Part 8 (1/2)

The Ardleys, knowing nothing of the events of this night, supposed that the girls were being abducted, and decided I should be informed.

”d.a.m.n right, Dud. We'll come at once. You two wait for us?”

”Sure. If you got instruments, maybe we can track 'em. It wasn't a quarter of a mile from here, over toward the river. Plenty of rotten dumps down there.”

”Wait for us, Dud. We'll come in a rush.”

I slammed shut the audiphone. Snap, beside me, had heard it all. He shoved the astonished orderly out of the way.

”What's the nearest exit-route out of here?”

”To the city roof, sir. Up this incline.”

We dashed up the spiral incline, through a low exit-port, and were in the starlight of the city roof.

”Connect it, Gregg! You can't tell; her message might come over any minute.”

I tuned my coils to the seldom used oscillation frequency which Halsey had told us Anita's transmitter was sending.

”Anything, Gregg?”

”No. Dead channel.”

The air, in Anita's channel, was bafflingly silent.

We had been challenged by a roof-guard when we appeared from the upper port of the Conclave Hall; the city roof was not open to public traffic. But with our identifications, he found us a single-seat hand-tram, and started us southward on the deserted route.

It was a cloudless night, with stars like thickly-strewn diamonds on purple velvet. The city roof lay glistening in the starlight. In my great-grandfather's time there had been no roof here; the open city was exposed to all the inclement weather. But gradually the arcades and overhead viaducts, cross balconies and catwalks which spanned the canyon street between the giant buildings became a roof. It spread, now terraced and sloped to top the lofty buildings, like a great rumpled sheet propped by the knees of sleeping giants. Some of the roof was of opaque alumite, dark patches, alternating with the great gla.s.site panes which in places admitted the daylight.

Our little tram sped along southward, wending its way over the terraces. Save for the guards and lookouts in their occasional cubbies, and the air-traffic directors in their towers, we were alone up here. The roof was tangled with air-pipes, line-wire conduits, aerials, arterial systems of the ventilating and lighting devices. As far as one could see the ventilators stood fronting the night breeze like listening ears. There were water tanks, great cross-bulkheads and flumes to handle the rain and snow. A few traffic towers maintained order in the overhead air-lanes. Their beacons shot up into the sky when the pa.s.sing lights marked the thinly-strewn trinight traffic.

We were stopped at intervals, but in each case were pa.s.sed promptly.

”Nothing yet, Gregg?”

”No.”

Anita's channel remained empty. It was, I suppose, no more than ten minutes during which we sped south along the grotesque maze of the roof; but to us it was an eternity. If only some message would come!

”I'll pull up here.”

”Yes.”

I gathered up my little audiphone, thrust it under my dark flowing cloak. If only our cloaks were magnetic!

We leaped from our car. ”In a rush, Haljan?” asked a guard.

”That's us. Orders from Mr. Brayley.”