Part 2 (2/2)

Lights, built into the helmets of their suits, but up to this time unused, were turned on to illuminate the way. The tunnel, they saw, was a rectangular corridor or pa.s.sageway. It was lined with the same metal as that of the door.

At two intervals down the corridor they found it necessary to squeeze through half-opened doorways. The doors here were of the slide type and seemed to be controlled by machinery as was the one which they had opened to gain entrance to the corridor. But these could not be moved, nor did their efforts awaken any hum of machinery.

”You know,” Big Tim remarked, ”this arrangement of doors sort of reminds me of an airlock.”

”I've noticed the same thing,” Nellon responded. ”But an airlock--” He shook his head, for this was one of the many things he couldn't understand.

Soon the corridor came to an end. Nellon and Austin found themselves in a small, square room, each side of which was lined with small gla.s.s cubicles or cabinets. In each reposed a transparent sphere with various inexplicable attachments and a compactly folded ma.s.s of some strange material.

”Helmets!” Big Tim breathed. ”Brad, those are helmets. And unless I'm mistaken the other stuff must be suits of some kind. What have we stumbled onto, anyway?”

Nellon pa.s.sed a slow, almost-knowing glance about the room, his helmet lights glinting on the gla.s.s of the cabinets.

”I've got a crazy idea,” he said. ”But let that wait until we see more.

There's another doorway over there. Let's go on.”

They went on. There were more corridors, but this time there were rooms opening from them. Each was uniformly alike, filled with the same articles and furnis.h.i.+ngs. Nothing with which they were familiar had any counterpart here. Everything, from strange, rounded furniture to bizarre clothing, was weirdly alien.

But of the beings who had once inhabited these rooms they found no trace. There were only the garments they had once worn, the chairs in which they had sat. About these clung the ghosts of their presences.

Over all was an air of desertion and long neglect.

They entered another section. Here there were rooms as large as halls, spread with queer tables and chairs. One they found to be a library, for on shelves they found large, tablet-like books whose stiff pages were covered with glowing hieroglyphs.

Then they found their first stairway, a succession of small ramps leading to some floor above. They ascended slowly, with the feelings of men entering some new portion of strange and utterly alien world.

Here they found but one, huge room, and this their lights revealed to be perfectly circular. In the center, glowing greenly, was what appeared to be an immensely thick column, rising from floor to ceiling. About this banks of strange instruments and machinery were grouped.

”Brad,” Big Tim whispered. ”This place--What on earth could it have been for?”

Nellon made small, slow shakes of his head.

”That's what bothers me. I can't imagine any possible use. They knew utility, the beings who built these rooms. There was a good purpose for this room, I'm sure. Yet I can't imagine what it could have been. None of the activities which we normally carry on in life would seem to fit in with these surroundings.”

”Brad--that's it! This room was for no normal use. It was for something--oh, I don't know. But it must have been something tremendously important to them. I feel--” Big Tim did not finish. His strained, low voice died away, and he moistened his lips. The reverie heavy upon his face showed clearly how oblivious he was of the act.

”Let's take a closer look at that column, or whatever it is,” Nellon suggested. ”We might find a clue.”

The column was big. Just how big they had never realized. It was only when halfway to it, and still approaching, that awareness of its size began to dawn upon them.

The vastness of the room had dwarfed it somewhat, but now, almost upon it and with their own sizes as standards of comparison, they were amazed and awed at its cyclopean girth. Slow understanding of the heroic dimensions of the place in its mysterious entirety began to dawn upon them.

And then Nellon became conscious of something else besides size. With closer and closer approach to the column, a strange comfort and well-being was growing within him. The stiff soreness of his bruises was easing. The sense of restless confinement which he always a.s.sociated with the wearing of his thermalloy suit was dimming. The first pangs of rising hunger of which he had earlier become aware were now dulling, as though he were in the midst of a bountiful and delicious meal. He experienced a rising tide of physical and mental satisfaction, as if every want of these two components were being realized and generously administered to.

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