The Long Tomorrow

Inside the tunnel, as far as the harsh reflected sunlight showed, there was a clutter of loose rock on the tunnel floor and a crumbly look about the walls. The shoring timbers were rotted and broken, and some of the roof props were hanging down. It was not a place anybody would be likely to force his way into. Sherman said that every mine had abandoned workings, and nobody thought anything about it. “This one, naturally, is perfectly safe. But the mock-up is convincing.”

“Too damn convincing,” said Gutierrez, stumbling. “I’ll break a leg here yet.”

The light shaded off into darkness, and the tunnel bent to the left. Suddenly, without any warning, another light blazed up ahead. It was bluish and very brilliant, not like any Len had seen before, and now for the first time excitement began to stir in him. He heard Esau catch his breath and say, “Electric!” The tunnel here was smooth and unencumbered. They walked along it quickly, and beyond the dazzle of the light Len saw a door.

They stopped in front of it. The light was overhead now. Len tried to look straight into it and it made him blind like the sun. “Isn’t that something,” Esau whispered. “Just like Gran used to say.”

“There are scanners here,” said Sherman. “Give them a second or two. There. Go on now.”

The door opened. It was thick and made of metal set massively into the living rock. They went through it. It closed quietly behind them, and they were in Bartorstown.

This part of it was only a continuation of the tunnel, out here the rock was dressed very smooth and neat, and lights were set all along it in a trough sunk in the roof. The air had a funny taste to it, flat and metallic. Len could feel it moving over his face, and there was a soft, soft hushing sound that seemed to belong to it. His nerves had tightened now, and he was sweating. He had a brief and awful vision of the outside of the mountain that was now on top of him, and he thought he could feel every pound of it weighing down on him. “Is it all like this?” he asked. “Underground, I mean.”

Sherman nodded. “They put a lot of places underground in those days. Under a mountain was about the only safe place you could get.”

Esau was peering down the corridor. It seemed to go a long way in. “Is it very big?”

Gutierrez answered this time. “How big is big? If you look at Bartorstown one way it’s the biggest thing there is. It’s all yesterday and all tomorrow. Look at it another way, it’s a hole in the ground, just big enough to bury a man in.”

About twenty feet away down the corridor a man stepped out of a doorway to meet them. He was a young fellow, about Esau’s age. He spoke with easy respect to Sherman and the others, and then stared frankly at the Colters.

“Hello,” he said. “I saw you coming through the lower pass. My name’s Jones.” He held out his hand.

They shook it and moved closer to the door. The rock-cut chamber beyond was fairly large, and it was crammed with an awful lot of things, boards and wires and knobs and stuff like the inside of a radio. Esau looked around, and then he looked at Jones and said, “Are you the one that pushes the button?”

They were all puzzled for a minute, and then Hostetter laughed. “Wepplo was joshing them about that. No Jones would have to pass that responsibility

“Matter of fact,” said Sherman, “we’ve never pushed that button yet. But we keep it in working order, just in case. Come here.”

He motioned them to follow him, and they did, with the cautious tenseness of men or animals who find themselves in a strange place and feel they may want to get out of it in a hurry. They were careful not to touch anything. Jones went ahead of them and began casually doing things with some of the knobs and switches. He did not quite swagger. Sherman pointed to a square glass window, and Len stared into it for a confused second or two before he realized that it could hardly be a window at all, and if it were it couldn’t be looking into the narrow rocky cut that was way on the other side of the ridge.

“The scanners pick up the image and transmit it back to this screen,” Sherman said, and before he could go on Esau cried out in a child’s tone of delighted wonder, “Teevee!”

“Same principle,” said Sherman. “Where’d you hear about that?”

“Our grandmother. She told us a lot of things.”

“Oh yes.You mentioned her, I think—talking about Bartorstown.” Smoothly, but with unmistakable firmness, he drew their attention to the screen again. “There’s always somebody on duty here, to watch. Nobody can get through that gateway unseen, in—or out.”

“What about nighttime?” asked Len. He supposed Sherman had a right to keep reminding them, but it made him resentful. Sherman gave him a sharp, cool glance.

“Did your grandmother tell you about electric eyes?”

“No.”

“They can see in the dark. Show them, Jones.”