Ten (Stories) to The Stars

by Raymond Z. Gallun

  A long moment passed during which Barclay struggled fiercely to collect his wits and to regain his composure. Finally he spoke in a shaky voice: “From the ‘comet,’ you say, you come? Rot! Since when do they speak such polished English on worlds far removed from the earth? And yet, if you don’t come from the ‘comet,’ where can your home be? I don’t know of any place on this planet where they raise your kind.”

  A tolerant smile crossed the giant’s lips. “I, Othaloma, Chief of the Daans, will answer your questions and supply you with adequate proof of all that I say. The fact that I can make use of your language is easy to explain. For ages the people of my race have been developing a peculiar faculty of the mind which enables us, not only to read the thoughts of others, but also to penetrate into their subconscious memory and learn and make use of the impressions stored there. Certain individuals can seal their minds against such intrusion, but this power is developed only with much practice. Since everything you know is as clear to me as an open book, I find it quite simple to choose words from your brain, form them into sentences and express myself intelligently in a tongue of which I have never heard before tonight. Some day the people of this world will doubtless make use of the same power.

  “I can see very plainly that you are much puzzled as to my origin. You seem to find it impossible to believe my statement that I am an inhabitant of the ‘comet.’ I think I can convince you. First of all do you find anything peculiar about the temperature of this room?”

  For a moment Barclay took stock of his impressions. Now he realized fully that he felt uncomfortably cold. Perhaps the feeling was the result of the nervous shock occasioned by the arrival of the black man. But no, that could not be; Barclay’s breath puffed out in a white cloud just as it would do on a frosty autumn morning. The air in the domed chamber really was cold.

  “Now look at me,” said Othaloma: “Observe my skin carefully. Do you see anything peculiar about it?”

  Barclay obeyed. He saw now that the shoulders of the big black had a glassy smoothness that seemed decidedly unnatural. Little specks of light gleamed from Othaloma’s lower torso like tiny jewels—no—like frost particles! It looked as though raindrops had congealed on his ebony hide.

  The colossus came forward and held out a hand. “Touch me,” he commanded, “but touch me as though you were touching a wire bearing a strong electric current.”

  Again Barclay did as he was bade. As the tip of his forefinger came in contact with his visitor’s palm, an icy chill tingled and vibrated through him. Completely chagrined, he jerked his hand quickly away.

  The smile on Othaloma’s lips broadened. “The chill of outer space,” he said, “permeates my entire body. Where I live the temperature lingers perpetually almost at absolute zero, and there is no air.”

  “But life cannot possibly exist under such conditions,” Barclay exploded, “such a thing is unheard of.”

  “Am I not living proof that it does exist under such conditions?” retorted Othaloma: “Besides, is it good sense to say that a thing is impossible merely because it is unheard of?”

  Barclay was silent.

  Othaloma leaned against the framework of the great press beside which he was standing. His eyes were bent on the floor. Finally he raised his head. “Earth Man,” he said, “from afar I sensed the presence of a mind of unusual power upon this island and hither I have come that we might partake of each other’s knowledge. I have told you I am a creature foreign to your planet and I have offered proofs that have momentarily bewildered you; but, knowing that you are a man capable of grasping great things, I think that if I tell you more you will understand and believe. Therefore with your permission I will relate to you the history of my world and my people. Will you listen?”

  “Certainly,” returned Barclay, his voice full of eagerness. “There is a chair beside you. Please be seated and make yourself comfortable.”

  Then the Chief of the Daans, and nomad of the empty abysses between the stars, began the wildest tale that has ever fallen upon human ears.

  Othaloma’s Tale

  “FAR beyond the red sun which you call Antares, and several hundred light years from your earth, is another solar system. In it there spin several planets; of one of these I am a native. It was a fair world once, with green fields and forests upon which the bright sun shone; and there were great oceans—oceans now calm and serene beneath the blue sky and now lashed to white-capped fury by the Storm God. Set along the shores of those seas, nestling amid the verdant plains and snow-crowned mountains, were thriving cities; inhabited by a happy fair-skinned people. All was prosperity and peace; war had been done away with and a spirit of mutual helpfulness had brought them perhaps as near to Utopia as it is possible to get. The climate was delightful and there were plenty of the necessities and luxuries of life for everyone.

  “For many thousands of years this golden age endured and then a serious trouble came to vex the minds of the fair-skinned people. Their period of leisure was over. Disquieting signs and warnings began to appear. Gradually, as the millenniums slipped by, the sun changed its hue from yellow to orange and from orange to red—a red that deepened and deepened. Plainly the old luminary was cooling. The climate of the planet was becoming cool, too. Extensive ice caps collected at the poles and lingered far into the summer season and crops were becoming harder to raise. There were other omens. The oceans were shrinking and the air was becoming more and more rarefied through slow but steady leakage into space.

  “As generations passed the inhabitants of my native world were forced to desert many of their great cities and rich farm lands upon which the deserts were encroaching—deserts over which icy winds raced bearing with them choking clouds of fine sand.

  “During the ages before the beginning of their tribulation, the people of my native world, pronounced Mar-Bilione, in your tongue, had amassed much scientific knowledge. With this they sought to ward off the death of their planet. Drawing water from the polar snowcaps which melted every summer, they made fertile vast tracts of arid land by means of a wonderful system of irrigation. For a time it seemed that the greatest of their troubles was over; but wise minds knew that it was only a reprieve.

  “All these things had happened long before my time. When I was born, conditions had become much worse. So thin had the atmosphere become that the sky had no longer the azure hue of former ages; instead, it was a deep blue-black, and in it the stars twinkled even during the day. The water supply had all but vanished. What little was left was kept in underground reservoirs where there was the least chance that more of it could escape.

  “The dwindling remnants of the fair-skinned race lived in hothouse cities roofed with domes of quartz glass—marvels of engineering it is true, but still inadequate to ward off permanently the hostile legions of nature. Beneath the domes of these cities the air was kept constantly at a pressure endurable to mankind by means of numerous compressors.

  “Within the cities thousands of brilliant minds were at work upon man’s supreme problem. One scientist suggested that we migrate to some more hospitable world, but certainly no other world in our solar system would support human life. Another scientist, seeking to replenish both our air and water supply, discovered that it was possible to transmute certain heavier elements into oxygen and hydrogen; but his process was far too slow to be of the least help. Still another savant claimed that he could rejuvenate the dying sun by means of a certain combination of rays; an enormous amount of labor was spent erecting a projector, but his scheme was a complete failure.

  “In those years when my father was Emperor of Mar-Bilione and I was still a mere princeling, I took much interest in science. I was under the tutorage of a marvelous old genius named Grooga. In his younger years he must have been handsome but now he was ‘Grooga, the Hideous.’ During an experiment some hellish chemical had eaten away half his face, including his left eye. Through the gaping red scar his white teeth gleamed horribly. He seemed half demon.

  “To
gether Grooga and I built a space flyer, the first to be constructed upon my world. It was a long, torpedo-shaped craft, fitted with electric gravitational screens and propelled after the fashion of a rocket. The gravitational screens had been invented by Grooga, and I had designed the rocket-motors. Compared to the ships we have now, it was very crude, but it seemed wonderful to us then.

  “Early one morning our strange craft arose rapidly from the landing stage just outside the dome of my father’s capital city. On our maiden voyage we intended to explore the hundreds of tiny moons that encircled our planet.

  “From moon to moon Grooga and I flitted in our interplanetary vessel. There was very little to attract our interest upon most of them, for they were only burnt-out, lifeless cinders.

  “Then we came to Goraz, the largest moon—it is about fifteen of your miles in diameter—and there we found a thing of which not even the most imaginative of our theorists had ever dreamed. Earth Man, I doubt if there was one molecule of air or water upon the barren surface of that minute world and night and day the temperature lingered at only a few degrees above absolute zero, and yet there was life! Earth Man! Do you hear me? Life! And what eerie, horrible things there were—phantoms of madmen’s dreams! All were dead black and had many tentacles. They had no fixed form, no definite number of limbs or eyes, such as have creatures of our native worlds.

  “They grew as trees grow, haphazard. All were intelligent, they had brains almost equal to ours in power, and yet their mentalities were different in kind. Their main idea was to kill and destroy. As soon as we landed they made a concerted rush for our ship in a shuffling crowd. With high-explosive grenades we destroyed dozens of them, but the others rushed on. One little fellow got hold of me. Ugh! I still shudder at the thought of it! Both Grooga and I were dressed in heavy metal armor, similar to your submarine diving suits, and our faces were covered with our oxygen masks. Had it not been for this protection I am sure the Gorazian would have torn me limb from limb. Spirits Of a hundred forefathers—that ghoulish thing was endowed with the strength of ten devils! I cut him in two with my sword and still the halves of him clung to me with a persistence that baffles reason. A blackish liquid dripped from him and when its flow ceased he moved no more.

  What Grooga Discovered

  “HOW did these bizarre creatures live on this airless, waterless world where the chill of outer space lingered perpetually? For a little while even Grooga was baffled; but few things in the universe could baffle the mind of Grooga for long. Together we captured a specimen of the Gorazian race. First Grooga observed it carefully, and then he killed it and made a chemical analysis of its bodily tissues in the laboratory of our ship. He also examined that tissue under a microscope. Then he made his announcement to me:

  “ ‘Prince,’ he said, ‘we are the discoverers of a form of life that depends upon an entirely unheard-of principle for its existence. All living things must have some source of energy to carry on their bodily processes. In the case of creatures native to our own world, this energy is derived from the chemical combination of various substances with oxygen which enters their bodies through their lungs or other breathing organs. Since there is no air on Goraz, such a supply of power is not available here. Instead, these queer animals get their energy from within the atom by means of radio-active disintegration. It sounds impossible, but it is true. The black liquid that flows in their veins is a very heavy element, even heavier than our heaviest known substance, uranium. Like uranium and radium, it is always producing energy from within itself. It is extremely radio-active, and has an enormous output of atomic energy.

  “‘On Mar-Bilione the liquid upon which all life depends, is water. The temperature at which living things can exist there ranges, between the freezing and boiling points of water. The radio-active liquid which corresponds to water here on Goraz boils only when subjected to intense heat, and it freezes at absolute zero. Since it is producing heat all the time, it can never become so cold, even on Goraz. That is why these strange creatures can survive the intense cold. I have also found that they can exist at temperatures that would melt iron.’

  “Grooga and I spent days wandering over the face of Goraz observing its inhabitants. At first they fought us; but they soon got it through their minds that we were dangerous and better left alone. They seemed to have attained a very considerable measure of civilization. They lived in caves and understood the working of metals. By mixing the radio-active liquid (which has since been named xata) with certain other chemicals, they were able to produce an intense heat and with this they smelted copper and gold.

  “The principal portion of their food was xata. On the under sides of their tentacles were dozens of tiny suckers or mouths and through these the liquid was absorbed directly into their veins. In addition to xata, they consumed certain salts and substances rich in silicon to build up their body tissues.

  “We found that there were two species of this strange race, inhabiting villages on opposite hemispheres of Goraz. They were continually at war. The motive of each was obviously the extermination of the other. Each longed for complete control of the rapidly dwindling supply of the vitally-important xata. Once there had been large lakes of it, but the greater portion had either split up to form simpler elements, or had evaporated into space even as the water of Mar-Bilione had.

  “During our first stay on Goraz we saw the large village of Narbool raided (we called it Narbool after the capital of my father’s empire). The slight gravitation of the tiny moon, and their great strength, enabled the invading tribes to move very rapidly in great leaps and bounds of over fifty feet. To Grooga and me, hanging above Narbool in our space ship, the Silver Meteor, it seemed that they fame as suddenly and unexpectedly as a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. And yet the Narboolians were not taken unawares. They had been warned and were ready. In each of the two Gorazian villages there was a slender spire-like watch tower constructed from blue stone, and at its pinnacle a guardian monstrosity stood eternally on the lookout for just such a raid. At times the red rays of the sun glinted on the polished copper tip of his spear, or again the orange glow of Mar-Bilione or the ashy radiance of the hundred hurtling moons would be reflected from his queer, jewel-studded golden armor. He was always there, ready to give the alarm.

  “The battle surpassed all; possibility of description. If ever there was a combat of ghouls, this was one. It was horrible and disgusting beyond words—the masses of writhing, snake-like tentacles woven inextricably together, the creatures being torn to bits with half their limbs gone, yet fighting on with a vitality that mocks reason. All these things made Grooga and me shudder with revulsion and yet, even as we turned away nauseated at the sight, our hearts filled with admiration for the inhuman courage of those fiendish things battling beneath us. Their ferocity was awful to see. As soon as a Gorazian was killed, his opponent would suck the life-giving xata from his veins and then seek out another victim.

  “After about half an hour of struggle the invaders withdrew. Each side had lost about a third of their number. It seemed to us at first that if such battles were frequent, life would soon disappear from the face of Goraz. Such, however, was not the case; the Gorazians reproduce very rapidly and, barring violence, they are immortal.

  The Great Transformation

  “I DO not know exactly when Grooga’s great inspiration came to him. However we had been on Goraz for but a period equal to five of your days when he became very taciturn and thoughtful. Though he avoided speech with me as much as possible, he often muttered to himself. Naturally I became suspicious that something important was afoot, but I was intelligent enough not to attempt to induce Grooga to tell me what it was. There was nothing which the scarred old scientist so much detested as to have one, whom he considered a mere stripling, attempt to pry into his thoughts. Consequently there was nothing for me to do but keep quiet and await results.

  “The results were not long in forthcoming, but they only served to mystify me the more. One day we ret
urned to Mar-Bilione. With utmost haste Grooga loaded the Silver Meteor with numerous small animals and a complicated mass of scientific apparatus. Then we raced back to Goraz.

  “And now a faint inkling of what Grooga was attempting, came to me. Together we gathered a quantity of xata. First of all, Grooga placed a tiny speck of it in a drop of water containing micro-organisms native to Mar-Bilione; plainly he wanted to observe the effect of xata upon a form of living tissue with which we were more familiar. All of the infusoria died immediately. Next he injected xata into the system of a large insect; it died. How many similar unsuccessful experiments we performed I do not know; and then one day we began to be successful. A particularly hardy animal managed to survive an exceedingly small dose of xata. Next day we gave him a slightly larger dose and so on. Meanwhile we treated him with certain rays as yet not fully understood by savants of your earth. Soon startling changes began to take place in him. His skin, which had formerly been pink, became black, with the increasing quantity of the black radioactive chemical in his body. His blood changed from red to purple and from purple to black—pure xata. He shunned his food more and more, and at last dispensed with it entirely. Meanwhile his breath grew less and less rapid and then died away to nothing. The energy that was now keeping him alive was the result of the radio-active disintegration of xata, rather than the chemical combination of oxygen with food.

  “We took frequent tests of the percentage of water in his system. It decreased as the days passed, and eventually dropped to zero. The water had been replaced by xata.