THE black craft loomed suddenly out of the night, its exhausts flaming. "Let 'em have it!" blazed Scott, and O'Brien responded with willing hands. The outlaw sheered away.
Behind it the strange pursuer, swift and gray, headed it off again. The smuggler was trapped between two boats whose speed outmatched its own. It curved backward toward the Sting-ray.
"Torchy!" yelled Scott. "They're trying to ram us!"
Expertly Torchy swung their craft aside, but so close did the outlaw vessel pass that its gunwale actually scratched their stern. And. off in the night it was circling, veering back to try again.
Again Torchy avoided it, while O'Brien poured a stream of lead into the enemy. But the man in the stern, protected by the bulletproof glass of the cabin, was untouched, and no other figure was visible. And again the vessel curved back, this time cutting its course so that it was almost successful in ramming their strange helper, who circled a hundred and fifty feet distant. Then bore down on the G-men again.
Very narrowly indeed did Torchy avoid this attempt. The board beneath them shook to a glancing blow, and then the enemy sheered off again—but as the gap widened, a lithe figure flung itself across from the Sting-ray to the outlaw! A knife flashed in an upraised arm, and suddenly the smuggler's motors died into silence, and the craft lost headway, sliding at last gently to their very side. And in the stern crouched Foo Yong, wiping his bloody knife on the clothes of his victim!
Scott glanced briefly at the man, recognizing him as one of the peons from the Casa de Libertad, and then leaped lightly aboard.
"Anyone else here?" he asked.
"No savvy," said the dying Mexican stolidly. Then he coughed, shuddered, and lay still.
Scott stepped gingerly into the cabin, and suddenly snatched his automatic and fired. There was a howl of pain and a gun crashed to the floor.
"Come on out, Yung," said the G-man. "We got you."
CHARLIE YUNG, clutching a broken wrist, came waddling into the open. "You got nothing," he growled viciously. "There ain't no corpus delicti. You ain't got no evidence. We was on the high seas."
"Hold a knife on him, Foo Yong!" Scott commanded, for a faint thumping in the dark cabin had caught his attention, and he strode in and peered down at a gently heaving sack in the corner.
"Here's one you overlooked," he said grimly; and slit the sack.
Within it, half unconscious from lack of air, was a girl, a sloe-eyed Chinese girl.
"Hello, Light of Confucius, said Scott. Behind him he heard Foo Yong's gasp, "Light of Kung-fu-tze? Allee samee Foo Lien!" He pushed past Scott. "Foo Lien!" he cried. "You no come last night!"
"Two clowded last night," said the girl dazedly. "I come tonight."
"Well, it saved your life," observed- Scott. Then he shouted out through the cabin door, "There's our evidence, Yung!"
But there came no answer. Scott, suddenly realizing that Foo Yong had left his job of guarding Charlie Yung, dashed out on deck. The half-breed Mexican-Chink no longer stood silhouetted against the starlit sky.
SCOTT frantically looked around to see where his captive had fled. His foot struck a body—that of the dead peon, of course. But he stooped and felt of it in the darkness. There were two dead bodies. Charlie Yung lay beside his henchman, Foo's knife buried to the hilt in his back.
"Well," sighed Scott, "it'll save Uncle Sam the cost of a trial. And I guess it won't stretch my conscience too much to write it down in my report as 'killed trying to escape.' An old Mexican custom." He laughed grimly.
A cough sounded across the waters. Scott looked up and saw that the unknown boat which had helped them to round-up the smuggler, was now drifting idly against the port side of the Sting-ray. He sprang to his own deck, and peered across to see who the stranger was, and there, his snaky eyes glittering in the moonlight, stood— Slim Hammond!
"Hi, Scott!" said the gangster. "Don't ever say me 'n' me pals ain't buddies of yours. We done you a good turn tonight."
Scott turned to his men. "Cover 'em!" he snapped. "If Hammond or one of his men bats an eyelash, drop him. Get me?"
"Hey!" wailed Hammond, aghast. "What's the big idea? We was helping you!"
"Yeah, you were helping me all right. I'm no punk, Slim, and I know the only way you'll ever go straight is when you grab a handful of clouds. So when you pulled that line, I started looking for the catch in it, and I got it figured out, too."
"There ain't no catch to it, Scotty."
“OH, NO? Well, here's my dope. You're running a chain of hot-spots for the Man on Long Island, and you've been buying Chink girls for 'em. Then you discover that Charlie Yung is working a double racket, collecting from the girls to smuggle 'em into the U. S., where they think there's a husband waiting for 'em, and then collecting again from you when he sells 'em into white—I mean yellow slivery. So you and your boss on Long Island figure you might as well save the cost of the girls, and then collect for bringing 'em over besides, so you decided to muscle-in on Yung's racket. But you figure it's just as easy to let the government take care of Yung, so you send me those anonymous tips, and when I'm in a jam in Ensenada, you even help me out of it—just so as I can do your dirty work for you!"
"Why, you lousy——!" began Hammond. Suddenly he snatched for his gat. "I rather thought you'd double-cross me, Scott, after my playing square with you. What's to prevent me from giving you the works now, and being shed of both you and Yung? It'll look just like you two shot it out with each other, and all got killed. All right, Scott, you asked for it, and now—." He coughed.
His boat suddenly swarmed with gangsters, armed with tommy guns trained upon the four G-men. Scott and his operatives were hopelessly outnumbered.
"All right, boys," cried Hammond, his voice rising to a fiendish crescendo, and cracking. "All right, boys," he began again, "let 'em— no don't, don't. Fer cripes sakes, don't!"
HIS henchmen lowered the muzzles of their weapons. Scott gazed across in surprise. Silhouetted against the moonlit sky, a figure in Chinese pajamas stood beside Slim Hammond, a long-knife pressed against the gangster's ribs.
"Okay, Missy Scott," sung out Foo Yong's birdlike voice.
"Stick 'em up, Slim," Scott grimly added.
But suddenly the motors of his own boat roared, and it shot forward, spilling him into the cockpit.
"Down, down!" shouted Danny Cullinane, stepping on the gas. "You fool, Walter. Foo Yong can hold him off only for a minute. We've got to beat it, while the going's good."
A splash sounded in the water behind them. Then the rattle of many machine guns, as Hammond's boat gave chase. Bullets riffled the water all about them, and ripped and tore into the Sting-ray; as crouching law they drove her forward, northeastward toward the American coast.
"I suppose you're right, Dan," Scott admitted ruefully, "but I hate to leave Foo Yong in their clutches."
"Foo Yong's done for," said Cullinane grimly.
"But the girl! She's still in that boat."
"They're leaving her behind. She's safe for the present."
THE Sting-ray slowly drew away from its pursuer. The bullets fell astern. Sergeant O'Brien then crept forward, flat to the deck. Reaching his powerful 50-calibre machine gun, he swung it around, and pointed it aft above their heads. "This'll hold 'em off," he shouted, as he let loose a couple of bursts.
"It'll do more than that," Scott exulted. "Let's circle back, Dan."
Round in a wide circle swept the Sting-ray. And now it was Hammond's turn to flee.
But in fleeing, he headed for the still drifting boat of the smugglers—the boat which held the dead bodies of Charlie Yung and his peon henchman—and the very live little Chinese maiden.
"Head 'em off, Dan!" shouted Scott. "Give it to 'em, O'Brien!"
But it was no use. Nothing they, could; do would keep Slim Hammond from reaching the drifting craft ahead of them.
And then suddenly there came a red flash from the smuggler's boat, followed by a white burst aboard Hammond's boat; and then two dull booms.
"The girl's firing the one-pounder!" exclaimed Scott, amazed.
Confronted by this new menace, Hammond veered away from his intended victim. And the Sting-ray shot in between them; then reversed its engines and backed churningly up beside the stalled smuggler.
"That girl's going to be saved," Scott exclaimed, "even if Hammond gets away. We can catch him some other day."
Standing in the smuggler, were not only the Light of Confucius, but her brother, dripping wet. "Slim Hammond better not tly monkey-business with Foo Yong," he intoned, grinning, as he helped his sister aboard the boat of the G-men.
Two hours later the Sting-ray, followed by the boat of the late Charlie Yung, purred quietly into Coronado Bay, where on the dock Mary, her face changing from anxiety to relief, stood in the moonlight, with the wind whipping her skirt charmingly about her trim figure, waiting for Scott.
THE CHALLENGE
FROM BEYOND
Stanley G. Weinbaum * Donald Wandrei * Edward E. Smith * Harl Vincent * Murray Leinster
As part of its third anniversary issue in September 1935, Fantasy Magazine asked five prominent science fiction authors and five prominent weird fiction authors to write two tales, both written around the title "The Challenge from Beyond". You will find in this booklet both versions of the story, taken directly from the pages of Fantasy Magazine.
Publisher's Note: Bold-face type indicates that a new author is beginning that particular section. The authors appear in the following order: Stanley G. Weinbaum, Donald Wandrei, Edward E. Smith, Harl Vincent, and Murray Leinster.
Copyright (c) 1990 by Necronomicon Press
Cover art by Robert H. Knox
First printing — March 1990
Second printing — October 1997
Published by Necronomicon Press P. O. Box 1304 West Warwick, RI 02893 USA
ISBN 0-940884-27-5
"There is no such thing as truth!" barked Professor Thaddeus Crabbe, staring truculently at his youthful assistant, Jerry Blake. "No fact and no statement is entirely true!"
"Except that last statement of yours, I suppose," grinned the younger man, looking up from the dusky corner of the Crannan Foundation's astrophysical laboratory. "What brought forth the remark, anyway?"
Crabbe drew his enormous bulk erect. "I repeat," he said with the impressive dignity of a fat man, "that truth is a purely relative matter. It depends, as Einstein showed, on the point of view of the observer. Like everything else in an Einstein or de Sitter universe, it is entirely relative, and what's more, it's probably curved as well. Interesting idea," he concluded reflectively. "Curved truth."
Blake chuckled. "Why the outburst?"
The professor glowered again. "Those fool directors!" he blazed. "No appropriation unless I can produce evidence that my theory is based on truth. And they want assurance that the experiment will not reflect on the Foundation. Ever since the biochemistry division poisoned that subject last year they've been afraid of trouble. Truth — bah!"
"What experiment?" asked Blake.
"I've half a notion to tell you." Crabbe eased his enormous midsection into a chair. "You wouldn't understand, of course, being merely a statistician, but perhaps you can appreciate the validity of the concept. Even a statistician ought to know something about the facts represented by his figures."
"Well, a professor seldom knows anything about the figures represented by his facts," observed Blake cheerfully.
"Curved space," muttered Crabbe. "Curved time. The infinitely dead past. And what's more," he said, "curved size! Why not? If I postulate a telescope that will pierce into infinite largeness and a microscope that will probe into infinite smallness, why should they not see the same thing? Of course! Looking into either, we should see the intermediate between the macro and micro-cosms, which is to say ourselves. We stand halfway between electron and star. And therefore, why not curved truth?"
"Why not?" queried Jerry imperturbably.
"You don't seem to take me seriously," said the professor suspiciously. "Naturally you fail to understand the paradoxes of relativity, the very paradoxes which my experiment was to have explored, if those fools of directors had allowed me to hire a subject."
"I thought," said Blake, "that you were going to explain what your experiment was."
"Explain? How am I to explain to a fool who merely juggles figures? But listen if you care to. You will not understand, however, for to quote Jeans: 'Most of the symbols used by the mathematical physicist today convey no physical picture to his mind.' But for the purpose of explanation, Shapley has made the more pertinent statement, to the effect that the spiral nebulae do not obey all known laws of mechanics. He makes a very significant suggestion when he observes that these vast nebulae act as if matter were somehow being forced through them into our three-dimensional space from — beyond. It was that observation that led me to a study of vortices, for the colossal spirals of the extra-galactic nebulae are each but an inconceivably vast vortex. It occurred to me to attempt to duplicate nebular conditions on a laboratory scale, and that is the heart of the experiment — a vortex. But not a vortex in the ordinary sense of the word."
"Of course not," agreed Blake amiably.
"No, not an ordinary vortex. In the first place, it has to take place in a gas so rare that one might call it practically a complete vacuum, for of that degree of rarity are the gaseous hearts of the nebulae. And of course the star streams that are the spiral arms are beyond human duplication." Crabbe paused frowning. "But a nebulae is more than a vortex of rarefied gases. There is as well a vast gravitational vortex, which is also beyond mortal powers. However, for that I substituted a magnetic vortex, a whirling field of force. And at last, to complete the known phenomena, I superimposed on these vortices, a vortex of radiation."
"And when you were all through," asked Blake rhetorically, "what did you have?"
Crabbe's watery blue eyes flashed to his face, and the round visage of the professor quivered into a smile. "I had a hole," he announced. "A hole or a tunnel."
"A hole in what? A tunnel to where?"
"Well, in what I cannot say. To where I don't know."
"Well, I must say I can't blame the directors! There's a proverb about pouring money into a hole."
Crabbe ignored him. "In the center of the vortex I produced a hole," he continued. "Unfortunately rabbits and cats lack what we humans are pleased to call our intelligence, and those I sent through were unable to devise a means of returning, if they were in physical condition to return. Since this end of the hole is in vacuo, it was necessary to send them through in closed jars, an environment not conducive to long survival unless they managed to escape. And several times I tried the scheme of attaching a cord to the container, and drawing it back again. The cat or rabbit reappeared indubitably frightened, but whether more frightened than it would have been if lowered into a sewer and withdrawn I am unable to say."
"Can you see into the hole?"
"A limited distance," said Crabbe. "The optical effect is rather startling, for the cat and jar seem almost to diminish instead of to recede. The appearance is as if one peered into the large tube containing my vortex and there observed container and cat suspended and receding, but receding into a distance that is, so to speak, within arm's length. Very queer. If the fool directors had allowed me to hire a human volunteer to go through, observe, and be withdrawn to report — " The professor turned a sudden watery glare at Blake. "By heaven! You can go!"
"I? You're crazy!"
"Crazy, eh! Who cares what happens to a statistician?"
"I do," announced Blake decidedly.
"But think of the possibilities! Haven't you any feeling for the glories of science? Why, I'd consider it an honor to risk my safety in such a cause!"
"Why don't you, then? That is, if you could squeeze yourself through the hole."
For some time Crabbe stared thoughtfully at the younger man. "All right!" he snapped in sudden decision. "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll
fix up two protective suits with oxygen tanks, and we'll both go!"
"Up to now, I didn't dream of going, but since you've proved you don't know anything about the figures represented by your facts, I'll shag along just to keep an eye on you," Jerry Blake retorted blithely.
Crabbe turned purple. "What do you mean by insolence!" he roared. "I could have you fired for this — this — "
"Brazen insubordination they usually call it. But you won't. You see, we're going to fix up three suits."
The professor's enormous bulk quivered, but he got more interested than angry. "Why three? There are only two of us."
"That proves you're no statistician," said his young assistant with another dig at the professor's ego. "In the first place, we ought to take along a spare for emergency. In the second place, maybe we won't be two when we go through the vortex. Maybe we'll be curved also, curved into a flock of distortions of ourselves in any number of dimensions. As a matter of fact, we ought to take along more suits than we could possibly manage."
"In the third place?" said Crabbe acidly.
"In the third place," Jerry continued, unperturbed, "even if we only needed two suits, we might want to bring back someone or something."
"What?"
"How the heck do I know?" Jerry answered with a frown. "Maybe a four dimensional egg, maybe a five-sexed you-name it, maybe real reality."
"Four — five — real — " spluttered Crabbe.
"Why not? Look at a mirror and you see yourself plus some buildings. If you built a big enough mirror, it would reflect the universe. But suppose the universe is just a mirror? If we get through the vortex, maybe we would find that the universe is just a mirror to reflect real reality — beyond."
"What an idea!" Crabbe growled.
"What an idea!" Blake crowed. "You don't exist. I don't exist. Nobody exists. The universe is a fraud. It's just a colossal mirror, reflecting the nature of the reality beyond. You've dug a hole, a tunnel, a vortex through and now we'll get out."
The Lost Master - The Collected Works Page 9