Collected Short Fiction, page 94
HE fought the paralyzing cold, the vertigo of falling. Slowly he swung the weapon, shattering the things of cold fire and their human riders with the fearful, deafening blasts of atomic energy. Even if the things can put themselves back together, he thought, I know the men can’t. This cold will get me pretty soon, but I’m selling myself high.
Suddenly, there were no more living men or moving monsters before him. He tried to turn, to see how Don Galeen was faring with the men he fought. But the swift-moving paralysis had seized his muscles. He could not turn.
With all his will he swung his arm up again, in the direction of the half-invisible flier at the other side of the vast cone of blue light. He aimed, pressed the trigger a half dozen times with the last spasdomic efforts of his muscles.
Blinding explosions hid the flier from view for a moment. Then it was but a twisted mass of white metal.
Then the horror held sway. Icy needles of cold stabbed through his body. His skin seemed a stiff, frozen armor. And still he felt the vertiginous sensation of falling. He was falling through a void of chill blue gloom. And appalling monsters—writhing worms of cold green flame—were twisting about him, clinging to him, fastening viscid, green suction disks to his body. Then suddenly a hand drew him back from that void. The warmth of the rosy electronic screen was about him again. Thon had recovered, had picked up the little instrument from the inert hand of the man who had robbed her of it, and snapped it on Dick’s arm.
Don Galeen, huge fists still clenched, was standing over the body of the last man he had knocked down.
About them were the still bodies of half a dozen men. A few yards away the black rocks were splashed red with the remains of those Dick had blown to fragments with the atomic pistol. Beyond them were the scattered fragments of the Things of Frozen Flame—masses of glistening green jelly, and glittering scraps of the iridescent wings. Living fragments. They were still glowing with green, pulsating fires, stirring and coming together again.
“Smash them up some more!” Thon cried, handing Dick the atomic pistol, which he had dropped.
He took the weapon, fired it swiftly. In a few minutes the spot where the things had fallen was a smoking waste of shattered rock, the fragments of the things hidden in the pulverized mass.
“Well, I guess they won’t get themselves back together very soon, anyhow,” he muttered, grinning.
Thon threw her arms around his neck, kissed his cheek impulsively.
“Oh, Dick!” she cried. “It was wonderful of you to save me. When you exposed yourself to do it. But you mustn’t do such a thing again! You mustn’t die!”
“I’m an old man, now!” Dick muttered gruffly. “What does it matter about me?”
“It matters a great deal,” she told him. “And you will soon be young again. Our way is clear to the catalyst!”
Already Don Galeen was striding forward toward the glittering crystal on the black pyramid, guiding old Midos Ken with a strong hand on his shoulder. Hand in hand, Dick and Thon ran after them.
At a stumbling run, they hastened over the rugged lava flows—a strange, fantastic scene. It was a waste of black rock, burned and twisted. A tenebrous roof above, and frozen blue light, surrounded with a cone of utter blackness. The four stumbled forward, over the rocks, toward a low pyramid of black metal, dull, unpolished. And upon that altar was a magnificent jewel—a great, strange crystal, scintillating with many prismatic colors, with gleams the human eye had never seen before.
They reached it, panting with excitement and exertion.
The pyramid was low, not three feet high. Its base was deep in the volcanic rock. The wondrous stone was set in its top. The crystal was a regular polyhedron, with many flaming faucets, four inches through, perhaps—darting forth scintillating rays of every hue—and of colors known nowhere else.
Even when they were many yards from the stone, Dick felt its rays. They struck him with a stimulating warmth; they infused him with an odd exhilaration. He absorbed them, like a wine of delight. Sheer, buoyant ecstasy filled him.
He ran the last few paces to the stone at a quickened pace. His blood was flowing faster. New fire was in his body. His mind quickened; his perceptions grew keen. Sharp desires flamed up in his breast, hungers, thirsts for achievements, for power. And with the desires he felt new ability and energy.
He paused before the marvelous stone on the black pyramid, threw wide his arms, bathed in those living rays. Their subtle stimulation penetrated; his body seemed to swell with new life.
“Oh, Dick!” Thon cried, beside him, “you are growing young again!”
Time seemed no more as he stood there, washed in a river of life. His heart was beating swiftly; hot blood was rushing through his veins. His mind was a mad whirl of confused dreams, desires, ambitions. He was intoxicated with the fire of youth.
Then abruptly the curious spell was passed, and he was again aware of his surroundings. The stone had wrought its change in him; its rays intoxicated him no longer.
Midos Ken was standing near it as he had been, arms thrown out, a look of rapture on his face. And the old scientist was old no longer. A lean, tall youth he had become. His body was erect, arrow-straight. His muscles smooth and hard. His face was like a boy’s, every wrinkle gone, firm and suffused with the glow of youth. His hair was crisply black.
But his eyes were not restored.
Don Galeen, too, seemed extraordinarily stimulated. He had not been old. But his figure seemed a trifle straighter, his mighty shoulders a little broader, his clear brown eyes a little brighter. His tanned skin had a bit more of the ruddy hue of youth.
“Dick, you are young again!” Thon cried, transported.
She seized Dick’s hand, held it up for him to see. No longer was it a gnarled, yellow claw. The skin was fresh and pink, the flesh firm, the fingers smooth and tapering. A lean, strong hand—the hand of a youth!
Then it struck Dick that Thon was remarkably attractive. The fire of the wonderful crystal seemed to have added to her already peerless youth and beauty. Her fair skin bloomed again; her eyes were flashing. She seemed to bubble with animated youth.
“I’m so glad—for you!” she whispered.
He closed his lean hand about the slim white fingers that had held it up for him to see. He looked into her deep blue eyes. They were aglow with delight, shining with tender concern—with love.
Slowly, reverently, he put his other arm about her slender shoulders and drew her warm body against his. He bent his head, and kissed her solemnly on the lips.
“QUICK!” Midos Ken shouted, in a new. deep voice that rang with energetic youth. “Break loose the stone! We must get back to the Ahrora. Garo Nark and his men are still at large, in the darkness outside the cones!”
Thon and Dick slipped reluctantly from their close embrace.
Don Galeen had turned quickly to the crystal. They stepped up beside him. The wondrous scintillant gem was mounted in the top of a low pyramid of black metal. It was deeply set, firm. Don caught it with a broad hand, tugged with all his mighty strength. It did not come free.
Quickly Thon produced the slender black cylinder of an El-ray projector. She moved the sliding silver ring. A narrow violet tongue leapt from the end of it, blindingly brilliant. With slender, skillful fingers she plied it, cutting the black metal prongs that held the stone. Steam hissed up, condensed in spirals of white vapor, fell in white flakes of snow.
The stone was loose.
Don Galeen snatched it up, fastened it in the pack he wore on his great shoulders. They turned, hastened across the twisted volcanic rock, toward the unbroken black wall that enclosed the vast cone of blue light.
Safely they passed the tom waste of shattered rock, where the explosions of the atomic pistol had blasted the Things of Frozen Flame into indistinguishable fragments. In time, the weird life that animated them might succeed in reshaping them. But it would be no quick process.
They reached the tenebrous wall of the cone. Without hesitation they plunged into it—into the utter obscurity of the lightless space from which Midos Ken’s bomb had exhausted all the ether. They fell into single file again, with Midos Ken in the lead, finding the way by aid of his miraculous sense of hearing. Don Galeen came behind him, carrying the wondrous stone of life. Then Thon. And Dick, in the rear, guided by the girl’s light touch.
“Silence!” came the whisper of Midos Ken. “It was somewhere out here that we left Garo Nark. The ether-exhausting bomb left the Things of Frozen Flame helpless. But it hurt Garo Nark no more than it does us. If I know the Lord of the Dark Star, he will try to make an opportunity to betray his strange allies, to attack us, and to make off with the stone. No weapon will function in this space from which the ether has been exhausted—we will be helpless if attacked by his whole band.”
Anxious minutes went by. Making as little sound as possible, the four slipped forward through absolute midnight. But occasionally a rock was loosened beneath their feet, clattered down into some little declivity. Each time the sound seemed appalling. They paused in tense expectation of discovery and attack. And each time, hearing-nothing of an enemy, they went on again.
At last Midos Ken paused, whispered. “We are just passing the summit of the range. We should be beyond Garo Nark—”
“Perhaps,” came a low, mocking voice from the darkness beside them. “But not all is as it should be! I take it that you have brought me the stone?”
Another jeering laugh came from the darkness. The malicious laugh of Garo Nark. And above it Dick heard the dry, demoniac chuckle of the scrawny, green-eyed man called Pelug.
“Quick!” Don Galeen hissed.
Touching the others, he made a mad dash to one side, away from that satanic, triumphant laughter. Leading Thon behind him, Dick lowered his shoulders and charged through the darkness, as if trying to break through the opposing line for a five-yard gain.
Fate was against him. He stumbled over an unseen boulder, fell upon his face. Thon came down quite solidly on his back. Before either could rise, a score of men had rushed upon them from the blackness, piled upon them and held them to the ground.
For a moment there were sounds of violent struggle from the direction Don Galeen had taken. Then he, too, was a helpless prisoner. Various voices announced to Garo Nark that all four were successfully captured.
“The game is played,” he said tauntingly to Midos Ken, “and I have won! I have the stakes we played for. The stone that will give endless life to me and to those who earn my favor! And my blushing queen-to-be!
“But you have aided me, Midos Ken. It was your science which paralyzed these monsters. And it was you who brought the stone out to me. And I am just. I will reward you for that!”
Garo Nark laughed mockingly.
“I will give you your life! And your liberty! I will leave you here. And the ape from the past with you! But your weapons and your garments are mine, as spoils of war. And if you should get cold, when this warm darkness is gone, if you should get hungry, if the monsters take you—well, remember that I warned you!”
He laughed gloatingly. Pelug’s diabolical chuckle rang out, as did the approving grunts of other men.
“And so, farewell. I make you Lord of the Green Star, with this ape to rule over—and the monsters who live in the cones! I wish you a long reign, Midos Ken. But I warn you! Now that they have lost the stone of life, the monsters will be hungry!
“Thon Ahrora will go with me, to be one of the queens of the Dark Star. And Don Galeen I shall take, too. For it may be that I shall wish to know something of the stone, which I must persuade him to reveal.
“One of my fliers was taken into a blue cone. But the other is near. We can reach it. When this night of yours is gone, and we can fly again, we shall be ready. We shall escape before the monsters recover.
“And farewell to you, Midos Ken, Lord of the Green Star!”
As the evil giant had boasted, his men had stripped Dick and Midos Ken, removing their weapons, their garments, the little devices on their arms which generated the electronic screens. As his thick, jeering tones died into silence, something was thrust under Dick’s nose, which reeked with a nauseating odor.
He reeled, his senses swam. In vain he fought the influence of the stupefying drug. Swiftly he fell into insensibility. For a single instant Thon’s clear, undaunted voice checked his rapid narcosis.
“Good-by, Dick!” she called. “I loved you!”
With the beginning of a hoarse curse from Garo Nark ringing in his ears, he fell into complete insensibility.
CHAPTER XIII
The Derelict of Space
DICK woke in utter darkness. Midos Ken had laid a hand on his shoulder. He sat up wonderingly, dropped back with a groan of black despair when he recalled the capture of Thon, with Don and the stone of life.
The horror of their position burst upon him. They were alone in the frozen, rocky wilderness of the Green Star, a score of miles from where the Ahrora lay. Whenever the tenebrous pall of midnight lifted, the monsters of cold flame would be abroad to search for them. He knew that their drugged sleep had lasted many hours. Garo Nark must have Thon, and Don Galeen, and the precious crystal of life fastened inside his ship, secure from rescue.
“Looks as if Garo Nark has beaten us,” Dick groaned. “We have one chance,” Midos Ken told him. “If we can make it back to the Ahrora—”
“But we have no clothes, no shoes. And it must be twenty miles.”
“I know. It will be hard. But we are both young men again—we have the fresh fire of life in our veins. The darkness may hold for several hours, yet. So long as it does, we will be protected from the cold and from the monsters. It is the only chance—”
“All right,” Dick cried. “It looks hopeless. But count on me to the bitter end!”
They started down the side of the mountain.
The hardships and difficulties of that journey were incredible. The rays of the wondrous crystal had made supermen of them—otherwise they must have died in that mountain wilderness, or fallen victims to the monsters of frozen light.
Hour after hour they stumbled forward, through utter blackness. They were not cold—then; the ether-less space did not carry heat from their bodies.
But the rocks were sharp; their feet were cut to ribbons before they had gone a mile. Each step brought almost insupportable agony. Sometimes Dick lifted his feet, and felt their tortured soles with his hand. He could see nothing, of course. But his fingers came away sticky with warm blood.
When they came to a smooth patch of snow, it was comforting to walk across its comparatively soft surface.
Midos Ken’s hearing was almost uncannily acute. He was able to judge the distance and contour of an object by its echo. With this amazing faculty, he could follow the trail they had made in coming up the mountain side from the Ahrora.
Dick had no idea how long they were in coming down the mountain. One’s sense of time does not operate when the mind is tortured with pain. It seemed to him that each step took minutes, that it was a bleak eternity since he had stood with Thon before the crystal of life.
They were a mile from the Ahrora when the light came back.
Despite the faintness of it, it was almost blinding to eyes used to total darkness. For a minute or so Dick blinked, stumbling along after Midos Ken, who had known of the change only by the sudden chill that smote into their unprotected bodies. Then Dick could see.
He saw the massive boulders looming about them, dark, faintly gleaming with green radiance. He saw the occasional patches of shining snow, and the vast, desolate sweep of the weird desert to the south of them, shimmering with fantastic emerald radiance. He saw the rugged line of peaks behind them, rising slightly luminous against the green-black gloom of the glacial sky.
And he saw the flier, a tiny red cylinder lying among the huge gleaming boulders, far ahead of them.
With the passing of the darkness, the air became suddenly intensely cold—numbing, bitter and paralyzing. Dick took the lead, broke into a run, guiding Midos Ken by the hand.
They ran desperately over the radiant green snow. Their breath formed white clouds, and froze into particles of ice that congealed upon their bodies. At first their bleeding feet left red prints in the green snow. Then they were too cold to bleed.
The air they breathed in great gasps seemed to sear their lungs.
Their bodies felt stiff, numb, as if clothed in unfeeling armor.
And the horror crept slowly upon them as they ran; the vertigo of helpless, endless falling, of falling through abysms of chill blue light, where obscene, writhing monsters swarmed, clinging to them, sucking away their life.
The cold penetrated with numbing, stiffening lances. The paralysis of cold and of unexplicable horror crept upon them. Hands and feet became numb and dead. And the numbness crept up their limbs.
The last of their run was an incoherent nightmare to Dick. He could walk upright no longer. He crawled upon hands and knees. Sharp rocks cut his naked skin, but it did not bleed. Midos Ken crept along behind them.
Then the red wall of the flier was above them.
Dick pulled himself up to it, hammered futilely on it with his hands. They were too stiff to respond to the impulse of his will.
In a gasping voice, Midos Ken sang out the series of notes which operated the mechanism. The massive door swung open. With a last desperate effort, Dick drew himself inside. He remembers trying blindly to help Midos Ken get in.
Then he lost consciousness.
When he woke, he was warm again—the automatic heat control in the Ahrora kept the air constantly at the proper temperature. Midos Ken was lying beside him in the floor of the corridor. He had been able to clamber inside and close the door.
A strange figure, skin cut to ribbons, covered with dried blood. It seemed hardly possible that it could be alive. But Dick could see the regular rise and fall of the chest as it breathed. And he was in a similar condition.
Presently he roused Midos Ken. They found antiseptic and healing drugs, among the supplies, and covered their wounds with these. Neither of them was able to walk upon his feet—the flesh had been cut off them to the bone. They crept about the flier on hands and knees.
