by Earl
“But Bergmann is your master!” cried the spy. “You do as he tells you. You must, or he would kill you. You are a slave!”
The travesty of a rage glared suddenly from the gland-man’s eyes. An instinct that Bergmann had almost eradicated worked in the doped mind—manifested itself in clenching fists—man’s instinct against personal slavery.
“Come,” said Y-44 then. “Must you be a slave, you who have made a vortex of living Atomic Power?”
A strange look came into the gland-man’s eyes.
“Must you bow-to his will?”—the strange look deepened—“when you have inestimable power in your hands!”—the eyes widened—“You can show. Bergmann who is master and slave!”—a deep anger flared—“You can in one moment defeat him”—an eager light now—“by releasing your super-powerful vortex, immediately!”
Y-44 watched the gland-man’s face like a hawk. Had the play on subconscious emotions and instincts succeeded in arousing in that human thinking machine a desire for revenge against Bergmann?
“Come,” said the gland-man suddenly. “We shall go to my laboratory—and release the vortex!”
CHAPTER IV
The Vortex
SAYING this, he turned about, heading for an open door down the hall. Y-44 made as though to follow, but two strong, invisible hands held him back.
“No you don’t,” said Wistert. “You’re coming with me! Let Morvaine do what he will, but you and I are getting out.”
“No, no! I must go with him; he will forget! Everything depends on this! Let me go—”
Wistert wasted no further words but picked the other up bodily, and ran. for the stairs that led to the freight depot. As he gained the top, he heard the murmur of voices behind them. He set Y-44 down.
“Coming? Or would you like to plow through a few guards? You’ve done a great piece of work, Y-44. But whether it succeeds or not, it is up to you and me to carry on the way we should—escape and contact H.Q.” Together, then, they ran along. Pounding feet sounded behind them. They gained a door which opened out Into an immense drome with great unloading platforms and derricks. “This way, quick!”
Wistert followed Y-44, who ran toward a huge opening at one end of the drome, toward an auxiliary lift, designed for human freight. Automatic machinery raised the cage at the swing of a lever. Before it had risen ten feet, a dozen guards came scurrying from the drome, guns belching. The two spies threw themselves flat to the metal flooring of the cage, returning the fire effectively.
In another moment, as the elevator rose steadily, they were secure from gunfire below.
“We’re safe enough now,” said Y-44 panting. “Outside we’ll have to take our chances again. You see, I took this way of getting out because Bergmann would not expect us to try it. He may be a scientific genius, but I don’t credit him with much sense of strategy. He no doubt has his main forces combing the upper levels for us.”
With quick movements, Wistert suddenly doffed his Invisibility Cloak, extending it toward the other. “I have a premonition, though, that we’re going to fall into the arms of a bunch of guards outside. That Baron Laiglon Is a wise old buzzard. It’s your turn how to be protected by this thing.”
“No! I have never worn one; I would—would stumble! You—”
“This is no time to argue,” said Wistert. “Put it on.” He looked Y-44 in the face with an odd smile. “Besides, what kind of a man would I be, letting you take the greatest risk?”
Y-44 started. “What do you mean?”
Wistert’s smile became a grin. “Do you remember, Y-44, when I shot that guard?. I heard something resembling a scream from you in the excitement. And, in circumstances like that, men do not scream!”
Y-44 stared for a moment, eyes dilating. “All right,” she said finally, “I am a woman. But I insist on taking my share of the risks.” Pulling open the grillwork door, she dashed out, pistol in hand.
“You little fool!” said Wistert admiringly as he followed.
Y-44 ran to a door and opened it cautiously. Wistert peered through, to see a giant chamber whose one side was open to the night air. Here it was where the giant commercial craft, loaded with supplies, were taxied to the great freight lift to be lowered and unloaded in secrecy.
“We can’t escape on foot,” whispered Y-44. “We must gain the open air and then look for a motor-car; or, better, an airplane. If luck is with us, we may find a big Stutgart outside, waiting to be taken in at daylight, to be unloaded. Think you and I could handle one?”
“Lead me to it,” grunted Wistert.
Y-44 took a deep breath and stepped from the small ante-chamber. The great room beyond was empty, and but faintly illuminated by a few overhead lights. Two hundred yards away lay freedom.
The two spies hugged the wall, making their way toward the large portal to the outside. They were in a precarious position, exposed to gunfire from three directions. Wistert did not breathe easily till they had gone halfway and gained the welcome protection of a bulwark which stood there to break the back-wash of powerful airplane propellers.
Wistert leaped ahead of Y-44 suddenly, and was the first to step from behind the concealing partition. There was a sharp pop and a bullet whined past his ear. He jerked back with an exclamation.
“Tough luck,” said Y-44, biting her lip at this unexpected opposition. “How many are there, can you see?”
Wistert was already peering cautiously around the bulwark. “Can’t make it out, but—” He clipped off his words to bring up his right hand. At the sound of his shot there was a short scream from the direction of the open doorway.
Wistert turned hard eyes on his companion. “We’ve got to make a rush for it—our only chance!”
“Let’s go, S-23!”
Wistert gripped her extended hand, looking down into her eyes. As they were about to dash headlong in a wild fight for freedom, a ringing voice reverberated through the place, coming from ahead.
“Messieurs Spies! You are trapped! I await you here with ten guards—here at the door which is your only escape!”
The two besieged spies looked at one another in dismay.
“What do you say, Y-44?” asked Wistert quietly.
The other turned away suddenly to hide a trembling lip. Wistert expressed a strange desire to take her in his arms and comfort her. Then Y-44 whirled around, face set grimly.
“I say let’s give the baron his money’s worth!”
There was no chance to employ subterfuge or design. It was an open stretch from their position to the portal. There was not a stick or stone to use as temporary protection. It was obvious suicide. Already the first greyings of dawn were lighting up the huge open chamber.
THEY dashed out together, eyes grimly set to spot the enemy when he would reveal himself. Before they had advanced twenty feet, dark figures loomed against the pale sky, limned clearly in the doorway. A volley of shots rang out, and bullets whined by their ears. Sobbing in a deadly rage, Wistert sped forward, withholding his fire till he could make more effective use of it. Y-44 fell a little behind.
Another volley of shots, and by some miracle the two spies were untouched. A tall, broad-shouldered figure leaped forward to meet them. The guards in back, fearing to hit the officer, were forced to cease firing. When no more than a hundred feet separated them, Wistert and the baron stopped short as though at a signal, firing.
Wistert’s pistol barked three times. Something tore at his left shoulder and jerked him half around. But his eyes lighted up as he saw the enemy officer crumple and fall forward.
“Good work!” cried Y-44, dashing past him straight for the massed guards.
Wistert started forward again; he saw the opposing guards again bringing up their guns, taking deadly aim. Wistert was not conscious of the cause, but suddenly he noticed that something, strange had happened. The guards were swaying, as though caught in a twisting wind. Their guns fell from shaking hands; they seemed to be frightened.
Wistert became aware then
that he himself was staggering forward drunkenly. It seemed as though the ground were heaving under him. He felt a hand on his shoulder; then an eager voice shouted into his ear:
“At last! I’ve been hoping and praying for it! Come on, S-23, now’s our chance.”
Wistert followed Y-44 just as a terrific rending and grinding noise tore the air to shreds. He saw walls tumbling, ceilings cracking; the floor seemed to squirm as though alive. It was like a nightmare in slow motion. Then they were in the open air.
In the half-gloom, a huge Stutgart loomed before them. Wistert scrambled in the cabin, half pulled by his companion. He saw as in a daze that Y-44 was in one of the twin pilot seats, darting her hands around. A dull roar sounded ahead. Y-44’s face, a little pale, swung around to him.
“All set to go, S-23. But you’ll have to handle the stick and vanes. It’s a two-man job running one of these monsters. Oh!”—it was a wholly feminine scream—“you’re hurt!”
Wistert pushed her roughly away as she began to rip his coat sleeve. With an immense effort of will he caught his lagging senses, hammered them into alertness with pure mental concentration. He threw himself into the other pilot seat.
He was fully awake now. While the engines warmed up, he scanned the strange controls carefully. Then he nodded toward Y-44, who, to his irritation, was watching him anxiously.
With a roar the huge airplane’s three motors revved to high speed, and the great ship plunged along the ground. In a few minutes they were climbing.
Then they looked back and down at the place they had left. It was a smoking ruin.
“Were we the only two to get out alive?” Wistert asked wonderingly.
“It’s a miracle that we got out!” cried Y-44. “Those guards a hundred feet away were crushed. It was like an earthquake, more than anything else. Of course, down below it was in reality a tremendous explosion, as the released vortex disintegrated everything around it into flying particles. I doubt if anyone can be alive in any of the sub-levels.”
“And that’s the end of Bergmann’s mad work,” said Wistert thoughtfully. “Betrayed by one of his own gland-men! Well, he had it coming.” The ship winged its way toward Egypt—and honor for its two pilots— as a red dawn lit up the world below in rosy tints. That same dawn that was to have marked their deaths as spies. The sun rose ever higher.
Y-44 had bound Wistert’s wound as best she could. She turned suddenly to him, a little piqued.
“May I inform you, S-23, that you have been staring at me for one solid hour. What can be so interesting in my grimy face, anyway?”
“I was just wondering,” said Wistert dreamily, “if your eyes are blue or perhaps violet. That will be my next mission—a private one—but rather important, in a way.”
THE GREAT ILLUSION
In this story, the First of the five authors, was asked to write the Last part of the story; the second author, to write the fourth installment; and so on. John Russell Fearn started (or rather ended) the story, leaving to be explained a number of mysteries. Raymond Z. Gallun, who was next, remarked, after completing his job, “The backside foremost yarn was pretty badly screwed up before, an I imagine it’s worse now.” Next, Edmond Hamilton, said, “I will give a prize of $1000 to anyone who can tell me what the other two parts of this story are about. And I will give a prize of $10,000 to anyone who can tell me what my part is about. The thing looks like the screwiest story in the history of science fiction.” Jack Williamson, who followed, briefly commented, “In my opinion, this would be a very interesting story if one knew precisely what it is all about.” Finally, Eando Binder completing (or starting) the story, remarked. “I’ve done my best to carry the yarn on, or back, as screwily as possible, following the example of the others, and I’m sure I’ve done no less than the others in making it completely inexplicable. Maybe with a little more thought I could have made it Utterly impossible for the reader to understand, but I think as it stands now it’s safe from ever being unraveled.” Despite the above comments, we believe the five authors have done a remarkable job. To fully appreciate their difficulties, we suggest you first read the story as it was written—backwards. Then re-read it in the normal manner, and marvel at its coherence and smoothness!
[1]The greatest experiment in human history was about to begin!
Four men stood in the metal-lined cabin of the space-ship, their combined attention centered on Berringer’s apparatus riveted to one wall. Korth, tall and solemn, stared with a sneer on his hawk-like face. Bradley and Forijay, far younger that, the other two, gazed with hypnotic fascination, their faces pale with a deep-rooted fear.
Berringer reached a hand toward the mechanism’s only lever. Bradley jerked forward, clutched his arm in panic. Berringer turned in impatient surprise.
“Wait—just one minute!” pleaded Bradley. “Before w-e go ahead with this, explain it all again. After all, there may be no return, and—”
“No return!” repeated Berringer. with emphasis. “Get that, Korth—no return!”
“Bah!” snapped the physicist. “The whole thing is a farce. There will be no return because there will be no start. Go through that mumbo-jumbo about illusion again, Berringer, for their benefit. They are scared, but they have no reason to be. Bah. again, Berringer!”
The savant deliberately turned his thin, wasted form away from the skeptical acid-tongued Korth and addressed himself to his two young assistants of the past two years.
“Boys, listen carefully, for this is the last time I will explain it—we go. You remember the electrical experiment we performed two years ago which proved that electricity is life, pure and completely. You remember how by establishing communication of sorts with this basic life-essence, we learned many things—incredible things! For the Blue Beings who can live in any environment, even that of airless space, revealed that all human thought is illusion! Every theory and conception ever performed by the human mind is self-delusion!”
Berringer went on, despite another disgusted “Bah!” from Korth. “For instance, our mathematics, by which we formulate laws about the universe, are limited between zero and infinity, which are but ciphers in the greater and truer mathematics. Then our five senses are so inconceivably inaccurate, and cover a pitifully small range of perception. With these limitations, it is no wonder that we cannot realize that there are no stars, no vacuum, nor anything we think we know of! Yet the Blue Beings of electricity have shown us that.”
“The machine!” muttered Bradley hoarsely. “That shaft which pierces to alien dimensions—”
“Fool!” spat out Korth. “A Big Fool to believe in that!”
Berringer ignored this bitter thrust, spoke. “My two years of daily contact with the Blue Beings finally gave me a glimmering of the Great Truth. Cave me a slight idea of the Great All that is behind this gigantic illusion of life, space, energy and all the other droolings we humans call ‘science.’ I was able, then, to build this apparatus. Simply stated, it pours its 200,000 volts into what we call a vacuum and rip it aside like a veil, to reveal beyond the ultra-dimensional shaft that leads to—to the Real Universe. It’s like going through a mirror and finding reality there!”
“So Alice said to the Mad-Hatter, please, sir, can I have a puff on your opium pipe?” mocked Korth.
“As for you,” said Berringer coolly, facing the leering physicist, “remember five minutes from now that I said year great Einstein is like a drunk who sees double and imagines pink elephants in between.”
“One more thing,” whispered Bradley. This shaft to the—the Beyond—it is navigable by a space-ship, you’re sure?”
At the savant’s firm “yes.” the two young men looked at each other in evident relief. Berringer’s weak old eyes flamed suddenly. “Navigable, yes.” he went on, “but only one way! For when you reach the end, you are again at the beginning, yet it is not circular!”
“And when we reach the end, we are once again at the beginning, and therefore back in the laboratory?” asked
Forijay eagerly.
“Which comes first the chicken or the egg?” sang Korth scornfully. “And where does the rooster come in?”
Berringer patted the handle of the machine reflectively before answering Forijay. Then he said, emotionlessly, “I told you from the start there was no return! ‘End’ and ‘beginning’ are human conceptions, like zero and infinity. There is no end or beginning in this shaft!”
Bradley sucked in his breath sharply, while Forijay grew paler than he was. Korth. mocked! the whale thing with a nasal chant about the Man with Two Minds, Neither of Which Existed.
“But enough of this chatter,” barked Berringer. His thin, sharp face grew livid with a driving purposefullness. “You, Bradley and Forijay, asked to come along—pledged yourselves, in fact I told you it was slow suicide, but I see you disbelieved that You cast aside a chance to remain and become famous, even though that is illusion with all the rest of human endeavor. You elected to plumb with me cosmos’ depths —the real cosmos—and even that is an illusion! Korth is here to observe the Outer phenomena as a learned savant, and he, too, will perceive that all is illusion!”
“Not to mention the illusion that you have.” Korth winked at the two younger men. “I mean the illusion that you did not turn utterly insane two years ago.”
Berringer grasped the handle of his machine. “Are we ready?” he barked, and at the same time wrenched over the lever savagely.
With a suddenness that brought a gasp to their lips, the laboratory vanished from beyond their port windows, and was succeeded! by an ultimate blackness. Their ship seemed to be in a pool of ink. There was not the faintest ray of light outside the hull, and the darkness seemed to be crawling In, trying to extinguish their overhead light.
Suit a moment later a faint blueness appeared in the vast distance. It brightened and resolved itself as a gigantic entity of blue, with titanic green-glowing wings widespread. It seemed to be approaching.