The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack

by John Russell Fearn

  Instantly, following immutable laws, that matter partook also of the new energy—shifted and changed like the unstable presentations of a dream, stirred by new forces, newly released energies that ordered the things of existence to change.

  Bull knew nothing of these things, but Lifania did. She had known this would happen and was smiling hap­pily, peacefully…but before she could utter a word, the change was suddenly complete. The new energy abruptly assimilated itself with the basic electrons of the surroundings.

  Bull felt his body snap backwards and then flow weirdly, form into fu­sion with suddenly slithering, crawl­ing surroundings! Metals, rocks, lights—all of them were moving into a new union. The Atlantean girl, still smiling, was flowing too like golden honey, all shape and form and clothing one hideous plasma…

  And beyond was the darkness for her and Bull.

  But the thing the girl had started went on. It changed the entire matter formation of the moon, forced it to conform to the new energy level.

  Rocks and mountain peaks sloughed and drifted into one another, changed the satellite into a globe 1000 miles less in diameter but of materials balancing exactly those of old in a smaller compass. But it did one thing—sealed and crushed forever all traces of any life, ma­chinery or science.

  On Earth, too, the girl had fore­seen correctly. The wild changes of the moon during its metamorphosis wrought tidal havoc and earthquake in all directions. The American con­tinent was rocked from end to end and thousands died in the smashing buildings—but the survivors far out­numbered the dead, as would cer­tainly not have been the case had At­lantean science gained dominance…

  As for the Azores—when the up­heavals subsided and air and sea traf­fic resumed, it was reported that the Azores had utterly disappeared into the Atlantic, taking with them all traces of those malignant scientists unwilling to admit that their age be­longed to a past long dead…

  THE RED MAGICIAN

  Solvius Vass might attribute his amazing powers to the mental science of the Martians, but to those who witnessed his miracles the magician from the red planet was a being enshrined

  CHAPTER 1

  A Martian Comes to Earth

  It was ironical indeed that a Martian, when he did finally come to Earth, should do so unheralded and unsung; particularly after the years of speculation by scientists on the possibility of communication with Mars or the visit of a being from that planet.

  Presumably, the Martian arrived in the night—but there were no streaks of fire in the atmosphere to announce his coming, no scream of superheated winds. In fact, all the circumstances of his arrival were shrouded in singular mystery. One evening the Sussex Downs were as empty as usual. The next morning one particular hollow was graced by the presence of a curious object, spherical and twelve feet in diameter.

  A girl with a fresh-air complex saw it first, at five in the morning, lying smooth and deserted in the summer dawn. She told the farmer and the farmer told the recipients of his milk… By ten in the morning, an interested crowd of sightseers were prying around the metal globe, trying ineffectually to discover an opening. Some sagely observed that the thing was a meteor, until others with more scientific knowledge pointed out that, if that were so it would have dug out a crater for itself. And the globe had not done that; there was, in fact, hardly a dent where it rested on the dry, sun-withered grass.

  Towards three in the afternoon, the crowd included policemen roping off the space, scientists who gazed with puzzled eyes on the globe and formed highly technical conjectures, reporters who scribbled frantically in notebooks, and a meteorologist who did nothing at all except shake his head gloomily.

  None of which was very helpful. The fact remained that a ball of steel, so heavy that mobile cranes sent to the spot could hardly raise it, had mysteriously appeared to spoil the beauty of the Downs. The thing was an eyesore, a tantalising mystery.

  Sir Gadsby Brough, who had the matter in hand, finally decided to bore through the thing with oxy-acetylene flares. Men arrived and got busy behind their blue shields. By five o’clock, a hole large enough to admit a man had been made.

  The globe’s interior was even more perplexing—filled with all manner of strange devices, machinery which failed to make sense. Several engineers present in the small interior chamber could make nothing of the apparatus, and frankly said so… That was one problem; an even bigger one was; how did anybody get out of the globe from the inside when there was no door?

  The globe was a perfect sphere without the least trace of a join or opening, and the more the experts studied it the more baffled they became. Finally, Brough decided the thing should be left where it was under police guard until some means could be found to remove it, or else to explain its complicated inner mysteries.

  Mars? Had it come from Mars? A grand peg on which to hang the scientific hat! Young David Turner of the London Arrow heard that speculation drop from the petulant lips of Brough himself, and thereupon he returned to London at top speed, writing his copy in the train on the way. Next morning, the London Arrow scooped all rivals with its arresting question:

  WHAT IS IT?

  Artfully enough, the article did not answer the question it put—but did hint in no uncertain terms that the thing on the Downs was possibly a spaceship from Mars. The fact that it could not belong to Earth seemed sufficiently proven by its huge weight and the absence of all visible means to transport it to the spot where it had been discovered. The major riddle still remained. How had anything got outside it, and if a person, where was he now?

  The scientifically-minded minority of the British public tried to solve the problem next morning in tube, ’bus and street. But it was too much like trying to picture something that does not exist, and they soon gave up the attempt.

  But not Dave Turner. He had an inner conviction that he was definitely on to something interesting, even though he had a hard job convincing his news editor of the fact. It says much for Turner’s powers of coercion, however, that the London Arrow kept the subject warm long after the other papers had dropped it, or else were scathingly referring to it as the ‘Sussex Cannon Ball.’

  * * * *

  A week later, Turner’s grim persistency in plugging the globe in his paper brought results in a singular, not to say startling fashion. Arriving at his modest rooms in Bethnal Green one evening, he found a visitor awaiting him, a fact of which he had had advance warning from a surprisingly startled landlady.

  The moment he saw his visitor he understood why the good woman had forsaken eighteen stone of complacency for almost girlish fright. Turner, himself, could do nothing but stare, rub a hand agitatedly through his black hair, and try to look unconcerned. Then he said, as coolly as possible:

  “Good evening. I’m Turner, of the Arrow.”

  His visitor did not answer. He remained seated, and even in that position he was obviously a small man, probably not more than five feet tall. His attire consisted of a dead-black suit, without even the relief of a white collar. Instead of a shirt, he had a tight black affair that swathed him to the neck. His back and chest bulged outwards in the fashion of a hunchback, yet clearly it was not a deformity; was, in truth, an apparently natural formation.

  All this, and the yellow gloves and wide-brimmed black hat on the table, Turner took in at a glance. It was the man’s face and head he could not stop gazing at. The face was alabaster white, with square projecting chin and tight-lipped mouth. Pale green eyes on either side of a long thin nose stared unwaveringly across the room, lent added penetration by straight, deep black brows. And the forehead! Turner had never seen one like it. It went up a full six inches from eyebrows to the roots of the man’s glossy, tight-drawn black hair, an enormous dome that seemed as though it should contain all the genius of which a living being is capable.

  “I believe you wanted to see me?” Turner managed to get out at last.

  “Yes, my friend, I do.” The man’s voice was deep, slow, and well modulated, with just a hin
t of condescension. He got to his feet slowly and gripped Turner’s band with one that was cool and strong.

  “Well—er—sit down,” Turner smiled, motioning him back to his chair and seizing one for himself. “What can I do for you?”

  “I wonder,” the man murmured, his green eyes still staring. Then he said slowly, “Young man, my name is Solivus Vass. My home is—Mars.”

  “Oh! “Turner sat in awed silence for a moment. Though he had half expected something like this, it came as a shock to hear it as a stated fact. “Er—strange name,” he ventured uncertainly.

  “No stranger than David Turner is to me,” Vass answered calmly. “However, to business.” He leaned forward earnestly, clasping his lean, dead-white hands together. “I sought you out, young man, because you have revealed yourself as a man of intelligence and persistency. You have doggedly maintained the /truth of the Sussex meteor when all your ignorant contemporaries have discarded the affair with the sighting observation that my space-machine is a cannon ball… Fools!”

  Vass’s mouth twisted harshly for a moment; there was a glint of white, even teeth—then again he was his calm, inscrutable self.

  “My race,” he resumed slowly, “lives under the surface of Mars, deep down under the deserts. In appearance we are not really as Earth-like as I now am. I have been made this way through synthetic means, yet even so my Martian structure of large lungs has not been entirely obviated—as you observe… However, for years we have tried to solve the mystery of space travel, and quite recently succeeded. To visit Earth meant adapting the body to Earthly conditions, that I have done. A week ago I came to your planet.

  “Your language?” he continued, forestalling the question on Turner’s lips. “A simple matter indeed. You will know that certain of your shorter radio wavelengths pass clean through your Heaviside Layer into outer space? Our apparatus, infinitely in advance of yours, picked up many of your radio speeches. It was simple to learn not only your language, but that of every country in this world… So I came, left my vessel by way of the fourth dimension, and for a week have been in hiding, seeking out one whom I felt I could trust. I have decided on you.”

  “Well…er…thanks very much,” Turner said dubiously, turning from those boring green orbs for a moment. “But—but I honestly don’t quite know what to say. After all, you’re expecting me to believe rather a lot… Oh, I know I’ve played up your space machine in my paper, but that’s my job. I don’t always believe what I write, by any means.”

  “I see.” Vass studied him for a moment, then shrugged. “After all, I don’t expect you to believe without proof—and, from what I have seen, Earth people require proof to the limit before they will believe anything. It is my intention, while on Earth, to reveal the powers of Martian science. To you of Earth it may seem like magic, but that it definitely is not. I want everybody to realise that Martian science can bring them untold benefits if they will only have it—want them to realise that I, a Martian, come as a friend and not an enemy.”

  “And why should you wish to confer such benefits on us?” Turner asked quickly. “Is it just generosity, or what?”

  “No—business,” the Martian smiled. “You may regard me as an ambassador if you wish. The feats I can perform all have their explanation in what we of Mars call mental science, by which clumsy methods are obviated and miracles of achievement produced entirely by mind force. Already some of your Tibetan magicians have the basic roots of the idea; we of Mars have developed it to a fine art. If, after a period, Earth people are satisfied that they too would care to have such powers, then negotiations with my race can begin. Secrets will be given in return for several things Earth possesses which Mars does not… Pure salt, for instance; certain carbon deposits; and there are other things.”

  Turner nodded slowly.

  “I think I understand,” he said. “And how do you propose to get Earth people to listen to you?”

  “By gaining their interest. Merely to reel off certain scientific formulas would neither interest nor prove beneficial, but practical demonstrations of mind science will do all I need. Tomorrow I will show you, and the world… Can you, in order to obtain what I believe you term a ‘scoop,’ be present in Trafalgar Square at ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

  “For a scoop I can be anywhere at any time,” Turner answered. “In fact, you’ve given me one already. But I say, what are you going to do in Trafalgar Square?”

  “The Indian rope trick,” Vass replied calmly.

  Turner stared at him.

  “But, hang it all, that’s impossible!” he objected. “Why, famous magicians from all over the world have combed India for some sign of this trick and have now come to the conclusion it just doesn’t exist. One famous magician has even offered two thousand pounds to anybody who can do it in the open air, and—”

  “All of which does not interest me,” Vass interrupted with an impassive smile. “I have chosen this particular illusion as a good overture to my powers. Tomorrow you will see for yourself. Be under Nelson’s Column at ten o’clock in the morning.”

  He got slowly to his feet, idly picked up Turner’s heavy cigarette-lighter from the table.

  “If you will give me the aid of your paper I will give you the first information of all my demonstrations,” he murmured. “Here is a guarantee of good faith,” he finished slowly, and flicked the lighter into flame. Then he blew the flame out again, but from the wisp of dispersing smoke something dropped gently into Turner’s lap.

  Slowly he picked it up and stared incredulously at a five-pound note!

  “How the—?” he began dazedly, staring at Vass as he put on his broad-brimmed hat and yellow gloves. “It’s quite genuine,” Vass smiled.

  Just a little proof by the wayside… Tomorrow—at ten.”

  Then the door was closing silently behind him, leaving Turner staring fixedly at the note in his hand.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Great Trafalgar Square Mystery

  Turner set all London talking with his story in the late editions of the Arrow concerning the Martian and his life history. Few believed it; other papers openly jeered; but there were many who prepared to visit Trafalgar Square next day, if only to laugh Turner and the Arrow out of business.

  Turner himself more than half wondered if he had dreamed it all, until he studied the five-pound note in his wallet. That was real enough, even if a microscopic examination of his petrol lighter had failed to explain the cause of the mystery.

  Ten o’clock the following morning found him wandering amidst the crowd in Trafalgar Square in the bright summer sunshine. In various directions he could see his rivals lounging about with apparent casualness. Some distance away he recognised his predecessor on the Arrow, the keen-witted Joan Wyngate, now of the Clarion. She beamed on him sweetly and he rewarded her with a scowl of annoyance.

  Big Ben’s notes were echoing across the Square as he reached Nelson’s Column—and at that moment something happened. There was a sudden flurry among the pigeons and a familiar deep voice spoke quietly.

  “Good morning, Mr. Turner. You see, I’m quite prompt.”

  Turner swung round, blinked a little. He knew perfectly well that the Martian had been nowhere in sight a moment ago, and yet now— Well, there he was, attired as on the previous evening, but now holding a small attaché case in his hand.

  “Oh—hello!” Turner acknowledged doubtfully, then he looked round him as his rivals drew in closer, and saw on all sides the mass of people who had gathered to see what was going to happen at ten o’clock.

  “This is Soli—” Turner began, but the Martian cut him short.

  “I rather think I can attend to this myself, my friend,” he said. “No doubt several of these people, particularly your contemporaries, are very surprised to find your newspaper statements correct…?”

  Vass’s green eyes gazed round and Turner, catching the self-conscious look on Joan Wyngate’s face, started to grin. Not that he liked taking it out of th
e girl—it was the remembrance of her bland, sardonic smile that still clung to him.

  “As Turner started to explain, I am Solivus Vass,” the Martian went on, removing his hat to excite cries of amazement at the view of his vast skull. “My reasons for coming among you are already known from Turner’s, excellent account in his newspaper. I shall now endeavour to give my first proof of mental science this morning by doing that elementary problem of yours, the Indian rope trick.”

  He opened his case at the words and drew from it a length of rope stretching perhaps twenty feet. Casually he tossed it once or twice in the air, and suddenly it stopped upright some eighteen feet from the ground. With a faint smile, Vass removed his hand and gazed at the sea of astounded faces around him.

  “Perhaps some of you would care to examine it?” he invited.

  The invitation was hardly needed. People milled around in scores, pulled on the perfectly ordinary rope, studied it from every angle—but the miracle remained. Somehow, that rope was hooked on to nothing!

  “Am I seeing things?” breathed Joan Wyngate, her blue eyes wide in amazement. “I almost think I—”

  “None of you is seeing things,” Vass broke in quietly, waving the people back and making a clear space. “I am now going to ask one of you to suggest a spot at which I shall reappear. My intention is to climb the rope and disappear in space at the top. Then, wherever you wish to find me, I shall be there.”

  “You mean it?” Turner cried in bewilderment, as baffled as the rapidly increasing throng of people.

  “Certainly,” Vass nodded gravely.

  “Well—er—suppose we say outside Victoria Station?” Turner suggested.

  “That’s it! Give ’im a long ’op!” yelled somebody in the crowd.