A gun went off. Something burned a furrow along Stacey’s shoulder. Then Buck emitted a bellow of rage and rushed at Stacey wildly. Ducking under the swing of a huge fist, Stacey plunged his fist into the giant’s midriff. Buck released a grunt of surprise and pain. He stood for a moment as though frozen, the flat of one hand pressed against the injured spot. Stacey swung again. The blow caught Buck on the jaw and sent him reeling backward, to crash against the table.
Stacey was given no chance to follow up. One of the two guards had circled behind him, and now the barrel of the man’s revolver flashed down. The room went black.
* * * *
Rough hands slapped Stacey awake. The first person he saw was Haekstrom, who had evidently been working over him. Stacey sat up on the floor. Pain flashed and roared inside his head. His cheeks burned from repeated slaps, and his shoulder was stiff and sore where the bullet had grazed him.
Norma was seated on the bunk, with her father. Her eyes were red and swollen. Reddick looked unutterably weary, the lines of his face sagging with hopelessness.
Devore was seated on the table, smoking a cigarette. His nose had evidently bled a lot, and his upper lip was discolored and larger than normal. He eyed Stacey balefully.
“I could have had you tossed down the crevice while you were out, but that way you’d have missed the fun. Now that you’re awake, we’ll get started.”
At an order from Devore, Buck hauled Stacey to his feet. Buck didn’t try to be gentle about it. Great waves of agony battered Stacey, threatening to engulf him. He clung to awareness with dogged effort.
Devore crushed out his cigarette and stood erect. He picked up two lanterns that stood, already lighted, on the table, and handed one to Haekstrom.
“All right, let’s go.”
Devore and Haekstrom led the way out of the building. Buck followed next, clutching the back of Stacey’s jacket in one hand, and propelling him forward with repeated jabs of the revolver in the other. Norma and Reddick brought up the rear, forced along by the two guards. Reddick was able to hobble along with the aid of a crude crutch. He fell several times.
The procession wound its way over the valley floor, toward a rectangular opening at the base of a large hill. Devore and Haekstrom strode into the opening, their lanterns lighting the way for the others in the rear. They were swallowed up by a long tunnel that slanted steadily downward. The air became clammy and dank as the descent continued. To Stacey, breathing it seemed like inhaling the very atmosphere of death itself. The thought made realization of what lay ahead suddenly sharp and clear in his mind.
The tunnel abruptly broadened out, ending at the brink of a broad chasm fully twenty feet across. It was a natural pocket in the earth, which the manmade tunnel had intersected. The roof of the cavern was formed by huge rock slabs that sagged precariously, prevented from falling only by numerous support beams.
Devore held his lantern high, and glanced at Haekstrom. “Never been here before, have you?”
Haekstrom shook his head. A growing unease showed on his broad face.
Devore gestured at the crevice. “Nothing to worry about. There’s no bottom to this thing. Just take a look.” Haekstrom peered cautiously over the edge of the chasm, extending his lantern over it. Devore smiled slightly—and pushed. Haekstrom vanished. He left a scream behind him, a scream that seemed to go on and on, growing fainter, before is suddenly ended.
“One less to divide with,” Devore said cheerfully. He looked at Stacey. “See what I have in mind for you? How do you like the idea?”
“You’re mad to think you can get away with it,” Stacey pointed out. “We’ll be missed. Sooner or later the authorities will connect you with our disappearance.”
“They’ll never prove anything,” Devore returned confidently. “You’ll be hundreds of feet under the earth, buried under tons of rock and sand. Anyway, you were last seen with Haekstrom—and Haekstrom’s dead. No trail leading to me there. Chinook Vervain might have been able to figure things out, but he’s dead, too.” Devore’s air of studied suavity abruptly vanished. His sharp features became set and cruel. “I’ve wasted enough time on you. The sooner I get this over with, the better I’ll like it. Buck—over with them!”
Stacey felt Buck’s great trap-like hands close inexorably over him. He heard Norma scream.
Then, with stunning unexpectedness, came the repeated, insistent honking of an auto horn.
Buck gasped, and involuntarily released Stacey. Devore stood as though frozen, staring toward the tunnel mouth.
The honking came again.
“Somebody’s outside!” Devore hissed. He whirled to Buck. “Give me your gun. I’ll watch these people. You go with Hank and Matt and see who’s out there.”
Buck obeyed the orders automatically. Shortly he disappeared up the tunnel with the two guards.
Devore placed his lantern on a rocky projection and settled down to wait. He kept licking his lips nervously, glancing from Stacey to the tunnel entrance.
In another moment the sound of shots rang out, striking like sudden thunder into the tense stillness. It startled Devore into inattention for just the instant Stacey had been waiting for. He left the ground in a leap, catching Devore about the legs. They hit the ground in a squirming tangle, a scant dozen feet from the edge of the chasm.
Once he had recovered from the surprise of Stacey’s attack, Devore fought like a madman. His struggles were the frenzied struggles of one who has had victory within his grasp and feels it slipping away. He had dropped his weapon in falling, his fingers having splayed instinctively to clutch for support. The gun had hit the ground a few feet short of the crevice. Devore sought frantically to kick loose from Stacey in the effort to regain it.
Stacey was unable to maintain his grip. He rolled aside. Quick as a cat, Devore scrambled to hands and knees and lunged for the gun. Stacey caught Devore’s jerkily retreating ankles and pulled desperately. Devore was stretched flat on his chest, the wind leaving him in a pained gasp. But in the next instant, threshing wildly, he broke Stacey’s hold on his ankles, whirled, and pushed himself erect.
As Stacey climbed to his feet, Devore closed in with a barrage of swift, numbing punches. Momentarily confused, Stacey gave ground, shielding his face.
Norma cried: “Gregg—look out! The edge!” Stacey stopped barely in time. He ducked under pistoning jabs of Devore’s fists and caught the other around the waist. They wrestled for some seconds with quiet savagery, one straining away, the other pushing toward, the brink of the chasm.
Slowly, slowly, teeth clenched, face beaded with sweat, Stacey forced Devore back. Then, suddenly, he broke free and began to hammer in blows of his own. Devore dodged away, but Stacey closed in quickly and relentlessly. He battered down Devore’s guard, and while it was down, shot a numbing punch to the other’s middle, following it almost instantly with a pile driver cross to the jaw.
Eyes glassy, Devore went staggering backward. He teetered for a moment on the edge of the chasm—and then he was gone.
“Good work, lad!” a deep voice approved.
It was a voice that Stacey had never heard before. He turned puzzledly.
A man strode into the circle of light cast by the lantern. He was short and thick-set, with deeply tanned features that had a faintly Indian cast. His lips were parted in a broad smile, revealing large teeth that seemed startlingly white by contrast with his skin. He wore a wool jacket, with denim trousers stuffed into boots. A battered felt hat was pushed to the back of his head, revealing grizzled black hair. He held a rifle in the crook of one arm.
“Chinook!” Warren Reddick gasped. “Chinook!” He hobbled forward with his crutch and grasped the other’s arm unbelievingly. “But…but Devore said you were dead!”
Chinook Vervain’s smile broadened still more. “It didn’t hurt anything to let him and his friends think so. I burned the cabin do
wn on purpose, leaving a bear I had killed inside, so that when the bones were found, people would think I had burned up with the cabin. Devore and Haekstrom were trying to find me, and were getting a little too close for comfort. Especially Haekstrom. He was trying to beat Devore out of the Golden Dream.”
“But how did you get here?” Stacey demanded. “And where’s Buck and the other two men?”
“I saw you and Miss Reddick up at the burned cabin with Haekstrom this afternoon,” Vervain explained. “I do all my hunting up there, so it wasn’t just luck. I knew Haekstrom was in with Devore, and decided I’d better keep an eye on you and Miss Reddick. It wasn’t so easy, because Haekstrom and Devore had cars, and I have to do my traveling on a horse. I followed you, Miss Reddick, and Haekstrom when you left Grubstake this evening. The tire tracks of the car led me to the Trump Card. Riding a horse, I got here almost too late.
“But I saw Devore and Haekstrom taking the bunch of you down into the mine, and guessed what was going on. I couldn’t tackle Devore and the others all at once, so I waited until they went into the mine. Then I pressed the horn of Devore’s car which he’d parked behind one of the old mine buildings not far away. When Buck and the other two came running out of the mine, I picked them off as easy as eating pie.”
Reddick grinned and thumped Chinook’s shoulder. He seemed younger and stronger already. He glanced at Stacey and Norma.
“There’s a lot more to be explained, I think, but first I’d like to get out of here. After all the time I’ve spent cooped up in this place, there’s nothing more I want right now than to have lights, noise, and people around me.”
Chinook hurried to comply. He took the lantern, and with Reddick limping at his side, lead the way out of the tunnel.
Stacey and Norma followed slowly. Stacey was thoughtful.
“With Chinook alive, we won’t have any trouble about filing a claim to the Golden Dream. That means we’re as good as rich right now. I…ah…suppose that with your share, you’ll open up that dress shop you mentioned.”
“I suppose so,” Norma murmured.
“About myself,” Stacey went on, even more thoughtfully, “I think I’m going to stay here and help your father run the business—including the Golden Dream as part of it. This is a nice country. Clean, with plenty of elbow room. Good place to raise children, too.”
“Wonderful country,” Norma agreed.
Stacey said desperately, “But it wouldn’t be wonderful at all unless a certain girl—That is…well, look, Norma, wouldn’t you rather open up a little cottage instead of that doggoned dress shop of yours?”
Norma grinned. “I think the idea has a dress shop beat hollow!”
DEATH SENTENCE
Originally published in Amazing Stories, December 1946.
I had something of the feeling of godhood as I stood there beside the control board, waiting for Professor Weller’s signal. For in my hands was the power of life and death. Of course, it was only over two scrawny, flop-eared rabbits, but I knew that the vibrator—even in model form—was deadly enough to kill human beings.
Death was there in the laboratory—waiting, just as I was waiting. Of the two of us, Death, I’m sure, was the most patient. I was anxious to have done with this evening’s business, anxious to get out of the laboratory and keep my date with Gail…
Professor Weller was talking, explaining how his invention worked. He waved his plump hands animatedly, and his round, ruddy face shone with triumph.
The three men listened…
Major William Calhern looked cold and suspicious. If his sole job was interviewing men like Professor Weller, I didn’t blame him for looking that way. Major Calhern had been sent from Washington by the war department, to investigate the potentialities of the vibrator as a war weapon. He looked thin and hard, and somehow his uniform seemed just a bit too large for him.
Professor John Arndt looked disgusted. He hated war, and suffering, and death, and I knew that he hated the vibrator, hated Professor Weller for taking delight in explaining what the deadly thing could do…
Norman Hollis looked sullen. Occasionally he glanced at me, and I avoided his eyes. He was Gail’s father, and I knew he was blaming me for my part in this, however slight it was. Norman Hollis was an inventor, too. The vibrator had been developed from an idea of his, and doubtless he felt that he had been robbed.
“…ultra high-frequency vibrations,” Professor Weller was saying. “You’ve heard how a certain harp or violin note will shatter a thin glass goblet. Well, my invention utilizes the same principle, though on an infinitely greater scale. The vibrator, in fact, can cause glass to become dust, can pulverize brick and stone, and can weaken many metals.”
Major Calhern asked, “Does your invention act also on human beings?”
Weller nodded his white head vigorously. “It kills them—by destroying the delicate tissues of the brain. I will give a demonstration in a moment. First, notice that enclosure. It is soundproof, and so we may watch the proceedings quite in safety.” He pointed at a great enclosed cage in one corner of the room. It had very thick walls, and the glass viewing plate set in the front was also thick. Within the enclosure sat the two rabbits, wriggling their pink noses. Some three feet above them, suspended from the roof of the enclosure, was the model vibrator.
Weller looked at Major Calhern. “Now for the demonstration. Try to imagine those two rabbits as human beings. All right, Kirk, go ahead.”
This last was to me. Feeling like an executioner, I adjusted a couple of dials on the control board, then threw in a switch. I’d seen it happen before, but now I stared fascinatedly through the glass viewing plate of the enclosure.
The two rabbits started as the first vibrations hit them. Their ears jerked up, and they took a few hopping steps. Then they keeled over and lay still, and I knew they were dead.
It was as simple and unmelodramatic as that. The most deadly and efficient forms of death often strike that way.
The three men were silent, as though awed by what they had witnessed. Major Calhern no longer seemed cold and suspicious. His lean, hard face looked convinced—and even admiring. But Professor John Arndt’s disgust had increased, as had Norman Hollis’ sullenness.
Beaming like a showman who has put on an excellent performance, Weller walked over to the soundproof enclosure and unlocked a door in its side. First he removed the vibrator from its supports, setting the device on a workbench. Then he pulled out the dead rabbits, laying them upon a table for examination.
Major Calhern was the only one who bothered to look them over. He did so with quick, deft movements of his thin, long-fingered hands. Then he straightened, nodding. To Weller, he said:
“I am satisfied, Professor, that your invention does just as you claim. I don’t see, however, how it could be used safely by our side as a war weapon. We couldn’t put our enemies in soundproof chambers to kill them off, you know.”
Weller chuckled. “Of course not. I will explain. Full-size vibrators would simply be dropped in enemy territory, with parachutes, by our air force. Upon contact with the ground, they would automatically go into action. You’ve noticed the thickness of the enclosure walls necessary for safe use of the model vibrator. Imagine, then, the deadliness of one a dozen times as large and weighing three hundred pounds! It would be effective for hundreds of yards. More effective than an atomic bomb—for where a bomb merely destroys, the vibrator would disintegrate utterly! And whereas the effects of a bomb last only for seconds, the vibrator would operate for periods as long as a half hour.”
“But when it stops…?” Major Calhern said. “What is to prevent our enemies from analyzing the vibrators, manufacturing them, and turning them upon us?”
Weller looked smug. “I’ve taken care of that. When the vibrator stops, another automatic control would go into action, causing the device to explode.”
“I see
. And does the model contain such an automatic control?”
“No, it is far too small to contain the necessary parts.” Weller became eager. “Well, Major Calhern, what is your opinion of the device?”
“Favorable, I assure you,” Calhern responded. “Of course, more exhaustive tests will have to be made, using a full-size model, before the war department will consider using the invention. I will do everything within my power to see that you receive a proper hearing.” Calhern glanced at his wristwatch. “And now I must leave to send in my report. You’ll hear from me again in a few days.”
Major Calhern shook hands with Arndt, Hollis, and myself, and then Professor Weller took him upstairs to show him out the door.
Arndt looked at the model vibrator on the workbench and growled deep in his throat. “Another and more deadly way of killing helpless people…as though we didn’t have enough of that already! Makes me sick, just thinking of it. Well, I don’t intend to stay and listen to that little egomaniac do further crowing over his invention.” Arndt tugged his hat on his head with brisk, angry movements. “I’m leaving.”
Hollis said abruptly, “I’m going with you. I have no desire to remain myself. Our colleague consistently forgot to mention that he developed the vibrator from one of my old ideas, and it would be a waste of time to demand credit where none is intended to be given.”
They strode out of the laboratory, and their set faces left me with an unpleasant feeling of foreboding. When Professor Weller returned, his plump features were set in lines of anger.
“The stiff-necked, selfish fools!” he snarled. “They’re jealous, Kirk—jealous! Men of science…bah!” Abruptly he shrugged. “Well, I’ve showed them. You can leave, Kirk.”
I met Gail on our usual corner at eight. Because of the fact that I worked for Professor Weller instead of her father, it was tacitly understood that I was none too welcome at her house. I’d have worked for Norman Hollis had he been able to pay me, but he couldn’t, and he seemed to hold this fact against everyone, even including Gail. The life of an inventor is no bed of roses, and so I could hardly blame Weller for exulting in his moment of triumph. Hollis, I’m sure, would have done the same, just as Weller, too, would have been jealous and angry. That seems to be the way of life, and intelligent men are no exceptions.
The 38th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK Page 42