Collected Short Fiction, page 13
Then Naro and I got up on that rock—I have never been able to remember just how we did it. I dropped to my knees, seized the rifle that I had pushed up before me, and began to pump lead at the beast as fast as I could work the bolt. The recoils of the gun seemed almost a steady thrust. I heard the bullets thud into the purple body. I saw it checked or driven back by the impacts. One bullet took it off its balance and it fell. But in a moment it was raring on again, empowered by superhuman energy.
When my rifle was empty it was not twenty feet away. One arm was gone. One side of the body was fearfully torn. The purple face was a hideous mangled thing. It did not bleed, but the wounds were covered with a purple viscous slime. One of the eyes was gone, and the other glared at us with a wild red light. Anything of ordinary life must long since have been dead. But it gathered itself, and leapt for the top of the boulder.
On the day before I had showed Melvar how to use my guns, merely by way of proof that there was nothing supernatural in the working of the weapon that had slain so many of the Astranians in the temple. Now I pushed one of the pistols toward, her. She was standing there motionless, calmly even. There was no panic in her face, and I knew that she would have the courage to use the weapon to save herself from the terrible brute, if things came to the worst. She smiled at me, even as she picked up the gun. Then, looking at the safety, she gripped it in a business-like way.
As the purple monster sprang upon the boulder, I emptied my automatic into it. Great wounds were torn in the dark flesh, and half the face was shot away, but the thing seemed immune to death by ordinary means. As the last shot was fired it stood before us on the rock, a terrible mangled thing, the red eye blazing with demonic inhumanity.
Naro sprang out before me, his crystal sword drawn high. As the beast sprang at him, he cut at it with a mighty sweep of the razor-edged weapon. But the stroke, which would have decapitated an ordinary human, was parried by a terrific blow of the claw-like hand of the thing, and the boy was sent spinning back against me. We fell together on the rock.
Then it hurled itself toward Melvar. It all happened in the briefest of moments, before I could even begin to rise. She swung up the automatic with a quick, sure, graceful movement. She was like a beautiful goddess of battle, with blue eyes shining brightly, and golden hair gleaming in the sun. Again that mad laugh was ringing out, with a choking sob in it, for the thing’s vocal organs were injured. It leapt at her, its lacerated limbs working like machines. Calmly she stood, with automatic raised. The muzzle of the gun was not an inch from the throat of the beast when she fired. The strange head was blown completely off the body, and fell rolling and bouncing to the red brush below. The body collapsed, writhing and convulsed. It was not quiet for many minutes.
The girl dropped the gun, suddenly trembling,. and threw herself into my arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Her courage and coolness had saved us all, and I admit that I was quite as much unstrung as she after the danger had passed. What a wonderful being she was!
The Red Ship
IT was so late in the day, and we were so completely exhausted that we decided to go no farther. Naro was not hurt, save for a few scratches; and I suppose he was the least excited of the three. In a few minutes he threw the quivering purple body off the boulder and carried it and the head back across the clearing to dispose of them. When he returned we found an overhanging shelf on the north side of the boulder that would afford some shelter from the flying lights. We gathered some of the yellow fruit for supper, cleaned and reloaded the weapons, and prepared to spend the night there.
Naro called me aside and showed me a curious, much-worn silver bracelet, with a singular design upon it. He told me, in his imperfect English, that it had belonged to his father, who had been taken by the flying lights many years before. That was a curious development. It showed that there was some connection between the dreaded Purple Ones, and the terrible, pillaging red lights. But the full significance of it did not dawn upon me until later.
By that time I was in a measure accustomed to the passage of the rushing, whistling needles of crimson fire, and during the first part of the night I was able to sleep, while Naro sat up to keep watch. At midnight he awakened me, and we changed places. The sky was crossed and recrossed by the faint and flickering tracks of red, and the night was weirdly lit by the torpedo-shapes of scarlet flame that sped upon them. With a fatuous sense of security, I was leaning back against the boulder, smoking my pipe and caressing the cold metal of the rifle in my hand, dreaming of what Melvar and I might do if ever we were to emerge into the world alive.
The red thing was upon me before I knew it. The light of my pipe must have been visible to it. In my accursed thoughtlessness, that danger had never occurred to me. The thing came plunging down, flooding the landscape with its lurid crimson radiance, while the earth vibrated to its whistling, hissing scream. There was no need to waken my companions for they sprang to their feet in alarm’. We all cowered back against the rock in the hope of escaping observation. But the thing had already seen us.
I put my arm about the warm, throbbing body of Melvar, and drew her close to my breast. Her own cool white hand grasped mine as silently we waited.
The red object came down swiftly, paused just above the crimson thickets before us, then settled deliberately to earth. It was the first opportunity I had had for a close examination of these things. The shape was plainly cylindrical, tapering toward the ends. It was perhaps ten feet in diameter, and a hundred long. Set on the forward end was a bright green globe, perhaps three feet in diameter.
A clump of brush about the end of the cylinder burst into flame. As the bright crimson hue began to dull, I grasped suddenly the fact that the red color was due to the red heat generated by friction with the air, which was very great at the meteor pace the thing attained. It lay there, not fifty yards away, with the fire blazing and crackling about the end on our right, and eating its way into the thickets. The green sphere on the other end seemed to stare at us like a great intent eye. The red color slowly, faded. Suddenly Melvar gripped my arm.
“Why wait?” she whispered. “Perhaps it does not see us after all. Let us slip around the boulder.”
But on the instant we moved a great oval space swung out of the side of the cylinder. We saw that the door and walls were of a bluish white metal, and were very thick. It was very dark inside. A blood-congealing, eerie laugh sounded out of that darkness, and I shuddered. Quickly five human-like figures leaped one by one out of the oval doorway. With heart-chilling fear, I saw, by the flickering light of the burning thicket, that long white hair hanging about faces wrinkled and hideously aged, with toothless gums, red glaring eyes, and skin that was purple. Without a moment’s hesitation, the five naked monsters rushed down upon us.
The fire was fast blazing higher and burning rapidly into the brush between us and the cylinder, and we could see the purple beasts quite plainly in its light. And they were hideous to look upon. They came toward us with monstrous, springing bounds, actuated by some extraordinary force. Their muscles must have been far stronger than those of men, perhaps as strongly constructed as those of insects. Or, since muscular force depends on the intensity of nerve currents, perhaps their nerves were extraordinarily excited. And there was something insect-like in the way life had lingered in the body of the one we had killed, when it had already many wounds that should have been mortal.
I leveled my rifle, drew a bead on the neck of the foremost one, and fired. I must have had the luck to shatter the bones, for the head dropped limply to the side. The thing stopped abruptly, groping blindly about with its talon-like fingers. It seemed very strange that it did not fall. In an. instant one of the others ran close by it. The crippled monster sprang savagely at the other, and in a moment they were writhing and struggling in the brush, tearing at one another with tiger-like ferocity. The others passed by them for a moment, while I finished emptying the rifle, without visible results.
Saved by Fire
BY that time the crackle of the swiftly spreading fire had grown to a dull roar. It swept fast across the brush, red flames flaring high, and dense smoke rolling up into the night. The purple beasts did not appear to see it. They made no effort to avoid the flames. Were they invulnerable to fire? Or was fire merely unknown to them as to the people of Astran?
The three rushed straight on toward us, disregarding the rushing wall of flame not a dozen yards to the right of them. I kept firing madly. The leg of one went limp, but he leapt on with scarcely diminished speed, laughing terribly, with the white hair flying about the awful face, and the purple limbs moving frenziedly. The flames rushed over the fallen two and hid them. In another instant the curtain of fire had rolled over the others, and even the ship was hidden from our view.
Suddenly I realized that we were in quite as much danger from the fire as from the monsters. Already we were shrinking from the hot wind that blew before the flames, and half choked by the acrid fumes. For the second time we made a mad retreat to the top of the boulder, and lay flat. I heard a terrible laugh from the flames, and in a moment one of the things dashed out. His hair was gone, and the purple flesh burnt black. I shot as it showed itself, and it fell-. In another instant the flames had raced over it again. None of the others appeared.
We lay on the rock for several minutes, gasping in the cooler air that lingered near its surface. For a time the heat was stifling, but the scanty vegetation had burned off quickly, and soon a cool breeze came up from the south and lifted the smoke. We saw that the cylinder still lay where it had been, although the heavy body was closed. The green light still shone in the forward end. About it the earth lay black and smoking, and a low line of flame lay below the pall of smoke in a great ring all about us. Between us and the ship I saw in the darkness the black shadows that were the five dead beasts.
I was just beginning to wonder if all the crew of the ship were dead, so that we might enter and examine it, when the great oval door in the side swung open again, and something sprang out of it into the night. I heard a strange hissing, and a clatter of metal. In the semi-darkness I could see nothing plainly, but there was a floating shape of greenish mist, with a vague form beneath. I strained my eyes to try to distinguish its shape, while it stood motionless.
Abruptly a narrow, intensely bright beam of orange light, shot out of it and impinged upon the rock. There was a dull thud from the rock, and the ray was dead in a moment. But the granite where it had struck was cut away—obliterated! The beam had shone straight through the boulder, carrying away, or resolving into primary electrons, the matter on which it had struck. The smooth edges of the cut were glowing with a soft violet radiance.
My rifle was at hand, and on recovering from my surprise, I fired. I aimed just below the greenish patch. Something must have been exploded by the bullet, for there was a vivid flash of white fire, and a loud, sharp report. The spot of green was visible no longer, and we saw no motion about the cylinder. At the time I had no idea what it was that I had shot. I supposed that it had been another of the purple beasts armed with a strange ray-weapon. I imagined that the bullet had struck the weapon and caused an explosion.
CHAPTER IX
The Battle in the Mist
FOR perhaps an hour we sat there on the rock. As soon as the smoke cleared, we could see the crimson needles flying high upon their vague red tracks, and we watched them with a sort of hypnotic fascination, dreading the moment when one of them would land to investigate the fate of the ship that lay silent and presumably empty before us. The ground was still too hot for us to walk upon, and we felt the uselessness of attempting to escape on foot, even if it had already cooled. With a feeling of resigned and hopeless horror, we saw one of the crimson pencils circle lower about the place, then disappear in the direction of its lair beyond the Silver Lake.
Even as the whistling roar of its passage was rolling down upon us, Melvar spoke. Plow I admire the courage and indomitable resourcefulness of the girl. When I was hopelessly lost in despair, feeling all the desolation of this region and the infinite remoteness of the world of men, her pure rich voice and the warm living touch of her hand brought new courage to me.
“The Krimlu are coming,” she cried. “There is no use to try to fight them, or to try to outrun them. But that ship must be empty. The walls are metal and strong. Perhaps they could not open it.”
While there were several things about the proposition that were not very attractive, it seemed our best resource; and, besides, I had a keen desire to see the interior of the thing. We gathered up our equipment, climbed off the boulder, and hurried over to the cylinder. I was possessed by a haunting fear that we would find some thing hideous awaiting us, but the bright pencil of light from my pocket lamp revealed no living being in the long interior, nor could I find even a trace of the green patch that had blown up in front of the door. We scrambled through the opening without difficulty and I turned a handle that swung the heavy door shut and evidently locked it.
Then I set about examining the mechanism, for I had an intense curiosity about the propulsive force that enabled the vessel to attain a speed that must have reached thousands of miles per hour. In one end were rows of long cylinders of a transparent substance, evidently filled with the metallic fluid from the Silver Lake. Pipes ran from them to a complex mechanism in the rear end of the ship, from which heavy conduits ran all over the inside of the metal hull. While my understanding of it all was far from complete, I was able to verify a previous idea—that the strange vessels were driven by use of the rocket principle. It seems that the silver fluid was decomposed in the machine, and that the purple gas it formed, at a very high temperature, was forced out through the various tubes at a terrific velocity, propelling the ship by its reaction. The whistling roar of the things in motion was, of course, the sound of the escaping gas, and the red-purple tracks were merely the expelled gas hanging in the air.
The green globe in the forward end may have been the objective lens for a marvelous periscope. At any rate the walls of the forward part of the shell seemed transparent. And the periscope must have utilized infra-red rays, for the scene about us seemed much brighter than it, in reality, was. We could see very plainly the burned plain and the granite rock, and once, through a rift in the clouds of smoke that were rising all about, I caught a glimpse of the gleaming city of Astran, high above us in the west.
I noticed a slender lever, with a corrugated disc at the top, rising out of the floor in the bow of the ship. It occurred to me that it was the control lever. I took hold of it and gingerly pushed it back. Great jets of purple gas rushed past the transparent walls about us, and the ship slid backward on the ground. The sensation of motion was most alarming. The illusion of the transparency of the bow of the ship was so perfect that it seemed almost as if we were hanging in space a few feet in front of the mouth of an open tube. It was impossible for me to realize that I was surrounded by solid walls of metal, until I touched them. I think the wonderful telescope worked on much the same principle as television apparatus—that is, that the rays of light were picked up, converted into electrical impulses, amplified, and then projected on the metal wall, which served as a screen.
(To be concluded)
The Alien Intelligence
WE are certain that the first installment of this most extraordinary science fiction story must have impressed you; but the best part is now before you. It has always been a source of wonderment to every scientist and to most philosophers, why intelligence and reason such as possessed by human beings should be found only in the human race. There certainly seems to be no good reason for this. In fact, it would seem rather obvious that intelligence such as we know it, should be common to other beings of our own world as well as to other worlds.
At any rate, the author in the concluding chapters gives us a good deal of food for thought on this subject, and in addition keeps our imagination and interest at a high pitch of excitement throughout. It is an unforgettable story; one that should live long in the memories of every science fiction lover.
What Has Gone Before
WINFIELD FOWLER, a young American living in Perth, Australia, receives by radio a number of messages from Dr. Horace Austen, a well-known scientist who is his friend and benefactor. Austen has gone to explore the Mountain of the Moon located in the great Victoria Desert. He urges Fowler for the sake of mankind to come to him and bring some scientific equipment. He gives Fowler the directions and tells him to look up Melvar, “maiden of the crystal city” who he left near the Silver Lake. Fowler goes off in search of Austen. Coming to the desert he finds a great metal ladder with which to ascend to a plateau and then on the other side another one going down into the valley. On the way down the ladder he notices queer lights playing through the valley, and great shapes swimming through the night air. He meets Melvar, of Astran, the crystal city, and falls in love with her. She conducts him to her city, which is the ruin of a once great civilisation. Although the Astranians possess great supplies of precious jewels they had a very low material existence, not even having the knowledge of making fire. They are superstitious and fear the Krimlu, which are the flying lights that Fowler saw. She conducts him to the city, where he finds that he is not welcome. Austen who preceded him had told the people much of the world beyond and attempted to destroy their superstitions. But Melvar puts him in a place of safety and brings him a letter that she had been holding from Austen. He tells of having investigated the Silver Lake (the touch of whose liquid means death) and believes that many strange things are occurring in this country. He is going beyond the Silver Lake to the crater of the Mountain of the Moon to see what he can discover. Several days later Melvar’s brother Naro brings Fowler a note that Jorak the high priest of Astran is going to make a sacrifice of her. She confesses being in love with Fowler. He and Naro rescue her and the three escape from the city. They reach the shores of the Silver Lake where Melvar tells Fowler of the Purple Men, who are beast-like men with the strength of a number of ordinary humans. On the shores of the lake they witness a terrible sight of a great bar of metal formed in the sky and from it drops to the lake great globules of the metal. Fowler concludes that from this metal the lake was formed. But he is mystified about the process taking place in the sky. They go on in search of Austen and are followed by a Purple Man, whom they kill only after literally filling him with bullets. Then one of the ships they use (that of the flying lights) settles down to earth and a half dozen of the Purple Men come after the three. But the red hot ship has set the land between them on fire and the mad’-men plunging through the fire are burnt to death. Fowler also kills from the ship a strange looking green animal that when shot gives a little puff and disappears. The three enter the ship and Fowler examining it discovers that it is a rocket ship which uses the decomposed metal of the Silver Lake as a means of propulsion.
