"I am the master here," he said, voice rasping.
"We're flattered, I'm sure," Solo said. "But to what do we owe your august attention?"
The round man paused a few feet from them. He drew a deep breath, spoke slowly, gaspingly: "You were watched on television, gentlemen, in the chamber—and unless you get ideas which must prove fatal to you, you are being watched at this moment by my men.
"It never occurred to us we weren't," Solo said, bowing slightly.
"You should have thought of this when you were in the chambers, Mr. Solo. We take the people from that chamber, Mr. Solo, and we make good citizens of them, in our own good time. We—would have done as much for you—and Mr. Kuryakin—if we had not monitored your attempt to escape."
"And now you're angry at us," Illya said in irony.
The stout man nodded, gasping as he spoke: "We have learned who you are. I am afraid this means you must die… Too bad, too. When I first glimpsed you, I had hopes of including such fine young men as you are—in my plans for the brilliant new existence I envision for the world."
ACT III: INCIDENT OF THE PREHISTORIC RIVERS
"Oh?" Illya said. "Sort of your own version of the Great Society?"
"A greater society," said the gasping voice, a note of pride vibrating it.
"I can't be very impressed by what I've seen," Solo said, needling the rotund man.
The round head nodded. "Perhaps this is because you have not seen enough. Isn't a little knowledge always a dangerous thing, Mr. Solo?"
"Maybe," Solo said. "But I don't think you're doing people any favors by turning them into half-blind moles, like the ones I've seen, or the zombies in that chamber over there."
The man waved a stout arm languidly. "Temporary, Mr. Solo. I assure you, it's all only temporary."
"I'm sure of that."
"I detect your sarcasm, sir. But if you could have been allowed to stay here awhile, you would have been impressed—despite yourself."
The rotund man held his breath a moment, then waved his arm toward the lighting tubes. "Look at our lights! We've lighted the core of the earth! Continuous tubing atom-generated power. Have the bungling scientists on the earth's surface accomplished any such miracle? No. But the scientists I brought here were able to do it, because I set them to that one task until it was completed."
Illya stared at him. "Do you really think men will lead better lives in a world like this?"
"Ah, no. We shall return to the earth's surface when we are ready—soon now."
Solo stared at the green-clad mole-round man. Like every power-mad being, he was an egomaniac—whether this was cause or result, Solo had never been able to determine. But it had been true since time began, from Alexander, through Attila, Hitler and every mad creature lusting to control his fellow beings and enslave them.
"Ready to take over, are you?" he said.
The stout man smiled. "At last. We have made alliances with surface-forces—we are ready to strike and nothing can stop us."
"THRUSH, no doubt, is your upperworld alliance?" Solo suggested.
The green-clad shoulders lifted slightly. "I don't mind admitting to you that THRUSH has aims sympathetic and parallel to our own."
Illya bust out, "Who are you, that you'd believe an international conspiracy like THRUSH could mean well for anyone except themselves?"
The round face pulled into a smile. "Perhaps THRUSH stands to lose—when other powers on the earth's surface lose. THRUSH has been most cooperative. I'm sure they will continue to be, until we no longer have any use for them."
Solo laughed suddenly. "Wonderful. It should be great when the jackals turn on each other."
"I'm afraid you don't understand, Mr. Solo. There will be no jackals—to quote your estimate of THRUSH—remaining above ground. That day will come soon. Don't you understand? I have atomic power down here. For every peaceful use—look at the huge stone doors in solid rock walls that glide open with the ease unheard of before.
"Look at our lighting. All atomic-powered. And I have atomic warheads. They are ready for use. No, Mr. Solo, when we strike at the earth-surface cities, only those beings lucky enough to be down here with us will survive. And when the earth's crust is safe for human inhabitance again, we shall rise up there—with the magnificent kind of society the earth should have!"
Solo whispered it. "So you've been choosing your people carefully—people you mean to save for your new existence? People like Harrison Howell?"
"Him among others. A man like Howell will mean a great deal in the new order. And so will the others we have chosen. I must say we have acted cleverly. Some were reported dead—by heart attack, by drowning, by lost planes, accident, lost at sea. We wanted them; we brought them down here, one way or another."
"Who are you?" Illya said again, gazing at the gasping man.
"Haven't you guessed?" the man inquired, breathing heavily. "Who else could have found this world, made it ready?"
"I've guessed," Solo said. "But I can't believe it."
"Ah, you know me, then, Mr. Solo?"
"Leonard Finnish," Solo said, shaking his head. "The UCLA geology professor. But you're not the sort of man the world has been mourning for the past five years."
The doughy, gray face flushed. "Those people! What do they know? They laughed at me five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years ago. Another foolish professor, too stupid to come in out of the rain! Well, we shall see now if I was right. I tried to tell them about the world inside the belly of the earth. They wouldn't listen! They laughed!"
Solo sighed. "They should have listened."
Leonard Finnish laughed. He sucked in agonizing breaths. "Yes, Mr. Solo, they should have listened. Oh, they listened as long as I talked only the stupid, elementary geology facts they wanted to hear—the inner crusts of the earth. They were so please when I proved to them the age of the very areas of the earth by the difference in those layers.
"But I was no longer interested in the Basement Complex and its relatively short span of a half-billion years in the making, or the deposits of the Paleozoic Era. There was no long any excitement in fumbling around Triassic, Jurassic or Cretaceous formations. I knew as long as fifteen years ago that there was an inner world undreamed of by your less imaginative geologists."
"And so you set out to find it," Illya said. "Only—I remember now. You were lost in a geologist expedition, five years ago, in Death Valley."
The face pulling in a doughy smile. "Ah, yes. Death Valley. The key. This was the key! Far below the surface of Death Valley, I found what I have been seeking—one of those incredible, prehistoric river beds, long dry, forgotten for eons, but linked with other huge chasms. I had to follow it. And that's why I disappeared. That's why I am here now, finally, with secrets of the inner earth that will make me master of the world."
"You proved all your theories, Professor?" Solo prodded.
Exhausted from the exertion of talking, the stout man settled into a reclining leather chair, and lay for some moments, breathing from small oxygen flasks.
"We are many billions of years inside the earth's crust, gentlemen. Difficult even for a body that's anxious to adapt, to learn to live in such an alien atmosphere… But to answer your question, Mr. Solo. Yes, I proved all my theories beyond my most frantic dreams. Rib-like valleys and huge river beds, dwarfing anything known on the surface today; unbelievable subterranean freeways to every part of the western hemisphere.