Hell Stuff For Planet X

by Raymond Z. Gallun

  And at the entrances to deep cellars, small red signs with white bombs painted on them, were posted. Each sign mentioned the number of people the cellar could accommodate, when the sirens howled....

  The diplomats had ceased to wrangle. Frontiers were sealed, and in buried forts along the line, men watched from behind guns that yet were silent... Filed hordes of snub-nosed things, with bulging rocket-tubes streamlined into their flanks, crouched before their camouflaged hangars, grimly ready, but silent and moveless, still....

  Poppies bloomed and Europe dreamed. But over all her mood of old, old towers and antique mellowness, Death smiled, leaning on his scythe. No one shouted and no one sang. Yet in the sand and earth of sunny parks, there were the prints of hobnail boots....

  ERICH KETTERER knew that they would try to murder him tonight, because he was—war. And few indeed wanted war. So Erich Ketterer was careful. He had spoken. And the world had gone hushed. Now he said nothing. The general mobilization order was out. Tomorrow.... Erich Ketterer smiled. And it was like the slow cracking of a block of pale granite....

  For Erich Ketterer’s face was like that—all angles and lines and faintly cadaverous hollows, with the coldness of granite and steel. Maybe Wodin, the war god, had looked a little like that too....

  Once again it had happened. Beyond the Rhine, and out of the ashes of another defeat, a people had rebuilt its way once more, for the world to marvel. Industry, patience, pride, genius, kindliness—all these virtues were theirs, and more. A strange people, they were, a docile people, full of idealism that sometimes could change to childish cruelty. They were dangerous because they were easy to control. And, like children, you could tell them anything—sometimes.

  That was how Erich Ketterer had risen to power—from nothing. Promising relief from the terrible economic miseries of defeat—promising the rebirth of world prestige—he had gained absolute control. Perhaps he had led in the right direction for a while; but now the coffers were empty, militarism was a terrific load, and there was only one way for him to save his face, as his boundless egotism demanded: Turn to war, in the hope of gaining foreign plunder.

  Blood purge and punishment had been the whip which he had applied ruthlessly to hold the reins of state. He’d been without conscience, and without mercy—more cruel than Genghis Khan. Still, the majority of the great nation he ruled, had continued to love him, or at least to tolerate him. But now, even through the net of censorship, the certainty of war had reached them....

  They knew what war meant. They’d had too many hard lessons not to know. Millions of them still living had felt starvation in the last great conflict. And if war came now, it would be the old story all over again, almost certainly—a magnificent, blazing, horrible start, then the slow, grinding defeat of the siege.... Then capitulation, followed by misery, desperate poverty, and—guilt. Again....

  So, in many hearts, love flickered and died.

  Erich Ketterer had prepared for the resulting danger to himself, months in advance. The room in which he now stood, with his small, loyal aide, Ludwig Lietz, should have been the safest place in the world.

  It was buried a hundred meters below ground, and was shielded on all sides by layer on layer of reinforced concrete, and repeated thicknesses of the best armor plate. Every cubic centimeter of air within the room was filtered.

  The place looked homey, like an old Bavarian rathskeller—stone floor, rough-hewn furniture—jolly gnomes, and sayings and song verses in quaint Gothic print, painted on the walls. The electric lights were held in odd sconces of medieval iron work. There was even a great fireplace with an electric log.

  But yet, somehow, there seemed to lurk in the room, intangibly and unseen, a concentrated aura of hate, like a thousand hidden swords of Damocles, pendent and threatening in the stillness. The mood of destruction clung somehow, even about the gleaming, hermetic bolts of the gigantic steel door that sealed the room, and was meant to protect the man who had made himself a god. That same mood lingered, too, in the glitter of the instruments on the table in the corner—instruments that were meant to reveal danger which human senses alone could neither see nor feel nor hear.

  Hate. The hate of the world, beyond the frontiers, and of millions within. Erich Ketterer was the one serious obstacle to peace. And so, out of hate, cleverness must sprout in hundreds of brilliant, thorough minds that thought only of freedom—patient minds, scientific minds, great as those of Rontgen and Hertz and Koch of another day.

  Erich Ketterer knew all this and was ready. Science was advanced now, and it was well to be cautious. He could not help but realize that many men whom he did not know well had helped to build this refuge and the parts that composed it. And those men, doubtless, had secret thoughts of their own, just as they had technical skill at their command. Skill, they had, to hide their cleverness from discovery, even under the closest inspection.

  And so Ketterer waited with Ludwig Lietz, the little scientist who had been his devoted companion for twenty years....

  Presently Ketterer heard a faint hum, shrill and high... near his head... receding away—coming closer again, as if to touch him.... His hard, defiant smile dissolved into a leer of grimness and tension. His great, stubby palms grew faintly moist with the eeriness of it all. He stepped back cautiously, and his military boots clicked on the stone floor....

  And then he identified that hum. His mind had been too far from common things at first for him to do so.

  “Nur ein kleines Moskito!” he burst out raggedly. —Only a little mosquito!...

  At first he wanted to laugh and to curse himself. This was an anticlimax—a joke!

  But swiftly he realized—remembered—that this could be no joke at all—unless it was a joke of death! How could this mosquito be here—when all the air that entered this room was filtered even of dust particles and microbes—unless it had been brought for a grim purpose?

  Ludwig Lietz was instantly in action to protect his master. His big, rabbit-like eyes were wide with concern and his withered face was drawn as he leaped to a safety-supply locker and jerked out two leaded, rubberized garments, equipped with hoods and goggles. There was no need for him to say anything, as he helped Ketterer draw one of the protective garments over his massive legs and body. Not until he had donned the other garment himself, did Ludwig speak, from within his hood....

  “Es sind die kleinen Dinge die verraten,” he said quietly. “—It is the small things that betray.... The odor of a rose, Excellenz, could be lethal gas.... The color of a soft cushion could be poison—acting through the skin. Smoke, incautiously inhaled from a cigarette, could bring eternal sleep.... Malaria mosquitoes can carry malaria germs in their stomachs. But if there was an ingenious man who could persuade some of these insects to sip at a special culture, they could carry other germs in their stomachs—bacteria like those developed in the new Biologisches Versuchs Laboratorium in Munich. Sure mortality in six hours—one’s blood rotting. I know. I am a scientist.... That that insect is here is enough to reveal its purpose, since the air filters are active. It is not necessary to make tests. Had the mosquito bitten you, asleep or awake, you would be doomed....”

  “DESTROY! DESTROY!”

  IT WAS like a grey, chill night falling in Erich Ketterer’s heart. He had known before what sort of thing to expect, but now he realized. They’d found at least one way to reach him—his enemies, even in his steel and concrete vault. They might have been successful, too....

  Erich Ketterer’s crooked lips fell apart momentarily, in awe and dread. The silence seemed to mock him. Those gnomes, painted over the fireplace, seemed to mock him with their sly, cherubic smiles, that somehow promised more hidden, unknown danger. Modern science applied to the fine art of murder.... An undetectable flaw in metal, or a bubble in hardened masonry might hold the seeds of death, for all he could say.... Every breath he drew might be dangerous. Every slight move he made might be his last—the releasing agent of some inscrutably concealed hair-trigger.... Ev
en here, in this safest place in all the world!

  And then, to Erich Ketterer, out of all these sinister ruminations, came fury. His stiff, short hair seemed to bristle beneath his protecting hood. Who had done this thing? Who had released that tiny mosquito here?—some workman, doubtless; but there was surely another, of which he was only the tool!—some crazy devotee of democracy and freedom, but cold and gifted....

  Someone who knew biology in its most recent developments. Someone who knew the human system. A physician, perhaps? The leathery crow’s feet at the corners of Erich Ketterer’s eyes crinkled as he concentrated. Some foreign doctor? Some hated enemy democrat? No, it was unlikely that any foreigners would be active here, approaching so close to the inner circle....

  Someone else. Someone native, and from the skill of it all—noted. Ketterer’s massive jaw was hard as he considered names and personalities. He knew them all—a little. One by one he weighed them, with the shrewdness of an inexorable avenger. And it was almost easy to judge.... One who liked those fine methods—one who toyed lovingly with the intricate subtleties of things that seemed insignificant.... Shrewdly Ketterer built a picture of his would-be killer.... Oh, he was clever himself in his sharp deductions! Let no one doubt that!

  Steinbart... Herr Doktor Johann Steinbart... a little man who talked very slowly, and whose eyes glowed, always, with hidden thoughts.... Famous both in the fields of surgery and bacteriology.... He had hands that were almost miniature.... And a genius for the minute, the exact.... It would be easy for him to be a traitor. Yet few besides himself would know, before he acted. A necessary workman helper, perhaps, but no one else....

  “Steinbart!” Ketterer uttered the name aloud, now, with clipped conviction.

  His grey eyes, behind the goggles of his hood, were narrowed. Quickly, and by habit, his gaze groped for the visiphone, on the instrument-covered table in the corner. He would only have to make a short call, mention a name, and the Geheimpolizei—the Secret Police—would do the rest. In Karlsruhe there would be a quiet funeral in the morning....

  Ketterer remembered that it was best to move slowly. So Ludwig Lietz reached the phone before him....

  “Wait, Excellenz,’’ he said with a faint tremor in his voice. “Let me—first....”

  Lietz took the receiver off the hook, gingerly, his fingers covered by the heavy, leaded gantlets of his protective garment. He did not touch the buttons that controlled the television screen. He only snapped the verbal-communicator switch. But he did not place the receiver to the screened ear-vent of his hood. Instead he held it away from his body, and toward the wall....

  Ketterer watched with dawning suspicion, in which imps of terror lurked. Yet he saw nothing, at first. He heard nothing within the range of his ears....

  THEN Lietz edged a lead-and-rubber clad forefinger toward the center of the receiver’s complex diaphragm—with infinite caution. Just for a second the very tip of that gloved digit hovered there, above that small, black, laminated cone.... Lietz looked startled—jerked his hand away.... Nervously he unfastened the zippers that attached the gantlet to the sleeve of his protective suit, and ripped the covering from his fingers....

  “I did not feel anything,” he said with an odd, blurred mildness. “Only a little numb sensation. But look...”

  The rounded part of his forefinger, beyond the end of the nail, bore a tiny white mark.

  “Cooked,” Lietz went on, in the same confused tone which he had used before. “Cooked, not with heat, but with super-sound vibrations, too fine and swift for us to hear. Science did the same thing, thirty years ago—cooking eggs with sound.... And if you had put that receiver to your head, it would have been—your brain....”

  Erich Ketterer paled with the startlement of one who has found that the Scythe has passed him by, within a hair’s-breadth distance. For the moment he even forgot anger. Only awe remained.

  “They erred. They were careless,” he muttered thickly. “The inspectors here.... Or else they were disloyal too. The visiphone. Someone tampered with it—put something into the receiver—something—else.... Other traps might have been missed, but not this—not in the general equipment checkover.... But the inspectors did not find anything wrong with the visiphone....”

  “It was not their fault, I am sure,” Ludwig Lietz returned. “There is nothing wrong—with the instrument here. Everything is perfect—perhaps too perfect. The receiver, the reproducer.... Such things are made very wonderfully now. They can reproduce all sounds—even those beyond our ears.... And someone, perhaps far away, tapped the line, attached a microphone—sent waves of super-sound....”

  Ludwig’s voice was a dry, hoarse rustle....

  But Erich Ketterer’s anger flared again, even in the face of the heavy stillness around him, and the shadows that clung and haunted, reminding him that even steel and concrete might sometimes be futile. He was still master, wasn’t he? Twice they’d tried to kill him. Twice they’d failed.... Those traitors who were too cowardly for war....

  “Send in code, Ludwig!” Ketterer ordered. “The Secret Police. Steinbart and Marsch.... For this is Gerhardt Marsch’s work this time. He is the great sonic expert. And twice he has been suspected of democratic agitation!”

  Ketterer felt a flash of his old-time confidence, as he gave this order to his aide. A thrill of fierce pride went through him, as he thought of his armies at the frontiers. His hordes of huge tanks. His carefully organized system of supply.... Above ground, over his buried refuge, was his personal guard, entrenched to protect him. And in scattered, sheltered places near the frontier, and near his great cities, were the rocket planes, thousands of them—the hugest armada in the world—within fifteen minutes’ striking distance of London and Paris!...

  Why not? The thought suddenly hit him. Why not now? Give the order at this very moment for those planes to strike! The new bombs could be dropped from a great height, beyond the range of anti-aircraft barrages. Accuracy meant little when you really bombed a metropolis—just an avalanche of projectiles....

  By early morning, two cities would be in smoking, shattered ruins. There would be only a few hoarse cries of agony by then. Fog.... Wisps of smoke and lethal vapors. Fire crackling.... The enemy would be horrified. Dumb.... But full of the cold, implacable lust for vengeance.... Then his—Erich Ketterer’s people—would have to fight. They would have to be loyal to him, then. They wouldn’t dare revolt—the stupid, stolid, industrious fools—because they would be pledged to either victory or destruction....

  Why had he waited at all? Why hadn’t he given the order immediately—even yesterday? It was silly to wait. It looked—weak. Well, it didn’t matter now—one moment more.... Erich Ketterer stood almost casually now, his slow, terrible smile hidden by his goggled hood.

  Ludwig was tapping out a message on the telegraph key—gingerly, as though he thought the little instrument might explode at any moment. Let Ludwig finish the message. Let the Secret Police know, so that, in the background of holocaust, they could crush—the fleas....

  Now Ludwig was finished with his unimportant tapping. And Erich Ketterer gave his order with the same clipped casualness that he might have used at a bridge game:

  “I have decided, Ludwig. The general aerial attack is to take place at once. Tonight. Wire to Dusseldorf.... They will spread the word....”

  Lietz’s great eyes flickered a little in startlement; but he obeyed the command of his master at once....

  HATE FINDS A WAY

  HIS finger jerked up and down rhythmically. The clicking of the key was almost pretty, with its broken intermittence, Ketterer thought. Like the tinkling of a little music box.... Trivial.... Deadly.... In a quarter-hour.... Paris and London.... And a good answer—in its own way—to those who mixed triviality with sudden death—mosquitoes and plague germs and dark poisons—sounds that came unheard out of a visiphone receiver, to destroy brain tissue; dark, diabolic treachery. Concealed destruction.... Once the war was under way, much of this danger
of assassination would end. Pledged with blood spilled, loyalty and unity would be the one hope—as even the would-be tyrant slayers would realize. Ketterer knew he would be freer then—he would not have to stay cooped up always in an underground cell.

  Ludwig finished with his telegraphy. They would be getting ready now, out there. Ketterer pictured it all in his mind—young men in flying clothes, climbing into cockpits, waving to each other on the dim-lit runways.... There would be no need to load bomb-racks, for they were ready. Everything was ready. It was only necessary to press the proper controls. Rockets would flame, and the swift raid would be on.

  But now Erich Ketterer’s attention was drawn away a little. Ludwig Lietz was staring anxiously at the instruments on the table—instruments meant to detect danger, meter needles that had been at rest before had begun to move and sway—mysteriously.

  “What has happened?” Ketterer questioned sharply.

  “I don’t know,” said Lietz. “Wait quietly. Be ready....”

  Be ready.... Ready for anything! Ketterer knew! But his confidence was high, as memories and dreams rushed through his brain.... Wodin.... Crowds and cheers.... Banners.... Glory....

  And then he began to hear a noise... scarcely audible at first, but growing gradually. A steady grinding, deep in the earth, something that seemed to rotate, with a regular, repeated, ominous rhythm. Nearer... Nearer... everything seemed to wait, with hushed uncertainty, even the inscrutably glowing lights, and the grinning gnomes over the fireplace. The good-humored faces of the gnomes seemed somehow a trifle sardonic now, and sad, as though, after a dragging, tortured minute, they wouldn’t be there any more—as though they would be blasted, torn, fused out of existence. Which?