moved in all that spreading wonder that had housed twenty millions of +people.</p> + +<p>Allan drifted lower, and saw that from what had been gardened +roof-parks, now a welter of strewn earth, the green things had spread +till they covered the heaped jetsam with a healing blanket of foliage. +Not all the city had been laid waste, however. Here and there, great +expanses of the cliff-like structures still stood, undamaged, and in +the midst of one of these areas he saw the high-piled edifice to which +he had been directed. Its roof was lush with vegetation but by +dextrous handling he set his helicopter down upon it.</p> + +<p>The engine roar diminished and died. Silence folded around him, a +black, thick blanket.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">D</span>ane got heavily from his seat, oppressed by the vast soundlessness, +and pushed through curling plants that caught at his heels. The sound +of his passage was like crackling thunder. A decaying door was marked, +in faded, almost undecipherable letters, "Emergency Stairs." It was +half open, and Allan squeezed around its edge. Spiral steps curved +down into blackness. He hesitated a moment. He could <i>feel</i> the awful +silence, the emptiness below was a pit of death. Anthony's words came +back to him, echoed in his ears: "We seven are the only living humans +left on Earth."</p> + +<p>In that moment, out of the pitch-black well of soundlessness, a scream +shrilled! No words, only a red, thin thread of sound, rising, and +falling, and rising again out of depths where not even a living mouse +should be! It came again, ripping the silence—a woman's scream, +high-pitched, quivering with fear!</p> + +<p>Allan plunged down into the darkness, caroming from wall to wall as he +half ran, half fell, down the twisting stairs. Another sound +reverberated from unseen walls, and Dane realized that it was his own +voice, shouting.</p> + +<p>His feet struck level floor. A pale rectangle of light showed before +him, and he dived through it. He was in a corridor, dim-lit by +phosphorescent fungi that cloaked the damp walls. He halted, at +fault. The long hall stretched away to either side, cluttered with +grimed bones, slimy with mold. By the age-blistered name cards on +closed doors he knew himself to be on a residential level. But which +way should he turn? Whence had come that scream? He crouched against +the wall, his heartbeats thudding loud in his ears, and listened for a +clue.</p> + +<p>A muffled sound of scuffling came from his left. Allan whirled toward +it and sped down the corridor. He was breathing in great gasps, and +the air he breathed was thick and musty. Too late to stop, he saw a +slick of green slime on the floor. His foot struck it, flew out from +under him, he fell and slid headlong.</p> + +<p>Something stopped him, something that crunched sickeningly as his +sliding body crashed into it: two skeleton forms, clasped in each +others' arms, moldering fabric hanging in rags from them. They lay +across the threshold of a door, and just within Dane heard snarls, +snufflings, bestial growls, the sounds of a struggle. Something +thumped against the door and fell away. He heaved to his feet and his +hand found the doorknob. But suddenly he was powerless to turn it. +Panic tugged at him with almost palpable fingers, drove him to go back +to his plane and safety. Almost he fled—but he remembered in time +that it was a <i>human</i> scream he had heard.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he portal gave easily to his lunge. Bluish light flooded the chamber, +dazzling after the fungous dimness. A bulking form, whether ape or man +he could not make out, so brutish the face, so hairy the dark body +revealed by its tattered rags bent over the sprawled shape of a girl. +Dane saw her in a fleeting glimpse—the slim length of her, the +tumbled, golden hair half hiding, half revealing white curves of +beauty, a shoulder from which the tunic had been torn away. Then her +attacker whirled toward the intruder. Allan leaped from the threshold, +his fist arcing before him. The blow landed flush on the other's jaw.</p> + +<p>Yellow, rotted fangs showed in a jet-black face, and the huge Negro +lunged for Dane, roaring his rage. Before the American could dodge or +strike again the other's long arms were around him. Allan was jerked +against a barrel chest, felt his bones cracking in a terrific hug. +Eyes, tiny and red, stared into his. Dane drove knees and fists into +the Negro, but the awful pressure of those simian arms across his back +increased till he could no longer breathe. The American was almost +gone, the black face blurred, and the continuous snarling of the brute +was dull in his ears.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Dane went limp. Victory flashed into the red eyes. The +squeezing arms relaxed, and in that moment Allan's legs curled around +the black's, heels jerking into the hollows behind his captor's knees. +At the same instant, levering from that heel hold, Dane butted sharply +up against the rocky jaw. All the strength that was left in him went +into that trick, and it worked! The Negro crashed backward to the +floor. Allan twisted, and rolled free. He was up, looking desperately +around for some weapon. But it was not needed; the hulk on the floor +never moved. The back of the Negro's head had smashed against the +floor, and he was out.</p> + +<p>Dane turned and bent to the girl. She, too, was motionless, but to his +relief her breast rose and fell steadily. He glanced about looking for +water to revive her. Then he saw that this room was sheathed with +nullite. Then this was one of the chambers prepared before the plans +were changed. But the girl could not be of the fourth couple—the +missing two that had never appeared. She was no more than eighteen. +And whence had come the giant black who had attacked her?</p> + +<p>"Stick up your hands. Quick!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>llan whirled to the sudden challenge. The man in the doorway was +pointing a ray-gun steadily at him! Dane's hands went up, and he +gasped inanely: "Who are you?"</p> + +<p>"What is going on here? Where did you come from?" The newcomer's +English was precise, too precise. No hulking brute, this. A yellow +man, slitted eyes slanted and malevolent; broad, flat nose above thin +lips that were purple against the saffron skin. The uniform he wore +showed signs of some attempt to keep it in repair, and to its +threadbare collar still clung a tarnished insignia: the seven-pointed +star, emblem of the enemy Allan had fought on a yesterday that was two +decades gone.</p> + +<p>"Well? Have you lost the power of speech?" The ray-gun jerked forward +impatiently.</p> + +<p>An obscure impulse prompted Allan's reply. "Almost. I've spoken to no +one for twenty years."</p> + +<p>"So-o,"—softly. The Oriental's eyes flicked past Dane, and a sudden +light glowed in them. "You have been alone for twenty years in this +city we thought was empty, but you were on hand to fight with Ra-Jamba +for this delightful creature." Something leered from his face that +sent the hot blood surging to Allan's temples. The Easterner stepped +catlike into the room, shutting the door behind him with his free +hand.</p> + +<p>"That is true," the American said, with what calmness he could +muster. Through the dizzy whirl of his mind he clung to one thought: +he must conceal the existence of the little group on Sugar Loaf +Mountain at all costs. "I had just discovered that it was safe to +leave the room, similar to this, in which I had hidden from the gas, +when I heard a scream. I reached here just in time to—"</p> + +<p>"To interfere with Ra-Jamba's pleasure, and save the little white +dove—for me. My thanks." The yellow man bowed mockingly. "Too bad," +he purred, "that you should be robbed of the spoils of your fight." +Then he asked irrelevantly. "So some of you Americans found a way to +cheat our gas. How many?"</p> + +<p>Allan temporized. There had been several similar refuges prepared, he +said, but he did not know whether they had been used. This was the +first he had visited beside his own. But how was it that the +questioner knew so little about what had happened here? Had his people +simply laid this country waste and never revisited it?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he Oriental shrugged. "My people are gone, wiped out by your gas as +yours were wiped out by ours." He retold Anthony's story. "The crew of +my own ship mutinied," he concluded. "We fled north, from that last +terrible fight, north, ever north, till at the top of the world we +found a little space that was not gas-covered. There was nothing +there, just the ice, and the snow, and the cold. We lived there, +twelve of us, all men. There were a few bears and seals. We slew them +for food—and we grew a little mad. We were men—all men—do you +understand?"</p> + +<p>As he said this last, his thin voice rose to a shriek, and his eyes +darted to the girl's recumbent form. At length, he went on, the gas +began to retreat, and they followed it down. They had searched town +after town, city after city, had found food in plenty, and all the +trappings of civilization. But there was never a living being. And the +fever in their blood drove them on.</p> + +<p>That very morning the insane search had reached New York. They had +landed on the roof of this very building. "We separated to hunt—and +Ra-Jamba was the lucky one. But I—Jung Sin—am still luckier." He +crept nearer to Allan, and tapped him on the chest with his weapon. +"For look you—while those fools used all their ray-gun charges, even +the charge of the big tube on our ship, to kill food, I husbanded +mine." He laughed shrilly. "So you see, I have the only ray-gun in the +world. It shall make me master of the Earth." Again he laughed wildly.</p> + +<p>"Now I'm going to kill you." The black cylinder leveled, and Dane +stared at death. Alone, he would almost have welcomed it, but the +thought of the girl in the filthy power of this beast seared through +him. Jung Sin, the little red worms of madness crawling in his brain, +paused for a final taunt.</p> + +<p>"Let the thought of the white dove in my arms cons—" Allan's sandaled +foot shot out into the man's stomach. In the same movement his hands +came down, one snatched at and caught the ray-gun, the other smashed +into the yellow face. Jung Sin lifted 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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">D</span>ane 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">S</span>omeone 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.</p> + +<p>Somebody shaking him.</p> + +<p>"Lea' me 'lone; wanna sleep."</p> + +<p>"Oh, wake up, please wake up."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what will I do? You're not dead? Please, you're not dead?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Allan's brain mists cleared, and he grinned wryly. "I remember now. +You all right?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. But who are you? Are you Anthony Starr?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Dear Naomi:</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>God guard you. </p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>llan 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—"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>llan 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."</p> + +<p>A little smile of reassurance trembled on the girls lips. "Oh, do you +think so?"</p> + +<p>Allan nodded.</p> + +<p>"Sure thing! Just trust to me, Miss ...?"</p> + +<p>"Call me Naomi."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he 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."</p> + +<p>"How is that?"</p> + +<p>"Why, the stores level is not far below. Most of New York's structures +have a number of residential levels at the top, then a floor of retail +stores, and below that amusement places, offices, and factories."</p> + +<p>"But whatever food there was must be decayed by this time."</p> + +<p>"The fresh food, yes. But there was a lot of canned stuff, and that is +probably all right." He pushed open a door. In the eery light a +well-furnished living room was revealed. "You wait here, and I'll see +what I can rustle up."</p> + +<p>"But I want to go with you."</p> + +<p>Allan was inflexible. "Please do as I say. I have my reasons."</p> + +<p>The girl turned away. "Oh, very well," she said flatly, "if you don't +want me with you."</p> + +<p>"That's a good scout. I'll be back just as quickly as I can. And, by +the way, lock the door from the inside, and don't open it till you +hear my voice."</p> + +<p>The girl looked at him wonderingly. "But—" she began.</p> + +<p>"Don't ask me why. Do it." There was a curious note in Allan's voice, +one that cut off Naomi's question. The door shut, and Dane heard the +bolt shoot home.</p> + +<p>He stood in the corridor, listening intently, his face strained. There +was no sound save that of Naomi's movements behind the locked door. +Allan turned to search for the auxiliary staircase that must be +somewhere near the bank of ascendor doors.</p> + +<p>Silence was again around him, almost tangible in its heaviness. His +footsteps reverberated through dead halls, the echo curiously muffled +by the coating of slime that spread dankly green. Allan found the +staircase well, descended cautiously, pausing often to listen. Not +even the faint scuttering of vermin rewarded him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>t last, three stories down, he reached the stores level. Here, in a +great open hall, were the numerous alcoved recesses of the shops. Once +thronged, and gaudy with the varicolored goods brought by plane and +heavy-bellied rocket-freighter from both hemispheres, the vast space +was a desert of moldering dust heaps, brooding. There was a faint odor +in the stagnant air—of spices, and rustling silks, of rare perfumes, +of all the luxury of the Golden Age that Man's folly had ended.</p> + +<p>Allan searched the long shelves feverishly, a nervous urge to complete +his task and get back to Naomi tingling in his veins. Once he stopped +suddenly, his body twisting to the stair landing. He seemed to have +heard something, an indefinable thudding, the shadow of a sound. But +it did not come again, and he dismissed it as the thumping of his own +blood in his ears, audible in that stillness.</p> + +<p>At the end of a long aisle, neat rows of cans greeted him, the labels +rotted off, the metal rust-streaked, but apparently tight and whole. +He found a metal basket, a roll of wire, twisted a handle for the +basket and filled it, choosing the cans by their shape. He should have +liked to explore further, but the urge to return tugged at him. He +went up the stairs three at a time.</p> + +<p>There was a dark, oblong break in the long glowing wall of the upper +corridor! The door—it was the door of the apartment where he had left +Naomi! He leaped down the hall, shouting. The portal hung open, +shattered: the rooms were stark, staring empty. Allan reeled out +again. There were the marks of footprints, of many footprints, in the +green scum of the hall floor, their own among them, that had led the +marauders straight to the girl!</p> + +<p>Fool that he had been! He had thought she would be safer behind a +bolted door! Allan berated himself. He had thought not to worry her. +There had been only four bodies in the wreckage of the black +plane—but how had the rest gotten here so soon?</p> + +<p>There was a humming whine from above. Dane hurtled toward the roof +stairs. He burst from the upper landing, fists clenched, face a +furious mask. A helicopter was just rising. Allan jumped for it, his +fingers caught and clung to the undercarriage. But the down-swing of +his body broke his hold, and Dane crashed to the roof.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">H</span>e watched the plane, saw it zoom up, turn east, saw it sink and land +a half mile away, atop the building where he had found her. In the +moonlight he marked the direction of the place, its distance. Then he +was descending stairs, innumerable stairs. He could not hope to reach +it in time to save Naomi. But—his eyes grew stony—he could avenge +her.</p> + +<p>Afterwards that nightmare journey through the murdered city was a +detailless blur to Allan. He clambered over heaped rubble, forced +himself through windrows of piled bones that crumbled to dust at his +touch. Vines, and whipping creepers of triumphant vegetation +everywhere halted him; he tore them away with bleeding hands and +stumbled on. He fell, and scrambled up again, and plodded on the +interminable path till he had reached his goal.</p> + +<p>Here, at last, some modicum of reason penetrated into the numbed +blankness of his brain. The dark arch of the entrance-way was somehow +familiar. Still legible under the verdigris of the bronze plate on the +lintel he read, "Transportation Substation—District L2ZX." Now he +understood why he had not seen the black flier till it had leaped in +pursuit: how it was that Naomi's captors had so quickly found another +'copter. A broad well penetrated the center of this building—its +opening must be covered by the luxuriant vines so that he had not +noted it—and dropped down to the midsection that was a hangar for +local and private planes. His own little Zenith had been stored here +on occasion. There must be other helicopters there, and a stock of +fuel. A dim plan began to form at the back of his head.</p> + +<p>But first he must find where they were, and what had happened to +Naomi.</p> + +<p>Allan removed his sandals, and began the endless climb. He made no +sound on the steps, cushioned as they were with mold, but at each +landing he paused for a moment, listening. The cold fire that burned +within him left no room for fatigue, for pain.</p> + +<p>A murmuring, then a laugh, cut through the deathlike stillness. Allan +was nearly to the top. Down the corridor into which he crept, +snakelike on his belly, red light flickered from an open door.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">D</span>ane moved soundlessly to that door, and, lying flat, pushed his head +slowly past the sash till he could see within. By the light of a fire +that danced in the center of the unburnable mallite floor, its +illumination half revealing their sodden, brutish faces, he saw an +unspeakably strange group. A scene from out of the dawn of history it +was, the haunch-squatted circle, their yellow skins and black +glistening in the crimson, shifting glow. He recognized the giant +Negro, Ra-Jamba, his head bound with a rag, and Jung Sin. There were +five others clustered about those two, and a third, a skew-eyed +Oriental, intent on some game they were playing with little sticks +that passed from hand to hand.</p> + +<p>Before each of the players there was a little pile of fish bones, +black with much handling. The Negro's pile, and that of Jung Sin, were +about equal, but there were only two or three in front of the third +player. And just as Allan caught sight of them, the sticks clicked, +and a shrill objurgation burst from that third as the last of his +markers were raked in by Jung Sin's taloned hand. The circle hunched +closer, there was a ribald, taunting laugh from Ra-Jamba and Jung Sin +glanced over his shoulder into a shadowed corner.</p> + +<p>"Have patience, my lotus flower," he purred. "Only one is left. Soon +the goddess of fortune and love will clear him from my path. By the +nine-headed Dragon, I have never seen a game of Li-Fan last so long. +But it draws to an end. Then we shall have our joy together, you and +I."</p> + +<p>In that instant the fire flared. Allan saw an open window in the +background, and beneath it a slim white form lying, bound and +helpless. Fierce joy leaped in him, and fiercer hate, Naomi was as yet +untouched, the game was being played for her as stake. He had come in +time to save her!</p> + +<p>But how? There were eight of the Easterners in the room. He had his +ray-gun, and might cow them with it and free the girl. But as soon as +he had gotten her out of the room, they would surge out after the +whites. He could fight for a while, but the end was inevitable. And +even if by some miracle he and Naomi escaped, they would be tracked to +Sugar Loaf.</p> + +<p>The sticks were clicking in a continuous rattle as the final bout of +the game waxed fast and furious. And as fast and furious was the whirl +of Allan's thoughts. He strove to remember the layout of this +building. The helicopter hangar was next above this level. Outside the +windows of this floor a narrow ledge ran. The nebulous scheme that had +entered his dazed brain as he read the bronze plate below took clearer +form, shaped itself to meet this new need.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>llan crept away to safe distance, leaped to his feet and flitted +upward. He was in the empty, echoing space of the hangar level. The +fuel tanks bulged huge in the dimness. Here were reels of the feed +hose he needed—flexible metal that had withstood the years; here a +faucet nozzle, and a long coil of fine wire. Haste driving him, he +made the connections. Then he was descending again, dragging behind +him a long black snake of hose whose other end was clamped to a vat of +oxygen impregnated gasoline.</p> + +<p>The rustle of the hose along the hall floor was muffled by the greasy +slime. Dane got the nozzle to just outside the door of the room where +Naomi lay captive. The rattle of the playing sticks still continued. +Jung Sin's voice sounded, in a language that Allan did not understand. +But there was no mistaking the triumphant note in the silky, jeering +tones. The yellow man was winning, and winning fast.</p> + +<p>Dane twisted one end of the wire around the faucet handle. Then he was +unwinding the coil as he tried the door of the chamber next to the one +where the fire burned, found it open, darted across the room and +softly raised the sash. The sill here, like the one beneath which +Naomi lay, was a bare two feet above the ground.</p> + +<p>He was out on the ledge, sliding along it toward the fire-reddened +oblong five feet away. He crammed his body close against the wall, +kept his eyes away from the unfenced edge of that eighteen-inch shelf. +Beyond, an abyss waited, twelve thousand feet of nothingness down +which a single misstep, an instant's vertigo, would send him hurtling. +Suddenly the rattle of sticks stopped, and he heard the black's long +howl of disappointed rage. The game was over!</p> + +<p>Allan reached the window, glimpsed a leering semicircle of animal +faces, saw Jung Sin coming toward him. Then he had swung in.</p> + +<p>"Back, Jung Sin! Back!" Allan was straddled over Naomi's form, the +ray-gun thrust out before his tense threat, his face livid, his eyes +blazing. "Get back, or I ray you!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">C</span>onsternation, awe, flashed into the brutal faces of the Easterners. +Jung Sin reeled back, his saffron hands rising. Allan's weapon swept +slowly along the line of staring men. "If one of you moves I flash."</p> + +<p>He bent to the girl, keeping his eyes on the Easterners, and his +weapon steady. He had hung the wire coil over his shoulder, leaving +his left hand free to fumble for and untie the cords around Naomi's +wrists. He got them loose.</p> + +<p>"Can you get your feet free, Naomi?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I can manage it." Her voice was steady, but there was a great +thankfulness vibrant in it.</p> + +<p>"Then do it and get out on the ledge. Quick." He straightened, and the +blaze of his eyes held the yellow men, and the black, motionless.</p> + +<p>Naomi, at the window behind him, gasped. "I know it looks tough," he +encouraged her, "but you can make it. Don't look down. Go to the left. +<i>And keep clear of that wire.</i>"</p> + +<p>"I'm all right, Allan. But you—"</p> + +<p>"Never mind about me. Go ahead."</p> + +<p>Jung Sin jerked forward, driven by the madness that twisted his face +into gargoyle hideousness. But Allan's ray-gun stabbed at him, and he +halted.</p> + +<p>"I'm out, Allan."</p> + +<p>Dane's foot felt back of him for the sill, found it. He lifted, facing +his enemies inexorably, caught the lintel with his left hand, and was +crouching outside. A sidewise flick of his eyes showed Naomi just +reaching the other window.</p> + +<p>He pulled at the wire till it was gently taut. A moment's compunction +rose in him at what he was about to do. Then the black roll of the +Easterners' crimes rushed into his mind. Naomi's safety, his own, and +that of the little colony that had endured so much to preserve +humanity, cried out for their extinction. Allan jerked the metal +thread, and the faucet nozzle in the corridor opened.</p> + +<p>A black stream gushed forward, reached the fire, and the room was a +roaring furnace. Allan saw the forms of his enemies silhouetted +against the blaze for a fleeting instant, then they were flaming +statues. One only, Jung Sin, nearer than the rest, leaped for the +window and escaped the first gush of flame. Allan pressed the trigger +of his ray-gun. But no blue flash answered that pressure. The weapon's +charge had leaked out, was gone!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>llan tore himself loose from yellow hands that clutched at him, his +fist crashed into Jung Sin's fear twisted visage, and the crazed +Oriental fell back into the roaring blaze.</p> + +<p>But Allan himself was thrust backward by that blow, was swaying on the +very edge of the chasm. His hand went out for a saving hold on the +window sash; flame licked at it. He was toppling, against the strain +of his body muscles to resist the inevitable fall, and death reached +up from depths for him. Then an arm was around him, was drawing him +back to life. Naomi had darted back, defying the terror of that +height, the surge of heat. She had reached him just in time—a +split-second later and his weight would have been too much for her +puny strength. But in this instant, the merest touch was enough to +save him. They crept along the ledge and climbed wearily in.</p> + +<p>There was another plane in the hangar, and presently Allan had it +rising through the well into clean, free air. He turned to the girl in +the seat beside him and pointed at the scene they were leaving.</p> + +<p>"Look," he said.</p> + +<p>The city was in darkness beneath them, save for the one staring +rectangle that marked a pyre. But dawn shimmered opalescent in the +east.</p> + +<p>A soft white hand crept into Allan's. There was a long moment of +silence. Then Allan said, softly: "A new day, and a new world for +their children."</p> + +<p>A sleepy, tired voice sighed: "For their children and ours, Allan."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's When the Sleepers Woke, by Arthur Leo Zagat + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN THE SLEEPERS WOKE *** + +***** This file should be named 29322-h.htm or 29322-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/3/2/29322/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/29322-h/images/image_001.jpg b/29322-h/images/image_001.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a548082 --- /dev/null +++ b/29322-h/images/image_001.jpg diff --git a/29322.txt b/29322.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e5fa6d --- /dev/null +++ b/29322.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1722 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of When the Sleepers Woke, by Arthur Leo Zagat + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: When the Sleepers Woke + +Author: Arthur Leo Zagat + +Release Date: July 5, 2009 [EBook #29322] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN THE SLEEPERS WOKE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Astounding Stories November 1932. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the + U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + + [Illustration: All his strength went into that trick.] + + + When the Sleepers Woke + + + By Arthur Leo Zagat + + * * * * * + + + + +[Sidenote: Only two small groups of people--enemies--survive the vast +desolation of the Final War.] + + +"Prepare for battle!" The command crackled in Allan Dane's helmet. +"Enemy approaching from southeast! Squadron commanders execute plan +two!" Allan settled back in the seat of his one-man helicopter, his +broad frame rendered even bulkier by the leather suit that incased +it. He was tensed, but quiescent. Action would be first joined sixty +miles away, and his own squadron was in reserve. + +Over New York and its bay the American air fleet was in motion. +Suddenly movement ceased, and the formation froze. Ten flying forts +were each the apex of a far-spread cone, axis horizontal, whose body +was the fanned back-ranging of its squadron of a thousand helicopter +planes. The cones bristled oceanward from the sea-margin of New York, +their points a fifty-mile arc of defiance, their bases tangent to one +another, almost touching the ground at their lower edges, then +circling upward for ten thousand feet. From van to rear each formation +was five miles in length. + +Behind and above, the main body of the fleet sloped in echeloned +ranks, hiding the threatened city with an impenetrable terraced wall +of buzzing helios and massive forts. Up, back, up, back, the serried +masses reached, till the rearmost were twenty-five thousand feet +aloft. And farther behind, unmoving on their six-mile level, were the +light 'copters of the reserve. Dane gazed down that tremendous vista +to the far-off front line, and swore softly. Just his luck to be out +of the scrap: the enemy would never penetrate to these northern +out-skirts of New York. + +"Men of the fleet!" General Huntington's voice sounded from his +flagship, the _Washington_. Somehow its gruffness overrode the +mechanical quality of the intra-fleet radio transmission. Almost it +seemed he was there in the tiny cabin. "Reports have at this moment +been received that our attack fleets have been everywhere successful. +Our rocket ships have destroyed Tokyo, Addis Ababa, Odessa, Peiping +and Cape Town, and are now ranging inland through enemy territory." + +Even through the double leather of his helmet a roar came to Allan. He +felt his craft vibrate to the exultant cheers of the fleet. His own +mouth was open, and his throat rasping.... + +"_But_"--the single syllable choked the surge of sound--"London, +Paris, and Berlin have fallen to the enemy." The words thudded in the +pilot's ear-phones. "San Francisco is being attacked. Communication +with New Orleans has failed. The enemy are in sight of Buenos Aires--" +The general broke off, and Allan sensed dully that there was other +news, news that he dared not give the fleet. + +The gruff voice changed. "Men of the fleet, New York is in our charge. +The enemy is upon us, the battle is commencing. The issue is in your +hands." + + * * * * * + +Pat on his last word, a dark cloud spread along the south-eastern +horizon. From the spear-heads of the cone formations great green beams +shot out across the sea. Orange flame flared in answer, all along the +black bank that was the enemy fleet. Where the green beams struck the +orange blinked out, and the blue of sky showed through. And the +American ships were as yet untouched. A great shout rose to Allan's +lips--that they had the range on the enemy, and the attack defeated +before it was well begun. + +But was it? Swift as the American rays scythed destruction along the +enemy line, the gaps filled and lethal orange leaped out again. Now +the black cloud was piling up, was rising till it was a towering +curtain against the sky. On it came, like some monstrous tidal wave. +Great rents were torn through it by the stabbing beams of the flying +forts, holes where ships and men had been whiffed into dust by the +hundred. But the attack came on. + +Now all the great defensive cones burst into an emerald blaze as the +smaller ships loosed their bolts. And from the terraced slope of the +supporting fleet a hundred steel ovoids lumbered forward to meet the +threat. All the vast space between the hosts, mountain-high from the +sea's surface, was filled with dazzling light, now green, now orange, +as the conflicting beams crossed and mingled. There were gaps in the +advancing curtain that did not fill, but the defending cones were +melting away, were disappearing, were gone. + +"Flight ZLX prepare for action!" Dane's eyes flicked over the gages, +checking in routine precaution. He started when he saw the V of the +chronometer's hands. Only six minutes had passed since the battle's +start--it seemed hours. And already the reserve was being called on! +He was suddenly cold. Out there, over the bay, the enemy forces had +ceased their advance. The American first line cones were gone--true +enough, but the support fleet was still intact. Some new element had +entered the battle, visible as yet only in the _Washington's_ powerful +television view-screens. The flight adjutant's voice again snapped a +command: + +"Direction vertical. Thirty thousand feet. Full speed. Go!" + +Dane jerked home his throttle. The battle shot down, and his seat +thrust up against him. Something hurtled past, blurred by the speed of +its descent. The plane rocked to a sudden detonation, and Allan fought +to steady it. Then he had reached the commanded height. At sixty +thousand feet the helio vanes were useless, only the power of the +auxiliary rocket-tubes maintained his altitude. + +"Formation B. Engage the enemy!" came the order. + + * * * * * + +They were just ahead, a dozen giant craft, torpedo-shaped and +steel-incased, the scarlet fire of their gas blasts holding them +poised steady in their fifty-mile-long line. From curious swellings +that broke the clean lines of their under-bodies black spheres were +dropping in steady streams. Allan knew then whence came the crash that +had rocked his ship as she rose. These were bombs, huge bombs, +charged with heaven alone knew what Earth-shaking explosive. They were +catapulting down, an iron death hail, on the fleet and the city twelve +miles below! + +The enemy's strategy was clear. While his main fleet was engaging the +American defense in a frontal attack, these huge rocket-bombers had +looped unseen through the stratosphere to this point of vantage. The +planes that had leaped to this new menace swept toward the bombers in +three parallel lines, above, to right and left of them. Allan's plane +leaping to position at the very end of one long line. The three +leaders reached the first rocket-ship, and their green beams shot out. +In that instant the enemy craft seemed to explode in intense blue +light. Then the awful dazzle was gone. The rocket ship was there, just +as before, but the American helio-planes were gone, were wiped out as +though they had never been. The next trio, and the next, rushed up. +Again and again came that flash of force, annihilating them. Superbly +the tiny gnats that were the American planes plunged headlong at the +hovering Leviathan of the air and were whiffed into nothingness. Sixty +brave men were dancing motes of cosmic dust before the shocked +commander could sound the recall. + +The helicopter squadron curved away, still keeping its ordered lines, +but orange flame leaped out from all twelve of the enemy vessels, +orange flame that caught them, that ran along their ranks and sent +them hurtling Earthward--blackened corpses in blazing coffins. +"Abandon ships!" The adjutant's last order crisped, coldly metallic, +soldierly as ever. In the next breath, as Allan reached for the lever +that would open the trapdoor beneath him, he saw the command-ship +plunge down, a flaring comet. + + * * * * * + +Above Allan Dane, the twenty-foot silk of his parachute bellied out in +the denser air of the lower heights. His respirator tube was still in +his mouth, and the double, vacuum-interlined leather of his safety +suit had kept him from freezing in the spatial cold of the +stratosphere. He looked south. + +All the proud thousands of the defense fleet were gone, blown to +fragments by the time bombs from above. The city was hidden in a +thick, muddy-yellow fog. "Queer," the thought ran through his brain, +"that there should be fog in mid-afternoon, under a blazing sun." Then +he saw them, the circling black ships of the enemy, trailing behind +them long wakes of the drab yellow vapor that drifted heavily down to +shroud New York with--gas! + +Allan felt nauseated as he imagined a fleeting picture of the +many-leveled city, of its mist-darkened streets with swarming myriads +of slumped bodies clogging the conveyor belts that still moved because +no hand was left to shut them off; of women and children, and aged or +crippled men strewn in tortured, horrible attitudes in all the +roof-parks, in their homes, in every nook and cranny of the murdered +city. He looked beneath his drifting descent and saw roads that were +rivers, alive with every manner of fleeing conveyance, and he groaned, +knowing that in moments the pursuing ships would send down their +lethal mist to put an end to that futile flight. + +Sugar Loaf Mountain rose toward him. At its very summit was a clearing +among the trees, and, incongruously motionless in that world where +every one was rushing from inescapable death, a man stood calmly +there, gazing up at him. Allan screamed down to him! "Run! You fool. +Run or the gas will get you!" + +Of course the man could not hear that cry, but one tiny arm rose and +pointed south. Allan followed the direction of the gesture and saw a +black plane veering toward him. Then orange flared from it, though it +was distant, and a wave of intolerable heat enveloped him. Something +cried within him: "Too far--he's too far off to kill me with his +beam!" Then he knew no more. + + * * * * * + +From New York, from devastated San Francisco, from Rio, from Buenos +Aires, from fifty other desolated points along the seaboards of the +Americas, the black fleets swept along the coasts and inland, vomiting +their yellow death till all the continents were blanketed with +life-destroying gas. And in Europe and Australasia the destroying +hordes, having smashed the proud defenses of the coastlines, engaged +in the same pursuit, till in one short week all the lands of the +Western Allies were swept clear of life. Then the Eastern ships turned +homeward, to wait until the vapor they had strewn had lost its +virulence, and the teeming masses of the East might take possession of +the half world the ebony-painted destroyers had conquered. The black +fliers turned homeward, but there was no homeland left for them to +seek! + +For though the defense fleets of the Western Coalition had been +everywhere beaten, their attack squadrons had been everywhere +successful. All Asia and Africa lay under a pall of milky emerald gas +as toxic, as blasting, as the Easterners' yellow. + +And the Westerners were returning too! + +In their teleview screens the commanders of the black swarms, and of +the white thousands, sought their home ports, and saw the world to be +a haze-covered sphere where not even a fly could live. Then, as if by +common accord, the white ships and the black sped across lifeless +hemispheres to meet in mid-air over the long green swells of the +Pacific. They met, and on the instant they were at each others' +throats like two packs of wild dogs, killing, killing, killing till +they themselves were killed. No quarter was asked in that fight, and +none given. No hope of victory was there, nor fear of defeat. Better +swift death in the high passion of combat, than slow, hopeless +drifting over a dead world. + +But there was one black ship that slunk out of that mass suicide of +man's last remnant. Within its long hulk three motionless forms lay in +a welter of blood that smeared their officers' badges, and a dozen +gibbering men labored at the controls of their craft. The long black +shadows came at last to veil an empty sky, and a sea whereon there was +drifting wreckage but not one sign of any life. And as far to the +north a shadowed airship sped athwart the moon, searching for one +spot, one tiny patch of solid ground, that was free from the dread +gas. + + * * * * * + +Consciousness came slowly back to Allan Dane. At first he was aware, +merely, that he was alive. That was astonishing enough. Even if the +orange beam had not killed him with its heat, the gas should have +struck his leather suit. The Easterners could not be behind his own +forces in their development of that terrible weapon. + +Allan felt a coolness on his face, his hands, that could mean only +that his helmet and gloves had been removed. He heard movement, and +opened his eyes. + +At first he could see only blueness, pale and lambent. He gazed dully +up at a lustrous, glasslike substance that arched above him. The sound +of some one moving came again, and Allan turned his head to it. His +neck muscles seemed stiff, that simple motion drew tremendously on his +strength. + +About fifteen yards away, a man bent over a transparent, boxlike +contrivance in which something fluttered. From this device a metal +tube angled away into the wall. There was other apparatus on the long +table at which the man was-- + +"At last! Clear at last!" a mellow, rounded voice exclaimed +jubilantly. + +"Clear? Are you sure, Anthony, are you sure?" This other voice, +throbbing with vibrant repression as if its owner feared to believe +longed-for tidings come at last, was a woman's. As the man half +turned, its owner came between him and Allan. All he could see of them +was that the one called Anthony was very tall, and thin, and the woman +almost as tall, and that both wore hooded white robes, the woman's +falling to her heels, the man's to his knees, waist-girdled with black +cords. + +"Look for yourself, Helen." + +She bent over the transparent cage. "Oh Anthony, how wonderful!" + +Allan attempted to rise. He was unutterably weak; to move a finger was +a gigantic task, to do more impossible. He tried to call out. No sound +came from his straining throat. + +The couple straightened. The man spoke, too low for Dane to hear. Each +took something from the table, something that gleamed metallically. +Then they turned--and Allan saw what the white robes clothed! + + * * * * * + +Skulls leered at him from beneath the hoods--fleshless skulls; tinted +a pale green! Jutting jawbones, cavernous cheeks, lipless mouths that +grinned mirthlessly--his eyes froze to them and a scream formed within +him that he could not utter. Hands appeared from within the flowing +sleeves, and they were skeleton hands, each phalanx clearly marked. +They moved, that was the worst of it, the hands moved; and deep in the +shadowed eye-pits of the skulls blue light glowed in living eyes that +peered at something to Allan's right. + +His eyes followed the direction of their gaze. Ranged along the wall, +and jutting out, he saw four couches. On each was a figure, shrouded +and hooded in white. Utterly still they were--and the cadaverous +countenances exposed between robe and hood betrayed not the slightest +twitch. The arms were crossed on each breast. Allan realized that his +own arms were similarly crossed. He looked down at them, saw the white +gleam of a robe that fell down his length in smooth, still folds, saw +his hands--greenish skin stretched tight over fleshless bones. +Suddenly it seemed to him that the air was musty and fetid. + +Footsteps slithered across the floor. The woman-form bent over the +farthest couch. With one skeleton hand she bared an arm of the +corpselike figure; the other hand lifted--metal glinted in it and +plunged into the unshrinking limb! A slow movement of the bony fingers +and the threadlike, silvery thing was withdrawn. She stared +ghoulishly--and the man, too, gazed tensely at her victim. A long +quiver ran through the recumbent shape, another. The death's-head on +the pallet moved slightly--and merciful blackness welled up in Allan's +brain.... + + * * * * * + +A cool liquid was in his mouth. He swallowed instinctively, and warmth +ran through his veins. He felt strength flooding back into him--and he +remembered horror. + +"That's better," a mellow voice said, close above him. "Drink just a +little more." The cool liquid came up against Allan's lips again, +pungent, and he drank. Once more strength surged warmingly within him. +"That's a good fellow. A little more now." + +Fingers were on Allan's wrist, life-warm. There was friendliness in +the voice that was speaking to him, and solicitude. He dared to look. + +A skull-like head was right before him. But seen thus closely, the +terror of it was lessened. Fleshless indeed it was. But a parchment +skin was tightly drawn over the bones, and Allan could see that its +true shade was a sere yellow. It was the bluish light that had given +it the green of decay. The deep-sunk eyes were kindly; they gleamed +with pleasure as Allan's opened; and the voice asked: + +"How do you feel?" + +Allan made shift to reply, though a strange lassitude still enervated +him, and his mouth was full of tongue. "Much better, thank you. But +who--who...?" + +With a sudden access of energy Allan sat up on his couch. He looked +about him, and his fears were back full flood. + +He was in a chamber with neither door nor window--floor, walls, and +arched ceiling entirely formed of the palely lustrous, glasslike +substance. The room was perhaps twenty by forty feet, its ceiling +curving to about five yards from the floor at its highest point, and +the spectral blue glow that filled it was apparently sourceless. It +lit three vacant couches to his left. To his right were the four he +had already seen. The woman was ministering to the occupants of +these--living skeletons that lay flaccid, but whose heads were moving, +barely moving from side to side. Like nothing else but a sepulcher the +place seemed, a tomb in which the dead had come to life! + + * * * * * + +Allan clutched at Anthony's arm, grasped textured fabric that was cold +to his frantic touch, and thin bone beneath. "In Heaven's name," he +mouthed, "tell me what sort of place this is before--" He stopped, +appalled by a sudden thought. Perhaps he was insane, this seeming tomb +really some hospital ward transformed by his crazed brain. A wave of +weakness overcame him, and he fell back. + +"Careful," the other spoke soothingly, "you must give the plasma time +to act or you may harm yourself." + +If Allan shut out sight with his eyelids, and listened only to the +resonance of Anthony's voice, he could hold his slipping grip on +reason. He felt that the cloth of his robe was metal, fine spun and +woven. That was strangely reassuring. + +"How long do you think you have slept?" + +"How long?" Dane murmured. Something told him that he had been +unconscious for a long time. "A week?" + +Anthony sighed. "No. Longer than that, much longer." There was +reluctance in his tone. "You have lain here for twenty years." + +Allan's eyes flew open, and he stared up into the speaker's face. +Twenty years! Somehow it did not occur to him to disbelieve this +astounding statement. He struggled hard to realize its implication. +Two decades had passed since last he remembered. He had been a youth +then. Now he was forty-four. + +Anthony continued. "That may be a shock to you, but this will be a +greater. Unless I am greatly mistaken, we seven, we four men and three +women, are the only living humans left on Earth." + +The words dripped into Allan's consciousness. Beyond them, he could +hear movements, exclamations. But they meant nothing to him. Only the +one thought tolled, knell-like, within him. "We seven are the only +living humans left on Earth." + + * * * * * + +Dimly he knew that Anthony was talking. "There is a possibility, a +bare possibility, that somewhere near here there are two others. That +chance is faint indeed. Otherwise humanity is dead, killed by its own +hand." + +Through a dizzy vertigo that blurred sight and sound Allan heard the +rounded voice go on and on, telling the story of the doom that Man's +own folly had brought. And intermingled with that tale of a world gone +mad there came back to the listener the clear-cut vision of the day of +horror that to him seemed but yesterday. He remembered the sudden +ultimatum of the Easterner's, the Western Coalition's stanch defiance. +Again he saw a supposedly invincible fleet utterly destroyed, saw +comrades whiffed out of existence in infinitesimal seconds. Again he +watched a city of twenty millions inundated by a muddy yellow gas in +which no human being, no animal, might live. He waked once more to +find himself helpless with weakness, among living corpses, in a place +that seemed a tomb. + +"All this we saw in our long-distance televisoscope." Anthony gestured +to a blank screen above the apparatus ranged along the opposite wall. +"Then, just as that last weird battle ended, something happened to the +eye-mast outside, and we were isolated." He fell silent, in a brooding +reverie, and Allan, recovered somewhat, saw that the other strange +occupants of the place had risen and were clustered about that cage +where something fluttered. + +He turned to his mentor. "But I still don't understand. How is it that +we escaped the holocaust?" + +"Four of us, members of the scientific faculty of the National +University, having foreseen the inevitable result of the course of +world events, had joined forces and developed a substance--we called +it nullite--so dense and so inert that no gas could penetrate it or +chemical break it down. We offered it to the Western General Staff, +and were laughed at for our pains. Then we decided to use it to +preserve our families from the danger we foresaw. + +"At first we sheathed one room in each of our own dwellings with the +nullite. Later we decided that the deposited gas might last for many +years, and blasted out this cave, a hundred feet below the summit of +Sugar Loaf Mountain, for a common refuge. + +"When the red word flared from the newscast machines, 'War!', we fled +here with our wives, as we had planned. All, that is, save one couple, +the youngest of us. They never arrived--I waited for them in the +clearing at the entrance to the shaft. At the last moment I saw you +dropping in your parachute, saw the death beam just miss you, saw you +land at my feet, unconscious, but still breathing. I carried you in +with me. There were two vacant spaces: you could occupy one of them. +Then we sealed the last aperture with nullite, and settled to our +vigil. We did not know how long the gas would last, but we had +sufficient concentrated food, and enough air-making chemicals, to last +two persons for a century." + +"Two people," Allan interjected. "But there were seven here." + + * * * * * + +Anthony nodded. "We had worked out every detail of our plan. When +release came we needs must be in the full vigor of our prime. From our +loins must spring the new race that will repopulate the Earth; that +will found a new civilization, better, we hope, and wiser than the +one that had died. By injecting a certain compound we suspended +animation in all but a single couple. Those so treated were to all +intents dead, though their bodies did not decay. The two who remained +awake kept watch, making daily tests of the outside atmosphere, drawn +through tubes of nullite that pierced the seal. At the end of six +months they revived another couple by the use of a second injection, +and were themselves put to sleep. We exempted you from the watch, +since you could have no companion, so that while we have lived about +seven years in the twenty, you have not aged at all." + +"Not aged at all!" Dane exclaimed. "Why, I have wasted away to a mere +bagful of bones, and you others also." + +The other smiled wistfully. "Even though life was the merest thread +there was still an infinitely slow using of bodily tissue. But the +drink we partook of as we awoke is a plasma that will very quickly +restore the lost body elements. In an hour we shall all have been +rejuvenated. You will be again the age you were on that fateful day in +2163, and the rest of us but seven years older. Look!" He moved aside, +so that Allen could see the others, who had gathered around his couch. +They were a curious semicircle of gaunt figures, but he could see that +they had subtly changed. Still emaciated beyond description, they were +no longer simulacra of death. The contours of their faces were +rounding, were filling out, and the faintest tinge of pink was +creeping into the yellow of their skins. + +"Anthony, isn't it time that we opened the seals and went outside? +Haven't we been long enough in this prison?" It was a short man who +spoke, his voice impatient, and there was an eager murmur from the +others. + +"I am as anxious as you." Anthony's slow words were dubious. "But it +may still be dangerous. The gas may have cleared away only from our +immediate vicinity. In hollows, or places where the air is stagnant, +it may still be toxic. It is my opinion that only one should go at +first, to investigate." + +A babble of volunteering cries burst out, but Dane's voice cut through +the others. "Look here," the sentence tumbled from his lips. "I'm an +extra here. It doesn't matter whether I live or die--I have no special +knowledge. I cannot even father a family, since I have no wife. I am +the only one to go out as long as there is danger." + +"The young man is right," some one said. "He is the logical choice." + +"Very well," agreed Anthony, who appeared the leader. "He shall be the +first." + + * * * * * + +His instructions were few. One plane had been preserved, and was in +the shaft. Allan was to make a circuit of the neighborhood. If he +deemed it safe he was to visit the building, described to him, where +the fourth couple had lived, and see if he could find trace of them. +Then he was to return and report his findings. + +All stuffed their ears with cotton wool, and crowded against one end +of the chamber. Anthony had the end of a long double wire in his hand, +and it curled across the floor to the farther wall. He pressed the +button of a pear-switch--and there was a concussion that hurled the +watchers against the wall behind them. A great gap appeared in the +farther wall, beyond it a black chasm, and a helicopter that was dimly +illumined by the light from within the room. A quick inspection of +the flier revealed that its alumino-steeloid had been unaffected by +the passage of time, and Allan climbed into it. A wave of his hand +simulated an insouciance he did not feel. Then he was rising through +darkness. The sun's light struck down and enveloped him, and he was in +the open air. He rose above the trees. + +Desolation spread out beneath him. In all the vastness that unfolded +as the lone 'copter climbed into a clear sky, nothing moved. The air, +that from babyhood Allan had seen crowded with bustling traffic, was a +ghastly emptiness. Not even a tiny, wheeling speck betrayed the +presence of a bird. And below--the gas that was fatal to animal life +seemed to have stimulated vegetable growth--an illimitable sea of +green rolled untenanted to where the first ramparts of New York rose +against the sky. Roads, monorail lines, all the countless tracks of +civilization had disappeared beneath the green tide. Nature had taken +back its own. + +Heartsick, he turned south, and followed the silver stream of the +Hudson. The river, lonely as the sky, seemed to drift oily and +sluggish down to plunge beneath the city at the lower end of the +Tappan Zee. Allan Dane came over New York, gazed down at the ruin of +its soaring towers, at the leaping arabesque of its street bridges. He +peered into vast rifts of tumbled, chaotic concrete and steel. Nothing +moved in all that spreading wonder that had housed twenty millions of +people. + +Allan drifted lower, and saw that from what had been gardened +roof-parks, now a welter of strewn earth, the green things had spread +till they covered the heaped jetsam with a healing blanket of foliage. +Not all the city had been laid waste, however. Here and there, great +expanses of the cliff-like structures still stood, undamaged, and in +the midst of one of these areas he saw the high-piled edifice to which +he had been directed. Its roof was lush with vegetation but by +dextrous handling he set his helicopter down upon it. + +The engine roar diminished and died. Silence folded around him, a +black, thick blanket. + + * * * * * + +Dane got heavily from his seat, oppressed by the vast soundlessness, +and pushed through curling plants that caught at his heels. The sound +of his passage was like crackling thunder. A decaying door was marked, +in faded, almost undecipherable letters, "Emergency Stairs." It was +half open, and Allan squeezed around its edge. Spiral steps curved +down into blackness. He hesitated a moment. He could _feel_ the awful +silence, the emptiness below was a pit of death. Anthony's words came +back to him, echoed in his ears: "We seven are the only living humans +left on Earth." + +In that moment, out of the pitch-black well of soundlessness, a scream +shrilled! No words, only a red, thin thread of sound, rising, and +falling, and rising again out of depths where not even a living mouse +should be! It came again, ripping the silence--a woman's scream, +high-pitched, quivering with fear! + +Allan plunged down into the darkness, caroming from wall to wall as he +half ran, half fell, down the twisting stairs. Another sound +reverberated from unseen walls, and Dane realized that it was his own +voice, shouting. + +His feet struck level floor. A pale rectangle of light showed before +him, and he dived through it. He was in a corridor, dim-lit by +phosphorescent fungi that cloaked the damp walls. He halted, at +fault. The long hall stretched away to either side, cluttered with +grimed bones, slimy with mold. By the age-blistered name cards on +closed doors he knew himself to be on a residential level. But which +way should he turn? Whence had come that scream? He crouched against +the wall, his heartbeats thudding loud in his ears, and listened for a +clue. + +A muffled sound of scuffling came from his left. Allan whirled toward +it and sped down the corridor. He was breathing in great gasps, and +the air he breathed was thick and musty. Too late to stop, he saw a +slick of green slime on the floor. His foot struck it, flew out from +under him, he fell and slid headlong. + +Something stopped him, something that crunched sickeningly as his +sliding body crashed into it: two skeleton forms, clasped in each +others' arms, moldering fabric hanging in rags from them. They lay +across the threshold of a door, and just within Dane heard snarls, +snufflings, bestial growls, the sounds of a struggle. Something +thumped against the door and fell away. He heaved to his feet and his +hand found the doorknob. But suddenly he was powerless to turn it. +Panic tugged at him with almost palpable fingers, drove him to go back +to his plane and safety. Almost he fled--but he remembered in time +that it was a _human_ scream he had heard. + + * * * * * + +The portal gave easily to his lunge. Bluish light flooded the chamber, +dazzling after the fungous dimness. A bulking form, whether ape or man +he could not make out, so brutish the face, so hairy the dark body +revealed by its tattered rags bent over the sprawled shape of a girl. +Dane saw her in a fleeting glimpse--the slim length of her, the +tumbled, golden hair half hiding, half revealing white curves of +beauty, a shoulder from which the tunic had been torn away. Then her +attacker whirled toward the intruder. Allan leaped from the threshold, +his fist arcing before him. The blow landed flush on the other's jaw. + +Yellow, rotted fangs showed in a jet-black face, and the huge Negro +lunged for Dane, roaring his rage. Before the American could dodge or +strike again the other's long arms were around him. Allan was jerked +against a barrel chest, felt his bones cracking in a terrific hug. +Eyes, tiny and red, stared into his. Dane drove knees and fists into +the Negro, but the awful pressure of those simian arms across his back +increased till he could no longer breathe. The American was almost +gone, the black face blurred, and the continuous snarling of the brute +was dull in his ears. + +Suddenly Dane went limp. Victory flashed into the red eyes. The +squeezing arms relaxed, and in that moment Allan's legs curled around +the black's, heels jerking into the hollows behind his captor's knees. +At the same instant, levering from that heel hold, Dane butted sharply +up against the rocky jaw. All the strength that was left in him went +into that trick, and it worked! The Negro crashed backward to the +floor. Allan twisted, and rolled free. He was up, looking desperately +around for some weapon. But it was not needed; the hulk on the floor +never moved. The back of the Negro's head had smashed against the +floor, and he was out. + +Dane turned and bent to the girl. She, too, was motionless, but to his +relief her breast rose and fell steadily. He glanced about looking for +water to revive her. Then he saw that this room was sheathed with +nullite. Then this was one of the chambers prepared before the plans +were changed. But the girl could not be of the fourth couple--the +missing two that had never appeared. She was no more than eighteen. +And whence had come the giant black who had attacked her? + +"Stick up your hands. Quick!" + + * * * * * + +Allan whirled to the sudden challenge. The man in the doorway was +pointing a ray-gun steadily at him! Dane's hands went up, and he +gasped inanely: "Who are you?" + +"What is going on here? Where did you come from?" The newcomer's +English was precise, too precise. No hulking brute, this. A yellow +man, slitted eyes slanted and malevolent; broad, flat nose above thin +lips that were purple against the saffron skin. The uniform he wore +showed signs of some attempt to keep it in repair, and to its +threadbare collar still clung a tarnished insignia: the seven-pointed +star, emblem of the enemy Allan had fought on a yesterday that was two +decades gone. + +"Well? Have you lost the power of speech?" The ray-gun jerked forward +impatiently. + +An obscure impulse prompted Allan's reply. "Almost. I've spoken to no +one for twenty years." + +"So-o,"--softly. The Oriental's eyes flicked past Dane, and a sudden +light glowed in them. "You have been alone for twenty years in this +city we thought was empty, but you were on hand to fight with Ra-Jamba +for this delightful creature." Something leered from his face that +sent the hot blood surging to Allan's temples. The Easterner stepped +catlike into the room, shutting the door behind him with his free +hand. + +"That is true," the American said, with what calmness he could +muster. Through the dizzy whirl of his mind he clung to one thought: +he must conceal the existence of the little group on Sugar Loaf +Mountain at all costs. "I had just discovered that it was safe to +leave the room, similar to this, in which I had hidden from the gas, +when I heard a scream. I reached here just in time to--" + +"To interfere with Ra-Jamba's pleasure, and save the little white +dove--for me. My thanks." The yellow man bowed mockingly. "Too bad," +he purred, "that you should be robbed of the spoils of your fight." +Then he asked irrelevantly. "So some of you Americans found a way to +cheat our gas. How many?" + +Allan temporized. There had been several similar refuges prepared, he +said, but he did not know whether they had been used. This was the +first he had visited beside his own. But how was it that the +questioner knew so little about what had happened here? Had his people +simply laid this country waste and never revisited it? + + * * * * * + +The Oriental shrugged. "My people are gone, wiped out by your gas as +yours were wiped out by ours." He retold Anthony's story. "The crew of +my own ship mutinied," he concluded. "We fled north, from that last +terrible fight, north, ever north, till at the top of the world we +found a little space that was not gas-covered. There was nothing +there, just the ice, and the snow, and the cold. We lived there, +twelve of us, all men. There were a few bears and seals. We slew them +for food--and we grew a little mad. We were men--all men--do you +understand?" + +As he said this last, his thin voice rose to a shriek, and his eyes +darted to the girl's recumbent form. At length, he went on, the gas +began to retreat, and they followed it down. They had searched town +after town, city after city, had found food in plenty, and all the +trappings of civilization. But there was never a living being. And the +fever in their blood drove them on. + +That very morning the insane search had reached New York. They had +landed on the roof of this very building. "We separated to hunt--and +Ra-Jamba was the lucky one. But I--Jung Sin--am still luckier." He +crept nearer to Allan, and tapped him on the chest with his weapon. +"For look you--while those fools used all their ray-gun charges, even +the charge of the big tube on our ship, to kill food, I husbanded +mine." He laughed shrilly. "So you see, I have the only ray-gun in the +world. It shall make me master of the Earth." Again he laughed wildly. + +"Now I'm going to kill you." The black cylinder leveled, and Dane +stared at death. Alone, he would almost have welcomed it, but the +thought of the girl in the filthy power of this beast seared through +him. Jung Sin, the little red worms of madness crawling in his brain, +paused for a final taunt. + +"Let the thought of the white dove in my arms cons--" Allan's sandaled +foot shot out into the man's stomach. In the same movement his hands +came down, one snatched at and caught the ray-gun, the other smashed +into the yellow face. Jung Sin lifted 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. Most of New York's structures +have a number of residential levels at the top, then a floor of retail +stores, and below that amusement places, offices, and factories." + +"But whatever food there was must be decayed by this time." + +"The fresh food, yes. But there was a lot of canned stuff, and that is +probably all right." He pushed open a door. In the eery light a +well-furnished living room was revealed. "You wait here, and I'll see +what I can rustle up." + +"But I want to go with you." + +Allan was inflexible. "Please do as I say. I have my reasons." + +The girl turned away. "Oh, very well," she said flatly, "if you don't +want me with you." + +"That's a good scout. I'll be back just as quickly as I can. And, by +the way, lock the door from the inside, and don't open it till you +hear my voice." + +The girl looked at him wonderingly. "But--" she began. + +"Don't ask me why. Do it." There was a curious note in Allan's voice, +one that cut off Naomi's question. The door shut, and Dane heard the +bolt shoot home. + +He stood in the corridor, listening intently, his face strained. There +was no sound save that of Naomi's movements behind the locked door. +Allan turned to search for the auxiliary staircase that must be +somewhere near the bank of ascendor doors. + +Silence was again around him, almost tangible in its heaviness. His +footsteps reverberated through dead halls, the echo curiously muffled +by the coating of slime that spread dankly green. Allan found the +staircase well, descended cautiously, pausing often to listen. Not +even the faint scuttering of vermin rewarded him. + + * * * * * + +At last, three stories down, he reached the stores level. Here, in a +great open hall, were the numerous alcoved recesses of the shops. Once +thronged, and gaudy with the varicolored goods brought by plane and +heavy-bellied rocket-freighter from both hemispheres, the vast space +was a desert of moldering dust heaps, brooding. There was a faint odor +in the stagnant air--of spices, and rustling silks, of rare perfumes, +of all the luxury of the Golden Age that Man's folly had ended. + +Allan searched the long shelves feverishly, a nervous urge to complete +his task and get back to Naomi tingling in his veins. Once he stopped +suddenly, his body twisting to the stair landing. He seemed to have +heard something, an indefinable thudding, the shadow of a sound. But +it did not come again, and he dismissed it as the thumping of his own +blood in his ears, audible in that stillness. + +At the end of a long aisle, neat rows of cans greeted him, the labels +rotted off, the metal rust-streaked, but apparently tight and whole. +He found a metal basket, a roll of wire, twisted a handle for the +basket and filled it, choosing the cans by their shape. He should have +liked to explore further, but the urge to return tugged at him. He +went up the stairs three at a time. + +There was a dark, oblong break in the long glowing wall of the upper +corridor! The door--it was the door of the apartment where he had left +Naomi! He leaped down the hall, shouting. The portal hung open, +shattered: the rooms were stark, staring empty. Allan reeled out +again. There were the marks of footprints, of many footprints, in the +green scum of the hall floor, their own among them, that had led the +marauders straight to the girl! + +Fool that he had been! He had thought she would be safer behind a +bolted door! Allan berated himself. He had thought not to worry her. +There had been only four bodies in the wreckage of the black +plane--but how had the rest gotten here so soon? + +There was a humming whine from above. Dane hurtled toward the roof +stairs. He burst from the upper landing, fists clenched, face a +furious mask. A helicopter was just rising. Allan jumped for it, his +fingers caught and clung to the undercarriage. But the down-swing of +his body broke his hold, and Dane crashed to the roof. + + * * * * * + +He watched the plane, saw it zoom up, turn east, saw it sink and land +a half mile away, atop the building where he had found her. In the +moonlight he marked the direction of the place, its distance. Then he +was descending stairs, innumerable stairs. He could not hope to reach +it in time to save Naomi. But--his eyes grew stony--he could avenge +her. + +Afterwards that nightmare journey through the murdered city was a +detailless blur to Allan. He clambered over heaped rubble, forced +himself through windrows of piled bones that crumbled to dust at his +touch. Vines, and whipping creepers of triumphant vegetation +everywhere halted him; he tore them away with bleeding hands and +stumbled on. He fell, and scrambled up again, and plodded on the +interminable path till he had reached his goal. + +Here, at last, some modicum of reason penetrated into the numbed +blankness of his brain. The dark arch of the entrance-way was somehow +familiar. Still legible under the verdigris of the bronze plate on the +lintel he read, "Transportation Substation--District L2ZX." Now he +understood why he had not seen the black flier till it had leaped in +pursuit: how it was that Naomi's captors had so quickly found another +'copter. A broad well penetrated the center of this building--its +opening must be covered by the luxuriant vines so that he had not +noted it--and dropped down to the midsection that was a hangar for +local and private planes. His own little Zenith had been stored here +on occasion. There must be other helicopters there, and a stock of +fuel. A dim plan began to form at the back of his head. + +But first he must find where they were, and what had happened to +Naomi. + +Allan removed his sandals, and began the endless climb. He made no +sound on the steps, cushioned as they were with mold, but at each +landing he paused for a moment, listening. The cold fire that burned +within him left no room for fatigue, for pain. + +A murmuring, then a laugh, cut through the deathlike stillness. Allan +was nearly to the top. Down the corridor into which he crept, +snakelike on his belly, red light flickered from an open door. + + * * * * * + +Dane moved soundlessly to that door, and, lying flat, pushed his head +slowly past the sash till he could see within. By the light of a fire +that danced in the center of the unburnable mallite floor, its +illumination half revealing their sodden, brutish faces, he saw an +unspeakably strange group. A scene from out of the dawn of history it +was, the haunch-squatted circle, their yellow skins and black +glistening in the crimson, shifting glow. He recognized the giant +Negro, Ra-Jamba, his head bound with a rag, and Jung Sin. There were +five others clustered about those two, and a third, a skew-eyed +Oriental, intent on some game they were playing with little sticks +that passed from hand to hand. + +Before each of the players there was a little pile of fish bones, +black with much handling. The Negro's pile, and that of Jung Sin, were +about equal, but there were only two or three in front of the third +player. And just as Allan caught sight of them, the sticks clicked, +and a shrill objurgation burst from that third as the last of his +markers were raked in by Jung Sin's taloned hand. The circle hunched +closer, there was a ribald, taunting laugh from Ra-Jamba and Jung Sin +glanced over his shoulder into a shadowed corner. + +"Have patience, my lotus flower," he purred. "Only one is left. Soon +the goddess of fortune and love will clear him from my path. By the +nine-headed Dragon, I have never seen a game of Li-Fan last so long. +But it draws to an end. Then we shall have our joy together, you and +I." + +In that instant the fire flared. Allan saw an open window in the +background, and beneath it a slim white form lying, bound and +helpless. Fierce joy leaped in him, and fiercer hate, Naomi was as yet +untouched, the game was being played for her as stake. He had come in +time to save her! + +But how? There were eight of the Easterners in the room. He had his +ray-gun, and might cow them with it and free the girl. But as soon as +he had gotten her out of the room, they would surge out after the +whites. He could fight for a while, but the end was inevitable. And +even if by some miracle he and Naomi escaped, they would be tracked to +Sugar Loaf. + +The sticks were clicking in a continuous rattle as the final bout of +the game waxed fast and furious. And as fast and furious was the whirl +of Allan's thoughts. He strove to remember the layout of this +building. The helicopter hangar was next above this level. Outside the +windows of this floor a narrow ledge ran. The nebulous scheme that had +entered his dazed brain as he read the bronze plate below took clearer +form, shaped itself to meet this new need. + + * * * * * + +Allan crept away to safe distance, leaped to his feet and flitted +upward. He was in the empty, echoing space of the hangar level. The +fuel tanks bulged huge in the dimness. Here were reels of the feed +hose he needed--flexible metal that had withstood the years; here a +faucet nozzle, and a long coil of fine wire. Haste driving him, he +made the connections. Then he was descending again, dragging behind +him a long black snake of hose whose other end was clamped to a vat of +oxygen impregnated gasoline. + +The rustle of the hose along the hall floor was muffled by the greasy +slime. Dane got the nozzle to just outside the door of the room where +Naomi lay captive. The rattle of the playing sticks still continued. +Jung Sin's voice sounded, in a language that Allan did not understand. +But there was no mistaking the triumphant note in the silky, jeering +tones. The yellow man was winning, and winning fast. + +Dane twisted one end of the wire around the faucet handle. Then he was +unwinding the coil as he tried the door of the chamber next to the one +where the fire burned, found it open, darted across the room and +softly raised the sash. The sill here, like the one beneath which +Naomi lay, was a bare two feet above the ground. + +He was out on the ledge, sliding along it toward the fire-reddened +oblong five feet away. He crammed his body close against the wall, +kept his eyes away from the unfenced edge of that eighteen-inch shelf. +Beyond, an abyss waited, twelve thousand feet of nothingness down +which a single misstep, an instant's vertigo, would send him hurtling. +Suddenly the rattle of sticks stopped, and he heard the black's long +howl of disappointed rage. The game was over! + +Allan reached the window, glimpsed a leering semicircle of animal +faces, saw Jung Sin coming toward him. Then he had swung in. + +"Back, Jung Sin! Back!" Allan was straddled over Naomi's form, the +ray-gun thrust out before his tense threat, his face livid, his eyes +blazing. "Get back, or I ray you!" + + * * * * * + +Consternation, awe, flashed into the brutal faces of the Easterners. +Jung Sin reeled back, his saffron hands rising. Allan's weapon swept +slowly along the line of staring men. "If one of you moves I flash." + +He bent to the girl, keeping his eyes on the Easterners, and his +weapon steady. He had hung the wire coil over his shoulder, leaving +his left hand free to fumble for and untie the cords around Naomi's +wrists. He got them loose. + +"Can you get your feet free, Naomi?" + +"Yes, I can manage it." Her voice was steady, but there was a great +thankfulness vibrant in it. + +"Then do it and get out on the ledge. Quick." He straightened, and the +blaze of his eyes held the yellow men, and the black, motionless. + +Naomi, at the window behind him, gasped. "I know it looks tough," he +encouraged her, "but you can make it. Don't look down. Go to the left. +_And keep clear of that wire._" + +"I'm all right, Allan. But you--" + +"Never mind about me. Go ahead." + +Jung Sin jerked forward, driven by the madness that twisted his face +into gargoyle hideousness. But Allan's ray-gun stabbed at him, and he +halted. + +"I'm out, Allan." + +Dane's foot felt back of him for the sill, found it. He lifted, facing +his enemies inexorably, caught the lintel with his left hand, and was +crouching outside. A sidewise flick of his eyes showed Naomi just +reaching the other window. + +He pulled at the wire till it was gently taut. A moment's compunction +rose in him at what he was about to do. Then the black roll of the +Easterners' crimes rushed into his mind. Naomi's safety, his own, and +that of the little colony that had endured so much to preserve +humanity, cried out for their extinction. Allan jerked the metal +thread, and the faucet nozzle in the corridor opened. + +A black stream gushed forward, reached the fire, and the room was a +roaring furnace. Allan saw the forms of his enemies silhouetted +against the blaze for a fleeting instant, then they were flaming +statues. One only, Jung Sin, nearer than the rest, leaped for the +window and escaped the first gush of flame. Allan pressed the trigger +of his ray-gun. But no blue flash answered that pressure. The weapon's +charge had leaked out, was gone! + + * * * * * + +Allan tore himself loose from yellow hands that clutched at him, his +fist crashed into Jung Sin's fear twisted visage, and the crazed +Oriental fell back into the roaring blaze. + +But Allan himself was thrust backward by that blow, was swaying on the +very edge of the chasm. His hand went out for a saving hold on the +window sash; flame licked at it. He was toppling, against the strain +of his body muscles to resist the inevitable fall, and death reached +up from depths for him. Then an arm was around him, was drawing him +back to life. Naomi had darted back, defying the terror of that +height, the surge of heat. She had reached him just in time--a +split-second later and his weight would have been too much for her +puny strength. But in this instant, the merest touch was enough to +save him. They crept along the ledge and climbed wearily in. + +There was another plane in the hangar, and presently Allan had it +rising through the well into clean, free air. He turned to the girl in +the seat beside him and pointed at the scene they were leaving. + +"Look," he said. + +The city was in darkness beneath them, save for the one staring +rectangle that marked a pyre. But dawn shimmered opalescent in the +east. + +A soft white hand crept into Allan's. There was a long moment of +silence. Then Allan said, softly: "A new day, and a new world for +their children." + +A sleepy, tired voice sighed: "For their children and ours, Allan." + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's When the Sleepers Woke, by Arthur Leo Zagat + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN THE SLEEPERS WOKE *** + +***** This file should be named 29322.txt or 29322.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/3/2/29322/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/29322.zip b/29322.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4757ee --- /dev/null +++ b/29322.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..62c2355 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #29322 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29322) |
