Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “Half an hour,” he muttered. “Very little time! The mineral must be prepared before I can produce the ray . . .”

  “How much time do you need?” Powell said thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps I can do it in half an hour. I don’t know. I’ll try!”

  “Uh-huh,” Powell nodded, then turned to the door. Sue and Plumb trailed him out.

  “What’s up?” the girl asked. “Where are you going?”

  “Times Square.”

  “What?” She caught his arm. “You can’t do that!”

  Powell pulled away free and headed at a fast run for the elevator.

  “No? Listen, stupid. Suppose nobody shows up at Times Square in half an hour? What do you suppose the Spacehawk’ll do then? Come after us? Sure! And he knows just where Eberle’s lab is.”

  They were in the elevator now, flying up to the roofport.

  “But suppose you keep your appointment?” Plumb said. “How’ll that help? You’ll just be killed, and this—this thing will come after Eberle anyway.”

  “I may be killed,” Powell smiled grimly, “but not before I give the Spacehawk a run for his money. I’m taking the Manhattan, with Eberle’s space drive. And if I can’t outfly a hunk of green gas, I’ll deserve all I get.”

  But Powell was by no means as confident as his words indicated. He knew he was battling something more than a “hunk of green gas.” He faced an enemy with powers inhuman, titanic. A being that had slain the Colossi by the concentrated strength of thought alone! A space ship was feeble protection indeed against such a pursuer.

  Eberle needed all the time he could get. That was the point.

  Mike opened the port of the Manhattan and turned to nod at Sue and Plumb.

  “See you later,” he said with an excellent imitation of unconcern.

  “We’re coming along,” the girl said firmly.

  “That’s what you think,” Powell chuckled, and slammed the valve. He turned to the controls and lifted the ship from its cradle.

  A hundred feet up he went. New York lay below. Times Square, where was it? Powell manipulated the controls. The Manhattan slid smoothly forward through the air.

  A cold chill prickled the hairs at the nape of his neck. Was the Spacehawk, in his new form, watching him even now? It seemed quite possible.

  The city moved below. Powell’s gaze lingered on the familiar buildings and canyons of deserted streets that had once teemed with roaring life. Soon New York would be back on Earth, unless the Spacehawk overestimated his powers. But with it would come a creature of incredible potentiality—a being of pure force, a bodiless intelligence born from the mind of a criminal. What would that mean?

  Mike couldn’t conceive it. But he realized that it would mean the end of the civilization he had known. A familiar phrase came into his mind . . .

  “All over Europe the lights are going out. They will not be lit again in our lifetime.”

  All over the world the lights might soon be going out, the light of progress and civilization, snuffed by a fiercer alien flame, the green fire of the Unknown!

  Times Square lay below. It had been roped off, Powell saw, and armed guardsmen were massed on the curbs. A single figure stood in the center of the street, Stackpole, the IIB chief.

  Powell lowered the ship to the pavement, deftly maneuvering it between the skyscrapers. A rocket ship could not have made that landing, but the Manhattan grounded with scarcely a jar. Powell adjusted the controls so that a touch would send the craft shooting up vertically, and opened the port. He stepped out to face the slim, dapper, white-haired Stackpole.

  The IIB chief’s face was set in harsh lines. His gaze probed beyond Powell into the interior of the ship.

  “Who’s with you?” he asked.

  “Nobody. I came alone. How much time have we?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “That’s time enough,” Powell said crisply, “if I talk fast. Here’s the set-up.”

  CHAPTER XXII

  Battle in the Void

  STACKPOLE had made such hasty preparations as he could. Armed forces guarded him. Whether or not their weapons would avail against the force-being, it was impossible to predict.

  At the deadline, Powell stood ready at the controls. The port was open. Beyond it was Stackpole, nerves keyed to wire tension. The street was utterly silent. Cleared of the few pedestrians who walked in New York during these dangerous days, it was filled only by the ship and the waiting guardsmen.

  The gray light filtered down, unchanging and cool. Not for almost an hour had any of the vast shadows been seen in the sky. Mike could not escape the conviction that the Colossi had been killed.

  His fingers jerked nervously as they hovered over the switchboard. Where was Eberle? Would the scientist complete his preparations in time?

  And, even if he did, would he succeed?

  “Ready,” Stackpole said softly.

  Powell glanced at the vision plate. Framed high above, against the ribbon of gray sky, a vaguely green tint was beginning to grow.

  It faded. The stillness filled the street almost suffocatingly.

  Stackpole remained perfectly motionless.

  Then, beyond him, Powell saw a green flame spring out of empty air. A whirling vortex of emerald light blazed up, twenty feet tall, shaped like a shell. The shape shifted and changed as Powell watched.

  Stackpole sprang back from the port. A tendril of light leaped out, caught him. It wrapped itself about Stackpole and snatched him. The fires roared up. Swiftly they faded.

  Where Stackpole had been was nothing!

  And from the terror a tendril sprang toward the open port where Mike crouched.

  There was no time to close the valve. His finger smashed down on the keyboard; the ship flashed up. The acceleration drove Powell to his knees.

  The Manhattan halted. It hung motionless in mid-air. The space drive motor ground and screamed under the strain.

  It was caught by the green flame, caught and trapped.

  Power battled power. Mechanical resource proved the weaker. Slowly, inexorably, the ship began to sink back.

  From below came a rattle of gunfire. On the vision screen Powell saw the militia running forward, firing as they ran.

  Above them the emerald fire rose silently toward the motionless ship.

  Powell glanced hopelessly around the control room. He knew there was nothing there to aid him. He turned to the switchboard and began to work over it desperately. The motor yelled protest.

  Then, suddenly, a ship shot into the vision plate’s range. The face of Sue Clark appeared, green eyes blazing. Behind her was Lynn Plumb, hands dancing over the rocket controls. “Give ’em hell, Sue!” Plumb yelped.

  SUE moved swiftly. From the gun ports red jets blossomed. Raving beams of heat tore into the core of the green flame.

  The Manhattan ripped free of its fetters. The great ship shot up like a bullet. Before Powell could move, New York was a speck far below.

  In the vision plate the green fire grew again. And in its wake, swiftly growing in size, came two ships, their heat beams roaring out at the terror. Powell caught a flashing glimpse of the bushy, hirsute face of Hector busy at his controls.

  “Just in time, huh, boss?” the Martian shrilled, giggling. “Hold with everything!”

  Powell hesitated in indecision. His strongest impulse was to turn and help his allies. But every second counted, with Eberle toiling in his laboratory every second of time he could squeeze out. Mike swerved his ship.

  The green shell of flame raced in pursuit. The rocket ships, maneuvering clumsily, lost their quarry for a moment, and then recaptured it. Again the heat beams thundered from the hulls.

  The emerald shell paused and drove down at Hector’s ship. It smashed through the incandescent rays and met the vessel head on.

  The ship’s rocket jets went dead. It nosed down in a long, suicidal dive.

  Sue’s beams were still on; she dived at her quarry. Again the terror rose
to meet its enemy.

  And again a ship fell.

  Unharmed, the green flame of life-energy hung for a moment in the gray void, and then flashed toward Powell.

  He risked a glance below. Parachutes were blossoming from the two ships. Sue, Plumb, and Hector were bailing out. By spilling their chutes, they might make safe landings.

  Nodding, Powell stabbed at the controls. But his hesitation had been fatal. The Manhattan did not move.

  The motor’s whine rose to a shriek. The green light filled the vision plate.

  Through the open port, a tendril of emerald brilliance came exploring. It found Powell, coiled about him. A touch colder than ice froze every atom of his being. The frightful unspeakable horror of the utterly alien paralyzed his mind. The tentacle began to draw Powell out of the ship.

  Mike could not move. He could not even breathe. His body was ice, his brain frozen. A dark curtain dropped, smothering consciousness.

  This was the end, he knew dimly.

  And then, gradually, he became conscious of the binding tendril’s withdrawal. Gradually, life flooded back into his body. He lay with his head extended over the port’s threshhold, nothing below him for miles but the foggy grayness.

  In this grayness were two flames, two cores of incandescent green brilliance that battled!

  Blinding rays shot out and met in mid-air. The fireshells whirled, faster and faster, elongating to spindle-shapes.

  They drew together, coalesced, indistinguishable entities that had been the Spacehawk and Eberle.

  Mike lay supine, too weak to move, gaping helplessly at the cosmic struggle before his eyes.

  The fires roared up deafeningly. Riven air thundered through the sky. Titans of energy raged unchecked.

  Still the mighty two battled. The green flame spun ominously. It was a blaze of supernal brilliance, power beyond all human concept! Mighty power of life itself, of sheer energy, was flaming viciously in vast conflict.

  Abruptly the fires died. They lost their screaming intensity and lessened to a dim green glow. The fury of battle faded. It was gone. The green flame hung, quiescent, unmoving.

  Then, slowly at first, but with ever-gathering speed, it rose until it hung just outside the port. A flame tendril came through, coiled around Powell, lifted him to his feet. From it, a wave of reassurance flowed. Into his brain came a soundless message.

  “Our enemy is destroyed, Powell.”

  “You’re Eberle?” Mike cried. Still shuddering in reaction, he felt like a frightened child in the clasp of this man who was now more than human.

  “Yes. I was Eberle. I completed the experiment. Too late to save Stackpole, I know. I am sorry for that.” There was a pause. “But more delay is unnecessary now. Take the ship back to New York. You must be there when I return the city to Earth.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Yes. I can operate the dimensional machine of the Colossi with the energy I possess. Only—”

  “What?” Mike asked anxiously.

  “I must remain here. I can’t return with New York.”

  “But, isn’t there any way—” Powell cried, his voice unsteady.

  “No,” the mental voice replied without regret. “My energy must operate the machines. To accomplish that, I must be here. Then I shall destroy this laboratory. The experiment of the Colossi must never be duplicated.”

  A FINGER of flame touched Powell. He knew it was a caress of farewell.

  “Wait!” he said urgently. “You must answer the questions that Earth would never know otherwise.”

  “What questions are these?” the flame entity asked quietly.

  “Who were the Colossi? What did the Spacehawk have to do with them? How much did he know before Manhattan vanished? What did he have to gain?”

  “I forget that men have not my intelligence,” the flame said. “You are right. Mankind should know what happened, and that it can never occur again.

  “The Colossi, of course, were fourth dimensional beings who shared a world with a race that threatened their existence. They discovered the secret of the mutation ray, but they dared not use it on their enemies. The ray, you see, might turn the underground race into a power strong enough to destroy them. It might also slay the enemy.

  “An Earthly scientist, fighting an unknown plague with an unknown antitoxin, would test it first on animals and judge by their reactions. Likewise, the Colossi tested their ray on the inhabitants of Manhattan.”

  Powell gritted his teeth and nodded.

  “At first, they projected their ray across the dimensions. It could not have been easy to observe the results. So the Colossi learned how to bridge the fourth-dimensional gap between the two coexistent universes. They revolved a portion of their own world into the space formerly occupied by New York. New York, on the other hand, was swung through hyperspace into this universe.

  “They turned the full power of their ray on the city. If it destroyed the people, they would feel safe in using it on the enemy.”

  The emerald fires pulsed and flared, dancing impatiently.

  “The Spacehawk?” it went on. “He was an opportunist. The ray, at first, made him a scientific criminal genius. He really knew nothing about the mystery at that time. Only after Manhattan had been swung into the fourth dimension did he guess the truth.

  “But he could do nothing. He waited, watching my work. When he discovered I had found a weapon to fight the Colossi, he stole it, thus becoming an entity of pure energy.

  “It was his only escape. If I triumphed over the Colossi and returned New York to Earth, the Spacehawk would still be a hunted criminal. But if he defeated them, incidentally becoming a being with more than mortal powers, he need fear nothing.

  “As the Spacehawk, you understand, he faced the end of his road. There was also the temptation of becoming superhuman, almost a god! So he gambled on what didn’t seem to be a gamble. And he lost.”

  Without warning, the shell of fire was gone. The brilliant emerald glow faded, streaking high into the gray infinity of the sky, where it lost itself.

  POWELL felt slightly insane. The reality of the moment before seemed like a nightmare horror. Manhattan in the fourth dimension was a madman’s dream.

  But he couldn’t escape the fact that his ship hovered in a pallid, gray, unearthly sky that cut off sharply all four corners of the island below. He knew, beyond denial, the sky was the giant laboratory.

  His life was down there—Hector, Sue Clark, Lynn Plumb, the boss, and Summit—the world he had known ever since childhood.

  New York would be returned to Earth, would pick up the threads of its existence where they had been dropped. Once more limousines would roll down Fifth Avenue. Subways would roar and newsboys yell. The electric signs would flash as always above Times Square. Men and women would dance in the roof gardens.

  Life would go on. Mike knew he would resume his habits automatically. He’d go chasing through the System, canning scoops, trying to beat his rivals, cursing Hector and arguing with the chief . . .

  The ship grounded in its port on the roof. Powell stepped out. He was alone.

  Eagerly, he looked up. The gray void was featureless, but it seemed that a faint green glow was brightening far away.

  And Mike Powell, staring up into the dimness of an alien world, whispered:

  “They’ll forget. They’ll forget you, Eberle. But I won’t. My life will be the same, sure. I’ll still chase scoops and get drunk and be Mike Powell, and probably hook up with Sue Clark. But I won’t forget. I won’t forget.”

  THOTS ON THE WORLDSTATE

  The hideous Mr. Kuttner returns with an equally hideous tale. We absolutely guarantee this story will induce nausea and slight regurgitation. Lead on, McKuttner!

  I have, as usual, been brooding over the intricacies of modern civilization. It seems to me that life is a peculiarly futile business. This mood of mine may, perhaps, be attributed to my recent tragic encounter with a horse at the corner of 42nd and Broadway.<
br />
  I shall not dwell upon that incident, save to mention briefly that horses should, at least, be careful of what they eat. One never knows the result of the most innocent action, and that, by imperceptible degrees, brings me to the subject of this article, PLAYING FAIR WITH FANS, or, FANTASTIC DECENCY.

  It has been said (and very loudly, too) that fans fight a lot. Well, I do not care to refute that; I happen to know that a Californian fan, a Mr. Ackerman, is in the habit of knocking down visitors and kicking them in strategic places. The question naturally arises, does fantasy lead to sadism?

  I am reminded of the remarkable case of Scarlett O’God, an ardent fan whose tininess led to her being occasionally called by the diminutive, or fanny. This may seem somewhat confusing at first glance. Let us, therefore, go hastily on to the next paragraph.

  I should, perhaps, mention a mysterious white-bearded gentleman called Tarboth the damned, or Toby, since he played a significant role in the incident. It was he who listened, toying at his beard idly, while Scarlett feverishly upheld her position against the onslaughts of her foes. Just what caused the argument I cannot recall at the moment. Nor does it matter especially. I believe it had something to do with Scarlett’s being locked out of the Sanctuary, or Washroom, by previous arrivals.

  Mocked, scorned, and jeered at, Scarlett at first said nothing. Ultimately, however, she lost her temper and cursed her enemies roundly. “I would,” she observed with feeling, “sell my soul to the devil in order to obtain vengeance!”

  At this moment the white-bearded gentleman smiled unpleasently and vanished. Simultaneously lightning struck the Sanctuary and demolished it, to the natural discomfiture of the occupants. Laughing in a triumphant manner, Scarlett departed.

  But the seeds of doom were already sown within her soul. Not until she was soaked to the skin did she realize the ghastly and hideous truth. Then, looking up, she saw that above her hovered a small black cloud, from which rain was steadily descending. As she realized the terror of her position, black horror flooded the girl. SHE HAD BECOME ALLERGIC TO WEATHER!