The Collected Stories

by Earl

  Elda’s green eyes flashed.

  “Look at the moon,” she murmured. “I’ve often wanted to go to the moon.”

  Stuart was aghast. Was she mad? Was she thinking of blasting out into space, where no ship had ever gone—and come back?

  Her eyes were on him mockingly.

  “Would you be afraid?”

  “Yes.” He ground out the word savagely. “And so would you.”

  “Perhaps.” She shrugged daintily. Calmly she leveled off at fifteen miles, the plane’s normal ceiling, and thundered forward. The velocimeter crept to 800 miles an hour. Within the sealed, warmed cabin, they felt little of the prodigious pace. Outside, the scant air shrieked like a thousand demons.

  “Afraid?” she challenged again. “The Narticans tell me it isn’t safe past 750. Rocket tubes explode at times.”

  Stuart’s nerves crackled.

  “Fool stunt, flirting with death. You need—taming!”

  He spat out the last word.

  “Taming?” Again challenge in her slumbrous green eyes. “Does the man exist—”

  She was defiance, and flaming courage—and desire.

  Stuart leaned toward her. She did not draw away. Her lips were an invitation. . . .

  BUT he suddenly stiffened. His eyes went wide. Past her shoulder, through the cabin’s side port of clear quartz, he had seen a brilliant flash from a dark valley, fifteen miles below. A flash of new metal, in a Stone Age world.

  “Cut your speed and circle,” he commanded, explaining briefly.

  Fleetingly, he felt relief that the spell had been broken. He tried to read Elda’s reaction, but failed. Without a word, she obediently circled and dived down from the stratosphere.

  At a mile’s height, they both saw the flash again. Across the valley it came, from where two lines of men stretched—locked in battle!

  “Border war!” Stuart grunted. “And one side is using metal weapons. The edict of my father broken. I’ll have to stop them.”

  Elda saw his hesitant glance at her.

  “Stop them? Watch!”

  The plane dipped down sickeningly. At a hundred feet Elda leveled out and raced into one end of the valley. Straight for the line of battle she sped, parallel with it. Then, nearing the first of the fighters, she daringly glided down still more, barely fifty feet off the ground.

  Stuart’s throat was dry, his tongue stuck. He had told her once of their method of stopping sporadic border wars. But it took almost a miraculous balance between underjets and driving rockets to keep from crashing into the ground—and into a wall of human flesh.

  The plane skimmed over the heads of the battlers. The underjets threw blasts of furnace-heat at them. Behind the streaking ship, some of the horses stampeded. Men with scorched skins stumbled away. But the momentum of the battle carried on. In the fierce lust of fighting, the plane was disregarded.

  Elda clucked her teeth.

  Banking at the end of the valley, she repeated the maneuver, drenching the battle-ground with withering heat. Five more times the plane raced back and forth, like an angry hornet, till the savage lust of war below yielded. In disorderly retreat, both sides withdrew, leaving the slain and wounded. Over their shoulders they looked up at the stinging plane that had so effectively brought truce.

  Elda was laughing, when it was done.

  “Look at the rabble run! It’s so comical. In my time, war was war!”

  “No laughing matter,” Stuart muttered. “It shows a will to war. Land in the middle of the valley. I’ll speak to the commanders, forbid them to go on.”

  A body of horsemen rode up from the side, presently, to the landed plane. The commander who dismounted and strode up was a dark, wiry man, descendant of 20th century Hungarians whose racial stock still clung to these rich plains along the Danube.

  He bowed.

  “Lord Stuart. I am war-chief Czocky, of Garia. I am glad you are here. This war is not of our making. The Huuns attacked a few days ago, violating our borders. We could only fight back. I sent three runners to Gibraltar, to report, but none got through. Your coming is a miracle. Tell Chief Goro of the Huuns to stop his attacks.”

  Stuart nodded.

  CHIEF GORO rode up a moment later, at the head of a body of his horsemen. He was a giant of a man, with a red beard and ruddy skin, part of some Teutonic stock in that region. He and his men carried great iron swords, clumsy and crude, but giving them a decided advantage against their enemies’ wooden clubs and spears and stone-headed maces. The Stone Age, utilizing the magic of metal.

  Chief Goro dismounted and stood with straddled legs, point of his sword on the ground. Defiance radiated from him. Stuart drew himself up. Intimidation was fatal before a tribal chief.

  “You are the aggressor in this border war, Chief Goro,” he said sternly. “You have disobeyed Lord Stirnye’s edict against border-war and metal weapons both. You may remain chief only if you swear to instantly stop your campaign.”

  Chief Goro spat.

  “My campaign goes on!” he rumbled. “I do not fear Lord Stirnye. And I will have nothing to do with his World-State.”

  Stuart started. It was outright defiance, the first in twenty-five years. Other border-battles had started here and there, only to stop with one application of the blasting underjets of a plane or two.

  “A fleet of ships will come, and patrol your state,” Stuart threatened. “And you will be deposed as chief.”

  “They will get tired of patrolling. And they won’t find me!”

  Stuart argued no more.

  “Lord Stirnye will hear of this and—”

  Chief Goro roared out in harsh laughter suddenly.

  “Will he?”

  The atmosphere was instantly ugly. Stuart was suddenly aware that Chief Goro’s men were closing in. Outnumbered, the Garian soldiers could only fall back. No weapon had been used as yet.

  “Leave with your men, Czocky,” Chief Goro bellowed. “I’ll finish with you on the battle-field.”

  He turned to Stuart and Elda, now surrounded by his men.

  “You will be my hostage, Lord Stuart. And the girl—”

  His eyes were on her brazenly.

  Stuart stood stunned. Chief Goro was a maniac, but a cunning one. No atrocity would be beneath him. Then Stuart gasped, in greater surprise.

  Elda Tane had stepped forward. Her lissome body swayed and the full power of her eyes were on Chief Goro. Fascinated, he was watching her, caught in her spell. She smiled, as though attracted to this giant of a man who wanted her. She finally stood directly before him, as if about to throw herself into his arms.

  Instead, her arm came out and she slapped the bearded chief stingingly.

  “Beast!” she snapped. The smile had vanished from her face, replaced by livid fury.

  One hand went to the chief’s face, in amazed but not unpleased surprise.

  “The woman has spirit,” he chuckled. “I like that—”

  WITH a quickness and strength that took him by surprise again, Elda snatched the sword-handle from his other hand. It was a heavy sword. Yet she swung it up deftly, placing the point against his chest.

  “Move and you die!” Her voice was in deadly earnest.

  Only a second had passed. The chief’s men strained forward.

  Elda tossed her coppery head warningly.

  “Back! Or you will need a new chief.”

  Chief Goro himself signaled them back. Her blazing eyes spoke one word—death. He was pale now, trembling.

  “Tell your men to go,” Elda commanded.

  For emphasis, she pressed against the sword, nicking into the hide covering his chest. He gave the order, with the fear of death in his voice.

  When the troop had ridden a hundred yards off, Elda pulled back the sword. But only to raise it over the defenseless chief’s head, ominously.

  “Swine!” she hissed. “If you had dared touch me, my father, Lar Tane, would have burned down your villages, hunted down your people to the last chil
d. He would have caught you and cut out your eyes and heart.”

  The sword quivered above the quaking chief’s head. She was like a queen, imperious and cold, about to chop off the head of a disgraced subject. Stuart leaped to grab the sword away. But she lowered it of her own accord.

  “Go with your life, Redbeard,” she said contemptuously. “Go on with your little border-war, if you wish. Lord Stuart neglected to tell you something. My father, Lar Tane, is from the past, as is Lord Stirnye. He brought with him a mighty weapon. One that, can burn whole villages. Do you understand? Now go!”

  The cowed chief nodded soberly and loped off to his men.

  INSIDE the ship, safe behind metal walls, Elda’s green eyes glazed a trifle. For a moment she trembled in Stuart’s arms, weak, frightened, feminine. Stuart was more amazed at this than anything. But only for a moment. Then she drew away, face composed.

  “Well, that’s that,” she laughed.

  “What if he had moved, before?” Stuart felt he had to know. “Would you have—”

  “Killed him? Yes.” She shrugged.

  Stuart shuddered. Then he asked, “That weapon. Your father really has it?”

  She studied him for a moment.

  “Of course not. But I don’t think Chief Redbeard will call that bluff either.”

  Stuart shook his head.

  “You know, you shouldn’t have used such brutal threat—”

  There was sudden fury in her eyes. Fury directed at him.

  “Don’t you see how these people must be handled? Not gently—but with a heavy hand. It’s the only thing they understand. They’re Stone Age barbarians. They were ready to harm us. How can you handle a world of them except by threat—as your father does subtly? And the feudal Narticans before him, for hundreds of years. World-State democracy! A pitiful dream in your father’s mind!”

  Stuart thought of defending his father. But sharply in his mind was the picture of Chief Goro, eyes inflamed, ready to kill—or worse. There were hundreds of Chief Goros, throughout Earth, and the people who produced them. Could they understand anything but the sword, any more than Goro?

  Fury was replaced by mockery, in her voice.

  “Your father says—”

  Stuart flushed. She was prompting him, expecting him to say something trite. But there was another picture in his mind. Elda, like an outraged queen, sparing her subject’s life. She had been wonderful, glorious.

  “Elda!” His voice was low.

  She was in his arms, then. Her lips burned against his. He was dimly aware of her murmur, a moment later.

  “We’ll rule Earth together, you and I.”

  He drew away, looking at her. Then he turned and piloted the ship himself. The pace of the plane was not more headlong than the new drive in his heart and mind. He realized that for better or worse something had changed within him.

  Back in Vinna, Lar Tane laughed when he heard the story.

  “Well done, Elda.” He faced Stuart seriously. “In the light of an experience like that, is World-State democracy the answer? Chief Redbeard and all the other chiefs from Stone Age stupidity up will block the way. They must be lined up—by force!”

  “No, not yet,” Stuart groaned. “I want to think—think!”

  “But think for yourself,” Tane admonished. “Not as your father has thought for you, all your life. You are fit to rule, Stuart—rule a world empire. You and Elda. One that will grow great and strong and lasting.”

  He and Elda! Stuart thrilled to that, as his plane soared away. But not yet. He had made no decision. He must think carefully, he told himself, and continue plodding among the tribes.

  He did, for another month, preaching democracy with words that seemed to have lost all meaning.

  CHAPTER X

  Voice from the Past

  IN THE radio station at Gibraltar, Perry Knight and Aran Deen prepared to send voice signals across the Atlantic. Their staff of helpers were at the various dials. Electricity leaped and surged through coils and tubes.

  Perry stepped before the microphone, as the prearranged time arrived. His eyes glistened in scientific zeal. Like the telephones in use, the instrument was crude, undeveloped, but serviceable. It would hurl his voice across what was yet a Stone Age world and the wonder would not be less than if it were 5000 B.C. instead of 5000 A.D.

  “Hello, America!” he began, enunciating clearly. “Hello, America! Can you hear me, Dad? If you can, call back immediately.”

  For a moment there was only the crackle of static from the receiving horn. Perry fidgeted.

  Had his voice been lost somewhere, over the ocean, too weak to reach its goal? The dotrand-dash signals had been comparatively easy to achieve. Voice was another matter, taking more power, more delicacy of attunement.

  Would there have to be weeks and months more of laboring, improving, experimentation? The simpler things of the 20th century had been resurrected only by heartbreaking toil. Was transatlantic radio—projection of actual voice—a little beyond their present powers?

  Perry had gone through the same breathless suspense many times, awaiting the debut of a new-old invention. He remembered now how tricky the telegraph had been to produce, before they had joyfully tapped out the message—“What hath God wrought!”—for the second time in history.

  Perry started violently as a voice sounded behind the static. It was a weird, howling voice, but understandable.

  “Hello, Europe! Hello, Europe! I heard you clearly, Perry. Am I coming over?”

  “Yes, Dad! And congratulations! What a great thing you’ve given the world again, with your 20th century knowledge!”

  “How about your tantalum-grid tube?” came Knight’s voice quickly. “It gave us the high-power range we needed. I didn’t get that from my memory, or the crypt-records. I’m proud of you, Perry!”

  At the side, old Aran Deen grinned, half indignantly.

  “What about me? History will credit all three of us, in this revival of science.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Perry returned.

  And then, because the moment was so unique, he went on with a rush of enthusiasm.

  “Transatlantic speech, by radio! Instant linkage of thought across Earth’s face. I’m going to build many more stations, everywhere. Human thought will be unified, in the new World-State. It didn’t work that way in your time, dad, because radio came after scientific war. Now it comes before. There isn’t a gun on Earth, and already we have the means of yelling friendly greetings from continent to continent. This age won’t follow Greece and Rome and your time to self-inflicted oblivion!”

  Aran Deen listened with something of wonder.

  Almost, this keen-minded son of Stirnye knew more of past history than Stirnye or Aran Deen! Even as a boy he had buried his nose in all the preserved books of the crypt, and the libraries of Nartica. And he had plagued his father ceaselessly with questions about his 20th century. He had turned to science quite naturally, later. He was the first of a race of scientists springing forth from the Second Stone Age.

  Aran Deen always thought in sweeps of history. And history was studded with little moments like this.

  And moments like the one that followed.

  PERRY turned away from the microphone, to look directly into the eyes of Elda Tane. He was startled. He hadn’t heard her plane arrive, in the crackling of electrical apparatus.

  She stood in the doorway, a vision of beauty. Beauty that would stir the hearts of most men. Light rippled from her copper-gold hair as though it were blown by a stealthy breeze. Her green eyes sparkled enigmatically.

  “A pretty little speech,” she said, gliding forward. Her red lips pouted a little. “You didn’t visit us, so I’ve come to visit you. Is your science work so vital?”

  “I believe it is,” Perry said simply. He added, lamely, “I’ve always sent my respects with Stuart.”

  The girl laughed.

  “Don’t you ever relax? World-building must be tedious at times.”

&nb
sp; “Never. It’s my life work. I believe in it.”

  She sobered suddenly, peering into his grey eyes.

  “You really do, don’t you?” Her tone became musing. “I wonder what you would have been in my world, where all science had reached a peak. Striven for higher peaks, I suppose.”

  Perry laughed this time.

  “No. I would have been a revolutionist—against dictatorship. Your century was at a blind alley.”

  Elda stiffened, emerald eyes snapping as though at a personal affront.

  “We had a World-State—”

  “For five short years. It was tyranny. It cracked apart. Like Rome, it went under into a Dark Age. It was built on sand.”

  The girl bit her lip.

  “You and Stuart are building on rock, of course!”

  “The rock of democracy,” Perry nodded, without self-consciousness.

  “Rocks split at times—” At Perry’s stare, she tossed her coppery locks, on which the light glinted metallically. “For a scientific mind, you’re quite a philosopher. But still, behind it all, you must be human.”

  Perry suddenly lost his tongue, at the note of mockery in her voice. Human, yes, or he wouldn’t be admiring her. She was ivory and gold, and intangible charm, woven into sheer perfection along with the twin emeralds of her eyes. More, behind the outer things were fire, courage, daring—and intelligence.

  Perry started. Intelligence! Why had she come here? Hardly as a woman. She was deeper than that. Those questions—had she been testing him, sounding him out? But why?

  Perry’s analytical thoughts went that far before a drone sounded from the sky.

  The plane landed, and Stuart strode in.

  He glanced hesitantly at Elda, but without surprise. His direction had been north, from Lar Tane. She had preceded him. Then, with a bare word of greeting to Perry, he asked for radio contact with America.

  Even the chance to use words instead of code failed to surprise him. After a greeting to the elder Knight in New York, Stuart spoke swiftly.