by Various
"The monsters are all gone, darling," Agnes' voice reached him. "As though they were very much frightened. And a piece of the old hammer hit the fence and knocked a hole in it. You must go. Leave me--"
"Leave you?" Larry groaned, struggling to sit up. "Not a bit of it!" He touched his head gingerly, felt a swollen bruise.
Collecting a few fragments of the wrecked machine, to serve as tools, he fell to work again upon Agnes' remaining chain. Already he had cut a deep groove in it. Two hours later, it was broken.
Carrying the metal urn of brownish liquid, they crept out through the hole in the fence, which had been torn by the flying fragment of a broken casting of green metal. They left the wreck of the machine which a strange race had worshiped as a bloody god and hurried furtively into the desert of red sand.
Making a wide circuit about the fantastic city of green metal, which Larry had seen from the air, they struck out eastward across the desolate ocherous waste. The food in the urn, eaten sparingly, lasted until the end of the eighth day.
On the morning of the ninth, they came in view of the green line of the ancient canal. It was hours later that they staggered weakly over its wall of crumbling masonry, clambered down into the muddy, weed-grown channel, and drank thirstily of green, tepid water.
Larry found his old trail, beyond the canal. They followed it back. In the middle of the afternoon they stumbled up to the thicket of spiky desert growth, in which Larry had hidden the plane.
The machine was undamaged.
* * * * *
Before sunset, Larry had removed the stake ropes, slipped the canvas cover from the motor, turned the plane around, inspected it, and examined the strip of smooth, hard red sand upon which he had landed.
Agnes pointed out the dim band of crimson across the sky, from north to south, slowly rising toward the zenith.
"That's the red ray," she said. "We fly into it."
"And a happy moment when we do," Larry rejoined.
He roused the motor to life.
As the bar of crimson light neared the zenith, the plane rolled forward across the sand and took off. Climbing steeply, Larry anxiously watched the approach of the red band. The gravitation of the Pygmy Planet seemed to diminish as he gained altitude, until presently he could fly vertically from it, without circling at all. He set the bow toward the scarlet bar across the sky before him.
And suddenly he was flying through ruby flame.
His eyes went to the little scale at the corner of the instrument board. He saw the little ebon needle waver, leave the mark designated "Pygmy Planet Normal" and start toward "Earth Normal."
For what seemed a long time, he was wheeling down the crimson ray. A few times he looked back at Agnes, in the rear seat. She had gone to sleep.
Then a vast, circular field was below--the crystal platform.
Larry landed the plane upon it, taxied to the center and stopped there, with the motor idling. The laboratory, taking shape in the blue abyss about him, seemed to contract swiftly.
* * * * *
Presently the plane covered most of the crystal disk. He taxied quickly off, stopped on the floor nearby, and cut the ignition. Agnes woke. Together they clambered from the plane's cabin and walked back into the crimson ray.
Once more the vast spaces of the room seemed to shrink, until it looked familiar once more. The Pygmy Planet, and the huge machine looming ever them, dwindled to natural size.
Agnes, watching a scale on the frame of the mechanism, which Larry had not noticed, leaped suddenly from the red ray, drawing him with her.
"We don't want to be giants!" she laughed.
Larry drew a deep breath, and looked about him. Once more he was in his own world, and surveying it in his normal size. He became aware of Agnes standing close against him. He suddenly took her in his arms and kissed her.
"Wait a minute," she objected, slipping quickly from his arms. "What are we going to do about the Pygmy Planet? Those monsters might come again, even if you did wreck their god. And Dr. Whiting, poor fellow--But we mustn't let those monsters come back!"
Larry doubled up a brown fist and drove it with all his strength against the little globe that spun so steadily between the twin, upright cylinders of crimson and of violet flame. His hand went deep into it. And it swung from its position, hung unsteadily a moment, and then crashed to the laboratory floor. It was crushed like a ball of soft brown mud. It spattered.
"Now I guess they won't come back," Agnes said. "A pity to spoil all Dr. Whiting's work, though."
Larry was standing motionless, holding up his fist and looking at it oddly. "I smashed a planet! Think of it. I smashed a planet! Just the other--why it was just this evening, at the office, I was wishing for something to happen!"
Table of Contents
A Question of Courage, J.F. Bone
The Duelling Maching, Ben Bova
Keep Out, Frederic Brown
Indirection, Everett B. Cole
The Game of Rat and Dragon, Cordwainer Smith
The World Beyond, Raymond Cummings
Victory, Lester Del Rey
The Defenders, Phillip K. Dick
The Hammer of Thor, Charles Willard Diffin
The Planetoid of Peril, Paul Ernst
The Jupiter Weapon, Charles L. Fontenay
This World Must Die, H.B. Fyfe
Psichopath, Randall Garrett
The Man Who Hated Mars, Randall Garrett
Hawk Carse, Anthony Gilmore
The Helpful Hand of God, Tom Godwin
A Scientist Rises, D.W. Hall
Monsters of Mars, Edmond Hamilton
The Sargasso of Space, Edmond Hamilton
The K-Factor, Harry Harrison
The Misplaced Battleship, Harry Harrison
Walls of Acid, Henry Hasse
Old Rambling House, Frank Herbert
Made in Tanganyika, Carl Jacobi
Sight Gag, Lawrence Janifer
Get Out of Our Skies, E. K. Jarvis
Cubs of the Wolf, Raymond F. Jones
The Cosmic Expense Account, C.M. Kornbluth
We Didn’t Do Anything Wrong, Hardly, Roger Kuykendall
The Great Potlatch Riots, Allen Kim Lang
Gambler’s World, Keith Laumer
No Great Magic, Fritz Leiber
The Ambulance Made Two Trips, Murray Leinster
The Leader, Murray Leinster
The Mississippi Saucer, Frank Belknap Long
Summer Snow Storm, Stephen Marlowe
The Attack From Space, S.P. Meek
The Great Drought, S.P. Meek
Death of Spaceman, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The People of the Crater, Andre Norton
An Ounce of Cure, Alan Nourse
Image of the Gods, Alan Nourse
A Slave is a Slave, H. Beam Piper
Day of the Moron, H. Beam Piper
Pythias, Frederick Pohl
The Hunters, Joseph Samachson
The Judas Valley, Robert Silverberg
Project Mastodon, Clifford D. Simak
2BR02B, Kurt Vonnegut
The Pygmy Planet, Jack Williamson
Table of Contents
A Question of Courage, J.F. Bone
The Duelling Maching, Ben Bova
Keep Out, Frederic Brown
Indirection, Everett B. Cole
The Game of Rat and Dragon, Cordwainer Smith
The World Beyond, Raymond Cummings
Victory, Lester Del Rey
The Defenders, Phillip K. Dick
The Hammer of Thor, Charles Willard Diffin
The Planetoid of Peril, Paul Ernst
The Jupiter Weapon, Charles L. Fontenay
This World Must Die, H.B. Fyfe
Psichopath, Randall Garrett
The Man Who Hated Mars, Randall Garrett
Hawk Carse, Anthony Gilmore
The Helpful Hand of God, Tom Godwin
A Scientist Rises, D.W. Hall
Monsters of Mars, Edm
ond Hamilton
The Sargasso of Space, Edmond Hamilton
The K-Factor, Harry Harrison
The Misplaced Battleship, Harry Harrison
Walls of Acid, Henry Hasse
Old Rambling House, Frank Herbert
Made in Tanganyika, Carl Jacobi
Sight Gag, Lawrence Janifer
Get Out of Our Skies, E. K. Jarvis
Cubs of the Wolf, Raymond F. Jones
The Cosmic Expense Account, C.M. Kornbluth
We Didn’t Do Anything Wrong, Hardly, Roger Kuykendall
The Great Potlatch Riots, Allen Kim Lang
Gambler’s World, Keith Laumer
No Great Magic, Fritz Leiber
The Ambulance Made Two Trips, Murray Leinster
The Leader, Murray Leinster
The Mississippi Saucer, Frank Belknap Long
Summer Snow Storm, Stephen Marlowe
The Attack From Space, S.P. Meek
The Great Drought, S.P. Meek
Death of Spaceman, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The People of the Crater, Andre Norton
An Ounce of Cure, Alan Nourse
Image of the Gods, Alan Nourse
A Slave is a Slave, H. Beam Piper
Day of the Moron, H. Beam Piper
Pythias, Frederick Pohl
The Hunters, Joseph Samachson
The Judas Valley, Robert Silverberg
Project Mastodon, Clifford D. Simak
2BR02B, Kurt Vonnegut
The Pygmy Planet, Jack Williamson
Table of Contents
A Question of Courage, J.F. Bone
The Duelling Maching, Ben Bova
Keep Out, Frederic Brown
Indirection, Everett B. Cole
The Game of Rat and Dragon, Cordwainer Smith
The World Beyond, Raymond Cummings
Victory, Lester Del Rey
The Defenders, Phillip K. Dick
The Hammer of Thor, Charles Willard Diffin
The Planetoid of Peril, Paul Ernst
The Jupiter Weapon, Charles L. Fontenay
This World Must Die, H.B. Fyfe
Psichopath, Randall Garrett
The Man Who Hated Mars, Randall Garrett
Hawk Carse, Anthony Gilmore
The Helpful Hand of God, Tom Godwin
A Scientist Rises, D.W. Hall
Monsters of Mars, Edmond Hamilton
The Sargasso of Space, Edmond Hamilton
The K-Factor, Harry Harrison
The Misplaced Battleship, Harry Harrison
Walls of Acid, Henry Hasse
Old Rambling House, Frank Herbert
Made in Tanganyika, Carl Jacobi
Sight Gag, Lawrence Janifer
Get Out of Our Skies, E. K. Jarvis
Cubs of the Wolf, Raymond F. Jones
The Cosmic Expense Account, C.M. Kornbluth
We Didn’t Do Anything Wrong, Hardly, Roger Kuykendall
The Great Potlatch Riots, Allen Kim Lang
Gambler’s World, Keith Laumer
No Great Magic, Fritz Leiber
The Ambulance Made Two Trips, Murray Leinster
The Leader, Murray Leinster
The Mississippi Saucer, Frank Belknap Long
Summer Snow Storm, Stephen Marlowe
The Attack From Space, S.P. Meek
The Great Drought, S.P. Meek
Death of Spaceman, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The People of the Crater, Andre Norton
An Ounce of Cure, Alan Nourse
Image of the Gods, Alan Nourse
A Slave is a Slave, H. Beam Piper
Day of the Moron, H. Beam Piper
Pythias, Frederick Pohl
The Hunters, Joseph Samachson
The Judas Valley, Robert Silverberg
Project Mastodon, Clifford D. Simak
2BR02B, Kurt Vonnegut
The Pygmy Planet, Jack Williamson