Buch lesen: «Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930», Seite 8
Tommy looked quickly in his direction, encouraged by the apparent change in his attitude. The scientists proceeded to energize the crystal sphere. They were bent upon speeding the parting guests. Their beloved empress was to be saved from her own emotions.
Quick adjustments of the controls resulted in the locating of Frank's car, which was still buried to its axles in snow. The scene included Leland's house, or rather its site, for it appeared to have been utterly demolished by some explosion within.
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Tommy raised questioning eyebrows.
"It was necessary," explained Rhonus, "to destroy the house in obliterating all traces of our former means of egress. It has been commanded that you two be returned safely, and we are authorized to trust implicitly in your future silence regarding the existence of Theros. This is satisfactory, I presume?"
Both Tommy and Frank nodded agreement.
"Are you ready, gentlemen?" asked Clarux, who was adjusting a mechanism that resembled a huge radio transmitter. Its twelve giant vacuum tubes glowed into life as he spoke.
"We are," chimed the two visitors.
They were requested to step to a small circular platform that was raised about a foot from the floor by means of insulating legs. Above the table there was an inverted bowl of silver in the shape of a large parabolic reflector.
"There will be no alarming sensations," averred Clarux. "When I close the switch the disintegrating energy from the reflector above will bathe your bodies for a moment in visible rays of a deep purple hue. You may possibly experience a slight momentary feeling of nausea. Then – presto! – you have arrived."
"Shoot!" growled Frank from his position on the stand.
Clarux pulled the switch and there was a murmur as of distant thunder. Tommy blinked involuntarily in the brilliant purple glow that surrounded him. Then all was confusion in the transmitting room. Somebody had rushed through the open door shouting, "Frank! Frank!" It was the empress Phaestra.
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In a growing daze Tommy saw her dash to the platform, seize Frank in a clutch of desperation. There was a violent wrench as if some monster were twisting at his vitals. He closed his eyes against the blinding light, then realized that utter silence had followed the erstwhile confusion. He sat in Frank's car – alone.
The journey was over, and Frank was left behind. With awful finality it came to him that there was nothing he could do. It was clear that Phaestra had wanted his pal, needed him – come for him. From the fact that Frank remained behind it was evident that she had succeeded in retaining him. A sickening fear came to Tommy that she had been too late; that Frank's body was already partly disintegrated and that he might have paid the price of her love with his life. But a little reflection convinced him that if this were the case a portion of his friend's body would have reached the intended destination. Then, unexplainably, he received a mental message that all was well.
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Considerably heartened, he pressed the starter button and the cold motor of Frank's coupe turned over slowly, protestingly. Finally it coughed a few times, and, after considerable coaxing by use of the choke, ran smoothly. He proceeded to back carefully through the drifts toward the road, casting an occasional regretful glance in the direction of the demolished mansion.
He would have some explaining to do when he returned to New York. Perhaps – yes, almost certainly, he would be questioned by the police regarding Frank's disappearance. But he would never betray the trust of Phaestra. Who indeed would believe him if he told the story? Instead, he would concoct a weird fabrication regarding an explosion in Leland's laboratory, of his own miraculous escape. They could not hold him, could not accuse him of murder without producing a body – the corpus delicti, or whatever they called it.
Anyway, Frank was content. So was Phaestra.
Tommy swung the heavy car into the road and turned toward New York, alone and lonely – but somehow happy; happy for his friend.
Earth, the Marauder
PART TWO OF A THREE-PART NOVEL
By Arthur J. Burks
WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE
The Earth was dying. Ever since Sarka the First, king of scientists, had given mankind the Secret of Life, which prolonged life indefinitely, the Earthlings had multiplied beyond all count, and been forced to burrow deep into the ground and high into the air in the desperate search for the mere room in which to live. There was much civil war. The plight of the children of men was desperate. Something had to be done.
Then Sarka the Third called the Spokesmen of the Gens of Earth around him, and proposed to them a new scheme which had come to him in his laboratory atop the Himalayas. He would swing the Earth from its orbit! – send it careening through space toward the Moon! – there to destroy its inhabitants and supplant them with a colony of Earthlings! And then they would surge on to Mars!
Deep in the gnome-infested tunnels of the Moon, Sarka and Jaska are brought to Luar, the radiant goddess against whose minions the marauding Earth had struck in vain.
One by one the twelve Spokesmen, each the head and representative of the teeming trillions comprising his Gens, acceded. Even Dalis, the jealous rival of Sarka, finally gave his sulky consent.
So, under Sarka's commands, the Earth's hordes were mobilized; and in tune with the Master Beryl in Sarka's laboratory all the Beryls of the Earth vibrated, freeing the Earth from her age-old orbit and swinging her out towards the Moon.
The Gens of Dalis – the trillions of people who swore allegiance to him – would lead the attack on the Moon. When within fifty thousand miles, they darted out, clad only in their tight green clothing and the helmets that held the anti-gravitational ovoids, which neutralized gravity for them and enabled them to instantly fly where they willed. Their only weapons were hand atom-disintegrators. And out from the Moon came mysterious aircars, with long clutching tentacles – the weapons of the Moon's minions! The war of the worlds was begun!
Yet Dalis, leader of the Gens that now engaged the Moon's aircars, was still in the laboratory with Sarka. For Dalis' treacherous mind coveted control of the Earth, and though the urge to lead his Gens into battle was tremendous, still he stayed, watching Sarka closely, waiting for the moment when he could trick Sarka and assume control.
And at the head of the Gens of Dalis was a woman, Jaska, whom Sarka loved. The Moon's aircars swept away the Gens of Dalis, and out from Earth poured the Gens of Cleric, who was Jaska's father. The newcomers fought desperately to save Jaska from the deadly clutches of the aircars.
Dalis could stand it no longer. He sped forth from the laboratory, to reorganize his beaten Gens. Jaska flew for home; but behind her a single aircar, splashed with crimson, reached forth its tentacles to clutch her – and Sarka groaned with the agony of his impotence to help the woman he loved.
CHAPTER XI
Escape – and Dalis' Laughter
But Sarka was not to be so easily beaten. There still remained an infinite number of possible changes of speed by manipulation of ovidum by vibration set up by the Beryls, without which this flight from the beginning would have been impossible. But for two hours, while the white robed men of Cleric fought against the car of the crimson splashes to prevent the capture of the daughter of their Spokesman – and died by hundreds in the grip of those grim tentacles – Sarka was forced to labor with the Beryls until perspiration bathed his whole body and his heart was heavy as he foresaw failure. And failure meant death or worse for Jaska.
But at the end of two hours, while the men of Cleric fought like men inspired against the aircar of the crimson slashes, a cessation in the outward speed of the earth could be noted. At the end of three hours the body of Jaska, all this time fighting manfully to attain to landing place on the Earth, was at last bulking larger; but the tentacles of the aircar were groping after her, reaching for her, striving to catch and clasp her to her death.
The two Sarkas watched and prayed while the might of the Beryls, traveling at top speed, fought against the force of whatever was used by the Moon-men to compel the Moon to withdraw. Still the men of Cleric fought that single car, and died by hundreds in the fighting. White robed figures which became shriveled and black in the grip of those tentacles.
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Countless of the men of Cleric deliberately cast themselves against those tentacles, throwing their lives away to give Jaska more leeway in her race for life.
"Will she make it, father?" queried Sarka in a whisper.
"If the courage and loyalty of her people stand for anything, she will make it," he replied.
On she came at top speed, and now through the micro-telescopes the Sarkas could see the agony of effort on her face, even through the smooth mask used by the people of Earth for flight in space where there was no atmosphere. Courage was there, and the will of never-say-die; and Jaska, moreover, was coming back to the man she loved. In a nebulous sort of way Sarka realized this, for though these two had not mated there was a resonant inner sympathy between them which had rounded into an emotion of overpowering force since Jaska had proved to Sarka that she was to be trusted – that he had been something less than a faithful lover when he had mistrusted her, ever so little.
Closer now and closer, and at last the aircar of the crimson splashes was drawing away, losing in the race for life. It was falling back, as though minded to turn about and race back for the Moon, now a ball in the sky, far away, the outlines of its craters growing dim and misty with distance. Now the men of Cleric, those who remained, were breaking contact with the aircar, and forming a valiant rear-guard for the retreat of Jaska.
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Throughout the Earth, as the Beryls fought with ever increasing speed to lower the rate of the earth's outward race from the Moon, was such a trembling, such a vibration induced by conflicting, alien forces as there had not been even in that moment when back there in its orbit, the Earth could have either been kept within its orbit, or hurled outward into space at the touch of a finger.
Now Jaska, surrounded by her father's men, was almost close enough to touch the Earth.
She made it, weak and weary, and rested for a moment while her father's men steadied her. Then, thrusting them aside, with gestures bidding them return to their Gens, she lifted into the air again, and fled straight for the laboratory of Sarka.
She entered tiredly through the exit dome, and all but collapsed into the arms of Sarka. Gently he removed her helmet of the anti-gravitational ovoid, noting as she leaned against him the tumultuous beating of her heart. Then her gentle eyes opened and she whispered to Sarka.
"You trust me now?"
For answer he bent and kissed her softly on the lips – for the kiss, from the far distant time when the first baby was kissed by the first mother, had been the favored caress of mankind. Her face was transfigured as she read his answer in his eyes, and the touch of his lips. Then, remembering, fear flashed across her face. She straightened, and grasping Sarka by the hand, hurried with him into the observatory.
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She took the seat in which Dalis had sat before he had gone out to the command of his Gens, studied for many minutes the battle in space between the two alien worlds.
"Dalis is winning," said the Elder Sarka quietly, "apparently!"
"The qualification is a just one," said Jaska softly. "'Apparently,' indeed! You will note now that, though men of the Gens of Dalis swarm all about the aircars, and even clamber atop them, no more are dying in the grasp of those tentacles? Is Dalis arranging a treacherous truce with the Moon-men?"
"I have been wondering about that," said Sarka softly, "for it is my belief that nothing not conducive to his own selfish interests would have forced Dalis to leave this place and take command of his Gens, as I had first ordered, unless he had schemes planned of which father and I could know nothing. Now that I think of it, Jaska, how did Dalis know our secret code of fingers?"
Jaska started, and turned a blanched face to Sarka.
"Did he know?" she cried. "Did he? If he did that proves a suspicion that I have entertained since the first moment when Dalis swept into the fight, and I sensed that alien signals were being flashed back and forth!"
"Flashed back and forth!" ejaculated Sarka. "How do you mean? That Dalis was somehow able to communicate with the Moon-men in their own language, or through their own signals?"
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"Why not? He knew our secret code, did he not? I never gave it to him, and I know that you did not. No, Dalis has some means, never discovered or suspected by you Sarkas, whereby he is able to understand alien tongues and alien sign manuals!"
"That means," said Sarka the Elder in a dead voice, "that by forcing Dalis to go out at the head of his Gens…"
"We have," interrupted Sarka the Younger, "placed a new weapon of treason in his hands! Dalis, at the very moment of contact with the aircars, loaded with Moon-men, broke in on their signals – they must have had some means of signalling one another – and communicated with them in their own way! Do you think it possible that, with all his Gens, he may go over to the Moon-men, form an alliance with them?"
For many moments no one dared to answer the question; yet, from what the Sarkas knew of him, it was not impossible at all. For Dalis was the master egotist always, and never overlooked opportunity to gain something for himself.
It was Jaska who broke the silence.
"Did you note carefully," she said, "those aircars which were partially destroyed by our ray directors and atom-disintegrators?"
The Sarkas nodded.
"Did you note that no men, formed like our own, no creatures of any sort whatever, fell from the cars?"
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Again the awesome silence, and the keen brains of the Sarkas wrestled with this vague hint of the uncanny.
"You mean, Jaska … you mean…"
"That the occupants of aircars are part of the cars, but – Beings of the Moon! That they are either metal monsters endowed with brains or tiny creatures irrevocably attached to the cars themselves!"
"But how," said Sarka at last, "are we to be sure? I can understand what Dalis might do if the Moon-men granted his wish for an alliance with them. It is easy to understand why his Gens would follow his lead, for with the Moon forced outward from the Earth faster than his Gens could retreat, there is but one direction for his Gens to go – toward the Moon! They would go to the Moon as captives and trust the keen brain of Dalis to gain the mastery, sooner or later, over the Moon-men. And then…"
"And then – ?" repeated Sarka the Elder.
"Then, Dalis has already been inspired by the speed with which those aircars travel! You will remember that he did not take kindly to leaving the Earth and making his abode on some other planet! But why could he not do so, combine forces and knowledge with the people of that planet – and then return to Earth in alliance with them? – after we have depleted our forces by placing a large portion of our people on Mars and Venus and Saturn?"
"Sarka, my son," said Sarka's father, "before we continue with our flight to Mars, we must know the truth! We must somehow learn exactly what is going on on the Moon! If you could reach the Moon, alone, undetected, and bring back a report…"
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For a moment he left it there, and the faces of all three were gray with worry and abysmal fear.
"I can't go bodily, father," said Sarka at last, "but you remember my secret exit dome, to the right of the observatory, from which I have never yet dared exit from this place for fear that it might cost me my life?"
Sarka the Elder nodded, while Jaska looked puzzled. Another evidence of the fact that Sarka had not always trusted her, for she knew nothing of a secret exit dome. Sarka's eyes, as he looked at Jaska, mutely asked her forgiveness, which she gave him with her smile.
"I remember, son, and now?.."
"Surely it is worth risking one's life to know what new menace looms over the children of men!"
"What is the use of this secret dome?" asked Jaska softly.
"It is merely an elaboration of the regular exit dome, combined with certain phases of our atom-distintegrators, and the principle involved in the anti-gravitational ovoids. I step into the secret exit dome, garbed for flight Outside, and will myself to appear bodily in a certain place. It is instantaneous. I step into the dome, for example, and will myself to appear whole upon the Moon, and there I will appear!"
"You mean that during the period of transposition you are invisible?"
"Yes, invisible because non-existent, except for the essential elements of me, broken down by the secret exit dome, reassembled at the place willed in their entirety! I can't fly there, for a million eyes would see me approach! I must go in secret, as a spy, and wearing the clothing and insignia of a member of the Gens of Dalis!"
Silence in the observatory for a brief breathing space, and then Jaska spoke that speech out of the books of antiquity, which remains the classic expression of loyalty.
"Whithersoever thou goest, there will I go also!"
From the laboratory came a sudden burst of laughter, the laughter which all three recognized as the laughter of Dalis; but when they entered the place of the Revolving Beryl, there was no one there – and a feeling of dread, all encompassing, held them thralled for the space of several heart-beats. Dalis, they knew, was thousands of miles away, upon the Moon; yet here in the place of the Master Beryl they all three had just heard his sardonic laughter!
CHAPTER XII
Ashes of the Moon
Through the micro-telescopes it was possible to see what had happened after Dalis had assumed command of the Gens of Dalis. For even though the Moon, in spite of the speed of the Beryls, was being forced further and further from the Earth, the eyes of the micro-telescopes picked out and enlarged details to such an extent that the battle seemed to be transpiring under the eyes of the beholders.
A terrific jumble, in which Earthlings and aircars were all tumbled together in mad chaos, a great mass of writhing, green-garbed figures. Infinite in number – in the midst of which were the gigantic aircars, like monster beetles being beset by armies upon armies of ants.
Then, by the time Jaska had seated herself in the observatory atop the Himalayas, to watch what developed, the battle seemed to be over, and the Moon-men had won. For the huge cars swung around between the myriads of the Gens of Dalis, and seemed to be herding them toward the Moon, as though they were prisoners.
Telepathically, Sarka and his father had been able to catch some hint of the thoughts of the Earthlings in the battle, and these thoughts had been tinged with doubt, fear and horror, so that even thus to receive them, by mental telepathy, was to feel the searing heat of their fear.
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Now, in the instant when the battle in Space seemed to be over and the Gens of Dalis were prisoners, the thought waves were no more, and a brooding silence took their place. Dalis, the Sarkas knew, possessed the power to mask his thoughts, for it was a power possessed in common by all the scientists of Earth. But the common people of his Gens did not posses that power. However, for the moment Sarka had forgotten an all important something: that, when people were outside the roof of the world, they were subservient to the will of a common commander to whom they had sworn allegiance.
If, therefore, Dalis could mask his own thoughts from the brains of men, he could also mask the thoughts of the people of his Gens, merely by willing it! So Sarka and his father and Jaska could not know whether the Gens of Dalis had gone over in a body with him, in a truce with the people of the Moon, or whether they were dual prisoners – of Dalis and of the Moon-men!
More than ever was it necessary for someone to somehow reach the Moon and make a thorough investigation, discover just what Dalis was doing, what mischief he was hatching.
The secret exit dome seemed to be the answer.
"You can manage without me, father?" asked Sarka.
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The elder Sarka nodded.
"Of the other Spokesmen of Earth," went on Sarka, "I trust Gerd the most. Might I suggest that you bring him here, trust him in all details, and let him take my place wherever possible? Or, better still, keep Jaska here with you! I … I may not be able to return! I'll try to find a way, but – we can always communicate telepathically. Jaska…"
"Jaska," said that young lady grimly, "goes with Sarka wherever Sarka goes!"
"But it may mean death! We can only guess at the cunning of the Moon dwellers! They may have been in secret communication with Dalis for centuries! Dalis, who somehow discovered our secret finger code, may also know of the secret exit dome, and the principle upon which it operates! If he does, he may know how to combat it! Perhaps that explains his laughter! Perhaps he heard and understood every word we spoke, hears and understands every word we speak now! Who knows? He may wait until I have passed through the secret exit dome, and then make it impossible for me to be reincarnated on the Moon – or elsewhere!"
"No matter," said Jaska softly, "wherever Sarka goes, there goes Jaska! It is useless to attempt to dissuade me, and it is time you learned that!"
In spite of himself Sarka smiled, and his father met his smile with a quizzical one of his own. Both men had the same thought.
"The eternal woman!" said Sarka the Elder. "No man has ever understood her – no man ever will! And all men are ruled by her!"
Sarka shrugged, and Jaska spoke again.
"Don't you think it is time we tried this new experiment?"
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Sarka nodded, and his face was suddenly alight with the excitement which burned within him.
"First," he said, "we need accoutrements of the Gens of Dalis for two people!"
Jaska smiled.
"Forseeing that we might have need of such equipment, I had several complete outfits sent here when I took charge of the Gens of Dalis as its Spokesman!"
Two minutes later, arrayed in the green clothing of the House of Dalis, swathed in it from neck to toe, wearing their belts and the masks which were necessary to life in space where there was no atmosphere, the whole topped by the gleaming helmets whose skull-pans held the infinitesimally small anti-gravitational ovoids, Jaska and Sarka entered the secret exit dome, side by-side.
On the breast and back of each showed the yellow stars of the Gens of Dalis. There was no hiding their identity otherwise, and if any of the Gens saw them, both would be immediately recognized – for Jaska had commanded the Gens, and Sarka was the world's greatest scientist known to every human being. But they planned on carrying out their investigations by stealth.
"Father," said Sarka, "when the inner door is closed upon us, you have but to press the button to the right of the door. Press it when the light beside it glows red, which will indicate that we have willed ourselves to go to a certain destination!"
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The inner door closed upon Sarka and Jaska, and, hand in hand, side by side, their bodies glowing with knowledge of warm, sympathetic contact, they waited for a miracle which had never before been attempted.
"Are you afraid, beloved?" queried Sarka.
"When I am with you," she said softly, "I have no fear."
"Then face the outer door, and will to go wherever I will to take you!"
Side by side, hand-in-hand still, they faced the outer door, and Sarka willed:
"Let us appear together in a deserted spot, within sight but unseen, of the Moon crater from which those aircars were sent against us!"
A sudden blur, a cessation of all knowledge, and then…
Sarka and Jaska stood side by side in a desolate expanse surrounded by bleak and appalling mountains of grotesque shape, in a light that was weirdly, awesomely blue. Their feet were invisible, deeply rooted in some soft, fine material which looked like snow.
After a swift glance around to see if anything lived or moved in this awful desolation, Sarka stooped and dipped up some of the fine stuff with his fingers, touched it to his lips.
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The material seemed to be fine blue ashes and on his tongue it had a soapy savor. He peered at Jaska, whose eyes were glowing with excitement, whose lips were parted with anticipation, and instantly he opened a mental conversation with her.
"We must speak with each other telepathically, but do not speak with me until I have explained to you how to mask your thoughts from all persons save the one with whom you hold converse! First, I love you! Second, let us see if, searching the sky, we can find the Earth!"
In a few brief, highly technical words, Sarka told his beloved how to talk with him in the manner which he had never before explained to her. They had used telepathy before, countless times, but they had not cared who heard – while now secrecy in all things was the prime essential for success, even for life.
When he had told her, and she replied, "I understand perfectly, and it seems quite easy," they turned and surveyed the heavens, out of which, by this new miracle of the secret exit dome, they had dropped to the face of the Moon.
Away across the space between worlds, its transfiguration plainly visible to the two, they could make out and identify the world from which they had come. Save that they knew themselves standing on the Moon, they would have thought as far as appearances went, that the place where they had come was the Moon, many times enlarged. It seemed incredible that they had come so far in the twinkling of an eye; but that they had was proved by the fact of their physical presence.
"Look, Jaska!" said Sarka suddenly. "See how our Earth glows, as though it were afire inside!"
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They stared at the great circular yellowish flame that he pointed out, and Sarka, always the scientist whose science was one of exactness, tried to estimate just where, on the Earth's surface, the glow was.
"Jaska," he said again, "that glow comes out of the heart of the Gens area which Dalis ruled! And no one lives there, since Dalis' Gens flew out to do battle! That's why we did not know of it before we left! That glow, somehow, beloved, is the cause of the outward-from-the-Earth journey of the Moon! First we must locate the Moon-source of the glow, and render it incapable of further forcing itself away! For do you realize that, unless we do so, we will never again see home?"
Jaska said nothing, but her eyes were troubled for a moment. Then she smiled again.
"What care I if I become a prisoner on the Moon, if you are with me?"
Sarka was just now realizing the wonder of this raven-haired woman whom, knowing her for half a century as he had, he had just known so little after all.
"If we seem in danger of discovery, Jaska," he said to her, "drop down instantly into the ashes, for if we are discovered by Dalis…"
He left it there and, with a deep intake of breath, started away for the nearest and highest hill. They desired to walk, yet found walking almost impossible, as they could not keep their feet on the ground save by the exercise of a really incredible effort of will. So, despairing of keeping their feet in contact with the ashes, they flew just above them, heading for the nearest weird-looking ridge.
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In the strange light, which was oddly like moonlight in some painted desert of Earth, shapes were distorted and somehow menacing, colors were raw, almost bleeding – and distances that seemed but a step required hours to traverse.
Ever and anon, as they traveled they looked back up at the Earth which was their home. It still was visible, though plainly smaller with distance, and for a time Sarka's heart misgave him; but he only clasped tighter the hand of Jaska and moved on.
They were just at the base of the first hill, which had now become a mountain of gloomy, forbidding aspect, when the first sound they had heard on the moon came to them. A sound that was a commingling of the laughter of Dalis, the barking of jackals of the olden times, the humming of a million Beryls revolving at top speed, and a strident buzzing such as neither had ever heard.
Had they been discovered? Was the sound a warning? They could not know; but as they stared at the crest of the hill, two long, snaky, waving things appeared above the crest, undulating, waving to and fro, as though questing for something. They crouched low in the white ashes at the base of the mountain, and waited, scarcely breathing.
