The Collected Stories

by Earl

  He registered at Dock 14, and then got a genuine surprise. A couple was ahead of him. The woman turned, and their glances met. Loma Stade! Bart Donovan’s step paused in mid-air, and his pulse quickened. Lorna Stade! He had never expected to run across her again. Ten years ago, in a brawl, he had killed her sweetheart.

  “Hello, Lorna,” he said casually, clamping down on his nerves. “What’re you doing here?”

  Shock drained from her eyes. Her greeting was just as casual. “Been wandering around,” she said. “Jim and I need this job. My husband, Jim.”

  DONOVAN didn’t even look at him. Some Earth-orphan she had tied up with, after leaving Earth. Sure, Donovan had ruined her life. She wasn’t pretty any more. She was faded, old-looking, miserable. One little tug at a too-easy trigger, and a bottle of distilled madness had ruined two lives—hers and Donovan’s. But what did it matter any more? Even in the best of civilizations, those things happened.

  Donovan thought of his mission. “Do you know what this job is all about?” he asked.

  The girl—a woman, now—shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  The Ganymedian in charge was terser than a Martian, in response to Donovan’s questions.

  “No qualifications or experience necessary, for the job. Here’s a hundred Sol dollars advance pay. We’ve taken five boat-loads of recruits to the location. None has returned. That’s how well satisfied they are there.”

  Donovan knew the whole thing was crazy, from start to finish. He was walking into something with his eyes open. When the ship got under way, with twenty men and five women as recruits, he scouted around. Timing the crew watches, he sneaked about the old ship, seeing what he could see. In the crew’s locker room he saw something that made him think. Spacesuits hung there, but they were spacesuits armored with neutron-lead, proof against radioactive emanation.

  If the heartstone jewels were mined in dangerous radioactive deposits, why weren’t there armored space-suits for the passenger-recruits?

  Things began to click in Donovan’s mind in an ominous pattern. The spaceman he had shot and his words “You’ll stay pretty long, but you won’t mind.” The Ganymedian and his “None has returned.” Donovan resolved to watch his step. Sure, he was out to get a string of heartstones, one way or another. But—he was going to take care of Bart Donovan first!

  THE last moon of Jupiter, as the ship approached, looked like a miniature Luna, pitted with small craters. Jupiter was pebble-sized, more than twenty million miles away. The sun, of course, was just a big star. The setting was as gloomy and out-of-the-way as far as Pluto.

  The freighter stopped its rockets when it had approached within a mile. Then it switched to the halo-engine. The halo-engine was used whenever docks were not at hand to land in. The high-speed ring of protons it whirled about the ship, looking like crimson rings of Saturn, locked the ship in position by the principle of gyroscopic momentum.

  The Ganymedian captain, tall and thin with broomstick legs and arms, spoke to the assembled recruits in the hold.

  “You will be taken down in couples, in gyro-cars. Form a double line at the lower hatch.”

  The first pair of recruits stepped into the transparent-walled gyro-car, piloted by two Ganymedians, without question. Naturally they expected, as all did, that below was a sealed outpost in which they would be set to work. Not one of them was suspicious of any chicanery.

  But Donovan was, with what he knew. First of all, the two Ganys in the gyro-car wore their armored suits. Secondly, his first glimpse below, through the hatch, showed him a rocky terrain, with not the slightest sign of an outpost habitation anywhere!

  It added up to Donovan now, and the answer was—death!

  Human beings were being marooned on the little moon’s surface, with no chance to complain or come back. And no one would complain for them. They were disowned by Earth.

  That conclusion rammed itself into the spacefarer’s brain. His next thought was to save Bart Donovan. Could he hide on the ship? Small chance. They’d search it from stem to stern. The only possibility was to hide down on the moon. And then hope for a break. It was a grim game now, with the odds against him.

  Some horrible fate lay below, if he were ever delivered down there without an armored space-suit.

  A few minutes later, creeping into the crew’s locker room, Donovan struggled into one of the armored suits, built for an Earth figure. He slipped his gun, and a signal-rocket, in the belt pouch. The armored suit, as he expected, had an individual halo-unit, for descent to a planet in case of emergency. Its breathing-unit and food-pack were fully stocked, also for emergency, as any space ship might at any time crash.

  Donovan let himself out of an emergency lock and floated down to the moon’s surface with his halo-engine going full blast. He trusted the general gloom, and the task that kept them busy, to hide his escape. No shots came after him.

  Landing and turning off the halo-unit, he looked around.

  He was in a little valley, ringed on all sides by unweathered cliffs. The sun and Jupiter combined barely lit up the space, revealing queer crystal formations.

  “Why—hello!” he said, through his voice-vibrator.

  He spoke to the figure he had suddenly noticed ten feet away, apparently human. Then he choked. Vaguely human-shaped though it was, the upright figure was crystalline! Light sparkled from a thousand facets. Looking around, Donovan saw now that all the queer crystal formations in the valley were like this one. And all, somehow, looked like human forms turned suddenly to a bright, glittering stone!

  What in the name of the nine planets did it mean?

  THE answer came swiftly and horribly.

  Donovan crouched behind one of the crystal figures, as the gyro-car descended with its last two “recruits.” Hovering ten feet over the ground on its halo-unit, its under-hatch swung open and a levered arm thrust a wildly struggling figure to the surface.

  It was Lorna!

  She was screaming, though Donovan hardly heard it in the thin atmosphere. The levered arm retracted and deposited her man. Face contorted, realizing his sudden peril, he had jerked out a pistol and fired pointblank at the gyro-car. The bolts spanged off harmlessly from the transparent metal.

  Within the gyro-car, the two armor-suited Ganymedians methodically closed the hatch and sent the car up. Gasping in the thin cold air, the couple turned to one another. The man, Jim, took a step forward as though to take the girl in his arms.

  “Lorna!” Donovan had yelled her name and run forward.

  Then he stopped, watching, while the roots of his hair crawled.

  Jim had frozen, in the act of stepping forward. Lorna froze in the same motion. They seemed to strain against paralysis. But it was more than that. Their features set and their skin began to glint.

  Donovan knew what was happening. He knew now why he hadn’t seen any of the other recruits who had been landed previously—in the flesh.

  Jim and Lorna were turning to crystal!

  Flesh already hard and transparent, Donovan could see the process of crystallization eating inward. Their hearts were still beating! Donovan could not tear his eyes from the ghastly sight.

  The secret of the heartstone—he knew it now!

  Donovan sprang into quick action. He moved quickly as the gyro-car darted down again, looking for him.

  They had discovered his absence, in the ship, and the missing space-suit told them he was below. Donovan ran desperately, but the gyro-car hummed after him. Three more gyro-cars dropped from the parked ship, streaking to surround him.

  Then Donovan saw his only hope—a cave cutting into one wall of the narrow valley. With a spurt of speed he gained that vantage and turned, firing. One of the gyro-cars had landed, and the Ganymedian rushing forward stopped and threw up his arms, dead.

  “Stand back!” Donovan yelled into his helmet-radio. “I can hold off an army here!”

  Realizing that, the head Ganymedian spoke.

  “You are Bart Donovan—thou
gh you signed a fictitious name in our register—of a certain organization. We can use a man like you. Later there will be an attempt to wrest this valley from us, by claim-jumping. Do you want to join us, at any figure you name?”

  Donovan wanted to think that over, so he stalled by asking questions about the valley.

  “It was discovered by accident, a year ago, by a Ganymedian prospector,” he was told. “Luckily, he had radium-proof armor. He found a wrecked Earth space ship and several crystallized figures nearby, as though they had stepped out and become frozen instantaneously. One had fallen over and shattered, and glittering among the debris was a beautiful red stone, pulsating at the rate of the human heart. He knew he had a remarkable find and came back with it. We organized a company.

  “The phenomenon, as one of our scientists found, is simply one of radioactivity. The ground of this valley is saturated with emanations so powerful that they instantly cell living protoplasm. The cells rapidly harden, from outside in. So rapid is the process that the heart beats until the emanations penetrate there. As the heart itself freezes to radioactive crystal, its pulse-beat carries on, with radioactive currents replacing the former blood-currents.

  “The rest of the crystal is not remarkable or desirable in any way, only the literal heart of it. Therefore, to procure more of them, we planned propagating them by simply bringing expatriated Earth people here. They aren’t missed, and we are doing both our own Government and the Earth Government a favor in eliminating them. They lead worthless lives—”

  At that moment, in a rage, Donovan shot at him, but he was safe in his gyro-car.

  “Count me out!” Donovan blazed. “Murder in wholesale lots isn’t my style, you—” He went on for some time, in fluent terms.

  Knowing better than to rush Donovan’s position, they left. The Ganymedian’s last words were: “We’ll leave you here alive, to think it over. No one else knows of this valley. You won’t be rescued. We’ll be back in a month, with more recruits. If your food holds, and you’ve changed your mind, we’ll pick you up.”

  The ship thundered away on its rockets.

  SWEET racket, Donovan thought to himself, when he had cooled down. Priceless stones that would bring a fabulous return within a few years. Why not take the offer and retire rich? What did the lives of a few flotsam Earth people mean to him?

  Having plenty of time, Donovan explored the cave. It circled around and eventually led under the valley floor. And under there he found the bed of radioactive matter that threw its powerful rays upward into the valley. It was an actual lake of molten radioactive metals. It would have been a bonanza a century ago. Today, with cheap radioactive matter produced by the cyclotron, it wasn’t worth the digging. Its only value lay in the heartstones it produced.

  Donovan pondered, looking at the heaving molten lake. If something were fed to that radioactive lava, there would be a mighty big explosion, blowing up the whole valley. That would be the end of the heartstone business.

  Donovan went above and knocked over the human crystals, almost a hundred in all. Evidently the Ganys had left them there as the safest place, until they were ready to market them. They shattered tinklingly, and he extracted the compressed, solidified heartstones. He lined them in a row, Lorna’s in the middle. Their blazing glory lit up the dark little valley with a magic glow.

  “You’re going back, to Earth,” Donovan told them aloud. “There you belong. Where you’ve wanted to be, except that something drove you away. Where your hearts have always been.”

  To the heartstone of Lorna he said: “You’ll be around some blue-blood dame’s neck, with all the things around you never had, because of me.”

  Donovan stared at them for a while. There was brooding in his eyes, but also a calm peace. Everything seemed all right now. Then he stuffed them in a signal-rocket, and touched off its fuse, watching it vanish in space. He had timed it right. It would reach the Mars space lanes, and some ship would notice its slow-burning flare and pick it up.

  Finally, Bart Donovan went down to the radioactive lake. He lay down in it. A deliberate bolt from his pistol through his suit’s armor let in the hissing matter. Since the armor wouldn’t let the constantly expanding gases of his disintegrated body out, it became a bomb. It exploded with stupendous violence, caving in the valley floor, destroying all possibility of its former use.

  Bart Donovan did not know the phrase that would describe him—unsung hero.

  * * *

  Mark Lowry opened the signal-rocket on which his name and asteroid had been scratched. He gasped as the splendor of heartstones rolled out. He read the note:

  “Here’s a string of heartstones. Price—98 lives.”

  MARCHMONT H. CORDEVANT III handed his wife the jewel-case with a weary, thankful sigh.

  “Well, here they are, dear. Your string of heartstones. Cost me ten million.” He added under his breath:

  “And a year of your damn nagging.”

  “Oh!”

  Mrs. Cordevant III didn’t express, somehow, the happiness she should. She opened the case and looked at the blazing beauty within casually. She went on: “I just heard this morning that Mrs. Tearwell’s heartstone suddenly burned out—those pulsations did. They don’t last. It’s just ordinary now, the stone, no better than diemeralds.”

  Cordevant’s mouth fell open, showed his surprise.

  “You mean,” he gasped, “you won’t wear the string?”

  “Don’t be silly. These will be the same dull stones, too, in a year. Mrs. Tearwell is so embarrassed. Let’s see—I’ll have them set on the dog’s collar. Why dear, don’t look so disappointed. If they had kept up their lustre . . . well, it was a cheap enough price—only ten million—”

  DOOM FROM THE VOID

  Fools!—they were called, because of their youth and their fantastic ideas—but Tom and Gerald knew that the strange malady killing off the friendly Martians was caused in some weird manner by a race of unknown creatures, from a world far into the deep void! But how to prevent a useless war between the worlds?

  “OF COURSE you can’t, Tom!” replied Gerald Banks as he sat in the shade of his sun tent.

  “But why not, Uncle?” pleaded the younger man passionately. “There’s no good reason why Joyce and I shouldn’t stay—both of us have proven well adapted to this Martian atmosphere. Neither of us has shown a sign of that lung sickness that certain types of Earth people develop on this planet.”

  Gerald Banks, agent of the Mars Mining Company, looked speculatively at the two stalwart, bronzed young men who stood before him.

  He had been pleased to see with what readiness they had taken to the discomforts of living on this planet of hot, blinding bright days and cool, wind-swept nights. He had taken them along because of their eager desire to visit another world: something denied to most citizens of Earth. Now, when he was ready to return, his strong-headed nephew and that individual’s bosom companion of like age and disposition, wanted to stay!

  “But think once, Tom,” continued the uncle, not yet resigned to the idea. “Think what your father will say! You barely won his consent to come here for these short five weeks. What will he say to me if I should return without you?”

  “What can he say?” cried Tom triumphantly with a smirk to his friend Joyce who stood silently at his side. “If he objects, tell him to send me a radiogram!”

  Tom laughed uproariously, joined by his crony, at the incongruous thought.

  “But seriously, uncle,” he continued. “Don’t you worry about that! Dad’s a good old sport. He’ll rant and fume when you first tell him and then he’ll throw up his hands and forget about it.

  There was a pause, banks looked around in indecision. Near by he saw the turmoil of the mining camp: sweating laborers—mostly Martians, huge cranes, scampering trucks loaded with ore, and the moving parts of various machinery. Then he bent undecided eyes on the two youngsters.

  Tom Banks was a fine specimen of manhood, tall and lithe. Strong chin and bold b
lue eyes spoke of determination and grit. He was not unhandsome, with finely chiseled nose, black eyebrows, and a crop of light hair offsetting his deep-brown skin. But there was more strength than amiability in his face and carriage.

  His close friend and confidant, Joyce Caldwell, was slighter of build, softer of features. Eyes dark and burning shone soft and friendly from below a mop of natural curls. He had not the grim line of Tom’s lips, nor the firmness of his chin. Geniality was his best virtue.

  “Tom,” said the uncle quietly at last. “You seem to forget you’re on a new world—one we know little about in spite of the fifty years that Earthmen have visited it. There are dangers here other than the lung sickness you mentioned—frequent meteorites that this planet attracts from the nearby asteroids, poisonous desert creatures, savage natives not so many miles away, the scorching effect of that never-clouded sun, the rigors of Martian winter . . .”

  “Hold on, uncle!” exclaimed Tom. “Don’t exaggerate just to argue the matter. I’ll admit all those things, but I can duplicate every one of them except the meteorites back on little old green Earth in the tropics. I’ve always meant to crash into the jungles on Earth, so Dad will know something on that order is unavoidable anyway, whether here or on Earth. Now, uncle, you wouldn’t . . .”

  “You should be back in the university in a few months,” cut in Banks, grasping at anything to uphold his position, especially as the younger man’s vigorous words were sweeping away all opposition. Brooks could hardly be blamed; he liked his strong young nephew immensely and could not under any circumstances be careless of his fate.

  “University!” Tom waved a deprecating hand. “This is a university in itself! That other book-thumbing can wait.”

  “How about Joyce?” threw in Banks in desperation. “Must I assume the burden of surrendering him to an unknown fate? His father is a good friend of mine. How could I ever face him without . . .”