I straightened again, only to feel paralysing horror pump through me. For Ralph was struggling with the thing—and it was the most ungodly sight I’d ever seen! His coat and vest were practically torn off, to reveal gaping wounds where the monster had cleaved with the force of a welder into his flesh. It was only his iron strength that kept him going—and even that was failing.
Madge—small wonder—had fainted clean away. Sick with fright, I snatched up the wrench and dealt the thing a terrific blow. All I got for that was a backlash, half electrical, through my fingers that made me shout with anguish. It had been like hitting a steel wall with a steel rod.
And Ralph? He had relaxed now, moving weakly, horribly mangled. The ghost of a grin was on his dark, powerful face, then it froze into the granite-like grin of death. There was blood on the floor. Hardly conscious of what I was doing I groped my way to the projector and, being used to its tricks, had the carbons at full blaze instantly. Immediately the serpent flew to a shadowy corner for safety.
I looked at the mangled ruin that had been Ralph, took down a smock from the door and threw it over him. Then, breathing hard, I tried to get some sort of control over myself. This thing had got to be slain! But what methods? Light only scared it—immobilized it, but didn’t kill it. How about an electric shock? If I could remove the electrodes from one of my disrupter globes and attack it with them—
Not much use, probably. I didn’t even know if it were electricity as we understand it, or whether it was the embodiment of basic force which we definitely do not understand. Besides, attacking electricity with electricity might blow me to Hades!
Then as I stood thinking furiously a weak cry swung me round. I had almost forgotten about Madge. Gently I helped her to her feet and she clung to me tightly.
“Is it—?” she whispered hopefully.
“No,” I told her grimly. “It’s behind that bench at the moment, sheltering from these arcs— Good God, if only we could get out of here! We must!” I finished desperately. “Come on—we’ll rip up the floorboards and try and find that key. Should have done it at first…”
With my wrench we pried up the boards and I fumbled below. I could feel nothing. I got a torch and flashed it in the gap. I saw the key finally, a goodish distance away.
“Hang on,” I told Madge tensely. “I’ll go below and get it.”
“All right—but hurry up!” And her eyes went nervously towards that deadly corner still pinned by the projector beam.
Down I scrambled, edged along on my stomach with the floor beams pressing down on my shoulders—then just when I was within an ace of grabbing that infernal key there came a violent commotion from above. There was the sound of smashing glassware and a scream from Madge, followed by her running feet some place over my head.
Her voice screamed huskily. “Bob quick! Quick!”
I couldn’t even answer her. The dust from the flooring had choked and blinded me. I jerked my head up and caught it a resounding crack on one of the beams. The torch dropped from my hand and went rolling out on the concrete foundation. Desperately, I made a final grope in the dark for that key, and couldn’t find it— Then I wormed my way round and back to the hole in the lab. floor as quickly as I could.
Madge was out of sight, the bench was overturned, bottles were strewn in all directions. Some of them had had corrosive acid in them and now it was swilled smokingly on the floor. The Venusian horror was hurling itself with gigantic force at the only remaining steel cabinet where I kept my filing records. Since Madge was not in sight she’d obviously screwed herself in there for safety. As for the Thing’s escape—those damned carbon arcs had faded again!
I dived for the projector, forced them into action and hurled blinding light at the thing—but only for a second or so for the acid swirling on the floor suddenly nipped the flex cable right through and the light died out of the lamphouse! Sweat broke out all over me as I realized I was defenseless.
Almost involuntarily I picked up the entire projector and hurled it at the Coil. Evidently it was hurt for it flew away from the cabinet door. Instantly I jumped forward, yanked the door open and got Madge out—then we dashed for safety behind the overturned bench. Temporary safety, anyway…
I began to think desperately. Since that projector’s mass weight had hurt it, it might be possible to damage it with violent blows after all! My eye roamed from its present quiescence—no doubt while it recovered—to the heavy vice I often used. It was electrically operated too. If I could only get the Coil in that!
No sooner had I thought of the idea than I thought of something else. It had shown its liking for salts of lemon, and there was still some left on the floor. I wriggled towards the stuff, got a handful of it and sprinkled it on the plate in front of the vice, afterwards springing the vice-jaws wide open. Then I trawled to the switchboard whence it was operated.
“This may do it,” I breathed to the horrified Madge. “Worth a try, anyway!”
She watched, wide-eyed. Picking up; a bottle, I hurled it at the thing, stung it into life again. It flew round in circles, missing us—then as I had hoped its blind avidity drove it towards the salts instead of Madge and me. It settled—and, thank God, as we tensely watched it, it unwittingly lowered the back half of its corkscrew form into the open jaws!
It was a glorious moment! I was nearly chuckling with relief as I closed the switch on the board. In a flash those jaws closed with inexorable power, pinned the Coil mercilessly. It made no sound but its wild, frantic lashings instantly showed how much it was incommoded.
“Now!” I panted, straightening. “Here comes the showdown!”
For the last time, as I hoped, I picked my wrench up and moved towards it, no longer nervous. Instead a cool sort of bravado was upon me, and like a fool I paused a moment to study it now it was powerless to hurt me… The more I looked at its blind, ferocious little face the more I shuddered to think so beautiful a world as the Evening Star could produce such a thing of evil—
“Kill it, Bob!” Madge implored me weakly. “Don’t stand there!”
Her voice jerked me into life. I raised the wrench and swung it in preparation for the blow—but those seconds of idle curiosity had lost me the initiative, for with a sudden violent effort the thing literally tore itself in pieces—four distinct chunks that were as brittle as though soaked in liquid air.
But they didn’t snap as they fell. Instead they coiled up and writhed with life. Nothing was left but that one immovable piece clamped in the vise. Then as I stared in bewilderment the four pieces started swelling—growing—!
“Fission!” I yelped, understanding. “It’s—reproduced! Like a protoplasm divides into a new individual; this thing does it by breaking itself. Either because of the danger or else because it was ripe for it anyway after the food— Lord!”
I dropped my wrench with a crash as the four little devils swelled and grew with incredible metabolism. Hurriedly I gained Madge’s side.
“Bob, what on earth do we do?” she nearly screamed at me. “Now we’ve four of them to tackle—! We can’t do it! We’re finished!”
“Easy,” I panted; and my eyes flashed to the hole in the floorboards where I’d searched for the key. “Down there!” I said abruptly. “Only way— Come on!”
We scrambled forward and I bundled Madge down the hole first. Already those four children of the Coil were nearing adult size and would then start their endless blind search for food—human or chemical. I blundered into the hole after Madge, dragged down the boards as best I could. For a while we lay in the dark, shivering in fear, listening to the rising commotion above.
Then Madge began dragging herself away slowly, presently gave a little cry.
“What?” I panted, reaching her,
“Acid, on my hand,” she said. “Must have seeped through the boards.”
“Put your handkerchief round it; all we can do now. Damnation!” I exploded. “Where’s that torch I dropped
?”
I floundered past her, searching for it. Over our heads there was now a veritable hurricane of energy going on. Bottles were flying, instruments being overturned—then, as I still searched for the torch, I stopped and sniffed. Smoke was distinctly noticeable!
“It can’t be—fire?” Madge whispered hoarsely; then she broke off with a horrified scream. “It is fire! Look!”
I was looking. Further away from us on our floor-ceiling was a smoky red glow. Either the fuming acid or else the fused electric cable had started it— What in hell did that matter? It had started and we were stuck down here!
“What do we do?” Madge cried, clutching me. “Bob, Bob, think of something! Those things above—and us down here— We’ll be burned to death!”
I never thought so furiously before. Then in the midst of it, putting my hand down, I landed right on the torch. Instantly I yanked it up, flashed it on. I don’t know if it was Providence that directed the beam to a wire running under the floorboards, but it certainly happened.
“What? What?” Madge implored, seeing I was frowning.
“That’s the fire alarm emergency wire,” I told her quickly. “As you know I have the lab wired in case of sudden combustion without my knowledge. It should go off and warn the fire station as the temperature rises— But we’re not waiting that long!” I snapped; and seizing the wire I pulled it with all my strength. Though we heard nothing I knew the alarm had gone at the fire station.
“That ought to fetch ’em,” I panted. “And we’ve got to chance those flying horrors just in case. A minute—the key…”
I found it, then held it in my teeth as we turned and inched back to the hole in the floor. It wasn’t so easy. Smoke was around us in choking clouds; I had to half drag Madge as she coughed and spluttered… But at last I gained the roughly covered hole and thrust my head against the boards.
Just as quickly I ducked back. The four flying coils, as large now as their parent had been, dived for my unprotected head. They struck the boards with rending impact—so I used my torch to keep them off.
Smoke was now suffocating me, filling my lungs. I dragged Madge up, half fainting, beside me, and she revived in the clearer air. The torch still kept them off somewhat. The ordinary lights had gone out, but the glare of the fire was sufficient to show me my way.
The door seemed infinitely far off—but I’d got to chance it. I left Madge directing the torch, blundered to the door and turned the key in the lock. At the same time the scream of the fire-engine’s siren came from somewhere outside. I remember opening the steel door—then I guess I must have fainted.
I came to myself to find J was lying beside Madge in an ambulance. A fireman was smiling at us grimly.
“Nice blaze you had there, sir,” he commented briefly. “But we got it under— Okay, take it easy. You’re all right, and your wife too. Only shock. Say,” he added, “we managed to save one of these from your lab. Figured it might be important.”
From his oilskins he pulled a twisted coil.
“Take it away!” I screamed involuntarily; then as he eyed me queerly and I saw it didn’t move, I added slowly, “Let me look…”
Madge, recovering, stared at it too. It was one of the four Venusian coils without doubt, but it was as useless as petrified stone and still damp. Damp! I began to laugh hysterically.
“Of course!” I yelled. “The water from the hoses! Why in God’s name did we never think of it? Electricity—water—short circuit— Death! A glass of water could have saved us!”
Madge stared at me for a moment, then she joined me in my laughing. The fireman stared at us dubiously, probably wondering if he’d saved a couple of lunatics. Well, maybe he had at that!
PHANTOM FROM SPACE
Space-death should have been absolutely final, but after what happened, the Venusian rulers of Earth in 2314 A.D. began to wonder…for Eward Hilto, whom they had executed for treason, came back to avenge!
The young man and girl, both of them in regulation uniforms with numbers blazoned on their breasts, sat in silence. They were alone here in one of the countless parks dotted about the lower quarters of the city for the convenience of the workers. Convenience! The workers never saw anything beyond the parks accept the mightiness of the city that held them in its grip—London, metropolis of Earth, master-city of 2314.
But no Earthman ruled the city. No dictator had brought it into being. War had begun to die in 1960. By 1970 it had become an abomination of the past. Then after thirty glorious years of freedom had come the menace from Venus with its panoply of vast armaments.
Invasion—a world undefended in arms and science—and die destruction of a world lay at the feet of the slug-like hordes. Rapidly the victors had commandeered the bodies of the newly-slain Earthlings, transferred brains into them, breathed life into them, and now… Hardly anybody knew which were true Earthlings and which were the children of the original Venusians. It was only known that the Venusians, under the control of the Presence, ruled the Earth.
“And what a rule!” breathed the young man as his thoughts followed the path of history. “Merciless subjection! No quarter, no chance! We’re held down here by those master-minds. Up there is power and science beyond our knowledge. Think what has been mastered, and what will yet be mastered… You and I, Lyra dearest, all in the world to each other, born down here, hardly remembering our parents, never knowing the great world that lies beyond. Why not? Why not?”
“Hush, Eward,” the girl murmured, glancing about her. “A spy radio may hear you, and it sounds so much like treason.” She shrugged slender shoulders. “After all, what can we do? We’re powerless! Remember, your father tried just after you were born to overthrow this rule. You have heard what happened to him.”
“Yes, exiled for life—to Callisto.” Eward clenched his fists “Rotting away his life for these filthy devils—”
“Hush!” The girl’s voice was sick with anxiety. “Please, please hush! That’ll do no good—”
Eward Hilto—Number LT 4516Z6—stared with bitter grey eyes towards the city. As always, that terrific expanse of buildings overpowered him. He put his hands to his ears as if to shut out the thunderous, everlasting roar of the machines in these lower quarters. He closed his eyes and visualised it all,,,
The eternal workers, working for they knew not what. It was rumoured that mastery over the entire Universe was the ultimate aim of the Venuisians. Everywhere machines of stupefying size. Mastery of the atom’s ultimate power, of space travel, of electrical intricacies, mind science. Had not the Presence picked the twelve finest brains on Earth, had them disembodied, placed in machines, from which he absorbed all the knowledge he needed and added it to his own? Nothing, declared the oppressed ones, could stand against that!
“And until somebody has the courage to fight these monsters, we’ll remain under their yoke,” Eward breathed, looking up again. “Lyra, why should we?”
Lyra Garfane smiled emptily. The lights caught the copper-gold of her hair as she glanced towards the city. “You’d defy that, Eward?”
“Yes.” He met her quiet blue eyes. “Lyra, we’re human beings, not animals. We own this planet. It’s our birthright, same as it is the birthright of millions of other rightful Earthlings the world over.”
The girl got suddenly to her feet. “It’s empty talk, Eward, and you know it! You can’t possibly—”
She broke off with a start as a shadow suddenly fell before her. A massive guard in official uniform stood grimly regarding both of them.
“Need I warn you,” he said slowly, “that such talk as yours is treasonable? This time you have been warned. Next time you know what the answer will be. Now return to your lodge-houses.”
“Why should we?” Eward demanded, getting to his feet. “It’s time there was a change—a revolt! We’re forever taking orders or else being spied upon by rotten little pick-ups hidden in the trees of these damned parks and relaying everything to your headquarters.
I’ll see you in hell before I’ll obey!” he finished defiantly, and at the same time lashed out a powerful fist.
The blow never landed. Lyra screamed a hoarse warning. Eward was conscious of something smiting across his head with unbearable force. His knees gave way beneath him and he fell into darkness.
* * * *
Eward returned to his senses slowly, aware of the sweet-smelling fluids of the great workers’ hospital. He opened his eyes to dazzle-proof lights and found himself gazing into a face of considerable age—a mass of lines and seams from an apparent lifetime of concentration. The eyes were those of an Earthman, kindly and thoughtful. Very dark they seemed, unless it was the contrast of the white hair.
“All right,” the man murmured, putting an instrument back in his overall. “You’re okay now. I’m Elman Dalmer, the head surgeon,” he added briefly. “You got a pretty nasty knock from that paralyser-beam. You shouldn’t have resisted. As it is, I’m afraid I’ve only revived you so that you can be sent to your death…”
He turned away, and as his figure moved, Eward found himself looking at the dejected form of Lyra in the grip of a guard. The man came forward with a crooked smile, his deadly gun ready. “You were warned,” he said briefly. “Now the Council must decide the issue. Come! And try no tricks this time!”
Eward got up slowly from the long table, mastered his dizziness and then walked forward. He looked at the girl, but she averted her face—not so quickly that he didn’t see the tears, however.
Under enforced silence they marched steadily through the endless galleries between the stifling, pounding machine-rooms—into elevators, along more passages, into an area of growing opulence, and so at last to the places where the two had never been, the executive section of the giant city.
Finally they were thrust into an immense office with black-lined walls, its only furniture a mammoth control desk with three granite-faced men in dead black, direct descendants of the original Venusian conquerors, seated before it. Two were busy writing and did not even look up. The centremost raised a pallid, implacable visage and then spoke.
The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack Page 27