Synthetic Men

by Ed Earl Repp

  Charles Weston called again: “Hurry, Dave! They’ll kill you if they get the chance.”

  A spell of mystery gripped Dave. They reached the foot of the hill and scrambled desperately toward the top, scarcely knowing what the hurry meant. It was when they had nearly reached the top that the first hissing “spangggs” began to burst about them. Patches of ground leaped and smouldered, to reveal rough holes as the black smoke drifted away.

  Then they were sprinting after the elderly scientist. Suddenly the ground seemed to swallow him. Hurrying up, Dave and Helen saw a cylindrical hole in the ground. The four of them plunged through almost without pause.

  Still the chase went on. Weston yanked down a lever in the wall of the tunnel and then hurried ahead. Dim lights in the ceiling gave what illumination existed.

  For fifteen minutes the nightmare of running down straight, rock-walled tunnels, of breaking sharply to left or right when branches presented themselves, went on. When all were nearly exhausted, Charles Weston staggered into a meanly lighted little cavern and stopped.

  The meeting between him and his son was simple, almost wordless; yet every man in the cave knew what they were feeling.

  “You shouldn’t have come, Dave,” the white-haired physicist reproved at last. “Not a man of us can ever leave Lost Valley alive. Even if we escaped Garth and his devils, death would wait for us beyond the dividing plane.”

  “You didn’t think I’d go back with this job unfinished, did you?” Dave grinned happily. “We’ll find a way out. . . . But first—”

  “First,” Weston said grimly, “you must meet our fellow prisoners. Marnok—my son!”

  There was a movement at the far end of the cavern. Dave saw now what he had not noticed before—that the walls were lined with strange beings who stood in silence.

  A tall, slender man—Dave thought of him as a man immediately, though he was certainly not an Earthman—stepped from the throng. He wore a loose-fitting uniform of green material that looked like metal, yet stirred as freely as silk.

  His body was more than six feet tall, slender to emaciation, but graceful looking withal. His face was a deep copper color. The eyes that burned on Dave were red as fire, piercing in their brittle luster. Across his lofty forehead was stretched a thin silver cord, at whose center was affixed a silver plate in the shape of a diamond.

  He spoke, the words springing into Dave’s mind as if by magic. His lips did not move, but the little disk quivered slightly.

  “Ever the young must learn by bitter experience,” he said softly. “Yet it is not in my heart to reprimand such loyalty. We who must die can yet admire those who possess the qualities we have strived for.”

  Dave heard Bill’s muttered words, and almost found it in himself to smile. “Cheerful soundin’ cuss! Never heard such pessimism in all my born days!”

  While Marnok spoke, all the strange people had been closing in on the little group. Quick suspicion leaped into Dave’s mind. His father sensed it.

  “Trust Marnok and his people as you would me,” he whispered. “It’s those others we’ve got to look out for.”

  Marnok smiled, interpreting Weston’s words, though he could not have heard them.

  “You said we were prisoners,” Dave said. “Why is that? And who are you, Marnok?”

  “We are those who came in the ‘meteorite,’ ” the strange man said. “You call our former home Jupiter. We came from there seeking escape from slow death—only to find a quicker one.”

  Helen Lodge gasped. “Jupiter!” her whispered word came. In fright she stared at the curious faces about her.

  Again it was Charles Weston who quieted their fears. “Marnok tells the truth,” he said. “Jupiter is facing extinction in another thousand years, by an explosion sure to come. For many years the planet has been contracting, until a terrific inner heat has been developed. The surface is so brittle, unlike that of Earth, that such things as volcanoes are unknown. Marnok came seeking salvation for his race.”

  A babble of disjointed thoughts burst into Dave’s mind. Somehow he knew that he was hearing the doleful reflections of the score or so of Jovians circling them.

  “Silence!” It was Marnok whose curt order stifled the bedlam. “Hear our story, and judge then whether your friend who came before you was not right in warning you away from here.”

  The things he spoke of, in the long, aching moments that followed, kept them all rigid with interest. At first they were unbelieving, then apprehensive, and finally—frightened, with a fear none of them had ever known!

  CHAPTER V

  Death in the Caves

  “We have long known,” the grave-faced ruler began, “that we must desert our home if the race of Jovians was to survive. While the surface of the planet became increasingly hotter, our supply of water grew smaller and smaller. It was when we were in danger of extinction through lack of water that one of our scientists, dead now for five hundred years, invented Arthonite—the metal which has preserved us this long.

  “Arthonite has the property of producing in even the commonest elements the phenomenon you know as ‘radiation.’ This process, he discovered, simply consists of the atoms of a certain element losing a steady stream of electrons from their mass. As the element lost more and more electrons, it lost weight, changed its characteristics, and became, as you might have guessed, the next lower element in the atomic scale.

  “Thus we were able to reduce simple substances such as iron or copper into hydrogen and oxygen! Fusing these two gases, we were provided with an inexhaustible supply of water—while the Arthonite lasted. But the secret died with the inventor. But twenty years ago, only a small amount remained, as the metal itself shrank with use.

  “It was then we found how near Jupiter was to a catastrophe. Three amounts of Arthonite were made from the mass that was left. Three ships left to seek new homes. Where the other two landed, I do not know. But two years ago our ship reached your world. We have escaped discovery because of the layer of mixed radiations hanging like a veil over Lost Valley. Solar light, cosmic rays, and the rays of Arthonite radiation produce this phenomenon. No sunlight comes through it, no Arthonite illumination leaves the valley.

  “That is why you must never leave. Were you to be exposed to cosmic rays for one moment, your bodies would shrivel!”

  Dave gasped. Before he could speak, Marnok was going on.

  “In the few minutes you have been in this place, you have absorbed tremendous quantities of radiation as deadly as the rays of radium. But those particles will remain dormant, until acted upon by cosmic radiation. We Jovians planned to protect future generations, against the time when Arthonite ceased to protect us, by having all children born and reared within a huge, lead-protected incubator. When old enough to shift for themselves, they were to be removed to the outer atmosphere. Now our plans have been altered.”

  “Thanks to Garth!” Charles Weston broke in angrily. “Another case of the strong and stupid defeating the weak but intelligent. Garth was of a race of brutal monstrosities the Jovians tolerated and used as servants. They treated them kindly, teaching them all they knew. Garth is a sort of God to his more stupid racial brothers, because he has the cunning of a wolf and the bloodthirstiness of an Attila. The day they reached earth, he drove Marnok and his people into the open, keeping the space ship and its precious supply of metal. Since that time, he has built himself an impregnable fortress. The Jovians have lived like animals, hunted day and night by their enemies—the Korlons.”

  Dave glanced at the faces of the men and women about them. Sadness and defeat were on every countenance. Suddenly he remembered Kaley.

  “There’s one consolation,” he said to his father. “Our friend Kaley is in the hands of the Korlons right now! Providing the crack-up didn’t finish him.”

  Weston smiled half-heartedly. “That’s little enough consolation,” he said. Then, remembering all they had been through, he added, “One more question, and then you must rest. How under H
eaven did you find Lost Valley?”

  A sense of guilt came over Dave. He gripped Helen’s hand. “I found it by sacrificing the happiness and probably the life of this girl. I found her unconscious in the desert, one day, gripping a strange mineral. She told me she heard strange, beautiful music when she held it, though it had no effect on me. But she could tell the direction it came from, and by following it, we landed here.”

  Marnok shrugged. “Probably a small piece of Arthonite that fell out of the exhaust of the ship,” he ventured. “Coming in contact with the ring you wear, it commenced working on it. The music was the effect of Arthonite rays on your sensory nerves.”

  The explanation was logical; yet it did not make Dave feel any better. He groped for words to tell Helen of the remorse that was in him.

  Her lips smiled up at him, if her eyes did not. “I think if I had a few hours’ sleep I could forgive even a crime like yours,” she told him.

  Marnok gave an order, unintelligible to the earthlings, that caused the Jovians to fall back. Then he was leading the way through the cavern to a larger one, where crypt-like niches in the walls invited the exhausted quartet with soft, downy blankets.

  No invitation was needed to send them all to taking off their boots and rolling in. Dave fell asleep almost as soon as his aching bones sank into the soft bedding. Yet he had time to stare at the black ceiling and curse himself for bringing Helen here, and to wonder if this cave must be his home for the rest of his life . . .

  The matter of excited voices brought him wide awake some time later. For a long moment he felt too paralyzed with comfort to move. Then he got up and walked through the corridor into the room where Marnok, Weston, and the others crowded about a dozen illuminated plates on the wall.

  Weston shot him a worried glance as he approached. He indicated the flickering squares of glass briefly. “Televisors,” he said. “One of the few things they salvaged out of the ship. Pickups hidden in the open give us some idea of what’s going on. Look at them!”

  Each picture gave a small section of the valley; taken as a whole, they gave the whole broad sweep of terrain, including the city. Dave started. At each of a dozen points, groups of burly, armed Korlons were massing behind nests of boulders. Scores of other warriors were pouring out of the metal city.

  “Something they’ve never tried before,” Weston growled. “Every tunnel entrance is being covered. Soon they’ll be rushing in from every point. The tunnels are thick with traps, but they’re ready to sacrifice a few score to get us!”

  Dave’s eyes flicked about the assembled men. They were paralyzed with terror. Here, utterly helpless, they stood and awaited the end.

  “What kind of fighters are you?” he snapped suddenly. “Haven’t you made any plans during the months you’ve been down here?”

  Marnok shrugged. “Plans? They are four hundred to our sixty. They have deadly weapons; we have nothing but a dozen worn-out Arthonite guns we use for digging. Once we planned to take them by digging a tunnel directly under the Tower of Light. We did so, and five of our strongest entered secretly. We have never seen them again.”

  Dave’s forehead creased. “These guns—how do they work?” he wanted to know.

  “On power sent out from the Tower,” Marnok replied. “Our guns receive barely enough force to be able to burn the earth when we use them for digging.”

  “Then if the Arthonite were cut off, the guns would be useless?”

  Marnok smiled bleakly. “Unfortunately, Garth has no intention of doing so.”

  “But I have!” Dave snapped. His eyes burned into Marnok’s face. “From the looks of that battlefield, most of their four hundred are out of the city. With a couple of men I could take the Tower of Light itself!”

  A murmur arose from the throng. Then Bill Harrigan’s hearty guffaw rose over the sounds. “That’s fight talk that does a man good!” he boomed. “Count me in, feller.” He stalked from the dormitory, stroking his spade-like chin.

  Mac slapped his big revolver. “Likewise me an’ Bad News,” he said.

  Marnok started to protest. Charles Weston stopped him. “New blood never hurt an army yet,” he smiled. “This once, let me give the orders, my friend. The four of us will try this foolhardy plan. If it succeeds, you may once more rule the Korlons. If it fails . . . you are no worse off, nor are we.”

  The Jovian considered. Dave was conscious of the gravity of the moment, of the silence that brooded over the cavern. Then: “As you wish. I am afraid it can mean only death—but a glorious one!”

  There were no elaborate preparations to be made. Armed with revolvers alone, they started through the long tunnel, Charles Weston in the lead. Dave paused for just a moment in the sleeping chamber. Helen was still asleep, her face placid in repose.

  Before he knew it, he was leaning over her, brushing her smooth forehead with a kiss. Emotion seemed to stifle him. There were so many things he wanted to tell her. Yet in the end he straightened and hurried on, leaving her still unconscious of what was taking place. It lay strongly in Dave’s mind that this might be the last time he would ever see her.

  The tunnel ended a quarter of a mile farther on. Above them was a circular steel plate. Dave gestured to Bill Harrigan, the tallest of the group, to try to raise it.

  Silence and tension were heavy among them as the trap-door grated and raised. Three gun-barrels followed the widening gap. Bill grunted with the effort of moving the door aside. Abruptly it was done.

  Harsh green light flooded the tunnel. Dave hoisted himself through the hole. They had emerged into a great circular room, lofty of ceiling and gleaming with chromium walls. Through the center of the ceiling rose a slender column of bronze. Outside, through long, narrow windows, Dave glimpsed the same amber rings he had seen on first viewing the Tower of Light.

  Cautiously he got to his feet. He helped his father and the others up, every nerve crying out against the slightest sound. Charles Weston stared about him with quick, eager glances.

  “Follow me!” he whispered. “I know the place by heart, from hearing Marnok describe the original of it on Jupiter.”

  A circular stairway, constructed in the fashion of those in lighthouses, carried them up through floor after floor. Not a soul did they see. Once Dave paused to peer through a window. Already they were far above the city. In the fields beyond, hundreds of Korlons were pouring into the tunnels! Apprehension grew within him. Swiftly he followed Mac, who was bringing up the rear.

  They rushed on until the tower was not more than fifteen feet in diameter. Then Charles Weston stopped before a door. “Ready!” he hissed. He pulled down the opening lever—and sprang up the last steps and into the room.

  Dave got a single glimpse of a small room choked with apparatus. He saw the termination of the pitted bronze column a few feet above the floor. Weston and the others stopped in the middle of the room, darting hurried looks about and seeing nothing. Dave was on the point of following them when a broad back slid before him from just inside the door.

  Someone grated, “One move, Earthmen, and you die!”

  Instinctively Dave fell back behind the door. Another voice broke out just as the rattle of revolvers striking the floor reached him. “Weston, you aren’t so smart as I’d figured. You picked the wrong side to win, as usual!”

  A flame seemed to wash Dave Weston’s body. The speaker was Kaley! He could hear his father gasp, hear Bill and Mac swearing softly.

  “I could die happily, if I could take you with me, Kaley,” the elderly scientist breathed. “So you’ve dealt yourself into this game too, have you?”

  “In a small way,” Brand Kaley drawled. “In return for teaching Garth the things he needs to know about Earth, when he chooses to leave the valley, I’m to have all the gold I can carry out with me. This little invention of theirs can make gold out of lead, you know!”

  “I know that,” Weston came back quietly. “I know, too, you’ll never leave the valley to spend your wealth! We’re all stuck he
re. We’re living radium bombs, every one of us!”

  “You’re lying!” Kaley rasped. But there was a shade of fear in his tone.

  Bill Harrigan laughed loud and long. “Sold out your own world for a mess of gold you can’t spend!” he taunted. “Talk about half-cracked desert rats like me an’ Mac—!”

  “Shut up!” Kaley roared. “We’ll see about that later. Garth, how much power can this outfit generate? Enough to increase the range of your guns about four hundred feet?”

  Dave could see the huge Korlon clearly, in the reflection of him on the far wall. He was naked from the waist up, with magnificent muscles cloaking his broad chest and shoulders. His face was that of a Jovian, but more rugged, with brute ferocity in the warp of his mouth.

  He laid a powerful hand upon an apparatus that looked like an anti-aircraft gun. “This gun already shoot that far,” he growled. “No danger shoot it. But great danger if we turn out enough power to give such range to hand weapons. Why you ask?”

  “Because we’ve got to do it!” Kaley cut in. “We could waste days and hundreds of men trying to trap them in the tunnels. And they’ve got to die! With a range of four hundred feet or so, we could cut straight through the ground to them without taking a risk ourselves!”

  Garth’s great head nodded slowly. “Marnok say not safe to space the rings farther apart than now. Maybe safe for a few minutes. We try it!”

  His huge body lumbered across the room. He spun a wheel a few turns. Beyond the windows, the rings spaced themselves out. Dave’s eyes widened as the column of bronze grew silvery. A low hum filled the room.

  “Give the order!” Kaley hissed. “The sooner they’re safely taken care of, the better chance for you!”

  Eagerly, the great Korlon took up a transformer-like arrangement and placed it against his head-disk. This time his words were unintelligible to Dave. But in the battlefield, dense clouds of black smoke began to arise! The warriors had withdrawn to start their deadly attack.