John Russell Fearn Omnibus

by John Russell Fearn

  “After all, it’s only to prove—” Doone began, but Marden cut him short.

  “Save your breath, Doone—it’s already proven! Miss Milford, your very refusal to such a simple test is proof of your guilt. The Hall of Justices will have plenty to say about this—”

  “Wait a minute!” Doone suddenly sprang in front of the girl, held Marden back with a powerful arm as he strode forward. “Wait a minute, Marden! I still believe you’ve gotten this all wrong. Janice—I mean, Miss Milford—acted from the best principles, and nothing will convince me otherwise. Not even X-rays!”

  The girl shot him a grateful glance and Marden scowled.

  “Don’t be such a damned fool, Doone. This is no time for heroics! Hand that girl over!”

  “When she’s good and ready, not before!” Doone snapped, his jaw squaring. “The least you can do is to give her a chance to clear things up without jumping to conclusions. I’m going to see that she gets that chance. If you publish your crazy Saturnian idea to the people they’ll tear her limb from limb. Five thousand people sent to doom by a Saturnian woman in disguise—! Think how it will sound! People will have no mercy! They never have.”

  “Why should they have when it’s true?” Marden demanded. “I’m going through with this, Doone, and you can’t—”

  He broke off as Doone suddenly whirled round and picked the surprised girl up in his arms. In an instant he had flung the door open and raced out with her into the corridor.

  “Quickly—your place!” he panted, dropping her to her feet. “You came here by car?”

  “It’s just outside,” she said, pointing ahead.

  “I know Marden; he’ll stop at nothing! Let’s go—we can talk later.”

  She nodded quickly, raced down the broad stairway leading to an exit as fast as she could go, with Doone immediately behind her.

  They reached her car, got in. The instant the automobile door slammed her vehicle pulled away, moved swiftly into the swirl of traffic.

  Two minutes later, breathless and scowling, Marden arrived on the steps of the Presidential building. At last he turned back, lips set in a thin line of decision.

  CHAPTER VI

  Besieged

  Once the girl’s home was gained, she and Doone went immediately to the laboratory. The girl gave a brief dismissal to her surprised staff, then pressed a series of switches which closed the metal shutters over the windows. Lights came up in the resultant darkness. Yet another series of switches slammed home bolts across the main door leading to the exterior.

  “It almost looks as though you had anticipated trouble,” Doone remarked at length, turning. “Am I right?”

  “Not entirely—but I believe in being prepared.” The girl regarded him with frank eyes. “You did a very wonderful thing this morning, Graham…Don’t mind me using your first name will you? You used mine this morning. Without knowing the real circumstances you had faith enough in me to protect me from Marden.”

  “I’ve always had faith in you, Janice,” he answered quietly. “Even more than that. Several times I’ve tried to show you that I love you—”

  “I know; and if I’ve seemed indifferent about it, it has been because I can’t let anything interfere with my work.”

  She turned aside for a moment and switched on the radio, smiled twistedly at the outpourings from the speaker.

  “…and I tell you, people of America and the world, that this woman is a traitor! Another world visitor using her knowledge to our detriment! We do not know how she stopped cosmic rays or caused them to resume. We do not even know her purpose: but we do know that she fired five thousand innocent people into space for no good reason. I call on you to seize this she-devil before—”

  She switched off again, her eyes somber. Then she looked up and glanced round the laboratory.

  “Well, they’ll have a pretty hard job getting in here!” she commented. “It’s explosive proof…” She glanced at Doone as he stood quietly before her. “Do you think I killed five thousand people?” she asked slowly.

  “I wouldn’t have stood by you if I’d thought that. But I do think it’s time for you to tell the truth. I’ve shown my trust; now you show yours by giving me the real story. You realize what Marden is doing? He’s fanning the public to a frenzy against you. You will be attacked, and though I love you enough to die for you if need be, it won’t avail me much if I’ve never known the real reason. What is the reason?”

  The girl shrugged. “Well, even if I told you the truth I hardly think you’d credit it. Everything is so utterly against me—there is such a lack of evidence until I get support from my father—that I dare not tell the real truth. That’s why I’ve hidden it! If only those spaceships would return I’d be vindicated. I can only assume I underestimated the time for the journey. Until they do come I’ve got to hold out against those who want my blood.”

  “Your father?” Doone’s brows knitted. “Who is he?”

  “Brandon Hurst.” Janice made the statement quietly, with a faintly amused smile.

  Doone eyed her coldly. “I thought you promised to tell the truth,” he remarked disappointedly.

  “That is the truth! You see how quickly you disbelieve me—and you’re one who trusts me. How would those others react? You’ve seen my photographs as I used to be, I suppose? Well, who would think Eva Hurst and Janice Milford are one and the same?”

  “It’s impossible!” Doone gasped. “How on earth—”

  “I am Eva Hurst!” the girl reaffirmed. “Janice Milford is an assumed name, and therefore there are no records of my birth or ancestors. When we three set out into space four years ago, father intended heading for the moon. But something went wrong. For one thing, the awful pace at which we shot into the void made us unconscious for days on end. When we recovered the ship had stopped accelerating and had reached a steady velocity. But we were nowhere near the moon. Gravitational cross currents had pulled us away from our objective and we were heading out towards the asteroids. We could either return to the moon, or take advantage of our far flung position and go outward.

  “Father set about making tests of the planets, and being so much nearer to them than on earth, and unhampered by any atmosphere, he made a perfect analysis of each surface. Of the four outer worlds—or rather five if you include useless Pluto—Saturn appeared to be the best. After some difficulty with the rings, we landed…”

  Janice—Eva—paused and frowned.

  “Our landing was violent,” she muttered. “One of the forward blast tubes had cracked on coming through the Rings and we were without its very necessary braking assistance. I remember nothing of the landing except a terrific pain as I was flung among the instruments.

  “The next thing I knew I was recovering consciousness amidst the smell of sweetish ointments, antiseptics, and so forth. I could hear deep, strange voices. I was utterly unable to move. Bandages covered every conceivable part of my body.

  “As time passed I learned what had happened. The fall to Saturn had scrambled me up entirely. My limbs were broken, my skull crushed, my eyes torn out with splinters of glass. No earthly surgery could possibly have saved me…”

  “Then?” Doone whispered, listening with rapt attention.

  “Saturn is inhabited,” she said quietly. “Vast areas of its surface—about fifty percent—are populated. There are cities there, tenanted by a brilliant and kindly people—rather repulsive to look at but remarkably kind and gentle. It was these people who found the fallen space machine. My poor mother was killed outright, but father only suffered slight concussion. To all intents and purposes I was practically dead when the Saturnian surgeons took me to their laboratory.

  “What they did, or how they did it, I shall never know. I only remember weeks of lingering pain, of utter darkness, of hovering between life and death—then I began to mend.

  “When at last I was able to see again I realized what they’d done. They had entirely re-modeled me! Grafted new skin, given me artificial blue e
yes like their own color, even set new hair roots of blonde color like their own. They had changed me from a rather ordinary looking, plump brunette into a blonde with vivid blue eyes. I personally liked the change enormously, but poor father couldn’t at all get used to it. Much that they did was, in truth, only an advanced form of the work a plastic surgeon can do on earth today.

  “One thing they had done, however, and that was to replace several of my shattered organs with new metal ones of a golden color. My heart, for instance, is metal. That was why I refused Marden’s demand for an X-ray. The defects in structure would have shown clearly on the plates and he’d have jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

  “So that was it!” Doone murmured, nodding. “I’m beginning to see light at last. What happened next?”

  “I found other things connected with that surgical operation. The Saturnians had given me eternal life and invulnerability—from all ordinary forms of injury that is—under the belief that I would desire it. The flesh process had made me invulnerable to all ordinary injury, therefore when Abel Dodd had my nails burned off and the flesh slowly torn with pliers from under my armpits I hardly felt it. That condition still remains. I made the mistake of revealing my eternity to you, you may remember?”

  Doone nodded, remained silent as she went on.

  “In time we learned the language. Father could not be grateful enough to the scientists for saving my life. He offered anything he could in return. Then we learned that in making themselves eternal the Saturnians had altered the course of Nature. Eternal life, once it gets beyond a limit of about two hundred earthly years, destroys the power of reproduction. Saturnian men and women cannot reproduce their kind, nor can they create life synthetically. When they realized the tragedy that had befallen them they searched desperately for—and found—an antidote. They mated again, but it was useless. Their hundreds of years of eternity had changed them utterly. There would never be a birth again.

  “What was even worse, the finding of the antidote had produced disease. Impregnable body structure, after so long a time, began to deteriorate rapidly. In another fifty years, perhaps, not a Saturnian will be left.

  “So father and the Saturnians decided on a plan. Earth being the only populated planet in the system beside Saturn, there was no reason why Earthlings should not have the secrets of Saturnian science, together with its cities, as an interplanetary gift. The Saturnians were quite satisfied as to the desirability of the idea after seeing dad and I. Ultimately they would perhaps have taken Earth people by force and given them the legacy, only that would have meant hostility and by no means welcome to their peaceful ideas.”

  “So you came to Earth and put the plans in action?” Doone asked.

  “Finally I did, yes, without anybody being aware of it—but first other matters had to be arranged. Father was needed on Saturn to arrange for the Earthlings when they came, and on Earth nobody would credit my identity. I’d have to use an alias. Then again, there had to be a reason for taking several thousand people—who would multiply as time passed of course—from Earth to another world. To tell them the true story of Saturn would only have brought ridicule.

  “The only alternative was to force them into it without them being aware of the persuasion. That was done by causing overcrowding which made a logical reason for being rid of thousands of people—all of them volunteers, remember…”

  “Then your scientific friends on Saturn were responsible for the cosmic ray stoppage?”

  “Of course. They did it by complicated scientific processes of which I can only give the briefest outline. Where cosmic waves originate not even the Saturnians know, though they believe like us that they are possibly caused by the breakdown of matter in far distant parts of space. That is not of great concern: what really matters is that the greater proportion of cosmic waves cannot reach earth’s surface because of the ionization of the atmosphere’s upper levels. The greater the ionization the less waves can get through. That is well known…”

  Doone nodded slowly.

  “Since ionization is simply the separation of positive and negative atoms composing the molecules of atmospheric gases and producing thereby negative and positive ions, and since also ionization on a large scale can be produced electrically, it only remained for the Saturnian scientists to generate an electrical effect of the appropriate intensity to cause a far higher ionization of the stratosphere than is normal. This they did, using an electromagnetic beam of the required intensity.

  “It crossed space at the speed of light, timed exactly to strike and remain fixed on earth. Naturally the beam widened out as it traveled, until by the time it arrived here it was easily able to encompass the approximate 8,000 miles of Earth’s diameter. The electromagnetism spread instantly through the entire upper level of the atmospheric envelope and deflected cosmic rays as completely as a mirror deflects light. No cosmic rays reached Earth, and as the scientists had calculated the stoppage created cellular changes and deathlessness, none of which affected me because I was already in that condition.

  “Keeping to their plan, the Saturnians waited until several thousands of Earth people had reached Saturn, then they cut off the blockade—this morning, as a matter of fact. Nobody has been harmed and my object has been accomplished.

  “Of course my knowledge was handed to me by the scientists, and I used atomic force for space ships because it is definitely superior to father’s’ original method. In many ways the cosmic blockade did good—it stopped the civil war for one thing, which at one period threatened to ruin my plans. The rest you know.”

  “Why didn’t you leave the moment your work was done?” Doone asked.

  “For various reasons. I honestly expected the ships to be back before this. Once they come everything will be explained and proper Saturn-Earth negotiations can begin. As it is I’m left hanging in the air, so to speak. I’ve no proof. I’ve got to wait or…die.”

  The girl sighed a little. Doone took her arm tightly.

  “It’ll work out all right,” he murmured. “Tell me something, will you? Are you forced to be eternal? Do you like it?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. If I ever clear up the mess I’ll use the antidote and come back to normal. It has had advantages up to now, particularly under torture. But I’d sooner be a normal woman anytime. Besides—”

  She broke off and looked up sharply at the sound of distant voices, rising gradually into a swelling murmur that grew with the moments. The girl’s face tensed and her rounded chin set firmly. Doone gave her a quick glance as she turned to the nearest window and pressed the shutter switch. In grim silence they looked out together at a mob of people surging into the grounds around the laboratory. They seemed to be coming from every direction, armed with rifles and varied types of implements.

  Doone’s face set like granite.

  ‘‘Give me a gun!” he snapped. “I’ll hold them off somehow while you get away. You might be able to manage it—keep in hiding until something happens to clear things up.”

  Eva sighed. “I haven’t a gun,” she muttered. “And anyway I don’t think it would do any good to escape. Besides, I don’t want anybody to be hurt if it can possibly be avoided. Everything has gone all right up to now…”

  She pressed the button and the shutter reclosed. They both stood in silence, listening to the whang of bullets against the shutters, the thundering of fists and implements on the door, the bawling of voices.

  After a moment or two Doone cautiously opened the shutter again and studied the proceedings. Men and women were around the laboratory door, working industriously with an oxyacetylene torch. He glanced at the interior side of the door; so far there was no sign of collapse. The metal was tremendously strong, far in excess of steel itself. He wondered anxiously why there were no police on the scene to quell the riot, then remembering Marden, the co-President, was back of it all his wonder ceased. Obviously the police had received orders not to interfere.

  He made to turn from the
window, only to start suddenly as the glass splintered under the impact of a long pole stabbed from outside. Instantly he depressed the shutter button, but the shield could not close against the pole. It was being wielded as fiercely as a lever: it slammed the shutter back in its slots, broke the mechanism, and Doone sprang backwards to avoid the shower of glass that came cascading inward.

  Instantly he crossed to the girl and threw an arm protectively around her shoulders, clenched his right fist for action.

  In a moment two vengeful men’s faces appeared in the opening. One of them shouted back to the crowd outside—then they began to scramble through, kicking the remaining glass away with their boots. Doone watched them through narrowed eyes as they dropped to the floor and commenced to advance.

  One after another men and women scrambled through the gap, faces set and resolute. One or two of them snapped over the door lock switch and permitted a fresh flood of humanity to vomit inwards. Doone, watching them, realized immediately that they represented the lower classes of humanity—those who believed what they were told and who never troubled to reason for themselves. To them Marden’s bitter radio indictment of the girl had made the most direct appeal.

  The foremost man halted at last, breathing hard, motioned to the others to stop.

  “President Doone, eh?” he demanded, sneering. “Shielding this creature from another world? The one who told everybody what to do, was planning to fire us all into space if she had her way.”

  “You’ve got this all wrong!” Doone snapped. “She’s an Earth woman, you fools! Not one of those people who went into space is hurt—”

  “Yeah? Then why don’t the ships come back and prove it?”

  “They will—in time,” Doone said desperately. “You’ve—”

  “If this woman isn’t a creature from another world dressed up like a dame, who in hell is she? Why didn’t she submit to Marden’s X-ray? What’s her game?”

  “She’s—she’s Eva Hurst…” Doone made the statement helplessly, and as he had expected there was a yell of derision.