The Corridors of Time Read Online Free Page B

particular source, he saw inhis bewilderment.
    The ramp was simply the floor of a barrel-vaulted tunnel, a little wider than the door, which sloped before him around a curve.
     That bore was surfaced overall with a hard, smooth material from which the light poured, a chill white radiance whose shadowlessness
     made distances hard to judge. The air was fresh, moving, though he saw no ventilators.
    He faced Storm and stammered. She put away the tube. Harshness left her. She glided to him, laid a hand on his arm, and smiled.
     ‘Poor Malcolm,’ she murmured. ‘You will have greater surprises.’
    ‘Judas!’ he said weakly. ‘I hope not!’ But her nearness and her touch were, even then, exhilarating. He began to recover his
     self-possession.
    ‘How the deuce is that done?’ he asked. Echoes bounced hollowly around his voice.
    ‘Shh! Not so loud.’ Storm glanced at her color disc. ‘No one is here at present, but they may come from below, and sound carries
     damnably well in these tunnels.’
    She drew a breath. ‘If it will make you feel better, I shall explain the principle,’ she said. ‘The plug of earth is bound
     together by an energy web emanating from a network embedded in these walls. The same network blankets any effects that might
     occur in a metal detector, a sonic probe, or some other instrument that could otherwise detect this passage. It also refreshes
     and circulates the air through molecular porosities. The tube I used to lift the plug is merely a control; the actual power
     comes likewise from the network.’
    ‘But—’ Lockridge shook his head. ‘Impossible. I know that much physics. I mean – well, maybe in theory – but no such gadget
     exists in practice.’
    ‘I told you this was a secret research project,’ Storm answered. ‘They achieved many things.’ Her lips bent upward – how close
     to his! ‘You are not frightened, are you, Malcolm?’
    He squared his shoulders. ‘No. Let’s move.’
    ‘Good man,’ she said, with a slight, blood-quickening emphasison the second word. Releasing him, she led the way down.
    ‘This is only the entrance,’ she said. ‘The corridor proper is more than a hundred feet below us.’
    They spiraled into the earth. Lockridge observed that his own stupefaction was gone. Alertness thrummed in him. Storm had
     done that. My God, he thought, what an adventure.
    The passage debouched in a long room, featureless except at the further wall. There stood a large box or cabinet of the same
     lustrous, self-closing metal as Storm’s belt and a doorway some ten feet wide and twenty high. Curtained? No, as he neared,
     Lockridge saw that the veil which filled it, flickering with soft iridescence, every hue his eyes could see and (he suspected)
     many they could not, was immaterial: a shimmer in space, a mirage, a sheet of living light. The faintest hum came from it,
     and the air nearby smelled electric.
    Storm paused there. Through her clothes he saw how the tall body tensed. His own pistol came out with hers. She glanced at
     him.
    ‘The corridor is just beyond,’ she said in a whetted voice. ‘Now listen. I only hinted to you before that we might have to
     fight. But the enemy is everywhere. He may have learned of our place. His agents may even be on the other side of this gate.
     Are you ready, at my command, to shoot?’
    He could only jerk his head up and then down.
    ‘Very well. Follow me.’
    ‘No, wait, I’ll go—’
    ‘Follow, I said.’ She bounded through the curtain.
    He came after. Crossing the threshold, he felt a brief, twisting shock, and stumbled. He caught himself and glared around.
    Storm stood half crouched, peering from side to side. After a minute she glanced at her instrument, and the pistol sank in
     her hand. ‘No one,’ she breathed. ‘We are safe for the moment.’
    Lockridge drew a shaky lungful and tried to understand what sort of place he had entered.
    The corridor was huge. Also hemicylindrical, with the