Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks)

by Leslie F Stone

  For minutes on end we seemed tottering on the brink of some horrible abyss, I could feel the sphere turning under me, turning faster, faster, the whole spaceship was turning, turning. Again Chen-Chak’s hands flew over his controls, and the blackness grew, while the tubes above him were filled with pulsing waves of black. Next came the sensation of falling, as if the control ball had dropped from under me. I had a last vision of Chen-Chak—tensely grim, every line in his body, every muscle clearly penciled in my eyes, then the sickness came.

  It was the same sickness I had experienced when Chen-Chak expanded our bodies on our entrance to the sphere, only it was sickness intensified a thousand times. Every bone in my body seemed crushed; I felt that giant hands tore at my flesh, twisted it into a thousand shapes. Something pounded my skull so it rang like a mighty gong, and every reverberation was hell itself. I med an uncounted number of deaths. I scarcely knew when the surcease from pain came.

  CHAPTER XII

  Au Revoir

  SOMEONE was shaking me. I could feel the touch of flesh on my arm, I heard a voice, but I was unmoved. I was dead, of that I was now thoroughly convinced. Why should someone try to arouse me?

  But the shaking persisted, the voice was insistent. “Bruce, Bruce Warren, old man, come out of it. It’s all over now!” I recognized Morton Forrest’s voice, his shaking hand was physical. “We’re safe, man, safe. Don’t you understand? Wake up, wake up.”

  “All over? Safe?” What did those words mean? Ah, it comes back. Mercury, the little men, the Saturnian escape, the impossible ship, the fall into the sun. But how could we be safe? I was curious enough to open my eyes.

  I was lying on the floor of the inner ball of Chen-Chak’s ship. It wasn’t a dream after all. Forrest was bending over me. I saw the strange form of the Saturnian above me on the stool facing me. Behind him a rosy light glowed in the hundreds of tubes. Overhead was the great globe of the sun, normal once again, scarcely larger than when seen from Mercury. It was all a hoax. None of these things had happened. We had not fallen into the sun!

  “What’s all over?” I demanded of Forrest.

  “Mercury—in there!” He jerked a hand toward the sun.

  “I shook my head to clear it. “Then—then it really happened. We dumped Mercury into the sun?”

  “Yes, Mercury is in the sun.”

  “But we—how did we escape? I thought we were done for!”

  “We went through the sun, through the chromosphere!”

  “We—what? You mean we really fell into the sun?”

  “Well, not into it, but through it, through the outer shell. We’re on the other side now. Look, you can see Tellus just appearing around the limb of the sun.”

  “But that’s impossible!”

  Chen-Chak spoke for the first time, his voice sounded infinitely weary. “It is true—we have been through the sun—the first men to have been through a sun—and live.” There was real awe in his voice. He went on speaking as if thinking aloud. “Men of Raxta said it could be done by attaining a velocity of a speed more than that of light itself . . .”

  “Lord! And Mercury fell in there!”

  “They fought to the end, refusing to believe it could be done; they refused to admit defeat, to bow to the supremacy of the Raxtau! It is better so. No man has the right to enslave another.”

  Forrest and I added “Amen.” It was true, men most live in harmony, in brotherhood, not in strife and slavery. The solar system was too small to contain such creatures as the Mercurians. I remembered Tica Burno, and those other living test-tubes. They were revenged, the future saved.

  “But wait,” I cried. “We have been taught that each planet has its place in the system, that each is a cog necessary to the balance of all. How could Mercury fall and not affect the others?” Chen-Chak shook his head. “The whole system was affected, but my people were guarding them; they did not permit them to fall. You will find changes, some, I think, for the best.”

  I found myself shivering, my head was in a whirl. “I want sleep, I can’t think,” I cried out.

  The Saturnian nodded, his face was kindly, fatherly. “A few minutes and you shall be home, my friends, on your own familiar world,” and as he spoke he turned to his controls.

  I may have slept. I do not know, but I was aroused by the deep voice of our host. “You have arrived, my friends,” he said.

  I JUMPED at the sound of his voice, and saw that Forrest had been deeply wrapped in his thoughts. He almost jumped from his seat at the sound of that heavy voice. We both stared across the few million miles separating us from our own world. Behind us glowered a turbulent sun, its heaving tentacles painting space in a raw gash of color. It seemed more radiant than ever, its prominences higher, less controlled. Was Sol having a fit of indigestion after its heavy meal? It appeared closer to Tellus than usual.

  Later we learned what had happened during the fall of Mercury. Tellus had dropped fourteen million miles nearer the sun in one awful moment, Venus six million. Our world was to profit by the change in the future, but now the terrific storms occasioned by Mercury’s going had not subsided. From our position we could not see a single physical feature, earth and water were shrouded in thick clouds.

  Forrest spoke. “I had hoped, Chen-Chak, that you would invite us to your world.”

  The Saturnian or Raxtau was silent a moment. “I believe you are needed more on your planet for the present, Morton Forrest. There is much you can explain there. I shall not say you are unwelcome on my world.

  “Now you must go.”

  As he finished speaking he rose from his stool and picked up the rifle-like affair with which he had raised us from the t inner shell of his ship to the control globe on which we stood. We made our adieux, and as he turned his instrument upon us we felt that awful sickness of his ray, as it reduced our bodies to normal size. We found ourselves standing once again on the solid floor beside the Victory. Chen-Chak stood on the globe waving one monstrous hand from the air-lock of his ship.

  Forrest took his place before the controls, and the walls under us melted away. Slowly the Victory drove through the swirling mists, and we popped into space once more. Together we turned our eyes to look at the giant sphere, but it was gone. Gone completely!

  THE END

  [*] Although Mercury’s period of rotation is the same as that of its revolution, it moves in its orbit so as to fulfill the laws of areas, its motion of revolution sometimes slower, sometimes faster than average. Thus the same face is not always exactly to the sun; for some times it is 23° ahead of its mean position in its orbit and sometimes tace verta, for Mercury has a libration of 23°.7. Hence there is 132°.6 of longitude upon which the sun always shines, an equal amount where it never shines, and two zones 47°.4 wide in which there is alternating day and night with a period equal to the planet’s revolution around the sun.

  The Human Pets of Mars

  One of the nicest features of this story is that its much admired authoress has brought in an excellent picture of human nature with the characteristics of man and woman in an absolutely bewildering environment. The combination of human nature with the strange Martian beings is most amusingly put before us.

  CHAPTER I

  MISTS had hung above Washington all the morning, then with their clearing at noon the city grew aware of the strange machine hovering a few thousand feet in the air, above the Washington Monument. Never had there been seen a stranger ship. Golden in color, it looked like a huge round cheese-box, or a drum, only monstrous in size, a good thousand feet in diameter.

  The President, from the verandah of the White House, saw it. People crowded to office windows, and into the streets. As far as Chevy Chase they saw it, and housewives came into the streets to stare in wonder and in fear. Then, as it was seen that the thing was about to land, was drifting to the municipal golf-links on Haines Point in Lower Potomac Park, wild excitement reigned. Some motorists thought to escape from the city, heading northward, or crossed the river
to the Virginia shore; but most of them followed the drum-ship, pushing in upon the Point, driving the hurriedly augmented police-force half crazy.

  Orders were dispatched from the White House. The Police Commissioner was directed to deploy his corps upon the golf-links; every fort near the city was warned to stand in readiness for action; planes were ordered out from Boiling Field and the Naval Hangars. No one had any idea from where the golden ship had come. Was it in peace or in war? Did it come from the other side of the world?

  Now it was descending, dropping lightly upon the links. A circular opening in its side gave a glimpse of its shining interior, golden as its exterior. People shrieked and screamed, however, as the Things from within emerged into the sunlight. Those who had been crowding the police forward fought to retreat, restrained only by those behind, who also fought and screamed to get away . . .

  At first no one was certain of his impression, but already an intrepid radio announcer with his portable microphone was describing the horrors as they emerged from their ship. Six of them, forty feet tall. Octopods he called them at first, but a second glance showed them as having ten tentacles instead of eight, surmounted by a flabby sack-like body topped by a round soft head from which projected the tentacles, possessing a round rubbery toothless mouth and three lidless staring eyes. Five of the tentacles had large, padded foot-like extremities, while the remaining five, which were held furled around the hairless bodies, like rosettes, ended in small ten fingered hands, having two thumbs.

  In color the creatures appeared a dull black over which lay a golden sheen that caught and reflected the light, and unlike true octopods the tentacles possessed no sucker cups, but were smooth. Decapods was a better name for them, and the announcer revised his first description by substituting that name.

  After climbing from their ship, these awful visitants stood staring at the frightened mob, their lidless eyes flickering in this direction and that, but they made no hostile move toward the populace. From them could be heard high piping sounds, like the chirping of birds. Then, they discovered the Washington Channel that lay dimpling in the sun between the Point and the city-wharfs.

  In one accord all six beasts moved toward the water, the people crowding out of their path. General Tasse, director of police, ordered a cordon of his men to block their way, but they proved no obstacle, as the monsters simply stepped over their ranks, carefully, so as not to tread upon them, and made their way to the water.

  One of their number was seen to dip an unfurled “arm” into the water, then with a loud plop lowered itself into the Channel, the others following. There, like happy school-boys, they disported themselves, their gargantuan play causing high waves that went careening against either shore, rocking the yachts anchored there, swamping some of the smaller boats. Then, they were climbing ashore at the wharfs to make a peaceable tour of the city, doing no more damage than the pilfering of a few fruit carts along the Avenue, and scaring motorists out of their wits.

  In a quandary Washington gave them the right of way, while scientists from the Smithsonian hurried to the city proper, hoping to communicate with them, to learn whence they had come, to study their science; but the monsters, who spoke among themselves in their high fluty tones, gave the scientists no time to catch up with them, simply stepping over each new obstacle put in their way. Capturing them, for the moment, seemed out of the question, and since they appeared completely unarmed, and apparently inoffensive as far as their intentions were an indication, nothing was done for the nonce, except that the police sought to untangle the traffic jams they caused everywhere.

  General Tasse, abiding by orders, had tried to give them a motor-cycle escort, to clear the way ahead, but the beasts had disregarded this honor, as they seemed to disregard everything else of their startled hosts, deserting the escort whenever something in another street attracted their attention, leaving the police officers to catch up with them as best they could.

  For several hours this continued, and in that time engineers from the Bureau of Standards attempted to make something of the unprotected ship, having hurried to the Point in auto-gyros. Only, as the decapods themselves defied the attention of the scientists, so had their ship’s motors defied the engineers. Never had they seen such machines, no two alike, resembling nothing of Earth.

  For instance, one machine was found to be six-sided, and each part simply a multiple of pentagons. Another had eight sides, a third was a series of three-sided figures, everything within coinciding with that shape. In color they were golden, like the ship itself, and transparent. On entering the drum-ship, the engineers had been startled to discover that whereas they could not see within the ship from without, from inside, they could see everything beyond perfectly clearly. Altogether, the ship was alluringly obscure.

  The march of the decapods lasted for about three hours, although, actually, they did not get very far—merely wandering through the business district of the city and some of its monumental Government Buildings—owing to the fact that they went, for the most part, in circles. Now, they seemed restless, anxious to return to their ship, and in a body they headed for the Washington Monument, like a finger pointing to the sky. Reaching its foot, one of their number proceeded to climb the obelisk—on the OUTSIDE.

  A few minutes later it descended once again, joining its fellows. It had taken bearings, found the drum-ship, and under its leadership, the five others started back for the municipal links, crossing the railroad embankment to do so.

  Possibly, the capture of life specimens of this world came only as a second thought to the decapods when, suddenly, a child excitedly dashed in front of them to reach its mother beyond them. A prolonged shriek went up from the crowd of onlookers who had milled over the golf-links all these hours. For the child never reached its mother. Instead, it found itself lifted high in the air, in the hand of the foremost of the decapods!

  With only a thought to save the child Officer McCarthy spurred his horse, Prince, forward. And the next instant, he, too, like the child was raised aloft with his horse. He may have saved himself, but his first reaction was to cling to his kicking horse, and when he had straightened in his saddle, he found himself too high in the air to dare to jump . . .

  CHAPTER II

  THE Bureau of Standards engineers were still delving into the unguessable secrets of the drum-ship when it was discovered that the monsters were returning. Pell-mell they ran out, piling helter-skelter into their autogyros. That is, all but Brett Rand and his chum George Worth. Never in his twenty-seven years had Brett come upon a machine whose essentials he could not grasp in an hour’s time. It was said of him that he had teethed upon a Stilson wrench, and it was true that when other kids were taking toys apart he was putting small motors together, and making them “go.” Where his fellows were ready to give up, he was only beginning to tinker.

  Had there been a wire or cable, he might have traced it to its source, but there was nothing among those multisided machines of transparent golden metal that he could actually put his finger on as familiar. Somehow, he had removed the top of a peculiarly flat machine, and with an experienced screw-driver was feeling around the strange array of parts, although, to tell the truth, there were no screws to tempt his implement.

  It was only by super-human effort that George managed to pull him away from the machine, to drive into his one-track mind that the decapods at that moment, were returning to the ship. Brett had not liked being disturbed, in fact, a sharp elbow caught George under the chin, sent him a-sprawl. But he came back and managed to draw Brett toward the doorway. Only it was too late.

  The decapods were upon them; one already about to enter the ship. And not empty-handed either. In one arm was a wildly kicking horse, in whose tilted saddle a police-officer clung, in another a small girl of about six, who, in turn, clasped a mewing kitten to her breast. An ashen-faced negro was caught in a third coiled arm, while in the fourth, a belligerent, red-faced matron dressed in neat serge and wearing a stiff sailor hat,
pummeled the monster with a tightly rolled umbrella. Other beasts following the first were also loaded down with captives, men, women, youths; white and black, without discrimination. There was even a wire-haired terrier among the captives.

  At bay, the two young men scarcely knew what to do. Behind them lay the motor room, a large circular chamber in the center of the ship, reached by a corridor. And from that opened half a dozen wedge-shaped rooms, shaped so, to conform to the contour of the ship. Retreating before the oncoming monsters with their captives, they reached the central room first, then dashed into one of the smaller chambers, bare, but for a number of metallic straps hanging here and there from the ceiling, with a wide circular mat upon the floor.

  Outside, they could hear the rat-tat of gun-fire; the police and soldiers attempting to rescue the prisoners, shooting low at the feet of the decapods, shots that simply ricocheted from their flesh without the least damage. Planes circled overhead, also firing upon the drum-ship, but with no apparent effect. The shells simply bounced back!

  Through the wall of their retreat Brett and George saw the monsters deposit their prisoners in a second chamber, then close the door upon them, and turn to their machines. There were some tootings when the top was found off the machine Brett had tinkered with, and looking up one of the beasts discovered the culprits. The next instant it was coming toward them.

  Brett still retained his screw-driver. Certainly he did not consider it much of a defensive weapon, his was more the natural reaction of a treed man as he let it fly toward the decapods. However, the missile never reached the eye for which Brett had unconsciously aimed, as a small hand caught it mid-air, the beast scarcely changing its stride as it came on.