Collected fiction, p.46
Collected Fiction, page 46
Imperceptibly the sleep of the Betrayer merged into death.
AVENGERS OF SPACE
Terry Shawn and his Eagle crew raged through the interstellar spaces bent on avenging Earth’s destruction by spaceships of another planet—and faced the strangest destiny ever encountered by man!
CHAPTER I
INTO THE VOID
TERRY SHAWN was worried. The reporter should have been here hours ago. According to long-made plans, the Eagle would make its first flight from this lonely Arizona valley at six o’clock—and it was long past, that time now. Shawn’s lean, tanned face was angry in the cold glare of arc lights as he stamped up and down, swinging his arms to keep warm.
Abruptly he stiffened, stepped into the darkness and shaded his eyes. Far in the distance he could see the headlights of an automobile—no, several of them—racing over the valley road. Grunting. Shawn went to a huge shed that towered not far away. He kicked open a door and yelled:
“Get ready, boys! He’s on the way.”
Within the great barn was a shimmering sphere of metal, the Eagle, first spaceship ever to be built on Earth. Months of careful planning and construction had gone into it, the culmination of years of atomic experimentation by Shawn. From a porthole dangled a rope ladder, and down this scrambled a man, wizened and agile as a monkey. He was chewing a blackened briar, puffing out noxious clouds of smoke. He was Sam Heffley, a noted physicist from whom Shawn had learned the fundamentals of science.
“ ‘Bout time,” the little man snarled, ambling toward the door. “Imagine holding up the start for a lousy reporter.”
“We had to keep our end of the bargain,” Shawn said sourly. “Lord knows we needed the money the Tribune advanced. It took plenty of dough to build the Eagle. I spent weeks trying to convince the publisher it’d be worth his while to back us.”
Heffley came to peer out into the night. “Well, he’s made a good investment. Drove a hard bargain, too. Fifteen per cent of the profits.”
“I’d laugh if there weren’t any profits,” Shawn chuckled.
“Oh, there will be. The Moon’s virgin territory, a whole new world, with minerals waiting to be dug up. We’ll get gold, all right, and silver—and precious stones, I’ll bet. Blast this pipe!”
Heffley found a match and lit his dead tobacco.
SHAWN said, “Wait a minute!” He listened. The faint crackle of gunfire came to their ears.
Swiftly, Shawn moved. He leaped to a switchboard behind the door, flung down levers. The bright glare of the arc lamps died. Now the headlights of the approaching cars were clearly visible—and so were the occasional flashes of exploding weapons.
“What the devil!” Heffley snapped. “They’re—”
“International Power men, I’ll bet.” Shawn’s lean face was set in a hard grin.
The tall, muscular fighting-machine of his body swung into action.
“Pete!” he yelled, “Hooker!” He sprang toward a gun-rack near by, lifted out a rifle and a heavy, snub-nosed automatic.
In the Eagle’s open porthole two faces showed’—Hooker Flynn, ex-prizefighter, a huge dull-faced gorilla of a man; Pete Trost, astronomer, with a keen dark face handsome as a movie idol’s and a brain as cold and accurate as polished beryllium-steel.
“What’s up, Terry?” Hooker Flynn rumbled.
“Trouble,” Shawn shouted. “Start the engines. We may have to take off in a hurry. Don’t know how many guys are coming—”
The two heads vanished; Shawn retreated to the door. At his side was Heffley, armed, puffing frantically on his pipe.
The rattle of gunfire grew louder. The bellow of straining engines shrieked through the night. A beam of light from a car’s headlight, coldly revealing, flashed briefly across the two men’s figures. Then, suddenly, a black sedan thundered out of darkness, brakes screaming. It whirled in a crazy skid and toppled over sidewise. Tinkle of breaking glass sounded.
“Stay here,” Shawn commanded, and ran forward. He halted as a shot hissed past his head. Another automobile appeared, with men crouching on the running boards, guns in their hands.
Shawn flung up his gun in a quick snap shot. One of the killers screamed, lost his hold, and went hurtling through the air, a dark figure that rolled over and over in the dust to lay still at last. The car made a quick swerve, circled back into the gloom. Shawn ran to the overturned auto as he saw a white hand groping through the broken window.
He peered down, saw a pale face staring up at him, blue eyes fear-filled. “Wait a minute,” he said, and whipped off his coat, wrapping it around his fist. He started to break off the sharp edges of glass that rimmed the window-frame. But a cry from Heffley made him change his mind.
“Hurry up, Terry! They’re coming—”
Shots crashed. Shawn swiftly put his coat inside the window-frame, grabbed the arms that reached up to him. He pulled the occupant of the car out, realizing with a sudden shock that it was a girl, red hair flying in mad disarray.
The glass that remained played havoc with the girl’s dress, ripping it nearly off her slim body. For a second Shawn felt the warm firmness of her half-bared bosom hot against his cheek. Even at that moment the blood pounded dizzily in his temples at the girl’s alluring nearness, at the musky perfume that, was strong in his nostrils. Shawn’s throat felt dry. His pulses beat faster at the touch of his hands upon her rounded, vibrant body. All he seemed able to think of was that this girl was beautiful, and that he had never before felt as he did now.
She slid down, staring around with frightened eyes, and Shawn stopped hold his breath. The night breeze was icy on his perspiration-wet face. Then he looked down and whispered an oath.
There was another body left in the car. Shawn made a motion toward it, but the girl caught his arm.
“Mac’s dead. They shot him—through the head. I’ve been driving—”
“Terry!” Hysteria edged Heffley’s voice. “Terry!”
Dark figures were converging toward Shawn, grim purpose in their swift advance. Some of them were between him and the barn. Shawn’s lips tightened in a crooked grin. The attackers were holding their fire—depending on numbers. Well, that was their mistake.
Shawn said under his breath, “Keep behind me. Come on!”
HE charged forward in purposeful silence, hearing the quick patter of the girl’s footsteps. Then, suddenly, he was in the midst of a tangle of cursing, snarling men, too nonplussed by Shawn’s unexpected action to move in accord. A gun clubbed down at Shawn’s head. He jerked aside, felt numbing pain lance through his shoulder. His fists were smashing out in driving, sledgehammer blows, his big body moving toward relentlessly through the circle of his attackers.
Abruptly all lights went out. In the dim starlight it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe. But Shawn managed to make out the smaller shadow that was the girl; he lunged toward her, knocking a man aside.
“Shoot!” somebody yelled. “Don’t let him get away! Shoot, damn it!”
But they couldn’t shoot without a mark. Shawn felt soft, warm flesh under his hand. The girl cried out, and instantly shadows closed in on her. But Shawn had already picked up her slim body, flung her over his shoulder like a bag of meal, and, head down, run for the barn. He could see a tiny spot of red light, glowing like a coal. Heffley, after switching off the lights, was using his pipe-embers to signal the position of the doorway.
Shawn cannoned into a slight figure, heard Heffley’s reedy voice whispering urgent commands. He jumped inside the barn.
“Shut the door!”
Heffley obeyed, moved to the light-switch, turned it on. Radiance flooded the barn. Hooker Flynn was halfway down the rope-ladder that dangled from the Eagle’s porthole. He was gripping a blackjack in a huge, hairy hand.
“You okay, Chief?” he rumbled.
“I told you to start the motors!” Shawn snapped. The girl wriggled free, stood gasping, an ivory statue half clothed by the tatters of her dress. Heffley was barring the door. Already the men outside were kicking at the barrier.
“We started ’em,” Flynn said. “Who’re those mugs, huh?”
A gun barked outside; splinters flew from the door. Shawn said sharply, “We’ll have to get in the ship. Up you go, sister!” He boosted the girl up the ladder, and she went up swiftly, with a flash of silk-clad legs and ivory, softly rounded thighs. “You too, Sam.”
Heffley obeyed, and Shawn followed his example as a bellow of gunfire sounded. The door slammed open. Men yelled oaths, threats. Shawn saw Heffley’s legs disappear through the porthole and hurled himself upward desperately. Bullets sizzled around him, pinged on the spaceship’s hull.
But Shawn made it, dived into the Eagle and heard the port click behind him. The noise of the attackers gave place to a silence that was unbroken save for the deep, throbbing whisper of motors.
Heffley was barring the port. The two men were in a tiny chamber, barely large enough to stand upright—the space lock.
Another door in the wall stood ajar, and Shawn scrambled through it, Heffley behind him.
They were in the Eagle’s control room, a maze of intricate instruments, walls and floor and ceiling made, apparently, of frosted glass, which in reality comprised a visual screen by which Shawn could see through the walls of the craft. He touched a lever. The frosted glass brightened, and it seemed as though they looked directly out into the barn, through transparent panes. The attackers had surrounded the ship, were standing indecisively in puzzled groups, at least a dozen of them.
Shawn glanced aside as the girl, huddled in a chair, called his name.
“Mr. Shawn! They followed us for eight miles—shooting at us. I—”
“You’re from the Tribune!” Shawn stared at the girl, feeling once more that curious excitement that had overwhelmed him when he had held her close during the battle. Then she had been a half-seen shadow in the dimness. Now the electric glare of the light revealed her face and figure clearly—and she was beautiful indeed, Shawn realized. Firm, pale cones pouted out beneath a lacy brassiere—the only garment she wore above the waist, for her dress had been ripped to tatters, and milky thighs gleamed whitely through the remaining strips.
AGAIN Shawn found that his throat was dry. His heart was pounding like a trip-hammer. The girl’s body was a pale flame—all madness and all delight . . .
Involuntarily she shrank a little in her chair, lifted her hands in a protective gesture, a warm flush creeping over the oval face. Shawn forced himself to look away. “You’re from the Tribune?” he repeated.
“Yes,” the girl said softly. “Mac was to go with you—I was driving him out here. Then these men—who were they, do you know?”
“Easy to guess that,” Heffley said, polishing his pipe on a wrinkled cheek. “International Power sent ’em. International’s been trying to get our antigravity formula for months. First they tried to buy it, but we wouldn’t sell. They’re the most unscrupulous, crooked money-grabbers in America today.”
“Yeah,” Shawn said. “They’ve attacked us before. But I hired armed guards. Just paid ’em off tonight. If you hadn’t been late—well, we won’t squabble about that.”
“We broke an axle,” the girl said. “Had to hire another car. My name’s Lorna Rand, by the way. Of the Tribune.”
“Glad to know you,” Shawn grunted. “Say—I’ve got a hunch what those thugs were trying to do. They probably planned to get you and your friend out of the way, and then send one of their own men here, masquerading as a Tribune reporter. That way they could get a spy aboard the Eagle, and he’d watch his chance to find out what International Power wants to know.”
“Five to one you’re right,” Heffley said. “But we’d better not stick around. Those thugs have got dynamite!”
Shawn eyed the transparent walls. The men outside were busy pulling little cylinders under the spaceship’s hull, carrying rocks and dirt into the shed to bury the explosive.
“The Eagle may stand dynamite, but I’m not sure, “Shawn observed. “We’ll take off.” He picked up a transmitter, called a question. A faint voice answered.
Shawn glanced at Lorna Rand. “We’ll land you near the city, and your paper can send out another reporter. Now—”
“Hurry up!” Heffley warned.
Shawn’s fingers flickered over the instrument panel. Instantly the interior of the shed, the men working busily outside the ship—vanished!
An intolerable oppression ground down on Shawn; he heard Heffley shout, “Too much power! Reverse it, Terry—quick!”
Shawn was trying to hold himself upright against the control board, fighting a tremendous weight that dragged him down. Heffley was on his hands and knees, white face upturned; the girl had slid down from her chair to the floor. The transparent walls were one white burst of raving flame.
They grew brighter, a blazing whirlpool before Shawn’s swimming eyes. He battled desperately against the inexorable drag, realizing that something had gone wrong with the compensating gravity field within the ship, designed to avoid the serious danger of acceleration.
His brain seemed to be swelling, pressing against his skull with frightful force. He slipped down, fighting to reach a control lever with his fingers, succeeding in touching the cold bakelite—
Pushing the lever over with the last remnant of his strength—
And sliding down into a black deadly abyss, unconscious, as the Eagle thundered unguided through interplanetary space, flashing through the airless gulfs between the worlds, to the strangest destiny man had ever encountered!
CHAPTER II
LOST PLANET
SHAWN awoke with a throbbing ache in his head, and for a moment lay staring up dazedly at a black ceiling, sprinkled with brilliant star points. Gravity was again normal. Weakly he sat up, hearing a groan from Heffley and a gasp from Lorna.
The little physicist propped himself up, blinking, as Shawn arose painfully and went to the controls. He made a few hasty adjustments.
“Terry,” Heffley whispered, “We’re in space. The compensator—”
“We didn’t allow for initial acceleration. Or, rather—we didn’t allow enough, Sam. It won’t happen after this.”
“Ye gods, what power we’ve got in those motors,” Heffley said. “Look at that!” He pointed down.
On the vision screen on which they stood, far behind them, two spheres loomed, turning slowly in space, glowing with pale radiance. Earth and Moon, left far behind by the driving thrust of anti-gravity.
“Do you know how far we’ve come?” Shawn asked, incredulity in his voice. “I don’t know how long we’ve been unconscious—but we’ve traveled more than three hundred and fifty thousand miles! We’re way outside the Moon’s orbit.” Hooker Flynn and Pete Trost came in, looking pale and sick. Shawn explained what had happened. Flynn’s heavy face was dully uncomprehending.
“Jeez, what now, chief?” he rumbled. “Back to the Moon, huh?”
“That’s the best plan, I suppose,” Shawn said, and Trost, the astronomer, seeonded him.
“Yes. We’ll have to make a curve—a swing through space—to get back. I’d better make some adjustments on the compensators first.” He pulled a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from his pocket, adjusted them over his eyes, blinking nearsightedly. “Who’s the girl, Terry?”
Shawn made the necessary introductions, “We can’t ask you to go to the Moon with us,” he told Lorna. “Too dangerous. It’s back to Earth now, to land you—”
A cry from Heffley halted him. The little man was staring down, pointing, eyes wide. Shawn stopped in mid-sentence, cold tendril of fear twining about him. On the vision screen at their feet was—the incredible!
Earth was growing smaller! The luminous blueness had given place to a chill blaze of green fire, and half-clouded by the emerald glow, Earth seemed to be shrinking, dwindling. And keeping pace with it shrank the Moon.
“We’re going faster—” Heffley said.
“No!” Shawn glanced at the instruments. “No—we’re almost stationary. It’s Earth that’s moving!”
He looked down again. There was something incredibly strange about the planet’s shrinking. Oddly, it seemed to be racing incredibly fast, and at the same time Shawn had the inexplicable feeling that Earth was not moving in space, but was simply growing smaller, washed in the eerie green fires.
Smaller it grew, tiny as an orange, the Moon a pinpoint beside it. And abruptly Shawn felt a warning tingle course through him; a frightful shock made the spaceship reel and shudder, its frame creaking, grinding with strain. Gravitation was destroyed for an amazing second; Shawn felt himself flung through the air, felt the suction of some force that seemed to be dragging the Eagle down into a cosmic whirlpool. For a brief second of eternity the control room was a maelstrom of writhing, twisting bodies. Lorna screamed; Flynn bellowed an oath. Every atom of Shawn’s body was tingling with strange, unearthly strain—
It passed. The force that had gripped them was gone. They staggered to their feet, gasping. It was Lorna who first made the discovery.
She pointed down, cried out wordlessly. Heffley followed her glance. He gasped.
“The Earth! Terry—look—”
AMAZEMENT lanced through Shawn. Beneath him was the brilliant star-studded darkness of space, but where Earth and Moon should have hung was nothing. The planet and its satellite had vanished without trace.
No—not without trace. Shawn strained his eyes. He swung about, whispering an oath.
“Telescope, Sam!”
He swung the great lens, Heffley helping him, until it was focused on the spot in space where the Earth had been. Instantly on the vision screen a cloud leaped into view. A golden cloud—“Spaceships!” Hooker Flynn rumbled. “Like the Eagle—huh?”
He was right. A mighty fleet of interplanetary vessels hung where Earth had once swung in its orbit, Sun-golden, torpedo-shaped, racing away and away into the outer darkness. Alien craft, sprung from the void.
