Collected fiction, p.174
Collected Fiction, page 174
Burl squeaked. Pete waved at him with an assurance he didn’t feel.
“It’s okay, pal. Just relax. We’ve got ’em licked—I hope . . .”
The moon rose. Simultaneously, suspicious noises were heard. Pete crept to the cave-mouth and peered over, holding the auroch head in one arm. The cavemen, led by Grul, were climbing up toward him. Their shadows slanted blackly along the steep cliff face.
Pete drew back sharply. The auroch head banged against a rock. One of the horns fell off. It rolled toward the brink. Manx caught it just in time.
HE peered at it. Pretty old. It was hollow, in fact. It looked like—like a horn! Pete’s eyes widened. He put the tip of the hollow horn to his lips, hesitated, and took a deep breath.
Then, abruptly, he felt a curious shock of disorientation. Briefly he felt himself falling, and the moonlight swam vaguely before his eyes. He saw, phantomlike, the walls of Dr. Mayhem’s laboratory . . .
Like a ghostly vision, it faded and was gone. Nor did it reappear. Pete felt weak with disappointment. For a moment he had hoped that he had been rescued, that Mayhem had got the time machine repaired. But it was not to be. Pete had to get out of this mess without anybody’s help. He reached for the auroch head.
The tribe climbed up, Grul leading the way. They reached the ledge, passed it, and kept on. Grul drew some pegs from a pouch at his side and inserted them, into the holes in the cliff face. He climbed more slowly now, and his long teeth were bared in a grin of anticipation.
CHAPTER IV
The End of the Ulg!
GRUL’S furred hands reached the lip of the ledge. The red giant drew himself up. He could see nothing but the fire inside the cave, and some lengths of bamboo that lay on the rock floor. He waited, crouching lower, while several fuzzy heads bobbed up behind him and blinking eyes stared.
“He is trying to hide,” Grul stated. “Come. We shall kill and eat both. Ulg and Burl.”
The tribesmen started to clamber over the ledge. Then, without warning, hell broke loose!
A hairy devil bounded out of the shadows. It skipped to the bamboo tubes. With urgent haste, it bent to fumble at them. Grul’s jaw dropped. Before he could gather his wits, a stinging, searing pain blinded him.
White clouds gushed out, spurting, aching, flame-hot! Steam, built up in the sealed clay pots in the fire, shot through the bamboo tubes as Pete pulled out the plugs. Clouds of hot steam rolled out, red-tinged by the flames farther back.
Nor was that all. The hairy devil—huger than a man, with a single horn projecting from its misshapen head—had raised another horn to its muzzle. The ear-shattering bellow of Pete Manx’s improvised trumpet skirled out. Hideously discordant, it was obviously the hunger cry of a night-demon preparing to spring upon the horrified cavemen.
The men screamed in fright. The ones farther down the cliff could not see into the cave. Nevertheless, they noticed the clouds of steam rolling out and heard the horn, as well as the shrieks of their fellows. The tribe cascaded down the cliff like a waterfall, howling in terror.
Success went to Pete’s head. Only Grul remained facing him, and the red giant was preparing to scramble down to safety. Pete made the error of trying to kick Grul in the teeth.
The caveman’s reactions were instinctive. He blocked the blow, and his taloned fingers gripped Pete’s leg. Manx tottered, yelped, and fell. The auroch head went rolling across the cave floor.
The clouds of steam were dying. Grul, blinking, stared at the astonishing sight before him. The demon’s head was gone, and in its place was—Ulg’s unprepossessing face.
Grul did not try to puzzle out the why or wherefore. He had a single-track mind. Consequently he bellowed in enraged fury and sprang at Pete.
“Hey!” Mr. Manx objected, as iron fingers sank into his throat. “Wait a—Urk! Uggle!” He said no more.
“I kill!” Grul roared.
Desperately Pete Manx tried to tear away the talons. Flat on his back, encumbered by the furs, he could make no real resistance. The face of Grul swam before his eyes. Pete gave himself up for lost.
Then, suddenly, Grul went away. He was merely picked up. He dangled in mid-air, kicking helplessly. Wheezing and gasping, Pete sat up, staring with bulging eyes. The red giant was held prisoned in the mighty grip of—Burl, the chief!
But Burl was insane, a caveman with the mind of a rabbit! Yet there was no madness in the chief’s eyes. And there was, Pete thought, sound logic in Burl’s remarks as he expressed his intention of tearing Grul into bits.
Abruptly Manx realized what had happened. Dr. Mayhem had repaired the time machine. The rabbit’s ego had been returned to its normal time sector, 1940. Burl was himself again!
Pete applauded weakly. Grul was putting up a game battle, but the outcome of the struggle was already apparent. It became certain when Burl clouted Grul over the head. The incredible blow sent the red giant hurtling against the wall with a thud.
The vibrations of the thud didn’t die. They grew stronger. Pete was conscious of a weird shock, a familiar sense of disorientation. The firelight faded before his eyes.
Just before he lost consciousness, he realized Mayhem was bringing him back to his original time sector.
LIGHT came—blazing sunlight.
Pete realized that he was standing on a crowded sidewalk. He moved aside because pedestrians shoved him out of their way. What had happened? He wasn’t back in the laboratory.
He looked around. A signpost caught his eye—Central Park West and 65th Street. Central Park was just across the street. What had gone wrong?
Suddenly Pete guessed. He bought a paper. One glance at the date-line told him the truth.
Mayhem had not forgotten the original purpose of the experiment! Instead of bringing Pete back to the hour of the test in the laboratory, he had brought him back to the day before. Pete was in yesterday!
A column on the front page of the paper he held caught his eye.
“Kentucky Derby to be run today. Track clear—”
That meant that Pick-me-up had not yet won the race. But he would, perhaps in a few hours. Before that time Pete had to lay his wager. He fumbled in his pocket.
Less than a dollar in silver. In the wallet that he discovered in his coat, he found thirty dollars in bills. There was a driver’s license that made him blink in amazement. It bore the name of—Professor Aker!
Naturally, when Pete went back through time, his mind had entered the body of somebody else. But Aker, of all people! Yet this was what had happened, as a glance in a nearby shop window proved. The reflection was that of the paunchy, dignified man with pince-nez and a grim expression.
Pete thought fast. In the past, both he and Professor Aker had traveled into time. Perhaps because of that there existed some mysterious psychic affinity between them. That might explain a little. Yet the important thing now was Pick-me-up.
And that meant money. Laying thirty bucks on the nose of a sixty-to-one shot would make Manx die a thousand deaths all the rest of his life. Frantically Pete searched Aker’s pockets. Nothing. The wallet, perhaps—
Aker was a careful man. He carried a blank, signed check in one compartment of the wallet. It was too good to be true. Pete found a fountain pen and filled in a four figure sum. He didn’t know Aker’s bank balance, and it wouldn’t do to take a chance. Then he took a taxi to the bank.
Before he entered, he took the precaution of bandaging his right hand with a handkerchief. But all went well. The teller nodded affably as Pete presented the check. He watched as the pseudo-Aker painfully scribbled a signature on the back.
“Lucky I saw you sign that,” the teller smiled. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have let it pass. How’d you hurt your hand, Professor?”
“It ain’t—isn’t serious,” Pete responded. “But I am in a hurry.”
With his wallet bulging, he hurried away to a place he knew and proceeded to lay his bet on Pick-me-up. He wasn’t feeling well. There was a strangely heavy dullness oppressing his mind, and he felt slightly drunk. It was the precursor of another journey into time, he knew. So he hastened to finish his task before he could be jerked back to the lab.
Through a haze he heard the bookie’s voice. He fumbled with the wallet, but couldn’t manage it. He thrust the object out.
“All of it, bud. On the nose. Pick-me-up. Sixty to one, eh?”
He didn’t hear the bookie’s answer. Nor did he know what came after that.
But he found himself suddenly waking up in Dr. Mayhem’s laboratory.
THE rabbit was contentedly eating lettuce in a corner, apparently unmoved by his journey into the past. Pete rose from the experimental chair and gulped the brandy Mayhem handed him. “Thanks,” he nodded. “I heeded that. Whew!”
Professor Aker was teetering back and forth, eyeing Pete.
“Well? Did it succeed?”
“Did it! Wow!” Mr. Manx paused as a thought hit him. “Say, Prof, didn’t you say you had a touch of amnesia yesterday?”
“Why, yes. In the morning. Why?”
“Nothing,” Pete grinned. “Thanks for the help, Doc. I gotta scram. There’s a bookie—”
“Hold on!” Mayhem’s lean figure bobbed excitedly. “I want to hear what happened. A paradox like this requires elucidation. Did you really go back to yesterday?”
Before Pete could answer there was a knock on the door. A dapper, thinfaced man entered, wearing a gaudy checkered suit. His birdlike eyes probed about questingly.
“They told me I’d find Professor Aker down here,” he observed. “Oh, there you are.”
“What?” Aker stared. “Who are you?”
Pete pushed forward. “Hiya, Mike. You’re making a mistake. Remember, I laid a thousand bucks on Pick-me-up yesterday?”
The bookie’s eyes narrowed. “What’re you trying to pull, Manx? Think I’m still wet behind the ears? You ought to know better than to try anything like that with me.”
“Hey!” Pete turned green. “That thousand bucks—”
“Sure. This guy Aker comes rushing in yesterday, looking ready to keel over, and pushes a grand at me to lay on Pick-me-up. Probl’ly drunk. When I ask him his name, he just looks at me. So I copy it down out of his wallet—Aker. Here y’are, mister. Sixty thousand, and the check’s good.” Professor Aker accepted the check, staring at it in stupefaction. He exchanged amazed glances with Mayhem as the bookie departed.
“You can’t do that to me!” Pete yelped. “I laid that grand on—”
“I’m beginning to see,” Dr. Mayhem nodded, and Aker’s eyes suddenly widened.
“So do I. Mayhem, do you know what this means? We can leave the college and build our own experimental laboratories!”
DR. MAYHEM beamed. “Yes, Aker. Think of what we can do on synapses with that money behind us. What equipment we can have!”
“That dough ain’t yours,” Pete almost screamed. “It’s illegal. You’re going to spend that dinero on rabbits and guinea-pigs?”
Mayhem lifted his eyebrows at Aker. “After all, we do owe this good fortune to Pete; Don’t you think so?”
“Of course,” the Professor smiled. “Ten per cent. That’s fair enough, the usual commission.”
“Six thousand bucks?” Pete looked ready to cry. “And I coulda cleaned up sixty thousand. I’m being doublecrossed.” He moaned in anguish. “I do all the work, and what do I get?”
“Six grand,” Mayhem said.
“Yeah . . .” Pete glanced at the time machine. His face suddenly brightened. “Okay. It’s a deal. The gee-gees are running at Saratoga next month. Don’t forget—It’s a date!”
A MILLION YEARS TO CONQUER
Earth’s Second Satellite Harbors the Amazing Secret of an Eternal Quest
CHAPTER I
The Beginning
ARDATH opened his eyes, trying to remember why a blinding L pain should be throbbing within his skull. Above him was a twisted girder of yellow metal, and beyond that, the inner wall of the space ship.
What had happened?
It seemed scarcely a moment ago that the craft had been filled with a confusion of shouted orders, quickly moving men, and the shriek of cleft atmosphere as the ship drove down. Then had come the shock of landing—blackness. And now?
Painfully Ardath dragged his slight, fragile body erect. All around him were ruin and confusion. Corpses lay sprawled and limp, the bodies of those who had not survived the terrible concussion. Strange men, slim and delicate, their skins had been darkly tanned by the long voyage across space. Ardath started hopefully when he saw that one of the bodies moved slightly and moaned.
Theron! Theron, the commander—highest in rank and wisdom—had survived. A wave of gratefulness swept through Ardath. He was not alone on this new, unknown world, as he had feared. Swiftly he found stimulants and bent over the reviving man.
Theron’s gray, beardless face grew contorted. His pallid blue eyes opened. He drew a lean hand over his bald head as he whispered.
“Ardath—”
A rocking shudder shook the ship, then suddenly died.
“Who else is alive?” Theron asked with painful effort.
“I don’t know, Theron,” Ardath replied softly.
“Find out.”
Ardath searched the huge golden ship. He came back with despair on his drawn harrowed features.
“You and I are the only ones left alive, Theron.”
The commander gnawed at his lips. “So. And I am dying.” He smiled resignedly at Ardath’s sudden protest. “It’s true, Ardath. You do not realize how old I am. For years we have gone through space, and you are the youngest of us. Unshield a port. Let me see where we are.”
“The third planet of this System,” Ardath said.
He pressed a button that swung back a shutter from a nearby port in the golden wall. They saw nothing but darkness at first. Then their eyes became accustomed to the gloom.
The ship lay beached on a dim shore. Blackly ominous the strange world loomed through the gray murk of vague light that filtered through the cloudy sky. A slow drizzle of rain was falling.
“Test the atmosphere,” Theron commanded.
Ardath obeyed. Spectroscopic analysis, made from outer space, had indicated that the air here was breathable. The chemical test confirmed this. At Theron’s request, Ardath opened a spacelock.
AIR surged in with a queerly choking sulphurous odor. The two men coughed rackingly, until eventually they became accustomed to it.
“Carry me out,” the commander said quietly. His glance met and locked with Ardath’s as the younger man hesitated. “I shall die soon,” he insisted gently. “But first I must—I must know that I have reached my goal.”
Silently Ardath lifted the slight figure in his arms. He splashed through the warm waves and gently laid Theron down on the barren beach. The Sun, hidden behind a cloud blanket, was rising in the first dawn Ardath had ever seen.
A gray sky and sea, a dark shore—those were all he actually saw. Under Ardath’s feet he felt the world shudder with the volcanic fires of creation. Rain and tide had not yet eroded the rocks into sand and soil. No vegetation grew anywhere. He did not know whether the land was an island or a continent. It rose abruptly from the beach and mounted to towering crags against the
inland skyline.
Theron sighed. His thin fingers groped blindly over the rocky surface on which he lay.
“You are space-born, Ardath,” he said painfully. “You cannot quite realize that only on a planet can a man find a home. But I am afraid. . . .”
His voice died away. Then it rose again, strengthened.
“I am dying but there is something I must tell you first. Listen, Ardath . . . You never knew your mother planet, Kyria. It is light-years away from this world. Or it was. Centuries ago, we discovered that Kyria was doomed. A wandering planetoid came so close that it would inevitably collide with us and destroy our civilization utterly.
“Kyria was a lovely world, Ardath.”
“I know,” Ardath breathed. “I have seen the films in our records.”
“You have seen our great cities, and the green forests and fields—” An agonizing cough rocked the dying commander. He went on hastily. “We fled. A selected group of us made this space ship and left Kyria in search of a new home. But of hundreds of planets that we found, none was suitable. None would sustain human life. This, the third planet of this yellow Sun, is our last hope. Our fuel is almost gone. It is your duty, Ardath, to see that the civilization of Kyria does not perish.”
“But this is a dead world,” the younger man protested.
“It is a young world,” Theron corrected.
He paused, and his hand lifted, pointing. Ardath stared at the slow, sullen tide that ripled drearily toward them. The gloomy wash of water receded. And there on the rocky slope lay something that made him nod understanding.
It was not large. A greasy, shining blob of slime, featureless and repulsive, it was unmistakably alive, undeniably sentient!
The shimmering globule of protoplasm was drawn back with the next wave. When Ardath’s eyes met Theron’s, the dying man smiled triumphantly.
“LIFE! There’s sun here, Ardath, beyond the clouds—a Sun that sends forth energy, cosmic rays, the rays of evolution. Immeasurable ages will pass before human beings exist here, but exist they will! Our study of countless other planets enables us to predict the course of evolution here. From the unicellular creatures will come sea-beings with vertebrae, then amphibiae, and true reptiles.
“Then warm-blooded beasts will evolve from the flying reptiles and the dinnosaurs. Finally there will be apelike men, who will yield the planet to—true men!”
