Page:Weird Tales v41n04 (1949-05).djvu/44
You have a lease on this apartment which has three years to run, no?"
"Yes," I said, "but how you know, I don't know!"
"You'll know shortly." He stepped to the wall where a picture of my mother hung. He raised his right hand. The picture left the wall, went to the bed, lay upon the sumpled coverlets. Gars fixed his attention on the wall behind the picture. He took a ring from his finger. His right hand described speedy angles on the surface of the wall. An opening appeared on it, a recess. He thrust in his hand and a metal dome seemed to grow out of it, like a beehive which fitted comfortably into the recess.
"Central control,” said Gars. "I'll explain later, and pray with all your might that you never have to make use of it!"
He stepped back from the wall, his hand moving again, and the surface was covered with a dial face. The ring he had used in this operation was the dial. He turned to me, gave me what felt like a piece of soapstone. It also felt warm in my hand, as if it had a heartbeat, as if it throbbed.
"It's what you call the combination," he explained. "It's in my language, but if you need it you will be able to read it.
I stared at the "combination." Cuneiform writing? No, flashing light, tiny and deep within the stone, like small thoughts flashing. That the lights spelled out something, over and over, was clear, though I could not read it.
"Just one of the small gadgets," said Gars, "you modern people have lost in the mists of time. Call it a super-refined electricity, trapped in the stone! Handling your present day electricity, or rather the method of handling—since electricity, as such, does not change—is like trying to pick up pins with huge pillows on your hands."
I didn't believe any of this, but I was a curious man. I wanted to know. more. If it was a dream I didn't in the least mind going through with it.
"I'll unlock the door," I said, when it was clear he wished to go.
"Why?" he said. "Too cumbersome. Besides, we don't go out that way. We go down!"
I stared at Gars. He grinned back, appreciating my mystification.
He stooped, swung his left hand in a circle above the floor. The circle he indicated was now visible, perhaps seven feet across. And it had that faint glow about it which distinguished Gars himself.
"Stand in the circle," said Gars. "Hold your breath, if you like. Your elevators crawl!"
I stood in the circle, my back to Gars. I could feel the warmth emanating from him. He asked me if I was ready. I nodded and the bottom fell out. I've ridden in some fast elevators, but never anything like this. I expected it to fall from under me, and it would have had Gars not put his strange hands on my shoulders. Their pressure was a great weight which held me in place. I saw lights, first, as we went down through floors of the apartment house. The lights were flickers, gone the instant seen, more imagined than real. We were at ground level, but before I could even realize it I knew we were deeper in the earth than mortal man had ever gone before. But there was no discomfort, only great speed. I thought about the hole in my floor, the bottomless pit into which the landlady would fall, or might, when she came to clean up for me.
"There is no hole," said Gars. "Merely displacement and replacement. I am electric, if that will help you to understand. While within my circle you are also within my what-you-call 'field', and therefore partake of my attributes! Clear?"
"No!"
"Naturally not. That's why I did not try to explain first. You have so many hidebound ideas to discard, to understand me and my mission. You must revise all your ideas of human history, which has been written, not to inform, but to becloud truth."
It was easy to hear him. The sense of speed went then, and we stopped without shock. A door led away to my right. Gars excused himself, led the way.
"The elevator is all right for short distances. We're seven miles below your apartment. Can you imagine what it would be like to you if you were not with me? This is an area of solid marble!"