The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack

by John Russell Fearn

  Lothan moved his contemptuous eyes away from him and surveyed the ticking calculators; then he looked at the small figure of Razak in the immediate fore­ground. The intellectual’s brows were down in concentrative effort, queer hyp­notic eyes fixed on Umyas with a steady, unwavering stare. Suddenly and viv­idly the truth smote Lothan’s agile brain.

  “Umyas!” he cried hoarsely. “Umyas! Don’t you realize that Razak is hypnotizing you? You are not master of your own will!”

  The biologist and his comrades looked up sharply from the calculators, Ra­zak’s face hardened from its normal ex­pression of assurance—became fiend­ishly intense. For a brief moment Um­yas seemed to recover a vestige of normalcy, then he shrugged.

  “Such accusations will avail you nothing, Lothan,” he returned stonily, and went on with his task.

  Lothan pleaded and shouted and clamored in vain. He was not thinking so much of himself now as of the planet he dearly loved—the world he had wished to make the master planet of the universe. Only his brain, not under the control of Razak’s superhu­man will power, could detect the evi­dences of hypnotic control. Even so it was useless. He was still raving impotently as the automatons drove him and lthos into the space projectile. The airlock closed and their shouting was cut off.

  Steadily, Umyas fixed the controls of the cannon, then departed with Razak and his colleagues to the observatory.

  In silence, Martians and Disepians alike heard the titanic report of the space gun, saw in the reflector a bisected mass go hurtling into space, breaking into two separate balls of incandescence with sprawling tails expanding behind.

  “They, too, will enlarge,” murmured Razak. “As they go onward, the life energy will become stronger; they will gleam more brightly. This world is practically rid of all traces of that dangerous energy—but even yet there may be others. We of Disep have gained our end—have removed all traces of opposition and become masters of this planet!”

  He turned slowly in the bright lights and faced the surprised Martians. His implacable face was one of frozen hard­ness, eyes bright and keen. Umyas took a sudden step back amongst his fellows, swept his startled, faceted eyes over the steady array of white faces, male and female, grinning with sardonic amuse­ment. Little people, yes—weak and in­effectual, and yet their minds—

  The words of Lothan swept back into Umyas’ mind. Finding his breath with an effort, he gulped out, “Masters of this planet! What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Lothan spoke the truth,” answered Razak smoothly. “I did hyp­notize you, but only to a good end. They deserved to die, those two—they had to die. Not only because of energy, but be­cause of the opposition they might have caused me. Understand this, Umyas, I am the ruler of this planet and nothing you or your people can do will alter it.”

  “Then—then Lothan spoke the truth?”

  “I mean that the law of the cosmos is survival of the fittest. We are more intelligent than you; we even forced you, mentally, to come and release us from the prison. We have no world on which to live save this one; therefore, we will take it from this moment onward.”

  Umyas’ startled eyes swept the slowly nodding heads of the Disepian men and women. Three hundred of them, them­selves almost approaching the inhuman mentality of Razak. The Martian sud­denly felt utterly helpless, wished he still had the determined, even though traitorous, Lothan beside him. At least he was his own kin, not a white-skinned being of pitiless intellect. He turned weakly to his fellows and read in their faceted eyes a hopeless despair.

  V

  Razak of Disep clung immov­ably to the purpose he had outlined. With effortless ease he wrested all sem­blances of control from the Martians, even fired several more into space as they revealed unexpected traces of life energy, until, at length, he was satisfied the blight was completely eliminated. Umyas he promptly dispatched to the twin city at the North Pole, there to work in comparative exile.

  The Disepians rapidly turned the Martian machines and devices to their own uses, mastered the planet from end to end. But to a mind like Razak’s that did not represent completeness. His in­satiable desire for further achievement, that same restless curiosity that had led him to drive himself and fellows into this supra-universe, allowed him no rest. He realized the universe about him opened up immense possibilities for ex­pansion.

  He examined each of the surrounding planets in turn and found them im­practicable. The nearest to the Sun was a blistered wilderness on one side and a frozen sepulcher on the other. The next nearest was still too young for con-sideration. The giant outer planets, too, were in the same state. But in the third world there lay opportunity. Night after night he sat beside the vast reflector with his two scientific assistants, study­ing every detail of the third world, watching the writhing of its clouds and the phantasmal visions of a tumbling landscape beneath—cruel and rugged terrain being molded out of the form­less into a world of dawning shape.

  “An empty world, young and fresh,” he murmured broodingly, and his as­sistants nodded. “A world without life, without greenery, without even the faintest spark of a living amoeba. There, my friends, lies room for expansion. There are three hundred of us. One hundred and fifty will depart forthwith for that world and commence the gen­eration of a race. I will go personally and direct operations. You, Vildon, will stay here and take over control. You will find it simple enough now that these Martians are under subjection.”

  Vildon inclined his head. “As you wish, Razak. Clearly, within several cycles that third world will be well pop­ulated. Our race can expand and live as never before, once the seed of life is taken to it.”

  Razak nodded slowly, his eyes thoughtful. “We will take seeds from this world—plant seeds—cover that young and barren world with beauty such as our own world of Disep once possessed. Our readings have shown that that third planet is suitable for us in everything except gravitation. That is rather in excess of normal, but no matter. You will give orders for space machines to be prepared for departure at Sundown tomorrow. Within an hour you will receive tabulated lists of those whom I shall choose to accompany me. Now you may both go.”

  The two departed, left their superior gazing musingly into the reflector.

  “To that world shall come life,” he muttered. “Life from a world within a world. The power of long-dead Disep shall be felt throughout the length and breadth of this supra-universe.”

  * * * *

  There was one thing, however, that the implacable Razak overlooked in his anxiety during the hours preceding the departure of the ten space machines to the third world. During those hours, while he arranged for the ships to be fully provided, together with new high-power disintegrators for the leveling of mountainous terrain, the intellectual sway he held over the Martians was re­moved; his whole concentration and that of his fellows was trained on the difficulties and trials of the last hours.

  In consequence, Umyas arose, with his fellows at Polar City, from the depths of a semi-mental stupor, realized clearly for the first time the tremendous dominance Razak and his fellows had been holding over them.

  Reference to the television machines soon placed them in possession of the facts as to what Razak was planning to do. Immediately Umyas went into con­ference with his fellows and from the conference emerged a plan, a possible scheme whereby to overcome the depu­tizing Vildon once Razak had departed into space.

  Umyas acted immediately. In the five short hours he had left to him whilst the Disepians were in the projectile laboratories, he got an army of auto­matons to work, formerly doing only the tasks planned for them by the white skins. Following the biologist’s direc­tions they drove fast machines to the four corners of the planet, disintegrat­ing beams in the base of their fliers gouging vast chasms in the landscape as they went, soundlessly cleaving mountains and plateaus alike, forming about the uninhabited parts of the planet a veritable network of 1,000-foot-deep valleys, all leading back to within two miles of the shores of the principal
oceans grouped about the opposite poles of the planet.

  In all, the automatons took three hours to accomplish their noiseless pur­pose, scored the Martian disk with reg­ular parallel lines in all directions from the sea defenses, ending the channels at five miles distance from the mighty equatorial city wherein the interlopers were now watching Razak’s departure for the third world.

  The Sun had been set some little time; darkness enveloped the planet. Before long Phobos would be above the hori­zon. This very fact of darkness, as Umyas had hoped, served to prevent Razak from observing the changed ap­pearance of the planet’s disk, nor was his mind trained on Umyas, for he had all his mentality still directed on the suc­cessful maneuvers of the fleet into space.

  Umyas, from his Polar City labora­tory, surrounded by as many of his fel­lows as the place would hold, was smil­ing grimly. His massive hand twitched over a series of buttons and switches.

  “Interlopers!” he breathed vengefully. “Razak has departed into space; that leaves only Vildon and his immedi­ate contemporaries. They seek to mas­ter our planet, do they? Here under my hands lies a series of remote-control ex­plosive switches. Whilst one sector of automatons carved chasms from the oceans to the chief city, another sector laid depth charges of space-gun explo­sive at the shore end of each channel. I am told the work is finished and the wiring is connected.

  “Once I depress these buttons every channel at the sea end will explode, per­mit the twin oceans of opposite poles to deluge inward to the center—will ut­terly overwhelm and destroy the Disepians before they can do a thing to help themselves. Some of our own people will go, too—that is unavoidable. The point is that we shall be left with Polar City, fully equipped—ready to start again. If Razak ever dares to return with his fleet we will destroy them all before they ever reach this planet. Later we will destroy him on his third world and be rid of him forever. Is that clear?”

  The assembled Martians nodded, eyes gleaming brightly with triumph. Um­yas smiled grimly, depressed the multi­ple switches, then stood back. Almost instantly the entire bulk of Mars quaked and trembled to the force of titanic con­cussions. The explosive tore out the remaining barriers between channels and oceans. Inconceivable volumes of water belched inward along the given tracks—an inevitable, smashing deluge that reached the equatorial city and crashed in upon it from all four sides.

  Vildon, about to take, over the con­trol Razak had assigned to him, re­ceived warning too late. Before he or his fellows could make a move the flood was upon them. It crushed them to pieces in the tumbled ruins of the city, drove their remains deep down into swirling vortices of brine, stone and metal.

  In an hour the entire face of Mars had changed. Slowly, gradually, the spent oceans started to reform them­selves, thundering in raging torrents through the specially made channels that left only the poles high and dry, the northern one containing the exult­ing Martians.

  “We win!” breathed Umyas, staring into the televisor that gave him a view of the ocean where the equatorial city had lain. “The Disepians have been de­stroyed! Our task now is to rebuild and chart the land. Once the oceans have established a new level and posi­tion we can start again.”

  In his triumphant decision, how­ever, Umyas had reckoned without Ra­zak himself. The Disepian ruler, once Sunlight came to the red planet, saw immediately what had happened, re­alized suddenly why his efforts to get into touch with Vildon over the spatial radio had met with no response.

  His expression scarcely changed as he stared down; only his lips set into a thin, bitter line of hate. About him his colleagues burst into cries of dismay, stared unbelieving into the reflecting screens.

  “Razak, what’s happened?” de­manded Cralo, his immediate attendant.

  “Is it not obvious?” the ruler asked coldly. “Those Martian scientists at Polar City played a swift move that has utterly defeated Vildon. Umyas is responsible for this. He has destroyed the city by diverting the polar oceans. Our control over that planet is at an end.”

  “We can return at once and reassert ourselves!”

  “No.” Razak shook his head slowly. “You may take it for granted that if we tried to return, Umyas would be on the lookout for us—would destroy us com­pletely. In Polar City he has all the devices necessary. I was a fool to send him there—an even bigger fool to forget to hold him under my will during the last hours. Umyas remains to build a new world—or so he imagines,” he con­cluded softly. “It occurs to me that we placed in these spaceships disintegra­tors similar to his own, for the pur­pose of mountain leveling.”

  “You mean—” asked Cralo eagerly.

  “I mean that at our present slight dis­tance from Mars we can use them very effectually. Umyas shall not succeed; I will destroy him first. Give orders to the remainder of the fleet to train their disintegrators on the planet and to stand by for my firing order. We will see whether these fool Martians are so clever after all. Hurry!”

  The attendant immediately obeyed. Razak waited through a short interval, during which the distance from Mars slightly increased. His face was set and hard as he received the information that every weapon was ready. The thought of allowing the victorious Martians to remodel the world they had recaptured never occurred to him; only the idea of extinction gained access to his ruthless brain.

  “Fire!” he commanded into the inter-spatial transmitter, and the order was incontinently relayed to all other nine ships.

  Simultaneously, the entire battery of ten disintegrators released their powers, trained exactly on the red globe some 100,000 miles distant. Calculated to he dead correct by mathematical machines, the terrific force struck the planet’s sur­face, instantly blasted Polar City into dust, scooped out great craters in the ground beneath it. The seas boiled furi­ously, evaporated in enormous clouds of steam and spume, left under their banked clouds of vapor great barren areas of new and sodden continent. Time and time again the disintegrators struck the planet, each time the recoil sending the ships farther away into space, until, at last, Razak gave the or­der to stop and stood looking down on the receding planet with a grim smile.

  “A lifeless world,” he murmured. “A pity in some ways and yet very necessary in others. A lifeless and now water­less world, carrying the eternal mark of Umyas’ short-lived victory in the shape of those still visible chasms stretched across the disk like a net­work.” He turned abruptly. “Set the course back on a direct line with the third world; recoil has turned us aside. Proceed afterward as already in­structed.”

  Within 200 hours the Disepian fleet finally landed on the surface of the third world, settled gently down on the soft, lushy soil of that very young planet, upon an immense plateau washed by the foaming breakers of a tempestuous sea. Overhead there lay the densely heavy clouds begotten of eternal warmth and moisture.

  “A world of great possibilities,” com­mented Razak, staring out through the window over the wilderness. “Every­thing except gravitation is suitable for us.” He drew a deep breath with an ef­fort. “That is one problem that our science cannot altogether overcome. Here on this plateau we will erect our principal city.”

  The others nodded slowly and stared at the distant end of the plateau, where the waters of the incessant atmospheric downpour had come together in foaming torrents, already cleaving vast gorges in the upflung mountain range.

  “It will be a long time before this world becomes really climatically suit­able,” commented Cralo doubtfully. “Do you think that it is wise to stay, Razak, or had we perhaps better journey—”

  “To another world?” Razak inter­rupted him. “How do you propose we do that? We know all the other worlds of this system are useless. Mars, too, is no longer of use now we have blasted all the water from its face. No, we might wander through all eternity and never again find a world such as this. As ages go by it will settle down and become a lovely world. We will conquer it as we have conquered everything else. And we will name it—Earth!”

  * * *
*

  Accordingly, by the untiring efforts of the scientists of Disep, there began the first colonization and control of the new world—a wild and terrible world in those early days, all but defeat­ing their untiring diligence and labor. By degrees, with the aid of their sci­entific instruments, they were able to direct the immense rain clouds to areas where they could precipitate their moisture harmlessly. They gained for themselves a slowly drying landscape already flourishing with the germinated seeds that had been laid in the soft, warm soil. Trees and shrubs began to flourish in the enervating air, mothered by the vital chemicals of a planet still in its cradle.

  The erection of a city was a tougher problem, but the determination of Ra­zak to establish himself on the planet would accept no defeat. Little by little, braced against the tempests that almost constantly swept the planet, the city be­gan to appear—composed of synthetic stone and gradually supplied with all the necessities of life. Slowly, inevitably, Razak was gaining his ends.

  During the ten years occupied in building the city, his colleagues discov­ered many things, notably the formation of the planet they were on. So far as could be judged their city was erected on a vast plateau of land existing be­tween two enormous continents, ice­bound to the north with the manifest approach of a glacial age. Nor was the plateau in a very secure position. The ocean, still in the throes of tempestuous upheavals, revealed distinct signs that it might ultimately sweep inward between the two continents and engulf the city in its depths.

  To this possibility Razak paid sur­prisingly little attention. He had other problems on his mind. One was the ex­uberance of growth occurring on the plateau; the enormously fast germina­tion and spread of plants and trees was worrying him. In every direction, save in the ice regions, there were vast jun­gles of interlacing green, sodden and crawling with a new form of small life, protoplasmic slime that he knew in­evitably spelt the dawn of a beast age, destined to evolve through the ages into wild animals.