Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  "You're telling me," Quade grunted, dashing in the other direction. He whirled, crouched on one knee, pumped bullets at the monster. The Hyclops charged on, foam frothing from its slavering mouth. The huge, shaggy arms clawed at the air.

  One bullet found its mark. The right head lost its eye and lolled uselessly on the fatty neck. The creature let out a soundless bellow of agony and whirled toward Quade. If this was a dream, the man thought, it was certainly one hell of a nightmare!

  Quade scampered away. He caught a flashing glimpse of the monster towering above him, huge as a colossus, the mighty arms clutching. Quade dived between the pillarlike legs, shuddering at what might happen if a taloned hand closed on his space suit. In that cyanogen atmosphere, he'd die almost before the Hyclops crushed him.

  Gerry's bullet found the center head. The huge monster shrieked silently and jerked erect. The remaining head lifted. Gerry fired again.

  The Hyclops collapsed. Like a bag of deflated skin, it slumped down and fell on Quade. The man had only time for one frantic thought of impending destruction before he was smashed flat. He tried to roll aside --

  And the Hyclops vanished. It disappeared into thin air. It was gone like the figment of a dream that it was.

  "This is doing me no good," Quade said, rising unsteadily to his feet. "Suppose I'd wanted that head -- or those heads, I mean -- for my mantelpiece."

  Gerry laughed somewhat bitterly. "Imagine how a real big-game hunter feels. Come on. Let's hurry, before Tommy uses his imagination again."

  A new phase entered the situation. Mirages seemed to dance indistinctly all about them. Vague, half-seen images flickered in the distance and were gone -- flashing pictures of alien worlds Tommy Strike had once seen -- bizarre monsters, strange faces, some that were recognizable.

  On they went, under the strange white sky of the comet. The seething, colossal tides of flame roared and swept above them. It was weird beyond all imagination. The two might have imagined themselves the last humans in the Universe, tracking a barren waste beneath the cosmic fires of creation.

  Once they saw, or thought they saw, Gerry herself running rapidly but getting nowhere. This, too, dissolved.

  "If I meet myself," Gerry said unhappily, "I'll go crazy. How much farther is it?"

  "Not far," Quade comforted. "What's this, now?"

  Apparently Tommy Strike had once more had delirium tremens. At least, the monster approaching looked like nothing that ever existed anywhere. It was a sea-serpent, twenty feet long, writhing rapidly toward them with vast jaws agape. But luckily it disappeared before guns could be drawn.

  Quade and Gerry reached the ship without further mishap. Morgan greeted them, helping them off with the bulky suits.

  "That engine's still giving trouble," he observed. "We strained it badly, getting through the coma. And another motor's in need of overhauling."

  "Has to be done," Quade said grimly. "We want to get off the comet alive. I need a drink."

  He took Gerry to the control cabin. For some time they pondered, between pouring and drinking. But they did succeed in calming their battered minds to coherence.

  "We can't move the ship," Quade said at length. "That's certain. Will any of those traps and snares of yours work on the Proteans?"

  "You can't hypnotize a sleeping person," the woman said. "So the hypnotic lure wouldn't work. That's the toughest part of it. My traps are designed for living monsters, not dreams and dreamers. The heavy-range guns might work, but we can't drag them all the way to the tower. Also" -- she glanced at a chronometer -- "time's getting short. We're nearing the Sun. This comet is traveling plenty fast."

  Quade lit a cigar of greenish, aromatic Lunar tobacco.

  "Let's think. We've got to figure out a way of waking the seven sleepers so their phantom legions will vanish. Um-m. What is sleep, anyway?"

  "There's more than one theory. The brain varies between the states of excitation and relaxation. The greater the excitation, the sooner comes relaxation, or sleep. The seven Proteans are half awake and half asleep. Super-development of the brain causes that."

  Quade nodded. "If we could irritate them enough to cause wakening -- Let's see. These creatures are highly evolved. Their outer membranes are composed of specialized cells. That means their nerve-endings must be extremely sensitive. And they live in a cyanogen atmosphere."

  "Cyanogen," Gerry said, drawing a comb through tangled red hair. "If we could release a gas or a liquid chemical spray to change the cyanogen into something irritating, something that would wake up the sleepers --"

  "We can't use the ship," Quade pointed out. "It would have to be portable. Um-m." He reached for a pad and pencil and made hasty notations.

  "(CN)2 Plus 02 yields nitrogen and carbon dioxide," the formula read. He showed it to Gerry.

  "The Proteans are used to a cyanogen atmosphere. The carbon dioxide would be poisonous or suffocating to them. Maybe. It'd destroy all life on the comet, except us."

  Gerry started convulsively. She snatched up the pad and figured quickly.

  "Hold on. I think I've got it. Ammonium oxalate. Yeah. Look at this."

  She showed Quade her notation. It read: "(CN)2 Plus H20 yields ammonium oxalate."

  "Water?" Quade asked.

  "Cyanogen plus water in the form of a simple spray would form ammonium oxalate. That salt isn't cyanide and would be a tremendous irritant to creatures living in cyanogen and its compounds. And the effect would be local. That's the answer. We've got it!"

  Quade nodded slowly. "I think you're right. Sure! We'll use portable tanks and sprayers. I'll get Morgan."

  He did so, and issued hasty instructions.

  There was instant, orderly confusion. Portable tanks had to be filled. Hoses and spray-nozzles had to be prepared. But at last a skeleton crew of men was ready, Gerry and Quade at their head. A few were left to work on the engines, Morgan among them.

  "We'll be back as soon as we can," Quade said. "In the meantime, my orders still stand. If we're not back before the deadline, take off without us."

  Morgan shook his shaggy head.

  "We're getting awful close to the Sun, Chief."

  "I know," Quade shrugged. "I'm taking a few cameras with me, but I can't load up on bulky stuff. It'd slow us down too much. It looks like we'll get precious little for Von Zorn. And you won't get any monsters, either," he added to Gerry. She didn't say anything.

  They set out at a furious, but more hopeful pace.

  "We'll wear a trail to the tower pretty soon," Gerry said bitterly.

  "Uh-huh. I wonder if that will work?" Quade pondered. "Plain water doesn't sound like much of a weapon."

  Ten minutes later his words seemed justified. A creature like a gigantic spider, six feet high and a dozen in diameter, rushed down a slope toward them. Its mandibles clicked viciously.

  "The tanks," Gerry cried shrilly. "Try the water."

  "Use your guns," Quade's deeper voice drowned her out. "Fire, everybody."

  Pistols crashed loudly. At once the great spider was killed. But its body still raced forward, bowling over one man before it collapsed. Though its eyes had been smashed and it was blind, the mandibles still snapped in insensate fury, until it vanished from sight.

  "There was no time for anything but bullets then," Quade explained. "But it looks like your chance is right here. There comes a blue globe."

  One of the blue Proteans, only five feet in diameter, was rolling unsuspiciously toward them. On its surface-membrane a picture appeared -- a picture of the spider that had just been killed.

  Nobody said anything. The Protean hesitated, grew larger, and began to roll purposefully toward the group.

  "Now." Gerry said.

  Quade pointed the nozzle of his tank-tube. He turned a valve. The nozzle hissed shrilly. They stared hopefully, expectantly.

  Chapter XXIV.

  "Forget the Guns!"

  It began to snow. Ammonium oxalate was precipitated out of the cyanogen atmosphere. It d
rifted down on the Protean, who did not seem discouraged in the least degree.

  "Doesn't work," Quade groaned, and used his gun.

  The blue monster deflated. But several more appeared. Again Quade tried the water-tank, with equal failure. Bullets finally slew the comet creatures.

  "Well," Gerry said, as the last of them disappeared. "I don't know. Either I'm completely wrong, or else ammonium oxalate affects only real Proteans, not the dream-images. In that case we've got to find the real sleepers."

  "All right," Quade acceded. "We'll keep on toward the tower. Wed better not use the tanks again till we're absolutely ready. The sleepers may not have been warned, so we don't want to show our hand too soon. If your idea's right, we'll be okay. If it's wrong, we're eclipsed."

  Gerry said nothing, though she realized the truth of Quade's assertion. Doggedly the little group plodded on through the gray, gravelly soil. Several times they caught sight of additional Proteans. Once they viewed a Hyclops, in the distance, pursuing a group of fleeing red spheres.

  "Looks like the blue Proteans have captured Tommy," Gerry remarked. "They're using his dream-visions in their crazy chess game. Wonder what happened to the other men?"

  Quade was wondering, too, and it wasn't a pleasant thought.

  Gerry's thoughts were equally distressful. Tommy Strike was in serious trouble. She felt that her own rashness had been responsible for his present predicament. She kept seeing his face --

  Abruptly, she muttered something suspiciously like an oath and took deadly aim at a Protean that had materialized nearby. It exploded into tatters. She felt slightly better.

  Overhead the fires of the comet's coma seethed and churned. Beyond that white veil the Solar System moved in its accustomed orbits. Work was proceeding on the Ark. People were wandering through the London Zoo, gaping at Gerry's exhibits. Hollywood on the Moon was, as usual, buzzing with excitement. Everywhere television sets were discussing the comet, and the possible fate of the explorers who had vanished into its fires.

  Not far away were all these friendly, familiar things -- shut out by an impalpable wall of alien matter. Light-years away. Gerry, Quade, and the others were imprisoned on the comet, while the galactic wanderer rushed on toward the disastrous proximity of the Sun. And slowly, slowly, the time of grace shortened.

  From the start, things had gone wrong. Perhaps, Gerry thought, it was her fault. But, then, nobody could have foreseen conditions on the comet. It was too far outside the ken of Earthmen. Gerry felt a touch of awe as she looked up at the weird sky, a realization of the vast, cosmic immensities that surround our Solar System. So much lay outside. So much was unknown, could never be understood by human minds!

  She shrugged and plodded on. It didn't matter. The business of the day was something entirely different. This was more familiar, dealing with weapons, pitting the skill and intelligence of Catch-'em-Alive Carlyle against her enemies.

  Quade's thoughts were rather similar. His keen brain was working, discarding possibilities, advancing theories, planning, plotting.

  When they came in sight of the black tower, the minds of all the group were attuned to highest intensity.

  Quade stopped.

  "We don't know the full power or capabilities of the Proteans," he said quietly. "So watch yourselves. They may have purely mental weapons. Keep alert, and in touch with me. The minute anything seems to be going wrong, let me know."

  They went down toward the monolith. It wasn't deserted now. Its base was hidden by thousands of the spheres, red and blue, united against a common foe. The Proteans waited, silent, alert, menacing...

  The tension increased almost to the breaking point. Step by step, crunching their heavy space boots through the gravel, the party advanced. The enemy made no move. Silently they waited at the base of the ebon monolith, under the white, churning skies of flame.

  Silence... Ominous, torturing silence.

  Quade's nerves were taut. He could feel the thrill of impending danger flooding through him, tugging at his mind, crying the nearness of peril. His hands swung loosely at his sides, never too far from the gun-butts. The rifle slung across his shoulder slapped his hips at each step. Gerry walked cautiously beside him. After them came the men, bizarre figures with the big watertank cylinders jutting above their helmeted heads.

  The nearest of the spheres was forty feet away. Thirty. Twenty-five...

  The slope was not so steep now. Crunch, crunch went the metal boots. Hoarse breathing whistled through the audiophones.

  "Chief," somebody whispered.

  "Steady," Quade said. "Steady, fellas!"

  Twenty feet separated the group from the Proteans. Fifteen... Ten...

  The interplanetary huntress and Quade strode confidently toward the massed ranks. He walked into a gap between two of the monsters. And they gave way.

  Hesitation would have been fatal. Gerry and Quade kept on, and a path was cleared for him as he moved. One by one, two by two, the Proteans shrank away.

  In his track came Gerry and the others. The tension was unendurable.

  "Chief," a voice said, "they're closing up behind us."

  "Let 'em," Quade snapped, and kept going.

  The wall of the tower loomed just ahead. Gerry and Quade stepped over the threshold, stood for a second in the queer pale illumination streaming from within. The floor was carpeted with Proteans, some tiny, others six feet and more in diameter. Gerry could not see Tommy Strike or the others.

  Another path of Proteans opened across the floor of the tower chamber. Through that Gerry and Quade advanced, in grim, deadly silence.

  Forward they went, till they reached the center. There they paused.

  At their feet lay five motionless figures, Earthmen all, unconscious and silent in their space suits and helmets. In a single glance, Gerry saw that they breathed. But the strange spell of dream held them fettered.

  "Tommy!"

  Gerry sprang forward, knelt beside Strike. She put her palms flat on the transparent helmet, as though she could feel through it the flushed face of the man.

  As though, at a signal, the Proteans roused into activity. A stir of concerted movement rippled through the chamber. The spheres swayed, rocked. Suddenly they poured down on the Earthmen.

  Quade's gun snarled without hesitation. The men fired a single, continuous roar of bullets.

  But from the start it was hopeless. Like the fabled legions of Cadmus, the Proteans seemed to spring into existence from empty air. Strange dream-beings, given the attributes of matter and energy by the power of the black monolith. Dreams made real-living, dangerous, roused now to furious activity.

  Quade saw two of his men go down under the onslaught. He blew a blue monster to fragments, shattered a red one. Then he also fell under the attack of a giant. It rolled completely over him and was gone. It had vanished.

  White flakes drifted down against Quade's helmet.

  He sprang up, somewhat dazed by his fall. He stared around.

  The dream-legions had unaccountably thinned. At least half of them had vanished. But more were approaching, materializing from the air.

  Standing above Strike's body, Gerry Carlyle was using her tank-and-hose. H20 -- plain, ordinary water -- spurted high in the cyanogen atmosphere, and the precipitated ammonium oxalate fell like snowflakes.

  "Use your tanks!" Gerry shrilled. "Forget the guns."

  Quade set the example. He twisted a valve, sent a fine spray of water shooting up. Immediately the others did the same. The salt had no effect on most of the Proteans.

  But suddenly, without warning, a number of them snuffed out and were gone. Then a few hundred more disappeared.

  "They're waking up," Gerry cried. "The seven sleepers --"

  Seven sleeping Proteans, securely hidden among their materialized dreams, each identical with the originals. Now awakening came to them, one by one. Sensitive nerve-endings reacted to the irritant salt. No real Protean could remain in dreaming sleep under the circumstances. And
whenever a real Protean awoke, his dreams vanished.

  The hordes thinned. They were reduced quickly by leaps and bounds. Five hundred -- two hundred -- a few dozen --

  Finally, seven spheres, four blue and three red, lay within the tower. Quivering slightly, they shuddered under the attack of the irritant salt and began to roll toward the doorway.

  Quade blocked their path, lifting his sprayer threateningly.

  The Proteans hesitated, not knowing what to do.

  "Turn off the water," Gerry commanded. "They won't go to sleep again. I'll try to communicate with them. I've learned how."

  She turned the valve of her tank and advanced toward the nearest blue Protean. It waited helplessly. The five-foot sphere looked like nothing so much as a gigantic Christmas tree ornament, Quade thought absently.

  Gerry wasn't saying anything, but the sphere was agitated. Pictures appeared on its surface membrane.

  The woman turned to Quade.

  "They're telepaths, you know. They can read strongly projected thoughts. And I can piece out what they mean, more or less, from the pictures they make."

  There was another period of silence, while the strange, three-dimensional, color images flickered over the globe's bluish skin.

  "It's all set," Gerry remarked at length. "Tommy and the others haven't been hurt. They'll wake up by themselves pretty soon. Feed 'em caffeine and brandy and they'll be ready to go."

  "They're harmless now?" Quade said.

  "Yes. As long as we don't squirt water on them, they'll play ball with us. The ammonium oxalate is complete torture to the Proteans."

  The movie man was glancing at his chronometer. He audiophoned the ship, and conversed briefly with Morgan. Then he turned back to Gerry.

  "Yeah," he said bleakly. "It's nearly deadline. By putting all the men to work muy pronto we may get the engines repaired in time to pull free of the comet. But as for shooting any pictures, I can't spare a man. Well, I'll shoot what background I can on the way back to the ship."