The albinos watched, and Whiteslaw marveled at the brilliance, literally and figurative, of the young son of Jacob Fastbinder.
When the second white blaze diminished. Fastbinder stomped his feet, shaking the rock floor, and commanded, “Obey!”
The albino bully collapsed, whimpering in subjugation, and the others—every last one of them—followed his example.
Fastbinder seemed pleased with himself, and Herbert Whiteslaw wondered if the old kraut had any clue what just happened. Oh, sure. Jack’s stage show had firmly convinced the cave people that Fastbinder was their lord and master. None of them would ever think of disobeying him.
But Jack himself made a stronger impression. If Fastbinder was their new king of Hell, then Jack Fast was their new god of Hellfire.
The new king of Hell stepped off of the stage. The bottoms of his bionic boots landed on the bully and splattered him in every direction. The blood lust infuriated the albinos, but Fastbinder said, “No!”
Whiteslaw watched the people quivering with their need to feed. Fastbinder strode away, the crowd parting before him, and nobody moved until Fastbinder announced, “Eat.”
They ate.
Whiteslaw was as white as one of Fastbinder’s albinos, and his lightweight shirt was drenched with sweat.
“They do enjoy their chow,” Fast said, escorting the senator down the steps and into a small side chamber, which was covered with a fabric door with clear plastic windows. When Senator Whiteslaw felt the air-conditioned air he nearly fainted with relief. Fast nudged him into a folding director’s chair and waved at a wheeled catering cart. Inside was a mountain of ice and bottles of water.
Whiteslaw snatched one of the bottles and drained it in four great gulps. He didn’t even mind the painful bout of brain freeze that came and went as a result, just grabbed another one.
“Good?” Fast asked.
“Best water I ever tasted.”
“It’s from a rare desert spring in New Mexico,” Jacob Fastbinder announced happily. “I recently purchased zee bottling plant and zee store that sells it.”
“Good investment,” Whiteslaw said when he finished his third bottle. “I’m gonna have nightmares about those cave people for the rest of my life. Is this where you people live?”
Jack sprawled in a chair. “You kidding me, Herbie? This is just a sort of green room, for you to relax in after the show. I think it’s time we took you on the tour.”
Whiteslaw became distressed at the thought of leaving the air-conditioning. “Can’t I stay here until it’s time to leave?”
Jack laughed. “You came all the way down, you gotta see the city, Herbie! First, though, some lunch?” Jack pulled a deli tray of cold cuts out of the refrigerated cart.
Whiteslaw shook his head and plucked his soggy shirt from his chest. “What’s so important about my being here?”
“We wanted to make a demonstration,” Fastbinder said matter-of-factly. “Not just for the cave people, but for your benefit, too.”
“After all, Herbie, the next President of the United States needs to know what kind of an ally he’ll be getting if he decides to be friendly with the Federation of United Subsurface Tribes,” Jack said.
“And what kind of enemy he’ll have on his hands if he decides not to stay friendly,” Fastbinder added. “That is zee reason for bringing you here.”
“Well, I am certainly impressed.”
“You are being disingenuous. Come on, Senator Herbie.”
There was a rear exit, leading to a golf cart, which wasn’t air-conditioned. Whiteslaw couldn’t stifle a groan.
“You’ll be perfectly comfortable in just a few minutes,” Fastbinder promised. He drove the cart between a pair of boulders and down a long, rocky incline, and Whiteslaw felt the temperature grow more bearable by the second.
“It’s twenty-five degrees cooler at the city level,” Jack Fast said. “There it is.”
Whiteslaw no longer noticed the temperature as he took in the “city,” where hundreds of cave people were returning to their work. They chopped doors and windows and rooms out of the rock. There was a turbine whining against a far wall, and a generator sprouted electrical cables that snaked across the ceiling. The generator powered a web of lights attached to the cavern’s roof.
“See the water? That’s what makes this place work,” Fast said, waving at two black sockets in the distant wall. Rivers emerged from both mouths and quickly merged into one strong current.
“The rivers come from way up, and they channel lots of air down with them,” Fast explained. “They keep the city cool all the time. The channels are partially dry, at least this time of the year, and the river eroded a natural deep channel in the center, so you’ve got easy walking all the way up.”
“They give us access to zee world above. One goes east, one goes northeast. Add to that river from zee southwest, which led Jack here in zee first place.” Fastbinder nodded to the third river, the largest of them all, which cascaded from an ugly black pit in the wall and piled on top of the water from the other rivers.
Whiteslaw was lost in his admiration when the explosion came. Shattered rock poured from the roof above the river and slammed into the water. Whiteslaw shouted.
“It’s cool,” Jack said.
“We’re being attacked!” Whiteslaw blurted.
“It is only zee afternoon blasting,” Fastbinder said. “We’re damming zee water. See?”
Whiteslaw watched the strong river flow widen as the shattered rock continued tumbling into it. He was shaking too hard to ask why.
“See, the rivers bring us stuff,” Fast explained. “The dam is being built like a big shallow sieve to catch shipments and seafood.”
“Any fish bigger than zee bluegill will find itself stuck here for us to harvest as we see fit,” Fastbinder said. “Zee mole people see the new abundance of food as a gift from zee God Emperor Fastbinder.”
“I’m also working on making special containerized transport barges,” Fast enthused. “No steering needed. Just load your stuff, toss them into the river source near the surface and it’ll make its way here. Automatic speedy delivery.”
The older man was frowning as he started the golf cart again. “And too risky. I predict our cargo will be damaged beyond use.”
“Hey, Pops, you said I could give it a try.”
“And you may. Then you will see zee results and can set about building me barges that can be controlled. I don’t care if they will be too slow.”
“You wait, Pops. My transport pods are gonna work.”
“We shall see.”
After a disgruntled silence, Jack got his verve back and waved at the roof.
“See all that wiring? We’ve got fixtures for a thousand floodlights just in phase one,” Jack Fast said. “Our shopping trips have only netted us a couple hundred so far, but when we’re fully operational it will be bright as day in here. The electrical grid also powers our machine shop.”
Fast steered the little cart through a narrow gap in the rock, and Whiteslaw found himself looking down a sheer drop, just inches from the cart’s balloon tires.
“Relax, I’m a safe driver,” Fast said. “This is where we make stuff.”
“Those are people,” Whiteslaw said, as he realized he was looking at regular human beings. They were dressed in normal human clothes, and they looked up at the cart with stricken, but normal, human eyes.
“I wasn’t about to try to train the mole dudes to work sheet metal,” Fast explained. “Mechanics, heating and ventilation engineers, electrical guys, refrigeration guys. Even got a few plumbers. It’s gonna take a lot of work to get this city up to our standards, you know. This bunch we nabbed mostly from a nearby subterranean construction project.”