Chapter I: Front Matter

THE ENORMOUS ROOM

BY H. L. GOLD & ROBERT KREPPS

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories Oct.-Nov. 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

_One big name per story is usually considered to be sufficient. So
when two of them appear in one by-line, it can certainly be called
a scoop; so that's what we'll call it. H. L. Gold and
science-fiction go together like a blonde and a henna rinse. Robert
Krepps is also big time. You may know him also under his other
label--Geoff St. Reynard, but a Krepps by any name can write as
well._

* * * * *

The roller coaster's string of cars, looking shopworn in their flaky blue and orange paint, crept toward the top of the incline, the ratcheted lift chain clanking with weary patience. In the front seat, a young couple held hands and prepared to scream. Two cars back, a heavy, round-shouldered, black-mustached man with a swarthy skin clenched his hands on the rail before him. A thin blond fellow with a briefcase on his lap glanced back and down at the receding platform, as though trying to spot a friend he had left behind. Behind him was a Negro youth, sitting relaxed with one lean foot on the seat; he looked as bored as someone who'd taken a thousand coaster rides in a summer and expected to take ten thousand more.

In the last car, a tall broad man put his elbows on the backboard and stared at the sky without any particular expression on his lined face.

The chain carried its load to the peak and relinquished it to the force of gravity. The riders had a glimpse of the sprawling amusement park spread out below them like a collection of gaudy toys on the floor of a playroom; then the coaster was roaring and thundering down into the hollow of the first big dip.

Everyone but the Negro boy and the tall man yelled. These two looked detached--without emotion--as though they wouldn't have cared if the train of cars went off the tracks.

The cars didn't go off the tracks. The people did.

The orange-blue rolling stock hit the bottom, slammed around a turn and shot upward again, the wind of its passage whistling boisterously. But by then there were none to hear the wind, to feel the gust of it in watered eyes or open shouting mouths. The cars were empty.

* * * * *

"Is this what happens to _everybody_ who takes a ride on the coaster?" asked a bewildered voice with a slight Mexican accent. "_Santos_," it continued, "to think I have waited so many years for this!"

"What is it?" said a woman. "Was there an accident? Where are we?"

"I don't know, dear. Maybe we jumped the tracks. But it certainly doesn't look like a hospital."

John Summersby opened his eyes. The last voice had told the truth: the room didn't look like a hospital. It didn't look like anything that he could think of offhand.

It was about living-room size, with flat yellow walls and a gray ceiling. There was a quantity of musty-smelling straw on the floor. Four tree trunks from which the branches had been lopped were planted solidly in that floor, which felt hard and a little warm on Summersby's back. Near the roof was a round silver rod, running from wall to wall; over in a corner was a large shallow box filled with something, he saw as he slowly stood up, that might have been sand. An old automobile tire lay in the straw nearby, and a green bird-bath sort of thing held water that splashed from a tiny fountain in its center. Five other people, four men and a woman, were standing or sitting on the floor.

"If it was a hospital, we'd be hurt," said a thin yellow-haired man with a briefcase under one arm. "I'm all right. Feel as good as I ever did."

Several men prodded themselves experimentally, and one began to take his own pulse. Summersby stretched and blinked his eyes; they felt gummy, as though he'd been asleep a long time, but his mouth wasn't cottony, so he figured the blacked-out interval must have been fairly short.

"Where's the door?" asked the woman.

Everyone stared around the room except Summersby, who went to the fountain, scooped up a palmful of water, and drank it. It was rather warm, with no chemical taste.

"There isn't any door," said a Negro boy. "Hey, there isn't a door at all!"

"There must be a door," said the heavy man with the accent.

Several of them ran to the walls. "Here's something," said the blond man, pushing with his fingertips. "Looks like a sliding panel, but it won't budge. We never came in through anything _that_ small, anyway." He looked over at Summersby. "You didn't, at least. I guess they could have slid me through it."

"They?" said the woman in a piercing voice. "Who are they?"

"Yes," said the heavy man, looking at the blond man accusingly, "who put us here?"

"Don't ask me," said the blond man. He looked at a watch, held it to his ear, and Summersby saw him actually go pale, as at a terrible shock. "My God," he gasped, "what day is this?"

"Tuesday," said the Negro.

"That's right. We got on the coaster about eleven Tuesday morning. It's three o'clock Thursday!" His voice was flat and astonished as he held up the watch. "Two days," he said, winding it. "This thing's almost run down."

"How do you know it's Thursday?" asked Summersby.

"This is a chronograph, High-pockets," said the blond man.

"Calvin, we've been kidnapped!" the woman said shrilly, clutching at a man who must be her husband or boy friend.

"No, no, dear. How could they do it on a roller coaster?"

"_Maria y Jose!_" said the Mexican. "Then for two days that idiot relief man has had charge of my chili stand! It'll go to hell!"

"Our things at the hotel," the woman said, "all my new clothes and the marriage license."

"They'll be all right, dear."

"And where's my bag?"

The blond man stooped and picked up a leather handbag from the straw. "This it?" She took it and rummaged inside before she said, "Thank you."

"I don't like all this," said the Negro boy. "Where are we? I got to get back to my job. Where's the door?"

* * * * *

"Come on," said the man with the briefcase shortly, "let's get out of here and find out what's what." He was going along the wall, pushing and rapping it. "How did they cop us, that's what I'd like to know. All I remember is hitting the bottom of that big dip, and then I was waking up in here." He stopped, then said sharply, "I hear something moving. My God! It sounds as big as an elephant."

Then the wall began to glide noiselessly and smoothly to the left, and he scuttled back to the knot of them, looking over his shoulder.

The entire wall slid sideways and vanished, leaving an open end to the room through which Summersby could see a number of large structures that seemed to be machinery, painted various colors. There was no sign of movement. He wondered, in a quiet, detached way, what sort of people might be out there.

"It sounded big," said the blond man again, and looked up at Summersby.

"I am six feet five," said Summersby bleakly. "Whoever it is will have to go some to top me."

* * * * *

An unknown thing moved beyond the room with a brief shuffling sound and then a hand came in through the open end. It was on an arm with a wrist the thickness of Summersby's biceps, an arm two yards long with no indication that it might not be even longer. The hand itself was a foot and a half broad, with a prehensile thumb at either side. Summersby did not notice how many fingers it had. The backs of the fingers and the whole great arm were covered with a thick gray-black thatch of coarse hair, and the naked palm was gun-metal gray. Between one thumb and finger it held a long green rod that was tipped by an ivory-colored ball.

There was no sign of anyone looking in, only the incredible arm and hand.

The others cried out and drew together. Summersby stood still, watching the hand. It poked the stick forward in short jabs, once just missing his head. Then it made a wide sweep and the stick collided with the fat Mexican. He squealed, and at once the hand shot forward, exposing still more of the thick arm, and prodded him away from the group. He skipped toward a far corner, but the stick had him now and was tapping him relentlessly toward the open end.

"_Amigos!_" he yelled, his voice full of anguish. "_Por favor_, save me!"

"Go along with it peaceably," advised the Negro youth frightenedly. "Don't get it annoyed." He was shaking and his glasses kept sliding down his sweaty nose so that he had to push them up continually.

"What is it?" the woman was asking, over and over.

The Mexican was driven to the edge of the room. The place beyond seemed to be much larger than their prison. He waved his hands despairingly.

"Now, quick, you have only a _momentito_ to save me! Don't _stand_ there!"

The stick touched him and he jumped as if he had been shocked. The wall began to slide into place again.

"Let's rush it," said the man with the briefcase suddenly.

"Why?" asked Summersby. The wall closed and they were alone, staring at one another.

* * * * *

"There wasn't anything we could do," the Negro said. "It happened too quick. But if it comes in again we better fight it." He looked around, plainly expecting to be contradicted. "We can't get split up like this."

"Possibly one of us can suggest something," said the husband. He was a sober-looking man of about twenty-eight or thirty, with a face veneered by stubborn patience. "We should make a real try at escape."

"We know where the door is, at least," said the blond man. He went to the sliding wall and threw his weight obliquely against it. "Give me a hand here, will you, big fellow?"

"You won't move it that way," said Summersby. He sat down on the automobile tire, which seemed to have been chewed on by some large animal. "It's probably electrically operated."

"We can try, can't we?"

Summersby did not answer. In one corner, six feet off the floor, was a thing he had not noticed before, a network of silver strands like an enormous spider's web or a cat's cradle. He stared at it, but after the first moment he did not actually see it. He was thinking of the forest, and wishing dully that he might have died there.

The woman spoke sharply, intruding on his detachment; he hoped someone would sit on her. "Will you please _do_ something, Calvin! We must get out of this place."

"Where are we, anyway?" asked the Negro boy, who looked about nineteen, a tall, well-built youth with beautiful hands. "How'd they get us here? And what was that thing that took the Mex?"

"It doesn't matter where we are," snapped the woman.

"Yes, it does, ma'am," said the youth. "We got to know how they brought us here before we can escape."

"The hell we do," said the blond man. "We can't guess our location until we get out. I think you're right about the door," he told Summersby. "There isn't any lock to it you could reach from inside. The mechanism for sliding and locking must be inside the wall itself. Nothing short of a torch will get through to it." He came over to Summersby. "We'll have to gimmick it next time it opens."

"With what?" asked the woman's husband.

"Something small, so it won't be noticed."

"Your briefcase?" suggested the husband, who had a hard New England twang.

"No, chum," said the blond man, "not my briefcase."

"Hey, look," said the Negro. "What happened, anyway? I remember the coaster hitting the dip and then nothing, no wind or motion, until I woke up here. And it's two days later."

"I lost consciousness at the same place," said the New Englander.

"Something was done to knock us out," said the blond man. "Then we must have been taken off the cars at the end of the ride, and brought here." He rubbed his chin, which was stubbled with almost invisible whiskers. "That's impossible, on the face of it," he went on, "but it must be the truth." He grinned; it was the first time Summersby had seen any of them smile. "Unless I'm in a hatch," he said.

"Are we in South America? Or Africa?" asked the Negro.

"Why?"

"That hand!"

"Yeah," said the blond man, "that never grew on anything American." The colored boy looked at him, ready to take offence. "Could it be a freak gorilla?"

"That size and with two thumbs?" asked the boy. "And what would it be doing roaming around loose?"

"Could it be a machine?" asked the husband. "A robot?" His wife screamed, and Summersby got up and went over to the door, getting as far as possible from them. His stomach was a hard ball of hunger, and he wished he were a thousand miles away. Anywhere.

"That hand was alive," said the Negro. "I never saw anything like it in biology, but I'd sure love to dissect it. Did you see those two thumbs? I don't know any animal that has two thumbs."

"Would you come over, sir?" called the New Englander. Summersby realized he was talking to him. "We must plan a course of action." Reluctantly Summersby joined them. "My name is Calvin Full, sir, and this is Mrs. Full."

Summersby took his hand; it was dry and had a preciseness about its grip that irritated him. "John Summersby."

"I'm a milk inspector. My wife and I were on our honeymoon," said Full. "I work through the southern portions of Vermont; that's in the New York milk shed, you know."

"I didn't know. I'm a forest ranger," said Summersby. Retired, he thought bitterly, pensioned off to die with a rotten heart. They couldn't even let a man die on the job, in the woods.

"My work," said Calvin Full, "consists of watching for unsanitary and unsterile practices, making tuberculin tests, and so forth. I'm afraid I'm not much good at this sort of emergency."

His wife, who had been looking as if she would scream again, turned to him. Her almost-pretty face, cleared of fright, was swept by pride. "You're as brave as the next man, Calvin, and as clever. You'll get us home."

"I hope so, dear. But Mr. Summersby must be a great deal more used to problems of this sort."

They all gaped up at him expectantly. Because of his size, of course; he was the big born leader! "Sir" in trouble, "High-pockets" when things were clear again. The hell with them. He kept his mouth shut.

The blond man said, "I'm Tom Watkins."

"Adam Pierce," said the Negro.

"What do you do, Adam?"

The boy pushed his glasses up on his nose again, frowning. "I go to C.C.N.Y. Summers, I'm the Wild Man from Zululand in the sideshow, and I shill for the coaster when I'm not on duty. It helps out my family some, for me to be making money in the summers."

"Are you taking subjects that might help us?" asked Full.

"I major in English. I'm going to teach it when I graduate. Then I take psych, biology, the usual courses."

"Hmm," said Watkins, looking at the end of the room through which the Mexican had been taken. "Psych and biology. Could be some use here."

"What we need is a locksmith," said Summersby. He felt himself unwillingly drawn into the group, sharing their problems that were not his, and it angered him. He fished out a bent pack of cigarettes, lit one and was about to put the rest away.

"Nothing but a torch would help. I know a little about locks myself." Watkins grinned genially. "I'm out of smokes," he said, and Summersby gave him the pack. He took one and passed it to Full, who declined. Adam took one. The boy reached up and pushed at his glasses again; a look of irritation appeared on his face. "Say," he muttered, "is this room a little wobbly, or is it my eyes?"

"Wobbly?"

"Wavy. See how those tree trunks are blurred?"

"You need your glasses changed, Adam," said Watkins.

"No, sir." Adam took them off and started to polish them on a handkerchief; then his brown eyes opened wide. "I can see!" he said. The others stared at him. "My astigmatism's gone! My glasses make everything blur, but I can see plain as noon without 'em. Look, I've had astigmatism since I was a kid!"

"What happened?" asked the woman, addressing her husband. "How could that be, Calvin?"

"Don't know, dear."

"My headache is gone," she said. "I never realized it till this boy mentioned his eyes."

"Mrs. Full has suffered from an almost constant headache for years," said Calvin, and sniffed twice. "My post-nasal drip is missing, too. Do you suppose my sinus trouble is cleared up?"

"That's what must have been happening those two days we were out," said Watkins, knocking ash from his cigarette. "We were put through a hospital or something. I feel good, even if I'm damned hungry."

Summersby looked from one to another, detesting them; against his will, against sanity and decency that fought for recognition, he detested them. He had a heart for which there was no help, a heart no two-day period of miraculous cures could touch. Their puny ailments had been relieved, but he was still at the slow, listless task of dying.

"Listen," said Watkins jubilantly, "whoever or whatever brought us here, it's a cinch they don't mean to harm us. They wouldn't mend us if they were going to hurt us, would they?"

"In two days," said Adam, nodding hard. "Two days! How could they do it?"

There was an air of near-gaiety about them that repelled Summersby. In a desperate rebellion against these boons handed out to everyone but himself, he tried to hurt them. "What do you do to a duck before you cook it? Clean it. Think that over."

Adam Pierce looked at him levelly. "No, sir. If that duck has sinus trouble or bad eyes, you don't have to fix that up before you eat it. No, sir."

"What about the Mexican?" Summersby asked. "What's happened to him?"

Then the wall slid open again and they all started forward; Summersby looked after them bitterly, feeling the resentment drain out and leave only the old hopelessness, the apathetic disregard of everything but death.