The Collected Stories

by Earl

  I looked at the jury, at the audience, at the court officials. Tom was talking to a blank wall. I searched for one ray of sympathy, understanding, but found none. Yes, one—the reporter who had braved opinion before. But he was only one out of hundreds facing me. I felt at that moment, a bottomless despair. I had felt that way once before—looking down at the dead body of Dr. Link and realizing I must face the future without his friendship and guidance.

  The jury filed out to decide my fate.

  COURT was adjourned, and I was taken under guard to the jail, to await recall. The way led around the front of the courthouse, to the neighboring jail building. Something of a crowd, unable to get into the court, had collected outside. Tom walked beside me, haggard and hopeless.

  Suddenly he was whispering in my ear. “I’ve failed you, Adam! We’ve lost, I know. Adam”—he looked around—“make a break for it! Run away, now! It’s your best chance. Perhaps somewhere you can hide, find a way to live. Run, Adam!”

  He pushed at me. I think he was nearly out of his mind, from the strain of the past few days. I gripped his shoulder and steadied him. “No, Tom!” I said. “There is no place for me in your world. I will accept—”

  And then I suddenly did leap away. I am afraid I bowled over two of the police escorting me. I had gone twenty yards before the gasp of the nearby crowd indicated that they had seen what I had seen.

  I had seen and comprehended, seconds before anyone else, the tragedy impending, out in the street. A little boy on roller skates had lost balance. I saw the first twist of his little body, that told me he would fall. Also the car. It was coming at a fair rate of speed down the street. Its driver was carelessly viewing the crowd on the sidewalk.

  All things relating to distances, measures, and numbers integrate instantaneously in my brain, itself a mathematical instrument. I can explain it no more simply. I knew the boy on roller skates was going to sprawl in front of that car. I knew the driver, with his slow human reflexes, would perceive this and jam on his brakes seconds too late. I even knew that the right front wheel would pass over the child’s chest, and the car would roll from 3 to 5 feet further before it stopped. The boy would be dead.

  A fraction of a second to note all this. Another few seconds running, at a speed that is impossible to humans. And then I was in front of the sprawling boy, between him and the careening car. There was no time to snatch him up, with my hard metal hands, without bruising him terribly. But the car could be stopped!

  I braced myself at the proper angle, right shoulder forward, crouching. There was the loud impact of metal on metal. The car’s radiator struck my shoulder as I had planned. For a moment it was machine fighting machine, with a life at stake. The car, with its greater weight, pushed me back five feet—six—seven—ten! My feet—flat plates of tough metal,—dug into the asphalt of the paving, gouging out two deep trenches.

  Then the car stopped, its engine dying with a strangled gasp. My heel plates were five inches from the fallen child’s body. Close enough. I congratulated myself. I had figured it would be seven inches.

  WHEN I straightened up, my right arm dangled uselessly, as I had expected. My right shoulder plate was a crumpled mass. The heavy frontal plate of my chest bore a frayed dent five inches deep. Another half-inch would have shattered an electrical distributor within, rendered me helpless prey to the rolling car, along with the child. But I had allowed for that five-inch dent also, when fixing my body in position before the impact.

  A dead silence seemed to hang over the scene as I looked around. No one moved. Hundreds of pairs of eyes stared as though in a trance. The little boy on roller skates struggled up, whimpering with fright—mostly at seeing me. Then a woman rushed to him from the crowd, taking him in her arms.

  At that moment, a court official hurried from the courtroom, telling the police guard to bring back the prisoner. The jury had already made up its verdict, in a short minute!

  Back in the courtroom, the foreman of the jury arose. Everyone knew what the verdict would be:

  “We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of the murder of Dr. Link, in the first degree!”

  Tom looked sadly at me. A hush came over the crowd. All eyes were on me, wondering what the machine with a mind would do or say. I did and said nothing. I had told Tom I would accept my fate.

  The judge pronounced sentence:

  Death in the electric chair, three days later. Electricity will burn out my brain, of course, as readily as that of a human being.

  I AM writing this now, in my cell.

  Heavy chains that even I cannot break bind me to the wall. They are not necessary. I would not try to escape. I would not want to live in a world that does not want me.

  One thing has given me satisfaction, or else I would pass from the scene with deep regrets. Tom visited me an hour ago, accompanied by a grave, distinguished man. He is one of the world’s greatest legal men. Seeing the brilliance of Tom, through the trial, against insuperable odds, he has offered Tom a position in his office. Thus Tom’s future has not been blasted by his unselfish labors in my hopeless cause.

  I must mention, too, the visit of the young reporter I have mentioned several times. I do not even know his name. But he told me he was convinced that he had seen justice go wrong, once again. At the last he made a gesture I fully realize has great significance. He shook hands with me! Tears are foreign to me, but something blurred my vision as he strode away.

  It is amusing in a way, the last thing I have to write. I have told them how simple it is. They would just have to turn the master switch on my chest and smash my inanimate body. But they insist on the electric chair. It is the law. I will give them full satisfaction.

  It is best, I think, that I pass into the non-existence from which Dr. Link summoned me seven months ago. My short sojourn in this world has been confusion for the most part. I would never understand, or be understood.

  One curious thought. What will my epitaph in history be, that of—monster or man?

  THE MOGU OF MARS

  The Mogu God lured Greer Grayson into the depths of the Martian catacombs, where dwell the hostile, tribes of Mogu savages! He seeks the protection of the mighty idol, as fate lands him on an altar of death!

  CHAPTER I

  THE CATACOMBS

  BLAST after blast shook the ship as the fore-rockets retarded speed. Greer Grayson landed his space-ship on Mars after fighting, for three hours, the gigantic, permanent wind storms that had wrecked many previous expeditions. A combination of luck and skill brought him through safely, while in his mind had drummed the refrain: “The Mogu God!”

  After twelve hours of hearty sleep which he needed badly, he stepped out of the air-lock at the side of the ship. On his back was strapped a big knapsack loaded with food and some water. Underneath this were small batteries whose terminals connected to twin searchlights at each side of his belt. The bandolier over his shoulders held four holsters and their weapons, and the ammunition pouches were filled to capacity.

  “A walking arsenal!” chuckled Greer Grayson, wondering how he looked. “But according to the last expedition, the Mogi: people are little better than savages, remnants of a once-civilized race that lived on the surface, in bygone ages. Degenerate people are always blood-thirsty.”

  A hearty gust of wind bowled him off his feet as soon as he let go of the bars beside the air-lock. Spluttering and cursing, he lifted himself to hands and knees and grasped the bars again. He stood there for a while, letting his lungs accustom themselves to the thinner air. Red dust whipped into his face and eyes.

  Leaning against the wind, he trudged over the desert wastes, more bleak than the steppes of Siberia. The sky was a total loss, being a thick blanket of dull scarlet dust through which the rising sun barely stabbed with a few dim rays. A gloomy, storm-tossed world up here on the surface, thought Grayson.

  Reaching the cave-mouth near which he had landed, he entered and followed its course downward, glad to be out of the dust storm. When t
he dim glow of the outer regions no longer illumined his surroundings, he switched on the twin lights. It was cold in the caves, as Grayson could feel on his face and hands, but his body was well protected by woolen underwear and the leather suit that covered him from neck to foot.

  As Grayson slowly advanced deeper into the bowels of Mars, he reviewed all he knew of the planet, that he had learned from the men who had been here two years before during the last opposition. There was no life on the surface—it was impossible to face the raging red dust that had conquered the upper regions. There was life, however, underground—rational as well as purely animal. The origin of the underground caverns was as yet a mystery, but they were reputed to honeycomb the planet to an unknown depth.

  In these cold, dark caverns lived a variety of plant and animal life. There were also underground rivers that came from the polar-ice and flowed windingly among the labyrinths. Then most important of all, there were the Mogu—semi-intelligent creatures who lived a simple savage life, never knowing what the sun was. The last expedition had reported seeing some of the surface ruins mentioned by earlier explorers, and it was their belief that the Mogu were the degenerate descendants of the civilization that had once flourished in the sun.

  But Greer Grayson was not particularly interested in such things. The Mogu God—that was the important thing to him. The previous explorers had penetrated the underground cave system and come upon a tribe of the Mogu who seemed to exercise a superiority over the other tribes by virtue of their possession of the Mogu God. It was an idol made of solid diamond, a full two feet high, as each of the explorers had solemnly sworn! As far as they were able to find out in the short time they sojourned underground, that idol was the universal god of all the

  Martians, and its temple had become a veritable Mecca, where all came to worship.

  GRAYSON stepped along lightly, for despite the paraphernalia he carried, he was lighter than his stripped weight on Earth, in the feeble gravity of Mars. He breathed deeply of the thin and cold air and dreamed of the day when he would have the Mogu God for his own. But his dreams faded out as he suddenly realized the problem facing him. He had yet to find the temple of the diamond idol. All the explorers had been able to tell him about its location was that it was in the south temperate zone, analogous to the Earth zone. The red dust on the surface had prevented any success in map making, and the subterranean catacombs defied all attempts at orientation.

  Grayson’s plans were simple, under the circumstances. He would locate some of the Mogu and attempt to communicate with them to find out, if possible, where the temple was located.

  Up ahead in the glare of the twin lights appeared a cross-corridor. Grayson stopped and peered down each passageway in turn. One looked as good as the other. He extracted, from the front pouch of his belt, a small bottle filled with a glowing material. He pressed it against the rock wall of the cavern he had traversed. The plunger jabbed inward and squeezed out a thin stream of radium paint. Grayson stepped away and surveyed the cross he had made.

  “That’s that,” he said. “Now I can find my way back when T get the idol.”

  Before he went on, he swung the knapsack off his back, extracted a canteen of water and a short length of hard sausage. Emptying the canteen thirstily, he hung it on the belt and proceeded on his way, munching the sausage with the relish born of hunger.

  At the next cross corridor he again painted his glowing cross, then whirled suddenly at the suggestion of a sound behind him. A lumbering dark shape careened past his shoulder as he side-stepped and a lashing claw scratched at his leathern coat.

  Grayson swung about, needle-gun in hand, and sent three messengers of death at the creature as it leaped at him again in utter silence. The animal sank lifeless at his feet, killed by the touch of Sinol poison with which the needles were impregnated.

  He thrust the needle-gun back into its holster and let the full glare of the lights fall on the creature. He gasped at the sight and shuddered. It seemed to be half serpentine and half seal, for it had flippers at the back of its long, thin body, which was covered with scales. Its head was particularly repulsive, being large and crocodile-like.

  Grayson went on more warily. Next time he might not be so lucky and get mangled if he left himself open to attack. He hugged one cave wall as he advanced and looked back periodically. In his hand he carried a pistol with its usual explosive bullets. It worked quicker than the needle gun as a death-dealing weapon, but at the same time it was a dangerous instrument in such close quarters. The exploding bullet, striking a nearby wall, might fling deadly chips at him. However, he decided to carry it in view of the fact that attack could come so swiftly in these stygian depths.

  CHAPTER II

  THE CAVE PEOPLE

  PROCEEDING in this way, Greer Grayson advanced many uncounted miles into the labyrinths of Mars. There was utter silence; a lack of sound that reminded him of the harrowing six days aboard the tomb-like space ship when even the squeaking of a cricket would have been welcome. As he rounded each bend he peered eagerly ahead, hoping to see some of the Mogu. But they were strangely absent. Only dark, slinking shapes scurried around the fringes of the light beams, attesting the abundance of animal life in the mysterious corridors.

  Suddenly a thunderous booming reverberated all about the adventurer. In alarm he stopped and backed against a wall, drawing another pistol, for he had no idea what the stentorian noise might betoken.

  In pulsing cadence, the dull drumming continued, seeming to vibrate in the walls surrounding him. A hasty surmise that some of the underground caverns were collapsing proved untenable because of the regularity of the beat. It sounded more like huge drums giving forth human-made notes.

  The din, pounding into his ears ceaselessly, and intensified by the restricted surroundings, soon became obnoxious to Grayson.

  “Damn you, stop that blasted thing!” he screamed down the corridor finally in maddened exasperation.

  Then, surprisingly, it stopped, but for many seconds the echos continued to roll about, dying gradually into silence.

  A number of vague theories as to the origin of the noise revolved through Grayson’s mind as he continued his way once again in silence. Were the Mogu trying to scare him away? Was it their battle signal? Or perhaps (which was more likely) they knew nothing of Greer’s presence and the drumming had some strange significance in their lives. On the other hand, could it merely have been a natural phenomenon, some upheaval of the interior of the planet? One thing Grayson knew positively was that the men who had been here before had not heard the drums; at least, they had not mentioned it.

  But other things crowded out these conjectures as the adventurer toiled deeper and deeper into the caves of Mars. He came upon a phosphorescent underground river and decided to follow its winding course, on the chance that it might lead to some Mogu living center. For hours he tramped along the bank, careful to blaze his radium cross wherever there were two or more branches to follow.

  Suddenly Grayson’s pulse quickened as he saw before him, in a large level space, the smoldering remains of a fire. There were just a few dull coals buried in a heap of ashes, but to the adventurer, they meant much more. The Mogu had been here recently! He remembered that the previous explorers had mentioned the use of fire by the Martians, thus elevating them to at least the Stone Age level of advancement.

  It was while he was tramping the river bank a little later that a form outlined a brief moment in his twin beams, then vanished with an arm flung before its eyes. A Mogu! The figure had been distinctly humanlike. Were there more ahead?

  Grayson peered steadily along the bank, with his lights off. In the dim, glow-revealed distance, he saw a group of shadowed figures. With a grunt of satisfaction, the Earthman strode toward them. Lights still extinguished, lest he scare them, he came close.

  It seemed to be a hunting party, for there were some twenty of them, all carrying short spears which seemed to be their only weapon. Across the backs of some of them we
re hung the furry and scaly bodies of dead animals. They were naked except for crude thongs about their hips and shoulders.

  Grayson checked the previous expedition’s description of them as the nearing figures became revealed in the reflected glow of the luminous river. Short and thick-set creatures, they were, with almost globular heads bearing large elf-like ears, big owl eyes, and triangular mouths set with long curved teeth. Their heads swayed like top-heavy flowers on swan necks. From below each of the short arms extended a long whiplike tentacle which undulated about them like the feelers of an ant. From the hips down they were almost human, except for the feet, which were padded and untoed.

  “No beauties!” muttered Grayson to himself.

  He had his plans made as to how to accost them without precipitating battle. He stepped out in full view of the Mogu, when they were yet a ways away, out of range of a spear unless it were thrown by an exceedingly powerful arm. His lights were off, for he knew they would be blinded by its radiance.

  The oncoming party spied him immediately, and stopped as one, all eyes riveted in his direction. Several spears came up but remained in hand.

  OBVIOUSLY, the Mogu were awaiting Grayson’s first move, ready to battle or run at a moment’s notice. Then he moved toward them slowly with one arm empty and aloft. The Martians shuffled their feet a little, and the timid ons backed away—but one of them stood his ground, spear aiming for Grayson’s chest.

  He felt a cold chill down his spine. With those lights of his off, not blinding them, no doubt their aim would be accurate. One little slip and he would be a pin-cushion bristling with spears.

  But his very confidence withheld the weapons of the Mogu, for obviously the stranger came without harmful intent. He paused ten feet from the foremost Martian and bowed his head slightly, hoping they would recognize the salutation.