by Earl
Muscles cracking, Traft jerked profane defiance out of his strangling throat and pounded his balled fists at the keys. But it was useless. His muscles had turned to water. Groaning, fighting to the last, he felt his spine going limp. Another few seconds now, and he’d be helpless, like the others were.
But the terrible internal stricture ceased suddenly!
Amazed, Traft jerked his body erect. Then he saw why. Out of nowhere, the vermilion flames of rockets bad appeared, and a long, sleek ship streaked up, A Space Ranger ship! Traft ripped a hoarse shout of relied from his raspy throat.
With its bristling guns peppering shots at the black ship, the Space Ranger blasted up like a zooming meteor. The black ship withdrew, sullenly it seemed, as though debating whether to outface the formidable armed newcomer. Then it plunged away, with the Space Ranger after it.
“What’s—up—Mark?” Shelton asked dazedly, raising his head with a suppressed groan.
“What’s up?” chortled Traft. “Our dark friend just slunk back where it came from, with a Ranger hot on its trail! You know what that means. Ten to one that the black ship will be full of holes in five minutes, and those aboard lucky enough to get into vac-suits, prisoners!”
“Saved!” breathed Captain Harvey. He crawled weakly from between Shelton’s knees. “Saved from—” he broke off, shuddering. His eyes had a strange, wondering gleam in them.
They remained where they were, panting, relaxed, gaining back strength that had been sapped dangerously near the limit of endurance. They didn’t speak for awhile, enjoying to the full the delicious feeling of being snatched from an unknown fate.
Presently Traft snapped on the broadcast phone, plugging in the main cabin.
“Everybody all right down there?” he called.
Myra Banning’s voice answered after a moment, shakily.
“Yes. AH of us were strapped in. But what happened? What was that frightful numbness?” Her tones were bewildered, high-pitched with hysteria. Then, before he could answer: “Is Dr. Shelton all right?”
“He looks about like he’d just come out of Jupiter’s Red Spot,” Traft said wryly, “but he’s okay. We—”
HE snapped off with a hurried excuse as the signal light flashed above his space radio. Through the port they could see the Space Ranger returning, retarding rockets belching. Gracefully it maneuvered to parallel their course. The seven-pointed star insignia of the Space Rangers, policing corps of the Space Navy, was emblazoned in gold over its silvery hull.
The Ranger commander’s keen-eyed face appeared, slightly baffled in expression, in the opti-screen.
“Commander Gordy, Space Ranger ship Forty-four-B reporting to Dr. Rodney Shelton, ETBI-14,” said the image. “The black ship escaped, sir!”
“Escaped!” echoed the three men blankly. The Space Rangers, policing all the spaceways, had the best and fastest ships known.
“By a trick?” Shelton asked.
“No, sir. It simply pulled away from us on the straightaway. And it doesn’t seem to use rocket motivation. I can hardly understand it myself, sir!” The commander looked genuinely shame-faced.
“Of course it was dark and unlighted,” admitted Shelton. “No fault of yours, Commander, I’m sure. We’re only too glad you were here, in time to—” He eyed the officer askance. “Incidentally, how did you happen to be at hand so miraculously?” The man smiled slightly. “We’ve been following you all the way from Earth! Director Beatty’s orders, sir! When we saw your sudden maneuvers, as revealed by your rocket flares, we knew something had happened and came up. We are to convoy you to Iapetus. We’ll be right behind you for the remainder of the trip, Dr. Shelton.”
“Very good, Commander.” Shelton clicked off and whirled. “Did you hear that?” he exploded. “A convoy—for me! What am I, a man or a museum piece?”
“If you ask me,” Traft drawled pointedly, “it’s rather lucky for us the Ranger was around!” He rubbed his bruised knuckles ruefully. “About ten seconds more and—” He interrupted himself. “But that ship! Why the attack? What did they use on us? And it didn’t use rocket power! What motivated it, in the name of Jupiter! A space ship can’t run without rockets! It’s fantastic!”
“Yet it did!” Shelton quietly interposed. “It must run by some sort of gravity control. Scientists have tried for years to develop that, without success. But that ship had it! We have to face facts. It also had some sort of ray, or field, projected across space from ship to ship, that produced the numbing sensation. Fantastic again, but somehow they do it.”
“And Shelton!” Captain Harvey’s voice was vibrant. He had come out of a perplexed daze. “That numbing sensation we went through—it was the same as our experience on Iapetus! The same cold feeling, choking, strangling. It wasn’t a gas at all, as we thought. It was this same—force. I’d swear it!”
Shelton was thunderstruck. Had they been at the point of being thrown into suspended animation? Had it in fact been this same force, instead of a gas, on Iapetus? Something that could rapidly extract energy from the nervous system? A sort of “cold-beam”—exact opposite of a heat-beam?
“THAT seems to tie it up with the Iapetus affair!” Shelton ground out finally. “And that means your ‘figures’ in the cave are real after all, Captain Harvey. But just who are they and what’s their purpose?
“Pirates with a hide-out there,” rumbled Traft. “Or piratical private interests who want that beryllium ore. Same thing. They don’t want our noses in their business. Simple enough, isn’t it?” He doubled his fists and his eyes gleamed. “I think we’re going to run into something on Iapetus. Well, there’s nothing I like better than a good fight.” His good-natured face twisted into a ferocious grimace.
Shelton smiled. “You may be right, you old warrior. Good thing Beatty doesn’t know of this.” He laughed, half bitterly. “He’d want me back right away, locked up and guarded by the Navy.”
“Shelton,” Captain Harvey said slowly, “perhaps it would be best if we did turn back! We don’t know what—”
Shelton jerked up, his face determined. “Captain, you’re navigation commander, but I’m commander of the expedition. I have signed orders to land the expedition on Iapetus. And that’s what we’re going to do!”
Captain Harvey shrugged and left for his office.
“Good boy!” Traft approved warmly. “There’s nothing like a little excitement to make life worthwhile. It—”
The flashing of the radio signal interrupted him. He snapped on the opti-screen, tuning till lights began to flicker at micro-wave nine. Shoulders appeared, and a head invisible behind a masking globe!
“The Space Scientist!” exclaimed Shelton, stepping to the microphone.
“Yes, it is I!” the image said, in cold tones. “I am calling to warn you not to go to Iapetus!”
Shelton and the big pilot looked at each other in amazement.
“Why not?” snapped Shelton.
“Because danger awaits you there! It would be best for your own sake to turn back, Dr. Shelton!” The mysterious scientist’s tones were serious, almost ominous.
“But how do you know that?” demanded Shelton. His eyes narrowed. “We were just attacked. Do you know of that too?”
The Space Scientist nodded. “In the course of my wanderings through space, certain things come to my attention, unavoidably. Don’t ask me any further questions. I am not concerned with those things one way or the other. I care only for my science, my great theory. But I give you this warning—do not go to Iapetus!”
“Why are you taking the trouble to warn me?” queried Shelton curiously.
The queer masked man did not answer for a moment. Finally he said, in gruff tones:
“Don’t attribute it to maudlin sentiment. I’ve renounced such things. Earth is a world of fools who let human emotions run away with them. My motive in this case is simply esoteric. You have a good brain, Shelton, and you are a scientist. Science must go on. You would come to harm on Iapetus. That
is all I have to say.”
CHAPTER VII
The Secret of the Cave
ABRUPTLY, the masked image faded from the opti-screen. Shelton turned with a grin.
“By glory, the old boy likes me!” Traft came out of an astonished trance at having seen the semilegendary Space Scientist, though he had not been too astonished to hastily snap him several times with his camera.
“What about the warning, Rod? Maybe—”
“Maybe nothing!” cried Shelton, his jaw set grimly. “We’re going to Iapetus. You couldn’t stop me now with ten cold-rays, I’m going to solve their mystery if I have to explore the whole System to do it!”
The great ETBI-14 nosed its way into the little Saturnian universe. It was a welcome sight to the voyagers, after the long stretch through empty, monotonous space. In its ringed beauty Saturn looked like a gigantic rosy apple with a shimmering halo of perforated gauze around it.
It was the outpost, the present frontier, of man’s empire beyond Earth. On misted Saturn’s surface were a few scattered settlements that gathered the valuable medicinal herbs that grew there. Titan’s mines were already gaining prestige for their rich tungsten, iridium and copper ores.
Rhea, about to be exploited for its sulphur and mercury, was soon to be given its first bio-conditioned citizens, through ETBI and adaptene. Shelton thrilled with pride at the thought.
But beyond, in the outer gulfs of space, man had not yet penetrated, except for occasional explorations. Distances were so vast, the three planets out there so frigidly inimical, that organized commerce had not yet tackled its prodigious challenge. It was the Antarctica of the Solar Empire, beyond Saturn.
After a stop at the Titanian docks for fuel and replacements of their emptied oxygen tanks, the BT73I-14 and its Ranger convoy lumbered for wayward Iapetus. It was a small, glinting globe as they approached, rapidly enlarging to reveal its jagged, inhospitable surface, Just what mysteries would soon be unfolded there?
The ship began cruising parallel to the wild surface, upheld by underjets. Captain Harvey, after consultation of his charts, was able to point out the valley with the cave mouth. Traft landed the ship skillfully.
Back of them, the Space Ranger settled to rest. Its commander called Shelton:
“We are under your orders, sir!”
“Very good, Commander Gordy. I’ll contact you later.”
Shelton felt a glow of confidence, with that gun-bristling ship and trained fighting crew at his command. He was glad now that Director Beatty had seen fit to send the ship along.
Shelton called a conference of his ship’s total group. He had Commander Gordy listen in by radio.
“Officially we’re here as a survey party, and an ETBI commission,” he began. “But unofficially, due to what has come to our attention since leaving Earth, we’ll investigate the cave, first. I think we all agree on that.”
The listening men nodded grim acquiescence.
“There shouldn’t be any danger.” Shelton continued. “We have the Ranger men for armed protection. So that if there are men in the cave, and if they have a-strange new weapon, and if they’re hiding something—” He left the rest hanging. “Captain Harvey, you and your men will accompany me. The rest will stay with the ship.”
Myra Benning was stubbornly shaking her head. “No,” she said flatly, “I’m coming along! My brother is in that cave somewhere—and alive! I want to help find him.”
She hurried on before Shelton could even protest:
“Since we’ve landed I’ve been sure! Call it intuition or anything you want. He’s alive in that cave—I know it! And I must go along!”
Shelton still looked dubious, but Traft spoke up.
“Let her come along, Rod. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
The girl flashed him a brief smile.
A brooding atmosphere seemed to rest over the scene as twenty vac-suited figures stepped from the two ships toward the black cave mouth at the nearest cliff’s base. A ridiculously tiny sun overhead barely dispelled a deep gloom in the miniature valley. Age-old, untouched by natural life, the ancient surroundings were an utterly alien motif against an unfamiliar blue-black sky.
Shelton cautiously led his party to the side of the cave mouth, approaching it along the cliff face. Traft’s giant figure followed him eagerly, convinced it was a pirate’s nest that must be cleaned out. Myra Benning’s smaller form was at his back, flanked by Ranger men, ready for any emergency. Shelton had told them the salient points about the whole affair.
Stooping, they were able to gain the high lip of the cave and crouch behind it. Then, carefully, heads were raised and eyes peered through visors into the cave. There was not much to be seen except that it was huge and stretched out interminably. Deep shadows hung on all sides, obscuring detail.
“See anything, men?” asked Shelton, his audio-vibrator carrying his voice to all of them.
A series of negatives was his response, and Shelton felt a queer sense of disappointment.
“There is something in that cave!” Myra Benning’s voice was low, half breathless. “I can’t see anything, but I can feel it! Something is waiting there, waiting—”
“We’ll soon find out!”
Traft suddenly stood erect, lighting his hand flash and sweeping its rays back and forth. Harsh, startled cries came from the cave, echoed by the walls.
“There they are!” the big pilot yelled triumphantly.
Scurrying figures were revealed a hundred yards back.
“Down, you fool!” cried Shelton. “You’re a perfect target—”
At that instant it struck, a wave of terrible coldness that constricted their lungs and turned their entire bodies numb. Even the protection of the rock lip was futile. Some incredible force seemed to suck heat and energy from their bodies and leave nothing but bitter, congealing iciness.
Shelton knew there was no time to lose.
“Up, men!” he ordered. “They’ve declared hostilities. Give ’em hell!”
Jumping up stiffly, the men set their rifles on the rock, snapping on the flashlights attached to the barrels. The flaring beams stabbed questingly into the darkness.
Traft’s gun spoke first, as he sighted a dark figure at the dim fringe of his light beam. He grinned at the harsh yell that rewarded his aim.
Then all the guns were peppering, until the cave was filled with a hollow roar. Milling figures scampered back in the dimness beyond the range of the lights and vanished into the shadows beyond. Vaguely, they could make out a huge machine being dragged back with the retreat, and the numbing cold-wave died out.
“Cease firing!” ordered Shelton. “That taught them a lesson!” His voice, however, was oddly hoarse.
“Guess they’re pirates all right,” boomed Traft. “But why didn’t they sling some lead our way? Were they that cocksure of never being discovered? And that cold business—it doesn’t add up quite right, does it, Rod!”
“No,” agreed Shelton. “Mark, go in there and bring out one of those bodies. We’ll cover you with our rifles, though I’m sure they’ve all gone.”
Without a word the big pilot scrambled over the lip and carefully made his way down to the cave floor, winding past deep pits. He reached the first fallen body and kneeled beside it.
“Uh—Lord!” those outside heard him say.
Then he tossed the limp form over his shoulder and clambered back to the cave mouth. He tossed the body at their feet in the light, standing back with a dazed stare in his eyes.
Slowly, almost mechanically, he unhooked his camera from his belt and looked through the finder for a good snap. The picture would create a sensation on Earth.
The same dazed stare came into the eyes of the rest of the company as they looked at the body, the thing, lying on the white rock of Iapetus, lit by a feeble, distant sun.
“It’s not human!” whispered Myra Benning, recoiling in horror. “It’s an—alien being!”
CHAPTER VIII
The Great Mach
ine
IN a vast cavern of Iapetus that to earthly senses would have been freezingly cold and impenetrably dark, a dozen figures emerged from their space ship. They made their way sure-footedly down the corridor. Their large, bulging eyes, with an unearthly light-gathering power, saw every detail of the way by reflected sunlight from the cavern’s yawning mouth.
In sufficient light, earthly eyes would have made them out as repulsively alien, and yet shockingly human in shape. They were tall, giants almost. By casual inventory, each bad two legs, two arms, a body and a head with two eyes, two ears and nose and mouth. Whatever evolution had spawned them had not seen fit to depart from that basic structure. Humans, thus far.
But it is in details that nature adapts her creatures to their particular environments. These creatures were cold-blooded, so that extremes of low temperature could not bring the chill of death. In place of skin, they were equipped with a horny epidermis divided into pentagonal plates. They had no hair, but crests of sharp spines stood on their heads. The feet were splayed and taloned.
Reptilian, the earthly observer would say, with a shudder. Reptilian creatures somehow cast in the human mold. Yet by a curious quirk, the hands were supple, humanlike. The scales of the faces were small and smooth. The foreheads were high and full, the eyes keenly intelligent.
It would be a mistake to credit them with low intellect, solely because of their alien attributes. The reptile species of Earth were dumb, witless brutes. These semi-reptilian creatures from another world were far higher in the scale of mentality.
The corridor opened into a large amphitheater outfitted with a variety of instruments, none made of metal. In a thronelike chair made of some plastic composition sat Lorg, the Alien Superior, bathed in a dim red radiance from a cold-fire bulb.
The Alien Superior was more brutish in cast than any of his subjects, with hulking shoulders and a feral gleam in his cunning eyes. His air was that of one who desired power and self-glorification. Ruthlessness was an aura about him. For the brain within his skull schemed endlessly toward a goal which, if attained, would cost many lives.
