A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  “But, man, let me help you!” Grath shouted at an orderly for a doctor.

  Iar shook his head. “I am beyond help. You see, the force field was thought-created. I built it up through mental action, feeding and controlling the disruptive powers through mental effort. The human mind is not strong enough to stand any such current flow for more than a very short time. Only a thin fragment of my mind is left, and my body, too, is gone.”

  Jan stepped back. There was a question he wanted to ask, but he seemed to take hours in wording it.

  “Did you know this would happen?”

  Iar smiled. “Yes. I knew I would never come out of this chamber. Beta diminishes to nothing, you see——”

  There was silence.

  Something was happening to Jan’s face. It was creasing into a thousand wrinkles; knots were bulging at the jaws; the eyes were misty. Instinctively, he knew what to do. His heels clicked together; his lean, lithe body straightened to attention; his right hand snapped into a salute—the salute of a soldier to his superior officer, the highest military courtesy.

  Both understood.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, as Grath stood at attention, Iar crumpled to the floor.

  1938

  THE VOICE OUT OF SPACE

  Clifton B. Kruse

  Suggesting that the real space-traveller is not a body but——

  “OXYGEN!” Dr. Frick’s voice rang thinly in the earphones.

  “We are rising again, Tom. At camera, quick. But first give us both more oxygen.”

  Tom Beckwith got to his feet slowly, his gloved hands clutching the sides of the gondola for support. His brain reefed giddily for a moment and that awful sense of buoyancy caused his seemingly weightless body to tingle. They were spinning now and leaping even higher into the vast, black sky. His fingers trembled as he released more of the precious oxygen into first Frick’s, and then his own enormous headgear. His brain cleared instantly, it was like waking from a fitful spell of unremembered dreams.

  The rise of the gondola had subsided to no more than a gentle push against their feet. Beckwith stared at the altimeter. Three hundred miles! He wanted to shout at Frick that they had made it, that the helium-radiant stratosphere gondola had accomplished the dream of every solar scientist. Now, Frick was steadying the radiants; for a moment they swayed gently. Telescopic cameras were recording section after section of the yawning cavern of blackness upon which gleamed the jeweled brilliance of billions of stars.

  Dr. Frick’s voice came into the head-, phones, heavy with emotion. “It’s like being off into space.”

  Beckwith nodded. Three hundred miles beneath the bulbous mass of the helium-radiant tanks Earth had become a crescent blur of emerald. Directly below was a streak of greenish blue: to the east was the radiant edge of day, while to the west the planet seemed to slumber in a darkness even deeper than the jet of oceanic space.

  “It is beautiful,” Beckwith murmured. “Below us is night and day. We are seeing the world as no other human eye has ever seen it.”

  “But look upward—or rather outward I should say,” Frick’s voice broke into his reverie. “Tom, I tell you I want to go on and on. It’s sheer torture to get this far and to know we are chained to that planet down there. Look at the Moon—and over there is Mars, a massive ruby. If only this were a spaceship!”

  “Don’t dream,” Beckwith laughed curtly. “That is not for our generation, Frick.”

  “You are right—perhaps. But I don’t like to think so. The Earth is such an insignificant part of all that lies before our gaze.”

  “Attention, camera!” Beckwith called warningly. It was a relief to have something to do again. Just to stand here in the gondola waiting for the sensitive recorder to turn through an arc of the sky gave one too much time to dream. He could understand Frick; even a solid, mathematical genius such as Dr. Allison Frick of Erie Planetarium could get to be more poet than scientist out here in space unless he could keep his hands busy.

  “It won’t be long now. The helium-radiants have reached their crest. In a few minutes we shall begin to drop. Keep near the oxygen when the time comes.”

  “Right,” Beckwith replied hurriedly. “I’m not worried, Frick. If only we get these pictures back safely our lives will have already been well worth the living.”

  He had meant to add that he was proud to be here with such a man as Dr. Allison Frick. During the two years since his graduation Toni Beckwith had served as assistant to the great curator at Erie.

  “No,” Dr. Frick spoke up after a moment of heavy silence. “Not at all finished, Tom. Coming out here has awakened something in me, but—what is that? Did you hear a sound?”

  “Yes—and it’s not the radiants. At least they seem to be all right.”

  “Listen!”

  Beckwith felt a chill creep through his flesh which even the electro-pads could not check. It was an eerie sound, at first far off but seeming to approach rapidly.

  “The radio!” he exclaimed, “It’s been silent ever since we passed the ozone layer, but maybe somehow we’ve disturbed it.”

  “No, it’s not the radio.” Dr. Frick spoke excitedly. “I’ve examined that. Also all our equipment.”

  “It sounds like—like a voice,” Beckwith muttered softly. “Yet not exactly a voice either.”

  INSTINCTIVELY the two men moved together. They were staring through a porthole of the gondola. Beyond, the heavens seemed cold and black and lifeless. Abruptly Dr. Frick gasped. Within the fraction of a second there materialized a faintly shimmering ball. Cold terror gripped the two scientists. There was no time to speak or even to attempt anything. The weirdly glowing ball was hurtling toward them. Neither breathed for an instant with death so imminent.

  Suddenly the gondola was spun crazily, as if some tremendous force were hurling it out into space. Beckwith felt his bulkily garmented body thrashed helplessly about the inclosure. Vividly his mind recorded the impression of frantic, spinning motion. Yet they had not crashed; he was able to understand that much at least.

  Dr. Frick was calling his name. The curator’s voice seemed barely able to overcome the weird, almost human cries which emanated from they knew not where.

  “Meteorite!” Dr. Frick was yelling. “Struck one of the radiants.”

  “Where are we?” Beckwith questioned fearfully.

  “It shoved us farther out into space. We’re spiraling now—yes, we’re dropping. We’ve still two radiant tanks supporting us.”

  “We can reach ground with two,” Beckwith called out.

  “I know, I know.” Dr. Frick was shouting. “But get over here. That meteorite—it’s plummeting straight down. The crash broke its velocity.” Beckwith groped to his feet. He was feeling for the oxygen tubes.

  “We’re dropping plenty fast,” he muttered.

  “But not too fast.” Dr. Frick was once more his old self. “Tom, this makes our trip the perfect adventure. That meteorite—the crash caused it to shriek out——”

  Beckwith interrupted: “You mean that queer noise came from it?”

  “I’m sure of it. What’s more, we must keep its fall plotted. There’s something about it—something distinctly unusual. I can’t forget the peculiar quality of the sounds it uttered. It was like a voice from the beyond, crying out in awe and wonder.”

  Beckwith remained silent. He was thinking of the Song and treacherous hours of descent ahead of them. Dr. Frick was excited. Back on Earth again he would be the same, level-headed Dr. Allison Frick who held the admiration and respect of the entire scientific world. The trip out here in space had doubtlessly upset him. Perhaps he had taken loo much oxygen.

  BECKWITH felt them lifting his body carefully through the safelike door of the gondola. He was too weak to stand on his own legs. Then he heard Dr. Frick’s heavy, imperious voice giving orders—telling them what to do and what not to do as they retrieved the precious instruments and the several cameras. Now Frick was bending over him.

  “It’s all
right, Tom,” he was saying. “Very little damage done when we hit ground.”

  “The radiant-lift principle works.” Beckwith smiled grimly, conscious of the awed attention of reporters, news cameramen and fellow scientists. “It’s the greatest discovery of the twentieth century, Frick, and——”

  “Cut it.” The elder man’s lean face was alight with fiery energy. “And whatever you do, Tom, don’t discuss that meteorite yet. I’ll explain later. In the meantime I want you to face the public for us. That’s your job now.”

  There was no more time to talk. They had to be heroes, it seemed, but Tom Beckwith cringed inwardly. Now that they were safe and sound on Earth again the adventure didn’t seem so great. There was a strange restlessness within which made him impatient to get together with his chief again. There had been something in the gleam of Frick’s eyes and the ring of his voice which disturbed him. Obviously Dr. Fricl; had something in mind. But what was it?

  It was not until the next day that Beckwith secured a moment to himself. He sat there in the little office in the planetarium building and pretended to arrange the data of their strato-flight findings. Dr. Frick had mysteriously disappeared.

  Suddenly a voice shattered the silence of the room. “I’ve found it! I’ve found it.”

  Beckwith leaped up. Dr. Frick had dashed into the room.

  “Where did you go? What——”

  Dr. Allison Frick glanced down at his dust-encrusted clothes, A deep-set smile was fixed upon his thin lips. “I thought you’d know,” he said. “As soon as I could get away, I went to the locality where—according to my computations—the meteorite should have fallen.”

  “Oh, that meteorite!”

  “But listen. Remember the queer sounds we heard up there? Tom, I tell you that was no ordinary meteorite. And its striking one of the helium-radiants of our ship was a blessing. That checked its velocity sufficiently to prevent its burning up. Of course, it smashed into the ground. But there was enough of it remaining to indicate that the thing was fabricated.”

  Beckwith stared at it open-mouthed. “You mean—it was something sent here from some other planet?”

  “Exactly. But wait until you see it, It’s solid. Not a spaceship, or anything like that. And yet—if I’m correct that mass represents something far more fantastic than any visiting spaceship could be.”

  Beckwith shook his head in bewilderment, “Coming from the curator of Erie Planetarium that sounds—well, it just doesn’t sound credible. Do you realize that you’re inferring that at least one other of the solar planets is inhabited? And only a year ago you yourself sponsored the report specifying in detail why any sort of life comparable to human life could not exist on any of them? Mercury is too hot; Venus is a world of poisonous vapors; Mars had insufficient water and too much carbon dioxide; the outer planets are unbelievably frozen and——”

  “I know,” Dr. Frick interrupted. “But wait. To-night we will examine the thing which we thought was a meteorite. I had to return for certain materials. And besides, Tom, I want you there. I feel that I need your judgment. You’re sufficiently phlegmatic to offset my own fancies.”

  SOMETHING of the other’s intensity of interest permeated Beckwith’s harried mind. Whatever might be said of Dr. Allison Frick, he most certainly was not an idle dreamer. And yet, Beckwith was thinking, imagination does have a place in science. Contrasted with the two thousand million years of the solar system’s present existence the history of civilized man is a mere second of time. The speculative intelligence of the human mind is only at the threshold of discovery. We can actually see so little, and yet that little is enough to show us great and mysterious vistas which are ahead.

  “We may be wrong,” Dr. Frick was saying. “But before another day is passed I believe we shall know for sure.”

  “What a report that would make!” Beckwith exclaimed suddenly.

  Dr. Frick was studying his assistant soberly. “I was thinking of that, too. Tom, we probably won’t make a public statement. So far as the world at large is concerned you and I will only be off somewhere taking a much needed rest after our sky jaunt. That should satisfy them. But in the meantime——”

  He did not complete the sentence. His long face became set in determination as the two hastily arranged for a secret departure. As the minutes passed Beckwith became more and more aware of a disturbing something which was not unlike some nameless fear. One thing only was certain—Dr. Allison Frick was sincere.

  It was nearly dusk when they reached the lonely ravine. Dr. Frick led the way, his long legs striding impatiently over the rough, bushy ground. Beckwith sighted the seared plot before they reached it. Getting out their flashlights the two men dropped down to the ground.

  Beckwith gasped at sight of the spots of burnished metal which evidently had surrounded the huge mass of meteoric iron and nickel.

  “It was nearly spherical,” Dr. Frick was saying. “See there—the outer layers are very thin. But for the crash, they would have been burned entirely away long before striking the Earth.”

  “That is true.” Beckwith placed a trembling hand upon the jagged edges, where the outer shell had been smashed by impact with either the Earth, or the helium-radiant of the strato-ship. “But you are sure—absolutely sure that this is the meteorite which crashed us?”

  “I have proved that to my satisfaction, Tom. There are bits of the duraluminum of the radiant tank which have been jammed into the meteorite. I brought a few scrapings with me to the planetarium this afternoon. The microchemical reactions‘I obtained convince me that the odd bits bad indeed come from our own radiant tank, Furthermore, Tom, the bulk of this thing is definitely the nickel-iron of a meteorite. You know, of course, how simple it is to distinguish between natural, terrestrial iron and that which comes to us from space. The crystalline structure is clearly meteoric.”

  Beckwith turned to look closely into the face of the curator. “Frick,” he said softly, “you’re dead in earnest about this. You’ve got some idea what it means.”

  “Thanks for your confidence in me, Tom.” Dr. Frick gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Candidly, I couldn’t go ahead with it if I didn’t feel you were with me. It’s like groping in the dark into a strange, alien world. You know as well as I that this is unorthodox talk for an astronomer.”

  “Go ahead,” Beckwith ordered. “You mentioned that this meteorite had been fabricated.”

  “Quite. Throw your flash close to the broken edge of the outer shell. What do you see?”

  BECKWITH scrutinized the rough material closely. His voice rose with excitement. “It’s in layers—there are six distinct coatings of something here.”

  “Really three layers,” Dr. Frick corrected. “The dark material is insulation between the plating and the core, and between the three very thin plates themselves.

  “Which are silver!” Beckwith exclaimed.

  “Yes, but there’s something still more important. Don’t you see it? The plates are insulated electrically. This was not a perfect sphere. There must have been extremities at each pole where the spherical plates connected for reasons which we shall never know. In other words, Tom, this suggests a phase of electrostatics which far excels human knowledge of energy in equilibrium.”

  “But still I do not see the meaning behind all this.” Beckwith sat up straight, a puzzled frown etched upon his forehead. His attention was held by the curator’s tense interest in the several bits of apparatus he had brought along from the planetarium. Dr. Frick was laboring under difficulties, lying flat on the ground and squinting in the combined glare of their flashlights. Beckwith watched intently.

  The outer plate had been drained of whatever energy it might have had, yet the second and third gave forth a rather feeble reaction in the electroscope. Hastily now, the two worked together connecting the two plates to the instruments which they had brought along in the car. Almost at once there arose a tenuous cry.

  Beckwith felt his scalp prickle. Involuntarily he graspe
d Dr. Frick’s arm. “It’s the same sound we heard up there.”

  “Yes.” Dr. Frick’s voice was sharp. “But listen.”

  The tones rose and fell, now undulating as with a rhythm which had been designed by willful intelligence.

  “It is nothing human,” Beckwith stated. “I can make nothing of it.”

  “Except that it’s a revolutionary demonstration in electrostatics,” Dr. Frick’s voice was firm and yet strong with enthusiasm. “Tom, there is a meaning behind this. It can’t be accidental. You saw how little energy was evidenced in the electroscope.”

  “I see what you infer. Perhaps out there in space—on one of those other planets—there’s an intelligence seeking to penetrate the mystery of Earth. Great Scott, how many others of those meteorites which fall continually to Earth have been like this? This may not be the first.”

  “Likely not. But we have no way of knowing. The fall through our atmosphere is enough to burn off all such layers as is on this particular meteorite. It was only the one chance in a billion that this one struck our helium-radiant. But, Tom, we must get to the heart of this mystery. You remember how it was up there? In a way it seemed that we were momentarily free of Earth’s clutch. The longing——”

  Abruptly the weird cries of the meteorite died out in a wavering gasp.

  “It’s gone!” Dr. Frick gasped. “We’ve lost it now. The energy is dissipated.”

  “No, it isn’t that,” Beckwith put out a restraining hand. “Look, Frick, something is happening to the shell of the meteorite. It’s glowing—that one spot there—like a phosphorescent ball.” As the two men stared the strange ball of energy expanded as if gathering strength into itself. Again it faded and as suddenly the sound amplifier—which by chance had been included in the temporary laboratory—again began to hum with the eerie vibrations. But this time the perturbing voicelike qualities of the intonations were uttered in a series of jerking cries.

  Beckwith’s voice came in an awed whisper. “It’s alive.”