The Long Sleep

XXII

He ran upstairs again to the “hotel” room. Richard, Galing, and the faceless man were all sprawled on the floor where he had left them. None of them seemed to be waking up yet. Allison was on the unmade bridal bed, her flimsy nightgown rolled above her knees, her black hair fanned out around her like a puff of smoke. He wrapped her in a blanket, scooped her up in his arms, and carried her downstairs to the kitchen.

The cellar door was closed, and no one was waiting for him. He had not expected anything else. No matter how familiar she was with the machinery, Gina couldn't possibly revitalize her zombie friends in such short order.

Outside, he crossed the sun-dappled, telescoped lawn, went through the forest where birds were singing and bees were buzzing, and came out onto the fake street in Anytown, U.S.A. They would expect him to go up to the intersection and down the side street to the door which he had discovered earlier. Therefore, he turned away from the intersection and eventually found another door that led out of the disguised corridor.

Five minutes later he had oriented himself. And five minutes after that, he brought Allison into one of the two garages where fan shuttles, jeeps, and military vehicles of every description were parked in even rows. He walked down one row and up another, quickly surveyed what was available, and chose one of the largest pieces. Resting Allison on the wide tread, he struggled with the door and got it open, picked her up again, lifted her almost above his head, and slid her onto the front seat.

She slept soundly.

He looked behind at the poorly lighted garage, at the rows of silent fan shuttles and hideous war machines, at the door through which he had come. The door was closed. And although the shuttles provided hundreds of hiding places, he was sure they were still alone. As yet there was no pursuit. But there would be. And soon now, real soon.

Walking around the vehicle to get some idea of what he would be handling, he decided that it was the equivalent of a tank, though more modern and considerably more formidable than a tank. Bigger than most tanks. Forty feet long if it was an inch. Twelve feet wide, maybe fifteen feet high. Brutish. Ugly. It would have been right at home in the age of the dinosaurs. Lower in the back than in front. Five-foot-high treads rather than shuttle blade. Cruised along the ground, not over it. Weapons systems. Curious gun barrels without bores in them. Twin rocket launchers, a slim missile locked in each. Steel plating. Solid. He nodded approvingly; it should get them through anything.

He didn't know why he was so sure that he needed a tank for the world which lay beyond the pyramid. It was a gut feeling, and he hadn't a shred of evidence to back it up. But he knew that if he ignored it, if he walked out of here without protection, he would be committing suidice.

Nevertheless, as dangerous as it might be, he had to leave. Henry Galing gave him no choice.

A sharp whistling noise sliced through the garage, and the public address system hissed to life. “Joel… Joel, wherever you are, please stop and listen to me.”

It was Henry Galing.

“Go to hell,” Joel said.

He got into the cab with Allison and pulled the heavy door shut, locked it. Galing's voice was now an indecipherable murmur. Joel got Allison into a sitting position, strapped her in place, then hooked into his own safety harness.

As he studied the complex banks of controls in front of him, he decided she would be better off asleep, and he hoped she remained unconscious longer than Galing had done. He had been driven to the wall and was acting precipitously; he had no way of knowing what he was getting them into. Trouble. Definitely trouble of some sort. But he couldn't say of what sort or how serious. Yes, it was best that she slept.

Galing's voice continued to drone senselessly beyond the walls of the tank.

With surprisingly little trial and error, he started the big tank's engines, which were powered by a miniature fusion plant. The controls were quite familiar. In some other age, back beyond the life support pod, he had operated this machine or one very much like it.

He put it in gear.

The tread clanked on the concrete floor.

“Here we go,” he said aloud, to himself.

The concrete pillars which supported the roof of the garage were marked by phosphorescent red arrows that pointed toward the exit. He drove the tank out of its niche and into the main aisle, turned left and followed the arrows.

At first he handled the tank clumsily. Taking a corner in the aisle, he misjudged his distances and crushed a small fan shuttle parked at the end of one row. The giant tread ground inexorably over the vehicle, tore it to pieces, mashed it flat, and kicked it out behind. After that, he was more careful.

The roar of the huge engines thundered from wall to wall, came back from the concrete ceiling like a wave from the beach.

A the back of the garage he located and boarded a stone ramp that led gradually upwards. Thirty yards along the ramp, the walls closed in and the ceiling lowered. The corners disappeared, and he was in a smooth steel tube, a tunnel.

When he glanced at the view-screen which brought a closed-circuit picture of the road behind, he saw that a sphincter door had cycled out of the walls back there. He was sealed off from the garage.

A trap?

He brought the tank to a full stop and thought about it. In a confined space like this, unable to turn and maneuver, his great big war machine wasn't much good to him. Galing and his crew — if they were the ones who had sealed him off, could enter the tube at their leisure, climb onto the tank, and eventually cut him out of it. If he used his missiles or other artillery at such close range, he would surely kill them — but, bottled in the tunnel as he was, he might also kill himself and Allison. Then he realized that, if he used the tank as a battering ram, he could probably buckle that door enough to get back into the garage. He wasn't imprisoned after all.

What then? If not a trap, it must be a precaution. He recalled the pressure hatch that led to the observation room and that thick gray window… Yes, this was most likely a precaution. The tunnel was like an anti-contamination chamber in a laboratory, separating experimental quarters from public rooms.

But what was outside that might contaminate the pyramid?

He supposed the only way to find out was to go on, and he put the tank in gear again. He followed the rising corridor until, at last, he came to a second sphincter door. His fingers darting swiftly over the solid-state light controls on the drive panel, he brought the tank to a full stop once more.

A computer display screen lighted above the exit:

He waited, though impatiently.

Two minutes later, twenty checks had been run on the lock and seal of the door behind him. Only then was the computer satisfied.

The sphincter door raised, let him through, and whirled shut again. He brought the tank to a halt just outside the tunnel mouth and, stunned, looked at the world he had been so long in reaching.