The Enormous Room Part 7

Villa picked up a custard pie. It had been smeared up by rough handling but it looked good to Adam. He chose one for himself, and Watkins handed Mrs. Full an apple pie. She thanked him. They all took tentative bites.

"What do you make of this?" Watkins asked Summersby, still trying to drag him into their group. The big man shrugged. "The gla.s.s," went on the blond fellow, "that doesn't make sense. Do they think we eat gla.s.s?"

"Possibly," said Calvin Full.

Among the six of them, they consumed all the eatable contents of the tray. Almost immediately Adam felt his eyelids drooping. "I'm sleepy,"

he said, yawning.

"So am I," said Villa. He lay p.r.o.ne and closed his eyes at once.

Adam sat down, more heavily than he had meant to. He was vaguely disturbed by the sudden tiredness.

"Someone ought to stand guard," said Mrs. Full.

"I will," said Summersby unexpectedly.

"I'll do it," said Watkins. He started to pace up and down. "I'm a little groggy myself, but I'll take first trick."

V

When they were let out of their prison box next morning--nine o'clock Friday, by the chronograph, and they had slept another fifteen hours--there were five of the gigantic beast-creatures waiting for them.

Any hopes that Tom Watkins had had of rooting around the big hall for a way of escape died with a dejected grunt. There must be well over a ton of enemies there, with their caverned red eyes peering down at the humans. No chance to explore under those gazes.

The boss of the alien scientists--Watkins recognized it, or him (or was it her?), by the clothing and by certain differences in facial structure--came and bent over them. Watkins was smoking a cigarette he had b.u.mmed from Villa, Summersby's having given out the day before. He took a hearty drag and blew out the smoke, which unfortunately lifted right into the creature's eyes. It shook its head and made a squawking sound, "Hwrak!" and flipped its green prodder into his belly. He abruptly sat down, with the sensation of having stuck his finger into a lamp socket. "My G.o.d!" he said. Cal helped him up.

Summersby walked off toward a twenty-foot-high door. None of the beings tried to stop him. The boss motioned Watkins to go with it, so he rather shakily followed it across the room.

Before him was a gadget that resembled a five-manual organ console. The banks of keys were broad and there was a kind of chair, or stool, fixed on a horizontal bar in front of them. The giant indicated that he was to get onto it.

"Now what?" he said, when he had been stopped directly in front of the apparatus. "Expect me to play this? Look, Buster, I'm tone deaf, I haven't had my coffee yet, and I'd just as soon dance a polka as play you a tune."

The thing pressed down two of the keys--they were of an amethyst color, longer and more tapered than those of an organ--and looked at Watkins.

"Drop dead," he said to it. He was always bitterly antagonistic to everything and everybody if he didn't have three cups of coffee before he got out of bed. "Go on, you big ape, make me play."

It hit him on the head with a couple of its big rubbery fingers. He felt as if a cop had sloshed him with a blackjack, and all the hostility went out of him. He leaned forward and pushed down half a dozen keys at random.

There was no sound, at least none that he could hear, though he remembered the whistle he had at home to call his dog, and wondered if the notes of this organ were sub- or supersonic. Certainly there was no reason to suppose this race of creatures was limited to the same range of hearing that humans were.

The thing went down the hall some yards and folded itself into a sitting position before a large white s.p.a.ce on the wall. When Watkins did nothing, it gestured angrily with its goad. He pressed more keys. It jerked its head around and stared at the white s.p.a.ce.

Accidentally he discovered that by pressing with his calves on certain pedals below the stool he could maneuver the seat to either side. The gadget began to intrigue him.

He had never played any musical instrument, but had always had a quiet desire to produce music. He couldn't hear this organ's sounds, but he could go through the motions with fervor. He did.

The boss scientist gazed raptly at the wall screen; was it concentrating on what he played? Did his random selection of keys indicate something to it, something about his mental powers or emotions or--what?

Or was it possible that the playing produced images or colors on the blank s.p.a.ce? He craned his neck, but could distinguish nothing. Pounding on, he called over his shoulder, "Come here, somebody!"

No one answered. Pus.h.i.+ng keys at random, he turned to look for them.

Each of them was doing something under the supervision of a twelve-foot beast, except for Summersby, who was still examining the door. "Hey, High-pockets!" he yelled, knowing the big man hated the nickname, but not giving a d.a.m.n. "Summersby! Come here!"

"What is it?" said Summersby in a moment, standing below his seat.

"Take a squint at that screen the old boy's gaping at. I want to know what the devil I'm doing."

Summersby walked over and stood beside the scientist.

"What's happening?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing at all?"

"Well, the screen's mottled gray and white, and the pattern's swirling slowly; but that's all."

"Is it particularly beautiful?" asked Watkins.

"No. It's hardly distinguishable."

Sliding right and left on the bar, striking first one and then another of the manuals, Watkins said to Summersby, "What do you figure these scientists are, anyway?"

"Mammals," said the big man.

"I suppose so--"

"They have navels. They weren't hatched."

"Oh." Watkins hadn't noticed that. "Where are we, then?"

"I don't know."

Another scientist wandered over and sat down beside the first. Shortly they seemed to get in each other's way, and there was a lot of shoving and squawking. At last one of them hit the other in the face with an open hand. Then they were rolling on the floor, s.n.a.t.c.hing at one another's hair and pummeling the big bodies and heads with those gargantuan fists. It sounded like a brawl between elephants. Watkins swiveled round to watch. Mrs. Full said to someone--Watkins heard her distinctly in a lull in the ruckus--"If these are scientists, what are the common people like?" For the first time that day he grinned. He had stopped playing the organ. The other scientists had gathered around the fight and were uttering strange cries, like wild geese honking. Cheering them on? he wondered.

Adam came over. "Mr. Watkins," he said, "could we have been wrong about them? Do you think a scientist would act like that?"

"They sure seem to be a quarrelsome race, Adam," he said, "they're not noticing what we do. Suppose you go look for a way out."

"We want to get away as soon as we can," nodded the boy. "Dangerous around here!" He ran down the hall.

The giants arose and straightened their clothing. They had patched up their argument in the midst of fighting over it. The leader walked toward a tall device of pipes and boards and steps, motioning Mrs. Full to follow.

Apparently Watkins had been forgotten. He took his briefcase off his lap, where he had held it all the time he played, and dropped it to the floor. Then he hung by his hands and let go. He picked up the case and went to investigate the room.

Before he had done more than glimpse the enormous door, he was picked up kitten-fas.h.i.+on by a scientist, who carried him off, dangling and swearing, to another infernal machine.