Tales of the Shadowmen 4: Lords of Terror

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  “Good job, Otho,” Curt said. “If they think I’m there, they’ll strike here any second. You and Simon head back as quickly as you can. Grag and I will prepare a surprise for our visitors.”

  Curt flashed a hand signal to Grag, then pressed a button on his belt and vanished from sight.

  The green man and his two companions seemed to appear from nowhere. St. Menoux had metal object the size of a small suitcase in his hand. Stark and Smith carried heat ray pistols that they used to menace the crowd.

  “Please, stay calm!” Stark called out. “We’re not here to harm anyone but we have a bomb. If the police attempt to stop us, we will set it off immediately and everyone here will be killed. To prevent this, we want you to evacuate the dome immediately.”

  “Stark!” Halk Anders bellowed. “You know that the government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.”

  “Are you saying that you refuse to take these people to safety?” the big man demanded.

  Anders frowned. After a moment, he barked an order to his men.

  “Evacuate the dome! We can deal with these men when the diplomats are safe.”

  Suddenly, a thin blue beam came from nowhere to strike St. Menoux in the chest. The tall man gasped and collapsed gracelessly into a pile of jutting knees and elbows. Stark swore and leaped at the source of the blast. He collided with something and began to thrash around on the ground.

  “What is it?” Smith cried.

  Stark didn’t answer as he continued to grapple with an unseen foe. A moment later, Curt Newton’s muscular form shimmered into view. He had used an invention of his own, a light bending device, to lay an ambush. It had been difficult, for the device also kept any light from reaching his eyes. The shot that had stunned St. Menoux had been calculated using his highly trained sense of hearing.

  “This is all going to Hell,” Northwest Smith gritted. “I have to set off the bomb!”

  As he turned back towards St. Menoux, he saw a seven-foot man of metal charging him. He raised his heat-ray and fired, striking the robot in the torso. The metal of Grag’s body began to glow but he continued to press forward.

  “That was enough to roast a Neptunian ursal!” Smith exclaimed.

  “My body is made of inertite!” Grag’s voice boomed. “Your puny weapon cannot harm me!”

  The robot reached out and crushed Smith’s gun with one hand. He let loose a devastating punch with the other, but the outlaw managed to dodge the blow. He ducked past the giant automaton, trying desperately to stay away from the killing power of those hands.

  Nearby, Curt Newton was trying every super-jujitsu trick he had ever learned. The big adventurer had mastered a dozen fighting arts from boxing to Venusian aikido, but in Erik John Stark he had met an equal. Stark’s massive muscles were a match for his own and his civilized veneer had slipped away, leaving an unrelenting savage.

  Both men had lost their pistols in their struggle. They made no attempt to recover them as they rose to their feet. Curt parried a powerful punch and countered by chopping at a nerve center on his opponent’s neck. Stark shifted slightly so that his big shoulder muscles absorbed the blow. He rammed his fist into Curt’s stomach, causing the Earthman to fall back a step.

  Captain Future fell back, matching cool strategy against his opponent’s savage cunning. There weren’t many openings in Stark’s defenses but he was to slip in a jab here and there. The blows weren’t very damaging but, little by little, he was scientifically picking the man apart.

  Curt landed a stinging shot on his opponent’s solar plexus. Stark staggered and his hands went down to guard his body. It was the chance Captain Future had been waiting for and his leg shot up for a disabling kick to the head.

  The blow never landed. Stark slipped under it and swept Curt Newton’s standing leg. The next instant, they were on the ground with the outlaw’s cabled forearm locked around Curt’s neck.

  Then it happened.

  The flag began to change. Its colors and patterns shifted into words. They spelled out: Hiroshima! Nagasaki! With the compliments of Madame Atomos.

  Curt Newton and Erik John Stark, locked in their deathgrip, didn’t see the change. But Northwest Smith did. He leaped past Grag and grabbed something from St. Menoux’s body. He reached the flag and began to spray it with a small can. He heard the robot’s heavy footsteps closing on him but he never stopped. He was still spraying when the metal fist came down on his head.

  Yards away, Curt struggled with all his might against the choke that was stealing his precious oxygen. It was rare that he underestimated an opponent, but he had this time, and it might be the last. He drove his elbow back into Stark’s torso and felt ribs bend, but the terrible pressure never lessened.

  “At least, I’ve delayed him,” he thought. “Halk’s men will be on him before he can do anything.”

  Abruptly, the pressure vanished and Stark’s powerful body was plucked away. Curt forced his eyes to focus and saw that Grag had the dark man in an unbreakable metal grip.

  “Are you all right, Master?” the big robot boomed. “I shall crush him for hurting you!”

  Curt shook his head violently. It was a moment before he could force words from his bruised throat.

  “Just hold him,” the young planeteer said. “I don’t want any more killing if we can help it.”

  “As nearly as I can determine, it is a form of micro-technology,” the Brain said. “The flag was impregnated with millions of microscopic robots that followed a programmed set of instructions. I can’t say if they reacted to the presence of so many people, or if they were simply timed to activate at a set interval after the dome was filled with air.”

  “But what harm could micro-robots do?” Halk Anders asked.

  “Anti-matter,” Curt Newton answered. “Each nanometer-long robot carried an atom of anti-deuterium. Together, there was enough to trigger a 22 kiloton explosion. The same force as the Hiroshima bomb.” His eyes cut to Smith’s unmoving body. “That man saved us all.”

  “Master, I have done a terrible thing.” Grag’s mechanical voice sounded mournful.

  “We all regret it, Grag,” Curt said, “but there was no way you could have known.”

  “At least, we are alive to regret it,” the Brain added. “The anti-matter is frozen in time, hopefully forever. Still, I think this area should remain off-limits until we have more time to better understand the properties of noelite.”

  “Stark,” Curt said. “I’ll do everything in my power to gain clemency for you. As far as I’m concerned, you and your friends were the heroes here today.”

  Erik John Stark stared at Smith’s lifeless body. His own hands were bound with magnetic shackles. He raised his head to say something. Then he vanished.

  St. Menoux had come to as the men were talking. He wasn’t certain what had happened, but he didn’t want to take chances. He pressed the device on his chest and the world froze around him. He moved to Erik John Stark and pulled him out of the time stream.

  Stark had explained what had happened and the traveler had adjusted his control again. They went back in time a few minutes, to the instant before Grag’s metal fist struck Northwest Smith’s skull. They snatched the roguish pilot away from a death that had already befallen him.

  “The green hills of Earth,” Northwest Smith murmured. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them.”

  The three travelers sat in the same café where St. Menoux had first met Stark. Through the miracle of noelite, they had arrived days before their raid on Tranquility Base so the authorities hadn’t even begun to look for them.

  “I don’t understand,” Stark said. “Doesn’t coming back in time like this undo what we did in the future, the same way you undid Smith’s death?”

  St. Menoux shook his head.

  “One can’t change the future,” he said. “The timeline in which he is killed still exists. I have only created, or perhaps discovered, a different possible future. I know that idea may be unsettling.”r />
  Smith shrugged.

  “I’m happy enough with the results that I’m not going to lose any sleep over the metaphysics.”

  St. Menoux nodded, and wished that he could adopt such a practical view.

  “Much as I appreciate being alive, and getting paid, I think it’s time for me to go,” Smith continued. “I haven’t been welcome on Earth for a long time. Can I give you a lift somewhere, Stark?”

  “I have business on Venus,” the big man answered. “A friend is missing there.”

  St. Menoux studied them as they planned for the future, then he touched the control on his chest and vanished. He returned home a second after he had left. Annette was there with the same quiet smile he remembered. Through the miracle of noelite, he could revisit that smile as often as he wanted. He would never have to see his lover age, or endure change in his world.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  St. Menoux thought back to Tranquility Base. Had Gorham Johnson really landed there in 1971 or had it been Neil Armstrong in 1969? Was the flag supposed to be the United Earth banner, or that of the United States?

  “I saved the future,” he said, “but I’m just not certain it was the future I meant to save.”

  “In any case,” she said, “I’m glad you did it.”

  Harry Dickson, sub-titled “The American Sherlock Holmes,” is one of the most popular of all European Holmesian pastiches. Created in Germany in 1907, relaunched in Holland in 1927, then recreated in Belgium in 1929, it lasted until 1938 and most of its 178 issues are still in print today. Dickson is a hybrid of Holmes and Nick Carter, and his adventures took a definite turn towards the fantastique when they started being ghost-written by notorious Flemish author Jean Ray. Our regular contributor Bill Cunningham revisits his first Tales of the Shadowmen story, which featured Fascinax, another anonymously-created pulp hero, and continues his bleak narrative of a world hurling along towards the madness and the terror of World War II…

  Bill Cunningham: Fool Me Once...

  London, 1928

  The fog enshrouded the silhouette as he melded with the shadows between the cobblestone street’s few remaining gas lamps. His wardrobe was well-suited for this purpose, garbed as he was head to toe in black. His footsteps made barely a tap, muffled by the dripping water of the numerous pipes wrapped around the tenements.

  “Would ya’ be lookin’ fer company there, Guvnor?” came the sickly-sweet, lurid voice from out one of the side alleys that criss-crossed the dodgy London district like arteries. The voice came out of the darkness and presented itself as a young red-headed woman. Pretty, but not overly so, her low-cut blouse and high-cut skirt marking her as one of the street whores who littered this landscape. Her makeup was thick and bold across her face, but her manner bespoke something more than mere prostitution as she stood poised for any potential action from the dark figure.

  The silhouette smiled and gentlemanly removed his hat, moving forward into the light to reveal his features.

  “As lovely as that prospect may be, young lady, it would keep me from my work. I have long to go before I sleep.”

  “Oh, it’s you, sir. Lovely night for a stroll.”

  The gentleman nodded, noticing the woman’s strong left hand curled around some object she held ready in the dark should he make a wrong move. Nothing like good training.

  “It’s a bit too foggy for my taste. I prefer the warmer air of the day,” he responded. Upon hearing the proper response, the woman relaxed and brought her left hand into the light. There, in her practiced grip, was a shiny stiletto that was no virgin to bloodshed. She flipped the blade, lifted her leg and placed the weapon–what Limehouse denizens would call a pigsticker–into her garter. The gentleman smiled again.

  “You may also tell your lady friends behind me to relax. The proper code phrase has, after all, been given.”

  Behind the man, two more girls stepped out of the foggy night wielding more deadly stilettos ready to swarm and sting their gentleman caller. The redhead waived them off, and she dropped her gutter accent, adopting a higher level, yet still public school, mode of speech and manner.

  “You’ll have to forgive them, sir. It’s not every day that you come to call–especially these days. It must be important.”

  The man smiled again, revealing the same strong-jawed grin the redhead remembered when she “graduated” from the Ministry’s training academy–the man who made them agents, who stood for all they trained for–honor, security, Empire.

  “Indeed. It is encouraging that you are prepared for just such an event… as always. It speaks to your dedication.” The red-head smiled, happy they had earned even that small show of respect from their superior.

  “It’s all quiet, sir. We’re waiting for day shift to come on in a couple of hours.”

  “Excellent. That should be plenty of time.” The gentleman absently tossed his hand back and then forth as if making a point, and with that simple gesture, the ladies’ fates were sealed. Thin, finger-sized needle darts flew out of his hand, whistled through the air, hitting all three of his targets in the space of a heartbeat. The trio jerked their heads back in shock as the poison in the needles did its work.

  By the time all three ladies felt the sharp points pierce their skin, and then the racing numbness of the poison, the gentleman became one with the shadows along the side of the alley building. In another heartbeat, the trio fell to the ground and shook in seizures.

  The gentleman searched the rooftops around him. He could see nothing but the foggy night. Confident of his solitude, he stepped away from the wall and walked through the parade of bodies at his feet to the opposite side of the passage.

  He looked down to see the last of his twitching victims, the red-head, her small hands curling and twisting uncontrollably. Her eyes looked up at him, as if to ask “Why?” The silhouette said nothing, but floated past her, his footsteps guiding him to the brick wall of the warehouse. In his eyes, the warehouse was more important business to see to than her inevitable death. As the young woman’s hands curled in spasm, the gentleman ran his hands along the bricks.

  The alleyway played havoc with Harry Dickson’s nostrils. It was bad enough having to be awakened this early in the morning, but to travel across town before breakfast taxed even his sense of curiosity and justice, especially when every sewer grate and rain gutter in the area disgorged such repellent vapors.

  However, when the head of British Intelligence calls, you come immediately. Dickson supposed the summons was due to his burgeoning reputation as a “man of action.” Unlike other “consulting detectives” who haunted Baker Street, Dickson was one who dove in and “got his hands dirty” to see that a case was handled properly and justice dispensed. Never before had he been asked to prowl these haunts, and certainly not at this early hour.

  Dickson knew of these alleys–passages that had seen as much blood and vice as rain. It made him wary of any and all things around him. The detective looked up and saw the occasional figure perched on the rooftops or from an upper story window. They were being watched. It must be a crisis for M to summon him here, and to take this many precautions. Dickson clutched his cane, weighing these variables in his mind. As the messenger from the Ministry led him along the maze of narrow streets and alleys, sometimes backtracking to evade any possible pursuers, Dickson kept his agile eyes busy, and his thin-cheeked mouth shut.

  “Hunter! Over here!” The basso voice of M echoed across the dark alley. Dickson looked up to see the head of His Majesty’s Secret Service surrounded by several nondescript men. This M (for it was a title, not a name) was dressed in the finest hand-tailored Savile Row, despite the earliness of the hour. Ever ready, thought Dickson as he remembered their first meeting, and had sized this M up rather quickly.

  M had a sense of entitlement to his manner, no doubt due to his upbringing and family ties, as well as a no-nonsense way of communicating with his subordinates. A gesture, or even a look, were enough to send his agents i
nto action. That entitlement was reflected in his fashion–elegant, yet authoritarian. This M was a spy through and through–a fountain of silence and subtlety, giving Dickson the feeling that he always knew far more than he ever let on. As if by his silence and judging nature, M led him to the conclusion he knew all along, but wanted Dickson to solve on his own.

  He thought that’s why he and M had gotten along over the years. Dickson liked a good mystery, wrapped in a conundrum–something to hone his skills. M was more than happy to provide, even though the spy master was often forbidden from divulging too much to the “American Sherlock Holmes.”

  It was the direction of M’s gaze that immediately drew Dickson into that mystery. On the ground were three bodies of women twisted at odd angles, as if frozen. Dickson took the scene into his formidable analytical mind. He kneeled down over the bodies, drew a deep breath and he was back in the game, analyzing the minutest detail.

  M held out his hand, but Dickson ignored it, preferring instead to peruse the three bodies that lay before him, reconstructing what happened to the three beauties. The men surrounding them took note of the snub, but seeing M’s expression, said nothing. That is until Dickson lifted one of the ladies’ skirts and looked underneath. “See here, sir!” piped up one of the agents, shocked at such a crude, ungentlemanly display. Dickson looked up at M as if to ask if he could continue. M waved his hand and the agent hushed himself. One of England’s keenest detectives was analyzing the crime scene before him, and when that occurred, nothing was allowed to stand in his way.

  Dickson pulled down the woman’s dress, stood and walked around the corpses. His hand was on his chin as he put the pieces together in his mind, but something puzzled the sleuth. Dickson looked up at M and asked, “What were they protecting? What was so important that it took a highly trained, highly skilled man to murder your three operatives?”