by Earl
He squinted his eyes as though about to reveal a great secret. “I succeeded but a few minutes ago. In this hypodermic is a fluid that will awaken her. Yes, yes! It will! You can’t stop me, either. And when she awakes, I will marry her, because she loves me! Ha, you didn’t know that, did you?”
The voice had become taunting and Williams felt Terry straining forward. He gripped his arm and breathed a word in his ear. “Wait!” He looked back at the insanely gloating madman. That needle above her heart—if that hand would but draw away for a brief second. . . .
“Professor Jorgen,” said Williams loudly and quickly. “You mistake us. We do not come for the girl.”
“What do you say?” barked the insane Scientist suspiciously.
“I say we care nothing about the girl. We are here in behalf of the Unidum. Due to your past services, you are to be given your freedom. You are not to be exiled!”
For a moment mad eyes bored at Williams with uncanny cunning. They seemed to be reading behind the words. Then the expression changed. Slowly a look of perplexity replaced the suspicion. Williams watched like a hawk—that hand. . . .
The madman seemed pondering the words he had heard. “Not exiled,” he muttered softly. “Free. They won’t prosecute me!” Indecision overspread his face. He looked at the girl’s face and quickly back to the three men with a flash of suspicion again. “This girl means nothing to you? Do you all swear it?”
A few seconds stretched out into a dozen eternities, while the lunatic blinked, alternately suspicious and incredulous, and perplexed. Then his hand which had poised so long over the girl’s heart, drew slowly upward. Williams watched as inch by inch it raised, as the insane mind of the Scientist gradually gave credence to the statement.
The moment had come. A dull blue flash leaped from Williams’ upraised pistol to the madman. Terry screamed and dashed forward, for with tiger-like quickness, the maniac had plunged the needle straight for Lila’s heart! Even in his death, he had taken her along!
Terry slumped to his knees beside the couch and broke into dry sobs. To have all things lead to this hour of sorrow was irony of the bitterest.
“Lila! My love! Am I too late to call you back to life?”
Her pallid face looked like the face of death itself and the heart-broken youth bowed his head in numbing sorrow. He did not notice the two men behind him whisper excitedly; nor did he notice the fluttering of the girl’s eyelids. Dulled with the mists of long sleep, the soft brown eyes fastened to the grieving face beside her and cleared suddenly.
“Terry! Darling!”
A moment later Terry descended from the clouds enough to wonder about that death-stroke that he had apparently seen pierce the girl’s heart. Hackworth pointed to Lila’s breast. The hypodermic, driven downward by a hand suddenly bereft of life within, had merely tangled in the gown without so much as scratching the girl’s skin.
Williams, tears of happiness in his eyes, turned to his cousin as the young couple again embraced with endearing words to each other.
“We can wait upstairs, I think, Earl,” he said. “I really feel quite unnecessary down here now, don’t you?”
THE END
COSMOS
Chapter 16—Lost in Alien Dimensions
Bullo found it hard to be optimistic, as was his natural state, for both of his companions were in the very depths of despair. Dos-Tev, deposed prince of Lemnis, sat upon the metal bench along one wall so apathetically that he might have been the model for a study in dejection. As for Mea-Quin, his aged face lined and seamed by the many trials they had recently gone thru, his quick, nervous pace up and down the room bespoke futile rage and despondency. And Bullo himself cast his eyes about their tiny metal prison with no windows and but one securely-locked door, and felt his heart down near his toes.
Mea-Quin broke a long, heart-breaking silence: “It has all come to this! A three year trip and over thru space, concerted efforts that finally gave us contact with the peoples of the solar system, a chance to give Ay-Artz a royal welcome with a powerful fighting armada—and then the Wrongness of Space steps in and in one moment spoils it all! May Tor damn him, and may his soul, if he has one, be consigned to Kruaz—that being who calls himself Krzza of Lxyfa! And may the evil gods of every dimension in the universe tear him to shreds—”
Mea-Quin stopped his tirade and spluttered into silence as a hand touched his shoulder. It was Dos-Tev, his face beseeching, hopeful.
“Perhaps—perhaps the various officers of the different fleets of the solar system will be suspicious of those plotted courses sent by the Wrongness of Space in your name. Oh, if we could only know that they were, and that they would be safe. I would die in peace then, knowing that Ay-Artz would be defeated, thru our carried-on efforts.”
“Ayhuu, Dos-Tev,” returned the Lemnisian scientist. “If only that could be. But I fear that the various fleets, eager to get into action, will sweep along those false and treacherous courses given by our enemy, and realize only too late their danger. By Tor, it is tormenting to think of it—the Third Planet fleet dashing sunward; the Eighth Planet’s ship flying into the maw of Jupiter’s flaming and deadly Red Spot; the dreadnaughts of Mars—”
But Mea-Quin did not have to repeat for them the list of dooms for each of the fleets, for the Wrongness of Space, laughing hellishly, had itemized it for them in malicious detail before he had had them thrown into their present cell in his other-dimensional palace at the bottom of Copernicus.
“Ayhuu, a depressing outlook for the future of the solar system,” agreed Dos-Tev, sinking again to his seat on the hard, cold bench, “the arch-tyrant, Ay-Artz, will arrive in a few days. The Wrongness of Space will greet him, and the two gloating evil-doers will sweep out into an unprotected system of worlds, and there will be none to stop them.”
Bullo, who had listened in silence, involuntarily clenched his fists. His hatred for Ay-Artz was second in degree only to his love for his Prince, and his love for Dos-Tev was infinite.
“By Tor—”
Unable to remain quiet, the giant Lemnisian came to his feet and tried again, as he had tried already a dozen times, to batter down the door of their prison with his mighty body, but in vain. It was solid metal, probably inches thick, and Dos-Tev pulled him away, shaking his head.
As tho his blows against the obstacle were a signal, the door suddenly swung open and all three turned in surprise to see standing there one of the helpers of the Wrongness of Space. The huge green beast leered at them evilly, and raised his claw-like hand, beckoning them to follow.
“I wonder,” asked Mea-Quin, “what this can mean. Ayhuu—I fear it may be our last—”
Dos-Tev gripped his arm fiercely, whispering in his ear. “Here is a chance to fight for our liberty. Bullo will lead. When he jumps at the guard, you rush past.”
“But—” with the word of remonstrance on his lips Mea-Quin saw it was too late to stop them. Already Bullo had stepped out the door, closely followed by Dos-Tev, who fairly trembled in eagerness. The guard had backed to the wall of the corridor and watched them come out, seemingly careless. But when Bullo made a sudden sideward leap, there came a lurid violet flash and the brawny Lemnisian stumbled. Dos-Tev, despite the old scientist’s sudden cry, who saw how hopeless it was, sprang also, to be met by a similar burst of eye-searing radiance from the black tube in the guard’s hand.
The green man glanced at the two bodies lying paralyzed at his feet and pointed the black tube at Mea-Quin menacingly. Then seeing that the scientist stood still and had no thought of attacking, he turned it away. From his belt he extracted another tube, a bright scarlet in color, he sprayed a soft amber light over the fallen Lemnisians and a moment later they arose, chastened and sheepish of face.
The guard tossed his head down the corridor, an unmistakable signal to move on, and stepped behind them. Without another word, deflated in spirit by their sudden and utter defeat, Bullo and Dos-Tev strode down the hallway, and Mea-Quin followed, his sad eyes y
et more sad.
The Wrongness of Space, a being so like a man and yet so different in character, awaited them on his throne of black stone. He leered at the three prisoners triumphantly.
Mea-Quin met his red-flecked, tawny eyes—the eyes of a beast of prey—unflinchingly. “So, tyrant from an alien dimension, this I suppose is our last hour of life. Well, have done with it, by Tor, that we may not be forced to bear longer your nauseous presence.”
Daring words for a prisoner to speak, but the green demon seemed to disregard the insult, and instead broke into a shrilling of insane mirth. “Being doomed,” he radiated by telepathy, “you hope for a quick and sudden death. I have other plans.”
The Lemnisians shivered at the ominous implication.
The green being went on: “But let us put that matter aside for a moment. I wish at present to satisfy your scientific curiosity regarding inter-dimensional travel. There are many separate universes of three dimensions, so many that even my mind reels at the thought. They lie separate from one another, yet so close thru an arbitrary fourth dimension, that to one who has solved the riddle, as I have, it is a simple matter to visit them. Yet they are not all parallel, in a manner of speaking, to one another. Some of them overlap in one dimension, some in two, but generally the overlapping is somewhere in the reaches of their respective spatial voids, so that only an occasional space ship warps unwittingly from one universe to another by blundering thru the overlap.
“To make it clearer, use the analogy of two-dimensional world—planes of existence, in short—which may lie like leaved about one another, touching here and there. The over-lapping of two-dimensional worlds would be a line; the overlapping of three-dimensional worlds are plane surfaces. The over-lapping of four-dimensional universes—which you can readily see is hypothetical—would be volumes, or block spaces. However, the space between three dimensional worlds—which in turn is one dimension of another universe—is actually a fourth dimension. And it has proved very useful to me, this little knowledge.
“I escaped from my own universe, hounded by enemies, and cast my eyes about for some alien existence in which I might become a ruler, for my talent and nature will have nothing less.”
The yellow, panther-eyes of the green giant gleamed fanatically as he went on: “The power which enables me to traverse the fourth dimension, enclosed in this little device run by ultra-atomic energy, is a terrific magnetic strain that can radiate along only a certain axis opposed to the three dimensions. Imagine your Flatlander. He has a strain-producer which when turned parallel to his two-dimensional world is a motive force. When turned at right angles to his world, it is a force that pushes him up or down—i.e. into the third dimension. Or in analogy with our world, the fourth dimension.
“But no ordinary energy is powerful enough to do such a miraculous thing. Rocket-power, atomic power, the enormous powers of planetary momentum—all are inadequate. It requires a special form of energy greater than those. It is not the quantity of the power that counts, but the quality. If must be instantaneous confined power, like the sharp snap that breaks a cord which will resist much greater steady pulling, or like the quick blow that chips rock where applied pressure will not harm it.”
The Wrongness of Space was obviously bragging. Was showing off his great knowledge of things no one else knew. He went on, like a lecturer:
“I have visited many strange universes in my search for one suitable to my plans. Some are maddeningly distorted to our perspective, filled with horrific, unnamable things, shuddery things. Others are similar to this one of yours, which happens to be a great deal like my former home-world. In some the passing of time is greatly accelerated or slowed. I spent but a seeming minute in one universe to find myself ten year past the date of departure.
“However, my travels are over. Your solar system is ideally suited to my schemes. It is ripe for the plucking. Ay-Artz will do the preliminary work for me and then I will step in and become absolute emperor. As for Ay-Artz—he will. . . die!”
With a crescendo of maniacal laughter that betoken a mind whose sanity had long since departed, the green giant gloated on: “From the solar system I shall branch out. All the nearer stars shall become part of my empire! With my means of instantaneous transportation via the fourth dimension, I can conquer system after system and hold them all under my omnipotent rule!”
The Lemnisians started. Krzza of Lyxfa showed himself in his true colors, a despot of despots. A creature without a universe, ready to swoop vulture-like on a fair system of worlds, destroying all opposition. Beside him, Ay-Artz dwindled as a tyrant. This maniac was their worst and most dangerous foe.
A maniac, but dangerous. A mind insane, but holding the key to immense power. His mental warp would prove only a greater scourge to the peoples who would soon feel his iron fist.
Thus confronted with the true picture of what the future held in store for intelligent life in the universe, the three Lemnisians gasped in utter dismay.
“Ayhuuu!” croaked Mea-Quin hoarsely. “It is Krauz personified that speaks to us!”
Dos-Tev set his lips firmly to keep from shouting denunciations at the monstrous green other-dimensional creature with such utterly gross ambitions. Bullo stood motionless, completely stunned by things he could not grasp as readily as his masters.
Suddenly the Wrongness of Space arose from his throne.
“As for yourselves, I have a special way of destroying those who cross my path. You creatures from Lemnis fomented resistance to Ay-Artz, thus delaying me. Hear your doom!
“There is a special universe totally removed from this one wherein there is a world inhabited by awesome creatures defying description. They will make short work of you. You will be transported there in your space suits, fully armed. Perhaps with your gamma bombs, and force-plane projector you will stave off destruction long enough to become gibbering idiots at the terrors of that world. You, Mea-Quin, are a great scientist—ah, yet, a great scientist. But in that world you will be as helpless as a naked child. There you are sentenced to go by the order of Krzza, Emperor of the Universe!”
Perhaps the spine twisting laugh emitted by the Wrongness of Space made the Lemnisians shudder more that the approach of a terrible doom.
“Just one word, Krzza,” cried Mea-Quin, cutting short the mad creature’s laugh. “Somewhere, somehow, sometime, you will be tripped up. You have great powers, but they are not infinite. The race we come from, and the peoples of the universe, are not the kind to let tyranny long exist. You will fail—”
“Brave words,” radiated the Wrongness of Space with mental sarcasm. “Maybe they will comfort you when you face the unmentionable horrors of your doom.”
The first impression the Lemnisians had of the world on which Krzza marooned them was one of prickling, abysmal fear. Almost as tho it were a material entity, soul-sickening, enervating, crushing fear weighed them down. It was a terrible handicap from the first, as it inspired them almost to fall down and grovel in abject misery and dread of—they knew not what.
They faced each other in a thick fog of swirling yellow vapors, standing on crumbly, barren ground, and took heart in seeing slung on each other’s belt a gamma bomb and a force-place projector. With the latter instrument, they should be immune from physical harm till the atomic valves burned out, which would not be for many hours.
Mea-Quin spoke first, his voice vibrating in the headphones of his friends. “The Wrongness of Space has given me much food for thought with his lecture on dimensions.”
“Food for thought?” queried Dos-Tev, amazed. “What good will that do us, stranded here on an unknown world in an unknown universe!”
“Ayhuu! There are certain things—”
“I like this not,” came the voice of Bullo. “Creatures—whatever and wherever they are—could attack only too easily in this gloom.”
Both Dos-Tev and Mea-Quin opened their mouths to speak, but no words came forth as a fresh wave of that indefinable sensation of stark terror,
like a wave of an etheric tide, swept over them, setting them all atremble. Then, of a sudden, they were fighting for their lives.
Figures loomed up in the xanthic mists all around them; horrid, frightening shapes of nightmare appearance. With a silence and intentness that was hideous they leaped upon the marooned men with multiple slavering jaws and powerful talons. Queerly angular in shape, they moved with rheumatic clumsiness, and from various vents in their crystalline hides puffed smoky vapors.
Bullo’s force-plane projector was already in action, smiting the nightmare monsters with irresistible blows and volatilizing them wherever the fan-rays struck fullest. Dos-Tev and Mea-Quin then joined in the slaughter, and by common instinct they formed a triangle facing outward, this protecting their backs. In unending waves the monsters advanced, scrambling over the bulwark of mutilated bodies that quickly ringed the three Lemnisians. Minutes passed and they began to perspire from the exertion of swinging the appreciably heavy projectors in an arc of 120 degrees to prevent any beast from getting within striking distance.
“Metallic beings,” gasped Mea-Quin, his scientific nature asserting itself even in the heat of battle. “Crystalloid creatures whose body processes run at furnace heat. Tor help us if one of them gets close enough to rake us with teeth or talons; they would shear us like a knife!”
Smoking and fuming like the combustion engines they were in reality, the hideous monsters swept upon them, seemingly unknowing of fear. The hills of ringed bodies became higher and broader. It became increasingly more dangerous as the beasts could run up behind and suddenly clamber over almost upon them.
“Not the normal killing or food instinct,” gasped Mea-Quin, his keen brain recording facts even with death in his face. “This is something—greater. The ultra-hatred of alien creatures who sense we are intruders from a distant world. Or perhaps—it is something we cannot even understand.”
