I pushed myself to my feet and leaped at him. It was like jumping a Tiger tank—I went spinning away at the end of one of his giant fists. He laughed and came after me; I bounced off the wall and came in…
And then Gideon moved.
Like a bolt of dark lightning he leaped from his seat and landed on the big man’s back. I came in again, but I caught a random blow from Brooks’ fist that sent me to the floor, dazed; I could only watch the two of them for a moment, while my muscles would not obey me. They were an uneven match—Gideon a little taller than the apeman, but at least fifty pounds lighter. After the first surprise, Brooks simply grunted and heaved and Gideon went flying; the butler lumbered after him and caught him around the throat. Those enormous muscles were choking the life out of Gideon; I crouched there, paralyzed, fighting with my own body to get up, to help Gideon…
But Gideon needed no help. The hard days in Kelly’s Kingdom had taught him more tricks than ever we learned at the Academy. I couldn’t even see just what happened; all I saw was Gideon slumping, bringing his knees up under him; then an enormous surge of strength, and the squat man flying, Gideon after him and on him; a brief and savage scramble as the butler went for his gun…
And then Gideon, bleeding and breathless, standing over him, holding the gun.
“Get up now, Jim,” Gideon panted. “We’re going to take a little walk.”
16
Father Neptune: Farmhand
We got out of there—somehow.
I was only conscious of Gideon leading the way, the butler sullenly coming along, unlocking doors, keeping an eye open for other members of Sperry’s staff. We were lucky; no one intercepted us. The butler, of course, was even luckier, for Qideon was right there with the gun.
We took the butler along for company as far as the express elevator banks, then we plunged in and left him standing there, just as the elevator doors closed.
We were in a hurry.
Gideon gripped my arm warningly; there were other passengers in the car; this was not the place to discuss our plans. We went down and down, to die bottom level of warehouses, before Gideon tugged at me and led me out of the elevators. Down a long, damp corridor, through a side passage, and I began to hear the rushing sounds of water.
We were back in Gideon’s hermit-hideaway, on the ledge that overlooked the rushing drains. “All right, boy,” said Gideon exultantiy, “let them try to find us here!”
All the comforts of home. Even Gideon’s little store of supplies and firewood still was intact; he busied himself starting a fire and setting a pot of water on it for his favorite steaming tea, while I tried to sort things out in my mind.
I said, “I don’t understand it, Gideon. Brand Sperry shouldn’t be here. He should be at the Academy.”
“The old man must have called him home,” said Gideon.
“But he can’t! I mean, if Sperry left in the middle of a year, that would wreck his chances of graduating. And—”
“And maybe he doesn’t care, boy.” Gideon solemnly handed me a tin cup of tea; I set it down hastily and blew on my fingers.
“Maybe the Academy looks like mighty small potatoes to the Sperrys right now. Something big is up, mark my words.” He looked at me thoughtfully over the top of his own can of tea as he sipped it—he must have had asbestos lips! “Figure it out,” he said.
“One, you were followed all the way from the United States to Marinia. Those were Sperry’s men—do you think they were doing it for fun? Two, one of those same men tried to kill you. Do you think that was just a joke? Three, somebody went to the trouble of trying to impersonate you here—nearly killing you in the process. That’s getting to be a pretty bad joke by now, Jim!”
“But why?”
Gideon set down his tea and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looking at me. “What was your uncle looking for in Eden Deep, Jim?” he inquired.
“Why—uranium.”
“Uranium.” He nodded, his soft eyes sober. “Uranium. And what is it that the whole world is short of now? So short that they have to cut down on power consumption everywhere—so short that the man who had control of a big new uranium lode would pretty near be able to write his own ticket? Uranium! Uranium’s power—and power is what Hallam Sperry loves most of anything in the world.”
I said, “But, Gideon, a man like Hallam Sperry doesn’t have to do that! He’s powerful now—rich, influential. He’s the mayor of Marinia, he has shipping lines and submarine mines and all kinds of properties, more than any man needs.”
“Why?” Gideon pursed his lips. “I don’t know if I can tell you, Jim. You’d have to look inside Hallam Sperry’s mind to know the answer, and to tell the truth that’s not a job I’d much like—not without a brainpump, anyhow. Power’s a disease; the more you get, the sicker you are; and Hallam Sperry’s about as sick as he can be. Marinia? That’s nothing to him, Jim!”
“But— ”
“But nothing, Jim.” He got up and rummaged in the crevices of the wall for the blankets he had neatly and methodically stowed away. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but it’s pretty late and we’ve had a hard day. Let’s get a night’s sleep. Maybe we can find out some of the answers in the morning.”
I slept, all right—but not easily. All night long I tossed and turned, dreaming of the Sperrys and my uncle and the man in the white suit and, most of all, that room with the brainpump and the body of Catroni.
I woke up, and Gideon was gone.
I searched the tunnel ledge all up and down its length without finding him; it was a bad twenty minutes. Then I heard cautious footsteps approaching; I got out of sight until the man coming toward me appeared… and it was Gideon.
He grinned at me. “Up so early, Jim?” he greeted me. “Thought you’d be sleeping for an hour yet.”
“Where have you been?” I demanded. “I thought——”
“You thought old Hallam Sperry had come down here personally and snatched me away, did you? No, not this time, Jim. I just had a little business to attend to, that’s all.” He put down a knapsack and said: “Breakfast. We’ll cook it up and eat, and then we’ll pay a call on a friend of mine. Maybe he’ll have some information for us.”
We ate quickly enough, but then Gideon insisted on sitting and resting for a while, to my irritation. He calmed me down quickly enough, though—”Trust in Gideon,” he said. “I’ve got a friend of mine out digging up information; give him time to get it done. We’re safer here than we will be out there, anyhow. And more comfortable, too.”
“More comfortable” was right. When finally Gideon decided it was time to move, he led me through byways and passages that I hadn’t dreamed existed, to parts of Thetis I had never seen. We came out in a broad, high-ceilinged chamber, where the floor was a slimy trickle of greenish liquid and the air smelled of sour seaweed and iodine. Gideon stopped at the entrance and murmured, “Ever wonder what a place like Thetis is good for, Jim? Here’s the answer, right in front of your eyes!”
All across the floor were stacks of sodden kelp and other marine vegetable growths. They were on raised platforms, a few inches above the floor of the chamber; from them liquid trickled and ran off, contributing to the dampness underfoot. “This is the draining chamber,” Gideon whispered. “What they harvest in the farms outside comes in here; it’s stacked and drained, and baled and sent to the processing chambers.”
“It smells pretty fierce,” I said.
Gideon chuckled. “Try and stand it for a few minutes,” he advised. “I’ll be back.”