SUNGLASESS AND ROCKETS Part 2: The Machine

THE ESCAPE

The ship spun.

The windows covered up with black smoke, but an instant later they cleared up. The Pterodactyl was flying vertiginously forward, penetrating one of the narrow rectangular cavities of the walls.

An endless number of resplendent rows passed by the windows at an amazing speed. They wrapped us.

"Doctor!" Lucas called. "We are passing by some strange machinery!"

I hadn't the slightest idea of where we were, I just knew that we were running away from a devastating explosion.

"Professor Masterton!" Lucas insisted. "We're about to enter the main floor! Where are you?"

The Pterodactyl made a fantastic ninety degree turn. Everything went dark. After just a couple of seconds, the view was visible again; an easily identifiable construction was opening before our eyes: an extensive corridor.

The Pterodactyl slanted and began to cross it in a perfect diagonal.

We stopped at about 15 feet from the bottom.

"Professor, do you read me?" Lucas called. "We're in the hallway that leads to the plant—" He interrupted himself. "Where could the elevators be?"

Without asking myself what the elevators could be good for, automatically I turned my head.

I couldn't make out an entrance. I just saw a glare at the other end. It was the...the...

"The explosion!" Darwin completed. "It's reaching us!"

The walls were breaking off at scarcely 90 feet from there. The awful sparks lit up the cabin.

"We'll use the emergency exit!" the clever pilot announced.

The ship accelerated all the way, made a fantastic turn and between a couple of blows, it went in completely sideways thru a door.

The Pterodactyl's reflectors illuminated a staircase!

The pilot put the ship in position.

We started to ascend following the stairs zigzag. We looked like the passengers of a gigantic ugly bird trained to go up the stairs.

After a little while we got stuck. The wings were too big and the narrow receptacle was more like a cage.

The skillful pilot came up with something again.

"We'll go in the middle!"

Making another fantastic move, he moved the Pterodactyl in the middle of the two lines of steps, adopting a completely vertical position. My eyes bumped against the narrow passage of banisters that expanded some thirty stories up...

We went up in a matter of seconds.

And the disturbing brilliance touched the ship's tail...threatening to cover us...

"They're blowing up the whole building!" Darwin yelled. "Nothing will be left!"

"Doctor!" we both yelled at the top of our lungs. "Doctor Masterton!"

The windows were covered by a dense cloud of dust and rubble.

"Hold on!" the pilot said to his Pterodactyl. "Hold on!"

The view cleared. The reflectors lit up a strange background in the distance. It was the roof of the gigantic grot!

We had made it out.

"Gordo!" the pilot called urgently. "Verify the arm's monitor."

I looked at the fancy front panel. The shaky pilot's hand was pointing to a blue screen right opposite me. I leaned to have a better look: the mechanical arm showed up in three dimensions, at the end, a ball appeared.

"We've got it," I announced. "We have the SVM."

The pilot nodded.

"Let's go back for the professor."

The Pterodactyl made a violent turn of one hundred and eighty degrees and came back in a dive toward the building which was surrounded by extraordinary explosions.

"Jesus!" I whispered.

The pilot did not dismay. He kept on the hasty trajectory, getting closer.

"Open your eyes wide," he said. "He probably made it out..."

We over flew an extensive construction area around the building...everything was blowing up...

"Damn it," Lucas murmured. "Professor, do you read me? Do you read me?"

No answer. I got a lump in my throat and I looked away discouraged.

I swallowed the lump right away.

"Vampires!" I shouted.