They had come down a ramp, gone through an air-sealed door, and found an enormous cavern. The sign said
“Heliport.” The time-decayed bulks of collapsed metal that stood along the walls had been some kind of planes, planes with large fans on top. Jonnie had seen pictures of them in the man-books: they were called “helicopters.” He stared at the single one sitting in the middle of the vast floor.
The small party of Scots with him were interested in something else. The doors! They were huge, made of metal, reaching far right and far left and up beyond their sight. Another entrance to the base– a fly-in entrance for their type of craft.
Angus was scrambling around some motors to the side of the doors. “Electrical. Electrical! I wonder if these poor lads ever thought there would be a day when you had to do something manually. What if the power failed?”
“It’s failed,” said Robert the Fox, his low voice booming in the vast hangar.
“Call me the lamp boys,” said Angus. And presently the two Scots who were packing lamps, batteries, wires, and fuses for their own lighting trotted down the ramp, pushing their gear ahead of them on a dolly they had found.
Hammering began over by the motors that operated the doors.
Robert the Fox came over to Jonnie. "If we can get those doors to open and close we can fly in and out of here. There's a sighting port over there and it shows the outside looks like a cave opening, overhung, not visible to the drone.”
Jonnie nodded. But he was looking at the center helicopter. The air was different here; he could feel it on his hands. Drier. He went over to the helicopter.
Yes, there was his eagle. With arrows in its claws, dim but huge on the side of this machine. Not like the other machines, which had minor insignia. He made out the letters: “President of the United States.” This was a special plane!
The historian answered his pointing finger. “Head of the country. Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.”
Jonnie was puzzled. Yes, possibly he had gotten here on that day of disaster a thousand or more years ago. But if so, where was he? There had been no such sign on the offices. He walked around the hangar. Ha! There was another elevator, a smaller one in a different place. He looked further and found a door to a stairwell that led upward. The door was hard to open, apparently air-sealed. He got through it and mounted upward. Behind him the hammer and clang of the group faded and died. There was only the soft pat of his feet on the stairs.
Another air-sealed door at the top, even harder to open.
This was an entirely different complex. It stood independent of the rest of the base. And due to dry air and seals and possibly something else, the bodies were not dust. They were mummified. Officers on the floor, slumped over desks. Only a few.
Communication and file rooms. A briefing room with few chairs. A bar with glasses and bottles intact. Very superior grade of furnishings. Carpets. All very well preserved. Then he saw the door symbol he was looking for and went in.
The sign was on the splendid polished desk. A huge eagle plaque on the wall. A flag, with some of its fabric still able to stir when he caused a faint breeze opening the door.
The man was slumped over the desk, mummified. Even his clothing still looked neat.
Jonnie looked under the parchment hand and without touching it slid out the sheaf of papers.
The top date and the hour were two days later than the ones that ended in the operations room in the other complex.
The only explanation Jonnie could think of was that the ventilation systems didn't join: when gas hit the main base, the system was turned off here. And they had not dared turn it back on.
The president and his staff had died from lack of air.
Jonnie felt strangely courteous and respectful as he removed more papers from the desk and trays. He held in his hands the last hours of the world, report by report. Even pictures and something from high up called “satellite pictures.”
He hastily skimmed through the reports to make sure he had it all.
A strange object had appeared over London without any trace of where it came from.
Teleportation, filled in Jonnie.
It had been at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
Important, thought Jonnie.
It had dropped a canister and within minutes the south of England was dead.
Psychlo gas. The myths and legends.
It had cruised eastward at 302.6 miles per hour.
Vital data, thought Jonnie.
It had been attacked by fighter planes from Norway; it had not fought back; it had been hit with everything they had without the slightest evidence of damage to it.
Armor, thought Jonnie.
An interchange on something called the “hotline” prevented a nuclear missile exchange between the United
States and Russia.
The “Don't fire; it isn't the Russians” message on the desk in the other complex, thought Jonnie.
It was hit with nuclear weapons over Germany without the slightest apparent damage.
No pilots, thought Jonnie. It was a drone. No breathe-gas in it. Very heavy motors.
It had then toured the major population centers of the world, dropping canisters and wiping out populations.
And wiped out the other complex of this base without even knowing or caring that it was there, thought Jonnie. On the operations map of the other complex, they had plotted it only just to the east of this location.
It then went on to obliterate the eastern part of the United States. The reports had come in from “Dew Line” stations in the Arctic and some parts of Canada. It continued on its almost leisurely way to wipe out all population centers in the southern hemisphere. But at this point something else began to happen. Isolated observers and satellites reported tanks of a strange design materializing one after the other in various parts of the world and mopping up fleeing hordes of human beings.
Stage two; teleportation, thought Jonnie.
Military reports, out of sequence and incomplete, were shuffled in with the reports of the tanks. All major military airfield installations, whether gassed out of existence or not, were being blown to bits by strange, very fast flying craft.
Battle planes teleported in at the same time as the tanks.
Reports of some tanks exploding, some battle planes exploding. Reasons not known.
Manned craft, thought Jonnie. Breathe-gas hitting areas of radiation caused by firing on the drone with nuclear weapons.
The drone spotted by satellite landing near Colorado City, Colorado. Causes most structures there to collapse.
Preset remote control, thought Jonnie. Even their central command minesite had been picked out. Whole area carefully plotted and observed by casting picto-recorders. Rough, uncontrolled landing of drone near preplanned command area.
Tank spotted by satellite shooting at pocket of cadets wearing flight oxygen masks at the Air Force Academy. Report by acting commander of corps of cadets. Then no further communication.
The last battle, thought Jonnie.
Efforts from the com room to contact somebody, anybody, anywhere, via a remote antenna located three hundred miles to the north. Antenna location bombed by enemy battle plane.
Radio tracking, thought Jonnie.
Unspotted, but with their air shut off, the president and his aides and staff had lasted two more hours until they died of asphyxiation.
Jonnie put the papers respectfully in a protecting mine bag.
Feeling a bit strange for speaking, he said to the corpse, "I’m sorry no help came. We're something over a thousand years late.” He felt very bad.
His gloom would have followed him as he left the dreary, dark, cold quarters had not the barking, cheery voice of Dunneldeen sprung from the radio at his belt. Jonnie halted and acknowledged.