The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 02

by Anthology

  Maskull pulled out his watch automatically, and looked at the time. It was past six.... But he was thinking of Nightspore's words, and not of the time.

  Night had already fallen by the time they regained the tower. The black sky was glorious with liquid stars. Arcturus was a little way above the sea, directly opposite them, in the east. As they were passing the base of the tower, Maskull observed with a sudden shock that the gate was open. He caught hold of Nightspore's arm violently. "Look! Krag is back."

  "Yes, we must make haste to the house."

  "And why not the tower? He's probably in there, since the gate is open. I'm going up to look."

  Nightspore grunted, but made no opposition.

  All was pitch-black inside the gate. Maskull struck a match, and the flickering light disclosed the lower end of a circular flight of stone steps. "Are you coming up?" he asked.

  "No, I'll wait here."

  Maskull immediately began the ascent. Hardly had he mounted half a dozen steps, however, before he was compelled to pause, to gain breath. He seemed to be carrying upstairs not one Maskull, but three. As he proceeded, the sensation of crushing weight, so far from diminishing, grew worse and worse. It was nearly physically impossible to go on; his lungs could not take in enough oxygen, while his heart thumped like a ship's engine. Sweat coursed down his face. At the twentieth step he completed the first revolution of the tower and came face to face with the first window, which was set in a high embrasure.

  Realising that he could go no higher, he struck another match, and climbed into the embrasure, in order that he might at all events see something from the tower. The flame died, and he stared through the window at the stars. Then, to his astonishment, he discovered that it was not a window at all but a lens.... The sky was not a wide expanse of space containing a multitude of stars, but a blurred darkness, focused only in one part, where two very bright stars, like small moons in size, appeared in close conjunction; and near them a more minute planetary object, as brilliant as Venus and with an observable disk. One of the suns shone with a glaring white light; the other was a weird and awful blue. Their light, though almost solar in intensity, did not illuminate the interior of the tower.

  Maskull knew at once that the system of spheres at which he was gazing was what is known to astronomy as the star Arcturus.... He had seen the sight before, through Krag's glass, but then the scale had been smaller, the colors of the twin suns had not appeared in their naked reality.... These colors seemed to him most marvellous, as if, in seeing them through earth eyes, he was not seeing them correctly.... But it was at Tormance that he stared the longest and the most earnestly. On that mysterious and terrible earth, countless millions of miles distant, it had been promised him that he would set foot, even though he might leave his bones there. The strange creatures that he was to behold and touch were already living, at this very moment.

  A low, sighing whisper sounded in his ear, from not more than a yard away. "Don't you understand, Maskull, that you are only an instrument, to be used and then broken? Nightspore is asleep now, but when he wakes you must die. You will go, but he will return."

  Maskull hastily struck another match, with trembling fingers. No one was in sight, and all was quiet as the tomb.

  The voice did not sound again. After waiting a few minutes, he redescended to the foot of the tower. On gaining the open air, his sensation of weight was instantly removed, but he continued panting and palpitating, like a man who has lifted a far too heavy load.

  Nightspore's dark form came forward. "Was Krag there?"

  "If he was. I didn't see him. But I heard someone speak."

  "Was it Krag?"

  "It was not Krag--but a voice warned me against you."

  "Yes, you will hear these voices too," said Nightspore enigmatically.

  Chapter 5.

  THE NIGHT OF DEPARTURE

  When they returned to the house, the windows were all in darkness and the door was ajar, just as they had left it; Krag presumably was not there. Maskull went all over the house, striking matches in every room--at the end of the examination he was ready to swear that the man they were expecting had not even stuck his nose inside the premises. Groping their way into the library, they sat down in the total darkness to wait, for nothing else remained to be done. Maskull lit his pipe, and began to drink the remainder of the whisky. Through the open window sounded in their ears the trainlike grinding of the sea at the foot of the cliffs.

  "Krag must be in the tower after all," remarked Maskull, breaking the silence.

  "Yes, he is getting ready."

  "I hope he doesn't expect us to join him there. It was beyond my powers--but why, heaven knows. The stairs must have a magnetic pull of some sort."

  "It is Tormantic gravity," muttered Nightspore.

  "I understand you--or, rather, I don't--but it doesn't matter."

  He went on smoking in silence, occasionally taking a mouthful of the neat liquor. "Who is Surtur?" he demanded abruptly.

  "We others are gropers and bunglers, but he is a master."

  Maskull digested this. "I fancy you are right, for though I know nothing about him his mere name has an exciting effect on me.... Are you personally acquainted with him?"

  "I must be... I forget..." replied Nightspore in a choking voice.

  Maskull looked up, surprised, but could make nothing out in the blackness of the room.

  "Do you know so many extraordinary men that you can forget some of them?... Perhaps you can tell me this... will we meet him, where we are going?"

  "You will meet death, Maskull.... Ask me no more questions--I can't answer them."

  "Then let us go on waiting for Krag," said Maskull coldly.

  Ten minutes later the front door slammed, and a light, quick footstep was heard running up the stairs. Maskull got up, with a beating heart.

  Krag appeared on the threshold of the door, bearing in his hand a feebly glimmering lantern. A hat was on his head, and he looked stern and forbidding. After scrutinising the two friends for a moment or so, he strode into the room and thrust the lantern on the table. Its light hardly served to illuminate the walls.

  "You have got here, then, Maskull?"

  "So it seems--but I shan't thank you for your hospitality, for it has been conspicuous by its absence."

  Krag ignored the remark. "Are you ready to start?"

  "By all means--when you are. It is not so entertaining here."

  Krag surveyed him critically. "I heard you stumbling about in the tower. You couldn't get up, it seems."

  "It looks like an obstacle, for Nightspore informs me that the start takes place from the top."

  "But your other doubts are all removed?"

  "So far, Krag, that I now possess an open mind. I am quite willing to see what you can do."

  "Nothing more is asked.... But this tower business. You know that until you are able to climb to the top you are unfit to stand the gravitation of Tormance?"

  "Then I repeat, it's an awkward obstacle, for I certainly can't get up."

  Krag hunted about in his pockets, and at length produced a clasp knife.

  "Remove you coat, and roll up your shirt sleeve," he directed.

  "Do you propose to make an incision with that?"

  "Yes, and don't start difficulties, because the effect is certain, but you can't possibly understand it beforehand."

  "Still, a cut with a pocket-knife--" began Maskull, laughing.

  "It will answer, Maskull," interrupted Nightspore.

  "Then bare your arm too, you aristocrat of the universe," said Krag. "Let us see what your blood is made of."

  Nightspore obeyed.

  Krag pulled out the big blade of the knife, and made a careless and almost savage slash at Maskull's upper arm. The wound was deep, and blood flowed freely.

  "Do I bind it up?" asked Maskull, scowling with pain.

  Krag spat on the wound. "Pull your shirt down, it won't bleed any more."

  He then turned his at
tention to Nightspore, who endured his operation with grim indifference. Krag threw the knife on the floor.

  An awful agony, emanating from the wound, started to run through Maskull's body, and he began to doubt whether he would not have to faint, but it subsided almost immediately, and then he felt nothing but a gnawing ache in the injured arm, just strong enough to make life one long discomfort.

  "That's finished," said Krag. "Now you can follow me."

  Picking up the lantern, he walked toward the door. The others hastened after him, to take advantage of the light, and a moment later their footsteps, clattering down the uncarpeted stairs, resounded through the deserted house. Krag waited till they were out, and then banged the front door after them with such violence that the windows shook.

  While they were walking swiftly across to the tower, Maskull caught his arm. "I heard a voice up those stairs."

  "What did it say?"

  "That I am to go, but Nightspore is to return."

  Krag smiled. "The journey is getting notorious," he remarked, after a pause. "There must be ill-wishers about.... Well, do you want to return?"

  "I don't know what I want. But I thought the thing was curious enough to be mentioned."

  "It is not a bad thing to hear voices," said Krag, "but you mustn't for a minute imagine that all is wise that comes to you out of the night world."

  When they had arrived at the open gateway of the tower, he immediately set foot on the bottom step of the spiral staircase and ran nimbly up, bearing the lantern. Maskull followed him with some trepidation, in view of his previous painful experience on these stairs, but when, after the first half-dozen steps, he discovered that he was still breathing freely, his dread changed to relief and astonishment, and he could have chattered like a girl.

  At the lowest window Krag went straight ahead without stepping, but Maskull clambered into the embrasure, in order to renew his acquaintance with the miraculous spectacle of the Arcturian group. The lens had lost its magic property. It had become a common sheet of glass, through which the ordinary sky field appeared.

  The climb continued, and at the second and third windows he again mounted and stared out, but still the common sights presented themselves. After that, he gave up and looked through no more windows.

  Krag and Nightspore meanwhile had gone on ahead with the light, so that he had to complete the ascent in darkness. When he was near the top, he saw yellow light shining through the crack of a half-opened door. His companions were standing just inside a small room, shut off from the staircase by rough wooden planking; it was rudely furnished and contained nothing of astronomical interest. The lantern was resting on a table.

  Maskull walked in and looked around him with curiosity. "Are we at the top?"

  "Except for the platform over our heads," replied Krag.

  "Why didn't that lowest window magnify, as it did earlier in the evening?"

  "Oh, you missed your opportunity," said Krag, grinning. "If you had finished your climb then, you would have seen heart-expanding sights. From the fifth window, for example, you would have seen Tormance like a continent in relief; from the sixth you would have seen it like a landscape.... But now there's no need."

  "Why not--and what has need got to do with it?"

  "Things are changed, my friend, since that wound of yours. For the same reason that you have now been able to mount the stairs, there was no necessity to stop and gape at illusions en route."

  "Very well," said Maskull, not quite understanding what he meant. "But is this Surtur's den?"

  "He has spent time here."

  "I wish you would describe this mysterious individual, Krag. We may not get another chance."

  "What I said about the windows also applies to Surtur. There's no need to waste time over visualising him, because you are immediately going on to the reality."

  "Then let us go." He pressed his eyeballs wearily.

  "Do we strip?" asked Nightspore.

  "Naturally," answered Krag, and he began to tear off his clothes with slow, uncouth movements.

  "Why?" demanded Maskull, following, however, the example of the other two men.

  Krag thumped his vast chest, which was covered with thick hairs, like an ape's. "Who knows what the Tormance fashions are like? We may sprout limbs--I don't say we shall."

  "A-ha!" exclaimed Maskull, pausing in the middle of his undressing.

  Krag smote him on the back. "New pleasure organs possible, Maskull. You like that?"

  The three men stood as nature made them. Maskull's spirits rose fast, as the moment of departure drew near.

  "A farewell drink to success!" cried Krag, seizing a bottle and breaking its head off between his fingers. There were no glasses, but he poured the amber-coloured wine into some cracked cups.

  Perceiving that the others drank, Maskull tossed off his cupful. It was as if he had swallowed a draught of liquid electricity.... Krag dropped onto the floor and rolled around on his back, kicking his legs in the air. He tried to drag Maskull down on top of him, and a little horseplay went on between the two. Nightspore took no part in it, but walked to and fro, like a hungry caged animal.

  Suddenly, from out-of-doors, there came a single prolonged, piercing wail, such as a banshee might be imagined to utter. It ceased abruptly, and was not repeated.

  "What's that?" called out Maskull, disengaging himself impatiently from Krag.

  Krag rocked with laughter. "A Scottish spirit trying to reproduce the bagpipes of its earth life--in honour of our departure."

  Nightspore turned to Krag. "Maskull will sleep throughout the journey?"

  "And you too, if you wish, my altruistic friend. I am pilot, and you passengers can amuse yourselves as you please."

  "Are we off at last?" asked Maskull.

  "Yes, you are about to cross your Rubicon, Maskull. But what a Rubicon!... Do you know that it takes light a hundred years or so to arrive here from Arcturus? Yet we shall do it in nineteen hours."

  "Then you assert that Surtur is already there?"

  "Surtur is where he is. He is a great traveller."

  "Won't I see him?"

  Krag went up to him and looked him in the eyes. "Don't forget that you have asked for it, and wanted it. Few people in Tormance will know more about him than you do, but your memory will be your worst friend."

  He led the way up a short iron ladder, mounting through a trap to the flat roof above. When they were up, he switched on a small electric torch.

  Maskull beheld with awe the torpedo of crystal that was to convey them through the whole breadth of visible space. It was forty feet long, eight wide, and eight high; the tank containing the Arcturian back rays was in front, the car behind. The nose of the torpedo was directed toward the south-eastern sky. The whole machine rested upon a flat platform, raised about four feet above the level of the roof, so as to encounter no obstruction on starting its flight.

  Krag flashed the light on to the door of the car, to enable them to enter. Before doing so, Maskull gazed sternly once again at the gigantic, far-distant star, which was to be their sun from now onward. He frowned, shivered slightly, and got in beside Nightspore. Krag clambered past them onto his pilot's seat. He threw the flashlight through the open door, which was then carefully closed, fastened, and screwed up.

  He pulled the starting lever. The torpedo glided gently from its platform, and passed rather slowly away from the tower, seaward. Its speed increased sensibly, though not excessively, until the approximate limits of the earth's atmosphere were reached. Krag then released the speed valve, and the car sped on its way with a velocity more nearly approaching that of thought than of light.

  Maskull had no opportunity of examining through the crystal walls the rapidly changing panorama of the heavens. An extreme drowsiness oppressed him. He opened his eyes violently a dozen times, but on the thirteenth attempt he failed. From that time forward he slept heavily.

  The bored, hungry expression never left Nightspore's face. The alterations
in the aspect of the sky seemed to possess not the least interest for him.

  Krag sat with his hand on the lever, watching with savage intentness his phosphorescent charts and gauges.

  Chapter 6.

  JOIWIND

  IT WAS DENSE NIGHT when Maskull awoke from his profound sleep. A wind was blowing against him, gentle but wall-like, such as he had never experienced on earth. He remained sprawling on the ground, as he was unable to lift his body because of its intense weight. A numbing pain, which he could not identify with any region of his frame, acted from now onward as a lower, sympathetic note to all his other sensations. It gnawed away at him continuously; sometimes it embittered and irritated him, at other times he forgot it.

  He felt something hard on his forehead. Putting his hand up, he discovered there a fleshy protuberance the size of a small plum, having a cavity in the middle, of which he could not feel the bottom. Then he also became aware of a large knob on each side of his neck, an inch below the ear.

  From the region of his heart, a tentacle had budded. It was as long as his arm, but thin, like whipcord, and soft and flexible.

  As soon as he thoroughly realised the significance of these new organs, his heart began to pump. Whatever might, or might not, be their use, they proved one thing that he was in a new world.

  One part of the sky began to get lighter than the rest. Maskull cried out to his companions, but received no response. This frightened him. He went on shouting out, at irregular intervals--equally alarmed at the silence and at the sound of his own voice. Finally, as no answering hail came, he thought it wiser not to make too much noise, and after that he lay quiet, waiting in cold blood for what might happen.

  In a short while he perceived dim shadows around him, but these were not his friends.

  A pale, milky vapour over the ground began to succeed the black night, while in the upper sky rosy tints appeared. On earth, one would have said that day was breaking. The brightness went on imperceptibly increasing for a very long time.

  Maskull then discovered that he was lying on sand. The colour of the sand was scarlet. The obscure shadows he had seen were bushes, with black stems and purple leaves. So far, nothing else was visible.