“Uh—” Vanderhof stood up. “By the way—if I should change my mind—”
Steel glinted in Throckmorton’s beady eyes. “Indeed! You should have thought of that before. Do you, or do you not, recommend Vanderhof’s promotion.”
“I do.”
“Then he’s promoted. And the matter is now out of your hands—entirely!”
Vanderhof smiled and turned. He walked out on clouds. He did not even know that the elevator was taking him downstairs. Nuts to Walker . . .
So engrossed was he in day-dreams that he forgot to resume his normal appearance by the time he reached the general offices—which was, save for one person, deserted. This person wore tweeds, and now turned a round, crimson face and a bristling mustache on Vanderhof. It was Colonel Quester.
“Hah!” the colonel bellowed gently. “There you are! I see you’ve kept me waiting again.”
“Uh—”
“Silence!” said Colonel Quester, and the ceiling shook. “I have come for Model Forty-three. Mrs. Quester’s still furious, but the gown will placate her, I am sure. Is it ready? It had better be.”
“Yes,” said Vanderhof faintly. “I—I’ll get it.”
He fled. He got Model Forty-three. And, looking into a nearby mirror, he saw that he still exactly resembled S. Horton Walker.
Carrying the gown over his arm, on the way back he met one of the models. “Why, there you are, Mr. Walker,” the girl said. “I thought you were in your office.”
“I—uh—just stepped out for a minute.”
So Walker was in his office! Vanderhof started to grin. He was beaming like a Cheshire cat when he entered the room where Colonel Quester waited, rumbling faintly like a miniature Vesuvius.
But the colonel softened at sight of the dress. “Ha!” he remarked. “A beauty! It is exclusive, you say?”
Vanderhof stepped back a pace. “The only one in existence,” he remarked. “How do you like it, bottlenose?”
THERE was a dead silence. Colonel Quester breathed through his nose. At last he asked, in a quiet voice, “What did you say?”
“Bottle-nose was the term,” said Vanderhof happily. “Also, now that I think of it, you rather resemble a wart-hog.”
“Brrrmph!” Quester rumbled warningly.
“Brrrmph to you,” said Vanderhof. “You rhinocerous. So you want Model Forty-three, do you, fathead? Well, look.”
He held up Model Forty-three, and with a strong tug ripped the dress from top to bottom.
Quester turned magenta.
Vanderhof ripped the dress again. Quester turned blue.
Vanderhof finished the job by ripping Model Forty-three into ribbons and throwing it into the colonel’s face. Then he waited.
Colonel Quester was having difficulty in breathing. His mighty fists were clenched. “Wait,” he promised. “Just wait till I control my blood-pressure. I’ll break you for this—”
He took a step forward, and simultaneously Vanderhof dived for the inner office. He slipped through the door, held it shut behind him, and saw before him the blue-black thatch Or S. Horton Walker, who was looking down at some papers on his desk.
Vanderhof asserted his will-power. Instantly he changed his shape.
Walker looked up. “Vanderhof?” he snapped. “I want to talk to you—”
“Just a minute. You have a caller.”
“Wait!”
Vanderhof didn’t wait. He stepped out of the office, carefully closing the door, and turned to confront Colonel Quester.
“Ah,” he said. “What can I do for you, Colonel?”
“Get out of my way,” said Quester, in a low, impassioned voice.
“With pleasure,” Vanderhof smiled, stepping aside. “If you’re looking for Mr. Walker, he’s right inside.”
To this the colonel made no answer. He entered the inner office, and Vanderhof gently shut the door after him. There was a brief silence.
It was broken by a dull thud, and a short, sharp cry, mingled with a bellow of triumph. Other noises followed.
“Model Forty-three, hey?” a hoarse voice boomed. “By Gad, sir, you’ll eat it!”
“Ah?” Vanderhof murmured, walking away. “That lace collar should make a tasty mouthful.”
He dusted his hands delicately. He was thinking that he had managed to acquire a personality of his own, and that his weird power of metamorphosis would gradually fade and vanish of its own accord. He was no longer a jellyfish—a chameleon.
He was the manager of The Svelte Shop. A choked gurgle of stark anguish came faintly from the distance.
Tim Vanderhof lifted his eyebrows. “Heigh-ho,” he observed. “It’s five o’clock. Another day.”
RED GEM OF MERCURY
A stone from the stars kept vigil, and a dead man smiled, as Steve Vane bore a death token from Mercury to the man who had promised him—murder!
CHAPTER I
Stone from the Stars
THE noise of pursuit was growing louder. Steve Vane’s lungs ached with each knife-thrust, gasping breath of the icy air. His gray prison garments were no protection against the wintry breeze, and his thin shoes were already wet with snow and beginning to freeze.
It was hard to keep going. It would be far easier to give up the mad attempt, to stop and wait, with his hands in the air, till the guards came and took him back to the bare gray walls of his cell. But—Vane took a quick glance at the grim-faced man racing along beside him—if tough little Tony Apollo could keep going, certainly husky, big-shouldered Steve Vane could grit his teeth and stagger along. But where would it end? The break had been hopeless from the start, doomed to certain failure. Only the iron determination of Tony Apollo, and the burning sense of injustice rankling within Vane had kept the latter’s will firm.
“Pasqual framed us both,” Apollo had said, his dark face sombre with hatred.
“I’ve been in here longer than you have—but I’m getting out now. If you’re smart, you’re coming with me. One of us has a chance to get Pasqual before the cops nail us.”
And so the two had planned and fled. Blue and shaking with cold, they plunged along the bank of the river gorge toward the cabin Apollo had said would serve as a hideout.
“How—how much further?” Vane managed to gasp, and hated himself for the weakness his question betrayed. Apollo managed a twisted grin.
“Just over the ridge, kid. Dunno if I can make it. Those damn guards—that bullet went into my lungs. Steve, if I—if I croak, get Pasqual for me. When he framed me into the big house, I told him I’d come back, and he knows I’ve never broke my word. I—”
Apollo grimaced and coughed blood. He lurched; Vane gripped the smaller man’s arm and pulled him along for a few steps. Then the gangster pulled free and plunged ahead, ploughing up snow as he ran.
TRUE enough, Vane thought, Apollo had never broken his word. The whole set-up was fantastic. Two years ago Tony Apollo had been the underworld king of Kentonville, and had tried to bribe Vane and failed. For, in those days, Steve Vane had been a struggling, idealistic lawyer in the slum district.
Then big Mike Pasqual, Apollo’s lieutenant, had stepped in. Very cleverly he had framed his chief. Apollo had gone to prison and Pasqual reigned in his place.
Anybody who got in his way was crushed. As Steve Vane had been crushed—suspended from the bar and given a long prison term because of certain papers Pasqual had had forged. Now the two doomed men fled along the snowy brink of the gorge in a gray, ominous half-light, with a wintry breeze numbing their bodies. And behind them came men with guns.
Almost at the summit of the ridge it happened. Apollo clutched at his side, lurched, and cried out sharply. Vane whirled; his hand went out in a futile gesture. For already the little gangster was falling. . . .
The treacherous snow banked on the edge of the abyss crumbled beneath him. He was gone almost before Vane realized it. Sick with horror, the lawyer moved forward and peered over. He saw the body, far below, bound off a rock and vanish into th
e swift, turbulent river.
Tony Apollo was dead, and he had failed to keep his last promise.
A shout sounded eerily from the distance. Vane heard the noise of a shot—the high whine and the sharp report. He glanced over his shoulder, saw three dark forms, and caught his breath, hesitating. What now? He had not realized before just how much he had come to depend on Apollo’s grim, iron will. But the gangster was gone—
The hideout! It lay just over the ridge. Perhaps there were guns there. Vane broke into a stumbling run, topped the rise, and saw below him a broad, shallow valley. A cabin, its roof pillowed with snow, was not far away. Pines rose thickly from the whiteness of the ground. The key was hidden in the hollow log Apollo had mentioned. Vane burst into the cabin in a flurry of snow, kicking the door shut behind him and barring it. His first glance showed him a rack of well-oiled rifles within easy reach. The feel of the smooth stock was comforting to his fingers.
He went to a window and peered out. The pursuers were just coming over the rise.
It would be easy to pick them off now, one by one. Vane cuddled the rifle against his cheek; his finger tightened on the trigger. But he did not fire.
He had never yet killed a man. Even though his ideals had changed, in the slow torment of months of prison, into a dull, burning hatred and resentment, yet he realized that this rage was focused on one man only. Pasqual. The squat gangster chief who had framed him into disgrace. The guards—well, they would not hesitate to shoot him down, given the opportunity. But that was their job. Vane said “Hell” under his breath and fired over the heads of the three.
They paused very briefly and then dived for cover. After a time Vane could see them cautiously coming closer, taking advantage of every hiding place. He fired again.
One of the guards yelled, “Come on out! You can’t get away!”
“I’ve got plenty of ammunition,” Vane shouted back. “And I’m staying right here.”
THEN, without warning, it happened. A shrill keening almost above the threshold of hearing grew suddenly louder. Vane, startled, glanced up. Beyond the tops of the pines he saw the gray, cloudy sky—
He screamed, dropping the gun, and flung up his arms to shield his face, falling back in instant reaction. For rushing toward him from the sky came a dot—a circle—a huge black thing that grew larger by split-seconds. It was like standing on a railroad track and watching a locomotive plunge toward you. One had only the single impression of something—a meteor?—rushing, expanding, growing—
Earth-shaking and thunderous was the explosion. Vane felt the floor rise up under his feet; he was hurled through the air, his ear-drums almost broken by the violence of the sound. Swift movement, and a flash of blinding light, and then darkness, complete and quiet . . .
HE could not have been unconscious long. He woke to find himself lying in the snow, his head throbbing with pain. Dazedly he heard a voice say, “Alive, eh?
You looked like a goner to me.”
Vane sat up and looked around. He realized that there were handcuffs on his wrists. He was under a pine, and some distance away was what was left of the cabin. It was like a house of cards that had collapsed. Only a miracle had enabled Vane to survive.
He looked up and saw the blue-jowled, bulldog face of a guard. The man nodded and jerked his thumb down the slope.
“There,” he said. “That’s what hit. Airship or something.”
Vane looked, and his eyes widened with amazement. An airship—no! No Earthly vessel, obviously. Shaped like a tear-drop, it had fallen thirty feet from the cabin and had dug a crater out of the snowy ground. Its hull was split and riven in a dozen places by the shock of the impact. A crystalline green powder carpeted the ground and cloaked the trees for yards around.
The ship itself was perhaps twenty feet long, made of a dully-shining metal, bluish in hue. The two remaining guards were busy, pulling something through a yawning gap that split the hull.
The man standing over Vane bent and jerked the prisoner to his feet. “Somebody was in it,” he grunted. “Hurt or probably dead. Come along.” Vane let himself be pulled toward the wreck. Despite the sick hopelessness that filled him at his capture, he was also conscious of an overwhelming curiosity. Would it be that for the first time in human history a—spaceship had reached the Earth? And its passenger—what would he be like?
The two guards were kneeling beside the body, one of them trying to force brandy between the alien being’s lips. Vane’s captor halted behind them, his hand tightly gripping the lawyer’s arm. A whistle of amazement escaped his lips.
“Jeez!” he muttered. “What a freak!”
A freak, truly, Vane thought, in this world. Fully eight feet tall the being was, man-shaped, with a tremendous barrel chest and thick legs jointed in several places. The clothing was skin tight, ripped and torn to reveal greenish skin that gleamed with pale radiance.
The lips, Vane saw, were broad, fleshy, and indigo-blue in color. And there was but one eye; the other had vanished in a crimson smear that matched in hue the red jewel that gleamed on the being’s forehead.
Vane stared at the strange gem, conscious of an inexplicable fascination that seemed to radiate from it. Larger than a hen’s egg, it seemed to be embedded in the greenish flesh of the bulging forehead and the bone beneath.
And—it lived!
CHAPTER II
The Gift of Power
ONE guard took the bottle from the bluish lips. “It’s dead,” he said slowly. “I don’t—”
The monster groaned. The massive head turned. The single eye passed over the faces of the four men. Vane felt an odd sense of shock as the weird gaze focused briefly upon him.
Simultaneously an icy chill shook Vane’s mind. He went sick, giddy, and momentarily blind. Beside him, he heard the guards gasp, and realized that they felt as he did.
It passed. Vane heard a voice inside his mind.
Inaudible, yes—but clearer than any bell-tone he heard it.
“For Gawd’s sake!” a guard said, amazedly. “I—I’m hearing things—”
He paused.
The inaudible voice commanded, “Silence!” And the word’s meaning was somehow as clear to Vane as it would have been if spoken aloud in modern English.
“I am Zaravin,” the mental voice said. “I must give you four my message swiftly, for I have little time left. I am from . . . the planet you call Mercury. The innermost planet.”
Vane tried to draw back, but could not. His muscles seemed frozen into paralysis. Sweat was cold on his forehead.
Unreasoning horror of the unknown made his stomach a sick void.
The telepathic voice went on.
“Listen . . . Two months out from Mercury I fell ill . . . with the sleeping death. When I awoke, all was lost. The ship needed continual guidance. Since I could not carry sufficient fuel, I had to manufacture it on the way . . . and I awoke too late. There was not enough fuel for me to prevent this crash.”
The jewel on Zaravin’s forehead flamed with red, baleful light. It held Vane’s gaze.
The Mercutian went on:
“It is the Stone from the Stars that you see. It is the bestower of all power.
Ages ago it fell, embedded in a meteorite, brought from some alien Universe, perhaps . . . it is alive. All knowledge, all strength, is hidden in it. You doubt me, I see . . . Jaeckel, Bester, Hanley . . . Stephen Vane . . . How, then, do I know the names of you four?”
There was silence. All around the green dust sparkled eerily, and drifted down from the trees. A chill wind blew up flurries of snow. The distant sound of the tumbling river seemed very loud in the utter silence.
“The Stone from the Stars gives all power,” Zaravin told the Earthmen soundlessly. “It is . . . what you call . . . symbiosis. For it lives, with a strange, silicate life of its own. Perhaps, in the unknown abyss from which it came, it drew its lifeforce from rays . . . alien suns . . . I do not know. On Mercury, it feeds upon the life-energy of its host. And n
ow I am its host.”
The blue, fleshy lips twisted in pain. Shining blood made a pool around the bulbous head.
“It is a parasite and drains the lifeforce. But in return it shares its own wonderful powers with the owner—powers of telepathy and will. These powers must be used sparingly, for they are exhausting. The owner of the gem at times falls into a state of suspended animation, during which the jewel rests and revitalizes itself. When I started this first interplanetary voyage, our ruler gave it to me, knowing that only with its aid could I conquer the tremendous obstacles. And there was only one way for the Stone to be removed. Once it finds a host, it remains there during the entire life-span of that host. Our ruler was forced to kill himself in order that I might have the gem . . .”
The weird, soundless voice grew urgent.
“The power of the jewel must not die! Even though it is lost to Mercury, it will aid the men of Earth. Take it, one of you—use it! And when your race has conquered space-travel, take the Stone from the Stars back to my people.
Remember—it gives all power to the owner!”
The Mercutian’s body twisted convulsively. A torrent of blood gushed from between the thick blue lips. A choking gasp sounded as the huge body jerked. The bulbous head rolled aside as the single eye glazed in death.
And—the Stone from the Stars leaped from Zaravin’s forehead!
VANE realized that the Mercutian was lifeless. His horrified eyes followed the path of the jewel.
It soared out swiftly, turning over and over, rolled down a little slope of snow, and then lay still and shimmering.
Silence. Time itself had stopped. The murmur of the river was a deafening thunder.
One of the guards gave a curious gasping sound. It broke the spell. Vane drew an unsteady breath, shivering a little. And then, before any of his captors could move, he wrenched free from the grasp on his arm and dived forward.
He fell on his knees. His handcuffed wrists hit together painfully. His cupped fingers found the Stone from the Stars and lifted it.
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