"Well?" Cull said.
"Well, I"m not a demon. Not in the sense you mean. I"m a member of a race, species, what you"d call an extraterrestrial. The people of our planet resemble yours, physically. Except that, on our world, many are given shapes not intended by Nature. Genetic manipulation, direct trans.m.u.ta-tion of protoplasmic configurations, reworking of cells at a microscopic level. We have our reasons for doing this. I won"t go into them."
Cull was beginning to get seasick from the com-bined roll, pitch, and yaw of the tunnel. But he fought it, for he had to find out all the demon could tell them.
"This place is h.e.l.l for us, too," it said. "But there aren"t so many of us here because we ceased to exist on our planet, became extinct, long ago. Just as we were getting started, getting civilized. What we"d call civilized, not you."
"O.K.,O.K," Cull said. "But what about those machines surrounding this sphere? Who put them there? What"s their purpose?"
"Who?" it howled. "The Others! The Others!"
"What Others?" Cull howled back at him. The roar, rumble, and shriek outside were deafening.
And the contortions of the tunnel were becoming even more violent.
"Another type of sapients! Immeasurably older than either of us! More knowledgeable, more powerful by far! We offended them, and this is our punishment!"
"But what about us?" Cull yelled. "What about. . .?"
"You offended them, too! Early, early!"
"How? We don"t even know them!"
"Your primitive ancestors did!"
"How could they? And who are the Others?"
"I can"t tell you! I can"t! I can"t! That"s part of our punishment! We"ve been treated, inhibited!
We"re under a compulsion! We know, but we can"t tellyou! I"ve told you all I can! And if I weren"t so terrified, I couldn"t tell you this much!"
"But those machines? Our physical resurrec-tion? The fabrication of this world! How? Why?"
"It"s not metaphysical or supernatural! It"s physical. Obeys the laws, principles, of the uni-verse we knew. Some laws we don"t know! But They do! They"ve got Power! Power we would have had some day, if we hadn"t been wiped out through our own arrogance and foolishness! Power you Terrestrials could have, if you could overcome your own type of d.a.m.ned foolishness!"
"Tell me! Tell me!" Cull screamed. But Fyodor began banging the demon"s head on the floor while he shouted, "X! X! X! Tell me about X!"
Suddenly, with that instability of mood and irrationality of behavior that made these creatures so terrifying to human beings -- before man out-numbered demon -- he began laughing. It wasn"t hysterical laughter. It was genuine amus.e.m.e.nt.
He laughed until he choked. Then, recovering, he said, "Would you believe me if I told you that X was a human traitor? That he helped us because he wanted to torment you with a hopeless hope?"
"No, I wouldn"t!" bellowed Fyodor.
"Would you believe it if I told you he is the Savior you hope for? But, in this pocket of the universe, he has to behave as the Others tell him? Obey Their laws?"
"No, no!"
The demon started laughing again. After which, he cried, "Would you believe it if I told you everything I"ve said was a lie? That everything I"ll tell you from now on is a lie? Or that, just maybe, there"ll be one or two truths among all the lies? Why not? You Earthlings and your truth! You make me sick! What is truth?"
Cull meant to kill him then. He was out of his mind. Fyodor was, too. He gripped the demon"s throat and began choking him. Fyodor"s own face was as purple as the demon"s. And Cull stood up, swaying, and tried to stomp the demon on his face. He wanted to break bone under his foot, mash the nose, kick the teeth out, break the ear-drums, burst the eyeb.a.l.l.s.
There was a sound as of a giant tree being broken in two. Cull was hurled against the side of the tunnel. Stunned, he vaguely realized that this portion of the tunnel had been ripped off and that it had been thrown, sideways, down the hill.
Over and over it rolled. Its occupants, Fyodor, Phyllis, the demon, himself, the stone trunks, the stone heads, the desiccated corpses, the head of X, rolled with it. Down the hill the cylindrical tunnel rolled, and over and over the occupants slid and fell. Why the four weren"t crushed by the statues, Cull didn"t know. But they weren"t, though, once, an idol slid by him, so close it sc.r.a.ped his shoulder. He did tangle with the demon, and it grabbed Cull in his arms, pinning him and making him helpless.
"Ah, you beautiful thing, you!" he chanted.
"This world is h.e.l.l! It is supernatural! What you saw through the window is only an illusion to keep you going in your search for the truth and the escape!
"Lies, lies, lies! But maybe one truth, or half-truth, concealed in the midst!"
There was a crash as the tunnel stopped rolling. The demon was torn from Cull. Before Cull could recover from his stunned condition and attack him, the demon leaped up. It bent over and bit Cull savagely on the shoulder.
Cull was too deadened to feel much pain at that moment. Later, it was almost more than he could stand.
"The Mark of Cain!" the demon shouted, Cull"s blood on his mouth. "Signature of Satan! Bite of Baal! Or what have you! Kiss your bald-headed friend, seeker of X, for me! Tell him that X still lives, that X will give him salvation, paradise, if he can find X!
"Lies, lies, lies! Maybe! So long, brother!"
Howling like a wolf, he ran from the mouth of the tunnel across the heaving desert. But he did not get far. Abruptly, a crack opened beside him, a crack that zigzagged like lightning across the field of vision, that widened as it ran and sent out branches to every side. One of these opened beneath the demon"s feet. He threw up his arms, whirled to run away, could not go swiftly enough, and fell backwards, his mouth open in a scream they would have heard except for the thunder. His body flopped, his feet were the last thing of him that they saw.
Immediately thereafter, the tunnel lurched for-ward, apparently rising on the crest of a wave pa.s.sing across the land, an earthwave.
Around and around, the broken segment of tunnel, no longer a tunnel but a pipe, spun. Not so swiftly that the three occupants could not keep from tumbling by running with it, by moving their feet and staying upright, squirrels in a stone wheel.
But they could not keep up the pace. Their legs became too heavy, and they slowed down.
Then, the rotation caught up with them, swept them up-ward until they fell off the sides and back onto the part below them. Only to be carried upward and dropped again. They crashed to a stop.
For several moments, they could only lie flat, whimpering or moaning. But Cull sprang up and said, gasping, "We"ve got to get rid of these statues! So far, we"ve been lucky. But if this starts rolling again, and it sure as h.e.l.l will, we might not be so lucky next time."
Phyllis lay sobbing, but Fyodor struggled up. His skin was bruised and b.l.o.o.d.y, and his face was a red ma.s.s. Cull knew he did not look any better; he appreciated the effort the little Slav was going through just to get up because his own muscles seemed to be caked with the beating they had taken. Yet he forced himself to move, to grip the statues and roll them out toward the mouth of the cylinder. Heavy as these were, and angular, they did not yield easily. Only by combined pushing and straining could the two roll the first statue to the lip of the pipe. It was a gross-bodied thing with the head of a crocodile and long jaws, which, at right angles to the body, presented a problem. Each time the jaws came into contact with the floor, its upper part had to be raised, with the jaws as a lever. Then, the upper part would fall with a crash. Fortunately, they only had to roll it com-pletely three times before it was out of the tunnel.
Panting, quivering with fatigue, they stood facing each other. Neither wanted to make the first move to renew the work.
"Two more to go," said Cull. He looked out of the cylinder, hoping that he would see some other refuge, one that would not require moving ma.s.ses of stone. One not open at both ends and rolling along at the slightest force. One in which he could curl up snugly, secure, safe. . .
He was appalled at what he saw outside. The same force that had sent their cylinder whirling over and over had also ripped up great blocks of sand and stone and piled them in heaps. Their cylinder had come to rest near the top of one of the now motionless waves of land. Beyond them were rows on rows of earth, sand, and crumbled rocks, all mixed with torn-off and twisted metal tubes, huge blocks of granite, basalt, and diorite that had once been piled in orderly rows to form tremendous buildings. Also, those buildings that had been carved out of Brobdingnagian boulders lay at all angles; some straight up; some on their sides; some upside down; some half-buried, their tops showing above the cracks into which the larger part had fallen or their sides projecting above the creva.s.ses or their bottoms showing.
Everywhere were bodies of human beings and demons, or parts of them, lying where falling rocks had smashed them or hurtling stones had sheared them. Rocktrees, torn from the soil or from the sides of buildings, were scattered everywhere. So strong" were the forces some of the almost-indestructible trees had met, they had been cracked or even shattered.
"What"s doing it?" whimpered Fyodor behind Cull. "What"s making the world come to an end?"
"Something"s slowing the rotation of the sh.e.l.l that forms the peripheral foundation of this world,"
said Cull. "And every time the sh.e.l.l slows, the rock and the sand on the sh.e.l.l"s inner surface slides over it.
And the stuff tends to pile up here and there. The friction of unimaginable tons of rock and sand sliding is causing heat, too. Have you noticed how hot it is?"
Sweat matted his hair and beaded his body. And for the first time, he noticed that he, or one of them, maybe all three, had fouled the interior of the cylinder with their excrement. Sheer terror had forced its expulsion.
"Let"s get the other two statues out of the way," Cull said. "The rotation may slow down again any minute now. Or begin speeding up. G.o.d knows what"s going to happen."
"What"s the use," said Fyodor dully. "We"ll be ground to bits, just like those. . . those. . ."
He pointed at several bodies nearby. They looked as if a steamroller had pa.s.sed over them and, then, a harrow.
"Maybe we don"t have a chance," said Cull. "But we have to act as if we did. While there"s life. .
"Why should we be spared?" said Fyodor. "We"re sinners. We ought. . ."
"Sinners," whimpered Phyllis. "Oh, G.o.d, we"ve sinned, and now we have to pay. Oh, G.o.d, truly I"m sorry, sorry. . ."
"Shut up!" said Cull. "Both of you! If you don"t quit blubbering like two hysterical old women, and help me get these idols out of the way, I"ll kick your a.s.ses right out of this tunnel. And you can take your chances, which"ll be nil, nothing, nada, zero, kaput, out in the open. What in h.e.l.l"s the matter with you? You want to commit suicide? You know what a sin that is. Well, if you just sit down, quit trying, you"ll be doing the same as killing yourself. Quitting is suicide, you know that. Fyodor, what"s got into you? You"re the guy that kept me going. Now, all of a sudden, you haven"t got any guts."
"It"s Apocalypse," he muttered, his rubbery lips writhing, his little eyes rolling. "The Judgment Day. Who can stand before the wrath of G.o.d?"
"You know nothing about the wrath of G.o.d," Cull said. "Help me move these idols, or you"ll feel the wrath of G.o.d, right on your b.u.t.t from the end of my foot."
"All I have to do is walk away," Fyodor said. "I"m not afraid of you."
"Good," replied Cull. "Now, will you help? Helpme? Your brother human being? "
Silently, he bent over and began shoving. Fyodor, still sobbing, came to his aid. The second idol was not as large as the first and it did not have any oversized projections. With much grunting and panting, they managed to drag it, feet-first, to the mouth of the cylinder.
But the third statue was the largest, the furthest from the entrance, and its hand extended out from the body and downward, as if it clutched the metal and did not want to let loose. The two men moved it slowly and had to rest between each effort. Then, Cull cursed Phyllis and told her to get up and help. She moaned and raised her head to look at him; the tangled and dirty blonde hair fell over her face so that she stared at him through the strands. The skin below was dirty and b.l.o.o.d.y; her lips were swollen from a blow; one of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s was half-covered by a dark red blotch.
"I"m so tired," she moaned. "I can"t help you. Anyway, why struggle? Fyodor"s right. We"re doomed."
Cull placed his foot against her shoulder, raised the foot and her body with it and, at the same time, kicked. She rolled over on her back and stared up at him.
"Get off your back, you dirty wh.o.r.e," Cull said. "You may have gotten all you wanted in life so far by taking that position. But those days are over! Get up. Or I"ll kick you where you"re missing your b.a.l.l.s!"
She tried to spit at him, but all that came out of her mouth was a stringy darkbrown spittle that flopped, like a rope tied at one end, onto her chin. "You and your miserable skin," she said croakingly.
"That"s all you think about. Why don"t you die and end your miserable existence?"
"Because I don"t want to," he said. "Now, get up."
He leaned forward and grabbed her under the armpits and heaved her up and onto her feet. She swayed and would have fallen if he had not held her. Her body was slippery and cold with sweat; she trembled; she stank of terror.
"I didn"t mean it!" she sobbed. "It"s just that I"ve gone through more than I can stand. I just wish it"d be over!"
"I didn"t mean it, either," Cull said. "I had to say something to get you going. Now, help us. Every little bit helps."
Phyllis was not much aid. The first time they tried to roll the idol, her hands slipped and she fell onto the stone.
"I hurt my breast again," she said, whimpering.
Cull lifted her again and said, "Just this once."
They heaved simultaneously, and the statue turned on its side. Cull was panting, and he could hear the others breathing heavily. But he swore at them and shouted with as much strength as he could muster, "We may not have much time before another quake comes! If we start rolling again, we may be crushed this time. Now! Once more!"
The idol rolled, slowly, raised upon one of its hands, then fell with a bang against the grey material. It was halfway out of the mouth of the cylinder.
"Once more," said Cull, but he did not sound enthusiastic. He realized that he had very little strength left. And with his strength, his will had almost gone.
Nevertheless, he could not quit now. To do so would be to waste all his efforts so far. He had wasted too much of them in his lifetime, given up too many times when he could have striven just a little more and won what he wanted. Or had he really wanted? Had he always quit because he was afraid of winning?
He stepped over the statue and out into the sand. The dust was thicker here; he began to cough.
His lungs felt as if a hot hand were squeezing them. He managed to quit coughing, to swallow back the convulsions inside him.
He bent down and grabbed hold of the idol"s head and said, "Push. I"ll pull. We"ll drag him out easily."
"All right, brother," said Fyodor. "If you want so desperately to live, I won"t be an obstacle.
Maybe G.o.d has sent you to help me. So, I will help you."
"-- you and your G.o.d," said Cull.
Fyodor gasped, but the idol began to slide out of the mouth and onto the sand. Cull grinned weakly and thought that his remark may have angered Fyodor so much it gave him strength. Certainly, the idol was moving more swiftly than he had thought possible. This despite the fact that the sand impeded the progress of the statue. Also, certainly, he had not planned to make that remark just to stimulate the outpour of Fyodor"s adrenalin. He had meant it.
He rose and said, with a weak triumph, "There! She"s out. I told you we. . ."
He stopped, for he could feel through the soles of his feet the tiniest of vibrations, the forerunner of the big ones to come. He leaped over the statue and into the entrance of the cylinder and ran past Fyodor and Phyllis to the center. He turned and shouted, "Come here! Hurry!"
He lay down on the floor and, when the two were near him, he said, "Lie down! You, Fyodor, so you"re sitting halfway up the side and so I can grab your ankles! Phyllis, you lie down on the other side of me. Grab my ankles."
He did not need again to tell them to hurry. They could feel the shaking of the cylinder.
"When we start rolling," he said, "stiffen your-selves. Maybe we can form a kind of rigid sup-port, keep from sliding and falling all over the place. Brace yourselves good. This is going to be the big granddaddy of them all; I feel it!"
He had no sooner spoken than the cylinder lurched and began rolling. It made a half-turn slowly, so slowly that he realized they would not be able to keep themselves rigid. When they reached the top, and the floor became ceiling, they must fall in a heap.
But, before the cylinder had completed a half-turn, there was a rumble and then a roar that deafened them, and dust blew in through the cylinder and blinded them. The cylinder snapped on over so swiftly he was not aware of what had happened until it had spun two or three more times. Now, it was spinning so rapidly that he must be pa.s.sing the same point within a second, doing one rpm per second.
Or so it seemed. He really had no reference point, no accurate con-ception of the pa.s.sage of time. All he could know was that they were rotating so quickly that the cen-trifugal force was gluing them to the sides of the cylinder. They could not have moved even if they had wanted to.
What would happen if they struck something going at this speed? They would be crushed. Bones broken in a hundred places; flesh squeezed beyond endurance; blood forced out through broken veins and arteries.
It was then that he realized that the b.u.mping and lurching that had first accompanied the whirling had ceased. The spinning was smooth as if the cylinder were moving through air.
He turned his head and opened his eyes to look along the tunnel and out its mouth. At first, he could see nothing but dust; his eyes stung and watered. Then, for a few seconds, the dust disap-peared, blown by a wind from somewhere. And he could see for some distance past greyish-brown clouds that seemed to go around and around.
It was difficult to grasp what he was seeing, for it was so unexpected, so alien.