The woman came up to the Fireclown and pressed her body against him, her right arm spread up across his back, the fingers of the hand caressing him.
He smiled-somehow an extremely generous gesture considering he was now a hunted man-and gently pushed her away, saying something to her. She did not appear annoyed. Corso was more animated. He obviously felt a need for urgency which the Fireclown did not.
Alan suddenly heard a movement in the first chamber and hastily killed the set.
"Mr. Powys, sir?" the sergeant's voice shouted.
"What is it?" he replied, inwardly wishing the man dead.
"Wondered if you were all right, that's the only thing, sir-the smell in here is almost overpowering."
"I'm fine, sergeant, thanks." He heard the sergeant return to his post.
Now he noticed a smaller door leading off the room. It had no lock of any sort, just a projection at the top. He reached up to inspect it when the door wouldn't open. It was a small bar of metal sliding into a socket. He fiddled with it for a while, pulled at it and, at last, the right combination of chances released the mechanism and he pulled the door. Alan had never seen a bolt before.
The emergency bulb lit the place and showed him a narrow, low-roofed passage. A rusted sign hung suspended lopsidedly by one chain; the other had broken. Alan caught hold of it, disliking the touch of grimy rust on his fingers, and made out what it said: Restricted to all personnel! He let the sign go and it swung noisily against the wall as he continued along the tunnel. Finally he came to another door, but this one would not open at all. He went past it until he reached the end of the tunnel. This was half blocked by the fallen bulk of another massive steel door. He pulled himself over it, wondering if anyone had ever come this way since the lower levels, which had primarily been used for storing armaments, battle-machines and military personnel, had been abandoned with the Great Disarmament of 2042.
A noise ahead of him suddenly startled Alan and he automatically switched off the emergency bulb.
Voices sounded, at first indistinct and then clearer as Alan moved cautiously closer.
"We shouldn't have left those machines intact. If some fool fiddles about with them, heaven knows what* 11 happen."
"Let them find out." It was the Fireclown's voice, sounding like a pulse-beat.
"And who'll be blamed?" he heard Corso say tiredly. "You will. I wish you'd never talked me into this."
"You agreed with my discoveries, Corso. Have you changed your mind now?"
"I suppose not… Damn!" Alan heard someone stumble. A woman giggled and said:
"You're too hasty, Corso. What's the hurry? At present they're combing the corridors they know about. We have plenty of time."
"Unless they find the boat before we get there," Corso said querulously. Alan was creeping behind them now, following them as they moved along in the dark.
"I'm only worried about the fuel. Are you sure we've enough fuel, Corso?" The Fireclown spoke. Although this man had been accused of planning to blow up the world, Alan felt a glow as he listened to the rich, warm voice.
"We wouldn't make Luna, certainly, on what we've got. But we've got enough to take us as far as we want to go."
"Good."
Alan heard a low whine, a hissing noise, a thump, and then the voices were cut off suddenly. A few yards further on his hand touched metal.
He switched on the emergency bulb and discovered that he had come to a solid wall of steel. This was completely smooth and he could not guess how it opened.
He tried for almost an hour to get it to work, but finally, his body feeling hollow with frustration, he gave up and began to make his way back in the direction he had come.
A short time later the ground quivered for a few seconds and he had to stop, thinking insanely that the stock-pile of bombs had exploded. When it was over, he thought he could guess what had caused it. The Fireclown had made some reference to a boat-a space boat. Perhaps that had taken off, though how it was possible so deep underground he couldn't guess.
He was feeling intensely tired. His limbs and his head ached badly and he was incapable either of sustained thought or action. He had to keep stopping every few yards in order to rest, his body trembling with reaction. But reaction to what? To some new nervous or mental shock, or was it the cumulative effect of the past few days? He had been unable to sort out and analyze his emotions earlier, and was even less capable of doing so now.
An acute sense of melancholy possessed him as he stumbled miserably on, at last arriving back at the office. Wearily, he dumped the emergency bulb down in the main chamber, suddenly becoming conscious of a tremendous heat emanating from some source outside. When he reached the entrance the guards had gone. Somewhere in the distance he heard shouts and other noises. As he reached the opening on to the main corridor he saw that it was ablaze with light.
And the light-a weird, green-blue blaze-was coming from the Fireclown's great cavern.
A policeman ran past him and Alan shouted: "What's happening?"
"Fire!" the policeman continued to run.
Now, pouring like a torrent, the flames were eddying down the corridor, a surging, swift moving inferno. There was nothing for the fire to feed on, yet it moved just the same, as if of its own volition.
Fascinated, Alan watched it approach. The heat was soon unbearable and he backed into the chamber.
Only at that moment did it dawn on him that he should have run towards the ramps. He was completely trapped. Also, the laboratory contained inflammable chemicals which would ignite as soon as the blaze reached them.
He ran towards the entrance again, stupefied by the heat, and saw that it was too late. The wall of heaving flame had almost reached him.
He still felt no panic. Part of him almost welcomed the flames. But the air was becoming less and less breathable.
He wrenched open doors, looking for another exit. The only possible one seemed to be that which he'd just come back from.
It occurred to him that the Fireclown had been misjudged all round-by everyone except his grandfather who had realized the danger.
The Fireclown had released an inferno on the City of Switzerland. But how? He had never seen or heard of any flames like those which now began to dart around the corridor. He coughed and rubbed the sweat out of his eyes.
At last his brain began to function again. But too late, now, for him to do anything constructive.
Suddenly the entrance was filled with a roaring mass of fire. He retreated from it, hit his back against the corner of a bench, stumbled towards the office. As he slammed the steel door behind him he heard an explosion as the flame touched some of the spilled chemicals.
Air was still flowing in from another source in the small tunnel. He kept the door open.
The other door, sealing off the flames, began to heat and he realized, with fantastic horror, that when it melted, as it inevitably must, he would die.
He would, he decided, leave the office and head into the tunnel at the last minute. Sitting in the darkness, his confused mind began to clear as the heat rose, and he faced death. A peculiar feeling of calm came upon him and belatedly, he began to think.
The thoughts were not particularly helpful in his present predicament. They told him of no way of escape, but they helped him face the inevitable. He thought he understood, now, the philosophic calm which came to men facing death.
For some days, he realized, he had been moving in a kind of half-dream, grasping out for something that might have been-he hesitated and then let the thought come-love. His emotions had ruled him; he had been their toy, unaware of his motives.