Pinion, however, was silent as a clam. He smiled at Jim, but it was a malevolent smile now. There was no mistaking it. He wasn’t about to reveal himself, not to the nephew of Edward St. Ives, Russel Latzarel’s associate. Pinion would wait him out.
Jim was struck with sudden inspiration. He mumbled a quick goodbye, ducked out through the rain, angled around the side of the house into the back yard, and slid silently through the back door, a thrill of fear and intrigue sweeping him toward the living room where Pinion’s voice muttered along. Jim collapsed to his hands and knees at the sound of a shout: the word “yes” exclaimed by Pinion as if in response to a question. Jim picked himself up, cursing himself for having reacted as if he’d be invisible on all fours. His blood rushed along in a fever behind his ears. He needed a plan. Sailing in like this wouldn’t do. He was certain that farther along the hallway was a door — a closet door. He edged up toward it, holding his breath, calculating the time that Velma Peach was likely to arrive home from the bakery where she worked on Saturdays until four — several hours away yet. Pinion laughed aloud and made a peculiar swatting sound, as if slapping his fist into his open palm to emphasize a point. What if Velma Peach drove home for lunch? It was almost noon. If Giles caught him crouched in a coat closet, Jim would simply shriek and leap out at him, like Oscar would do, and pretend it was a gag. But if Velma Peach opened the closet door to shove her raincoat in — he didn’t want to think of it. It would be the end of both of them. He eased into the closet, shoving past an immense fur coat — the skin of an ape, apparently, that smelled musty, like the blue fungus that grows on leather shoes that have sat too long in the dampness of a dark closet floor. He pressed his ear to the wall. There was silence. He couldn’t hear a thing above the sound of his own heart. The sudden sound of Pinion’s voice directly beyond the wall nearly pitched him into the hairy coat. He stood still, breathing through his mouth, listening.
“Naked Eskimos. That’s what I said. And the north wind: there’s no doubt at all it gets warmer in the Arctic as one sails north. Latzarel, remember, hasn’t been to the Arctic. He pretends to be an explorer. Pshaw! He’s a boy scout, a tiny tot, a back yard scrabbler. Have you considered this: If rivers don’t flow out of the center of the Earth — and I, for one, know they do — then why are icebergs made of fresh water? And why, for the love of God, does the musk ox migrate north? Where is he going? To spend the winter on an ice field? You tell me!”
Giles apparently didn’t know, or at least he didn’t answer. He mumbled something about gravity, however, concerned as he naturally would be with physics.
“Fascinating business,” Pinion said. “Perfectly fascinating. You see, gravitational pull is immense, relatively speaking, around the curve from the exterior to the interior of the Earth. We’d roughly double our weight when sailing in through the polar openings along one of the rivers. But inside! Inside we’d halve our weight. A one-hundred-fifty-pound man would weigh about seventy-five pounds. He’d have to — centrifugal force would require it. It doesn’t take much to hold a body to the inside of a hollow, rotating ball.
“But this is all stuff. You’ve heard the same from Latzarel. I know you have. I didn’t drive over here today in that storm to chat about common knowledge. There’s information Latzarel hasn’t got. Nor can he get it! He knows nothing of a race of people — very wonderful people — living at the Earth’s core. Has he mentioned them to you? I think not.”
Jim heard the sound of Pinion slapping something again — a tabletop or the arm of his chair. Pinion paused, cleared his throat, and let the last bit of information settle.
“I was contacted by an emissary of these people. An interesting gentleman, to be sure. He had — how shall I say it? — certain physiological qualities that put me in mind of you. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was gilled. A merman, if you will. And, if I’m not entirely amiss, one of your relatives. You and your family, I mean to say, are exiles from the land within the Earth. A paradise of natural beauty and riches. Gemstones for the plucking. Rivers running with gold. Vast subtropical forests ripe with fruit through the unvarying seasons. There’s no winter there, boy! Think of it. Only perpetual spring and summer.
“It’s a land out of mythology — Ultima Thule, Atlantis, Shamballa, Agharta, Pellucidar! All the ancient mysteries explained. And you, my boy, exiled from that land of eternal sun, you and your unfortunate father …. Alas!”
Jim could imagine Pinion shaking his head, perhaps fondling Giles’ shoulder — the lying old hypocrite. Approached by an emissary! Why would an emissary approach John Pinion? Why wouldn’t he approach Giles Peach? Why would he approach anyone at all? To encourage lunatics like Pinion to invade the land beyond the poles? Jim was aghast. Would Giles swallow all this? Of course he would. He was nine-tenths of the way there before Pinion’s arrival. Why shouldn’t he? Uncle Edward had. Professor Latzarel had. And when Jim considered it for a moment, he had too. He didn’t half believe in Pinion’s emissary, but Ashbless had been right at the Newtonian Society meeting. Pinion would outdistance them all. He hadn’t their honesty, their integrity. But he’d very soon have Giles’ machine.
The front door shut with a suddenness that nearly toppled Jim into the ape coat again. It was Velma Peach, home for lunch. He could hear her there, a foot away. Through the crack between the door and the jamb he could see a hand gripping a raincoat. Surely she wouldn’t hang it in the closet. She was only home to eat lunch. He shut his eyes, waiting, considering and discarding speeches. The closet was far too small to hide him.
“What are you doing here?” demanded Mrs. Peach. For one desperate moment Jim was sure she was talking to him. But then the hand and the coat disappeared. Jim could hear her feet scraping away toward the living room. It was John Pinion she confronted.
“My good woman …” he began.
“What do you want here?”
“I’m interested only in your son’s welfare.”
“You’re interested in some slimy business, I’d warrant. If you want to talk to Giles, ask me first. I know who you are. Giles has enough ideas in his head without your shoving in.”
“Giles, perhaps, is the best judge of that,” Pinion replied in an abruptly icy tone. “You’re about to be outvoted by history. Take my word for it, my good …”
But he hadn’t time to finish before Velma Peach began to shout that she would “good woman” him out the door; Jim, in a wild rush, slid out of the closet unseen and fled down the hall, out through the kitchen and into the back yard. The front door slammed, Pinion’s truck rumbled away, and Jim idled casually along toward home, looking over his shoulder twice, fearful of being caught out and thinking wildly about Pinion’s Atlanteans and Mr. Hasbro’s car and of stealing Gill’s journals. How much of the day’s events could he tell Uncle Edward? All of it might be of vast importance. He’d make up some story of overhearing Pinion. And if it seemed a good idea, he’d mention the Metropolitan incident. Uncle Edward had, after all, insisted he’d been lashed with an invisible wet tentacle at The Newtonian meeting. But he couldn’t mention having seen Roycroft Squires on the flying bicycle. They’d shove him into bed and call Dr. Frosticos. The thought sobered him, and once again he thought of his father’s fear of Yamoto, of everything new or unusual. It seemed to him that whatever else might be true, they were certainly rushing headlong toward some strange fate.