by Don Wilcox
“Are you getting settled, Nadoff?”
“I’m already feeling much at home in my new office, your majesty.” Arvo looked across the grounds to the new skyscraper less than a hundred yards distant. The building had recently been purchased with the king’s funds, Arvo had learned, and although the late Nitticello hadn’t planned that it would be moved into the shadow of the king’s fortress, here it was, and here it would stay. Arvo could see the round form of Nadoff in one of the upper story windows, telephoning from his new prime minister’s quarters.
“Have you prepared the statement along the lines I suggested?” Arvo asked.
“I have it outlined, your majesty. One, abolish all slavery. Two, comb the Sashes for loyalty; retain the best, try the others, and purge the worst. Three, refill the ranks with the worthiest of ex-slaves. Four, assure the kingdom that the lavender vine will never again strike recklessly.”
“Good enough,” said Arvo. “I’ll check with you on the details.”
“I beg to report, your majesty, that my first official caller was the frog-boy.”
“Pudgy? What did he want?”
“He wishes to offer the palace a souvenir as a symbol of his good will. He brought the green and orange mane of Stobber which he found in the swamp.”
King Arvo chuckled. “All right. We’ll accept. In fact, we’ll grant him a favor in return. Is there anything he wants?”
“He hopes he may join the chants around the nine lanterns without being beaten for it.”
King Arvo considered. Some of the rebels had rumored the news that they had seen a kicking pair of green legs up in the lavender vine during the hours of the battle.
“Grant him his wish, Nadoff. And tell him also that we’ll add a tenth lantern in the row in his special honor. Is he there now?”
Nadoff said he wasn’t; the fact was, he had disappeared quite mysteriously a moment after the conference.
“Never mind,” Arvo said, “I think he already knows our decision.” For Arvo had just seen a pair of large green eyes peeking around one of the marble pillars, and now he heard a little froggish chortle from that direction.
“There’s another matter of business that should come to your attention, your majesty. I find that one of your former court guests is quite anxious to return to her native planet. A beautiful earth girl by the name of—”
“Marcia!” Arvo breathed. “Yes, of course.”
“I discouraged her,” said Nadoff, “first on the grounds that she has had a part in our recent troubles—”
“We’ll consider that settled.”
“And second, on the grounds that you might possibly have a plan for her—or am I presuming too much?”
“Please send her to me at once,” Arvo said. “I want to talk with her personally.”
He made another call to an attendant to check certain arrangements relating to Marcia’s visit. When she arrived, he welcomed her into a conference room.
“So you wish to go back to your native planet, Miss Melinda—Marcia?”
“Yes, your majesty—Arvo.”
He handed her a small ivory jewel box. She opened it, and it contained a lovely string of pearls. “You’ll accept them, with the compliments of Karridonza?”
“Thank you, Arvo.” Her eyes were shining.
He paced in front of the table, then turned to her. The longer speech he had wanted to make suddenly melted to a few blunt words. “You’ve played an important part in the destiny of Karridonza, my dear. I’ll never forget it.”
“And you, Arvo—your majesty—” she was smiling and her words were tumbling hurriedly, “I’m so glad I’ve stayed long enough to see you win everything you want. You’ve proved that you deserve it. You’ve changed.”
“Yes, thanks to the lavender vine, and Nadoff, and Joe—and you. But have I won everything I want?”
“Haven’t you?”
He came to her and took her hand. “You don’t have to leave, do you, Marcia? There’s no law against your staying. If there is, I’ll change it. You might like us well enough to—to marry and settle down.”
Marcia was shaking her head. “Thank you, Arvo. But I want to go.”
“Soon?”
“There’s a space ship leaving at midnight.”
King Arvo gave her a little wink “I thought that would be it. All right I’d better send an escort with you. It’s an old Karridonzan custom.”
“A slave?”
“An ex-slave. There are no slaves in Karridonza, you know.” Arvo moved toward the marble columns and called. “Joe.”
Joe strolled into the room, trying to appear casual. Marcia looked at him as if to shame him. “Oh, an eavesdropper!”
“I always keep a double around in case of an emergency,” King Arvo said. “Joe Peterson, are you willing to accompany Miss Melinda as far as the skystation?”
Joe laughed. “Stop this farce, you two. Marcia, you’re hooked. I’ve already bargained with the king to marry us here and now, so I can be your escort all the way to the earth.” Marcia swallowed her smile and tried hard to look offended. “You two have taken advantage of me. Don’t I have anything to say about this?”
“You’re doomed,” Joe said, drawing her into his arms. “Any last request?”
Her stem look gave way to a happy glow. “One last request, Joe. Ask his majesty to tie the knot with a bit of lavender vine, so it will bring us back again some day.”
Fantastic Adventures
June-July 1949
Volume 11, Numbers 6-7
PART I
A strange mountain appeared magically in the heart of Africa—and with it, a terrible menace to all mankind. Was there no way to fight it?
FOREWORD
They did it in the name of patriotism. They beat him until he was unconscious and shipped him out of the country.
It happened near one of the suburbs on a dark night while the forces of law and order were asleep. When the sun rose over the silvery Atlantic, America awakened without knowing that she had lost one of her best scientists.
His name was Dr. Val Pakkerman. Unfortunately he was not a well known name. His real importance in the world of science was a matter of record. But he had quietly dodged the fame he deserved. To the people of Maple City he was just plain Doc Pakkerman. The tall, broad-shouldered man in the gray coat, who walked as if he knew where he was going. He was only thirty-five years old. His fellow scientists believed that he was going far.
Masked men did the deed. They seized Val Pakkerman just as he started home from his laboratory at midnight. They put him in a car and taxied him out to a deserted farm house.
“I don’t understand this at all,” Dr. Pakkerman grumbled in his low melancholy voice. He was slow to anger. He rarely lost his temper. Nevertheless, his fists tightened. He would have taken his chances in physical showdown with the four bruisers if he had known. But he couldn’t believe, at first, that it was more than a gag. “What’s the game?”
“Save your questions for the trial.”
“Trial? What’s the charge?”
“Don’t act so damned innocent. You know the charge.”
He was led into a council of shadows. A curtain of white sheets divided the room. A lantern beyond the curtain cast shadows of eight or ten men behind the scenes. The four masked thugs stayed on his side of the curtain to guard him. They seated him to face the curtain. He stared at the silhouettes of his inquisitors, who milled about and talked in low voices, but never showed their faces.
One shadow moved close with the air of taking command. The voice sounded low, heavy threatening.
“Dr. Pakkerman, we’ve brought you here to challenge your loyalty to the United States of America.”
“My loyalty!” Pakkerman gave a gruff laugh. They couldn’t be serious. “My loyalty is a matter of record.”
“We charge you with betraying your country to Russia.” The shadow was close against the curtain, arm extended, fingers pointing.
Val Pakk
erman suddenly knew that this was more than a gag. The word fascist came to his lips. But he held his silence. He looked around at the dismally bare room. Back of him two of the masked thugs were holding pistols. There was nothing to do but face the music. Harsh music. It didn’t make sense. He sprang to his feet.
“What’s your authority?” He started toward the curtain. “Come out, let’s get this in the open.”
The quick footsteps back of him were his only warning. He turned to catch sight of an arm swinging a pistol at him. The barrel of the weapon struck his forehead and drew a gash over his right eye.
“There’s your authority!” the voice behind the curtain snarled. “Now sit down and listen.”
Dr. Pakkerman had staggered backward, grasping the chair for support. He sat, leaning forward, keeping an eye on the four guards. They were all set to batter him down if he rose again.
The words from behind the curtain came at him fast now.
“You speak three European languages, don’t you, Dr. Pakkerman?”
“Great guns, that’s no charge.”
“Your relatives intermarry with the Russians, don’t they?”
“Who do you mean?”
“Deny it, will you? We’ve already got the facts. Your cousin married a Russian girl.”
“An . . . American-born Russian—yes. What of it? That doesn’t involve me.”
“Shut up. We’re not asking you, we’re telling you. Give him another one, Mat, he’s not being congenial.”
The pistol barrel grazed the back of Pakkerman’s head. He swung his arms, then, and caught up the chair. If he’d had half a break, he would have cleaned house. But another blow from the pistol barrel traced the line of pain across his right eye. At the same time two weapons jammed into his sides like blunt spears with a guarantee of quick death. He dropped the chair. The voice ordered him to be seated. He obeyed quietly. The blood trickled over his face. He smeared it with a handkerchief.
“Let me say one word.” he uttered.
“We’re doing the talking.”
“I made my loyalty pledge to the government.”
“We’ve got our own evidence.”
“The government gave me a clean record.”
“Who is the government? We’re the government, Dr. Pakkerman. We’ve taken this loyalty business in our own hands. When we get through, there’ll not be a damned Red left in Maple City. We’ll ship them back.”
“I’m no Red and you know it! This is no American act, I don’t know who you are, but you’ll answer to the government—”
The rain of blows from the masked men put an end to the doctor’s attempt at self-defense.
He was missed at his laboratory the next day. And the next. And there might have been a national scandal over his strange disappearance if it had not been for the signed statements, extracted from him, to explain his absence.
A few small headlines covered the case, as far as the newspapers were concerned. Dr. Pakkerman had abruptly left on a vacation. Destination unknown. His scientific researches in the fields of social engineering would be suspended during his absence.
One newspaper carried his picture, and mentioned that his achievements, little known by the public, stood high in the world of science. Another paper suggested slyly that he was believed to have been a Red, and that the political atmosphere of America became too hot for him.
What the newspapers did not know was that Dr. Val Pakkerman was shipped out of the United States on a boat bound for a Caribbean port. In Guatemala, he was transferred to another vessel. The ship’s doctor found him dazed and ill. He was unable to give any satisfactory account of himself.
One after another, three ships’ crews took him on as a derelict whose good muscles made him a useful deckhand, in spite of his unsteady mind. He had to be watched. He was unpredictable. He had no purpose, no destination, no past, only a name. Anyone might guess that he had seen better days. Ships’ officers would wonder whether there was anything left in that battered, scarred, confused head of his.
Eventually he fell into the hands of a U.S. Navy Captain, who had been assigned to take his crew up one of the waterways into the interior of Africa. As the captain knew, the mysterious assignment was a dangerous one, of military import, probably to be accompanied by some surprise violence if not death.
In the end the African job turned out to be a far greater tragedy than any of the crew had bargained for. The crew was forced to deliver its mysterious cargo into the mountainous uplands above the African lake of Bunjojop. There the tragedy struck its full blow.
Of the one hundred seamen and officers who marched into the mountains with the captain, eighty lost their lives.
One of eighty was Dr. Val Pakkerman.
The, whole incident was covered up so that the American nation never knew what happened. For the two years hardly anyone knew . . .
CHAPTER I
As a fortune teller, Madam Lasanda should have foreseen the cash.
It was nearly eight by the big neon clock at the end of the park, and the crowds were streaming in to fill the five thousand seats around the platform. The lights had just come on, but there was still enough daylight that Madam Lasanda, watching from the window of her limousine, could sift the passing throngs for familiar faces.
“Slower, Martin.”
“Yes, Madam.” The chauffeur nodded.
“Can’t you turn left into that park lane, Martin?”
“Official cars only, Madam.”
“Never mind the sign. Turn left through the crowd. I’m looking for someone.”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Someone I haven’t seen for a long time,” Madam Lasanda added, more to herself than to Martin. She wasn’t in the habit of justifying her actions to the sparrow-faced little man who drove her limousine.
The pedestrian streams opened to make way for the big car as it eased through the park. People turned to stare. Madam Lasanda! Was she coming to the Mayor’s rally tonight? The newspapers had built a fire under the fortune-telling “racket” and the city had recently taken action to revoke licenses. Was Madam Lasanda looking for a chance to fight back?
“Look! It’s Madam Lasanda. You know, the fortune teller.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure, I saw her picture in the paper. I never forget a face.”
“Yeah? No one ever forgets a face like that.”
Madam Lasanda wore her black hair in a high pompadour, with a glitter of blue flashing from two sapphire-studded combs. She wore sapphire earrings, and a choker of elaborate design which displayed a single brilliant blue sapphire at her throat.
But for all the flash of jewels, it was Madam Lasanda’s eyes that people would remember. They would remember her strong Latin features and her smooth olive complexion, but they would remember especially her eyes. Too dark and mysterious. Too deep and penetrating. Bright with the glitter of knowledge. Was it true that Madam Lasanda could tell you both your past and your future?
The chauffeur glanced back as he uttered in his thin, dry voice a seemingly innocent question.
“Is the Madam looking for someone special? Why not exercise your personal magnetism that makes people come to you?”
“How do you know but what I’m doing exactly that?”
“If so, shall I park and wait until he comes?”
“Martin, you just tend to your driving. I’ll attend to the magnetism.”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Slower, please.”
“Yes, Madam.” The chauffeur touched the horn lightly. Ahead was a busy traffic-way.
“Turn back,” Madam Lasanda ordered. “Drive out on the grass as near to the seats as you dare.”
Her keen eyes combed the rows. The man she sought was a tall, broad-shouldered ex-navy Captain, about forty years old—a man with steel blue eyes, a hard jaw, and a soft name—Allan Burgess.
She wanted to tell Allan Burgess his fortune. The fates that awaited him had been spinning in her
mind so relentlessly that she had decided to seek him out and talk with him. It had been more than two years since she had seen him. He might not remember. However, she believed that he was living somewhere in this metropolitan area, within driving range of this suburb of Maple City. And there was a chance that tonight’s Maple City meeting might attract him. It had been widely advertised to appeal to any and all persons of adventurous spirit.
She was banking upon Burgess’ restless and impetuous nature. She would need only to plant a little suggestion. That would be hardly enough to set him in motion. Upon an adventure of hope? Hardly! He would probably be able to do more than hasten the tragedy. The weird catastrophe was pretty sure to follow as naturally as darkness follows daylight.
Darkness! Utter darkness for the world! Endless darkness. More swiftly than anyone knew, man’s design for his own destruction was being prepared. For nearly two years, Madam Lasanda had played her fortune-telling games to keep from thinking of the reality that lay ahead. But she could not shield herself from knowing what she knew. A chain of past events had brought her into tune, so to speak, with the vibrant mystical forces which made a game of turning good into evil. As responsive as a finely tuned musical instrument, she was receiving messages.
Yesterday morning she had awakened actually screaming. In her dream she had been clinging to a web of rope. The rope had broken into shreds. Everywhere people were clinging to the shreds, or falling into the void. The rope to which she was clinging stretched into a thread, finer, and finer, until it was only a strand from a spider’s web. She clung frantically, crying for help. Then a ray from the orange colored sun burned through the strand, and it melted away, and she was falling . . .
She was falling and screaming, and the orange sun was in her eyes.
Then she had fought out of the nightmare to awaken—but the burning light was still in her eyes. It wasn’t the sun. It was a ball of orange flame as large as a silver dollar, hanging in the air. At first it seemed close enough to touch. Then it was far away. It was coming from the mirror. She flung a robe over it. But the ball of light kept coming through. She turned toward a picture on the wall. It was coming through the frame of the picture, burning with such intensity that she thought the frame would be damaged. But it swung as she whirled about. She rushed to her bed and buried her head under a pillow—and it was still there, shining into her closed eyes from somewhere thousands of miles away . . . And then she began to watch, as if through a darkened glass . . . for here was something to be understood.