A VOICE roared, “All clear! Lower away!” The great ship rocked and quivered as its jet rockets flared, forming a solid, cushioning pillar on which theSpica lowered itself to the land cradle on Long Island Spaceport.
“Tub!” muttered Flick Muldoon, and he made a hasty grab for a case of equipment slithering across the deck.
Blue uniformed attendants, luggage laden, brushed by the pair of young scientists. Commands clacked with metallic authority from the brazen throats of deck audiophones. Lockswheezed asthmatically, and the warm, sweet fragrance of Earth air flooded through a nearby port.
Flick drew a deep, contented breath.
“Home again! Oh, boy! Linen suits instead of those damn bulgers . . . sandals instead of lead boots . . . breathable air instead of oxygen . . .”
“. . . and,” reminded
His precious portfolio securely gripped in a bronzed fist, he strode to the gangway, stood there blinking momentarily in the pleasant sunlight of Earth. Then a warm hand was on his shoulder, and a friendly voice greeted him. The voice of his superior, Dr. Wade Bryant.
“Welcome home,
“I got,” said
“No,” chuckled Bryant, “But we’ll soon remedy that. Professor Anjers, permit me to introduce my brilliant and indispensable young aide,
“Of course,” replied
“Well,
“Later,” said
Flick Muldoon snorted from behind him.“Car? We need a truck! Hey, Doc—look at me! The human derrick.
Dr. Bryant laughed. “You’ll survive, Flick, I fear. Yes, the car’s right over here. If you’re ready now—”
He led the way. They had moved but a few paces from the cradles when someone stepped beside
For he was staring squarely into the most hurt, most baffled, yet withal most beautiful mist-blue eyes he had ever seen. And the eyes were but one facet of this girl’s gemlike perfection. She was incredible, as all dreams sprung to life are incredible. For surely such smooth-gleaming copper hair, such lips and teeth and—well, everything about her!—could exist nowhere other than in a dream.
But if she were a vision she was not his alone. For Dr. Bryantspoke apologetically. “
“I’m sure,” said Nora Powell icily, “it will be agreat pleasure to work with Dr. Lane.” She turned to Muldoon. “If I can helpyou with your instruments—?”
Flick started at her, goggle-eyed. “H-h-help, sugar! You just stand there and look at me; that’s help enough! For you I could lift mountains!”
He proceeded to prove it, stumbling forward under a pack-mule load.
In Dr. Bryant’s office at the Observatory, the gray-haired chief technician turned once more to his young assistant.
“And now,
“I—I’m not quite sure, sir—”
“Perhaps,” suggested Dr. Anjers, “there is something the young man would prefer to tell you in private?”
Dr. Bryant shook his head impatiently.
“Of course not, Dr. Anjers. Come,
“I know,” said
The cherubic Eurasian nodded. He spoke with a hint of an accent. “And none taken, my boy. And now—?”
He drew a deep breath, groped in his portfolio, and drew forth a packet of photographic prints.
“As you all know, he said, “our expedition went to Luna to take pictures of the recent Venusian transit1. We had hoped, on this expedition, to finally solve the mystery of the sun’s corona. Sir Arnold Gregg came near a solution when he determined identity between the solar corona and Earth’s Heaviside layer. But his deduction need verification—.”
“And?” Dr. Anjers leaned forward intently. “Were you successful? You learned he was right?”
He paused, “But, wait! I’m going too fast. Before I continue I should tell you that we attached to our telelens a cinematic spectroscope, the better to ascertain changes of elements taking place within the corona. By this spectroscope may be determined the elements of sighted objects, also—”
“—their speed,” agreed Dr. Bryant, “in relation to Earth. But I don’t see—”
“You will” promised the young man tensely. “All the moment of transit, when our cameras were focussed directly on Sol, chance treated us to a phenomenon which might not happen again for untold ages. A comet from the far depths of extra-galactic space moved within the vision of our lenses. We got a complete photographic and spectroscopic record of it!”
Blank stares met his eager pronouncement. Dr. BorisAnjers looked curious. Bryant stroked his jaw, waiting.
Nora Powell laughed, her laughter a musical shard of scorn.
“Howterribly interesting, Dr. Lane!” she said. “I’m afraid you didn’t film a very amusing stereop, though. A film without a plot or a hero—”
“Uninteresting, eh?” he growled. “A plotless story? Very well—see for yourself! Here!”
And he tossed on the desk before hisconfrères a set of prints. Bryant, Anjers and Nora moved forward to look at them.
For a long moment there was silence. Then the small visiting scientist raised his head. He said, “This is a very interesting series of exposures, my young friend, But what a shame your camera moved!”
“That’s just it, Doctor! The camera did not move on inch! The ‘motion’ in that comet is the very thing I’ve been talking about!”
He bent over the pictures, jabbing an excited finger at a faint white speck in the upper corner.
“Here is the story caught by Muldoon’s camera. When this first picture was taken, the comet was far out in extra-galactic space. It had not yet hurled itself into the galaxy of which our solar system is a part. Its position on the two subsequent photographs enable us to determine, accurately and perfectly, the comet’s spatial trajectory. But look at thefourthphotograph! What do you see there?”
Dr. Bryant said bewilderedly, “Why, that’s odd! The comet seems to have departed from its original trajectory; it is bent at almost a 45º angle from its former line of flight. That must be where the camera moved.”
“I tell you again,” swore
Dr. Anjers glanced at him with concern. “What is that? Our galaxy! I am afraid you have been overworking, my young friend—”
“Just a moment, Doctor! I have further proof.” The younger man’s hands dug into his portfolio. “Dr. Bryant, let me ask you a question. If you were asked to declare the most baffling of all astronomical puzzles, what would you select?”
“Why—why, I suppose the ‘red shift’,
“Exactly!” For the benefit of Nora, he added: “From the early Nineteenth Century to this day, one riddle which has amazed and confounded scientists is the apparent movement of our universe. According to all evidence, our universe is composed of a multitude of galaxies—each of which is running away from all others at unbelievable speed. This we know because of the ‘red shift’—which one might call the Doppler Effect applied to light, rather than to sound. When one star, comet, or galaxy approaches another, pressing its light waves upon its neighbor, the cosmic body’s light waves are shortened. They shift toward the violet side of the spectrum. Similarly, areceding luminary pulls its waves—and the pitch of its light is indicated by a ‘red shift.’ Observation has taught us the tragic falsehood that everything in the universe is running away from all else. We have learned to believe in an ‘expanding universe’. “But—” Once again
Dr. Bryant stared.
“But this is incredible,
And he looked at Lane, wide-eyed and wondering. Dr. Anjers also studied the younger scientist with respect.
Asked the Eurasian, “And the conclusion you draw, my young friend?”
“There is,” said Gary seriously, “but one conclusion possible. Science has erred for almost three centuries. Our universe isnot expanding. All other stars arenot racing headlong from our own. The Greater Universe is steadfast and secure. It is only our little solar system which moves. And we—we are contracting!”
NORA POWELL was frankly out of her depth. It showed in her eyes, and in the petulant protrusion of her lower lip. She asked,cool gaze studying her new superior, “Would you be kind enough to explain that more fully, Dr. Lane?”
He wanted most desperately to convince his superior, Dr. Bryant, and all his other associates, that this startling discovery was not lightly to be dismissed.
Furthermore—and it surprised Gary Lane to find the desire within him—he wanted to prove to Nora Powell that he was not, in truth, the ogre she now believed him. That there had been an excuse for his rudeness.
So he spoke, setting forth the arguments thought out during the flight from Earth’s satellite.
“You are all familiar,” he said, “with the theory of the ‘expanding’ or ‘bubble’ universe. We approach an understanding of this by thinking of our existence—our universe of three spatial dimensions with one temporal extension—as a sphere which isall surface. Not merely a hollow sphere, you understand.Everything— including empty space, solid matter and energy—is on the surface of this hypersphere. Thus our sun constitutes one point imbedded in the surface of the sphere . . . the nearest star is another . . . the farthest still another . . . and so on witheach of a billion galaxies. It has been suggested that an underfined ‘something’ is ‘blowing up’ this bubble, and that as expansion increases, the degree of separation between galaxies widens so that they appear to be running away from each other. The big objection tothis theory has been the insurmountable question—ifthis hypersphere is expanding, into what, since it contains all of Space and Time in itself, does it expand?
Dr. Anjers interrupted somewhat caustically.
“You reject this theory, I gather?”
“Completely,” declared
Nora Powell said, “But, Dr. Lane—the principles of relativity! The value ofh, and the Lorenz contraction—”
“Are all taken care of,” insisted
Dr. Bryant nodded. “Yes,
“Quite. But,” said
Nora’s eyes widened. She cried, “A—a universe running away from you!”
“And your spectroscopic analysis—?”
“Would show the red shift!” Nora whirled to the two older men. “Dr. Bryant . . . Dr. Anjers . . . he’s right! Now I see what the pictures meant! The comet, entering our contracting galaxy, changed its course sharply—”
The foreign scientist’s eyes clouded with impatience behind their heavy lids. He smiled commiseratingly. “A very interesting conjecture, my young friend. But it is foolhardy to reason on such flimsy evidence. Your camera, despite your belief, may have shaken . . . your spectroscope may have been out of adjustment . . . any one of a thousand things.” A chubby hand dipped swiftly into Gary’s briefcase, drew forth a flat, circular tin of film. “Is this the roll on which—?”
“Don’t do that!”Gary leaped forward and swept the tin from Dr. Anjers’ grasp, swiftly inspected the thin line of metal seal. Only after he had satisfied himself that it was intact did he think to apologize. “You must forgive me, sir, please. But these are supplementary exposures; they have not yet been developed.”
The small man nodded understandingly. “The fault ismine, Dr. Lane. Forgive me.”
Dr. Bryant, too engrossed in his own thoughts to see the byplay, now raised his head thoughtfully.
“Nevertheless, Gary, Miss Powell raised an importantpoint. What about our known and proven celestial mechanics?”
“My theory,” said Gary firmly, “makes them even more valid. Theirtruth is not reversed—only theirmeaning . In other words, the principles of the Lorenz equation still hold true, but we must learn to interpret it from a new angle. It is not the yardstick which moves; it is the observers! We of this dwindling solar system which, alone in all the vastnese the Greater Universe, is becoming ever smaller!”
“But—but why,
“That,” confessed Lane, “I do not know. But it is a problem we must solve. And quickly. Or—”
“Or—?” prompted Nora Powell as he hesitated.
“Or—” concluded
For the second time within minutes, silence followed one ofGary Lane’s pronouncements. But this was no moment of doubt . Something of his deadly earnestness had communicated itself to his listeners; their voices were muted as if with awe atthe magnitude of his warning. Muldoon already knew, of course, and already believed. Credence shone in the eyes of Nora Powell. Dr. Anjers’ broad, fair brow was drawn; the cherubic mask of his features was marred with white lines of concentrations. Dr. Bryant coughed, twisting long, capable fingers into steeples of thought.
It was the foreign scientist who broke the silence. Quietly, carefully. In a voice which might have been gently chiding, had its accent not been thickened by a note of near-alarm.
“Aren’t you,” he ventured softly, “aren’t you being just a little bit melodramatic, Dr. Lane? After all, this is only a hypothesis. A very new and—if you will forgive me—most implausible conjecture—”
“New,” agreed Gary almost harshly “butnot implausible, Doctor. Weknow , don’t we, Flick?” The camera expert nodded. “We know, and we have further proof. Those rolls of film offer half of it; simple mathematics supplies the rest. Flick, suppose you get to work on those exposures right away. We’ll show them—”
“Okay, Gary,” said Muldoon. “I’ll get at it immediately. ’Scuse me, folks!”
Dr. Anjers said, “Please, no! Don’t do this just to convinceme , gentlemen. I did not mean to imply doubt. I am skeptical, yes; what man of science would not be? But there is no hurry—”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Doctor. Thereis a need for haste. Every day is precious; perhaps every hour, every minute. We’re not doing this merely to dispel your doubts. We’re doing it because it has to be done, and as swiftly as humanly possible. The sooner mankind realize its peril, the sooner we can take measures to do something. How long will it take you, Flick?”
“At least three hours. Maybe four.”
“All right. Get going. Meanwhile, if you’ll permit me, Dr. Bryant, I’d like to duck into my office. There must be a lot of accumulated correspondence to run through. Miss Powell, if you’ll be kind enough to come with me—?”
“Yes, Dr. Lane.”
Anjers said, “Office, yes, I have not been near my own desk all morning. Perhaps I, too, should spend a little time with my papers. So, gentlemen—”
But Dr. Bryant caught his arm. “Oh, no you don’t, my friend! Lane and Muldoon need a few hours privacy but I am much too excited to leteveryone get away from me. Let’s go to my rooms. I must discuss this matter with someone.”
“That’s it, then,” nodded
Muldoon glared at him.
“You’re telling me? he retorted. “Listen, pal—to me they’re fresh laid eggs, and I’m the mama hen.”
Thus the meeting disbanded.
At four-thirty, Gary Lane spoke a last, “yours truly” into his stenoreel, snapped the switch which sent the machine into operation as a transcriber, rose, and yawned vigorously.
“That,” he said, “is that! Thank goodness. I don’t know how I would have ever finished up without your help, Miss Powell.”
Nora Powell said, “I’m glad I was of some assistance, Dr. Lane.”
“Some assistance?”Gary grinned. “You were the whole works. I wouldn’t have known how to answer half those letters if you hadn’t been here to advice me. Say, by the way—” He glanced at her quizzically. “Am I forgiven yet? I mean about that business down at the rocketdrome?”
Nora Powell met his gaze briefly, flushed, and turned away. “I—I had forgotten all about it, Doctor,” she said.
“Now, that,” approved Gary, “is something to really be thankful for. Well, it’s almost time for our appointment. Let’s go down and see how Flick’s making out.”
Thus it was that
For when young Dr. Lane pushed open the projection room door, it was to peer into a chamber not brilliantly alight, as he had expected, but one draped in darkness. Even so, he was not at first alarmed. Flick’s prints must surely be ready by now, but it was quite possible the cameraman was testing his equipment.
Because his only answer was a deep, choking groan. And even as Nora behind him gave an incoherent cry of warning, Gary got the illumination he had asked for—but in an unwanted way. The darkness was suddenly, fiercely stabbed with a livid flare, an undulating streamer of light from the opposite end of the room. A crackling, hissing ochre finger of light which seemed to burn with an inward malevolence of its own.
And where this dirty glare struck walls and drapes, woodwork and plastic, metal instruments and decorative vines, all—with a dreadful sort of impotent homogeneity—burst into sudden and spontaneous flame. By the light of the burning furniture, Gary glimpsed a dim, uncertain figure in the doorway opposite—and from the hands of this unknown arsonist leaped the living flame!
Gary Lane could claim no heroism for what he did; his actions were too impulsive, too instinctive, to be considered real bravery. It never occurred to him that his enemy was armed where he was not, nor that the light-streamer devouring all else in the room could just as easily strip his flesh from his bones like tinfoil over a candleflame. All he knew was that somewhere in this room, Flick Muldoon lay hurt—perhaps dead—and that documents on which depended the future of all mankind were being imperiled by a mysterious assailant.
Soundlessly, but with the speed of a striking panther, he hurled himself across the room. In the unreal tawny-black his body could have been, at best, but a dimly glimpsed bulk. The lethal flame did not turn in his direction, scorching him instantly out of existence.
And then his shoulders met sturdy flesh with a solid impact; the stranger grunted meatily and staggered backward.
For the barest fraction of a second! Then the enemy regained his feet. Gary sensed, a rather than saw, the arm uplifting as many voices raised in sudden clamor, and the sound of running footsteps echoed from the corridor he had quitted. Hewas aware of Nora Powell’s cry, “Dr. Lane—look out! Gary—!”
Then the spinning world descended with brutal force upon his temple, the gloom split asunder into a myriad whirling galaxies of fire, and he sank senseless to the floor.
“—Better now,” said a voice from far, far away. “I think he can hear me. Gary, my boy! Are you all right?”
Gary lifted his head and groaned; opened his eyes to find himself looking up into the kindly face of Dr. Bryant. Besides the old astronomer, her mist-blue eyes wide with fear and something else Gary Lane was too dazed to decipher, stood Nora Powell, while beside her, cherubic cheeks gray with inarticulate outrage, was the small foreign physicist.
Recollection flooded back on Gary; swiveling his head, he discovered that the flames which threatened the room had been extinguished. But how about—?
“Flick?” he muttered, struggling to rise, “Flick! Is he—?”
“Okay, chum,” growled Flick Muldoon, coming from behindhim. “The firebug busted me, laid me out colder than a Laplander’s kiss, but you got a worse smack than I did. I’m okay.”
“And the—the films?” asked Gary fearfully.
“Safe,” chuckled Muldoon, “as a pork pie at a Mohammedans’ picnic. I went down, yeah—but I went down with ’em clutched to my manly bosom! Our murderous friend, whoever he was, would have needed a can-opener to get ’em out of my hands. Me, I’ve got instincts, I have!”
Gary was on his feet, now, and staring about him. A little unsteadily, true, but gathering strength with every moment. He said, “Then you didn’t get a look at him?”
“Who, me? I haven’t got eyes in the back of my head, pal!”
“How about you, No—Miss Powell?” Gary caught himself just in time, reddening as he did so. Though his mind was intent on the problem now confronting them, some hidden portion found time to be astonished that his tongue should so trick him.
“I saw him no better than you did. Perhaps not even aswell. When you charged him, I ran into the corridor and screamed for help.”
“And a good thing, too,” appended Dr. Bryant. “The whole Observatory might have gone up in flames had help not comeimmediately. Gary, that weapon—whatever it was—is the most destructive force ever unleashed by man! It burns right through anything. Wood, metal, plastic—”
“I can see that,” scowled Gary. He bit his lip, an unwelcome suspicion forcing itself into his mind as he stared at the other member of their little party. “What puzzles me is—where did he come from? The arsonist, I mean. How many people are in this Observatory beside ourselves?”
“Why, scores, Gary. The laboratory men and the observers, upstairs, the students below—it was they who helped us fight the fire, you know.”
“Yes, but—” Gary turned suddenly to Dr. Anjers. “Doctor—where wereyou when this fire was started?”
Anjers blinked at him mildly. “Me, my friend? Why, with Dr. Bryant in his study, of course. But, why? Surely you don’t think I—?”
“I don’t know what to think,” groaned Gary. “While I didn’t see the intruder very well, as nearly as I could judge, he was just about your height and build. Dr. Bryant, you’re positive Dr. Anjers was with you?”
“Of course,
“Every minute? Neither of you left the study?”
“Not for a second. We were together every moment until we heard Miss Powell’s cry; then we hurried here together. Really, Gary—”
“Yes, I know,” conceded Gary ruefully. “I’m sorry. But the mandid look a little like Dr. Anjers, and—”
The small scientist nodded sympathetically.
“Say no more about it, Doctor. You have had ample reason to be apprehensive—and to question. Judging from what I see here, you narrowly escaped a horrible death. Our foe’s weapon is, indeed, a terrible one. As a physicist, I cannot understandhow anything can create spontaneous combustion in such uninflammable substance as metal and plaster—”
“No?” grunted Gary. “Well,I can! Look here!”
He stepped to the wall upon which the ray had played mostfiercely, bent and rose, sifting a handful of tiny granulesthrough his fingers.
“Here’s your answer. And it ties in exactly with what we were talking about earlier this afternoon. Condensation of matter! See these granules? They are all that remain of a space five feet wide by six feet high! Their matter has been condensed by that hellish ray. The liberation of their excess bulk in the form of pure energy was what caused them to burst into flame. There’s your answer, and—Good Lord!”
He stopped, stricken by the thought which had leaped into his brain. A thought at once so terrible and incredible that he could scarce believe it. But it must be true! It was the only way this phantasmagoria made any kind of sense.
“Blind! I’ve been blind! Now I see it all!”
“What,
“This plaster wall—contracted into a handful of pebbles,” said Gary bleakly. “Our galaxy—contracting to a grim and certain death! They are both part of one and the same plot. A plot by someone—or something!—to destroy mankind! It is not simply a blind, unreasoning force which is speeding the destruction of our solar system. It is a deliberate doom to which we are being driven. The weapon used here this afternoon is a miniature replica of that which—Flick, what did the arsonist’sweapon look like? Did you see it?”
Flick shook his head.
“Sorry,
But Nora Powell, who had stirred to an instrument panel near the crumbled wall, gasped suddenly. “I didn’t see the weapon either,
“What?” exclaimed Dr. Bryant. “A thousand direct hits! That’s impossible! Geiger counters register only the impact of cosmic rays. And the periodicity of these rays is as steadfast and invariable as—”
But
“Now I know I’m right! The Geiger counter proves it! The weapon used by our enemies shoots—cosmic radiation!”
SILENCE, like the brooding hush of impending doom, fell over the chamber as the significance of his words drove home. For a breathless moment all speech seemed to falter in abeyance, then every voice raised as one.
“Cosmic rays!” gasped Dr. Bryant.
“A weapon which shoots gamma radiation?” echoed the cherubic Eurasian, Dr. Anjers. “Fantastic!”
Muldoon and Nora said as a single person, “
“Imust believe,” corrected
Dr. Bryant passed a hand through his white hair.
“What you say is true, Gary. And it is certainly logical. Still—”
“It is no so much the logic of our young friend’s deductions I question,” interrupted the other older scientist, “as the fantastic corollaries which necessarily follow his premise. To admit his rightness is to concede that somewhere, someone, for some unfathomable reason, designs the deliberate destruction—”
“Of Earth!” said Nora Powell. “Not only of Earth, but of all the planets which circle our sun. For as Gary has said, all these are bombarded, too, by cosmic rays.
“Gary, there must be some mistake. There must be some freak coincidence—”
Lane’s eyes narrowed. “That’s just what it cannot be, The coincidence is too striking. Consider. For thousands of years men lived in blissful ignorance of the fact that they and their world were daily being bombarded by rays which science now has reason to believe are lethal2. During the past few hundred years men have beenaware of this radiation, but unable to do anything about it. They can neither analyze it, duplicate it in their laboratories, nor—indeed—determine its exact nature. But—” And his voice tightened. “—two days ago, for the first time, a clue was found as to the possible nature of these rays; pictures were taken which may pave the way toward an understanding of this ancient mystery. And then what happened? Was it sheer coincidence that almost immediately Flick Muldoon, who hasn’t an enemy in the world, should be murderously assaulted here in the heart of his own bailiwick? And that an attempt should be made to destroy this incriminating evidence? No! That coincidence is too great for me to swallow. It only strengthens my belief that it is not simply blind nature which is responsible for the doom to which our galaxy is being driven.”
Muldoon was an easy-going man. In the tightest spots his carefree nature was wont to assert itself in gibe and cheerful banter. But now his laughter-crinkled eyes were wide with awe and wonderment. He made a vague, sweeping gesture.
“You mean, Gary, that out . . . there . . .something orsomeone—?”
Gary nodded, “Yes. That is what I am forced to believe. ThatThey— whoeverThey are, and whereverThey may exist—are making a deliberate effort to destroy us.”
“But,” said Dr. Anjers, “you cannot be sure of these things, my young friend. You cannot prove them.”
“Now now, no. But by the gods, I’m going to try!”
“Going to—!” Dr. Bryant looked at his young assistant, startled. “Going to try, Gary? What do you mean?”
Lane spoke slowly, putting into words for the first time the idea which had been growing within him ever since he and Muldoon had, upon Luna, chanced upon their amazing discovery.
“I mean I’m goingout there, as Flick put it, in search ofThem and of that weapon which is slowly but surely bringing death to our civilization. I am going to leave Earth and our solar system and hunt in the dark depths of the Beyond for those conspiring against us.”
“Oh, but now wait a minute,
Lane smiled thinly. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll be alive when we get there.”
“What!We! Where do you get the community spirit?”
“We,” said Gary, “because you’re going, too, Flick. I’ll need you. And any of the others who want to come along. I think I can promise you the greatest adventure ever undertaken by human beings.”
Dr. Bryant said, “Gary, what are you talking about?Muldoon is absolutely right. It would take centuries to reach the nearest star. How, then, do you expect—?”
“Centuries,” acknowledged
“You mean,” asked Nora Powell, “the Jovians?”
“That’s right.”
“But they won’t tell. It’s their most cherished military secret. And with the entire solar system in the state of nervous unrest it has been in for years—”
“Theymust tell. It is to their benefit as well as ours. We will go to them and explain the enormity of the disaster which threatens our solar system. They are not creatures quite like ourselves, true; but they are intelligent beings. And they desire extinction no more than we. When they have learned the awful truth, I think they will lend us their secret.”
Professor Anjers laughed mirthlessly. “You have much to learn about the races that people the planets, my young friend, if you think the Jovians will contribute their great secret to save the races with whom even now war threatens—”
“They will not be the only contributors. Each of the major planets will contribute its share to this adventure.Must contribute, for the ultimate good of all.” Gary ticked the requisites off on his fingersas he spoke. “From Earth’s government we must borrow the knowledge of the hypatomic drive which makes space-flight possible. Venus must supply us withneurotrope, their super-efficient fuel, the only type sufficiently condensed to enable us to leave our solar system. The Martian people must lend us their formula for building impenetrable force-fieldsabout space vehicles. lest a stray comet or a hail of meteoric debris met in the outer darkness bring our flight to sudden ending. And from Jupiter must comethe secret of transcendent speed, through which—andonlythrough which—can we hope to reach our goal.”
Muldoon whistled softly. “That’s a big order, Gary.Four big orders, in fact.”
And Dr. Bryant said, “I’m afraid I can only repeat Dr. Anjer’s words, Gary. You expect too much of our neighbors.”
Of all his companions, only Nora Powell, offered any word of encouragement. Her eyes were shining with a great purpose, and with a great determination, too. With an almost indiscernible movement she seemed to leave the fellowship of doubters and arraign herself at Gary’s side. Her words were like the warmth of a friendly handclasp as she said:
“But theywill give! Because they must! Dr. Lane—Gary—it’s a great dream. One which we must see to fulfillment.”
Gary glanced at her, pleased and gratified.
“We?” he repeated.
Nora nodded determinedly. “Yes, we. Because if you’ll have me, Gary, I want to join your expedition.”
“Well, now,” drawled Flick Muldoon, “as far as that goes, I’ve been beefing a little, yeah. But on purely technical grounds. I didn’t say I was going to pull a sneak on the shindig. Hell, I’ll try anything once. You can count me in,
The older man smiled thinly.
“I won’t deceive you, Gary. I confess I still have my doubts as to the practicality of your ambitions. Nevertheless, I’d be a poor scientist if I were to refuse to lend my small efforts to such a magnificent undertaking. Of course, you may count on me. Boris—” He turned to his Eurasian colleague— “I’m sorry our conversations are to be thus abrupty terminated by what may seem to you a somewhat impulsive decision. But there may be something in Dr. Lane’s warning.”
To the surprise of everyone, the rather easily-annoyed Dr. Anjers this time showed no annoyance whatsoever. Instead, his bland, cherubic face was puckered with thought, and when he spoke it was with firm decision.
“No, you are completely right, my friend. Dr. Lane has not convinced me—yet. But if heis right, this is no matter for slow ponderings. We must act at once. And I, too, if you will permit, would like to become a member of your party.”
“Which brings up,” interpolated Flick Muldoon with devastating casualness, “the first important question. Where you going to get this ship,
And Nora’s voice echoed softly, “That worlds may live . . .”
“WHAT time is it?” asked Nora Powell.
Dr. Bryant looked up from the black-and-white-squared table over which he and his companion were bent, engrossed in one of mankind’s most ancient pastimes.
“Er—I beg your pardon, my dear? What did you say?”
“I asked,” repeated Nora, “what time it is?”
“Oh—time? Almost
“Time,” growled Flick Muldoon, from the other end of the balcony, “he was getting back.”
“
“It’s all right for you and Doc Bryant. You’ve got a chess game to occupy your minds. Me, I got little pink and green meemies running up and down my corpuscles. I’m going to take a walk. Want to come along, Nora?”
Nora Powell said, “No, thanks, Flick. I’ll wait here for him.” Then, as the restless young cameraman stalked from the piazza and the two graybeards returned to their game, she wandered disconsolately to the far end of the balcony, and for perhaps the dozenth time in the hour, gazed out over the most heartbreaking beauty of the scene before and below her.
This eyrie from which she looked was a modest but charmingpension in
Here, after hasty preparation, had the five comrades-in-adventure established residence until
Here had they cooled their heels for very nearly a fortnight while
Alone, a few short hours ago, Lane had set forth to the Council Hall, laden with Muldoon’s photographs, his own and Dr. Bryant’smathematical analyses, and all other documents necessary to prove his claims. Now his companions, placidly or nervously as their individual natures determined, awaited his return.
As to what sort of exhibition she herself was making, Nora Powell could not say. If she was not so openly impatient as Flick Muldoon, neither was she complacently attentive like the two older scientists. She was, she thought with sudden whimsy, much like one of those ancient volcanic peaks so gloriously sharp-limned on the horizon before her: surfacely cool, but inwardly and secretly aflame with constrained eruptive fires which might at any moment burst their bonds.
The afternoon was pleasantly cool, but standing therealone on the balcony her cheeks were suddenly warm to the touch as she caught herself wondering what would be Gary Lane’s reaction were he to realize how startlingly accurate was this analogy. During these last weeks, their past differences forgotten, she and the young physicist had fallen into a pleasant and easycamaraderie. Formalities had been swept away in the urgency of the moment, and on everything they worked together like lifelong friends.
But that, thought Nora with a thin stirring of rebelliousness, was just the trouble. That which within her had developed toward
Did he, she wondered with a strained and baffled curiosity, feel that, too? Or was he always too much the scientist to be just a plain man looking upon her . . . seeing her . . . not as a friend, but as a woman?
The sound of crisp, firm footsteps spelled and end to her thinking. She whirled to the doorway.
“
Then her heart chilled within her at the look on his face. Never had she seen Gary Lane like this. His features were hard as if they had been cast in a mold, then frozen. His lips were whitely set, his eyes twin glittering lints of anger.
“Yes,” he said harshly, “I’m back. It’s all over. We’re done. Finished. Washed up.”
Dr. Bryant rose from his chair swiftly. “What do you mean, Gary? The Council didn’t—?”
“Oh, didn’t they?” Lane’s bark was a mirthless shard of laughter. “They turned me down cold. Said our conclusions were erroneous, my theory a fantastic figment of the imagination. The fools! The everlasting damned fools! Don’t they realize they’re condemning us all to oblivion?”
Dr. Anjers patted the younger man’s shoulder soothingly, his bright cherubic face soberly consoling.
“I’m sorry, my boy. But I warned you it would be difficult. Men see no farther than the ends of their noses.”
“Maybe not,” grated Gary, “but theyhear . . . oh, God, how theyhear! That’s what killed our chances. Somehow or other they got a rumor of what was in the wind. They had been warned in advance of who I was and what I wanted; when I started explaining, showing my photographs, they just sat back and smirked at me with that‘Yes, yes, we know all about it; isn’t it a pity that one so young should be deranged? ’ look on their smug, complacent faces.”
“Heardof it? cried Nora. “But how could they have heard of it?”
Lane shook his head doggedly. “That’s what I’ve been asking myself ever since I left the Council Hall. To the best of my knowledge, not a living soul knows our secret except us five.”
“And,” reminded Dr. Anjers, “one other.”
“One other?”
“The marauder in the observatory.”
Lane was silent for a moment. Then he nodded. “That’s right. I’d almost forgotten.Their ambassador. It’s his diabolic hand again. It must be. Lord, if we had only caught him that day. If we only had some idea who hewas —”
The door opened again, and Flick Muldoon burst in jubilantly. “Great howling snakes, folks, look who I found wandering around down on the streets like a roaming comet! That old stars-shooting son-of-a-gun himself—Oh, Gary! You’re back! What’d they say, pal? Do we get the ship? Is everything set?”
“Not set,” corrected Gary. “Settled!” And told him what he had told the others.
Muldoon’s ruddy face fell. “Well, I’ll be damned!” he whispered. “And to think Earth’s government set them dumb lunks up in power to rule mankind’s affairs! What are we going to do now? We can’t give up just because—”
“I think,” suggested Nora, “the first thing you’d better do, Flick, is introduce your friend. This must all seem rather mysterious and awkward to him.”
“Oh, my golly!” gulped Flick. “I almost forgot. I’m sorry, Hugh. Doc, you remember Hugh Warren, don’t you?”
“
The spaceman grinned, stepping forward to wring the older man’s hand with phalange-crushing enthusiasm.
“The same, Dr. Bryant,” he chuckled. “I’ve never forgotten those courses in Silly Ass. Most fun I’ve ever had . . . and I’ve had plenty since that. Lord—” He made the rounds, ending beside Gary Lane, about whose shoulders he threw an arm in warm, masculine affection— “Lord, it’s good to see you Earth-lubbers again! You haven’t changed a bit, Gary. You look a little more sober and settled down. But, then, they tell me marriage does that to a guy . . .”
“Marriage?” echoed Lane blankly.
“Why—why, yes. Isn’t this young lady—?”
“No. This is Miss Powell, my assistant. And the gentleman beside Dr. Bryant is Dr. Boris Anjers. Dr. Anjers, Lieutenant Warren.”
Dr. Anjers said politely, “It is always a pleasure to meet friends of my friends. But hasn’t Dr. Lane made a small mistake? If my poor eyesight does not deceive me, your markings are not those of a space lieutenant—”
Warren grinned. “That’s right, S’prise, folks! The Council up and made me a Captain on account of me and my boys were lucky enough to salvage a smashed liner out of the Bog4. That’s why I’m here in
“Cruiser!” said Lane bitterly. “They’ve got lots of cruiser for routine work, but they won’t even spare one old broken down jalopy for—”
Hugh Warren looked puzzled. “For what? What’s the gripe, chum? You look like you’d just found a bug in a raspberry.”
“It’s worse than that,” said Gary. And he told Warren the whole story briefly, beginning with the lunar expedition and ending with the recital of his recent interview.
As Lane spoke, the young spaceman’s smile faded slowly, the laughter-born crinkles in the corners of his eyes disappeared. And Nora Powell, watching this transition, realized that beneath the surface vivacity of this newcomer there lay a core of steel, flame-hardened in the crucible of action.
When
“
“I only wish,” said
“What doyou say, Dr. Bryant?”
“There is only one thing to say.
“And—and knowing these things, the Council wouldn’t give you a ship,
“They just laughed at me, Said the whole theory was ridiculous.”
“Lord!” said Captain Hugh Warren, “What fools we mortals be! Of course Gary, I can see their point . . . to a certain extent. Itdoes sound mad, your idea of visiting three only half-friendly planets and asking each of them to open-handedly donate its most cherished military secret. But it’s the only way . . .” His hands came from his pockets in a swift, decisive motion. “Yes, it’s the only way. How soon can you be ready to leave?”
“How—soon?”
“There’s no time for fiddle-faddle. If we’re going to do anything, we’ve got to do it now before anything leaks, or anyone can get suspicious.”
“We?” echoed Dr. Bryant bleakly.
“Of course!” Hugh Warren brushed the older man’s doubts aside with brusque and characteristic impatience. “You don’t think I’m going to stand on the sidelines and let this adventure romp along withoutme , do you? And besides, I’m just what the doctor ordered: the answer to your problem. You need a ship and a crew, don’t you? And a pilot? Well, I’ve got the first and the second. And I’m the last myself.”
Nora Powell burst forth impetuously, “But—but, Captain Warren, we can’t let you do that. You’re a military man. You’d be court-martialed on charges of desertion—”
“If,” grunted Warren, “they caught us. Yes. But I’m not figuring on anybody catching theLiberty. She’s the sweetest little ether-pusher that ever came off a cradle. And as for court-martial—” He shrugged. “We’ll worry about that if and when we get back. According to Gary, if something isn’t done—and done quick—there won’tbe any court-martials to try traitors. And,” he added with a grin, “I’d rather be a dead felon than a live loyalist.”
Thus, in a manner far different from that which the comrades had planned, was the matter arranged. Swiftly, but as inconspicuously as possible, the conspirators made theirpreparations, gathered their belongings together, and transported them to the
Amidst the hurly-burly and confusion of this place it was a simple matter for Captain Hugh Warren to delegate two members of his crew to slip to the larger drome and there, unnoticed in the bedlam of blasting explosions, milling throngs, and tearful goodbyes, move the pile of luggage from one drome to the other.
By nightfall the exchange had been completed; the plan was in readiness. There came to thepension a small, gnarled figure bearing a mountainous bundle. This, when unwrapped, proved to be sufficient of the familiar sky blue SSP uniform clothing to disguise every member of the party. The bearer, a man who identified himself as,“ ’Awkins, sir—’Erby ’Awkins, stooard o’ the blinkin’Liberty, that’s me, sir!” gravely transmitted Captain Warren’s instructions as to entering the SSProcketdrome.
“Just walk on past the sentry without sayin’ nothin’, folks,” he advised. “I’ll give the password for the crew of us. Actin’ like you had maybe a drop too many might be a bit of an ’elp, but it don’t matter much. The sentries will be expectin’ us, and won’t think a thing of it.”
“Expecting us?” repeated Nora. “Five strangers, including a woman?”
’Erby ’Awkins grinned impishly. “Beggin’ your poddon, miss, but when you get them volly-oominus blues wrappedabout your own pretty self—meanin’ no impertinence—it’d take a sharp-eyed sentry to tell whether you was male or female, old or young. And there’s no call for them to be suspicious. Cap’n, he give five men all night leave, he did, and told them not to bother comin’ back. But he reported to the Captain of the Guards that he was expectin’ five of his crew to report back to headquarters at eleven o’clock. That’s the hour when we’ll enter the gates.”
Gary said soberly, “We understand, Hawkins. I see Captain Warren has already told you what we are planning to do.”
And Hawkins replied with quiet dignity, “He didn’t tell me nawthin’, sir; not a blinkin’ word. And if Idoes ’ave my suspicions, well, wot matter? Cap’n Warren’s our skipper, sir. What he decides is good enough for me and the rest of the crew.”
So at eleven o’clock that night, as the long black spires of the circling mountains rose to merge with the thicker black of a clouded, moonless sky, five slightly tipsy figures lurched with shambling feet to the sacrosanct portal of the Solar Space Patrol rocket-drome.
As Hawkins had promised, they passed the gate unchallenged, the little purser volunteering the password for all ofthem. And as they left the gate behind, young Dr. Lane breathed a deep sigh of relief. The one hazardous point of their effort now lay behind them. Five hundred yards away lay the ship upon whose flaming jets they soon would thrust voidward on a quest of magnificent daring.
The gate crashed to behind them, and the sentry’s amused drawl advised, “All right, lads, hop along back to your ship and sleep it off before your skipper finds out. Wait a minute! What’s the matter there?”
His voice lifted in sharp query, and beside
It was the rotund little scientist, Dr. Anjers!
A COLDNESS gripped Lane’s heart; his breath caught in his throat. In a moment the sentry’s flashlight would dart its questing beam upon their group. Their shoddy disguise could brook no such probing revelation.
He guessed right. A sudden shaft of silver split the darkness dazzlingly, revealing the round, stunned face of Dr. Anjers lifted in woebegone chagrin.
And the sentry cried again. “Say, hold on! What does this mean?”
It was no time for considered action. Lane did what must be done . . . and did it swiftly. In a single, swooping motion he whirled, raced, dove for the sentry’s legs. Both men went down in a flurry of tangling limbs. Arms strained to escape
But if strength and armed superiority was the sentry’s, the element of surprise favored
“Take his other arm, there, Hawkins! We’ll carry him. There, that’s it! Now, to the ship, folks—quickly! There’s not a second to lose!”
And with the aid of the little steward he swept Anjers to his feet, half-lifted, half-bore him to the entrance port of the
“Lift gravs! Throw all thrusts at five gees immediately! No time to warm hypos. Give her the gun! Hurry! For God’s sake—!”
The shrill, high whine of straining hypatomic motorscoursed through the ship, losing itself in the thunderous rumble of spluttering jets as the fuel chambers stirred to power.
A voice clacked over the audio system, “Course and trajectory, Captain?”
“Later!” roared
Then a brutal, invisible hand smashed down on
Earth, an already dwindling ball of glowing green, lay a multitude of miles beneath and behind them. Their journey was begun.
When æons of agony later it seemed his laboring lungs could no longer supply his wracked body with precious oxygen, when it seemed but a matter of seconds before his very veins must burst beneath the crushing of that horrid acceleration, there desended upon Gary Lane a brief moment of vertigo. Darkness spun dizzily before his eyes. And when the instant passed, the pressure was gone. He was free to rise again from the hard metal deck to which gravitation had skewered him.
It was a measure of his fortitude that of all his companions save only the space-hardened Captain Hugh Warren,
“Well,” he said with shaken satisfaction. “Well, it were touch-and-go for a moment, weren’t it? But we seems to be orl right now. Wot blinkin’ cheer, eh, shipmates?”
Nora said with a palpable effort toward regaining a vestige of her usual composure, “Touch-and-go is right! I’ve lifted gravs before, but never so swiftly nor so suddenly. If you ask me, that’s no way for a girl to keep her figure.”
“I’m sorry,” said little Dr. Anjers contritely. “I am deeply sorry, my friends. It was all my fault. Had I not stumbled and fallen, inadvertently roused an alarm—”
“Forget it,” said Flick Muldoon. “Everybody pulls a pancake once in a while. It’s just tough luck that you happened to pull yours at a bad moment. The main thing is, what are we going to do now?”
He looked at
“That’s your cue,
Lane said soberly, “Well, Venus is our first logical stop, but I don’t know now. The whole Patrol will be out after us like a pack of hounds.”
Hugh Warren chuckled grimly, “Let them. They’ll never catch the
“Yeah?” said Muldoon interestedly. “What’s your speed?”
“On test flights,” answered
“What! A cruising speed of a thousand miles per second? But—but that’s over ten million miles per day!”
“And with Venus in inferior conjunction,” said Nora excitedly, “we can be there in two and a half days!”
“Well, not quite. You have to allow a time lag for acceleration and deceleration. But—” Captain Warren grinned happily— “three days should do the trick. Not bad, eh, Gary?”
Gary Lane said dazedly, “Not bad! Mister, when they start giving medals for understatement, you ought to get one as big as the United Nations Victory Tower. Why, the universal record for an Earth-Venus flight is almost a day longer than that.”
“Three Days,” supplied Warren, “eighteen hours, twenty-three and a half minutes. Which same so-called ‘record’ we’re going to bust six ways to hell-and-gone on this little shuttle. Only—” he admitted ruefully— “our new record won’t count, seeing as how it’s unofficial as hell. Well, Venus it is? I’ll be leaving you, then, to chart the course and trajectory. Hawkins, show our guests to their quarters. We’ll meet later in the lounge.”
And he vanished bridgeward.
So set theLiberty forth upon the first leg of its argosy. The next three days sped swiftly. So fraught with activity, indeed, were his waking hours, that Gary Lane found scant time in which to acquaint himself with theLiberty and its personnel. One thing he learned from his space commander friend: that there were, in addition to himself and his companions, fifteen souls aboard the craft. Of these, three were Patrol officers: Hugh Warren himself; his second mate, Lieutenant Angus MacDonald; and the Chief Engineer, a lean, taciturn man namedSebold. Two more were subalterns: Bud Howard, the assistant engineer, and Tommy Edwards, the ship’s Sparks. The enlisted men included Herby Hawkins, the steward; Tony, potentate of the galley; four able-bodied spacemen; and fourblasters of the jet-chamber crew.
“We’re short,” Hugh Warren pointed out, “five men. The five as whom you masqueraded when you came aboard. Two of these were spacemen. We can spare them. Another two were blasters. We can get by without them, too, though it means longer shifts and harder work for the remaining four. But the other one—” He shook his head. “We’re really going to need him. He was Fred Harkness, my first mate. A good spaceman with a keen mind for figures and a swift, intuitive ability at handling a ship in an emergency. If we run into any snags we’re going to wish he was along.”
“Then why did you let him go?” asked Gary.
Warren grinned a tight, lopsided grin. “For the same reason I gave the other four leave. Because I knew I’d never be able to convince him I was doing the right thing. He was strong on discipline. He would have wanted no part of this escapade.”
That was something which had been troubling Dr. Gary lane. He said thoughtfully, “And you, Hugh? You’re not sorry?”
“That I cast my lot in with yours? Made your cause mine? No.” Warren shook his head decidedly. “Decidedly not. I’m sorry I had to, on the surface at least, play traitor to the uniform I wear. But under the circumstances I believe I did the proper thing. This little emblem—” he touched the small gold rocket pinned above his heart— “is inscribed with the motto of the Solar Space Patrol:‘Order out of Chaos.’ That is the duty to which we are charged above all others. And though for a time it means flying in the face of orders and conventions, I feel the importance of our task justifies my desertion.
“If—” his jaw set tightly— “if we succeed in doing that which you say we must, exoneration will follow swiftly and surely.”
“And,” said
Thus sped the
As they flashed sunward, the sun grew greater, too. Its radiance, downpouring upon them with devastating beneficence, was like the molten spuming of gaseous gold. Though the polarized quartzite of the ship’s view-pane blacked out its brazenlight, nothing could stay the increase of its heat. It grew warmer and ever more sultry in the
Flick Muldoon, shirt plastered wetly to his back, mopped his brow and groaned, “It takes a trip away from home to make you realize what a sweet little old gal Mama Earth is. Boy, I wouldn’t live on Venus for all the bubbles in a beauty bath! If it’s like this out here in space, what must it be like on the planet itself?”
From his seat at the control studs, Lieutenant Angus MacDonald grinned companionably.
“Not so bad as you’d think. You see, even though Venus is 25 million miles nearer the sun than Earth, she’s protected from the sun’s glare by a cloud-layer almost three times as thick as the atmosphere layer of Terra. As a result, the planet has neither a burning hot summer season nor a frigid winter period, but a fairly pleasant and constant temperature all the year ’round.”
Dr. Anjers said, “I have been fearing recently that we may find something else, too, not quite so pleasant.”
“What’s that?”
“The Space Patrol,” said Anjers gravely, “waiting for us. We are travelling at the greatest rate of speed ever attained by a spacecraft, true, but the speed of light makes mockery of our efforts. And that is the rate at which a warning message must have winged its way before us. It is not possible we are running directly into a trap? A Patrol fleet grimly awaiting our arrival?”
Skipper
“No? Why not?”
“Because.” explained
“Is that true?” gasped Nora Powell. “But then why should the other planets refuse to cooperate?”
“It’s our own fault,” confessed
“Why—why, that’s true,” said Dr. Bryant. “I had never realized it before, but that is undoubtedly responsible for the known disaffection between Earth and the outlying planets. But, Captain Warren, the common people of Earth don’t realize this! They, like myself, are too busy with the small details of their private lives to wonder more than casually about such things. It never occurred to me to wonder at the lack of other interplanetary merchantmen. I suppose I always took it forgranted that we of Earth were doing our solar neighbors a great favor by regulating interplanetary commerce. Now I can see—”
He paused, his eyebrows knit in thought. Then— “But something must certainly be done about this situation. What can we do?”
“Right now,” replied
Muldoon said cautiously, “Wait a minute, There’s a bug in that reasoning somewhere. You say the other planets haven’t learned the secret of the hypatomic motor? Well, ships crash, don’t they? And ships can be captured. It seems to me that if any nation really wanted to learn that secret—”
“They could not do so,” replied
“What? We can’t—but why?”
“Because the hypatomic motors which drive us are encased in a steel jacket equipped with a device so regulated that were any attempt made to open it and study its mechanism it would instantly explode, blowing itself and us into oblivion.” And
IN EXACTLY three days, one hour and forty-five minutes Solar Constant time, the
As
But if their arrival was unchallenged it was not unexpected. A host of ebony-skinned Venusians gathered about their ship instantly. As soon as their party emerged from the lock, a delegation moved forward to greet them. With but a few words of preamble, they were whisked away to the Venusian Council Hall. There, serving as spokesman for the group,
It was a strikingly different group of beings whom
Here on Venus the planetary overlords were dark-skinned men of magnificent figure and intellect. To the bafflement of science, laboratory research had proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that these Venusians bore a fundamental kinship with the races of Earth. Blood plasma, hair structure, and other physiological phenomena proved Earth’s children were nearly related to the Venusians.
The great vaulted Council chamber, with its curving spires and gaudily tinted walls; the bright colored raiment, the elaborate equipage and formality with which the Venusians embellished their pomp, on Earth might have exacted derision. Here they seemed the normal, the true and graceful and cultured thing.
And if there was a certain childlike love of color and circumstances in the Venusian heart, it was no juvenile attention the Venusion overlords turned upon Lane’s words. They listened carefully and thoughtfully to what he had to say, thenconferred briefly amongst themselves. Finally their Chief Councillor turned to him.
“Your story is fantastic, but there is a certain ominous ring of truth in its telling. Still we do not quite understand. Why have you come to Venus? What would you have of us?”
“One of the four things,” answered
“And how much,” asked the Venusian spokesman, “of this fuel would you need?”
“A minimum of five thousand tons.”
“Five thousand tons!”
The noblemen murmered amongst themselves restlessly. Their leader bent a shrewd, hard glance upon
“That is much fuel, Earthman.”
“We have far to go,” replied
“It isalso enough,” reminded the other, “to fuel the whole of your Earth fleet for a trip to Venus.”
“Yes,” acknowledged
“Our relationship with your planet,” said the Chief Councillor slowly, “has not always been . . . pleasant. We have small reason to place great faith in your words and promises; none whatsoever to turn over to you a supply of the only important military weapon we possess. Unless, of course—”
“Unless you would be willing to show your good faith by disclosing to us, in return, an Earthly secret vital to our defense.”
“But,” faltered
“I think you do. You came here in a spacecraft. It contains the secret we want. The knowledge of the hypatomic motor which drives it.”
“Tell them, Hugh, what you told us on the trip here.”
“The situation is even worse than I thought. Earth’s government is so jealous of its military secrets that it does not entrust them even to the Patrolmen who fight in its cause. No, gentlemen, I am afraid—”
It was Nora Powell who interrupted him.
“But, Excellency,” she cried, springing forward, “you can’tdo this! You can’t risk the very existence of a dozen worlds for the sake of a selfish principle. You can’t turn us away like this. Don’t you realize what these men have dared already? Disgrace and death at the hands of their compatriots, unless our mission succeeds. We are exiles, fugitives from Earth, fighting alone and single-handed to protect Earth and all Sol’s other children from—”
The councillor said, “Yes, we have heard the news by ultrawave radio of your—er—melodramatic escape from Earth. Surely, my dear young lady, you do not think we are taken in by such a ruse? It is an exquisitely imaginative tale. But we find it scarcely credible that five learnéd scientists and a crew of Solar Patrolmen should ‘steal’ a ship against the will of Earth’s government.
“It is more likely—much more likely—that your world, in order to gain a sufficient supply of our vital fuel, has planned this little drama.”
“Why,” burst out Flick Muldoon indignantly, “that’s nonsense! Begging your pardon, Excellency, but that idea’s as crazy as hell! We did this on our own hook in order to—”
But
The councillor nodded for himself and his associates.
“It is. When you return to Earth you may tell your government we of Venus are not fools. And now, farewell.”
He nodded to a retinue of guards. Short minutes later the dejected little group was being led back toward the spaceport.
For the most part they were silent, each lost in the overwhelming sadness of his own thoughts. Only one spoke, and he in a mutter. That one was Flick Muldoon.
“Not fools, eh? I wonder if he’d like to make book on that. . . .”
“So,” said Hugh Warren, “that seems to be that. What do we do now,
“I am afraid,” sighed Dr. Anjers, “our mission is a failure. Perhaps it were best we go back to Earth and throw ourselves on the clemency of the World Council.”
“You maybe,” said the skipper of the
“We go on,” decided Lane suddenly. “That’s all wecan do. Swallow this failure and go on to Mars. Perhaps there our plea will meet with more success.”
“But,” demurred Dr. Bryant, “if we lack sufficient fuel—”
“We must find some substitute,” said
As he depressed the proper button, lights flashed and relays clicked. Small bells jangled in the bowels of the ship, setting unseen engineers and crewmen to the fulfillment of their tasks.
Skipper
He stopped suddenly, lurching and grasping for support, startled into silence as the deck beneath him bucked and quivered violently. Someone shouted. Nora screamed a little scream of dismay. Only by grasping an upright of the control turret did
“Smoothest little ship in space, eh? It’s sure acting like it now.”
But Captain Hugh Warren’s face had suddenly drained of color. Now his hands smashed open the ship’s intercommunicating system, and he bawled,“We’re caught in an enemy tractor beam! All hands at battle stations! Stand by to repel boarders!”
But overlapping his command came that of a second voice, one crisp and cool and pleasantly amused,
“I shouldn’t if I were you, Captain. You see, we’re already alongside, with our guns trained on you. It would be wiser to bow to the inevitable.”
“But what . . . who. . .?” gasped Dr. Bryant.
Hugh Warren turned from his controls with a shrug of resignation, and in a voice of gathering despair. “Troubles,” he said, “never come singly. Now it’s pirates.”
Minutes later he was proved correct. There came the grating clamor of spacecraft in embrace, the hiss of openingairlocks, and into the
With the swift efficiency of long practice, these men dispersed throughout the ship to accomplish their marauding aims. Only their leader and a lieutenant refrained from piratical activity. These came to the bridge of the
“Greetings, Captain. No hard feelings, I hope? If you’ll just toss your sidearms over into the corner. There, that’s better. No reason we shouldn’t enjoy a pleasant little chat untill my men have completed their mission.”
“
The corsair chieftain chuckled pleasantly.
“Why, yes, Captain. So we noticed. That’s our mission. I thought it would be a good joke to stop you—just to see if we could, you know. And as a matter of proof, in case anyone should ever contest our claim, I’ve asked my men to remove the insignia from the uniforms of each of your crew. Sorry to seem impolite, Captain, but if you wouldn’t mind tossing me your epaulettes . . . just as a little souvenir, you know—”
Hugh Warren’s face, which had been apoplectic with rage, now froze in slack-jawed wonder.
“J-joke!” he stammered. “Just to see if you could? Souvenir! There’s only one pirate in space crazy enough to do a thing like this. You must be—”
The marauder smiled amiably. “Well, now,” he drawled, “that’s right flattering of you, Captain. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is O’Day. Larkspur O’Day.”
AND HE pushed back the quartzite helmet of his bulger, exposing the whitest smile, the handsomest face, the laughingest pair of eyes, all topped by the most unruly mop of cinnamon hair, Gary Lane had ever seen. A buccaneer the man might be, but he could equally well have been an artist’s model for a merry and laughing cavalier of the Seventeenth Century.
“Lark O’Day!” gasped Nora Powell.
She knew the name, as did all Earthmen and women with a spark of romantic imagination in their systems. Lark O’Day was a privateer whose exploits were so remarkable as to be almost legendary. Though a tremendous price was offered for his apprehension by the harassed merchantmen of Earth’s fleet, there were few but had a sneaking admiration for this gallant and quixotic young champion of derring-do, who, alone in this late day of ultra-civilization, carried on the tradition of an earlier Robin Hood or Dick Turpin.
Though no rare cargo of precious gems or valuable ores was safe from the attentions of Lark O’Day, it was not only such things which tempted his forays. When the traitorous rebel government of the tiny planetoid Ceres had fled its orb with a ransom of priceless gems revaged from the imperial coffers, he it was who had apprehended the traitors, delivered upon them a swift and merciless punishment, then sent to Ceres’ beauteous Princess Alicia a gorgeous crown encrusted with the finest of the stolen gems . . . retaining only (as his fee for services rendered) those jewels which found no place in the coronet.
He it also was who, when Earth’s government dared not openly accuse that brilliantly ruthless business tycoon, Jeremiah Draven, of establishing slave colonies on Earth’s lunar outpost, whisked the trillionaire scoundrel from his private space yacht, held him incommunicado until a court, declaring him legally dead, broke up his financial empire . . . then returned him to Earth horribly and ineradicably branded across the brow with a cicatrix which theologians identified as the biblical Mark of Cain.
And it was Lark O’Day who, for a whim, had stopped on its maiden voyage theOrestes, greatest luxury liner ever built by man, for the sole purpose of stealing one kiss from the ripe, bewildered lips of the newly crowned “Miss Universe.”
This, then, was the nature of their attacker. And though
He chuckled and stripped off the gold braid emblems for which O’Day asked, tossed them toward the privateer.
“Here you are,” he laughed, “and welcome. I’m afraid I have no right to wear them any more, anyway. At least, that’s what my commander would say.”
O’Day glanced at him curiously.
“What? Say, wait a minute! This isn’t the
He paused, then rocked with infectious laughter. Whatever strain had existed on the
“My aplogies, Captain. I am afraid I cannot take these. It appears we’re both in the same boat, figuratively as well as literally speaking. And, after all, there is ‘honor amongst thieves’, you know. But—tell me? All I have heard is the World Council’s side of the story. I’m sure the whole truth must be interesting. Tell me about it.”
So they told him the entire tale. Of Lane’s discovery, the attack in the Observatory, the World Council’s refusal to grant a ship, and the subsequent theft of the
As
He interrupted, frowning. “Just a moment. These calculations of yours—you’re sure they’re right?”
“If mathematics is a pure science, yes.”
“And the Venusian government—you say it refused to give you the fuel you need?”
“That’s right,” said
He shrugged. But Lark O’Day turned sharply to his lieutenant. In his voice was a note which the others had not heard before. It proved beyond need of demonstration why laughing Lark O’Day could command a hard-bitten crew as his.
“Call the men, Mark. Get them aboard theBlack Star and place every hand at battle stations. Open the gun ports. Not short range—the troposphere rotors. Prepare for immediate action. If those damned fools—”
He spun to Waren angrily. “Captain, may I request the use of your radioman and signal turret for a short time?”
“Why—why, yes,” faltered
“Good! Then we’ll teach those idiots to sacrifice an entire system to their own selfish greed!”
“What are you going to do?” demanded
O’Day laughed, a single explosive bark in which was little mirth. “Do? Why, I’m going to get you that fuel you need, of course! The Venusian Council knows me of old . . . and they know what theBlack Star’s guns can do. I’m going to call them now and tell them that unless they load your fuelbins to the last millimeter I’ll blast
What happened after that was anticlimax. The effect to the Venusian Council was a measure of his greatness. He talked and they listened. They demurred and he raised his voice a note. They complained and that note became a warning note. They entered a half-hearted refusal and he stoppedasking and startedtelling them what they must do . . . or else. They capitulated, servilely. A short time later the
“Not a damn cent,” he said. “Serves them right for being so stingy with it before. This will teach them a lesson. And,” he said with a grin, “if your conscience bothers you, you can pay them when we come back, if our trip is successful.”
“We?”said Nora Powell,“Our trip?”
Lark O’Day grinned at her happily. “Why, sure,” hedrawled. “You don’t think I’d let an expedition like this get away withoutme being aboard, do you? That’s my fee for helping out in a pinch. You don’t mind, do you, if I join the party?”
Lane said, “Mind! We’re tickled to death to have you.” And he really meant it.
So set the
This phase of the journey was not so frenzied as had been the brief shuttle from earth to Venus, for Mars lay not in conjunction with Earth, but in opposition to the green planet. Their course bore them sunward from Venus, inside the orbit of Mercury, then outward again two hundred million miles to where slow Mars, pursuing its intexorable course, should meet them in celestial rendezvous.
Thus the first week of their twenty day voyage was a far from pleasant experience. Nearing Venus they had experienced a sample of Sol’s heat-dealing abilities. Now, as they flashed yet farther sunward,
Hour by hour the temperature within the
Nor did it matter that the air conditioning system functioned perfectly. Its vents and fans had no cool air with which to bathe their bodies. From its spouts gushed blasts of withering heat, scarcely less endurable than the thickly stagnant air of unventilated corridors. One by one the travelers shed layers of useless clothing. At their point of nearest proximity to Sol, the men on duty labored in sweat-soaked shorts, while those off duty—and Nora Powell—for modesty’s sake sought the sanctuary of stripped relaxation in their private quarters.
To
But he was not spaceman enough to read meaning into these episodes. It was not until much later, when they had recrossed the Mercurial orbit and already the scorching heat was a fading memory, that Captain Hugh Warren told him how near they had come to disaster.
“Nip and tuck there for a while,” he confessed, “just as we reached perigee. Even at our rate of speed I didn’t think we were going to make it for a minute. And we might not have, either, if it hadn’t been for O’Day.”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Lane.
“Yes. I thought something had gone wrong with the motors.”
“It did,” grunted
“Yes. Though I’m afraid the jets may be a bit warped from the beating they took. Not enough to cause us any trouble. I guess, but we’ll have to have them fixed up when we get to Mars.”
“And that should be—?”
“Oh, at least another ten days. Might as well relax and enjoy yourself. Speaking of which—”
“It’s about Nora . . . Miss Powell. I mean—I never quite understood the setup between you two. I don’t want to poach on a friend’s preserves, but in this instance—”
“But there’s no understanding between you?”
“No.”
“No,” said
It was all very open and above board. Nora was a fine girl and
So the long hours rolled by, becoming days, and the slow days passed until at length the sun lay far behind them, a dwindling ochre glow in the black of space. And before them, increasingly larger with each hour of flight, lay a huge crimson sphere, scored with a multitude of crisscross scars, about which endlessly circled a pair of hurtling satellites. The planet Mars.
Toward that they flashed at constant driving speed, filled with a gathering impatience now that the second stage of their quest was so near completion. Only three men seemed in any way perturbed by the approaching nearness of the red planet. They, significantly enough, were the three trained spacemen upon whom evolved the duty of guiding the
Flick Muldoon who, mechanically inclined, had shown intense interest in the technique of spaceflight throughout the journey, was surprised, on that day when finally their destination loomed directly before them, to note a growing apprehension in the eyes and actions of the three astrogators.
O’Day was in the pilot’s seat, his fingers poised and ready above the innumerable banked studs. Of him Flick asked, “What’s up, Lark? You’re as fidgety as a yogi on a cactus mattress.”
O’Day dismissed the query with a swift, impatient shake of the head. “Not now, Flick, if you don’t mind. I’m busy.”
Muldoon transferred his questioning to
“Busy? What’s all the fuss about? All we’ve got to do is slide into Mars and make a landing isn’t it?”
But
“Whatis this?” demanded the now completely baffled Muldoon of the only remaining space officer. “You guys act like you’re expecting trouble. What’s the matter? Do you think the Martians are hostile?”
Lieutenant MacDonald smiled thinly. “It’s not the Martianswe’re worried about, Flick. It’s that pair of damned Martian moons.”
“What about them?”
“Well, we want to make sure we clear them, that’s all. They’re tricky little gadgets to calculate when you’re plotting a landing on the mother planet. Both of them travel like bats out of hell. The inner one, Phobos, takes only seven hours and thirty-nine minutes to make a complete revolution. Deimos scoots along even faster. Though it’s three times as far from its primary as Phobos, it gallops through its orbit in thirty hours and twenty minutes.”
“So?” Muldoon said. “You’re not afraid of one of them hitting us, are you? We’re traveling faster than they are. And if you know where they’re going to be at any given moment—”
“No, we don’t expect one of them to hit us. The thing we have to guard against isour hitting one ofthem . You see, those satellites have peculiarities. One of them is that every once in a while, for no known reason, they suddenly cease being tiny balls of inert matter hurtling about their primary, and for a brief period become tremendously potent magnets. Technicianshave been studying the problem for a long time, but so far haven’t discovered the solution. All we know is that the oddity exists. And so long as it does, Delmos and Phobos remain a constant hazard to spacecraft approaching Mars.”
“Magnets?” said Muldoon. “You mean they exert force on us? Drag us down to them like—”
“Likethis ,” interrupted Captain Warren with a sudden bellow of dismay.“Lark, throw clear!”
For in the split of a second a change had marred the smooth, even flight of the
Then everything happened at once. Great beads of perspiration springing from his brow, Lark O’Day began pounding his controls like a master organist playing the keyboard of a delicate instrument. Captain Warren leaped to the audiophone, barked sharp commands to the men in the engine room below. And over the intercommunicating system MacDonald was crying hurried instructions to crew and passengers alike.
“Go to emergency quarters immediately! Hammock yourselves for crash landing!”
“Crash landing!” gasped Muldoon.
“Here!”
He turned questioning eyes to Lark O’Day. The pirate took time from his labors for an encouraging grunt.
“I think so. We’re hooked, but I think I can bounce her down on a slant. Hold tight, everybody.”
Then in the vision lens which mapped that segment of space immediately before them, Flick Muldoon glimpsed the rapidly swelling globe which was Deimos, lesser moon of Mars. Like a great, gaunt blood-red rock it looked; quartering, then halving, then completely blotting out the vision plate.
Muldoon was momentarily aware of razor-sharp cliffs, high rocky plateaus, and jagged tors unsoftened by a blade of vegetation. Then the motors whined in shrill and screaming protest. The
“WELL!” said Flick Muldoon. “Everything happens to us!”
Lark O’Day pushed a final stud which silenced the
“That,” said the pilot moodily, “is that! You all right, fellows? How about you, Muldoon?”
Flick eased himself from his chair, flexed arms and legs gingerly. “Theyseem to be all right,” he admitted cautiously. “I’ll study them for defect when the goose pimples go down.”
Mac was already at the intercom, rasping queries to the far chambers of the ship. “Everybody okay? No casualties?”
The responses were encouraging if somewhat blashphemous. Typical was the reply from Slops, the ship’s chef. He snarled irately, “I’mall right, Lieutenant, but did you say we was to have soup for dinner?”
“Eh? Why, yes. But—”
“ ’Cause if you did, everybody better come on up to the galley right now with spoons. Dinner’s slip-sloppin all over the floor.”
There came the sound of footsteps on the ramp. The door burst open, admitting that quartet which Lark O’Day had humorously dubbed “the brains of this here outfit.” All were excited.
O’Day had again been jiggling the activating studs. Now he said, “Yeah, but it’s no go. Just our luck. We’ve blundered into one of Deimos’ unpredictable magnetic periods. We’re frozen tighter than a pollywog in a Plutonian puddle.”
“How long,” demanded Muldoon, “does this here magnetic grab operate?”
Dr. Bryant answered for the navigators.
“That, Muldoon, is as unpredictable as the phenomenon itself. Sometimes these periods last but a few hours; at other times they are sustained for months. I’m afraid we must just resign ourselves to remaining here as long as need be.”
“Which being the case,” drawled Lark O’Day, rising and stretching nonchalantly, “I might as well take a stroll outside and make sure we didn’t split any seams when we pancaked. Come along, Hugh?”
He lifted down a brace of fabricoid bulgers from their racks on the control room wall. But before he and the skipper had time to don the airtight suits, there came an interruption not so alarming as unexpected. From the starboard airlock athwart the ship came the rasp of an entrance buzzer, then the wheeze of escaping air as someone or something outside employed the opening apparatus.
For a moment the companions stared at each other in bewilderment, then as one, they turned and dashed toward the portal.
They arrived just as the inner door of the lock opened, admitting two bulger-clad figures. The taller of these stepped forward with hands outstretched in gesture of peaceful intent, and a quiet, pleasant voice said, “Greeting, friends. We bid you welcome to our tiny refuge.”
Then the bulger helm was thrown back, and they were gazing upon the slant-eyed, ivory-skinned countenance of a native Martian.
Again Lark O’Day, proved himself a valuable adjunct to the party. He moved to confront the newcomers, conducting the amenities of greeting as only one with a knowledge of Martian custom and tradition could.
“Welcome, O brother of the ancient world,” he said politely. ‘Your presence is like water to a sun-parched tongue. We are honored by your visit.”
Never a word of surprise or astonishment. Never a query as to whence came the two interlopers. And though the old Martian’s impassive face moved not a muscle, it was apparent he was pleased to find amongst this group one who respected the formalities of his people.
He bowed in turn and, with a politeness surpassing that of O’Day, breathed, “You are most kind. The mongrel barks unbidden at the courteous man’s gate.”
“The bright sun also rises without warning,” answered O’Day gallantly, “kindling fresh life in flagging souls. Will your lordship deign to brighten our humble vessel with his presence?”
The Martian bowed, and without further word he and his companion followed the others to the recreation room.
There, when all were settled comfortably, the visitor reopened the conversation. To the relief of all the Earthmen he did so in a manner at once pleasant and abrupt.
“I am charmed, Captain—” It was to O’Day he spoke, for the pirate chieftain, like
O’Day said, “I think not, sir. We were about to investigate when you arrived. But I think I brought the
“That is good. And now, if you please, just what is your purpose in approaching Mars?”
Lark said dubiously, “Well, sir, that’s quite a long story. I’d like my friend here to explain it. He knows the facts better than I. Meanwhile, perhaps your companion—” He nodded to the second and somewhat slighter Martian who so far had not removed his helmet— “might make himself more comfortable?”
The old Martian permitted himself a faint smile. He murmured, “Though your ship is on Martian soil, it is a part of Earth. And it is written, ‘The wise traveler eats of native bread.’ So I suppose it will do no harm—”
He turned and spoke swift, rippling sentences to his associate. After a moment’s hesitation, the other vested himself of his headpiece . . .
Himself?
It was no male Martian who stood shyly smiling at the assembled Earthmen, but a girl. Her long, almond-shaped eyes were sloe-black and lustrous, modestly concealed beneath lowered lids which rested like velvet fringes upon soft cheeks of palest amber sheen. Her hair was black and glossy, gathered up from a shapely neck and piled high upon her head in an elaborate but striking coiffure.
Looking at her,
Flick Muldoon, a dependable barometer of feminine pulchritude, gulped audibly and might have whistled his admiration had not Hugh Warren, jabbing him severely in the ribs, jolted the pucker from his lips. But it was upon Lark O’Day whom the sight of the young Martian woman had its most devastating effect. The handsome corsair’s eyes widened in frank admiration; a spark lighted within their moss-brown depths, and his lips parted.
“Well, you see, sir—”
The Martian said, “My name is Kang Tsao. And this is my daughter, Pen-N’hi.”
The Earthmen introduced themselves swiftly. Then again
Here in this quiet room, on one of the solar system’s tiniest satellites, he found his most attentive audience. The old Martian listened gravely, attentively. When he had finished, Kang Tsao said, “I find this a strange, but not incredible narrative, Dr. Lane. You mentioned proof; mathematical computations. Might I see those proofs?”
And when some time later, he lifted his eyes from the perusal of the other world scientist’s calculations . . .
“There is no doubt,” he said, “but that everything you have said is completely and horribly true. One question, however, you have left unanswered. Why did you come to Mars?”
“Because,” answered
“And from Mars?”
“From Mars,” said
Dr. Kang pondered briefly. Then, at length, he said, “It is true,” he admitted, “we possess a force-shield such as you have mentioned. But you have made one error. It is not altogether the defensive weapon you imagine it. It is, indeed, the reason your craft lies now on Deimos.”
“What?” interjected Hugh Warren. “You mean the intensified magnetization—”
“Exactly, Captain. That is my reason for dwelling here on this outpost, twelve thousand miles from my beloved homeland. We of Mars have installed here a tremendous power plant capable of projecting its magnetic beam upon any vessel which approaches our planet. There is another similar station onPhobos. Master scientists control each of these laboratories. When space craft which we have reason to believe may have hostile intent approach Mars, switches are thrown converting these satellites into gigantic magnets of tremendous power. That is why—” He smiled a bit ruefully. “That is why, on several occasions, Earth ships have crashed on Deimos andPhobos. Because it was clear they planned to disturb the quietude of our community.”
“But,” cried Flick Muldoon, “how about us?We didn’t come here with a chip on our shoulders.Our purpose was peaceful enough.”
Dr. Kang said softly, “This I know, my friend,now . But you must admit that appearances were against you. You came foreheralded by bulletins of treachery and theft on Earth, of strong-armed compulsion and allegiance with a privateer on Venus. We did not know what you wanted, but—” The old Martian shrugged. “We thought it best to deter your arrival until you could be questioned.”
O’Day, whom it was hard to believe had heard a single word of the conversation, so raptly had his attention been riveted upon the ivory-skinned scientists’ daughter, said abruptly, “And now that you know, Dr. Kang, what is your decision?”
Kang’s long dark eyes seemed to withdraw within the curiously involute epithelial folds of their lids. For a long moment he considered the question. Silent he sat, and as impassive as a carven Buddha of the Earth race whose members he so strongly resembled. Then he said, “There can be but one answer, my friend. And on a matter such as this I am free to speak not only for myself but for all my people. You shall have that for which you came.”
“We may, Doctor?” cried
“No kidding?” yelled Muldoon.
“Say—!” breathed Captain Warren.
The old man halted their expressions of gratitude with turn of the hand.
“Yes, you shall have what you need. We of Mars are a peaceloving race. That which you have chosen to call a ‘military weapon’ we employ simply and solely as a defensive measure against aggression. But now it seems the time has come to turn this weapon against an interloper of unguessed strength. Therefore, you shall have what you need. But there is one small stipulation—”
Lane thought grimly, “This is it. The fly in the ointment. You never get something for nothing.” But aloud he asked politely, “And that is, Dr. Kang—?”
“Simply,” replied the aged Martian, “that my daughter and I be permitted to install the equipment on the
“Why, of course!” said
“And,” continued Dr. Kang, “that we further be permitted to join your party.” And for the first time a flicker of expression crossed his features. A smile touched the corners of his lips. “You see, my friend, though we of Mars are called an impassive people, we are not entirely without curiosity. This quest upon which you are embarked has about it a breathtaking challenge which stirs me greatly. I am an old man, but I am not unlearned. It is possible that my knowledge may prove of some value—”
Dr. Bryant said, “Please, Dr. Kang! Not another word! We should be not only happy butproud to welcome you to our party.”
Lark O’Day stirred restlessly. “But your daughter, Dr. Kang! It is a perilous trip. Scarcely the sort of adventure for a girl of gentle breeding.”
“Where I go, there goes my daughter also. And I note that there is already one woman of refinement and gentle breeding among you. I think,” said Dr. Kang, “it is not utterlyunreasonable to expect my daughter will find herself sur rounded by champions more than willing to assure her comfort and happiness.”
And this time it was a full smile he turned upon the suddenly embarrassed Lark O’Day.
THUS IT WAS arranged. Dr. Kang Tsao and his daughter, beautiful Kang Pen-N’hi, moved kit and equipment aboard the
At Dr. Kang’s own suggestion the
“This discovery,” said the Martian scientist, “is remarkable simple. With what little equipment my daughter and I have brought aboard, and with such standard stores as may be found aboard your ship, we can make the craft impregnable. So let us waste no time, but get under way. We shall make the installation as we fly to Jupiter.”
And this they did, in plain sight of all the
Old Douglas Sebold, Chief Engineer of the
“Come down here to the engine room, they did; the Martian man and his daughter. Fidgeted and fiddled around for a couple of hours without speaking nary a word to any of us except maybe a polite, ‘Howjyedo? G’bye!’ And when they left, what had they did? Hooked up a little hunk of wire here and a condenser there and a thingamajigger somewhere else, none of which looks like it ought to do nothing!”
Lieutenant MacDonald made much the same plaint.
“They opened the control banks and threw a few shunts across the relays. Then they ran one cable to the hypos. But so far asI can see, what they did shouldn’t make any great difference in the operation of the ship.” He stared at
Lark O’Day, from the neighboring plot desk, looked up, glowering darkly. “Mac,” he advised, “if I thought you really meant that, I’d come over there and push your face so far down your throat you’d have a tapeworm’s view of your own stomach. Anybody who cracks about Dr. Kang—”
“Also cracks,” grinned
With this assurance everyone had to be content, until ten days out from Mars the
It was when they reached this point that Dr. Kang offered his promised proof. As the leaders of the party gathered within the
O’Day, fingers flickering incessantly over the keyboard as the ship wove its way through the treacherous belt, nodded tightly.
“I see it,” he grunted, “and I’m getting out of its way now. If that thing ever plowed into us, the
“On the contrary,” said Dr. Kang smoothly, “you will make no attempt to avoid the planetoid. You will set a course directly for it.”
“Directly—!” gulped Lark.
“Yes. If you will be so kind.”
Then Dr. Kang stepped to the board and depressed the single black stud he had installed on the instrument panel. “Steer directly for that rock at the greatest speed you can achieve.”
O’Day essayed a grin that didn’t quite jell. But with the eyes of Pen-N’hi upon him, he had no intention of showing the white feather. He merely shrugged.
“You’re calling signals,” he muttered . . . and did as the old Martian directed.
With the die irrevocably cast, young Dr. Lane could sympathize completely with the
Nor was it pleasant to stare into the viewpane, watching that lethal asteroid loom ever larger and more deadly, now like a gray, grim, gaunt and fearsome stony beast, its gaping canyons yawned like fangs bared to destroy them. Nearer and nearer flashed the
Flick Muldoon was frankly apprehensive, and Nora Powell, standing next to
Nearer and yet nearer. And now they were almost upon the cosmic juggernaut. At the rate at which they were traveling, if something were not donenow —immediately!—it would be but a matter of instants before—
“O’Day, turn away! It’s a failure! Were going to crash! Look out—!”
But in that moment came a sudden, shuddering twist. Not hard, not damaging, not shocking, but a sensation as though the
Dr. Kang smiled. “You see, my friends?”
O’Day said wonderingly, “It—it shunted us! Bounced us up and around it, away from it, as if we were a rubber ball!”
“Exactly,” said the Martian. “Our ship is encased in a sphere of electrical force through which no matter can penetrate. A yielding barrier which absorbs the shock of collision. The Bog holds no more perils for us, my friends. You may if you wish, lock your controls and pursue a set course to our destination.”
“Well,” said Flick Muldoon. “Well, I’ll be damned!”
The Bog lay a trifle more than 120 million miles from Mars. Great Jupiter swung in its gigantic orbit a full 225 million farther beyond. Thus a journey of more than three Earth weeks’ duration lay before the space questers. Merchantmen were wont to speak of this as a dreary, tedious journey, but those aboard the
For one thing, as the final stage of their adventure beckoned closer, it seemed to definitely decide a problem up to now left dangling. That of determining into exactly which quadrant of space should they direct their flight when—and if—they were successful in gaining from the Jovian council the fourth of their needful loans.
“Proxima Centauri,” said Dr. Boris Anjers. “That is, of course, the goal toward which we must set our course.”
“But,” persisted the small Eurasian, “our main desire is to escape this galaxy. And certainly Proxima Centauri is our closet neighbor.”
“Closest, yes. But by going towardit we travel in the opposite direction to that which I think we should go. No, Sirius is the star we must seek. There, if anywhere, lies the answer to our problem.”
Flick Muldoon stared from one to the other of the two wrangling scientists, his honest face wreathed in bewilderment.
“Am I nuts?” he demanded, “or have you two gone completely off base? You’re talking about Proxima Centauri and Sirius like they were weekend excursions. If I haven’t forgotten everything my astronomy prof told me, Proxima Centauri is about four light years away. Sirius is twice that far. At the rate we’re traveling it’ll take us about 6,500 years to reach Proxy, and damn near 14,000 to get to the Dog! What do we do to live that long . . . eat vitamins?”
Lane smiled. “You’d better stick to photography, Flick. Don’t you realize by now that our whole purpose in going to Jupiter is to learn the secret of faster-than-light travel? If they’ll tell as this secret, we can reach our destination in—well, I don’t know exactly how long. That will depend greatly upon how far we can exceed the so-called ‘limiting velocity’.”
Here Dr. Kang interpolated, “That my boy is the term I suggest you use with the greatest respect. It is not merely the ‘so-called’ limiting velocity. The speed of lightis actually the greatest velocity at which matter can travel and still retain its integral form. Beyond that speed, mass becomes infinite. What happens then, no man knows. I am afraid we must reconcile ourselves to a long and wearisome voyage of nine Earth years.”
“All the more reason,” insisted Dr. Boris Anjers, “for heading toward Proxima Centauri, my young friend. I am older than you, and have studied cosmic radiation for a great many years. Iassure you, there is no reason to believe one extra-galactic destination is more likely than another.”
Dr. Bryant said quietly, “That will not be necessary,
“You’re darn tootin’!” said Muldoon.
And Dr. Kang said blandly, “I, too, have perfect confidence in your decisions, Dr. Lane.”
Anjers’ round face puffed with petulance. His bushy eyebrows drew together. “Oh, very well!” he snapped in a tone almost a snarl. “But I warn you, you’re making a great mistake!” And angrily he stomped from the room.
To the man’s credit, his pique did not last long. Before the day ended he had returned, as urbane as ever, with a contrite smile and an apology on his lips. So equanimity was restored aboard the
“We, are fortunate,” said Dr. Kang one night after Lark O’Day had reported an argument in the crew’s quarters which had almost resulted in a free-for-all between the blasters and the mariners, “we number no Venusians or Jovians among our corps. It has been my observation that they mingle poorly with the children of your world and mine. Of the four races, our two are the more easy-going, theirs the more emotional. Perhaps the early history of your Earth might have been less bloody had not your world embraced such a diversity of planetary colonists.”
Hugh Warren stared. “Colonists? Are you trying to tell us, Dr. Kang, that all the races of mankind aren’t indigenous to our Earth?”
The ivory-tinted one’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “But ofcourse they are not, Captain. Surely you didn’t believe—or did you? But how unreasonable to think that our planets would all breed the same species! There is a certain fundamental root stock common to us all. Any medical man can assure you our differences lie only in the color of our skins. Blood plasma, hair structure, distribution of sinews, skeletal articulation—”
“But, Dr. Kang,” broke in Muldoon. “you’re implying that spaceflight existed God knows how long ago! Centuries . . . eons . . . before the launching of the Apollo rockets!”
Dr. Kang nodded. “And that is true. Spaceflightdid exist countless centuries ago. It was achieved and perfected by a race now vanished. A race which persists today only in the diverse forms of its distant children. You will meet some of its closest numbers a few weeks hence.”
“The Jovians?” demanded
“Not exactly. But from theirformer planet.”
“Former—?”
“Yes. The one through whose shattered remnants we have but recently passed.”
O’Day said dazedly, “The asteroid belt! That’s right! Sciencedoes believe it once comprised a planet. It was destroyed mysteriously, some say, by a gigantic tug of war waged between Jupiter and the sun; others say by internal explosion, millenia before civilization came to Earth. But—” His brows drew together thoughtfully. “But the Jovians are ablue -skinned race, Dr. Kang.”
“Quite so,” agreed Kang. “And as such they are bespoken in the legends of my people. And—if I am not mistaken—also in your ancient records6. Evolution has taken care of the rest of our changes, like skin color. We are all the descendants of a great and valiant empire. It is piteous,” mourned the old man, “to see a once noble people brought so low. But that is, and ever has been, the history of mankind’s strivings.”
“Centuries,” mused
“Wonder what, my friend?”
“I wonder if their downfall has anything to do with the problem we’re tackling now. But—”
SO TIME sped by. And outward, ever toward the fringes of Sol’s empire, flashed the
And as this great luminary shrunk, its offspring grew ever larger in the
Muldoon, standing beside the space patrolman as hefingered the studs, said wonderingly, “Boy, that’s one big planet, ain’t it? Only—” His brow furrowed, “there’s one thing I don’t understand. How far away from it are we?”
“’Bout twenty thousand,” answered
“Well, then, how come it hasn’t gripped us yet? I should think a thing as big as that would have a graydrag strong enough to clamp hold of us about three or four times this far away.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Simply,” explained the pilot, “that the true planet Jupiter is not much larger than Earth.”
“What? But I can see for myself—”
“What you see is Jupiter’s tremendous atmosphere belt. For some reason never satisfactorily explained, Jupiter’s gaseous protective envelope is more than a thousand times deeper than that of any other planet. That’s why Earth’s astronomical instruments always show Jupiter’s mass to be so tenuous; with a specific gravity, in fact, less than that of water. Jupiter is a gigantic cosmic fake; a huge bubble of semi-visious atmosphere in the heart of which is embedded only a tiny, normal-sized core of the more cohesive elements which go to make up a planet.”
“Why, the big quack!” said Muldoon indignantly. Then another thought struck him. “But say, if that’s the case it must be colder than Tophet on that planet? Those miles upon miles of cloudbank should completely blot out the sun.”
O’Day nodded. “And so they do. But on the other hand, they completely blanket the cold of interstellar space. You’ll find Jupiter a dark, murky planet, but one with a very pleasant and equitable climate. Well—” He nodded to
“Okay,” said
A short time later his efforts gained their recompense. The gray veil thinned, then parted, and once again the
The rest was simple. Pangré, capital city, lay at the north polar extremity of Jupiter. They had but to follow their compass to reach it. So in a space of time measurable by minutes, the
A bustle of activity on the spaceport below greeted their arrival. They asked and were given clearance. Smoothly Hugh Warren dropped the whippet craft into the designated cradle. And as the hypatomics spluttered into silence, the spacefarers prepared to leave their ship.
A great throng was gathered at the rocketdrome. That was understandable, for of all the civilized planets, Jupiter was least visited by Earth’s commercemen, and it was a rare occasion indeed which saw a sleek cruiser of the Space Patrol dropping jets on the faraway world.
That many of the assemblage were bearing arms was also evident to those aboard the
“Nevertheless,” said Dr. Kang, “it is written: ‘The wise man treads the unknown path with drawn sword’. It would be well for us to approach the Jovians as cautiously as they await our coming. Therefore, while you go out, I shall remain within the ship, watching carefully. At the first sign of hostile movement, I shall depress the force-shield button, surrounding you and the
“And since,” added Dr. Anjers, “it would not look well for the crew to remain aboard, if we are to give an appearance of frankness and amity, I shall go to the engine room and there keep the hypos running for immediate departure . . . if such should be necessary.”
Thus it was arranged. And so, a few minutes later, young Dr. Lane headed a company numbering a score which clambered from the
The space sailors and blasters, grateful for an opportunity to stretch their legs, came happily from the ship. But none, not even the skipper Hugh Warren himself, wore sidearms, so desirous was
“Peace, men of Jupiter!” he cried. “We come from Earth in friendship and goodwill on a mission of vital importance, and we beg an audience with your leaders.”
He could not have dreamed what was to happen next. It happened too swiftly and too suddenly for any comprehension. The leader of the Jovians, a member (if one could judge by the elaborateness of his trappings) of the Supreme Council, flung high his arm in a sign which was anything but friendly. His voice rasped forth in strident command.
“It is they! The Earthling traitors who would steal the fruits of our knowledge and destroy our noble culture. Seize them and hold them fast!”
In that instant the waiting throng coalesced into an angry mob, and as one man surged violently forward to seize their earthly visitors!
There was but one thing for
Then, with a sigh of assurance that they were safe from their attackers, to his comrades he said mournfully, “Well, we might as well go back to the ship. They don’t seem to believe us. Guess we’ll have to talk to them by radio until we can make them understand—”
Then the shrill cry of Nora Powell brought his words to an abrupt end.
“The barrier,
They were, or had been, men of the Space Patrol. They had no intention of surrendering meekly to a force of an alien planet, no matter how outnumbered or outarmed.
The voice of Herby Hawkins cried in shrill dismay, “Why, the blue blighters! Wot scum! Let ’em ’ave it, boys!”
And though guns had been forbidden the landing party, other but still formidable weapons appeared miraculously in space-bronzed fists. Sheath knives and leaded knucks, a Martiankuugla, an Erosiantraal7 .
In vain, Lane cried swift warning, “No, lads! ‘Don’t fight! Let them take us if they must! Go peaceably!”
His words came too late. Already a Jovian had fallen beneath the thrust of a slashing blade. Another was gasping out his life in choking coils of the Martiankuugla , while bubbling screams of horror bespoke the whirling path of the cross-shaped Erosian weapon.
Then sheer weight of numbers overwhelmed the feeble defense. The Jovians smashed through the battling few, and their stronger weapons took harsh toll of those who had dared oppose them.
With a cry
Then a whiteness drained his lips . . . and he was gone.
But with his passing ended—for the time being, at least—the slaughter. For now the Jovians had accomplished their end; had completely surrounded the Earth party, and held every member captive save those in the ship. Nor didthey hold their freedom for long. At the Jovian leader’s command, a corps of warriors rushed the airlock. When they emerged a few minutes later they escorted with no gentleness Kang and Boris Anjers. Anjers’ usually cherubic face was mottled with rage and scorn. As he was thrust into company with his comrades he pointed a quiverlng finger at Kang and screamed, “The yellow devil! He never pressed the button! The shield was never activated!”
O’Day, who during the brief affray had made no attempt to fight, but had leaped to the protection of the two girls, now glanced up from the pale golden creature whose slim form his arm still encircled to meet the eyes of Dr. Kang questioningly.
“Never pressed—But, Dr. Kang, why not?”
No muscle moved on the aged Martian’s features, but his eyes were dark pools of bewilderment. “There is something terribly wrong. Idid depress the button. The force-shield should have worked. I—I do not understand!”
Then there was time for no more, for the Jovian commander was prodding them into motion, and his voice was unequivocably harsh.
“To the Hall with them, that they may be judged and sentenced for this vile treachery!”
Thus, not as free men freely seeking a gift of equals, but as already half-adjudged and half-condemned captives, were the space venturers transported to the Council Hall of Pangré.
Here sat in judgment upon them white robed and diademed beings of a race not now to be found on any of the inner planets. The azure-tinted people who, if Dr. Kang’s explanation were true, had in eons past, spread culture throughout the whole of the solar system.
The judging of the
Then one, their leader, turned to address the Earthmen. “It is enough! We have decided. By the powers invested in us, the Supreme Council of Ahura-Pangré, we do hereby determine and judge—”
“But,” cried
“That since in violation of every rule and precept of interplanetary law you, a group of criminal felons from a neighborplanet have made landing without permission upon our world—”
“We couldn’t do otherwise. We had to come here, learn your secret . . .”
“And did hereupon murderously set upon and slay certain of our citizens—”
“Us?” cried Flick Muldoon. “Weset upon and slayedyou ? Listen, you blue-skinned baboon, we came here as friendly as fleas on a pup’s tail.Your boys are the ones who started the fighting!”
“We do therefore,” continued the Jovian Councillor sternly, “hereby condemn and sentence you—”
Then his petulance died, appalled. For the Councillor was speaking again, and from his lips were falling words that in hiswildest imaginings
“Do hereby condemn and sentence you,” intoned the Chief Councillor stridently, “to . . .immediate execution!”
AS IN a dream,
With what happened next, the dream became a nightmare. Blue-skinned stalwarts of the Jovian guard closed about him and his companions, prodded them toward a grim, arched opening which
He was conscious of Nora Powell weeping softly at his side, of Dr. Bryant muttering in mute and babbled protest, of thesubtle stengthening of Lark O’Day’s broad shoulders as the pirate tensed himself, despite the overwhelming odds against them, to hurl one last and gallant attack at their murderers. And because there was now no other path, he sought O’Day’s eye . . . in that glance grimly arraigning himself on the corsair’s side for whatever desperate attempt O’Day should choose to lead.
Then, as the entire corps of Earthmen readied themselves to go out fighting rather than as sheep herded to the slaughter, there came a sudden interruption from an unexpected source.
Through an entrance at the rear of the Council Hall rushed a wildly excited figure, a Jovian bearing in his hand a scrap of paper. This he waved wildly above his head, crying as he hurried forward, “My Lords! My Lords and Councillors—wait!Stay the execution! A message from the planet Earth!”
The Chief Councillor frowned. “It is useless. We will entertain no bids for extradition. It is the law of our homeland these Earthmen have transgressed. They must pay the penalty.”
“But,” panted the messenger, “it is no plea for clemency, but something else . . . something more important . . .”
All eyes were riveted on the curious tableau. O’Day’s whisper grated softly in
“Okay,
But Lane grasped his companion’s wrist hopefully.
“No, Lark, no! Not now. There’s more here than meets the eye. Look—the Chief Councillor’s face—”
And indeed, a sudden and striking change had overswept the countenance of the Jovian judge as he scanned the message thrust into his hand by the excited messenger. His brows drew together. He turned to his associates and growled, “But what is this? Have the men of Earth gone mad? This message says,” and he read aloud,“ ‘If
“Thank God!”
The grateful cry ripped itself unbidden from
“Thank God, they’ve seen the truth at last! Now, if it is only not too late!”
The Jovian councillor turned to him, puzzled.
“Too late, Earthman? Too late for what? What does this mean?”
And so, at last, Lane was given an opportunity to explain that which he had not been permitted to tell before. He told the true and only reason for their journeying hither, and pointed out the vital importance of the
The Council heard him through. Before the earnestness of his eyes, the burning ardor of his voice, their doubts seemed to melt away, save for one member of the court who grumbled dourly, “This is all very well, and a prettly tale, but to me it has the smell of prefrabricated plot. So you want our cherished secret, eh, Earthman? The secret of achieving speed greater than that of light?”
“I not only want it,” said
And how do we know that this message is not a trick of your Earth government to save your spying hides? We have no reason to trust Earth.”
Lane bit his lip. There it was again, the old, oft-told story of Earth’s greed and selfishness now working against the better interests of all the planets.
“No, maybe not,” he acknowledged, “but—”
“But—” interupted Flick Muldoon, always to be depended upon in an emergency for clear and logical reasoning— “All our talk ain’t worth a tinker’s damn. The proof has in the sky above us. Tell your astronomers to turn their ’scopes on Mercury. What’s happening there should prove or disprove that radiogram’s honesty.”
The Chief Councillor noddded judicially.
“The Earthman is right. The truth of falsity of this message is beyond Earth’s power to dissemble. We shall see and judge for ourselves. You leaders of the Earth party, come with us. Your crew shall remain here.” He addressed his own warriors. “Show them every comfort—but guard them well. For if this message turns out to be a hoax—”
He let his words dwindle into silence, but the silence was pregnant with meaning.
Thus it was that the members of the Jovian Supreme Council and the arbiters of the
The size of the reflecting telescope to which a hurriedly summoned Chief Astronomer led them was one to stagger the imagination. It was greater by half again than the monstrous tube constructed by Kang’s people on the desert planet. So huge was it that a 200 inch ’scope, equal in size to the proud but primitive instrument used by Earthmen at Mount Palomer in the Twentieth Century, was here employed simply as a spotter for the larger telescope.
But that,
All these were but vagrant thoughts flickering through his brain as the gigantic tube was brought to bear upon the desired image. And then, as all took seats before a huge reflecting screen upon which the enmirrored vision was projected, he gaped in wonderment to see the heart of their solar system brought so near that it seemed scarce more than a day’s journey.
Gigantic was the sun, its space-filtered radiance a binding sheen which covered almost half the screen before them. Large, too, and visible plainly to the naked eyes was the gleaming, innermost planet Mercury.
When first
A cry escaped his lips. Because, contrary to all sound common sense and experience, the glittering orb of Mercury could be actually seen to move! And that movement was not the steady, normal hurtling of a planet in steadfast course about its primary. Mercury was bobbing, weaving, twisting, shaking itself like a gigantic silver terrier tugging to break free of an invisible leash!
For breathless minutes the assemblage watched the staggering spectacle being enacted before them. Then the Jovian Supreme Councillor spoke, his voice sincere in apology.
“Gentlemen of Earth, forgive us. We have wronged you. We did not, could not, comprehend the magnitude—”
But his words were interrupted by a hoarse cry bursting simultaneously from the throats of Jovians and Earthmen alike.
“Look!”
And turning once more to the screen, all witnessed the dreadful climax . . . the end of the planet Mercury.
For how long a time it had been tugging at its cosmic bondsnone knew, but suddenly a critical point of balance was reached. With a great, impulsive leap the tiny planet burst free of its solar gyves. Like a gleaming stone hurled from some gigantic catapult it flashed outwards from its orbit, writhing, shimmering, shaking. Then its flight altered. For the space of a long-drawn, tremulous breath it seemed to hang motionless in the void, ungoverned by any gravitational force or power of natural law . . . then the immutable order of nature asserted itself.
The laws of mass-and-distance made their claim. Like a fluttering moth drawn irresistibly to a flame, the fleeing world fell backward into its luminary. Faster and faster it raced, now dropping plummetlike towards the blazing prominences of Sol. As it fell it was squeezed and hammered out of shape by the tremendous forces playing upon it. For a moment it looked like a lengthening sphere . . . then a teardrop . . . then the pear-shape split into an infinitude of crushed and shapeless fragments which streaked like falling pebbles into the beckoning heart of Sol.
For the briefest instant a faintly brighter flame seemed to flicker upon Sol’s surface as the parent sun hungrily swallowed its infant. Then . . . that was all.
Muldoon turned away, shuddering. He said in a dull, dazed voice, “There—there were men on that planet. Posts, mines, laboratories . . .”
“Johnny Cosgrave,” said Hugh Warren. “He would have finished his three years of foreign service next month. He was going back to Earth to get married.”
“You—” He turned to the Jovian Councillor. “Your planet may not suffer that fate. You are too far away. But the sun’s heat will fail, and when that happens cold will sweep down upon you . . . such devastating cold as cannot be imagined. If your orbit widens, you may whirl away from the sun and be lost in the never-ending depths of space.”
The Councillor said gravely, “You need say no more, Earthman. I understand perfectly. We of Jupiter are sometimes hasty, but never fools. Say now, what do you need of us? How can we cooperate with you to stay this impending doom?”
“Speed,” said Lane. “The knowledge of that which your race alone knows: the secret of achieving speed faster than that of light.”
The Jovian nodded gravely. “You shall have it. The requisite apparatus shall be installed in your spaceship immediately. But you must help us, Tell us your destination, that we may calculate the coordinates, and bring you to your objective.”
“We must go,” said
“Sirius! Outside our solar system?” The Councillor frowned.“That is difficult and perilous. There are dangers even to our method.”
“We must risk them. As it is, we have no way of telling if we are going to the proper place. Nor, indeed, whether when we get there we will find ways to do that which we must. Tell me, what is the limiting velocity of the new method you have devised? How fast will we be able to travel?”
The Jovian smiled faintly. “Upon that score, Earthman, you need have no apprehension. You will reach your destination in plenty of time—if you reach there at all. Because, you see, there isno limiting velocity to our method.”
“No limiting—?”
“None at all. Your translation from one spot to another will be practically instantaneous.”
“Instantaneous!” cried Dr. Anjers. “But that is impossible. Only by warping space itself could an object be transferred instantaneously from one spot to another!”
“And that,” acknowledged the Jovian, “is the principle upon to which our secret is based. Our instruments do not enable an object tomove at a speed greater than that of the limiting velocity of light. Such a thing is, by definition and natural law, quite impossible. No, the principle we employ is utterly different. The object itself does not move at all. It merely stands still . . . for a brief time cast into a state of infinite entropy . . .”
“And then—?” asked Dr. Bryant.
“Space warps itself about the object, unfolding to place it in an entirely new sector. Thus, you see, our speed-heightening device does not depend upon velocity at all, but on the unchangeable mechanics of Space and Time. It is, in brief, a method of flight through the Fourth Dimension!”
THE WORST enemies make the staunchest allies. That old truism never proved itself more surely than to
While technicians hastened to equip the
Nor made the Jovians any effort to conceal that which was being done aboard the
“Not so much,” said Captain Hugh Warren wonderingly, “at the method itself as at the fact that nobody ever thought of it before. Why, when you hear it explained, it’s like child’s play!”
Dr. Bryant smiled thinly. “And is that not always true of great inventions? The wheel, the steam engine, the gasoline motor, the rocket drive—all these things seemed simple commonplaces to the civilizations which used them. But each was, to a former civilization which knew it not, a mystery at once profound and obscure. So it is with the Jovian fourth-dimensional drive.
“I venture to predict that in the future days—if, that is, we successfully accomplish our mission—it will become the standard method of space travel. Its advantages are obvious. Instantaneous transfer of objects from one spot to another . . . why, just think! Tomorrow mankind may eat for breakfast fresh budberries plucked that morning from the marshes of Venus, covered with milk shipped short hours ago from a Martian dairy ranch!”
“All of which,” said the little steward, Herby Hawkins apologetically, “sounds mighty good, guv’nor. And maybe this here new device is, like you say, child’s play. But—beggin’ your pardon, sir—I still don’t get it. ’Ow can a ship get so fast from one plyce to another? Almost like it was in two plyces at the same time?”
“Why,” explained Dr. Bryant professorially, “simply by contracting into contigual adjacency twoloci of the continuum—”
“Excuse me a minute, Doctor,” grinned
“Naturally,” said Hawkins, “this way.” And he drew his finger laterally between the two ‘worlds.’ “A stryte line bein’ the shortest distance between two points—”
“Of course,” said
“Well, blimey!” said Hawkins.
“To complete the analogy,”
“It’s as easy as that—” Hawkins gulped and ran a finger under his uniform collar. “Yes sir. Now that you point it out, it’s all very clear, sir. Ridic’lously simple, if I might say so. So, completely comprehendin’ the sitchyation, I’ll be gettin’ back to my work now, sir . . . if you don’t mind.” And he disapperared.
But if
It was baffling, for instance, to find himself confronted with smiles when, fearful of mishap, he warned the Jovian technicians against tampering with Earths jealously guarded hypatomic unit.
“You must be very careful. The hypos are protected with devices which will cause them to explode if tampered with.”
The chief technician smiled pleasantly.
“Yes,” he said, “they were, weren’t they?”
“I’m sorry,” apologized
“We’ve drawn the dragon’s teeth. Yes, of course. We had to in order to install our own equipment.”
“But how—?”
“Another useful trick,” smiled the Jovian, “of fourth dimensional science. It was a simple matter to reach our instruments into sealed chambers and cut the wires connecting the explosive fuses.”
“That, young Dr. Lane could see clearly, was quite true. It would be no harder for mechanics working with quadri-dimensional tools to perform this observation than for a tri-dimensional bank robber to remove the contents of a Flatland safe.
But there was a corollary to this revelation.
The other nodded causally. “Why, yes. And most ingenious, too.”
“What do you plan to do with your knowledge?”
“Why,” said the Jovian frankly, “I think it would be a very good idea to expose it openly to the races of every solar planet. Earth has held its monopoly on spaceflight long enough. I think, don’t you, it’s almost timeall the worlds were given the right to free and competitive commerce?”
All these were interludes. There were others, too: amusing, entertaining, beguiling. Because now, on the eve of what must assuredly be their last and most perilous journey, almost to a last man the argonauts of the
And in truth, there was much to be done, many beauties to be seen on Jupiter. For the entertainment of the Earthmen was planned an expedition to the Flaming Sea, that weird chemical phenomenon of cold light whose shimmering ruddy reflection, viewed by Earth’s telescopes centuries ago through the filtering layers of Jupiter’s foggy shroud, had caused Earth scientists to ponder on the nature of the “Red Spot.”
On this trip almost all the
“Oh, come along, Lane!” he coaxed. “Come along and have some fun. A man can’t workall the time.”
Nora Powell, who had been standing in the background pleaded almost wistfully, “But it would beso much fun,
“I know it. But I’m up to my ears—”
Nora said almost hopefully, it seemed, “Then maybe I’d better stay with you? Perheps I can be of some assistance?”
But
So, in the end, all the adventurers save two took the sightseeing trip. Those two were
“When one reaches my age, my friends, one loses interest in romantic surroundings. Now I shall remain here to be of what assistance I can to Dr. Lane.
And of assistance he was. For it was he whose adroit questioning of the Jovian engineers finally brought clarity to a question whose answer had been often hinted but never answered. As the workmen put the finishing touches on the warping unit’s installation he asked, “And just what, gentlemen are the limitations of this device . . . the usage to which it may not safely be put? Your Councillor, Kushra, gave us to understand that there was a certain amount of peril inherent to its use.”
The chief technician frowned. “That is right. However, we have taken all safety factors into consideration. In reaching your destination, if the dials and verniers are not changed from the settings which we have established, you will not experience the slightest difficulty—”
“But just what,” asked
“Simply that through an improper setting of the dials you might end your journey in some place quite unlike that which was your destination. In other words, if this central vernier were twisted to the right by so much as one degree, the
“Quite true. The
“Why, then,” asked Dr. Anjers, “employ control verniers at all? Why not simply set and lock the controls upon the desired objective?”
The Jovian smiled. “Have you forgotten, sir, that when your mission is ended you will wish to return home? Then the new course and trajectory must be calculated and the verniers reset. That is why it is necessary we install a complete unit and train you in its use.”
The scientist said petulantly, “Despite all these precautions it is a foolhardy trip. It would be safer, to my way of thinking, to visit a nearer star . . . say Proxima Centauri . . . thereby diminishing the risk of over or undershooting our mark. Sometimes,” he bridled, “I think this whole scheme is madness. It is ridiculous to think of us, tiny mites that we are, daring to attack a people of so infinitely greater than ours that we will be as dust motes beneath their crushing heels!”
Anjers wriggled in sudden defiant embarrassment. “It was not my idea, Dr. Lane, but your own. It was you who advanced the theory that our universe is dwindling. It follows as a natural corollary that any race existingoutside our universe—”
But the little man’s words had had an even more striking effect upon the Jovian engineer. He said excitedly, “A great race? A race of giants? That’s strange. There is a legend among our people that once, countless centuries ago, our forefathers were mighty men who clashed in brutal conflict with a race of giants.”
“Naturally,” said Anjers curtly, “there would be such a fable. That legend occurs not only in the mythology ofyour race but in that of every civilized planet. Earth’s theosophy speaks of Gog and Magog, the giants who lived before men8. The Venusian folk tales sing of an ancient battle of Titans. The Martians tell of a day when giants warred. Such myths are easily explained. They are simply barbaric nature-myths; explanations of the recurring solstice, the battle between the giants of summer heat and winter cold.”
That the Jovian said somewhat haughtily. “Oursis no folk tale of a barbaric people, Doctor. Our written history is based on fact, not fancy. And it is strange that you should speak now of a race of giants . . .”
BUT ALL things end at last, even hours of impatient waiting. And shortly thereafter that the installation of the Jovian machine was completed. So, at last, their adventure appropriately feasted, their success prayerfully toasted, the
All hands were aboard, all stations manned, and in the control turret stood those upon whose efforts depended not only the success of this mission but the very existence of the universe.
It was a great moment, one calculated to not only lift with pride the heart of the humblest person, but to instill humility into the most prideful. A strange silence fell over the little group, a silence finally broken by Hugh Warren.
“Well . . . all ready,
“Yes, I press this first button . . . the green one . . . allow fifteen minutes for the motors to warm and the space warp to develop, then press the red button, Right?”
“Right,” said
Nothing happened.
That is, nothingseemed to happen. The
For a moment the wayfarers stared at each other with speculative eyes. Could it be the Jovian invention was, after all, a failure? Did they still lie in their cradle on Pangré spaceport?
As if to solve this question, Lark O’Day pressed the stud which opened the vision plate to the outer hull. And what appeared thereon finally dissolved all doubts. It was notwhat they saw but what they didnot see which offered clinching evidence of the fourth dimensional drive’s effectiveness.
Because it was no spaceport over which they looked, nor jet space spangled with the colorful burning of a myriad stars. Instead, there reflected on the vision plate before them a blank, gray, writhingnothingness . Just that. The soul of an emptiness beyond space and time, beyond color and form and life.
It was a vista terrible to look upon, awful, to consider.
Then, amazing, came a burst of giggling laughter from one of their party. From the mirth-contorted lips of their Eurasian scientist companion, Dr. Boris Anjers.
“Yes,” babbled Anjers trumphantly, “Look long and well, little fools, while yet you may. For when that mist passes your puny efforts will end in flaming oblivion. That all too brief gray pall is your shroud of death!”
Lane said soothingly, “Easy, Doctor. It’s not so bad as all that. It’ll be all over in a few minutes. Here, sit down and rest—”
And he moved a few paces toward the rotund little savant. But Anjers, moving even more swiftly, evaded him. He darted back, a hand dipping into one capacious pocket of his jacket, and when that hand emerged it gripped the hilt of an ugly Haemholtz ray pistol. With this Anjers covered his stunned companions.
“Stand back, Lane! Another step and I’ll—ah, that’sbetter.” There was no cherubic placidity on his features now. Nothing but pure, unadulterated malevolence. “No, my friends, I am not, as you think, unnerved or mad. I am in complete possession of my senses . . . and have been all along. Too much so to permit you outcasts of Gog from ever achieving your purpose—”
“Boris!” cried Dr. Bryant. “Whateveris the matter? Calm down man, for God’s sake!”
“Gog?” spluttered Flick Muldoon. “What’s he mean, Gog?”
And
“Rest?” Anjers’ voice broke almost hysterically. “Yes . . . rest. That is good. When the red button is pressed, we willall rest, eternally.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Lark O’Day harshly.
“I mean it was an evil day for you, pirate, when you cast your lot with these too-ambitious thwarters of destiny. For this journey is, and has been since its beginning, doomed to failure. I, theKraedar Borisu, Praeconsul of Magog, have seen to that!”
“Now it’sMagog !” cried Muldoon. A minute ago it was Gog. What’s all this double talk—Gog and Magog?”
Gog and Magog! The two names struck a familiar spark in
The dim beginnings of a horrible conception stirred within him, and he repeated the words. “Gog and Magog. Not two mythical persons, but two worlds. Two ancient worlds embattled.”
Anjers’ half-mad laughter rang shrill in the tense control turret. “You surpass yourself, Dr. Lane. Sometimes your swift intuition amazes me. Yes, you have guessed the truth. A truthforgotten by man for countless centuries. Thereare two worlds— two worlds which one time warred. The name of one is Magog. That is the planet whereon I was born, from which I came to Earth. The name of the other was Gog. It was the planet which one time circled your sun between Mars and Jupiter. Long ages ago our two great empires strove in bitter conflict. Long ages agoyour time, that is. In the greater universe—the true universe, of which Magog is still a dominant part—time has passed more slowly. To our people it has been but a score of years since our great weapons crumbled Gog to destruction and hurled your entire solar system into the doom which now approaches its climax.”
Nora Powell cried, “Then Gary’s theory was right! The cosmic raysare a deliberate force being played upon our solar system to destroy it. And you—you—”
“I am one of a race pledged to the utter obliteration of your people,” snarled Anjers. “Yes. Had you not been blind and trusting fools you should have realized this long since. I did my utmost to prevent this expedition. And even though through fortunate follies on your part my efforts came to naught, now at the end triumph shall be mine!”
“And it was you,” challenged Muldoon, “who stumbled and fell at the Space Patrol port, almost ruining our escape. You,too, who suggested we turn back when Venus refused usneurotrope— ”
“And it was also you,” said Dr. Kang gravely, “who from the engine room tampered with the controls of the force shield on Jupiter, imperilling all our lives? You who insisted we should set our course toward Proxima Centauri rather than Sirius—”
Boris Anjers, or “Borisu”, as he now designated himself, bowed mockingly. But his grip was still firm upon the butt of the Haemholtz pistol, and his eyes carefully guarded against sudden movement by his erstwhile comrades.
“Yes, my friends,” he taunted. “It was I who did these things. Your belated recognition of my exploits is amusing . . . but not significant. For it wasalso I who, a short while ago, reset the verniers of the Jovian quadri-dimensional drive. In a few short movements I shall press the red key which unfolds the space warp. When that happens, success will finally crown my efforts. For in this room are gathered the half dozen Earthmen capable of staying your solar system’s destruction. With your passing dies the last hope of saving your universe.”
O’Day’s eyes were narrowed slits. He rasped dryly, “Haven’tyou forgotten something else, Dr. Anjers.You are one of our party. When that red stud is depressedyou will share our fate.”
The Magogean traitor asked proudly, “Do you think, scavenger of the spaceways,that consideration would in any way alter my act? When I was assigned to espionage service in your solar system, I knew and accepted the perils of my post. The death of one Magogean, is a small price to pay for the complete and final destruction of your hated empire. And now—”
A smile of fanatic triumph touched his lips as he moved toward the banked studs. But
“The name, my foolish young Quixote, is not ‘Anjers’ but ‘Borisu’. The second name I adopted to comply with your silly Earth tradition of two names for a single entity. It is an amusing joke. In our tongue the word ‘anjers’ means ‘the fox.”
“Fox,” growled Lark O’Day, “spelled r-a-t.”
“But tell me, Borisu,” persisted Gary, “if we are to die, there can be no harm in our knowing now . . . why do your people bear such fierce hatred for those of our universe?”
Borisu glowered darkly. “That is a story too long to tell in its entirety. But a portion Iwill tell you that you may die realizing the implacable enmity of all Magogeans.
“It is a story which goes back many years—as we measure time in the true universe. Many millenia of your brief solar time. In true space once existed side by side two solar systems. That of our mother sun, which you call Sirius, and that of your parent star—Sol. Life spawned on the planets of these two systems; human life evolved. Men similar to you and me grew in stature and wisdom, developed civilizations, cultures.
“All this was long ago. For ages untold each planet lived in ignorance of its neighbors. But some two hundred years ago—I measure chronology now in universal constant time, which is the only true measurement—that race of humans who peopled Sol’s fifth planet—”
“Our predecessors?”
“Yes, they. The Gogeans they called themselves, for the name of their world was Gog. Their science discovered, as has recently your Earthly science rediscovered, space travel. Their employment of this knowledge was a parallel to your own. They ventured, explored, expanded. They colonized, transporting their people to the other worlds of your sun. They set up outposts, carrying their superior culture to every habitable world.”
Dr. Kang interrupted, “Then my theory was right, at least in part? Space travelis responsible for the differing races of mankind on all our planets?”
“Yes,” nodded Borisu. “And had the Gogeans gone no farther than this, their worlds might still exist. Their people might still be a great people instead of the decadent sprinkling that now exists. But they were not content with draining the wealth of one solar system. No, they must venture afar. So Gogean space-vessels, a migty armada of them, came to our neighboring system, and there by weight of superior science, wreaked havoc on our cities, slew our brave warriors, and set themselves up as rulers not only of their system but of our own. So potent was their rule, so all-embracing their lordship, that all our planets’ creatures they made slaves; shuttling them back and forth between the worlds as they had need of them. But their tyranny was short-lived. Though our race had not solved the secret of spaceflight, still our scientists possessed a vast knowledge. They turned to the construction of a weapon which should overthrow the interlopers. You know the result, because you have experienced it. Our scientists discovered an all-penetrating ray with the power of contracting the molecules of anything upon which it was turned. In brief, a dwindling ray which projects what you Earthmen call gamma or cosmic rays.”
He went on, “The hour for revolt was struck. Long was the warfare, and bloody. But ultimately our people were triumphant. And in judicial council, when victory had been won, it was decided that never again would Gog be granted an opportunity to threaten cosmic peace with its lust for power. And since the only way to cure a disease is by ruthlesslydestroy ing its roots, a gigantic cosmic ray gun was built. This was turned upon Gog—”
“And Gog,” Dr. Bryant took up the tale, from the depths of his scientific wisdom supplying the details as accurately as if he had been eye witness, “dwindling, crumbled into ruins beneath the cannon’s radiation. But your vengeance did not stop there. You continued to play the gun against us. Now, not only one world but an entire solar system has been contracted near to the breaking point. Shortly our parent staritself will become too densely packed to supply light, and then—”
“Then,” proclaimed Borisu stridently, “our planet, called ‘Magog’ because it is ‘the enemy of Gog’, will reign triumphant!”
“But, Borisu,” demanded
“That,” said Borisu, “does not matter. Our vengeance will not be complete until the last despised Solarian is destroyed. Only then-—Stop!I warned you—”
His ray pistol, whirling to bear upon Warren, spat viciously.Its flame cracked across the turret to blast the spot where Hugh but a moment before had stood. With a blinding movement, the captain smashed open the audio key on the intercom and bawled, “Engine room! Hypos on, quickly!”
Then no more, for a second flare of the pistol dropped him, choking, to the floor. Its searing blast kindled the serge of his uniform. Nora Powell screamed and impetuously lunged forward to beat at the burning cloth with bare hands. A familiar thin, high, whining shuddered through the ship, and from the engine room below came the voice of Bud Howard demanding,“Why, Skipper? I thought you told us not to—”
Then the Magogeanwheeled, his face livid.“Enough,” he rasped. “It will do you no good, Miss Powell, to extinguish that little burning. In a moment it and you andall of us will merge in a mightier flame . . . Magog’s blazing star!”
He laughed madly as his fist smashed down upon the crimson stud!
AS BORISU depressed the fateful button, a sort of sick paralysis seized everyone in the control turret. It was as though all realized that a moment hence in one brief, blinding flame would vanish all for which a lifetime of struggle had been spent. Joy and sorrow, happiness and care . . . hope, love, ambition . . . all these were to merge as one in the final erasing of life’s futile slate.
Even Borisu, high-minded a patriot as he proclaimed himself to be, stood stricken by the irrevocable enormity of what he had done. Mad laughter froze on his lips, panic glazed his eyes, and the hand which held the the threatening Haemholtz faltered and dropped to his side.
And in that moment,
And the sudden death they had been led to expect?
Nothing happened.
No blinding flame engulfed them. No cascade of heatcrushed the
And now the tables were turned, for Muldoon and O’Day had leaped to Lane’s assistance. Already Flick had snatched the skittering pistol from the floor, while Lark’s strong arms encircled the raging Magogean, locking him in a vise. Meanwhile
“Made it,” he cried relievedly. “I figured we might. Just in time, though. There’s Sirius off the port bow. Too close for comfort.”
“B-but,” faltered Nora. “What did you do, Hugh? I thought we were headed for certain death? Even the Jovians Warned us that if the controls were tampered with—”
“That’s right,” admitted
“But it occurred to me that if we could get the hypos working, adding theLiberty ’s normal acceleration to the space-twisting speed of the Jovian drive, we might put enough distance between ourselves and Sirius to save our necks. “And—” He shrugged. “It worked. That’s all.”
“Hugh,” said
“Me? No, just plain lucky. I was only playing a hunch. But I figured we had everything to gain and nothing to lose.”
“He’s a violet,” snorted O’Day. “A modest, shrinking violet. Stop playing coy, skipper. That was one of he neatest bits of mental astrogation I’ve ever seen.”
“Sure. If I’d thought of it.”
“Anyone who can handle a spaceship like you can—”
“In,” acknowledged Lark O’Day, “my own back yard; our own little solar system. But when it comes to figuring intergalactic calculus with a quadri-dimensional drive as a factor—” He shook his head admiringly—“you’re the boy for my money.”
Muldoon’s fingers were itching on the butt of theHaemholtz. He glanced at the silent Borisu, then longingly at his weapon.
“When the Mutual Admiration Society adjourns,” he said, “what are we going to do with our lethal little pal? You want I should take him out somewhere and play punch-board on him with this?”
But Dr. Bryant said, “No, Gary. We can’t do that.”
“Why not? He’s got it coming to him.”
“I agree with you perfectly. But now that we have reached Sirius we may have need of him.”
“Need ofhim?” exploded Muldoon.
“Yes. For one thing, we already know the Magogean language is unlike any used in our universe. We will have need of an interpreter. Another thing you must remember is that so long as we hold him unharmed aboard the
Lark O’Day said bluntly, “I’m agin’ it. I was raised in a hard school, I know. But one thing I learned long ago was that, the best way to get rid of an enemy is—get rid of him!”
And Dr. Kang, too, added quietly, “It is not wise to spare an enemy like this; one who has already attempted not once but many times to destroy us. It is written, ‘Who dallies with the wasp will feel its sting.’ ”
Neither Muldoon nor Gary appeared to think highly of Dr. Bryant’s clemency. But surprisingly it was the skipper who came to Dr. Bryant’s support.
O’Day laughed curtly. “There speaks the Space Patrolman. Once a cop, always a cop, eh,
And the one-time pirate shrugged.
“Okay, skipper. It’s your ship. Save him it is. But,” he glared distastefully at the Magogean, “it’s a good thing for you, buster, that we’re aboard the
So Borisu was taken away and placed under lock and key in the
“It’s baffling,” he confessed ruefully after futile consultation with his azimuth chart and astrogation table. “I can’t seem to orient myself at all. There are no constant bodies to set a course by. Or, rather, there are plenty of known bodies—but they don’tlook right. Nothing looks right!”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, just that. Everything’s cockeyed. Out of proportion. Here, see for yourself—”
As one, the company’s eyes opened wide at the curious picture which lay exposed at their views. Starstrewn heavens sprawled before them, yes; but no such spangled jet as might be seen from Earth or any of Earth’s sister planets. There, stars were dim, small specks, faintly aglitter in unfathomable distance. Stars had diversity of size . . . this one was great, that other small. Stars clustered in recognizable patterns. Here a portion of the sky was filled with their tinsel sprinkling; elsewhere might be a patch of sparsestrewn
But not so was space as seen fromthis vantage point. For, viewing their surroundings through the vision plate, it seemed as if they swam through a sea of radiant light where every star was a beacon, each planet a steadfast buoy of glowing color. And in this gleaming pattern was a regularity, an, orthodoxy as painstaking as if some master craftsman had allocated each glowing sphere with precise care.
Regularly discernible against the Omnipresent back-drop of space were the solar galaxies, each a complete entity, aloof, removed from its fellows and confined to its own definite segment of space. Some galaxies were younger than others. One formed a whirlpool nebula. Another, giving birth to worlds, was a gleaming, eggshaped blob of gold. Still elder universes had achieved secure and permanent balance.
But in certain things they were all alike. Each dominated its, own sector of space without encroachment on a neighbor. And each parent star was very nearly equal in size to every other.
It was, in short, the mathematician’s dream: the perfect achievement of theoretical stellar mechanics. A universe balanced in absolute statis, with each galaxy arranged in contrapuntal adjacence to each other.
“But this,” said Flick Muldoon wildly, “can’t be the Sirian system! This isn’t any part of the universe we knew!”
“Yes, Frick, it is. This, at last, is thetrue universe. The real and constant universe we theorized might exist when first we took those photographs on Luna. We are looking, as no man has looked for countless years, upon the true ‘bubble universe’ of which our solar system was once a part.”
“But—” asked Nora— “our solar system now?”
“Yes,” he said, “that is—must be—it. That tiny star is Sol. The one diminishing unit in all the constant universe. And that funnel is the path of the cosmic rays, the cone through which Magog’s ultra-wave cannon is beaming its lethal radiation upon our little system.”
“Gad!” gritted Lark O’Day. “What a vengeance! What a punishment to mete on an innocent people! We must stop those scoundrels, Gary! If we only knew where to find them—”
“We do,”
“Right as rain,” declared Hugh Warren. “And,
“A.X. to max it is, sir!” came back the reply.
And the whining sound of the hypatomic motors heightened as the
It was as they neared Magog that
“It is ridiculous to think of us, tiny mites that we are, daring to attack the people of a universe so infinitely greater than ours that we will be as dust motes beneath their crushing heels,” Borisu had said.
At that time he had still been pretending allegiance with his companions. Which did not alter the fact that there might be truth to his claim. The Earthmen, born of a contracted planet, might be a hundred, a thousand times smaller than the enemy whose homeland they were approaching. Appraising the size of Magog from this distance,
But Dr. Kang disabused him of this thought the moment
“No, no my friend. You need entertain no fears on that account. Just as the Magogean, Borisu was similar in size to us on Earth, so on Magog will our height correspond to that of the natives.”
“But if we come from a planet which has been dwindling for untold years—”
“That does not matter, my boy. You forget, we are now in the real or ‘static’ universe. Moreover we came here through a space warp, traveling with a speed which exceeds that of light. Elementary astrophysics will tell you that any object exceeding the speed of light attains infinite mass. Therefore we may safely assume that during our period of translation from the inner to the outer universe the
“Expanded?” grunted Lark O’Day, “But I don’t feel any different.”
“Naturally not. For you are as perfectly attuned to this greater universe as you were formerly to our own contracted solar system.”
“But,” demurred
Dr. Kang smiled quietly. “Barisu madeseveral paradoxical remarks. He also showed an appalling lack of comprehension of the hypatomic drive. Moreover, on several occasions he failed rather pitifully to accomplish a mission he had every opportunity of achieving.
“All of Which leads me to believe, my friend, that—his boasting to the contrary—he’s not so brilliant a genius as he believes himself. Nor is his race so scientifically advanced as he considers it. In at least several respects we have already discovered their knowledge to be inferior to ours. Let us hope we can maintain our superiority, and bring about the end we desire.”
“By golly, that’s right!” muttered Muldoon. “Borisu never structme as being any master mind. And headmitted his rate didn’t know the secret of spaceflight.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Dr. Kang. “At one time they did not. But they must know that secret now.”
“Why?”
“How else could Dr. Boris Anjers have reached Earth to serve as an espionage agent for his people? We are forced to assume this Magogean surveillance of the solar system is a regular thing, with new appointees assuming their duties periodically. Borisu intimated he was but one of many. Obviously, therefore, the Magogeans have mastered not only spaceflight but faster-than-light travel. As well as the ability to diminish their own bodily size at will. At any rate, we shall know in a little while.”
“What do you mean, Captain?”
“About spaceflight. The Magogeanshave got ships. Because here comes a flock of them right now.”
O’Day’s eyes lighted. Restless for action, he had been chafing impatiently ever since they sighted Magog. Now his moment had come. He sprang to his feet.
“Man the guns! We’ll teach those scoundrels—”
“Wait,” advised Dr. Kang. “Not so swiftly. Let us try every peaceful means to win them over first. Dr. Bryant-where is Dr. Bryant?”
“Below,” said Muldoon, “He went below a little while ago. I don’t think the old man feels so good. He looked sort of funny. Kind of a sick expression around his mouth. And his eyes were glazed, like he was sort of dopey or something.”
“Well, let us send for him. We will need his advice. And bring Borisu from his cell too. We must attempt to communicate with the Magogeans by radio. We will need Borisu to interpret for us.”
Lieutenant MacDonald said, “Yes sir. Right away, sir,” and hurried from the room.
“You have turned on the force shield?” asked Dr. Kang.
“No, but I’ll do it now,” The skipper pushed the black button. “Thatshould take care of any tricks they try to pull. Say—” His voice broke in a sudden exclamation of astonishment. “Say,that’s funny! Where didthat come from?”
“That? What?” demanded,
“Why-why, it looked like a life skiff. Matter of fact it looked like one of the
“By God, itis a life skiff! But what’s it doing this far out in space? And where did it come, from?”
He get his answer, but from an unexpected source. For suddenly the audio crackled into activity. The voice of Lieutenant MacDonald came to them from midships.
“Captain! Captain Warren!”
“Yes? Yes, what is it?”
“It—it’s Professor Bryant, sir.”
“Bryant? What about him?”
“He’s lying in the brig . . . unconscious!”
“You mean—you mean Borisu attacked him? Seize the traitor! Bring him here immediately.”
MacDonald’s voice was anguished. “I can’t, sir. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. The cell door is open . . . one of our auxiliary craft has been stolen from its cradle . . . and Borisu—has escaped!”
“THE LIFE skiff!” thundered Hugh Warren. “That was Borisu. He’s escaped to his own fleet!”
“And ruined,” groaned Muldoon, “everything. Now they know who we are, where we came from, and what we, want!”
MacDonald spoke again from below. “Dr. Bryant, sir—he’s coming around. Shall I—?”
“Bring him up here,” ordered Lane. “And for God’s sake, hurry!”
The audio clicked off.
He let the sentence dangle. But all knew as well as he what must follow if their mission failed.
Minutes later, a dazed Dr. Bryant appeared in the turret, supported on the shoulder of the young space lieutenant. He shook his head in sorrowful reply to
“I—I don’t know. I can’t remember a thing. I was here in the turret with the rest of you. The next thing I knew MacDonald was breaking an ammonia tube under my nostrils. All that happened between is—blank.”
“I told you he looked sick,” said Muldoon. “He looked sort of dopey Like he was drugged or—”
“Or,” burst forth
“Why—why, I don’t know,
“You didn’t have to,” grunted Lark O’Day. “That experiment wasn’t the failure you thought it, Doctor. On the contrary, it must have been a complete success. At that time, with your cooperation, Borisu established a control over your brain. One which he has never relinquished.”
“With my cooperation? But I concentrated upon rejecting his mental suggestions—”
“That,” interrupted Dr. Kang gently, “is the explanation, my good friend. You erred in saying strong wills cannot be hypnotized. Research indicates that quite the opposite is true. It is only the strongwilled who make good hypnotic subjects. Never the dolts, morons, the weak of brain. For in order to accept hypnotic influence, one must be able to concentrate solely upon a single thought to the exclusion of all others. And only the highly intellectual have this power. I fear it is true you have been an unwitting partner to Borisu.”
“I know you have,” cried
“He,” moaned the aged scientist, “must have compelled me to say that. And this time he forced me to come below, open his prison cell, and permit his escape. But what are we going to do?”
“It’s not what we’re going to do,” fumed Flick, “but what we should have dene. Itold you we ought to have conked that—”
“Stow it, Flick,” suggested
“Skipper? Captain Warren?” Again the intercommunicating system was alive.
“It’s
“A telaudio message coming in. Someone calling us by name.”
“Borisu,” snarled O’Day.
“Pipe it down here, Sparks,” ordered the commander of the vessel. “Throw it over the IC so we can all hear it.”
“Very good, sir!” There was a moment’s hush, then an instant of metallic confusion. Then the incoming message was retransmitted from the radio room to the control turret. A Voice was calling,“Spaceship
“I’d know that soapy, accented; voice in a million.” He pressed the activating control of the turret transmitter and answered, “Spaceship
Transmission cleared as the beam between the converging spacecraft strengthened. It was definitely Borisu’s voice addressing them. All recognized and tensed with anger to hear the vindictive mockery in his tone.
“What, Captain? But certainly you’re clever enough to know without being told. We not onlywant but demandthe immediate surrender of your ship!”
O’Day’s face turned brick red. His lean jowls mottled with rage. In stifled tones he choked, “Surrender! That slimy rat! All right, Skipper. We know where we stand now. Let’s unhinge the guns and give them—”
“They are a dozen,” reminded MacDonald nervously, “to our one,”
“All right! So what?” blazed O’Day.
“Our weapons will more than match theirs. And we’re protected by Dr. Kang’s force shield. Come on!”
He took three quick strides toward the nearest gunembrazure and was in the act of whipping the tarpaulin from the rotor port when Borisu’s voice sheered through again.
“That was the reformed corsair’s voice I heard, was it not? Well,Captain O’Day.” He stressed the title with gentle irony. “Isuggest you think twice before opening hostilities. Having shared your comradeship, I am well aware as to the power of your weapon and the strength of the learned Dr. Kang’s force shield. However, the weapons mounted on our craft are not the destructive type averted by electrical barriers.Our guns are ultrawave cannon.”
“Ultrawave!” repeated Dr. Kang, and stayed Lark O’Day’s hand swiftly. “Stop, Lark! If he’s telling the truth, our shield is useless.”
“What? But I thought it would stop anything.”
“Anything of material or radiant nature—exceptcosmic rays. They will penetrateall matter; even our force shield. One blast of their guns can loose upon us the dwindling destruction which they have been using to destroy our universe.”
“Well spoken, Dr. Kang,” came the taunting voice from afar. “You grasp essential truths with admirable swiftness. And now—your surrender, Captain? You will drop your force shield, permitting a boarding party to enter your ship.”
All the while the Magogean had been speaking, Hugh Warren’s fingers had been twisting dials on the control panel. Now, his face aflame with anger, he roared defiantly, “Like hell we will, Borisu. The Space Patrol dies but never surrenders! If you want to board us . . .come find us!”
And his finger pressed suddenly down upon the green key installed by the Jovian engineers. A violent shudder trembled the
But even as lurching passengers tumbled headlong upon the metal deck, as contact broke abruptly between their ship and the Magogean fleet,
Then horror loomed upon horror. For in the, vision plate which foreshadowed the
“Hugh!” screamed Nora Powell. “What have you done?”
But
And the young engineer’s voice came back shakily, “Aye, sir! Search beams it is, sir!”
The darkness before them was rent with silver radiance. And what had seemed a black, impenetrable nothingness was now revealed as a black landscape over which the
Dr. Bryant cried, “A planet! But which,
“And now for our landing—” His fingers flickered over the studs. The
No lights gleamed there; no glare of hostile cities. There was only Stygian darkness and the interminable greenery of jungle. The
Hugh Warren cut controls. He turned to his friends, panting, his forehead damp with perspiration. But he forced a shaky laugh, and . . .
“All right, folks. Turn in your tickets. This is the place we started for.”
“so,” said Flick Muldoon. “we’re here. Actually here on Magog! We’ve been working and plotting and contriving it seems like forever. And all of a sudden when it seems like we’re licked—bingo!—here we are! Flick’s face had a curiously woebegone expression. “I’m confused.” No kidding, I’m up a tree. All this time, even though I knew where we were heading, I kept thinking subconsciously that we’d never make it. And now we’re here, and I’m puzzled even worse. What are we going to do here?”
Dr. Bryant said, “Well, I should say thefirst thing we must do is test the gravity and atmosphere of Magog to make sure it’s safe for us to venture outside.”
“We won’t have to worry about that,” said
“Then,” said O’Day, “the first thing we must do is find a good hiding place for the
Dr. Kang interrupted quietly, “I think that isanother point on which you need have no apprehension. By the time morning comes we shall have either accomplished or failed in our mission.”
“What?” Gary Lane whistled.
“Aren’t you a little optimistic, Doctor? We’re going to work as swiftly as possible, yes. But getting our job done in a couple of hours is a bit too much to expect.”
Kang’s ivory features framed a wisp of a smile. “Have you forgotten Borisu’s remarks concerning the time differential between our planets?”
Gary said testily, “Not by a long sight. And it’s been worrying me plenty. Borisu said Magog had been playing the cosmic ray cannon on our universe for only twenty years. Yet it is a scientifically recognized fact that the planet which existed between Mars and Jupiter in our system was destroyed no less than 40,000 Earth years ago. Isn’t that so, Dr. Bryant?”
“Quite true, Gary,” agreed the older scientist worriedly.
“Therefore,” pointed out Lane, “every Magogean year is the equivalent of two thousand Earth years; every day on this planet the equivalent of three Earth years. And—” His breath caught in his throat— “since our calculations prove that the critical dwindling point of Sol can be at most no more than two months away, we must fulfill our task here in a matter of Magogeanhours —or our universe will die!”
At his words, the younger men in the turret sprang to their feet as one. Flick spoke for all when he cried, “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get going! My God, we’ve got to move and move fast—”
“Gently, gently,” chided Dr. Kang. Again one of his rare smiles touched his lips. “Youth is impetuous. It is written, ‘The young man tests the balance of the sword; the elder sage admires its chaste engraving.’ Dr. Lane’s discovery would be frightening . . . if it were based on fact. But there is another way of viewing the matter. One you have not pondered. Have you failed to take into consideration thelength of the Magogean year?”
Dr. Bryant stopped him in mid-sentence, his eyes, lighting with swift admiration. “But, of course! That is extremely important. If the orbital revolution of Magog takes longer than that of Earth—”
“I believe,” said Dr. Kang placidly, “you will find it does. Approximately 2000 times longer! We have not, just now, the time to study the truth of my conjecture. But from certain factors I have noticed, I believe we shall find this to be true. The size of Magog argues a slow orbital movement.
“In brief, my friends, I conclude that Magog revolves about its primary but a single time while Earth is whirling around the suntwo thousand times. There is, therefore, a one-toone correspondence between the time units of our systems. We may completely disregard their relative size. A ‘day’ on Magog may equal 2000 Earth days-but twenty-four Earthly hours spent on Magog are of no longer duration than the same period spent on Earth. We may govern our actions accordingly.”
Gary said soberly, “I certainly hope you are right, Doctor. Otherwise, howsover short a time we spend in this system may be too long to save our universe. But—but you realize what thismeans , don’t you? I am thinking now of the life span of the Magogeans.”
Dr. Kang nodded. “I realize very well. It means that if they live an average of sixty to a hundred Magogean years, each of them exists for a period of manythousands of Earth years. But,” and he shrugged, “is it too unreasonable to concede this? Has not our Earthly science already suggested that the shortness of our life span may be due to the bombardment of cosmic rays? Here on Magog where they do not live beneath this lethal radiation—”
Dr. Bryant’s fine features cleared, his eyes lighted raptly. He said, “Then it is not only theimmediate existence of our universe for which we are fighting, but another and greater goal. One of which mankind has dreamed for centuries. If we succeed in putting to an end this cosmic radiation, we may win for our people not only life, but—”
“Yes,” nodded Dr. Kang. “Almost . . . eternal life!”
“CRIPES!” said Flick Muldoon, awed. “Eternal life! Golly, that’s almost enough time for a guy to catch up on his back sleep.”
“Or,” chuckled O’Day, “really learn how to play a good game of tri-chess.9But this is no time to be talking about things like that. The first problem is: how are we going to contact the Magogeans again?”
“I think—” Hugh Warren had risen abruptly to his feet as a light flashed on the signal panel before them— “I think we won’t Have to worry about that problem. The Magogeans seem to have already contactedus! See that warning? It means there is someone at the airlocks.”
“Then quickly,” snapped
Dr. Kang shook his head. “It is too late, now. If invaders have lighted the warning signal they are already inside the protective envelope.” He turned worried eyes to the space patrolman. “What shall we do, Captain?”
“There’s only one thing to do,” grunted
“Comin’ hup, Captain. You called me?”
“Yes. Break open the ordnance lockers. Supply every man aboard with arms. I’m afraid we have visitors.”
Hawkins grinned impishly. He didn’t scare easily. “Right, Cap’n. Side arms all around it is, sir.” And he scampered away as
“All right. Let’s go have a little look-see at our unexpected guests.”
Moments later they were standing in the companionway beside the fore sta’b’rd lock. As the turret’s warning system had advised, someone was outside the ship. A duplicate signal, activated by electric eye, was flashing on the airlock’s inner port. Not only that, but through the aerated protection chamber could be heard faint noises of someone rapping or fumbling with the exterior controls.
O’Day nodded at Lane significantly. “Magogeans, all right. But our pal Borisu’s not with them. He’d know how to operate the lock from outside. They don’t.”
And his hand reached for the second control lever, that which would open the passageway between the
“Phaedu m’akki; toratu’sl! . . . Amiji sumo; ammité . . .We are friends; let us in!”
“A trick!” Lark warned. “Don’t take any chances!”
But then the great door swung open. And evenhe allowed his ready weapon to fall to his side as there stood outlined in the bright; oblong of the portal a group of azure-tinted tinted similar in trappings and appearance to their Jovian benefactors.
Dr. Bryant choked, “Men of Jupiter! But how comeyou here?” The leader of the newcomers, both arms widely outstretched in token of pacific intent, smiled with happiness at learning which tongue he should employ.
In precise and only faintly accented English he said hesitantly, “No, not uff Jupiter, Misser. We are chilttren of the planet Gog.”
“Gog!” exclaimed
A cloud darkened the stranger’s eyes. He nodded sorrowful agreement. “For many centuries your time . . . for long years, ours. Nor did any uff us here ever see our parent planet. We are the children and the children’s children uff our forefathers who once ruled Magog.”
The Gogean leader turned to the doorway, raised his voice to an assemblage of attendants. Muttered replies and the stirring of many bodies in the darkness betold acceptance of his command. Then, designating one or two to be his companions, he followed
And there in an ultramodern Earthly space-cruiser was held the strangest conference ever attended by humans. A conference between adventurers of two solar worlds and representatives of an alien galaxy whose ancient culture had long since vanished from mankind’s ken.
It was a give-and-take exchange exciting to both sides.
“We haff been looking for you,” said the Gogean leader, Tsalnor, “and hoping against hope we might somehow get in touch with you. When we saw your ship and recognized it to be no space vessel of the Magogean fleet, our hearts leaped with joy. Joy which increased when you landed scarce fourtalus from our encampment.”
“Saw our ship?” exclaimed Nora. “In this impenetrable darkness?”
The Gogean shrugged. “Darkness . . . light . . . what difference do these things make? We whose lives are spent in everlasting night make no distinction. Long years ago we were forced to either lose the power uff vision entirely or adapt our eyesight to seeing in the dark. Our people haff done the latter.
“When, years ago, the Magogeans with the help of their diabolic ultrawave cannon succeeded in overthrowing our empire, those uff us who were not slain sought refuge here on the eternally dark side of Magog.”
“Eternally dark side!” broke in Dr. Kang. “But of course! I had guessed the period of axial revolution might be slow, but did not realize it coincidedexactly with that of your planet’s orbital revolution about its primary. Like our solar planet Mercury, Magog presents always the same face to its sun!”
“True,” said Tsalnor bitterly. “And for two decades haff our people languished here, never seeing the glorious light uff day, save when a few members uff daring expeditions venture into the Twilight Zone for essential supplies we cannot here obtain.”
“But—but don’t the Magogeans know you are here? There must be many of you.”
Tsalnor said bitterly, “We number in the hundreds uff thousands. And they know we are here, yes. But they dare attack us no more than we have dared attack their fortified cities. There exists between us an implacable hatred, but an armed truce. For neither force dares meet its enemy on that enemy’s home terrain.
“Yes,” he continued, “we who were millions now number in the hundreds uff thousands. But those who claim Gog is dead would eat their words to see the cities we haff hewn from these harsh rocks. We haff culture here, libraries and science.
“And—” he gritted— “an ever watchful army uff men who will someday arise to reclaim that which is rightfully theirs!”
Dr. Kang roused suddenly from an attitude of thought. “There is one thing which puzzles me, Tsalnor. Your knowledge of the language of our universe. You addressed us not only inmodern Jovian tongue but in Universal and English as well. How knew you these languages?”
Tsalnor answered proudly, “By long study and careful translation, uff course. For many of your centuries we haff been listening to the speech transmitted via etherwaves by what youcall your radio. Our people have long studied your three most-used languages against the every-hoped-for day when our empire should be resurrected.”
“But,” demanded
“Certainly, wecould do so, Earthman. But we would not dare. We are not fools, but neither are our adversaries. Were we to build transmitting units here on Magog’s dark side, by directional finders they could locate our cities and send a space armada to wipe us out uff existence. No, we haff had to wait and build and hope and plan for just such a day as this. But now—”And his eyes lighted raptly. “Now at last you haff come! Working together, we shall overthrow the Magogeans, stay the disaster you haff told me threatens our ancient universe, and again be free to look upon the sun.”
Captain Hugh Warren spread his hands in a gesture of despair. “You know you have our friendship. We would do anything within our power to help you, but—what can we do? If you, with a great army, have never been able to breach the Magogean defenses, what can our pitiful group do—?”
“You,” said Tsalnor promptly, “can do what no Gogean can do . . . effect entry to Magog’s capital, and there work from within to destroy the barrier wall which protects it. When that wall falls our warriors will flood into the city of
“We? But whywe —?”
Tsalnor smiled mirthlessly. “It is a matter uff hue.”
“No,” said Dr. Bryant. “Not you, Hugh—hue! I see what he means. It is a matter of fleshly color. The Magogeans are our color, or nearly so. Dr. ‘Boris Anjers’ was of a complexion sufficiently similar to that of an Earthman to pass himself off for many years as a Eurasian. Similarlywe might, I suppose, masquerade as Magogeans—”
He turned a questioning gaze to Tsalnor. The Goean nodded. “Exactly. Let one uff our blue-fleshed brethren but present an appearance before any Magogean and he would be rayed down mercilessly without ever being granted an opportunity to speak.
“You alone haff the coloration which would permit entry into the city uff Khundru—”
“Whereis this city?”
“A very short distance from here. Scarce more than a hundredtalus , on the edge of the Twilight Zone.”
“And you say it’s the Magogeancapital? Isn’t that location a rather dangerous one for their most important city?”
“On the contrary, Khundru is located at an axis uff vital strategic importance. It spans the estuary uff the river Driya where it meets the
“But you spoke of a barrier shield.”
“Yes. It is that which prevents our armed forces from storming Khundru. About and around their capital the Magogeans have forged some sort uff an invisible barrier impenetrable by any material substance. What this is, we do not know. Unable to study it at first hand, our scientists haff never been able to study its secret.”
“Invisible barrier! A gorce shield!”
Kang nodded slowly. “Very likely. I know now why Borisu never questionedme so eagerly about the activation ofmy device as he did the Jovian engineers about their quad warp. It was because he already understood it.”
“You mean,” demanded the Gogean, “youcomprehend this mechanism?”
Kang nodded.
“But then no one need enter Khundru!”
“Unfortunately, someone must. There is no way to rupture an entropic force barrier from without. If your divisions are to storm Khundru, the wall must be broken from the control room inside that city.”
“A moment,
Tsalnor puzzled briefly. “It would be best,” he decided, “to pass yourselves off as common serfs. We shall teach you the Magogean language and acquaint you with its customs. But it would take too long a training to enable you to pass yourselves as members uff the ruling class. there are but two divisions uff Magogeans. The common people, serfs who are little more than feudal slaves; and the kraedars, or overlords—”
“That’s what Borisu called himself,” remembered
“The kraedars are the military and ruling class. You would never be able to pass yourself off successfully as one uff these. Therefore it were wiser to allow yourselves to be taken into the city as workers. This may entail some hardships, but you will be inside where you want to be. And once there, your own ingenuity can devise ways and means uff doing that which is needful.”
“I thought,” nodded Kang, “the situation would be something like that. In that case,
“But who then—?” questioned
“Why not,” suggested Kang quietly, “just my daughter and myself? We understand the operation of the force shield. Of the two of us, surelyone can find some way to break the Magogean barrier for a short time.”
“Thefour of us,” broke in Lark O’Day. “If Penny’s going, I want to be in on this shindig, too.”
“Why not,” suggested Nara Powell, “count me in? With two women out of five certainly we would seem an innocuous little band. A family circle, so speak, with Dr. Kang as the parent, Penny and I his married daughters—”
Kang said dubiously, “I don’t know. There is too much difference in the pigmentation of our skins for us to be taken as a family unit. True, my daughter’s flesh is little more golden than yours, Miss Powell—”
Tsalnor dismissed the objection with a short laugh.
“You do not know Magog, Dr. Kang. Such dissimilarities in coloration are not the exception but the rule amongst their people. The Magogean hordes haff interbred to such an extent that the closet blood brothers oft look like men of different races. Miss Powell’s plan is quite feasible.”
“Okay,” said
“Not long. Those things will be done during studying periods and even while you sleep . . . electrically.”
“Then,” said
“
“Hush, my dear,” warned Dr. Kang swiftly. “From now on speak only in the Magogean tongue. Suspicious ears may lurk at any crossroads.”
A full week’s time, as measured by earthly watches, had passed since the
“I’m sorry,” whispered Nora, shifting to the Magogean tongue, “but—but I’m frightened,
Lark O’Day grunted. “He’d have one hell of a time recognizing us dressed—orundressed —like this.”
He scowled disdainfully at the crudepeon garb with which his sturdy frame was draped; clothing which consisted of little more than worn sandals, a twisted, filthy rag about his loins, and a loose, sacklike halter draped from his shoulders.
“It’s damn hard on the women, though,” grunted O’Day. “The least the blue boys could have done was given us a lighter cart. One we three could handle by ourselves, withoutthem having to act as dray horses, too. Ease up there, Penny. Don’t ruin those pretty hands.”
Kang’s daughter glanced at him sidewise and smiled. She said in a soft, liquid voice, “Do not worry about us, Lark. It were better Nora and I ruined our soft hands on this cart than that your fighting hands should not be ready when the moment comes. Is it not so, Nora?”
Nora, tugging beside her at the draw-tongue of the cumbersome vehicle which comprised part of the typicalimpedimenta of lower class Magogean nomads, smiléd agreement.
“Much better. Though I confess I don’t envy those whose rôles we are playing. I wouldn’t like to do thisall the time.”
“I don’t believe,” said Kang in a low voice, “you are going to have to do it much longer. For see? Before us? A city on the river’s edge, and armed soldiers watching our approach. You know our story?”
“Yes.”
“Good! Remember it well. We must make no mistake,”
This was their last exchange of free, unguarded speech. For as he had said, the soldiers had spotted them, and a company was moving forward to challenge their approach
“They did so,
Hold, there, slaves! Who are you? Whence came you? Whither are you going?”
The elderly Kang spoke, as had been agreed, for their group.
“Greetings, O warriors of strength and valor, I am the freedman, Kengu. These are my daughters and their mates. We come from the Twilight Zone to seek employment in the city of
“Twilight Zone?” demanded the warrior captain suspiciously. “What wereyou doing there?”
“For three years,” answered Kang, “we labored there in the service of thekraedar Alisur. Now the noblekraedar is dead. We have no master.”
He could say this confidently. From a Magogean newscast had been learned of Alisur’s recent and opportune demise. That Alisur had been an explorer operating in the Twilight Zone was a feature upon which they had been swift to capitalize.
The warrior captain nodded and strode to the cart, pulled back the sacking with which it was covered.
“And what have you here? Valuable goods, no doubt, you stole from your dead master?”
“Nay, Noble One. Naught but our common household belongings. Bedding and articles of furniture. Clothing . . . utensils for cooking.”
The captain, peering into the laden cart, grunted disdainfully find threw back its cover. “The old man speaks truth. The foul cart reeks of rubbish. Very well, old fool, on your way. Report yourself to the guardsman at the Twilight Gate, and, show him this pass.” He scribbled briefly on something resembling paper, tossed it at Kang. “This will permit you to enter the, city. Wait!” A look of cunning stole into the chieftain’s eyes. “Of course there is the matter of an entry fee. You have some money?”
Kang answered humbly, “Very little, my lord. Scarceenough to sustain us until we have succeeded in finding employment. Barely five units—”
“Hand it over!” demanded the other harshly. “There are five of you. The entry fee is a unit each. Well, swiftly, slave! Or must I use the lash?”
He fingered almost hopefully the braided whip which dangled at his belt. But docilely Kang withdrew a sweat-stained leather pouch from his garments and handed it to the captain. And without further challenge they stumbled down the road to the entry gate.
Here they were stopped by a sentry, and Kang proffered the captain’s note. The sentry read it,
Kang answered meekly, “We had but five units, sir. And that was the entry fee,” the captain told us.”
“Curse him,” repeated the sentry. “He bleeds themall white before they get this far! Very well, in with you. But look sharp you move (in a hurry when this light turns white. If you’re only half way over the line when the shield closes again, God help you!”
He laughed unpleasantly, pressed a button, and spoke into a intercom beside him. An instant later a light at the sentry box glowed white, and hurriedly the five slaves, straining, tugged their heavy cart into motion, they had barely succeeded in crossing the designated line when, with a sudden, crackling sound, a dust film rose from the ground behind them and the white light went out.
“What?” asked Nora Powell.
“The closing barrier would have smashed us into atoms. But we have learned one important thing, at any rate.”
“Yes?” asked
“Again,” said Dr. Kang, “as several times before, we have tangible evidence that the Magogean culture is not so high as they would believe. Mypeople—” he said almost proudly— ”have ways to open one portion of the force shield at a time, admitting friends to its protection, through a small opening. Theirs is a more elementary form. To open it in any spot is to open it everywhere. That may be a handy thing to know.”
Thus entered
“I’ve seen Greater New York,” he said, “and Imperial Ceres. They’re about tops in ultramodern culture. I’ve seen the barbaric splendors of the Venusian capital, and the filthy mud hovels the Mercurians call—or used to call—their temples. But never anywhere have I seen anything which looked like this.”
And he shook his head bewilderedly at the heterogeneous architectural display sprawling about them. Khundru was a city of contradictions: the dwelling place of a people who believed themselves capable of attainments greater than they possessed.
Here both sides of a thoroughfare so exquisitely inlaid and tessellated that it might have graced the entrance to a potentate’sseraglio, would be lined with dingy, malodorous dwellings earthborn dogs might have scorned to sleep in. Turn a corner and the eyes widened to behold great gilded temples towering skyward in a setback architecture dwarfing the most hopeful achievements of any solar race. The sky above the city was athrong with space and air vessels . . . huge, thundering rockets and gossamer-winged glidercraft of scintillant beauty . . . but the streets below rumbled with the wooden wheels ofsuch cumbersome vehicles as that which they themselves hauled painfully along.
The sights, the smells, the street sounds of the city were comparable to those of an oriental bazaar in, thought Lane; Earth’s woefully anachronistic Twentieth Century; that period when only a portion of humanity’s masses had known the delights of civilized existence.
Even without the benefit of the training to which they had been exposed they could have picked their way almost unerringly to the city’s center. Khundru was built like a huge wheel about the central hub which was its Palace Royal. The streets through which they threaded their way was a spoke of this wheel.
In the Palace Royal, they knew, could be found not only the governing but also the dwelling chambers of the highly electKraedaru, the ruling gentry of Magog. There also was to be found the vital control center of this sprawling octopus whose tentacles they must paralyze so the Gogean army could burst into the city.
But if they had hoped to attain so far without challenge,they were bitterly disappointed. For they had penetrated scarcely a third of the way when a sudden clamor aroused them from their furtive study of the city. Voices cried out, whether in surprise, alarm or joy was hard to tell, and the milling throng which but a moment ago had rubbed shoulders with them too closely for comfort began to clear from the thoroughfare and huddle fearfully against the walls of the street.
“What now?”
Kang answered softly, “I do not know. But there is a saying of your people, ‘When in
But, before the awkward tumbrel could be dragged from the right of way, with a flurry of brazen hoofs and a raucousclamor of trumpets there galloped around the corner and squarely down upon them a small troop of mounted lancers.
There was room and to spare for these haughty warriors to pass them by . . . but such was not the way of the Magogeankraedaru . As the cavalry captain, drawing near, saw upon the street one cart which had not yet moved completely to the curb, one tiny knot of struggling serfs who had not as yet taken abject posts against the wall, a flush darkened his cheeks and his eyesdarted anger. With a guttural cry he changed his troop’s straightforward charge, bore directly down upon Dr. Kang and his “family.” Then, at the last possible moment, when it seemed certain his armed warriors and their mounts must trample ruthlessly over the bodies of the trapped quintet, shattering their cart to splinters, he drew up his men, and, his voice heavy with rage, leaned from his saddle and cried to Dr. Kang:
“You there, slave—what means this? How dare you deliberately block our passage?”
“Why, you—” began Lark O’Day.
But Lane, standing with his head abjectly bowed beside his friend, gripped the other man’s wrist to silence him. And from the cart, Dr. Kang answered in a thin, meek voice;
“Forgiveness, Excellence. Your servants did not know—”
“The lash!” cried the warrior captain. “Twenty to each of them, then let us be gone. Or—Wait!”His eyes narrowed as the implication of Kang’s words struck him. “Did not know? You did not recognize our signal as we approached? Where are you from? You are not of Khundru.”
“Nay, master,” whined Kang. “We are poor exiles of a far northern city, Tabori by name, but recently come out of the Twilight Zone to seek service in the noble capital of our racer—”
“Recently come??’ The chieftain’s eyes narrowed still farther. Then: “Where is your master, serf?”
“Our master is dead, sire.” Kang explained as he had explained to the Captain of the barrier guard. But it was evident that in Khundru the higher a man’s post the greater became his authority and greed. For scarce had he revealed that their erstwhile master was no more than the cavalry leader interrupted him.
“No master, eh? That situation shall soon be remedied. By the rank and authority which is mine as akraedar of Khundru I hereby claim you as mine own.” He laughed. “Not that I shall put you to use. A Captain of the Royal Guard has no need of house servants. But your two sons should make sturdy slaves for the tilling of someone’s land. And your two daughters—”
He paused and stroked his jaw reflectively. It was clear that the Captain of the Royal Guards was reconsidering his need of servants. To forestall his thinking, Kang spoke hurriedly, invoking a law which he had learned existed amongst the Magogeans.
“A thousand pardons, sire—but we are not slaves. We are freedmen. When our master died he gave us household goods and chattels where-with to establish our own little home—”
“So?” Thekraedar laughed mockingly. “Yet if you had not these things, old man, you would be slaves again, is it not so? Well, then—”
He turned and barked a command to his soldiers. Instantly bright weapons leaped from their belts to their hands. And it was with the barest warning the quintet of Solarites managed to scramble from the proximity of the cart as the blazing rays of a dozen ultrawave handguns spat flame upon the cart. In a moment of searing fire the vehicle was gone, blasted to oblivion by those frightful rays.
“So,” continued the captain, “having no chattels of your own, you are again slaves.Tramir Chingru—herd me these cattle to the mart, and there get for me the best price you can. And mind,” he added dangerously, “you bring me backall the profits. Make no mistake as to the amount.”
A single warrior fell out of formation, gestured the quintet into a little knot before him, and pointed the way down a sideavenue. The warrior captain, smirking with satisfaction, spurred his company on its journey.
An hour later all five were parcels of merchandise in the slave mart of Imperial Khundru.
STANDING there in the slave mart of Imperial Khundru, Gary Lane realized—as millions of his human brethren had discovered in past ages—that it is one thing to experience an emotional uprising whenreading about a situation, but quiteanother to be involved in that situation yourself.
In his university history classes Gary had read of the day when unenlightened Earthmen enslaved their human brothers, offering their flesh and services to hire on the auction block. From a purely rational standpoint he had disapproved of this barbaric custom, in this age happily abandoned. But now, here on a planet inconceivably far from the little world called Earth, he himself was not onlywitnessing such a deal in human wares but was, indeed, one of the chattels to be auctioned!
As his mind busied himself with abortive plot and speculation, his eyes roved covertly about his surroundings. He saw the raised central dais upon which a lean and hawknosed auctioneer singsonged the merit of a thickthewed and filthy serf. Hesaw the encircling throng of bidders, Magogeans rangingthrough all walks of life from the lowest freedmen land-owners, through the merchantmen exporters, to the elaborately caparisoned lords and nobles who lolled in their scented boxes, raising listless fingers in token of bid when an offering took their fancy.
What turn thiscontretemps would take he could not guess. But he was not left long in wonderment. For the warrior into whose hands they had been placed was impatient to rejoin his troop; with a stern command that his charges await his return, he shouldered his way through the mob to the auction block.
As soon as he had gone, Lark turned to
“Make a break for it?”
Dr. Kang spoke before
“Hush!” warned Nora. “Here comes our guard again, with the auctioneer.”
It was so. Apparently the soldier had argued to the tradesman the necessity of selling this quintet immediately. For though the auctioneer grumbled and complained, he led the five to the dais. His shrill singsong resumed its wheedling chant.
“And now, O nobles and freedmen,” he whined, “a special consignment’ from the chattels of thekraedar Pridu, Captain of the Royal Guards. A family of Taborians, newly come to our city from years of talented service in the Twilight Zone under the deceasedkraedar Alisur. Said family consisting of one elderly male in good physical condition, two young and sturdy males, and their mates, two fine, fertile females. How is your wish? Have I a bid on this family as a lot?”
“Fine and fert—” began Lark, O’Day, outraged.
Kang silenced him with a gesture.
There came no bid from the as semblage, but a voice cried, “We want no job lot goods in muffled packages. Bring them out one at a time, and let us see them. The females first.”
“As you wish, my lord,” agreed the auctioneer. “So be it.” And he reached down from his dais, seized the wrist of the lovely Martian, Pen-N’hi, and hauled her to his side. “Behold, O wise purchasers,” he cried. “Here is one of the females. A fine, staunch creature in the bloom of her young womanhood. Lovely and graceful as the fleetingcatooni10 , but yet—” And he winked lecherously at the mob—“nottoo young to be acquainted with the Lore of a Thousand Delights, in which she was well trained by her late master.”
“Rat!” grated Lark between his teeth. “Another crack like that—”
“Silence!” whispered Kang. “His words mean nothing. It is written, ‘Speech will neither spot the lily’s face, nor hide the leper’s sores.’ ”
A voice raised from the audience. “Two hundreddwari , Tisru!”
Tisru’s sharp face looked grieved. “Twohundred , sire? For a beautiful mistress such as this? Twothousand, you mean. Behold this graceful throat, this slender waist . . . these tiny hands which can thrill with a thousand caresses—”
“Three hundred,” cried another voice.
“Four hundred.”
“Five hundred.”
“Six.”
The auctioneer’s oily insinuations did not lack the power to titillate his listeners. A flurry of interest sharpened the bidding.
“Eight hundred”
“Nine!”
“One thousanddwari!”
“Behold those eyes, those feet, those golden arms . . .”
“Twelve hundred, Tisru!”
“She can sing and dance and play sweet music . . .”
“Fourteen hundred!”
“Behold those lips, gentlemen . . . those dainty, shell-like ears—”
A coarse laugh broke from one of his listeners.
“Stop pointing out things we all can see, Tisru. I told you before, we want no packaged goods. Off with the woman’s rags that we may know on what we bid.”
It was evident that Tisru had been cleverly biding his time for some such request. Now, with the air of a sculptor preparing to unveil a masterpiece, he pretended humble acquiescence to the demand.
“Very well, my lords and masters,” he whined. “Then prepare yourselves for a vision of blinding radiance—”
His greasy talons reached out to clutch the single supporting halter of Penny’s crude garment. The young woman froze at his touch, and a color suffused her clear, golden skin, but true to the teachings of her race she said no word, but stood stock-still with lowered head.
But if Penny could endure personal degradation for the good of their cause, and if Kang could philosophically accept this as a necessary evil, not so the two young Earthmen. As if both stanchions of a bridge had broken simultaneously, Lark O’Day and
O’Day’s voice was a blaze of fury. “Take your hands off her, you slimy weasel!”
With a slashing blow he loosened the man’s grip, hauled Penny to the shelter of his arm.
Tisru gasped. Fierce anger narrowed his eyes, and with a hiss he groped for a knife sheathed in his belt. But he never touched it. For at that moment
Then everything was bedlam. The crowd came to its feet, roaring in outrage at the sight of serfs who dared rebel. Knives whipped from belts as figures surged forward. Not only knives but deadly ray guns, too. And
But there came an interruption. A sharp incisive voice rose from somewhere at the back of the throng.
“No! Touch not the slaves! Let none move another step!”
All heads turned as one. A current of astonishment coursed through the throng, swelling to a murmur as the speaker was recognized. “Moranu, Seneschal of the Inner Council!” And there pressed through yielding ranks a Magogean clad even more grandiloquently than any the Solarites had yet seen. A tall, impressive figure who carried himself with an air of supreme and confident authority.
Haughtily he strode to the steps of the dais, there confronted the rebels.
“Now, by the gods,” he marveled, “you two must be madmen. Had I not been passing by, for your rebellion at this moment your bones would be pickings for the curs of the streets.”
“The curs of this city,” ground O’Day savagely, “are not all four-legged—”
“But in me,” continued the newcomer, “you find one who admires a fighting spirit in howsoever an unsuspected source it may be found. Aye, and an eye which Heeds no stark unveiling to detect beauty. Tisru!” He turned to the auctioneer who, glaring malevolently at his attackers, had cringed back onto the dais. “I will bid me this family of rebel serfs. What is your price?”
The auctioneer pleaded greasily, “I can set no price, my lord. This is an open auction with chattels sold to the highest bidder.”
“So?” The Seneschal eyed each of the quintet in turn, appreciatively appraising the two girls, nodding his head slowly at the frames of the two young men. Dr. Kang he dismissed with a glance, then turned to Tisru.
“The old one I do not want. For the young ones, as a lot, ten thousanddwari. Is there a higher bid?”
Trisru knew there would not be. Not only was the price staggeringly high, but none in this audience dared bid against the Seneschal of the Inner Council.
He shook his head, gasping, “Nay, sire, there is no other bid. For that price take also the old one, with the compliments of Tisru’s Mart.”
The Moranu nodded to a servant, who negligently tossed a bag to the auctioneer. The lord nodded to his new purchases. “Follow me,” he commanded, and led the way from the market place.
An excited hum rose from the crowd to follow their exit.
As they followed their new “owner” it was all the members of the Solarite quintet could do to, mask the triumph which threatened to reveal itself on their features. For almost instantly it became clear that they were being led to that very spot they had hoped, but had not known how to plan, to attain. The hub of Khundru circle which was the Palace Royal.
As they journeyed along, their superiors mounted on thecuriously horselike creatures which the Magogeans calledbatanidi, themselves, of course, humbly afoot, they could not help but overhear the conversation between Moranu and his companions.
“Ten thousanddwari! That was a lot to pay, my Lord Seneschal, for five carcasses,” said one.
Moranu chuckled. “It was worth it to see the spittle of greed drool from that hawknosed old scoundrel’s lips. Nor is it a bad buy. Of course, the old one . . . I do not know where we can use him—You, aged serf!” he cried to Dr. Kang. “What talents have you, if any?”
Kang scraped servilely and said, “I have a smattering of mechanical lore, O master. Much my former owner taught me about the operation of instruments and machines.”
“So? And much you have forgotten by this time, no doubt,” grunted Moranu. “Still, I think I know a place where you can be of use. The control tower. You will need no Strength there but that sufficient to push buttons.”
The control tower! It was with an effort that
“And the young men?” asked another of the riders.
“For the Games, of course,” laughed Moranu. “Where else? Tell me, when have you seen before two slaves with such spirit and courage as these showed? It will be worth many an afternoon of boredom to watch these pit themselves against the fangedgoraruor the two-hornedsneri11 in the arena.”
“Perhaps,” gibed one of the young nobles slyly, “we might even match them against one of the—what were they called?—‘Earthmen’, when we capture the creatures.”
And all laughed.
“And the women, I suppose, go to—” began still another speaker.
Moranu nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“Too bad,” murmured one of the younger noblemen regretfully. “The pale one I could use myself.”
“The gold fleshed one for me,” chuckled another.
“That’s right,” growled Lark between clenched teeth. “Talk it over. One day I’ll make you eat each other’s tongues.”
“Who could not?” asked Moranu. “But we can afford to be magnanimous this once, and surrender them to our brother. After his long privations he deserves a little relaxation.”
Thus they came to the gates of the Palace Royal, a city within a city, a citadel within an armed camp, the innermost fortress of fortified Khundru. And it was here their little group was broken up.
As they passed within the gates the nobles dismounted, surrendering their beasts to grooms, and Moranu designated the direction to which each slave should be taken.
“The old man to the control tower. Tell Vesalu to set him to work. The women to the baths, Then to the seraglio of adornment, then to await our brother’s pleasure. The men—Well, for the present quarter them with the palace help. Away with you now.”
Thus callously were the five members of a family separated.
The subaltern chuckled. “Earthmen . . . fierce beasts! That’s good! No, slave. They are puny creatures from afar who recently dared attempt to storm our planet. They were driven off by our cruisers and crashed, we believe, on Darkside. But a search is being made for them. If they are found, I promise you rare enjoyment at the Games. For they are stupid, weakling creatures. It should be amusing to watch you carve them to bits during the Games.”
“And,” asked
The garrulous young lieutenant grinned. “Oh, by and by, I suppose. When our brother to whom they are being loaned for a little while wearies of them. You see, he has been journeying afar quite a while, and is in need of relaxation. It was he who returned but a day ago to warn us of the invasion of these Earthmen—”
It was fortunate that as he spoke the young subaltern did not happen to look at the faces of his two charges. For at his words, both Lark and
“And—and the name of this noblekraedar? ” he asked.
The nobleman laughed curtly. “I do not see that is concerns you, serf. But there is no harm in telling you whose august presence your mate will be permitted to attend. It is our brother, lately returned from tiny Gog, The great and noblekraeder Borisu.”
“BORISU!”
There is a limit to which human impassivity can be constrained.
O’Day echoed the cry. “Borisu! But my God,
In his dismay Lark spoke in English, Their captor had been startled enough at Gary’s cry, but upon hearing speech in a foreign tongue from the lips of a supposedly uncultured slave, his eyes opened wide in astonishment. He demanded, “Whatis this? Whence came you twain that you speak a language I do not know?”
And his hand reached for the ray gun at his belt. But it never got there. For Lark O’Day called signals in a language the Magogean could never possibly understand. He cried sharply:
“All right, Gary, punt formation . . . One, two . . .Hep!”
And simultaneously the two Earthmen converged on their guard, one high, one low.
“Not hamburger,” rasped O’Day, withdrawing reluctantly, “just a reasonable facsimile thereof. He’s the louse who said he wouldn’t mind making a play for Penny himself!”
Lark nodded grimly. “Taps for the bunch of us. He’s the one person in Khundru who could recognize any of us beneath our disguises. And by the time the gals get tidied up—Well, what’ll we do?”
“Okay.”
The shift was made. Finally a “slave” lay prone in the middle of the corridor floor, and a handsome youngkraedar of the Magogean guard towered above him.
“Okay,” repeated Lark then. “What next, director?”
“You must have something on you,” figured
Lark pawed the unfamiliar paraphernalia with which his uniform was draped, finally discovered a small whistle. He looked at it distastefully. “You mean I have to put this in my mouth and blow it?”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“I’ll probably get hydrophobia,” grunted Lark . . . but obeyed.
The whistle brought immediate results. Footsteps clattered through the tunneled corridor, and shortly questions were beings hurled at the false guard officer by an excited handful of Magogean soldiery.
“I was taking these two slaves to their quarters,” explained Lark. “That one is a trouble maker. He turned against me. I was forced to strike him down. Cart him away. Throw him in the dungeon. You—” He picked out a likely looking prospect
So, as the band of soldiers lugged their unconsciouskraedarinto durance vile, Lark and a soldier escorted
They had ascended three levels and reached the point in the Palace Royal where the corridors were beginning to look less like passageways of a fortress and more like the aisles and avenues of a residential area when there burst about their ears a cascade of sounds at once bewildering and startling. It was the clamor of a myriad of ringing bells, sharp warning tocsins sounding an alarum of some sort. Whence it came, at first they could not tell. Searching for an explanation, their eyes discovered a series of grilled openings periodically spaced about the wainscoting of the chambers through which they hurried.
“He’s hardly had time,” demurred Lark. “Butsomething’s up—no doubt about that. Ah! Here comes someone. Perhaps now—” He lifted his voice in a shout as a soldier clad like
The Magogean warrior identified the rank of his accoster and halted, saluting. “Yes,kraedar? Foot soldier Norad, preparing to take post, sir, in accordance with emergency alarm instructions.”
“Very good,” approved Lark. “What is the nature of the emergency? Have you any idea?”
The private nodded. “Yes, sir. An official telecast was just issued over the diaphragm. It is a Gogean attack.”
“A Gogean—?”
“Well, not exactly an attack, sir . . . yet. Because the force barrier prevents their entering Khundru. But a mighty army of the cursed Darksiders has been spotted by our observation posts. They number in the tens of thousands. They have been seen at every gate. Apparently their army has completely encircled Khundru.”
“Good! said Lark. “I mean . . . er . . . very good, soldier. Report to your post as ordered. Oh, whatis your post?”
“Main control tower, sir. The ultrawave cannon.”
“Indeed?” Lark’s eyes lighted sharply. “And where lies this tower?”
“Why, at the lowest level, of course, sir—” began thetramir . . . then stopped abruptly, suspicion darkening his gaze. His voice changed tone and one hand crept furtively toward the sidearm bolstered at his side. “But—but how is it thatyou akraedar , do not know—”
“That,” said Lark softly, “is a question you must ask your ancestors,tramir.” And his hand, too, streaked to his belt. Before the startled warrior could draw, a shaft of orange lightning seared the life from his body. It was a charred carcass when it hit the floor.
“War,” reminded Lark, “is war. The only good enemy is adead enemy. We know where we stand now. The Goger ans are on deck as they promised to be, and we know where the control tower is. Now if we can just lift that barrier shield—”
“We must get the women first,” reminded
He was right. They sped through a few more chambers, then emerged into an apartment more elaborately furnished than any seen so far. Into this they shouldered rudely. At sight of them a gross figure, a mountainous mass of jelly parodying Magogean manhood, came mincing up to them on swollen feet emitting shrill little bleats of horror and dismay.
“Kraeder! Tramir!A thousand pardons, but these are thewomen’s quarters. You have no right here.”
“Beat it, capon!” grunted Lark, and with a twist of his foot sent the piping eunuch sprawling. He lifted his voice. “Penny! Nora! Where are you?”
At his cry a flurry sounded from an adjacent chamber as curtains flung apart and Penny and Nora ran to greet them. They still wore the peasant rags in which they had been sold.
Penny cried, “Lark! We knew you’d find us! We knew you would come!”
And Nora echoed, “We were waiting. But
“And every man has gone to his post,” explained
“Yes, but where?”
“To the control tower. It’s the, key to the whole situation.”
This time their flight through the avenues of the Palace Royal was not so unimpeded as before. The entire city had sprung to a state of alert. As they left the residential quarters and moved once more into that portion of the citadel which was its walled fortress, they passed on several occasions small bodies of troops hurrying toward designated battle posts. As they passed gun stations they saw artillery crews huddled behind flame guns and rotors which, through slits in the palace wall, commanded wide areas of the city before and below. Twice their passage was challenged. Once by a patrol sentry whom Lark easily satisfied.
“KraederGorilu and one attendant on special duty. Taking these “two females to the dungeons for safekeeping.”
“Very good, sir,” said the sentry, and permitted them to pass.
But the second challenge was not so easily averted. This came from akraedar of equal rank to him as whom Lark masqueraded. This noble made the fatal error of attempting to question the fugitives without first calling assistance.
“KraedarGorilu?” he repeated. “I know no such lord. And your trappings designate you as one of theinner Palace Guard. Why, then, are you fleeing inthis direction? And why are you drawing that gun,kraedar?”
“Because,” answered Lark simply, “you ask too damn many questions, and we haven’t got time to answer them Sorry, pal!”
And they left the inquisitivekraedar behind, inquisitive and suspicious no longer . . .
But finally they went again to that section of the Palace Royal which they knew to be its nerve center. From the deepening throb of many motors, and by the slowly increasing static crackling of dynamos endlessly turning, they knew when they had reached their objective.
But there was something missing. Something which puzzled and worried
“Wait a minute,” he warned. “Let’s stop and look this situation over. There’s something wrong here.”
“Wrong” repeated Lark. “What’s wrong about it? Everything looks fine to me. We gotthis far without trouble—well, much, that is. And judging by appearances, that doorway—” and he gave a nod, “opens to the control tower proper. So far asI can see there’s not a damn soul around to stop us.”
“That’s just it! This is the nerve center of the entireMagogean defense system. Look . . . look below, there!”
Lark chuckled cheerfully. “Just like the Magogeans. Dr. Kang’s been saying all along they don’t have good sense. So much the better for us. Come on . . . let’s get going. We’ve got to open that barrier.
“Well, all right,” agreed
They crossed the last open space between their present post and the partially isolated control tower, a domed minaret of a building constructed within the palace walls but remote from other portions of the edifice.
Serving to strengthen
Within this dome the thrumming drone of motors sounded more insistent than ever. It throbbed in their ears, their brains, their veins, like the slow and deadly dripping of a creeping poison. It was an audible magnet which drew them to the innermost chamber.
And here again—stunningly!—was the door unlocked! Its latch clicked at
The control panels governing these instruments were set on high walls, but as they entered
At sight of this single lab man, O’Day’s exultation could no longer be restrained. With a gleeful cry he charged into the room, handgun drawn and menacing. His voice cried in swift command. “All right, ‘you at the controls there! Turn around, and put your hands up—Up,I said!”
And then—too many things happened at once! There came a sudden gasp from Penny’s lips.
“Lark! It’s—”
And a frightened scream from Nora Powell. Metal clanged noisily as the great door clanged behind the four invaders. A bolt thick as a man’s arm jarred into place. And even as the four whirled to comprehend this phenomenon, an all too horribly familiar voice repeated O’Day’s order.
“Yes, my foolish friends—hands up and drop your weapons to the floor! What delayed you? I have been waiting for you quite some time.”
And from behind the concealment of the now-closed door, flanked by a detail of Magogean warriors, armed to the teeth and ready for instant action, stepped Borisu!
“A trap!” cried
Borisu smiled easily. “Yes, my dear young doctor. You did not believe that we of Magog were stupid enough to purposely leave unprotected our control tower? Particularly when we knew you had contrived entry to our capital city?”
Nora Powell cried, “Then youknew we were in Khundru?”
“Let me not assume undue credit,” smirked Borisu in mock modesty. “Let us say, rather, Iguessed it was you the moment I learned one of our youngerkraedar had been attacked, and his uniform exchanged for the garment of a serf.
“When upon further investigation it was learned that this self-same ‘serf,’ in company with four of his pretended ‘family,’ had created a scene of violence at the slave market, it was not hard to guess that such impetuous blunderers must be part of the late comradeship of theLiberty.”
His manner changed abruptly, his oily smile disappeared and tiny needles of flame darted from his eyes. “But enough of this,” he rasped. “There are but four of you here. Where is the fifth? Who was he? Muldoon? Or that young traitor patrolman, Captain Warren?”
A sudden thought struck him, one so staggering that it was only with an effort that he kept his eyes from turning in a revelatory direction. He struggled to keep his voice under control. He asked levelly, “And suppose I refuse to tell you, Borisu?”
“It will not greatly matter,” snarled the Magogean. “But I warn you, it will be better if youdo tell. Speak, now! Who was the fifth member of your party?”
“The fifth member,” said
Then came an interruption. The hooded technician at the control board turned suddenly, spluttering swift, fearful words at thekraedar and his guards.
“My lords! Your attention quickly! Something has gone wrong with the force barrier!”
“Wrong?” echoed Borisu, turning swiftly to the man. “But nothingcan go wrong. What do you mean?”
“It’s weakening . . . failing . . . Come, see for yourself.”
The technician pointed with trembling fingers at an alarm signal high upon the control banks; a light now pulsating in fitful ruby flares. Borisu spat a stream of angry curses, turned, and waddled hastily across the amphitheatre to the engineer’s side.
“Where is the fault?” he demanded wildly. “Hurry, man! Bestir yourself! Don’t stand there like a stricken schoolgirl. Do something!”
And:
“Very well, Borisu!” cried the engineer, his voice changing suddenly. “Iwill do something!”
His hand leaped out and tore the pistol from thekraedar’s grasp, in one split second completely changing the situation.
“Down on your face, and keep your arms outstretched above your head! Tell your men to throw their weapons away.”
“KANG!” The name burst from Lark O’Day’s lips.
“Quickly!” crisped the Martian scientist. “Pick up their guns! Daughter—”
As Lark and
“Bind him?” demanded Lark. “Why waste good rags on a scoundrel like that? I know a better way to take care of—”
“No!” commanded Dr. Kang. “We will need him to transmit our peace terms to the Magogeans when our allies have flooded the city.”
“And these others?”
Kang said, “The storage closet over there. Throw them into it and lock the door. There is no reason to occasion useless bloodshed. These soldiers have committed no crime but that of obeying orders.”
“Okay,” said Lark. “You’re running the show.”
He herded together the now helpless and sadly bewildered half dozen Magogean guards, and thrust them into the cubicle pointed out by the scientist. When the door was secured behind them—
“But how did you manage to get control of this chamber?” asked Nora Powell.
Kang shrugged. “It was very simple. There was but one man watching these panels when I was brought here: the technician whose garments I wear. He expected no trouble from an elderly slave. And since we two were alone—well, it seemed an elementary precaution to don his clothes before I began the necessary operations.”
“And the barrier?” inquired
“Not yet. I, had first to make a few alterations in the Magogean machinery. I wanted to make sure a power failure would not cause the barrier to fall before all our allies had entered. My work is now complete. And so—”
Kang, turned to the panels. His hands tugged at a single gigantic switch.
No light glowed. There came no change in the humming sound that permeated the control room. The adventurers looked at Kang and at each other anxiously. Penny spoke for all when she asked, “You are sure, O my father, that the barrier is open?”
Kang said, “See for yourself.” And he pressed a stud which lighted a vision screen before them.
What they saw left little doubt as to the effectiveness of Kang’s accomplishment. For the screen reflected one segment of the imperial city’s surrounding wall, a location which had been a gate in Khundru’s defenses. But now that sentry post existed no more. It was a mass of broken kindling trampled under the rushing feet of hordes of Gogeans who had burst from their place of ambush to storm the city.
“This isone spot, Kang,” cried
“Elsewhere,” repeated Kang, “it is the same.”
He spun the dial which moved the telelens of the vision screen at a 360º arc about Khundru. Everywhere they looked it was the same. Tsalnor of Gog had placed his troops cunningly, entirely encircling the city. To the north and south, divisions had crossed the chasmed mounts to take their posts outside the barrier. Now in two wedges they were storming Khundru’s primary defense line toward the central citadel.
The marine detail, which had completely bipassed the capital to reach the shoreline, was now swarming up yet another avenue of Khundru from the docks and wharves which they had seized. These three formed diversionary forces, hammering at the flanks and rear of the Magogeans, who were forced to concentrate their main defense on the eastern front; that which faced the Twilight Zone out of which thebulk of the Gogean army was pouring.
So swift was the movement, so hectic the opening phases of that battle, that it was only in fitful glimpses one could comprehend the magnitude of what was going on. Afterward
“Blimey, wot fun, eh? Wot bleedin’ fun!”
How long the battle raged was hard to tell. Certainly long enough to place on pins and needles
“No, not yet! As we have seen, it should be easy for our allies to take theouter city. The real difficulty will come when they try to storm the Palace Royal. We must wait until that moment, then take from within.”
“From within?” echoed Lark. “But how?”
“This is how we will usehim, ” Kang nodded toward the trussed Borisu who lay smouldering with impotent rage upon the floor. “This chamber is the heart of all Magogean apparatus; not only their barrier shield and vision screens but their intercommunicating system as well. When the proper moment comes we shall visiplate him throughout the entire palace, and make him order his countrymen to lay down their arms.”
“Orderthem, yes,” grunted Lark. “But will theydo it? That’s another question.”
Kang nodded serenely. “They will do it. They are not likeour people, They are a race trained through long ages to obedience. But if they don’t—”
“If they don’t—?”
“Then,” continued Kang soberly, “having given them their chance, we shall destroy them ruthlessly and without mercy.”
All present knew what he meant. For that, too, was part of the plan which had been arranged in conference with the Gogeans. Noticeably absent from those who now stormed the city was Captain Hugh Warren and his crew of Space Patrolmen. They,
With their own fleet grounded, if the Magogeans would not listen to reason the
Thus it was with a sense of increasing triumph theSolarites watched the battle for Khundru turning more and ever more in favor of the invaders. More swiftly with each passing moment the defenders gave way, retreating to the shelter of their palace walls. Walls which, though they did not know it, were a fateful trap for themselves.
And at last, save for mopping-up operations carried on by small bands of Gogeans in outlying sections of the city, the first stage of the battle was ended. All surviving soldiers of Magog had taken refuge in the Palace Royal, there to withstand siege.
And siege, they now discovered to their horror, it most certainly was! For when, assailed by the weapons of their enemies, they attempted to retaliate by loosing their own destructive ray cannon upon the attackers, their artillerymen learned that the cannon were not in operation! These were not, like the smaller hand weapons, self-charging, but were powered by direct cable from the control tower. And the control tower was in the hands of the adversaries!
It was then, with the battle stalled briefly at a deadlock, Dr. Kang nodded. “Now,” he said, “is our time. Bring him here.”
“You have heard what you must do?”
“Never!” cried Borisu, blustering defiance. “Never will I betray my people!”
“It is written,” said Kang quietly,
“ ‘Only the fool rejects the inevitable.’ You are no fool, Borisu. Will you proclaim an armistice? Or for stubborn pride will you witness the destruction of your empire?”
Borisu blubbered, “Better to go down fighting than abjectly. If I bid my people lay down their arms, your hordes will sweep in and destroy them.”
“That,” Kang assured him, “they willnot do. In conference we have already discussed this with the Gogeans. Much have our two races to hate yours for, Borisu. Theirs for years of life-in-death in the darkling wastes of Magog; ours for impelling upon us centuries of premature death and a dwindling doom.
“Even so, we will not sow the seeds of new conflict in the peace of the old. Lay down your arms in peaceful surrender and I offer you the pledge of two worlds that about the conference table shall be reasoned the merits of a new and lasting peace for all concerned.”
“And if I do not?” demanded Borisu.
“Then,” Kang promised him, “you shall surely die. And as for your city—” He paused and gestured toward the visionplate. Words were needless in the face of that which might there now be seen. the silver tube of the
And Borisu capitulated. With a grinding cry, he reached for the microphone Kang offered him. The Martian doctor depressed a series of studs, and instantaneously, in a thousand chambers and corridors scattered throughout the whole of the Palace Royal, there appeared on vision plates before the startled eyes of all the embattled Magogeans an image of him who was akraedar supreme in the Inner Council of Magog. And they heard his cracked voice crying out its message.
“Brothers of Magog, lay down your arms! About our city are entrenched our Gogean foes. Above our citadel hovers a vessel which, if we do not surrender, will blast us all to atoms. Your guns, as you have learned, are useless. The foe has overthrown our might. Surrender!”
The vision plate went dead, Throughout the whole of the Palace Royal a murmuring arose. Men lifted from concealment, and doors once barred were opened as a race trained to obedience followed the instructions of a superior. The battle of Magog was ended.
Days before, hours before, even short minutes ago,
He turned to Borisu, and in a quiet voice he said, “Well done, Borisu. You have my pledge, with that of Dr. Kang, that you shall not regret this move. There will be no vindictiveness in the peace terms we offer. Only justice and equality for all. No more warring between our worlds.”
And Borisu said quietly, “Yes, it is over. It is done. It is finished . . . and I have lost. I will not say I am not sorry, but we must bow to the inevitable. And now, Dr. Kang, my bonds? I am free to—”
Kang said simply, “Yes, Borisu, you are free.” And he moved close to the little man to cut the strips of cloth which bound his wrists. A knife flashed briefly, and then:
“Father!”screamed Penny. “Father, look out! He—”
Her words were drowned in a roar of rage as
Kang grunted once heavily, then slumped forward, hands clutching futilely at a blade which clung half buried in his side. From between his clawing fingers surged ugly rivulets of crimson.
Nor was this all. In the same flashing movement Borisu snapped a ray pistol from the falling doctor’s belt, turned its lethal muzzle upon those who leaped toward him. His mad voice rose in harsh command.
“Back! Back, all of you or I will ray you down like dogs. Victory, eh?” His laughter cackled shrilly. “Your moment of triumph? We shall see?”
His tiny eyes darting from one to another of them to detect any slightest motion, he backed all the way across the room to where stood the most ponderous of all the machines in that control tower. A gigantic tube surrounded by gleaming coils and iridescent busbars. A huge, revolving drum of an instrument whose purpose
Borisu left him not long in doubt. Still mouthing the taunts and curses of a half-demented man, he clambered to a raised platform on this machine, loosed a panel, and dug his free hand somewhere deep into its entrails.
“So,” he mocked, “you have won victory? But out of your victory you shall drink only the dregs of deepest defeat! You and all your cursed universe!”
Kang, who had lain as one dead where he had beenstricken, now stirred and lifted his head dazedly. His eyes, turning slowly, sought and found Borisu, then widened in horror. He tried to speak, but his voice was a thick mumble; his words were punctuated by tiny streamers of blood that leaked from the corners of his mouth.
“That . . . machine! Don’t . . . let him . . . touch it!”
Borisu’s quick daze darted to the dying man. He laughed stridently. “Then you are not dead yet, my good doctor? You barbarians take a lot of killing. Well, I shall not finish the job. I, much prefer that you should live long enough to watch, with your comrades, the vengeance of Borisu.”
He tugged suddenly, and something came loose in his hand. Wires. Connecting wires of some sort. Instantly the low thrum which had sounded through the control chamber began to heighten. The tone crept higher up the tonic scale, Something within the machine Borisu had damaged was beginning to move faster and faster.
“You dog!” grated Lark O’Day. “You filthy, connivingscoundrel! I’m coming after you. I’ll break your neck with my bare hands if it’s the last thing I—”
“Back, corsair!” snarled Borisu. “I assure you—take another step forward and itwill be the last thing you ever do. You see this object I hold in my hand?” He dangled a bit of metal before them tauntingly. “You are space trained men. Do you recognize it? It is a governor. Ah, yes! A small governor controlling the speed of the instrument upon whose platform I now stand.
“Until this moment the machine has always operated at an inexorable and never-changing rate. But no more. From this moment henceforth the machine will gain speed . . . and speed . . . and speed—” His voice broke in a shrill cackle, “And you know whatthat means, my friends?”
O’Day said stoutly, “I know it means your death, Borisu. Here and now, or elsewhere and later, but surely your death.”
“Perhaps so,” laughed the diminutivekraedar. “But more than that . . . it means the swift and final death of your universe. For this on which I stand, gentlemen, is the instrument we of Magog have for years been playing upon your system. The ultrawave cannon! And now I have speeded its action to such an extent that the length of your world’s existence may be measured no longer in weeks or monthsbut in hours!”
A pang of fear drove deep into
This then was the end of their adventure. It did not matter that they had come afar and conquered many hazards. Here at the last moment, with triumph within their grasp, was to be torn from them all for which they had fought and labored and—his eyes sought Dr. Kang—and died.
What if their mission were a success and Magog’s power overthrown, the children of God returned once more to look upon the sun? The children of Earth within a matter of hours would be obliterated in what to them would be a horrendous holocaust of flame, but would to observers from this far vastness seem no more than the flickering of a momentary candle in lost distances.
He cried in a choked voice, “Borisu! Stop! For God’s sake—”
But his plea dangled unfinished. For at that moment a miracle transpired before his eyes. Dr. Kang, who should ere now have been dead, with some supernal effort had not only raised his head . . . but was slowly, laboriously, rising to his feet. He stood there for a moment, swaying dangerously, his knees half buckled beneath him, his eyes already glazed. And again his lips parted in that thick and blood-spumed mumble.
“Borisu, turn off . . . that . . . gun!”
“The doctor,” mocked Borisu, “is hardy! The doctor is courageous. But, the doctor isalso a fool. Stop this gun? Never! Not until your world has met the oblivion it deserves. Not until—Wait! Stand back there you fool! Stand back! Aaah!”
The raygun in his hand gushed a livid flame as Kang, tightening his worn, exhausted body for one final effort, pitched forward convulsively. The random shot missed the old man, and Borisu screamed a cry like that of a stricken animal, as in a last futile moment he realized Kang’s intention.
Kang, already living on borrowed time, was yet the scientist. He alone, of all in the room, had seen what could andmust be done. He alone, of all those who stood helplessly trapped, was close enough to do it.
Three strides he stumbled forward . . . then Borisu’s second blast caught him squarely in the chest. If he should have been dead before, he wassurely so now. But it did not matter. Understanding had come too late to the madman of Magog. For sheer impetus carried Kang’s body forward to that which Kang had planned. His body plunged full length and sprawling upon thegleaming busbars of the wave cannon. There burst from Borisu’s lips a last and frightful scream. The atmosphere crackled. For a moment the biting odor of ozone was horribly mingled with the channel stench of searing flesh.
“Down!”roared
As one, title watching four fell flat on their faces just as the gigantic machine before them, quivering and trembling to its very roots, rocked itself from its moorings . . . and in a roaring fountain of flame exploded into a million fragments!
“SO,” SAID Tsalnor regretfully, “you will not change your mind? You will not stay?”
Tsalnor nodded. “Yes, man uff Earth, I suppose that is best. But you will send others uff your people to see us? You will teach us, as you promised, your method Uff travel? That theremay be friendship and amity between the people uff our worlds?”
“We will,” pledged
“But before this happens our races will have forged bonds of friendship so close that when Sol returns to take its place amongst its sister stars there need never again be war between our worlds.”
Muldoon said, “And you, Tsalnor, you’ve got an even more important job than we have. Keeping the Magogeans under control. You’ve got to see to it that they never try to build another one of those cannon.”
Tsalnor said softly, “We shall be careful. But I think we need never again fear the construction uff such a weapon. Thekraedars of Magog have been overthrown. It was never the common people who conspired against us. When we haff taught them the benefits of freedom and democracy, they too shall take their place in a new and better universe.”
A bell clanged in the control turret of the
Tsalnor and his retinue left. A few minutes later the
Dr. Bryant sighed. “And so,” he said, “begins the long journey home.”
“Only,” grinned Lark O’Day, “it won’t be such a long journey. We’ve got the Jovians’ quadri dimensional coordinates for a space warp that will drop us a couple of hours from Earth. All set over here, Hugh.”
“Right!”
Lark rose. “Leaving me,” he drawled, “with nothing to do for the next couple of hours. Unless,” he spoke to Pen-N’hi hopefully, “unless maybe you’d like to take a little stroll out on the observation deck?”
“Yeah,” chuckled Flick, “and watch the fourth dimension whizzing by? That ought to be a lot of fun, Miss Penny.”
“It all depends,” chuckled
Nora looked at him astonished. “B-business,
Nora sighed. Whether it was with relief, or whether there was in that sigh a hint of acquiesence to follow was hard to tell. But she smiled and nodded. And:
“In that case,” she said, “I have no choice. I have to do what my boss tells me, Hugh. I’ll go with you, Gary.”
And they left the bridge.
Muldoon snickered. “Business!” he snorted, “Business my hat!Biological business, if you ask me!”
And
1Perodically the planet Venus passes so exactly between our Earth and the sun that the planet is outlined against the sun’s disc and may be seen crossing it slowly as a small, black dot. These events, known as transits, are quite infrequent, occurring in duos of eight years, separated by longer intervals alternating between 105 and 122 years. Transits of Venus occurred in 1874 and 1882, in 2004 and 2012 A.D. That observed by
2Sir James Jeans’ view of the cosmic rays is that they are causing the material universe to continuously dissolve into radiation. “The whole of the available evidence,” he writes, “seems to me to indicate that the change is,with possible insignificant exceptions, forever in the same direction— forever solid matter melts into insubstantial radiation, forever the tangible changes into the intangible . . . there can be but one end to the universe . . . the end of the journey cannot be other than universal death!”—Sir James Jeans:The Mysterious Universe .
3Out of the bloody conflict of the Anarchist Rebllion (2197-2208 A.D.) was born, at long last, the Terrestrial World Union. National boundaries were broken down, racial cliques and prejudices were abandoned, and Earth became one single community speaking a single language. The World Council, an electoral body seated in
4The Bog: spaceman’s term used to designate the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter—Ed.
55Early investigators were unable to discern any one particular sector of space from which the mysterious cosmic rays seemed to emanate. The painstaking research of Larson T. Marquart 2034-92 A.D.) and Thompson Blaine (2041-99) subsequently determined, however, the point of heaviest emanation as being from that sector of space in which is found the Dog Star, Sirius Canis Major.—Ed.
6Such records do exist in Earthly legends. In many parts of the world may be found folk-tales concerning “blue-skinned” gods who brought to this planet the benefits of civilization.—Ed.
7Thekuugla of the Martian outlanders is vaguely similar to the bola of Earth’s Polynesian tribesmen, being a length of ane hemp weighted at one extremity with three barbed hooks. When thrown by an expert, thekuugla wraps itself about the body of its victim, the barbs sinking into his flesh while the rope coils itself about his body, stifling any movement . . . Thetraal of the Eros guards is somewhat like the boomerang used by early Australian bushmen, except that it is shaped more like a swastika, each blade being honed to a razor edge. An accomplishedtraalul (or “traal-thrower”) can decapitate an enemy at two hundred yards with this weapon . . . and make thetraal return to his feet for another casting.”—Expert from:A Survey of Tribal Weapons , Stellar Institute Press, 2208 A.D.—Ed.
8Gog and Magog: according to the old Erse records, these were the names of two races which waged a tremendous warfare ages ago . . . the conclusion of which conflict was “the loss of Magog and the banishment of Gog.”—Ed.
9Tri-chess: a highly involved game of tridimensional chess played on a series of eight superimposed glassine boards. Pieces move not only horizontally, as in the ancient Persian game, but vertically as well. Two additional types of pieces are used in conjunction with the traditional “pawn, knight, bishop,” et al. . . . the “pilot,” which may move in any direction horizontally or vertically until opposed by another piece, and the “ranger,” which may move five vertical spaces and three horizontal, or vice versa, disregarding occupants of those squares.—Ed.
10Catooni: a Magogean woodland beast similar to the
11Goraru and sneri: wild beasts of Magog. The first is somewhat similar to the extinct “saber-toothed tiger” of Earth, except that it is equipped worth a stony carapace; the second is a gigantic lizard with poisonous mobile horns—Ed.