Collected Short Fiction, page 239
“I’ll try,” he whispered miserably. “But I’m afraid—afraid I can’t!”
To be Continued.
The Cometeers
A New Epic of the skyways and the sequel to the “Legion of Space”
UP TO NOW:
For want of a better word, the startled astronomers of the thirtieth century termed the invader a “comet.” A colossal cloud of shining green, sharp-edged, impenetrable, it came out of mysterious interstellar space. Controlled like a ship—although it is twelve miles long—it halted in space, beyond Pluto.
Man’s amazement changed to panic as unseen raiders—the Cometeers—invaded the system, and learned of Stephen Orco. Stephen Orco is the legion’s most dangerous prisoner. A brilliant, mysterious rebel, mockingly defiant of all humanity, he is dangerous because he has learned the secret of AKKA.
AKKA is the symbol for humanity’s secret weapon. Its user, with simple instruments, can destroy any object in the universe—by so altering the warp of space that neither matter nor energy can exist. The only possible barrier is the counterwarp of space, by which any master of AKKA can prevent the destructive use of the weapon.
Aladoree Star is the keeper of AKKA. Her son, Bob, is with her when her husband, John, comes with an order from the Green Hall, headquarters of the legion of space, to destroy the Cometeers.
Before doing so she is interrupted by Jay Kalam, commander of the legion of space, who withdraws the order. He is going to take the Invincible—newest and most powerful of the legion’s space ships—and visit the Cometeers. If he does not return in twelve days, they are certainly enemies and must be destroyed.
In the meantime, John Star is to take Aladoree to some even more secret and secluded place. Bob goes with Jay to enter the service.
Jay explains to Bob that Orco surrendered to them only on the guarantee that his life would be spared. He made an exception of only one individual who was free to kill him if he could: Bob Star.
Bob, in turn, explains to Jay that there is a personal score to be settled between them. While at the academy of the legion of space, Orco burned Bob’s brain with an omega-ray projector. Each pledged, then, to kill the other. But Bob never recovered from the burning pain, and with it came an obsession against ever killing any man.
Now Bob must face this man—with the intention of killing him. His continued existence holds a menace for the entire system.
VIII.
THE Invincible drove down toward the south pole of Neptune.
The eighth planet, 2,800,000,000 miles from the Sun, receives a thousand times less solar radiation than Earth; and only the heat of internal radioactivity prevents its very air from falling as everlasting snow. Radiation turns its atmosphere to freezing, never-ending fog.
Despite the vast size of the planet—its diameter is 30,000 miles—a low, mean density results in a surface gravitation nearly equal to that of Earth. And the planetary engineers had made life possible there, oxygenating the atmosphere and building heated, insulated cities over the rich mines in the equatorial belt.
But the eternal winter dark of the south polar continent had defied even the engineers. A waste of frozen desert, utterly lifeless, larger than all Earth, it spread a blank, white area upon the interplanetary charts, marked: Uninhabited, perilous, shipping keep clear.
The Invincible, however, descended toward the center of it, through greenish, freezing clouds. Bob Star and his two old guards set foot upon a flat, frozen plain. Giles Habibula’s squat bulk, as always, seemed about to burst the seams of his plain green uniform. Hal Samdu was still the rugged-faced giant, gaunt and powerful, proudly glittering with the decorations he had received for his part in the historic raid to Yarkand.
Already shivering, they ran away from the air lock. Rockets thundered behind them; ghostly in the fog, the ship quivered, slid forward. They dropped flat to escape the hot, blue hurricane of her exhausts. A moment, and the blue glare was fading in the clouds; thunder became a far-off whisper, ceased.
The Invincible had carried Jay Kalam on his risky mission to test the good will of the Cometeers.
A squad of legionnaires came down, challenged the three, examined Bob Star’s credentials, and guided them to the strange fortress on a low and barren hill, the hidden prison of Stephen Orco.
They were almost upon it before Bob Star could see anything; then, abruptly, a vast and massive wall loomed above them in the fog.
“The wall is ring-shaped, sir,” the officer informed him, extremely respectful since he had seen the signature of Jay Kalam himself upon Star’s papers. “There’s a circular rocket field inside, where our four cruisers lie. You don’t see the real prison at all; it is a buried cylinder of perdurite. Merrin’s cell is a thousand feet below the field.”
A ponderous, armored door admitted them to the wall’s hundred-foot mass. Bob Star immediately asked to see the prisoner. And at last, beyond confusing, narrow passages walled with gray perdurite, behind huge cylindrical doors, massively locked, beyond hidden elevators and grimly alert guards in turrets of vitrilith, he looked upon the man whose very life was a threat to the existence of humanity.
A HUGE DOOR let him into a square, bare little room, where two sentries watched. Its farther wall was a shining mass of vitrilith. Beyond that impregnable transparency was Stephen Orco’s cell. Clear, soft light flooded it, and it was furnished comfortably.
Beside a tall, frosted glass of scarlet wine, the prisoner sat in a big chair, reading. His gigantic, splendid body was relaxed in a green dressing gown. Bob Star could see the angle of his handsome face, the light smile that clung to his big, womanish mouth.
“This is Merrin, sir,” said the officer. “He was sealed beyond that wall of vitrilith when the prison was built, two years ago. No one has held any communication with him since. The cell is soundproof. All metal objects have been kept from him. Air, water, and liquid food are pumped to him through screened tubes——”
He broke off to indicate a small red button on the gray wall beside them.
“I must warn you, sir. The red button would flood the cell with lethal gas. I thought I should tell you, for we have orders to preserve his life as a sacred trust.”
Bob Star scarcely heard the last words, above the sudden, confused ringing in his ears. Abrupt sweat chilled his body. He swayed with faintness. The red disk stared at him, a sinister eye.
He had just to touch it—that was all. And the score of nine years would be settled. An intolerable burden would be lifted. Even the old pain, he felt, would die; and the haunting fear would go——
He was aware, then, that Stephen Orco had seen him. The blue eyes, cold and burning with a reckless defiance, had come up from the book. The handsome face smiled mockingly. The prisoner got to his feet and strolled to the transparent, unbreakable wall. He pointed at the red button, and slapped his leg with silent merriment. His full, dark lips moved to some derisive, soundless greeting.
Bob Star felt a sudden desire to speak to him. This was their first encounter since that night of pain. Perhaps his fear was just a mental complex born of torture, an illusion that a few words might dissolve.
Yes, said the officer, there was a telephone, but its use was forbidden.
“I will speak with him!” said Bob Star.
AFTER a conference with the commandant, it was arranged. Bob Star was left alone in the square, gray room, and a magnetic speaker thumped.
The clear, rich baritone of Stephen Orco came to him, carelessly: “Greetings, Bob. I’ve been amused at your efforts to put your finger on that little button.”
Bob Star’s white face set. He rasped: “I’m going to do it.”
“You won’t do it, Bob. I know the effect of the omega ray upon the tissues of the brain. No, I’ve never been afraid that you will kill me. And I know that no other, will—because of a foolish code the legion has.”
Bob Star braced himself, forced one hand a little way toward that malicious red eye. But the old fear yelled, you can’t——A numbing chill struck down his hand. He staggered back, his shoulders sagging with defeat. Tears stung his eyes; his hands knotted impotently.
“I’m really glad to see you,” Stephen Orco was saying, smiling. “Because you must have been sent here with the ill-grounded hope that you could destroy me. That means that my already rather fantastic defenses are considered inadequate. I conclude therefore that I have powerful allies outside, and that I may hope shortly to be set free.”
“Not if I can prevent it,” said Bob Star, grimly.
“You can’t, Bob. I’ve beaten you.” Bob Star was amazed at the black hate that peered suddenly through that smiling levity. “I’ve broken you!”
The voice was abruptly lower, hoarse, monstrously evil.
“When first I knew of you, when we were children, it filled me with fury to think that an incompetent weakling, without any effort of his own, should one day become the most powerful of men—while I had nothing. I then resolved to crush you, take your heritage for myself.”
Stephen Orco paused. His wide mouth lifted in a sudden, brilliant smile of satisfaction, and his tone was light again when he resumed: “You were easy to break, Bob. That night in the laboratory, the ray killed all the danger in you. For a time I was disturbed by ethical questions, though now they are clear enough. Consider it this way: one of us has AKKA given to him, the other must find it by his own efforts. Which better deserves it?”
“The keeping of AKKA is not an advantage,” whispered Bob Star, faintly.
“It is a duty to mankind. But how—how did you find it?”
The prisoner smiled patronizingly.
“I shall tell you, Bob,” he said, “if only to establish the superiority of my right, and the justice of what I have done—and shall do. I followed the method of investigation that should have suggested itself to any person of intelligence. I collected the data available, formulated hypothesis, tested them by experiment, developed my conclusions.
“I secured access, at the academy, to a secret library, and studied there all existing accounts of the use of AKKA, from the discovery of it by Charles Anthar—when he was in prison as I am.
“The last use of the weapon had been to destroy Earth’s old Moon—after the invading Medusae had seized it. With my foster father’s space yacht, I searched the orbit of the lost satellite, until, at last, I found three small metallic buttons.
“No larger than the end of my thumb, they were all that remained of the Moon. I have since realized how singularly fortunate I was to find a single atom. It was only because your mother was working hastily, with a crude instrument, that a tiny remnant of heavy, refractory elements escaped complete annihilation.
“Some months of careful work, with ultra-microscope, spectroscope, radio and chemical analysis, among other means, revealed the nature of the partial effect of AKKA upon the specimens. From effect to cause was a matter of mathematical reasoning. It remained but to test alternative hypothesis, and elaborate the surviving construction—and I was master of AKKA.”
Bob Star stood voiceless until he sighed and relaxed, saying: “Don’t such abilities merit reward, Bob? I am certainly the most gifted of men; reason assures me that I am therefore their rightful ruler. And I should have been that, already, Bob—but for my blunder.”
Hoarsely, Bob Star whispered, “What was that?”
With a bright, careless smile, Stephen Orco replied: “I should have killed your mother, Bob. Then I should have been able to use the destructive force of AKKA. The blunder put me here.” His lithe shoulders shrugged. “When I am free, I shall not repeat it, Bob. I’m not afraid to tell you, for I know you can’t touch that button—even to save your mother’s life.”
IX.
WEARILY, Bob Star rapped on the metal door, and had the telephone cut off. With the prisoner sealed again in his tomb of silence, he remained alone in the little outer room, grimly resolved to stay there until the crisis came—if it must come.
Stephen Orco had calmly returned to his chair and his book. He relaxed in the green robe, sipping the scarlet wine, apparently oblivious of Bob Star miserably hunched on the hard bench outside.
Twice again Bob Star had tried all his faculties in an effort to touch the button. But no force of will seemed able to erase the mark of that flaming ray. At last he abandoned the attempt for the time, desperately hopeful that the grim stimulus of emergency would aid him.
His blue eyes, as he sat there, narrowed abruptly. His breath sucked in, his lean hands clenched. He leaned forward on his seat, staring at the gray wall. For its surface had begun to shimmer with vague, moving shadows.
The metal door was still locked behind him; the alarm gong was silent. There was no hint of another presence in the room—only the creeping shadows on the wall. He watched, breathless.
A blue, misty circle flickered against the gray. Ghostly shadow forms darted through it. Abruptly then, as if some unseen projector had come suddenly into focus, it melted into an amazing scene. Swiftly, his first bewildered mistrust of his eyes was burned away by the vivid wonder of what he saw.
He looked into a curious chamber, sunk like a niche into the gray wall. Its hollow surface followed tapering spiral curves. It was singular, absolute black, spangled with small crystals of brilliant blue, that were various as snowflakes.
The girl stood upon a many-angled pedestal of blue transparency. Its cold sapphire flame burned up against the oddly curving walls, writing fantastic runes of flame in the tiny flakes of blue.
Against darkness and blue flame, she was vividly white. Her wide, solemn eyes were brown, golden-flecked; her black hair glinted with red. One slim white arm was thrust out toward him, and upward, in an arresting gesture of warning. The pale oval of her face was grave with the expectation of danger; her bright lips parted as if she spoke some warning word.
In bewildered fascination, Bob Star came up like an automaton from the bench, and started toward her. She stopped him with an imperative gesture.
She pointed through the panel of vitrilith, at the oblivious Stephen Orco. Then, keeping her regretful, yet determined, golden eyes on Bob Star, she thrust a slender finger again and again at the button on the wall.
Bob Star made a little motion toward it, and stopped with a helpless shrug. She had plainly told him to touch it—but that ancient fear still chained him. He turned back toward her, with sick misery on his face.
Her face became a pool of tragic resignation. A light died in her golden eyes. Then, abruptly, she started, as if to a silent voice. She looked away through the gray wall. Her slender body quivered in the white robe, grew rigid.
Her bare arms made a quick, little impulsive gesture of compassion toward Bob Star. He started forward, and again she stopped him, gesturing at the red button imperatively, desperately, hopelessly.
THEN, as she made a fleeting little gesture of farewell, a bomb of cold flame exploded in the blue pedestal. Sapphire light swirled up against the crystal rime upon the spiral walls. Her gentle, tragic beauty was wrapped in supernal fire. Blue radiance filled the niche, and died. A blue shadow faded from the gray wall.
Bob Star was alone in the silent room.
He swayed, trembling. Tears burned his eyes. He flung his head and looked at Stephen Orco, who was just setting down his empty glass, still absorbed in the book.
His mind was roaring confusion. Was she real? Was she real? All wonder in him had been suspended, but now the question hammered at him. Reality? Or hallucination born of the conflict of fear and effort in his tortured mind?
He jumped, when the gong shattered the silence in the room. Harshly, from a speaker beside it, rasped a hoarse command: “Emergency stations! Seal all doors! Stand——” The voice choked strangely. A ragged whisper gasped, “Quick! Invisible things——I can’t see——”
Now! breathed Bob Star. He must do it now, or doom the system. Fighting a numbing inertia, he took a halting step toward the gray wall. The red button winked at him, like a mocking eye. He was aware that Stephen Orco had laid aside the book, was watching him with careless amusement.
He took another jerky step. Abrupt sweat chilled him. His ears were roaring again. With mounting blows, the old pain shocked every fiber of his tortured nerves.
“Stop!” shrieked fear.
He set his teeth and took another step, clinging to his picture of the girl, finding a strength, a new courage, in her brown eyes.
Something was wrong with the light; it was turning green. Or was there a green light shining through the wall? He must hurry. There were only two steps more——A green mist had flooded the room—or was it in his eyes? The gray walls swam. The red button winked at him out of the haze, maliciously.
His skin prickled strangely. New numbness stole over him. Stiffness seized his limbs. He thrust out his arm—or tried to. He could no longer see or hear. He no longer had a body. He didn’t know when it hit the floor.
Abject misery clung for a moment to his disembodied mind. He had failed the brown eyes. The old fear had beaten him, the red hammer of pain, and something else he didn’t understand. Then even the sickness of despair was gone, before overwhelming darkness.
X.
MUTTERED THUNDER of descending rockets woke Bob Star. Bitter cold was settling into his stiff limbs, and his eyes opened upon oppressive green twilight. His body lay sprawled upon frozen soil, yet stiff with the queer, tingling numbness that had robbed him of consciousness.
Groping dimly for recollection, he had the disturbing sense that the gap in his consciousness contained something unthinkably hideous—something that his mind had sealed away, to preserve its sanity.
Then the dreadful sense of failure came back, a slow, sickening wave. He lay for a time in utter apathy, until the increasing sound of rockets penetrated his mind again. He gulped cold air into his lungs, then, and sat up.
He was bewildered to find himself on the brink of an appalling chasm. The flat, barren plain broke before him into a sheer abyss of greenish darkness. Floor and farther walls were lost in a misty infinity.
