The Collected Stories

by Earl

  Dan did his walking in huge leaps that propelled him fifty feet at a step with slight effort, due to the extremely feeble gravity of the tiny body. What did he weigh here? Probably no more than an ounce or two.

  “Nothing much to report, Colonel. It’s a dead, airless pipsqueak planetoid, just a big mile-thick rock, probably. No life, no vegetation, no people, no nothing. Guess you might call me the Man in the Second Moon—and the joke’s on me! Well, one and three-quarter hours of oxygen left, by the gauge, or 105 minutes—sounds like more that way . . . What’s that, sir? Your voice is getting faint. Any last requests from me? Well, one favor maybe. Pick up my body some day with another rocket . . . Yeah, it-it stay preserved up here in this deep-freeze of space . . . Thanks, sir . . . Can’t hear you much now. Going out of range. Give Betty my fondest. You know, the blonde . . . Well, sir—goodbye now.”

  Dan was glad that Rough Rock’s radio voice faded to a whispery nothingness. It wasn’t easy to stay casual now. There was nothing more to say, really, and he didn’t want to hear any more crying from the CO. The Old Man has sounded almost hysterical. He wanted just to be alone with his thoughts now, making his final peace with the universe . . .

  He checked the gauge with his watch—ninety minutes of oxygen to zero. Or, he thought with a grin, eternity minus ninety minutes.

  He was beginning to have trouble breathing. But it was awesomely grand, watching, the sweep of Earth beneath him, the procession of dots that were islands strung across the Pacific South Seas like a necklace of green beads. He was still within radio range of ships below at sea. Yet he didn’t contact them. He had nothing to say, like a ghost in the sky.

  Idly, he kept pitching loose stones, watching their rifle-like speed away from him. Again a phenomenon of the weak gravity of the moonlet. Actually, he was able to pick up a boulder ten feet across and heave it away with ease. We who are about to die amuse ourselves, he thought. Then, because a thread of stubborn hope still clung in a comer of his mind, he got an idea. It had lurked just beyond his mental grasp for some time now. Something significant . . .

  Abruptly, face alight, Dan switched on his radio and contacted a ship below, asking them to relay him to Rough Rock with their more powerful transmitter.

  “Ahoy, Rough Rock! Stop adding up my insurance, Colonel! I’m coming back . . . No, sir, I haven’t gone out of my head, sir. It’s so simple it’s a laugh, sir . . . See you in a few hours, sir!”

  And he did.

  Dan grinned when they hauled his dripping form from the sea. Aboard the search plane they cut him out of the space suit to which was still attached his emergency twin parachute. But his helmet was gone, ripped loose, for Dan had been breathing fresh Earth air during the long parachute descent.

  They stared at him as at a dead man come alive.

  “Impossible to escape?” He chuckled, repeating their babble. “That’s what I thought too, until I remembered those data tables on gravity and Escape Velocity and such—how, on the Moon, the Escape Velocity is much less than on Earth. And on that tiny second moon—well, my clue was when I threw a stone into the air and it never came back”

  Dan gulped hot coffee.

  “I got off the moonlet myself then, got up to more than a mile above it where I was free of its feeble gravity. But I was still in the same orbit circling Earth. I’d have continued revolving as a human satellite forever, of course, but for this emergency gadget hooked to my belt.”

  Dan held up the metal gun with its empty tank and needle-nose half burned away.

  “Reaction pistol. Fires hydrazine and oxydizer, ordinary jet-rocket principle. Aiming it toward the stars, opposite earth, its reactive blasts shoved me Earthward, thanks to Newton. I needed a speed of about one-half mile a second. The powerful little jet gun had only my small mass to shove in free space, without gravity or friction. That broke me from free-fall around Earth to gravity-fall toward Earth.

  “Then I spiraled down under gravity pull. I reached lung-filling air density just in time, before my oxygen gave out. One more danger was that I began heating up like a meteor due to air friction. I flung out a prayer first, followed by my twin parachutes, designed for extreme initial shock. They held. Slowed me to a paratrooper’s drift the rest of the way down.”

  “Wait,” a puzzled pilot objected. “Your story doesn’t hang together. How did you get off that moonlet? How did you get up there, a mile above it, away from its gravity? There was nobody to throw you, like a stone.”

  “I threw myself,” said Dan. “First I ran as fast as I could, maybe halfway around that moonlet, to get a good running start. And then—”

  Dan Barstow’s grin then was undoubtedly the biggest grin in history . . .

  “Well, then, since the feeble gravity couldn’t pull me back again, what I really did was to jump clear off that moon!”

  TESTING, TESTING

  The Major had two problems—shielding for cosmic radiations and Dr. Alice Wright. He counted on the Martian helping solve the first problem, so that he could concentrate on dealing with the second one

  “NO, I won’t marry you,” Alice Wright answered. “And yes, the mice show certain signs of radiation burn. Probably cosmic rays. We’ll see if they survive, in a few days.”

  Major John Mack sucked in his lips, sighing. “So many problems. D’you think we’ll ever get a ship to the moon, Alice? If cosmic rays already start whooping it up at a mere 350 miles, what about open space? Clear of all shielding atmosphere? Could any human pilot survive? And what’s wrong with me for a husband, Alice?”

  Dr. Alice Wright shrugged. “We are trying our best to add up all the answers here at the Space Medicine Labs. But there’s a cheering note. Look at Bebop, quite chipper and happy. Maybe primate life is sturdier against cosmic rays out there, which makes for more hope for his cousins.”

  She smiled and lifted the chattering monkey on her shoulder. He, as well as the mice, had successfully survived the five g’s takeoff acceleration, weightless floating at 350 miles, and the final parachuting crash to Earth again.

  “Bebop, you rascal,” the girl chuckled. “Little do you know you just went higher above Earth than any living creature in history. Take a bow!”

  The monk instead took a banana from the bowl nearby, munching with simian unconcern.

  John Mack stared at the girl, gloomily. “Inch by inch almost, we fight our way up. Gets harder all the time. And more dangerous. But you didn’t answer my question, Alice. I’m tall, dark and handsome, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. I’m not too old. I’m gay by nature with a passably sweet disposition, even when some fumblefoot sergeant fouls things up. I wouldn’t beat you more often than necessary.” He had the proper light smile fixed on his face now, and went on smoothly. “You mean if Bebop survived this trip without cosmic burn, a man has the same chance.”

  “Two plus two,” nodded Alice. “We’ll get a ship to the moon. Inch by inch. Step by step. We’ll say Boo to the Big Dark yet. But what do you see in me, John? A prim female scientist wearing hornrimmed goggles? Freckles, wide mouth, size eight shoe, I’m tall enough to walk with a slight stoop. You can’t add that up to beauty, not even prettiness. And you are handsome, Major dear. The misfits. Yes, we’ll get across the Big Dark, don’t you worry.”

  Mack lit a cigarette, jerkily. “Alice, please! I’m dead serious.”

  “So am I, John. I think we’ll reach the moon.”

  Mack stamped on his cigarette. “Alice! You know what I mean. Don’t be a sadist. Trouble is, you’re a trained psychologist, among your other scientific specialties. You’ve analyzed me. What’s wrong with me, Alice? What do you find lacking in me—”

  “Ah, ah,” she smiled back, admonishingly. “Let’s keep it light, John. A game. Fun.”

  “Great fun,” agreed Mack bitterly. “Uproarious. For a year now. No, no, a thousand times no. For a year, twelve months, fifty-two weeks, 365 days plus or minus since we met here. And you keep saying no; Why?” He glared. “I’ve got the right t
o know, Alice—why?”

  She fed a mouse, not facing him. “Sunspots, John. That’ll do as well as anything. Sunspots make me obstinate. Squeaky here isn’t doing well. He’s not long for this world. Still, I think we’ll cross space someday. Tell me, John”—she was suddenly curious—“if a ship were ready now to try for the Moon, would you go if appointed?”

  “On order, yes,” Mack said, forcing his mind to the question, answering honestly. “Volunteer, no. I’m not the hero type.”

  “I admire your frankness,” said Alice.

  John Mack was lighting another cigarette, but held the flame an inch away, forgetting. So that was it. She admired his frankness, but not his lack of courage. So that was it. He might have guessed. Female Einstein or not, it came down to plain fundamentals. The female wanting her mate to be strong and brave. Unflinching at danger. What did she see him as? An effete dandy, lion of the dress dummies at the Officer’s Club? An impeccable, groomed, washed, slick-haired, highly civilized coward?

  The acid thoughts turned Mack’s voice into a drip of acid. “And you, darling? Anything for dear old Science? You of course would ride the first rocket to the Moon. You’d accept.”

  “Wouldn’t get the chance,” she returned, glancing at him a bit sharply. “Because first of all I’m a woman. That would be no go on a trial flight, requiring male stamina. And second, because of course—”

  The phone rang and the major picked it up. The voice was excited. “Guard post Red Rock reporting, sir. Something’s coming down on radar, sir.”

  “Well what, man?” snapped Mack.

  A pause, then—“A . . . a sort of flying saucer, sir.”

  “Nonsense.” That was the word that first spilled from Mack’s lips, automatically, followed by a stern lecture on ignoring mirages, avoiding heat stroke, and keeping strictly away from alcohol. To which a period was put by a heavy THUMP through the phone.

  “It . . . it just landed, sir. A flying saucer, real as life. We all see it. Six of us. Wh-what shall we do, sir?”

  “Nothing,” said Major Mack. “Wait till I get there.”

  He slammed down the phone and slammed the door behind him, making the seat of his jeep in one leap. The door opened and Alice Wright peered out, puzzled.

  “Oh, forgot to tell you,” said Mack. “They reported—but it’s ridiculous. Hop in, Alice. We’ll settle this right now.”

  He told her as he drove madly past the labs and barracks and out the gates, along a straight road into desert land.

  “Well, say something, Alice.”

  “What can you say, John, until you get there and see it yourself? Or find six men suffering from mass delusion, or kicking a case of empty beer bottles around.” Within the hour they skidded past Red Rock, looming hugely. Beyond lay the guard post, marking off-limits of the proving grounds. Beyond lay the flying saucer.

  It wasn’t a flying saucer, except by idiom. Anything mysterious from the sky these days was a flying saucer. It was a round globe, perfectly spherical, solid metal with no windows and only one door hatch, still closed.

  Mack and Alice jumped out even before the jeep came to a halt. Mack had forgotten to take it out of gear so it kept going, winding erratically out over the hot sands, to be lost forever. Nobody noticed.

  The six post guardsmen stood a wary hundred yards off, with machineguns and a small mortar already in place, plus rifles at the ready with bayonets affixed. They sighed in visible relief as the major took over all responsibility.

  Mack asked for full details. They had first spotted it by radar, at 100,000 feet, coming down fast. Almost at meteric speed. They expected it to crash like a meteor. But it had, amazingly, slowed down, with pulsing flashes of greenish light thrusting rhythmically ahead of it.

  “Some form of photon or radiation jets,” interpolated Alice Wright, wiping her glasses in pretended calm. “Way beyond our liquid fuels. Probably a refinement of atomic fission, using direct energy. Maybe. I’m only making silly guesses.”

  The soldiers reported it had still landed with a fearful crash. The globe was cracked at the bottom, they could see. Obviously a bad landing. The crew within—whatever the “crew” was—must have been badly shaken, most probably injured or killed.

  “Russia?” said Mack, guardedly.

  “Possible,” said Alice. “But more likely non-terrestrial. It just . . . well, looks that way to me.”

  They glanced at each other. Wordless. The first visitor of space? Would this mark off the year 1954 apart from all other years?

  “Let’s find out,” said Alice, “by opening it. Or would you rather call reinforcements first, Major Mack? It’s in the best tradition to play safe and expect an enemy.”

  There might have been faint irony in her voice. It was so plain now to Mack, her contempt for missing manhood. Bristling, Mack turned. “Sergeant, alert the general at headquarters. Just tell him briefly what landed, and that I’m going to open the damned thing. Tell him it’s an emergency, in that the crew may be seriously injured, so it can’t wait for him or anybody.”

  Mack glanced at the girl, wondering if he had carried it off properly, in her eyes. He couldn’t tell. Her eyes flickered as if in approval, but it might be the sun glinting across her squinted eyes. Maybe it was hopeless trying to impress her, if she had already pigeon-holed him, psychiatrically, under S for spineless.

  Posting his men in a wide circle, the major approached the globe with a firm step, shoulders back. Was she watching his shoulders? Then he noticed he had two shadows, one with curves.

  He stopped. “Now look, Alice. You’re a—”

  “Scientist,” she said.

  “It’s my job, anyway,” Mack protested, scrabbling for the right words, for her. “No need to risk two lives.”

  “Very noble and brave, I’m sure,” she said, and Mack felt miserable, his pose so easily X-rayed through and through by her sharp mind. Damn the woman and her goddam insufferable IQ.

  “Noble schmoble,” he tried once more, really concerned over her safety. “It’s just plain common sense. Please go back, Alice.”

  “I’ve got a curiosity bump this big. Coming, Major?”

  He had to hurry to catch up with her. Did she have to keep putting him behind the eight-ball, over and over? Together they came close.

  Heat radiated from the sphere, from its meteor-hot plunge through the atmosphere. But it was not much more than desert heat now. There was an obvious turnscrew handle for the door, which Mack seized and spun. The door opened easily, as some hidden leverage aided Mack’s pull. A gust of air rushed inward.

  “Lower pressure air inside,” said Alice. “Could be from Mars, for instance.”

  Mars.

  Mack heard the word in faint shock. He hadn’t quite gotten to putting it in concrete thought before, that this might very possibly be a ship from another world.

  Mars. And Martians. You had to let your brain skirt around the thought a moment before letting it jump in with both feet.

  There was only silence inside. “Dead? Shall we go in and see?” Alice politely made it a question, but was already stooping as if to enter, catching Mack flat-footed. Almost roughly, biting his lips, Mack jerked her arm and shot in ahead of her. Did she think he was afraid of meeting the Martians? He was, of course, but did she have to act as if he alone, out of millions of other men, was normally human in that fear? What was her ideal—a robot?

  It was lightless inside, as though the original lighting system had gone out. Only what sunlight filtered in the open hatch stabbed through the gloom. They saw self-luminous dials first, then bulky shadows, and then the debris.

  It lay all over, a shattered mass of junk. Whatever fittings the interior had been supplied with had wrenched loose and banged together like a head-on train wreck, in the crash to Earth. Among the debris was organic debris. They were suddenly sick at the smell of blood, or a close approach to it.

  Indeterminate blobs of pulpy flesh lay all over. The grinding millstones of smashing m
aterial had of course killed them all. Not only killed them but hacked and butchered them to bits.

  “Flashlight,” yelled Mack out the door, only thinking of it now. He fretted in vast impatience until it was handed to him by the running sergeant. Returning, Mack swung the beam around where the girl stood. They could stomach it now, the bloody mess.

  “Too bad,” said Mack in genuine sorrow. “Martyrs to this flight, I guess. Any idea what kind of . . . of creatures they were, Alice?”

  She was already kneeling, prodding flesh. “Seem to have been heavily furred, for one thing. Only natural, on cold Mars. A leg. An arm. Four fingers to the hand. Well, nothing tentacular or monstrous, Ed say. Seemingly mammalian. A head here—John, the light . . . look, will you?”

  “A human head?” Mack said, really shocked.

  “Not quite that,” Alice denied. “IT have to have a closer look.” She reached a hand for it, drew back, swallowing.

  Mack heard the knock of opportunity, and grabbed up the grisly decapitated object. For a ghastly moment he thought he was through, but he managed to steel himself against retching, right in front of her eyes.

  Triumphantly, grinning, he swung it before her eyes. “Okay, take a good look, Alice.”.

  She retched, miserably. Mack felt as if he had conquered Mount Everest, reaching the top after bitter months of struggle.

  She turned back in a moment, composed. “Little boy holds nasty old snake before little girl,” she said, in a gently reproving tone, and Mack tumbled down from the top of Mount Everest to the bottom of a black pit, out of which he knew he could never climb again. Hopeless. He was licked.

  Now he saw his true image, in her goddamned analytical mind. A little boy trying to play man. Arrested development. Immaturity. And she was not the type to want to mother the man she married.

  Mack stayed in the black pit, not trying anymore. Somehow, it was possible to fall out of love, wasn’t it? Well, back to the goddamned Martians.

  Alice took the head from him now. It was about the size of a human head, but with furry ears and shaggy brows that hung down over the staring eyes, which were pale yellow. The nose was pronouncedly De Bergerac with four nostrils. Better intake of thin Martian air, Alice surmised. The mouth was small and lipless, with a receding chin. The whole effect was semi-human and yet nonhuman.