At the same time he advanced, knife ready.
The little man moved, not toward Bulnes, but at an angle, toward the corner in which the blond man had been sitting. In this nook there was an office chair, a shelf on which lay a clipboard with sheets of paper attached, and a small litter of pencils, paper clips, etc. Above the shelf, on the wall, was a panel with a telephone mouthpiece and many buttons and switches.
The thief limped toward the corner, menacing Bulnes with the dagger. Bulnes guessed that he meant to push an alarm button, and with a feline leap he sprang in front of the panel.
The thief, however, came right at Bulnes, the dagger held stiffly in front of him like a fencer's foil. Bulnes knocked the man's forearm aside; his opponent, coming on headlong, impaled himself on Bulnes's own knife.
The impetus of the man's lunge drove Bulnes's arm back. Bulnes shoved hard and thrust the man backward. The thief fell supine, eyes staring upward.
Now, thought Bulnes, I'm in for it.
A quick check showed the small man dead and the large one likely to regain consciousness at any time. Bulnes scooped up the papyrus roll and started up the steps down which he had come ... to realize that the trap door was again closed.
He placed a hand against its underside and pushed. No result. Harder — still none. He remembered that it had taken all his strength, applied with much greater leverage to the top of the altar, to open it before. It probably had an automatic locking mechanism.
He came back down the steps and examined the panel over the shelf in the corner. There was one big red button labeled "Djen. El." (General Alarm), several smaller ones bearing such cryptic abbreviations as "Kor." and "Tra," and others identified by numbers or letters alone. There was no way to tell, without instruction, which buttons worked the trap door.
Bulnes looked up and down the tunnel. For the most part it was lined with bare concrete, sloping slightly up in one direction and down in the other. Across the tunnel from the seat stood a full-length mirror, and next to it a branch tunnel went off in the direction of the Peiraieus. In the down direction, a few meters away, an object stood in a niche in the wall. As he walked toward it Bulnes saw that it was a large rack for holding six light machine guns. The guns stood like a row of the Emperor's guards, butt plates in slots at the bottom and muzzles projecting up through holes in the top. The guns were secured by a steel bar that ran horizontally through their trigger guards. At one end, the bar projected through a hole in the side of the rack, and at the other it entered a lock. It was firmly fixed in place.
However, perhaps something could be done with the rack as a whole. When he heaved on it, it leaned slightly. Though heavy, it was not immovable. By repeated tugging he hauled it out from the wall, though not so far as to clear its ends from the niche. Then he went back to his bodies.
First he appropriated the dead man's identification badge. (People seldom compared the photograph on such a badge with the face of the wearer.) Then he removed the chiton from the body of the thief and cut it into strips. With these he gagged the other man and bound his wrists and ankles. Bulnes dragged the fellow (who showed signs of reviving until quieted by another tap with the knife pommel) down the tunnel, heaved him to shoulder height with straining muscles (the man was as heavy as he), and pushed him over the top of the gun rack. The man's body fell with a multiple thump to the floor behind the rack.
Then Bulnes went back, picked up the naked corpse of the thief, and shoved it after his first victim. There was not much room between the rack and the wall behind, and Bulnes had to reach over the top of the rack and wrestle with the corpse to make it lie down out of sight and not leave a pallid foot sticking up like a mute plea for help.
Panting, he looked again about him. So long as he was stuck underground he might as well explore a little and learn as much as he could in the course of looking for another outlet. For this was evidently where they had their lair.
He again picked up the manuscript of Euripides and started down the tunnel. Beyond the gun rack the tunnel bent slightly, and around the bend he came upon another alcove in which stood two shiny motor scooters. Bulnes was tempted to try to ride one, but their master-switches proved to be locked. Presently he came to an intersection or fork. The small metal directional signs set in the wall bore legends in code: "A-64" and the like.
As he walked he became aware of a faint distant hum. The tunnel did a dog-leg. Before Bulnes knew it, he was upon another trap-door exit like that through which he had entered. At the base of the steps was a brown-skinned fellow with straight black hair, perhaps a southern Asiatic. He sat at his panel reading a magazine. The man looked up; their eyes met.
Bulnes cursed himself for hesitating. He should have breezed on by. Now, however, his pause required explanation. He thought fast, then said in his most American English, "Say, Mac, I'm a little turned around. Which way is the sector super's office?"
The title he remembered from the conversation between the thief and the other guardian of the gate. The man addressed spoke with a Hindustani accent, "Farst right, second left. It is just bepore you come to the entrance to the condeetioner substation."
"Thanks, bud," said Bulnes. and strode off.
Soon he came to another intersection. As he stepped out into it he had to jump back to avoid being run down by another man on a motor scooter. The man wore the sandals, felt hat, and chlamys or riding cloak of an Athenian ephebos. The cloak streamed out behind him leaving his body otherwise naked, as he purred past.
Remembering his instructions, Bulnes took the right-hand tunnel. The mechanical hum grew louder. More men passed him, some in the dress of Periklean Greece, others in modern working clothes. Bulnes turned left at the next intersection. More men, more scooters, more noise, more cryptic signs. Doors began to appear in the walls of the tunnel. Bulnes noted the legends on them: "9-E-401," "Fai. Dip.," and at last: SEKTER SIUP.
Bulnes toyed with the idea of walking in and handing his papyrus to the receptionist or secretary or the superintendent himself, whoever seemed prepared to receive it. He immediately vetoed the notion; first, because he might yet want to return the document to Euripides; secondly, because there was too much chance that somebody in the office might know the late thief by sight.
Hence, after a slight pause, Knut Bulnes hurried on. More noise, more people, and then an open door with a chain across it, through which most of the noise seemed to come.
The sound was a mechanical clicking and buzzing such as one heard in a large telephone exchange, and the sight glimpsed through the opening was, in fact, much like such a place. There were endless banks of gadgets, each bank reaching to the high ceiling. Relays clicked; lights flashed; and in the electro-mechanical jungle a few technicians moved casually, pressing a button or throwing a switch or simply staring at little flashing lights.
Bulnes, not wishing to attract attention by interest in a sight that must be old hat to those who worked here, walked on past the open door. He went past another like it and then turned and retraced his steps, taking a good long look through each opening.
A picture began to form in his mind. The scientists of Emperor Vasil's staff must have developed a machine that conditioned people (hence the name "conditioner") to believe any predetermined story about who they were, and when and where they had lived all their lives. Then the Emp had restored Greece to its Periklean condition (having first dismantled and stored all the genuine relics of antiquity in that country) and likewise converted some millions of Greeks into believing they were truly Sokrates, Perikles, et cetera. He had chosen his types with care, so that the pseudo-Sokrates was to all intents and purposes a replica of the real one — the right age, mentality, personality, appearance, and so on.