"I don't think there's any real misunderstanding. Is there?" Illya lifted the gun and let it bite into the engineer's flabby neck.
"No. None." All protest seeped from the engineer's voice. He and his assistant turned their attention to heading the train out.
Guards fired from the walks. They waddled forward, running as the train gathered speed. Bullets ricocheted off the metal of the cab. The two engine men crouched low, but kept working. The train moved faster.
As if reacting to delayed messages, workers in the train cars straightened, belatedly realizing the train was moving. They ran, leaping from the cars, striking the walls, or rolling along the walks like helpless bugs. Firing, the near-sighted guards stumbled over the fallen workers or collided with those still jumping from the faster rolling cars.
Solo fired his gun, aiming high, hoping only to keep the guards back until the train picked up momentum.
The engines struggled; the spinning wheels clicked on the railings. Corridors, cavern houses, white tubes of lights raced past.
Solo leaned out of the cab window, watching the loading yard and the guards receding in the distance. He stayed a moment as the train swayed on its braces.
Finally he turned, walked close to the engineer at the throttle.
Solo said, "I heard your trains can do a hundred miles an hour—"
"More!" The engineer straightened, showing his pride in this underworld rolling stock. "Much more!"
Solo grinned coldly at him. "All I want out of you then—is the very best this train can do."
Solo and Illya braced themselves in the swaying cab as the train moved with incredible speed, like a bullet through the white-glowing tunnels. The whole length of the monstrous train shivered. There were sudden turns in the runs, but the engineer did not slow.
Solo moved to the bulkhead of the cab, bracing himself. But Illya did not move. Strange fires burned intensely in the blue depths of his eyes. His wheat-colored hair fluttered on his forehead.
His mouth pulled across his lips. He shouted at the engineer: "Faster! Man, you can go faster than this!"
Solo stared at Illya, realizing that he didn't even really know this wild man who had been closer to him than any other.
"Move it, man!" Illya shouted at the engineer. "I told you, we're anxious to flake out of here."
The stout head turned on the fat shoulders. "Sure, I can give it more speed—"
"Then do it!"
"Do you think it matters? It doesn't matter how fast you run, how fast you force this train; you cannot escape the master."
Illya raged with laughter. "That old boy really has got you brainwashed, hasn't he?"
Stiffening, the engineer thrust the throttle forward. The train shuddered, seeming to lie on it side as it slid around a hairpin bend. "You'll see!" He concentrated on his instruments. "I'll tell you this—and we have learned it is true down here—no one escapes the master."
Illya laughed. "Your master says we can't escape." He pressed the snout of the gun into the thick jowls. "This gun says we'd better. Now who are you going to believe?"
Solo stared through the cab window as the fantastic underworld fled past the screaming train. Incredible formations whipped by, like nightmare fragments.
He spoke, awed: "Finnish didn't lie about one thing. There are whole valleys down here, three mile river beds. It's like a domed world."
"It's the master's world," the engineer said. "And the master controls it. As you will find."
The train whipped into a tunnel that seemed to press along the sleek exterior, and through it into a canyon of incredible depth and width. Underground towns loomed ahead, red lights flashing.
The engineer shouted, "Those warning signals! We've got to obey them."
"Negative." Illya said. "You keep moving."
People raced, like frantic animals on the walks, pressing close to the tracks. Guards knelt, guns at their shoulders, fixed on the train.
They fired as the streamliner wailed past.
The engineer spoke coldly across his shoulder. "It should not be long now. The word is flashing ahead to stop you."
Illya grinned at him wolfishly. "Just see that they don't."
"You don't understand," the engineer began.
"I know," Illya said. "It's like a broken record by now—"
"—no one can defy the master."
FOUR
With his three ministers waddling at his heels, Leonard Finnish plodded toward the control room. He held his signal-disc out before him, pressed it, and doors slid open before them.
The control room was frantic with activity, static with the tensions that seemed to rise from the television monitoring screens and from the automated control devices banked in the walls.
Silent men hunched on stools before the banks of flickering monitoring screens. Though they did not speak, their myopic eyes showed their sense of panic. Only the screen showing the stolen streamliner racing away from the center had any meaning at the moment.
Followed by his ministers, Finnish padded through the banks of control panels. He looked neither left nor right but went directly to the screen showing the stolen train.
"Racing at top speed, master," one of the monitors said to Finnish.
Finnish gave the man the briefest nod. He stared for some moments at the screen, the train whipping through tunnels, across wide valleys.
Watching the picture, Finnish pressed fat fingers against his throat, wheezing. A man thrust a small oxygen flask to him. Finnish took it, pressed its cone over his nostrils, never taking his gaze from that flashing picture.
He stared for a long time. It was as if he could see within the train cab itself where those arrogant young adventurers were in control, actually believing they could defy him, escape him—and live.
Finnish's pouting lips twisted. He sucked air deeply from the flask.
"What orders have you given?" he gasped.
"We've sent orders to all towns on that line to halt the train. But three cities now have failed to stop them, even to slow them."
Finnish sucked a deep breath from the oxygen cone. His voice was cold. "I'll take over now."
The monitor bowed, moving away from the screen and the microphones.
"Yes, Master."
Finnish draped himself painfully upon the monitoring stool. He peered some moments at the flashing screen, his face the gray of ashes. "I've not come this far to be stopped now. By anyone. No, not anyone!"
* * *
Lights flashed on the instrument panel before the engineer.
The stout assistant reached out toward the panel switches, but Illya leaped forward, snagged his wrist.
"What are you doing?"
"It is the signal from the control room," the engineer said. "We are being told to switch on our intercom receivers for a top priority message."
Illya released the assistant's wrist. "Ah? The master himself, eh?"
"That's right," the engineer said flatly.
The assistant flipped a switch on the instrument panel. The receivers crackled.
Leonard Finnish's wheezing voice suddenly filled the engine cab: "Mr. Solo? Mr. Kuryakin? Do you hear me?"
Illya glanced at the engineer. The fat man nodded. "Speak. The master will hear you."
"We're here," Illya said.
The speaker crackled a moment. "This is Leonard Finnish speaking, Solo. And you, Kuryakin. Listen carefully. I shall warn you but once. Stop my train instantly. Return to the yards."
The engineer's voice rattled with a pleased laugh.
Solo moved near the cab speaker. "Sorry, Professor. You must know we're not going to do that. We're on our way out of here."