Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  But Dennis was not to get off so lightly.

  * * * * *

  The charging ring of termites had closed completely in by now. The snapping mandibles of the nearest one were up to him. They opened; shut.

  They caught Denny on the back swing, knocking him six feet away instead of slicing him wide open. Denny got to his feet almost before he had landed; but between him and the exit was the bulk of the termite that had felled him, and in the doorway the guard had dropped the body it was slashing to bits, and had recommenced its slashing jaw movements.

  "Jim! For God's sake...." shrieked the doomed man.

  Beside himself, he managed to hurdle clear over the massive insect between him and the doorway. But there he stopped, with the guard's great mandibles fanning the air less than a foot from him. "Jim!" came the agonized cry again.

  And behind the gigantic termite, in the tunnel, with at least a possibility of safety lying open before him, Jim heard and answered the call.

  Savagely he plunged his spear into the unarmored rear of the guard, tore it out, thrust again....

  The thing heaved and struggled to turn, shaking the tunnel with its rasping anger--and taking its attention at last away from the duty of closing that tunnel mouth.

  With no room to run and slide, Denny fell to the floor and commenced to creep through the narrow space between the trampling guard's bulk and the wall. He felt his left arm and shoulder go numb as he was crushed for a fleeting instant against the wood partition. Broken, he thought dimly. The collar-bone. But still he kept moving on.

  * * * * *

  He moved in a haze of pain and weakness. He did not see that he had passed clear of the menacing hulk--that his slow crawling had been multiplied in results by the fact that the termite guard had finally, stopped trying to turn in the narrow passage and had rushed ahead into the Queen's chamber, to turn there and come dashing back. He did not see that Jim was finally disarmed and completely helpless, with his spear buried beyond recovery in the bulk of the maddened guard. He hardly felt Jim's supporting arm as it was thrust under him, to half drag and half lead him along the tunnel away from the horde behind.

  He only knew that they were moving forward, with the din behind them--as the grim cohorts of the Queen fought to all crowd ahead in the narrow passage at once--keeping pace with them in spite of all they could do to make haste. And he only knew that finally Jim gave a great shout, and that suddenly they were standing under a rent in a tunnel roof through which sunlight was pouring.

  Several worker termites were laboring to close up the chink and cut off the sunlight; but these, not being of the band outraged by the destruction of the egg in the Queen's chamber, moved swiftly away as the two men advanced.

  Jim reached up and tore with frantic hands at the crumbling edges of the rotten wood overhead. Ignoring his gashed and bleeding fingers, he widened the breach till he, could pull himself up through it. Then he reached down, caught Denny's sound arm, and raised him by main strength.

  They were in the clear air of the outer world once more, on a terrace in the mound low down near its base.

  Jim and Dennis half slid, half fell down the near terrace slope to the jungle of grass stalks beneath. And there Denny bit his lip sharply, struggled against the weakness overcoming him--and fainted.

  * * * * *

  Jim caught him up over his shoulder, and staggered forward through the jungle. Behind, the termites poured out through the broken wall in an enraged flood, braving even the sunlight and outer air in their chase of the invaders that had, profaned the Queen's chamber.

  "Matt!" shouted Jim with all the strength of his lungs, forgetting that his voice could not be heard by normal human ears. "Matt!"

  But if Matthew Breen could not hear, he could see. The slightest inattention at his guard duty at that second would have resulted in two deaths. But he was on the alert.

  Jim saw the sun blotted out swiftly, saw a huge, pinkish-gray wall swoop down between him and Denny, and the deadly horde of termites pursuing them. Then he saw another pinkish-gray wall, in which was set something--a shallow, regular, hollowed plateau--that looked familiar. The patty-dish in which he and Denny had been carried to this place of death and horror.

  Jim knew he could not clamber into that great plateau; he was too exhausted. But the necessity was spared him.

  The patty-dish scooped down under him, uprooting huge trees, digging up square yards of earth all around him. He was flung from his feet to roll helplessly beside the unconscious Dennis, as men and earth and all were shifted from the dish's rim to its center.

  Like gigantic express elevator the dish soared dizzily up in the tremendous hand that held it, over the vast pile of the mound city, over all the surrounding landscape, and was borne back toward Matt's automobile--and toward the laboratory where the bulk of their bodies waited, in protoplasmic form, in the dome of the glass bell.

  CHAPTER XI

  Back to Normal

  "I think," said Jim, loading his pipe, "that now I really will settle down. No other adventures could seem like much after the one"--he repressed a shiver--"we've just passed through."

  "And I think," said Dennis, following his own line of thought, "that as far the world of science goes, my exploring has been for nothing. Try to tell sober scientists of the specially evolved, huge-brained thing that rules the termite tribe and forms and holds the marvelous organization it has? Try to tell them--now that Matt has to stubbornly decided to keep secret his work with element eighty-five--that we were reduced to a quarter of an inch in height, and that we went through a mound and saw at first hand the things we describe? They'd shut me in an asylum!"

  The two were sitting in Denny's apartment, once more conventionally clothed, and again their normal five feet eleven, and six feet two.

  The reassembling of Denny's body had done odd things. Jim had set the broken bone with rough skill before stepping under the glass bell; and the fracture had been healed automatically by the growing deposit of protoplasmic substance resulting when Matt threw his switch.

  But Denny's missing finger had baffled the reversing process. With no tiny pattern to form around, the former substance of his finger had simply gathered in a shapeless knob of flesh and bone like a tumorous growth sprouting from his hand. It would have to be amputated.

  But the marvels performed under Matthew Breen's glass bell were far secondary to the two men. The things they had recently seen and undergone, and the possibility of telling folks about them, occupied their attention exclusively.

  "Then you're not going to write a monograph on the real nature of termites, as you'd planned?" Jim asked Denny.

  Denny shrugged dispiritedly. "People would take it for a joke instead of a scientific treatise if I did," he said.

  Jim puffed reflectively at his pipe. A thought had come, to him that seemed to hold certain elements of possibility.

  "Why not do this," he suggested: "Write it up first as a straight story, and see if people will believe it. Then, if they do, you can rewrite it as scientific fact."

  And eventually they decided to do just that. And--here is their story.

  * * *

  Contents

  THE RED HELL OF JUPITER

  By Paul Ernst

  What is the mystery centered in Jupiter's famous "Red Spot"? Two fighting Earthmen, caught by the "Pipe-men" like their vanished comrades, soon find out.

  CHAPTER I

  The Red Spot

  Commander Stone, grizzled chief of the Planetary Exploration Forces, acknowledged Captain Brand Bowen's salute and beckoned him to take a seat.

  Brand, youngest officer of the division to wear the triple-V for distinguished service, sat down and stared curiously at his superior. He hadn't the remotest idea why he had been recalled from leave: but that it was on a matter of some importance he was sure. He hunched his big shoulders and awaited orders.

  "Captain Bowen," said Stone. "I want you to go to Jupiter as soon as you can arrange to do so, fly
low over the red area in the southern hemisphere, and come back here with some sort of report as to what's wrong with that infernal death spot."

  He tapped his radio stylus thoughtfully against the edge of his desk.

  "As you perhaps know, I detailed a ship to explore the red spot about a year ago. It never came back. I sent another ship, with two good men in it, to check up on the disappearance of the first. That ship, too, never came back. Almost with the second of its arrival at the edge of the red area all radio communication with it was cut off. It was never heard from again. Two weeks ago I sent Journeyman there. Now he has been swallowed up in a mysterious silence."

  An exclamation burst from Brand's lips. Sub-Commander Journeyman! Senior officer under Stone, ablest man in the expeditionary forces, and Brand's oldest friend!

  Stone nodded comprehension of the stricken look on Brand's face. "I know how friendly you two were," he said soberly. "That's why I chose you to go and find out, if you can, what happened to him and the other two ships."

  Brand's chin sank to rest on the stiff high collar of his uniform.

  "Journeyman!" he mused. "Why, he was like an older brother to me. And now ... he's gone."

  * * * * *

  There was silence in Commander Stone's sanctum for a time. Then Brand raised his head.

  "Did you have any radio reports at all from any of the three ships concerning the nature of the red spot?" he inquired.

  "None that gave definite information," replied Stone. "From each of the three ships we received reports right up to the instant when the red area was approached. From each of the three came a vague description of the peculiarity of the ground ahead of them: it seems to glitter with a queer metallic sheen. Then, from each of the three, as they passed over the boundary--nothing! All radio communication ceased as abruptly as though they'd been stricken dead."

  He stared at Brand. "That's all I can tell you, little enough, God knows. Something ominous and strange is contained in that red spot: but what its nature may be, we cannot even guess. I want you to go there and find out."

  Brand's determined jaw jutted out, and his lips thinned to a purposeful line. He stood to attention.

  "I'll be leaving to-night, sir. Or sooner if you like. I could go this afternoon: in an hour--"

  "To-night is soon enough," said Stone with a smile. "Now, who do you want to accompany you?"

  Brand thought a moment. On so long a journey as a trip to Jupiter there was only room in a space ship--what with supplies and all--for one other man. It behooved him to pick his companion carefully.

  "I'd like Dex Harlow," he said at last. "He's been to Jupiter before, working with me in plotting the northern hemisphere. He's a good man."

  "He is," agreed Stone, nodding approval of Brand's choice. "I'll have him report to you at once."

  He rose and held out his hand. "I'm relying on you, Captain Bowen," he said. "I won't give any direct orders: use your own discretion. But I would advise you not to try to land in the red area. Simply fly low over it, and see what you can discern from the air. Good-by, and good luck."

  Brand saluted, and went out, to go to his own quarters and make the few preparations necessary for his sudden emergency flight.

  * * * * *

  The work of exploring the planets that swung with Earth around the sun was still a new branch of the service. Less than ten years ago, it had been, when Ansen devised his first crude atomic motor.

  At once, with the introduction of this tremendous new motive power, men had begun to build space ships and explore the sky. And, as so often happens with a new invention, the thing had grown rather beyond itself.

  Everywhere amateur space flyers launched forth into the heavens to try their new celestial wings. Everywhere young and old enthusiasts set Ansen motors into clumsily insulated shells and started for Mars or the moon or Venus.

  The resultant loss of life, as might have been foreseen, was appalling. Eager but inexperienced explorers edged over onto the wrong side of Mercury and were burned to cinders. They set forth in ships that were badly insulated, and froze in the absolute zero of space. They learned the atomic motor controls too hastily, ran out of supplies or lost their courses, and wandered far out into space--stiff corpses in coffins that were to be buried only in time's infinity.

  To stop the foolish waste of life, the Earth Government stepped in. It was decreed that no space ship might be owned or built privately. It was further decreed that those who felt an urge to explore must join the regular service and do so under efficient supervision. And there was created the Government bureau designated as the Planetary Exploration Control Board, which was headed by Commander Stone.

  * * * * *

  Under this Board the exploration of the planets was undertaken methodically and efficiently, with a minimum of lives sacrificed.

  Mercury was charted, tested for essential minerals, and found to be a valueless rock heap too near the sun to support life.

  Venus was visited and explored segment by segment; and friendly relations were established with the rather stupid but peaceable people found there.

  Mars was mapped. Here the explorers had lingered a long time: and all over this planet's surface were found remnants of a vast and intricate civilization--from the canals that laced its surface, to great cities with mighty buildings still standing. But of life there was none. The atmosphere was too rare to support it; and the theory was that it had constantly thinned through thousands of years till the last Martian had gasped and died in air too attenuated to support life even in creatures that must have grown greater and greater chested in eons of adaptation.

  Then Jupiter had been reached: and here the methodical planet by planet work promised to be checked for a long time to come. Jupiter, with its mighty surface area, was going to take some exploring! It would be years before it could be plotted even superficially.

  * * * * *

  Brand had been to Jupiter on four different trips; and, as he walked toward his quarters from Stone's office, he reviewed what he had learned on those trips.

  Jupiter, as he knew it, was a vast globe of vague horror and sharp contrasts.

  Distant from the sun as it was, it received little solar heat. But, with so great a mass, it had cooled off much more slowly than any of the other planets known, and had immense internal heat. This meant that the air--which closely approximated Earth's air in density--was cool a few hundred yards up from the surface of the planet, and dankly hot close to the ground. The result, as the cold air constantly sank into the warm, was a thick steamy blanket of fog that covered everything perpetually.

  Because of the recent cooling, life was not far advanced on Jupiter. Too short a time ago the sphere had been but a blazing mass. Tropical marshes prevailed, crisscrossed by mighty rivers at warmer than blood heat. Giant, hideous fernlike growths crowded one another in an everlasting jungle. And among the distorted trees, from the blanket of soft white fog that hid all from sight, could be heard constantly an ear-splitting chorus of screams and bellows and whistling snarls. It made the blood run cold just to listen--and to speculate on what gigantic but tiny-brained monsters made them.

  Now and then, when Brand had been flying dangerously low over the surface, a wind had risen strong enough to dispel the fog banks for an instant; and he had caught a flash of Jovian life. Just a flash, for example, of a monstrous lizard-like thing too great to support its own bulk: or a creature all neck and tail, with ridges of scale on its armored hide and a small serpentine head weaving back and forth among the jungle growths.

  * * * * *

  Occasionally he had landed--always staying close to the space ship, for Jupiter's gravity made movement a slow and laborious process, and he didn't want to be caught too far from security. At such times he might hear a crashing and splashing and see a reptilian head loom gigantically at him through the fog. Then he would discharge the deadly explosive gun which was Earth's latest weapon, and the creature would crash to the ground. The chorus of hissin
gs and bellowings would increase as he hastened slowly and laboriously back to the ship, indicating that other unseen monsters of the steamy jungle had flocked to tear the dead giant to pieces and bolt it down.

  Oh, Jupiter was a nice planet! mused Brand. A sweet place--if one happened to be a two-hundred-foot snake or something!

  He had always thought the entire globe was in that new, raw, marshy state. But he had worked only in one comparatively small area of the northern hemisphere; had never been within thirty thousand miles of the red spot. What might lie in that ominous crimson patch, he could not even guess. However, he reflected, he was soon to find out, though he might never live to tell about it.

  Shrugging his shoulders, he turned into the fifty story building in which was his modest apartment. There he found, written by the automatic stylus on his radio pad, the message: "Be with you at seven o'clock. Best regards, and I hope you strangle. Dex Harlow."

  * * * * *

  Dex Harlow was a six-foot Senior Lieutenant who had been on many an out-of-the-way exploratory trip. Like Brand he was just under thirty and perpetually thirsting for the bizarre in life. He was a walking document of planetary activity. He was still baked a brick red from a trip to Mercury a year before: he had a scar on his forehead, the result of jumping forty feet one day on the moon when he'd meant to jump only twenty; he was minus a finger which had been irreparably frost-bitten on Mars; and he had a crumpled nose that was the outcome of a brush with a ten-foot bandit on Venus who'd tried to kill him for his explosive gun and supply of glass, dyite-containing cartridges.

  He clutched Brand's fingers in a bone-mangling grip, and threw his hat into a far corner.

  "You're a fine friend!" he growled cheerfully. "Here I'm having a first rate time for myself, swimming and planing along the Riviera, with two more weeks leave ahead of me--and I get a call from the Old Man to report to you. What excuse have you for your crime?"

  "A junket to Jupiter," said Brand. "Would you call that a good excuse?"