by Earl
“Holy comets!” exclaimed Tom.
At the constant risk of your life, either from falling or being shot down by a Sci-tri guard!”
“I suppose I did take a risk,” shrugged Dik indifferently. “But it was worth it. It took me an hour and a half to get to the roof. I crossed the flat top, lay down on my stomach in the cold and darkness, and peered down on that mysterious other side that no one sees.
There, down in a little valley not far away, I saw a city in a glass bubble, it seemed. I can’t well describe it.
“But here is the important thing, that which made me forget the cold and risk: I saw not just a few, but thousands of supermen like the members of the Sci-tri!”
“Thousands? That’s odd!” commented Tom.
“Odd!” cried Dik vehemently. “Why, I’d lay a month’s bankits to it there is a Dark Moon in it somewhere.”
Tom waved an eloquent hand. “There he goes Dark Mooning again. Why, I suppose they are reserve members of the Sci-tri, probably that’s all.”
“Listen, you fools!” continued Dik. “Can’t you see that there is some sinister significance in that? My mind has already anal . . .”
Lon burst out laughing. “Now it’s the analytical mind again. Sorry, Dik; I can’t listen tonight. As your soon-to-be captain, I order you to bed. Tomorrow is our big day.”
CHAPTER III
THE last-minute preparations were made just as the sun sank behind the low hills in the far distance. The great space-ship was in its specially constructed cradle a mile from the city. With a last farewell to the Sci-tri guards and to Commander Jarl, the massive lock was swung into place.
In the pilot room, Lon and his ten assistants sat at their boards. Their lips were grim. A glistening sweat covered the captain’s forehead. When the signal clanged, he and his men bent tensely over the controls.
Outside, it seemed the distant hills reverberated the thunderous roar as the giant rocket tubes belched blue flame. The ship jerked from its cradle, threw its nose upward at a slight angle, and thundered away from the ground. Its course took it over the city where thousands watched it climb into the sky like a comet. Those thousands were exiles, isolated from the rest of the world—they would never have the chance to tell others of the space-ships that periodically left earth and were never heard from again.
In the ship, many hearts quaked—not for fear of death, but for awe at the stupendousness of their project. Out into space—to a new world!
Tom and Dik and one other had charge of a separate engine compartment. It was their task to watch the engines jealously and to keep the fuel feed running smoothly. Calls came in constantly from the control room. The orders had to be carried out with deadly precision. After many agonizing minutes, Lon’s voice came over the speaking tube from the control room.
“Boys, we’ve made it—we’re out of the atmosphere!”
All over the ship there were shouts of joy, and many capered in relief. It was well understood by all that take-off and landing were the most dangerous events of a space voyage. At that moment of gladness over the successful departure from earth, none gave a thought to that worst of all dangers—the landing. That, being far in the future, was forgotten for the time being.
Then many hours passed in the task of giving the bird of space her cyclopean wings of metal foil. Here and there difficulties arose, but none so great that they could not be surmounted. The rocket power had been shut off entirely and the ship sped away from earth at a constant velocity of a dozen miles a second. The telescoped arms were slowly extended by electric motors, till they radiated from the ship like the strands of a giant cobweb. Then all hands were called to help unroll the thin foil and feed it to the cable guides which slowly pulled it out onto the long spokes.
The three mathematical adepts ran through long calculations in the meantime, so that when the report came that the wings were fixed into place, the spokes could immediately be turned so as to get the most push from the sun’s rays. Captain Lon breathlessly watched the velocity needle to see it gradually climb the scale as the metal foil wings took the full force of light-pressure.
* * * *
Weeks passed. The monotony of the voyage brought a certain callousness to the crew. They began to accept the strangeness as natural, and thought little of death. They spoke of things earthly and of earthly pleasures and at times conjectured what the new world would be like.
Eighty-three days out, the first catastrophe came. The repulsion screens which side-tracked meteors had up till that time worked satisfactorily, protecting the ship from collision, although the metal wings had become pockmarked with thousands of holes, some a dozen feet in diameter.
“It was during the “night” period that it happened. The sleeping quarters were against the hull, completely sealed from the inner engine and supply rooms—thus the engines and supplies were amply protected. Better, the designers had thought, that a few lives be lost and the engines saved, than the engines lost and all destroyed.
A meteor crashed into the sleeping chambers, just grazing the hull enough to buckle the plates and let the air out. The shock was felt throughout the ship. The watch sounded a general alarm. Lon was the first one there and looked through the fused quartz peep with horror. Seven men had been sleeping in the room that lost its oxygen. Seven corpses, frozen and bloated, now floated somewhere out in space, sucked out by the escaping air. Everyone on the ship came to look at the chamber of death and left with a chill in their hearts. The Grim Reaper had paid his first visit.
Lon made an investigation, questioning the repulsion screen detail. They, three having been on duty during the collision, proved that it had not been negligence on their part. It was obvious then that the meteor had been a terribly large one and that they were extremely fortunate to have merely been grazed by it. A head-on crash would have splintered the entire ship.
On the eighty-ninth day, preparations were made for the deceleration of the ship. The great wings were drawn in on their winches. The telescoped arms were pulled in by the motors. Then the nose rockets were made to boom forth mightily, day after day. Lon made his calculators check and recheck constantly on their rate of deceleration. Their lives depended on their accuracy.
On the ninety-third day, the speed had been retarded to the proper degree and the air-wings were swung out. Soon they touched the fringes of atmosphere and the great ship quivered like a live thing. Lon and his pilots worked with frenzy, calling for more and more power from the engine room. The titanic blasts of the nose rockets ate up the fuel eagerly, and the engine detail began to worry if they would nave enough.
Lon found a few seconds to look down at the red terrain looming far below, rushing at them. His heart pounded. If only to live a few minutes on the sands of another world! It would be worth death. To have crossed space . . . to have felt the terrifying emptiness . . . to have the grand thrill of landing on Mars and looking up at Earth as a star—it would be worth anything!
The huge ship fluttered downward uncertainly, for the pilots were encountering new air conditions. It plunged, then swung horizontally, still possessed of a terrific speed. Again and again the nose rockets blasted forth. Then it could be delayed no longer—they must touch ground. It was level and bare, like a desert, but even its thick cushion of sand could not soften the crashing descent of the space-ship. It struck with such force that it burrowed part way underground and swung sideward so quickly that one wing snapped off as though it were a match-stick. The red dust of Mars swirled in clouds around it.
DIK shook his head. He felt his arms and legs. Something warm was running down his face. He wiped it away with his hand and saw that it was red. He managed to get to his feet, although for a while he could not take a step. His head spun.
He finally cleared his eyes from blood and mist and saw, through a large rip in the wall, others trying to rise, and still others lying quietly in pools of blood. Hastily, he looked for Tom—then he saw him lying against a column of tubes. He rushed over
to him, lifted his head and chafed his hands violently.
After some moments of feverish work, Tom opened his eyes. He grinned weakly.
“All right, Dik. I can make it,” he said in a weak whisper.
In a few minutes, both felt nearly normal and none the worse for their experience. They fell to the rescue work and revived several others—but there were many who would never rise again.
Having done their share in the engine compartments, they hastily decided to make their way to the control room.
“No use, Dik,” said Tom, after trying vainly to force the main door between the stem and the central corridor. “This thing is wedged tight. It seems that the hull is pressing down on it. We’re trapped back here, I guess.”
“Not while I have this,” shouted Dik, who had been rummaging behind a motor. He held up a metal-torch. “We can’t burn through the walls any place, but the door is of softer stuff.”
The two of them held the torch and lit its fuse. A sparkling, humming white flame shot to the metal door and quickly melted it away.
Then they had to wait till the heat dissipated before they could crawl through the hole that had been burned. When Dik went through, he was followed by Tom and several others of the engine detail who wanted to see the front of the ship, to search for particular friends.
It was a shambles. They made their way forward. In one compartment they found several dead and others moaning with pain. Only one was here on his feet. But Tom and Dik did not linger; they wanted to get to the pilot compartments. They breathed hard as they wound their way through increasing debris and turned their eyes from horrible sights.
Only once was there speech, when Tom said hoarsely: “I hope Lon’s all right. He certainly did his best.”
It had been the fore part of the ship that had struck most violently. The metal plates of the hull were here bent and twisted like crumpled paper. Blood ran down the grooved door from mangled bodies. It was ghastly.
Finally they burst into the captain’s cabin. It seemed that none had survived the terrific impact. Amongst the chaos of the control boards lay a pile of bodies—a heap of gore. It was impossible to distinguish one from the other. Dik staggered at the horrible sight and closed burning eyes.
Then they noticed that the hull had been completely split open to one side, a rent ten feet long and half as wide. Tom put a trembling hand to his throat.
“We’re breathing Martian air!” he muttered chokingly.
Then more of the engine detail and some of the fuel and supply detail burst into the room to stop and choke out incoherent words. Tom recovered his nerves and began to issue orders. At the sound of his voke, willing hands began to untangle the bodies to see if any were yet alive, although it seemed impossible that such could be. Dik and Tom fell to with the rest, ever searching and yet loath to see the slight body of Captain Lon in that heap of flesh.
Suddenly there was a distinct sound from outside the hull, as if someone or something were trying to climb through the gash. AH eyes turned to the spot in bewildered apprehension. Then Dik and Tom leaped forward.
Framed in the yawning rent appeared Lon’s head, and then his body. He was climbing in from the outside!
He leaped lightly to the floor.
“Terrible, isn’t it!” were his first words.
“Yes—but Lord! We were looking for you in that,” stammered Tom, pointing to the dead.
“Strangest thing ever happened to me,” explained Lon, who seemed to be the calmest of them all. “When the crash came, I just closed my eyes and waited for the end. I felt myself floating in the air. I thought what a pleasant thing death was! Then, next moment, I felt a jar and opened my eyes to find myself in a cloud of red dust, outside the ship! I couldn’t realize at first that I was alive . . .”
He stopped, out of breath.
“Just catapulted right out through that breech,” added Dik. “What perfect timing that was! If you had hit a wall instead of soft sand, you wouldn’t have lived to tell it.”
“How are the others?” asked Lon anxiously.
“Terrible!” answered Tom. “From what we’ve seen, there’ll be just a handful alive.”
Then followed the trying task of bringing a semblance of order amidst the chaos. They made a place for the wounded and detailed men to care for them. Food and water was distributed, and a check-up made on damage. None had time to think of the fact that they were on another world.
The Martian night came upon them, cold and dark, and still they labored to bring normal conditions. The lesser gravity allowed them to work long before inexorable fatigue prostrated them one by one.
The final check-up had revealed only forty-four alive. Of these, eighteen were practically unharmed; three of the injured had no chance of recovery.
Such was the landing on Mars.
CHAPTER IV
MANY weeks passed after that eventful day of the ship’s crash. Many strange things came to pass in that time. The atmosphere proved to be permanently fit for their lungs. The lesser gravity played many tricks on them before they learned the new art of walking. The radio, apparently unharmed, was set up and signals sent to Earth, to which, much to their bewilderment, there was no answer. For days, they tried to contact Earth till Lon shook his head and attributed its failure to some injury beyond repair.
When they had established a fairly efficient organization, Lon sent out exploring parties to learn more about the new world. He himself, with Tom and Dik, set out early one morning. They chose a low range of hills to the north as their destination. They reached it in late afternoon. Here they found many things to interest them—verdure unlike any on earth, short scrub with pulsating leaves and undulating stems, mounds of green lace-leaves that palpitated as though able to leap and run, and other things.
They saw animal life, but only in fleeting glimpses—small things that scurried to cover in holes. They wandered on in the miniature forest.
A shout from Tom in the lead brought the others close to him. They all peered down into a little gully in which lay the twisted remains of some sort of large vehicle.
When they neared the battered wreck, ejaculations of surprise escaped their lips—it was an earth space-ship!
They circled the ruins in great wonder. Lon called to them when he found an opening convenient for them to crawl through. Excitedly they entered the ship. Everything was covered with red dust. Bleached bones scattered about told a silent story of a fatal landing, with probably no survivors.
They spoke in hushed whispers in the death-like stillness of the ship, conjecturing how long it had lain forgotten here on Mars. How long ago had the Sci-tri sent it to its doom? How many more ships might be scattered over the wastes of Mars, they could only surmise. No doubt, many too floated through space, huge coffins that had lost their direction, inhabited by frozen corpses.
They were preparing to leave, depressed by the scene, when something caught Tom’s eye. At his feet in a heap of shattered bones was a small metal cylinder. He picked it up and wiped it free of dust. Upon it was etched in bold letters: “Open and read. It is for all eyes to see these words.”
The one end unscrewed to reveal a roll of aluminum foil, on which had been scratched the following message:
To whoever reads this:
My name is Bok 6M-432. In the year 2991 I left Earth in this space-ship with two hundred and forty companions. This trip being against my wishes. I preserve what I have to say for others. I am writing this en route, ninety days out from Earth.
A group of scientists upon Earth calling themselves the Sci-tri have ruled Earth (through different generations) for ten centuries. They achieved greatness when they wrested the ruling power from the ruthless, ignorant and depraved and put it In the hands of Intelligence.
But the common failing of Mankind took seed. The lust for power sprang to life, and a most diabolical and heinous plan was conceived whereby their lust could be gratified. Their plan was a scientific “Utopia” in which the mass of
humanity would have no part. Wholesale murder was no wise, as the mobs of Earth had yet the greater balance of power.
About a century ago. the plan sprang into being when one of the Sci-tri succeeded in creating a superman, an advanced evolutionary creature, in the laboratory. Blinded to the good example of nine centuries of peaceful rule, the Sci-tri suddenly became corrupt and took over the new plan in secret.
It was then the new system began. Millions were shifted around until family ties were lost. All potentially dangerous characters, of which we who have been doomed to fly from Earth are the members, were singled out first. The Sci-tri decided to stamp out our breed entirely, leaving only the most spiritless of humanity to deal with.
They concocted the story of the diminishing ozone belt and made us feel like martyrs, trying to save a doomed world. Would to God the truth were known by all!
Cold fact is my sponsor. It so happened that when I was a young man during my days in the Air School, I was assigned to fly a stratosphere ship alone on a trial flight, from Berlin to Tokyo. Something went wrong. I crashed in the wilderness of Siberia. But I lived through it and found the almost mythical laboratory and stronghold of the once benevolent Sci-tri. Here too, by methods which concern me only, I learned of the plan of the Sci-tri—to make a world of supermen!
Why did I not shout it to the world?—because I was captured and put aboard this space-ship, then ready to leave. I told my story to the men on this ship, but their hearts were filled with martyrdom, and their mind3 with the subtle praises of the wily Sci-tri and they thought me mad.
In three centuries, by their plans, the world will be in the control of the supermen, and humanity will either be killed off or subjugated to slavery. The only hope for the continuance of our race is discovery of their secret plans and destruction of their stronghold in Siberia—a glass-covered city in which the supermen are created and await the day they can ally forth and conquer the world.