Collected short fiction, p.368
Collected Short Fiction, page 368
Mopping sudden sweat from his face, Hall looked at the girl.
“Well, we’re here!”
Linda smiled back, uncertainly, and squeezed his arm.
“The city’s a mile away,” she whispered. “Their camp is beyond. We can slip through the rocks. If there has been no alarm—”
“Shadrona!” gasped Carter Boyd. “We must get to her.”
“Do you know where the G-bombs are kept?” Hall demanded. “If we could get into the arsenal first. Or perhaps divide forces—”
With brief words, the girl sketched out the way ahead. The men stumbled out, ahead of her, into the snow. Bitter cold stung their skin. The thin air took Hall’s breath. But he caught Linda, crushed hasty fevered kisses against her face and her white throat.
Then she screamed a warning. He had released her, to fumble in the cabin for the weapons, when the G-ray struck them.
From the direction of that fantastic city, an orb of searing, blinding purple burned dull and sinister in the mist. The sudden, colossal weight of his body crushed Jimmy Hall down into the snow. And he felt a new deadly bitterness of cold.
He fell against the big plane’s intact wheel, in a half sitting position. That terrible eye continued to leer out of the gray, drifting mist. Ice-crystals made weird circles around it. And the awful pressure held him fast.
He could hardly breathe. He couldn’t even lift his hands. He couldn’t turn his head, against the wheel, to see what had become of Carter Boyd.
But Linda Gaylord lay within his line of vision. She had fallen headlong backward, and now she lay motionless, pressed deep into the snow. That terrible weight of multiplied gravity molded her clothing against every slim curve of her limbs and her waist and her proud breasts. Flung back over her head, her hair was flattened against the snow like a red fan.
All hope deserted Jimmy Hall. Every breath, against the terrific weight upon his chest, took a desperate effort. He sensed an eerie, silent vibration, and knew that this ray carried the stolen power of Shadrona’s cold-weapon. He shivered, and then a dull numbness sank into him.
A slow ache grew in his chest. His vision blurred. He knew that his heart, laboring under this terrible burden, couldn’t long stand the strain. He could see no possible hope. He began to wish that Renvic would step up the power of the ray, and make a quicker job of it.
FOR a long time he thought that Linda was unconscious. He knew that she still lived, for he could see the labored rise and fall of her breasts. He could hear her tortured breathing. At last her voice came to him, in terrible forced gasps:
“Sorry, Jimmy. Want—to say I—love you!”
Hall tried to fill his big chest, choked out two words:
“Check, darling!”
Then he saw the men coming. A dozen of them, plodding on snowshoes. He wondered why the purple G-ray did not pin them down, why the radiant cold did not congeal them. Then he saw that each of them wore a bulky, hooded suit of some dark thick fabric—obviously, a sort of radiation-armor that shielded them from the ray.
The G-bombs, even if he could have got them, might have been useless after all.
The group paused, at some little distance. Hall recognized, despite their bulky suits, the two who came forward alone. Bull-like Krošeć, and green-eyed Renvic!
Krošeć stopped. His black-gloved hand rested on the butt of an automatic in a thick black holster.
“Ach!” he snarled. “Verdammt Americain Schweinhund who iss now what you call der dog-on-top?”
Pinned fast, Hall could only glare back at him.
A satanic laugh echoed hollowly from the hooded head of Renvic. He came to the side of the girl. Kicking off the snowshoes, he drove his black boot roughly against her side.
The girt made a choked, whimpering sob.
“So you tried to betray me?” whipped out the hard cruel voice. “You were going to release the winged creature?”
His boot came down savagely, upon the soft curves of her breast. She sobbed again, piteously.
Hall had thought himself quite unable to move. But Linda’s cry did something to him. A red fury blazed, giving him a strength he had never owned before. Every fibre of his body fighting the awful gravitation, he dragged himself upward.
He forced his hands up, against that appalling pressure. He caught the bottom of the cabin door. Slowly, his muscles snapping, he pulled himself up beside the plane. He reached into the cabin, and felt the butt of one of the rifles.
Darkness was pressing on him, as it did when he pulled a plane out of a dive too sharply—because the blood was drawn from his brain. His body was stiff with the cold of the ray. And a cold sickness of despair fell back upon him. For the rifle was riveted to the floor, by that terrible gravity. He couldn’t move it.
Slumping against the plane, he turned again.
Renvic had now fallen on his knees beside the helpless, prostrate girl. His black-gloved hands were ripping off her torn yellow sweater and her riding breeches. He tore away silk undergarments. Her white loveliness lay naked in the snow, crowned with her hair’s red fan.
Goose-pimples appeared on her smooth skin. It was already blue with cold. So exposed to the wind and the ray, Hall knew, she could live only a few minutes. But, from the agonized rise and fall of her full white breasts, he knew that she still breathed.
“So you turned against me?” Mad violence clotted the hard tones of Renvic, as his lecherous black fingers stripped away the last shreds of clinging silk. “You dared defy me—the Alexander!
“Well, now you weel pay for all you ’ave done, here in the sight of your lover.” His satyr’s breath was panting. “Pay for all you denied me, for all the years you ’ave put me off. And then you die!”
A flurry of snow swirled across her fair nudity. Thick cold blood spread slow stains, where Renvic’s fingers or his boots had scratched her shivering body.
She made a little choked sob.
Her muted cry gave Hall strength to move again. He lurched forward, empty-handed. It took a savage effort to lift each foot. His pulse was a hammering in his ears. A burden of darkness pressed upon him.
Krošeć was staring avidly at the girl. It was Renvic—now a green-eyed devil indeed, as unveiled evil passion moved him—who looked up from the naked girl and shouted:
“Kill him, Krošeć—if you want her when I am done!”
“Ach, ja!” boomed Krošeć. “I keel him!”
The hairy man, gigantic indeed in the insulating suit, came lumbering toward Hall. The American stood swaying, helpless—it took all his strength just to keep erect.
Krošeć pulled his automatic out of its holster. The gun must suddenly have increased in weight, as it came out into the ray. For it seemed to jerk down, and Krošeć stumbled forward.
WITH a last prodigious effort, Hall W plunged to meet him. Krošeć’s terrific strength dragged the weapon up again. But Hall, simply yielding to that awful weight, fell against him. He wrapped his arms around Krošeć’s bull neck, and dropped.
That fearful pressure did its work. The gun went off, into the snow. A deep harsh bellow of rage and pain came from Krošeć. And then it abruptly ceased. For Hall’s arms, serving merely as a lever to apply that savage force, had snapped his vertebrae.
But that victory, Hall swiftly realized, meant nothing.
For the dead man lay across his legs. He knew that he would not be able to rise again, against that crushing weight. He scrabbled for the gun, but it was lost in the snow.
He saw Renvic rising over the girl’s white quivering nudity, deliberately leveling a huge automatic. Then it seemed to flail’s failing senses that the purple, right-ringed orb winked malevolently in the mist. He felt another wave of that piercing, deadly cold.
And darkness crashed upon him.
CHAPTER XIV
The Fall of Shar
CARTER BOYD, when he clambered out of the half-wrecked plane, stumbled over a snow-covered rock. Chance pitched him out upon the deadly slide, that they had all escaped so narrowly. A minor avalanche gathered about him, bore him swiftly down.
Staring into the up-swirling mist, he realized suddenly that there was nothing at the bottom of the slope—nothing but three sheer miles of vacant space, and then the far Pacific!
Desperately, he scrambled for safety. He reached snow that was not moving. Trembling with relief, he watched a white fall break over the awful brink beneath him.
Then the G-ray burned through the mist.
He was far out of its center. But its effect was still enough to start all the snow about him, in a greater slide. Frantically, staggering under the burden of his sudden weight, he stumbled across the moving snow.
He slipped, fell, was swept down with it.
Just at the brink, however, a point of black rock split the river of snow. He struggled toward it, snatched for it as he passed. Sharp rocks tore his fingers. But he managed to pull himself up upon it. For a little time he clung there, with the rumbling slide flying into a white spray about his feet.
When the avalanche had ceased, he made a perilous way back up the bare slope. He came at last to the level again, some distance from the plane. Now outside the freezing purple ray, he could see that Hall and Linda were pinned helpless in it.
There was no direct aid, he knew, that he could give.
After a moment, he set out, alone and weaponless, toward the center of the Rock. The icy gray mist had thickened again. It hugged the bare, snow-banked slopes. His vision was limited to a hundred yards or so.
At last, laboring painfully for breath in the thin, icy air, he came within view of the fantastic towers of Shar. Circling the bright, cylindrical buildings, he cautiously approached Renvic’s camp beyond.
Shadrona would be in the hospital hut. He located it, from Linda’s directions—next to the one that flew Renvic’s bizarre flag. A flurry of snow swirled out of the frigid beam, hid him.
Two sentries loomed ahead. He crouched against the wall, waited for them to turn. Then a silent rush carried him through an open door, into a darkened room. He closed the door, soundlessly, dropped a heavy bar into place.
As he started toward the inner room, where Shadrona should be, a male nurse met him. A bulky figure in white. Boyd leapt at him, tigerishly. His weight carried the man down, and Boyd heard a low, ominous sound, as his head struck the floor.
The man lay still.
Carter Boyd stumbled through the partition door, and came upon Shadrona. She lay on a white, narrow bed. Her slender golden body was covered only with her extended, shimmering pinions.
Her red-helmeted head lay back upon the pillow. Her eyes were closed, and she did not move as Boyd approached. He looked down at her. Her pointed golden face was tear-stained, drawn with pain.
He dropped beside the bed, kissed her lips. She stirred in her sleep. The bell-tones of her voice made a little muted murmur. She smiled a little.
Then he touched the velvety golden curve of her shoulder. That woke her. She shuddered from his touch, and screamed. When her great, slanted purple eyes came open, there was stark horror in them.
For a moment she stared tip at him without recognition.
Then the horror changed to incredulous joy.
“Carter?” sobbed the bell-voice.
“I’ve come for you, my darling,” whispered Boyd.
Bending, so that the fragrance of her was in his nostrils, he slipped his arms under her body, tried to lift her.
Only then did he discover the chains.
Fastened about her slim golden ankles, and above the joints of the brilliant wings, they held her spread out, helpless, upon the bed. Hard steel jingled, as Boyd laid her back.
“Chains!” sobbed her sadly melodious Voice. “Chains hold me. Till I tell Renvic secrets of Shar. Krošeć whip me, burn me, twist me. Till I tell secrets of Shar.” She shuddered. “Never I tell.”
Boyd fumbled with the chains, helplessly. Padlocks held them cruelly tight. He heard shouts, outside. The barred door rattled.
HE ran back into the outer room, swiftly searched the groaning man in white. He found a bunch of keys. A warning bullet crashed through the door, as he returned to Shadrona.
The keys fitted. He lifted Shadrona into his arms. She clung to him, sobbing. Wildly, he stared about the bare, crude little room. His eyes searched for some weapon, some way of escape.
A fusillade of shots ripped through the outside door.
“What now, darling?” he whispered helplessly.
The warm silken softness of Shadrona moved in his arms.
“My pyramid!” pealed her clear bell-voice. “Secrets are there. Secrets I never told. There is fire of Shar. Fire that burns two million years. Fire that holds up Shar. Fire is fed with golden sticks, and lifts up Shar. We must put out fire.”
Infinite sorrow throbbed in her tones.
“My people all dead. Need no fire.” Boyd stared down at her. Fire fed with gold—that must be atomic energy, maintaining whatever force held up the Rock!
“All right, darling!” he gasped. “And then what happens?”
“Put out fire,” she sobbed. “And Shar must fall!”
Boyd’s head lifted, grimly.
“So the Rock will fall!” he whispered. “Renvic and his devils on it! We, too, I suppose—but what does it matter? Let’s go!”
He snatched up a little table from beside the bed, smashed a window out of the hut’s rear wall. Shadrona scrambled nimbly through. He dragged himself after her.
Men came running around the building. There were guttural shouts, in an unfamiliar tongue. A rifle cracked.
But the soft limbs of Shadrona gripped Boyd’s body. Her great wings spread. He ran a few steps across the snow, leapt. And they soared swiftly upward. Bullets hummed about them. But in a moment the low gray mist had curtained off their rising flight.
Jimmy Hall could never understand that instant of blind unconscious that fell upon him, after the terrible ray had already ceased. It was as if his tired heart, suddenly relieved of that appalling burden, had paused for a moment of rest. That uncanny deadly cold was gone, with the ray.
Renvic’s gun was hammering, over Linda’s supine nude body, when awareness flickered back. But the sudden return of the weapon to its normal weight must have caused Renvic unconsciously to thrust it upward.
For the shots went screaming over Hall’s crumpled body, and off into the chill gray mist that swirled endlessly up about the rim of the Rock.
Crouching down behind the lifeless form of Krošeć, Hall dug frantically into the hard-packed snow for the automatic that Krošeć had dropped.
Before he had found it, however—and before Renvic’s black-gloved fingers had finished snapping a fresh clip into his own gun, the American heard the terrible scream of the green-eyed man.
Looking up, Hall saw that something had caused Renvic to lose his balance. He had staggered up the steep, snowclad slope below the half-wrecked plane—the slope that fell to the brink of the Rock.
It was swiftly, queerly, becoming steeper!
Renvic shrieked again. His nerveless fingers dropped the gun. They clawed at the air. He fell, tumbled. Frantically, he snatched at a rock that he passed. But the thick dark radiation-armor made him clumsy. He missed it.
A final feral howl—more like the voice of a tortured wolf than a man’s—floated back from that awful brink.
And Alexandrov Renvic was gone.
Hall turned back, toward the plane and the girl. Suddenly he was conscious of something very alarming. A steady, increasing push was driving him toward that deadly slope. Snow was beginning to slide.
The explanation came to him abruptly.
The whole Rock was tipping!
Falling, doubtless—though he didn’t know why—into the Pacific.
Linda was sitting up in her bed of snow. She was pale and shuddering, and red scratches marred her body. But she was able to smile, very happily, at Jimmy Hall—before something made her turn suddenly from blue-white to pink, and cross her bare arms over her breasts.
Hall ran to her. It was like climbing a steep slope. His feet started snowslides. But he reached her. Ignoring her gasp of surprise, he picked her up in his arms.
THE plane was already moving. Running back down the tipping surface, he just overtook it. He tumbled Linda through the open cabin door, scrambled after her. By the time he got the door fastened, the plane had slipped over the edge.
Stumbling forward with the shivering girl to the cockpit, he presently got one motor started, and then another, for they were not completely cold. The plane had been strained, by the G-ray as well as the crash, but it limped safely away from the falling Rock.
Looking back, Hall saw what happened.
The Rock fell out of the clouds that had so long veiled it from the eyes of man. It continued to tilt, and a rain of snow and debris fell from it into the Pacific. Hall thought he glimpsed some of the gray planes, falling—there would have been no time to warm them for flight.
Renvic’s associates on the Rock must have perished, to the last man.
The descent of the Rock itself was oddly deliberate, as if whatever force sustained it had been very gradually withdrawn. At last, sidewise, it slipped very gently down into the gray Pacific. White foam glinted, and vanished. And then there was no mark left upon the sea.
Two hours later, Hall circled low over an American liner. When the damaged condition of the plane had been seen, and a boat lowered, he landed. The wreckage sank at once, but he kept Linda afloat until the boat reached them.
And so it came that they were sitting in a steamer chair one tropical night, staring back into the vessel’s phosphorescent wake. The girl’s vibrant body was warm in Hall’s arms, and the fragrance of her hair: filled his nostrils.
She shuddered, suddenly, and stopped his caresses.
“It’s too bad,” she whispered, “about your friend and Shadrona. They must have caused the falling of the Rock. It must have cost their lives.”
