Lucifer

     The  guard  came  loose as he was working on the fourth nut. He heard a dangerous creak and threw himself back out of the way, dropping  the  wrench on his toes.

     The  cube  slid  forward,  crushed  the  loosened rail, teetered a bare moment, then dropped with a resounding crash onto the heavy bed of the cart. The bed surface bent and began to crease beneath its weight; the cart swayed toward the outside. The cube continued to  slide  until  over  half  a  foot projected  beyond  the  edge. Then the cart righted itself and shivered into steadiness.

     Carlson sighed and kicked loose the chocks, ready to jump  back  should it suddenly give way in his direction. It held.

     Gingerly, he guided it up the aisle and between the rows of generators, until  he  stood before the Igniter. He anchored the cart again, stopped for water and a cigarette, then searched up a pinch bar,  a  small  jack  and  a long, flat metal plate.

     He  laid  the plate to bridge the front end of the cart and the opening to the oven. He wedged the far end in beneath the Igniter's doorframe.

     Unlocking the rear chocks, he inserted the jack and began to raise  the back  end  of  the  wagon, slowly, working with one hand and holding the bar ready in his other.

     The cart groaned as it moved higher.  Then  a  sliding,  grating  sound began and he raised it faster.

     With  a  sound  like the stroke of a cracked bell the cube tumbled onto the bridgeway; it slid forward and to the left. He struck  at  it  with  the bar,  bearing  to  the right with all his strength. About half an inch of it caught against the left edge of the oven frame. The gap between the cube and the frame was widest at the bottom.

     He inserted the bar and heaved his weight against it--three times.

     Then it moved forward and came to rest within the Igniter.

     He began to laugh. He laughed until he felt weak. He sat on the  broken cart,  swinging  his  legs and chuckling to himself, until the sounds coming from his throat seemed alien and out  of  place.  He  stopped  abruptly  and slammed the door.

     The  Broadcast  Panel had a thousand eyes, but none of them winked back at him. He made the final adjustments for Transmit, then gave the generators their last check-out.

     There was still some daylight to spend, so  he  moved  from  window  to window pressing the "Open" button set below each sill.

     He ate the rest of his food then, and drank a whole bottle of water and smoked  two cigarettes. Sitting on the stair, he thought of the days when he had worked with Kelly and Murchison  and  Djinsky,  twisting  the  tails  of electrons  until they wailed and leapt out over the walls and fled down into the city.

     The clock! He remembered it suddenly--set high on the wall, to the left of the doorway, frozen at 9:33 (and forty-eight seconds).

     He moved a ladder through the twilight and mounted it to the clock.  He wiped the dust away from its greasy face with a sweeping, circular movement. Then he was ready.

     He   crossed   to   the   Igniter  and  turned  it  on.  Somewhere  the ever-batteries came alive, and he heard a click as a thin, sharp  shaft  was driven  into  the  wall  of  the  cube. He raced back up the stairs and sped hand-over-hand up to the catwalk. He moved to a window and waited.

     "God," he muttered, "don't let them blow! Please don't--"

     Across an eternity of darkness the generators began humming. He heard a crackle of static from the Broadcast Panel and he closed his eyes. The sound died.

     He opened his eyes as he heard the window slide upward. All around  him the  hundred  high  windows opened. A small light came on above the bench in the work area below him, but he did not see it.

     He was staring out beyond the wide drop of the acropolis and down  into the city. His city.

     The  lights  were  not like the stars. They beat the stars all to hell. They were the gay, regularized constellation of a city where men made  their homes:  even  rows  of  streetlamps,  advertisements, lighted windows in the cheesebox-apartments, a random solitaire of bright squares  running  up  the sides  of  skyscraper-needles, a searchlight swivelling its luminous antenna through cloudbanks that hung over the city.

     He dashed to another window, feeling the high night breezes comb at his beard. Belts were humming below; he  heard  their  wry  monologues  rattling through  the  city's deepest canyons. He pictured the people in their homes, in theaters, in bars--talking to each other,  sharing  a  common  amusement, playing  clarinets, holding hands, eating an evening snack. Sleeping ro-cars awakened and rushed past each other on  the  levels  above  the  belts;  the background hum of the city told him its story of production, of function, of movement  and  service to its inhabitants. The sky seemed to wheel overhead, as though the city were its turning hub and the universe its outer rim.

     Then the lights dimmed from  white  to  yellow  and  he  hurried,  with desperate steps, to another window.

"No!  Not so soon!  Don't leave me yet!" he sobbed.