Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol XIII

by Various

  The chief priest sprang madly toward Ennis, and as he did so, the hooded hordes of the Brotherhood recovered from their paralysis of horror and surged madly toward the dais.

  "The Door is closed! Death to the blasphemers!" cried the chief priest as he plunged forward.

  "Death to the blasphemers!" shrieked the crazed horde below.

  Ennis' pistol roared and the chief priest went down. The light in the cavern died completely at that moment.

  In the dark a torrent of bodies catapulted against Ennis, screaming vengeance. He struck out with his pistol-barrel in the mad mêlée, holding Ruth's stiff form close with his other hand. He heard the other drugged, helpless victims crushed down and trampled under foot by the surging horde of vengeance-mad members.

  * * * * *

  Clinging to the girl, Ennis fought like a madman through a darkness in which none could distinguish friend or foe, toward the door at the side from which Campbell had fired. He smashed down the pistol-barrel on all before him, as hands sought to grab him in the dark. He knew sickeningly that he was lost in the combat, with no sense of the direction of the door.

  Then a voice roared loud across the wild din, "Ennis, this way! This way, Ennis!" yelled Inspector Campbell, again and again.

  Ennis plunged through the whirl of unseen bodies in the direction of the detective's shouting voice. He smashed through, half dragging and half carrying the girl, until Campbell's voice was close ahead in the dark. He fumbled at the rock wall, found the door opening, and then Campbell's hands grasped him to pull him inside.

  Hands grabbed him from behind, striving to tear Ruth from him, to jerk him back. Voices shrieked for help.

  Campbell's pistol blazed in the dark and the hands released their grip. Ennis stumbled with the girl through the door into a dark tunnel. He heard Campbell slam a door shut, and heard a bar fall with a clang.

  "Quick, for God's sake!" panted Campbell in the dark. "They'll follow us--we've got to get up through the tunnels to the water-cavern!"

  They raced along the pitch-dark tunnel, Campbell now carrying the girl, Ennis reeling drunkenly along.

  They heard a mounting roar behind them, and as they burst into the main tunnel, no longer lighted but dark like the others, they looked back and saw a flickering of light coming up the passage.

  "They're after us and they've got lights!" Campbell cried. "Hurry!"

  It was nightmare, this mad flight on stumbling feet up through the dark tunnels where they could hear the sea booming close overhead, and could hear the wild pursuit behind.

  Their feet slipped on the damp floor and they crashed into the walls of the tunnel at the turns. The pursuit was closer behind--as they started climbing the last passages to the water-cavern, the torchlight behind showed them to their pursuers and wild yells came to their ears.

  They had before them only the last ascent to the water-cavern when Ennis stumbled and went down. He swayed up a little, yelled to Campbell. "Go on--get Ruth out! I'll try to hold them back a moment!"

  "No!" rasped Campbell. "There's another way--one that may mean the end for us too, but our only chance!"

  The inspector thrust his hand into his pocket, snatched out his big, old-fashioned gold watch.

  He tore it from its chain, turned the stem of it twice around. Then he hurled it back down the tunnel with all his force.

  "Quick--out of the tunnels now or we'll die right here!" he yelled.

  They lunged forward, Campbell dragging both the girl and the exhausted Ennis, and emerged a moment later into the great water-cavern. It was now lit only by the searchlight of their waiting cutter.

  As they emerged into the cavern, they were thrown flat on the rock ledge by a violent movement of it under them. An awful detonation and thunderous crashing of falling rock smote their ears.

  Following that first tremendous crash, giant rumbling of collapsing rock shook the water-cavern.

  "To the cutter!" Campbell cried. "That watch of mine was filled with the most concentrated high-explosive known, and it's blown up the tunnels. Now it's touched off more collapses and all these caverns and passages will fall in on us at any moment!"

  The awful rumbling and crashing of collapsing rock masses was deafening in their ears as they lurched toward the cutter. Great chunks of rock were falling from the cavern roof into the water.

  * * * * *

  Sturt, white-faced but asking no questions, had the motor of the cutter running, and helped them pull the unconscious girl aboard.

  "Out of the tunnel at once!" Campbell ordered. "Full speed!"

  They roared down the water-tunnel at crazy velocity, the searchlight beam stabbing ahead. The tide had reached flood and turned, increasing the speed with which they dashed through the tunnel.

  Masses of rock fell with loud splashes behind them, and all around them was still the ominous grinding of mighty weights of rock. The walls of the tunnel quivered repeatedly.

  Sturt suddenly reversed the propellers, but in spite of his action the cutter smashed a moment later into a solid rock wall. It was a mass of rock forming an unbroken barrier across the water-tunnel, extending beneath the surface of the water.

  "We're trapped!" cried Sturt. "A mass of the rock has settled here and blocked the tunnel."

  "It can't be completely blocked!" Campbell exclaimed. "See, the tide still runs out beneath it. Our one chance is to swim out under the blocking mass of rock, before the whole cliff gives way!"

  "But there's no telling how far the block may extend----" Sturt cried.

  Then as Campbell and Ennis stripped off their coats and shoes, he followed their example. The rumble of grinding rock around them was now continuous and nerve-shattering.

  Campbell helped Ennis lower Ruth's unconscious form into the water.

  "Keep your hand over her nose and mouth!" cried the inspector. "Come on, now!"

  Sturt went first, his face pale in the searchlight beam as he dived under the rock mass. The tidal current carried him out of sight in a moment.

  Then, holding the girl between them, and with Ennis' hand covering her mouth and nostrils, the other two dived. Down through the cold waters they shot, and then the swift current was carrying them forward like a mill-race, their bodies bumping and scraping against the rock mass overhead.

  Ennis' lungs began to burn, his brain to reel, as they rushed on in the waters, still holding the girl tightly. They struck solid rock, a wall across their way. The current sucked them downward, to a small opening at the bottom. They wedged in it, struggled fiercely, then tore through it. They rose on the other side of it into pure air. They were in the darkness, floating in the tunnel beyond the block, the current carrying them swiftly onward.

  The walls were shaking and roaring frightfully about them as they were borne round the turns of the tunnel. Then they saw ahead of them a circle of dim light, pricked with white stars.

  The current bore them out into that starlight, into the open sea. Before them in the water floated Sturt, and they swam with him out from the shaking, grinding cliffs.

  The girl stirred a little in Ennis' grasp, and he saw in the starlight that her face was no longer dazed.

  "Paul----" she muttered, clinging close to Ennis in the water.

  "She's coming back to consciousness--the water must have revived her from that drug!" he cried.

  But he was cut short by Campbell's cry. "Look! Look!" cried the inspector, pointing back at the black cliffs.

  In the starlight the whole cliff was collapsing, with a prolonged, terrible roar as of grinding planets, its face breaking and buckling. The waters around them boiled furiously, whirling them this way and that.

  Then the waters quieted. They found they had been flung near a sandy spit beyond the shattered cliffs, and they swam toward it.

  "The whole underground honeycomb of caverns and tunnels gave way and the sea poured in!" Campbell cried. "The Door, and the Brotherhood of the Door, are ended for ever!"

  * * *

  Content
s

  BEYOND THE THUNDER

  By H. B. Hickey

  What was this blinding force that came out of a hole in the sky, and was powerful enough to destroy an entire city? Case thought he knew...

  Ten thousand persons in New York looked skyward at the first rumble of sound. The flash caught them that way, seared them to cinder, liquefied their eyeballs, brought their vitals boiling out of the fissures of their bodies. They were the lucky ones. The rest died slowly, their monument the rubble which had once been a city.

  Of all that, Case Damon knew nothing. Rocketing up in the self-service elevator to his new cloud-reaching apartment in San Francisco, his thoughts were all on the girl who would be waiting for him.

  "She loves me, she loves me not," he said to himself. They were orchid petals, not those of daisies, that drifted to the floor of the car.

  "She loves me." The last one touched the floor softly, and Case laughed.

  Then the doors were opening and he was racing down the hall. No more lonely nights for him, no more hours wasted thumbing through the pages of his little black book wondering which girl to call. Case Damon, rocket-jockey, space-explorer, was now a married man, married to the most beautiful girl in the world.

  He scooped Karin off her feet and hugged her to him. Her lips were red velvet on his, her spun gold hair drifted around his shoulders.

  "Box seats for the best show in town, honey," he gloated in her ear.

  He fished around in his pockets with one hand while he held her against him with the other. They'd said you couldn't get tickets for that show. But what "they" said never stopped Case Damon, whether it was a matter of theatre tickets, or of opening a new field on a distant airless planet.

  "Turn off that telecast," he said. "I'm not interested in Interplan news these days. From now on, Case Damon keeps his feet on terra firma."

  And that was the way it was going to be. His interest in the uranium on Trehos alone should keep him and Karin in clover for the rest of their lives. They'd have fun, they'd have kids, they'd live like normal married people. The rest of the universe could go hang.

  "If you'd stop raving, I might get a word in edgewise," Karin begged.

  "The floor is yours. Also the walls, the building, the whole darned city if you want it," Case laughed.

  "That telecast is ticking for you. Washington calling Case Damon. Washington calling Case Damon. Since you left an hour ago it's been calling you."

  "Let it call. It's my constitutional right not to answer."

  But his mood was changing to match Karin's. His lean, firm-jawed features were turning serious. Tension tightened his powerful body.

  "It must be important, Case," Karin said. "They're using your code call. They wouldn't do that unless it was urgent."

  He listened to the tick of the machine. Unless you knew, it sounded only like the regular ticking that told the machine was in operation. But there were little breaks here and there. It was for him.

  Three long strides took him to the machine. His deft fingers flicked switches, brought a glow to the video tubes.

  "Case Damon," he said softly. "Come in, Washington."

  It was Cranly's face that filled the screen. But a Cranly Case barely recognized. The man had aged ten years in the last three days. His voice was desperate.

  "Good grief, man! Where've you been? Get down here fast. But fast!"

  "Listen, Cranly. I'm on my honeymoon. Or have you forgotten? Remember three days ago you were best man at a wedding? Well, the fellow at the altar was Case Damon."

  That should have gotten a smile out of Cranly. But it didn't. He was even a little angry now.

  "This is an order, Case! I'm giving you the honor of being the first non-official person to know about it. Supreme Emergency Mobilization and Evacuation Order. New York was blasted out of existence an hour ago!"

  * * * * *

  All flights grounded, the skyport in a turmoil, but that little silver card got him and Karin through. Nobody knew yet what was going on. They were readying for something big, but they didn't know what as yet.

  Case hurried Karin to his own hangar, bustled her into the small speeder.

  "The fishing cabin on the Columbia, honey. Stay there! And don't worry if you don't hear from me."

  He didn't even wait to see her take off. Karin would be safe enough. The cabin was a hundred miles from any possible military objective. All he had to do was sit tight until things were straightened out. New York blasted! That could have been an accident. It must have been an accident. The only alternative would be war. And there were no more wars. Somebody at Supreme Council must have lost his head to issue the E.M.E. order.

  Sure, that was it. Leave it to the politicos to get excited and jump out of their skins. Below him the glistening towers of Kansas City flashed and faded and were replaced minutes later by the towers of St. Louis. Chicago was batting out a "clear the sky order."

  All three of those cities would have been gone by now if there were really a war, Case told himself. But Cranly was no politician. And he wasn't the kind that scared easily.

  It was Cranly who met him at Washington skyport. Cranly was scared, all right. He was more frightened than he'd been the time their ship had started to tear loose from their mooring on that moon of Jupiter. His face was gray.

  "I'll fill you in as we go," he said. The official car jerked into high speed and Cranly talked. "It was no accident. Get that straight. New York was hit from the outside."

  "But how? By what? Under the Unified Council there's no one who'd have anything to gain by war. There isn't even anyone on Earth with the power to make war."

  "That's why we wanted you here. It figures to be an enemy from another planet."

  "That doesn't make sense." Case swivelled around to face Cranly. "You and I know our system as well as anyone alive. Cut out the guessing and give me the facts."

  "All right. Enough people saw the thing from Jersey so that we know what happened. They say there was a rumble like thunder. Out of a clear sky, mind you. Then--get this--the sky seemed to open! There was a blast of light. That's all. New York was gone."

  "Atom blast?"

  "Hardly. No mushroom cloud. Accident? No, and you'll learn why I'm so sure shortly."

  * * * * *

  Case Damon had met some of these men before. A few others he recognized from their pictures. The Supreme Council. They were plenty worried. Strogoff was chewing his mustache; Vargas drummed nervously with thick fingers. Cunningham and Osborn were pacing the floor.

  "Thank heaven for one thing," Osborn said. Vargas looked up at him quickly, his dark eyes slits in his swarthy face.

  "For what?" Vargas asked bitterly.

  "That there has been no panic. Urban evacuations are proceeding quietly."

  "I still think it could have been some natural phenomenon," Case interrupted. "Even a terrific bolt of lightning."

  Cranly's big shoulders lifted as a recorder was wheeled into the room. He indicated where the machine was to be set down.

  "We've wasted a little time in letting you make these guesses," he told Case. "All for a reason. We want you to realize fully what sort of weapon we are up against. Now listen to this message that was beamed onto the Council's private line a few minutes after the blast."

  He went to the recorder and tripped a lever. The instrument settled to a low whine that soon disappeared as the recording tape entered the converter. The voice might have been in the room with them.

  "To the Supreme Council of the Planet Earth: What happened to New York was only a token of what can be done to your entire planet. Our terms are complete and unconditional surrender, to be telecast within one week. To hasten your decision, there will be other tokens at twelve-hour intervals."

  "Now you know," Cranly said heavily. "Either give up or be destroyed. And that ultimatum from an enemy which has no compunction about murdering ten million people to prove its power."

  A thousand questions jumped to Case Damon's mind. The ho
rror of the thing stilled most of them. He checked over possibilities quickly.

  "You say many people outside of New York saw the flash. What about skyports, observatories, the fleet base on the Moon? Did they try to get a triangulation?"

  "I can see why Cranly wanted you here," Vargas said, smiling faintly. His own people had been the last to join the Unified Council. He had held out to the last, had demanded and received concessions, but he was considered one of the Council's ablest men.

  "Naturally there were attempts at fixing the source of the flash," he continued. "Had those attempts met with success the fleet would already be on its way."

  "I don't get it," Case said bluntly. "If they attempted triangulation, they must have got it."

  "Precisely," Cranly interjected. "They got it. The source of the flash was an empty space between Mars and Venus!"

  * * * * *

  Case was rocked back on his heels by Cranly's disclosure. This was something. An enemy who loosed his blasts out of unoccupied space, who could cut into the Council's own line at will!

  "What about a fast moving asteroid? That could have been gone before it was observed."

  "Not a chance," Cranly said.

  And Cranly should know. So should the rest. Every one of them was in charge of a department of the Earth's services. But there was that emphasis on Mars and Venus. Strogoff interrupted that line of thought.

  "I say we might as well give in." Even his thick mustache drooped in despondency. "Why have millions more killed?"

  "Never!" Osborn thundered.

  "I should hesitate to admit defeat," Vargas shrugged. "But how can we defend ourselves?"

  Outside the chambers, in the corridor, Cranly gripped his friend's shoulder hard. "That's been going on for an hour," he said, "this one for, and that one against."

  "And meanwhile the fleet can't do a thing," Cranly added.

  "Exactly. Whoever blasted New York is doing it from an invisible base. That's my guess. It's an invader from space. My job will be to stay here and keep the Council from giving up. Your job is to find the base."