Bradley handed the apparatus back to the sergeant. “Remain here, listening carefully. Let me know at once if you hear anything.” The sergeant saluted.
Out there the white cloud billowed and gleamed in the sunlight. But there was something ominous in its calm beauty now.
A thought struck me. I spoke, and my voice sounded flat, dead. “Perhaps it’s only the radio waves that are cut off. Maybe she’s all right, fighting there inside, smashing them.” But I knew that it was all over.
“God, I hope you’re right. Five thousand men aboard her.” Bradley’s lips were white, his hands trembling. “Come to my office, Eric; we’ll wait there. To your posts, gentlemen. Each of you will detail a man to watch that cloud bank, and report to me any change in its appearance, even the slightest.”
We walked back to the concrete command-post. We didn’t talk, though it had been years since we had seen each other. My brain was numbed, I know. I had seen plenty of fighting, watched many a man go to his death in the seven months since the war began. But this, somehow, was different.
An hour passed. Jim busied himself with routine paper work. At least he had that relief. I paced about his tiny office. Already I was making plans. Force had failed. Strategy must take its place. I must get in there. But how?
Bradley looked up from his work, his face grim. “No news, Eric. If you were right we should have heard something from the New York by this time. They’re gone, all right.”
“Yes, they’re gone,” I answered. “It’s up to me, then.”
He stared in surprise. “Up to you? What do you mean?”
“Just that. I’m going in there, God helping.” I made sure the room was shut tight against eavesdroppers. Then, briefly as I could, I told him of my orders, showing him the document I had received the day before. He shook his head.
“But it’s impossible. Their ray network, and the undersea barrier, are absolutely solid here. I don’t think even a mouse could get through. And even if you did get behind their lines, how on earth are you going to get into the area underneath that devilish cloud. You saw what happened to the New York, protected as she was.”
“Yes. I know all that. Nevertheless it’s got to be done.” Just then I got the glimmering of an idea. “Tell me, Jim, are they doing much scouting here. Undersea, I mean.”
“The usual one-man shell, radio-propelled. We get one once in a while. Most of them, however, even if we do smash them, are pulled back on the wave before we can grab them. It’s a bit easier than most places, though: our depth’s only about six hundred feet.”
“What! Why, I thought the bottom averaged three thousand all along the line.”
“It does. But what would be a mountain ridge, if this were dry land, runs out from the mainland. We’re over a big plateau here. It goes on east another twenty-five miles, or so. See, here’s the chart.”
A warning bell seemed to ring somewhere within me. Had this peculiar formation of the ocean bed anything to do with the problem at hand? But I kept to the immediate step. My plan was rapidly taking shape in my mind.
“What are the scouts—black, yellow, or—”
“Russians, mostly.”
“Good. Now listen, Jim. Send down word that the next scout-sub that is caught is not to be ripped, but simply held against the attraction of the return wave. The television eye is to be smashed at once, and radio communication jammed. Can you do it as if something had happened to the shell?”
“Sure thing, but what’s the big idea?”
“You’ll see. I’ve worked the thing out now.”
Just then a red light on Bradley’s desk winked three times. “There’s one between the lines now!” he exclaimed.
“Quick, man, shoot my orders down.”
He pressed a yellow button and spoke quietly but emphatically into a mouth piece. “O.K. They understand.”
“Now take me down.”
He looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses, but complied.
The door of the elevator that lowered us from the surface clanged open. We stepped out on a balcony that ran around a large, steel-lined room. The walls were dripping, and on the floor, twenty feet beneath, a black pool sloshed about with the heaving of the raft, in whose interior we were. Rubber-clad soldiers moved about in the blue glow of the globes sending down their heatless light from the ceiling. One sat at a desk near the elevator. As I spied him a green light glowed in front of him twice.
“They’ve got him, sir, bringing him in.”
A low-toned order. The soldiers sprang to their post. A whirring signal. At the other end of the room the steel wall began to move upward, and water rushed in. A tremendous vibration shook the chamber: a ponderous thudding. The water rose to the level of the balcony and stopped. I looked at Bradley.
“We’re beneath the surface, aren’t we?” I asked. “How is it that the water doesn’t fill the room?”
“Pumps,” he replied. “Tremendous pumps that draw the water out just as fast as it comes in, and shoot it out again into the sea. We can maintain any desired level in here.”
Then I noticed that the black flood was rushing by beneath me at a terrific rate.
Something bulked in the opening. Two tiny subs drew in, a black and a green. The steel wall rushed down again, and the vibration ceased. From the green craft heavy grapples extended, clutching the black, enemy scout. I saw a gaping hole in the black boat’s nose, where its eye had been smashed.
Men were clambering over both vessels’ hulls, tugging at the hatchway fastenings. The black one flew open. I leaped to the deck. Bradley after me, and jumped down into the hold.
In the little cubby-hole that was all the machinery left space for, a pale-faced form in green-gray crouched against the wall. His eyes stared in fear. A Russian, praise be. And not far from my size and build.
“Off with his clothes, quick!” I yelled, stripping mine as I spoke. Bradley looked at me queerly, and shrugged his shoulders. “Quick, man! Everything depends on speed!”
He shook his head, as one who listens to the vaporings of an imbecile, but turned to obey. I was standing there—naked, studying the Easterner’s face, his body. No scars. Good.
Jim turned to me, the prisoner’s clothing in his hands. An exclamation burst from him. He looked back at the trembling Russ, then at me. “My God, Eric, how did you do it?” he asked.
I smiled. “All right, is it?”
“You’re his twin; no, you’re himself! If I’d had a drink to-day I’d be sure I was seeing double. How on earth— you had no make-up, no time—”
I was sliding into the Red’s gear as I talked! “I’ve trained all the little muscles in my face—muscles you others don’t even know you have. Started when I was a kid, then made a good living at it, acting. Comes in handy now, damn handy. I can make anything of my face, and hold it forever if I have to. Chink, Russ—anything. Distort my limbs too, and change my voice. That won’t be necessary now. Simple, but it takes a lot of practice.”
I was dressed by then, a counterpart of the enemy officer—I hoped. If I wasn’t—well, I wouldn’t live much longer.
“Now, out with the Russ and my clothes. Don’t leave a bit, if you value my life.”
A light of comprehension illumined Jim’s face. “You’re going to pass yourself off as this man? You’ve got your nerve with you!” he exclaimed.
“Exactly.” The cubby-hole was clear now. “Now take that spanner, and bang me over the head. Not too hard; I don’t want a cracked skull, only a splashed scalp. Then pile me where it will seem I crashed against a projection of some kind when the grapples took hold. That bunk edge will do. Batten the hatch, and cast off the grapples. I hope their automatic control is still working, otherwise my scheme’s gaflooey.”
Jim stuck out his great paw. “Good luck, Eric,” he said, simply. Then he clutched the spanner. I saw it go over my head….
Voices around me, harsh, guttural voices. Russian! By the Nine Dogs of War, I had pulled it off! But what
