Along that corridor we went, one lined with solid metal doors on either side, and finally were halted before one of those doors. Then one of our guards drew from a pocket a small instrument resembling an electric torch, from which he flashed a tiny beam into a transparent-fronted little opening in the wall beside the door. At once there came a clicking of locks, and the door swung open, its locks unbolted by the beam of light or force, rather, whose vibratory rate was exactly tuned to affect a delicate receiver tuned to the same frequency, set in the wall and controlling the lock. These vibration-locks, indeed, had long ago replaced the old, clumsy keys, and were far safer in that they responded only to one certain frequency vibration out of the millions possible, and thus could be opened only by one who knew the correct frequency. Now, as the door swung open, our guards pointed inside with their heat-pistols and perforce we stepped within, the door snapping shut behind us.
We found ourselves in a small, metal-walled cell some ten feet in length and half that in width, furnished with but a few metal bunk-racks swung from the walls. At its farther end from us was the only opening beside the door, a small square window that was quite open and unbarred, and that looked out over all the colossal mass of the great air-city of Berlin, a giant field of blazing lights stretching far around and beneath the great tower in which we were prisoned. Then, as we gazed about the little cell with our eyes becoming accustomed to its lack of light, we made out suddenly a figure standing near its window, a dark, erect figure who seemed watching us for the moment and who then was striding across the cell toward us.
"Brant!" he exclaimed, as his eyes made out our faces through the dusk. "Brant—and you were with the ships that attacked the city but now—you were captured in some way!"
But now my own eyes had penetrated the dusk enough to recognize the features of the man who was gripping my arms, the keen, daredevil countenance that I remembered at once.
"Connell!" I cried. "You prisoned here! Then you're the other American the European First Air Chief ordered us prisoned with. But I had thought you dead!"
"Dead I might be as well as here," said Connell, suddenly somber. "For four weeks I have been here, Brant—for weeks before the beginning of this war. And now that this war has begun I, who alone might save our American Federation from annihilation in it, am prisoned here with only death awaiting me, and that in a few days."
I stared at him, astonished. Connell had been one of the cruiser captains of the American Federation forces for several years, and had been a friend of my own in those years. A year before he had withdrawn from active duty, no one knew to where, and finally, but a few weeks before the breaking forth of this war, our First Air Chief had told us in answer to our queries that Connell had been sent upon a special mission, but that since he had not reported for several weeks he had undoubtedly met death in the course of it. To meet him here, in the heart of Berlin and prisoned with ourselves, astounded me, and the more so since from his first words we understood that he had been confined thus for weeks even before war had burst upon us. But now, motioning us to seats on the bunk-racks beside us, Connell was questioning us eagerly as to the course of the combat between the great Federations so far, and his eyes shone when we described to him that terrific battle over and in the Atlantic that we had fought but a day before, and that daring attack on Berlin that he had himself witnessed from his window.
"I saw the European Federation's fleet massing and sailing westward yesterday," he said, "and knew it was launching its great attack, knew when it returned disorganized and shattered that the American fleet had beaten back that attack. But I did not expect this attack you made on Berlin tonight, and was as astounded as all in the city when you swooped down with your great bombs. A great blow, Brant—a great and successful blow against the whole European Federation, yet such a blow alone cannot halt the menace which it and the Asiatic Federation are preparing to loose upon our own nation. Such a blow, nor a hundred such blows, would avail but little in the end against the stupendous plans and forces that are preparing and massing even now to roll out upon the American Federation in an avalanche of doom!"
A Strange Tale