I stepped into the radial tunnel.
It was steep—so steep that I almost fell. The water ran fast, tugging at my numbed feet. But in a moment I caught my footing. I found that the floor sloped queerly down to the walls, leaving the center barely submerged. I kept to that flooded ford as well as I could in the dark
The two men were a long way ahead.
And suddenly they disappeared. For a moment the tunnel seemed completely dark and empty. Then I could see a faint flicker of light on a surface of black water.
I went on down the tunnel, guiding myself mostly by what little feeling was left in my wet and frozen feet. Water was rushing fast down the unseen gutters on either side of me, but now, part of the time, the center was—well, not dry; but at least not covered with flowing water, so that the footing was easier. But icy water dripped and showered on me from the rock roof overhead. I was soaked and shivering; my uniform was a sopping rag.
But at last I reached the bottom of the radial.
Its water poured into a sump, one of the cavernous tanks that had been excavated to give the city a margin of safety, in case of real trouble with the drainage pumps. This enormous chamber, more than a hundred feet across, was roofed with reinforced concrete; but the walls were black and drill-scarred basalt.
Water was spilling into it from half a dozen radial drains. The rock beneath my feet shook with the vibration of the hidden pumps that sucked the, water out and forced it into the crushing deeps outside.
The pale light that showed me what few details I could make out of the flooded pit came from somewhere below the outlet of the tunnel that I had followed.
Searching for the source of it, I stepped closer to the pit. The seepage water was running fast here, foaming around my feet even when I kept on the narrow ridge between the two gutters. It was nearly strong enough to carry me over the edge; I dropped to my hands and knees to look over the brink of the pit.
And I found the source of the glowing pale light.
It was a shimmering edenite film—the armor of a long subsea ship, floating awash in the pit!
It was the most astonishing sight I ever saw in my life.
I lay there, clutching the jagged rock spillway rim, staring, hardly conscious of the icy water that ripped at me. A sea-car! And a big one at that—in this drainage sump, without a lock, without any way of getting in or out!
It was almost impossible to believe. And yet, there I saw it.
I couldn’t even guess the total depth of the pit, but the surface of the dark water was a dozen feet below me; the rushing drainage water made a waterfall as it plunged into the pit. The noise drowned out sounds; and there was so little light that, nearly hidden by the lip of the radial drain, there was small danger of my being seen.
The long bright hull was just awash. A stubby conning tower projected a few feet above the water. The old Oriental was climbing down into that conning tower; someone else was just outside it, on the tiny surfacing platform. He was holding a handrail, leaning out to look down into the black water.
He waited—and, a few yards above him, I waited too—until a diver’s head burst out of the water. A diver! It was almost as fantastic to find a diver in that pit as to find the ship itself. The diver was wearing a bulky thermosuit—without it, he could hardly have lived a minute in that water. The goggled helmet hid his face.
He held up his arm, holding the end of a line.
“Ready?” His voice was muffled and distorted in the helmet, making a strange rumbling echo under the dark concrete dome. “Hoist away!”
He slipped back into the water. The man on deck hauled in the line. Evidently it was heavy, because he was soon breathing hard. He paused for a second, and glanced up, wiping his brow.
He didn’t see me—but I saw him. There had been no error. I had been following the right man.
It was Bob Eskow.
Suddenly I was conscious of the numbing cold and wet again. The whole world was cold. I had hoped that, by some fantastic accident, this whole thing had been a mistake—but now there was no doubt.
I watched numbly while the diver came up again, guiding the object that Bob was hauling so painfully to the deck of the sea-car. The diver took great care of it; he got between it and the ship, fending it off.
I leaned out as far as I could, trying to see what it was.
The whole thing was fantastic. How could this ship be here—in a drainage sump, far beneath the city? There could be no passage to the sea—no possibility of it, for the whole ocean would be roaring and crashing in, driven by the mighty pressure of three miles of salt water.
And locks were just as impossible. Why, an edenite lock system was a fantastically complicated engineering project! It would be easier to build a new sea-car on the base of the sea itself than to construct a secret lock system.
But even without considering all those fantasies, one question remained.
Why?
What could be the purpose of it all? Who could find it worth his while to smuggle an edenite armored sea-car in here? Smuggle—why, that word suggested an explanation: smugglers. But that was ridiculous, too; no sooner had I thought it than I realized it could hardly be an answer; there simply was nothing that could be smuggled so valuable as to justify this order of effort.
And then I saw what was being hoisted aboard the sea-car.
My wondering speculations froze in my mind, for what Bob Eskow and the diver were so cautiously, so arduously bringing aboard had a fearfully familiar appearance.
It was a polished ball of bright gold, about six inches in diameter. And heavy—by the way they carried it, remarkably heavy for its size.
A stainless steel handling band was clamped around it, bearing a ring; the hauling line was made fast to the ring.
I knew what it was at that first glance, for at the Academy I had worked with such a device in the Thermonuclear Weapons Lab.
It was the primary reactor for a thermonuclear device.
In other words…it was an H-bomb fuse!
I didn’t have to be told that the private use of thermonuclear weapons was a very serious affair.
What was this? Was this ship being armed for some kind of piratical voyage of looting and destruction? That was my first thought—but Bob Eskow didn’t fit my idea of a pirate. Not even a thermonuclear pirate!
I almost forgot to be cold, waiting to see what might come next. Bob lowered the deadly little golden ball through a hatchway. The old Oriental, below, must have been stowing it away.
And Bob tossed the end of the line back to the diver—who went down again.
More of them!
Not just one H-bomb fuse, but several. Many! They were soon hauling another out of where they had been hidden beneath the water—then another—another…
There were eight of the deadly little things.
Eight thermonuclear fuses! Each one of them capable of starting a fusion blast that could annihilate a city!
This was no mere voyage of piracy—no—this was something far more deadly and more serious.
I watched, half dazed, while the diver, his frightful chores completed, hauled himself out of the water and unzipped his bulky thermosuit.
When he slipped off his helmet, I nearly fell into the pit. The face that looked out from under that helmet was the honest and friendly Negro face of my uncle’s right-hand man, Gideon Park!
It was enough to bring a crashing finish to one of the worst days of my life; but it was not the end, there was more to come, and worse.
The job of loading was done.
While I watched, Gideon quickly folded the thermosuit, coiled the line, stowed away the loose gear on the little surfacing platform. He said something to Bob, too low for me to hear above the rush of the water.