The Science Fiction of Erle Stanley Gardner - The Human Zero

by Matin Greenberg

  Phil Bregg removed his soggy garments.

  “A wonderful girl!” he said to Professor Parker.

  But the scientist didn’t hear him. He was bent over the table, illuminated by the electric light which was running from the yacht’s storage battery, and his fingers were dashing off figures on a sheet of paper, while his eyes had lost their washed-out appearance and sparkled with excitement.

  Phil felt instant drowsiness gripping him as he lay back on the berth and pulled one of the blankets over him. Outside, the rain pelted down on the roof of their little craft, and the hypnotic effect lulled him into almost instantaneous slumber.

  He felt, during the night, that he was riding a bronco in a rodeo, that the horse was taking great leaps that took him entirely over the grandstand on the first jump. That the second jump went over a range of mountains, and the higher atmosphere roared past them with a sound as of thunder.

  There followed third and fourth leaps, "and then a steady rhythm of roaring noise that filled the air.

  Gradually the roaring subsided, and he felt the strange steed he rode coming down to earth. He breathed a sigh of relief, but there was a vague wonder in his mind as to whether he hadn’t “pulled leather” on one of those long first leaps.

  But he was too drowsy to worry, and he went off to sleep again.

  He awoke to find his shoulder being shaken, and his eyes opened to find daylight and the face of the professor.

  Phil sat upright instantly.

  “You were going to call me,” he said, “and let me stand watch!”

  Professor Parker’s eyes were reddened slightly, and his face showed lines of strain, but he seemed filled with enthusiasm and strength.

  “There was nothing you could have done,” he said. “And the phenomena wouldn’t have interested you. On the other hand I wouldn’t have missed them for anything.

  “During the night a series of terrific tidal waves swept us on our course with a speed that I don’t even dare to contemplate. The ocean seems to be rushing somewhere with a force and velocity which is absolutely unprecedented.

  “What I am afraid of is that we may get into some huge vortex and be sucked down. I want to be able to steer clear of it if possible, and there’s a little wind. Do you suppose we could set a sail?”

  “It isn’t a sailboat. It’s a motor cruiser,” said Phil, “but we might be able to get something on her that’d give us a chance to steer a bit, not to go any place, but to keep her pointed. Where’s Miss Ranson?”

  “Asleep. She came out about midnight, or what would have been midnight, and said she hadn’t slept much. But she went back, and I think she’s asleep. It’s only four o’clock in the morning now, but the sun’s up.”

  Phil looked out of the porthole.

  “Why, it’s quit raining!”

  “Yes. It’s been clear for three hours. I’ve been trying to check our progress by the stars, but they’ve changed position so rapidly I came to the conclusion the earth was still spinning.

  “However, about half an hour ago it steadied down, and the course of the sun seems quite normal, around a plane which would indicate we are in the southern hemisphere, and, I should say, not a great distance from the new temperate zone. We may find the climate quite delightful.”

  Phil Bregg reached for his clothes, kicked off the blanket.

  “Maybe we’ll find a new continent or something.”

  The tone of the scientist was dry.

  “Yes,” he said, “maybe!”

  In that moment Phil realized how utterly hopeless the man considered their plight. He was not expecting to live long, this strange man who had been predicting the catastrophe for years, but he was putting in every minute taking astronomical observations, checking data.

  Phil grinned.

  “How about breakfast?” he asked. Professor Parker frowned.

  “I am afraid,” he said, “that we will have to regulate the rapidity with which we consume our somewhat meager stock of rations. Now it is obvious that—”

  The door of the little stateroom opened, and Stella Ranson stood on the threshold, smiling at them. She looked fresh as some morning flower glinting dew encrusted petals in the sunlight.

  “Good morning, everybody; when do we eat?”

  “Come on in and act as reinforcements,” grinned Phil. “The professor doesn’t need much food, and he’s getting the idea that we should go on a diet or something. Now let’s get this thing organized, professor. You act as chief navigator and collector of data. Miss Ranson can take charge of the interior, and I’ll handle all the rough work and keep the crowd in grub. What do you say?”

  “How can you keep us supplied with food when there is no food to be had?” asked the professor. “The world is devoid of life. There isn’t so much as a duck within sight, and, if there were, we are without means to reduce it to food.”

  Phil grinned.

  “You don’t know me. I’ve never gone hungry for very long yet, and I’ve been in some mighty tough country. Once down in Death Valley the boys thought they had me stumped, but I fooled ’em by feeding ’em coyote meat and telling ’em it was jackrabbit meat I’d cut off the bone.”

  Professor Parker shook his head, unsmilingly.

  “Oh, well,” grinned Phil, “I’m going to rig a sail. You can argue with Miss Stella. I think she’ll do more to convince you.”

  And Phil went up on deck to survey the mast, figure on a sail. The sunlight felt mellow and warm, and he stretched his arms, took a deep inhalation of the pure air, and then, as his eyes swept the horizon, suddenly blinked, rubbed his hand over his eyes, and shouted down the companionway.

  “Hey, there. Here’s land!”

  CHAPTER 5

  A Tree-Top Landing

  No storm-tossed mariners, lost in an uncharted sea, ever greeted the cry with more enthusiasm. They might have been at sea for weeks instead of hours, the way they came swarming up the stairs. Even Professor Parker’s face was lit with joy, and with a vast relief.

  The upthrust mountain which reared above the ocean was close enough to show the fronds of foliage, the long leaves of palms that were like banana palms.

  “Thought you said we were in the temperate zone,” said Phil. “This looks like what my geography said the South Sea Islands looked like.”

  The scientist nodded.

  “Quite right. I said we were in the new temperate zone. I didn’t say anything about what zone it had been.”

  “But,” protested the girl, “how could we have left New York yesterday and been swept down into the tropics?”

  The professor grinned.

  “That’s the point. We weren’t. The tropics were swept up to us. Take a bowl of water, put a match in it, turn the bowl. The match doesn’t turn. That’s because the water doesn’t turn in the bowl. There isn’t enough friction between the glass and the water to turn the bowl and its contents as a unit.

  “To a more limited extent that’s true of the earth, although I’ve had trouble getting my scientific friends to believe it. Simply because the water hasn’t lagged behind in the daily rotation of the globe is no sign that it wouldn’t lag if the motion were changed.

  “The earth has been rotating in one way for millions of years, and the water has fallen into step, so to speak. Now look at that island. See how rapidly it’s going past. Looks like we’re moving at a terrific speed, but the earth is evidently swinging true on its new orbit.

  “However, I look for the motion of the water to cease shortly. There should be a backwash which will do much to stem the force of the rushing water . . . Unless I’m mistaken, here it comes. Look there to the south. Isn’t that a wall of water? Sure it is, a massive ground swell. It’s moving rapidly. We must be in a very deep section of the ocean, or it would be breaking on top.

  “Let’s get down and close everything tightly.”

  “Judas Priest!” groaned Phil. “Have I got to ride some more bucking broncos?”

  “Quite probably,�
� was the dry retort, “you’ll have worse experiences than riding high tidal waves, my young, impatient, and impetuous friend!”

  They tumbled back down the companionway again, battened everything down. The wave struck them before they were aware of it. They were swung up, up, up, and then down, then up again on a long swell, then down.

  Then there was a roar and a smaller wave, the crest curling with foam, came at them. The roar sounded like a cataract.

  “We’ll go over sure,” said Phil, but he spoke with a grin. Fate had handed him so many buffets of late that he was beginning to take it all as a joke.

  The wave hit them, but the little craft, angling up the foaming crest, kept on its keel, and the top of the wave went boiling by, leaving them rocking in a backwash.

  “Now,” said Professor Parker, “that should mark the beginning of some turbulent water, with, perhaps, a storm. Let’s see where our land is.”

  And he thrust a cautious head through the companionway, suddenly ducked down.

  “It’s right on us!” he yelled.

  Phil jumped up, and was thrown from his feet by a jar that shivered the boat throughout its length. Then there was a scraping sound, and the crash of splintering wood.

  The boat listed over at a sharp angle, held for a moment, then dropped abruptly to the tune of more splintering noises. Phil’s feet skidded out from under him. He flung up an arm to protect his head, and came to a stop on the berth where he had spent the night. A moment later Stella Ranson catapulted into him, breaking the force of her fall by his arms, which caught her in a steady firm grip.

  “Easy all,” said Phil. “Where’s the professor? This looks like the end of the boat. All that splintering must have meant the timbers are crushed to smithereens!”

  He scrambled to his feet, bracing himself, holding the girl against the sharp incline of the deck.

  “Great heavens, we’re up a tree,” he said.

  The voice of the scientist came from one side of the cabin where his watery eyes were plastered up against a porthole, surveying the countryside.

  “We are not only up a tree,” he said, “but we seem to be pretty well lodged there. We rode in on the crest of a wave which deposited us in the branches of this tree. I do not know the species, but it seems to be something like a mahogany tree. Undoubtedly, it is a tropical tree.

  “We have sustained injuries to our boat, and the wave is quite likely to be succeeded by other waves. There’s higher ground up the slope of this mountain, and I suggest we make for it without delay.”

  Phil grinned at the girl.

  “Translated,” he said, “that means we’ve got the only tree-climbing boat in the world, and that we’d better beat it while the beating’s good. Let’s get that rope and put some knots in it. Then we can lower down our blankets and provisions. Personally, I’m a great believer in having all the comforts.”

  They fought their way to the outer deck of the boat, found that a jagged branch was stuck through the hull, that the boat would not float without extensive repairs first being made. There followed a period of activity, during which they knotted a rope, lowered down bundles of blankets and provisions.

  Finally, they were safe on the ground, the boat marooned high in the tree, more than twenty feet above the ground. The waters had receded and roared a sullen, although diminutive surf, some twenty yards away from the roots of the tree.

  “Well,” said Phil, “I always hated to carry camp stuff on my back, but we can’t go hungry, so here’s where I start. This is entirely in my department. I’ll make a couple of trips with the heavier stuff and then we’ll be established in camp.”

  The other two protested, but Phil adhered to his statement, refusing to allow them to participate in the work of carrying the camp equipment up the slope. He divided it into two huge bundles, so heavy that neither the scientist nor the woman could lift them from the ground. Yet Phil swung one of the big rolls to his shoulder, and led the way up the slope.

  They found a trail which Phil pronounced to be a game trail, although there was no sign of game. They followed this trail through a tangle of thick foliage to a ridge, up the ridge to a little shelf where a tree and an overhanging rock furnished shelter. *

  Here they made camp, some three hundred feet above the level of the ocean. Phil suggested they go higher, but the scientist, taking observations by holding his small sextant on the sun, insisted that the world had finished its weird toppling. He was inclined to think the poles had changed positions by a long swing of the globe, and that a new equilibrium had been established.

  While he could make no accurate calculations in advance of knowledge of where the island was upon which they had effected a landing, he was inclined to think that the site of the new north pole was somewhere in the vicinity of England.

  But all was mere conjecture, and Phil Bregg was more interested in matters at hand than in abstract scientific problems.

  He made a trip back to the boat, brought up the second bundle of provisions, blankets, tools which he had taken from the yacht, and started making a camp with a dexterity which brought forth little exclamations of admiration from the girl, and approving nods from the scientist.

  “Now,” said Phil, “what we need is a little more knowledge of what sort of a place we’re in, and maybe some fresh meat. That means weapons. I’ve got a hand-ax, and I can sharpen up a sort of Indian spear and harden the point in the fire. That might net us a hog, or maybe a rabbit, if they have rabbits.

  “But I saw some hog tracks on that trail, and while the upheaval may have washed some of them away, and may have frightened the balance of them into cover, I’ll see what can be done.”

  He built a fire, cut down a hardwood sapling, trimmed it into a pointed spear, hardened the point in the fire, Indian fashion, and grinned at his audience.

  “Here’s where the hunting instinct comes in, and where the knowledge of reading trail I’ve picked up is going to help. You folks just promise me you’ll stay here. I’ll scout around. It’s pretty hard to go out in a strange country where there’s a heavy growth of brush and timber, and find your way back, unless you’re accustomed to it. So don’t leave the place.

  “I’ll be back inside of a couple of hours, and I may have game.”

  The girl promised to wait in camp. The scientist showed no disposition to leave. He was propped with his back against a stone, a pencil and notebook in his hands, jotting down impressions.

  “And only put dry wood on that fire,” warned Phil.

  “Why?” asked the girl.

  “Wet wood makes a smoke.”

  “But don’t we want to make a smoke? Shouldn’t we signal?” /

  Professor Parker favored her with a peculiar glance.

  “To whom,” he asked, “did you contemplate sending a signal?”

  And, as realization of their predicament thrust itself once more upon the girl’s consciousness, Phil softened the blow for her with a grin and a joking remark.

  “I want to save the smoke to cure a ham I’m going to bring in,” and he swung the spear into position, and started up the slope, climbing steadily, yet stealthily.

  * * *

  He reached the summit of the peak within a matter of fifteen minutes, and was able to confirm his original impression that they were on an island. It was not over two miles broad, but seemed to stretch for eight or ten miles in a general easterly direction. It was a tumbled mass of jagged crests and Phil strongly suspected that what he was seeing as an island was merely the top of a high mountain range which had been entirely above water before the world had swung over in its change of poles.

  He followed a game trail, saw fresh pig tracks, heard a rustle in the brush. A little darting streak of color rushed across the trail, and Phil flung his spear and missed.

  He chuckled.

  “Better have used a rope,” he said to himself, and went after his spear.

  He had not yet reached it when he heard a deep-throated grunt behind him, the swi
ft patter of hoofed feet on the trail. He sent a swift glance over his shoulder, and saw a wild boar, little eyes red with fury, curved tusks champing wickedly, charging at him. The boar was very high of shoulder, very heavy of neck, long of head and tusk. And it was savage beyond description.

  Phil made one wild leap for his spear, caught it up, tried to whirl.

  The boar was on him before he had a chance to swing the spear around so the sharpened end faced the charging animal. But he did manage to make a swift, vicious thrust with the butt end. The wood caught the animal flush on the tender end of the nose, deflected him in his charge, sent him rushing past, knocking the spear from Phil’s hand, throwing Phil, himself, off balance.

  But Phil recovered, grabbed at the spear again, waited for the animal to turn.

  The boar, however, seemed to have had enough. He swung from the path into the thick foliage and vanished from sight, although the branches continued to syay and crack for some seconds after Phil had lost sight of him.

  Phil gripped the handle of his spear, surveyed a skinned knuckle, and grinned.

  “Well,” he said to himself, “that’s the first lesson. Hang on to your weapons. That was a nice ham that went away, although he might have been a bit tough, at that.”

  He was commencing to enjoy himself. Being out in the open, with nothing but his hands and a sharpened spear of hardwood with a fire hardened point, called for his knowledge of woodcraft, made him feel the thrill of the hunter.

  He took careful marks so that he would have no difficulty in returning to the proper peak when he was ready to come back. Those landmarks were the significant ones which would have been overlooked by an amateur woodsman, yet which would be always visible from any direction.

  Phil found himself surveying his clothes, wondering if the girl knew how to sew. It began to look as though they would be forced to make clothes of skins, fashion a shelter, cache away food.