by Jerry
Jerry met the delegation of Amazons at the gate the next morning. Beautiful but grim, the four women faced him.
“Where is Een?” the queenly one asked.
Jerry gestured toward the doorway. “She is coming now.”
The girl ran forward, wincing slightly as her wounded leg took her weight.
“I will remain with the Stranger, Sherry,” she said smiling, “he saved me from the Writh.”
“He does not force you to do this?” the other inquired incredulously.
“No,” Een replied smiling, “I wish this. It is as it should be.”
Jerry stood back, grinning at the conversation. From. now on, he thought, Earthlings and Amazons are going to get on all right . . .
Coast Watcher
Max Long
SIXTEEN YEAR OLD Billy Manton crouched behind the tree and shivered. There, not a hundred yards off-shore, clearly revealed in the bright moonlight that illuminated the deep-water cove, but sheltered perfectly from seaward, was the low silhouette of a submarine. The quiet night air carried the sharp Slavic tones of the Russian sailors clearly to Billy’s ears. Already one boatload of men had come ashore and they were in the abandoned shack now.
Billy couldn’t understand a word, of course, of what was being said but the sailors’ actions were unmistakable. The clank and clatter and ring of metal as the upper portion of the deck before the snorkel sub’s conning. tower opened up, showed the strange—yet familiar—cylinder rising out of the cavernous depths.
Billy had seen enough pictures of rockets to know that this thirty foot giant wasn’t a toy. In a paroxysm of fear he wondered.-what to do. At this time of the year there wasn’t a soul within thirty miles and the Coast Guard station was over forty miles south of this point. The railroad tracks were merely a quarter of a mile away, but Billy knew that no trains were going through tonight. He knew this area well. What a way for a night walk to end.
Billy knew the submariners must have been met and guided into the cove for though it was deep it ran through sand-barred water on either side. Somebody knew well that this would be an ideal spot from which to launch a rocket—and Billy knew all about atomic war-headed rockets.
If he went for help it would be hours and hours before he could get any. And by then. . . .
He stirred slightly and a piece of stone was dislodged by his foot. Frightened, he quivered again. Then a wild thought came into his mind. The railroad shack! He knew there were flares there—maybe if he set a fire—maybe if—wild thoughts ran through his mind.
He reached the shack a few minutes later. It was a dirty, broken down shed with old lanterns, tools, and boxes of odds and ends lying around in disorder.
Fumbling through the mess, his eyes alighted on a small wooden box—Fuses!—madly he searched. There it was. Another small wooden box—dynamite—it said on its side.
A strange feeling of mingled excitement and calm overtook Billy. A cold, almost mathematical realization of the situation lanced through his thoughts. He couldn’t get help before the submarine launched the rocket—that, he knew—and that bomb was unquestionably headed for New York. The reason the Sovs’ must have chosen this isolated place was their knowledge of the thorough watch kept on the New York port area.
Billy knew what he had to try. In five minutes he had changed from a frightened adolescent to a purposeful adult, clear and shining in the knowledge of what he must try—and succeed at!
Carefully he made his way back to the sub’s cove. He could hear talk and laughter as the Sovs, disdainfully secure of their secrecy, prepared their attempt.
Quite a few of them were ashore and work had stopped on the rocket. It reared its slim shape skyward waiting apparently the touch of a button to rocket a city into eternity. Billy could see the dim outline of a guard carrying, some sort of gun, standing on the conning tower, staring musingly toward the sea.
From his camping kit, Billy took his raincoat and wrapped the open dynamite box, fuses and matches. Then slipping a couple of hundred feet through the underbrush, he lowered himself into, the water, and half-floating half-paddling propelled. himself toward the side of the submarine away from the gaze of the guard. Moving as quietly as he could he manuevered through the water, one hand keeping his precious burden above water, dry and safe. Thank God there were no waves. The cove was as quiet as a pond.
The black bulk of the sub loomed up before the iron-nerved boy, inwardly trembling, but outwardly as cool as a cucumber. The side of the vessel was slippery and greasy. But the sub rode so low in the water that Billy fairly easily managed to slide himself out of the water onto the sloping deck, shielded from view of the guard by the enormous rocket emerging so ominously from its launching well.
It was a few seconds work to hastily lift the box lid, lay the box on one corner of the deck, attach fuse and detonator and touch a match to it. The gentle slap-slap of the water against the sides of the submarine muffled effectively the slight sounds Billy made.
Quickly Billy slipped back into the water and the accidental splash made him freeze momentarily but it passed unnoticed. A second later he was headed shoreward. He crawled up the bank and crouched behind the trees. The laughter and the talk was still coming from the shack. Billy decided., to get farther away.
Edgily he waited two minutes—three— four. Had the fuse gone out?
Abruptly thunder rolled across the moonlit cove. Billy saw a sheet of flame appear briefly on the submarine’s deck. The rocket pointed into the heavens, teetered sideways, lurched, and then fell with a re-, sounding splash, to sink itself and its deadly cargo deep into the bottom of the cove. Billy didn’t hear the cries and shouts. He was padding north as fast as he could. And the roseate glow on his face wasn’t fear. Right how he was tired and sleepy and hungry—but the happiness and satisfaction were there. He was going to have a story to tell. . . .
Salute to Luna!
John Weston
“IF YOU are still on exact course, you are catching this six centimeter, Cleary . . . we presume you are, and shall continue to radiate to you as arranged . . . keep—”
With a savage twist of his wrist, Cleary flicked the switch that shut off the hyper-sensitive receiver. “Damn!” he muttered. If I could only tell them, if I could only reply, he thought. He could see the officials huddled around the Base One transmitter at White Sands already talking pompously of the first successful rocket flight to the Moon. General Weatherman would be saying in that clipped affected speech of his, “Good boy, that Cleary!”
Yes, he was good all right, good and dead. As of now he was thoroughly and utterly dead and no hand could stay his fate. He, James Cleary, was gone from Earth and gone from life—that he knew. Now it was inexorable—there was no returning. He hunched closer against the acceleration couch as if that would warm the chill of impending death. He touched his hand to his face. He was sweating.
The slim torpedo that encased him slid smoothly toward its rendezvous with Luna. No rockets throbbed. But that was right. They shouldn’t—now, He was coasting as expected toward the Lunar surface. Soon it would be time to switch on the rockets for his deceleration and landing. Only there wasn’t going to be any deceleration and landing!
Cleary grinned ironically at the impossibility of the situation. He looked through the port at his side, the quartz circle that separated him from immediate death and gazed at the rapidly vanishing amorphous cloud that represented his fuel supply. How often do meteors strike? How rare is a collision? How remote is the chance of a rocket having its fuel tanks punctured by a meteor?
And that was it. He thought of the slight tremor of the vessel only twenty minutes ago. He thought of his shocked dismay when he glanced out the port and saw his fuels streaming out the gaping hole. The meteor had not passed through him or his cabin. It would have been better that way. He would have died without the complicated introspection that he must now undergo.
Cleary opened his mouth and screamed fearful agonized screams that drowned the c
abin in horrifying sounds. Then he stopped. His sanity returned. You must die like a man, he told himself, disbelieving his words. Like a rat in a trap is more like it, he said to himself.
That was the horror. There was nothing he could do. With no fuel he must go on and on with ever-increasing velocity as the Lunar gravitational acceleration seized him. The rocket would move and move building up its velocity until it would strike somewhere on that craggy surface. And when it struck there would not even be the momentary funeral pyre that rocket fuel would have provided. Instead there’d be a puff of pumice dust, his body and the rocket would jam together into an indescribable mass of mixed metal and torn flesh.
Cleary reached for the only weapon he possessed: a razor-edged wire cutter, and brought it up to his throat With hesitant hand he laid it down. “No,” he said aloud, in the stillness of the rocket, Cleary will go like a man . . .”
Stranger . . .
Charles Recour
A fantastic vignette
“THANKS!” The last note inflected risingly as the cab driver took the dollar tip. The tall, well-dressed man smiled and stood by his luggage. The doorman of the exclusive New York hotel, the Netherlands-Sherry, hastily summoned two bell-hops to take the stranger’s luggage. Obviously this man was a gentleman, and the doorman’s lips curled pleasantly in anticipation of the generous tip he’d receive.
Staggering under the heavy, very heavy bags and grips, the bell-hops brought the luggage into the lobby while the calm gentleman registered at the desk.
“. . . the five room suite on seventeen is simply charming,” the clerk was saying. “I just know you’ll enjoy it, sir.”
“Fine,” the stranger said scrawling his name and address in the book. There was the faintest trace of a foreign accent intermingled with the cultured English tones.
“I’ll have your luggage taken up at once, Mr. Fellaine,” the clerk said subserviently. With alacrity the bell-boys obeyed the order to take “this gentleman’s luggage to 1712 . . .”—they had been tipped off by the doorman.
After Mr. Fellaine had entered his suite, and dismissed the bell-boys, his mask of calmness dropped abruptly. Ripping off his coat, he strode to the door, made sure it was locked and then returned to the stack of luggage. From a ring of keys, he managed to open the numerous locks that seemed strangely out of place. What need is there for locking luggage like a bank-vault?
As lid after lid of the suit-cases and trunks came open, the peculiar nature of Mr. Fellaine came to light. The luggage was a maze of scientific apparatus!
Wasting no time at all, Mr. Fellaine set to work. Everything was ready and prepared and within ten minutes time, he had made the numerous connections—simply slip-in fastenings. He took one last look at the arrangement. Then he closed a switch. He observed the clock mechanism functioning smoothly. ”
He picked up the phone. “Desk?” he said.
“Yes, sir. Is there anything you wish?”
“I’m planning to sleep at once. Please do not disturb me until tomorrow morning. If I should have any callers, any at all, do not permit them to come up.”
“Yes, sir!”
Mr. Fellaine took one last look around. He put his coat and hat on, went out and locked the door. Glancing around cautiously, he made for the service steps, ignoring the elevators. Within minutes he was in the alley from which he quickly made his way to the street. He hailed a cab.
“La Guardia Field,” he said.
Two hours later, Mr. Fellaine was comfortably ensconced in the cabin of an airliner winging south to Miami. And back in New York, the apparatus hummed slightly, and the clock ticked gently and New York was unaware. And tomorrow that portion of Manhattan would be gone . . . and in a dozen cities other Mr. Fellaine’s were boarding airliners in a desperate hurry . . .”
And don’t you think that could really happen?Are you sure you can’t believe it would happen? . . . maybe even now. . . .
1952
One De-Gaussing Girdle, Please
A.T. Kedzie
McGOVERN glanced at “‘the control panel of the spaceship. Controls were on automatic and there was no reason for him to worry, yet out of long habit his eyes sought out the meteor-detector. Psychically he sensed it was about to go—and it did. The bell rang, the red light flashed, and there was a momentary-surge of acceleration that threw him against the bulkhead. He grinned with relief—these autos were terrific, he thought, and in his mind’s eye he could see the little pulse that the sensor had sent back, setting into motion the automatic devices that deviated the ship’s course. Somewhere out there a huge chunk of rock and metal flashed by far out of harm’s way.
That meteoric detector isn’t fancy or imagination by any means. The facts and know how are already here. During the last war ships were equipped with a powerful magnetic field called a “de-Gaussing girdle” which prevented magnetic mines from being drawn to them. Closely related to this—although not seemingly so—is the magnetometer, a sensitive device for checking disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field and much used for prospecting and for locating oil: The magnetometer has other uses, such as detecting submarines, but above all it is a perfect example of how sensitive instruments may be made, and of their potential uses when Man gets, a foothold in outer space.
We can imagine the space ship of the future surrounded by a very strong magnetic field. In free space this field will reach out hundreds—perhaps thousands—of miles. A magnetometer within the vessel can scan the surrounding magnetic field and immediately note the exact location of any disturbing influence, such as a meteor—scanning the field in a way similar to radar, and as rapidly. Thus automatic apparatus can throw the ship off course the minute amount necessary to evade the spacial obstacle!
Morpheus in Hades!
E. Bruce Yaches
I WAS STRUCK, with the emptiness of the streets and roller-walks. It was early evening and the syntho-dome overhead shimmered and winked. A premonition seemed to be drawing at my thoughts, yet there was no reason for it. I sensed my discontent but I couldn’t voice it or tag it. The Machine, I reflected, had made life perfect and none of us had to fear the travails of the radiation-ruined world outside the syntho-dome. True, there seemed to be no drive to life, but the pleasures of narcosis and the Narco-rooms, filled with their extravagant dreams, made up for this lack of need to do things. Everyone took to the Narco-rooms gratefully. And yet I knew it was not right.
I strolled leisurely and aimlessly down a side street away from the Narcorroom centers. I knew I should not, because my record required more narcosis, more dreaming, but that seemed so aimless, so futile, that even a walk was a directed action. If this defection were reported to the Central of the Machine, I knew I’d be in trouble. The Watchers would whisk me away in a hurry. And in spite of these fears, I walked on.
“There she is!” I heard the shout, and two Watchers, parasticks in their hands, dashed from a doorway just in front of me and started in pursuit of someone whose shadowy outline I could see fleeing farther down, the street. It seemed to disappear into a building and I could hear the Watchers debating what to do as they paused. They turned and their eyes fell on me. “You,” one shouted, “Come here!” Ordinarily I would have obeyed them without question, but seemingly without my conscious volition, a wave of hatred swept over me, and instead of walking toward them, I flung open the door of. the building and dashed in. Surprised at my rash action I stared into the gloomy dim-lit murkiness and I could see I was in the lobby of an apartment of some kind. Suddenly realization of my defiance came to me. I could hear the Watchers outside hammering on the door.
I ran down the corridor toward the rear of the building. Strangely, a delicious sense of power pervaded me, countering my first overwhelming fear.
The refugee must have, entered this same building farther down the. street and I hoped that I’d encounter her. So I turned, left and ran down that rectangular corridor. It would be only a matter of minutes before the Watchers gained the building.<
br />
I saw a stairwell and dashed down it. It was utterly dark and I almost stumbled and fell when I tripped. My hands shot out to balance me and I clutched something. It was soft and warm and it let out a frightened cry. “Oh!”
I was clutching in my arms the girl the Watchers had been chasing moments ago. She writhed and struggled to break away. I held her firmly.
“Don’t,” I said, “I’m being chased too. I’m running from the Watchers too.” In that moment I knew that I’d never submit to another Narco-session. She relaxed and I loosened my arms. We walked side by side along the tubular passageway at the bottom of the stairwell. In the light of dim bulbs I could see she was beautiful. There was fright in her eyes—but determination too.
“My name’s Alain,” she said as we walked rapidly. a m going, outside the syntho-dome. I don’t care what’s out there. I can’t stand the Narcosis. I know others have escaped—why can’t I?”
“I’ve heard of passageways outside,” I said, “but how will we find them? I won’t stay in this rabbit warren any longer.”
“They say passageways like this lead to sewers and service and conduit ways which go outside the Syntho-dome. Maybe if we l follow v this far. enough, there will be a I way out. No matter what happens I’m going too.”
There was such fervor and courage in her voice that I couldn’t help but admire her. “We’ll find a way together,” I said, and I brought myself nearer her side. Her hand crept into mine and we walked rapidly down, the unknown corridor to our fate.
“Yes,” she agreed and there was the shade of a smile on her face, “we’ll find a way together. . . .”