by Earl
What was I to do in the face of an argument like that? I gave in to him, although I hated to. I ordered the bridge of a forward port to be lowered. Tex stepped from the ship.
With our hearts pounding, we watched Tex approach a group some hundred paces from the ship. He held his hands high above his head. A savage could see that he was unarmed. Yet somehow a nameless fear tugged inside of me.
Tex was about half way. The Red-devils jabbered incessantly. They pointed at him and then at the ship. There seemed nothing hostile about their attitude. Tex advanced slowly. Suddenly the group before him leaped apart. Each Red-devil spun on one foot. The pendulum weapon made a horizontal arc, there was a resounding “click” of release springs, and the next moment the air was filled with glittering, spinning metal discs. It all happened so swiftly, no man could have averted it. The speed and skill of the savages was remarkable. The destructive force of the pendulum weapons was amazing. Before the order to shoot even left my lips, Tex lay dead. His body was cut to ribbons. . . .
I became Mad Moor then. I leaped out upon the bridge, a Woolson gun in each hand sizzling death. Discs spattered around me and ricocheted from the steel hull of the ship. I was unmindful of the hail of death. I was determined to avenge the Murder of Tex. . . .
For two hours, we fought. Most of the time was spent by the Red-devils in trying to get out of the crater. It turned out to be a deathtrap for them, and we showed no mercy. By the homed Jooras, the crater became a lake of blood. When it finally ended, we were sick to the marrow of our bones from the stench of blood and the destruction we had done.
Our losses were four dead and thrice that number wounded. We all had a dozen wounds or more.
We spent a feverish twenty-four hours after that eventful morning. I was determined to get the compartment repaired. Dividing my men into two crews, I drove them relentlessly In two twelve-hour shifts. I breathed happily when I saw the work done. The Black Comet was ship-shape for the return trip. I decided to make a hasty exploration flight around Mars and then head for space and home.
For eight days we skimmed the surface of the planet. We saw sights strange to us. The more we saw of Mars, the firmer grew the conviction within us that an intangible mystery surrounded it all. We came across the much-disputed “canals.” They covered the greater part of the planet. They could hardly be called canals. The mammoth structures were built and raised above the surface of the planet. The perpendicular walls of transparent metal rose a mile high and were several miles in width. Within the clear waters we discerned buildings. Time and water had made ruins of them. The only life we saw was fish and small aquatic animals. It was beyond the realm of reason to associate these or the Red-devils with having any part in the building of this mass of superstructures. We called them “fish-tanks,” for so they looked more than anything else, like the fish-tanks in any aquarium.
I WAS in the afternoon of the eighth day, and incidentally our last one upon the planet Mars, that we stumbled on some extraordinary good fortune. We had landed The Black Comet on a plateau in the mountainous region of the northern hemisphere. Its desolation was ideal for us. Some minor repairs had to be made. We fell to our work in high spirits. We would soon be on our way home!
When the work was done, Crocker, Davidson and I decided to take a stroll. We were about a mile from the ship when Davidson, who was a mineralogist, stooped down and picked up several lumps of ore. His eyes lit up and I asked him what was so interesting.
“Beryllium ore, Captain,” he said, “richer than that found on the moon. And look, Captain,” his hand swung in an arc to take in all of the plateau, “it’s just laying around to be picked up.”
I was excited then. The promise I had made Kensley would now be fulfilled beyond the expectations of all concerned. I sent Davidson back to the ship with instructions to stake a claim, as was customary in our day. I further instructed him that the claim was to be staked in the name of Howard Kensley. I was happy, lads. Our hardships and loneliness were somewhat being repaid. We had endured them beyond the limits that bordered an ordinary man’s life. True, we had all done it willingly in the spirit of adventure. We knew what odds lay before us. Not one of us but felt that those who had made it possible to reach the goal of our restless souls, should now be repaid.
Diemos and Phobos skipped across the horizon as Crocker and I turned our tracks back to the ship. My companion suddenly gripped my arm. I followed his gaze. To the right of us, some quarter of a mile, we saw a strange sight. . . .
A lone figure, wrapped in a long cloak, was making its way slowly across the rock-strewn plateau. The cold night wind that blew down from the mountains whipped the folds of the cloak. The alien being held it tightly about its body. It seemed unmindful of us and the ship that lay but a half-mile away. We watched, fascinated. The slow walk became a stagger. The lone figure stopped as if the night wind were too strong a force to combat. It staggered several paces and then crumpled to the ground.
“Come on,” I shouted to Crocker as I commenced to leap. “Alien or savage, it is still human and in need of aid.”
We found life in the strange being that lay at our feet unconscious from hunger or exhaustion. I threw it over my shoulder and headed for the ship. . . . That, lads, is how I met Ruk-Sara, who was later to become my first mate. He held that berth until you, Bob, saw him die not many nights ago.
Hours later we blasted off as Earth beckoned to us in the evening sky. We were on our way home to make interplanetary history!
As the days sped into weeks, not one of us but was glad that Ruk-Sara was in our midst. His intelligence was amazing. He learned to speak our language fluently in a month’s time. Then passed days in which he whiled away the dragging hours with breathless tales of Mars and its history.
We learned from him that the Red-devils who had attacked us were a degenerate race whose ancestors had been slaves to a super-intelligent race, called the Osatasageez, the beautiful capital city of Mars today that Ruk-Sara and I founded nearly a half a century ago.
The Osatasageez were an aquatic peoples. They were in some respects shaped like the seals of earth, with shapely heads and pleasant features. They had tentacles instead of fins. Their graceful bodies were covered with soft white hair. Intelligently they developed in leaps and bounds until they enjoyed a civilization exceeding the earth’s present day.
The Red-devils, or the Lookas, to use their proper name, were both aquatic and land beings. The Osatasageez enslaved them for servile work. The Lookas were of a low mentality. Despite the environment that was theirs, they developed little above the savage plane. They were treated kindly by their masters.
The savage Lookas hated their intelligent masters. In generation after generation, the hatred smoldered. It bred many rebellions. Each one failed with dreadful losses on the side of the Lookas. The Osatasageez after each rebellion reduced the privileges of their slaves until the Lookas sweated under the strictest discipline for centuries.
THE last and greatest rebellion was a complete success for the Lookas because it had been planned long and well. They utterly annihilated the Osatasageez, and so for over two centuries nothing has remained of this once super-civilization but their handiwork; the “fish tanks” of Mars and the ruins of their once palatial homes in the depths of the clear waters.
At the time of the last rebellion, one of Ruk-Sara’s great great ancestors had fallen in love with a noble daughter of the Osatasageez. This enlightened savage, when he saw that the doom of the Osatasageez was to be a certainty, took his beloved and fled to the isolated regions of the Bekke-Lo Mountains.
For two centuries, the offspring of the savage Lookas and the noble Osatasageez developed and increased, until they numbered many thousands. Three months before our landing, Ruk-Sara became king at the death of his father. Because of his intelligence, he was all Osatasageez although his outward appearance was almost entirely Lookas, except for the tenacles. He decided to win back his rightful heritage.
He form
ed a powerful army. It left its secret retreat in the mountains and came down to fight the Red-devils of the plains. City after city fell before his victorious army. He was on the eve of restoring his heritage when treachery defeated him.
There were many of his soldiers in whom the Lookas part of their nature predominated. Ruk-Sara had failed to foresee this. By these he was sold out. The major battle of the campaign took place and his army was cut to pieces. A pitiful handful managed to escape. He was one among the remnants. He hid by day and in the darkness of the night crept towards the mountains and his home. It was during this time that we found Ruk-Sara upon the plateau.
Ruk-Sara was to have his revenge. He and I were in that famous battle three years later when a united Earth army completely defeated the Red-devils and colonized Mars. The few Lookas who escaped the destructive onslaught of guns and warplanes were put in the Kouun Basin. From this mile-deep crater there is no escape. The Red-devils live there to this day, fighting amongst themselves in a world of their own. . . .
Well, lads, you have heard the story of the Black Comet and the mystery of the “canals” of Mars and Mad Moor’s first advent into space beyond the moon. I see the fingertips of dawn creeping over the mountain-tops. I am an old man now, and need rest. I remember a time when I tired from fighting and not words. It is still fresh in my memory. So come again, lads, and I’ll tell you about it. I’ll bid you a fair good-morning. . . .
THE END
Follow the adventures of the Mad Moor in future stories of this series.
[1] Eco Cradles—a closely guarded secret of the government of the United Nations of Earth. Arthur Eco, famous scientist and inventor, built his first counter-gravity cradle in 2245. Its success was instantaneous. It made Earth queen of the Solar System. Tonnage became an insignificant matter, and Earth, with its huge spaceships of war and commerce, was able to conquer and colonize all the planets.
[2] SSS—Solar System (patrol) Service.
[3] Wacon Chart—the universally used robot pilot. For planetary or interplanetary use, H automatically took account of wind pressure, gravity, relative motion, and any other force existent.
[4] The word pilot died with the installation of Eco Cradles on the satellites and planet throughout the Solar System. The men who maneuvered the space-ships were known as Chart-men or C-men in Chart-rooms or C-rooms in the core of the ships. The ships were flown entirely blind because of the efficiency of the Wacon charts and the Eco Cradles.
GIANTS OF ANARCHY
An amazing glimpse into the future, when the world has become a weird land of anarchy in which there are no laws, but everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost
THE power tubes had warmed up and all was in readiness. Don Jones puffed slowly at his cigarette. He cherished the smoke in his lungs, knowing it might be the last inhaling he would ever do. He wondered if they would know of cigarettes in that distant future to which he was going.
“Don’t hurry yourself,” said Professor White at the control board. “I want to run the system at full load for five minutes yet to make sure everything is all right. Are you nervous?”
“No,” denied Don Jones, but the hand that held the cigarette shook. It was not quite as easy as he had thought—leaving the life and time he knew. But because recurrent epilepsy had made life miserable for him, he had consented to be the subject of Professor White’s experiment. Young, and healthy in all other ways, Don Jones wished at this last minute that he were free of his promise.
“I’m nervous myself,” admitted the professor, dabbing at knife switches with fluttery fingers to make certain they were firmly closed. “I almost feel as though I were about to become your murderer.”
“Forget it,” grunted Don. “I had no peace in this life. I’ve thought of suicide, but this is better.”
“Not suicide,” said the scientist, turning around. “You can’t compare this to death, Don. You are going to a new life, but without dissolution. You are really going to be a time-traveler. Your body and mind—and soul, if there is such a thing—will be projected into a future age—anywhere from ten to a hundred thousand years ahead; I can’t be sure just how far.”
“Doesn’t make any difference,” said Don indifferently. “I just want to get—and get far. Epilepsy is an awful thing for a man with pride to have. Maybe in that future age I’ll have a good time while I last.”
Professor White went back to his dials and controls. He looked them over with pride. He was the first scientist to construct an atomic-vibration analyzer. With the complicated machine he had taken apart—not atom by atom, but vibration by vibration—a wide variety of inanimate things.
He had tried cats and rats in the past year, too, and had made them “come back” after a week of a month.
“The process,” as he had explained to Don several times, “is one of slowing down atomic vibration and making it static. The object is then non-existent to all practical purposes. All matter, all life—all the universe!—is made up of vibration. The flow of time is a decrease of the vibration rate. Change the vibration rate by any measurable amount and the subject ‘falls’ into a new time. My cat subject, for instance, had its vibration rate lowered to a certain point. It disappeared. It was out of our time. But when the universe had ‘caught up’ with it, there was Tabby, alive and unharmed. The interval was a week. By feeding my coils more power, I can make the interval much longer—there is no limit, except how much electricity I can afford to use.
“This discovery of mine leads to the curious conclusion that at some time the whole universe will reach zero vibration, like an unwinding clock-spring. But it will take ten trillion years! A stopped vibration being no vibration at all, ten trillion years from now the universe will be—nothing! Just plain nothing.”
But Don Jones had never troubled himself about the scientific angle of the experiment. It was his concern to get out of a life that had grown irksome to him, because of hereditary epilepsy. One got tired of living a life of gaps and jumps of hours’ duration, and sometimes days.
His cigarette burned short. “I say, Professor, what am I likely to find there in the future?”
“Plenty that’s strange,” vouchsafed the scientist. “A new civilization, perhaps a world state—highly-advanced science—cheap power—interplanetary travel—mile-high buildings—applied telekinesis—oh, I don’t know. You will be the one to find out.”
DON tossed his cigarette stub to the floor and ground it under his heel. With a quick motion he slipped off his shoes and flung the bathrobe from his shoulders. He stood naked.
“Okay,” he snapped. Without another word he stepped before a towering apparatus with many vacuum-tubes and wires. In the center was a tall, upright glass jar, large enough to enclose a man. It was suspended by wires four feet above a porcelain slab. Don stooped, clambered onto the smooth dais, and straightened up with his head and shoulders inside the huge jar.
Professor White stepped to a crank handle. “Good luck!” he called. Then he slipped a ratchet and allowed the crank handle to turn slowly. The huge bell-jar descended over Don till its lower end rested on the porcelain slab. The young man was now surrounded by glass.
Don stared out through the flawless crystal, amazed at his own calmness. He saw the professor, white of face, motioning to him. What did he want? Was the damned fool asking him, with gestures, if he wanted to come out again? Don shook his head, cursing inwardly at the silly delay. Why should the professor be losing his nerve? He had everything he wanted—a chance to measure the vibration rate of the human brain as it went through the analyzer. And there should be no trouble afterward; Don had turned over to him his death certificate, absolutely legal even though the “dead” man had come to life after the epileptic fit which had occasioned its use.
At last the scientist turned, with a visible sigh of resignation, to his controls. He threw a switch. Immediately a strong violet light bathed the naked man in the large glass tube. The hum of powerful vibration sang through t
he glass, and Don felt faint. From overhead and two sides came shafts of writhing color. And with the color came pain—a slow ache that seemed to be pouring into him from his prickling skin. The laboratory scene outside became hazy.
Suddenly Don was startled out of the intense lethargy which had come over him. With his hand on the last switch—the one that would send Don hurtling into the future—Professor White had turned to the door. Don saw an indistinct white figure run to the scientist and pull frantically at his arm. The scientist resisted, talked to the white figure, bobbing his gray head vehemently, and then reached again for the final switch.
Don’s thoughts were extremely muddled. The colored, singing lights had shaken him half unconscious with their atom vibrations. He saw, as in a dream, the white figure staring at him. What did she want? Why did Elaine White—the girl he loved—stare at him in such a wild, beseeching way? Could she be calling him back?
Don smiled bitterly. Too late now. Because of her he had taken this fearful step out of time. They had been lovers, vowing eternal devotion. Then his epilepsy had spoiled it, for it would have gone down in his children—in her children! Losing her, life had meant nothing more to Don. That was why he was in this tube now, waiting for the final surge of powerful forces to take him out of her sight. Don groaned, for he could see her love for him staring out of her eyes. God! If only things had been different!
For one eternal instant the scene froze before his eyes. Professor White, with a hand on the ebony switch handle, slowly swinging it over, watching his dials. Elaine—dear girl!—eyes streaming tears, gazing forlornly in his direction. Then there was a soundless concussion, a furious wrenching of the entire universe—and blackness. . . .