Hell Stuff For Planet X

by Raymond Z. Gallun

  *********************************

  Dawn-World Echoes,

  by Raymond Z. Gallun

  Astounding July 1937

  Novelette - 10143 words

  Atta Lan—Atlantis—

  Po-see-da—?

  I.

  GORGONE, his name was—Fred Gorgone. His face was as wrinkled, almost, as the faces of the Egyptian mummies, in whose company he had spent so much of his life. His hair was white, like the substance of a prehistoric glacier. His eyes seemed as gray and hard as a stone-age flint; but mellowing their hardness was a friendly twinkle, mild as the sunlighted expanse of the Mediterranean just outside of the Blue Grotto at Capri.

  “What are fossils, Joe?” he demanded with fierce eagerness. “What are the ruins of ancient cities? What are fingerprints and footprints, and all the countless other things that show us vaguely what the past, both remote and recent, was like?

  “You know the answer, Joe. They are the records of events—of motion, of expended energy—left in the circumstance of matter! They are not like histories written in words, for, since they are the crystallized remnants of the actual happenings themselves, they are perfectly first-hand.

  “Each, under simple, visual inspection, tells a dim story. But all substance is extremely complex; it is composed of protons, electrons, atoms, and molecules in staggering numbers. These tiny units of matter must be able to receive and retain detailed impressions of surrounding events—impressions that we cannot see! Science, however, can often go beyond the limits of our senses.

  “You’re a physicist, Joe. Supposing there was a machine that could unravel the history stamped in the atomic structure of some object? A paleolithic arrowhead, for instance, or the skull of a dinosaur! Even light and sound must influence substance a little, perhaps leaving a permanent trace. If those traces could be reassembled properly, we’d be able to hear the ancient winds blow, and we could actually watch the cave men fight the saber tooth!”

  Josef Gaetz didn’t laugh at his friend’s odd idea. For a moment his round visage was thoughtful in the subdued light of the floor lamp in one corner of Gorgone’s study. Then he smiled. “Thanks, Fred,” he remarked. “Maybe you’ve given me a real inspiration.”

  FIVE YEARS LATER, in Gaetz’s darkened laboratory, the dream became fact. While Gorgone looked on, the physicist placed an oval chip of glistening, black obsidian in a crystal box which was part of the marvelously intricate apparatus that he had invented.

  The chip of volcanic glass was entirely unworked except for a small hole that had been drilled through its thinnest edge, probably by a man who had lived in paleolithic times, twenty-five or thirty thousand years ago. The object was not a tool; it was an ornament or charm, meant, no doubt, to be supported around the neck of the wearer by means of a thong.

  Gaetz twisted dials. There was a faint, crescendoing rustle within the invention born of his genius. A glow, soft and golden, enveloped the crystal case. Threads of golden flame, heatless and bizarre, lanced upward from the surface of the prehistoric ornament. Doubtless that flame had roots which, invisible to the eye, groped into the substance of the relic, finding within its myriad atoms the jumbled account of happenings with which it had been involved—happenings lost in the murk of dead aeons.

  From the lensed muzzle of a strange projector, pictures were thrown on a white screen near by. Color and motion were reproduced perfectly. Sounds issued from the speaker diaphragm behind the screen. Thus the past lived again.

  The first pictures and sounds were incalculably ancient, for the obsidian fragment from which they were drawn had existed not only a long time before some troglodyte had used it as an article of personal adornment. It was, in fact, almost as old as the solid crust of the earth.

  For a brief moment there was a winking glimpse of a steaming, lifeless dawn world, revealed in the screen—jagged, uneroded mountains and hills, ghost-like under a great, foggy sun; volcanic ash heaps; scattered scoria and chunks of rock. The sound diaphragm growled in short, staccato bursts, representing the concussions of vast, seismic upheavals.

  Gaetz turned the time control of his apparatus, probing more recent, though still tremendously distant, periods of antiquity. There were other glimpses of the developing earth, wrested from the records of matter. But between them were long gaps of darkness and almost complete silence, during which the lump of obsidian had evidently been buried, but erosion and quake occasionally brought it into contact with the open air.

  The two men saw the gray oceans and the vast storms of the azoic era. They saw the first polyps, and the first crude seaweed, sprawling on jagged beaches. They beheld Carboniferous jungles, steamy and dark, and weird as something ripped from the mind of a madman. They saw Tyrannosaurus rex, ruler of dinosaurs, battle Brontosaurus, and bring him down in a hog marsh, gloomy and awful under bright, blurred stars that formed no recognizable constellations.

  IT WAS HERE in the heart of the Mesozoic era, that they received their first, clouded hint of a fantastic mystery. In a little forest glade was a conical heap of stones, carefully piled; a cairn. Around it the ground was bare, like the floor of an arena. That was all. The place was deserted and silent, and for what must have been thousands of years afterward, the obsidian shard was deeply covered by the wreckage of a landslide. So, after their first glimpse of the strange encampment or ceremonial place, which was also engulfed, the scientists could learn no more of the latter’s secrets.

  “There were no men living in times as early as that,” Gaetz remarked.

  “No,” Gorgone agreed.

  The vivid portrayal of dawn-world history continued. The savants saw the first tiny mammals; and they glimpsed a bit of their gradual development of brain and body. At last, striding in crouched watchfulness through forest dusk, they beheld a man, or half man. Hairy, he was, with a low, slanting forehead, deep-set, brutish eyes, and long, muscular, apish arms. Perhaps he was Pithecanthropus erectus. Perhaps he was the slightly more human Eoanthropus.

  Ice ages came and went, produced by periodic changes in the form of the earth’s orbit, and by variations of the sun’s heat. With the final, and perhaps the fourth of these arctic periods, Homo Neanderthal, higher in the scale of evolution than previous sub-humans, appeared. After him came the Cro-Magnons, who were really men.

  Gaetz and Gorgone glimpsed roving bands of these painted, big-brained, brawny savages on three occasions, before the beginning of a more intimate contact with them. During each of these times, as before, when there had been something especially interesting to view, the physicist ceased turning the time control of his machine, so that the motion of pictorial detail would not be too swift for human eyes to follow.

  The obsidian fragment was now exposed, though partly imbedded, in a hillside dotted with coniferous trees. There were clumps of bushes, too, and weeds and daisies in the summer. In the winter there was deep snow in the valley beneath, though the high winds kept the hillsides fairly bare. The climate was cold-temperate, for the slow process of emergence from an age of ice was still in progress. Nevertheless, there were many warm, mellow days of drifting clouds and dappling sunshine.

  But peaceful though the scenery was, for the most part, there still were suggestions of menace far more striking than the frequent appearance of herds of vast, shaggy mammoths, bison, and reindeer, or the wanderings of lone cave bears and packs of fierce wolves.

  Not even the drums of the savage Cro-Magnons, that made the nights eerie with their heavy, thumping whisper, distant yet penetrating, really told the story of that menace, though there was here what seemed a vague, disturbing approach to the truth. It was the same with the signal fires that gleamed from beyond the opposite hilltops with a red, murky glow, and with the impassioned shouts of warriors, faint because of intervening miles of nocturnal silence.

  SOMETHING was wrong somewhere. The physicist and the old archaeologist felt the presence of deadly danger even before they saw the speck of flame drifting far up in the darkened sky
of a paleolithic midnight. The flame was like a small camp fire; yet camp fires are not built thousands of feet above ground, and they do not float at the whim of the wind. The sight of that flickering point of radiance, insignificant though it seemed, was enough to make the short hairs rise on the scalps of both Gaetz and Gorgone.

  They continued their search in silence, not venturing to exchange opinions; for their throats and lips were dry with awe, and opinions seemed pointless at this stage of uncertainty. Gradually, the physicist moved the time dial of his mechanism forward, skipping only days and weeks now, instead of millenniums and millions of years, as he had done before.

  Thus was reached the point where the piece of volcanic glass first came to a man’s attention, inspired a thought in his great, coarse brain, and provoked action in his muscles, and in his calloused but capable and artistic hands.

  He came toiling up the slope of the hill that was pictured in the Gaetz apparatus. His panting breath was plainly audible. He was a magnificent savage, well over six feet tall and broad in proportion. The scientists saw his broad, sparsely bearded face, shaped and painted like an Indian’s. Now, apparently, his eye was caught by the fragment of obsidian, which, from his point of view, must have glinted brightly in the rays of sunset. He stooped, and his hand reached out.

  Then the whole scene shifted and wobbled crazily, as he straightened, lifting the fragment of natural glass with him, and then descended the slope back toward the valley floor. But Gaetz and Gorgone saw his delighted grin, provoked, no doubt, by his find. Nevertheless, he uttered certain grumbling words which may have expressed something related to an aching and lifelong resentment.

  “Our little relic has found a friend at last,” Gorgone commented. “If this McCoy of all Cro-Magnons keeps it in his possession, we’ll almost be able to read his thoughts, because then we can observe his every move and expression. Maybe we’ll even be able to pick up a bit of his language.”

  Gaetz was just opening his mouth to reply, when a distant sound burst from the diaphragm behind the screen. Its possible significance was arresting to say the least. Sharp and explosive, it was not quite as sharp as the report of a rifle, but more like that of a musket. Could there be muskets in the paleolithic?

  At once there was a wild wavering of the view in the screen, as the Cro-Magnon scrambled instinctively for cover. But that his fright had not dissolved his courage was evinced by the fact that he did not drop the bright and intriguing bit of volcanic glass that he had picked up. From behind the bole of a large conifer, he took careful observation of the wooded valley. Clutched in one hand he now held a stubby-handled spear with a broad, flint blade, which had been thrust under the thong of his breech clout.

  “What the devil!” Gorgone blurted.

  But Gaetz held his finger to his lips in a silencing gesture.

  II.

  TO TARC the Cro-Magnon, tranquility was not even an ideal. He could not have known that such a state of existence was possible; and had he known, he would have despised it. In the nearness of danger and death, he found something that the habits of his time had made essential to his happiness.

  The shock of the distant explosion had startled him; there was no doubt of that. He had felt sudden fear; he had felt hatred; but still there was a paradoxical pleasantness in these emotions, a pleasantness which is the wine of life to all adventurers.

  Tarc was cooler now. The report had seemed to come from somewhere far off to his right, away from the hidden dwelling place of his tribe. And no sign of enemies could be seen in the valley before him. Thus, the necessity for immediate action was removed.

  It would be well to wait for darkness before attempting to return home. So Tarc threw himself down behind the trunk of the great tree, in the shelter of which he had sought refuge.

  His thoughts rambled without special purpose, bringing him, by turns, feelings of superstitious awe, of egotistic pride in the strength of his body, and of intense and almost morbid curiosity. He even sniffed with enjoyment the refreshing smell of pine needles. Tarc’s daring and his powerful muscles had made life easy for him. As yet, his mettle had not really been tested. In a way it was fortunate that he could not look ahead a few hours into the tumultuous future.

  He knew why all his kind was preparing for war, though he did not completely understand the nature of the gathering clouds. To the southeast, in the deep lowlands, near the great salt lakes, dwelt a wondrous folk whom his people had always dreaded; and those folk were only the favored servants of a race of demons, with powers incredible.

  Now, to the southwest, a new danger had developed, which was more devastating in its capacities than the other, though stripped of all mortal cunning. It was elemental and senseless, like a thunderstorm or a blizzard. It did not concern the Cro-Magnons directly, since they were highland dwellers; but it must inevitably lead to the cruel enslavement and death of many thousands of their numbers. The mighty ones, whose stone cities were beside the salt lakes, could be depended upon to do their best to save their empire from destruction.

  Tarc knew, too, what sort of device had produced the sharp, explosive sound, and why the cruel bearers of those devices had invaded the highlands. But this sketchy knowledge only served to elevate other, deeper and more marvelous enigmas into his consciousness.

  THE SUN set. Night fell, and under its concealment Tarc began his cautious approach to the refuge of his tribe. In his hand was still clutched the bright, obsidian fragment. From it he meant to fashion a protective charm; for behind its opalescent glitter it was easy for him to imagine that guardian devils were concealed, guardian devils whose help he would need in approaching crises, more than ever before.

  His way led him along a brambly forest trail. Following it for some distance, he came to a cleft in a high ridge of rocks. A water-cut tunnel, black as Erebus, led downward here.

  However, Tarc did not enter the passage at once; for a new sound, the like of which he had never heard before, caused his muscles to quiver with unrestive excitement. It was like the sound made by the throbbing wings of huge, nocturnal moths; only, though very faint, it obviously came from a great distance to the west, and hence, if heard from near by, must be loud indeed.

  Tarc’s grandmother had once described such a noise. Its significance, she had said, was more terrible than even that of the drifting things that bore fire through the sky; for it was the true mark of the evil demons who ruled the enemy. It was the growl of a flying dragon, which carried those demons wherever they wished to go.

  Only for a few seconds was the eerie droning audible. To the west its source had seemed to lay; and there, presently, it faded back into silence.

  But Tarc came out of his statuesque stance of listening, with a fresh scar on his soul. His self-assurance was pricked, and he felt inadequate, nervous and uneasy.

  Growling to himself, he descended into the thick darkness of the tunnel. Loose pebbles rattled under his feet as he hurried feverishly forward. Even though he could not see, he did not need to grope his way, for he was on familiar ground.

  He emerged at last into a kind of natural courtyard—the widened floor of a deep chimney in the rock. Through the opening far above, a few stars were visible in a patch of sky.

  However, there was other light here now, afforded by little blazes which arose from moss wicks set in shallow soapstone dishes which contained fat. These crude lamps were ensconced in niches in the walls. From the latter, in the flickering yellow illumination, peered big-eyed bison, mammoths, and other beasts of the age, painted in black and white, orange and brown. An offensive litter of bones and other refuse covered the floor.

  THERE WERE caves in the sides of the courtyard, and before the entrance of each, men and women, clad in crudely cured pelts, squatted, busy, for the most part, with the chipping and sharpening of stone weapons. But on Tarc’s arrival, all bowed their heads in respect, and in a singsong tone quoted together: “Lo-oo, Tarc! Lo-oo, Tarc!”

  Even the naked children, energe
tic but curiously quiet—for unnecessary noise might bring death or slavery upon the entire tribe—joined in to greet their chieftain.

  In return Tarc spoke two names of terrible meaning. “Atta Lan!” he said with soft emphasis. “Po-see-da!” Then, while his wide-eyed, nervous subjects listened, he recounted the details of his recent adventures. His bravado masked the fact that for once he himself was also uneasy.

  In the background, a young woman with a babe in her arms, crouched, listening worshipfully. She was Tota, Tarc’s wife. But knowing the customs of her people, she did not expect any notice from her lord, now that he was busy with matters that concerned the welfare of the clan.

  When Tarc had finished with his story, his subjects took up their work once more. There was a steady chip, chip, chip of stone, plied with small fist hammers, and with slender, flaking tools of horn.

  Long after his people had crawled into their holes to sleep, the chieftain toiled to prepare his protective charm. A small, cylindrical shaft of wood, tipped with a flake of hard emery, spun between his palms, the point gradually drilling a hole through the thin edge of the refractory fragment of obsidian. When the task was finished, Tarc hung the ornament around his neck by means of a rawhide thong.

  Now he arose, and listened momentarily for sounds of danger. But there was nothing to hear other than the muted rustle of the wind in the chimney-like shaft above. Horror might hide behind that dreamy whisper, yet no one could detect its presence.

  Next Tarc entered a cave mouth in the wall. Flickers of yellow light from the single lamp which still burned in the courtyard, probed into the shadowy interior, showing dimly the positions of reed baskets, heaped pelts, and piles of dried rushes.