Four Astounding Novellas

by Nat Schachner

  Webb Foster knew he had only a bare minute more to live. Surprisingly, the knowledge did not frighten him. The electro-knives were dipping with unerring accuracy for the roof of his head. He stared upward, unblinking. He no longer struggled. He tried to visualize what would happen—the keen pain of the incision, the brittle crunching of bone. He had been given no anæesthetic, not because Ku-mer was deliberately cruel, but because for his purposes the brain must not be numbed by soporifics.

  What, Webb thought with utter detachment, would be the sensation of death? Would there be awareness in him when his brain pulsed in the saline bath? Would he remember himself, his past flesh-and-blood life, in the cold intellectualism that would be crystallized out of its infolding protoplasm?

  Speculatively, he wondered what had happened to Susan Blake. He had heard her cry out; then all had been silence. A quiver went through him at the thought of her. Resolutely, he put it aside.

  Ku-mer watched him in the scientific manner. Just as he, Webb Foster, had bent impersonally over an electron tube, or even a little mouse whose insides might give a clue to some secret of nature. Now he was the mouse. He understood the Martian. He was not torturing him for the mere sake of torture; it was a job to be done. The whole trouble lay in the fact that his science was not tempered with human mercy and emotions, that his drive for power was obscuring all other considerations.

  But the others who crowded eagerly around the table were different. In their eyes was a strange likeness, dissimilar though they were in bodies. They were sadists, eager to drink in his dying screams, to see the swift blood spurt. Damn them!

  The glittering blades grew large as the universe in his gaze. Involuntarily, Webb closed his eyes, braced himself for the unendurable pain. His teeth locked together. They would not hear him cry out; they would not see him wince.

  SUDDENLY, the silent laboratory, breathless with waiting, was a roaring hell of sound. The soft whirring above his head faltered, withdrew. Angry shouts lifted; curses blasted in a dozen different tongues. But above all other sounds, dominating them like a Jovian hurricane, blared a bull-like roar. Webb opened his eyes incredulously. He'd recognize that great voice anywhere.

  It was Stet, the Titan giant. Stet, raging in his incomprehensible native dialect, all English forgotten. Shouts, screams, cries of pain made an inextricable stew. A green Venusian body hurtled across the room, slammed into the electro-trepan, sent it crashing from its grooves. There was a medley of thumpings, the crunch of huge fists on pipe-stemmed bones, the soft whine in pellet weapons, the sear of flame guns.

  Webb jerked his head around. "This way, Stet!" he cried out.

  The huge Titan, black as the planet on which he stood, grinned horribly. He towered over his milling opponents like a California redwood over a sapling birch. "Coming, master!" he called. The next moment he was plowing like a space liner through the struggling outlaws, thrusting them in waves of broken bodies against the farther walls. Ku-mer tugged at his blaster, cursed a stilted Martian oath. It had stuck in his belt. He whirled, scuttled to the end of the room, disappeared through a panel slide.

  In a twinkling the laboratory was clear of living beings. Only the dead remained, and the sorely wounded. Stet lurched grinning and bobbing to Webb's side.

  "Quick, Stet!" Webb snapped. "Get these damned ropes untied. Ku-mer will be back soon, with reënforcements and plenty of blasters. We won't have a chance."

  The Titan's clumsy paws fumbled with the bonds. Knots tightened all the harder.

  "Here, let me do it," Susan cried, and thrust her slender form against the giant. With an amazed grunt, he gave way. Her fingers, graceful, skilled, literally flew. Knots loosened by magic, one after the other. And all the while she talked excitedly.

  "What a great fool your Stet is!"

  "Hurry!" Webb begged, cocking an anxious eye toward the still-quiet portals to the outer rock. Then he asked, "Why?"

  "Do you know what he did? They had thrust him into a cell, bound him with cords like these with a solitary Moon man to guard him. He could have snapped his bonds with a single ripple of those stupid muscles of his, and broken the Moon outlaw in two with his bare hands. But he was sitting there, quietly, comfortably, when I came. I had pretended unconsciousness until all attention was distracted to you. Then I slipped out, found a length of stellite bar, crept behind the guard who was watching Stet, brought it down upon his head. He dropped very quietly. I explained to your oaf of a Titan in one-letter words what was happening. For the first time he seemed to show a measure of intelligence. He started up, heaved, and the ropes went flying in all directions. Then he came running here, and I after him."

  Stet grinned sheepishly. "Master tell me to stop back there in space lab," he defended. "He not change his order. Stet do nothing."

  "We-ll," Susan sniffed, "I never—"

  The last knot parted. Webb stumbled to his feet, free once more.

  He wasted no time in bringing circulation back to his cramped limbs. Already the hard rock of the planet echoed with running feet. With a grunt of satisfaction he dived for a flame gun, dropped by a fleeing outlaw, hefted it in his hand. "Quick!" he snapped. "Head for our space lab. There isn't a second to lose."

  THEY WERE outside again, running hard, heads lowered. Susan was between Webb and the Titan, partly shielded, by their bodies, from blasting weapons.

  A shout stabbed through the weird half light at their appearance. The black plateau milled with a motley of planet scum. Guns lifted. A hole appeared suddenly to one side of Webb in the solid rock. A section of steel barrack hissed, collapsed in a shower of dazzling sparks and molten metal. The three fugitives darted around it just in time. Straight ahead, about a hundred Earth yards away, teetered the great planisphere, its bulk thrusting high into the glowing air.

  "Run for it!" Webb said quickly. "You, Stet, get Susan Blake safe inside, start the motors. You know how."

  The girl stopped short. "And you, Webb Foster?" she demanded.

  He grinned. "I'm staying to slow them up. Otherwise none of us will get across that open space."

  Her eyes were somber on his. "I'm staying, too," she said quietly.

  "There's no sense to it," he rasped.

  "There isn't," she admitted. "But I helped get you into this, and I'll bear the responsibility with you."

  Webb looked at her tilted jaw and groaned. Seconds were precious. Already the pack was swinging around their temporary shelter. "All right, Stet," he said suddenly.

  The giant grinned understanding. His huge arm whipped out, caught the girl's slender form, lifted her off the ground like a little child.

  She struggled, screamed, "Let me down! Let me down! I won't go!"

  But he was away with an easy lope, heeding her futile blows on his hard black chest no more than if they were the brushing of butterfly's wings.

  Webb called after the Titan, "If I don't get to you when the motors start, head back for Callisto. You'll make it." Then, with a strange, empty feeling in his heart, he swung for the still-blazing edge of the hut, crouched.

  The first wave of attack came hurtling, baying like hounds on their trail. He caught them unawares. His flame gun spouted a long streamer of gas. The inflammable gas united explosively with the oxygen of the air, spread a wide sheet of flame over the oncoming men. There was a howl of pain, suddenly hushed screams, and half a dozen crisped bodies tumbled awkwardly to the rock. The rest recoiled hastily.

  Blasters spanged against the barracks. More of it collapsed in flying globules of hot metal. Then there was silence.

  Webb grinned tightly, catfooted quickly around to the other side. He had gauged their strategy correctly. He almost ran full tilt into a quietly tiptoeing party. Their guns went off simultaneously. Webb's jacket burst into flame. But the scouting group was wiped out, except for a single fleeing Martian. Webb raised his arm, aimed, pulled trigger. There was a hollow click, nothing else. He had used up the last cartridge.

&nbs
p; WITH A GESTURE, Webb threw the empty gun away. If they came for him now— But there was a short respite. The survivors were taking no undue chances with this crazy Earthman. They were reforming near the laboratory of Ku-mer, were pulling into position a short, squat tube with a yawning orifice. It looked very much like the trench mortar of an ancient day. Webb's scalp tightened. He knew what it was. A Martian schoda. It shot bolts of electrical energy. Even the plani-glass of his space lab would dissolve into vapor at the impact of that bolt, unless the repulsor screen were on full power. But would Stet know enough to turn it on?

  He swung quickly around and ran for the planisphere. They saw him as he scudded across the bare rock. A dozen missiles flared and crashed around him. But the range was too great for accuracy. Once the schoda started firing, however—

  He lifted his head. Stet and the girl had disappeared. The huge, translucent orb seemed miles away. Would he ever make it? What had happened to the others? Even as he queried himself, something came hurtling out of the open port of the planisphere. He gasped. Then another body followed the first, twisting and turning grotesquely in its trajectory. And a third! They fell to the inky rock with gruesome thuds, lay exactly as they had fallen.

  Webb grinned and put on extra steam. Good old Stet! He was inside all right. Those were three of Ku-mer's guards who would never rise again. He was not more than twenty yards from the beckoning port, breathing heavily. The missiles had ceased, but he dared not turn around. All his energy was needed to bridge that last gap.

  Then he heard a soft, hissing noise. With a groan, he flung himself flat on the ground. Just in time. The hiss became a crackling, the crackling a shriek, the shriek a cataclysmic roar, as though Gar-Mando had split in twain. A blue bolt ripped through the protesting air, hurtled directly for the huge round of the space lab.

  Gasping, the breath knocked clean from his body, Webb squirmed on the ground. Almost reluctantly, he raised his head. It was all over. The planisphere that had taken him years to build, the two people inside, who, he realized now with a dreadful pang, were unutterably dear to him, were gone, smashed into flying atoms of gas. Never again would he—

  An incredulous cry burst from his bleeding lips. The space lab, wreathed in blue smoke, was nevertheless intact. A familiar pattern of glittering pin points spangled its surface. The repulsor screen was in position! And Susan Blake, her slender form half obscured by the swirling smoke, was screaming at him from the port, calling on him frantically to run.

  He obeyed. He came up like a racer, pistoning arms and legs. It took ten seconds to recharge the schoda.

  Susan caught him as he literally fell into the opening. "Thank Heaven! Thank Heaven!" she cried brokenly. Her soft fingers stroked his grimy face, pulled away in abrupt embarrassment. Webb's pulses leaped. But first there was much to be done.

  He sprang for the slide lever, closed the port behind him. Then he was through the space lock, running along the swinging catwalk. "Take off, Stet!" he shouted. "Take off at once!"

  But the Titan at the control board turned helplessly to his master.

  "I've been trying to tell you," the girl panted behind Webb's flying feet. "The controls don't work. Only the repulsor screen. We turned on everything. It's no go."

  The Earthman slammed up to the silent screens, swearing. There was no doubt of it. Everything seemed in order. The rocket tubes should have been streaking red jets of fire against the rock. But nothing moved.

  "It's Ku-mer," he said grimly. "I should have known he was up to something when he lighted out for his lab. He's got some blanketing ray on that penetrates even the repulsor screen. If that's the case—"

  Chapter 7

  THE VISOR SCREEN glowed suddenly. The Martian's imperturbable countenance peered out from a misty background. His voice issued. Somehow he had managed to project the tight beam in back of the blanketing ray.

  "Your temporary escape will not avail you, Webb Foster," he said. "You cannot leave Gar-Mando. Your planisphere is helpless in the grip of my interference scrambler. You had better give yourself up before I blast you all into nothingness."

  "Don't listen to him," Susan cried. "He's bluffing. The repulsor screen—"

  Webb stared at the composed features of the Martian. "No," he answered quietly, "he is not bluffing. He can do it. But" —and he grinned at the pictured representation— "you won't."

  Ku-mer looked startled. "Why not?" he inquired.

  "There are two reasons. The first is that you haven't had a chance to examine all the details of my space laboratory. There are many inventions here even you don't know as yet. And the second is that if I die—except under your electro-trepan—you will never obtain the secret of the ultimate equation that explains the universe."

  The Martian scientist looked at him thoughtfully. "You are right, Webb Foster," he admitted. "But there are other ways—" He left the rest suspended, while the visor screen faded into gray blankness.

  "What can he do?" the girl asked anxiously.

  "Plenty!" Webb answered quietly. "There are certain anæsthetic gases he can pump through. If only—"

  He went to work, Susan and Stet aiding wherever they could. He tried new combinations, rigged up special batteries, experimented. But the screens remained dead, the central firing chamber was cold and lifeless. "Why," he wondered aloud, "do the repulsors work when everything else is blanketed?"

  It was a question that started him off again, frantically, feverishly. The repulsor elements tapped subspace, and hence were unimpeded by any waves in normal space time. But no one, not even Webb himself, had ever discovered a method of utilizing this queer repellant property for any other purpose. He tinkered, swore, computed frantically—without result. He stared at his equations with haggard eyes. They were meaningless scrawls. And Ku-mer was doubtless at work also, wasting no time.

  "Webb Foster!"

  He jerked his head up. There was something in Susan's still, small voice that sent a spasm of alarm through him. She was swaying against the wall, her hand fluttering at her throat. She was pale as wax, and she seemed to have difficulty in breathing.

  "I— I—" she whispered thickly, and fell.

  "Good Lord!" He sprang to his feet, or thought he did. But actually he gave the effect of a delayed televisor representation. His limbs seemed twice their normal weight, his head pounded dully, his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. In the distance, dimly, through blurring eyes, he saw his faithful Titan, a huge, black bulk, sprawled next to the control screens.

  "The R gas!" he muttered painfully. Colorless, odorless, it had stolen unawares through the plani-glass behind the interference rays. No material known to the planets could hold out its penetrative molecules.

  BLINDLY, he heaved himself erect. Like a swimmer in an asphalt sea, he lurched forward—not to Susan, not to Stet. He could do nothing for them—but to the space-tapping machine that powered the repulsors. There was only one course left.

  If the power were reversed suddenly, the quick shift in subspace configurations would create a temporary dislocation between the two dimensional space times. Such a dislocation would have obvious consequences. Once Webb had seen a patrol ship go out like a puff of smoke against the heavens. A drunken member of its crew had thought it might be sport to swing the lever controlling the screen.

  It meant annihilation, of course, but rather death than that Ku-mer should gain control of the planisphere and of his brain.

  The haze in his mind grew thicker. His muscles would soon refuse to obey his will. The subtle gas was cumulative in its effect. He must do it now—or not at all. In a blur, he staggered toward the fatal lever.

  Some one was speaking to him. He shook his head drowsily. It was an illusion born of the R gas. He must— The voice grew sharper, more penetrating. It held a curious unhuman timbre.

  Weighted hand on lever, he turned bleary eyes upward. The visor screen was lighted. A shock went through him. He almost fell. He barely got his hand away i
n time. Another shove, and the rod would have swung down.

  In the screen he saw a whirling, dazzling sphere—a sphere in which concentric layers whirled in order dance. The sphere of crystallized thought! It spoke. "Webb Foster! Webb Foster!"

  "Wh-what d'you want?" he answered thickly.

  "Do not reverse the repulsor screen. Turn it off instead."

  Webb shook himself dizzily. "But why—"

  "Turn it off," repeated the sphere of thought coldly.

  Suspicion flared in his dulled mind. This was Ku-mer's work. The shining orb was under his control. Once the repulsor screen was open—

  The distilled intellect of a hundred men must have known what he suspected. Again its unhuman accents broke on him. "Webb Foster, it is Jim Blake who tells you this. It is for Susan—"

  Susan! Jim Blake! Had he been fully awake, Webb might have refused to fall into what seemed a specious trap. But the names acted like magic talismans. Summoning up the last ounce of strength he swung the lever—toward the right—toward zero.

  THE sparkling pin points on the plani-glass died. The great space laboratory was open to the least vibration. But in that moment an invisible flash seemed to hurtle through the vast interior, a whoosh as of clashing waves. Suddenly, the central firing chamber flamed into being; the evanium pellets disintegrated; their subatomic energy flared outward through the rocket tubes, lashing the black rock with searing gases. The planisphere catapulted up into the phosphorescent air! All the machinery of the laboratories hummed and whizzed and turned.

  Webb had been flung from his feet by the sudden acceleration. Slowly, he staggered upright again. His brain was clearing rapidly as the R gas attenuated. Already Stet was heaving his vast bulk foolishly erect. Susan opened her eyes in bewilderment.