CHAPTER X.

INTO THE ABYSS.

It was a round, gleaming metallic globe some thirty feet in diameter. We entered its tiny doorway; a thick, complicated affair, it reminded me of the door to some great round safe in a bank vault. Tad swung it closed. The click and queer whir of it, in spite of these friends around me, struck at me with awe. We were going down into the unknown.

They were very businesslike, Arturo and Tad. And Nereid, with her timorous, flashing smile at me, stood aside and watched them. Ah, never before had I so fully realized Nereid’s beauty! It so queerly stirred me; against all reason of friendship I could not treat her casually. Tad noticed it. He grinned at me, and whispered:

“You get used to it. She’s human--she’s not a ghost, you know.”

They had had little to say to me; the business of getting us embarked and started occupied them.

“We thought you’d never come, Jeff. Nereid has been calling you for months. We need you. You, of every one, we’ve wanted. We only got your answer a short time ago. Nereid had almost given up trying to reach you.”

“So it was Nereid--” I told them of the dreams. Nereid said shyly, “I would not care--I mean, it was not what I desired, to frighten you.”

She spoke slowly, carefully as one who deals with an unfamiliar language. And very softly, with an accent, not to be described and a tone curiously limpid.

Arturo smiled. “We could not help that; we had to get the call through. You’re not very receptive, Jeff.”

“But Arturo was,” said Tad.

They told me then that it was Tad, down there with Nereid, who had made her call to Arturo. There was so much that I would ask, but Arturo cut us short.

“Not now. Later, when we arrive. We’ve been gone too long now, Tad--you know it.”

A different Arturo. He was dressed in short black trunks and a black sleeveless jacket that clung to him like a swimming suit. It shone, with light on it, like a thin woven metal. His black hair was closely clipped. His face was paler now than ever, but it seemed only the pallor of darkness. A leaner, rather longer face than I remembered. And stranger, and older. His jaw was more firmly set; his lips thinner and firmer. And his eyes were different. A flashing, dominant glance. More than that, they seemed larger, as though from living in the dark. And I noticed that here within the globe, the light was very dim, and carefully shaded.

There were similar changes in Tad. His short, stocky figure showed muscular in the brief black suit. His red hair was close-clipped; his freckles gone, with pallor supplanting them. He, too, seemed older; his face in repose, very solemn. But his manner showed he was the same old Tad--irrepressible; like Mercutio, he would make a joke of his own death, I am sure.

We sat on a horizontal platform which hung midway of the globe, spanning its diameter. A similar disk, of necessity smaller, was ten feet over our head like a ceiling. It made a sort of room, with a small metallic post upright in its center--a vertical axis to the globe. A queer, circular room. Seats stood about it; there seemed a buffet, wherein food was stored. And to one side, a table and shelves of instruments. A metal ladder led upward, through the ceiling, to the globe’s upper segment; and a trap door in the floor gave access to a ladder downward.

The whole metallic interior was dim with its shaded lights. I saw that the room was hung upon this central axis. There were windows at intervals in the curving wall of the globe. Through them, with lights whose source I could not determine, a vista of the sea showed plainly. We were pivoted, as though sitting upon the plane of a huge top. But it was not our disk that began spinning. The globe’s mechanisms went into operation with a slow throbbing; the disks of the room held steady, and apparently almost level. But already the central axis was turning; the globe was turning; the windows began passing in steady procession around us.

I asked no questions. Tad and Arturo were busy. I sat, with pounding heart, watching, listening, wondering. Nereid sat near me; I could feel the gaze of her solemn eyes. We had slid from the rocks; we were under the water. Sinking--rolling forward, or downward, I could not tell which.

* * * * *

Arturo stood for a moment before me. “We’ll be throwing on the pressure presently. Hold steady, Jeff; it will be strange at first.”

“Arturo, see here--”

He smiled. “It’s difficult, making sure of our direction. Nereid, you know the way--will you watch with us?”

She nodded, rose, and stood across the disk by the instrument table. Tad was there, and the figure of another man. I had not yet seen him closely. A slim fellow dressed in the brief black suit. His arms and legs gleamed pink-white; he sat now by the instruments, his hands roving them, his gaze intent on a bank of dials illumined with a vague purple sheen.

Arturo called, “Entt! Oh, Entt, can you come here a moment?”

He rose and Tad quickly took his place. He stood before me a delicate-looking, almost girlish fellow. He might have weighed a hundred pounds. A trifle taller than Nereid, slim and straight and smooth pink-white of skin. He stood smiling--a hand shading his wide blue eyes from the light. A handsome fellow; twenty years old perhaps.

“Entt, this is Jeff, our friend.”

He held out his hand. “I am glad.” He spoke like Nereid; he had indeed her strange look.

I shook his hand, and said impulsively, “Are you Nereid’s brother?”

“No--just--her friend.”

His face was smooth as though no razor had ever touched it. His brown hair was clipped close. I liked him at once, this Entt. Gentle, deprecating, but there was a strength to him. The muscles of his arms and shoulders rippled under the satin of his skin.

He turned away. “I must go back, Arturo.”

Arturo said, “He’s been a real friend--there is so much we have to tell you, Jeff. But not now. When we get there.”

Tad was calling, “Arturo, come here!”

“When this pressure comes on, Jeff, hold firm. Just sit tight.”

Arturo left me.

Into the abyss. Strange, fearsome descent! A confusion of impressions. We had left the island. How far we went I could not say. An hour perhaps. The globe turned slowly; the illumined circles of windows with the green water outside them, rotated slowly around me.

And then the descent began. The globe had been throbbing, not only with vibration; with sound. The sound intensified. The globe gradually began whirling faster. I heard Tad say:

“We’re located right, aren’t we, Entt? By the little auk at the pole, I don’t want to go down at the wrong place!”

“There’s the marker we flung out,” said Arturo, and Entt nodded. “See it--off there?”

I could see very little through the whirling windows. They flashed faster. Presently they were all merged in a band of light--a horizontal, circular band like a slot of continuous window. The light had intensified; it showed the water, rushing upward now.

And then the pressure went on. I saw Entt swing the lever; I heard the beat of some new mechanism. It was presently as though within the globe this air I was breathing went under increasing pressure. Yet I knew now it was not exactly that. A changing of the air. A mechanism taking out, absorbing the air of my world, and substituting something else, a new, a different air. The atmosphere of this other realm to which we were going. A greater pressure, undoubtedly, but the change was far more than that. I cannot describe it scientifically. There was no one ever to tell me the technical difference. But I recall now how I felt, there in that globe as we descended.

An oppression. It seemed as though a band were compressing my chest. I could not breathe properly; I began panting. My head soon was roaring, my forehead cold with dank moisture.

There was a queer odor--the odor of wet, clammy earth, a smell like a wet cave far underground. I struggled for breath; a nausea was upon me. Once I thought my senses were fading and called, “Arturo!”

He came running. I was gripping the latticed metal seat. He touched me; appraised me with his gaze. “You’re all right, Jeff. Fearful at first, isn’t it? You’ll be all right after awhile.”

I smiled weakly. “Yes, I--hope so.”

Above the roaring in my ears it seemed that my voice, and Arturo’s, had a different sound. A heavy, muffled sound.

“You’re all right, Jeff, we’ve got it on full now. You’ll feel better presently.”

* * * * *

He left me. I sat gasping, but after a time the nausea passed; my head cleared a trifle; the roaring in my ears began to abate. I found I could still breathe, but it was an effort. The muscles of my diaphragm were tired now with the strain of it. There was a fluid quality to this air, I took it into my lungs and flung it out with a panting, gasping exhalation. It burned me inside, and my skin was burning; tingling, prickling, as though with a thousand tiny needles.

But I grew used to it--or perhaps all the sensations were passing. Another long interval. I got to my feet, with a strange sense of lightness. I moved my arm with a gesture; I could feel the air pressing it. Upon sudden impulse I swung my arm with a swimming stroke; it slewed me around and I nearly fell.

“Jeff! Sit down!” Arturo was regarding me. “Sit down!”

I sat staring at the slot which was the whirling windows. I saw presently a slanting vista of the dim turgid floor of the sea come up, swing over and go level as we settled upon it. I noticed then that the sense of lightness of my body was gone. I felt, on my feet, almost a normal weight; and I knew that most of the lightness was caused by our rapid descent--one feels it, descending in a swiftly-dropping elevator car.

Arturo, Tad and Entt, over at the instrument table, were actively busy. Their low voices reached me, but the interior of the globe was buzzing with sound; and from outside our walls there came the noise of a violent swishing. Here on the dark, soundless floor of the sea, was the sound of tumbling, thrashing water!

I stood swaying, straining to see through the blurred slot of the revolving globe-windows. The dark ocean floor; then I caught a glimpse of what seemed an abyss; a tumbling white area of swirling water; a pit, near at hand where the water was lashed white with a huge circular swirl like a giant whirlpool. We were sucked into it.

Arturo’s voice: “Sit down, Jeff. Hang tight. You fool, don’t stand up like that!”

The globe, took a violent plunge. There was a brief, dizzying interval of chaos. We seemed almost falling free, turning end over end. I clung to my seat. I could see the others clinging, too. A few moments, then we steadied.

We were, as far as I could determine, in the center of a circular whirlpool. The water held level; but now we were descending--our rapid turning motion screwing us downward. Another mile down. Or five miles. I thought it that; and Arturo believed it that far.

He came over, after another interval, and sat beside me. “Strange, Jeff? We’re almost at the bottom. How do you feel?”

“Horrible.”

He laughed briefly. “It will pass. We’ll be at the first of the locks shortly.”

He sat, seeming not anxious to talk. Nor was I, for every breath I drew was still an effort. We were dropping down like an elevator car, the walls of the globe whirling on the upright axis. Tad and Entt were scanning the dials. Entt spoke; Tad reached for a lever.

Our descent seemed slackening. The whirlpool of water was stilled; through the window slot I could see the water, black, with a turgid, inky blackness. There was a perceptible jarring vibration; we settled upon some bottom surface and stood like a top, spinning.

“There,” said Arturo; his voice held relief. “Thank Heavens!”

The light in the water outside abruptly vanished, as Entt switched it off. A blank blackness out there. And then I saw a radiance; far away, it seemed, along a vaulted tunnel in which we lay. A radiance that congealed into a beam of light. It darted at us; gripped us. The globe shivered. My memory leaped back to the Dolphin, caught in the clutch of a similar beam. This one held us; drew us forward into the tunnel. The black tunnel walls went flashing past.

Arturo said: “They’ve got us safely. It’s all right now--”

Oh, I was not the only one who had been perturbed at this descent into the abyss! Arturo was utterly relieved.

* * * * *

“We’ll be in the first lock very soon, Jeff,” he panted.

“How far?” With my labored breathing I was sparing of words.

He said: “Ten miles or so. I don’t know. They’ve got us safely.” He called: “Tad, they waited. Suppose--they had deserted us--”

“Arturo, this rotation--this spinning--”

“Don’t talk yet, Jeff.”

I labored. “I mean the rotation screwed us downward--”

“Yes.”

“Then why doesn’t it--stop now?”

“The exterior pressure. Our rotation absorbs it--like the Dolphin’s water-jacket--give father credit, he struck the principle--it’s well known down here.”

“Arturo--you talk--tell me--I can’t talk to question you--”

He laughed at that. “Do you think--I don’t feel the pressure change? I do. Take it easy, Jeff--you’ll understand in good time. Ah, there’s the lock.”

Our globe stopped. In a dull glow outside I could see us wait an instant, then drift downward through a huge metallic door. It yawned open to receive us; it closed above us as we floated down through it.

We were in a square, cavelike room. Water filled it.

“The first lock,” said Arturo. “They’ll change the water pressure; then we’ll go down into the next one. Ten altogether. We’ll be ten or fifteen minutes in each.”

A new realm beneath us. My thoughts struggled to encompass it all. A mile, ten miles over my head, the ocean floor. Already it seemed so remote. The abyss of our Pacific Ocean. Above its depths, our great atmospheric realm.

Down here a new world, unknown; throughout all the uncounted centuries of the past, unknown save where our legends had glimpsed it. Another realm. A civilization, a science here; things mechanical; the rational thought of rational humans. These locks, gateways, changing pressures were all planned and built by skillful human effort.

So strange a thing!

The lock was dimly lighted. In the silence I could hear the throb of outside pumps, the gurgle of air bubbles, and the hiss of air and water. Against the side wall of the lock room, there was a small, transparent dome. A dull light was in it. The water was excluded. The figure of a man showed in there, bent over a table of instruments, it was the lockkeeper, attending the pumps for our downward passage.

Tad came over. “I say, Arturo, no twenty-hour watchman ever got as hungry as I am. How you feeling, Jeff?”

“Better,” I said, “but terrible.”

“You’ll ease up. We’re rotating slower now. In the fifth lock, we stop.”

I noticed that the globe seemed spinning not quite so fast. Tad insisted: “Can’t we eat, Arturo? Let’s have Nereid fix it up.”

We passed down into the second lock. The spinning of the globe slowed another notch. The second lock was a room like the first. The overhead door swung closed. The pumps outside throbbed. I could see the water changing; a thinner quality, its turgidness leaving it, a limpid aspect coming to it.

Nereid opened a table and set food before us. They all ate save myself; I could no more than taste it--queer looking food which all of them appeared to relish.

We passed down into the third lock; and the fourth and fifth. In each, Entt slowed our rotation. The slot separated into the spinning windows; in the fifth lock they halted. Our globe lay inert, vibrationless at least, I felt immediately less oppressed, but it was largely psychological, for the air we were breathing was unchanged.

“Is this the normal air where we are going?” I demanded.

“Yes,” said Arturo, “it will be always like that. But you’ll get used to it. They’re thinning the water outside--presently we’ll be out into air just like this.” He added, abruptly: “Jeff, it’s a relief to have you here. We are engaged in a desperate thing, Jeff. The welfare of our world up there depends on it--and more than that, Nereid’s people--”

* * * * *

I interrupted: “Day before yesterday, when the public was given the news--” I said it casually, then stopped. Day before yesterday! Was it only that? It seemed so long ago--so far away, so like a vague dream, that bright other world up there which was mine. “When the public was given the news, there was almost a panic--”

“News? What news?” They stared at me.

“Why,” I said, “the news that the oceans are receding again. A real drop this time. We couldn’t mistake it, because--”

My voice trailed away. I gazed in surprise. My words seemed a bombshell. Arturo went visibly whiter; Tad’s jaw dropped. Nereid exchanged a glance of sudden fear with Entt. They all sat confounded.

“Oceans--dropping?”

“Why yes. Off nearly three fathoms. We realized then--”

They sat confounded. They did not know that the menace had come to our world! I had assumed, of course, that they did, that they had sent for me, in some crisis now that the danger had come again.

Arturo gasped. “It has come! Tad, my God, after all we’ve planned! Done it now--why, what she has dared to do--why, it’s irrevocable! We can’t stop it now, Tad!”

A fear, a horror lay upon them all, and I saw that this was something more than the menace of the draining of our oceans, and a war with these people of the abyss. Something, to Nereid and Entt, more personal--more horrifying. And to Tad and Arturo, the defeat of all their plans.

Arturo leaped to his feet. “We’ve got to hasten--where are we?”

“Seventh lock,” said Tad. He had recovered his poise; he gestured vehemently. “Sit down, Arturo--can’t do anything yet.”

Arturo stood at a window. I joined him. “You didn’t know?”

“No! Of course not! We’ve been fighting it! She dared--”

“She?” I gripped him, “Who, Arturo?”

He shook me off, turned on me sharply. “Let me alone! We’ve got to get down to the City of the Mound, I tell you! To Nereid’s father. He probably knows about it now.”

The water in the seventh lock was thin and limpid clear. I could see the attendant in the dome-shaped cubby. He met Arturo’s gaze; he smiled and gestured a greeting. Arturo tried to call him.

“Don’t be a loon!” said Tad sharply. “He can’t hear you. If he did, he couldn’t understand your language. You know that. Wait till we get to the tenth. Then we can get the car and hurry.”

I put my hand on Arturo’s arm. “This is something more than we thought it was before? Our oceans draining. A war--”

He swung on me. “It’s all that, yes. And more--Nereid’s world is to be annihilated, Jeff! A million people, her people, drowned like rats in a trap unless they can escape upward in time! That’s what we’ve been fearing--and it’s come!”