by Henry Hasse
Then the laughter died in his throat. Something was happening. The rays, the controlling rays across the walls—one by one they were blanking out! One by one, then suddenly whole rows at a time!
Ketrik whirled to the control-panel. Another figure was there—Dar Vaajo! Somewhere he had obtained another protective suit, had entered silently. Now he was blanking out the control-rays, enough of them to allow the power of the Entity through!
Even as Ketrik hurled himself forward, he saw madness on Vaajo's face. More of the rays blanked off as Vaajo swept his hand down. Then Ketrik was upon him. The two metal-suited figures clashed, went spinning backward and then to the floor of the balcony in a wild tangle.
Dar Vaajo was old but he was still tough and wiry. He had the strength of a madman now. He kept Ketrik at bay as the latter sought to grip his throat. He laughed wildly as Ketrik pounded futilely at the tough crystyte helmet. Then Ketrik knew why he laughed. The damage had been done, the power of the Entity was lashing through the barriers now! A tendril of light curled about Ketrik's head. Even through the helmet he felt the insatiable greed of it, as his brain exploded in fire.
He forgot Dar Vaajo, managed to drag himself upward. He staggered toward the huge Vortex machine. Vaajo hurled against his legs and brought him crashing down. His brain was now a writhing agony of fire. He saw Vaajo's grinning face near his own, and knew that somehow Vaajo wasn't affected by the Entity; perhaps years of working so close to it had made him partially immune. Slowly Ketrik managed to bring his knees up under the other's body, then his feet. With his last remaining strength he lashed out.
He saw the Martian's slight body hurl backward. It crashed into the balcony's low railing which caught him just at the knees. For a moment Vaajo tottered, arms flailing wildly; then his mouth opened in what must have been a shriek as he went over the edge, over and downward, to crash a hundred feet below into the great greenish bulk of the Entity.
But Ketrik didn't see that. He was dragging himself the few remaining yards to the Vortex machine, then slowly up to the controls. Heedless now of the frantic light-tendrils that tried to stop him, he managed to turn on the control. He sank to the floor as he pulled back on the master lever.
It was through blurring eyes this time that he saw the crazy tilting of the laboratory dome and everything beneath, saw the dark Vortex twisting through from an alien space. As though in a dream he saw a rush of light, glimpsed a greenish mass hurtling outward to disappear in a convergence of crazy space-angles....
After that he remembered finding his electro which had skidded away on the floor. He used it to blast the Vortex machine into tangled ruin. He remembered staggering to the tele-vise and turning it on, and seeing Praana's face from a screen somewhere in the palace.
"Praana ... the laboratory ... your father is...." But that was all. He was sliding forward against the screen, sliding down to the floor into merciful oblivion.
He saw her face again and it was no longer startled, it was smiling down at him. He tried to sit up. A spasm of pain hit him. He heard her say, "Rest. You will be all right soon."
He was lying on a couch somewhere in the palace. Servants were hovering around anxiously. Praana sent them away. Presently she said, "I've contacted the Earth Fleet's flagship. They will be here sometime tomorrow. They come in peace."
He managed to nod. "You know about the other? Your father—he was...." He stopped the words in time, his face twisted as he thought of it.
"Don't be afraid to say it." Praana still managed to smile. "Yes, I know it now, we all know! He was mad. Mars as well as Earth owes you a debt of gratitude it can never repay." She hesitated. "I want to forget. I must get away, somewhere far away. I should like to return to Earth, for just a little while."
Ketrik grinned. He lay back. He had wanted to hear her say that.
The End
[1] Passage to Planet X, (nv) Planet Stories Winter 1945.
[2] Alcatraz of the Starways, (na) Planet Stories May 1943.
[3] City of the Living Flame, (na) Planet Stories Fall 1942.
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Final Glory,
by Henry Hasse
Planet Stories Spring 1947
Short Story - 2008 words
The Sun was dying—and with it the System.
Earth was a cold stone. Survivors huddled
on a cheerless Mercury, waiting numbly.
But Praav in his inscrutable wisdom—
N'Zik was a forlorn and weary figure at the forward port. He balanced his frail, bulbous body on four of his eight limbs, while the other four moved listlessly over the etheroscope, adjusting sights and lenses. N'Zik wondered dully why he bothered. Even from here he could see that the system looking ahead, the dull reddish Sun with its wild and darksome planets, was not for them.
Bitterness flooded his soul. To have come so far and searched so long, only to find this! In all this Galaxy here was the one Sun that sustained a planetary system, and that Sun was dying! The irony was more than he could bear.
Shi-Zik came to stand beside him. Only she and N'Zik were left, of all the thousands; two alone on this driving colossus which was the only world they had ever known. She sensed his bitterness now and tried to speak words of hope.
"See, N'Zik, there are inner planets! How close their orbits are! There may still be warmth and life-sustaining rays."
N'Zik's limbs sprawled outward in despair.
"This dying system is not for us, Shi-Zik. The five largest and outermost planets are but barren, frigid rock. But if you wish, we shall go inward."
His limbs flashed over the huge control-console. Gradually the ship slowed in its headlong pace. Nearly the size of a small planet, was this ship; entire generations had been born and died aboard it, during the trip between Galaxies. Somewhere deep inside, perpetual generators pounded out the power that had driven them through space faster than light.
N'Zik and Shi-Zik had never seen those generators, nor were they conscious now of the smooth threnody. They had known it always. Miles of interlocking corridors extended behind them too, a veritable city with vast rooms of wonderful machinery—but none of this had they ever seen. For DEATH had struck suddenly there, was lurking there still.
The huge metal tomes told of it. N'Zik and Shi-Zik had read that history so often that they knew it now by heart. They knew how and why the last generations had been wiped out.
The first scientists had planned well for the safety and well-being of the generations to come, but they had overlooked one thing. Within their own Galaxy they had been cognizant of certain cosmic rays, which were harmless insofar as they had no apparent effect on living tissues. However, in that utter vacuity between Galaxies no such rays existed! And there between Galaxies new generations were born. Five, ten, a dozen generations. And at last—they had reached the new Galaxy....
Whether the cosmic rays here differed, or whether the new generations had simply lost all resistance to them, was never fully known. The race had died by thousands as the hard rays penetrated the ship. The scientists worked feverishly to build up a section with layers of their heaviest metals; but by the time they had achieved a sufficient thickness, a few dozen had survived.
N'Zik and Shi-Zik were the last of that final group.
Now, under N'Zik's sure guidance, the ship crossed the orbits of the outer planets. He had thrown over the deceleration control, but their speed was still tremendous.
In a few minutes craggy fragments of rock were skimming past their hull. The larger ones were deflected by automatic repulsion plates and the few that drifted through became molten upon contact. Such was their speed.
Then they were through the swarm, and N'Zik remarked, "This is an old system indeed. At one time a planet must have occupied that orbit."
"Look." Shi-Zik's spider-like body was taut with eagerness as she pointed to a planet far ahead, swinging away from their trajectory. "Shall we follow it?"
"There is no purpose. We can
pick it up in the etheroscope." N'Zik adjusted the sights. The planet together with its two moons leaped into view on the screen. N'Zik manipulated the magnilens and it was brought still nearer.
Vast icy caps encompassed most of this world. The rest was frozen desert, slightly reddish, with a few peculiar straight-line markings that might have been man-made. But that didn't interest them now. It was all too apparent that this planet had been uninhabitable for millennia.
"Dead. A frozen, dead world," Shi-Zik intoned. "Let us go on to the next one."
They moved ever inward. The next planet with its single satellite offered no more promise. Here they saw stark mountain ranges in contrast to vast hollows that might have been dead ocean bottoms. The magnilens picked out several cities, tottering, crumbling in ruin.
"Cities," N'Zik muttered. "Cities still standing on this airless world. A civilization once existed here, and it cannot have been so long ago. Shall we go on, Shi-Zik? There are two or three other planets but I fear they will offer no more than this."
Now something of N'Zik's despair came upon Shi-Zik. "No, we need not go on. I feel weary of it all. I care not if we ever find the place we seek."
"I too, have had this feeling," N'Zik waved his limbs in agreement. "Shi-Zik, we have searched this Galaxy through. There may yet be life-giving Suns with planets, but we have not much time. Of late I have felt the engines becoming sluggish of power...."
"True. The way has been long." She gestured hopelessly. "Do you suggest then, that we put an end to the mission?"
"Not without your consent, Shi-Zik."
"I have wanted to end it!" Shi-Zik cried. "For a very long time I have thought of it, but dared not speak."
"And yet," N'Zik mused, "perhaps we should search further. Search until the end. It was the will of our forebears that the race be continued. Should we end so ingloriously what they set out to achieve?"
"The will of our forebears is as nothing to the will of Praav," Shi-Zik spoke softly, gazing out to the stars. "Praav has watched safely over us all this time. If He had wanted us to find a place, we should have found it. And we need not end ingloriously. Observe, N'Zik, that we, the last of our kind, have ended here, at what is probably the last planetary system. Its sun is dying as our race is dying. Let us all go out in a final flame together, a blaze of glory!"
The bitterness had left N'Zik now. "You are right, my dear. It was meant that we should end here. I believe Praav has willed it so!"
He threw the controls over to full acceleration and locked them into place. The colossus of all spaceships piled acceleration upon acceleration with the speed of light, plunging on its unerring course toward the dying Sun. The two beings from another Galaxy stood at the forward port, proudly side by side. N'Zik looked at Shi-Zik and felt such a peace as he had never known.
And Shi-Zik murmured, "Praav, in his inscrutable wisdom...."
Curt Sanders climbed wearily up the last steep passage from the city below. Space-suited and helmeted, he emerged from the low line of cliffs and looked out upon the desolate surface of Mercury.
For the past week he had worked hard in the underground laboratories. Occasionally he came to the surface where he could see the dark sky, and the pinpoints of stars, and the dying Sun once more. That alone gave him incentive to go on. He, with the several thousand others, were working out the problem which might save them from extinction. It was slow work, damnably slow and hard, and Curt knew in his heart they would not be in time.
He raised his face to the red orb whose heat scarcely touched here. Again he marvelled that disaster had come so suddenly. Solar radiation was not supposed to end like that! It should have gone on for millennia. That's what the scientists had preached. But it had ended—scarcely five hundred years ago. Curt had never known Earth, only the city here far within Mercury, where there was meager warmth and light. And now even the internal heat of Mercury was fast cooling.
Curt turned at the sound of footsteps behind him. That would be Olana. She, too, came here each week.
She stopped beside him, raised her helmeted face to Sun and stars with infinite longing. For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Olana clicked on her helmet radio.
"Each time, Curt ... each time I come here I imagine the Sun has grown dimmer. Is it really only my imagination?"
"Yes. It becomes dimmer, but not perceptibly. Solar radiation is electronic, and the theory is that our Sun has merely exhausted an outer sheath of electrons. Lord knows what internal condition caused it! If it's a solid body, it may be due to certain peculiarities of the strata. The sun spots of hundreds of years ago must have been the beginning of the end."
She nodded. "How is the work coming?"
"The Traction Rays? Slowly, Olana—too slowly." Curt shook his head in weariness. "We're in the process of testing, but they are still not strong enough. It means months more of work, and we shall need hundreds! You know, if we fail on the first attempt we shall not have another chance."
"I—I still don't quite understand it," Olana was puzzled. "I know it has something to do with the orbit of Vulcan. But how can it save us?"
"It may not. It's a forlorn chance. You know of course that Vulcan's a very small planet, scarcely larger than Earth's moon. And it pursues an orbit much closer to the Sun than Mercury. If we can drive it out of its orbit with the Traction Rays, it may fall into the Sun!"
"But suppose," Olana pointed out, "it only takes up a closer orbit?"
"Exactly why we're taking no chances. We must be sure our rays are strong enough to propel it into the Sun."
"And what then?"
Curt shrugged. "After that it's anybody's guess. Professor Marston believes that such a collision will set up a combustion sufficient to release internal electronic action from the Sun's depths. And, once that is started, the Sun will blaze again."
"I see," Olana exclaimed. "Something like stirring up dying embers!"
"Yes." There was no eagerness in Curt's voice. "No doubt there are forces within the Sun sufficient to last for millennia, if they could only be released. But they must be deep within. I'm afraid nothing we do with Vulcan will be enough."
"Why, you're just a pessimist!"
Curt smiled wanly. "No, just realistic. And very tired! It's been a trying week. Come, we'd better be getting back."
"Wait." Olana stopped him. She was gazing at the blackness beyond the horizon's rim. "Curt, look."
"Meteor?" He followed her gaze. "No! I never saw a meteor like that!"
They saw a patch of light against the reddish sunglow. It wasn't extended light, it seemed to move as a bulk and with such speed as no meteor had ever attained. For half a minute they watched it become smaller—then it disappeared. Curt shook his head in puzzlement.
"That beats me! For a minute I had a feeling—yes, I was right! It went straight into the Sun! Olana—!"
But she had seen, too. She was scarcely aware of Curt's fierce grip on her arm.
Directly in the center of the maroon Sun a tiny pinpoint of white had appeared. Even as they watched, it seemed to mushroom slowly outward.
"That was no meteor!" Curt exclaimed. "Whatever caused that explosion was travelling at the speed of light, and must have had tremendous bulk! Why ... I doubt if even Vulcan striking with its orbital velocity could cause such a display!"
For an hour they watched. At the end of that time the whitish glow had given no sign of receding; if anything, it had become ever so slightly larger. They stared, entranced with a new hope.
At last Olana placed a hand on Curt's arm and murmured, "God, in his inscrutable wisdom...."
The End
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Eternal Zemmd Must Die!
by Henry Hasse
Planet Stories Spring 1949
Novella - 18091 words
Lancing out of the void at light-speed, it
stabbed deep into the Solar System—and vanished.
Then began corruption ... poison and hate
learned a death blow had been delivered!
I
We have remained indecisive too long! You must understand this! The future, perhaps the very existence of the Federation hangs in the balance unless we can correlate all that has happened and decide upon a course of action NOW....
DeHarries, Correlator for Earth, paced alone in his suite far beneath the Council Room. He held a sheaf of papers—his intended speech to the Planetary Delegates. Now he crumpled it viciously, flung it to the floor. What good were speeches? Already he anticipated their arguments, the protests and questions. He, himself, had a question or two.
"Course of action," he muttered grimly, "What sort of action? Action against what?"
He strode to the immense tele-globe, flicked it on. Its radiant surface reflected the austere Council Chamber above. Already the six delegates were entering. Soon they'd become restless waiting for him. But still DeHarries watched.
Aladdian, Empress of Venus, was there, fragile and lovely despite the grave look on her alabastrine face. She at least was aware of the threat to the System which had grown apace during the past few years. In Aladdian, DeHarries knew he had an ally to the startling proposal he was going to make. He would need a majority of four. He couldn't count on Mars. The other two votes must come from Mercury, Jupiter, Perlac, or the Callistan colonies.
Leaving his suite by a secret exit, DeHarries stepped into a lift which brought him near the Council Room above.
Six pairs of eyes fastened upon DeHarries, as he stood at the head of the table. He was a striking figure, six-feet-two and white haired, yet with a perpetual tightness of the jaw and a hint of fire in the dark eyes that belied his great age.