Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [179]
Without further debate, he swung himself out, found a foothold, and squeezed through the narrow opening. A narrow passage led inward ten feet, turned sharply to the right, and debouched into a wide, cool cave bathed in a ghostly blue light.
2
The rock chamber in which Lafayette found himself was high-vaulted, smooth-floored, with rough-hewn walls. The eerie glow came from an object resting on a pair of trestles in the center of the room—an object that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to a coffin. It was seven feet long, a foot deep, tapering toward each end from the three-foot breadth of its widest point. A remarkable assemblage of wires and pipes led from the foot of the sarcophagus—if it was a sarcophagus—down to a heavy baseplate where an array of dials glowed a bilious yellow from their own inner illumination.
"Just take it easy," Lafayette soothed himself. "There's nothing spooky about it. It's all perfectly natural. Outside the sun will soon be shining. It just happens to be a cave with a box in it, that's all . . ."
O'Leary circled the coffin—if it was a coffin, he reminded himself doggedly, suppressing a tendency for the hair on the nape of his neck to stand erect. There was nothing else in the chamber; no other passage led from it; there was no sound but the soft hum, like that of a heavy-duty freezer, Lafayette thought.
"A coffin-shaped freezer? Why would anyone want a coffin-shaped freezer?" he inquired aloud in a breezy tone; but the hollow, echoic quality of his words robbed them of the cheeriness he had intended. In silence he approached the box; it was covered by a thick lid, sealed with a strip of sponge rubber. At close range he saw that a layer of dust overlay the smooth, gray-green plastic. Lafayette drew a finger across the surface, leaving a distinct mark that glowed more brightly than the surrounding area.
"The accumulation of a few days—or a few weeks," he assessed. "So whatever this is, it hasn't been here long . . ."
There was a small nameplate attached to the side of the box. Lafayette could barely make out the lettering in the weak light:
STASIS POD, MARK XXIV
220v., 50 amp, 12 HP
Below this terse legend, other words had been carefully defaced, the metal scraped bare. Lafayette felt a deeper excitement stir within him.
"More Central equipment," he murmured. "First the Focal Referent—plus rumors of more of the same in a cave; then this—in another cave. There has to be a connection—and the connection has to tie in with me being somebody I'm not . . ."
He felt over the plastic case for further clues to its nature; under his hands he could feel a minute vibration, plus a barely perceptible sensation as of electrical current flowing over the surface. His finger encountered a small depression; as he explored it, a soft click! sounded from deep inside the container.
At once, the humming sound took on a deeper tone. Lafayette stepped back, startled. Further clickings and snickings as of closing relays came from the box. A sound remarkably like that of a blower motor started up. Lights winked on the panel. Needles stirred and jumped on dials, moving toward red lines.
Lafayette grabbed for the switch he had tripped, poked and prodded at it frantically; but the process he had set in motion proceeded serenely. He searched for another switch; there wasn't one. On all fours, he peered at the instrument faces, but their readings were cryptic:
97.1 SBT; BM 176 . . . 77 . . . 78; NF 1.02; 1AP 15 kpsc.
"Now I've done it," he muttered. Scrambling to his feet, he cracked his head a dizzying blow on the underside of the container. Through the momentary haze, it seemed that the top of the case was slowly sliding back, revealing an interior lined with padded red satin.
"It looks like Dracula's coffin," he mumbled, holding his head in both hands. "It even has . . ." His voice faltered as the retracting cover revealed