by Earl
She was a jungle creature, come to save her mate. A metal woman, rescuing her Tarzan. She screamed—awfully. She advanced with slow, ponderous steps, shaking the floor. One man broke from his trance to hurl a chair at her. She caught it and crumbled it to matchwood in her alloy hands. She battered a table aside, splitting it in half with one blow of her fist.
Slowly and steadily she advanced on the seven men cowering in the corner. She thought I was dead, seeing me in a tangled ruin. She was fully intent on crushing those seven men to pulp.
I tried to call out, stop her. But my mechanical larynx was heat-warped to uselessness. I could not make the slightest move, to show I was alive. I could not even click shut my eye-shutters, to blank out the sight. I would see seven men ground to bloody shreds. More than that, I would see the robot once and for all banished from life in human society, for that act.
“Eve!” I tried to plead. “Eve, don’t betray me now. Don’t do just what I’ve warned against from the start. Don’t prove the robot is just what the world is too readily to believe—a Frankenstein monster! Eve—please—don’t!”
But I couldn’t make a sound. My mental agony at that moment was far greater than the heat-torture had been.
Eve was within reach of the men. They were clawing at one another to get out of the way. They too were silent, with fear strangling them. Eve’s merciless hands stretched out, for the first victim—
A siren wailed, somewhere outside, moaning to high crescendo. Eve had caught one man, trying to slip past her, and hurled him back in the group, as though intent on making them suffer the suspense of death as well as death itself. She seemed to tense herself for sudden activity, her internal hum deepening. She was about to commit wholesale massacre . . .
Then blue-clad men were swarming into the room—police! I shrieked and cursed, within myself. She would rend them apart too! She whirled on the police, as they shouted—
At that moment I found my voice. My heated metal had cooled enough for parts to slip into place. It was only a croak, my voice:
“Eve! Stop! Submit to the police. Don’t touch the men!”
She stood in the center of the room, looking from the police to the men, and then down at me—or what was left of me. She made no move against any of them.
The gangsters found their voices. Babbling, they begged the police to protect them from the metal monster.
“Make them confess!” I yelled out, my voice stronger now. “Make Harvey Brigg confess to the murders Eve is accused of, and all his other criminal activities!”
Eve looked around at Harvey Brigg. “I’ll confess,” he cried eagerly, frantically. “I’ll confess everything. Only don’t let that robot touch me!”
I have only one more thing to record. We were in our mountain cabin, with Jack, Kay and Tom, court procedure over. I had a new body, and Eve was in her first one, human proportioned.
“We won all, but we nearly lost,” I said. “If the police hadn’t come in time—” I shuddered mentally. “Eve, you must never—”
“I wasn’t going to harm the men,” Eve said. “I kept my head. I knew about the ring. I knew if I frightened them enough they would confess. I knew the police were coming. What’s more, Adam Link, detective—I knew you were alive all the time. One of your broken cables twitched slightly. I saw that right away!” I knew she was laughing a little then. “Poor dear, did you really think I had gone berserk?” Paradoxically, I was nettled. “You mean you weren’t ready to—well, avenge me, if I had been dead?”
“Now, dear, that’s just what you wouldn’t have wanted—”
One word began to lead to another. Our three friends arose to leave. “Your first quarrel!” Jack grinned. “Come on, Kay and Tom. We’re excess baggage. And if Eve starts throwing things—”
THE END
[*] AMAZING STORIES, February, 1940
GEMS OF LIFE
The Mysterious Heartstones Were the Most Priceless Jewels in the Universe-Until Bart Donovan Paid the Price!
MRS. MARCHMONT H. CORDEVANT III wore a confident smile as she welcomed her guests to her floating strato-estate. Her palatial home hovered ten miles above earth, supported by anti-gravity plates.
She wore, besides the smile, a king’s ransom in jewelry. A necklace of flashing Martian diemeralds bounded her throat. On her wrist, she exhibited loan glowstones; they were set in a black onyx to offset their rosy light. In her blond hair, the society matron sported a tiara of dark, lustrous, space-gems, which in the genuine were found floating in the void, never on a planet. These, and the numerous lesser jewels that bedecked the seams of her spun-iridium gown, added up to ten million Bank-of-Sol dollars.
Beside Mrs. Marchmont H. Cordevant III stood Marchmont H. Cordevant III himself, smaller and anemic-looking. He was quite miserable. Greeting guests was a ghastly business, the whole affair was a bore, and his rotund wife was a jewel-horse. He deplored her motive in staging these annual affairs. She only wanted to remind the social register, again and again, that she had more and better jewelry than any other woman.
The multi-millionaire was startled suddenly as a rustle sounded in his mind.
“Marchmont! Straighten up and smile! You’re disgracing me!”
Cordevant straightened. With an effort he bolstered up his sagging smile. Fleetingly he wished telepathy had never been developed, and that his wife had not taken lessons. Cordevant knew what men said of him behind his back—he was being henpecked by telepathy.
“Yes, dear,” he radiated back.
Audibly, all the while, the two had been murmuring greetings to the guests.
An hour later, all had arrived, representing the richest and most socially select of the Blue Strata of 2040. All except Mrs. Maurice G. Tearwell. She would be last, Mrs. Cordevant reflected bitterly.
It was her way of making a grand spectacular entrance.
AS though having had her chauffeur hover in their strato-limousine until all the others had parked, the soft hiss of the airlocks sounded, and a moment later Mrs. Maurice G. Tearwell came in, trailed by her husband. Marched in, rather. She was making her usual dramatic entry. She was 45, but miracles by electro-beauticians made her seem under 30.
Mrs. Marchmont H. Cordevant III began a counter-attack. She swept forward, dragging her husband along with a telepathic summons. She intended to meet Mrs. Tearwell in the middle of the portico, so that no eye would miss the resplendence of the Cordevant jewelry.
Beside these priceless ornaments, anything that her social rival was wearing would seem like trinkets bought in some asteroid junk shop.
As Mrs. Cordevant drew near her last guest, she started, involuntarily. At first it seemed that Mrs. Tearwell had worn not one item of jewelry. Then, it became apparent that she wore only one—a something on a gold chain around her neck. The object hung low, over her heart.
Mrs. Cordevant’s steps faltered.
The nearer she drew, the more magnificently the single object, a blood-red stone, shone. It scintillated in all the hues of the spectrum. And it pulsed. The splendor of it waxed and waned in a regular beat, or cycle. And, more amazingly, it pulsed about 75 times a minute. The rate of the human heart.
A tense hush had come over the arched reception room.
All eyes were focused upon the two female social rivals. Mrs. Cordevant’s smile froze.
For she realized, felt, that the one gem outclassed her full armament by a margin wider than a parsec.
The evening was stolen by Mrs. Tearwell. Fascinated eyes of all the guests constantly went to the jewel at her throat. It shone with imprisoned sunlight that cast lambent shafts through the air. At each pulse-beat of its remarkable cycle it changed color—crimson, blue, golden, green, violet, orange. It was a jewel beside which the brilliance of diemeralds and the glory of glowstones faded to utter insignificance.
“It is called a heartstone,” vouched Mrs. Tearwell, after much coaxing. “At least, the jewel-merchant who contacted me called it that. I can’t reveal his name or
the price, but he assured me it was the only one on the market.”
She glanced triumphantly at her hostess.
“It’s lovely, my dear,” said Mrs. Cordevant.
Marchmont Cordevant winced sharply as a telepathic message beat furiously into his mind.
“Marchmont! I must have a stone like that,” his wife commanded. “I must, or I’ll die! A whole string of them, in fact. You must get them. Do you hear, Marchmont?”
“Yes, darling.” And Cordevant knew that existence would not be worth his while until and unless he procured a string of the pulsing “heartstones” for his wife. He would call up Tiffany’s Interplanetary tomorrow morning. At any price short of his total fortune, he must get them.
If not, he would seriously think of finishing life in an outpost on Pluto. The wrath of its elemental climate could not be worse than that of Mrs. Marchmont H. Cordevant III, when denied her fancy.
MARK LOWRY looked up at the six-feet-three of brawn and ugliness named Bart Donovan, expatriated Earthman and general hell-raiser. Ten years of the kind of space-wandering life Bart Donovan led gave one brawn, and a lot of other things.
Lowry was like a mouse beside him, with little beady eyes and flabby lips.
“What’s the job, Boss?” Bart Donovan asked curiously. The big space-rover poured himself a drink of fiery Martian quila from Lowry’s bottle, then drew up a chair and threw his boots on the desk.
Lowry cursed him, as he always did. “Of all the space rats that pass through here, or work for me, you’re the nerviest, Donovan. Get your filthy boots—
“Skip the comedy,” Donovan cut in. “What would you do without me? You’re the brains of this racket. I’m the strong arm. You can’t handle the men like I can. Now, what’s up?”
“A big job.”
“Claim-jumping?”
“Eventually. But first, we have to find out where. All we know is that it’s out Jupiter-way. I’m sending you alone, first to do some scouting.”
“Who’re we doing it for?” Donovan poured himself another drink. “Tiffany’s Interplanetary.”
Donovan whistled. “Tiffany’s? They’re the biggest jewel-merchants today, with branches on five planets!” he exclaimed. “How come they’re stooping to hire our unorthodox help?” Unorthodox was a mild term to describe the activities of Lowry’s organization. Interplanetary racketeering would be closer. Lowry’s outfit went in for claim-jumping, blackmailing, kidnaping—anything short of out-and-out piracy. Space Police had cleaned that up.
They would clean up racketeering, too, some day, but not before they got after the big business that fostered it.
“It must be something pretty big and juicy,” Donovan said, “for Tiffany’s to come to us.”
“It is. Here’s the set-up.” Lowry settled back in his chair and continued. “Five months ago, Tiffany’s received an order for a string of what was called ‘heartstones’. Their client’s name, of course, is secret.”
Donovan nodded. “Some walking money-bag with blue ink in his veins.” He sneered while he said it. He was a racketeer, but he considered the blue-bloods of Earth parasites. “But what are heartstones? Never heard of ’em.”
“Neither did Tiffany’s but they accepted the order and promised to deliver them within a year. They traced the one heartstone known, found it was purchased from an obscure jewel-house on Ganymede, owned by native capital. But that’s as far as they got. Where the one jewel came from, or how many more there were, they couldn’t find out. The Gany outfit refused to talk. And we’ve heard rumors that the price paid for that heartstone was one million Sol dollars!”
DONOVAN sat up.
“A cool million! And what is Tiffany’s client willing to pay for a string?”
“No limit. Now here’s what the Tiffany people believe. They think that the small Ganymede outfit stumbled on the find—a totally new kind of jewel which has color-pulsations. They bootlegged one into the Earth market, just to see what price it would bring unheralded. The snap-up at a million convinced them it was a bonanza. So now they’re quietly going to monopolize the market, and Tiffany’s doesn’t like that. Thus we come in. We find the jewel-mine, jump claim, and Tiffany’s pays us a million!”
“Yeah?” Donovan tempered enthusiasm with suspicion. “What’s the catch?”
Lowry looked him straight in the eye.
“The catch is what happened to two Tiffany agents, before Tiffany came to us. They went to Ganymede, vanished, and never came back! Well, Donovan, want to risk it—alone?”
Lowry pulled a video-stat from his desk drawer. It was a three-dimensional photograph of the heartstone, a perfect image in a block of photo-jelly. A big, blazing-red stone, it was like no jewel Donovan had ever seen or imagined.
He shuddered. There was something evil about that stone. Something that made him want to smash it with his hand.
“It has radioactive pulsations, according to Tiffany’s,” Lowry informed. “At the rate of the human heart—seventy-five times a minute. Once you see it, you can’t mistake it. Well?”
“What’s in it for me?” Donovan demanded.
“Ten thousand, even if just the one string is delivered.”
Donovan smiled grimly.
“Hell, I’d paint the Red Spot blue for half of that! When’s the next trans-Mars liner due?”
Donovan took another look at the image of the stone. And shuddered again.
It was like an evil eye telling him he’d be sorry.
BART DONOVAN left Lowry’s headquarters on asteroid-88-Z three days later, as passenger on a trans-Mars liner bound for Ganymede. Two weeks later it docked there. Jupiter and its four largest moons were the last frontier of civilization. There were only scientific outposts on the wintry planets beyond.
Ganymede City had all the flavor of a pioneer settlement—rough, undeveloped, almost lawless. Only one Earth consul station was there, to protect the interests of a few small merchants and traders, and to handle mail. The majority laboring element of natives constantly quarreled and fought among themselves.
Anything could happen in Ganymede City, and only braver Earthmen ventured there, even for the lure of trade and wealth.
Donovan pondered his task. He had to find out, somehow, where the Gany jewel-house mined those strange heart-stones. Most likely, he figured, on one of the outer small moons of Jupiter, of which there were six. No sense to inquire at the place itself. The Tiffany agents had tried that—and had been mysteriously eliminated.
The method Donovan decided upon was simple and direct. He went around the various space dock dives, drinking and keeping his eyes and ears open. It was more than a month before he found anything worth while. Then one day, in a wretched dive, he saw the queer poster on the wall.
Opportunity! If you are looking for good pay, easy work, apply at Dock 14. Location on small-moon mining outpost. Earthmen or women. No applicants accepted unless they show Five-year Release.
A hand tapped Donovan’s shoulder as he began reading the sign a second time.
He turned to look into the face of an Earthman, florid with drink and hard living.
“Interested, pal?” the stranger asked. “Why not join up? Ship’s due to leave Dock Fourteen tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I’m interested,” Donovan said, willing to follow any lead. “Whose ship, and where does it go?”
The man looked Donovan up and down, and apparently decided he was mangy-looking enough not to be a copper in disguise. “Gany jewel outfit. Goes to the last moon. Got your Five-year Release?”
Donovan pulled it out. It was a passport—to interplanetary orphanage. Issued by the Earth government, it absolved all responsibility for the person named, if he or she had been away from Earth for five or more years. It worked both ways. It also stopped extradition.
If fugitives eluded the Earth law agencies for five years, after a crime, no planet would ship them back. At the last count, more than a million Earth people were in that category, wandering among the planet
s, not daring to set foot on Earth unless they wished to expiate the crime that had driven them away.
“Have a drink on me,” Donovan suggested, taking the paper back. “What’s the work like?” he continued as they sat down with a bottle of quila between them. He wanted to pump the spaceman, find out if he had a lead in the right direction.
“Work?” The other leered strangely. “Nothing to it. Easiest you ever heard of. You just stand. I can’t talk much, stranger.” His eyes flicked about guardedly. “It’s a big thing. If I bring you in as a recruit, I get a commission. That’s my part of it.”
“How long do I have to stay?” Again that strange leer, that seemed to hide a lot.
“Pretty long. But you won’t mind it. Come on, let’s go and get you signed up—”
“Wait.” Donovan poured him another drink. “What kind of jewels do they mine?”
THE stranger didn’t leer this time. He looked scared.
“I can’t talk, I tell you—”
Donovan watched him closely, then spoke softly.
“Heartstones?” he whispered, watching the other closely.
The man’s florid face paled. He glared at Donovan.
“You’re a spy!” he cried out. “You know too much—” The stranger flung the table away with a roar. Quiet came over the den and faces turned their way.
Donovan let him draw his gun half out, so that all could see. Then he snaked his own weapon out and fired before the other could aim. The bolt tore into the spaceman’s brain, entering between his eyes. He was dead before he hit the floor. Donovan had wanted to kill him. Otherwise, the stranger’s employers would have learned that Donovan was on the trail of their racket.
The big spaceman walked out in a dead silence.
Fair fight, of course—self-defense. The Gany police wouldn’t even bother to list it. Earth law had no jurisdiction over Donovan. That was that.
As he walked toward Dock 14, he wondered what it all added up to. Three lives had already gone toward the string of heartstones—the two Tiffany agents and the spaceman. How many more were in the cards? Donovan didn’t know and didn’t care, just so his wasn’t. He was walking into the lion’s den, right now, but figured he could take care of himself.