Childhood's End (4 page)

By noon he had become alarmed and sent a car to Stormgren's house. Ten minutes later he was startled by the scream of a siren, and a police patrol came racing up Roosevelt Drive. The news agencies must have had friends in that vehicle, for even as van Ryberg watched it approach, the radio was telling the world that he was no longer merely Assistant-but Acting-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Had van Ryberg fewer troubles on his hands, he would have found it entertaining to study the Press reactions to Stormgren's disappearance. For the past month, the world's papers had divided themselves into two sharply defined groups. The Western press, on the whole, approved of Kar~llen's plan to 'make all men citizens of the world. The Eastern countries, on the other hand, were undergoing violent but largely synthetic spasms of national pride. Some of them had been independent for little more than a generation, and felt that they bad been cheated out of their gains. Criticism of the Overlords was widespread and energetic: after an initial period of extreme caution, the Press had quickly found that it could be as rude to Karellen as it liked and nothing would happen.

Now it was excelling itself.

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Most of these attacks, though very vocal, were not representative of the great mass of the people. Along the frontiers that would soon be gone forever the guards had been doubled

-but the soldiers eyed each other with a still inarticulate friendliness. The politicians and the generals might storm and rave, but the silently waiting millions felt that, none too soon, a long and bloody chapter of history was coming to an end.

And now Stormgren had gone, no-one knew where. The tumult suddenly subsided as the world realized that it had lost the only man through whom the Overlords, for their own strange reasons, would speak to Earth. A paralysis seemed to descend upon the press and radio commentators: but in the silence could be heard the voice of the Freedom League, anxiously protesting its innocence.

It was utterly dark when Stormgren awoke. For a moment he was too sleepy to realize how strange that was. Then, as full consciousness dawned, he sat up with a start and felt for the switch beside his bed.

In the darkness his hand encountered a bare stone wall, cold to the touch. He froze instantly, mind and body paralysed by the impact of the unexpected. Then, scarcely believing his senses, he kneeled on the bed and began to explore with his finger-tips that shockingly unfamiliar wall.

He had been doing this only for a moment when there was a sudden click and a section of the darkness slid aside. He caught a glimpse of a man silhouetted against a dimly lit background: then the door closed again and the darkness returned. It happened so swiftly that he had no chance to see anything of the room in which he was lying.

An instant later, he was dazzled by the light of a powerful electric torch. The beam ffickered across his face, held him steadily for a moment, then dipped to illuminate the whole bed

-which was, he now saw, nothing more than a mattress supported on rough planks.

Out of the darkness a soft voice spoke to him in excellent English, but with an accent which Stormgren could not at first identif~~.

"Au, Mr. Secretary-I'm glad to see you're awake. I hope you feel quite all right."

There was something about the last sentence that caught

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Stormgren's attention, so that the angry questions he had been about to ask died upon his lips. He stared back into the darkness, then replied calmly: "How long have I been UflCOfl scious?"

The other chuckled.

"Several days. We were promised there'd be no after-effects. I'm glad to see it's true."

Partly to gain time, partly to test his own reactions, Stormgren swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was sqil wearing his night-clothes, but they were badly crumpled and seemed to have gathered considerable dirt. As he moved he felt a slight dizziness-not enough to be unpleasant but sufficient to convince him that he had indeed been drugged.

He turned towards the light.

"Where am I?" he said sharply. "Does Wainwright know about this?"

"Now, don't get excited," replied the shadowy figure. "We won't talk about that sort of thing yet. I guess you're pretty hungry. Get dressed and come along to dinner."

The oval of light slipped across the room and for the first time Stormgren had an idea of its dimensions. It was scarcely a room at all, for the walls seemed bare rock, roughly smoothed into shape. He realized that he was underground, possibly at a great depth. And if he had been unconscious for several days, he might be anywhere on Earth.

The torch-light illuminated a pile of clothes draped over a packing-case.

"This should be enough for you," said the voice from the darkness. "Laundry's rather a problem here, so we grabbed a couple of your suits and half a dozen shirts."

"That," said Stormgren without humour, "was very considerate of you."

"We're sorry about the absence of furniture and electric Light. This place is convenient in some ways, but it rather lacks amenities."

"Convenient for what?" asked Stormgren as he climbed into a shirt. The feel of the familiar cloth beneath his fingers was strangely reassuring.

"Just-convenient," said the voice. "And by the way, since we're likely to spend a good deal of time together, you'd better call me Joe.

"Despite your nationality," retorted Stormgren, "you're

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E'olish, aren't you?-I think I could pronounce your real name.

Et won't be worse than many Finnish ones."

There was a slight pause and the light flickered for an distant.

'Well, I should have expected it," said Joe resignedly.

"You must have plenty of practice at this sort of thing."

"It's a useful hobby for a man in my position. At a guess I ihould say you were brought up in the United States but didn't ~eave Poland Until-"

"That," said Joe firmly, "is quite enough. As you seem to save finished dressing-thank you."

The door opened as Stormgren walked towards it, feeling nildly elated by his small victory. As Joe stood aside to let aim pass, he wondered if his captor was armed. Almost cer~ainly he would be, and in any case he would have friends around.

The corridor was dimly lit by oil lamps at intervals, and for the first time Stormgren could see Joe clearly. He was a man Df about fifty, and must have weighed well over two hundred pounds. Everything about him was outsize, from the stained battledress that might have come from any of half a dozen armed forces, to the startlingly large signet ring on his left band. A man built on this scale probably would not bother to carry a gun. It should not be difficult to trace him, thought Stormgren, if he ever got out of this place. He was a little de-. pressed to realize that Joe must also be perfectly well aware of this fact.

The walls around them, though occasionally faced with concrete, were mostly bare rock. It was dear to Stormgren that he was in some disused mine, and he could think of few more effective prisons. Until now the fact of his kidnapping had failed to worry him greatly. He had felt that, whatever happened, the immense resources of the Overlords would soon locate and rescue him. Now he was not so sure. He had already been gone several days-and nothing had happened. There must be a limit even to Karellen's power, and if he were indeed buried in some remote continent, all the science of the Overlords might be unable to trace him.

There were two other men sitting at the table in the bare, dimly lit room. They looked up with interCst, and more than a little respect, as Stormgren entered. One of them pushed across a bundle of sandwiches which Stormgren accepted

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eagerly. Though he felt extremely hungry, he could have done with a more interesting meal, but it was probable that his captors had dined no better.

As he ate, he glanced quickly at the three men around him.

~oe was by far the most outstanding character, and not merely In the matter of physical bulk. The others were clearly his assistants-nondescript individuals, whose origins Stormgren would be able to place when he heard them talk.

Some wine had been produced in a not-too-aseptic glass,

and Stormgren washed down the last of the sandwiches.

Feeling now more fully in command of the situation, he turned to the huge Pole.

'Well," he said evenly, "perhaps you'll tell me what all this Is about, and just what you hope to get out of it."

Joe cleared his throat.

"I'd like to make one thing straight," he said. "This is nothing to do with Wainwright. He'll be as surprised as anyone.',

Stormgren had half expected this, though he wondered why Joe was confirming his suspicions. He had long suspected the existence of an extremist movement inside-or on the frontiers of-the Freedom League.

"As a matter of interest," he said, "how did you kidnap me?"

He hardly expected a reply to this, and was somewhat taken aback by the other's readiness-even eagerness-to answer.

"It was all rather like a Hollywood thriller," said Joe cheerfully. "We weren't sure if Karellen kept a watch on you, so we took somewhat elaborate precautions. You were knocked out by gas in the air-conditioner--that was easy. Then we carried you out into the car-no trouble at all. All this, I might say, wasn't done by any of our people. We hired-er-professionals fur the job. Karellen may get them-in fact, he's supposed to

-but he'll be no wiser. When it left your house, the car drove into a long road tunnel not a thousand kilometres from New York. It came out again on schedule at the opposite end, still carrying a drugged man extraordinarily like the Secretary-General. Quite a while later a large truck loaded with metal cases emerged in the opposite direction and drove to a certain airfield where the cases were loaded aboard a freighter on perfectly legitimate business. I'm sure the owners of those cases would be horrified to know how we employed them.

"Meanwhile the car that had actually done the job continued

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elaborate evasive action towards the Canadian border. Perhaps Karellen's caught it by now: I don't know or care. As you'll iee-I do hope you appreciate my frankness-our whole plan depended on one thing. We're pretty sure that Karellen can ee and hear everything that happens on the surface of the Earth-but unless he uses magic, not science, he can't see mderneath it. So he won't know about the transfer in the tunnel-at least until it's too late. Naturally we've taken a risk, but there were also oneor two other safeguards I won't go into aow. We may want to use them again, and it would be a pity to give them away."

Joe had related the whole story with such obvious gusto that Stormgren could hardly help smiling. Yet he also felt very iisturbed. The plan was an ingenious one, and it was quite possible that Karellen had been deceived. Stormgren was not even certain that the Overlord kept any form of protective rnrveillance over him. Nor, clearly, was Joe. Perhaps that was why he had been so frank-he wanted to test Stormgren's reactions. Well, he would try and appear confident, whatever his real feelings might be.

"You must be a lot of fools," said Stormgren scornfully, "if you think you can trick the Overlords as easily as this. In any case, what conceivable good will it do?"

Joe offered him a cigarette, which Stormgren refused, then [it one himself and sat on the edge of the table. There was an ominous creaking and he jumped off hastily.

"Our motives," he began, "should be pretty obvious. We've found arguments useless, so we have to take other measures. There have been underground movements before, and even Karellen, whatever powers he's got, won't find it easy to deal with us. We're out to fight for our independence.

Don't misunderstand me. There'll be nothing violent-at [hat, anyway-but the Overlords have to use human agents, and we can make it mighty uncomfortable for them."

Starting with me, I suppose, thought Stormgren. He wondered if the other had given him more than a fraction of the whole story. Did they really think that these gangster methods would Influence Karellen in the slightest? On the ther hand, it was quite true that a well-organized resistance movement could make life very difficult. For Joe had put his [luger on the one weak spot in the Overlords' rule. Ultimately, all their orders were carried out by human agents. If these were

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terrorized into disobedience, the whole system might collapse. It was only a faint possibility, for Stormgren felt confident that Karellen would soon find some solution.

"What do you intend to do with me?" asked Stormgren at length. "Am I a hostage, or what?"

"Don't worry-we'll look after you. We expect some visitors in a few days, and until then we'll entertain you as well as we

can."

He added some words in his own language, and one of the others produced a brand-new pack of cards.

"We got these especially fur you," explained Joe. "I read in Time the other day that you were a good poker player." His voice suddenly became grave. "I hope there's plenty of cash in your wallet," he said anxiously. 'We never thought of looking. After all, we can hardly accept cheques."

Quite overcome, Stormgren stared blankly at his captors.

Then, as the true humour of the situation sank into his mind, it suddenly seemed to him that all the cares and worries of office had lifted from his shoulders. From now on, it was van Ryberg's show. Whatever happened, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it-and now these fantastic criminals were anxiously waiting to play poker with him.

Abruptly, he threw back his head and laughed as he had not done for years.

There was no doubt, thought van Ryberg morosely, that Wainwright was telling the truth. He might have his suspicions, but he did not know who had~kidnapped Stormgren. Nor did he approve of the kidnapping itself: Van Ryberg had a shrewd idea that for some tune extremists in the Freedom League had been putting pressure on Wainwright to make him adopt a more active policy. Now they were taking matters into their own hands.

The kidnapping had been beautifully organized, there was no doubt of that. Stormgren might be anywhere on Earth, and there seemed little hope of tracing him. Yet something must be done, decided van Ryberg, and done quickly. Despite the jest. he had so often made, his real feeling towards Karellen was one of overwhelming awe. The thought of approaching the Supervisor directly filled him with dismay, but there seemed no alternative.