Jimmy said nothing. He was too busy peering out at the rolling dunes and endless plains of the Sahara.
Sub-Sahara! Underground labyrinth—an oasis under a burning, lifeless expanse of wilderness! To the three Martells it was, at first, a relief, after the flaming heat of the desert. Though even in the beginning there was a feeling of oppression as the metal car sank down into its shaft and the weight of earth overhead was felt almost tangibly.
It seemed hours later when the car stopped and a panel in its bare side slid open. Pale radiance flickered in through the gap, lighting the men’s faces eerily. The glow seemed to come from the walls itself.
“Phosphorescent paint,” Brady said, nodding. “Saves trouble. We spray the walls and ceiling once a year, and it’s bright enough for our needs. Come along.”
The four stepped out into a passageway. It wasn’t long. It ended before a metallic door; Brady took a rod from his pocket and held it briefly pointed at the lock. The panel opened.
Beyond the threshold lay a cavern.
Huge and dim and alien as a distant world it seemed, a gigantic hollow hemisphere in the solid Earth. It was, as far as Tony could judge, about two miles in diameter, with a jagged floor that had been cleared in a few spots. The dim light filtered down from the ceiling, as sunlight through heavy cloud. When Brady spoke, his voice was incongruous in this place of silvery soft grayness.
“There’s the fort. Over there—” He pointed. “That’s the entrance to the Coptic tunnels. We guard the entrance to the surface. Though the Copts haven’t tried to make any surface raids for a long time.” He swung out along a rough path, the others following. “They hate the Bedouins, just as the ancient Egyptians did. They don’t especially dislike us, unless we get in their way. If the mineral deposits the Copts work weren’t valuable, though, they’d be left to themselves. But the Legion’s paid to make sure the mines are kept active.”
Tony didn’t answer. His eyes were slowly accustoming themselves to this strange light. He glanced up at a ceiling that was both visible and invisible. No details could be seen. A veil of shining cloud seemed to obscure the rock far above. The vault of a world, Tony thought. A world created here, perhaps, when the Sahara was a sea instead of a desert. What had Brady said a while ago? Something about a prehistoric, mighty civilization in ante-dynastic Egypt . . . and, far and far below, the Copts still worshiped Isis, in the hidden caverns of Alu where no white man had ever penetrated. “The wreckage of a civilization down there,” Brady had said.
In this eery cavern-world it was easy to believe in almost anything. A scrap of half-forgotten verse drifted through Tony’s mind: