The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack

by John Russell Fearn

  “And right here under his control is a wonder-mineral—a perfect medical miracle worth millions to civilized surgery,” Sid muttered. “Cutting without bleeding, hardening of the skin, revival from death… But underneath the whole setup is a deeper meaning, which we’ve got to find!”

  “You’re telling me!” Jerry retorted. He looked back on the valley fromthe tunnel ledge. Bilton’s figure had gone now…

  They turned into the tunnel, made their perilous trip back past the volcanic crater and so to the other valley again. As they pushed the pivot-stone back in place Hesther came up eagerly through the grass.

  “Then—then the God didst not destroy thee?” she asked in relief.

  “I guess not, Hes.” Jerry smiled faintly. “You’ve been waiting for us all this time?”

  “Truly! Prithee, what didst find—”

  Jerry took her arm affectionately. To his inner satisfaction she clung to him eagerly as they went down the valley side.

  “We found enough to know, Hes, that you innocent folk in ‘Little England’ here aren’t half so safe as you think. Your God is a man—same as Sid and me. What is more, he’s a scientist.”

  “Scientist?” The girl looked up inquiringly. “What ist?”

  “I—I mean he makes things—dangerous things, I guess.” Jerry gestured vaguely. “Sid and I are going back later on to look at things more closely. Right now we’re returning to the tavern for a rest.”

  Once they reached the tavern they found it jammed with the Puritan men and women listening in awe to a light orchestra from the same short wave station on which Jerry had left the radio. He gave a grin. “Well, folks, how’d you like it?”

  “Marry, ’tis witchcraft!” Hesther’s father exclaimed, and a chorus of voices confirmed his assertion.

  “No, it’s just—”Jerry started to say, then he broke off and looked at the radio sharply as it crackled violently. It was the sharp crackled burr of electrical interference, repeated at two second intervals.

  “What ist?” asked Hesther in wonder. “Hast the wonder box broken down?”

  “What do you make of it, Sid?” Jerry snapped, eyes narrowing. “No electricity in this town and no static, therefore—”

  “Bilton!” Jerry snapped. “Some ultra-powerful electrical machine he’s using. He figures we haven’t got a radio otherwise he wouldn’t be so careless. Damn good thing you didn’t get the chance to spill it out there, Sid. We—”

  “Bilton? He is whom?” asked the landlord.

  “Your God, my friends! Your Old Man of the Mountain!” Jerry laughed shortly. “He isn’t a God, and this is the Twentieth Century, which breeds scientists like flies. This man revived you by scientific means—witchcraft to you. But he isn’t a spook, or a supernatural being. He’s just a menace—and unless my pal and I do something about it he’s liable to do something unpleasant to all of you in due course. So best thing you do is trust us and not this God of yours… This radio shows he is up to something and once we’ve rested, my pal and I are off to see what it is…

  “Come on, Sid, time we grabbed some sleep. I’m about all in.”

  * * * *

  Three hours later, rested and prepared for anything this time, they took their leave of Hesther once more at the tunnel entrance. Once more the difficult trip past the volcanic crater, and so through to the adjoining valley. Remembering Bilton’s telescope they wormed their way out on their stomachs from the tunnel entrance, used the rocks as shields.

  Then suddenly Sid gripped Jerry’s arm.

  “Take a look!”

  Jerry started at what he saw. Bilton was but half a mile from them, his arms full of various electrical gadgets. He came towards them, stumbling in the stones. They waited breathlessly, gave sighs of relief as he turned suddenly and vanished in one of the countless mountain caves.

  “Something up in the cave obviously,” Jerry muttered. “Must be working there—went down to his shack to get some equipment…”

  He thought for a moment, eased himself up and fingered his gun.

  “This is where we break forces, Sid. I’ll follow him up while you go down to his hut place and ransack it. Find out whatever you can that might provide a clue. I’ll keep him away from you somehow. Join you here later.”

  “Okay.” Sid went off, keeping the rocks to one side of him.

  Jerry got up and moved slowly along to the cave entrance, peered inside. Nothing happened. He crept into the gloom and presently saw ahead of him a flow of steady white light. It resolved itself finally into a string of high-wattage lamps across a cavern roof. Inside the cavern to his amazement, were lathes, machine tools of every kind, carborundum wheels, grinding implements, metal drills, wire-wound armatures. On one side were completed masses of machinery, bolted up.

  In the midst of all this was Bilton himself, at the moment inspecting a furiously working turbine fed by a pounding stream of water volcanic in origin, transmitting its power to the whirling flywheels. He turned at last and went to work on an instrument that sent out flarings of electrical energy. Apparently it was a welder. At any rate it explained to Jerry the curious static behavior of the radio set.

  Several times Bilton paused to study a plan—then he went on again. For perhaps half an hour Jerry stood watching, trying to make up his mind what it was all about. Even if he went for Bilton with the revolver there was no guarantee the man would reveal the truth—and that was what really mattered.

  The undoubted implication of scientific and electrical power worried Jerry not a little. More than ever he began to fear for those in “Little England”— Then he started violently at a touch on his arm. He swung, relaxed as he saw Sid, his face tense and grim as he looked into the cave.

  “Nice setup,” he muttered, then glancing at Jerry sharply, “And I think I know what it’s all about… Come outside and I’ll show you.”

  They retreated silently into the daylight again, ducked down behind the rocks.

  “Well, what?” Jerry demanded.

  “I had the free run of that place of his,” Sid said quickly. “I found plenty, but nothing half as important as this plan in his lab. See what you think. I can get it back before he knows anything …”

  He pulled a roll of parchment from his inside pocket and Jerry frowned as he gazed at it. It showed the Arctic Circle and the northern half of the world. From a spot which was presumably this hidden valley radiated straight lines. The significant thing was that the spot they occupied was dead in the center of the absolute North Pole.

  “Say,” he muttered, “these straight lines are given in terms of wavebands …”

  “I know. That’s the odd part. What else do you see?”

  “Plenty,” Jerry snapped. “It seems obvious from this that the North Pole is not all ice. The exact North central pole is here, right where we are, and around it—as any scientist knows—are all the swarming currents of Earth itself. The Earth-spin alone draws them here. From this plan it seems obvious that our apple-eating friend intends to build up a massive power station, a simple enough proposition since the valley contains all the raw material to do it with—and his submarine brought all the necessary machine-tools. Seems clear he intends to settle himself here in a spot where nobody in the outer world would suspect anything could even live…

  “Then,” Jerry mused, “he seems to figure that by using the inexhaustible power of earth’s magnetic energy through a specially designed power house he can use the world’s ether-lanes for a variety of purposes. For one thing he could cripple world radio and radio-telephone by terrific interference. He could cut out airplane motors by the same process. He could even produce electric storms at will anywhere he wanted… And none could stop him!”

  Sid nodded grimly. “Seems fantastic—but it looks to me like the domination of the world’s power from the Pole, by one man.”

  “That’s just what it is!” Jerry retorted. “That’s just what Bilton is doing— But for such a colossal project he’d need more than himsel
f and he’s wiped out his submarine crew—”

  Jerry stopped, snapped his fingers. “The people!” he exclaimed. “That’s it! A thousand innocents right under his thumb! Labor! And they won’t know a thing of what’s doing.”

  “And right now he’s building the machinery for the project in that cave!” Sid cried.

  “Yes, I am,” commented a grim voice. “Get up, both of you!”

  CHAPTER IV

  Cataclysm

  Bilton was standing right behind them, gun in hand. He was no longer innocent and inane looking. Indeed his eyes were blazing with unholy fire. He snatched the plan savagely from Jerry’s grasp.

  “I expected you would return, but hardly so soon!” he snapped. “I intended to block the tunnel the moment I had finished important work on my armatures… Well, you’ve been smart enough to piece together my plan—but it won’t avail you anything. You’ve guessed my scheme—electrical domination of the world. Perfectly protected in the valley I can do exactly as I like, can know all that is going on through radio-television. I have agents in the outer world, and I can buy as many more as I need with the gold and silver at my disposal here. Those people I revived shall labor for me… By power of destruction I can blackmail the world into whatever I need— And two inquisitive polar explorers shall not stop it!”

  Jerry snapped, “Kill us, Bilton, and you’ll darned soon have the rest of the valley people coming in to find out why. Cut them off and you cut off your labor too—”

  “I shall blow up the tunnel: it is already mined. Later I shall clear it.” Bilton smiled faintly. “I have it all arranged, you see, and I—”

  “Wait!” screamed a girl’s voice suddenly.

  It came so abruptly Bilton looked up in surprise, and in that second Jerry hurled out his fist and struck the portly scientist under the jaw, sent him reeling. He got up again immediately but Jerry had him covered.

  Hesther came forward hurriedly, and behind her were her father and some of the other valley people. They gazed wonderingly at Bilton.

  “You came just in time, Hesther,” Jerry panted. “How’d it happen?”

  “We decided to see what really lay beyond the mountain—”

  “Damn you, girl!” Bilton blazed, quivering with anger. “You few may have got through, but no more will—I’ll watch it!”

  Before the words were hardly out of his mouth he flung himself forward recklessly, arms flung wide. Catching Jerry and Sid violently around the necks he flung them both to earth. Jerry fired, missed: the bullet whanged rock. Stumbling forward Bilton raced for his cave. Jerry whirled around, aimed, fired—

  Bilton halted in his tracks, red smearing into sight on his white coated back. He doubled up, stumbled into the cave, and vanished.

  “Well, I guess that’s that,” Jerry snapped. “We stepped in and just managed—” He broke off, twirled with the others as there came a sudden titanic concussion from the tunnel leading to the next valley. Smoke and rocks came belting through the air. The whole mass of the mountain quivered.

  Came another explosion—and another, rocking the valley with the reverberation.

  “He must have lived long enough to blow the place up anyway,” Sid panted. “Damnit, we took that shot too much for granted— Now he knows he’s sunk he’s blown the whole lot— Take a look!” he yelled.

  Hesther clinging to him, scared by the explosions, Jerry stared as a mass of gray viscid substance began to push its way from the blocked tunnel. It was followed by a core of red molten fire.

  “That volcanic pit!” Sid shouted. “It’s overflowing or something. Quick! We’ve gotta get out of here…”

  Even as he spoke the mountain quaked again and dislodged huge bolders that rained thunderously to earth.

  “He started a cataclysm,” Jerry muttered, as they backed away. “It can happen easy enough when everything’s made of porous volcanic rock. Shift one rock and the lot comes down. Looks like ‘Little England’ is doomed—and this valley will be a molten quagmire in no time… Come on!”

  “The submarine?” Sid questioned, as they ran down the mountain slope.

  “Yeah—the only chance. We’ve got a makeshift crew. If there’s a way out we’ll find it…”

  As they raced along that rolling flood of molten stone and lava pursued them. They reached the shed by the river and for a moment Jerry stopped, dashed inside and came out again with the bottle of Biltonis in his arm.

  “Might as well,” he said briefly to Sid. “Probably duplicate it in the outer world—Come on, you folks!”

  He caught Hesther to him and led the way to the flat deck of the sub­marine, clattered down into the control room.

  “Fuel’s all set,” Sid said briefly, studying the gages. “But how much do you know about driving a sub?”

  “Enough to get by,” Jerry retorted, slamming and shutting the conning tower hatch. “Our job will be find the way out—”

  “We can do that all right!” Sid cried. “Look here! A map all laid out! Bilton had everything ready for a quick getaway if it was ever needed.”

  Jerry glanced at it, nodded, turned to the baffled Englanders. The wilderness of machinery was something they had never known. None the less they turned to the tasks Jerry assigned them and the engines started up…

  The submarine stayed on surface until the barrier range was reached—then it submerged. From then on it was a matter of gentle nosing through walls of ice, through the narrowest channel imaginable. Foot by foot—perhaps for hours, perhaps for days…

  None aboard knew how long it took—but there came a time at last, when the air was fetid and the engines overworked, that the craft rose willingly without obstruction. It bobbed to the surface of the sea.

  “We made it!” Sid cried exultantly.

  Instantly Jerry flung open the hatch, clambered out on the deck. He stood breathing in gulps of the salt wind.

  “Somewhere about two hundred miles off Greenland, as I figure it,” he said. He turned, Hesther clinging to his arm, her father and fellow Englanders staring round them incredulously.

  “We’re going to a new world, Hes,” Jerry smiled. “And we’ve got a secret right here that’s going to make us happy and secure… Maybe you don’t even mind leaving the Polar prison behind?”

  “Mind? Nay! It is as you say— Okay by me!”

  “Okay it is!” Jerry grinned. He turned. “Sid, a ship hoving on the horizon— We head towards it. Come on!”

  THE GHOST SUN

  A dead Earthman saves an alien race from cosmic doom!

  The spaceship, a gigantic ovoid of suprametal, the product of high intelligence, pursued its tireless course through infinity, far beyond the Earthly galaxy.

  Within it were six remarkable beings, remarkable both in appearance and mentality. An Earthman would have con­sidered them insectile, with their beetle-like bodies, delicate tentacles and single unblinking eye fixed in the centre of their heads…strange beings, fantastic even, but possessed of intelligence superseding anything ever approached on Earth in its entire history.

  These six voyagers, Elders of the Tormah, held in sacred trust the entire germ plasm of their race; fleeing before a nova that threatened their home planet, they had covered light-years in their search for sanctuary.

  Ahead of them hung the Ghost Sun, so large as to be incredible, so faint that its light scarcely reached them. A unique phenomenon! As they sped towards it, the Tormahere thrown into a state of great excitement as they saw, at no great distance, another ship—far smaller than their own but none the less space-worthy.

  “Intelligence!” breathed the Master in a reed-like tone from an imperceptible orifice on his scaly back. “Intelli­gence! The meeting of two worlds! Perhaps they—”

  He stopped abruptly, his single eye fixed to a lensed window. In a moment the Elders gathered about him.

  “Strange,” he went on, more slowly. “It seems to change even as I look at it. What does this change mean? We must determine this immediately.�
��

  Mathon, his deputy, fluted: “Observe that the ship comes from the direction of the Ghost Sun.”

  The Master’s tentacles sought the controls, rapidly slowed the vessel. The great lock opened. Impervious to both absence of air and interstellar cold, the Tormah waited until their machine matched speed with the un­known ship. The silvered word—TERRA—inscribed on the machine’s scarred hull conveyed nothing to them.

  The Master’s tentacles came up, holding a blunt lensed object not unlike a torch. Under the searing ray that sprang from it, the outer airlock melted into vapour.

  “Strange beings,” he muttered, leaping the gap from his own ship to the alien. They have double airlocks—we must be careful not to harm them. Mathon, reseal the gap.”

  Mathon drew from the glittering belt about his insectile body another instrument, moved it rapidly across the gap­ing hole. And everywhere the new ray touched were streaks of sealing matter. At last, the opening was resealed by the creation of suprametal out of pure space. That a feat be­yond the comprehension of any Earthly mind had been accomplished was of no concern to the Tormah. To them it was a simple matter.

  Satisfied that none of the strange atmosphere within the ship could escape, the Master vaporised the inner airlock door; then the Tormah adjusted their strange bodies to the sudden rush of oxygenated air that engulfed them. A men­tal effort closed all the external pores on their scaly forms, effectually proofing them against the absorption of the new gas. Quietly they stepped forward to gaze upon a scene that puzzled even their advanced minds.

  One man sat alone at the control desk. Man? Skeleton rather, for only a grinning skull was visible under the trans­parent helmet of his spacesuit. Before him lay a thick wad of paper, held together by a primitive spiral of wire. There was writing on the paper and a writing instrument clutched in the dead man’s hand.

  “He possessed two eyes,” Mathon marvelled.