He seized the ancient combination wheel....
He seized the ancient combination wheel....
He seized the ancient combination wheel....
"I can't read these numerals, if they are numerals," he said. "I don't know where to start."
Linda studied the markings. "I think that's the symbol for absolute zero," she said. "Try it anyway."
He began to turn the wheel again, counting off the numbers as he watched the irregular formation ofsarkonivalsabove him. "Five, three, two, six, one, three."
Twice he tried with no result. The third time there was a dull whirring somewhere in the bowels of the block, and the door slowly swung open. Within, a short passageway ended at another door, equipped with another series of dials.
Here Jimmy nodded in satisfaction. "I should be able to crack this."
He opened his carry-case, took out the headphones and slipped them on. Linda and Hanley pressed close, watching him.
"Hurry," the girl said. "I don't like it here."
A voice behind answered her.
"No need to hurry, Mr. Starr, alias the Nebula. Just take your time, but be sure you open it."
They wheeled. Three figures blocked the passage. In the lead, leaning comfortably against the side wall, stood Hamilton Garth, a heat gun leveled before him. Behind him were the two pseudo-I.P. men.
"Very nice of you to save us the trouble of locating the figurine cache," Garth said smoothly. "Now all you have to do is open that inner door and then help us carry a load of the images back to our tracto-car. You have nothing to worry about. If you obey orders, no harm will come to you. If you don't, well, don't forget I have a nice ace-in-the-hole. I have only to tell the world that James C. Starr, president of Triplanetary Shipping is the much-wanted cracksman, the Nebula."
Jimmy, Linda, and Hanley looked at each other.
"Come," said Garth. "This place oppresses me as much as it does you. Get to work."
Silently Jimmy adjusted the headphones again and began to move the dials. Five minutes passed. Then he stood back, grasped the handle and pulled the door open.
The interior was black, but a click of the torch revealed row upon row of Thro-Pahl images. There were hundreds here, and there must be hundreds more in the lower crypt.
And then Jimmy remembered the metal tube Linda had given him when they first entered this underground chamber. He drew forth the tube and with a quick motion threw it before him.
Nothing! The crypt remained steeped in silence.
"What was that you threw?" demanded Garth. "Answer, damn you!"
Jimmy shrugged. "It was a tube of setro-frenalot—NSK 54," he said. "I think you know what that means, Mr. Garth. The double detonation explosive. If it doesn't explode upon the first impact, the slightest jar, the slightest whisper of sound will discharge it."
Garth's face went black with rage. "You damned double-crossing—!"
He tossed his heat gun to one of the two pseudo-I.P. men and plunged into the vault. Halfway the significance of Jimmy's words came home to him. Gingerly, a step at a time, he began to work his way toward the metal tube that lay in the light of his electric torch.
Now he stood directly above it. He reached down, let his fingers fasten about the tube. With the greatest of care, he lifted it and began to catwalk back to the door of the vault.
But at the threshold Jimmy uttered a cry of alarm and swept Linda protectingly into his arms.
"What's the matter?" Garth demanded.
"The calibo-marset fire. Blue flame. It's started in the setro-frenalot. It's going to go off."
Garth's eyes shot wide with fear. He looked down at the tube in his hands, then abruptly swung and hurled it through the open doorway into the vault.
There was a low roar, mounting to a crescendo report. A cloud of smoke belched outward, and the ground beneath their feet trembled. At the first indication of Garth's action, Jimmy, Linda, and Hanley had hurled themselves backward, away from the vault door. Garth too had whirled and leaped like a released spring to safety.
But the two I.P. men were caught. They had not heard Jimmy's exclamation—hadn't time to guess what was coming. An avalanche of rubble and huge stones washed forward to sweep relentlessly over them. An instant later only a sound of dust-rising debris and masonry fragments marked the spot where they had stood.
As the deafening reverberations rolled back into silence, Hamilton Garth seemed to grasp the significance of the situation like a man in a dream. For a moment he stood there, rigid, eyes narrowing, lips quivering. Then with a snarl of profanity, he charged straight at Jimmy Starr.
Jimmy's head was still reeling dizzily from a blow dealt him by a flying chunk of rock, and he saw the onrushing Trust man through a haze. Garth's fist bludgeoned into his jaw. Another blow drove into his midsection, sent a wave of nausea sweeping through him. And then a picture of his father lying helpless on the study floor shot into his mind's eye; with it came a sudden realization of all that thesuperiorsclass—Garth's class—stood for. He snapped his fists forward and began to hit with all the strength he possessed at the face before him. He was still flailing his arms in and out, when Hanley stepped in and pulled him back.
It was the following morning, and the tracto-car was speeding smoothly down Canal Grand. In the driver's seat sat Jimmy Starr, a bandage on his temple, a smile on his face.
Beside him was Linda Hall, and in the rear tonneau Phil Hanley held a heat gun to cover the bound figure of Hamilton Garth.
"We did it," Jimmy said at length. "The figurine cache is destroyed forever."
The girl nodded.
"And the canal project won't be abandoned either," Jimmy continued. "That explosion opened up a shaft leading to a still lower crypt where there's enough purepxaringots stored to build all the canal locks the engineers need. Purepxar. Not the figurine kind."
Linda nodded again.
"What I want to know is this," she said. "I know that that tube you threw into the vault didn't go off the first time because the detonator-cap didn't hit. But what kind of explosive is setro-frenalot? I never heard of it.
"Neither did I," Jimmy laughed. "It goes back to the juke box age of the twentieth century. In other words, double talk."