There was a burst of noise as the transit car hurtled straight into the side of the Foundation Mountain and entered an unlit concrete tube barely wide enough to accommodate it. The light from the car’s lamps flickered along the uneven wall, illuminating snaking power cables and gaping black side shafts. Ten minutes later they emerged into dazzling fluorescent brilliance and came to a sudden stop. Khyrbysk opened the door and they stepped out onto an iron platform.
They were in the middle of an immense cloister carved out of solid rock, hundreds of feet long and fifty feet high, supported by a field of wide columns: trunks of raw rough stone, left in place when the solidity of the mountain was cut away, sleeved in squared-off concrete for the first twenty feet of their height. Thousands of lighting tubes threw daylight-blue shadowless brightness across gleaming asphalt. The air was body-warm, dry to the point of desiccation and smelled faintly of naphtha. Not air at all but breathable suffocation, it moved in a steady current across Lom’s face. Glancing up, he saw rows of ventilation shafts in the rock ceiling and wide rotor fans behind grilles, turning slowly. He felt the terrible weight of the dark mountain overhead, inert, world-heavy, impending.
‘Follow me,’ said Khyrbysk and set off at a smart pace. His shoulders were broad and bulky. Grizzled wiry curls came down over his collar. He seemed to have forgotten he was being marched along at gunpoint.
‘Slow down,’ growled Florian. ‘Be aware.’
Khyrbysk ignored him and hurried on. Lom and Florian followed him down a wide clattering staircase onto the cavern floor. A complex of temporary huts serving as offices clustered around the base of the nearest column. There was a canteen, open but deserted, a telephone exchange and an operator hub for the pneumatic mail system. Further away, on a low concrete platform, a powerhouse of whirring massive dynamos hummed and buzzed. There were few people about: the night shift, quietly efficient at their business. Men dwarfed by the dynamos stood before expanses of winking signal lights, dials and gleaming bakelite controls. Walkways between the columns were marked by coloured lines painted on the asphalt. They led off in every direction towards square tunnel mouths.
Khyrbysk stopped and waited for them to catch up.
‘This is a side entrance,’ he said. ‘A vestibule, you might say. There are two hundred miles of tunnels under the mountain, and hundreds of chambers, many larger than this one. There are lift shafts, conveyor belts, railways, winches and hauling engines, underground watercourses. All of it permanently lit, ventilated, heated and dehumidified. Workshops. Factories. Laboratories. Storage and stockpiling facilities. We construct most of the machine tools and technical instruments we require right here, ourselves. The city under the mountain is larger than the city outside. It operates in twenty-four-hour daylight, wholly unaffected by winter and summer. It is the most efficient industrial complex the world has ever seen. This part may look deserted but there are tens of thousands of workers here. Most of them are in the mines, of course. The mines are why we are here, not elsewhere. The mountain is full of uranium. Riddled with it. It’s all around us, like raisins in a cake. Nowhere else has it been discovered in such abundance.’
It was as if he was giving them a guided tour. As if they were dignitaries on their way to a lunch. Lom had to admire him. He had a will of iron.
Khyrbysk set off again.
‘Follow, please,’ he said.
Lom and Florian fell in behind him. They had reached an unspoken agreement to let the man have his head and see where he took them. He would surely lead them to Chazia, one way or another.
Khyrbysk bounded up another iron staircase. Another rail car waited there, a rounded oblong box with windows, painted in the same colours as the transit carriages but much smaller, designed to carry up to six passengers with a small luggage bay behind. It hung suspended from an overhead rail and swayed slightly when they climbed in. Khyrbysk went to the front and switched on the power. Interior lamps flickered into life and floor-level vents began to breathe heated air into the cabin. The floor was covered with stippled rubber, the steel walls and ceiling were painted cream, the seats upholstered in green leather. A chrome handrail ran the length of the wall on both sides. The interior smelled strongly of rubber and hot engine oil.
A lectern-like brown bakelite panel was set at an angle under the forward window, marked out with a complex map of radial and intersecting lines. There was a tiny switch and light bulb at each labelled node. Some of the nodes bore names–RAILHEAD, POLISHING, REFECTORY IV, CENTRIFUGE, NORTH GATE EXIT–but most were designated by short, impenetrable alphanumeric sequences.
‘This is a plan of the entire complex?’ said Lom.
‘Correct,’ said Khyrbysk.
He set the panel with practised speed and the car lurched into life. The last node he activated was labelled EDB/CENTRAL.
‘What’s EDB?’ said Lom.
‘You’ll see.’
The car rattled through narrow tunnels and swept out high above underground chambers. They saw women in overalls and headscarves worked at assembly lines, operating lathes and welding machines. They passed the slopes of sour-smelling slag dumps. Furnace doors clanged open beneath them, belching blasts of heat and disgorging planks of glowing molten metal onto conveyor belts. A gently descending tunnel took them past honeycomb stacks of artillery shells painted a garish yellow. Notices on the racks warned, with perfect superfluity, DANGER! HIGH EXPLOSIVE!
‘Armaments?’ said Lom.
‘Certainly,’ said Khyrbysk. ‘We must satisfy our benefactors. The iron law of economics. The Foundation must wash its own face.’
They swung out across a dim shoreless lake of milky-green water reeking of naphtha, its surface wreathed with scraps and scarves of steam. Hard-hat gangers clambered across half-built scaffolding and tramped in silent groups on perilous unrailed walkways. Then, after ten more minutes of featureless tunnel, the rail car lurched to a stop alongside two identical carriages.
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN BUREAU.
EDB.
Khyrbysk led them through double swing doors into another world. The oppressive scale of the underground complex was gone, replaced by green corridors. Fire extinguishers. Noticeboards. Wall-mounted telephones. The muted clatter of distant typewriters. Linoleum floors squeaked underfoot. Half-glazed doors opened into offices and meeting rooms. SURVIVABLES. LENSING. CENTRIFUGE. DEPLETION. STAGING. NOOSPHERE. PROJECT WINTER SKIES.
A few people were working late. Men in shirtsleeves and sleeveless pullovers. They sat alone or gathered in small huddles, rumpled, smoking, arguing earnestly in quiet voices. Many of them nodded to Khyrbysk as he passed and he greeted each one by name.
Lom noticed that Khyrbysk’s creased heavy face was damp with perspiration. For the first time he looked tense. But there was something about the way he was walking that wasn’t nervous, but the opposite: a kind of bravado in the way he carried himself.
‘Nearly there,’ he said.
Now we are coming to it, thought Lom. He tightened his grip on the gun in his pocket. Beside him he sensed Florian ready himself for action. Clever Khyrbysk has fooled us all. So he thinks.
Khyrbysk veered suddenly to the right, pushed open a door and entered a large hexagonal room overlooked by two mezzanine tiers. The central floor was occupied by a circular plotting table twenty feet in diameter, the green baize surface laid out with maps and charts. In the corner a telekrypt whirred and blinked. Up on the mezzanines women in uniform whispered intently into telephones. Half a dozen VKBD officers in pale red uniforms looked up when they entered.
Khyrbysk stepped sharply away from Lom and Florian.
‘Draw your weapons!’ he barked. ‘Lieutenant Gerasimov! Arrest these men! They are spies. They are terrorists. They are assassins. Lock them away somewhere and inform Secretary Chazia immediately. I put them in her hands.’
The VKBD men snapped to their feet, a dozen revolver muzzles covering Lom and Florian.
‘The Secretary is not here, Director Khyrbysk,’ said Gerasimov. ‘She took the observation car to the testing zone. She wanted to witness it herself.’
Khyrbysk frowned.
‘Gone already? But the test is not till dawn. I was to travel with her. That was the plan.’
‘We could telephone, but… She will not welcome a trivial interruption. She took the woman with her.’
‘The matter is of no relevance to me. But she must deal with this, Lieutenant. I want to hear no more of these men. And Gerasimov, I have made representations before about the lax security in the city. I will be doing so again, depend on it.’
As he turned to go Khyrbysk threw a contemptuous glance at Lom and Florian.
‘Idiots,’ he muttered.