importance. You’re the first strangers we’ve taken in for more years than I can remember. We can’t let you go again. We don’t want to be forced to do what I warned you we would do. So we’ll have to take pains, far more than with any of our own, to see that you’re thoroughly integrated into the fabric of our living, our thoughts, our particular goal. Unless we’re to keep a watch on you forever, we have to turn you into trustworthy citizens of Bartorstown. And that means practically a complete re-education.”
He cast a sharp, sardonic glance at Hostetter. “He swore you were worth the trouble. I hope he was right.”
He leaned over then and shook Amity by the hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Colter, you’ve been very helpful. I don’t think you’d find this trip interesting, so why don’t you come and have some lunch with my wife? She can help you on a lot of things.”
He led Amity to the door and handed her over to Mary Sherman, who always seemed to be where she was wanted. Then he came back and nodded to Len and Esau.
“Well,” he said, “let’s go.”
“To Bartorstown?” asked Len. And Sherman answered, “To Bartorstown.”
21
The explanation was simple when you knew it. So simple that Len realized it was no wonder he hadn’t guessed it. Sherman led the way up the canyon, past the mine slope and on to the other side of the little dam. Gutierrez was with them, and Erdmann, and Hostetter, and two of the other men. The rest had gone about their business somewhere else. The sun was hot down here in the bottom of the valley, and the dust was dry. The air smelled of dust and cottonwoods and pine needles and mules. Len glanced at Esau. His face was kind of pale and set, and his eyes roved restlessly, as though they didn’t want to see what was in front of them. Len knew how he felt. This was the end, the solid inescapable truth, the last of the dream. He should have been excited himself. He should have felt something. But he did not. He had already been through all the feelings he had in him, and now he was just a man walking.
They turned up the disused slope that the rocks had rolled on. They walked between the rocks in the hot sun, up to the hole in the face of the cliff. It had a wooden gate across it, weathered but in good repair, and sign above it saying DANGER MINE TUNNEL UNSAFE Falling Rock Keep Out. The gate was locked. Sherman opened it and they went through, and he locked it again behind him.
“Keeps the kids out,” he said. “They’re the only ones that ever bother.”
Inside the tunnel, as far as the harsh reflected sunlight showed, there was a clutter of loose rock on the tunnel floor and a crumbly look about the walls. The shoring timbers were rotted and broken, and some of the roof props were hanging down. It was not a place anybody would be likely to force his way into. Sherman said that every mine had abandoned workings, and nobody thought anything about it. “This one, naturally, is perfectly safe. But the mock-up is convincing.”
“Too damn convincing,” said Gutierrez, stumbling. “I’ll break a leg here yet.”
The light shaded off into darkness, and the tunnel bent to the left. Suddenly, without any warning, another light blazed up ahead. It was bluish and very brilliant, not like any Len had seen before, and now for the first time excitement began to stir in him. He heard Esau catch his breath and say, “Electric!” The tunnel here was smooth and unencumbered. They walked along it quickly, and beyond the dazzle of the light Len saw a door.
They stopped in front of it. The light was overhead now. Len tried to look straight into it and it made him blind like the sun. “Isn’t that something,” Esau whispered. “Just like Gran used to say.”
“There are scanners here,” said Sherman. “Give them a second or two. There. Go on now.”
The door opened. It was thick and made of metal set massively into the living rock. They went through it. It closed quietly behind them, and they were in Bartorstown.
This part of it was only a continuation of the tunnel, out here the rock was dressed very smooth and neat, and lights were set all along it in a trough sunk in the roof. The air had a funny taste to it, flat and metallic. Len could feel it moving over his face, and there was a soft, soft hushing sound that seemed to belong to it. His nerves had tightened now, and he was sweating. He had a brief and awful vision of the outside of the mountain that was now on top of him, and he thought he could feel every pound of it weighing down on him. “Is it all like this?” he asked. “Underground, I mean.”
Sherman nodded. “They put a lot of places underground in those days. Under a mountain was about the only safe place you could get.”
Esau was peering down the corridor. It seemed to go a long way in. “Is it very big?”
Gutierrez answered this time. “How big is big? If you look at Bartorstown one way it’s the biggest thing there is. It’s all yesterday and all tomorrow. Look at it another way, it’s a hole in the ground, just big enough to bury a man in.”
About twenty feet away down the corridor a man stepped out of a doorway to meet them. He was a young fellow, about Esau’s age. He spoke with easy respect to Sherman and the others, and then stared frankly at the Colters.
“Hello,” he said. “I saw you coming through the lower pass. My name’s Jones.” He held out his hand.
They shook it and moved closer to the door. The rock-cut chamber beyond was fairly large, and it was crammed with an awful lot of things, boards and wires and knobs and stuff like the inside of a radio. Esau looked around, and then he looked at Jones and said, “Are you the one that pushes the button?”
They were all puzzled for a minute, and then Hostetter laughed. “Wepplo was joshing them about that. No Jones would have to pass that responsibility
“Matter of fact,” said Sherman, “we’ve never pushed that button yet. But we keep it in working order, just in case. Come here.”
He motioned them to follow him, and they did, with the cautious tenseness of men or animals who find themselves in a strange place and feel they may want to get out of it in a hurry. They were careful not to touch anything. Jones went ahead of them and began casually doing things with some of the knobs and switches. He did not quite swagger. Sherman pointed to a square glass window, and Len stared into it for a confused second or two before he realized that it could hardly be a window at all, and if it were it couldn’t be looking into the narrow rocky cut that was way on the other side of the ridge.
“The scanners pick up the image and transmit it back to this screen,” Sherman said, and before he could go on Esau cried out in a child’s tone of delighted wonder, “Teevee!”
“Same principle,” said Sherman. “Where’d you hear about that?”
“Our grandmother. She told us a lot of things.”
“Oh yes.You mentioned her, I think—talking about Bartorstown.” Smoothly, but with unmistakable firmness, he drew their attention to the screen again. “There’s always somebody on duty here, to watch. Nobody can get through that gateway unseen, in—or out.”
“What about nighttime?” asked Len. He supposed Sherman had a right to keep reminding them, but it made him resentful. Sherman gave him a sharp, cool glance.
“Did your grandmother tell you about electric eyes?”
“No.”
“They can see in the dark. Show them, Jones.”
The young man showed them a board with little glass bulbs on it, in two rows opposite each other. “This is like the lower pass, see? And these little bulbs, they’re the electric-eye pairs. When you walk between them you break a beam, and these bulbs light up. We know right where you are.”
If Esau got the byplay, he didn’t show it. He was staring with bright envious eyes at Jones, and suddenly he asked, “Could I learn to do that too?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Sherman, “if you’re willing to study.”
Esau breathed heavily and smiled.
They went out and down the corridor again, under the brilliant lights. There were some other doors with numbers on them that Sherman said were storerooms. Then the corridor branched into two. Len was confused now about direction, but they took the right-hand branch. It widened out into a staggering series of rooms, cut
