Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  His eyes ran down the length of his body. The flash gun was gone from his belt. That was hardly unexpected. But the belt was gone too. So were his clothes. He was clad in a loose robe of shimmering white cloth.

  That meant he had been unconscious for some time. How long? Ben would have given much to know. Suddenly he let out an unearthly moan, threw his arms wide and rolled off the couch. He lay still.

  The silken voice was raised again and added to it was another, more masculine. Then a door opened and two people stepped into the room. Ben sat up and grinned at them, especially at the woman.

  "I thought that would get you," he said. "It’s not hospitable to hide from your guest."

  "Resourceful, isn’t he?" The woman raised her eyebrows in mock admiration. Her companion growled a reply which Ben couldn’t quite catch.

  They were an odd pair, the woman towering well above ten feet but perfectly formed, her skin the color of pink marble; the man more beast than human. The women of Saturn were as tall as she, Ben had time to think, but not nearly as beautiful.

  "Welcome to Teris, Ben Sessions," she said. Her smile was the smile of the serpent of Eden.

  "You’re pretty resourceful yourself," Ben grinned.

  He had carried no papers except a blanket permit from Interstellar Flight. He wondered if the precaution he and Carson had taken would prove to be in vain. The woman spoke again.

  "Ben Sessions, graduate of Neptune School of Rockets; born in Taos, New Mexico, Earth; third of four children; unmarried, unattached at present; first position, co-pilot Earth-Vega Express . . ."

  She seemed to be choosing items at random from a memorized list. The exhibition was intended to impress Ben and it was succeeding. More than that, however, it was frightening. He held his breath as she neared the end.

  ". . . two years with Interstellar Communications; presently a licensed space explorer, non-affiliated."

  "Pretty good," Ben said.

  It was better than that. It was perfect. Only the end was wrong. He and Carson had worked that out with the psychoanalyst. The two of them had wanted to falsify the entire biography, but the analyst had convinced them he was right.

  "One lie I might attempt to pound into your very subconscious by hypnotism; a dozen would be spread too thin. We would leave holes. Under the type of electroanalysis you seem to think might be used on you I can’t even promise one lie will hold up."

  Ben reminded himself to recommend the man for honors if he ever got back to Earth. He had certainly known his business; but then, if he hadn’t he would not be working for "Two Eyes."

  "Now that you’ve told me all about myself maybe you’ll tell me what’s going on," Ben said.

  "One of your compatriots can do that," the woman told him. Her interest seemed suddenly to have waned.

  She said a few words in a strange tongue to the man who stood at her side. He grunted, bowed, and advanced toward Ben. Long arms, covered with thick black hair, reached out. Ben dodged.

  "You’ll be sorry if you make him use force," the woman said.

  "Nothing like trying," Ben told her. He avoided another grab and stepped in and smashed his fist to the hairy man’s jaw.

  The ape-like figure rushed forward and Ben’s head was thrown back by a mighty blow . . . The ape-like figure rushed forward and Ben’s head was thrown back by a mighty blow . . .

  He might as well have hit a wall. Before Ben could strike another blow he was lifted from his feet by an upward slap that threatened to tear loose one side of his face. Too dazed to resist, he felt both his wrists encircled by a tremendous hand. The woman’s voice rose sharply in a tone of command.

  The corridor through which Ben Sessions was being led was thronged with people. There seemed to be three classes: rosy-skinned giantesses like his escort; men of his own size, but also with pink complexions; and the squat, hairy men who appeared to be nothing more than slaves.

  It was plain that women dominated this society, and from them Ben received curious but contemptuous glances. Any one of these Amazons would have been considered a beauty on Earth, so regular were their features, but they lacked an air of feminine softness. Instead, cruelty lay thinly masked beneath the surface.

  At the end of the long corridor a huge door swung open and Ben was led through it into an immense room. At the far end of the room was a throne, and on it a woman. Ben blinked. As well proportioned as the others he had seen, she was half again as tall, twice as beautiful. He could not contain a gasp of appreciation.

  Thick violet hair fell almost to her shoulders, her skin was luminous and flawless, her body breathtaking, more revealed than concealed by a clinging gown of some filmy material. At her breast, flashed a single violet jewel larger by far than the famed sapphires of Uranus.

  "I brought him as soon as he awakened," said the woman with Ben.

  A malevolent stare from the woman on the throne rested on Ben. "It was unnecessary," she said. "We have no further need of him. Take him to the field."

  "Wait a minute," Ben snapped.

  "You are addressing Arndis, Queen of Teris," he heard his escort say.

  "I don’t give a hoot . . ." He never finished the sentence. From behind the hairy slave seized him, lifted him and flung him bodily toward the doors. The interview was over.

  They went for a while along the same corridor, then turned off and followed a side passage for a way. It led steadily downward to an arched opening and through that out of the building. Here too the light was diffused, but much brighter. Ben had to blink several times before he became adjusted to it.

  They were standing in the center of a vast level plain, apparently endless and roofless, for overhead there was no sky, only an increasing intensity of light. Ranged in rows on the plain were thousands of space ships. Ben turned once as they approached the first line of ships and saw behind him the building from which he had just come. It rose upward, a single block of shining stone, for almost a mile. Alongside it were other buildings of the same material, but none so large.

  Then Ben and his two escorts were past the first rows of ships. His eyes roved over them, trying to discover what armament they carried. None was visible. Their firing tubes were much the same as those of Earth design, but slightly smaller.

  His attention was diverted from his study by a sudden disturbance aboard the closest ship. The sound of an angry feminine voice came clearly through an open porthole, and mingled with it was a pleading, deeper tone. An instant later a door was flung open and out of it came hurtling one of the men of Teris. He hit the ground, rolled over, and came to his knees facing the open door and the giant woman who stood framed in it.

  That the man was pleading for his very life was obvious to Ben, but it was equally plain that his pleas were having no effect. The woman on the ship uttered a single contemptuous word that cut the pleas short. On her face was a sadistic anticipation such as Ben had never before seen. Slowly she raised a cylinder in her hand and pointed it at the man on the ground.

  From the cylinder came a violet light, weak at first, but growing in intensity as she pressed some sort of trigger. The man shrieked in agony as the light played on him. Then the smell of burning flesh came to Ben’s nostrils, and the shriek became a single high pitched scream which choked off suddenly.

  Ben’s escort laughed with ghoulish enjoyment, said something to the woman in the doorway, and gestured at the charred body on the ground. The violet light grew to blinding intensity. A puff of smoke and the body was gone.

  "What was that for?" Ben gasped.

  His escort smiled indulgently and shot a question at the other woman. The reply was a shrug of shoulders and a few short syllables.

  "He did something that displeased her," she told Ben. At his look of horror she laughed again, apparently pleased to have shocked him.

  He noticed, as they went along, that the space ships decreased in size. Those in the first rows had been comparable to Earth’s battle cruisers, those in the last were one or two man jobs. His o
wn ship, the Rapier, was at the very end of the last line.

  Beyond was a vast army of men, both rosy skinned and hairy, at work on a gigantic excavation project. Great power shovels scooped load after load of earth. But most of the work was being done by the men who labored with primitive pick and shovel.

  Above the sound of digging rose the sharp voices of the giant women of Teris, each with a battalion under her command. As far as Ben’s eyes could reach men were digging at the ground.

  He was hustling along to a point where a dirt spattered group struggled with a metallic lining for the half-mile hole it had excavated. At that point his escort turned him over to the woman who bossed that crew. Ben saw in the hand of the overseer one of the violet ray cylinders.

  "Down there," she said curtly, pointing to where a small knot of men worked on a terrace fifty feet below. "They will tell you what to do."

  Ben had found nothing strange in the fact that his escort had spoken English fluently. She had been present at his electroanalysis. But he doubted that all the women of Teris could have the same command of the language. Nevertheless he said nothing and clambered down the ladder to the terrace beneath. Ben’s unasked question was answered when he saw the five faces turned up toward him.

  Earth men! Even the grime that covered them could not hide that. And there was added proof in their widening eyes. They were sorry to see another Earth man captive, yet happy at sight of one of their own kind. Willing hands helped Ben down from the bottom rung of the ladder.

  "We’d heard they had picked up another ship," one of the men said. "But we weren’t sure the rumor was true."

  "True enough, as you can see. I’m Ben Sessions."

  His outstretched hand was grasped and shaken cordially. Names were flung at him. Murchison, Davies, Kennard, Bannon, Murchison.

  "Wait a second," Ben said. "I thought I heard Murchison twice."

  "You did," said the big, rawboned man at whom he was staring. "The first is my daughter Sally."

  It was only then that Ben noticed how small and slender was the figure of the one next to Murchison. Even the girl’s loose robe, similar to that of the men, could not quite conceal her femininity. Her hair was cut short, her hands toil hardened.

  "Carson didn’t tell me," Ben muttered. He grinned at Murchison. "I expected to find you and two assistants, but I didn’t know one would be your daughter."

  "Expected—?" Hope glinted in five pairs of eyes. Above them there was a shouted command to get to work, and a cylinder was waved threateningly.

  "I’ll explain as we go along," Ben said hastily. "Show me what to do."

  Bannon, a short, thickset man with a mop of unruly black hair shoved a pair of tongs into Ben’s hands and quickly explained how to hold the rivets with which the group was working. In effect they were constructing a huge cylinder. Looking down, Ben saw that it descended into the bowels of Teris.

  The others were pressing Ben for his explanation but he insisted that they tell their stories first. The same thing had happened to them as to him. Within some thousands of miles of Teris they had felt a force pull them toward it. Then they had passed out and awakened to find themselves prisoners.

  "I know all that," Ben said. "But in all the time you’ve been here you must have found out a good deal. What goes on here? Why are they taking prisoner every one who approaches the planet? Why do they conceal its existence from our system?"

  Murchison paused between blows of his hammer, as though to wipe sweat from his brow.

  "Since you seem in a hurry," he said, "I will tell it in brief. You are in the center of a planet whose evil people are engaged in one enterprise: the conquering and subjugating of our universe."

  "I thought that might be it," Ben nodded. "But subjugating billions of people may prove tougher than they think."

  "Their intention is to reduce our population so it can be easily handled. And I can assure you that these women are perfectly capable of slaughtering as many people as they think necessary. They have both the means and the contempt for human life that such an undertaking requires."

  Ben hazarded a guess. "This project is part of their preparation?"

  "The final part. Since the surface of Teris has a temperature of absolute zero it can only be reached from here through a series of locks. What they are building now are new locks big enough to handle their largest ships. As soon as that’s done they plan to attack."

  "Any idea when that will be?"

  "About a week, Earth time." Murchison’s shoulders sagged with despair. "We’ve been wracking our brains for a way to stop them, but it’s no use. They’re as clever as they are evil. They’ve even sent doubles of each of us men to Earth to pave the way for the attack. I suppose you’ve seen your double."

  "No."

  "Then they haven’t made one. You have to be awake while it’s being done. I suppose they didn’t think it necessary now that there’s so little time left."

  "Less time than I thought," Ben grunted. "I’d better get moving." He tilted his head back and shouted to the woman above.

  For a second time Ben stood before Arndis, queen of Teris. Her eyes probed at him, trying to divine his thoughts. There was anger in those eyes. If she detected a single flaw in his story it would mean Ben’s death. More than that, it would mean disaster for Earth. He talked fast.

  "When we found that plate in the firing tube of Murchison’s ship we knew he was lying. We figured he’d discovered valuable deposits out here and was trying to keep them secret."

  "That was all?"

  "It’s enough, isn’t it? Enough for Interplanetary Intelligence to send me on this mission. Those false papers I carried are proof that we suspected something. And if I’m not back in the time we allowed they’ll have our entire battle fleet out looking for me."

  "Very clever," Arndis smiled. "But if you are trying to frighten us you are failing. The women of Teris had a high civilization before your Earth was born. We can do things you never dreamed of."

  At her command Ben’s arms were seized and bound behind him. He was carried swiftly into a room nearby, a room filled with a maze of scientific apparatus. On what appeared to be an operating table was a transparent shell, and beneath this Ben was strapped.

  Through the shell he saw one of the men of Teris brought into the room and placed in a similar position on another table. Wires were strung between the two shells and somewhere a machine began to hum. The shells filled with a white vapor that lingered a moment and then was gone.

  Although he had known what was to happen Ben could not control his amazement. For the man who came out of the other shell was an exact replica of himself! Within minutes he saw the other dressed in his own flying suit.

  "You see how simply we solve the problem?" Arndis asked. "Ben Sessions will return to Earth and there will be no search. He will report that he found nothing and request that he be allowed to try again. By that time we shall be ready to attack."

  Ben’s arms had been untied, and now he put his hand to his face, as though to rub some tender spot. The move attracted no undue attention. An instant later he had two fingers inside his mouth and was working loose the cap over his tooth.

  His next move took them completely by surprise. With a leap he was half way across the room and lunging for his double. Ben brought the man down with a flying tackle and for seconds they wrestled on the floor. Then a hairy hand tore Ben loose and he was hauled to his feet. He had done little harm to the other.

  "Not quite fast enough," Arndis said. "Within minutes he will be aboard the Rapier and on his way." Her voice rose. "Take this one back to the locks."

  "Doesn’t it ever get dark here?" Ben asked.

  He and Murchison and the others had been allowed to come out of the tube after what seemed hours of toil. They sat now in a tiny cell into which air came through slits in the wall.

  "No," Murchison said. "But Bannon has a good watch and we’re able to keep track of time. It’s exactly six days and three hours since you
were put to work."

  Ben nodded thoughtfully. There was not much time left. Work on the locks went on endlessly, and sooner than he could have believed possible they were being completed. Given enough slaves, he thought, anything could be accomplished.

  Gluing his eyes to one of the slits, he peered out. The last of the giant gates was being installed. Their own crew would have only one more shift before the job was finished.

  Beyond the excavation Ben could see the tower from which the locks were controlled. Bannon, who had been in Teris longest and who had managed to garner some information, had explained their operation to Ben.

  "I worked on the new controls when they were being installed," he said, ranging himself alongside Ben. "They’re fully automatic. There are five locks in each tube between the interior and the surface of Teris."

  "How many ships did you say were kept at the tower?" Ben asked.

  "About ten. They make inspection flights each day, although nothing has ever gone wrong that I’ve heard of. But the tubes and the locks are the only outlets to the surface and they watch them carefully."

  "What are our chances of getting to the tower?"

  "Zero, I should say. Only the women are allowed to enter it, or a small crew under their supervision."

  "Willing to make a try?" Ben asked. He swung around to face them all. Until now he had not taken them into his confidence, given them no inkling of what was in his mind.

  "We’ve talked about it before," Murchison answered. "But there’s so little chance we gave up the idea. Better to stay alive and hope for a rescue."

  "I can’t tell you how I know," Ben told them, "but there isn’t going to be any rescue." He kept his eyes on the girl. "How about you, Sally? Willing to trust me?"

  She nodded and Ben heaved a sigh of relief. Rather than leave her behind he would have stayed with her. Gathering them about him he outlined his plans. The men were more than skeptical but no one had any suggestions.