City of Endless Night Read online

  CHAPTER II

  I EXPLORE THE POTASH MINES OF STASSFURTAND FIND A DIARY IN A DEAD MAN'S POCKET

  ~1~

  When I was twenty-four years old, my uncle was killed in a laboratoryexplosion. He had been a scientist of renown and a chemical inventor whohad devoted his life to the unravelling of the secrets of the syntheticfoods of Germany. For some years I had been his trusted assistant. Inour Chicago laboratory were carefully preserved food samples that hadbeen taken from the captured submarines in years gone by; and what to mewas even more fascinating, a collection of German books of like origin,which I had read with avidity. With the exception of those relating tosubmarine navigation, I found them stupidly childish and decided thatthey had been prepared to hide the truth and not reveal it.

  My uncle had bequeathed me both his work and his fortune, but despairingof my ability worthily to continue his own brilliant researches onsynthetic food, I turned my attention to the potash problem, in which Ihad long been interested. My reading of early chemical works had givenme a particular interest in the reclamation of the abandoned potashmines of Stassfurt. These mines, as any student of chemical history willknow, were one of the richest properties of the old German state in thedays before the endless war began and Germany became isolated from therest of the world. The mines were captured by the World in the year2020, and were profitably operated for a couple of decades. Meanwhilethe German lines were forced many miles to the rear before theimpregnable barrier of the Ray had halted the progress of theWorld Armies.

  A few years after the coming of the Ray defences, occurred what historyrecords as "The Tragedy of the Mines." Six thousand workmen went downinto the potash mines of Stassfurt one morning and never came up again.The miners' families in the neighbouring villages died like weevils infumigated grain. The region became a valley of pestilence and death, andall life withered for miles around. Numerous governmental projects werelaunched for the recovery of the potash mines but all failed, and forone hundred and eleven years no man had penetrated thoseaccursed shafts.

  Knowing these facts, I wasted no time in soliciting government aid formy project, but was content to secure a permit to attempt the recoverywith private funds, with which my uncle's fortune supplied me inabundance.

  In April, 2151, I set up my laboratory on the edge of the area of death.I had never accepted the orthodox view as to the composition of the gasthat issued from the Stassfurt mines. In a few months I was gratified tofind my doubts confirmed. A short time after this I made a moreunexpected and astonishing discovery. I found that this complex andhitherto misunderstood gas could, under the influence of certainhigh-frequency electrical discharges, be made to combine with explosiveviolence with the nitrogen of the atmosphere, leaving only a harmlessresidue. We wired the surrounding region for the electrical dischargeand, with a vast explosion of weird purple flame, cleared the whole areaof the century-old curse. Our laboratory was destroyed by the explosion.It was rebuilt nearer the mine shafts from which the gas still slowlyissued. Again we set up our electrical machinery and dropped our cablesinto the shafts, this time clearing the air of the mines.

  A hasty exploration revealed the fact that but a single shaft hadremained intact. A third time we prepared our electrical machinery. Welet down a cable and succeeded in getting but a faint reaction at thebottom of the shaft. After several repeated clearings we risked descent.

  Upon arrival at the bottom we were surprised to find it free from water,save for a trickling stream. The second thing we discovered was a pileof huddled skeletons of the workmen who had perished over a centuryprevious. But our third and most important discovery was a boring fromwhich the poisonous gas was slowly issuing. It took but a few hours toprovide an apparatus to fire this gas as fast as it issued, and thepotash mines of Stassfurt were regained for the world.

  My associates were for beginning mining operations at once, but I hadbeen granted a twenty years' franchise on the output of these mines, andI was in no such haste. The boring from which this poisonous vapourissued was clearly man-made; moreover I alone knew the formula of thatgas and had convinced myself once for all as to its man-made origin. Isent for microphones and with their aid speedily detected the sound ofmachinery in other workings beneath.

  It is easy now to see that I erred in risking my own life as I didwithout the precaution of confiding the secret of my discovery toothers. But those were days of feverish excitement. Impulsively Idecided to make the first attack on the Germans as a private enterpriseand then call for military aid. I had my own equipment of poisonousbombs and my sapping and mining experts determined that the Germanworkings were but eighty metres beneath us. Hastily, among the crumblingskeletons, we set up our electrical boring machinery and began sinking aone-metre shaft towards the nearest sound.

  After twenty hours of boring, the drill head suddenly came off andrattled down into a cavern. We saw a light and heard guttural shoutingbelow and the cracking of a gun as a few bullets spattered against theroof of our chamber. We heaved down our gas bombs and covered over ourshaft. Within a few hours the light below went out and our microphonesfailed to detect any sound from the rocks beneath us. It was thenperhaps that I should have called for military aid, but the uncannysilence of the lower workings proved too much for my eager curiosity. Wewaited two days and still there was no evidence of life below. I knewthere had been ample time for the gas from our bombs to have beendissipated, as it was decomposed by contact with moisture. A light waslowered, but this brought forth no response.

  I now called for a volunteer to descend the shaft. None was forthcomingfrom among my men, and against their protest I insisted on being loweredinto the shaft. When I was a few metres from the bottom the cable partedand I fell and lay stunned on the floor below.

  ~2~

  When I recovered consciousness the light had gone out. There was nosound about me. I shouted up the shaft above and could get no answer.The chamber in which I lay was many times my height and I could makenothing out in the dark hole above. For some hours I scarcely stirredand feared to burn my pocket flash both because it might reveal mypresence to lurking enemies and because I wished to conserve my batteryagainst graver need.

  But no rescue came from my men above. Only recently, after the lapse ofyears, did I learn the cause of their deserting me. As I lay stunnedfrom my fall, my men, unable to get answer to their shoutings, had givenme up for dead. Meanwhile the apparatus which caused the destruction ofthe German gas had gone wrong. My associates, unable to fix it, had fledfrom the mine and abandoned the enterprise.

  After some hours of waiting I stirred about and found means to erect arough scaffold and reach the mouth of the shaft above me. I attempted toclimb, but, unable to get a hold on the smooth wet rock, I gave upexhausted and despairing. Entombed in the depths of the earth, I waseither a prisoner of the German potash miners, if any remained alive, ora prisoner of the earth itself, with dead men for company.

  Collecting my courage I set about to explore my surroundings. I foundsome mining machinery evidently damaged by the explosion of our gasbombs. There was no evidence of men about, living or dead. Stealthily Iset out along the little railway track that ran through a passage down asteep incline. As I progressed I felt the air rapidly becoming colder.Presently I stumbled upon the first victim of our gas bombs, fallenheadlong as he was fleeing. I hurried on. The air seemed to be blowingin my face and the cold was becoming intense. This puzzled me for atthis depth the temperature should have been above that on the surface ofthe earth.

  After a hundred metres or so of going I came into a larger chamber. Itwas intensely cold. From out another branching passage-way I could heara sizzling sound as of steam escaping. I started to turn into thispassage but was met with such a blast of cold air that I dared not faceit for fear of being frozen. Stamping my feet, which were fast becomingnumb, I made the rounds of the chamber, and examined the dead minersthat were tumbled about. The bodies were frozen.

  One side of this chamber was partitioned off wi
th some sort of metalwall. The door stood blown open. It felt a little warmer in here and Ientered and closed the door. Exploring the room with my dim light Ifound one side of it filled with a row of bunks--in each bunk a corpse.Along the other side of the room was a table with eating utensils andback of this were shelves with food packages.

  I was in danger of freezing to death and, tumbling several bodies out ofthe bunks, I took the mattresses and built of them a clumsy enclosureand installed in their midst a battery heater which I found. In thisfashion I managed to get fairly warm again. After some hours of huddlingI observed that the temperature had moderated.

  My fear of freezing abated, I made another survey of my surroundings anddiscovered something that had escaped my first attention. In the far endof the room was a desk, and seated before it with his head fallenforward on his arms was the form of a man. The miners had all beendressed in a coarse artificial leather, but this man was dressed in awoven fabric of cellulose silk.

  The body was frozen. As I tumbled it stiffly back it fell from the chairexposing a ghastly face. I drew away in a creepy horror, for as I lookedat the face of the corpse I suffered a sort of waking nightmare in whichI imagined that I was gazing at my own dead countenance.

  I concluded that my normal mind was slipping out of gear and proceededto back off and avail myself of a tube of stimulant which I carried inmy pocket.

  This revived me somewhat, but again, when I tried to look upon thefrozen face, the conviction returned that I was looking at my owndead self.

  I glanced at my watch and figured out that I had been in the German minefor thirty hours and had not tasted food or drink for nearly fortyhours. Clearly I had to get myself in shape to escape hallucinations. Iwent back to the shelves and proceeded to look for food and drink.Happily, due to my work in my uncle's laboratory, these synthetic foodswere not wholly strange to me. I drank copiously of a non-alcoholicchemical liquor and warmed on the heater and partook of some nitrogenousand some starchy porridges. It was an uncanny dining place, but hungersoon conquers mere emotion, and I made out a meal. Then once more Ifaced the task of confronting this dead likeness of myself.

  This time I was clear-headed enough. I even went to the miners' lavatoryand, jerking down the metal mirror, scrutinized my own reflection andreassured myself of the closeness of the resemblance. My purpose framedin my mind as I did this. Clearly I was in German quarters and waslikely to remain there. Sooner or later there must be a rescuing party.

  Without further ado, I set about changing my clothing for that of theGerman. The fit of the dead man's clothes further emphasized the closenessof the physical likeness. I recalled my excellent command of the Germanlanguage and began to wonder what manner of man I was supposed to be inthis assumed personality. But my most urgent task was speedily to makeway with the incriminating corpse. With the aid of the brighterflashlight which I found in my new pockets, I set out to find a place tohide the body.

  The cold that had so frightened me had now given way to almost normaltemperature. There was no longer the sound of sizzling steam from theunexplored passage-way. I followed this and presently came upon anotherchamber filled with machinery. In one corner a huge engine, covered withfrost, gave off a chill greeting. On the floor was a steaming puddle ofliquid, but the breath of this steam cut like a blizzard. At once Iguessed it. This was a liquid air engine. The dead engineer in thecorner helped reveal the story. With his death from the penetrating gas,something had gone wrong with the engine. The turbine head had blownoff, and the conveying pipe of liquid air had poured forth the icy blastthat had so nearly frozen me along with the corpses of the Germans. Butnow the flow of liquid had ceased, and the last remnants wereevaporating from the floor. Evidently the supply pipe had been shut offfurther back on the line, and I had little time to lose for rescuerswere probably on the way.

  Along one of the corridors running from the engine room I found an openwater drain half choked with melting ice. Following this I came upon agrating where the water disappeared. I jerked up the grating and droppeda piece of ice down the well-like shaft. I hastily returned and draggedforth the corpse of my double and with it everything I had myselfbrought into the mine. Straightening out the stiffened body I plunged ithead foremost into the opening. The sound of a splash echoed within thedismal depths.

  I now hastened back to the chamber into which I had first fallen anddestroyed the scaffolding I had erected there. Returning to the deskwhere I had found the man whose clothing I wore, I sat down andproceeded to search my abundantly filled pockets. From one of them Ipulled out a bulky notebook and a number of loose papers. The freshestof these was an official order from the Imperial Office of ChemicalEngineers. The order ran as follows:

  Capt. Karl Armstadt Laboratory 186, E. 58.

  Report is received at this office of the sound of sapping operations in potash mine D5. Go at once and verify the same and report of condition of gas generators and make analyses of output of the same.

  Evidently I was Karl Armstadt and very happily a chemical engineer byprofession. My task of impersonation so far looked feasible--I couldtalk chemical engineering.

  The next paper I proceeded to examine was an identification folder doneup in oiled fabric. Thanks to German thoroughness it was amusinglycomplete. On the first page appeared what I soon discovered to be __pedigree for four generations back. The printed form on which all thiswas minutely filled out made very clear statements from which Idetermined that my father and mother were both dead.

  I, Karl Armstadt, twenty-seven years of age, was the fourteenth child ofmy mother and was born when she was forty-two years of age. According tothe record I was the ninety-seventh child of my father and born when hewas fifty-four. As I read this I thought there was something here that Imisunderstood, although subsequent discoveries made it plausible enough.There was no further record of my plentiful fraternity, but I took heartthat the mere fact of their numerical abundance would make unlikely anygreat show of brotherly interest, a presumption which provedquite correct.

  On the second page of this folder I read the number and location of myliving quarters, the sources from which my meals and clothing wereissued, as well as the sizes and qualities of my garments and numerousother references to various details of living, all of which seemedpainstakingly ridiculous at the time.

  I put this elaborate identification paper back into its receptacle andopened the notebook. It proved to be a diary kept likewise in thoroughGerman fashion. I turned to the last pages and perused them hastily.

  The notes in Armstadt's diary were concerned almost wholly with hischemical investigations. All this I saw might be useful to me later butwhat I needed more immediately was information as to his personal life.I scanned back hastily through the pages for a time without finding anysuch revelations. Then I discovered this entry made some monthspreviously:

  "I cannot think of chemistry tonight, for the vision of Katrina dancesbefore me as in a dream. It must be a strange mixture of blood-linesthat could produce such wondrous beauty. In no other woman have I seensuch a blackness of hair and eyes combined with such a whiteness ofskin. I suppose I should not have danced with her--now I see all myresolutions shattered. But I think it was most of all the blackness ofher eyes. Well, what care, we live but once!"

  I read and re-read this entry and searched feverishly in Armstadt'sdiary for further evidence of a personal life. But I only found tediousnotes on his chemical theories. Perhaps this single reference to a womanwas but a passing fancy of a man otherwise engrossed in his science. Butif rescuers came and I succeeded in passing for the German chemist thepresence of a woman in my new role of life would surely undo all myeffort. If no personal acquaintance of the dead man came with therescuing party I saw no reason why I could not for the time passsuccessfully as Armstadt. I should at least make the effort and Ireasoned I could best do this by playing the malingerer and appearingmentally incompetent. Such a ruse, I reasoned, would give me opportunityto hear much and say little, and
perhaps so get my bearings in the newrole that I could continue it successfully.

  Then, as I was about to return the notebook to my pocket, my hopes sankas I found this brief entry which I had at first scanning overlooked:

  "It is twenty days now since Katrina and I have been united. She doesnot interfere with my work as much as I feared. She even lets me talkchemistry to her, though I am sure she understands not one word of whatI tell her. I think I have made a good selection and it is surely apermanent one. Therefore I must work harder than ever or I shall notget on."

  This alarmed me. Yet, if Armstadt had married he made very little fussabout it. Evidently it concerned him chiefly in relation to his work.But whoever and whatever Katrina was, it was clear that her presencewould be disastrous to my plans of assuming his place in theGerman world.

  Pondering over the ultimate difficulty of my situation, but with agrowing faith in the plan I had evolved for avoiding immediateexplanations, I fell into a long-postponed sleep. The last thing Iremember was tumbling from my chair and sprawling out upon the floorwhere I managed to snap out my light before the much needed sleep quiteovercame me.

  ~3~

  I was awakened by voices, and opened my eyes to find the place brightlylighted. I closed them again quickly as some one approached and proddedme with the toe of his boot.

  "Here is a man alive," said a voice above me.

  "He is Captain Armstadt, the chemist," said another voice, approaching;"this is good. We have special orders to search for him."

  The newcomer bent over and felt my heart. I was quite aware that it wasfunctioning normally. He shook me and called me by name. After repeatedshakings I opened my eyes and stared at him blankly, but I said nothing.Presently he left me and returned with a stretcher. I lay inertly as Iwas placed thereon and borne out of the chamber. Other stretcher-bearerswere walking ahead. We passed through the engine room where mechanicswere at work on the damaged liquid air engine. My stretcher was placedon a little car which moved swiftly along the tunnel.

  We came into a large subterranean station and I was removed and broughtbefore a bevy of white garbed physicians. They looked at myidentification folder and then examined me. Through it all I lay limpand as near lifeless as I could simulate, and they succeeded in gettingno speech out of me. The final orders were to forward me post haste tothe Imperial Hospital for Complex Gas Cases.

  After an eventless journey of many hours I was again unloaded andtransferred to an elevator. For several hundred metres we sped upwardthrough a shaft, while about us whistled a blast of cold, crisp air. Atlast the elevator stopped and I was carried out to an ambulance thatstood waiting in a brilliantly lighted passage arched over with greyconcrete. I was no longer beneath the surface of the earth but wassomewhere in the massive concrete structure of the City of Berlin.

  After a short journey our ambulance stopped and attendants came out andcarried my litter through an open doorway and down a long hall into thespacious ward of a hospital.

  From half closed eyes I glanced about apprehensively for a black-hairedwoman. With a sigh of relief I saw there were only doctors and maleattendants in the room. They treated me most professionally and gave nosign that they suspected I was other than Capt. Karl Armstadt, whichfact my papers so eloquently testified. The conclusion of theirexamination was voiced in my presence. "Physically he is normal," saidthe head physician, "but his mind seems in a stupor. There is no remedy,as the nature of the gas is unknown. All that can be done is to awaitthe wearing off of the effect."

  I was then left alone for some hours and my appetite was troubling me.At last an attendant approached with some savoury soup; he propped me upand proceeded to feed me with a spoon.

  I made out from the conversation about me that the other patients wereofficers from the underground fighting forces. An atmosphere of militarydiscipline pervaded the hospital and I felt reassured in the conclusionthat all visiting was forbidden.

  Yet my thoughts turned repeatedly to the black-eyed Katrina ofArmstadt's diary. No doubt she had been informed of the rescue and waswaiting in grief and anxiety to see him. So both she and I were awaitinga tragic moment--she to learn that her husband or lover was dead, I forthe inevitable tearing off of my protecting disguise.

  After some days the head physician came to my cot and questioned me. Igazed at him and knit my brows as if struggling to think.

  "You were gassed in the mine," he kept repeating, "can you remember?"

  "Yes," I ventured, "I went to the mine, there was the sound of boringoverhead. I set men to watch; I was at the desk, I heard shouting, afterthat I cannot remember."

  "They were all dead but you," said the doctor.

  "All dead," I repeated. I liked the sound of this and so kept onmumbling "All dead, all dead."

  ~4~

  My plan was working nicely. But I realized I could not keep up this rolefor ever. Nor did I wish to, for the idleness and suspense wereintolerable and I knew that I would rather face whatever problems myrecovery involved than to continue in this monotonous and meaninglessexistence. So I convalesced by degrees and got about the hospital, andwas permitted to wait on myself. But I cultivated a slowness and brevityof speech.

  One day as I sat reading the attendant announced, "A visitor to see you,sir."

  Trembling with excitement and fear I tensely waited the coming of thevisitor.

  Presently a stolid-faced young man followed the attendant into the room."You remember Holknecht," said the nurse, "he is your assistant at thelaboratory."

  I stared stupidly at the man, and cold fear crept over me as he, withpuzzled eyes, returned my gaze.

  "You are much changed," he said at last. "I hardly recognize you."

  "I have been very ill," I replied.

  Just then the head physician came into the room and seeing me talking toa stranger walked over to us. As I said nothing, Holknecht introducedhimself. The medical man began at once to enlarge upon the peculiaritiesof my condition. "The unknown gas," he explained, "acted upon the wholenervous system and left profound effects. Never in the records of thehospital has there been so strange a case."

  Holknecht seemed quite awed and completely credulous.

  "His memory must be revived," continued the head physician, "and thatcan best be done by recalling the dominating interest of his mind."

  "Captain Armstadt was wholly absorbed in his research work in thelaboratory," offered Holknecht.

  "Then," said the physician, "you must revive the activity of thoseparticular brain cells."

  With that command the laboratory assistant was left in charge. He tookhis new task quite seriously. Turning to me and raising his voice as ifto penetrate my dulled mentality, he began, "Do you not remember ourwork in the laboratory?"

  "Yes, the laboratory, the laboratory," I repeated vaguely.

  Holknecht described the laboratory in detail and gradually his talkdrifted into an account of the chemical research. I listened eagerly toget the threads of the work I must needs do if I were to maintain myrole as Armstadt.

  Knowing now that visitors were permitted me, I again grew apprehensiveover the possible advent of Katrina. But no woman appeared, in fact Ihad not yet seen a woman among the Germans. Always it was Holknecht and,strictly according to his orders, he talked incessant chemistry.

  ~5~

  The day I resumed my normal wearing apparel I was shown into a largelounging room for convalescents. I seated myself a short distance apartfrom a group of officers and sat eyeing another group of large, hulkingfellows at the far end of the room. These I concluded to be commonsoldiers, for I heard the officers in my ward grumbling at the fact thatthey were quartered in the same hospital with men of the ranks.

  Presently an officer came over and took a seat beside me. "It is veryrarely that you men in the professional service are gassed," he said."You must have a dull life, I do not see how you can stand it."

  "But certainly," I replied, "it is not so dangerous."

  "And for that reason it
must be stupid--I, for one, think that even inthe fighting forces there is no longer sufficient danger to keep up themilitary morale. Danger makes men courageous--without danger couragedeclines--and without courage what advantage would there be in themilitary life?"

  "Suppose," I suggested, "the war should come to an end?"

  "But how can it?" he asked incredulously. "How can there be an end tothe war? We cannot prevent the enemy from fighting."

  "But what," I ventured, "if the enemy should decide to quit fighting?"

  "They have almost quit now," he remarked with apparent disgust; "theyare losing the fighting spirit--but no wonder--they say that the WorldState population is so great that only two per cent of its men are inthe fighting forces. What I cannot see is how a people so peaceful cankeep from utter degeneration. And they say that the World State soldiersare not even bred for soldiering but are picked from all classes. Ifthey should decide to quit fighting, as you suggest, we also would haveto quit--it would intolerable--it is bad enough now."

  "But could you not return to industrial life and do somethingproductive?"

  "Productive!" sneered the fighter. "I knew that you professional men hadno courage--it is not to be expected--but I never before heard even oneof your class suggest a thing like that--a military man do somethingproductive! Why don't you suggest that we be changed to women?" And withthat my fellow patient rose and, turning sharply on his metal heel,walked away.

  The officer's attitude towards his profession set me thinking, and Ifound myself wondering how far it was shared by the common soldiers. Thenext day when I came out into the convalescent corridor I walked pastthe group of officers and went down among the men whose garments bore nomedals or insignia. They were unusually large men, evidently from somespecially selected regiment. Picking out the most intelligent lookingone of the group I sat down beside him.

  "Is this the first time you have been gassed?" I inquired.

  "Third time," replied the soldier.

  "I should think you would have been discharged."

  "Discharged," said the soldier, in a perplexed tone, "why I am onlyforty-four years old, why should I be discharged unless I get in anexplosion and lose a leg or something?"

  "But you have been gassed three times," I said, "I should think theyought to let you return to civil life and your family."

  The soldier looked hard at the insignia of my rank as captain. "Youprofessional officers don't know much, do you? A soldier quit and docommon labor, now that's a fine idea. And a family! Do you think I'm aHohenzollern?" At the thought the soldier chuckled. "Me with a family,"he muttered to himself, "now that's a fine idea."

  I saw that I was getting on dangerous ground but curiosity prompted afurther question: "Then, I suppose, you have nothing to hope for untilyou reach the age of retirement, unless war should come to an end?"

  Again the soldier eyed me carefully. "Now you do have some queer ideas.There was a man in our company who used to talk like that when noofficers were around. This fellow, his name was Mannteufel, said hecould read books, that he was a forbidden love-child and his father wasan officer. I guess he was forbidden all right, for he certainly wasn'tright in his head. He said that we would go out on the top of the groundand march over the enemy country and be shot at by the flying planes,like the roof guards, if the officers had heard him they would surelyhave sent him to the crazy ward--why he said that the war would be overafter that, and we would all go to the enemy country and go about as weliked, and own houses and women and flying planes and animals. As if theRoyal House would ever let a soldier do things like that."

  "Well," I said, "and why not, if the war were over?"

  "Now there you go again--how do you mean the war was over, what wouldall us soldiers do if there was no fighting?"

  "You could work," I said, "in the shops."

  "But if we worked in the shops, what would the workmen do?"

  "They would work too," I suggested.

  The soldier was silent for a time. "I think I get your idea," he said."The Eugenic Staff would cut down the birth rates so that there wouldonly be enough soldiers and workers to fill the working jobs."

  "They might do that," I remarked, wishing to lead him on.

  "Well," said the soldier, returning to the former thought, "I hope theywon't do that until I am dead. I don't care to go up on the ground toget shot at by the fighting planes. At least now we have something overour heads and if we are going to get gassed or blown up we can't see itcoming. At least--"

  Just then the officer with whom I had talked the day before came up. Hestopped before us and scowled at the soldier who saluted in hastyconfusion.

  "I wish, Captain," said the officer addressing me, "that you would nottake advantage of these absurd hospital conditions to disrupt disciplineby fraternizing with a private."

  At this the soldier looked up and saluted again.

  "Well?" said the officer.

  "He's not to blame, sir," said the soldier, "he's off his head."