Fantastic Vignettes

by Jerry

  Mac was confined to his cabin and Jannings was bunking when it happened. Loring, my junior, was on watch. That I found out later. All I know is that I was sound asleep when the triple ringing of the alarm went off next to my ear. I popped from the sack so fast I bumped my head and that knocked me into wakefulness. I tore for the control room. When a triple goes off, you run!

  Loring was standing over the instrument panel and his face was white. He saw me from the corner of his eye.

  “Skipper,” he said grimly, “we’re in trouble—the reactor’s going critical!”

  He didn’t have to say more. I knew.

  It doesn’t happen often, but when it does—run.

  Ordinarily nothing goes wrong with a nuclear rocket. All the engineering has been done back at the horning dock and, from then on, for the life of the rocket engine, ail service and control is handled by automatic servomechanisms. No humans go near a nuclear engine once it’s been used. In face, there’s a four-foot shield between the stern tube-sector and the rest of the ship. Beyond that shield, inside the ship or out, no human ventures—the radiation is fierce.

  I studied the board and I could see, in a vague way, what had happened. I’m no nuclear engineer. At the same time Jannings came into control and, the instant his face fell on the panel, his eyes went wide. Mac was trying to reach control over the intercom, but I told Smith to shut it off. He was too sick to be of any use anyhow.

  “Well, Jannings, you tell me.”

  He looked at me and there was something in his eyes that made me shiver, a sort of do-or-die determination.

  “She’s going critical, Skipper,” he said.

  “I know that,” I answered, “what do we do?”

  “The servos are jammed,” he went on as if he didn’t hear me, “and there’s a uranium build-up to critical mass.” He glanced at the chronometer on the panel. “A half hour, I’d say,” he said, “before she goes. Skipper, this’d make one sweet bomb, but it’s not going to.”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “I can read a panel too. When that needle starts that kind of a climb, this buggy becomes a bomb.”

  “If you don’t stop it,” he corrected.

  “You can’t stop it. The only way the servos can be cleared is for somebody to go out . . .” I broke off. He was grinning.

  “Exactly,” he said. “And that’s what I’m going to do. See, Skipper, I happen to know we’ve got Venusian drugs, too. They’ve got to go through. I don’t want to sound melodramatic,” he went on as cool as a lecturing professor, “but I know a lot of people who need drugs. There are millions still suffering from the. Third Fracas.”

  I couldn’t give him an argument. It was his duty to do what he could, certain death or no certain death. He didn’t waste time.

  He put on a space suit. His face was white, with two red spots high on his cheek bones. There was no bravado in his face and I could tell he was scared stiff. Who wouldn’t be? When you go out to die, you’re not exactly happy.

  They brought him tools, spanners, meters, wire-working stuff, a torch—and clipped them to the suit. I watched and I felt almost paralyzed. There was nothing I could do. Either this boy went out and un-jammed those servo controls or this ship would turn into an atomic bomb which we’d watch going off from a million miles or two—along with a cargo of Venusian pharmaceuticals, priceless in terms of human life.

  Jannings went out. I shivered when the icon spotted him crossing the red-white danger line marked on the circumference of the ship’s stern. He was now a dead man—and he knew it. He stayed out twenty minutes, ten feet away from a ravenously furious blast of atomic radiation, hard X rays, neurons, alpha particles, and the rest of the atomic gamut. He felt nothing, but his mind told him his cells were being disintegrated and destroyed. Yet his hands never trembled and he went through with the job. Like a surgeon repairing a body, he went to work on toe controls, assembling and clearing and un-jamming, knowing the while that the reverse was being done to his body. But, unlike this, a reverse which couldn’t be corrected. He was dying—not the easy way, all at once—but by minutes, minutes which a cold, unfeeling chronometer ticked off.

  For the first time, he spoke.

  “Skipper?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “She’s clear from here. Will you check the panel?”

  “Loring already has,” I answered. “She’s clear. Come in the lock. We’ll see what we can do.”

  “Hey, Skipper, cut it out. I’m no fool. You can’t do a damned thing. We both know it, so let’s not get sentimental.” The cockiness seemed to cut the mental pain.

  “I’m not coming in, Skipper. I’m too hot now.” He was referring, of course, to his induced radioactivity. “I’d only contaminate a lock. Why bother? I’m going into the tubes. Blow me to Venus!” He waved jauntily and started to walk toward the main stern tube, his magnetic shoes making clicking sounds along the hull.

  He had to make the last gesture. It gave him nerve, I guess. Just before he walked into the tube whose radiant breath would devour him instantly, he tapped his helmet in a half-salute. “Morituri te saluta . . .”, he said half-audibly, like a gladiator of old. And then he was gone.

  Spacemen aren’t sentimental, but I don’t think there was a dry eye aboard the Canopus then.

  Mac staggered into the control room then; his eyes avoided me. He started to curse, and for five minutes he ran through the book.

  “Skipper,” he said, “put me through for a tranfer to Terra. I’m not fit. . . .”

  “Forget it, Mac,” I said, “the kid was an engineer. . . .”

  And when I think of it now, I think it was the finest accolade you could give him . . . .

  The Horror of the Hormone

  Charles Recour

  A fantastic vignette

  I’VE TAKEN a lot of kidding about it.

  The boys in the City Desk Room (actually there’re only three, not counting Milly, who runs the lovelorn column) can’t help but notice the bulge under my left arm and I don’t take particular care to conceal it either. I’ve got a permit to carry it, so what’s the difference? It’s a beauty, too, a pre-war German Luger, seven-point-six-five calibre, and I like the feel of it, even if it is a little heavy for a shoulder holster.

  Some day I’m going to use that gun. I don’t know when, but I’m going to. I’ve got to. At least me or somebody else.

  And that’s another thing they kid me about. I’m always driving out to Cartersville, which is just fifteen miles due North of this town, and about equally distant from the University. They think I’ve got a girl out there and they love to pour it on. But I haven’t got a girl in Cartersville. I wish I had. What I’ve got in Cartersville, nobody should have. But that’s ahead of the story.

  My eccentricities (if you want to call them that) started about six months ago. Jake, who’s been editor of the paper longer than I can remember, gave me my breaks in the beginning and, while it’s a far cry from being a big city reporter, I like my job picking up the small interesting stuff that happens everywhere, big city or small town.

  “Harry,” Jake said to me in his office, “I want you to run over to Cartersville. Drop in on Professor Pickering’s Entomological Experimental Station. He’s always good for a couple of columns of sensational stuff. I don’t believe the guy half the time, but maybe you can drag a good story from him on the new insecticides. The Farmers are always interested in that stuff. Give it a whirl.”

  I went out to Cartersville and saw Professor Pickering. His lab actually was in a low rambling house and, even though he was fifteen miles from the University, it was considered part of the school. I caught him home that evening—where else would he be?—and he invited me in cordially when l he learned I was from the paper. We sat down and, formal-like, he offered me sherry, and when I declined he compounded a couple of healthy Manhattans and we had a drink.

  “What can I do for you, young man?” he asked seriously. I didn’t get any impression of eccentricity.


  I told him what I wanted.

  “Well,” he said slowly, “I can’t say that I have much to say on that score. My researches aren’t along those lines right now. I’m doing a good deal of hormone work—but, say, that should be a good deal more interesting.”

  He went into a lot of technical detail on how hormone activity governs growth and power and he cited examples of the successful breeding of large pigs with very powerful chemical extractions.

  “I’m applying the hormone activity to insects,” he said, “and I’ve had some amazing luck. Come into the lab.”

  I followed him into a typically cluttered room, a laboratory straight out of a B-thriller, and I guess I expected to see something exciting, but all I saw was bottles and glass.

  “Take a look at this,” he invited and pointed toward a small wooden box. I looked through the glass cover and I saw nothing remarkable in the sight of a rather big hairy tarantula. I shrugged.

  “Seems like a big spider to me.”

  “I’m glad you said that,” Professor Pickering replied, “that’s exactly what it is, a big spider. The only thing is, two days ago it was a very tiny spider, hardly bigger than a flea.”

  “You mean to tell me that these hormone treatments made it that big?”

  “Exactly.”

  WELL, THE essence of the visit was that he provided me with a rather interesting piece on hormone growth chemicals. I went back, wrote it up, and thought no more about it. Jake got a kick out of it and said I should follow it up. I don’t suppose I would have, though, if it hadn’t been for the phone call. It came a day later.

  “Harry?” It was the Professor all right, and his voice was a shade excited. “Come over if you can right now. I want to show you something very interesting.”

  I breezed over right away and Professor Pickering took me immediately into the laboratory. “Look!” was all he said.

  I looked. On the lab bench rested a box about two feet square; it was made of glass, like a fish-container, held at the edges with metal, cemented strips. Inside was the biggest, ugliest spider I’d ever seen.

  “It’s the same one you saw the other night,” Pickering assured me, “and, as far as I can tell, there’s no limit to this thing.”

  “But what about the danger?” I said. “Suppose that thing gets loose!”

  “It isn’t really dangerous yet. Wait until it gets bigger.” He seemed like a little boy, proud of finding a big toad.

  The next three or four days I dropped out to Cartersville every evening—and I practically watched that damned thing grow. I didn’t write it up, because Professor Pickering requested that I give him the honor of “announcing it” when it reached its limiting growth.

  The night before I made the final visit to the lab, Pickering had constructed a five-foot cage of half-inch drill rod welded and equipped with a sturdily barred and locked door. He put the “thing” into this improvised cage. We sat there and watched it, and the more we looked at it, the more evil and dangerous it seemed to me. But Professor Pickering seemed to think of it as an experiment anti nothing else. The dangerous aspects didn’t bother him.

  He fed the three-foot monster while I was there, and I’ll never forget the way it devoured that rabbit corpse. When it had finished there was not a trace left, no blood, no bones, no hair—nothing.

  “I’m afraid you ought to be more careful, Professor,” I cautioned as I was leaving. “That thing’s not exactly a toy.”

  “Don’t worry,” he deprecated, “I’m taking care of it. It can’t do anything in that cage.”

  I didn’t go back to Cartersville for three days. It was rather late when I got there and the lab lights were on. I rang but got. no answer. I thought it rather peculiar, so I just opened the door and walked in. I called “Professor Pickering?” but there was no answer. I wandered through the house-lab and there was no sign of him. I went into the lab and he wasn’t there either. And neither was the spider!

  The cage still stood in one corner. It was empty and the door swung open. I examined the lock. It looked as though shears had cut right through the steel tongue. I got out of that place in a hurry and headed right for the police. I told them the complete story, but they looked at me as though I were drunk.

  When they went back to the lab they found things as I’d described them, with no trace of Professor Pickering. And he hasn’t shown up to this day. That was over six months ago!

  Brady, the Police Chief, told Jake I must have been loaded to the ears to come around with a story like that. They figured that Pickering just got fed up and took a walk-out powder. I can still hear Brady’s sneering, “Forget it, Harry. He’s in Mexico having a second-childhood fling, that’s all.”

  So I bought the gun. So I go to Cartersville regularly and I haunt the side roads and the woods. I haven’t heard of any farmers missing cattle or animals, nor have I heard of any humans missing. But I know damned well that thing is loose and it’s eating something!

  Maybe it’s left this vicinity. I don’t know. But I’m inclined to believe it’s around. Anyhow, I’m looking for it and I’m hoping I meet it—and yet I’m afraid I will. The gang laugh at the idea and they want to know what the stuff was. “That must have been real kick-a-poo joy juice, Harry,” they’ll josh, “where can we get some?” Or, “How’s the spider-hunt, Harry? Any luck? Bring me back a leg.”

  I laugh, but it’s kind of hollow. I’ve seen that thing. . . .

  The Satellite Wrecker

  Charles Recour

  A fantastic vignette

  AFTER straightening his tie and nervously clearing his throat, Johnny Faulkner rapped twice on the shining aluminum door. He waited a moment and studied the inscription, “C.I.C.—Missile Command”—and wondered. To be dragged from a honeymoon by this urgent, top-priority courier message was bad enough, but why the Missile Command? He’d been among the first few pilots to handle the rocket interceptors, but he knew nothing about guided missiles. What the devil could the urgency be?

  “Come in,” a deep voice beyond the door said, and Johnny stepped into the office. It was a plain, simple room, at one end of which was gathered a cluster of officers. Johnny spotted General Wilson. He stepped up and saluted smartly. “Major Faulkner reporting as ordered, sir.”

  Wilson returned the salute perfunctorily. His face was lined and drawn, and it was apparent his mind wasn’t on military protocol. The knot of officers had withdrawn a respectful distance.

  Johnny flushed under the keen scrutiny of the General.

  “Personnel says you’re the best rocket interceptor pilot we’ve got,” Wilson began abruptly. He waited a moment. “Are you?” he shot suddenly.

  Johnny hesitated. “What . . . ah . . . I . . .”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes,” Johnny said quickly, “I am.”

  “That’s better,” General Wilson said. He sat down. Johnny noticed how tired and worried he seemed. He reached into a box on his desk and handed Johnny a photograph. “Look at that, son,” Wilson said gently, “and tell me what you see!”

  Johnny picked, up the photograph and studied it. It was nothing more, apparently, than an ordinary astronomical photograph showing myriads of stars, glittering little pinpoints of light. But he noticed, about the center of the photograph, one dot circled with red ink.

  “I don’t get it, Sir,” Johnny said, puzzled. “This is straight astronomy. What’s it got to do with a rocket interceptor pilot?” he continued boldly.

  Wilson studied him keenly. “What is going to be said in this room won’t go beyond it. Do you understand that?”

  Johnny said slowly, “Yes, sir.”

  “That circled dot,” Wilson went on, “is a Soviet satellite running in an elliptical orbit at fifteen thousand miles above the surface of this planet! Actually it’s still in the process of construction and, when it’s completed, this entire planet is going to be a Communist State! Only a lucky fluke brought it to our attention. Thank-God for Palomar Observatory
!” he added-feelingly.

  Johnny’s face was white as he surveyed the grim-faced officers standing silently around him. He said nothing.

  “And that’s, where you borne in. I’m sorry that there’s no time, but from this minute on the wraps are on. It’s strict secrecy and I can’t allow you to talk to anyone.

  I’m sorry about your wife but we’ll give her some cock-and-bull story—for the moment.” He stopped suddenly. “Wait a-minute. Major Faulkner, I can order you into this, but that’s senseless. We’ve got to have, a man who wants to do what we’re going to ask him. And I’ll tell you there’s a terrible risk involved for the man who takes it. I’m asking you, Major Faulkner, will you destroy the artificial satellite?”

  “I’ll try, Sir, but how?” Johnny felt a cold numbness in his mind. What was he saying? What would he tell Lorraine?

  General Wilson reached across the desk and shook Johnny’s hand. “I knew that you would,” he said, a strained smile lighting his face briefly, “but if you hadn’t, I’m afraid we’d have put the screws to you. You see, Faulkner’, this thing has to be destroyed—if we want to live.” He turned to an aide. “You know the procedure. Ship Major Faulkner to White Sands right away and tell them to get ready. I’m flying out later. . . .”

  The next two days were a living nightmare. He finally persuaded Wilson to let him assure Lorraine that he was all right. But that was the only concession. From the moment they took him into the huge hangar and displayed the rocket, he went through things in a kind of shock. Fast and furiously he was coursed through on control. The rocket was a miracle of Improvisation. Eventually it would have come, but time had forced its construction in a hurry. It was as different from a rocket interceptor plane as night from day, but there were no pure rocket pilots and Johnny would be the first one. Therefore it was up to him to learn. He learned.

  Every minute that delayed the departure of the Hope was a minute lost. The Soviets, it was known, were completing the satellite at a furious rate and their two shuttle rockets were in constant use. There was an ominous calm in diplomatic matters—calm until the Soviets should release their ace card. With an artificial satellite and a few atomic bombs the world was theirs!