The Grand Wheel

The transport sent by the galactics looked like a glass ball fifty feet in diameter. About a quarter of its bulk had seemingly passed into the ground. On nearing it the Wheelmen paused, staring up at its shimmering surface.

‘What happens now?’ someone asked.

A team member named Müller walked up to the sphere and touched it with his fingers.

His hand passed right through.

‘I guess this is what happens,’ he said. Boldly he stepped through the wall of the sphere and stood looking at them from inside.

As if searching for signs of the vanished Shane, Dom surveyed the gloom-darkened desert in all directions before he too stepped inside the fragile-looking globe. Silently the others followed, passing through the pervious wall which swallowed them all without the slightest distortion in its curvature.

The sensation was like passing through the wall of a soap bubble – except that the bubble didn’t burst. For some moments they all stood there in an apprehensive group, gazing up at the sheen curving over their heads, at the black sky, towards the invisible horizon.

Then, though there was no sensation of motion, it became evident that they were moving. The bubble had disengaged from the surface of the planet, taking with it that portion of the ground which it had enclosed and leaving a perfectly bowl-shaped depression where it had rested. The desert fell away. They shot into the sky, coming in view of the sun again, and in scant seconds had passed out of the atmosphere.

Shortly afterwards, Scarne lost consciousness. When he came round again he was still on his feet, standing with the others on the dusty circle of ground the sphere had scooped out of the desert, but he had the impression that a considerable period of time had elapsed.

‘I passed out,’ Dom said calmly. ‘Did everyone else?’ He was answered with a chorus of nods.

Outside, there was no nearby sun and they were passing through the abyss of interstellar space. But now something glimmered out of that darkness. They were approaching their destination.

At first Scarne thought it was a planet, drifting through space free of any sun. As they loomed closer he saw that it was in fact a planetoid, only a few hundred miles in diameter. And though lit by no sun, it was not dark. Its surface was covered in a calm, grey light by which certain features could be seen, though it was hard to say what they were. Dark and light patches; some structures, perhaps; small towns, possibly?

It struck Scarne that most asteroids, even largish ones, were not as regularly shaped as the one down below. He leaped to the conclusion that there was a significant artificial element in its make-up.

Steadily, gracefully, the transparent sphere swept down towards their rendezvous.

The half-track raced at top speed across the nearly pitch-black landscape. The headlights were switched off; Hakandra was driving by gyro compass. Behind it, the vehicle was covering up its tracks with vibrating brushes as it went.

The only other occupant was Shane. He had said little since Hakandra had rescued him, but had resumed his former sullen compliance, sitting in the back of the open cab and feeling the wind rushing past his face.

‘You haven’t been using the machine much lately,’ he said once.

‘Only minor tests,’ Hakandra told him.

‘I didn’t feel very much from it. Of course, I wasn’t so close to it.’

Hakandra made no reply. He was too busy checking his course on the instruments and worrying about possible pursuit. They had to get under cover quickly if they were to evade recapture.

After an hour’s drive he scanned the terrain anxiously until he saw a slight hump in the ground, outlined against the faint, almost absent starlight. Approaching it, he at length stopped the half-track and clambered down from it carrying a spade. After stumbling about before a sudden rise in the ground, a bank of earth about ten feet high, he began digging away the dust. Finally he bent down and pulled at a metal ring.

A counterweighted canopy rose up, revealing a cavern in the bank. Hakandra ran back to the half-track and drove it through the opening.

Only when he had again closed the door to the place did he switch on a hand-torch, and by its light then switch on some interior lighting. They were in a chamber either cut into the rock or else constructed out of some kind of concrete. At the rear were further passages.

‘The natives built this,’ Hakandra explained as Shane climbed down. ‘It’s an archaeological dig we sealed off months ago to stop the dust getting in.’ He led the way through one of the rear openings to a smaller room cosily furnished with beds, a table and chairs. Wall cupboards contained shelves of food.

‘We’ll be all right here,’ Hakandra continued eagerly. ‘They’ll never find us and we needn’t come out again until it’s safe.’

He sat Shane down and inspected him, wiping his dusty face with a damp cloth. ‘Are you all right? How did Dom treat you?’

‘Better than you ever did,’ Shane answered with a shrug.