The Collected Stories

by Earl

  I swept up Frey’s fallen sword, and wrenched a club from a Giant, bashing in his brains. Then, wielding the two weapons, I waded into the attackers. I called forth every ounce of speed, dexterity and power at my command. Giants fell before me at a faster rate than the human tongue could count their deaths.

  But on they came, as if poured from the sky. Loki had somehow impressed them with the fact that they must win now—or never. Must destroy Asgard before Adam Link, their mighty champion, could repair either his time-ship, or turn out flame-guns.

  I saw Odin’s face, noble and tragic. Each time he saw one of his warriors fall, his one eye gleamed with pain. Hodur fell, then Baldur, of those I knew by legend and name. Heimdal would blow his horn no longer, nor listen to the grasses grow. Tyr, with his mighty sword and matchless arm, stretched out with a last groan.

  Ragnarok! Was it here, despite all I tried?

  CHAPTER XI

  The Fall of Asgard

  SUDDENLY fresh forces joined us, from the castle. Frigga, Freya, Nanna, and the lesser women. Their womanly features were as grimly set as any man’s. Or any Giant’s. Even the sweet, lovely Iduna came pattering across Bifrost Bridge, swinging a sword. She fell almost at the first instant. Her golden voice, which Eve and I had heard in trilling song many mornings, would never again be heard, though it would echo down in legend into the next 20,000 years.

  I told myself that, as I saw these magnificent people die. That though their bodies were destroyed, their memories would go on and on. I laughed bitterly at the Giants.

  “Kill all you want!” I shouted at them. “You will be only a few fossil skulls in 20th century museums, in the next era. These people you destroy will live forever!”

  No one understood, of all those around me.

  Odin shouted an order, suddenly. Half the Asgardians had already fallen.

  “Retreat to the castle! We will try to hold that against them!”

  Covering their rear, the Asgardians streamed back across Bifrost Bridge. I remained, for I could not trust my heavy tread on the delicate structure. I faced the enemy alone. They came at me in phalanxes. I cut and pounded them to ribbons, in phalanxes.

  But slowly, I began to weaken. Club-blows had landed, at times, jarring my internal mechanism. Here and there a cog was out of line, a gear-tooth missing, a muscle-cable slack. My battery was draining fast, with current pouring into my exertions.

  Giants began to slip past me, onto the bridge. Loki would take the castle first, and deal with me later, with his Thor-robot. Already he had had other catapults set up. Great boulders arced across the water and landed on Asgard’s ramparts. Slowly the beautiful structure was crumbling. Odin and his last men would be defending little more than ruins.

  And more Giants were slipping past me, keeping out of reach of my slowed arms and reflexes. The foremost were already reaching the island and castle, congregating there till they had enough of a force for invasion. They ran slowly, in single-file, across Bifrost Bridge. Loki had warned them it could not stand pounding.

  Eve!

  The thought of her struck like a blow. Eve was back in the castle, laboring frantically to repair the time-ship’s controls. If they caught her before she finished, we would be marooned in this age!

  I must give her time. Eve must escape, even if I didn’t. She must return to the 20th century, and carry on our robot existence. And it might be the last hope of saving Asgard—if I brought the Rainbow Bridge down!

  I LEAPED back, onto the bridge. It rocked and trembled at my machine-step. It would shake apart, collapse, before I had gone half-way. I would drop, with the ruins, into my grave of water.

  But I suddenly leaped back to land. It might be done another way, without my death. In that I am human, too, not wishing death unless it is inescapable. Darting past the Giants, I ran along the bank. I took up a position a half-mile from the bridge-head, so that I could view its entire length. I swept my eyes along to where the key-arch held up the long suspended affair.

  I had the sword in my hand. But I needed more weight. I took a heavy stone, and wired it to the sword-handle. The wire came from my chest-cavity, from the relay-coil of my left arm, leaving it dangling and useless. But I needed only one arm, now. I grasped what in effect was a heavy throwing hammer, and hurled it.

  I had allowed for the wind. I had aimed with all the accuracy possible to my machine-brain. But I prayed as that hammer sailed toward the keystone piece of the bridge. Prayed that I had not for once miscalculated, when so much was at stake.

  The distance was close to a mile. Straight and true the hammer went. It struck, knocking out a strand of suspension-wire that linked to every other cable. Slowly, majestically the Rainbow Bridge sagged in the middle and collapsed. The sound that drifted back was almost a clinking sigh, as of an old and weary person lying down to rest at last. It could not have stood less than five thousand years.

  The Bifrost Bridge, pathway of the gods, was gone! But the magnificent structure would live on in memory.

  At least a thousand Giants went down with the bridge. The few who had reached the island were quickly being decimated by arrow fire from the castle. The attackers on the mainland were separated from their goal by a mile of water.

  And now the time-ship rose from the castle courtyard. Eve had finished her repairs. I let out a jubilant shout.

  Eve darted to me. “Asgard is saved!” I yelled. “In the time-ship, we can batter down their catapults, and drop masses of stone on the enemy, and rout them. Let’s go—”

  ASGARD was saved—or was it?

  An ominous rumble sounded, almost as though the bridge were somehow falling again. But instead it was the castle walls falling.

  And before our eyes, abruptly, the whole island sank!

  The island had been a fault, a freak upthrust. The Glacier Age had left it untouched, but produced strains all around it, and under it. The crash of the Bifrost Bridge had touched off the stresses below, bringing about a minor geological upheaval.

  Eve and I stared in dumbfoundment and sorrow. Asgard, home of the gods, was gone!

  “In spite of what we tried,” I said, “it happened. The Twilight of the Gods! Ragnarok! The last fading of a glorious age known to the 20th century only as a stirring fable.”

  I pointed to a boat that had miraculously righted, in the swirling area where the island had gone down. “Look, one soul escaped. Perhaps the mariner Njord. He will sail to a southern land, be befriended by humans, and spin tales that will go down from father to son into the far future. The last of the Norse Gods!”

  The last! What about Loki—and Thor?

  Rage swept over me. I swung the time-ship over the Giant army. They stood staring with wide eyes at the phenomenon they had just witnessed. Loki stood there, transfixed. He seemed almost pathetic, forlorn, with his former home vanished.

  Landing, I jumped out, seizing him by the scruff of the neck.

  “You destroyed Asgard!” I accused. “You brought Ragnarok!”

  He looked at me with dumb, unutterable remorse. Rage left me. I released him. Child of two races, he was not to be blamed as much as pitied. Let him go, I told myself, to tell tales by firelight of lost Asgard.

  “Why didn’t you use the Thor-robot against me?” I asked in curiosity. “The being in the cave who alone could face me?”

  Loki was puzzled, then half smiled.

  “Thor-robot? It wasn’t that. It was trickery too. Your opponent in wrestling was the thick tail of a dragon, kept in captivity in that cave. Any man would have been crushed when thrown by it.” He looked at me in awe. “You held it down for a while!”

  No Thor-robot, product of my imagination—but a dragon! A survivor of the dinosaur age, like the pterodactyl that had carried off Iduna. Only that one gigantic creature, in all creation, had more sheer power than a robot. Such had been the third trick of the tests.

  As I turned back for the ship, shaking my head, I saw the army of Frost Giants turn away silently. They did no
t cheer. Perhaps even in their brute hearts the fall of beautiful Asgard struck a chord of remorse.

  I SET our time-dial for the 20th century.

  “There went the Norse Gods, into oblivion—but where was Thor? Where was the mighty, thundering warrior who played such a vital part in their doings? Eve, we’ve failed in our quest—”

  Eve looked at me strangely. Her voice was tense.

  “Think back once, Adam! In the legend, Iduna was rescued by an eagle—or time-ship!

  “Thor could not cross the Bifrost Bridge because he was too heavy—like metal!

  “Loki cut off Sif’s golden hair—or detached her head!

  “Thor went disguised as a bride among the Frost Giants, and broke down their house while flashing thunder and lightnings—or electric sparks and an amplifying sound-box!

  “Thor half-emptied the drinking horn, lifted the Midgard Serpent, and fought Old Age, losing each time—or drank poison unharmed, lifted a buried stone, and held a dinosaur’s tail!

  “Thor was nearly drowned by the Giants, and hurled red-hot wedges back at them—or red-hot stones!

  “And Thor hurled his hammer with such force that he split mountains—or the Rainbow Bridge, at least!

  “Our names, too. They pronounced mine ‘Eef’—or Sif! And their word for metal is ‘Thor’. Don’t you see, Adam—”

  “Yes, I see,” I said in a low, stunned voice. “I am Thor.”

  EPILOGUE

  It is interesting to note how the legends of Thor seem to indicate that he might have been a robot. The following shortened excerpts are illuminating, in connection with the story. (Also see beginning of story, describing Thor in mythological terms.)

  “Loki, the mischievous god, one day found Sif, the wife of Thor, sleeping and cut off her golden hair, as a prank. When Thor found Sif weeping, lightnings flashed from him (electric sparks from his joints!) and he pursued Loki. Frightened, Loki changed himself into a salmon and swam away. Pursuing in the shape of a sea-gull (or time-car!) Thor fished him up and made him restore Sif’s hair (or head!).”

  At the wedding feast Thrym had prepared, he asked: “Why are Freya’s eyes so piercing?” (see story). When Thor found his hammer—“he rose at once. Lightnings flashed from his eyes. Peals of thunder shook the house. The winter giants fell to the floor. The walls of the house crumbled over them. Thor and Loki leaped into the iron chariot (!) and drove back to Asgard.”

  The beauty of Asgard, in legend, seems reminiscent of some form of magnificent architecture. “O beautiful Asgard with the dome above it of deepest blue, shaded by mountains and icebergs! Asgard with clouds around it heaped high like mountains of diamonds! Asgard with its Rainbow Bridge and its glittering gates! O beauteous Asgard, could it be that these Giants would one day overthrow you?”

  Skyrmir, the Giant king, is quoted as saying, after the fabled three tests: “Thor is the mightiest being of all the beings we have known. All cheer for Thor, the strongest of all who guard Asgard.”

  When he went out against the Giants, Thor always girded on his “iron gloves,” his “belt of strength,” and “Mjolnar, his mighty hammer.” A robot casting stones, swords, clubs, etc., as far as he could in battle (see story) might well be credited with his constant “hammer.” Iron gloves and belt of strength are self-evident.

  Bifrost Bridge broke under the weight of the riders of Jutenheim, at the Twilight of the Gods (see story). Loki led the legions of evil against fair Asgard.

  Thor was once nearly drowned, crossing I fling, the river between Asgard and Midgard, pursuing Giants. He caught hold of a little shrub on the bank and was saved. The Scandinavians still have an adage—“A shrub saved Thor.” The Giants threw “red-hot wedges” at Thor, who “caught them in his iron gloves (!) and flung them back with such force that the Giants were destroyed.” —The Author.

  (Sources—“Old Norse Stories” by Sarah Bradish. “The Children of Odin” by Padriac Colum.)

  [1] Neanderthal and Heidelberg men. Also tribes of Cro-Magnon, from which modern man sprung.—Ed.

  [2] A race of sub-men of towering proportions, inhabiting the bitter Scandinavian Peninsula. They were probably pressing south, year by year, seeking warmer climates.—Ed.

  THE WINKING LIGHTS OF MARS

  The linking of two worlds hinged on the result of the astronomers’ observations. Would the Winking Lights be seen?

  “I’m sorry,” said Dr. R. Westwood. I “The board has decided it can’t grant the million dollars necessary toward this project of sending a rocket to Mars.”

  He shoved the rolled blueprints across his desk at Thomas Ayre. Westwood hated to say it. Ayre had been so obviously hopeful and eager. His young face fell a mile now. The dream in his grey eyes faded, burst. It was as though he had tumbled and fallen from a great height—from the height of Mars in space.

  “But I tell you it will work!” Ayre protested. He spread the blueprints and tapped the sketches for emphasis.

  “The step-rocket principle. Each rocket-chamber, after discharging its fuel, drops away, lessening the weight. After ten stages, the final unit with its single passenger goes on and reaches Mars. This was all worked out years ago. And all the details of air, food and water supplies for the rider. The science of rocketry, which I represent, needs only money now to build and send a rocket ship to Mars.”

  His voice rose. “Good God, are you going to let a mere million dollars stand between you and the greatest thing in history?”

  Dr. Westwood’s voice was kindly, in answer.

  “Very possibly it would work, Ayre. Our technical men found no glaring flaws in the scheme. But look. Our funds are limited. Wykoff Institute is supported by men who would tear their hair at money spent for what they’d consider a wild venture. We have to dole out our money for less fantastic research, such as cyclotron work, or electron-microscope pioneering. I’m sorry, Ayre.”

  He spread his hands eloquently.

  “But you’re my last hope!” the young rocket engineer said. He went on bitterly. “Financial interests weren’t even polite, when I went to them.”

  Westwood leaned forward.

  “I still don’t understand one thing, Ayre. Why not build a stratosphere rocket first? Send it over the ocean? If it succeeded, you’d have business men paving a concrete road to your door. The first airplane flew just a few miles. To suddenly suggest jumping right from Earth to Mars—I don’t see it.”

  Tom Ayre’s eyes went dreamy again. “Because I believe there’s life and civilization on Mars! The canals prove it.”

  Westwood laughed.

  “But no one has proved the canals, first of all. Shiaparelli, Pickering, Lowell and all the others claimed to have seen them in their telescopes, yes. But only at the verge of human eyesight. It might be an optical illusion.”

  “It isn’t!” Ayre snapped. “This year, early in 1940, Dr. Slipher of Lowell Observatory displayed 8,000 photographs of Mars, taken at its closest approach in ’39. The photos definitely show the markings sketched by the earlier men from visual observation.”

  “Definitely?” Westwood shook his head. “Half the astronomers still consider the markings too hazy and uneven to be straight, artificial canals.”

  Ayre conceded the point.

  “But there will be proof soon—unshakable proof. This is late 1940. Next month, the 200-inch telescope at Mt. Palomar will be ready for use. As soon as they swing it on Mars, the canals will stand out once and for all.”

  “Then wait that month or two,” Westwood suggested a little impatiently. “If the canals are proved, you’ll have a strong selling point. Wykoff Institute might back up the Mars rocket then—with possible Martian civilization the goal.”

  “ONE or two months,” Ayre murmured, as if to himself. “It may be the margin—”

  At the older man’s curious stare, he went on. He leaned over the desk, eyes blazing.

  “Do you know why I’ve been trying to push this thing through? Because the foundations of civilizat
ion, as we know it, are cracking. The war has been going on now for over a year. Most of Earth is involved except North and South America. When they get in—and it seems inevitable—the holocaust will go on for years—years!” Westwood’s face was heavy.

  “Yes, Ayre,” he agreed somberly. “Frankly, your rocket to Mars will have to wait till after the war—if anything’s left.”

  Ayre’s voice became fiercely eager. “But if the rocket reached Mars before the worst came—don’t you see? Every paper and radio in America screeching the news. Life and Civilization on Mars, Our Sister World! The war would stop, once that stupendous news filtered through. The discovery of America forestalled a brewing war of that time.”

  “Only,” Westwood said cynically, “to precipitate a death-struggle later between the Spanish and British Empires.”

  Again Ayre’s eyes reflected a dream. “But suppose,” he whispered, “the Martian civilization is old and wise. Mars cooled before Earth; supported life sooner. Intelligent life must have risen there while we were still sub-men on Earth. The canals alone show a great science. With it, they must have a wisdom of time that young Earth hasn’t had. Martian culture, long past the adolescent stage of warfare, would set an example to mankind on Earth. Perhaps their wisest administrators could come to Earth and pattern our society after theirs—united, peaceful, mellow with time—”

  He stopped, flushing.

  “I know it all sounds like wishful thinking. But it should be tried, on the one chance of saving humanity from its worst war in history. The Martian super-culture theory is a logical one—”

  “Except for one thing,” Westwood interrupted. “Why haven’t these alleged Martians visited Earth?” His tone became impersonal. “Despite such interesting speculations, I can’t do a thing for you, Ayre. If the 200-inch telescope proves the canals of Mars, come back. We’ll see what can be done then. Good day.”