The Space Opera Megapack

by John W. Campbell

  “You stay there,” I told her. “If you move, I’ll break every bone in your rotten little body.”

  Back at the landing stage I found Dr. Brende in despair. Headquarters could not raise Robins. They had relayed the message to Wrangel and Spitzbergen Islands—but the stations there reported similarly. Dr. Brende’s laboratory did not answer its call.

  This decided us. We had no wish to remain where we were. The Brende car, far larger than the small one of mine, was fully equipped and provisioned. We rolled it out, and in a moment were flying in the air.

  Dr. Brende’s car was large, commodious, and smooth-riding. A pleasure to fly in such a car! Georg was at the controls. I sat close beside Elza in the semi-darkness, gazing down through the pit-rail window to where the island was dropping away beneath us. It was a perfect night; the moon had set; the stars and planets gleamed in an almost cloudless sky. Red Mars, I saw, very nearly over our heads.

  It was now midnight, and for the moment we chanced to have the air to ourselves. We rose to the 10,000-foot level, then headed directly North. It carried us inland; soon the sea was out of sight behind. Lights dotted the landscape—a town or city here and there, and occasionally a tower.

  Dr. Brende was poring over charts, illumined by a dim glow-light beside him. “Can we get power all the way, Georg?… Elza child, hadn’t you better lie down? A long trip—you’ll be tired out.”

  “Call Royal Mountain6,” Georg suggested. “Ask them about serving us power; I’ll stay 10,000 or below. Under one thousand, when we get further north. Ask them if they can guarantee us power all the way.”

  The station at Royal Mountain would guarantee us nothing on this night; they advised us to keep low. Their own power-sending station was working as usual. But this night—who could tell what General Orders might come? Everyone’s nerves were frayed; this Director demanded gruffly to know who we were.

  “Tell him none of his business,” I put in. My own nerves were frayed, too.

  “Quiet!” warned Georg. “He’ll hear you—and it is his business if he wants to make it so. Tell him we are the Inter-Allied News, father. That is true enough, and no use putting into the air that Dr. Brende is flying north.”

  Royal Mountain let us through. We passed well to the east of it about 12:45—too far away to sight its lights. The cross-traffic was somewhat heavier here. Beneath it, at 5,000 and 6,000 feet, a steady stream of cars was passing east and west.

  We were riding easily—little wind, almost none—and were doing 390 miles an hour. You cannot bank or turn very well at such a speed; it is injurious to the human body. But our course was straight north. Dr. Brende showed it to me on his chart—north, following the 70th West Meridian. Compass corrections as we got further north—and astronomical readings, these would take us direct to the Pole. I could never fathom this air navigation; I flew by tower lights, and landmarks—but to Dr. Brende and Georg, the mathematics of it were simple.

  At two o’clock we had crossed the route of the Chicago-Great London Mail flyer. But we did not see the vessel. The temperature was growing steadily colder. The pit was inclosed, and I switched on the heaters. Elza had fallen asleep on the side couch, with my promise to awaken her at the first sign of dawn.

  At two-thirty, the Greater New York-East Indian Express overhauled us and passed overhead. It was flying almost north, bound for Bombay and Ceylon via Novaya Zemlya. It was in the 18,000-foot lane. The air up there was clear, but beneath us a fog obscured the land.

  At intervals all this time Dr. Brende had been trying to raise Robins—but there was still no answer. We did not discuss what might be the trouble. Of what use could such talk be?

  But it perturbed us, for imagination can picture almost anything. Georg even felt the strain of it, for he said almost gruffly:

  “Stop it, father. I don’t think you should call attention to us so much. Get the meteorological reports from the Pole—we need them. If they tell us this weather will hold at 10,000 and below, we’ll make good time.”

  Soon after three o’clock we swept over Hudson Strait into Baffinland. We were down to 4,000 feet, but the fog still lay under us like a blanket. It clung low; we were well above it, in a cloudless night, with no wind save the rush of our forward flight.

  Then came the pink flush of dawn. True to my promise I awakened Elza. But there was nothing for her to see; the stars growing pale, pink spreading into orange, and then the sun. But the fog under us still lay thick.

  We were holding our speed very nearly at 380 an hour. By daylight—about five o’clock, after a light meal—we were over Baffin Bay. I had relieved Georg at the controls. The headlands of North Greenland lay before us. Then the fog lifted a little, broke away in places. The water became visible—drift and slush-ice of the Spring, with lines of open water here and there.

  And then the fog closed down again, lifting momentarily at six o’clock when we passed over the north-western tip of Greenland. The tower there gave us its routine signal, which we answered in kind. There was little traffic along here; a few local cars in the lowest lanes.

  Shortly after six, when we were above Grantland, another of the great trans-Arctic passenger liners went over us. The San Francisco Night line, for Mid-Eurasia and points South. It was crossing Greenland, from San Francisco, Vancouver, Edmonton, to the North Cape, the Russias, and African points south of Suez.

  At seven o’clock, with the sun circling the lower sky, the fog under us suddenly dissipated completely. We were over the Polar ocean. Masses of drift ice and slush, but for the most part surprisingly clear. At eight o’clock, flying low—no more than a thousand feet—we sighted the steel tower with foundations sunk into the ocean’s depths which marks the top of our little Earth.

  We flashed by the tower in a moment, answering the director’s signal perfunctorily. Southward now, on the 110th East Meridian, without deviating from the straight course we had held.

  It was truly a beautiful sight, this Polar ocean. Masses of ice, glittering in the morning sunlight. A fog-bank to the left; but everywhere else patches of green water and floes that gleamed like millions of precious stones as they flung back the light to us. Or again, a mass of low, solid ice, flushed pink in the morning light. And behind us, just above the horizon, a segment of purple sky where a storm was gathering—a deep purple which was mirrored in the placid patches of open water, and darkened the ice-floes to a solemn, sombre hue.

  Elza was entranced, though she had made many trans-Polar trips. But Georg, now again at the controls, kept his eyes on the instruments; and the doctor, trying vainly once more to talk with his laboratory, now so close ahead of us, sat in moody silence.

  It was 9:38 when we sighted, well off to the right, the rocky headland of Cape Chelusin7—the most northerly point of Eurasia. A long, low cliff of grey rock, ridged white with snow in its clefts. We swung toward it, at greatly decreased speed, and at an altitude of only a few hundred feet.

  This was all a bleak, desolate region—curiously so—and I think, one of the very few so desolate on Earth. As we advanced, the Siberian coast spread out before us. Mountains behind, and a strip of rocky lowland along the sea. There were patches of snow—the mountains were white with it; but on the lowlands, for the most part the Spring sun had already melted it. The Spring was well advanced; there were many open channels in the water over which we were skimming—drift-ice, and slush-ice which soon would be gone.

  Cape Chelusin! It was here that Dr. Brende had placed his Arctic laboratory—as far from the haunts of man as he could find—a hundred miles from the nearest person, so he told me. And as I gazed about me I realized how isolated we were. Not a car in the whole circular panorama of sky; no sign of vessel on the water; no towns on the land.

  It was just after ten in the morning when we dropped silently to the small landing stage a hundred yards or so from the shore. We disembarked in the sunlight of what would have been a pleasant December morning in Greater New York; and I gazed about me curiously. A lev
el lowland of crags with the white of snow in their hollows; a collection of broad, low buildings nearby, with a narrow steel viaduct running down to them from the landing stage. And behind everything, the frowning headland of the Cape.

  The buildings stood silent, without sign of life. There was no one in sight anywhere. No one out to greet us; I thought it a little strange but I said nothing.

  We started down the viaduct. Under us, in patches of soil, I could see the vivid colors of the little Arctic flowers already rearing their heads to the Spring sunlight. I called Elza’s attention to them. A vague apprehension was within me; my heart was pounding unreasonably. But this was Dr. Brende’s affair, not mine; and I wanted to hide my perturbation from Elza.

  The viaduct reached the ground; a path led on to the houses.

  Suddenly Dr. Brende called out:

  “Robins! Robins! Grantley! Where are you!”

  The words seemed to echo back faintly to us; but the buildings remained silent.

  “You’d better wait here with Elza,” Georg said.

  “I’ll go on—see what—”

  He checked his words, and started forward. But Dr. Brende was with him, and in doubt what to do I followed with Elza.

  We entered the nearest building, into a low, dim room, with doors on the sides. In the silence I seemed to hear my heart pounding my ribs. Elza’s face was pale and perturbed, but she smiled very courageously at me.

  “Wait!” said Georg. “You wait here.”

  He turned into a side door leading to another room, and in an instant was back with a face from which the color had departed.

  “They’re not in there,” he said unsteadily. “Elza—you go outside with father.… They must be around somewhere, Jac. Come, look.”

  There was a rustle behind us. Arms came around me, pinning me. I heard Elza scream, saw Georg fighting two dark forms which had leaped upon him.

  I was flung to the ground, but I fought—three men, it seemed to be, who were upon me. Then Georg’s voice:

  “Jac! Stop—they’ll kill you.”

  I yielded suddenly, and my assailants jerked me to my feet. A group of Venus men were surrounding us. Georg, his jacket torn to ribbons, was backed up against the wall with three or four Venus men holding him.

  And on the floor nearby Dr. Brende lay prone, with a crimson stain spreading on his white ruffled shirt, and Elza sobbing over him.

  CHAPTER V

  Outlawed Flight

  Dr. Brende was dead. We knew it in the moment that followed our sudden assault and capture. Elza knelt there sobbing. Then she stood up, her tears checked; and on her face a look of pathetic determination to repress her grief. Now that we had yielded, the Venus men, searching us for our weapons, cast us loose. We bent over Dr. Brende, Georg and I. Dead. No power in this universe could bring him back to us.

  Georg pressed his lips tightly together. His face, red from the exertion of his fight, went pale. But he showed no other emotion. And, as he leaned toward me, he whispered:

  “Got us, Jac! Say nothing. Don’t put up any show of fight.”

  Elza now was standing against the wall, a hand before her eyes. I went to her.

  “Elza, dear—”

  Her hand pressed mine.

  Our captors stood curiously watching us. There seemed to be at least ten of them—men as tall as myself, though not so tall as Georg. Swarthy, gray-skinned fellows—one or two of them squat, ape-like with their heavy shoulders and dangling arms. Men of the Venus Cold Country. They were talking together in their queer, soft language. One of them I took to be the leader. Argo was his name, I afterward learned. He was somewhat taller than the rest, and slim. A man perhaps thirty. Paler of skin than most of his companions—gray skin with a bronze cast. Dressed like the others in fur. But his heavy jacket was open, disclosing a ruffled white shirt, with a low black stock about his throat.

  A shifty-eyed fellow, this Argo. Smooth-shaven, with a mouth slack-lipped, and small black eyes. But his features were finely chiseled; and with that bronze cast to his skin, I guessed that he was from the Venus Central State. He seemed much perturbed that Dr. Brende was dead. Occasionally he burst into English as he rebuked one of the others for the killing.

  No more than a moment had passed. Georg joined Elza and me. We stood waiting. Georg whispered: “They killed Robins and his helpers. In there—” He gestured. “I saw them lying in there. If only I had—”

  Argo was standing before us. “This is a very pleasant surprise—” He spoke the careful English of the educated foreigner. His tone was ironical. “Very pleasant—”

  Abruptly he turned away again. But in that instant, his eyes had roved Elza in a way that turned me cold.

  They led us away, down a padded hallway into the instrument room. It was in full operation; our Inter-Allied news-tape was clicking; the low voice of the announcer droned through the silence. I started toward the tape, but Argo waved me away. He had volunteered us nothing, and again Georg advised silence.

  Argo had given his orders. Through a window I saw men carrying apparatus from the house. A small metal frame of sun-mirrors, prisms and vacuum tubes. Georg whispered: “Father’s model.”

  The man with it passed beyond my sight. Others came along, carrying the cylinders of books—Dr. Brende’s notes—and a variety of other paraphernalia. Carrying it back from the shore toward the headlands of the Cape, where I realized now they had an aero secreted.

  Argo was at a mirror; he had a head-piece on; he was talking into a disc—talking in a private code. I could see the surface of the small mirror. A room, with windows. Through one of the windows, by daylight, palms and huge banana leaves were visible. A room seemingly in the tropics of our own hemisphere.

  Argo was triumphant—explaining, doubtless, that he had captured us. Mingled with his voice, the Inter-Allied announcer was saying:

  “Greater-New York 10.32 Martian Helio, via Tokyohama: Little People Proclamation—”

  A man standing near the tape switched off the droning voice. At the receiving table, every few seconds came the buzz of the laboratory’s call. Wrangel Island again calling Robins; but no one paid any heed. Argo finished at the mirror. He glanced over the tape, smiling sardonically. Then, methodically, deliberately, he swept the instruments to the floor, jerked out the connections, turned out the current—wrecked it all with a few strokes. A moment later we were taken away.

  Outside, from back by the low reaches of the Cape, we saw an aero rising. They had loaded it with Dr. Brende’s effects, and in it half of the men were departing. It rose vertically until we could see it only as a speck in the blue of the morning sky—a speck vanishing to the north over the Pole.

  With four or five of the men—all those remaining—Argo took us three to the Brende car. We did not pass Dr. Brende’s body, lying there in the outer room. Elza and Georg gazed that way involuntarily; but they said nothing. The greatest grief is that which is hidden, and never once afterward did either of them show it by more than an affectionate word for that father whom they had loved so dearly.

  Soon we were back in the Brende car in which we had landed no more than an hour before. It was a standard Byctin model—evidently Argo and his men knew how to operate it perfectly. We were herded into the pit, and in a moment more were in the air.

  Argo seemed now rather anxious to make friends with us. He was in a high good humor. His eyes flashed at me sharply when I questioned him once or twice; but he offered us no indignities. To Elza he spoke commandingly, but with that deference to which every woman of birth and breeding is entitled from a man.

  We rose straight up and, at 18,000 feet, headed northward by a point or two west. We would pass the Pole on our right—too far to sight it with the naked eye, I realized; but I knew, too, that the Director there would see the distant image of us on his finder, even though we refused connection should he call us. And we had no right to be up here in the 18,000-foot lane. They’d order us down—shut off our power, if necessary.
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br />   We could not escape observation on this daylight flight. Heading this way, it would take us past the Pole and on southward, down the Western Hemisphere over the Americas. We could not refuse connection for long. We would be challenged, then brought down. Or, if Argo answered a call, some Director would examine our pit with his finder—would see Elza, Georg and me as prisoners. We could gesture surreptitiously to him.…

  My thoughts ran on. Argo’s soft, ironic voice brought me out of them.

  “We will answer the first call that comes,” he said smilingly. “You understand? We are the Inter-Allied News on Official Dispatch.” He was addressing me, his glance going to the insignia on my cap. “You are of the Inter-Allied?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What’s your name?”

  I did not like his tone. “None of your—”

  “Quiet, Jac,” Georg warned.

  “Jac Hallen,” I amended.

  “Yes. Division 8, Manhattan,” he read from my cap. “Well, when the first Director calls—from the Pole perhaps—you will tell him we are Inter-Allied Officials. He will see us here—I do not believe, the way we are sitting, that he will think anything is wrong. He will see us of Venus. There are Venus men employed by the Inter-Allied. Is it not so?”

  I had to admit that it was. He nodded. “You will fool the Directors, Jac Hallen. You understand? You will get the reports on weather today down the 67th Meridian West. And ask if we can have power to the Equator and below.” His eyes flashed. “And if you attempt any trickery—you will die. You understand?”

  I did, indeed. And I knew that his plans were well laid—that I would be helpless to give us over without paying for it with my life—with the lives of Elza and Georg as well.

  From up here in the 18th lane, the Polar ocean lay a glittering white and purple expanse beneath us. Then, again, a fog rolled out down there like a blanket. We passed the Pole, a hundred miles or more to one side, and headed Southward. No challenge. Under us, occasional local cars swept by; but up here we were clear of traffic.