The Collected Stories

by Earl

  So it seemed in the first few minutes. Then hell broke loose. Units of the Patrol madly dashed close, sweeping their rays over the massed ranks of diving ships. Legion craft rained below by the thousands, as broken debris. Lives snuffed out at an appalling rate.

  A new sound suddenly pierced the din. The rattle of pom-poms and anti-aircraft guns. Tharkya had not bothered to set up defenses over its surface, secure in their Dark Nebula hideaway. But they had protected the vital energon-vault, against a remote possibility of attack.

  A ring of ground guns burst forth into rapid-fire action, filling the sky with dis-bolts. Legion ships fell like leaves. Great gaps were torn in their ranks. Into these the Patrol swarmed, spreading out to break the formation.

  Disintegration came rapidly. In appalling minutes, the dive-armada broke up into aimless units, fighting dogfights with the Patrol. Individual ships desperately tried bombing, only to have a hounding dis-ray touch off their bomb-cargo in mid air. Flying pieces from the explosions often pierced the hulls of all nearby ships, further decimating the Legion.

  “All is lost!” ZlkZee groaned. “Those ground guns stopped our dive-attack. It’s just a matter of hours now, with the Patrol systematically butchering us!” MacLean’s grey eyes were dull. “And the energon-vault is still untouched, except for surface destruction. We’ve lost!”

  “Not yet!” Kaine cried wildly. “We still have a few thousand dis-ray ships.” He was screaming into the microchrone. “All ships armed with dis-rays rally behind me. Hurry!”

  Here and there a ship darted through the battle melee, behind Kaine’s flagship. Five thousand at the most.

  “I see a dozen of my Klakian ships,” ZlkZee said proudly, and sadly.

  “And one from Earth,” MacLean muttered. “The only one left. The other ten were on the bombing mission.”

  None of those would return. Theirs had been a mission of lone-eagle bombing, with the relentless Patrol after them.

  “Dive formation!” Kaine commanded to the dis-ray unit. “Keep diving in formation, come heaven or hell! One lucky bomb, breaking through into the energon-vault, will win for us. Descend!”

  In the face of withering ground fire, the five thousand dove. The Tharkyan ships were unable to break this formation. Legionnaire dis-rays stabbed back, for every dis-ray the enemy rammed in. They could only pick off the divers from the sides one by one.

  It was a race against time, and fate.

  Again and again the formation dove, dropping rack after rack of radium-bombs on that narrow target below. Again the vault’s ramparts shook and cracked under the furious pounding.

  One lucky bomb! One lucky bomb might do it!

  But how long before the last Legion ship fell?

  KAINE woke from a daze.

  It seemed the ship had dove and spun under his feet for half of eternity. Again and again dis-bolts from below had hissed inches past the hull. On all sides, ship after ship had gone to oblivion.

  MacLean was shaking him.

  “It’s all over, lad. We failed!”

  Kaine focused bleary eyes. He hadn’t slept for three days, organizing the attack. He saw Tharkya spinning away, as a globe, from one of the ports.

  “We’re leaving!” he thundered. “Turn around—go back. Can’t leave. Fight to the last ship—last man!”

  “We did,” ZlkZee said croakingly. “We’re the last ship—or at least we’re among the last few dozen that may have slipped away. Our bombs are gone. The energon-vault is intact. No need for us to uselessly sacrifice ourselves. We live, perhaps to try again at some future time.”

  “After another thousand years?” Kaine said bitterly. “I failed. Failed miserably! Great God—”

  A hundred million ships wasted. Ten billion lives! The hopes and plans of a thousand years! The appalling count might have driven Kaine mad, at that moment. . . .

  “Patrol ships!” MacLean shouted. “They’ll hound us through space. They’re determined to cut down the rebel fleet to the last one.”

  “But they won’t!” Kaine hissed. All his blind anger at the mocking universe transferred to the Tharkyans. If they escaped, they’d have won some small victory over the enemy.

  Kaine leaped to the controls. Grinning like a devil, he decelerated, ramming straight for them. In utter surprise they scattered, forgetting even to use their guns. Kaine cut in an arc, back into the Dark Nebula, losing them. He skirted the cloud’s edge, emerged into clear space, and scuttled for the next dark nebula.

  When another Patrol ship spotted them, he slipped back of a dark sun. Its gravity-field threw the enemy’s detectors off. From dead sun to dark nebula he skipped, laughing maniacally at the outwitted pursuers.

  “You trained me at this,” he chuckled mirthlessly at them. “Now see if the master can catch the pupil.”

  When they reached the rim of the galaxy, near Dymoor, the last Patrol ship was still searching around a dark sun futilely. The ringleaders of the rebellion had escaped!

  “But the galaxy won’t be safe for us for a long, long time,” ZlkZee said. “We’ll have to lay low. Dymoor is as good a place as any.”

  XI

  PRESIDENT KYLAR met them with a pained face. He listened to the full account with hollow eyes.

  Once again the full tide of the frightful catastrophe to their cause hit Kaine. A thousand years of preparation, hope, devotion, shattered. A million worlds doomed to continued servitude. And he, Kaine, had led the Legion to its Waterloo!

  Madness crouched close to him, in the following days. He was hardly aware of those about him—of the hushed whispers, guarded suspense, the horrible waiting. He was fed forcibly. He heard snatches of conversation.

  “Scouring the galaxy,” in Kylar’s grave voice. “Searching for us, the ringleaders.” ZlkZee’s clacking syllables: “A thousand Tharkyan agents arrived today, combing the planet.”

  And often, MacLean’s gruff, concerned tones: “Terry’s going mad. I can see it. Poor lad, he takes the fault upon himself. If we could only do something—” His tone suddenly sharp: “Veloa!”

  Stars overhead. A cool breeze soughing through tall, leafy trees. Kaine’s tormented mind struggled. Was he back on Earth somehow? But no, the stars were strange. No Big Dipper, no Pole Star, no red Mars. Besides, there were two moons. Earth only had one.

  It was still Dymoor, second Earth, but a garden spot that soothed and rested the mind. Had MacLean done this? And then a vision floated near. A lovely face of ivory, framed by flaxen hair. Two heavenly blue eyes looked into his wild ones.

  Veloa!

  Her voice chimed out.

  “Terry! You must not blame yourself, Terry. You mustn’t. And there is still hope. There is always hope. Even I have that!”

  The sweet face was before his. The blue eyes glowed with fire, and hope—and something more. A something that filled his whole being and touched the stars. This frail girl, with her terribly broken body, was teaching him courage. Sublime, undying courage!

  Abruptly, the curtain lifted. Kaine’s mind swam up from dark depths. The scene cleared before his eyes.

  Veloa was in a wheel-chair, her body covered in swathed silks.

  “I’m ashamed, Veloa—” Kaine began, but she stopped him with a shake of her silvery head.

  “No one blames you for despair,” she murmured. “Thank the stars you have come out of it. Your eyes are clear now, rational. They told me I must save you. Other plans must be laid.”

  Kaine jumped up. “Where are the others? I—”

  “Hush! There is still grave danger. They are back in the house. The Tharkyans seek us. We are in an isolated garden of our planet, far from any city. We are reasonably safe, but must stay here.”

  Kaine sank back. They talked of blessedly trivial things. And more and more the girl’s gentle voice soothed Kaine, driving away the nightmare of recent events. Moonlight shafted down from the twin orbs. It was a lovely spot such as Earth could hardly have matched.

  “Veloa,” Kaine breathe
d suddenly, drinking in the crisp air. The universe had faded away, leaving only their two souls touching. “Veloa, dearest!”

  He clutched for her hand. She drew it back but he felt momentarily the gnarled monstrosity it was. He had almost forgotten. She had healed, in a fashion, but below the lovely face was little more than patched together skin and bone, twisted and deformed. Still, what difference did it make?

  “Veloa,” he went on firmly, “mind alone counts. I’ve learned that lesson, recently. Veloa, I—”

  “Hush!” she said again. “It cannot be, unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “Nothing. Oh, it cannot be. Please, Terry, don’t go on!”

  There were tears in her eyes. But they seemed tears of pride and joy.

  “You’ve made me wonderfully happy,” she added. “But don’t go on. Don’t spoil the moment. Let us sit and dream of what might have been.”

  The universe seemed to smile down on them, pityingly, these two of separate worlds who had come to know life’s greatest glory—and fate’s most grinding twist. It was a beautiful, sad dream they dreamed. . . .

  LIKE a thunderclap, the bubble burst.

  Voices first, strident. The struggle of bodies. The hiss of dis-rays. Cries of alarm from the shadowy building beyond the garden.

  “The Tharkyans!” Veloa shrieked. “They’ve come! Run, Terry. Escape—anywhere—”

  “And leave you and the others to them?” Kaine shook his head, standing before her wheel-chair. A moment later a dozen armed Tharkyans swarmed into the garden, from all directions. Roughly they grabbed at Kaine.

  He struck out savagely. He had the satisfaction of bowling three over before the rest grabbed his arms and pinioned them to his sides.

  The Tharkyan leader eyed him triumphantly.

  “Terrance Kaine, the commander of the Legion armada!” he crowed. “We caught one of the last few ships of the Legion and extracted information from them.”

  A moment later Kylar, MacLean and ZlkZee were dragged from the house.

  “Now we have all you ringleaders,” the Tharkyan hissed. “You will be taken to Tharkya, for trial.” He looked at the girl in the wheel-chair. “Kylar’s daughter? We won’t take her along. She, I believe, has already had her punishment!”

  He leered from one to the other of the four captured rebel leaders.

  “Your punishment, I can promise, will make hers seem like ecstasy!”

  They tried not to shudder. The Inquisition of course, at its most devilish. MacLean shrugged.

  “It was worth it,” he jeered in their faces. “We gave your high and mighty Tharkya a good, stiff jolt, one you won’t soon forget!”

  THE trial was attended by the elite of Tharkyan society. A million resplendency clothed and jeweled blue-beings, in a giant hall. The affair was televized through the all-wave network, so that all the million worlds could see and hear the fate of their degraded rebel leaders.

  The judge of the High Court spoke. “The rebellion is over. The Legion of Freedom is no more. All worlds stand equally guilty, for participating in the crime against Tharkya. As punishment, the energon-tax is hereby doubled for the next hundred payments. Failure to meet the new quota by any world will result in that world’s decimation of its population to half!”

  The tyrannical pronouncement winged to all the worlds. A silent groan seemed to fill the galaxy. Tharkya was punishing with a heavy hand, for a revolt that had come within an ace of success.

  “On the various worlds,” the judge resumed, “agents of the Legion are being ferreted out. These will be summarily executed.”

  He turned to the four prisoners from Dymoor.

  “These four, ringleaders of the attack, merit a greater punishment. Even the Inquisition could not comply. We sentence you to—exile from the galaxy!”

  Kaine’s blood froze? What horrible thing could it mean?

  The Tharkyan resumed. “You will be towed in a ship beyond the galaxy, and flung into outer space. The food and air supplies will be limited to give you a few days of life. You will have time to repent your sins against Tharkya, before the end. Or perhaps you will go mad!”

  THE small ship hurtled through the void.

  There were no stars near. This was the deep between galaxies. Back of them, the Milky Way gradually shrank. This they were able to see by virtue of a device that caught and focused light-rays they caught up with, at their prodigious velocity.

  The Milky Way shrank, in the following days, till the individual star-dots merged into a general whiteness. It assumed a whirling disk-shape, like the images of distant nebulae caught on a photographic plate. Eventually, it dwindled to almost star-small proportions, unthinkably remote.

  Around them now, all the other island universes were visible, like fuzzy stars. They were in the middle, in truly empty space, with almost inconceivable stretches of nothingness before them. It was, Kaine reflected, like being in a rowboat on a vast ocean that stretched from Earth to Mars.

  “Maybe we’ll last till we coast to the next galaxy,” MacLean said hopefully.

  “It would take ten years to get there!” ZlkZee informed, “even at our uninterrupted velocity. We have food and air, at the most, for another week.”

  There was no fuel for the engine, of course. No way to go back, or speed ahead. They could only drift, on and on, in the stupendous gap between galaxies.

  Kylar raised a haggard, hollow-eyed face. “We’ll go mad—mad!”

  “Not if I can help it,” Kaine grunted. “We can’t give them the satisfaction. We’ll stick it out to the end, and go out quietly.”

  “Give me more food!” Kylar yelled suddenly. “Why are you rationing it? We have no place to arrive at. More food—”

  He was screeching. Kaine bit his lip, then clipped him on the jaw. When the old Dymooran came to, he smiled weakly. “I’m all right now, Kaine of Earth,” he sighted. “No, we can’t give them the satisfaction.”

  His eyes went around the cabin again. They all searched the odd corners often. But they could never find it. Somewhere, the Tharkyans had installed an iconoscope pick-up, cleverly concealed. They had heard the faint buzz from the first. Hidden batteries between the double hull supplied power, and sent the images back to Tharkya, so that they could watch these four go mad.

  And for that reason, Kaine was determined that they must remain calm to the end. The watching Tharkyan sadists would like nothing less. It would spoil their show.

  MacLean sang songs gaily, sometimes for hours on end. He acted out bits of plays for their diversion. He cracked jokes endlessly.

  “Ever hear the one about the Tharkyan overlord, newly appointed to the worm-people’s world? Well, to show his august authority, he picked out the first group of worm-people he met and told them to eat dirt. He never could figure out why they seemed to enjoy it!”

  Then he would turn around in all directions, to make sure the hidden tele-eye would transmit his jeering face to the Tharkyans.

  ZlkZee told stories of his days as a smuggler, in his youth.

  “Once we were smuggling a shipload of our spider-silk to a neighboring world. The Tharkyan Interstellar Trade Council had banned that, wanting our fine product only for themselves. A Patrol caught us. When they clumped in, we set fire to the cargo. It was raw silk, uncured, and the fumes are powerful. The Tharkyans went out like lights. We robbed them blind and left their naked bodies, suitably kicked, in our ship while we took theirs. Then, with the Patrol ship, we smuggled silk for another hundred loads, right under their stupid noses!”

  MacLean threw up his hands in mock horror.

  “How criminal!” he whispered, looking around furtively. “Don’t you know that if the Tharkyans hear this, they’ll sentence you to five years hard labor?”

  MacLean and ZlkZee burst out in laughter together.

  “Shake!” MacLean said. “You’re a great rascal.”

  “Which one?” ZlkZee asked blandly, extending four of his eight arms or legs.


  “Glad you’re not a centipede,” MacLean grunted.

  On and on it went—ridiculous, foolish, pathetic, but sublimely magnificent. Earthman and spider-man, creatures monstrous to each other but closer than brothers, defying doom.

  Yet Kaine knew it couldn’t last. When their last crumb of food went, an ominous gloom came over even the two funsters. A day later, the last hiss of oxygen came from the reserve tank. The oppression of stifled lungs joined the pangs of hunger.

  The real battle for sanity began.

  “Chew leather,” Kaine demanded, handing out strips cut from his boots. “It’ll keep our minds off hunger. When the air gets really bad, we’ll go unconscious. It won’t be hard.”

  ZlkZee eyed a little fly buzzing about the cabin. He tentatively reached out for this natural food of his, then drew back his arm. The others could not eat flies.

  MacLean jumped up suddenly. “I found it! I knew that spot on the wall didn’t look right. I’ve been staring at it. Look—it’s the inconoscope, flush with the wall!”

  He unfastened a hand-rail and savagely prepared to bash in the mechanical eye.

  Kaine caught his arm.

  “No, Lon, let it be. Let them see us go out—like men!”

  Five hours later, Kaine groaned. The other three were sprawled on the floor, unconscious, their lungs gasping for fresh air. They would pass quietly into eternity. Their troubles were over.

  Why couldn’t he go out like that? Kaine cursed his strong body, his special powers that kept him awake beyond normal. He was alone now. Alone in the awful void. His mind shrank, gibbered. He couldn’t stand it. He’d be shrieking in a moment. And that sleepless eye would see him go raving mad.

  He jumped up, smashing it, laughing horribly. He knew that he was slipping, down into an abyss of insanity. . . .

  XII

  A FLASH of light. A tiny flash of light, out here in the bottomless void. How could that be? His mind snapped alert. He pressed his face against the port plate, looking out.