Collected short fiction, p.81
Collected Short Fiction, page 81
His sleeveless garment, fastened over the left shoulder and falling to the knees, in the universal fashion, was of some soft, buff-colored material resembling buckskin—it was, Dick supposed, the carefully dressed hide of some creature of a far-off planet. Little round blue shells, resembling the sapphire tokens of exchange, were sewn upon it in curious patterns, for ornament. And a wide, crimson sash was bound about the middle, holding it to his waist. In this belt was stuck the small, blackish rod of a miniature El Ray, and another sheathed instrument that Dick did not recognize.
This slight, scanty leathern garment revealed the tanned limbs, mighty but supple, and the broad, powerful shoulders of the stranger. Dick admired him at once for his evident strength, and for the air of confident resource and capability that he carried, and he liked him for the glow of courage and humor in his eyes.
The stranger turned from her father to Thon Ahrora, greeting the lovely girl with evident admiration, so ardent, simple and sincere, that Dick felt jealous and sympathetic at the same time.
“This is Don Galeen,” she presented him to Dick. “An old friend of ours. An adventurer. A scout of space. He is one of those whom father sent to search the far planets for the marvelous catalyst—the last to return! All the others have failed.”
As she spoke, the bronzed giant stepped forward, and placed his hardened, mighty hand upon Dick’s shoulder. Dick returned the salutation, marveling at the iron muscles that rippled beneath his fingers.
“And Dick Smith,” she introduced him, “a man father brought from the far past——”
“But tell me, Don!” Midos Ken broke in eagerly. “What of your quest? Did you, too, come back with empty hands?”
Don Galeen looked at him, spoke slowly. “No, I brought nothing back. But perhaps I was not wholly unsuccessful. It is a long story. And I am tired. For two days I have ridden the K-ray. Two hundred thousand light-years! And I came right over on the subway from the space-port. I could do with something to eat and drink while I speak.”
“You have found it!” the aged man cried, in excitement.
“I did, though I did not see it,” Don said. “At least, the indicator that you gave me showed that I was near it. But it is in the hands of beings who are not eager to lose it. I could not get to see it. In fact, I was lucky to get away myself!”
Some vision of horror seemed to flash searingly across his mind. His face twitched with the pain of some memory; his mighty hands clenched till his corded muscles cracked, and knuckles whitened under his tan.
With a word to Don to take one of the reclining couches, Thon stepped toward the side of the high, green-walled room, and voiced a series of the melodious notes, with which the people of futurity controlled their mechanical servants. A concealed panel opened, and a long table on casters rolled out to the center of the room. The crystal dishes, which loaded it, were piled high with the amazing variety of delicious synthetic foods. Tall flagons held several kinds of delightful drinks.
The reclining couches moved automatically to places at the sides of the table. Don Galeen gulped down a huge goblet of violet-colored wine, and began his story:
“I was to explore the outer regions of the Galaxy, in Perseus, you know. The first day I rode the K-ray to Qunaro, in the midst of the vast stellar empire of the double star cluster we can see from earth. There I had to Wait another day for a K-ray car to Zulon, a small sun on the very rim of the watch-shaped spiral of the Galaxy.
“There, on the twelfth planet of Zulon, I had a one-man space flier built according to the plans you had given me. I paid for it with the tokens you gave me.”
“You went alone!” Thon cried, compassion in her voice. “It must be terrible to be alone in the void! No woods or seas or mountains! No sound! Only the tiny, cramped machine. And the vast darkness of space, with the suns gleaming in it, cold and far away!”
“A bit lonely, perhaps,” Don admitted. “But I am used to it. Once I took a partner. We were looking for a space liner that had been lost off Canopus. Her guiding apparatus had failed, and she had run out of the K-ray beam that drove her. We were out together nine months before we found the ship, with all dead upon her. And the partner and I were at each other’s throats before we got back. You know, I smoke the turn—years ago I was on the hot, jungle-ridden inner planet of Sirius, driving the huge monsters they use for beasts of burden there; and like the other drivers, I was forced to use the drug, to escape the fearful dangers of those steaming jungles. And my partner couldn’t stand the fumes of the drug, in the narrow compartments of the ship—and I couldn’t do without it. Since, I have always gone alone.”
He paused to swallow another full goblet of fragrant drink.
“But tell me of your trip! Where did you find the catalyst?” Midos Ken urged him.
Don Galeen grinned. “All right, I’ll try to stick to the subject,” he continued. “Two years ago I flew out from the twelfth planet of Zulon in the little flier. The Galaxy behind me was a broad band of light—for I saw its disk edge-wise. Before me space was dark, except for the tiny pin-points of the few, far-scattered suns I was to explore.
“After two weeks under full power, I came to the first, a small red star, far older than our sun. It had no planets, so I was unable to land. But it was a beautiful thing. Rings about it, like Saturn’s. Three of them, blue as sapphire. A wonderful sight! The dull red ball of the dying sun was like a huge, round ruby. And the three blue rings were spinning around it.”
ONE of the broad windows had swung open a moment before, as if moved by a breath of wind. Dick had noted it idly, thinking how wonderful was this climate that permitted windows to be so huge, and to be kept open except during the rains, which came at periodic intervals, fixed in advance by the directors of the weather-control machines. Now, as Don paused, he fancied he heard a step behind him. He turned nervously, remembering the unexpected pirate raid. But the vast, green-walled room seemed empty of strangers.
“A week later,” Don went on, “I arrived at a double star—two huge suns, spinning about their common center of gravity. They, too, were beautiful. One was a bright green. Another was a rich flame-orange. But double systems, you know, rarely have planets. I went on.
“Three months I spent in a voyage to a huge blue star, a young, flaming giant of a sun. It had a score of planets. I explored them one by one, watching the little red needle of the indicator you had given me. The outer planets were frozen. One of them had queer life upon it—moving things that looked like glittering crystals of ice, yards across. I left them hastily.
“On an inner planet I found traces of a civilized life. There were the gaunt ruins of colossal, time-worn buildings—the wrecks of huge machines, eroded beyond recognition and enormous mounds and ditches that must have been part of an irrigation system to conserve the last water of the planet. For it was a desert world. Endless wastes of white sand were drifted upon the ruins of the cities. Water was gone; even the atmosphere had mostly vanished into space.”
“Traces of civilized life had been found upon nearly a hundred planets,” Thon put in, for Dick’s benefit. “Fairly intelligent creatures, still living, were discovered on a dozen. But none had progressed so far as man. Not being able to leave their dying planets, they had always expired with them. In fact, if the beings of another world had been able to conquer space before men were, they would probably have spread through the Galaxy, and nipped human development in the bud.”
“Please let him get on with the story, daughter,” Midos Ken implored.
“Life still existed upon planets closer to the huge blue sun,” Don continued. “They were worlds of weird jungle, with huge and monstrous creatures crashing across them; worlds where the sun was hot and water and atmosphere abundant; where life was a broad, swift stream, plunging fast over the brink of death. Incredible how fast things grew there—by eating other things.
“The planets with orbits within these were burned by the rays of the sun, until life could not exist upon them—barren, burned worlds, and the inmost was yet glowing, with red, intense light. It was almost a second sun.
“But upon all these worlds, which I visited one by one, I found no trace of the substance I sought. The red needle of the detector was undisturbed.
“After venturing as near the innermost planet as I dared, I went on toward a quadruple star—two binaries spinning about each other. One pair red and blue, the other orange and white, my telescope showed them. But I never reached them.
“For I came upon the Green Star.
“It is but an accident that I came upon it, there in the inconceivable vastness of extra-galactic space. Its feeble gleam was visible hardly half a light-year, in my best instrument. I approached it cautiously, wondering. Never had I seen such a star.
“It is really merely a planet, drifting alone in space. Without a sun. It is bitterly, bleakly cold, and it is dark. But not at the absolute zero, and not completely dark. For the surface of it glows with a green luminosity. Its barren rocks and snow-covered wastes gleam with cold green fire. Even its thin, chill air is filled with the frozen light. The sky glows with feeble emerald radiance.
“The light is due to a radioactivity within that strange planet. For when I came near it, the parts of the machine glowed with green. And even my body, and my hands and arms shone with green fire.
“That radioactivity is not good for human life, I know. I will not tell you now of what it did to me—it is not pleasant to talk about.”
“But the catalyst!” Midos Ken broke in. “Did you find it?”
“The red needle of the indicator moved before I landed on those green, glowing wastes of snow,” Don said. “I followed the needle. And it led me into a hellish place.
“I can’t describe it!
“The human mind cannot conceive of anything beyond its own experience. We can describe things only by telling how they are like other things. I can give you no idea of the world I stumbled upon.
“Beings of another kind!
“They are so unlike anything we know that I can give you no idea of them. But they are intelligent in a way—perhaps nearly as much so as man. They rule a part of the Green Star. And the catalyst is in one of their—well, cities is the best word I can find. They guard it well. My attempt to reach it nearly cost me my life. It must be something they treasure.
“But I must try to give you a better idea of those beings. Can you imagine slender green worms, yards long, covered with scales that glitter like flakes of emerald? They have faces, with lidless eyes that are bright and gleaming—and red, crimson, glowing like rubies. And they have wings, long and frail and glistening with iridescent color. And tentacles, that grow near the eyes, on what I called a face, that they use for hands.
“Can you imagine them?
“Even if you can, you will not see them as they are. You see I have only tried to tell what they are like—and they really are like nothing that I know.
“And their cities, their habitations, are vast cones of cold blue flame, in which they swim. They do not use machinery as we do. But they seem to have strange power over light—or they control strange forces that are accompanied by a display of light.
“For days I hung about, trying to study them. The green fire, the radiation of the core of the planet, was destroying my body. Then I ventured too near the cone of blue flame where they keep the catalyst I was after.
“An arm of purple fire—that is the best way I can say it—an arm of violet-red light reached out and snatched down the flier. It drew me into the cone of blue flame. I’ll never recover from the horror of what happened before I managed to jerk away, with all power on. And yet I can’t explain it!”
He nervously gulped down another glass of purple wine. With the others staring intently at the rugged, bronzed face, which now had a shadow of unutterable horror upon it, he sat in silence for a long minute.
Then suddenly, Don Galeen laughed uncertainly. He fumbled in a pocket of his soft, leathern garment, produced a tiny tube of heavy black wood, polished with much handling, and a little crystal vial, from which he shook a tiny green pellet. Carefully, he rolled the pellet into the end of the wooden tube, and covered it with a sort of metal stopper.
“I’m at my tian again,” he grinned. “I’d never have lived to get back, without it. It makes me forget.” He turned, grinning, at the lovely girl lying on the divan across the table. “You ought to try it, sometime, Thon. Wonderful dreams, it gives you!”
“Not me!” the girl cried. “I can’t even stand the scent of it. I’m like your old partner!” she smiled.
Don Galeen inhaled through the black wooden tube, several times. He sighed with deep satisfaction, and settled back on the couch. A faint streamer of greenish vapor curled from his nostrils. His eyes lost their recent horror, grew dreamy, closed. His head dropped to the couch. He slept, breathing slowly and regularly.
A strange look came over his rough, bronzed face. A smile of delight, of wonderful contentment. It was the look of a dreamer who visions golden lands, with fairy cities on purple hills, where he strives and loves and follows the old call of adventure.
Then Dick caught a whiff of the green vapor. It was acrid, pungent, but laden with a cloying sweetness that was almost sickening. He coughed and turned hurriedly away.
“The odor nauseates me,” Thon said, smiling at Dick. “I feel sorry for the partner he spoke of. Suppose we go for a walk in the wood below the hill. Come, Dad. He will sleep there for hours.”
“All right, Thon,” Midos Ken agreed. “We must talk over what he said. The catalyst is found at last, on this strange world. We must make our plans to go there and get it. Bargain with the things that guard it, if they will. Take it by force if we must. Humanity must have it!”
They left the room.
As they were going out, Dick thought he saw a shadow move before him. It was nothing that he could see, but more as if some invisible thing had come between his eye and the wall. But when he blinked to clear his eyes and looked again, he could see nothing amiss.
Then Thon took his hand, with the simple confidence of a child, and led him from the room. He decided that the trouble had been in his eyes, dismissed his fear in the joy of Thon’s sweet comradeship.
It was two hours later when they returned.
Don Galeen was gone!
On the table was a square of the white material used for writing. Upon it these words were hastily inscribed: To Thon Ahrora and Midos Ken:
Who is the greater in science now? Do you forget what I told you of invisibility? I hold your lives in my hand.
If you want this man, and the knowledge he has, come for him to the Dark Star.
Garo Nark, Lord of the Dark Star.
CHAPTER V
The Astounding Form
“I KNEW that Nark was still about here,” Midos Ken said when Thon had read the boasting message. “Several times I have heard a person moving about, whom you did not see. But I thought it protection enough to keep my weapons ready, and to set up in the laboratory an instrument which broadcasts interfering waves to keep El Rays from operating within a mile or so of it—that was to keep Mark from striking us down without warning.
“I was a fool. I thought my science equal to that of the Dark Star. Nark was invisible. But to me, all things are invisible, and I could tell by my sense of hearing when he was near. I was planning a trap for him.
“But now he has ruined us. In my excitement about his story, about the discovery of the catalyst, I forgot to listen for our enemy. We have lost Don Galeen—and with him everything!”
“Once I fancied that I heard something in the room,” Dick said. “And when we were going out, it seemed that I saw a sort of shadow on the wall. But when I looked again it was gone.”
“Nark does possess the secret of invisibility—or at least of semi-invisibility. He said he had a substance that reflected no light at all. That would make a space flier invisible in the darkness of space. But a man covered with it would show as a dark shadow against a light colored wall. Possibly his scientists have developed a pigment which changes its color and its brightness to match surrounding objects, like a chameleon. Anything covered with such a pigment would be almost invisible against the smooth green walls of this room, for example. To be truly invisible, an object must be perfectly transparent, and neither reflect nor refract light that strikes it or passes through it.
“But we haven’t lost everything, Dad,” Thon spoke up. “We are much better off, in fact, than we were before Don came. “We know that the catalyst exists, and we know approximately where, We must plan to carry on!”
“Come to the Dark Star, Nark said!” Dick broke in.
“Let’s do it! We can find Don Galeen, and take him on with us after the catalyst!”
“We shall do it!” Thon cried, her keen eyes flashing him a glance that made his heart leap faster. A wonderful girl! He could attempt a trip to the edge of the universe to please such a one as she!
“But Garo Nark took all the tokens,” Midos Ken objected. “We can do nothing without a space flier. And to build such a powerful ship as we require would be tremendously expensive.”
Dick’s heart swelled. He had kept his good news to himself, waiting to surprise them. This seemed the time. “No worry about that,” he said. “I was back to the publications department office yesterday evening. Our book is still selling, the royalties still pouring in. It will earn as much again as Garo Nark took, they told me.”
“Oh! You wonderful dear!” Thon cried.
She turned to him in delight, as if to throw her arms about him. Then, remembering his surprise at her previous impulsive embrace, she flushed, and stood still.
Dick rose to the occasion. Swiftly he put a strong arm about her slender shoulders, drew her lithe body to him, put his lips to hers. A curious intoxication of delight filled him at the thrill of contact with her warm, strong body. But he fought it back, released her quickly.
