Collected Short Fiction, page 451
Horace Austen.
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What befalls Dr. Austen after he leaves the crystal city? Does Fowler succeed in establishing contact with the intrepid scientist, or is he too late? Don’t miss the next installment of this amazing experience in the heart of Australia—Coming in the next issue of CAPTAIN FUTURE!
The Alien Intelligence
With His Two Companions from Astran, Dr. Winfield Fowler Penetrates the Dark Lands of the Krimlu
SECOND INSTALLMENT
What Has Happened Before
DR. WINFIELD FOWLER, young American physician, sets out, in response to an urgent radio message in search of his friend, Dr. Horace Austen who has disappeared in the hinterland of Australia. Fowler reaches the wild desert region surrounding a weird mesa known as the Mountain of the Moon. Alone, he camps on the desert the first night, and is disturbed by terrible noises and a hissing, fantastic display of ghastly lights playing up from beyond the mountain top.
In the morning, undaunted, he seeks a way to scale the mountain and finds a silvery ladder which leads him to the heights and then down the inside rim of a huge crater. He reaches the foot of this second ladder just as night is falling again, and is treated to a first-hand display of whizzing comets of light and hideous sounds.
Intent on finding a mysterious Melvar of Astran who, according to the radio message, can direct him, Fowler presses on as soon as it is daylight and narrowly escapes capture by a troop of fair-haired men in silvery chain mail. He encounters Melvar who proves to be a beautiful girl, and she leads him to Astran, the crystal city, where she and the men in mail armor live.
Melvar hides Fowler in a grotto within the shining city which is partly in ruins, telling him that the soldiers frequently go out to hunt purple ghouls that look like people and yet which are almost indestructible. They are called the Purple Ones.
Awakening from a recuperative slumber, Fowler finds Melvar’s brother, a lad, waiting for him with a letter from Dr. Austen.
He reads and learns that Austen had left this record here in Astran for whoever might follow him in from the outsider world. He is going on to explore the mysterious region beyond the Silver Lake in an attempt to fathom the meaning of the flashing lights, rushing comets and whistling sounds.
Austen ends his letter by staring that he thinks the apparently supernatural manifestations result from perfectly natural forces in the control of a civilized power that might not be much above mankind’s own state of advancement.
Now Go on with the Story!
CHAPTER VI
Fowler Recovers
I read this letter in the faint glow of the phosphorescent globe. So Austen was beyond the crescent, if he had been able to carry out his plan. The date of the letter was ten months back. Then the recent radio messages had obviously come from the Krimlu domain. But how had it been sent?
Austen was not one to appeal for aid for himself alone. Had he learned of some general danger to the human race? I thought of his phrase, “for the sake of mankind,” and shuddered at a picture of the red lights sweeping over a great city like New York, decimating the terrorized population.
I tried to think what was best for me to do, if ever I got out of Astran alive. Austen had been able to round the Silver Lake in the north. I should be able to follow him. Clearly there was nothing for me to do but to find out as much about this strange world as possible, and to get his requested equipment to him as soon as I could.
I stayed in the cellarlike haven for a week. Twice each day the young chap, Naro, came to bring food and drink. He knew but a few words of English, and during the hour or so he stayed each time I had him trying to teach me the language of Astran. But my progress was slow, and I never learned more than a few score words. However, I developed quite a liking for the boy.
He had a simple, straight forward manner, and a good sense of humor. He had suffered a few months before in a terrific battle with one of the Purple Ones.
On the second day Melvar came. She brought a great flask of aromatic oil that she poured over my wounds. It must have been remarkably healing, for in a few days I found myself entirely recovered. Before she left she told me that the priests had heard of my arrival, and that it was whispered among the people that I was a supernatural being, sent as an omen of an attack by the Krimlu.
She told me, too, that there was talk that a sacrifice would soon be offered at the altar of the Purple Sun, to appease the angry Spirits of the dead. Sweet and innocent child, she seemed to have no fear that she, who had brought me into the city, might be the sacrifice. I did nothing to let her know my misgivings, although I did propose that we leave the city together as soon as possible. How I hated to see her leave the cubicle!
During the following days I questioned Naro constantly as to the doings of his sister and of the Astranians, but I was able to elicit little information, except that none of the Krimlu had been seen for several days and that the headmen of the nation were beginning to expect a raid in force. I persuaded Naro to keep a very close watch on the movements of Melvar, and to come to me at once if Jorak made any attempt to get her into his power.
During the interminable periods when I was alone I was driven almost insane by the monotony and the anxiety of my existence. But I had my scientific equipment, and I had Naro bring me a few assorted fragments of the crystal building stone, which I tested and found to be real gems of several varieties. Many of the gems were simple enough in chemical formula, composted of the most common elements, so the synthesis of them by scientific means was not unreasonable.
A clay-bed would supply an inexhaustible amount of the elements needed for the synthesis of these gems, and I think the people of old Astran had been able to accomplish it. I examined the little glowlamp, too, and found it to be simply a crystal bottle filled with the moist, crushed leaves of the red plants, which formed a culture of some kind of luminous bacteria.
ON the seventh night, when the pale ray of daylight that filtered down into my hiding place had dimmed, Naro burst into the chamber, panting, and wild-eyed with terror. His crystal sword was gone, his metallic mantle was torn, and blood was dripping from a deep scratch on his arm. He thrust into my hand a tattered scrap of paper, evidently the flyleaf of a book. On it, in an ink that was probably the juice of the red plants, the following words were formed in hastily printed characters.
Winfield: There is no hope. The priests will offer a gift to the Purple Sun. I am the victim. Already I am in the hands of Jorak. I am sorry, for I loved you. The Krimlu are coming tonight. Already their lights flicker above the mist. In the morning my brother will take you to the gate, and you may escape. If only it had been one night later we might have all got away together. Farewell.
Melvar
No time was to be lost. I had been anticipating something of this kind. The guns were cleaned and loaded. My pack was soon ready. Naro took a part of my equipment. I followed the boy up the stair, with the phrase “for I loved you” ringing in my heart.
We reached the top and walked out into the red brush. Beneath the purple starlight the vast, fantastic-columned halls of Astran were gleaming faintly, and I caught a brief blue flicker from the great machine on the ruby dome.
Suddenly, with a sharp thrill of terror that made me catch my breath, I heard the awful, whining sigh that grew until it reverberated through the heavens, making the very air seem alive with its deep intensity. Above the emerald wall I glimpsed the green-tipped needle of crimson that made the sound. It was sweeping through the sky meteor-swift, while the pale blue beam stabbed out at it ineffectually. It passed in an instant, but others came, and soon the sky was lighted with the weird red radiance, and the very mountain top vibrated with the whistling roars. The things swept around and around in a mad confusion of darting flames. They were like moths about a candle.
We passed an amber palace wall and came suddenly upon a great, metal-floored court. Marching across it were a half-score of the Astranian men-at-arms, their accoutrements gleaming weirdly in the light of the strange things above. They saw us at once, and charged upon us with a shout. I dropped to my knees. Once my rifle spoke, and I rejoiced at its heavy thrust against my shoulder and the acrid odor of the smoke. I felt a man again as the leader of the soldiers fell upon his face.
Naro gripped my shoulder and pointed upward. One of the red things was plunging down, like a great red Zeppelin with a great green light at its forward end, its purple phosphorescent track swirling up behind it. The soldiers forgot us and scattered in mad terror. Naro jerked my arm and in a moment we had tumbled into a copse of the red brush.
For a moment the bloody radiance was thrown upon us in an intense flood, and the screaming roar was deafening. A few minutes more, and the thing had flashed up and away. A breath of hot purple mist passed over us. When we got to our feet and crept out of the thicket the soldiers were gone.
Swiftly Naro led me on, keeping in the shadows of the building or in the cover of the thickets. Once a man sprang suddenly at us from behind a sapphire pillar, diamond sword drawn. My pistol exploded in his face and blew his head half off. Naro possessed himself of the dead man’s weapons, and we went breathlessly on. Three times, in other parts of the city, we saw the red shapes drop to the ground for a few minutes, and then dart up again, while ever the blue ray played back and forth upon them.
At last we passed between vast ruby columns and stood beneath the huge red dome. Before us lay a great space, fairly lit with a rosy light from the crystal walls. Around the farther side, seated tier upon tier, were thousands of the brilliantly-clad people of Astran. In the center of the great floor, resting upon a pedestal, was a globe of shining purple—a sphere of coruscating flame, itself immense and perhaps forty feet in diameter, but insignificant in that colossal hall. Standing at rigid attention, in regular rows about the pedestal were a few score armed soldiers, and as many other erect men in long purple robes. All eyes were fixed on a point in front of the gigantic globe.
WE HURRIED silently across the smooth metal floor, our footsteps drowned in the rushed sounds of the flying things above. We ran around the great purple sun-sphere of crystal, coming abruptly upon a terrible scene. Beneath the sphere was an altar of glowing red, priests and soldiery all grouped about it. By the altar, kneeling and silent, clad in a filmy green robe, was the beautiful form of Melvar.
Just behind her stood a tall hawklike man, in his hands a great transparent crystal vessel full of a liquid that gleamed like molten silver.
As we came around the sphere he was holding up the vessel and repeating a strange chant in a montonous monotone. At sight of us he dropped into alarmed silence, an ugly scowl of hate and fear distorting his harsh features. For a moment he stood as if paralyzed, then he started forward as though to dash the contents of the crystal pitcher upon the silent girl.
I fired on the instant, shattering the vessel and splashing the shining, silvery fluid all over his person. The effect of it was instantaneous and terrible. His purple robe was eaten away, set on fire by the stuff; his flesh was dyed a deep purple, and partially consumed.
He tottered and fell to the floor in a writhing, flaming heap.
In the confusion, and the dazed silence that fell upon the vast assemblage at sight of that horrible thing, Melvar, aroused from her resignation of despair by the report of the pistol, sprang to her feet in incredulous surprise. For a moment she looked wonderingly at us. Then she turned and shouted a few strange and impressive words at the priests.
Her white arms swept up in a curious gesture, and she turned and sped toward us.
We started running back the way we had come. The dramatic fall of Jorak, and the evident terror that Melvar’s courageous words, whatever they had been, had inspired, served to hold the Astranians motionless until we had traversed the better part of the distance to the columns. But then they started after us en masse. I dropped to my knees at the columns and began firing steadily with the rifle. They fell, sometimes two or three at a shot, but still they charged on, their number overwhelming.
Then, outside, there was a sudden louder, shrieking roar. A flood of red light poured through the columns, and there was a terrific crash upon the dome. Dense clouds of hot purple vapor poured into the vast room. One of the flying lights had landed upon the roof.
The charging throng behind us stopped and ran about in confusion. We darted out through the purple clouds, making for the shadow of the nearest building. We kept close by the mighty walls until we reached the gate.
Daring the terrors of the night, we ran out and down the narrow trail. By dawn we were several miles from Astran in the direction of the shining lake.
CHAPTER VII
The Silver Lake
At the coming of day we were walking over a gently rolling scarlet plain scattered with gigantic solitary boulders that sloped gradually down to the Silver Lake. The lake lay fiat and argent white, clad in all the ominous mystery of that strange world, calling, beckoning us on, challenging us to learn the secret of the farthest bank of purple fog, with a grim warning of the doom that might await us.
The red, fernlike sprays waved gently in the breeze, and the vivid, tiny white flowers seemed to sparkle with a million glancing rays, like frost in the sunshine. But the deep intensity of the red color lent a weird and unpleasant suggestion of blood. Beyond the Silver Lake, low hills rose, faint and mysterious in the purple haze.
Melvar walked beside me when the way was smooth enough. She was talking vivaciously. She had a keen sense of humor and a lively wit. She seemed to have an almost childish faith in my power and that of my guns—but I was far from feeling confident.
At sunrise we stopped by a little pool of clear water, drank, and made a meal of the abundant yellow fruit. Astran, with the scintillating fires kindled again in its jeweled towers by the rising sun, lay far behind and above us. When we had finished eating Melvar stood looking for a long moment at its glorious, sparkling light. She murmured a few words beneath her breath in the Astranian tongue, and turned again toward the Silver Lake.
In two hours we came to the shore of the great lake. The red scrub grew up to the brink of a bluff a dozen feet high. Below was a broad, bare sandy beach, with the gleaming waves, quicksilver white, rolling on it two hundred yards away. For a few minutes we stood at the edge of the cliff, in the fringe of crimson brush, and let our eyes wander over the vast, flat desert of flowing, argent fire. We peered at the misty red hills beyond, trying to penetrate their mysteries, speculating on what lay behind them. Then we scrambled down on the hard, white sand. Naro grasped his weapon and looked up and down the beach.
“It is along the shore of the Silver Lake,” Melvar said, “that the Purple Ones are most frequently found.”
“The Purple Ones again!” I cried. “What are they—decorated rattlesnakes?” Then, with a sickening sensation of terror, I remembered the horrible, half-human purple corpse that I had seen the soldiers bringing into Astran. “Are the Purple Ones men?”
“In form, they are men and women,” Melvar said, “but they dwell alone in the thickets like beasts. All of them are old and hideous. They are savage, and they have the strength each of many men. Our soldiers must always hunt them, and fight them to the death. A single man, even though armed, could do nothing against one of them, for they are terribly strong, and they fight like demons. Their country is not known, and no children of their kind are ever found. The priests say that they are of a race of dwarfs that dwell beneath the Silver Lake.”
Here was another of the baffling mysteries of this strange world. In fact, I was coming upon unpleasant mysteries without solutions until I was weary. Lone, purple, savage animals in the form of emaciated humans who prowled about the country like wolves, and like wolves were hunted down by the Astranians! Again I shuddered at the memory of the limp purple corpse the soldiers had carried. With a strange chill of the heart, I remembered the human footprints that had been left where my ponies were taken in the desert, and of the eerie, insane laughter that I had heard, or thought I heard, above the whistling roar.
My thoughts ended with the construction of a mad hypothesis of a race of purple folk who lived beyond the Silver Lake, who were accustomed to make slave raids on the whites in torpedo-shaped airships, and who made a practice of releasing, or turning out, the superannuated ones of their kind to prey on the people of the crystal city. It seemed the only tenable theory at the time, but I was far from the hideous truth. I could see no reason, if one race could attain a civilization high enough to synthetize diamonds for building stone, why another might not be able to build ships as marvelous as the red torpedoes. But my reason rebelled at the acceptance of demonic and supernatural horrors.
PRESENTLY I roused myself and led the way down to the white waves. My companions held back nervously, warning me not to touch it lest I would die as Jorak had. But I succeeded in filling a test tube with the stuff. It was not transparent. It was white, gleaming, metallic—like mercury, or molten silver. I carried it back up to the bluff and set about examining it while Naro stood guard and Melvar watched me. She asked innumerable questions concerning the operation in hand, and irrelevant queries such as the appearance of a cat, and Fifth Avenue styles of ladies’ garments. So often did I pause to answer her questions, to laugh at the naive quaintness of her phrases, or to let my eyes rest on her charming face, that the attempted analysis of the metal did not progress with any remarkable celerity.
The silver liquid was very mobile and very light, having a specific gravity of only .25, or not even four times that of liquid hydrogen, which is .07. It was extremely corrosive. Tiny bits of wood or paper were entirely consumed on contact with it, with the liberation, apparently, of carbon dioxide, water vapor and a dense purple gas I could not identify. That suggested, of course, that the stuff contained oxygen, but as to how much, or in what combination, I had no idea.
