The Collected Stories

by Earl

  BUT what would he, the so-called Benefactor, do to them, if and when some fleet held back? That was the question on every one’s tongue. Renolf listened to the chain-station broadcasts, reviewing current events. The ghost of a smile hovered over his brooding face. Frantic announcers, delivering news of greater magnitude than ever in history before, could hardly control their voices. Trickery—fraud—a German plot—a dictator’s cabal—madman’s hoax—it was called everything.

  “But would you,” asked Dora, “destroy any fleet not obeying?”

  “Would I?” said Renolf thoughtfully. “I wonder!”

  Twelve days of world suspense. In that time Renolf decided it was time for them to move. Isolated though Dr. Hartwell’s laboratory home was, in a small mid-western town, it was to be expected that sooner or later their identity would be uncovered. They had taken care to leave and arrive in the cylindrical ship only in the dead of night. But there were always eyes to see and tongues to wag.

  “Before long,” stated Renolf, “we, as the so-called Benefactor, will be much sought after—both for kindly intentions and for deadly intentions., We will have to make the former contacts carefully. The latter we must protect ourselves against. Here is what we will do. We must pack all my notes and certain small apparatus in the ship. I will do that.

  “Then we must get as much of that million as we can from the In-your-home Television Co. in cash. You will do that. Then we must leave for parts unknown. In our new home, any material we need must be brought through some one else. Broxton, the manservant who served your family for forty years, will do that. As for keeping our little household shipshape, Mrs. Broxton will qualify. The brain unit will be safe enough here, buried and unsuspected.”

  “But where will our new home be?” asked Dora. She did not think to remonstrate against leaving the only home she had ever had. If Renolf said leave, leave it was, even though it would hurt her for a while.

  “In the Arizona Rockies,” said Renolf. “I know a place up there, lost in virgin wilds. Ideal for secrecy. It is quiet there, peaceful, close to nature. Lakes and mountain streams near by will——”

  In fact, one mountain stream tumbled down a fifty foot cliff not a half mile from the deserted hunting lodge into which they moved. It was not a comfortable home, somewhat primitive, but large and solidly protective. Before the eventful day of the naval get-together came around, they had established themselves more or less securely.

  “Now,” commented Renolf, “we can go ahead with our plans without acute worry about apprehension, arrest or assassination.”

  IV.

  THE VICINITY of Iceland’s main harbor of Reykjavik was a formidable looking place on the day set for the tryst of maritime powers. It bristled ominously with ships of war. Only one ship of each nation’s fleet, by tacit agreement, actually entered the harbor. The rest of the fleets steamed slowly in wary formation out on the ocean. Great Britain’s fleet, having the most to lose in case of trickery, had strategically positioned itself along the coast. France’s armada circled aimlessly far out.

  Yet it took but a glance for Renolf to see that none of the nations had sent their full naval force. None had sent even half their available ships. They had feared the power of the Benefactor, dared not disobey entirely, but they had feared attack at home as well.

  Renolf sent his dull-white ship scudding over the area outside the harbor. Thousands of eyes watched it in awe, knowing it must be the Benefactor himself. Then he spoke:

  “Nations of Earth! Every large maritime power of Europe is here represented, but none in full. You mistrust me. You mistrust each other. You mistrust your very selves! I see that I must give a full demonstration of my powers before this present project can be carried out in full. I command that each nation here represented evacuate one of its capital battleships, and tow it ten miles out from the bisection of the harbor mouth. They must be left there in a group.

  “I go now to Manila, to check up on Japan and the United States. I will be back in six hours! Yes, I repeat—six hours. On my return, I will destroy utterly those empty ships!”

  The aluminium ship swooped as though in exultation, and then sped silently into the thin blue of the sky. Up and up it went. Higher than man had ever gone. Thirty miles—forty—seventy! Then it swung in a grand arc, cleaving almost airless space, and shot toward distant Manila. In the eternal gloom of near space, it sparkled back somberly the spears of starlight.

  Inside, Dora raised her head. But determined not to be astounded—or not to show it, like the emotionless Renolf—she put on the smoked glasses with which he had previously provided her.

  Through these she looked upon the glory of the Sun. In that thinness of air, its corona and halo were unobscured, undiffused. The wispy solar prominences, fiery breath of a vigorous young star, seemed to writhe from its circular outline. And in the powdered pool of sharp stars, the planets shone like small beacons.

  Dora started. Renolf was beside her. He pointed at garnet Mars. “Some day I would like to go there—and solve its mystery. The mystery of its death.”

  “Can you—do even that?” gasped the girl. “Go out there—to Mars?”

  Renolf turned his eyes, those luminous, wisdom-flooded eyes, upon her. “I can do even that. And besides, out there—somewhere in space—lurks the menace! Twice now have I heard the insidious whispering which seems the challenge of an alien and inimical power. I must take the initiative some time and seek out the source of those threatening articulations.”

  “But I don’t understand!” said Dora with a troubled frown. “If the supposed menace wishes to do Earth harm, why does it not strike now? Why should it issue warnings or challenges?”

  “Perhaps it is not ready,” returned Renolf with a shrug. “Perhaps, too, it is unwittingly giving away its presence through the great sensitiveness of the sensory cell, which is an amplifying unit for thought waves. In short, I know nothing of what or who the menace is.”

  “You do not even know it is a menace!” added Dora, who was inclined to be skeptical of the whole thing.

  Renolf smiled in a frozen way, but said no more on the subject. At times he doubted himself there was anything alarming in the mysterious syllables, which might after all be the accidental tailings of other-world minds uninterested in Earth in any particular way.

  MANILA was sighted three hours after leaving Iceland. The fleets of the United States and Japan, only partially represented, were on either side of the harbor mouth. It was a momentous tableau. Two nations, long rivals on a great ocean, inexorably drifting toward a struggle for supremacy, were facing each other. One bursting shell, even a salute from the shore batteries, might have precipitated a melee. Certain of the Japanese officials were even discussing the matter, for they outnumbered the American fleet to a small extent.

  But into this charged atmosphere was projected a side-tracking influence. A commanding voice thundered from their radios. “You also, powers of the Pacific, have cheated on me. The price of the misdemeanor will be the same as that for the Atlantic Powers—one capital ship each. I shall return here in six hours.”

  Then back the tapered cylinder flung itself—back to Iceland. The emptied ships were all in place, drifting slowly apart. It was the crucial moment. Could the Benefactor make good his boast? Could he sink or destroy five mighty engines of war? Or had the Earth been frightened after all by an abortive attempt at world power?

  The answer came swiftly, like a flash of lightning. Invisible in the bright sunlight, a violet beam hurtled from the white ship. To watching eyes, the first of the deserted battleships simply sagged within itself like a butter ship in hot water. Sprays of boiling water and steam arose in a colossal geyser. And then—there was nothing! Only bubbles and a ring where the dreadnaught had been!

  Above, the insignificant-looking aluminium craft lazed over the second warship. Then it too vanished as though disintegrated by a bolt from Jove. It was all over in a half hour, and thousands of eyes looked at the tossing wav
es that not long before had floated five great ships of war.

  “Thus can I, the Benefactor, deal with opposition. What I have done to your ships, I can do to your armies, your cannon, your forts. They are doomed. But to destroy them utterly, which would be the best way, would entail the loss of human life. And human life I am vowed to save, not destroy.

  “Therefore, the only other course is voluntary demobilization by every nation. Under threat, of course, that I stand ready to enforce my decree.

  “I will be lenient in the matter, however, and will allow matters to stand as they are for two weeks—fourteen days. On the fourteenth day I will appear at Geneva, the seat of the present League of Nations. Here must every nation send its representatives for a grand disarmament program. I, the Benefactor, will outline the procedure. We will there at Geneva weld together a true and lasting League of Nations!”

  With this parting speech, while yet the world gasped at the incredible feat of destroying five battleships, Renolf snapped off his superradio transmitter. Then he touched the controls, and the ship darted skyward.

  “Renolf,” breathed Dora, still stunned at the cataclysmic event. “You are a god now in your power!”

  The man, young in years, age-old in knowledge, smiled faintly. “Just a matter of degree. To a Roman army, the possessor of a machine gun would have been a god of power. To a puttering alchemist of the fifteenth century, a modern chemist would be a magician. To this world, I—or rather, what your father made it possible for me to be—am omnipotent, because I am a century ahead in thought and science. Yet it is but atomic power that gives me such destructive ability. A long-suspected, long-sought-after, scientific secret. It is child’s play, almost, to impress the world of to-day with such a revolutionary discovery.”

  AS their ship dropped from the upper stratosphere down to the wide bosom of the Pacific, a cloud of smoke appeared to one side of the island on which Manila was situated. Renolf started. Then he saw the livid red streaks of booming cannon in the pall. He exclaimed aloud, unbelievingly, for the two fleets were at war!

  Japan had attacked, seeing a chance to take the Philippines and cripple the American fleet at the same time. The fanatic officials had shrugged away the suggestion that the Benefactor would be angry. The Benefactor! Who was he? Some insane impostor who had hoaxed a whole world.

  And the insane impostor darted over the watery arena vengefully. Then his violet ray, so unimpressive in its manner of discharge, unlike the roaring cannon, sang a silent song of power. The great capital ships, belching at one another from five miles, suddenly wallowed, one by one.

  Frantic crews ceased their loading of cannon. Figures swarmed to the decks in alarm. No shell had struck. That they knew for they would have felt its terrific impact all through the giant steel structure. Therefore it must be something else. Therefore it must be—the Benefactor!

  Ten minutes after Renolf’s arrival, the last cannon belched. Naval officers regarded each other in bewilderment. Nothing was wrong, yet the ships wallowed unpowered, helpless. They could not maneuver. Then a shout went up from every ship, as through the thinning smoke of battle was seen the dull-white ship of the Benefactor. His voice came soon after:

  “Powers of the Pacific! You have done the one thing I least wanted—battled each other. For this your fleets should be destroyed. Yet I will not do that, because of the many innocent lives that would go down with the ships. Your punishment has been great as it is. I think you will find your engines badly damaged, perhaps wrecked. Those ships unaffected, for I spared several, will have to tow you in. The Benefactor is all-powerful, and merciful.”

  In their secluded home in the mountains, Renolf answered Dora calmly: “Theatrical? How else accomplish my aim? I must have world power. And then, when I have it, I must give it back—but under altered conditions. I must first lead the way to better things. Then the people of Earth must be allowed to carry on themselves.

  “Only in that way can there be progress and content. Forced into better things, it would not last. But led to better things—that is the secret of it. As for being theatrical at first, it is unavoidable. Human nature looks with more of awe and respect on that which is ostentatious—on that which is done in a stupendous way.”

  The next day, despite everything, however, war clouds hung over the Pacific. Radio news items divided themselves between the Benefactor’s doings, and the growing belligerency between Japan and America. For the Japanese had carelessly started a bombardment on Manila before the Benefactor had arrived to stop the duel of the fleets. The newest and mightiest of nations began to heave and mutter. Their national honor had been sullied. Japan must make reparations—that or fight.

  Before a week had gone by, war was declared between the Pacific powers. Renolf spluttered aghast. “Plow can they fail to consider my say in the matter? Do they think I have been playing a game?”

  It was Dora who saw the light. “No, Renolf. But it is what they consider a master move in diplomacy. You, the Benefactor, are obviously American to them, for you broadcast in English with American accent. Washington noticed that and——”

  “I see!” exploded Renolf. Then his voice became calm: “A master move indeed! Being American, I must needs join in with the United States. They respect me as a power, but they credit me with their own narrow failings. My demonstration of supremacy they recognize, but my message—that they disregard!”

  HE spent an hour in deep thought. Then he left in the ship, alone. Ten hours later Dora heard her lover’s supervoice throb from the loud-speaker, for all the world to hear:

  “People of Earth! The Benefactor has struck again. Forced by necessity, I have so crippled the fleets of Japan and the United States, that war is impossible. And for the benefit of Washington, remember that I salute no one flag. To correct false impressions, let me say that I am allied with no national power. I stand alone. And in my hand I have the power to subjugate Earth! I will use that power only as a means to an end. Remember the world conference at Geneva!”

  Renolf strode into the mountain lodge moodily, frowning.

  “What did you do?” asked Dora. “Destroy the fleets and become a—murderer?”

  “Of course not,” returned Renolf, glancing at her sharply. “Using the gas-collapser beam, I simply stopped their engines—like at Manila. Japan’s fleet now wallows unpowered in mid-Pacific. The American fleet now clutters the Panama Canal like common debris. I do not destroy, for then I would be no better than they.”

  Dora hung her head at the rebuke. She had accused him without forethought. Secretly, she had feared his great power had gone to his head. Renolf, by his next words, proved he guessed her state of mind.

  “Ruthlessness is generally a companion to great power, isn’t it?”

  “No, no, Renolf! I didn’t mean——”

  “But you did.” Renolf was brutally frank. “Dictators, generals, captains of industry, kings—arise to positions of power through ruthlessness. And they exercise their supreme command without pity for whomever falls across their path. At present I am ruthless too. But I work to an end where it will be eliminated. If at any time my methods go against your grain, you may freely depart my service.”

  Dora faced him, eyes going hard. “That was unnecessary, Renolf. I am with you because I believe in you and in what you are doing. If I ever do quit you, you can know there is something radically wrong in what you are doing!” She marched from the room, head held high. Vincent later was to remember, and commend her. And now even Renolf—the cold, hard, super-Renolf—followed her retreating figure with admiration in his eyes. Then his thoughts flew back to the Panama Canal scene. Somehow he had hated to do it.

  A vestige of throbbing patriotism had stayed his hands at the beam controls. He, an American, disabling his own country’s naval fleet!

  Then had come sanity again—insanity in the eyes of the world—and he had swung the beam nozzle. The gas-collapser beam had silently sprayed downward. It was an astounding thing. It caused
all hot gases to instantly collapse, or simply, to cool. It affected nothing else, except that some of the sailors in line with the beam felt their lungs heave inward.

  All the combustion engines instantaneously ceased working—not only ceased working, but also jammed so forcefully from back spin as to snap weaker parts. Whether Diesel engine or steam engine, they stopped. And hundreds of eyes had turned skyward and whispers had arisen, half in awe, half in anger: “The Benefactor!”

  Japan and America, separated from each other’s throats by an immense ocean, found themselves in a strange predicament. They had declared war—and were unable to carry it on! Without battleships, how could they land at each other’s coasts, bombard and capture ports, and disembark troops? They couldn’t even meet, ship against ship, in mid-ocean and have it out! Certain people all over the world smiled for days afterward. It was so ridiculous. Washington and Tokyo fumed and cursed, then prepared to send delegates to the Geneva Conference. The Benefactor had whipped them, and for fair!

  Europe found herself in no less of a predicament. True, her five powers had their fleets yet. But only on condition, that was plain. What had happened to Japan’s fleet could happen to Great Britain’s. The latter nation felt herself the most outraged of all. Acknowledged mistress of the seas, what was she now? At the Benefactor’s will, she could be stripped of her prestige. Long before the Geneva Conference came about, European politics had become subtly changed. The great powers trembled.

  And well they might. Renolf wanted them to more than tremble. He wanted them to shake in their boots. Controlling the destiny of the major portion of Earth’s civilized population, he wanted them to feel their throne tottering. An Earth dominated by Europe, Japan, and America. And that combined power—ever at odds within itself—dominated by the Benefactor. What would be the outcome? A billion souls more or less asked that question. History, supreme history, in the making!