Collected Short Fiction, page 85
“What about some light?” Dick muttered.
“My bomb exhausted the ether in here as well as outside,” Midos Ken told him. “And since light is a vibration of the ether, there is no light. Even our K-ray generators will not work until the ether has had time to flow back. It will be five minutes, perhaps.”
They waited in utter darkness. Dick found it vaguely disturbing not to be able to see at all. He put out a hand, touched Thon’s cool fingers. They grasped his hand, squeezed it reassuringly.
“What do we do when we get outside?” Dick asked. “Go after Don?”
“Yes,” Thon cried. “Off to the Dark Star, to rescue Don Galeen! We ought to gain a week on this liner, with our new generators.”
Abruptly the darkness vanished from about them. The domed wall bathed them in soft, mellow green radiance. Dick looked about at the maze of complex apparatus on the circular table against the wall, at the little stand in the center, with the telescopic vision screen that showed what lay directly ahead, and the little control lever of polished metal, with the white cylinder set in its top.
Thon put her slender fingers on the little lever, pushed it a little to one side, pressed suddenly on the white cylinder. Then, smiling, she raised her hand.
“What’s the matter?” Dick asked, puzzled. “Can’t we smash the way out?” He had felt no sense of motion.
Once again Thon told him, smiling, to open a window and look.
He swung open the metal shutter of one of the portholes. Once more the splendor of interplanetary space was before him, a curtain of midnight velvet, sewn with glittering diamonds, and dusted with silver. But the familiar constellations seen from our own earth were completely lost. In fact, he was so far toward one side of the Galaxy that most of the stars seemed to be on one side of the sky.
“We have really escaped!” he cried. “But how is it that we felt no shock when we broke through the wall of the liner?”
“Our K-ray mechanism transmits all shocks and pressures equally to every particle of matter on the ship,” Midos Ken said. “Thus there is no pressure of one particle against another, in any gain or loss of speed.”
Thon was pointing to the little screen on the center of the upright stand. There was mirrored a section of the star-strewn space without. In it floated the long silvery hull of the K-ray liner, looking to Dick like a Zeppelin tossed up among the stars. The faint purple glow of the K-rays clung about her stern. In the middle of her side was a black, round spot—it looked no bigger than a bullet hole.
“That is where we came out,” Thon said. “They will have it patched up in a few hours. See, they are already at work!”
She pressed a button beside the screen. The image of the liner seemed to swim closer, until they could plainly see the ragged hole torn in the white metal plates. Half a dozen men, in grotesque metal space suits, were busy about it. Queer figures, weightless, hauling themselves about on lines.
“And now we are off for the Dark Star, after poor Don!” Thon said.
She inclined the little metal lever. The ship vanished from the screen. Stars raced across it. Presently, with a bright binary in the center of the screen, she raised the lever to hold it there. And she pushed the white cylinder down to the bottom of its socket in the lever.
Dick had no sensation of motion, but he knew that he was rushing through space at an inconceivable velocity.
FOR six days they flashed through space. On the third they shot between the twin suns of the double system, both young stars, huge and blue. On they went toward another faint star that, Thon told him, was Anral, which had been the destination of the liner.
Dick and Thon stood alternate watches of four hours each. Piloting the Ahrora, he discovered, was not a strenuous task. The white cylinder could be locked down to keep the generators going at full power. It was necessary only to watch the star toward which they were flying, and move the little lever at intervals, to keep the star in the center of the telescope screen.
Dick had been alarmed, at first, about the danger of collision with meteors. But Thon told him that no meteor could damage their neutronium hull. And the K-ray “shock-absorber” which protected them from the effects of acceleration, would make it impossible for them to feel the shock, she told him, even if they ran into a planet.
Despite the small size of their quarters in the Ahrora, they were able to live quite luxuriously. Ventilation was good, for a fresh current of air, dried, purified of carbon dioxide, and warmed to the proper temperature, blew continually from the revitalizing device. The carbon dioxide, as well as garbage and other waste, was reduced to water by El Ray apparatus. And this water was stored in tanks below the floor, to be turned into oxygen to replenish the air, or into a delicious variety of synthetic foods for the table.
There was scant room for exercise, but Thon, herself a superb athlete, insisted upon regular calisthenics in the corridor.
At the end of the sixth day the course was changed again. Thon manipulated the little lever to bring a faint speck of light into the telescope screen on the little stand. So faint it was that the highest power of the instrument had to be used to make it visible at all.
“That is the Dark Star!” she told Dick. “We are comparatively near it now; we shall reach it in ten hours!”
Her blue eyes flashed with excitement. She smiled as if it were a pleasure to slip down in a daring raid upon a pirate planet. Dick trembled lest the audacity of the girl should sometime get her into a predicament, from which even her quick mind and the science she had learned from Midos Ken could not extricate her.
“What will we do when we get there?” Dick asked. “Can you tell me something more about this Dark Star?”
“It is a planet without a sun! Thrown off, perhaps, from its parent star by some forgotten cataclysm. It was floating alone in space when men found it, a dead, frozen world of endless night. Such it was when the pirates of space first made retreats in its barren icy wildernesses.
“A huge planet. Twice the diameter of the earth, with four times the area. But the force of gravity there is only a little greater, since it is not so dense as the earth. Vast, frozen seas cover nearly half of it; there are lofty mountain ranges, wilder than any on the earth.
“Now it has a population of billions—all degenerate slaves of Garo Nark, Lord of the Dark Star. An empire of pirates, covering a whole planet. They brought their prisoners there, forced them to colonize its bleak wildernesses.
“Much of the surface of the Dark Star is warmed and lighted with atomic power—with machines like those that control the weather on the earth. But the population is mostly concentrated in a few large cities, instead of being spread uniformly as it is on the earth—probably to simplify the problem of defense against the Union Patrol.
“The inhabited region is a broad belt about the equator. The polar regions—no colder, originally, of course, than any other part of the dead planet—are uninhabited. They are mostly covered with frozen oceans, or rugged mountains.
“There is a barren mountainous region only a few hundred miles north of Nuvon, which is Nark’s capital city. We can land there, I think, without being discovered.”
“You seem to know a good deal about it,” Dick remarked. “Are visitors allowed there, to carry information to the rest of the Galaxy?”
“No,” Thon said. “It is through one of the adventures of Don Galeen that I learned about it. There are few dangerous places that he has not been in. It seems that Garo Nark is not an ideal ruler. His subjects are not all satisfied; many of them wish to escape from the Dark Star.
“A few years ago, Don joined some other adventurers, on a project to aid the escape of a few of Nark’s unsatisfied subjects who were able to pay generously for passage to another planet. They had a K-Ray flier.
“Don, with another kindred spirit, was dropped on the Dark Star to find the passengers and collect the fare—which, of course, was rather high—to one of the planets of Anral. The flier was to land again, in a few weeks, in the mountains north of Nuvon.
“They found the passengers—many more than they could take—ready enough to come. Don was busy guiding parties of them through the frozen darkness of the mountains to the cavern where he hid them, with their chests of diamond tokens, to wait the flier.
“But Garo Nark seems to have a good intelligence service. He found what was going on. One of his ships raided the camp. The diamond tokens that were to pay the expenses of the venture were confiscated. The passengers—except a woman or two who struck the fancy of the ship’s officers—were dispatched with the El Ray.
“Don escaped, happening to be out with the last group of passengers. He sent them back and hid in the mountains. Nark’s ship was waiting in ambush to trap the flier. But Don got into television contact with it, gave his warning, and arranged to be picked up, a month later, at the edge of one of the frozen seas.
“It is four years ago that that happened. It was not long after that Dad sent him in search for the catalyst.”
Dick had watched Thon as she spoke, noting the vivacity of her lovely face, and the admiration that flashed in her eyes as she spoke of Don Galeen and his exploits. But who would not worship a hero who had braved the dangers of a hundred wild planets, he wondered. And what could he offer, against the claims of this adventurer, who was so brave, so handsome of face and mighty of body, so resourceful in dealing with his enemies?
On they flashed toward the Dark Star.
Presently Thon retired to her stateroom. Dick stood a long watch, to give her time to refresh herself to meet the perils of landing. They were only two hours from the Dark Star when she entered the bridge again. But it was still only a faint speck of light on the screen.
Thon drove the flier the rest of the way. The Dark Star grew presently to a tiny, dim-lit sphere, visible upon the screen. A broad belt about its equator was lighted; there were brighter white patches that were cities, and dim green areas that were forests and parks. To the north and the south of this lighted equatorial belt, the planet was dark.
Thon checked their speed a little, while she located the black area that was the mountainous district north of Nuvon. Then, having her bearings upon it, she drove the flier down at the limit of its power, to flash past any watch that Garo Nark might have on duty. Dick got few impressions of the landing. It seemed to him merely that the little image of the planet, on the screen, expanded, blurred, and faded. Then Thon raised her fingers from the control lever, he said,
“Here we are!”
DICK could hardly reconcile himself to the idea that Thon should go out alone to find Don Galeen, leaving him and Midos Ken in the Ahrora. But the girl, busy bundling herself up in heavy garments, against the bitter cold of the barren mountainous region where they had landed, insisted.
“We can’t send Dad out alone!” she said. “And if I went with him to show the way, we would attract too much attention.”
“I must go!” Dick said.
She smiled at him, shaking her head. “Something might happen to you,” she said.
“I’m no baby!” he cried. “And I’m afraid something will happen to you!”
“Remember, you have been in our world but little over a year,” she told him. “There is much about it that you don’t know. You are brave enough, but you mustn’t be foolish.
“And don’t be afraid for me. I have some of Dad’s weapons. If I am attacked I can take care of myself. I will carry enough of your diamond tokens to buy protection from anyone I meet—protection, and information about poor Don Galeen.”
She held up a little black metal disk, two inches across and thin as a watch.
“This is a television instrument. I have one like it with me. Keep it near you. If I call, there will be a little humming sound. Hold it before your face, and you can see and hear me. But I shall not call unless it is necessary, for the call might be picked up and betray us.” She handed him the little instrument.
When she was ready to leave, Dick went to his stateroom, and got the weapon which she had made him. He felt the balance of it again, and slipped it in his pocket. She opened the massive door, and he stepped with her out into the chill darkness of the pirate planet.
Overhead and in the north, strange constellations were burning in a black sky. Southward, however, was a faint aurora of purple light—a flush like that of dawn on earth. It was the reflection in the sky of the lights of the inhabited regions of the planet.
The Ahrora lay in a narrow mountain gorge or canyon, as the faint southern light revealed. Dark, jutting precipices loomed on either side. Snow crunched under their feet, a pale and ghostly white in the dim radiance. The red hull of the flier, visible as little more than a dark mass, lay on a bed of snow-covered boulders. A bitterly cold wind blew down the dark ravine from the north.
“I will go with you until we are near some building,” Dick said.
“No,” Thon said, “I must go alone. A passing flier may pick me up before I have gone ten miles beyond the end of the canyon. And you must not be seen. Don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of myself!”
She gave Dick her hand. He gripped it.
Like a white shadow she was in the faint light, clad in garments that faded against the snow, and the dearest thing in the world to Dick. Almost he threw his arms about her and told her so. Then, recalling that she was going on this dangerous mission to rescue a man who probably meant much more to her than he did, he checked himself.
“Good-by!” he choked.
He thought she was going to speak, for a sudden little sound came from her, broken, inarticulate. Then she had turned, leapt away into the gloom. He felt a wild desire to run after her, but halted after a few stumbling steps.
She had dissolved like a wraith into the white wilderness of snow.
The next two days seemed the longest in Dick’s memory. Most of the time he stayed in the flier with old Midos Ken. He had nothing to do but prepare their meals, eat, and sleep. He had no appetite; and he could not sleep.
For long hours at a time he stared at the little black television disk Thon had given him. But no message came from it. He stared out through the portholes at the rugged, snow-covered landscape, with the black, star-strewn sky in the north, and the dim flush of light in the south, staring to catch a glimpse of Thon returning. But she did not come. The only motion was the slow wheeling of the strange stars above the ragged black peaks of the mountains.
Suspense and inactivity drove him nearly mad. Midos Ken, too, was anxious, though his blind face was calm and impassive. He sat sunk in thought, silent, waiting patiently.
The only relief Dick found was to don heavy garments against the bitterly cold wind, and tramp up and down in the snow outside.
On the evening of the second day (days were measured only by their chronometers, for the darkness was continual, and even the rotation of this world did not mark days, for its period was far longer than that of earth) Dick was walking up and down on the packed snow outside the door of the flier, head down and hands in his pockets, sunk in anxious despair.
Suddenly a broad beam of golden light flashed upon him. The flickering violet finger of an El Ray stabbed at a snow-covered boulder beside him, raising a hissing cloud of steam, which quickly condensed in the chill air, and fell as a little flurry of snow.
“Stand still!” came a menacing voice. “You are arrested by the imperial guard of Garo Nark, Lord of the Dark Star. And it will be well for a friend of yours, who foolishly thought she could outwit the Lord, if you will come in peace!”
CHAPTER VIII
When the Dark Star Moved
WHEN the El Ray had flashed out to strike the boulder, Dick’s hand had automatically moved to draw the pistol-like weapon Thon had condensed for him. Cursing himself for being caught outside the indestructible hull of the Ahrora, he was none the less glad of a prospect for action. The insinuation that Thon had been captured, merely confirmed his fears. He paused a moment at the threat that resistance on his part would bring ill to her.
But he could not surrender abjectly, merely because of such a threat.
As the menacing voice ceased speaking, he threw up his atomic pistol and pressed the trigger. There was no recoil; the weapon made no sound. But, the merest instant after he had fired, there was a blinding flash of reddish purple fire before him, in the direction from which the voice had come.
He was conscious of a sharp, crashing explosion. Midos Ken had warned him not to fire at anything too near. The man he had hit had literally exploded. The blast had been so terrific that Dick was hurled backward, unconscious.
The next he knew, he was lying on a soft couch, in a huge, warm room. Many people were about; he heard a buzz of conversation. Midos Ken was standing beside him, a gnarled old hand on his forehead.
Dick blinked, and sat tip with a groan. His muscles were sore. His head throbbed; he brought a bruised hand up, and felt a swollen knot on the back of it. Brilliant light bathed him; it was so bright that he could not at first take in his surroundings.
When he could see, he gasped.
He was in a great hall of magnificence beyond parallel. Floor of smooth, glistening gold. High walls of glowing emerald crystal, great panels of burning ruby set it in—ruby panels inlaid with strange designs in silver and sapphire and jet—arched and vaulted roof white, with the prismatic whiteness of fresh-fallen snow.
It was a huge hall, two hundred feet high, fully that in width, and many hundred feet long. Thousands crowded its gleaming yellow floor. But its immensity made them seem insignificant. Despite them, it seemed empty.
And it was familiar!
Dick knew he had seen it before! He racked his aching brain. He sought blindly through tangled wisps of thought. But vague mists of pain befogged his mind. A throbbing ache beat his forming thoughts to tatters. He could not remember.
Then old Midos Ken, beside him, crushed some small object in his palm, and held it under Dick’s nose. He inhaled, breathing some vapor pungent as ammonia gas. It was stimulating as a dash of cold water. His brain cleared. Recollection came.
