Chapter 5

Suddenly there came a flash of light straight ahead. Ernol had reached the outer corridor. And the doctor heard a great commotion going on outside the door in the ravine; a smashing and thudding, which filled the corridor with noise. Next second the door gave way, and simultaneously young Ernol leaped into the niche behind the thing which the doctor thought a machine gun. Another second, and he had the device in operation.

From its muzzle shot a thin stream of fire, which extended the whole length of the corridor. It lighted up everything with a bluish-white glare, revealing a mob of men at the door. They fell back, yelling with pain, some of them dropping in their tracks. And all the while the apparatus was dealing, not a shower of bullets, but a streak of liquid fire, which hissed and screamed like the blast from an oxygen blow-pipe.

But it was all over in a second or two. A noise from behind, and young Ernol started up suddenly, only to find himself in the grip of a veritable giant of a man. His struggles were simply useless. In a moment he was being carried bodily back into the hall, which the doctor saw was now lighted as before.

On one side, lined up amid a mass of wrecked chairs, stood most of the workers at bay. On the other were four men with small boxlike devices, such as Billie had already seen in the hands of Powart's guards, and which were kept trained threateningly upon the crowd. On the platform stood Ernol, now quite helpless in the grasp of two stalwart fellows.

The mob from the door poured in. Immediately they made captors of all the workers, who had precious little to say. Apparently they had been warned. The doctor also concluded that the capture was a piece of treachery, in which bribery had been employed.

Two minutes later young Ernol was placed in a large passenger flier, which the doctor labeled "Black Maria." Presumably the elder radical was taken in another; at any rate after another flight in the darkness, father and son shortly found themselves together again.

They were now in the drawing-room of some private residence, concluded the doctor. This puzzled him somewhat until, after a brief wait under the eyes of a half-dozen guards, the two radicals were taken into another room.

Here, lying on a couch, was a man whom the doctor soon identified. He was none other than Mona's patient, Eklan Norbith, the commission's deputy in Calastia. He was a burly, dark-featured fellow; and even though rigid in his plaster cast, he looked competent and formidable.

"Ernol," said he in a heavy, domineering voice, "there is no need to state the case to a man of your intelligence. You gave your word to stop your teachings; you have been caught in the act. Frankly, I rather thought you would do it; that is why I am here to-night. I want--to deal with you personally."

He paused for breath, and then went on, still ignoring the student, "Ernol, you know what I want. I want those photographs; and what is more, I am going to have them. You must have passed them to some one who escaped in the confusion; they have not been located on any one who has been captured, nor were they hid in the hall. Now I will give you exactly ten seconds [Footnote: For the sake of clearness, the Capellan second, whose actual length is of course unknown, is used here as though it were uniform with earth standards.] to tell me what you did with them."

He eyed a clock on the wall.

The radical, whose hands were tied behind him, nevertheless managed to strike a defiant pose. "I don't intend to tell you, Norbith. It is true that I handed them to one of my comrades; but I shall not tell you which one."

"Your time is up," said the man with the silver heart evenly. "Will you tell?"

Ernol contented himself with a contemptuous shake of the head. The man of the couch, for the first time conceding young Ernol's presence, now ordered him brought forward.

"I know," he told the father, "that it would be useless to work with YOU. You are just fool enough to imagine that suffering means martyrdom.

"But I told you that I must have those photographs. I meant it. I shall have that information if I have to torture you until I get it!"

"Go right ahead!" taunted the revolutionist; but his face was white.

Norbith turned to the boy's guards. "Strap him into this chair!"

It was done in half a minute. The doctor had no way of seeing how the boy took it, except that he studiously avoided his father's eyes, and that he made no sound.

"Now move him under that clock!"

One of the guards gave a low exclamation, instantly checked at a cold stare from Norbith. And meanwhile the boy was being placed just below, and a little to one side of the big clock.

"Remove the lower half of the clock-case!"

It was done in a few seconds. The instrument's pendulum now vibrated freely in the air, its weight swinging almost to the boy's head where he sat.

"Move him until I drop my hand," said Norbith.

A slight push, and instantly the doctor became aware that the heavy pendulum of the clock, on reaching the outward extremity of its swing, was now gently tapping at the boy's left temple. TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP it went, with the peculiar quickness due to the planet's powerful gravity.

"Keep him there until I tell you to move him."

The tapping continued. To the doctor, of course, the thing was entirely devoid of pain. It made much the same noise the dentist makes with his mallet, only it went on and on, until perhaps two minutes had passed.

"Stop!"

Instantly the boy was moved away. The student said nothing; neither did the father. Yet the doctor noticed something which meant volumes to his trained senses.

The boy's gaze was no longer clear. Instead, dancing lights appeared wherever he looked; tiny flashes of violet and orange, which shimmered before his pupils even though he closed his lids.

"Will you ask your father to tell?" inquired Norbith.

"No--damn you!"

It was the first thing the boy had said. And it came through set teeth, in a voice which the doctor scarcely knew.

"Move him back; a little further this time."

The tapping began again. This time the boy's head got more of the force of the swing; the tapping was more like a blow. THUD-THUD-THUD came the sound now; and in a few seconds the boy could see nothing for the shivering flames. He gave a faint groan.

"Ready to talk now?"

"Damn you--no!" in a voice that shook with pain.

"Move him closer!"

The thud became a pound. The doctor looked for the skull to give way at any moment; he tried his best to control the subconscious, but the boy's agony was too great. The dancing lights had become a continuous flare; the lad moaned steadily.

And then quite without warning, the boy broke down and gave out a terrible shriek. Norbith ordered the guards to move him away from the clock.

"Ready now?" he inquired calmly.

The boy's answer was a snarl. "No!"

"Once more!"

The thud-thudding began again, and now it had a sharp sound which the doctor instantly recognized. In a moment the boy was shaking the air with cries of such awful agony that the doctor--

"Stop!" cried the father convulsively, his face streaming with tears. "God--the boy doesn't--know! Don't torture him--like that!"

The man with the metal heart said:

"Will you tell now?"

"Don't do it father!" the boy whispered through palsied lips. But no Capellan heard him.

The father was saying to Norbith, "I gave the whole outfit to--"

And then that crashing and smashing came to an end. The boy had fainted.

XI

THE DOUBLE WORLD

The four felt that they understood the situation quite well, indeed. It was really simple, this far-off world with its standardized life, this petrified civilization in which everything was guaranteed except the one real essential--progress.

But what was Fort going to do about it? Billie was not the only one who was interested; Van Emmon was equally curious, and Smith privately believed that the geologist was slightly jealous of the distant athlete. Certainly he was as eager as any one to continue the investigation, and stoutly defended Powart against any criticism.

"He's the right man in the right place!" he insisted. "Lord, I wish I was in his boots!"

"Well, I'm rather thankful you're not, dear," commented Billie with a look which quickly brought an answering light to his eyes. Yet, behind her remark there was a certain wistfulness which the doctor did not overlook.

Yes, the four felt that they were very well acquainted with Capellette.

But the most amazing part of the whole proposition was yet to be discovered. It was not until after nearly two weeks of daily investigation, in fact, that the whole astonishing truth of the matter was uncovered.

It came through Billie. Fort was now calling regularly at Mona's house, evidently trying his best to understand the girl and make himself understood; for he said not a word about his suit. And one day he suggested that they make a much longer flight than any they had so far taken together.

"I haven't been down into the contact for a long while. Have you?"

And the two set out, Billie wondering mightily what "the contact" might be. They flew for several hours in a direction which would have been called "westerly" on the earth; and during the time they were above land, Billie saw no sign of factories, farms, or other forms of industry. In fact, hill and valley alike were laid out with handsome residences, beautifully kept grounds, vast parks and extensive greens, suggesting golf. That was all.

Then she noticed something that made her marvel. The sun, which had stood directly overhead when they left the house, within less than three hours began to descend with increasing rapidity; so that in half the length of an ordinary afternoon it had approached to within an hour of setting. Its motion was so rapid that it could almost be seen.

Soon Billie concluded that the two fliers were bound for the bottom of some unusually wide and exceptionally deep canon. She tried to remember what she had read of the earth's greatest chasms; was it possible for the sun to disappear in mid-afternoon in such? And yet the flight went on and on, until Billie began to wonder if a chasm could be a hundred miles deep.

Soon she could dimly discern the dark mass of the opposite side. The fliers were steadily approaching this, and all the time going deeper and deeper. Once Mona turned her eyes searching to the right and left; whereupon Billie was still further mystified to see that, although the cleft was fifty or sixty miles in length, yet its extreme ends seemed entirely open to the world. Nothing but a deep "V" of blue sky was to be seen in either direction.

The sun disappeared altogether. Always the two walls grew closer and closer together, until at last Billie could see, despite the semidarkness, a heavy growth of vegetation on the opposite wall. Beneath her, as well, the surface was densely wooded.

Still they descended! It was unbelievable; surely the chasm did not extend right into the heart of the globe. They had been flying for hours!

At last came a time when the far wall of the cleft was so near that Billie could have shot a deer upon it. She estimated the distance at two hundred yards; and then, and not until then, did she realize that Mona, in order to inspect this bank, was now LOOKING up. The wall which had seemed right ahead, all along, was now actually overhead!

Were they entering some sort of a cave? If so, it had dimensions that staggered the imagination. What was more, if it were a cave, how could the mind of man account for vegetation on its roof?

Within a few minutes Fort called from his machine; whereupon Mona located a landing-place, a small clearing dimly visible in the distance. The opposite wall of the chasm--or the roof of the cave, whichever it was--now approached to within five yards of the tops of the two machines. Mona and the athlete stepped out, and looked around.

Billie's senses swam. This clearing, as has been said, was only a few yards away from the tops of the bushes on the roof. Moreover, all this vegetation, instead of growing at right angles from the surface in the usual way, was all lying flat against the soil, and all pointing in one direction--back, the way they had come!

The sky was not overhead any longer; it was a mere strip of very dark blue, lying far off on the horizon. That is, to the right; on the left, the cavelike cleft extended still further, its limits shrouded in darkness.

"Queer, isn't it?" laughed Fort. "Shall we walk around?"

Whereupon the two young people set out on a narrow, but much worn trail. Keeping the sky always at their right, they passed through the thicket, Mona's eyes telling Billie that the queer horizontal vegetation grew always toward the light.

It was much like the growth at the bottom of any gulch; only the two were walking in the normal way, upright, at right angles to the surface, quite as though it were level ground!

Overhead the thicket grew in the same fashion; Billie thought the foliage much like ferns. Here and there, however, was a small flowering shrub; and it was to one of these that a tiny, orange-colored bird came flying.

And Billie wondered why Mona did not gasp in astonishment. For the bird, when it alighted upon the shrub, was not over eight feet above Mona's eyes; and unless there was something decidedly wrong with the girl's vision, the bird had alighted upside down!

There it clung, chirping flatly, moving its head from side to side and watching the two with bright, unfrightened eyes. But Mona was not much interested; she and Fort moved on. And shortly Billie was gazing at a fresh wonder.

Directly opposite them, on what Billie was now calling the roof, instead of the wall, there appeared a deep furrow in the ferns. She saw that it was a path, much like the one Mona was treading; it meandered in and out of sight from time to time. What was the meaning of it? Billie began to wonder if "the contact" was the name of some mechanical illusion, like a distorted mirror.

The two had been walking for nearly an hour when, right ahead of them, the thicket opened up, and another clearing presented itself. That is, Billie called it another clearing, until she looked more closely and made out two flying-machines in it. They were the ones the pair had come in!

Now Billie was positive that they had not turned around in their walk; they had kept the sky on their right all the while. In fact, the sky was still on that side. They were approaching the clearing from the side opposite the one they had gone out from!

Yet, neither the athlete nor the surgeon seemed to see anything peculiar in the fact. Instead, they looked at one another as much as to say, "Well, time to go, isn't it?"

Then Fort stared up at the mysterious roof. There was another clearing there, a little to one side; which accounted for Billie's overlooking it at first. Fort led the way over opposite.

"Shall we try it?" he dared Mona.

"You first," she replied, indifferently.

Whereupon the athlete, without another word, pulled his cap down tight, made sure his pockets were buttoned, cleared the shrubbery away from his feet and--leaped! Leaped straight into the air, and as he went up, he flipped his body as only an acrobat can, so that he turned a mid air somersault.

But he did not come back to where he jumped from. Instead, his jump took him five yards, which separated the ground from the roof; and when he landed HIS FEET WERE RESTING ON THE ROOF, AND HIS HEAD WAS POINTING DOWNWARD, TOWARD MONA.

"It's easy," he remarked, craning his neck so that he could look at the girl. "Come on; I'll catch you!"

And then Billie's senses whirled as the surgeon duplicated the feat. Next second Mona was standing beside Fort, five yards above the spot she had just left; and in that second everything had become precisely reversed; the two were now looking up! Looking up, to behold their machines, apparently upside down, just over their heads!

As though this were not enough, Mona picked a leaf from a shrub and threw it some seven or eight feet up. It remained motionless in mid air!

It was too much for Billie. She felt that she could not contemplate the thing any longer with safety to her sanity. She exerted her will, and broke the connection with Mona; so that a few minutes later her three friends on the earth were listening to her account.

The doctor waited until she was all through; then, "While you were having that experience I was in touch with young Ernol again. The boy has recovered and is still in jail, but they let him have his books now. And I've been helping him study geography."

"Well?" eagerly.

"Very simple. Capellete is a double world!"

"Double!"

"Yes! There are two globes, instead of one. They're twins, and Siamese twins at that!" He drew a figure on his knee, thus:

"Just imagine the earth and Venus of the same size, and so near to one another that their combined gravity has brought them together! That's Capellette! And the contact is the place where they touch!"

They considered this in wondering silence for a while. Then the doctor continued:

"It's just as we had deduced; each of the planets is larger than the earth. I saw the figures in that geography.

"But astronomically they are one. They revolve around Capella together; the rotate about a common center daily, just as the earth rotates on its axis. This common center is, of course, in the contact."

"Are both globes inhabited?" Billie was greatly interested.

"Yes. All parts of both planets are developed to the same extent, and evenly settled. They are just one great nation, with a common language. This, of course, is traceable to the great density of the air, enabling the people to fly wherever they wanted to go. There never has been such a thing as an 'Old World' and a 'New World' with them.

"The really remarkable fact, however, Billie has already hinted at. The country near Mona's home shows no sign of industry; there's nothing but parks and magnificent estates. And the geography explains it all. One of the planets is devoted entirely to industry and the homes of those who are engaged therein; the workers inhabit that globe exclusively. There are about ten billion of them.

"The other globe is exclusively a residence tract, set aside for the homes of the rich; what they call the owners. There is no industry of any kind. No workers live there, excepting the army of servants and park attendants which the owners need for their own comfort. The population is about a hundred million, of which only one in ten is a capitalist. The rest are serving people."

Van Emmon seemed to feel that it was his place to comment. "In other words, Newport on a grand scale!"

"Is that the way Powart seems to regard it?" from Billie.

"Apparently. There were a lot of things in his talk which I couldn't understand until now; but it's clear enough--the doctor's right."

"Then," pursed the girl deliberately, "the Capellans have divided the world between them, so that the working classes inhabit one-half, and the capitalists the other?"

The doctor explained that the dividing was all done by the owners. "Every bit of the land on the residence planet is privately owned, with the exception of certain small amusement tracts. Theoretically, the planet is open to one and all; practically no worker is welcome there for more than a few hours, and then only in one of those parks. There is no hotel."

Van Emmon was straining his memory. "Let's see--I heard Powart name the place. He called it--called it--Hafen!"

"Yes. And the other--the world which is the home of the working people, but which they do not own; the world whose factories and farms provide a standard living for the workers and lives of luxury for the owners--this world is known as Holl. But if I read young Ernol's mind aright, these words mean nothing more or less than--Heaven and hell!"

XII

CAUSE AND EFFECT

From that time on the four did not hold any more formal discussions of what they learned. This was due to a most extraordinary discovery.

They found that they could keep in touch with each other while they were "visiting"! It was a tremendous help; it enabled them to communicate and compare notes as they went along. The doctor declared that the Venusians themselves had not been able to do more.

Thus, when Powart called on Mona a few days after she had declined his ring, Billie was able to tell the other three all that took place, as fast as it happened. As usual, Powart's stay was a brief one.

"I hope you have recovered your former self-confidence," said he, consciously repressing the masterful note in his voice. "Not that I am unwilling to wait, Mona."

"You are very patient," she assured him. "I am glad to say that I am no longer troubled with any doubts of myself. Something else worries me now."

He frowned at the implication. "What is it?" coldly.

"Frankly, it is your record." She knew she was jarring him terribly, but she went on with evident relish, "You are the most important man in the world. Odd, isn't it, that I should find fault with that? But it is a serious objection. You are still a very young man; you have become one of the commission; for a year, you are its head. The point is, what's before you?" She paused to let this take effect. "You've already accomplished all that any man can possible accomplish in the political field. You haven't any future!"

Powart grasped the thought with his usual instant decision. "I understand. You are right, too. I had not thought of it before." A slight pause. "You fear that you may come to tire of me; is that it?"

She nodded emphatically. "If you had asked me a few years ago, before you had reached the top--it would have been different."

He remained standing, frowning hard. Presently he glanced at his watch, and said he would have to be going.

"I will see what can be done about it," he stated. "I have a plan which should get results."

"Are you going to take up a hobby?" eagerly.

"Not a new one; but a hobby I have always had." And with this enigmatic reply he was off.

Van Emmon kept track of his further movements, and reported everything to the other three. Powart had not been in flight long before he sent off a wireless despatch, to which he received a most extraordinary reply. It was from the expedition which he had sent to Alma a week before:

People of Alma give us warm welcome. Invite us to stay. We propose to do so. The planet infinitely preferable to either Hafen or Holl. Accept our resignations or not, as you please, and be damned to you!

Powart made no comment upon this, which he read in privacy after carefully decoding it. Van Emmon had no idea what he was thinking, of course, but wondered mightily how the chairman was going to deal with the situation. He could scarcely read that aerogram to the commission. For some time he paced the cabin of his yacht, and at the end he behaved like a man whose mind had been pretty strongly made up.

The commission met, it seems, in a central part of Hafen. Powart reached the place some hours after leaving Mona. He arrived to find the other nine members waiting for him; and without the least delay he took his place at the head of the table.

"We will postpone the usual routine until the next session if you like," said he. There was no objection; whereupon Powart produced a message from his pocket.

"You will recall the expedition to Alma. I have just received their first report since reaching the planet." And then, to the vast amazement of the people on the earth, he read--not what Van Emmon had seen him receive, but this, in his strong, matter-of-fact voice:

"People of Alma facing starvation, due to overpopulation and land-exhaustion. Have disabled our boat and will not permit us to return, although allowing us to use wireless, which they do not understand.