Collected Short Fiction, page 76
“Thank you,” the Captain said, ironically.
“I assure you that I really owe you much,” the Black Hawk insisted. “I see that you doubt my sincerity. To prove it, shall I grant some request for you?”
The lean, dark face of the pirate twisted into a cold, mocking smile that was almost a leer.
“Honestly, do you mean it?” the captain demanded, with eagerness and doubt mingled in his tone.
“Certainly. But name your wish.”
“Will you spare my wife—take her back to some civilized planet?”
For long seconds, the dark visaged man stared at the captain and his lovely bride. Suddenly he appeared to think of something that pleased him hugely, for his white teeth gleamed in a sinister smile, and his black eyes flashed diabolically.
“Which Chest?”
“WITH all my heart!” his cold voice cried. “And since I fear the lady panel instantly closed, would find little joy in a life without you, I shall also set you at liberty!”
With tears of joy in his eyes, the captain grasped the Black Hawk’s cold hand.
“Come,” the pirate said. “Forget the favor, if such it is. You have earned it. Your wife will be shown to her rooms, and we shall watch the fate of those prisoners who were not so fortunate as yourself.”
The Black Hawk led Captain Grant away through the rocket’s maze of passages, and a servant guided Nell to a luxurious stateroom.
The Captain will never forget the horror of what followed.
The mocking saturnine pirate conducted him into a domed room, whose curved walls and roof glistened with silvery brilliance.
The floor of that room was transparent crystal. Beneath was a large circular compartment, without visible openings. Its floor was covered with a curious red substance, in oddly shaped masses. Grant shuddered as he saw those crumbling red forms. They looked weirdly like decayed statues—they were horrible travesties of human shapes.
“The space below us,” the Black Hawk explained, in his chill, mocking voice, “contains a certain variety of crimson fungus. The original spores came from the jungles of the third satellite of Neptune.
“The fungi, you know, are a group of thallophytic plants, of which molds and mushrooms are members. They are devoid of the chlorophyll to which green plants owe their color. Reproduction is largely by means of asexual spores. A characteristic is the great speed with which some varieties grow.
“This particular type has a peculiar avidity for human flesh, and grows with unprecedented speed. It amuses me to watch its development upon the bodies of my less fortunate captives. But watch the results for yourself!”
A panel had suddenly slid open into the space below the crystal floor. A man, stripped to the waist, whom the captain recognized as a luckless engineer from his crew, was thrown into the strange room. The panel instantly closed.
The naked man fell on his face in a cloud of red dust. In a moment he stumbled to his feet, coughing, gasping, strangling, beating wildly at his face.
The Black Hawk touched a lever that seemed to close the circuit of a microphone. Instantly the captain heard a scream of insupportable agony from below.
The man below the crystal floor darted madly through the red dust, hammered wildly on the walls with bare.
Suddenly his tortured body stiffened, grew rigid. Curious masses of scarlet filaments or hypha, resembling tufts of red hair, sprang from nostrils, eyes, and ears.
Crimson growth spread swiftly, until the body seemed covered with red fur.
And in a few moments it fell over, crumbling, with a crimson cloud of spores swirling about it.
“What do you think of my hobby?” The Black Hawk inquired with a taunting smile.
Captain Grant was sick with horror.
“You—you demon!” he choked.
Blind rage suddenly overcame his shuddering horror.
Clenching a fist, he swung abruptly upon the Satanic pirate.
The Black Hawk’s hand came up swiftly, holding a tiny but deadly ray tube.
“You forget yourself, Captain,” he said, “Remember that I promised to spare you and your wife from undergoing the little ceremony we just witnessed. Do not make me recall that promise.”
The captain fell back before the menace of the weapon, suddenly weak and trembling.
“Let me out of this infernal place,” he muttered.
The Black Hawk called a steward to show him to his room.
For a week Captain Grant and his wife were enforced guests of the pirate, treated with deliberate, if taunting, courtesy.
The black rocket, laden with plunder, continued her restless cruise of the void.
Then, after a night of troubled sleep, the captain awoke to find Nell gone from the luxurious stateroom which they occupied.
At once, he sought the Black Hawk, who greeted him with his usual half-sneering politeness.
“Your wife is slightly unwell,” his cold tone informed Captain Grant. “She has the attention of my specialists. You need fear nothing on her account.
“And you will be interested,” he added, “to know that we are soon to part. In a few hours we enter the atmosphere of the planet Venus. You and your wife will be landed there today. I regret that I must lose your companionship.”
“Whatever happens to me, please don’t harm Nell,” the Captain pleaded.
“My word is still good,” the Black Hawk said coldly.
SEVERAL hours later, somewhat to the surprise of Captain Grant, the rocket landed on firm ground. He was assisted from the port, and looked about anxiously.
The slender black hull of the rocket lay on a bare sandy beach. Above it rose a barren gray rock. A vast waste of green-grey ocean stretched away in all directions. Dense gray clouds filled the sky.
The tall form of the Black Hawk stepped out beside him. “An island on the planet Venus,” he said. “It’s less than a thousand miles to the city of Thalong, from which aid can reach you.”
“But my wife—” the captain cried.
“Here she is.”
The Black Hawk pointed to two large chests, of a white, silvery metal, which the crew were busy lowering through the port. In a moment they lay side by side on the sandy beach.
“Your wife is in one of them,” the pirate said, with a demoniac smile. “She is under a mild anaesthetic which will keep her sleeping quietly for twelve hours. The chest contains sufficient air to last her that long, and no longer. It contains also a supply of food and water, and a portable radio transmitter, with which you may summon aid. The chest is not locked— you have merely to lift the lid.”
“And the other chest?” The Captain’s voice was anxious.
“Ah! the other chest!” The Black Hawk smiled. “The other chest! It is filled with spores of crimson fungus. If you, by any unfortunate mistake, open it, a cloud of the spores will instantly fly out and settle on your skin. You will meet the fate of the man we watched through the crystal floor.”
“Which chest—” Captain Grant cried, his voice trembling.
“Ah yes, which chest!” The Black Hawk’s suave tone replied. “That is for you to decide. Remember your wife will live only twelve hours, if the chest is not opened. And good-by, my friend.”
Leaving Captain Grant shaken and speechless, the pirate of space sprang back through the port. Roseate flame hissed from the exhaust nozzles of the long black ship. It leapt up to vanish in the gray clouds.
The captain was left alone with the chests.
They seemed identical in every respect. The ornate pattern engraved in the silvery metal was the same on each chest. They were roughly three feet square by six in length.
The captain fell furiously to examining them. He could detect no faintest difference. He held his ear against each, in hope that some faint sound of breathing might reach him, to reveal which held his precious Nell. But he heard nothing.
He left the chests and walked anxiously up and down the beach, gazing wildly over the vast desert of water, staring into the gray gloom of the sky. Many times his heart leapt, as he thought he glimpsed a distant rocket plane. And always it fell again, when he found his eagerness had deceived him.
He turned again to the bright chests, lying side by side on the white sand. He ran from the one to the other listening, feeling them, even tugging a little at the lids.
His brain was a wild chaos of wonder. Suppose the Black Hawk had tricked him? Suppose the chests were empty? Suppose both contained the fatal spores? Suppose his lovely Nell were in one and the food and radio set in the other?
Again he walked up and down beside them, thinking madly. Hours went by, and he must soon release his wife or she would be suffocated.
Impulsively, he bent to raise the lid of the nearest.
His eyes caught fine letters engraved on the edge of the silvery lid.
“THE OTHER ONE”.
The Black Hawk had cut it there. A warning. Captain Grant ran to the other chest. But with his hand on the lid, he paused, trembling, his body clammy with a cold sweat.
Might the warning be false? Had the letters been cut there to cause him to open the deadly chest? Or did the pirate intend the words to save his life?
He ran back toward the first chest, he stopped, and collapsed in a trembling heap. Cold sweat chilled him; a strange dizziness came over him, his throat was dry; he trembled.
But the time was up—he must delay no longer. He tottered to his feet, ran back to the chest without the warning, tugged at the lid. Dizzy weakness overcame him.
“A trick,” he muttered.
He turned and staggered to the other, and grasped the lid. The inscribed words, “THE OTHER ONE” caught his eye again. He recoiled as from a deadly snake.
He ran away from the chests, stumbling across the sand, eyes wild with fear. He imagined the swift red mould growing over him, choking him, converting him into a rotting, crumbling mass.
He would not open the chest! There was a fair chance that he would be discovered by some passing air-liner before he starved to death.
Then the hideous vision of the death of the scarlet fungus was dispelled by a picture of Nell as she had been on the recent wedding day. Happy, singing, gloriously lovely, devoted to him. She was in one of the chests, suffocating. He could not let her die!
He rushed back to the chest with the warning on it. As his fingers sought the lid, he imagined the sudden swirl of red spores, the agonizing pain he would suffer as the quick growth entered his lungs, covered his body, choking him, piercing him with swift-growing rootlets.
Trembling weakness overcame him. He staggered back, wiping cold perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand.
For a moment he paused, irresolute. Then he pictured Nell, awaking in the coffin-like prison, beating weakly against its walls, gasping for breath, dying. He staggered toward the other chest, hesitated, ran back to the one with the warning words.
With a sudden convulsive effort, he tugged at the heavy lid. . . .
THE END.
The Stone from the Green Star
Part I
ACCORDING to James Mackaye, in a book recently published, which he calls “The Dynamic Universe,” all matter is only a form of radiation or vibratory energy and gravitation is an effect of radiation. This theory is, as far as we know, not yet generally accepted. If it is found to be correct—and it is not impossible—then remarkable progress in the fields of travel and invention might follow as a matter of course. If some of Mr. Williamson’s hypotheses seem to be in direct contradiction to certain accepted theories, we must not forget that eminent scientists are always discovering “facts” which seem to be in direct contradiction to theories accepted as facts for many years. But this is not a scientific treatise—it is scientific fiction par excellence.
Author’s Note
THE material for this story came into my hands in a very remarkable way. One morning in the fall of 1930, I found a curious object on my library table—a little box of some dully polished, black substance, about a foot long, eight inches wide, and four inches in thickness. It is wonderfully made. The sides of it glow with the rich light of the dull, soft polish. On the top is a small design—representing, apparently, the leaf and bloom of some strange plant—formed with tiny, gleaming stones, emerald green, sapphire blue and ruby red. And the cover rolls back; the jet-black, glistening material of the box being quite flexible. Its mechanism, though very ingenious, is astonishingly simple. The hasp is covered by a blue, cut stone, apparently a sapphire, glowing with deep, living azure fires.
Within the box I found several hundred sheets of a thin, stiff, flexible material. Its surface is like polished ivory. It is light and flexible as paper, indestructible as chromium steel. Each sheet is covered on each side with handwriting, in dark green ink.
I was astonished to see that this script was in the unmistakable angular hand of an old acquaintance of mine, one Richard Smith.
Dick Smith was a friend of mine at college, though we were never intimate. He was an athlete and a hero; I, a scientific and literary grind. He was known and admired by every student; while I walked unnoticed down the halls. Our slight acquaintance was accidental, being due to the chance that we had been thrown together in the laboratory section of Physics, 203. He read my first published story, “The Metal Man”; and, as all loyal friends do, said he liked it, and urged me to “keep it up.”
Dick was by no means a man of brawn alone. Notwithstanding the fact that ninety per cent of his waking hours were consumed by athletic and social activities, he made marks in classes that were the despair of many who did little but study.
It was several years since I had heard from him. The last I had known, he had shipped for China on a Standard Oil tanker, out to find adventure. To judge from this story, he succeeded.
Regarding the material on which his notes were written, and the jet-black case which contained them, they seem to be of substances new to chemical science. They will not burn or fuse at any temperature to which I have been able to subject them. They are not affected by any of the common acids or bases. In short, they are indestructible by any physical or chemical means at my command.
The little case contained another remarkable object, wrapped in a little square of soft pink stuff that is somewhat like fine tissue paper, and somewhat like thin but closely woven silk.
The object is a statuette of Richard Smith, about three inches tall. In the nude, it is marvelously executed, revealing his superb figure to wonderful advantage. In detail, its perfection is complete, microscopic. What the material of it may be, I cannot say, but it is colored with every hue of life. It is astoundingly lifelike; I can almost see a twinkling gleam of humor in the dark blue eyes.
Richard Smith’s manuscript does not form a finished story. Rather, it consists of nearly three hundred thousand words of notes and scattered observations, mostly in loose diary form. It is invaluable, of course, from the scientific point of view; and I have arranged to have it brought out, complete, in book form. The proofs have already reached me, and it will be issued in a few months, under the publisher’s title, “A Vision of Futurity.”
But, while the manuscript contains a tremendous and thrilling story, it is not suitable for magazine publication. For one thing, it is about five times too long. For another, it is full of scientific matter that, while immensely valuable, of course, is rather too involved for an idle evening’s reading. Then, since the repetition of the personal pronoun, “I,” is apt to make an unpleasant impression upon the reader, it has seemed best to tell the story in the third person.
Aside from these and merely editorial changes, the story stands as Richard Smith wrote it.
I say Richard Smith wrote it. I, for one, am convinced that he did. He sailed for the East on a Standard Oil tanker. He vanished from the ship, as I have recently discovered, during heavy weather. It is recorded in the log that he fell overboard. If this story is not true, Dick is dead. And how could, a dead man write a manuscript of three hundred thousand words, fictitious or otherwise?
I have seen enough of Smith’s handwriting, in the reports he used to write of our physics experiments, so that I cannot mistake it. The black case, the writing material, and the statuette are to me evidently the products of another civilization.
Finally there comes the question of how the little box with its interesting contents arrived on my library table. Of course, a practical joker would have no difficulty in placing it there without my knowledge. But few practical jokes involve the synthesizing of compounds new to science, and the writing of a few hundred thousand words of manuscript—particularly, this sort of manuscript.
But the question of the story’s truth is one that should greatly interest only the scientific students, who, it is hoped, will eagerly await the publication of Smith’s complete manuscript in “A Vision of Futurity.” For the fiction reader knows that the truth of a story is no sure index of its interest.
A story is interesting only as. it shows the struggles of real human people in thrilling situations; only as it makes the reader feel the hopes and fears, the loves and hates, of living characters. And many stories that are fiction seem more real and more true than many stories that are fact.
So, even the reader, who feels that a hoax has been perpetrated upon me, may get some pleasure out of this. I feel certain that the story is true; I think it a glorious vision of the future of humanity. But that question is for the scientist, not for the lay reader.
In conclusion, I hope my note has bored no one, and I hope that Dick Smith’s story may give every reader a few pleasant hours.
JACK WILLIAMSON
CHAPTER I
The Flaming Vortex
“DEAR Mr. Williamson,” the first paragraph of Richard Smith’s manuscript may be W quoted, “you will likely be surprised to find these notes on your table, where Thon Ahrora tells me she can put them. As maybe you can tell by the handwriting, I am your old friend, Dick Smith—you remember Physics, 203 at college. You might inform my maiden aunt, Petunia Smith, that I am not dead, as very likely has been reported. In a way, however, it is as if I were dead, and gone to heaven. That is, I am in a very wonderful place, and I cannot come back. I wouldn’t return, if I could, however. Getting these notes through is going to tax the resources of Thon Ahrora, I think. I am sending them to you, since you are the only literary man I know. I don’t know if anybody will believe them. If not, they might give you a boost in the story-writing business.”
