Half swooning, the Earthmen were dimly aware of a change in the menacing chimeras. The flaming bodies dulled and shrank and darkened, the heat lessened, the fires died down in the mouths and eye-pits. At the same time the creatures drew closer, fawning loathsomely, and revealing whitish tongues and eyeballs of jet.
The tongues seemed to divide … they grew paler … they were like flower-petals that Haines and Chanler had seen somewhere. The breath of the chimeras, like a soft gale, was upon the faces of the Earthmen … and the breath was a cool and spicy perfume that they had known before … the narcotic perfume that had overcome them following their audience with the hidden master of Ravormos… . Moment by moment, the monsters turned to prodigious blossoms; the pillars of the gallery became gigantic trees in a glamor of primal dawn; the thunders of the pit were lulled to a far-off sighing as of gentle seas on Edenic shores. The teeming terrors of Ravormos, the threat of a shadowy doom, were as things that had never been. Haines and Chanler, oblivious, were lost in the paradise of the unknown drug.
Haines, awakening darkly, found that he lay on the stone floor in the circling colonnade. He was alone, and the fiery chimeras had vanished. The shadows of his opiate swoon were roughly dissipated by the clangors that still mounted from the neighboring gulf. With growing consternation and horror, he recalled everything that had happened.
He arose giddily to his feet, peering about in the semi-twilight of the gallery for some trace of his companion. The petrified fungus-club that Chanler had carried, as well as his own weapon, were lying where they had fallen from the fingers of the overpowered men. But Chanler was gone; and Haines shouted aloud with no other response than the eerily prolonged echoes of the deep arcade.
Impelled by an urgent feeling that he must find Chanler without delay, he recovered his heavy mace and started along the gallery. It seemed that the weapon could be of little use against the preternatural servants of Vulthoom; j but somehow, the metallic weight of the bludgeon reassured him.
Nearing the great corridor that ran to the core of Ravormos, Haines was
overjoyed when he saw Chanter coming to meet him. Before he could call out a cherry greeting, he heard Chanter’s voice:
“Hello, Bob, this is my first televisual appearance in tridimensional form. Pretty good, isn’t it? I’m in the private laboratory of Vulthoom, and Vulthoom has persuaded me to accept his proposition. As soon as you’ve made up your mind to do likewise, we’ll return to Ignarh with full instructions regarding our terrestrial mission, and funds amounting to a million dollars each. Think it over, and you’ll see that there’s nothing else to do. When you’ve decided to join us, follow the main corridor through Ravormos, and Ta-Vho-Shai will meet you and bring you into the laboratory.”
At the conclusion of this astounding speech, the figure of Chanler, without seeming to wait for any reply from Haines, stepped lightly to the gallery’s verge and floated out among the wreathing vapors. There, smiling upon Haines, it vanished like a phantom.
To say that Haines was thunderstruck would be putting it feebly indeed. In all verisimilitude, the figure and voice had been those of the flesh-and-blood Chanler. He felt an eery chill before the thaumaturgy of Vulthoom, which could bring about a projection so veritical as to deceive him in this manner. He was shocked and horrified beyond measure by Chanler’s capitulation; but somehow, it did not occur to him that any imposture had been practiced.
“That devil has gotten him,” thought Haines. “But I’d never have believed it. I didn’t think he was that kind of a fellow at all.”
Sorrow, anger, bafflement and amazement filled him alternately as he strode along the gallery; nor, as he entered the inner hall, was he able to decide on any clearly effective course of action. To yield, as Chanler had avowedly done, was unthinkably repugnant to him. If he could see Chanler again, perhaps he could persuade him to change his mind and resume an unflinching opposition to the alien entity. It was a degradation, and a treason to humankind, for any Earthman to lend himself to the more than doubtful schemes of Vulthoom. Apart from the projected invasion of Earth, and the spread of the strange, subtle narcotic, there was the ruthless destruction of Ignar-Luth that would occur when Vulthoom’s ether-vessel should blast its way to the planet’s surface. It was his duty, and Chanler’s, to prevent all this if prevention were humanly possible. Somehow, they—or he alone if necessary—must stem the cavern-incubated menace. Bluntly honest himself, there was no thought of temporizing even for an instant.
Still carrying the mineraloid club, he strode on for several minutes, his brain preoccupied with the dire problem but powerless to arrive at any solution. Through a habit of observation more or less automatic with the veteran space-pilot, he peered through the doorways of the various rooms that he passed, where the cupels and retorts of a foreign chemistry were tended by age-old colossi. Then, without premeditation, he came to the deserted room in which were the three mighty receptacles that Ta-Vho-Shai had called the Bottles of Sleep. He remembered what the Aihai had said concerning their contents.
In a flash of desperate inspiration, Haines boldly entered the room hoping that he was not under the surveillance of Vulthoom at the moment. There was no time for reflection or other delay, if he were to execute the audacious plan that had occurred to him.
Taller than his head, with the swelling contours of great amphoras, and seemingly empty, the Bottles glimmered in the still light. Like the phantom of a bulbous giant, he saw his own distorted image in the upward-curving glass as he neared the foremost one.
There was but one thought, one resolution, in his mind. Whatever the cost, he must smash the Bottles, whose released gases would pervade Ravormos and plunge the followers of Vulthoom—if not Vulthoom himself—into a thousand-year term of slumber. He and Chanler, no doubt, would be doomed to share the slumber; and for them, unfortified by the secret elixir of immortality, there would be in all likelihood no awakening. But under the circumstances it was better so; and, by the sacrifice, a thousand years of grace would be accorded to the two planets. Now was his opportunity, and it seemed improbable that there would ever be another one.
He lifted the petrified fungus-mace, he swung it back in a swift arc, and struck with all his strength at the bellying glass. There was a gong-like clangor, sonorous and prolonged, and radiating cracks appeared from top to bottom of the huge receptacle. At the second blow, it broke inward with a shrill, appalling sound that was almost an articulate shriek, and Haines’ face was fanned for an instant by a cool breath, gentle as a woman’s sigh.
Holding his breath to avoid the inhalation of the gas, he turned to the next Bottle. It shattered at the first stroke, and again he felt a soft sighing, that followed upon the cleavage.
A voice of thunder seemed to fill the room as he raised his weapon to assail the third Bottle: “Fool! you have doomed yourself and your fellow Earth-man by this deed.” The last words mingled with the crash of Haines’ final stroke. A tomb-like silence followed, and the far-off, muted rumble of engineries seemed to ebb and recede before it. The Earthman stared for a moment at the riven Bottles, and then, dropping the useless remnant of his mace, which had been shattered into several fragments, he fled from the chamber.
Drawn by the noise of breakage, a number of Aihais had appeared in the hall. They were running about in an aimless, unconcerted manner, like mummies impelled by a failing galvanism, None of them tried to intercept the Earthman.
Whether the slumber induced by the gases would be slow or swift in its coming, Haines could not surmise. The air of the caverns was unchanged as far as he could tell: there was no odor, no perceptible effect on his breathing. But already, as he ran, he felt a slight drowsiness, and a thin veil appeared to weave itself on all his senses. It seemed that faint vapors were forming in the corridor, and there was a touch of insubstantiality in the very walls.
His flight was without definite goal or purpose. Like a dreamer in a dream, he felt little surprise when he found himself lifted from the flo
or and borne along through midair in an inexplicable levitation. It was as if he were caught in a rushing stream, or were carried on invisible clouds. The doors of a hundred secret rooms, the mouths of a hundred mysterious halls, flew swiftly past him, and he saw in brief glimpses the colossi that lurched and nodded with the ever-spreading slumber as they went to and fro on strange errands. Then, dimly, he saw that he had entered the high-vaulted room that enshrined the fossil flower on its tripod of crystal and black metal. A door opened in the seamless stone of the further wall as he hurled toward it. An instant more, while he seemed to fall downward through a nether chamber beyond, among prodigious masses of unnamable machines, upon a revolving disk that droned infernally; then he was deposited on his feet, with the whole chamber righting itself about him, and the disk towering before him. The disk had now ceased to revolve, but the air still throbbed with its hellish vibration. The place was like a mechanical nightmare, but amid its confusion of glittering coils and dynamos, Haines beheld the form of Chanler, lashed upright with metal cords to a rack-like frame. Near him, in a still and standing posture, was the giant Ta-Vho-Shai; and immediately in front of him, there reclined an incredible thing whose further portions and members wound away to an indefinite distance amid the machinery.
Somehow, the thing was like a gigantic plant, with innumerable roots, pale and swollen, that ramified from a bulbular bole. This bole, half hidden from view, was topped with a vermilion cup like a monstrous blossom; and from the cup there grew an elfin figure, pearly-hued, and formed with exquisite beauty and symmetry; a figure that turned its Lilliputian face toward Haines and spoke in the sounding voice of Vulthoom:
“You have conquered for the time, but I bear no rancor toward you. I blame my own carelessness.”
To Haines, the voice was like a far-off thunder heard by one who is half asleep. With halting effort, lurching as if he were about to fall, he made his way toward Chanler. Wan and haggard, with a look that puzzled Haines dimly, Chanler gazed upon him from the metal frame without speaking.
- “I … smashed the Bottles,” Haines heard his own voice with a feeling of drowsy unreality. “It seemed the only thing to do … since you had gone over to Vulthoom.”
“But I hadn’t consented,” Chanler replied slowly. “It was all a deception … to trick you into consenting… . And they were torturing me because I wouldn’t give in.” Chanler’s voice trailed away, and it seemed that he could say no more. Subtly, the pain and haggardness began to fade from his features, as if erased by the gradual oncoming of slumber.
Haines, laboriously trying to comprehend through his own drowsiness, perceived an evil-looking instrument, like a many-pointed metal goad, which drooped from the fingers of Ta-Vho-Shai. From the arc of needle-like tips, there fell a ceaseless torrent of electric sparks. The bosom of Chanler’s shirt had been torn open, and his skin was stippled with tiny blue-black marks from chin to diaphragm … marks that formed a diabolic pattern. Haines felt a vague, unreal horror.
Through the Lethe that closed upon his senses more and more, he became aware that Vulthoom had spoken; and after an interval, it seemed that he understood the meaning of the words. “All my methods of persuasion have failed; but it matters little. I shall yield myself to slumber, though I could remain awake if I wished, defying the gases through my superior science and vital power. We shall all sleep soundly … and a thousand years are no more than a single night to my followers and me. For you, whose life-term is so brief, they will become—eternity. Soon I shall awaken and resume my plans of conquest … and you, who dared to interfere, will lie beside me then as a little dust … and the dust will be swept away.”
The voice ended, and it seemed that the elfin being began to nod in the monstrous vermilion cup. Haines and Chanler saw each other with growing, wavering dimness, as if through a gray mist that, had risen between them. There was silence everywhere, as if the Tartarean engineries had fallen still, and the titans had ceased their labor. Chanler relaxed on the torture-frame, and his eyelids drooped. Haines tottered, fell, and lay motionless. Ta-Vho-Shai, still clutching his sinister instrument, reposed like a mummied giant. Slumber, like a silent sea, had filled the caverns of Ravormos.
The Man Who Discovered Nothing
by Ray Cummings
You have encountered Ray Cummings’ famous character, Tubby, before. He appeared originally in a group of short stories illustrating basic principles of science, stories written at the very beginning of Ray Cummings highly productive career. One of these stories was included in Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14. Another appears in the new anthology Every Boy’s Book of Science-Fiction (Published by Frederick Fell). Tubby was once even featured in a full-length novel, oft-reprinted, called Around the Universe. Here he is now in an adventure never previously reprinted dealing with a very strange scientist indeed.
THAT ain’t so,” shouted Tubby, bringing his fist down on the board table with a thump that made the mugs dance. “That ain’t so, no. how.” .
“And then he says,” went on his friend, ignoring the interruption, “as: how no matter how small things get, something else is always smaller.”
“Don’t sound reasonable to me,” said the third man. There were four of them altogether, seated around a little wooden table in the dingy room.
The fourth man dropped his cigar-butt carefully on the floor and sat up with dignity. “This here argument ain’t got no sense,” he began. “In the first place when things get so small you can’t see them, nobody can’t never tell how big they are. Ain’t that so?” He paused impressively.
“Right,” said Tubby.
“And lastly,” continued the fourth man, “you can’t get anything smaller than the littlest thing there is, nohow. Besides, when it gets so small you can’t see it then it don’t make no difference how big it is. Am I right?”
“Right,” said Tubby.
“He said,” went on the first man, “as how smallness is infinite. That’s what he said, nothin’ gets so small but what somethin’ else is smaller. That’s how he said it, ‘smallness is infinite.’ ” He dwelt upon the phrase lovingly.
“’Tain’t so,” said Tubby. Then he rose suddenly, jerking his fat little body erect and standing rigid, with the tips of his fingers resting on the table.
“Friends, listen,” he began grandiloquently, “this here argument’s all wrong. It—it ain’t right. What’s the smallest thing you ever heard of?” he suddenly asked aggressively.
“Well, what is?” said the first man, on the defensive in spite of himself.
“A microbe,” said Tubby triumphantly, “A microbe, ain’t that it?” Nobody answered him.
“Now then,” said Tubby, “if a microbe’s the smallest thing there is, why then ain’t the smallest microbe that ever lived the smallest thing of all? Answer me that, ain’t it?” He collapsed abruptly in his chair, and glared at his companions.
“Let’s play cards,” said the second man.
Tubby’s face changed at the confusion brought by this sudden introduction of a new idea. “Not me,” he said. “You play.”
Then he rose and wandered across the room to a larger chair in the corner. As he settled back with a luxurious sigh he suddenly remembered his argument. He threw up his head and blinked at his friends through the smoke.
“The smallest microbe—” he began loudly.
The first man looked up from dealing the cards. “Aw, forget it,” he said, “The smallest microbe—” persisted Tubby aggressively.
Then he gasped and stopped with his mouth open, his eyes staring. Standing before him was a shriveled-up little man, dressed all in black. On his head was a huge black plug hat, battered and worn. His livid face was long and solemn; his big, colorless eyes stared at Tubby unblinking.
“I want to talk to you,” said the stranger in a low, mysterious voice. Tubby swallowed hard, ‘
“Yes,” he whispered.
The little man sat beside Tubby, and on the table before them .he placed a tiny
black leather bag. Tubby had not noticed the bag before.
“I want to talk to you,” repeated the stranger. Tubby opened his mouth; then closed it again.
“I’m a professor,” continued the stranger. “My name is Trandar Robinar.” Tubby gulped again. “Mine’s Tubby,” he said. “Pleased to meet you,”
“I know who you are,’’ said the professor. “I came to see you.”
“Me?” said Tubby.
The professor took off his hat and laid it on the table beside the little, bag. Tubby noticed his gray hair was thin and scraggly.
“You’re a wonderful man,” said the professor. “So am I. We’re both wonderful men. That’s why I came to see you,” he added confidentially, hitching his chair closer.
Tubby brightened. “Pleased to meet you,” he repeated, holding out his hand. The professor shook it limply. Tubby shivered at his clammy touch.
“I’m going to be very famous soon,” said the professor. “So are you. We’re going to be famous together. Because you’re going to help me.”
Tubby leaned forward. His eyes were shining. “How?” he asked breathlessly.
The professor paused impressively. “I have made a great discovery,” he said finally. “A greater discovery than was ever made before, since the beginning of the world.”
Tubby held his breath. “What?” he managed to say when the professor stopped speaking.
“This discovery,” went on the professor, tapping the table with his fingers —Tubby noticed the nails were very long and pointed^“this discovery is so unthinkable, the world will stand aghast when we tell it. We’re going to get rich. You’re going to help me.”
“How?” said Tubby again.
The professor took up his black bag and opened it slowly. Tubby stopped breathing, his eyes bulging.
From the bag the professor took a little white glass vial about three inches long. In the cork was a tiny silver tube running down into the bottle. Above the cork the tube branched into two, one part ending in a pointed nozzle, the other having attached a little black rubber pipe and a small black bulb, like an atomizer. At the branching of the tube was a tiny silver stock-cock.
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