The Buttoned Sky Part 18

"What a beastie," marveled the Ancient Kingdom man. "How I'd love to dissect one!" Revel, puzzling over the word "dissect," went into the mine.

"Jerran, come along. You others remain, and keep off any intruders."

There were but three levels in this mine, and he covered them rapidly, Jerran at his heels. He slew seven more spheres, with four zanphs. His blood was up and his tongue lolled with excitement.

To his banner, which was a dead G.o.d on Jerran's pick, there came forty-three miners. Four others declined, and were allowed to stay at their posts, true to their false G.o.ds and the service of the gentry.

Coming out of this mine, he led a small army, and felt like a conquering general already. In two hours he had invaded every shaft in the valley, and six hundred men less a score or so were at his back.

"How's this for a start?" he asked Nirea, meeting her walking her roan on the gra.s.s. She glanced at the ma.s.s of men, all those in the van carrying dead globes. "Not bad ... but have you seen the sky, Mink?"

He looked upward. From horizon to horizon the sky was ablaze with circles of light, red and green and violet, pure terrible white and flickering yellow. _The b.u.t.tons_, murmured his men behind him. _The b.u.t.tons are awake!_

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"You couldn't expect to do it in secret, Revel," said John. The old man was as spry and eager as a boy, thought the Mink. "Now let's not waste time. I'm banking that the invaders, I mean the globes, won't blast this valley except as a last resort; if they read my mind, or if their science has gone far enough for 'em to recognize an anti-force-screen thrower when they see one, then we're practically atom soup now."

Revel, having understood at least one portion of the speech--"Let's not waste time"--waved his miners forward.

They filled the shaft and the tunnel, they thronged into the cave; when the Mink had shown them the machine to be moved, they fought one another for the honor of being first to touch it.

It stood solidly on the floor, ten feet high, twelve wide, square and black with twin coils and a thick projection like an enormous gun on the top. Men jammed around it, bent and gripped a ledge near the bottom, heaved up. Loath to move, it rocked a bit, then was hoisted off the ground. They staggered forward with it.

The hole in the wall was far too small.

"Miners! The best of you, and I don't want braggarts and second-raters, but the best! Tear down that wall!" Revel stood on a case and roared his commands. Men pushed out of the tunnel's throng, big bearded men, small tough men. They stood shoulder to shoulder and at a word began to swing their picks. Up and down, up and down, smite, smite, carve the rock away....

Soon they picked up the machine again, and manhandled it out into the tunnel. The crowd pressed back, and the Mink bellowed for the distant ones to go up the shaft to the top.

"How you going to get it up to the ground?" asked John. His voice had a kind of confidence in it, a respect for Revel that surprised the big miner. John evidently believed in him, was even relying on his mind when John himself was so overwhelmingly intelligent. Revel wondered: if he, the Mink, were to fall asleep and wake in a future time, knowing all his friends and relatives were dead long since, knowing his whole world had vanished ... would he be as calm and alert and interested in things as John?

There was a man, by--what was the expression he used?--by G.o.d!

"We'll get it there," he said. "So long as you can work it, John, there aren't any worries."

"Understatement of the millenium, or is that the word I want? Optimistic crack o' the year. Okay, Revel. It's your baby."

Slowly the men carried the machine to the lip of the shaft. Nothingness yawned above for ninety feet, below for over a hundred. The shaft was twenty feet across. "Now what?" asked Lady Nirea.

"There's an ore bucket at the bottom; we toss our coal down the shaft, and once a day the bucket's drawn up to the top, by a hoisting mechanism worked by ten men, and the coal's emptied out and taken away in small loads. The bucket fills that shaft. It's two feet deep but so broad it holds plenty of coal. You can see the cable out there in the center; it's as tough as anything on earth."

"I see your idea," said John. "I _hope_ that cable's tough. The machine weighs a couple of tons."

"Tons?"

"I mean it's heavy!"

Revel bawled for the men at the top to start the winch. Shortly they heard the creak and groan of the ore bucket, coming slowly toward their level. When its rim was just level with the floor of the tunnel, the Mink let go a yell that halted the men on the windla.s.s like a pickax blow in the belly; then Revel said, "All right, move it onto the bucket!"

"For G.o.d's sake, be careful of it," said John. "That's a delicate thing." He leaped down into the huge bucket. "Take it easy," he cautioned the miners, straining and sweating at the work.

"Easy ... easy ... easy!"

The great square mysterious box thrust out over the lip, teetered there as if it would plunge into the bucket. John with a screech of anguish jumped forward and thrust at it with both hands.

If it fell now it would smash him to a pulp, and Revel's chance to drop the b.u.t.tons from the sky would be gone forever. n.o.body on earth could ever learn to manipulate such a complex thing as the _antiforcescreenthrower_ of John.

The idiot had to be preserved. Revel dropped his pick and launched himself into s.p.a.ce, lit unbalanced and fell against John, rolled over sideways pulling the amazed man from the past with him.

The machine teetered again, then a score of men were under it and lowering it gently into the bucket. The broad round metal container gave a lurch, then another as the machine settled onto its bottom. It tipped gradually over until it seemed to be wedging itself against the wall of the shaft. Revel howled, "Into the bucket, you lead-footed louts!

Balance the weight of that thing, or the cable'll be frayed in half!"

Miners piled down, filling the bucket; it was hung simply by the cable through its center, and when coal was loaded into it the mineral had to be distributed evenly if the bucket was to rise. Now it slowly righted itself, came horizontal again.

"Up!" roared the Mink. Nothing happened. "More men on the winch!" Then in a moment they began to rise.

The other rebels swarmed up the ladder. Lady Nirea and Rack kept pace with the bucket, anxiously watching Revel and John.

At last the bucket halted. Its edge was even with the top of the shaft.

All that remained was to hoist the machine out and drag it out into the night, below the s.h.i.+ning b.u.t.tons. Revel, leaping out and giving a hand to John, ordered each inch of progress; and finally the _antiforcescreenthrower_ was all but out of the mine. Another ten feet would bring it clear.

Then the world shook around them with a noise like the grandfather of all thunderclaps, the earth rocked beneath their feet, and the Mink felt his eardrums crack and his nose begin to bleed.

CHAPTER XIV

The Mink he turns his blazing eyes Up to the b.u.t.toned sky: "This night I'll tear ye down from there To see if G.o.ds can die!"

The gentry ma.s.s in stallioned ranks, The priests have gone amuck; The orbs and zanphs they now descend, All-armed against the ruck!

--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink

John staggered to his feet. "Brother! Maybe I was wrong. That was an atomic city-buster if I ever heard one--and when the Tartarians were over here, I did. Maybe the coal isn't so important to your d.a.m.ned orbs after all." He went reeling to the open night. Revel and Nirea were beside him now. Off to the west beneath the lurid light of the globes'

b.u.t.tons rose another of the dark twin clouds.

"If they were trying to smack us, they could stand a refresher course in pin-pointing ... let's get the thrower out here fast. Too many saucers directly above us for comfort."

"There went another quarter of Dolfya," said Rack. "What power they have!"

"You'll see their power come plummeting to earth if I can work the machine," said John urgently. "Bring it out!"

The miners hauled it out, a t.i.tanic job even when men pressed tight against men and uncounted hands lifted the great burden. John showed them where to put it on the rock shelf. "Hoist me up on top," he clipped. It was done. "Now watch."