by Jerry
“We’d better be,” his superior concluded grimly. “Or the devils will blast away the lifeboat and the cable. Leave us without an electromagnet—right back where we started from.”
COMMANDER JON McPARTLAND stared with hard blue eyes into his screen. He watched a dot growing into a sphere, and, anticipating the words of Lieutenant-Commander Clemens, ordered:
“Have Lieutenant Parek compute their speed and course.”
Clemens, with a look of gloomy reproach at not having been allowed to report, bent to the intra-ship phone. Before he could speak, he straightened, and turned to relay the information coming through his headphones:
“Navigation Officer reports course head on, sir. Speed fifty Spatial Units.”
“Thank you.” The Commander looked at his Engineer. “All in readiness, Mister McTavish?”
“All in readiness, sir,” replied the lanky engineer, his grey eyes twinkling as he added: They’re using an electron ray, and our ship is negative—but this’ll be a positive jolt to the enemy, begging your pardon, sir!”
McPartland smiled, the tense muscles along his jaw relaxing for the first time in hours. Clemens coughed and turned aside, bringing a hand up over his mouth.
This effort to preserve his reputation was needed only for a moment. He straightened, adjusting his headphones, and reported:
“Enemy ship changing course, sir, swinging aside.”
The Commander glanced quickly at the screen, disbelief flicking momentarily over his square features. He leaped to the intra-phone, snatching the headphones from the Lieutenant-Commander.
“Mister Parek,” he ordered, “swing with that ship. We must get in close—quickly!” Aside to McTavish, he added: “I hope the cable to that spaceboat holds when it snaps around on this turn.”
“It will hold, sir,” the Engineer assured him. “But we’ll lose some speed by the drag—only until we re-accelerate, sir.” McPartland tossed the headphones back to Clemens, left the intra-phone, and went back to his screen. For the next few minutes he watched the alien silver sphere, flashing and glinting in the starlight.
John McPartland whispered, half to himself: “The cunning devils! They know something’s up when a beaten ship comes back to fight again.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” said Reynolds, the Ray Control Officer, in his quiet manner. “They must have seen the spaceboat strung behind and become suspicious.”
“You’re right, Mister,” acknowledged the Commander. “The killers are careful of their skins.” He glared at the hateful beauty of the other ship, growing no larger in his screen. “Come on,” he challenged.
But the enemy avoided every effort of the earth ship to close in, turning inside. At last, the space fighters were carving a great circle in space, the Earthmen on the outside, traveling a greater distance so that superior speed was largely nullified.
McPartland glared into his screen. Clemens stood by his intra-phone, relaying messages from Parek. Reynolds sat before his calculators, unmoving except for fingers caressing the mike that still waited for his words. McTavish sprawled before his three dimensional model, his grey eyes going over and over every line of it.
At last the Commander spoke the thought in the minds of all four: “We’re six Spatial units apart. Maximum range of their ray is five units; ours is four. Coming head on, we pass through the gap between their range and ours in seconds—we almost made it last time! But, if we overhaul them from behind, it might take minutes to close that gap with our speed advantage.”
“Right, sir,” McTavish agreed, “and minutes would be long enough for them to blast our spaceboat and cable away.”
“And then us,” finished Clemens. He drew himself up. “I am ready, sir, when you give the order.”
Blazing anger faded from the Commander’s eyes and face. “Thank you, Mister Clemens. I know you are, and so is every man of our crew. But we’re here to save the System, and there’s still hope.
“These animals have come a long way,” he said jabbing a fist toward the ship in the screen. “They think they can afford to wait us out. But maybe they can’t. Mister Clemens, ask Radio to try and contact Earth.”
IT TOOK long, anxious minutes to make the contact. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Parek held the ship on the same course, with instructions to close at once if the enemy moved toward them.
But the situation remained unchanged, the great circle being traced and retraced through space, ray guns trained, unused. At last, Radio reported contact.
Jon McPartland stepped to the visaphone. Before him, the faint image of Marshal Denton, supreme commander of all System forces, flickered uncertainly over the great distance.
“McPartland,” came the Marshal’s voice, thin and wavering through the poor connection. “I knew you’d do it!”
McPartland saluted smartly. “We have met the enemy, sir, and stopped their advance toward the System, but—”
He went on, reporting their first encounter, his decision and action, and concluded: “Sir, we can hold them here until help reaches us. One more ship—rigged as we are—even the slowest old hulk in the fleet—and we can finish them!”
There was a long pause. Marshal Denton drew himself up, his face, only a dim blob on the screen, gave no hint of his emotions as he answered. “Commander McPartland, I must refuse your request for reinforcements.” There was no mistaking his feeling in the next words:
“Jon, I’ve got a System of confidence in you, but my hands are tied. The Supreme System Congress of Specialists has met and made decisions for defense—decisions that are not subject to change. From here on, I can only carry their strategy into effect.”
McPartland stood rigidly. He was stunned. He heard his own voice, as from far away; “And those decisions, sir?”
“Every ship we have is concentrated just beyond Pluto’s orbit.” Denton answered. “They are arranged in a defensive pattern of depths, that the Specialists consider impenetrable.” His voice was even.
“Sir,” the Commander groaned, “this attacker has the range and a ray that makes our magnetic screens useless. These fiends will go through that fleet like light through glass. And the planets—they’ve been disarmed for years! They’ll be defenseless!”
In the screen, the Marshal’s dim figure slumped. “Jon, the Specialists rule the System.”
“I understand, sir,” McPartland heard himself say. “What are your orders, sir?”
“Just your best, Commander Jon McPartland. That will be the best any of us could give. Good luck!”
“Thank you, sir.” McPartland turned from the visa-phone as Marshal Denton faded from view.
Lieutenant-Commander Clemens stood ready beside his intraphone. Engineer McTavish sprawled before his model, his grey eyes going lovingly over every line of it. Ray Control Officer Reynolds fingered his mike.
Jon McPartland swept them with his blue eyes, turned to glare again at the taunting silver sphere in his view screen. He started to speak, stopped as Reynolds raised his head.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” said the Ray Officer. “May I give the men false range data when—when—you decide we’re finished, sir? I’ll feel better just using this stuff, and the gun crews—those that are left—will feel better thinking they’re striking a blow for the System.
“It can’t do any harm, sir,” he pleaded as the Commander snapped his mouth shut, staring hard.
“REYNOLDS,” bellowed the Commander, “ages ago there was an airfighter who opened fire on his enemy with machine guns before he was in range. The opponent usually took evasive action—thinking he was in danger—and lost speed, so that this fighter could overtake and destroy him.
“Reynolds, you’re a genius!”
“Man,” interrupted McTavish, “our rays would fall short! Those devils wouldn’t be fooled by rays—two Spatial units away!”
“No, Mister McTavish,” his superior replied slowly, “our disintegrator rays wouldn’t fool them. But we have landing searchlights that throw a beam a dozen
Spatial units.
“McTavish get down to those beams; stop a couple down to pencils; shade them to throw a pretty violet-colored finger; cut down the power so they’ll reach about six units! Get out of here!”
The Engineer’s lanky body was already through the control room door. Jon McPartland was grinning. A grin that didn’t fade even when he looked back to his screen, to see the glinting silver sphere swinging serenely along beside them. He turned to Clemens.
“Tell Lieutenant Parek to close at full speed the second they start for us. No evasive action—straight course and let the spaceboat and cable take it!”
“Navigation acknowledges, sir.” Clemens replied solemnly, and the Commander knew his Lieutenant had anticipated and given the order.
“All ray stations ready, sir,” added the quiet Reynolds.
McPartland’s grin broadened. “Give them the straight data, Mister Reynolds.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was only seconds later that a voice rang in Clemens’ headphones, in accents loud enough to be heard through the silent, waiting control room. “McTavish reporting. All in readiness.”
“Let them have it then,” ordered the Commander. “But be sure you miss!”
With the suddenness of calculated surprise, a thin pencil of violet light stabbed out from the Earth ship. It knifed through space, scant yards behind the silver sphere, and winked out. A second beam reached forth, passed beneath the gleaming enemy.
Immediately, the sphere bobbed in space, began to weave an intricate course toward the Earth ship. It swelled in the viewscreen before McPartland.
He laughed, a low savage sound. “A super-race ego, to think our gunners are that bad. But they’ll learn!”
REYNOLDS began to drone into his phone, his eyes never leaving the calculators over which his fingers were flying. “Range five units, position—”
A faint flicker reached toward the Earthship, swung aside. McPartland laughed again.
“Range, four point nine,” droned Reynolds, and went on with steady flow of data.
The pale alien beam reached out again. This time Clemens reported. “Spaceboat destroyed by direct hit, sir.”
“Range four point six,” said Reynolds.
The sphere was looming ahead of them now, its ray sweeping off to the side, direction steady even as the sphere danced and spun.
“Range four point one—”
“Cable almost completely gone, sir,” Clemens said.
“Steady,” McPartland answered. He took a deep breath and heard the voice of the Ray Control Officer rising triumphantly:
“Units one-three, five and seven, Fire! Range four point zero, position—”
Four livid fingers of red sprang hungrily toward the silver sphere. They struck almost together, followed as the ship twisted and spun for brief moments. Then, when the ball of metal suddenly ceased its gyrations and floated limply, helplessly in space, those fingers probed, slashed unhindered through its vitals, over every foot of hull.
It was a scene of awesome destruction, as the ship that had thrown back starlight so proudly, haughtily, was blotted out of existence, its atoms torn apart and hurled back to the universe as free energy.
The glow in his viewscreen threw red highlights into McPartland’s black hair, matched the blazing vengeance in his blue eyes. But he watched, jaw hard, fist clenched, until destruction was complete.
“They got what they gave our ships,” he said at last, “merciless destruction. They deserved no better.
“We’ll go back to the System, and turn in our report. Our Scientists will perfect a defense against a mono-charge ray, and we won’t need to worry about handling any other ships that might follow this one.”
“Right, sir,” said McTavish. “And, man, begging your pardon, sir, I hope we’re in on the handling!”
Lieutenant-Commander Clemens shook his head moodily. “We did well. But the Congress of Specialists will be disappointed. We didn’t bring back prisoners for examination.”
But his eyes were smiling—again.
THE LAST MAN IN NEW YORK
Paul MacNamara
Joe Dunn and Julie Are the Sole Survivors in a Vast City of Silence and Death!
CHAPTER I
The Jersey Charlatan
IN NEARLY every newspaper office in the country, every once in a while, a reporter is assigned the rather dull job of covering a story about the end of the world. Now first off it sounds exciting, but it isn’t. It consists of interviewing some crackpot who insists he has special inside information having to do with the whole world going down the drain on some odd Thursday. New York reporters, in particular, kick at the assignment because it has one other serious drawback. Nine out of ten times the prophet to be interviewed has his home in some completely inaccessible spot, usually in New Jersey. On second thought, perhaps this is logical.
Joe Dunn, reporter on “The Telegram,” was given such an assignment early one morning in October, 1954, and discovered, to his dismay, that the current prophet, who was named by the way, Fletcher B. Fletcher, was living at Berry Meadows, New Jersey. Joe Dunn was quick to point out—“a likely place for the end of the world.”
As a matter of fact, it was a natural assignment for Joe. He could give an amusing twist to small stories—he even made weather reports good reading. Therefore, a small “end of the world” story would be his meat. The boss also assigned a photographer—a gal—to go with him.
Her name was Julie Crosby. She also owned a car. She hoped she was kind of a Margaret Bourke-White. She was younger and really quite pretty—if you bothered to take a second look. She wore glasses which somehow fooled folks into thinking she was rather plain. Her legs, though, were modeled along the true Dietrich lines—and they more than counteracted the effect of the glasses. She had graduated from Bennington a couple of years ago, and was bound and determined she was going to be a successful news photographer.
She took her job very seriously, and as a result, got a terrific kidding from the boys. She had a mind like a heckler out of the Club 18, so the kidding didn’t bother her in the least. And everybody agreed she was very fast on her conversational feet.
Joe Dunn’s feeling was that she wouldn’t be bad looking if she didn’t wear the glasses—and didn’t take her work so much to heart, and gave up those sensible flat-heeled shoes, and combed her hair in some other way, and was a little less on the wise side. Then, as a matter of fact she might be all right.
“Might be,” he always said. Joe Dunn was also completely conscious of why the boss had assigned her to go with him—it was because she owned a car, and it would save the expense account. But so far as the story was concerned, it would never rate a picture.
JULIE secretly liked Dunn, although she never gave him anything but the back of her hand. She was a firm believer in the Rockne theory that a good offense is the best defense.
As they emerged from the Holland Tunnel on the New Jersey side, Dunn bent toward Julie.
“Have you any ideas about Jersey at all?” he asked her.
“Yes, I have, but I don’t think I know you well enough to go into that.”
There was more discussion as they drove along, about the best route to take. Joe Dunn suggested they stop and ask a cop. Julie refused, insisting she knew the way. Furthermore, she offered to bet they would “hit Berry Meadows on the nose.” Joe took a dollar out of his pocket. “A buck you have to ask before you get to Berry Meadows, or, and it’s now ten-twenty, you don’t get there before one o’clock.”
Julie, without taking her eyes off the road, took her right hand off the wheel, grabbed Joe’s hand.
“It’s a bet,” she told him.
Some time later, as they came to an intersection and Julie slowed up, a sign read:
BERRY MEADOWS
2 MILES
Joe, without a word, stuffed a bill in her pocket. Julie smiled.
“That’ll teach you to play cards with strangers on trains.”
Just
ahead was the Reverend Fletcher B. Fletcher’s establishment, a dilapidated old school house, its only ecclesiastical note a neat plastic sign swinging over the gate arch which admonished the observer to “Trust In The Universe Master.”
“That,” observed Joe, “is a new one. I take it this is not a conventional religious cult. By the way, how did you happen to know about this location?”
The girl wrinkled her brow thoughtfully. “I just knew where Berry Meadows was,” she answered. “I don’t know anything about Fletcher and this Universe business. Let’s go in and see.”
She turned the car in at the driveway, and a photo-selenium cell opened the gate for them.
“Uummm—up to date attachments, anyway,” observed Joe. “This is beginning to interest me slightly.”
Julie parked the car without answering, and they climbed the steps to the rickety porch in silence. As they approached the weatherbeaten door the barrier swung noiselessly open for them.
“More electric eye stuff, eh?” muttered Joe. “Darned if I like this much.”
The girl shivered slightly but did not speak. She fumbled with her photographic paraphernalia.
“Enter, please,” a deep, sonorous voice bade them.
Startled, the pair did so hesitantly, peering about for the owner of that resonant voice. And seeing nobody. Then they forgot the voice in the wonder of their surroundings.
As they crossed the threshold, the door swung silently back into place behind them. But instead of the interior of a rotting country school house, they found themselves in a huge room which gave an impression of greater size and vagueness. This was because there was no perceptible border to the area. No wall or ceiling was distinct. There was a hazy shimmering effect around the edges of the central space, and a soft fluorescent glow of light—coming from no recognizable point—filled the space with bluish-white luminence.
After they left the place the two newspaper representatives had an impression that there had been a thick and resilient carpet on the floor, a big desk and some chairs scattered around, and the feel that there was efficient office machinery and equipment somewhere in the unseen background—but they could recall no details. Not even of the color and design of the visible furniture. It was queer.