by Earl
“Fred,” said the old scientist later, in a low fierce voice of determination, “regardless of the consequences, you and I are going to trace down this mysterious psycho-emanation!”
CHAPTER III
The Sphere in Space
THEY landed in Tokyo and immediately embarked again on a coastal steamer for Nemuro, on the island of Yeddo. Some seventy miles to the northeast was the first of the Kurile Islands, and the needle pointed rigidly in its direction. There was two days’ delay at Nemuro before much argument and bribery convinced the Japanese port officials that the two American tourists were not spies.
In calm, clear weather, Professor Thode and his assistant, chauffeured by a taciturn native, motored their way in a launch to the island at which their needle pointed like a damning finger of accusation.
By judicious use of a compass and their sense of direction, they were able to determine, three hours later, that they had reached the approximate point where the needle’s line of extension intersected the coast. They landed at a stretch of weed-grown sandiness. Standing on the shore, Bilte hesitated.
“We are absolutely unarmed, professor, and we don’t know what we are walking into—”
But the old scientist had already set the needle apparatus on the sand, and again closed the switch. The quivering needle swung in a lightning quarter circle and fastened rigidly to the northwest, without the least hesitant swinging back and forth as formerly.
The two men looked at each other significantly.
“It must be very close!” whispered Bilte hoarsely.
Professor Thode was already making his way toward a fringe of gnarled bushy growths further down the shore, beyond which nothing could be distinguished. Almost like a robot he strode along, and Bilte felt it would be better to check him before he ran into something unexpected. But as he was about to call, he saw from the corner of his eye that the pilot was tugging at the launch to shove off. To the unknowing pilot, the place seemed bewitched with ghostlike voices.
With a shout Bilte turned back, and pulled him away before he could get the nose of the launch off the sand. And when Bilte next turned around, the professor was nowhere in sight!
He stood a moment, undecided. Then he heaved at the launch with all his strength, pulling it as far up on the sand as he could. Thereupon, he left the beach, reasonably certain that the pilot, with his slighter strength, could not drag the launch clear by himself. At a trot, then, he made for the thickets and snapped on his pocket psychophone while he ran, hoping to contact the professor in that way. But it was a useless hope, as the very strength of the projector’s emanations was sufficient to drown out any lesser psychowaves.
Reaching the thickets, Bilte crashed through the bushy growths, unmindful of clinging tendrils and barbs that scratched his skin. Soon he came out upon clear land that sloped gently upward for a hundred feet, and then abruptly veered off into a large depression. The professor was still nowhere to be seen, and a worried frown came to Bilte’s forehead.
He ran forward toward the closer edge of the large depression ahead. When he had struggled up the short slope, the whole of the little valley suddenly swung into his line of vision, and he stopped frozen dumbfounded in utter amazement.
AT the exact center of the huge depression was an apparatus whose top did not rise above the general ground level. Set on a wide spreading tripod, it consisted of nothing more than a colossal metal globe whose one surface—that facing southwest toward Japan—was punctured by a flanged aperture, as though from it something was meant to pour.
Evidently that was the “projector” that he and the professor had suspected to exist on the island. But the other thing his eyes saw he was not to understand until later.
Back of the projector was another spherical globe of metal, but this did not seem to be a permanent part of the apparatus, since it was suspended off the ground a few feet. That in itself was astounding—a large spheroid of metal hanging in the air like a feather!
At the same time that Bilte saw the projector and the suspended globe, he saw the professor, and a hoarse, choked cry burst from his throat. He had no time to shout again, or to rush to his assistance. The suspended spheroid quite suddenly leaped through the air, right over the cringing professor, who had evidently been examining the projector.
A hole yawned in its under-surface, and—Bilte gasped in disbelief—the professor, without any voluntary motion on his part, arose and catapulted into the hole, as though an invisible giant’s hand had yanked him off the ground.
Then the hole in the spheroid closed, and without a sound the amazing object levitated itself away from the ground, and gradually disappeared into the blue sky.
Bilte crouched at the depression’s edge for a full minute, unable to collect his scattered senses. Then he staggered in a daze back to the stretch of beach. Scratched and bleeding, enervated by the shock of what he had seen, Bilte hardly noticed at first that the pilot was frantically tugging at the launch, and had almost succeeded in shoving it clear. Bilte broke into a stumbling run, shouting madly, and arrived just in time to climb into the boat with the pilot.
Hours later, Bilte awoke from a mental lethargy to notice the quays and docks of Nemuro rapidly approaching. Utterly deflated in spirit, he went directly to his dingy hotel room. All that afternoon and evening he paced to and fro, trying to think coherently. What had the spherical vessel been? Where was the professor now? What was to be his fate? What should he, Fred Bilte, do now? What could he do!
That same evening, dinnerless and sleepless, Bilte began to think he was going mad. He imagined he was hearing the professor calling his name. More than once he half turned, ready to swear the professor must be there. Suddenly he gasped, and with trembling fingers pulled out his pocket psycho-phone, cursing himself aloud for having completely forgotten that he had neglected such a direct means of communication.
IMMEDIATELY, at the snap of the switch, the professor’s psychovoice reverberated in Bilte’s mind, calling his name over and over.
“Professor!” half shouted Bilte. “Fred! Thank God you’ve finally closed our contact. I’ve been trying to connect with you for hours.”
“Professor, are you safe? Where are you? What—”
“Fred, stop! Listen to me. There is no time to lose. I can’t tell you much, because I haven’t found out much. But you’ve got to get away from Japan and back to the States—back to our laboratory. I’ve been locked into a little room in this ship without seeing anybody, but I know it has been moving all the time, its speed constantly accelerating, and must be going somewhere. That somewhere must be the hideout or headquarters of these people who have made the projector. The one thing in our favor is that apparently they didn’t know you were with me on that island. That means I can relay what I learn to you.
“But it will take the big set, back home, to do that if this ship goes much further. I will begin contacting you again in five days, whether or not you give me a return call. If I’m out of range of your psycho-phone, I will have no way of knowing whether you are listening or not, but it’s all we can do. Oh, if only our big set could transmit as well as receive! Anyway, I’m going to see the finish of this and pass what I find out along to you. Now get out of Japan and hurry!”
Perhaps the two servants in Professor Thode’s laboratory-home were surprised at Bilte’s orders when he returned from their foreign trip. A couch was installed in the experiment room beside the big psycho-receiver, and meals were to be brought in regularly. He was to be left strictly alone at all times, and they were not to worry about Professor Thode—he had gone to China and would be back some time in the future.
CHAPTER IV
The Voice from the Ether
IT was during the evening of July 17, 1938, that Professor Thode’s psycho-voice first came over the big set.
“Fred, are you listening?” it began. “God! How useless for me to ask a question whose answer I may never know! I have just found out several things, one of which mak
es it impossible for you ever to contact me with the psychophone.
“Fred! I told you the ship was accelerating. That puzzled me, and probably you too. Only one type of ship would do that—a space ship. Well, I’m on a space ship!”
Bilte bit his tongue. Drops of blood fell unnoticed from his lips.
The psycho-voice went on:
“Yes, Fred, I’m on a space ship. Just an hour ago, the door of my prison opened and before me stood a creature—well, a creature, I will not attempt to describe him. You can believe me that I was thoroughly frightened and thought I was mad, especially when the creature spoke to me—in English—and addressed me as ‘Earthman.’ To make it short, he informed me that I was aboard a space ship bound for the planet Mars, and that he was a Martian. My skepticism must have shown itself in my face, for the creature then took me by the hand and led me up corridors and passageways in this amazing vessel and finally brought me before a window.
“And there it was—Earth, a green-grey ball hanging in space!
“You can’t imagine the shock of it, Fred, nor the wonder and glory of it—seeing the heavens from a space ship. The amazing blackness’ of space, the steely stars, the impression of tremendous depth, the shuddering awe of its immensity. And then Earth—but a ball, a mote, hanging in the nothingness, its surface indistinct with a gauzy halo over it.
“I wonder how long I just stood there and stared! Finally I turned to my guide. He seemed amused by my awe.
“ ‘Earthman,’ he said, ‘does your mind reel at these things? I see it does. Naturally it would. I forget that the undeveloped intelligence of Earth has thought of space travel as remote and in the main improbable, if not actually impossible.’
“ ‘Sir,’ I said, not knowing how else to address him, ‘This is like a miracle!’
“The creature—or Martian, as I should say—laughed insolently and Fred, from that moment on I hated him! It would be hard to explain why. Perhaps if his acid laugh, and the peculiar tones of his voice rang in your ears, you too would promptly hate him—this creature. His whole demeanor was condescending and arrogant; or ten times more arrogant and contemptuous than the most conceited ruler of Rome could ever have been. He made me feel, during those few minutes we were together, that I was a crawling worm that had to get out of his path before being stepped upon.
“I am back in my little room—my prison—now. They have been feeding me regularly, a liquid food, very sweet but satisfying. The room I’m in has a higher air pressure than outside, and seems to be equipped especially for an Earthman. I wonder what that means?
“Of course, a thousand and one other speculations have been torturing me. What was this Martian, and his companions, doing on Earth? What is their connection with the projection of the psycho-wave that is inundating Japan with its insidious influence? Why am I being taken to Mars?
“God! At times I feel I have gone mad, or that this is a horrible nightmare. And yet this seems to be real—Fred, tell me, am I—”
THE incoming psycho-voice jumbled for a moment. Bilte crushed his knuckles against the hard bench top till the skin cracked. Then again came from the void:
“I shall have to remember I am a scientist, Fred, and as such must keep my wits. I’ve figured that I have been aboard now over six Earth days, and we can’t be more than halfway, if that. I suppose you have already added a hexa-bank amplifier to the set. Probably you’ll have to add another to be able to catch my waves when and if I arrive on Mars. Thank heaven psycho-waves have such a great penetrating power and—oh!”
Bilte started and turned paler at the agonized gasp that registered from the professor. Then his voice again, broken:
“Accelerating—tremendously—tons of weight—”
That was all and Bilte staggered to a chair, mopping a feverish brow. For twenty-four hours there was utter silence from the psycho-ether tuned to Professor Thode’s wave-length, and Bilte grew haggard in anxiety. In the early morning of July 19th, the suspense ended. Thereafter the professor radiated messages three separate times—a lost soul crying from a spatial wilderness. Only Fred Bilte was ever to know the full details of Professor Thode’s three messages from the planet Mars.
July 19, 2 A. M.
The ship has landed on Mars, Fred. When I last contacted you a full day ago, our connection was broken when I was hurled against the wall by a terrific surge of the ship. Soon after I lost consciousness, and when I next opened my eyes, I could see through a window that we were no longer in space, but on a solid surface. In short, on Mars!
If I could somehow transmit to you psycho-television, perhaps you might then gain some idea of this Martian city that spreads before me. Imagine spires and towers a mile high; bulbous dwelling places suspended at any and all heights; majestic edifices that could house a hundred of Earth’s ocean liners; columnar decorations glinting with inlaid jewels and burnished metals—all intertwined and connected with conduits and tunnels and such.
This is a city of Mars I’m in, Fred, and the only city!
I’ve found out many things. The duration of intelligent life on Mars goes back to a half million years ago. It was that long ago that the Martians had already invented speech and writing and the first beginnings of science. Their early history—when Earth was but a primeval jungle—is curiously parallel to our recorded history: a series of wars, famines, pestilences, revolutions, and mass migrations. They had seas then and continents and islands, just as on Earth.
It was a hundred thousand years after their first written records that spatial navigation became possible to their science, and the Martians swarmed all over the Solar System. No life was found on any of the outer planets, nor on their satellites, by reason of their remoteness from the life-giving sun. Mercury supported a hardy silicic form of unintelligent life. Venus and Earth were steamy pots of struggling evolutionary forms of life, and man was yet unborn on our world.
Thus the Martians were sole rulers and masters of the Solar System. For the next hundred thousand years the most precious and useful products of all the different planets were brought to Mars to further and make great Martian civilization.
BUT the next hundred thousand year period was a period of breaking down rather than building up. With the immense strides of their science, deadly and horrible weapons of destruction were developed, and the various classes and races fell on one another and waged war. These periodic wars gradually became more and more catastrophic and disastrous, and the once teeming and thriving population dwindled.
It is hard to believe, but my Martian mentor—his name is Sokon—intimated that for a long time the sole ambition, thought, and endeavor of all Mars was warfare and military dominion. First one race and then another gained ascendancy in endless cycles that might have gone on forever.
Truly, Fred, from what I’ve learned, this planet was rightfully, even if accidentally, named after the god of war—Mars!
But it could not go on indefinitely, because of the rapidity with which the population dwindled. About fifty thousand years ago all the planet lay wasted and war-torn and its denizens numbered but a few millions, scattered all over the planet in little, proud, isolated communities, each a deadly enemy of the other.
You can surmise, that while the long series of wars went on, scientific advancement was hampered and the peaceful trades fell almost to nothing. I am beginning to think, Fred, that warfare on Earth is a small thing compared to what it must be in such an advanced, superscientific world.
But just when it seemed that their civilization was doomed to suicide—the few millions left would not feed their weapons more than another century—a salvation came to them.
That, Fred, is all I know of the story of Mars. For some strange—and I fear awful—reason, my mentor would tell me no more on the subject; How the unity of the warlike Martians was achieved I shall tell you when I find out.
Someone is coming into my room now, Fred! Goodby! You’ll hear from me—if Providence wills it—as soon as I can manage it in se
crecy, as I fear to transmit in the presence of Sokon.
July 20, 4 A. M.
I have finally got the chance to transmit to you again, Fred, but you will never know what torture I went through for a while before I could bring myself to contact you again. Perhaps it would be better that you should never hear this that I have learned in the past day here on Mars.
But I have made the decision to tell you all, Fred, and if it plunges your mind into a fog such as mine, God forgive me for the act!
Some hours ago Sokon took me to the roof of this giant building and into an airship. In this vehicle we darted over the immense mazes of this city to its outskirts. There the ship lowered to what must be the largest building on Mars. I estimate it at a mile square, yet it is not high.
Not a word did Sokon speak all this time. But after landing on the roof of this Cyclopean structure, he faced me with a strange and dreadful smile.
“Earthman,” he said with a wicked sort of gloat in his voice, “now you shall find the answers to all your questions. Look around”—he waved an arm to include the conglomeration of strange apparatuses spread all over the roof near the landing field—“and know that from here is controlled the superficial destiny of Earth!”
Of Earth! Of Earth!
The searing thought rocketed through my brain and made me weak. What could he mean? I was soon to know.
The apparatus, I might explain, seemed to my wavering mind a hopeless maze of geared machinery all covered with some transparent protective material, from which protruded hundreds of long, thin spouts, or nozzles. Meaningless for the moment, but later they came to have a frightful significance.
Sokon then took me down an elevator, down into the building itself. I wish I could picture for you the scene that met my unbelieving eyes as the elevator door opened and I was led out upon a balcony from which could be viewed the entire interior, which was one immense room.
