John Russell Fearn Omnibus

by John Russell Fearn

  The girl nodded quickly. Sykes snatched one up, pulled out the pin and hurled the bomb to the far end of the great place. It burst a second later and emitted a cloud of white steam-like fumes. But as the fumes drifted nearer they caused no ill effects, were obviously of the same composition as the poison gas machine had been emitting.

  “So in their cleverness they have outsmarted themselves!” Sykes gave a twisted smile. “If they dropped ten tons of these on Earth people, it would have no bad effect—but it would destroy every damned bacillus within range! Now it’s our turn! Here, stuff up every pocket you’ve got with these things!”

  Eva swung around to the bomb rack and began loading the gas grenades onto her person. Howard Sykes did likewise. Then they both glanced up at a sudden commotion from above. First there was the clang of the lethal chamber’s door as it swung open, followed by heavy feet. Startled cries followed, and above them raged the voice of Dr. Brown.

  “You damned, infernal blunderers! You let them get away! Look at this smashed grating!” Brown broke off suddenly as Sykes and Eva Wayne stood watching. Brown’s face appeared in the hole of the smashed grating and was illumined by Sykes’ torch beam. “They’re down here!” Brown yelled.

  “Get hold of his hair!” Sykes cried. “Leave the rest to me!”

  Eva Wayne grinned a fighting grin and, reaching upward out of the dark, caught Dr. Brown’s mop of gray hair in her hands. Brown shouted at the sudden pain, but to shift his head out of the grating hole was impossible now.

  Then Howard Sykes acted. He smashed a gas bomb immediately below Brown’s red, startled face. White vapor surged up around the man’s nostrils.

  From his frantic struggles to dislodge the girl, it was clear that Brown fully expected death. For three minutes, as the gas billowed about him, he fought and struggled. The guards had deserted him at the bursting of the bomb.

  Then very gradually the gas began to disperse. The girl released her hold and lowered her hands, stood by watching. Sykes kept his flashlight on, keenly studying the variety of expressions passing over Brown’s face. He was obviously baffled and confused. Gasping, he tugged himself free of the opening, sat on the grating floor and shook himself stupidly.

  “Well, Dr. Brown, how goes it?” Howard Sykes asked curtly. “Feel any different?”

  Brown looked back into the torchlight glare.

  “That’s you, Sykes, isn’t it?” His voice had the quiet calm of the once great scientist. “What happened just now? I thought—Seems to me that everything’s confused. I have a recollection of doing the most extraordinary, horrible things. For God’s sake, switch off that torch and come up here!” he finished in exasperation.

  Sykes nodded quietly to Eva Wayne and helped her up. In another minute or so they were assisting the baffled, disheveled scientist to his feet. He looked at them in bemused wonder in the yellow light, particularly at their clothes bulging under the bomb load.

  “Sykes,” he said slowly, “did I dream it, or did I actually condemn you and Miss Wayne here to this lethal chamber?”

  “You did just that,” Sykes stated quietly. “Only it wasn’t you—it was the Martian bacilli in your system that gave the order; that in fact have ordered everything that has transpired ever since this horrible business began. Just now I gassed you, but the gas didn’t hurt you any. It was absorbed in your bloodstream, however, and destroyed all the bacilli that have been controlling your actions. Understand?”

  “So that’s it! Just the same, I don’t quite see how—”

  “Then I’ll dope out the whole thing,” Sykes said briefly, and promptly launched into a complete explanation. At the end of it Brown’s eyes were gleaming.

  “Now I understand!” he shouted gripping Sykes’ arm. “I have been only partly aware of my actions these past few months—like a man working in dream to an indefinite end. But now—”

  Brown took a deep breath. “Sykes, we can turn the tables on these fiends! We’ll gas every one of the Earthmen ruled by bacilli—we’ll even gas the whole population, in order to make sure. Root the germs out like the plague they are!”

  Howard Sykes nodded vigorously.

  “I still remember all I was taught during my period of mental control,” Brown went on tensely. “We have been shown vast engineering feats—making the Earth into a Martian spawning ground, for instance. The effect can be| reversed; slowly too, so as to cause little damage. We can make Earth normal again—we will destroy every bacillus on Mars and Earth!”

  “You’ve hit the nail right on the head!” Howard Sykes exclaimed. “But listen—these bacilli controllers inside Latham and Poste mustn’t suspect what has happened right away. We must marshal our forces for the right moment.

  “Therefore, you must remain the Dr. Brown ruled by bacilli. You will give orders for a supposed invasion of Earth. Space ships will be manned and loaded—but before we set off for Earth, we will attack Mars here. Right?”

  “Right!” Brown said enthusiastically.

  * * * *

  Dr. Brown played his part perfectly in the days which followed. Howard Sykes and the girl, safe under his authority, returned under a convenient pretext to the workshops. While they were there, they did not continue with their ordinary work; they supervised the marshalling of armed forces under Brown’s direction. Ship after ship was loaded and prepared.

  The inevitable hitch came when the bacilli in control of Doctors Latham and Poste began to suspect something and started to raise querulous objections. For answer, the two scientists were promptly gassed, became normal again and explanations followed. The Triumvirate of Mars had ceased to be!

  When at last Dr. Brown gave the order for the gathered armada to be launched, some five hundred space machines loaded to capacity with gas bombs rained their vapors on Mars from pole to pole. There was never a question of disobedience. Was not Dr. Brown the acknowledged leader?

  At first the teeming workers of the six Zones were panic-stricken and thought some new war had descended upon them, until they found that no damage had been done and that they were not in the least hurt. Realization came only to those who had been semi-controlled by the Martian bacilli, and who had now regained their normal health and individuality. By radio, Dr. Brown explained their regeneration clearly and concisely.

  The colony realized in a short time that the former system of six Martian Zones would be reconstituted—but on the lines originally planned by the late Dudley Baxter. Dr. Brown nominated six trusted men to control matters in his absence. Then, in company with Doctors Latham and Poste, Howard Sykes and Eva Wayne, he pointed his flagship toward the Earth.

  Once the fleet arrived in the vicinity of Earth, the people of the planet feared that the devastating onslaught from the red planet Mars had finally descended. Gradually mass hysteria was dissipated when the people found themselves unhurt, beheld the teeming bacilli in the throes of destruction.

  The streets, the fields, the skies above were saturated with steam-like vapor in which the horrible germs strangled and died. First in hundreds, then in thousands, then in tens of thousands and finally in millions.

  At the end of fifty-six hours of continued gas bombing, Earth was saturated in drifting vapors from pole to pole. But when the gas finally cleared away, there was no longer a drifting multitude of strange rods and spheres aiming at the elimination of mankind.

  Their work done, the fleet from Mars descended to New York. The first person Dr. Brown, Howard Sykes and the rest met on the steps of Earth headquarters was Steve Walters, his long face a study in dazed amazement.

  “Howard, what happened?” he demanded. “What did you do? You destroyed every bacillus—but how?”

  Howard Sykes smiled as he gazed at the carcass-littered streets.

  “Gas,” he said calmly. “It’s the end of the bacilli, the return of the Zones, and the gradual restoration of Earth to its former state. Now it may be said that man has definitely and absolutely conquered the last menace he is likely to encounter. Eh,
Dr. Brown?”

  The scientist shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “It’s a big universe…”

  THE GRANITE ANGEL

  CHAPTER 1

  Mystery voyage

  I had been wondering for some little time why the Chief had summoned me with such urgency. However, being a well-trained special agent of the Interplanetary Police I knew my place and kept quiet while he went through his papers, and generally attended to matters which were of no concern to me.

  Then at length he glanced through the huge windows of the office and motioned me to his side.

  “See her?” he asked quietly, nodding outside. Here on the ground floor of the building we had a clear view of the square outside. The building opposite belonged to the Consolidated Trust, one of the biggest financial groups in the world and virtual backers of the Interplanetary Corporation itself.

  Just emerging from the building was a slender girl in a cornflower blue costume of the time. She was blonde—flaxen blonde almost—and wore no hat. I could see her features were aquiline; her manner alert and decisive.

  “What of her?” I gave the Chief a puzzled look.

  “Ever see a woman without a soul, Curt?” the Chief asked me seriously, his lips tightening. “If not, now’s your chance. That is Valcine Drew—or if you prefer it, ‘The Granite Angel’.”

  I began to understand. Valcine Drew—mystery woman, incredibly wealthy—known among the lower dives by her queer appellation because she traveled the starry ways and was reputed to be inhumanly cruel.

  It is never easy to reconcile beauty and viciousness; I certainly couldn’t manage it in regard to this lovely girl.

  “I’ve something to tell you about her,” the Chief went on, watching her. “From the private reports I have received, it is more than clear that she is dodging the law somewhere. Take a good look at her; later you may need to meet her at closer quarters.”

  We watched her finally get into a sleek atomic roadster and make off for parts unknown. Cruel? Ridiculous! I began to suspect the Chief had gotten a bad dose of suspicion from the reports he had received.

  Then he crossed over to his desk, motioned to me. There was no doubt of the gravity of his expression.

  “Valcine Drew is a menace,” he said. “From somewhere in space she keeps obtaining critanium mineral. Not just a few grammes at a time but whole kilos of it! How she gets it is the mystery, and that’s why we suspect it must be illegal. Naturally she sells it to the Trust and because of its immense value they buy it without question. But since we represent the law we have to look into it. It’s a knotty problem to solve how she gets the stuff because our own ways of getting it demand skilled engineers. The stuff can only be obtained from Jupiter so far as we know, and Jupiter is a living hell as you realize. Twice a year our engineers get some of the mineral from there, and more often than not lose fifty percent of their men doing it. But this girl secures the stuff incessantly! How, I can’t imagine. And it is your job, Curt, to find out.”

  I nodded slowly, thinking. “The only critanium deposits known to us are of course on Jupiter. It’s inconceivable that she’d risk that deadly planet every time. Maybe she has found deposits of it somewhere else?”

  “Maybe; but the fact remains the source isn’t registered in the interplanetary claim files and it ought to be. So, it comes under the heading of piracy. Find out what she’s up to. Get busy!”

  I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. To tell me to get busy was one thing; how to start was another. Evidently the Chief guessed my thoughts for he added, “Her ship will probably be at the Main Spaceport—the Silver Eagle. She takes on a fresh crew every trip, perhaps to prevent any one crew from getting too familiar with her ways.”

  “But can’t you find out from a member of a dismissed crew what she’s up to?”

  “No. Fear of her striking back keeps mouths utterly sealed; and as yet we have no authority to make anybody speak. We need evidence. Your best course is to get yourself hijacked onto that ship and then figure out best how to get the proofs we need.”

  I nodded understanding and then shortly took my leave.

  ****

  I’d been seated an hour, soaking in thick weed smoke and listening to the buzz of conversation around me, when things began to happen. The doors of the saloon suddenly sprang open and a man in immaculate blue uniform appeared. He stood with his arms at his sides, just staring round.

  He was quite the ugliest man I had ever seen. His face was square, brutally strong, with a projecting jaw scarred down one side. The lips were tight, unyielding; the eyes that gazed under the shiny peak of his cap were frosty blue. If one could forget the bullying, swaggering air he adopted, it had to be admitted he was a fine man—well over six feet and proportionately broad.

  “Know him?” whispered the out-of-work engineer next to me. “That’s first-mate Casper of the Silver Eagle, as tough a nut as ever prowled a catwalk.”

  “Stop your jabbering here for a minute!” Casper roared suddenly, glaring round. “Don’t you know your damned manners when there’s a lady around? Shut your traps, all of you!”

  The quiet that followed was more of astonishment than respect for his command—astonishment at the sight of the lovely girl in blue who came in beside him. I watched her intently, noting how she entered this den of riffraff without the least timidity. Indeed she moved with urgency and authority, stood looking round on us all with supreme contempt.

  Beyond a doubt she was beautiful; oval faced, flaxen-haired. But I began to understand something of what the Chief had said now I came to study her at close quarters. It was a face without a single redeeming quality of sentiment about it. It was cold, inhuman, granite indeed. And her eyes I noticed were a deep sea-green, enhanced if anything by fair, curling lashes and eyebrows.

  “I want twenty men!” Her voice suddenly rang over the silence with the clearness of a bell. “And I said men! No namby-pamby rubbish for me. I want men of iron who’ll battle the toughest fields in the spaceways; men who’ll risk death. Twenty, I said. And you’ll each be paid twenty thousand credits apiece for the trip out and back. Let’s have your offers.”

  She folded her arms and waited in insolent expectation. The man next to me grinned cynically.

  “Not for me!” he murmured. “Twenty thousand credits to work under that she-cat and Casper. Not damned likely!”

  “Work for the Granite Angel?” breathed another. “Hell, no!”

  Casper’s voice roared forth again. “What in hades has gotten into you? Unbutton your uncivil tongues and speak up! You heard the offer—twenty thousand credits for the round trip. Step up, and quick! If you don’t I’ll—”

  “Well, you’ll what?” yelled a derisive voice. “We got rights, remember, and you can’t alter ’em!”

  Casper’s face coloured rapidly and he took a step forward; but the girl restrained him. She looked round again and repeated her offer. At that one or two men began to rise and slowly make their way forward. To them no doubt twenty thousand credits was worth plenty of grief, so when half a dozen or so had got on the move I joined too, shuffled along in my rubber space shoes until I was finally face to face with Casper.

  “Name?” His flinty gaze swept me tip and down.

  “Stanley Curtis,” I said, reversing my names. “Rocket engineeer.”

  “Here’s your papers,” he said brusquely, thrusting a bunch of identification sheets in my hand. “Take ’em to Main Spaceport and get aboard the Silver Eagle. Quick as you can. We take off at sundown.”

  I nodded, cast a sidelong look at the girl. All I got was the icy stare of her green eyes. I shambled out, puzzling to myself. The even closer look I had had of her face had convinced me her expression was more forced than natural; it was as though she were labouring under some immense tension or other. Had she relaxed only for a moment I could have imagined her as little short of adorable. Granite Angel, eh? It set me wondering.

  * * * *

  I got aboard the Silver Eagle and went down into
the rocket hold, that stifling quarter in the ship’s belly where none but riffraff and special agents are ever found. With the other sullen-faced men I went about the job of attending to my particular rocket unit, getting it all in order for the departure signal from the control room above.

  After a while it came, in Casper’s full-throated bellow.

  Off we went, our only indication of flight down here being the pressure of the gravity on the floor. It held us down for a moment or two as we made steady upward climbing; then it relaxed a little. We settled down to our job, sweating heavily. I reflected that space travel had come a long way in the five centuries since men had first blasted off for the moon. Then it had been physically punishing as spaceships had built up to escape velocity in a matter of minutes, expending tons of unstable fuel in explosive blasts, their crews pummeled by the force of several gravities. Now new fuels, practically inexhaustible, meant that acceleration could be built up continuously, simulating an Earth-normal gravity.

  Presently I left the others and went to the outlook port. No reason why I shouldn’t; I had done all required of me at the unit for the moment. I stared out into space. Earth was dropping from us far below, and to right and left of us were Venus and Mars. They too were receding; clearly they were not intended as our destination. Jupiter was perhaps the answer after all, twinkling far away in the backdrop of space.

  Then suddenly the view was shut off as the steel slide of the port slammed shut. I had a vision of a blue-coated arm clamping the combination lock. I twisted round to stare into Casper’s square, grimly smiling face.

  “Get back to your work,” he ordered in a low voice. “Get back, before I beat the living daylights out of you! What do you think this is, a tour?”

  “What’s wrong with looking outside?” I asked calmly.

  “Plenty so far as you’re concerned! You’re here to tend a rocket unit, not pry into things that don’t concern you! Get moving!”