Chapter X: A Ripple in the Pool

It seemed as though he were right. The whole great pool of humanity which comprised Capellette was still, quiescent, stagnant. Was there nothing to arouse it, no ripple in the pool?

The doctor had this question uppermost in his mind when he located young Ernol. He found him getting ready to accompany his father, who seemed about to take advantage of the freedom Powart had conditionally given him. There was no doubt about it; the radical was going straight back to his revolutionary teaching.

He was saying, “Of course, my boy, I can’t compel you to stay at home.” The doctor delighted in the vigorous, frank manner and powerful voice of the man; they belonged perfectly with his black hair and bristling beard, his flashing eyes and aggressive nose. “I’d rather you stayed out of this; at the same time, I’d be a proud man if you didn’t!”

The student calmly finished his dressing. “What time did you tell the men to come?” was all he said; and the father chuckled, then sighed.

The two took flight in a small two-seater. It was night, and the doctor took note of the planet’s system of signal lights. Within five minutes, however, the flight ended with a landing in some sort of a deep depression; the doctor called it a ravine.

Climbing from the machine, the two apostles stepped a few paces in total darkness; then the elder man produced a small electric torch, which he wig-wagged above his head. There was a series of answering flashes at a distance; and next moment a door, let into the side of the ravine, opened right in front of the pair.

They stepped in and closed the door after them, then turned their light down a long corridor. Reaching the end of this the doctor noted a loophole in the wall, from which projected something suspiciously, like the muzzle of a machine gun. He had no difficulty in imagining the consequences should some one open that hidden door without first giving the signal.

Much as one might enter a lodge-room, the two radicals showed their faces at a port-hole in a door, after which they passed guards with masklike helmets. In a few seconds they found themselves in a brilliantly lighted hall, very large and commodious except for the heavy pillars which supported its low ceiling. It was half filled with men.

The elder Ernol had no use for formality. After brief greetings to some kind of a committee, he took his place on a platform; while his son unconsciously gratified the doctor by looking over the crowd. Presumably they were all workers; and in one way they were all alike; the habitual contentment in their faces had been momentarily replaced by excitement. However, they were quiet and well behaved enough.

“Comrades,” began the radical without delay, “I appreciate your coming here at all, under the circumstances. The commission plainly warned me that any further teaching would be disastrous. I am not sure, but I imagine they would arrest both myself and those found with me. If there is any one who feels that he would rather not take the risk, now is the time for him to go.”

There was a moment’s pause; then, in the back of the hall, two men who had been sitting together got up and hurriedly went out. Ernol waited, but there was no further exodus.

“I will lose no time then, but proceed to give you the proofs regarding the commission.” He produced a small parcel of photographs. “These pictures are the most dangerous things I have ever carried on my person. I took them in the dead of night, by flashlight, in the library of the University of Calastia.

“They are”--he paused portentously--”reproductions of pages from the secret census!”

To most of the men this meant something highly significant. They cranned their necks in their excitement.

“I am going to pass them around, negatives and all. You see where I have checked off the most important items. They prove to any one with reason that the commission has been lying to us; that the workers are being taxed more heavily than the owners; that the owners are being favored in every way. I don’t care whether you agree with my ideas or not; these photographs”--his voice shook the hall--”prove that the commission is not even giving you what you thought you were getting!”

He took a single step down from the platform, his hand outstretched, about to pass the parcel to the man in the nearest seat. At that instant all the lights were extinguished.

There was a moment’s stunned silence; then the place broke into an uproar. Yells of fright and anger, the crashing of chairs, screams of pain; all these young Ernol heard without himself giving voice. He was sprinting down one side of the hall.

Suddenly there came a flash of light straight ahead. Ernol had reached the outer corridor. And the doctor heard a great commotion going on outside the door in the ravine; a smashing and thudding, which filled the corridor with noise. Next second the door gave way, and simultaneously young Ernol leaped into the niche behind the thing which the doctor thought a machine gun. Another second, and he had the device in operation.

From its muzzle shot a thin stream of fire, which extended the whole length of the corridor. It lighted up everything with a bluish-white glare, revealing a mob of men at the door. They fell back, yelling with pain, some of them dropping in their tracks. And all the while the apparatus was dealing, not a shower of bullets, but a streak of liquid fire, which hissed and screamed like the blast from an oxygen blow-pipe.

But it was all over in a second or two. A noise from behind, and young Ernol started up suddenly, only to find himself in the grip of a veritable giant of a man. His struggles were simply useless. In a moment he was being carried bodily back into the hall, which the doctor saw was now lighted as before.

On one side, lined up amid a mass of wrecked chairs, stood most of the workers at bay. On the other were four men with small boxlike devices, such as Billie had already seen in the hands of Powart’s guards, and which were kept trained threateningly upon the crowd. On the platform stood Ernol, now quite helpless in the grasp of two stalwart fellows.

The mob from the door poured in. Immediately they made captors of all the workers, who had precious little to say. Apparently they had been warned. The doctor also concluded that the capture was a piece of treachery, in which bribery had been employed.