The Collected Stories

by Earl

  HE sighed again. “You do not know, yet, Professor Hall, how slowly time drags itself by, like a lame snail, when you have nothing to do but think. No doubt it seems a wonderful thing to you at present. You are free, unoppressed, unhandicapped by the body, or by hidebound traditions. You will ponder the future of science. You will have great delight for a while observing man’s civilization from this omniscient viewpoint. But when the months grow into years, an appalling boredom sets in. You feel so apart from it all.

  “You will come to wish again for your body—to yearn for the base senses of feeling, taste, smell—for the patter of rain on your skin, the caress of a woman, the natural tiredness after a day’s hard labor. All those things are denied us in this interlude. All one can do here is see civilization laid open like a book, and realize the futility of it all. One sees too much of the cycle of things, the despair, misery, cruelty, the—”

  Hall interrupted the almost frenzied speech of the other scientist. Secretly he pitied this man whose true Russian temperament saw only the futility of things.

  “I must find Dr. Kard,” Hall said. “As I’ve explained, he is an irresponsible character. I’ll have to go to San Quentin and find out just what he has in mind. Coming along, Dr. Rumanov?”

  The Russian accompanied him and the two globes wafted through the stratosphere at the rate of a thousand miles an hour.

  “These criminals,” asked Hall thoughtfully on the way, “are they organized? Are they the mythical ‘brain’ of organized crime in America?”

  “Partially,” acceded Rumanov. “Though not to a great extent. I have given the matter a good deal of attention. These few thousand criminal minds in our sphere of life are not the brainy type at all. Remember that your court processes seldom reach the true ringleaders in crime. The electric-chair has eliminated from earthly life only the actual doers of crime, the ones who pull triggers from orders higher up. Thus most of your criminals here are unintelligent. The mind, as we know, is not improved or changed by transition to this sphere. They are not organized, except that they band together in groups according to the penitentiaries they come from. They spend most of their time quarreling among themselves over nothing at all, and talking over their former criminal exploits. I’ve listened to many of them, without their knowledge of my presence. They are not intelligent enough to be a serious menace.”

  “But this San Quentin thing—”

  “It is true,” explained the Russian, “that they quite often are involved in the spectacular crimes. They have found out that they can establish partial telepathic intercourse with living criminals. Through them they have instigated, or at least furthered, many jailbreaks, bank robberies, kidnappings, etc. With their powers of seeing and hearing almost anything they wish, they are able to forestall the police and confound the authorities in general.”

  “Do they know of their power of death over living persons?” asked Professor Hall, suddenly thinking of Kard and his former exploits.

  “They do not have such power,” returned Rumanov. “At least, not in their present state. They are not potentials of millions of volts, such as you and I are. They were blasted into being by merely thousands of volts. Just as humans vary from strong to weak, so are we to them. They are smaller globes with far less surface-electrons. They know vaguely that lightning storms give them strength, but have never followed through the reasoning.”

  “Fortunately,” commented Hall. He thought deeply for a moment. “But if they ever were organized, and strengthened—”

  “You do not trust your Dr. Kard in the least?” asked the Russian.

  “Not any further than I can move the world!” returned Hall worriedly.

  FINALLY the two globes slowed their speed and descended toward the ground at the proper point and were soon hovering over the wails of San Quentin penitentiary. Armed guards patrolled the tops of the walls. Within the prison-yard several hundred hard-faced men in striped denim lock-stepped about the enclosure in compulsory drill.

  “Where will we find the Sing-Sing graduates?” asked Hall.

  “We will have to search the entire place for them,” returned the Russian, descending toward the first of the prison buildings.

  For the next hour, they wafted themselves down every corridor and peered in every cell, but there was no sign of the dozen electronic-globes they sought.

  “They are not here at all,” said Rumanov finally. “They must have changed their minds.”

  “Either that,” murmured Hall, “or Dr. Kard—”

  He said no more but rose high in the air and broadcast a powerful telepathic call for his former colleague. No answer came. After he had expended many surface-electrons in this useless quest, Hall gave it up. “Well,” he said, shrugging mentally, “I won’t worry about it. I’ve told Kard that if he once more tries murderous exploits on Earth, I’ll destroy him through will-power, which is something he almost lacks. I don’t think he’ll dare try anything, knowing that.”

  “I agree with you,” said Rumanov. “It is nothing to worry about. He will soon tire of the company of the Sing-Sing men and seek you again. He will find it very lonely by himself.”

  Again the Russian’s mental radiations became tinged with the inherent sadness of his race. In the next three days that they were together, feeling a close kinship because of their common ground of science, they hovered where they were and had long conversations together. Ever and again, when the topic turned to philosophic channels, the Russian would work himself into an apathetic state of depression. Finally the professor turned on him in a small fury.

  “Rumanov, you’ll have to perk up!” snapped Hall. “You’ve been wandering around like a sick calf for four years while you’ve been in this life, moaning of the futility of everything, without trying to do a thing about it. Evolution, striving, is the answer to futility! Life aims toward the goal of ultimate perfection, ultimate knowledge. Till that goal is reached—and it will take a long, long time—there is no futility. When that goal is reached, there will be time enough to talk of futility.

  “Mainly, your mental state is from the boredom of idleness. There are many things to do in this life. You haven’t even had the initiative to go to the moon, or to other planets. There may be other intelligences in the solar system, to study and contact. Right here on Earth it will be possible for us to further scientific progress. I’m not going to just drift around for the following years like a wailing ghost. I’m going to do things!”

  There was silence for a moment, but when the Russian spoke, there was a peculiar uplift in his psychic-voice.

  “I have been mentally ill,” he confessed. “Professor Hall, let me thank you for giving me a new philosophy. Hereafter there will be no talk of futility. You and I together will do things!”

  “Good!” retorted Hall in friendly tones. “Our first move will be to establish contact with the living world in one way or another.” His voice suddenly became worried again. “There’s just one rub at present. If I only knew what Dr. Kard—”

  IT was the next day, while they were eagerly discussing plans for contacting the living world, that Professor Flail knew they would have to postpone that event. They had descended to Earth because of Hall’s premonition that something was wrong. Again, headline streamers across the newspapers made him gasp and shudder, and turn hot with mental anger.

  “MAIL TRAIN WRECKED,

  ROBBED BY MASKED BANDITS!”

  Certain items immediately pointed to Kard. The engineer’s and fireman’s bodies, recovered from the wreck, were black from electrocution, much to the wonder of the officials. The train had left the tracks, failing to slow down for a dangerous curve. A gang of a dozen masked men had emerged from a nearby forest right after the wreck, obviously aware that it was to occur at that lonely spot miles from any large city. The bandits had rifled the mail coach. Losses were estimated at a million dollars in registered mail and some fifteen lives of passengers.

  “Dr. Kard!” moaned Professor Hall.
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  “Has this Dr. Kard,” gasped Dr. Rumanov, “no regard for human life?”

  “He was born without a conscience! In its place is only a ruthless greed for power.” Hall’s voice became a mental hiss. “I must find him. This time he will die!”

  Under Hall’s leadership, the two globes rose in the air. The professor had no clear idea how he would locate his enemy, except to broadcast a powerful, long-range telepathic call, but before he began, a call beat into his mind. It was Kard himself!

  “Professor Hall!” the distant telepathic voice said. “No doubt you have by now heard or read of the train-wreck, and are looking for me. I am hovering over Boulder Dam, near which the wreck happened. There has to be a show-down between us, so I’ll expect you within the hour. “Are you coming?”

  “Kard, prepare yourself for death!” answered Hall grimly. “Come on, Rumanov.”

  “One moment,” insisted the Russian. “Before we go, shouldn’t we increase our stock of surface-electrons? You told me of your last bout, in which your enemy had tremendous advantage of you at first. It would do no harm this time to be prepared for him.”

  Though insanely Impatient to be off, Hall realized the wisdom of this, “Where can we find a lightning storm?” he asked hurriedly.

  “No need of that,” replied the Russian. “There is a much simpler way. Come.”

  Dr. Rumanov’s globe-shape led the way westward till the skies became thick with threatening clouds. Then he rose into the midst of them, closely followed by Hall.

  “Simply roll yourself around the edges of the cloud masses,” instructed the Russian. “That is where the electrons accumulate.”

  Professor Hall obeyed, and quickly felt the tide of new strength flowing into him. Like shepherds of the sky, they gathered electrons from the woolly clouds, thereby postponing an electrical storm for the regions below.

  “Enough!” said Hall presently.

  They rose high in the stratosphere, twenty miles above earth, and shot westward at a pace so great that for them the noon-day sun streaked back toward the eastern horizon. Soon the ramparts of Boulder Dam appeared below and they descended like striking eagles.

  Kard answered when Hall sent out a call, and met him five miles in the air. His globe-shape was swollen to a diameter of five feet, showing he had gathered a tremendous quantity of surface-electrons. Hall tensed for an instantaneous spin to counteract a bolt from Kard, if he should try that, and warned Rumanov.

  Kard was not alone. With him were fully a hundred globe-shapes, all at least half as large as he was. They gathered back of Kard in a formless mass, silently, ominously.

  “We meet again,” began Kard grimly, “for a struggle to the finish. This time—” He cut off a note of exultation. “Meet the boys,” he began anew. “A hundred men who acknowledge me their leader!”

  “Gathered for what hellish purpose?” inquired Hall, curious even in his cold, deadly rage.

  “Perhaps my plans will interest you,” retorted Kard, “before you die. You recall, I left you to accompany Limpy and his, Sing-Sing gang some days ago. They were going to play the silly game of jailbreaking, but I convinced them they were wasting time and opportunity. Through them, I contacted other gangs and gathered these hundred, I laid certain plans before them. They were skeptical, but I think not any longer, since this recent mail-coup.

  “It was simple a—mere matter of planning. We contacted a gang on Earth and promised to wreck the train at a certain spot for them—and did. Both the gang on Earth, and my men here, look up to me now as the man—or the brain—they need to accomplish great things. Don’t you, boys?”

  A mixed telepathic chorus of cheers came from the hundred globes to the rear.

  “And what does all this lead to?” asked Hall in mingled rage and disgust.

  “To my original aim—rule of Earth!” retorted Kard blandly. “I don’t care how I achieve it. That is my self-appointed destiny. There are over two thousand more like these followers of mine, here in this superlife. I will soon organize them all under my leadership. I will teach them the powers they do not even know they have. I have already shown them how to add surface-electrons—we depleted the Boulder Dam power supply for a day. We will contact the underworld on Earth, organize them under our banner!”

  Kard’s psychic-voice had risen to an exalted pitch, with almost insane determination in it—yet Hall knew he wasn’t insane. He was simply a cold, ruthless intelligence divorced of all ordinary human emotion, yet no more cruel in his desire for power than such mortals as Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon had been. But he had more power than they, and Hall shuddered within himself.

  “I’m here to stop you,” said the professor in deadly earnest.

  “If you can!” defied Kard.

  “Yeah! If he can!” came an ominous chorus from the rear.

  Limpy’s voice came clearly from out of the melee. “Perfesser, you ain’t a bad guy in some ways, but I think you’re a dead turkey now!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  WORLD DANGER

  BUT the professor heard nothing of these warnings. His anger had grown to fever pitch while he had listened to Kard’s diabolical plans to plunder a world. Without a further word, he lashed out with the strange, subtle force whose core was purely will. The globe of Kard reeled a little, then whipped back with a similar force.

  The two globes locked in this weird struggle, both disintegrating surface-electrons furiously to feed the will-energy. As before, Kard weakened before the more powerful onslaught of Hall.

  “Die!” commanded the latter, with a force of will that would have blasted life from a dozen living men.

  AH this had happened in split seconds. Then Kurd’s voice screamed out: “Help me! Let him have it, boys!”

  Hall suddenly felt as though a giant hand had grasped his brain and were squeezing it. He realized immediately what it was. Kard had taught the criminal gang behind him how to exert their wills, and though individually they were weak, as a group they were inconceivably powerful. The combined will-power of a hundred electronic-minds was beating at the professor, tearing at his mind, beating him back—

  “Dr. Rumanov!” cried Hall.

  The Russian had already projected his powerful will into the area, but it made little impression on the tidal wave of will-energy pouring from the enemy. It could not last much longer. In another moment, the two defending scientists would be shattered in a soundless explosion of aimless electrons. They would be dead!

  “Hall!” gasped the Russian. “We must flee!”

  His globe broke away and shot itself upward. Hall followed, and the two globes raced blindly away, to escape the doom so nearly upon them.

  But the grim, mocking voice of Kard sounded just back of them: “You won’t get away!”

  It was the reverse of Hall’s pursuit of Kard the last time, but behind Kard were his hundred henchmen, like a ravening pack of wolves. The two flying globes could not do anything but pursue a straight-line course and trust to speed. If they tried any aerial tricks of turning, the huge pack behind would quickly cut them off.

  They blocked in all directions save straight ahead.

  The end seemed inevitable. Eventually the two fleeing scientists would run out of surface-electrons with which to propel themselves. Kard and his followers, more richly supplied, would then surround them and perform the final act of ripping them to shreds.

  Hall groaned to himself, not at his impending death, but at the thought of earth’s fate in Kard’s hands. Then, when least expected, salvation came.

  OTHER globe-shapes suddenly loomed ahead, hundreds of them. Dr. Rumanov instantly saw their opportunity.

  “Slow down!” he gasped to Hall “Mingle with these globes. They won’t be able to tell one from another.”

  Both globes braked their precipitous course and allowed themselves to drift among the thickest group of globes. Questions and exclamations were hurled back and forth among these globes, for they had seen the two approach at breakneck
speed, but the two hiding scientists kept silent. The horde of pursuers dashed up an instant later, also slowing their great pace, and the two groups became a melee of confusion. Kard’s voice bellowed out finally, asking the newcomers where the two glebes of the scientists were. A confused babble was his answer. Kard and his hundred globes flung themselves this way and that, searching. But it was useless, for all globes looked alike.

  At last the two scientists heard Kard’s voice, almost at their side, snarling in baffled rage, ordering his men together. After a moment, the criminal group separated itself from the others.

  Kard’s broadcast voice sounded. “You’ve escaped for the moment, Hall, but you will eventually have to face me!” Then the criminal group left.

  “That’s that!” said Hall with relief. “Who are these people, Rumanov?”

  “A group of those whose mortal existence was ended by lightning,” replied the Russian. “I have met such groups before. They band together for companionship.”

  “My brother!” gasped a voice just beside them.

  “What?” asked Hall, eyeing the globe which had just spoken.

  “That was my brother!” went on the stranger. “I’m Leon Kard. My brother came to visit me while I was alive on earth, and electrocuted me in anger. I hardly knew what it was all about, this strange life, till I met this group. Since then my one thought has been revenge! I’ve been waiting to meet him for weeks. That was his voice! I’m going after him, now—”

  “Wait!” commanded Hall. “You couldn’t accomplish anything alone. He can be destroyed, but only by a group. He and his criminal horde must be eradicated, or Earth will know a shambles bloodier and more horrible than any yet in history!”

  Professor Hall raised the power of his psychic-voice and addressed the entire group. For an hour he talked, giving them the full story. The group of two hundred readily accepted his leadership and the task imposed on them, glad to have some purpose after years of aimless, ghost-like wandering and inactivity.