Collected short fiction, p.407
Collected Short Fiction, page 407
“So, comrades, with imagination, with audacity, we march toward victory!”
THE conqueror paused. His massive close-clipped head nodded, as if to acknowledge unheard applause. But his seamed face turned very serious. His voice, when he resumed, was hushed and grave:
“While we wait, comrades, I am forced to communicate a matter of the utmost importance. Remember, comrades, that the Iron Watch knows no fear. Only our enemies can die! Hail, to the conquest!”
The hairy fist shook.
“However, comrades, I am compelled to inform you that our antitoxin against the Mercurian lightning death is less effective than was first announced. Our research men, working in the laboratories of the Moon Syndicate, have discovered that the period of immunity is sometimes only a few days. Re-immunization is unsuccessful.
“We believed it wise to delay this unpleasant announcement, comrades, until the wine of battle was ready to sustain your courage. Hail, comrades of the Iron Watch! Not one of you can die!”
The hairy fist again.
“Therefore, comrades, it is necessary to order you to cancel all plans to use the lightning death in our glorious attack—and to completely destroy all our stocks of the virus at once.
“When that order is carried out, comrades, tune to TAU for farther instructions. I am now going to take personal command of the assault on the pits, where Dr. Bull is barricaded. Hail, victory!”
The dark rugged visage of Iron Scarr faded from the screen. The TAU Hill Billies, uniforms and instruments hastily painted with crosses and twining snakes, began a nervous but vigorous rendition of the spaceman’s ballad: Ten Years in Iron Scan’s Crew.
Pale and sweating under his grease paint, Dr. Bull made a hurried round of the defenses. There was now only a scattering fire from the hospital windows. But the Sun was gone from the tower, the cold dark of space crept down about it.
“The traitors outside are probably a little confused,” Dr. Bull told the exhausted defenders. “But when they do find out what’s going on, they won’t bother any more about taking TAU intact. They’ll use everything they’ve got. But you can hold them off, long enough. Give me twenty minutes more—and you’ll all be heroes, and millionaires!”
“Dead ones!” muttered a wounded planeteer.
“But we’ll hold them.” It was the quiet thrilling voice of Vera Frame. Her sure white hands held a pellet gun. Scarlet, from somewhere, stained her velvet cheek. The terror in her eyes was veiled with shining courage. She moved abruptly, as if to shake off clutching death. Softly she cried:
“Victory! Doctor, that’s our battle-cry!”
DR. BULL went reeling back to the studio. The anvil in his brain was ringing louder, the footfalls of racing death were nearer. He felt confused and ill. It was hard to think, hard to remember what he had planned.
But he paused at the mirror, deftly touched the make-up. . . .
On a hundred million telescreens, the long cragged face of Scarr looked tense and worried. It looked almost afraid. But the hairy fist came up in a grim defiant gesture. The voice of Scarr was hoarse and low:
“I have been with our splendid Iron Watch storm troopers, attempting to capture the pits at the core of Taurus, where Dr. Bull, the clever desperado who calls himself the Planeteer, has barricaded himself.
“Comrades, I must confess to you that a very grave situation has developed. The armored bulkheads are strongly defended by the survivors of Dr. Bull’s Special Planeteers. Dr. Bull is in control of the important gravity apparatus, and the geodesic drive, at the core of Taurus.
“Already he has started the drive—he is swinging Taurus from its orbit about the Earth! Comrades, we can’t yet predict the meaning of this move. Commander Batson is making every effort to storm the bulkheads. But the defense is stubborn.
“Our agents had reported that this geodesic equipment was dismantled and sold, ten years ago, when Dr. Bull was in desperate financial difficulties because of my first attack. But it has been rebuilt, instead, and made tremendously more powerful. Comrades, beware! This proves that a traitor exists, within the Iron Watch!”
Scarr looked quickly away, turned excitedly back to the millions.
“Comrades!” His voice was strained and rapid. “I have just received a message from Commander Batson. From the Valiant, which is lying disabled across the north pole of Taurus, he reports that we are being hurled toward the Moon!
“ ‘fraid of the just punishment waiting for his long catalog of crimes against the etchics of the IMA, Dr. Bull is attempting to destroy himself, and us, by piloting Taurus into a suicidal collision with the Moon.
“Unfortunately, comrades, our brave attack on the pits has failed. Commander Batson has already retired to the Valiant, with his heroic Iron Watch troops. However, all is not yet lost.
“Hail, victory!”
The hairy fist saluted.
“Comrades, we are leaving a time bomb to stop the main power plant. This will cut off both the gravity generator and Dr. Bull’s geodesic drive. Our insane plunge toward the Moon will be halted. Taurus will lose its atmosphere—and our mad Planeteer will perish instantly, when air pressure blows the bulkheads from the pits.
“Farewell, comrades—until Dr. Bull is dead. Aboard the Valiant, we can escape the cataclysm. We shall return in space suits, and repair the power plant. Keep tuned to TAU, and wait for my orders.”
A hundred million screens went black.
DR. BULL stumbled drunkenly out of the studio. Darkness now had thickened around the tower. Beneath it, the last attack had come. Auto-rifles hammered furiously. Shrieking, smashing, rocket-shells hammered the shuddering building.
Out of a stunned pause, Vera Frame’s calm voice rang clearly:
“Guard the halls—they’re coming in!”
Dr. Bull reeled back into the studio. “Comrades!” Scarr’s mighty voice was frantic. “Our last heroic effort has failed. Dr. Bull has had tremendous banks of auxiliary power tubes installed in the impregnable pits at the core of Taurus—the traitors in the Iron Watch, withholding that information, have betrayed us again.
“Betrayed us, comrades—and destroyed us!
“When we stopped the main power plant, Dr. Bull simply switched the gravity generators and the geodesic drive to these hidden tubes. The disabled Valiant is still held fast in the gravity field of Taurus.
“And the mad Planeteer is hurling us all at the Moon!
“Commander Batson, from the cruiser’s navigation console, reports that we are going to strike the Appenine Base. Thus, in one titanic cataclysm, all our three strategic prizes—the base, the Valiant, and Taurus itself—will be destroyed.”
Scarr’s voice broke huskily.
“So, comrades, we are defeated. All the splendid heroism and the ruthless might of the Iron Watch is crushed—through the fiendish cunning of a disreputable little quack doctor. Comrades at the base, aboard the cruiser, and here on Taurus—hail and farewell!”
Scarr choked, cleared his throat.
“To those glorious men of the Iron Watch on Earth,” he added huskily, “I have one final word. Now, when all is lost, I can confess to you freely that our researchers, in the matter of the Mercurian lightning death, were guilty of a frightful blunder.
“It appears that the serum used for immunization was manufactured from cultures of the virus which had not been completely killed. The very innoculation appears to be fatal, after a period of a few days upward. The lightning death is swiftly breaking out in those groups of the comrades first treated, at the base and aboard the Valiant.
“Therefore, comrades on Earth, you are advised to surrender, and seek medical attention—IMA researchers are reported to have made progress toward actual immunization. Surrender and prompt treatment, unfortunately, seem to offer your only hope to escape a horrible death.”
Scarr gulped and wiped his close-set eyes.
“Again, comrades, hail and farewell! With only a few seconds of life remaining—” The iron fist clenched again. “Hail, death!”
ON A hundred million screens, Iron Scarr crashed and flamed into silent blackness. And obliterating blackness, in the studio on Taurus, dropped upon the brain of Dr. Bull. The smashing crescendo within his skull swelled to the last fury of worlds colliding. He knew that the lightning death had run its fatal course.
“Imagination,” he tried to whisper. Audacity—”
He fell.
“Victory!”
After eons of struggle in a hot black jungle, where he fled in vain from the thudding drums that followed, fought the sentient rubbery vines that clutched and clung and choked him, Dr. Bull shouted that word in a voice that was surprisingly loud.
He swallowed, whispered it again, doubtfully. He was lying in a clean bed in his own hospital. The throb in his brain had incredibly ceased. He blinked unbelievingly up at Vera Frame.
“Vee?” he whispered. “You’re all right? I—I thought—”
Still the thing was too horrible to say. But the tall gorgeous nurse smiled down at him, and he saw that the frightful shadow was gone from her eyes.
“You thought I had the lightning death.” Her golden voice was unafraid. “And I did, doc. And so did you.” Her cool fingers caught his groping, bewildered hand, squeezed quickly. “I knew you had it, all the time,” she whispered. “You were wonderful, to go on.”
“We—we—”
For once, he could find no words.
“The patrol squadron that arrived four hours ago brought a new serum from the IMA tropical laboratories at Panama. Doc, we’re going to be all right.” She stopped to kiss him. “The lightning death is conquered.”
The little doctor’s blue eyes twinkled. “Scarr?” he asked. “And the iron Watch?” The nurse’s limpid eyes were shining. “The Iron Watch just folded up,” she said. “The men on the Valiant mutinied, and mobbed Scarr, before the squadron got here. The base was abandoned—and recaptured by three loyal men who had been hiding in cracker barrels. The Iron Watch on Earth has gone to pieces—the police were skeptical when they began to surrender and confess and accuse one another, but the evidence was convincing. It’s lucky the IMA really had an antigen!”
Vera Frame caressed his hand. “The loyal patrol commanders can’t quite under stand how you did it, doc,” she said. “Because the simplest kind of triangulation, on TAU, would have told any Iron Watch member that Taurus hadn’t actually been moved out of its orbit.”
Dr. Bull closed his twinkling eyes. He had spent many years perfecting a technique for causing his listeners to neglect to think of simple and common sense tests of the things he told them.
“And here, doc,” the voice of Vera Frame went on. “A message just came from Wells and Watterson, in New York.” Her strong deft hands raised his head on the pillow, so that he could read the teleprinter strip:
CONGRATULATIONS CAPTAIN PLANETEER. YOUR DEFENSE OF EARTH MAGNIFICENT PUBLICITY. WELLS AND WATTERSON BEG YOU ACCEPT OUR DEEPEST APOLOGIES PREVIOUS MESSAGE. FUTURE OF INDEPENDENT TAURUS NOW SECURE. ANTICIPATE RECORD BUSINESS FOR TAURIUM AND REACTIVATION. WE REMAIN AT YOUR SERVICE ANY FUTURE DIFFICULTIES.
With a bland pink baby smile, Dr. Bull read that message twice. He asked the nurse to snap on the telecast receiver built into the ceiling. The red, reactivated bull was just fading into his own kindly, white-bearded face, cheerily greeting all the planets.
Suddenly. Dr. Bull sat up in bed, ruefully fingering the unfamiliar smoothness of his rosy chin.
“Shut it off, Vee,” he told the nurse. “We’ve got a new war on, with the IMA. Call the makeup department, and have them find a false beard for me. I’m going on TAU, right now, to tell the planets that I really conquered the lightning death—in spite of all the jealous claims of the IMA mossbacks at Panama—with Taurium and the radiogenic reactivation.”
Ashes of Iron
What would happen to the world if suddenly every atom of iron dissolved to dust! What terrible catastrophes would ensue? Most of all, could mankind conquer such a terrible plight?
Jack Williamson, one of our greatest fantasy writers presents here a story of such a possibility. ASHES OF IRON is the story of a single man’s fight against what he thought was a great handicap. He envisioned the whole of mankind as Slaves to Iron. And he resolved to free the human race of its cantors. What he accomplished—and what finally happened provides a unique story worthy of its author. To most of us iron is merely a metal to be bent into contorted shapes for myriad purposes. Few accept it as else. But take it away once . . .
Peter Garrick had been two months in his self-imposed exile on Little Whale Island, when Jean Minturn came to beg his return.
She had left her father on his yacht at Jacksonville at dawn. Her hired plane had drifted out along the coast, above the lonely Barrier Islands. Twice at last it wheeled above an isolated bit of white-fringed green, while she studied her charts.
“That’s the one. Miss Minturn.” the pilot at Jacksonville had told her. “Little Whale. I landed Garrick there two months ago, with a lot of crated scientific junk. There’s a cabin on the north side, just above the palms. Oh, you’ll find him there, all right. He had no way to leave if he wanted to, except an old skiff.”
She landed on the beach. Slimly boyish in boots and riding togs, with soft red-brown hair tucked up under her broad white felt, she walked up across the hard white sand still wet from the tide. Her eyes searched eagerly in the jungle’s green fringe, for the cabin beyond the palms.
Peter Garrick had heard the plane; he was standing in the door of the little dilapidated pine shack that some sportsman must have built. He was tall and lean in the freedom of shorts and polo shirt, his skin burned dark from the sun; but the slight stoop of his broad shoulders told that he had been a studious man. His somber clean-cut face was freshly shaven, but in two months his dark bare head had become a little shaggy. A lingering bitterness shadowed his eyes, and tightened the corners of his mouth.
Recognition swept away his scowl of annoyance. He smiled solemnly and started down to meet the girl, walking with a slight limp.
“Pete!” Her gray eyes lit with joy. “I’m so glad to find you!” She studied him. “You still limp, but you look tanned and well.”
They came together. He kissed her eager red lips deliberately. His dark eyes were quizzical.
“Well, Jean?”
She mocked his grave voice. “Well, darling?” She laughed happily, and her arms went around him. “Well, I’ve come after you. That’s what. I’ve come to take you back to your job and your place in the world.”
His lean face shadowed darkly. Harshness edged into his voice.
“I’ve left the world, Jean. I told you that. I’ve no place in it—ever. I’m not going back.”
She took his elbows with her hands.
“I can understand, Pete,” she said softly. “It was a terrible thing. You were pretty badly hurt, you know—there were weeks when we thought you would never regain consciousness. And when you did, and found your mother already buried, it must have been a dreadful blow.”
Her grip tightened on his arms; her face lifted earnestly.
“We’ve given you two months here. But that’s enough. Now you must come back. Don’t let your bitterness fester in you, Peter. You have a place to fill in the world. You have a work, something you alone can do.
“Dad’s engineers have never been able to work the kinks out of your oscillation power valve—”
His harsh grim laugh checked her voice.
“So you want me to come back to finish the thing that killed my mother.” His dark lean face twisted to a spasm of pain. “You say you understand, Jean. You don’t. But you’re right when you say I have work to do.”
A terrible strange smile burned the pain from his face.
“Yes, there’s something I alone can do. And it’s going to change the history of the world—”
She smiled. Oh, Pete, I’m so glad—”
“Wait!” his hard voice rapped. “You haven’t heard me.”
She shook her head with the broad white hat, happily.
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing does, if you’re coining back.” She leaned a little toward him. “Dad has been begging me to come after you ever since you left. And I brought a message from him—he’s at Jacksonville now, on the yacht.
“Here is the message. On the day that you finish your work, and demonstrate magnetic beam transmission of power as a commercial proposition, he will reorganize Minturn Steel under the name of Planet Power and Transport. You will be the new president—”
Peter Garrick stopped her with a sharp jerk of his shoulders.
“You don’t understand, Jean. I’m not going back. There’s never going to be any Planet Power. There’s not even going to be a. Minturn Steel any longer.”
She released his arms and stepped back quickly. Her white face went rigid; her eyes widened fearfully.
“Pete, what do you mean?”
He moved a little after her. His voice was low, husky.
“I love you, Jean. That is the only reason I have hesitated—because I didn’t want to destroy your position in the world, and perhaps risk your life. I do love you—”
He swallowed; his long mouth set grimly.
I’m glad you are here, so that I have a chance to explain. Your life rests upon your father’s industry—steel, iron. I want to show you that iron is the cruel master of mankind, and that it must be destroyed!” She shrank from the hard, fanatical ring of his tones.
“Peter,” she whispered apprehensively, “what are you going to do?”
His shaggy dark head jerked at the cabin door.
“Come in here, and I’ll show you.”
She stood still, her blue eyes watching him in defensive wonder.
“Remember yourself, Pete,” she begged. “You were badly hurt. In the hospital, you were out of your head for weeks. But the doctors said you were all right again. You’ve got to come out of it. Forget your bitterness. The accident couldn’t be—”
“Accident!” His voice was a savage rasp. “It wasn’t an accident, Jean, that killed my mother. It was iron. Look at my life—let me tell you what iron has done to me!”
