Beneath Strange Stars

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Max would come and whisper enticements.

  And then Talmond would wonder if he had made the right choice that night under the dock on Front Street.

  All men die.

  Myths live forever.

  I started collecting movie serials several years ago when some of the two-tape sets from Republic Pictures appeared at the San Diego Library’s weekly book sale. Of course I had seen Radar Men From the Moon at the Bay Theatre in National City when I was a lad, and I had seen feature film versions of Dick Tracy and Doctor Satan’s Robots on television, so serials were not unknown to me. I collected serial films from all the studios, even those on ‘poverty row’ in VHS, then in DVD when they became available. I have over a hundred films, including some of the harder-to-find silent films. In 2004, David Zondy held a short story competition on his website, using Frank R Paul’s cover for the November 1929 issue of Science Wonder Stories as inspiration. Seeing flying saucers (though this was prior to the Flying Saucer Era) absconding with Earth’s landmarks inspired me to write a story that was, as David Zondy wrote, “A rip-roaring tale of invaders, larger than life heroes, and really big robots.” There are several allusions to the serials and their stars; see if you can spot them all…

  Invaders from the Stratosphere

  A Tale of Unknown History

  A tinny voice, distorted by static, burst from the transceiver: “Commander Corrigan! This is World Police, New York City, calling Commander Corrigan on Destiny Island. Ultraviolet Alert! Come in, Commander Corrigan!”

  Commander Raymond Corrigan looked across the body of the Atlantean robot at Professor Quigley. In the shadowy laboratory, the glow from the vacuum tubes within the robot made the Professor’s glasses look like bright silver dollars.

  “Billy, come over here and hold these wires.”

  “You betcha!” Billy Matting said enthusiastically.

  Commander Corrigan raced to the radio. He flicked the transmit switch and brought the microphone’s disk to his lips.

  “Corrigan, Destiny Island, responding to World Police, New York City,” he said. “Ready for two-way communication.”

  “Commander Corrigan, the Earth…” the words faded, then surged back. “ … Invaders from the stratosphere…looting our cities! Flying saucers stole the Eiffel Tower, and Big Ben from London…my God, one of the saucers is over New York and heading for…”

  A sudden crash of static, then an ominous silence.

  Corrigan did not waste time raising New York; if these invaders intended to steal humanity’s greatest handiworks, they would not pass up the Empire State Building.

  He switched to the internal band, connecting him to Destiny Island’s flying field.

  “Tin-Tin!” he snapped. “Ready the flying wing for immediate launch! Attach auxiliary fuel tanks, rig her for combat and ultra high-altitude.”

  “Obi, Commander!”

  Corrigan yanked opened a wall panel to reveal an array of weapons. He strapped on holsters made from brightly banded dinosaur hide – a souvenir of the lost tropics of Antarctica – and jammed into them silver-plated revolvers. Into a satchel he dumped several of the miniature guided missiles that had aided their escape from Atlantis.

  “Don’t know when I’ll be back, Professor,” he shouted.

  “One moment, Ray,” Professor Quigley said.

  Corrigan’s words died on his lips when he turned and saw the Atlantean robot’s malevolent head swivelled toward him. He reached for his guns.

  “Quite all right, I assure you, perfectly safe,” Professor Quigley said in his soft, swift voice. “The machine is now totally responsive to our commands. It no longer possesses any of the malicious traits instilled by the Atlantean Overlords”

  Corrigan released his revolvers. “I still don’t like its looks.”

  “Posh!” the Professor said. “Simple cosmetic metalwork will take care of that, but we’ll have to put that off till we have the time. I suggest we get going.”

  “The robot too?”

  “I await your command!” the Atlantean robot announced in a monotone.

  “And me too?” Billy exclaimed.

  “Of course,” Commander Corrigan said. “Get your gear together and report to the flying field.”

  “Yes, sir!” Billy exclaimed; then said to the robot: “Come on, tin can!”

  “By your command,” the robot replied, following the lad.

  “ Those robots were plenty of trouble in Atlantis.” Corrigan pointed out, watching the machine suspiciously.

  “Totally rehabilitated,” the Professor said. He donned his vest and jacket, and grabbed his hat. “The robot might somehow be helpful to us.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Commander Corrigan snapped. “Come on then! If anything goes wrong with that animated coffee urn, I want you close by.”

  The huge flying wing was on the field, titanic black-and-chrome propellers already lazily cutting the torpid tropical air. Commander Corrigan inspected the fuel and weapons pods. He only hoped the flying wing was in as good condition when they returned from the mission.

  If they returned.

  That doubt attended every mission upon which they set. But it was better to pit themselves against death, to dare the Grim Reaper to give his scythe its best swing, than to hide and cower. To rise and strive, even if it meant to fall, would give as much meaning to their lives as to their deaths.

  In the glass-fronted control cabin, Corrigan donned his high-altitude suit. The other members of his crew were similarly garbed. The Professor, bringing the robot in through the cargo elevator, had strapped on goggles and a breathing mask.

  Corrigan got the thumb’s-up sign from Tin-Tin.

  The maintenance crew scattered as Corrigan increased the flow of fuel. The propellers whirled so swiftly they became shimmering blurs. The flying wing sped down the runway, then leaped away from the tarmac, using a fraction of the distance required by a conventional airplane.

  Sparky, the wireless operator reported a signal from San Francisco.

  “It’s the Golden Gate Bridge,” he said. “Two flying saucers are trying to carry it away!”

  Corrigan hated to abandon New York, but no one else was in the vicinity; besides, he had learned through Sparky’s reports that King of the Rocket Men and Savage had the upper hand with the New York saucer. He ordered a change in course.

  Five minutes later they roared over San Francisco in time to see one end of the Golden Gate ripped from its moorings. Cars dropped into the bay like raindrops, but they were empty, abandoned by their drivers when the saucers first attacked.

  The flying saucers were yellow, edged with red trim, and had red cupolas atop. Whip-like appendages protruded from apertures in the cupolas, tentacles gripping the bridge tightly. From each cupola’s depressed centre rose a bubble and a weapons mast.

  “Curious they are not attempting to destroy the bridge,” the Professor mused.

  “Destroying or stealing – they’re not getting away with either!”

  The flying wing dove swiftly. Inches from the water, Corrigan pulled back, coming at a saucer from below.

  A volley of missiles leapt from the flying wing. Greenish rays burst from the saucers’ weapons. Corrigan banked the flying wing sharply. The beams missed them and struck the water, causing it to boil furiously.

  The saucer that had been struggling to lift the far end of the bridge tried to loose its tentacles from the girders and towers to evade the missiles. Before it could do so, the projectiles struck. Flaming wreckage cascaded into San Francisco Bay.

  The other saucer dropped its end of the bridge and shot upward. Corrigan frowned. Bullies, whether from across town or across the solar system, would always be back unless they were taught a lesson.

  The flying wing leaped into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Corrigan gritted his teeth as acceleration drove his body back. He opened valves that fed oxygen to the engines and readied the manoeuvring jets.

  The fleeing saucer
was at the edge of the stratosphere. He loosed another volley of missiles. Bright flashes erupted from the alien ship, and the flying wing closed swiftly.

  A greenish beam flamed toward them. Corrigan struggled, but the tenuous air made the wing’s movements sluggish. The ship bucked with the force of the impact. A late missile struck the weapons tower.

  The two ships were close enough for Corrigan to see the oily invaders through the portholes of their crippled ship. He activated the last of their missiles.

  Nothing happened!

  He toggled the switches, but no missiles launched. The blast had crippled their weapon firing systems. Black tentacles were already rebuilding the weapons tower.

  “Any ideas, Professor?”

  Silence.

  Professor Quigley and the Atlantean robot were gone.

  “Where is…”

  “A cargo door is opening, Commander,” Sparky reported.

  A bright metallic object shot from under the flying wing, heading toward the saucer. It was the robot, flames leaping from its back.

  Professor Quigley staggered in, clothes dishevelled and his face purplish. Billy rushed to his side and increased the oxygen flow, bringing back the older man’s colour.

  “Opened hatch,” the Professor gasped. “Jet pack on the robot…only chance…satchel of miniature missiles…”

  He lapsed into unconsciousness, but he would survive.

  Corrigan returned his attention to the saucer.

  Tentacles worked furiously to effect repairs even as the robot’s titanium body tore through the hull. As the metal hull parted like tissue paper before the onslaught, the tentacles spasmed and the alien craft began to gyrate on its axis. The flying saucer burst apart in a blinding flash or soundless light.

  “Commander, other ships on radar!”

  Corrigan did not hear. He saw other saucers streaming from Earth, tentacles clutching purloined prizes. One held a monolithic building, but not, he saw, the Empire State Building.

  Corrigan growled: “Prepare to ram!”

  The flying wing moved sluggishly, then more swiftly. The saucers, caught by surprise, could not evade the onslaught of the wing-shaped aircraft.

  So this is how it ends, Corrigan thought wryly as he stared unflinchingly ahead. Death in the icy airless wastes of space. No regrets…no regrets…

  Suddenly the looming saucers burst into flames, and the flying wing passed through the fiery gasses and exploding wreckage.

  “Space Explorers calling Flying Wing,” said a voice over the radio. “Captain Kane Richmond speaking. Are you all right, Commander.”

  Corrigan smiled. “A little banged up is all. Thanks for the help, Captain.”

  “We were beyond Neptune when we received the alert,” Allen reported. “Else we would have joined the party sooner.”

  “Is that all of them?”

  “A few more, but they’re being handled by the Video Rangers,” the Space Explorer replied. “Do you need assistance?”

  “No, we’ll be fine as soon as we get back into the atmosphere.”

  Commander Corrigan smiled as the aerial controls once again responded to his touch. There would be ceremonies and medals, but none of that mattered, not really.

  The excitement.

  The adventure.

  They had almost died, but in that moment when death seemed most imminent, he had never felt more alive.

  “Good job, everyone,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

  He banked the flying wing through the burning blue reaches of air and headed for Destiny Island.

  I’ve been a student of history and archaeology for more than sixty years, but within the general realm of the “ancient world” I find myself specializing in specific subjects. In this story, which in the days of the pulps might have been termed “science-fantasy,” we find quite a few of those specialized interests—trade, seaports, ships, Phoenicians, crypto-geography, cartography and magick. Much of the factual background is derived, as usual, from Lionel Casson’s The Ancient Mariners and Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times, as well as Rafael Patai’s The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times, George F Hourani’s Arab Seafaring, and Samuel Mark’s Homeric Seafaring.

  Twilight Journey

  A Tale from the Age of Bronze

  Kira loped swiftly down the cliff trail from its cypress-crowned summit, the hot brass sun glinting from oiled leather and polished bronze, her boots stirring dust devils to brief life, her sword-scabbard swinging softly at her side. By the time she reached Parros’ waterfront, the two Phoenician galleys she had spied from the cliff-top were entering the harbor. The way they sped across the crystal waters, propelled by broad sweeps of their oars, she could tell they were not allied captains, but competitors who had happened across the same port at the same time.

  Only one of them, however, was of interest to Kira.

  They raced toward the island city, their horse-head prows exactly even, their wakes throwing spray onto each other, their oars nearly touching as they swung in and out of the water. The throbbing drums of the rowing masters came across like hearts on the verge of bursting.

  Only one, Kira thought, only one.

  The townspeople noticed the race to secure the port’s best quay, began to get caught up in its outcome. Even the street magicians and the poets lost their audiences as the mercantile battle captured eye after eye. It was a hot calm day, the sort of lazy day that at times induces the sleep-god to visit men while the sun still shines. But now the people were seized by an unwonted excitement. Wagers were made and even village idlers were roused from their drowsy shadows.

  The townspeople shouted encouragement to one ship or the other or both. Since the craft were both from Phoenician yards, they were nearly identical in form and fittings, and both were eikoseres, having twenty oars port and starboard. The only real difference between them was in the mifras, the sails, both square but one trimmed with a blue geometric, the other with sea-green waves.

  The ships crowded each other, were pushed back by their intersecting wakes, closed in again. Just when it seemed only the stone walls of the best-positioned quay would settle the conflict, their oars finally entangled, strained, lost their rhythm. Cries of pain erupted from the bellies of both ships as oars were jerked from hands or held onto. A gasp arose from the dockside crowd. It was a brief encounter, over almost as soon as it happened, rowers recovering both their oars and rhythms with practiced ease, but not before two of the green-trimmed ships’ pteryxes, its oar-blades, snapped.

  The blue-trimmed ship shot forward while the other craft slowed and veered, heading toward another, but less well situated dock, already crowded with small trading vessels from nearby islands. A shout arose from the crowd on shore. All feted the winner, even those who had cheered on the other ship. Both captains would likely find their stays in Parros profitable, but one more so and at the expense of the other, for everyone loved a winner.

  One, Kira thought, one.

  Phoenician traders were not infrequent visitors to the island. The arrival of one was always a reason to celebrate. Now there were two. One would compete with the other, prices would fluctuate, bargains would be plentiful, and while the motto of the day was still “buyer be wary,” besting a Phoenician trader was not an impossible goal. It was more likely an islander would only think he had got the upper hand over one of these sea-borne merchant princes.

  Even as the green-trimmed ship limped to dock, the crew of the other round-bellied craft unloaded their wares from the battim, the compartmented cargo hold below decks, products from all the far lands of the Central Sea and beyond. There were amphorae of wine from Kaphtor and Hellas, blue scarabs from Khemet on the Nile, metalwork of all manner from the eastern cities of Dor, Jaffa and Ashkelon; there were fabrics, urns, craters, lamps, grain, oil, inks and paints, kol, slaves of many races and skills, massaliot, statues, masques, scrolls, weapons, beads and such items of trade as the islanders had never dreamed.

  It instant
ly became a market day, with merchants setting out their own wares under striped and beribboned awnings, and wives bringing out bushels of vegetables and unrolling night-weavings. Poets ceased reciting quatrains and couplets and launched into long fragments of epics familiar and not, each hoping to be engaged at one of the many banquets sure to be staged that night and the nights following. Musicians quit inns and taverns for the streets, and the keepers of inns and taverns moved their cooking stoves from the backs of their establishments to the fronts; soon the air was filled with the savory scents of spiced vegetables and meats sizzling above glowing coals. Priests of the various temples set up portable altars and took their gods for ambulations around the emporion, chanting and blessing and cursing, scowling and smiling; scribes wrote messages to deities for a copper a slip, holy men whispered the words of the enigmatic gods, astrologers charted the wandering and fixed stars, alchemists prepared philtres of love and hate, wiccans vended blessings from Hecate of the Dark Land, and mashmashua hawked their base-metal amulets. Runners were dispatched to the many lesser villages of the island informing them of a market day out of the regular calendar.

  Kira made her way through the sudden crowds. She saw the ship’s master standing by the horse-headed prow sprinkling it with sheep’s blood from a skull-cup in thanks for the safe harbor and good anchorage. He was a tall man, pale for a Phoenician, with a long black beard and black hair in oiled ringlets, wearing a white robe trimmed in blue with silver thread. He wore an amulet of the sea god around his neck and rings of the Kaphtoran snake goddess upon his fingers.

  Kira had not taken more than half a step toward the captain when a man suddenly burst from the crowd, knocking people roughly aside as if they were dogs to be kicked. It was the captain of the other galley, a dark-complexioned man with wild black hair and an unplaited beard, wearing robes the color of a tempestuous sea and amulets fashioned from white lead. The newcomer seized the captain with his huge hands and threw him against the homoth, the hull, of his own ship; the skull-cup went flying, and sheep’s blood splattered all about.