Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks)

by Leslie F Stone

  He turned his single eye upon me, a smile wreathing his broad mouth. “Age? What is age? Time is endless. Its account is only for the young. I can tell you this much, however. I was born that day our scientists perfected the present-day man of Raxta. Not a single babe has been born on our world since. We are incapable of breeding in our own likeness. Nature quails at that!”

  I was past being incredulous. “And how long is that?”

  He lifted huge shoulders in eloquent gesture. “Have I not said that Time is not an entity to be reckoned with? I have used such terms as ages, millenniums and years, so your minds might grasp something of the antiquity of our race, but we of Raxta keep no time . . .”

  “And you have been an eye-witness of practically all you told us about?”

  “Ay. All of it!”

  I shuddered as I had shuddered before when Forrest had made reference to such longevity. Life for me was wrapped up in three-score and ten years. I had no wish for longer life. Age to me meant the old awaiting death’s release. “How heavy life must be on your shoulders,” I said with misplaced sympathy.

  “Life heavy?” Chen-Chak was startled out of himself, his voice boomed and reverberated throughout the room. “Heavy—with only a tithe of the problems of Life solved?” His voice softened. “Ah, Knowledge is Life, and, as long as there are still more secrets to wrest from Nature, Life is fruitful.”

  With that he carefully reared himself on his feet, trying out the height of the room with his head, but he was unable to stand completely erect. “The moment is come; we can dally no longer,” he averred. “The Raxgeu will be up to more deviltries this day. You will follow. Come . . .”

  I was wondering how we were to get through those two heavy bronze doors, but Chen-Chak solved that problem quickly. He brought from a hidden pocket a small round globe with a slight indentation on one side. He placed it at the end of one finger, and there it stayed apparently unsupported!

  “The Raxgeu did not bother to disarm me; they thought it impossible for me to reach my pockets with that diabolical suit of theirs on me!” He laughed softly, then glanced at Forrest and me. “Your helmets. Put them on.” We obeyed, and he turned his strange weapon upon the door before us.

  There was no sound, nothing to show anything was happening, but happen it did. The door was simply no more. It was washed out, dissolved in less than the twinkling of an eye.

  Chen-Chak noticed our open-mouthed astonishment. Thereupon he turned his ball around on his finger. Instantly the door was back in place, as whole and secure as before. In terse words he explained the process. He had simply translated the door into the fourth dimension; ahead in Time, in other words. He could bring it back or allow it to wait for Time to catch up with it.

  A SECOND time he turned the globe, and again the door disappeared, only he did not bother to return it to its place. Then, motioning us back from the rush of air that would enter with its dissolution, he drove the second door into nothingness. A miniature hurricane of air from the other side rushed into the lock and prison. It swirled about us, tearing at our suits like a maniac, but subsided as quickly as it had come.

  Chen-Chak was already squirming his way through the double entrance without regard for the tearing wind, and we found him waiting for us in the short corridor leading to the main laboratory of the Mercurians. He was bent halfdouble because of the low ceiling. We did not enter the laboratory immediately, but paused to reconnoiter. There were half a dozen small Mercurians in the laboratory seated at tiny desks situated here and there before the banks of tubes in which lambent fires boiled. In a low whisper Chen-Chak explained that these machines generated all the power of Mercury that was redistributed throughout the globe by smaller stations that simply picked up the load where it was needed most. It was the new day, and the Mercurians were awaiting a new shift to take their places. Several yawned, and looked to a small circular entrance in one wall between two great tubes, where their relief would appear. As we stood in the corridor one little, ugly fellow who was nearest us was seen to shiver as if a cold draft were upon his back. He looked about uneasily, and turning his eyes in our direction sensed our presence. I saw Chen-Chak had already lifted his little globe. A moment later the tiny man disappeared forthwith.

  Then, raising his weapon again, the Saturnian picked off two more without the others’ knowledge. Two more went, blotted out like smoke, but now Chen-Chak had stepped into the chamber. The one remaining midget threw up his hands and started for the door I already mentioned. His treble scream came to us as he likewise was snuffed out.

  Ordinarily I am not one to countenance wanton murder without a qualm, but I knew this was just retribution for the hurts that Tica Burno and all his kind had suffered at the hands of these fiends, but Chen-Chak put me right immediately. “They are not dead,” he averred; “within half an hour of your time they will be returned, unaware of what has taken place. They must wait for Time to catch up with them!”

  I nodded understanding. He was not one to kill without just cause. The men of Saturn had too great a respect for life to take it unnecessarily, and now that I consider what came to pass I realize with what sorrow Chen-Chak did what he was called upon to do by the Mercurians themselves. It is different when one’s own life is at stake; but, even so, I believe Chen-Chak would have died himself rather than do what he did, had it not been for the commands of his superior.

  Now he was studying the laboratory, and, though it was only a morass to Forrest and myself, he seemed to understand the use of each instrument the chamber contained. He strode over to a small desk half-way down the room and motioned to Forrest to join him. “These controls are far too delicate for my heavy hand; you must assist me,” he said.

  Forrest was delighted to aid, and under the giant’s directions manipulated this dial and that lever, though he had to be careful in handling them, built as they were for the hands of the midgets. I was left by myself, as if Chen-Chak did not consider me capable of carrying out his instructions. Together the pair moved from desk to desk. I can not begin to appreciate what forces were brought into being, but I imagined the Saturnian was crippling the inner world of Mercury. Later, when I had time to question Forrest, he admitted he was as much in the dark about what he had actually accomplished as I was, but one after another the great tubes were losing their fire to become dead, inanimate things of glass.

  NOW, I sometimes wonder why Chen-Chak did not destroy them altogether, for, as it turned out, it would have been better so. It seemed he still had the hope of converting the vicious little men to his way of thinking, and wanted only to cripple the machines for the present. As it was, the Mercurians must have felt the awful extremes of heat and cold as the fires died out.

  Almost without realizing what I did, I kept an eye on the doorway through which the last of the little men had tried to escape, so I was immediately aware of the appearance of two more in the entrance as soon as they came. They stood there astounded, unable to believe their eyes. But before I could warn Chen-Chak he had whirled about, leveled his odd globular weapon upon them, and dispatched them as neatly and quickly as he had their fellows. All the while we remained in the laboratory no more appeared. Later, however, when we were to look with Chen-Chak into the vision plates aboard his great spaceship, we were to see that the Mercurians depended entirely upon gravity and antigravity repellent forces to move upward or downward through their world. Hence when the Saturnian shut down their forces, the billions were all prisoners on the levels below. Only by forming human chains from one level to the other had they managed later to gain the laboratory level after our departure.

  WE spent no more than fifteen minutes in the laboratory. All but four of the great tubes were colorless now, and, in place of purple fires in those four, a golden red flame played in them. Chen-Chak took from his hidden pocket a small round glass which he put to his eye. He gazed through it a moment, then seemed satisfied.

  “The way to the surface is open to you now. In the chamber above
you will find your ship as you left it. Drive outside, and you will find my ship there. I shall meet you directly.”

  “You do not come with us?” I inquired.

  “That way is too narrow for me, and would involve too much time to change its co-ordinates. I come another way. Go now!”

  Forrest led the way to the circular corridor down which we bad first come to the laboratory. I glanced back once. Like a gigantic genii from the past, Chen-Chak dominated the scene. He faced the central machine that stood before the four tubes in which the ebullient gold-red fire glowed. He bent over the machine with a small bar in his hand that he had pulled from the side of another instrument, which he was using for a lever. With the reddish gleam of the tubes on his ebon body kneeling on the floor, he was like some ancient worshiper doing homage to some weird god.

  I had to hurry to catch up with Forrest who was walking quickly up the ramp, then we were entering the bare room that lay at its end, and found the open shaft overhead awaiting us. As soon as we stood directly under the opening a force picked us up and lifted us through the shaft. We thus ascended to its mouth, and it was simple to grasp the side and climb upon the solid floor of the great chamber housing the Victory. Never was there a more welcome sight.

  Inside Forrest went directly to the controls and swung the ship’s nose around to face the great opening of the cliff, slowly making for the opening. We were outside in the twilight before we saw the Saturnian’s ship, but we did not have to look far. It dominated everything. A gigantic sphere, easily a thousand feet high, it stood on the bowl’s rim.

  Never had I seen a queerer ship of space. It was a deep, dull black, without a single feature to mar its outer shell. It stood in clear outline before us, yet that outline, on the other hand, oddly enough was indefinite, indefinable. I had the feeling that it had no real substance, that I could easily plunge a hand right through it. It looked spongy, tenuous.

  “Where’s its entrance?” I asked of Forrest, but he shook his head. There was nothing about the sphere to distinguish any part of it as an opening. The Victory was a gnat beside it, as we bumped over the rough terrain looking for an alleged entrance. We had almost completely encircled it when I pointed a shaking finger at the shell.

  “Do you see what I see?” I half-whispered as I stared at the apparition, which suddenly appeared against that strange background.

  It was Chan-Chak, and he had come from within the sphere; had in fact seemed to walk right out of one of the sphere’s walls!

  Now he was standing before us, one foot on the ground, the other in the substance of his flyer motioning us to come to him at the point where he stood in the dull blackness. We could just distinguish his form, a darker shape against his unique background.

  “I—I take it, he wants us to go through the wall itself,” muttered Forrest, and I saw for once he was shaken. I nodded, unable to express my thoughts.

  CHAPTER X

  War!

  HANDS quivering on the controls of our ship, Forrest, nevertheless, was prepared to obey, and slowly he drove the Victory straight for that dull black wall before us, feeling his way, ready to put on brakes at the least warning of danger. Chen-Chak had disappeared from our sight within the shell, and now we were touching it. I was correct in my conjecture concerning its tenuousity, for the walls were no more than a mist falling away from us as we pushed forward, swirling behind us. as we came on. Our lights refused to pierce the gloom, the darkness seemed physical, touchable. It was but a few seconds we were in the darkness; it seemed ages. Forrest was manipulating the flyer’s progress practically by touch as his eyes sought to see through the opaque mist. Then it was over. Light came, light so dazzling, it blinded us.

  Forrest, perforce, had halted the Victory, not daring to budge until his eyes adjusted themselves to the sudden change. We found we were within the sphere, our ship resting on a surface that had a slight curvature. This surface had the appearance of solidity, in color it was black, smooth and highly-polished; yet it was apparent to us that we had come through the outer shell at this very point!

  Stupefied by the passage of these strange events neither of us thought to move. We simply sat where we were, staring in incredulous wonder. The sphere, as I already mentioned, was approximately a thousand feet in diameter, and we had traversed about ten feet on entering it. The curved walls stretched away from us in all directions, the farther sides barely discernible because of the brilliant light, but overhead was something more tangible and unique.

  It was a round ball about forty feet in diameter hanging in the exact center of the sphere, yet having no visible means of suspension. Spaced at intervals all over its surface were queer masses of metal and glittering glass, with intricate arrangements of wheels, wires, glowing tubes, levers and dials, and other shapes I can not give name to. And facing us, head down, standing upon the lower curve of the ball was none other than our strange host, Chen-Chak. He was motioning. He wanted us to join him.

  “He wants us to come up,” I said without reason to Forrest, wondering at the same time how it was to be done. He nodded, automatically closing the visor of his helmet. (Neither of us had taken off our space-suits, but had simply opened the visors on re-entering the Victory.)

  “Hadn’t we better renew our air-cartridges?” I timidly suggested. “There’s evidently no air, out there.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Wordless we removed the expended air cartridges from each other’s shoulders, and refilled them. In the airlock, after all the air had been withdrawn, we found it necessary to adjust our valves to outside air-pressure, then gingerly stepped upon the inner shell of Chen-Chak’s unusual ship. Still I did not see how we were to ascend to that round ball hanging unsupported overhead. I glanced about, half-expecting a ladder to appear from nowhere for our convenience. Then it happened.

  AS suddenly, as if struck by a mighty hand, everything went black around me, a vertigo seized me. Never before had I been so sick in so short a space of time. Horrible pains shot through my body, tore at my muscles and beat at my skull. I remember wondering that the human body could stand such pain. Then, as quickly as the seizure came, it was gone.

  Swaying slightly I remained where I stood, enjoying the surcease from pain, training my senses upon my body to make sure that all of me was right again. There was a lightness in my head, a new feeling of unlimited strength in my body. I felt I could lick ten of my equals at once.

  “Well, ostrich, how long are you going to keep your eyes shut?”

  It was Forrest having his fun at my expense, and I realized my eyes were tight shut, the muscles ached from a tight compression.

  “Say, I guess you’d close your eyes if you were suddenly seized by a severe pain like . . .” I did not finish my thought as I wondered if he had not suffered as I. Then I saw Chen-Chak.

  Instead of being on the ball far over our heads upside-down he was beside us, holding a queer weapon in his hand, that looked somewhat like an old-fashioned sawed-off shot-gun. But what magic was this? My eyes were on the level with his single green orb; he was no longer a giant, but a man the size of myself. He was smiling. He spoke.

  “Sorry, I made you suffer so, but it was necessary to increase your size, so the extra-gravitational force here on the control ball would not be felt so strongly. This way, it is more evenly distributed, your muscles can coordinate themselves more easily . . .”

  Increase our size! Extra-gravitational force. Control ball, evenly distributed. What was the man talking about? Wide mouthed I listened to him, half turning to see what Forrest thought of this. Thus it was I caught a glimpse, from the corner of my eye, of what lay over my head. And instead of seeing the forty foot ball I was puzzled to find myself staring upward at the curved surface of the inner shell of this strange space-ship. And there, like a fly on the ceiling, hung the Victory!

  Now I grasped what had happened. Somehow the Saturnian had lifted us beside him to the control ball of the ship; and in doing it he had enlarged our si
ze to equal his. The ball itself had its own gravity field so that what ordinarily should have been “down” was “up” and vice-versa. Later Forrest tried to explain how Chen-Chak increased our size by causing the molecules that made up our systems to expand, thus swelling us to more than double our own height and girth. That accounted for the sudden sickness. I was tongue-tied now with surprise.

  “YOU see, my friend,” said Chen-Chak kindly. “Time does not grow heavy on one’s hand as long as there are so many miraculous secrets to be plucked from Nature’s breast. These miracles I seem to perform are merely the results of long ages of study and research. And still there are many grander secrets unknown to the Raxtau. Who should want to die, when the future promises so great a fulfilment?”

  I nodded. “I guess that was a faux pas on my part, but what could you expect from a savage like me.”

  “You are far from being a savage. Let us call you a child instead. To a child old age is death. But forget all that. You admire my ship?”

  I looked at him blankly. I wasn’t going to let myself be tripped again. I shook my head dubiously. “It’s the queerest ship I ever saw.”

  Chen-Chak threw back his head and laughed. “Ay, I would not doubt it, but in the future your ancestors will use such ships. Long ago my ancestors deprived our world of all its minerals, excepting those too close to the core of the planet to be attainable. But Nature does not stop with the physical. The void is even a greater storehouse of energy and raw material. Each day our scientists discover new forces heretofore unknown to us. You call these forces “rays,” a term as ambiguous as our term “forces.” We do know them as energy in various forms, pure unadulterated energy.”

  Here Forrest who had been silent spoke up. “You mean to say that the solids of your ship are not solids after all?”