Ten (Stories) to The Stars

by Raymond Z. Gallun

  He tried to stand, clinging to Rod’s shoulders; but the burnt leg, which might still put him in danger of death by an unknown chemical poison, would not bear his weight. He sank down to one knee while Rod tore the remnants of rotted rubber and cloth from his leg, and smeared an unguent on the ragged, blistered injury.

  “I’ll get him to a doctor,” someone was saying from very close by. “You can’t tell. That’s apt to be very dangerous. A physician will know better what to do.”

  It wasn’t till then that Perry saw who it was that was holding the first aid kit. Lyssa Arthurs, the girl who had been with Kerwin and his boys. But she’d come back, somehow. Looking up into the confusing medley of light and shadow, Perry saw her curly chestnut hair blowing in the wind. She looked a little bedraggled, and her lips were pursed very tight.

  “Okay!” old Rod snapped, for this moment might involve the question of life and death for his friend, and there was no time to question the connections of this girl, who had been helpful. “Come on, you!” he added, grasping Perry’s arm. “You’re out of action for a while!”

  Perry Wilcox was too dazed to think of all the reasons why he didn’t want to be taken away from the scene of action now, and why he didn’t want to go with anyone associated with Lyman Kerwin. So his stubborn protests were mostly those of a hard man of action, clinging obstinately to the habit of wanting to be where things were happening.

  “Can’t leave, Rod!” he grumbled like a great obstinate, drunken child. “Everybody’s in danger of—God knows what. Gotta stay with you, Rod…. ” His words were muffled by his mask.

  A moment Murgatroyd hesitated, then his balled fist shot out and caught Perry on the chin with stunning force.

  What he’d seen of Troubles Arthurs in the last few seconds made the old scientist like her a lot. But since she was tied up with Kerwin someway, he couldn’t trust her entirely with the custody of his pal. So he said:

  “Thanks, kid. Otto, here, will go along to help.”

  Almost as an afterthought, Rod unsnapped the motion picture camera from Perry’s chest. Its record of a mystery would be safer in his keeping.

  * * *

  Otto, one of the drill crew, a great, blond bear of a man, picked Perry up and followed the girl through the throng to her car. In a moment it was speeding away toward Brenton.

  But it hadn’t gone far before the sounds of a fresh disturbance issued from the enclosure it had recently quitted. To the thudding from beneath the Earth, was added a droning note, faint but infinitely far-reaching. It was like the drone of a solitary electric generator in a deserted powerhouse at night. And there was a puffing noise from the direction of the enclosure. Voices waxed to screams. First of plain terror; then, some of them changed to yelps of agony.

  The reviving Perry half rose in the back seat of the speeding car. Then Otto, with all the good intentions in the world followed Murgatroyd’s original example, hit Perry on the chin, and told the frightened girl up ahead to drive faster.

  Meanwhile, safe in a hotel room in Brenton, a man sat at a writing table and waited. Lyman Kerwin had just received a phone call. One couldn’t tell, yet, what was happening. But Kerwin’s mind was quick and cold and ruthless. And somewhere in all this he saw a lot to his advantage—if he played his cards right.

  Chapter III A War Against Machines

  It was many hours later before the doctors at the Brenton hospital knew that Wilcox was out of danger. The gas that had burnt him was a little like mustard gas in its action, though more virulent; and it had narcotic properties that could function through a burn. With the danger from poison past, the injury was small.

  But it was still more hours before Wilcox came out of the daze that had slipped over him. The immediate cause of his awakening from heavy slumber, was the roar of a squadron of airplanes, passing over the hospital roof.

  He sat up dizzily. In the distance he could hear a muted mutter and clank. Then a series of heavy explosions. He looked about, noticing only subconsciously that he was in a hospital ward. His gaze settled immediately on the nearest window. Weakly he climbed out of bed and limped and staggered toward it.

  The view extended for miles to the north, across the little city, and across the hills and woods and fields beyond. Everything he could see had the look of a place in close proximity to the no-man’s-land of a great war. Lorries, loaded with troops, were moving in the streets. Tanks roared. Supply trucks, most of them pulling guns, moved in a ragged stream.

  Perry’s face went haggard and drawn as he looked for the airplanes he had heard. Far up, he saw three. Huge bombers in the clear air. Clusters of black specks trailed down from them—bombs released from the racks. And in the hills beneath there were geysers of flying earth, followed by dull concussions.

  Then unseen, hurtling vengeance touched each of the planes in succession. From somewhere in the sylvan terrain beneath, there were three faint pops. A second later, one of the bombers dissolved into a silvery cloud—duralumin and steel. It was the same with the other two planes. They fell apart as though all the cohesive force of the metals from which they were made was suddenly disrupted. The men aboard them hadn’t a chance.

  Perry Wilcox gulped painfully as his eyes searched the wooded hills, trying to orient things so that he could tell just where Murgatroyd’s and his fenced enclosure had been. He couldn’t see the fence. It was too far off and was hidden by the trees. But he did see a ragged line of peculiar upjutting earthworks. It appeared to follow the contour of the mounted mystery that he had first observed from the air. Shells from man-made cannon splashed against it.

  Just for a moment a gleaming colossus reared its hunched bulk behind the barrier. It glistened in the late afternoon sunshine as it seemed to take a look about; then like a lizard retreating into its hole, it slid back, from view. But behind it there were sounds like the working of great forges. Columns of smoke puffed up, dyed with the red of molten metal.

  His attention was attracted to something else. Beyond the partly raised window, and across the street, he could hear a radio in one of the houses there. He bent forward tautly, straining his ears to listen. The voice was unpleasantly familiar:

  “The latest newsflashes give us little hope. Our attacking forces are being beaten back, or destroyed. But we have great resources. We must be brave. The enemy is a strange one. We must amass more men, conscript money for war materials. Billions of dollars. That is our hope, our one chance. We must have a strong central government. That means the absolute leadership of one man. Obedience must be the key. My whole resources are at the disposal of the nation. We will triumph! We must! The Murgatroyd-Wilcox Horror will thus be destroyed. Be strong, friends. Be strong. That is all for now….”

  * * *

  Before the brief, artfully worded speech was half delivered, Perry Wilcox knew a good deal of what was spoken between its treacherous lines. The rich, semi-hysterical voice, seemingly overflowing with holy patriotism, had been unmistakable. Lyman Kerwin. But before Perry had time quite to digest this knowledge, someone called from behind him:

  “Hey, fella, you’re supposed to be in bed!”

  Perry swung about, startled, forgetful of his injured leg. He confronted cool dark eyes with a quiet, half smiling challenge in them. It was Lyssa Arthurs again. Perry was glad to see her for a second, then he remembered.

  “Well, what do you want?” he blurted sullenly.

  “I’ve signed up for emergency work, and I was put in charge of this ward,” she responded frankly, making a plain effort to avoid a painful clash of personalities.

  But Wilcox was in no mood to take the hint. “Yeah?” he grunted. “Well, I seem to remember that it was you who brought me here to the hospital. For that, thanks! Otherwise, why don’t you go hang around Kerwin some more? He’s ambitious and capable! He can do things for an up and coming newspaper woman like you! Why I just heard him make the nicest, smuggest little speech you ever could imagine—over the radio. All about conscripting more money a
nd men, and putting the country under the absolute control of one leader—himself, of course—to fight what he calls the Murgatroyd-Wilcox Horror. But I can see through him as though he was glass! He controls most of the munitions plants on the continent. The money’ll go to him!

  “But that’s penny-pickings! He talks about absolute obedience. Sure! With himself as boss! Kerwin talks smooth. There’s only one thing I can’t understand about him. He’s as yellow as a hyena. How he can find the nerve to talk fight now, is more than I can see!”

  The girl regarded Perry coolly, after he had finished. “I’ll be kinder than you’ve been to me, Mr. Wilcox,” she said at last. “It’s the privilege of all sincere science to explore the unknown. You and Mr. Murgatroyd did just that when you dug into those hills. You had no idea what would happen. But the result is your responsibility. As for my being with Kerwin—it’s not your business, of course, but I may not have enjoyed that myself. It happens he owns most of the Brenton Herald, for which I work. He asked me to come along with him to visit the site of your excavations, and I couldn’t very well refuse. It happens too, that I didn’t tell him that you were digging there, in case you’re accusing me of that. But there are plenty of sources from which he could have gotten information to arouse his curiosity. You are well known, and people are curious. But of course all this petty explanation of mine can’t mean much now.”

  Perry bit his lip, feeling briefly sorry that he’d openly connected Lyssa Arthurs with the Kerwin outfit. But he was by no means ready to trust her either.

  The rumble of shells, exploding miles off, beat into his mind. There was a mysterious hiss, followed by the screams of dying men. Perry winced. It was logical of course that soldiers should be sent to attack whatever it was out there; but he was sure that Kerwin must have some special knowledge about the enigma up his sleeve, or else he’d never have the guts to be delivering radio lectures that didn’t say anything about running away.

  “I don’t know enough!” he groaned aloud. “I was put out of action too quick to see just what took place at the excavation. I can’t judge—”

  Suddenly he grasped the girl by the shoulders. “Where’s Murgatroyd?” he grated. “Does anybody know?”

  Troubles Arthurs stayed cool, in spite of his fury. “Why yes,” she said. “He’s here.” She nodded toward a hospital bed against the wall.

  * * *

  Perry staggered toward the inert form which lay there. Rod, his head swathed in bandages, was completely unrecognizable. His features were covered.

  “Gas, same as hit me?” Wilcox asked the girl.

  “No,” she whispered. “Some kind of beam of concentrated heat waves. It’s his eyes, mostly.”

  “How long was he out there?” Perry questioned. “What I mean is, how long did he stay in action before he got hurt?”

  “About two hours, I think,” the girl responded. “He helped with the first civilian wounded, managing to stay clear of the gas himself. There was an explosion afterward. And out of the hole blown in the ground the machines—they’re like strange robots—began to emerge. That was at ten o’clock the night before last. Mr. Murgatroyd was brought in at eleven o’clock, so he must have been active for half an hour after the explosion.”

  Perry had heard enough. He bent over the bed of his friend and touched his shoulder. “Hey, Rod!” he called. “Hey, this is Perry! Wake up, you old son-of-a-gun!” Perry’s vision was misted.

  Murgatroyd groaned and stirred. When he spoke, however, he seemed lucid, his mind clearing after the long siege of unconsciousness, caused by his head injury. “Hello, fella,” he muttered, turning his face toward the sound of Perry’s voice as though trying to peer through the bandages that covered his damaged eyes.

  “Rod,” the young man whispered. “I want you to concentrate—try to remember. We’ve got a big job that’s our personal concern. But it’s more than that. It’s a danger concerning the whole country—maybe the whole world. Just what kind of an enemy is out there, Rod? Those robots. What are they? Is anybody controlling them? Or do they think for themselves? Do you know anything about them, Rod? Anything at all?”

  The old Scotch-American’s lips moved, almost hidden in the swathing of cloth. “I guess it should—be all right,” he said at last. “I guess it’s kind of—funny. Machines—think? Some might, but these—don’t. They can do things—perfectly. Like a machine that rifles a gun barrel or predicts the tides. They’re made that way. But these robots are just refined machines—acting almost human, sure! They’d almost fool you.

  “They see, they hear—in a way. They come toward you, aiming and firing explosive slugs, or sending out beams of concentrated heat. But we stopped a few of those robots with shells. Just adding-machine stuff inside, Perry. Cams and rods and wires, like our inventors would build, only a lot more wonderful and complicated. No soul could be in that, Perry. No real consciousness. No ambition…

  “Professor Vince had the wrecks hauled off—copped them for examination. I guess he knows a lot now, Perry. He tried to talk me into giving him your camera, with the pictures you took down in the bore, too, Perry. But I sent the camera to the rear with one of our men…

  “As for the robots, they may be under some kind of centralized radio control, of course. But even that can’t be—real brains. It hasn’t the judgment. Any little trick, like stepping out of the path of an automaton chasing you, and staying perfectly still, fools ’em. They go right on past you. And you can pull the same stunt again and again. But they’re still hellish.”

  Old Rod paused, panting with the effort of his long explanation. Then he went on: “So that means—there’s nobody at the helm, Perry. The whole business just goes on by itself. And it is pretty awe inspiring and wonderful at that—so damned wonderful you’d want to cheer, if it wasn’t so deadly—when a bunch of men makes an attack against it. The thing to do is not to attack, anyway for a few days. We’d learn more, then. Those robots are guardians of some kind, Perry. It’s a hunch of mine….”

  Suddenly the old man half rose in the bed, as if the expressing of his own thoughts had startled him. “That’s the whole crazy irony of the situation, Perry!” he cried. “Men out there, dying—and on the other side—potential progress, inspiration, miracles! The key to a new era! We’ve got to do something—Perry—now!”

  For a second Roderick Murgatroyd looked like a magnificent, blinded seer. Then he dropped back onto the bed, fainting into a coma of fatigue. Perry touched the old man’s hand with a brief pressure of comradeship.

  But at the same moment Wilcox was thinking fast to correlate his new information. Rod had spoken of Professor Vince. Vince, a shy, moon-faced little man, was a noted professor of physics at Kerwin University. Vince, then, was one of Lyman Kerwin’s stooges. What Vince learned from examining the wrecked automatons, Kerwin would promptly find out. Perry was sure he understood the setup at last.

  Kerwin knew, somehow, that what he called the Murgatroyd-Wilcox Horror was of little danger to himself, if he kept out of the battle zone! He was only using it as a means to his own ends. Power. Complete control of the nation. Free access to the inventions this marvelous archeological discovery might reveal!

  It was all too clear.

  * * *

  Instantly Perry’s plan was formulated. His injury was really superficial, now that the effect of the poison was gone. Exertion would work the stiffness out of his leg. But he glanced in frustrated exasperation at the pajamas he was wearing. A second later he was tugging at the door of the closet in the corner of the ward.

  “Doggone! Where’s my rig?” he was grumbling, as he clawed at the piled contents of the closet—mostly clothing of the wounded that had not been damaged by corrosive gas or heat.

  He found his oxygen mask and tanks at last. Quite indiscriminately he seized a shirt and a pair of trousers, and yanked them on over his pajamas. Shoes were similarly selected and donned. Then he hurried toward the door of the room.

  Lyssa Arthurs barred
his way here, her lips firm though smiling. Her dark eyes had a roguish glint that admired and challenged. She looked like a courageous small boy standing up for his rights, that way, Perry thought with a strange pang.

  “I’m responsible for the patients in this ward,” she said pertly. “Where do you think you’re going, Mister?”

  Perry shoved her unceremoniously aside. “Places,” he grunted almost good-humoredly. “You said before that I had responsibilities.”

  He rushed down the hall. In thirty seconds he was out in the street, with the bustle of behind-the-lines activity around him. He dodged ahead of trucks and tanks on his way to the river.

  Once, from a radio in a house he passed, he heard the rich, high voice of Lyman Kerwin, exhorting, commanding, praising himself in subtle terms, using fear as a means to power:

  “All my resources are at the disposal of the nation to combat the Murgatroyd-Wilcox Horror. The response has been good to our appeal for money. But it must be better. Better! We are pitted against something incredible—something that possesses many unknown weapons. The women and children of America must be protected.…”

  Perry Wilcox growled. And almost simultaneously a youth hurled a rock at him, shouting: “There he is! There’s Wilcox, one of the two mugs who started all the trouble!”

  A gang was after Perry then, pelting stones; and he knew that Kerwin’s propaganda had already achieved a very considerable success.

  But he didn’t stop to argue. He just ran on, limping a little. He reached the powerhouse dam. There he paused briefly to don his oxygen mask and tanks. Then he leaped into the swirling water, and sank into its concealing depths. He didn’t try really to swim. He made only a few strokes to keep himself righted, and safely beneath the surface. The current was swift, and it flowed in the proper direction. He had air to breathe. There was nothing much to do but wait.