Earth Cult Read online

  ‘What’s your lead story?’ Frank asked her.

  ‘Whether or not the local clinic should provide free contraceptive devices for everyone over the age of twenty-one.’

  ‘Married or unmarried?’

  ‘Certainly, why not?’ Helen said.

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in sex before marriage?’

  ‘Only if it delays the ceremony.’

  ‘You two ought to get together as a double-act,’ Cal Renfield said. ‘See how many old gags you can get through in half-an-hour.’

  ‘We’ve been considering that,’ Helen said, making large goo-goo eyes at Frank in the manner of a starlet offering herself to a producer. ‘Things keep on getting in the way, such as earthquakes, for instance.’

  Cal Renfield straightened up and blew out his cheeks, signifying that in his opinion he’d done enough work for one day. He threw down the pencil and said, ‘The sun isn’t below the horizon but I feel like a shot of something that’ll take the fur off my tongue.’

  ‘And the enamel off your teeth,’ Helen said.

  ‘Anyone care to join me?’

  ‘What about the paper? Is it ready to go to press?’ Frank asked.

  Cal Renfield nodded and reached for his jacket. ‘Printer calls for the material at seven. We don’t have a press in Gypsum, it’s printed in Glenwood Springs. Twenty-seven thousand circulation,’ he said proudly. ‘That isn’t bad for this neck of the woods.’

  ‘I could use a drink myself,’ Frank said, touching the side of his head.

  ‘Does it still hurt?’ Helen said.

  Cal Renfield laughed. ‘Say, that’s right, you got biffed this morning by the mad scientist. Started foaming at the mouth, didn’t he?’ He was smiling broadly, his pug-nosed face squashed into horizontal creases.

  ‘It was a hoot,’ Frank agreed. ‘I enjoy getting punched in the stomach occasionally and having my brains rattled. Keeps me in shape and stops me thinking too much.’

  His expression, or perhaps it was his tone of voice, prompted Helen to say, ‘Is anything the matter? Were you really hurt this morning?’

  ‘It isn’t that.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘Let’s get that drink first.’

  She said, becoming concerned, ‘What is it, Frank? What’s happened? Have you heard something from the Project?’

  ‘I received a cable today.’ Frank took it from the pocket of his leather jacket. ‘It’s from a friend of mine who lectures in high energy physics at the University of Illinois. There’s not much point in your reading it because you probably wouldn’t understand it.’

  ‘Go on,’ Cal Renfield said, his face now composed, his small grey eyes watchful. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘I think I’d rather tell you over a drink.’

  ‘If it’s that serious it looks like we’re going to need one,’ Helen said.

  She turned and went to the door, holding it open as Frank and her father followed her. They were about to go out when the phone rang.

  ‘Shit,’ Cal Renfield mumbled. He hesitated, in two minds, and said, ‘The hell with it. I’ve had enough for one day.’

  Helen said, ‘You’d better answer it, it could be the Washington Post asking for me.’

  Cal Renfield muttered another obscenity and trudged across the office. He picked the receiver up, said ‘Bulletin,’ and after a moment, ‘Yeah,’ and held the receiver out. ‘It’s for you.’

  Frank took it from him, a dull feeling of unease gathering in his stomach. He didn’t know what to expect but the sense of foreboding warned him that the call was going to be neither social nor pleasant.

  It was Lee Merriam, who said immediately, ‘Thank Christ I’ve found you. I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour. Can you get up here right away?’

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘We’ve found Professor Friedmann. That’s to say we know where he is but we can’t get to him.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In the detection chamber. But we can’t get through.’

  ‘Why not?’

  There was a slight though perceptible pause.

  ‘I don’t know, Frank, I can’t figure it out. I sent a party of six down—’ He broke off as if in anger or frustration, his breathing heavy on the line. ‘They couldn’t get to him. They said there was a blockage in the main tunnel, some kind of obstacle. I don’t know what the hell they’re on about.’

  ‘You mean a rockfall?’ Frank said.

  ‘No, not a rockfall. They said it was a … blank wall blocking the tunnel. A solid wall of shiny black rock. I mean, what the hell can that be?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Frank said. ‘I’ll be right with you.’

  He put the phone down.

  Part Three

  THE FLOOD

  ONE

  Lee Merriam met them in the compound. His square rugged face was impassive, the diagonal scar on his forehead like a pale brand against the dark leathery texture of his skin. He didn’t say anything but led the way into the hut and shut the door carefully behind them; Frank noticed that the drawers of the filing cabinet were hanging open and all the contents removed. The computer printout was also missing.

  ‘Do they know what’s happened?’ Lee Merriam said, referring to Cal Renfield and his daughter.

  ‘I told them what you told me on the phone.’

  ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘It could be a rockfall.’

  ‘That’s no rockfall,’ Lee Merriam said emphatically. ‘The guys I sent down are experienced engineers who know this mine pretty good. If it had been a rockfall they would have said so. The main tunnel is completely blocked’ – he held up the palms of both hands and swept them sideways – ‘just a smooth blank slab of rock that looks as if it’s been sliced by a razor. Now you tell me what that is and where it came from.’

  ‘And Professor Friedmann is on the other side of it?’

  ‘Right,’ said Lee Merriam, nodding.

  ‘Is anyone with him?’

  ‘Not that we know of. There’s nobody missing, so presumably he’s alone.’

  ‘How do you know he’s down there?’

  ‘I spoke to him,’ Lee Merriam said, glancing warily at Cal Renfield as if he might be giving too much away. The look in his eyes was one Frank had difficulty in reading: guarded, unsure. He went on, ‘I had somebody keep trying to reach him and eventually he came on the line. Couldn’t get a lick of sense out of him. I was about to ask what was happening down there when the line went dead – anyways he put the phone down, or something happened – and since then I haven’t been able to make contact.’

  ‘You’re convinced it was Professor Friedmann?’

  ‘It was the Professor. No mistake,’ Lee Merriam said with heavy finality.

  ‘What did he say, when you spoke to him?’ Cal Renfield asked, hitching up his trouser leg and easing himself on to the corner of the desk.

  ‘He just babbled on, I couldn’t make sense of it.’

  ‘But what actually did he say?’ asked Frank.

  Lee Merriam stared at the floor for a moment, either trying to remember or pretending to have forgotten. Then he sighed and gave a slight shrug of his burly shoulders. ‘He said something about “the Earth will cast them out and seal up its secret places”, whatever that means. And he kept going on about “waters from heaven” and “the breath of life” and stuff like that. Look, I told you, it didn’t make any sense. The man was obviously disturbed, he didn’t know what he was saying—’

  ‘The preacher,’ Helen said.

  ‘What?’ Lee Merriam said sharply.

  ‘Those are the words the preacher, Cabel, uses. His sermons are full of phrases like that. Has Professor Friedmann ever heard him preach?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’ Lee Merriam said irritably, flexing his arms and swinging them. He was a large physical man who sought to use his strength to overcome problems, and now he felt bound, frustrated, unable to ac
t positively.

  Frank said, ‘Maybe Professor Friedmann has been converted to the Telluric Faith and taken Cabel’s preaching to heart: he’s sealed off the mountain according to instructions.’ He was smiling gently, not entirely serious, just wondering if the sound of it carried any credence.

  ‘And what happens next?’ Cal Renfield said sardonically. ‘Flood waters from heaven? Bolts of lightning from the blue?’

  ‘That’s the twenty-four-billion-dollar question,’ Frank said. ‘What does happen next?’

  ‘What happens next is that we get him out of there,’ Lee Merriam said grimly.

  ‘How do you propose to do that?’ Frank said.

  ‘That’s why I called you. Last time you found a way through into the detection chamber by another route. If you did it once you should be able to do it again. Can you remember how you managed to get through?’ His blue eyes watched Frank keenly, anxious for an affirmative response.

  Frank nibbled his lower lip. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said slowly, careful not to look at anyone. ‘In any case, wasn’t the tunnel blocked by the tremor after I’d gone through? One of your men reported that the roof caved in.’

  ‘We could clear it, dig a way through,’ Lee Merriam said. He looked at Frank urgently. ‘At least it’s worth a try. There’s no other way to get to him. It’s the only chance we’ve got.’

  ‘Couldn’t you break through the rock that’s blocking the main tunnel?’ Cal Renfield asked.

  Lee Merriam gave a sour smile that was more like a grimace. ‘We already tried that.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing – except we broke three drills.’

  ‘Explosives?’ Helen said tentatively.

  ‘And bring the mountain down on top of us?’ Lee Merriam said. He shook his head vigorously. ‘There’s only one way to get through into the detection chamber and it’s the way Frank went in the first time. Otherwise Professor Friedmann is sealed in good and tight, like a mouse in a granite tomb. There’s no other way to reach him.’

  Helen said, ‘Come on, Frank, you’ve got to remember. Christ, it was only three days ago.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Frank said. ‘And a lot can happen in three days.’

  Helen threw up her hands in mock despair. ‘This country’s leading science writer,’ she told Lee Merriam, ‘and he can’t even remember where he stashed the loot.’

  ‘Listen,’ Lee Merriam said, trying to be decisive. ‘We can get as far as the blocked tunnel, right? One of the guys who went with you the first time can get us that far. We clear the rubble away and put in fresh supports – then you take over and lead us through. If it’s that complicated to remember right now maybe it’ll come back to you when we’re actually down there.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Frank said noncommittally.

  ‘You don’t sound too thrilled with the idea,’ Cal Renfield said. He had been watching Frank closely.

  ‘To tell the truth, I’m not, because I don’t think it’ll work. It was pure fluke that I found a way through the last time, a freak accident you might almost call it. I don’t think it’s going to happen twice.’

  ‘So you’re not even prepared to try?’ Lee Merriam said. His face had grown sullen, disappointed.

  ‘There has to be another way.’ Frank shook his head hopelessly and happened to glance at the empty filing cabinet. ‘What have you done with the files? And the printout?’

  ‘I’ve got three of the technical personnel going through them piece by piece,’ Lee Merriam answered. ‘It might just be that there’s something which can tell us what that black rock is and what it’s doing there. Professor Friedmann might have known all along of a way to seal the main tunnel – maybe he had it installed before the Project got started.’

  ‘Installed?’ Frank said. He grinned incredulously. ‘You think the black rock is an artefact, that it was manufactured and placed in position by a team of engineers?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘For somebody who’s never seen it you sound mighty positive of that fact.’

  Frank hesitated. He was about to tell them and then something made him decide not to. Why shouldn’t they know? What was he afraid of, ridicule? No, it was something deeper than that, something more serious that he himself hadn’t yet fathomed. And in a sense he was relieved that the existence of the black rock had been confirmed by independent witnesses; for he had to admit that it had crossed his mind more than once that what he had seen and experienced was nothing more substantial than an hallucinatory vision, the imaginary product of a mind which had become confused and frightened. But now he knew differently. The black rock was a geophysical reality, embedded a mile underground in the depths of the Telluride Mine.

  He said smoothly, ‘I don’t think it could have been installed for the simple reason that it isn’t shown on any of the plans and diagrams. Come on, Lee, the two of us looked over those in close detail, remember? A construction like that would be marked.’

  ‘It would be,’ Lee Merriam agreed, ‘unless Professor Friedmann wanted it kept secret.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘Hell, how do I know? The way he’s been behaving it’d take a genius or a madman to understand his motivation. All I know is that somehow or other we’ve got to get through to the detection chamber. How we’re going to do it I don’t know, but we’ve got to try.’

  Frank became still for a moment. A thought had lit up in his mind like an electric light illuminating a pitch-black cellar. He turned to Lee Merriam and said, ‘We’ve overlooked one vital factor in all this.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Why are we all sitting round trying to figure out what Professor Friedmann is doing down there and how we can reach him when Karl Leach is obviously the man we should be talking to? It might even be that Leach knows how to get past the black rock and into the detection chamber. He was in charge of the underground installation; if anyone knows what Professor Friedmann is up to it should be him.’

  Lee Merriam didn’t immediately seize upon this brilliant notion.

  ‘Well?’ Frank demanded.

  ‘I’m afraid Dr Leach isn’t in any fit state to advise anybody about anything,’ Lee Merriam said soberly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘After you left this morning we had to put him under heavy sedation. I thought his condition was temporary, that he was over-wrought and just needed to calm down and take it easy for a while. Seems I was mistaken.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Cal Renfield.

  ‘What didn’t happen, you mean. He came round and clobbered Smitty – that’s the medical orderly – with a chair. Damn near broke his neck. Then he starts running all over the place yelling at the top of his voice. He even tried to go underground but we stopped him just in time. He’s only a little guy but you wouldn’t believe the strength of the man – took three of us to restrain him and get him quietened down again.’

  ‘We believe you,’ Helen said.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Frank said.

  ‘In the sick bay.’

  ‘Sedated?’

  ‘No,’ said Lee Merriam heavily. ‘Strapped down. And that’s how he stays till we get a doctor to look him over. I’m taking no more chances.’

  ‘With Professor Friedmann underground and Dr Leach on the surface, seems like you got your hands full,’ Cal Renfield said, lighting a cigarette. He gave the impression of being ironically amused by it all, rather as if this was only what he had been expecting – and now that his prediction had come true he could view the situation with a kind of indulgent mockery. Frank recognized this as the trait that Helen had inherited, the same rather cynical world-weary attitude towards the passing parade with its follies and false hopes and foolish vanities.

  ‘I’d like to see him,’ Frank said.

  ‘It won’t do any good,’ Lee Merriam insisted. ‘I tried to talk to him earlier. He wasn’t making any sense.’

  ‘Ju
st the same, Lee.’

  Lee Merriam sighed, shaking his head as if granting a favour under sufferance, and without a word led them to another hut where they found the medical orderly, his head swathed in bandages, keeping an uneasy watch over the patient. Dr Leach was strapped to a leather couch, eyes closed, black hair awry; he appeared to be asleep.

  ‘He hasn’t moved for the past hour,’ Smitty reported. He glanced suspiciously at the supine man on the bench. ‘But after what happened last time I wouldn’t expect that to mean a thing. The guy is deranged. Absolutely.’

  Frank remembered the medical orderly as the nervous young man who hadn’t wished to be left alone when the rescue party had been checking out the tunnels. Now he looked particularly woebegone, and with a rapid uneasy flicker in his eyes as if half-expecting Dr Leach to suddenly break free and make a leap for his throat with clawed hands.

  ‘You haven’t given him a shot of anything?’ Frank said.

  The young man shook his head. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere near him. Just send for the doctor and ship him out of here.’ He stood well away from the bench, keeping a clear distance.

  ‘We’re wasting time,’ Lee Merriam said impatiently. ‘Come on, Frank, this isn’t going to do any good. The guy is off his head, he isn’t going to be of any help to us now.’

  ‘Are you hoping he might tell us something?’ Helen asked.

  ‘He knows Professor Friedmann better than anybody, so it’s possible he knows why the Professor has gone down into the detection chamber and the reason he’s sealed himself in – if that, in fact, is what’s happened.’ He looked at Lee Merriam. ‘It could be that Professor Friedmann is being held there against his will.’

  ‘Held there?’ Lee Merriam said, frowning. ‘But there’s nobody else in the mine. What are you talking about?’

  Frank went over to the bench and Dr Leach’s eyes opened instantly. They were wild and dark. The thick unbroken growth of his eyebrows was like a black bar across his forehead. He stared at Frank without recognition, lying perfectly still, and it was Helen who voiced the thought that was in Frank’s mind.