Collected fiction, p.51
Collected Fiction, page 51
The craft had grounded between the two and their friends, so Shawn could not see what was happening on the other side of the golden ship. He gripped Lorna’s arm, spun her around.
“We’re unarmed—we’ll have to hide. Heffley and the others may get back to the Eagle. Come on!”
They turned, sped back to the forest. Shawn was seeing in his mind’s eye the things that had emerged from the golden ship.
Mounds of flesh, shapeless, transparent, sliding like jellyfish over the ground. He knew that many of them were racing after him, and the thought made him increase his speed. So he did not see the pit till it was too late.
His foot went down into emptiness. Clutching at thin air, Shawn toppled forward, went hurtling down, hearing above him the girl’s scream. He struck with a sickening impact that knocked the breath from his body, and went spinning down into the deeper abyss of blind unconsciousness.
CHAPTER IX
STRANGE SUMMONS
A FOUL, acrid odor brought Shawn to full realization of his surroundings. How long he had been out he did not know, but as he stumbled erect, fighting a dull ache in his head, he realized that he had fallen into the trap the snake-men had dug. Around him were chunks of putrefying flesh, vaguely luminous in the gloom. Saturn had fallen beneath the horizon, Shawn guessed, and this part of Titan was veiled by night.
The sides of the pit were not steep, and he managed to scramble up them.
Once he dislodged a stone and froze unmoving until the echoes of its fall had died away. No sound came from above.
At last he clambered over the edge. The forest was very dark, but a few feet away the clearing lay in dim starlit gloom. Two small moons high above gave some light, but not much. Some distance away a great black shadow told of the Eagle’s whereabouts. The golden ship had gone.
Warily Shawn crossed the clearing till he stood beneath the spaceship. The rope ladder still dangled from the open port, and he climbed it slowly, alert for danger. But he entered the space lock and the control room safely.
There he paused, staring. Huddled in a shapeless mound in the center of the floor was a creature, five feet tall, that he recognized as one of the ameba-like beings from the golden ship. One of the Aliens who had destroyed Earth!
Hot flame of anger mounted within Shawn, sending blood pounding to his temples. He made an involuntary step forward, fists clenched—and the Alien awoke.
It rose up into a tall spire, half seen in the dim bulb that lighted the control room, and Shawn saw within it a blackish, spherical blob from which tendrils coiled out in slender spider-webs through all that boneless, monstrous body. In deadly silence the thing swept forward.
Shawn gripped the first weapon that came to his hand—one of the swords they had captured on Mars. He lifted it from a stack of paraphernalia that littered a desk beside him and swung it aloft.
The Alien did not pause. Tentacles oozed out from its body, stretching toward Shawn as it advanced. The Earthman, even as he slashed down with the blade, wondered whether the monster was vulnerable—whether steel could damage its inhuman flesh.
The sword sank deep! It sliced into rubbery, transparent stuff, and a sudden retractive movement of the Alien almost wrenched the weapon from Shawn’s hand. He wrenched the blade free just as the creature closed with him, rushing up and enfolding him like quicksand—living quicksand.
It was like being engulfed in concrete. Shawn could scarcely move; he felt icy, dank skin against his face, and abruptly his breath was cut off. He could not breathe. Choking, staggering as he braced himself, legs wide apart, the Earthman wrenched free his sword-hand, sent the sharp blade tearing, rending, ripping at the flesh of the Alien.
The black blob seemed to explode like a bladder. Instantly the thing’s grip relaxed; it fell away, dropped to the floor and huddled into a sphere. From the nucleus an inky cloud spread swiftly, turning all that glistening transparent body jet-black. It lay motionless—conquered, dead.
SHAWN let the sword fall, and dropped into a chair, breathing deeply. After a while he took a flask of brandy from a cupboard and gulped the hot. fiery liquor. Then, strengthened, he rolled the Alien—for the creature was too heavy to lift—through the space lock and porthole to drop to the ground.
He armed himself, and, sword in hand, searched the Eagle. It was empty, save for himself. Apparently the beings that had come in the golden ship had left only one of their number behind, perhaps to guard the Eagle, or to discover its mode of operation.
Where was Lorna and the others? A heavy feeling of oppression settled down on him. He drank more brandy, shut the port hole and space lock, sat before the instrument board, pondering.
As he sat, an odd, inexplicable feeling began subtly to overwhelm him. He had been idly eyeing the bottle before him, and it seemed to be receding, sliding back. For a second Shawn had the fantastic impression that he stood outside his body, watching it impersonally . . .
He fought it down. But when he tried to rise, his muscles refused to obey. The Earthman sat, paralyzed and silent, at the controls of the Eagle . . .
Within his brain sounded a whisper. Thin, wordless, it came, very much like the telepathy of the Martians, Shawn thought. But the whisper evoked no images in his mind. Only it grew louder, peremptory—
Summoning!
Unmistakably—calling! Demanding. Demanding—what!
Shawn’s hand moved. As though of its own volition, it went out to the instrument panel, touched a key. Yet Shawn knew that his own brain had willed it. His brain, yes. But not his mind, not his—self! Something, strange beyond all imagination, seemed to dwell within the Earthman’s brain, an alien tenant that moved Shawn’s body at its own enigmatic will. Dimly Shawn was conscious that the Eagle was thundering up through Titan’s atmosphere, plunging into the depths of space, while his own hands moved swiftly over the controls, guiding the spaceship to its unknown destination!
Very slowly Shawn slipped into unconsciousness. He did not awake till once more the peremptory, wordless whisper shuddered through him. Then his eyes sprang open.
He was still seated in the pilot’s chair, and on the vision screen before him was an oddly smooth, regular expanse of dark plain. The curve of the horizon was plainly visible. The Eagle had landed on some small planet, an asteroid, perhaps.
How long the journey had taken he did not know. The Sun was a far, small disc, blindingly brilliant despite its distance. This little world had no atmosphere, he realized.
Once more the command came to his brain. Without volition Shawn rose, opened the outer space lock by manipulating a lever in the wall. After a moment he closed it.
Then he swung wide the inner door. On the floor of the lock lay a stone—a jewel, sapphire-red, large as his fist, blazing with angry fires. Shawn stepped forward, picked it up.
And instantly the strange power that had gripped his brain vanished. He stood wide-eyed with amazement, staring down at the jewel in his hand.
THOUGHTS poured in his mind. Intelligent thoughts, clear and lucid as crystal, understandable as a small, cold voice mumuring to him. He knew that the message came from the gem he held.
“Man of Earth, we have a little time now. Yet I must explain to you something of what has happened, so that we may together go toward our goal. You can understand me plainly?”
The red flames swelled within the jewel. Shawn-knew before he spoke that the being read his thought.
“Yes, I hear you. But I don’t understand—”
“Listen, then. We are on a small, airless world in the Asteroid Belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. I am one of many like myself who dwell here. We are alive, as you are, but our life is not based on carbon, as is yours. Our bodies are silica—but we are intelligent, far more so than any other race in this System, the great serpents of Titan or the gaseous beings of Callisto. We dwell here, wanting nothing, spending our almost eternal lives in pure thought. We have no need to move about—we neither eat nor reproduce. We have evolved far beyond those things.”
Shawn said, “There are many like you here?”
“Very many. And when first these invaders—whom you call the Aliens—burst into this System with their golden fleet, we knew whence they had come, and why. You imagined they sprang from one of our own planets—Mars, or the moons of Saturn. No—they come from another Universe—another plane of space!” Amazement widened Shawn’s eyes, but he said nothing as the thoughts of the living jewel raced on.
“You Earthmen have guessed that there are many dimensions, many space-time continua, impinging on one another.
“A hundred Universes, occupying the same space, yet separated by a barrier—the structure of the atoms themselves, which are different in this continua than in any other. Each Universe has its own pattern, and until recently it has been impossible for the barrier between them to be broken.
“And the Aliens dwell in a dimension impinging on ours, but separated from it by this wall of atomic dissimilarity. Their Universe is old. One by one their stars have vanished, and their Galaxies have expanded into great clouds of radiation, as our own Galaxy is expanding. The Aliens are the last inhabitants of a dead, cold, almost lightless infinity.
“Facing destruction, they sought escape. This we know, for we can read thoughts over vast distances, and we have read the minds of the Aliens. They wished to reach our dimension. In order to do that, they found it necessary to break the barrier between the continua.” The gem was a blinding dazzle in Shawn’s hand. Trying to comprehend the cosmic import of the being’s message, the Earthman whispered, “Go on—”
“A piece of iron may be drawn through a membrane by an electromagnet, thus tearing a hole in that membrane. You could not understand the mechanics of the Aliens’ experiment, but I can put it thus: the Earth was drawn through the space-time membrane, opening a gap in the barrier through which the Aliens came into this Universe.”
“This hole in space, “Shawn said. “Is it still there?”
“No; it closed. But it can be opened again. So I have brought you here with the power of my will. You must take me to the ruler of the Aliens, and I will be able—perhaps—to destroy them and bring Earth back.”
“Bring back the Earth!” Shawn’s voice was incredulous. “It wasn’t destroyed? Life on it—”
“The space-time laws of this alien Universe is different from ours. Earth is in a state of statis, frozen, each atom and electron in it standing still. If the planet can be drawn back through the barrier, once more, life will resume again, just as before.”
EXULTATION flooded Shawn. He snapped, “Good! Let’s start! I’m ready now.”
“Let me rule your brain for a minute,” the message whispered. “I can set the course—”
Shawn flung open the barriers of his mind, felt the strange power of the living jewel creeping in. Briefly he was unconscious.
He awoke to find himself in the pilot’s seat, with the Eagle rushing again through space.
On the panel lay the gem, pulsing with red fire.
Its thought was distinct.
“Your companions—a girl and three men—were taken totheshipof the Aliens’ ruler, which hangs now near Earth’s former orbit. They had not known that space flight was possible in this System, and they wish to investigate—to discover if they are in any danger. When they find there is none, they will continue to destroy all life and vegetation on the planets, in readiness for colonization and expansion.”
The ship flashed on Sunwards. And carefully, unhurriedly, the living jewel explained to Shawn what he must do, if the Aliens were to be conquered and Earth brought back from the lightless, timeless void of another Universe.
CHAPTER X
THE LAST BATTLE
A GOLDEN spaceship hung motionless against the icy background of the stars, gigantic, terrifying in its huge immobility. The Eagle, driving toward it, seemed a midge hovering above a long cigar, so vast was the shining craft of the invader.
From the giant a ray shot out, lancing whitely toward the Eagle, catching it like the hand of a colossus. A ray of force, incredibly powerful, that drew the smaller ship toward the larger as though by a contracting elastic band. Shawn grunted, glanced at the automatics in his belt, and absently patted his breast pocket where the living jewel rested. He stood up, went to the space lock.
The stars about the Eagle were blotted out by golden walls that closed in relentlessly. Shawn waited till the ship was motionless, and then opened the ports, lowered the rope ladder. He was in a mighty domed chamber, quite empty save for a dozen of the monstrous Aliens who were advancing swiftly toward him.
Shawn went down the ladder, stood quietly, waiting. He could not help wincing as dank, icy tentacles gripped his arm, and fought down an impulse to draw his guns. He let the Aliens tug him forward.
From the life-jewel a message whispered. “Go with them. Make no resistance . . .”
A door opened in the wall; Shawn was conducted through a vast room where Cyclopean machines hummed and throbbed. Into another room, a small one, they went, and the Earthman went to his knees as the floor drove up suddenly.
He was in an elevator.
The Aliens tugged him erect with cold pseudopods. He examined them closely, noticing that each transparent, shapeless body had within it the same dark nucleus, the same filmy tracery of webs.
The elevator paused; Shawn was dragged into another room—a laboratory, he realized. Huge, high-roofed, lit with amber brilliance, the light glistened on equipment whose purposes he could not guess. A deep, broad vat stood near by, steaming faintly, and heaped carelessly beside it were bodies.
Bodies of snake-men, of the Martians—and here, too, were Shawn’s companions! For a dreadful second he thought they were dead, and then realized his fears were unfounded. Tightly bound, Trost and Flynn and Heffley lay quiet and motionless, though their eyes widened as they saw Shawn.
“Terry! “Heffley cried. “They’ve got you—”
“Pay no attention, “came the thought command of the life-jewel. Shawn forced away his gaze, stared before him.
A Martian was bound tightly to a little table, and above his naked body hovered four of the Aliens. One of them, Shawn saw, was much larger than the others. The nucleus within his transparent body was huge.
“He is their ruler,” whispered the gem.
Shawn turned sick as he saw what the Aliens were doing. Ignoring the screams of the Martian, they were probing the man’s face and head with long needles, from the ends of which wires ran to an enigmatic machine a few feet away. Into the agonized wretch’s eyes and mouth and throat the steel points probed, and the needles alternately brightened and grew dull, while from the machine near by a low humming rose and sank.
“They seek to read his mind,” came the thought-message of the life-jewel. “Not as we do so, or as the Martians can. But with machines . . . first they torture their victim, so that he will be too far gone in pain to lie to them, even in his thoughts . . .”
THE Martian’s shrieks had died to a wordless sobbing. The largest Alien plunged one of the needles directly into the top of the man’s head.
The machine burst forth into a throbbing roar. Almost immediately it faded and died, while the Martian went limp.
“They drained his brain of knowledge. The shock killed him . . .”
The Aliens went toward the machine, clustered about it. After, a moment they returned, and their ruler turned to Shawn and his captors.
How the creatures communicated the Earthman never understood—by vibration, perhaps. That they could see, Shawn realized, yet they seemed to have no eyes or organs of vision. The ruler seemed to pause, to consider the new captive.
An Alien slithered up, freed the Martian’s body from the table, carried it to the vat and hurled it in. Almost immediately the corpse began to dissolve, while a rank, nauseating stench arose.
The Earthman tensed as he saw the new victim being bound in the Martian’s place.
Lorna!
She was unconscious, her white body stark naked, red hair tumbled in ringlets about her bare shoulders. The cords tightened cruelly about her rounded breasts, the soft curves of her thighs—and the ruler of the Aliens turned, went to her side, lifted one of the needles in a transparent tentacle.
Almost Shawn forgot the commands of the life-jewel, for he was sick and faint with the realization of what must come. The message lanced warningly through his brain.
“Wait! Not yet! It is not yet time!”
The pseudopods that gripped Shawn’s arms tightened. He stood silently, watching as the ruler brought a needle down until it pricked the rounded curve of Lorna’s bare breast—pressed it deep!
The girl awoke. She screamed, her eyelids fluttering open, and her form tensed vainly against the imprisoning cords. The Alien withdrew his needle, sank it again in the warm, tender flesh.
The gasping, low sob that came from Lorna’s lips drove all thought of caution from Shawn’s mind. With a snarling oath he wrenched one arm free, dived for his automatic. He fired it point-blank at the nucleus of the Alien beside him, swung the weapon toward the ruler.
The gun was torn from his hand. He was engulfed in icy, slimy flesh. A tide of horror was creeping up his body, three of the Aliens, gripping his legs and left arm in living steel, sliding up inexorably to overwhelm him.
He heard the thought of the life-jewel.
“Quick! This is your only chance! Do as I commanded—now!”
Shawn remembered. Sanity returned, and he clawed at his breast pocket, ripped it open. The gem seemed to leap into his hand.
“Now! Now!”
A writhing tentacle caught Shawn’s arm; he tore it free. With a quick gesture he flung the jewel directly at the ruler of the Aliens—saw the stone drive through the transparent flesh directly into the nucleus of the being—disappear within it!
