The Great White Space

Ten

We were rumbling slowly ahead again in the inky darkness, our speed reduced to a mere crawl, the searchlight probing the monotonous miles before us. I was steering now, while the Professor sat brooding at the chart-table, every once in a while pausing to stare out of the windscreen; he remained fixed in his attitude for perhaps a quarter of an hour on these occasions and I wondered again what calculations were being evolved within that massive cranium.

Scarsdale had told us we would conserve power in the reduction of speed and though we remained in constant radio contact this first day, I myself thought that Scarsdale hoped to alleviate the monotony of the journey; in truth the somewhat boring and fatiguing routine involved in making the long preliminary approach to the object of our search left one inordinately tired and debilitated. But I noted that Scarsdale's concentration did not relax for one moment and I realised also something of the reasons for the change of driver in Number 1 vehicle and the slackening of speed.

The Professor sat in his padded leather seat behind the chart-table and occasionally would interrupt his calculations to pick up the night-glasses which stood at his elbow and scan the tunnel ahead as though by this he would bring our destination nearer. We had been travelling for more than two hours in this way; the warm air blowing steadily through the vents; the whine of the motors making a repetitive fugue in one's ears; the compass needle swinging ever so slightly with the minute variations in the direction of the tunnel, so accurate were these ancient engineers; and the high falsetto of Van Damm occasionally piercing the static from the radio monitor on the bulkhead.

Occasionally too, there were strange variations in the rhythm of our motors and several times I had let the head of the tractor lurch round a little as I struck curious areas of shadow against the rocky wall of the tunnel; Scarsdale's muttered comments were hardly needed but the effect was annoying and made steering more difficult. I glanced in the rear mirror more than once and realised that a malicious corner of my soul was pleased to note that whoever was driving Van Damm's vehicle was not finding things any easier.

And then there came to me in detail the model in Scarsdale's far-off study among the misty hills of Surrey and I found many questions blurting to my tongue. The Professor heard me out in amused silence.

'I was wondering when you would notice,' he said at length. 'The patches of shadow you see are arcades leading to what other caverns and labyrinths God knows. It would take a lifetime to explore them all.'

I was silent for a moment while I absorbed this information.

'You explored some on foot?' I ventured at length.

Scarsdale nodded, his eyes scanning the tunnel ahead.

'I reeled off twine and took a torch but it was hopeless. They were terrifying places. I had a thousand yards of twine and gave up when that ran out. One could wander for years out there, if the hundreds of side tunnels I came across were as extensive.'

I found the implications of the Professor's remarks difficult to take in.

'Then this may be considered a city, with the tunnel its main artery,' I said.

Scarsdale nodded. 'Excellent, Plowright,' he said. 'I had come to much the same conclusion myself.'

He turned to face me in the bluish gloom of the control chamber.

'We have not, of course, had an opportunity thus far to make detailed observations on foot, but there were curious symbols placed at intersections and cross-over points in the tunnels. These, which were strangely incised and high upon the walls, combined with the lack of any observable arrangements for lighting the tunnels — such as torches or brazier fires — led me to believe that the former inhabitants of this place were blind and crept about the passages by feel.'

The Professor's words and the circumstances under which they were uttered had such unpleasant connotations that I fear Number 1 vehicle gave a great lurch which, however, I had started to correct before the Professor's admonition. Such a supposition had not occurred to me and gave rise to such a vivid range of images that I later came to regret the Professor's uncalled-for confidence. I was even, in rather a cowardly fashion, glad that Van Damm's vehicle was to lead the following day, when we hoped to be approaching the underground lake of which Scarsdale had spoken.

We had not planned a very long run that afternoon as we wished to make rather more elaborate arrangements for camping that night. We could not, of course, have fires, even if there had been any driftwood and there was no point in being 'outside' the tractors, when we had their security for sleeping arrangements. I had saved a sandwich from the lunch-break, as I had eaten little due to the excitement engendered by our surroundings, and I juggled the controls precariously as I munched at the tinned ham, occasionally fortifying myself from the thermos-flask of hot tea with which we always provided ourselves each morning at breakfast.

The Professor, when he was not studying the tunnel ahead, was busy on the chart-table with some of his more cryptic books and documents. I noticed once again his typed copy of the ancient and blasphemous Ethics of Ygor and the highly abstruse calculations which Van Damm had referred to as the Trone-Tables. His use of these ciphers and the other media with which the chart-table was strewn were far beyond my knowledge of such things but possibly the Professor had chosen me as his companion in the tractor precisely because I had the layman's mind and he could occasionally put his thoughts into words and test my sometimes banal reactions. With Van Damm he would, more often as not, have engaged in verbal battle in which these two highly trained minds were fairly evenly matched.

Now he sat with his leather-padded sleeves firmly resting on the table, his great shoulders hunched as he studied the figures before him, occasionally shaking as though exasperated beyond measure. Finally, he put his pencil from him and sat up in his chair, swivelling it to face me.

‘I think we might as well call it a day, Plowright,' he said. 'You must find this tiring, and after all, you have done most of the donkey work so far.'

I cast a quick look at the mileage indicator; I shook my head wonderingly as I saw that the day's total — even allowing for our snail's progress this afternoon — registered no less than seventy-one miles. I mentally calculated that the longest street in the world — reputedly in Russia — could have been put down in our tunnel nine or ten times over before it would make an equivalent distance. I simply could not imagine the sophisticated engineering and equipment which would be needed to create such artefacts in the dawn of time and I put further banal self-questioning from me, as Scarsdale spoke again.

'Please give the signal.'

The electric klaxon on top of the tractor blared with heart- stopping raucousness within the tunnel as I pressed the button; Scarsdale would insist on its use as the halt signal either on the surface or under the earth and I myself felt it was something we could do without as the radio link would have been just as effective. But it was Scarsdale's expedition and he made the procedure a rule so we said nothing. Holden's voice came over the radio monitor a few seconds later.

'Executive signal received. What are your instructions?'

'We shall be camping for the night in five minutes,'

Scarsdale replied. 'Please make all necessary preparations.'

The black walls of the tunnel, with an occasional mouth debouching from it, continued to slide by in the yellow glare of our searchlights; already, it seemed as though we had been travelling due north for days. Scarsdale smiled wryly as I observed to him that the Expedition's title was perhaps a little more apposite than hitherto. The warm wind blew as strongly as ever, though fortunately it was still nothing more than a breeze; the air was dry; and the rock grated beneath the rustling tread of the tractors.

Scarsdale was already moving about the cabin, tripping switches which set generators re-charging batteries; testing circuits; and doing the other mundane things on which our survival depended, such as checking levels in the fresh-water tanks and preparing materials for the evening meal, which we would take some time after six o'clock.

I throttled back the motors, my forearms trembling slightly as they were wont to do, after some time spent at the levers, my legs aching from the transmission of the tread movements to the accelerator pedals. Sophisticated as these great machines were, and as cunningly as Scarsdale and Van Damm had designed the transmission mechanisms, they were undoubtedly tiring to drive though the going in these tunnels (I persisted in referring to the broad highways along which we were travelling in the plural) was nowhere as difficult as it had been across the desert.

But there we had the sweet sky above us, and not this lunar blackness which seemed to depress one's spirits beyond measure, even though we had been travelling under the mountains for less than a day; and to recall we had thought the desert sky cruel! I jerked out of my reverie at a sudden exclamation from Scarsdale. He was standing in a stiff attitude in front of the windscreen, his actions arrested in process of tripping one of the switches. The incident was so unusual for him that I might have been more startled than I seemed but I had already begun the stopping procedure of the tractor, so I merely continued with my routine.

The treads rotated ever slower and the shrill whine died away to a minuscule ticking; I switched off then and became aware of the faint respiration of the warm breeze which set up a soft susurrance as of distant surf within the tunnel.

The motor of Van Damm's machine impinged itself upon my consciousness and I turned to see Number 2 stopping behind us; the searchlight on the roof blossomed brighter and several secondary lights came on. By this time I had joined Scarsdale at the windscreen.

'Is there anything wrong?' I asked.

Scarsdale relaxed his tense attitude. He turned towards me and concluded his switching movements on the panel.

'I don't know, Plowright,' he said slowly, his face stern in the yellow atmosphere of the searchlights. 'I fancied I saw something white flicker up ahead in the tunnel.'

'A pity you didn't warn me,' I said without thinking. 'We could have run on a few hundred yards.'

'That's just what one doesn't do under these circumstances,' said Scarsdale, as though he were explaining something elementary to a child. 'We don't know what we may meet in these tunnels. One notes; one consolidates; and one then reconnoitres in strength — suitably armed.'

Here he slapped the webbing holster at his belt with significance.

'I'm sorry. Professor,' I said contritely. 'I didn't think.'

'It's all right,' he returned. 'But I've naturally given this a great deal of thought over the years. And I've worked out a routine for every eventuality — I trust.'

Sparks of humour glinted in his eyes as he opened the door of the Command tractor and stepped down on to the iron-hard floor of the tunnel. Van Damm had opened the door of his own machine before it had stopped and, stepping delicately on to the metal casing which protected the treads, dropped to the ground. The two men met midway between the machines and conferred quietly.

Van Damm went back to Number 2. I heard his shouted instructions, distorted between the walls of the tunnel.

'Bring the tractor up level with the other. We want to get maximum illumination ahead. Scarsdale's spotted something down the tunnel.'

I stood aside as Holden manoeuvred the big machine alongside our own; when he had switched off the motors the throb of generators echoed back along the passage and then all the main lighting of the tractor came on. I went to stand with Scarsdale to one side; the grotesque shadows of myself and the Professor sprawled ahead of us along the floor. The beams of both tractors stretched a long way and I fancied I could see something faintly white in the far distance.

When I had indicated this to the Professor he called Van Damm over and the lighting of Number 2 vehicle was switched off. The five of us then conferred briefly; Holden went into Number 1 tractor and turned off everything except the main searchlight. I noticed that Scarsdale had his revolver out and the others appeared to be bristling with weapons. Even Van Damm was waving a dangerous-looking automatic pistol as he conversed with the Professor.

Reluctantly, I got out my own revolver and released the safety catch though I felt that the Professor and his companions were in far greater danger from my own incompetent marksmanship than they might be from anything in front of us.

Scarsdale turned back to me when he had finished talking to the doctor.

'You had better come with me, Plowright,' he said. 'We'll keep abreast. In case of emergency this will obviate anything ricochetting off the tunnel walls and injuring one of us.

I hadn't thought of that and gratefully fell in step with his burly figure as we walked away from the tractors into the encompassing gloom. Both of us had switched on the lamps incorporated in our helmets and the bobbing shadows which flickered and flared on the walls either side the farther we got from the comforting beam of the searchlight, made a weird pattern that formed a fitting accompaniment to my sombre thoughts.

We had now got more than two hundred yards from the tractors and were passing the dark mouths of various archways; these were no doubt the side tunnels to which Scarsdale had already referred and I hoped they were as empty as my companion supposed. We could easily be cut off from the main body if anything in this labyrinth wished us harm. I wondered whether the Professor had thought of this but I hesitated to mention it, in case he might find me over fanciful.

I felt my arm silently gripped and at the same time I saw what the Professor wished to draw to my attention; the flicker of white I had glimpsed from the distance was markedly nearer and with every rasping footstep we took began to resolve itself from the gloom. Presently, in the manner in which the image of a developing photograph composes itself before one in the developing tray, we saw what was undoubtedly a human figure lying on the floor of the tunnel.

Scarsdale steadied his revolver and his face was stern in the light of our head-lamps. He tightened his grip on my arm.

'Stay here,' he said quietly.

'Ought I not to go with you?' I queried. 'In case of danger…'

'In case of danger one alone will be enough,' he said firmly. 'You can do more to help by staying here. In an emergency you would be able to do a great deal more to help me.'

I saw the sense of this and said nothing further. There ensued a long thirty seconds as I stood and watched Scarsdale's lamp bobbing and dwindling up the tunnel before me. The rasping of his footsteps ceased and there was just enough light to see that the Professor was kneeling to examine something. He returned a few moments later, walking backwards down the tunnel towards me, fanning his revolver from side to side.

He stood next to me and took a deep breath.

'It's the dwarf, Zalor,' he said in a rather unsteady voice. 'Though God knows how he could have got here. He's quite dead. We'll bring the machines up and dispose of him.'

The next few minutes were a confusion of tractor motors, dipping lights and anxious questions. Holden went out with Scarsdale to drag Zalor into one of the side tunnels. I could confirm that it was he from this nearer view and I recognised the clothing he had been wearing. He looked curiously deflated as I gazed at his remains from a distance; Scarsdale would not let anyone else approach closer.

He and Holden went out later and while they were away I went back into Number 1 tractor and brewed some much- welcomed tea. When I went outside again Scarsdale gave the order to back the tractors down the tunnel and make camp there. I noticed that one searchlight was kept on; Scarsdale ordered permanent sentries to keep watch throughout the night and one of the light machine-guns was set up on top of the Command tractor and an extension wire to the alarm klaxon run out for the sentry's use should it be needed during the night.

I viewed all these precautions with disquiet which was not alleviated by Holden's behaviour; he had apparently been taken sick, said Van Damm, who had attended him. Holden did indeed have several vomiting attacks and when I offered him tea later he had a face that looked ashen and haggard. He took the tea sullenly, quite unlike his usual self and sipped it with great shuddering gasps between.

Scarsdale also looked more grim than I had yet seen him and often turned his night-glasses down the far curve of the tunnel, towards the side entrance where they had taken the dwarfs body. No-one slept much that night and towards midnight I found myself in conversation with Holden in Number 2 vehicle. He looked better than he had that afternoon but his eyes had a strange, haunted look which I didn't like. As we talked — myself interrogatively, he in brief, disjointed monosyllables — his eyes wandered ever and again back to the windscreen of the tractor and the dark bend of the tunnel in the far distance, cut off where the tractor searchlight beam's power failed to penetrate.

'It wasn't so much the loss of weight,' he told me finally, 'though that was bad enough. The dwarf was like a husk from which all the essence had been drained.'

Holden cast a curious look over his shoulder, at the tunnel beyond the windshield.

'All his face seemed to have been sucked away,' he said, the greyness back in his own features. 'I ask you, what sort of creature can have done that?'

It was a question which made sleep impossible for me also that night.