Murray Leinster - The Runaway Skyscraper
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Murray Leinster >> The Runaway Skyscraper
Arthur was still pursuing his investigation when a sob from Estelle
made him stop and look at her.
"Oh, what are we going to do?" she asked tearfully. "What _are_
we going to do? Where are we?"
"You mean, _when_ are we," Arthur corrected with a grim smile. "I
don't know. Way back before the discovery of America, though. You
can see in everything in the village that there isn't a trace
of European civilization. I suspect that we are several thousand
years back. I can't tell, of course, but this pottery makes me
think so. See this bowl?"
He pointed to a bowl of red clay lying on the ground before one of
the wigwams.
"If you'll look, you'll see that it isn't really pottery at all. It's
a basket that was woven of reeds and then smeared with clay to
make it fire-resisting. The people who made that didn't know about
baking clay to make it stay put. When America was discovered nearly
all the tribes knew something about pottery."
"But what are we going to do?" Estelle tearfully insisted.
"We're going to muddle along as well as we can," answered Arthur
cheerfully, "until we can get back to where we started from. Maybe
the people back in the twentieth century can send a relief party
after us. When the skyscraper vanished it must have left a hole
of some sort, and it may be possible for them to follow us down."
"If that's so," said Estelle quickly, "why can't we climb up it
without waiting for them to come after us?"
Arthur scratched his head. He looked across the clearing at the
skyscraper. It seemed to rest very solidly on the ground. He looked
up. The sky seemed normal.
"To tell the truth," he admitted, "there doesn't seem to be any
hole. I said that more to cheer you up than anything else."
Estelle clenched her hands tightly and took a grip on herself.
"Just tell me the truth," she said quietly. "I was rather foolish,
but tell me what you honestly think."
Arthur eyed her keenly.
"In that case," he said reluctantly, "I'll admit we're in a pretty
bad fix. I don't know what has happened, how it happened, or anything
about it. I'm just going to keep on going until I see a way clear
to get out of this mess. There are two thousand of us people,
more or less, and among all of us we must be able to find a way out."
Estelle had turned very pale.
"We're in no great danger from Indians," went on Arthur thoughtfully,
"or from anything else that I know of--except one thing."
"What is that?" asked Estelle quickly.
Arthur shook his head and led her back toward the skyscraper, which
was now thronged with the people from all the floors who had come
down to the ground and were standing excitedly about the concourse
asking each other what had happened.
Arthur led Estelle to one of the corners.
"Wait for me here," he ordered. "I'm going to talk to this crowd."
He pushed his way through until he could reach the confectionery and
news-stand in the main hallway. Here he climbed up on the counter
and shouted:
"People, listen to me! I'm going to tell you what's happened!"
In an instant there was dead silence. He found himself the center
of a sea of white faces, every one contorted with fear and anxiety.
"To begin with," he said confidently, "there's nothing to be afraid
of. We're going to get back to where we started from! I don't
know how, yet, but we'll do it. Don't get frightened. Now I'll
tell you what's happened."
He rapidly sketched out for them, in words as simple as he could make
them, his theory that a flaw in the rock on which the foundations
rested had developed and let the skyscraper sink, not downward,
but into the Fourth Dimension.
"I'm an engineer," he finished. "What nature can do, we can
imitate. Nature let us into this hole. We'll climb out. In the
mean time, matters are serious. We needn't be afraid of not getting
back. We'll do that. What we've got to fight is--starvation!"
V.
"We've got to fight starvation, and we've got to beat it," Arthur
continued doggedly. "I'm telling you this right at the outset,
because I want you to begin right at the beginning and pitch in to
help. We have very little food and a lot of us to eat it. First,
I want some volunteers to help with rationing. Next, I want every
ounce of food, in this place put under guard where it can be served
to those who need it most. Who will help out with this?"
The swift succession of shocks had paralyzed the faculties of most
of the people there, but half a dozen moved forward. Among them was
a single gray-haired man with an air of accustomed authority. Arthur
recognized him as the president of the bank on the ground floor.
"I don't know who you are or if you're right in saying what has
happened," said the gray-haired man. "But I see something's got to
be done, and--well, for the time being I'll take your word for what
that is. Later on we'll thrash this matter out."
Arthur nodded. He bent over and spoke in a low voice to the
gray-haired man, who moved away.
"Grayson, Walters, Terhune, Simpson, and Forsythe come here,"
the gray-haired man called at a doorway.
A number of men began to press dazedly toward him. Arthur resumed
his harangue.
"You people--those of you who aren't too dazed to think--are
remembering there's a restaurant in the building and no need to
starve. You're wrong. There are nearly two thousand of us here. That
means six thousand meals a day. We've got to have nearly ten tons
of food a day, and we've got to have it at once."
"Hunt?" some one suggested.
"I saw Indians," some one else shouted. "Can we trade with them?"
"We can hunt and we can trade with the Indians," Arthur admitted,
"but we need food by the ton--by the ton, people! The Indians don't
store up supplies, and, besides, they're much too scattered to have
a surplus for us. But we've got to have food. Now, how many of you
know anything about hunting, fishing, trapping, or any possible
way of getting food?"
There were a few hands raised--pitifully few. Arthur saw Estelle's
hand up.
"Very well," he said. "Those of you who raised your hands then
come with me up on the second floor and we'll talk it over.
The rest of you try to conquer your fright, and don't go outside
for a while. We've got some things to attend to before it will
be quite safe for you to venture out. And keep away from the
restaurant. There are armed guards over that food. Before we pass
it out indiscriminately, we'll see to it there's more for to-morrow
and the next day."
He stepped down from the counter and moved toward the stairway. It
was not worth while to use the elevator for the ride of only one
floor. Estelle managed to join him, and they mounted the steps
together.
"Do you think we'll pull through all right?" she asked quietly.
"We've got to!" Arthur told her, setting his chin firmly. "We've
simply got to."
The gray-haired president of the bank was waiting for them at the
top of the stairs.
"My name is Van Deventer," he said, shaking hands with Arthur,
who gave his own name.
"Where shall our emergency council sit?" he asked.
"The bank has a board room right over the safety vault. I dare say we
can accommodate everybody there--everybody in the council, anyway."
Arthur followed into the board-room, and the others trooped in
after him.
"I'm just assuming temporary leadership," Arthur explained, "because
it's imperative some things be done at once. Later on we can talk
about electing officials to direct our activities. Right now we
need food. How many of you can shoot?"
About a quarter of the hands were raised. Estelle's was among
the number.
"And how many are fishermen?"
A few more went up.
"What do the rest of you do?"
There was a chorus of "gardener," "I have a garden in my yard,"
"I grow peaches in New Jersey," and three men confessed that they
raised chickens as a hobby.
"We'll want you gardeners in a little while. Don't go yet. But the
most important are huntsmen and fishermen. Have any of you weapons
in your offices?"
A number had revolvers, but only one man had a shotgun and shells.
"I was going on my vacation this afternoon straight from the office,"
he explained, "and have all my vacation tackle."
"Good man!" Arthur exclaimed. "You'll go after the heavy game."
"With a shotgun?" the sportsman asked, aghast.
"If you get close to them a shotgun will do as well as anything,
and we can't waste a shell on every bird or rabbit. Those shells of
yours are precious. You other fellows will have to turn fishermen
for a while. Your pistols are no good for hunting."
"The watchmen at the bank have riot guns," said Van Deventer,
"and there are one or two repeating-rifles there. I don't know
about ammunition."
"Good! I don't mean about the ammunition, but about the guns. We'll
hope for the ammunition. You fishermen get to work to improvise
tackle out of anything you can get hold of. Will you do that?"
A series of nods answered his question.
"Now for the gardeners. You people will have to roam through the
woods in company with the hunters and locate anything in the way of
edibles that grows. Do all of you know what wild plants look like?
I mean wild fruits and vegetables that are good to eat."
A few of them nodded, but the majority looked dubious. The consensus
of opinion seemed to be that they would try. Arthur seemed a little
discouraged.
"I guess you're the man to tell about the restaurant," Van Deventer
said quietly. "And as this is the food commission, or something of
that sort, everybody here will be better for hearing it. Anyway,
everybody will have to know it before night. I took over the
restaurant as you suggested, and posted some of the men from the
bank that I knew I could trust about the doors. But there was
hardly any use in doing it."
"The restaurant stocks up in the afternoon, as most of its
business is in the morning and at noon. It only carries a day's
stock of foodstuffs, and the--the cataclysm, or whatever it was,
came at three o'clock. There is practically nothing in the place.
We couldn't make sandwiches for half the women that are caught
with us, let alone the men. Everybody will go hungry to-night.
There will be no breakfast to-morrow, nor anything to eat until we
either make arrangements with the Indians for some supplies or else
get food for ourselves."
Arthur leaned his jaw on his hand and considered. A slow flush
crept over his cheek. He was getting his fighting blood up.
At school, when he began to flush slowly his schoolmates had known
the symptom and avoided his wrath. Now he was growing angry with
mere circumstances, but it would be none the less unfortunate for
those circumstances.
"Well," he said at last deliberately, "we've got to-- What's that?"
There was a great creaking and groaning. Suddenly a sort of
vibration was felt under foot. The floor began to take on a slight
slant.
"Great Heaven!" some one cried. "The building's turning over and
we'll be buried in the ruins!"
The tilt of the floor became more pronounced. An empty chair slid
to one end of the room. There was a crash.
VI.
Arthur woke to find some one tugging at his shoulders, trying to drag
him from beneath the heavy table, which had wedged itself across
his feet and pinned him fast, while a flying chair had struck him
on the head and knocked him unconscious.
"Oh, come and help," Estelle's voice was calling
deliberately. "Somebody come and help! He's caught in here!"
She was sobbing in a combination of panic and some unknown emotion.
"Help me, please!" she gasped, then her voice broke despondently,
but she never ceased to tug ineffectually at Chamberlain, trying
to drag him out of the mass of wreckage.
Arthur moved a little, dazedly.
"Are you alive?" she called anxiously. "Are you alive? Hurry, oh,
hurry and wriggle out. The building's falling to pieces!"
"I'm all right," Arthur said weakly. "You get out before it all
comes down."
"I won't leave you," she declared "Where are you caught? Are you
badly hurt? Hurry, please hurry!"
Arthur stirred, but could not loosen his feet. He half-rolled over,
and the table moved as if it had been precariously balanced, and slid
heavily to one side. With Estelle still tugging at him, he managed
to get to his feet on the slanting floor and stared about him.
Arthur continued to stare about.
"No danger," he said weakly. "Just the floor of the one room gave
way. The aftermath of the rock-flaw."
He made his way across the splintered flooring and piled-up chairs.
"We're on top of the safe-deposit vault," he said. "That's why
we didn't fall all the way to the floor below. I wonder how we're
going to get down?"
Estelle followed him, still frightened for fear of the building
falling upon them. Some of the long floor-boards stretched over
the edge of the vault and rested on a tall, bronze grating that
protected the approach to the massive strong-box. Arthur tested
them with his foot.
"They seem to be pretty solid," he said tentatively.
His strength was coming back to him every moment. He had been no
more than stunned. He walked out on the planking to the bronze
grating and turned.
"If you don't get dizzy, you might come on," he said. "We can swing
down the grille here to the floor."
Estelle followed gingerly and in a moment they were safely below. The
corridor was quite empty.
"When the crash came," Estelle explained, her voice shaking with
the reaction from her fear of a moment ago, "every one thought the
building was coming to pieces, and ran out. I'm afraid they've all
run away."
"They'll be back in a little while," Arthur said quietly.
They went along the big marble corridor to the same western door,
out of which they had first gone to see the Indian village. As
they emerged into the sunlight they met a few of the people who
had already recovered from their panic and were returning.
A crowd of respectable size gathered in a few moments, all still
pale and shaken, but coming back to the building which was their
refuge. Arthur leaned wearily against the cold stone. It seemed to
vibrate under his touch. He turned quickly to Estelle.
"Feel this," he exclaimed.
She did so.
"I've been wondering what that rumble was," she said. "I've been
hearing it ever since we landed here, but didn't understand where
it came from."
"You hear a rumble?" Arthur asked, puzzled. "I can't hear anything."
"It isn't as loud as it was, but I hear it," Estelle insisted. "It's
very deep, like the lowest possible bass note of an organ."
"You couldn't hear the shrill whistle when we were coming here,"
Arthur exclaimed suddenly, "and you can't hear the squeak of a
bat. Of course your ears are pitched lower than usual, and you can
hear sounds that are lower than I can hear. Listen carefully. Does
it sound in the least like a liquid rushing through somewhere?"
"Y-yes," said Estelle hesitatingly. "Somehow, I don't quite
understand how, it gives me the impression of a tidal flow or
something of that sort."
Arthur rushed indoors. When Estelle followed him she found him
excitedly examining the marble floor about the base of the vault.
"It's cracked," he said excitedly. "It's cracked! The vault rose
all of an inch!"
Estelle looked and saw the cracks.
"What does that mean?"
"It means we're going to get back where we belong," Arthur cried
jubilantly. "It means I'm on the track of the whole trouble.
It means everything's going to be all right."
He prowled about the vault exultantly, noting exactly how the cracks
in the flooring ran and seeing in each a corroboration of his theory.
"I'll have to make some inspections in the cellar," he went on
happily, "but I'm nearly sure I'm on the right track and can figure
out a corrective."
"How soon can we hope to start back?" asked Estelle eagerly.
Arthur hesitated, then a great deal of the excitement ebbed from
his face, leaving it rather worried and stern.
"It may be a month, or two months, or a year," he answered
gravely. "I don't know. If the first thing I try will work, it
won't be long. If we have to experiment, I daren't guess how long
we may be. But"--his chin set firmly--"we're going to get back."
Estelle looked at him speculatively. Her own expression grew a
little worried, too.
"But in a month," she said dubiously, "we--there is hardly any hope
of our finding food for two thousand people for a month, is there?"
"We've got to," Arthur declared. "We can't hope to get that much
food from the Indians. It will be days before they'll dare to come
back to their village, if they ever come. It will be weeks before
we can hope to have them earnestly at work to feed us, and that's
leaving aside the question of how we'll communicate with them, and
how we'll manage to trade with them. Frankly, I think everybody is
going to have to draw his belt tight before we get through--if we
do. Some of us will get along, anyway."
Estelle's eyes opened wide as the meaning of his last sentence
penetrated her mind.
"You mean--that all of us won't--"
"I'm going to take care of you," Arthur said gravely, "but there
are liable to be lively doings around here when people begin to
realize they're really in a tight fix for food. I'm going to get
Van Deventer to help me organize a police band to enforce martial
law. We mustn't have any disorder, that's certain, and I don't
trust a city-bred man in a pinch unless I know him."
He stooped and picked up a revolver from the floor, left there
by one of the bank watchmen when he fled, in the belief that the
building was falling.
VII.
Arthur stood at the window of his office and stared out toward the
west. The sun was setting, but upon what a scene!
Where, from this same window Arthur had seen the sun setting behind
the Jersey hills, all edged with the angular roofs of factories,
with their chimneys emitting columns of smoke, he now saw the same
sun sinking redly behind a mass of luxuriant foliage. And where
he was accustomed to look upon the tops of high buildings--each
entitled to the name of "skyscraper"--he now saw miles and miles
of waving green branches.
The wide Hudson flowed on placidly, all unruffled by the arrival of
this strange monument upon its shores--the same Hudson Arthur knew
as a busy thoroughfare of puffing steamers and chugging launches.
Two or three small streams wandered unconcernedly across the land
that Arthur had known as the most closely built-up territory on
earth. And far, far below him--Arthur had to lean well out of his
window to see it--stood a collection of tiny wigwams. Those small
bark structures represented the original metropolis of New York.
His telephone rang. Van Deventer was on the wire. The exchange in
the building was still working. Van Deventer wanted Arthur to come
down to his private office. There were still a great many things to
be settled--the arrangements for commandeering offices for sleeping
quarters for the women, and numberless other details. The men who
seemed to have best kept their heads were gathering there to settle
upon a course of action.
Arthur glanced out of the window again before going to the
elevator. He saw a curiously compact dark cloud moving swiftly
across the sky to the west.
"Miss Woodward," he said sharply, "What is that?"
Estelle came to the window and looked.
"They are birds," she told him. "Birds flying in a group. I've
often seen them in the country, though never as many as that."
"How do you catch birds?" Arthur asked her. "I know about shooting
them, and so on, but we haven't guns enough to count. Could we
catch them in traps, do you think?"
"I wouldn't be surprised," said Estelle thoughtfully. "But it would
be hard to catch many."
"Come down-stairs," directed Arthur. "You know as much as any of
the men here, and more than most, apparently. We're going to make
you show us how to catch things."
Estelle smiled, a trifle wanly. Arthur led the way to the
elevator. In the car he noticed that she looked distressed.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "You aren't really frightened,
are you?"
"No," she answered shakily, "but--I'm rather upset about this
thing. It's so--so terrible, somehow, to be back here, thousands
of miles, or years, away from all one's friends and everybody."
"Please"--Arthur smiled encouragingly at her--"please count me your
friend, won't you?"
She nodded, but blinked back some tears. Arthur would have tried to
hearten her further, but the elevator stopped at their floor. They
walked into the room where the meeting of cool heads was to take
place.
No more than a dozen men were in there talking earnestly but
dispiritedly. When Arthur and Estelle entered Van Deventer came
over to greet them.
"We've got to do something," he said in a low voice. "A wave of
homesickness has swept over the whole place. Look at those men. Every
one is thinking about his family and contrasting his cozy fireside
with all that wilderness outside."
"You don't seem to be worried," Arthur observed with a smile.
Van Deventer's eyes twinkled.
"I'm a bachelor," he said cheerfully, "and I live in a hotel. I've
been longing for a chance to see some real excitement for thirty
years. Business has kept me from it up to now, but I'm enjoying
myself hugely."
Estelle looked at the group of dispirited men.
"We'll simply have to do something," she said with a shaky smile. "I
feel just as they do. This morning I hated the thought of having
to go back to my boarding-house to-night, but right now I feel as
if the odor of cabbage in the hallway would seem like heaven."
Arthur led the way to the flat-topped desk in the middle of the room.
"Let's settle a few of the more important matters," he said in
a businesslike tone. "None of us has any authority to act for
the rest of the people in the tower, but so many of us are in a
state of blue funk that those who are here must have charge for a
while. Anybody any suggestions?"
"Housing," answered Van Deventer promptly. "I suggest that we draft
a gang of men to haul all the upholstered settees and rugs that
are to be found to one floor, for the women to sleep on."
"M--m. Yes. That's a good idea. Anybody a better plan?"
No one spoke. They all still looked much too homesick to take any
great interest in anything, but they began to listen more or less
half-heartedly.
"I've been thinking about coal," said Arthur. "There's undoubtedly
a supply in the basement, but I wonder if it wouldn't be well to
cut the lights off most of the floors, only lighting up the ones
we're using."
"That might be a good idea later," Estelle said quietly, "but light
is cheering, somehow, and every one feels so blue that I wouldn't
do it to-night. To-morrow they'll begin to get up their resolution
again, and you can ask them to do things."
"If we're going to starve to death," one of the other men said
gloomily, "we might as well have plenty of light to do it by."
"We aren't going to starve to death," retorted Arthur sharply. "Just
before I came down I saw a great cloud of birds, greater than I
had ever seen before. When we get at those birds--"
"When," echoed the gloomy one.
"They were pigeons," Estelle explained. "They shouldn't be hard
to snare or trap."
"I usually have my dinner before now," the gloomy one protested,
"and I'm told I won't get anything to-night."
The other men began to straighten their shoulders. The peevishness
of one of their number seemed to bring out their latent courage.
"Well, we've got to stand it for the present," one of them said
almost philosophically. "What I'm most anxious about is getting
back. Have we any chance?"
Arthur nodded emphatically.
"I think so. I have a sort of idea as to the cause of our sinking
into the Fourth Dimension, and when that is verified, a corrective
can be looked for and applied."
"How long will that take?"
"Can't say," Arthur replied frankly. "I don't know what tools,
what materials, or what workmen we have, and what's rather more to
the point, I don't even know what work will have to be done. The
pressing problem is food."
"Oh, bother the food," some one protested impatiently. "I don't
care about myself. I can go hungry to-night. I want to get back to
my family."
"That's all that really matters," a chorus of voices echoed.
"We'd better not bother about anything else unless we find we
can't get back. Concentrate on getting back," one man stated more
explicitly.
"Look here," said Arthur incisively. "You've a family, and so have a
great many of the others in the tower, but your family and everybody
else's family has got to wait. As an inside limit, we can hope to
begin to work on the problem of getting back when we're sure there's
nothing else going to happen. I tell you quite honestly that I think
I know what is the direct cause of this catastrophe. And I'll tell
you even more honestly that I think I'm the only man among us who
can put this tower back where it started from. And I'll tell you
most honestly of all that any attempt to meddle at this present time
with the forces that let us down here will result in a catastrophe
considerably greater than the one that happened to-day."
"Well, if you're sure--" some one began reluctantly.