The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  It was now submerged in a preserving fluid in an immense glass jar. Other jars held other fragments that had been salvaged. A plaster of paris model showed what sort of creature the owner of the brain had been.

  It was a starfish-shaped beast, similar to those which Allison and Kirk had followed out into space.

  The professor’s clay model coincided with Kirk’s mental picture of those huge, shadowy, six-armed monsters. Newspaper clippings proved that several specimens had been seen and a few of them captured.

  No scientist had any satisfactory classification for them. Nor any name. They were variously referred to as “flying brains,” “other-world squids,” and “flying starfish.” Their brainy heads formed the center of their puffy gray bodies; their arms were not the slender tentacles of the squid, but rather the well-spread points of a star. The name “flying starfish” was generally accepted.

  They could fly swiftly or drift along motionlessly like a lazy balloon—almost always with their arms extended horizontally. No one had been attacked by them. But when they first appeared, before the Earth was hurled out of its orbit, many people were thrown into a panic when star-shaped shadows half a block long passed over them.

  Professor Haycox was in no mood to concentrate on these matters. Like the rest of the human race, he had a bad case of the blues. Could anything less than a final, all-consuming crash be in store?

  But as days went on it was inevitable that men should not accept this doom lying down. That fortunate share of the Earth’s population whose lives had been spared did more than simply dig in. They began to plan for underground lines of transportation, underground dwellings, complete subterranean cities.

  Even while they were imprisoned beneath snowdrifts at the Institute, Professor Haycox and his companions found themselves inevitably building up schemes for getting back on their feet, figuratively speaking.

  The surfaces of the Earth would somehow be utilized, of course. And if the destructive winds continued at regular twenty-four-hour intervals, man’s work in the fields and forests would simply have to be confined to the hours of calm. It was conceivable that new types of grain and trees could be developed to withstand the daily lashing of the tornadoes. In time, sturdier breeds of domesticated animals might possibly adapt themselves to the new conditions.

  But these hypotheses were dealt a severe setback two or three weeks after Allison and his party came to the Institute. A new phase of the Earth-wide catastrophe swept in. For the time being all hopes were blacked out.

  CHAPTER XX

  Across the Universe

  “Go underground! . . . Go underground! . . . The Earth is going to crash the shell! . . . The American continents are about to crash! . . . Go underground! . . . Go underground!”

  Lucky for mankind indeed that the preliminary accelerations had already prepared him for taking refuge in caves and tunnels and basement rooms. The impact of tornadoes and hurricanes had been nothing to what came now.

  To Diana Scott and Kirk Riley and their associates at the Institute, it began with a trembling of the floor under their feet. The walls quivered, and every few minutes a test tube or some other bit of delicate laboratory equipment would snap and crash to the floor. The radio was full of terrifying reports of earthquakes.

  But by midforenoon the ether waves were choked with static, and soon all North American stations were off the air. By that time Kirk could hear the growing rumble of thunder.

  That roar was afterward referred to as the End of the Earth.

  To the generation of human beings who lived through that day and the two days that followed, no more accurate designation would be possible. For few and far between were the persons who did not believe that that prolonged thunder signified the end.

  But such was not the case. On the fourth day, when the deep-throated death groans of the Earth ceased, and even the regular high winds began to subside, men climbed out of their foxholes to see what had actually happened.

  The Earth had bumped against its shell. The friction of its great rotating body had cut deep scars in those glassy surfaces high overhead. But the effects upon the Earth itself had been far more pronounced.

  “It’s like when you make a machine,” Kirk observed to his space hero, “and you have to provide for a friction surface. You fix it so that one of the two rubbing surfaces will take all the wear and tear. Whatever space god worked up this deal fixed it so the Earth would take all the hell.”

  This was putting it mildly. Between the abrasive action and the accompanying earthquakes the tops of mountains had been rounded off, seaboards had been flooded by oceans on the rampage, sporadic fires had wrought further destruction among the ruined cities.

  “Your principle of two rubbing surfaces,” Allison commented, “assumes some intelligence. One part of a machine is made to take all the wear so that only one part will have to be replaced. But where’s the chance of ever replacing a worn-down Earth?”

  “I dunno,” Kirk replied blankly. In his mind full of mechanical principles there was only dizzy confusion when he tried to conceive of “space gods” powerful enough to perpetrate these doings.

  “If there’s some great power back of it all,” Kirk decided, “that power probably doesn’t care if the Earth gets smoothed and polished up a little. And maybe folks like us don’t matter at all.”

  The tone of this remark was disturbing to Diana Scott. Tears suddenly filled the eyes of the girl friend from Brooklyn. Kirk couldn’t understand what was the trouble.

  “Folks like us do matter,” Diana sobbed. “Anyway, you matter, Kirk. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t want to go on living.”

  “There, there, honey, I didn’t mean anything. It’s just hard to figure things out in times like these, that’s all.” Kirk was floundering. But Diana’s convictions had stood the test of fire already, he realized.

  “Poor kid, she’s been running on nerve,” said June Allison. “She hasn’t had an hour’s rest from her worries since her plane crashed.”

  “I’m all right,” the younger girl said in a muffled voice.

  “I’ll say you are,” June declared. “But you need some rest. I’m going to take care of you.”

  And so it happened that June and Diana missed out on the next few flivver hops into space.

  The Earth was being pulled along at such a terrific speed by now that the Milky Way was left behind. New galaxies were being passed. Thousands of new stars and planets came into view. But the nearest of these bodies had to be photographed on the fly. Some of them were only momentary streaks of light.

  The universes were fairly spinning. The Earth’s astronomers, the fortunate ones who had escaped injury from the storms, became the most important of living men. When the daily presses resumed work it was the astronomers who made the headlines. They pressed into service great numbers of photographers and space navigators. Allison and Kirk, along with several dozen less experienced pilots, were kept busy.

  It had been discovered that the passing stars could be seen more clearly through certain unscratched areas of the great shell, and upon some of the better observation areas telescopes were planted. The tunnel which the Battering Ram had once drilled had closed under the massive pressures of the transparent substance. Nevertheless, there was talk of drilling another such hole if a plan could be devised for filling it with a mile-long telescope that could resist the compression.

  Allison’s flights to the shell gave him a chance to listen in on the conferences of the bewildered scientists. He retained Kirk Riley as his assistant, and between the two of them they kept tab on the course of the Earth’s weird race through the universe.

  Professor Haycox had allowed Allison to study the great brain, between space flights. But Allison was still disappointed in the professor’s attitude of secrecy regarding his find.

  “You’ve never called in other biologists for a look at that mountain of gray matter?”

  “No, not yet,” the professor said, half apologetically.
“The storms disrupted everything. If the Earth settles down so we can get something done, we’ll go ahead with our secret studies. If the Earth is doomed to crash, there’s no need—”

  “Let’s assume it isn’t,” said Allison. “The astronomers say it’s being pulled through a thousand gentle curves. It swings clear of so many danger zones that its course can’t be an accident. The astronomers think we’re being towed.”

  Professor Haycox nodded knowingly. His beaming bespectacled countenance was reluctant to reveal that he sometimes didn’t know all the answers. “Towed? Yes, of course. Indeed we’re being towed. But by what, or whom?”

  “By something intelligent,” said Allison. “By something that knows about the gravitational pull of the great bodies we’re passing, and the heat of the stars, and the dangers of passing too close.”

  “Exactly, exactly,” said the professor, nodding from Allison to Kirk as if this theory were his own brainchild.

  Professor Haycox knew very little about astronomy. His eyes were habituated to microscopes, not telescopes.

  But he yielded to the persuasion of Allison and Kirk and accompanied them on a few of the frequent space trips.

  “Get an earful of those astronomers goin’ to town,” Kirk would say, as the party of scientists on the observation level would go into conference.

  “And take note, Professor,” Allison would add, “that they’re pooling their knowledge and co-operating.”

  It was hard to tell whether Haycox was impressed. At any rate, these trips were good for his frayed nerves. He began to accept their viewpoint. The Earth wasn’t skyrocketing through the heavens on a blind fall. It was dodging danger too skillfully.

  There was hope in that theory.

  But another theory, interlocked with the first, rode in on a fresh wave of terror. The wise astronomers themselves were chilled by the implications of their findings.

  Ahead of the Earth’s course something was causing a few of the heavenly bodies to bounce a little way out of line. As if some huge object were running ahead of the Earth, bumping them or stepping on them.

  It was a theory that defied proof, and the evidence was slow accumulating. By now the Earth’s speed was so much greater than the speed of light that the scientists were forced to rely on the subtle messages of pre-light vibrations.

  Gradually the facts which there was no time for light to reveal were captured by other means.

  The stars were not being disturbed—only a few of the large, non-burning planets around them. As if some mammoth sky monster were running ahead of the Earth, pulling the shadowy beam attached to the “south pole” of the Earth’s shell—as if this sky monster were bounding from one heavenly stepping-stone to another.

  As if this monster had a stride that had traversed numberless Milky Ways in a few swift bounds!

  As if this monster had the sense to pick its step without treading on hot stars!

  And now came a further discovery that made the scientists gasp for breath.

  On three or four of the passing planets the pre-light vibrations revealed mammoth footprints, smoking hot, as wide as a continent—only one footprint to each planet!

  CHAPTER XXI

  Big Brains No Significance?

  It was a breathing spell for the Earth to be shooting through the series of galaxies at a regular speed.

  Philosophically minded persons took advantage of this respite for discussion and gathered new courage for the dangers that were doubtless ahead.

  Kirk Riley went back to his New York space port. He looked for his old cronies. Many of them, like himself, had gone to new jobs. But his girl friend found that nothing was the same in Brooklyn. The catastrophes had struck heavily upon the eastern seaboard.

  The few friends that Kirk and Diana found were glad to know of their new connections with Lester and June Allison. Eyes would grow wide at the mention of these names. It was obvious that the Allisons were ranked high among the leaders who offered hope to this shocked civilization.

  The couple returned to the Rocky Mountain resort, and Diana remained there to assist June, who was providing transportation for the observatory astronomers.

  Allison was gone again and had not been heard from for three days. Word from the Institute was vague.

  “Allison is probably around,” said Professor Haycox over the telephone. “He’s been rummaging through the laboratory at will. The last time I remember seeing him he was taking down some notes on that monster brain.”

  “Will you have him call me today?” June requested.

  But no call came, and Kirk flew back to Canada to join his hero there.

  “No, I can’t tell you where he is,” said Professor Haycox. “It’s all I can do to keep track of myself.”

  “What did he say when he talked with you last?”

  “He wanted to know what happened to the man who took the pictures of the brain. And he asked about the pistol that contained the movie camera.”

  Kirk frowned. There was something he had almost forgotten. Lots of unfinished business had resulted from the recent astronomical upheavals.

  “If I remember right,” said Kirk, “a fellow by the name of Bill Kite was going to whip me. I wonder if he lived through all this trouble. And ‘Champ’ the gunman—”

  The professor was preoccupied with troubles of his own, but Kirk continued to question him and at length got a glimmering of what had happened to the daredevil who had come in with the camera pistol.

  The fact was that “Champ” had made a useful person of himself for a time after the Earth shocks began. The professor had released him from his bonds, and Champ had pitched in to help clear the wreckage and build barriers against the descending blizzards. After that, everyone had lived down in the basement rooms. All jealousies had been forgotten in the presence of these new terrors.

  But after the blizzards and storms had subsided and a few makeshift transportation lines had been set up, Champ had shown signs of restlessness. Then one day he was gone, and the pistol camera with the films had gone with him.

  “Does Allison know all of this?” Kirk asked.

  “Allison was the one who discovered the film had been taken,” said the professor.

  “I think I will go over to Ubruff’s.”

  At Ubruff’s Laboratories Kirk was gratified to discover that the leading scientist was not an ogre. He had known of Haycox’s suspicious manner. It was hard to believe that he had sent gunmen out to claim any prize specimens or fossils.

  But scientist Ubruff did know about the great flying starfish. In fact, he had managed to secure three of the live ones which had been captured in that part of the country. Neither they, nor the film of their brother’s brain, however, had yielded any information of significance, Ubruff said.

  “That being the case,” said Kirk, “you no longer have any interest in the dead one over at the Haycox Institute, I presume.”

  Ubruff shook his head. “Some of my men were over-eager about the starfish brain that Haycox salvaged. Whenever they heard of anything new they raced for it. But I have discharged them. Moreover, I have rid my laboratory of the three live flying monsters.”

  “You got rid of them?” Kirk was greatly surprised. “You mean you killed them?”

  “I sold them to another laboratory,” said Ubruff. “They were too expensive to keep, and the tornadoes wrought havoc upon our animal pens.”

  Kirk took his leave somewhat disappointed over his conversation with Ubruff. If there had been anything remarkable about the flying starfish, Ubruff wouldn’t have let them go. But evidently that scientist considered them a bad bet. Big brains, no significance.

  Professor Haycox had likewise failed to make much of his specimen. Kirk knew that he had a report half prepared that dealt with the areas of the monster’s brain, making comparisons to the human brain. There was a little novel interest in the discovery that the beast’s brain areas of his motor activity were merged with those of speech—or so it would seem if the comp
arison to man’s brain was a fair one.

  But neither Haycox nor Ubruff had any theories as to the origin or purpose of these monsters on this planet.

  At the next laboratory Kirk found he was still on Lester Allison’s trail. Here the story was the same. This fountain of science had also acquired a few of the captured beasts other than those bought at Ubruff’s. But here the conviction was strong that astronomy, and astronomy only, deserved the attention of scientists during these times. It was not a moment to be expanding in other directions.

  “We sold the whole lot of our flying starfish to the Ohio Zoo—yes, I think that’s where your friend Allison went. I don’t know whether he was interested in the monsters or their caretakers. You see we acquired some workers from the Ubruff Laboratories—men who claimed to be expert at handling these beasts.”

  Kirk extended his thanks for this information and betook himself to the Ohio Zoo.

  Before the storms the Ohio Zoo had been the country’s finest. Its pens were large enough to give all animals free range. Lofty structures as high as skyscrapers had housed the eagles and condors and other bird life.

  Part of these pens were being reconstructed following the devastation. And Kirk could see from a distance, as he taxied toward the place, that the live six-armed starfish were here, imprisoned in a half mile of pens over the hilltop.

  Kirk walked around this structure. Through the lofty grill of bright steel bars he could get a clear view of that nearest beast hovering high in the air. It might have been a gigantic spider suspended from an invisible web. But no, it was supporting itself by stationary flying. The gray finlike flaps along each of its six outstretched arms were barely in motion.

  “What a strange creature!”

  “Patient old brutes, aren’t they?” said a familiar voice at Kirk’s elbow.

  “Can this be Curator Allison?” Kirk asked, extending his hand to the veteran space man. “So you have become a collector of fifty-ton spiders.”