“Affirmative.”
“And they don’t know about—the nonobjective things up above?”
“Question indeterminate, as it requires an assumption at variance with—”
“Okay—cancel. You said there are other stations. How can I get in touch with them?”
“State the number of the station with which you desire to communicate.”
“What’s the nearest one to Jacksonville?”
“Station Nineteen, Talisman, Florida.”
“Call it.”
One of the previously blank panels opposite me glowed into life, showed me a view of a room similar in many particulars to Station Twelve, except that its basic décor was a trifle more modern—the stainless steel of the early Atomic Era.
“Anybody home?” I called.
There was no reply. I tried the other stations one after another. None answered.
“That’s that,” I said. “Tell me more about this Ultimax Group. What’s it been doing these past couple of hundred years?”
“It contributed materially to the success of the American War of Independence, the defeat of the Napoleonic Empire, the consolidation of the Italian and German nations, the emergence of Nippon, the defeat of the Central Powers in the First Engagement of the European War, and of the Axis Powers in the Second Engagement, and the establishment of the State of Israel. It supported the space effort . . .”
I was beginning to feel a little ragged now; the first fine glow was fading. I listened to the voice for another half-hour, while it told me all about the little-known facts of history; then I dismissed it and took another nap.
* * *
I ate, slept, and waited. After fourteen hours, the straps holding my arm down released themselves; after that, I practiced tottering up and down my prison, testing my new arm, and now and then tuning in on what went on overhead. For the most part, there was silence, broken only by the sounds of nature and the slap and thump of pacing feet. I heard a few gobbled conversations, and once an exchange between a humanoid and a demon:
“It has means of escaping pursuit,” the flat voice was saying as I picked it up. “This is the same one that eluded our units at location totter-pohl.”
Angry sounds from a demon.
“That is not my area of surveillance,” the first voice said coldly. “My work is among the men.”
Another alien tongue-lashing.
“All reports are negative; the instruments indicate nothing—”
An excited interruption.
“When the star has set, then. I must call in more units . . .” The voice faded, going away.
“Monitor, it’s time for me to start making plans. They’re getting restless up above. I’m going to need a few things; clothes, money, weapons, transportation. Can you help me?”
“State your requirements in detail.”
“I need an inconspicuous civilian-type suit, preferably heated. I’ll also need underwear, boots, and a good hand-gun; one of those Borgia Specials Felix gave me would do nicely. About ten thousand cees in cash—some small bills, the rest in hundreds. I want a useful ID—and a good map. I don’t suppose you could get me an OE suit and a lift-belt, but a radar-negative car would be very useful—a high-speed, armored job.”
“The garments will be ready momentarily. The funds must be facsimile-reproduced from a sample. Those on hand are of last year’s issue and thus invalid. The Borgia Special is unknown; further data required. You will be given directions to the nearest Ultimax garage, where you may make a selection of helis and ground effect cars.”
I got out my wallet, now nearly flat; I picked out five and ten cee notes and a lone hundred.
“Here are your patterns; I hope you can vary the serial numbers.”
“Affirmative. Please supply data on Borgia Special.”
“That’s a 2mm needler, with a special venom. It’s effective on these nonexistent phenomena up above.”
“A Browning 2mm will be supplied; the darts will be charged with UG formula nine twenty-three toxin. Please place currency samples in slot G on the main console.”
I followed instructions. Within half an hour the delivery bin had disgorged a complete wardrobe, including a warm, sturdy, and conservatively cut suit with a special underarm pocket in which the needler nestled snugly; my wallet bulged with nicely aged bills. I had a late-model compass-map strapped to my wrist, a card identifying me as a Treasury man, and a special key tucked in an inner pocket that would open the door to a concealed Ultimax motor depot near Independence, less than thirty miles away. I was equipped to leave now—as soon as I was strong enough.
More hours passed. At regular intervals, the Station Monitor gave instructions for treatment, keeping tabs on my condition by means of an array of remote-sensing instruments buried in the walls. My strength was returning slowly; I had lost a lot of weight, but the diet of nourishing concentrates the station supplied was replacing some of that, too.
The arm was a marvel of bioprosthetics. The sight of the stark, functional chromalloy radius and ulna still gave me a strange, unpleasant sensation every time I saw it, but I was learning to use it; as the nerve-connections healed, I was even developing tactile sensitivity in the fingertips.
When the chronometer on the wall showed that I had been in the underground station for forty-nine hours, I made another routine inquiry about conditions up above.
“How about it, Monitor?” I called. “Any signs of excavation work going on up there?”
There was a long pause—as there was every time I asked questions around the edges of the Forbidden Topic.
“Negative,” the voice said at last.
“They’ve had time enough now to discover I’m not hiding under the rug in some nearby motel. I wonder what they’re waiting for?”
There was no answer. But then I hadn’t really asked a question.
“Make another try to raise one of the other stations,” I ordered. I watched the screen as one equipment-crowded room after another flashed into view. None answered my call.
“What about those other Station Monitors?” I asked. “Can I talk to them?”
“Station Monitors are aspects of the Central Coordinating Monitor,” the voice said casually. “All inquiries may be addressed directly to any local station unit.”
“You don’t volunteer much, do you?” I inquired rhetorically.
“Negative,” the voice replied solemnly.
“Can you get a message out to somebody for me?”
“Affirmative, assuming—”
“Skip the assumptions. He’s somewhere in Jacksonville, Florida—if the demons didn’t kill him just to keep in practice—and if he followed my instructions to stay in town. His name’s Joel—last name unknown, even to him. Address unknown. As of a week ago, he was crewman aboard a sub-tanker called the Excalibur, out of New Hartford. Find him, and tell him to meet me at the main branch of the YMNA in . . . where’s the nearest diplomatic post?”
“The British Consulate at Chicago.”
“All right. I want Joel to meet me in the lobby of the main Y in Chicago, as soon as he can get there. Do you think you can reach him with what I’ve given you?”
“Indeterminate. Telephone connections can be made with—”
There was a loud, dull-toned thump! that shook the station. The Monitor’s voice wavered and went on: “—all points on—” Another thud.
I was on my feet, watching microscopic dust particles shaken out of crevices by the impact, settling to the floor. There was another blow, more severe than the others. “What the hell was that?” I asked—yelled—but it was rhetorical.
The demons were at my door.
* * *
“All right, talk fast, Monitor,” I barked. I pulled on my new clothes, checked the gun as I talked. “Is there any other route out of here?”
“The secondary exit route leads from the point now indicated by the amber light,” the voice said imperturbably. Across the room, I saw an indicator blink on, off, on. “However,” the Monitor went on, “departure from the Station at this time is not advised. You have not yet recovered full normal function. Optimum recovery rate will be obtained by continued bed rest, controlled diet, proper medication, and minimal exertion—”
“You’re developing a nagging tone,” I told it. “Get that door open. Where does it lead?”
“The tunnel extends seventeen hundred yards on a bearing of two-one-nine debouching within a structure formerly employed for the storage of ensilage.”
“Good old Ultimax; they don’t miss a bet.” Another blow racked the station.
I buttoned up my pin-stripe weather suit, adjusted the thermostat, settled the gun under my arm.
“Monitor, I’m feeling pretty good, but you’d better give me an extra shot of vitamins to get me through the next few hours. It’s a long walk to that garage.”
“The use of massive stimulants at this time—”
“That’s the idea: massive stimulants—” There was another heavy blow against the station walls. “Hurry up; your counseling will have to wait for a more leisurely phase in my career. How about that shot?”
With much verbal clucking, the cybernetic circuits complied. I held my good arm in the place indicated, and took an old-fashioned needle injection that the Monitor assured me would keep me ticking over like a le Mans speedster for at least forty-eight hours. It started to tell me what would happen then, but I cut it off.