Tama of the Light Country by Ray Cummings

Author:Ray Cummings [Cummings, Ray]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-03T14:43:19+00:00

Chapter IX - MADMAN'S GAMBLE

THE UPPER STORY was dim and silent, but sounds came floating up the central spiral, and I heard the dragging tread of the Mercutians downstairs. I stood at the head of the spiral. No one was on it--no one in sight. It seemed as good a time as any. I got down to the main floor, and unexpectedly ran into a man.

"Ah, it is you, Palisse. They are rebellious, these idiot girls. Listen to them." He spoke his native language.

He gestured to a nearby room-arch. "Listen, Palisse. Roc puts the new order into effect at once."

"Yes," I said. I had pushed past him. Evidently in the dimness of this foyer he had not noticed that I was drenched with rain, nor had he seen that I was coming from the rooftop. He went past me and disappeared.

From a nearby room came the sounds of gruff men's voices, the terrified murmur of girls, a low moan--then a scream.

I did not linger. From the direction of the main doorway another party was bringing in a group of girls. I moved away toward the incline leading downward, and reached the underground level. There seemed no one down here--just a dim candlestick in a bracket bowl.

I reached the inner door-slide of my apartment. It stood ajar, but I could not remember leaving it so. Roc had been keeping me a prisoner, but he had not let me know it. Instead of searing this inner door upon me, he had doubtless put a guard nearby, to turn me back if I tried to leave my rooms.

But the guard was not here now. I hastened into my rooms. The doorway opened directly into my bedroom, which seemed undisturbed. It was not so long since Toh and I had left it. My single light was still burning. The door-slide to the lower corridor-exit was closed. I remembered distinctly that Toh and I had closed it after us.

In the silence, as I stood an instant upon entering, I could hear the sound of the flume-water outside, vicious now, an angry torrent swollen by the rain of the storm. I went into my workshop. My benches, shelves of chemicals--all my familiar apparatus were in order.

I gathered the loading chambers of the rocket-cylinder, fuses, the little coils of rotary magnetizers, and parchment sheets and etching pencils with which I could write a message. I could put them all into the cylinder's hollow interior, to keep them dry against the storm. Lastly, I collected the chemicals needed to complete the apparatus.

I piled all the articles on my center bench. But when I turned to the box where I kept the cylinder itself, I found the cylinder missing!

It turned me cold. I stared into the little box, in the shadows of the room corner. It was empty. But I had left the cylinder there. I searched quickly.

It seemed that I heard a sound from my bedroom. I had entered with my knife in hand. The knife now lay on the center bench.

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