The invader bomb that had smashed Binghampton had been exploded at a height of nine hundred feet. The radiation from the jumbled debris had long since dropped below the danger point. The vast patch of vitrified earth made maximum night speed possible.
As the hours stretched out, Martin Rhode slouched in the seat and thought of Alice. He remembered how wan and tired she had been the last time he had seen her. Her resistance was low, and in a forward area, she was in more danger than he. He found himself wishing that the woman’s draft had qualified her for factory work in some safe place far behind the lines, rather than in a forward hospital where there was constant danger of being overrun by an enemy patrol.
She too, had seen a lot of death. The moments they had together were precious beyond description, and his heart ached when he thought of the way her slim shoulders trembled when his arms were tight around her. The world was giving the two of them a damn poor break. The war was sapping their youth. Should she die, there would be little point in any of the rest of it. He knew that she felt the same way too.
Brogan had felt that way. Brogan and his girl. They had stolen supplies and a light plane and headed for the Canadian wilds. He smiled wryly in the darkness. Brogan had picked what he thought was wild and empty country, and had landed directly above one of the biggest synthetic food plants in the country.
The drumhead trial had lasted forty minutes. They had shot Brogan’s wife first. Then him. Desertion in time of war.
He felt sleepy, but knew he should remain alert. If the invader’s aircraft, so high as to be invisible and almost inaudible, appeared over them, only the delicate radar would give them warning.
When it happened the driver, startled, braked the truck too fast and the jagged sound of crashes from the rear told that he had piled up the convoy. Martin Rhode was hurled, cursing, against the windshield.
All Martin could think of was a perfectly straight bolt of lightning, thicker than any lightning flash he had ever seen, driving straight down from the cloudless heavens to bury itself in the earth with a thick, chunking noise that seemed to shake the road.
“Sorry, sir,” the driver said in a high nervous voice. “I was startled and I couldn’t—”
“It’s done now,” he said shortly. He climbed down to take a look. All the other drivers were out of their trucks, looking over the damage.
Of the eighteen trucks, only three were so disabled as to be unable to continue. The driver of one of the disabled trucks was a competent-looking sergeant. Martin said, “Get in the lead truck, sergeant. You know the destination. Take the trucks on through. Whatever that thing was, it seems to have made a hell of a hole up ahead. I’m going to stay and find out what it is. Give that hole a wide circle. You two men, you’ll stay with me. Pick us up on your way back, sergeant.”
It took ten minutes to get the trucks in running condition untangled from the disabled trucks. The two drivers stood near Martin Rhode and watched the convoy lumber off, turning sharply across country to avoid the huge hole made by whatever it was that had flashed down out of the night sky. When he shut his eyes, Martin could still see the after-image of the blue-white line drawn from sky to earth.
The two men who had remained behind were obviously nervous.
Martin tested his flashlight against the palm of his hand, said, “You two men stay well back while I take a look. Go on back to that crest and get on the far side of it so that if it should blow up, some kind of a report will get back. I’ll take a hand set and tell you what I see.”
The starlight was bright enough to show him the dimensions of the vast hole. He gasped as he saw it, estimating its diameter at a hundred and eighty feet. The aged concrete of the highway had been sliced as cleanly as though by a sharp knife.
He said, “The hole seems to be close to two hundred feet in diameter, and it is very regular. Seems to be made by a cylindrical object much larger than any rocket known to be in use. I’m approaching it on the concrete. Now I’m on my stomach looking down over the edge. I’m shining my light down into the hole. It’s beginning to clear a little. Dust from the broken concrete is still broiling around down there, so I can’t see very well. It’s beginning to clear a little. Now I can just vaguely see the bottom. It appears to be about six hundred feet deep. It’s hard to estimate it. From here it looks as though the object took a curved path after it entered the ground. The concrete here on the edge is still warm to the touch from the pressure and friction. I can’t hear anything or smell anything.”
He stood up and walked back, saying into the hand mike, “One of you men come over here to the trucks.”
They found one truck which was in good enough working order to get over to the rim of the hole. Its winch carried two hundred feet of fine wire cable. By robbing the winches of the other two trucks, Martin was able to link up a cable six hundred feet long. In forty minutes he was ready, and with his feet in a loop at the end of the cable, his good arm wrapped around the cable itself, the mike close to his lips, he gave the details of his descent to the second man whom he had posted a good quarter-mile from the edge of the hole.
“The walls seem to be smooth. The object penetrated the topsoil and then crashed through various strata of rock without appearing to change its shape or size. Now the side walls are granite. There is considerable seepage of water. Now I can plainly see that the hole curves. Yes, it is a sharp curve. From here, it looks as though it might be a full ninety-degree turn. I can feel an odd throbbing in the air around me... Now the curve is so sharp that I’m scraping against the far side of the hole from the side where the truck is parked. After I slide down a bit further, the slant will be shallow enough that I can climb down.”
In a few seconds he shouted up the shaft, “Hold it right there. Don’t haul up until I give the order.”
Leaving the loop resting against the rock slope, he gave one quick glance up at the bright stars, then walked clown to where the side became the floor of what seemed to be a mammoth tunnel stretching away into the gloom.
He turned his light down the tunnel. His voice was tense as he said into the mike, “I can see a shining object that reflects my light. It’s only about a hundred feet from where I stand. And... Wait! Yes, I can seem to detect some sort of move—”
Twenty minutes later, hearing no further sound, the listener, one Corporal Denty, came cautiously to the edge of the hole. He whispered to Pfc. Chase, “Not a peep out of him for nearly a half-hour.”
They both looked down into the darkness. Denty was the one who unhooked the spotlight, spliced wires so they could shine it down. They saw the empty loop of the cable far below.
“Cave-in maybe?” Chase asked. “No, it couldn’t be. I would have heard it. What the hell happened!”
“You want to go down and look!”
“Not me, brother!”
“Let’s get out of here!”
“Suppose he’s okay and wants to be hauled up?”
“If he was okay we would have heard something. This makes me nervous. Let’s get the hell out. Come on!”
Before dawn, after the empty vehicles had returned to the Chemung Valley cave, a distant tower radioed a report in code to the Commanding General of Advance Section Three. The general’s name was Walter Argo, and he was a very tired and very apprehensive man. But he was also very familiar with the odd tricks that imagination can play in time of war.
He passed the report on to his G-2, who in turn gave it to the Staff Ordnance Officer who passed it on to Colonel Rudley Wing, the Rocket Disposal Officer, who assigned it to Captain Jakob Van Meer, who, shortly before noon, picked up the necessary equipment and a squad of nine technicians. and two disposal trucks and headed back for the rear area of Advance Section Three to the spot indicated in the radio.